#wrong nonius

[katakaluptastrophy]

Do you ever think about how strange and confusing the River bubble must have been?

I'm thinking about the scene where Harrow finds Ortus reciting the Noniad to the appreciative Fifth in the Canaan House library. The strange 30-somethings have found each other and are apparently having a lovely time.

And then all of a sudden, in the middle of talking about Nonius, this happens:

She was surprised to find Magnus looking at her, and not at Ortus; was unsettled by the press of his mouth, of his good-natured and rather foolish expression, of his curly well-brushed hair and slightly wanting chin. She was mostly unsettled by his eyes, which were of a colour suddenly hard to define, and whose focus was on her entire.

“Is this really how it happens?” he said.

You're hanging out with your wife and your cool new friend. You're talking about poetry, your wife is infodumping about ghosts, it's getting a little flirty...and then you suddenly realise something is wrong.

And this seems to happen to people in Canaan House over and over again.

[starberry-cupcake]

I have made up from last time that was about only one chapter, this time we have 5 in a row. We finished act one, fam!

previously, in harrowbean the ninth:

this happened

I want to also thank you for all your nice comments and replies, I read every single one, I promise ♥

ch. 7 to 11 summarized terribly, here we go:

it's time to cross the river

difficult task to perform

as someone who lives literally surrounded by rivers, in every direction, I can relate

my rivers don't carry ghouls though, as far as I know

I mean, there are ghost and cryptid legends, but not ghouls that stick to the windshield of a spaceship like bugs

like these ones do

so harrow and yandere twin aren't doing fantastic

yandere twin loses it in like the first 2 seconds

harrow sees the ghosts of all the ninth kids who died for her to be alive

there's water also, but that part sounds very relaxing, actually

getting covered by water but not needing to breath

I'd be there forever tbh

but we can't, because ghoulies

mercygirl is still doing sound effects like kronk

btw we're changing her name to mercygirl because it's what I've been calling her now

I have been told by a number of you that mercygirl is your camilla so I apologize for disrespecting your blorbina

I might do it again, if the situation arises, though

mercygirl is piloting the ship and emperor the fool is just chillin' until he realizes harrow is walking about and doing theorems, which they didn't think she'd be in a state to do, so they didn't tell her not to do it

these people half-assing plans, who would have thought

mercygirl calls the emperor john

emperor johnnyboy tries telling harrow to come back from her state because she's in too deep and it's becoming dangerous

mercygirl stars talking about the death of cassiopeia (another name that's easy to remember)

says cassiopeia had a ceramics collection, which makes her worthy of all my respect

harrow was thinking "five", idk what it's about

next thing we know, we're back to our gideonless retelling of gideon

in this version, teacher explains things

he says the house was inhabited previously by "ten normal human beings of the Resurrection, though half were blessed already with necromantic gifts"

I'm tired of MATH

he says they left blueprints, he tells them about the Sleeper, he tells them how not to awaken it, he tells them about the trap door, he tells them what's under the trap door, he asks them to work together...

you know what this is like

it's like reading gideon was entering a new game and skipping every tutorial they give you

and reading this is like clicking every NPC's info and reading all that they say

ANYWAY, here is where ortus 1...

wait, this is going to be confusing

I want to call ortus from the ninth "ortus 1" and the new guy "ortus 2"

because ninth ortus was the first to show up

but new ortus is actually older and also is ortus the first

we're gonna go with ortus and lyctor!ortus, for now

so, as I was saying, this is were ortus starts becoming much more insistent in these "flashbacks" about him not being the right choice

which, he's not wrong

we know he's not wrong

and harrow is saying stuff like "unless you can summon matthias nonius" (matthias nonius is becoming a recurrent thing, let's remember harrow compared gideon to him at one point)

and ortus goes "I don't understand why you chose me" to which harrow says "there was nobody else" and ortus exasperatedly says "you never did posses an imagination"

VERY IMPORTANT THING

a skeleton turns around when they're walking and says "is this how it happens?"

we'll come back to that shortly

REMEMBER IT

(I know you all remember it, you've read this already, just act like I'm dora the explorer and play along)

next chapter starts in not!dulcinea's funeral

I'm sad I used the oliver queen grave meme already, I can't use it again to express my feelings

I'm gonna use the steel magnolias scene where they laugh at the funeral instead

so, we are introduced to the famous augustine who's name I will remember

there's some conversation about first and second generations and about not!dulcinea being chosen, and Emperor Johnny Bravo says "we were all there to meet her, all sixteen of us"

MORE MATH

I guess she was the last one of these, but maybe we knew that already, I feel we knew that already

apparently, not!dulcinea was the most reluctant to slurp her cavalier, but that didn't stop any of them, not even her, so

Emperor Johnny Quest says "for god's sake" and harrow thinks "the god who became a man and yet still invoked himself, apparently"

when she's right, she's right

that's better commentary than I could make

I have to respect augustine a little bit because he asked "which one of the kiddies did her in?" and I thought that was hilarious

he is called the saint of patience, which makes my previous comment about them being named via sarcasm very correct

it's like captain planet or the power rangers but chosen as funnily as possible

they start summoning lyctor!ortus by saying that he's interested in "you-know-what", which is both suspicious and childish and the vibes of these lyctors are all over the place

augustine thinks something's wrong, which is an understatement at this point, but ok

lyctor!ortus comes in as if summoned by the gossip and harrow calls him "the next terrible part of your life" which is saying something

lyctor!ortus comes with news of the seventh beast or whatnot that's trailing them

harrow bleeds from her ears and smashes her head on the next available surface to pass out

the mood

who could blame her

this lyctor job is terrible

it's like the end of drop dead gorgeous and harrow is kristen dunst

I'm not explaining that, in case you haven't watched a classic

we are back to the "flashbacks" and we've got a special appearance from the fifth

