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katakaluptastrophy · 2 months

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I think what's so interesting about Gideon as a narrator at the anniversary dinner is the fact that there's clearly tensions that she's just not picking up on because she's only there to eat a dessert.

But these people are all the immensely powerful leaders of the Houses and consider themselves to be in competition for literal godlike powers and the favour of the emperor.

There's so many little snippets that are potentially intriguing: why is Teacher trying to prime the Ninth to consider the Fifth a threat? Why are the Third and the Sixth "sizing each other up like prizefighters"? The Fifth absolutely knew what they were doing when they sat the teen heads of the opposing cults near each other.

Through Gideon's lens, Magnus' speech is a little awkward jokey thing. But...the seneschal of the House that is known to be actively trying to absorb another House is saying it's such a shame they're all so remote from each other and what do they all have in common (and it's so quiet you "could have heard a hair flutter to the floor") - that had to feel a bit different to people who aren't Gideon.

Palamedes' is dissecting the meaning of "Master Warden" and at one point compares it to a prison warden. 'Dulcinea' asking about whether Magnus and Abigail have children is perhaps less small talk and rather more pointedly political. Harrow's apparently stilted conversation with Protesilaus is clearly her actually probing his limitations like he's a bad Chat GPT-run chatbot.

And then 'Dulcinea' tells Gideon she liked the dinner because it was "useful". In her typical "I never lied to you" way, Cyth wasn't lying when she said Abigail had to die because of her hobby - Abigail Pent let loose on the Facility would have risked blowing Cyth's cover sky high. But what does a Canaan House look like where after the dinner party, the Fifth go down to the facility, get a key, and survive to continue their 'the Houses are going to get along or else' agenda? We've seen Fifth House soft power on a smaller scale in HTN: and it looks like inviting a teenager round for coffee, lulling her into a false sense of security with small talk, and then physically preventing her from leaving the room until she does what you want, while smiling the entire time. A series of little coffee chats could probably have led to a lot of cooperation in Canaan House, one way or another.

Gideon jokes about Silas marrying Ianthe because of their similar colour pallete, but it does raise the fact that there seems to be some tension around the Third, its succession, and the *point* of Ianthe. Why is Silas openly saying Ianthe should have died at birth? Combined with Judith's comments in the Cohort Intelligence Files about succession on the Third, it feels like there's something else being said here that Gideon isn't picking up on.

And of course, Harrow wasn't the only one desperate to become a Lyctor because her con was unsustainable. Presumably at some point Corona and Ianthe would be expected to marry, or at least take on more separate roles as Corona prepared to take over the throne and Ianthe was funneled off elsewhere. At some point, their package deal would have become unsustainable and Corona's cover would have been blown. But much as Harrow wants to become a Lyctor so she can reveal the state of the Ninth without repercussions, Ianthe is probably in part motivated to become a Lyctor for the same reason. Because otherwise, what would Ianthe's expected role have been? Amidst the suggestion of anxiety about the Idan succession, the dinner party also presents the fact that the reason Abigail and Magnus' infertility isn't a succession crisis for the ruling family of the Fifth is that Abigail's younger brother dutifully married in his early 20s and had kids. We know there are branch families in Ida - Babs is from one. He may be a prince, but he's not treated well, and you do get the sense that the stakes to stay in power in Ida are high.

We don't learn anything about the political situation in the Houses themselves during HTN or NTN, but in the wake of Canaan House, you have to suspect there are a number of tensions and concerns.

#the locked tomb #tlt meta #Is Ianthe's “going to see a man about a queen” seeing to the political situation back home in Ida?#Which must have been devastated by her ascension and Corona's apparent death?

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field-s-of-flowers · 2 months

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One really subtle, fun thing about the locked tomb is how they talk about “generalist” necromancy.

Judith says in Cohort Intelligence Files that Abigail’s necromancy is “generalist,” though we later find out her real skill lies with spirits. No matter how true it is, this is one of a few things in CIF that paint Abigail as a less-than-stellar necromancer (another one is the idea that her political power is what sets her apart from the others).

So “generalist” necromancy is seen as less advanced than a specialization, like Harrow’s in bone or Ianthe’s in flesh.

You don’t see a ton of that in fantasy media. In A:TLA, normal benders like Katara, Toph and Zuko are far less powerful than Aang, because he can bend all four elements. In Aurora (my favorite ever webcomic that you should all read), Erin has more prestige than any other living mage because he can do every type of magic. The Owl House shows wild witches like Eda, who do multiple kinds of magic, to be outlaws and outcasts. I could go on.

The reason fantasy authors do this is because they want to present magic as a skill/ability, whether it’s inherent or learned. It’s like sports or an instrument: the more you practice, the more things you can do, and the more things you can do, the better you’re considered.

And that’s the big difference between these examples and the Locked Tomb: instead of a skill to learn, TLT presents necromancy as an academic field.

In academia, specialization (like a college major, or being a specific kind of doctor) is common and expected. You’re encouraged to dive deep into one area of expertise, rather than being a jack-of-all-trades. That’s what necromancy is.

“Yes, Pent is a ridiculously powerful political force and talks to ghosts on a regular basis, but she’s a generalist. Not like Ianthe, who’s good at flesh magic!”

It’s really subtle, but it adds to the tonal blend of sci-fi and fantasy that helps make TLT so cool.

#soph’s posts #the locked tomb #Tlt #tlt analysis #tlt meta #Just had an idea and had to share!#Also. Read Aurora. Please it’s so good

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queeoretician · 4 months

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It's amazing how much incidental and easy-to-miss queerness tazmuir manages to pack into the Fourth House section of the Cohort Intelligence Files at the end of GtN.

"Sir Jeannemary Chatur" is a cool vibe and easy to spot, but it's worth taking a close look at Judith's notes on Isaac too:

Abigail Pent has forged a strong relationship with both Tettares and Chatur, much stronger even than her mothers’ relationship with Tettares’ father. It is already suggested that her nephew will be affianced to him once they are of age.

Firstly, "mothers'" (not "mother's"), indicating that Abigail has two moms - this is subtle enough that I missed it in all 5 or so of my prior readings.

