DreamingofDawn

26. - they/she - Photography and fandom content. May contain trains and pirates.

[dreamingofdawn]

Wedgetail Eagle

Camera: Sony A7Cii

Lenses: Sony 200-600, Sony 35mm f1.4

Settings: F6.3, F2.2, 1/4000s

[zanyexpertkitten]

Crashing out? Read Harrow the Ninth. It won’t help but it will be an incredibly immersive experience.

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

Just thinking about how, even if Abigail hadn't told Cytherea about her special interest in lyctoral history, she and Magnus would have almost certainly been first on the chopping block anyway. Cytherea wants to disrupt the trials with fear and chaos, and the Fifth House are literally the only functional figures of adult authority at Canaan House. Even if most of the people present are adults, none of the others are filling the Role of Adult.

Protesilaus? A puppet. Dulcinea? Replaced.

Marta and Colum? Both probably have the capacity to handle being The Adult in the Room, but are prevented from stepping into that role due to cultural expectations of subservience to younger and less emotionally-mature necromancers. Speaking of-- both Judith and Silas think themselves to be The Adult in the Room. They are Not.

Third House? No way. Ianthe has no interest in stepping up as she has schemes of her own to attend to, Corona will play-act but not commit, Babs is off the table as he has, despite being 23 years old, managed to amass less social and emotional maturity than your average 13-year-old. Fourth House? Actual literal children. Ninth House? Nope.

'Ooh, but the Sixth House,' I hear you cry. But no. They are Not ready to step into the role of The Adult (at least at Canaan House), even if Palamedes is perhaps the closest out of anybody present. Struggling to adopt the role of adult/parent is a major theme in both their character arcs in NtN. They are certainly Not Yet There in GtN.

So yeah. Inevitability and all that. Whee.

[meat4meat]

"I just can't keep track of the characters in Gideon The Ninth" They are both numbered and color coded.

[cratis]

I am starting to think Alecto is taking so long because Muir was (self) banned from tumblr. We took her out from her natural habitat and and her new ecossystem doesn't have the nutrients : the vibes, the memes, the rancid takes... she needs to keep on producing tlt books.

[3vangelene]

maybe alecto the ninth was the friends we made along the way

[wifegideonnav]

i do love how gideon would absolutely be a mary sue in the hands of a lesser author. like what do you mean she’s jesus. and moses. and the best swordswoman like ever. and hot. and funny. and noble. and smart. and brave. tbh the pimples and penchant for puns are load bearing.

[stealingpotatoes]

my gideon the ninth reading experience

[doorp]

“two is for discipline heedless of trial” yeah motherfucker they were NOT heeding those trials. They couldn’t they didnt even know where the trials were. “heedless of trial” bitch they finally found the trials and were like uhmmm this violates OSHA.

[inveigler81]

I know this is super self-indulgent, given I _just_ posted these individually, but I liked seeing them together as a set.

I wonder if they'd argue about who's issue sold better.

[scurvy-joe-1783]

Scurvy? Yarr I had scurvy once. They locked me in a brig. A wooden brig with no oranges.. lack of vitamins gave me scurvy

[plslemmedie]

So, rewatched kpdh while on a flight and I had a few thoughts.

Note, this is a combo of random things I realized, noticed, and assumptions/headcanons. Enjoy lol.

Saja boys seem to cast some kind of spell at the soda pop performance, able to prevent anyone from questioning everything that’s happening. Zoey falls under it partially, as does Mira, as we see from the “magicians” and “nice demons” comments, plus the Abby thing.

On the rooftop Rumi can’t quite keep up with him, but in the bathhouse she was able to pin Jinu. I think she is used to fighting solo in confined spaces and with her girls in wide open spaces where Mira and Zoey can keep demons “pinned” so Rumi can’t kill them.

“I’m the only one who can” -Jinu

“I’m nothing like you.” -Rumi

“Denial, I get it”

Jinu is working to both isolate Rumi (knowing Mira and Zoey don’t know about the patterns) and to make her reliant on him in a way that would push a wedge between Mira and Zoey.

Demons created by Gwi-ma seem to be afraid of him, but act with malicious intentions and with joy at hurting others. When Rumi pins the demon during takedown and asks if he’s a prisoner he finds it amusing and tries to attack her.

Mira doesn’t give off the “reluctant but crushing on them” vibes with Abby or Romance, she seems genuinely uncomfortable and upset about it. Zoey doesn’t like baby next to her but with mystery (whom she’s shown interest) she’s ok with it. And of course Rumi is debating with Jinu the whole time.

