#but if you are also a fan of the locked tomb series

[ghostsontelevision]

i think what spurs on a lot of the Yuri Defensiveness is that really the only time a series has a Majority Yuri fandom is if the characters are majority women; if the series has a gender-mixed or majority male cast, yuri ships are going to be relegated to the back corner of fandom. this means stuff like the locked tomb or rwby is pretty safe from yuri ships becoming rarepairs, but stuff like dungeon meshi, which has maybe a 60-40 men-to-women ratio, is perceived as being in constant danger of being overtaken by m/m ships. you might say, "well why is that an issue? isn't gay shipping gay shipping?" but tbh i think we can all agree that shipping rarepairs sucks, and the thing with yuri is that you can ship two main characters together, but if those two main characters are women, man a/man b is always gonna overtake them no matter the canonicity or the significance of those characters.

i will say i think concerns about this happening with dungeon meshi are somewhat overblown, and i think labru and farcille are relatively equal in popularity and show signs of staying that way. but if you see yuri fans gnashing their teeth at the prospect of their favorite series getting more popular with m/m fans, that's probably why - the "i just can't get into f/f for some reason" crowd is significantly larger than people who refuse to engage with m/m, so the more of them that get into your series of choice, the more likely it is that female characters and relationships will get ignored.

[crustaceousfaggot]

An outsider's knowledge of The Locked Tomb series, based on what I've seen from Tumblr.

So it's a series of books. Idk how many they are (at least 3? And they're still coming out) but I'm pretty sure they all have the suffix "the ninth". Idk what this means.

One of the books is called "Nona the ninth" but I feel like I never hear people talking about a character named Nona so idk what that's about

The two protagonists are Harrowhark and Gideon. They're very much in love but also I think there's some elements of Toxic Yuri at play. Not like enemies to lovers but more of like a codependency thing I think?

At some point one of them eats someone I think?

Harrow is the little goth one and she's like. Angry and bitey and very wetpathetic like a gutter cat.

Gideon is the taller ginger one who's a bit more butch. She's also angry and bitey but less so? I am attracted to her.

Harrowhark and Gideon are part of like... An order of space nuns who do necromancy. It seems like Harrow takes this responsibility more seriously and Gideon just wants to fuck around and look at tits.

That's why they have the skull makeup. Because they're Necro Nuns

Idk why Harrow is always drawn with the Bone Corset thing but Gideon isn't. Idk if this is just because she's Like That or if it's like... A separate uniform she has for whatever reason.

There's a lot of angst derived from how Harrow is like... Indoctrinated and controlled and lacks agency in her own life.

Harrow and Gideon are separated at some point and fans are very keen to see them reunited. Maybe. I might be making that part uo

There's a blonde woman named Ianthe? Idk what she does though. That's the only other character I know about.

As far as I know there are no men. Or at least no men worth talking about.

I'm not sure what the titular Locked Tomb is all about. Presumably something to do with necromancy.

You know for a series that people call the "lesbian necromancer series" I feel like I rarely hear people discussing the necromancy parts.

I'm also unclear on the time period and setting. I think it's set in space but idk if it's like a far-future thing or an alternate universe or...?

There's a lot of perspective-hopping. I think it also switches between 1st and 3rd person POV which is neat I suppose

I heard somewhere that it's loosely based off of a Homestuck fanfic but idk if that's true

[thermodynamic-comedian]

one thing that tma does really well (and, coincidentally, also the thing that the locked tomb book series does really well tma fans please go read the locked tomb PLEASE-) is characters that we never get to meet. some of the most important events in the entire series happened long before the series even started. we get to hear recordings of gertrude robinson, the ghosts of gerard keay and eric delano, letters from adelard dekker, recollections from people who knew agnes montageu, but we never get to meet any of them. not really. and that's important.

because this story isn't about jonathan sims, he's just the perspective we're following. this is an entire universe of characters, all of whom played their own parts in the story before we even knew there was a story at all. the magnus archives starts in the archives, with the archivist testing out a tape recorder. the story of the magnus archives starts with the first animal that ever felt afraid. the story of the magnus archives lasts the entire span of humanity, and more.

you, the archivist, every character you get to actually meet- they're all just the smallest fraction of this story. and everyone you don't get to meet has already played their parts, their actions in the past are actively affecting the present.

uhhh tl;dr: love me a good haunted narrative

[thewertsearch]

Mega-Giga Ask Comp: Part 3

@manorinthewoods asked: I'll be honest, I wrote the Locked Tomb ask having not read the Locked Tomb series. I literally only know the starting and ending strokes of the first book. That being said, I do like the half-soul-Sollux idea, and it works pretty well with the Locked Tomb's general theme of Lyctorhood, and how knotted the whole situation with Alecto, Gideon, and Harrow ends up being. (What is even going on with Nona) ~LOSS (4/13/24) @manorinthewoods asked: You know, if you hadn't already read Gideon the Ninth, I'd have recommended it as a good second liveblog. It really does fit your preferred sort of mystery. From all the clues presented, you could probably hit very close to the ultimate solution to the Lyctoral puzzle - as close as anybody could be expected to get. ~LOSS (25/4/24) @manorinthewoods asked: The Locked Tomb's prose is pretty good. On occasion, it happens to chime with a sound of 'Homestuck', but I only recall that twice so far in my reading. I like the skelebook. ~LOSS (27/4/24)

Once again, I'm glad my hidden agenda - convincing this blog's entire readership to check out The Locked Tomb - is bearing fruit.

I agree! TLT does occasionally give Homestuck vibes, presumably because its author is a fan. For the most part, though, its prose style is all its own.

Anonymous asked: Reference to American culture: the sphere of Jade's home dropping and the timer that preceded it are references to the Times Square Ball, an annual event held every New Year's Eve. A giant ball descends down a pole at 11:59 PM and reaches the bottom at 12:00 AM, January 1. I believe that you can figure out why the reference was included in the first place. Anonymous asked: btw the gamzee page was released on new years. ‘the miracle of a new beginning’ is the new year and the lab dropping is supposed to be a reference to the ball dropping in times square

Some America Lore here that I wasn't aware of.

I was wondering exactly what Gamzee meant by 'a new beginning'. Maybe Alternia practices the tradition as well.

@omnilew asked: the way you speculate and go indepth into sburbs features and how it affects the kids, made a silly headcanon that your kidsona is reading the comic while playing out their session though this is mainly because "Eventually, we were bound to cross a couple of wires that should never have been allowed to touch" kinda references chargerkind

I like it! Maybe my 'sonas have access to a more in-depth version of Rose's walkthrough, and are adding their own commentary in quiet moments during their own adventures.

@manorinthewoods asked: Your excitement over the resurrection of Dream Jade gave me a form of suspenseful mirth. Seeing how happy you were at her resurrection, while also knowing exactly what came of it, is perhaps textbook dramatic irony. If only you'd read a panel further… ~LOSS (26/4/24)

She looked so happy to be back, too! That certainly didn't last long.

She was prototyped with a smiling corpse, though. Maybe that was just her 'default' expression, and it vanished as soon as her actual feelings asserted themselves.

@thetinygladiator asked: 'I hadn’t really thought about Sally’s ectobiological parent - but now that I am, I think the funniest possible option is that it’s her landlady.' okay but i just gotta say… this immediately makes me think about how that relates to the house-building aspect. Like, with the giant tower, are they gonna charge the Imps for rent? That might work, honestly. Where do imps even live? Bet they don't have good AC or Wi-Fi, lemme tell ya.

