#I LOVE NECROMANCER SURVIVAL

[kvsagi]

‘Command me, Leekyung-ah.’

#MY NEW RELIGION #DAWONKYUNG #I LOVE THEM #FOR SOME REASON THEY REMINDED ME SO MUCH ABOUT ROSALBA #AT LEAST THE BANTERING AND TEASING #BUT UGH I LOVE THESE TWO SO MUCH #I LOVE NECROMANCER SURVIVAL #I DONT THINK IVE BEEN NORMAL EVER SINCE #necromancer survival #nezongi #seo dawon #choi leekyung #choi yikyung #sdw #clk #cyk #fanart #ns

[tiredela]

Champion for @nerevar-quote-and-star ‘s pinup challenge!

Almalexia invites you to spend some "alone time" with her on her balcony. She assures you that the railing is 100% safe, no need to worry. You can lean on it as much as you want, in fact, please do.

#tes #tesblr #tes pinup challenge 2023 #tes art #tes fanart #elder scrolls #the elder scrolls #morrowind #almalexia #digital art #tiredelart #almalexia yet again plotting to kill the reincarnation of her dead husband and we love her for that #my nerevarine would 100% fall for this but still miraculously survive me thinks (new art idea?) #i think this is one of my favourite things i’ve ever drawn #did i purposefully choose a dress that conveniently hides all her tattoos so i didn’t feel the need to draw them all? maybe #i’ll do the necromancer prompt too just be patient <3

[monthlymanga]

January 2024 reads!

I will become the villain's Poison taster!

An office worker is transmigrated into the body of an imprisoned villainess with the ability to withstand any kind of poison. A run-in with the main antagonist in disguise ends up with her working for him as a general store employee.

This one is quite interesting as the ML already knows she's someone else

Sweetie, sweetie, sweetie

After his death, a young man is transported into a novel with a quest given to him to save the world. Except he wakes up in the frail body of the antagonist's fiancé

Seduce the villain's father

Reincarnated into a novel 20 years before the story begins, the main character tries to save her sister only to get kidnapped herself by the future father of the villain.

An observation log of my fiancée who calls herself a villainess

Written from the perspective of a genius crown prince whose fiancée claims to be the villainess of an otome game

Necromancer survival

Weak necromancer ends up making a contract with one of the most powerful deceased guild masters to help him and his team get revenge on those who betrayed them.

#I will become the villain's poison taster #sweetie sweetie sweetie #sweetie #seduce the villain's father #an observation log of my fiancée who calls herself a villainess #necromancer survival #manga recommendations #manhwa recommendations #isekai manga #romance manga #romance manhwa #boys love #bl manhwa

[kirnet]

Re: that last post the Henry/necromaner mentor/mentee relationship has always been my fave part of working on grave and weep. The ‘did you ever see me as family or was I a means to an end?’ The ‘did I kill you because I actually surpassed you or did you just let me?’ Was I the only one who cared? I’ll never know because I killed you with the training you gave me. I need to explode things with my mind

#like he’s such an awful shitbag asshole and they KNOW IT and he fucking SHOT THEM. but they can’t bring themselves to hate him bc how can #you hate the man who made sure you knew how to survive? #they carry the scars and his knife and the mementos of his violence around bc it’s the only thing they have left from him #and then the Ando/necromancer mentor/mentee relationship is healthy. it’s a father and a child. they are a family and they love each other #but I always imagine that Ando’s kind of hurt by the fact the necromanver can’t let Henry go. he’s a good man. #why can’t he replace that piece of shit in their mind? is he not good enough?? #baby I have oc thoughts the depth of you cannot fathom #grave and weep #yeah it’s an oc/canon romance series whatever that is like the smallest part of it for me #as evidence by the 4 billion supporting characters I made for it lol #ramblings

[ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her]

Your name is Ianthe.

You have a sister. "I love you," she says.

"I love you," you say, and you are happy.

You have parents. "Love me," you say.

"Your sister is so beautiful," they say.

You are a necromancer. You have a talent, a real talent. Your sister does not.

"They won't love me now," she cries.

"I love you," you say. You can be enough necromancer for both of you. You have a talent. Your parents are pleased.

"Love me?" you ask.

"Your sister is so gifted," they say.

God summons you to be his hand. You are patient. You are diligent. You are so fucking talented. You are the first to find the way.

"Eat me", your sister begs.

"But I love you!" you refuse.

"You don't love me," she cries.

There's another girl. Quiet. Avoidant. As talented as you. She learns from your example. She finds the way.

"Eat me," her cavalier demands.

"But I love you," she refuses.

"Love me," you whisper.

She tells you to shatter her mind.

You are with God. You passed His tests. You claimed His power. You did it all by yourself. "Love me," you demand.

"Would you like some tea, Harrowhark?" he says.

She's still with you. Her mind is broken. Her talent is spent. Her power is failing. She has destroyed herself for her love. Love me, you think.

The end approaches. Her doom is nigh. You can survive. You can save her. "Love me," you beg.

"I could never love you," she spits.

The end comes, and then goes. God lives by your intervention alone. His other hands are dead. He is broken. All his power is yours. The entire universe spreads out before you, ripe for the taking.

