#*◞❀.❁⤻(ray bradbury//ic)

[smbhax]

Info from ISFDB

[multi-mused-menagerie]

@mckeitbeautiful​     asked     :

“oh, you’ve out dumbed yourself.” // akutagawa@ray

          “ Bold of you to believe that I’ve reached my peak of dumbass ” , Ray snarks back, turning his attention away from the situation at hand to give the mafia member a quick glare. This was just pathetic. First, he gets caught in some stupid net and now Akutagawa comes by to make fun of him ? This was just lovely. Let this be the last time he allows Dazai to goad him into a bet.

         “ Why is there a net here in the first place ? Are you hoping that Atsushi somehow finds his way into a Port Mafia warehouse while in tiger form and just gets caught ? ”

[mortalityplays]

talking about this just reminded me I had a dream last night that I'd launched a new epic space opera style webcomic, which was entirely about a vast abandoned space station that was a fully automated unmanned ice cream factory. it was like that one ray bradbury story except the space station made ice cream, forever, for nobody. some lost passenger shuttle docks with it and wakes its passenger from cryosleep, and then they're just stuck there. in the city sized space ice cream factory. alone.

every chapter was themed around a different stage of industrial scale ice cream production, culminating in the product being jettisoned into space through a cargo system that no longer linked to any freighters. very allegorical etc.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Prompt: The First Lines

Choose one of the first lines of these literary works and either create a new poem/story, or continue rewriting the story...

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. —Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1873)

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. —J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951)

In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. —George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

It was a pleasure to burn. —Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they [electrocuted the Rosenbergs], and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. —Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (1963)

I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless [Detroit day of January 1960]; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near [Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.] —Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex (2002)

Mama died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. —Albert Camus, The Stranger (1942)

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, [Colonel Aureliano Buendía] was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. —Gabriel García Márquez, 100 Years of Solitude (1967)

"Where's Papa going with that ax?" —E. B. White, Charlotte's Web (1952)

If this writing prompt inspires you in any way, please tag me, or send me a link. I would love to read your work!

More: The Last Lines (pt. 1) ⚜ (pt. 2) More: Writing Prompts

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Sunsweet Prunes

Ray Bradbury: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of the lazy summer of youth Bradbury: long days down by the river, fishing in miller's pond, afternoons at the soda shop, ice cream sundaes with fabulous unicorn worlds built of whipped cream, nickels for a dime Bradbury: and becky miller's freckled-face kisses Bradbury: sweeter than sunsweet prunes

Bradbury: sunsweet prunes, i tell you Bradbury: the only prune that's sweeter than a nostalgic midwestern childhood Bradbury: and they come in these little individually wrapped plastic packs too King: Poe: Barker: Koontz: Lovecraft: Bradbury: I just think they're neat

Bradbury: according to my stories, in the far distant future of 2001 Bradbury: we shall travel in tubes Bradbury: we'll have flying cars Bradbury: and we'll all be eating our sunsweet prunes out of individually wrapped plastic packs Poe: wait you never said that in your stories Bradbury: i wish i had Bradbury: i would have been 1 for 3 at least

Bradbury: look, they individually wrap these sunsweet prunes in plastic Bradbury: what a world! Bradbury: its like living in the not too distant future Poe: doesn't that create a lot of waste Bradbury:

Bradbury: tearing open this individually wrapped snack pack reminds me of tearing open presents on christmas morning, snow on the ground, ma and pa taking the day off from working the farm, the whole family arriving in a caravan of automobiles, aunts and uncles and cousins by the dozen, oh my! oh my! uncles a little too loud after three egg nogs, cousins playing cops & robbers in the hay loft

Bradbury: and the feasting, the jollity! too many voices all at once, raised in laughter, in song. the twinkle in dad's eye, the red roses in mom's cheeks, grandpa's baritone chuckle. falling asleep to the sounds of bing crosby on the tombstone radio, surrounded by the warm glow of early evening King: wow these prunes sound pretty incredible King: i'm sold! Koontz: [tearing open sunsweet prune container] guys Koontz: i think my prunes are broken Koontz: i didn't feel any of that stuff ray said

Poe: ray are they paying you to advertise for prunes Bradbury: no no of course not! Bradbury: i would never accept money to tell you about the incredible health benefits of america's favorite prunes, sunsweet Bradbury: full of 12 different antioxidents King: can i buy them with my american express card

Neil Gaiman: but ray! Gaiman: using the limitless vista of your inpirational mind to advertise a mere consumer good Gaiman: such a tawdry use of the gift of imagination! Gaiman: it cheapens us as writers just as the low low prices of chipotle cheapens organic rice and GMO-free beans to bring wholesome healthy Mexican inspired fusion cuisine to the masses

Gaiman: you can't leash the phoenix of creativity to the millstone of commerce! Gaiman: she must fly free! Gaiman: free like the secret dragon sauce available now at now extra charge at your local chipotle King: neil's right! Poe: about chipotle? King: about everything!!

