#the Necrolords

[panfaristo]

Maldraxxus' food is disgusting.

[mysdrymmumbles]

I know this is a minority opinion, but blizz needs to make the shadowlands races playable.

Idc about lore, let me play a venthyr.

[torgwn]

i haven't finished htn, but harrow was right, this scene was terrifying

[thechekhov]

The Emperor Undying, the Kindly Prince, Necroslut Prime.

[savanir]

DP x DC prompt [19]

A couple days ago, or maybe it’s been a week now, there had been a horrid storm.

It had been bad enough on the surface but underwater it had caused extremely powerful currents that have dragged a very young Garth away and into the unknown.

He really should have listened to Atlan and stayed put…

Lost and alone, a Little Garth has found himself a lot closer to the surface than usual, the sea currents are still churning pretty bad and he simply can’t navigate his way back to anything remotely familiar.

At this point he’s quite hungry and tired, and he’s found that catching something is somewhat easier nearer to the surface.

However, now something entirely different has caught his attention.

still safely tucked away under the waves. Garth is watching two surface dwellers. judging by size they should be even younger than Garth is, which probably means their caretaker(s) are nearby.

Garth is about to leave them to it and go his own way when he catches on to the erratic kicking movements of the smallest one.

oh, he’s pretty sure surface dwellers aren’t supposed to stay underwater that long, that is if Atlan’s stories are correct.

And even though he’s somewhat terrified, he finds he can’t just… though he probably should…

Well, he ends up saving Danny from drowning.

Jazz and Danny’s parents are busy with a supposed haunted shipwreck and not paying attention.

But by saving Danny Garth found by Maddie and Jack. Who are worried that Garth is there all alone which is like... kinda hypocritical but whatever.

No ghost, but they got a sea boy!

and that quickly has them reassessing their disappointing conclusion that the wreck isn’t haunted, clearly the ghosts are somewhere underwater! After all, the ship was lost at sea and simply washed ashore.

Garth can’t really communicate that great with the Fenton’s. He doesn’t know english, and they do not have telepathy, the only thing he can catch from them is impressions of their emotions, which does make figuring out “yes” and “no” a bit easier.

At first he decides to accept their offer of shelter and food simply because he’s tired and hungry, and they seem like good people even if they are from the surface.

Then Garth makes the mistake of getting attached. All of a sudden he’s put in a eldest brother role. Jazz is determined to teach him english with her kid books and Danny has been attached to him like a barnacle ever since Garth got him out of the water.

And Garth’s needs aren’t even remotely treated as some sort of annoyance, they make note of his need for lots of water and adapt easily.

Everything is extremely overwhelming but thankfully for Garth they don't make the offer to take him with them to Amity Park right away.

They are on a family trip so they stick to the sea for another week and a half or so. After that they ask if he wants to just come with, Danny basically begs him, having an older brother seems like the best thing ever to him.

And Garth ends up taking the offer cause the last week was better than most of his lonely life so far, even if everything is weird and difficult and he can't communicate right.

[palamadeez]

listen, all i'm saying is that if i were given absolute power, i simply would not let it corrupt me absolutely

[drawsderek]

I see you freaks (affectionate) in my notes so I am here to offer slightly spicier choices for dating sim Jod

[kottkrig]

Commission for kaylechip_

[deathcultwizard420]

not to be a john gaius defender on main BUT in his mild defense if the spirit of earth gave me the power to manipulate death I would also be tempted to see it as the planet asking me to revenge it, to make those who killed her pay, rather than as a way to save earth. that is because john and I are not particularly creative problem solvers.

[raguonmynieceandnephew]

I fucking love Shadowlands and I am tired of being silent

This is probably gonna be long. TL;DR at the end.

Look, Shadowlands is the second worst expansion this game has ever shipped, besides WoD. I know this is a WILD opening sentence for a defense argument, but I am a romantic, not fucking delusional. This is a fact. Point blank period. The content drought was absurd, the legendary system was completely fucked, the maw in general, the lore reduced Arthas and Garrosh quite literally to dust, The Jailer as the main villain and FUCKING THORGAST, the overall alt unfriendliness, borrowed power cranked to a million, and I have expressed how much of a fucking joke I think putting Pelagos as the new Arbriter was.

It was bad.

This has been stablished, not just by me, but by the entirety of the wow community.

