#Rachel MacFarlane

[psikonauti]

Rachel MacFarlane

Lava River Rolling, 2024

Oil on canvas

[virtuouswhitehatorganization]

Who Would Be A Good English Voice Actor For Anana Pina?

[longlistshort]

“After Storm in the Fen”, 2024, Oil on canvas

"Squall Lines", 2024, Oil on canvas

For Rachel MacFarlane’s exhibition, Coming Events Cast Their Light Before Them, at Hollis Taggart, she has painted several dreamlike landscapes based on her travels to places impacted by climate events. She first creates maquettes from her observations (three are on view) and then uses them as the basis for the paintings.

From the press release-

At its core, MacFarlane’s work is about lamenting the loss of specific landscapes through creating and depicting new worlds where humans are no longer the protagonists. MacFarlane spends much of her time immersed in unique geographical environments – often ones that have been heavily impacted by climate change-related weather events. While working on her newest body of work, MacFarlane spent extensive time in places ranging from the Adirondacks to Wolfe’s Neck Woods State Park in Maine, and from Prince Edward Island right after it had been hit by Hurricane Fiona to Clearwater, Manitoba during unprecedented flooding. As has always been her practice, MacFarlane does not document while she travels, instead preferring to absorb the atmosphere of a place and spend time really immersed in its sights and sounds. Upon returning to her studio, MacFarlane transforms her observations into three-dimensional maquettes created out of paper, paint, and plastic.

As MacFarlane describes it, a lot of play takes place at her collage table, as she manufactures new spaces based loosely on the spirit of specific ones, drawing on a myriad of influences from theatre and architecture to the world-building of science fiction literature and movies. The paintings in this show were specifically influenced by MacFarlane’s research into the Augsburg Book of Miracles, a manuscript depicting celestial and weather phenomena made in Augsburg, Germany in the sixteenth century. MacFarlane was moved and inspired by how these anonymous illustrators centuries before her were also dedicated to tracking warning signs in the landscape and to recording them in creative ways.

While she describes the model-building as a distancing method, it is also one that creates intimacy, as the scale shift to a shallow box model leads to the creation of a miniature world we can literally hold in our hands versus the enormity of the environment. After MacFarlane distills the memory of a place into an object, she further transforms it into its final form on the canvas, using bold colors and thick brushwork that highlights the painterliness and artifice of her landscapes. As art critic Barry Schwabsky notes in the catalogue essay, these multiple translations and transformations allow MacFarlane to ��operate with and against flatness and depth, illusion and physicality, naturalness and theatricality… Her work gives pleasure but also warns that with all these unavoidable antitheses, the choice of one pole or the other would be hopeless, and we have to learn to live with the tensions between them.”

This exhibition closes 5/25/24.

[terminusantequem]

Rachel MacFarlane (Canadian, b. 1986), Sandstone Horizon Junction, 2020. Oil on canvas, 101.6 x 76.2 cm

[toutpetitlaplanete]

Rachel MacFarlane - Umbra Over the Horizon, 2022

[themapletouch]

Rachel MacFarlane, Orchestral Skies, oil on canvas on wood (2022)

[theartsjunkie]

Today's eclipse & Canadian artist Rachel MacFarlane

Celebrated artist Rachel MacFarlane’s work is especially relevant today on the day of the solar eclipse. The Event, 2024. Oil on canvas via Smithsonian magazine, a feature on art inspired by eclipses One of the works for her new solo show in New York City is The Event (above), “a fantastical depiction of hurricane-battered Prince Edward Island coupled with an abstract depiction of a solar…

[hallmark-movie-fanatics]

Summer TCA - July 11, 2024 Hallmark Panel

(photos from Hallmark's official Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts)

[rozmorris]

Nothing new under the sun? Why originality is always possible

Here’s something to think about. Around 97% of the time you ever spend with your parents will be before you are 18 years old. Maybe you’ve already heard this statistic, and apparently there’s more than one variation. But I heard it just this week. Dave heard it first, told me.   We boggled. Then, after a moment’s marvelling, we thought about it properly. Of course. That period 0-18 is so…

[polkadotmotmot]

Rachel MacFarlane - Flood Pour over Red Earth Crags, 2024 - Oil on canvas

[daystarvoyage]

I often see fans demonize some characters like Belos,The Blights, Camila, into far worse versions of themselves like fans portraying Camila as abusive since she wants Luz go to Reality Check Camp to correct her behavior and certain people interpret that of her sending her to a conversation therapy camp or the Blights while they are bad parents for sure they are sometimes depicted as physically abusive or homophobic despite that sort of thing not existing in the boiling isles and Finally Belos gets made into a bigot who is sexist,racist, homophobic because he a white Christian male despite not making any insults for Luz being a woman or POC while his stance of sexual orientation or gender identity is unknown the fact he didn’t insult Luz for being a woman or POC is remarkable progressive for a Man who is born in the 1600’s also He FICTIONAL and we already have enough of those people in real life what do you think?

I do say this, people need to start separating the art from the artist and fantasy from reality,

this type of writing and fictional perspective, a lot of viewers and fans sit through, its been done throughout animation, Even in real life affecting how we see our adult figures.

hope i say this, the best way i can cause the show did the adults and supporting characters dirty with its ill pacing in storytelling and character exposure

The Fans Of their favorite media love to exaggerate disliked characters (be it villains or unpopular ones) cause of how there perceived physically or in writing in the creator's eyes. We get this at the start of the first episode introducing Camila (whos a great mother who I relate to cause, I also was on the spectrum being raised by a single mom) I feel I look at her as a character who carries a burden with her being a single mother) yet relatable cause she does her best to take care of her daughter on earth cause she to is a single mother protecting her daughter from the harsh reality cause its not all huckydorey (like the ending of the show),when she wants luz to conform. the way fans see luz assomeone needing protecting, might villanize camila firsthand(DEMONIZING ADULT MOMENT BY FANDOM) as a cheerful person luz is, fans forget that she's also impressionable, impulsive, don't think far on consequneces and needy, might gloss over the fact she needs proper mannerisms (to get by in the world at times), cause shes young & fits the viewers mold of perception, that no one should be punished cause of sexuality, it might show she doesn't need help. Let's be clear the fans are gonna gloss the fact shes a troublemaker who brings harmful items to school WHICH fans should be concerned, i mean neurodivergent character doesn't mean good personality,

2. The blight situation I swear they did Odalia dirty with this GRRR & how talented and amazing Rachel MacFarlane is (Her VA voicing hayley from American Dad.)

