#Laundry Files

[owlbear33]

Like I think it's very unlikely that the Laundry is unaware of the Folly, like in general the existence of the folly is not really a secret, it's just not talked about, and given all the ways the laundry can get information out of you, yeah they know about the folly, it's just the Newtonian Synthesis is not an advanced form of geometry, they don't care, not their job and they already have enough on their plate (though they might be interested in all these magic realms)

given up until relatively recently the Folly consisted of one Thomas Nightingale, with three "civilian" staff (Walid, Postmartin, and Molly) and given no one who knows anything about the laundry can't so much a mention it on pain of well a whole lot of things (the geas the laundry uses is so much more than Seducere), at most Nightingale might have heard stories about a funny branch of the SOE housed above a Chinese Laundrette during ww2

no, I fully believe the folly is in complete ignorance about the laundry

[neruomancer]

I'm trying to read my Laundry Files gamebook and you can't fucking escape these guys. They are fucking everywhere!

[wendell-witling]

The only thing that's stuck with me from this is that if your name is Howard you may, perhaps, secretly be Lovecraft's reincarnation.

[stainlesssteellocust]

Building on the previous posts

>some of the Host nobility brought their personal cooks etc with them

>some of these petition the New Management to be allowed to go into business in this strange new world

>lol why not says Fabian

>alfar have to be forced via blood oath to obey food laws

>humans salty over the Battle of Leeds try to fuck with their restaurant sometimes but that’s fine, kicking the shit out of human beings is healthy enrichment for the People

>First occasionally shows up when she’s feeling homesick but is constantly suspicious that the staff are gonna poison her and Alex for Leeds-related reasons

>The food’s alright but the real money comes from selling amphetamine-laced energy bars and setting up an opium den

>the elves don’t understand capitalism but Yarisol makes the numbers work, somehow

[spacecowboywhit]

Deeply-Scary-Sorcerer's Song

[Sung by DSS James "TEAPOT" Angleton from The Laundry Files by Charles Stross, to the tune of "Major-General's Song" by Gilbert and Sullivan]

I am the very model of a Deeply Scary Sorcerer

I've information mystical, secret, and full of horror-or,

I know the Plateau of Leng, and I quote the texts historical:

From Necronomicon to Schiller's Bible, in order categorical;

I'm extremely well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,

I understand equations, both the Dho Na and pentacle,

About Turing's Theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news, (bothered for a rhyme)

With many cheerful facts about those cults and dreams of Cthul-hu's.

I'm very good at banishing and multidimensional calculus;

I know the scientific names of beings rugose and squamulous:

In short, in matters magical, political, or covert operator-or,

I am the very model of a Deeply Scary Sorcerer.

I know our mythic history, from Benthic pledge to Archive of Atrocity;

I answer many a hard audit query, I've learned a pretty taste for deniability,

I quote in elegiacs all the times of strife and fuss,

In conics, I can scrawl wards parabolous;

I can tell undoubted unicorns from deep ones and beings like a phallus,

I know the croaking chorus from that violin of malice!

Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore, (bothered for a rhyme)

And whistle all the bars from that instrument of terror-or.

Then I can write a simple spell in Babylonic cuneiform,

And tell you ev'ry detail of the King in Yellow's truer form:

In short, in matters magical, political, or covert operator-or,

I am the very model of a Deeply Scary Sorcerer.

In fact, when I know what is meant by "eldritch" and "cyclopean",

When I can tell at sight a human Hand of Glory from one of pigeon,

When such affairs as summonings and surprises I'm more wary at,

And when I know precisely what is meant by "calculations multivariate",

When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern sorcery,

When I know more of tactics than a novice in arcanery –

In short, when I've a smattering of interdimensional strategy – (bothered for a rhyme)

You'll say a better dark and evil being has never been set a-free!

For my metaphysical knowledge, though I'm an ancient entity,

Has only been brought down to the beginning of the century;

But still, in matters magical, political, or covert operator-or,

I remain the very model of a Deeply Scary Sorcerer!

------------

Inspired by @stainlesssteellocust 's idea of a Laundry Files musical curse story. I didn't spend long and am not music-inclined, but had to.

