iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 06/10/2026

The truth is that to live is to struggle--and it found me again, bringing the need to write about a different struggle. A new release. A new book. I'll tell you about it soon. 8/8

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 06/10/2026

DANCE WITH ME is now available in every format: interactive, ebook, paperback, audiobook. OUR OWN RHYTHM is only available as an interactive experience. But this series doesn't end there. 7/8

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 06/10/2026

But TALES OF THE BOOKSHELVES didn't end there. I found the need to write about a different struggle: how anxiety and depression can control someone's life. That's why, in 2024, I wrote OUR OWN RHYTHM, also an #InteractiveFiction novel. 6/8

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 06/10/2026

Except, sometimes, something overrode those choices. Struck them through, literally. The strike-through was born of my need to use the mechanics of interactivity as an intrinsic part of the story's theme—to bring it closer to the reader. It stayed on the page when I novelised DANCE WITH ME. 5/8

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 06/10/2026

DANCE WITH ME was first published as text-based #InteractiveFiction through UNEARTHED STORIES–and you, the reader, guide Lyra's decisions. How she faces her fractures. What she thought about the one causing them. 4/8

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 06/10/2026

Back then, I knew little about fairytales, though I knew why the themes demanded it to be one. Because fairytales are beautiful and innocent *only* on the surface—exactly as someone's need to pretend their life wasn't sheer struggle. 3/8

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 06/10/2026

Eventually, I gave that metaphor a twist. I imagined a ceramic ballerina—the kind that one finds atop a music box—enchanted to life and set to dance, dance, dance despite her fractures. That's how Lyra was born. 2/8

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 06/10/2026

A ceramic teacup. Fractured. Glued together and set to work again. That's how I felt for a long time. That's how the metaphor of DANCE WITH ME began. 1/8

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 04/10/2026

Same question, same theme. Different ways of approaching the same answer. TALES OF THE BOOKSHELVES. Another approach, another entry, comes soon. 4/4

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 04/10/2026

TALES OF THE BOOKSHELVES is different. Psychological, standalone gothic fairytales. Innocent on the surface, but dark once that facade of beauty fractures. This is a series about how identity changes in the wake of struggle... and whether one can come to terms with it. 3/4

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 04/10/2026

RECORDS OF THE ORDERS asks this question through immortal beings studying humanity from the outside. For them, the answer is simple: “to live is to struggle.” What that struggle creates is the core of their research. 2/4

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 04/10/2026

“What is to be alive?” It is the theme underlying both of my series. 1/4

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 02/10/2026

Struggle. Indivisible from life, from identity. Fundamental to Soul Alchemy. Discover why 🔗👉🏻 liviajelliot.com/my-books 2/2

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 02/10/2026

“What is to be alive?” Verve, an alchemist, asked a human—a physician all too acquainted with death. His response? 👀👇🏻 1/2

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 30/09/2026

I wrote an essay about this 🔗👉🏻 www.booksundone.com/p/fiction-i... 3/3

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 30/09/2026

Friction in books is a signal pointing to gaps in what we know, what we have lived, who we are. But not every friction in fiction is good friction. It is the task of a critical reader to discern it... and learn from it. 2/3

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 30/09/2026

"I didn't understand a thing." One of the most common lines in low-rating reviews — often paired with "it's poorly written." Could these readers be correct? 1/3

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 29/09/2026

THE GENESIS OF CHANGE is where everything begins. Discover the moment The Orders of Alchemists will begin to change. Find it in: ➡️ebook (free to newsletter subscribers), ➡️paperback (released wide), and ➡️audiobook narrated by Sarah Kempton (also wide). 🔗👉🏻liviajelliot.com/my-books 2/2

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 29/09/2026

Fear of change… or of stagnation. Desire to change, to not stagnate. The paradox of human emotions. The very same shaping what an alchemist is. 1/2

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 27/09/2026

Begin where everything begins: at THE GENESIS OF CHANGE Free for newsletter subscribers 🔗👉🏻 liviajelliot.com/newsletter 8/8

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 27/09/2026

This is why, in THE GENESIS OF CHANGE, The Rector sends Verve to investigate one particular human: to discover whether his mind holds the connection that alchemy is still missing. The answer runs through every book in the series. The timelines, as ever, are not straightforward. 7/8

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 27/09/2026

This is where humans become interesting. Not despite their brevity—because of it. A human life, compressed and intense and defined by specific experiences, produces something most alchemists can no longer generate independently: Genuinely novel thought. 6/8

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 27/09/2026

To The Rector, a disconnection is just an unanswered question. The problem: alchemists who have existed for tens of thousands of years gradually lose something essential. The longer you live within accumulated knowledge, the harder it becomes to think outside it. 5/8

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 27/09/2026

One Order of Alchemy has exactly this problem: it’s knowledge is disconnected from the rest of alchemy. Every alchemist accepts this as given—a kind of dogma, unexamined and unchallenged. Every alchemist… except The Rector. 4/8

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 27/09/2026

Ignorance makes a piece of knowledge appear isolated, without cause or relation to anything else. Consider imaginary numbers. We know they exist and how they work. They are fundamental to multiple disciplines… and yet there's a gap connecting them to the rest of maths. 3/8

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 27/09/2026

This is not a flaw. It is the architecture of knowledge itself. What any discipline knows connects to what other disciplines know—physics to medicine, medicine to architecture. Each is a cause or consequence of another. The more you know, the more connections become visible. 2/8

