i can only fall asleep to gay podcasts now

maggie, she/her / 24 / lesbian / i might write things if the brain cell bounces directly into the corner of my skull like the DVD logo

[forkcollectingdyke]

Gideon so so many people are dead

[cosmovain]

is it weird if i say i genuinely wish there was more positivity aimed at people w large chests

[cosmovain]

"having a large chest is the beauty standard" no having a large chest is the Sexual standard theres a difference. i can only even be Hot and everything i ever wear will be deemed too sexual for every single situation. tank top shows too much cleavege or side boob a button up is always too busty and a crop top will always show too much skin. having a large chest leads to so much back pain and sexualization and complaining about it makes people go "ahh grass is alwahs greener/you are the beauty standard, why complain?" like genuinely i urge yall to watch anything with a larger chested woman and notice, REALLY notice, that her chest is her entire personality. notice that people critiqing misogynist charavter designs alwayd tend to rally in the statement that large chest=misogny, casting aside the Many Many Many women and people who look like Me and just . have a large chest? and exist? and deserve respect and not to be seen as nothing more than a sex symbol by both sides? idk ikdayy

[lucybellwood]

hi sorry s'cuse me but were NONE OF YOU GOING TO TELL ME ABOUT BLACK BOOKS OF HOURS???

LOOK AT THIS MAGNIFICENT GOTH-ASS SHIT

EGADDDDDDD

THE IRON-COPPER SOLUTION USED TO DYE THE PAGES WAS SO CORROSIVE THAT THERE ARE VERY FEW SURVIVING EXAMPLES

THESE BOOKS WERE LITERALLY TOO METAL TO LIVE

i can't

[squigg-les]

someone talk about the Nona grief with me. Someone talk to me about the grief.

[theoldbone]

Great eared nightjar

[ferretsquid13]

Whenever i see something that’s exciting/shocking I repeat this in my head often “We’re talking LOW prices”

Also loving Paul agreeing “Moustache rides SHOULD be free”

[irishyuri]

do you know who i am yet?

[rivertalesien]

Nothing takes me out of a story than something happening that doesn't make sense in-universe. I have to know *why* that odd thing happened to move on.

In Harrow the Ninth, in Harrow's River bubble AUs, they all make sense (to me) until the last one:

Harrow Nova the Best Fighter Ever makes sense as Harrow witnessed Gideon dueling and was in her head for the fight against the bone construct.

The royal marriage AU made sense as Harrow had recently visited Palamedes who was reading The Necromancer's Marriage Season.

But the Barista AU? I'm off this one not because it doesn't make sense as an AU (we've all read that one), but where has Harrow read it? Does coffee exist in the Nine Houses? How does it exist? Where do they grow the beans? When has Harrow ever visited a coffee house, much less even heard of such a thing?

Because it doesn't really make sense in-universe, that entire AU still throws me, but is just one of many examples of such items that have no in-universe explanation.

Like...gasoline: they have it on New Rho, but from where? Do these random planets just happen to have the same fossil fuels as old Earth? Did they come about the same way as we've known it on Earth? Is that likely?

I'm curious why Muir would incorporate so much that doesn't seem to make sense (is it deliberate?), while creating so many dream sequences, especially in the last two books.

John tells Harrow "You're all dreaming me together" and that doesn't seem accidental.

If we were in more conventional sci-fi territory, we might be looking for cyberpunk clues for something like Altered Carbon's cortical stacks or the Matrix. Maybe even San Junipero.

How did Harrow just invent a title for (presumably Gideon), out of whole cloth in her arranged royal marriage AU, only for that title (or one close to it), to come true in Nona the Ninth?

What *is* the River, anyway? At once a place where the dead wind up, but also a shortcut to travel and, maybe, a connection to something else?

The "it was just a simulation/just a dream" has been done pretty much to death, but we are in a universe where a man put the Earth's soul into a Barbie and then supposedly resurrected some of his friends to have necromantic abilities and to be able to merge brains/souls and built a galaxy-wide society organized around the manipulation of death energy.

Powers that came from the Earth.

Which seems like a total misunderstanding of her gift, or a complete corruption of it.

So where I try to make (literal) sense of all of this, my brain defaults to Dark City and The Strangers "tuning" reality.

But the Locked Tomb isn't really Kafkasque and I guess sometimes things don't have to make sense. The fantastical is called that for a reason.

I'd still like to know if there really is coffee and where the beans come from, though.

[sivavakkiyar]

I believe in bass lines like I believe in very few immediate things

[spelldealer]

so was no one was gonna tell me that the painting saturn devouring his son was found painted directly onto the walls of the artist’s home after he died and that it may not even be depicting the greek legend, that’s just the most common interpretation??????