*studio audience claps and cheers*

they say they prefer to look into books than going downstairs, which is something one would consider if one had known what the fuck was downstairs from the start

abigail also does sound effects like mercygirl, it's catching on

abigail finds a piece of a recipe note that mentions an M and a Nigella

still no G&P

we know nigella is the cav of cassiopeia, the ceramics collector

I remember nigella's name because of the cook, which makes it funnier that it's a recipe

M could be mercygirl

abigail also gives harrow a note

abigail says that she'd like to summon the ghost of a lyctor but she's not sure how that could work or where they go when they die

ortus, magnus and abigail, in this gideonless version, are a polycule

I am convinced of that

while they're talking, magnus says "is this really how it happens?"

REMEMBER I SAID WE'D BRING THAT BACK

IT'S BACK

abigail starts telling harrow that she's got the energy of a lot of dead kids in her and harrow storms out

harrow gets angry when ortus calmly agrees about things and she doesn't want to look into why

I WONDER WHY THAT IS

harrow looks at abby's note again and now there's text on it

it's a longer version of the note she found before

it's a rant

it mentions dead eggs, implantation, some guy being sent after the OP, said guy taking pity on OP

OP is mad about all of this and doesn't use punctuation

what ortus reads isn't what harrow reads, once again

NOW THIS BIT

"ortus, I need a cavalier with a backbone" "You always did and I am glad, I think, that I never became that cavalier"

the gideon points keep adding up

harrow then goes to sleep and is like this

final thing in act I, in chapter 11, is harrowbean stabbing not!dulcinea again, which

always make sure, it's like resident evil in here

just in case, let's stab her a bunch of times

so, are these "flashbacks" happening in real time whenever harrow isn't conscious?

is it her trying to remember what actually happened?

or is it her trying to hide it?

was there actually a longer period of time between the defeat of not!dulcinea and the emperor Jon Arbuckle coming to pick them up?

a period of time in which harrow learned things that made her write those letters?

and in which something happened regarding gideon?

is the note of the implantation also related?

why was gideon born in space?

of course I'm not asking you, please don't spoil anything, I'm just asking the void of desperation and chaos right now

we'll see if any of this gets answered soon or if I just get more questions

also, guess who wasn't mentioned

see you on the next one!! I'll try to get back to the awesome replies I've been getting soon ♥

[lemon-natalia]

Harrow the Ninth Reaction - Chapter 10

ABIGAIL!! MAGNUS!!! someone made a comment about them featuring again in HtN that i was quite frankly dreading because i thought for sure it would be some kind of absolutely horrific fate with their souls, or body horror, or something, but this is probably as nice as it could be

altho, y’know, not ruling out some kind of future horrific ghost/body horror/meat-adjacent fate that could affect them or their dream (alternate universe???) versions

quite curious as what Matthias Nonius did that was so impressive actually

omfg there’s a Lyctor named Nigella whose primarily featured in a recipe document, Muir you hack

‘Harrowhark … found the concept of making eyes at one’s cavalier too revolting to bear’ oh Harrow, you have no idea

very interesting that there’s been so much focus lately on Ortus’s eyes in these flashbacks when one of the primary changes of becoming a Lyctor is in eye colour, that previously they were almost the same colour as Harrow’s, but here she can’t tell what colour they are

also, again someone asking a variation on the question ‘is this how it happens’, on some level Harrow, or at least her subconscious, seems to know its wrong

oh there’s an unsettling thought - if she hadn’t been killed off when she was last book, Abigail might’ve realised about the Ninth kids being murdered to create Harrow. i wonder what she would have done with that information.

‘she was more afraid of being a child again than anything else’ oh Harrow. wasn’t there a very similar line in GtN as well, or am i making that up?

ohh another message on a piece of paper! something about implantation of eggs and revenge? feels not necessarily like a threat to Harrow specifically, but still very unhinged and unnerving

[paradoxcase]

@longroadstonowhere:

i think 'grandmother nine generations back' is a condensed way of saying great-great-great-great etc grandma

@wellhappybirthdaytomeiguess:

Hmmm....interesting list of definitions! And saying 'grandmother nine generations' back is likely easier than saying all the greats before it....and don't forget what Ortus was obsessed with, when it comes to what he is asking Abigal about... It's all starting to pick up and it will all make so much more sense soon! :-)

Oh, ok, that makes sense. So I guess Ortus wants to try to talk to the ghost of someone who was around when Nonius was, then?

@turtletotem:

you're dead right on some things, so close to right on others, completely wrong on one or two -- oh it's fascinating to watch :D (I'll tell you that they do mean the tubes when they talk about organs. that ought to steer you toward the correct fimbria definition, too.)

Maybe when I'm finished with the book I should go back and score all of my guesses or something, haha

@wandering-minx:

I don't feel like its a spoiler to clarify that the tubes referred to are related to the fallopian definition. It will be more clear in a future chapter.

Interesting. Are they like... actually fallopian tubes? Aside from the fact that they're called "tubes" I have no idea what they actually look like in real life as opposed to an anatomy diagram

[harrowianthe]

names of the ninth : a semi serious etymological analysis

in which i try to apply my degree in classical letters and the two classes i took in linguistics to decipher the names of the ninth house.