She also over exaggerated for being ( DEMONIZED BY FANDOM cause SHE's an ADULT) to being just an abusive mother, but however others will see it is a character who was a dark and humorous character at least & she has great writing tools to be & alador was just a plot device to make amity look good even the twins, & get rid of odalia even though her had his hand in amity's abuse, which I feel no one in the blight fam is not innocent (neither was amity, also which the twins didn't get fleshed out more & used as plot device for lumity, Which fans at times gloss over. Fans will over-exaggerate that Odalia was physically abusive to the kids but NEVER WAS! cause that's a negative perception on the fandom that (We have a adult hater situation nowadays of how this new age of Gen Z & alpha kids are raised,

i also wrote a post on the matter btw

The Belos Treatment (we al know how the creator treated him, such good potential DOwn the Drain.)

Bruh or GiIIIRRRRLL, I commend the Belos fans for being on their own ship supporting and adding more to his BG in fanfic & art

Belos was an intriguing villain who rivaled not only Frollo, the horned king, & Prof. Screweyes. This man also has a perception amongst the fans who followed the creator's way of how he was written (basically the new Chloe bourgeois treatment from miraculous.) He was only a character who was hell-bent on piping witches out and saving his humankind NOT BEING Racist Homophobic, or BIgoted, However, Chloe made racist & prejudiced remarks To Marinette in the cooking episode,(BUT BELOS DIDNT!) So he's an equal villain Who is all about equal rights means equal fights (falls under the neutral evil cause of how he was depicted into a person of tragedy upbringing to now a one-sided character (getting tired of how creators write villains in a one-sided manner.) oh and some people need proper knowledge of the 1600s cause belos was born in that era and I heard someone saying he was born in 1700s which I feel the show does suffer from anachronisms.

And don't get me started of how the fans go about Darius cause that has angry black man written all over it, along Manny being ONLY relevant in Luz's dire moment not being explored more,

hope i put down a lot of tea & crumpets for everyone hope you also can look at my video essay on my YouTube.

hope you enjoy comment and subscribe for more.

[psikonauti]

Rachel MacFarlane

Squall Lines, 2024

Oil on canvas

[genericpuff]

LO Art Analysis (or: A Real Example of Why You Shouldn't Use Multiply for Everything)

I've obviously been spending a lot of time recreating LO art and in that time, I think I've really cracked open some of modern LO's problems with its art. This is a lengthy post so turn on some lo-fi, grab some popcorn and strap in.

One thing in particular that I'm very eager to talk about (and go off about) is Rachel's use of color language and shading.

THERE WILL BE BRIEF FASTPASS PANELS AHEAD IN THIS ANALYSIS. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!

One of the key things that most people seem to agree on when it comes to LO's current art quality is the lack of color language. Back in S1, we had colors that seemed to jump off the page, with gorgeous rendering that created panels that were vast and beautiful to take in. It didn't matter if the anatomy was wonky or if the backgrounds were translated directly from Google Sketchup, the color and compositions made up for its flaws and created unique vignettes that individually contributed to what we found so special about LO back in those days.

That last one especially is still hands-down one of the most well-known and influential LO panels out of the entire series. Many a phone background its graced (my own included, I've literally had this as my phone background for like 3 years now) and it serves as a beautiful standalone example of the mood and emotions LO used to convey. You don't need to know the context of the scene, you don't need to know the characters, the mere posing and color choice alone is enough to invoke a reaction from the viewer. It doesn't even have a lot of shading or final rendering, the composition and texturing is all it needs.

So why does a simple panel like that work, but panels like these don't?

I have such beef with this panel because it does the complete opposite of what the famous Tower 4 panel achieves - it puts on full display everything wrong with LO's current art style, from its character posing to its color language aaaall the way to its final rendering.

First off, the character posing and framing. I finally figured out what RS' male characters have been suffering from lately, and it's a phenomenon that I'm sure many of you will be able to recognize right away.

Seth Macfarlane Syndrome.

You might not watch Family Guy, you might not watch American Dad, or the Cleveland Show, but you'll know exactly what I mean when I talk about Seth MacFarlane Syndrome. It's the stiffness, the lack of movement or bend in joints, the boring posing of characters standing with their arms flatly at their sides and their entire body facing the same direction, eyes unblinking - and when they speak, heads slightly tilting, mouths always being conformed to the same default shapes, while the arms do something random and unrelated to create the illusion of natural movement.

This has been an issue in LO for a while now, incredibly flat posing that lacks any sort of dynamic curvature to it, but it's best exemplified by that Ares panel above because holy shit does he ever look like Stan Smith in it. Boxy shoulders with arms that appear to be WAY too short hanging off the side, elbows flattened, hands straightened out, no natural shaping whatsoever.

But that's not the crux of the issue I want to touch on today.

No, the worst offense of this panel is that it indirectly proves what I've been suspicious of for a while now.

