#just like. this baby is a necromancer and this baby is a cavalier

[mayasaura]

so fucking funny to me when people talk about tlt setting like everyone in the whole society is sorted into being either a necromancer or a cavalier. like yes necromancy is an inborn trait. but cavalier? that's a wholeass job. that's a career. assigned butler at birth

[mercyisms]

incredibly me to not only be like 'i'd really love a succession/tlt au' and then to go 'also it's very important to me that frankgerrikarl be prominent in it.' incredibly me. incredibly, incredibly silly.

[absolutedestinyapocalypsse]

i love how as you read more into tlt, the ninth house seems more and more normal. Like if i'm at an immoral evil government competition, and i use human fat as soap and animate skeletons to do menial labor, i'm gonna LOSE if my competition is the third house, represented by ianthe "who HASN'T eaten human flesh and fucked a corpse" tridentarius. My weird skeleton thing seems normal, suddenly. Well-adjusted, even. It's recycling. They're using resources in a sustainable way. Normal and regular and productive for a post-climate change apocalypse universe.

People go on and on about how Muir drops you into gtn hearing from the person who knows the least about whats happening, and does not hand hold the reader through the crazy shit that occurs, and that's all true. It truly is a crazy writing decision to make your first pov character come from the universe's equivalent of amish fundamentalists. But the reader is actually done a huge favor being dropped into the ninth house first, because we already understand that space is cold and what catholic nuns are, and what goths look like, and what lesbians are. Very little time is wasted in the first chunk of gtn ripping hair out of your head wondering what the fuck is going on, because for all of its strangeness, the ninth house is already the most familiar thing we're gonna get.

Because THEN we learn that this whole universe's medieval chivalry system is designed to groom people from CHILDREN to not only be exploited and used as human batteries for necromancers, but to LIKE it. to wax poetic about it. to confuse it for love, to write fucking academic papers about it! Then we learn about planet flipping, an act so horrific and violent it turns the planet's soul into a massive vengeful monster capable of killing GOD. Like what do you MEAN the animals "change"? Is this why noodle has six legs? I would MUCH prefer to wear skeleton makeup and repent forever if the alternative was to witness my family dog grow TWO EXTRA LIMBS because the planet he lived on fucking died. Suddenly, living in the asscrack of a planet where no light gets in seems like a sweet deal when the whole solar system is lit by a sun that MAKES YOU GO CRAZY. The ninth house's WORST sin, killing 200 babies to make Harrow, a waste of resources and an act so terrible it haunts Harrow for the entire span of her life, is like a BLIP compared to the death count Jod's empire. God even hears about it and he's like, no big deal! The cohort probably kills that amount of people in a DAY.

And its ALSO tragic because you realize that all of this trauma and abuse that Gideon goes through is not really because of the ninth house at all. It's really just an individual skill issue that she wasn't treated with compassion. Nobody hated her because she's jesus or a bomb, nobody even KNOWS she's a bomb. It's just Priamhark and Pelleamena being deeply guilty and scared people that motivates her treatment, and absolutely nothing else.

They did something bad, and they know it, and Gideon survived it, and they can't kill her to cover it up, and that's IT. They killed themselves for pride, because they were afraid of the consequences of their actions (both the baby killing and Harrow opening the tomb) coming back to bite them. You can argue this is the catholicism of it all, and I wouldn't say you're wrong, but compared to the cavalier system, where exploitation is in the very lining of the house's institutions, the ninth house is really removed from the space empire's blood factory. This is compared to the fourth house where they have tons of children to be CANNON FODDER to join the cohort at fucking 14, compared to the eight house uncle nephew fuckery, even the fifth house which actually does seems nice to live on but also seems to have the fourth house in some sort of fucked up political bear hug??? (maybe the fourth house has so many kids in order to fight the fifth's battles? which is EXACTLY what jod's whole empire is about; politely stirring your tea and acting nice while you destroy everything) compared to ALL OF THAT, the cruelty that Gideon faces is really more a bug of the ninth's system than a feature.

There's nothing baked into the culture and everyday life of the ninth house that necessitated that cruelty; in fact, for such a pragmatic and resource-scarce place, it's WEIRD that a strong able-bodied young person was treated like a waste of space and resources. It could just have easily not happened, if Harrow's parents had been different people. Maybe they were products of their environment, but so was Harrow, and she values Gideon's life SO MUCH that she'd literally rather carve out parts of her own brain than exploit her. Gideon grows up knowing really NOTHING about cavaliers, so remote from the horrors of the empire that she develops an idea of what the cohort is from porn magazines. And in a lot of ways, that upbringing was desolate and terrible, and in a lot of other ways it literally DID NOT HAVE TO BE.

Gideon's MAIN THING is that she wants to be useful, to be needed, to be loved and it SUCKS that she couldn't even get it in the one place where she was actually an invaluable resource, where the death empire had the weakest reach. Gideon can't even blame her lack of love on the fucked up chivalry system like everyone else can because it JUST WASNT REALLY RELEVENT!?!?! This is like if i rolled up to the trauma competition and everyone else was raised in a nuclear warzone by wolves or something and i grew up in like, the suburbs and was raised by teachers and i somehow STILL WON. truly what the fuck guys.

[drastrochris]

Ok, stick with me on this one:

Harrow is born, and Priamhark and Pelleamena are overjoyed. The Ninth is saved!

But there's this weird redhead baby who rudely didn't die. The horrible great-aunts don't like it, and over Aiglamene's objections, send the child up with Crux to the top of the shaft where he opens her protective suit and watches as she insolently continues to live. So he chucks her down the shaft, where she bounces a few times, cries for a bit, then eventually crawls over to a basket where she steals a leek to chew on.

A few years later, they give Harrowhark the bones, and she immediately can manipulate them, again saving the Ninth. They give some to Gideon too, and she uses them to drum on every surface, including Harrow's head. She's told "the Reverend Daughter is not a percussion instrument," before Aiglamene takes her away to start her proper Cavalier training.

"You can't die," Aiglamene informs her as she slides a sword through Gideon's stomach, "so you must do whatever you can to protect Harrowhark."

"This still hurts, you know," Gideon replies.

Instead of growing up hating each other, they're brought up as a team. They still go into the Tomb, of course, because they're kids, and have been told explicitly never to go into the Tomb.

Harrow can't understand why Gideon can't die, but as long as she agrees to sign off on delivery orders from the Cohort of "periodicals, misc" and "cookies, assorted," Gideon is perfectly happy to let her drain a bit of blood and feed her deadly poisons. Eventually, she's watched Gideon not-die from nearly everything she can think of, and picks up on a slight resonance that sings out when Gideon doesn't die.

The letter arrives, Ortus has no part in this story, and Harrow and Gideon arrive at Canaan House without incident.

Until they walk down the shuttle ramp and see everyone else staring at them. "It's like these people haven't seen an immortal hero before. Or maybe you're just too much of a butt-hurt nun for the other houses." Chaos erupts as the Seventh House cav and necromancer immediately attack them, but the body of Protesilaus falls apart quickly under Gideon's blade, and the Lady Dulcinea is subdued with only minor structural damage. Even when she screams out that she's Cytherea the First, and that she "will not be stopped by children," it's clear that she has been.

In the aftermath, Teacher is delighted. "May I call you Harrowhark the First, with your living cavalier, Gideon the First? The first perfect lyctor. No, the first lyctor of any kind to see these halls for a myriad?"

Palamedes is torn between "my beloved penpal is definitely dead" and "this angry scrungle rederived lyctorhood alone, on a planet with no resources, and with a cav who seems to be most interested in eating everyone's desserts."

Ianthe is furious, but can't quite identify why, other than she /hates/ Harrow the First's cav.

[starberry-cupcake]

This is a one chapter update because this chapter was 25 years long and I don't want my post to be also that long, even though you're all being super nice about it (thank you ♥).

previously, in harroweena the ninth:

this happened

now, chapter 6:

harrowbean wakes up and is taken somewhere in a wheelchair

we get no sleep in this ship

we get no face paint, no black robes, no sleep, no security from people who wanna suffocate you in your sleep, no explanations

lyctors need a union

as in unionization, not as in a combination of people, that they did when slurping their cavaliers

the person carrying her is very upset at everyone

turns out, she's a lyctor

her name is mercysomething

we have an ortus 2, a mercysomething and an augustine

harrow mentions eyes again and says that Lyctors "kept their own faces, but the eyes they stole from someone else. You had been lucky that your own transition was not as startling"

Lucky, you say...

