#like cloud atlas for example

[wheretheeternalare]

realizing that I didn’t read very many novels I enjoyed this year. reply w novel recs for 2024 pls

[fingertipsmp3]

Okay I’m setting literally ONE new year’s resolution for 2023 and it is this: I will not buy ANY books unless I have read something by the author already and know that I will enjoy it. Random ‘I’m taking a chance on this’ type books have to come from the library or a book swap (or my grandma who often gives me murder mysteries to read)

[survivalove]

Air Temple Island, the Water Tribes & the Real Life Influences that bring them together

I was gonna screenshot a post I saw and add it to my post but I don’t feel like giving that individual attention (and the 300+ notes they got), so I just decided to make my own standalone post debunking this narrative that air temple island is this fully air nomad brothel (yes they said this) with ZERO water tribe motifs which katara is forced to live in until aang passed away.

frankly it just reminded me of how little people in this fandom actually bother to analyze the actual content, instead preferring to write entirely made up scenarios of katara being reduced to an air nomad incubator along with dozens other female acolytes (yes they also said this lmao. also them acting like both male AND female acolytes weren’t living on the whole other side of the island 😭)

when in truth, i’ve come to find a lot of elements of both water tribes as well as traditional inuit elements across air temple island:

1. the paifang

a traditionally chinese element that for some reason is exclusively found in the northern water tribe (why do they have a gate inside a throne room, you ask? ask the white people that made this show). the one on the left is actually one of two aang BUILT, at the main entrance and another at the temple entrance. this is just one example of water tribe design on the island.

2. the bagua mosaic

another structure is the bagua mosaic on the training grounds. bagua is a set of traditional chinese symbols of the cosmology, taoism. the bagua composes of 8 sets of broken or unbroken lines that represent yin and yang. where have we seen yin and yang in the original series? oh yeah, as tui and la of the water tribe! (because atla is a mess of asiatic and indigenous motifs joined together and spread out across each nation, mainly traditionally chinese elements at that.) aang building this right next to the air nomad training grounds is a symbol of the dual bending heritage their children will have.

3. gold and blue accents

now, gold and blue are the main colors of the exterior structures but is also very strong inside the air temple itself. note, the massive air nomad symbol designed fully in blue in the center and the blue banners and rugs throughout the temple. this is no doubt, for me, a visual depiction of both katara and aang’s representative cultures, but of course this is not limited to color only.

4. cloud carvings

now, this is a slight detour since clouds aren’t a significant part of either of their individual cultures (that we know) but i love the kataang monopoly they have on clouds as a couple so i’m talking about it. if you look at these images very closely what do you see? CLOUD CARVINGS!! specifically near the ceiling of the pavilion (left) and the arches and walls of the temple (right) just imagining aang painting and etching these very consistent swirls, like he’ll never be the selfish inconsiderate unromantic loser you people want him to be, but let’s get more into the southern water tribe style interior.

5. interior design

so here is a southern water tribe white lotus outpost vs the air temple island main dining room. first thing, the seat cushions and rug! while we don’t see air nomad eating quarters we do get to see enough SWT customs both in atla and lok, to know this is how they traditionally eat compared to the north (limiting myself on pics cuz mobile).

another thing is the dining table itself. both have what i believe to be built in fire pits (i couldn’t actually tell for the air temple island one cuz of the quality but if you zoom in you can see the lines go in the table plus the hanging kettle on it makes it obvious to me idk). the southern water tribe one however is clear and likely a more traditional version of what aang and katara have.

thirdly, the exposed timber on the ceiling. i actually looked it up and found this is a common element of these two inuit structures: left is an aasiaat peat house and right is an igloolik turf house. all this for me to believe not only did aang build air temple island to be a haven for the TWO of them but also that katara herself had a lot of input on the interior than people care to notice lol.

maybe instead of projecting these loser fantasies of katara being some unwilling air nomad baby making machine so you can feel better about your fantasies of katara living in a red palace with people that tried to wipe her out for a whole century, you all can go study the actual canon you were shown and the real life cultures the franchise takes from.