To explain real quick for context, there's this thing in digital art called Blend Modes. It's essentially a basic function in digital art that allows you to change the properties of layers for the purpose of shading, rendering, whatever have you. Most of these Blend Modes are the same across all digital art programs, things like Multiply, Screen, Color Dodge, etc. are all fairly basic tools in the digital artist's toolkit but all have an INCREDIBLY high ceiling of mastery - meaning, blend modes are easy to use on a basic level, but require a lot of skill and understanding of color language to utilize to their full potential. Using them right can transform a passable piece of work into a great one - on the flipside, using them wrong can take a passable piece of work and piss all over it.

The one I want to focus on in this post is Multiply. I use this blend mode myself quite often, it basically 'multiplies' the properties of the layers below it, taking whatever colors are below and 'doubling' them to create darker tones. This makes it a go-to for shading.

But the issue with Multiply is that it often ends up being used when it's not supposed to be. Or rather, people starting out will often use it as a substitute for shading when you'd be better off using your own hand-picked colors. I've got characters with skin tones that I can shade with the same color set to Multiply, zero issues, because the base tone is one that doubles well, it creates a nice rich tone on top that's perfect for shading.

But do you know the one color that DOESN'T multiply well?

Yellow.

Yellow is NOT a color you can just multiply, not without the final result looking flat and almost putrid. Most people will thus recommend you shade yellow with other colors along the same side of the color wheel, including oranges and reds. This is precisely why knowing color theory is such an important skill even in digital art, because using Blend Modes improperly can create flat tones that can ruin a final composition.

Going back to that Ares panel...

Again, I've had this suspicion for a while, especially when looking at panels of Persephone (*pink is ALSO a color that doesn't multiply well)

So I put it to the test. I took the original panel, sampled the yellow, and overlaid it with Multiply to see what I'd get.

Fam.

That putrid deep yellow that I mixed above is literally NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS WITH WHAT I EYEDROPPED FROM THE PANEL. Copy and paste that and eyedrop it yourself if you want to see it with your own eyes. It's pretty obvious she did the same thing with Hera as well, you can tell her skin tone has been set to multiply and repainted with the same color, same as with her jacket.

They are using Multiply layers for everything as the default. This is not how Multiply is intended to be used - it's lazy shortcutting that's resulting in flat, boring, ugly compositions.

RS has stated herself that she 'changed' how LO is drawn to help 'streamline' the process for her assistants. This isn't streamlining. This is cutting corners.

Streamlining would be having color palettes to refer to during the coloring and shading process. I use them myself for characters that I CAN'T multiply-shade, I literally have characters whose skin tones are too light and yellow-toned for it - using Multiply would wash out their tones and make them look flat and sickly so I have to use a separate color from a different part of the color wheel to shade them (usually a darker tone of red/orange).

Rachel, babe, this isn't streamlining, this is just taking shortcuts to the point of sabotaging your own work. You can't sit there and tell me THAT looks good and is worth the 'streamlining' when panels like THESE used to exist:

Turn off the Multiply layers and color your characters for once, please, I'm begging you. This is such a rookie move for someone who claims to be a professional (and regularly brags about the awards she's won); not to mention a tragic fall from grace because we know Rachel can and has produced better work than this in the past. She knows color language, she knows how to paint, so why is she resorting to shortcuts like this? She has an entire team of people and yet she's still consistently behind enough in her buffer - or just doesn't care enough anymore - that she's resorting to lazy amateur tactics like using Multiply for everything.

And on the off chance that she ever sees this, Rachel, it's not even that hard to use proper colors. You've done it before, you should already have the color palettes available to you.

(P.S. One handy-dandy experiment to tell if your Multiply layers are failing you is the desaturation test. You'll notice that drawings being made primarily with Multiply layers will look a lot 'flatter' when desaturated, because the shading is just the same color on top of itself and 'doubled', there isn't any actual value or depth in the shading itself. These are the exact same panels I showed before, RS' on the left and mine on the right, they've just been desaturated to show the difference that proper color choice can make when defining values and tones in shading!)

[synergysilhouette]

Given the reboot/revival trend, "Jem and the Holograms" deserves to join in (And here's my fancast)

Preferably a full-on reboot rather than a revival; it'd be great to see certain scenes with updated/modern animation--plus there were some storylines/arcs I think could've been done or incorporated better (ie Roxy being illiterate and the Jem/Rio/Jerrica love triangle). Given how much 80s music has influenced modern music, I don't think it'll be hard to find songwriters to do the show justice (maybe if they could get Chappell Roan under contract, that'd be AMAZING). And while I'd LOVE for the OG cast who's still alive to return or have new roles, similar to the cast for X-Men: The Animated Series/X-Men '97, here's a fancast just in case they wanted new faces:

Anna Kendrick as Jerrica/Jem--I swear, I was THIS close to saying Amanda Seyfried, but I find it easier to imagine Anna capturing Jerrica's controlling/condescending side (not a jab), as well as having a good voice I'd enjoy hearing as Jem! Idina Menzel was also a heavy contender in my mind, as was Jennifer Lawrence (at least for speaking roles).

Cristina Vee as Kimber--Perhaps it's the vibes I get between Marinette's hyper attitude and Kimber's bubbly attitude, but I think Cristina is my ideal Kimber voice.

Anika Noni Rose as Shana--I've said it before: Anika is an underrated voice actress! I'd love to hear her as Shana.

Kelly Marie Tran as Aja--Speaking of Disney, Kelly's performance as Raya really makes me feel like she'd be a good fit for Aja.

Xolo Maridueña as Rio--Xolo was one of the first actors I considered, and since I'm assuming Rio is Latino (Is Rio's ancestry ever discussed?), a Latino voice actor thus felt appropriate amongst the other choices. If I wasn't focused on that, Yuri Lowenthal, Christopher Sean, and Mensa Massoud were my backups.

Steve Blum as Eric--Someone I'm very familiar with (mostly as Wolverine in various properties), he was the first voice that came to mind for Eric.

