{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/868",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 868,
    "subject": "sybil as inhumus",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1998-06-28T11:52:34+00:00",
    "last": "1998-07-06T10:06:48+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0015-0032@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alice Turner",
        "address": "al at interport.net"
      },
      "date": "1998-06-28T11:52:34+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) sybil as inhumus",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Oh ye of little faith, observe. These are citations from the text, Claw,\nTimescape edition.\n\n284: \"...and as I studied her face I had come to doubt that she was an old\nwoman at all, and to recall only too clearly the hideous faces of the\ncacogens who had removed their masks when Baldanders had rushed among them.\"\n\n286: [says Hildegrin of Jolenta] \"'And a bat bite did it? They've grown\nuncommon strong lately then. I've been bit a couple of times myself.'\"\n\n291: \"As I suspected, the Cumaean was not a woman at all; yet neither was\nshe one of the horrors I had beheld in the gardens of the House Absolute.\nSomething sleekly reptilian coiled about the glowing rod. I looked for the\nhead but found none, though each of the patternings on the reptile's back\nwas a face, and the eyes of each face seemed lost in rapture.\"\n\nRemark, please, the difference between entirely plausible suspicion (even if\nslightly jocular) and fan fiction. If you can figure it out.\n\n-alga-"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0015-0129@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Peter Westlake",
        "address": "peter at harlequin.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "1998-07-06T10:06:48+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) sybil as inhumus",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0015-0032@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At 11:52 1998-06-28 -0400, alga wrote:\nOh ye of little faith, observe. These are citations from the text, Claw,\nTimescape edition.\n\n284: \"...and as I studied her face I had come to doubt that she was an old\nwoman at all, and to recall only too clearly the hideous faces of the\ncacogens who had removed their masks when Baldanders had rushed among them.\"\n\n286: [says Hildegrin of Jolenta] \"'And a bat bite did it? They've grown\nuncommon strong lately then. I've been bit a couple of times myself.'\"\n\n291: \"As I suspected, the Cumaean was not a woman at all; yet neither was\nshe one of the horrors I had beheld in the gardens of the House Absolute.\nSomething sleekly reptilian coiled about the glowing rod. I looked for the\nhead but found none, though each of the patternings on the reptile's back\nwas a face, and the eyes of each face seemed lost in rapture.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "The Cumaean is certainly extraterrestrial (it says so in one of the\nafterwords) and the reptile/inhumu link has been mentioned before;\nbut tying in the bat bite is very ingenious! I would really like to\nbelieve that this is a deliberate link, but there are difficulties.\nI discount that this happens some distance from where they meet\nthe Cumaean. Severian doesn't see any wings, but that's not an\ninsuperable objection. What makes me think it was a real vampire\nbat is that the blood would not clot. That's true of vampire bats,\nbut I don't recall it being mentioned for inhumu."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Remark, please, the difference between entirely plausible suspicion (even if\nslightly jocular) and fan fiction. If you can figure it out."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "We need a new term for \"things that might have happened because the\nstory doesn't say they didn't\". \"Reichenbach\" is too long and too\nhard to spell; how about \"gap fiction\"?\n\nSBear."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}