Aiglamene i think could mean "to be shined on". αἴγλη (aigle) in ancient greek literally means "the light of the sun or the moon, gleam, shine". the -mene particle could come from the present participle of greek mediopassive voice, ex. names like "filomena" in italian which simply mean "beloved" in greek (φιλουμένη), even though αἴγλη is a noun and not a verb.

this seems to be a ninth house naming convention because Pelleamena has the same particle, but i could only find the adjective πελλός (pellos) which means dark or grey, which would make her name mean "darkened, greyed". but pelleamena is weird because if you split her name like "pelle amena" it literally means "beautiful skin" in latin, with only some minor grammatical mistakes.

Ortus is fun because ortus in latin is yet another particible, this time meaning "rising", but in greek ὀρθός (orthos) means "straight".

Mortus and Crux are pretty straightforward. Mortus means "dead" and Crux means "cross".

Glaurica is another fun one (i know she's technically VIII but I spent a lot of time on this). In ancient greek and latin, you can add the particle -ικος (-ikos) to make an adjective out of a noun. you can see this especially with medical terminology: ἧπαρ (epar, liver) + ικος = ἠπατικός (epaticos, hepatic, relative to the liver). i can think of two possible origins for the root Glaur-: either γλαυκος (glaukos), meaning "gleaming, grey", with some fun linguistic hijinks turning the k sounds into a r sound, but honestly if i was a linguist i would not be very thrilled with this theory. what i think it's more likely is that the name Aglaurus, the name of a Athenian princess meaning "dewfall", eventually dropped the first letter in pronunciation. honestly, we do not know where they take these names from: if it's oral history, it's a little bit more mysterious, but if it's a written tradition, all it takes is for one scribe to fuck up and forget an a- for the name to change forever. i'm going with this theory, so Glaurica means "of Aglauros" or "of dewfall".

Lachrimorta is another latin one. lacrima means "tears" in latin, even though the the "h" is wrong. what's cool here is we can suppose a corruption from lacrimosa (tearful) to lacrimorta ("-morta" meaning, of course, "dead") to lachrimosa. if they had no idea what lacrimosa meant, it could easily get corrupted to another word they had more familiarity with, like mortus, -a, -um.

Last one is Aisamorta which is, once again, fun because it mixes greek and latin. αἶσα is means "destiny" in the sense of "allotted part". morta is - you guessed it - "dead".

The last one i can make something out of is Priamhark Noniusvianius. His first name obviously comes from Priam, from the Iiad, but his surname is a combination of nonius-, technically the name of roman family, while nonus means ninth and -vianus, which is a patronymic participle, so Noniusvianus means "of the Ninth family". A really cool linguistic explanation would be if it was a calque (or loan translation) from things like Octavianus but, once again, i have no idea how the transmission happened or how recent these forms are.

[hedge-rambles]

“This was…somewhere else I was. Once. But I never saw it like this. Never with the glass whole and unbroken”. The sound of soft strain in Nonius’ voice, trailing into silence as he went, stilled Ortus’ tongue from further questions. Instead, he simply took Matthias’ hand in his own and stood with him, drinking in the myriad colours shining on them.

Fourth chapter of Devotional - Complementary - Together is out, in which my work of fine smut doesn't even involve them kissing now?

Ortus Nigenad and Matthias Nonius go out exploring and hunting for supplies and obviously nothing goes wrong and it certainly isn't dramatic and dangerous, nope, certainly not.

There's battle poetry, bad tea, improper use of furniture and stained glass windows. Also swords.

[iviarellereads]

Harrow the Ninth, Chapter 49

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For detail on The Locked Tomb coverage and the index, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Slashed Ninth House icon) In which an epic battle is fought.

"I am the Emperor's Hand; do not thou persist in this combat; matchless am I with the long blade--"

As Ortus recites his epic poem, Harrow defends against the Sleeper long enough to summon the spirit of Mathias Nonius, the subject of the poem, from the River. He actually manages to stop the Sleeper's bullets, though he's confused as to why he's speaking in verse,(1) then disables her gun. They spar for some more pages, during which Harrow wishes her Griddle were there even though even she wouldn't be able to really provide a running commentary on the fight. The space actually starts to warp under the stress of the struggle for power. Eventually Nonius wins, and the Sleeper appears to die. Cautiously, Harrow approaches and removes her mask. She recognizes the poster from the shuttle with Corona and Judith, but otherwise has no idea who she is, though there's something familiar about the brow and jaw.(2) She finds a dogtag that reads "AWAKE".(3)

Abigail confirms that Harrow is no longer haunted by the Sleeper, but she may still have a footing on the mortal side of things. Also, the bubble is starting to strain too far, it's undergone too many transformations. Nonius asks leave of Harrow to join the Lyctor, the Saint of Duty, Nonius's rival and ally, fighting alone in the River. Besides the realization that Nonius really DID fight a Lyctor in his time, Harrow realizes that things have gone horribly wrong. If Duty is fighting alone then he's already dead. Nigenad and Protesilaus say they'll go too, with Pro quoting from some of his own poetry to reinforce the point.(4) Marta joins them because of the unwritten Cohort rule: "Chickenshits don't get beer". Abigail sends them to where they need to be, and then…

Harrow asks Abigail what's next. Abigail says Harrow can either go to the River, or go home. Harrow can't go back and risk killing Gideon, but Magnus drives the point home that Harrow can't be a mausoleum to her cav forever. Harrow finally decides she must go home to her body.(5) Magnus asks Harrow to pass along that Jeanne wanted to say hi to Gideon. Abigail and Magnus dismiss themselves, but Dulcinea stays behind, to tell Harrow something.(6)

