sniper, do you love me? are you sniping?

This is a fanblog for Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota series. My general tumblr is @comtesse-de-laval, because of course it is.

[comtesse-de-laval]

had a dream that Felix Faust wrote a book about Achilles titled A Horse With No Shame

[cousincarlyle]

does anyone know the name of the Terra Ignota Discord?

[cousincarlyle]

Another old thing I forgot to post.

[comtesse-de-laval]

more characters added

[cousincarlyle]

We urgently need a legal framework for space colonisation – Marko Kovic | Aeon Essays

If we don’t invent a legal framework for space colonisation the consequences could be catastrophic: the time to act is now

[dduane]

Tumblr will ban all adult content on December 17th

The ban includes explicit sexual content and nudity with some exceptions.

About this…

If you’re someone affected by the platform’s definition of what they’re going to be banning, I strongly suggest you back up your Tumblr blog. RIGHT NOW. Info on how to do that is here.

I can’t think why my own Tumblr would be affected, but I’ll be backing things up too… because in situations like this one might expect the algorithm to get a little out of hand and make mistakes that one might or might not be able to recover from. (See this article.)

For safety’s sake – because I’d very much dislike losing the content I’ve shared with other people here – I’l be embodying my Tumblr content in a new Wordpress blog over the coming days. I’ll share the address here when it’s ready, for those who might be interested.

But in the meantime, seriously: friends and cousins, back yourselves up.

[advice-animal]

When in doubt

[art-mysecondname]

Epicuro

[cousincarlyle]

Terra Ignota Characters as Recentgoogleposts, Part 1

Julia:

Andō:

Thisbe:

JEDD:

Casimir Perry:

Toshi Mitsubishi:

Dominic:

Carlyle:

Spain:

[recentgooglesearches]

how to determine the gender of my nipples

[cousincarlyle]

why did Spain regret his night with Ganymede?

a few ideas

Andō got jealous for some reason and raised rent on a bunch of European properties or something

Spain developed sexual/romantic feelings and things got weird

Ganymede developed sexual/romantic feelings and things got weird (probably unlikely)

Spain, a good Catholic boy, felt he was cheating on Madame even though Madame is…Madame

Ganymede held it over his head and teased him about it

Spain, much more into traditional gender roles than most, felt his sexuality and masculinity had been threatened

Spain found out he was kinkier than he’d realized

Someone found out and spread rumors, briefly threatening Spain’s reputation for moral rectitude (at least in his mind)

I feel like four and five are most likely but idk

[le-comte-deguise]

I agree with five (and could well imagine two), but not with four: do we even know if Spain slept with Madame after Epicuro was born? He’s so torn up in these scenes I could well imagine he has since refused (leading to further anguish, because he definitely still wants to). In either case, I think he does feel guilt, but less because of cheating on Madame and more because he believes he should not have any sex outside of marriage, whether with Madame or anyone (this is, I think, the main reason).

Regarding six: my first instinct would have been no, since gender as a whole is gone, and thereby also homophobic sentiment—but now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not so sure. I wonder if the pope or Catholic priests in reservations still have to be male; I don’t think Mycroft mentions it (which leads me to believe that female priests are allowed, or else he’d have commented on the anachronism, but of course that’s far from proof). I am also still not clear why Madam considers it so important that Carlyle is biologically male? She has “raised gentlemen of either sex” (just look at Dominic); should she not care more about Carlyle’s personality?

I don’t think one or seven—I expect Mycroft would have told us if it had any political dimension. And given that Ganymede’s nude body is “a public service”, I agree that three is unlikely. The guy appears so comfortable in that role that I suspect he either simply does not develop crushes at all or at least knows how to keep things from getting weird.

[cousincarlyle]

I think the guilt over extramarital sex is probably the most likely explanation!

And I think that, while Madame does allow people not to conform to their biological sexes, she does have a certain reverence for sex-gender congruity. The “gender fetishes” of all the world leaders all conform to their sex, for example. I’m not sure what she would have done with a powerful person whose sex didn’t correspond to their gender presentation/identity, but it is interesting that she hasn’t courted, say, Sniper. And where royalty and nobility are concerned she enforces gender conformation even more strictly, possibly for the sake of restoring 18th-century norms, possibly for the sake of reducing complexity so that she can more easily control things like marriage and inheritance. I also wonder what Madame would have done if Jehovah had been born female, but she was also likely able to choose the sex of her unborn child.

And it appears that people in the world at large still accept that nobility and royalty operate by different rules. Ganymede, Danaë, and Spain all use gendered titles that conform to their biological sexes and people don’t seem to push back against this; they are all almost universally beloved. Julia (of noble birth herself) also just accepts that Carlyle is able to inherit due to being biologically male. Despite how successful Thomas Carlyle’s reforms were and how many people are quite content to live without outward proclamations of gender, there are many vestiges of traditional European concepts of gender. Even Carlyle, who would likely never refer to themself as a boy, reflexively calls people with penises “boys”.

The question about priests is really interesting! I don’t believe that the gender rules apply on reservations, so Catholic priests may very well be required to be male. I also wonder if non-Reservation Catholics are allowed to request a male sensayer, although I’d wager probably not. And on a side note, since many sensayers function as priests for Catholic parishioners, technically there are a lot of non-male priests running around out there.

[cousincarlyle]

why did Spain regret his night with Ganymede?

a few ideas

Andō got jealous for some reason and raised rent on a bunch of European properties or something

Spain developed sexual/romantic feelings and things got weird

Ganymede developed sexual/romantic feelings and things got weird (probably unlikely)

Spain, a good Catholic boy, felt he was cheating on Madame even though Madame is...Madame

Ganymede held it over his head and teased him about it

Spain, much more into traditional gender roles than most, felt his sexuality and masculinity had been threatened

Spain found out he was kinkier than he’d realized

Someone found out and spread rumors, briefly threatening Spain’s reputation for moral rectitude (at least in his mind)

I feel like four and five are most likely but idk

[incorrectterraignotaquotes]

Young Apollo seeks advice from Mushi Mojave.  (SOURCE: xkcd comic 1610.)

[cousincarlyle]

Another old thing I forgot to post.

[utopiaboo]

they can’t both have the same top/bottom score

[cousincarlyle]

they fence and the loser has to top

[cousincarlyle]

Another old thing I forgot to post.

[incorrectterraignotaquotes]

Dominic: What’s wrong with the way I dress?

Carlyle: Well, some people might say that all that black leather makes you look like an evil villain…

Dominic: 

Carlyle: Not me! I think you look like a sexy motorcycle.

(Source: Brooklyn 99)

[incorrectterraignotaquotes]

Bridger: “Sniper, no sniping! Sniper, no sniping! Sniper, no ‒”

(SOURCE, approximately: Dora the Explorer)

[cousincarlyle]

Ladies, if he

won’t introduce you to his family

never calls you his girlfriend

uses weird archaic pronouns like “thee” and “thou”

is always ditching you to hang out with a bunch of nun cosplayers

has a slightly troubling relationship with wild animals

He’s not your man. He’s Dominic Seneschal.