6. lastly, some of my own headcanons/stuff i want to see in the movie

the bathroom because I LIVE for a white marble tiled bathroom. i just know katara has to have a HUGE tub and they have one of those insane glass showers that can fit like 3 people, with cloud swirls everywhere because aang clearly got it like that

the KITCHEN, i imagine it being timber like the dining room and is probably on the other side behind the built-in shelf (get into the details like hello). in a perfect world, it would be open plan but hey

the bedroom, now we saw it in lok a bit but i wanna see it in the gaang movie too. i’m on pic limit but there’s a lot of artwork and flowers throughout the whole house which i give katara credit for because I can. like the desk, the bookshelf, that fancy looking vase thing? these two clearly have taste like don’t talk to me rn

I also didn’t show the rooms and aang’s study but there’s a lot of blue decor in those places which makes me think katara decorated the whole house, even the acolytes’ hall has blue sitting cushions and columns which i think is such a nice detail.

if you guys have any air temple island headcanons of your own please reply with some i’m feening lol

big shoutout to this user:

atla-annotated (their page is so great and filled with a lot of incredible information if you guys like this sort of stuff)

[wilcze-kudly]

Someone once said Aang and Katara’s romantic interactions have no impact on their relationship. Which I find a ridiculous notion, given how

One: The Series genuinely wasn’t built around romance.

Two: We do gradually see the characters develop feelings for each other more across the show.

https://www.tumblr.com/melu-lis/762094698681745408/one-of-the-most-baffling-thing-about-kataang-to-me?source=share

Honestly, the fact that Katara and Aang's relationship has that strong aspect of friendship is one of my fave parts of it.

Like, maybe this is an unpopular opinion and I'm just a degenerate little dyke but I'm so so tired of romances having to follow the typical usually heterosexual conventions that have been set ib place both irl and in media.

And not to sound like an old man shaking my fist at a cloud, but in an era where romance is very standardised (look at the plethora of YA romance books selling basically the same plotline but in different aesthetics). It's nice to find a relationship that doesn't fully fit that mold.

Like people have joked about this but Aang and Katara really do follow the famously memed lesbian relationship stereotype of "we've been besties for ages and we've kissed a few times and she's said she loves me and I'm starting to think she's into me but idk". And I love that for them.

Also OP's examples aren't really saying much. They mention that "sokka learns that aang has a crush on katara in the fortuneteller, but we never see aang trying to get advice from sokka after he learns about it" while disregarding the fact that Aang did try to get advice from Sokka, and it backfired. Did we all forget "Soooo... papaya?" (also Sokka didn't realise that Aang had a crush on Katara? He thought Aang had a crush on Meng.)

Another argument from OP is that: "aang and katara kiss in the cave of two lovers but we never see katara's perception of aang change at all" which I find a bit of a flawed idea because there's not really anything in Katara's perception of Aang to change? Like she was already seeing him as a viable romantic partner from at least the Fortune Teller, she was blushing when considering kissing him and offended when he didn't immediately agree to it.

(I actually think this is the moment where Sokka realises there's something between Katara and Aang man look athis face.)

We do not see Katara's pov, but we can pick up her thoughts from how she's animated and other clues because atla makes it quite easy to emphasise with its characters. I talk more about it in the Kaatang and female gaze post.

OP using the description of "natural development of a platonic relationship becoming a romantic one" is also mildy annoting because just because a romance doesn't follow established conventions and timelines, doesn't mean that it's not natural or badly written. We study tropes and aechetypes usually in order to subvert them.

The concept that romance has to be a series of events followed by switches flipping automatically in response is incredibly limiting and, frankly, overdone. I can see the appeal of romantic stories being a series of actions and reactions between two people, but I personally find a slow, budding development even more compelling. But once again, thsi is up to preference. If OP doesn't like this style of romance, than that's fine. Though I will stress the golden rule: your preference doesn't mean that everything else is bad/unnatural/unethical etc.

[logray]

The comment Lana Wachowski made at that trans100 event - about how she knows a lot of black people that would vote against trans-friendly bathroom bills, and that they should know better because black people used to be forced to use segregated bathrooms - is probably one of the worst things I've ever heard a white LGBT celebrity say. She and her sister have a long and well-documented history of being two of the most racist people in Hollywood, and this is a perfect example.

While she didn't directly say that black people are responsible for preventing trans-friendly legislation, she still heavily implied it. She still singled out black people as opponents of trans rights. She still, for some reason, basically said that black people being transphobic is worse than nonblack people being transphobic because it's also hypocritical (never mind that you can certainly say the same for cisgay transphobes, who she never mentioned, but she felt the need to single out black people because it's... bathroom-related?) and that she expects better of them - why would you expect better treatment from a cis black person, but not from a cis white person? She also heavily implied that trans people and black people are wholly separate, mutually exclusive communities, as if there are no black trans or transfem people

@ardourie this is what came to mind instantly when I saw your posts over the last couple of days. The Wachowski sisters love to make their films & shows racially and culturally diverse, they love to fill their shit with nonwhite people (who can be cis, straight, gay, but conveniently never transgender, as if that can be chalked up to coincidence), but their respect for blackness & black people crumbles as soon as they meet a black transphobe. Suddenly black people have to be singled out as transphobic. Suddenly transphobia is worse when it comes from a black person. Suddenly blackness is antithetical to transness and suddenly those are separate communities.