300 GRIST/DAY NO CRUXTRUDER NO ALCHEMY NO PETS

@manorinthewoods submitted: How many computers would you have on your person if you were playing Sburb? Jade recommends at least 5. I say I'd have a laptop, phone, a spare of both of those, and computer gloves if I need to compute really fast. Also spare gloves. Speaking of the phone - is it possible for people to put phones in their pockets? Given Karkat (and a minor gag in Act 6), we can assume that it's difficult or uncommon to carry items without using the Sylladex - or maybe it's just tied to your dexterity, and you have to hold things gingerly to avoid captchaloguing them when you pick them up. On the other hand, there's no issues with accidentally storing something you've unstored and are using - so how does the Sylladex actually work? Do people just instinctively store their items once they're done using them? Is it difficult to avoid storing something you aren't using anymore? Can you stuff phones in pockets? If not, then why develop a PDA in the first place? Given the Sylladex, it should be much more commercially viable to make a tablet. ~LOSS (24/4/24)

Since Karkat can physically pick up a book, you can probably pocket your gear - although maybe there's a difference between holding an object and trying to add it to a physical 'inventory'. Either way, the issue is easily circumvented by employing wearable tech, like the kids do.

As depicted in my alchemy binge, my primary computing device would be the Pocket Holodex, which can remote into any computer in my sylladex.

In addition, my Modular Ring shirt is also a computer, which can presumably be augmented by adding extra mod1ules over time. I'd probably also captchalogue every computer in my apartment, of which I currently have six.

I'd be exploring the Medium with a minimum of seven computers, plus one pseudo-computer, plus a phone. Jade would certainly approve.

@iris-in-the-dark-world asked: the tension in act 5 act 2 is perfect, i love it. maybe even moreso on rereads, the foreshadowing and generally ominous vibes always get to me @heliotropopause asked: You're getting to the part where the comic really starts hitting its stride. This'll be fun.

The ever-present countdown certainly adds a degree of urgency to the situation.

I'm really liking the pacing of this current act, as things slowly progress towards some critical point - one which, for now, is still shrouded in mystery.

Anonymous asked: Forwarding another ask for the person with no account ~DJ: Eridan's deal seems to be based on Wizardry Herbert - a proto-Homestuck work by Hussie. A parody of Harry Potter dealing with whether magic is real. [] But Methods of Rationality began in February 2010, so "Harry Potter but obsessed with science" might have also been an intentional reference to that.-RM @heliotropopause asked: Eridan Ampora and the Methods of Rationality sure is an idea for a fanfic. He'd be so bad at it.

Eridan would be an extremely funny choice for a ratfic protagonist. He'd be so smarmy about it - and thus, a perfect addition to their ranks.

What would the definitive Homestuck ratfic be called, do you think? I think Tool-Assisted Speedrun would be a decent choice.

@killedthekat asked: An interesting thing about doomed timelines is how they serve to prevent stable loop metagaming. As a basic example, in a typical stable time loop scenario, if you observe yourself unharmed in the future, you can throw yourself into high danger high reward situations and know that probability will twist itself into whatever improbable knot it needs to do to keep you safe. But in homestuck if you lean too hard on predestination you just get shunted into a doomed timeline for your trouble.

It's true. Timehopping just isn't fun in Homestuck, as you're constantly walking a tightrope, desperately trying to stay in the one timeline that might not get you killed.

It's a good way to prevent time-travelers from becoming overpowered - something which is probably necessary for a comic which makes such heavy use of the concept.

Anonymous asked: Now that you're updating while HS^2 is, I've realised that while I'm barely keeping up with ^2, I just yelled "Oh! Upd8!" out loud when I checked your blog, so to me? You're the real continuation of Homestuck

What an honor!

For veterans of the comic, this blog is more Homestuck: Revisited than Homestuck 2. As a woman who would much rather watch video essays about old Simpsons episodes than new seasons of the show, I completely understand why some would prefer the latter.

@manorinthewoods asked: I've since finished Worm. I think Sophia's by far the best Vriska candidate. Lisa, Amy, and Colin are less so, I think. ~LOSS (21/4/24)

Oh, nice, you got all the way through it! Worm is an absolute behemoth, and I know a lot of people who started it, and gave up halfway through.

Sophia is likely the closest match to Vriska in personality. I agree with an earlier comment, though, that the most Vriska-like character in terms of audience reaction is probably Amy.

Anonymous asked: Cannot believe someone would propose a Homestuck/Locked Tomb scenario and leave Gamzee as part of a spare pairing, when the Homestuck fic The Serendipity Gospels, written by the author of The Locked Tomb, stars Gamzee and Terezi in the proto-necromancer/cavalier dynamic. Absolutely appropriate to have Gamzee as Ninth though, since his facepaint is the direct ancestor to Harrow's. Gamzee and Terezi is such a funny pairing to go with. I'm certainly looking forward to checking out The Serendipity Gospels when I'm done with the comic - both to compare it to Homestuck and to the Locked Tomb.

As am I. Apparently it was left unfinished - but considering how long this liveblog is taking, maybe Taz will have updated by the time I'm done!

Wishful thinking, of course, but I live in hope.

@bladekindeyewear submitted:

(I started Dragon's Dogma 2 a couple weeks ago and did my best to a Gideon Nav pawn (NPC ally), facepaint and two-hander and all, and the "Jaunty Straightforward" voice selection has been EXTREMELY distracting / game-improving because her voice and attitude chatting beside my player all the time sound almost straight out of the audiobook.)

Damn, you really captured her essence. Pawn is a very fitting title for her, too :(

@manorinthewoods asked: On the topic of blood color names - Blue through Purple were renamed in Hiveswap. Originally, Vriska was Cerulean, Equius was Blue, and Gamzee was Indigo - which I like more than their modern incarnations. I think 'bronze' might also be a Hiveswap thing, although I won't dispute it, and rust might have been renamed to burgundy? Maybe burgundy is a synonym. Idk. ~LOSS (4/13/24)

I think I prefer the likes of olive, indigo and bronze over more generic terms like green, blue and brown, which would quickly lead to confusion.

Vriska's blood, for example, is also a shade of blue, so it would be a little strange if blue blood was an official term, but it didn't apply to her.

@mxamericanblue asked:hi i have been absolutely BINGING your live blog rn and i gotta just get this out this is so so cool watching you react has been giving me so much joy, i don't have a computer so i can't really experience homestuck again casually when i want to but watching you read it and react and THEORIZE??? omg your theories have been so fuckin killer it's given me a new appreciation for Hussie as a story teller and how spectacular this comic truly was thank you for this, i've been having a grand ol' time, and it's all cuz of u

Thank you! I feel like I've been theorizing a lot less since I came back from my hiatus, mostly because the comic hasn't introduced many big mysteries recently - aside, of course, from Aradia's unexplained explosion.

(Pre-posting update: Since first drafting this ask, my statement above is no longer true, as Gamzee has been revealed as Homestuck's most important character. What the actual fuck.)

@lilietsblog asked: re fifth house aradia: she's an archeolodist :)

Oh, shit, you're right.

Maybe she'd be in more danger from the Lyctor than I thought.

@ben-guy asked: Vriska's ascension to god-tier is, in my personal opinion, one of the most visually striking scenes in all of Homestuck. Also, one of the panels you didn't include (which is understandable w/ Homestuck lol. Sacrifices for the sake of brevity) specifically the one where she has him write "[…] plenty of time for that l8r" above her head… Think about the position she would have had to move him to to write that.

…jesus, Vriska. You can't just do that!

@martinkhall asked: "What is treasure but a fortune, waiting to be found?" Or stolen if you're the THIEF of Light.

Son of a bitch. That's why she's a pirate, isn't it?

Because a Thief of Light is someone who steals fortunes!

@manorinthewoods asked: Eidolons. A species purpose-built to play Sburb, while breaking every mechanic you can solely with biology. Eidolons don't sleep, and live in a hive mind. Their psychologies are very poor at recognising distinct things, with Eidolons seeing the world more in terms of a blur of colors and shapes. They thus have a very difficult time understanding Classes and Aspects, never mind that their mythology never involved deities, and they never invented chess, or games of any sort… ~LOSS (15/4/24)

The idea of a species engineered from the ground up to be Players does raise the interesting question of whether there was a first species to play Sburb.

