Derin Edala is an Australian author of web fiction. They have also written fanfiction for various works, including Animorphs, Young Justice (2010), and The Magnus Archives.
Many of their works can be found on their website (derinstories.com
) or on Archive of Our Own.
Their works include:
Serials
- Charlie MacNamara, Galactic Ace (2017–2018; on hiatus) (AO3)
- Curse Words (2019–2023)
- Time to Orbit: Unknown (2022–)
- COPY <|> PASTE (2022)
- The Void Princess (2023)
- Drops Of Blood Like Neon Stars (2023–)
Short stories
Available on their website:
- "Angel" (2020)
- "Original Sin" (2022) (also on Tumblr)
- "Love at First Sip"
- "The Princess in the Tower"
- "Rebirth"
- "New rules and guidelines from HR for working with humans" (2017) (also on Reddit)
- "A Cinderella premise" (2022) (also on Tumblr)
- "A Cinderella sequel" (2022) (also on Tumblr)
- "Breakfast Time" (2023) (also on Tumblr)
- "Wasting Time" (2023)
Other:
- "Fulcrum" (2019) (Tumblr, AO3): A standalone story set in the Curse Words universe.
- "Selkies" (2021) (Tumblr)
- In 2022, sample chapters of various story ideas were put out for a poll to decide what serial would be worked on after Curse Words. (Time to Orbit: Unknown won.) These included:
Tropes and trivia for works without pages:
- Composite Character: In "A Cinderella sequel", the stepsister turns out to also be The Little Mermaid.
- Feghoot: "A Cinderella premise". The entire thing is a setup for a pun on "salmonella".
- Inspiration for the Work: According to the tags on the Tumblr publication of "Original Sin", it was inspired by an AI-generated greentext about a white dwarf.
- Interrupted Suicide: In "A Cinderella sequel", the sister's attempt at Suicide by Sea is stopped by a pack of mermaids.
- Ladyella: In "A Cinderella premise", the main character turns out to be called "Salmonella" instead of "Cinderella".
- Magical Species Transformation: In "A Cinderella sequel", the sister is turned from a human into a mermaid.
- Me's a Crowd: The basic premise of "Copy <|> Paste": a technician stranded lightyears from Earth with few resources except a device that can make copies of herself.
- Mythology Gag: "A Cinderella sequel" crosses over with "The Little Mermaid" and has some references to the original story and its animated adaptation by Disney.
- When the sister lets the riptide pull her out, she imagines becoming ocean foam, the fate of the mermaid in the original story.
- At the end, the stepsister meets an octopus woman, implied to be Ursula, who tells her, "I am glad that you can be part of our world," referencing the song "Part of Your World".
- Suicide by Sea: Attempted in "A Cinderella sequel". The sister walks into the ocean and lets a riptide pull her out, closing her eyes and imagining becoming foam. However, a band of mermaids intervene.She grew up working fishing boats; she knows what a riptide is. She knows how to escape one.
She doesn’t.