Second, and more complicatedly, that Abigail is planning to have Isaac marry her nephew. On the surface of it, this seems cool - my initial reading was that Isaac is gay, and Abigail wants him to have a spouse who he has some chance of being interested in. But given that this is in the context of an arranged marriage between aristocratic families, we should also consider the reproductive lens (especially given the mention of his siblings being "a mix of vat-womb and XX carry" in the preceding paragraph) - I think a more compelling reading of this passage is actually that Isaac is trans¹ (or Abigail's nephew is). And tugging on this thread takes us to a bit of a dark place.

Given how much the Fourth and Fifth evidently care about the heredity of their rulers, we can infer that someone in Isaac's position wouldn't have any real reproductive autonomy even if he had survived to adulthood. And while the existence of vat wombs obviates the horror of forced pregnancy/childbirth, this is still a pretty fucked up situation (to say nothing of the Ninth where they don't even have access to vat wombs). To me, this signifies a fundamental injustice of organising society around hereditary nobility; one that persists even if it can be made to be superficially gay- and trans-inclusive.

With this in mind it's worth interrogating my use of the word "queerness" at the beginning of the post. In the real world "queer" is viable as an umbrella term for all the many LGBTQIA+ identities specifically because those identities are all at odds with the cis-/hetero-/etc.-normative nature of our society. But in the Nine Houses it doesn't seem like being gay/bisexual/trans is stigmatised in the same way, so one could say that these identities are not "queer" per se (strange, other) in a diegetic context.

"Sir Jeannemary Chatur" reflects a similar mismatch. In the real world, a woman using the title "sir" is at odds with both traditional gender roles and (more significantly) institutional usage of the title. But in the Nine Houses this title seems to be devoid of any specific gendered connotations, and its application to Jeannemary is not a subversion of that society's gender norms, but instead an affirmation of the (normative, exploitative) social role of cavalier.

So in summary: Isaac is trans, what queerness means in the Nine Houses can be quite different from what it means in the real world, and pinkwashing an unjust society doesn't make it more just (even if it's headed by a queer person).

¹ This isn't to say that Isaac isn't gay - I headcanon him as both gay and trans. But I don't think him being married off to Abigail's nephew is (primarily) about his sexual orientation.

PS: If you like being haunted by the ghosts of these characters, check out @katakaluptastrophy's fic, Your children are weapons, which got me thinking about these two again lately.

#the locked tomb #tlt #tlt meta #isaac tettares #jeannemary chatur #abigail pent

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nonasbirthday · 8 months

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so what order do all of these extra stories go in? I'm confused, I know there's others beside the unwanted guest

Yeah, it's a lot to sort out! (What a lovely problem - to have lots of bonus content!) If you have already read GTN, HTN, and NTN I wouldn't stress too much about the reading order; the short stories don't interface with each other as much as they interface with the novels. But if you were to line up the novels and the short stories chronologically, it would look something like this:

The Mysterious Study of Dr. Sex - takes place pre-GTN

Gideon the Ninth

As Yet Unsent - takes place between the end of GTN and the middle of HTN

Harrow the Ninth

Nona the Ninth

The Unwanted Guest - takes place during the latter part of NTN

And then of course there is some additional content at the end of the first two books which are not quite official short stories (I don't think) but have some valuable tidbits in them! Even the glossaries and pronunciation guides have me doing double-takes sometimes as I reread. GTN has "A Sermon on Cavaliers and Necromancers" and "Cohort Intelligence Files." HTN has a "Blood of Eden Memorandum for Record." I have the paperbacks of GTN and HTN so I am not sure if these are included in the hardcovers. (Edit: it seems the extra content is not included in the hardcovers or the audiobooks.) But in any case I would say these are best read exactly where they are at the end of each book.

I don't think I'm forgetting anything, but I hope folks will add on if I am!

#the locked tomb #the locked tomb reading order #anonymous #the locked tomb bonus content #the unwanted guest #tlt 101

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thunderon · 2 years

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hey, I came upon this as someone who just finished harrow the 9th and needs to scream about it, but I want to make sure I’ve read everything that’s out before I accidentally spoil myself. But it’s kinda confusing to find out if there’s any other material for the series out so far besides the first two books- I thought I heard about a short story??- and I want to read everything available before I immerse myself in fandom. so do you happen to know, or have a guide or something? thank you!

welcome to the fandom, anon!!! in lieu of a welcome basket i am throwing together this guide of canon bonus content for you :)

The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex - free short story available on tor.com. follows camilla and palamedes a few years prior to when gtn takes place

As Yet Unsent - free short story available on tor.com. journal entries written by judith detailing her, camilla, and corona’s time held in captivity by BOE

Nona the Ninth Dramatis Personae - available for free on tor.com

Nona the Ninth Chapter 1 - short excerpt of ntn available for free on tor.com.

Tamsyn Muir Alecto Excerpt - necroauthor prime narrated the opening lines to alecto the ninth. video and transcript available here

Tamsyn Muir Interviews - here’s my compilation of tamsyn muir articles/interviews/tumblr posts (last updated in january… so i still need to add the couple that dropped since… ive been busy okay so sue me lol)

Cohort Intelligence Files - bonus gtn content in paperback/ebook. i don’t think they’re available for free but if you don’t want to purchase another copy you can read the summary on the fandom wiki

BOE Memorandum For Record - bonus htn content in paperback/ebook. same deal as above. doesn’t appear to have a summary on fandom wiki :( (unless im just bad at finding it lol)

and i think that should have you pretty much covered! anyone can feel free to add stuff i missed. hope you enjoy the material anon :)

#asks #im always happy to see the fandom gain another member #:)#the locked tomb #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #gideon the ninth #alecto the ninth #bestof

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randomfoggytiger · 3 months

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Scully's Abduction, Emily Sim, and the Lost Scully Baby

SOLVING SCULLY'S ABDUCTION DATES

The answer to the question of when Scully was returned differs here and there. Sometime after 11/2/94 and on or before 11/11/94 seems to be the consensus: themareks posits November 2nd, xfilestimeline.net guesses in-between the 2nd and 11th, and epguides stands by the 11th as both One Breath's airdate and Scully's reappearance.

But how long was Scully gone?

Mulder states in Emily: "She [Scully] was missing for four weeks. That's documented in the file."

