september

October 01, 2021

Things I enjoyed in the month of September:

Patricia Briggs', Dead Heat:

"Most people carry a monster within. Not just werewolves or fae, most people. That monster has nothing to do with our wolf except that the wolf makes it more dangerous. It's a monster born of our own selfish desires and the wounds that life leaves on all of us. Whether those lives are a couple of decades or a couple of centuries long, living means that we get hurt, and some of those wounds don't heal or they don't heal completely."


Omega werewolves in Patricia Briggs' shifter lore are incredibly special.
Under no primordial impulse to submit to their Alpha, they make their own choices unlike the rest of the pack, and their natural ability to soothe werewolves at will is a most coveted aspect of their being.
Anna, in action and character, radiates the quintessential Omega.
Calm, thoughtful, methodical, emotionally intelligent, kind.
She's a person you want to be around, supernatural sedative powers or not.
Charles says it numerous times throughout the book:


People did things for Anna. It wasn't like when his father ordered people, and they just did what he told them to do before they had a chance to think about it. People wanted to do what Anna asked them to do.


And somehow, Briggs manages to infuse this measured calmness into the way she writes not only her protagonists but in the overall tone of the story; this story in particular.
Urban Fantasy is no stranger to longwinded bouts of supernatural exposition betwixt (yes, betwixt) scenes of magical carnage, but not many of them are as unruffled as the Alpha & Omega series.
In Dead Heat, the Cornicks are going on a trip, a little horse-buying holiday and to visit an old friend.
...
You can guess what happens next.

I love when characters go on holiday in Urban Fantasy.
No matter the circumstances, they always end up in dangerous beyond belief situations.
Dead Heat is no exception.
What starts as a reunion with an old friend of Charles' and an opportunity to purchase his mate a new horse, turns into Fae-induced bedlam.
Missing children, broken fairy vows, the patterned, artful killings of a serial killer.
...
Basically a Tuesday for Brigg's Montanan shifters.
But as I mentioned before, said shifters might be in immortal peril but they're incredibly relaxed about it.
It's to be expected with the way Anna is, her calming presence on not just other shifters but people in general, but it can also be attributed to Charles.
I have many kryptonites, and a strong, protective, gentle, emotionally guarded man of few but important words is one of them.
I don't know about anyone else reading the series but I instantly felt absurdly protective of Charles Cornick.
Being the enforcer for his father's pack and essentially having to do the dirty work to keep them safe, the toll on his emotional and psychological wellbeing is present and worrying.
So many deaths, so many hard choices, and all carried by one man who can't even express his emotions because to unleash them would be his undoing.
...
Yeah, I pretty much wanted to give him a hug the moment he appeared and it only worsened when he met Anna, because all a sudden, this big, imposing man who believed he'd be alone forever was a puddle for a feisty wolf who not only isn't scared of him but sees all that he is, unthinkable deeds and all.


He felt Brother Wolf's joy in his mate's fierceness. He would never take the gift of her presence in his life for granted. He'd been alone so long, so certain that there would be no one for him. He scared even other werewolves. And a part of him―of Charles, not Brother Wolf―hadn't wanted to find anyone. He'd understood that caring for another person the way he cared for Anna would leave him vulnerable. His father's hatchet man could not afford any weaknesses. And one day, there she was, his Anna: strong and funny despite the harm that had been done to her. She had tamed Brother Wolf first, but before he'd been in her presence ten minutes, he'd known that she would be his. That he needed her to be his.
"You're growling," she said, her voice drowsy. "What are you thinking?"
"That I love you," he said. "That I am grateful every day that you decided to let me keep you."
She hmmed and rolled over on top of him with hard-won confidence. "Good," she said. "Gratitude is good. Love is better." She paused, her mouth almost touching his. "I love you, too."
He told her, "The day I met you was the first day I ever felt joy."
She drew in a surprised breath. "Me, too," she said, her truth making his eyes burn. "Me, too." Then her lips traveled the few millimeters that lay between them.


She loves him fully and completely, but he still sees himself as an executioner, too frightening to be loved.
We all know it's bullshit but I think Charles needed this story to put a spotlight on exactly how Anna sees him and, more specifically, how others see him.
Executioner might be his job description but protector is who he really is.


When she hung up, she looked at Charles, who was toweling off his hair; he'd heard most of the call. "We get to go and make people talk."
"Sounds good," he said. "I'll try not to scare some poor kid so badly he can't talk for a year. You try not to get attacked by some fae who doesn't understand how dangerous you are because you look so soft and sweet."
She thought about her reply for a moment because his voice was just a little too neutral.
"Nah," she said casually, answering him as if she thought her reply didn't matter. "You scare adults pretty good―you've got that 'I could kill you with my little finger' thing going for you. But the kids or adults who are hurt . . . you are safe and they know it. Doesn't mean they aren't shy with you, but they know they're safe." She'd known it.
Sure he'd scared her when she first met him―she wasn't stupid. He was big and she knew all about how even between werewolves, big counts. But her instincts had told her that this one, this one would stand between her and anyone who would hurt her. That aura of guardianship―that was what made her mate such a powerful Alpha.
Charles just stared at her.
"You know that, right?" she said. "Most people stay out of your way, but the defenseless ones, the hurt ones, they just sort of gradually slide into your shadows. Not where you'll notice them too much―but you keep the bad things away."
He still didn't say anything. She buttoned her jeans and then took the two steps to press against him. "We know," she whispered to him. "We who have been hurt, we know what evil looks like. We know you make us safe."
He didn't say anything, but his arms came around her and she knew that she had told him something he didn't know―and that it mattered.


In the opening lines of the story we're thrust into a discussion between Charles and Anna over the prospect of having children.
Anna wants them, Charles wants them but he's afraid.
Afraid they'll become targets, afraid he's too cold, afraid they might be born mortal and he'll lose yet more people, like the friend they're visiting, to time and age, which is something Charles experiences at a significantly slowed rate than the rest of humanity.
They're valid concerns, they matter and should be discussed but the overall feeling coming from him, what's holding him back, is that of loss and how much it hurts.


