#out of canaan

[keplerspacecraftofficial]

electing to believe this is what griddlehark looks like to everyone else

[cutetanuki-chan]

sometimes I see people being confused where alectostasia ship came from so here's a little bit of run down

I'm not really good with words so it might be clunky

what we know from the text

Anastasia tries to achieve 'perfect lyctorhood', something goes wrong during her ascension, John kills Samael, Anastasia fails her attempt

Anastasia moves to the ninth, continues working on the house or only founding it at that time

John asks Anastasia to help build the tomb 'I built that tomb with Anastasia, designed every inch of it.'

somewhere between working on it and Alecto's entombment, Alecto and Anastasia make a vow where Alecto basically swears as a cavalier to her 'Alecto said, I remember my vows. As I swore to Anastasia I swear to you. I am in your service until you bid me the favour, and whatsoever you appoint I shall perform, and consider the vow rendered. This is what I promised, until such a time as you deal with me as you see fit.'

as John leading Alecto to the tomb, she asks to see Anastasia 'She had said, There are almost no beautiful things left. Where is Anastasia? Let me talk to Anastasia.'

presumable Anastasia is the one to inflict to the ninth house importance of keeping her bloodline and worshiping of the tomb through all of those years

Anastasia's bones are in the tomb 'She looked back beyond, and she saw Anastasia, tucked where nobody would find her: Anastasia, all bones. Not really Anastasia. But Anastasia’s body without the meat on it, snuggled right into the curve of the rock, ready to close the door whenever it was opened. She remembered Anastasia.'

Alecto immediately getting chill after tasting Harrow's blood 'The child was silent; but her blood was on Alecto’s lips, and through that blood Alecto was made to understand what it was, and was astonished exceedingly. Alecto put away wrath and said: Thou art the blood of the tomb-keeper.'

Alecto saying sorry for Samael

the implications

the vow on itself is very interesting, at first we all know how usually normal cavalier and necromancer relationships are. then for Alecto to comply to that, indicates she should be pretty trusting of Anastasia, and their relationships at least somehow better than with other lyctors who were terrified of her

then there's also the tombkeeper blood thing, what serves as a check note for Alecto after waking up, and means the initial purpose of the ninth house was actually waiting for rock to roll away

and one part of the vow seems to imply 'if anyone beside a tombkeeper wake you, slay them as they came to hurt you', as could hinted on a protection from other lyctors who wanted to kill Alecto? (Then Alecto remembered the vow, and turned back upon the altar to face the second child and raised the sword with wrath in her heart, for they meant to bring destruction upon her.)

then the matter of Anastasia's bones laying in the tomb next to the rock. not sure if it's just her skeleton or she made herself a some construct mechanism from her bones. and not clear if she got entombed on her own volition or John closed them both there, but being entombed together five feet apart cause we are not gay

there's also some oddness in Alecto immediately after waking saying she's sorry for Samael, but I won't go into that here, anyway Anastasia was trying to find a better way to lyctorhood and I think in her more close relationships with Alecto she figured out something that John wasn't telling them, before or after her ascension

and some theories

I think I first heard this theory from @/mayasaura, that ninth house tradition of telling secrets while submerged in the salt water could've corelate with Anastasia trying to have a talk like that with Alecto since she feels the most at ease in the salt water, so means pool time for alectostasia too

another one that I really like but not sure how much legs it actually would have in canon, one of the reasons Nona was so enamored with her body cause Harrow is a spitting image of Anastasia, first saw @/corvophobia talking about it

coming back to Harrow, could there be anything more to her taking immediate affection to the Body a la some fuckery with Anastasia's spirt/tombkeeper's blood

more people explained it better, I try to reblog most of the theories in my side blog, you can check it out there but some of it explicit just in case

anyway in conclusion, as I keep procrastinating with my work, I don't think they were making out 24/7 in Canaan house in canon but something for sure happened there between them

[beguilingcorpse]

it drives me crazyyyy that like. palamedes is out at canaan house with tenderness in excelsius for dulcinea. the perfect regency era gentleman. every moment is the pride and prejudice hand flex scene. if the pov character was attracted to men even a little bit the narration would be filled with swooning. he’s lowering her gently into chairs and handing her tea so that their hands brush and looking at her with those big grey eyes of his. and all of it is WASTED because it’s NOT dulcinea it’s CYTHEREA. FUCK

[fkapommel]

"Nav, when I saw her face, I decided I wanted to live. I decided to live forever just in case she ever woke up."

