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The expense can also be in the time spent shopping. It feels indulgent to wait and explore your opportunities and shop around for the exact specs you want. To visit a store and leave with nothing, versus settling on something that's okay enough and does the thing NOW.

I'm turning 30 this month, and for some reason have become suddenly interested in material possessions. like what if,,,,,,,,my couch was nice. what if my sheets were nice. is this what happens to you??

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Anxiety: You're almost 30 and haven't published a single book. You wasted your chance to become a successful author!

Me: Stan Lee created Spider-Man at age 40. George R. R. Martin wrote A Game of Thrones at age 48.

Anxiety: Oh fuck nvm you do you, king.

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Specifically an abandoned, structurally unsound medieval castle, that is important.

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But was the robot disqualified

Or is this move legal

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Gorgeous!!

hecate

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Anticipated New Releases Masterpost: 2!!

June and later. Asterisked titles by authors new to me.

The Listeners, Maggie Stiefvater (3 June). Hotel manager June is put to an unexpected test when the hotel’s rich owners make a deal to host captured Nazi officials.

Ten Incarnations of Rebellion, Vaishnavi Patel (3 June). Ten moments from one young woman's life in an India that was never free of British rule.

*Crueler Mercies, Maren Chase (3 June). An exiled princess plots with a lady alchemist to destroy the kingdom.

The Witch Roads, Kate Elliot (10 June). An arrogant prince enters the haunted Spires against the advice of their guide, leaving ex-slave Elen with the unenviable task of guiding a man who isn’t quite the same as the one who entered.

A Rare Find, Joanna Lowell (10 June). Sapphic historical romance between an archeologist and her rival.

The Mercy Makers, Tessa Gratton (17 June). Criminal heiress Iriset uses her ability to create magical disguises to infiltrate the palace and free her father, insinuating herself into the lives of the emperor and his sister in the process.

*This Princess Kills Monsters, Ry Herman (17 June). A sapphic retelling of the Grimm fairy tale The Twelve Huntsmen.

Wearing the Lion, John Wiswell (17 June). Retelling of the Hercules myth centered around Hera but in a good way. I read the ARC and I swear it's good.

A Far Better Thing, HG Parry (17 June). Changeling child Sydney escapes and crosses over to the human world during the French Revolution to get his revenge on the fairie that took his place.

A Legionnaire’s Guide to Love and Peace, Emily Skrutskie (24 June). Two redshirts unexpectedly don’t die in a fantasy apocalypse after a band of plucky heroes intervene, forcing them to contemplate their one last night stand.

Behind Frenemy Lines, Zen Cho (1 July). Romcom about an established lawyer clashing with a new hire in a major corporate law firm

*Soulgazer, Maggie Rapier (8 July). Romantasy between a young woman with uncontrollable magic and a pirate.

The Bewitching, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (15 July). A multigenerational story about three women and the curse that stalks their family.

Pearl City, Julia Vee and Ken Bebelle (15 July). Third in an Asian-inspired urban fantasy trilogy about the magical protector of San Francisco.

The Library at Hellebore, Cassandra Khaw (22 July). Dark academia horrorgore set in a magic school.

*Volatile Memory, Seth Haddon (22 July). Sapphic SF about the romance between a space scavenger and an AI mask.

The Memory Hunters, Mia Tsai (29 July). Secondary world academia about using memory magic powers for archaeology.

*Silvercloak, LK Steven (29 July). A young woman infiltrates an elite detective school in order to bring down the magic gang who destroyed her family.

*House of the Beast, Michelle Wong (5 August). Bastard Alma sacrifices her arm to her ancestral patron in a bid to save her mother.

*Automatic Noodle, Annalee Newitz (5 August). Cozy SF about abandoned food delivery robots.

Hemlock & Silver, T Kingfisher (19 August). A retelling of Snow White from the point of view of a healer trying to cure the poisoned princess.

The Last Soul Among Wolves, Melissa Caruso (19 August). Dimension tavelling investigator must find who has laid a death curse at the reading of a will in a crumbling mansion.

