#which fits marlow and valerie more

[vaugarde]

*knows damn good and well itll be forever before he ever goes into animatic territory* man idk if i should use this song for this oc relationship or THIS oc relationship :(((

[mostlysignssomeportents]

John M Ford's "Aspects"

John M Ford’s sudden death in 2006 — a heart attack — left his legion of friends and fans bereft and reeling. Ford — “Mike” to his friends — was brilliant, witty, and multitalented, an accomplished RPG designer, poet, and half-a-dozen kinds of novelist.

He published an eerily prescient cyberpunk novel about “the Web” four years before Neuromancer, and eight years before Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web. His expansion to Paranoia is one of the wittiest RPG sourcebooks ever published. His Star Trek novel, “The Final Reflection,” created Klingon fandom and changed the way the franchise approached its perennial bad guys. His other Star Trek novel, “How Much For Just the Planet,” is a comedic masterpiece that mashes up Trek with Gilbert and Sullivan.

He was a dear friend of a wide community of science fiction and fantasy writers, editors and fans, all of whom were in quiet awe of his wit and creativity. Robert Jordan called him “the best writer in America, bar none.”

Ford’s death didn’t just break his friends’ hearts, it also threw his literary estate into chaos. Ford died intestate, and was not married to his partner, Elise Matthesen. A series of seeming miscommunications with his family (who controlled his estate) led many of his friends to conclude that they didn’t want to permit his work to remain in print. His agent, Valerie Smith, was embroiled in a legal battle when he died and quit the field shortly thereafter, and stopped answering correspondence and calls.

That’s where things remained for for more than a decade, as Ford’s work became harder and harder to locate. But then, Slate’s Isaac Butler set out to resolve the mystery of what had become of Ford’s legacy, and, incredibly, managed to bring together Ford’s family, friends, publisher, and erstwhile agent, unwinding the misunderstandings and missed signals:

https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/john-ford-science-fiction-fantasy-books.html

As a result, Tor’s Beth Meacham was able to do a deal to reissue all of Ford’s work, including his unfinished masterpiece, Aspects, which was still in progress when Ford died.

The first of these was a reissue of “The Dragon Waiting,” which Gene Wolfe called “The best mingling of history with historical magic that I have ever seen,” which sported an introduction by Scott Lynch:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250269010/thedragonwaiting

Next came a reprint of “The Scholars of Night,” with a new introduction by Charlie Stross. “Scholars” is an incredibly clever, brilliantly plotted, sharp-as-hell Cold War spy thriller that defies description as it hops back and forth between the life of Christopher Marlowe and a cabal of wargaming 1980s spooks:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/mike-ford-rides-again/#cold-war-zeitgeist

Last week, we got the main event: the long-awaited publication of “Aspects,” an epic, unfinished first volume of a steampunk fantasy series, with an introduction by Neil Gaiman:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250269034/aspects

In his intro, Gaiman writes that “Aspects” is “what Game of Thrones might have been, if the author had been fascinated by trains…communication and politics, magic, redemption, and the forms that love can take.” Having just finished the novel myself, I think that’s exactly perfect.

This is a book of quiet — but stunning — erudition. Every aspect of Ford’s world — its politics, its history, its geography, its magic, its technology, its economics, its mythos — rings true. What’s more, every part of it fits together with the rest of it in a way that is so believable that it feels realer than our own world at times.

It’s the story of a world of magic on the cusp of an industrial revolution, where a hereditary Parliament is engaged in a constitutional reform meant to modernize society — a project that is opposed by many forces, foreign and domestic.

Ford weaves his tale around a series of set-pieces, starting with a duel, and then a Parliamentary debate, and then a retreat to a magical guest-house — an extended scene of hospitality, camaraderie and joy so intense that it was like mainlining the entire Callahan’s series along with every story of the Algonquin Roundtable and Roosevelt’s kitchen cabinet in one go. There are road-trips and fights with bandits, star-crossed lovers and brilliant chefs, street urchins and sorcerers, magic and romance.

“Aspects” ends abruptly, eight paragraphs into its eighth chapter, with nothing of the remainder of the book or the series except a sequence of sonnets meant to introduce the subsequent volumes. It’s a truncation as haunting as the unfinished Gormenghast book — except that Ford manages to pack as much detail and delight into an unfinished single volume as Peake produced in three.

It’s a book as frustrating as it is satisfying. That stump of an eighth chapter hints at so much more — it makes me want to write fanfic, or play an RPG based on it (either would be a fitting tribute to Ford).

As bittersweet as it was to turn the final page in the final work by Mike Ford, it was, still, sweet. And there is more Ford to (re)discover. Tor continues to reissue Ford’s backlist. Next up is “Growing Up Weightless,” about “a lost generation’ of young people born on the human-colonized Moon. That’s out next autumn, with an intro by Francis Spufford:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250269102/growingupweightless

Some time after that, Tor will reissue “Web of Angels,” that prescient proto-cyberpunk novel — Ford’s first. I wrote the intro for that one. As I wrote, “It is a remarkable, innovative, strange and dense book. It’s not easy to read, but it is a stupendous book.”

There’s more to come after that, too.

For more than a decade, Ford’s friends and fans feared that his legacy would be snuffed out. Now, there’s a chance for it to achieve the fame and accord it always deserved.