I don't know about that

anyway, this mercysomething is supposed to be the saint of joy

I'm assuming lyctors are given their names through the ancient art of sarcasm

on that note

harrow: "if you had not of late become the Saint of Emesis"

me: wait, I gotta look something up real quick

me: yeah, that's funny

mercysomething is angry and in a hurry

a bunch of time is spent with mercysomething being angry and treating people like crap and being unpleasant

she's arguing with everyone she comes across and takes harrow to a hangar

yandere twin is sitting on a crate watching a necromancer make a ward with blood and bleeding to death in the process

harrow sits next to her and they are like sportscasters of blood-painted wards

according to the necrocasters, it's a ghost ward

yandere twin updates harrow on the fact that they're at war and they've been attacked and they're down to three Old Lyctors and two Baby Lyctors

it would explain why mercysomething is upset all the time

mercysomething wants to take the emperor somewhere else and the guy commanding the ship doesn't want to let him leave

emperor guy comes in and kind of does this to mercysomething

yandere twin and I are LIVING for all this pute/salseo/gossip/however you wanna call it

harrow isn't as interested

I complained in gideon because gideon wasn't interested in things I wanted to look into and now I'm gonna complain about harrow not being interested in Drama

emperor the fool says: "I know exactly who is behind this terrible blow, and they were fools to show their hand"

yandere twin and I

when emperor guy sees the necromancer bleeding out he goes "for fuck's sake"

it's a quote, not me being funny ha ha

remember when I said this guy is a mess?

that's becoming exponentially more evident

I want to punch him in the face at all times

I don't know how people can be respectful to this dude

the reason there isn't any face paint for harrow in this ship is that the emperor uses it every morning to paint on his clown face

they've been alive like 1000 years or whatnot and they're all a fucking group project going off the rails

so emperor guy, mercysomething, not!dulcinea (now in a coffin package), yandere twin and harrow get in a ship inside the ship

a smaller ship inside the big ship where the emperor has been for the past bunch of years

the small ship has the blood ward for the ghosts

but, before going in, emperor the fool fixes the necro that's bleeding to death

I honestly think she would have preferred to just die

which, same, if he was my boss

necros also need to unionize

cavaliers more than anyone tbh

if cavaliers unionized, idk if there would be any lyctors

emperor guy and mercysomething argue about people they know and we don't yet know

and mercysomething was telling harrow previously that the former ninth was prettier than her (anastasia, heart don't fail me now, courage don't desert me) and telling yandere twin the former third was prettier than her (cyrus? cyril? something like that)

which, absolutely juvenile behavior for someone who's like a 1000+ years of age or whatever

why would we care who she finds prettier????

ANYWAY, throughout this I was once again thinking

nobody here has G & P initials

it's been driving me mad this whole time

gideon and harrow found that former lyctor quarters

and it said "ONE FLESH, ONE END. G. & P."

that was before the note with gideon's name in it was read

and all this time I was thinking those were a set of necro-cav from the previous lyctors

but nobody here has those initials

the only P is the cavalier of Ortus 2 and there's no G

which is DRIVING ME MAD

if the G is the previous Gideon, the one not!dulcinea mentioned, it would explain why there was a note that mentioned a Gideon in the quarters

it would not, however, explain who the fuck that other gideon is, who P is and why they aren't in the list with the other combos

augustine is a former fifth because his cav's last name is quinque

mercysomething's from the eighth because her cav's last name is oct, and because she's annoying to be around

ortus 2 is from the second, because his cav's last name is dve

cyril cyrus whatev is from the third because the cav is trinit and mercysomething mentioned him to yandere twin, who is from the third

ulysses is from the fourth because the cav is tetra

not!dulcinea is seventh because the cav was heptane and because it was a very important thing in the previous book, as we've established

anastasia (dancing bears, painted wings) is from the ninth because the cav is novenary and she was mentioned to harrow

cassiopeia must be sixth, because it's what I have left, but I don't recognize the root of the last name to make a clear parallel from the top of my head

the emperor's guardian is A.L.

I'm taking note of an emperor's guardian who isn't around anymore

could it be ice cube barbie???? idk fam, she's looking at him a lot

giving me magic knight rayearth vibes again

this but with backstabbing instead of love

ANYWAY, all of this to point out that there's no G & P and it's driving me up the wall

now, to a very important thing

VERY IMPORTANT

for me, maybe it's just me

the enemies or whatever are called "remnants" and their leader apparently has been gone for "nearly 20 years"

this is me desperately making timelines with gideon's mom and gideon's birth and the 2 details I know about gideon's mom and her birth

you know what, I'm gonna quote, since I went to fetch it

"One day eighteen years ago, Gideon's mother had tumbled down the middle of the shaft in the drag chute and a battered hazard suit, like some moth drifting slowly down into the dark. The suit had been out of power for a couple of minutes. The woman landed brain-dead. All the battery power had been sucked away by a bio-container plugged into the suit, the kind you'd carry a transplant limb in, and inside that container was Gideon, only a day old."

I'm gonna just...put a pin on that that in the cork board

I don't know you guys, I'm just gonna

let me pin that

I'm probably being wrong a lot more than what I'm getting right but I'm just telling you what goes through my mind, if I'm making a fool of myself, it's too late to act like I'm not a fool

I am also putting my clown paint on like the emperor

MOVING ON

harrow thinks the emperor talks in plural about her at one point and idk if that's the case tbh

we then get emperor guy explaining how they need to go to their safe space base with a name I can't remember

a fancy name very lord-of-the-rings-y

let's call it emperor's mojo dojo casa house

and to get there as quick as they need to, they have to cut through the River

the one with the ghosties and ghoulies

that's what the ward was for

if they went through regular means, it'd take too long and, doing it this way, they could be there super fast, but they need to get in the River and come out the other way in the right spot

and intact

so it's this situation

so, in order to do that, they have to hold on to their souls and their cav souls and whatever they've got using the skills from the first test

I want to point out, once again, WHO PLANNED CANAAN HOUSE AS A TOOL TO GET LYCTORS TO LEARN THINGS?????

THEY WERE NOT DOING ALL THE TESTS

THEY WERE FIGHTING FOR THE KEYS

SOME DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THERE WERE TESTS TO BEGIN WITH

JUDITH WAS LIVING IN LAW AND ORDER

we didn't even get to all the tests, people started dropping like flies

because the emperor had one loose lyctor who thought she was in a telenovela

ANYWAY

the point is, if they drift too far while crossing the River, something else can come into their bodies

we did learn that, because it happened to duracell bunny nephew back in canaan house

but we learned it because mayonnaise uncle thought he was tough shit and ruined it, not because of the tests

harrow, doing her best, thinks "you felt alone in your head"

WHICH IS GREAT for our gideon notes

also, no camilla mention or appearance in this one

(I'm having a lizzie bennet theme going on for Reasons for the time being)

so, we're leaving harrow and yandere twin trying to learn for the first time how to not die by crossing the River because the emperor plans things terribly and mercysomething is too preoccupied being upset at everything all the time

[phalangemedes]

CAMPAL LIT ANAL 🔥🔥🔥

To start off with, a personalised character debrief, of sorts, so the nonsense I'm about to spout stems from my known perception of them rather than just inherent batshit:

PALAMEDES SEXTUS: Tall ergo mouse faced man with the jokes and no brain shut off button. Burdened with gifted kid ego AND gifted kid guilt. Disabled even for a necromancer (not genetic turbo cancer for the nuke blast creation of thanergy but allergies, aerospace thick specs, lingering hint of the 'tism (social cues whomst, Mr that evil nun who thinks I'm a murderer is now my BEST FRIEND. Decided he was going to marry a girl because he liked that she was puzzley. His life partner is low emotive and he's never noticed.) (RE:marry Dulci the man is a glutton for a hyperfixation. 12 years and he's like 'we'll be married, Cam's my best man, I love them')). Bred for necromantic psychometry and groomed for Wardenhood (I used "groomed" because he was a literal child when they lauded his intellect as sufficient enough to egregiously test him to see if he was worthy of the title of Master Warden (spoilers, a 13 year old is a tiny baby child, no matter how cute, clever OR smug they are) This neatly slots into the "gifted kid" issues in that his parents ALLOWED this to happen, nay, encouraged it as an accolade. So I wouldn't say he was actively abused, but neither was he "cared" for, which is prime reason as to why he latched onto the only emotionally available peer AND was self sacrificial to a scary fault (re: ka-boom)

