#Harrow also wants that ! she wants to take care of Gideon!

[mayasaura]

Harrow got so unbelievablely horny dreaming about Gideon's rolled up sleeves exposing her lean, taut muscle, a little dewy with sweat and steam but you know what.... thinking about it. Gideon does not disrobe basically ever, except in private to bathe. A tantalizing glimpse of forearm may legitimately be the most Harrow's imagination has to work with

[harrowedsoup]

I can’t believe that Gideon keeps getting to wear the strap in fics… you fools, there is no doubt in my mind that Gideon is getting pegged. That woman is NOT on top unless she asks Harrow really nicely.

[avoidtheswirl]

So in Ntn Camilla asks: “Warden—will she know who we are, in the River?” And I am obsessed with what this line says about Camilla. Cam is loving (see her interactions with Nona and Pyrrah, her ferocious search for her sister) and kind (she takes the knives from Jeannemary and Isaac, she shares her food with Gideon) but she is also stubborn and singleminded and even brusque to the point of being quite abrasive. When Harrow tells her Palamedes can’t have lasted this long she simply reiterates that he has. When Pyrrah tells her to stop, she ignores her. When she thinks her fathers won’t get Paul, she simply doesn’t invite them to her death/ascencion. 

The ONLY hesitation she shows (in the entire series, not just about Paul), the only concern she expresses, is for Dulcinea, “will she know who we are, in the river?” To me this shows so much love and care and even vulnerability. She wants to see Dulcinea. She plans on meeting her someday after death. She does not fear the disappearance of herself unless it means Dulcinea won’t know her. Sometimes the Dulcinea relationship get portrayed as ‘Palamedes was in love with her and Camilla was on the side/a third wheel/possibly even annoyed or left out” but to me this line obliterates that. Cam is not a gushy person, but she must love Dulcie so much. Hers is the only concern she acknowledges. 

Long story short, Cam may not be expressive, but never let it be said she doesn’t love Dulcinea Septimus. 

[notedchampagne]

What makes a tlt au work for you? Do u have any favourites out there/that you’ve thought of?

its hard because it can go down to the writing! i have a huge bias for things that put focus on the characters acting awful and driving the story forward- if a story has a plot thats great, but its the difference between "gideon and harrow keep meeting up at parties and fall a little bit in love every time" and "gideons angry she lost her childhood to the cult so she attends a party with the tridentarii to shotgun adolescent experiences, and harrowhark, frustrated that gideon is pulling on her metaphorical leash, follows to stalk her". the former retains a 5+1 fic format and is more bite-size, while the latter puts more focus into their growth as characters. im not great at articulating what i like specifically, but ill put my favorite fics below:

what if nona was dogs tugs at my heart: its post-canon, slice-of-life, and has a unique concept (said in the title). i judged a book by its cover because i thought the premise seemed too silly at first but ive been made a fool and its pet clown. it feels so true to nona the way its about all the things nona loves and how she gets to explore the world through new eyes. i love the way it explores characters softening up and getting hurt through a third person pov

we have always lived in the apartment by @thatneoncrisis i keep saying this but for the love of GOD guys this au is so good it makes me cry and feel such a deep catharsis from it. it takes gideon and harrow and the ninth as a cult and explores their struggle to adapt to a modern society when noone ever gets a break (WOW ITS JUST LIKE IN REAL L-). quinn writes the sides of griddlehark i think go overlooked in fanfic often: their codependency, their tendency to lash out when theyre defensive, their mutual paranoia and different coping mechanisms, harrows psychosis and gideons bitterness, their relationships to each other as being the only other person who really understands what the other suffered through. god. i feel lightheaded.

