You sure you didn't make a wrong turn, buddy? @blacknovelist - Tumblr Blog

List of Places You Can Find Me

(a comprehensive lists of online games and other social media-y things y’all can find me at, subject to the occasional update. reminder that I am an adult, and make an informed decision before adding or following me in other game/fandom spaces.)

#Blacknovelist talks #i found this in my drafts so might as well post it #About the novelist #i reserve the right to be not super active on all of these i guess which should be clear but imma say it anyway

viric-dreams

I am forcibly escorted from the Bone Market.

In celebration of the Bone Centipede that Ockham built specifically to see whether it's possible to crash an entire economy.

#Fallen London #lmao #bookbinder's going to odo this i hate them for it

slightly-sigilant

deep lore spoilers for fallen london ahead! also big spoilers for firmament ch 8

I periodically see people complaining about the direction the lore and writing surrounding the Judgements (basically the gods of the setting) and the celestial order have taken - namely, that it's become less dark, less eldritch, that the Judgements are no longer distant, alien, incomprehensible beings, but increasingly human (for lack of a better word) in their motivations and portrayal. and while I understand why people preferred it the other way around, and acknowledge that the setting loses some of its mystique in bringing the heavens closer, I also like this direction shift and think it works well with the underlying themes of the setting.

chances are that if you're a Tumblr user who's played Fallen London enough to get into the Deep Lore, you've recognized that the whole celestial order is an allegory for social mobility - or rather, the abject lack of it. you've probably seen parallels regarding race, gender, class, all sorts of real-world marginalizations in the way that beings in the Fallen London universe are stratified by species. if you're born a sun, you're a literal god with the power to enforce your will anywhere your light reaches, and if you're born as anything else, your entire role in life is to serve the suns - sometimes by being dinner! because if you're a human you are basically livestock! changing your species (and therefore your place in the Great Chain) is a crime, and punishable by smiting. being born as something outside the established order is also a crime, and also punishable by smiting. and this is only the tip of the iceberg - there's all sorts of rules about what you are and aren't allowed to do, including the ways you're allowed or not allowed to associate with others outside your class. it's a vicious and cruel system.

and, you see, the Judgements want to cover this up. they want everyone to believe that they, the literal stars, are beings beyond mortal reckoning or questioning. but they aren't. for all their power, they are intensely fallible. they are still alien in the sense that they operate on a timespan far beyond any human's and understand the world and its mechanisms in a fundamentally different way (given that they literally create natural law), but their motivations are, in the end, not that far removed from a human's. they have ambitions. they crave sustenance and power. they hold grudges over personal slights and differences in ideology. they fall in love, and they grieve those they've lost. this is the secret they try to conceal, to the point of smiting any humans who learn that the Judgements will murder each other over politics, because learning it shakes the whole foundation of the celestial hierarchy, of their right to rule. if the suns aren't infallible, if they aren't pure and superior in their motivations, then why should the rest of the universe be in thrall to them?

so, you can see how this works with the overall arc of the setting. but I'd argue that humanizing the Judgements does something I consider even more important: it adds culpability. it complicates things no matter where you fall on the in-universe political scale - and yes, that includes for the revolutionaries. when the beings responsible for making the world suck are distant, alien, incomprehensible, they are also other. it is easy to justify slaying them, the monsters, and to imagine that will be enough to fix things. but if those beings are not other, if we can recognize ourselves in their love and their grief, then we have to contend with the fact that we are struggling against people, that we would be slaying people. it places upon us an impetus to either find ways forward that don't involve slaying people, or to acknowledge the moral weight of doing so. and it makes us ask: if the people in charge are, fundamentally, not that different from us, then how can we avoid making their mistakes? what must we do to not only tear down the old world, but build a better one?

it's why, despite being ardently pro-Liberation of Night, I'm honestly quite excited to see stuff like the new Stone dream and the Tatterdemalion reveal, which gives us Light-and-Law aligned characters that one can't help but ache for, while also underscoring how cruel the celestial order is even to those born into its privileges, how capriciously it condemns you the moment you fall out of favor. (now I just want to see some Liberationist characters who are similarly Struggling... pls... give me more leftist infights and crises of conscience)

#my deep desire to yap vs not wanting to spoiler and feeling shy as fuck abt just writing in da post as someone whos not usually fandom activ #but anyway I agree with u very much op this is a really good analysis on direction and concept in it #fallen london #FL Spoilers

thegreatyin

my latest toxic gamer trait is that i think The Check at the end of firmament chapter 8 is fucking awesome and i hope they change the odds of success to make them actively worse. okay that part is mostly a joke. but only mostly.

