queeoretician

[queeoretician]

being proactive w cultivating your fandom space is good but also weird because occasionally you'll see a post that's like, "we need to address [problem in fandom you have literally never heard of before]" or "I'm tired of fics that [characterization you have literally never encountered]" and you just end up nodding along and trusting that your mutuals have seen horrors you cannot fathom because you have a very extensive blacklist

#ah yeah #seeing a mutual complain about breeding kink griddlehark w/ super aggressive dom top Gideon and submissive twink Harrow was An Experience #praise the blocklist

[queeoretician]

CRINGE: The world is ending and you're in love with your best friend who is a nun. and your roots are showing.

#aaaaa tragic yuri my beloved #the locked tomb #tlt #mercymorn the first #cristabel oct #mercybel

[queeoretician]

☕️ cytherea

i think we don't talk enough about how cytherea—antagonist of the first book, and the cause of gideon's death—is entirely motivated by a desire for vengeance against john and vocal about that fact. every conflict in this series post-resurrection leads back to This Fucking Guy. the fact she very specifically names the ten billion fascinates me too: i always think of her as having a closer relationship to BoE based on what we hear of her in ntn & that mention of the ten billion.

as for the character herself: she appeals to me on so many levels & so much happening there, i love to pick over @familyabolisher's cythereaposting because she has a lot of depth wrt her grooming gideon into cavaliership & the narrative role she plays. i always have an excerpt from this post in particular playing around in my head re: cytherea

cytherea is this kind of … active narrative ingredient, ironically for the very thing she’s trying to prevent (and doing so badly. Flop queen), in that the narrative demands that gideon reach a point wherein she can kill herself for harrow, but cytherea is necessary to initiating the process by which she can get there and making clear the terms on which it has to happen.

flop queen. utterly tragic figure who acts as the active narrative ingredient for the very thing she's trying to prevent. one of the characters i feel unqualified to speak about because of how solidly wrote she is: i am critical of tamsyn muir sometimes but cytherea was one of the strongest points of gtn for me! shining example of her characterwork. also she's so fucking hot

#oh shit! I had forgotten that Cyth specifically references the ten billion! #the locked tomb #tlt #tlt meta #cytherea the first

[queeoretician]

first time taking a crack at Hotsauce

#I fucking love Nona so much... #the locked tomb #tlt #nona tlt #hot sauce tlt

[queeoretician]

JFC really?

("racism" and "transphobia" also get this treatment)

i only noticed this recently, and i thought it might be a temporary glitch, but i've kept an eye on it and there's no way it's not intentional...

whether i type tumblr.com/tagged/fandom racism in the navbar, or tap on a post tagged #fandom racism, i am always redirected to search/fandom racism instead —and you can't follow a search

i tried a few tags i suspected might be "controversial" in the eyes of tumblr staff, and found that the #transmisogyny tag does the same thing

i don't get these tags suggested in the autofill either, notice the difference between typing "transmisogyny" or "fandom racism" and typing "tumblr"

so, is the fact that it's impossible to get to the #fandom racism and #transmisogyny tags common knowledge? and if it is, has anyone managed to identify other tags getting this treatment?

#let's drop them all here: #transmisogyny #transphobia #fandom racism #racism

[queeoretician]

DAMN I CAN'T STOP DRAWING THEM

#🥵🥵🥵 #perfection #amazing to have created something so hot without showing any sexualised body parts #and the post-sex cuddles are just the loveliest chaser... #i guess i really have to play these games huh #hades 2 #melinoe #nemesis #melinoe x nemesis #melnem

[queeoretician]

the moment  in nona the ninth when ianthe and kiriona show up like Attention Bajoran Workers We’re a Lil Transmasculine Now but Don’t You Worry About It

and the assembled populace is like Oh Fuck Fascism Is Here

#tlt post of all time #the locked tomb #tlt

[queeoretician]

ok look i have heard a very compelling argument for why ianthe can fuck & i deeply respect the person who made it but i'm just gonna offer my two cents on that poll: she cannot hold her arms up long enough to do her own hair. im sorry to anyone who thinks theyre gonna get like dicked down by ianthes flesh strap but she is not laying pipe she is laying down after a couple minutes of exertion absolutely soaked with sweat & in bad need of a chew on babs pick me up. now don't get me wrong stamina isn't everything but. yeah

#aster with the true facts #the locked tomb #tlt #ianthe tridentarius

[queeoretician]

Took a break from the requests to draw Harrow with piercings. I came across this amazing setup on the piercing subreddit and fell in love with the small nose chain <3

Initially it was supposed to be a small doodle but then I couldn't stop and now it's.. two colored pieces...

