#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?

*
“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?

*
“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)

*
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.

#TimeTravelAuthors 31: Choice

Been meaning to flag this all month, it's the 2025 coins I got while it was still 2025. Two toonies and one dime, from June and October. Got another in early January too, won't count it. Far cry from the 2010s.

2015: 42 coins
2016: 37 coins
2017: 20 coins
2018: 21 coins
2019: 17 coins
2020: 2 coins (pandemic)
2021: 1 coin

(2022 was at least 5, can't find my recent records...)

#TimeTravelAuthors Feb 1: Love intro

Chartreuse loves Carrie, and has saved her life. Peaches loves Carrie, and has saved her life. Meanwhile, Carrie will save Jenny's life, but until she does so, Jenny is in quantum uncertainty; Jenny does not love Carrie.

That's one less person in "Time Untied"'s romantic subplot. Doesn't actually solve the lesbian love triangle, granted.

#TimeTravelAuthors 3: Standalone or a series?

Pretty much everything I write is a series, I can't stop myself. "Time & Tied" itself was over 90 parts of 4k each (split into 4 "books") and "Time Untied" is looking longer.

The one exception is short stories. If I can keep myself to about 10k words, it stands alone. But once we pass 15k, you're likely getting 300k. For better or worse.

#TimeTravelAuthors 5: Languages?

The characters are at the largest French-English bilingual university in the world, so we get a bit of French, though mostly English. (The French is mostly from Marguerite, Peaches' roommate.)

#TimeTravelAuthors 7: love?
*
“Carrie, I’m not hitting on your girlfriend,” Peaches protested. “I know she’s as taken as you are. I just thought a hug would help me better understand why you’re drawn to her.”

“Peaches also said she’s in pretty girl withdrawal,” Jenny said dryly.

“Nnnngh. Come on, who doesn’t love a good hug anyway?” Peaches huffed.

“I see what you mean about Peaches,” Chartreuse remarked to Carrie. “But at the same time, I might understand where she’s coming from. A little.”

#TimeTravelAuthors 9: Story get political?

Someone will probably think so, because way too much is getting politicized that shouldn't. I didn't set out to make anything political though. It's just urban fantasy, so stuff happens in the background.

Also, the protagonist is a lesbian, because that's just how it happened, ditto for the love triangle of all women. Deal with it.

#TimeTravelAuthors 11: hug?
(oops, also featured in 7)

*
“Oh, sure. In this timeline, I'm your early warning system,” Jenny said, exasperation giving way to frustration. “You’re welcome.”

Carrie winced. “I didn’t quite mean it like that.”

“Jenny, you mean so much more,” Sherlock soothed, moving towards her. He extended his arm to begin something of a tentative sideways hug. She eyed him, but didn’t push him away, so he completed the motion.

#TimeTravelAuthors 13: Love?

I mean. Are y'all sick of hearing about the love triangle by this point? Should I say anything there? ^^

There's also an ongoing tentative romance between Sherlock and Jenny, plus Wes has a thing for Sakura that isn't reciprocated in a brief subplot.

#TimeTravelAuthors 15: Comp titles?

Initially pitched "Time & Tied" as a cross between films "Tomorrowland" (2015) and "Interstellar" (2014). In essence, dystopian future uses time travel and/or willpower to fight fate.

"Time Untied" is a harder nut. "Steins;Gate 0" meets "Source Code"? (Both have a "Christina".) With a dash of "The Executioner and Her Way of Life"? idk. Who's even seen all of those. Time will tell.

#TimeTravelAuthors 17: Butterfly effect?

On a macro scale, no. World wars, climate change, corrupt corporations, those are locked in.

On a micro scale, absolutely. A victim could be saved, a tree could be planted, a different country could become a catalyst. Put another way, you CAN save THAT starfish, even if you can't save them all.

Unless you find a lynchpin moment (aka Jonbar Hinge). With that, you can save them all. Or make things ten times worse. Such moments should be avoided.

#TimeTravelAuthors 19: How honest are characters?

Disregarding the fact that anyone who knows Carrie's secret of time travel needs to keep it secret (lying if necessary), pretty honest. At least with each other, some may lie to themselves.

This may be so I don't have to track lies. It's much easier for someone to change the subject than to lie.

#TimeTravelAuthors 21: "listen"?

*
“Could Peaches be the one misdirecting us?”

Carrie pursed her lips. “I think Peaches has been sincere with me,” she murmured.

Sherlock noticed then how the word ‘sincere’ had indeed been written and underlined twice next to Peaches on the chart paper.

“Thing is," Carrie added, "I can’t rule out the possibility that she’s being duped, or blackmailed. Maybe she was even trying to warn me about that today, and I didn’t listen properly.”

#TimeTravelAuthors 23: Time travel media characters enjoy?

