NorthaDawn

Hello there, I'm Northa. You may know me best for my works on depicting the Titanic as a human so I can present her story in a way other people would get into.

[northadawn]

Waking The Distant Sea

*UPDATED INTRODUCTION POST*

Hello everyone, I'm still NorthaDawn!

Here's the news I got for you: I along with a team of people are producing a game starring the humanised ship designs you've come to know from my art, called Waking The Distant Sea!

SYNOPSIS:

A depressed office worker longing for love passes out at their home after a high school reunion party, with most of their best mates happily living out their lives, but not themselves. They soon wake up on board the world's most mysterious luxury liner out in the middle of the ocean, inhabited by several eccentric passengers. With the voyage concluding in a month's time, the only wish they want to fulfil is to find love. But would that love last once the ship drops anchor upon arrival?

Just remember, this isn't a game about ships.

FEATURES:

5 dateable characters and 1 quirky wingwoman

Various on-board activities

A gift shop!

A nice cabin to sleep in

Several unique side plots to go through

A plethora of unique endings in the double digits

CAST:

RMS Titanic

RMS Olympic

HMHS Britannic

RMS Lusitania

RMS Mauretania

RMS Aquitania

...and more

TEAM:

NorthaDawn - Direction

toot-uncommons - Writer

Metalsulfur - Writer

V - Writer

mary-queen-of-longbeach - Writer

lil-meilian - Sprite Artist

Wavysunn - Environment Artist

dewa-chan - CG Artist

I've always wanted to make this game ever since I first thought of the idea of making a humanisation of the RMS Titanic, and it's been a dream that I realised that I can make into reality now. It's also my love letter and confession of disdain towards everything I've come to know in the Titanic community, mostly the gijinka circle of it. I won't be alone in this journey! You will get to see @lil-meilian's art grace each character (along with her own Cunard trio being a part of the game!), and the brilliant writing of @toot-uncommons and @mary-queen-of-longbeach! We sincerely hope you'll enjoy it.

That's it for now, I hope you'll look forward to what's next!

Distant Heart Studios 2026

[northadawn]

woe, rms titanic gijinka be upon ye

Without A Whisper - RMS Titanic (uncovered version)

[northadawn]

Without A Whisper - RMS Titanic

I'm slowly forgetting your face.

[northadawn]

so i got older (and i graduated)

that's the post. thank you.

Jokes aside, hi again, I'm NorthaDawn, and it's been quite a weird time in my life, really. I don't want to turn into a whole yapfest like I usually do, but I'll give a few updates on how I'm going.

1 - Exactly what it says on the title

So yeah! I recently graduated from university! A lot has changed since entering university at a weird time where we're still trying to transition back to daily life as the pandemic clears, along with the fact that university has given me a lot of joys, pains, and experiences that I'll continue to take with me moving forward.

In addition, just recently, I got older again! I'm now an unc+5 (23), and I can already feel my 2nd adult life debuff coming my way, lmao. I'm currently helping around with my family and colleagues, it's quite a weird time for me as a fresh post-graduate.

2 - Project Updates

I'll keep it brief and cut to the chase.

FULL biographies for RMS Lusitania, Mauretania, Aquitania, and HMHS/RMS Britannic done. I'm currently making their designs and reference sheets, and I'll be posting them once I get them down! Progress for a full RMS Titanic ref sheet is still underway too.

REVISED RMS Olympic biography. The people over in the Gijinkacord Discord Server has already had a taste of what I have written down, but to give you all a little teaser... it gets intense, like...if there's a term to summarise Olyvia McLoughlin's new bio, it's "hedonism". (You can also see it for yourself in my Instagram's highlights)

Games are still under development! This includes Waking The Distant Sea, and two other games that I'm currently involved with that I can't share the details of yet, but I'll give details once more progress goes underway!

So yeah, I'll be sure to give something good really soon! But for now, why not come join our Discord server? Some of the very best artists in the Titanic Gijinka Community are a part of it, why not join?

Thank you for your continued support!

-NorthaDawn

THERE IS STILL A VOYAGE TO EMBARK ON

[northadawn]

northadawn is 100% human made

just a quick reminder that all of my work is human made

anyways stay tuned, new yapfest from me coming in a few hours

[northadawn]

psa: the philippines banned tumblr lol

so... the philippines classified tumblr as a "gambling site" after the CICC executive aboy paraiso claimed to have done a "month-long documentation and verification of illegal gambling sites"

and yet in the "access restricted" page, you can clearly see them push sites like bet88.

the philippine government everybody, doing everything but actually banning the root cause of harm

fuck me bruh

[northadawn]

so i just learned more about conte di savoia and her design and stuff and this is honestly my honest reaction

[sealstuff]

crazy ooc probably

[piratespacex]

WHERES QM?! (Ft the community’s Oly gijinka)

Full comic below

[piratespacex]

3 refs instead of 1 since I forgot to post them. Go further down to see their bios.

RMS Olympic - she’s my favourite ocean liner as her entire career is so interesting and fascinating, especially how badass and for me, really deserves the unsinkable Olympic is the elder sister to Titanic and Britannic, both she loved dearly and the loses of the two broke her, but she learnt to open up again, many many years later. One of the ships that helped her most was Mauretania, her long time rival and probable gf, she adores her alot and even shared a room with her when she moved to the Cunard house during the merging of Cunard and white star which Maury really loved.

