Nocticadia

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness, death, sexual violence, child abuse, racism, and gender discrimination.

Nocticadia is populated with taboo or high-risk relationships: Several students are involved with professors, professors have affairs with each other, and all of these dynamics repeatedly lead to emotional or physical consequences for at least one party. Mel, a student and daughter of the school chairman, used to sleep with Provost Lippincott, whom she became party to murder with in their efforts to cover up Lippincott’s former crimes. Gilchrist tries to coerce Devryck into continuing their affair after he loses sexual interest in her, and she sexual assaults another student, Spencer, and blackmails him into doing her bidding. The protagonist, Lilia, is the daughter of Lippincott and Vanessa, a participant in a medical study he worked on—an unethical relationship that further influenced the research project before Lippincott ruined it entirely. These overlapping relationships expose how the boundaries between personal desire and institutional exploitation are constantly blurred, with romantic or sexual entanglements often weaponized for control, revenge, or reputation management.

This leads into the primary romance between Lilia and Devryck. They are attracted to one another instantly, but they fight these feelings for many reasons.