Possible failure modes of Public Universal Friendship

(Minor spoilers for Time to Orbit: Unknown. If I haven't said, it's really good and worth a read.) Time to Orbit: Unknown features a doctor who's a Public Universal Friend. He's volunteered for surgery to cause brain damage so that he no

A mystery story is made of a series of smaller mysteries

(Status: Feels close to something right. Make things up and see what sticks.) (Spoilers for Time to Orbit: Unknown through chapter 42, and minor spoilers for later. Minor spoilers for the 2022 movie Death on the Nile.) A mystery story breaks up into two parts: Long-running mysteries and small mysteries.

"Good, but slightly not what I want, in some way I can't describe" is frustrating

Kraken Academy frustrates me because it is good. It is good. Everything I can describe about it seems mostly to be a gripe that it is the game that it is and not a different game. It is a good game. I find it frustrating that it is not a

Buddhism for Space Colonists

(Spoilers for Time to Orbit: Unknown.) In Chapter 24 of Time to Orbit: Unknown, there's a discussion between the protagonist (the impromptu captain Dr. Aspen Greaves) and his crew doctor, a Public Universal Friend. The captain has just ejected a crew ring with about nine hundred people in

To feel deep, a character needs to show up in multiple roles

I suspect that to feel deep, a character needs to show up in multiple roles in their story. I mean roles in the broadest possible sense: "mother," "daughter," "sister," "annoying {older, younger} sister," "thoughtful {older, younger} sister," "weeb,"