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esotericfaery · 1 year ago

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Winter Reading Picks, 2023: Top 11 Novels (Middle-Grade, Teen & Adult)

It's colder and will only get even more cold in the Northern Hemisphere. So here are my top reads for this year. Get your tea, coffee, cat, dog, and the comfiest spot on the couch. In no particular order, here are my top shelf novels of the year.

TLDR: ★★★★★ "Cleo McCarthy Time Travel and Other Impossible Things", by Michael Poeltl ★★★★★ "Journey to Jumbalot", by Ryan Wakefield ★★★★★ Seven Sisters of Avalon, "Book 7: Jasmine of Avalon" & the finale, "Book 8: Violet of Avalon", by Katrina Rasbold. ★★★★★ "Emma’s Dragon, Book 2: London and Pemberley", by M. Verant ★★★★★ "The Between State", by Joseph A White Jr ★★★★★ "Wilde Grove: Golden Heart", by Katherine Genet ★★★★★ "The Other AJ Hartford", by Addison Michael ★★★★★ "The Byways: A Novel", by Mary Pascual ★★★★★ "A Gift of Leaf", by H.A. May

Best four-star reads of the year; for when you run out of other novels:

★★★★ "Follow the Shadows: The Tales of Moerden Book 1", by Rosemary Drisdelle ★★★★ "The Possibilities", by Yael Goldstein-Love

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★★★★★ "Cleo McCarthy Time Travel and Other Impossible Things", by Michael Poeltl

"Poeltl's ability to weave romance, mystery, and pure science fiction-based subplots into one riveting adventure is what makes Cleo McCarthy: Time Travel And Other Impossible Things a one-of-a-kind reading experience." - Readers' Favorite 5-star review The first time Cleo feared for her life was when she was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s at 23. The second time is when she discovered she could travel back in time at 24. While she is offered guidance from fellow time traveler Franklin, she is plagued by a fragmented message transmitted through white noise. Cleo’s best friend Bobby, a physicist, is recruited to help her and Franklin make sense of what’s happening, but despite their successes, Cleo’s constant jumping backward in time delays their progress. Once the message is received in its entirety – and more than one harsh realization is discovered - the three friends race against time to right the wrongs disclosed in the cryptic message. But one of these friends is not like the others, offering an additional obstacle to an already impossible situation. Burdened with an unlimited number of do-overs, Cleo McCarthy finds herself asking, how much time is enough?

Unlike some of the time travel novels coming out in recent years, this one goes a bit differently than expected, and that's a good thing.

The writing style lacks all pretentiousness, by drawing you immediately into the story. You keep guessing, and your attention is held. The characters have their own distinct personalities and motivations. Isn't it amazing how many novels in the past few years can't accomplish these simple things? If a time-travel junkie like me, or even if only slightly interested in the subject, definitely add this one to your reading list.

Another thing that's uncommon, is doing romance right in novels; avoiding that tired old instalove trope. And this novel nails it.

There's one part near the end that's just... Multi-dimensionaly beautiful. I won't spoil you any more than that.

Buy it at Kobo Buy it at Amazon

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(I'm including some books in here which are from previous years, yet which were only put on Netgalley for Advance Reader Copy [aka: ARC] reviews this year.)

★★★★★ "Journey to Jumbalot", by Ryan Wakefield

A glowing doorway. A lost friend. Will one loyal pet turn out to be the hero of the hour? Alby the housecat has no desire for adventure. Rescued by the kindly Professor Wizoom, he’s grateful to be safe and lazy. But when his master vanishes through a magical door, the scaredy cat summons what little courage he has and races in after him. Stuck in a strange land of mixed-together animals, Alby teams up with an irritating froguar to locate his missing owner. But when he’s mistaken for a spy, the lonely cat finds himself caught in a war between wolvaraptor pirates and noble tigeroon knights! Can the timid feline conquer his worries in time to save the day? Journey to Jumbalot is an award-winning, action-packed middle grade fantasy novel. If you like talking animals, daring deeds, and enchanted worlds, then you’ll love Ryan Wakefield’s illustrated quest. Buy Journey to Jumbalot to learn to be brave today! Amazon, ★★★★★ GoodReads, ★★★★★ Kids’ BookBuzz, ★★★★★ Readers’ Favorite, ★★★★★ 2022 Readers' Favorite International Book Award: Gold Medal for Children's Preteen Fantasy 2021 Royal Palm Literary Award Competition: Gold Award for Published Fantasy Mom's Choice Awards: Gold Recipient for Excellence in Family-friendly Media, Products, and Services Global Book Awards: Silver Medal for Children's Action and Adventure Category

I enjoyed this charming middle-grade / all ages fantasy adventure which is filled with strange and interesting creatures, and has just enough whimsy. The weird characters in this new world were inventive mixes of real animals. The technology is cool too.

This book is good enough that if there's a sequel, I'll read it even if I don't get an ARC.

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Seven Sisters of Avalon has been a favoured series of mine since it begun. Though it's always best to start with book one of a series, as nuance will be lost, I feel these can also be enjoyed as stand-alone novels.

This series, while not gratuitous, is for adults only.

★★★★★ Jasmine of Avalon & the finale, Violet of Avalon, by Katrina Rasbold.

The seventh book in the Seven Sisters of Avalon series follows Jasmine, the priestess who sees no distinction between magic - the world into which she was born - and her lifelong passion of science and anatomy. Sent to Dumnonia to marry the warrior king, Bledric, Jasmine’s journey takes one startling turn after another as she navigates the complicated relationships within her new family, both married and chosen. As with all the books in this series, Jasmine’s story includes elements of one of our favorite classic tales woven into the fabric of post-Arthurian historical lore, leading us solidly into book eight’s dynamic conclusion of this incredible saga. In this, the cataclysmic finale of the Seven Sisters of Avalon series, we follow the compelling story of a woman confined to a tower prison at the mercy of a king who might be serial murderer. To establish her value and attempt to delay her impending death, our heroine enchants the king with compelling and seemingly fantastical tales that he finds just might be true. With elements of the classic tales of Rapunzel, Bluebeard, & Scheherazade, Violet of Avalon takes us on a fast-paced journey that ultimately leads us back to Avalon and to the startling conclusion of this incredible series. As a bonus for fans of the Seven Sisters of Avalon series, this book contains additional information about the previous stories you read and loved to add a new layer of insight about the first seven books. This book contains spoiler information about vital plotlines of the first seven books. Although the other books in the series work well as stand-alone stories, the author and publisher recommend reading Violet of Avalon after completing the first seven books. Seven Sisters of Avalon book series (in reading order): The Daughters of Avalon Rose of Avalon Aster of Avalon Iris of Avalon Lily of Avalon Dahlia of Avalon Jasmine of Avalon Violet of Avalon This series follows the stories of the royal family of Avalon, starting with The Daughters of Avalon and continuing with each of the seven priestesses and their individual stories as, under the instruction of the Druid and Elder Priestesses of Avalon, they go into the Britain Beyond Avalon to negotiate with the leaders of seven different kingdoms to ensure the safety of Goddess worshipping people in Britain. Each book draws on post-Arthurian fictional canon as well as classic fairy tales and popular fiction, including elements of Snow White, Robin Hood, Rumpelstiltskin, Mulan, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, The Pied Piper, Frankenstein, Bluebeard, Rapunzel, and Beauty and the Beast. The Daughters of Avalon sets up the series, introducing Lilian, the Lady of the Lake, and Brannon, the Merlin Reborn. Their epic love story sets the stage for the adventures of their seven daughters, presented over the course of the next seven books.

It's difficult to put into words how enthralling this series was. I was hooked from book one, and deeply invested. I've read many series' incorporating Avalon, yet this is my favourite. Yes, it's better than Marion Zimmer Bradleys Avalon series, (and not just because of the controversy surrounding her.) This series kept me guessing, and like a heroin addict, wishing that other pagan novels I tried to read or re-read, could be as great. Here's an author to keep an eye out for.

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★★★★★ Emma’s Dragon, Book 2: London and Pemberley, by M. Verant

This book is great as a stand-alone, or after having read the first.

Emma Woodhouse needs a dragon. Her life depends on it. But Emma’s dragon is claimed… by Elizabeth Darcy. When Emma Woodhouse meets newly wed Elizabeth, a brush of their gloved hands unmasks the Darcys’ fantastic secret. Emma has discovered Yuánchi, the deadly dragon coveted by both Emperor Napoleon and England’s Secretary of War. Luckily, secrets are nothing new for Emma. She has her own: a deathbed promise, and a clever plan to achieve it. The Darcys’ power, forbidden to her, might even help. But clever plans can go astray. As treason stalks a royal ball, an avenging queen rises to ravage England. Survival rests on a fabled alliance: Emma and her secrets, Elizabeth and her dragon, and the magical music of Mary Bennet and Georgiana Darcy. Will Emma, Elizabeth, and Mary unravel the mystery of the great wyves in time to save England and themselves? Emma’s Dragon is the second book in the award-winning Jane Austen Fantasy series. This boldly original story is filled with magical dragons, strong heroines, and a brilliantly reimagined Regency that challenges barriers of class, race, and love. Don’t miss this thrilling, romantic fantasy!

As with book 1, these retellings of "Pride and Prejudice", and "Emma" with dragons are actually improvements on the classics. It's better than the other regency or victorian romances which incorporate dragons or other fantasy elements. A few surprisingly nice moments were Elizabeth and Darcy handfasting; loving the pagan vibe, plus the hint of romance developing between two who you wouldn't expect. Filled with thrills, mystery, whimsy and, of course, romance, it makes me highly anticipate the next in the series.

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★★★★★ The Between State, by Joseph A White Jr

When Jeff, a computer software professional, repeatedly awakes inside realistic dreams in which he's inside the mind of a young woman, he struggles to find a rational explanation. The woman, he discovers, is real, and he becomes an unwilling time traveler periodically thrust two years into his past, where he experiences her life through her senses. An expert logician, he battles with the limitations of logic in his efforts to uncover the explanation for why he has become immersed in this new, supranatural world. Does he have a role to play in helping this woman escape her troubled past and move towards a future of serenity and hope?

I couldn't put this book down. It ends with one question still unanswered, yet ends satisfyingly. Maybe there will be a sequel, but even if there isn't, I would consider buying other subsequent books by this author.

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★★★★★ Wilde Grove: Golden Heart, by Katherine Genet

A new wind is blowing. Selena makes the decision to take Rue to Wilde Grove, to get to the heart of her dreaming, for it is certain that Rue has lived before as a priestess of Wilde Grove. But what is the lesson Rue needs to learn? With Morghan giving Rue a crash course in walking between the worlds, the story behind Rue's dreaming cannot remain a mystery for long. She will walk the same paths she did long ago, in another skin, and find out exactly what Bryn, one of the first priestesses of the Forest Grove wants from her. Back in New Zealand, a loss is suffered, and a shock, one that brings Selena straight back home, for someone is screaming out to Clover from the spirit world for help that the child is too young and frightened to give.