At that moment something clicked, and she understood his reluctance to have children of his own. She'd noticed it herself, hadn't she? That the people he cared about he could count on the fingers of one hand: herself, Bran, Samuel, probably Mercy. This trip had allowed her to add one more person to that life: Joseph. Five people, because he could not keep any more than that safe. And Joseph was dying.
Oh, Charles.


That, and the fact that he believes he's too scary to be a father, when really, people can sense he'll put himself between them and an attack without even considering it.
He protects people, he keeps them safe, he's a fucking hero.


Amethyst had grabbed onto him, he thought. Grabbed on with both hands, and held on because she had known he'd keep her safe. She wanted to be okay, and that was a good thing.
"She'll survive, Anna. He won't win―we have him now. Let the human justice system do what it can. When he leaves it, I'll hunt him unto the ends of the earth if I have to." Cliché words―and they sounded hollow to him, though he absolutely meant them.
Absurdly, they seemed to be what Anna needed. She took a deep breath and said, "Yes. Yes. That. How fortunate for the world that you are in it." She pulled back, wiped her eyes, gave him a smile.
He didn't know what she meant. He was a killer with bloodstained hands. He was necessary, though. Maybe that was what she meant.
"Part of the solution," she said. "My dad always told us to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. You are always part of the solution."
"Solution to what?"
"Anything. Everything. Me." Her smile brightened and then died. Her voice was dead serious when she spoke again. "There is evil in the world, Charles. I know I'm not telling you anything that you don't know. But those people out there?" She swept a hand out toward the bustling rush-hour traffic on the road running past the parking lot where they stood. "Those people have no idea. And the reason they have no idea is because you are around to keep them safe. You and Bran and Leslie―and Leeds and Marsden, too. But mostly you. Where you are, there hope is also. The hope that good is strong enough to prevail."


And that's never more apparent than in this story.
We've faced down all manner of things in the series so far, Fae included, but it's never involved children before.
What is it with the Fae and children?
It's so fucking creepy.
(See: Seanan McGuire's, An Artificial Light, Peadar Ó Guilìn's, The Call)
Is it because they're immortal and will never be children again? Or just plain old perversion?
Who knows, and if they're real, I'm not bloody asking! Jesus fucking christ, the Fae are terrifying. No stepping into fairy rings for this girl. Nope, nope nope.
But will I continue to read countless stories about them?

The creepier the Fae the better in my opinion.
(Says the human who spent most of her childhood cowering under blankets from Skeksis and goblins and rotoscoped Nazgûl)
And Briggs really knows how to write a shit-scarer.


Green mottled skin crawled up her body―his body, demonstratively, for he wore no clothes. Limbs elongated and, as if someone had put a hook in the back of his neck, his body jerked upward, unfolding into a form that was seven or eight feet tall.
He stood upright like a gorilla stands upright, with his knuckles dragging the ground. He twisted the upper part of his body until he could look at Charles, his face now covered with knobbly green skin and populated with tiny red eyes and a mouth that opened like a leech's, complete with narrow, long, sharp teeth and a yellow-and-red-spotted tongue.
And Charles was helpless.


...
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And the deeds they do:


In the center of the room was a child's princess bed, a four-poster painted white and trimmed in gold leaf―Louis XIV style, Anna thought, or maybe Louis XV1. Gauzy white fabric was artfully tangled around like―she remembered Ms. Jamison―a fashion shoot of some sort. Pale pink, dried rose petals littered the fabric, the bed, the floor around the bed, and the little girl who lay like Sleeping Beauty in a gown of pale pink silk. Her skin was milk white and she was not breathing.
Charles climbed up beside Anna and then called down, "No. Stay down. This is a crime scene and there's not enough room up here. If you come up, too, we'll compromise the scene."
"What do you have up there?" asked Leslie. "I'll call it in."
"Multiple homicides," said Charles, his voice steady, but his horror bled into and blended with Anna's own. "I count twenty bodies, at least. All of them children. Most of them have been here awhile. At a guess, the murders took place before the fae came out and the Gray Lords put a stop to our Doll Collector's habits."
Bodies were stacked like cordwood against the three foot wall between the floor and the ceiling along the edge of the room. Old bodies with skin like parchment and hair stiff and dry.
They looked more like the doll Anna's mother had made her out of nylons, stuffed and stitched, than the remnants of people, of children. Anna's nose told her the truth that her eyes wanted to deny. Some of the children were dressed in gowns like Amethyst's, satin gleaming through layers of dust. Others wore dark suits. It looked as if they were all dressed for a wedding.
Anna thought that from now on, whenever the air was warm and still and smelled like leather and dead things, she would remember these children. She pressed against Charles, and his hand touched the top of her head to comfort them both.


It's a no brainer that Anna and Charles will defeat this Unseelie monster but it isn't really about defeating this one particular Fae.
It's a declaration of war.
The vilest of the Tuatha Dé Danann are purposefully slipping through the cracks of their self-imposed exile, with orders to do their worst, to let the other monsters out in the world know they will return, they are stronger, they can destroy them, and they will have their obedience.


Charles leaned on her and dug his jaws and his claws into her flesh, He ripped, holding her body down with his paws while he jerked back his head.
She screamed, the noise starting as low as a big cat's growl and then reaching a pitch that was a weapon in and of itself. High-pitched and sharp, sound traveled painfully from his ears right down his spine. He released the torn meat and bit down again―or he meant to. His jaws didn't work. When she rolled, he fell off her as limp . . . as limp and unmoving as Mack and Amethyst before him.
His first reaction was disbelief. Never had his body failed him before, not like this. His magic―wolf, witch, and shaman―had never left him defenseless. Charles felt a breath of panic that was knocked aside by the storm of Brother Wolf's frenzied rage.