"but SAM, i dont like angst but i want to see this writing!" read gap between a tragedy and a comedy

"SAM, i also like when gideon and harrow are horrible because theyre maladjusted teenagers! but i want more antics where the characters drive things forward over angst!" read whats eating gideon nav

you just aint receiving is one of my FAVORITE modern aus of all time (and i heavily recommend the authors other fics as well!) if you really want to see how much i love this fic the fact that my comments take up the entire phone screen probably says a lot. its hard to put it concisely: it keeps harrows air of misanthropy and cruelty but redefines it as the result of her upbringing and personal struggle to live in a university while dealing with a backpack of mental illness and frustration. it changes gideons personality as the daughter of john gaius in a way that makes sense having her grow up with johns middling parenting skills and getting everything she ever wanted (connecting it back to kirionas personality in ntn!). it brings in side characters (specially palamedes. my beautiful boy palamedes) in ways that compliment harrow and gideon but not so obviously that they only exist to be supports. they have their own lives and ideals. its a modern au that brings in the boiling politics of johns cult uprising once again in a really novel way

semi charmed kinda life by @griddlebait. jesuchristo and all his middle names this fic is GREAT for you if you want a slice of life, coming of age type modern au that explores what its like for gideon and harrow if they actually got the space to see who theyd become outside of the stifling fate tlt has for them. as far as modern aus go im usually very hesitant to read them because im afraid modernizing the characters takes features away from their core but i really love and respect the way the author treats the 69ers with care and draws distinct lines that shows me how their grow and change while keeping a line to the anchor. also they write HIDEOUS (complimentary) PINING. DISGUSTING. some of these chapters were so chock full of dyke drama that they made me nauseous and whimsical. i think once a friend said this fic felt like if gh could be reincarnated and i like that descriptor a lot

til the cows come home is another postcanon fic that made me feel sick and crybabyish about it- i would definitely recommend it if you want to explore a happier ending with griddlehark! with this and what if nona was dogs the thing i like most about them is that they mix up vulnerability with pain and fear, so it feels more lifelike that way if that makes sense. i lost my taste in fluff fics over time but when its interspersed with struggle and characters causing problems because they cant cope with themselves it feels much more earnest and raw

this became very long. im not sorry

[theriverbeyond]

Just finished ch 23 in my Nona reread and i think Ianthe dismissing Blood Of Eden as "terrorists" is especially jarring because of the evolution of how BOE is presented in the text

like first in GtN, Gideon never mentions who or what she could be fighting if she had succeeded in her dreams of joining the Cohort. she wants to be part of the "invasion force on whatever", and her fantasies of violence are exclusively oriented around perceived personal freedom and making Harrow feel bad

And then in HtN, Blood of Eden is finally named as the Empire's enemy, but they're very specifically never called "terrorists". they're "insurgents" per both John and Judith, which not only has a wholly different definition (revolutionaries!) it's also an interesting intentional choice on the part of the *writing*. It would make in-universe character sense for Cohort Captain Judith Deuteros to call BOE "terrorists" in the personal notes she takes while prisoner, and it would make in-universe character sense for Emperor John Gaius to call them "terrorists" when he is explaining to Harrow that they are The Enemy. and i feel like it is narratively important that Blood of Eden is very intentionally *not* presented to us the readers with the kind of aggressive dehumanization/dismissal connotation combination that the word terrorist has.

and then like, obviously, the first BOE character we meet is a hot MILF with a gun. and sure she's trying to kill God, but Augustine and Mercymorn also try to kill God like 3 pages after we (properly) meet Wake so it's not like killing God is presented as a negative thing.

So going into NtN, I feel like the general impression of BOE is revolutionaries who hate the Empire and hot ladies with guns. which as far as impressions go is like, pretty positive, and that impression is only emphasized in the first 300 or so pages of the book. You have more hot women, you have more hot women with guns. There are factions of BOE that hate Our Protagonists more than the ones we meet, and there's infighting and hostages and burning suspected-necros in the park, but the BOE members we meet are explicitly sympathetic to the characters that we the audience care about, so the "scarier" parts of BOE are in many ways de-emphasized to the reader. We're *also* given an up-close-and-personal view of how bad it is for the people living under the Nine Houses' rule/resettlement via Hot Sauce and the gang, which further solidifies BOE as *at least* bordering on (if not outright!) "someone to root for", even for resistant readers.

and then Ianthe shows up and calls them terrorists and it feels a bit like a slap to the face. It serves to emphasize and perhaps consolidate what has been building for the series, which is essencially that the protagonists of the previous books are on the wrong side. Necromancy is on the wrong side. the Empire is doing bad fucking things and they are calling the revolutionaries who resist them "terrorists" as a way to delegitamize their resistance and dissuade support, something that no longer works on the *reader* because of the way Tamsyn Muir has hansel-and-gretled the fuck out of that story arc. send post.

