#this is such a mood. i kind of stopped reading YA and even a lot of adult fantasy bc of the fixation on romance#op i'm preeeetty sure i didn't follow you for murderbot so forgive me if you know it but if not may i recommend the murderbot diaries#the imperial radch series is also some great non-romance-centric scifi#i've been recc'd several different books by Victoria Goddard for platonic/queerplatonic centered fantasy#only one i've read so far is Hands of the Emperor but it was GREAT#others who follow me probably have more ideas#(i hope i have not misread the room here by offering recommendations)

you weren't misreading, I was unintentionally unclear. recs are Very Welcome XD thank you!!

I keep a goodreads list of No Romance Books for exactly this reason lol.

ABSOLUTE FAVORITES

• The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. Sci-fi series, space opera-ish. You've got a lot of recs for this already.
• Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. Sci-fi space opera. I've only read the first one still but it's brilliant.
• Piranesi by Sunanna Clarke. Fantasy. A man lives alone in an infinite House over an equally infinite ocean. Ethereal and luminous and melancholy and beautiful.
• Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. Sci-fi thriller. Cloning! Dinosaurs! Math! I still love it.

WEIRD AND INTERESTING

• The Jewels of Aptor by Samuel Delaney. Weird 1960s science-fantasy. The main characters could be read as romantic if you want - the homoeroticism can't be unintentional - but there isn't Romance Proper in it.
• Werecockroach by Polenth Blake. Alien invasion/animal shapeshifter story. Novella. Zany and fast-paced. Aroace agender protagonist like the author.
• And What Can We Offer You Tonight by Premee Mohamed. Sorta dystopian strange fantasy in an urban setting. Novella. The main characters are sex workers of the high-class courtesan prostitute type, and after one of them is murdered by a client, she comes back to life - and sets out on a whirlwind of freedom and revenge and justice she never got while alive.
• Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower by Tamsyn Muir. Novella. Fractured-fairy-tale fantasy. Told in a snarky, sardonic style, not nearly as upbeat as it initially seems.
• The Black God's Drums by P. Djèlí Clark. Steampunk-fantasy. Novella. YA-ish? Steampunk New Orleans and a Black girl who can talk to the Orisha falls into a plot to steal a scientist's superweapon.
• Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger. Urban fantasy, YA. Urban fantasy in an all-myths-are-real kind of sense from a Lipan Apache perspective, starring an Apache girl who can talk to ghosts trying to solve her cousin's murder. Asexual protagonist with no interest in romance or partnering; it's refreshing and the sort of YA I would have loved as a teen.

HAVEN'T READ THIS BUT I KEEP MEANING TO

• Firebreak by Nicole Kornher-Stace. Cyberpunk. No romance at all. VR and stuff. NKS is aroace and centering non-romantic experiences was her explicit goal here.

SOME ROMANCE BUT IT'S NOT A MAJOR FOCUS

• Synners by Pat Cadigan. Cyberpunk. A kaleidoscopic whirlwind of a book with lots of characters with lots of varied relationships; romance is among them but not alone and certainly not the focus.
• Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone. Urban fantasy, sort of - it's like a fantasy-kitchen-sink world with gods whose contracts power the magic in the world, so magicians are lawyers and lawyers are magicians and one lawyer-magician has to solve the murder of, and resurrect, a murdered god before his magic grinds to a halt and the city powered by his magic collapses. I'm not doing this description justice - it was vivid and compelling. The main characters do not have any romance, but a supporting character has a toxic ex she can't fully get over that features as a sideplot in the story.
• Finna by Nino Cipri. Weird, universe-hopping science-fantasy. IKEA has a tendency to rip open portals to other universes and the minimum wage employees gotta deal with it. The two main characters were dating but have recently broken up, and they don't get back together but rather figure out how to be friends again after the breakup.
• Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee. Military sci-fi space opera with a vast and interesting world and a very violent war. A military captain breaks rank and defies orders, so as punishment she has the digital ghost of a long dead war criminal downloaded into her head and she is pointed at a rebellion and told to crush it. I love Kel Cheris. No romance but some flashbacks to sex and sexual coercion.

No romance urban fantasy: A Madness of Angels (and sequels) by Kate Griffin. A dead Urban Sorcerer wakes up two years after his murder and has to avenge himself and discover which of the newest power players in magical London resurrected him, all while hosting the chaotic new gods of the telephone lines that now make up half his mind.

going one step further... another yarn craft term that writers should put into use is frogging. If you don’t like the project, but the yarn is good, you can frog it (take it apart) and reuse it for another project.

