how we built this temple song by song

Kat | 30s | Writer | Femme Lesbian | Exclusion of or bigotry towards trans women inherently cannot be radical or feminist. All forms of anti-trans prejudice are incompatible with the greater lgbt and women’s liberation struggle.

[starsailorstories]

Sweet Chariot Intro Masterpost *UPDATED* 4/12/22

Sweet Chariot is a novel trilogy I’m writing, which begins with an alien starship pilot who crashed on earth & became a writer of pulp novels & her human neighbors, but spirals out into a historical epic set in a genderless all-lesbian society where sapient life evolved from the structure of stars and space travel is older than civilization.

If you’re new here, you’ve probably seen at least a few posts about it and presumably not known what was going on. These posts will give you quick overviews to help you remedy that situation!

This post will be updated as I make more/better introductory posts. Things that aren’t linked are posts I have planned/am drafting but haven’t made yet - one of the functions of this is so I can look at it when I feel like making a post and remind myself which ones I’ve been meaning to make. You DON’T have to read the entire thing to understand--just the “general world overviews” bits are enough to get 90% of my posts and start to get to know the characters! The character overviews are good to refer to if you wanna know who’s who and understand the jokes when I rib them on here. The rest is just extra fun nerdy stuff about the SC universe :)

You can read short stories involving these characters/settings on my patreon for $3 a month!

General world overviews (START HERE, everything else is optional):

astraeakind

the history of astraea spacefaring

The LGA in the Age of Exploration

The Nation of Basilea

the cosmonist goddesses (and here, have a side order of minor goddesses)

the lux class + lux signal reception powers, explained

Canon chronological order of all my SC writings + timeline

Character intro posts so far:

lux & rin

the earthling kids

twitch

shade

the ex-umbrali (Bolt & Deadeye)

the public girls (Blue, Oakley & Roco)

Cepheid

The Revelator Crew (core of the first rebellion)

Myoleta / Hestia / Grandina / The Taregan baronette (lol these 4 have nothing to do with each other it’s just a masterlist of skeevy bosses)

The Shessrun Abbey elders

The Bell Town leadership

The Bell Town sentries

Other notable Bell Town residents

Lionna & Definite

Caesuran rebels

Revelator Crew II

[a number of other characters who are being sorted out as the vol. 2 & 3 outlines take shape will eventually be added to this list]

Thematic posts (i.e. what I’m aiming to accomplish in the world with this project)

theses

why write an all-wlw species?

ramble about my perspective on writing lgbtq+ kids

collectivizing saving the universe

Misc. handy stuff

astraea biology ramble

how their ages work

what the veils/headcoverings mean (+ explanation of similia modesty)

terminology for relationships & families

More about astraea spaceships: (1)  (2) (3)

Space stuff: void-beasts | stories and superstitions | Levinoxia & the void as cultural entities

Suns, worlds & peoples masterpost

Family, marriage & courtship stuff masterpost

Languages

Guide to every deity/mythological figure mentioned in the book (and incantations/prayers/rituals/etc associated with them)

Guide to the political structure of the empire + legal system

Guide to different trades & industries that play a role in the plot

Guide to weapons & combat styles that play a role in the plot

The imperial calendar | The Ashtivan calendar

Concepts from astraea culture: delicisma | destigravitation | the high fidelities | honor binding | recitation | astrological temperament | praefulgaria

[starsailorstories]

Everywhere we've gone we're home

[starsailorstories]

I’ve been gone so long I forgot art with external links gets buried

[theofficialastronomy101]

Close up of Pluto from the New Horizons space probe.

Will be adding several more photos to this same post

[starsailorstories]

Everywhere we've gone we're home

[starsailorstories]

backstreet's back alright

[starsailorstories]

Ok this is gonna be quick bc I have deadlines but: I am not dead, answers to asks and whatnot soon, new content soon, I love you guys

[starsailorstories]

I love hanging out w/ lgbt+ people who have come out or figured out something important about their identity fairly recently...more often than not, even if it's been a rough time, they have this beautiful glow. You can see the sudden ease & freedom. I hope we get to a point where nobody ever has to keep such a huge part of themself secret, but in a way I'm also really grateful that I got to have that experience & that so many people I care about have gotten to have that experience. The contrast is so intense and so instructive. It's not that everything is suddenly painless and fine once you come out. I know people sadly whose lives got a lot more dangerous when they came out, heck, MY life got more dangerous when I came out. But to me at least (not that I can speak for anyone else) even the pain & fear occur in the context of this bracing aliveness that I wouldn't trade for the world.

[starsailorstories]

this is her MOMENT

[starsailorstories]

Also periodic refresher on commonly confused SC political terms, not because it actually matters at all but because I know we're all nerds here and why not split hairs:

Astraea is an umbrella term for all the sapient, humanoid (although they obviously don't think of themselves that way), astrobiological subspecies who evolved in the vacuum of space within the Andromeda galaxy. I translate all collective adjectives for them as "Andromedan," since that's what an earthling would call them. I know some of you guys use the term "astraean"/"astrean" when talking about my stuff and that is very cool and has my full support and approval, I just thought you'd want to know it isn't technically "canon compliant." But you don't have to stop lol

Altamaian is a group of ethnicities originating on Altamai who, because of historical land tenure, have a lot of social and political privilege in Basilean society. It's also the name of the official language of Basilea.