"Love me!" you scream.

"Love me," you sob.

Love me.

Your name is Ianthe. And you are alone.

#the locked tomb #tlt #ianthe tridentarius #harrow the ninth #htn

[righteousinadversity]

I don't think any protagonist can ever top Wei 'Yiling Laozu' Wuxian. No one is doing it like him. He is an icon. He can shoot arrows blindfolded. He is a prankster. He falls for a boy and decides immediately that he must have said boy's attention on him at all time. He is necromancer exacting his vengeance. He is just three years old. He is a flirt. He has his first kiss in his twenties. He does not remember your name. He does remember that one song his crush sang to him in a cave when he was injured and feverish. He is a sunshine boy. He survived the hell of hells. He died and was unhappily brought back to life. He's the bizarre genius, the miraculous hero, the force of the rebellion, the flower that blooms alone. He walks the single plank bridge alone. He is the awesome gay uncle who knows everything. He is a pretty boy. He is the most moral, steadfast person you know. He is just a man throwing flowers to his love. He rips his hard won talent out to repay a debt that never was. He is a sister's boy. He is an abuse survivor. He is an urban legend. He is one of the most handsome men of his time. He has so much trauma. He plants children like radishes. He threw the arrow he was shot with from a rooftop and killed someone. He is a talented musician. He is a scheming fox. He can drink you under the table. He is so fucking tired of this bullshit. He has probably long since burned his tastebuds with the spice he puts in his food. He is broke. He kisses skeletons on their hands in gratitude. He confesses his deep, abiding love in the middle of being held hostage. He attempts the impossible and succeeds. He is an untamed hero, standing against a world condemning the innocent. He is everything.

#wei wuxian #mdzs #*me appearing out of nowhere after eight months with starbucks* #writing this I know I have probably missed many things #so feel free to add on to this #Also me just copying JC's entire spiel in the BM right onto this

[canyourfavesurvivecastledracula]

Can Gideon Nav Thelockedtomb survive Dracula's castle? Alternatively, can Harrow Nonagesimus Thelockedtomb survive?

This is the one with the lesbian skeletons? Genuine question: aren't these people already dead??

This seems like it would be best to leave as an exercise to the reader...

It's true *cries* I don't know anything about the zombie lesbians. Is the other one the necromancer?? I'm pretty sure Gideon's the one with the bones.

#the locked tomb #gideon nav #gideon the ninth

[silasoctakiseron]

It's been said before but I'll say it again — ever be so deeply, permanently emotionally destroyed by killing your best friend in the name of the newfound necromancer/cavalier relationship that you build a house that treats cavaliers as innately disposable, breeds them for a single purpose, genetically matches them to babies before they are born, names them for sacrificial animals, specifically so none of the necromancers who follow behind you will experience the heartbreak of losing the person they love most in the world, so horribly that they can't stand to hear their name spoken aloud for the next ten thousand years, only for the scion of that house, ten thousand years later, to be so revolted by the concept of killing his cavalier for Lyctorhood, so disgusted by your crime, that he claims G-d's directly expressed will is heretical and fundamentally morally opposed to the principles of the religion you helped to found?

And then, when that person does do what you explicitly built his house to be able to do and uses his cavalier as a tool rather than a person — even if he does it because he believes his cavalier capable of surviving anything, the polar opposite of what you tried to teach his house to believe — he experiences his cavalier's death as such an abrupt and horrifying loss that after he himself is killed he wanders the afterlife in grief, impotently taking revenge on a woman who should have been burned up for Lyctorhood by the person who loved and needed her most, but was spared, saying may all the blood of your blood suffer even a fraction of what I have suffered? The suffering you tried so incredibly hard to insulate him from? He of the church you built to bury the memory of a nun?

#sorry I'm INSANE and have been thinking abt mercy/cristabel + silas/colum parallels literally all fucking day #mercymorn the first #cristabel oct #silas octakiseron #colum asht #the locked tomb

[spacebarbarianweird]

What do you think about some headcannons of a curious Astarion intrigued by Tav’s skincare routine ? :3

This is a funny request, to be honest, but who I am not to explore the topic of body image issues and curses that can fuck up the person's skin in a fantasy setting?

TW: Scars left by physical abuse

Astarion x Tav Who Has to Cover Her Face

Masterlist

Headcanons

Many years ago, you were unlucky to piss off a man who studied necromancy.

He was arrogant and cruel and didn't understand that "no" is a "no".

For your resistance, he mutilated you.

Attacking you with a spell causing necrotic damage.

The half of your face and the right side of your neck look burnt.

You also lost the right eye.

"Once you realize no one will ever want you to feel free to crawl to my bed" he wished you.

Well, you can't punish a necromancer, who was born into a noble family.

You ran away from home.

As far as possible.

You were many things. A beggar, a thief - you did many things to survive.

With time, you learn how to hide your face.

First of all, healing ointments can at least repair some damage.

It's still awful but more bearable.

And blessed be the circus people and spies to invent disguise kits!

It takes ages to apply the make-up, but in the end, you look as if nothing happened.