[wizard0rb]

hello????

[cursed-and-haunted]

Not only was it painted on the wall of his house, it was painted on the wall of his dinning room.

Like imagine you go over to your boy's house for dinner and that's across from you while you eat. Like would you say something or just

[gayanese]

This is the painting is question by Francisco Goya. Not only was this painting found, but a series of 13 other disturbing pieces of art called his “Black Paintings”. At this point in Goya’s life he had lost his hearing (well most of it) and had moved into a villa where he became a recluse. This was directly after the Napoleonic wars. These paintings were never meant to be found. They were never commissioned and he solely made these for himself.

[breya-etherium-shaper]

This is where they think each of those paintings was placed in the house.

[autumngracy]

What in the goddamn...?

[kaylawaylaayla]

tumblr finding out about fucked up art history is so fun to watch

[ruisinjams]

#apparently when his body was reinterred it was missing his head

are we..... are we just gonna ignore that

[systlin]

Did you hear the scientists have found a way to grow colored cotton? Thoughts?

It’s not a ‘scientists have found’ and much more ‘people have been already doing that for thousands of years and it’s just gaining more attention recently’

[beowulf22121]

Scientists didn’t know. It should be “Scientists just found out”

[systlin]

There’s actually been a load of vitriol leveled against folks who try to raise traditional colored cottons, because a lot of cotton growers don’t want the colored cottons cross-pollinating with their standard white cotton.

But anyway cotton can be grown in lovely natural shades of greens, reddish-brown ochres, and browns, all of which deepen with a good boil in water with a bit of washing soda thrown in.

The color obviously doesn’t fade or run, because it’s not dye. It’s the intrinsic color of the fiber itself.

[angry-cajun-lady]

I....I want clothes made out of those colors. They don't hurt my brain!

[systlin]

Aren’t they lovely?

I’m biased because I love the natural earth tones of many fibers, of course...browns, blacks, creams, copper-reds, ect...but I think they’re just gorgeous.

[systlin]

https://www.vreseis.com/shop

If anyone wants to know where you can get yarn or cotton like this!

[carolxdanvers]

Scientists did not "just find out", and this is more of the same anti intellectual bs as the post that goes around claiming archaeologists were too stupid to know that hair could be sewn for elaborate styles.

Anyway, scientists DID figure out how to grow colored cotton. They genetically engineered it to be bright fuckin pink, and they didn't "just find out" about it, they already knew which is literally what inspired them to attempt the thing they just accomplished. Begging y'all to stop pretending that scientists don't know things, don't have interests, don't grow up in farming communities or have family who taught them this. Scientists are people. Do you seriously think people who use genetic engineering to make eco-friendly pink cotton don't know anything about textiles?

Anyway. Bright pink cotton without dyes, because science is awesome

[gamerwoman3d]

Yes. CSIRO scientist Doctor Colleen MacMillan led the team that figured this out. They used tobacco plants for testing because of the genetic similarity. Basically if the tobacco leaves produced colors when injected with a bit of the experimental genetic material, the scientists on the team already understood that the color change would affect cotton bolls as well.

They grew bright red and bright yellow in a petri dish.

And yes, Doctor MacMillan knows lots of things. Here's a list of some of her publications.

@csirogram on Instagram

Additionally folks are researching how to create flame resistant cotton and black cotton. If a variety of black cotton becomes viable, it can stop a LOT of environmental damage caused by chemical manufacturing of black dye.

[nartoq]

THIS. Every damn botanist I know, including myself, is at the least tangentially interested in fiber arts and indigenous methods behind things like that. Scientists have hobbies and we're all goddamn nerds so a lot of those hobbies are more niche. The anti-intellectualism is insane. I swear half of y'all think scientists are all evil cackling old men devoted to holding up colonial power systems. The work done by Dr. MacMillan is crazy cool and should be celebrated

[rosefinchie]

how it all feels lately

[slavicafire]

can you please pretend not to notice the worrying change to my leitmotif? thank you

[dalniente]

it is honestly amazing how much of writing and editing is just. logistics. like... do i use a name here or a pronoun? if i move this dialogue tag to the middle of this line and break it in half, does the end of the line hit harder that way? what if i move the tag to the front? what if i remove it entirely? ...wait, whose point of view am i in; can i reasonably say this character is appalled, or must i say they look or seem or sound appalled? is this a deliberate action or a step-removed one; is her hand closing on his shoulder, or is she closing her hand on his shoulder? environment environment environment, we need to break all this dialogue up with some narration, the scene is coming untethered. what! are! they doing! with! the rest of their bodies that are not hands! fuck fuck fuck FUCK i forgot we covered this two chapters ago and now i either need to cut this whole chunk or find a reason to reprise the conversation from earlier. name or pronoun? name or pronoun? name or pronoun? move this clause around in this sentence? oh i'll add this phrase-- nope, never mind, past!me added the same phrase two lines down. okay, if i add too much environmental narration it's going to take away from this bit, but not enough and it won't feel grounded. what if i move this to its own line? where the FUCK are their hands?

