#📘 history

[novanhistorian]

I must say, thus far I have been quite a poor correspondent. The point of this blog is to slow the rate at which I pester my friends with elaborate—and winding, when verbal—rants about various facets of the Imperium Novel, as well as to have a convenient public point of reference for them when I offhandedly mention something like the “regional parliaments” or when I forget myself and accidentally talk about the gender binary as if it were the gender trinary. (It is partially also because I want a public forum to yell to my very small audience about this thing I’ve been working on for years.)

Needless to say, I have thus far done exactly none of that.

To jumpstart things and give my readership at least something, I have made this massive post.

You can also get this split into separate posts for a better, but less linkable, reading experience:

The Fundamentals

A Sketch of History (masterpost with sublinks)

The Fundamentals

1.3k words.

I am here to talk about the Imperium Novel, which I must immediately clarify is not a novel. What it actually is is a rather massive and intricate worldbuilding project. Now, I could tell you that its name is a relic of the earliest days of its development, when it was really to be one novel with an increasingly cartoonish amount of backstory, and that would be true enough; but the heart of the matter is that I am a painfully pretentious artiste in this specific way. I could have changed the name; I didn’t.

(As for why it is no longer a single novel: As I write this, the [pseudo]historical period I concern myself with covers almost fifteen centuries, most of them quite complicated. Any attempt to cover the whole in one novel would wind up a gargantuan, winding, likely quite boring mess possessing more pages than a medical textbook and less plot than a wet blanket.)

Anyhow, hard segue.

The other basics you need to know are the following:

We are not in our solar system. References to the sun are to the star Scientia (to us, Era Cassiopeiae A), and references to Forsuno or the Far Sun refer to, well, Forsuno (Eta Cassiopeiae B).

The main planet, Terranovo,* has twenty-six-hour days and slightly stronger gravity than Earth. Its days are the standard in most other regions; we are ignoring Ilajn for now because I haven’t formally named their planet. (It has 21.5-ish-hour days and markedly weaker gravity. Let’s hear it for large, fast-rotating terrestrial planets.)

All the planets we care about after 2300 orbit Scientia, and—at the risk of misrepresenting the gravitational dance—the orange dwarf Forsuno basically does too. Scientia’s stellar classification is G0 V, which is to say that it is more or less like our sun, though slightly brighter. Forsuno’s is K7 V, which makes it either an orange or a red dwarf, depending on which classification system one follows. Basically, it’s small, it’s dim (only 6% of the Sun’s luminosity, still far brighter than a full moon), and it will live a very long time after Scientia is dead. Although their orbit is very eccentric (that is to say very elliptical rather than circular), the closest approach between the stars is 36 AU, or just this side of the Kuiper Belt; this allows for stable, although compact, planetary systems around both stars safe from the worst of the gravitational interference of the other star.

Novanity (non-collective singular novan and plural novans) is the sapient species the Novel follows for most of its history. They are, as many of them will bitterly tell you, the products of genetic engineering and a whole lot of moral stupidity on the parts of various humans—but we shall get to that in the history.

* At other points in its history, Terranovo was also known as Terra Nova, Terranova, Tero Nova, and Nova Tero. By the current working date, 745, variation is only historical.

The gender trinary is probably the most relevant thing in here besides the location, but thanks to narrative flow I have to put it down here. The three novan genders occupy roughly the same position as the human two, which is to say that the majority of the population falls into one or another, but there are a large number of outliers besides.

Two of the dominant genders are descendants of our concepts of male and female, and they remain mostly similar and are called by their names. The third is called sendua (an adjective), and people who have it are called senduoj. Its name derives from a shortening of senduuma, a rather nonstandard way of saying “nonbinary;”* it somewhat evolved from the use of the word as an overcategory for a variety of genders,

* It literally means “without a binary;” the human standard, neduuma, is a calque from English.

If you encounter something like Ĉlr or Nŝx/n, that’s reference shorthand, a standardized system used in the Imperium (with War-Era predecessors); it tells you a person’s gender and pronouns, and sometimes their preferred grammatical gender and physical sex.

The capital letters stand for gender and are derived from the gendering suffixes in the Imperium’s dominant language: Ĉ stands for male, N for female, S for sendua, and X (from crossing out the category on a form) for anything else. The lowercase letters, of which there are often more than one, stands for pronouns: l for li, the equivalent of “he;” ŝ for ŝi, “she;” r for ri, “re;” and x for anything else (which is quite rare, but in practice means “ask”).

The lowercase letter after the slash, if it exists, describes grammatical gender—and boy do I wish English had a shorter way to say that. The Imperium’s dominant language is largely non-gendered, and for words which could be gendered—titles, professions, and so on—the default is to use the genderless base word rather than add on one of the gendered suffixes. But some titles are routinely declined by gender, and several minor languages gender their adjectives at a minimum and their verbs at a maximum. As a result, some portion of the population has a preference about which gender is used, and that’s usually denoted like this. (The letters themselves follow the same rule as the actual gender indicator, and good lord have I said “gender” a lot of times in this paragraph.)

Occasionally, an italicized x or y or a centered asterisk, placed after the pronouns, indicates physical sex. The x and y, mean roughly what one would expect—XX or XY chromosomes respectively, without any sort of intersex condition. The asterisk, which in some state governments has subcategories, indicates that the person is intersex. Sex is mostly irrelevant in social life, so its denotation is circumscribed to medical and governmental records.

As you may have guessed by now, the dominant language is Esperanto—or, well, a version of Esperanto that’s evolved like a (fairly regulated) natural language for a millennium and a half. Some people speak one or more of the so-called “minor languages,” usually regional dialects descended from natlangs.

There are two different calendars in use over the course of the Novel, one that continues roughly directly from the Gregorian calendar and is dated relative to the traditional year of birth of Jesus Christ and another dated relative to the Year of Fortifying the Peace (the official end of the War Era, covered in the last two sections of the Sketch of History).

The first or human calendar can be identified because it will almost always have a four-digit year, and in cases where it doesn’t it gets labeled (B.)C.E. The second or novan calendar can usually be identified by having a three-digit year, or else because it uses a minus sign to indicate its negatives. It may also be distinguished by the ᴊ (from jaro, “year”) that precedes single- and double-digit years, as well as any three-digit years that require disambiguation. The novan calendar has a year zero; this is, as can probably be predicted, the Year of Fortifying the Peace.

Technically there are four major dating systems (standard, human, Terranovan orbital, and Ilajnaplaneta orbital). The orbital calendars exist because neither of the inhabited planets have years particularly close to 365 days, so their seasons are wildly out of sync with the administrative calendars. I should probably also note that neither planet has 24-hour days, and that the administrative calendars are standardized on the 26-hour Terranovan day.

I think that’s about it. I’ll write up instructions on how to pronounce all the random Esperanto words soon; for now, the vowels are like Spanish and the J makes a Y sound.

A Sketch of History

Human Future History, 21st to 23rd Centuries

I will cop to it up front that this period is the least interesting to me and has had the least work put into it; I hope to settle most questions about it here and keep the blog to a mostly novan focus. You are welcome to inquire further, but since humanity’s time on Earth is mostly just background to the background it will likely not receive much coverage organically beyond this. If you, like me, are mostly here for in the genetically-engineered cat people and their post-human politicking, you can probably jump ahead to the next section. 2.1k words.

For all my fine talk, we start with humanity as the sole species, and we start with them on Earth. Everything that led up to our time happened. After 2024, humanity narrowly survived climate change with their civilization battered, but in one piece. The sciences progressed; the most relevant for our current purposes are astronomy and space travel, and the most important later on are the advancements in batteries and synthetic biology.

Public interest in space grew, at least partially fostered by escapist thinking, and the World Space Agency (a terrible name, but so is “the World Health Organization” and they get on alright) was formed. At the outset it was more a collaboration of national agencies than an agency unto itself, but over the years it slowly gained authority and independence and evolved from a coordinator into a major player in its own right. It had quite extensive scholarship programs, which probably contributed.

The Moon was not so much settled as populated by sparse construction and mining towns with few steady inhabitants. I will spare you most of the details, but in short the main business of the Moon was construction for spaceflight and asteroid-mining. Its lower gravity (a) made construction rather easier and more importantly (b) made it much easier to reach escape velocity—that is, to launch something off it and into space. Almost no one stayed for more than five years.

Several things built on the Moon were space telescopes, eventual heirs to the long-defunct Webb, with one being roughly comparable to the proposed Habitable Worlds Observatory. During the climate crises (plural intended) a dedicated minority of the public attention had turned toward exoplanets. Whether or not humanity could reach them now, they said, we should try to develop the option.

Most of the advocates, being laymen, did not understand how mind-bogglingly far such exoplanets were, nor how mind-bogglingly difficult it would be to get there. Most reasonable astrophysicists, and those in related fields, cautiously encouraged the public fascination because it had caused a funding boom, but rightly downplayed the possibility of finding and settling anything.

Then Eta Cassiopeiae Ae fell into humanity’s collective lap. A terrestrial planet, slightly smaller than Earth; in the habitable zone of a very sunlike star; in possession of an atmosphere, but not too much of one; wet, but not too wet; showing evidence of volcanic activity that likely indicated tectonic action—all this, and only (“only”) 19.42 light-years away! Careful observation even indicated it had a moon comparable in size to Earth’s!

Humanity took the hint. In the middle twenty-second century, relatively shortly after its discovery, η Cas Ae (at the time known as η Cas Ad, as it was discovered after the two outer super-Earths) was confirmed to have the right amount of water to potentially support life. No life yet existed, at least that humanity could detect; but that didn’t mean they couldn’t go over and put some there.

A certain august international body, in company with the World Space Organization, put out a call for anyone of skill interested in the prospect of settling η Cas Ae. The public response was immediate and enthusiastic, and demands were made to give this new Earth an official name rather than its sterile initial designation. In their exuberance, they unwittingly named it after Newfoundland; this was only noticed several months after the fact.

Thus was the Convention for the Terraforming and Settlement of Terra Nova called. The Convention gave way to the Committee for the Terraforming [and so on]; no one wanted to say all that, so most languages shortened it to “the Terra Nova Committee.” In English it was often called the rather snappy “New Eden Project.”

The official language of the project was declared to be Esperanto. This left most of the world very confused and astonished the handful of people who knew what had been going on behind the scenes—they had never expected it to actually work.

(Esperanto, as I hope you know, is an international auxiliary language created by L. L. Zamenhof and first published in 1887. It is designed to be simple and easy to learn, but still capable of a full range of expression. It is the most popular I.A.L., though that does not mean it has ever been exactly societally prevalent. Most everyone I mention it to has never heard of it, or else has only run into its name in passing. I have never, to my knowledge, met an Esperantist—unfortunately including myself, as I am grammatically sound but not yet fluent.)

Most of the work of the Committee was one of five things:

How do we get there?