[girlinthemirrorbluenight-library]

My art for the first ever @destielaureversebb. You can check out the fic here by @ravenfuchs who wrote a beautiful story about queer joy and finding community and also saving the bees.

Sharing some details under the cut.

So for the first piece which is what I submitted for claims, I really wanted a Dean who was just so comfortable with himself and happy and queer. In my head that means tons of tattoos and jewelry. The idea is these tattoos started out sort of impulsively with random flash like the little pizza and mom heart, but eventually he started putting more thought into it and got larger pieces like the solar system and the ocean. His jewelry is also all cosmic themed with stars, moons, suns, and the aquarius symbol which is his star sign. The bracelets I also imagine were made by a friend or maybe someone who came into the center where he works.

Confession, I've never actually been to a Pride parade, I know. I have been to different pride events though including queer bingo hosted by a drag queen. But I thought about both tables I've seen at events and looking up different LGBTQ center websites to see what resources they had. I probably didn't need to type an actual list out but as you can probably tell I really went for the details with these pieces so we have a full list of real services and original pamphlets.

From the second piece, we have some fun details with Dean's jewelry where he has this fun little charm bracelet a little inspired by Lucky Charms and earrings that match his frog t-shirt.

So these guys along with the Yoda plush are things Charlie actually owns in the show. The Pez dispensers are at her desk at Roman Enterprises. I showed these to my dad who is a huge Tolkien fan to see if he recognized them and it was a success.

Scooby Doo Clue is a real board game variant of Clue that Dean would 100% own. Drawing this board game with the actual details for all the rooms along with all the accurate game pieces took an insane amount of time but hopefully it was worth it? This is definitely the most detailed digital background I've ever done but it was very fun if time consuming.

Some Charlie house details. The board games are all either common ones or ones I thought she'd enjoy. She does canonically enjoy TTRPGs but most of these are more traditional board games. I actually own a couple of Star Wars games including Star Wars Risk and Star Wars Life, but not Outer Rim or Rebellion. The books are all canon references. Charlie canonically is a fan of the Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire series and of course The Hobbit is very important to her and is what she used to read with her parents before the car accident. The rest of the books are all based on her aliases. She uses a combination of a Stephen King character + a sci-fi/fantasy author. So we have The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin, The Halloween Tree, Fahrenheit 451 (which yes I did misspell oops), and The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, and a couple Stephen King books including Carrie and Fire Starter which is where Charlene comes from. These book titles actually took a really long time because Krita does not have the most robust text tool yet but oh well.

[jackoshadows]

It's baffling how this fandom keeps theorizing that Arya's subplots and role in the story can be replaced by any Stark, specifically Sansa, and it would be just the same when the show did replace fake Arya with another character - and then GRRM specifically refuted that change several times and pointed to that change on the show as where show canon diverged from book canon!

This is a fandom talking point that GRRM himself has refuted and said 'Nah, you can't do that. That plot specifically needs Fake Arya. The story needs fake Arya in the North and when the TV show replaced her with another character, the TV show then diverges from the books and becomes different canon' .

Also GRRM is not talking about the writing for show Sansa in season 6, 7 or 8 and the direction D&D took her character on the show where the only support she gets is from Littlefinger and the Vale army he rallies to help her. In fact GRRM does not even mention Sansa in this interview. He is talking specifically of 'Fake Arya' and how Fake Arya is important to that plot point in the North.

