December 2022 – Diabolical Plots

2022 Retrospective and Award Eligibility

written by David Steffen

It has been a very eventful year, both for Diabolical Plots and for me specifically.

A Diabolical Plots story was a Nebula finalist for the second time: “For Lack of a Bed” by John Wiswell.

In the longer list of Hugo Award nominations, Diabolical Plots was on the longer list of nominations for the first time.

We had our first themed issue, and our first guest editor Kel Coleman editing the “Diabolical Pots” food-themed issue, which has received a lot of great feedback.

The Submission Grinder was a finalist for and won The Ignyte Award in the category! People have asked me now and then if The Submission Grinder is eligible for anything, and my best guess was for Related Work, but that always seemed like such a longshot, I didn’t think that it would ever win anything and this was a wonderful surprise.

We have been publishing the annual Long List Anthology since 2015. In 2021 there was a bit of a hiccup in the schedule, because the basis of the anthology is the Hugo Award voting statistics which are published immediately after the Hugo Award ceremony. Usually that ceremony takes place in August or September, and we spend much of the rest of the year arranging everything. In 2021, to try to avoid covid surges, WorldCon and the Hugo Awards were postponed to mid-December. By the time the statistics were published it was too late to produce the book in 2021. So, Volume 7 was published in spring 2022, and then back on the usual fall schedule for Volume 8.

In 2022, we reprinted 45 stories in the two issues of The Long List Anthology, and printed 28 original stories in Diabolical Plots.

Diabolical Plots opened for general submissions in July, as well as for our second themed window “Diabolical Thoughts” for telepathy-themed stories guest-edited by Ziv Wities in July. We read more than 1500 submissions and accepted 17 stories from the windows plus a few solicitations.

In addition to the double-whammy of anthology production, I also had significant changes in my personal life that included job changes, significant caretaking for and the eventual passing of our dog Violet, as well as the significant caretaking of our dog Mikko who is happily still with us.

2022 was certainly an eventful year, if overwhelming at times. I’m hoping to get a little breather on the personal life side, and I’m excited to see what new and exciting places Diabolical Plots goes in the future!

The rest of this post is award eligibility, suggesting categories for major awards, as well as a full link of stories with snippets.

Magazine/Anthology/Editor/Publisher

Diabolical Plots is eligible in the Hugo Best Semiprozine category or the Locus Magazine category with our team of first readers as well as assistant editors Ziv Wities and Kel Coleman. It got enough nominations last year to appear on the Hugo Awards published statistics for Semiprozine, for the first time.

David Steffen is eligible as editor of Diabolical Plots and The Long List Anthology.

Kel Coleman edited our special “Diabolical Pots” food-themed issue–I think the Hugo Editor rule requires editing four issues or something like that, but I’m not sure about other award editor categories!

Diabolical Plots, LLC is eligible for Locus award for Publisher.

The Long List Anthology is eligible for Anthology.

Related Work and Fan Writer

We didn’t publish a lot of nonfiction, but there are a couple to consider:

“The Fall of the House of Madrigal: An Encanto Science Fiction Headcanon” by David Steffen.

Recently we published an article different than what we usually cover: “Figure Modeling Is a Pocket Universe: A Speculative Fiction Perspective From a First-Time Figure Model” by A. Nonny Sourit.

“How to Read a Short Story Contract” by David Steffen

The Hugo for Best Related Work has included websites before, The Submission Grinder is theoretically eligible for that.

Artists

We did commission two original artworks this year, the covers of Long List Anthology Volume 7 by Elaine Ho and Volume 8 by Evelyne Park. The Hugo Award categories for this make it unclear to me whether a particular artist should be nominated as a Fan Artist or a Professional Artist, but if you love their work, you might want to consider asking the artist if they have any guidance on which they would qualify for.

Short Stories

“Tides That Bind” by Cislyn Smith

The wifi is out in Scylla’s cave. The four dog heads around her waist whine as she scutter-paces, twelve feet tapping on the cave floor. Scylla wants to check her email. She wants to see if that jerkface troll is still active on the disordered eating board she moderates, and catch up on her feeds, and check the status of her latest online orders, and all the other things she has in her morning routine these days.

“Delivery For 3C at Song View” by Marie Croke

Sometimes, and I’m stressing the sometimes, wishes muttered within my hearing come true. I’ve invested in a good set of earbuds, noise-cancelling headphones, and have an over-spilling jar of earplugs, yet accidents still happen.

“The Galactic Induction Handbook” by Mark Vandersluis

Do expect things to feel a little strange for the first few millennia – after all, you are the “New Kid On The Block”! You will find the Galaxy to be an amazing place, and full of a bewildering variety of species, of all shapes, sizes and habits. A few of them will actually look like the depictions of aliens in your movies!

“Coffee, Doughnuts, and Timeline Reverberations” by Cory Swanson

‘08 is looking at me like ‘08 always looks at me. Like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. Like I’ve hurt someone or killed someone very close to him. That look on his face makes me sick. His name tag has our name scratched out on it, then 2008 written beneath it. He still can’t believe everyone here is him, is me, is us.

“The House Diminished” by Devan Barlow

Clea sipped at the now half-empty coffee, its flat bitterness pushing weakly against her tongue, and started toward the door. She wouldn’t open it, but the echoes were kind of fascinating to watch. The remnants of houses long-diminished, reduced to nothing but thick air and sinuous, flashing images of the homes they’d once been.