I'm still kinda figuring out how to draw her but slowly getting there.

#holy shit this is stunning #the locked tomb #tlt #harrowhark nonagesimus

[queeoretician]

GET READY FOR...

SEABOUND! A LOCKED TOMB UNIVERSE SURVIVAL ADVENTURE AND HOUSE IDENTIFICATION TOOL

You and a couple of your friends, if you have any, are on a boat in the ocean. Why are you here? Is this even relevant in the universe? Who cares. This ocean’s purpose is to help you pick… your true House identity.

Luckily, on this magical survival journey you have the opportunity to pick items to help you. You may salvage five items of the fifteen I am about to list under the cut. These items will be the key to who you are, secretly, on the inside. You’re probably going to die, but at least you will know who you are, which has to be some kind of comfort, right

These items will score you points with one or more Houses. Once you have made your selection, read the guide, tally your points, and discover… Yourself!!!!

Keep reading

#this was rather fun! #to my surprise I ended up with the Fourth House (was expecting the Sixth) #the locked tomb #tlt

[queeoretician]

Imagine this: Doom guy, rampaging through hordes of hellish humanoid monstrosities, shooting and slashing and ripping, covered in gore. Then, we get a Metroid moment where the helmet comes off, but instead of 250lb of blonde tgirl, you see a woman with curly red hair, golden eyes, and an expression like she wants to spill your guts on the floor.

Do you see my vision?

i also think we should be talking a lot more about what a cool freedom fighter wake is and how great her infinite guns were in the river bubble but that's just me

#the locked tomb #tlt #commander wake #awake remembrance of these valiant dead

[queeoretician]

for the character meme: dulcie or cam or pal or a character of ur choosing!!! hehe

!!!!! ty lem!! im gonna do my girl dulcie...

favorite thing about them: honestly just the way she's written- it never fails to make me emotional that she *is* explicitly written as being brave and strong, but tamsyn neatly sidesteps the "inspiration porn" ableist stereotype of writing a character as being brave/strong *because* they are sick. dulcie isn't brave or strong because of her illness. her strength and bravery are explicitly positioned, IMO, as being in response to surviving *ableism* and other people's condescension towards her and mistreatment of her, rather than surviving her illness itself, if that makes sense. her health is just a fact of her life, it's not moralized. which i really, really appreciate. it's a small shift, but it's very meaningful to me.

ALSO deeply special to me: her intentional and careful commitment to boundaries re: The Palamedes Of It All. a refreshing change of pace, as far as these books go vgjtjxdjt

least favorite thing about them: i mean. houser. :/

favorite line: three way tie between "truly, wonderful news for my haters," "i am sick of roses and horny for revenge," and "oops, there i go again, never doing what i'm told"

brOTP: gideon!!!!! i think it's a crying shame they've never met. i think they'd get along tremendously. the whole cytherea gideon thing was Horrid and Awful in so many ways, but it always Extra stings (in an adding-insult-to-injury sort of way) when i think about what it would have been like if gideon had REALLY met dulcinea, and not cyth. dulcie would've been a great friend for her, i think. they'd have been so good at making each other laugh

OTP: honestly these days it's cam? @ palamedes ily but get outta here gayboy it's yuri time now. plus i just love chewing on the concept of cam + comphet, and cam + subconscious internalized misogyny, and cam + gender, and cam + her relationships and interactions with other women. i think there's lots to explore there. camdulcie has a certain "when i was eight i didn't realize i had a crush on the new girl in my grade so i just wrote her a note that said 'get out of my school'" energy about it, To Me

nOTP: idk if i really have one for her, specifically? idk. ianthe or something, fuck it.

