Claire Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (it/any) welcome T. X. Watson (any) for Gideon the Ninth, Act IV, Chapter 30. Gideon talks through some ideas with Palamedes. Dulcinea tells an unbelievable story. Judith makes a decision. You make some art at the end.

Content Warning: murder, manipulation, suicide, child neglect/abuse, dismemberment, incest, cannibalism, deception

Further Reading:

Jaume Aurell (2024) The Origins of the University: Questions of Identity and Historical Continuity

Minouche Shafik (1998) What We Owe to Each Other: A New Social Contract for a Better Society

Charles W. Mills (1997) The Racial Contract

Avgi Saketopoulou (2023) Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia

Brené Brown (2012) Listening to Shame

Rafia Zakaria (2024) Why Brené Brown's Gospel of Vulnerability Fails the World's Most Vulnerable

The Adventure Zone (2021) Amnesty - Episode 34 (excerpt: "One day you're gonna laugh at a joke")

Stefano Harney & Fred Moten (2013) The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study

Han Koehle (2026) Berkeley Legacies of Eugenics Annotated Conference Notes

Paul Provenza & Penn Jillette (2005) The Aristocrats (excerpt: "The Filthiest Joke Ever Told")

Immanuel Kant (1797) On a Supposed Right to Lie Because of Philanthropic Concerns

Jeffrey Craynor and Sarah Griffin (2021) Start With This "Perceiving the Audience"

T.X. Watson (2026) Why don't the Humanities do experiments? (kinda clickbait)

T.X. Watson (2017) "The Boston Hearth Project" in Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation

Nun Pod With Left Grief is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International License. Find us at NunPod.com and get our attention with #NunPod.

Claire Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (it/any) re-read Gideon the Ninth, Chapter 29. Gideon tries to ground herself but everything at Canaan House is fucking weird.

Content Warning: death, murder, mild cannibalism

Further Reading:

J. S. A. Lowe. (2021). Kitten Thinks of Nothing but Murder All Day: Tumblr Text Post Memes as Fandom Detournement. a tumblr book: platform and cultures

NASA et al. (2020). The world's oldest story? Astronomers say global myths about 'seven sisters' stars may reach back 100,000 years. The Conversation.

Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink (2021) Start With This, "But How Does It End?"

Nun Pod With Left Grief is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International License. Find us at NunPod.com and get our attention with #NunPod.

John (he/him) comes over to chat with Claire Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (it/any) about Gideon the Ninth, Act IV, Chapter 27. Gideon goes to tea with the eighth. Everyone wants to punch Silas (and Babs, but he's not in this one). Claire has unexpected sympathy for Silas (who remains punchable). Han has unexpected sympathy for Glaurica.

Content Warning: John Gaius (implied), Death, Murder, Slavery, (Punitive?) Amputation, Torture, Abuse, Dios Apate (implied), Eugenics, Suicide,

Further Reading:

Richard Allen (2023) Toward a Philosophy of Melodrama

Rebecca Lesses (2009) Lilith

Mass Effect 3 (2012) Mordin Death Scene

Nun Pod With Left Grief is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International License. Find us at NunPod.com and get our attention with #NunPod.

If you’d like to support our show with your voice, share NunPod with a friend or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. If you’d like to use money to support us, we encourage you to think of the amount you’d like to send us on Patreon each month and then instead send it here. Let us know that you did!

Claire Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (it/any) dig into Gideon the Ninth, Act IV, Chapter 27. Harrow and Pal negotiate. Gideon and Cam negotiate. Gideon and Harrow open a door. Gideon and Harrow negotiate.

Content Warning: Pretty chill week all things considered. Oblique references to oppression and exploitation, scientific racism, death and human remains,

Further Reading:

Robert N. Proctor and Londa Schiebinger (2008) Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance

Stanley Cohen (2001) States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering

Nun Pod With Left Grief is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International License. Find us at NunPod.com and get our attention with #NunPod.

