okay hear me out. tlt animated adaptation BUT it starts with harrow the ninth. we have a desperate housewives-esque voiceover narration speaking in second person. the audience doesn’t know about anything that happened in gtn and doesn’t know that the “flashbacks” didn’t actually happen. first season ends with harrow finding palamedes in the river and the voiceover saying “you never could have guessed that he saw me.”
SECOND SEASON. we’re following the events that happen in gideon the ninth. there’s no more voiceover. nothing that happened in the first season is even mentioned. it’s not explicitly clear that we’ve gone back in time but it becomes more clear as the season progresses. lyctorhood wasn’t really fully explained in the first season either, but there were clues that become more obvious as the mystery unfolds. season ends pretty much exactly like the book ends, bringing us to the moment that the first season started.
THIRD SEASON. starts where the first season left off, follows the end of htn. Gideon desperate housewives voiceover is back.
fourth and fifth seasons would follow nona and alecto, obviously, but the format of them would have to be equally confusing and weird so I need to wait and see what alecto is like before I theorize on that.
or the show could just end after the events of harrow finishes and leave nothing wrapped up or explained. I honestly kind of like that better
yeah so sorry your boyfriend and i fused into a whole new person. yes it was consensual and it represents our agency as characters who refuse to be doomed by the narrative any longer. yes we picked a new name. what is it? uhh
I finally braved the waters of drawing all the Canaan House necro-cav pairs, plus a compilation of some year-old HtN things (I am so unreasonably happy with Harrow’s fancy paint)
“but when i am in heaven i will remember your mouth, and when you roast down in hell i think you will remember mine” is such a beautiful line but it’s made even better by the fact that it’s said by a vengeful ghost named after an eminem song haunting the brain of a lobotomized lesbian nun
I’m sorry but that moment in GtN where Gideon walks in to see Ianthe in the process of Lyctorhood while Coronabeth sobs over Naberius’ body, and her immediate reaction is like - aw fuck, she must be so sad Tern is dead, only for the reveal to be that Corona is weeping cause Ianthe didn’t kill HER…!!! raw. instantly iconic. completely recontextualizes their relationship and adds like six fucked up layers. love the tridentarii twins
the ninth house being called the house of the sewn tongue. the sewn tongue, a ritual quite unlike any other form of necromancy that prevents the subject from speaking on a certain topic. the sewn tongue, which appears to be at least part flesh magic, something very much not typically associated with the ninth, and the only way to subvert it being to remove one’s entire jaw. harrow kissing ianthe to confirm the sewn tongue was still in place. alecto kissing/biting harrow and verbally identifying her as the blood of anastasia. anastasia, who believed she had perfected lyctorhood, only to “fail” and “force” john to kill her cavalier to “save” her when she tried. anastasia, who in all likelihood had to be forcibly prevented from speaking the truth. anastasia, who then founded the ninth house to guard alecto and made some arrangement with her. the ninth house, which at terrible cost ensured that the blood of anastasia lasted those ten thousand years. the ninth house, the symbol of which is a jawless skull
My favourite part of the Soup Scene in Harrow the Ninth is that she’s essentially reverse-communion-ing God, like, hello Lord, you get to eat my flesh and blood
Okay i give up what the FUCK is this book (??) About?
“lesbian necromancers in space”: 5/10. technically true, except that gideon isn’t a necromancer and for the most part they aren’t in space. can also be tonally misleading; implies a fun space opera adventure and fails to mention the impending emotional devastation. that being said it is iconic and (mostly) effective
“murder mystery in a haunted gothic castle”: 8/10. MUCH better at capturing the tone and plot of the first book, but still a little off. imagine picking up the book because of this blurb and then watching gideon nav make a mean girls reference in the first 20 pages. the whiplash could kill you
“a locked tomb mystery”: 5/10. nondescriptive and a little misleading, but i can’t give this any lower than a 5 because the pun is very good. gideon would love this one and that should count for something
“gay goth among us”: 10/10. i’m not even going to pretend like this one doesn’t nail it. try and argue against this. you can’t. captures the murders, the space-y setting, the queer characters, the tone and aesthetic, AND the contemporary humor. chef’s kiss
“enemies to lovers ‘i hate everyone but you’ slow burn”: 1/10. true if you squint. the relationship between gideon and harrow would make booktok weep
“catholic homestuck”: 9/10. this means nothing and explains everything
this tweet by tamsyn muir:
[Image ID: A tweet by “tamsyn should be writing” @tazmuir: “sure, I edited from 12 o'clock to 4.30, but how much of that time did I spend on the discovery that the basis of my novel is 'what if these two were… teenage girls’”, followed by an image of Skeletor and He-Man. /end ID]
10/10. conveys the pop culture savvy of the series, the complex dynamic between the main characters, and the humor of the writing style all at once. also makes me laugh every time i think about it
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