How do we build that?

What do we do once we get there?

What do we need to accomplish the above?

Whom do we send?

They solved the first question by commissioning various independent teams of experts for potential starship designs, choosing the best three or so, and bringing their creators onto the subcommittee responsible for the actual final design. That committee was given ten years to come up with a first design and was intended to run for thirty overall, then handing things off to another committee that would be responsible for bringing that plan to fruition. It wound up taking forty, but that more or less happened.

The second question was solved incidentally by the first committee from question one, and their answer was “in space.” Given humanity’s off-planet expansion, it seemed the natural choice. By the time of the conclusion of the design phase they were also mining the asteroid belt, very carefully and mostly via robots, which provided the Terra Nova Committee another much easier fount of resources for their project.

The solution to the third question was rather more complicated than it might initially appear. Clearly they had to terraform the new world—that atmosphere, in its current state, was poisonous—and that would require a timescale measured in centuries at the minimum; but whence were they to do it? Where do you send potentially tens of thousands of your children and their children’s children to live and work in pursuit of a goal they themselves will never see?

The best choice was obviously the moon around the planet—it was well-positioned for a base and it should have enough gravity to beat off the worst of the developmental effects. Life on the moon had been proven possible long before, although few who took up residence there stayed very long; so had life in the asteroid belt, whose recently-sighted Terra-Nova-system counterpart they planned to mine. There would have to be improvements—these hypothetical “canned generations” would have to spend their whole lives on the moon, so their situation was not really comparable to that of the human-contemporary lunars.

It fed into the fourth and fifth questions, which were uncomfortably close to one and the same. Once the starship arrived at Terra Nova, its occupants would be alone. Earth would be unable to send help in anything resembling a timely manner, and supply runs were an outright impossibility. The lunar settlement, and later the planetary ones, needed to be self-sufficient and capable of performing the terraforming work laid out before them. But they also had to be able to build the ship in the first place, within reasonable materials constraints. Mass is a major consideration in air- and spacecraft design for many reasons (the most relevant here being its effect on the amount of energy needed to alter a craft’s course, be that for maneuvering reasons or simply to get the blasted thing moving in the first place), so cargo had to be minimized too. As a result, they tried to maximize the amount they could derive from materials in the new system or renewably produce aboard ship—food, water, clothing, plus metals and more water after Advent.

I’ll omit the math and any more of my rambling here, as I have already gone on far too long about the fourth question. Just understand that the fifth question was decided under the same material constraints as the fourth. They decided to send a few hundred carefully-chosen scientists, other “people of expertise,” schoolteachers, and their immediate families, all given training on how to handle the isolation they would face and on how to deal with the vastly different cultures their new roommates would come from. The number of people—around eight or nine hundred—was high enough and their sources global enough that they ran very little risk of problems with genetic diversity or in maintaining their population. Only three of the twelve highest-ranked officials in the Committee (which by this point was more of a Division) opted to go.

Probably in the early twenty-third century, the project was finally ready. The great starship was built, the people were chosen, every single possibly necessary thing had been loaded aboard in triplicate. (That last is an exaggeration—the things allowed on board were very strictly controlled and pared down, and while they were given a margin of error, it was far from triple the expected need.)

They set out—and novan knowledge goes entirely dark.

I write from a post-Departure novan perspective, and although I have my guiding theories and research on how humanity got to Terra Nova and what they did on their way, at the end of the day I like to keep it a black box. With that said, feel free to speculate wildly in my inbox. God knows the novan scientific community has been doing the same for centuries.

We will get to why this disappointing blank exists, and why the dates on the Committee period are so fuzzy, when we arrive at the Departure and then the Devastation. We think the voyage lasted two to three generations, if that helps in your guessing.

We pick up their trail again somewhere between five years (short chronology) and two decades (long chronology) before their arrival at the new solar system, and we do this mostly by reconstruction. The early Lunar period, beginning about two years post-Advent (that being the general term for arrival at the Scientia system), was not targeted for destruction, and thus its records have a much better survival rate. By this point the miracle starship had apparently been disassembled and re-formed into Prime Dome. As Prime Dome is known to have been nearing completion two years after Advent, that allows us to use its culture and current events to reconstruct those of the late Shipboard period.

Shipboard politics were generally quite a restrained affair. Government was handled mostly by an elected committee of respected scientists, professors (these from the shipboard university), and career public servants. It was called simply the Leadership Council and held wide-ranging authority. Social norms, like politics, were fairly rigid, and there was a strong emphasis on the social contract. Cohesion was to be prized and praised, and the good of the collective came first in all cases. The ship required its human components to be in as perfect of working order as its mechanical ones, and any societal crisis would potentially damn everyone aboard to death in the void. In this unstable environment, the Terra Nova Committee had determined, a strong hand was needed at the tiller and social cohesion had to be prized above other goals. (Every member of the project who had embarked from Earth had agreed to their peculiar form of government, which was to be replaced with a less-overbearing republic once they were safely settled on the Moon and could afford such things.)

Scientists from, or whose recent ancestors had been from, certain countries often had minor rivalries or feuds with scientists from certain other countries; but this was kept to a background tension, heated competition over sports and that sort of thing. The ship had a population of perhaps eight hundred at the outset and it seems a similar number arrived at Terra Nova, so there may have been some amount of regulation on reproduction.

Independent organizations of more than a handful of people required official permission, and until they got it were given very little leeway. Political parties were unofficially banned as engines of disunion; one was to vote based on an assessment of the relative merit of the candidates. Most political discussion took place in private discussion clubs, which usually met in a member’s apartment or a restaurant. These clubs, which I will for ease’s sake be calling by their later name, “salons,” generally numbered ten to forty people, the average being twenty-six. Since the population was so small, at their peak there were only nine such salons worthy of the name; by the arrival at Terra Nova four had dwindled out and only two newcomers had risen to take their place, yielding the Seven Salons so notable in later history.

The Pre-Novan Lunar Period, 2300 to 2450

This part of history is predominantly based on the actions of a few key people. I swear to God this is very condensed compared to the amount of canon that actually exists. The next section should be more trends-based, as we and history are no longer working with a population of less than a thousand people wherein everyone knows everyone and individual actions have outsize impact. Please be aware that this section of the summary contains descriptions of what I can only describe as a mishandled crush leading to nonconsensual use of genetic material. I really don’t know if that needs a warning, but what Sikora does is creepy as hell. 4.5k words. Part of “A Sketch of History;” preceded by Human Future History; followed by the Remainder of the Lunar Period.

The Advent, in this instance, has nothing to do with Christ—it refers instead to humanity’s arrival at the new solar system. The shipboard government decided it was such a momentous occasion that they should jump the calendar forward to the suitably impressive year 2300, so they did. (This is important later.) The aim of those aboard then shifted from the holding pattern of life in transit to frantic preparation for their final landing on Terra Nova’s moon.

The early Lunar period is largely dominated by two figures: Alexei Ilyasov and Darya Staravya. I’ll discuss them as briefly as I possibly can here, given that I’ve already had to cut two drafts that spent eight paragraphs on them and them alone. Expect a cleaned-up version of one of those to be posted at some point as an extra.

Alexei Kirilloviĉ Ilyasov was, at Advent, forty-one and supposedly a climatologist. In practice he was a politician of the rather subdued shipboard breed; he ran with no party and gave his rousing speeches on paper. His major focus was preparing for Advent, an event which, while yet unnamed, had loomed large on the horizon for most of his life. He had been an Illustrian—that is, part of a large salon known for meeting in the poshest restaurant on the ship—for about ten years. Like most of his fellow members, he was a reformist and an amateur linguist absolutely convinced he and he alone knew how to perfect Esperanto; also like most of his fellow members, it never came up unless he was asked about it point-blank.

It surprised even him when he was elected Council Chair* shortly before Advent; he was serving a Council term at the time, but had made no bids for the Chair and had planned to guide the Council toward a successful Advent from within rather than above. Regardless, he acquitted himself wonderfully in the office, and his administration—twenty-two years long, with a two-year gap after his eighteenth, when he was voted out of the Chair—did likewise. It was under his authority that the starship was broken down and re-formed into Prime Dome, the first and largest of the lunar dome-habitats; he inaugurated the First University. When he finally retired, construction and terraforming were both proceeding ahead of schedule and the first mining expeditions into the asteroid belt since the construction of Prime Dome were underway.

* His election was the result of a compromise on the Leadership Council between deadlocked Illustrians and Blue-Roomers, who both saw him as inoffensive and unlikely to make any terrible decisions.

Toward the end of Ilyasov’s career, Darya Staravya, the other major figure of this period, comes to prominence. She was born three days after Advent, the first baby of the new solar system, and she would have been notable for that alone. Her parentage—Brits Clarence and Marina Staravia, who had, in accordance with a contemporary fad, made up a “new name for the new world” upon their marriage—is necessary to mention to explain her surname, but they’re most notable as her later collaborators. I should also mention that she was Ilyasov’s goddaughter; he was about a decade older than her parents, but they aligned politically and intellectually and had met in their mutual salon.

Staravya was a prolific inventor and engineer, and in her forties she was the primary mind and force behind the Starry engine (officially the “New Standard Engine, Mk. IV”), which would be the basis for most all interplanetary flight for centuries to come. That was arguably her most distinctive invention, but her most pervasive came about by accident when she was in college. She, like all Scientian children, was in some form of school from age four until eighteen; during the latter half of that time she and a friend* progressively refined a private phonetic script or cipher, which they mostly used for the extremely teenage purpose of snarking at their teachers without them knowing. While students in the First University, they taught their other friends the cipher, and, generations being small when the total population is 1,021 people, it quickly spread through all of theirs.

* Yoshikawa Namiko, about a year older than Staravya, later a biochemist and historian. (Her parents, by contrast to the Staravias, and the Myleras a generation later, were not caught up in the new-name-for-a-new-world craze, seeing as they were Red Hats and didn’t bother with that sort of thing the way the Illustrians and Spider’s Nest did.)

Now I have to step back and give a bit of context. The problem of naming had been under debate since shortly after Advent, when Ilyasov had tried unsuccessfully to force everyone to fully Esperantize their names. (“Aleksejo Ilyasofo,” who did not by any means like writing that version of his name in every blasted language, was almost glad when the motion was shot down by seven elevenths of the rest of the Council.) Debate, among the perhaps sixty percent of the population who cared one way or the other, was split between those who favored the invention of some new writing system and those who instead favored regularization of sounds in names to match the phonology and writing system of some language. The former were called Sonskribists and the latter Regularists (though I anglicize their names here).