Of course, with all the time-loops we've been working with, there might not have been a first species - unless Sburb was 'created' in some sort of metatemporal space, 'before' any loops were put in place.

@manorinthewoods submitted: You are very good at analysing Vriska's psyche. Vriska's character was executed very well, I think, and I would hate her with a burning passion platonically but to a high degree if I knew her in real life. She's just… really horrible. She's a horrible person. And half her shtick is that she keeps evading consequences in spite of that. All of her mental torture of Tavros, for instance, ends in her becoming the most powerful player in the session. What sort of justice is that, Terezi? ~LOSS (15/4/24)

She hasn't entirely evaded consequences, but it's undeniable that none of the consequences she's experienced have actually stopped her from doing the things she does.

She's lost an arm, an eye, she's been beaten up, she's bled to death, and literally none of it has caused her to let up on Tavros, even a little. Letting up on Tavros, to her, would be worse than any physical harm, because it would be an attack on her worldview.

@sanctferum asked: "Has anything come of this since, actually? I haven’t heard anything about this new comic – although I do scroll in the opposite direction any time I see a reference to Homestuck, so I guess it makes sense that I wouldn’t." - The general feel I've gotten from the community has been largely positive re: the new Homestuck 2 updates, which have indeed been happening. It's being updated once per month for now, so a lot slower going than non-hiatused OG Homestuck. But I'm enjoying it so far!

Once a month seems more sustainable than Hussie's original barely-believable pace for the comic. With Hussie no longer at the helm, expecting daily panels seems like a pretty big ask - most people don't have the time, money or energy do what Hussie did.

Anonymous asked: I don't know if you read UTDR fanfiction, but this Tavros and Vriska situation reminds me a little bit of Flowey Is Not A Good Life Coach. she's trying to push him to his limits and torture him into being someone who will kill, and he just won't. say, what's your read on comparing Flowey : Vriska?

Flowey does what he does because he's lost his emotions, but Vriska does what she does because she's consumed by her emotions.

If anything, Flowey has more in common with Aradia. They're both time-travelers whose ability to feel is somewhat compromised.

Anonymous asked: WHATTTTTT HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN BACK???????? I THOUGHT YOU WERE STILL ON A LONG ASS HIATUS BUT I JUST JOW DISCOVERED TUMBLR ISNT GIVING ME POST NOTIFICATIONS FOR YOU ANYMORE EVEN THOUGH I HAVE IT TURNED ON FOR YOU AND IT WORKS FOR OTHER BLOGS???? WHAT THE HELL. IM GOING INSANE.

This has happened before - but before, I was also removed from Tumblr's search function, which doesn't seem to be the case this time.

Is anyone else having issues with Wertsearch post notifications?

@elkian asked: So has anyone mentioned the godhood joke yet? (The God Tiers costumes have hoods. God Hoods. Badum-tish)

LOL, I did miss that.

Anonymous asked: Fun Homestuck fact! After writing Karkat, someone brought up that the writer of the 'Programming For [Expletive]s' book sounded a lot like Karkat. Andrew responded by telling them to imagine that it was actually written in all caps, basically canonizing that the 'Programming For [Expletive]s' book was written by Karkat. At least, I think that's how that went? ~LOSS (28/2/23)

And it could be any Karkat, too. Maybe one of the Karkats from a doomed timeline actually learned to code from Sollux, and became a famous ~ATH developer.

@morganwick asked: So with conversation 8=8 apparently taking place in the immediate aftermath of Rose destroying her gate (even technically during Descend), and Rose's attitude towards Kanaya in the part of it that we see, does that change how much you think her attitude in their previous conversations reflects her genuine mental state?

Oh yeah, no, I’m pretty sure she was genuinely in a bad mood here. Not really so much because of Kanaya, and I think the anger directed at Kanaya specifically was inauthentic, but the bad mood itself was real. She'd recently been injected with several months of traumatic memories, after all.

@manorinthewoods asked: That panel, of John in Vriska's 'fabulous outfit', is actually pretty neat, because you can see from the proportions how young John really is. He's small, not even fully a teenager yet, and he's been thrown into this chaotic world of humans and trolls, quadrants, violence and danger. Everyone in the game must be scared, in some degree, but none of them ever show it. It makes you wonder just how strong Skaia's children really are. ~LOSS (29/4/23)

Seriously. In what universe are 13-year-olds the people most qualified to make universes? Sburb has some very funny ideas about the optimal way it should be played.

I suppose this is something that had to be true, though, for Homestuck to be the coming-of-age story that Hussie wanted it to be.

Anonymous asked: My interpretation has always been that "the Blind Prophets" are actually just Terezi herself, in a time loop-y/predestined way. She's blind, her class is Seer, AKA prophet, and those are her numerals. Also, on an unrelated note, but to weigh in on your last ask, according to Latin conventions, the plural of lusus is lusus. Does Homestuck follow those conventions? Well…

Or, since there are two Seers in Homestuck, maybe they’re Terezi and Rose. She’s a Light Player, so a blinding would be suitably ironic.

Anonymous asked: re: captchalogue codes and the states of objects: it takes a relatively small change in the physical arrangement of atoms and whatnot to turn a ghost dad poster into, say, a little monsters poster, but the two have a relatively large difference between their conceptual nature. on the other hand, it would take a relatively large rearrangement of atoms to make the slime pogo ride be anything other than a slime pogo ride. perhaps this makes the former change state more easily than the latter? alternatively, maybe the captcha system just knows that all it would really take to make the slime pogo ride stop being covered in oil is soap and water and it's happy to do that on its own, but paper is harder to clean so it wants you to jump through more hoops for that one new question: if john had used his posters for alchemy before he was able to see their defacement, would the resultant objects also be beclowned? evidence seems to suggest that players with unawakened dream selves Will draw on their walls in their sleep and not see it until Ready, so there not being mechanisms in place to deal with that seems less likely than the alternative to me, but especially considering people who aren't them Can see the drawings, how??? would that even??? work??? what would've happened if john had done alchemy with the arms cake. i think it would be funny to see that

I think he’d still get the clown posters.

The kids keep accidentally making magic items, so It's clearly possible for someone to alchemize an object with properties they didn't foresee. Therefore, I think John would make what appears, to him, to be a normal poster - but Rose would still see it as it truly is.

Anonymous asked: any thoughts on what the horrorterrors are? beyond their (admittedly vague) intentions?

I think they’re a sign of the wider cosmology beyond Sburb - and, more specifically, a sign that there is a wider cosmology beyond Sburb.

I don't know if we'll necessarily get more expansion on them than we've already had, because their whole shtick is that they're unknowable. Needless to say, I'd love to be proven wrong.

[onefleshonepod]

ID: A digital collage of "The High Priestess” tarot card as the Body from the Locked Tomb series. The card depicts the Body as a ghostly figure with both arms raised, dressed in a diaphanous blue-white robe, standing on a large crescent. In her left hand is a sword. In her right hand is a scroll. She is crowned with the headdress of the Egyptian goddess Hathor, a red sun disc with cow horns. At the top is another representation of the Body reaching out of a river, from Mermaids by Arthur Rackham. In the background is the Bird and Pomegranate pattern by William Morris. Behind that, providing the abstract landscape, is Avignon by Ralph Hotere, an influential Māori artist. The image of the Body is from Allegory with a Woman by Luděk Marold. The left side of the card shows the upright meaning of The High Priestess and reads, “Inner Voice | Unconscious | Intuition | Mystery | Spiritual Insight in all caps. The right side of the card shows the reversed reading and reads “Repressed Feelings | Secrets | Hidden Motives | Cognitive Dissonance” in all caps. The base of the card reads "The High Priestess | The Body” in a retro 1970s-style font.