(And during the internet shipping gag, when Zoey says “you look so cute together” it’s obvious how enraged Mira is because she genuinely hates the demons. Maybe a good indicator to Rumi that anything with patterns in Mira’s eyes doesn’t deserve love…?)

While talking to Rumi, Mira slowly gets closer, but not close enough to crowd her just close enough to keep her from hiding. Meanwhile, Rumi’s body language is stiff and stressed, and it’s clear Mira sees it.

I think Jinu was mildly intrigued that Rumi wanted to date him when she sent “save the date”, but was thinking along the lines of “I can use her attraction to me against her.” Meanwhile, Rumi’s trying to help him and at the same time help herself.

(Rumi has begun thinking of herself as a mistake, likely once the patterns spread almost all the way down her hands.)

Another example of the magical influence of the Saja boys is when Bobby gets ditched by the girls and his phone suddenly pops up saying he should join the pride. I think the magic used targets people at their lowest, and with Bobby that’s thinking his girls don’t need/want him anymore. (Plus on the train all the phones have the same message + soda pop playing.)

Mira and Zoey say they support her, but clarify that it’s her voice they need. So Rumi goes to Jinu because she thinks that unless she sabotages the Saja boys her voice will fail again.

(And, as we see in that convo before free, Rumi feels like without her secrets she can finally breath again, and sing. Jinu, who’s been working to isolate her and using her insecurities against her, has become the source of comfort to her.

Whether it’s romantic or she sees it more as platonic I dunno, but to me it moreso reads as a found family style thing then anything else. Like how in free, she says that unless they let go of their secrets then they will be stuck in darkness. For Rumi it’s with her patterns, and Jinu it’s the truth of what he did to his family.)

All that said, I do think Jinu planned to help Rumi. Right up until he was brutally physiologically tortured by Gwi-ma right after, and he was reminded of how he left his family behind. Hence why his new found family with Rumi becomes… a source of further shame.

In the after scene, Rumi doesn’t share what she’s afraid of, just agreeing she’s afraid of similar things to her girls. (Also, I think Zoey is used to speaking a lot and isn’t bothered by being corrected, at least by Mira or Rumi. I say this because both during the whole “DEMO-Magicians!” And the “GOLDE-Takedown” when she says the wrong one and they just give her a side eye that I think she knows isn’t anything mean.)

Also, to Mira and Zoey the golden Honmoon is keeping them away from Rumi, and once they complete their duty they can relax. So for them, achieving it isn’t the most crucial part, it’s a path to them finally connecting with Rumi in ways they’ve been unable to until then.

I find it interesting that Mira and Zoey make Rumi the center for both songs and choreography, especially for Golden. They do it to such an extent that they leave the stage for a few moments during the song, as if to say “Rumi is the center to our perfect world” because that’s how they view her.

Also I adore how Rumi’s voice is physically destructive, because it’s just that powerful. She has such strong vocals that she can empower the Honmoon to golden or rip it apart in minutes.

…Mira and Zoey knew it was Rumi, behind the stage. They kept interrupting her while she was obviously panicked and distressed. They felt betrayed, yes. They saw her affect the Honmoon, yes. But they still lifted their weapons to Rumi in warning.

They chose their duty over her in that moment, saying their resolve to protect the world was greater than their love for her. And so she ran.

She ran to confront Jinu.

“What we had was real! I know it was!”

She is trying to desperately hold onto the idea that the one person she trusted with her deepest secret felt that connection, that understanding.

Because if not even Jinu can see her as anything but a demon? Then that’s all she is.

We see what the loss of hope does to Rumi, how it splits the Honmoon apart, because that’s what empowered the Honmoon. We see Mira and Zoey moments later, shocked to see that happening, but of course they’re surprised.

No hunter has ever been hurt the way they were.

And no hunter had their partners, their hunters, point their blades at her and confirm her worst fears.

“This is what I am.

You knew I was a mistake from the very start”

She assumed Celine only ever saw her as a mistake because of the constant reinforcement that something was wrong with Rumi. And the conversation under the tree doesn’t help, where Celine can’t even touch her.

Can’t even admit that she failed to accept Rumi.

“Our faults and fears must never be seen, that’s the only way to protect the Honmoon!”