I may be 10,000 years late to the party but holy shit. HOLY SHIT. She decided at 10/11 to become a lyctor, to live forever in order to see Alecto awaken. She pushed herself the entirety of her pre- and post-pubescence to be the greatest necromancer of a generation in order to become a lyctor; she devoted her entire existence to the rarest improbability she could actually piece the Eightfold Path together on her own, as John's invitation was so unbelievably unlikely. And that's why she was willing to use Gideon as her cavalier, that's how she could stand the agony of asking for help and depending on the bitch she swore to hate, that's why it was so goddamn important to have a competent cavalier. And when the true purpose of cavaliership was revealed with Ianthe's ascension, after she had realized how much she couldn't live without Gideon, she was willing to give up her whole life's purpose, the one thing in the world she had ever truly wanted- Alecto - for Gideon!! screaming crying throwing up disemboweling etc etc

[tiffanyachings]

“Fiat lux! If you want to talk improbable, let’s talk about this”—a scrape of stone on stone—“being three thousand and some years older than this.” A heavy clunk.

“Inexplicable, Warden.”

“Certainly not. Like everything else in this ridiculous conglomeration of cooling gas, it’s perfectly explicable, I just need to explic-it.”

“Indubitable, Warden.”

“Stop that. I need you listening, not racking your brain for rare negatives. Either this entire building was scavenged from a garbage hopper, or I am being systematically lied to on a molecular level.”

“Maybe the building’s shy.”

“That is just tough shit for the building.”

[scalierpepper]

Some of the more environment-focused scenes I drew for Reinaeiry's Take Me To Church but it's EPIC video!

Here's a link to the animatic! And if you haven't already go check out her music asap

Some notes about my artistic inspiration under the cut:

It was so much fun to dive a bit deeper into the details of Gideon the Ninth and try to make the environments come to life, especially Canaan House. For Canaan, I specifically took a lot of inspo from Neo-Gothic/Gothic-Revival architecture, including Larnach Castle in New Zealand! (The girls are Maori!! And Nona the Ninth shaped my visualization of the first house tons) occasionally some elements were an artistic battle of balance between description and visual tone (overgrown disrepaired gold-shot marble rainbow tile mosaic wood floors, anyone?) but nearly everything I was using as inspo fit so perfectly into my mental image/what I was trying to achieve and I couldnt be happier with the way some of these turned out. For Drearburh I very loosely combined a gothic cathedral with an ossuary and then Pluto-ified the color scheme!

I especially love this scene:

It set the tone for how the rest of the animatic was gonna be colored and it fit my mental image of canaan house vibes so perfectly

Overall I put a lot of love into including as many canon environmental details as I possibly could, and taking meaningful creative liberty where there were gaps in Muir's descriptions. Some parts involved a little logistic puzzling but I'm ngl I love the challenge of translating textual desc to artwork. Working on this was such a treat

[puffywiz]

I've been working on this on and off for about a year, but I dusted it off when I started my gt9 reread. I've always wanted to do fan covers for the books, but I struggled to pull off the idea I had in my head for a long time. I decided to let the piece change from my original vision, and it turned into something with a sort of gothic syth-wave vibe. I ended up really liking where it went! I have plans to do Harrow and Nona's books too, which I hope will be easier now that I've got this new plan of attack ^^ I also have an inlking of an idea for the Alecto cover, but I'd prefer to do that once I've read the book.

[loverboy1717]

Have we considered the blue light that appears in and around Abbigail when the 8th first siphons in Gideon actually has something to fo with Varun?

Cytherea screams and at first I thought it was an act cus she didn’t want the others to realize she wasn’t Dulcie, but what if it has something to do with the RBs and she’s actually terrified for a second? Obviously she doesnt have time to explain that whole mess when Pal confronts her. Am i reaching here?

