“I wonder if the flowers themselves are happy, being forced to last so long. Eternity doesn't exist in this world, does it? It's just that one could think that a heart that longs for eternity is beautiful”
as we see skyrocketing amounts of legislation targeting trans youth in particular I’m begging people to stop parroting “your brain matures at 25”. this article by the director of harvard’s neuroscience lab is a good read. like I’m no neuroscientist myself but Brain Complicated. at best “your brain matures at 25” is an incomplete and inadequate summary of a single idea in a relatively new field wherein broad generalizations are almost impossible. *some* aspects of brain development *tend* to *plateau* *somewhere* in your 20s, *we think*; but “brain maturity” is poorly defined, and the data is still highly incomplete. plenty of aspects of the brain demonstrably continue developing well past 30, or for your entire life; on the other hand, plenty of studies have simply failed to include participants over 30, or 25, or even younger. attempting to define maturity, let alone make RULES about it, based on particular neuroscientific metrics, is extremely dicey
and this popsci notion is now actively being used to justify taking away people’s rights so pls stop perpetuating it for the sake of your age gap ship wars or whatever
[British pediatrician voice] Ok so basically there is no fixed point of maturity and no real way of determining such a thing. However, conveniently enough there is an idea in pop culture that brain development happens exactly at age 25, which is based on pretty much nothing except for like, cultural expectations of what a person should be like at that age, so yeah that’s not very scientific. But because that’s an idea that people have already, I am pretty sure that I can use this to restrict the human rights of people under 25, and because it’s in the context of everyone’s least favorite group the [SLUR WHICH HERE MEANS ‘TRANSSEXUALS’], I think everyone will pretty much let this one slide. And im pretty thrilled with this because it’s actually an older age than I thought I was gonna be able to get away with. I thought I was only gonna be able to exercise my power and control over people under the age of 18 or perhaps 21, which wouldn’t have been very exciting to me because I pretty much already get to control those people’s lives. But now that I’ve slipped this one in there, man, this opens up a whole other age group for me to wield power over. So im really happy with how this whole thing is shaping up. Bangers and mash.
Are you guys happy about the "brain finishes maturing at 25" myth getting recognition are you going to be happy when you're fighting in the twitter wars and the transmasc you're arguing with goes "um you're actually harassing a 23 year old minor" and in the eyes of the british medical system he's telling the truth
The whole "the brain isn't fully mature until age 25" bit is actually a fairly impressive bit of psuedoscience for how incredibly stupid the way it misinterprets the data it's based on is.
Okay, so: there's a part of the human brain called the "prefrontal cortex" which is, among other things, responsible for executive function and impulse control. Like most parts of the brain, it undergoes active "rewiring" over time (i.e., pruning unused neural connections and establishing new ones), and in the case of the prefrontal cortex in particular, this rewiring sharply accelerates during puberty.
Because the pace of rewiring in the prefrontal cortex is linked to specific developmental milestones, it was hypothesised that it would slow down and eventually stop in adulthood. However, the process can't directly be observed; the only way to tell how much neural rewiring is taking place in a particular part of the brain is to compare multiple brain scans of the same individual performed over a period of time.
Thus, something called a "longitudinal study" was commissioned: the same individuals would undergo regular brain scans over a period of mayn years, beginning in early childhood, so that their prefrontal development could accurately be tracked.
The longitudinal study was originally planned to follow its subjects up to age 21. However, when the predicted cessation of prefrontal rewiring was not observed by age 21, additional funding was obtained, and the study period was extended to age 25. The predicted cessation of prefrontal development wasn't observed by age 25, either, at which point the study was terminated.
When the mainstream press got hold of these results, the conclusion that prefrontal rewiring continues at least until age 25 was reported as prefrontal development finishing at age 25. Critically, this is the exact opposite of what the study actually concluded. The study was unable to identify a stopping point for prefrontal development because no such stopping point was observed for any subject during the study period. The only significance of the age 25 is that no subjects were tracked beyond this age because the study ran out of funding!
