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[harrowharkwife]

camilla or pyrrha for the character ask meme!

THANK YOU EMMA FOR GIVING ME AN EXCUSE TO TALK ABOUT CAMMMM MY GIRL.... CAMILLA DARLING

favorite thing about them: where do i even fucking start. her skill, and strength. her wit, she's so goddamn funny. her resolve. her bravery. the quiet ferocious intensity with which she loves and cares about people. as tragic and troubling and fucked up as it is in canon, i find her perennial tendency towards pair-bonded dysfunctional codependency to be. ALARMINGLY relatable. i love her flat affect. i love her observational skills- she's clever, and perceptive. i may or may not have an enormous crush on her. i love her loyalty and devotion. i love (read: hate) her tendency to deflect any and all important personal questions. i love that she doesn't let go. i love her love for spreadsheets and sharp knives and sensible shoes and sketching. i love her impeccable bedside manner. i love her and her letters and her cassette tapes and her fuckass bob and her smile that makes the earth want to marry her and i love her slate-clay eyes and her laugh. i love that she fought like her heart had already exploded.

least favorite thing about them: i mean, with camilla this question is really more of a "most concerning things about them," isn't it? her codependency, her lack of individuation and independence, her refusal to develop her own identity and exist as her own person. which, like, from one autistic bitch to another, girl i Get It. if i could get away with making myself a satellite accessory to another person instead of having to figure out how to be a person myself, if my society had groomed me to do exactly that from birth, yeah, i would probably do the same thing. being a person is fucking exhausting. but it's also so, so worth it, and it breaks my fucking heart that cam never had the chance, and that the people in her life by and large never encouraged her to really try. we do see pal pushing her on it a little here and there from time to time, and i appreciate that, but it was clearly never enough to stick, y'know? i hate how self sacrificing and selfless she is, i wish fandom at large would talk more about her depression, i want to give her wellbutrin and a hug and therapy.

favorite line: too many to choose. life is too short and love is too long. i don't let go, it's my one thing. sure, it's a nice handkerchief. i think there's another teaspoon full of blood in here somewhere. camilla hect fought like a grease fire. the cohort has taken the rest of him away and i don't know where they've put him.

brOTP: gideon, though i am a lover of the cam/gideon agenda! also nona, and palamedes.

OTP: dulcie, but i also love campyrrha, in like a mutually sorrowful toxic cathartic cav4cav grief sex sorta way.

nOTP: idk that i have one? i'm not really into cam/corona the way some people are

random headcanon: autistic like i mentioned earlier. i think she'd love cats

unpopular opinion: personally speaking I'm not a shooter for the aro/ace cam agenda, though i don't have anything against it!!! I've definitely seen it done in fascinating and lovely and compelling ways before! it's just not how i personally interpret her, but i think that's literally just a personal grudge on account of being an autistic woman with somewhat flat affect, and having seen fandoms Immediately jump to hit every serious-mannered, autistic-coded woman character that has flat affect with the aroace headcanon stick Immediately and at first blush without interrogating the potential stereotypes and assumptions behind that choice. not saying that that's what people are doing with cam at all, just that it was a general pattern i was observing across fandoms- honestly i see the logic behind it with her, and i don't think it's a "wrong" way to interpret her at all, i think it's perfectly founded! but unfortunately i am just projecting on her and she got caught in the crosshairs of me deciding i had Had Enough and that it was time to draw the "let autistic women fuck" shaped line in the sand and take a political stance 😂 you understand. aroace cam truthers are some of my most beloved comrades in arms. peace and love on planet earth

song i associate with them: EXISTENTIAL CRISIS HOUR! BY KILO KISH. see also: butterfly net by caroline polachek, true blue by boygenius, my friend by hayley williams, ***look at me now by caroline polachek,*** francis forever by mitski, the body is a blade by japanese breakfast, crude drawing of an angel by caroline polachek.

favorite picture of them: im on mobile and also stoned outta my gourd so I'll rb this with some art tomorrow!

ty emma!!!!

