And Then To Top It All Off, Cam And Pal Spend All Three Books Unpacking And Dissecting This Binary Until

Never underestimate the combined power of two traumatized punks who are heavily into the DIY side of things!

He implies she's worth building something new with, next thing we know he's wearing a more revealing outfit with her signature X doodled all over his body. Good for him!

Also, between this scene and the moment they show up in battle, they've apparently had the time to: - turn her entire lab/hideout into a blimp - cover the whole thing in giant tags of the firelights symbol, her cloud tatoos, and more - rebuild pow pow and fishbones, which were very much broken in act 2 - rally the firelights - cut and dye her hair - crop his top - pierce his ears - sew her a shark hoodie - cover her entire body in crayon drawings - accessorize their outfits - again, turn her lair, a giant airshaft, into a functional blimp

Maybe Ambessa gave her entire army the week off before battle. Maybe Jinx and Ekko were on unfathomable amounts of cocaine. We'll never know

Low key would LOVE to be able to attach computers to myself like this. Imagine the memories you could store and retrieve with this tech. Plus it just looks cool… that may be the main reason… body modification 🤖

Nerd and jock from yesterday’s illustration

This is why I’m happy to be mortal and destined to die within the next century. I don’t have the capacity to be a good person beyond my 200th birthday AT BEST!

The funniest thing abt the Lyctors is how out of touch they are. John murdering an entire solar system to get revenge on the trillionaires. Mercymorn killed John even though she knew the consequences of killing millions of people in the Nine Houses System. She would NOT have killed him had his actions not directly affected her. AUGUSTINE TELEPORTING THE ENTIRE MITHRAEUM INTO THE RIVER TO KILL JOHN even though there were innocent people on the ship (Griddle and Ianthe). Gideon the First is dedicated to Duty no matter the price. Live laugh love the horrific results of being immortal <3

Coming out to my conservative family next year on my 1-year HRT anniversary. I’m poised to lose a lot on that day. Here’s to hoping my “Glinda” side of gets on the broom too…

While I’m still a bit bummed that they didn’t go with a more book-aligned POC Fiyero for the Wicked movie, I’ve been thinking (heheh) about how his being white highlights the really interesting foil relationship between him and Glinda (and, in many ways, the audience yourself).

At its core, Wicked is a cautionary tale about propaganda, (literal) scapegoating, and what it means to uphold the status quo. The audience is watching through Glinda’s eyes—it is through her, arguably the most beautifully tragic character of the show, that we learn how lonely life becomes when you forfeit your values in favor of systemic power and likability (“No One Mourns the Wicked” is, in many ways, about HER).

Now, this is where Fiyero’s whiteness can get interesting—if you consider him and Glinda to share roughly equal footing at the beginning in terms of privilege/how much they have to lose (applying our real-world lens of race and power here, where whiteness is the apex), his storyline essentially represents what could have happened if Glinda had made the brave (and arguably wise and loving, if you’re picking up what I’m putting down 👀) choice to go with Elphaba and fight the good fight (this is also why I feel like a queer reading of G&E’s relationship is almost implicit to the story, but I digress).

As the POC/marginalized allegory, Elphaba has much less of a real choice in her curtain-pulled-back turning point. But Fiyero and Glinda—both representing privilege—get to choose. So in Act II, we see the consequences of both the choice to stay (Glinda) and to go (Fiyero). In Fiyero’s case, his ultimate rejection of his own power, privilege, and even beauty leads to immense physical loss—including his own body—but that is then compared to the loss of love, community, and identity that we see Glinda left with by the end. And this brings us to the question that the audience is left grappling with: in an unjust system where loss is inevitable (a.k.a. our own world, as the Wizard himself represents), which of these things are YOU more willing to give up?