It gets me when people try to argue against the neuroscience-proves-everybody-under-25-is-a-child talking point by claiming that it's merely an average, or that prefrontal development doesn't tell the whole story. Like, no, it's not an average – it's just bullshit. There's no evidence that the cited phenomenon exists at all. If there is an age where prefrontal rewiring levels off and stops (and it's not clear that there is), we don't know what age that is; we merely know that it must be older than 25.
So, there's this character who appears in the first installment of The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir. They're a highly skilled fighter who's been training with a sword for as long as they could pick one up. They grew up alongside a remarkably intelligent and talented necromancer, who is a little bit younger than them and bullies them a lot. They dream of building their own life that isn't shaped by their necromancer, who does everything they can to prevent this.
On arriving at Canaan House, they appear to be the perfect cavalier for their House, a purposefully constructed image concealing that things aren't exactly as they appear. They believe themselves to be the main character of the story, but outside observation reveals that this is mostly just the hollow posturing of someone who's never really been in control of their lives, and mostly just succeeds in making them look obnoxious.
After dying and paving the way for their necromancer to ascend to lyctorhood, they continue to haunt the second instalment. Their necromancer performs some extreme form of surgery with the help of their only other peer, and this is supposed to have an effect on their fallen cavalier, but it doesn't entirely work.
Finally, they come back in the third instalment... or, more accurately, their body does, under a different name to the one they were introduced under in book one, but not that different. Even in death, their body is not allowed to simply rest and be spared from necromantic fuckery.
Now, was I talking about Gideon Nav in this post, or Naberius Tern?
Stress having physical effects is so stupid your body's just like "you've been having a real shit time and I'm about to make it worse" I hope you die I hope we both die
There is a complicated and intertwined relationship between autism and schizophrenia, as well as ongoing struggles with how we define experiences with psychosis in other disorders and circumstances outside of schizophrenia, and I wish people were less afraid of both of them, and more willing to understand all of the above [autism, schizophrenia, psychosis].
I think people are also less aware of the possible comorbidity between autism and psychosis, or how autism as a diagnosis was initially linked to (now outdated concepts for) schizophrenia. It is also difficult to know the exact numbers, regardless, as often the communication difficulties present in autism, or the more subtle aspects of psychosis, or the cultural notions around either can make the actual categorization of it hard to quantify.
Psychosis is also present in schizoaffective, bipolar disorder, and several personality disorders (I know for a fact borderline personality disorder can present with psychosis, for example).
I wish I was better at putting my thoughts to words, but I'm reflecting also on how all of these discussions are generally within a certain realm of psychiatry anyway, and what we define as psychosis--as disconnect from reality--is complicated by a drive to pathologize complex experiences. Often times, "disconnect from reality" can also be applied to groups or individuals who are experiencing a very strong connection to reality, that works against other purposes--like the history with labeling Black civil rights activists with it (especially with labels implying violence and paranoia) for speaking up about oppression.
Ugh, I wish I could keep topics in a streamlined manner, but everything is interconnected, so it's difficult.
I promise this is here because of The Locked Tomb. I was reflecting on Harrowhark's experiences with psychosis--which are irrefutable and acknowledged. She has psychosis and she's being haunted and there's a lot of weird shit happening around her, and that means something to me anyway, because I am also psychotic and have experiences that have made it very confusing and distressing to tell reality and psychosis apart (ie, being convinced I'm not experiencing something, when I am, as a means to control me and evade consequences, with me being willing to believe it because I already have a disconnect from reality, then learning that it was a purposeful exploitation of my symptoms).
I don't personally think it's obscure at all that she has psychosis. And I think it would be more difficult to be sure if she's autistic--sensory processing issues, emotional disconnect, etc can easily be seen in schizophrenia; she is also deeply traumatized and traumatized from a very young age making it hard to discern if that would correlate to social issues. Social issues that may also be culturally influenced anyway (of course, one could perceive the entire Ninth House of being isolated and small enough to essentially be built off a handful of groups that had autism and then were all mostly fine with one another and simply developed all deeper into certain habits and structure, obfuscating larger social issues they may have with the other Houses).
Social isolation and trauma, by the way, can lead to people having similar symptoms to autism, but there's a lot of complicated discussions on what that even means for how they meet the criteria, or what the criteria would mean, or how useful it would be for certain circumstances. Ultimately, autism is recognized as a developmental disorder relating to social and communicative difficulties. There are still a myriad of theories about what that even truly entails.