They (D&D) started making changes even as early as season one. And I remember I had discussions with them back in season one. When I was more involved in the process, when we’d discuss things and the fact that they removed Jeyne Poole was a very early thing. They actually said, oh no, Jeyne Poole is in it. You see the girl that’s sitting next to Sansa in the one scene in the feast at Winterfell. Yes, that’s Jeyne Poole, but you never hear a name and she’s not in it, but I did tell them. ‘Yes, but there’s the butterfly effect’, as I called it, deriving from the famous Ray Bradbury story, A Sound of Thunder, crush a butterfly the Jurassic and suddenly you changed all of human history from that point forward. Unintentionally. A little change in a long narrative can have big changes further on. And now, Gone with the Wind didn’t have to worry about that, cause those two children that they removed never had any impact on the story. And Margaret Mitchell didn’t go on to write 6 more novels in which the children grew up and became the leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Whatever the hell, you know, she might have done with those two boys.

And I think they were both boys, and Rhett’s daughter was a girl. So she didn’t have to deal with the butterfly effect there. You know, when we remove Jeyne Poole from season one, then you don’t have Jeyne Poole to be the fake Arya, as happens in the book. So what do you do then? The butterfly effect has done that. (---)

The butterfly effect can have that, but getting back to the whole issue of canon, the butterfly effect affects the canon. But there’s also sometimes deliberate changes in a show where the showrunners or the writers or the studio, the network, or wherever it comes from, goes in a different direction. So what we’re doing at this point in the history of A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones, Westeros, whatever you wanna call it. Yeah. We have two canons. We have the show canon, the Game of Thrones canon. And we have the Song of Ice and Fire canon.

GRRM thought Fake Arya was so important he was insisting to D&D way back while filming season one in 2010 to cast Jeyne Poole.

And even D&D realized that the Jon/Arya relationship is so sacred that they didn't even attempt to replicate that with Sansa in the North. They even had show Jon Snow make a suicidal attempt to save his little brother Rickon Stark - which show Sansa advises against because fuck family - but we never got the whole Jon breaking his NW oaths to attack the Boltons for Arya Stark happening on the show with Sansa.

The asoiaf fandom loves appropriating book Arya's plots for Sansa. Jonsa shippers love appropriating her relationship with Jon for their utterly absurd crackship all the while dragging Arya down as 'ugly' 'violent' and 'masculine'.

Non-shippers love to give away all the politicking around Arya to Sansa, take away Arya intelligence and know-how of the North because their sexism only allows them to see one Stark girl as political and leader of the North. It's not about what the author has actually written for these characters, no, it's about which character passes their standard for femininity.

So yeah, one is free to replace Arya with Sansa because one is dissatisfied with Sansa's canonical book story that GRRM has written for the character and instead prefer Benioff and Weiss' show fanfiction or want Arya's book story for Sansa's character because she's conventionally beautiful and a 'real girl' according to the tradfems.

However, keep in mind that GRRM thinks 'Fake Arya' is very important to his story and that's a Northern political sublot that revolves specifically around Arya Stark in the books.

Once again, the Stark sisters and their book subplots are not interchangeable!

[thearcaneuniversity]

Tagged by @sirenascelestiales for 2025 book bingo time [created by @batmanisagatewaydrug]

Literary Fiction: Many of the books from my BA studies list will probably make it here, I imagine. But if I had to pick one, I'd love to re-read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald or read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.

Short Story Collection: I don’t think I’ve ever read anything in this category, so I’ll go with an internet suggestion - Dubliners by James Joyce.

Sequel: This one’s tough… I’m in the mood to re-read The Lost World by Michael Crichton.

Reread a Childhood Favorite: The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, for sure! Another goal connected to this is to read it in French.

20th Century Speculative Fiction: 1984 by George Orwell.

Fantasy: A Game of Thrones and the whole A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin.

Published Before 1950: I’m itching to revisit some Shakespeare. I’d like to re-read A Midsummer Night’s Dream and finally read Hamlet.

Indie Publisher: I have no idea here - maybe someone could recommend something?

Graphic Novel, Comic Book, or Manga: Either some Darth Vader comic or my first try at manga.

Animal on the Cover: Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

Set in a Country You’ve Never Visited: Book’s Kitchen by Kim Jee-Hye, set in South Korea.

Science Fiction: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

2025 Debut Author: Bochica by Carolina Flórez-Cerchiaro.

Memoir: Educated by Tara Westover.

Read a Zine & Make a Zine: I’m not familiar with this; I’ll need to do some research.

Essay Collection: On Immunity by Eula Biss.

2024 Award Winner: The Vegetarian by Han Kang.

Nonfiction, Learn Something New: The Plantagenets: The Kings and Queens Who Made England by Dan Jones.