Elizabeth Gillies as Pizzazz--What is there to say? The energy (and the singing voice) is there.

Rachel MacFarlane as Roxy--As an "American Dad" fan, her role as Hayley makes me think she can capture Roxy's attitude (because Hayley has her wild moments).

Cree Summer as Stormer--I kept thinking of someone who I could see having a similar (though not identical, of course) voice to Susan Blu's performance, and eventually I landed on Cree, who's a classic voice actor for a reason!

Halle Berry as Synergy--While I think Halle has a youthful voice that may sound a bit young for Synergy, she as a sincerity to her and wisdom that I find synonymous with Synergy.

Hope you liked the ideas! Who would you cast for an animated reboot of "Jem and the Holograms"?

[bracketsoffear]

Vast Leitner Reading List

The full list of submissions for the Vast Leitner bracket. Bold titles are ones which were accepted to appear in the bracket. Synopses and propaganda can be found below the cut. Be warned, however, that these may contain spoilers!

Abedi, Isabel: Forbidden World Adams, Douglas: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Asimov, Isaac: Nightfall

Borges, Jorge Luis: El Aleph Bradbury, Ray: Kaleidoscope Bradbury, Ray: No Particular Night or Morning

Caine, Rachel: Weather Wardens Clarke, Arthur C.: Maelstrom II Clarke, Susanna: Piranesi Coates, Darcy: From Below Coleridge, Samuel Taylor: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Curtis, Wardon Allan: The Monster of Lake LaMetrie

Foster, Alan Dean: He

Gardner, Martin: Thang Godwin, Tom: The Nothing Equation Gonzalez, J.F.: Clickers Gorky, Maxim: The Song of the Stormy Petrel Grant, Mira: Into the Drowning Deep

Hawking, Lucy and Stephen: George's Secret Key to the Universe Hardinge, Frances: Deeplight

Inglis, James: Night Watch

King, Stephen: The Jaunt

Lewis, C.S.: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader Liu, Cixin: The Dark Forest (Three Body Problem Book 2) Lovecraft, H.P.: Dagon

Macfarlane, Robert: Underland Marquitz, Tim and Nickolas Sharps, ed.: Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters Melville, Herman: Moby Dick Mortimore, Jim: Beltempest

North, Claire: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

Oesterheld, Héctor Germán: El Eternauta

Poe, Edgar Allen: A Descent into the Maelström Pratchett, Terry and Steven Baxter: The Long Earth series Purser-Hallard, Philip: Of the City of the Saved...

Reed, Robert: An Exaltation of Larks Reisman, Michael: Simon Bloom: The Gravity Keeper

Sanderson, Brandon: Firefight Seuss, Dr.: Horton Hears a Who! Simmons, Dan: The Terror Swift, Jonathan: Gulliver's Travels

Tennyson, Alfred: The Kraken Tolstoy, Leo: War & Peace

Verne, Jules: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Abedi, Isabel: Forbidden World

"Reginald has gained a dangerous power. He can shrink anything he likes. And he wants nothing less than the world's most famous buildings. The originals in miniaturized form, of course. Gradually he builds up a huge landscape in his cellar. But Reginald has overlooked something, or more precisely someone. Otis was locked in the Statue of Liberty and Olivia had fled from the police into the famous Berlin department store KaDeWe, when suddenly at night the buildings shrank. Now the children are the size of a fingernail... While they fight for their lives, chaos breaks out in the world outside: where have the monuments gone? And who has stolen them?" Vast stuff: Otis' fear of heights is a huge plot point and he was born on a plane. While Olivia wants to become a pilot. Many scenes of being in high places and terrified, and focus on being very small in a big world.

Spoilers: This book contains two Djinns one that can change the sizes of things one that can make them small and one that can make them big. But they are running out of magic fuel so staying small is the big fear of the characters.

Adams, Douglas: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The series swings wildly between cosmic dread and comedy, from the insignificance of the Earth's destruction to the chaotic results of the Infinite Improbability Drive to the very notion of the Total Perspective Vortex, the story hammers home again and again the infinitesimal nature of our existence in the vastness of the universe.

***

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy": Seconds before the Earth is demolished for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is saved by Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised Guide. Together they stick out their thumbs to the stars and begin a wild journey through time and space.

"The Restaurant at the End of the Universe": Facing annihilation at the hands of warmongers is a curious time to crave tea. It could only happen to the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his comrades as they hurtle across the galaxy in a desperate search for a place to eat.

"Life, the Universe and Everything": The unhappy inhabitants of planet Krikkit are sick of looking at the night sky- so they plan to destroy it. The universe, that is. Now only five individuals can avert Armageddon: mild-mannered Arthur Dent and his stalwart crew.

"So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish": Back on Earth, Arthur Dent is ready to believe that the past eight years were all just a figment of his stressed-out imagination. But a gift-wrapped fishbowl with a cryptic inscription conspires to thrust him back to reality. So to speak.

"Mostly Harmless": Just when Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life, all hell breaks loose. Can he save the Earth from total obliteration? Can he save the Guide from a hostile alien takeover? Can he save his daughter from herself?

The incomprehensible vastness of the universe is a theme repeated throughout the 'Trilogy". Notable examples include the guide initially describes Earth as 'harmless", after being stranded there for several years, Ford revises this to "mostly harmless". The Total Perspective Vortex, a machine that extrapolates a model of the entire universe, along with a microscopic dot labeled "you are here" this sense of perspective destroys the victim’s mind.

Asimov, Isaac: Nightfall

Lagash's six suns means an Endless Daytime, except for once every 2,049 years, when five suns set and the only sun left in the hemisphere is eclipsed by the moon. The scientists are trying to prepare civilization and themselves for the upcoming nightfall, but when it does occur, no-one is prepared for the thirty thousand stars that suddenly appear in the night sky. This leads to the far more devastating revelation how tiny and insignificant they are by comparison.