Here's another Pagan novel series to really get into, which can be enjoyed as a standalone novel, yet is better when reading the series in order. Here's where it begins, and here's where it continues, leading to Golden Heart.

This series starts during the first year of covid (I know, I know, annoying, yet bear with me), and is a modern tale of an English village, and the relationships between the Christians and the Pagans. The characters are realisticly multi-faceted, and the stories of spirituality, mystery, healing and love are enthralling. There is none of that nonsense in many books where all of one side, or all of the other, are unrealistically painted as evil.

Then there's a prequel series, where we can see characters who were only mentioned, some of the original characters at younger ages, and new young people are added to the mix. There are several mature themes related to various forms abuse, and though not gratuitous, I recommend this series for teens and above.

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★★★★★ The Other AJ Hartford, by Addison Michael

A phantom on a train. A mysterious kidnapping long ago. Can she connect the dots before all her futures disappear forever? AJ Hartford is content. With both a teaching job and a teenage daughter she adores, the thirty-something divorcée has settled away from high drama and into wonderfully normal happiness. But her ordinary days turn upside down when she’s chased by a sinister stranger… and runs into a ghostly version of herself. Learning her doppelgänger is from another universe where she was murdered in the future, the sentimental mother panics when she discovers it triggered a lethal domino effect. And if she can’t save her uncanny visitor from being killed in yet another dimension, all the AJs who ever were and their families will be permanently erased from existence. With the lives of herself and her beloved child on the line, can she escape into a second reality and rescue the past? The Other AJ Hartford is an action-packed multidimensional science fiction thriller. If you like good-hearted heroines, ghostly phenomena, and nail-biting high stakes, then you’ll love Addison Michael’s mind-blowing adventure.

An entertaining time travel novel that held my attention. I liked how the romance actually adds to the story. Many novels these days, including both those for teens and those for adults, are falsely advertised as being thrillers or sci-fi, when really they are only romance novels with a bit more (too little) of real subtance added in.

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★★★★★ The Byways: A Novel, by Mary Pascual

Neurodivergent high school student CeeCee Harper has a temper and a reputation for trouble. Angry at the rumors and afraid she’ll never fit in, she makes a wrong move—and lands in the byways, a world of alleys, magic, and forgotten people . . . some that aren’t even human. And if she doesn’t escape quickly, CeeCee learns, she’ll be trapped for good. Searching for a way out, she gets lost among monsters, drug pushers, the homeless, and political upheaval, and soon finds there are those who will stop at nothing to keep her from leaving. But the byways pull people in for a reason. CeeCee must figure out why she got stuck in the first place—before her loved ones are put in danger and she loses them forever. A dark retelling of Alice in Wonderland meets Neverwhere , this contemporary fantasy will enchant Neil Gaiman and Christina Henry fans.

A solid fantasy adventure with a bit of thriller and a bit of whimsy. If there's a sequel, I'll read it.

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★★★★★ A Gift of Leaf (Chronicles of Leaf #1), by H.A. May

Jinny Morai, is a foundling, wrenched from her foster parents as a young child to slave in the darkness of the Library caves of the Holtanbore, the black labyrinth under the Royal Great Tree. Every night she has a strange mental visitor who begs incessantly. One day Jinny discovers two stones, catalysts which change her life completely. One, a broken amulet hidden in a nest of leaves is much too pretty to throw away, the other, a mailed egg, is much too strange. Incredibly, a baby dragon is hatched from the strange egg. Because of this, Jinny sees daylight for the first time accompanied by Quaryk, a young Mage, who takes her up to the Bole to meet the Triad of Mages there. While her dragon, Sprout, is growing up, they live with Quaryk’s family. A year later, summoned by the Three, she returns to the bole and is raised to Magehood. There she is visited by the Woodspirit who identifies her as the one who may find the missing half of the amulet. But Jinny is anxious - as just a foundling and ex-slave, how can she find the lost half of the stone?And how can she rid Leaf of threat of the Necromancer, Dark Mage, and monster who wiped out the race of dragons long ago? Finally meeting her long-lost foster family, she finds the courage to make a decision. But is she up to the task of finding the only hope, the missing half of the stone, which will restore the Talisman, the most powerful amulet known on Leaf? And, more importantly, who is Jinny Morai, exactly?

I really enjoyed this whimsical middle-grade / teen novel. The relationship between Jinny and Sprout is really cute, and I'm curious to see what happens next in this adventure story.

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Best four-star reads of the year; for when you run out of other novels:

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★★★★ Follow the Shadows: The Tales of Moerden Book 1, by Rosemary Drisdelle

When Marise Leeson gets her hands on a crystal ball, she believes her knowledge of Wicca is about to expand. The magic, however, goes horribly wrong. In short order, she’s thrown into an alternate world, attacked by a dragon, and rescued by Javeer, a young male dragon in search of a friend. Marise is desperate to get home alive. Instead of dabbling in scrying and spells, she must now use her Wicca skills to survive in Moerden―navigating rival dragon factions, riding Javeer without falling, and dodging unknown perils of an alien landscape. Through a series of adventures and mishaps, she learns that the dragons face slow extinction from a mysterious disease. Some see Marise as part of the cause. Some hope she’s a key to a cure. Marise grows up fast as her focus switches from escape from Moerden to saving the dragons. She draws upon her powers, intuition, and some help from home as she and Javeer begin a quest to solve the puzzle of the stagger. If they survive, and if their trust and courage are strong, they may succeed. If they do not, the dragons of Moerden will cease to exist.

At first, the protagonist bothered me as some of her behaviour, as a teen, seemed immature. Yet there is character growth.

The dragons seem to have more distinct characterization than Marise, yet that didn't bother me much.

One of the things I really enjoyed were the funny, endearing parts between Marise and Javeer, including after they find out...well, you'll see ;). What she does for him is great. I also enjoyed how this is a story about a human helping sick dragons, and that the way the dragons and humans communicate is unusual.

Overall, this fantasy adventure novel held my attention, so whether or not I'm able to get an ARC, I'll read the sequel.

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★★★★ The Possibilities, by Yael Goldstein-Love

A new mother ventures into parallel worlds to find her missing child in this mind-bending novel that turns the joys and anxieties of parenthood into an epic quest. "A bravura, unforgettable performance."--Namwali Serpell, author of The Furrows What if the life you didn't live was as real as the one you did? Hannah is having a bad day. A bad month. A bad year? That feels terrible to admit, since her son Jack was born just eight months ago and she loves him more than anything. But ever since his harrowing birth, she can't shake the feeling that it could have gone the other way. That her baby might not have made it. Terrifying visions of the different paths her life could have taken begin to disrupt her cozy, claustrophobic days with Jack, destabilizing her marriage and making her husband concerned for her mental health. Are the strange things Hannah is seeing just new-mom anxiety, or is something truly weird and sinister afoot? What if Hannah really did unlock a dark force during childbirth? When Hannah's worst nightmare comes true and Jack disappears from his crib, she must tap into an extraordinary ability she never knew she had in order to save him: She must enter different versions of her life while holding on to what is most important to her in this one to bring her child back home. From the intimate joys of parenthood to the cosmic awe of the multiverse, The Possibilities is an ingenious and wildly suspenseful novel that stares down into the dizzying depths of maternal love, vulnerability, and strength. I couldn't put this multiple universes novel down; it kept my attention throughout.

The only thing I would have wanted different, was how it was all resolved so quickly, with little to no explanation, and with...Well, I won't spoil you.

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savrenim · 3 years ago

Note

I noticed a lot of your works involve seers, may I enquire as to what inspired you to expand on this particular trope?

so at this point there are pretty much two major works that I have which revolved around Seers specifically: ifmlam, my longest fic, and trash novel/the opus series, which is the series of books that I'm writing right now. (I'm leaving wriu out of this because that was less "Seers" and more "the cast all gets told the plot of the show, what do they do" which is a slightly different trope).

to a certain degree, both of those works involved Seers because there was a cool world background story idea that just so happened to involve Seers -- the Seer bit in opus comes from a discussion that three of my friends and I were having when we were teenagers at some ungodly hour in the morning at a sleepover about how cool it would be for there to be some sort of sci fi story galactic chess game where quantum computers could predict everything but the actions of other quantum computers with those abilities, and I took the concept and folded it into a tech-magic fusion setting because why not it was trash novel and I wanted to do every single fun idea that I'd ever had at once. and then ifmlam was me trying to convert the dramatic irony and emotion from the musical of Burr being joint narrator and character and what I was reading as increasing panic esp towards twwwe about how he was trapped in the story he was telling, into a medium where the breaking of the fourth wall wasn't really a thing-- how do you translate the same emotion at being trapped knowing the future and unable to change it in the moment-- well, I went with Seers. seemed like an obvious choice.

but I think there are pretty much two main reasons why the idea is so deeply fascinating to me? and they're both pretty much either shameless self-projection or shameless "it's my universe I can turn my favorite headcanons into reality"

the first is I'm a mathematical physicist, and if I reach my life goal (or at least one of them I have many life goals), the life goal of everyone trying to do theoretical physics interested in quantum, the white whale of physics, well: then I'll be contributing towards a Universal Theory Of Everything. which, like. literally, theoretical physicists have the gall to decide that they will predict the universe at least probabilistically if not completely from its current state. any form of future foreknowledge is the magical wish fulfillment of that: if I could just be good enough, if I work hard enough, have an idea just mad and right enough, I could see the whole future from the present. of course I'm obsessed with characters who can see the future. I'm spending my life trying to see the future, at least the physics half of my life. fuck yeah do I want to think about and write about characters who are on a fundamental level succeeding at doing what I've dreamt my whole life of doing. that is the ultimate empowerment.

the second is that time is so weird. first of all time maybe isn't very different from space, it's spacetime??? like its coordinate signature is different but it fundamentally cannot be separated from space in computing distance. whether or not two events happen simultaneously, one before the other, or one after the other depend on how close they are together and how fast you are moving. time goes slower when you are moving fast. time goes slower when you are in a gravitational field. time can loop back in on itself in black holes, but that's fine, that's behind the event horizon, ignore it. time is entropy. time is decoherence. time may or may not exist. time fucks with our ability to try to write a cohesive picture of the universe, so why not write a story that fucks with time, it's revenge I am perfectly entitled to.