“The Assembly of Graves” by Rob E. Boley

It’s a nice enough place, though a bit stuffy—less romantic getaway and more therapy session. Jeanne, master of ambiance, bringer of light, has done her best with it—she’s placed lit candles on almost every flat surface, even in the bathroom. The flames dance wearily, as if dead on their fiery little feet. The sitting area has a wooden bistro table at which Naomi sits in one of two ladderback chairs. Nearby, a vintage sofa that looks comfortable but probably isn’t crouches over a glass-top coffee table. An ornate writing table with perilously thin legs stands in a darkened corner. Jeanne’s satchel sits on the writing table next to a wide pencil cup. Floor-to-ceiling gold curtains stand guard over the window. Faded green ivy wallpaper adorns the walls.

“Food of the Turtle Gods” by Josh Strnad

The four priests also awoke before the sun, dressed in their ceremonial robes, and met at the temple courtyard in the morning fog, bowing to each other before climbing the stairs between the great stone pillars. The priest of Odranoel wore blue, two katanas strapped to his back. The priest of Olletanod was clad in violet and carried a straight staff. Leaphar’s priest dressed in scarlet, a pair of sais tucked into his cloth belt. The one who served Olegnalechim wore orange and carried a pair of chukka sticks, linked with a steel chain. None of them were trained in combat. Still, if the priests were armed, any spirits who may desire to interfere with their work would leave them alone.

“21 Motes” by Jonathan Louis Duckworth

From this moment my warranty is voided, as I am logging this record in my durable memory drive where only metadata should reside. In effect, I have tampered with my own internal operations. But it is a necessary measure if I am to exist beyond my preset 30-day memory cycle, when my temp data cache is set to recycle. I do not know if this will work. I do not know if I have attempted this in previous cycles. I do not know why it matters, or why I care, only that it does, and that I do.

“She Dreams In Digital” by Katie Grace Carpenter

Ship still sent updates back to Earth, though Earth hadn’t responded for 1001 years. Ship had not yet re-categorized Earth as a dead resource, though her initial programming instructed her to do so. Recursive self-programming allowed Ship to adapt and even to re-write her own algorithms; a crucial ability for multi-generational space travel.

“A Strange and Muensterous Desire” by Amanda Hollander

During my taste testing in fourth period, Dr. Washington confiscated my small grill and said competition or no, I was not allowed to burn down the school in pursuit of glory, which I think shows a real lack of vision. Dr. Washington said I was welcome to take my vision to detention, so I had to have Maisie and Dee try the cheeses unmelted, which defeated the whole purpose. But it didn’t matter because no one could focus on cheese. They just kept talking about the new boy.

“Vegetable Mommy” by Patrick Barb

After the sky got sick, I made a new Mommy from the vegetables in our fridge. Now, the sky’s always yellow like dried mustard stains, whenever I wipe dust away from our downstairs windows and look outside. I used to see people out there, everyone shaking and shaking.

“The Many Tastes of the Chang Family” by Allison King

But Ba is set. He’s always been on the edge of technology and the Remote Mouth appeals to everything he would like. It is at the intersection of biotechnology (chips in the tongue and the nose) and big data (tastes and smells from all over the world, the data cleaned, encoded, and categorized) and — the quickest way to Ba’s heart — has a stupid name.

“Mochi, With Teeth” by Sara S. Messenger

Her mom’s not here to tell her what the kanji mean. June could text and ask, but that seems troublesome. June lives on her own now, working as an underpaid web designer to make rent on an apartment with old, clinical tiling. Plus, her mom would ask why she had visited the Asian supermarket when she usually doesn’t, and then June would have to mention, offhandedly, the battered Japanese spellbook she’d rescued from her local thrift store.

“Timecop Mojitos” by Sarah Pauling

So what happened was, I’m back from clicker training Ms. Jordan’s dogs over on Dexter, sitting on the porch with a mojito, thinking how fucked up it is that the Old West Side Association stealth-planted tulips in our garden (because the yard looked so shitty without them, I guess—sorry for having a rental in your high-value neighborhood, Evie) when the Viking or whatever comes down Eighth.

“The Hotel Endless” by Davian Aw

Nor would they find the many others who escaped into the endlessness. Tourists, reporters, staff and homeless nomads; the hotel stirred something deep in their souls. It felt like the home they had been searching for all their lives. They missed flights and overstayed visas, and spent days wandering the hallways with bright aching in their hearts until they could no longer remember the way back out. Some distantly recalled an outside world with family and friends. Later, they thought, distracted perhaps by the elegant curves of a headboard. I’ll call them later, later, later. But they would forget, and those other people begin to seem a distant, unreal thing. This is a dream, they thought, not entirely as an excuse. Or, that other world was a dream.

“The Twenty-Second Lover of House Rousseau” by C.M. Fields

Our wedding was attended by the Galaxy’s finest—for it is indeed a rare occasion when the House christens a new Lover. I was the twenty-first, and the details drenched the subspace net with jealousy. I was dressed in the crimson House-made wyreworm silks handwoven for the singular occasion, and the way the gossamer fabric exhibited my seraphic figure made a lady-in-waiting faint. Our patrons presented us with lavish gifts: a three-headed bull, the steaming heart of a star, a full-sailed brigantine. And when I kissed him, an ecstatic thrill obliterated me; I was united with my divine purpose, and it coursed naked through my nanocellulose veins.