Staravya was in the forty percent. She thought it all kind of silly, having heard every possible argument at her dinner table growing up. She had been an unofficial test subject for too many of the new scripts (her parents being ardent Sonskribists, to Ilyasov’s alternating consternation and amusement) to actually take them seriously as a solution; she dismissed the Regularist position out of hand. While she did use her phonetic system to note down names’ pronunciations, it had always functioned as more of a code for her. She and her friend, Yoshikawa Namiko, actually had a minor falling-out over whether or not to encourage the growth of the script, which Yoshikawa believed they should and Staravya dismissed as irrelevant.

Yoshikawa won.

Now we come to a more trend-based as opposed to person-based period, which I can—finally—cover pretty quickly. Staravya went on to be a prolific inventor, as described in the second paragraph of her description, but she never crossed over into a major public figure the way so many others did. The Yoshikawa-Staravya phonetic script became the standard way to note down pronunciations, though it would take a century and a half more until it started replacing Latin and Cyrillic outright for the writing of names. (It never entered some scripts at all, including Arabic, which even well into the novan period adapted all names to its own orthography.)

The Leadership Council does not so much give way to as become the Academy, a name initially belonging to the board of directors of the First University set up by the moon-dwellers. Akademio, translated here as “Academy,” is also the term used for Esperanto’s regulatory body in our world and theirs. The University’s Academy had absorbed the Akademio de Esperanto, to the great consternation of the salon called the Spider’s Nest, back in the early days of the project. The Leadership Council in turn absorbed this unified Academy, at first thanks to near-complete overlap in membership and later by official decree; having so done, it declared itself the Terra-Novan Legislative Academy. (Later historians know it as the First Terra-Novan Legislative Academy.)

Staravya died in 2358, just under two decades after Ilyasov; Yoshikawa lived into the early 2370s, meaning her lifespan just barely overlaps with the next people we need to talk about. They, as they are ultimately more historically important, will take proportionally longer.

Florentine Sikora was born in 2370, or shortly after the official merger of the Leadership Council and the Academy. She grew up in an era of immense (compared to the mostly-static shipboard culture) change, but we’re not going to talk about any of that. We’re going to talk about this thing called the Catgirl Principle, and then we’re going have some bad lesbian representation. (Quite likely it also qualifies as bad allosexual representation, seeing as your author is ace.)

The Catgirl Principle is an oft-cited novan aphorism, most common in the first few centuries of the Imperium and believed to have reached its permanent form sometime in the middle War Era. The sentiment it describes is far older, and we will get to it in due time. The Principle is this: “A statistically significant proportion of the human population would want to fuck a catgirl were the opportunity to present itself. A statistically significant proportion of them would be willing to take active work toward that goal.”

Sikora was in that second proportion, and unlike the vast majority of them she refused to handle it by any reasonable means. I will spare you the details of what I mean here, but in short, Sikora never considered just getting a girlfriend and discussing arrangements for role-play involving a cat-ear headband and a tail.

Sikora wanted a catgirl, and—given the advancements in synthetic biology since our time, which I almost completely glossed over back in “Human Future History”—she figured she could just go ahead and make one. This was an absurd proposition—doable, maybe, for a team of two dozen with good funding, a few decades, unfettered access to the supercomputers in the heart of the First University, and fairly loose ethics. Sikora was a schoolgirl with a dream. But she wouldn’t remain that way forever, and soon enough she was off to the First University, designated a student without work* and planning to major in genetic engineering.

* Most university students had, in addition to their classes, to perform some menial office for perhaps ten hours a week, or two hours per day of the core week. The “student without work” designation was given to those who showed remarkable aptitude in some useful field, as a way of softly forcing them in the direction they would most benefit society or the sciences. With Sikora it paid massive dividends in the most awkward way possible.

Because Sikora lived on the far side of Red Dome (the second erected and first constructed, by the classical reckoning), she was offered the chance to move into an apartment inside the University itself. She took it and was assigned Mieke Nagtegaal as a roommate. Nagtegaal was also a student without work for her promise as a genetic engineer, but—in contrast to Sikora’s animal focus—particularly interested in plants. She was outgoing, very attractive, and the kind of person to listen intently to what someone was telling her no matter how long the explanation lasted, and Sikora fell hard for her. Nagtegaal, for her part, saw Sikora as a surprisingly charming person beneath the quiet exterior, and they became fast, close friends.

As you can imagine, this went badly.

In university as in tertiary school, Sikora was driven; intelligent; especially talented at genetics; and very, very good at ingratiating herself with teachers. In her first year, one of her professors brought her onboard a project that had as one of its goals the development of a large research database of fully sequenced human genomes. Sikora saw this as an excellent opportunity to—instead of, say, confessing her feelings and maybe trying to start a relationship—convince Nagtegaal to contribute her DNA to a public University database, from which Sikora could later retrieve it and use it as the base for the catgirl. The samples were supposedly anonymized, but Sikora figured she would, like Caesar, build that bridge when she came to it.

Their second year brought Nagtegaal a girlfriend, later her wife, and Sikora greater technological access that did not quite make up for the loss. This greater access came in the form of a laptop, powerful even by that time’s impressive standards, running the University’s full suite of cutting-edge-five-years-ago gen-eng software. The project she joined to get access to it is unimportant; it did, however, give her a foot in the door that would prove vital later.

Then she used a professor’s administrative access to locate which anonymized human genome belonged to “Nagtegaal, Mieke,” waited a few days for appearances’ sake, and downloaded roughly seven gigabytes of her roommate’s DNA to her new computer. Creep.

That brings us to what would later be marked as the beginning of (drumroll please) the Novan Development period. Some reckonings have it starting earlier, with Sikora’s initial decision to make a catgirl in her early adolescence or else with her entry into the University; but while she clearly worked on the catgirl project on and off, mostly by research, before acquiring the suite, the actual development begins only now.

It ran ten more years. Sikora was in the University the entire time, pursuing first a master’s and then a doctorate after her baccalaureate failed to give her enough time and access, and often sidelining that doctorate to hop aboard professors’ projects and even headline one of her own. In that time Nagtegaal, who got an excellent offer right after she finished her master’s, moved out and started work, leaving Sikora alone in their apartment.

Sikora’s magnum opus progressed in secret, extensively annotated and tested almost every night (as running it still took four to six hours). Back in her second year, she had quickly and euphemistically named the project file containing Nagtegaal’s DNA “nówka,” roughly “new thing.” The name wormed its way into her head over the years, and in time she came to think of the catgirl as the nówka instead. (It doesn’t hurt that “nówka” happens to decline in the feminine.)

As for the development of the nówka, her ears expanded and shifted down her head to match the too-complicated-to-move human ear canal while keeping a tall-eared silhouette; her tail came along nicely; working claws into her human fingers required completely redesigning her distal phalanges; Sikora quickly abandoned all pretensions at whiskers. (I bold “ears, tail, claws” here because they will come back with a vengeance when we get to the identity crisis of the second century, and that’s not to mention the Novan Nationalists.)*

* Nor “hearing, balance, defense.”

Eight years in, Sikora had done all she could with the simulation capabilities of any of her succession of laptops. The version of the software she had, the one that didn’t have to run on a supercomputer cooled by a lake, could do full simulations of the effects of short genetic sequences (i.e., the resultant biomolecules) and rough simulations of much longer material, but the human genome was more than twice the length of its ostensible input cap. Given a few hours it eventually managed, but her laptops suffered for it and the results it produced were necessarily inexact. Having now gotten the best draft possible with her current resources, she set her sights on better ones.

In flight the supercomputers had been used to manage the ship; now the Academy and the Terraforming Bureau had right to them, and a subset were used for genetic simulations of great accuracy and almost unlimited size. You can see where this is going.

She had by this time been brought onto a project (ultimately ill-fated, but later to inspire the sand-wolves) with an Academian at its head, and although she was in one of the lower rungs she had caught the said Academian’s attention. She had over the years maintained public side projects, partially out of interest and partially to impress her professors, and now it paid off. The Academian—and a few of her colleagues, Sikora’s professors—tacitly suggested that it would not be such a bad thing were Sikora to run the occasional after-hours experiment using one of the supercomputers, if nothing too urgent was going on.

Sikora, given an inch, made like the Devil and the British and took a mile.

She spent the next few years patching the gaping flaws in the nówka’s design that this more precise testing revealed. Finally, in 2407, she had something good. It ran perfectly in the supercomputer; it had all the features she wanted. It would work, she was sure, if she grew it in the real world; so she finangled her way into a frankly absurd set of permissions, never quite letting anyone know just what she was using them for, and actually managed to slip it by the review board.

The first nówka experiment was an utter failure. The nówka fetus, difficult to create and so promising, died before three months were out. Sikora couldn’t understand why, and she couldn’t get together the materials and permissions to do it again. She gave up utterly on the project, wallowed in self-pity, and tried to re-focus on her much more boring normal life.

Here Nagtegaal re-enters our story. She had never left Sikora’s, even though they drifted apart over the years as Sikora failed to call or write. She knew, vaguely, about her former roommate’s attempts to “create a new species,” had gathered that this new species was supposed to be sapient, and had overall thought it was neat. Too ambitious and not in her—Nagtegaal’s—area of primary interest, but neat. She asked about it one day, having asked Sikora out to coffee and Sikora having taken her up on it delightedly. Sikora almost started crying and said she had given up on the project, refusing to give Nagtegaal any more information.

Nagtegaal spent three weeks trying to figure out what happened and to convince her clearly distraught friend to resume work, or at least talk to someone. Then, after the last of a string of near breakdowns on Sikora’s part, Nagtegaal’s concern reached a boiling point. She broke into Sikora’s apartment and tried to find her notes on this “nufka” project, to see who—Nagtegaal was sure it was a who—had so badly damaged her self-confidence.

What she found instead was complete, fastidious, impossible documentation of the genetic code for a new sapient species. At the top of the folder a pinned text file held data about a practical test, ending with a paragraph about the final failure of the experiment.

Nagtegaal was floored.

So was the Academy, when she showed them Sikora’s research (which she had quickly copied onto a flash drive).

With the Presentation to the Academy we come to the Public Phase of Novan Development. The Academy, with Nagtegaal’s advice, privately contacted Sikora, who—despite being a normally dignified doctor in her thirties—sent back a moody email saying simply that the nówka wouldn’t work and there was no point in trying. She refused all involvement, but wanted credit for the initial development of this impossible dream. Maybe there would be a novel about it someday.

She also requested they rename the project from “nówka” to the less Polish and more Esperanto “novo,” which preserved the pun in almost exactly the same form. (Nówka is the adjective meaning “new” plus an ending that turns it into a noun, and so is novo.) It did create some confusion regarding the adjective nova, which now could mean either “new” or “having to do with the project called novo,” which never really got solved. The way the novans later deal with it is to use novara (“having to do with the novan species”) as the adjective form of novo, which works well enough but breaks the stated purpose of Esperanto.

Without going into excessive detail, the Academy liked “novo” mostly because it was so similar in structure to to homo, “human” or (at that time) “person.” Copying that pattern let them quickly produce versions for other languages, including novan (English), and the species name novaro (off the pattern of homaro, “humanity”); it would later produce the Latin novō, which is a homograph of an existing verb and must often be distinguished by context.