=====

(1) The power of belief is the power of the River bubble. He believes that he has been elevated, so of course he has the power to deflect the evil bullets the Sleeper has believed into existence. However, Ortus's poem was what summoned him, with Abigail's power of belief in turn, and perhaps it's their belief in the poetry that influence Nonius's speech in turn, the way Harrow's party's collective belief strain the bubble's sense of reality in competition with the Sleeper's as the fight goes on. (2) Hmm, so someone high up in the BOE, enough to get posters of her likeness. Is this who's been thinking those thoughts Harrow keeps picking up on? And, I suppose it's lucky that Harrow's remembered Gideon, so doesn't react now with her aneurysm bursting, the way she did when she saw the poster in the living realm… (3) That's a funny word to find on a dogtag in a dream. (4) Two things. One, Ortus and Pro would be absolutely unbearable to spend time with together. Two, the verse Pro quotes has 14 syllables, which is, of course, divisible by 7, so he likely writes, as Ortus does, in a number of poetic feet that matches his House. I just think it's a cute touch. (5) Considering Harrow got stuck and literally couldn't go back at the beginning of this sequence, I'm not sure that's going to be as easy as it sounds. (6) What in all the worlds could Dulcie have to say? Find out in a future instalment!

[reddy-reads]

Harrow the Ninth, Tamysn Muir

This is the second in the “Locked Tomb” series. I liked it! But I do have some caveats

Caveat one: this is very very very much a second installment. I would NOT read this book without reading the first one because you need that context. (Even having read book 1, I got lost sometimes bc I read book 1 several years ago so I was confused until I refreshed my memory with a plot synopsis.)

Good feature 1: this is a weird book! From a craft perspective, it is just unusual. A great deal of the book is 2nd person, and there are sections that are in 3rd person, and about halfway through we get yet another POV. Delusion/unreliable perception of reality is a big part of the story and I think the shifting POV really helps with that. There are whole chapters of flashback that are just... off. It's great.

Caveat 2: I had trouble following some of the action. I believe this was intentional (delusion, reality/unreality, etc), but it did get to a point that edged around frustration here and there. But I also was trying to read during a busy and stressful time, and I did finish the book with relative speed so not a dealbreaker.

Good feature 2: description. This book is very visceral, and I do choose that work with deliberation because viscera (and bone, of course) features significantly throughout. On several occasions I just went “yuck,” which is a compliment in this context since Muir tried (and succeeded) to create with words on a page the visceral impression of... liquids and squishines. Very well done.

Caveat 3 is an observation about the ending/endings for books in this series as a whole, so will appear after the jump (spoilers below!!! Also I have a list of stuff I loved from the book overall, but it is also spoiler-containing)

seriously though this is spoiler country since it’s literally about the ending of this book and also Gideon the Ninth.

Caveat 3 is that I, personally, don’t care for the way these books end--which is to say, abruptly. The ending to this book and Gideon is not surprising or shocking, exactly; the logical outcome from a theme/storytelling perspective is broadcast, so it flows and follows and isn’t a cheap thrill exactly. But the books end quite abruptly. There’s a thing that happens that changes the landscape, and then there’s a brief epilogue, and then that’s it. In Gideon, Gideon dies. In Harrow, Gideon and Harrow both die (kinda) and Ianthe stuffs Augustine in the mouth and saves Jon. And then there’s a brief epilogue to underline the fact that “there will be more! Things are not over yet!!!” and that’s it. 

Which is... fine. It’s a legitimate style to leave the reader wanting more. But also... It doesn’t leave me hungry for more; it makes me feel vaguely short-changed. And what’s worse, it makes me question whether Muir will “stick the landing” when the series actually ends.

Actually, I suspect that is the wrong question to ask entirely. Like maybe the sense that there are no endings is a thing she’s committed to, artistically, so wanting to feel a sense of closure or completion is juts barking up the wrong tree.

On the other hand, things I fucking loved from this book:

Oh my god it’s so weird. I loved the fucky-wucky POV shit. I loved the 2nd POV, and the 3rd POV delusions, and the long-awaited 1st POV

I loved the weird delusion scenarios where Harrow was like “Okay this time I wanted to be a cavalier. Okay, this time it’s a fancy party. Okay, this time it’s a meet-cute on a Cohort station starring me as a priest and Gideon as a barista”

the summoning of the Nonius--the power of Abigail Pent meets the fanboy energy of Ortus!!! Just!!! Incredible. I loved it. It was so dramatic and I was THERE for it

The weird and tragic and doomed but very Aesthetic romance of it all... Gideon and Harrowhark and how weird they are for each other. I did like that. “One flesh, one end.” “I gave you my life and you didn’t even want it.” Cool just live in my brain.

I love the Sixth house Palmades and Camilla, and I treasure every bit of them. I love them SO MUCH.

The themes really permeated the book, not just reality/unreality and delusion and perception, but grief . mm. delicious.

The book itself was a delightful object. I splurged and got a paper copy, which really allowed me to appreciate the typography stuff the publisher did. (Different fonts, the chapter headings, etc.) When I read Gideon the Ninth (update: and Nona the Ninth), I did it as an ebook, so the nice touches weren’t as apparent there. But damn I did love the little chapter headings and typographical flourishes.

[freswoe]

Oh, gotcha - sorry about that, I just default to tags lol.