[angelumcaedis]

couldn’t not preserve this tag @spottedenchants

[monstrousproductions]

✨ Why you should listen to Monstrous Agonies! ✨

Monstrous Agonies is a fiction podcast that captures the weekly advice segment on the UK's only dedicated radio station for creatures of the night 👻🥰

Featuring:

A late-night radio advice show for monsters

A butter-voiced English narrator so soothing they have literally sent people to sleep (take care if listening while driving!)

Now complete at three seasons, there's over 100 episodes to binge, with additional bonus eps, bloopers and end-of-season Q&As

Full transcripts for every episode, linked in the show-notes

Average episode length of 10-15 minutes (can you tell it was made by someone with ADHD... 😉)

Monsters as a metaphor for marginalisation

Monsters as not-a-metaphor-at-all - sometimes a sentient tapeworm is just a sentient tapeworm

Asexual vampires! Gay werewolves! Trans lizard ladies! If it can be queer, by God it will be queer!

Funny ha-ha!

Also, funny like ‘wait, are they eating people?’

Variously described as, ‘eldritch late-night Radio Four’, ‘fun and full of love’, and ‘like a warm hug from a creature with one too many arms

If that sounds like your cup of tea, search for 'Monstrous Agonies' on your podcatcher of choice and give us a listen! 🎧💕

[excitablehedgehog]

I adore this podcast. Funny, witty, helpful, validating, queer, and soothing... Wish it would have kept going for a decade.

[friedwizardwhispers]

Are the Houses catholic ??

I am not saying there isn't a huge really catholic influence on this series, there is so much of that.

But in the story, John is god. That (and the locked tomb/Alecto for the ninth) is who they are worshipping. Not the God from the bible.

Their sacred texts would not be the Bible but stories about John's resurrection but at the same time Harrow and Gideon both know the book of Ruth enough to quote it to each other. "It is finished" is literally said by Mercymorn, Pal quotes the book of Daniel in the unwanted Guest.

What is the religion in the locked tomb actually ?

[katakaluptastrophy]

I'm so sorry, OP, but you've just unlocked an unskippable cutscene...

What we can probably say about House religion:

Their overarching theology draws heavily on the Book of Revelation. Specifically, the first and second resurrections of Revelation 20. Housers are "the Children of the Resurrection", the only people (re)made in the image of God, Alecto is "the devil" locked away, whose release will herald the end.

John is God, but they don't seem to practice monotheism as classically understood: i.e. a single god that is omnipotent, omniscient, omnificent, etc. Abigail justifies her heresy by pointing out that John "never claimed omnipotence", Teacher prays that "nothing happen that [John] did not anticipate", and it's not clear whether "the Creator" referenced in the letter read at the muster is to be understood as John or as referencing some greater creation mythos.

They seem to believe in intercessory prayer, but also pray for the Emperor's needs in the same way Catholics pray for the Pope in the Ninth.

They have a concept of sin, and possibly a sacramental system.

There has been some theological development over the course of the empire: Harrow says "it has been thousands of years since anybody bothered to believe in the River Beyond" - House religion seems to have started out with something much more like the Catholic understanding of a tripartite afterlife, with hell, a purgatory that one moves through depending on one's degree of sinfullness, and a heaven. This belief now seems to be something that would get you in trouble with the authorities, and the orthodoxy is rather more like the classical underworld.

They have some kind of religious book, "the Tome". It's unclear whether this is a broader collection of scriptures (perhaps including elements from the Christian Bible) or whether it is solely a collection of religious law - the Eighth are "Keepers of the Tome" and enforce "the justice of the Tome". But it's hard to say whether any of the Bible quotes we get in the series are coming from in world scriptures or religious knowledge, whether they're appearing in the same liminal contexts as Shakespeare quotes do, or a secret third thing.

There is...possibly...some cruciform imagery in House religious iconography, depending on how you read the description of the Mithraeum chapel.

