#both ninth houses tbh

[starberry-cupcake]

I don't think I have a lot to update today because life got in the way of me reading as much as I wanted, but if I don't note things down, I'm gonna forget, so here we are. I'm not sure if I'll be able to update tomorrow, but I'll be back as soon as as I can, more for my own peace of mind than anything else.

previously, in harrowlicious the ninth:

this happened

also, I may have or may have not been slightly spoiled about a thing because people in my dash don't use the tags available to us mortals, so I'm gonna have to sprint if I see any semblance of skull make up in my dash

close the tab immediately

close my eyes and cover them for good measure

currently, chapters 12 & 13:

we are training how to...kill planets, I think

basically, I think we're killing a planet and killing the thing that comes out of it when it's killed

this is what the care bears taught me not to do when I was a kid

actually, I think they even made a new one in the new re-design thing specifically to make the point even clearer than in the 90s

this new one

that's the opposite of what these people are doing rn

so harrowbean is training with mercygirl on how to be environmentally unconscious

if I am understanding the dynamics correctly, you kill the planet and then you chase the planet's soul aka beast through the river and kill that too

if the ones they're escaping from are bigger than these, they must have fucked up massively with whatever they destroyed

when I started reading gideon, I thought the houses were like planet-coded

you know, nine houses and all that

the ninth is now a hypothetical mysterious ninth planet

but back when my astrology lesson was sailor moon

the ninth was pluto

and in that mindset, the ninth would be setsuna meiou, which checked out with some of the harrow aesthetics, I mean

a mix between these two looks???

I went on a tangent, anyway

I moved on from that idea later but, in any case, these people must have destroyed some fucking huge thing to make the mess they're in now

so, basically, in order to chase the planet's soul (which they call beast, but I think that's disrespectful), that's where the cavalier comes in

the slurped cav is meant to keep the lyctor running through that process, so that their body doesn't collapse

and it's meant to have their instincts kick in to do the final push and use the sword they were trained to use

if mayonnaise uncle had not done what he did, he would have probably been good at this part

but he was obliterated

by hubris

so, harrow cannot do this

WHICH IS GREAT

for us, at least, because it's more hope for the "gideon isn't gone" theory that keeps us together

I speak in plural, as if you didn't know exactly what's happening, but you get what I mean

in my mind, we're like this, waiting for gideon to come back

so augustine calls harrow "diet lyctor"

he should call her "lyctor lite"

mercygirl gives harrow crap for not being able to sustain herself due to her lack of cavalier-ness

augustine makes fun of her for her lack of cavalier-ness

and I'm here like...you guys are the ones who started this mess?????

it's not up to a teen to save you in a couple months from something you haven't been able to fix in 10k years????

maybe you deserve it????????

what is this, evangelion????

harrow, coming back from the training and planet killing

harrow visits yandere twin in her new designated room

yandere twin has a room with a lot of nudes

"life sized nudes in languorous attitudes, generally in oils, and all of the same two persons. They were enthusiastically executed. The duo posing held a variety of objects both likely and unlikely."

so...which lyctor ordered a ton of nsfw fanart of themselves and their cav or whatever????

I'm assuming it's a portrait of one of them and it's this kind of situation

yandere twin apparently likes the nudes, so they're staying there

harrow doesn't like them

I think it's A Lot tbh, but it's not my lyctor room, so I'm not telling her what to do

who has the room with the ceramics collection? because I call dibs on that

anyway, yandere twin is having a hard time with this too

both of them are having a hard time with doing it, not with the ethical or moral implications of what they're doing or why johnny john john is asking them to do these things

harrow can kill the stuff faster, but she can't be trusted to be able to stay alive after

harrow was never very good at not getting physically damaged at all times

yandere twin has a hard time making chad cooperate

who would have thought

imma assume it's a problem you might encounter when you slurped your cav against their will

which is what we think happened, idk, we found him stabbed in the back so

and also it's chad

chad complained about everything all the time

harrow tells her it's psychological

the mental health care plan of the lyctors looks like this

also, harrow suggests yandere twin to cut her new arm if it bothers her

I mean, that's one solution, I guess

it's a very harrow solution

yandere twin points out that harrow is the emperor's favorite

that sounds like a very bad thing tbh

she also asks harrow to make her own arm grow back again and harrow says no because she's not good at the fleshy bits

"the fleshy bits"sounds like something cursed that comes with cereal in a magnus archives episode

but you get the idea

we end the chapter with harrow appreciating yandere twin's company because, when she found her after she had stabbed not!dulcinea's corpse, she said "wish you'd taken off her arms"

I respect that too

again, no camilla yet

well, this wasn't as long or entertaining but I'll come back whenever I can...life needs to let me read this book

[apostleofgreed]

It's here, the finale - my friends thoughts throughout Nona the Ninth (it's a long one)

Right which one of these idiots is stuck in Nona's body

Signs point to both

I think more likely Harrow and shes just removed the massive stick up her ass

Most other signs thus far do point to Gideon though- lack of aforementioned stick, finds herself attractive, loves ass jokes, wants to pet dogs (Harrow seems like a don't work with animals or children type)

Also these other kids have names like they're gonna be running in the fucking grand national

Honestly what the fuck is going on with child conception in this series???

Someone has five dads, God was asking if Harrow and Ianthe were being 'safe' sexually and I'm just confused

Okay so I've only listened to half an hour today but if Crown isn't coronabeth I will eat my own arm

My theory is that neither of them are in Harrow's body and that she's being possessed by The Body

Maybe I should follow in Harrow's footsteps and ask you to fucking lobotomize me

No beta we die like Babs

"what do you think is sexy?" "Eating breakfast" Me too, Camilla, me too

Maybe someone needs to lobotomize Judith, has anyone thought of that?

Thing is I feel like I'm supposed to think John is really bad and is the villain here but I just don't

The worst thing he's done is lie to his friends for a few thousand years

Finally, the baddest bitch in all the nine houses (it's Ianthe)

What a power move honestly first she steals Babs' soul now she steals his body, absolutely inspired

She could literally kill another 200 babies to resurrect Harrow and I'd be like what a babe 😍 at this point

I'm bored of shooting can we go back to swords and doing weird things with your body please

I just think it would be great if Harrow could hop back into her body and have a full meltdown about how to function in this world

Erm Corona darling can you please try to stop them bombing your sister in the body of one of your lifelong pals pls and thanks

Y'all better sTOp

Fucking marry, kill, reanimate I can't hahahaha

"that's not actually crown's boyfriend Nona, it's her sister but I don't think anyone could blame you for getting confused" Fair hahahahah so very true

Don't know how they think this is gonna work seeing as though Harrow and Ianthe literally lived together for like over a year and had an interpersonal relationship but ok

Maybe it's because pash has the accent of a rudeboy from Oldham and suffer is weirdly French (on disliking We Suffer and Pash)

Palamades in Ianthe in Babs is sending me west

Abigail died too soon and really she did all the legwork in Harrow

Can't help but feel all of this drama could have been avoided if Harry had just done the job properly in the first place and just let Gideon die properly

All of this just because an 18 year old gave herself the brain scramblies

Cam has just burst into fire wtf

Can't believe Crux hasn't dropped dead tbh

I've got less than an hour left I feel like we're cutting it fine to get Harry back in her body here

Big flex to be waiting for everyone to arrive smoking a ciggie with your golden skeleton arm

Fucking friendship bracelets and a secret handshake hahahahah

Gideon needs to stop being such a bloody himbo

Who has shouted "get in line thou big slut!" Hahahahah

There we have it, the full series. Hope y'all have enjoyed this.