I think maybe we’re misunderstanding each other a little bit due to your repetitions of how you don’t want to read the series. Nobody is forcing you to read TLT, and if you don’t want to read it, that’s perfectly fine! The issue fans are taking with your response is that, despite not wanting to read it, you seem happy to criticise it based on false information, which is, by the way, misinformation - that’s not an overreaction, misinformation is literally defined as ‘false or inaccurate information’. In this case, it might not have been deliberate, but the second-hand account of the scene was inarguably inaccurate.

Furthermore, when you were corrected by a fan who, yes, was a little frustrated but by no means was issuing a ‘condescending rant’ (in fact, I’d say that response itself, plus your initial tag of ‘people read this???’ was more condescending and rude than the response, but that’s another matter), you clearly refused to interact in good faith with any of what they said. They gave a very clear explanation of how the language was necessary/what it illustrated, and yet all you can say to that is that it represents ‘something about that character?’. Forgive me if I’ve misunderstood your tone, but that implies to me that you didn’t really read or engage with any of what they said.

Please don’t imply that I don’t think you’re ‘qualified’ to have an opinion. You absolutely can have an opinion on the series, obviously, and nobody needs any type of ‘qualification’ to have an opinion. However, if you haven’t actually read the series in the first place, that makes having a well-informed and rounded opinion rather difficult, and that’s true of reading any book. Also, your opinion is based on incorrect information, and when given the actual truth of what the scene is, you blatantly tossed that aside, instead seemingly preferring to stick to your initial, false argument. Despite having no idea what you’re talking about - as you yourself said you know nothing about Muir or the series - you’re acting like you’ve fully read all three books and are intimately familiar with the style.

That’s what’s frustrating other fans - not the fact that you dislike meme language, but that you’re a) criticising the meme language without any knowledge of or desire to read the series (which, by the way, also has some incredible prose outside of the references - the Nonius scene in the second book comes to mind for me), and that you appear unable to acknowledge that the initial information you based your opinion on was wrong - not that the opinion itself is wrong, just that the information wasn’t right.

To clarify: nobody is forcing you to read TLT or saying that you’re dumb if you don’t like the writing style, and I obviously think that you’re qualified to have an opinion already - however, when you base your opinion on something incorrect, and refuse to engage in good faith with somebody who knows more about the series than you correcting the information you based your opinion on, that’s where we get frustrated. The references might sound insufferable to you, yes, but that’s the point - they sound insufferable. As kindly as possible, you genuinely do not know what you’re talking about, and that makes critiquing a series/having a discussion about its flaws rather difficult.

I guess where I’m confused is simply: if you’re not going to read the book but want to criticise it, and yet refuse to interact with a person giving you the full information on the scene you’re criticising, what’s the point?

[fixaidea]

On a logical level I know that Nonius was this epic swordsman, but every time I see the name I still can’t help picturing this guy:

[palavapeite]

Finished Harrow the Ninth for the fourth time and this time the takeaway is:

Feral for the romance that is going on between Ortus and Protesilaus.

Don’t touch me about anything or anyone else.

[queen-susans-revenge]

Finished the Harrow the Ninth re-read and feel like I'm acceptably caught up for Nona now.

One thing that changed was my estimation of Ianthe's actions at the end. First time around, I was so done with Jod that I definitely agreed with Gideon's framing:

Which was Tridentarius all over. She got one choice, and not only did she blow it, but she blew it in such a huge fucking spectacular way that you would’ve been impressed had you not hated her for it. Ianthe, throwing in her lot with the guy who had lied to everyone about everything. Ianthe, backstabbing her own cavalier all over again. Ianthe, with the world in the balance, reaching her hand out and pressing down on the weight marked BAD.

And like, Gideon is still probably, I'd say, objectively right. Even though Jod's death means turning the sun into a black hole and killing everyone in the Houses, it would also end this terrible genocidal planet-killing war machine he's created. But like... it's a real cost, a high one! Not everyone's homes seem as terrible as the Ninth; Palamedes and Camilla would probably prefer not to lose everyone they grew up with on the Sixth, just for starters. Abigail wants to go back to her family as a spirit, and that's not going to work out great if the Fifth gets sucked into a black hole.

None of that probably matters much to Ianthe, but what does matter is: she doesn't know Coronabeth isn't in the Dominicus system any more. So, of course she's not making that choice. She's probably not actually being completely awful for the sheer sake of it. She's saving everything she knows and everyone she loves. And it's hard to resent someone too much for making that choice, even when they are wrong.

John is such a good villain. So, so good. I hate him so much, and I'm so fascinated to learn his full story.

And of course it was Number Seven that they had to fight. Because that would be the ghost of Uranus, and what could be funnier?

Words I looked up:

whilom ("formerly; in the past." Fittingly enough the word itself is archaic.)

cinereous ("ash grey," it comes from the same root as cinders)

fluvial ("of or found in a river"; related to the word effluvient, which is generally used for sewage)

iliac ("relating to the ilium or the nearby regions of the lower body." The ilium is a pelvis bone. The context for this one was Your love for God was akin to your love of the beautiful riverbed edge of the iliac crest, which is such a gorgeous and creepy sentence.)

pellucid ("translucently clear")

tergiversation ("equivocation. Evasion of clear-cut action or statement")

osiers (small willows)

collocation (I figured this would be somehow related to the word collation, and it is, but it's more precise: "the habitual juxtaposition of a particular word with another word or words." Like Homeric epithets.)