[lastflowerofyourhouse]

thinking about harrow and gideon as teeny little children.

like. the adults around them were never going to let them be friends, right? harrow's parents and crux were never going to put up with that. but i'll bet there was a moment, when they were small children, when they could've turned it around and just been friends. but of course they weren't allowed to.

like, here's the thing about toddlers: they kinda suck sometimes. all of them do, and it's usually not their fault. they don't have a developed sense of empathy or consequences yet, and they can't regulate their emotions very well. they're selfish and egocentric and short-sighted. they don't fully grasp concepts like sharing or delayed gratification. they have to be taught these things. it's the responsibility of the adults around them to help them practice and understand. and if they don't...well.

imagine you're tiny harrow. and you realize, one day, that if tiny gideon has something you want, then you're allowed to just take it and nobody cares. meanwhile, all of your things are sacred and protected by the adults around you. also, you're curious. you're learning about people and feelings and cause and effect. and so you start to pick on her, experimentally, as is natural for kids around that age. and you quickly come to understand that you can do whatever you want to her, and nobody will stop you. but if she retaliates, she gets in trouble. you would have to be one hell of an emotionally advanced toddler not to become a fucking terror to live with.

and that's not even mentioning how the adults around them treated gideon. harrow's primary caretaker and role model was fucking crux for jod's sake. and little kids love to copy behaviors and play and help even more than they love to steal. if the adults around you treat one particular person like shit, then you will inevitably learn to do the same.

also, gideon saying that baby harrow saw her as, quote, "an object of tormentable fascination" is weirdly heartbreaking to me? like yeah, harrow was probably The Worst as a little kid, for reasons already explored. but also, there was only one other child in her life. one other child, who was just close enough to her age to identify with, but also slightly older than her, by just enough months to be cool. i'll fucking bet harrow was obsessed with her. they were both lonely and bored and they had never been taught how to make friends or be nice to people. i'll bet they learned to fight like that. harrow following her around, just trying to get her attention, not knowing how else to do it.

the fact that griddle is very obviously babytalk too...it just fuckin gets me. harrow has been trying to say gideon's name since before she could properly form the syllables. she said gid-oh. what do you wanna bet it was one of the first words she tried to figure out how to say.

obviously, none of this justifies what came next. this isn't a harrowhark apologetics post. i'm not trying to like...woobify her or something. none of this emotional rambling about her toddlerhood absolves her of responsibility for shit she did as a teenager. but still. god i get emotional when i think about harrow and gideon as little kids. they were so lonely and they had no positive role models and they were completely fucked over by the adults around them and i am going to cry.

[space--daemon]

Would it be possible to hear more of your thoughts about the 5th absorbs the ninth au?

oh my god YES

i'm so deep in my tlt bre fic or i would already be writing this because i LOVE this au and will soon be reading EVERY fic with this concept (some of which are linked in the notes of the original post)

so i imagine this taking place a short while after harrow opens the tomb, a year or two at most

harrow is equal parts devastated w grief and fanatic with adoration for the body in the tomb

she is also NOT in the mood for the ninth to be absorbed by the fifth and is ready to fuckin throw down

of course by throw down, harrow means "glare at them until they go away and also bones" bc she's twelve and that's really all she can do

fifth's first trip to the ninth:

abigail: hel- those people are dead

harrow, currently manipulating the corpses of her parents: (drops from the ceiling like batman) begone, invaders, you are not- griddle!

gideon, who Should Not be there but saw a sword and thought "fuck it": (walks up to magnus) fight me old man

magnus and abigail immediately decide to adopt these children

magnus starts sparring with gideon and getting his ass handed to him, much to aiglamene's delight

abigail begins the daunting task of Earning Harrowhark Nonagesimus' Trust

she explains she doesn't actually want to take over the ninth and harrow can have it once she's eighteen

this inadvertently offends harrow and sets them back a month

the fifth quickly pick up that ortus is Not Into this whole cav business and make the pretty obvious connection that gideon should be harrow's cav and the equally obvious connection that both girls would Rather Die

cut to quinn and pent's epic quest to trick two preteens into accepting the fifth as their caregivers and becoming cav and necromancer

they also become the world's most awkward wingmen

magnus, during a sparring session: say, the reverend daughter looked very regal this morning, didn't she?

