#g1deon and wake

[beguilingcorpse]

btw it is SO funny to me that harrow the ninth sets up the question of gideon's parentage by obscuring g1deon's name through most of the book. and if you're able to piece any of it together early you're like hang on..... a lyctor named gideon.... who MUST have known commander wake...... biblically, dare i say........ and he's a ginger......... and then the actual reveal happens and it's like oh actually that's all unrelated. yeah wake did have a torrid affair with two people in the same body but that's not relevant to her pregnancy. you see actually there was a nefarious threesome and they stole god's sperm so wake could self-inseminate. yeah g1deon kind of just happened to be there. sorry

[keplerspacecraftofficial]

imagine ur doing 90 in a 55, ur water just broke, u arent even trying to get to the hospital about it youre trying to get away from your ex man (who is also your girl) who is also the fucking traffic cop trying to arrest you for speeding and also some unrelated stuff (the only reason he hasnt called a full on car chase is because he thinks you're pregnant with his kid) (its not his kid, you specifically picked his boss as your sperm donor to make said boss’s life hell) and you have a pretty good idea about what the last couple hours of commander wake's life was like

[nercynorning]

You know I had to do it to em

Based on this post

Characters made using this picrew by PotatoLord, clumsily edited by me

Sword made with this picrew by iienex

[bb-enablefreebuild]

My hc is that Wake was like. In her late 40s when she had Gideon because it adds to how desperate and dedicated she was to her mission to open the tomb despite the low odds of her pregnancy surviving.

So imagine. You’re 49 years old. You just gave birth to a baby you plan to kill and your hunky ex-lover who is also your enemy is hunting you down to kill you. This woman had EVERYTHING working against her and she still tried. She only begged when she knew she was cornered.

[beyoncesfiancee]

what's on your secret internal moodboard for your wake/g1d/pyrrha trifecta, esp with the first two (since pyrrha gets a lot of love as it is)? what are the biggest wellsprings you're drawing from/aiming for with everyone's favorite scourgin' mary and inverted brutus?

i could smack a big kissy on your face for such an apropos question !

wake

is everything to me. obviously. what matters to me with her is contextualizing her canonical violence and wrath (like achilles' wrath... HELLO... she's a mortal woman whose wrath dares to reach the heights of the gods and which ultimately destroys her...) in light of her role as the leader of a revolution. she's literally not purposelessly angry or purposelessly violent. I already blew up someone else's inbox about this today lol but imo the books portray BOE as a whole in kind of a clueless way from the liberal exterior viewpoint, that doesn't really get into what a revolutionary movement would themselves value and hold as their norms & ethics. and in regard to that, how and why they use violence, and how and why violence is so much a part of wake's language.

I'm reading the zapatista reader atm and have been for the last few months, not that i really see wake as a subcomandante marcos figure because she's not as much of a speaker/demagogue, more so that much like the indigenous resistance in chiapas the sheer cultural, linguistic, and political polyphony of any BOE organization must mean that wake is a brilliant, compelling figure that people want to follow. she's not a violent brute (one way she's often depicted in fandom too...) she's a POLITICAL LEADER who has united MULTIPLE WINGS THAT OPERATE COMPLETELY SEPARATELY to accomplish HUGE OPERATIONS THAT SEVERELY STRUCK AT THE ROOTS OF THE DEEPLY ENTRENCHED EMPIRE. like... she's 100% a compelling speaker and leader and someone you trust and want to follow into suicide missions, because you know she'll bring you success. and she had and did! you can't be stupid with how you use violence and achieve that level of success!

and the one thing you need to add to wake to make canon click with her humanity is literally just that—her internal truth and her humanity. the reason why she's doing what she's doing. because the cruelty of the empire broke her heart and she has enough life and fire overflowing in her to want to keep that from happening to anyone else. the rest all falls into place once you start writing her like that