That’s when it clicks for Rumi. The Honmoon isn’t something that could last without the hunters pretending to be perfect. Pretending to be something inhuman.

So, she does what was born to do, what she was born to be.

She goes to remake the Honmoon.

The Saja boys have to use a full sing, another layer of their magic and Gwi-ma’s influence to get the crowd to walk into the flames.

And all it takes to stop that? A single note from Rumi.

When she starts singing, Mira and Zoey are freed immediately, because all they wanted, all they needed, was for Rumi to be willing to reach out to them for once.

And the second time she does, they reach back.

Because the most crucial part of being the guardians, the hunters, are that they are not alone.

And Rumi is not alone. She never was. All she had to do was let them in.

Now Rumi knows it. She doesn’t have to be alone, she isn’t defined by her mistakes or lies.

And her eyes are trained on the one person who doesn’t understand that yet. Jinu, who’s watching from above, unable to act against the girls or Rumi.

And ultimately, he decides to show she was right. He finally chose to help another instead of himself. And in doing so, he was freed. He got his would.

The soul that was given to Rumi.

We see it, as they defeat Gwi-ma. He healed from a blow struck by anger, but when he was struck down by Mira, Rumi, and Zoey holding hands and seeing each other, truly seeing each other? That was their trust, their love, and it annihilated him entirely.

[misty-seashore]

No hidden meaning, I was too lazy to draw clothes, so I decided to leave it as is. Regret about it a little because I lost the battle with anatomy.

[runasulienadanika]

i love that Camilla and Palamedes are regular citizens of the Nine Houses but they somehow always befriend the most important (is that the correct word?) people. that brooding Ninth nun? she's acutually 200 dead children and she's been puppeting her dead parents ever since they killed themselves because she broke into the locked tomb. her cavalier who keeps making stupid jokes? she's god's literal daughter. the newborn they kinda adopted? LITERALLY PLANET EARTH.

[elevenbenevolentmammoths]

[CW for discussion of rape in analogy to other violations of bodily autonomy in fiction, references to spousal abuse and misogyny]

This post is a sequel to this one I made a few days back.

The Necro-Cav Dynamic as a stand-in for Marriage:

This one's pretty surface level. We have a union of two people, apparently bonded for life in a ceremony in which vows are exchanged. But we are talking "old-fashioned" marriage here. Not an equal partnership. The roles of a necro and a cav don't exactly map one-to-one onto those (traditionally) of a husband and wife. This is because they are heavily influenced by liege-and-knight dynamics. It is worth pointing out, though, that traditionally, both "husband and wife" and "liege and knight" can be seen as subsets of the broader category, "master and servant." This is why, as I've said before, trying to fully boil down necro-cav dynamics to "the necro is the man and the cav is the woman" will always fall short. That said, there still is plenty to be gained from reading the cavalier through the lens of wifehood, so long as we don't lose the thread of the cavalier's textual function: as their necromancer's bodyguard and champion, which is generally caught up in 'masculine' coding.

An interesting aside, when analyzing through the framework of marriage: In the Houses, it is acceptable (even expected) for a necro of a certain class to have more than one cav (having a primary and a secondary, etc.) - paralleling polygamy (the practice of having multiple wives). Meanwhile, it's a bit scandalous that the Tridentarii share a cav - from an outside perspective, Babs seems to be practicing the necro-cav equivalent of polyandry (having multiple husbands). Fun bit of subtext! I like it for Normal Reasons.

The Consent Problem:

Much like traditional marriages (esp. among the upper classes historically)--which may be a love-match, a social/political agreement benefiting one or both parties, or arranged entirely by a third party without either of the betrotheds' willing participation--the necro-cav pairings we see at Canaan House reflect varying levels of foundational consent. Some, such as Abigail & Magnus, as well as Palamedes & Camilla, we could call a love-match ("love" here not necessarily limited to the romantic variety). Others, like Judith & Marta, represent a professional arrangement (with an application process and all), but still were formed with the consent of both parties. The same cannot be said of Harrow & Gideon -- Harrow consented to the arrangement, but Gideon vocally did not.

Meanwhile, both Colum and Babs were literally made for the express purpose of being a cav to a necro who wasn't even born yet. Those arrangements were nonconsensual from the get-go. Yes, by the time the exchange of vows came along, all involved may have been convinced that this was indeed what they wanted, but crucially neither Colum nor Babs had the option to back out. Colum was Silas' only proper genetic match. Babs was the heir to a hereditary cavaliership, and an only child to boot. If either of them even considered declining the position, they would have known there would be Consequences. (The same was pretty much true for Ortus, too, though unlike the other two, he seems to have spent the last seventeen years acutely aware that he was being taken advantage of, and shirking his cavalier duties as a response to that.)