gideon, who has already adopted this man as a father figure: what the fuck mags how could you betray me like this

ortus is either besties with the fifth or actually fucking them like abigail pent would one hundred percent take one look at this chubby eloquent caring inept motherfucker and be like I Want That Bear Obliterated

at some point they get it into their heads that the girls need peer engagement so they bring jeanne and isaac to visit

harrowhark nonagesimus, who has never met a person younger than her, watching a nine-year-old jeannemary chatur vibrate with excitement: what the FUCK is That

gideon nav, whose only experience with people younger than her is harrow: what the FUCK is That

[lemon-natalia]

Nona the Ninth Reaction - Chapter 28

‘golden eyes like a dead animal’s’ you are sick and twisted Tamsyn Muir, sick and twisted (affectionate). also that is an interesting description of Kiriona's eyes. of course part of it is that she is quite literally in a dead body, but these are also the eyes that John got after he gained his necromantic powers

ohhhh my god. i don’t think my heart can take Kiriona asking after Harrow. she gave up her life for her, did the best she could to take care of Harrow’s body, and now she doesn’t even know if Harrow’s alive or not

oof both Pyrrha and Nona clearly know that she’s Alecto, but Nona really doesn’t want to remember. i wonder how long exactly Pyrrha knew who Nona was, even if she was hoping she was Gideon, i feel like part of her must have suspected since the beginning

hmm i wonder if there’s something significant about Alecto’s name? not in terms of its Doylist meaning i.e. being named after one of the Furies, but in universe. here Nona doesn’t want Pyrrha to say her name because it will make her remember, John (from what i recall) only ever used nicknames like A.L. and Annabel Lee etc. when talking to Harrow, and both he and the other Lyctors had a remarkably strong reaction to Mercy using it at the end of HtN:

'A ripple of ice over the face. A hardening of the mouth. He said quietly, “Don’t call her-” “Alecto! Alecto! Alecto!” repeated Mercy shrilly. The other Lyctors flinched each time she said it, as though it were an aural stab’

oh wow, Alecto’s consciousness (voice?) rising up to speak from Nona is very disturbing. once again, Alecto doesn’t seem like the nicest person. which makes sense i suppose given she is in actuality a Resurrection Beast herself and seemingly very pissed off about the whole ‘killing humanity and putting her in a human form’ thing

‘astonishingly, Pash, helping an extremely feeble and aged person’ i mean good on Pash for helping the elderly, i guess?

it’s gotta be so strange for Palamedes’ mother and the other people in the Sixth to be dealing with the ‘i’m dead and in Naberius Tern’s also dead body’ thing. it can hardly be what they imagined when he and Camilla went off to the First in GtN. speaking of, i do still wonder how everyone’s family members, the Cohort etc. reacted to the news of basically everyone dying after going off to try and be Lyctors

‘Palamedes was acting as though he were a tiny at show-and-tell’ is that not how Palamedes always acts about everything

Pyrrha Dve queen of ill-advised romantic relationships. poor her, she’s lost basically everyone she cared about before (G1deon, Wake, and now Pal and Cam, Nona is dying) now as a result of Lyctorhood to some degree

oh why does everything they’re saying here feel like a goddamn funeral, i categorically don’t like this

'something white and grey and powdery [...] Camilla [...] - to Nona's horror - ate it' i’m assuming that’s Palamedes’ skull goop making a reappearance. ew

ohhh wow this is a lot worse than i thought it was going to be, they’ve actually just straight up merged themselves into a single person. i suspected the whole Camilla-and-Palamedes thing was going to come back but not like this. it’s not like they had a lot of choices, and i mean i guess it’s better on an emotional level than one of them dying and the other having to live with it, but still, yikes

wdym i am categorically not crying about the fact that Kiriona is apparently totally disinterested in this whole situation, but her first instinct is still to want to hand over her jacket to … Cam/Pal. (Pam?)

listen i get what Palamedes is trying to do here, encouraging Ianthe to accept Lyctorhood as a mutual loss & rebirth rather than a sole sacrifice of the cavalier, but quite frankly i think poor Naberius would like being merged into a single person with Ianthe even less than being murdered