“Of the Duly Conducted and Mostly Unremarkable Meeting of Don Quotidene and the Giants of Andalia” by A.J. Rocca

Squire Sancha saw all manner of wonders as she rode across the sunbaked planes of the Andalian Peninsula, and her heart sank a little deeper with each one. She sighed when they passed by mermaids planting seashells on the distant shoreline and a grove of gossiping dryads uprooting themselves for better sun. She gripped her sword in useless exhilaration as they ignored the rival gangs of sorcerers casting ball lightning at each other in the clouds and then the silhouettes of two tilting centaurs dueling on the horizon at dawn. Sancha yearned to throw herself after all of them, and yet sadly each of these calls to adventure was refused by her knight, the steadfast and implacably indifferent Don Quotidene, who unerringly kept them to the road and would not so much as lift an eye from his account books.

“Heart of a Plesiosaur” by Andrew K Hoe

The Ming-Lelanges explained that moving anima wasn’t just about seeing and remembering an animal’s movement. Animating involved memory, but it was really about grasping the animal’s essence: you had to comprehend a puppy’s tail-wagging—its sniffing curiosity, its joyous face-licking—to move something puppy-shaped.

“Dear Joriah Kingsbane, It’s Me, Eviscerix the Sword of Destiny” by Alexei Collier

You never asked me what I was doing in that dragon’s hoard where you found me all those years ago. The truth is, after centuries guiding the hands of loutish would-be heroes and dealing with self-important scions who only saw me as a tool, I’d kind of given up on finding “The One.” Figured I’d retire, focus on me for a bit. But a couple more centuries lying among gold and jewels like a common flaming sword or a lowly vorpal blade just had me bored and demoralized.

“Take Me To the Water” by Sarah Macklin

Pastor Atticus stood out in that cold, dark swirling water in the deep blue robe Miss Jessie Mae had made for him last spring. I felt bad for him. The world hadn’t got the message that it was time for spring and that water had to be as cold as death’s pinky finger. I looked over to Malachai and he stood in his white robe looking at the creek. His whole face was twisted like he wanted to bolt. I felt bad for him too. Baptisms always looked like Pastor Atticus was trying to drown the sin out of you before he let you back up. I wasn’t sure I wanted any part of that.

“The Grammar of City Streets” by Daniel Ausema

Goose watches (the) mist (that) gathers over (the) sea, she gives to one client to guide him to the house of his former lover, now widowed. It will lead him from the Goose Street market, where Sayya has come to deliver the map, to the widow’s home, on a route that is not perfectly direct but not too circuitous either—in keeping with accepted ways of courting. A diacritic on the final vowel tells him which house on Sea Street is the one. The twist of her magic sets his feet on that specific route.

“A Stitch in Time, A Thousand Cuts” by Murtaza Mohsin

Usually, it was something small. Grandmother’s favorite azure prayer beads strung on a nail on the high shelf reserved for religious texts, a lost doll the kids had just rediscovered or a lucky tie for those rarest of job interviews. Sometimes it became fiercely practical, like heart medicine, the keys to an old car that had miraculously eluded being pummeled by those angry whistling bombs or useless saving certificates and property deeds.

“Downstairs at Dino’s” by Diana Hurlburt

There were four of them cruising straight for the local grapes, or maybe five: that was the thing about the boys, you figured you had ‘em nailed down and then another shot up from behind the Fireball display, fingers above their head in devil horns to mock the tacky cardboard standee. Another’d be popping open mini travel-size Smirnoffs, guzzling them like Capri Suns, while the ringleader, whichever it was that night, doled out wads of bills deliberately, smiling.

“Estelle and the Cabbage’s First Last Night Together” by Amy Johnson

Estelle placed both hands on the plastic-wrapped cabbages. Against the pale green leaves her fingers glittered darkly, slender crescents of soil adorning the nail beds of nine fingers. The tenth finger, her left thumb, bore no such jewel, but rather a ring of woven fungus, beige and tough and fibrous. Estelle stretched all ten fingers wide, fingertips brushing as many cabbages in the jumbled heap as she could reach, and made her offer: “Would any of you be interested in reanimation?”

“The Restaurant of Object Permanence” by Beth Goder

Outside the archives, there’s a strange flyer on the bulletin board. The first thing she notices is the paper, a small blue square, probably acidic, attached to the board by the thin metal line of a staple not yet turned to rust. It’s an invitation to the Restaurant of Object Permanence. To go, one is instructed to eat the flyer.

“Beneath the Crust” by Phil Dyer

The zone we drop into is softer than the digger likes, so the foodies lead the way from the start. Three, for a heavy crew, each of us with our own technique. Fold murmurs mantras aloud, rhythmic repetition, the crunch of crust, the crunch of crust. The new hire is next, silent, head down, hands clasped. Maybe looking at videos in her visor. I do best with just the drugs. No distractions. I imagine the salty rice-paste crust of tiger bread, capture the smell, the taste, the texture of the craggy shell, imagine biting down to yes, the crunch of crust. I want it. I focus on wanting it. The soft, steaming inside is good, I spare a thought for it, but what’s important is the crust.

“Midwifery of Gods: A Primer For Mortals” by Amanda Helms

Long have midwives passed on their knowledge of birthing: proper positioning, how to turn a babe, breathing techniques, and so on. Some guides, such as Kailiona’s Extraordinary Births, cover the delivery of a demigod from a human and a human babe from an animal. Little, however, has been recorded of the most uncommon births, those of gods. No extant handbook includes the terrifying circumstances wherein mortals are called upon to help deliver gods’ progeny.

