Jasperflynn: /* The town */

2026-04-22T21:54:09Z

The town

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:54, 22 April 2026
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	Verdant is not a fantasy setting. It is a small New England college town that looks and feels like any other until you have been there long enough to notice that people tend to give themselves permissions here they would not grant elsewhere. The atmosphere is real. The college is real. The bars, the bookshop, the motorcycle club that drinks at the dive bar on the northern edge of town — all real.		Verdant is not a fantasy setting. It is a small New England college town that looks and feels like any other until you have been there long enough to notice that people tend to give themselves permissions here they would not grant elsewhere. The atmosphere is real. The college is real. The bars, the bookshop, the motorcycle club that drinks at the dive bar on the northern edge of town — all real.

	What is underneath is also real, but most characters never encounter it directly. [[Professor William Taylor]] has lived and worked in Verdant for four years and does not believe in any of it. He benefits from it anyway. In [[Comply]], [[Haley Wegner]] encounters the supernatural directly and unavoidably. Most SSU stories sit somewhere between those two poles ~~— the~~ magic present but peripheral, shaping events without announcing itself.		What is underneath is also real, but most characters never encounter it directly. [[Professor William Taylor]] has lived and worked in Verdant for four years and does not believe in any of it. He benefits from it anyway. In [[Comply]], [[Haley Wegner]] encounters the supernatural directly and unavoidably. Most SSU stories sit somewhere between those two poles. The magic is present but peripheral, shaping events without announcing itself.

	The full history of the town is documented in [[History of Verdant]] for readers who want it. It is not required reading for any individual work.		The full history of the town is documented in [[History of Verdant]] for readers who want it. It is not required reading for any individual work.

Jasperflynn: Created page with "== About == The '''Subconium Shared Universe''' (SSU) is a connected fictional world centered on Verdant, Connecticut and Eastern Tsuga College. Its works are primarily dark contemporary romance and psychological thriller. Power dynamics, desire, identity, and the charged atmosphere of a college town that has always operated by its own rules are at the center of every story. The supernatural elements of the SSU are real but they are rarely the point..."

2026-04-22T21:52:39Z

Created page with "== About == The '''Subconium Shared Universe''' (SSU) is a connected fictional world centered on Verdant, Connecticut and Eastern Tsuga College. Its works are primarily dark contemporary romance and psychological thriller. Power dynamics, desire, identity, and the charged atmosphere of a college town that has always operated by its own rules are at the center of every story. The supernatural elements of the SSU are real but they are rarely the point..."

New page

== About ==
The '''Subconium Shared Universe''' (SSU) is a connected fictional world centered on [[Visit Verdant|Verdant, Connecticut]] and [[Eastern Tsuga College]]. Its works are primarily dark contemporary romance and psychological thriller. Power dynamics, desire, identity, and the charged atmosphere of a college town that has always operated by its own rules are at the center of every story. The supernatural elements of the SSU are real but they are rarely the point.

Verdant has a hidden history. A spell cast in 1667 has shaped the town's social life ever since. An organization called [[House Subconium]] knows about it. Dangerous artifacts are in circulation. None of this is what the stories are about. It is the condition under which the stories happen.

Readers who come to the SSU for dark romance and psychological drama will find what they are looking for. Readers who stay long enough will start to notice the architecture underneath.

All SSU works are documented in-universe by [[Jasper Flynn]], a narrative journalist commissioned by [[House Subconium]] to research and preserve Verdant's true history. Flynn's position is that the events he documents are real. This wiki is part of that record.

== The town ==
Verdant is not a fantasy setting. It is a small New England college town that looks and feels like any other until you have been there long enough to notice that people tend to give themselves permissions here they would not grant elsewhere. The atmosphere is real. The college is real. The bars, the bookshop, the motorcycle club that drinks at the dive bar on the northern edge of town — all real.

What is underneath is also real, but most characters never encounter it directly. [[Professor William Taylor]] has lived and worked in Verdant for four years and does not believe in any of it. He benefits from it anyway. In [[Comply]], [[Haley Wegner]] encounters the supernatural directly and unavoidably. Most SSU stories sit somewhere between those two poles — the magic present but peripheral, shaping events without announcing itself.

The full history of the town is documented in [[History of Verdant]] for readers who want it. It is not required reading for any individual work.

== The works ==

=== Making the Grades (novel series) ===
[[Making the Grades]] is a novel series following students at [[Eastern Tsuga College]] across consecutive semesters. Each book has a different protagonist. A psychology professor named [[Professor William Taylor]] connects them all.

* [[Making the Grades: Kelly's Unveiling]] — Published 2025
* [[Making the Grades: Allie's Descent]] — In progress
* Making the Grades: Heather's Awakening — Forthcoming

=== Comply (visual novel) ===
[[Comply]] is a visual novel set one year after Making the Grades. Its protagonist is a freshman named [[Haley Wegner]]. Her story involves an artifact that has been sitting in a vault since 1929 and a shopkeeper who decided it was time to use it. Comply is set in the same Verdant, with the same organizations operating in the background, but its cast and its concerns are entirely its own.

== How the works connect ==
The SSU is not a crossover universe. Protagonists do not guest star in each other's stories. The connections run deeper than that and quieter. The same town. The same spell acting on everyone within it. The same objects moving through different hands across different years. The same family whose decisions echo forward across generations. Readers who have spent time in Verdant will recognize things that the characters in any given story cannot yet see.

That gap between what the reader knows and what the characters know is one of the SSU's primary pleasures.

== Jasper Flynn ==
[[Jasper Flynn]] is the in-universe author of all SSU works. He is a narrative journalist commissioned by [[House Subconium]] to document Verdant's true history, the one the Chamber of Commerce does not promote and the Historical Society actively suppresses. He is also believed to have a working relationship with the [[Intendment Institute]], a clandestine clinical organization with roots in Verdant.

Flynn's framing is consistent across all works: these events happened. He documented them. The reader is encountering the record.

His external site is [https://jasperflynn.com jasperflynn.com].

== This wiki ==
This wiki is part of Flynn's documentation project. It is maintained as a reference for the people, places, organizations, artifacts, and history of the SSU. It is comprehensive where the published works are selective. It contains information the characters in those works do not have access to.

[[House Subconium]] would prefer you did not read it carefully.

== Related articles ==
* [[Visit Verdant]]
* [[History of Verdant]]
* [[House Subconium]]
* [[The Hemlock Veil]]
* [[Making the Grades]]
* [[Comply]]
* [[Jasper Flynn]]
* [[Delacroix Family]]

[[Category:Meta]]

Subconium Shared Universe - Revision history

Jasperflynn: /* The town */