#nothing to do with the necro cav dynamics

[phalangemedes]

this is a vast oversimplification of the argument but:

every time I see someone say Cam is prone to sacrifice (re: "because she's a caaavalieeer") I just think about Palamedes splattering himself over the moldy plaster-work of Canaan with his "best" end goal being Styx Gaol before becoming feral ghost brunch... on the off chance he might save his best friend and his newest friends???

he gave the marionette corpse of his first crush turbo cancer and micronova'd himself, and her, for a slither of chance Cam would survive

and he made sure she didn't see him do it

he made sure she didn't see him do it

[lockedtombbrainworms]

Patriarchy and the Nine Houses

I've been mulling this one over in my brain on long drives recently, and as I'm currently at home resting up after an insanely busy few days and also some sort of illness flareup, I want to put some of what I've come up with into writing. These are coming from the perspective of a somewhat masculine-presenting queer trans woman with some degree of familiarity with anarcha-feminism, a lot more familiarity with anarchism in general, but not really much academic feminist background. I'm also white, which may well impact what I'm taking away from this here.

Something else that might influence what I've written here are the frankly insane doses of decongestants I'm currently on, but here goes.

So firstly, I don't think 'Patriarchy' as common feminist discourse uses the term exists within the Houses.

In terms of "Evidence Against", for one, there is seemingly no gendered violence in the Nine Houses - I've seen more than one post about how at no point does Gideon Nav feel like she's in any sort of danger of sexual assault or anything like that from the men she interacts with - she's quite happy to walk into Silas and Colum's room, and at no point does the narrative mention her being concerned about sexual violence while she, a teenage butch lesbian, is trapped in a room with an older man whose intentions towards her are unknown. She gets worried, sure, but mostly about swords or necromancy, not sexual assault. Our Griddle may be a bit sheltered, sure, but she's read a lot of adult-oriented comics, which in my experience tend to be fairly lurid about any and every fucked up thing that happens in the society that produced them, and none of those, nor anything she's been told by Aiglamene or witnessed on the Ninth, seem to have instilled any fear of patriarchal sexual violence in her.

The houses also don't seem to have a concept of homophobia or particularly rigid gender roles - at absolutely no point does anyone take issue with Gideon's sexuality and gender presentation, despite various other characters being absolute shits to her in various other ways throughout the book - Crux, Naberius, Silas, the Reverend Parents - at no point is it even hinted at that any of them were homophobic or shitty about gender-non-conformity. I don't really think you can get rid of any of those things entirely without also at least taking a big chunk out of patriarchy, if not eliminating it - they're all too tightly linked together.

I honestly don't think you can describe, for instance, Palamedes or Silas or Naberius as benefitting from "male privilege" in the context of the books without getting into some weird gender-essentialist bollocks about how being male Just Does That For You, at which point you may well be sliding into terf shit and I don't really think we have much of a common ground to discuss this from. The fandom's treatment of gender (and race, while we're at it) is another matter, but in the context of the books, I genuinely don't see "male privilege" or "patriarchy" existing within the wider society of the Nine Houses. You can look at the necro/cav dynamic as a sort of metaphor for gender, and I do consider them through that lense in some cases, but it's not a 1:1 map for gender and I don't think it's trying to be.

You could argue there's some weird patriarchal ideas of manhood in Mortus' treatment of Ortus - the guy very clearly abused his son to try to "toughen him up" and make him into a warrior when Ortus wanted nothing more than to write poetry, but while that's arguably written with a patriarchal bent to it from a doylist perspective, at no point does anyone actually tell Ortus he's less of a man in the text. What they do tell him is that he's less of a cavalier, which is why I actually view that dynamic as much more of an exploration of cavalier-hood as a metaphor for gender - 'toxic cavalierhood' rather than toxic masculinity, albeit via a dynamic that's unforunately very familiar to a lot of us.

The big flaw in my argument is that, unfortunately, in the literal sense of the word, the Nine Houses very much are a capital-P Patriarchy. They're run by an immortal God-Emperor dude with some fairly intense catholic shit going on! John actually was raised in a patriarchal society, and while his experiences as a he remembers it, and while he seems to have done an OK job of not passing homophobia, misogyny or strict gender roles onto the society he built after literally fucking nuking the one he grew up in, I don't know if someone in his position of power is really in a position to unlearn anything more at this point. To a lesser extent we see it with Augustine as well - the Saint of Patience definitely reads as a misogynist at times during the text (telling Mercymorn "you have made yourself unlovable" and his whole thing about Ianthe chosing to be broken spring to mind), and while he may not remember the pre-resurrection world, it still shaped him (and his brother, who is as much a part of the man we meet in HtN as the original Augustine who was resurrected).

Also none of this is to say the society of the Nine Houses is perfect - far from it! There's all sorts of fucked up abuse dynamics present, and the entire thing has been a fucked-up expansionist empire since it found someone to do expansionist imperialism on about five millennia before the story takes place, before which it was still a fucked-up death cult living on the reanimated wreckage of a dead solar system. If anything, the lack of misogyny, homophobia, rigid gender roles and the like are a parable - it doesn't matter how inclusive and egalitarian the society of the imperial core is when it perpetuates brutal violence on the imperial periphery.

