Opened Up

Rimona Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (it/any) welcome Lizzi (they/them) to dig into Judith's report at the end of Gideon the Ninth. In this section we discuss the second, third, and fourth houses. You can find Lizzi on Tumblr and TikTok.Content Warning: Child soldiers, torture, indoctrination, death, pregnancy, infertility, transphobiaFurther ReadingKhaled A. Beydoun (2022) On Terrorists and Freedom FightersSara Ahmed (2014) The Cultural Politics of EmotionPhilippe Ariès (1962) Centuries of ChildhoodRohitha Naraharisetty (2024) Who Gets to Be a Child?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.

Rimona (she/they) and Han (it/any) welcome Andy Izenson (they/any) to explore Gideon the Ninth's bonus content, the Sermon on Necromancers and Cavaliers from the collected works of M. Bias. You can find Andy's poetry book, The World That is Coming Inside You, linked first in further reading. Catch Andy on Instagram @eye.andy or Bluesky @andyeyeballs.Content Warnings: death, cannibalism, questionable treatment of human remains, BDSM, sexual topics, slavery, police violenceFurther Reading:Andy Izenson (2026) The World That is Coming Inside YouMaggie Stiefvater (2012-2016) The Raven CycleMaggie Stiefvater (2019-2022) The Dreamer Trilogygayabstractconcept [Andy] (2024) Bought at a Price [content note: graphic heterosexuality]The Takeaway (2022) Does It Matter If We Were "Born This Way"? [podcast]Dylan Vade and Sondra Solovay (2009) No Apology: Shared Struggles in Fat and Transgender Law (in The Fat Studies Reader)Morris M. Faierstein (1982) "God's Need for the Commandments" in Medieval KabbalahErik Monasterio and Craig Prince (2011) Self-Cannibalism in the Absence of Psychosis and Substance UseHannah Olson (2023) Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God [film]Lucie Fielding (2025) Trans Sex (2nd ed)Antonio Gramsci (1999) Selections from the Prison NotebooksHellenic Museum (2022) The Sacred Band of ThebesAvgi Saketopoulou (2023) Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, and TraumatophiliaNun 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.

Rimona (she/they) and Han (it/any) welcome guest Tom (they/them) to discuss the Epilogue of Gideon the Ninth. Catch more of Tom at dayneonychus on Tumblr.Content Note: death, grief, deception, manipulation, sexual abuse against children, groomingFurther Reading:Christopher Nolan (2014) InterstellarRobert N. Proctor and Londa Schiebinger (2008) Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of IgnoranceEnough Abuse (2024) Why We Should Teach Children Proper Names for Private Body PartsAmerican Academy of Pediatrics Council on Child Abuse and Neglect (2023) Sexual Behaviors in Children: What's Normal, What's Not?Philosophy Tube (2021) Ignorance & CensorshipJennifer Freyd (n.d.) Definition of DARVONun 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.

Rimona (she/they) and Han (it/any) discuss the very last chapter of Gideon the Ninth. The final battle ends. Gideon and Harrow deliver some of the best one-liners in the book. At least two of us have some Big Feelings about the book of Ruth.Content Note: Suicide, death, hallucination, unreality,Further Reading:The Pottery Scene from Ghost (1990)Toon Ruins (2019) Explaining Fusion in Stephen UniverseDouwe Draaisma (2026) Grief HallucinationsEvelyn Elsaesser, Chris A. Roe, Callum E. Cooper, and David Lorimer (2021). The Phenomenology and Impact of Hallucinations Concerning the Deceased. BJPsch Open 7(5):e148.Duncan Trussell Family HourCaitlin Doughty (2017) From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good DeathRuth 1:16-1:17Nun 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.

Rimona (she/they) and Han (it/any) dig into the very last chapter of act four of Gideon the Ninth. Alliances shift once again as the final battle rages, and everyone takes turn trying to be the one who gets to self-sacrifice.The editing is once again a bit rough. No one seemed to mind too much last time, and grad school is grad schooling. <333Content Warning: death, arachnophobia(?), trauma, flashbacks, stabbing [sexual?], incest(?), gore, suicideFurther Reading:Kaja Sadowski (2019) Fear is the Mind Killer: How to Build a Training Culture that Fosters Strength and ResilienceHistorical Fighting Guide (n.d.) Multiple Opponents and Group CombatBirgit Kleim, Belinda Graham, Richard A. Bryant, and Anke Ehlers (2013) Capturing Intrusive Re-experiencing in Trauma Survivors' Daily Lives Using Ecological Momentary Assessment. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 122(4):998-1009.History Hustle (2022). Nestor Makhano: Ukrainian Anarchism and the Free Territory of Ukraineunexpectedbaggageinitemarea (2026) Tamsyn Muir Oxford Speaker Event.Star Trek: The Next Generation (1989) "The Survivors" [clip]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.

