Ramblings

And in this version Nelly Dean is like, the night waitress/runner (not the owner) of a 24hr diner in the middle of nowhere, and everybody else are just patrons that have been coming regularly through the years (they are all the only neighbours and yet living several miles away from the diner and 3axh other), and you still have Mr Lockwood as this guy whose car broke down or something.

Pterodactyls from Camille Flammarion's Le monde avant la création de l'homme (1886)

Le petit chaperon rouge 

[... ] a wonderful phrase

lacuna mutata

aint no [... ] craze

it means textual emendations

for the rest of your days

it's a source [...] free

ambiguity

Calvin Laituri, “All This Useless Knowledge / A Poison-Laced Awareness”

Both very Messianic figures. "Six for the truth over solace in lies" versus John who was so damn convinced that if people just understood the situation they'd do something about it, so convinced that eventually the truth would win out. Both having very strong feelings about The Rules but very willing to break them when they disagree with them, especially if they see it as being for the greater good. They both end up fusing with a [woman/feminine entity] who they'd long been devoted to, who they wanted to protect but know they hurt; Pal knows Cam's love for him hurt her, John knows Earth's love for him gave him the power he ultimately used to hurt her. In both cases she's the most important thing in his universe but it's also extremely nebulous whether it's at all romantic. Both were also romantically involved with a now-dead woman who they feel like they failed miserably (M— vs Dulcie) and end up having a complicated dynamic with a woman who is effectively a facsimile of the original (Mercy vs Cyth), and ultimately end up killing (or in Pal's case helping kill) the latter.

People who love so much but can absolutely be zealots about it. One who can be incredibly reckless about it and one who's learned to be very very careful. One who's done heinous things for a myriad in pursuit of an end that justifies his means and one who was still so young but always tried to stick to his principles.

"Good morning, Gideon" versus "Annabel, good morning" and even... how Kiriona is technically going by a different name now but Pal uses an older one, and one she still seems more comfortable with or at worst indifferent. Versus we don't actually know how the entity formerly known as Earth feels about any of her assigned names but the one she seems to have been called longest while she was around in this form is Alecto and John uses a newer one he's assigned to her.

Even their fucking appearances. Both very plain and nondescript until they aren't, and except for very remarkable eyes. Short brown hair, strong square jaws, notable smiles. (John's is me squinting at a few debatable implications but it feels likely he has the same lopsided one as both Gideon and Alecto. Pal's is strange alchemy that makes his otherwise plain resting bitch face suddenly lovely.) John starting out with light warm brown eyes and ending up with golden eyes like the sun. Pal starting out with silver eyes like the moon and ending up with Cam's dark cool brown. John's rainbow eclipse eyes versus... I can't think of anything specific Paul's resemble but they're definitely the second-most obviously-unnatural eyes in the series, with the brown pupils against gray irises, and simple drab colors versus John's fucked up mess of rainbow.

But on top of all that I was just thinking about the academia side of things, and I'd already considered how they were both so ridiculous about their studies, but it occurred to me more specifically...

Palamedes made a crusade of his whole life and pushed himself striving for extra credits and everything to become head of his House younger than anyone ever primarily out of his desperate desire to save Dulcie. And John had made a crusade of his whole life pre-magic pushing himself through three different universities and spearheading this project and securing the funding for it all by his 30s out of his desperate desire to save Earth.

And even worse, John ultimately hurts Earth with bombs and somewhat turns her into a bomb, in an act that turns her into a different person. Pal turns himself into a bomb to avenge the one he'd loved, attacking the imposter who'd killed her.

And Jod it kills me how many lists like this you can make between so many groups of characters in this series. But also now on top of the John and Pal list I am...

Considering Alecto vs Dulcie... "I died once... no, twice." / "You died... again?" "Truly wonderful news for my haters." The love they have for ugly messy imperfect things. Alecto's divinity vs the celestial being Dulcie seems to have become... I hope AtN gives us so so much new fuel for this list.

Not to mention 1/3 of them possess necromantic aptitude so the possibility that some might challenge Harrow at every turn because they think they are better fit to lead themselves or better necromancers generally is quite entertaining. “You’re barely around! Why should we listen to you?” one of them shouts from the crowd. Imagine hundreds of devils heading their way but Harrow first has to deal with some kid who wants to duel her for her birthright position because they can. “Behind her…every…quite young person glancing sidelong at their fellows, dropped to the floor.” They have no idea who she is, no idea what’s happening, no idea what they are doing, and they are completely awkward about it, bless them. She’s going to have her hands full. Her hands would have never been more off the reins in her life.