My love for Abigail Pent remains boundless, and I cling to two things she said: to Matthias Nonius, "when I come into my homeland, my family will sacrifice in their halls for you." And to Harrow, "I believe that we will see each other again."

[warrioreowynofrohan]

I hadn’t been sure about the Third being Neptune, so the information about Ianthe being the name of a sea nymph is very helpful, I am now convinced.

An additional reason why I think Jupiter is the Fifth House is a line from Magnus in HtN:

“No, no, Reverend Daughter,” protested the curly-haired moron from the Fifth House, the one whose clothes could have provided the Ninth with material resources for a decade. “Please. Nonius is about to give the rebels what-for. I never got what-for in school. Fifth poetry is very much I come from climes of sulphur gas/I shine in plasma sheet/Er-hem-er-hem-er-hem, surpass/My spot a crimson feat, and by then I was always comatose.”

I thought the last line of the poem could be a reference to Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (though I can’t find any reference to sulphur as a notable component of its atmosphere, so I may be wrong).

@theoppositeofprofound has also made the excellent observation of the symbolic reference of Saturn devouring his children for the Fourth House (a house characterized by child soldiers).

Additional supporting evidence for Sixth and Seventh being Mercury and Venus is that GtN says the Sixth and Seventh Houses are closer to the Sun than the First House is. I figured either Third or Seventh had to be Venus due to the symbolic references, so that makes the identity if Seventh clear. Mercury (the Messenger) for the bringers of knowledge and truth also works.

There were other Houses that made their homelands on planets closer to the burning star of Dominicus—the Seventh and the Sixth, for instance—but to Gideon they could not imaginably be anything else than 100 percent on fire.

how a normal person numbers the planets:

how an ABSOLUTE MADMAN does it:

[naamah-beherit]

and then God said: "LOOK AT ALL THOSE CHICKENS"

Or: drabbles and ficlets written for the weekly Locked Tomb Microfic Challenges. Also available on AO3.

💀

1. Missing

Every few hundred years, when mood strikes him just right, Augustine raises a glass and says, “To missing friends.”

Gideon grumbles his wordless assent. Mercymorn says nothing, because she’s never there. John simply drinks straight from the bottle.

“To things we’ve lost,” he adds.

“Anything in particular this time?”

They used to drink to ancient heroes at whose names the world trembled (Leeroy Jenkins and John Cena, John called them, and it looks like the name ‘John’ birthed heroes and gods in the world before the Resurrection), to plants that are no more, to food that doesn’t taste like it used to.

“Let’s go with an archive of ancient knowledge. Irrecoverable. The servers are lost.”

“To… what was its name, by the way?”

Not that it matters. The Resurrection has wiped Augustine’s memory clean of everything that happened prior. But John is happy when he asks, and Augustine would rather keep his God happy.

Who now sighs with longing after days long lost.

“Tumblr.”

💀

2. Dream

Gideon didn’t dream of a gentle hand or a tender kiss, of sunlight on her skin or warmth in her bed. She didn't dream of colours, of seasons, of life not measured by Drearburh’s bells.

You can’t dream of what you’ve never known.

💀

3. Heat

“Hey, Nonagesimus! Do you keep the House so cold to make a point in suffering, or are we all a fridge for your parents' corpses? We could do with more heat, you—”

Ten seconds, Gideon thinks when a swarm of skeletons descends on her. A new record.

💀

4. Honour

Duty underlies Matthias Nonius’s soul and makes his bones. Duty has brought him to the River’s banks, where he stands in front of a nightmare made rippling, festering flesh.

“You,” says his rival and ally, unseen for a myriad.

“I promised, didn't I? Now let's kick arse.”

💀

5. Spirit

Elbows-deep she stands in the River, amidst souls pawing at her legs, mouths screaming without sounds, among spirits so old they've forgotten they're dead. Abigail Pent listens to what they can't articulate, opens her eyes, and says,

“There’s something wrong with the River.”

💀

6. Flirt

In the early days, when the Mithraeum was still bright and new and reeking of thanergy so much that it left her lightheaded, Harrow forced herself to grab Ianthe’s sleeve and drag her to the most secluded of empty corridors.

“My, my,” Ianthe drawled. “That’s so forward of you, Reverend Daughter.”

“Silence. Do you—do you ever wonder why the Saint of Joy hates the Saint of Patience?”

Ianthe spread her arms wide and said nothing, though the grin on her face was the widest and the most abhorrent thing Harrow had ever seen, and that was after taking into consideration the—the—

She wiped blood trickling from her nose. “Oh, just speak finally, for God’s sake.”

“Ah, my dear Harrowhark—” Harrow bristled at that, and Ianthe only grinned wider. “That’s just how old people flirt.”

💀

7. Sword

Let it be known that Wake had plans. Grand plans that involved the fate of the universe, plans on which people’s lives depended on. She’d take Bomb and spill their blood under the Tomb that shall never be opened, watch its door burst open and let the monster that lies beyond emerge to bring justice to the silenced ones. Worst case scenario, she’d die for the cause. Good enough an end, even if underwhelming.

What she didn’t plan for was getting stuck in a blade.

Perceiving the world is… difficult without senses, to say the least. She’s clinging to the steel with all the might a rage-filled revenant can muster, drifting in and out of consciousness like tides of an old world used to ebb and flow. When she’s lucid, she watches Bomb grow. She watches her get beaten, watches her cry, watches her freeze to death and wake up with a gasp, and in one brief moment of clarity that tastes suspiciously like fear, she thinks, If this brat can’t stay dead, then what does that mean for us when we try to kill her father?

