#if anyone reblogs this with some sort of rebuttal about griddlehark's true love or whatever i'm just gonna block you

[ossifer]

perfect lyctorhood was coined by mercymorn.

“You lied to us, John,” she said. And, with a sob in her voice: “There is a perfect Lyctorhood … a perfect Lyctor process that preserves the cavalier, and you let us think there wasn’t. You let us think we’d cracked it … You let us think it had to be a one-way energy transfer … but nobody had to die. Alfred, Pyrrha, Titania, Valancy, Nigella, Samael, Loveday, Cristabel … You watched us kill our cavaliers in cold blood, and none of them had to die. You had already done it yourself. But you had done it perfectly!!”

you cannot separate the concept of lyctorhood from john and alecto, or even the concept of necromancer and cavalier—both concepts originated with john and alecto. in fact, lyctorhood was conceived as an emulation of their bond: “You let us think we’d cracked it [...] You had already done it yourself. But you had done it perfectly!!” “Then, when the disciples come to you and say the word Lyctor, she does not understand that they want the thing you did to her—she watches as you watch … watch them misunderstand the process.”

in practice it was an imperfect and misunderstood imitation. one that was imperfect because john lied, because he needed his loved ones to be something he could touch—“needed them to be my hands … my fingers”—and from that lie came his saints, the emperor's fists and gestures. it is flawed, an imperfect copy—mercymorn says that john and alecto's bond is an example of perfect lyctorhood, that he'd done it 'perfectly'.

He said, I took you into myself and we became one. He said, meditatively, I mean, I tried. There was so much of you—you weren’t the small, stained soul of a normal human being. You were so much bigger than that. I opened my mouth and tried to cram you inside … you didn’t fit. [...] He said, So I dropped to my knees here, right … I scooped dirt into my mouth … ate until I vomited. I gathered up the bloody earth … I realised you were too much for me. This is the problem, the incorporation, this is the hardest part … It’s the human instinct, to take. [...] He said, From my blood and bone and vomit I conjured up a beautiful labyrinth to house you in. I was terrified you’d find some way to escape before I was done.

perfection is trying to fit something inside yourself you can't, choking the earth and cramming it in your mouth, then realising you can't so you devise a labyrinth to trap 'her' within. john says the human instinct is to take—and necromancy takes. it runs on death.

paul—the product of “something very nearly perfect … the perfect friendship, the perfect love”, conceived of as true lyctorhood, “a gravitational singularity creating something new”—is born of a mutual death. their birth is not an ideal thing, per palamedes: “I am saying we have found the best and truest and kindest thing we can do in this moment.”

what is lyctorhood? the joining of a necromancer and cavalier. one flesh, one end. “one flesh, one end” was conceived of by two people who died because of john's lie—died in pursuit of emulating his and alecto's example.

the necromancer and cavalier relationship—descended from john and alecto's example—hinges on an inequality between the two, one that is hegemonically enforced. the cavalier as the protector, the attendant, the lyctoral power source and defense mechanism.

i don't understand—how can something be perfect when it is tied to this? when it is descended from the man who believes the human instinct is to take, who conjured a labyrinth to trap the earth within? how can any lyctorhood be perfect or true, when even paul's example relies on death?

perfect lyctorhood was coined by mercymorn: the second saint to serve the king undying, lied to by john, and implicitly coerced into ascension via a suicide pact formed by cristabel and alfred. lyctorhood was conceived of as an emulation of john and alecto's bond. perfect lyctorhood is a perfect recreation of that—a lyctoral process that preserves the cavalier.

the perfect in perfect lyctorhood stands for putting your hands around the neck of the earth, choking on it, and then trapping it in a labyrinth hewn from your own blood, bone, and vomit.