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[defyingdoomsday]

why is there no electricity after the apocalypse?

something people writing post-apocalyptic fiction always seem to forget is how extremely easy basic 20th century technology is to achieve if you have a high school education (or the equivalent books from an abandoned library), a few tools (of the type that take 20 years to rust away even if left out in the elements), and the kind of metal scrap you can strip out of a trashed building.

if you want an 18th century tech level, you really need to somehow explain the total failure of humanity as a whole to rebuild their basic tech infrastructure in the decade after your apocalypse event.

i am not a scientist or an engineer, i’m just a house husband with about the level of tech know-how it takes to troubleshoot a lawn mower engine, but i could set up a series of wind turbines and storage batteries for a survivor compound with a few weeks of trial and error out of the stuff my neighbors could loot from the wreckage of the menards out on highway 3. hell, chances are the menards has a couple roof turbines in stock right now. or you could retrofit some from ceiling fans; electric motors and electric generators are the same thing, basically.

radio is garage-tinkering level tech too. so are electric/mechanical medical devices like ventilators and blood pressure cuffs. internal combustion’s trickiest engineering challenge is maintaining your seals without a good source of replacement parts, so after a few years you’re going to be experimenting with o-rings cut out of hot water bottles, but fuel is nbd. you can use alcohol. you can make bio diesel in your back yard. you can use left-over cooking oil, ffs.

what i’m saying is, we really have to stop doing the thing where after the meteor/zombies/alien invasion/whatever everyone is suddenly doing ‘little house on the prairie’ cosplay. unless every bit of metal or every bit of knowlege is somehow erased, folks are going to get set back to 1950 at the most. and you need to account somehow for stopping them from rebuilding the modern world, because that’s going to be a lot of people’s main life goal from the moment the apocalypse lets them have a minute to breathe.

nobody who remembers flush toilets will ever be content with living the medieval life, is what i’m saying. let’s stop writing the No Tech World scenario.

[defyingdoomsday]

Ok lads

I need book recs for disability pride month

Any genre and target age group

Can be a book about disability, a book with a major character(s) whose disabilities are handled well, or a book by a disabled author

Invisible disabilities are included of course

[defyingdoomsday]

I just finished reading your story in Defying Doomsday and I'm in tears to see such a wonderful portrayal of an autistic girl, AND of parents reacting to mental illness with the idea that if they just say "take your pills" enough it'll all be fine. I lived with that for YEARS.

I'm also crying because I'd always written myself off in the situation of an apocalypse, and the idea that I'd figure things our and keep going for the sake of my cat is just such a wonderful and realistic notion.

We survive for the things that need us to survive, and when we can't be those things, we find them outside ourselves.

Thank you for reading.

[defyingdoomsday]

Was anyone going to tell me that Rebuilding Tomorrow, the sequel anthology to Defying Doomsday, has been out for like half a year or was I supposed to find that out while searching Defiant Doomsday in the tags to see when Rebuilding Tomorrow was finally going to be released?

[defyingdoomsday]

A reccomendation request

I’d like to read or watch a sci-fi or fantasy or dystopia story that features a protaganist/main character who has a disability (preferably mental health related but I’m open to anything really) and who doesn’t get cured as a plot point? 

[defyingdoomsday]

Can I just tell you that knowing there’s a character in your book with chronic fatigue is so?? Refreshing?? Disability representation in media is ridiculously fucking scarce, and even then it’s usually just “background wheelchair user relevant for ten minutes.” To actually see someone with MY disability is unheard of, so thank you SO SO MUCH for this, I can’t properly convey how much this means to me and to everybody else in my position.

Aaaaaah thank you so much for your kind words!!!! T_T <3 <3 Honestly I'm giving all the credit to @flintbian, my lovely sensitivity reader and fellow Miette memes enthusiast, for helping me do Sellin justice and offering so kindly and patiently to help me with the disability rep in Qelt.

I love Sellin and even though I can't showcase her as much as I'd want to since she and Anemar aren't always with Lasair, she's definitely there for more than 10 minutes in the whole story! (She gets to shoot a wolf with a magic crossbow and threatens to run over a bully with her wheelchair in book 1 because she's just that cool.)