The next time siphoning happens in the facility one of the devils shows up and we know they have something to do with the resurection. I just feel like tamsyn doesn’t do coincidence and we know Varun has a blue light.

Please discuss.

[mayasaura]

Actually. Looking at the chronology. The last time Gideon and Harrow talked alone before the pool scene, Gideon accused Harrow of being a jealous creep for telling her to stay away from Dulcinea.

A whole lot of stupifying things happened in between, but really, it wouldn't be surprising if her first panicked reaction to Harrow disrobing was to think Harrow was making a move on her. Relationship definitely hurtling toward something.

[katakaluptastrophy]

Once again thinking about how nightmarish the River bubble was...

It lasts for nine months. The ghosts stuck inside it can't quite keep track of time passing, but think it's been around eight weeks.

And of those perceived eight weeks, they don't fully work out what's going on until a 'week' or so before Harrow awakes in the bubble.

These people spent what they perceived as two months of moments of horrible realisation and forgetfulness as Harrow's unconscious mind tried to construct a simulacrum of Canaan House and "enforced certain rules to keep [her] cast on-script".

We know about the "wrong" and "confused parody" NPC versions of the living scions of Canaan House, but what did Harrow's storytelling mean for everyone else? Were they always in control? Did they ever find themselves in places or doing things they didn't remember deciding to do, or distinctly remembered doing before? Imagine having flashbacks of your own awful death while your companions look on incomprehending. Imagine being the only one in the room not claiming to recall that this all happened differently before. That conversation a 'week' before Harrow's arrival must have been so validating and so utterly devastating.

And they still all chose to stay.

[lacilashea]

I love Jesus more than all & all my posts belong to Jesus & he is my Lord and savior, the Messiah, the Christ, Jesus is my King and should be your's too instead of people &made up governments & Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ the truth, Jesus King of the jews, the rest on the earth & that much being God's son. I love Jesus as my Lord & savior & this is not about me but about Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ the truth, Jesus King of the jews- https://www.tumblr.com lacilashea/780937809260396544/i-love-jesus-more-than-all-and-all-my-posts-belong?source=share https://www.tumblr.com/lacilashea/780831150589493248/i-love-jesus-more-than-all-and-all-my-posts-belong?source=share & the rest on the earth & that much being God's son with Mary. Jesus my bestest fucking friend, God my bestest fucking friend, & the Holy Ghost my bestest fucking friend too have feelings like you, I, & others do to that also exist such as Mikel an angel of the lord who is my husband & I-laci cannot describe what he means to me he takes my breath away if I think about us & I get a feeling like no other that comes over me when he speaks to me & I would do that much for him(that is true so you know if you are actually in love or not based on the first feeling when you meet someone)-this not about him & I regardless of what you read this is about Jesus Christ the Messiah God's begotten son with Mary-Luke 1:26-38. Mikael the angel of the Lord w/ the heavenly host & we are intimate & he held me & wiped the tears from my eyes & when we were that close I briefly put his penis in my mouth-literally & I-(laci are not promiscuous or a virgin either & I-laci are never leaving him and he is still a virgin & could have other marriages etc like Jacob, David, Solomon & others & the other angels and sons of God mentioned below could also w/ you or friendships with you & God, Jesus, & the Holy Ghost too & that is documented-see comments, a part of Legion my bester politest friends, Gabriel Angel of the Lord my close friend, Death-also been done bad my close friend & he said die & dying is not the same as Death-Jesus-God-the Holy Ghost-& Death said, Raphael Angel of the Lord my close friend, Belial my close friend, Mammon my closest friend, Satan my best friend, Beelzebub my close friend, & you can talk to Jesus, God, & the Holy Ghost literally all the time & they do talk back to you(God, Jesus, &the Holy Ghost want your friendship not your servitude-as that belongs to Jesus as well-Jesus is my bestest friend, God my bestest friend, the Holy Spirit my friend, a part of Legion my bester politest friends, Gabriel Angel of the Lord my close friend, Death my close friend, Raphael Angel of the Lord my close friend, Belial my close friend, Mammon closest friend, Satan my best friend, Beelzebub my close friend, Baphomet my close friend, Abaddon Angel of the Lord my closest-closest friend-love them all, & you can talk to them if you love Jesus as Messiah & all mentioned above exist like you do & they are real & you do not treat Jesus, God, and the Holy Ghost and all mentioned like magic 8 balls you stuff in a closet or for your personal gain & when this is all God-Jesus-&Holy Ghost's when this is all Jesus-God-Holy Ghost's earth & all on it-Jesus-God-the Holy Ghost, &your lives will improve. Also they are not going to stop in what is the area Israel(named after Jacob-Israel a real family) because they have made plans to kill your people & take the land from you and your people they are going to keep on going when they are done with you, & it is people here & other places that have told them with their(made up in Israel) fake government there to do it that many years ago, Why because people wanting into Jerusalem for more people to come & the land you & your people were suppose to take care of given to others-Jesus, God, the Holy Ghost, Legion, Gabriel, Death, Raphael, Belial, Mammon, Satan, Beezlebub, Baphomet, Abaddon said & others agree with. I are warning you in each post below your life experiences-Jesus, God & Holy Ghost Legion said.