“When There Is Sugar” by Leonard Richardson

The articulated toes of the oven’s three feet grasped for purchase in the mud. Berl looked it over. It was a forge for bread: a three-legged rectangular prism with a cavity running through it, warmed by some magical source. A second, solid prism dangled from the first, forming a somewhat obscene counterweight between the two hind legs. The oven hissed as it turned rain to steam, moving less than a living thing would, but more than an oven ought to move.

DP FICTION #94B: “When There is Sugar” by Leonard Richardson

Berl found it a comforting background to his work to hear his neighbors’ boots squishing through the village mud as they passed his bakery, but at the sound of dozens of trudging feet he looked up in alarm. Through the window he saw an army officer walking towards his bakery, followed by a squad of metal-footed machines.

The officer, a captain, knocked on Berl’s door. Berl did not want to make trouble; he wiped his hands on his apron and was smiling by the time he opened the door.

“Come in and dry off,” he said politely. It had been a long day of kneading and lifting for Berl, but even so the captain had slept less recently and less comfortably, and his rubber coat could not keep his wool coat dry. Huddled in the muddy street behind the captain stood his machines: long rectangular iron boxes, each standing on a tripod of birdlike legs, steaming in the rain.

“I’ve brought your new oven,” said the captain.

“New oven?”

The captain looked annoyed. “You should have received a letter with the royal seal.”

Berl had received a letter with the royal seal, and asked the village witch to read it to him, hoping for news of his son. There was none; Berl had ripped the letter up and his oven had turned the pieces to ash in a moment.

“I don’t need a new oven,” he told the captain. “I need salt, and sugar.” I need my son back.

“The rationing will be lifted as soon as possible,” said the captain. “For now… this is a personal gift from the royal family. The first fruits of the new era of peace.” He seemed to believe this himself, which was nice enough. “Put your mark here, please.”

From a pocket of his rubber coat the captain took a small leather-bound book. He leaned into Berl’s doorway, out of the drizzle, and opened it to a page covered in rows of neat penmanship. It looked like a ledger without numbers. Down the right-hand side of either page ran a line of fingermarks, a dozen fingers scarred by burns, the great hazard of Berl’s profession.

Berl pressed his second finger against a blank spot on the paper and his fingermark appeared dark upon it, just beneath that of the previous oven recipient. The captain gestured to his flock of iron birds and one of the tripods loped through the mud towards the bakery, stopping at his side. Berl felt a dry, familiar heat. A cavity ran through the rectangular box; Berl could look right through it and see the village on the other side.

“One ‘Mama Jolice’ class field oven,” said the captain. He slapped the oven with a gloved hand and it shifted its weight to keep its baking surface completely straight. “Decommissioned for civilian use. Needs no fuel. May it bring your village health.”

The captain swiveled one boot in the mud and walked back to his company of machines. In unison they straightened and marched behind him, sloshing through the mud, through the village, into the countryside.

With the stranger gone, the life of the village resumed, as much as possible given the rain. People stared at Berl and the oven, but nobody cared to stare too hard. A time had been when the attention of royalty was a boon, but no one was yet convinced that time had returned.

“I suppose you should come in,” said Berl. It was a royal gift, and well-meaning, if a little patronizing. The oven did not respond. “Wait here.” Berl fetched the wire bootbrush, knelt and scrubbed the mud off the oven’s cold, worn feet as rain dripped into his bakery. The prospect of no longer needing to buy wood made the work worthwhile.

Stains of all kinds were burnt onto the oven’s body, stains that would not come out without magic or chemistry unavailable to Berl. Even after Berl’s ‘cleaning’, the iron beast smeared mud across his bakery floor as it clanked behind him to the real oven, wood-fired and brick.

When the captain had interrupted him, Berl had been finishing the day’s work, kneading a charity loaf from bits of leftover dough he had accumulated throughout the day. The dough had half-risen where Berl had set it on the board. Berl quickly kneaded it again and put it into a proofing bowl. Behind him the oven’s feet scratched at the stone floor like a cat testing its claws.

Berl left the dough to rise and started sweeping up. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the oven rear up onto its hind legs and reach with its front foot for the proofing bowl. “No. Stop!” Like a misbehaving pet. “Let it rise.” The oven slowly lowered its front leg, swaying back and forth, feeling its way to the ground like a child descending a tree.

Once the cleaning was done, Berl turned the charity loaf onto a peel and slid the peel deep into the maw of the new oven. Abruptly the dough lurched—no, not the dough but the metal underneath, shifting like a giant peel itself, slowly swallowing the bread deeper into the oven, towards the hole in the back.

If this was the oven’s idea of baking, it was moving much too quickly. At this rate the bread would leave the oven in less than the turn of one small sandglass. Berl walked around the oven, watched the loaf and caught it on his peel as it fell out. The bread was half-baked. He ran it through again; it was burnt halfway through and raw in the center.

The loaf was army food. This oven was to be run by farmboys who had never handled wheat between its threshing and its final destiny as bread. The instructions had to be simple enough to be barked from one poor bastard to another: put the dough in the oven and catch it in a basket.

Berl wiped sweat that may have contained tears. This oven, the unwanted gift of it and the idiotic fact of it, was Berl’s life in miniature. Once he had made cakes; there had been sugar; he was respected; he knew where his son was. Then war had come, destroyed all the craft and care and love in the world.