[timothywinters]

My most damning critique of the Laundry Files novels is that I can’t help but read them in Garth Marenghi’s voice

[aharonov-bohm-affect]

This is sort of the conceit of the Laundry Files series by Charles Stross.

Fantasy Sociology (what would it do to agriculture if there was dragons)

Fantasy Psychology (the mental effects of having certain patterns of thoughts that generate fireballs)

Fantasy Biology (what if u had lighting sacks in yr cheeks)

Fantasy Chemistry (these r the elements and what u can do with them)

Fantasy Physics (orbital mechanics and magical floating rocks: a guide)

Fantasy Mathematics (its just normal mathematics)

[sustainableyadayadayada]

stuff I've read in 2023

This is just a grab bag. I’ve read two reasonably entertaining novels set in near futures where climate change is ravaging the world. Neal Stephenson’s Termination Shock was the more entertaining of the two. Stephenson is a good storyteller and his books are easy to read. But obviously, read Snow Crash first if you never have. I’m about half way through Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley…

[netmassimo]

The novel "Dead Lies Dreaming" by Charles Stross was published for the first time in 2020. It's part of the Laundry series and within it is the first book of the Tales of the New Management.

Rupert de Montfort Bigge is a billionaire who has adapted well to the New Management. An opportunity comes for him when he learns that the Necronomicon is being auctioned off in an underground auction. It's perhaps the only existing copy of the real legendary Necronomicon. Eve Starkey is his special agent whose goal is to get it, at all costs.

Getting your hands on a book as unique and dangerous as the Necronomicon is difficult, yet there are various people ready for anything with many resources at their disposal. Eve hires her brother Jeremy "Imp" and his group of Lost Boys to help her with their powers but their paths cross with that of Wendy Deere adding complications together with the discreet but constant presence of the Bond.

[owlbear33]

Apparently, they (Cubicle 7) are doing a new version of the Laundry Files TTRPG, but with a new system, not BRP, something d6 dice-pool based cooked up by C7, it's on Kickstarter until May 1st (already over twice funded), I'm awfully tempted

[ravenfirethief]

What nobody mentions is that all those colonies are gone now because they were eaten by the Many-Angled Ones.

it’s a common misconception that maths is all theoretical; they actually keep the 0 in a vault in France and u can go look at it if u got connections.

[neruomancer]

Paranormal/Unnatural agencies ranked in how toxic there work environments are

Delta Green (Delta Green) 4/10

There is a reason it is called a 9mm retirement, it is very low on the scale but not the worst. Most Agents in Delta Green commit horrible crimes against humanity themselves to complete there missions, so they aren't worst then the average cop. They usually do not get the choice if they are recruited or if they retire, most either die horribly or wish they did. You are not paid for your time and in fact have to use days of from your own job to perform tasks mandated by your handler. You also have to potentially get yourself in trouble at your job such as abusing work funds and resources to perform your duties, if you refuse they can and will frame your for crimes you did not commit(as opposed to the ones you did do) or just kill you and deliver a triangle shaped flag to your grieving and confused loved ones. You sometimes get to blow shit up or use fun tactic cool gear against shambling horrors from beyond the stars and neonazi canon fodder.

FBC Federal Bureau of Control (Control) 6/10

It is a government job so you do get federal holidays off, benefits and you can accrue time off during the Oldest House Lock Downs. Downside is you will either be chained to a desk in a windowless brutalist nightmare office under a dick head supervisor who is mad that they aren't in the old boys club and so they take there frustrations out on you, or you will be taking endless road trips to no name towns mostly for false alarms or to die horribly. No smart phones so you can't scroll during your lunch breaks in the Oldest House, there is a lot of paperwork (like warehouse amounts of paperwork) and a lot of running around a non euclidean Kafkaesque nightmare. No smoking but you see other agents smoke all the time, but the moment you do it you get caught and it is bullshit.

SCP Foundation (SCP Foundation) 5/10

Unless you are on the O5 council or you are a superstar researcher, no one cares about you and you are mostly like going to die in a containment breach and this is speaking as an actual employee of the Foundation not a D-Class. Everything is covered in black marker so good luck trying to get access to [REDACTED] files, you will either go crazy as a researcher or you will get turned into hamburger as a MTF your choice. I would say the saving grace for working at the Foundation is they are well resourced, I don't think you will have huge problems with money or company facilities. If you ever see something beyond comprehension you can simply submit to use amnestics to cope, it is probably for the best.