[lemon-natalia]

Nona the Ninth Reaction - Chapter 1

oooh and now we have another countdown - this time its five days until the tomb opens! which is both concerning and mildly confusing given Harrow already opened the tomb

and a new image for the chapter header - not an animal skull or a skull at all but a cave with chains over it! presumably representing the tomb itself which in of itself is very intriguing

‘Late in the year of nobody she really thought of in particular’ hah, take that John

ok so Nona’s dreaming of a painted face … the first two immediate options that come to mind are Gideon and Harrow, clearly. in a body of water, could it be the River? or possibly, if the ‘her’ in ‘her hands’ she’s talking about is Alecto, it could be the saltwater of the tomb?

so far the first thing thats struck me is just how sweet the relationship between Nona and Camilla is 

‘A beaker of violently orange liquid, radioactively orange even in the dark’ what the fuck kinda eggs are these guys eating

and Nona has black hair! very long black hair which grows fast, which very much suggests that this is Harrow’s body, given what Ianthe did to her hair last book. this also pretty much rules out another initial theory i had for Nona, which was that she might have been in Gideon’s body, since we know that was picked up by the BoE last book

and another point for being some kind of amnesiac Harrow - Nona appears to have a lot of issues with eating 

Okay … so Camilla and Pal are sharing Camilla’s body, kind of a reverse of Gideon-in-Harrow last book, but not quite given that they somehow seem to have swapped each-others eye colours. it’s not just that they’re sharing a body, since Gid & Harrow explicitly retained their own eye colours, but some kind of other situation

hmm Nona seems relatively upbeat, but there’s a lot of conversation about militia links and black market goods, life wherever they are doesn’t seem all that great tbh

and they’re hiding something about the overall situation they’re in from Nona, and its very unclear whose side they’re on. given the end of the last book, the fact they seem to be in some kind of hiding on a non-House planet, I doubt they’re fully with the Emperor/Nine Houses. but then they definitely don’t seem to be onboard with, and have a very uneasy relationship with, the Blood of Eden, especially given the whole kinda-Lyctorhood situation they’ve got going on. 

and there’s an awful lot going on here. they keep mentioning a search and recovery mission, which begs the question for what exactly are they looking for. it can’t be the Tomb or anything because its pretty well known where THAT is. and Pal and Pyrrha have very different philosophies on whatever’s happening - Pal seems to want to help some kind of situation with people trapped in barracks, while Pyrrha thinks its not worth it. and on top of all of that BoE is not quite one cohesive group as it was described in HtN, there’s some kind of inter-organisational conflict going on. 

‘I know how to farm … I can teach you and Nona’ rip G1deon who never got to live his Stardew Valley dreams. Locked Tomb: the Farming Simulator when?

also it is interesting that even G1deon, seemingly the most loyal of the Emperor’s lyctors (or at least the only one seemingly not actively trying to kill him) still had a backup plan and wanted to run away to just lead some kind of a normal life

and they need masks of some kind? and Nona’s immune - more points for her being Harrow, or at least in Harrow’s body, Nona’s body clearly works like a Lyctors 

oh shit there’s a mysterious blue light in the sky that’s ‘periscoping’? It could be some kind of surveillance but i think its far more likely to be the seventh Resurrection Beast, which is there for … some reason? Lotta questions raised just in this one chapter

[the-fiction-will-knit-the-real]

I am 22 pages into my annotated reread of Ninth House, and I'd decided as part of this to mark every place in the text that Alex thinks about Darlington, or remembers something Darlington said to her [especially nerd facts about Lethe or New Haven], or has Darlington's voice in her head, etc.

This was definitely done to prove to myself that, even though they really only knew each other for like 3 months before Darlington falls into that "portal" in the basement of Rosenfeld Hall, Darlington has had a MASSIVE effect on Alex and their relationship already runs much deeper than any normal 3 month "friendship" does.

ANYWAY, as I said, I am 22 pages in. I have 10 Darlington-in-Alex's-head bookmarks already. And most of them aren't brief references, either

Idk I just feel super justified in how I never, even reading these books for the first time, saw Darlington as a side character that it's weird to be referencing all the time [I've seen people online criticize this in the books]. It's hard to believe there's only a very short period of time where he's actually present [in both books, tbh]

Also I just relate to Darlington [the WANT, the hubris, the desire for knowledge, the loneliness] and Alex [the jaded view of the world, the survivor mentality, the holding one's true self back because you don't fit, the loneliness] so much

[tomomiisasleep]

notes on the unwanted guest and Ianthe in general:

I did NOT expect that this is when they were fighting in the body!!! that's so awesome

Pal already asked more than five questions before scene 4. so Ianthe couldnt actually refuse his questions? or she doesnt care what they talk about, as long as it strays away from Babs?

and uhhhh, why the hooded figures? I mean I got spoiled that the setting is the Ninth House, but I mean why the Ninth House? she never really showed much interest on it, and the whole setting she conjured up herself if I have to guess

and the more I read about Ianthe the harder it is for me to remember that I have not gotten over her lying about the corpse under the bed but that she's so hot I am immune to bad bitches I support woman's wrongs

actually I don't see other people fussing about it. but IMO I think it's the shittiest thing she does in the plot (I mean she did eat someone but isn't that the whole point they were there? ok that's not an excuse but whatever I don't think she's terrible for doing it) and the only thing that makes me actually dislike her and not admire her for her intelligence and wit. but everything else about her is like, phoar

also the famous line

pal: nobody asked

so i guess it means that Harrow-related discussions are safe ground for Ianthe? or is this her manipulation again seeing as the inside of her head looks like the Ninth House is it because she still fantasizes about marrying Harrow?

How did Ianthe find out about Ortus? Gideon told her? How did Pal find out about Ortus???? Cam told him? how did Cam find out? or Dulcie told him? and I can't believe she actually died twice, just to tell Harrow about Gideon...

ok I've finished it, but still no insight as to how true Lyctorhood works. Pal said that the real truth is grafting, transplantation. I still don't get it. the only true Lyctor up to now is John and... wait...actually no, he changed before reviving the earth... I don't understand this.

but I do kinda get who Nona is now, it's Alecto's soul under the influence of not Harrow's soul but her body. Which sure has some interestimg implications...

and tbh I did not understand how Pal just wins because he figured something out that Ianthe did not. or is that exactly the point? and I can imagine Ianthe mmust be grossed out to find that her soul has been "rubbing" with Babs' this whole time and time later

something unrelated(that maybe has a little to do with Babs' soul rubbing off on Ianthe?): when Ianthe walked away from Harrow in the bathroom scene, I do think she knows the significance behind her choice, at least subconsciously. she wouldn't have enjoyed owning Harrow if she choose to approach her anyways. I actually think Harrow wasn't so desolate she might have gone in to check tje scene out of morbid curiousity and maybe to see her naked though I'm not sure if she prefers that over seeing her brain but that's not the point. the point is this is Not how Ianthe imagined that she would take possession of Harrow at all, not by picking up someone else's scraps.

So maybe it was for the best

I think they would both agree.

that after a pregnant pause

the weight of the situation is sinking in on Ianthe

the Princess of Ida said:

why refer to her as such at a time like this? she's putting on a facade

“Wow! Not how I imagined this happening, at all,” and you heard her hasty footsteps retreat,

hasty, maybe she had to tear herself away from the temptation, maybe she's afraid that she'll turn back.

away, back down the corridor whence she came. Then she was gone.

lastly, some stuff about the twins. they need each other. Ianthe needs Corona because she needs Corona's approval. she needs approval and she needs it from everyone and doesnt hide it, but Corona's is the most important. why else would she be happy to downplay her abilities her entire life? she gets off on Corona's worship, I bet her actually body had an orgasm when the remote-control body shuddered.

other stuff about goals and love, and sleeping together are all explicitly expressed in the books, so I'll say no more.

one last thing: I love Palamedes and the relationship between him and Camilla and Dulcinea

[someabsolutenonsense]

Okay I’m sure someone else has made a similar post but I have thoughts I’m attempting to think about these resurrection beasts

The Houses

As far as I can tell we only really know for sure that the First House is Earth and the Ninth House is Pluto. My proposed lineup for the houses is as above. Fucking up the numbering so that earth can be first is very human, and John would do it. And it makes sense since it is quite literally the first home of humanity. If we go with this lineup then there are few things I can read into…

Venus as The 3rd:

The third house have an association with beauty, like the goddess the planet is named for. The individuals from the third that we know are also kind of…horrible terrible people (affectionate). Venus, much like Ianthe’s personality, is inhospitable.