[wifegideonnav]

for all its reputation as being super dark and depressing, harrow the ninth actually employs a type of wish fulfillment that is, in my opinion, dangerous unless you’re aware that that’s what it is.

because at its core, htn is about the vindication of grief - it’s about losing somebody and then suffering in such perfect agony that you get her back. in the universe of the book, harrow is correct to refuse to let gideon go, she’s correct to destroy herself over gideons death. she sacrifices literally everything she’s ever been or cared about, she debases herself completely, and in return, she gets gideon back.

and this type of thinking, if you bring it into the real world, is not healthy. a lot of pop culture tends to enforce this idea - that if you just hold on well enough, you’ll get what you want; or, put another way, that if you let go, you never cared in the first place. but i think it’s important to be extra cognizant of this concept’s place in htn, precisely because people find it to be such a “real” depiction of grief and loss. as readers, especially as i know many in the fandom are also mentally ill, also grieving their own tragedies, we need to keep in mind that necromancy is still just a fiction, and that there is no reward for suffering. in real life, the prize you get for suffering is more suffering.

i know it may seem silly to post this like, “reminder that magic isn’t real guys!1” but the idea of being rewarded for suffering is so entrenched in our culture, and it’s especially insidious when you have a mental illness in your ear whispering that you deserve to suffer anyway, and clearly this is all your fault, and if they stay gone it means you didn’t do everything you could, and -

i’m making this post to say: please take care of yourselves. go to therapy, or support groups, or find other ways your community can help you. strive for healing. don’t let them be a dead body you drag behind you. and never fall into the trap of believing that the more you suffer, the more deserving you are

[ghostsandyoumightdie]

Not gonna @ the person or respond to them because it's their post and their headcanon, but

Where the hell did anyone get the idea that Harrow doesn't care about her clothes or fashion? Her clothes are just as important a part of her raiments as her sacramental skull. They're old because it's all the Ninth has. And they've lasted this long because someone, including Harrow, cared deeply enough to take care of them.

Also, Gideon has commented at least once that she whooshes her cape for effect. The girl HAS a sense of fashion.

This isn't even taking into account the fact that Harrow's entire look is religious modesty garb. It's perfectly OK to write Harrow as a romantic goth or a grunge goth or whatever you want, it's not that serious and makes sense if you're translating the aesthetic, but if you want to make a serious argument about how the intent of Harrow's garb would translate, I recommend looking at it through a religious modesty lens.

[harrowedsoup]

Honestly I would love more sugar mama Harrow because I think it’s a hilarious twist on griddlehark’s canon dynamic. Like, yeah, canon Harrow is actually poor because the Ninth House is super poor BUT she has all the power in their relationship and in a modern AU that could translate to Harrow being richer than hell.

Mostly I just think it would be funny to have Harrow being Rich and Proper (Always dressed to the nines because that’s what she’s Supposed To Do) but Gideon HATES Harrow actually being a Sugar Mama ( she wants to DO things for Harrow not the other way around) except in specific situations. Like yeah, Gideon will live in Harrow’s house for free while they’re dating (because Gideon takes care of the house) but she doesn’t like Harrow giving her a lot of money just because.

I also think the idea of Harrow being perfectly willing to do whatever Gideon wants if she expresses the smallest hint of a desire, since she doesn’t do that a lot, could be something that’s hilarious. 

Like; Harrow, dressed in a suit that costs more than a car, ends up following Gideon, who is wearing a t shirt that has the arms ripped off and shorts that say something offensive on the ass, into a McDonald’s at like 2AM to pay for her milk shake.

[sunnytobio]

masterlist of all my griddlehark fics (will be updated as time goes on 😏)

only want to fix it with a kiss on the lips

11,631 words, rated M

“This,” Gideon said, waving her phone around like Harrow was a cat trying to catch a laser, “is how I’m going to get you a girlfriend.” — gideon makes harrow an online dating profile against her will

when you’re close enough to love

12,786 words, rated T

Taking care of me is also taking care of you. — gideon gets hurt, harrow worries

i forgot the love i had, beg one chance to make you laugh

21,675 words, rated E

And if Gideon is smiling when the massage parlor door slams in her face, that’s no one’s business but her own. — gideon plays ice hockey, harrow is her unwilling masseuse

please please please let me get what i want — part 1 of a heaven, a gateway, a hope