Ordo Veritatis (Esoterrorist) 8/10

Honestly you won't find a better secret society of paranormal investigators, since you are going to be dealing with horrors from the void you are going to need proper mental health coverage so the OV will cover the cost of professionals in there group that specialize in treating person's affected by occult horrors. Field agents, monitor station analyst and researchers are rotated for mental health reasons and to not weaken the membrane between conventional reality and a supernatural void in which spawns monstrosities. You do need to schedule time off work to perform duties assigned to you but what can you do, you need to uphold the masquerade of reality. A big downside is that you are dealing with creatures that wear human skin masks and cultists that are trying to invite them into reality via rituals, so death is ever present.

Q Division or The Laundry (Laundry Files) 1/10

Ah fuck where to begin, you do not have the choice to be recruited the government slaps paperwork on you and then binds you with a magical ward that swears loyalty to the agency (as is standard practice in most occult intelligence agencies in this universe). It is a government job, but it is more like a desk clerk then anything else so benefits are are shit, vacation or pto is non existent. Your supervisor is involving you in petty office politics and that actively gets in the way of your job (which is stopping eldritch abominations from using peoples brains as server towers). Your boss is either an eldritch abomination themselves or where once a person like you who had transformed from there most recent promotion into a gelatinous mass. Even if you die, because in your living life you held secrets related to your work a sorcerer from a rival agency can resurrect your ghost to interrogate you, so to prevent that the agency you work for binds your body into a zombie to work forever as a file clerk of somekind.

[stainlesssteellocust]

Rambling about fictional food. Again

Love the stuff about the alfar figuring out magic in prehistory, even before they learned proper speech

Just imagine them ripping open multiverse-spanning portals to find more berries and storing their food in Flintstones-ass temporal stasis grids it’s so funny

Being able to preserve your food with time-freezing is interesting, actually, especially when you consider how that might have affected other methods of food preservation. Yes you can make British-style jokes about them knocking over nations for spices, but it goes beyond that.

I wouldn’t be surprised if salting and smoking etc was originally done by slaves or other poor, marginalised alfar groups who weren’t able to use large amounts of mana. Slower, less reliable, ‘dirtier’ practices. Over the millennia the others would have noticed ‘huh that tastes good’ but it would still be a minor part of their cuisine for quite a while, so some of their stuff, especially low-quality snacks or rations, might be quite bland. This tracks: While she never mentions human food being better on average, First considers alfar time-stoppered military rations to be…not great, and is much happier eating a late night kebab while sober, which, er, wow lol.

Generally speaking I reckon the Host (or rather, the support structures they left behind to die) generated their own food, so mostly the stuff you can grow in a borderline-arctic nation…though considering greenhouses, biomodding and other forms of Literal Magic, who knows what they might have?

I have a vague thought that high-class alfar meals might be focused on minimally prepared and extremely fresh basic ingredients as a show of cleanliness and quality, with much of the flavour coming from sauces and condiments added at the eating stage. A steak that was time-frozen moments after being carved off the animal, still steaming from the beast’s body heat as it’s flung into a pan in front of you…the meat itself is unseasoned, or hit with salt and pepper etc moments before cooking, but the flavour comes from the multiple sauces and dips that are served along with it, which probably draw from alfar poor-people food roots somewhere way back in history.

I already figured they’d have slaves gather pure snow in winter to be magically preserved and used to make a shaved ice sort of thing as a summer dessert, it’s in one of the Cold Iron Bound drafts. Of course the elves are absolutely sophisticated enough to just freeze water in the summer, they just send the help to dodge monsters because they can. Absolute unhinged decadence.

Are there any strange holes in their knowledge? We know they don’t have paper, are some foods the same? Maybe, due to the preservation stuff mentioned above, they don’t really have cheese the way we do? In a cold European climate they probably did drink milk, but they might not have progressed that vital technology to the same degree as us. Cassie might look at blue cheese and be like “absolutely not that’s disgusting”, repulsed even though, as I said in a previous post, I’m not convinced she has a cannibalism taboo.