Mars as The 4nd:

“But wait,” you say, “shouldn’t the second house be Mars since they’re the ones associated with the cohort and all that?” MAYBE. The fourth also works for Mars though, they too are extremely associated with war, we learn from Isaac and Jeanmarrie that 4th kids go to war very young.

Pluto as The 9th:

Death god, skeleton nuns, we all know.

So that’s one interpretation, but honestly I think that

1) Venus is likely to be the 7th, since Cytherea was both a name for the goddess Venus and the name of everyone’s favorite identity stealing lyctor from the 7th house.

2) The 3rd might be Jupiter? King of the gods, and the third is always described in terms of royalty?

3) The 2nd could be Mars, as discussed above.

4) The 6th kind of needs to be Mercury. Mercury/Hermes as a god was associated with doctors and the element used to be used in thermometers.

So really that brings us back to this which is so upsetting but without further analysis that’s what I’ve got for sure.

Resurrection Beasts

Similar to the true nature of the houses, we know very little for sure when it comes to the RBs. Alecto is Earth. Varun seems to be Neptune. That’s what we know. Which is why it’s particularly confusing that in Harrow the Ninth Augustine describes a different creature as being The First.

As described by the lyctors…

Number Two: “…spewed quicksilver and remade itself into hundred foot spikes.”

@dmmeeble pointed out that this was probably mercury since quicksilver is another name for the element mercury

Number Six: “…kept sucking us into enormous sphincters and spraying us with worms.”

I’ve got next to nothing for the sphincter worms beast tbh. My only idea is that this could be Jupiter because that sounds like some Zeus (Jupiter) punishment nonsense on the level of Prometheus and the liver pecking eagle.

Number Four: “…a humanoid creature with a beautiful face who held me under the water, and it spoke in a lovely voice but it only repeated, die, die…”

I imagine that this one has to be Venus since Mercy makes a point to say they were beautiful and Venus was a goddess of beauty. Also, water is mentioned and Venus was born from water and is therefore associated with it.

Number One: “…a great and incoherent machine…when I saw it I thought it had a great tail, and a thousand broken pillars on its back, but Cassiopeia saw it as a mechanical monster with swords for wings, and great horns of myelin, tessellated over with graves.”

This is the weirdest one. We already know Number One was Alecto, so this has to be something different. Right? RIGHT?! Cause the thing is I could see this one being earth. Mechanical monster because of all the mechanical detritus of the human species left after John’s apocalypse, the thousand broken columns also speaking to ancient ruins, swords for wings because of the legacy of violence left by the people of earth, the graves all the many graves dug in the surface of the earth over the years. This is a fairly human centric interpretation but having experienced Nona and Alecto, the soul of the earth is clearly very affected by humanity. In an entirely different direction, this could totally be Pluto. The graves, the swords (especially with our knowledge of the ninth), the lifelessness of the mechanical creature. Parts of the description is even reminiscent of some kind of automaton version of a harpy or a fury, with the wings and the general horrors of appearance. And while the furies are chthonic beings…this still brings us back to Alecto…

Number Eight: “…a giant head.” “Finned like a fish…it’s ribs were bloody bandages, and it’s teeth protruded through its own skull, tangled about its face like a nest. It was red, and it had a single eye of green that moved all about the body…”

There are multiple ways to go here. Red implies Mars of course. All of the images of injuries and bloody bandaging could also speak to Mars as war imagery, but the single eye implies Jupiter. Then of course there is the “finned like a fish” and the one eye implying a Cyclops and Cyclopes being associated with Neptune/Poseidon-but we’ve set aside Neptune for Varun. HOWEVER Cyclopes are also connected to Uranus as Uranus and Gaia had some cyclops children in Hesiod’s Theogony. Have I taken this too far yet?

So as you can see, I’ve connected the dots??????

[cain-e-brookman]

Favorite Character Poll

Thank you for the tag, @topazadine! i picked Orrinir in your poll! love a trauma boy with abandonment issues tbh

Rules: list all your main ocs and give brief descriptions of them. then, create a poll with their names and allow your followers to vote on who their favourite character is.

Characters are from my current WIP, The Name Witch. This is part of a series that has many more main characters but I'm really controlling myself here and only taking from the first book.

Uthyr Kri'Asphodel

Uthyr is, in his own words, a soft fussy solitary witch from the Uslarian coast who wants nothing more than to tend his garden, cook good food, and live a life of peace. He has a strong sense of justice, but a delicate heart full of loss and shame. He loves all animals but particularly loves frogs and amphibians as well as most bugs and snakes. His connection to the gods allows him to call on many magics, but he specializes as a healer. Despite being a genuinely kind person, he's anxious and grumpy around groups of people or people he doesn't know. Although a powerful witch, he suffers under others' perception of his standing. He long ago abandoned the name of his foremothers, taking the name Asphodel as the first of his line. Despite this, he doesn't regret doing so. His name, like his garden, is his pride.

Crucius, Formerly of Alilux

Uthyr's neighbor, a Fallen Mage who never speaks on his detachment from his god, though he rarely speaks at all. Quiet, indiscernible, and haughty, he plays most of his past close to the vest, giving very little away in the eight years he's lived next to Uthyr in his square house in the woods. He's branded himself with the only fear he'll admit to: two spiders burnt into the backs of his hands: a reminder of his banishment from his homeland into badlands infested with man-eating spiders. Despite his apparent detachment from anyone, he leaves the corner of the forest he shares with Uthyr every spring and only returns in fall.

Sister Alma of Bhréchin

A young woman from the island country of Bhréchin, new in the robes of the Death God's Order. In fact so new, that as of the first chapter she's introduced, she'd only been a Priestess for a week. Her youth becomes obvious in both her naivete and her love of frivolous gossip, though both belie a dark past she faces head-on. Her devotion to the Death God wouldn't be strange but for the grip of the Lifebringer's Cult in her country, who squash any worship outside of the Church under their boot. With a cheerful disposition, an optimism that could eclipse the sun, and a temper to be reckoned with, Alma is only not speaking when she's asleep. And even sometimes, she does that too.

Bran Yot'Aster

As the heir of the line of Aster, Ninth of his Name, Bran comes from a long line of witches and has been told his whole life of a prophecy that the fate of the world depended on his answer to the call of a twisted wind. When the Coven discovers the unraveling of the realm adjacent, The Other, they call upon him to face his destiny and save them all from the destruction of the Calamities...

Only to find Uthyr has beaten him to it.

Dethroned of his destiny, Bran is surly and adrift. When he joins Uthyr and Alma on their journey, he believes Uthyr's involvement comes entirely from a mistake, that he will see the moment where the prophecy declares him champion, and he finally finds himself deserving of the pedestal his family has always placed him on. Despite the predicament, he's steady and true, believing honesty and valor will light his path to glory.

tags under the cut! feel free to do this even if not tagged, and please tag me if you do! don't feel pressured, only if you'd like to o7

@illarian-rambling @emrowene @xenascribbles aaaannnnnd uuhhhh

@spideronthesun

[dreamofhircine]

okay so here is the 2023 books year-in-review, this is going to be v. long because I ended up reading & re-reading a lot of my backlog after rebuilding the bookshelves in our house. This is going to be roughly sorted, and I'll try and say a little bit about each thing.