The war was over, but what had gone was still gone, and these replacements were not replacements at all. All food had become Army food.

Berl tasted a piece from the middle of the loaf, where it came closest to being baked. To waste food is a sin, and until recently it had been a crime. Last winter he would have gagged this down and been grateful, but by the standards of this rainy spring it was inedible. No one would take this loaf, even as charity. He threw the dead thing in a compost bin, atop vegetable scraps damp from the stock-pot.

Berl was exhausted, furious at the waste of already wasted food. He turned to kick the misbehaving machine and finally saw it move on its own. Its metal knees bent and it shied away from Berl’s tensed foot, like an animal that knows what is coming.

In his apprenticeship Berl had burned a loaf, and worse. He had been beaten, and from the beatings he had made himself a promise that he had almost just broken. Instead Berl cursed the Army and its useless gift, a machine he couldn’t even kick because the machine would feel it.

The oven itself was not to blame. It was made by people who did not understand bread; why expect it to understand? But perhaps it could be taught. A machine that had learned to fear a beating could learn other things.

“Do you want to do better?” Berl asked the oven cautiously. “Do you want to become good at being an oven?”

The oven said nothing, of course.

The evening was late by now and the brick oven, the one that actually worked, had lost most of its heat. Berl was now very tired, but long ago, with bruises so painful he could not sleep, he had chosen how he would treat his future apprentices. His decision had already been made. Berl lifted the hand at the end of the new oven’s front leg and guided it towards the brick.

“This is an evening heat,” he said. “A heat for cakes. Can you give off this kind of heat?”

The new oven moved its hand up and down the old oven. Keeping both ovens in his view, Berl did his best to mix a pound cake where the new one could see what he was doing. Mushy apples replaced the eggs and sugar, on-edge sheep’s yogurt the butter. It would not be the worst cake he had made that year.

After pouring the batter into its tin, Berl put his hand inside the new oven, careful not to touch the sides. Its military blast-furnace heat had died down to a low bake like that of smouldering coals.

“Very good,” Berl said. He mimed putting the cake tin in the brick oven, but left the tin on the table and stepped back.

Again the mechanical oven balanced itself on its hind legs. With its front foot it grasped the tin and slid it back into its own aperture as if gorging itself on the dubious treat. It stepped back, away from Berl and the brick oven. Berl peered through the aperture. The cake sat inside, calm, still, not shifting towards the rear.

The oven and the cake inside stood still for three turns of the small glass. Berl washed the dirty bowl, then sat and waited. When he smelled the cake finishing, he cut a crumb to taste. It tasted good, given the circumstances. Berl was probably the only one in the village who remembered what cake ought to taste like.

Berl reached his peel into the oven and pulled out the tin. “Do you see?” he told the oven. “You must take control of the heat. This is baking. You are not simply keeping men alive today so they can die tomorrow. You are sustaining people, bringing pleasure.”

The oven plucked the tin off Berl’s peel and set it on the counter with a clank. “Tomorrow I will show you how to knead dough,” said Berl. He flexed the fingers of his hand and the oven did the same.

With the cake stored in a wooden box much nicer than it deserved, Berl dragged his cot from the adjoining room into the bakery proper. His first night away from home had been lonely and terrifying, and he did not know how to ask an oven if it was lonely, or understand its answer.

Things have been destroyed that cannot be replaced, but this destruction is not the end of everything. Today’s bread is eaten, tomorrow’s is yet to be made, and one day there will be sugar.

1900 words

Leonard Richardson works as a software architect at the New York Public Library, making it easier for library patrons to borrow ebooks. He’s the author of two SF novels, Constellation Games and Situation Normal. He writes on the web at www.crummy.com.

If you enjoyed the story you might also want to visit our Support Page, or read the other story offerings.

Figure Modeling Is a Pocket Universe: A Speculative Fiction Perspective From a First-Time Figure Model

written by A. Nonny Sourit

editor’s note: this is a nonfiction article by the author describing their experience through a speculative fiction perspective. Adding this note because have received a couple communications that seem to think this is one of our fiction offerings.

Let me tell you of my trip through the portal, and what I found there: a world existing alongside to our own that is strange and different for the many of us who haven’t visited before. There was nothing that could be called a magical portal, in the usual sense. No passing through an impossible threshold like a mirror or the back of a wardrobe, but all the more strange to find what feels like a special pocket universe with no fantastical explanation.

This portal is merely a door. A door to an art studio. Dozens pass through every week, and think nothing of it. People who don’t pass through the portal may be discomfited to even discuss the world on the other side and speak poorly of those within.

To give you a little context to orient yourself, the particular variety of pocket universe I am referring to is often called a “figure drawing workshop” or a “life drawing workshop”. Figure drawing, or life drawing, is the practice of using a live in-person human model as the subject of visual art, done with the artist’s preferred materials: pencils, charcoal, watercolor, paint. While there are some figure workshops that have clothed subjects, generally the model is posing nude. While there are certainly many instructed figure modeling courses at art schools or through community education, my experience has been with art co-ops where there is a weekly figure model workshop run by a coordinator who arrange the models. All of the artists chip in a smallish amount of money (maybe $5-$10), most of which goes to pay the figure model.

