#speaking of dulci

[slugpup2]

if i had a coin for every limbus account i had partial custody over i'd have three coins which isn't a lot but i think these people need to pay me more

[tiffanyachings]

it would have been very beautiful. camilla would have had to cook (horrible bone soup)

[mistborn-bastard]

I talked about this on my old blog and people entirely misunderstood it in a wholesome way But now I am going to be entirely non wholesome <3

Do you think sylvari go into a sort of "bloom"? Cause I mean, flowers are a plants reproductive structure so....

Seasonally based blooms, different plant types sylvari having different times of year, times of day, and even how long it lasts

I have to make these little plant binches weirder, it's my duty as a plant nerd

[secretsofthewilde]

The moment in the final ep where the Deadloch choir singing All the Things Said plays as the women came running into the farmhouse to help Dulcie and everyone else out? Brilliant scene. The way they are literally running to go aide these men who turned their backs on them, bc that's what these women do, they care. How this moment is really what helps connect the people in Deadloch to move forward together to become a real community.

[iced-souls]

Fans love him, friends hate him!

Draw your characters like this

[cryobabiess]

Pairing: Emperor Caracalla x concubine!reader

Summary: After a public tantrum at a senator's gathering, Geta sends Caracalla's most beloved concubine to comfort his mad brother. Tags: hurt/comfort, slightly NSFW, implied/mentioned sex, Caracalla has serious mommy issues, nipple play, breastfeeding :/ (sorry), short fic, Caracalla is obsessed with your big naturals I guess idk AN: I'm not sure if there's any Otessa Moshfegh enjoyers out there, but this lil mini fic is inspired by Lapvona. Caracalla's man-child vibe reminded me of Merek, so naturally I had to write the most strange and off-putting fic to satisfy my weird-girl impulses. Enjoy, freaks!

Hurt by his brother’s callous words, the divine emperor Caracalla had fled the senator’s banquet in a fit of rage. It only takes a single tense glance from Emperor Geta for you to receive his silent command to follow after his mad brother. It does not take long to find him.

Like always, he hides away under a golden table tucked in the far corner of the throne room. His sniveling echoes off the tall marble walls. You slowly approach his curled up form, as if not to startle a wild hare.

“Caracalla. You must come out now.” You call his name softly.

“I will not.” He croaks through his tears, turning his back towards you. With a sigh, you sink to your knees, extending your open arms towards him.

You wait for Caracalla to find his sense. After a few moments, He finally turns to you to reveal his face—pale, rosy, and wet.

“Has brother sent you to scold me? I am no child!” Spite coats his words. You smile at the absurdity. He could order your head on a pike if he so pleased, but prefers for you to indulge his brooding. A god-king with the whims of a spurned child.

“No, I do not seek to scold, little prince. Come now, so that I may hold you.”

And with that, the emperor crawls to you.

He settles into your arms and you cradle his torso, the luxurious fabric of his ornate robes pooling at your lap. His cheek rests atop your bosom like a newborn babe—he weeps like one too.

“It is unjust! Brother always has the last word, yet I am eldest!” Caracalla laments, his tears wet the bodice of your stola.

You use your free hand to smooth tendrils of copper hair away from his damp face. A tantrum of this magnitude was not uncommon for the young emperor, though you often wondered how a man could display such behaviors at the age of twenty and one. Caracalla was distinctly tender, despite his blood lust. His ego was delicate, easily wounded by Geta’s pragmatism and rigid sensibility.

“He wishes to be rid of me, I know it.” He sniffles, his hand reaching to fiddle with the pendant resting at the base of your neck. You smile softly despite growing weary of this routine.

“Don’t be without reason, mea dulcis. You are invaluable to Rome and all her subjects. Geta speaks without tact when he is cross. You must know this too, hmm?”

Caracalla thinks for a moment, brows knitting together in contemplation.

“He is unkind. It should have been him to suffer in the womb, not I.”

You can’t help but laugh at his juvenile description of his brother's malicious cruelty. Frustration flashes across Caracalla’s face as water threatens to brim his eyes again.

“Peace, my lamb. No more tears.” You coo, using a thumb to swipe away at the wetness—but it is too late. Your laughter invited a new wave of angry tears. He buries his face in your breasts, jeweled fingers dragging down the fabric of your stola. His mouth quickly finds your nipple. You hiss, resisting the urge to pull him away from your flesh.

It brings the emperor great comfort to suckle you. Geta had explained Caracalla’s affliction once before.

“Our own mother denied him her breast; she believed him to be cursed. Perhaps he held on to that trangression. He called for a wet nurse until the age of ten and two. My brother has always suffered from madness, you see.”

You had taken prior notice of this habit. After he fucks you like an animal in heat, he often drifts back to your tit, lazily sucking and nibbling until sleep takes him. You thought nothing of it until emperor Geta revealed it’s cause to you.

And though you had no milk to bear, tranquility came over the man as if he had been fed. Eyes closed and breath even, he plays with a tendril of your hair as he rolls your swollen nipple in his hot mouth—lost in bliss. It is odd, but you pity him. With his lips so flush against you and his expression finally at peace, one could forget the madness, the carnage, the rage.

Sometime later, Caracalla regains his composure, standing straight with his shoulders back, returning to a proud and stately posture. He crudely wipes the spit from his chin with the back of his hand.

“You will attend to me in my chambers tonight.” He commands before returning to the festivities.

[tanis-zed]

Sudden brain blast over morning coffee:

John Gaius, necrolord whatever, cringiest man alive, refuses to let the earth die. And not just in the literal sense of locking the earth’s soul in a barbie on ice, in subtler ways too.