Hazel Jane Plante

Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) - I adored this! It's a slimmer book, closer to a novella, but it was maybe my favorite piece this whole year. The central premise of this is that in a haze of grief after the death of her bestie a woman gets way too into their shared fandom and writes a combination of TV show fandom zine, obituary & love letter. The two-part narrative structure is something that Plante would go on to play w/ more in

Any Other City - also a great book! This is written as the memoir of a trans punk rock star split between her journal style letters in the 90s as she navigated an art scene as a woman who doesn't realize it yet, and then picks up again in the 2020s after her own celebrity was cemented.

Casey Plett

Little Fish - Really rad slice of life about a mennonite trans woman in Canada who has a lot of feelings about that. This feels more than anything like a strong expansion upon several of Plett's short stories in A Dream of a Woman.

A Dream of a Woman - I got lost in so many of the stories in this anthology, Plett writes the lives of these women so vividly it feels like you know them. You probably *do* know them.

A Safe Girl to Love - Plett's first anthology, recently re-published. I was not *as big* a fan of this one, but it still holds up very well and is a good example of her style generally.

The Locked Tomb - I am gonna talk about all three of these in one go, actually. These were really sweet, really nice, I really like the approach to necromancy as just sort of another kind of science or physical force, worked through a process very close to magic. I've been seeing art of these characters around for a long time now and it is nice to finally put a personality to the faces. The pool scene in GtNth especially really hit.

Gideon the Ninth

Harrow the Ninth

Nona the Ninth

Peter Watts - This is also gonna get a block review because so many of the things here are interconnected to one another. Starfish to Behemoth are all in The Rifters Trilogy, and Blindsight & Echopraxia are a pair. Watts has a really great way of tearing down the human brain and playing with all the ways that trauma can influence it, how adaptational quirks can be weaponized. Starfish is probably the single best way to get into his work, but if 'vampires in space' sounds more your speed then Blindsight has it covered.

Starfish

Maelstrom

Behemoth

Blindsight

Echopraxia

qntm

There Is No Antimemetics Division - This is a republish of qntm's large body of work on the SCP wiki, sharing the same name. This is really solid, and the use of narrative negative space is interesting.

Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories - A slim collection of short stories and an overall much better showing from qntm, no longer tied up w/ SCP stuff. The things that delve into the implication of human mind based AI constructs especially is really strongly written and will leave you thinking for a while after.

The Division - Broken Dawn is the older entry and did not really capture my attention very strongly, it felt phoned in more than anything else. Recruited & Compromised by contrast could stand on their own w/o The Division branding though both are very well integrated into the game, w/ events going back and forth between the two now that the game is getting more narrative content to it.

The Division: Broken Dawn

The Division: Recruited

The Division: Compromised

D&D - You can probably guess why I jumped into these and what game got me to do it. Drizzt is something I avoided for a very long time because of the associations in the fandom and that was probably not unwarranted tbh. I probably won't continue w/ the series after Exile. It is competently written but these things are creaking w/ their own age and just don't have enough going on to stand on their own unfortunately.

Drizzt: Homeland

Drizzt: Exile

The Devil You Know - Another entry in the Brimstone Angels series, which is my favorite of any of the longer running D&D series. Centered around the misadventures of a Tiefling Warlock and how she gets pulled into the big-dick-swinging matches between various devils trying to make their weird little power plays.

40K

Horusian Wars: Incarnation - This was stellar. Great look at the Inquisition and how insular and back-stabby it can be, I hope more comes from this.

Kasrkin - A mostly by the numbers book that was written entirely to promote the 'kasrkin vs necrons' Kill Team box that came out a bit back. Competent but doesn't have anything new or interesting to say.

Pariah - Eh. This wasn't bad, but it wasn't that good either. Abnett has long been one of my favorite authors in general, not even just in 40k specifically, but I don't think it is controversial to say he has fallen off lately. Compared to his earlier stuff w/ the Inquisitors, hell even compared to stuff like that Horusian Wars book and Pariah just doesn't do enough and the whole Bequin sequence right now feels like it is mostly being done to shift things around in the meta-narrative rather than be good books that stand on their own feet.

The Armour of Contempt - I re-read this one recently and it was just as good as when I first picked it up in high school. Abnett is at some of his best here.

General Fiction (Unsorted)

The Archive Undying: The Downworld Sequence Book 1 - Homosexual activities in a sci-fi fantasy world once dominated by city-scale god-king AIs that went critically rampant a long time ago. This is a really great start to what I hope will be an excellent series.

The Darkness That Comes Before - Re-read after initially reading this when it was new and I was like a pre-teen. Definitely not a book a pre-teen should read and maybe some of that explains why I am like this now. Let's not look at that *too* closely, yeah? This still stands on its own after all these years, though I hear the series in general kind of flagged after a while. If you're into nihilist fantasy check it out.

Burning Chrome - Re-read and enjoyed yet again. Classic Gibson, lays the frame upon which the rest of his body of work would be built.

Pattern Recognition - Re-read this and it still holds up. Gibson is at his height here, calling shots that would start to land almost *immediately* after he published it. Reading this may re-orient your fashion sense entirely so be forewarned and have a bit of space in your wardrobe first I guess.

All You Need Is Kill - Another re-read! I got back into this after realizing that a lot of that traumatized mech pilot pornography I was writing drew so much inspiration for this. I still love the story, I still love the framing, I still love the short and brutal way it is written and the translation is very solid.

Wasteland: Stories of the Apocalypse - Yet another re-read. I originally read this in high school and I owe a great amount of creative debt to some of these stories, hugely influential works and I recommend picking this up.

This Shape We’re in - A tiny little novella by the author of Motherless Brooklyn (which is currently sitting in my 'to do' pile). There is no adequate way to describe this that wouldn't sound like a joke, it is Lethem's most unusual and maybe his best for that.

Poetry

In the Shape of a Human Body I Am Visiting the Earth - Mostly translated poetry, this was solidly collected and a great example of Global(tm) Poetry.

One Hundred Apocalypses and other Apocalypses - More microfic really but I liked this. The different ways the world can end, be it physically from bombs or emotionally in a bad text message.

Wound from the Mouth of a Wound - Simply beautiful collection of work by torrin a. greathouse, I *adored* this.

Non-Fiction

Underlands: A Deep Time Journey - This was beautiful, simply put. A deep dive (hehe) into places beneath the earth and the people that spend more time beneath the surface than above it. I especially loved the travelogue in the cordoned off sections of the Paris catacombs, you can really feel the claustrophobia and danger of it all.

Bitch: The Female of the Species - I picked this up solely because it had a picture of a hyena on the cover. I do not regret that, it was great and that is something I seldom stay about pop-academic gender books.

Emergence: Labeled Autistic - Temple Grandin's first autobiography. This has been heavily dated in how she talks about being autistic and she has changed her views on this several times, to the point where depending on the version you pick up there may be several introductions from the author in a sequence reflecting on this. It is rare to see autobiographies from notable autistic women, it is rare for there to *be* notable autistic women, so I am really happy that I read this.

Memento Mori: The Dead Among Us - Mostly a photo book that I picked up while on a trip to MFABoston w/ my girlfriend. This is a great little table book if nothing else.

Infrastructural Brutalism: Art and the Necropolitics of Infrastructure - A somewhat dry but well researched dive into massive infrastructure projects and the death cult attitude that empowers them.

Queering Mennonite Literature - A university press publication, you know the drill w/ these. Good base to start from if you want to get more into the intersection of queer & menno literature, which is why I picked it up after reading a lot of Casey Plett's books.

