meeting Kiriona is just like: that’s our girl but she’s wrong but it IS her but also what the FUCK. what happened to her, what happened to her before the series even started, what new horrors has she endured?
meeting Kiriona is understanding that these sharp edges ARE our Gideon; she was always made of knives but before NtN we were holding her by the hilt and this is the first time we get the blade. all her rage and pain and trauma, amplified 10,000 times by the way her losses - loss of harrow, loss of the parents that existed only as a fantasy, loss of the idea that revenge could ever sate her, loss of any autonomy, loss of her own damn life - keep accumulating with no respite. no end in sight. it is uncomfortable and distressing and upsetting and that is the point. anyway. wrapping her in a blanket as we speak!!!
hey about your girlfriend…. she left you bread in a drawer. yeah she said you cant leave the room but she wants you to eat so she got you the bread. yeah she thinks she’s taking care of you. no she hasn’t gotten any sleep she is busy exploring a haunted castle without you. there isn’t any butter. no she doesn’t want you to throw yourself on a fence for her she wants you to eat the bread. it’s in the drawer.
it’s me, boy, I’m your dead cavalier, speaking to you inside your brain listen to me I wanted you to use me, you malign, double-crossing, corpse-obsessed bag of bones, you broken, used-up shithead! I wanted you to live and not die, you imaginary-girlfriend-having asshole! Fuck one flesh, one end, boy. I already gave my flesh to you, and I already gave you my end. I gave you my sword. I gave you myself. I did it while knowing I’d do it all again, without hesitation, because all I ever wanted you to do was eat me we’ll have cowboy times in space-
Gideon the Ninth characters and their make your own pizza orders
Gideon: $40 uncooked pizza because she got all the toppings which means the inside is entirely soggy and uncooked. she eats it with a spoon and says it is “great”
Harrow: plain lightly buttered crust. Gideon sneaks some mushrooms on there and Harrow is Not Impressed. she also nibbles on Gideon’s pizza bones
Palamades: an aesthetic array of meat and vegetables that could have come right out of a textbook.
Camilla: solid mix of meat and veggies, carefully arranged. identical to Palamades’ in every way, she made his pizza
Coronabeth: doesn’t make her own, she walks in with a gourmet pizza from the fancy restaurant 3 doors down and no one stops her
Ianthe: somehow she gets the pizza people to just throw a pile of meat on the grill. no crust, no vegetables.
Naberius: he doesn’t get pizza but he does have to pay
Abigail: splits a pizza with Magnus. they get pineapple and a light amount of cheese
Magnus: splits a pinapple pizza with Abigail, but buys everyone a big serving of garlic knots to share
Issac: classic pepperoni but then he has them slather it in extra garlic and pesto
Jeannemary: she got the same order as Gideon but then Abigail made her scale it back so hers is actually cooked through and has structural integrity
Dulcie: aggressively lactose intolerant but she adds extra cheese anyway (life is about living)
Protesilauris: hands out lactaid to the entire table, gets 2 pizzas (one for him, one to take home to his wife)
Silas: doesn’t eat pizza.
Column: too busy babysitting Silas
Judith: basic cheese pizza. She stares longingly at the other items before turning resolutely back to her very boring pie
Marta: CARNIVORE SUPREME she got every meat option. extra garlic
today i am thinking about the tridentarii, specifically this observation that Harrow makes in GtN: “They’re both only middling necromancers, but the big one is the dominant. She says I; the sister says we.”
but what is so interesting about the I/we distinction is that both versions can be seen as dominant depending on perspective
“I” = perceived as dominant due to individuality (the assumption that Harrow is making here)
“we” = perceived as dominant due to speaking for the both of them
and I think this is a really interesting piece of characterization of their relationship. as in, instead of One Twin being the clear dominant one in the relationship, i think they’ve actually been in a power stuggle their whole lives that continues even after Ianthe’s ascension. in their NtN reunion Crown asserts dominance by showing her individuality and using her newfound differences from Ianthe like a weapon; Ianthe asserts dominance by assuming their wants are still the same and operating off of that assumption and refusing to tolerate otherwise
and obviously this is shaped and impacted by Crown’s historically higher social status (as Crown Princess), Ianthe’s importance as the true necromancer among them both, Ianthe’s ascension to Lyctorhood (& gaining demi-god powers) and Crown’s newfound rejection of the Empire (which did not come with bonus superpowers). BUT i don’t think the… for lack of a better word, micro level intra-relationship power dynamics, neatly follow their inter-relationship dynamic with anyone who’s not the other, and their macro level power difference. strangling each other with this red thread tying us together vibes idk idk
new hill i will die on is that Gideon Nav is a r/malelivingspaces kind of guy. like she was raised in a cell by a bunch of elderly death cult nuns this girl would not know how to furnish a living space if her life depended on it. she posts a picture of her room and it’s just a mattress on the floor, three huge swords, her well organized porn collection, and a single folding chair