The most obvious is the memes, John constantly references memes that are dated even to us, but are in universe from a culture that died ten thousand years ago!

Slightly more subtle is the years. Why does everyone in the Houses measure in earth years? It’s been ten THOUSAND years since anyone lived on the earth! But John keeps them as a unit of measurement.

Even more subtle is the language. In sci-fi and fantasy we’re all used to the idea of the translation for the reader, people don’t speak english in lord of the rings, or dune, but the dialogue is in english for us, the readers. Not in The Locked Tomb. In this series, they ARE speaking english. Modern, bog standard english, to the point where two people born thousands of years apart speak similar enough dialects that one can pose as the other (dulcie/cytheria).

Now, this could possibly fall under that standard sci-fi trope, EXCEPT!!!! In Nona The Ninth, we see the non-house humans! And they speak dozens of languages, like you’d expect after TEN THOUSAND YEARS of linguistic drift!

John is trying SO HARD to keep the earth alive that he’s forced a language to stagnate for, say it with me now, Ten Thousand Years, to the point where even completely new things with no equivalent in our world don’t even have new words, just repurposed old ones (flimsy, sonic).

John Gaius, the first necromancer, could resurrect the planet itself, and millions of people, but he couldn’t resurrect the culture. So, John, cryogenics researcher, tried to put the culture on ice, to keep it as close to the one he remembers as possible. And he still failed.

[silasoctakiseron]

Regarding the Eighth House's appearance and lack thereof in Harrow's River bubble

I want to preface this post by saying that before you read literally any of this you should go read no speculation in those eyes by @onmentalsafari on ao3, because it's a) possibly my favorite Silas fic of all time and b) definitely my favorite handling of the Canaan bubble as a concept. Anyway. Moving on.

This post is almost certainly not going to tell you anything you don't already know. It is nevertheless going to be an extended examination of Silas and Colum's presence in Harrow's River bubble mimicry of Canaan House, with specific regard to whether Colum appeared at all and why Silas conducts himself the way he does.

Despite both being dead and both being people Harrow encountered at Canaan House, the Eighth are not prominently featured in the Canaan bubble. On its face, this shouldn't much matter, given their marginally relevant status as widely disliked side characters. However, people Harrow never met at all — namely, the real Dulcinea and the living Protesilaus — are present, active, and fully-fleshed in the bubble. People she met and didn't know well, including Magnus and Abigail, Jeannemary and Isaac, and Marta, additionally appear as whole, real spirits with independent thoughts. The only people who appear as poorly-fashioned constructs of their real selves are people whose souls Harrow could not call to the bubble, either because they are not dead or because they are somewhere other than the River.

Silas's full and complete soul, rather than a construct in his image, has been pulled out of the River and is trapped in the bubble with everyone else. His primary appearance is in chapter 26, when Harrow finds him on the terrace, which I'll discuss later. This is the only time we see him in person in the entire book.

He appears elsewhere a couple times, chiefly when Abigail attempts to recruit him in hunkering down in the Second's rooms for warmth/protection from the Sleeper (ch. 21) and tells Harrow they were unable to get him to do so (ch. 28):

“Dulcie—Lady Dulcinea, do you mind if I ask you to get Silas Octakiseron with us? He’s neither to hold nor to bind to me, but he might listen to you.”

“I told [Dulcinea] that I didn’t think we’d get Master Octakiseron first time round … She won’t tell me what he said to her, just that he ‘was horrid.’” [Shocker.]

It's clear enough here that Silas has a personality and control over his own behavior that are independent from Harrow's influence on the bubble, and the other ghosts recognize him as a person rather than a construct. The fact that he chooses to use this independence to presumably be insane alone in his room for nine months is his own problem.

Either way, he doesn't appear to be doing well. I've mentioned before that frankly, Silas very obviously falls rather to pieces¹ in the Canaan bubble, as described here in chapter 26 of HTN:

The Eighth House necromancer stood there with the wind flapping his wet alabaster robes, his braid torn to wisps and ribbons ... From closer up, Harrow saw that he was all in disarray: his clothes were smudged and a few of his buttons were not done up. The rain and the fog had lashed him terribly.

He looks great. He's doing awesome. He's clearly capable of appropriate self-maintenance and has clearly not been losing his shit over the fact that he's alone to fend for himself.

I've also said before (see above link) that everything that seems off about Silas in the bubble is related to Colum. Colum sometimes appears alone in GTN, but Silas doesn't appear independently of Colum a single time in the entire book — indeed, Colum occasionally speaks for him or quietly interprets social cues for his benefit. Silas is also, obviously, completely dependent on Colum to perform his necromancy. While it's shown that he physically can siphon from other people, as he does to Ianthe in GTN ch. 34, it's also made clear that soul siphoning works best (or at least, is strongly believed to work best) when the participating necromancer and cavalier are closely genetically compatible, and it's not incontrovertibly certain that Silas can siphon from another person without using Colum as a jumping-off point. Colum's marked absence from HTN is a blip in the broader narrative, but to Silas would have been like having an arm torn off.

The void where Colum used to be gives us a fairly ready explanation for why Silas has "gone to ground" in the bubble, as Magnus puts it in HTN ch. 28; he's completely vulnerable to any and all external forces and doesn't trust anyone else in the building as far as he can throw them. It also explains why he looks a complete mess when Harrow finds him, other than the fact that he's standing in an active rainstorm. We're aware from GTN ch. 28 that Colum is responsible for a lot of Silas's personal upkeep, including specifically his hair, and it's clear that Silas is either struggling to do it alone, failing to prioritize it because he has bigger problems, or both.