But even though I agree, all these things made the game worse, I still enjoyed my experience, and I have a positive outlook on the expansion overall, which seems to be the greatest sin a World of Warcraft player can commit: I liked Shadowlands. I dare to say I liked it more than I did Dragonflight, if I think really hard about it.

You simply cannot say you liked Shadowlands in the any circle of the WoW community online, from what I have seen. I remember Kraken Latte put it in first place in a rank she made of all expansions and got shit on for days on twitter, with people failing to see what she saw in the game.

Now, I feel like I have pointlessly yapping till now, so without further ado, here are some of the Shadowlands features i like the most:

1 - THREADS OF FATE

I am a simple man, who likes to do 2 things in wow: Mythic+ and leveling. That is pretty much it. I don't PvP, I rarely raid and I occasionally indulge in RPing as a Tidesage on Moonguard. And let me tell you, this baby right here was lifechanging.

Threads of Fate is by far, the single best feature (before Warbands, lol) in my entire World of Warcraft experience. I loved it. I loved it dearly. I don't think I have ever had so much fun leveling 60-70 through Revendreth and Ardenweald with ToF. I still have the route I took memorized, it was SO good. So many bonus objectives back to back to back, world quests and that goddamn gorgeous blue forest had the FATTEST questing hubs in the game.

I was so excited to play this combined with Chromie Time, like IT WAS ON BETA, until it was ruthlessly taken away from me for no goddamn reason AT ALL. Like, what the actual fuck blizzard. Y'all don't understand how delightful it would have been to level like that in ardenweald in the mid thirty levels, right after clearing Loch Modan (or the Silverspine and Hillsbrad, for horde). I barely touched SL since it got removed.

BRING IT BACK BLIZZARD, I AM BEGGING YOU, JUST DO THIS ONE SOLID FOR ME.

2 - COVENANT CALLINGS

Speaking of features I thoroughly enjoyed that were pried from my hands, we have the best iteration of daily quests this game has ever had. They actually worked as good dailies that gave actual gold, was a good reliable source of reputation and was amazing for anima and cosmetics.

This + the recent nerfs to the Dragonracing WQs make me feel like blizzard doesn't like when players make their gold independently, like, jesus christ not all of us have time to be profession moguls.

3 - THE 4 ZONES

What inspired this post was the fact that SL raids are now on legacy loot (if you didn't know, now you do) and I had to go to Bastion to buy the weapons with the thingy that drops from Nathria and...look at this. Just look at this.

This place is one of the most beautiful things this game has to offer. Like, the entire zone is gorgeous byt seeing this for the first time since DF came out legit moved me bro, LOOK AT IT.

And while the covenants were kind of a shit show gameplay-wise, in EVERY SINGLE OTHER ASPECT, it was a 10/10 feature, argue with your mom. Aesthetics, themes, everything, simply gorgeous. Also, it got bonus points from me bcs i really do not like to use training dummies in current expansions because of the sheer amount of people blasting them at any given time, so each covenant having their own Dummy Room, was a ++++ for me.

4 - THE NECROLORDS OF MALDRAXXUS

The Necrolords were the best covenant, their campaign was the best and their characters were the best. Like, come on now.

Draka? Mother. Vashj? Mother. Emeni? Mother. Sin'dane? Mother Stradama? Grandmother. Like, are you kidding me? I know lore was one of the Weakest points of SL overall, but you are insane if you include anything involving these guys. Even the Korthia campaign was enjoyable when they had the spotlight. And I only listed the female characters lmao, don't forget The Primus, Krexus's meme death, the five houses, Morgraine, Grahmal, Marileth, like C'MON!

5 - THE DUNGEONS

Except for the Theater of Pain, and arguably the De Other Side (I personaly love it), Shadowlands has the best overall roster of dungeons in the entire game.

Sanguine Dephts is, in my opinion the second best dungeon in WoW, period, behind only Freehold, Tazavesh is the best Mega Dungeon they ever made. Mists is a banger, Plaguefall is a banger except for the tentacles, Halls of Atonement, Spires (controversial take, ik), Necrotic Wake is amazing, like, you can say whatever you want about SL, but you cannot talk shit about its dungeon design.

Except ToP.

Fuck ToP.

Now, it's getting late so imma speedrun the rest of the items:

6 - COSMETICS

SL changed the transmog game, and all cosmetics from it (all the mounts and sets from all sources) look phenomenal, and if you disagree you are simply lying to yourself.

