“the Arts And Sciences Are Completely Separate Fields That Should Be Pitted Against Each Other” The

Sudden brain blast over morning coffee:

John Gaius, necrolord whatever, cringiest man alive, refuses to let the earth die. And not just in the literal sense of locking the earth’s soul in a barbie on ice, in subtler ways too.

The most obvious is the memes, John constantly references memes that are dated even to us, but are in universe from a culture that died ten thousand years ago!

Slightly more subtle is the years. Why does everyone in the Houses measure in earth years? It’s been ten THOUSAND years since anyone lived on the earth! But John keeps them as a unit of measurement.

Even more subtle is the language. In sci-fi and fantasy we’re all used to the idea of the translation for the reader, people don’t speak english in lord of the rings, or dune, but the dialogue is in english for us, the readers. Not in The Locked Tomb. In this series, they ARE speaking english. Modern, bog standard english, to the point where two people born thousands of years apart speak similar enough dialects that one can pose as the other (dulcie/cytheria).

Now, this could possibly fall under that standard sci-fi trope, EXCEPT!!!! In Nona The Ninth, we see the non-house humans! And they speak dozens of languages, like you’d expect after TEN THOUSAND YEARS of linguistic drift!

John is trying SO HARD to keep the earth alive that he’s forced a language to stagnate for, say it with me now, Ten Thousand Years, to the point where even completely new things with no equivalent in our world don’t even have new words, just repurposed old ones (flimsy, sonic).

John Gaius, the first necromancer, could resurrect the planet itself, and millions of people, but he couldn’t resurrect the culture. So, John, cryogenics researcher, tried to put the culture on ice, to keep it as close to the one he remembers as possible. And he still failed.

“Queer people need to get weirder-” you can’t handle like. A lesbian.

I get so sad every time someone says they couldn't get into TLT because they got lost so I MADE THIS. enjoy. Please let me know if Im missing anything or anything is wrong!

Link to all the artists' websites/blogs below!

Slide 2: ttbret on twitter

Slide 3: decemberiste on twitter

Slide 4: midnightcrows.tumblr.com

Slide 5: exmakina.tumblr.com

Slide 6: haveyoumetmythief.tumblr.com

Slide 8: BriarwickArt

Slide 9: fluffehwuffeh.tumblr.com

Slide 11: mothmanforreal.tumblr.com

Slide 12: ydteus.tumblr.com , sermna.tumblr.com

Slide 13: notedchampagne.tumblr.com, marceline2174.tumblr.com

Slide 14: lulafia.tumblr.com, by melli4uhbees on twitter

Slide 15: melli4uhbees on tumblr , reaandull on tumblr

Slide 16: starcanist on tumblr

Slide 17: cutetanuki-chan on tumblr

i need a friend group that consists of the narcissistic blond twink who sold his soul via a painting of himself, a miserable gay artist (dead) who is in love with said blond twink, and a corrupting nobleman who didn't get the memo that it's okay to shut the fuck up sometimes

My girls!

On Redbubble.

yippee guess who finally read gideon the ninth 🦴

[ID: A digital painting of Harrow and Gideon from The Locked Tomb in an overgrown archway of Canaan House. Black railings are visible behind them. Gideon is smiling]

ok i'm sleepy and having emotions and i'm not gonna grab my copy to pull the specific quotes but. you remember that scene in htn where mercy and augustine are arguing. i think it's the "you have rendered yourself unlovable" one. and augustine tells her that he could kill her if he wanted. he could do it without a second thought, could stub her out like a cigarette beneath his shoe, and john would forgive him? john would understand? augustine is his favorite, and they all know it, to such a degree that mercymorn ceases to matter in the slightest?

cool great. now remember that time when john killed mercy? without a second thought? stubbed her out beneath his shoe? and then he turned to augustine and he said, you understand why i did that, right? you know that you're my favorite? you know i love you? she doesn't matter. we can put this behind us. augustine, can't you forgive me?

and augustine says no, john. no, i can't.

cause i'm thinking about that and i'm tearing my hair out. i'm eating the drywall. her death was too far. it was too far and augustine couldn't forgive him. he was right about john, probably more right than he realized, but he could never have brought himself to do it. it was unforgiveable.

They’re making a Dorian Gray TV show but they’re making Basil and Dorian siblings. I’m going to commit a murder not only does that erase most of the book but is actually literally homophobic. Basil is in love with Dorian!!! That book was so gay it was used against Oscar Wilde in trial!! I’m going to go to jail for crimes against Netflix

making every conversation into being about The Character with the same reliability and conviction of a youth pastor going “you know who else partied? our lord and savior”

Hey are you offended by the word bitch? I'm going to send you a hate anon, but I saw that you go by she/her and I respect women

don't let anything stop u from being a hater king