Sorry for Sarpedon posting once again but he is honestly just one of the funniest minor characters in The Locked Tomb to me. When I was first trying to write him and John I think I mischaracterised him as being a bit too reserved, because in the one very small moment we see of him in canon jesus christ does this man have balls of absolute steel for some reason.
He’s not only willing, but READY to throw down with a Literal immortal, one of god’s own living breathing SAINTS in a (sci-fi) parking lot. He’s met Mercy before, knows she doesn’t like him, he knows she will not hesitate to viciously have it out with him without even the vaguest of second thoughts—but squares up with her anyway.
You would fully assume high ranking cohort officers would almost have a level of respect and reverence for lyctors second only to god himself, but in that scene it’s crystal fucking clear he absolutely trusts HIMSELF to have John’s personal best interests in mind ABOVE her??
This man is both outrageously fucking brazen and like, more than a little insane
It was about time I did my own version of Sarpedon
Obviously very inspired by 2impostor’s design (the mustache, the eyebrows hhhgghghg) and drawderek’s fanart with Pedro Pascal as a fancast (which is huge brained tbh)
jarpedon where john makes the first move is nice but pretty pedestrian, jarpedon where sarpedon is the one to actively pursue his 10,000 year old immortal god emperor is Literal god tier, never to be beaten, show-stopping, incredible, etc.
where sarpedon has been truly DYING to bend this weird little man over a table since he first met him, and has been grappling with his feelings about his god for 30 years and has had ENOUGH
ok what’s everyone’s most controversial tlt opinion I’m curious
not to be a #jodapologist BUT
i think that everything up to the Resurrection john shouldn’t take the blame for. like he did it, but man wasn’t sleeping, or eating, and when he killed the entire solar system he had just been through The Most Trauma and had Seen The Horrors. by the time he even started moving corpses he was not compos mentis, let alone after seeing all his friends die violently (including one who shot herself in front of him) and the feeling the entire screaming soul of the earth
i also think that john and alecto are closer to Paul than to a lyctor, john constantly references putting bits of alecto in him and parts on him in alecto, so i think this John isn’t the scientist John, at least not completely, he’s a combination of John and Alecto
but my all time #1 controversial tlt opinion is that the “life is too short and love too long” isn’t the best and most gut wrenching line of the series, it isn’t even Cam’s best line
the best most gut wrenching line for me is when Cam and Pal are talking through the tape recorder and Cam says: “I’ve carried you Warden, and I’ve carried your memory… I’d rather carry you.”
i do not know why that line makes me so insane, it doesn’t even look like it stands out in their conversation but i don’t think i’ve gone a solid waking hour without thinking about it since i read it
OH but this take on John and Alecto’s soul merge is Interesting! My take is that he’s mostly the same person, “just” lost any human perspective + he and Alecto spent centuries making each other worse, BUT he does say in NtN that when he ascended “there was too much of him that was still human” implying that now there isn’t.
Anyway thank you for reminding me of that Camilla line… I’m emo about it
“The whole place had the look of a picked-at body. But hot damn! What a beautiful corpse.” - Gideon The Ninth
“He why nobody makes fanart of Canaan House? I should make fanart of Canaan House” I said before spending weeks painting this weird fanart idea while moving at the same time.
This is Gideon’s first time seeing Canaan House and it’s at its most beautiful.
“There can be no forgiveness.” John and his myriad-long revenge quest. Augustine calls it symbolic retribution; but to John it’s the only way to fulffil the promise he made to the friends he saw brutally murdered in front of his eyes. Nevermind that he removed their memories, so Mercy can’t hold him to it and—conveniently!—she can’t release him from it. Nevermind that he killed Mercy; he’s still clinging to it because revenge is all he has left. “Nothing satisfies me. Nothing.”
Also: Augustine, telling Mercy that John isn’t sentimental. John who is driven by nothing but his sentiments, as corrupted and twisted as they are. Something something the man I want you to be rather than the man you apparently are.
he said “the ships. the ships were still full of people, i reached our hand out into space. i extended. i struggled” – “then, they were gone…lost to me in time, forever. that’ll teach me not to hesitate.”
