icarus✨

surely this 3rd book in the trilogy of 'incredibly compelling female mc goes through insane shit and then dies in the most tragic way you could possibly imagine' books wont contain an incredibly compelling mc who dies at the end. surely. they wouldn't do that

The worst characters are the ones were you only get like three pieces of lore about them but the lore is so fascinating and hits your brain at just the right angle to have you behaving like a feral dog in front of your conspiracy theory cork board

all of us @ Camilla Hect

harrow's relationship with gideon's name is insane to me. like she hardly ever says it. she almost never actually says gideon's name, and when she does it's usually a big deal. the first time of course being her shouting "gideon! gideon!" after the avulsion trial, a rare display of open attachment and concern. the other that stands out is when her last words in harrow the ninth, for all intents and purposes, are gideon's name, even though she doesn't even know what she's saying. i don't think harrow ever once says it lightly, without really truly meaning something by it. but the rest of the time? the rest of the time she calls her "griddle." which is transparently babytalk. fucking insane that harrow's mean annoying nickname for gideon is just. just her struggle to pronounce it as a toddler. how perplexingly cruel and vulnerable is that. parroting your own babytalk at someone. you have always been stuck with me and you always will. you will never escape our shared childhood. i am as fundamental to you as you are to me. your name was one of the first i ever tried to say. i have been asking for your attention for our entire lives. i have been calling to you since before i could form the syllables. gid-oh! gid-oh! gid-oh!

They've filled the Normandy with people who look up to you in an effect to placate you and make you feel at home, but it's more alienating than if everyone hated you. They've given you your own private quarters but they make you feel alone and cut off from everyone. They say it's your ship, just like the one flew on before, and that you're in command, only there are doors that won't open for you and are locked tight. They parade before you a friend you knew who is so excited about all of this, but you didn't live through that and you're not over what you lost like he is. You look in the mirror and you're literally cracking at the seams and they tell you and only you can save the galaxy - enough that you were worth billions of resources to bring back - and you think about the soldier, the friend, you lost on Virmire and how nobody thought to bring them back. You're a ghost everyone is worshipping, a legend that everyone is clinging to, a soldier, a spectre, a saviour, a hero, but not a person anymore.

Camilla Hect is literally the strongest solider out there, my god

Sometimes a family is a ridiculously talented fighter, a brilliant necromancer who shares her body, a ten thousand year old wisecracking gunslinger, and the soul of the Earth in the body of a three apples tall warcrime.