#my life #my writing #opus tag #ifmlam

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theradioghost · 5 years ago

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I don't know if you're still doing podcast recs, but if you are, I really like dramas, horror, sci-fi, honestly anything that gives you the feels (especially if it has lgbtq+ rep). I am not much of a comedy person though unfortunately. The only podcast I finished was tma and I really loved it.

The recommendations are always on tap here, whenever my askbox is open! You might wanna check out:

Archive 81, for a found-footage horror about mysterious archives of tapes full of encounters with otherworldly horror, dark rituals, cults, and a long-suffering archivist with the same name as the show creator who plays him, which despite all that could not possibly be more different from TMA and yet easily matches it as one of the best horror stories I have ever enjoyed. The sound design on this show is basically unparalleled – where TMA has fairly minimalist sound design, A81 goes all out. Quite a few lgbtqa+ folk also.

I Am In Eskew, for a surreal, Lynchian horror about the city of Eskew, where it’s always raining and the streets are never the same twice, as narrated by a man who is trapped there and the woman hired to find him. Take the most viscerally disturbing episodes of TMA as a baseline for how intense this show is, then imagine the Spiral built a city and invited all the other fears over for a party. Also right up there as one of my favorite horror things ever, and recently ended, so you can listen to the whole thing right now.

Within The Wires, for a found-footage scifi dystopia, telling stories from an alternate-history world. Three of the four seasons focus on lgbtqa+ leads, and the first season, a set of instructional meditation tapes provided to a prisoner in a shadowy government institution, is still some of my absolute favorite creative use of medium and framing device ever.

Kane and Feels, for a surreal noir-flavored urban fantasy/horror hybrid, about a magically-inclined academic (and sarcastic little bastard man) named Lucifer Kane and his demon-punching partner with a heart of gold, Brutus Feels. They share a flat in London, they bicker like an old married couple, and they fight supernatural evil. This show WILL confuse the hell out of you and you will enjoy every second of it.

Alice Isn’t Dead, for a weird Americana horror story about a long-distance truck driver, criss-crossing the US in search of her missing wife. Along the way she discovers that both of them have been drawn into a dangerous secret war that seethes in the empty and abandoned expanses of America, and that inhuman hunters have begun to follow her. Also finished! And as the title kind of gives away, the lesbians do not die!

Janus Descending, for a sci-fi horror miniseries about two scientists sent to survey the remains of a dead alien civilization on a distant planet, only to learn all too well why the original inhabitants have disappeared. You hear one character’s story in chronological order and the other in reverse, with their perspectives alternating, which is done in an incredibly clever way so that even technically knowing what will happen it still holds you in suspense right to the end. Also, it made me cry, a lot.

SAYER, for a sci-fi horror with a touch of dark comedy, and probably the single best use of the “evil AI” trope I have ever seen. Tells the story of employees of tech corporation Aerolith Dynamics living on Earth’s artificial second moon, Typhon, in the form of messages from their AI overseer SAYER. The first season is great, the second season is okay, and the third and fourth seasons are fucking amazing.

Tides, for a really interesting sci-fi about a lone biologist trapped on an alien world shaped by deadly tidal forces. It’s different from just about any other sci-fi I know, focusing more on the main character’s interactions with and observations of this strange new world, where she’s very aware that she is the alien invader. (Also I don’t think any of the characters are straight.)

Station to Station, for a thrilling sci-fi mystery where a group of scientists and spies on a research ship (the ocean kind) discover that the time-warping anomaly they’re studying might be causing people to vanish from existence. Corporate espionage and high-stakes heartbreak abound. (And once again I’m not sure anyone is straight.)

The Strange Case of Starship Iris, for Being Gay And Doing Crime IN SPACE! Or, decades after a war with an alien species leaves humanity decimated and under the control of totalitarian leaders, the lone survivor of a research mission joins up with a ragtag crew of rebels and smugglers to figure out why the very government she worked for tried to kill her, and to stop them from inciting a second war. 100% lgbtqa+ found family in space heist action and it’s glorious in every way.

Unwell, for the horror-ish Midwestern gothic story of a young woman who returns to her hometown to help her estranged mother after an injury, and discovers that there is something just a little bit wrong, not just with her mother, but with her mother’s house, and with the whole town. Subtle and creepy. The protagonist is a biracial lesbian, one of the other major characters is nonbinary, the cast in general is super diverse.

The Blood Crow Stories, for an lgbtqa+ focused horror anthology! The four seasons so far have been the stories of an ancient evil stalking the passengers of a WWI-era utopian cruise ship, a dark Western mystery about a group of allies trying to stop the mysterious killer known only as the Savior, a 911 operator in a cyberpunk dystopia who starts getting terrifying phone calls from demons, and strange and deadly goings-on at a film studio in the golden age of Hollywood. Everyone is Very Gay and anyone can die, especially in season 1.

The Tower, for a melancholy experimental miniseries about a young woman who decides she’s going to climb the mysterious Tower, from which no one has ever returned. Quite short and very, very good.

Palimpsest, for a creepy, heartbreakingly sad and yet incredibly beautiful anthology series. Season one is the story of a woman who suspects her new home is haunted, season two is a turn-of-the-century urban fantasy about a girl who falls in love with the imprisoned fae princess she’s been hired to care for, and season three is about a WWII codebreaker who begins seeing ghosts on the streets of London during the Blitz.

Mabel, for a part-horror, part-love story, the kind of faerie tale where you feel obliged to spell it with an E because these are the kind of faeries that are utterly inhuman, and beautiful, and dangerous. Anna, the new caretaker for an elderly woman, leaves messages for her client’s mysteriously absent granddaughter Mabel. An old house in Ireland has a life and desires of its own, few of them friendly. Two women fall in love and set out for vengeance against the King Under The Hill. Creepy, strange, and gorgeously poetic.

Ars Paradoxica, for a sci-fi time travel Cold War espionage thriller. Physicist Dr. Sally Grissom accidentally invents time travel, landing herself – and her invention – in the middle of a classified government experiment during WWII. As the course of history utterly changes around them, she and what friends she can find in this new time must struggle with the ethics of what they’ve done, and the choices they’ll have to make. An aroace protagonist, Black secret agents, time-traveling Latina assassins, Jewish lesbian mathematicians, two men of color whose love changes the course of time itself, this show says a big fuck you to the idea that there’s anything hard about having a diverse cast in a period piece and it will break your heart, multiple times. Also finished!

The Far Meridian, for a genre-bending, poetic, at-times-heartwarming-at-times-heartbreaking story about an agoraphobic woman named Peri who decides to begin a search for her long-missing brother Ace after the lighthouse in which she lives begins mysteriously transporting to different places every day. I can never forget an early review that described this show as “the audio equivalent of a Van Gogh painting.” Suffice to say it is beautiful, and fantastically written and put together.

What’s the Frequency?, for a Surrealist noir horror mystery set in mid-20th-century LA. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I can really explain what goes on in this show, but it features a detective named Walter “Troubles” Mix and his partner Whitney searching for a missing writer. Meanwhile, the only thing that seems to be playing on the radio is that writer’s show Love, Honor, and Decay, which also seems to be driving people to murder. Fantastically weird, deliciously creepy.

Directive, for a short sci-fi miniseries about a man hired to spend a very, very long trip through space alone, which doesn’t seem all that sad until suddenly it hits you with Every Feel You’ve Ever Had, seriously I don’t want to spoil it so I won’t say anything more but listen to this and then never feel the same way about Tuesdays again.

Wolf 359, for honestly one of the best podcasts out there, containing all of the drama and feels, seriously this show ended over two years ago and I still cry literal tears thinking about it sometimes. It has definite comedic leanings, especially in the first season which reads a bit more like a wacky office comedy set in space, but it takes a sharp turn towards high stakes, action, and feelings and that roller coaster never stops. Take four clashing personalities alone on a constantly-malfunctioning space station eight light years from earth, add some mysterious transmissions from the depths of space, toss in some seriously Jonah-Magnus-level manipulative evil bosses, and get ready to cry.

or, may I suggest Midnight Radio? It’s a lesbian-romance-slash-ghost-story completed miniseries about a late-night 1950s radio host in a small town who begins receiving mysterious letters from one of her listeners, and I have been assured by many people and occasionally their all-caps tweets that it provides ample Feelings! (also I wrote it.)

#holy fuck when did this answer get that long?#anyway I uh. hope at least one of these sounds good to you!#podcast recs #bobbie recommends things #Anonymous #asks #my posts

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lemon-writings · 5 years ago

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10 Questions Tag!

Thank you so so much to the wonderful @keen2meecha for tagging me!

Rules: Answer the 10 questions, ask a different 10, and tag 10 people.

Let’s gooooooooo!

1. What’s your writing routine? Do you have a specific time or place you prefer to write?

Fun fact about me: I really suck at establishing and maintaining routines. Which is a cardinal sin, I know, but routines can really start to depress me when I bore of them, and I have to do what is best for my mental health instead of what people say is proper.

I’m more of a “write as much as physically possible throughout the day” person than someone who sticks to a routine. I’ll write at almost any time of the day. I’m not particularly picky about it.

But I do tend to write at my desk in my darkened room, surrounded by my fairy lights, hunched over in my chair like a goblin lady. If I’m not there, then I’m probably at a coffee shop or the library.

2. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever written?

Oh boy. It’s probably either Phoenix in a Bear Trap or Jeez Take the Wheel. Phoenix is because it’s, uh... well, it’s just me working through some problems, but in an artsy way. I’ve called it a “confrontation of trauma” before. Jeez is because it’s “the religious equivalent of throwing all your Thanksgiving leftovers into one sandwich”. I found out that you can’t throw together every religion you learned in a one-semester World Religion class (Christianity, Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Jainism, Shintoism, a bunch of aboriginal religions, etc., etc.) with a healthy dose of Satanism without getting the weirdest gosh dang book you’ve ever written.

3. Do you like writing longer pieces or shorter ones?

Longer pieces. It’s like there was a part of me that said you are not allowed to write short works without immense struggle. I have a short story and a one-page flash fiction that I am super proud of, and some poetry that is alright, but I much prefer to write long works. I love working out character development over the course of 100+ pages.

4. What’s the most underrated trope, in your opinion?

Found. Family. You can rip found family from my cold, dead, gay hands. It’s one of my favorite things to read and write.

5. Who’s your favorite OC that isn’t one of the main characters?

Chai Watson! Chai Watson is from Lessons in Humanity from a Future Physicist. She was my first morally-gray character, and for that reason, I absolutely adore her. She’s a terrible, awful person, and I love her for it. If I knew her in real life (and she is an exaggerated version of someone I know who hurt me very very much), I would absolutely hate her. But since she’s fictional, I get to make her as awful and complex as I want without feeling guilty about liking her!