The Academy then published Sikora’s research and announced it widely, but declined to form an official committee to continue it. The nówka was in no way relevant to their main focus, that being terraforming efforts,* but anyone to take up the project would be given liberal resources. Essentially, they left it to open-sourced community development. It fostered a surprising camaraderie among the different teams who formed to take up the challenge, and it actually soothed political tensions between diametrically-opposed salons.

Well, it did portions of all these things. Novans have a tendency to assume their creation must have been a society-wide effort, but really perhaps a hundred people ever had more than a surface-level involvement over the decade and a half of novan development. A twelfth of society, yes, but only a twelfth. (Nagtegaal was not one of them, even after someone realized it was her sample used as the basis for novanity. She was, as she put it, just and only a botanic engineer.)

* There were persistent rumors that the Academy fostered the development of early novanity in search of a servant species, and in later days it was commonly believed as fact. It is in reality bullshit. Not unreasonable, given the Academy’s persistent monopoly on and heavy-handed use of power, but bullshit. I have to mention the rumors here because of the influence it has on the Darwins and the various novan identity crises, but the Academy was genuinely focused only on the flagship scientific achievement that novanity represented.

Fifteen years after the Presentation to the Academy, Novan Test 42 was successful. On the seventh of November 2419, a successful novan infant was born to delighted and somewhat terrified foster/surrogate parents the Augereaus. When it looked like she would survive, she was given the name Evo Darwin—Evo being one of two Esperanto forms of Eve and Darwin, of course, being for Charles. (Esperanto lacks /w/ and has very regular emphasis, so her surname lost its original pronunciation. The end result was a name said /ˈe.vo darˈvin/, something like AY-vo dar-VEEN in English phonetic spelling, with “ay” standing for the sound of the name of the letter A. This concludes the awkwardly-shoehorned-in phonology section of this essay.)

Evo proved bright and excelled in school despite her very obvious differences; she had her entire growth charted and wanted to be a genetic engineer when she grew up, just like her mother. When she was twelve, the first male novan (who had been in development for a while) was born; he was given the name Adamo Chikaonda, partially at Evo’s suggestion.* Another female novan followed shortly thereafter, off Evo’s pattern, as that was proven to be stable. Her name was Espero Darwin, thus making the Darwin lineage or gento the first of many to have duplicate line-headers. They were each raised by different families, which may account for Evo’s and Espero’s startling later differences.

* “Chikaonda” is in reference to the late lead developer of the software Sikora had written the initial nówka genome in, who had in his later years had some involvement with the novan project.

Evo fell in love with and married a human after they met in university; they communicated well and were mostly happy together, even when the human started getting strange medical issues they seemed to have inherited from their father. They did not try to reproduce, but adopted a handful of children: a later Darwin, her spouse’s nephew, and a novan patterned off the said spouse’s genome. Adamo and Espero, on the other hand, saw nothing to do but get together and propagate the species, in exactly those terms. They did not love each other romantically, nor share particularly many interests, but they understood each other better than anyone else would. Their seven children, plus an eighth that they wheedled Evo into carrying after Espero suffered an injury and became infertile, split their surnames between them (the first child being a Chikaonda, the second a Darwin, and so on); this would be common early-generation novan practice for the rest of the novan creation period.

Having gotten the rest of their lives out of the way, we need to jump back to when Evo was fifteen, because it was in that year that Sikora asked Nagtegaal out to coffee to celebrate the three-days-past birth of Espero. This was a tradition of theirs, having been started after they had met and held Evo for the first time fifteen years before; but, fatefully, this time Sikora brought moonshine.

Sikora, once tipsy, confessed that—or more accurately joked about how—she had known full well whose genome she was using and that it had its roots in a longstanding crush on Nagtegaal. Then, well, the whole sorry story of novan development came tumbling out of her mouth; it became increasingly clear the nówka was ultimately the result of a sexual fantasy; and Nagtegaal, horrified, exploded. The resulting scene—Nagtegaal standing up and striking the coffee table, irate, while Sikora leans back in her chair and laughs—would later become a frequent subject of paintings and tableaux, especially during the first and second centuries. What would not become such a favorite of the artists was how hard Nagtegaal wept that night, or how she filled a notebook and a half in the next two weeks with everything she knew about Sikora. They sometimes depict her internal torment over what to do with this new horrible knowledge in light of its potential effect on fifteen-year-old Evo Darwin, but they tend to make it a lot prettier than it was.

Three months later, Sikora died of a stroke. Nagtegaal drafted a letter that night.

Mieke Nagtegaal’s memoirs of Dr. Sikora, created with the full approval of then-seventeen-year-old Evo and her parents, were published two years later. The scandal rocked the Moon and destroyed Sikora’s reputation—but not that of the novan project. That, by now, was far more associated with the community of developers and harried university students that had brought it to fruition. The third novan genome sitting in their mutual drafts was originally intended to bear Sikora’s name, and work ground to an internally-snarled halt. After a worrying two-month stall, a public appeal from Evo and Nagtegaal brought it back into motion under the name Moreau.

And that’s the condensed version.

There are three more major sections of history to get to, and hopefully I’ll get them out soon. I’ll both update this and put them up separately, so you don’t have to watch this post for edits.

[rose-gold-femme]

i’ve been told i give good hugs, so i’m offering up my arms to you

🥺🥺🥺 I'm literally jumping straight into your arms and melting into a puddle

[skittlespizza]

HALF LIFE TUMBLR SIMULATOR:

🌐 breenofficial follow

This is your daily reminder that we do in fact see your internet history. Please refrain from looking things up such as "breen leaked feet pics". Thank you.

🗨 combineofficial follow

To add on: please stop looking up "Metrocop x Reader", thank you.

🪄 c17-mp2901 follow

whoever keeps stealing my rations from the breakroom owes me AT LEAST six days worth at this point.

📀 c17-mp183729 follow

Its happening to you too, 2901? I thought it was just me...

🔆 c17-mp89388 follow

This is a reminder that we work hard for our rations and it's kinda fucked up to steal people's hard work... idk if its just me but why is it normalized to make fun of Civil Protection?? We're just doing out job.

@combinefeedback can you fix this??

💠 combinefeedback follow

Hello! Please email us at combinecomplaints@theoverwatch11.com to submit a formal complaint.

🍻 bcalhoun follow

Lol

🛡 the-resistance follow

Double agent of the week has been announced! Special thanks to @ bcalhoun for his hard work. He has reportedly stolen weeks worth of rations from the City 17, District 6 breakroom, thoroughly demotivating the metrocops :).

🟠 gfreeman-fan follow

Looking for a roleplay partner! I'd be roleplaying my BlackMesa!OC, Jamie. I'm okay roleplaying with BlackMesa!Ocs or Gordon Freeman. Breen roleplayers please do not interact!

🩵 breen-defender follow

What's wrong with breen?? /gen

🟠 gfreeman-fan follow

What do you mean what's wrong with breen?? U literally support... ☹️☹️ blocked and reported.

��� the-resistance follow

Gordon Freeman fanart drawn by @gfreemanlefttoe!

[gordon_fanart_final_FINAL_FINALREALLY.jpg]

🔬 eye-kleiner follow

Wow! 😍 Most Accurate Drawing I've Seen Yet! Amazing Work, gfreemanlefttoe!

🪼 justice4cremators follow

THE FUCKING USERNAME I CANT.

🍻 bcalhoun follow

As someone who knew Gordon before all this... kinda wild ngl.

⚓️ a-d-vanced follow

My dad literally worked with Gordon I can't imagine how he feels knowing gfreemanlefttoe is a real username.

🔭 elivance388 follow

It's funny asf.

🪨 lazlo-greatest-mind-of-our-generation follow

DNI: Breen defenders (wtf is wrong with you), Gordon Freeman x Breen Shippers 😭😭, Resistance snitches, if you work with the combine AT ALL (THIS IS MY BLOG OKAY??), antlions, if you own any headcrabs as pets. They're literally exotic creatures wtf is wrong with you..

⚓️ a-d-vanced follow

[dog_picture.jpg]

Here's a selfie with my pet dog!

🚫 alyxvancehateblog follow

I literally saw him attack a combine soldier yesterday...

⚓️ a-d-vanced follow

And???

🚫 alyxvancehateblog follow

Kinda weird ngl...

⚓️ a-d-vanced follow

Ermmm in literally neurodivergent and a minor 🤓

📘 real-history-facts follow

Today, 10 years ago, the Resonance Cascade happened!

🧠 brmy-md follow

Who remembers x files... 😭😭

☢️ stalkerk follow

Rb with what you miss most about pre combine life

🎶 dmmeformusic follow

Predictably, music...

🎁 cindyc follow

Holidays...

🐱 catlover2882777 follow

Cats@

[Cat.jpg]

🍻 bcalhoun follow

WHICH MUTUAL REBLOGGED THIS I HAVE ALL CAT TAGS BLOCKED PLEASE TAG YOUR CAT PICTURES. JESUS CHRIST.

🔭 elivance388 follow

WHO FUCKING DID THIS.

🫐 ocubbage follow

hehe

⚓️ a-d-vanced follow

CUBBAGE??? WHAT???

🌐 breen-grub follow

Username change. Gfhhhh 👍

🍻 bcalhoun follow

Who hacked breen again?

🥬 cgreen follow

Lmao

🗨 combineofficial follow

PLEASE STOP WRITING BREEN X METROCOP STORIES. THANK YOU.

