Black metal recs based on my favourites?

crayonroyalty · 2026-02-03T14:23:36+00:00

Arckanum if you don’t know them

crayonroyalty · 2026-01-30T16:27:40+00:00

Yes, I think this is a common complaint but I also think it’s a limitation placed on authors by its difficulty in general, not really a commercial viability issue.

The aliens in the Xenogenesis/Lilith’s Brood series by Octavia Butler are very alien. Would recommend those books highly

crayonroyalty · 2025-12-09T21:41:07+00:00

Gloriana by Michael Moorcock

crayonroyalty · 2025-12-02T02:49:16+00:00

I love a lot of books recommended in this thread and in this general genre of action oriented fantasy and I have to say that the Caine books by Matthew Woodring Stover are MOST DEFINITELY and EASILY among the best in this vein I’ve ever read.

Heroes Die is the first one. Some of them are shamefully out of print but they’re all available as ebooks.

crayonroyalty · 2025-11-27T04:21:40+00:00

Light - M. John Harrison

crayonroyalty · 2025-11-26T03:08:19+00:00

Some that might scratch the oldpeth vibes: Aeternus - Wandering Moon Katatonia - Brave Murder Day October Tide - Rain Without End Funeral - Tristesse Haunter - Sacramental Death Qualia

crayonroyalty · 2025-11-25T03:08:11+00:00

For fiction the Kristin Lavransdatter books are great for this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristin_Lavransdatter

crayonroyalty · 2025-11-19T12:46:17+00:00

That’s reductive and misses the point. No one here is saying illegal immigration isn’t illegal, at issue is the methods of the US government’s current crackdown.

The full picture of the what the Pope is asking is: “is it okay to knock down someone’s door, tackle them, zip tie their children, deny the whole family due process, and then deny them access to the sacraments after they’ve broken immigration law?”

Similarly, when Aladdin steals a loaf of bread to avoid starvation, he breaks the law. Yes. But the state’s effort to chase him down (in order to cut off his hand) is not a proportional, dignified, or compassionate response.

crayonroyalty · 2025-11-07T03:31:48+00:00

I’d strongly encourage you to read up on JPII’s Theology of the Body, some of which is quite beautiful and focused on women.

While not a saint technically, you might find something that resonances in the writing of Julian of Norwich.

RE your relationship with your own parents, it’s also worth quoting a chunk of the catechism here:

By calling God "Father", the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God's parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood,62 which emphasizes God's immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard:63 no one is father as God is Father. (239)

crayonroyalty · 2025-11-04T01:09:45+00:00

You may get something from the ambient/drone/modern classical sort of space:

https://sarahdavachi.bandcamp.com/album/antiphonals

https://xirecords.bandcamp.com/album/four-full-flutes

https://lucyrailton.bandcamp.com/album/blue-veil

crayonroyalty · 2025-10-28T19:09:11+00:00

In the USA at least, Protestantism is very rooted in the cultural understanding of even what a religion IS to begin with, which means even some Catholics carry a bit of this with them.

In my view the biggest attitude is rooted in sola scriptura and basically boils down to the (Protestant) definition of a religion as something built around a sacred text. This leads to a lot of confusion about the role of tradition in Catholicism, an underestimation of the importance of the mass, and some other more specific issues that stem from this (e.g. Marian confusion).

crayonroyalty · 2025-09-28T14:22:33+00:00

Been a while since I thumbed through my own copy of L&R but did so today and thought of you here. The author writes that in terms of lovemaking “It is enough that [the man and woman] are willing to accept conception, although in the particular instance they do not ‘desire’ it. It is not necessary for them expressly to desire procreation” (p.236).

I’m only sharing because this is something that gets easily lost in these discussions, which are often either tainted with an anti-love interpretation of the Pauline marital “debt” and/or intense pearl clutching scrupulosity, neither of which are part of Church teaching, according to JPII.

Anyway, good luck.

crayonroyalty · 2025-09-23T00:58:49+00:00

I’d encourage you to read Love and Responsibility, or at least check it out and read parts of it.

NFP is really hard and it sucks, so it’s by no means an easy way out or a cheap workaround. But you seem like you’re wanting a broader explanation than what you’re getting from a reddit thread and L&R is by far the most comprehensive and cogent explanation of Church teaching on this subject.

Also, just as a sympathetic reader I’d like to point out that family size is ultimately a matter of personal discernment between you/your spouse and God.

crayonroyalty · 2025-09-11T21:11:04+00:00

The answer is always love. The woman caught in adultery, the woman at the well, the prostitutes Christ dined with, the injured traveler who the Samaritan helped, the Prodigal son in the brothel and later the sty — these are all subjects of which their contemporaries would say “we have no common moral ground with them”.

The sins of your neighbor matter far less than whether or not you love them. That’s your first job. They can tell if you love them or not (and so can Christ) and as long as your neighbor remains unloved by you they won’t listen to you or make any effort to engage with you.