random headcanon: stoner. on all levels except physical she is taking fuckall huge bong rips. on the physical level though her lungs suck so i think she'd be a tincture girlie. she's got chronic pain she deserves it. am i projecting? you tell me

unpopular opinion: idk if this is an unpopular opinion exactly, but i always see people referring to thee rejected proposal as being something born primarily out of love/out of romantic intent? and i don't know if that's necessarily how i see it. it was CERTAINLY, and obviously, a factor. but at least from my interpretation of pal's monologue to cytherea at the end there, i get the sense that he had already accepted her boundaries in that regard, because he says he "understood that he was a child." and we also get camilla saying that his motivations in proposing were primarily a means-to-an-end way of getting her off the seventh and letting her die with dignity. iirc her exact words were like "so she could spend what time she had left with people who cared about her." like, don't get me wrong, i think pal is lying to himself if he says that being in love with dulcie wasn't PART of the motivation there. but i find it a lot more interesting in a worldbuilding and social commentary way to interpret the circumstances there as him offering, essentially, to be a hospice doctor at age 19, and marriage being the 'easiest' way to get her off the seventh/planet medical malpractice. there's an imperial misogyny ownership-through-marriage throughline there that's nauseating, as well as the implications re: disability and agency and autonomy, and i think that's all very interesting to explore. i think this view is supported in part by the paldulcie interaction in TUG, where she alludes to the idea that she was cognizant about the impact that bearing witness to death and loss up-close and personal like that changes a person, and that she didn't want to do that to pal and cam, especially given their age. i think it informa dulcie's character and grants her additional narrative agency to look at things from that angle, of her "no" being in reference to *both* the age gap AND her intentional choice to continue suffering on the seventh, rather than put two kids through being hospice caregivers and/or widowers at nineteen– no matter how many times and how sincerely they kept offering, no matter that she would've absolutely had a more peaceful and comfortable end-of-life HAD she accepted his proposal and gone to the sixth to die. i think it says a lot about her as a person, that choice. there's a quiet and meaningful responsibility to her as a person that i find fascinating. and her character is just sooooo firmly rooted in and informed by disability politics, on every level, and i feel like people don't engage with that aspect of her characterization enough!

song i associate with them: ooooh SO many, i have a whole playlist. but i think the biggest ones are

-the drama by kesha ("friday night, get too high, keep checking my pulse, am i dead yet?" / "in the next life i wanna come back, as a housecat as a housecat! i'd sleep and play in the sun, i'd be a fuckin' cute son of a gun!")

-avant gardener by courtney barnett (the whole song really, but especially the lines "the paramedic thinks i'm clever cause i play guitar, i think she's clever cause she stops people dyin'," and "i take a hit off an asthma puffer, i do it wrong, i was never good at smokin' bongs." i just think she'd love this song.)

-honorable mentions include stoned at the nail salon by lorde, life according to raechel by madison cunningham, rose-colored boy by paramore (@ palamedes, lmfao), picture me better by weyes blood, extraordinary machine by fiona apple, rubberband girl by kate bush, last words of a shooting star by mitski.

favorite picture of them: oh man well it obviously has to be my icon... art made for me by the lovely @franzias-cave !!!! based on the concept of "the woman is dying, please do her the decency of allowing her to look the part in fanart." my girl... she's a malign fairy, she's a hot-eyed wraith <3

ty lem this was so fun! i love my gworl :')

#this is so good #love the analysis of her turning down Pal's proposal #very real #caring for someone dying slowly and painfully is really rough even if you aren't a literal child #the locked tomb #tlt #dulcinea septimus #palamedes sextus #camilla hect

[queeoretician]

#judith took this pic from magnus's diary

[queeoretician]

Shadowheart and Nocturne making up for decades of cozy mornings they missed together, part 2 💕

#i'm in love with these two #they deserve all the love and happiness in the world #t4t shadownoct headcanon is cooking #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 shadowheart #bg3 nocturne #shadowheart/nocturne #shadownoct #shadowheart x nocturne

[queeoretician]

Cam, did you check on if Gideon didn't drink too much, yet?

the next comic will feature their responses to questions sent in as "never have i ever __"s. only 3-5 asks will be picked for brevity.

part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

#“anemic corona” lmao #the locked tomb #tlt #camilla hect #palamedes sextus #dulcinea septimus #ianthe tridentarius #coronabeth tridentarius

[queeoretician]

Badness Level

Maybe Harrow just needs to play some Elvis or go surfing.

