#zarenyia

[beedokart]

A very silly Johannes Cabal comic based on this post.

Johannes is normally muted, but this is one thing he's touchy about.

[tourma-lines]

spider form worm on a string zarenyia and zarenyia and miss smith holding hands? worm tails? the worm equivalent of hands. yeah

[profound-mystery]

I want a Johannes Cabal/ Mechanisms crossover.

[thedevilscarnival]

still absolutely fucking gobsmacked that mr howard wrote an entire short story where johannes sees potential futures for himself and one of them is a woman. how do you expect me to take anything from this besides transgender. completely normal thing to write for your definitely cis character.

[surfinthehighway]

I just finished A Long Spoon what was that lmfao???

Zarenyia and Johannes unlikely besties is my favorite thing though

[beedok]

Johannes Cabal crackship: letting Zarenyia take her best shot with Ninuka.

[nightmarecountry]

"And who are you?"

Biting her lower lip and giving the Corinthian the sort of half-lidded gaze usually reserved for high-calorie desserts, Zarenyia leaned down and offered her hand.

"Such a delicious looking little man! But you're not really a man at all, are you? Those eyes! Oh, I do enjoy a nice surprise!" She winked, all girlish giggles.

"I bet you really know how to cut up a rug!"

Something about her reminded him of high, starry ceilings and elegant formalwear: he'd tasted iridescence and social niceties, and smelled his master's disapproval when he was caught fighting with a monstrous fae-thing in one of the gardens. Fighting, or fucking, it was all the same.

The memory sank out of reach just as quickly as it had come. It wasn't his anyway, the second Corinthian reasoned, but all the same he wished he was alone. It would have been good to write it down before he forgot it again.

Understanding that he was supposed to, the Corinthian kissed the creature's extended hand, and gave to her his most charming, predatory smile. Again the ghost of memory, slipping from him. He wondered if her legs would crunch under his teeth.

"I'm called the Corinthian," he told her smoothly, because there was little use in hiding it. She reminded him of a spider-thing trickster he had met once and outwitted, but he didn't think he was interested in outwitting her. "And I'm afraid I didn't come here to dance. I come at the command of his Darkness, Dream of the Endless."

[song-writer-melo-wrath]

Silly Game Time: Are you fan of the fantasy genre? If so, what's a fantasy story (movie, show, book, game, etc.) you really like, and why?

ABSOLUTELY YES.

I feel like I talk about fantasy games I like a lot, so I'll talk about a book series I love: The Johannes Cabal series.

(These are not all the books, haha)

The series is about a necromancer named…well, Johannes Cabal. His arc throughout these books is kind of…gaining morality and a heart, in a lot of ways. He has his own goal in mind, but a lot of different events happen to him that take him on different journeys.

As for why I like it? As you might imagine, the writing is excellent, the character growth is very well done, the atmosphere is incredible, and the humour is on point.

Horst's surprise was replaced with mild amusement. “It's root beer, Johannes. Have you never had root beer?” Cabal looked suspiciously at him, then at the bottle. “People drink this?” “Yes.” “For non-medical reasons?” “That's right.” Cabal shook his head in open disbelief. “They must be insane.”

I'm very attached to some of the characters within, namely Horst and Zarenyia.

[agoodflyting]

We know that Berenice was placed in a glass coffin for her resting place; however in the early parts of the last book, Cabal mentions to Horst when discussing Alisha’s resting place that glass coffins are for “fairy-tale princesses”. Do you think this means Cabal views Berenice as his fairytale princess and he’s her knight? ;) We know that she’s quite beautiful in her “sleep” and Cabal also says that he’d move heaven and earth to save her.

Idk why I'm getting Cabal series asks now but I dig it

Alas I actually haven't read the last book yet (I'm savoring them slowly because there's so few) so I can't weigh in on the other question. This one though...

So I can't see Cabal actively thinking of himself and Berenice in those terms. He clearly prides himself on being realistic and coldly pragmatic, which doesn't fit with having those sorts of fanciful ideas. But he's also so deeply compartmentalized and out of touch with his own emotions that I think it's definitely a subconscious thing.