HMHS Britannic - Personally out of the Olympic class trio, she’s the one design I like least, not because it’s bad but I guess it’s because of the colours, but they look fine. Despite her short life span, she made a good impression to every ship she’d met, so good in fact that even Lusitania, the D1 hater of white star liners, grew to like her and call her a friend, so when news of Britannic death came, Lusitania was nearly as devasted as Olympic was.

RMS Lusitania - I’ve born to like little old Lucy a lot, mostly because short tempered women are my jam. And also because I really wanted another angry Scottish woman. Lusitania is the strong willed but short tempered liner of the Cunard line, proud and confident, she demands respect and gets it. She has this irrational hatred and vendetta against the white star line, more or less feeling attacked by them daring to make ships better than Cunard. She would’ve love QM

[northadawn]

why is your titanic named Emily mcloughlin?

I named her Emily McLoughlin because…

Truth be told, I just thought it's a fun name to say lmao

I mean, I just didn't really want to follow the trend of calling a Titanic humanisation "Nikki", so I just tried to come up with a fun name, and "Emily McLoughlin" came to mind. I later made her full name "Emily McLoughlin Elsbury," got approval from several friends I know from Ireland and Liverpool, and...rest is history :)

[northadawn]

so, RMS Olympic appears in the new Azur Lane update and...

WHAT DID THEY DO TO YOU GIRLIEPOP

NAH

They really reduced the ocean liner who has a confirmed kill on a U-boat in WW1 to this 😭💀💀💀

anyways check out my own olympic :)

[northadawn]

A few clarifications (NorthaDawn's October 2025 Update)

So many of you have sent messages asking about my retirement among other things, and I figured that I'll make a post to clarify a few things and talk about other things.

1) Am I retiring?

No.

I've said it in my previous write-up, but no, I won't be retiring just yet. I do want to do other things, make other art, and post about my other interests, but this doesn't mean that I'll completely abandon making ship and gijinka content. There has been a few things happening around that didn't sit well with me, but at the end of the day, I still owe my current life to doing Titanic content and gijinka art, and I don't see myself completely moving on from it- there will always be a place in my life and heart for it. I still want to make more designs, I still want to complete Waking The Distant Sea, I still want to make stories regarding ocean liner gijinkas. But I do want to do other things, make other art, and pursue other interests. I hope you understand!

2) What's going on with Waking The Distant Sea?

It's still in progress, I promise.

While a bunch of the team has been busy with many other life commitments, please understand that our silence doesn't mean that the game isn't being worked on. We only release information to you guys once we feel that there are things ready to be shown and/or talked about.

So far, Heartslash Art has been focusing on these key aspects:

Revising the current routes' focuses and flow

Polishing the "real-world" narrative of the game

Working on character sprites and backgrounds

Reworking the game systems

We recently got a new and very talented writer to join the team, and she's been doing a lot of the revisions of the "real-world" narrative of the game. She's referred to as "V", and here's an update from her on the status of the game's writing:

The core focus I'm working on with Northa is the "real world" narrative. It was mentioned in the official synopsis that the game is about "A depressed office worker longing for love passes out at their home after a wild high school reunion party, with most of their best mates finding partners, but not themselves." That will be changed up a little bit. We're giving more focus on the main character, the character that you're playing as. I hope that what we have in store will make you feel something! We as the writers haven't made much public updates because we've been having fun with the plot. Probably too much fun, it's fun to make fun things. This game will still take time, but we're having a lot of fun writing this story.

Apart from that, things are still the same: @lil-meilian is still the sprite artist for the game, @toot-uncommons is still working on some of the game's writing, I'm still the director of the project, and things are still going step-by-step as is.

We hope to give you a more substantial update on the game soon! If you want to have closer access to the development of the game, and if you want to chat with other ocean liner gijinka artists, come join my server, GIJINKACORD!

3) What have I been up to?

To be honest, I've been busy with some other projects outside of NorthaDawn that need my attention, a game with Sector 5 (same team behind Lights Off) that I can't give full details on yet, and some other projects behind NDAs. I'm still focusing on giving content as NorthaDawn, and there are things that I'm excited to show you, such as this story that I'm working on with @toot-uncommons, but it's been a hectic time for me and I want to prioritise those fronts first, so I hope you understand.

Additionally, I want to thank you for helping me reach 100+ favourites on Mirror's Edge, my 2025 Titanic Anniversary artpiece. Your support always means so much to me. 🖤

Thank you for your continued support!

-Northa

THERE IS STILL A VOYAGE TO EMBARK ON

[northadawn]

On any other ship this would be their big "incident". But this barely makes Olympic's top 3.

[northadawn]

the uma that sold the world

[distantheartstudios]

A reserved yet bubbly girl who would talk your ear off about her favourite ocean liners. But who is she exactly?

Perhaps you'll be able to see her in Waking The Distant Sea?

Post by @northadawn · 1 image

💬 4  🔁 4  ❤️ 27 · Waking The Distant Sea · *UPDATED INTRODUCTION POST* Hello everyone, I'm still NorthaDawn! Here's the news I got for you

[toot-uncommons]

I need to go to bed