David Graeber

Bullshit Jobs - Maybe the best that Graeber has been, and also an example of him leaning really hard into the pop-science aspect of his public persona. If you've got an office job that feels completely fake please read this.

The Dawn of Everything - Graeber's last work before his death and... Well I think it is really good, well written, broadly researched, but much like Debt you're going to either agree w/ his premise or not. There are some rather radical takes here. I highly recommend it though.

Debt: The First 5000 Years - There has been a lot of back and forth on this and there will never be a solid answer. I think the arguments made here are fairly strong, pretty convincing, but if you're involved in this academically in any way you're liable to have a lot of strong opinions one way or another as you read it.

LitMags

Clarkesworld: Every sci-fi enjoying homosexual has a Clarkesworld subscription these days so I don't have a lot unique to say about this. Great year for work, I love the regular infusion of translated works as usual, and I hope that the recent business hits they've taken don't impact it too hard. Definitely re-subbing.

Alaska Quarterly Review: There were some good entries to this but for the most part it kind of felt like an 'eating your vegetables' situation. I probably won't renew for the next year, but I don't *regret* picking it up this year either.

McSweeney’s: Solid as ever, though I found the 'halloween' issue they did to be kind of boring overall. Everything else was primarily hits, and I'll be carrying this forward next year.

[etdraconis]

Slight blog maintenance thing for today: I’m adding Lidia Cervos and Tharion Ketos from Crescent City, and am considering adding Alex Stern and Darlington from Ninth House.

I’m temporarily taking of my GoT verses because I just don’t have the muse for it anymore. I’ve also taken away my GoT muses already (except Jaime by request and for certain AUs only). It may change after I finally get to start watching s2 of HotD, but we’ll see.

Right now my highest muse is for Dragon Age, Bridgerton, and Maasverse things - both muses and AUs for those. Also starting to get more muse for Grishaverse again as well. I’m working on Bridgerton verses for several of my non-Bridgerton muses bc my brained is hyper-fixated on it tbh, and also Percy Jackson verses for my muses bc I’m reading the series again. If anyone wants to plot with any of these verses, shoot me a dm!

[veeples]

book recommendations

@lavampira AND @narrativefoiltrope beloveds tagged me! thank you for the tag dani and i'm still soooo thrilled you loved goth western so much <3

tagging: @nerdferatum and @winesharksea and anyone else! tbh if you're a mutual of mine and you're on storygraph hmu, i love following other people and seeing what they're reading.

1. the last book I read:

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty — I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't expecting to tear up from a memoir detailing her year working for a crematory, but it ended up being a very touching experience in understanding how Caitlin went from college graduate to eventual Ask a Mortician (one of my fave youtubers I miss her so much). It is a book that deals with death, both the traumatic and the relatively peaceful, so maybe not the LIGHTEST of reads, but one I actually wanna re-visit soon!

2. a book I recommend:

The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin — I got recommended this series by @queerbrujas, and wow! I think if you're someone whose interested for a sort of, soft start into sci-fi, the elements are there and add value, but the emotional arcs and world building that unfolds is just so masterfully done. Once I really got into the first book, I tore through the next two in the series with relative ease.

3. a book that I couldn’t put down:

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo — This is just a super fun fantasy read!! It makes me wanna read more like, fast paced heist sort of novels. Each character in the ensemble has a strong personality so they all stand out from each other, but they complement each other well and offer interesting relationships with each other! I was so enamored by the book I had to run out to a store to buy the sequel the night I finished it.

4. a book I’ve read twice (or more):

The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir — Funny thing is, I almost never re-read books because I feel like, good God I already have so many on my to be read list that I keep adding onto, I don't have time to re-read books. But this series has a ton of re-readability value, and it's almost necessary to take a second or third or fourth pass (depending on how insane you are) to pick up on the subtleties and the continuous narrative of themes that Muir puts down once you get past the memes and lesbians. I'm putting the whole series here because I've read Gideon the Ninth, Harrow the Ninth, and Nona the Ninth 2-3 times now and will probably re-read again before Alecto the Ninth comes out (impatient grumbling).

5. a book on my TBR:

Sterling House by Alix E. Harrow — Can I be completely honest, I actually don't know that much about this book. A librarian gave me a little book magazine when I was picking up some books one day and this book was on the cover. And the cover was just very pretty. I'm a very shallow person, you see. Also a bit like a bird because I see something pretty and I want it. But I also really wanna read Dungeon Meshi, so there's that too.

6. a book I’ve put down:

The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World's Greatest Piece of Cheese by Michael Paterniti — This book was honestly such a drag to read. Slow paced and at 80% in, I still hadn't gotten to the confrontation between the original cheesemaker and his best friend who sold his family's cheese and business for money, which is so hyped up. There's a point to it taking so fucking long, and the point is, that's apparently just how the people the author visited told stories. Long winding tales with bunches of offshoots. Probably great as an orally told story. Bit miserable as written word.

7. a book on my wishlist:

The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels by Stefan Timmermans, Pamela Prickett — This one I saw in an e-mail for new books that came out in March, I think, and I have an interest in funeral practices and issues in modern day death management, thanks to being such a big fan of Caitlin Doughty. This book deals with the growing phenomenon of the unclaimed dead, which got touched upon in one of Caitlin's books, but not expanded upon. I try not to buy books if I can avoid it, but this one being so new and probably a little too niche for my library, I'll have to purchase it if I wanna read it!

8. a favorite book from my childhood:

??? — I don't think I have one to speak of that I can remember. I remember really being enchanted with some book about a girl finding a secret garden, so maybe it was Literally just The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgsen Burnett. Or like, I really liked the kid's book about the old lady who swallows a fly. Does that count???

9. a book you would give to a friend:

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson — This book was recommended to me by a friend, specifically the audiobook version. And wow, yeah! I kind of judge audiobook, and really narrator quality, by this one! The narrator put so much love and emotion into narrating the book, which really highlighted the emotional high points and made them punchier. This book may have made cry a little because I am always a sucker about characters who feel they don't fit in anywhere, who feel odd, who feel different, but find support and community and love with other people who feel the same way. So, like, I would definitely give this book to someone if they wanted an introduction to how good audiobooks can be.

10. a book of poetry or lyrics you own:

The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems by Pablo Neruda — I bought the bilingual version of this book last year so I could see how Spanish is used in poetry, and then found out that he has a complex way of using Spanish so maybe it's not that useful. <3 And then I didn't read it at all, it's still on my bookshelf. Judging me. u_u I'll get to it one day.

11. a nonfiction book you own:

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado — Don't remember how this book got on my radar, but I went out and bought it and was so pleasantly surprised by how the style Machado uses in it to detail her memoir of an abusive relationship. So it's not a light read whatsoever, but just by style alone made it very evocative, it almost reads like literary fiction. I never thought about approaching memoirs or non-fiction in what I figure is a kind of non-standard way, so it stands out from the other non-fiction books I've read.

12. what are you currently reading:

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver — So this is apparently a sort of, like, modern retailing of Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, which I would have got, except like, I'm not that big of a literary nerd. So I had to look that up. Really, it caught my attention because I'm currently re-listening to a fave podcast, Old Gods of Appalachia, and this book is set in like, 80s-90s Appalachia so it's adjacent enough to my interest. So far it is masterfully written and has such a strong voice for the narrator and protagonist. It's also a thick ass book, well over 500 pages which is a bit out of my usual range, but it's been nice to sit down with a longer story that feels like I'm sitting down to listen to the guy tell me his life's story.

13. what are you planning on reading next:

??? — Bruv who knows? I don't plan these things until I'm done with whatever I'm reading now u.u. I have a little gay romance I bought during indie bookstore day and I also promised @sysba to read some other Chinese manhua with some other sad tragic gay boys. It'll probably be that one.