The Maiden and Her Monster, Maddie Martinez (9 September). Sapphic retelling of the golem story set in a fantastical Eastern Europe.

All Hail Chaos, Sarah Rees Brennan (16 September). Sequel about a young terminal cancer patient who is transported into her favorite series as a minor villain.

The Summer War, Naomi Novik (16 September). A young woman accidentally curses her brother and must go on a quest to undo it. Novella.

*Terms of Service, Ciel Pierlot (23 September). Luzia sells herself to the mysterious fae-like Astrosi who live above the metropolis in order to rescue her nephew.

Thief of Night, Holly Black (23 September). Urban fantasy sequel in which Charlie deals with the consequences of having stolen a magic book.

Spread Me, Sarah Gailey (23 September). Queer parasitical space horror novella.

Fate's Bane, CL Clark (30 September). Sapphic romance between a hostage and the daughter of a chief.

What Stalks the Deep, T Kingfisher (30 September). Third in the series of Alex Easton horror novellas, set in rural Appalacchia

Saltcrop, Yume Kitasei (30 September). Two sisters travel across Earth's ruined oceans to save their sister.

Savage Blooms, ST Gibson (7 October). Kinky fantasy romance about a young man and the woman he has a crush on stumbling into a gothic mansion haunted by an aristocrat and her groundskeeper.

Cinder House, Freya Marske (7 October). Retelling of Cinderella where she is a haunted house.

All of Us Murderers, KJ Charles (7 October). Gothic country house murder mystery.

The Graceview Patient, Caitlin Starling (14 October). Gothic hospital horror about a woman undergoing treatment for her autoimmune condition.

The Isle in the Silver Sea, Tasha Suri (21 October). A sapphic romance about a knight and a witch who are trapped in a story where they fall in love and then betray each other over and over.

The Lost Reliquary, Lyndsay Ely (21 October). A rogue devotee secretly plots to kill her goddess.

The Everlasting, Alix Harrow (28 October). Arthurian romance between a lady knight and a historian after they are reunited after a millennium. M/F.

The King Must Die, Kemi Ashing-Giwa (4 November). A daughter of rebels and a technomancer prince team up to assassinate a king.

The Nameless Land, Kate Elliot (4 November). Sequel to The Witch Roads, in which guide Elen and arrogant prince Gevulin must navigate a dangerous diplomatic mission.

The Strength of the Few, James Islington (11 November). Book 2 of a series. In a corrupt empire, Vis struggles with his victory and the ancient secret that has split him into three alternate dimensions.

As Many Souls as Stars, Natasha Siegel (25 November). A witch and a demon make a bargain that locks them in a game extending across reincarnations. f/f.

Audrey Lane Stirs the Pot, Alexis Hall (9 December). Book three in the series of queer romcoms set on a British baking show, featuring a journalist contestant and the show's producer.

*Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die, Greer Stothers (3 February). Queer comedy romance in which a lazy young knight is thrown together with an evil sorcerer.

Entwined, HM Long (10 March). Three sisters hunt a magical artifact in an alt Gilded Age.

Wolf Worm, T Kingfisher (24 March). Historical horror featuring a scientific illustrator and parasitic worms.

How to Fake It In Society, KJ Charles (28 April). A con man pretending to be a comte attempts to scam a shopkeeper who stands to inheritance a fortune.

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being queer and seeing historical queer love is like a punch to the gut in a good way every time

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Completely yes! The downside of all those candles and incense and the occasional fire requires cleaning.

But it's also THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION and ...a modern lack of investment in maintenance. Our favorite modern villains.

Malcolm Miller, the tour guide of the Chartres cathedral had some comments:

The industrial revolution also did a nasty number on buildings.

Burning coal to power factories and heat houses or churches created so much air pollution. It was a problem and it made buildings noticably gray and dingy in the course of a generation. Victor Hugo wrote Hunchback of Notre Dame to showcase how beautiful the cathedral once was and shame France into maintaining its old buildings.

Also also, every new era likes to classify previous eras as filthy and ignorant. Never mind that people of today are essentially the same as people from five hundred years ago. We like clean.