"Back to the Future" (specifically the diagram Doc draws in Part II) has come up twice. There's been some tangential references to "Quantum Leap", and Peaches would likely enjoy it. I forget if I ever had her make a Steins;Gate reference. Those are my big 3.

Honestly I think most of the cast would enjoy a time travel movie night, as escapism, as long as it didn't take itself too seriously.

#TimeTravelAuthors 25: 'glow'?

*
“Could there be energy in that pendant already?” Sherlock suggested. “Maybe it interfaces badly with Carrie.”

“Impossible, as I had no access to dimensional energies until I met my conduit here,” Heather said, gesturing at Carrie. “Merely had my theory on how it could be contained and measured. Also, the pendant should give off a faint glow when charged. Granted, I’ve had zero way to test that.”

#TimeTravelAuthors 27: Author's choice

This month I finally got around to having Amazon fix my author page. So all three "Accidental Time Travelers Collective" volumes are now there, which include my time travel short stories.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Gregory-Taylor/author/B0CNYJ96KT

#TimeTravelAuthors Mar 1: Lucky Intro?

Carrie was lucky to survive her first hours at university, as that's when her nemesis attempted to kill her.

Now there's a problem. She doesn't have a nemesis. Not yet. They jumped back in time for that attack.

So who is out to get her? Can she evade the coming attacks, or will she end up creating the very nemesis she's trying to expose?

"Time Untied". Also features quantum locked roommates and a lesbian love triangle, somehow.

#TimeTravelAuthors 3: Characters protecting?

Jenny's somewhat protective of Carrie (for quantum reasons), leading to Sherlock being protective of Jenny. Peaches is protective of the pocketwatch that allows for time travel. Heather is protective of her own motivations.

#TimeTravelAuthors 5: Apologies?

Carrie often apologizes to Jenny over how she can't be saved in the past yet. Sherlock also apologizes to Jenny over his tendency to talk instead of listen (happens less over time). Jenny apologizes to Peaches for assuming she was the target of flirting.

The biggest such scene occurs after Carrie accuses Peaches of being in on the conspiracy against her, realizes she was wrong, and has to apologize. And explain stuff. Which helps set up the love triangle.

#TimeTravelAuthors 7: Quiet?

*
Heather's eyes lit up. “Have you noticed her performing any otherworldly rituals? Be honest, or I’ll assume you have something to hide.”

Jenny froze. “Um. No, no rituals.”

“What about weird habits? Odd jewelry? Posters of magical girls on her wall? If she’s threatened you to keep quiet, know that I can protect you. Okay?”

Jenny wasn’t even sure what connected all those phrases. It was becoming easy to see why Sherlock had warned them about Heather.

#TimeTravelAuthors 9: Explain story's time travel method with emojis.

Well, there's three time travel methods, and I don't know emoji's that well, but I guess we'll try?

1) 👱‍♀️ ⚡🙏
2) ⏱️ ⚡ 💭 🧠
3) 🚘 💰 👍 😵‍💫

#TimeTravelAuthors 11: Leave?

*
“Euh, let’s just say time travel is possible, and leave it at that.”

“Time...” Peaches backpedaled, to collapse onto the edge of her bed. “I’m in a Terminator movie, with my new lesbian friend who is destined to save us all at graduation. Like the Buffy TV show. Pinch me, I’m dreaming.”

Carrie shook her head. Damn, damn. She’d said way too much. “Please, Peaches. It’s nothing that dramatic. Okay?”

Peaches smiled. “Still, please, pinch me, anywhere you like.”

#TimeTravelAuthors 13: Cultures?

No, unless Canadian culture counts, with Thanksgiving in October and such. I don't feel I know enough about other cultures to handle them properly without causing issues.

Granted, Sherlock is brown and Heather is latina, but that's coming from their parents and I didn't make it a plot point.

#TimeTravelAuthors 15: Fun with time travel?

Legit had to look back over my timeline to see if this ever happened. The travel consumes energy, so it's rarely used frivolously.

There was one time that Carrie helped make it seem like someone else had ESP, by mentally time jumping back and feeding them answers. It was part of a larger plot investigating the effect of multiple mental jumps, but they did have some fun with it.

#TimeTravelAuthors 17: Patience?

Jenny has vast reserves of patience, since Carrie being delayed in going back in time to save her results in her quantum state tied to Carrie's life.

Peaches has demonstrated patience with Carrie on a few occasions, though hormones may have helped. Ditto Chartreuse, come to think.

Most of the cast needs patience interacting with Heather, and vice versa.

Sherlock has been patient about romance with Jenny. Finally, Carrie has been a patient.

#TimeTravelAuthors 19: Servants?

Jeeves! Julie's family is rich enough that she has two servants taking care of her house, Jeeves and Mimi. We never actually see the latter, but Jeeves often acts as Julie's father figure, and even briefly gets a point of view narration.

He doesn't appear in the sequel where characters are at university, but is referenced. No other servants in the story that I can think of.