All of this being said, having established that he's clearly not present for the vast majority of the bubble's existence: where is Colum Asht?

While Colum never appears onscreen in the Canaan bubble, it's a common misconception that he's never mentioned at all. This is very close to true, but not completely. Colum is never mentioned by name, but vague sketches of him appear in the background until Silas's apparent death.

Something in Colum's place appears by implication in ch. 8, when everyone "arrives" at the Canaan bubble:

They were led away in twos—barring the Third House trio—²

Abigail also alludes to Colum's existence in ch. 28 shortly before learning of Silas's disappearance:

“I tried to make [Dulcinea] take the bed—she was so upset that the Templar pair weren't on board.”

There's one other, less certain mention. The Eighth House are represented in some capacity at Harrow's ball for the hand of Her Divine Highness in ch. 41, though no specific reference is made to its scion or cavalier:

The other seven Houses present³ were flaunting as though they were birds in a particularly baroque mating season.

Notably, the Coronabeth construct does appear at the ball even though Silas destroys it almost 15 chapters prior, meaning that his absence elsewhere doesn't necessarily bar something resembling Colum from having been present. This presence is definitely doubtful, in my view, but it is nevertheless not impossible.

One tall, astonishingly built Third House princess had chosen to sit among their number like a butterfly in a grey bog: she wore a silk robe in gold and breeches that showed off a calf too fit to be called a necromancer’s, and she was holding a glass of champagne and laughing at something she was being told.

All of this suggests that for at least part of the time the bubble was in effect, something resembling Colum was present enough that nothing seemed blatantly amiss, at least not to Harrow et al.

That said, it's clear that ghosts who were close to the real people replaced by constructs in the bubble recognize very quickly both that something is wrong with the construct and that they and/or the construct ought to be dead. The best examples we get of this are Marta's experience of the Judith construct's death in ch. 18 and Abigail's description of what Marta found wrong with the construct in ch. 43.

[Marta] said, with uncharacteristic frenzy: “Why am I here? ... I want to know—I just want to know—” ... “She had eight metal projectiles spun at high speeds through her midsection,” said Harrow. She knew that some people took comfort in the idea, so she added: “She would have died very quickly after her heart was destroyed.” “No,” said the lieutenant, and now Harrow thought she seemed dazed. ... “That’s not … Don’t know why I thought … No.”

“Why did you only pull some of us as ghosts? Why did the others appear as—varyingly ludicrous constructs? Lieutenant Dyas was certain Judith was wrong before she even died, that she was like a confused parody of herself.”

Being as it is that Colum is Silas's constant companion and has been since he was a very small child, it beggars belief to posit that he would not recognize anything appearing in Colum's stead as a construct or other insert rather than the man himself. Like Marta, he also seems to have figured out the truth about Colum's and his own deaths fairly quickly. (Marta says in ch. 45 that "the Second House doesn't overthink the River"; the Eighth absolutely cannot say the same.)

We know that Silas knows both that Colum is dead and how he actually died, including the parties involved, because of his conduct in ch. 26. Silas encounters the Coronabeth construct — though whether he found it where it was or manipulated it out onto the terrace himself isn't clear — and destroys it.

As of ch. 34 of GTN, immediately prior to his death, Silas has no particular quarrel with Coronabeth. If anything, he might consider her vaguely complicit in the crime of Ianthe's ascent to Lyctorhood, but that's about it.

Silas sounded quite normal now when he turned and addressed the monotonously crying girl by the slab: “Princess Coronabeth. Is she speaking the truth? And did you, at any point, attempt to stop her, or know as a necromancer what act she was committing?” “Poor Corona!” said Ianthe. “Don’t get on her case, you little white excuse for a human being. What could she have done?”

But Silas's destruction of the Coronabeth construct isn't about Corona herself. It's about Ianthe, and he says as much.

“And somewhere out there, may all the blood of your blood suffer even a fraction of what I have suffered.” He pushed. The eldest princess of Ida dropped from the side of the docking bay with swanlike ease. ... The Eighth House necromancer stood there ... and he did not even look over the side.”

As I've said before, there is no evidence that Silas had ever experienced any particular suffering prior to his and Colum's deaths that would drive him to seek revenge, particularly not on an apparently unrelated party like Corona. Until his arrival at Canaan House, Silas lived what appears to have been an extremely sheltered existence. The suffering to which he refers here, evident in the clear collapse of his ability to keep himself in order, is very obviously the grief of Colum's death, and may refer in addition to the emotional turmoil he experienced upon discovering the Colum construct and remembering Colum's demise in the bubble.

To Silas's understanding, Coronabeth is to Ianthe as Colum is to him. She's Ianthe's family and companion, the person for whom Ianthe clearly cares most and upon whom she most heavily relies. The Faustian bargain of Lyctorhood demands that Lyctors sacrifice the people closest to them in the world for power. Ianthe made that trade with counterfeit money — she got the power and eternal life without being forced to kill the person she loved most. Silas received neither of these dubious rewards and still lost Colum so completely that he can't even locate his ghost after death.

But wait, I can already hear some of you commenting on this post, wasn't Colum's death very obviously Silas's fault? Didn't Silas directly cause Colum's death by siphoning him without his permission and then splitting his focus while they fought Ianthe? The answer to this question is obviously yes. Silas violated Colum's bodily autonomy more extremely than he ever had before in order to defeat Ianthe, and in doing so recklessly he killed Colum. We, the readers, know this.

