Highlights from the Void, 2017

As the surreal hellscape of 2017 winds to a close, it’s time to look back on the past year of blogging and pick out some high points my dear readers might have missed. So, for your enjoyment, here are ten of Alyssa’s proudest creations of 2017.

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Highlights from the Void, 2017
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Protected: Trans Team Rocket Compilation – Patrons Only

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Protected: Trans Team Rocket Compilation – Patrons Only

Trans Team Rocket Viewing Guide

Pokémon fanfiction has a fairly high barrier for entry, even for readers. As of the most recent update to Bulbapedia, there are 941 episodes of the Pokémon anime that have been broadcast in English, and several more available in the original Japanese, with 19 movies set between them. This adds up to more than 347 hours of viewing—more than 14 continuous days—accumulated over the twenty years that the Pokémon cartoon has aired on American television. This is an undertaking for obsessives of a caliber far, far greater than mine, and is certainly not necessary for understanding or appreciating my Trans Team Rocket fanfiction universe. So, I have prepared a curated viewing list to enable would-be admirers of my fiction to apprise themselves of necessary backstory before diving into the Trans Team Rocket world. Continue reading “Trans Team Rocket Viewing Guide”

Trans Team Rocket Viewing Guide

Eyes on the Future, Heart in the Past – A Jane and Jessie Story

“You know…I figured a department store would have more food.” Jessie mused as they examined a poster depicting a recumbent Seviper. “And clothes.” They picked at the hem of their form-fitting black vest, which left a little skin visible above their black slacks and white walking shoes.

“On the bright side,” Jane answered, leaning down to pet her Sylveon, cautious hand on the back of her knee-length pleated black skirt, “they have lots of Pokémon vitamins.”

“That they do,” Jessie answered as their Dustox fluttered to their shoulder and their Wobbuffet released himself from his Pokéball, playfully saluting. Jessie gave their Pokémon partners an amused half-smile and reached over to gently scratch their heads. They approached the poster aisle, Dustox and Wobbuffet following, and Meowth returned from the direction of the drink vending machines. Jane crouched down to Meowth’s level.

“Quick, while they’re not looking,” Jane whispered, handing Meowth her paper shopping bag, “take this to the cash register and buy it. The money’s in the bag.” Sylveon looked quizzical. “It’s Jessie’s birthday present, and a little something for us, too.” Sylveon nodded, and accompanied Meowth in scampering toward the registers.

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Eyes on the Future, Heart in the Past – A Jane and Jessie Story

A Memory of Water – A Jane and Jessie Story

CN child abuse, residential schools

Chandelure followed the sobbing. The lights of the flames on his chandelier-like body made for an obvious approach, even as his ghostly arms and flames left no marks on the wet trees. He paused, reaching the small gap where the sounds began.

The creature resembled a small tree stump with a stubby black body extending from one end. It held its tiny arms up to its wooden face, wracked with its sadness, its tears scarcely noticeable against the chilly damp. Chandelure weighed his options.

A ghost wearing a tree stump as a mask. The ghost has red eyes and tiny hands. The tree stump has branches where the mask's ears would be.
Phantump.

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A Memory of Water – A Jane and Jessie Story

Jane and Jessie: A Better, Shinier World – Epilogue

Chapter 1 – Chapter 2 – Chapter 3 – Chapter 4 – Chapter 5 – Chapter 6 – Chapter 7 – Chapter 8 – Chapter 9 – Chapter 10 – Epilogue

All 11 chapters in a single article (Patreon patrons only)

Alyssa’s Fiction

“Are you ready?” Lizabeth Hiromi asked her Pokémon. Gorebyss, Dragalge, Corsola, Golduck, and Kabutops nodded, as did the series of Seakings, Buizels, Medichams, and others behind her in or around the levitating globes of water on the Pacifidlog stage. She wore a costume version of her usual clothes, with more pronounced shoulders and a flared skirt instead of jeans, but retaining the triangle of exposed midriff. Behind her, her parents Kyle and Meredith and grandfather Ship helped direct the crowd of performers.

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Jane and Jessie: A Better, Shinier World – Epilogue

Jane and Jessie: A Better, Shinier World – Chapter 10

Chapter 1 – Chapter 2 – Chapter 3 – Chapter 4 – Chapter 5 – Chapter 6 – Chapter 7 – Chapter 8 – Chapter 9 – Chapter 10 – Epilogue

All 11 chapters in a single article (Patreon patrons only)

Alyssa’s Fiction

Ortolan’s door slid open, and the lights on his side of it cut out. Fog rolled into the room, cloaking the immediate vicinity of the door as the sound of shuffling feet finally prodded him to turn around.

To the door’s right, the light above Flannery turned on, and she announced, “To protect the world from devastation…”

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Jane and Jessie: A Better, Shinier World – Chapter 10

Nineteen Meltdowns: Pokémon Movies While Autistic

Pokémon is a long-running television series, currently spanning nearly 1000 episodes since its Japanese debut in 1997. Like many such cartoons, it also encompasses a number of feature-length films, set between the episodes of the series and occasionally referenced thereafter. The nineteen Pokémon films are a fascinating oeuvre in their own right, because they return repeatedly to themes particularly dear to me and to other autistic, indigenous viewers.

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Nineteen Meltdowns: Pokémon Movies While Autistic

Two Weird Free Tabletop RPGs You Should Check Out

Tabletop roleplaying games are a site of boundless creativity. The fact that the processor that runs them is a series of human brains rather than a computer means that any given instance of a tabletop game can venture much farther from what its designers had in mind than a PC or console game is likely to support, but more than that, whole new games can form much more easily. In addition to venerable institutions like Dungeons and Dragons, Shadowrun, and Warhammer, with huge bodies of accumulated resources and long histories, numerous smaller games populate the less mobile shelves of gaming stores. These don’t often get their due, even with demonstrations and endorsements from the likes of Wil Wheaton.

There’s a tier below that, though, of roleplaying game rulesets released to the public without any hope of eventual profit. Some folks write entire new roleplaying games and turn them loose on the Internet for fun and notoriety, and these efforts are fascinating, unusual, and (importantly for us) don’t cost anything an RPG enthusiast hasn’t already paid. They represent monumental undertakings in conceptualizing, integrating, and devising game material, without even the glimmer of profit that might someday visit the games that do get formally published.

I’ve come across two of these in particular that are now freely available online, extraordinarily different in tone, scope, and intensity and worth every tabletop gamer’s time at least once: Pokémon Conquest and Actual Cannibal Shia LaBoeuf.

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Two Weird Free Tabletop RPGs You Should Check Out

Jane and Jessie: A Better, Shinier World – Chapter 6

Chapter 1 – Chapter 2 – Chapter 3 – Chapter 4 – Chapter 5 – Chapter 6 – Chapter 7 – Chapter 8 – Chapter 9 – Chapter 10 – Epilogue

All 11 chapters in a single article (Patreon patrons only)

Alyssa’s Fiction

Katsunobu’s directions weren’t very precise, but they helped Jane, Flannery, Meowth, and Jessie avoid a guard post anyway. The fossil lab was clearly marked, and as massive as the guard had claimed. The door opened automatically as soon as Jessie had stepped in front of it, revealing a series of benches covered in lumps of rock. Some of them bore obvious fossils in various stages of excavation. The handful of scientists using tiny drills to remove the excess rock raised the occasional eyebrow at the intruders but neither said nor did anything to prevent their self-directed tour.

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Jane and Jessie: A Better, Shinier World – Chapter 6