2023-10-05 19:41:05 ¶ ●

2 dudes sittin in a hot tub 5 ft apart bc they’re necrocav

2023-10-07 7:00:32 ¶ ●

the soul of the earth: got some straight gas 🔥😛 this strain is called “Apoptheosis” you’ll be zonked out of your gourd 💯

me: yeah whatever. i don’t feel shit

5 minutes later: dude i swear these dead bodies didn’t decay when we turned off the freezer

my buddy M- pacing: the trillionares are lying to us

2023-10-12 9:27:54 ¶ ●

“I ate you alive, and you have the temerity to tell me that you’re sorry?” is an underrated line from the pool scene IMO because it connects so tragically with the Great Griddlehark Mismatch, which is that all Gideon wants is to be eaten and all Harrow wants is to never eat Gideon again.

In her most pivotal moment, Harrow confesses her two greatest sins. The second, of course, was that she rolled the rock and walked onto that icy shore, but the first was how she used Gideon. How she isolated her, abused her, relagated her to a life of abject misery, made her both a whipping girl and a meat pumpkin. Harrow ate Gideon’s childhood and she ate Gideon’s future and she only truly came to regret this after it was too late.

“i gave you my whole life and you didn’t even want it” like, yeah. Harrow didn’t want it. Harrow wanted to give it back.

2023-10-15 19:54:57 ¶ ●

#OneNippleNav - which wannabe surgeon on the Ninth preformed Gideon Nav’s top surgery? explanations below

Harrow

Aiglamene

Sisters Aisamorta and Lacrimorta

Crux

See Results

(inspired by this art by @topchomp/@iceboxhag )

Harrow

Pros: likely the most necromantically qualified to perform surgery, invested in Gideon’s physical aesthetic. for professional reasons.
Cons: unable to function like a normal person in the presence of an exposed Nav Nipple, so surgical ability is compromised. Very busy in between puppeting around her dead parents and holding the hands of penitants as they have their last heart attack, so getting onto her schedule can be difficult

Aiglamene

Pros: likely has some field medicine experience from her time in the Cohort. Gideon would 100% survive this operation
Cons: likely has some field medicine experience from her time in the cohort. Gideon’s survival is of the utmost importance, but could not be assed to care about anything else if she tried. there is a sword involved

Sisters Aisamorta and Lacrimorta

Pros: very necromantically skilled, would conduct themselves professionally throughout the operation. work in a pair, & not really doing much aside from wandering around and praying so their schedules are wide open
Cons: completely blind due to exposure to neurotoxin. their necromantic exertise aside Gideon’s nipples have a 0% chance of being symetrical, if they even end up back on her chest at all

Crux

Pros: big “anything that my Revered Daughter wants” energy, if properly directed by RD HN would likely at least attempt the operation
Cons: would definitely use this opportunity to give Gideon some kind of terrible infection or otherwise murder her outright. generally ill invested in her wellbeing. is Crux

2023-10-21 6:35:19 ¶ ●

Two hand bound copies of The Process Of Elimination, a fanfiction by Zoicite. The book is plain white, with gold lettering.

Two hand bound copies of The Process Of Elimination, a fanfiction by Zoicite. The book is plain white, with gold lettering. This shot shows both books from a 3/4 view

Two hand bound copies of The Process Of Elimination, a fanfiction by Zoicite. The book is plain white, with gold lettering. This photo focuses on the spines

A hand bound book open to the endpaper, which is light yellow with a wavy pattern on it in orange

Cropped photo showing the title of chapter 1, 1: Get the ball rolling

cropped photo showing a small drawing of a skull key used as a line break

The Process Of Elimination, by zoicite/ @enechelon

The Emperor calls for eligible heirs to compete for a chance to marry his treasured progeny, Her Divine Highness, First Born of the First Reborn. Each week one House will be sent home until only one remains and the winning heir shall ascend to stand beside Her Divine Highness, hand in hand, with House replenished and legacy secured.

Harrow does not intend to compete.

or: THE bachelor AU!! This has been a longtime favorite fic of mine and it was such an honor to be able to bind it!! Sending out a massive thank you to the Zoicite for writing and sharing it with the world

Fandom: The Locked Tomb
Pairing: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Title font: Neue Helvetica Bold Extended
Body font: Garamond
Pages: 471
Case: Arrestox Bookcloth White with hand-embossed gold foil
Endpapers: French Marble Pastel Goldenrod

Progress pictures/process under the cut!

For the cover/title I went directly to the Bachelor logo for inspiration, replacing the classic wedding band with, of course, the ring of keys used in the fic!

ALT

the process of elimination rendered in the same style, the last o in elimination replaced with a ring of keys

The cover is heat embossed by hand, in the same way as my previous bind of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. For that bind I went pretty maximalist, and for THIS one I wanted to aim for a really clean looking, simple but elegant look. I think it turned out pretty good! I ended up going for the white and gold look to match First House Gideon vibes

work in progress of the empty case of this bind, you can see the foil used for embossing the front and the spine

I also tried rounding and backing here again, which turned out somewhat mixed. I’m still working on my technique for that, but peep the nice yellow headbands to match the endpapers!