"Aton, somewhere, was crying, whimpering horribly like a terribly frightened child. 'Stars — all the Stars — we didn't know at all. We didn't know anything. We thought six stars in a universe is something the Stars didn't notice is Darkness forever and ever and ever and the walls are breaking in and we didn't know we couldn't know and anything —'"

Borges, Jorge Luis: El Aleph

In Borges' story, the Aleph is a point in space that contains all other points. Anyone who gazes into it can see everything in the universe from every angle simultaneously, without distortion, overlapping, or confusion.

Bradbury, Ray: Kaleidoscope

First published in the October 1949 edition of Thrilling Wonder Stories this describes a scene where a spaceship is hit by a meteor and torn apart – ejecting the crew into space. Each astronaut flies off on his own trajectory, hurtling to his doom. For a time they can all communicate through their helmet comms, but slowly, as the separation becomes millions of miles apart, they wind up as solitary figures, alone with his thoughts.

Bradbury, Ray: No Particular Night or Morning

This story takes place during a long interstellar journey. The destination and purpose of the journey are unclear. There are many men (it seems only men) on a large ship. Among them are friends Hitchcock and Clemens. Hitchcock begins to struggle with the idea that there is anything that exists outside of him, that none of it can be proven to exist. Clemens tries to argue with him until Hitchcock is finally treated by the ship’s psychiatrist with the captain’s knowledge, but to no avail. He finally dons a space-suit and leaves the ship. Over the radio he can be heard muttering about how even his own body does not exist.

At one point, Hitchcock is asked why he wanted to go on this journey in the first place. Was he interested in the stars? In seeing other places? In travel? He responds that “It wasn’t going places. It was being between”

Caine, Rachel: Weather Wardens

A speculative fiction series about the secretive bureaucracy that controls the weather. Consequences of this include severely pissing off Mother Earth, sentient storm fronts, and falling from great heights. Often.

Clarke, Arthur C.: Maelstrom II

This short story revolves around an astronaut named Cliff Leyland drifting in a low orbit around the moon after an accident with his capsule's launch. Much of his time is spent waiting to see if he can be rescued and reunited with his family, or is doomed to crash and die.

Clarke, Susanna: Piranesi

Piranesi lives in a place called the House, a world composed of infinite halls and vestibules lined with statues, no two of which are alike. The upper level of the House is filled with clouds, and the lower level with an ocean, which occasionally surges into the middle level following tidal patterns that Piranesi meticulously tracks. He believes he has always lived in the House, and that there are only fifteen people in the world, all but two of whom are long-dead skeletons. The status that decorate the halls and walls of the House are all gigantic and the halls themself are immense and bigger than what any human would be able to build on their own.

Coates, Darcy: From Below

"No light. No air. No escape. Hundreds of feet beneath the ocean's surface, a graveyard waits... Years ago, the SS Arcadia vanished without a trace during a routine voyage. Though a strange, garbled emergency message was broadcast, neither the ship nor any of its crew could be found. Sixty years later, its wreck has finally been discovered more than three hundred miles from its intended course...a silent graveyard deep beneath the ocean's surface, eagerly waiting for the first sign of life. Cove and her dive team have been granted permission to explore the Arcadia's rusting hull. Their purpose is straightforward: examine the wreck, film everything, and, if possible, uncover how and why the supposedly unsinkable ship vanished. But the Arcadia has not yet had its fill of death, and something dark and hungry watches from below. With limited oxygen and the ship slowly closing in around them, Cove and her team will have to fight their way free of the unspeakable horror now desperate to claim them. Because once they're trapped beneath the ocean's waves, there's no going back."

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

This epic poem of a sea voyage beautifully encapsulates the horrors of the ocean, from the terrific force of horrific storms and whirlpools to the unsettling infinity of life, both beautiful and strange, that inhabits the depths below. Most of all, however, it shows the horror of being stranded at sea as the ship is becalmed in the doldrums.

"Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean. Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink. The very deep did rot: Oh Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea."

The crew perish one by one, apart from the narrator. He, by killing the albatross, invoked the wrath of the sea. He alone must live on while the others are permitted to escape in death.

Curtis, Wardon Allan: The Monster of Lake LaMetrie

The story of Dr. James McLennegan and his sickly companion Edward Framingham who travel to a lake high up in the Wyoming mountains. When they reach the lake, McLennegan discovers it is home to an Elasmosaurus which attacks him, but he manages to kill it and removes the brain. Shortly afterwards Framingham seemingly commits suicide and McLennegan decides to place Framingham’s brain into the body of the Elasmosaur, as one does. While this works for a bit, the remainder of the story explores the horror of scale as Framingham's inability to adjust to his new size results in him snapping and devouring his now-insignificant former friend.

Foster, Alan Dean: He

A short story detailing an oceanographer's encounter with the last megalodon, a colossal shark that has lived for millions of years. He is feared by all other creatures and the sight of him installs a primal terror in humans.

Gardner, Martin: Thang

https://vintage.failed-dam.org/thang.htm The titular creature is large enough to grasp Earth between two fingers. It clears off all water and ice before chewing the planet, core and all, before it, in turn, is also eaten by a planet-eater eater.

Godwin, Tom: The Nothing Equation

A short story about how being stationed alone in an empty section of space drives a man mad. Like stories about lighthouses, but bigger. Short enough to link a complete ebook.

Gonzalez, J.F.: Clickers

"Phillipsport, Maine is a quaint and peaceful seaside village. But when hundreds of creatures pour out of the ocean and attack, its residents must take up arms to drive the beasts back. They are the Clickers, giant venomous blood-thirsty crabs from the depths of the sea. The only warning to their rampage of dismemberment and death is the terrible clicking of their claws. But these monsters aren't merely here to ravage and pillage. They are being driven onto land by fear. Something is hunting the Clickers. Something ancient and without mercy."