And the same civilizations that built these buildings in the first place were capable of cleaning them. Michelangelo built scaffolding to paint the Sistene Chapel. Monks did so to clean their cathedrals. People expected to do regular building maintenance and churches had extremely cheap labor from all their monks.

So you might have the occasional fall but hey, lots of people were willing to join a monastic order for guaranteed food and drink and religious feelings.

Images of scaffolds are from wikipedia's articles on putlogs and scaffolding.

(BY THE WAY APPARENTLY THERE ARE POSSIBLE SCAFFOLD HOLES IN THE LASCAUX CAVES??)

Monks often took on trades like carpentry, masonry and brewing. Cleaning was a daily chore. If the cathedral - an accomplishment of engineering and construction over centuries and a literal physical tribute to their god built from stone and blood - if the cathedral got dirty, they wouldn't just accept that for the goth aesthetic.

If people could build scaffolds to replace their hay roofs, they would build them to clean the gorgeous painted walls.

I expect our dingy image of cathedrals comes more from the decline of monasteries and a steep drop in Catholic recruitment. Combine that with some deadly wars and labor safety, and labor to scrub church walls three stories up gets a lot more expensive.

Britain and France especially had also confiscated Catholic lands and buildings during Henry VIII's time and the French revolution, which would have caused some upheavals in maintenance. It would be interesting to compare cathedral maintenance in other countries.

ACTUALLY LET'S DO THAT

Hungary and the famous Cathedral in Cologne, Germany.

The article from the Independent, which I quoted above for the Chartres tour guide, also notes that it's mostly "British and American lovers of Gothic architecture" who are complaining about the Chartres restoration.

Quote:

The British designer and blogger Adam Nathaniel Furman wrote: “A restoration that eliminates the patina of history, and reinstates an illusory ideal moment in the past ... is an act of destruction dressed up in good intentions.”

And Stefan Evans, an American Gothic art specialist, commented: “Irresponsible restoration is erasing history from a Gothic masterpiece.” He then started an online petition to protest against the work.

Back to Mr Miller the Chartres tour guide, 81 years old, who has written books on Chartres:

Is Mr Miller on the side of light or on the side of darkness? “Just look here,” he said, bouncing angrily towards an uncleaned pillar. He ran his fingers through the grime. “Filth, pure filth,” he said. “Do these people like filth? Do they like cobwebs?

“They talk about the patina of the centuries. Nonsense. Rubbish. This is not the patina of the centuries. It is the rotting remains of a whitewash from the 18th century.”

In short, British and many French cathedrals haven't been maintained consistently, Americans and Brits now think cathedrals are *supposed* to be filthy. And get snippy at the people are doing the housekeeping.

Me: Did you know that medieval cathedrals weren't actually supposed to be dark and rundown places with only stained glass as color? They were bright places full of light... the reason they look like that now is because of the centuries of accumulated grime and dust, here look at this restoration of the Cathedral of Chartres in France:

It's based on actual paint from the times, and when you think about it, it makes a lot more sense, after all a church is supposed to be a bright place of hope. Yet when we think about the middle ages we think about grimy and dark cathedrals. I wonder how much of our conception of history is shaped by our current visions of historical buildings.

My Goth GF: listen, I don't think this thing between us is working,

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CALIFORNIA ORBS

THEy'RE SO SUSTAINABLE

PUMP VACUUMS

WIND FARM UP TOP

SEA WATER RETURNS

TO SPIN A TURBINE

ORB ORB ORB ORB

I'm not going to bother reading the article to find out if this actually works or if anyone is actually trying it. I'm just happy we as a society are showing proper reverence for Orbs.

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Description: [A video of a woman riding a galloping horse bareback while holding a large rainbow flag.]

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Support me on PATREON or Ko-fi 💕

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if you imagine an animatic hard enough it should come true

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Tuxedos

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in absolute tears about the pride module at my work

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*slamming into the screen like Wile E Coyote*

THE SHINY ROCKS ARE PAINTED

Gaming Dice.

I learned a lot about edges and light and color relationships here.

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