I view Harrow as autistic, because I personally believe she probably would, in a general environment, still not have the intuitive social sense that allistics have, and that it is not solely linked to her psychosis. I also view Harrowhark as schizophrenic, but am unsure how mood may correlate or interact with her psychosis (which would technically change how it would be categorized). I saw confirmation from Muir that Harrow would benefit greatly from antipsychotics and I saw a tweet stating schizophrenia was confirmed, but it has already been proven that people will "summarize" statements in very general ways, and I've been unable to get the actual source (a video of the statements summarized).
convinced that John held funerals for Mercy and Augustine. he gave one to Cytherea! What I mean to say is— Ianthe, Kiriona, John, and the no good terrible very bad 23-minute long joint funeral
It's actually kinda mesmerizing how the popular sentiment around visual novels is that they simultaneously have no gameplay, and also are too hard to get into.
"Book fans after they turn pages for 20 hours! Like seriously, imagine finding that entertaining!" - guy who would somehow be uncontroversial if he was talking about electronic entertainment
What's absolutely nuts about how little respect visual novels get is that people are just completely ignorant about basic features that are practically standard for every game ever released.
If you like playthroughs with no commentary, if you're fine with reading, but don't like the proverbial "pressing A for 20 hours", then did you know that practically every VN ever has an auto-mode?
The textboxes automatically advance after a short wait, and you can 9 times out of 10 go to the settings and change the speed at which the textboxes auto-advance, to perfectly tune it to how fast you can read.
Most visual novels you could care to name will have this feature. But if your favorite visual novel is Class of 09 you might not have realized how industry-standard this option is, because that game advertises auto-mode as a feature on its Steam page, as though it's something unique!
Even though, and this is the fucking kicker, Class of 09 was developed in Ren'Py, a python-based visual novel engine where auto-mode is included in every VN made in it by default!
But because Class of 09 is marketed as a visual novel for people who hate visual novels, it can afford to market itself not based on any actual history and knowledge about VNs, but against the lowest common denominator stereotype of what people who don't know any better think a visual novel is.
It's easy money, and all you have to do is have an underlying contempt for the medium you're trying to develop for.
Today we’re going to talk about the ways in which Mercymorn is a walking domestic abuse/systemic domestic abuse allegory.
For a more comprehensive breakdown of some of themes of abuse in HtN you can check out this amazing post by Sophelstien
A lot of the glimpses of Mercy’s backstory have some pretty clear indicators of her perpetual abuse by John and her behaviors, especially towards Harrow and Ianthe just perpetuate the same abuse she suffered for years as she turns a mostly blind eye to what John is doing with them.
So let’s get started with all the things straight out of the domestic abuse playbook.
1. Isolation from loved ones:
In this instance he did this to all the Lyctors, not just Mercy. The OG Lyctors were already dependent on proximity to John for their very survival. But with the deaths of their Cavaliers they’ve now experienced a horrifying trauma that cemented that bond further. Their loved ones were gone, the ones they cared for the most, who supported them above all else. They were cone and never coming back. But it’s a good thing John was there for them. Good ole John would always be there for them, right?
You can(and probably will) argue that John himself didn’t do the isolating here(except in the case of Samael whom he definitely admits to killing). Especially in the case of Cristabel and Alfred. But John set up the system. The religious, fatherly but always your pal John at the top. And what better way to serve him, to help him, to be with him. Then to annihilate your support system.
So Cristabel is dead, Mercy’s brotherly icon in the form of Augustine has now become a perpetual antagonist towards her for something she didn’t do, and the only person she can seemingly lean on for comfort and support, is John.
2: Pressure to conform to uncomfortable situations and further self-isolation
Mercy always hated the sexy parties. This one should seem pretty self explanatory but there are other ways we can look at it as well.
So Mercy, now in a perpetually grieving state and entirely reliant on John and her fellow lyctors(who are also dealing with their own grief and trauma) is being pushed to attend what seems to be implied to be quite raucous events put on by her brothers and sisters. I’m sure a great many of them are also just doing it to cope with their own problems in the form of excess. Except John, who is the instigator of most of their traumas, who’s probably having a fantastic time.