It's frightening to know that even someone like Charles, a witch-born werewolf with abilities even beyond his father, can be laid waste by a Fae.
To know there's a chance the threat all supernatural creatures are under could truly be their undoing.
 That they could lose.
...
Clearly, that's not going to happen because there wouldn't really be a series that way, but Dead Heat is a clear first move from the enemy.
Which is why, surprisingly, figuring out who the villain was almost straight away wasn't a big deal for me.
Normally I suck at figuring it out, it'll take the big reveal for things to finally fall into place, but not with this one, this time it was obvious.
Purposefully obvious, perhaps?
It's so brazenly conspicuous - Patricia Briggs literally spells it out for us - that I can't help but think she did it on purpose.
To show us that her shifters aren't infallible, they make mistakes and they can be fooled.
She's letting us know to not be off our guard.
That the Fae are coming.
And it will be horrifying.


His glamour fell away, the illusion that truly represented the lord he had once been. But as his magic had twisted and fouled, so had his true form twisted and fouled over the years. He waited for her to recoil; he was not good to look upon, but she smiled. "I have a gift for you. A gift and a task."
"What task is that?" he asked warily.
"Don't worry," she said, putting her right hand on the side of his neck. "You'll enjoy the job, I promise."
And his magic came back to him, flooding his body like the heat of the dead. He screamed, dropped to the floor, and writhed as the beautiful agony enveloped him.
She bent down and whispered in his ear, "But there are rules."


...
I think I got the message, and honestly?

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すり餌

Snakes IRL?

Snakes in art?

And with lineart like this?

Speaking of linear wizardry:
nylso

I get dizzy just contemplating this.

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...
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Like this:

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Everyone did so weeeeellllllllllllll.
At least, as it's been five years? since I read the series and I've forgotten a whole bunch of important information, everyone seemed to do really well?
Fuck it, who cares, I remembered pretty much everything I needed to and what got lost in the gaping canyon I call a memory bank clearly wasn't missed.
...
Or I was just happily distracted by how they nailed the aesthetic of everything - not gonna lie, this is essentially how I pictured everything when I was reading the book, and the phenomenal casting.
Ben Barnes as The Darkling? There are no words.

Kit Young as Jesper? Help, I've been shot by the adorable puppy feels and I can't get up.
(He exceeded all my Jesper expectations. He's truly the best thing in the show and I loved so much about it)
#shadow and bone from a bit of an attitude problem

Danielle Galligan as Nina? I was worried, truly worried, but she nailed it. Crushed it. Bloody annihilated it like a stack of blessed waffles.
#shadowandboneedit from to whatever end

Not to mention, Luke Pasquilino as David (he was unexpectedly delightful), Calahan Skogman's Matthias (my lovely, Fjerdan idiot; this is gonna hurt twice as bad), Zoë Wanamaker as Baghra (the scowlllll), and Amita Suman as Inej (uh, hello knife wife incarnate, it's lovely to meet your tiny, soft self).

Even the not so perfect casting was near enough to what I envisioned that it didn't bother me too much that they weren't entirely spot on:

Genya. Alina. Kaz. Zoya. Mal.

I can't wait to see the hell Genya and Zoya go through... in an affectionate way, of course. I love my fierce, feral, fearless Grisha.
And I totally loved this show.
An unexpected triumphant adaptation.
And now I'm desperate for season two so I can get my hands on Nikolai Lantsov:
AVENDELL

And continue to pine horribly for Wylan Van Eck.
...
I'm going to need one emotional support goat, please.

Fanart:
E.K. Belsher

Anastasia Ivanova

And some more because she's fucking amazing and self-taught to boot:

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Saira Vargas' GoT series:

These've convinced me it's finally time to finish this bitch of a show once and for all.
Prepare for the rage.

And before you ask, yes, it was absolutely necessary I show you them all.
I'm living for the day Saira Vargas makes her first animated movie.
It's going to be so fucking beautiful.

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This Way Up season two:

I don't know if I'll never not be in love with Aisling Bea and Sharon Horgan.
How are they not actually sisters?
Because as one with sisters, the nutbag chemistry is...

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...

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Cameron Stalheim's, Merman:

My tastes have definitely moved on since those predictable days of traditional art worship in university but every now and then, something special draws me back.

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I don't know, just watch it, okay?
Sandra Oh's a fucking marvel and it was hilarious, and watching all the creaky academics freak out on Twitter over how this isn't how we behave! We're professionals!

...
Adorable.

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Birthday cookies:


Specifically, Sarah Kieffer's Chocolate Chip Cookies, which you can find the recipe for in her book, 100 Cookies.
(At least, I think it was these; I just came for the post-birthday sugar high)

Much thanks to the sibling for giving in to my cookie cravings and baking me these beauties.

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I'm sorry, this is soft and lovely and the grain is making me feel things, but I'm distracted by her armpit hair.
...
underarm hair linda belcher gif | WiffleGif

MORE ART WITH HAIRY HUMANS, PLEASE.
Let's normalise this shit, already.

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Lennnie, songs to send to someone you love:

Listened to this for an hour and that yeet myself into the sun feeling disappeared for a while.
Lennnie's pure, blobful magic.

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It's like My Brightest Diamond's serenading a doofy froglet and I. am. here. for. it.

Also, this is the closest to home that home has ever come close to:

...
Until I saw this:

The accuracy is blade sharp.

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...
#Gif from DIABLITO 666

Iconic.

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Yet another interesting article from Tor on the intricacies of being a reader.
My preferences?

→ Mass Market Paperback for general, all-round reading but especially Urban Fantasy
(I have creepy child hands and MMPs fit perfectly in them)

→ A Hardcover copy of any book that's scampered off with a piece of my shrivelled heart, especially if it comes in exclusive form with swoon-worthy details
(The more gold-leaf the better, and throw in some embossing, sprayed edges, flocking, and fan-made art for end-pages, if you please) 

→ The Folio Society for something really special
(I still swoon over my copy of Beloved)

→ Hardcover for newly released books my impatient ass can't wait the few months it'll take for the Trade Paperback to be released
(I'd really prefer the paperback but if I'm desperate to read it, I'll make an exception)

→ Trade Paperback for everything else
(Although, I wish as much attention to detail was put on them as it is on Hardbacks)

But really?
As much as I love the comfort of an MMP, the consistency of a TP, and the beauty of a HC, I'll take it in any form it comes.
I just want the story.
It's the most important part.

