Rule

Rule

love a character that's like. i survived (<- not a brag) (<- this is a curse that weighs on me every waking hour)

I'm sure I can't be the first one to mention this but like. The Necromancer's Wedding Season, the trash romance book Pal has in the river bubble... is like a joke about the plot of the books if Ianthe was the MC right. It's like a stupid foreshadow of Harrow's fanfic universes, and a callback to Ianthe banging on about romance novels before the dinner party.

Ianthe is Abella Trine (her original name was Abella... she and Coronabeth were Cainabeth and Abella), she's 'of Ida', she's 'too skinny', her 'tract specialist flesh magic is too good' and she has 'a few suitors vying for her affections', but she's 'such a pain in the arse' that Palamedes doesn't know why. She's a brunette and wears her hair in an 'unflattering bun' but we can't be too obvious can we!

Gideon is the 'spoiled swordswoman' character who Pal is 'quite fond of' but 'the narrative doesn't like her because she goes to sexy parties every night, which [Pal] regard[s] as a blameless enough hobby'

Harrow is the 'insanely tedious widower from the outskirts of Tisis, whose saintly husband ate a grenade in the war'. The widower and Abella hook up after 'two massive misunderstandings' and then there's a time skip to their baby which lisps and 'can already form a kidney'

Like, this is how Ianthe would write a trashy romance novel about herself & Harrow & Gideon (who is somehow in it twice, as the swordsman and the exploded husband, but you catch the drift. Kiriona vs Gideon I suppose). I feel like this somehow could have something to do with the Unwanted Guest (like why the fuck does Palamedes even have that in his river bubble lmao, and he's writing a sequel on wallpaper), even Alecto or Nona... but mostly it's Ianthe's embarrassingly earnest want for Harrow to love her back. It's just funny. I won't read into it that much. It's a fun joke. Ianthe is THE cringe queen.

shoutout to everyone who wants to infodump but cant string together coherent thoughts to form sentences and instead just look at you like this