The Wachowskis are racist. Lana Wachowski is racist and her remarks at the trans100 event were antiblack. Audiences are way too ready to overlook the anti-Asian racism in Cloud Atlas, they're way too ready to overlook the comments the sisters made about white saviours not being a real thing, they're way too ready to overlook the active removal of any and all references to Norsefire being racist or white supremacist in V for Vendetta (despite making it clear they're anti-LGBT!), and they're way too ready to overlook the trans100 comments. They're influential white artists, and so (like we see constantly on this platform) any attempt to address or criticise their racism is met with allegations of transphobia. It's not transphobic to point out when trans people are racist. It doesn't make you a TERF to point out when transfems are racist. It doesn't make you transphobic to point out when trans people make the LGBT community unwelcoming and hostile towards black or other nonwhite people.

The Wachowskis, their comments in real life, and the media they make, are racist. They perfectly exemplify the kind of stuff Tyler's been posting about, where they drive qpoc out of the community, decry criticism from people of colour as transmisogynistic, and are racially exclusionary in their support for LGBT rights.

[gutz3rfryer]

TEAM RWBY IDEAS

some ideas i have for my rewritten version of RWBY MAIDENS Maidens can only control environments and the weather. Also they can change their surroundings, from a high tech hallway to a red maple forest (like an illusion). (so no sword making or whatever just purely environmental) - team rwby becoming the Maidens a. Ruby becomes the Spring maiden (can control flora and wind) b. Weiss becomes the Winter maiden (can create snow storms and ice powers) c. Blake becomes the Fall maiden (tornados and clouds/rain) d. Yang becomes the Summer maiden (heatwaves and thunderstorms) Maidens can used their combined powers to make combos, Fall and Winter making it hail or Fall and Summer making a dessert storm. YANG Technically she shouldve graduated at this point, however she chooses not to, after finding out that Oz invited Ruby (15) to train at Beacon Academy, she managed to convince Oz to let her redo her senior year at the academy to support Ruby. JAUNE the Jaune we know will be put in the bully team from the 1st vol, my version would be more of an androgynous-femme presenting guy BLAKE & RUBY they can make their own little book club :) BLAKE & WEISS I think Blake would stand up for Weiss (and the other way around), especially if Jacques would come to visit Beacon, after finding out that Weiss went to Beacon instead of Atlas Academy. Before Jacques would be able to hit Weiss, Blake would step in and put him in hsi place. BEACON, HAVEN, SHADE & ATLAS ACADEMY DRESS CODE Most strict in dress (1 being most strict to 4 least strict about it/only cares about results) 1. Atlas (has to wear assigned uniform, miss a tie or want to wear pants instead of a skirt? get expelled scrub (also the most discriminatory school)) 2. Shade 3. Haven 4. Beacon (''male student wears a skirt? ok and?'') Beacon Academy ''Dress Code'' Honestly they dont care if you bribe a fashion student or get a tailor to make a longer skirt or flared pants, as long that it has the Beacon Academy Pattern™️ and ''wearing'' the tie, anything goes

