#And I have other posts I might make in which I feel sad about Cytherea

[demethinkstoomuch]

Cytherea and John have a lot in common in terms of goals and motives and techniques, when you adjust for scale: they acted out of betrayal and hurt and anger and the vengeance of love -- and those feelings were entirely right, entirely fair. So, they pursued those as their top priorities, regardless -- because of -- the body count.

And, in choosing the vindication of those feelings above all else, they destroyed more or less the “all else” part of things. Cytherea was lied to, Cytherea was abandoned to her pain by people who made sympathetic noises and maybe believed those noises (but not enough). Cytherea killed innocent people, because she decided that, more than, say, confronting John directly, or any other recourse, she wanted to smash everything that had been made in his image. She didn’t actually accomplish the goal of her anger, she just did some murders. John Gaius was lied to. John Gaius was abandoned to the world’s pain by people who made sympathetic noises about cows and maybe believed those noises (but probably not, and definitely not enough). John Gaius...You see how this goes?

Furthermore, we then get to the how, to the justification, the predatory interest in people who could have reminded them of something they’d lost, one of the driving forces of that anger -- even though, push comes to shove, they’ve already decided what the most important thing in the world is, and it’s not the people they’re making feel important. And how that plays against the self-assurances that they aren’t exactly lying -- see the way Cytherea insists she was only giving hypotheticals, and compare it to John’s “What’s the difference [between the truth and the story you tell yourself]?” And I think that shared balancing act, the one between their interest in those reminders, that need to not be lying, and their vengeance, is kind of what allows for them both to have that slightly self-aware air, occasionally a little apologetic, like ‘Oh, it’s reasonable that you would be hurt, all things considered’ vibe that you see throughout HtN’s climax and a bit during Palamedes’ parlor room scene at the end of GtN. They’ve picked their number 1 priority (VENGEANCE), and they know the thing they are prioritizing is true and valid (that is, they’re angry and they have every right to be angry), so they don’t need to necessarily defend themselves against every sling and arrow along the way. They can be nice, or funny, or kind, without it ever chnging the bottom line.

That similarity is...Interesting. She is the only OG lyctor we meet who was born post-resurrection, in the world and Empire John was forming. Besides just giving her a motive, I think this says something about his world, and the ways in which it’s not new. After all, John was made by our world, and he’s done the same thing -- including the same things as it would have done, if with some specific modifications. There’s a sort of intergenerational trauma happening there, where each round makes some changes in scope or technique compared to the previous round, who did such awful things, but keep doing some of the same awful things, just a little differently.

Cytherea is John’s creation, and her story is John’s story, writ very small. A prelude, in a way, to certain concepts about anger and forgiveness and trauma and priorities that are still unfolding throughout the series. 

But now I won’t be able to think about the John bits of Nona without thinking of Palamedes saying, scathingly, “You couldn’t help but prattle about why you killed innocent people, as though your reasons were interesting.” Which, honestly, yes, they are. I would not be here if they weren’t. But also, yeah, you tell ‘em about their horrific priorities, king. 

[mouse-mayhem]

Which brings me to my last post before I update my pinned and then go dormant for a while.

Shortly after introductions, I moved into a new house. And we have come to suspect for a variety of reasons, the wooden structure of our house is infested with mites, and it's not feasible to treat the entire house.

I attempted to get medicine for my girls to help them deal with this, but my vet claimed quote, "mites in mice is completely unheard of" despite it being one of the most common issues mice owners have, and made no further effort to assist me.

I have been using a remedy that kills the mites and is making some headway, but I have to apply it every single week, and unfortunately with the source of the infestation being incurable, there's not really anything I can do except continue this method.

That said, between my vet not being as trustworthy as I originally thought, me having no other veterinary options besides her, and this persistent issue, I have decided not to continue owning mice in the future.