Life in the camp boosts your anxiety.

What if someone sees you?

And you have to get up really early to make your face look at least decent.

Astarion doesn't pay much thought to it. You like wearing make-up. So what?

One day, he shows up at your tent unannounced (finally feeling comfortable enough around you)

While you are unprepared.

You immediately cover your face, demanding him to leave.

Astarion is taken aback by your reaction, but something tells him something is wrong.

"My sweet, can I take a look?"

You shake your head. No. No one is supposed to see you like that.

But he grabs your hands and pulls them away.

You expect disgust but instead, his eyes glow with anger.

"Who the fuck did this to you?!"

"Who". He knows it was done deliberately.

You tell him everything. About harassment. Lewd words. Pain.

He caresses your mutilated cheek and kisses you.

You spend the rest of the morning crying in his hands.

Astarion doesn't pretend that your face looks "normal".

But he isn't averted by it.

He helps you to apply make-up in the morning and wash your face in the evening.

Sometimes people get rude around you, and Astarion beats the shit out of them (usually demanding apologies).

Astarion also takes care of your prosthetic eye. His rogue hands can deal with the mechanisms much better than you.

When having sex, you notice he always looks directly at you, never trying to close his eyes.

You feel loved. You feel desired. You feel beautiful.

And you feel safe.

If at any time in the future that abuser decides he can't wait anymore and tries to take you by force, he will have to fight someone immune to any form of necrotic damage.

--

Tag list

@tugoslovenka @marcynomercy @wintersire @vixstarria @not-so-lost-after-all @ashiro20 @theearthsfinalconfession @herstxrgirl @starlight-ipomoea @micropoe10 @astarion-imagine-archive @veillsar @elora-the-slutty-songstress @fayeriess @lumienyx @tallymonster @caitlincat-95 @tragedybunny @valeprati @lynnlovesthestars @marina-and-the-memes @waking-electric @ayselluna @connorsui @asterordinary @darkarchangel96

#astarion #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 astarion #astarion romance #bg3 #astarion bg3 #astarion headcanon #baldurs gate 3 #astarion headcanons #astarion x tav #tav x astarion #spacebarbarian headcanon #astarion x reader #baldurs gate astarion #astarion ancunin #astarion baldurs gate #astarion brainrot #astarion fanfiction #astarion imagine #tav with disability

[shayberri789]

My theory on the NtN ending:

Cassiopeia wasn't the only one to betray Jod thousands of years ago. She wasn't the only one to see that what Jod was doing was wrong and put plans in place to deal with it.

Anastasia the first almost had perfect lyctorhood and watched her God kill her cavalier in front of her so she couldn't do it. Maybe she really would have died. Maybe she would have gone the paul route. Maybe she would have survived and Samael would still be around. But he was killed in front of her and she had no say in it.

Alecto was odd, and a little dangerous, but she's the soul of the earth and if Jod could kill the most important person to Anastasia of course he could kill the thing who loved humanity so much she gave them power over life and death.

And when the Lyctors were convincing him to kill his pet revenent beast, the pin point of his greatest sin and a being in constant pain and hurt, maybe Anastasia, the one left behind, the one maybe magicked to silence through a sewn tongue, cursed jaw, felt sympathy and kinship with Alecto. Maybe she knew Jod would never truly kill Alecto. Maybe she was the first person in hundreds if not thousands and millions of years to look at Alecto with compassion and actually say "I will help you if only you tell me how". Maybe she made a promise to protect Alecto, maybe she made a promise to look after her while she sleeps. Maybe she made a promise that one day she'd come and wake Alecto up and they'd solve things together. Maybe one day they can undo what John did and maybe Alecto can have peace, finally, one day. And maybe Alecto swore that for the debt of waking her again she would do anything for Anastasia, any one thing, if Anastasia woke her up in a time when things could change.

But by the time Anastasia, frail with her necromancer build and squirreled away at the edge of the solar system, started reaching old age she realized it was too soon to wake her up. Too soon to send her into the lyctor viper pit again, not while Anastasia was so weak. So she tasks her daughter with guarding the tomb. "This door must stay shut until the day comes when the emperor must die" she says, and her daughter repeats this to her son, and so on and so forth until the body in the locked tomb becomes Armageddon. Not locked away for her own protection, not awaiting the day for the tomb keeper to wake her up and try again, not awaiting the day when the nine houses get to restart. No, she's the greatest enemy of god, she must be locked away lest she start Armageddon, locked away for the protection of the emperor and their duties to her tomb an icon for devotion.