[the-everqueen]

the thing i loved about nona is it brings to the foreground one of the major themes of the series, which is, “who are we in relation to each other?” how do we define ourselves around other people? how do we enact relationships (platonic, familial, romantic, communal, religious)? how do certain ways of being cause harm to others? how do we minimize harm? how do we enact love? 

that’s why i loved Paul. the context that Cam and Pal are in (cavalier/necromancer) does not allow for a reciprocal dynamic. Pal literally cannot bodyshare with Cam without killing her. but that was true before his (physical) death in GtN: the lyctorhood process would’ve killed Cam, too. Cam can’t kill Pal, because she loves him (and we can argue whether it’s kinder for her to let go and grieve) but also because people other than her are depending on his knowledge to save a lot of innocent lives. Paul is one possible response to the previous cav/necro dynamic. a more reciprocal, equitable one, in that both parties ‘die.’ but also nothing is lost. there is rebirth. is it The Answer? probably not! it is perfect? also probably not! but Muir isn’t looking for a perfect answer. it’s about how we work with what we have left. what do we do in the wake of all this violence? how can we reduce harm? what does it mean to choose love?

[gorgynei]

Dunno if you've read The Locked Tomb Series but a Locked Tomb/Wednesday AU with Wednesday as Harrow and Enid as Gideon. I know nothing else about the AU really matches but shush

i very much have read tlt!! i dont post about it so much now because i havent read nona yet -w-; putting enid and wednesday into gideon and harrows dynamic would be so wild and.. *thinks about the ending of gtn*..... oughouhg painful.

i think in a more general locked tomb au enid as a cavalier and wednesday as a necromancer (with xavier and ajax also being cavaliers, trying to pair with wednesday) WOULD be super super fun. plus, necromancy powers fit wednesday extremely well, and a necro who refuses to pair with a cav is a fun idea. ooh im having fun thoughts about this now. wednesday would be a 9th house necro, obviously, but i could also see her in the 6th. enid could be 3rd or 4th (depending on how u wanna take her family) and i think it could also be fun to make her similar to coronabeth in that she's pushed into being a necro but ends up as a cav? to mirror her werewolf things..

u can do a lot with this. good au concept anon

[saltwaterconfessions]

okay y'all i'm over on twitter here and i make quite a few mini threads about headcanons or things i'm thinking about, but i wanted y'all to have them too!! so here's the collection from this past month.

oh god. it could be canon or au. gideon who carries tissues or a hanky for harrow's stress/necromantic overload nosebleeds....... yeah 😭

working this hc into my fic but y'all..... harrow painting her nails, sitting on the floor, minding her business. gideon coming home & plopping down next to her, offering her hands. harrow likes to get a little fancy w her nails - she's grown them out, she likes dark jewel tones but for gideon she does a straightforward black. takes her hands, preps her nails, bites her tongue on a joke about how short she keeps them, listens to gideon's stories about her day as she applies the nail polish. gideon won't care if the paint's messy but harrow makes them neat and pristine, carefully wipes away any excess. her own nails are almost perfect so gideon's should be the same. nothing but the best for her best friend ❤ meanwhile she's viciously ignoring her impulse to lean up and kiss gideon's temple or cheek or jaw. it's right there and gideon is just such a stunning person. harrow hurts when she thinks about it. this is what they have and she won't change it for anything. but God, the empty hollow of her wanting is. it's hard to manage. she knows how to live with the ache, though. it's fine. she's fine. (gideon loves her, of course, gideon is made of love and it colors every relationship she has. she would do anything for harrow. anything, but especially keep her feelings locked down tight. this is what they have and she won't ask for more. that'd be a dick move on her part.)

it ruins my life that all harrow ever had to do was OPEN HER MOUTH. TRY TO TRUST SOMEONE. ASK FOR HELP. COMMUNICATE. her relationship with gideon blooms as soon as they leave the Ninth. gideon's capacity for loyalty was ALWAYS THERE HARROW JUST DIDN'T DESERVE IT. it ruins me. this is also so fascinating to me because it's a duality. at the same time that their relationship becomes something New and Lovely away from their trauma, gtn is also a corruption arc and the cav/necro dynamic that gideon sacrifices herself for IS AWFUL. HORRIBLE. EXPLOITATIVE. and honestly this deserves like, a whole fucking essay, but the capacity for duality in this series is. like it's so stunning to me rn and i think it's so valuable. the text has room for both things to be true. (ALSO!! i do want to write about this at some point but i need to sit with it and figure out how best to express what i mean!)

im sorry to be problematic but i think possessiveness is sexy. the idea of harrow HATING cytherea from the very first second she gets her hands on HARROW'S CAV. harrow wanting to rip that bitch apart the whole time they're at canaan. resenting the fuck out of gideon's attachment to her. knowing the cav is dead but not knowing For Why. not being able to express her fears or gain gideon's trust until it's way too late. finally saying STEP OFF BITCH as her and her cav bring hell. it's just so fuckin g TASTY.

muir's use of character voice just. like i KNOW it's a very basic aspect of her writing style but i'm so enamored with it. gtn vs the end of gtn. the 2nd pov of htn vs the canaan chapters vs the end of htn vs the epilogue. as yet unsent. the catnip of her writing- IT GETS ME!

i will and first love / late spring by mitski are griddlehark songs

honey by halsey is a griddlehark song and i'm not a woman, i'm a god by halsey is a Harrow song but Spicy. maybe even a Harrow Nova song. first of all, "i am not a woman i'm a god" feels like a Gender Mood for our local "best necromancer of her generation." good enough reason for me! but secondly, the chorus is defiant in a way that feels like a Harrow who would push back against the war crime of her existence. a Harrow who doesn't carry the obligation to her House and role as the Reverend Daughter.