But that doesn't mean I won't stop building my fort.

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Esther aka. disasterzoo:

The stylised cloud formations.
The severed arm.
Those corn/wheat/something-or-other stalks.

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...
Argh, I wanna touch it and all of its Angela Carter-y goodness.
#The Company of Wolves from diana of arcadia

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Oh.
HELLO.

Del Toro + creepy carnival =

The question is... will there be monster fucking in this one?
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Tamsyn Muir's, Gideon the Ninth:

Gideon put her arms around Harrowhark. She lifted her up off the ground just an inch and squeezed her in an enormous hug before either she or Harrow knew what she was about. Her necromancer felt absurdly light in her grip, like a bag of bird's bones. She had always thought―when she bothered to think―that Harrow would feel cold, as everything in the Ninth felt cold. No, Harrow Nonagesimus was feverishly hot. Well, you couldn't think that amount of ghastly thoughts without generating energy. Hang on, what the hell was she doing.
"Thanks for backing me up, my midnight hagette," said Gideon, placing her back down. Harrow had not struggled, but gone limp, like a prey animal feigning death. She had the same glassy thousand-yard stare and stilled breathing. Gideon belatedly wished to be exploded, but reminded herself to act cool. "I appreciate it, my crepuscular queen. It was good. You were good."
Harrow, at a total loss for words, eventually managed the rather pathetic. "Don't make this weird, Nav!" and stalked off after Palamedes.


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I'm in quite a lot of pain.
And don't know how I got here.

...

Gideon the Ninth is not a perfect book.
Its flaws are glaring and consumptive:

☠ The world-building is vibrant and unsettling but jarringly opaque; as if kept at too far a distance for a clear image to become apparent. It's frustrating, to say the least.

☠ There are a lot of characters, which wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't damn near impossible to keep track of who they all are. I'm still trying to keep it all straight in my head, and just when I think I've got it, I get smacked in the face trying to remember who belongs to the Second House and uhhhhhyeah, I'm gonna need a glossary or something.

☠ The necromantic geekspeak is depthful (feels like it should be a word, thus, a new word is born!), well thought out, intriguing as hell, and entirely alienating. It was honestly easier just to go along for the ride and let the jargon roll over me, but I desperately wanted to understand so the experience became increasingly vexing.

☠ Gideon, the protagonist, is not the best character. BY FAR. Not unusual in literature, side-characters are often my favourites but this felt... odd. Gideon's a force of nature, and I loved every second of her but it was if someone/thing had dulled her edges and as a result, even though we're with her every second of the story, she faded into the background; something that should have in no way been possible.

☠ The tone of the story is somewhat... superior. I find this with Fantasy sometimes, that the depth of the world-building and history is something only knowable by the author, the creator, and the rest of us are left outside, pounding our fists to be let in, to know the secret. It's not a feeling I enjoy.


All of these things make Gideon the Ninth an imperfect novel, and by all accounts I felt that imperfection acutely for the first one hundred plus pages.
As evidenced in my increasingly agitated GR updates:

Needless to say, I was livid and exhausted.
Livhausted?
Exhivid?
Pissed the fuck off with a raging case of the passing the fuck outs after every third sentence.
This book had been on my mental Most Anticipated list since everyone started losing their shit over the cover art and blurb.
As Charles Stross said in his quote on the cover:


Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!


...
WHO ON THE PLANET DOES THAT NOT APPEAL TO?!
Fools, that's who.
So, justifiably, I was a little excited, which is always a rookie mistake.
Pro-tip: Unless you're familiar with an author, go in with an air of lackadaisicalness (I wish it was lackadaisy, I really do); that way, when the disappointment hits, it won't hurt so bad.
...
But I'm an idiot and never take my own advice.
And oh... oh, holy phalanges, I was in pain at the idea of Gideon being a failure, I even considered DNFing and I never DNF.
Which is fortuitous because, as you may have guessed, Tamsyn Muir went and made me fall in love, didn't she?

Tortured me for one quarter of the book, toyed with my feeble little heart and then jabbed an intracardiac needle full of the feels right inside the stupid organ.
And it was glorious.
Because this story may be hard to access at first, but when it grants you entry?
It's like being let in on a little known secret, given the code to an unbreakable mystery, handed the key to the infamous Locked Tomb.
You've been weighed, measured, and deemed worthy.

It's consuming, rewarding, and comforting, even if half the time you have no earthly clue what the fuckety fuck is going on.
And I really, truly had no idea what the fuckety fuck what was going on.
But, as much as I would have preferred more clarity on the setting and history of the Nine Houses, and the desperation to become a Lyctor (essentially a super-necromancer, it's a big deal), the overall feeling of Gideon the Ninth is what held me captive.
Wrapt from almost start to finish, it wasn't necessarily the characters or the mystery surrounding them that prevented the dreaded DNF but the eerie, fetid, archaic essence of it.
A Gormenghastian space palace housed by puppeted monks and servile skeletons; a riddle of forbidden doors, thaumaturgic laboratories, and eldritch, basement horrors lurking in its depths.


Rearing up before them was a palace, a fortress, of white and shining stone. It spread out on the surface of the water like an island. You couldn't see over it and you could hardly see around it. It lapped back in terraces of what must have once been fabulous gardens. It rose up in gracious towers that hurt the eye with their slenderness and precision. It was a  monument to wealth and beauty.
Back in its day, at least, it would have been a monument to wealth and beauty. In the present it was a castle that had been killed. Many of its white and shining towers had crumbled and fallen down in miserable chunks. Jungling overgrowth rose from the sea and wrapped around the base of the building, both green slimes and thick vines. The gardens were grey, filmy canopies of dead trees and plants. They had overtaken the windows, the balconies, the balustrades, and clung there and died; they covered much of the frontage in a secretive mist of expired matter. Gold veins shone dully in the dirty white walls. The docking bay must have also been elegant in its era, a huge landing swath that could have held a hundred ships at a time; now ninety-two of the cradles were desolate and filthy. The metal was caked with salt from the water, salt that now assaulted Gideon's nose: a thick, briny scent, overpowering and wild. The whole place had the look of a picked-at body. But hot damn! What a beautiful corpse.