We also know that the Eighth House, and Silas in particular, are not in the business of admitting wrongdoing. Silas is both a self-righteous 16-year-old boy and a product of the House which is perhaps the single most loath to acknowledge even the capacity for moral error on its part of any of the Nine Houses.

In Silas's mind, whether Colum's death was caused by something he did is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that he only did what he did because Ianthe made it necessary to do so. If Ianthe hadn't insisted upon ascending to Lyctorhood, then insisted upon refusing her sentence for heresy, then insisted upon fighting back instead of going quietly, Silas would never have been forced to siphon Colum at all. Therefore, this is all Ianthe's fault, and Ianthe deserves to suffer. Whether Silas similarly deserves to suffer in his own mind is irrelevant — he perceives himself as suffering either way, and he believes it unjust that Ianthe is not experiencing the same punishment.

Then, of course, Silas throws himself off the terrace and into the water below. We know that Harrow perceives this as suicide; we know that Silas does not.

“I don’t give a damn about White Glass mysteries or cryptics,” [Harrow] said. “I care that you just pushed one of the Tridentarii to her death.” “Death?” said Silas.

Silas has no intention of killing himself in ch. 26. Silas is a River specialist, and Silas is knowingly entering the River.

Silas Octakiseron had launched himself fearlessly into space after the tumbling body of Coronabeth Tridentarius. ... Harrow thought she perceived a tatter of something penetrate the cloud. Her heart pounded rhythmically in her ears, and she thought she saw, absurdly, a sudden gush of watery blood, as though the fog itself had been knifed; but it was gone almost as soon as she had seen it.

The water Harrow sees when Silas breaks through the boundary of the bubble is confirmed to be River water, rather than a hallucination or any other visual phenomenon, in ch. 53.

[Harrow] popped the bubble, and the River came rushing in. It came down around her in shreds, as light and insubstantial as drifts of spiderweb. The water sprayed through white holes, rushing in with a pounding roar: that brackish, bloodied water that only existed within the River.

We can infer from the connection between these passages and Silas's general behavior in the bubble that wherever Colum may be, Silas believes the River is how to get there. If this theory doesn't hold water to you, we can determine that Silas believes that staying in the bubble is actively hindering him from reentering the River and, at bare minimum, "wait[ing] for our Lord's touch on the day of a second Resurrection" (per Magnus, ch. 45). That said, knowing that the rest of the Canaan bubble crew have struck out into the River to help Matthias Nonius ally with Gideon the First, wherever he may be, it's difficult for me to imagine that an aggrieved and mourning River necromancer with nothing else whatsoever to do with his afterlife would not similarly go in search of the only person in the universe who has ever cared about him.

We know that wherever he's headed is dangerous. The River is, of course, dangerous anyway; we know that devils travel up through it, and that human souls stagnated in the River for too long are driven to insanity and become revenants. However, Abigail explicitly states in ch. 45 that she's concerned for the state of Silas's soul given the haphazard method by which he exited the bubble.

“I worked out how to return [the Fourth] to the River first thing. They didn’t want to go, but I overruled them. I would have done the same with anyone else—if only Silas had asked me; what has happened to his soul worries me horribly.”

Eighth necromancers' interactions with the River, which chiefly seem to consist of sending the souls of their cavaliers to wait on its bank in order to create empty conduits for its energy, obviously differ significantly from those of Fifth necromancers, who predominantly call spirits out of the River. However, it's my view that Silas could probably have gotten himself across the River safely if he'd wanted to, or at least to whatever point within it to which he deemed non-heretical to travel. I think that Silas has a goal in mind in the River that would not be served by merely transporting himself along it in a manner that would have been guaranteed to keep his soul safe and intact, and I think whenever he reaches it is the point at which we'll find Colum.

Footnotes below.

¹ We can actually compare this to his appearance in chapter 28 of GTN, when he's recently been scared off Lyctorhood by whatever the Ninth trial was and is similarly clearly not doing great:

Gideon must have caught [Silas] mid-ablutions, because his chalk-coloured hair was wet and tousled as though it had just been rubbed with a towel. It seemed frivolously long, and she realised she had never seen it except pinned back. ... Silas looked as though he had not slept well lately. Shadows beneath the eyes made his sharp and relentless chin sharper and even more relentless.

If you wanted, you could establish as a tentative rule that the worse his hair looks, the worse he's doing. I won't, but you could.

² Interestingly, a vague allusion to Babs or something like him is made here, too, and he is genuinely never mentioned again, even in future references to the Third in the bubble. We obviously know where his soul is and that it's inaccessible to Harrow because it's not in the River, so there's likely something to the fact that he and Colum are excluded from the bubble in roughly the same way.

³ This could technically refer to the presence of the First House at the ball for the purpose of presenting Kiriona, but it's fairly straightforwardly clear in my view that the seven Houses which would have an interest in "flaunting" themselves are those which could marry into the House. I'm clearing this up in advance because I know some of you love to argue.

[justsomeguycore]

genuinely i think this is it

[harrowharkwife]

i'm so used to there just being random unidentified bones laying around everywhere in these damn books that it finally occurred to me, just now, to wonder where the bones on new rho came from. y'know, the bones palamedes always tried to teach nona necromancy on.

they're his.

palamedes, who always loved teaching, living on borrowed time in a body that's not his own. palamedes, mentoring, teaching- parenting, by sixth standards, mind you. and that boy is sixth, through and through.

and the entire point of teaching nona necromancy in the first place was to try and determine if nona is, well, nonagesimus, right? so it has to be bones, it can't not be bones. bones are, like, her whole thing.

but they're not in the nine houses, anymore. things are different, on new rho.

they burn bones here. dig up the cemeteries. a society terrified of zombies will evolve to dispose of its dead differently.

the only bones he has access to now are his own. (camilla wouldn't let anyone take them- skull or hand, doesn't matter. they're still him, and she doesn't let go, remember? it's her one thing.)

palamedes woke up every morning wearing someone else's body to then gently place the shrapnel of his own in the cupped palms of a girl who's the closest thing he'll ever have to a daughter and try to teach her- how did the angel put it, again? normal school, as much as possible, for as long as possible.