But she doesn’t allow herself to feel that fleeting fear for more than a heartbeat she hasn’t got anymore.

“Get up,” she chants without tongue, without voice. “Get up and fight,” she tells Bomb after every scuffle. “What good are you if you don’t fight?”

And Bomb takes the sword with Wake’s soul in it, and off to fight she goes. Wake isn’t proud of her. Swords can’t be proud. Swords can’t be anything.

But she sure as hell cackles in vindication as the Ninth’s witch’s lips crack open under Bomb’s fist.

💀

8. Titties

The Ninth cav plops down in the chair next to Abigail, slides her glasses a bit down her nose, and fixes her in place with a gaze so imploring that the universe itself would bend over to fulfil her every wish. Magnus has told Abigail many times this is how she looks at books. She’s… inclined to agree.

“I’ve been thinking,” the Ninth starts without a greeting, tearing right to the point with the grace and finesse of a star destroyer, “that you should know, being from the Fifth House and all, because everyone keeps saying it’s not real, but I’m kinda on the fence about it, so—”

“You can just ask whatever you want to ask. I don’t mind if you’re direct.”

“Frontline Titties of the Fifth. Is that a real thing, or…?”

Frontline WHAT of the Fifth?!, screams a part of Abigail’s mind. The other looks at the bright, hopeful look on the Ninth’s face—and God help her, she’s so young—that Abigail thinks to herself, What would Camilla Hect do?

She straightens a bit and smiles. “That’s internal House business, I’m afraid.”

“Intern—what? What d’you mean, internal? It’s real, then?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Come on, don’t be like that!” She squints and purses her lips. The paint she has slapped on it cracks from the grimace. “Holy shit, are your photos there? Is that why you don’t want to tell me? Will Magnus have to kill me if you answer? Blink once if yes, I’ll—”

“Here.” Abigail pushes her unfinished breakfast over. “You should eat more. For the muscles.”

The Ninth looks down at the plate, then back up at Abigail, and grins like the child she still is. An urge to ruffle her hair shoots through Abigail like a comet, but she squanders it. The Ninth necromancer would probably try to rip her skeleton out of her body if she saw it happen, and Abigail really doesn’t want to dirty her hands with a necromancer duel before noon.

“Muscles of the Ninth, ey! Maybe after we’re out of here, I’ll set up my own titty mag to match and honour yours.”

A fleeting touch should be all right, shouldn’t it? That’s what Abigail tells herself when she throws her caution to the four winds and squeezes the Ninth’s hand. The look of wonder she gets in return was well worth the risk.

“I’m sure you will. And I’m sure it’ll be glorious.”

[rabbitindisguise]

I pulled all the quotes I could find on heroism from the locked tomb books (including NTN) so let me know what you all think ^^

"Duck," called Camilla.

Camilla had somehow propped herself on the arm with the mangled shoulder wound, which was in no condition for propping. Her good arm was up behind her head, holding the blade of her knife. Gideon ducked. The knife whistled over the top of Gideon's head in a flashing blur and buried itself in Cytherea's upper back.

This time Cytherea screamed. She went stumbling away from Ianthe's prone form, [cut for length].

The Lyctor turned her head and coughed miserably into the crook of her elbow. Then she looked at the knife, wondering at it. She turned her head to look at Camilla and Harrow and Gideon. She sighed pensively and ran one hand through her curls again.

"Oh no," she said, "heroics."

[Cut for length].

"An inadequate Lyctor," said Cytherea, as thought giving Gideon and Camilla a hot tip on stain removal, "still makes a perfect power source . . . an everlasting battery."

She stood back up and wiped her mouth with the lack of her hand. Then she began walking toward Gideon: calm, almost insolent in her lack of aggression. This was somehow much scarier than if she'd talked forward with a hateful glare and rill of mad laughter.

Gideon planted herself before Camilla and the unconscious body of her adept and held her sword aloft. They were alone in the back area of the courtyard: a little area not yet buried in rubble or tilled up by the titanic light between two immortal sorcerers. Dead trees bowed overhead. Gideon stood behind the iron fence that had once protected some herbaceous border, as though its bent, bowed spikes would be good for anything other than throwing herself down on as one last fuck-you salute.

Camilla was huddled in a corner, now standing upright—that was probably her own last fuck-you salute—but her wounded arm hung uselessly. She had lost a lot of blood. Her face was now pallid olive.

"Ninth," said the Sixth impatiently. "Get out of here. Take your necromancer. Go."

- Gideon the Ninth, 422-423

"Lady," said Ortus, and, sorrowfully: "Forgive me. Nonius has heroic standing among the priests and anchorites of our House," he added to the others. "Perhaps I do him wrong by making a poesy of the sacred mysteries."

"I never realized that Nonius had passed into cult worship," Said Pent.

"He has not," said Harrowhark shortly, and then was forced to admit: "Or, at least, the idea is passé."

"Heroes are passé, you see," explained Ortus with heavy sadness.

She did not murder him. It was a very near thing.

- Harrow the Ninth

From the end of the table, his white-ringed eyes still bent down upon his papers, the Emperor said quietly: "His was the action of a hero."

"Oh, but the problem is heroes always die," said Augustine, who was worrying an edge of tablecloth between long and elegant fingers. "You can't even really pronounce one a hero until they die heroically. I thought the downward assault was a good wheeze when you two first came up with it, [Gideon], but we know now that the last push against a Beast has to be sudden and conclusive. I'd rather have fought nine more hours and have Ulysses sitting here right now, inciting a sexy party, than have watched him wrestle that thing out of sight."

