Hello and welcome to a brand new year of some brand new swords! We’ve got an incredible lineup of artists and can’t wait for you to meet them over the next few months — so definitely watch this space! Just like last year, all proceeds will benefit the Transgender Law Center.
Preorders will also be opening on July 2, 2023.
Gideon: OK we need codenames. Mine is Eagle One. Coronabeth is "Been there, done that." Harrow is "Currently doing that." Ianthe is "It Happened Once in a Dream." Palamedes is "If I had to pick a dude." Camilla is Eagle Two.
Camilla: Oh, thank god!
Alecto: *striding forward with a sword in her hands and vengeance in her heart*
Gideon: "I'd Be Lying If I Said I Hadn't Thought About It" is in position
i'm still emotional about the stupid bit from GtN where harrow leaves gideon some bread in drawer for when she wakes up after the avulsion lab, because like. harrow gets overwhelmed by tea and biscuits, the idea of eating for pleasure is entirely alien to her, but she understands it's something gideon might appreciate so she makes her best effort, she's really trying to understand her
we see it from gideon's perspective as another baffling harrow moment, but from harrow's perspective, what a touching gesture? when harrow asks gideon what she has to do to earn her trust and gideon asks to get some sleep, she clearly takes to heart that she'd not been conscious of gideon's needs
when gideon is recovering, harrow, believing her house is at stake, can't afford to waste time waiting for her, but nonetheless before leaving takes the time to make an attempt to make gideon feel cared for, even though she doesn't really know how. just like the sword in HtN, harrow has no idea how to properly take care of gideon or express her love but she tries in her own little autistic bone gremlin way and i think it's really sweet
Nona the Ninth left me with many questions, but none so important as: did Kiriona actually say “Get in line, thou big slut”? What I mean is, did Alecto’s perspective alter her dialogue as it had with everyone else or did Kiriona hear thou art the blood of the tomb-keeper and take the first opportunity to make fun of her?
glass onion was amazing and I wouldn’t change anything about it. BUT I do think it would have been hilarious if there was a post credit scene with all of them getting covid, because of course miles’ gun vax thing doesn’t work.
Posts referring to Harrowhark goddamn Nonagesimus as a “femme” because they want to contrast her with Gideon’s butchness are so funny TBH. That woman has never learnt how to do any make-up except her religiously-mandated stupid skulls in her whole life. She only ever dresses in her fucking nun gear, even when the situation does not require it or even when it’s explicitly inapproppriate, and she often doesn’t even change it often enough because she’s an obsessive workaholic with depressive tendencies. She gets a feminizing make-over scene from Ianthe once and it manages to make her more uncomfortable than usual in a book that’s in its entirety just one astronomically-sized mental breakdown she’s having. A church goblin is what she is. A dirty little creature living in the attic of a graveyard chapel and feeding on dust. A humansona of motherfucking Gollum. The enemy number one on the Fashion Police first-priority hit list. Not even your standard disaster lesbian, but a full-on lesbian disaster. She wouldn’t know “femme” if it slithered through her back and bit her in the ass. “FEMME”.
Bond girls are out. Blanc girls (underprivileged women who screw over rich assholes with the help of this silly detective) are in.
oh so the EIGHTH can just use his cavalier as a juice box whenever he wants, but suddenly everyone has an issue when I, ianthe tridentarius,—
Nona has been so good to me and my sex-repulsed aroace Cam headcanon. feeling so validated in this chilis tonight.
aroace camilla hect my beloved
You’re already two hundred dead daughters and sons of our House. What’s one more?
"I hated Harrow so much at the beginning" could NOT be me. She has flair, she has panache. She stays up all night scrabbling in the dirt burying bone fragments just for the drama of the reveal. She stabs herself in the cheek so she can sign in blood. She is a control freak who puppets her dead parents around and bullies Gideon into a vow of silence. She is a singleminded swot who maps out all the doors in a massive decaying mansion the very first night. She makes herself a bone cocoon before passing out. She leaves bread in a drawer. You don't see a grimy little freak and want to put them in a blender??