(but hey, in a roundabout way, at least it's a chance for him to touch camilla again, right? nevermind that she's not there to feel any of it because he's in the driver's seat, that he can only stay for fifteen minutes at a time. it's atoms that belong to camilla touching atoms that used to belong to him, and that's close enough. he'll take what he can get, these days- if she can be their flesh, he can be the end. so what if holding his own bones is a mindfuck? so what if looking at them makes him nauseous? surely he can suck it up and deal with it for fifteen minutes. it's the least he can do— his poor camilla was the one who had to scrape the bloody pulp of them off the floors of canaan house.)

(speaking of, here's a fun fact: we actually only see nona practicing with the bones one time, on-page. camilla's final line in that scene, before palamedes takes over, is none other than: 'keep going. there are some bones left.' ow!)

remember, too, that the only part of dulcinea, the real dulcinea, that palamedes ever physically touched, was her tooth- the one that ianthe gave him, pulled from the ashes cytherea burnt her down to. he only ever touched dulcie once, and it wasn't until after she was already gone, but that doesn't matter- it still happened, and you can't take loved away.

in this same roundabout, bittersweet, by-proxy sort of way, palamedes has been physically touched by nona, too: the atoms she currently occupies, touching atoms that he used to occupy, and never will again.

the main interaction we've seen between palamedes and his mother took place back on the sixth, with her acting as mentor and him as pupil: the two of them studying a set of hand bones, juno encouraging him every step of the way.

we know that harrowhark's "most vivid memory of her mother was of her hands guiding harrow's over an inexpertly rendered portion of skull, her fingers encircling the fat baby bracelets of harrow's wrists, tightening this cuff to indicate correct technique."

they're still small for a nineteen year old, but the wrists are bigger, in this new set of memories nona's making. and it's not an inexpertly rendered portion of skull anymore- it's a hand, now, albeit one crafted from [a piece of skull reassembled (painstakingly—passionately—laboriously reassembled) from fragments, manually, and not by a bone magician, from the skull of someone who, soon after death or symptomatically during, had exploded.] and the identity and origin of these bones is no mystery at all. they belong to palamedes, and he's consented to their use for this purpose, and that matters.

but the details are just set dressing, really. the foundation of the memory is the same.

palamedes and his mother, juno and her son.

harrow and her mother; pelleamena and her daughter.

nona and her father-mother-teacher; palamedes and his daughter.

[mistborn-bastard]

Sylvari | They/them | Bisexual

Pros: Their bodily fluids cause ecstasy Verse Enjoys experimenting

Cons: Extreme masochist, can't really feel you otherwise Will complain a lot if you don't make them feel enough Their heart is always leaking sap, it will make a mess

????: Enjoys having their chest hole fucked

[secretsofthewilde]

I'm still making my way through watching the show for the first time (just finished episode 5), so idk if this has already been spoken about yet on here at length, but I just wanted to quickly say how much I appreciate the character of Cath and the way the show handles her relationship with Dulcie (so far).

In another show I'd expect Cath to be the constant butt of the joke for being such an emotional and vulnerable person, and while it is definitely framed as comedic at times in this show, it's never done so in a condemning way. It's not a flaw of Cath's that she wants to be vulnerable in front of others, and it's also not something she forces onto other characters; Dulcie genuinely seems to care about Cath and appreciate this side to her and so she wants to be able to reciprocate Cath's vulnerability herself, which is why she goes to counselling with her and she goes along with the conflict resolving kissing. It's not a chore for Dulcie to do these things for Cath/their relationship (something that seems to be the norm when writing "free spirited" characters like Cath), but instead Dulcie actively engages in working on strengthening their relationship.

It's just really refreshing to see that the relationship conflict they're having so far is completely understandable given the circumstances, and that the both of them are taking the reasonable steps to communicate and try to work through it as partners. I genuinely believe that these two love each other! Which shouldn't be surprising, but it really is.

Also I think this was the first time I've ever seen somebody emptying a menstrual/moon cup on screen??? And that shouldn't feel groundbreaking, but it really did feel that way to me. I LOVED that opening scene of them being intimate and how realistically awkward but loving it was. It was also v relatable to me but something I never really expected to see on my screen.

Anyways I love Cath and the way they wrote a woman using the word "triggered" regularly when communicating her feelings, without overtly making fun of her for doing so

[hope-luvs-hrtstppr]

my locked tomb annotations! part one: Gideon the Ninth (by Tamsyn Muir) *spoilers ahead*

- gideon saying “Your lady would stone cold eat a baby…” (pg 21) abt harrow. love me some foreshadowing

- “‘The more you struggle against the Ninth, Nav, the deeper it takes you…’” (Muir, 22) something about how gideon spends her whole life trying to escape the ninth house and everyone on it, only to end her own life through an act of devotion for the reverend daughter, while exclaiming, ‘for the ninth!’

- “…she seemed like what she really was: a desperate girl younger than Gideon, and rather small and feeble.” (Muir, 29) HARROWHARK NONAGESIMUS MY BELOVED!!!