My goal with these tarot cards was to choose characters who embody the meanings of the cards when you think of them, to make the cards intuitive to grasp for Locked Tomb fans who might not be very familiar with tarot. Discussion below:

The Body haunting Harrow is quite literally an inner voice and a representation of Harrow’s subconscious. She’s the perfect figure for the High Priestess card. It’s hard to represent spiritual insight better than with. well. um. a spirit who is a religious figure who also provides insights. The nature of the Body is also one of the central mysteries of Harrow the Ninth.

Regarding the reversed meanings, the Body is also emblematic of Harrow’s secret which is hidden even from herself. My personal interpretation (along with many others') is that Harrow sublimated her forgotten and repressed feelings for Gideon onto the Body throughout Harrow the Ninth.

With my visual interpretation of this card, I tried to preserve or nod to some elements of the Rider-Waite-Smith High Priestess card. As a disclaimer, the hodge-podge orientalist imagery of the RWS deck is a shameful product of its time, but the illustrations are iconic and well known, so I wanted to acknowledge them. I also wanted to use images which evoked the dark wet ghost imagery of pre-Nona art and fanon of the Body.

The RWS High Priestess, and mine, presides over two pillars, representing the balance between them. The RWS pillars can be seen as multiple different dualities (such as good and evil), but are often called are the Pillar of Establishment and the Pillar of Strength. I interpreted the left side (with the scroll) as Harrow’s path of completing the process of Lyctorhood and becoming a fully functional tool of the empire. The right side, where the Body is holding a sword, represents Wake, Gideon, and the path of heresy. Just as the High Priestess’ role is to mediate between the two extremes, the Body’s role seems to be to help Harrow on her own chosen path.

The crescent moon at the Body’s feet, in the same place as in the RWS card, is seen also in many depictions of the Virgin Mary. This is meaningful because (as has been more thoroughly discussed elsewhere) the Ninth House’s worship of the Body and the way this is viewed as heretical and idolatrous by the other Houses can be seen as a parallel to Catholics’ veneration of Mary. I tried to continue the Marian imagery from the RWS card with a subtle blue tint to the figure’s robes.

The pomegranates in the background, also a detail preserved from the RWS card, are a symbol of — well, what aren’t they a symbol of. Many things that resonate in the Locked Tomb series. Death, eternal life, Hell, being torn between two realities… I used the William Morris pomegranates because I love his prints.

Finally, the RWS High Priestess wears the headdress of the Egyptian goddess Hathor, which I kept specifically because the cow horns are perfect: the Body being the Earth and wearing the symbol of John’s first transgression against the Earth while also trying to save it. Hathor’s domain was to help souls transition to the afterlife, and she was often depicted as a cow.

[rollercoasterwords]

hi rae do you have any fiction lesbian book recs? also thank u for ur content i appreciate u!! 🫡

sure! stars indicate my favorites

sci-fi:

this is how you lose the time war, by max gladstone and amal el-mohtar *

the female man, by joanna russ

crier’s war, by nina varela

fantasy:

ash, by malinda lo

of fire and stars, by audrey coulthurst

historical fiction:

the price of salt, by patricia highsmith

stone butch blues, by leslie feinberg *

the color purple, by alice walker *

graphic novel:

laura dean keeps breaking up with me, by mariko tamaki *

short story anthologies:

her body and other parties, by carmen maria machado

salt slow, by julia armfield *

[disclaimer that it’s been a while since i read either of these anthologies and i don’t entirely remember what made me add them to my sapphic list on storygraph. however they are both on there, so]

horror:

into the drowning deep, by mira grant

things have gotten worse since we last spoke, by eric larocca

[disclaimer that i wasn’t a huge fan of either of the above two horror recs, but if u like horror & are looking for specifically lesbian horror u could give them a try]

meddling kids, by edgar cantero

the haunting of hill house, by shirley jackson *

i have also heard very good things about the priory of the orange tree and the locked tomb series, but haven’t read either yet!

[beautifulmakkaris]

If you're missing Lockwood and Co, don't despair! Here are some recommendations from fans of the show and books to help fill the void while we fight for season 2 - please share far and wide <3

All recs are from responses to this post, myself and things I've seen floating around the internet (ie, Goodreads suggestions/lists). Recs may be based on specific characters, ships, tropes, genres, worldbuilding or just general ~vibes.

Please make sure to check all content warnings before reading/watching any recommendations on this list.

Books (standalone)

Spellbound by F. T. Lukens

The Agency for Scandal by Laura Wood

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston

The Cheat Sheet by Sarah Adams

This May End Badly by Samantha Markum

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling

A Sky Painted Gold by Laura Wood

The Hidden Dragon by Melissa Marr

Trouble by Lex Croucher

Books (series - *ongoing)

Shades of Magic by V. E. Schwab

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir*

Virals by Kathy Reichs

The Shades of London by Maureen Johnson

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

Jackaby by William Ritter

Charlotte Holmes by Brittany Cavallaro

The Checquy Files by Daniel O'Malley

Alex Stern by Leigh Bardugo*

Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerry Maniscalco

Scarlet by A. C. Gaughen

Renegades by Marissa Meyer

The Diviners by Libba Bray

City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab

Percy Jackson & the Olympians by Rick Riordan

Mokee Joe by Peter J. Murray

Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve

Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens*

Letters of Enchantment by Rebecca Ross*

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix

Dreadwood by Jennifer Killick

The Empyrean by Rebecca Yarros*

The Bartimaeus Sequence by Jonathan Stroud

Ankh-Morpork City Watch (Discworld) by Terry Pratchett

The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson

Scarlett & Browne by Jonathan Stroud

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

Books (graphic novels)

Locke & Key by Joe Hill

Television series (*-ongoing)

School Spirits*

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Shadow & Bone

Wednesday*

Stranger Things*

CW's Nancy Drew

Shadowhunters

Locke & Key

The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself

Spooksville

The Midnight Club

Teen Wolf

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Grimm

Please feel free to keep sending recommendations my way and I'll update this list as often as I can! Also let me know if you enjoy anything you found from this list, I'd love to know if you found it helpful :)

[liesmyth]

All your TLT posting is making me questioning if I should try it.. The only thing i'm worried is that I don't want to start a series and then finding out in the third bookthat the author made the antiheroic genderbent mao protagonist throw the metaphorical atomic bomb on the japanese because the author is an american descendent of a Chang Kai Shek general and wanted to absolve the yankees to grant herself a career (it worked greatly). So should i still try TLT as an olde commie? Love your blog btw, please continue reblog all those TLT fan art they look great! Thanks!

whew lowkey glad I couldn't get past the first book in that other series. anyway *clears throat*

If you like LESBIANS, Locked Tomb is the fandom for you. If you like BONES and FAILWOMEN and ARE ANGRY AT GOD, Locked Tomb is the fandom for you. If you like BAD JOKES and SHITTY MEMES, we have those in spades. If you love EXCELLENT FANART and DIVORCES that last TEN THOUSAND YEARS and LOCKED ROOM MURDER MYSTERIES, if you think EVIL COUGARS are SEXY, if you think PLUTO totally COUNTS as a PLANET, Locked Tomb is the fandom for you!!!!

[here's the rest of the tlt manifesto on ao3, podficced by @/wilfriede ]

On a serious note! I think TLT is definitely informed by leftist politics, and it has many themes that lend themselves to juicy interpretations on top of a really meaty worldbuilding and characterisation. Also the fanart SLAPS. And if you read the books you can check out my fics which, not to brag, are some of the weirdest I've ever written! featuring such tropes as: "bodyswapped man sucks his own dick" "vagina dentata" "ritual sex to have a baby during a mass death event" "in-universe academia" and "orphan girl meets her parents for the first time and they suck"

tldr please read the locked tomb <3

[lilacsolanum]

I am a huge fan of the Locked Tomb Trilogy/Series(???) and also have been narrating audiobooks for two years. Audio is so, so important for accessibility for reasons far beyond impaired vision, and I've always been sad the short stories aren't in audio. I made a fan version of The Unwanted Guest for people who prefer audio. My take on the characters is my own so don't expect a Moira Quirk impression, but my performance is definitely informed by hers.