Furthermore we see how this has long term shaped Mercy’s general attitude, and personality. She’s bitter, closed off, and a pretty significant shut in. She hardly ever leaves Mithraeum these days. She goes to collect John(and her new baby sister’s/children) from the Erebus and bring them home, to Mithraeum. And that whole scene is just dripping with imagery of a desperate wife/daughter pleading to get her husband/father to come home from the bar, overlooks his probable dalliances(Sarpedon) and his obsessive attention towards a younger subject(Harrow), and just begs him to come back.
And while we’re on the subject
3: Unhealthy attachment and willingness to overlook red flags.
Mercy loves John, and yes, a lot of that can be chalked up to soul permeability and Cristabel. But Mercy loves for him and cares about him as deeply as she can. We can see this in the resurrection beast meeting. Everyone deserves to die for mocking her. But John? John just needs to be locked up for a bit. It will do him some good. He is good, he just needs to learn. Surely there’s goodness inside of him. Surely she hasn’t just spent ten thousand years in service to a man who’s done nothing but torment her with a smile and a false family dynamic. She thinks about this often.
And speaking of overlooking red flags, Mercy’s barest protection of Harrow, only enough to survive. Because that’s what you do in this family. You survive. She doesn’t stop John from what he’s doing to Harrow, she knows what he’s doing surely. But she leaves Harrow to largely fend for herself. Because John isn’t bad, surely. She just needs to learn. Like Mercy did.
4: Plotting escape and the relief when it’s achieved
Mercy, with the help of others, has spent centuries planning John’s downfall. She and Augustine have tailored an incredibly long game plan to open the tomb and bring about John’s end. They got outside help to do it. They didn’t want it to come back at them. They didn’t want to face John’s consequences themselves. And really this couldn’t more obviously be an example of hiring someone to kill your abuser for you.
But the plan falls through, and that’s okay because Mercymorn, has a backup. She devoted thousands of years to a skill that Augustine flat out says would only be good for killing those like themselves. Those with power, and invisibility.
And the relief when it happens. The sheer joy and sadness and desperate exhaustion when she’s done it, and they’re finally free.
5: Retaliation
Mercy and Augustine were right to try and do it all as secretly as they could. They were right to fear a reprisal. Because the very second John comes back, he kills Mercymorn the first. He then attempts to use this display of violence as an intimidation tactic to try and sway the others.
“She made me do it, I had no choice. surely you all believe me? Surely you wouldn’t betray me all the same?”
How many thousands upon thousands of stories have there been throughout history, of abuse victims escaping, or attempting escape, only to be killed or maimed for their efforts.
She was free. They were all free. She’d saved everyone from him. They were safe. She was safe.
chapter 20 of htn is short but has so much weight to it. the entirety of the chapter is this: the whole family watches and cleans up and does nothing else while harrow gets violated over and over again by her eldest brother, at the behest of her father.
the chapter begins with gideon penetrating harrow's pelvis, then god makes her whole again, yet claims powerlessness.
he calls her to his rooms and insists she consume things she does not like and does not want, and she does it, because she has nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to, and no other form of protection.
the chapter ends with harrow seeking physical solace from the body: a woman, her silent caretaker, john's original victim,
and then it is revealed to us that the poem john recites to harrow is the poe verse at heart of humbert humbert's (of nabakov's lolita) backstory.
i really love the way tamsyn muir navigates incest and sexual violence here. it is inarguable that harrow the ninth is a family drama; john is a patriarch in every sense of the word: a divine patriarch, a scholarly father-figure, and a literal father; harrow's narration posits him as fatherly, ianthe's dialogue refers to him as such, the other lyctors half-jokingly call him daddy; the lyctors dutifully call each other brother and sister. they are god's children, in that he made them, literally or hegemonically, and as both lyctors and theocratic royalty, they interpret god's will. they have a religious compulsion to follow john's orders and to not question him. the lyctor's familial titles call to christian ecclesiastical titles of sister, brother, and father. john uses his self-appointed divine right and the historical hierarchy of the catholic church to perpetuate systematic violence and allegorical rape against harrowhark. john lived out a jesus narrative, coopted historical european aesthetics, political structures, and religion, recreated the catholic church with necromancy as religious praxis, and is now cycling through the historic legacy of that very system—and in this chapter, and harrow the ninth as a whole, the macro becomes the micro. this family dynamic is just a minute example of what is happening empire-wide.
