#nicodemus archleone

[narastories]

today I'm thinking about that time when Nicodemus offered a jewelry box to Harry, and Harry, bless him just snarked and acted like it was a marriage proposal

[drawsdenfiles]

1973.

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Skin Games by Mika Blackfield

[alwaysanovice]

Nicodemus: Great time to be a hater. Many things suck and many people are stupid.

[anotherramblingfangirl]

Nicodemus @ Grey when he goes down mid-heist to a shot through the chest:

[kaphkas]

I don’t know how you said it back in the day, but I’ll bet you anything her first word was “dada.”

[ankh-morporkianpostalworker]

Made some memes about The Dresden Files, mostly post-Changes. Spoilers.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Nickleheads, Knights, and Harry's Half-Vampire Ex-Girlfriend

We were introduced to Michael Carptenter as a Knight of the Cross back in Grave Peril, but this is where we really get a good sense of the Knights as an organization within the Catholic Church, and it's where we learn about who they're there to...save, strictly speaking, if possible, but let's be real. They kill Denarians to try to keep cursed silver bits off the streets. This is going to be relevant literally for the rest of the series as far as anyone knows. Oh and also, somebody stole the Shroud of Turin and Harry's half-vampire ex-girlfriend is in town. Let's talk Death Masks.

Spoilers abound below the break, so head's up if you're on your first Dresden read through and don't want MASSIVE THINGS SPOILED.

Also, Content Warning for sex, blood, and violence. Take care of you first and we will catch you on the flip side if you choose to skip over this one!

You cannot say that the worldbuilding in the Dresden Files is anything but thorough, and apparently that also includes shitty daytime TV personalities, because Harry opens this book by basically having a low-key anxiety attack while trying not to take out every single piece of technology in a television studio during a "debate" between himself, Mort Lindquist, and Paolo Ortega. It's literally the opening to a bad joke: A medium, a vampire, and a wizard walk into a TV studio to discuss whether paranormal creatures and beings are real.

Unfortunately, our vamp also takes the time to challenge the Wizard to a duel, which the White Court is all too happy to accept as a way out of the war that Harry started. To complicate matters further, the Shroud of Turin has been stolen and the Knights of the Cross, Denarians, and Susan are in town, so Harry isn't having a terribly good week. And then he also has to stop Nicodemus from beginning a plague.

Honestly, so many things about this book ANNOY me. Listicles were, at one time, popular on the interwebz, so let's go old school here with the irksome stuff.

Kinky Vampire Sex As a Lifesaving Measure. All right. I get that vampires being sex coded isn't new; from early works like the Vampyre to iconic classics like Carmilla and Dracula to modern reimaginings like Interview with a Vampire and Twilight, vampires have been sex coded. I think what irritates me about this example is the framing. Like, we can't just have "my girlfriend is half vampire and we have kinky, mind-blowing vampire sex," no. We have to have "My control is slipping and I will literally murder you if you don't...*checks notes*...tie me up like a hog for slaughter and sex the evil vampiric tendencies out of me." Like...IT'S A FLESHY BUNDLE OF NERVES, NOT A MAGIC WAND. CAN WE PLEASE NOT FRAME THIS AS "HARRY DRESDEN'S MAGICAL ANTI-VAMPIRE PENIS"????? And just to clarify: I'm not out here to kink shame anyone. My objection is to the hypermasculinity and toxic masculinity of the framing of this sex scene. We can still have kinky vampire sex, but maybe let's have it be enthusiastic and fun rather than "If we don't bang right now, one or both of us is going to die." There is an element of coercion there than I don't love, especially not when the author then also frames it as "my dick literally saved my girlfriend's life." If you want kinky monster sex, the just have kinky monster sex. Don't make it weird.

Heroic Sacrifice Is Fine Because I Had Terminal Cancer Anyway. Hello Ableism, My Old Friend. The trope that a chronically ill, terminally ill, or disabled character dies to save an able-bodied character is inherently ableist, full stop. It straight out SAYS that the able-bodied life we have saved is more valuable than the disabled life we lost. And not only does Butcher have Shiro pull this, we get a back-dated letter at the end from Shiro to Harry going, "Hey, I knew I was dying and I hope that makes you feel better about me being horribly tortured to death on your behalf. Dressing up what is essentially a "bury your disabled" trope in a heroic sacrifice does not make it less ableist and shitty. (For those of you who want more on disability tropes and why they're ableist, I have written a literal book on it, and also please see this TV Tropes page.) I don't have a lot to actually SAY about this one, other than endlessly screaming into the void about the blatant ableism throughout this series and wondering why the HELL I was surprised when Butcher disabled and fridged Murphy. Please join me in screaming, there will be throat coat tea afterwards.