He's not sitting there thinking of it in those terms, but he's still doing things that are very fairy-tale-esque for the same reasons that fairy tale characters do them- he's just willfully not making the connection between those two things because it doesn't fit his self-image.

Kind of like in that one short story where he and Zarenyia are talking about mad scientists always being instinctively driven to live in high towers, and he belatedly realizes he does all his own experiments in the top floor of a very tall house.

So yes and no? Deep down inside, I think that's pretty close to how he feels about himself and Berenice... but the idea is so counter to how he views himself and he's so good at shutting out any thoughts that don't serve his present goal that he probably doesn't realize that's what he's doing. To the point where I think he would be SO OFFENDED if Horst pointed it out to him.

I think Cabal is a good example of the 'still waters run deep' trope. He's a lot more emotional and probably feels things a lot more keenly than he shows anyone, including himself.

[mx-incognito]

The Himboification of Horst Cabal

Or, How Plot Devices Function in Subtle Ways 

(an analysis)

This post contains many many spoilers for Fall of the House of Cabal, so if you have not read that far this post isn’t going to make much sense yet, but it WILL ruin things for you later. 

I’ve been reading comments for years about how Horst suddenly loses all of his brain cells in FoTHoC, as evidenced in several scenes involving the re-introduction of Zarenyia, and then again when Horst and Leonie are in Sepulchre. 

In the first instance, Horst is meeting Zarenyia for the first time, and has met Leonie Barrow for the second. It was established earlier that Horst meets Miss Barrow during the events of Maple Durham-- which have yet to be revealed. Horst is, as ever, a ladies man, and is outgoing, smiling, flirtatious and generally in good-humor. None of these traits are for-or-against establishing intelligence, but his interests. We already know that Johannes is the more academic of the two, while Horst wanted to be a Silver Fox and/or perhaps a ladies’ hairdresser. 

Again, not marks for or against his measure of intelligence. 

However, that does seem to change the moment he and Leonie are on The Path of Five Ways and find themselves in Sepulchre. Horst, finding himself restored to vivacious life, is not at all interested in the mystery that unfolds, focused instead on such things as bacon rolls and the Lovely Assistant’s décolletage. One could argue that this distraction- a sudden fulfillment of his Heart’s True Desire- was a distraction. This ‘challenge’ put forth by The Path isn’t for him.  It’s for Leonie, and her alone: and so The Path creates a distraction that hinders his attention, handicapping him and rendering him little more than a Sidekick for Miss Barrow as she solves the Question put before her. 

That is not to say that Horst is not left without deeper questions of his own as the tableaux ends and he finds himself a vampire once more. 

Later, Horst and the others are faced down by Varney the Vampire and his Parliament. This is the Path’s challenge for Horst, and an obvious disadvantage to the rest of our anti-heroic group. As we saw in JC:TN with Horst’s interaction with Ted (and the fallout thereafter), Horst leads Varney through a brilliant confrontation that places Horst’s understanding of Social Psychology on full display, masterfully manipulating an entire Parliament of Vampires to not only turn on their creator, but name Horst Lord of the Dead.  He wins the fight by remaining focused while cracking jokes that make Varney flip his lid, and then takes advantage of the blind emotion. If that’s not some big brain shit idk what is. 

Horst does this again later on, when, in aid of Zarenyia, he provokes all of Hell and punches Satan right in his gob. He’s a Cabal, through and through. 

Overall, I really enjoyed the way this story was written, as if Cabal’s action of bringing others with him on a Path meant for (1) fractured it and caused it to carve off a special challenge for each of them. Causing each of them to do some deeper soul-searching as a result. There’s a beautifully rich tapestry of references woven into each chapter; some referencing earlier Cabal lore, while others point to the greater world of Short Stories and Authors who made these genres the rich worlds that they are.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk ♥