And to further back up that abduction timeline, Mulder later finds a medical paperwork in the nursing home containing Scully's full name next to a possible abduction date: 13/10/94. At the very least, October 13 was when the government tagged her in their system, meaning Scully was likely abducted on the 12th or 13th and returned not on the 2nd but on the 11th.

WAS SCULLY IMPREGNATED DURING HER ABDUCTION?

Mulder's filed report contains another tidbit he never shared with his partner: it states (as read aloud by the official overseeing Emily's custody case) that Scully was "subjected to a series of experiments where... they extracted her ova."

The episode divulges the 'how's a few scenes later: abductees or unwitting volunteers were put into "beauty sleep" by the Syndicate doctors before being injected with a series of enhanced drugs to stimulate ovulation for extraction. Essentially, the women were put through a process similar to the early stages of IVF treatments, for far more nefarious purposes.

After the extracted ova were combined with suitable sperm or cloned with alien DNA, they were not returned to the womb but were instead grown separately in metal and glass containers filled with a green-not-gray alien liquid.

NURSING HOME MOTHERS

As is the end result of man playing God, the Syndicate pushed the bounds of their "science" by dabbling with the unconscionable: they darkened the doors of nursing homes, developing an extra preceding step that involved "awakening" and growing the ova of older women to maturation before subjecting them to the "beauty sleep." These women were the perfect targets, either too confused or too forgetful to intelligently articulate what was happening to them; and Dr. Calderon and his cohorts banked on repeating their experimental process for unlimited ova until death claimed their patients in natural or unnatural ways. (Unfortunately for Dr. Calderon, his aspirations were cut short when Mulder threatened exposure.)

So, to recap: the women were violated, not impregnated.

THE ROANOKE SCULLY

What's even worse?

While investigating the nursing home, Mulder not only finds the aforementioned paperwork listing Scully's full name and possible abduction date but also a corresponding fetus, alive and kicking, in its own little container of green fluid.

This, too, was Scully's child; and it, too, was likely killed or discarded as medical waste during the Consortium's coverup.

"NATURAL", CLONE, OR HYBRID?

Though not entirely explained in Emily (or after), the fetuses grew at unimaginably rapid rates from conception to "birth" in a month's time; but the cost of accelerated growth sacrificed their health, causing the babies born to be dependent on consistent injections of their mysterious gestation fluid in order to survive.

What were those babies, then? Clones? Hybrids? Fully human?

My personal theory? Emily was a hybrid. Not only would this fit the injections and extractions and underhanded IVF machinations in Season 8 (quality of its writing aside), but it would also correlate the mirroring aims of Emily's Dr. Calderon and Per Manum's Dr. Parenti. Parenti stuffed his batch of alien-human hybrid babies into identical containers of fluid, too (albeit for darker purposes.)

The episodes she appears in provides evidence of its own. Even though clones created from alien DNA bleed green and Emily bled red, her blood still released toxic fumes for self-defense, which means Emily's DNA couldn't have been fully human even if both ova and sperm were tampered with before insemination (a feat the Syndicate couldn't accomplish despite their many, many horrific attempts.)

CONCLUSIONS

Not only was Scully never pregnant but she was also never abducted more than once, making her an anomaly even amongst the other MUFON women. This leads me to believe the first round of experimentation inflicted on her was so severe that the Syndicate deemed Scully too great a risk for future harvesting... which was also likely why she was left to die (even if CSM "returned her to you" for a merciful death surrounded by the ones she loved.) Serving no further purpose to the Project, she had been considered waste and was, therefore, disposable.

Emily, too, was ultimately doomed to die after the Consortium or Dr. Calderon tired of his experiments; and if it hadn't been for Melissa Scully's ghostly interference, Emily Sim would have been torn from her parents the minute they stopped towing the line and raised elsewhere as a lab rat-- unloved and, again, tossed aside when deemed no longer necessary.

Finally, there's still one Scully child unaccounted for.

Existence begun and ended in obscurity, it was likely squirreled away or destroyed along with any remaining evidence of Dr. Calderon's work-- a loose end from a man no longer needed by his overlords.

However, the thought that Mulder was the only person other than its merciless creators to behold this tiny fetus is one best pondered on a dark, lonely night when one is in the mood for either melancholy or heart failure.

Thank you for reading~

Enjoy!

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arithmonym · 1 year

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i was thinking about the tragedy of the fourth house again (as one does) so i re-read the cohort intelligence files. under jeannemary��s section:

Intended to be Isaac Tettares' cavalier from birth, swore the oath with him and gained the title at age nine. Cavalier primary only subsequent to last year's bombing.

judith please. this brings up so many questions.

was jeannemary originally the cavalier secondary? are mortality rates so high on the fourth that isaac, as the necromantic heir, was assigned two cavaliers since birth? is there a gaping hole of grief where this other cavalier should’ve been?

what do you mean last year’s bombing??

#the locked tomb #tlt #jeannemary chatur #isaac tettares #m speaks

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dragonretirement · 1 year

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I'm trying to puzzle something out TLT lorewise, namely: what the hell does "Resurrection-purity" mean with regard to family lineages?

The term shows up four times in the series. I put them under the cut for easy reference, but the gist of it is that in the Cohort Intelligence Files, Isaac, Jeannemary, and Babs are all identified as belonging to "Resurrection-purity" families. The fourth reference is in chapter 3 of HTN, where we learn that Drearburh "had never practiced Resurrection purity."

I searched online to see if people have tried to figure this out before, and mainly found this post from a couple years ago where a few possible meanings were tossed around: maybe it means that the family can trace its lineage to 1) solely people from within their house, or 2) the founding necromancer/cavalier of their house, or 3) solely people who were resurrected by Jod during the Resurrection.

1 is contradicted by the fact that Isaac, who comes from a Resurrection-purity family, is described in the files as possibly being affianced (aka arranged to be married) to Abigail Pent's nephew, presumably a Fifth-houser.

2 is contradicted by the passage in HTN, which states that Drearburh doesn't practice Resurrection purity, as "their only aim was to keep the necromantic lineage of the tomb-keepers unbroken", implying that Resurrection-purity is something different (since the first tomb keeper was also the Ninth's founding necromancer, Anastasia).