Yes & I am personally endorsing all of those actions because I enjoy a fictional character. That's how literature works. Gold star for media literacy
Some crowdsourced tags
Gideon's first impressions upon meeting the twins and their cavalier. I love how much you can tell about Gideon just from the length of each description.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Gideon’s blood and the Tomb. I’ve got two points here that dovetail somewhat…
Let’s review some key events. I realize these probably seem a bit all over the place, but I do believe they come together. I’ve tried to put these in roughly chronological order.
We see over and over this theme of consuming another life, whether body or soul: we get two sides of this coin when we compare Gideon’s “All I ever wanted you to do was eat me” to John’s statement that “it’s the human instinct, to take.” Consuming the flesh is, per Ianthe, one of the steps to taking in a cavalier’s soul and becoming a Lyctor, directly paralleling John consuming the Earth, both physically when he eats dirt and spiritually when he takes in her soul. Thus far, though, we don’t know how or if Harrow consumed Gideon’s flesh in the interim between chapters 36 and 37 of GtN.
But here’s what I’ve been wondering: assuming Ianthe is correct (and telling the truth) about the steps to becoming a Lyctor, to what extent does the order and timing actually matter? I think there’s a distinct possibility that Harrow had consumed Gideon’s flesh years before they even came to Canaan House.
Because Harrow had Gideon’s face under her fingernails. And Harrow bites her nails.
HtN, chapter four:
You held your left hand up before your face, before the light, the even white light with its hot tungsten filaments. The thumbnail was whole and even. Too even? Were you wont to chew your fingernails still, that unattractive tic of your girlhood?
And again in chapter twenty-one:
She took off her gloves, and with the edges of her fingernails - bitten to the quick, and never much help - she started to prise open one wrinkled corner.
If the steps do not have to be completed strictly in order, Harrow may very well have already checked off step six if she were biting her nails with Gideon’s flesh and blood still clinging to them.
The other thing going on here is that we get these repeated connections between chains and favours and kisses. I don’t feel like we have quite all the pieces yet to draw any definitive conclusions, but it seems that the favour of the chain may have something to do with the Reverend Family’s vow to protect the Tomb. Particularly, Harrow describing herself, sans Reverend Daughter title, as “the unfulfilled vow” as she wields the chain of Samael lends itself to this interpretation. I also find it very interesting that this unfulfilled vow is paired with “the bloody teeth of the unkissed skull” given that upon waking, Alecto kisses Harrow, bites her, and draws blood which then allows her to recognize Harrow as one of Anastasia’s descendants.
Before that kiss, though, there was another. Alecto describes being called back by Harrow’s kiss, presumably when she broke into the Tomb as a child. I have to wonder if blood was playing a role here too. Alecto says that Harrow’s flesh stuck on her frozen lips, that the ice burned her. If this kiss also drew blood, it could be that the blood of Anastasia’s line was the key to calling her back. However, there may have been someone else’s blood on Alecto’s lips that day. If Harrow had been biting her nails, which she’d earlier used to claw Gideon’s face, she very well may have had Gideon’s blood in her mouth as well. As John’s daughter, her blood was able to open the Tomb. Was it able to call Alecto as well? Could “the chain of a kiss” be referring to Harrow transferring John’s blood between Gideon and Alecto?
Overall, it seems like we’re circling something akin to a blood oath or living blood ward. The thalergetic nature of blood certainly aligns with the symbolism of life and light that we see connected to the Earth and Alecto, in contrast to the thanergy that John cultivates. Alecto’s physical form is derived from John’s blood, and his power is derived from her soul. If indeed a kiss and a few drops of John’s blood, shepherded into the Tomb by Gideon and Harrow, are enough to call Alecto, I cannot even imagine the pyrotechnics show that we’re in for now that he’s had a run-in with the business end of her sword.
