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Metachat / Re: Cats-Cast?
« Last post by Frungi on Today at 06:46:29 PM »10/10 would subscribe. Having trouble finding the feed.
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Episode Comments / Re: PC621: A Salt and Sterling Tongue
« Last post by Languorous Lass on Today at 02:06:36 AM »The scene of the singing of grief was beautifully rendered—I could feel the notes in my bones. The romance didn’t work for me, though. I would have preferred for the story to focus solely on the healing process.
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Gallimaufry / Re: New Member/Listeners
« Last post by ruukachoo on Today at 01:30:36 AM »Hello! I'm Ru, and I've been listening for a while, although I'm just now making an account. I'm looking forward to getting familiar with the forums!
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Episode Comments / PC621: A Salt and Sterling Tongue
« Last post by Ocicat on Today at 12:34:46 AM »PodCastle 621: A Salt and Sterling Tongue
Author: Emma Osborne
Narrator: Megan Leigh
Host: Setsu Uzume
Audio Producer: Peter Behravesh
Previously published by Uncanny Magazine.
---
Show Notes
Rated R.
I found my dying boy curled up in a pile of straw wet with his blood. Seamus rolled over as I entered the barn, and I saw then that he’d chewed his fingers down to the first knuckle.
I gasped.
“I can taste my King in my wet,” he said, rocking forward, naming his lost Merling lord. Seamus could barely keep himself up on what was left of his hands and his knees. I crouched and moved closer and he fell forward onto forearms thin as sticks.
Seamus’ teeth shone through the gore that coated him from nose to navel, and he’d bitten off a few of the scales that dotted the skin of his upper arms. One was stuck to his chin with blood.
“He’s stopped singing, but I can hear him in the waves and in my blood, my lord, my king.”
My youngest boy was the one of the unlucky few who’d heard the music of the Merling King while out collecting cockles, who came home the next morning shivering and soaked and vomiting up seawater, the salt crystalising in his scant beard, newborn silver scales peeping out of his skin.
Listen to this week's PodCastle.
Follow us on YouTube and Spotify!
Author: Emma Osborne
Narrator: Megan Leigh
Host: Setsu Uzume
Audio Producer: Peter Behravesh
Previously published by Uncanny Magazine.
---
Show Notes
Rated R.
I found my dying boy curled up in a pile of straw wet with his blood. Seamus rolled over as I entered the barn, and I saw then that he’d chewed his fingers down to the first knuckle.
I gasped.
“I can taste my King in my wet,” he said, rocking forward, naming his lost Merling lord. Seamus could barely keep himself up on what was left of his hands and his knees. I crouched and moved closer and he fell forward onto forearms thin as sticks.
Seamus’ teeth shone through the gore that coated him from nose to navel, and he’d bitten off a few of the scales that dotted the skin of his upper arms. One was stuck to his chin with blood.
“He’s stopped singing, but I can hear him in the waves and in my blood, my lord, my king.”
My youngest boy was the one of the unlucky few who’d heard the music of the Merling King while out collecting cockles, who came home the next morning shivering and soaked and vomiting up seawater, the salt crystalising in his scant beard, newborn silver scales peeping out of his skin.
Listen to this week's PodCastle.
Follow us on YouTube and Spotify!
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Gallimaufry / Re: New Member/Listeners
« Last post by PG on Today at 12:24:45 AM »Hi all! New forum member, long time Escape Artists fan. Just saying hi, and don’t delete me! 
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Gallimaufry / Re: picture association
« Last post by Languorous Lass on Yesterday at 11:01:29 PM »Damn, lowky. You slid in just before me.
My pic still works though.
My pic still works though.
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Gallimaufry / Re: picture association
« Last post by lowky on Yesterday at 10:55:59 PM »
Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
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Episode Comments / Re: EP723: How Did it Feel to be Eaten?
« Last post by Cyber Spirit on Yesterday at 09:15:54 PM »I think one of the issues I had with it was the premise that truth doesn't matter, it's what it makes you feel that matters. Good or evil doesn't matter, only motive.
I think this is a good point. I didn't think of the unreality of the narrator's situation-- the fact that all his lifetimes were simulated and populated by simulated characters/situations (if I am remembering/interpreting the story correctly). It reminds me of the philosophical thought experiment Nozick's Experience Machine https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-meaning-in-imperfect-world/201903/pleasure-or-reality-the-experience-machine-debate. In the thought experiment, psychologists invent a machine in which you could live in a personalized simulation, like the Matrix. The psychologists can guarantee that you will be happy in this machine as everything is designed around you and your desires. While you are in the machine, you don't even know it is a simulation. However, every person and situation you encounter within the machine is simply a programmed simulation and not real. Nozick then asks whether or not you would choose to live in this machine or if you would choose to life a genuine, authentic life.
For me, while I like the idea of this shortcut to enlightenment, the idea of pursuing it via this method is a bit less appealing if those encountered in the simulations weren't real. But would it be bad to achieve some manner of genuine enlightenment through an artificial means? That is, if you think the narrator is achieving genuine enlightenment at all... I admit, I kind of just rolled with the whole enlightenment thing, so it is interesting to hear the thoughts of Languorous Lass and digtig-- adds a whole new element of considerations for me.
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Episode Comments / Re: EP723: How Did it Feel to be Eaten?
« Last post by Languorous Lass on Yesterday at 06:55:32 PM »I also found this piece to be a sermon attempting to masquerade as a story, and not succeeding. It might have been less annoying if the main character hadn’t been so much of a Gary Stu — achieving enlightenment faster than any other pupil in Virtual Buddhism! Give me an average person struggling to understand themselves and the universe.