I also see her as a figure of classical greek tragedy—she's the ultimate example of being destroyed by hubris (trusting a lyctor!!), and compared to the other two points of the triangle she's the most fragile and mortal, yet also the most explosive and larger-than-life. her life is a brief yet enormous blaze compared to g1deon's eternal stonelike misery and pyrrha's lone, flickering star. and because she pursued life so hungrily and overreached in striving with the gods for greatness (there we go with achilles again), she was always doomed to death. the domain of her lifelong hated enemy. wow someone should write some dactylic hexameter greek epic poem-style about her confrontation with her own mortality in the river and how her religious beliefs are thereby challenged and her rage is fanned enough to turn her into a revenant ^_^ ahem ahem

also i think because her main squeeze has a cock people are always making them fuck PIV style and i think that's boring tbh. i mean yes it's fun and sexy and we all love a good dicking down (well many of us) but i like having her and pyrrha fuck queer style because i think it's more reflective of her character to break boundaries, fuck with traditions, be a cunt who devours and circludes, violate the norms of cav-necro penetrative erotics, and aggressively top in pursuit of her own pleasure (in addition to which... well see the last paragraph of my pyrrha answer)

i also didn't even get into the virgin mary thing but in my BOE griddlehark fic i have kind of a marian ancestor worship cult around wake (props to @katakaluptastrophy for providing the thinking behind BOE's animist ancestor worship religion) and in my dactylic hexameter thing i have a big list of epithets by clarissa pinkola estés for the virgin mary/the madonna/the wild mother: obsidian blade... the undoer of knots... she who carries the soul across fenced frontiers... the shirt of arrows... the black madonna...

also listen to this impeccable wake playlist which I'm pretty sure is by @dve if i'm am not mistaken

g1deon

is ofc the dark horse in both the books and the resultant fandom. i've already written at length about what a disservice i feel both the books and fandom have done his character (try clicking 10 random wake/pyrrha fics and NOT finding a scornful comparison of how shitty a lover g1d is or what a douche he is generally as a tactic to differentiate him from pyrrha).

so for me what's important to him, and what defines his character, is the sacrifices he makes for john both pre- and post-rez. he's hector, he's the archangel michael, he's the archetype of warrior manhood !but! in an utterly self-abnegating way. this is one facet of the way john's necromancy takes everything positive (in the +-charged sense, not in the yay happy sense) and turns it inward, perverted, and starved.

unlike a man raised in a patriarchal warrior culture, g1deon has no pride or identity in his kills and the sacrifices he makes to accomplish them, and he has no brotherhood. the two people he truly loved were both women, and he killed them both for the sake of john's goals. and he used to have a brother, even, he and john used to be brothers, but john removed himself from that role w/ g1deon for the pursuit of power.

so any way i choose to depict g1deon will be as 1) someone with dignity and selfhood in a way that the fandom only rarely seems to think he deserves, and 2) someone with a heart who has loved and lost in the name of devotion. not that he's a soft man or that he hasn't done atrocious things in john's name. but it's just to counterbalance his book&fandom portrayal in a way i feel is more fair and interiorizing.

anyway stream swim good that's basically everything I wanted to say about him... i didn't write as much about him in this answer but we really don't get much of him in the books, SMH. I don't like to go too off-piste from canon but I want to take what's there and honor the humanity hidden within it. (I have to guess that we'll have more g1deon in alecto, right? it just wouldn't be fair otherwise, right? ... RIGHT?? T_T)

pyrrha

and you didn't say especially pyrrha but i think that my secret internal moodboard for pyrrha is important as well!!! in my 5 planned pyrrwakeon fics (3 currently pubbed), none are from pyrrha's POV, and that has a twofold purpose. 1) there are already a ton of fics from her POV, as you say, as well as a whole canon novel focused on her, and i want to explore the two under-served points of the love triangle, and 2) i actually really like her as an enigma.

e.g., something people neglect with her a bit i think is her suicidality. how else can you characterize someone who falls in love with landmines? the woman swallowed bleach for god's sake. jury's still out on whether she killed herself or g1deon killed her for their ascension (i have it as her killing herself in my g1dfic but i've been thinking and now i'm not so sure i want to go for that) but if there's one thing we know about pyrrha it's that she fucking loves doing shit that's very dangerous and a horrible idea, partially to feel alive, partially to feel dead and thereby free.

so therefore my theory on her caring for nona, and less so cam & pal, is an uncharacteristic break toward life and hope in the long long slide through samsara as a means of escaping soul death that has been her 9000-year undead existence thus far. but i find the depiction of this facet of her character to be far more compelling from the outside, such as, from wake's POV, or g1deon's.