Interesting context to all this is that John was, as far as we can tell from what he tells us, educated in an Anglican school and baptised as a teenager at a non-denominational music festival (in a brief period of belief? A desire to fit in?). Some of his friends in the cow dome were nominally from various Commonwealth Protestantisms. But the only Catholic influence he definitively had was the nun, who seems to have been pushing a very specific metaphysical agenda and who John cautiously and ironically vindicates: "that finding it - the last link between what made someone alive and what made someone dead - would bring us closer to God. She was right, but I'm not sure she was right in the way she meant." The Houses are so very Catholic in part, I suspect, because there was a specifically Catholic context to John's traumatic apotheosis, and because death, resurrection, and memory wipe didn't seem to take the edge off Cristabel's enthusiasm...

But I desperately want more details about what Housers actually believe and what that looks like in peoples' lives.

(I've got further focused and unfocused thoughts on House religion here, if you're interested).

[cthonicurcheon]

@katakaluptastrophy as someone dating an Anglican (#livedexperience) it is still a very catholic religion. my boyfriend describes it as the culturally English form of Catholicism---many regions had very distinct Catholicisms that the Roman Catholic tried to stamp down on over time with varying degrees of success (and many of these lasted far after the Protestant Reformation, though that was the impetus for many areas that already had poor relations with Rome to just hit da bricks). i was going to cite how long it took to establish celibacy in the english church as an example, but after some research it seems this was a fairly universal trend...i was mislead by St Dunstan. there are a lot of "anglican catholic" churches that follow roman catholic as well as anglican orthodoxy because they believe the anglican church IS still a part of the catholic church (in the original meaning of the universal catholic church in line with early christian belief, not as a shortened form of roman catholic...and its own can of worms). now that the archbishop of canterbury is a woman this is kind of an awkward position to take.

in my personal (and largely uninformed opinion) anglicanism shares a lot with roman catholicism in terms of structure (ordained priests who do it as their job, bishops, One Guy in Charge*), liturgy, and doctrine...sometimes, because Anglicanism allows a lot of variation in liturgy and a lot of disagreement about doctrine and its proper interpretation. ironically, the 39 articles of religion that set out the differences between catholicism and anglicanism were intentionally written ambiguously, which allows anglo-catholics to interpret them as in line with catholicism. anglicanism is sometimes understood as the "via media" or the middle path between protestantism and catholicism, and the Anglican church often describes itself as "catholic and reformed."

debate about whether/how much anglicanism is catholic(ism) aside, one of the more interesting differences for tlt purposes is that confession is practiced much more rarely, and nearly always face-to-face rather than through the lattice of the booth (a small amount of anglo-catholics being the exception). like catholicism, confessions are under a seal; whether it is a sacrament like catholicism depends on your definition of sacrament. additionally, the belief (i think) is that confession is to God directly, the priest is just your spiritual guide and advisor (which is why the "corporate confession" as a part of general prayer during the liturgy serves the same purpose as the "auricular confession" described above). the common phrase is "all may, some should, none must."

another big difference is saints, which the anglican church kind of has---they continue to honor martyrs, and consider pre-reformation saints saints, but intercessional prayer to them is rare, so the whole concept has a fairly different tenor. it also varies a lottt individually.

finally, the Book of Common Prayer/the foundational text of the liturgy has lotsss of approved variations, many of which are national---and one of, if not the, most theologically liberal and culturally ecumenical versions is the New Zealand Prayer Book/He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa. this bears a lot of similarity to what i vaguely remember in gideon the ninth as the traditional ninth house prayers no one else remembers or does.

[katakaluptastrophy]

I enjoy a good discussion about Tract 90 and all that as much as the next Anglo-Catholic (hence the blog header 😂), but to avoid getting into an unwholesomely specific digression about Anglican ecclesiology, let's just say that I don't think there's any textual suggestion that particularly Catholic (as opposed to catholic) expressions of Anglicanism were influential in John's formation.

There's certainly an extent to which the ritualist movement hugely changed mainstream Anglican liturgical practice (candles on the altar are now an unremarkable mainstream practice, and not something resulting in riots and clerical jail time, for example), but as with having threefold orders of ministry and variable regional liturgies, that's true of just about any modern liturgical expression of Christianity.

So yes, John would have been familiar with NZ Prayer Book services, cassock and cotta on the altar party, candles, etc. But it's a big jump from there to having a full litany of titles and a space station full of bedazzled relics!

[future-crab]

My dream is for Hozier to do a cover of “Nobody” by the Crane Wives, and for the Crane Wives to do a cover of “Nobody” by Mitski, and for Mitski to do a cover of “Nobody” by Hozier. I’m calling it the Nobody Exchange and I think it could be huge.