(Note: There may be a glitch or two or some weirdness here. I used this project to experiment a new DAW on rather than something I was getting paid for, you get it, and there may be some uh-ohs from my journey. plz forgive me.)

[griseldagimpel]

Media Recommendations for Harry Potter Fans

Alright. So you’re a Harry Potter fan. You’re a Harry Potter fan because you love Harry Potter and you love the community you’ve built with your fellow fans, but J. K. Rowling is using her vast fortune to harm people and she says asinine shit about how anyone who likes Harry Potter agrees with her transphobia, and you know that’s not true, but maybe you’re wondering if there’s a different fandom you and your friends could go to, where if nothing else the creator isn’t using a massive platform and massive amounts of money to harm transgender people. This is a guide for you.

You really wish you could have a Harry Potter that’s just not Harry Potter. You want a magical school and aerial sports games and fighting a tyrant and the equivalent of Hogwarts Houses.

Check out The Owl House. It’s about a girl named Luz who wanders into another world and attends a magic school.

You can watch it on YouTube: Link.

You like the idea of a modern-ish fantasy book series (British, pre-Smart Phone technology age) with a big, rambling world to play around in.

Check out The Chronicles of Chestomanci by Diana Wynne Jones. It’s set across a multiverse and follows the lives and trials of young magicians.

Start with Charmed Life, which can be purchased on Amazon: Link.

You want a fantasy series with chosen ones, suffering, and sacrifice where anyone can die. Also, you like magical animal companions.

Check out The Last Herald Mage Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey, which is part of the broader Valdemar series. It’s about the life of Valdemar’s greatest – and last – Herald-mage.

You can find it on Amazon: Link.

You love Harry Potter for the mysteries. You’d be fine with something for a bit of an older demographic, and you love supernatural horror and angst. You want to see the protagonist go through it. But you’d also love it if there was something akin to the Hogwarts Houses that you could define yourself by.

Check out The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir or The Magnus Archives. The Locked Tomb series is science-fantasy set in the far-flung future and has necromancy. The Magnus Archives is a podcast about an institute in London that takes down statements from people who have had encounters with the paranormal.

The Locked Tomb series begins with Gideon the Ninth: Link.

The Magnus Archives can be listened to on YouTube: Link.

Your favorite part of the Harry Potter series is the wizarding war, and your favorite house is Slytherin.

Check out The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. It’s about a necromancer who’s been resurrected. The necromancer in question is like 95% brat-turned-cool-uncle and 5% evil-necromancer.

The volumes are numbered and can be found on Amazon: Link.

There is also an adaptation entitled The Untamed that I have not watched yet, but it can be found on Netflix.

You really enjoy the social satire aspect of Harry Potter and think Hermione was right about House Elf liberation. Also, you’re okay with science fiction instead of fantasy.

Check out The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. It’s about an enslaved cyborg finding freedom, making friends, and healing from trauma.

The first book is All Systems Red: Link.

You like Harry Potter because it’s comfort media. Life is rough, and you want a piece of media that’s engaging but gentle.

Check out the podcast Welcome to Night Vale. It’s presented as the community radio broadcast out of a small, deeply weird town in the American southwest.

You can listen to it on YouTube: Link.

If you want something in print form, there’s The Lord of the Rings: Link.

If you like movies, there’s Jupiter Ascending: Link.

Don’t hesitate to ask if you want more information (such as content warnings) for any of the above.

[txttletale]

So far I've read ive been wormed AND fudge revelated bc of your blog, do you have any other free good online stuff you can recommend?

yeah. modern cannibals is a magical realist novel about teens going to a comic convention to meet andrew hussie. it's a moving coming of age story and bitterly funny and asks really interesting questions about the audience-artist and artist-art relationships. one of my favourite not just web novels but novels, period. if you enjoy it the author also wrote cockatiel x chameleon, a quite novel about internet sex roleplay and patreon porn artists and gender and the military-industrial complex--although the content is considerably more extreme than modern cannibals so Watch Out.

almost nowhere is still ongoing but it's nearly finished -- a really good mind-bending piece of metatextual science fiction that takes the premise of the matrix to its illogical extremes. the northern caves by the same author is digital epistolary fiction about members of a fan forum for a children's book series attempting to read the bizarre, incomprehensible, and morbid final installment. genuinely unsettling in parts, fun exploration of fan culture in others.

there is no antimemetics division is an incredible work of epistemological horror--what do you know? what if something terrible happened and you'd just forgotten even as it marked every moment of your life? lena by the same author is a chilling short story in the form of a wikipedia article.

the magician's apprentice is another short story by tamsyn muir of the locked tomb fame that's available for free online and is an extremely powerful portrait of grooming (and imo illuminating to some of the intertextuality going on in TLT).

finally if you liked worm, the worm guy has another pair of novels that i personally thikn are quite good: pact, about the world's saddest wettest man being put through a nightmarish urban fantasy horror meatgrinder, and twig, about some plucky boarding school mystery protagonists who happen to be biological weapons in a biopunk dystopia where the british empire took over the world with frankensteins. they're not quite as good as worm but i like them both a lot.

hope you get something out of these if you read em! i'm always happy to recommend fun things you can read on the computer

[queerplatonicshipshowdown]

Round 3, Match 3

Crowley and Aziraphale (Ineffable Husbands) from Good Omens vs. Camilla Hect and Palamades Sextus (Campal) from The Locked Tomb!

Propaganda for Ineffable Husbands:

They are each others everything; they discarded their former affiliations to form their own sides; they are the best of friends and so close that they can't imagine life without each other. But they also *canonically* (at least in the books) do not experience sexual attraction, or romantic attraction, at least not in the same way humans do; their relationship *cannot* be defined by something as simple as romance, and this is a view the author (Neil Gaiman) has endorsed. Hence, queer platonic.

EEEEEEEE they're so CUTE and they LOVE each other and the fact that this love doesn't have to be specifically romantic doesn't make it less REAL and that warms my aspec heart.

those bitches are qpps for sure

In the book they’ve been friends for thousands of years and are v involved in each other’s lives (routinely have dinner ‘dates’, Crowley frequently hangs out at Aziraphale’s bookshop, generally hanging out and stuff.) Since their not human, they don’t really understand human relationships, love, and gender which makes their relationship v queer. They’re mistaken as a couple by other characters despite not being in a romantic relationship. In the show the same things happen and new scenes are added showing how their friendship grew, them becoming much more devoted to each other, and various struggles they’ve had in their relationship. (ei. Sorta breaking up, them each wanting different things out of life)

they've known each other for over 6,000 years. they saved the world together. they have saved each other over and over again. they love each other so deeply and you can see their love for each other in everything they do. as an aromantic queerplatonic person they embody what queerplatonic love means to me so perfectly

Propaganda for Campal:

They're two people who have spent their whole lives together and are hopelessly devoted and loyal to each other. While some people do read their relationship as strictly romantic or platonic, it has way more going for it through a QP lense! They've been lifelong friends, and in their culture are essentially non-romantic life partners as a necromantic wizard and his bodyguard/champion. It's actually strictly taboo for them to engage in a romantic relationship because of this. But nonetheless they remain close to and devoted to each other, going so far as to use necromancy to keep each other close after one of them dies, and then going on to share a body until it becomes physically impossible to do so any longer. So they burn both of their souls to merge together into one new entity, creating a walking metaphor for queerplatonic partnership. They endlessly support and encourage each other, they're a perfect team when it comes to both peaceful study and combat. They know each other inside and out, long before they had to share a body, they were inseperable.