ALSO SHE WOULD NOT WANT TO BE A MOM OR DAD AND DOES NOT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT BEING A PARENT SORREEEEEEEEE (her "why did you bring along the baby" is about her pity for a helpless creature suffering yet more needless death, not that it's specifically hers and wake's, and her care for gideon nav & nona are on a soft human level despite herself because no one else will and not demonstrative of a secret desire for parenthood STOP MAKING WOMEN CHARACTERS WANT TO BE PARENTS *panting & swallowing bile*)

anywayyyy very very very soon forthcoming to explore this final third of the triangle is my ultimate wake/pyrrha lying liars genderfic in which she, through the proxy of getting fucked by wake, wrestles with her grief over losing both her own body and losing g1deon as her lover/partner/friend. and you can bet wake just looooves being used as a proxy for someone else to work through their issues ^_^

...

in conclusion, wake/pyrrha/g1deon is a land of contrasts. let wake have political values, let g1deon be a fucking human being, and stop making pyrrha always top. thank u.

[fantasy-mixtapes]

The first locked tomb read through is for Gideon and Harrow

The second is for Ianthe and Coronabeth

The third is for Pyrrha, G1deon, and Wake

[fortjester]

The Sixth, Love, & Burning

(Leviticus 10:1 from The Bible (NKJV) // Nona the Ninth pg. 139 // I, Carrion (Icarian) by Hozier // Harrow the Ninth pg. 289 // Nervous Young Inhumans by Car Seat Headrest // Gideon the Ninth pg. 404 // L.G. FUAD by Motion City Soundtrack // Gideon the Ninth pg. 406 // Summertime by My Chemical Romance // Gideon the Ninth pg. 263 // Strange Fire by the Indigo Girls // Gideon the Ninth pg. 264 // Body to Flame by Lucy Dacus // Nona the Ninth pg. 423 // Corinthians 1:13 from The Bible (NKJV) // Nona the Ninth pg. 420 // Sunlight by Hozier // Gideon the Ninth pg. 404 // Would That I by Hozier // Harrow the Ninth pg. 252 // Lucy Dacus about Body To Flame // Nona the Ninth pg. 122 // Burn Bright by My Chemical Romance // Harrow the Ninth pg. 252 & 253 // Burned Out by Dodie // Nona the Ninth pg. 123)

[enjoylentgreen]

Pyrrha and Wake is hot as hell, don't get me wrong, but I feel like I definitely know how that would've happened.

Gideon and Wake? I need to know what was going on. I need to know their thoughts. Let me in there.

[cherishedboxart]

I KISSED YOU AND LATER I WOULD KISS HIM TOO BEFORE I UNDERSTOOD WHAT YOU WERE, AND ALL THREE OF US LIVED TO REGRET IT

[palamedesnutz]

more questions, sorry!

can someone explain the whole... thing... with wake, g1deon, and pyrrha? im confused

also i can't remember why wake was trying to open the tomb, was it just bc she figured whatever was in it would stop jod? did she know what was in it? and she was obviously explicitly working with mercy and augustine bc they got her the, uh, juice, right? she wasn't supposed to use the juice on herself, can someone remind me what she was supposed to do with it? and why did she die?

[carstairs112]

Currently rereading Harrow the Ninth (for the 3rd time) and there is one part I still don’t understand.

In ch 39, “Ortus” tells Harrow this while holding her head after she saves him.

