Gender: Banana Slug

Aeolidis tumulum festivae cerne catellae, quam dolui inmodice raptam mihi praepete fato.

Behold the tomb of Aeolis, the cheerful little dog, whose loss to fleeting fate pained me beyond measure.

Raeda[r]um custos numquam latravit inepte. nunc silet et cineres vindicat um- bra suos.

This guard of the coaches never barked unsuitably. Now he is silent and his shade protects his ashes.

Quam dulcis fuit ista quam benigna quae cum viveret in sinu iacebat somni conscia semper et cubilis o factum male Myia quod peristi latrares modo si quis adcubaret rivalis dominae licentiosa o factum male Myia quod peristi altum iam tenet insciam sepulcrum nec sevire potes nec insilire nec blandis mihi morsib(us) renides.

How sweet and friendly she was! While she was alive she used to lie in the lap, always sharing sleep and bed. What a shame, Midge, that you have died! You would only bark if some rival took the liberty of lying up against your mistress. What a shame, Midge, that you have died! The depths of the grave now hold you and you know nothing about it. You cannot go wild nor jump on me, and you do not bare your teeth at me with bites that do not hurt.

Portavi lacrimis madidus te nostra catella, quod feci lustris laetior ante tribus. ergo mihi, Patrice, iam non dabis osculla mille nec poteris collo grata cubare meo. tristis marmorea posui te sede merentem et iunxi semper manib(us) ipse meis, morib(us) argutis hominem simulare paratam; perdidimus quales, hei mihi, delicias. tu dulcis, Patrice, nostras attingere mensas consueras, gremio poscere blanda cibos, lambere tu calicem lingua rapiente solebas quem tibi saepe meae sustinuere manus, accipere et lassum cauda gaudente frequenter

Bedewed with tears I have carried you, our little dog, as in happier circumstances I did fifteen years ago. So now, Patrice, you will no longer give me a thousand kisses, nor will you be able to lie affectionately round my neck. You were a good dog, and in sorrow I have placed you in a marble tomb, and I have united you forever to myself when I die. You readily matched a human with your clever ways; alas, what a pet we have lost! You, sweet Patrice, were in the habit of joining us at table and fawningly asking for food in our lap, you were accustomed to lick with your greedy tongue the cup which my hands often held for you and regularly to welcome your tired master with wagging tail.

An abandoned potato sorting station near Krasnosilka, Ukraine with a unusual, cantilevered design. The concrete block at the end forms the counterweight of the structure, creating the impression it floats over the fields.

THANK YOU

You can read any implied text you see in this thing, even the book, that’s how detailed it is. Look at the painting on those letters!

jesus christ you’re just showing off now, Hans!

HANS OH MY GOD

@helloyesthisisdilophsaurus

Four-Eyed Turtle

The four-eyed turtle (Sacalia quadriocellata) is a reptile of the order Testudines. Its name refers to two bright yellow or green spots that occur on the back of its head that can look like another pair of eyes. This species of turtle occurs in southern China and Hainan, in the Annamite Mountains and northeastern region of Laos, and in the mountains of northern and central Vietnam.

Broken objects, beyond repair.

Or: You thought I was over Imperial Radch? I’m never not going to be emotional about Sphene’s tea set being a metaphor for Everyone’s Trauma.,

“What a remarkable thing, that she should resemble you so much.”

“Yes. Although she’s not the saint. The head she’s holding is.”

The True Radch, the Dyson Sphere that Anaander Miaanaai left and will never return to, takes its purity seriously. It doesn’t let anything in that isn’t ritually pure, and ritual purity is unspecified in the series.

The Radch mostly seems to get by by wearing gloves and being proper.

But what if it took diseases seriously?

Ancillaries are popsicle corpses from other worlds, reanimated systems away from their home biomes. They’re given implants to give them a new consciousness, and some other things, but then these ancillaries just go out and be wet and human all over their decade-mates, their officers, and the the planetary/stations populations where they’re stationed.

You know how every so often a chunk of permafrost thaws in Siberia? And how as a result there have been outbreaks of fossil anthrax as a result? Ancillaries are that sort of disease reservoir.

And yes, human officers do fuck ancillaries, and do fuck other humans.

Some ancillary bodies have been on ice for hundreds or thousands of years.

Imagine rolling up to the Medic and saying, “what’s this wart?” Medic replies, “Congratulations, Lieutenant. You’ve got a disease last seen on a planet fifteen Jumps and a hundred and fifty years ago. It has no known cure, and at this stage in the infection, you’ll be braindead in a week, followed two weeks later by everyone else onboard. There’s nothing to be done for it. Ship, tell Captain that I’m ordering the ship sterilized.” One flash-cleanse later, now you have a very lonely Ship wandering the spaceways, without crew or Captain, looking for someone to help bootstrap it back to crewedness.

How might taking this into account change the Imperial Radch novels?

Some plot bunnies for consideration:

thorough screening of passengers arriving from outsystem or outplanet or offstation, with mandatory quarantine

ancillaries walk around in their impenetrable mirror-shields all the time, because it’s a two-way disease barrier

Breq can’t get an in-person audience with Anaander during her first week at Omaugh Palace, but instead spends three weeks in quarantine with Seivarden, working her way through local bureaucrats to get to the point where she can actually meet with Anaander face to face instead of in a telepresence call mediated by Station

thorough disease scanning facilitates thorough biological scanning of all sorts, which might lead to someone discovering that Breq takes the sort of drugs that ancillaries take to support their implants

instead of booking passage in personal cabins within a ship, passengers have personal cabins, which are container-like units transported by a ship: Breq has been using a subsistence-mode container, but has to upgrade to something nice enough to support Seivarden when she discovers her, which in turn needs to be upgraded to something nice enough for the Honored Breq, from the Gerentate

hi im thinking about imperial radch again

Now I’m imagining smol Radchaai children sitting down very seriously with a box of cheap beads and safety pins and, depending on local preferences and how imaginative the child is maybe also bits of ribbon and such, and designing their personal pin to hand out to friends at school. Maybe making a fancy version to give to their best friend(s).

Or a clique of kids having a craft night to design and create a pin especially to represent their little group.