#the disasters

[layaart]

some rough silhouette char designs from The Disasters by M.K England! hopefully at some point i’ll get time to colour these properly but also i thought it looked kinda cool just like this

[mkengland]

hi!!! i just wanted to say it's really cool to see you on here. i found The Disasters just randomly at a barnes and noble in high school and it very rapidly became one of my favorite books ever. nax truly changed the game for me as a fellow anxious bisexual obsessed with space lol

anyway it just felt serendipitous seeing you were on tumblr (and reblogging dropout memes) so i wanted you to know that your writing really inspired me as a weird queer writer teen and continues to do so as a weird queer writer adult. also you have great taste in tv :D

Oh wow this MADE MY NIGHT and it means a whole lot. What a great message to get. I will always love that book for launching (heh) my career and letting me share my nerdy love of space adventures and my firsthand experience of being an anxious bisexual mess. No one is more shocked than me that I am still here publishing books (10 of them now!) almost 7 years later.

Also come on y’all, if you aren’t subscribed to @dropoutdottv yet what are you even doing? It’s the best six dollars I spend every month, a total steal! And check out the Worlds Beyond Number podcast while you’re at it, just in case you really want your idea of tabletop storytelling to be thoroughly rocked. The best media I have ever consumed.

(I have actually been on Tumblr for over 10 years under various names and to various degrees. You could say… I’VE BEEN HERE THE WHOLE TIME.)

[flowersofchaos]

Ryan: *Swears at Nax within minutes of meeting him*

Nax:

[aspiring-wildfire]

The Disasters by M. K. England is just. so fucking good, you guys

Like looking for a book with an openly bi poc as the main character??? Check!

Want a canonically trans female character who’s part of the main cast and who’s characterization doesnt revolve around being trans??? Got it, she’s a medic/soccer star/fucking badass!!

Looking for mlm rep?? Here you go, and between well-rounded lovely characters with great banter!!

How about honest representation of characters with anxiety who are still brilliant and snarky and badass and fun??? Absolutely!!!

Interested in a hijabi Bengali character whos a master hacker and all around super cool and well developed?? Yeah, she’s trying to undermine a major criminal network with her terrifying honorary grandmother!

Want a super diverse cast?? 4/5 of the main cast are poc, no one is from the same ethnic background, and it’s never once an issue!!!!

Want minor characters such as a government worker in a happy and healthy relationship with a major criminal?? Boom!! They’re v cute!! They own a dog!!

Looking for a heist? Maybe a case of being framed?? How about a secretive terrorist plot??? Got it all, and, oh yeah, it’s in fucking space, so enjoy some completely amazing spaceship fights and very cool worldbuilding on top of it all!!!!!!!!!!

Just!!!! This book is so fucking good!!!! It has so much amazing well-rounded diversity and so many great lines and the writing is fast-paced and fun and exciting and it has gays in space without having to deal with homophobia and racism and its just such amazing top-notch escapism and the fact that there isn’t any content for it at all on this goddamn website is absolutely infuriating!! I cant draw!!! I can’t write fic!!!! I just want to enjoy fan content from others and then lavish them in praise!!!!! Just someone please I’m begging i would sell you my firstborn and both my kidneys

[slaughter-books]

Day 25: JOMPBPC: Book Pile

A beautiful pile of fantasy and contemporary books! 📚💛

[kindofacid]

Nothing but us and the stars, drifting along in shared silence.

The Disasters, M. K. England

[captainsvscaptains]

I may not need this, but just in case...

[haveyoureadthisqueerbook]

[heyhanibee]

clocked

[dameronswife]

#"i have no idea where he gets it from," says area jedi knight still picking glass out of his robes from leaping out of senator amidala's window earlier in the evening.

[uisceb]

CRYING at Galinda performing the most flamboyant like...tropical bird mating dance the world has ever seen

Meanwhile poor Elphaba, who has never experienced flirting with ANYONE before, let alone the world's most flamboyant closeted lesbian tropical bird, has no idea what the hell she's looking at and is just like ??????

Still, points for at least attempting to match Galinda's freak

Truly the most magnificent sapphic fail-flirt scene of all time.

[aleurain]

[389]

sinkhole in Illinois, 2024

[slaughter-books]

Day 15: JOMPBPC: Unique Cover

[lgbtlunaverse]

To me the most fun part about fix-its is placing dominoes.

Tragedies often consist of escalating series of actions and circumstances which, in isolation, were not clearly leading to the tragic end but form a chain of cause-and-effect directly towards it in hindsight. In equal but opposite fashion, I love starting with small inoccuous changes to canon that in themselves do not obviously fix everything but start a new chain that leads to a better ending.

It's kind of impossible for fix-its to feel fully natural– the reader by definition knows what the original ending was and that this ending will be happier because the writer wants it to be– but it is possible for them to not feel contrived. A big deus-ex-machina, or a character breaking with their pre-established tragic flaws to suddenly make all the "correct" decisions almost always feels unsatisfying to me.

But a few carefully placed small domino pieces slowly knocking over bigger and bigger tiles until the entire story has radically changed? That's a lot more fun.

It recquires the author to both correctly identify the original chain of cause-and-effect and understand the characters well enough to know how they'd react to different circumstances. Because if the story feels like it's fixing the wrong problem or the characters don't act like themselves the magic is lost. But when it works? When it clicks and the reader sees the domino chain laid out in front of them? It's beautiful.