on a non-religious note: i recently read the incest diary by anonymous, and this chapter reminded me of a few sections of that book where the author details moments where she brings up her incestuous abuse from her father to her family: her mother ignores her, just as she has ignored this fact for the author's entire life; her brother refuses to believe her and threatens to kill himself; her close family friend instructs her to never bring it up again, claiming that it happens to all women and that the author should get over it. mercymorn's callous caretaking of harrow in the previous chapter after gideon's first attack on her reminds me of this, as well as ianthe's mean-spirited snickering. the women in harrow's life reluctantly take care of her in the aftermath (if the family friend is to be believed, this happens to all women; it is entirely believable to me that both mercy and ianthe have been victims of sexual violence as well), and john heals her only to then put her in situations where she cannot say no to him. throughout the book, he steadily defiles her boundaries and backs her into emotional corners where she must confess to him, all the while using the threat of constant violence to keep her weak and scared. the physical is just a small part of the incestuous abuse happening in htn—so much of it is psychological, and it's psychological coming from the entire family. harrow's brother and sisters keep her from completely perishing under the weight of these attacks, but only just. and in doing this, they only enable john's abuse.
My special interest in the lyctoral cavaliers knows no bounds. I have developed a particular interest in Loveday Heptane: a creature so reviled that God himself had to coerce Mercy and Augustine into eulogizing her a full myriad after her death... and he doesn't have anything kind to say himself. When even the guy who nuked a planet thinks you're a piece of work, you must be something REALLY special.
This begs the question: Did Loveday Heptane, like... eat a baby or something?! Is she evil incarnate? What the heck did she do?!
Reader, I have some thoughts.
Loveday never speaks anywhere in the text. All the details about her are second-hand (some might even say third-hand: her own necromancer only mentions her ONCE, and she doesn't give us much). Figuring her out requires a deep dive into contextual evidence, human psychology, and marvelous leaps of misplaced intuition.
Lucky for other cavalier-obsessed folks, I am deranged and up for the challenge! Join me beyond the cut for a very long post about grief, caregiving, and why literally every bad thing in this series is Cristabel's fault! Onward! (Heads Up: this is a LONG post, even for me!)
First Gen vs Second Gen Disciples
I think it's common for people to perceive ancient history as a monolith. When many people think about "Ancient Greece" for example, they're lumping together 1,000 years of history. Likewise, the pre-lyctorhood period spanned a minimum of 200 years from beginning to end.
For context, that's a little less than all of colonial American history. It constitutes multiple human lifetimes. A LOT of cultural shifts took place in that period. The difference between a "first gen" Canaan house disciple (for our purposes, any disciple present on Earth pre-resurrection, which may or may not include Ulysses and Titania) and a "second gen disciple (for our purposes, born in the Houses) is massive.
First gen disciples were resurrected. They were whole, adult humans, without complete memories. They contributed to the culture and religious practices in the houses. We can assume they created the first necromantic theorems. Not only that, but they were always together. As far as they are aware, they did not exist in any other context - no parents, no families, no other support structure. They had each other, period.
Second gen disciples were born. They had parents and families prior to their time at Canaan house - they came from a context beyond John and Canaan house. They grew up under the cultural and religious norms established by the first gen disciples. So much of what the first genners established from scratch was axiom to the second genners - the way things had always been for them. They all arrived at Canaan house as outsiders, chosen for skills or aptitude as the field of necromancy progressed.
Most importantly: first gen disciples met John as a man and centered him as God. Second gen disciples met him as God and had to reconcile that he really was just a man. I do believe he was CLOSER to a man, pre-lyctorhood. He could still travel to the houses then. He was still and accessible, flesh and blood human. Even so, I find it hard to believe that a second gen disciple could stand before God without feeling a little starstruck. The power imbalance SEEMED greater, even if it wasn't.