Social Justice & Activism: Disability Visibility by Alice Wong.

Romance Novel: Outlander by Diana Gabaldon - or maybe something by Nora Roberts.

Read & Make a Recipe: Pierogi z kimchi. Kulinarna podróż po Korei by Wioleta Błazucka.

Horror: The Outsider by Stephen King.

Published in the Aughts (2000–2009): The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

Historical Fiction: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.

Bookseller or Librarian Recommendation: I haven’t picked anything here yet.

It was so hard to choose, but also so much fun! Thank you for tagging me!

I’d love to create a moodboard for some of my 9 upcoming books, but I think I’ll save it for later.

If you want to do this (though no pressure): @quietpainter @profiterole-reads @en-busca-de-mi-ikigai-blog + whoever wants to join!

[karafina]

Manga, books and authors mentioned in A Drunken Dream and Other Stories

I wrote the english names that were used in the book. Honestly the way I organized this gave me a headache but I hope it's useful <3 See more for the list of authors that were mentioned briefly.

Manga mentioned in the interview Mama’s Violin - Tetsuya Chiba Tomboy Angel - Mitsuteru Yokoyama Shinsengumi; Astro Boy - Osamu Tezuka Harp of the Stars; Hello, Teacher; The White Troika - Hideko Mizuno Mist, Roses and Stars - Shotaro Ishitani The Boy from Dartmoor - Nanae Sasaya In the Sunroom; The Song of the Wind and the Trees - Keiko Takemiya You Can Hear the Rain; Birth - Yumiko Oshima Norakuro - Suiho Tagawa The Rose of Versailles - Riyoko Ikeda

Mentioned in Rachel Thorn's essay Fuichin-san - Toshiko Ueda Tomorrow’s Joe - Tetsuya Chiba Eyes of Ice - Nanae Sasaya Aim for the Ace! - Sumika Yamamoto Toward the Terra; Fly Me to the Moon! - Keiko Takemiya Banana Bread Pudding; F-Shiki Ranmaru - Yumiko Oshima Two in a White Room; Arabesque; The Son of Heaven in the Land of the Rising Sun; Terpsichore - Ryoko Yamagishi Mari and Shingo; A Staff and Wings - Toshie Kihara

Books The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm - Kate Douglas Wiggin Little Women - Louisa May Alcott Shank’s Mare - Ikku Jippensha The Currents of Space - Isaac Asimov The Generative Enterprise Revisited - Noam Chomsky Phantoms in the Brain - V.S. Ramachandran

There's notes at the end giving more context for these authors but I don't have it in me rn.

Interview: Miyako Maki Masako Watanabe Kazuo Umezu Sanpei Shirato Mineko Yamada Ryoko Yamagishi Jun Morita Yasuko Sakata Akiko Hatsu Shio Satoh Aiko Itoh Machiko Satonaka

Essay: Yoshiko Nishitani Minori Kimura Mineko Yamada Akira Mochizuki Sato Tomoe

Book authors: Kenji Miyazawa Jean Stratton-Porter Robert Heinlein Ryotaro Shiba Sawako Ariyoshi Herman Hesse Ray Bradbury Jean Cocteau Kenichiro Mogi

[bracketsoffear]

Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury) "Jude Perry would love living in this world."

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream (Harlan Ellison) "For the past 109 years, sadistic supercomputer AM has been torturing the last five humans on Earth in the depths of his complex. It is brilliantly intelligent and wields unimaginable power, but because from its very core it was designed as a tool for war and destruction, it is unable to use its enormous potential for anything constructive. AM is painfully aware of this, and it is an endless source of frustration, self-loathing and hatred towards humans for making him this way; he outright states that his utterly ballistic hatred for all human life is what allowed him to thrive in tormenting the protagonists for over a century, and the only thing he seems to enjoy is torture. All of AM's games are unwinnable by design, either because he's ensured that the scenario is tailored to the player's fatal flaw, or because he's given them almost nothing to work with. It lets them travel for thousands of miles to get to the ice caverns to obtain cans of food because AM keeps them at starvation point and only feeds them disgusting food…and it turns out there really are cans, but nothing to open them with, and the whole thing was just to fuck with them. After Ted kills the other humans, he becomes the sole target of AM’s torture; he is turned into an amorphous creature unable to harm itself, without a mouth, and has his perception of time continuously accelerated and decelerated, with his only hope for escape being when AM finally stops functioning, potentially thousands of years later."

