#cristabel

[fawntastic]

First three niche faves! Valancy, Samael and my beloved Cris

[the-rat-eatery]

yk what makes me sad? the og lyctors. Mercy specifically, I love that woman.

Imagine being in love with a fucking nun and then having her do double suicide so you live forever with god. Imagine loving her more than anything and then having god be fucking john and then finding out that all of it, all 10000 years, all the suffering, was for nothing. Mercy is such a woman right? Like I would also be like that after 10000 years of knowing that my girlfriend/best friend killed herself for me. I would also be hate fucking the brother of the guy she made a suicide pact with. I would also make my hair grow exclusively weird apricot pink. I would also learn everything there is to learn about the human body and speak with double exclamation marks.

Cristabel is also such an icon honestly. She's bffs with Alfred and their necromancers hate each other but they are still besties and it is so sweet. She's a fanatic, she's crazy, she killed herself twice-- first for god and second for love. We know near to nothing about her from the text and yet you can also imagine what she was like so perfectly.

Pyrrha makes me sad, as everyone is well aware. My girl is a tragedy and a half. She lost everyone she cared about three times over and is still somehow sane and also not a complete dick. She is the hottest out of all of them and she is also so loyal and she has the capacity to be so fucking kind. She builds family for herself only for it to be torn away after a little bit of bliss. She is kinda Gideon's mom and I want that dynamic to be explored so bad. She fell in love with fucking Wake of all people-- the woman is a treasure.

You have to know that the human mind can't even really comprehend 10000 years as like-- a concept. Imagine having to live though that and watch the world you built with your best friends grow into this flourishing thing and then slowly die again without those friends by your side. And the friends you do have left are dying off one by one. And then you find out it was all for nothing because the man you worshipped for 10000 years lied to you and never thought to let you in on the joke. Also he renamed all of them?? You don't even have your name. Insane.

[scarlet-came-back-wrong]

Carmilla's chocolate aside, Laura offers her some wine while Carmilla is looking lethargic at one point. But she's never seen eating. Those are lesser known, but Goethe's Corinth bride refuses bread but drinks wine. In Christabel, Geraldine drinks wine but avoids food.

So it's a very old trope? I guess it's because wine kinda looks like blood, or at least often gets compared to it (even in Dracula).

[beholdthelastparagraph]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The Locked Tomb Series | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir Rating: Explicit Relationships: Mercymorn the First/Cristabel Oct Additional Tags: Character Study, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, a sprinkle of comphet, pre- and post-resurrection blended together into a wonderful mush of tragedy and feelings and sex, Vaginal Fingering, Cunnilingus

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‘Do you believe it?’ M--- asks, cautious, almost incredulous. It seems a bit absurd to her, all that stuff about dying on the cross and rising from the dead and the miracles of the blood and the body.

C--- shrugs. Her feet in their dark, sturdy boots dangle from their concrete perch. M— is surprised time and time again by the outdoorsy androgyny of the things hidden underneath her habit: the boots, the trousers, the faded, worn-out men’s shirts.

‘I believe that what I believe does not matter all that much,’ C--- says. ‘I believe that we are not called to understand God. We are called to serve.’

M--- leans back on her hands against the dirty concrete. She mulls that statement over, feels its shape in her mouth.

‘Yes,’ she finally says. ‘Yes, I agree with that.’

-----------------

I accidentally wrote five thousand words’ worth of Mercy/Cristabel angst in what I can only describe as a fugue state. Please, for the love of God (hah!) read it so I can have definite proof that I’m not hallucinating the existence of this text.

[thewormwithproblems]

It was a kinda rough day but I got to see one of my favorite Mercymorns AND the man the myth the martyr, Alfred Quinque, cavalier to Augustine the First!

[winter-wise]

Augustine said Cristabel didn't have brains - do you wonder if that's because she literally blew her own brains out?

[g1deonthefirst]

i was wondering how you and a lot of the fandom came to the conclusion about cristabel & alfred’s suicide pact?/gen

i totally see looking back how you could get that but i never picked up on it. i was wondering if tamsyn said anything or if people are just rlly smart about it lmao

ok credit for this answer goes to @diosapate who is the Expert on all things mercymorn augustine cristabel and alfred. i'm just paraphrasing. but basically it's not explicitly in the text but it comes pretty damn close:

first of all there's the fact that cristabel is described as a "fanatic" who led alfred astray and augustine saying he built an entire myriad on the idea he could've made him come around — i think both these lines refer to lyctorhood and alfred's choice to kill himself to force lyctorhood on augustine. other parts of htn indicate that augustine was not prepared to ascend; he says he did so under "scrambling pressure." of course, this doesn't in itself mean it was a suicide pact with cristabel, but the fact that augustine ascended first and mercy ascended second does indicate that cristabel and alfred died around the same time, particularly since cristabel was the fanatic and you'd expect her to be the first to go...especially considering her willingness to kill herself pre-resurrection.