[harrowharkwife]

This may just be because of me zoning out while reading the book but I don't think John did anything wrong well besides like gaslighting harrow about her opening the tomb.

did you miss the part about killing every man woman and child on earth in search of fruitless revenge and then hunting down the descendants of those who got away for the next 10000 years

also hes the one who told g1deon to go kill harrow and continuously played dumb during the ten months she was fighting for her life. also he lied to his saints about the nature of lyctorhood so all of their cavaliers died pointless deaths. and his empire regularly employees child soldiers if it isnt outright dependent on them. and he quoted a tumblr post irl

[harrowharkwife]

ill go with sex pal :P but if that's already done, gideon :)

HIIIIII!!!!!!! hi friend!!!!!

favorite thing about them: PALAMEDESSSSSS my boy palamedes. my little guy. man, okay, what do i love about him. i love the way he loves. i am fascinated by his clumsy and imperfect and well-meaning but inherently flawed attempts/approaches to things like agency and ethics and fairness and respect. i love that he pays attention to everything. i love his drive. i love his gambling streak, his tendency to play the odds. i love that he's a boy who writes love letters™. i love how open he is about his affections and his feelings. i love his penchant for using terms of endearment. his love for teaching. his willingness to get up on a soapbox for things he believes in, even if he winds up stumbling sidelong into insufferable preachy condescension half the time. i love that he tries. i love that he sometimes fucks up and hurts the people around him. i love his boldness. i love his sweetness. i love his kindness. that boy could make friends with a brick wall if you gave him enough time. i love that he canonically writes weird erotica to cope. i love his taste in women. i love his gender. i just love him

least favorite thing about them: i mean, i could go on forever. he's deeply annoying sometimes, and as much as it's part of his charm, it also makes me want to thwap him upside the head from time to time, like. boy. shut UP!!! but the real answer is honestly his position as sixth house scion. master warden is an unspeakably rancid title in vibes alone and i sincerely hope we dig into the backstory behind that a little more in AtN. i find it fascinating, and troubling, and tragic, and frustrating, all the ways in which he talks the talk re: cavaliers and agency and free will, but when the rubber meets the road, do his actions really back that up? arguably, not always. and the guilt and complicity and codependent toxicity there re: camilla, is like catnip to me. he loves her, he respects her, she's his best friend, he's in awe of her and her abilities and her strength. and yet, time and time again, he puts her through harrowing things and thanks her each time she shoulders his burdens. it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, it makes me so sad, it's a snake eating its own tail, it is a mobius strip of toxic power imbalance codependent enmeshment and it is FASCINATING to think about. if i keep going we'll be here all night, but just. i think fandom has a tendency to write him as The Good Person™ (him and Camilla both) and, like, i love him as much as the next girl, but he's a head of state in an empire, with all the implications that brings with it.

favorite line: "how god takes, and takes, and takes." "fool us twice, shame on god." "thank god for that mad, stubborn, lovely girl." "it's not you, it's me wearing you." (moira quirk's inflection on that line is literally fucking haunting, btw.) "do you know, i miss harrowhark terribly." "and, most personally, this is for dulcinea septimus." god. i just love him

brOTP: harrow, and also gideon.

OTP: im shy <3

nOTP: im struggling to think of a pal pairing that i Couldn't find compelling or at least interesting, if written the right way, in the right light. he's just my interesting little guy. he's a barbie and im making him scissor all the other barbies. who said that

random headcanon: glasses chain. earrings. palamedes can have she/her pronouns, every now and then, as a treat. contrary to the initial assumption of everyone he's ever met, he's actually Not autistic. (cam is; he's just got wicked bad adhd.) jewamedes is also fun

unpopular opinion: i mean i guess just what i said up top re: people sometimes acting like he's never done anything wrong in his life? i love him but i love him Because he is an interesting and deeply morally gray (ha) character.

song i associate with them: what you can't look up by walk the moon, tiny moves by bleachers, to someone from a warm climate by hozier, chateau lobby #4 in c for two virgins by father john misty, shiver shiver by walk the moon, star by mitski, hopedrunk everasking by caroline polachek, GAMBLER'S PRAYER BY CAROLINE POLACHEK my ultimate palamedes song

favorite picture of them: ive tattooed every single piece of palamedes art ive ever seen on the inside of my eyelids. except white palamedes fanart which is always such a jumpscare

[harrowharkwife]

character game: tlt, ortus <3 if you've already got him, then camilla or wake (you choose, whichever you haven't been sent yet)!

hi!!!!!!

favorite thing about them: his kindness, his goodness, his bravery in the end. his tremendous amount of heart. my beloved little bard who saves the whole party in the eleventh hour with a stroke of poetic genius <3

least favorite thing about them: i do not have a single bad thing to say about my man ortus. ortus nigenad ily. i find moira quirk's voice acting for him incredibly grating on the ears but that's not HIS fault!!!