CAMILLA HECT: Tall TANK with too much inside to contain without fidget. Burdened with an inferiority complex 20 miles wide and a dunces hat of imposter syndrome. (Some of this is that The Sixth don't really respect swordhands, some of it is that in the capacity they DO respect it, she isn't ranked the most highly (RE: Not an Alexandrite. I assume Epeids? Cause she will class herself as competent and I think the Sixth aren’t stupid enough to put her in the spec ed class once she’s a Cav Prime.) Low EXTERNAL emotion, high energy, Palamedes is patently the words and she's happy with that. (As we go through HtN and NtN it reads more and more like alexithymia, more so when she just finally bursts the fuck into tears). Focuses a little too hard on being "useful", to the point and beyond of harm/self harm. Treats loyalty in a similar manner. A 0% or 100% kinda bitch. Close with her sister, but NOT her fathers, which is an interesting one because we have minimal backstory on that one, but it very much READ as a "forbidden" thing to be with Palamedes not just in the act of lyctorhood ascension but a 'They never understood' way. So her choosing to be Cavalier Primary was her choice AGAINST the wishes of other, societally and inter-familially.

ADDENDUM to Cam: She is a Carer, not in a motherly carer role, a Carer with a capital C. She cares for those with disadvantages in a MANNER I have witnessed IN the caring profession. This is MOST notable in the dynamics with Nona but she does the same with Pal. Where Pyrrha gives Nona fun dad treatment, with no less care, and Palamedes is the voice of gentle reason, consent and options, Cam is loving enforcement and active encouragement. It’s a theme. I’d like it highlit to those of you that have never had one or interacted in what is a COMPLICATED dynamic, a Carer is not a SERVITOR, they are a companion, they see you at your weakest and tackle ills with compassion. Is it a CHOSEN role.

Likewise Cam being raised female and not necromantically inclined (on planet eugenics and Your Eggs Are So Useful To Us BabyGirl) has just had humility beaten into her, but there are various places (Dr Sex coming to mind the most vividly, Pal trusting her with reconstruction of his skeleton, him trusting her opinion on things HE is looking at necromantically) where she is AS bright as him, but is not afforded the same societal perks as him as a necro.

tl;dr

Golden boy brain box who is struggling to live up to it, doing anything to be Good Enough. Held together by Cam's trust in him.

Black sheep who is struggling to perceive herself as worthy, doing anything to be Good Enough. Held together by Pal's faith in her.

Cool, we got it? ONWARD.

GENDER; PERCEPTIONS AND CHANGES:

Pre-Canaan through Canaan:

Palamedes Sextus, Master Warden of The Sixth House is a seeker of knowledge, his pronouns are forgot/to/eat (j/k.) I don't think he perceives himself as much of anything, until he's forced to. He is a man as The Master Warden and for Dulcinea, but I wonder how much of that is the "breeding program" ethos of the Sixth and how much of that is his OWN perception of himself because he's not a TRADITIONAL feeling man, even compared to other men in the canon. When I joke he's a he/him lesbian it's because he FEELS, not female, but feminine. In how he interacts with space and people, with the touchy-feeliness, with the way he expresses himself vociferous and poetically. 'Male' to him seems to be a mantle he wears above the neutrality of who he is and the femininity of his affections.

Camilla Hect, Hand of the Library, is a swordswoman and a cavalier and a hand. Cam is beautifully ungendered, but not in the same way as Palamedes is more of a... I feel like she'd be shocked to be told there's a binary? Just generally. She's practical, but butch, she's just Camilla. A she/her in the same way as a ship or a car. Not like a mother but like a deity -- and THAT is from Palamedes' perception of her. If he's a good boy, she's the Goddess he lays his altar out for. She’s not a ‘woman’ for anyone, not her house, not him. I think that’s important.

New-Rho:

I know there're alotta trans allegories here, but I'm gunna be a party pooper and say this is QUEER but not trans, not because it doesn't follow the path but because I don't think there is a Tomb binary to start with. There's a fluidity and flux IRL doesn't have (because people like their lil ticky boxes). And Pal doesn't feel different IN Cam, he feels the same. More him. He's more outwardly affectionate, he's more fussy and stroppy. He's him but Settled. I think he likes being whatever he is as Camilla. I think because he always liked Cam more.

Cam remains Cam. And I am delighted with this because Palamedes' influence within AND without is the same? I fucking love this woman, she popped out the womb like this and she's just keeping on trucking. Someone thinks she's a sex worker? Unfussed. Someone thinks she's fucking Crown? Mild distaste but that's more on the fact Corona is a biiitch. Dual daddying with Pyrrha? It's a TITLE, Cam seems to like titles. Maybe that's what it is, Camilla's self expression is a list of titles given to her by those who love her. The only one she’s picked for herself is Cavalier.

PAUL:

LEAST they/them they/them in the world. OBSESSED with them, they have the feminine energy that Palamedes carries but in Cam's body?? But the siege weapon threat of Cam?? Obsessed to get to know them more. I sense I shall kiss them on the mouth.

THEM AS CHARACTER ARCHETYPES VS "PEOPLE":

I think in part some of the issue with Palamedes and Camilla is how, on the whole, they seem to have been type cast as Male Boss and Female Minion. Because a tall dude with some authority and a quiet woman are put together and people get weird about that. (Even IRL. ‘Which one of you’s the fork?’ well firstly, she’s the knife, SECONDLY… that’s my tall glass of baby girl that speaks in a countertenor)

And this is a two fold issue:

THE FIRST: The Necromancer and Cavalier dynamic as portrayed by Muir.

It's seen as crass to dick down your cavalier (From Abigail and Magnus, through to Judith and Marta with canonical romantic refusal and LATTERLY Judith's SECONDARY canonical refusal of Coronabeth. Interestingly I don't see much shit about Isaac and Jeannemary but that's another hillock to rot on.).

But that doesn't seem to be the main issue WITHIN FANDOM or (more) people would be coming for Abigail and her lovely ottery meat shield.

Or Griddlehark.

Harrow and Gideon are lauded as the greatest romance of all time and the power dynamic there is TRULY whack. (affectionate)

Heir to the throne and indentured slave?

Necromancer made of a bajillion babies and a Base Level Not-Even-Squaddie.

Abuser and abused.

FORCED cavalier and necro?

Witness and sacrifice.

Even if you view them as a complicated sister dynamic... there are ABUNDANT issues there and a staggering co-dependancy that plays out in a sapphic lobotomy. So we have a base line of what, in the Nine Houses, classifies as a Fuckin' Ride Or Die of a relationship.

(this is without the fact that the NORM is for a baby to be specifically born for a Necromancer. Either RE:The manyfold uncles or like Babs being chosen as a zygote. Which do I have to explain how eugenics and baby-promises are worse than two people choosing each other or NAH?)

THE SECOND: People see a man and a woman and they give them preordained gender roles, which they then do some A/B/O level gymnastics to make them negatively fit into the necro and cav dynamic. It's funny because they're grey librarians who look like librarians. They look similar, they act similar but for some reason the fact Cam has tits gets some WILD hottakes.

(My favourite (said with spite and loathing) was someone asking if Cam fancied Harrow because she let Nona touch her… I.. I just??? She was letting Nona express herself in a safe way, Nona, who is a VULNERABLE ADULT with sensory issues. (yes this was reddit how did you guess))

Which.. is peculiar when you think of how we meet them, in an investigative role where they are immediately, companionably mocking each other? Where, out the gate, Cam lunges to protect Pal and as quickly as that happens he calls her back to protect her?

The Cavalier is there to protect the Necromancer. And yet he is IMMEDIATELY portrayed as a shield.

There's also an inherent, and non-canonically spoken of trust about what Pal EXPECTS of Camilla. It starts off with her with the rapier and how although adept with it, it is not her main skillset. And it's played against the bum rush way Gideon had to give in the two hander, but it's also, OBVIOUSLY, something Camilla has done forever and a day. So their roles are already non-traditional, with the basics of 'your cavalier should be your sword' cause girly pop let his barn door have two because she patently WANTED THEM.