ADAM (vs YANG & BLAKE) Making him more obsessive and weird by wearing Blake's tail (which he cut of before she escaped) as a belt. Also making him more Bull than original, because to this day i still dont see what makes him a Faunus. Like the black colored horns are cute but those can be easily mistaken for colored hair. Fall of Beacon (Adam vs Yang & Blake Round 1) Same story but instead of Yang immediately being defeated after getting her arm cut off, she powers through and uses her firey semblance the stop the bleeding in her arm, while Blake keeps up the good fight. After the bleeding stops Yang steps back into the ring to give Adam a burn scar. After losing too much blood Yang caves in while tries to keep her on her feet. Adam also takes Yangs severed arm Comm Tower (Adam vs Yang & Blake Round 2) Adam teases Yang by throwing her severed arm at her, but shrugs it off and tells him he can keep it. QROW & RAVEN Instead of turning into normal looking Ravens/Crows, they turn into a Nevermore look alike. Originally a power given by Oz, now turned curse by Salem. Both Qrow and Raven now constantly have to fight for control with their Grimm halves. Qrow has partially given up, hence the drinking, so his hands look like bird claws and his body is covered in feathers. Raven keeps her distance to avoid hurting anyone. Unbeknownst to them Salem is using their eyes to spy on Oz. SALEM/White Fang im not sure of this idea but instead of the White Fang (which will be renamed to something else) being a equal rights group, they're followers of Salem, the False Goddess, who gives promises that by serving her, they can save their world/make their world better. And that the Grimm exist to ''get rid of the bad people/sinners'' However i think there is a sort of White Fang group but only in Atlas where the most hate crimes, slavery and discrimination happens. As SDC and other companies in Atlas use Faunus for entertainment (for example Bull fighting for Adam) or for slavery. Yes that would imply that Blake was once a follower of Salem's, but turned around after the train incident. TEAM STRQ this might be the worst idea but hear me out. Team STRQ was a polyamorous quad. (in this version Raven and Qrow are >NOT< related) After Summer's death (at assuming Salem's hand), there was a lot of trust issues after, considering neither Qrow nor Raven told Tai what actually happened, and they slowly drifted apart but they all stayed in touch or checked up on the kids and Tai, Qrow would visit more often, while Raven stayed away for their (R&Y) safety. Raven and Qrow keep butting heads cuz they blame eachother for Summer's death/not saving her, but deep down they still care for eachother. Both Ruby and Yang are their kids (its Remnant they can like make kids in a tube or something). Yang has Qrow's alcohol problems (they sometimes drink together) Ruby has or had Raven's selflessness well thats all the ideas i have, nothing solid, just seeing what sticks to the wall. Admittedly the STRQ one might be a bit out there, considering Qrow and Raven are well known as siblings, and yes its weird as fuck idea to have them being/or were together as a couple. But if you remove the context of them being siblings, and see them having arguments, they argue as if they're a divorced couple. Also Qrow is more of a dad than Tai, protecting the gang when they're going on a trip, when Ruby is 15-16 yrs old (in the actual show). And generally being there for the gang. Even before Vol 4 Tai didnt even visit once, but was able to send Zwei. Qrow stayed the whole time, hanging out with Ruby and Yang but i dont remember in vol 1-3 Ruby or Yang ever calling Tai, y'know their dad? But again these are all ideas, nothing solid, just me rambling about RWBY stuff, uh uhm.... are these good ideas? most likely not feedback and criticism is appreciated :) my team rwby redesign v

[the-librarians-study]

When asked for other speculative media they enjoyed, Bun recommended Oshi no Ko. “The first episode was incredible, and I’m curious to see how it will play out!” They are also effusive about audio drama The Silt Verses. “It centers around a world where deities are exploited for capitalistic gain. For example, you want your fast food place to sell more chicken sandwiches? Make a sacrifice to the Utterer of A Thousand Clucks! Now your business has its own successful (and possibly violent) patron!”

Bun explained that “the story revolves around Carpenter, a disciple of the Trawler-man, who is considered an ‘illegal’ backwater god, and her journey with Faulkner, a devout believer who’s still green around the gills. This is a must, MUST listen for anyone who likes the genre of ‘New Weird’ that Time War belongs to.”

New Weird has been gaining popularity as a subgenre of speculative novels. It’s also called slipstream, and some of the most called-upon examples include Annihilation author Jeff VanderMeer’s work, Perdido Street Station by China Miéville, and Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Time War checks a lot of New Weird’s boxes, while also leaning into Romance, a distinction that sets it apart from a lot of other books in the genre.

[devouringyourson]

chatgpt is mildly useful for asking questions that are too vague for a traditional search function but only for stuff you already know a lot about . I was trying to remember the words for like extradiegetic and metadiegetic narratives and knew google wasn't gunna cope with my vague ideas about framing devices saying like 'whats it called when its a retelling of a story within the story kinda like cloud atlas and it's framed by another story" you still need to prompt it though. my first query to chatgpt leant on feeding back to me my own inputs (says that called a framed narrative! I KNOW) and repeats back my own media examples to me. It's very... affirmative? you really need to prompt it with knowledge of the answers in order to get the truth or what you were actually looking for. and that concerns me like we've spoken about the bias of ai in terms of probability of search results but there's also the issue of it's kinda circling back round to the initial inputs in a way that skews analysis to positively reaffirm what the user has already assumed. It's like regurgitating key words in a way that even incorrect stuff eventually becomes the correct response because it's being fed rubbish in the first place cos it's NOT ACTUALLY THINKING OR UNDERSTANDING ITS ALL GUESSES AND AGHHH

[iamafanofcartoons]

We need to address Ironwood flaws, since his apologists seem to have misogyny for days.