[ninja-muse]

2024 Release TBR

🏳️‍🌈 - queer MC     🇨🇦 - Canadian author    ⭐️ - BIPOC MC 📘 - have an ARC bold - newly added

The Secret History of Bigfoot - John O'Connor (travel/history) - February 6

Ending the Pursuit - Michael Paramo (sociology) - February 8

Tomorrow’s Children - Daniel Polansky (post-apocalypse) - February 27

The Baker and the Bard - Fern Haught (YA cozy fantasy) 🏳️‍🌈- March 5

The Tower - Flora Carr (historical fiction) 📘 - March 5

Parasol Against the Axe - Helen Oyeyemi (literary fiction) ⭐️📘- March 5

Those Beyond the Wall - Micaiah Johnson (science fiction) ⭐️📘 - March 12

The Floating Hotel - Grace Curtis (cozy science fiction) 🏳️‍🌈 - March 19

The Angel of Indian Lake - Stephen Graham Jones (horror) ⭐️ 📘- March 26

This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances - Eric LaRocca (horror) 📘- April 2

Catchpenny - Charlie Huston (science fiction) 📘- April 9

The Proper Thing and Other Stories - Seanan McGuire (fantasy) - May 1

Plain Jane and the Mermaid - Vera Brosgol (YA fantasy) - May 7

Dreadful - Caitlin Rozakis (fantasy) - May 28

Tidal Creatures - Seanan McGuire (contemporary fantasy) - June 4

Echo of Worlds - M.R. Carey (science fiction) - 📘 June 25

Bury Your Gays - Chuck Tingle (horror) 🏳️‍🌈 - July 9

I Was a Teenage Slasher - Stephen Graham Jones (horror) - July 16 📘⭐️

Chaos at the Lazy Bones Bookshop - Emmeline Duncan (cozy mystery) - July 23

The Wordhunter - Stella Sands (mystery) - August 6

The Dollmakers - Lynn Buchanan (fantasy) - August 13 📘

Radiant Sky - Alan Smale (science fiction) - August 27

Buried Deep and Other Stories - Naomi Novik (fantasy/short stories) - September 17

Nightstrider - Sophia Slade (fantasy) 🏳️‍🌈- September 17

The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society - C.M. Waggoner (fantasy) - September 20

Villain - Natalie Zina Walschots (superhero fiction) 🇨🇦🏳️‍🌈 - October 1 suspect this has moved to 2026

The City in Glass - Nghi Vo (fantasy) - October 1

Swordcrossed - Freya Marske (fantasy) 🏳️‍🌈 - October 8

My Kind of Trouble - L.A. Schwartz (romance) - October 8

Shoestring Theory - Mariana Costa (fantasy) 🏳️‍🌈 - October 8

Sorcery and Small Magics - Maiga Doocy (cozy fantasy) 🏳️‍🌈 - October 15

We Do Not Welcome Our Ten-Year-Old Overlord - Garth Nix (middle grade fantasy) 📘 - October 15

The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door - H.G. Parry (fantasy) - October 22

Usurpation - Sue Burke (science fiction) - October 29

The Improvisers - Nicole Glover (historical fantasy) - November 5 ⭐️

Inkworld: the Color of Revenge - Cornelia Funke (middle grade fantasy) - November 12 📘

The Rivals - Jane Pek (mystery) 📘🏳️‍🌈⭐️- December 1 🏳️

[frugzyx]

Hogwarts AU

James as Gryffindor❤️, Lars as Slytherin💚, Kirk as Hufflepuff💛 and Cliff as Ravenclaw💙

I'll draw Gryff Jaymz and Ravenclaw Clip more and next time I'll draw Hufflepuff Jason and Slytherin Dave too. i really love this au so maybe I'll draw this when i have time again ;]

*Why I put dave as a Slytherin and not Gyffindor? simple, his ambition is to be better than tallica. maybe his appearance looks so Gryffindor boi but he has a real ambition as a pure Slytherin 💚

My Hogwarts imagination 🪄🧹🔮✨️

These all imaginations, are just my silly imagination of em in hoggy woggy Hogwarts life

Well for Kirky... he'll like muggle studies and magical creatures or transfiguration I guess. also ykw? I'd like to see Kirk in herbology or care of magical creatures classes... it'll be so cute seeing him with a bowtruckle like Newt Scammander... 😭✨️🌿

for James, I think he'll like any class beside divination, ancient runes and other boring classes. I can imagine he prefer to go play quidditch with the sport gang. ohhh and seems he likes duelling to showcase his power like duelling with Dave 🧹✨️ 💨

Lars... hmm... I think he'll like astronomy and charms or maybe defense against the dark arts(DADA) classes. I can see Seamus Finnigan in him when casting wingardium leviosa in charms class and exploded LMFAO 💥💀🪄

Obviously Cliff would love potions, ancient runes, arithmancy, alchemy and history of magic. idk why, but I think it suits him well. I can imagine him being friend with Snape lmfao. and i think he hates divination cuz it doesn't make any sense for him. oh and he's such a good friend of James 📘🪄✨️

I can see Jason interested in muggle stuffs. So I think he'll like muggle studies and muggle arts. not only muggle stuffs, I can see him in transfiguration and charms or care of magical creatures classes with a cute niffler. he's the real Cedric Diggory in this AU hehe 🪶✨️🪄

last but not least... Dave as a Slytherin. yeah you didn't read it wrong!! he has a strong ambition to defeat James, ofc in Quidditch. I can imagine him in DADA class duelling with James. also I think he likes potions and divination. 🧹🔮✨️

okay, we got a new member, Rob!! I can't even put him anywhere bcz I don't know whether he's in Gryff or Hufflepuff. sorry bout that qwq... but dw I asked some of my friends that he's a total Gryff!! I can see him mostly like James. He's okay with all of the classes in hogwarts, but he still finds that divination is such a ridiculous class just like everyone. I think his favorite classes is astronomy and DADA 🌌🪄🪶

[bonequest]

📕📗📘💦🍆 A Brief History of BoneQuest Books: A Foray Into Nonsense

[00belle00lovely00]

Do you have any Headcanon for bubba x crafycorn? I have PLENTY

OOOOOOOOOHHHH YESSSS!!!

MORE UNDERRATED SHIPS!!! You've got taste fam, you've got taste.

💙🤍🎨📘📖💙🤍🎨📘📖💙🤍🎨📘📖💙🤍🎨📘📖💙🤍

Can we all agree this ship deserves to be called Sketchbook? PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE. P L E A S E.

We all thought of it. Nerd x art kid. WE ALL DID.

Honestly, the more you think about it, Bubba and Crafty would pretty much be always hanging out whenever there's anything involving active games. Although they would (kind of rarely) participate, Bubba has never been one to like sports. And Crafty is way too ashamed of messing up in front of the group. So you could think of them as some sort of backing each other up type of way, not like Kickin and Hoppy would, but the feeling is there.

THEIR DATE WOULD BE DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS-

Bubba, although he is great with books, is pretty bad at anything involving drawing. He had never personally done it before, not even as a child, since he had never seen the point of putting so much effort on a piece of paper that would come and go. BUT. IF HE WERE TO BE THE ONE WHO HAD A CRUSH ON CRAFTYCORN FIRST- WELL, MY MAN GOT PRIORITIES.

They would help tutor each other ALL THE TIME. As in like- Crafty being Bubba's art teacher and Bubba being Crafty's history/math/science/etc teacher!

(BIGGER BODIES HEADCANON. NOT KIDS HERE. NUH UH.) You'll remember when in the game's cutouts Pickypiggy mentioned eating both Bubba and later on Craftycorn, right? And how in one of the cutouts Crafty is literally out for blood? WELL FOR THE SAKE OF THIS HEADCANON, IF YOU KNOW YOU KNOW.

These two gotta be loving Greek mythology. As a person who loves it, it's the PERFECT combination between art and having a LOT of memory.

They listen to music together, and ironically, Bubba remembers the whole lyrics of her fav.

You'll know Crafty would, in any headcanon of ANY ship, draw her crush. The same would go for Bubba. BUT HERE'S THE TWIST. BUBBA, MY MAN, GOT A WHOLE PLAN BOARD IN HIS ROOM TO FIND OUT HOW TO TREAT HIS GAL. STICKY NOTES AND EVERYTHING.

Live laugh love Craftycorn girl failure.

Ngl, I don't see Craftycorn as much of a shy type of person as everyone treats her to be. She's low in speech, yes, but I'd imagine she'd be able to hang around everyone just as fine. But due to her soft spoken voice, people would always treat her like some sort of shy kid, which sometimes embarrasses her. But Bubba? On the contrary, he would treat her with equal respect and view point as the rest of the group, which eases her a lot.

Musicals? They love it. Documentareis? They love it. Science fiction? They LOVE it.

I'd imagine them having very subtle PDA, nothing too obvious, maybe holding (hands???) but the intention is there.

YALL WANNA HEAR AN AWSOME SCENERIO? HERE'S ONE FOR YOU: TODAY IS CRAFTYCORN'S BIRTHDAY AND DOES ALL THE DECORATIONS HERSELF, THE WHOLE CAKE, EVERYTHING. But EVERYONE forgot so that makes her sad- BUT. B U T. BUBBA IS THE ONLY ONE THAT REMEMEBR SO THEN WE GET WHOLESOME SHIT AND ARGHTRDJKBFGUSAYDTFUSGDFJKASGDGSBDJHDGFBJKSAGDFBAWYETFRAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH...... ahem. My apologies.

💙🤍🎨📘📖💙🤍🎨📘📖💙🤍🎨📘📖💙🤍🎨📘📖💙🤍

I'm personally more of a Craftycorn x Bobby Bearhug shipper BUT THIS IS VERY GOOD TOO- I LOVE THESE KIND OF SHIPS

WHY ARE THEY SO UNDERRATED.

THEY SHOULDN'T BE UNDERRATED.

[chbnews]

I've borrowed a history book from cabin 6 and I lost it, now they banned me to borrow any books from them because it happened few times more before that. I apologized but it didn't changed. I dunno what to do, I love history 😔

- Alp Kaya, son of Ares( @best-siblings-ever )

Oh gosh, I’ll see if my friend from cabin 20 can try to make a locating spell for you to find it. (My siblings don’t take missing books very lightly 😭) - 🦋📘Anon Son of Athena📘🦋

[jackiequick]

What If The Dagger Squad Were Teachers Headcanons… 👩‍🏫📚👨‍🏫

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! 📓

—> If you haven’t seen the last post yet, it was What If The Daggers Were YouTubers 🎥

— Starting this out by saying Iceman is the Principal while Slider is Vice Principal of Top Gunner High School 🛩 and Maverick is one of older teachers there, also the Driver’s Ed instructor as well. Now onto the Daggers!

Mr Rooster Bradshaw ~ Music Teacher ���

Mr. Bradshaw classroom is a pretty chill environment but it can get kinda chilly due to the AC being on or windows being open sometimes. It’s a very simple set up with posters on the wall, instruments played neatly in alphabetical order and plenty of notes on his write board with the lesson plan.

Bradley easily a very tough but patient teacher, always trying to be very gentle and patient with his students even if they can roughly annoy him sometimes. He’s tough and will call out a child if they’re not being best behavior with the others students, he wants everyone to be treated fairly in his classroom!

In the very front of his classroom, nearby the whiteboard and SMART board, Mr Bradshaw has a gorgeous black cherry one of a kind piano. And he will play that thing every single Friday for his students as everyone sang ‘Great Balls Of Fire’ as loudly as they want! They also has his students play songs on the piano and other instruments too of course.

Rooster tends to take a lot of requests from his students and staff for songs to play everyday they come into the classroom. He labeled it ‘Bradshaw School Playlist’ as hooks it up to the speakers every time he can.

Speaking of song requests, Rooster always takes songs from the suggestion box in the front of the classroom and depending on the song, that will be the song they analyze that day for class.

Mr Hangman Seresin ~ Gym 👟

One of the youngest P.E./Gym teachers in the school and he takes that with pride. He knows he’s one of the young teacher for standard stereotypical ones are supposed to look like but he doesn’t care. Since Hangman a lot more active he’s able to keep up with the young students physically, mentally and emotionally!