Likewise, when hoorah boot clack salute, stick up her arse, repressed lesbo challenges them for their keys Cam is hot to go, but she waits for him to catch up. And he was erring on denial, he was erring on losing KNOWLEDGE, which is his main gain from any situation, to make sure she didn't get injured. But he puts her in that fight for HER HONOUR first, not his, not the Sixth's, Camilla Hect.

When she's injured, other than a brief moment of being a catty princess to Jody and Marta who lol DESERVED, he CHECKS Cam. He's frightened, he's fretting, he just wants her to not have been stabbed quite a lot, and PATENTLY blames himself. He is a PHYSIOLOGICALLY ADEPT necromancer and he FEARS for her injury, because of the pain not the complications of healing. It's an obvious show of how he perceives her as an extension of himself but NOT a tool.

Likewise, the only thing Pal ever did wrong and honestly, Dulci you aquatic-bint your way out of that river and give him a SLAP, was that he left her when he went to nuke Cytherea. He did it as a kindness, he didn't want her to see, he THOUGHT he did the right thing. And he didn't, and there wasn't a right thing, but oh my god dude.

He acted like a cavalier to guarantee her safety.

And I see a lot of 'oh well he did it cause he was upset about Dulci' like?? Cytherea SPOKE to them about the Avulsion trial. He had to look "Dulcinea" in the eye when she asked him to siphon Cam. Do you not think he wasn't already turbo pissed off? Hurt? Upset? Do you not think he was already mourning her, that he chose Cam over her, because he said “no”?

Which is a good segue into 'Paul is problematic'. First up, buckle up my darling little babies, spiritual cannibalism isn't exactly a fuckin' jolly holly time anyway, cause it was made by a man with the moral compass of a rabid wolverine and tits covered in biscuit crumbs.

At no point does Palamedes not feel dreadful for squatting inside Camilla. He is the (un)embodiment of a nervous friend sitting on a mostly full sofa trying to make himself as small as possible and wincing whenever he accidentally touches someone. He is there ONLY because it's what she wanted. And we know that because they discuss it, PRIVATELY, and it overheard by Nona. He also offers Cam the choice, they keep going as they are, or they do something else. But it is together, whatever they do is together. And she chooses to not suffer alone. And that some a y'all shit on that is a choice.

Harrow TBI's herself to not lose Gideon, but when two people enter into togetherness with consent it's a no?? They had a big ol’ adult chat (or 50 off screen, who knows, babygirl can’t shut up so I imagine it was more) and there’s booing and hissing.

Wah wah they're co-dependent it's not healthy, SURE, but it’s extreme circumstances, it's grimdark space heresy. Cam is a victim of torture, starvation and other such New Rho hells. Palamedes was in the purgatory of river isolation post suicide and his only hope of survival was Cam. They are the reason the other kept going. Paul is them keeping going, Paul is their promise to the other that it'll be okay, because they're there. Yes, they're co-dependent but they are each other's reason for being.

Even in the real world, when everything is subterranean, sewer level shit, you are told to find a reason to keep going. It can be a concert in a few months, or your ageing cat, it can be your mother or your tomato plants. And it's not long term, but THEY don't have long term.

And they BOTH chose. Palamedes had no promise of what would happen once he was booted back out of Babs, did he go back in Cam and risk her soul, or did he try another body? Was he already compromised by Tridentarii taint? But he was willing, if it was for her.

Likewise she was at the precipice of a wound that really needed a necromancers attention (look how BoE left Judith, like jesus colostomy christ the woman is a menace but shoving a carrier bag in her then blood letting her to refuel your stolen tesla is rough guys). It needed HER necromancers attention. And that wasn't happening. And she couldn't take not having him any more.

And they didn't go into it blind, The Sixth as a house patently had more knowledge on the melange of souls than most (via all the secrecy that was shared with BoE etcetc), and Pal had just learnt more, first hand, shoved up inside Naberius feeling their edges bleed together. And they had felt what it was to be Them before. They BOTH experienced that, like, blood-sweat and worried daddy lap aside, they both knew it would hurt her, and I have no doubt it cut Palamedes up, but it ate some of him too. 'Oh it hurt her more' my DUDE the man was already bone dust and fuck all else all that COULD be hurt WAS hurt.

THIRDLY (I realise there was not initially three points but there sure fucking is now LESSGO):

SACRIFICE. I've seen it said, repeatedly, they have an uneven power dynamic because Cam 'sacrifices' herself for him.

WELL. Let's break that down with a direct comparison.

Gideon Nav, a woman who had never been loved, but had sometimes been useful, sacrificed herself for a chance to die with the knowledge of being wanted. She knew and wanted to be eaten, absorbed, nothing more than her sword. This was seen as a rejection by Harrow for reasons even GIDEON was aware of, poor kid.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, woman who, understandably, thinks she's cursed as all fuck, refused to take the sacrifice of Another Body and in the process made Gideon think she was being rejected. I think she is less aware, but not totally unaware. And it was in desperation. And she is so young, they both are, they were scared and staring at a bone wall or forever death.

But my point is their togetherness, no matter how complete, was born of VIOLENCE and the eradication of one of them, the violence of need, of desperation to belong, to not be torn from the one consistent point in their lives : each other.

Camilla Hect saw the buckshot shrapnel of her life partner embedded in Canaan's masonry (this is an actual sacrifice, he sacrificed himself for her safety) and chose to take the red string of fate and GANK IT until she got Palamedes back. Because they had a (theoretically possible) predetermined get-out-of-jail-free plan for if something took him first. They planned to never be apart, this was one plan of many.

And Palamedes Sextus, for his part, did everything he could to keep them safe, keep her safe, to make sure, even in the end, they would be together in the safest, sanest way possible. He dredged her from death both times they were shot, he sewed her back together from within the cage of her body. He resurrected them. He was a god FOR them, so they could stay them.

Was it actually safe and sane? Compared to gutty stabs and being consumed by a IANTHE, honestly, yeah.

Was it ideal? No, but it was better than death.

They lived, together. Discussed it, chose it.

If Palamedes is Decisive Consent and Camilla is Patient Protection, Paul is a Conversation with a lil line of kisses at the bottom. They're not made from love, they're made from necessity, but they are born BECAUSE of love, gentility. The difference between rabid hunger after suffering food scarcity and spending 14 hours cooking a meal for someone you love. They are both acts of consumption, but the tone is so vastly different.

✨anyway yeah hi I fucking love Cam and Pal and this is the hill I've chosen to climb and repeatedly die on✨

(I'd like to postface this with I love ALL these characters, I slag them off with the love of literary analysis, and none of them ever did anything wrong they are my tiny angel baby war crimes whom i wub them a normal amount.

...And I'm not getting the books out to quote shit so you're gunna have to embrace the Vibes.<3)

(shout out to @grievingbovine this is (partially) their fault *heart hands*)

[cassiopeiathe1st]

so as a biology major, here's some things i've been chewing on after reading the unwanted guest. this post is brought to you by the part of my brain that saw the 7th's hereditary blood cancer and thought ok but what KIND of cancer is that.

the phrasing of "permeability of the soul" makes me think of semipermeable membranes and diffusion. diffusion is a passive process -- our molecules, when left to their own devices, want to be everywhere because entropy, but the semipermeable membranes that make up cells organelles etc make life possible by keeping things organized. this dividing & filtering process is required to keep things in place. with me so far?

to me, this concept of permeability emphasizes that souls are objects with boundaries. there's a line somewhere, however blurry (clearly very very blurry) or porous, that divides self & other, and! and!! that line only exists because it is somehow constructed, maintained, enforced. see: ianthe working so hard to convince herself/pal/the hypothetical audience of this play she's putting on that she's just ianthe with no babs mixed in. or john's ritual of retelling his story to alecto/harrow in NTN. something something being the unreliable narrator of your own identity.

palamedes calls the process that merges him and camilla to give us paul grand lysis vs. the "petty", incomplete lysis of eightfold word lyctorhood. lysis = the disintegration of a cell by rupture of the cell wall or membrane. the boundaries of their souls are sliced open so their contents can be poured out & mixed together to make someone new. but even in conventional lyctorhood, there's some kind of exchange of whatever material makes up the soul between cavalier & necromancer. as our boy tells ianthe at the end of the unwanted guest,

This is the real truth of Lyctorhood, Ianthe--it's not some bloodless swapping-out of batteries. It's grafting; transplantation. When you absorbed Naberius Tern's soul, you didn't swallow a diamond. You swallowed a piece of meat...and the longer you digest that meat, the more its proteins and lipids and molecules mix in with yours, until you can't tell them apart anymore.

idk where i'm even going with all of this, i'm just rotating it in my head, but:

tamsyn muir is so precise with her necromancy jargon & anatomical terms that i feel like there's definitely meaning to be found in the imagery here. there is poetry in biology, the universe is made of stories not of atoms, etc etc

it turns out lysis is also the title of a dialogue of plato on "the true nature of loving friendship," so if any classics enjoyers have thoughts on that connection i would love to hear them!

if lyctorhood is transplantation, is it possible for that transplant to be rejected? can the graft refuse to take?

souls are contained within their edges not unlike how a cell membrane contains its cytoplasm. or how a capri sun pouch contains its juice. and lyctors slurp that shit up and digest it baby

why choose to link the soul so closely with water? (the river, bubbles, currents & waves in the river, nona saying the water of the river "doesn't want to touch us.") contents of souls = liquid in the same way that the river is a liquid??? the river = spirit version of the primordial soup???

dulcinea refers to the river having two shores, not just a generic "shore", so it sounds like they're different in some meaningful way. but that may be conditional on what happens in alecto ("if this ends well you'll find that out")? is the point of the river the river itself, or is the point of the river to separate those two places?