7 - ZERETH MORTIS

The zone was good and had tons of stuff to do and collect, plus, the introduction to the Catalysts was a plus.

also, nothing will be funnier than Taelia fucking Fordragon being the talking quest bubble for WQs in THE REALM OF ULTRA DEATH

8 - RAIDS

CN: Vibes? Immaculate. SoD: Horrible systems, cool mechanics SoFO: Cool systems, mid mechanics overall a positive for me

9 - CHARACTERS

Already mentioned a lot of characters from Maldraxxus, here are my other faves: Lady Moonberry, the gay unicorm, Denathrius, Theothar, basically ever steward, The Accuser, Kael'thas, General Draven, Remornia and many more.

There are probably more reasons to list to justify my love for SL despite all the bad it has in it, but I simply do not have the mental fuel to keep going rn, i need sleep.

TL;DR: I like Shadowlands despite it being bad and would appreciate it if ppl didn't throw a fit everytime someone talks about it in any sort of positive light. I then listed Threads of Fate, Callings, the first 4 zones, dungeon design, the fuckton of collectibles, characters and the beginning of the shift in game philosophy as positive and valid reasons to be a SL enjoyer.

[slyandthefamilybook]

Mercymorn to John: it's because you always on that damn tablet

[applejuicewerewolf]

Do you think John Gaius is making Skeletton War memes right now?

[legaltrashgoblin]

WHAT IS NONA THE NINTH RIGHT NOW?!!???

JOHN BEING LIKE "HERE, LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO TITANIA AND ULYSSES" AND CURLS THEIR HANDS INTO FISTS AND STUFF WHAT THE FUCK

"Because, Harrow, I'd done it from the other side of the room."

WHAT IS THIS??!??!!!

[beedreamscape]

The only thing missing for John to become the perfect antagonist is owning a cat that everyone hates and that hates everyone.

The cat follows him around and sits on his lap while he shares tea and biscuits with people. Cohort soldier got the habit of saluting/bowing to the cat out of playfulness. Sometimes it just loafs on high corners of rooms and judges whoever's in it.

Every lyctor fears the thing is psychic somehow or conscious or a human soul trapped in a cat. Maybe even Alecto's soul trapped in a cat!

But no, just a grumpy cat that hates everyone but John.

And Harrow. Harrow is enough of a black cat in spirit for the cat to like her too.

The cat has the warmest golden eyes and makes her puke to look directly at it.

And over the myriads everyone at some point tried to kill it, but John being who he is has been keeping this cat alive for the past 10k+ years.

(Out of pettiness, Pyrrha took the cat away with her in the end of htn and gave it to Nona.)

[kbirbpods]

[Podfic Link] | Length: 4-7 minutes (three versions of the podfic)

Original Work: i met god, she's a twitch streamer by @zombified-queer [ao3: zombified_queer]

The Locked Tomb | Rating: Teen & Up Audiences

Summary: 

In which God envies and craves.

Notes: Recorded for Store-Bought Gender, a Voiceteam 2025 challenge featuring podfics with trans characters in the POV role! gifted to @mistbornhero

[quantumcartography]

Eventually I'm gonna do a deep dive on every name in the Locked Tomb series but I've been sitting on this dissection of The Emperor's chosen name for a long time and I want to put it into the world. So, here it is.

The Emperor John Gaius, His Celestial Kindliness, the First Reborn, King of the Nine Renewals, Necromancer Divine, our Resurrector, and The Necrolord Prime

“NOTE: He’s just some guy, you know?

NOTE II: Gaius was not the name John was born with. He picked it for himself circa Y100 of his reign.”

These two names have so much potential meaning tied up in them so buckle up.

First, the literal translations. John is a derivative of the Biblical Hebrew Yohanan which is in turn derived from the Yehohanan, which means literally “Yahweh has been gracious.” Gaius is a Latin name that likely derives from the latin gaudere “to rejoice.” This more or less makes the name say “Huzzah! God has been good!” Now, there is one other tweak to this. Gaia is the Greek personification of the Earth (Terra is the Roman equivalent) and if you slapped the Latin masculine ending on it, it would become Gaius. This does provide a tie to the planet Earth in his name (which is far more obvious in Gideon’s name of Kiriona Gaia) and would make sense if he picked it as a memorial to the dead Earth to which he could never return.

Next, modern social interpretation. John for a long time held the title of “most common name in the English speaking world.” I believe it’s since been surpassed by James, but it’s still up there. Gaius, funnily enough, was the Ancient Roman equivalent of John. It was one of the most common given names for so long that it became semi-synonymous with saying “some guy” similar to the phrase “Tom, Dick, and Harry” or “don’t know him from Adam.” These two names make his name something like “John John” or “Jon Doe” or “James Q. Public.”