[none-house-left-grief]

no please share your Bloodbourne AU with us….im glad im not the only one thinking about this

Hey sorry I'm only getting to this now! I never get asks for this blog so I don't bother checking often.

I don't have any particularly detailed thoughts, and a lot of things just don't fully add up unless you ignore some lore on both ends but here's re a few ideas I've had (they're all just very very obvious connections tbh they're not super interesting I think):

Obviously the religion of the Ninth is the Healing Church

The Cathedral Ward, specifically Oedon Chapel, would be the Ninth/Drearburh equivalent

It gets a bit complicated when we get to talking about the Lyctors, Resurrection Beasts, and BoS, however

I think the best option for BoS to be would be the hunters (Wake being the much sexier and much much less creepy version of Gherman (would that make Pyrrha Lady Maria?) as the leader/founder)

The Byrgenwerth Scholars could be the Lyctors (or necromancers more broadly)

The Lyctors would be the known bosses and scholars we know of (Maria, Micolash, Rom, etc.) although they could also include hunters like Gascoigne

The RBs would be the bosses that are not human (Amygdala, Blood Starved Beast, (potentially Vicar Amelia idk how I feel about including her tbh)

Here's the tricky part:

John and Alecto could be Willem and Laurence, but I see Jod as Laurence in this (because he would use the blood (which in this case it would be the necromantic equivalent ig??) to "help" people but Alecto would not vibe with it)

However Willem was essentially the founding figure of Byrgenwerth, which, if we didn't do a 1:1 comparison could also work

Laurence could also be Anastasia the First, being the respective founders of their churches

Another issue is that I don't know what to make of the necro/cav duos. Admittedly, this is what makes the AU fall apart for me a little, although I'm sure there's a way to make it work

The easiest thing to do would be to make them Hunters, but then the BoS thing would have to be different

We could pull a Soul Eater and have the cavs be the Hunter weapons because the healing church also has hunters, but that doesn't quite fit for me

Unless

The Cainhurst Vilebloods could be the BoS equivallent, going against the church founded under Laurence/John

This lets the hunters be necromancers and their cavaliers, provided they hunt in pairs

This also lets Pyrrha be Maria and have some ties to BoE through Wake

Some characters might not have direct connections tho

Nona is hard to account for on account of the whole Nona thing

Characters like Patches don't seem to fit with tlt either

The House system would have to be potentially scrapped, although they could be allied/paired off based off of branches from the Scholars

Magic is also a challenge, as the closest thing are the Arcane Hunter Tools and Blood which isn't the same as necromancy (especially not TLT necromancy with the intricacies of the River, thanergy and thallergy, etc.)

Lyctorhood would also be a challenge, although it could be as simple as "the soul/body/blood is absorbed when 'ascended'" or something

The whole "Bloodborne is full of references to the horrors of womanhood and pregnancy and femininity and blood" thing also doesn't fit quite as neatly with tlt because it has a more anti-imperialist bend to it and gender-fuckery happens, but it's not quite like in Bloodborne

For this reason, the whole Pthumerian part of the lore doesn't fit in any way that's easily apparent to me, although I'm open to ideas on all of this, particularly I would love to find a way to fit Queen Yharnam into all this without just making her Wake because they're both the only ones who are prego.

Anyway yeah that's about it lmao hope it's as interesting as you thought it would be

[starberry-cupcake]

Alrighty, here we are again

previously, in harrowcita the ninth:

this happened

currently, after ch. 2 (once again, I wanted to read more but realized these notes were too long):

first off, I need to point out something very important

reading the first part of gideon, this was how the dynamic of her and harrow felt like, from gideon's pv in the first chapter or two

this is what it actually was like, now that I have harrow's pv

so, now that we've cleared that up, let me tell you about the emperor

I don't know about this guy

something's not adding up for me

I feel like he's either lying, telling half-truths that benefit him or he doesn't know what he's doing

and none of those options are very god-tier

he's also constantly going like "harrow, I'm gonna let you choose" and five minutes later he's "oh, actually, you never had a choice to begin with, I'm so sorry about that"

I don't think you're sorry if you've done it like 3 times since we've met you

maybe say what you actually mean, unless you're full of lies

he takes harrow on a walk through the clown death star ship he's got going on

and takes her to his coffin hangar

shows her coffins of the people he made to send to the ninth

the new ninth people

aiglamene is gonna have to work overtime

(I can't believe I've never forgotten her name)

and then there's coffins for all the little friends we made in canaan house

:) ♥

except there are a bunch missing people

let me just note the info we got

the second says "no human remains inside"

last we saw them, martita was KO and judith was bleeding to death

nobody from the third as well, and we already have suspicions about wtf is happening with these parsley and cilantro twins

from the sixth, one is empty because CAMILLA ISN'T DEAD GODDAMMIT

the other one has little pieces of palmolive in it

me picking up the pieces of palmolive from the decor of canaan house

there is one coffin for not!dulcinea

the emperor guy says he's taking her with the other lyctors

as long as he flushes afterwards, it's fine

we are, by the way, trying very hard to not mention gideon ever, apparently

just wanna point out real quick that THERE'S A LOT OF PEOPLE UNACCOUNTED FOR and this guy is GOD so he's doing a terrible job

or he's not saying all he knows

or both

all this time, ice cube barbie is tagging along

ice cube barbie is harrow's babadook, which I stan tbh

since she's here to stay, let me show you another pic of that doll because it's my favorite from the haunted beauty collection

so, the emperor starts telling harrow what they're fighting against (or escaping from) and where they came from

this man explains what he wants and leaves out what he wants

at one point, when harrow asks something like "how will you explain all the dead people?" he goes like

he asks harrow about death and the process of it and she says, at one point:

"In cases of apopneumatic shock, where death is sudden and violent, the energy burst can be sufficient to countermand osmotic pressure and leave the soul temporarily isolated. Whence we gain the ghost, and the revenant."

this is important for the later conversation about revenant beasts, which are the things that the emperor is having trouble with

but I highlighted it because I am adding it to my notes of "reasons why gideon could be not dead forever"

I am holding on to all the hope I can get

because if sudden violent death can leave the soul temporarily isolated and not do the due process of transitioning to the river or whatnot

and gideon isn't within harrow or whatever

maybe

maybe she's somewhere else

I don't know, let me have this, don't tell me anything, just

LET ME HAVE THIS

so yeah, basically the story is that the emperor is running away from nine revenant beasts, which were created during the resurrection, when a planet was blasted off

nine beasts like nine houses

there's three left now

I don't know about all of this, you guys

I don't have enough context and I don't trust this guy here

how do I know where we stand in all this?

what if he's not the good guy and what he did was some planetary bullshit to begin with?

what if the other side is the good guys?

what if he's killed by one of our heroes? like harrow or gideon or camilla?

because he's actually a false god jerk?

what if I kill him????

and then we have two last important things

first, barbie ice cube speaks now

love that for her

then, very crucial

the non-gideon mentioning seems to be a Thing

I don't know if I'm understanding correctly but

the emperor mentions ortus

ortus, the one we knew, our old pal from the ninth

and I got the feeling, idk if I got it, that he just assumed ortus was the cavalier she had with her

because 1) he didn't go down there and 2) no body was recovered

and then harrow also mentions ortus, but she says he "died thinking it was the only gift he was capable of giving" and that she "wasted it" and idk if she did that because she's blocking sad memories, she's confused because she's Not Doing Great Mentally Right Now, she doesn't wanna tell the emperor what actually happened, or all three

there's stuff about ortus I don't know, but that sounds to me more like what gideon said than what ortus "Got Blown To Bits With Mom In Ship" did

and then the emperor says his name again with suspicion and I'm like

I think this clown doesn't know

I think he doesn't know about gideon

I think he doesn't know about gideon or who gideon actually is

which we don't know yet either but it's probably important

because she's hercules, as previously established

I think maybe gideon is an outlier

an important planetary outlier

I have hopes

also, another day without camilla

god (not this one) I hope I can make shorter recaps but there's so much happening, I'm so sorry

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

Gideon the Ninth Appendices (continued)

Cohort Intelligence Files

Oh, these are written by Judith!