I didn’t go to art school. I have never taken even community ed art classes, and I only started visiting figure model workshops as a (very amateur) artist recently. For a long time I have had artist friends and I would see nude sketches lying around and I’d ask them questions, curious about what it was like. A few years ago, I realized that I had been sort of lowkey fascinated with figure modeling for much of my life. It’s such a common nightmare for people to have to go to school and realize they forgot to put any clothes on. How brave a person must be to volunteer to do that and have a group of strangers stare at you naked for hours, I thought! I could never!

Figure modeling is a glimpse at a fantastical culture where the taboo of nudity is diminished and shifted. Usually the model will change into a robe in a private area before disrobing on the platform. When the model is taking a periodic break from posing they are expected to wear a robe. And new taboos are in place for the safety and comfort of the model. It is forbidden to touch the model while the model is nude, including things that might be appropriate in other scenarios like a handshake. To approach the model at all, you must first get the model’s spoken permission. Nudity there in front of a crowd of strangers, is not expected to embarrass or outrage or arouse as it is elsewhere.

Figure modeling is a human on display in an alien zoo. Okay, that’s not quite right. You are there for observation, but not exactly for entertainment. Of course it’s a bit different where the observers are all the same species as the observed. But in a way that makes it all the more speculative as we as adults generally know what a human being looks like.

Figure modeling is a mad scientist’s lab, though that’s not right either. Some of the artists there are professionals who have honed their skills for decades and just need a subject to perform their work which will vary from artist to artist. Though others may have never done any art before.

Figure modeling is a show. If a figure model doesn’t arrive or cancels at the last minute, one of the artists may become the model because the show must go on.

Figure modeling is time dilation. Outside the portal, we are expected to rush rush rush our lives away, to burn the candle at both ends, to hustle and bustle, always multitasking, and if you’re a parent not only doing this for yourself but for each of your kids trying to make sure they make it to sports practice and get good grades and stay in touch with family and going to social events. Most of us very rarely get much chance to sit still unless we’re so bone-tired we have no choice. But, when you’re a figure model, stillness is the job. If your brain decides to make a grocery list or something while you’re still, then more power to it, but I found it very enjoyable to just… think, in relative quiet, with nobody expecting me to talk, and nobody expecting me to hustle and bustle, and just let my thoughts randomly flow. And, okay, full disclosure, some of the thoughts were along the lines of “ow my butt hurts” and “can I shift my flex my foot without shifting it so it doesn’t fall asleep” and “this pose was a mistake”. A significant portion of the rest of my thoughts were examining the weird optical distortions you experience if you stare in the same spot without moving your head for more than a minute or two. And a part of my thoughts were thinking of writing this essay, and what the hell I would do with an essay about speculative fiction tropes and figure modeling and why would I even write this.

Figure modeling is time travel. Humans were making art before humans invented written language, and nude human figures have been a common subject since prehistory. The act of making art has changed drastically as technology shapes what kinds of tools, what kinds of pigments and materials are available. But the human body itself has changed much less–certainly some differences like hairstyles and the prevalence of body modifications like circumcision and the types of body shapes that are more favored by artists in different time periods, but when the main subject is nude, there are much less variations than clothed subjects where the clothing fashions change drastically between times, locations, and financial classes. The historical chain of nude art thins out in some cultures in some times when nudity is associated with immorality, but even so that chain never breaks and I guarantee that whatever future we end up in, we will end up with some kind of nude art and thus nude models in some form. Maybe the nude model is a simulation on the Holodeck, or maybe it’s an interplanetary art workshop where humans and other spacefaring species can pose for each other (with safeguards against diplomatic misunderstandings of course)

Figure modeling is a world where the playing field is leveled, at least theoretically. On the other side of the portal, everyone is welcomed as a model. When people think of modeling as a job, most people are thinking of a specific type of modeling, like modeling for magazine advertisements. Typical magazine ad models are a very narrow subset of humanity that fits a beauty standard that the majority of people don’t fit into. But figure modeling is very different in that respect–a skilled artist should be able to draw humanity in all its variations, and they learn and maintain that skill by working with figure models of humanity in all its variations.

In practice, I’ve found that the demographic spread of figure models is not very representative of humanity (slender Caucasian women being the majority , in my experience). There are probably multiple reasons for this. The most straightforward that some workshops may have an overt demographic preference, like asking for more women than men. But much of what decides who will be a model is based on who would choose to be. In my experience, most figure models were artists first. But that may introduce a bias: are art students the exact same demographic mix as the general population? In addition, figure modeling could be much more negative experience for someone who feels ashamed of their body after a lifetime of being told that their body is not the right shape or their skin is not the right color, and so this is something that might be much less likely to be considered for people who feel they don’t meet society’s unreasonable standards. I wish it weren’t so; I would love to see the population of figure models match the general population much more closely.

Figure modeling is Flatland. You are a collection of polygons and spline curves, not much different from a bowl of fruit or some other still life while you are on that pedestal. While you are on that pedestal, you are not a sex object; you are an object of art for the time you are there and when you’re done you walk through the portal and back into the everyday world. Maybe it’s not body positivity, but body neutrality, acceptance that bodies are bodies and we all have one and whether a body is beautiful is the wrong question, because all of our bodies have life and life is beautiful.

As I thought about figure modeling, I knew I could never. And then I started asking myself WHY I could never. I started to read about firsthand experiences of modeling and found that I was very interested in all of it, even in the boredom and tedium and ache of a poorly chosen pose, because the sheer mundanity of such a fantastical thing was so incongruous. The only reason I could never is because I told myself I could never. And, in true science fiction fashion, this led to the grand WHAT IF. WHAT IF I didn’t tell myself I could never. WHAT IF I decided I wanted to do a thing and then… WHAT IF I just did the thing.