Disability rep, and even more chronic disability rep is disappointingly rare in media - which is partly why I wanted a disabled character in Stories of Qelt and am trying to build Qelt as a more inclusive world. If you want more of it, I can think of a couple books on the top of my head that feature physically disabled protagonists, almost all by disabled authors:

- Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

- Our Bloody Pearl by @brynwrites

- Passion Marked by Ophelia Silk, coming in September 2021 (that I had the pleasure to beta-read :P)

- A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer

- True Love Bites by Joy Demorra

- the Defying Doomsday and Rebuilding Tomorrow anthologies, edited by Tsana Dolichva

As for me, I'll keep on including more disability and chronic illness rep in my WIPs and working hard for the rep to Spark Joy!! \o/ Disabled people deserve to see themselves in stories and I sure as hell hope that media starts featuring more and more disabled protagonists AND promoting disabled content creators! :D

[defyingdoomsday]

Might I draw your attention to the fact that there is a follow up anthology called Rebuilding Tomorrow. Theme is post-post-apocalypse and still all disabled/chronically ill protagonists. And it contains sequel stories to 4 of the stories in Defying Doomsday.

Why the hell isnt Defying Doomsday a staple of the post apocalyptic genre yet? Why must we suffer under the twisted power fantasies of mediocre men while this gem lies waiting in relative obscurity? Why must we suffer through bland protagonists and stale, recycled apocalypses while these infinitely richer armageddons are a mere curiosity? Why?

[defyingdoomsday]

Posting this a bit late, but Rebuilding Tomorrow is now available to buy commercially in paperback as well as ebook. The link goes to a page listing a bunch of different shops that you can buy it from.

[defyingdoomsday]

There was something bothering me about zombie/post-apocalyptic stuff that I couldn’t explain until this and last year

That borderline (if not blatant) social darwinism of you have to be incredibly fit and ruthless to survive

When really a lot of it is communicative teamwork, resourcefulness, and not succumbing to fear/paranoia. Fitness obviously helps, but it being the most important thing glances over so many others needed for human survival.

[defyingdoomsday]

My friend got annoyed at me yesterday that I included a disabled person in my D&D campaign because “magic could easily cure them!”

Seriously??? No. Not everything can be cured. Not everything SHOULD be cured. If I make a world with magic, you bet your ass there are going to be disabled people in it. 

Am I going to have clerics that can cure all diseases and conditions, where everyone is able-bodied and neurotypical “because magic”? Hello no. 

Am I going to have therapists who know the “calm emotions” spell to help people having panic attacks? Am I going to have people with mobility issues that have magical braces around their limbs to help alleviate chronic pain? Am I going to have an Autistic dragon that stims and collects objects related to its special interest? Am I going to give disabled people kick-ass accommodations “because magic”?

Hell yes.

[defyingdoomsday]

Hey, I wanted to know, are there any Autistic characters in either of the books?

Yes, there are autistic characters in stories in both Defying Doomsday and Rebuilding Tomorrow.

There are also stories by autistic authors in both anthologies.

[defyingdoomsday]

A fan art inspired by “Spider-silk, Strong as Steel” by Samantha Rich, a story in Defying Doomsday

Can't draw people but I can definitely give myself the heebs drawing a giant spider creature.

The Samantha Rich thanked is the author of Spider-Silk, Strong As Steel, my favorite short story published in the Defying Doomsday anthology. This isn't a scene from the story--while the protagonist is disabled she didn't have prosthetics nor did she actually fight a spider. But when I got the prompt "killing a spider" in the generator, I immediately took inspiration from the giant spider monsters.

[Image Description: a basic pencil sketch of a tall and stocky person seen from behind--they have medium dark graphite color skin, attempted dreadlocks (I couldn't find the textured hair tutorial on tumblr or a decent one on ecosia so I just tried with not much success), white prosthetic right leg with jagged hinges at the knee and some screws and a foot that isn't detailed, a right arm that starts out as a white prosthetic but ends in a black and white laser gun with a circle of light beginning. They are wearing a white cropped tank and dark shorts, a black boot on the left foot, and on the right side where their back is exposed there's a dark patch lined with paler skin. This dark splotch also appears on the right shoulder. The laser arm is outstretched with the left hand steadying it at the elbow joint, and there's a small circle of light beginning to emit from the muzzle of the laser. The laser is pointed at a giant black and grey spider that has a vaguely cross shaped pattern, the spider is hanging by a thread in front of them, with a decaying and tangled spiderweb behind it. In front of it and next to the person is a bundle of thread vaguely shaped like a human.