He knows all about jokes and fun Tumblr fan pages the students created about him & Mr Rooster. Hell, he encourages it! His students laugh and tease the teachers for their tension haha. Especially the winks Jake leaves Bradley with sometimes during the school week.

Anyways, back to teacher stuff! Jake is a simple and fun gym teacher, every three weeks he has his students playing all the sports and games he can think of. Volleyball, baseball, mini basketball tournaments, hockey, tennis, ping pong, football games outside in the field and etc.

And if you wonder about Time Of The Month, Jake totally understands! He grew up with sisters, a sweet southern mama and a few girlfriends to know how annoyingly painful periods can be. He will let the girls sit on the sidelines of the gym if needed.

Mr Phoenix Trace & Mr Bob Floyd ~ Social Studies & History 📕📗📘

These two have their classrooms next to one another, so it made it easier to keep track of each other’s students while also popping in to chat. Sending their students into classrooms to collect or swap sheets with.

Social Studies with Phoenix is a fun one, she tends to challenge, joke around and teases her students with questions during class to see who was paying attention and who wasn’t (You know who you are!!). She wants all her students to pay attention and treat people with plenty of respect.

Phenix is very helpful as a teacher and always listens to her students. She’s very open to hear them out and give them suggestions or cut them some slack if needed. She’s the Mama Bear of the teachers, cause she has such a big heart!

History with Bob is pretty a chill one, he tends to play music in the background as the students work on their classwork (and whatever was leftover sometimes will be homework on Fridays). Bob always has his eyes and hears on high alert, so he might catch you quickly, if he sees your doing something your not supposed to be doing.

Bob takes participation very seriously as he likes if everyone can communicate, interact nicely and understand the lessons. Sharing thoughts and answering questions. Even coming up to the SMART Board to explain and demonstrate certain topics of history. Bob doesn’t tolerate misbehavior and rude people in his classroom, especially if a teacher or fellow students is presenting something to the class. So be nice! 

Mr. Fanboy Garcia ~ Science teacher 🔬

One of young nerdy science teacher, he tends to try to dabble in teaching a bit everything over the years. But the ones the schools will give him are Biologically and Earth Science, with some Chemistry too.

Fanboy always treats his students with care and respect, expecting the same thing in return. If there’s no respect or everyone is misbehaving in his classroom, you wouldn’t get the happy and somewhat loud teacher. He will be quiet and annoyed, everyone will get memo to act better.

He’s the teacher to nerd out about certain things in between class and if he’s able to incorporate his love for fandoms into the classroom he would. Fanboy will joke around and mention Marvel, DC, Star Wars, Star Trek and etc during lessons to get the point across. Some students will catch onto it and smiles, others might be confused until he explains it in between the lessons.

Those tricky science tests? Well if the class is good enough and depending on the exam, they will be an open book test with notes. Fanboy wants to see who’s actually paying attention and taking notes, and who’s not. So he can re-teach and go over certain topics later on.

Mr Payback Fitch - English teacher 💻

This man one of the chill teachers in this school. So in result his classroom tends to be be very relax and entertaining for his students. Payback tends to have books to read, notebooks to use, sheets of papers in his closet, pens and pencil in the front of the classroom and etc. Along with posters on the wall to help with tips and tricks for writing and reading.

He’s very causal with his students and treats them plenty of patients and support during lessons. He expects the same in return, to have respect and patience with him.

Payback enjoys teaching his students all about writing stories, reading chapters of books their using to the class, explaining themes and ideas, the passion and mindset behind a character, points of view and the list goes on.

He tends to play movies in his classrooms usually they were related to the lessons but sometimes they were used as talking points. As for projects, he has one very specific project he enjoys doing, Shakespeare Fair! Each grade is given a Shakespeare book to reads, have lessons based on and a project to do. This is where he gets to see the creativity of all the students in the school shine!

Mr Coyote Machado - Art Teacher 🎨

Get your sketch books and art supplies out because you will be taking note here. This man is cocky, sweet and a gentlemen, he will joke and call you out on your shit if he notice something ain’t fitting the vibe to the grooves of the classroom.

Coyote is the type of teacher that encourages creativity and critical thinking. His classroom is where students can experiment, make mistakes and learn from each other. Use that mind of theirs!

Each month he puts up two interesting fact about Art to impress and inspire everyone. He doesn’t want his students to give, he wants them to try and try until they feel satisfied with them. Or to at least say they tried!

His art class consist mainly of class projects and assignment reflecting a certain degree of styles. Painting, pop art, cubism, contemporary, fantasy, impressionist and etc. He tends to encourage his students to use the supplies and examples in the room to help with inspiration. Also well as the music Coyote tends to play from his speakers from his computer. He usually takes music requests!

—-

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy it and happy Teacher Appreciation Week 👩‍🏫👨‍🏫

Tags: @mandylove1000 @gaminggirlsstuff @t-nd-rfoot @fanboygarcia @topgun-imagines @rooster-84 @hangmanbrainrot @bradshawsbaby @gcthvile @msrochelleromanofffelton @hanlueluver @starkleila and etc

[novanhistorian]

The Three Worlds

I got to a nasty bit of the Sketch of History where I have to explain the political and social developments of three different, borderline-independent cultural spheres at the same time, so I decided I would write a post complaining about the novan* cultural concept of the Worlds as an indirect explanation and apology. This has been a very bad introductory paragraph.

* The idea started developing as soon as the humans started mining the Asteroid Belt and noticed it took a long time to get letters to their loved ones; but only during the War Era, by which time the humans had left, did the divisions between Terranovo, the Moon, and the Belt become sharp enough that “the Three Worlds” entered common parlance.

Below the cut, in 1.5k words:

What exactly is a World, anyway?

Scientia is a solar system, Earth is a planet.

The Classical and Modern Three Worlds.

What exactly is a World, anyway?

To understand the Worlds, one has to understand the communication shortfalls that plague any civilization stretched over a distance larger than it can comfortably and swiftly travel. Worlds are defined by access to information, and their borders with one another are often rather fuzzy.

Think of the Roman Empire, where a message might take months to go from one side to the other and be, as a result, very out of date by the time it got there. The Moon and the Belt of the First- and Second-Academy eras were like that—despite sharing more or less the same culture and being part of a (mostly) contiguous political unit, the distance between them was so great that it made it very hard, or very time-consuming, to transmit messages from one side to the other. That’s your most connected kind of world.

Admittedly, that’s very close to the end of the weird spectrum of definitions that later novan public opinion draws a great big curly brace over and labels “worlds.” The boundaries between “multiple different worlds” and “one very large world” are fuzzy. Arguments can be and are made that the Moon and the Planet were one world until the Departure, and even your author, who does not agree with them, is a bit hesitant in labelling the mostly cohesive Roman Empire (…we’re assuming the Empire under the Four Good Emperors here, so they’re not at war with themselves) as multiple worlds.

Now think of the Roman Empire and Han China. These two are a good example of the second kind of world, and they’re like the Planet and the Belt were in the War Era—incredibly distant, rarely if ever meeting in person, but knowing of each other and trading, albeit indirectly.

The third kind of world, which one only ever knows about after the fact, is a complete informational impasse. Neither side knows the other exists, and they develop completely independent of one another culturally. You can guess what analogy I’d make here, right?

So, to recap:

A world is an informational and/or cultural sphere, usually defined by physical separation.

The most separated worlds can be compared to Eurasia/Africa and the Americas prior to 1492 and/or the Vikings. No information passes between one and the other, and neither is aware they’re not alone.

The middle type of world separation is like Han China and the Roman Empire. Each is aware the other exists and some information and trade can pass between them, but neither has much effect on the other. Interaction usually happens through independent intermediaries, who may alter information or just boldfacedly lie to suit their own ends.

The closest distinct worlds are within one large cultural sphere, like the Roman Empire, where information takes a very long time to pass from one end to the other. The boundaries between this and just being one very large world are blurry. (England and America at the time of the latter’s revolution would also qualify.)

No one actually distinguishes between these three categories, or has a rigid definition for what a world is anyway. The concept is entirely based on vibes. God I love pop geography.

Scientia is a solar system, Earth is a planet

I shall now get very distracted.

Boundaries between different analogies for the worlds on Earth are often indistinct, seeing as the worst barriers we as a species have between groups are oceans or a hell of a lot of landmass. The different worlds on a hell of a lot of landmass all kind of bleed together—if you went from al-Andalus to Kievan Rus’ in the twelfth century, you’d find (despite a distinctive cultural break between the Muslims and the Christians, and between various regions within Christendom) that every town you passed through was aware of the events in nearby towns. There would be no clear information barrier cleanly differentiating one world from another. There’s a reason novan scholars all but throw out applying the world framework to Earth.

Scientia isn’t like that. Its worlds don’t slowly peter out over thousands of inhabited miles; they terminate in massive physical gulfs.

From the jump, there’s a weeks-long gap between the Moon sending a courier ship out to the miners in the Asteroid Belt and it actually getting there, and although that gets better over time it never goes away. The Belt kept basically the Moon’s culture until the last century before Departure, when the Third Academy curled its limbs to its chest like a dying spider pursued more Lunar-centric policies that indirectly cut a bunch of mining companies loose. These loose mining companies turned into semi-independent proto-states, and the Belt for the first time developed a stable population of its own, not constantly cycling in and out of the Moon and keeping itself culturally Lunar.

There’s an atmosphere between the Moon and Terranovo, so, even though communication by radio or limited internet can go much faster, actual physical transit of people and goods is extremely difficult and costly. The transit difficulty meant Planetary cultures developed largely without the kind of Lunar hegemony the Belt had had, and Lunar discipline (the Moon still being the seat of government and, nominally, all power) in practice came down by ordering some other Planetary city to discipline the miscreant. The amount of information that could flow between the general populace of the Moon and the general populace on Terranovo was fairly small, but did exist under the Human Tenure. After the Departure and the beginning of the War Era, there stopped reliably being people at the government radio receivers on either end of the Planet/Moon divide and information ceased what trickle there had been. Pretty much only the richest merchants and their employees had any off-planet contact, and that was because they physically went there at great expense.

So, in short, Terranovo has an almost-impassable barrier between it and the Moon, and the Moon has between it and the Belt an inconveniently long travel time.

The Classical and Modern Three Worlds

The Classical Three Worlds, only thus named after the fact, are the Moon, the Planet, and the Asteroid Belt.

The Modern Three Worlds are Terranovo, Ilajn, and the Mining Belt (the Moon having been rendered uninhabitable after the Devastation).