“Sit down, sir,” he said, at length. “Mrs. Linton, recalling old times, would have me give you a cordial reception; and, of course, I am gratified when anything occurs to please her.”

“And I also,” answered Heathcliff, “especially if it be anything in which I have a part. I shall stay an hour or two willingly.”

He took a seat opposite Catherine, who kept her gaze fixed on him as if she feared he would vanish were she to remove it. He did not raise his to her often: a quick glance now and then sufficed; but it flashed back, each time more confidently, the undisguised delight he drank from hers. They were too much absorbed in their mutual joy to suffer embarrassment. Not so Mr. Edgar: he grew pale with pure annoyance: a feeling that reached its climax when his lady rose, and stepping across the rug, seized Heathcliff’s hands again, and laughed like one beside herself.

“I shall think it a dream to-morrow!” she cried. “I shall not be able to believe that I have seen, and touched, and spoken to you once more. And yet, cruel Heathcliff! you don’t deserve this welcome. To be absent and silent for three years, and never to think of me!”

“A little more than you have thought of me,” he murmured. “I heard of your marriage, Cathy, not long since; and, while waiting in the yard below, I meditated this plan—just to have one glimpse of your face, a stare of surprise, perhaps, and pretended pleasure; afterwards settle my score with Hindley; and then prevent the law by doing execution on myself. Your welcome has put these ideas out of my mind; but beware of meeting me with another aspect next time! Nay, you’ll not drive me off again. You were really sorry for me, were you? Well, there was cause. I’ve fought through a bitter life since I last heard your voice; and you must forgive me, for I struggled only for you!”

“Catherine, unless we are to have cold tea, please to come to the table,” interrupted Linton, striving to preserve his ordinary tone, and a due measure of politeness. “Mr. Heathcliff will have a long walk, wherever he may lodge to-night; and I’m thirsty.”

(Wuthering Heights, Chapter 10)

“At the moment when he was approaching Anna Arkadyevna he noticed too with joy that she was conscious of his being near, and looked round, and seeing him, turned again to her husband.

“Have you passed a good night?” he asked, bowing to her and her husband together, and leaving it up to Alexey Alexandrovitch to accept the bow on his own account, and to recognize it or not, as he might see fit.

“Thank you, very good,” she answered.

Her face looked weary, and there was not that play of eagerness in it, peeping out in her smile and her eyes; but for a single instant, as she glanced at him, there was a flash of something in her eyes, and although the flash died away at once, he was happy for that moment. She glanced at her husband to find out whether he knew Vronsky. Alexey Alexandrovitch looked at Vronsky with displeasure, vaguely recalling who this was. Vronsky’s composure and self-confidence here struck, like a scythe against a stone, upon the cold self-confidence of Alexey Alexandrovitch.

“Count Vronsky,” said Anna.

“Ah! We are acquainted, I believe,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch indifferently, giving his hand.

“You set off with the mother and you return with the son,” he said, articulating each syllable, as though each were a separate favor he was bestowing.

“You’re back from leave, I suppose?” he said, and without waiting for a reply, he turned to his wife in his jesting tone: “Well, were a great many tears shed at Moscow at parting?”

By addressing his wife like this he gave Vronsky to understand that he wished to be left alone, and, turning slightly towards him, he touched his hat; but Vronsky turned to Anna Arkadyevna.

“I hope I may have the honor of calling on you,” he said.

Alexey Alexandrovitch glanced with his weary eyes at Vronsky.

“Delighted,” he said coldly. “On Mondays we’re at home. Most fortunate,” he said to his wife, dismissing Vronsky altogether, “that I should just have half an hour to meet you, so that I can prove my devotion,” he went on in the same jesting tone.

“You lay too much stress on your devotion for me to value it much,” she responded in the same jesting tone, involuntarily listening to the sound of Vronsky’s steps behind them. “But what has it to do with me?” she said to herself, and she began asking her husband how Seryozha had got on without her.”

(Anna Karenina, Part 1 Chapter 31)

“They do not behave like adulterous lovers, but speak freely of their relationship before Catherine’s husband, Edgar; and they embrace, desperately and fatally, in the presence of the ubiquitous and somewhat voyeuristic Mrs. Dean.”

gregory: father, sir, may i please hear one story about the first 30 years of your life?