#thewinterstale

this is a very sweet message! it genuinely surprised me to be described as "prolific" -- for some reason, i still think of myself as a slow/inconstant writer. but then i look at my ao3 and, huh, yeah, i really HAVE been writing a lot recently. i'm proud of that!

honestly i think it's very helpful to write so many different fandoms. i'm sure it's the opposite for other people, but personally, i really love skipping between different fics as they inspire me/i'm in the right mood for them. and i think having different fics for different fandoms helps me maintain a Variety Of Tone that makes that feasible.

As a former science educator, it is my moral duty to have and share cool science facts. ;)

Would you believe that humans are more closely related (evolutionarily speaking) to a sea urchin than to an octopus?

One of our strongest pieces of evidence for this comes from the study of embryonic development, or embryology. Some time after germ cells combine to form a single-celled zygote, the cell divides several times to form a hollow sphere of cells called a blastula. In animals with bilateral body plans (i.e., digestive tract surrounded by a separate internal body cavity, with a mouth at one end and an anus at the other), that digestive tract begins forming as the blastula undergoes gastrulation, a process by which one part of the surface of the sphere turns in on itself.

This initial opening into the digestive tract, the blastopore, is either the mouth or the anus. In protostomes ("mouth-first"), the blastopore is the the mouth! As the digestive tract develops, it will eventually form an anus at the other end of the embryo. In deuterstomes ("mouth-second"), the mouth... forms second. The blastopore is the anus.

As it turns out, many worms, slugs, and the like - including molluscs and cephalopods - are protostomes. Deuterostomes then encompass many of the creatures you might name with bilateral body plans (and related, radial body plans like starfish and sea urchins), including arthropods, birds, fish, reptiles, mammals, even tunicates! And humans.

@thewinterstale​ first off, please drop your lyctoral timelines because I need them. Second, have some hazy timeline thoughts

Lyctorhood happened approximately 200 years post resurrection. By that time, all the Houses had been established long enough that Cytherea’s hereditary cancer was something actively cultivated. I think this speaks to 3+ generations on the Seventh, minimum. Augustine says that Mercy was “out hammering at the Eighth House before the paint was even dry on the Resurrection”. From all of this I’m going to go on a wild guess that most of the Houses were up and running 50 years post resurrection.

I also think in that time the Canaan House disciples went back and forth between the First and the Houses, probably for short periods because their immortality was tied to proximity to John, but I really think they were very influential in shaping the cultural fundations of the empire. John obviously was the vague blueprint, but he’s not the micromanaging type at all; I think it’s more likely he just pointed his gang at some humanity cultural staples he decided would be cool to keep, and they hammered out the finer details into something they liked that John would be cool with. I especially think a lot of the more ritualistic / religious aspects were set up by the og Lyctors. Obviously Cristabel but pre-Nona I also used to think Augustine and partly still do. He has that flair.

The cav/necro relationship I think was determined around this time. I assume it really evolved spontaneously; some of The Gang had necromancy, some didn’t, it was the right number to pair up and they still worked together doing research (see Pyrrha) and at some point they figured that the non-necros could specialize in more martial activities (again, Pyrrha founding the Cohort). We know that the “one flesh/one end” mantra was developed around the time Valancy was around, so probably at least 100 years post-resurrection, but also I think there was a less formalized “necromancer / companion” tradition already developing among the Houses, because most of them had been founded by a necromancer and their non-adept “companions”.

One thing I’m less clear on, and think about all the time, is what happened immediately post resurrection. Because when in HtN John references knowing Augustine before the resurrection, Augustine is all “thanks for confirming that!” which to me implies that this isn’t a conversation they’ve had before, at least not in depth. It can be read as Augustine not being sure up to that moment that he’d known John, or it can be interpreted as them just not talking about it, but either ways I get the vibe that in the very very early days John was relatively hands-off with his friends. Maybe it was guilt over removing their memories, maybe grief, in any case he was 100% spying on them from afar, but I have so  many questions. Did he resurrect them first, or did he experiment on someone else first to figure out what would happen? (Maybe Ulysses and Titania?) Was there any sort of support infrastructure on Earth before the Houses were established? Did he single out his friends straight away or played it cool for a while? At which point was everyone summarily kicked off Earth except the handful of chosen ones? Desperately need to know etc.

but, again, she lived for a few THOUSAND years, so the concept of "freaky" becomes progressively more subjective

THIS. She was married :)) she liked to cook :)) she kept her wife's ceramics collection :)) but she was also an immortal RB expert AND a sloppy drunk so she definitely got sloshed and had fun with the others. Then she woke up, she put herself together, and buried herself in work for like a century.

By the way! The fact that Cassiopeia was apparently super possessive of Nigella and that they had been married in another life and STILL Nigella died for her (and she was far from the last to ascend!) tells me that Cassy's ascension was something like G1deon & Pyrrha, where Nigella went to her death with her eyes open and saying something like, I love you, I'm giving you my life, live well for me and use it—I think she carried less grief than someone like Mercy, who never got to make a choice or say goodbye, and genuinely DID try to not live in regret and do something worthwhile with her immortality and power.

#23 is Love Like This by Xana!

Her entire Tantrums album is no skips for me tbh. Also a fun fact that I learned today when I saw her little Spotify messages video is that her name is pronounced "Ex-ana" rather than "Zana" like I've been saying this whole time, whoops.