[mxcrowave]

little tidbits: Ray

"Ray" isn't actually short for anything. You'd think it's short for "radio" but it isn't!

Middle name is Piccadilly, after the tube line

Father is a mechanic, mother was a military pilot. That's why he wanted to join GRN

Learnt a lot of handyman skills from his dad :]

Is Latino (on dad's side) AND South Asian (on mum's) but somehow his last name (Wexler) reflects neither of these

Only realised he was transmasc in his very early adulthood. Up until then identified as nonbinary

Favourite book is Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. Wait what did you think i was gonna say

AVID reader. loves science fiction especially

Doesn't know that Venya was friends with his mum, dislikes him for completely unrelated reasons

Favourite ice cream flavour is mint chocolate chip. Actually he loves anything mint flavoured including mint chocolate. Terrifying.

Can tolerate a lot of alcohols, but the only one he likes the taste of is vodka

Scared of doctors. Like. Deathly terrified. Has refused to go to medical in the past because of this

Hoarder. Gives out trinkets because he keeps too many and has to clear his space out

[tenjikyu]

im gonna yap abt my lit collection n ur not gonna stop me n if u dont read all this consider urself an opp

so my first piece of classic lit was admittedly the sixty-seven tales of edgar allan poe which has been fully annotated and ive owned it for years

my technical oldest book is a first edition in russian copy of the brothers karamazov ( i dont know russian )

Dostoevsky wise I have The Adolescent in both english and russian, my other copy of the brothers karamazov in english, crime and punishment, the double and the gambler, the idiot and notes from underground

I have "Rashomon and 17 other tales" by Rynnosuke Akutagawa

Fahrenheit by ray bradbury which i annotated

Dazai wise I have the flowers of buffoonery, no longer human, self portraits, and the setting sun which have all been annotated

I have gatsby, tender is the night, this side of paradise, the beautiful and damned, the rich boy, and the ice palace by fitzgerald and also a collection of all of his short stories

gatsby is annoted and so is tender is the night

i have two copies of collections of hemingway and lovecraft which is about everything they both ever wrote and one of my hemingway ones is fully annotated

and then i have a shit load of classic poetry which is a shitload and pretty much all annotated

and thennnn i have two collections of Japanese short stories, and four american short stories collections

and about half of all of those have been annotated

and thennnn i have this really old box of old french lit from my mom

anyways ily mootie have a fantastic day !!

i how you know your house is #1 on my rob list

i’m assuming you were a literature freak before you got into BSD 😭

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: The Bad Timeline

Harry Turtledove: greetings citizens of earth 16 Poe: hi harry King: hi harry Koontz: hi Lovecraft: hello Barker: hey Turtledove: i hope that the timeline hasn't been irrevocably altered during my uneventful absence

Turtledove: i'm back from my secret mission on behalf of the Temporal Corps correcting the timeline Thomas Disch: ah i see you've been playing the classic Legend video game Timequest by Bob Bates! Turtledove: Turtledove: video game?!?!? Turtledove: this is real life!

Turtledove: i'm happy to report that I've finally corrected the damage done to the timeline Turtledove: and history is back on its proper trajectory King: Poe: Koontz: Barker: Lovecraft: Poe: you're sure history is on the right trajectory? Turtledove: of course Poe: nothing could have happened to make it go wrong? Turtledove: well Turtledove: if i'm being totally honest Turtledove: i did accidentally squash a bug back in the Mesozoic Turtledove: but it was just one bug Turtledove: i'm sure it's fine Turtledove: it's probably fine Turtledove: boy i'm hungry Turtledove: anyone got any dodo eggs? Poe: harry dodos have been extinct for hundreds of years Turtledove: what? no no that can't be Turtledove: i mean i know they were endangered back in the 80s Turtledove: but after president Mondale's reintroduction program... Poe: oh boy harry Poe: maybe you should sit down

Turtledove: what? Ronald Reagan??! Poe: yeah Turtledove: the actor??? Poe: yeah Turtledove: no no the timeline's all wrong! Turtledove: [adjusting mysterious handheld device] great scott i must have transfigurated the chronometer instead of recontrabulating the interspekulon! Barker: oh yeah that explains it Poe: clive

Turtledove: who's president now Poe: it's Donald trump Turtledove: Poe: again Turtledove: Turtledove: oh you guys are fucked

Turtledove: [holding mysterious device] let me just check the readings Turtledove: oh boy, no wonder King: what is it? Turtledove: you guys are just lousy with tachyons King: is that good? Turtledove: no! Turtledove: it's bad! Turtledove: it's very very bad!