6. What’s your favorite genre to read? To write?

I love reading literary fiction, and I love writing it, too. YA is decent, too, when I’m in the mood. And whatever genre Good Omens is. The good shit.

7. What’s the first book that you remember making a distinct impression on you?

Matilda. When I was a kid, I read Matilda at least once a month, if not more often. I wanted to be Matilda. I was super bookish and sort of outcast when I was a kid, so I really related to Matilda Wormwood, sometimes more so than the rest of my peers. (I also tried to move books with my mind, which didn’t work, unfortunately.)

8. If you had to write a short story based on a song, what song would you choose and why?

Phoenix in a Bear Trap is more or less a gayer, personal version of “Arsonist’s Lullaby” by Hozier. But if I had to choose something else, I would probably pick “Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene” by Hozier. Hozier is a man with amazing, meaningful lyrics, and I feel like he sings about the most fascinating characters and scenarios.

9. What’s your writing goal? (Word count, page number, general deadline for finishing a project, etc.)

My writing goal tends to be about 80,000 words or so, or whenever the story feels done. I like getting done with a draft within about 2-5 months between starting it, if I can.

10. And, because I am writing a superhero novel: what’s a superpower you would want to have and why?

I would probably pick teleportation. I’m a huge fan of Nightcrawler from X-Men, and I just find the whole idea of being able to teleport anywhere in the world would be super convenient. Going anywhere I want, anytime I want? That sounds pretty cool.

And my questions:

What weird writing habits do you have?

Have you ever read a book you hated so much you couldn’t finish it? What was it? Why?

What do you listen to while you write?

What does an average day of writing look like for you?

What is a project you’ve always wanted to start, but haven’t gotten around to yet?

Is there anything about your current WIP that you’re super proud of?

What is a trope you absolutely can’t stand?

Do you have an OC that’s more or less just a fantasy version of yourself?

Have any works inspired your current WIP?

What is your favorite WIP to write for?

I tag: @aelenko, @dogwrites, @hellsigns, @semblanche, @wordsmithfox, @magic-is-something-we-create, @thejaydalouise, @spookales, @transboywriting, and @ocmaker, if y’all wanna participate!

#tag games #writing games #writeblr #ten questions tag #whoo! I love tag games! :D

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rabbitcruiser · 4 years ago

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National Tell a Fairy Tale Day

Gather round the fire, and make yourselves comfortable… Tell A Fairy Tale Day is all about exploring myths and stories, old and new. From grim(m) tales to urban legends, tap the dark corners of your subconscious and see what you find…

History of Tell A Fairy Tale Day

The sharing of magical, otherworldly stories is a tale as old as time. While the term ‘fairy tale’ was coined in 1697 by Madame d’Aulnoy (conte de fées in her native French), it’s likely that some fairy tales originated as early as the bronze age over 6,000 years ago. And for most of history, fairy tales have been passed on not in written form but via the oral tradition, with each generation telling and dramatizing stories to the next.

The fairy tale’s ancient roots can be traced all over the world, from Vikram-Betaal in India and Aesop’s Fables in Ancient Greece to Arabian Nights in the Middle East. It was during the late 17th to 19th centuries that fairy tale collectors emerged, most famously Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. While the Brothers Grimm aimed to preserve folktales in their pure form, documenting them in the way they were told by rural peasants unable to read or write, Perrault and others reworked fairy tales for literary and artistic effect, with some writers such as Hans Christian Andersen dreaming up their own new stories.

As the fairy tale’s history emerges into the modern day, it’s clear that the genre is still as popular as ever – look no further than the success of Disney movies to see how these stories continue to capture our hearts and imaginations. In fact, the famous Disney castle is inspired by Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany, built by none other than the Märchenkönig (fairy-tale king), Ludwig II of Bavaria, himself. Perched on a rocky hill and with horse-drawn carriage rides up to the front door, Neuschwanstein and its elaborate interior abound in myths and legends – the castle is even home to an artificial grotto!

By celebrating Tell A Fairy Tale Day, you’ll be continuing the magical tradition that has ensured fairy tales are still very much part of our lives to this day.

How fairy tales change over time

Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of fairy tales is how they change over time. Simple plot structures, motifs and archetypal characters recurring across many cultures make these stories rife for adaptation and reinterpretation.

Although nowadays we usually associate fairy tales with children’s literature, you may be surprised to learn that many of today’s beloved stories have rather dark and disturbing origins. Imagine a world in which no woodcutter comes to save Little Red Riding Hood from the wolf’s belly, or in which one of the ugly stepsisters cuts off her own toes so that her foot fits in the slipper! From the 18th century onwards, many fairy tales were toned down and reworked so that they were more suitable for children.

These stories and the genre itself have also been adapted and reinvented for different time periods and cultures. Alongside original modern-day fairy tales, there are also various retellings, for example in urban settings or different countries. One particularly common type of retelling comes from women writers. Authors such as Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood have taken what are often seen as outdated tropes about women and reinvented them – the damsel in distress becomes the plucky heroine, and the trapped bride leaves her ogre husband for her happily ever after.

Why fairy tales are important

As it is often claimed Albert Einstein once said, “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” We might not expect such high praise for fairy tales from a world-famous theoretical physicist, but Einstein recognized the importance of the imagination. Fairy tales are incredibly valuable for both children and adults when it comes to learning about the world in which we live and developing our capacity for creativity. Fairy tales have also been considered fertile ground by psychoanalysts. With their twists and turns, age-old themes and familiar characters, our favorite stories may reveal not only the workings of our personal subconscious but also the fundamental elements of our collective psyche.

How to celebrate Tell A Fairy Tale Day

It should be clear by now that, when it comes to celebrating Tell A Fairy Tale Day, you really can let your imagination run wild! And while it’s a day that kids will love, it’s also a great occasion for adults too.

Gather your friends and family and take it in turns to share your favorite stories with one another. Time to brush up on your acting skills, as the more dramatic enactments the better – whether you’re good at impersonating a wicked witch or excel at acting out the characters’ quest through the enchanted forest, you’ll want to really make the tale come to life for your audience. And why not sit around a bonfire toasting marshmallows or string up some fairy lights in your living room to add to the atmosphere?

Alongside sharing the stories we know and love, fairy tales are the perfect genre for getting creative and honing your writing skills. Take a well-known story and tweak it to fit a different time or setting, or have a crack at inventing your own. It may well start with ‘Once upon a time’, but it’s completely up to you whether there’s a ‘Happily ever after’! Many libraries and literary organizations will also share stories and creative resources and even hold events to help mark the occasion.

If writing’s not your thing, then there are plenty of films and programs based on fairy tales for you to enjoy. Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Cinderella and The Little Mermaid are just some examples of the media giant’s adaptations, while movies and TV series such as Into the Woods and Tell Me a Story interweave and retell various classic fairy tales for new audiences.

And if you feel like going all out, why not host a fairy tale themed party? Encourage your guests to come in fancy dress, put on an enchanted feast of yummy snacks such as gingerbread houses and toadstool cupcakes, and throw some legendary party games like hunt the pea and castle building.

However you choose to celebrate Tell A Fairy Tale Day, it’s sure to be a magical occasion!

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thecaffeinebookwarrior · 8 years ago

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Tips For Writing Time Travel: An Illustrated Guide.

@jjpivotz asked:

“What is a good way that I could write time travelling without it being cliche?”

Ooh, I love questions like this! They’re so much fun, and on a somewhat self-indulgent level, they really get me thinking on the tropes themselves.

So without further ado, here are my personal thoughts on writing about time travel:

1. Embrace the fact that it’s not gonna make total sense.

This goes for a lot of creative fiction. When I was writing my urban fantasy novel, for example, I used a lot of traditional mythological figures whose duties and depictions (i.e. one humanoid being reaping the dead despite the fact that over a hundred thousand people die a day, billion-year-old entities who still look and behave like teenagers, figures from religions whose world views wildly conflict interacting with each other, etc.) weren’t compatible with what we currently know about the laws of physics.

And the sooner I resolved not to even attempt to explain it, the sooner my novel improved.

The wonderful thing about fiction is that it doesn’t have to imitate reality as we know it; the laws of the physical universe need not apply. And as long as the characters in your universe accept that, so will the reader.

I’ve had around twenty beta readers look at my book, and not one of them has poked holes in my casual disregard for the conventionally accepted rules of physical reality. The suspension of disbelief is an amazing thing.

As for how to best apply this to time travel, take Back to the Future, for example. This is one of the best time travel series ever made, but if you really look at what’s going on, you’ll come to find that none of it really makes any sense at all.

First of all, Marty McFly is a popular high school student whose best friend is an eccentric nuclear physicist. Conventional wisdom (and just about every fiction writing book or advice blog I’ve ever read) would dictate that this is a pretty heavy plot-point and warrants some explanation. But the narrative never questions it, and as such neither does the vast majority of its audience.

It is in this exact manner that Back to the Future handles its heaviest of all plotpoints, the act of time travel, which is the main driving force behind its entire plot.

How does it explain Doc Brown’s ability to time travel? Well, he invented the Flux Capacitor, of course. What is a Flux Capacitor, you ask? How does it work, exactly? Well, fucked if I know. All I know is that the narrative treats it like it’s a real thing, and by default, so do I.

The same could be said for the magically changing family portrait, the fact that the characters can’t interact with their past or future selves without universal destruction, flying cars, and the fact that the McFlys’ future children inexplicably look exactly like them. None of it makes any sense. And it’s fucking magical.

Another of my favorite examples of this is pre-Moffat Doctor Who. The science is campy, occasionally straight-up ridiculous, and unabashedly nonsensical, yet paves the way for some truly great and thought provoking storylines and commentary.

Bottom line is, I don’t know how to time travel. I’m guessing you don’t either, otherwise you probably wouldn’t be asking me for advice on how to write it. Accept it. Embrace it. Don’t be bashful about it -- trust me, time travelers are probably a minority in your readership, so they won’t judge you.

So as to what would be a good means of writing time travel, the short answer is: any way you want. For obvious reasons, I’d stay away from old cars, police boxes, and phone booths, but with the power of the suspension of disbelief, virtually nothing is off the table: a pair of magic sneakers, a refrigerator, a closet, a treehouse -oh, crap, that one’s been done before. But you get the picture. You can be as creative as you want to be about it. Don’t be afraid to step outside the police box, so to speak.

Trust in the magic of the suspension of disbelief, and don’t overthink things. Your story and readers will thank you.

As for how to avoid other cliches, that brings me to my next point:

2. Look at the tried and true tropes of time traveling. Now subvert them.

This might just be me and my adoration of irony talking, but since you specifically asked how to avoid cliche I’m going to indulge myself here.

