November 2023

Photo of two people in cosplay, one standing behind the other. The person standing in front has short black wavy hair and skull face paint, dressed as Harrow Nova from Harrow the Ninth. They are wearing a black tank top with a ribcage design and black fingerless gloves. They are holding a black rapier in both hands and are looking directly at the camera. Behind them stands a person with red hair dressed as Reverend Daughter Gideon from Harrow the Ninth. They are also in skull face paint, praying while holding a bone-rosary. They are wearing black gauntlets, a black cloak, bone earings and a necklace made of teeth. They are wearing sunglasses and looking down.ALT
A photograph of the same two people as the previous image in a near identical pose, except the the person with red hair is looking up directly at the camera. Their sunglasses are reflective and you cannot see their eyes. ALT

Salutations to the House of the Ninth, and blessings upon its tombs, its peaceful dread, and its manifold mysteries.

His Celestial Kindliness, the First Reborn, begs this house to honour its love for the Creator, as set in the contract of tenderness made on the day of the Resurrection, and humbly asks for the first fruits of your household GIDEON NOVEMSOTIRIA and HARROW NOVA

RD Gideon @theriverbeyond / Nova: @trickstercheshi / Photo: @/Lowkeymuse

thinking about the end of NtN and John drawing those letters in the sand, and specifically about how it is HARROW’S POV, and when he draws her inititial she calls them prison bars. “the prison bars of an H”. and how Harrowhark Nonagesimus was always a debt, a savior, a leader, “woman before her time”, etc but never allowed to be a child or frankly a person. Always a symbol for her people and always a penitant and always the faithful servant of a devotion that murdered 200 children. and that IS a kind of prison, you know?

anyway i just woke up from a nap but maybe Kiriona Gaia née Gideon Nav, originally named for both her mother’s murderer and her original purpose as a bomb, isn’t the only one who has some sort of identity related name change in the series. I’m wondering if this could come to have meaning regarding Harrow’s development in AtN

Edited photo of a cat lying supine on a bed (just like a person), staring at the ceiling. The cat is holding Harrow the Ninth, and Gideon the Ninth and Nona the Ninth are on the pillowALT

Waiting for Alecto the Ninth (2023)

so I'm re-listening to the GTN audiobook (as one does) and THIS time i caught that the first time Gideon goes to lunch (eating leaves with her fingers, running into Silas, etc.) she just... tucks a loaf of bread into her pockets to take back to her room for later? so possibly Harrow's drawer bread was a perfectly logical follow-up to finding bread in Gideon's pockets when she searches her for keys. she's just leaving food in a manner to which Gideon has become accustomed!

touched it—and ate the leaves one by one with her fingers. She realised partway through that it was probably a salad. Raw vegetables in the Ninth came in the form of pitiable cairns of grated snow leek, stained through with as much salty black sauce as it would absorb. She filled up on the bread, which was really very good, and stuck a piece in her robe for later.ALT

OH MY GOD SHE DOES… (gtn ch 10)… and the Drawer Bread Incident didn’t happen until after Avulsion (gtn ch 21) where, very crucially, Harrow lost all her clothing to the entropy friend and had to put Gideon’s robe on in order to walk back to their rooms…. you know what I cannot blame Harrow at all for making the leap that if Gideon had bread in her pockets she would probably be okay if Harrow put it away for her. she was doing her a courtesy like

imagine almost dying in some kind of nefarious escape room type trial that relied on you almost (actually) killing your teammate/ servant/ enemy/ longtime crush/ complicated situationship via soul suck and losing all your clothes in the process, thereby causing her to see you nude before dying because you sucked her soul too hard. luckily, she revives, and you steal her overcloak to cover yourself and find it is for some reason full of bread, which you helpfully leave with her in a more accessible location after dragging her all the way back to your room….

JUSITICE FOR DRAWER BREAD!!!

if there is any justice in the world this is the post-series future awaiting Gideon Nav

older man with table display of 36 unique species of heritage applesALT