and then there's the fact that augustine explicitly mentions hating suicide pacts and name-drops cristabel and alfred in the very next breath, which pretty strongly indicates that they did have a suicide pact and augustine forcing mercymorn to live is the "reckoning." plus there's an interesting sort of thematic parallel (and maybe even a hint of soul permeability!) in cristabel and alfred making a suicide pact that resulted in mercymorn and augustine's ascension to begin with and augustine later refusing a suicide pact with mercymorn when it comes to ending john's reign. i hope that answers your question!!

[llovelyclouds]

notes on cristabel oct

here's all the relevant info on cristabel i took note of during my tlt reread, in one place!

you can find the rest of the posts in this project here!

CRISTABEL OCT

titles:

Mercymorn’s cavalier, first gen, founded the eighth (with Mercy)

name meaning: in latin the meaning of the name Cristabel is: beautiful christian/follower of christ

notes from harrow the ninth:

The reason Mercy is the Saint of Joy (htn. pg. 177)

Mercy won't talk about her to Harrow, even though John thinks she would, and that her name would upset Augustine (htn. pg. 177)

Augustine doesn't mind talking about her though, and says: "A total delight. Effervescent. Kind to animals and children. A master of the sword. Did not have the intellect you'd ordinarily find in a sandwich or an orange, and was a sickening twerp into the bargain. The Eighth House will never see her like again." (htn. pg. 177)

“‘You know what I feel… you know I don't think she was the best influence on Alfred… you know I think they brought out the worst in each other, and I don’t think you disagree.’ God said, ‘They were very similar people.’ ‘No,’ said Augustine. ‘They weren’t, John. She was a fanatic and an idiot- yes, she was, Mercy- and he… was a man who regretted he wasn't. It took surprisingly little to lead my brother astray.’” - Augustine and John, discussing whatever happened between Cristabel and Alfred (double suicide, maybe?) (htn. pg. 274)

Augustine hated her for sure, but he’s ok with pretending he didn’t for dios apate reasons (htn. pg. 279)

"Cristabel always said I was tidy." - Mercymorn (htn. pg. 410)

"you picked the wrong man to enter a suicide pact with. I hate 'em. Cristabel might have undone all my good work with Alfred, but here comes the reckoning." - Augustine (htn. pg. 487)

notes from nona the ninth:

"The only other people I put through that damn trial were Mercy and Cris, because only Cris didn't mind being trepanned on the regular."- Pyrrha, about her and G1deon's trial at Canaan house (ntn. pg. 84)

Was Mercy's nun best friend pre-resurrection (ntn. pg. 128)

"I was worried I was going to get the Antichrist bit from her too, but she was just like: stop doing this! Read your Bible! This was Christ's whole problem! I was like, What are you talking about, Jesus cured the lepers and everyone was all, Hooray, thanks man. M-'s nun was all, Are you kidding, Christ never said no and never asked anyone to pay and got everyone to pay way too much attention and brought the heat down on everybody, Christ didn't keep to office hours, she said. Don't do that." (ntn. pg. 190)

“Me in my bedroom with a nun and a migraine, her thinking that if she pushed me enough we’d instantiate the Trinity and we’d all be saved.” (ntn. pg. 399)

“Eventually it was the nun who changed things. She knocked on my door and said very nicely, John, how are you doing? And I said, Not great, honestly. She said, John, how close are you to finding the soul? And I said, I can’t, Sister, It’s too big. I don’t understand why it’s so huge. I can’t find the soul inside the body, I don’t know where to look. I don’t know what I’m doing. She prayed over me, and then she went away for the longest five minutes of my life. [...] Then the nun came back and knocked on my door and said, John, I think I have it. I know you’re very scared right now, but I’m going to help you. Please let me in. He said: I let her in. She’d brought P-’s gun. [...] She just smiled at me. She said, John, don’t misunderstand. I want to help you. I truly believe that in our most terrible hours we don’t instinctively reach out to God; we push ourselves away from Him. Don’t feel bad for not rising heroically to the occasion right now, Fear doesn’t help us achieve a state of grace; it deafens the heart. John, I truly believe you can save everyone. So concentrate, please. She said, Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for our sinners, now and at the hour of our death. And she shot herself.” (ntn. Pg. 404)