An unfinished book held in a bookpress, getting its spine glued in a curve

A close up shot of the headband of a book, it is yellow

Overall, this was SO fun to do, and a great excuse to revisit & spend good time with a fic I love.

2023-10-22 7:53:59 ¶ ●

someday i will stop posting the same takes on repeat but someday also torbooks will release Alecto the Ninth news and updates to the internet or perhaps even Alecto the Ninth physical copy to bookstores near me, so. we both have things to work on

2023-10-23 19:26:59 ¶ ●

really overcome w it bc like what if griddlehark was safe. what if they were together and alive and no one was trying to kill them i really believe they COULD figure it out. like at Canaan House right before everything went to shit they were starting heal… and yeah the pool scene is the site of their biggest misunderstanding but if no one had TRIED TO KILL THEM in the immediate aftermath they would have figured it out eventually. what if they had the space to grow and heal and have misunderstandings and also the time and peace to figure it out 😭

2023-10-27 8:36:23 ¶ ●

im ngl gideon would be so upset being called a useless lesbian like all that girl wants is to be a tool

2023-10-28 23:46:28 ¶ ●

this may not be fixing them per se but i would put gideon and harrow into a jar together and like shake it around a little bit and then if they survive the ensuing bite-rip-tear then maybe i will let them out into a soft enclosure together with lots of vertical space and tiny nooks to hide in wherin they can slowly recover and reorient to each other in peace & at their own time. anyway i could fix them

2023-10-31 6:26:52 ¶ ●

how do we know in the books that john is indigenous? can you say more about how his indigeneity is important to his story?

hello! so there is a word of god post on race (doesn’t mention John but mentions that Gideon is “mixed Maori”), BUT I frankly don’t think word of god statements are worth any weight without actual in-text support (see: the “dumbledore is gay” situation). SO!

Specific evidence that John Gaius is Maori, as revealed in Nona the Ninth:

When he is listing his education, John mentions having gone to Dilworth School (John 20:8). Dilworth is an all boys boarding school in Auckland and accepts students based on financial need instead of academic or sporting achievements. Demographics appear to be about 70% low income Maori boys, indicating that it is highly likely that John is Maori
John reports that P- said he looked like a “Maori-TV pink panther” (John 15:23) when his eyes turned gold. Maori TV is a TV station that is focused primarily on Maori culture & language revitalization, with presumably all or mostly Maori hosts, and tbh I don’t see why P- would say this unless John was himself Maori
John uses a te reo Māori phrase (“kia kaha, kia māia”) (John 5:20) when he is saying goodbye to the corpses in the cryo lab before the power is shut off. Though it is possible he said this as a non-Maori kiwi, but in combination with the previous two points of evidence I think this all very strongly points to him being Maori
He also renames his daughter Kiriona Gaia, “Kiriona” being just literally the name “Gideon” in te reo Māori
TLT is not a series that hands you anything on a silver platter but to ME this is all pretty solid proof

Why is this relevant to The Locked Tomb?

In Nona the Ninth, we learn that before he completed apotheosis and ate the solar system, John was basically trying to save the earth from capitalism-caused climate change. Climate justice and the rights of indigenous people over their own land are deeply tied together, in the same way that climate catastrophe and capitalism/ imperialism/ colonialism are linked. disclaimer that this is NOT my area of study and others have definitely said it better; this is just the basic gist as I understand it, but on quick search I found some sources here and here if you want to do some reading.
TLT is not a series that hands you anything on a silver platter, but i don’t think it is a stretch to see John as an indigenous man trying to save the earth and getting ignored and shut down at every turn by primarily western colonial powers (PanEuro, the USA) who declare him a terrorist and then as a reader thematically connecting that to the experience of indigenous climate activists IRL
there are absolutely TLT meta posts that have discussed this before me; tumblr search is nonfunctional and I have been looking for an hour and a half and cannot find anything specific even though i KNOW i reblogged multiple posts about this in the first few weeks following NTN’s release. sad & I am sorry
I think that by the time the books take place, John is 10k years removed from the cultural context he grew up in, with the Nine Houses having become a genocidal colonial power in their own right (with more parallels to be made between John’s forever war for the resources of literal life energy and like, oil wars), but I also think that John Gaius is a fictional character who can represent and symbolize multiple different things in service of telling a story. (not to mention the potential thematic parallels being made to how oppressed people sometimes are pressed into replicating the power dynamics of their oppressors and continuing the cycle–now that is a tumblr post i KNOW i read last year and definitely cannot find right now, once again sad & I am sorry)
How Radical Was John Gaius, Really is a forum thread that was locked by the moderators after 234534645674564 pages of heated debate