But the bloodwards hold for 10000 years and one day the curse of silence will be lifted from the jaw of the ninth house tomb keeper, and the oath to Alecto is preserved in the Anastasian bloodline. And the daughter of the tomb keeper has awakened the monster once again

#this is me attempting to put a storyteller spin on a hc thats been buzzing around in my skull since i finished ntn #shay posts #tlt #the locked tomb #alecto the ninth #alecto the first #alecto theories #harrowhark nonagesimus #harrow the ninth #gideon the ninth #anastasia the ninth #anastasia the first #nona the ninth #alecto #griddlehark

[sofipitch]

One big theme in the locked tomb is the importance of community, and especially with the framework of those with a disability. Harrow in HTN has two different worlds she is interacting with, one in which the people around her don't give a shit to help her at all, and in that world she dies. Then in the river bubble most everyone refuses to leave her on her own, thye chose to help her, many despite not knowing her. Compare Ianthe's speech to Harrow in the prologue, the way she frames it is Harrow will not survive if she doesn't accept her help, and that Ianthe specifically is the only one who can. Her speech intentionally or not implied that she sees Harrow as weak. Of course Harrow rejects her help. Whereas when Harrow is asking the others to not help her defeat the sleeper, many frame it as helping her is just being part of something they already wanted to do or that they benefit from (the ones that come immediately to mind being Abigail, Dulcie, and Marta). They help her but don't make her feel like she owes them anything for doing it. Which is the opposite of Ianthe, when Harrow makes her the bone arm, Harrow doesn't want anything in return but Ianthe explicitly states she doesn't want to owe her.

The same is true in Nona, Camilla, Palamedes, and Pyrrha don't really owe it to Harrow to keep her/her body safe. It's obviously a lot of work, the equivalent to raising a child, but Nona is never treated as a burden. And I hate to imagine what it would have been like for Nona had she been alone, she said she couldn't even remember to walk at first. And this is all over the series, Dulcie lovingly saying Palamedes invented the breathing tube for her. Camilla and Coronabeth caring for Judith when they were captured. Even in places that aren't tied to disability, a necromancer and cavalier HAD to work together to complete the challenges. The way both of the Palamedes' detective short stories depend on the help another person lends him. It means so much for a story featuring characters with a disability to emphasize that it is okay to need other people, that we all do or will. That you don't need to push yourself to extremes to keep up (Harrow has this mindset in both books and in both she succeeds the most with the help of others, not alone).

To go even further, it isn't just about helping one another, but the importance of not keeping a score. Don't think you have to make up an equivalent amount of help to someone else. One of the things Gideon emphasizes as the most hurtful in Harrow's rejection is the rejection of her help. Palamedes says that he feels bad for using Camilla for his agenda and she answers that it was never his agenda. Him needing her body was something Camilla would never think twice about giving. They would do these things because they love them. This is just me repeating themes but I'm so used to the Western independent mindset, and disability porn of "if you just try hard enough" this series is a breath of fresh air

#tlt #the locked tomb #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth

[boombox-fuckboy]

Hi!

I have been following this blog for a while now and I love using it to find new podcasts. I was wondering, if you have time, what you think is the scariest podcast you've listened to or what your favorite horror podcasts might be? Thank you, and I hope you have a great day :)

I'm so glad to have helped you find new shows!

I don't really get scared by horror podcasts (not sure why. It isn't some "I'm tough" thing, I get startled by the toaster, and it's not like I never feel unsettled or concerned or icked out at podcasts, just not scared) so I'm not sure I can give you a good answer on that one, but I'll gladly give you ten of my personal favourites instead:

Alice Isn't Dead: The podcast that got me into podcasts. A truck driver travels the USA looking for her wife, who until recently, she had thought was dead. Along the way she has all manner of strange encounters, and sees a side to the world that few truely comprehend.

Archive 81: A young archivist takes a job at a remote outpost organising and digitising a collection of tapes. On the tapes is a series of interviews and investigations made by a social worker in the 90s as she becomes familiar with a bizzare apartment building. The archivist, naturally, has an increasingly bad time. Each season is part of the same story, but they're all a bit different.

Ghost Wax: Recorded interviews conducted by the last surviving necromancer, and various people who died under seemingly otherworldly circumstances.

Hello From The Hallowoods: Supernatural and cosmic horror. A powerful and dramatic entity visits your nightmares to relay stories of the people (to varying degrees of both human and alive) who inhabit the beautiful and deadly Hallowoods. What start off as individual stories quickly connect to a larger narrative.

Hi Nay: A supernatural horror following a young woman named Mari, who's babaylan (shaman) family background draws her into helping people with various horrific supernatural problems around Toronto. Formatted as phone calls to her mother telling her what's happened.

I Am In Eskew: Often-horrific stories from a man living in something that very much wishes to be a city, and a private investigator who was, in her words, hired to kill a ghost. Many people seem to agree this one is scary.

Janus Descending: A xenoarcheologist and a xenopaleontologist are sent to investigate and sample the ruins of a long-dead alien city, and discover more than they anticipated. The format for this one is really clever: you hear her audio logs first to last, and his last to first, and the story is all the more heartbreaking for it. I'd recommend listening to the supercut.

The Lost Cat Podcast: A man befriends strange entities, loses bits of himself and drinks an awful lot of wine while looking for his cat. Soft and cosmic horror.

The Moon Crown: The shortest on this list, but also one of the most fascinating. A disgraced scribe living in a city of humans, beasts, and other bizzare entities, begins to recount recent happenings, and actions she has a hard time explaining, on broadcast. But the people she's hoping to reach might not be the ones listening.

The Silt Verses: In a modern world where gods are plentiful, both illicit and commercialised, two disciples of an outlawed river god go on a pilgrimage.