They're two halves of one whole, literally, and nothing about that intense closeness and partnership is written to be romantic! Especially because other, similar characters in the series ARE written to read as romantic, and there's a distinct tonal difference to those relationships! Basically, they're two peas in a pod, two halves of a whole, clearly not quite platonic with it, but certainly not romantic either.

The author of The Locked Tomb has a long term queerplatonic partner! She even dedicates the books to him and signs those dedications with a <> (which is a Homestuck reference, denoting a non-romantic partnership that a number of fans associate with QPPs!). You can feel the influence of her own experience with queerplatonic attraction in a lot of the series, but it really comes through especially in Cam and Pal!!

[elfieafterdark]

I'm trying a thing, we getting a happy ending and here's why.

Preamble

Okay, @locked-in-the-tomb has me thinking about this. So let me outline why as a writer, I believe we're getting a griddlehark ending.

Firstly, credentials. I have written over a million words, 70+ works worth of fan fiction over the last 2 and 1/2 to 3 years. Including some that got pretty popular. However I will admit that I am not classically trained, I have a computer science degree not an English degree so bear with my horrible layman way of describing these things.

Lastly, I could just be full of shit. This could just be a whole bunch of cope. Because by the tomb I am coping so hard for a satisfying ending.

Beginning

So let's talk about the ending of the locked tomb. And also the beginning. I find my best received works are the ones that don't trick people.

An example would be my fanfiction called There's No One Like You, it's the most popular one I've ever done, it is novel length, it's a combination of a high school drama with a mystery thriller.

And I very clearly telegraph what the mystery is in the very first chapter. I won't spoil it too much just in case someone wants to read it, but in the first chapter is a very clear hint of where the story is going.

It's classic setup, you set something up, you telegraphed that it has been set up, you let it hang there for a bit, and then you pay it off. That's how you create a satisfying element to a story.

Now I'm going to argue that the entirety of Gideon the Ninth is setup. The entire book is, at its core, about Gideon and Harrow coming to terms with how they really feel about each other. What is my proof for such a bold claim?

Well let me ask you a question, what did we all think when we realized that Harrow spent all the previous night burying bones just so Gideon couldn't escape? We all thought the same thing, who the fuck would do that? And, why the fuck would you do that? And then we all got it, ahh, these two are enemies to lovers. Gotcha.

And let me ask you another question about Gideon the Ninth. What is the one scene that sticks out to you the most? When you think of the book what's one of the first scenes that comes to mind?

The Pool Scene.

The pool scene is arguably the most important scene in the entirety of the book. It's the scene in which we get answers to most of this book's mysteries. Why did 200 children die in the 9th? Why didn't Gideon die? Why was Harrow so vicious to Gideon?

All of these questions are answered, The 200 children were murdered to create Harrow, Gideon didn't die because the nerve gas had no effect on her, Harrow was so vicious to Gideon because Gideon was a reminder of what Harrow is.

Notice how most of those mysteries have to do with Harrow and Gideon. Because whatever themes you can extract from the story,

I would argue that Gideon the Ninth is about their relationship. They both need to come to terms with the shitty lives they've had, and they need to come to terms with the fact that those shitty lives aren't their fault.

Gideon forgives Harrow, and all but explicitly declares her love for her. In that pool, and Harrow is so happy. It's the emotional crux of the story (heh)

And it's setup for the series

If you haven't noticed, this series is about two people. Everyone else is incidental to that story. The series is about Gideon and Harrow. It's about their relationship.

Gtn is about them actually coming to a mutual understanding and respect. The very instant the other is in danger all of the pretense is dropped and that goes both ways.

Htn is all about everybody and everything telling Harrow that she should give up and move on, and her resoundingly telling everyone to fuck off. It's about the sacrifice she made to save Gideon's soul.

Now I've only seen Harrow mentioned twice in Nona so far, and both of those times are her hanging out with who I suspect to be God? I don't know I don't want to analyze that too far. We haven't seen Gideon at all so I'm not going to talk too much about Nona.

But the pool scene very clearly sets up the endgame, and that end game is cemented by the letter Harrow writes to Gideon, knowing that Gideon survives being consumed.

One Flesh, One End. Aka, I love you. I've talked about how this phrase is really a declaration of endlessly devoted love before, but they come to terms with their relationship, they sleep in adjacent beds which is as close to sleeping in the same bed as you can literally get without doing it, and they fight like hell to save the other.

Subverting Expectations: the Devil's Writing Trick

It's a pretty compelling setup isn't it? Fate has cruelly ripped them apart, and neither of them is willing to accept that, to the point that Gideon willingly became a part of Harrow; not to mention the point that Harrow is willing to lobotomize herself to preserve Gideon's soul.

That's a big setup, with Gideon's death, we understand the emotional conflict for the rest of the series. A conflict that is only confirmed by literally every single page of Harrow the Ninth.

How are they gonna fix this and be together? Remove all the awesome world building, remove all the excellent supporting characters, remove all of the religious theming, carve away all of the gay shit; and I earnestly believe that's what you have left.

How are they going to fix this? How are they going to be together? These are the questions that keep us all coming back. These are the questions that have us chomping at the bit for Alecto.

Now imagine after all that setup, after all that telegraphing, imagine that the answer to this question was

"they don't fuck you."

Let me ask you all something? Is that a satisfying ending? Is pouring all of this effort into these characters who in turn pour all their efforts into saving each other worth it at all if they don't succeed in the end?

Now some people might say that there's a beauty in tragic endings. And there is. I just think most of the time they're cheap.

I think I speak for many people when I say we want a story where characters go through all sorts of Hell, get beat the fuck up, struggle mightily against impossible odds, and maybe they lose some stuff along the way; but then they triumph.

The setup in Gideon the Ninth, that is continued through Harrow and I suspect we'll also be present in Nona is that they're going to fight everything in order to be together.

And based on how Harrow blatantly refuses to look back at the end of Harrow? The obvious trajectory of those decisions and these character moments is that they're going to succeed.

They've come this far, they've defied death itself. I just can't see the books ending any other way. Any other ending is going to feel like muir is spitting in our faces.

You paid attention to all that foreshadowing? Go fuck yourself on an iron fence.

Like do you all see what I'm trying to say here? The setup is that they get together, and there better be a goddamn payoff otherwise I'm going to riot.

Anyway, I would apologize for the length of this but I had a lot of fun writing it. And that's all that really matters in the end.

Thanks y'all, more to come soon 💖

[clubconsent]

I was thinking "Man, I bet a lot of Locked Tomb fans would go nuts for Die," and then I realized I knew a bunch of comics I think fellow Muir fans would like. So here, have some of my personal faves.

Bitch Planet, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Valentine De Landro

This one will probably never be completed, but the two existing volumes are absurdly good. It's about an off-world penal colony for non-compliant women. Brutal, angry, pulpy--and full of love and admiration for women who rebel.

Die, Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans

Goth as hell, lovely, and extremely gender. All about the power of story, but story here is not inspirational. It is eldritch: amoral, all-powerful, and hungry.

Love and Rockets, Jaime Hernandez, Gilbert Hernandez, Mario Hernandez

I'm particularly thinking of the Jaime stuff here--queer punks on bizarre adventures, loving and surviving in a shit-ass world.

Monstress, Marjorie Liu, Sana Takeda

A terrifying and powerful lesbian on a quest for revenge has an elder god come out of her arm stump occasionally to kill people. Also, there is a cat who is a nekomancer. (Get it?)

Once and Future, Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora, Tamra Bonvillain

There's a lot going on here thematically, but whatever. Just take a look at Bridgette, 80-something monster hunter with just the worst attitude you've ever heard of. See that old woman? You will absolutely want to fuck that old woman.