Basically, kaiju crabs invade the land -- because they're fleeing from something even bigger.

Gorky, Maxim: The Song of the Stormy Petrel

"A short poem, text can be found here. It describes the storm, vast and careless masses of water, roaring and ruthless skies, and a mighty storm petrel fearlessly taking on both elements. it even dares the tempest to get more intense, as all other oceanic forms of life (seagulls, grebes, a penguin) hide in horror before the face of the storm. stormy petrel in russian (буревестник), if translated literally, means 'the announcer of the storm'. there is a short old cartoon which depicts how this poem would function as a leitner, although the cartoon is very comedic and lighthearted. unfortunately, i wasn't able to find a version with english subtitles, but i think it would be clear just from the visuals"

Grant, Mira: Into the Drowning Deep

Seven years ago, the Atargatis set off on a voyage to the Mariana Trench to film a “mockumentary” bringing to life ancient sea creatures of legend. It was lost at sea with all hands. Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a maritime tragedy. Now, a new crew has been assembled. But this time they’re not out to entertain. Some seek to validate their life’s work. Some seek the greatest hunt of all. Some seek the truth. But for the ambitious young scientist Victoria Stewart this is a voyage to uncover the fate of the sister she lost. Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the waves. But the secrets of the deep come with a price.

Hawking, Lucy and Stephen: George's Secret Key to the Universe

The space aspects of it, as well as the fact that a character gets trapped in a black hole at one point, gives off Vast vibes to me. Synopsis for more info: The main characters in the book are George Greenby, Susan Bellis, Eric Bellis, Annie Bellis, Dr. Reeper, and Cosmos, the world's most powerful computer. Cosmos can draw windows allowing people to look into outer space, as well as doors that act as portals allowing travel into outer space. It starts by describing atoms, stars, planets, and their moons. It then goes on to describe black holes, which remains the topic of focus in the last part of the book. At frequent intervals throughout the book, there are pictures and "fact files" of the different references to universal objects, including a picture of Mars with its moons.

Hardinge, Frances: Deeplight

"In the old days, the islands of the Myriad lived in fear of the gods, great sea monsters that rose up from the Undersea to devour ships and depopulate entire islands. Now, the gods are no more. They tore each other apart in an event known as the Cataclysm. Fragments of their bodies (known as godware) are dredged up and sold. Hark and his best friend Jelt are petty criminals. When they embark on a dangerous scavenging expedition, they stumble across a strange, pulsing piece of godware and things begin to go very, very wrong."

Gods, the ocean depths, and poverty all play into the themes of insignificance in this novel.

Inglis, James: Night Watch

Concerns an interstellar probe which is still functional when our Galaxy is dying. The story ends with the community of probes launched by various races and drawn together by the fact that very few stars are still shining, setting out on the long voyage to a distant and still-young galaxy as the last star of our galaxy burns out behind them.

King, Stephen: The Jaunt

“As a family prepares to be "Jaunted" to Mars in the 24th century, the father entertains his two children by recounting the curious tale of the discovery and history of this crude form of teleportation. He explains how the scientist who serendipitously discovered it quickly learned that it had a disturbing, inexplicable effect on the mice he "sent through"—eventually concluding that they could only survive the "Jaunt effect" while unconscious. That, the father explains, is why all people must undergo general anaesthesia before using the Jaunt.

The father spares his children the gruesome semi-apocryphal account of the first human to be Jaunted awake, a condemned murderer offered a full pardon for agreeing to the experiment. The man "came through" and immediately suffered a massive heart attack, living just long enough to utter a single cryptic phrase: It's eternity in there...

The father also doesn't mention that since that time, roughly thirty people have, voluntarily or otherwise, jaunted while conscious; they either died instantly or emerged insane. One woman was even shoved alive into eternal limbo by her murderous husband, stuck between two jaunt portals. The man was convicted of murder; though his attorneys attempted to argue that he was not guilty on the grounds that his wife was not technically dead, the implications of the same argument served to secure and hasten his execution.

After the father finishes his story, the family is subjected to the sleeping gas and Jaunted to Mars. When the father wakes, he finds that his inquisitive son held his breath in order to experience the Jaunt while conscious…Hair white with shock, corneas yellowed with age, clawing out his own eyes, the boy reveals the terrible nature of the Jaunt: "Longer than you think, Dad! It's longer than you think!"”

Lewis, C.S.: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

"The Dawn Treader is the first ship Narnia has seen in centuries. King Caspian has built it for his voyage to find the seven lords, good men whom his evil uncle Miraz banished when he usurped the throne. The journey takes Edmund, Lucy, and their cousin Eustace to the Eastern Islands, beyond the Silver Sea, toward Aslan's country at the End of the World."

I mean it's a story about trying to get to the end of the world. What's more Vast than that?

Liu, Cixin: The Dark Forest (Three Body Problem Book 2)

I considered other books in the series but this book more than the others deals with the impact of discovering there is other life out in the universe and the distance between worlds as humanity learns an alien fleet is approaching earth at near-light speed. This book is both vast in the scale of the universe but also on a time scale as it covers the 400 years between the fleet’s departure and arrival at earth.

Lovecraft, H.P.: Dagon

Link

The narrator tells of being on a cargo ship that was captured by a German sea-raider in the Pacific. He would eventually escape and drift until he found himself a “black mire”, which was full of rotting fish and more foul stenches. The things that he witnesses in the vast expanse drive him to madness, and eventually he kills himself rather than face the creatures he witnessed there.

Macfarlane, Robert: Underland

A series of essays on "deep time" - that is, viewing the world over timeframes of billions of years, rather than the shorter timeframes we live within & understand. It is essentially the vastness of time. This concept stretches eons into the past and future and is very daunting to read about. The essays all revolve around things underground and often focus on how they're so much larger than us, existing far before us and stretching far beyond.