Opinions differ on which world to slot the Armada (the Imperial spacefleet) into; it’s clearly a part of the Novan Imperium, which otherwise only exists on Terranovo, but there’s an atmosphere between the two and at times it acts like an independent country. Its cultural exchange is mostly with the Belt, with whom it has a centuries-old trading relationship in addition to, you know, generally being the local suzerain. Making matters worse, it has stiff regulations on what information can lawfully pass between it and all outsiders. If not for tradition, it would probably be considered a world of its own.

[duskcourse]

Our Syscourse Stances

We are filling this out based upon the popularized "Syscourse Code" and will be going in depth in our explanations of our opinions here.

👍💜📘🔺🔵🌖🟦🌲☀️🥧🐊🐞🐳

Question one - Do you believe in endogenic plurality

👍(Y)- Yes

We are pro-endo and have come to the very solidified conclusion that the experience of feeling there is more than one self cannot be limited to one disorder or even category of disorders. It is very clear to me that DID is not "alters disorder" though alternative identities is a major factor in the disorder the focus is on the dissociation and amnesia between these selves/identities. (Selves are a philosophical concept meanwhile "identity" in this sense refers to a psychological phenomenon)

Question two - Opinion on tulpas

💜(TNU) - Nuanced opinion / other

We are pro the practice of what is known as "tulpmancy" in the case that practitioners are willing to learn about the history of the term and understand the problems with how it originally came to be due to the racist history. I believe the modern practice is incredibly divorced from any semblance of what was the original Tibetan practice with "sprulpa". I am however not someone of said culture, thus I defer to them and by and large I have seen the idea that the term should be changed or moved away from.

Question three - Do you think endos just don't remember their trauma

📘(NETR) - People sometimes misunderstand their identity, it doesn't mean everyone is misunderstanding / not remembering.

When we were younger we thought our alters were spontaneous "tulpas" as we were still living in trauma we did not recognize and had excessively high amnesia. We were wrong about that part of our exploration and later amnesia came back and we forgot we were a system all together. This does not mean that all my peers when I was younger had lied about their systems or also were people with DID or OSDD-1.

Question four - Opinion on shared spaces

🔺 (YSP) - Supportive

Originally I thought there should still be specific spaces for DID/OSDD-1 but also as more time has gone by and I have been in so many spaces geared towards mentally ill people- it never goes well. No online spaces should be for just severely vulnerable people. Predators flock there in mass. Thus shared spaces, in my opinion, are best for the safety of all persons. Groups should be created in real life in the form of therapy groups however.

Question five - Do you think endogenic plurality is comparable to transX

🔵(TXA) - No, and I'm against transplural

I want to be clear this isn't us being against willogenic systems and people who engage in what was previously known as "tulpamancy" and now often is referred to as crafting thoughtforms (or the other term I am sadly blanking on). We are against the radqueer community due to extensive racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism, and abuse apologia. You are not transitioning in the way a trans person is. You are either plural or not. Working with spiritual or psychological practices isn't the same as transitioning in gender. Also I would argue whether or not you happened to be plural by chance or chose to do practices to become so the level of oppression you face is the same- unless it is disordered plurality in which you face systemic ableism as well.

Question six - Do you think you can have DID/OSDD/UDD without trauma

🌖(DTN) - Neutral

I do believe that current research shows all known and studied cases seem to tie back to some level of trauma mixed with other very important elements. However due to the way disorders are categorized in psychology as grouped symptoms and are not actually a true easily spotted one condition... it is very likely that it could be caused by other factors. DID is not one condition, it is a grouping of symptoms. We know all these various symptoms may theoretically occur without trauma. This means it's a very complex issue. However we also know through case studies that almost every case of these coinciding symptoms are predated by trauma.

Question seven - Do you think introjects from other cultures should be able to use that culture's names if they aren't bodily part of it (eg. Japanese introject using Japanese names, while in a white body)

🟦(CNNU) - Nuanced opinion / other

As a mixed white/native person who has never lived in Japan nor had community with Japanese people we believe it would be racist for us to use those names. However there are cases where people can take names from specific groups that on first glance may seem questionable. What matters is the connection to the actual cultures. If someone lives in a specific country, interacts with the cultures, and/or has family of said culture where in the names relate to those relationships it is okay.

Question eight - Opinion on researched self diagnosis

🌲(SDXY) - Supportive

Self diagnosis can be incredibly helpful for those who cannot at some point in time afford care. People who cannot get the care they need should at least have ways to try and find helpful mechanisms to cope. Knowing a disorder you may have can be helpful in order to look at advice and aid from others with the condition or from medical sources until a proper diagnosis and treatment can be had. It is also important you do not attach yourself too much to the self-diagnosis and allow room to accept if it turns out you are wrong and it is something else.

For example when we were younger we thought we might have had BPD aka borderline personality disorder. We have since learned we do not have that disorder and other issues of ours can explain our limited symptomology of BPD.

Question nine - Sysmed as a term

☀️(SMY) - I support it's usage

Sysmed is very useful shorthand for system medicalist and it works well to describe the anti-endo position of needing ton have a diagnosis to explain a form of self-identity that is atypical from the norm. As much as people get mad about it... there is similarities between transgender medicalism and system medicalism.

Question ten - Traumascum as a term

🥧(TSA) - I am against it

My understanding is the term was purposefully made to be shitty by a bait blog. However people at times have used it. It is disgusting and helps nobody.

Question eleven - Endogenic systems using the term 'system'

🐊(ESY) - Supportive

Not that deep- they're systems. System is a very common word.

Question twelve - Endogenic systems using the term 'alter'

🐞 (ESNU) - Nuanced opinion / other

If they're diagnosed with DID or OSDD-1 or medically recognized or have the symptoms aligning with either I believe it's more reasonable. However I do think it's good to have the term alter kept to just DID and OSDD-1 because I see the term as being used more so when expressing there are barriers that need to be worked through between headmates.

Question thirteen - Xeno-origins

🐳 (XEY) - Supportive

Have fun honestly. If labels for yourself help you express and understand your own identity and feel safe and happy then go for it. We like looking for things we can sorta identify with and honestly it can just be comforting as an idea of "wow others experience splits from this too" or similar.

[hunterwritesstuff]

Saint Peter x Caspian?

Yeah! :D

🕊️📘 Their meeting was very,,,unconventional.

🕊️📘 Adam got annoyed with Saint Peter one day and straight up just like. Took him with him for an extermination one to see if that'd get him to shut up.

🕊️📘 He was scared at first, but once he got his bearings, he immediately went to look for a library.

🕊️📘 He ran into Caspian while the Overlord was in his smaller form, looking through the history section.

🕊️📘 The(seemingly) bird-man started chirping at Saint Peter, asking all sorts of questions, as he'd never seen a Saint in person before!

🕊️📘 Saint Peter answered and asked questions. The two asked questions back and forth until Peter noticed the time and had to leave.

🕊️📘 Current times, the two are pretty damn healthy, with Caspian sending Saint Peter up a book or two every-so-often.

🕊️📘 Adam only made his situation with Peter worse in taking him down, now he has Peter asking him if he can join him more often now.

🕊️📘 These two are literally the "He asked for no pickles" meme.

🕊️📘 Peter dragged Adam to meet Caspian once(He wanted to make sure Adam knew who he was meeting with-) and Adam sat there completely in AGONY because THERE'S TWO OF THEM NOW-

🕊️📘 Two nerds in love :)

[turning-pages-seeking-sages]

📖✨ Monthly Reading Wrap-Up

August 2024 Edition

📕 The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett Fantasy/Mystery | ★★★★☆ (4.5/5) A complex mystery unfolds in a world where magic is part of everyday life, forcing detectives to unravel the truth behind a series of high-profile murders. Review: A delightful mix of Attack on Titan, political intrigue unraveled by an autistic Sherlock Holmes-like character and a queer magically-augmented dyslexic sword-wielding sidekick.

📗 The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo Historical Fiction/Fantasy | ★★★★☆ (4.5/5) Set in 19th-century Malaysia, this tale weaves folklore with history as a woman discovers the magical secrets of an ancient spirit. Review: A beautiful tale of grief, love, magic, and myth that kept me thoroughly engaged.

📘 The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell Historical Fiction | ★★☆☆☆ (2/5) This novel explores the violent and turbulent times of England’s Viking invasions through the eyes of a dispossessed nobleman. Review: Uhtred is a Mary Sue and I don't know why more people don't call it out.

📙 Fifth Sun by Camilla Townsend Non-fiction/History | ★★★★★ (5/5) An enlightening account of Aztec history, told from the perspective of the Mexica people themselves, challenging commonly accepted narratives. Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book and plan on reading more historical nonfiction about Ancient Mexico.

📕 Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson Contemporary Fiction | ★★★★☆ (4/5) A multi-generational family drama unfolds as siblings discover hidden truths about their mother’s past and inheritance. Review: This book landed a few emotional punches, and I was not prepared.

📗 Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas Horror/Historical Fiction | ★★★★☆ (4/5) In 19th-century Texas, a young healer battles supernatural forces as the undead rise against the living. Review: I enjoyed the historical context of the backdrop but I wish there was more healing magic and horror.

📘 Slewfoot by Brom Horror/Fantasy | ★★★☆☆ (3/5) A Puritan widow in colonial New England makes a pact with a forest spirit to reclaim her land, but dark forces are at play. Review: It had promise but the pacing was off and Abitha made some infuriating choices.

📙 Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson Fantasy | ★★☆☆☆ (2/5) In a world of magical seas, Tress sets out on a perilous journey to save her friend, navigating dangerous waters and an evil sorceress. Review: I tried to read this book at least three times, but it just didn't click with me.

📕 Faerie Tale by Raymond Feist Fantasy | ★★★★☆ (4/5) A family moves into a rural house, only to find themselves entangled in an ancient faerie conflict that threatens their world. Review: Eerie and oddly nostalgic, this book reads more like a movie.