[lemon-natalia]

Nona the Ninth Reaction - John 8:1 🐄

the message now reads: ‘THE/TOWER/HA’ . i’m sticking with the assumption that ‘tower’ is a full word and ‘ha’ is the beginning of the next until proven otherwise

okay and now it’s talking about falling asleep within the dream, which is confusing as all hell. whoever this narrator is, ‘her body was a mystery to her’, which is very reminiscent of the themes throughout of Nona wondering who she is. i really do think that this narrator has to be Alecto somehow or on some level, maybe because of Harrow falling asleep in the Tomb at the end of HtN?

also hammocks made of ‘baby-soft skin’. Ew. 

and an interesting point of reference, John’s eyes are explicitly black w/ white rings on them, so this dream is set after Alecto becomes his cavalier. although it might mean nothing, it’s also very interesting considering just how significant eye colour has been that the torchlight makes the white ring ‘a satiny gold’, given his eyes were originally gold - i wonder if it might have something to do with the type of shared Lyctorhood he and Alecto have going on?

honestly if someone came on the internet showing off that they could control dead bodies or whatever, i would think it was a deepfake or some other trolling as well. i love that apparently there are still Flat Earthers around despite having the tech to have some kind of space station on Mars existing

its ironic people calling him the Antichrist initially, given that he eventually adopts the exact opposite vibe of being a deity. and the whole religious/God/Christ associations aren’t even something that he solely adopted post-Resurrection himself either, even here people, and John’s group of friends, are explicitly comparing him to Jesus and using Christianity as a basis of what to do

and uh yeah, realistically someone broadcasting that they can raise the dead and heal everyone would probably be considered a cultist not just by the government, but by most people honestly 

and we’ve got A— Junior, (presumably) Alfred, joining the team as well, who apparently went from being a hedge fund manager in one life to swordfighting in the next. wild. 

‘she’d adored being a cop’ i like Pyrrha well enough so far, but yikes 

even though John’s still getting to grips with his powers, and can’t do proper resurrections yet, he still seems a lot more powerful than other necromancers later, given he’s able to build an entire wall out of perpetual bone, something which from what I remember Harrow treated as a massive achievement at the end of GtN 

what the actual fuck did those cows and sheep do to you man!!! is this why Canaan House has all that horned skull imagery, as like a weird little tribute to how cow murder contributed to him becoming Emperor. maybe the real cow murder was the friends that we made along the way

‘they treated us like we’d done some kind of huge crime’ MY DUDE.

[thermodynamic-comedian]

I've seen you post about The Locked Tomb. But you're also primarily a TMA poster. If there were a crossover how do you think that would work? Like crossover specific headcanons. Like what House would they belong to? Are they a necromancer? If they are a necromancer what is their specialty? Are they a cavalier? And if so what's their fighting style? Who would they ascend to Lyctorship with? Would they be capable of lyctoring with that person? Gimme TMA(GP) + TLT ideas and hcs pls

OOOHHO HO HOOOO... IM GONNA GO CRAZY ON THIS ONE OK HOLD ON

firstly and most importantly. tma characters are house, tmagp characters are non-house/blood of eden. i don't know why, but it makes sense in my head.

ok so.

first house - all the older avatars. i think their saint names would be fear-related, e.g. jonah the first, saint of beholding. i honestly don't know who would take god's role, for some reason i wanna say simon.

second house - necromancer basira hussain, cavalier daisy tonner

third house - i honestly don't know

fourth house - necromancer callum brodie

fifth house - necromancer sasha james, cavalier timothy stoker

sixth house - necromancer jonathan sims, cavalier martin blackwood

seventh house - necromancer agnes montageu, cavalier jude perry

eighth house - necromancer manuela dominguez

ninth house - necromancer oliver banks

ok so. turns out sorting these fuckers into houses is harder than i thought!!! but i HAD to make jon sixth, it just. makes way too much sense. same for ninth house oliver. agnes somehow reminds me of dulcinea a lot so i put her in seventh, and also cuz of the whole "beaty that blossoms and dies" thing being real desolation coded. the beaty inherent to destruction etc etc.

i think jon would 100% specialize in psychometry, like palamedes. oliver is probably fond of bones, but i actually think he'd be a spirit magician primarily. i don't think there's any flesh magicians among them, for obvious reasons.

ok now tmagp. since boe doesn't have a sorting system, i'm just gonna refer to the actual characters.

i am so incredibly fond of the idea of lena as commander wake. that entire (paraphrasing) "the only thing my civilization can learn from yours is that when our towers fall and our cities burn, we rarely become heroes." speech is so insanely her coded. hmmm gwen as pash, methinks. just because nepo-baby. alice could be angel/ame? no idea who nona is.

gaahhh thank you so much for the question!!!!! this was so fun to think about ahdjfkejfke

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

The River

Worldbuilding/Lore

<< Previous: Lyctorhood | Masterpost

-

So, okay, bear with me here. I think these people's brains are fundamentally different from ours. And I think their brains are spiritual matter, contained in a brain-shape and perhaps even anatomically so. There was talk of a temporal lobe, after all.

Mind you, memories don't just get stored in one place in the brain. The hippocampus is crucial for formation of memories and storing them short-term - for a few months, maybe. After that, I was told in my studies we don't quite know where they go - likely stored in different parts all over the brain, connected to associations.

One thing I do know, however, is that you can't physically see which parts of the brain relate to which memory. Knowing this from necromantic ability should be a skill even Mercymorn would struggle with. Harrow, a bone magician, knows she is not the best flesh magician, so she enlists Ianthe's help for her lobotomy. Ianthe, allegedly the best necromancer in her generation, is actually able to do an alright job, except for one part where Harrow does some herself. Have they found ways to look at memories through the brain? By all current available science, I would rate that fairly impossible. Either science has progressed wildly in this (possible, given the whole ass myriad and then some), or these brains are not the same.

I actually think brains in this are made from much the same matter that The River is. The River is clearly not of Alecto or John's invention. It was discovered somehow, and when they resurrected everyone, they basically found the revenants for the bodies, and just stuck them back in, literally; pockets - or bubbles - of River, containing the revenant exactly, replacing the goopy mess of dead brain in the body.

Now your brains are goopy messes of river, made to look like what you expect the brain to look like. Your perceptions, expectations and rules are important in the River - it makes sense that River/Revenant-brains would still be brain-shaped. It means the brain is more fluid than that, though; in the Lyctor's cases, one soul - one brain - "takes over".

(Doesn't really explain why Lyctors like God, Augustine and Mercymorn consistently have their cavalier's eyes - other than maybe it was just that that's what they were expecting.)

Ok, so I kinda think brains are parts of The River. Coherent as revenants, living in bodies. This would have been the case for the first people who were resurrected a myriad ago - so when they create babies, the baby's brain is also River water, for want of a better term? Therefore everyone's is? And Death, in this post-resurrection world, is just returning to the River proper?

It's a working theory.

The River is a physical place, and also kind of like sub-space. You can enter it, you can form pockets of meaning in there, you can hunt things in there and make wards. You can use it to travel quickly to destinations many lightyears away. It is a physical place, but also a spiritual one. It is, essentially, the brain matter of billions, jumbled together, increasing in entropy with depth, all the way down to the stoma, where you can enter full entropy and be reduced to particles, as I understand.