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 27/09/2026

To any alchemist, the pursuit of knowledge is the only worthy quest for their endless existence. The reason they are what they are. Yet knowledge, by definition, expands what you don't know. 1/8

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 24/09/2026

Sometimes, the past isn't remembered. It returns. THE ECHOES OF YORE is another prequel to my series, RECORDS OF THE ORDERS. Start here for unsettling psychological horror. 🔗👉🏻 liviajelliot.com/my-books 2/2

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 23/09/2026

We can say, therefore, that if a narrator is a camera following a subject (character) quite closely (limited or first-person narratives), then the character's biases are the lens through which that camera sees the world. I wrote an essay about this 🔗👉🏻 open.substack.com/pub/liviaje... 3/3

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 23/09/2026

The see the world in specific colours, render them uniquely. They have defects (scratches, fungi) that affect the image. They have underlying structures (the glass elements) that cast imperceptible traces. 2/3

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 23/09/2026

Unreliability is a condition of subjectivity. Therefore, there are no truly reliable narrators (third-person limited or first-person) because if the narrator is a person, that person will be subjective--despite them claiming otherwise. Because of that, narrators are like camera lenses. 1/3

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 21/09/2026

What Élan frames as philosophy in THE GENESIS OF CHANGE, Amok deploys as method in THE ECHOES OF YORE. Same framework. Different hands. Darker consequences. 🔗👉🏻liviajelliot.com/my-books 6/6

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 21/09/2026

The result is in Philip K. Dick territory: reality becomes genuinely indistinguishable from unreality, and the novella offers no comfortable resolution of the two. THE ECHOES OF YORE are real. The present is real. Both are happening. 5/6

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 21/09/2026

Amok—the same alchemist studying Calya in THE OMENS OF WAR—is present throughout. Their goal? Extract the atemporal emotions while they become present again… then observe what happens when a human psyche is made to confront a past that has never, functionally, ended. 4/6

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 21/09/2026

The past isn't remembered. It returns. As one veteran experiences it: "That battle on the forest of Eryndor's north, survived half a year prior but fought again mere hours ago. The one he'd never wanted nor craved, yet signed for it the moment it was announced." 3/6

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 21/09/2026

THE ECHOES OF YORE follows three veterans, each at a different stage of traumatic dissociation. Where most fiction would render this through explanation or retrospection, here the prose itself enacts it: third-person past for stable moments, third-person present as the flashback takes hold. 2/6

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 21/09/2026

Élan teaches ‘Aurea that emotions are atemporal—ungoverned by sequence, alive across time, returning without permission. Amok doesn't teach this. They test it. 1/6

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 18/09/2026

Those questions are the lesson. Emotions don't arrive from the present. They arrive from wherever their cause lives—which may be decades behind you, buried in a memory. Élan's branch of alchemy is built on knowing exactly how to find them there. 🔗👉🏻liviajelliot.com/my-books 7/7

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 18/09/2026

"Did I?” They ask, “Or was it your scrambled brain? Or the veteran’s? Or one of his memories?" The question isn't cruel. It's precise. If the fear was real—and it was—but the event was someone else's, from another time: where exactly did it come from? When? 6/7

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 18/09/2026

What she lives through is a veteran's final moments. The certainty of death building in a body not her own. The specific, physical terror of a mind convincing itself it is about to cease. When it ends, she tells Élan: "You almost killed me." But the alchemist… laughs. 5/7

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 18/09/2026

Élan 's method of teaching is not theoretical. Áurea is submerged directly into the experience—memories not her own, gathered at considerable cost—until she doesn't just understand the concept… but has lived through it. 4/7

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 18/09/2026

Emotions are alive elements. And all things alive persist—through memory, through impression, through the traces they leave — across time. In the person who experienced them, in those who witnessed. Emotions—alive elements as a whole—are atemporal. Non-linear. Ungoverned by sequence. 3/7

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 18/09/2026

As Élan explains: "Because one event in your time-framed sequence of a lifetime can spark fear further as you live on. Likewise, a joyful afternoon can bring a smile years after the fact. Emotions are not linear." For the Alchemists of The Orders, this is a working principle. 2/7

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 18/09/2026

Emotions always have a cause. That much seems obvious. What Élan teaches Áurea in THE GENESIS OF CHANGE is a… less intuitive truth: The cause of an emotion is not constrained by time. 1/7

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 16/09/2026

The necessary and the sufficient conditions for a leader's character. But what are those conditions? Join me in BOOKS UNDONE as I seek to provide an answer... while discussing that, perhaps, the Gom Jabbar Test is flawed. 🔗👉🏻www.booksundone.com/p/gom-jabba... 2/2

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 16/09/2026

What makes a human *human*? At first glance, the Gom Jabbar Test, from Frank Herbert's **Dune** suggests a simple answer: unlike an animal, a human can master their own fear in a life-or-death moment. But the conversation that unfolds before hints that this is assess something complex... 1/2

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 14/09/2026

To see this in practice at an individual, societal, and alchemical levels, dive into THE OMENS OF WAR—the first book in my universe, RECORDS OF THE ORDERS. Available wide: liviajelliot.com/my-books 3/3

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 14/09/2026

To discover how it all begins, read THE GENESIS OF CHANGE—the philosophical prequel to RECORDS OF THE ORDERS. The ebook is free for newsletter subscribers: liviajelliot.com/newsletter 2/3

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Livia J. Elliot ~ Author & Podcaster @liviajelliot.com · 14/09/2026

Alchemists. Eldritch immortal beings. And yet they share three fundamental characteristics with their human source-beings 👀👇🏻 1/3

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