Although, maybe some other listeners can help me out and share what scared them?

#Please do note that these are not necessarily the *best* horror podcasts. They're my favourites. #audio drama #alice isn't dead #archive 81 #ghost wax #hello from the hallowoods #hi nay #i am in eskew #janus descending #the lost cat podcast #the moon crown #the silt verses #Or like. Some of my favourites. #hopefully this all makes sense I am sleepytired

[familyabolisher]

haphazard assortment of thoughts on the unwanted guest:

firstly, it really does have to be said—crazy good, probably my favourite of all the tlt short pieces, and i say that as someone who lost my mind over as yet unsent for like a week. excellent conceit and excellent execution, just a really gorgeous piece of writing. the play format of course reminds me of what abigail says to harrow in htn—that the river bubble is a ‘play [she’s] directing’—the inside of one’s head as a stage in which other actors can intervene & whereby mileage can be gotten out of Symbolism as immediately “real,” tangible presences that the kind of realist baggage that a more quotidian prose form would usher in would probably falter in accomplishing. it’s a lot!! i think even if i wasn’t already a tazmuir writing style defender (contra the insistence that she’s yknow homestuck fanfiction serial numbers filed off hack) then this would have had me floored anyway. 

the play format also works in the way that muir’s general dexterity in form and willingness to really make use of craft as a technical space where discourse can be generated always works—i’m talking about the ‘fanfictiony’ voice in gtn which manages to say something both about fanfiction and about the text itself, the use of the dramatis personae as a space where atmosphere can be established and plot points hinted towards (thus blurring the lines between what is and is not diegesis), the drastic shifts in style between different close thirds, the shifting from third- to second- to epistolary first-person, the use of poetry both diegetic and not (the noniad, the epigraph poems…), the mimicry of the ‘voice’ of the king james bible in the nona epilogue—she never stays in one place for too long and she never seems to stick to one central style or form, and it really works in her favour. insofar as tlt as a whole is a very ‘patchwork’ kind of work, building itself up from its big big index of references and intertexts and memes with hugely variant levels of ‘prestige’ or legitimacy attached to them, the ‘patchwork’ use of form really works in muir’s favour. however i am also fuming because i was right in the middle of writing a tlt fic which jumps into a play format two-thirds of the way through and now my idea doesn’t look ORIGINAL but ANYWAY—

& i really do need to flag my good friend vee’s mercy/augustine fic, which makes use of a similar conceit and pulls it off masterfully—i am deeply jealous of vee’s talent and i think the unwanted guest makes this piece (from 2021!) shine even more, if anything.

i am DYING to see where muir is going with the use of hamlet, of all things—dulcie quoting it to palamedes immediately catapulted my mind back to abigail’s reference to ‘that undiscovered country’ in htn. obviously muir likes to drop contemporary (or contemporarily canonical) references and turns of phrase all over the place, but the attention drawn to the quote as diegetically referential (“I like that. Is it from something?” / “Yes. It’s complicated.”) has me wondering about a) the survival of ‘pre-res’ literatures ~over the river and like WHY and b) what a thematic interlocking of tlt and hamlet can do, here…….real aveheads remember cytherea ophelia theory where i tried to use ophelia as a point of reference for teasing out some arguments about cytherea and death and aesthetics and white femininity and whatnot. all of which is to say i need to sit with this hamlet reading a lot more but i love it, i am so here for it.

of course ‘kissing or feeding, we can’t be sure’ calls to mind ‘how meat loves meat,’ alecto biting harrow’s mouth by way of a kiss…and the general thematic throughline of, you know, certain practices of love as practices of consumption, naberius later being figured as the ‘meat’ in question contains echoes of this eroticism which ofc guides the contours of the necromancer/cavalier dynamic, eroticism as a currency of power, we know all of this stuff because it’s all over the text but i am just thumbs-upping it from the sidelines

the coffins had me thinking of utena’s black rose arc, which is a fun link to make considering the equivalent moment in the main body of nona is also referencing utena, ie. with the ‘rules’ of the duel being that cam has to get the handkerchief out of ianthe’s pocket as kind of an equivalent to skewering the rose. i feel like the tlt/utena overlap is pretty self-explanatory but it’s just fun to see the fingerprints all over lol

i think a lot of this was treading old ground thematically (erotics of consumption, dog motifs, we’ve seen it already!) but i will say that i did Yell Out Loud over ‘who's she got dawdling behind her but that creature—tugging visibly at her leash like an overeager dog.’ reminded of the other memorable use of ‘leash’—’even the devil bent for god to put a leash around her neck’—and, of course, the endless parade of commonalities between gideon & alecto. anyway there’s not really anything in this line that we didn’t already know about gid as a character, thematically speaking, but i point it out because it inflicted +100 psychic damage when i read it. gideon as a ‘creature’ is particularly slimy, & sort of puts me in mind of ianthe's tendency to talk about what appears to us as 'butch masculinity' (as opposed to the more effete masculinity of augustine or even babs) with a notably derogatory slant (the 'hurtful threats of sexual violence' line comes to mind); i don't know that i have much to say about it here specifically but it's an interesting one that i think informs the kirianthe dynamic pretty heavily (especially when held up against, like, harrianthe ... ianthe has a kind of respect for whatever harrow's gay and stupid gender is Doing (at least insofar as she can mould it to her own desires; i'm thinking of the dios apate forcefemme scene lol) in ways that i don't think she has for kiriona? but this is v off-topic, lol).

