Worms

Dawn and Guy love each other dearly, but they never really seem to TALK about their expectations of this relationship (especially when it comes to sex.) Dawn of course seems to have almost NO IDEA what Guy actually values, or if he does, then he thinks Guy should have different values. He doesn't understand Guy's relationship with the bishop, he doesn't understand or agree with what Guy wants for Tyro...

And of course Guy and Tyro. My god. It's so painful bc what's going on w her* is SO OBVIOUS but Guy just doesn't get it. He loves that kid with every fiber of his being but he kind of fucking sucks as a parent, which makes sense given his background, but doesn't do poor Tyro any favors. All of his attempts to coddle and spoil her are aimed towards the generic girl he thinks she is, and not who she actually is or what she actually wants, and his attempts to keep her safe end up just frustrating her and driving her into the exact situation he was trying to keep her out of.

Then when we've got Dawn-as-Sorav we see him repeating the same patterns as before. He loves Florian and Aster, I fully believe it, same as he loves Guy, but his love is a grasping and controlling I-know-what's-best-for-you sort of love. He paternalizes Aster and he lets Florian run wild (something something echoes of Guy and Tyro...) and in the end he loses both of them because there's no honesty or sense of safety or boundaries for either of them there.

And then Elspeth and Aster... you are what people call you, you are the stories they tell about you. Elspeth is a rich beautiful inconstant socialite and that role precludes an honest relationship between her and Aster. It isn't until Mallory comes swinging in and starts wrecking things that the two of them are able to have an honest relationship.

MALLORY god. King of lying to everyone. Bisexual poly legend. Doggedly pursuing the brother he lost AND, finally, some fucking honesty.

Guy and the bishop and bishop's wife... his care for them and desire to be part of their life, the way they ultimately let him down, and yet how that relationship he forged saved Mallory's ass...

And of course Guy's time as an atticwife is. My god. Dawn what is WRONG with you. I realize this was him maybe making the best of a bad situation to try and keep Guy alive at any costs (lots of thematic overlap with my recent oc stuff) but for the love of God. And he seems so completely unable to recognize why Guy is mad at him. It's so sad because he loves Guy so much and yet his love is so corrosive.

They're just so different and see someone different in Tyro (never see the real her*), and they try to raise her to become that person: Guy wants Tyro to have the life he didn't have so he doesn't want her to work and just wants her to be loved and cherished by her parents. He also doesn't fight with Dawn because his mother and father fought imo. Lots of daddy and mommy issues slapped into this boy's head fr. And Dawn wants Tyro to become like him because he survived thanks to discipline, leaving childhood at an early stage and seeing "the real world for what it is", he always assumes the worse but also assumes she has to live through the worse to strive. (and she does, and that's why mal says he owes everything to him, in a way, because it's what happened and it was still so wrong and horrible.)

I think both opinions make so so so much sense giving their circumstances!

The bit about Maximian and Florian paralleling Guy and Tyro KILLED ME. destroyed. because Florian is his second try....

So yes... This book being "I love you and I will never admit I don't understand you" aghhhhh!!! agh !!!

Maximian and Asteritha. I need to sit with this one because it's just so good--he obviously cares for her as a father and Asteritha thinks of herself as his daughter BUT look how she always thinks of herself his employee first. How she can never turn to him when she is unwell because of the fear he sends her back to the Sanitarium, how she can never turn to him when she is sad about her parents because he's the one responsible for their death. And Maximian always thinks of himself being unable to get mayfly to help with the numbing before anything else.

It's just transactions because when the names & affections drop they think everything is transaction and work and everyone is entitled to a job's product or a pay.