🔮 Reading Challenge Progress:

2024 Book Reading Challenge: 45/52 Progress: 87%

[ninja-muse]

2023 Release TBR

⭐️🏳️‍🌈 - queer rep     🇨🇦 - Canadian author    ⭐️ - BIPOC MC

📘 - have an ARC bold - newly added

Courting Dragons - Jeri Westerson (historical mystery) - January 3

In the Upper Country - Kai Thomas (historical fiction) - January 10 🇨🇦⭐️

On Savage Shores - Caroline Dodds Pennock (history) - January 24 ⭐️

Impossible Histories - Hal Johnson (history) - February 7 📘

Malady of the MInd - Jeffrey A. Lieberman (history/psychology) - February 21 📘

In a Land Without Dogs the Cats Learn to Bark - Jonathan Garfinkel (literary historical fiction) - February 21 📘🇨🇦

Rose/House - Arkady Martine (science fiction) - March

Greymist Fair - Francesca Zappia (YA fantasy) - March 28 📘

The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher - E.M. Anderson (fantasy) - April 21

Death of a Bookseller - Alice Slater (mystery) - April 25 📘

Moorewood Family Rules - HelenKay Dimon (contemporary fiction) - April 25 📘 DNF

The Disenchantment - Celia Bell (historical fiction) - May 16 📘🏳️‍🌈

The Water Outlaws - S.L. Huang (historical fantasy)  - June 20 🏳️‍🌈 ⭐️

The Ghost Theatre - Mat Osman (historical fiction) - June 27 📘

Lines Drawn Across the Globe - Mary C Fuller (history) - July 15

The Haunting Season - ed. Bridget Collins (horror/short stories) - August 1 (Canadian release)

Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon - Wole Talabi (contemporary fantasy) - August 8 ⭐️

Like Every Form of Love - Padma Viswanathan (memoir/true crime) - August 22 🇨🇦 🏳️‍🌈 📘 ⭐️

My Roommate is a Vampire - Jenna Levine (fantasy/romance) - August 29 📘

Dark Lord’s Daughter - Patricia C. Wrede (middle grade fantasy) - September 5 📘 

The Circumference of the World - Lavie Tidhar (slipstream) - September 5 ⭐️

Sleep No More - Seanan McGuire (urban fantasy) - September 9

The Undetectables - Courtney Smyth (urban fantasy) - September 26 🏳️‍🌈

Goth - Lol Tolhurst (cultural history/memoir) - September 26 📘

After the Forest - Kell Woods (historical fantasy) - October 3

Menewood - Nicola Griffith (historical fiction) - October 3 🏳️‍🌈 📘

While Idaho Slept - J. Reuben Appelman (true crime) - October 3

The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport - Samit Basu (science fiction) - October 3📘 ⭐️

Eve - Cat Bohannon (science/history) - October 3 📘

A Stroke of the Pen - Terry Pratchett (fantasy) - October 5

By Any Other Name - Erin Cotter (historical YA) - October 10 🏳️‍🌈📘

Being Ace - Madeline Dyer (YA nonfiction) - October 10 🏳️‍🌈📘

Under the Smokestrewn Sky - A. Deborah Baker (portal fantasy) - October 17

I Love Russia - Elena Kostyuchenko (journalism) - October 17 📘

Lay Them To Rest - Laurah Norton (true crime) - October 17 📘

The Innocent Sleep - Seanan McGuire (urban fantasy) - October 24

Emperor of Rome - Mary Beard (history) - October 24

The Bigfoot Queen - Jennifer Weiner (contemporary fantasy/middle grade) - October 24 📘

A Power Unbound - Freya Marske (historical fantasy) - November 7 🏳️‍🌈

In the Pines - Grace Elizabeth Hale (history) - November 7

All the Hidden Paths - Foz Meadows (fantasy romance) - December 5 🏳️‍🌈

Heartstopper, Vol. 5 - Alice Oseman (YA contemporary fiction) - December 12 🏳️‍🌈

Prescribed Burn - Arkady Martine (science fiction) - date unknown

[autistrope]

…So, I haven’t rambled about my OC playlists here. I do them both “Fits the Character in some Way” and “The Character would like this genre!” because I like making things unnecessarily hard for myself. I also make them strictly 1 hour and 30 minutes long (according to spotify).

some of them are my OCs, some of them are my Girlfriend’s OCs, most of them I try to spin a story out of the songs but it’d only make sense if you already knew the character and what they did in both their own story’s canon and ‘Displacement’ canon (basically an excuse we both made for all of them, magic past, technical futures, and completely different timelines and worlds, to crossover) which i don’t usually talk about them online because I can’t draw and I think people would rip me apart for it asdkjnekajndkajnddkj

…not all OCs listen to music that I like, making this a bit finicky, that and spotify likes to remove songs sometimes which is annoying because I can’t keep going back and changing it!…

Anyways, Links (in the titles) and Descriptors below the cut!!

🔮💚Bewitched🩸🏵️

An Anti-Folk/Folksy playlist for a terminally ill elven mage who has no real ability to talk to others without her severe anxieties getting in the way. Ends up summoning something she really shouldn’t have.

(One of mine)

💡🛟Catharsis🫧💭

Kawaii EDM/Future Bass songs for the little therapy bot that could! Unbeknownst to him, both he and his creator will become a major point in history for Constructs everywhere.

(One of My Girlfriend’s)

🤡🌈 Confetti 🍭🤹‍♀️

A Circus Music Playlist for a genuinely friendly alien clown who loves to make cotton candy art, who ends up finding more people like her thanks to a homeless wanderer… even if they aren’t clowns like herself!

(One of mine)

🔥🌺Debauchery🦑🍺

A bunch of more rebellious rock/punk songs for a genuinely deplorable magic user who while being known for starting both parties and riots at every tavern, has broken so many laws in her desire for “Freedom” that people start to take notice…

(One of Mine, Unfortunately)

🐓🪢Depersonalized🧿🍲

More Vintage feeling tracks for a chicken rancher who tries her hardest in the face of adversities, such as her parents passing too soon, her brother becoming a murderer, and eventually her own mental health.

(One of Mine)

📔👁Discipline⌛️📻

An Electro Swing playlist for a Robot Construct History Teacher who’s (rightfully) developed some serious trust issues after everything that’s happened to him.

(One of My Girlfriend’s)

🍆🍑Eroticism🍒🍇

Psychedelic Trance for an Eldritch Entity taking on the form of a tentacle monster that eventually reshapes everything in it’s own image just by giving people what they want…

(Shared!)

📘🫖Etiquette📰💧

A playlist of Piano Pieces for a tea party loving woman who witnesses her sisters be taken from her far too young and, without outside help, may never recover from it.

(One of Mine)

🥁🦴Fermata💿🏁

A Ska Playlist for a Rudeboy Musichead who’s just as surprised as everyone else why he’s suddenly a skeleton despite previously existing in a world where that was thought to be a complete fantasy.

(Shared!)

🪄 🔳 Gramarye📓🌒

A Minimal Techno playlist for the exhausted royal mage who should have payed closer attention to their things before someone else got a hold of it.

(One of Mine)

🥃🍆Hedonism🪙🧚

Electro House for a drunken, party loving larcenist who would do anything for a chance to live a better life and get out of the criminal group he’s stuck with. (One of Mine)

👻🩸Hyperarousal🍒💀

Darksynth songs for an android sex worker who loves himself some horror movies! Was just having some playful fun himself before he discovered a collective that helps people like him.

(One of my girlfriend’s)

🫂🌙 Interactionism💫🦋

Mostly Neurohop and Neurohop adjacent songs for a lil guy who, despite how his species typically is, was raised to be so much softer by a member of a softer species.

(One of my girlfriend’s, but the species is mine.)

☕️⚰️Intermit🍹👿

A special playlist for a receptionist who has had e-fucking-nough.

(One of my Girlfriend’s)

🩸🔪 Juvenile ☠️🥪

a Nu-Metal playlist for an edgy boy with a much worse brother who, after escaping said brother, discovers that he might not exactly be as human as he thought through the help of a homeless man.

(One of Mine)

🔎💥Magnification👣💧

Indietronica for an aspiring dork detective who’s absolutely ecstatic about being brought to a world where a bunch of other more fantastical species have been suddenly brought, too… until he actually has a reason to try and ‘play’ detective…

(One of Mine)

🔸🔩 Malignance 🖥⚠️

Future Rock/Metal for an aggressive and unstable entity who is trying to understand and adapt to this suddenly far less life-or-death world inhabited by “Humans”.

(One of Mine)

💻👀Memetic🌚🏳

Filter/French House Songs for a… uniquely coded creature who studied the extinct species who invented the internet before everything goes downhill.

(One of Mine)

🥣💪Nurturing🚸👤

Mellow Gold/Soft Rock for a clumsy, definitely human caregiver who’s doing his best to help others despite having notable gaps in his own memory…

(One of my Girlfriend’s)

🎀🧁Premature🥀🪦

An odd mix of songs for a little girl who somehow woke up after being stabbed in the back by her own sister and vows to grow up to make sure people like her don’t get off scot free at any cost…

(One of Mine)

👽🪡Preservation👾🐁

a weird mix of funky breaks and weirdcore for an eccentric child who wants to be a taxidermist when he grows up, and discovers (much to his delight) that his best (and only) friend is secretly an alien!

(One of Mine)

🍻⛔️Protection🎯🍳

A Permanent Wave playlist for a Bartender keeping all of his secrets under his skin and most of his loved ones under the Pub itself, away from any prying eyes with hostile intentions.

(One of Mine)

💐📝Pseudonym🍵🥀

Cello pieces for a woman who wants to make her (pen) name known across every species for being the first author of her species to write thriller books here.

(One of my Girlfriend’s)

🖤 🍃Quixotic🔋🫥

A playlist of Angsty Soundcloud ‘Hyperpop’(?) for a dating simulation wondering where his ‘master’ disappeared to…

(One of Mine)

🖥 🐏Rootkit⚖️🎥

Acidcore for a vengeful hacker who’s discovered that her and everyone she’s ever known has a chip in their head, and wants to target whoever/whatever’s responsible…

(One of Mine)

🤪🧨Simulacra♟😈

Ragtime and Dixieland for a woman who’s (poorly and stereotypically) pretending to be ‘crazy’. So ‘crazy’, in fact, that she couldn’t have possibly done any calculated murders while stealing someone else’s identity! Not at all!

(One of Mine)

💉😈Stimulation🍄🔫

Industrial Metal for some scabby prick who’ll do anything for a fix, even convincing two teenage boys to steal for him in exchange for a place to stay. also he shouldn’t be trusted near woman fyi

…also he dies twice in the story this playlist is trying to tell heehee

(One of my Girlfriend’s)

💫🖌Supernova🪢🌟

Lo-Fi Jazzhop for a spray-painting stoner living in her buddy’s basement with a clown, a cat, and some british kid. Isn’t subtle with her love for all things space, which she believes might just be ‘home’…

(One of Mine)

🏹📓Valiance🕯🎮

Epicore for an archer who desperately wants to be the hero of not just her own story, but the story of the island! Has the skills for it, but having the personality of a golden retriever might get in the way of her dreams…

(One of Mine)

📸🍕Vignette🫀🐳

An Indie Rock playlist for a man who was kicked out of his house by his poor ol’ sister and is making ends meet with this fantastic device he had commissioned! What a swell and pleasant and innocent man!

(One of Mine)

🗺☕️ Wanderlust ☀️🛤

Rock songs for a homeless drifter who loves the earth and all of its rich cultures, but is secretly on a mission to rescue as many of his own… kind as he can…!

(One of Mine)

…also, i am making more! :}

[tymstevens]

📔📘📕BEST COMICS: 2023

✭✭✭✭ BEST COMICS: 2023  ✭✭✭✭

Best Comics, All-Ages, Best Graphic Novels, Best Reissues!

➜ https://tymstevens.blogspot.com/2023/12/best-comics-2023.html