Did you know that some scientists use entropy to describe brain processes? Entropy increases in the brain as it responds to stimuli. The concept of entropy is necessary for explaining what goes on in the brain, an organ of trillions+ of possible configurations, changing moment by moment. And what happens physically in the brain is perceived by us through a range of associations and thoughts and feelings, which all look and feel very different to the electric charges zipping along nerve axons and synapses releasing chemicals to trigger a reaction in the next nerve along. Which is (a gross oversimplification of) what actually physically happens inside our brains, millionfold, every millisecond.

Hey wait a second though. The Central Nervous System also includes the spinal cord. Is this included in the RiverBrain package deal? What about peripheral nerves? Right, I'm gonna stop this here, it's already one hell of a rabbit hole.

So if I'm right, then brains are made of River, and River is made of Brains. Sub-space, physically traversible brains. If planets, if stars have a soul, the whole Universe has a soul. The River could a manifestation of the Universe's soul, its collective Brain, and it encompasses all once (and future?) living things. It's not in our plane of existence, but can be accessed physically and mentally.

The River might be the source of necromantic ability, and I think either John or Alecto figured out how to access it. I Just Don't Think You're Supposed To.

Ok, let's get into Characters next. Blorboposting incoming.

>> Next: Gideon Nav

[myths-tournaments]

Awful Characters Round 1 Part 2 (3/8)

Propaganda under the cut!

BEN LINUS

One of my fave characters of all time! Also a prolific liar. Almost every single thing this man says is a lie. He lies, manipulates, murders, and feels very little remorse, all in the name of “protecting” the magical Island where he and his people live. Ben is fueled almost exclusively by bitterness, stemming from an entire childhood’s worth of abuse from his alcoholic father, who blamed Ben for his mother’s death in childbirth (Ben did eventually kill his father, along with the whole community he grew up in). Additionally, Ben is desperate to have some great destiny or higher purpose, and his bitterness toward the fact that he’s just an “ordinary” man and jealousy toward the man who DOES have a higher purpose drives Ben to commit various acts of cruelty and murder. Ben does act as a villain for most of the story (save for the last season, in which he’s more of an anti-villain and eventually an anti-hero), but he has two redeeming qualities: his love for the Island and his love for his adopted daughter, Alex. The latter is complicated by the fact that he kidnapped Alex as a baby from her biological mother, a woman stranded alone on the Island. However, when forced to choose between protecting the Island and saving Alex’s life, Ben ultimately chooses the island and deeply regrets this decision for the rest of his life. He’s eventually forced to reckon with his many, many mistakes and undergoes something of a redemption arc, but he spends enough of the show establishing himself as a villain that I can easily see the good denizens of Twitter attacking his fans.

IANTHE TRIDENTARIUS

Her number one hobby is ruining every person's that she knows life. Her second hobby is being soooo slutty about it despite looking like a literal wet rat. Her third hobby is having an extremely unhealthy relationship with her twin. Her other hobbies include cannibalism, wearing a maid outfit, being extremely convinced she is the main character, the badboy sexy love interest and the villain. 'Why', you may ask. Well, the answer is, for shits and giggles #justgirlythings i, aswell as literally everybody else in the fandom have gone through the pipeline from hating her to desperately wanting to fuck her. expect for i still fucking hope she dies and doesn't come back for good. (that would literally solve all of everybody's problems) as god intended (EXPECT FOR. one of her hobbies literally is gaslighting god) She is fucking horrible i will love her until i die and even after that

parks and recs jean ralphio voice she's the woooorst!! The moment she learns she has to kill someone to become a Lyctor (aka a more special necromancer), she doesn't hesitate to kill and cannibalize the guy who has been her cavalier since childhood… cavalier who she also totally bullied as kids, she was allowed to choose one guest for her and her twin sister's birthday party each year, and she would always pick whoever she thought her cavalier didn't want to see there! While other characters are shown to regret the process of becoming a Lyctor (which involves someone close to them dying)/were forced into it because of circumstances, Ianthe has absolutely no regrets, she believes she did what she had to do

The author once said of Ianthe: "I don't think she's been nice to anyone, if she has I'll go back and change it." She killed and ate the soul of someone she has known all her life so that she could become a necromantic saint and tormented him plenty before that. General negging, ganging up against him, always inviting people he didn't like to their birthday parties. She doesn't regret killing him. I think she is repulsed by the idea that his digested soul is affecting hers. She helped her crush lobotomise herself so she would be in Ianthe's debt, and later lied and said she didn't see the corpse of a woman her crush killed under her bed (why did she do that? I do not know). She has a bone arm because her original arm was cut off, she hated the replacement so her crush cut THAT off and grew her a new one out of just bones. She had it gilded and only after that did she decide to help her crush deal with the person who had been repeatedly trying to kill her. She wants so badly to be the main character but people keep interrupting her villain monologues.

she has her own content warning tag pollrunner's note: this is the most compelling propaganda I've ever seen for a character, thank you for submitting

She's such a bitch to everyone all the time, she causes nothing but problems, she tries to do a villain speech but fumbles it because her tummy hurt, she is the awfulgirl of all time

[rogloptimist]

the gears are turning (bad)

okay. picture this for me. canaan house + project lyctorhood but i ruin it by adding rpf

dunno how it ends (or starts honestly because who am i gonna make god…) but uhh tadej and jonas consume each other and achieve partial lyctorhood and are existing in weird ass stasis in which parts of their souls are permanently embedded in the other

primoz:

9th house necromancer

he don’t got no cav because he’s super special

was born into the ninth as a non adept (non necro) when there were no necromancers left on the ninth except the reverend mother and father

raised with the sole purpose of becoming the 9th house cavalier with the expectation that a necromancer would be conceived due to his talents w rapier (this is the ski jumping btw)

in a last ditch effort to conceive a necro heir, rev. mother and father do The Ritual (they kill a bunch of babies to harness tre death energy to ensure that the child is conceived as a necromancer) with primoz as an anchor of sorts

do y’all remember how john killed everyone? picture that for me. primoz can feel the thanergy (death energy) bloom slipping away because the ritual starts going wrong, and in an act of desperation he grabs it and it basically radioactive spider’s him; the thanergy bloom turns him into a necro

HOWEVER he basically is being electrocuted with death-energy (thanergy) so he reaches out and accidentally puts the entirety of the 9th’s population’s souls in stasis by chucking them out somewhere unknown

freaks the fuck out and assumes position as reverend of the ninth and pretends everything is fine

brief detour he spends some time at the 6th (this is visma!!!) but the collectivist hivemind drives him insane and he wants out. now he’s alone seeking a necromantic solution to basically murdering his whole planet because he needs to prove that it was worth it (switching from ski jumping to cycling but not being able to quite touch the top, he didn’t do this all for nothing etc etc)

crazy crazy crazy relationship with god harrowhark style ! catholic guilt goes crazy

tadej:

8th house (i know it’s weird but trust) necromancer

adam is his cav- i will talk more about this later

specializes in soul siphoning, i.e. slurping up your cavalier’s soul out of their body and using the vacuum to generate power temporarily (cannibalism metaphors do you get ittt)

weird shit with consumption. he’s obsessed with transcending the limits of the flesh to become closer to god

first time he tried soul siphoning he actually killed the cav because he took it too far!

i also think it would be silly and fun if he consumed his own flesh ianthe/babs style while performing necromancy

sicko christian (everyone on the 8th thinks he’s a heretic, everyone else think’s he’s a nun, it’s actually a secret third thing somewhat adjacent to a communion kink)

controversial within his house for being too flashy (tl dr the 8th house is basically a cult with their interior design done by mr clean), ambitious and dangerous with his necromantic practices

rest of the necro’s don’t really know who he is? they all know he’s weird for an 8th, but not how or why. he’s also particularly intrigued by jonas

would be fun if he was god’s son like literally gideon style

jonas

6th house necromancer

cavalier is matteo (or wout? i’m conflicted. but also i want there to be a scene where matteo tells him you did everything that matters)

specializes in that thing where they read the bones and necromantic remains for death signatures. yeah rhat

born and raised on 6th, unusually high pool in his age group and didn’t show much promise for becoming a warden until recent years. was not expected to be heir to the 6th, people still haven’t gotten used to it (constant underdog narrative we stay winning)

people didn’t like him on 6th for supposed undercompetence, outside of the 6th they all think he’s a boring necro (too by the book)

he starts counting the doors first. just so you know

was friends with primoz while he spent his time on the sixth but grew apart after he went back to the ninth- still is unsure about tf is going on with him, also knew that he defo was not a necromancer before but keeps his mouth shut

tadej finds him particularly interesting, doesn’t buy the calculating librarian look that the 6th house puts forward. thinks he wants something more

remco:

4th house necromancer

from the second but family is fourth, was raised in the cohort

struggled with tight restrictions of the second, was hailed as a prodigy in combat as a child and wanted to serve first line w cohort but was sidelined in teens in command structure, returns to his father’s birthplace the fourth

there he learns the fourth specialty of using thanergy spikes to explode shit and gets really good at it very fast

climbs the ranks of the fourth and becomes heir, but is looked down upon by older cohort members for youth and hotheadedness

weird obsession with proving everyone wrong that needs to be studied in a lab

dunno who the cav is sorry 😔 i think it would be kind of hilarious if it was wout (viva la belgium) and he and jonas keep making eyes from across the room wishing to go back to their beehive days

mathieu/jasper

from 3rd house, jasper is necro and mathieu is cavalier

mathieu comes from a long ass line of cavaliers and was expected to become cavalier primary from basically birth. luckily he’s very very good with a sword but his dad is crazy!

jasper is a necro, born into 3rd royal family. is known for sheer power but also infamous for inconsistency

specializes in flesh magic, specifically loves working with muscle and tendons

mathieu+jasper raised together (is it brotherhood or are they just fucking. who knows. not them)

honestly very into bitch wife idiot husband why change the canon. keep jasper stupid 2024

adam not the one and only yates:

8th house cavalier

as per 8th practice was genetically engineered to be a match to a necromancies for soul siphoning

in this case, it was with his twin simon and i am totally so normal about the two of them !

however upon birth it was discovered that simon’s necromancy wasn’t perfectly compatible with adam’s- because he wasn’t heir material they didn’t care

but when tadej started as an adept and started sucking up people’s souls like a vacuum they needed someone capable of holding onto the shore of the river (wack ass spirit world) for longer and adam was found to be compatible

loyal to the end, but people all note that he looks faded when with tadej

will of steel or something

my various madman ramblings

[carica-ficus]

"Nona the Ninth"

14/07/2024

Reading progress: 274/477 (57%) Read through since last update: 158

Reading this book is such a joy. I keep surprising myself by how easy it is to read. I go through twenty pages without even realizing. it I missed reading such books. I missed being so immersed in a book. Man, it feels good! I decided to share some really CRAZY ideas in this post because my reading diary is meant as a brain dump. Don't take them too seriously. I just like thinking about all the possibilities. (I'm usually wrong, but it's fun to see by how much.)

So, notes:

I was so into these last two chapters that I didn't even remember to comment.

I love how Pyrrha calls Nona all these cutesy nicknames. And how sweet and gentle she is with her.

I audibly gasped when Palamedes needed to confess to Pyrrha that Cam sold her cigarettes. Literally 😮. Only for Pyrrha to take it as a champ. (She obviously took enough shit that day.)

So, blue dot in the sky. Earth or Uranus? Or Neptune? I'm guessing we're on some moon, but not sure which one. Considering they keep talking about how hot it is and that it's almost always day, they should be somewhere near the center of the solar system. Might as well be Venus considering how everything is VERY toxic and they need to wear gas masks outside. (Addition from future me: Bruh, I have no idea.)

Palamedes, my man. 🤝 This is a guy that knows what it's all about. (The nurse thing. I'm dating one, so yeah.)

Been thinking about Harrow and how she ruled on a dead planet and how John promised her new people when she succeeded with her task as a Lyctor. New people. New future. But where do all those bodies come from? So, my random thought of the day is that maybe she got promised some of the bodies transported in the Convoy? Speculating, speculating, I know. But I decided to write this down, so I can reflect on it later. (Future me: Still have no idea what the Convoy is for, but with everything happening, this idea really is a LONG SHOT.)

HAHAHAHAHHAA Palamedes calling Cam a hypocrite. Love it.

I keep forgetting to comment, and a lot's been happening. The "little" meeting Cam, Pyrrha, and Nona had with the Crown and the Comander was insightful, but difficult to follow. I got like? Half of it? But managed to understand the most important things - there's a craft in orbit and they have no idea what it is, there's some background for the first book and Cytherea's mission, then we see Judith and Crown realizes Cam is hiding Palamedes. Marvelous.

Millie? Lol, I'd be mad too. I have no idea why Palamedes didn't react. I certainly would.

Nona's the weapon. Cool. They're growing their own Lyctor. So, the body needs to be a necromancer that ingested the soul of a cavalier? Yeah, whatever, we'll see. My money's on The Body being Nona, but who even knows at this point. (Not me.)

But one thing I am excited for (after I finish Nona) is FINALLY going into the locked tomb tag without the fear of spoilers. Can't wait!

Fuck! That's true. Nona truly is Camilla's age. And Corona's. I keep imagining her younger because she is childlike, but I shouldn't. Granted, I think that's also the point of Muir writing her like that. Nona is constantly babied and talked down to because she doesn't understand the world as the rest of them do. She can't. At least not yet. Anyway, yeah, this sentence reminded me to adjust the way I imagine Nona. She definitely needs to be a little taller in my head. (Even though she is still shorter than Camilla.)

"Beef." 🙄

HAHAHAHAH crying again. Yeah, me too, John.

Yo. What the fuck.

Makes sense because Gideon has taken over Harrow's body, but still. Huh? (At least that's my guess. I don't know)

PYRRHA'S MISSING? NOOOO.

Oh yeah, ok. Are John and Harrow somewhere by the River like how Harrow's dreams were? Also, still guessing at this point, but I've been thinking about this ever since John's chapters started. (Primarily because their location is very surreal, very dreamlike.)

"I've carried you, Warden. And I've carried your memory... I'd rather carry you." AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Ok, so... If Hot Sauce didn't know Nona was a Lyctor, what was the secret Nona told her when they were lying next to each other at school?

Okay, wrapping off here because this post got a little long. I'll do my best to finish off this book quickly because I have a trip coming up next week and I won't have the time to read which will make me frustrated because I HAVE TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS. Anyway, I'm really, really loving Nona so far. It's very different and the pace was quite slow, but I love that about Muir's writing. Every book in this series has been a breath of fresh air, something so unique, but familiar at the same time. ❤

[paradoxcase]

@wellhappybirthdaytomeiguess:

'baby-soft skin hammocks'...from a necromancer..gives me the icks.

I mean, I don't think it's any more gross/weird than a lot of other stuff that has happened in the book so far. John already wears baby fingerbones in his hair for adornment

I find it fascinating that John says he could cure cancer....and yet we have Cytherea...

@turtletotem:

@wellhappybirthdaytomeiguess John could have cured Cytherea :) at any time :) instead of letting her suffer for 10,000 years :)))) no wonder she wanted him dead

Oh wow, I didn't make that connection, but yeah, he could have. But instead he really was just like, the only way for you to live is if you become a Lyctor and help me kill resurrection beasts while you suffer from cancer for 10,000 years. I can't imagine what he was thinking, but I also have no idea what he was thinking by just letting the other Lyctors think that the cavalier had to die to achieve Lyctorhood

@eye-lantern:

For the Jesus comparison the nurse gave: she isn't saying it was what made the Romans kill him. Jesus (in the texts) knew that he gave too much for his own good. And he knew the Romans would kill him and he knew Judas would betray him. But he did it anyway because he gave himself to others entirely, even if I meant it killed him. She is saying John needs take care of himself even if it meant refusing to help some people, or he would die wich doesn't help anyone.

Which makes an interesting parallel with the actual Jesus parallel that is Griddle, who died for someone on the iron fence instead of a wooden cross,for someone that would have preferred her to live even if it meant not receiving her help. Gideon spends the entire first book helping everyone, without asking for anything in return, and it litteraly kills her. Maybe twice if we consider avultion. John may have had the apostles but Gideon had the self-sacrificial drive

Oh, right, I guess the sort of canonical interpretation is that Jesus died in order to save everyone else, etc. That is an interesting parallel, I wonder, since presumably Gideon is getting brought back to life at some point, probably by John I would guess, if John is ever going to tell her this story and this particular piece of advice he received?