i have never been especially taken by dulcie as a character but i think this may finally have forced me to fold and admit that she’s great. her haters!!! her agonies!!! camilla would have to cook!! the balance between levity and sincerity was really well-managed. & i love the double meaning of “unwanted guest” as both palamedes intruding on ianthe’s mind palace and naberius setting up shop inside of her.

i need a week to sit with where this idea of the consumed soul as being literally ‘digested’ such that it can begin to ‘inhabit,’ however immaterially, the host body, or like to alter the characteristics of the host body such that to carry out such a consumption is to kind of kill yourself as well, slots in with lolita theory. or like, i need alecto right now. i am however reminded of chew, a short story that muir wrote in 2013, which also plays with these ideas of sexual assault as a forcing of a part of yourself meaningfully ‘into’ another person, and cannibalism as the reenactment of such a process, figured in the story as kind of a reclamation or at least an assertion of permanence—“I was always going to be in the ground with him in me,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure, that’s all. I just wanted to make sure.”—which the unwanted guest seems to kind of, play with in reverse? i don’t know, but i’m interested—as ever—in where muir wants to take these ideas of rape and consumption and absorption that she’s got in her hands.

i keep returning to…i hesitate to say ‘parallels’ because i think that imposes a narrative onus that i’m not actually that convinced by, but these, like, commonalities between babs and gideon. gideon is played off against so many people (cristabel, loveday, alecto being the big ones) that it feels kind of inane to add another person to the pile, but like…they’re the two who get got in canaan house, they’re both ironically ‘false’ cavaliers and expressions of the ‘truest’ or most paradigmatic form that cavalierhood ‘can’/’should’ take, they both have unconventionally gendered names (‘babs’ is a shortened form of ‘barbara,’ it is a typically feminine name imo) and (by our standards) somewhat unconventional genders (gideon is butch, babs effete)—and of course the unwanted guest places a lot of emphasis on the coercive ‘making’ of cavalierhood (the reference to babs being ‘fixed’ were he to have a disability! ianthe’s glib ‘society really is to blame’ comment—ironic, obviously, but not wholly untrue) not dissimilar to the emphasis that gtn puts on cytherea moulding gideon into the state she comes to be in at the end. babs and gideon as the two possessed corpses in nona, obviously. two wildly diverse but ultimately converging trajectories! a dialectical tension between their fundamental ‘opposition’ (as by-the-book cavalier vs whatever gideon is doing) and their fundamental ‘sameness’ whereby the dialectic is resolved in their mutual deaths. also just, of course, continuing the throughline that muir has had going for a while now, of gender/gendering as a set of coercive enforcements loyal to a hegemonic structuring of the world.

that’s all i’ve got, i think. just. really good everyone say thank you tazmuir

#.txt #tlt #the unwanted guest spoilers #this was originally bullet points but tumblr's formatting is bad and i can't be bothered editing to improve the flow here. so. #rape cw

[stem-sister-scuffle]

STEM SISTER SCUFFLE: ROUND 1 MASHUP 9

Mercymorn The First (The Locked Tomb) vs GLaDOS (Portal)

Mercymorn The First is a Cryogenics Scientist and Anatomist!

GLaDOS is a Quantum Physicist and Behavioural Psychologist!

Why you should vote for each contestant:

Mercymorn The First:

"Scientist working on human cryogenics/necromancy. She's a genius in a codependent toxic polycule with God."

"Fits the criteria for STEM (science, tech, engineering, math (specifically science)), and also Quirky STEM (stabbing, tearing, eating, maiming). She was a scientist trying to save humanity from global warming, before one of her science buddies became a necromancer and killed the entire world. Now she’s the meanest lady ever and had a threesome with god. Also she got ultra exploded (also by god)"

"She was trying very, very hard to save humanity! She was aiming to preserve people for an interstellar voyage, so that humans could survive the end of the world. It didn't work out and the project got shut down, but after the world ended she pioneered the field of necromantic healing and was known as the foremost anatomical expert among God's Lyctors. She says ick! bleh! out loud when she's disgusted. Also she's much, much more ethical than most people in the series."

"She was a doctor that joined several of her friends, most of whom were other STEM people and a few who weren't, in trying to convince the governments of the world to make an active plan to save the world from climate change. This ended up with one of them destroying the solar system and everything in it, resurrecting it all, and becoming God. She was resurrected as one of his Saints, and continued to use her medical knowledge to become an anatomy specialist and as a key part of a plan between her and another of their friends to take down God for being a tyrant. She might have been an OBGYN but I can't remember if that's actually canon. Also, she has naturally "apricot-colored" (so, pink) hair."