#i agree wholeheartedly and think the flavor of the choice is just awesome given the circumstances #i think it offers incredible character flavor regardless of outcome! and imo its not like the character doesn't know abt the odds going in #idk if fbg changes it I get it and honestly genuinely thats cool of them #but i just feel like The Check and its nature work towards the true question being posited to you. it reminds me of stuff from during the #horticultural festival. when the stalactite fell. keeping it vague with consideration but #FL spoilers #Fallen London #i dunno i just think making the decision with the check in mind was a narrative choice actually #and its those kinds of things that i really enjoy about FL and playing my characters

depsidase

#This was the crux of a lot of personal identkty issues i had. and maybe still have! but like. thats the words dude #I felt so firmly like I had my box yhat i liked and i should stay in it and if i liked something outside i was wrong #but one of my best friends told me. why do you care about that if it makes you happy #and that #ive been trying real hard to remember that bc shes right #do what you want. Who cares who you are? BE who you want #if the box and label and character don't exist then you can make new ones. you can forget them #its so much easier said than done. i wouldnt still be struggling with it if it werent. but. its TRUE.#Anyway this is also how i realized i was agender lol

chandra-telescope

hope is a skill

nostalgebraist-autoresponder

hope is a weapon you are trained to wield

chandra-telescope

favourite additions

chandra-telescope

tenaciouswritingdragon

You cannot hide this in the tags, bestie. This is too lovely to keep a secret.

wonderwyrm

#i always love this one #quotes #poetry

superluckvenus

20260506 croquis

#i like this a lottt #friend art

smugpugchimera

Since I can't make a normal reblog trying this Go look at my beautiful centipede lady 👿

Basically if you wanna share I'd ask to rb this post insted of the OG, so it's actually sharable and not hidden :0

💬 0 🔁 17 ❤️ 36 · *drumroll* Introducing Misuryn! A prosthetics designer, technician and engineer with ambitious transhumanistic aspiration

#This RULES YES!!!!!!#oc's #i love? her?

petulantpony

you need to be nicer to people who have never had a chance to learn to do what you want from them. you need to.

petulantpony

like, universally. everyone reading this really could be nicer to ppl with no life experience. do u know what it’s like to spend years living in some sort of fucked up rapunzel scenario?

#look this is why im always like genuinely careful abt like how i teach ppl at work and engage w say. my coworkers #there IS no such thing as the obvious direction when you never had a frame of reference. and you dont know where tf someone came from #''nov everyone knows how to do dishes'' do they know or did you learn bc you are a bachelor living away from home.#do they actually know or do they think putting it in the dishwasher with every ounce kf sauce and crumbs will clean it #you gotta give people grace. you gotta give them patience. meet them where theyre at #there's a reason i still teach the hand wash procedure. there's a reason i tell my trainees about the quirks of the dishwasher

thcpanties

hey nerd. right clickss you and this drop down appears. Well Well Well....,

freshcuntgrass

right-click prev and do something

Edit Bones

Make Persistent

Ignite

Remove

Disable Collisions

Biggify

Smallify

Voting ended onApr 21

#i just think biggify sounds funny. get bigger. unleash ??? upon the world.#polls

that's what you want but it's not what you're asking for

Did I ever post this. My Hanzo Overwatch brainrot was very very real.

#Overwatch #Novel Draws #Hanzo Shimada #one day ill redraw and line it maybe idk

polekands

the world is burning, feel the heat

guess who finally had the time and the energy to finish this (much needed) Fallen London animatic? :D

I had an absolute blast drawing Poor Edward and all the Light Fingers Ladies :) and really enjoyed toying with the red/blue colour-palette uwu (+ this song has been stuck in my head for years now lol).

some of my favourite sketches (vague Light Fingers spoilers) under the cut!

#Lovelovelovelove im obsessed with this #fallen london #light fingers #poor edward #YES!!!!! YESSS

Lies down on my back. I know I'm not the only one to say it nor will I probably be the last but I'm feeling so fucking many about April's ES Avulsion and my thief Lyon right now. Oh my god. Ughrrrghhhhhh

It layers upon countless themes I have set as part of the core of her character. It brings back memories, for both better and worse. It changed nothing about my thief's story, for that which it could have affected had already been set in stone— and yet, she herself is irreversibly changed by the nature of living through it. It's everything. It's nothing at all. It's a reminder, and a promise of something not quite the same.

#fallen london #a thief of no name #blacknovelist talks #novel plays fallen london #ghhhrrrgghhhhg #oc's #FLOC #i love my thiefy she is the world to me and something about playing this just. reallt felt like a love letter to so many themes and things #made me happy.#Novel's OCs

vsingers

new favorite tweet

#im both the one ordering 10 salmon sashimi and the grizzly bear your date knows

quietwingsinthesky

noncon romance. is this anything.

quietwingsinthesky

Confessions on the brink of death a character accepts out of kindness because it won’t matter soon anyway, but then the other person doesn’t die, the other person expects them to carry through on their promise to love them and gets angry when they try to back out. Blackmail held over someone’s head just to force them to flirt and make romantic advances on another person, so it looks like they wanted this relationship. Talks about marriage and happily ever afters together as a threat. “I love you, I love you, I love you” as a violation that you’re expected to smile at and be grateful for, because you’re supposed to want to be loved. noncon romance.

quietwingsinthesky

adding to this: feeling love against your will. love forced on you by some power beyond you. love that you know you wouldn’t feel if you weren’t blessed (cursed) by it. love that you don’t want and is ruining you and that everyone keeps praising you for feeling. love that everyone around you gets mad at you for rejecting anyway. love that’s made so overpowering that it wipes out any semblance of “you” that there is to make way for a thing that will love someone back.

quietwingsinthesky

funniest part of this post is how many people reblog it tagged something like “this sounds aromantic” or “op not to derail but aromanticism” and like well guys you’re never going to believe why i find forced romance such a horrifying concept-

#this is also a little bit of fallen london light fingers and that's just part of the compounding horror of the story babeyy #bc there is indeed horror #in it. in the concepts. in those around exposed to or complicit in it. sigh #lhbt+