favorite line: "perhaps, the waker" is never not funny on a reread. literally all of the noniad. his apology to harrow 😭😭😭. "it is a drawing of the letter s, my lady." him telling abigail he's gonna write the pentiad in her honor. ugh i love him

brOTP: im so glad that him and protesilaus got to be buds, for a minute there. he deserves friends, they both do

OTP: matthias, but also i can be down with abigail magnus ortus on occasion

nOTP: i don't think i really have one?

unpopular opinion: ortus is my little meow meow and i will not stand for any slander

song i associate with them: huh i don't think i have an ortus song yet! i'll have to think of one, hmm...

favorite picture of them: ohhhh there's this one ortus im thinking of and I've been looking for it for like half an hour now and i cannot find it for the life of me! but it's like part of four sepia-toned images of the 3rd, 6th, 7th, and 9th necro cav pairs, and the 9th one is a gif that flicks between ortus and gideon. y'all know the one... if i find the link i'll add it, but i really love the way ortus is drawn in that one...

thanks this was so fun!

[harrowharkwife]

mercymorn for the character game :>

aust!!!!!! hello!!!!

favorite thing about them: what's not to love. she's a bitch and a nag (affectionate, joking). she's the patron saint of women in stem. her best friend was a nun. she's terribly unpleasant. she's hysterical. she's so cunty. if you think about Anything about her for more than ten seconds you will just become so, so terribly sad. she would've loved fiona apple. she hated the sexy parties :(. she's responsible for the eighth house being Like That. she's the anatomist. patron saint of perpetuating the cycle. she refused to be a part of a plan that perpetuated reproductive injustice. she misses cristabel like a lung. she socked augustine in the jaw. she killed god.

least favorite thing about them: i mean, the complicity and active participation in imperialism. (she DOES get some points for actively scheming to kill john, in the end there, but that doesn't negate the harm done.) her treatment of harrow throughout HtN. i'd go on but i support women's wrongs <3

favorite line: her clenching her jaw so hard it sounded like ball bearings fed through an industrial grinder. "yuck!! pfaugh!!" "silly buggers" "it's a resurrection beast, honey!! next!! thank you!!" "you're on amphetamines and coke." "alecto! alecto! alecto!" the entire "critical mercymorn, unlovable mercymorn" monologue. ugh i love her so bad

brOTP: cristabel

OTP: cristabel, but also i've been mercymorn/wake-pilled as of late

nOTP: i mean. john jtdtdmdnttnsxrn. dios apate is Fascinating to think about but also i hate him for her rhdxntxjt. id say augustine but mercystine is a huge slay if you love toxic divorce which. i do. so,

random headcanon: was in love with cristabel and never did anything about it. singlehandedly reinvented the concept of faking orgasms, post-Resurrection.

unpopular opinion: loving her instead of giving her the "she's a bitch and a nag and i hate her" treatment, i guess?

song i associate with them: not about love by fiona apple, under the table by fiona apple

favorite picture of them: i am never not thinking about @franzias-cave 's "it is finished" mercymorn gif. horrifying. gorgeous. obsessed

thanks aust!!! i love her this was so fun

[harrowharkwife]

juno zeta

hi rowan!!!

favorite thing about them: i mean, the general aura of milf, to get the obvious out of the way, lmfao. but the real answer is her sense of humor, i think. she's fucking hysterical. her cruising for we suffer before the evac/rescue mission was even over? fucking iconic. love her.

least favorite thing about them: i mean, if i start getting into my thoughts on sixth house society and state policy, we'll be here all night. so to keep things brief, just the ways in which she upholds the sucky parts of house, and especially sixth house, society. the moments in dr. sex where she speaks for cam, brings cam along as her attaché, etc come to mind, just re: sixth house elitism in general. also i wanna clarify that this isn't me being like "juno zeta is a bad mom," it's me being like "juno zeta is the only textual depiction we get of typical sixth parenthood, and she seems to be a perfectly average/fine/good parent by sixth house cultural standards." which says more about sixth house history/society and the empire in general than it does about her in particular, IMO. but like i am always here to dunk on sixth house atrocities <3 and juno is Very much Sixth, the same way that cam and pal both are- and i mean this in both the (affectionate) sense and the (unfortunate) one. me when characters are affected by their upbringings and are products of the societies in which they were raised: 🥰

favorite line: this bit from dr. sex of her sassing her team always makes me laugh: "Archivist Zeta said, with an edged cheerfulness, “The King Undying resurrected us with eyeballs for a reason, children.”

brOTP: especially after the paul of it all, i think her and pyrrha could have a LOT to talk about. i think it could be cathartic and also terrible for both of them. i would also give my weight in gold to see a juno zeta & mercymorn interaction. i bet it'd be insane