"She was a Regular Doctor working to save humanity from climate change but got resurrected by her friend after he ended the world and became a powerful goddess-like figure. She uses her knowledge of human anatomy to do crazy flesh magic including making her hair naturally pink just for funsies (iconic). She doesn't put up with any bullshit from anyone, including the universe's ostensible god. I love her"

"It's not specifically described but she was the medical support in a cryosleep project, and she knows enough later to have artificially created a baby without either of the biological parents knowing about it

She's the worst and I love her. Here's a description of her in Harrow the Ninth:

You could press your hand to Ianthe’s chest, if you wanted—which you didn’t, naturally—and the blood-warm sternum beneath would gradually unfold for you. But it would take effort, and close contact, and you would need to know the sternum.

Mercymorn the First knew the sternum. Mercymorn the First knew the pericardial fat, the soft-tissue secrets of the mediastinum, the false-heart shape of the thymus. You might have to press your whole palm to Ianthe’s breastbone—doubtless—and take valuable seconds to search out the bone, and the things behind the bone, their characters, their locations. Mercymorn could pinpoint your pineal gland with the merest touch to the skull. This was not due to some Lyctoral power that she alone possessed, no honed necromantic theorem; as God had told you, she had simply memorised the body, by rote, over the course of ten thousand years. She had studied the measurements and their range of differences, and on the rare occasions when she needed to assume where something was or how it worked, her assumptions had the accuracy of ten thousand years’ experience. What Mercy didn’t know about the body wasn’t just not worth knowing, said the Emperor; if she didn’t know it, it hadn’t existed previously.

Over the dinner table you asked Augustine why, if it was simply a matter of memory, he hadn’t done the same thing. Ianthe choked discreetly on a forkful of boiled flour-paste shapes in red sauce. “Lord! I can barely remember what I had for lunch last week,” he said. “Besides, anatomy has too narrow an application.” Mercymorn opened her mouth, hurricane eyes promising a coastal lashing, and said, “Application!” but Augustine said, languidly— “One would only really need it to kill Lyctors, Harrowhark, and the rest of us never evinced any interest in that.”

That broke up the dinner somewhat.

This is her and I love her dearly

https://youtu.be/pvJOuUJNcx8"

GLaDOS:

"i’m not sure how to explain this one. she’s an evil computer who makes a woman do fucked up tasks that all involve a portal gun in some way. evil computer woman i love you :3"

"She's witty, fun, they had to restrain her intelligence and it didn't work-"

"She should be able to kill everyone forever. Anyways she runs aperture she loves science so much it transcended lives and identity. It’s just what she does"

"she kills people 👍 shes cool and i like her"

"…. I mean she’s categorically not but it would be funny to include her. Again, it would be Very Funny"

"mad scientist robot representation with a complex emotional arc through multiple video games"

"She might not know what the point of her tests are, but she sure is good at making them. Bonus points for being hot"

"Managed a massive and highly advanced scientific facility in which she ran tests and experiments long after the fall of human civilization. Chell/GLaDOS <3"

"She’s GLaDOS"

#stem sister scuffle #round 1 #mercymorn the first #the locked tomb #glados #portal #portal 2

[lockedtombtheories]

Thanks! I think the biggest thing currently bugging me about HtN is why every surviving lyctor, with 1 single exception, was plotting to kill Jod? My understanding is that it was only when they saw cav!Gideon's eyes on the Mithraeum that they realized Jod lied about the existence of perfect lyctorhood. So why had they spent decades plotting with BoE to open the tomb and murder God? Only explanation I've read is "because he made them kill their cavs," which seems weak.

The short answer is: They at least suspected that he lied about it even before meeting Gideon. She was just the final nail in the coffin, so to speak. Plus, he did make them kill their cavs! Their siblings, their lovers, their closest friends! They dealt with that truth for far more than a lifetime, but they just so happens that they had a lot of time to dwell on it. It’s not really a surprise that it eventually got ugly.

Long answer under the cut, because I love my followers and don’t want them to suffer.

First off: it isn't just the surviving lyctors who betrayed God. Mercymorn, Augustine, Cytherea, yes; but even G1deon was willing to share a bed with the enemy. Either he or Pyrrha told Wake about the RB's and what they do to necromancers, thereby handing her an effective weapon against lyctors. 

And then there's Anastasia, who's implied to have gone against John's orders by even founding the Ninth House. Cassie, who contacted BoE *6 000 years ago*. So who really knows what Cyrus and Ulysses were up to, or would have been if they'd survived for long enough. 

As for why? We get two pieces of explanation in the text. 

YOU LIED TO US

Could this refer to the proof in Gideon's eyes? Sure.  But I'm not convinced that it wasn't the message Cyth always wanted to send. 