Rimona Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (it/any) welcome friend of the show Kristen (any) to re-read chapter 35 of Gideon the Ninth. Gideon overhears a weird conversation. The final battle begins.Sorry for the rough audio quality this week! Han has an academic article deadline that is looming horribly and we opted for Rough Episode rather than No Episode. Enjoy this behind-the-scenes edition with all of our sorting-out and extra excerpts and ums.Content Warning: death, death threats, indentured servitude, incest mention, general necromancy badness, cancer, body horror, wounds, blood, genocide [canon]No readings this week as Han has become temporarily illiterate. Thank you for understanding.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.

NOTE: Episode re-published due to Haunted. Thank you to those who let us know our file was fucked. You are our true friends.Rimona Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (it/any) welcome Dr. Joanna Irina "aoei" Zaitseva-Kinneberg (she/her) for chapter 34 of Gideon the Ninth. The squad journeys into the lab of Cyrus and Valancy. Chekhov's... monkey's paw? Or something? This is not the villain monologue we expected. Coronabeth is weirder than Gideon realized, and not even in a hot way.Content Warning: murder, punching [sexual], fire play, biting, incest mention, Ianthe Tridentarius [canon], assorted body horror, viscera, demon possession, mayonnaise uncles, cannibalismFurther Reading:Britannica (n.d.) Fresco PaintingRijen Shrestha; Tanuj Kanchan; Kewal Krishan (2023) Methods of Estimation of Time Since DeathMariame Kaba (2021) We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming JusticeMariame Kaba and Shira Hassan (2019) Fumbling Towards Repair: A Workbook for Community Accountability FacilitatorsNun 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.

Rimona Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (it/any) reexamine Chapter 35 of Gideon the Ninth. An awkward new coalition emerges in the face of crisis, and it's weird for everybody.Content Notice: mock-retching [00:02:43], murder, corpse-tampering, genocide, child death, Weird Jesus Stuff, eugenics, ableism, Nazis, reproductive abuse,Further Reading:Katie White (Feb 14, 2026) The Surprisingly Sexual Side of Medieval Christian ArtPlanet Bee Foundation (Aug 8, 2024) The Essential Jobs of the Worker Honey BeeMolly Crabapple (2026) Here Where We Live Is Our CountryBritish Columbia: An Untold History (n.d.) Stanley Park EstablishedPerpetual Bone Tarot DeckNun 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.

Rimona Beans (she/they) and Han Koehle (it/any) welcome Lizzi (they/them) to dig into Gideon the Ninth, Chapter 32. The squad investigates a Lyctor lab and uncovers unsettling truths about Teacher. You can find Lizzi on Tumblr and TikTok.We really appreciate your patience with our second brief hiatus as Han focused on teaching its first college class this summer! We missed you and we should be back to our regular every-other-week schedule for the rest of the season.content warning: death, body horror [teeth], murder, genocide [canon], experimental abuse, incarceration, child soldiers, incest, necrophiliafurther readingHolocaust Encyclopedia (n.d.) The Nuremberg CodeHarriet A. Washington (2007) Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the PresentAngela Davis (2003) Are Prisons Obsolete?Traci Burch (2022) Adding Insult to Injury: The Justification Frame in Official Narratives of Officer-Involved KillingsIMDB (2025) PluribusHan has mentioned a few times not saying "Samael" out loud for religious reasons. If you're curious about that, you can learn about it on Throwing Sheyd, but we could not find the correct episode so enjoy the entire sixteen hours of Jewish demonology content.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.

POOL SCENE POOL SCENE POOL SCENEGuests Hannah (katakaluptastrophy on Tumblr and @The_Pentiad on TikTok), Caro (@ImaginaryCaro on TikTok and elsewhere), and Tom (dayneonychus on Tumblr) join us for a very special episode about Gideon the Ninth, Chapter 31 (the Pool Scene!!!)Content Warning: drowning, torture, death, murder, sacrifice, John Elizabeth Gaius, child soldiers, genocide; child abuse; infertility; eugenics; infanticide; sexual violence; suicide; romanticization of abuseFurther Reading:NO! Against Adult Supremacy (2016)Paulo Freire (1970) Pedagogy of the OppressedFrantz Fanon (1952) Black Skin, White MasksRebekah Brown (2024) Why Childhood Trauma Survivors Blame Themselves CPTSD FoundationGillian Rose (1995) Love's Work: A Reckoning With Lifegayabstractconcept (2024) Bought At a Price Archive of Our Own.Katakaluptastrophy (2026) [Hannah's account of Muir's appearance at Corpus in May 2026]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.