By Krom! by Shel Kahn (autobio comic, 2012-2014)

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"What can I do when it feels like the whole universe is out to get me?"

"First, I would decide if it is a worthy opponent. If not, I prefer to laugh."

Blurb: "Conan the Barbarian versus my mundane problems!" Conan accompanies Kahn throughout their life, dispensing life advice and giving new perspectives on modern life.

Why is it worth your time?: It's a nice little comic about a cartoonist and their barbarian friend, a nice slice of WHY people enjoy the company of their favorite fictional barbarians. Plus, it's up for free online! Give it a shot!

Plural Tags: abuse not mentioned, creator speaks from experience, fictioneers, friendship

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Posted up online for free reading! Not screenreadable, out of print, but also available in ebook as pay-what-you-want, should you want to pay a humble cartoonist!

Misc Notes: For funsies, compare and contrast with Andy of Astraea's web page about how Robert E. Howard claimed that Conan seemed to write himself!

Exploring the Aventine: An autoethnography... by Dr. Charlene Thomson (PhD dissertation 2024)

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Submitted by matsushima! Thank you, matsushima!

Full title: Exploring the Aventine: An autoethnography on making sense of immersive daydreaming in the context of developmental trauma

"I summon my fantasy world characters and imagined others into dialogue and interaction. As we all converge at an intersection of immersive daydreaming and developmental trauma, ancestors whisper of intergenerational trauma and patriarchal psychiatric discourse."

Blurb: Immersive daydreaming is fantasy activity that is vivid, intricate and highly absorptive. Akin to an ongoing ‘movie-in-the-mind’, it often has the quality of feeling real and can continue over a period of months or years. The term ‘maladaptive’ daydreaming (MD) was introduced (Somer, 2002) to describe immersive daydreaming before researchers investigated it as a distinct psychiatric condition (e.g. Somer, Soffer-Dudek, Ross & Halpern, 2017) related to developmental trauma.

This thesis presents an autoethnographic journey into the Aventine, a term I use to refer to an elusive, liminal space. I ask readers to adopt and experiment with various lenses I use in my attempts to navigate immersive daydreaming from a critical, post-qualitative perspective. … The pathologization of creative responses to trauma is then countered to reveal fantasy as a site of liberation.

This creative-relational research is situated, experience-near and dialogical. Attending to the social/political, I challenge traditional forms of trauma-related fantasy representation and claim a space where the intuitive, imaginative and numinous are welcomed into therapeutic practice and scholarship. This thesis highlights the importance of process-driven research: from intrapsychic wars to synchronicities , and ultimately to a sense of homeness, I invite you as reader to accompany me on what became a reclamation of artistic and spiritual freedom.

Why is it worth your time?: It is a PhD dissertation on immersive daydreaming that includes transcripts of extensive inner dialogues between the researcher and real and imagined others from the researcher's life and immersive daydreaming story that spanned over a decade as well as real world historical figures.

Plural/1+ Tags: creator speaks from experience, people: copies, type: setting specific

Content Warnings: racist intergenerational trauma

Accessibility Notes: Full text PDF available on the University of West England (UWE) Bristol Research Repository