Do the exact opposite of what people expect from narratives about time travel. You know the old trope: the protagonist steps on a bug, and comes back to the present to find the world being ruled by gorillas.

I’m not telling you not to include drastic consequences for time travel, because there would probably be quite a few (at least if you believe in the chaos theory, which states every action has a universal reaction.)

But you could toy around with the idea that fate isn’t something that can ultimately be altered at all, and that all the protagonist accomplishes is solidifying (or even triggering) a pre-existing outcome.

My knee-jerk suggestion, as someone who takes fiendish glee in incorporating humor into my writing, would be to make the protagonist have some Forrest Gump-type encounters that unwittingly trigger huge, history-defining event, but it can also be significantly more tragic than that: maybe the protagonist goes back in time to save his father from a hit-and-run car accident, for example, and then accidentally kills him. Or perhaps he realizes that his father was a bad man (beat his mother, planned on killing someone, etc.) and makes a moral decision to kill him (which is also a great way to ask philosophical questions. More on that later.)

I don’t know what kind of time travel your writing or what your style of writing is, but these are things I’d personally just love to play around with.

Or maybe time travel does change things, but it’s not even close to what the protagonist expected: maybe his words of wisdom to his newly married mother about true love and the meaning of life and whatnot unexpectedly lead her to realize that she’s deeply unhappy in her current marriage, and he returns to the present to find her divorced (lesbian stepmom optional.)

Maybe absolutely nothing at all changes, but he realizes that he’s responsible for some famous Mandela Effect, like the Bearenstein/Bearenstain discrepancy.

Bottom line is, don’t be afraid to do the unexpected. But conversely, don’t be afraid to use tried and true tropes, either: regardless of how overdone they may seem to be, they can almost always be rejuvenated when interjected with a thought-provoking plot.

Which brings me to my final point:

3. Make sure it has something to say.

Science fiction, especially the speculative variety, tends to be best when it begins by asking a question, for which it will later provide an answer. Take, for example, Planet of the Apes. The pervasive question of the movie is whether or not humanity is inherently self-destructive, which it ultimately answers with its famed final plot twist that humanity has long since destroyed itself.

Rod Serling (who was incidentally responsible for the original Planet of the Apes, by the way) did this remarkably well: almost every episode of the Twilight Zone packed a massive philosophical punch due to the fact that they followed this simplistic formula. The episode would begin with the presentation of a question, big or small (frequently by the charismatic Serling himself) and by the end of the episode, that question would be answered.

I’m not going to go in to detail here, as it would spoil the magic of uncovering the plot twists for the first time, but Serling used his speculation to tackle the narrow-mindedness of beauty standards in Eye of the Beholder, the dangers of fascism in Obsolete Man, the communist paranoia of the time period with the Monsters are Due on Maple Street, and countless more.

I would recommend watching the original Twilight Zone for almost anyone looking to write speculative fiction such as time travel.

Even if your work isn’t compatible with this specific formula of Question => Debate => Answer (which some work isn’t) it will still need to have some kind of underlying statement to it, or no matter how clever the science fiction is or how original the time travel is, it will fall flat.

This is why Twilight Zone, Planet of the Apes, Back to the Future, and (pre-Moffat, as I always feel inclined to stress -- he does literally the opposite of almost everything I recommend here) Doctor Who still remain widely enjoyed today, despite the fact that many of their tropes have been used many, many times since they original aired.

So for time travel, remember that it is a means, not an end. You could write the most cliched type of time travel story imaginable, and your audience will still feel fulfilled by it if your message is heartfelt, thought-provoking, and/or poignant.

Maybe you want to use time travel to make a statement about your belief in the existence of fate, or lack thereof. In this case, using the Sterling Approach, you would have your story begin with the question of whether or not humans can alter or change destiny, allow the narrative/characters to argue the question back and forth for a while, and then ultimately disclose what you believe the answer to be.

Or maybe you want to use time travel to explore or subvert the treachery of history and how it is taught, and show how the true narrative can be explored, purposefully or otherwise, by the victors.

Maybe you want to show that there’s no clear answer, or maybe no answer at all, a la the cheerful nihilism of Douglas Adams novels.

Either way, figure out what you want your message to be long before you put pen to paper, and then use time travel, like any other creative trope, as a means to an end to answer it. Your story will thank you for it.

(I hope this helps!)

#writing #writing tips #writing advice #time travel #science fiction #back to the future #doctor who #planet of the apes #the twilight zone #rod serling #ask the author

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fanauthorworkshop · 7 years ago

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better know a fic author: agent-nemesis

in appreciation of our beloved fanauthors and all the great work they do for us, i’d like to spotlight our workshop participants!

today we’re talking to agent-nemesis!

find her at...

tumblr : @agent-nemesis | ao3 : gundamoocow

tell us a bit about yourself!

I've lived in a few places around the world and currently reside in the UK. I'm an experimental physicist by day and smut writer by night. I enjoy doing martial arts and have a 3rd degree black belt in Taekwon-Do, which used to take up all of my spare time before I picked up writing.

when did you join fandom, and what were your first experiences with fanfiction?

I don't know what counts officially as "joining" fandom, but my first interactions with fandom were roleplaying on tumblr in the Gundam fandom in 2014. I only started reading fanfic for the first time the year before, after I finished reading the Rurouni Kenshin manga and really wanted to fill in some crucial missing scenes for my emotional satisfaction.

what fandom are you in now and what brought you here?

Star Wars! I've loved Star Wars since I was a child. With The Force Awakens came kylux, and I've been completely caught up in it since then.

what's your favorite fic of all time and what do you love about it?

Oh my. This is a tough choice. I'm mainly in the kylux fandom in Star Wars, and there is so much quality fic there. I'm going to be cheesy and say the Children, Wake Up series, which is basically a fandom phenomenon. I followed it from the beginning as it developed from a canon post-TFA setting featuring my favourite tropes to an absolute epic that ruined me emotionally.

what's your favorite fic you've written?

It has to be Letting Down. With some trepidation, I set out to write a deep-seated kink of mine, and somehow accidentally ended up writing something that affected me and other people in a weirdly profound way. Do mind the tags on this one!

what's a fic you've written that doesn't get the love it deserves?

I'm pretty happy with how most of my fics have done. I often write quite specific kinks that I think won't appeal to many people, but they generally fly high. What gets less love is the softer stuff! An example would be See a Man About a Dog, a 1920s prohibition era kylux AU.

what projects are you working on right now?

Too many! I always have a queue of fanfic I want to write, though often I impulse-write a prompt fill. I have several original projects on the go. The primary one is a BDSM-laced gay high school romance novel that has two more chapters to go. There's a sci-fi story that we workshopped here that's actually a part of a bigger story, though I'd like it to stand alone! I'm planning to start writing the main novel in this verse when the romance novel is done. The basic premise is that most humans on Earth are wiped out in an unnatural disaster and the story follows a group of survivors in space. If all that's not enough, I've started a collaboration with my husband (who loves detailed world-building but has no idea about character creation) on a magical historical fantasy.

what are your aspirations as a writer, big picture or small?

Honestly, I want to quit my job as a scientist and write original stories full time. If I could somehow make that financially viable, that would be great.

fanauthor spotlights | our ao3 collection | twitter

#fanauthor spotlight

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omniversalobservations · 8 years ago

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Fictional Multiverses Are Frankly Kind of Lame

Parallel universes have been science-fiction writers’ favorite trope ever since there was such a thing as science fiction. As far back as 1666, Duchess Margaret Cavendish wrote a book called The Blazing World in which the heroine passes through a portal at the North Pole into another universe, where the stars look different and animals can talk. In the 1930s C.S. Lewis introduced a new generation to the concept of parallel universes. “I am in your world,” said Aslan. “But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia.”

Lawrence Krauss, a cosmologist at Arizona State University, thanks fiction writers for early encouragement. He watched the Twilight Zone as a boy. “There’s an episode called ‘Little Girl Lost,’” he recalls. “This girl’s parents can hear her calling them, but they can’t see her.” Her parents happen to live next door to a physicist, whom they seek out to help them find their daughter. It turns out she had fallen through a portal in her bedroom wall into another dimension. “I remember thinking, ‘Boy, one day I want to grow up and be a physicist so I can help people,’” Krauss says.

Today we know there really could be alternative realities. In some, there would be another you living another kind of life; in other theories, another dimension could exist in the same room as you. So, writers got that much right. But in a way they have been curiously unimaginative. Their multiverses aren’t nearly as extreme as the ones physicists conceive of.

The Twilight Zone episode represents one of the multiple varieties of scientific multiverse: parallel worlds separated within a spatial dimension that we are unable to move in. Another comes from the cosmological theory of inflation: universes that budded off from our own in cosmic prehistory. But both of these have a common feature. Different worlds might have different laws of physics. In some of them, you might throw an apple and it would fall up—assuming there were even such a thing as an apple. Have you seen that in any movie? Even the “Upside-Down,” the parallel world in the Netflix series Stranger Things, is just an ordinary landscape in need of a good sweeping.

Moreover, fiction keeps running afoul of the annoying rule of physics that forbids us from moving between our world and another. If those other worlds could be so easily accessed, we’d have seen them by now and there’d be no controversy over their existence. And if you could miraculously exit our world, you’d almost surely die in the process. “There goes all the fun from pop culture!” says Krauss. He elaborates: “The reason those multiverses are invisible and are not ruled out by observation is that the particles and forces that govern our life are constrained to exist in our three-dimensional universe.”

The type of multiverse that dominates comic books, television, and films is the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. In this breed of multiverse, the laws of physics do not vary, but new worlds are created every time a particle or other quantum system is presented with multiple options.

In the Star Trek episode “Mirror, Mirror” from 1967, Captain Kirk and his crew looked around their ship: “Everything’s all messed up, changed around, out of place, it’s our Enterprise, but it isn’t. Not our universe, not our ship, it’s something… parallel.” In the recent Marvel blockbuster Dr. Strange, we see Benedict Cumberbatch learn to travel between worlds. He can open portals in spacetime with mental concentration and a swirly motion of his hands.

The most recent science-fiction show produced by Netflix, The OA, follows the same multiverse path as Dr. Strange. But this time the other-dimensional universe is a kind of afterlife that does not require you to die in order to have access. When performed with a certain level of feeling, the “Five Movements”—a kind of dance, sound, yoga combo—is supposed to open a portal to a parallel world.

Unfortunately, the quantum many worlds are no more accessible to us than extra spatial dimensions or cosmological bubble universes. “The difficult thing about many-worlds,” says Sean Carroll, a theoretical physicist at Caltech, “is that the worlds aren’t located anywhere. You have a temptation to say, ‘Well, where are they? These other worlds?’ They sort of exist all at the same time, but they're not physically located anywhere in space. They are different versions of space themselves.”