3 is the most common-sense reading if you just think about the term, but I had initially dismissed it because my understanding after NTN was that the Nine Houses are populated entirely by descendants of the Resurrection, meaning all families would be "Resurrection pure". The precise origin of people outside the Nine Houses (like the BOE and the colonies) isn't 100% confirmed, though popular interpretation is that they're the descendants of the ships Jod wasn't able to capture during the Resurrection. I assumed that there was no significant intermarriage between the Nine Houses and the colonies, but then I went back to the HTN passage.

The line about Resurrection purity is preceded by the information that one of Harrow's ancestors was "an extramural penitent sworn into the silent marriage bed of the Locked Tomb." I had assumed this meant someone from another house, because there are other references in the series to the fact that the Ninth takes religious penitents from other houses. But what if "extramural" means beyond the Nine Houses-- aka, from the colonies?

The word choice itself doesn't really give us a solid answer- "extramural" means "beyond the walls/boundaries" of something, so the question is whether it means the boundary of the House or of the Empire. The only other appearance of the word extramural in the series is in Dr. Sex, where Dulcinea writes that she wishes Prot's son would bring her "extramural magazines and cigarettes". This also isn't conclusive, she could be talking about magazines from outside the Seventh or from outside the Houses.

So that's what I'm left with! The only definition of "Resurrection-purity" that makes sense to me is one that also uproots our (or at least my) understanding of the relationship between the Houses and the colonies, and implies that the Houses have absorbed enough people from the colonies into their House structures to make a family lineage traced back solely to the Resurrection an anomaly. I'm hoping there's something I've overlooked that would help us say one way or another, so please offer your theories!

References to Resurrection purity:

Cohort Intelligence Files:

"Naberius Tern, born on Ida, home Ida of the Third House. Only child of the previous cavalier primary. Resurrection-purity family, line has been serving Ida and providing cavaliers historically."

"Isaac Tettares, born on Tisis. Resurrection-purity family, the eldest of eight."

"Jeannemary Chatur, born on Ops. Resurrection-purity family, second of six. Being the first non-necromancer of the line, she is her generation’s Chatur."

Harrow the Ninth, chapter 3:

"The Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus ought to have been the 311th Reverend Mother of her line. She was the eighty-seventh Nona of her House; she was the first Harrowhark. She was named for her father, who was named for his mother, who was named for some unsmiling extramural penitent sworn into the silent marriage bed of the Locked Tomb. This had been common. Drearburh had never practiced Resurrection purity. Their only aim was to keep the necromantic lineage of the tomb-keepers unbroken. Now all its remnant blood was Harrow; she was the last necromancer, and the last of her line left alive."

#the locked tomb #tlt #tlt meta #ntn spoilers

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phillippadgettwrites · 7 months

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The First Time, Every Time: Fire

Rated X / 3377 Words / Posted on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

Scully’s suggestion that he take her to lunch wasn’t a serious one, but he takes her anyway. He’s too distracted in the wake of Phoebe’s surprise visit to get any work done at this point, and he figures he owes her one after she single handedly solved the case while he was busy being mindfucked by Scotland Yard’s finest. He takes her somewhere just a little bit dingy with a full bar, the kind of place they aren’t likely to run into any of their cohorts from the Bureau. While they’ve never directly discussed it, he’s sure she’s aware there’s some gossip circulating about them, and though it’s entirely baseless, it’s best not to feed the beast in his experience.

He’s a little embarrassed that Scully bore witness to the power Phoebe clearly still has over him. He’s a little embarrassed to learn that, even ten years later, when she says jump he still asks how high, and then tries to double it. The moment she kissed him he felt like that naive college boy again, so starved for affection that he’d take it from the teeth of a snarling dog and then thank it for biting him.

He suspects that Scully only orders a drink so he’ll feel comfortable doing the same, though she reasons that she doesn’t really have anything else that needs finishing today, so it’s not an issue if her afternoon is a total loss. She’s actually a really good friend, now that he’s thinking about it. He’s only ever thought of her as his partner, but she shows up for him outside of work, too. And while he might have expected her to bristle at his moderately unprofessional behavior during the investigation, she’d only rolled her eyes and gently teased him, much like a friend would.

“So,” she says halfway through their second round of drinks. He can tell by the wry smile on her mouth that she’s wading into uncharted territory. “Would I be correct if I guessed that Phoebe ripped your heart to pieces and then told you to clean up the mess?”

Mulder cringes a little, but he’s smiling too. Not because it’s funny, but because she’s right.

“Something like that,” he says, then takes a sip of his drink. “Though I wish I could say it only happened once.”

“Ah,” Scully says knowingly, sitting back in her seat and resting the ankle of one leg on the knee of the other.

They both removed their suit jackets the moment they sat down, and Mulder has since loosened his tie and cuffed his shirtsleeves. Scully is wearing one of those ruffled blouses she seems to have in every color, the ones that have a rather deep V in the neck that’s made modest by all the excess material surrounding it. Sometimes he looks at her in her boxy suits and shoulder pads and thinks about what she looked like in nothing but her bra and panties under candlelight, but he’s careful never to let her see him looking at her that way. The fact that she’s beautiful is filed away in his mind behind more pertinent traits like intelligent, brave, determined, funny, and loyal.

“Pathetic, I know,” he says, looking down at his glass to hide the chagrin on his face. “And she just about looped me in for another round, if I’m being honest.”

“The sex was that good, huh?” she says, and he snaps his head up to be sure that it’s still his consummately professional partner sitting across the table from him.

She’s still there, the skin on her chest flushed pink with booze. She smirks behind her glass, perhaps a bit proud of her locker room talk.

“Depends on your definition of good, I guess,” he answers honestly. “It was pretty wild, and at the tender age of twenty-one, wild was as good as it got.”

Scully’s eyebrows raise curiously and he feels his groin grow just a bit heavy. He’s not sure how explicit of a discussion she’d be open to, but he’s interested in finding out.

“Are we talking ‘group sex’ wild, or ‘masochism’ wild?” she asks, just as casually as if she were asking him what classes he and Phoebe had together at Oxford. Mulder clears his throat.