I think a lot of writers don’t give themselves credit for how many of their ufos have actually been frogged, ie that particular project has been abandoned, but the concept, characters, or setting has been taken and reused on a new project.

Almost all of my abandoned fanfics have been frogged. You’ll find the pieces of them in my original work

my favourite thing about frogging and why it’s called that is because you… rip it rip it (ribbit ribbit)

But! yes! I wholeheartedly concur. I keep “line graveyards” for works that I keep frogging and they wind up being so useful later.

as someone who’s in the writing community AND crocheting/knitting community, i approve of this message

[image ID: Tweet from bylambd on 7/5/23 reading: in the knitting community there is a distinction between wips (something you're actively working on) and UFOs (unfinished objects, something is unfinished but in hibernation), and i think fic writers should adopt this distinction as well /End ID]

This is like one of those riddle-of-the-Sphinx loopholes, like “I can only be defeated by a younger brother who is first born of his family” and this clown rolls up like “BUDDY, HAVE I GOT A STORY FOR YOU…” 

oh oh oh oh oh oh my gods I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted a fic so badly in my life oh my gods

And Zuko being all confused like you were not there? I had not even told you the entire story before you formed an opinion? How tf can you say it wasn’t my fault?

Katara: *deep breathing*

Sokka: Okay so. You are like. MAYBE one or two years older than me. You are barely an adult, if that. Your father had no right -

Zuko: What does my age have to do with it? I was an unruly child! How else was I going to learn?

Katara: Zuko I’m going to ask you this once, and then I’m going to need you both to pray that I don’t somehow have some Waterbender version of the Avatar state: your scar looks like it’s been healed a while. How long ago did this happen?

Zuko: A bit over two years ago? Why?

*Five minutes later*

Aang: Wow, guys! What happened? I couldn’t find you but then I could hear you both yelling from the other side of the island!

Djdhdjjchchd I love this addition

Also, 2 days later while zuko is still lowkey being kiddnapped Aang is in the woods foraging a little bit away from camp and just hears this being yelled:

What do you mean you didn’t fight back?!??!?

You were thirteen????

You were kneeling????

He said WHAT!?!????!

Aang is. Very concerned.

It’s quiet for ten minutes before sokka yells:

“Holy shit no one knew the avatar was gonna come back when he banished you!!!”

Zuko haz no idea how to deal with ppl being upset on his behalf

Aang and up finding out what they were talking about. And he gets so pissed he threatens to go straight to the fire lord, avatar state activated, and fight him right then and there for doing that to a child

They stop him of course

But Aang still wants to do it

Aang: All life is sacred

Zuko: Yeah my Dad scarred me when I was 13 I deserved it though

Aang: …

Aang, arrows glowing: Most lives are sacred

PLS I am BEGGING someone write this fanfic (or a bit of it) and TAG ME

Forget the Avatar state. Aang had Roku possess him ala Kyoshi and he just kicks down the door as that

Roku: OZAI!! WE NEED TO HAVE WORDS ABOUT HOW YOU TREAT MY GRANDDAUGHTER AND GREAT GRANDCHILDREN! AND WHEN I SAY WORDS I MEAN EXCESSIVE FIRE AND VIOLENCE

Anyway, that’s how they find out Zuko is Roku’s grandson.

Fics I found based off this idea

A strange discovery

Forced Fate Is Still Fate    

Dysfunctional (a.k.a How the Gaang Adopted Zuko two Books Early

I cannot tell you how much it pleases me that new ATLA content is being made in the year of our plague 2020. 

@north-peach @wolfsrainrules

an entirely new generation- some still stuck in quarantine- receiving Uncle Iroh’s widsom, slowly unraveling Zuko’s shitty childhood and all of them wishing death of Ozai.

truly, in the year of our plague 2020, this does give me hope

@captainkirkk

This is absolutely hilarious

If you don’t mind I’ll add a few more: 

Your Dad did What?
Adopting the Enemy
Zuko Gets Adopted
On Agni’s Honor

These fics are already in this post but I wanted to be thorough with my list, so here they are again:

Dysfunctional (a.k.a How the Gaang Adopted Zuko two Books Early)
A strange discovery
What is Fate anyway? (repost of Forced Fate Is Still Fate, original was deleted)

