#republic of heaven community radio

[runawaymarbles]

handbinding project: He Says He Is An Experimental Theologian, part 1 of @bicatperson's WTNV/HDM crossover.

This is a remake of one I did three years ago (lent it to a friend, he moved, making an entirely new book seemed like less work than coordinating with the friend of a friend he left it with.) The original typeset was a 6x9 so I had to readjust it to fit 5.5x8.5, and I also changed out the symbols so they'd print more easily. The new ones are a font made by the wonderful rosed from the Renegade Bindery discord.

Fun fact: the arrangement of the hands on the cover also correlates to specific alethiometer symbols because I got that in the weeds about it all.

This cover was a motherfucker and a half because heat transfer vinyl is out to ruin my life: on the original version, I applied the spine art it to the fabric before putting it on the cover, so that I could make sure it was centered. I then tried to use the same HTV to put the symbol on the cover, which did not work no matter how many times and how much heat I tried. (I realized later I'd forgotten to heat the cover first.) So then I tried to peel it up, and it didn't come all the way, so I took that cover off (hooray for wheat paste) and tried putting the vinyl on the fabric before I made the case. despite measuring multiple times, the circle ended up waaay off center. Possibly because I was trying to do this at 11pm. Eventually I just went to Joann's and bought adhesive vinyl, and only adhesive vinyl, even though there was a sale and all vinyl was 40% off. I ended up having to replace the beehive with the night vale eye, because the beehive symbol was a bunch of little lines the adhesive did nOT like, but I think the Night Vale eye looks better anyway.

[necarion]

One of my favorite things about "He Says He's an Experimental Theologian" (WTNV/Dark Materials crossover) is that Khoshekh is Cecil's daemon.

My other favorite things include the entire story which is perfect.

khoshekh

[etraytin]

All Time Soul-Stealing Fic Recs List

This morning somebody put a challenge across my dash to reblog their post and put in the tags the fics that captured my soul and that I still think about years later. It's Saturday morning, so I opened my bookmarks back to the oldest page and was plunged back a decade in time to all the fics I have loved before. I have hundreds of bookmarks, and culling down to even a double handful is nearly impossible, much less one. So instead of hijacking somebody else's post, I'm making my own list! And I'm including links in case anybody is interested.

User Since by rageprufrock (Avengers, MCU)

West of the Moon, East of the Sun by KnifeEdge (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Cause We Belong to the Hurricane by DeathMallow (The Hunger Games)

Invigorating by CrunchySunrises (BTVS/Anita Blake xover)

Lilac City by nwhepcat (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Republic of Heaven Community Radio by ErinPtah (Welcome to Night Vale/His Dark Materials xover) If I had to pick just one, it would probably be this one.

The Substance of Things Hoped For by Justawritingamateur (The West Wing)

A Yellowed Paper Heart by ndnickerson (Nancy Drew, the books)

A Van, A Plane, A Car and a Bus by Speranza (The West Wing)

Background by RyoSen (The West Wing)

The Dragon's Rubies by Elliot Silver (The West Wing)

Time and the Fates of Men by Marguerite (The West Wing) (If I had to pick just two, this would be the other one.)

have you heard by peradi (Star Wars: The Force Awakens)

Post-War Economy by cassievalentine (Captain America)

Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail by owlet (Captain America, MCU)

The Only John Wayne Left in This Town by gyzym (The Avengers)

Embers by Vathara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

There are so many good stories, and I had to grab myself by the scruff of the neck to keep from just copying and pasting most of my bookmarks here. But the prompt was stories that capture your mind for years, so I didn't put anything I read for the first time in the last five years or so.

And hey, if you want to add some fics that have stood the time and still live nibbling at the corners of your brain in the middle of the night, I'm always looking for new things to read.

[krakenator]

Trawling through old art I came across this and BOY do I still love @bicatperson‘s WTNV & HDM fic, Republic of Heaven Community Radio.

Considering this is (checks notes) from 2015 and my art style has changed since then, I don’t know if I’ll ever finish these photos taken of the rotating door that is the staff of experimental theologians posted to study strange phenomena in the community of Nightvale. But unfinished fanart is still fanart and goshdarnit as a fellow creator I know I would love to perceive.

[erinptah-admin]

I've aired your Republic of Heaven Community Radio series since I first discovered it several years ago, but I'd never actually finished His Dark Materials, so I knew I was missing a lot. I just started rereading it again after finally reading all of HDM, and I'm understanding so much more of how your worldbuilding builds on and meshes with it! It's like rereading something as an adult that you'd last read as a child and noticing way more of the background plot. It's very exciting.