Wow, she and Marta joined the Cohort when they were literal children - eleven and ten, respectively. I guess it's somewhat common to burden little kids with responsibilities early amongst the Nine Houses?

On Naberius Tern:

He also has an extremely good opinion of himself and his swordplay, an opinion that Lt. Dyas notes occasionally aligns with reality.

Oh I love the subtle shade here. I'm also noting that Coronabeth's charisma seems to dazzle even Judith Deuteros as she is writing this, since she doesn't know about her or Ianthe's necromantic prowess - yes they were homeschooled, but knowing that necromancers are usually frail, wouldn't you wonder whether Ianthe is more necromantically apt, quietly, from her sister's shadow?

I guess not.

On Isaac Tettares:

the eldest of eight. [...] Father killed by terrorists out on [REDACTED] nineteen years ago: all of his children have been posthumous and the title held in stewardship.

Interesting! Also the bit about how kids can be born either of XX-carrier or vat-womb. Reproduction sure has advanced a great deal (as has the disconnection of sex from gender, apparently - which I've noticed before, but is obvious enough here to comment on it!)

Anyway, as we learned in Harrow the Ninth, the father does not have to be physically present for a child to get their genetic material. All you need is said genetic material. If you're in an important position in your House, presumably it's custom to save an amount of genetic material so you can continue to have heirs in the event of your death.

It seems customary for the Fourth to go to school at the Fifth, which explains the close relationship between Isaac and Jeannemary, and Abigail and Magnus.

On Protesilaus:

He's married??? He has children???? Oh my goodness, that makes his unfortunate demise at Cytherea's hands so much more tragic.

... Okay, I think that's all I really have to say on that!

A little explanation of naming systems

I did already get the idea, literally from the Dramatis Personae in Gideon the Ninth, that names refer to your House. Interesting to me is that they work differently to current surnames: people have different last names to their parents, and their last names are at least somewhat unique to them. Even siblings rarely share a name, making Coronabeth and Ianthe exceptions to the rule.

Interesting!!

Pelleamena and Priamhark: It shouldn't surprise me that these two are named for people in the Iliad. I kind of figured, with Priamhark, but it's a little less obvious with Pelleamena.

I adore the little pronounciation guides, tbh.

Crux, to rhyme with "sucks": Yeah sounds about right

Marta Dyas: DIE-ass. I'm sorry, I couldn't come up with anything better.

You know, I'm glad I decided to dig into these in a bit more detail, because Tamsyn's notes on these are hilarious.

On Ianthe and Coronabeth:

In the original, Ianthe and Corona were "Cainabeth and Abella", a feat of naming so unsubtle that I might as well have just gone with "Goodtwin" and "Badtwin". And it's not even accurate! It should be Badtwin, and Lessbadtwin.

I'm reminded of Coronabeth going "She could have taken me!!!" after Ianthe became Lyctor. Oh, she sure could have! Why do you sound jealous, Coronabeth?

On Jeannemary and Isaac:

Isaac here foreshadows Gideon's death by doing the "bravest and stupidest" thing, i.e. getting his abdomen made into a huge Connect-4 board. I might as well have called Jeannemary and Isaac "Don'tgetattached" and "Deadsoon".

Okay, rude. I mean, I didn't end up reading into the naming while reading Gideon for the first time, though maybe I should have. Maybe I wouldn't have gotten so attached (and upset) when they were both deadsoon.

On Palamedes:

Pal-AM-a-dees. At first I had a coarse comparison here, but then I removed it.

Palamadeez nuts, lol. So rude, Tamsyn.

Oh wow, more foreshadowing in the names of Dulcinea and Protesilaus. Wow. Okay remind me to dissect any new names that come up in Nona the Ninth (whenever I get to actually reading that).

... Okay, we're done with the appendices of Gideon the Ninth!!

Now soon to follow: Appendices of Harrow the Ninth, including As Yet Unsent, then I will read The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex, and then, then finally, we will start on our reread of Gideon and Harrow.

I can't wait!

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 40, 41, and 42 of Harrow the Ninth

I did read Chapter 43 also, so I got the explanation of what's going on here, but I wanted one post just to talk about all these, uh, AUs, I guess? I gather Harrow's dream bubble river bubble is just going a bit haywire because she's badly wounded or something

The first one seems to be an AU where Harrow was not a necromancer, but Gideon was, and Harrow's parents adopted Gideon and disowned Harrow, if I'm understanding correctly. I wonder if they just opted not to murder 200 children in this universe, or if they did do that but the thanergy somehow caused Gideon to become a necromancer instead of Harrow because they miscalculated something? TBH, this seems like a completely different genre of enemies-to-lovers than the version where Harrow is suicidal due to being told constantly about the 200 dead children

Yeah, this is exactly what Harrow would be like as cavalier, or, I guess, aspiring cavalier, since I gather you have to actually be attached to a necromancer in order to really be a cavalier. I gather the only other options on the Ninth other than becoming a cavalier would be to just become a miscellaneous nun, or to realize Gideon's original dream of running off to join the Cohort. Although, there is also a Harrow-joins-the-Cohort AU in this set as well. Harrow says it's her right to carry the blade because she was born into the noble house, so presumably it's just that there's no other respectable career available for the nobility if they aren't necromancers

Something interesting here is that they both seem to be assuming that being Gideon's cavalier automatically makes one the cavalier primary, whereas based on Judith's notes about everyone's history that doesn't actually seem to be the case for at least most of the other Houses, since a lot of the other cavaliers became cavalier primary either before or after getting attached to their necromancer. The only one I can remember off the top of my head where it seemed like becoming the cavalier to the heir necessarily made you cavalier primary was in the case of Magnus and Abigail, but I could be misremembering. It also didn't seem to me like this kind of challenge that Harrow is issuing here would be a normative thing to happen, that someone would challenge a necromancer's cavalier for the right to take their place with that necromancer, it seemed like cavalierships were meant to be a death-do-us-part thing, and a lot of the pairs seem to have been specifically selected for compatibility at birth or a very young age (e.g. Mayonnaise Uncle and Colum), and that compatibility was more important than something like martial ability

This is not a context where I expected to see the word "flog", so I looked it up:

Since the author is a kiwi, I guess she means definition 4, rather than definition 3? That's really interesting, I had no idea "flog" was used in either of those senses

Right, so, this is the cavalier!Harrow version of opening the Tomb, isn't it? Except in this case Gideon intervenes on her behalf, instead of telling on her. Or maybe she did both?

Interesting that Samael is just Anastasia's "warrior servant" here, and not specifically called out as her cavalier, or maybe that's just another way of saying it?