- harrow digging all night just to beat gideon’s ass with secret skeletons when she tries to escape. if she wanted to she would!!

- the way gideon is described as desperately lonely on canaan house, she’s off of the planet that ostracized and isolated her for the first time and yet she is still alone. the loneliness we face when surrounded by people can be worse than solitude.

- “… what if the murderor was, like, weird, which would make their subsequent marriage to Gideon pretty awkward?” (Muir, 128) i love you gideon nav.

- gideon saying that “the world seemed less maliciously unfriendly” (183) after she and harrow completed a trial together. after harrow compliments her and finally, finally acknowledges her talent. after harrow shows a warmer side of herself, the world became less cold. (basically, harrow = gideon’s world)

- I MUST NO LONGER ACCEPT BEING A STRANGER TO YOU!!!!!!!!

- cytherea cradling gideon’s body and apologizing for the cruelty that is lyctorhood “We take so much. I’m so sorry” (226)

- harrow telling cytherea “unhand my cavalier” is basically harrow speak for “MY MAN MY MAN MY MAN”

- it must be odd to be in love with a cav/necromancer as someone who is neither. to know that they will always belong to someone else in a way they will never belong to you

- “And though Gideon hated cloisterites, and hated the Locked Tomb… she was hungry for the Reverend Daughter’s preoccupation.” (332) baby griddlehark is so intriguing to me. they were both so young and afraid and alone. they had no one. they had each other. they hated each other. they needed each other.

- “The world revolved as Harrow floated closer” (353) EXIBIT B THAT GIDEON’S WORLD IS HARROW

- YOU ARE MY ONLY FRIEND I AM UNDONE WITHOUT YOU

- ONE FLESH, ONE END (bitch) !!!!

- “Nav, when I saw her face I decided I wanted to live. I decided I wanted to live forever just in case she ever woke up.” (358) ceo of pining, longing, and yearning: harrowhark nonagesimus

- the pool scene is intimate in so many ways. yes, they are verbally expressing their devotion for each other and showing physical affection (THE EYEBROW KISS RAHHHH)— but also they just spend hours in the pool together soaking each other in. being around each other without all of the hiding and pretending that has made up their relationship thus far. getting to know the authentic version of one another by simply existing in proximity.

- silas saying that lyctorhood is “To walk with the dead forever… to make yourself a tomb.” (385) harrow has been living with the psychological burdens that plague immortal beings since her conception. who better equipped for the loss that is lyctorhood than her?

- PAL SAYING HE WAS JUST GLAD DULCIE WAS SPENDING TIME WITH SOMEONE WHO MADE HER LAUGH??? I’VE BEEN SHOT???

- Did you see me???? Did you behold me Griddle????

- “i’m no good at this duty thing. im just me. i can’t do this without you. And i’m not your real cavalier primary, i never could’ve been.” (430) gideon didn’t allow herself to be consumed as an act of duty towards her necromancer. she allowed herself to be consumed as an act of love for harrow.

- “Harrow, I can’t keep my promise, because the entire point of me is you.” (432) growing up on a crumbling planet with only one other person your age, of course they are going to become an essential part of who you are. of course they are going to define the world you live in. of course the entire point of you is them. (exhibit c, harrow is nav’s world)

- I CANNOT CONCEIVE OF A UNIVERSE WITHOUT YOU IN IT!!!!

- “Harrow said, ‘But you’re God’ / And God said, ‘And I am not enough.’” (441)

- “… if she saw herself in the mirror, she might find a trace of Gideon Nav, or worse— she might not find anything, she might find nothing at all.” (444) pre-lobotomy harrow is so tragic. (i heavily resonate with her)

thank you for reading!! part 2 and 3 of my tlt annotations will be posted soon-ish!

[occasional-rambler]

okay it literally just hit me an hour ago that Palamedes and Dulcinea will literally never see each other again. If I understood right, Cam and Pal’s soul merging thing was just that, they’re technically not dead and their souls won’t enter the River.

I’m glad Palamedes got to see and speak to the real Dulcinea at least once, but god is it tragic that it only happened after they’d both died. It wasn’t enough that they just missed meeting each other when they were alive, they only get that one little conversation in The Unwanted Guest before they’re separated for good. I suppose it was never a guarantee that they’d meet again in the River after Dulcie’s choice when the river bubble was collapsing in HtN (I’m still so curious what she did and where she ended up), but I can’t imagine that Palamedes didn’t think about finding her in the River if he died for real.

Did he make his peace with saying goodbye to her forever when he was planning the soul ritual with Camilla? Was it easier to follow through after meeting her when he was fighting Ianthe for control? God I love how much this series makes me think.

[frociaggine]

favourite parts of GtN act 3 I had forgotten about

Cytherea giving Dulcie a health crisis the moment Silas might get in contact with Abigail's ghost

There was something pale blue sparking within the corpse of Abigail Pent, and suddenly and horribly the body shuddered [...] Someone screamed, and she recognised the voice as Dulcinea’s. Gideon moved thickly through the grey-lipped crowd, watching Dulcinea collapse in what felt like slow motion, reaching out to the rumpled figure in the big dressing gown. [...] Protesilaus stalked forward, and he did not even bother to draw his sword: he simply punched Silas in the face.