It was nothing short of majestic, and I may not have been able to see it clearly, but I could feel it.
I could feel it the same way I can scent the damp from the ancient walls of castle Gormenghast, feel the heat of Laurie Lee's Cotswold summer, and taste Donna Tartt's New England bacchanalia. 
Some stories you can simply feel and it's enough.
And it was certainly enough with Gideon the Ninth because I went from wretched fury to soppy, worshipping child of necro space romance.
(Anyone tells me this isn't a romance, I direct you to the pool scene. Soggy cuddles and the telling of long-nurtured secrets is not platonic behaviour, 'kay?)
I was shocked, to say the least, after my ranting and raving and DNF-threatening, but now? Now I can't get my brain to move on. It's taken root and I find my thoughts wandering near constantly to Gideon Nav and her feral soot sprite of a necromancer, Harrowhark Nonagesimus.
I know I should probably talk more about Gideon, what with her being the protagonist and all but damn. Damn, damn, damn.
My heart is losing its fucking mind over Harrowhark "I will delight in violence" Nonagesimus.
The Wednesday Addams of cosmic necromancy.
Horrorkid Challenge | Horror Amino

She's tiny, she's feral, she'll fuck you up with her skeleton army and you'll love every second of it.


As Gideon sized up the best angle to join the fray, a bleached, skeletal hand emerged from behind Cytherea and grabbed her face. Another hand gripped her sword-arm at the wrist. Over Gideon's shoulder, the skeleton in the fountain began to stir. Harrowhark stood at the top of the stars, hands full of white particles, her skull-painted face as hard and merciless as morning: she flung them out before her like she was sowing a field. From each grain of bone a perfectly formed skeleton arose, a huge angular mass jostling and crowding on the stairs, and they poured out in single formation to rush the Lyctor one by one. She went under in a sea of bone.
Camilla hauled herself away from the rushing, grinding ocean of Harrow's mindless dead, clutching her knives more firmly in her recovering hands―the muscles in her arms were visibly springing back into shape. Gideon advanced, heart in her throat, moving to take Camilla's place.
"Leave it!" barked her necromancer. "Nav! Here!"
Six more skeletons sprang to her call. They were unstrapping something from Harrow's back―it was Gideon's longsword, shining and heavy and sharp. She unbuckled her scabbard and let the black rapier fall―shook her gauntlet off next to it, and gave them both a private prayer of thanksgiving for services rendered―and she caught her sword by the hilt as it fell toward her. She wrapped her hands around its grip and hefted its old familiar weight.


...

I certainly enjoyed it, but she's totally my type.
Angry, emotionally stunted balls of rage with squishy, marshmallow centres.
...
I'll take a bushel, please and a side order of another.
But the top of my list is currently gloom mistress Harrow.
Because what's better than simply a ball of vitriol?
A ball of vitriol with smarts, and purpose, and a scowl so withering it could peel the flesh off someone she liked.
I've come across my fair share of murder-happy, vertically challenged hell-bitches in my time but Harrowhawk Nonagesimus is in a league of her own.
A step ahead everyone else, pleasingly condescending to pretty the universe, proprietrix of the shortest fuse in the 'verse, and desperately in love with her cavalier primary.
And her accidental flirt-game is outstanding.
Her and Gideon?
Flirting the entire time.


"You could've died today," she said conversationally.
For a long time the girl on the bed was supine and silent. Her chest rose and fell slightly, evenly, as though in sleep. Then Harrow said without opening her eyes, "You could attempt to finish me right now, if you liked. You might even win."
"Shut up," said Gideon, flat and grim. "I mean that you're making me look like a disloyal buffoon. I mean it's your fault that I can't take being your bodyguard seriously. I mean that all this sacred duty do exactly as I say blah blah blah shit does not matter in the least if you die of dehydration in a bone."
"I wasn't about to―"
"Baseline standard of a cavalier," said Gideon, "is you not dying in a bone."
"There was no―"
"No. It's Gideon Nav Talking Time. I want to get out of here and you want to be a Lyctor," she said. "We need to get in formation if that's going to happen. If you don't want me to ditch the paint, this sword, and the cover story, you're taking me down there with you."
"Griddle―"
"Gideon Nav Talking Time. The Sixth must think we're absolutely full of horseshit. I'm going down there with you because I am sick of doing nothing. If I have to wander around faking a vow of silence and scowling for one more day I will just open all my veins on top of Teacher. Don't go down there solo. Don't die in a bone. I am your creature, gloom mistress. I serve you with fidelity as big as a mountain, penumbral lady."
Harrow's eyes flickered open. "Stop."
"I am your sworn sword, night boss."
"Fine," said Harrow heavily.
Gideon's mouth was about to round out the words "bone empress" before she realised what had been said. 


Flirting when they're screaming at each other. Flirting when they're angrily sleeping in the same room, purposefully as far as possible away from one another. Flirting when they're tracking one or the other down because they've gone off in a huff. Flirting when one of them paints their face like a hyperopic bear with slices of cake for paws and they just have to redo it and be as close as humanly possible to them at the time.
...
So they can see what they're doing properly.
...
Not so they can feel the heat of each other.
...
Totally not.

These fucking two.
I love these idiots, especially when they're bickering, which is lucky because they spend 90% of the book doing so but they're so fucking stupid.
And that's what makes it glorious to read.
Slow burn?
This is glacial burn with devastating payoff, and I felt so fucking raw by the end of it all.
Because I might say that Harrow's my favourite character (she is) but the affection I feel for Gideon is just as strong.
How could it not be when she's a crass fire-bird built for sarcasm, lewd comments, and swordplay?
That also happens to be my type.
If Harrow's a bloodthirsty soot sprite with a penchant for bones, then Gideon's a horny space Labrador who's easily distracted by boobs and shiny weaponry.
She's got the mind of a twelve year boy and I adore her for it.
Why?
Because she's a change of scenery.
How many Fantasy protagonists have I read that have been worthy and brooding and weighed down by it all?
Too. Bloody. Many.
Gideon Nav is a genius swordswoman with little to no interest in the grand scheme of it all and is perfectly fine with that because she just wants out.
She wants her rapier, her porn collection, her sunglasses, probably something to eat, and as far away from "responsibility" as she can get.