25,789 words, rated M

So Harrow did not pray, but she thought about Gideon, and that was basically the same thing. — harrow and gideon through the years

it’s you that i hold on to — part 2 of a heaven, a gateway, a hope

21,615 words, rated E

Every part of Gideon Nav was worth worshiping, and Harrowhark Nonagesimus was a devout follower. — harrow learns to love and be loved

you make me feel like i am home again

13,729 words, rated T

Gideon was trading her sword for a power drill. There was a metaphor in there somewhere. — post-canon homoerotic shack living

[mayasaura]

Gideon feels so unloved all the time and she doesn’t know that there are so many people who love her so much because those people keep forgetting to mention it to her face

I know what you mean. I want to just shake Harrow like a kitten to make her tell her!!

In way tho, to me, the tragedy of Gideon's life is that she feels unloved, and for the most part she's been right. She's bright, brilliant, funny, strong, dedicated, kind, stubborn, so so angry, and very loveable. And she hasn't been loved. Not enough, and not well enough by those that did.

Harrow's loved her... Probably their whole lives, but just try untangling that knot. She has a lot of ground to make up, and only got her shit together enough to start showing Gideon she loves her about sixteen hours before Gideon died. Sixteen hours, half of those spent asleep, against a lifetime of rejection. It's not really surprising Gideon doesn't believe her yet.

Aiglamene basically raised her, and she does love her, and I am deeply unwell about their relationship. I'm also a little glad Gideon never learned to associate the back of Aiglamene's hand with "love". That she knows there should be something better. I suspect—maybe I hope—Aiglamene did that on purpose.

Pyrrha has loved her since she was born, but she's only just barely met her. Her love didn't lead her down to the surface of the Ninth. She never tried to give her baby girl a funeral, and so never found out she was still alive. Her love did jackshit for Gideon all her life, and that might be hard for Gideon to get over.

There have been brushes with it, with other people. Palamedes, who was the closest thing she had to a friend outside Harrow. He held her hand and comforted her, and made sure she wouldn't be caught in his blast radius. Camilla who gave her medical care, and shared with her a mutual trust, and even made a joke at her expense once. Jeannemary, who thought she was super cool and died the same day Gideon first spoke to her. Coronabeth, who kissed her hand once and thought she was sweet. There was love there, with some, and the potential with others. None of these people knew her for more than the last few weeks of her life.

Gideon really truly hasn't been loved as a transitive verb. Someone finally telling her to her face would be a good start, but at this point I don't know what it's gonna take for her to trust. And I don't blame her.

[a-big-apple]

pls can we get your most niche tlt headcanons/ canon points you think are too overlooked or unappreciated/ fanon you see too often mistaken for canon/ juicy background bits on the babytrap or skater AU or otherwise.. the ppl are starving

omg this is exactly the treat i deserve after doing so many chores today, im gonna hit all these categories just for funsies

niche tlt headcanon: this is maybe more a theory than a pure headcanon but i think someone in Camilla's direct family line, either a parent or a grandparent, was from outside the Houses. Hect is an arithmonym, but it's not Sixth, it's a prefix meaning 100. as there's no 10th (or 100th) House, i like to think this is meant to indicate that someone in her recent family tree was an outsider! also she's hot enough for the Alexandrites, which suggests at least one of her bio parents or grandparents was hot enough for the Nireids and perhaps scored some out-of-House genetic material to spice up the Sixth's diversity. also Silas questions her eligibility to be cav primary, and since she's brilliant and badass and the Sixth don't base these things on bloodline/inheritance, there's no reason for even a prig like Silas to disqualify her other than some kind of citizenship issue. anybody with at least one Sixth parent is considered Sixth, that's their whole deal, but maybe the Eighth take a dimmer view?

