I'll Never Find Another You

This is the story I'm proudest of. It was written in response to people pushing the trope that "In an infinitely branching multiverse, nothing really matters, everything cancels out somehow." I never understand how anyone can give creedance to such a nonsensical moral argument, but then I've seen a lot of things that defy moral understanding among the sci-fi crowd.

I love the character of Elle in this story. I'm quite sure that a lot of readers won't like her, but that's fine, what makes you think she exists for you? I'm quite sure that people's eyebrows will go up because she is, after all, travelling from universe looking for a man. "When would we ever see a man doing such a thing?" they'll ask. But if I'd written the story with the gender polarity reversed, the same people would declare it a 'girl in every alternity' male fantasy of travelling from universe to universe, f**king women and then moving on. If I made the central relationship girl/girl or boy/boy, then they'd say I was portraying gay relationships as inherently unstable. One thing you learn as a writer is that there's an attack tailored to every move you could make, and the community is full of people who have made a career in attacking others, and who constantly need to find something and someone they can attack.

And I don't think a male character could pull it off. They couldn't deliver Elle's spitting misanthropy and still be sympathetic. A male in this role would just come across as a thug (because yeah, we live in a sexist society, and those who will tell you "there's no such thing as sexism towards men" are the biggest sexists of all). And I'm not sure I could write a male character like this. In order to write someone who you know is bonkers, you know is bad news, but who is believably seductive enough to make someone hang around despite that, requires an insight into someone's desires, and I just don't trust I've got the insight into female desire to create such a male character. Although... hmmm... there's a challenge right there. But people would just say he was a male power-fantasy in his own right, so why bother?