Next: the strictly biblical interpretation. The most obvious link here is to the book of the New Testament, John 3. This is a letter by one of the many biblical Johns to a man named Gaius concerning some pretty mundane church business of the time and thanking Gaius for looking after some poor missionaries. It’s honestly a supremely drab book of the bible and doesn’t really get into doctrine or legends or exciting apocalypse stuff. It’s just a letter from a church leader to a rich patron. If someone more versed in Biblical history and literature can shed some light on this book, I’d be very thankful.

Next: some name associations. Being two of the most common names in history, we kinda have a wealth of options to pick from. Saint John the Apostle was the one who actually walked with Jesus and was the brother of the Apostle James with whom they made up the Boanerges, the Sons of Thunder. John of Patmos was the likely author of the Book of Revelation and maybe the same as John the Apostle (but probably not.) The author who wrote about the apocalypse seems pretty fitting. Gaius was also the praenomen (given name) of the two Caesars responsible for the death of the Roman Republic and the birth of the Roman Empire: Gaius Julius Caesar and Gaius Octavius who became Caesar Augustus.

Julius Caesar is definitely the most well known Emperor of Rome/salad inventor and also second dictator for life (Sulla was the first so Caesar can’t take that title.) He was an incredibly popular general who was part of an alliance of three figures (him, Pompey, and Crassus) to increase their own power, wealth, and standing. When Crassus died, tensions formed between Pompey and Caesar until Pompey had the senate recall Caesar from his war in Gaul to be removed from command. Caesar knew this would lead to his execution at the hands of his rival so he made his own play, marching his troops into Rome (an act tantamount to sacrilege) to try and capture Pompey which spoiler he didn’t. It sparked a civil war that raged all the way around the Mediterranean for four years and left Caesar as the de facto ruler of the Roman Republic up until an unfortunate accident in the senate where he fell into knives 23 times. He had it coming. This idea of attacking his enemy before they have a chance to attack you only to have your enemy slip away is a notable parallel.

Gaius Octavius had been named as Caesar’s successor in his will and would go on to become the first proper Roman Emperor. He used the newfound power from his great-uncle’s death to form a new three person alliance (him, Lepidus, and Mark Antony) and hunt down Julius Caesar’s assassins and rake in treasure while cementing their political power. Surprise surprise though because Caesar Augustus (the name given Gaius Octavius after he became the Emperor) managed to politically, militarily, and psychologically out maneuver his two fellow rulers and within seven years he had metaphorically put Lepidus in the ground and literally put Mark Antony in the ground. Now, while in life Julius Caesar made a lot of moves to imply that he wanted to be the king of Rome, not least of which was modeling himself as descended from the gods and enshrining himself alongside them as equals. Augustus doubled down on this by starting a massive and complex propaganda machine to make himself equally divine, even within his own lifetime and immediately afterwards.

Both of these men led the Romans into civil wars that ravaged the empire. Both of them committed acts of sacrilege in the ancient world to further their political games of revenge. Both of them lied, cheated, stole, killed, and manipulated to gain more power and remake the world to be what they wanted. They were geniuses who may have even had good intentions and put an end to a long period of political instability, but through blood and steel and no small part vengeance.

Now I would be remiss if I didn’t address the elephant in the room that is Homestuck. I will say that my adoration of The Locked Tomb series has sent me down innumerable rabbit holes. I have researched paper manufacturing, the magnetic forces of Jupiter, Catholic prayers, polygenic phenotyping, Ancient Greek and Roman poetry, national anthems of nations of the world, and the psychology of Among Us. But the rabbit hole that is the MS Paint Adventures Wiki is one too daunting for even me. But in any case, I have no doubt that these characters sharing a name is no coincidence.

Lastly, the use of a Hebrew and Latin name makes this fascinating marriage of opposites. To massively understate it, Romans and Christians did not get along for a long time. Obviously now, the Catholic Church is seated in Rome, but for a BIG portion of the early Christian ministry, the Romans were the ones who captured them and set them on fire or crucified them or other fun and exciting means of execution. More than that, an apostle to Jesus’ monotheistic peace-loving and merciful message being linked with two deified and bloody conquerors of Ancient Rome does create this interesting tension. This tension is something very interesting in modern Catholicism as well as the Locked Tomb’s Empire.