The fainting spell so that she'd have an excuse to make "Pro" punch Silas... I love her. She really committed to everything <3

Wild speculation time: as a Lyctor, Cytherea has an unprecedented level of control over every cell of her body, including the cancer cells. Her body's "default state" is the terminal cancer she died with, but she's clearly able to tune it up and down. My pet theory is that the Eight House cancer is inherently necromantic in nature, so it becomes more costly to her to fine-tune it when she's actively doing necromancy, such as puppeteering Pro <- she's not faking the bout of pain, she is in pain, and still going for an Oscar. Who else is doing it like her

Magical restorative herbs Teacher had lying around

When Colum gets syphoned too hard, Teacher makes him sniff something. WHAT IS IT I desperately need to know what Teacher's herb garden looks like.

Have they been eating the Canaan House fish?

Speaking of Teacher's herb garden, the cold storage room at Canaan House includes meat and fish as well as vegetables.

Strings of startle-eyed, frozen fish with their scales and tails intact hung like laundry on lines above steel countertops, bewildering Gideon with the reality of what she had been eating.

This is interesting to me because it could say something about the status of the ocean near Canaan House regarding pollution / the state of Earth's fauna in general. I tend to take Taz literally when she said Nona took place over "a hundred thousand years and five days" and believe tens of thousands of years passed between the flashbacks and the Resurrection. The fauna being healthy enough to be eaten would match with that — not that the half life of nuclear waste means anything when you're God, but a hundred thousand years is definitely "safer" than ten thousand.

Babsʼs boyfriend

“I should’ve stayed home and gotten married,” he said resentfully. “As though anyone was even offering,” snapped Ianthe.

He had a lover boy back on Ida... I know this to be true

Third House power struggle

“How many people had these hatch keys other than the Ninth?” said Corona. “We had no idea the basement was even there.” (ten minutes later) “I am also in possession of one,” Ianthe said, unruffled. “What?”

I would read the whole book from Babs' POV. I think whatever was going on between the Tridentarii must have been incredibly fraught. Away from Ida, Corona's lie must be weighing on them like never before. Away from their court and family, I think Ianthe is going on the biggest power trip of their life. And Babs is there also.

Then later this happens

“At arms, Babs.” Her twin sister’s voice was thin and soft as silk: “Don’t unsheathe that sword, Naberius.” “Ianthe, what—are—you—doing.” “Well, Babs, thank God, has much better sense than to listen to you—Babs?”

The moment when Babs officially won't do what Corona says if Ianthe disagrees... Corona's shocked and saddened reaction... this is new for them. to me. and she doesn't like it. Ianthe meanwhile is letting out twenty-one years of quiet resentment

****

Anyway. TLDR! I'm enjoying this reread very much :3

[cerseimikaelson]

The Fox and the Butterfly

In a version of events where Pirate Fairy ended badly, Hook has nearly overrun Pixie Hollow, and two baking-talents that used to be rivals have hushed conversations at daybreak.

"So, do you hate me or what?"

Ginger's question is so casually spoken Dulcie can't facilitate any other reaction than looking up from the bottom of her tea mug. She's been lost in it a while, looking for hidden patterns, like letters or symbols. Taeri says it's supposed to be an omen, a sign of fortunes to come. Dulcie, who has known about magic and wings of starlight and flying ships all her life, doesn't doubt fate, per say.

She just isn't inclined to know hers.

The sound of Ginger's fingers drumming against the rickety old table snaps her out of her thoughts. Whatever half-coherent form they take. Ginger is leaning precariously backwards, chair tipped over until it balances only on its two legs. One wrong move and she'll go sprawling, Dulcie knows. Just as she knows that she's seen Ginger pull this move off a thousand times, maybe even more, and she's never tipped over.

She blinks, mind still sluggish from another night's total lack of sleep as she processes the question.

"Well, you're not very nice to me." Is what she lands on, voice just a tad too careful, too wary. There doesn't seem to be a reason for it, though, (not this time, at least) because Ginger only hums in the back of her throat and turns back to her nails.

She's painting them a teal blue, left hand steady and unwavering as she applies a second coating of paint with that little brush. None of her strokes ever mess up or stain the table or the skin around her fingers, despite Ginger being right-handed.

Dulcie feels a flash of irritation at it. Part of her wishes Ginger would knock the whole bottle with her elbow and spill the contents all over. Or that she'd slip and leave a stain behind that would soak through the termite-eaten wood of the table before they could clear it. Perhaps Dulcie wouldn't have to constantly question herself as to whether she'd finally cracked, whether her memory was faulty, whether her brain had merely conjured a figment of Ginger to banter with so she wouldn't die of loneliness.

That last thread of thinking is so absurd Dulcie has to fight back an amused snort. Ginger has always made Dulcie feel a lot of things, more than she's comfortable with, fine. But a remedy for loneliness she's never been, not to her, not to anyone.

As previously stated, Ginger isn't very nice.

"You don't want me to be." Ginger speaks up after a while, done with her forefinger and moving onto her pinky. She looks up again, hair that matches her name to perfection tied in a braid that shifts with the movement. "Do you?" she asks after a bit, as though to confirm it.

Dulcie has to think about it, but not for too long.

"I don't think so. No." she replies, eyebrows furrowed. "I don't think I'd trust it. If you suddenly started being nice to me."

"Huh. That's not entirely moronic of you."

"Thank you."

It's rare that Ginger hands out compliments. It's even rarer that Dulcie offers thanks. Silence falls again, and Dulcie busies herself with watching what must be the final rays of moonlight filter through the dusty window, casting shadows on the wooden floorboards. Taeri says the moon doesn't actually produce its own light. That what everyone thinks as moonlight is actually the light of the sun reflected off it. That even though the sun disappears during the day, it cares too much about the people and the animals and the other living things to leave them without a source of light for sometimes up to 12 hours.