All that said, I think it's essential to acknowledge that Mercy, Cristabel, Augustine and Alfred were all first gen disciples. In contrast, Loveday and Cytherea were both second gen - the LAST second gen lyctors to arrive at Canaan house, at that. There could have been a hundred years between Cyrus and Valancy's arrival and Cytherea and Loveday's. The first gen disciples had been palling around, creating a society, for nearly 200 years before those two were even born.
That gap mattered. Even posthumously, Augustine called Cytherea "Little Cyth." She was always and forever the little sister, even after she outlived three lyctors (plus Anastasia). Think about Mercy calling Harrow and Ianthe infants. Yes, the scale is a little different, but Cytherea and Loveday would have arrived with SO MUCH LESS life experience than the oldest old people.
Keep this all in mind as we move forward.
Cytherea and the Miracle at Rhodes
I believe that Cytherea's specialist Seventh house knowledge was essential to the completion of the eightfold word "megatheorem" and unlocking lyctorhood... and all roads to this discovery lead to, well... Rhodes.
What was The Miracle at Rhodes? I do not believe it was Cytherea herself, but her work. John says he wanted to remain a disinterested party: he didn't want to see the woman. In fact, he had to have it confirmed that the woman was even a necromancer.
What are the necromantic specialties on the Seventh? There's puppeting - but that would NOT be interesting to John. That was literally the first necromantic miracle pre-resurrection.
The other Seventh house specialty is the creation of the beguiling corpse and other funerary and preservation magic.
I consider Cytherea to be a pseudo-reliable narrator. I believe her when she claims she never lied. In GtN, she tells Gideon that her greatest fear - the fear that propelled her to go to Canaan house at all - was the fear of dying, being locked away, and being forgotten. It tracks that her personal necromantic work might have centered on creating beautiful, incorruptible corpses - cadavers lovely and perfect enough to be kept on display in glass coffins, where the dead would not be forgotten.
Perhaps by... fixing a soul fragment in place so it couldn't deteriorate, allowing the essence of the deceased to remain?
Something with MAJOR applications for a certain megatheorem? Something like "Step four: fix [the soul] in place so it can't deteriorate" - the portion of the eightfold discovered in Cytherea and Loveday's lyctoral lab?
(I also want to take a moment to acknowledge that the two types of necromancy that John does not condone, beguiling corpsehood and siphoning, were keys to lyctorhood. Hmmm hmmm hmmmmm)
Either John or someone with him (Cassy? Anastasia?) could have recognized how Cytherea's expertise would be essential to the work at Canaan house. Either John decided to invite Cytherea, or he was coerced into extending the invitation so the disciples could gain access to the mind behind the miracle.
As I've asked before...is an invitation from God ever really an invitation? What would it have meant to say no to the emperor? Cyth seems to have thought that going was fully her decision, but I wonder about the extent to which she really felt she had a choice.
Ultimately, it was "the right" choice. The theorem wasn't complete until Cyth and Loveday arrived.
Canaan House and Grief as a Context
Not only did Cytherea and Loveday arrive as second-generation disciples, forced to leave family, culture, and lives behind, but they were also the first pair we know of who were grieving before they arrived. They were the only duo for whom arrival at Canaan House always meant goodbye.
Cytherea came to Canaan house to die. She was not doing well when she arrived - both John and Augustine describe being surprised by just how close to death she was when they met. Choosing to study under the emperor was a choice to die as brilliant AND beautiful, as someone too important to lock away in a grave for all eternity. I doubt Cytherea realized the others were working on immortality before she arrived.
She was sick. She expected to get sicker. None of the other disciples could "do anything for her" at the time (per Augustine in HtN).
I am reminded of the summons from the emperor at the beginning of GtN: "no retainers, no attendants, no domestics." Assuming there was no formal cavaliership in the early empire, Cyth would have been tasked with bringing along a single companion. For Cyth, this wasn't a case of "which of my closest friends do I pick to go and meet God?" or "Which nurse at Rhodes do I like the best?" This was a question of "who is going to be at my bedside holding my hand when I die?"
I do not think she made that choice lightly.
We don't know who Loveday was to her. A lover? A lady's maid? A nurse? A best friend? Perhaps some proto-cavalier with many duties of care? What's important to me is that she was someone who Cytherea was willing to ask to be with her at the end. What's even more important to me is that Loveday said yes, even though it meant giving up a LOT.