James is a military leader who holds twice the normal voting power on the council, and repeatedly disrespects other people’s authority.  He’s the reason why the huntsman academy of Atlas become a pipeline to the military, thus preventing Atlesians from being allowed to travel the world and help others unless James conditionally allows it. Furthermore, he basically made the Huntsmen System into his own private army, so not only do they not help anyone else in the world unless he says so? They don’t even help ATLAS unless he says so. He basically made Huntsmen into Stormtroopers, and Winter Schnee is a prime example.

Shot TWO random innocent for disagreeing with him, and this was after threatening Ozpin’s right-hand man with murder.

 Tried to nuke mantle just because he was being stymied by a bunch of teenage girls who wanted their friend to act with autonomy.

Ruby didn’t hold Atlas Hostage...Penny chose to protect the people Ironwood told her to protect, and then got furious that Penny chose to prioritize that mission over (checks notes) abandoning every single man woman and child that Ironwood was oppressing, and YES, he was oppressing them.

"We all make mistakes in the heat of passion Jimbo" doesn't cut it when you have systematically manipulated society to look to a single fallible person who presumably if he knew what his semblance was, would know of his flawed nature that was liable to cloud his judgement. 

Sure he ran things well enough on a day to day basis (allegedly without crisis) but efficiency does not equal morality.

Are we also going to ignore how Ironwood literally gatekept Penny from having any friends, Ciel Soleil was the example of Ironwood’s ideal mentality for soldiers, and Ironwood went behind Ozpin’s back to get him fired?

The fall of Beacon was on Ironwood’s hands, not Ozpin’s, but Ironwood can never accept responsibility for his actions anymore than he can accept somebody criticizing him.

Glynda even pointed that out, and NOBODY who stans Ironwood even paid attention to her! So let me remind everyone!

“Why must your answer to everything involve a triumphant display of military bravado!? You treat every situation like it's a contest of measuring di—! “

People can claim James has good intentions all they want. It means nothing if James will do whatever he wants using his power because he has a messiah complex. And yes...James does have a Messiah Complex, his very own theme song reflects that.

[mumblingsage]

We need to learn both the conventions of a tradition and the experiments and exceptions and other genres that have influenced, resisted, and changed it. The tradition of stories within stories, looping or intersection or nesting or framing or so forth, in which we could include contemporary novels like the American middle-grade novel Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin, and the Chinese literary novel Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, by Mo Yan, is a tradition that goes back at least to the Thousand and One Nights. A better understanding of this tradition would, for example, have allowed critics to see recent novels like Kate Atkinson's Life After Life or David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas as Western adaptations of long-held Eastern storytelling practices rather than as products of brilliant innovation. How can a writer know the many possibilities of whatever they can do without knowing many different ways that things have been done before and where their possibilities have come from? Because craft is about expectations, unfamiliarity is one of craft's most serious problems. In workshops, this unfamiliarity is often truly dangerous for the writer who is familiar with and/or may be working in other traditions. The workshop may read her work within a tradition to which she does not belong - and the workshop is persuasive and powerful. To break the rules as an experiment is one thing, but to want to write toward other rules that better represent one's reality (for example) is another. The American writer of color who wants to break free of the white literary tradition might unsurprisingly think her only option is experimentalism. To experiment against a white literary tradition, however, is not to free oneself from white tradition but to face the whiteness of the American avant-garde. (For people who ask why more writer of color do not write "experimental fiction," this may get at why.) Experimentalism is experimental with regard to a specific tradition. Asian American fiction, for example, has its own tradition and experiments, into which an Asian American writer enters - if she is able to see that tradition as a possibility. If only one tradition is taught, some writers will always find more possibilities than others [...] Writers must read much more widely and much more deeply, if we are to know enough craft to start to critique other writers fairly and to write truly for ourselves.

-Matthew Salesses, Craft in the Real World

[howlingday]

Ok so for a bit of backstory in this AU ruby manges to save pyrrha and beat cinder by using her silver eyes so she is recognised as a hero by all of vale, taking notice of that the counsil of vale decides tha she is the go-to huntress to deal with the grim.