On the flipside, maybe they still have Silphium. They have a lot of extinct animals, after all. Cue Cassie badgering Alex to learn how to cook with Hing, since it’s the closest thing left. Poor guy. He doesn’t strike me as a kitchen natural but considering First finds cooking your own food to be actively bizarre, I think it’s probably going to be on him lol.

I reckon they have spices. Even in antiquity we were able to get some. Of course we don’t know what trade looks like on Alfheim (they want to call us Urukheim so) or how the Americas interact with Eurasia or anything, really. But the Morningstar Empire extends to Africa and into Russia, so they’ve got the grasp for it. And Cassie was ‘easy’ when they were talking Indian food IIRC, so I think she implicitly has some spice tolerance. Yeah not all Indian food is like that but it suggests she wasn’t limited by an inability to eat it.

…Maybe, considering their stoicism and hatred of emotional weakness, the elves one-upped each other by handling incredibly spicy food back home.

*cut to Cassie in a Thai restaurant, desperately maintaining a poker face while trying to convince Alex to swap dishes with her as if he can’t see the tears running down her face*

Alex: Look Cass I’m happy to walk through a sketchy portal with you, I’ll kill your family for you, I’ll eat and shoot and beat people to death for your sake, but you chose the spice level and you’re going to have to live with that decision

and yeah they totally eat their enemies hearts and stuff too

[ttrpgcafe]

I've had a fascination recently with what I'm affectionately calling "office-horror", things like the Laundry Files, Triangle Agency, The Bureau for Liminal Horror, and, many years ago, the podcast SAYER. I don't know why this particular genre of horror calls to me, but I wonder if it isn't related to me wanting a job in civil service, which almost certainly entails working in an office. Like, I don't know what to expect, and that's manifesting as an anxiety about the work that has me fascinated with this genre of horror, I think. Idk, I'm mostly just rambling, but I thought I might see if there's a more concrete answer from the wider world for why people like this kind of horror.

[3thanguy7]

pulling out my all-time favorite bookpost for this one (from the laundry files, the apocalypse codes)

I'm a big fan of wizards-as-programmers, but I think it's so much better when you lean into programming tropes.

A spell the wizard uses to light the group's campfire has an error somewhere in its depths, and sometimes it doesn't work at all. The wizard spends a lot of his time trying to track down the exact conditions that cause the failure.

The wizard is attempting to create a new spell that marries two older spells together, but while they were both written within the context of Zephyrus the Starweaver's foundational work, they each used a slightly different version, and untangling the collisions make a short project take months of work.

The wizard has grown too comfortable reusing old spells, and in particular, his teleportation spell keeps finding its components rearranged and remixed, its parts copied into a dozen different places in the spellbook. This is overall not actually a problem per se, but the party's rogue grows a bit concerned when the wizard's "drying spell" seems to just be a special case of teleportation where you teleport five feet to the left and leave the wetness behind.

A wizard is constantly fiddling with his spells, making minor tweaks and changes, getting them easier to cast, with better effects, adding bells and whistles. The "shelter for the night" spell includes a tea kettle that brings itself to a boil at dawn, which the wizard is inordinately pleased with. He reports on efficiency improvements to the indifference of anyone listening.

A different wizard immediately forgets all details of his spells after he's written them. He could not begin to tell you how any of it works, at least not without sitting down for a few hours or days to figure out how he set things up. The point is that it works, and once it does, the wizard can safely stop thinking about it.

Wizards enjoy each other's company, but you must be circumspect about spellwork. Having another wizard look through your spellbook makes you aware of every minor flaw, and you might not be able to answer questions about why a spell was written in a certain way, if you remember at all.

Wizards all have their own preferences as far as which scripts they write in, the formatting of their spellbook, its dimensions and material quality, and of course which famous wizards they've taken the most foundational knowledge from. The enlightened view is that all approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, but this has never stopped anyone from getting into a protracted argument.

Sometimes a wizard will sit down with an ancient tome attempting to find answers to a complicated problem, and finally find someone from across time who was trying to do the same thing, only for the final note to be "nevermind, fixed it".

[d8tl55c]

me: waiting for shoe(s) to drop

Personified Alan Becker YouTube Icon: oh... buddy...