Pretty Deadly, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Emma Rios

Ungh. The art. The deathiness. The art. Imagine if the Locked Tomb took its aesthetic cues from westerns, swap out necromancers for reapers, and you're pretty much there. Just a gorgeous series.

The Sandman, Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg

You have heard of Sandman. It is as good as you have heard. Shares with TLT an unflinching--but warm--look into the darkness.

Tigress Queen, Allison Shaw

Buff warrior queen must enter the opulent city of the enemy empire to seek peace. Palace intrigue, diplomatic tensions, occasional fights. Everyone is very sexy.

Obligatory mention for the five of you who never put on gray bodypaint: Homestuck is interesting, but I do not recommend it because I do not think the comic itself is very good. Homestuck is a several-thousand page joke at the expense of the reader. It did not deserve the passionate, creative fandom it attracted.

It gets mentioned a lot as a TLT influence because Muir co-wrote a beloved fic (Promstuck), but she herself has said it's not any bigger an influence than a million other things she's read or played. There are some interesting overlaps, but many of those are because she's influenced by the same material Hussie is (notably parser games and jrpgs).

If you really want to read Homestuck, I recommend listening to Homestuck Made This World as you go.

[theresattrpgforthat]

THEME: The Locked Tomb

I’m in love with The Locked Tomb Series by Tamsyn Muir, and I know I’m not the only one! For that I am extremely grateful, because there’s quite a few ttrpg designers who also love The Locked Tomb, and have designed games meant to evoke the themes or setting of the novels. Here’s a few of my favourites!

The Serpent and the Spider, by Junk Food Games.

The Serpent and The Spider is a tiny ttrpg for 2 players. One player takes the role of The Serpent, a charismatic sword-wielder. The other player takes the role of The Spider, a highly intelligent necromancer.

Your souls are bonded together. You will fight against corrupt corporations and explore your relationship.

Note that this game has references to violence, death, combat, and implied self-harm. To play the game, you need something to write with, two 4-sided dice, and two 8-sided dice.

I’ve talked about this game before as a duet game. This is probably the best game for exploring the relationship between a necromancer and their cavalier, because it’s designed to be played just between two people. It includes 9 session prompts (again, a tribute to the Nine Houses), and presents you with a setting that is inspired by The Locked Tomb while still allowing you as a pair to fill in details that will make the game work for you.

Thirsty Space Necromancers, by Understory Games.

Thirsty Space Necromancers is a Thirsty Sword Lesbians supplement based on The Locked Tomb books by Tamsyn Muir. It's Gideon the Ninth as a Powered by the Apocalypse RPG.

You play as Necromancers and Cavaliers in a space-faring culture. Paired and trained to fight together, you will solve mysteries and fight ghosts, and probably other necromancers, as you explore new planets. 

This is a game that requires another game to run, but considering the tagline of Gideon the Ninth as “Lesbian Necromancers in Space”, Thirsty Sword Lesbians sounds like another great match for this kind of game. TSL focuses on love and relationships, and is also great for telling grand, epic stories. I’m interested in the additional rules to add the Dead to your game, as well as how the game plays when each player has a counterpart that they’re responsible for and/or devoted to, especially since multiple players can choose The Cavalier, while each Necromancer playbook is separate.

(Understory Games also has a collection of Locked Tomb fan rpgs, where I got most of my recommendations from!)

Heart of the Emperor, by deathmeetauthor.

Heart of the Emperor is a hack of Monsterhearts 2, centred in Tamsyn Muir's The Locked Tomb series. Rather than playing a cohort of teenagers who are secretly monsters, you may be playing a soldier of the Cohort, a teenager, or openly be a monster—perhaps even all three!

The characters of Gideon the Ninth etc. are lonely, brokenhearted, and struggle to communicate their needs and feelings, all of which are perfect for a Monsterhearts game. As with many Powered by the Apocalypse games, the focus is on how the characters relate to each-other, whether that means getting into fights, horribly misinterpreting what your crush/rival says, or uncovering deliciously horrifying secrets that will fundamentally change how you see the world. The scope of this game will be more personal than Thirsty Sword Lesbians - the future of the world isn't quite as important as your future with the the people around you.

The Empire Undying, by Glaive Guisarme Games.

You climb aboard the shuttle which is intended to convey you off this dingy planet. Embedded in the metal walls of the shuttle are bones, sun-bleached and carved with innumerable runes of protection. The only seats in the shuttle seem comfortable enough, although they have the familiar texture of human-flesh leather, tattooed over and over in a crabbed, spiky hand.

It fucking sucks. Just an abysmal experience, and the chairs make your ass hurt after like ten minutes. But if you’re going to be a necromancer there’s a whole, like, aesthetic to deal with. 

Hope you like skulls, fucker.

There are two sorts of people that matter in the decrepit star empire: the necromancers who create the undead abominations upon whose skeletal backs civilization rests, and the knights whose sword duty is to defend the necromancers from undead abominations which aren't behaving right now. 

In this game, you will play a group of necromancers and knights, stuck in some corner of the vast empire, attempting to solve a mystery that is, in turn, attempting to kill you all. The bad kind of "kill," the sort you don't bounce back from. Explore ancient sites and forgotten ruins, unravel conspiracies which have endured for millennia, and make out with one another, because you are hot and hurt and surrounded by bones so you have to get that tension out somehow. 

Tone-wise, this game slaps. Mechanically, I like that it’s not too complex (it borrows from Lasers and Feelings) while still leaning into the number 9, which is heavily significant in The Locked Tomb. It has players explore relationships, while not necessarily expecting them to pair up - instead, you have to decide how another person’s character has power over you, which also feel so much like The Locked Tomb (think about Dulcinea’s relationship to Gideon, or the relationship between the Fifth House and the Fourth House). There’s so much to this game and it’s not even that big! If you want something that feels like it was written by Gideon herself, I’d definitely recommend checking this out.

In Extremis, by Keganexe.

In Extremis is a tabletop roleplaying game designed for 2-6 players, about fighting back the man using necromancy, that uses the LUMEN system by Spencer Campbell. Inspired by The Locked Tomb trilogy, players take on the role of exceptionally powerful witches who use their mastery of life, death, and the human condition to keep them and their own safe from other planetary invaders who want to steal their land.

As a Necromancer, you are one of a handful of hideously powerful death witches that protect the planet Hecate, the final holdout for The Coven, from the ever encroaching war of the Corvus Dominion. 

In Extremis differs greatly from some of the games on this list because it focuses on combat, rather than on relationships. The game is inspired by the Locked Tomb, but doesn’t seek to replicate it. All of the players are necromancers, and all of the players are built for combat. You will go up against a terrible, powerful foe, while you yourselves are small in number, although extremely powerful. I appreciate the attempt to make this legally distinct from The Locked Tomb - there’s enough here to absolutely appeal to fans of the series, but the creator has given themselves enough license to focus on the themes of this series that appeals to theme - particularly the theme of kicking ass.

Games I’ve Recommended in the Past

Tomb Candles, by deecity. (A hack of Ten Candles)

[morally-grey-girlbosses]

(Art for Commander Wake, John Gaius, and Ianthe Tridentarius used courtesy of @midnightcrows. Check her out, her art is fantastic!)

The top two characters will be eligible to proceed into the bracket!

Propaganda under the cut. Be warned, it is extensive - Locked Tomb fans are apparently... verbose.

Commander Awake Remembrance Of These Valiant Dead Kia Hua Ko Te Pai Snap Back To Reality Oops There Goes Gravity:

Leader of a terrorist organization devoted to killing God. After she died she hung on as a revenant through sheer self-righteous hatred, tried to kill two different saints, and tried charging God with crimes against humanity. Also she carried her daughter to term solely for the sake of killing her as a ritual sacrifice, and referred to the child only as "the bomb" throughout the series. She's morally ambiguous (instead of just awful) because she's probably right, but it's honestly a close-run thing.