- Harrow the Ninth, page 336

[Gideon] pierced her heart on a railing because she thought I would use her to become a Lyctor. I will spit in the face of the first person who tells me she committed suicide; she was in an impossible situation, and she died trying to escape it. She was murdered, but she maneuvered her murder to let me live."

His face was very sad: a wistful, light sadness, not the ponderous sadness that he wore like his sacramental paint.

"What is better?" he asked. "An ignoble death by someone else's hands, or a heroic death by one's own? How should it be written? If the first—that she was cut down by an enemy—I would feel such hate for the enemy . . . If the second—an ugly death at her own devising—who, then, would be left for me to hate? Who does the poet judge? The eternal problem."

"Ortus, this is not a poem," she said.

"I think you must hate her," he said, and she thought she knew what he meant, until he said: "Don't. If there is anything I know about young Gideon . . . if there was anything in her that I too understood . . . it is that she did everything deliberately."

Very little in Harrowhark's life had embarrassed her up until that moment. She had been caught naked in front of a stranger. She had been kissed by a half-drunk Ianthe the First. She had admitted to God her apocalyptic transgressions, and been gently told that she did not know herself. She had been outplayed by Palamedes Sextus, outgunned by Cytherea the First, undone by Gideon Nav.

None of that humiliated her so viscerally as her strangled, bellowing, unchecked shriek now, a child's cry that whipped every head in that busied room round in her direction: "She died because I let her! You don't understand!"

Ortus dropped his book. He rose from the chair. He put his arms around her. The dead cavalier held her with a quiet, unassuming firmness; he petting her hair like a brother, and he said, "I am so sorry, Harrowhark. I am so sorry for everything . . . I am sorry for what they did . . . I am sorry that I was no kind of cavalier to you."

- Harrow the Ninth, page 400

The page fell over her thumb. On the second page—much fresher—Harrow read:

THE ONLY THING OUT CIVILIZATION CAN EVER LEARN FROM YOURS IS THAT WHEN OUR BACKS ARE TO THE WALL AND OUR TOWERS ARE FALLING ALL AROUND US AND WE ARE WATCHING OURSELVES BURN WE WE RARELY BECOME HEROS.

She opened her mouth to ask her dead second cavalier a question about her dead first cavalier—a pattern that was starting to look less like tragedy and more like carelessness—but downstairs, Abigail was saying:

"Harrowhark? Ortus? If you are reading, we might want to move."

- Harrow the Ninth, page 403

Pyrrha said, "Keep Camilla home tonight. I'll call it quits for the cigs."

Palamedes said, "Do you know she has a half sister? Did she tell you? It's not my secret to tell. They're quite fond of each other. Camilla's ten years younger. Kiki's a member of the Oversight Body, junior fellow. She was one of the group that came to negotiate with Ctesiphon Wing."

"I didn't know that, no," said Pyrrha.

"Alongside fifteen other of the finest minds of my House," said Palamedes. "Led here by conviction and Camilla's hand. My colleagues, my friends. My family . . . The people they put in cages will be someone's family, someone's friends."

"Keep—Camilla—home—tonight," said Pyrrha. "That is all I am saying. Keep her home. No heroics. I'm not moved by sentiment. Whatever it takes. Don't feel. Just do."

"Tonight I hate almost all of the human race," said Palamedes wearily.

"That's a feeling," said Pyrrha brutally. "Kill it."

- Nona the Ninth

Some thoughts:

there are so many em dashes omg

the most of the content on heroics is in Harrow the Ninth, and relates to Nonius and Gideon's sacrifice

Camilla's second heroic sacrifice was intercepted by Gideon and ultimately fulfilled by Gideon- and according to Augustine, heroes can only be pronounced heroes on their death (which echoes the homestuck principal of godtier deaths to be "just or heroic" and might foreshadow John's "just" death)

After defeating Wake, Nonius went to fight the resurrection beast and was (on the account of third parties) successful and it's unclear if he died (again) or if he's still a ghost

Augustine says that he would have preferred "a sexy party" and fighting a resurrection beast for nine more hours over watching him "wrestle that thing out of sight" even though it gave them more information- which implies heroics is fundamentally self sacrificing and not worth the death of the person in question

Harrow deems Gideon's death a murder, possibly even at her own hand, and Ortus is undecided if a death at someone else's hands or a heroic one is better (especially in a storytelling sense)

[ollie-ollie-oxenfreee]

Everything about the argument between Harrow and Ortus over the Noniad amuses me to no end

Harrow mentions that Nonius having fought a Lyctor means that she’s lost a decade-long battle, which means that she’s been sniping at Ortus’s beloved verse epic since she was eight

Imagine this tiny, righteously angry specter of a child crouched in the shadows outside the doors of the Ninth’s grand hall with as many skeletons as she can muster in tow because she may be banned from arguing at the dinner table but by God she is going to set this right

Younger Gideon hangs back every now and then to watch Drearburh’s Nerd Battle Royale unfold - the Ninth’s version of entertainment is never especially fun but it’s better than nothing, and there’s always the rare, coveted chance of seeing Harrow proven wrong

Once our girls are reunited and Harrow relays the story of the fight against the Sleeper, Gideon relishes in the chance to (gently) poke fun at her for it

“So you were wrong?”

“...Yes, but that’s not important - “

“You were wrong and you admit you were wrong.”

“Nav, please - “

“This is the best day of my life.”