smaller but purer headcanon that has no basis in anything except my gut: i think the "very silly" description of herself that Dulcie sent to Pal and Cam, and the drawing Cam sent back (mentioned in TUG), is a reference to this classic of ancient tumblr

overlooked/underappreciated canon moment: at this point i dont think there's anything i have noticed that i haven't seen at least one person blog about, but one of the tiny little things that gives me shrimp emotions is Gideon in the pool scene, after she's had this intense thing with Harrow, and then Harrow starts waxing about her beloved in the Tomb: "[Harrow's] voice had the quality of someone in a long dream. She stared through Gideon without looking at her, and Gideon gently took her hands away from Harrow's jaw. Instead she sat back in the water, buoyed by the salt, her eyes starting to sting from it." she's suddenly being told that Harrow is into someone else, she assumes these feelings she's been slowly catching are doomed before she can even really examine them, she pulls back from the very intimate position they've just been in, and she has a quiet lil cry about it that she won't even acknowledge in the narration. BUT I KNOW WHAT THAT SALT STINGING YOUR EYES IS GIDEON NAV

fanon you see too often mistaken for canon: GIDEON ISN'T STUPID T^T she's not a himbo jock, she's just a jock who doesn't care about necromancy! she also can't sense it, so she naturally has less information than Harrow about what's going on in GtN. she has a baller vocabulary, she's strategic, she's observant, she's super good at what she does, and she adapts to a completely novel situation VERY quickly.

also? i understand why it's visually more appealing to draw Kiriona with her chussy out, or modern au Gideon showing a lot of skin, i dig it, im hot for her too. but Gideon is canonically shy. she doesn't even take off her robes to duel in GtN, and is so constantly hooded that nobody even knows she's a redhead until halfway through the book. Kiriona is buttoned up to the point of wearing a goddamn ascot to cover her neck hole. i definitely understand au situations where her upbringing was different and so she's a little different, that's part of a good au for me, but it still always crosses my mind when i see her with her shirt wide open or her tummy out or in booty shorts or something. she's hot and she wants everyone to think she knows it, but deep down she does not know it and doesn't really flaunt it, except those guns

juicy background bits on babytrap or skater au: hmmmmm. Kiriona would deny it's the reason she hasn't named the baby, but she IS waiting for Harrow. she doesn't feel like she has the right, and she has complex feelings about both the names her own parents gave her. she has a deep-seated sense that Harrow, who is smart and cares a lot about doing things the right way, will be better suited to this responsibility.

in the figure skating au...a minor character from early in the story is going to be very important in the sequel fic, i think.

[billyshakesp]

In the Hope of a Future Forgiveness

Forgiveness has huge symbolic implications in the Locked Tomb for many of the characters, namely Gideon and Harrow and their quest against religious trauma. I could write so much about this, but that would be more suited to a literature classroom (or AO3) than to Tumblr, so, instead, I want to focus in on one particular example that I hold very dear. Disclaimer: this is one interpretation of Harrohwark's words which I have come to. If this has already been said by someone else, I do not know of it. If you don't agree with this take, please share with me.

In Harrowhark's self-adressed letter outlining the parameters for the rest of her life as a Lyctor (which, by the way, she hoped would "extend into the next myriad," but Harrowhark's lobotomy era only lasted nine months, so RIP babygirl), she signs off with:

In the hope of a future forgiveness, I have remained, Harrowhark Nonagesimus

It's clear that Harrowhark has huge conflictions with her right to exist as a human being; thus, the most obvious interpretation of this line is that she hopes to be forgiven for the crime of breaking into the Tomb, and also for the genocide her parents mandated. However, this begs the obvious question, "forgiveness from whom?"

Harrowhark Nonagesimus wrote this in her pre-lobotomy era, so we don't have to reckon with the implications of Harrow digging her cavalier out of her skull, along with a few spoons of grey matter as collateral damage. With that in mind, forgiveness from whom?

To her knowledge, her entire house is dead. She is the last person left. I'm not too confident as to pre-lobotomy Harrow's relationship with God, but she definitely holds her accountable for Gideon's death. I don't think she cares for that man much (Which is good. Fuck God).

Gideon, of course, is the one Harrow wants to forgive her, whether she admits it to herself or not. Harrow has given her life to justify her birth, to become the greatest necromancer her house has ever produced, and perhaps the greatest necromancer the Nine Houses has ever seen. She says herself that she wants to make herself a living monument for those that died so that she could live, and live powerfully. And yet, at the end of Gideon the Ninth, Harrow attempts to offer her own life to Gideon in a desperate and albeit half-baked plan to save her cavalier. The gesture of self-sacrifice is sweet and all, but it really, really hits powerfully here; when Harrow gives Gideon her life, she is essentially saying to Gideon that Gideon is the justification of Harrow's existence. One could argue that she was sacrificing herself to the Tomb, but I think that if the Tomb was what Harrow truly cared about, she wouldn't have been so eager to let herself die. Also, she probably wouldn't have been so eager to drive a hammer into her skull.