It’s important that Glinda is an empathetic character because, in reality, most people are going to be Glindas (obvi this is nuanced among us Elphabas of marginalized identities, but I’d still argue that there’s some level of Glinda in us all)—and it’s important to be rattled by the end of the show when you realize that she is the one who has the sad ending. But it’s also so important that Fiyero is empathetic (which I’m SO glad this movie leaned into)—because he’s ultimately who Glinda—and thus we, as the audience—should have been.

And especially given the state of US politics right now…this is just all more relevant than ever.

Oh hey Yahtzee!

A frail, bloodstained nun dragging a greatsword behind her attuned to the Aspect of Kiriona stumbles towards a boon symbolized by a pair of golden sunglasses…

“Griddle?!?? No, it can’t be… in the name of Drearburh and its tombs I beseech you!”

*da-dong/bla-blang*

“Sup Night Boss! Quite the blade you got there… you’ve been sharpening it right? Right?? Harrow??? Look, we’ll fight about it once your spindly ass is out of this nightmare but at least take one of these before you pass out okay…”

One Flesh, One End. Bitch (Legendary): Your bone shards now regenerate over time instead of your call.

First Flower of Your House: Critical melee hits against unarmored enemies now apply ~slow~ for 3s.

Ortus, Ortus, Ortus (duo): Boons that modify ~litany~ damage now apply to your greatsword attacks as well. Health regeneration is disabled.

after all this is over i want supergiant to make a video game of the locked tomb. they can call it Hades 3

🫂

So much of my gender is wrapped up in what I can do for others. What I can be for others. My gender is anything before it is my own; the helpful young man holding doors open for strangers, the caring grandson visiting his grandmother in the hospital, the protective older brother, the son trying and trying and trying to be perfect for his mother.

I am the son trying to be perfect, and the best thing I can do for my mother is be a daughter. What else am I supposed to do, other than try my best to be a daughter? My gender is a man whose only purpose is what he can do for others, and that means I must be a woman.

I heard someone say, once, that men are taught that our value comes from providing for those around us. We're taught that being a man means taking care of a family, but we never learn that being a man means taking care of ourselves too.

Do I matter too? The best thing I can do for my mother is be her daughter, and the best thing I can do for me is be her son. What am I supposed to do? What's more important? My gender is about taking care of my family, providing for them, and my gender has never been about doing anything for myself.

Present!

superficial but nonzero overlap with Wicked and The Locked Tomb where are my fellow unwell individuals in the venn diagram at

For me a lot of the horror lies primarily in the fact that the culture, traditions, and tactics of the nine houses stem almost entirely from the mind of one eccentric depressed nerd with a (literal) vengeful god complex.

Like, John lives in a space station where the walls are coated floor to ceiling in the corpses of people who have died serving him over the span of 10,000 years, one of his houses is a literal army of cloned child soldiers sent to the frontlines like a slaughterhouse conveyer belt, and the entire toxic necro/cav dynamic is based entirely around him being unable to trust his closest friends to stay by his side without emotional manipulation.

This entire universe is built on the hypothetical what-if of what would happen if someone was allowed to reshape the universe to their liking at the expense of everyone else, and that someone happened to be terminally online.

It’s like when authors jokingly say they’re terrible people for what they put their characters through but in this case, John’s fanfic is real. It’s like if Paul Atreides had a Tumblr account.

For me, I guess, the locked tomb is really superficially a good story and has lots of aspects that are good in isolation and appeal to a wide variety of queer readers but I think this series would have been better and more satisfying if Ms Muir had leaned more into the gothic and away from the internet humor. In my mind there’s no reason why each House wouldn’t be entrenched so deeply in things we consider taboo and repulsive that it’s unpalatable to most readers. Instead it’s like if Homestuck 2 was good

Stealing this for personal use too…

Having a very serious discussion with @val-the-bun and @salora-rainriver and we have concluded that the best possible adaptation of Gideon the Ninth is with Gideon constantly pausing the movie and redirecting the audience's attention away from the plot and towards that girl she has a crush on like Cuzco in the Emperor's New Groove.

Harrow the Ninth meanwhile is best adapted as an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 with Gideon riffing on Harrow's life.