#TimeTravelAuthors Jan 1: Intro
First, Carrie meets the person trying to kill her. Later, he encounters her for the first time. Also, one of the assassination attempts succeeds in killing Carrie, meaning... does he actually go back to the start of the book then? Well, he might, since someone else will go back and save Carrie...
Having a day job isn't the only reason this thing has taken me almost ten years to work out.
#TimeTravelAuthors 3: "Deal"
*
“There will be a blast rendering you unconscious. I want that data recorded by the chip. Particularly if the blast kills you, so that I know how for it to not do that again.”
Carrie did a double take at the cavalier way Heather had presented that. “What, for your next guinea pig?”
“No, for after we go back to save your life, idiot. I do not want to have to deal with all this again with someone else,” Heather said irritably.
Touche.
#TimeTravelAuthors 5: Projects?
Main one is "Time Untied", the sequel to "Time & Tied". It's been a WIP since 2017 and is now over 300k words with the final climax approaching. T&T is currently reposting to AO3.
Epsilon's "Angel Pasta" serial featuring the lesbian duo of Angel and Patty in 1963 France was put on hiatus after 8 episodes in 2024. It will return.
"Last Magical Girl" has been on hiatus since 2010. It MAY return. Annual XMath parodies continue. There's always something.
#TimeTravelAuthors 7: name?
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“Your name is actually Sherlock? For real?”
“For real,” Sherlock asserted. “Why? You expecting a more African-American name?”
“Oh. I, uh...”
Sherlock’s hands moved to his hips. “Might I also point out that my stated interest in mysteries is related to my family in general, not merely my name in specific? Moreover, the famous fictional detective could have been black.”
Carrie frowned. “What?”
#TimeTravelAuthors 9: Goals for 2026?
That's a question. I've kinda stopped setting them, since my life derailed about two years ago, and I have no guarantee it won't happen again.
I really would like to finish "Time Untied", and I have mentally caught myself back up to where I was in 2023, so it's again plausible. The reposting of "Time & Tied" to AO3 is added incentive.
Then there's a BUNCH of reading to catch up on. We'll see what happens.
#TimeTravelAuthors 11: Love time travel tropes?
I'm a fan of Time Loops, to the point where I compiled a website of their use in visual media: https://web.ncf.ca/cz159/TLoops.html
Also a fan of characters meeting themselves, time masters, clever mental time travel, LGBT ("time travel lesbians") and screwing with destiny.
Bonus: The essence of "Quantum Leap", that time itself doesn't change but that individual lives can be made better, is huge in my writing.
#TimeTravelAuthors 13: How realistic?
The idea that a girl has a particular issue with her roommate, and it's related to how someone is feuding with said roommate, that doesn't feel totally implausible.
The fact that the feud is due to someone's ability to time travel, and that the issue is a status of quantum uncertainty, that's not very realistic.
Though the idea of time travel being a fold using the sixth dimension, I hope that's at least plausible, if not realistic.
#TimeTravelAuthors 15: Cost of time travel?
Honestly, not much. Financially, you may need to burn a coin. As a mental cost, you need to be careful not to cause a paradox (not because you might succeed, but because time could kill you to prevent it). Thus you may want a plan first.
The reason it's uncommon isn't cost but lack of devices and lack of access to sixth dimensional energy to power them.
#TimeTravelAuthors 17: work?
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“Can you time jump through space when you jump through time?”
Carrie looked at the floor. “Theoretically yes. After all, I jumped us from this room to out in the hall by the elevators. But that’s largely because I knew roughly where that was, spatially.”
“You mean you’d need to fly to England first. In the present.”
“Okay, no. I can zero in on people I know. But I feel like I’ll need more than a bit of access to my power to make a big jump like that work.”
#TimeTravelAuthors 19: Character goal?
Carrie wants to decide on romance between Chartreuse and Peaches. I mean, she also wants to get the assassin to stop hunting her, and save Jenny's life. But, priorities.
Jenny's new goal is to handle the time bombs, Sherlock's is to research Jenny's sister, and Heather's is to accept being part of the group.
#TimeTravelAuthors 21: count?
(account and country seem more frequent)
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Carrie took the opportunity to tap into what she was starting to think of as her ‘temporal core’, instead of the time streams. The piece of her - mind? heart? spirit? - that could go nuclear, and channel an explosive force out into the solar system, if she let it. She could count the number of times she’d let that side of her out to play unhindered on one hand.
They tended to end badly.
#TimeTravelAuthors 23: Favourite moment?
One of the few times (I hope) when I have to go cliche and say it's hard to pick just one. At the same time, I'm hoping the best is yet to come.
The time battle between Carrie and Her Assassin was pretty good. At one point editing, I legit couldn't remember Carrie's strategy, and when it became clear, I was like "oh yeah! I did that, that was clever". I'll go with that.
#TimeTravelAuthors 25: A difficulty writing time travel.
