Bi Erasure Incident. One Dead. Four Victorious.

I finished Foxhole Court finally! Very good. The last chapters made me crazy. I Will be reading the sequels

"as necrosis to a wound"

closeup:

Hello!! I hope this isn’t an odd/rude question to ask but it’s been on my mind a lot.

And forgive me if any of my assumptions about these characters are incorrect or if I’m just missing something, my media literacy isn’t always awesome hahaha

So anyways, we all know Rosier and Asmodeus’s relationship is pretty unhealthy, but if I’m remembering right I feel like I’ve seen some descriptions of their relationship that imply that they’re Both bad for each other.

Maybe I just wooby-ify Rosier too much because I love him lol, but I honestly have a bit of a hard time not seeing Asmodeus as the sole aggressor/one in the wrong regarding their relationship issues, and mostly only seeing Rosier as a victim of Asmodeus’s assault.

Perhaps Rosier’s wrongdoing just comes from his desire to stay with Asmodeus despite the pain and trauma it left him with? I’m not sure, but I was just wondering if there was something I may have missed that Rosier had done/currently does that would also hurt Asmodeus too?

I mean obviously other than cutting his head off but that was in self defense so I don’t count that haha. But then again, maybe that is what Rosier did wrong? I’m not sure lol

Hi! Not a rude question at all! I really like talking about Rosier (that's why he's getting his whole own novella (in case you didn't know, since I've only discussed this on my newsletter).

Rosier doesn't have... any wrongdoing, so to speak. In terms of his relationship with Asmodeus, he definitely hasn't done anything wrong. Asmo and Rosier are not a case of "they're both bad people so it's fine that they're toxic" (like Lucifer and Baal, for example, or even Lucifer and Michael in A&M). Rosier is a victim and there's not a lot of nuance about it. He was hurt and it wasn't his fault.

I'm not sure if you mean something I've said when you say "descriptions" but if you do, let me explain what I mean when I say that Rosier isn't that "good" of a person. (This isn't going to be "Rosier is toxic and evil too, and he's evil to Asmodeus" because he's not. He has (toxic) codependency issues with Asmodeus, but that doesn't make him evil. I mean, we can understand that as a result of the trauma of losing, you know, God.)

So to make it very clear, let me tell you about demon Rosier without bringing Asmodeus into the equation about Rosier's morality:

Rosier knows what Lucifer is up to all the time. He knows a lot of the awful things Lucifer is responsible for. Rosier might be out of place with the demons, but he's kind to them (see: Baal). He will clean up the blood of innocent people if Lucifer asked him to. He would do it if Baal asked him to. (Even if he's sad about it, he'd still do it). If Baal needed someone to comfort him after a mass murder, Rosier would hold him. If any horrible demon needed a shoulder to cry on, Rosier would offer his.

Rosier is a very kind person. He's actually what happens when you're too kind. He makes excuses and he allows bad people around him to do whatever they want. He's almost a complete bystander. He's not as trapped as he thinks himself to be. And (this is important in his novella) being a "good person" is about more than just smiling at people, it's about not letting bad things happen to innocent people. (Sometimes we read about horrible people irl and we're shocked by the family/friends around the perpetuators that just let them get away from it. We like to imagine they agreed with it, but the truth is that they probably just kept making excuses. They downplayed it because they loved them. (I used to know the son of a very bad man (a guy with a wiki page, so yeah it was bad), and though the man is locked up for life, the son loved his father. He loved him so much he just refused to think about the people his dad hurt. Does this make the son a bad person? Who knows, but it definitely puts his morality into question. I mean, are you really willing to forgive the worst crimes imaginable against innocent people just because you love someone or think that you do?))

This is also why demons can be annoyed with Rosier for acting so angelic. They think that Rosier is just as bad as everyone else just by virtue of never doing anything about the bad things. They think he just wants to feel better about himself.

So returning back to Asmo, yeah Rosier is not the aggressor here. Not even a little. Rosier's imperfect goodness exists even though he's a victim. (I feel like I say this a lot in relation to characters in the series but yeah — you can be a victim and do things of dubious morality). His imperfect goodness exists independent of Asmodeus (Lucifer, Baal, for example) but exists within the context of his love for Asmodeus, as well. Not that Asmodeus is hurt by it. Asmodeus is mostly hurt by his own actions and his own thoughts. If you asked Asmo, I think he would tell you that Rosier's never done anything wrong to him.

Anyway! This is really long! but Rosier's morality is very fun for me to talk about because of how complex it is. There's a line in his novella about how there are 2 kinds of demons: those that kill and those who knowingly welcome the killers home. And Rosier realizes that despite how kind and good he wants to be, despite his intent, he's become the latter.

In essence,

Don’t tell him I was weak.

you think this is hot wait til you go to hell for working at gofundme or tumblr and being paid to mark Palestinians trying to survive as spambots

griddlehark for ruby’s bday!

tip jar

these violent delights by micah nemerever — fav quotes

"Whatever I do has to mean something. I need to make something beautiful, something that lasts. I don't know what, but I have to, if I want my life to matter at all."

"Beautiful things are supposed to hurt."

"You could do anything to me and I'd let you."

"Tell me you love me, at least. Please. I need to know somebody does."

"They wanted each other in the way of flesh wanting to knit itself together over a wound."

"I kill them because they're beautiful, and it's the only way I can keep them."

"What a lonely, dreary thing it is to know the truth."

"I miss you to pieces. Yours always."

"He'd forgotten ever being angry. He felt gentle and endlessly patient; if Julian had asked, he would have happily cut his chest open and handed over his heart, his lungs, every part of himself piece by piece."

"I can't tell you how happy I am to see you" he said, and for a moment Paul couldn't imagine, much less remember, that anything in the world existed outside the two of them.

"Paul lay with his head on Julian's lap, trying to map constellations into the sun-darkened freckles on his knees, while Julian combed his fingertips gently through Paul's hair."

"They kissed each other breathless between each promise."

"They could only stitch themselves back together if they did something irreversible."

"Hard to trust you if you're going to maim me."

"The worst damage humans do isn't rooted in malice but in thoughtlessness."

"I know why you fuck me like you wish you could kill me."

"They were wild and delirious and invincible, and it was strange that no one else could see it."

"Familiar smells, familiar sounds, a life still marred by all its old fractures and disappointments."

"It was the first time he could believe Julian when he spoke this way, as if they were one mind, one heart, one pair of lungs."

"All I want to do is make you happy, and you're the unhappiest person I've ever met."

"I love you. By now you ought to be able to let me fucking tell you."

Whenever someone in the locked tomb fandom calls Camilla/the whole cam/pal thing “normal” or “comparatively well adjusted” I’m like. Look, don’t let Cam’s deadpan demeanor or Pal’s nerdiness seduce you: they may not be disaster lesbians but it’s purely on technicality. They are what you see in the dictionary when you look up “codependent”. Cam carried fragments of his bones for months with nary a necromancer nor a plan in sight. Pal became a revenant and amused himself with bad romance novels. They shared a body passing notes to each other because a bone hand wasn’t good enough. Both killed themselves rather than let the other die. Like Cam died to become Paul. Pal was already dead but he died again to become Paul. This is toxic codependency 101, folks.

My main comment on the Captive Prince series is that it needed a 4th book to resolve that baby plot but i have a conspiracy that a 4th book or sequel book/series could still be happening; if it does, let it be known I called it first

I'm giving Anastasia a try, on the fence