#lmaoooo #I did NOT expect the stealth Lilo & Stitch reference #the locked tomb #tlt #gideon nav #harrowhark nonagesimus

[queeoretician]

to the people who want to have a conversation about john's being an indigenous man, a māori man, i would like to remind you that the first time we see māori spoke onscreen it goes as follows.

one person in this room is interested in the cultures and languages of the world that came before, to the point her name and mission in life are respectively a human chain reaching back ten thousand years and justice for the destroyed earth: a mission that allowed her to persist beyond death, which brings her to being in control of cytherea the first's corpse. the other is john, who is disinterested in her idea of justice for them and speaks over her multiple times.

that human chain, her name? he doesn't respect it just as he doesn't respect her. this conversation is beneath him and so is her full name. he is annoyed into reciting it.

māori is spoken by john here, and it is spoken with contempt for the woman who wishes to avenge earth and whose name preserved a part of the language that he helped annihilate, along with aotearoa and all other māori people.

the first time māori is spoken in the series it is spoken by an indigenous man—who received an extensive colonial scholarship, who was alienated from his culture and sought respect and recognition in predominantly white academia, who was burned time and time again by the systems of oppression that formed the basis for climate change and the earth's abandonment by the trillionaires—who speaks it with a tone of condescension and a complete lack of gravitas because it is irrelevant to him. genuinely sad, bordering on very funny.

the second instance of māori is when he renames gideon the transliteration of her name into māori. she does not identify with it and she likely does not know its significance.

she is also a corpse: killed indirectly by cytherea the first, who presented a threat to harrow's life that could only be dealt with via her ascension to lyctorhood via gideon's death, who groomed gideon into accepting her role as cavalier primary to harrowhark nonagesimus.

killed by one of the emperor undying's fists and gestures, killed by the ideals of cavaliership which he societally instituted, killed due to cytherea the first's disillusionment with him leading her to go on a killing spree at canaan house in order to gain his attention, killed due to john and john's actions and the systems of the society he created.

the only time we see john use the māori language in a way that isn't dripping for contempt is when he renames his daughter's corpse, wherein he clarifies that she is prince kiriona gaia, heir to the emperor divine and the emperor's only daughter, the emperor's construct.

construct, like the skeletons that farm leeks on the ninth. she is not entitled to resurrection: she is to ownership, to being the ninth's chattel in life and her father's construct in death. he uses the language to declare her his.

gideon is the name of his saint, his oldest friend, spoken by the ghost of the woman that birthed her, to the nuns of her house—kiriona is john declaring a corpse his heir, and his daughter his construct.

there is a conversation i would love to have about john's indigeneity: it's the one where we acknowledge that after wakes death he has preserved the legacy of the māori language by using it to name his daughter, a māori woman killed by his society and the consequences of his actions, something she doesn't feel any connection to.

john is an indigenous man, a māori man, who was born into a land settled by colonisers who rendered it rife with systems of oppression that alienated him from his culture, and led him to fall back on the same systems of oppression when he founded the nine houses. indigeneity describes a relation to colonisation and settler capital, primarily in the form of dispossession; when john declared kiriona his, did he do so as an indigenous man or as the emperor of an empire that ships populations between planets like cattle?

#👏👏👏 #the people going “how dare you criticise an Indigenous Man” when people talk about John's actions #and then refuse to engage with his material relationship with his indigeneity #are just engaging in (and I hate to say this) empty identity politics #“horrors of love” this “horrors of love” that #what about the horrors of John's love for the mechanisms and signifiers of European colonialism? #the locked tomb #tlt #tlt meta #john gaius #gideon nav #commander wake