Also there's a chapter where the author talks about a calving glacier he saw surge upwards hundreds of feet from the sea, unbelievably huge. He recounts how the ice at its base hadn't seen sunlight in eons, and had never even been seen by human eyes, it was so ancient - it then sank underwater again, to once more be hidden. And if that doesn't sound like the origin of a vast avatar idk what does

Marquitz, Tim and Nickolas Sharps, ed.: Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters

From the forward: "Enter Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters. This collection of Kaiju shorts continues the traditions begun by Kaiju pioneers, bringing tales of destruction, hope and morality in the form of giant, city destroying monsters. Even better, the project was funded by Kickstarter, which means you, Dear Reader, made this book possible. And that is a beautiful thing. It means Kaiju, in pop-fiction, are not only alive and well, they’re stomping their way back into the spotlight, where they belong. Featuring amazing artwork, stories from some of the best monster writers around and a publishing team that has impressed me from the beginning, Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters is a welcome addition to the Kaiju genre and an anthology of epic proportions. My inner nine-year-old is shouting at me to shut-up and let you get to the Kaiju. So, without further delay, let’s all enjoy us some Kaiju Rising."

Notable for the fact the majority of the stories within are downer-ending horror short-stories versus more upbeat monster-fighting ones. Several also tackle concepts of an unstoppable, implacable force, themes of religious horror, and other Vast-aligned concepts.

Melville, Herman: Moby Dick

Okay so Ahab is Hunt, but the thing he's hunting is 1000% Vast. The book is very detailed in its descriptions of the enormity of whales and of the sea. Also, Moby Dick is basically outright stated as being God.

***

We all know what The Whale is about. Ahab has beef with Moby Dick, so he vows to hunt it. This is a particularly intelligent, huge whale that everyone advises to steer clear of, and possibly an allegory of God. The book itself is large, it's 135 chapters and a lot of pages and for some reason mandatory reading in some schools. It's a classic and rightfully so. Trying to read it in one sitting is like trying to hunt the proverbial whale, a foolish endeavor no mortal man should attempt. Infinity is best consumed one day at a time, and so is the book. Otherwise you'll drown in (mostly descriptions of) whales.

***

Man attempts to fight a giant whale that apparently is representative of the unfathomably great and terrible power of nature/fate/God, and thus almost everyone on his crew ends up drowning.

Mortimore, Jim: Beltempest

Synopsis: "The people of Bellania II see their sun, Bel, shrouded in night for a month following an impossible triple eclipse. When Bel is returned to them a younger, brighter, hotter star, it is the beginning of the end for the entire solar system...

100,000 years later, the Doctor and Sam arrive on Bellania IV, where the population is under threat as disaster looms — immense gravitational and dimensional disturbances are surging through this area of space.

While the time travellers attempt to help the survivors and ease the devastation, a religious suicide-cult leader is determined to spread a new religion through Bel's system — and his word may prove even more dangerous than the terrible forces brought into being by the catastrophic changes in the sun... "

Why it's Vast: The main conflict revolves around the massive natural disasters caused by changes to the Bel System's sun. Moons are ripped from their orbits, gravity waves create planetary earthquakes, and the void of space is rocked by solar flares. In response to these unstoppable disasters, a religion springs up in worship of the star -- as Simon Fairchild noted, religion was once a strong vector for the Vast, though it wasn't explored in much depth within the podcast.

North, Claire: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

"The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August" is about the titular protagonist Harry August. He is born, he lives, he dies... Except he does this a lot more than most regular people. Harry is a kalachakra (or ouroborus, the names are used interchangeably), a member of a select few people who, upon dying, simply return to when they were born with all the memories and knowledge of their past lives. This is all well and good until, while on the deathbed of his eleventh life, Harry is warned by a little Kalachakra girl that the world is ending, and he must stop it from doing so."

Vast realised in endless lives of the characters stretching before them till infinity. Vast realised in the perfect endless memory of the main character and some others. Vast realised in eternity.

Oesterheld, Héctor Germán: El Eternauta

Juan Salvo, the inimitable protagonist, along with his friend Professor Favalli and the tenacious metal-worker Franco, face what appears to be a nuclear accident, but quickly turns out to be something much bigger than they had imagined. Cold War tensions, aliens of all sizes, space―and time travel―this one has it all.

Poe, Edgar Allen: A Descent into the Maelström

Inspired by the Moskstraumen, it is couched as a story within a story, a tale told at the summit of a mountain climb in Lofoten, Norway. The story is told by an old man who reveals that he only appears old—"You suppose me a very old man," he says, "but I am not. It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves." The narrator, convinced by the power of the whirlpools he sees in the ocean beyond, is then told of the "old" man's fishing trip with his two brothers a few years ago.

Driven by "the most terrible hurricane that ever came out of the heavens", their ship was caught in the vortex. One brother was pulled into the waves; the other was driven mad by the horror of the spectacle, and drowned as the ship was pulled under. At first the narrator only saw hideous terror in the spectacle. In a moment of revelation, he saw that the Maelström is a beautiful and awesome creation. Observing how objects around him were attracted and pulled into it, he deduced that "the larger the bodies, the more rapid their descent" and that spherical-shaped objects were pulled in the fastest. Unlike his brother, he abandoned ship and held on to a cylindrical barrel until he was saved several hours later when the whirlpool temporarily subsided, and he was rescued by some fishermen. The "old" man tells the story to the narrator without any hope that the narrator will believe it.