Importantly: the blame for these nonconsenual arrangements does not lie with the Tridentarii or Silas (or Harrow, in Ortus' case), as, again, none of them were even born when the arrangements were made, and all of them were children (and younger than their respective cavs, for that matter) when the vows were taken. All of this happened absent their freely-given consent, too. That fact does not, however, absolve them of responsibility for the abuses of power they commit within the bounds of these relationships.

Violations of the Flesh and the Soul:

The schools of necromancy practiced by the Third and Eighth Houses require routine, painful sacrifices on the part of the cavalier to a degree that seemingly none of the other Houses demand. Both are couched in extreme intimacy, yet much like with sexual violence, the end goal is an expression of power, not genuine human connection. Same can be said of, y'know, swallowing the soul of your cavalier to become a lyctor.

This isn't to say that soul siphoning your cav or cannibalizing bits them (or even their whole soul) is inherently analogous to the rape of that cavalier. Despite the non-con start to their necro-cav situation, we see that Harrow gets somewhat better about respecting Gideon's bodily autonomy as the book goes on, to the point that Gideon not only fully consents to being siphoned the second time, but in fact suggests it, and volunteers herself so completely to Harrow eating her soul that she sorta kinda steps on Harrow's ability to freely consent to the act (oops).

But in the case of Colum, who explicitly asked Silas not to siphon him that one time, only for Silas to view it as backtalk and to siphon him anyway to exert control, wrapped in the language of patriarchal moral authority?

And in the case of Babs, who was literally stabbed from behind, apparently without warning, his soul pinned, extracted, and consumed, entirely against his will?

Those actions both read very much like rape -- and, personally, given the themes of the series, I think it highly probable that that reading is intended.

[katakaluptastrophy]

Harrow at one point talks about an ideal cavalier as a "helpmeet". Which is a reference to Genesis 2, the same bit of the Bible from which we get "one flesh" as a concept relating to marriage - the creation of Eve as a companion for Adam.

But Bible references in TLT are usually from the Catholic Douay Rheims version of the Bible. And in Genesis 2, the Douay Rheims has "a help like unto himself". It's the Protestant King James Version that has "a help meet for him". And "helpmeet" as a single word is a shibboleth in more conservative interpretations of complementarianism. There is very much an inherent sense of submission in the idea of "helpmeet".

The favourite Bible verses of people with concerning views about women tour continues in the Sermon on Cavaliers and Necromancers at the end of GTN, which gives us something of the in-world theology of cavaliership. The Sermon draws heavily on Ephesians 5, the Pauline letter which gives instructions for proper behaviour in Christian families, and which also mentions the concept of "one flesh", instructing wives to submit to their husbands in the same way that the church submits to God.

There are some almost direct quotes from Ephesians: "So the necromancer and the cavalier are no different. They are one flesh. And yet that is only one understanding of the mystery that characterises us as a society"/"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery." (Ephesians 5:31-32).

As you can imagine, the kinds of theologies of marriage being drawn on here can, particularly in their most extreme interpretations, lend themselves to apologias for abuse, or the idea that consent is simply irrelevant within a marriage.

There's also a brief reference in the Sermon that makes me wonder quite what cavaliership does to your legal personhood. When Bias is decrying a necromancer marrying their cavalier, he rubbishes the concept of "sword-marriages", with a necromancer and cavalier "married to one outside party as dual spouses." And while he writes it off as pornographic fiction, we have no other evidence of legal structures for polyamorous marriages in the Houses. This might just be because we've met relatively few Housers, but it could also have a whiff of coverture to it, suggesting that, theoretically at least, one could imagine a necromacer and cavalier marrying the same person because they constitute a single legal person to some extent. If that is the case, it adds another dimension to even the cavaliers who have freely chosen their roles - they may have in some way ceded rights by doing so.

[theblackparadeisdead]

I'll admit it I'm a freak who loves airplane turbulence it's like a roller coaster to me. It's fun and a rush and I'm tired of pretending it's not

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

occasionally, you will discover an artist who drew roughly 300 beautiful pictures of your favorite characters over the course of a month and then never touched them again. you must accept this as a gift.