She was the leader of an insurgent force who hate necromancers and want to destroy God, who are descended from filthy fucking capitalists. She was the most successful leader in years. She fucked a guy ordered to kill her and the guy's dead best friend who sometimes inhabited his body. She allied with two of God's saints to unlock the tomb. The saints fucked god and stole his cum. All the eggs the saints gave her died so she impregnated herself with the god cum and gave birth to a baby. She called the baby bomb. Her lover pushes her out of the airlock. Her ghost angrily recants his name and the people who find her baby name her after him. She possesses her daughter's two handed sword. Her daughter jumps on a fence to sacrifice herself for her homoerotic archrival slash best friend, and said best friend becomes one of god's saints. She possesses the body of one of god's dead saints to rekindle her relationship with the girl possessing the body of the guy who killed her. She invades her daughter's rival slash lover slash friend's mind and attacks ghosts contained in her fucked up dream bubble. She starts moving around the space station they're on in the real world while her daughter's consciousness possesses her arch rivals body after her arch rival enters said dream state. she saves her daughter with god's life. She argues with god and tries to charge him for war crimes. her ex kills her. but none of that matters what really matters is that “I KISSED YOU AND LATER I WOULD KISS HIM TOO BEFORE I UNDERSTOOD WHAT YOU WERE, AND ALL THREE OF US LIVED TO REGRET IT—BUT WHEN I AM IN HEAVEN I WILL REMEMBER YOUR MOUTH, AND WHEN YOU ROAST DOWN IN HELL I THINK YOU WILL REMEMBER MINE” this quote. this quote is amazing. “I WILL REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU KISSED ME—YOU APOLOGISED—YOU SAID, I AM SORRY, DESTROY ME AS I AM, BUT I WANT TO KISS YOU BEFORE I AM KILLED, AND I SAID TO YOU WHY, AND YOU SAID, BECAUSE I HAVE ONLY ONCE MET SOMEONE SO UTTERLY WILLING TO BURN FOR WHAT THEY BELIEVED IN, AND I LOVED HIM ON SIGHT, AND THE FIRST TIME I DIED I ASKED OF HIM WHAT I NOW ASK OF YOU” also this one. anyways vote commander wake

Awake Remembrance of These Valiant Dead Kia Hua Ko Te Pai Snap Back to Reality Oops There Goes Gravity is commonly called Commander Wake. Her people are being colonized and oppressed by the Emperor Undying, the immortal emperor of a society of necromancers. Commander Wake is the leader of the resistance against this occupying force. As for her character: Commander Wake is unscrupulous and unyielding, definitely more prone to "the power of incredible violence" than "the power of love". She will use any methods at her disposal to fight back against the necromancers. She is described as proud and unforgiving. She never backs down and her strength of will and determination are unmatched. Some of her girlboss moments (spoilers for the entire The Locked Tomb book series): She is the only one the Emperor and his people consider a worthy foe. She colludes with the Emperor's most trusted soldiers and in fact has sex with two of them (who share a body but that's not important right now). She needs the Emperor's blood to defeat him, so she gets her colluding buddies to get her some of his semen to grow a child. When it doesn't go quite to plan, she simply decides to carry the child herself, fully intending to kill it for its blood when it is born. After she is killed, she haunts a sword (and the narrative) for years and years. Later she possesses a corpse and comes face to face with the Emperor, where she proceeds to argue with him about his warcrimes and never backs down. The woman she slept with is still obsessed with her a full book after her double-death. She had no necromantic powers but with technology and military strategy worked to understand and mitigate how necromancy works and what it can and cant do. She insists that the Emperor Undying use her full name, to his face, even when she is completely at his mercy! Her determination is strong enough to bend the genre of an entire haunted dream to her will! When the necromancers come at her with swords she comes at them with. Gun

John Gaius, His Celestial Kindliness, the First Reborn, and The Necrolord Prime

John Gaius, His Celestial Kindliness, the First Reborn, and The Necrolord Prime is the Emperor and primary deity of The Nine Houses. He is perhaps (major spoilers for The Locked Tomb) not technically a girl, but by god does he - Gaslight (Erasing his friends' memories then telling them lies about their past and imposing his perceptions of their personalities onto them) - Gatekeep (Telling his closest followers they need to kill their life partners in order to become immortal WHICH IS NOT EVEN TRUE. John keeps the method of how HE became immortal a secret from them!) - GIRLBOSS (creates a multi-planetary society that worships him as a God) He is also morally grey: He necromantically resurrected millions of people after a planet-wide cataclysm. He caused said cataclysm by nuking the earth. He only nuked the earth because he wanted to stop the billionaires from escaping the planet, because in doing so they left everyone else to die. He wanted to save everyone. He loves the Earth. Even though he is a man he is SUCH a morally ambiguous girlboss

Prince Ianthe Naberius the First, the Lyctor Prince, the Saint of Awe, previously known as Ianthe Tridentarius, the Princess of Ida, heir to the House of the Third, Mouth of the Emperor, the Procession, House of the Shining Dead:

shes tall pale and has no ass. she has the ability to manipulate her fat distribution so she chooses to look like a wet cat. everybody forgets about her because her sister is so hot, but while everyone else is fucking around and trying to figure out whose been killing people, shes been figuring out the secrets to an ancient necromantic theorem. it turns out her hot sister isnt actually a necromancer and ianthe has been doing the work of two necromancers her whole life. she regularly does cannibalism. she eats the soul of her cavalier, who nobody cares about, and becomes a saint of the king undying. her sister is deeply upset that she did not eat her. she gets her arm ripped off by one of the original states. she performs a lobotomy on one of the main protagonists because she asks her to. they have immensely homoerotic tension but its entirely one sided. she cries every night. her soup recipe amounts to burning onions on the bottom of a pot. the scene in which said main protagonists creates her an arm out of bones is the closest the series has to a sex scene. she meets the other main protagonist and says "but your fist is so large and my ass is so small". she stops god from being killed, which everybody hates. in the space between books, she has a terrible terrible no good friend ship with the main protagonist i mentioned before. i love it. they probably fucked and it involved chussy. they have friendship bracelets. she possesses the body of her dead cavalier who nobody cares about to gallivant around in. shes dangerously obsessed with her sister, who after not being eaten has been radicalised and now is a leader in an insurgent cell. she is the target of "then perish" during the epilogue. apparently in the next book she is going to do something horrible. i love her immensely. she has very few redeeming qualities. she is my best friend

listen. she ate a man's heart to become immortal. she is described as the shadow of her twin sister. she calls the protag a fruitcake. she will betray anyone and anything to get what she wants.

Wet Rat who sucks commits cannibalism for won her way through the lyctor olympics of the first books ate her cavalier to go to gods party swinger yatch. She has no fucking idea of what she's doing but she's slaying all day everyday, literally and figuratively. Made everyone believe that her twin sister was a super good necromancer while her sister has no powers by necromancing for her in secret. Idk she's just. She's just so.

The uglier of the supposed pair of the genius necromantic princess twins. Jk, she’s the only necromantic one she's just so good she seems like two geniuses combined, she flies under the radar, doesn't take part in gruesome lessons on powerful necromancy but just figures everything out by thinking alone, kills a dude she known her whole life the moment she learns it will give her more political and magic power, does a truly villainous monolouge when caught for that murder cause who cares about a male dying why are you so mad. Then later murders her much stronger beloved mentor the minute she's asked to gain even more power and prestige and from a princess of one planet becomes a saint and prince and military powerhouse of a divine empire, loyal only as long as her hotter twin sister is safe, truly an inspiration for all feminists everywhere

Harrowhark Nonagesimus was submitted without propaganda.