"Put me in there," said Gideon.
That brought Harrow up short, and her eyebrows shot to the top of her hairline. She fretted at the veil around her neck, and she said slowly, "Why?"
Gideon knew at this point that some really intelligent answer was the way to go; something that would have impressed the Reverend Daughter with her mechanical insight and cunning. A necromantic answer, with some shadowy magical interpretation of what she had just seen. But her brain had only seen one thing, and her palms were damp with the sweat that came when you were both scared and dying of anticipation. So she said, "The arms kind of looked like swords. I want to fight it."
"You want to fight it."
"Yep."
"Because it looked . . .  a little like swords."
"Yop."
Harrow massaged her temples with one hand...


A simple creature, that's what she is and it balances so perfectly against Harrow's desperation to attain all the things Gideon couldn't give a fuck about.
Harrow's the one with all the responsibility. Harrow's the one solving the mysteries of Canaan House. Harrow's the one vibrating with the knowledge of all the bad shit going on around her, while Gideon's just along for the ride.
Until it's more than that. Until she starts to realise that her and her necromancer are far beyond anything she could have fathomed before.


"Harrow," said Gideon, and her voice caught. "Harrow, I'm so bloody sorry."
Harrow's eyes snapped wide open. The whites blazed like plasma. The black rings were blacker than the bottom of Drearburh. She waded through the water, snatched Gideon's wet shirt in her fists, and shook her with more violence than Gideon had ever thought her muscularly capable of. Her face was livid in its hate: her loathing was a mortar, it was combustion.
"You apologise to me?" she bellowed. "You apologise to me now? You say that you're sorry when I have spent my life destroying you? You are my whipping girl! I hurt you because it was a relief! I exist because my parents killed everyone and relegated you to a life of abject misery, and they would have killed you too and not given it a second's goddamned thought! I have spent your life trying to make you regret that you weren't dead, all because―I regretted I wasn't! I ate you alive, and you have the temerity to tell me that you're sorry?"
There were flecks of spittle on Harrowhark's lips. She was retching for air.
"I have tried to dismantle you, Gideon Nav! The Ninth House poisoned you, we trod you underfoot―I took you to this killing field as my slave―you refuse to die, and you pity me! Strike me down. You've won. I've lived my whole wretched life at your mercy, yours alone, and God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you."
Gideon braced her shoulders against the weight of what she was about to do. She shed eighteen years of living in the dark with a bunch of bad nuns. In the end her job was surprisingly easy: she wrapped her arms around Harrow Nonagesimus and held her long and hard, like a scream. They both went into the water, and the world went dark and salty. The Reverend Daughter fell calm and limp, as was natural for one being ritually drowned but when she realised that she was being hugged she thrashed as though her fingernails were being ripped from their beds. Gideon did not let go. After more than one mouthful of saline, they ended up huddled together in one corner of the shadowy pool, tangled up in each other's wet shirtsleeves. Gideon peeled Harrow's head off her shoulder by the hair and beheld it, taking inventory: her point-boned, hateful little face, her woeful black brows, the bloodless bow of her lips. She examined the disdainful set of the jaw, the panic in the starless eyes. She pressed her mouth to the place where Harrow's nose met the bone of her front sinus, and the sound that Harrow made embarrassed them both.
"Too many words," said Gideon confidentially. "How about these: One flesh, one end, bitch."
The Ninth House necromancer flushed nearly black. Gideon tilted her head up and caught her gaze. "Say it, loser."
"One flesh―one end," Harrow repeated fumblingly, and they could say no more.


Watching the relationship between Harrow and Gideon evolve was the one true pleasure of this story.
There are many aspects of it that I enjoyed immensely but discovering the depth of feeling between these two scrapping outliers was something I couldn't look away from.
It's obvious from the start there must be a reason for the vast amount of enmity tethering them together, something more than childish grudges and primal aversion but discovering the reason why and dismantling that misplaced ache is the reason I stayed the course with this story.


Harrow turned to face Gideon, and her eyes were black and inexorable as a gravity collapse.
"The time has come―"
She took a deep breath; and then she undid the catches to her robes, and they fell away from her thin shoulders to puddle around her ankles on the floor.
"―to tell you everything," she said.
"Oh, thank God for that," said Gideon hysterically, profoundly embarrassed at how her heart rate had spiked.


Whether it's romance, soulmates, frenemies, necromancer and cavalier, these two are fated to be something to each other.
It's inescapable.


Gideon looked down at her necromancer. She had the heavy-lidded expression of someone who was concentrating in the knowledge that when they stopped concentrating, they would fall abruptly asleep. Harrow had gone unconscious once before: Gideon knew that the second time she let Harrow go under, there would probably not be any awakening. Harrow reached up―her hand was trembling―and tapped Gideon on the cheek.
"Nav," she said, "have you really forgiven me?"
Confirmed. They were all going to eat it.
"Of course I have, you bozo."
"I don't deserve it."
"Maybe not," said Gideon, "but that doesn't stop me forgiving you. Harrow―"
"Yes?"
"You know I don't give a damn about the Locked Tomb, right? You know I only care about you," she said in a brokenhearted rush. She didn't know what she was trying to say, only that she had to say it now. With a bad, juddering noise, a tentacle had started to pound their splintering shelter again: WHAM. "I'm no good at this duty thing. I'm just me. I can't do this without you. And I'm not your real cavalier primary, I never could've been."
WHAM. WHAM. WHAM. The crack reopened at this punishment. The sunlight got in, and fragments of bone dissolved in a shower of grey matter. It held, but Gideon didn't care. The construct wasn't there: the shelter wasn't there. Even Camilla, who had turned away to politely investigate something on the opposite wall, wasn't there. It was just her and Harrow and Harrow's bitter, high-boned, stupid little face.
Harrow laughed. It was the first time she had ever heard Harrow really laugh. It was a rather weak and tired sound.
"Gideon the Ninth, first flower of my House," she said hoarsely, "you are the greatest cavalier we have ever produced. You are our triumph. The best of all of us. It has been my privilege to be your necromancer."
That was enough. Gideon the Ninth stood up so suddenly that she nearly bumped her head on the roof of the bone shield.
[...]
"Yeah, fuck it," she said. "I'm getting us out of here."