[myfamilyllashea]

I love Jesus more than all and all my posts belong to Jesus and he is my Lord and savior, the Messiah, the Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ the truth, Jesus King of the jews, the rest on the earth and that much being God's son. as my Lord and savior and this is not about me but about Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ the truth, Jesus King of the jews and the rest on the earth and that much being God's son with Mary, and Jesus, God, and the Holy Ghost have feelings and you can talk to Jesus, God, and the Holy Ghost all the time and they do talk back outside of prayer and talk to them and others all day and night long and you start talking to Jesus about everything and your lives will improve, that is terrible what they are doing to you in gaza and canaan and needs to be forced to stop killing and soliders everywhere, police, and those doing wrong in different professions walking out on their made up duties(jobs) to do what is right instead of following a made up leader's directive to do what is wrong in protecting their job instead of lives(people, animals, and plants-all lives)-watch the Experimenter and leaders are not even needed read about Saul as Jesus pointed out but everyone pitching in to help one another as Jesus pointed out two are better than one, want you out of harm's way and you and your family(bombs and missiles should be banned everywhere) and this should not be happening with a war has got to stop and all the innocent people like you and your family getting hurt or worse, please becareful you and hope your family gets medical care, dental, and vision, personal hygiene products, skin care products, dental care products, warm and cooled foods, and that you get structurally sound and clean living quarters soon that are heated and cooled, and hot and cold running water for everyone displaced, in difficult living conditions, and everyone all at no cost to you, or anyone's families including animals and plants. I cannot stand what is happening there and wars affect us directly and indirectly else where with what is going to the atmosphere alone causing acid rain and worse as the bombs, missiles, chemicals and more that should not be and that is on a selfish level elsewhere to only be concerned with self and not everyone else everywhere and to relate thinking I would not want to be done this way. Also Apache a name native to here being used on war equipment made from mined materials here is being is used there and the colonists from here gave or sold to them and colonists have made fun of our people native to renamed united states for that long and used them as mascots you can even role play us being in a ball uniform, be made fun of in fictional westerns or movies like indian in the cupboard again not the sweet indians from india native from here but they like to generalize people often and do not give a shit, cherokee clothing not owned by anyone with native blood more products, stores, and resturants using native names from here when they have no native blood work, the cherokee kid movie, shows like parks and recreations and oh also apparently if you have family with migrants, those formerly human trafficked, or your family from here has been raped you just wipe your genetics to the made up government here which causes beyond identity struggles. Also that is too bad they have to look at blood work, physical characteristics and accept total facts, also and at schools you can play cowboys and indians here and we are not the sweet indians from india what is happening to you reminds me of us, how they have done more migrants and those human trafficked. Cannot stand what has happened. If people could just imagine being you in gaza, canaan that would make them care or to just look at what you have gone through and ask themselves would I want to be done this way? Because I did not or do not. DO NOT LET THEM CUT OFF ELECTRICITY AND POWER AS THAT MUCH MEDICAL EQUIPMENT REQUIRES ELECTRICITY LIKE BREATHING MACHINES, VENTILATORS, OXYGEN MACHINES & MORE.