At the beginning everything was great she a hero and loved by all but as time passed things changed when she came to help it was " thank you for comming you saved us" to "why did you not come before, if you were faster they would be alive" and now" i just lost my new car because of you, i missed a meating because you're useless"

So after 5 years of just being a tool for counsil they decided to send her on a last mission :kill salem or die trying

After all if she win she wil be the greatest hero ever if she died she will be a martyr who fought valiantly aganist the grim the council wins either way.

Ruby rose the unwilling puppet : the child prodigy turned icon has lost much of the childish wonder she once had after being used like a tool by vale council, she has become a no-nonse no mistakes kind of person in missions and in most civillian interaction with the exception of a few individuals

Yang xiao long the blind dragon : during the attack that pushed her sister into the spotlight she fought the leader of the now world wide searched terrorist group the white fang.

During this battle she lost the ability to see after her left eye was sliced rendering it useless and dealing a damage to her right eye that was so severe it would need at least 2 years of healing for it to see again.

Reports from that battle says that she was made into an example for the one who oposed the white fang and the disappearing of her parter yang xiao long was left in a severe depresion that was able to overcome with the help of her sister , father , uncle and [REDACTED] she is battle ready once more but the linhering trauma of thst fight limits her ability

Weiss schnee the gilded queen : the second born and former heir of the schnee minning company now the president of this one, she is now on the middle of a complete overhaul of the company she little to no time to deal with other things that not the company it self.

After being forced to come back to atlas by the now former president of the schnee company weiss spended two years of being a doll to her father concerts, parties ,dance recitals , you name it she was forced to do it this, changed after an encounter with ruby rose and [redacted] and a encounter with [redacted] ended violently into a fight she decided to overtake her father and took posetion of the schnee company

blake belladona the wandering shadow not much is know about her wereabouts apart from the fact that she formed a new organisation called golden fang that is hunting the white fang with many faunus that have been hurt by the white fang

[Redacted] has shown a great deal of distate towards belladona calling her a coward that abandoned her friends and parter to play hunter with the white fang

Sorry thats all i write now i will continue with team jnpr later

RWBY RWND AU: DARKEST TIMELINE

---------------------------------------------------

"Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

Ruby nodded before giving a salute. Her heart thundered in her chest as she held upright as best she could. Her previous mission beforehand ended only a few hours ago, and even before that, she didn't have a lot of time to rest.

Ever since the attack on Beacon Academy five years ago, Ruby had been at the Council of Vale's beck and call. Professor Goodwitch, now acting Headmistress of Beacon, did all in her power to protect Ruby during her time of attendance. Unfortunately, this was not to last, as her tasks as a huntress had piled to the sky, and had since yet lower to below the clouds.

Professor Ozpin was dead. Cinder Fall was dead. Pyrrha Nikos was still alive. All of this was thanks to Ruby's silver eyes, as those on the Council explained. Cinder organized the White Fang to attack Beacon, gaining some assistance from Roman Torchwick, whom Ruby saw get swallowed by a Griffon. Ruby fell hundreds of feet before landing near Beacon Tower, where Weiss aided in her ascension to it's peak, where Ruby's eyes destroyed both Cinder and the Grimm nearby that spawned even more Grimm.

"You are to leave immediately." The seated and portly Councilman gruffed. Ruby had doubted the man had ever seen a Grimm before his election. "Your bullhead will depart in no less than an hour."

"Yes, sir." Ruby nodded, turning away for the exit.

This would be her most dangerous mission yet. There was word of strange growths along the northern shores of Sanus. What started as unseeming black foam soon grew into oily patches of Grimm growing across the fields and grasslands to the north of the city. Huntsmen and huntresses were called on to investigate, and found that the sludge was relatively harmless at first.

But as the moss-like entities were burned, spores were unleashed, and while the land beneath was free of Grimm, the soil beneath had withered. Those brave huntresses and huntsmen dispatched had found themselves then weakened by the invasive spores. It was then that the kingdoms understood what this growth was; Grimm. A new species that developed into a microscopic assault on the populace of Remnant, identified by experts as "Carcinogen".

Ruby's mission would begin at the location of the first sighting; the beach north of Vale. The Council prepared everything for her, including a gas mask, filters, and a last will and testament. Ruby was to land on the beach, and track down to find Salem.

And kill her.

**********************************************

"Do you concur?"

"Yes, General."