And even if they were accessible, it would take more than mere brainpower to open them. For this reason, Krauss isn’t a fan of the artistic license taken in Dr. Strange: “What really offends me the most is this New Age notion that somehow thinking about the universe determines what it is. It comes from this really perverted misunderstanding of quantum mechanics. Somehow it suggests that when you observe the universe, you change the entire universe. You can’t make the universe the way you want it to be by thinking about it.”

The multiverse movie that scientists usually rate the highest is Sliding Doors, wherein the simple act of Gwyneth Paltrow’s character missing her train creates a new branch of reality. We see the world play out as if she had or hadn’t missed her train. “That's a pretty faithful story in terms of there is a crucial event that happened and things go two different ways,” Carroll says. “They don’t really interfere with each other in any way, but you follow the two parallel tracks.” But Carroll doesn’t worry that most TV shows and films aren’t super-accurate. “I actually really like the idea that people get inspired by seeing these things in movies,” he says. “It’s not supposed to be scientifically accurate. The spirit of science is there.”

Source: Cosmos on Nautilus

#science #parallel worlds #multiverse #many worlds #The Twilight Zone #Stranger Things #Star Trek #Doctor Strange #The OA #Sliding Doors

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kansascityhappenings · 5 years ago

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Why are Star Wars droids so loveable? It’s science

In November 2014, a little orange and white ball named BB-8 rolled across the screen in the first “The Force Awakens” trailer, the next generation of plucky droids in the Star Wars universe.

In the short scene, the unique droid is rolling as quick as he can across the sands of Jakku. His body looks like its spinning in a million different directions, while his head somehow stays in place, antenna aimed forward like an English Pointer.

His big central eye and childlike movements and sounds evoked the same emotions we have toward babies and cute animals. BB-8 was designed to be loved.

And when they first saw him, fans thought BB-8 was a completely digital rendering. But then a practical, robotic BB-8 rolled across the stage at Star Wars Celebration in 2015. The sight, much like watching R2-D2 roll through the desert, caused another wave of wonder: Could this ever be possible in real life?

In the Star Wars universe, droids are part of everyday life. They pilot and repair ships (unless they belong to the Mandalorian), translate, navigate, hunt bounties, perform medical procedures, cook food, tend bar and act as weapons and armies during times of war.

But they also have personality. They talk back, get their feelings hurt and care for their human counterparts. Some are downright sassy.

As enamored as we are of R2-D2, C-3PO and BB-8, these kinds of droids are not part our reality. Robots assist us differently, and usually behind the scenes. If your Roomba gets stuck under the sofa, you don’t have the same endearing feeling toward it as though it were a squeaky mouse droid zipping around an Imperial Cruiser.

“At this stage, depending on what you want your robot to do, we can create an R2-D2 that can roll around and make beeps and bloops with a universal probe that can interface with things,”said Patrick Johnson, physicist and assistant teaching professor at Georgetown University. “Can it stop a trash compactor on command? Not necessarily at this time.”

Johnson, author of “The Physics of Star Wars,” cited the ease of robotic mobility from companies like Boston Dynamics, known for its lineup of robots that can act as pack mules, move boxes, sense and inspect, and even a humanoid robot named Atlas. And regarding a universal translator like C-3PO, our current analogs resemble machine learning-based services such as Google Translate and language modeling software like GPT2 that can create believable text. Google Assistant’s AI can make reservations and uses speech patterns with hesitations or “umms” to sound natural.

“These are very basic things right now, but take GPT2’s language algorithm, combine it with Google Assistant and put it in a Boston Dynamics robot and you’re dangerously close to an actual droid we would see in the Star Wars universe,” Johnson said.

However, personality is another thing altogether. At the Star Wars-themed Galaxy’s Edge portion of the Disney parks, guests can build their own droid and determine its personality by inserting a specific chip.

And the droids in Star Wars are powered by people.

Metal parts, human hearts

The legacy of Star Wars droids and their memorable personalities were forged by actors Kenny Baker and Anthony Daniels, the real people inside the droid-like suits of R2-D2 and C-3PO respectively.

C-3PO, Human Cyborg Relations, was initially supposed to sound like a New York taxi driver.

The Star Wars droid was envisioned as a fast-talking, wise-cracking robot. But when British actor and mime artist Anthony Daniels first saw a concept sketch of the golden droid by artist Ralph McQuarrie over the shoulder of George Lucas, he got a different vibe.

“Over George’s shoulder, I saw a painting. And the most extraordinary thing happened,” Daniels said in an interview for “Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy.” “It just struck me. I looked at this face, and the face looked back at me and we had this extraordinary eye contact. He’s looking right out of the picture and seemed to be saying, ‘Come be with me. The vulnerability in his face made me want to help him.”

On the set of the original “Star Wars” film also so known as “A New Hope,” the slim Daniels suited up as C-3PO and used his natural voice, which he expected it to be dubbed over by the outrageous accent Lucas wanted.

But after auditioning a number of voices and showing clips of Daniels to his friends, including Francis Ford Coppola, they all said the same thing: Keep Daniels’ voice. Free to embrace the C-3PO he had brought to life, the actor refined the voice. The result was a dramatic, easily offended and oft-stressed overdone British butler.

Similarly, Kenny Baker’s three foot, eight-inch frame was encased in R2’s metal body and he was tasked with making the droid look alive and happy. He would bounce from side to side, making R2 look animated and effervescent. Slight head turns resembled that of a child looking from fascination point to fascination point.

Ben Burtt, sound designer, recalled in “Empire of Dreams” that R2 actually turned out to be the most difficult problem to solve in the sound design for “A New Hope.” He used a small synthesizer to stand in for R2’s dialogue at first because the script only referred to R2 making a sound or beeps, but it didn’t sound alive.

As the sound team talked about R2, they realized he was a bit like a developing toddler. They made baby talk recordings, sounding out beeps and boops, and married the tones with the synthesizer.

“R2 is 50% machine and 50% organic sounds coming from the performance of a person,” Burtt said in the documentary.

Bringing up BB-8

There are many versions of BB-8. He can be animatronic, digital or practical. The one seen in that first teaser trailer is a practical effect with two puppeteers who brought BB-8 to life: Brian Herring and Dave Chapman.

“That first shot was me running behind a camera car with Dave lashed to the back of it, hanging on for dear life,” Herring said. “Dave was bouncing around on the back controlling the head, I was running like mad moving the body. And it’s one of my fondest memories.”

BB-8 looks like he’s spinning impossibly fast because Herring twisted the body slightly left and right as he moved — something animatronics wouldn’t be able to do.

Much like the legacies of Baker and Daniels, it took the quirky personalities of Herring and Chapman to bring BB-8 to life. They suited up in green onesies so their performance would be digitally removed later, leaving only BB-8 behind on the screen.

Chapman and Herring had worked together before, but 15 years passed before they were hired for their dream job together in 2013.

BB-8 was a new droid and welcoming a new generation of kids to Star Wars. Like creatures, the droids often function as comedic relief. Director J.J. Abrams and Neal Scanlan, head of creature effects, told the duo to bring ideas, gags “and be as good as you can possibly be — it will be watched for many, many years.” The pressure was on.

A metal droid has its limits — they wanted BB-8 to be likeable, but not human. Chapman was in charge of the droid’s head. Herring controlled the body. Much of the time, they had to work together as one brain.

“We keep them robotic, small, sharp and snappy,” Chapman said.

Chapman and Herring had a short amount of time with the script and the BB-8 puppet before filming began to figure out his vocabulary of movement. They had to figure out how he looked happy, sad, angry or quizzical. And it needed to fit his unique shape.

Herring studied the droid and realized it was the size of a dog and he began to shape the droid’s personality as though it was a tenacious Jack Russell Terrier. He realized that BB-8 was like Poe Dameron’s dog, which Rey rescues and reunites with his owner.

By the end of their 10 days with the droid, “we knew how that puppet worked, backwards, forwards and sideways. Between us, its two brains doing one character,” Herring said.

“BB-8 is all about precision, especially of his eyeline,” Chapman said. “Once that eye is looking at what it needs to look at, it looks like he’s in the moment. If it’s 5 centimeters off, it looks terrible.”

Tiny head movements are key because he’s a small droid, especially next to R2-D2. Large movements would make him look “wacky.” But a head tilt helped him look curious. And rattling the rods at the back of his head gives it an excited shake.

They also developed a bizarre “breathing” for the droid. When puppets stop moving, they look dead, Herring said. He used the rods that puppeteer BB-8 to keep the body slightly moving at all times — like he’s constantly correcting to keep from rolling over. If BB-8 was upset or excited, the movement would be a little faster.

Digital effects were added to some of the scenes, like the thumbs up he gives Finn. And the sound team gave him a distinctive voice, including a kind of “purring” for his breathing. BB-8 doesn’t repeat any droid beeps heard in the Star Wars universe before.

The puppeteers cited the scene in the Millennium Falcon (between Rey, Finn and BB-8) as their favorite to shoot and perform. In the scene, Rey is fixing the ship, Finn is trying to help and BB-8 is determining where his allegiance lies. BB-8 does multiple double takes and rapidly flips his gaze between Rey and Finn.

Chapman hits every eyeline, angling it just so. BB-8’s movements suggest his inner turmoil over trusting Finn.

“I think it’s our best team work,” Herring said. “And it got the biggest laugh in the movie.”

A human’s best friend

A droid with a personality is a science fiction trope that some want as a reality. But as Johnson notes, just the idea raises ethical issues. Social and chat bots have turned into the worst versions of the internet because that’s how people communicated with them.

“I feel uncomfortable when people are rude to a digital assistant, like shouting at Siri or Alexa,” Johnson said. “When would a C-3PO need to have legal protections put in place? Is it a piece of property, or an entity that has a personality? It’s not alive, so it wouldn’t have same protections as human being, but that line gets gray.”

But even something as simple as podcasts could help an AI.

“There is so much content in this world we could feed into machine learning or AI,” Johnson said. “They could learn how to speak by listening to podcasts because there is so much audio content from so many people.”

Until that complicated concept becomes a reality, the droids of Star Wars reveal what human and robotic partnerships could be like in an idealized galaxy.

When “The Rise of Skywalker” premieres this week, we’ll meet another droid: D-O. He’s made of spare droid parts, looks a bit like a rolling hairdryer, and by all accounts, becomes buddies with BB-8. And foreshadowing in the trailer makes C-3PO’s nine-film run look like it’s coming to some kind of end. In a recent trailer, he says he’s “taking one last look” at his friends. Daniels is in the gold suit again, reprising his role 42 years after it began.