Being a caretaker is hard. Watching someone you love die is agonizing. I have done both, and I rate it a big 0/10 stars. The only person who has it harder is the person who is dying. It's kind of an unwritten rule of active grief that you do NOT ask the person who is dying to comfort YOU about THEIR death.
Now, remember all that seemingly irrelevant detail about first gen vs second gen disciples? About how strange and isolating it would be for second gen disciples? About everything they'd have to leave behind?
Here we have Loveday, the final second gen proto-cavalier. She's not the special one - that's Cyth. Everyone gathered to meet Cytherea: the woman, the miracle worker. Loveday was there for Cyth, period. Nobody is there for Loveday.
in GtN, Cytherea offers Gideon the most authentic smile when she calls herself "the fakest-ass cavalier who ever faked." It felt very much like she'd seen this behavior before. Did Loveday feel like an impostor? Was she being handed a rapier and being asked to compete with cavaliers with a century or more of sword fighting experience? Even if she could fight, she certainly felt like an outsider among God's best and brightest.
Furthermore, is she supposed to go to these intimidating members of god's inner circle for comfort as she navigates the imminent death of the person she loves most in the world? The one person who wasn't part of a 200-year old clique was the one person she couldn't go to for comfort. That's LONELY. At least on the Seventh there would have been a little respite - family members, friends, someone to talk to.
And Loveday would have KNOWN Cytherea - known how well she could perform wellness, known that she was "good at seeming," known that she was going to push herself and make it seem effortless until the end.
What do you think happened when Cytherea returned to their quarters at the end of a long day of being smart and charming and polished in public? Who would have been there to help her when there were no longer eyes on her, and she could finally admit she was exhausted and in agony? Loveday was, presumably, her "safe person" - the one who saw the worst of her and her illness. Did Loveday ever get her at her best?
I assume Loveday didn't want her to go at all, but couldn't begrudge her the ending she wanted. I wonder if, from Loveday's perspective, "[she] had the choice to stop."
In John's words, "Loveday brought [Cytherea] in, looking as though she wanted every one of us beaten to death." Anger is a stage of grief, and Loveday was dealing with more than grief over Cytherea's imminent death. She was losing everything she knew. As Cytherea's caretaker, she was about to lose a major part of her identity, too.
And what's the stage of grief after anger? Bargaining - the part of grief in which you "yell at God." I imagine that might have gone a little differently when God was literally standing there, picking biscuit detritus out of his teeth.
Imagine looking god himself in the eye, asking for help, for a cure for the brilliant, hilarious, kind, beautiful person you love - a person he claims to value as a friend and collaborator - and getting a pat on the head. I'm pretty sure that would test anyone's faith.
...not even to mention the fact that a tangible form of immortality was on the line, and they were close.
Mercy, Augustine, and John: Reliable Narrators?
"I will say this," said Mercy presently, acting as though Augustine had never said a word. "I NEVER mourned for Loveday Heptane. She did one good thing with her life, and she knew it."
Those be fighting words, Mercymorn! Augustine does not disagree with her or try to come to Loveday's defense - not even to be contrary and get on her nerves. Nor does John.
I would like to argue that John, Mercy, and Augustine are not the most reliable narrators, however. Just a few pages before the eulogies, John is misremembering the circumstances surrounding Cytherea's arrival. We've also seen them claim, carte blanche, that everyone hated Alecto and wanted her gone. We know that's bullshit from Pyrrha in Nona. We also come to learn that Anastasia likely felt differently, too.
This suggests to me that Loveday probably didn't eat a baby. We only know for certain that Mercy, John, and Augustine weren't fans, with Mercy being the most outspoken about her feelings.
Now, we got to spend an entire novel with Mercymorn and learn about what made her tick. I tend to believe that "I didn't like this person" is synonymous with "this person did something to Cristabel."
It All Comes Back to Cristabel Oct
Okay, so you're Loveday Heptane. The person you love most is dying painfully, and you are actively grieving. You're also hanging out in a big ol' castle with God. As Cyth's illness progresses and the megatheorem fails to materialize, your grief continues to multiply. You reach the bargaining stage. You are on your knees, begging God to do something, do more, do better. God does not do anything, let alone more or better. God apologizes and asks if anybody wants to play Scrabble on Game Night.