I don't know if Jod is dreaming with her. To me it could absolutely have happened and she is just dreaming of a memory. The narrator never says something out of place, except for calling him lord, and he only says Harrow. Everything else could be an actual event where names are "translated" to something that makes more sense to harrow, and the crossed-out names are not replaced because she has no idea what to replace it by

@racefortheironthrone:

My interpretation is that Harrow is semi-lucid dreaming Alecto's memories.

That's true, I guess, this could just all be Alecto's memory. But if John telling Alecto this story actually happened, I guess that means Alecto was not around to perceive it at all while it was happening?

@eye-lantern:

I do like that we can get a vague time frame and something more of John's religious background when says he went to Parachute when he was younger. So he's most likely a Millenial or Gen Xer (since it seems that festival was from the early 90s to 2014). Not sure that says anything deep about him, but I find it interesting.

Ahh, that part didn't mean anything to me, haha. That's interesting, though, I'd sort of expected this story to be happening further in the future than that, like the way he is describing people's thoughts about climate change don't really align with the way they are currently, I don't think, it feels like this is happening at a later date, and John isn't described as looking old in the story. Like, if John is Gen X, he'd be 40 at the absolute minimum right now, in 20 years from now he'd be 60+, and I had the impression that this had to be least like 20 years in the future

[7sage9]

the unwanted guest thoughts

OBSESSED with the format as a stage play... makes so so much sense for ianthe and the third house

funeral part is so cool and sexy and i wonder if thats insight into how funerals actually are on the third

palamedes' mask being shattered and glued together like his skull....

ianthe slaying in all her fits... wait this reminds me of a dream i had a while ago in which ianthe duelled someone and did a ton of costume changes... i literally predicted it

ianthe being the lady and the master of the house... unprecedented levels of gender

significance of 7 coffins?? bc of 7 original lyctors??

the VOICE!!! my first instinct was dulcie but how?? so i thought maybe babs or someone else?? but i was right!!

still unsure of significance of "did your tingue ever toungle" maybe shows ianthe not being in complete control??

not the playing strip poker with harrow...

fascinated by ianthe and pal's differing views of the job of the cavalier... to die for vs protect the necromancer

"because you never stop to check the price tag" FUCK

is palamedes actually shocked by the third house assigning cavaliers as babies or is he pretending to get ianthe to share more?

oh ortus... blown up for being sad

would love to read about one of ianthe and corona's insane birthday parties

should have seen earlier how much the gideon nav description was shaped by babs, it makes so much sense

something about ianthe disqualifying her opponents as a form of winning... she never plays fair

the more we get of her the more i LOVE DULCIE!!!

DYING to know what happened to dulcinea after harrow's river bubble collapsed

"I loved you. I love you still. I would have worked out how to love you better over time." "It would have been very beautiful. Camilla would have had to cook. But I didn't just want beautiful..." "This again? From you and her both? That merely by loving you, I added to your torments?" FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK IT REALLY ALL COMES BACK TO LOVE ALWAYS...... DYING

cant stop thinking about how ntn must have been such a cruel mirror to the domestic life they dreamed of with dulcie

"You two were my best friends, and that was real. I loved real, ugly, unfinished things. Gracelessly uncompleted things. There's freedom, too, in not ever being completed." FUCK DULCIE I LOVE YOU

its a river... there are two shores... still so curious about the river

"Was I cute?" "You're perfect." AAAAAAAAAAAAA <3 <3 <3

"would you have used your sister instead?" YES!!! THAT IS THE QUESTION!!!

"Or... Coronabeth herself is part of your goal. You can't spend her, because you'd invalidate the very thing you were trying to buy." WOAGHHH i am so so curious about ianthe's plan

THE FINAL QUESTION... THE FINAL REVEAL...

the implications of souls bleeding and mingling... first of all for the OG lyctors... how much of what we were seeing was alfred and cristabel and pyrrha (though its probably slightly different for them)?? how much of pyrrha is g1deon??

and this has SO MANY implications for the gideon harrow alecto nona situation... simultaneously makes things clearer and a lot more complicated, if there doesn't have to be an actual transfer of soul bits, but they just do it naturally when together

overall SO GOOD!!! so much analysis potential of course and also just gutwrenchingly, horribly beautiful, like everything she writes

[haphazardlyannotated]

The Locked Tomb/Steven Universe Crossover

This crossover was inspired months ago by the random thought "Hey, Pearl would definitely want to be Rose's cavalier" and hasn't left me alone since. So here you go, niche audience of one! (It's me. I am the audience)

First of all, yes, Pearl has to be Rose's cavalier. Not only does it neatly align with Pearl's knightly devotion and the institutional power imbalance they're both trying to ignore, Pearl absolutely is the kind of person who would take "my not-wife refuses to kill me and eat my soul in order to attain immortality" as a terrible rejection.

She's so insane about Rose, she'd fit right in in this universe (pun not intended). Also, the cavalier-necromancer romance taboo works excellently for Pearlrose. For one, of course, the forbidden romance. Cav!Pearl confessing to necro!Rose that she's been dreaming about running away from the Houses together to live in domestic bliss on a nice moon somewhere has the exact same vibes as su!Pearl's confession in Now We're Only Falling Apart. But more importantly, cav!Pearl giving Rose's suitors a "You may have caught her eye, but I am her cavalier; she swore an oath to me; our fates are entwined till death do us part" speech only to go to her rooms and wallow in how the very position that ensures she'll be by Rose's side forever is what will forever keep her from pursuing her true feelings is too good.

Meanwhile Rose is in the next room going "Oh woe is me, for I am a cruel, selfish woman, to keep the love of my life from the glory she deserves! Alas, I can't bear to let her go, even though I know in my heart that her care for me is only the rightful, proper care of a cavalier for her necromancer! The least I owe her is not to take advantage of our pure, sacred bond, so I shall go and drown my sorrows in another fleeting affair!"

Writer's choice whether they miraculously manage to communicate before Rose gets herself killed in one way or another, but ironically the dystopian 50% character death rate tlt verse is much more likely to give them a second chance than pastel redemption arcs su, because Steven Universe is a story about healing from trauma with the power of a supportive network of loved ones while The Locked Tomb endorses attacking the cold unfeeling universe with teeth and fingernails until it returns your girlfriend, and both of them are so valid for this.

In this case however it means, that instead of slowly healing, Pearl absolutely refuses to accept Rose's death to a Harrow and Camilla extent. Does she threaten to stab whoever takes Jod's role in this AU? Does she try to break into the Locked Tomb because to hell with the Houses, she's getting her wife back? Both? In any case, tlt rules demand that she succeeds.

Anyway, I put them in the Seventh House because roses.

As for the supporting cast:

Ruby and Sapphire are the Fifth House wholesome married couple who make Pearl and Rose stare in longing for what they cannot have.

Garnet is Paul. Obviously. Cue another, different kind of yearning for what could have been from Pearl. Poor Garnet has just come into existence. She doesn't deserve having to be everyone's emotional support already.

I struggled with figuring out a role for Amethyst for a while until it hit me: Wasn't it fun when Amethyst experienced self hatred over how the life was drained out of her planet to make her? Try being the result of two hundred child murders! Don't the inadequacy issues gain a delightful new dimension when your entire generation has been killed off in anticipation of your abilities? Guys, I think Amethyst is Harrow Nova.

I have no idea what plot has to happen for Rose to end up with Jod's baby, but that is the only role for Steven I will tolerate. And Connie is his cavalier. Obviously.

Peridot is sciency, Lapis is the quiet OP lady, and they're in a QPR. There was no way I wasn't going to make them the Sixth. HOWEVER. Due to how extremely OP Lapis is with an element manipulating power specifically. I decided that she's the necromancer and Peridot is her incredibly academically talented BFF who they're pretending is the necromancer so she can be along for the ride. This would be plot relevant if this crossover had an actual plot instead of self indulgent vibes only.

Jasper gets Judith's role. Completely loyal to the ethically dubious regime, absolutely convinced that she's the only one who is doing the right thing and everyone else is just not strong enough, ends up corrupted possessed by a Resurrection Beast.

Bismuth is a Blood of Eden commander. She would like to fist fight every single Uppercrust zombie, however, just like su!Bismuth, she is easily won over when a former Homeworld gem House zombie shows up on her planet and announces her intent to fight the Diamonds Jod and his Lyctors and/or bust into the Locked Tomb.