Weiss tapped and slid her finger across the computer screen in front of her. Profits and sales have steadily increased since their plummet years ago. It took time, but she was finally seeing the progress she desperately needed.

Her internship at the Schnee Dust Company yielded great results. Her father, although reluctant to welcome her back upon her graduation from Beacon, soon trusted her enough to serve as his second in command. This would prove to be his downfall, as she made swift work of exposing him of his misdeeds and forcing him to step down.

"Atlas Academy should see their shipment as usual." Weiss said, pulling away from her company's shares. "And what is the recent development in our research department?"

"There has been a recent development." General Ironwood replied. "As you read in our messages-"

"I can read, General." Weiss interrupted. "I'm asking about what you saw."

"Very well."

General Ironwood was a reasonable man, if a bit hard-headed. That said, Weiss learned from her time in Beacon that only firm can beat hard. Hard would simply clash and soft would reinforce the opposition, both cases ultimately ending in failure. Thus, iron was best defeated by rubber, as Ruby put it.

Ruby came to her mind again. It had been years since they last spoke, the previous time being at a gala held by her father. Her former leader was working security with a rather mysterious gentleman she had never met, and yet spoke so casually to her. It was at this event when she learned just how much things had changed since graduation. In her heeding of the man's advice, she made her move against her father.

"Please keep in mind this information is confidential at the moment."

"I understand." Weiss opened the attached folder in the message recently sent by him. And yet, as she looked over the images, she found she didn't understand anything at all. "My god..."

**********************************************

"Is that clear?"

"Yes, High Leader- Er, I mean, Truer Head."

"You are dismissed." Blake said with a sigh. Many of the recent recruits were former White Fang members, and were used to an all too familiar to Blake method of addressing one another. Blake had grown tired of her attempts to correct them, seeing as their failure to assimilate as a key flaw in the Golden Fang's organizational indoctrination.

After her graduation, the White Fang faced a great schism. It resulted in civil war, forcing many of her friends, neighbors, and her family to flee to Mistral. The situation became much worse from there, as their attempt to flee was blood in the water for the Mistrali loan sharks. She remembered sobbing during her conversation when her father explained the situation better in a teleconference.

Since then, and since graduation, her father and Sienna Khan, both former High Leaders of the White Fang, decided to work together once more to create a new faunus rights group in Mistral. The same organization she herself now operates.

Ever since, each mission carried out fulfilled the same purpose. Defeat the White Fang, which was done through their recruitment, assistance to the less fortunate, and if, and only if the situation called for it, violent expulsion of warfare equivalence. Her father didn't like, and neither did she, but she still couldn't disagree with Sienna or the results.

"Greater Leader!" A voice called from behind. She turned, finding her childhood best friend, Ilia, panting. "It's happening again!"

Vague as the reason was, it was enough to make Blake's eyes grow and her heart sink.

**********************************************

"Oh god. Oh fuck. Oh shit."

"You're not getting away this time."

Yang limped across the floor as Adam Taurus stalked behind her. His voice felt distant and yet close at the same time. She turned to her right, immediately turning forward again when she saw his red hair, eyes, and sword shimmer in the dark.

"H-Help me." She choked out in a soft sob. "Somebody... please..."

"YANG!" She lurched forward in a scream, thrashing away from her attacker. Light blinded her and she found herself in her room once more. "Yang, are you alright?"

Her dad held a worried look. That's right. She's home. She's safe again.

"I'm... I'm fine, Dad." She sighed. "Just another bad dream."

To say her encounter with Adam was scarier in reality would have been one hell of an understatement. In an attempt to shield Blake, her partner, during the attack on Beacon, Yang lost her left eye. With her semblance activated, she attempted to strike in retaliation. He avoided her attack and shot her in the right side of her face, completely blinding her. Thankfully, some huntsmen responded in time to save her and Blake, though they failed to capture Adam. Blake then left her alone as well.

She was medically discharged from Beacon and spent the next two years in therapy. Her sight came back in her right eye, but her left was permanently scarred. In her blindness, she was completely helpless, and everything terrified her. Especially when she heard metal scraping.

Everyone came to visit, save Blake, who Ruby tried to defend. The excuses were endless from her. Blake's studying for an exam during their semester breaks. Blake's pet raccoon got sick, and oh yeah, she has a pet raccoon now. Blake's dad is having butt transplant surgery, which Yang actually almost believed. It was easier than the truth; Blake abandoned her.

"Is there food?" Yang asked.