Could you blame Loveday for getting angry at God? For questioning everything she believed? For questioning everything going on at Canaan house, and casting doubt? Maybe she even tried to strangle John! Who knows!
Do you know who would see that desperate, hungry, angry faithlessness and strike? I'll give you one guess.
That's right! Cristabel "suicidal golden retriever with self-inflicted brain damage" Oct!
She's here, telling you why you're wrong, and why your suffering is actually nothing in the scheme of the work! She's here, telling you that God is good, actually! That you just can't see the bigger picture! Here, I'll shove a tract under your bedroom door! I'll let you know I'm praying for you whenever I pass you in the halls! Do you want to pray about it? Do you want to fast about it? Do you wanna do a bunch of inane, ritualistic shit about it and then come around to loving God again?!?! Huh? Huh? Do ya? Do ya?
COULD YOU BLAME LOVEDAY IF SHE DID, IN FACT, PUNCH HER IN THE FACE?
Now, I'm not saying she did that, but I think she would have been well within her rights to tell the nun to politely fuck off.
Anyway, if you have beef with Cristabel, you have beef with both Mercy and Alfred. If you have beef with Alfred, you have beef with Augustine. If you have beef with all of God's favorite toys, and you're being an angry heretic in his halls, you probably also have some beef with God, whether or not you tried to strangle him.
Candor and Alien Grief
Remember, THE FIRST GEN DISCIPLES HAVE NO MEMORY OF EXPERIENCING GRIEF! They have been living safely with God, with no fear of death, for hundreds of years! Before lyctorhood, loss was an alien concept for them. Every single person they loved (their "brothers and sisters") was immortal and living in a castle on their very own private planet! It was like the Garden of Eden!
Loveday and Cytherea are outsiders - the only two who honestly know what's coming.
To tell the truth, I don't think Loveday had to have kicked Cristabel's ass to get on Mercymorn's shitlist. I think this angry, doubtful, grieving, exhausted caretaker only had to observe Cristabel and Alfred's suicides (and Mercy and Augustine's ascensions) and have an honest opinion about it a little too soon.
It needn't even have been malicious. She could have merely whispered "that was shitty," within earshot before the bodies were cold.
She could have turned to Cytherea and promised she would NEVER do what Alfred and Cristabel had done - that it would always be their choice together, no secrets.
To Mercy, being a new denizen in the world of absolute grief, that might have been enough to put Loveday on the shit list for 10,000 years. How DARE she say anything about Cristabel now that she was gone? How DARE she acknowledge what, 10,000 years later, Mercy still could not acknowledge herself?
And remember: Cytherea was the last saint to ascend. We don't know how long it was between Mercy's ascension and Cytherea's. Loveday was the last, stubborn cavalier in the halls of Canaan House - a living, breathing reminder of what everyone else had already lost. It would be easy to resent her. She was the proof, however temporary, that it was possible to say no.
What we do know, from Cytherea herself, was that the choice was 100% mutual. She says "WE thought it would make me live." They waited until Cytherea was on her deathbed and made the decision together. Cytherea and Loveday got something Mercy never got.
All things considered, I might have hated her, too.
Who Was Loveday Heptane?
Maybe Loveday was angry but civil.
Maybe she had a bad attitude and never made friends.
Or maybe nobody thought about her twice until they were grieving themselves and it became too easy to make her an enemy for telling the truth.
We don't know who Loveday was in life, and the odds are good that we never will. She only survived as the death of light - the gleam in a monster's eyes.
But she was also the companion who was brave enough to accompany her necromancer to the grave. She was probably the person who filled Cytherea's lab with stunning, dreamy, pastoral frescoes, cozy cushions, and embroidered quilts, so she'd never have to know discomfort. She was the last cavalier standing when the pressure was high and mounting and did not give in until she didn't have a choice.
Augustine tells us that Cytherea loved unguardedly. She was a patient soul who loved the unlovable. And she loved Loveday Heptane: the good, bad, and ugly.
Somehow, all things considered, I can't help but love her, too.
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