[vaugarde]

✨❤️✂️🧠 for all of team starfall!!!

KJDL:GJFDL:GJDFL:GJDFLGFDG EVE OMG YAY

✨- How did you come up with the OC’s name?

-skylar: tbh i just thought skylar was a really pretty name and wanted it for one of my characters at the time. i coulddd change it to something that has more meaning that aligns with their character but uhhhh their original name within the story kinda does that anyways i think dfklsdf. im attached at this point

-asha: *hangs my head low* i saw it in wings of fire and thought it was cute. ok but for real i decided it for asha after looking up the meaning, which is "life" which sounds broad but considering her story is about how she and certain antagonists are not sure if she deserves life at all? is fitting

-valerie: another name that i just thought was cute. you can see a theme here. but the word valerie is often associated w fairies and mermaids, at least when i checked it was, and valerie is both! so on a superficial level it works

❤️ - What is one of your OC’s best memories?

skylar: they would tell you that taking down their first ultra beast with little experience was one, or unlocking their psychic powers- it made them feel on top of the world- but their real best memories was one evening after a particularly harsh day- they and asha had been targeted again and struggled to find a place to heal- everything slowed down. this was earlier in their travels, and both were panicked children who didn't Quite gel at first. skylar was even planning on running off if it meant they wouldn't get attacked. but that night, they were prepared to sleep off their injuries until asha went out and got them food, and came back with that and a warm blanket they'd taken. asha put the blanket around them, making sure they were comfortable, and pat their head until they were nearly asleep. though it was still restrained since asha didn't want to get too close and hurt skylar, it was one of the first moments of intimacy skylar could remember. that was when they realized they wanted to stay with asha despite their differences and situation.

asha: castor taking them out to see the stars at around age 8 after a really stressful day where she shut down, almost glitched out and couldn't talk to anyone because they were just afraid they'd break. she felt humiliated and self hating because this happened at school. castor, wanting to help her feel better, flew her up to the clouds and they searched the night sky for all of the other planets and stars out of their reach. the whole time, asha was wrapped in his wings, trying to show her that he wasn't afraid of her despite her condition being contact-based, as well as give her physical comfort. it's part of why the night sky is so important to her, it's one of her core memories.

valerie: marlow deciding that it'd be good for her to know her water type roots around age 10 and taking her on a small trip through the ocean's edge and rivers through serenade falls, including letting her play behind serenade's popular waterfall. since marlow would often have to work hard to support them, it was a beautiful day where the two of them could just bond and be normal siblings for a day, and it was also when valerie could just explore and find new things for a day.

✂️ - What is one of your OC’s worst memories?

skylar: it's hard for them to place. most of their memories are gone, and only a few vague ones appear to them in the form of dreams. but they would consider those dreams nightmares. the worst one they can barely describe, is of their own body being stretched and strained while hearing a voice crying in either anger or sadness, until they came apart entirely.

asha: being separated from her family. it was the first time she was really, truly, all alone. and not only that, she was trapped in an unfamiliar world with no guidance or comfort, and they were being hunted by... someone. multiple people. things. everyone was out for her. it's not a memory she likes to reflect on.

valerie: trying to perform on her own for some time without marlow's help, believing so hard- even with her condition, she could perform moves fine, so she'd be okay, right? and for a while, she was. but she wore herself out hard. she ended up being bedridden while her aura stabilized, missing the winter solstice festival that year. the guilt on marlow's face haunts her to this day.

🧠 - What do you like most about the OC?

skylar- oh the main thing i love about them is a. big spoiler JLKSDJFLSDJFDSF but otherwise!! i really enjoy thinking about their backstory and how it's affected them to the present. they're very similar to valerie in a lot of ways (to a point i might have to tweak them further actually) in that they've been restrained for so long that they just revel in the fact that they can just... do whatever they want. be free. not hold anything back. it takes them a bit to realize, what with the amnesia, but by the time valerie enters the picture, they're a chaotic force to be messed with!

asha- oh i will project onto her so hard. ok for real i am just a sucker for characters that are stoic, blunt, and lonesome to a fault but have a kind spot that shines through, and theyre like that because of a wall theyve put up that has to be lowered with time. asha starts off the story as a very jaded person who hates herself to the point that if she didnt fear death so much, she would have just let it consume her. but their story is about them learning to love themself as they are and take control of their life and let them seek out things that make them happy, and realize how she's impacted the lives of those around her. idk shes very special to me and i love her sm...

valerie- BY FAR it is her optimism combined w her insecurities. omg. first of all her joyful personality is so fun to write, and it's not a front or anything, she's not inconsiderate like princely is in BoP's beginning, she's just someone who loves the people in her life, loves the world around her, and wants to be a positive influence for everyone. the problem that comes with that though... is that she's a doormat. she doesn't often get what SHE wants because she's just giving and giving and giving. she doesn't think she doesn't deserve to take, necessarily, but the opportunity just isn't there a lot of the time. the few times she's reached out to try and get what she wants most- an adventure around the world- it's been squandered somehow. whether she gets denied an escort request or someone in her life puts the idea down because "you're too frail for that! it'd be better for you and everyone to sit still". i don't like, LOVE that ofc but it just makes her feel very real to me. i think she's admirable and its understandable to me how she changes throughout starfall... and in the end, still decides to be a positive influence, now being able to stand up for herself and getting the aide she needs.