“I think there was undeniably some masochism involved on my part, but more like high-risk or transgressive.”

“Transgressive,” Scully repeats with interest, her head tilting thoughtfully to the side. She doesn’t ask, but he tells her anyway.

“She, uh…she gave me a blow job on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s grave once, as an example,” he says, hiding his pride behind sheepishness.

A slow grin breaks out over Scully’s face, and Mulder feels a warm flush all over his body.

“Agent Mulder,” she admonishes him lightly, picking up her nearly empty glass and sucking the last bits of liquid off the bottom. “How disrespectful.”

“Yeah,” he says, looking between her smiling face and the table top. “I think that was kind of the point. It was hardly worth it, though. She broke up with me the next day with no explanation and she was sleeping with one of my friends by the end of the week.”

Scully’s smile fades and she holds her glass up, making eye contact with their waiter and gesturing that they’d like another round.

“Mulder, I’ve known plenty of women like her,” she says, her tone shifting as she uncrosses her legs and leans in. “She hates herself so much that the only thing that brings her any pleasure is to be pursued. She showers men with affection and attention, and then withdraws it as soon as she knows they’re hooked.” She pauses while the waiter drops off fresh drinks and takes away their empty glasses, as well as the remains of their lunch. “Men chasing after her, asking what they did wrong and how they can win her back, is the entire objective. Let me guess, if you ever call her out on it she acts offended that you’d define her character based on a couple little mistakes?”

Now Mulder sits back in his chair, disturbed by such an accurate description of his tumultuous relationship with Phoebe.

“Were you secretly attending Oxford in 1983, Scully?” he asks uncomfortably, then takes a gulp of his drink that burns all the way down his throat.

She smiles, pleased with herself.

“Phoebe isn’t nearly as unique as she’d like you to think, Mulder,” she says, resting her elbows on the table and then her chin on her joined hands.

“Well, she sure pulled one over on me,” he says, feeling embarrassed again. “More times than I care to admit.”

He drags his middle finger through the ring of water left by his glass, drawing slow, contemplative circles on the table top. Scully’s hand appears from his periphery and settles over his own, and she waits until he looks up at her.

“It’s not your fault, Mulder,” she says tenderly. “She saw a vulnerability in you and she took advantage of it. Having been on the receiving end of that myself, I can empathize with the fact that it’s difficult to see it for what it is when you’re in the middle of it.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” he says lightly, trying to reclaim the playful banter he’d been enjoying a few minutes ago.

Scully withdraws her hand and picks up her glass.

“I wish that I were,” she says wistfully. “Though I can’t say that my own youthful hijinks included oral sex on the gravesites of famed authors. I’m disturbed to learn the origin of your private joke, by the way.”

Mulder laughs, but he also entertains a mental image of Scully spread-eagle on the trampled grass in front of Doyle’s cement headstone, a dark-haired man’s head between her legs.

“Glad to hear you don’t think I’m a total schmuck,” he says.

“No, not a schmuck,” she assures him with a shake of her head. “I will admit to being a bit surprised by how submissive you were towards her, though.”

The comment was clearly offhand, based on her demeanor, but it hits him like an insult.

“Submissive?” he repeats, sitting up a little taller. “What makes you say that?”

She considers him for a moment before answering.

“You deferred to her in every respect,” she explains. “It was quite clear that she was in charge.”

“It was her case,” he shoots back. “Of course she was in charge.”

Scully holds up both her hands, palms facing him, in surrender.

“Forget I said anything,” she says. “We should probably get back to work soon.”

“I’m not submissive, Scully,” he says emphatically, ignoring her previous statement.

“I didn’t mean it pejoratively, Mulder; it’s not a bad thing to be. I was simply saying that I was surprised by it.”

“Well whatever you think you saw, you’re wrong,” he says sternly, trying to catch her eye.

Reluctantly, she makes eye contact and holds it for a beat.

“Whatever you say,” she says, acquiescent but characteristically skeptical.

Mulder clenches his jaw, holding back a tawdry remark. He waves their waiter over and asks for the check, as well as a cab, and then drains his glass. Fifteen minutes later they pile into the back seat of a taxi, buzzed to the point of uselessness as far as work is concerned.

“Where to?” the cabbie asks, meeting Mulder’s eye in the rear-view mirror.

“Alexandria,” he says, and Scully looks over at him.

“No, the J. Edgar Hoover building,” she corrects, and Mulder levels her with a steely stare.

“No, Alexandria,” he says again, and her eyebrows furrow.

“What are you doing?” she asks quietly.

“Where to, folks? Meter’s running,” the cabbie says, annoyed.

“Alexandria,” Mulder repeats, turning to look out the window as the cab pulls away from the curb.

He feels Scully’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t look at her right away. He makes her wait nearly two full blocks before he slowly turns his head and takes in the thoroughly confused expression on her face. Even then, he doesn’t proactively justify his actions like he typically would. He just looks at her, letting his eyes fall to the exposed skin on her chest and then dragging them slowly back up to her face. She opens her mouth and closes it, swallows, then finally turns to look out the window, and he finds himself fighting off a smile. He’s already rendered her speechless and he’s just barely getting started.

The cab deposits them in the parking lot of his apartment building, and after paying the driver he wordlessly heads inside, relying on his reflection in the glass doors to confirm that Scully is following behind him. In the elevator, he again feels her staring him down but does not reward her with eye contact. He behaves as though she isn’t there until the doors open on the fourth floor, at which point he gives her another once-over glance and then says, “After you,” in a tone that tells her it’s a directive, not an offer.

He follows her too-closely down the hall. Not so close that she could rightfully question it, but closer than is socially acceptable. When she arrives in front of apartment forty-two he reaches past her, key in hand, to unlock it, effectively trapping her between his body and the door. She stiffens but doesn’t speak, and when the door swings open he has to touch her back to encourage her inside. She stands in his foyer while he deposits his wallet, keys, and cellphone in their designated places, seemingly waiting to find out what will happen next.

He slips her suit jacket off her shoulders and she lifts her arms out of it, watching him curiously as he hangs it on the billiard ball coat rack near the door. He can feel that her tolerance to continue waiting for the punchline is waning, so he nods toward the dining room table behind her and says, “Have a seat.”