Harrow does know the contents of the Noniad, so presumably this is in there in some capacity, or she's at least heard Ortus talk about this. I wonder what Lyctor Nonius supposedly stood against? There's a very finite number of them

Funny that the role reversal didn't change Crux's opinion of anyone, he has no truck with this adoption nonsense and is still 100% loyal to Harrow and hates Gideon

The next one seems to be an arranged marriage AU of some sort, I feel like these are getting progressively more and more griddlehark content, or just more and more direct Gideon involvement as they go, possibly due to Harrow gradually resurrecting her memories of Gideon

I note that in the last one, Crux had a speaking part, and in this one, Aiglamene has a speaking part. According to Magnus and Abigail in Chapter 43, the major roles in these are played by ghosts in the River, but as far as I'm aware Crux and Aiglamene are still alive on Pluto. Did something happen on Pluto since the last time we saw them? Although Corona seems to be in this one, too, albeit not as a speaking part

Ianthe's soup recipe, lmao

The third one is a Harrow-joins-the-Cohort AU, but it's also... a coffee shop AU, and I guess "BARI" is meant to recall "barista"? Ok, look, the reason people write coffee shop AUs (and high school AUs, and college roommate AUs, etc.) is that those are everyday social situations that are very familiar to the people writing the story, so that's just naturally what they fall back on when they want to write an AU, they want to bring the characters into their everyday lives, or write about them in a situation that they have a lot of first-hand knowledge of. The first AU is in fact a social situation that Harrow would at least be pretty familiar with, even if it's not her actual everyday experience, and the arranged marriage thing, that does definitely seem like something that happens in this universe, it's been mentioned several times at different points, even if Harrow has never personally been involved in something like that. But I don't think Harrow has any personal experience of anything like a coffee shop, or with interacting with food service people in general? Why is there a coffee shop AU here? I guess the reason the last Canaan House episode established Harrow's familiarity with coffee was to set up the basis for this coffee shop AU, but it seems kind of odd given that Gideon had no familiarity at all with hot drinks and Harrow also had no familiarity with tea or how to drink it without burning herself

Did Isaac have earrings in Gideon the Ninth, or is this just a reference to how he died?

Ahh, 14-year-old logic

Also, speaking of mumps, why are people getting mumps in this setting? Even if the Resurrection/etc. wiped out all knowledge of modern medicine, is 10,000 years really not enough time in which to reinvent the MMR vaccine? Also, I seem to remember now that Dulcinea claimed that her breathing tube had been invented by Palamedes, which means it somehow hadn't been invented before Palamedes. You would think that the kind of anatomical knowledge that necromancy would require would mean that medical science is more advanced, not less

Is this "absolutely not, I'm not going to be part of your coffee shop AU about you and your crush", or "absolutely not, you're not dragging my poor dead kids into this River bubble"? It seemed so perfectly to be the first one when I got to the end of the chapter, but then when I read Chapter 43, I started to think it might actually be the second

[jadejedi]

Sci-fi/Fantasy Book Review: The Locked Tomb (Books 1 and 2) by Tamsyn Muir

JJ’s rating 5/5

How feral did it make me 5/5

My book reviews

So, I initially picked up these books because I was looking for something similar to Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell. I think I saw someone on reddit compare The Locked Tomb to Ocean’s Echo due to both of them having the sort of soul-merge-y stuff, and that is absolutely true. If you want books that are like “what if two fucked up people want to lose themselves in someone else, only to realize that they can’t actually do that and have a healthy, functioning relationship?”, then both Ocean’s Echo and The Locked Tomb definitely both do those things. Also, they are also both about gays in space. So, I went into TLT with very few expectations. BUT GUYS THE LOCKED TOMB BOOKS ARE SO GOOD HOLY SHIT. I truly could not have guessed how incredible these books are when I started them. 

It’s possible that if you spend a lot of time on tumblr dot com that you have heard of these books because they are, like, exactly tumblr’s jam lmao. If ACOTAR was written perfectly for the booktok/bookstagram crowd, then this series was written perfectly for tumblr. It’s gay, full of ridiculous meme references, and genuinely laugh-out-loud funny while still delivering gut wrenching emotions. I will say I’ve never had two such different reading experiences for books in the same series. Gideon the Ninth is absolutely one of the most fun reading experiences I’ve ever had. Harrow the Ninth, on the other hand, is one of the most confusing. But, it is important to note that it is absolutely confusing on purpose. I genuinely think Tamsyn Muir was like, “what can I do to push the limits of the reading experience in two completely opposite ways” for these books. I fear for my life going into the third book, tbh. 

I just finished my first read of HtN last week, and have since reread GtN and have started rereading HtN and I have never had a more rewarding reread experience in my LIFE. Unless you take extensive notes, there are so so many clues and instances of subtle foreshadowing that will only make sense on a reread. There have already been dozens of times in this reread where something that didn’t quite make sense the first time, or in some cases, didn’t even register as odd on a first read through, makes me go “oh SHIT” and it is so satisfying. 

Here’s the summary (jesus trying to summarize this series in a paragraph is HARD): 10,000 years ago humanity was wiped out on its nine planets. The emperor resurrected everyone, gave some of those people necromantic abilities and became God. Each of the nine planets has a ruling house that specializes in a form of necromancy. The Ninth House specializes in bone magic, and has the special task of guarding The Locked Tomb, which holds the one thing that could destroy the Emperor and therefore all human life. Our story centers on Gideon Nav, an orphan and indentured servant of the Ninth House who desperately wants to escape and become a soldier. Her nemesis is Harrowhark Nonagesimus, the heir to the Ninth House. They hate each other, but in a “I am completely and utterly obsessed with you” kind of way. Harrow is invited to go to the First House to try to become one of God’s immortal body guards (Lyctors), but needs a bodyguard (cavalier) of her own for this trial/competition thing, so she basically backs Gideon into a corner where her only way to leave the Ninth is to go with her to the First House, because Gideon is a hella good swordswoman. Once they get to the First House, they meet the heirs and cavaliers of Houses 2-8 and they all try to figure out how to become Lyctors. Book Two follows Harrow in the nine months following this competition and that’s all I can say about it without completely spoiling everything. 

If you want to read these books (which you absolutely should), I would recommend going in as blind as possible. However, especially as you are reading Harrow the Ninth, you feel a little confused. Or a lot confused. I recommend going to r/theNinthHouse on Reddit and searching for the “hot tomb summer” reread-along. It covers both of these two books and goes in about five chapter sections. All spoilers are hidden so it is safe to use on a first read.

These books are absolutely one of a kind, and they are PHENOMENAL. The dynamic between Harrow and Gideon is absolutely delicious. Do you like enemies to (hopefully) lovers? Do you like some good ole fashioned fealty? Do you like one character being like “please use me, consume me, eat me, please” and the other being like “I will show my love by not using, consuming, or eating my love interest”? Do you like devastating heart-to-hearts in a pool? Do you like references to the Bible and Shakespeare right next to semi-obscure meme references? Have you ever looked at a fictional couple and thought, “You know what would really put them over the top? SKULL FACEPAINT!”? Then these books are for you!!! I genuinely haven’t stopped thinking about these books since I finished Harrow. GtN was one of my best reads of 2023, and I already know that HtN is one of my best reads of 2024. I genuinely cannot recommend them enough.

[sunfortune]

how would you like the alex stern book to end or how do you think it will end?

i have not thought about it tbh but i think the fact that at the end of hell bent alex and darlington are uniquely powerful in a way that lethe are not should be significant. (and i only specify that bc the cruel prince also had jude get powers at the end of the second book and then it was just not relevant?! and i don’t want that again😒lol)

though on ninth house leigh bardugo said she initially meant for it to be an ongoing series and when i read the first book i got that sense too. i don’t think alex and darlington are anywhere Near a conclusion so it’ll be interesting to see how she does end it. now that i think about it she might do an ambiguous open ending . which . personally i would hate lmao. but we’ll see!

i think the way their dynamic was set up they really were meant to be a darker scullymulder type with being partners for aaaaages before they unrepressed a single emotion regarding how they feel about each other. so yeah im especially curious to see if it sticks the landing regarding their relationship

also i need them to [redacted] nasty. but i don’t just want it willy nilly bc it’s the conclusion. i need it to make sense. i need it to be compatible with both of their characters. this is serious to me, Leigh