....

"Oh, damn, Nonagesimus, don't cry, we can't fight her if you're crying."
Harrow said, with some difficulty: "I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it."
"Yes you can, it's just less great and less hot," said Gideon.
"Fuck you, Nav―"

...

"One flesh, one end, bitch."


It's the way of the relationship between necromancer and their protector, and it's seen in every house, not just the Ninth.
I do of course have favourites (Sixth House, I love thee and I need to go cry for a bit) but Tamsyn Muir made me care about everyone in this story (except Silas, what a little twat), not just Gideon and my beloved Harrow, everyone.
And I'm not going to sugar coat it, things got biblical by the end, no one left this story unscathed and it hurt my heart to watch the numbers fall.
But it was fucking amazing to watch.
Tamsyn Muir's imagination knows no bounds and I'm so glad she didn't even try to quell her level of fantastical crazy because otherwise I wouldn't have been transported into frantic chapters of being chased by crustacean-like vertebrates.


There was a cry from within, followed by an awful cracking, tearing, breaking sound. When the horrible many-legged construct exploded through the hole, it was not as great nor as leggy as it had been before. It had torn itself free from Harrow's shackles, and in doing so had left most of itself behind. It was a miserable shadow of its previous bulk. Compared to anything normal, though, it was still a horror of waving stumps and tendrils, all lengthening and thickening, regrowing themselves even as she watched. It had been stuck and now it was halved, but it could still regenerate. The huge expressionless face gleamed whitely in the afternoon light―now teetering on a trunk too small for its mask―and broken glass pattered down its sides like drops of water as it crawled out. It sat its broken body on the terrace like a ball of white roots, swaying on two legs, a bitten spider.


Thrust into video game-like challenges with oozing, sword-armed bosses.


It was a bone construct, she could tell that much. Grey tendons strapped a dozen weirdly malformed humeri to horrible abbreviated forearms. The rib cage was banded straps of thick, knobbly bone, spurred all around with sharp points, the skull―was it a skull?―a huge knobble of brainpan. Two great green lights foamed within the darkness there, like eyes. It had way too many legs and a spine like a load-bearing pillar, and it had to crouch forward on two of its heavyset arms, fledged all over with tibial spines. The exterior arms were thrust back high, and she could see now that they did not have hands: just long slender blades, each formed from a sharpened radius, held at the ready like a scorpion's tail. 


And their devastating ends.


Isaac did not stop and he did not run. It was one of the bravest and stupidest things Gideon had ever fucking seen. The construct teetered, getting its footing, cocking its great head as though in contemplation. The long straight spars of teeth hovered above the necromancers bobbing and warping occasionally as though about to be sucked into his fiery gyre. Then at least fifty of them speared him through.
Blue fire and blood sprayed the room. Gideon sheather her sword, set her shoulders, put one arm above her eyes, and charged through the field like a rocket.


Or had the soul ripped out of me to a cross an uncrossable space, to retrieve an unretrievable key, to open an unopenable door.


It felt like nothing, at first. Besides Harrow touching her neck, which was a one-way trip to No-Town. But it was just Harrow, touching her neck. She felt the blood pump through the artery. She felt herself swallow, and that swallow go down past the flat of Harrow's hand. Maybe there was a little twinge―a shudder around the skull, a tactual twitch―but it was not the pressure and the jolt she remembered from Response and Imaging. Her adept took a step back, thoughtful, fingers curling in and out of her palms.
Then she turned and plunged through the barrier, and there was the jolt. It started in Gideon's jaw: starbursts of pain rattling all the way from mandible to molars, electricity blasting over her scalp. She was Harrow, walking into no-man's land; she was Gideon, skull juddering behind the line. She sat down on the stairs very abruptly and did not pay attention to Dulcinea, reaching out for her before drawing back. It was like Harrow had tied a rope to all her pain receptors and was rappelling down very long drop. She dimly watched her necromancer take step after painstakingly slow step across the empty metal expanse. There was a strange fogging around her. It took Gideon a moment to realise that the spell was eating through Harrow's black robes of office, grinding them into dust around her body.
[...]
"Gideon? . . . Gideon!"
When she opened her eyes again there was a dazzling moment of clarity and sharpness. Harrow Nonagesimus was kneeling by her side, naked as the day she was spawned. Her hair was shorn a full inch shorter, the tips of her eyelashes were gone, and―most horrifyingly―she was absolutely nude of face paint. It was as though someone had taken a hot washcloth to her. Without paint she was a point-chinned, narrow-jawed, ferrety person, with high hard cheekbones and a tall forehead. There was a little divot in her top lip at the philtre, which gave a bowline aspect to her otherwise hard and fearless mouth. The world rocked, but it was mainly because Harrow was shaking her shoulders.
"Ha-ha," said Gideon, "first time you didn't call me Griddle," and died.


There wouldn't have been decaying swimming pools used for duelling and gossip, or dilapidated bedrooms punctuated with treacherous, ocean-view balconies that J.G. Ballard would be proud to add to the dystopian architecture of Vermillion Sands, or Frankensteinian golems, servile skeletons, troublesome twins, or a cavalier with a perverted, sword-wielding mind and her vitriolic bone-worshipper.
#clexa from whatever it takes

I can't believe I nearly DNFed this.
I can't believe I almost didn't get to feel this... this... unrestrained wonder.
And I can't believe that fucking ending.
I just... wow, you really went there, didn't you, Muir?
You led me straight to the twist, made me acknowledge everything was going to hell, and then made it immeasurably worse.
Maybe I've gotten soft over the years, known how to spot a satisfying ending and avoid the agony of a story arc I absolutely did not want, happily paddling around in my HEAs and HFNs, and I've forgotten just how much this fucking hurts.
My soft, necromantic girls in space.
What am I going to about you?
Other than sob eternally?
860ac5c52c3e6731e62167d472e3b24e
(gif by Trevor Van Meter)

Sobbing eternally it is, then.
Sigh.