Which Locked Tomb book you like best actually says a lot about you. (you can trust me, I’m an expert in pseudoscience)
If you like Gideon the Ninth most:
If you like Harrow the Ninth most:
If you like Nona the Ninth most:
i think there’s so much to be said about the overarching themes of the locked tomb series, but some of my favorites are the sheer breadth of humanity (both negative and positive) that is held in each and every person, and a person’s relationship with life and death.
we have gideon, who spent the majority of book one making horrendous jokes, swinging her sword and being the most classic rendition of a disaster lesbian, but even then underneath you could see the cracks leading to a deeper seeded sadness and anger. this is the gideon who as a child was attempting to run away to join the military every chance she got. the same gideon who would later quite literally jump at the opportunity to sacrifice herself for harrow when she thinks they have no other option. at one point harrow makes a comment about gideon losing her sense of self preservation, as if she ever truly had it. this is a girl who has spent her life convinced she shouldn’t have lived to begin with. she’s throwing someone else’s money at anything that catches her eye, not fully understanding the wallet is hers.
later we have kiriona, whose anguish was on full display and yet still made horrendous jokes, with a bit of extra bite. who had to make a conscious effort to hide the sides of her that obviously cared. the reflex of reaching for her coat, and the choice to keep it on herself. who we assume spent months being manipulated by ianthe and stewing in her fury at harrow, yet offered to die for her again at her first opportunity. she did it once, what’s twice gonna do? the wallet is empty, bring out jod’s checkbook.
and on the other hand harrow, who seemingly so rarely allowed herself to love others, yet whose entire existence continued due to her love of the corpse within the tomb. and later due to her love of gideon. she lobotomized gideon out of her memory to preserve her existence, and even without being able to remember who she was doing it for, she commanded herself to live. she wanted to die so badly, but in her mind the only thing she could do for them was to live as no one she had loved had been able to do for her. a girl who also believed she should never have lived, forcing herself to go on because the ones who should be living can’t and she sees it as her own fault. she has chained the wallet to her wrist and counts the coins every night.
and finally nona, who loved unabashedly and with reckless abandon. whose joy shone as brightly as her rage. who, free from the knowledge of the trauma her body mind and soul have endured, could allow herself to experience all of these emotions in excess and not be bogged down by the weight of it all. she was so delighted by every life she saw. and she was so ready for death. she couldn’t put into words how right her death would be, couldn’t find the comfort for those she would leave behind because she didn’t know how to make them understand she was ready. her wallet has a hole in it, and she’s been pouring out the coins and placing them lovingly into the hands of everyone she adores. then she eats the wallet.
anyways, this probably should’ve been two separate posts but i’m tired and it’s late so have my garble merry chrysler i love these lesbians so so much
What we know: Anastasia was trying to achieve Lyctorhood, and believed there was “another way” other than the standard ‘kill your cav, eat their soul’ way. Anastasia’s process still included the Eightfold Word, was performed in “laboratory conditions” and Samael, her cavalier, died. She later went on to fund the Ninth House. Everything else is speculation, or comes from biased accounts.
What we don’t know: A bunch of things!
Wild guess time!
Wild ass guess but my idea is that Anastasia tapped into Alecto’s enormous well of power, but dragged Samael into it via the Eightfold word. Then either the feeling of Alecto’s soul was too much for them and it made Anastasia panic, screwing the process. John killed Samael to stop it.
Why would you even think that? Good question!
Ok but why would Anastasia even be able to tap into Alecto’s power?
I just think Anastasia is extremely scary. She was the one to work on Teacher (cramming 500 souls into 50) and she later went on to fund the Ninth, the House that supposedly does strictly bone necromancy, wouldn’t even touch flesh magic, but also, somehow, managed Harrow’s conception — something John, God himself, calls “a walking miracle”.
Yes, Harrow’s parents were skilled, but not that skilled. My guess is that they based their work on Anastasia’s research — a “work” that John compares to a smaller-scale Resurrection.
If that’s the level Anastasia was working with… I just think she was very good at soul fuckery. I also think that the fact that planets have souls in TLT (even planets that don’t contain any life forms… except potentially they all do) points to the existence of an “oversoul” — universal life existence within all beings; sort of the greater matter of which human souls are the molecules. I think Anastasia was sufficiently skilledto have reached to whatever spillover of Alecto’s soul was left, maybe through John’s presence, or maybe because she was still partly tied to the planet that became the First House, and Anastasia pulled on that string not knowing what it was.
This last section is 90% a wild guess, but I THINK it fits with Harrow telling John in NtN (John 5:4) that he “watched them misunderstand the process” so here’s my shred of canon evidence.
Anyway, here’s my current Anastasia Theory — to be debunked in 2023
If Harrow and Gideon don't say "Because I completely fucking love you" to each other in AtN I think I'm going to rip my teeth out.