I found another one (and I’m sure there are even more):

winter solstice: and addendum

What is Fate anyway? (reWRITE of Forced Fate Is Still Fate) also got deleted 
(why do people always delete their works when the option to orphan it is right there)

Well, time to add more:

Second Thoughts
Terminal Velocity
Kidnap the Prince, a Great Idea

okay so

• be a goth. conservative christian parents don’t approve of goth men. show up to their house wearing all kinds of satanic symbols if you can
• know more about religion than the parents. they’ll try to introduce you to christianity because you don’t exactly look like a christian but your dad’s an ex priest and has a phd in theology so *cracks knuckles* you’ll correct them on every little mistake they make
• call your fake girlfriend every annoying petname under the sun. i’m talking about babu, shmoopie, snuffleupagus. when you run out of annoying english terms of endearment call her shit like “my liver” or “my little cabbage” (actual greek terms of endearments but the parents won’t know this they’ll just think you’re annoying :3)
• to continue this, talk to your fake girlfriend in the most high pitched annoying voice possible but talk in your regular voice to everyone else
• stare at her older brother’s ass for just a little too long
• have an annoying laugh. think of sybil fawlty but a stereotypical villain playing a church organ in his castle
• let them quote bible verses to you. then ask “so when were those two destroyed for sodomy?”. it’s very funny to do this when judas kisses jesus, and it’s even funnier when you’ve just corrected them over a minor mistake in church history
• ask WHY abraham was begging for sodom. it doesn’t make sense to you why a good christian man would go and beg for tha-
• be over possessive of your fake gf (dont really do this, it’s just an act)
• go and fuck her brother in an alleyway. the parents won’t know about this so it’s an optional step
• use words no one knows the meaning of. do this without realising because you always talk like that
• just be yourself! that’s enough on its own to make them despise you tbh

yes

i kissed him on the lips infront of his parents and claimed it was the usual greek greeting between men is that enough for you

Are you…. Are you secretly dating her brother OP?

yes

I wonder why

Show up again to admit to dating the brother, but dress like a typical suburbanite and act like you’ve never met the parents before. Absolute power move.

asdgfgsjfh im totally doing this

want an update?

ofc you do

but i’m too tired to write all of what happened down right now so instead try to imagine the most awkward situation you’ve ever been in.

now multiply the awkwardness by 100

first of all i’m just gonna show the difference in what i was wearing

an example of what i would wear as my friend’s fake bf:

and as my boyfriend’s actual bf:

when my bf and i showed up his dad did such a double take

sooo yeah my bf told his parents he’s gay, they looked surprised but told him it was fine… then they shared a look of pure horror (seriously, it was like they had just found out they’re in the matrix) and said

“and uh. why is…he here?”

i went and introduced myself like we had never met before and said i was their son’s boyfriend

:3

i’ve never seen two people look more angry before but they weren’t gonna say anything because they had other family members over

the family members who had never met me before and therefore knew nothing about the fake relationship thing started asking me what faith i am. i said i was raised protestant, though i’m not very religious now, but that’s something i want to change. i had never mentioned anything about being a protestant before and i had said several times that my family was greek orthodox but gaslight gatekeep girlboss

aaaand then the awkwardness began. those were probably the most awkward minutes of my life (we didn’t stay for long because i thought the dad was gonna hit me [he probably was. i saw him clenching his fists several times]) and i don’t think anyone has ever looked at me with such murderous intent as my bf’s parents

update two electric boogaloo ig

i have a girlfriend now🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️

Go you want to birth an Eldridge horror? This is how you birth an Eldridge horror

I want to know how they decided that they hate life on earth

I mean, who doesn’t

The “jellyfish that have returned” are the offspring of the ones sent up; they “hate life on Earth” because they were born into a world without gravity - no direction, different kinds of pressure, so when they return they have trouble adapting and (according to the Read More in the source) “Jellyfish babies, at least, have to deal with massive vertigo on Earth after spending their first few days in space,” which you can tell because you can measure how disoriented a jellyfish is compared with norma behavior. TL;DR your cthulu is an infant with a migraine

I have SO MANY questions, re:the jellyfish space habitat.

I mean I guess it’s probably just an airtight aquarium on board the ISS, but I read it the first several times as the jellyfish were just floating in open space.

tbh when I read “NASA has been launching jellyfish into space for years” my initial mental image was just NASA with a giant slingshot flinging jellyfish after jellyfish into the void