This story really crept up on me; I absolutely did not expect to love it as much I do or to feel so emotionally malnourished after it was over.
It won't be for everyone, the chaotic, messy energy running through it will frustrate most and captivate many, but as one who was captivated, very unexpectedly, it's a pleasing place to find yourself stranded in.
Bones, bickering, bullshit and besties.


"We do bones, motherfucker."


What more could you ask for?
Oh yeah... MAKE THE ROMANCE CANON.
I gotta get some peace, Muir.


Okay, deep breath everyone... it's fanart time:
misha aka. fr0gpie

(This was the overly close face-painting I was talking about! Look at that flirting; s'gorgeous)
Graylia

Viv Tanner
(Obsessed with the first illustration. Tanner has that effect of me)

Dawn Carlos

C.J. Merwild
(Trust one of my favourite artists to make Gideon look goddamn lickable and absolutely how I evisioned her)

Vanilla aka. vanilla.phantoms

*Legally changes name to Midnight Hagette*

Marceline

Cuervo de Solsticio

Greta Patriarca

AURA

Natalia aka. ArtUnraveled

Nic Wardle

Ren Strapp

Oakley Billions

Emma aka. deepseaoctopus01

Alicia Ramos Castillo aka. Pinapali

Bev Johnson

Gabriela Epstein

Naomi

Ash J. aka. Umbral potato Ash

Erin aka. painacotta

Alex Siple

Lucy Rose aka. SereneNocture

Tess Powell

JarofalivesArt⁷

Helen Mask

Ellie Fang

Veronica Liu

Kimberley Wang

(This is my favourite Harrow; the feral soot sprite energy is spot on)

pilpo

Simina Popescu
(The "Yop" still wrecks me)

Tayden

cupa

cluniies

(uh huh, uh huh, uh huh)
Ali aka. catpotion

Apsa

Mells Bells

...
And breathe!

By tonight, I will have found more.
My serotonin levels are motherfucking chartless!


Passing fact:

If Charlie (my feral asshole of a cat who treats me and the fam like wastrel serfs but occasionally gives out headbumps and belly wriggles to keep us appeased - for any confused newbies) hadn't barged into my life already named, I totally would've named him Harrowhark Nonagesimus.
He's monochrome.
He's allergic to cuddles but desperately needs one.
He's a violent little sod.
He sleeps in odd places.
He's at war with a ginge.
(But it might be angry foreplay; he won its collar in a fight, like a trophy... keepsake? To sniff longingly? Unconfirmed, will report back).
And I'm pretty sure he's a demon on holiday in a catsuit, so it wouldn't surprise me if he could raise and control the dead.
...
Yop.
He's a Harrowhark.
If only he'd arrived later or Gideon had been written sooner.
Alas, poor Harrowhark.
(Sorry, not sorry?)

.............................................

Sex Education season three:

Idiots. All of them. And I couldn't be more obsessed with them.
Finally a show that deals with all aspects of sexuality, and has conversations about it, and doesn't shame anybody, and can have a laugh about it all in a quintessentially British way without being an obnoxious bellend about it!
Oh, and look, actual character development that took a dislikable character and made him MY ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE OF ALL TIME.
https://signedupforthis.tumblr.com/post/662865758932615168/connor-swindells-as-adam-groff-sex-education-s3

Adam Groff, the puppy we all deserve.

.............................................


Bartok, anyone?

.............................................


Did I like this or was I just blinded by the technicolor of it all?
To be fair, that's often my question with musicals.

I want to watch it again.
I'm taking that as a good sign.
Season two?

.............................................


The words grand, epic, and journey keep swirling through my head looking at these.
#wordsnquotes from Movies | @wordsnquotes

.............................................


It's been so long since I read the book but that murderous, bacchanal feeling comes rushing back seeing the gang.
Everybody's shoulder to waist ratio is just...

.............................................

I've fallen in love with two artists and their style:
Yvette Chua

RuiRiel

Found on the same day, consecutively.
It was a really good moment for my brain.

.............................................

Kristen Callihan's, Entwined:

He big.
She little.
Me puddle.

.............................................

Lego Masters Australia:

Sheer, unadulterated joy.
Love lego.
Channel 9 Reaction GIF by Lego Masters Australia

Love nerds.
(My people)
LEGO Masters Australia GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Love smashing things.
(Historically, I am known as The Lego Bomb. No multi-coloured architecture of brick was safe from my toddler Godzilla feet)
Lego Masters Fox Amiedd GIF - Lego Masters Fox Lego Masters Amiedd - Discover & Share GIFs

...
Perfect show is perfect.


Extremely Fucking Important Ps.

...

.............................................

Heather Chelan aka. hebontheweb:

Women telling truths on the internet might be my favourite thing.
Women singing truths on the internet is absolutely my favourite thing.

.............................................

Victoria Evans and the ladies:

And another of the queen of my cosmic heart:
Mona Finden

...
firefly GIFs - Primo GIF - Latest Animated GIFs
firefly GIFs - Primo GIF - Latest Animated GIFs

.............................................

Just a couple of angels:
Elizabeth Wakou

Bobby aka. crxstalcas

.............................................

Chai aka. proyearner increasingly losing their shit over Summer Sons:

Yeah,  there's no way I'm not reading this.

.............................................


I don't know what to do with myself over those freckles.

.............................................


I can't talk about it.

.............................................

Endlessly picrewing:
Sparemoon
(Pissed off noir "damsel" should be an everybody choice)

ummmmandy
(I want this shirt and those eyebrows. The end)

_tougennkyou
(Sixteen year old me is losing their shit over this)

djarn
(If a knife is available...)

makowwka
(Living out my Snotgirl hair dreams in avatar form)

poika
(Marceline?)

ravntawn
(Out of all the picrews I've made, this feels the most accurate. Disparaging scowl, perpetual winter wear, expletives, and all)

Send me links.
I need more.
I love this fucking website.

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