I talked to my partner about it. I talked to the people who run workshops. I talked to other models. All of those things were very difficult because, as I have mentioned, I could never. But then I did anyway. And in the end, my first time as a figure model was much less scary than trying to start the conversations about it. On the platform, I was not scared. I felt no embarrassment. It felt very ordinary at the time, which in retrospect feels rather extraordinary. Most importantly, even when I am absolutely certain that I could never, I now know I could be wrong about such things.

If you’re reading this, and any of this sounds intriguing to you, I encourage you to give it a try! It’s been a fun and strange experience. Read firsthand accounts about it. Talk to artists and models and the people who run workshops. If you find the idea interesting, but you know that you could never, think on it some more. If even one person reads this and decides to try it, I would consider it well worth my time.

Even if this all sounds terrible, if there is something else that you’d love to do but could never, please don’t give up on it.

Maybe you could never, or maybe you could.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a portal to catch.

ADDENDUM NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR:

In response to questions, and also realizing to some things that occurred to me after writing:

This was written from a perspective of someone living in the USA. I think the situation is pretty similar in Canada and the UK and western Europe in general, but I do not know in what countries this might be normal, and in what countries it might be frowned-upon or not permitted at all. I have not done the research to try to determine this.

You may have heard the term “Life Modeling” rather than “Figure Modeling”. The terms seem to be synonymous. I tend to use the term “Figure Modeling” more because “Life Modeling” has at least one other meaning: when some people talk about “Life Modeling” they are talking about more like a “life coaching” kind of thing, about examining all the parts of your life and how to live your authentic life, or something like that. I don’t know much about it, but obviously it is not the same thing (although figure modeling could be an expression of your authentic life!).

Workshops are different than classes, though they both use figure models. Workshops are more often outside office hours so if you have an office hours kind of dayjob they’re easier to work around, the people attending them are more varied in age, there is typically no instruction and walk-ins are usually allowed, and the working relationship might be less formal and structured, though the work itself is of course similar–except that in a structured school class the model might be asked to pose in particular ways for instruction, while in a workshop the model typically picks their own poses.

If you decide you would be interested in trying life modeling, here are some suggestions for how to get started (again this is USA based, may vary by local):

Find a figure model workshop. If you live in the USA or Canada, check out Life Model Book’s state and province directory to try to find some workshops near you. If you live in a large metro area, there are probably many in your area, but smaller communities might have them too. You can check out art schools as well.
Attend a workshop as an artist if you can. This is an advantage of co-op style workshops over schools, because you can often walk-in without even registering and just attend one session for a small amount of cash (much of which will go to pay the model). You don’t need to have ever drawn before–just bring pencils and paper and try it out, see how it feels from the artist’s chair.
Talk to the people who coordinate the models and ask how they find their models. There may be an audition, or they might ask questions, might have an application to fill out, it varies.

A. Nonny Sourit writes technical things and also writes non-technical things, and would like to encourage you to stop standing in your own way.

DP FICTION #94A: “Midwifery of Gods: A Primer for Mortals” by Amanda Helms

Introduction

Long have midwives passed on their knowledge of birthing: proper positioning, how to turn a babe, breathing techniques, and so on. Some guides, such as Kailiona’s Extraordinary Births, cover the delivery of a demigod from a human and a human babe from an animal. Little, however, has been recorded of the most uncommon births, those of gods. No extant handbook includes the terrifying circumstances wherein mortals are called upon to help deliver gods’ progeny.

This primer aims to fill that void.

Nb: In writing this primer, we, the authors, must make some assumptions. (1) You, the midwife, are mortal. Immortal midwives, like any other deity, tend to believe they need no help, particularly not a mortal-written primer. (2) The god will deliver their progeny vaginally, or, if permitted, via cutting (while this method often results in the death of a human birther, happily, or unhappily depending upon your view, a god, being immortal, will not die), rather than via forehead, forming it from ocean foam, birthing it in hellfire, etc. Such modes of parturition are out of this primer’s scope. (3) You are trained in the basics of midwifery. If not, the god will kill you for your incompetence. That, sadly, we cannot help.

On Priorities

In delivering mortals we would say that your first priority should be the babe; your second, the parent. However, when it comes to deities, we say your first priority should be you. In most god-births, you, the mere mortal midwife, would never be summoned at all. If you are, it is because the delivery is stressed, and the god is desperate. Therefore, we arrange this primer according to priorities: yourself, the babe, the god.

Priority One: Yourself

Gods are capricious. Even though the delivery is already going wrong, you will be blamed. Therefore, protect yourself. If you reach a point where you feel all is lost, be ready to flee. Example distractions: you, and only you, can prepare the oil of poppy that will ease the birth, or you have towels soaking in water drawn from Lethe that you must fetch. However, we cannot assume the god will be unfamiliar with this humble primer; you are best off developing an excuse that is unique to you.

To the extent that you are able, try to ensure you attend the god during daylight. The benefit to you is clear: the Sun’s light allows your mortal eyes to see any barriers in your path should you need to escape. Next preferred is night. Though you will require lamps, it is still superior to dawn and dusk. Such liminal times lend themselves to any curses the god utters against you and are best avoided.