Basilean is a nationality thought of by the Hyperian dynasty and their supporters as encompassing the Seven Suns systems and the Rings, although some colonized peoples within the Seven Suns systems do not identify that way. It is heavily associated historically with the Basillan species identity, but not all Basillans are Basilean and not all Basileans are Basillan.

Basillan is the astraea subspecies, originating in the Atya system and historically associated with the planets Tarega, Altamai and Glasmiri, that the Hyperian Empresses belong to. Their nobility--the descendants of the Taregan Captain-Queens and Altamaian Avesian Maximatas--have colonized a significant portion of the galaxy in the period between the Flight era and the Hyperian era.

[starsailorstories]

yet again sketchdumps are all I have for you because we are Revising So Hard over here but please enjoy some babs on me

[starsailorstories]

#also do mine eyes deceive me or is that rin all decked out altamaian?

@theobhan​ well you see, in vol. 2 Auntie Lionna* takes them shopping so they’ll be Presentable At Court, which they’re thrilled about until the veils and gloves get so, so, so annoying

*be exactly as terrified by this concept as you think you should be

[biruesque]

take off!!!!!!!

[starsailorstories]

yet again sketchdumps are all I have for you because we are Revising So Hard over here but please enjoy some babs on me

[greencreeker]

Seattle Public Library is doing this awesome program called Books Unbanned that allows teens and young adults (ages 13-26) access to their collection of e-books and e-audiobooks from anywhere in the USA. All you need to do is fill out a simple form and you get their Books Unbanned card. Please share this information far and wide. I know they're not the only ones to have done this, but the more the merrier!

[hogwartzlou]

you can tell a lot about someone based on their phone background. it shows what’s most important to them

[uss-clairvoyant]

Reblog this and put what your phone background in the tags

[starsailorstories]

Things I’m sure Sivi said to Rin at some point during their various misadventures together: I would never make fun of you for speaking Altamaian like a Maculatan. However, I WILL make fun of you for speaking Altamaian like a 67-quinturn-old starship pilot, because although I know that is not your fault, it is objectively extremely funny

[starsailorstories]

The equivalent to this would be showing up at a random high school in 2023 communicating almost exclusively in 70s trucker slang

[starsailorstories]

Things I’m sure Sivi said to Rin at some point during their various misadventures together: I would never make fun of you for speaking Altamaian like a Maculatan. However, I WILL make fun of you for speaking Altamaian like a 67-quinturn-old starship pilot, because although I know that is not your fault, it is objectively extremely funny

[starsailorstories]

popping in for another q (totally no pressure to answer if you don’t want to, and sorry if i’m being a bit overbearing) do the belltownies with word names presumed translated from altamaian have canon untranslated names, and if so, what are they? (like, do you know what they’re actually called in altamaian?) is the english translation of their names exact, or is there some “localization” involved?

Don’t worry I LOVE questions, these make my day!! I made a post about this ages ago that I’m having trouble finding on mobile but will link later today, here’s the jist…

The quick answer is that the Anthesphoria girls generally use the names the earth kids gave them, which are their English names that appear in the book, among themselves (although there is bilingual wordplay in terms of affectionate nicknames; for instance “Caru” which translates literally to “Blue” but can also mean “excitable,” “emotional” or “extra” in colloquial Altamaian).

I’ve made mention of Shade and Bolt using Altamaian translations of their names as sort of public-facing names that will sound more familiar to their comrades in their later post-rebellion leadership, although Shade uses a somewhat indirect translation (Nubi, which in an Altamaian context means “shadow” or “obscuring haze/cloud”) to avoid the umbra- prefix that’s associated with “shadowing” a bigger more important body (as in “umbralis”). Bolt quite literally only ever puts “doctor (!) pessula filia tinnaturisai” on published research way down the road when she has her Legit Credentials, she’s Aunt* Boltie in person no matter who you are.

(*Teyah, again eventually once the Ashtivan language revival has begun in earnest. This is all post-canon stuff.)

As for other Bell Town folks, yes, they’re speaking Altamaian canonically and have Altamaian names although I’m shamed to admit that many of those are works in progress atm. They’re likely to be close but not exact bc i want them to have a similar “feel.” Matching the satisfying sound and pun potential of “Rugsnatcher” for instance in a new language is a delicate business and I’m kind of hoping the right thing will emerge organically as I work through the lexicon. I do think Dialtone (she gets to everything first lol) in Altamaian is going to be something like “Secuinexa,” which is “cut connection.”

Stay tuned because this is something I’m also curious about and actively working on. It’s going to be especially important for Rin’s pov in vol. 2 and 3 bc by that point they speak Altamaian/glossa via pretty fluently and are explicitly switching between languages in some scenes.

[theobhan-deactivated20231126]

doctor pessula fillia tinnaturisai !!! :o

i am EAGERLY awaiting rugsy’s untranslated name you have no idea