Scully turns to look at each of the three chairs set around the table. One is hosting a stack of books, one a pile of unfolded laundry, and the other a banker’s box full of junk he was planning to donate.

“Where?” she asks flatly, one eyebrow raised.

Mulder steps forward and grabs her by the waist, hoisting her up onto the tabletop. She makes a startled little gasping sound and wraps her hands around his forearms, regarding him with wide eyes.

“What are you doing?” she asks, alarmed.

He pushes even closer, so close that he’s occupying the space between her open legs, his hands still on her waist, and leans down as though he’s going to kiss her. She stays stock still, her eyes open, and at the last second he shifts his head to the side and brushes his lips lightly across her ear.

“Who’s submissive now?” he whispers, and he feels her shiver at the tickle of his breath.

He leans away from her, grinning victoriously and expecting to see something along the lines of embarrassment or irritation on her face, but she looks awestruck. Her lips are slightly parted, her eyes unfocused, and she’s breathing heavily.

“Scully?” he asks hesitantly. Did he take it too far? Did he scare her?

Her hazy eyes take a meandering path up his chest to his face, then narrow a little. Her jaw sets, the corner of her mouth quirks, and she reaches up with one hand to grab hold of the loosened tie still hanging from his neck. He opens his mouth in preparation to apologize, but she tugs hard and his mouth crashes into hers. Suddenly he’s tasting whisky and lipstick, and the heels of her shoes are digging into his ass.

Something he should have guessed about Dana Scully is that she takes no prisoners. The one time he attempts to come up for air with the intention of making sure she’s thought this through, she silences him with her hot little hand down the front of his dockers, and he decides that they’ll just have to learn to lie in the bed they’re making. She pops half the buttons off his shirt when she artlessly tears it open, then rips his undershirt off over his head so violently she just about takes one of his ears with it. She gets him down to his boxers while she’s still perched on the edge of his dining room table, fully dressed, and he realizes that he’s completely ceded control to her.

Her hands are just slipping under the waist of his boxers, preparing to divest him of the last scrap of clothing on his body, when he grabs them and pins them to the table beside her hips on either side. She looks up at him, panting, and smiles.

“Point taken, agent,” he says, his face inches from hers.

“You do realize that brute force isn’t dominance, right?” she playfully chides him, looking at one of her restrained hands and then the other.

She’s so sassy, a trait she normally doles out in bite size pieces, and he’d be a damn liar if he tried to claim he didn’t like it.

“What was your plan here?” he asks, grateful that the bend in his waist necessary to hold her hands against the table is obscuring the fact that he’s half-hard.

“I might ask you the same question,” she retorts haughtily.

A beat passes, and she runs her tongue across her bottom lip nervously. It occurs to him that maybe this isn’t just a prank that’s gone too far.

“Are you drunk, Scully?”

She sighs, her head lolling to the side thoughtfully.

“Maybe a little bit,” she confesses. “Are you?”

“Maybe a little bit,” he agrees. “Am I taking advantage of you?”

She shakes her head slowly. “Not yet,” she says, and something in the tenor of her voice sends blood rushing to his lap.

“Would you like me to?” The words leave his mouth before he’s given them even a split second of consideration, and the resulting flash of adrenaline makes him dizzy.

“Maybe a little bit,” she answers, her chest heaving.

The second he lets go of her hands so he can simultaneously kiss her and get to work unbuttoning her blouse, she pushes his boxers off his hips, leaving him nude. She doesn’t touch him right away, though she makes no attempt to hide her appreciative leering, and the combined pride and desperation bolster his confidence to the point that they quiet the little voice in his head that’s telling him this is a bad idea.

In short order, he fills in the details of her body that were previously hidden beneath white cotton. Her breasts are small but perfectly proportioned, and when she lifts her hips and allows him to divest her of her slacks and panties, he finds a full patch of ginger curls between her legs.

For a moment they just look at each other, her hands on his waist and his resting on the tops of her thighs. When he looks at her face and she meets his eye, he at once realizes the gravity of what’s happening and also that it’s already too late to avoid whatever the consequences will be. Nonetheless, he’s afraid.

Scully smiles demurely and tosses her head to get her hair out of her face.

“You’re not getting submissive on me, are you?” she asks playfully, though he senses that she’s a little afraid too.

He allows himself to get lost in living up to her expectations, almost like he’s playing a role. He’s the man who carries her to his couch and tells her to watch while he tastes the slickness between her legs. He’s the man who holds her hands above her head while he makes her come with his fingers. He’s the man who hands her a—miraculously—unexpired condom and instructs her to put it on him, and then he is the man who bends her over the arm of his couch and tries not to seem too proud when she gasps at the size of him and comes again within a minute.

She moves to sit on the couch, her legs wobbling, and looks skeptically at the condom still snuggly covering his erection, which isn’t waning in the least.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you weren’t finished,” she says breathlessly as she pulls a blanket off the back of his couch to cover her nudity.

He’d hoped she wouldn’t notice. Diana never did. Or she didn’t care enough to say anything about it, anyway.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, tugging the condom off and retrieving his boxers from the floor near the table.

“Are you that drunk?” she asks, mildly alarmed.

“No,” he answers quickly. “It just…doesn’t always happen for me.”

“Hm,” she says thoughtfully, and he wishes she’d stop looking at him like that. Like she might actually listen if he told her about the other ways Phoebe took advantage of his vulnerability. About how difficult it is for him to let go in front of someone else now. About how lonely it makes him feel.

He sits beside her and they talk for a long time. About nothing. About everything. About what they just did and what it means for them. Eventually, he does tell her about Phoebe. She doesn’t make him feel weak or silly, or express surprise that a man could experience that kind of issue. She’s empathetic, and angry on his behalf, and she doesn’t take it personally or claim to know how to fix him like most women do. The booze wears away and a new kind of trust is forged, and he gets the feeling that she might turn out to be the best friend he’s ever had.

When she kisses his cheek and slips her hand under the waist of his boxers, he knows that it’s not out of pity. She doesn’t touch him like he’s broken or treat him like a project, and he doesn’t feel any pressure to perform. She coaxes him to the edge and he trusts that she’ll be there to catch him when he falls.