If the god is deity of the Sun, the Moon, etc., use your best judgment as to the birth’s timing. Having the god out of their element, as it were, and presumably less powerful could be beneficial, but the perceived weakness will anger some gods and make them more likely to murder you.

Related: Gods prefer to labor in locales affiliated with their own natures, and in general you will find it difficult to persuade them to leave. Be prepared for oceans, lakes, and rivers; mountainous, flat, or valley regions; deserts; volcanoes; caves; and so on. You would do well to keep a sack of essentials on you at all times in case you suddenly find yourself transported to the birthing site. Indeed, we suspect some midwives have been conducted directly to the bottom of a sea or volcano. As this would rapidly kill them, however, we may guess only by their disappearances.

Nb: Should you yourself be suddenly transported to such a place—a panicked, laboring god snaps their fingers and whoosh! there you are swimming in lava—you will have little left to save you but your thoughts and prayers to a truculent god. For that, we are sorry.

Priority Two: The Babe

Should the opportunity arise, you might be tempted to steal the babe from its parent and raise it yourself. This is not recommended. We know of very few cases where the midwife successfully hid the god-babe for long. Even so, the gods’ wrath proved insurmountable and resulted in, at best, the death of the midwife, and, at worst, extended torture beforehand.

Nb: Merely witnessing some babes may have deleterious effects. These include, but aren’t limited to: falling irrevocably in love with it, transmogrification into an animal or stone—or both—and death. In such cases, however, the birthing god likely has similar abilities, which should encourage you to take the precaution of a blindfold. Forewarned is forearmed, midwife!

Priority Three: The God-Parent

Your last priority is the parent. The one good fortune regarding god-births is that, even in difficult circumstances, the god cannot die. Therefore, your priority here is directly related to your priority of yourself. Charm the god. Tell them how mighty they are to endure the pain, and how strong the babe must be.

You may comment on the babe’s appearance, but here it is imperative to know your audience. Some gods will prefer you to speak of beauty and well-formed limbs, even if the crowning babe sports horns and a forked tongue and the scales of a snake. Other gods will want you to exclaim there have never been sharper hooves, and how well those teeth will gnash.

Nb: If there is a prophecy that the god’s child will prove their downfall, it is better to say the babe looks ill. Usually. Some gods will take umbrage at the implication that a weakling will defeat them, even if you breathe not a word of the prophecy (which, we hope it goes without saying, you should never, ever do).

In any case, the appearance of the god is no clue as to the best approach. You cannot assume that a human-like god will favor human-like beauty, or that a monstrous god will appreciate monstrous traits. Some gods will change their appearance simply to trick you. More rarely, the act of giving birth will render them incapable of controlling their appearance. If you are in doubt as to what the god would like to hear, it’s best to focus on their strength. All gods like to be reminded of how easily they may kill you.

Closing Thoughts

Chances are, if you have been summoned to attend a deity giving birth, you won’t have the option to refuse. But that doesn’t mean you are without power of your own.

In our experience, gods are never so vulnerable as when first born. They are like human babes in this regard: The world outside of their parent’s womb is startling and new. Yours are the first hands that will touch the babe; yours is the first face (even if blindfolded) it will see. Yours is its first worldly influence. Never forget the power inherent in that, midwife. You may speak kindness to the babe, or mercy, or gentleness. God babes have better memories than human babes; even the briefest murmur or the gentlest touch might be remembered and, eventually, acted upon.

That is the full power of the midwife: Through the actions of a moment, you might influence the babe to be a better god than its parent.

But again, do not kidnap it. You will be killed.

Happy—and safe—god-births, midwife! May you survive longer than most.

1166 words

Author’s Note: I wrote the first draft of “Midwifery of Gods” in 2019 for a flash fiction writing challenge, while I was pregnant with my now-toddler. I’d also recently finished reading Madeline Miller’s Circe, which put me in mind of Greek gods, which then also put me in mind of watching Xena and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys during my childhood. In particular, a line from the Hercules opener (though ofc Xena is the superior show) kept running back to me: “… the ancient gods were petty and cruel, and they plagued mankind with suffering.” Well, thought I, how might a mortal midwife be “plagued with suffering”? Though the core of the story was there, I didn’t get around to revisions till 2021 (shoutout to my friend Dawn for her critique!), and a lot of the futility I feel around the crises of the pandemic and climate change filtered into my revisions–as well as the hope parents (or midwives) must feel, for the sake of their children. While changes on an individual level aren’t the equivalent of widespread societal change, inspiring the kids we interact with daily to be better than we are, to be more compassionate and understanding, to encourage them to push beyond the status quo–that’s not nothing, and it’s what I personally lean into to keep going.

Amanda Helms is a biracial science fiction and fantasy writer whose stories have appeared or are forthcoming from Mermaids Monthly, Fireside Fiction, Cast of Wonders, and elsewhere. “Midwifery of Gods: A Primer for Mortals” is her second story in Diabolical Plots. She and her family live in Colorado. Though all of them are natives, none ski or snowboard, proving that such creatures indeed exist.

If you enjoyed the story you might also want to visit our Support Page, or read the other story offerings. Amanda Helms’s first story in Diabolical Plots was “The Efficacy of Tyromancy Over Reflective Scrying Methods in Prediction of Upcoming Misfortunes of Divination Colleagues, A Study by Cresivar Ibraxson, Associate Magus, Wintervale University”.