TR Updates

TR content on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TransienceRealized

Changelog also on Mastodon (no longer updated): https://mastodon.social/@TransienceRealized

All updates from first to last: http://transiencerealized.tumblr.com/tagged/update/chrono (years given in the epoch of Eva. 1 Eva = 1967 CE)

All posts from first to last (including bonus content): http://transiencerealized.tumblr.com/tagged/tr/chrono

Bonus content only: http://transiencerealized.tumblr.com/tagged/omake/chrono

See the bibliography and tag index.

Development of the Tanō language is going well. Here are some example sentences:

Haka ha tlomopor ha tlāi. two a want.pearl a man 'Scavengers don't get along with men.' (lit. 'a pearl-wanter and a man are two')

In tīoton ka nirānol noh ahlō. P come.round the head.know as.a moth 'The sage was reborn as a moth.' (lit. 'the knowing-head came-round as a moth')

New work on AO3: Valiant Labs Culture Test.

New work on AO3: Summary of a Recurring Argument.

New work on AO3: BV.

Writing a culture test for Valiant Labs. A brief section of the current draft is included under the cut:

Below is every Tanō word collated in my personal notes. There are 188 entries as of April 2026.

Added the following disclaimer to the beginning notes of the Hearthian Grammar:

Hakuun is a conculture of mine that has recently come from the backburner to the front of the stove. The below text is a section from an in-progress overview of Hakuunese religion. If and when the full thing is complete, expect to see it on AO3.

—

The name Hakuun (白雲, literally "white clouds") was given by Outer Heaven colonists to a world that consists of an island floating high above the equator of a cloudy and sunny planet. Its lowlands are tropical and its mountains chilly. Thousands of years ago, humans from modern Earth were cast to the island; they seeded the indigenous population who call their home Kovnund, the "world prison".

The common ancestor of the languages of Hakuun, as revealed by the comparative method, is unmistakably Spanish, albeit a form that had already undergone generations of phonological and syntactic change. Linguists from Valiant Labs dub this family Nietic, after the Spanish root niet- "grandchild".

The first Hakuunese humans came from an industrialized world, but they did not have the means to recreate terrestrial technology. They and their children had no choice but to live as stone-age farmers. The only technologies that survived were the ones tenable for their environment, including language and religion.

Writing survived the transition—the letters in use in Hakuun today descend from the Latin alphabet—but not any permanent medium for it. There are no attested Hakuunese inscriptions in Spanish or Proto-Nietic.

Most Spanish speakers are Christian; the first Hakuunese most likely were as well. The tenets of Hakuunese religion make sense as mutations of Christian beliefs after millennia of oral tradition. They believe in a supreme god, in angels, and that humanity's current state is downstream of having betrayed their god. The Bible did not survive the transition to Hakuun. There is no memory of it nor of the terrestrial places and events described therein. Any belief in a messiah figure vanished before the historical record begins.

Hakuun was isolated from the Playhouse until recent years (circa the 2020s CE by the Labs' reckoning). The first outsiders to visit were Gaitenjin seeking food and water. As the mainland of Outer Heaven is a desolate rock, its settlements need to cling to portals to fertile worlds. The colonists set up farms in the mountains, as that's where the portal led. This meant there was little initial contact between Gaitenjin and the Hakuunese, as the cities all lie in the lowlands. Another portal links Hakuun to Valiant Labs, similarly opening in an uninhabited area.

Tweaked the overview of PJ to fit with more recent ideas. Removed mentions of his "draconic traits".

Tags can be browsed from earliest to latest by suffixing /chrono to the URL.

#tr — Every post on this blog.

#blog — Conversational posts. #conlang — Posts featuring constructed languages. #lexember — Participation in the Lexember conlanging event. #meta — Commentary on the project or this blog. #omake — Posts that are not updates. #update — Changelogs and news.

It annoys me that I put Gabbro in the Labs.

My reasoning, when I was writing the Hearthian grammar, was that if the events of Outer Wilds happened in a live-action world instead of a papier-mâché theatre bound by game mechanics, the Hatchling would try to convince (or coerce?) their only peer in the time loop to join them to the final location.

But it just rings false to have Gabbro alive after the time loop. The Hatchling's thing is that they're the last of their kind. It's deliberate that I write about Timber Hearth in the past tense—that planet's gone; the whole solar system's nothing but cosmic dust in another world. The gameplay of Outer Wilds takes place in that world's final moments, and the game's programming doesn't allow you to even suggest taking Gabbro with you.

(That's my qualm with every post-loop AU, really. No matter how well-written and compelling they are, they break the rules. They cannot fit within the terms set by the game.)

It's a bad decision to put Gabbro in there next to the Hatchling, alive and well. I don't like it and I won't stick with it.

I've begun work on a second edition of the Hearthian grammar, and one thing this entails is coining scientific vocabulary, including Hearthian names for the atomic elements. Here's a glimpse at that.

Prehistoric elements

Some elements can just be dug up out of the ground and are therefore easy for a low-tech culture to identify. The names for these are short and opaque: brant (iron), diyr (gold), oog (lead).

Noble gases

As humans did, Hearthians first identified helium from the light emission spectrum of their sun, hence the name grotyrn "sun-air". Neon is ykliimyrn "float-air" for being less dense than the atmosphere; conversely, argon is liimyrn "heavy-air".

Readers familiar with Hearthian morphology may ask, why is "float" ykliim instead of yliim? That's because it's underlyingly yk-ol-liim "un-apply-heavy"; the l in ol is deleted by contact with the identical l in liim, and the o is subject to intertonic vowel deletion. The k in yk is brought out by a vowel to the right, and it stays even if that vowel goes away.

Heavier noble gases were named for their atomic numbers: krypton is linkyrn "36-air", xenon omdathligyrn "54-air" (lit. "one-three-zero-air"), and radon rozrozrozyrn "86-air" (lit. "two-two-two-air"). This fallback strategy applied to any element that hadn't been isolated but was predicted to exist.

Biochemical elements

Timber Hearth life was based on carbon, or railok "charcoal-stuff". The atmosphere was mostly nitrogen (ypthyrn "un-breath-air") and oxygen (zakyrn "fire-air" for its role in combustion). Metabolic processes require water as a solvent, which is made of hydrogen, aptly named vizyrn "water-air".

Sodium (klornzok "salt-crystal-stuff", a self-explanatory name) is necessary for nerve function and fluid balance, and magnesium (chornzok "spinel stuff" for its presence in that gem) plays a critical role in synthesis of DNA.

Hearthians shared our hypothesis that alien life could substitute carbon with silicon (drinzok "quartz stuff"). The only alien species known to them, the Nomai, were also carbon-based.

Arsenic and mercury were named for their poisonous properties: respectively zerchril "stop-heart" and zerchan "stop-nerve". (Cinnabar ore is tyvzyrch, from tyev-zerchan "red-mercury".)

Elements found in minerals

Many elements were named for gems and rocks that contain them. Sodium, magnesium, and silicon are mentioned above. Beryllium (kimkrok) comes from beryl (kimkor), boron (chimvok) from borax (chimov), aluminum (targraz) from corundum (taree), sulfur (zaktrok) from pyrite (zaktir), potassium (ympvok) from feldspar (ympov), and titanium (notrok) from rutile (notir).