The biggest difficulty (and the reason I've withheld "Time Untied" for so long) is a massive spoiler. I caused the problem myself by having two people with time powers.
However, the true difficulty may be that I overthink things. I over analyze. I ask myself "why not do x-y-z" and then if I don't attempt it, want to justify the exclusion. I can (usually) turn this off when reading others, but am too strict on myself.
#TimeTravelAuthors 27: Medical care?
Carrie has difficulty staying out of the hospital when her time powers get unleashed at a high level. "United" is no different than T&T in that respect. (Hurrah for Canadian health care.)
Psychologically, Peaches tends to be filling the role of therapist. But who counsels the counselor?
#TimeTravelAuthors 29: Trigger warnings?
Psychological abuse to teenagers and (using AO3 standards) major character death.
There's less self-harm and suicidal thoughts in "Untied" vs. T&T, but depression is a component. I suppose assassination attempts count as violence, but most components are told, not shown. Peaches does single-handedly throw up a red flag for lesbian flirtation and innuendo.
Personally, I don't CW queer or violence unless the latter is extremely graphic.
I am thinking I may need to tag for slow-burning queer, as it may not be obvious at first that my story is headed that way. Not so much to warn as to encourage. I am over 10K in, and the farthest my characters have gotten is to think that holding hands might be pleasant.
So far, I have not seen anything in your story that called for a warning tag. While it does call for a major character death flag on AO3, I wouldn't tag that elsewhere. The death is off-screen, and metawise, I am sure she doesn't stay dead. Further, at the time of her death, she is still an antag.
@NaraMoore Does it count as a content warning if you're using it to attract people? Hmm. That definitely is a slow burn, though Carrie/Chartreuse probably counts in that respect for me too.
Also thanks for the confirmation. Granted, Julie's self harm feels like a necessary tag, and while you're correct she won't ultimately stay dead, there is more of her story to come.
Right there was some dramatic self-harm and suicidal threats.. There was in Titanic too. @juliebihn
That is one I haven't had to use.
I don't think it is limited to teenagers. Aren't most of us cruel to all our characters?
@juliebihn Now if only I can get to the point where someone else is reading it. :)
Also, good point about 'a fave' vs 'the fave', I suppose I simply still try to rank them in my head.
@juliebihn I guess I can see that. Though there's always the off chance you rematerialize in the middle of a lake or just off the side of a cliff anyway. Okay, not helping the case.
Sixth dimensional energy gives one the ability to fold time, akin to folding a piece of paper. At some point I decided that's the source of Carrie's time powers.
"You KNEW I was saving that last piece of cake."
"How could I possibly know that? It was sitting in the fridge for three days."
"Fine. So NOW you know that I was saving it." ::glares at the empty plate:: "But it's still gone. If you cared about me, you'd go back and not have eaten it."
".......I hate time travel."
"Since you're going, could you grab it from three days ago and bring it forward to me? It'll taste better fresh."
"......I hate you, too."
@QuasiTemporal LOVE the idea of individual lives being made better!
On BlueSky, I mentioned that Odd Squad had at least one time loop. The episode I'm thinking of was “Drop Gadget Repeat." I could only find a short video, though, and apparently it doesn't play outside the US? https://pbskids.org/videos/watch/stuck-in-a-time-loop/28654
Reportedly, the show's creator was so into time travel that everyone else had to rein him in and limit his use of it!
@juliebihn Yeah, I can't get it to play in Canada. Something to look into though, as I do try to update the site every so often.
Love that bit of trivia. (I even recognize the show, though I've only seen a handful of episodes.)
@QuasiTemporal Yeah, it's a clip. The main character, Cricket, wants to win a rodeo competition and not get bucked off, but it would take too long, so I believe it's Remy who proposes a training montage. Of course, things get wilder when they decide to speed things up further.
The time loop itself is played pretty straight/nightmarish until the end, when we see Cricket probably imagined it due to a concussion. (But I THINK it ends with him and Remy high-fiving and starting it again, soooooo)
I wonder how soon Sherlock shows up. We haven't run into them yet.
@NaraMoore @juliebihn If you're referencing "Time & Tied", he doesn't. All my online ruminations (about Jenny, Sherlock and Peaches) are for the "Time Untied" WIP sequel, which is first year University.
"Time & Tied" (unfolding on AO3) was strictly high school. It took 4 "books" (1 & 2 in junior year, 3 & 4 in senior year) while "Untied" is already substantially longer... though it does have a natural breakpoint too (in October) for when it comes out.
Hope that's not a disappointment.
No disappointment, only curiosity.
@NaraMoore @juliebihn Good to know then, thanks. :)
My honest goal is to have "Untied" ready to roll out on AO3 as soon as "Time & Tied" finishes it's rerun there in early 2027. It's partly why I haven't resumed other writing.
Granted, my original goal was to have "Untied" finished by 2025, but Oh My God was 2024 a bad year for me.
Quasi
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