Medical Science Failed? Let's Try Religion. I get that Marcone is as guilty as it is possible for a sociopath to be over not being able to fix a little girl's coma--and we're just going to skim over the ableism and objectification inherent in her being a literal plot point; she could be a broken lamp and this plot point still works--but my dude...SERIOUSLY??? You are Gentleman Johnny Marcone. You have the resources to get the best doctors in the world in the room, and when that doesn't work, you have the resources to get the best scientists on the problem. You even have the resources to get the best magical healers in the room if you want to. But no. You rolled religion and went for the freaking Shroud of Turin. Which would make sense for Nicodemus or any of the Denarians, but for the mobster who business-ified the mob? I suppose this does set up Marcone's slide to the Denarians later in the series, but his WHOLE THING is being the calculated businessman. I don't love this. I also don't love the history of miracle cures in religion being used to moralize illness and disability, but frankly this little piece of scene is too small to really dive into for that.

So yeah, this book is weird about sex, it's ableist, and it's weird about moralizing illness and disability. And that is so obnoxious because we don't HAVE to be weird about this stuff. Plenty of other books manage to address these topics without getting cishet white boy weird about it.

This is also the book where Harry is half tricked, half coerced into taking up Lasciel's coin, and that's a whole thing for the next several books too.

Was there stuff I liked about this book? I mean, objectively yes. Ivy--The Archive--is never not tragically delightful on the page, and the vampire duel at Wrigley Field is damn fun. I also really LIKE Sanya and Shiro on the page, they're great characters with surprising depth for secondary characters.

I will also admit to a deep love for the Denarians. As villains, they're powerful, unhinged, scary, and delightful, and the Nicklehead books are, in general, some of my favorites of the series. Skin Game and Small Favor in particular are my top two in the series.

Overall, however, Death Masks isn't one of my favorite Dresden books, and it really leans into ableist tropes that drive me up the flippin' wall.

[reginaldqueribundus]

has this been done yet

[badassbutterfly1987]

Nicodemus and his snake in a daemon au

look @narastories it's your snakey boy

base source

[narastories]

a low-quality gif set because I had this idea for a while and today for some reason I couldn't get it out of my head

[image description: a gifset of a scene from the movie Hellraiser (2022) with a quote overlaid on it. In the scene, Goran Višnjić is playing Roland Voight, talking and smiling. The quote is from the book Small Favor by Jim Butcher from the Dresden Files series. The text reads: "It was the kind of smile you see at country clubs and in boardrooms and on crocodiles. /end id]

[drawsdenfiles]

21. Ritual

[narastories]

Yes! Thank you, friend, I'm truly touched 💖

he's the worst man alive he's the love of my life he's covered in blood he's weird about god and he's a lot, he's not perfect, but most importantly he's bisexual

[alwaysanovice]

Nicodemus: I...I am so angry right now, I could punch a nun. Deirdre: I think you would do that on a good day. Nicodemus: ... Nicodemus: Yeah I would.

[anotherramblingfangirl]

You know, there’s a lot of talk to be made about the fact that age wise Lord Raith and Nicodemus Archleone are contemporaries - about the implications there, at what point their paths first crossed and where were they in their lives when it did, in what manner has it since even if indirectly. 

Whether mutual gain, competing, neutral etc...for example they both knew Margaret, Nicodemus even knew of Thomas which bar the Raiths no-one else seems to have known about. Which implies contact even after she left Lord Raith and went into hiding and/or for some reason Nicodemus was using Anduriel to spy on them. 

It’s interesting to think of!

Although my brain has also merged the really fun concept of this post with that speculation - and the combined implications has made thinking of both things together even more chaotic (and great for it with these two). 

[kaphkas]

@narastories resquested Nicodemus (and Harry)! This ended up as a semi-tribute to her fantastic fic sword fights, etymology, nosy friends and pillow talk among broken glass, which convinced me of the merits of Harry/Nic despite my staunch allegiance to wizardbaron.

+ a bonus sketch!