He lets go.

#x files fanfic #the x files #xf fic #xf fanfic

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eskildit · 10 months

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this is one hundred percent judith speak for this guy sucks and I do not like him one bit. palamedes what did you do. like sure judith and palamedes were probably never going to get along but what the heck happened here.

#this is from cohort intelligence files btw #she barely makes any comment about Camilla so clearly it was just palamedes that made an impression #eskildit posts tlt #gideon the ninth #ok to rb #palamedes sextus #judith deuteros #the locked tomb

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katakaluptastrophy · 3 months

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I want to continue pushing my 'Magnus Quinn wasn't actually a terrible swordfighter' agenda.

Obviously, he wasn't on the same level as professional duelists Babs or Pro, or soldiers Marta or Jean. He was a guy who did some kind of fencing in high school and then picked it up again in his 30s, presumably with some degree of seriousness.

When Gideon joins the other cavaliers in the training room, Magnus and Jean are sparring. He jokes about how badly Jean is beating him, but he must have some degree of competence for aspiring soldier Jean to find him worth training with. Babs then mocks him for getting beaten by a teenager and Magnus jokes, describes himself as "absolutely no good", and praises Jean's abilities...before giving Babs such a death glare he gets obviously embarrassed.

It's worth bearing in mind that there's some degree of tension between the Third and the Fifth. Babs will have know Magnus since he was small and has almost certainly seen him fight before. But the Fifth, their relationship, and the relative freedom that Magnus has to not be a perfect fighter (because his necromancer values him as a human being) is clearly something that rankles the Third. In TUG, when Ianthe talks about Babs, she explicitly references Abigail and Magnus. And what's interesting is that she makes a comparison not just between Abigail's husband-with-a-sword and her perfect tool to be moulded and used, but also to Corona's aspirations to swordcraft:

IANTHE (Playing a card) She’s not here, so let me be fully honest, Sextus: my sister is not a swordswoman. She loves to wear big boots and wave a sword around, and she looks wonderful doing it, but her actual competence … well, put it this way: she’d lose to Magnus Quinn.

PALAMEDES Magnus Quinn was a cavalier primary.

IANTHE No, I mean Magnus Quinn now.

There's...a lot...to unpack here: the comparison of Corona to the husband-cavalier is intriguing in and of itself on a psychosexual level, as is the contradiction between Ianthe and Corona's own versions of Corona's competence. But Palamedes' response is also interesting, suggesting that Magnus was up to an acceptable standard for a cavalier, which Ianthe's joking response seems to back up.

So Babs' rudeness towards Magnus and Jean may have a lot to do with the internal dynamics of his own necromancer-cavalier relationship and not necessarily be an accurate reflection of Magnus' abilities.

Likewise, Judith's comment in the Cohort Intelligence Files that the Fifth is 'undoubtedly chagrined" to have "schoolboy fighter" Magnus representing them had to be read against the fact that we know from the Sermon on Necromancers and Cavaliers by Second House stooge M. Bias that the Cohort has a very low opinion of unranked "social cavaliers". And Judith Deuteros may have her own reasons for being disdainful of a cavalier who is so...cavalier...about his intimate relationship with his adept.

Magnus' own self-deprecating comment on his ability is:

"I didn’t get to be cavalier primary due to being the best with a rapier. I’m cavalier primary only because my adept is also my wife. I suppose you could say that I—ha, ha—cavalier primarried!”

But again, there's a difference between becoming cavalier primary because you're the best sword fighter and getting up to a vaguely competent level once you've become cavalier primary (guys in their 30s with high powered jobs tend to be scarily into their hobbies...) He is definitely the worst cavalier there (or would be, if Pro were actually alive), but on a general standard he probably isn't as terrible as people like to joke.

Another important bit of context here is that all of his comments about his own ability occur in the context of Corona trying to get him to fight Gideon. The shy, silent 18 year old from the cult planet whose practice of cavaliership is generally acknowledged to mostly consist of carrying buckets of bones.

She gets paired with Magnus because they assume she's not going to be much of a fighter and Magnus - neither a professional duelist nor a soldier - would therefore be the fairest opponent. Magnus is clearly uncomfortable. And Gideon is certainly Intimidating. But when you consider that most of his previous interactions with her have been trying to coax her out of her shell and clearly feeling rather sorry for her, his comments take on a bit of a different tone.

Does Magnus worry Corona has dragged along this poor kid out of interest or curiosity, and that she's going to be humiliated and never want to interact with them again? As Corona says “Come—Gideon the Ninth, right?—why don’t you try Sir Magnus instead? Don’t believe him when he says he’s rubbish. The Fifth House is meant to turn out very fine cavaliers," Magnus is politely dissembling, telling exactly the sort of jokes that would appeal to a teenager.

As everyone else mocks or is intrigued by Gideon's knuckle-knives, Magnus is trying to look her in the eye through her sunglasses, bewildered that she doesn't know to take off her robes or glasses to fight and then...suddenly realising that she is dead serious and perhaps he has dramatically underestimated her.

After his defeat, we hear him saying to Jean "I'm not quite that out of form, am I?". Gideon's abilities were totally unexpected: she severely tests a top duelist like Babs, and Magnus is surprised to be beaten in three moves. That suggests he's been holding his own rather more comprehensively in previous sparring.

And while he certainly wasn't up to Gideon's standard, he may have managed to draw his sword before Cytherea took him out...

#the locked tomb #tlt meta #magnus quinn #gideon nav #gideon the ninth

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field-s-of-flowers · 7 months

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Cohort Intelligence Files: Casually mentions that Jeannemary is the second of six sisters

Me, a Pride and Prejudice fan: You Know Who Else Is The Second Of A Bunch Of Sisters

#soph’s posts #the locked tomb #pride and prejudice #jeannemary chatur #elizabeth bennet #Does that make Isaac Charlotte?#Trick question the answer is yes

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dabblingreturns · 2 years

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Cav Body Autonomy and the locked tomb

The cav-necro relationship is an inherently unbalanced relationship.

Some houses and cav pairs in the cannon house lyctor trials are able to function healthily anyway despite these societal imbalances.