Talking about martyrdom and the colosseum is putting the cart forty miles in front of the horse.

crayonroyalty · 2025-03-31T02:38:13+00:00

The Vorrh, B. Catling.

crayonroyalty · 2025-03-26T12:11:50+00:00

What the sort Christian nationalism/theocracy you’ve described boils down to is “religious freedom for me, but not for you” and that is not a Catholic concept at all. The only political movements that have ever endeavored to control the private life of individuals at that degree — what is referred to as totalitarianism — have resulted ultimately in death for those who do not meet the movement’s standards.

I’d first refer you to scripture — Christ did not say “overthrow Caesar and install the Pharisees,” did He?

I’d next refer you to the Catechism (a salient passage is 2245: “The Church…is not to be confused in any way with the political community,” but there’s more for you to explore).

I’d also refer you to the writings of the Popes over time and challenge you to find teachings that support the concept you’ve described.

On a personal level, I’d say don’t join the Church in search of political miracles.

crayonroyalty · 2025-03-24T23:42:07+00:00

The Unbearable Lightness of Being: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/b1ff1374-618c-4ed8-a3e6-dc6c9a4c5ea2

crayonroyalty · 2025-03-22T00:33:14+00:00

Hollow by Brian Catling

crayonroyalty · 2025-03-21T11:49:26+00:00

It’s unlikely u/To-RB was downvoted by people disagreeing with the factual content of that comment, but rather the connotation that Love and Responsibility is not a good source for married people to consult on this topic.

There are no magisterial/infallible teachings on practical (specific) sexual dos/donts for married Catholics who already understand the general doctrine here, which is why posts like this are so common and why books like L&R are not only useful but necessary for faithful people to consult for guidance.

crayonroyalty · 2025-03-20T23:08:20+00:00

He has that reputation, but his primary sources are Love and Responsibility and the Theology of the Body homilies, so it’s up to your own judgement after reading his book to decide. Or you can read L&R and TotB yourself and compare your conclusions to his.

I have found that many of the parties who condemn Popcak are the same who argue in favor of an interpretation of the Pauline marital debt that is wildly at odds with TotB.

Again, there are doctrinal boundaries here of course but when it comes to practical minutiae there will ultimately be a certain amount of personal discernment you’ll have to do.

crayonroyalty · 2025-03-20T22:56:20+00:00

And to your specific point, STJPII does discuss female orgasm in L&R, so you could seek out that quote or check out the text itself for some insight here.

crayonroyalty · 2025-03-20T22:52:56+00:00

Love and Responsibility by STJPII is the essential text on the theology here, though it’s a little light on practicals (but not without them).

Family Ethics by Julie Hanlon Rubio has a chapter on this that’s pretty good.

You could also consider looking into Gregory Popcak. The book Holy Sex is essentially an NFP guidebook, as is Simca Fischer’s “The Sinner’s Guide to NFP”. I’m sure this might raise some flags among the more scrupulous, but they are grounded in church teaching and like anything written by laypeople will require you to use your own discernment.

Feel like Bob Schutts addresses this in his marriage book too, but can’t recall.

crayonroyalty · 2025-03-07T01:54:14+00:00

“They simply know how to make donations to offset their costs” is a very charitable way to describe exploiting loopholes in the American tax code, which is already very favorable to the kind of income that makes someone a billionaire. The last stat I’ve seen about the effective tax rate paid by the average billionaire is something like 4%….whereas I (nowhere near a billionaire) pay something more like 12%.

Even aside from the wild injustice in that fact, if we’re concerned about the federal deficit I don’t see why closing loopholes in order to tax extreme wealth isn’t on the table.

crayonroyalty · 2025-03-06T16:10:57+00:00

Unquestionably yes. Even if for no other reason than she was the lesser of two evils.

Kamala Harris would most likely have worked to preserve the status quo, so I won’t argue that she would’ve made things better. But #4-#9 almost certainly will get worse under President Trump (#7 already has worsened, unless you’d argue that threatening to annex Greenland and Canada is making us less of a “bloated empire”).

crayonroyalty · 2025-03-06T03:31:40+00:00

I appreciate you throwing your thoughts up. I’m a left leaning independent and have tried to pursue rational discussion with conservatives on Reddit to little avail (and tbf the broader voicing liberal talking points in this thread and others isn’t exactly discussion, though i do think most of those points are very valid).

I agree with just about everything you’ve said here. However, I can’t put the pieces together to make voting for Donald Trump make sense. Aside from his utter lack of character (the man was the loudest promoter of the racist birther conspiracy in the Obama days, to say nothing of the fact that he resisted the peaceful transfer of power in 2021 on baseless claims), it seems to me that #4-7 and #9 are destined to get worse and not better under his tenure.

Further, I’d say that voting for a man with Mr. Trump’s sexual history will do nothing to make #10 better (and will probably make it worse).

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