OTP: i mean we suffer obviously, but i am also not immune to the abigail/juno agenda or the pyrrha/juno one

nOTP: men i think, she gives me lesbian vibes. i don't get the sense her and pal's father were involved at all, since the sixth only does vat womb and not gravid carry.

random headcanon: i picture her with LOOOOOONG like impractically long gray hair, which isn't canon, but it's just 'cause juno really reminds me of an old astrophysics prof i had one time who was a deeply funny woman with gray hair so long it reached the backs of her knees WHEN BRAIDED!!! when braided!!! insane.

unpopular opinion: idk if i really have one? i guess maybe just that some interpretations of her dynamic with her son don't really resonate for me, particularly interpretations that they're really close/have a great relationship. i think they're definitely civil, and i think they like each other as people, but idk. maybe it's just my mommy issues talking, but i don't think they're close like that gjctndxfndnt

song i associate with them: huh, idk if i really have one?

favorite picture of them: oh man... come to think of it idk if ive ever seen juno fanart? i gotta go look for some!!

thanks rowan this was fun!

[harrowharkwife]

Dulcinea for the character game!

hi friend!!!

i did dulcie already 😭 but i just realized i somehow forgot "the only thing one can do when faced with an enemy more powerful than oneself: fight like a trapped animal in a sack." on the 'favorite lines' bit - TERRIBLE oversight on my part, very trag!

[harrowharkwife]

for the character meme: dulcie or cam or pal or a character of ur choosing!!! hehe

!!!!! ty lem!! im gonna do my girl dulcie...

favorite thing about them: honestly just the way she's written- it never fails to make me emotional that she *is* explicitly written as being brave and strong, but tamsyn neatly sidesteps the "inspiration porn" ableist stereotype of writing a character as being brave/strong *because* they are sick. dulcie isn't brave or strong because of her illness. her strength and bravery are explicitly positioned, IMO, as being in response to surviving *ableism* and other people's condescension towards her and mistreatment of her, rather than surviving her illness itself, if that makes sense. her health is just a fact of her life, it's not moralized. which i really, really appreciate. it's a small shift, but it's very meaningful to me.

ALSO deeply special to me: her intentional and careful commitment to boundaries re: The Palamedes Of It All. a refreshing change of pace, as far as these books go vgjtjxdjt

least favorite thing about them: i mean. houser. :/

favorite line: three way tie between "truly, wonderful news for my haters," "i am sick of roses and horny for revenge," and "oops, there i go again, never doing what i'm told"

brOTP: gideon!!!!! i think it's a crying shame they've never met. i think they'd get along tremendously. the whole cytherea gideon thing was Horrid and Awful in so many ways, but it always Extra stings (in an adding-insult-to-injury sort of way) when i think about what it would have been like if gideon had REALLY met dulcinea, and not cyth. dulcie would've been a great friend for her, i think. they'd have been so good at making each other laugh

OTP: honestly these days it's cam? @ palamedes ily but get outta here gayboy it's yuri time now. plus i just love chewing on the concept of cam + comphet, and cam + subconscious internalized misogyny, and cam + gender, and cam + her relationships and interactions with other women. i think there's lots to explore there. camdulcie has a certain "when i was eight i didn't realize i had a crush on the new girl in my grade so i just wrote her a note that said 'get out of my school'" energy about it, To Me

nOTP: idk if i really have one for her, specifically? idk. ianthe or something, fuck it.

random headcanon: stoner. on all levels except physical she is taking fuckall huge bong rips. on the physical level though her lungs suck so i think she'd be a tincture girlie. she's got chronic pain she deserves it. am i projecting? you tell me

