#dulcamedes

[mayasaura]

Been thinking about this scene from The Unwanted Guest:

Palamedes is quoting here a description of an angel. And maybe it's just me missing some cultural queues here, but... There's something melancholy about the whole exchange. It's alien, especially for a description of the face of a woman he loves.

Dulcinea admitted earlier in the play that she didn't want Palamedes to see her face, even if he had come to her funeral. She implied she's since been to the other side of the River, that she died a second time, and that "something awful"* happened to her that she's "not allowed" to explain. And there may be precedent in the devils of Antioch for souls to appear something other than human after experiencing changes in the River.

(*adjective, archaic: Filled with or inspiring awe)

Palamedes calls her perfect, when she loved imperfect unfinished things. Not very much later, Paul—who is no longer Palamedes, and never will be again—echoes that perfection in their description of themself.

So.... What did Dulcinea look like when Palamedes saw her? Was it anything like the Dulcinea who died before Palamedes met her?

[captorations]

there's no way this is canon but i respectfully submit the idea that. dulcinea was haunting campal through all of NtN. specifically, she was having conversations with whoever wasn't at the helm, whoever was technically sort-of "dead." in much the same way she was talking to pal in the unwanted guest.

but. cam and pal can't remember. because they aren't fully dead, or fully alive, and there's nowhere physical for the memories to be encoded or retrieved. memory lives in the brain.

the soul remembers, though. and for that matter, so does dulcinea. girl's been having entirely too much fun in what amounts to a time loop and if paul remembers her shenanigans she is going to be in trouble

[thewinterstale]

Now I can't stop thinking about how much Camilla "Second Strand" Hect must have DESPISED Gideon at Canaan House at first. That first "meeting" by the staircase cracks me up every single time I think about it. That was WAY before Cam officially "Went Loud" and, like... a back handspring down a stone staircase with all guns blazing is pretty freaking loud! She was NOT holding back! Nobody had been murdered yet! All the danger was apocryphal! Yes, there is an argument to be made that the Sixth arrived with suspicions in re: the ethics of lyctorhood, per the Break Clause, etc... ...But Gideon was an awkward baby teenager with sunglasses on. Was Giddy being a creep? Sure. Was she being creepy enough to warrant Camilla Hect off the leash, against her necromancer's apparent wishes, while dressed for her first office job? I mean... if you add the skull paint/black clothing... maybe. But did she do anything warranting that level of unhinged, to-the-death, offensive action? Yup. She did a flirt with Pal's girlfriend xD

In conclusion, Cam is the cavalier of all time, and you will never change my mind.

[captorations]

it is a noted trait of palamedes sextus that he gravitates towards people who will affectionately bully him. he needs this to keep his ego in check. however, he is only rarely able to bully camilla in turn. and she truly does need it almost as much as he does. this task is instead one of many best undertaken by dulcinea septimus

[mayasaura]

how do you think dulcie is going to react to paul? i kind of want her to be devastated, just to see how paul would react.

I kind of want her to be, too. It would be cathartic for me, personally. The more I think about it, tho, the more I feel like that's just not Dulcinea.

Dulcie always chafed at how little control she had over her own life. Because of well-meaning people making decisions for her health, and because her illness cut it off too short to do most of the things she wanted with it. One of the many reasons she loved Palamedes and Camilla was because they always scrupulously respected her choices, even when her choices were painful to accept. Even when her choices created distance between them. Even when she chose to die without them, rather than leave them widowed before the age of 25.

When Dulcie meets Paul, I'm sure she'll do Palamedes and Camilla the same kindness. No matter how she feels about it, Paul is what Palamedes and Camilla wanted for themselves, and that will always, always, be more important to Dulcinea than what Dulcinea wanted for them.

She already asked them to let her go, and she wouldn't ask anything from them she wasn't prepared to do herself.

[mayasaura]

how do you imagine cam pal and dulc in a modern au

Palamades and Camilla grew up on a university campus where Juno and one of Camilla's fathers had (and still have) teaching positions. Maybe Cairo University.

Camilla and Dulcinea met through Palamedes. Palamedes and Dulcinea met on an internet forum that Palamedes would have been instabanned from had anyone known he was eight years old. After becoming friends on the forum they exchanged emails, at which time Palamedes disclosed his age and Dulcinea didn't rat him out. Camilla didn't have much interest in the forum but would listen to Palamedes read his threads with Dulcie out loud, and started writing Dulcie herself once the communications were no longer public.

Their friendship spans thirteen years and seven different communication platforms, including handwritten letters, but Palamedes and Camilla still don't know what Dulcinea looks like. When they started using platforms with video chat capabilites, they simply never used that feature. Even Palamedes' marriage proposal was sent as a written letter. Dulcinea preferred it that way, and Palamedes and Camilla would never push her on it.

[captorations]

was looking something up and got absolutely obliterated by

dulcinea knows that isn't the real camilla. even before it got its face blasted off, that was an empty puppet. but she's fucking PETTING her okay it's fine i'm fine we're good i'm normal about them. but no really if i see anyone try to claim that dulcie and pal is the only romantic side of that triangle i'm going to beat you over the head with both this paragraph and the "will she know who we are" exchange

[captorations]

the thing people need to understand is that dulcie is, put simply, #problematic. (the hashtag and associated connotations are crucial, here.) this is, without question, a good thing for her character. i see dulcie as the kind of selfish that toes the line of acceptability. sure, she's guilty about it sometimes, but she still follows through. the meaning behind her name, ripped from don quixote, is (in muir's own words) "a woman you want to exist, but really doesn't." that isn't just referring to cytherea! dulcie herself is emphatically not the person anyone wants her to be, with the possible exception of cam and pal. and they definitely had to learn to be exceptions; the only question is if they succeeded, and if so, to what extent.

i firmly lean toward the interpretation that cam and pal did in fact fully comprehend some of the more unsavory parts of dulcie's character, and if anything only liked her more. as they should! how boring she would be, if she were perfect! hell, if she were not #problematic in some way, she would have drawn very clear lines regarding her relationship to them. that proposal would never have been sent if dulcie hadn't been wonderfully, charmingly selfish enough to leave the possibility open.

that's actually part of why cam and pal didn't catch on fast enough at canaan. dulcie would have been hard pressed to not think gideon mooning over her was hilarious, to not go along with it. she'd tease gideon plenty, in ways that she really shouldn't; she'd just also be pulling strings to get gideon to realise that it's harrow she actually wants. in the scenario imagined by cam and pal, where dulcie has cut them off to soften the blow of her death, it wouldn't be out of the question for their dulcie to entertain herself by meddling with the ninth disasters. nor would it be out of the question for dulcie to cut them off in the first place, because unlike cam and pal, dulcie isn't predictable. she doesn't follow a strict internal code in the way they do. she can do things they can't, including shitty and spontaneous things.

dulcie's selfishness, her love of ugly unfinished things, and her *humanity* are exactly the influences cam and pal needed. the sixth are a pair of ridiculous near-superhuman prodigies bound by duty and morality. they need someone to make them worse. to keep them human. it's this influence paul still needs to stay in check.

dulcinea septimus is nosy, annoying, messy, vengeful, dramatic, impulsive, and while not quite a cradlerobber, is uncomfortably close. and i love her so fucking much. and so do camilla and palamedes. and so do you. i'm not giving you a fucking choice