*do not start crazy shit in the comments!!!*
So one of the interesting side effects of THE GREAT DARK TIMES these last three years (my personal troubles with grief/illness not the pandemic) is that we've finally moved beyond the date that the Tapes are currently taking place in.
FM6 took place August 2019 and FM7 should be about February or March 2020.
Which, ya know, needless to say, some shit might have been going down in the world just about then.
Compounding this is that a significant chunk of FM7 takes place in East Asia...
😬
Because OF COURSE it would...
Also, FM8 would like take place October/November 2020 and involves half the novel being a trip across various US locations and it really doesn't stop there. On and on and on just stuck in that time line in six month to year long skips.
Obviously the KHT are fictional and an alternate world, but I have tried to seed it with real world moments and pop culture to make it seem like it could indeed be happening right under our eyes.
But I don't think keeping that mirage in place to the point of adding in the pandemic and masking and lockdown and...however you feel about the issues that have sprung up out of the pandemic, I question if anyone wants to dwell on these things at this point instead of just trying to move past them the best we can, especially in media where the point is to entertain and give people a good time, some laughs, maybe the occasional moment of inspiration if you're lucky.
Of course, very easy of me to just say: The Divine Moshi caused the pandemic to kill off humans and fuck with the Anima Quota numbers and yada yada and Slush cures COVID so who cares and yada yada.
Also I have missed stuff before, like Disney buying Lucasfilm or I thought electric cars/bikes would be more normal by now, etc. I think T-Bone gets excited for Star Wars Episode 9 and the Han Solo movie, which just...no...no...no one was...my poor childhood, still...
But...point of this all is: probably just going hard alternate history with this one and saying no pandemic in the MancyVerse.
FYI.
*do not start crazy shit in the comments!!!*
Thank you <-- me saying thank you for not including the virus, not starting crazy shit
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DeleteWorks for me--escapism from reality has its perks.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this. Too many tv shows were ruined by trying to incorporate it, and regardless of personal views, entertainment should be an escape. No one wants to re-live the past two years in fiction.
ReplyDeleteFuck, yeah. Absolutely the right thing to do. Who in their right mind wants to be reminded of lockdown?
ReplyDeleteCounting the days, now..!
And another vote for escapism over a "Reality Show" novel. If some sort of plague/pandemic/screaming herpes outbreak was already in your master plan, that would be one thing... But it seems to me there is a real danger in trying to twist your already-developed ideas to fit into some unknown (and unknowable) Round World reality or future. And (NOT starting any shit, but) maybe the VAMPIRES short-circuited the 'Rona cause it endangered their... food source...
ReplyDeleteUgh, good riddance. Just imagining the research required to put any scene in East Asia in context would make me want to weep from boredom!
ReplyDeleteAnother vote for Team Fantasy. Also, realism went out of the window when you had teenage boys communicating with words, not just grunts and emojis...
ReplyDeleteI know that Monday must be a big, fucking mahooosive day for you, after all that you've gone through over the last few years, so I am posting here to wish you the very best. I hope its a runaway fucking best-seller!
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