[whoopseydaisy]

hey do y’all think canaan house is made up of a bunch of the dead john didn’t save when he nuked the world and that’s why it’s so haunted. it’s just cows and conspiracy theorists and everyone on melbourne’s working tram service.

[s-aint-elmo]

throwback to when i first read harrow the ninth and i was convinced that The Body(TM) was not a genuine daily harrow experience but rather a consequence of gideon's erasure. like has harrowhark been having hallucinations of the body locked in the tomb since she was ten or is that just her mind filling in the sounds and sensations of gideon's presence in her life. is harrowhark really in love with the body or is that just her feelings for gideon finding another vessel in her absence. etc. etc. that was fun

[it-grrl]

Gideon Nav deserves to occupy her own living body on her own terms in AtN for no other reason than so she can finally say "Lyctor? I hardly knew 'er!" with her own joddamned mouth.

[g1deonthefirst]

wasn't alfred a hedge fund manager? i get where ur coming from re: the class divide post otherwise btw but am somewhat stumped ab this bc he was definitely the one making the most money and likely highly educated as well, and ended up a cav. ig it is STEM/nonSTEM divide?

hi! yes, alfred was a hedge fund manager — he was also augustine's brother and so comes from a similar (presumably very wealthy) background. this exception doesn't really disprove the rule to me: either way, john was disproportionately likely to make people who were highly educated necromancers and people who were not cavaliers. i want to walk through a couple possible reasons for this.

the first possibility is that john (1) believed that people who were more "intelligent" were more likely to be able to understand necromancy and (2) implicitly believed that people who were academically high-achieving like scientists, lawyers, doctors, etc. were more "intelligent." clearly, john and the lyctors all seem to think pretty highly of their own intelligence. john in particular went from being a poor māori kid to being an accomplished scientist, and i don't think it's a stretch to say he probably believed he deserved it on the basis of intelligence.

in contrast, both alfred and cristabel have their own talents and intelligence disparaged — john describes alfred as "useless, but a darling" and augustine describes cristabel as "not hav[ing] the intellect you'd ordinarily find in a sandwich or an orange." additionally, necromancy is talked about in scientific terms, which lends itself to the idea that you might need some scientific understanding to be good at it. i think it's entirely possible that john consciously decided that some people wouldn't be intelligent enough to hack it and made them the cavaliers, a problematic assumption chiefly in that it equates academic achievement with innate intelligence.

the second possibility, and to me the more likely one, is that john simply made the people closest to him necromancers while making people he wasn't as close to (essentially his friends' friends) non-necromancers. it's pretty clear that the people john made necromancers were people who directly worked on john's original cryogenics project with him, while the cavaliers were all people who got dragged into his cult by those original project members. alfred is a perfect example of this — he's there because he's augustine's brother. other people have made posts about the possibility that john did this to intentionally separate his friends from the people they loved.

but either way, i think this demonstrates who john as a character cared about. john, as a successful scientist, surrounded himself by people who were highly educated and successful, predominantly (as you note anon) people in STEM. people who are disproportionately likely to be white, neurotypical, and cis, or at least disproportionately likely to be able to conform to white/european, neurotypical, cis standards. not only is john not as close to people in his project-turned-cult that aren't as highly educated, but poor people aren't present at all. there are no janitors, no retail workers, no manual laborers, no farmworkers. i don't get the sense that john ever really unpacked his internalized biases or questioned why he primarily values people who are highly educated.

"but," i imagine my hypothetical reader who's somehow made it this far protesting, "of course he's surrounded by highly educated people. he's working on a cryogenics project!" well...precisely. tumblr user sophelstien's scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds essay touches on how this project demonstrates that john is not as progressive as some people assume he is, but what i'll say here is simply that john didn't have to make the people in his cryogenics project the leaders of his new society. and by installing the very people who our society rewards into positions of power, john — consciously or not — shapes the new society he's creating with the old society's inequalities.