Pratchett, Terry and Steven Baxter: The Long Earth series

Blueprints for an easily to build device that allows people to "step" into a nigh infinite series of alternate earths get published online. The series deals with the exploration of these alternate earths, and the way their existence and accessibility changes human society over the next 50 or so years. The earths next to our own are similar to ours except that there are no humans, but further earths diverged from our own earlier in geological history; millions of earths away are worlds where the KT extinctions never happens, billions of earths away there are worlds where jellyfish live in the sky. It's emphasized throughout the books that all of these earth's are entire planets with billions of years of history that no one will ever fully understand because there's just too much space.

Purser-Hallard, Philip: Of the City of the Saved...

It's set in a city where every human or descendant of humanity who has ever lived has been reborn all at once, and the book makes sure you understand the scope of that. To pull out a few statistics, the city is the size of a spiral galaxy and has a population of a hundred undecillion - or 1 followed by 38 zeros. There's a watchtower at the city's centre which is the width of a continent and the height of one astronomical unit (the distance of Earth to the sun), and a city council ampithetre the size of a gas giant. When I think of a book emphasising physical vastness, I think Of the City of the Saved, because it doesn't just gloss over the size and call it incomprehensible, it makes sure you begin to grasp the scale of things. And that every character in the book is just one person on that scale.

Reed, Robert: An Exaltation of Larks

The book shows the heat death of the universe, where the stars have long since burned out, and stellar formation ceased, leaving behind a dark, cold, and empty universe. Time travelers from the end of time have steadily been working their way back to the Big Bang to prevent this gradual death from happening by turning the universe into an effectively Perpetual Motion Machine that expands, contracts, and expands again.

Reisman, Michael: Simon Bloom: The Gravity Keeper

A boy inadvertently discovers the book that controls the laws of physics and learns to play with gravity and velocity, which on multiple occasions results in him taking an uncontrolled fall into the sky.

Sanderson, Brandon: Firefight

This is the second book in The Reckoners Trilogy, which is about the eponymous group hunting Epics--people who were granted superpowers by the mysterious red star Calamity, but also turned evil and destroyed society as we know it.

In this one, the Reckoners go to Babylon Restored, a.k.a NYC. The city was flooded by the hydrokinetic Regalia, killing thousands and leaving the survivors to inhabit the rooftops of the sunken buildings. Regalia has immense control over water, able to manipulate it on both a mass scale and in a more precise way to attack with tentacles and create clones of herself. Most terrifyingly, she can see out of the surface of any exposed water--which means almost nowhere in Babilar is safe from her eyes.

The fact that the city is flooded is especially problematic for protagonist David, who can't swim and discovers he has a fear of drowning--especially after he is nearly executed in this way. To make matters worse, the Reckoners' base of operations is an underwater bunker with a window open to the water. This culminates in him facing his fear in attempt to save his love interest by shooting at the window to get out of the bunker. While Regalia saves him for her own ends, she also reveals something even more grand and incomprehensibly terrifying--Calamity itself is sapient and apparently malicious.

Seuss, Dr.: Horton Hears a Who!

Hey kids! Take a minute to think about what would happen if the whole planet existed on a single speck of dust, and how easily everything you know could be eradicated by complete cosmic accident!

Simmons, Dan: The Terror

Being trapped in the Arctic? Not just in the Arctic but in the middle of an ice sheet on the ocean? With the only land being a 3 day trek away? So all you can see before you is open plains of snow and ice and knowing underneath you is also the cold, uncaring, freezing ocean? That's not even taking into account the monster hunting you and your men is easily the size of 3-4 polar bears

Swift, Jonathan: Gulliver's Travels

Plays a lot with perspective -- Gulliver is a giant on one island, and an ant on another. There's also an island that flies and blots out the sun to conquer the lands below it.

Tennyson, Alfred: The Kraken

Link to the poem

Vivid imagery of deep-sea colossi and the enormous weight of the ocean and eternity.

Tolstoy, Leo: War & Peace

real world leitner - inspires dread and fear in the hearts of millions of russian high schoolers with its enormous page count, oppressively large cast of characters and incomprehensible fragments of french inserted directly into the narrative

Verne, Jules: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Themes of insignificance and descriptions of colossal terrors abound.

[somerabbitholes]

Hello! Could you recommend some fics from travel literature? My reach only extends to Dalrymple's In Xanadu as of yet. And I suspect a growing love for this genre. Also, would love to know your thoughts on this genre. 🌼🍁

Here you go! It's a mix of fiction and nonfiction, and anything containing travel qualifies even though it might not intentionally be travel writing

Non-fiction

The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane: the authors follows ancient routes, hollows and pathways in Britain; is generally about the communal nature of walking.

Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux: about journeys through Asia on railways. Theroux is among my favourite travel writers, also because he almost exclusively travels by and writes about trains. Do check out his The Old Patagonian Express

Nanologues by Vanessa Able (or alternatively, Never Mind the Bullocks): a travelogue of a woman who drove through India in a Tata Nano. It's really well done. And if you'd like the immersive experience, she also ran a blog while she was driving.

Round Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks: it's exactly what it sounds like. The author loses a bet, and consequently carries a small fridge around Ireland. It's really really funny and warm and kind and great holiday reading

On Travel by Charles Dickens: this is a few essays about the places he visited, the process of travel, and at times quite like a travel diary

Fiction

Outline trilogy by Rachel Cusk: all three books follow a narrator through about a decade or so of her life; a bulk of the story happens when she's travelling, and her state of always passing through does interesting things to the narrative

On the Road by Jack Kerouac: I love Kerouac, and this is the first of his books that I read. It's his journey through and to the West Coast in the US. That said, it is a messy book and it does test your patience

Flights by Olga Tokarczuk: this is about travel, mobility, the body and experience. It's a whole bunch of short essays, notes, some stories, all of whom come together to be about travel and what movement means now

A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam: follows the narrator who is on a journey home after he's received some distressing news. His life sort of unspools while he's travelling, and through that, it is about the afterlife of the Sri Lankan civil war, memory and what it means for his relationships

I hope this helps!