So here here are the happy cav-necro pairs:

Ducli and Pro of the seventh house seams to have had a relationship of mutual respect but but Pro had a lot more leeway then most cavs, since his necromancer was busy with her own medical issues he had time for a wife, a bunch of kids, gardening and amateur poetry. But based on the cohort files I got the sence that Pro vollenteered to be Ducli's necromancer because he wanted a quiet life, and a lot of people thought he was throwing humself away on a dying girl. A bit like a star athlete retiring to coach a minors team. So I would say that thier relationship gives mutual respect but also freedom to pursue thier own projects.

The Magnus and Abigial of the fith house are necromarried. And they seem to be in a healthy relationship. Even though its very against shocking, Abigail and Magnus seem to have found a good balance. Abigail gets to pursue her academic career and Magnus seams to enjoy the administrave/ diplomatic responsibilities that come from being married to Abigail. Magnus also gets to has a lot of soft power as senichel of the fith. They seem to support each other in thier careers. Even if the arrangement may seem unorthodox to everyone else ( I know, happy marriage, so unorthodox)

Isaac and jeanmary of the forth house seam to take some of thier cues from magnus and Abigail about mutual respect, but they also have thier own battle buddy dynamic going on. They act as equals because they have always been equals. They are both raising thier younger siblings and getting ready to join the cohort. There strength is that they always have the others back, adults may treat them slightly differently but isaac and jeanmary view each other as equals. They are more like a shadow hunter peribatai pair then a traditional necro-cav because thier specialty is watching each others back.

Next we jump to the sixth house. Camilla and Sextus have a bit of the Sherlock and Watson vibe going on. But also a bit a non romantic Mustang and Halkeye from FMA thing. They bonce ideas off each other and stop each other from getting to in thier own heads. They have more diverse skills then Isaac and Jeanmary, but they see themselves as a unit. And they see each other as equally intelligent, and if others assume that cammila is just an assistant to sextus, that is their problem.

Judith and Marta of the second have something different going on, its a bit sadder but still falls into the relm of healthier. Judith and Marta both views thier relationship as slightly unequal but in opposit directions. Judith tends to put Marta on a pedestal, since Marta is more experience, charming, and so very competent. Judith feels lucky to have Marta and unworthy of her at the same time. Marta on the other hand, defers to Judith because Marta is a good soldier and Judith outrank her. Following orders is what a good soilder is supposed to do. But you do get a bit of the green officer experience underling situation that makes them overly cautious when together. They defer to each other bit they don't seam to honestly talk or share ideas enough to be truly effective.

Now we go to the unhealthy relationship which, interesting, all seem to be related to autonomy.

Ianthe and Coronabeth and Naberius of the third house have three different types of fuckery going on. First is the fact that Ianthe has two cavs, one that she uses for emotional support, and the other that she uses for the show. Both cavs are left feeling disposable and powerless. The second power imbalance is the difference in rank and the volenteryness of service. Naberius was trained from birth as a caviler, no one ever gave him a chance to be anything else. He mentions that he "should have stayed home" and ianthe tells him that no one would wants to marry him. I don't know if she would stop anyone from marrying him but he has no choice but to be a cav and no way to stop. He is a "prince" but I got the sense that that was a curtasy title as the the heirs' cav rather than an enherited title. Third, we come to the canibalism thing. Naberius is uncomfortably resigned to people taking bites out of him. His only worth is his body, not his mind, not his companionship, not even his attractiveness, just his body and its ability to fight or be consumed. And his fighting skill will decrease the more scar tissue that builds buy on his hands. His time was always numbered and naberius new from birth that his destiny was to be consumed one way or another.

Next we have the 9th house. Which is really an interesting case of independent vs body autonomy with harrow, Gideon and Ortus There is the pervasive knowledge that when you die in the ninth house, even party of body will be recycled back for the good of the house. You hair will be brushes, your fat will be soap, I assume your flesh will fertilize the fields, and your bones will tend the fields, your skin is probably turned into book covers. Once you are done with your body, every part will go back to the collective. And you can't leave the house to go off and die somewhere else you have to stay. But when you are alive, you get a lot of free time to do whatever you want. Do you want to read porn and train with a sword that you will never get to use off planet? Go ahead and train or 8 hours a day. Do you want to go off and write poetry even though your explicit job is to be good with a rapier? Well we won't force you to train, we will even provide you with writing material. The ninth house is hotel California with bones were everyone works on thier own projects.

Even Mattius Nonius was a cav without a necromancer. He teamed with all sorts of people outside the ninth house but he was an independent entity, known by his own name instead of as mattius the ninth, because he wasn't bound to the head necromancer.

Maybe it was more structured before all the kids died, maybe there were more rules when the reverend mother was alive, but Harrows leadership philosophy seams to be independent study for everyone. There is freedom till death.

There is also a bit of a touch taboo. I don't know if it comes from Harrow and travels to Gideon and Ortus or it was alway part of the very unsexy ninth. But except for Crux and Aiglamine slapping Gideon in anger and Glaurica having clutching Ortus, no one ever touches anyone. Because In the ninth, your body pretty much belongs to you till you die. And Harrow struggle with both Ortus and Gideon as cavs because she has never practiced working with them. It's all been independent study.

Next we have have the Eight house which is the exact opposite of the ninth interms of freedom. The cav of the eighth house belongs to his house, body, mind, and soul. The Asht brothers were geniticly engineered before birth to be cavs. Colum is on a regiment of anti rejection drugs so that not even his immune system can fight back against his necromancer. He is taking drugs that make him vulnerable to illness to fulfill his purpose. He was trained from a young age to leave his own body and sacrifice his own will to offer his necromancer more power. He willingly undergoes a process that he knows is giving him brain damage. And he casts in soul in to the abyss and leaves his body. He has been taught his life to surrender control of everything on comand. And what does he do in his free time? He is a servant, Silas doesn't want to talk to someone, Colum relays the message, Colum also acts as Silas' valet and maid. It isn't so much that he wasn't a man allowed to " pick and chose his own decency" he is a man who was never allowed to choose at all. Yes Colum is almost twice silas' age but Colum wasn't really raised to be an adult, he was raised as a battery.

Last we have the first house. Which has treaded all of its cavs horribly and I'm not going to into it.

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