Turtledove: obviously this timeline can only be the work of my arch nemesis Turtledove: the evil leaper King: the evil leaper? Turtledove: yes, he leaps from time to time, striving to make wrong I set right Turtledove: Ray Bradbury King: Koontz: Poe: Lovecraft: Barker: i gotta say, i was not expecting that

Ray Bradbury: it's me ray Bradbury Bradbury: that's right! i'm altering the timeline! Bradbury: soon it will all be malt soda shops and ruddy-cheeked little girls, ice cream socials, hay rides in the brisk autumn evening, lazy summer afternoons down at the ol' fishin hole Bradbury: the eternal 1930!

[allmimsyweretheborogroves]

XIII.

The sun fallen across the windowpane, golden rays filling up the room—it’s a cat day, a lazy day drinking iced tea with mint ice cubes clinking as they melt, condensation  dripping on the rug the kind of day for listening  to old records, if I had any, big band crooning in the background staring at the ceiling mind empty, but for the sweat dripping down my back keep the air conditioner off day nostalgia day for a life not quite lived summer out of time Ray Bradbury-style cicadas singing in the trees and the smell of heat radiating in from the concrete outside an Americana daydream except it’s too hot to sleep, just lying around is enough nothing to do, nowhere to be and here I am, sweating in the sunlight but unwilling to move after all, where would I go this photosynthesis kind of life is the only thing left so I turn the record in my head over and let the B-side serenade me into high heat senselessness.

Prompt: write a poem in the invented style of Donald Justice, ignored.

[ufohio]

On Kaleidoscope World, we use prompts to inspire standalone science fiction and genre stories from our writers. In the context of our collaborative setting, we use these stories to populate a fictional magazine called—you guessed it!—Kaleidoscope World. However, as standalone writing prompts, they really could be used by anybody looking to create a thematic sci-fi story. Go wild! The prompts featured here include special Pride, Valentine's Day, and Black History Month topics. The full text of these will be under the cut for anyone needing it.

Theme: The Search for a Kaleidoscope World! Prompt: Heaven. Utopia. Home. These are the words that launch voyages and sink ships. If we knew with certainty the Kaleidoscope World existed, we never would have come this far in search of it. For the first issue of the city of Earth’s favorite vintage pulp science-fiction publication, write about travelers and pilgrims who seek the titular, mythical planetary paradise—or about the people who find it when they’re not looking. Theme: Over the Rainbow Planet Prompt: Somewhere over the rainbow is a world of peace, love, acceptance, pride, romance, mystery, fantasy, and adventure. For this special issue of Kaleidoscope World, include reoccurring LGBTQ+ color schemes in a story OR write a LGBTQ+ protagonist in a classic plot from any genre. Theme: Rocket Summer Prompt: In the opening chapter of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles (1950), a rocket is launched in snowy January and creates so much warmth that winter is temporarily changed to summer in the nearby town: the ice melts, women shed their coats, and children go out to play in the streets. For the third issue of the city of Earth's favorite tales, write a story that takes place in a very hot climate or during this so-called "Rocket Summer." Theme: Fantastic Planet of Love Prompt: Love is a universal language—be you man, bug man, blob, or floating space jelly. Across the galaxy, all hearts speak, and though they can't always immediately understand the words, all creatures hear it. For this lovey-dovey issue of Kaleidoscope World, write about a couple (or more) from two (or more) different worlds and/or about aliens visiting a paradise planet on their honeymoon or honeymoon equivalent. Theme: Year on a Black Planet Prompt: Afrofuturism envisions the world of tomorrow through the lens of Black identity and history, combining science fiction and fantasy with themes of displacement, liberation, and diaspora. From P-Funk to Octavia Butler to Black Panther, Afrofuturism has been expanding American and global philosophy and imagination for years. For this special issue of Kaleidoscope World, imagine a dazzling African city in the far future, a planet influenced by African culture—or let yourself be inspired by examples of Afrofuturism in music and art.

[marejadilla]

“A good night sleep, or a ten minute bawl, or a pint of chocolate ice cream, or all three together, is good medicine.” ― Ray Bradbury, "Dandelion Wine"