“I know you’re there,” he rasped. “Kill me all you like. I would know you in the blindness of my eyes … in the deafness of my ears … as a shadow smudged against the wall, annihilated by light … stop. Not here. Not now. Let it go, love. I just want the truth … after all this time.”

Ortus dropped his hand and said, with intent: “Just tell me—back then—why you brought along the ba—”

This is definitely Pyrrha talking but she seems to be addressing Wake but talking to Harrow(‘s head). At this point Wake is in Cyth and just tried to murder them and Pyrrha is being intimate with Wake in Cyth’s body.

So why is she addressing Wake in Harrow’s body? Does this have to do with Harrow being haunted by the Sleeper?

[beedreamscape]

The Saint of Duty wakes up on a strange and shabby bed.

Lifts his head to a note crumpled beneath his cheek.

The note says, Sorry for that ;/ I was weak and she was a forest fire - Pyrrha

He frowns into the low light. Sees no bloodshed in his immediate vicinity.

Then he hears a snore behind his back and slowly turns around to find that Commander Wake is the messiest sleeper ever.

Also that they're both as naked as the day they were born.

Also that he fucked her. Scratch that, Pyrrha fucked her. And he felt a fraction of her pleasure. Then the phantom memory of bliss.

And concludes that - Wake has one tit uncovered and her hair is a nest and her skin is sprinkled with freckles - he doesn't blame her for it.

He doesn't blame her one bit.

He lies back down, turned to face his enemy, and closes his green-apple eyes.

(Or if G1deon and Pyrrha had exchange notes like Cam and Pal did.)

[liesmyth]

could you help explain something? when alecto surfaces in nona and scolds pyrrha for "playing mother and father" and insists that she should have eaten them - "i would have respected you much more for it" - what did she mean? as in, she shouldn't have gotten caught up in the sixth's business, and instead abandoned them to boe and go to the half-flipped moon by herself? or am i missing something??

OH I LOVE THAT PART. I also have no clue! It's such a punchy passage, but I have no idea of what it could possibly mean. "Eating someone" in TLT is mostly associated with Lyctorhood, in the sense of consumption, but I doubt that's what Alecto is referring to, since she's talking specifically to Pyrrha.

Or, like you suggest, she could simply be using "eating" as a shorthand for 'take advantage of' — it fits with whatever little we get of Alecto's vocabulary and thought patterns — and saying that she should've just looked after herself and left, instead of dedicating herself to a lost cause.

I also have no clue if when she says "US" she means Nona + Cam and Pal, or she means herself (Alecto + Nona and all her disjointed memories) or she means Alecto and whatever soul fragment is inside her (personally, I believe that a bit of Gideon's soul is inside Harrow's body.) Or she could even be saying "US" to mean herself and Varun as Resurrection Beasts, though that's less likely.

I think you're probably right and she's just using a very carnal metaphor to say that Pyrrha should have left, but like... I'm not ruling out that there's a more literal explanation that will introduce a new worldbuilding / "magical system" related element in AtN, just because I never know what to expect from this series. I'm once again so fascinated by the glimpses that we get of Alecto's personality because she's such an enigma.

For context, this is the full passage

(It also comes right after Nona telling Pyrrha that she shouldn't make Nona remember who she is, because Pyrrha "wouldn't like" what happens)

[nercynorning]

Harrow the Ninth Characters as NYT Minus Context Tweets

Harrow:

Mercymorn:

Augustine:

G1deon:

John Gauis:

The Body:

Ianthe:

Commander Wake:

River Bubble Crew:

The OG Lyctors:

Gideon Nav:

Pyrrha:

Everyone:

[derseprinceoftbd]

Wait

"Because I have only met one person before so willing to burn for what they believed in, and I loved him on sight. [...] and later, I would kiss him too,"

I'm not sure if this is Pyrrha, speaking about Gideon... or Gideon, speaking about *God*? The bit where "and I loved him the moment I saw him" seems to suggest the former, since iirc John and G were childhood friends...

[g1deonthefirst]

tbh i do think pyrrha/g1deon and wake rawdogged it at least once