Children of Time is a 2015 science fiction novel by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

In the distant future, humanity seeks to create new habitats for itself on distant planets, terraforming them and seeding them with life. Dr. Avrana Kern is heading one such project, orbiting the tentatively named "Kern's World", where the plan is to release monkeys le-monke infected with a nanovirus that will accelerate their evolution. Through an act of sabotage from an anti-technology group that has also destroyed much of Earth, the monkeys are never released, and the virus instead infects a species of spider, Portia labiata. The book follows the evolution of the spiders and their eventual civilisation, as well as a remnant of humanity that fled to Kern's World hoping to find paradise.

also children of ruin and children of memory, the sequels, are really good

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  • Thallo [she/her]
    ·
    2 days ago
    spoiler

    I'm starting to feel like I deserve a toxic relationship or something

    You do not. You're just hurting right now.

    I need something, I need someone to feel something at me

    This is a totally normal human need, trans or not

    Maybe this is the trans experience, commenters and peers alike watching me spit and sputter until I deflate like a balloon. "We will not, shall not, intervene until you say the magic words"

    I'm sorry to say there are no magic words. People try to help here and give support, but it's always just solidarity and advice. This kind of pain is part of the trans experience but it is far from the entirety. Figuring this shit out really hurts, but there's beauty in it as well.

    Do you all just have communities IRL? Because for me the lack of in person community has been the biggest hurdle to figuring anything out, and yet Hexbear reacts to me with "befuddlement" because I yearn for community.

    I don't have one. I wish I did. Closest I have is online friends I met here. It's really normal to want to be around other queer people, to talk with them, to touch them. It's hard when you don't have it. I really can't imagine that anyone here is befuddled by that.

    I want to experience sex as a woman. I want someone to see me as desirable, irresistible. I want to make someone go crazy because I'm magic to them.

    Yeah, I mean, I've felt this exact same way. Of course, who wouldn't want to feel that way?

    To be honest, you're really beating yourself over these things, and it seems like the self judgements are hurting you a lot. You paint yourself as some kind of outsider, but I don't think anything you've ever posted has been very problematic or even strange. I see you, and I see a very typical trans person who is in pain and is saying normal trans things.

    If you're yearning for community, I suggest finding local queer gatherings. It will ease the pain.