I will continue to give my remaining 5 girls my entire heart and soul and spoil them to the end of their days, but it would be unjust to bring more mice into this situation to continue the cycle, and I cannot rehome mice with parasites that could be passed along.

So, these 5 will be the last for the foreseeable future. I hope to get a long time with them yet, but when my 2nd to last sweetheart passes, I'll have to put down the last so she's not alone, whoever it may be.

Of my original 6, 3 are still with us. They're around a year and 8-9 (maybe 10) months old now, and certainly seniors. Noelle is particularly creeping up in age and I notice signs that she might not have much left regularly, but as long as she is not in distress I don't plan to do anything about it.

The other 2 girls are about 4-9 months in range between Ceda and Cytherea respectively, I'm not sure specifically. But hopefully they'll get to live well into their senior age as well before that time comes.

It's been a really hard and upsetting decision for me, as I love my mice deeply and they bring so much to my life, but I feel obligated to do the right thing as a pet owner, even if that means me not being in their lives / owning said pets.

Maybe someday if we can get to the root of this problem and I can ensure a sterilized environment for my babies, and find a vet who's actually dependable, I will do it again. I never planned on getting out of owning mice, so this is a blow.

Sorry for the sad news after so much radio silence, but it's not for nothing.

[auber-dee]

I'm turning this into its own post because I ran off on a tangent, but on this post @kyraneko said:

Other question: as revealed by the endward chapters of Ht9, the Emperor stands accused of sabotaging the perfect-lyctorhood process to keep it from those of his first batch of lyctors who could still make use of it.

What might he have in play to keep his new batch of Lyctors from figuring it out?

Or did he panic the first time around and figure it’s a reasonable way of covering his tracks to let the new group “discover” the process, oh so tragic that it was developed too late for his first group, sad sad, but hey, now nobody has to die anymore?

And that’s actually one of my big questions re: John. Because some of the things he says earlier in HtN imply that he did not expect any of the house heirs to be able to work out perfect lyctorhood — IIRC he said something about wanting people to choose the sacrifice willingly, in full understanding of what they were giving up, which to me says dead cavs moreso than just “now necro and cav both are chased by planet ghosts that maybe cannot actually kill us.”

I honestly suspect that John didn’t think any of them would be smart enough to figure it out, since the trials were all set up to lead people in the “Gotta kill the Cav” direction. And that was a fair supposition — only Palamedes, that we know of, truly believed in perfect lyctorhood as the intended end state, and his belief was a matter of philosophy as much as science. But also, leaving something like that to chance because of course it won’t happen is very in keeping with other things we know about John “I will just be extremely careful about bleeding for 10 000 years” Gaius, who suffers deeply from Thinks He’s The Smartest Person In The Room Syndrome.

I also have Questions about whether or not he knew/suspected that Cytherea was headed to the First to mess things up, and figured that was a win-win, in terms of the pressure prodding the kids along toward imperfect lyctorhood, and hopefully getting rid of a rogue lyctor in the process… This is, after all, the same man who asked Gideon Prime to try to murder Harrow lots on the off-chance it would fix her.

On the other hand! I am a little bit in love with your second possibility, because that a) is hilarious, and b) also strikes me as very John. The man is shown to be sorrowful/remorseful about a lot of how things “had to” play out, and I think a bunch of that is genuine. At least, it comes off as genuine to me when he berates himself during his conversation with Harrow in chapter 37 of HtN (“Ten thousand years, and I am still such a fool" and “Damn it, John — damn it.”). I think he knows that he’s done a lot of awful, horrible, unforgivable things; he’s just convinced himself that it’s how it had to be, and it was all for the greater good, and he’s the smartest so he’s right about this, and, and, and… I can absolutely see that man being like “Oh how wonderful, these new kids have figured out Lyctorhood v2.0, that was so clever of them, SUCH a tragedy that absolutely nobody knew about this a myriad ago.”

(Can you tell I have Feelings about John? He's just irredeemably awful. I love him.)