Taeri likes to talk about things like they have feelings. All things. Celestial bodies. Oak trees. Music sheets.

Dulcie doesn't often think about the light-talents, but she does know Iridessa would have been pissed at Taeri's theory. Or perhaps she would have secretly loved it and it would have sparked a debate for years to come, the words eventually growing old and familiar on their tongues.

Pixie Hollow fairies never lacked a subject when they wanted to talk. And most of them wanted to talk a lot.

As if reading her thoughts and knowing Dulcie was reminiscing, (what an appalling thought) Ginger spoke up, green eyes not shifting away from her freshly-painted nails, examining them as studiously as Dulcie did her tea dregs.

"I would have been nicer to some of them if I had known they'd die so soon. Fighting is all well and nice, but I would have spent less time doing it if I knew they wouldn't get as long to fight back."

Dulcie couldn't relate to the sentiment, although she supposed it was fair. A bit awful, regretting not being nice enough only because the objects of your ire are dead, but it was rather strange to hear the fairy who'd sided with Hook regret her cruelty.

"Sometimes I tell myself that if I hadn't known they'd die, I would have cared a little less about pleasing them." Dulcie says, dully aware that this is something she hasn't told Taeri. Maybe because Taeri never really met the Dulcie who used to think a fresh batch of honeycomb cakes could solve all troubles and heal all sorrows, who used to bake because she wanted to make the fairies happy, who never even dreamed of leaving Pixie Hollow.

That Dulcie still existed, but in fragments and increments. Now she didn't care about healing her sorrow, only surviving it. She still baked, true to her talent as ever, but for money, not for the sentiment. And Pixie Hollow...

Well, there was no going back, was there?

If Ginger was fazed by the- objectively horrible- statement, she doesn't show it. Then again, Ginger was rarely fazed by anything. Once, another baking-talent in the kitchen had poured double the amount of poppy seeds required into the filling for the poppy puff rolls and sent three sparrowmen to sleep before they realized. Dulcie had almost lost a decade off her life when she saw them snoring, but Ginger had huffed her trademark huff, given her trademark eyeroll, and promptly requested for a leaf-bucket of icy water to douse them in.

Still, something about this line of questioning nagged at Dulcie.

"Is Hook not nice to you?" she asked before she could regret it. It still came alarmingly fast, though. On the list of Topics she and Ginger had mutually, tacitly agreed on skirting around if they wanted this thing to work, Hook was Number One, red underlined.

We don't talk about you joining the evil pirate captain that wrecked our home and destroyed everything we built, and we don't talk about my girlfriend being the ex of one of Hook's most wanted escaped prisoners.

That was the deal. It was a good deal, written in whatever color of paint Ginger selected for her nails that day. There used to be a time they wrote things- mostly recipes, in their case- in blackberry ink, from the bushes near the heart of the Autumn Woods. Dulcie used to fly over them on route home.

"I don't really talk to Hook all that much. He's nice and then he's not." Ginger shrugged using only one shoulder. She blew on her nails a little. A sure sign the conversation was over.

Good. Dulcie didn't know what possessed her to ask. Ginger could handle not nice people. Ginger was a not nice fairy herself. Dulcie's limited time and energy should be devoted to those who really couldn't stand unkindness. Who wilted like trampled daises in the face of it. And there are plenty of those in her life. Dulcie seems to collect them like jars of nuts to use as cake toppings.

"The sun's up." Dulcie darts to her feet, stretching her wings and fighting a wince as pair flares up her spine. Keeping them folded for hours on end is always a regrettable decision, but she has little reason to fly these days.

Ginger nods impassively, freckled face unreadable. Her hair catches the light, shifting between a thousand hues at once, amber and strawberry and hazel. Dulcie knows her locks will turn crimson in the summer. It should wash her out, but it doesn't. It never did. She looks like the dying ember of an old dream from which a new one awaits to spring.

"You should go. There are people missing you."

Those are Ginger's parting words, always, since day one. Dulcie has spent an inordinate amount of time wondering if that's the reason why Ginger decided not to tell Hook about Taeri, about Michael Darling, about Dulcie's role in any of it. Because Hook wouldn't care about a lowly baking-talent causing problems, but he would care a great deal if he thought Taerie would miss Dulcie if Dulcie happened to vanish (snatched, taken). He would care because if Taeri came for Dulcie, Michael might come too. And with him, Michael would bring John, and it was only for John that Wendy would return to Neverland, eyes ablaze and voice raised.

And having Wendy in his clutches again is all that Hook ever wanted. More so than he did revenge. More so than he did Pixie Hollow, or any fairy he ever took.

So, yes, Ginger didn't say anything the first time. Or the second or the third. And despite Ginger's not-niceness, a part of Dulcie hysterically trusts that she'll keep saying just that. To Hook, to Zarina and to everyone else.

A deal is a deal, after all, even written in teal nail polish.

"Be careful. Don't fly too high."

These are Dulcie's own parting words. It used to be a running joke in Pixie Hollow. Fairies always forgot themselves and flew too high playing tag and other games. That made them easier to spot by the ever-looming hawks, even obscured by the clouds. And yet despite the warning, they'd laugh it off and dart impishly away, eager for the next game.

They'd been happy then, hadn't they? Dulcie now knows she was at least. Pity that she only found out after it was all lost.

Ginger's lips quirked upwards, smirk as wry and taunting as ever.

"Alright. Just because you asked."

@neptunesimp, @mk-writes-stuff, @strawberrymira, @dha-haree Not sure this is what you guys had in mind when you gave me prompts, but I still hope you like it, and thank you for your help!