In the blank space between the person and spider, it has the date (10/07/20), and the words "Prompt: Killing A Spider" and "Thank you Samantha Rich for the inspiration!" End ID]

[defyingdoomsday]

Rebuilding Tomorrow Table of Contents

After much story wrangling, we are happy to announce the Table of Contents for Rebuilding Tomorrow! These are the stories that will be included in the anthology, many of which we are announcing today for the first time. So when you pick up your copy of Rebuilding Tomorrow, here is what you can expect to find inside:

"I Will Lead My People" by Janet Edwards

"All the World in Seafoam Green" by Lauren Ring

"Merry Shitmas" by K L Evangelista

"Textbooks in the Attic" by S. B. Divya

"If This Was the Talon" by TJ Berry

"Kids These Days" by Tansy Rayner Roberts

"Ōmarino" by Andi C. Buchanan

"Rhizome, by Starlight" by Fran Wilde

"The Science of Pacific Apocalypse" by Octavia Cade

"The Rest Is" by Stephanie Gunn

"A Floating World of Iron Spines" by Tyan Priss

"Return of the Butterflies" by Emilia Crowe

"Leaving Dreamland" by E. H. Mann

"Nothing But Flowers" by Katharine Duckett

"The 1st Interspecies Solidarity Fair and Parade" by Bogi Takács

And remember, all the stories in Rebuilding Tomorrow feature disabled or chronically ill protagonists!

[defyingdoomsday]

"Come on, kitty," I said, putting her on the hallway floor. "It's time for my pills."

A while back some youtubers were doing a 100 page challenge, where you paint the scene on the 100th page of your favorite book. This isn't paint, but it's the same principle. Kind of tricky, given that the 100th page was just three sentences. This is from the short story Something In a the Rain by Seanan McGuire in the anthology book Defying Doomsday.

[Image Description: a drawing of a multicolor cat doing a big stretchy to reach on top of a table, in which a white pill bottle labeled "Holly" and "Aripipr" and "10 MG". Next to it on the table is a long breadknife. There is also a paper Target shopping bag. The background is pretty bare, with just three hooks, one of which has a raincoat hanging from it, and a door with nine square windows, all darkened with raindrops. At the bottom of the page it says in cursive "The end of the world was a misnomer. From where I was standing, the world was continuing on just fine". End ID]

[defyingdoomsday]

Our Kickstarter ends in only 55 hours. We have also unlocked two free bonus novellas for all backers, if that sweetens the deal.

Back here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/twelfthplanetpress/rebuilding-tomorrow

Concept: an apocalyptic or post apocalyptic tv show centred on a group of disabled protagonists

Must include:

-enough details about how they survive that no one can call it “unrealistic”

-mental and physical disabilities 

-a character who isn’t necessarily contributing to the survival of the group, but is not abandoned or looked down upon

-at least one character whose disability is actually less of a problem for them now that the world is ending/ended (example: autistic character who used to be constantly overstimulated but no longer is)

Optional features:

-abled person says “the only disability in life is a bad attitude” and gets told where to stuff it

-creatively weaponized mobility aids/assistive devices

-character who abled people think isn’t worth helping because of their disability, but actually has at least one skill essential to the survival of the group

-every time an abled person says something ignorant, all present disabled people look into the camera like they’re on the office 

[defyingdoomsday]

Concept: an apocalyptic or post apocalyptic tv show centred on a group of disabled protagonists

Must include:

-enough details about how they survive that no one can call it “unrealistic”

-mental and physical disabilities 

-a character who isn’t necessarily contributing to the survival of the group, but is not abandoned or looked down upon

-at least one character whose disability is actually less of a problem for them now that the world is ending/ended (example: autistic character who used to be constantly overstimulated but no longer is)

Optional features:

-abled person says “the only disability in life is a bad attitude” and gets told where to stuff it

-creatively weaponized mobility aids/assistive devices

-character who abled people think isn’t worth helping because of their disability, but actually has at least one skill essential to the survival of the group

-every time an abled person says something ignorant, all present disabled people look into the camera like they’re on the office 

[defyingdoomsday]

Rebuilding Tomorrow is an anthology filled with stories of people getting on with living with the new normal that has been established after various apocalyptic disasters. This is the follow-up anthology to Defying Doomsday, an award winning anthology of apocalypse-survival fiction focusing on disabled protagonists.

Rebuilding Tomorrow also focuses on disabled and/or chronically-ill protagonists and tells tales of re-establishing society. The stories are about people who have moved past (or are in the process of moving past) subsistence-level existence into a new, sustainable world, even though it’s one that has been irrevocably changed by an apocalypse. This uplifting anthology from award-winning Australian publishing house Twelfth Planet Press will be edited by Tsana Dolichva (co-editor of Defying Doomsday).

Rebuilding Tomorrow will be available in paperback and DRM-free ebook (in multiple formats). The exclusive hardcover edition will be available only to Kickstarter backers.