If you’d like to support our show with your voice, share NunPod with a friend or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. If you’d like to use money to support us, we encourage you to think of the amount you’d like to send us on Patreon each month and then instead send it here. Let us know that you did!

Claire Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (it/any) revisit Gideon the Ninth, Act IV, Chapter 26. Harrow falls back on her old patterns. Gideon seeks comfort. Silas makes an offer.

Content Warning: child death, murder, verbal abuse, cannibalism, lyctor sex, experimental abuse, genocide, torture, eugenics

Further Reading:

Vrinda Dalmiya. 2000. Loving Paradoxes: A Feminist Reclamation of the Goddess Kali. Hypatia 15(1):125-150.

Anastasia Pestinova (c. 2023) Transgressive Feminine: The Case of Baba Yaga

Nicky Falkof (2025) Trump and South Africa: What is White Victimhood, and How Is It Linked to White Supremacy? The Conversation.

Lucy Nicholas, Sal Clark, Christine Agius, and Kay Cook (2024) Antifeminist, Manosphere and Right-Wing Extremist Sentiments Among Men Who Use Domestic and Family Violence: Masculinism, Misinformation, and the Justificatory Logics of Violence. NORMA: 1-20. [Audio version available]

Lyz Lenz (2015) A Brief History of Dwarfism Pacific Standard.

Nun Pod With Left Grief is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International License. Find us at NunPod.com and get our attention with #NunPod.

Claire (she/they) and Han (it/any) reluctantly tackle chapter 25 of Gideon the Ninth. In our production notes this chapter summary read ":((((((("

Content Warning: dead dove do not eat. I cannot emphasize enough how much we're going to talk about child death this week. Also general colonial violence, torture, psychiatric abuse, war, other killing, child soldiers, sexual violence against children and adults, at least passing reference to cannibalism.

Further Reading:

Frantz Fanon (1961) The Wretched of the Earth

Han (2025) Canaan House as a Strategic Action Field

Aimé Césaire (1950) Discourse on Colonialism

bell hooks (2005) The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

Lana & Lily Wachowski (1999) The Matrix

Alok Menon in Conversation with Paul Holdengräber (2023) Oxy Live!

Alan Moore (1986-1987) Watchmen

Nun Pod With Left Grief is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International License. Find us at NunPod.com and get our attention with #NunPod.

If you’d like to support our show with your voice, share NunPod with a friend or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. If you’d like to use money to support us, we encourage you to think of the amount you’d like to send us on Patreon each month and then instead send it here. Let us know that you did!

Claire Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (it/any) dissect Gideon the Ninth Chapter 24. The Tridentarii have a Moment. Babs does Not have a moment. A coalition forms. Claire and Han have questions about the Ninth soil biome. Also like, what is Silas's whole deal?

Content Warning: emotional abuse, incest, genocide, death

Further Reading:

Aja Romano (2019) The Archive of Our Own Just Won a Hugo. That's Huge for Fanfiction.

FanLore (2025) Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

Aimé Césaire (1950) Discourse on Colonialism

Claire Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (it/any) welcome guest Cyd (she/her) from Resting Glitch Face to talk about Gideon the Ninth chapter 23. Our big bad arranges a convincing tableau as our dubious heroes split their time between investigating mysterious remains and absolutely back stabbing one another all to heck. And front stabbing. Han doesn't like gooshy magic. Everybody has questions about Teacher's whole deal. Necromancy is stored in the... nervous... system? Claire has questions about Cam's background.

This week's cover is courtesy of guest Cyd. You can find Resting Glitch Face on your favorite pod catcher, and access bonus content and join their Discord on Patreon!

Content Warning: murder, death, human remains, blood, Ianthe "mild cannibalism" Tridentarius, child soldiers,

Further Reading:

Benjamin Davis (2021) Decolonizing Anthropology: I'm Not Indiana Jones, and I Don't Want to Be