[necromancatrix]

im not sure if you’re still part of the johannes cabal fandom but i was hoping you could provide a few details for me. ive been interested in reading the books for a while now; however im not the biggest fan of too much romance in the books i read. i’ve seen some ppl shipping cabal with a character named leonie barrow and i was wondering if anything happens or is implied/suggested between the two? ive heard that she’s supposed to be like his dead lover (berenice) so i was just curious. like, is it a canon ship or is it more open to interpretation. does anything happen with berenice? i also really don’t mind spoilers btw

Hey, it's been a while but I do still enjoy the series! Also: honestly, there's not a significant Cabal/Leonie romance, at least by my read. She looks like Berenice and... other people saw chemistry in Detective (book 2) but I personally didn't. She's not a main character in every book and, at this point, they definitely haven't ended up together. They do have a... kind of weird kiss in book 5, which to me personally came a bit out of nowhere, but either way they don't end the book as a couple. Absolutely nothing happens with Berenice because she spends the whole series dead (I'd like to see... any of what their relationship looked like/see her get some agency, but that's a different conversation.) Also, while it's not romance I feel like I should maybe mention it: the character named Zarenyia who appears in A Long Spoon and book 5 is a succubus and while there's nothing incredibly graphic there is... a lot of her feeding and it kind of being played off as a joke when she, y'know, murders lots of people via sex. I find her endearing but ymmv for whether that's content you want to engage with. I hope you enjoy the series if you do read it!

[beedokart]

Johannes Cabal silliness.

You do not want to know what Zarenyia said.

[tourma-lines]

cabals as worm on a strings. worms on a strings? worms on strings? yeah those things. you get it

started drawing these as a bit and also to procrastinate on artfight, then got Way too into drawing them

ref pic for horst under the cut

[kelyon]

just bc I saw your tags (and also we've been mutuals like forever but never speak so HI). The spider lady is Zarenyia from the Cabal Brothers series by Jonathan Howard. I recommend it to everyone. It has all you could ever need in horror/fantasy. Ghosts! Zombies! Cheery succubi spider demons who are besties with pedantic necromancers! Himbo vampires! Steampunk airships! It's good and everyone should read it.

Good to know!

[thedevilscarnival]

upon reaching book 5, i can say that the question of "is johannes cabal an egg" is pretty much answered by his only 4 friends consisting of 3 women* and his brother. sapphic friendgroup and also horst is there

[surfinthehighway]

Last Cabal Liveblog/Thought Dump

I finished The Fall of the House of Cabal a couple days ago. I do like the ending a lot. It leaves enough room for more Cabal adventures (and I'm really disappointed there haven't been any more). Also, Cabal sweetheart name reveal (I was starting to think "Berenice" was fanon). And Alisha reuniting with Horst was so sweet.

Johannes has come so far from his selfish persona from the early books to someone who is not holding himself back from doing good and more openly cares about his friends. It's really neat to see. (I also can't help but think about Johannes rationalizing saving Alisha by saying that Berenice wouldn't want him to let her boil. A decade or more apart, re-kindled romance or not, I do hope that Cabal is the type of person she would still like. Especially considering where he comes from earlier in the series.)

I do like the early character of Johannes, but he strikes me as someone who was hurt by the world and put up this defense mechanism of "I don't care about anyone" despite, well, most of the things he does. Even in the first book, he has that whole rant about obliterating death which seems equal parts altruistic and egotistic-- and it seemed like he had always planned to cheat the Devil out of the Barrows' souls. (As a side note, I did not liveblog my reading of the first book, but I loved that book up until the third act. Because it seemed to me like Johannes was only ever planning to actually give the Devil the souls of the wicked, Horst's death seemed completely pointless and a result of Johannes not communicating his plan with him. There was so much baggage between those two. These last books, especially The Brothers Cabal, did so much to remedy my gripes with them lol. I can't see them being so out of sync with each other in the later books.)

That said, not knowing what happens to Berenice is going to make me insane. Also, Zarenyia and Leonie adventures will be interesting (I remember something on Twitter about a possible spinoff idea JLH had regarding this? I completely forgot about that until typing this now), but I do hope Miss Smith gets to hang out with them again. I believe in my heart she does. Also, I'm glad they're going to help Minty :)