“Lucas wrote a great script for these guys, but Anthony made the droids human,” Herring said. “You had this fussy English butler with a foul-mouthed plumber as his best friend. They set the mold for everything that came after, like BB-8. It’s the human qualities of the droids in the Star Wars films that make you believe them and they’re the grounding for the audience to come into those movies.”

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2019/12/17/why-are-star-wars-droids-so-loveable-its-science/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2019/12/17/why-are-star-wars-droids-so-loveable-its-science/

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convenientalias · 6 years ago

Text

A Summary of My Fics in 2018

I found this post lying around and apparently I forgot to post it two weeks ago at the New Year’s when I first made it, so. Here’s a list of the fics I wrote in 2018, with some musings etc.

** = Personal favorite.

# = I wish it had more comments.

Animorphs

on a night like this one (1952 words)--A Cassie/Rachel fic written for the Smut Exchange in April, so not a whole lot of plot! I was inspired by a prompt asking for Cassie as the gentle dom, which seemed like such an interesting concept.

falcon falcon, burning bright (2264 words)--Written for Bad Things Happen Bingo in June, a fic about Visser Three capturing Jake. The square I wrote it for was “The Collector”.

Whales and Dolphins and Humans and Yeerks (1416 words)--A Cassie/Aftran fic. Written on one of those probably-too-frequent occasions I opened for femslash prompts. I’d kind of always wanted to write some Caftran? But never got around to it bc I have too many damn fandoms. (...fandamns.)

Avatar: The Last Airbender

...wow, I wrote six fics for this fandom this year. Guess it was more of an ATLA year than I thought.

Largely bc of keircatenation, btw, who sent me a couple very nice prompts.

Kyoshi Wood (This Bird Has Flown) (1726 words)--Dysfunctional Tyzula fic, the first ATLA fic I have ever posted on AO3 (...though I have in the past posted a number on ff.net). Written because I listened to the song “Norwegian Wood” and instantly thought, “Welp, that’s a Tyzula vibe.” The first ATLA fic I wrote this year and it was already July...guess my ATLA content has been all in the past five months.

** every feudal lord needs a loyal handmaiden (13883 words)--Moooore Tyzula! This fic was for the Femslash After Dark Exchange in July which should make it more smutty than it is! But I figure the mature rating is justified by the various dark goings-on. Anyways, this is basically me writing the political intrigue Tyzula fic of my dreams, which is how it got so damn long. I’m quite happy with it.

a snow fight (1660 words)--...and I’m not happy with this one! I was prompted “No holds barred beatdown” for Zuko in Bad Things Happen Bingo and I tried my best but I think I just wasn’t in the right headspace. Came out kind of eh.

changing, losing, staying (3906 words)--Written when I opened for femslash prompts and received the prompt "'I can't afford to lose you too' + Suki/Ty Lee". Postcanon, pretty chill, longer than I expected it to be by the time I was done.

** because it would be a waste (1891 words)--Brief Azutara fic for the prompt of "Azula/Katara, set in a Bad Future AU where Azula is Fire Lord and Katara is her Favorite Prisoner." Written in November.

A Diplomatic Mission and Its Results (2483 words)--I was prompted diplomacy and Suki/Sokka/Toph for some poly event and I did my best! Never really thought about this ship before.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)

** Mhaacta Made Them Do It (3631 words)--Amy/Rosa treat for the Femslash After Dark Exchange, featuring ritual sex and an ELDRITCH ABOMINATION. ...technically a case fic.

Caper Court - Caro Fraser

the pupil of dover court (1543 words)-- I found this book series thru the Yuletide Exchange but only had time (...well, access, really) to read the first book. But I quite liked it and wrote a treat for the person requesting it for the exchange.

Catherine (Web Series)

there's something about catherine (1299 words)-- Another fandom I found through the Yuletide Exchange! This requester wanted some Lynchian Normcore femslash so I did my best to provide. Very easy fandom to get into, btw, webseries is less than an hour long.

Disney

** Amor Vincit Omnia (3231 words)--Maleficent/Philip Stockholm Syndrome fic, written as a treat for the Chocolate Box Exchange.

No one will hurt you (1166 words)--Inspired by a short comic by @disneyfemslashcomics, a Mulan/Jasmine fic featuring hurt/comfort and a nonbinary Mulan.

** # Old and stolen texts (2635 words)--A Belleficent fic I wrote bc idk I like Maleficent and I like Belle and the two seemed like a good ship for Stockholm Syndrome and, obviously, beauty and the beast scenarios. Quite proud of this one :)

Dollhouse

I wrote five fics for this fandom this year but I still think I kind of cooled on it. For one thing, two of those fics were assigned for exchanges--for another, last year, with little to no incentive of that kind, I wrote seven. Still had a good time this year tho.

Also, all of them were pretty dark! We’re not surprised.

** i'll take your mind (to kick around as a toy) (3095 words)--Adelle/Echo fic written for the Trope Bingo Challenge, for a square of “in another man’s shoes”. Longer than I had remembered!

Orientation (3881 words)--Possibly my darkest fic of the year, but I’m sure it’s debatable. Blatant rape/non-con between Bennett Halverson and Caroline Farrell, written for the Nonconathon Exchange.

taking turns (2008 words)--Lighter in the sense that it’s melancholy rather than dark as hell. A Claire and Topher fic written for the Remix Revival event, remixing a fic I greatly enjoyed.

# january to december, do you want to be a member? (1338 words)--Adelle/Echo fic where Adelle uses Echo as a doll. Kind of a filler fic, I’d always wanted to play with the idea but couldn’t get super into it. Ehh.

# someone to watch over me (1217 words)--Claire-centered fic with not a whole ton of plot. Again, kind of a filler fic. This is one reason I have to say I was not so into this fandom this year--2/5 fics being filler isn’t a great ratio.

Egil Saga - Faun (Music Video)

No man shall scratch runes. (1273 words)--Written as a treat for the Yuletide Exchange. H/C and some very basic worldbuilding for a weird, surreal music video. Not much else to say. Debatably femslash.

Flesh and Bone (TV)

Danseuse and Partner (1172 words)-- I got paired with someone for the Chocolate Box Exchange who requested soft and fluffy fic for Cassie/Jake, but at that time I had no fluffy Animorph feelings so I binge-watched this miniseries so I could fill their other request, which was domestic, relatively functional incest fic. Idk if I succeeded, it was an interesting prompt but I didn’t ship it. I was more vibing with the series’ femslash potential. But I never got around to writing for that.

Gattaca (1997)

Gattaca fandom, I swear I still love you! I’m just less depressed this year! Which, to be honest, IS A GOOD THING! but not very conducive to the kind of Gattaca fic I used to write lols.

** Peppermint and Vanilla (1492 words)--H/C Eugne & Vincent fic written when @trifoyle prompted me the title. I’m quite happy with it.

Of Physicists and Janitors (35780 words)-- I only wrote like a chapter of this in 2018. God. I really need to finish this. Also AO3 thinks I wrote the whole thing this year which just is not true.

Allergies (2374 words)-- Fic I started like two years ago and only finished now. Mostly Vincent-centric. Again, inspired by conversation with @trifoyle

Gravity Falls

The Pink Streak (1644 words)-- Wendy/Pacifica fic written as a treat for the Chocolate Box Exchange.

Grease (1978)

beauty queen, my best girl (1018 words)-- Frenchy/Sandy fic, written as a treat for the Chocolate Box Exchange.

Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

** A Mistress's Mistress (2178 words)-- Jordan/Myrtle fic written as a treat for the Chocolate Box Exchange. Because Myrtle deserves better, okay?

** Santa Barbara (2691 words)-- Pre-canon Jordan/Daisy fic written for a prompt of "Jordan manipulating Daisy (and Daisy kind of going along with it)." Probably my favorite Jordaisy fic I’ve written to date.

Careless Wanderers (2380 words)-- Post-canon Jordan/Daisy fic written for Trope Bingo for the “Road Trip” square.

White Lies of a Colored Past (1820 words)-- About two years ago I wrote down the idea of Gatsby incorporating Nick into his shady, multiple-choice backstory. And then this year I finally wrote it. ...probably would have been better two years ago but I don’t not like it.

** for children's consumption (3143 words)-- Someone prompted me Nick Carraway and abuse/neglect for Bad Things Happen Bingo, and I wrote this odd little gen fic drawing parallels between his past and Pammy’s present. I’m quite pleased with it.

the dawn of another summer (443 words)-- Fic found in a deleted text file. Jordaisy.

the kind of choices you make at midnight (436 words)-- Fic found in a deleted text file. Jordaisy.

Greek and Roman Mythology

Messenger of the Atreides (2035 words)-- I wrote this as a pinch hit for the Chocolate Box Exchange. Shipping Odysseus/Achilles from the Iliad. The vaguest smut I ever did write.

Hannibal (TV)

** # A similar confusion (4036 words)--Weird Gideon & Will fic bc having watched Hannibal, I really just wanted someone to be nice to Will who wasn’t Hannibal bc oh geez.

Harlots (TV)

girl in black and white (451 words)-- Short little ficlet I wrote for fuckthegods for the TV Exchange. Fuckthegods left tumblr... I’m really sad.

There is no one higher (2300 words)-- Caroline/Charlotte fic, would be PWP if I went harder on the actual smut.

Heathers

Right Answers (1667 words)-- Chansaw fic for the Femslash Exchange. Probably should have been longer but I overbooked myself this season and for once didn’t have the time.

doing an old friend a favor (2080 words)-- Someone requested Veronica/McNamara with a JESSICA JONES NOIR AU for Yuletide so of course I had to treat that shit.

How to Get Away with Murder

I wrote six whole fics for this fandom and still never wrote shippy stuff for my OTP. I NEED TO GET AROUND TO THAT. Also all my fics were relatively short and I should get on that. But this fandom doesn’t comment a whole lot and none of my friends are in it so it’s hard to motivate...

** your sweetheart psychopathic crush (2148 words)-- My first fic in this fandom, darkish Lilabecca bc of course I had to start with dark femslash.

five ways of looking at a homicide (1950 words)-- Asher POV finding out about all the shit that went down with the original Keating murder.

exam grade (1174 words)-- Annalise being concerned about Wes.

stuck in the corner (1089 words)-- Annalise/Michaela and Annalise/Bonnie in one brief smutty moment. Written for the Annual Femslash Kinkmeme.

# warm water (1353 words)-- Angsty Bonnalise bath sex. Written for the Annual Femslash Kinkmeme.

this is nice but also that is a murder bed (1062 words)-- And a random Connor/Wes fic appears.

Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers - Alyssa Wong

# the street's a liar (2411 words)--Honestly this fic (written for Dark Femslash Week) is pretty good and I would write more fic for this fandom if it wasn’t two ppl and a shoelace.

I reincarnated into an otome game as a villainess with only destruction flags

Villainesses Must Stick Together (2950 words)-- Written as a treat for the Yuletide Exchange. The rare diary format fic! Multiple realities interacting and some very mild selfcest!

Inception (2010)

** Fortifier (3512 words)-- Saito/Cobb fic written as a treat for the Chocolate Box exchange, with Saito as Cobb’s employer but also veering close to sugar daddy. I’m actually pretty happy with this.

Jessica Jones (TV)

Nothing Neat or Nice (2484 words)-- Hogarth/Jessica, plotless infidelity.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV)

gentleman's homecoming (1543 words)-- Lazy Grant/Jonathan fic mostly written to get my feet wet in the fandom.

** the husband in the tower (3787 words)--Arabella rescues Jonathan! Basically the fic I wanted to be the canon ending! But also written for my assignment for Yuletide! So we know other ppl wanted it too.

** Empty Houses Need to Be Filled (3804 words)-- Written as a Yuletide treat, an Emma/Arabella post-canon recovery fic.

A Strange Pact (1374 words)-- Going to be multichapter AU gen fic about Jonathan and the Gentleman. I’m working on it!

Lady of the Shard (Webcomic)

nix the new age morality (1537 words)--Noncon of the “Old God made them do it with mind control” sort, treat for the Nonconathon Exchange.

Les Misérables

you should probably arrest me (751 words)-- Enjolras/Javert ficlet, prompted.

shivering under the stars (2277 words)-- Enjolras/Javert, prompted for the “shaking and shivering” square for Bad Things Happen Bingo.

Marco Polo (TV)

Eleven fics for this fandom this year! Why, that’s quite a few! This is entirely bc of fuckthegods who a) sent me a lot of prompts for femslash and one for gen and b) just in general is my Marco Polo muse, inspires me to write fics I wouldn’t otherwise write. And now she’s gone off to Dreamwidth and I am honestly so sad but anyways.

Also, I’m not gonna tag any of these as “could use more comments” bc Marco Polo is such a damn small fandom but. That is true for basically all of these.

And I would walk five hundred miles (2514 words)-- Jing Fei/Mei Lin fic where Jing Fei survives and the two are reunited.

** Make me feel missed (2157 words)--Sequel to above, this time THERE’S SMUT.

truth in the cups (489 words)-- Written for fuckthegods in an exchange, Chabit/Mei Lin fic.

i will wait for you (1060 words)-- Jing Fei/Mei Lin episode related.

** do princes bleed blue (1643 words)-- Jingim whump for Bad Things Happen Bingo, “bleeding through bandages”.

stages of reflection (2229 words)-- Mei Lin + mirrors. For Bad Things Happen Bingo “rage against the reflection”.

an empress' softness (1558 words)-- Mei Lin/Chabi, smutty and angsty episode tag to “Measure Against the Linchpin.”

running from a savior (1459 words)-- Mei Lin & Marco, related to “Hug.”

Harmless (1158 words)-- Mei Lin/Chabi smut set in Season One, playing with power dynamics.

dance of mourning (695 words)-- Mei Lin mourning Jing Fei.

a whore's return to cambulac (2075 words)-- My last gift to fuckthegods before she left tumblr, a Mei Lin/Chabi reunion fic postcanon.

Miraculous Ladybug

Bound to Be There For You (2908 words)-- Chlonette fic written for the “tied together” square of Trope Bingo.

Original Work

** In the Private Seating (3384 words)-- Theatre smut. Femslash. Written as a treat for the Smut Exchange.

Perilous Gard - Elizabeth Marie Pope

** # The Training of a Human (5019 words)-- Dark Lady/Kate fic for Yuletide treat.

** Bangles (2485 words)-- Aaaand another dark Lady/Kate fic for Yuletide treat.

Phantom of the Opera

Me: I feel like I’ve been less active in the POTO fandom this year.

Also me: Wrote 28 POTO fics this year.

Got a lot of prompts, especially from generalsleepy, ponderinfrustration, a couple others I can’t think of off the top of my head. Thanks to all you guys for the inspiration.

Perfectionist (1617 words)-- Soft early relationship Carlottastine ficlet. Prompted.

Mind Beating Wild (1544 words)-- Carlottastine remix of the cemetery scene. Also prompted.

** Buttercup Boys and Goldenrod Girls (2990 words)-- Queerplatonic Raoul & Christine fic with aro Christine and demisexual Raoul. Kind of a wandering, collage-y fic.

** Cinnamon and Tobacco (5441 words)-- My first ever Daraoulga fic! A lot of H/C.

Nowhere, Nobody Else (1450 words)-- Cherik/Philippe fic. Prompted.

** in my heart i belong in a house by the sea (1797 words)-- Angsty as heck R/C fic. In Sweden! Prompted.

** free city for the enterprising (1746 words)-- Vaaaampires with R/C and E/R, I think it was prompted?

the more persistent spirit (3279 words)-- More generic Daraoulga fic, me still trying to figure out how Daraoulga would work.

** half-sick of shadows (3320 words)-- I just felt like “The Lady of Shalott” had strong Christine vibes, so I mixed it into a Carlottastine fic.

two divas one bed (1332 words)-- I mean what does it sound like. Modern AU Carlottastine.

** kiss me hard before you go (2489 words)-- Carlottastine but Carlotta is leaving Paris to live in the country so they’re BREAKING UP OH NO. Prompted.

hello, i want to kiss you (1009 words)-- Cherik/Philippe fic. Prompted.

Confusion of a Night (1987 words)-- Carlotta & Raoul fic, written for the “sensory overload” square of Bad Things Happen Bingo.

** two-thirty phone calls are never a good sign (1671 words)-- Daraoulga modern AU fic written for the humiliation square of Bad Things Happen Bingo.

** could you maybe act like you don't hate me (3433 words)-- Carlottastine smut mostly.

eliminate the competition (437 words)-- Carlotta ficlet. Prompted.

gala (654 words)-- A softer follow-up on “two-thirty phone calls are never a good sign.” ...I think it was prompted?

spiteful (796 words)-- Erik/Carlotta spiteful kiss ficlet, prompted.

take notes, sweetheart (466 words)-- Carlottastine antagonistic UST ficlet, prompted.

good morning erik (443 words)-- Fluffy Cherik/Philippe ficlet, prompted.

** she loves a pretty face (3966 words)-- Prompted “Raoul, scar to remember” for Bad Things Happen Bingo. Some R/C and E/R. I like this one.

lonely with you (1583 words)-- Prompted Raoul and touch-starved for Bad Things Happen Bingo. R/C, Sweden fic.

** Dolls and Goblins (5175 words)-- Prompted E/R and forced crossdressing, not somewhere I would usually go! But I think it came out well.

don't you trust me? (921 words)-- Angsty Daraoulga ficlet. Prompted.

nothing more than a minnow (1019 words)-- Quiet ghost!E/R fic written for the Darkest Night Exchange. This prompt definitely deserved better than I gave it! Idk why I wasn’t vibing with it just then.

cause you might not get tomorrow (1619 words)-- Carlotta carpe diem fic! Including Carlottastine.

long-term issues (2679 words)--Not another E/R kidnapping fic, I can’t believe it. I think this was prompted but I fucked with the prompt.

i wanna run away with you (2464 words)--Daroga joins with the R & C gang for the Sweden elopement.

Tell me the truth. (1941 words)-- Angsty Daraoulga, prompted.

...why does it feel like I didn’t write that much POTO fic? Maybe bc proportionally it’s less than in other years. But this year I wrote more fic in general, so of course the proportions have shifted.

Riverdale (TV 2017)

** the long elasticity of forgiveness (4321 words)-- FP is in jail, Jughead is being very patient.

** # My Secret Brother (7614 words)-- Technically Chic would have been Jughead’s brother too, so.

# spill some blossom blood (2049 words)-- Written for Bad Things Happen Bingo prompt, “Cheryl, take me instead”.

Sense8 (TV)

Six fics this year :) That’s about as many as I thought. Fandom deserves more tbh.

You, Painted Pink and Blue (2652 words)-- Sun/Riley kind of smut without plot, written for the Trope Bingo square of “Romance novel AU.”

Secret Garden (999 words)-- Sun/Soo-jin ficlet.

** Such Things Are Possible (12867 words)-- Rajan’s POV of that CRAZY FINALE, possibly my most popular fic this year. I had a lot of feelings.

smart talker (1385 words)-- Capheus and Whispers and creepiness. Prompted.

** Lovely in Starlight (5080 words)-- Fucked up Lila/Kala fic bc sometimes you gotta do all the work for yourself. I like this one.

** first meetings (2294 words)-- Some Jonas what-ifs.

Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab

Missive From Halfway Through "Seeing It" (1176 words)-- My first fic of the year, a NYR treat, epistolary fic with Kell and Rhy.

Qivuak (2635 words)-- Kell/Holland sex pollen fic for Chocolate Box treat.

** Interlude at the Hot Springs (3457 words)-- Also for Chocolate Box treat, a KELL/HOLLAND HOT SPRINGS FIC. Quite possibly my favorite dumbass premise of the year.

Lily London (2083 words)-- Quiet Kell and Holland fic.

Cat on the Bed (1980 words)-- Kell/Holland smut but they’re cat boys, assigned fic for the Smut Exchange.

Stranger Things (TV 2016)

Think I Know Where You Belong (2004 words)-- Elmax fic, prompted.

** # An Errand in the City (3833 words)-- Kali meets Nancy and visits Hawkins to see El. Kali/Mick fic.

** Long Trek to a New Home (6476 words)-- Kalancy APOCALYPSE FIC, written for the apocalypse square of Trope Bingo.

we live in cities you'll never see onscreen (1321 words)-- Kali/Mick origin story, precanon.

** # hands that stitch (3187 words)-- Kali murders a dude at Nancy’s college, Kalancy.

The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner

tell me about the mede (655 words)-- I didn’t even write this this year, I just found it in a deleted text document. My QT writing is way down.

The Sting (1973)

a smaller con (1373 words)-- Look I know y’all talk about Hooker/Gondorff but the real ship here is Hooker/Lonnegan k?

イキガミ | Ikigami - All Media Types

it's galling how much i want to be good (3655 words)-- I started this fic like three years ago but only finished and posted this year. Whump.

亜人 - 三浦追儺 & 桜井画門 | Ajin - Miura Tsuina & Sakurai Gamon those who drown together stay together (1352 words)-- Kou and Kei wash up on the shore.

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