Very cool to hear, thank you! <3

[lmtyl]

Sorry I haven't been on here much lately. Had my dental thing, and now I've been cleaning my house on a deadline and also doing some garden prep for the year.

(Also been binge-reading Republic of Heaven Community Radio, the WTNV/HDM AU)

[icepick-jackalope]

Republic of Heaven Community Radio!

there aren’t enough posts going around about the swedish cryptid known as the skvader which is a rabbit with pheasant wings and also a very good boy.

[bisexualdinahlance]

oh my god??? i have never seen anyone else mention republic of heaven community radio in the wild. it literally rewired my brain as a teenager and every year or so i snap and spend a whole weekend reading it and obsessing. i owe the author my life and probably a huge chunk of my adolescent development. it reignited my love for hdm and they just kind of circle in the back of my brain at all times

OMG SOMEONE ELSE WHO KNOWS!!!!!! I read it a handful of years ago (not all at once I don't think wowebdk the first fic is bookmarked in 2019 and the fourth in 2021 lmao) and I've adored it ever since. Everything about it was so well fit together and the OCS were just phenomenal and all felt well balanced. I know so many people who hate crossovers and I often want to be like you don't understand! How good a well done crossover can be!!!! I did a partial reread a few months ago but can't find the tab so I may have to do a full reread sometime soon I've been thinking about it for the last week and a half

[pellaeas]

anyway while we’re all talking about WTNV again here’s my favorite fanfiction Of All Time which happens to be WTNV set in the HDM universe (well, Lyra’s HDM universe anyway) it’s good. it’s so good. it’s a true epic featuring everybody’s favorite Experimental Theologian with good hair.  WTNV is an exceptional match for His Dark Materials on the angels stuff alone, and Carlos’ daemon is one of my favorite characters- dear sweet precious Isaña. This fic accounts for the logistics of daemon-verse kind of better than actual HDM does which is a real treat.  Fair warning: there’s a huge cast of loveable OCs in this fic that are disappointingly absent from the actual show when you go back to listen! 

[imaginariumgeographica]

Marvel: “Infinity War is the most ambitious crossover event in history.”

Me:

[ikebanaka]

If you like thinking about all of this as well as all the other theophilosophical bits of His Dark Materials, you like Welcome to Night Vale, and you like fanfiction, I highly recommend the series Republic of Heaven Community Radio by ErinPtah.

It's a series from the perspective of Carlos that takes place in Lyra's world, but much later in the same time period as WTNV. Night Vale is in New Hispania, Khoshekh is Cecil's daemon (his legs have a diamond configuration like the mulefa), and one of the points of conflict in the 4th part is that one of the scientists' kids settles as an animal from another world. There's also a lot of worldbuilding around how to accommodate various daemons in modern life; buses, for instance, have an oversize daemon section where people can sit without their daemons potentially touching another person.

The series has shaped a lot of how I think of daemons and daemon AUs, so I figured it was worth sharing.

So I'm still on this daemon AU kick, and I can't stop thinking.

What are the limits?

It's generally accepted that a daemon is an animal representation of the soul, right? So, you know, we've got birds and mammals and reptiles and insects.

But what about fish?

Obviously there's an issue here of, you know, environment, and if your soul literally can't survive in the air while you literally can't survive in the water, there's a problem.

But, hey, if it's small enough, you could have a little fishbowl for your daemon to live in. Hamster ball, but filled with water, rolling along at your heels. Fishtank on wheels that get tricked out like dudebros soup up their car. And maybe, if you're from a particularly sea-faring culture/lifestyle a water-bound mammal like a dolphin or an orca could make sense. And then there's things like sharks, which have so much symbolism attached to them that it seems a real shame to have to rule them out. (Someone who's particularly driven or ambitious having a daemon that would literally die if it stopped moving is a bit of symbolism I'm going a bit feral for, tbh.)

I think we have to rule out the deep sea creatures, unfortunately. Fishbowls and/or living on a boat wouldn't really solve the problem of pressure, and someone with a blobfish daemon would, uh... be in trouble.

And if we're talking about things that can't survive in the same atmosphere as humans, what about internal parasites? Like flatworms. I think it's safe to say that having your daemon parasitizing your intestine kind of defeats the purpose of having an external manifestation of your soul, but... There are species of flatworm that aren't parasites, so... do we just rule out all flatworms, or are the non-parasitic ones okay?