In not so many words, Gideon is Harrow's absolution. She is her forgiveness. For Gideon Nav, Harrow sees her life as "worth it," and for Gideon Nav, Harrow sees her death as "worth it." I know I'm romanticising this with my language, so I want to take a brief moment to say that Harrowhark is so, so, so fucked up by her childhood trauma. This isn't beautiful, this isn't the perfect friendship, the perfect love; it's a mistake. Nonetheless, it's Gideon that embodies the reason for her existence. Gideon is forgiveness.

When Harrow writes the letters in "the hope of a future forgiveness," it is in the hope that she will find some measure of absolution for the crimes committed by her parents. It is also in the hope that can save the first flower and the last child of her house. She "remains Harrowhark Nonagesimus" for Gideon. She lives in the immortal hope of Gideon's resurrection. I think there's so much grief and tragedy and sorrow carved into just those few words; so much more than I originally saw in them.

Thanks for reading. Drink water, eat food, and worship the ground your friends walk on and the air they breathe. If you're reading these words as the product of the deaths of a generation of children, then know that if you just live, and live for the people you love, then that's enough. <3

[sassy-cass-16]

man. the locked tomb is so funny and so full of memes and so beautiful and sometimes it just hits me that it's also so fucking sad.

gideon and harrow spent their entire childhoods hating each other for no reason. they never had to hate each other. harrow had gideon's blood on her hands when she opened the tomb and lost her entire family and it was all for no reason. just because gideon had no one to stick up for her. and when they were both orphans they couldn't even talk to each other about it. because they hated each other.

gideon fell so in love with harrow that she died for her and then harrow spent an entire year pretending she didn't exist just so she wouldn't lose her forever. gideon literally tells harrow's story for her and takes such reverent care of her body for the short time she's in it. gideon first saw her own father through harrow's eyes and called him Lord.

and john. and john is terrible. and he is so human that he becomes terrible. he breaks down weeping because no one else in the entire universe will ever understand his jokes again. he lost everything and he is the only one who even remembers the thing that was lost. he is so completely ordinary that you almost feel like you can't blame him for everything he's done but he is terrible. he let his friends die over and over and over again and he wants to wipe everything clean and start over and he is a man who has gone so completely insane from loneliness that he's circled back around to seeming horribly normal.

he greets his daughter with a dad joke and names her as best he can and gives her a title and a body with speed holes that help her go fast. and he's not malicious. and he's not good. you can't even really call him a villain--what the hell else was he supposed to do? in any of these circumstances? but he is trying his best and his best is simply not good enough. the true horror of god is that he is just human.

all the lyctors. all the lyctors are a tragedy in their own rights. augustine and mercymorn are just the two examples that we know the most about, and their own god/father/brother/lover/beloved/teacher killed them both.

(admittedly, mercymorn struck first. admittedly, john was defending himself and his entire empire. admittedly, it was ianthe's choice to save john in the river that killed augustine. less than an hour before that, augustine was apologizing for raising his voice and john told him to have a cigarette and do you see what i mean about it being hard to blame john for anything?)

and the whole concept of the fourth house in general. we don't talk about that enough. that is almost an entire planet's worth of child soldiers, from what little information we have. what does it say about ulysses and titania that they were the ones to found that house? isaac was thirteen. jeannemary was fourteen. they were expected to become full lyctors before isaac's voice had even dropped. there was no way they could make it off canaan house alive. these kids were doomed.

protesilaus ebdoma had a wife and kids. his wife's name is mia and she probably has no idea what actually happened to him. same with abigail's brother and nephew. corona and ianthe's parents must be losing their shit--they think their eldest daughter is dead and their younger one is now a fucking Saint with a gold skeleton arm.

that's not even getting into alecto. or nona. or camilla and palamedes and paul. this series is so fucking sad even without getting into the revelation that all the lyctors are slowly merging with their cavaliers.