Checking in with the other duplicitous sluts:

“You’ve offered us explanations for everything over the years. But—some of them didn’t hold up on examination … It was the power I could never get my head around, you know? I follow power back to its source, John. It’s the skill you asked me to perfect. And the longer I looked at yours, the less things added up.”  “This has been troubling you for a very long time, then,” God said finally. [...] “You don’t get your power from Dominicus,” said Augustine. “It gets its power from you. There’s no exchange involved, no symbiosis. You draw nothing from the system. It relies on you entirely, as we all know. You’re God, John. But—as the Edenites are fond of pointing out—you were once a man. So whither that transition? Where does your power come from? Even if the Resurrection had been the greatest thanergy bloom ever triggered, it would drain away over time. And then Mercy said to me—in a moment of true Mercy vileness—she said, What is God afraid of? [...] I never wanted to believe it when she said, What if he didn’t really put down A.L.? And then—What if he couldn’t put down A.L.?” (HtN, ch. 51)

So: they knew that John didn’t have a tangible power source; and lyctorhood was the only kind of internal furnace they know about. Ergo: yes, they suspected that John had lied about perfect Lyctorhood. He made them kill their cavs. 10 000 years of guilt, literally chasing them across the universe, and for what? For whom?

What kind of God demands such a sacrifice? I think that's one of the central questions of these books. What kind of God demands it? (compare the Binding of Isaac - John) But also: What kind of God punishes it? (compare the Mark of Cain - the Resurrection Beasts) 

But - 

“Why would one of the Emperor’s Lyctors hate him?” “Hate him?” The voice of the girl whom Gideon had known as Dulcinea rose, high and intent. “Hate him? I have loved that man for ten thousand years. We all loved him, every one of us. We worshipped him like a king. Like a god! Like a brother.” (GtN, ch. 35)

They are Believers losing their Faith. They’re questioning the entire foundation of his divinity. Augustine and Mercy are still asking, still hoping that they're wrong - “All that effort to break open the Locked Tomb,” said Augustine, “only to have the answer we wanted wander up in the form of one dead teenager flaunting your genes." - but crucially, they are also lovers going through a messy divorce. You know, when people who once loved each other and were presumably capable of communication are suddenly throwing plates at each other? “Come, swear your loyalty, my son—my brother—beloved—Lyctor—saint.” 

Possibly what Tazmuir is saying is, they're the same picture. But that might be conjecture. 

(edited to add in links to other theory posts. call it the director's cut)

#the locked tomb #tlt meta #og lyctors #asks answered #captain-acab #I'll answer part 2 tomorrow! #mercymorn the first #augustine the first

[dabblingreturns]

One of the most fascinating things in the locked tomb is the juxtaposition between systematic cruelty and personal kindness.

The nine houses and their Shepard worlds are designed to be hostile and Blood of Eden is not known for there clean hands either.

the 1st house is a killing ground powered by the trapped dead

The 2nd and 4th houses are factories for soldiers.

The 8th are religious fanatics.

the ninth house a death cult

The 3rd is a cutthoat gossip hell with cannibalism produced by the CW

The 7th glorifies illness and suffering for no good reason.

The 6th is Academia....which is not a societal group known for there kindness.

We never get to see the cruelty of the 5th they are too polite for that, but no faction that much power without making hard choices over and over again.

The refugee worlds of Nona is a shitty scary place full of upset people.

these places sound horrible.

but over and over again, we see characters who love unselfishly characters who are are kind, character who trust, and characters who want the best for those around them.

Magnus and Abigail who can have no children of there own and instead care for wayward shitty teen.

Corona who cares are Judith even when Judith is almost impossible to care for.

Isaac who just wants to get home to all his little siblings, and Jeanmarie who treats Gideon nav as the older sister she never had.

Judith who just wants everyone to survive, even though she lacks the skill to articulate the desire.

Marta who is flawed and boring and honorable and funny. and who threw herself into battle for anyone she thought might have a point.

Colum Ast who has been worn down into nothing but still refused to break his word to a rude teenage girl who has been chattel her whole life as well.

Protessalous with his roses and his poetry and his kindness to Ortus who has forgotten how to have firends.

Dulcie with her need for truth.

Ortus Nigonad, who is the first person we ever really see form the ninth house who tried to make amends for his past neglect.

Aiglamine and Crux who could not love the children they way they needed to be loved, but they loved them all the same.

Mattius Nonius who came when called to defend people he had never met and who's only complaint was about talking in meter.

Camilla and Palamedes and there insistence that Nona get Agency! and Harrow get compassion, and that Gideon should get forgiveness and also extra food.

Pyrrha with her love, for her necromancer, for her almost daughter Gideon, for the woman she loved, and for the two young people she came to love.

Joli who I have a whole post about.

the Angel who was a vet and became a teacher and got the last of their students out.

we suffer who took a chance on crown, and pyrrha and teh sixth,

And Hot Sause who showed Nona how to forgive and the other children from the gang who cared for each other and Nona and their families.

and I've probably missed some, but these are characters who could turn away, say this isn't my problem, do less, but instead....they chose kindness.

#The locked tomb #nona the ninth spoilers #Nona the ninth #gideon the ninth #Gideon the ninth spoilers #Harrow the ninth spoilers #harrow the ninth #Magnus quinn #abigail pent #isaac tettares #jeanmarie chatur #ortus nigenad #marta dyas #judith deuteros #coronabeth tridentarius #colum asht #Tlt Joli #Tlt Hot sause #dulcinea septimus #Protesalous Ebdema #pyrrha dve #we suffer and we suffer #Crux #aiglamene #nona is a baby #nona tlt #nona #camilla hect #palamedes sextus #sex pal