unpopular opinion: idk if this is an unpopular opinion exactly, but i always see people referring to thee rejected proposal as being something born primarily out of love/out of romantic intent? and i don't know if that's necessarily how i see it. it was CERTAINLY, and obviously, a factor. but at least from my interpretation of pal's monologue to cytherea at the end there, i get the sense that he had already accepted her boundaries in that regard, because he says he "understood that he was a child." and we also get camilla saying that his motivations in proposing were primarily a means-to-an-end way of getting her off the seventh and letting her die with dignity. iirc her exact words were like "so she could spend what time she had left with people who cared about her." like, don't get me wrong, i think pal is lying to himself if he says that being in love with dulcie wasn't PART of the motivation there. but i find it a lot more interesting in a worldbuilding and social commentary way to interpret the circumstances there as him offering, essentially, to be a hospice doctor at age 19, and marriage being the 'easiest' way to get her off the seventh/planet medical malpractice. there's an imperial misogyny ownership-through-marriage throughline there that's nauseating, as well as the implications re: disability and agency and autonomy, and i think that's all very interesting to explore. i think this view is supported in part by the paldulcie interaction in TUG, where she alludes to the idea that she was cognizant about the impact that bearing witness to death and loss up-close and personal like that changes a person, and that she didn't want to do that to pal and cam, especially given their age. i think it informa dulcie's character and grants her additional narrative agency to look at things from that angle, of her "no" being in reference to *both* the age gap AND her intentional choice to continue suffering on the seventh, rather than put two kids through being hospice caregivers and/or widowers at nineteen– no matter how many times and how sincerely they kept offering, no matter that she would've absolutely had a more peaceful and comfortable end-of-life HAD she accepted his proposal and gone to the sixth to die. i think it says a lot about her as a person, that choice. there's a quiet and meaningful responsibility to her as a person that i find fascinating. and her character is just sooooo firmly rooted in and informed by disability politics, on every level, and i feel like people don't engage with that aspect of her characterization enough!

song i associate with them: ooooh SO many, i have a whole playlist. but i think the biggest ones are

-the drama by kesha ("friday night, get too high, keep checking my pulse, am i dead yet?" / "in the next life i wanna come back, as a housecat as a housecat! i'd sleep and play in the sun, i'd be a fuckin' cute son of a gun!")

-avant gardener by courtney barnett (the whole song really, but especially the lines "the paramedic thinks i'm clever cause i play guitar, i think she's clever cause she stops people dyin'," and "i take a hit off an asthma puffer, i do it wrong, i was never good at smokin' bongs." i just think she'd love this song.)

-honorable mentions include stoned at the nail salon by lorde, life according to raechel by madison cunningham, rose-colored boy by paramore (@ palamedes, lmfao), picture me better by weyes blood, extraordinary machine by fiona apple, rubberband girl by kate bush, last words of a shooting star by mitski.

favorite picture of them: oh man well it obviously has to be my icon... art made for me by the lovely @franzias-cave !!!! based on the concept of "the woman is dying, please do her the decency of allowing her to look the part in fanart." my girl... she's a malign fairy, she's a hot-eyed wraith <3

ty lem this was so fun! i love my gworl :')

[harrowharkwife]

fanartists who draw camilla hect with a big nose yall are my BEST friends

[harrowharkwife]

send me a character and i’ll list:

favorite thing about them

least favorite thing about them

favorite line

brOTP

OTP

nOTP

random headcanon

unpopular opinion

song i associate with them

favorite picture of them

[harrowharkwife]

I had fun with the armor and dress pattern with this one!~

[harrowharkwife]

unsolicited parenting advice of the day tell your kids what to expect! If your two year old is anxious about when dad is going to get home from work, teach him to recognize what patterns indicate that dad is coming home soon! After lunch we will do an activity and then clean and THEN dad will get home. Listen when the calendar day starts with an S dad does not have to go to work!!

and if something goes wrong and today does NOT go according to the plan your little guy expects, tell him!! Hey, dad has to go to work after all today, but he will be home after lunch! Today dad has to get groceries after work, so he’ll be home later than normal. But he will return with more bananas! Focus on the positives too, give them things they can understand. Don’t just say “not today,” they understand the concept of grocery stores and unexpected trips. Just tell them the problem. You’d hate being in the dark about everything that happens to you also. Let them control their situation, even if it’s just their own emotions and expectations.

or even! Teach them to read an analogue clock! Let me tell you, church nursery in the 1.5-3.5 age group got so much less stressful and anxious for EVERYONE when I taught my kids how to read the clock. They don’t have to ask me anymore how much time is left and fish for answers I can’t give them. They know that their guardians will come for them when the long stripe on the clock touches the 2, and that if they aren’t there then then they’re LATE and they get to hold this over their parents head. Because they know their parents can be late. And they LOVE knowing when this has occurred. There is so much less anxiety.

anyway explain stuff to your kids, they want to know. This has been an unsolicited parenting advice PSA

[harrowharkwife]

[harrowharkwife]

Bumping My Head Into U So Cutely Until Blood

[harrowharkwife]

I regularly have dreams I refer to as "Big Luca Dreams", wherein my dog Luca is very big. They are my favorite dreams.

This is how big Luca is in the Big Luca Dreams

[harrowharkwife]

Bothering the beast