And speaking of flatworms, what about size? I've read some fun stories that deal with the issues that might come from having, say, an elephant daemon. It's not quite as dramatic as the issues of having an aquatic daemon, but actually, similar adjustments would have to be made to your living situation to cope. But, of course, it could be done and I don't think anyone's trying to rule out animals on account of how big they are, but I think it's safe to say that microscopic daemons are out for the same reason that internal parasites have to be.

There's a nice solid rule I can settle on; a daemon has to be a visible animal.

And, in point of fact, I think it's safe to say it has to be an animal. We can rule out trees and plants and even fungi.

So what about coral?

It's an animal, and if we are allowing for some aquatic daemons, then should coral be an option? Or are its vibes too plant-like to qualify? Do we rule out sessile animals like we ruled out microscopic ones? As much as I find the idea of a coral daemon absolutely hilarious, I am going to come down on the side of animals that are too much like plants are a no.

So a daemon has to be a visible, mobile animal.

But what about the ones that only move very slowly? I don't think we're ruling out sloths, but in the continuing vein of torturing myself considering various aquatic daemons, there's starfish and sea urchins and hell, even most bivalves can move at least a little, right? (Correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't done that research yet.) And there's a lot of fun symbolsim to be had, there, I think.

And what about extinct creatures?

I think it's safe to say that mythical creatures are a no-go, unless this is a 'verse where those animals are real, (oh, boy wouldn't that confuse people in a world like HP where most people think dragons and unicorns aren't real, but people still wander around with dragon and unicorn daemons) so we can ammend our rule to visible, mobile, real animals, but could we go so far as extant?

If yes, that would have interesting world-building implications. Where's the cut-off point? Can we rule out dinosaurs because we don't/didn't have enough information for a daemon to settle into a form that wouldn't be technically mythical? But then, what about animals that go extinct within human history? What about all the people who had mammoth daemons or dodo daemons as those animals were dying out.

Would conservationists study daemon statistics to see if an animal has really gone extinct? Would an animal's extinct status get over-turned when a kid's daemon settled into that form? Honestly, I like this enough that I've convinced myself that, at least barring some very unique circumstances, extinct animals are not allowed.

So, it has to be a visible, mobile, extant animal. That can exist in proximity to humans.

Oh, and should probably add; visible, mobile, extant, and non-sapient.

You can't have a human daemon, or an elf or a dwarf or a fairy daemon even if they exist in that world, and if this is a 'verse with dragons who're more than just exotic magical animals, you can't have a dragon daemon. (Obviously, if your fairies are more like magical bugs than tiny people, then fairies would be a valid daemon.)

...I'm still on the fence about whether a daemon should have to be air-breathing or not. That kind of rule would still leave marine mammals available for the fun world-building of how people adapt to that kind of handicap. (...Do you think people with aquatic daemons would be considered disabled? Oooh, what about people with really big daemons? I mean, presuming such a thing is comparatively rare, people probably wouldn't be building schools with a mind to allowing elephants or giraffes to wander the corridors.)

Disclaimer! This is for my own creative process, and not intended to limit anyone else's creative flair. And, honestly, I'd love to hear other people's takes on what does and doesn't qualify for a daemon.

[runawaymarbles]

FIC PRINTING #6: He Says He Is An Experimental Theologian by @bicatperson​

Featuring: Different alethiometer symbols for each chapter.

6x9, 455 pages, which was about $13 on Lulu Xpress. The interior and cover files are available at in this google folder.

Feel free to DM me if you have any questions!

[wordmage-girl]

"I think it's an alethiometer. But that's not possible."

"Listen, we may only be a local community station, but that doesn't mean we don't have standards," Cecil lectures him.

Republic of Heaven Community Radio by @erinptah

Night Vale has all the usual things for a small town: angels that (don't municipally) exist, a bowling league (with a witch on the team), and a community radio station (with an alethiometer for accurate and timely reporting.) When a beautiful stranger with an adorable daemon comes to town, Cecil Palmero learns that it might not be as boring as he thought...and se enamora inmediatamente.

[despite-everything]

one weird side effect of being a long-time fic reader who likes to reread the same fics over and over again is that you just end up memorizing fic titles and sometimes you're going about your regular daily life and see something that is/is related to the fic title and you're just like... huh

[radoncanyoncryptid]

so I'm reading this fic series that I can only describe as like...exuberant?

it's...honestly really depressing, but! only when I stop to think about it!

[sleenonme]

In one of my favourite fanfictions, a team of scientists discover a new unit of measurement. The first author declines to name it after herself in favour of calling them Fatality Units instead, solely for the comedic value of making people having to regularly say 'Eff You' when giving reports.

What I'm saying is that that fanfic has really accurate scientists. Scientists are exactly like that.

educate me tumblr