"Yeah." Her dad stood up. "I was coming to get you for lunch. But maybe you'd be up for a spar first?"

"Thanks, but... no thanks, Dad." Yang climbed out of bed. "I don't think I'm in the mood."

"Well, you know we're all here for you." He said. "Me, your uncle-"

"Who was passed out on the couch, last I saw."

"Your sister-"

"Who hasn't talked to us in three months because she's a huntress now."

"And-"

"Dad, just... just stop." Yang sighed. "I know that you're trying to cheer me up, but I... I don't know if I can be."

"I know, sweetie." He sighed. "But it's the thought that counts, right? No need to be so sourdough about it."

She smirked. "I'm guessing that pun means lunch is bready."

He grinned. "Yup. Rye? You hungry?"

"If I had a pumpernickel for everytime..."

"I propose a toast..."

"No matter how you slice it..."

"Ugh! Just stop!" The comedy duo turned and found Qrow standing near the doorway, leaning against the wall behind their critic. "Honestly, I thought I heard enough puns the last time I came to visit."

Yang's eyes widened at the old friend of hers. "It's you..."

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Cloud atlas of mars showcases array of atmospheric phenomena

Cloud enthusiasts have a new tool to investigate striking formations in the skies above the Red Planet. A browsable database of 20-years-worth of images of clouds and storms, created by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) in Berlin, is helping scientists better understand how and where features arise in the martian atmosphere and what they can tell us about the climate of Mars and other planets. The Mars ‘Cloud Atlas’, which is available to the public at https://hrscteam.dlr.de/public/data.php, has been presented this week at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) 2024 in Berlin by Daniela Tirsch of DLR.

The images in the Cloud Atlas have been captured by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) instrument, which has been in orbit on board the European Space Agency (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft since 2005. Although Mars has a very thin atmosphere, numerous cloud formations and dust storm phenomena can develop from water and carbon dioxide ice crystals as well as dust particles. 

“Clouds on Mars are just as diverse and fascinating as those we see in our skies on Earth, with some features unique to the Red Planet. One of my favourite phenomena are the beautiful ‘cloud streets’ – linear rows of fleecy clouds that develop around the huge volcanic Tharsis rise and the northern lowlands in northern spring and summer. While they resemble cumulus clouds on Earth, they are formed under different atmospheric conditions,” said Dr Tirsch. “We also see impressive dust clouds that can spread hundreds of kilometres – a phenomena we luckily don’t experience on Earth.”

Dust plays a major role in the atmosphere and climate of Mars. Rare upwelling events can leave beige, dust-laden blobs hanging in the atmosphere. Large differences in temperature and air pressure at certain seasons can result in stronger-than-usual winds that lift large amounts of dust from the Martian surface. Dust clouds spreading from the tops of giant volcanoes take on the appearance of eruption clouds, although they are no longer active. 

Large spiral dust storms and cyclone systems can also be observed each year near the Martian north pole. Studying these phenomena is crucial to scientists in understanding the atmosphere and air mass circulation on Mars. 

Rippling ‘gravity clouds’ are one of the most common formations on both Mars and the Earth. They are seen at mid-latitudes in winter for both hemispheres, as well as over the Tharsis volcanic plateau in southern winter. Lee waves, a special type of gravity clouds, can build up on the downwind side of ridges, mountains and other obstacles to create repeating ridge formations. 

Some types of clouds studied are specific to locations and seasons; others like ‘twilight clouds’ can appear in the early morning at any place or time of year.

The HRSC Cloud Atlas will provide valuable insights into the physical nature and appearance of clouds and storms, the time of their occurrence and their location. This knowledge will help better understand the atmospheric dynamics and the climate cycles on Mars, as well as providing input for studies of the climate on other planets such as Earth and Venus. The DLR team has already used the database to create global maps showing the occurrence of various types of cloud as a function of season and location.

“As Mars Express has been extended by ESA until at least 2026, this will enable us keep filling this database and refine even further our understand of Mars atmosphere,” said Dr Tirsch.

TOP IMAGE: An example of cloud streets over Vastitas Borealis, a large area near the North Pole mostly devoid of craters. Credit ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/A. Cowart

CENTRE IMAGE: Lee waves are a special type of cloud created by the wind encountering obstacles and build up  on the ‘leeward‘ or downwind side. The geometries of the lee waves depend on the shape of the obstacles. Credit ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.

LOWER IMAGE: This elongated cloud has formed as a result of wind encountering the Arsia Mons mountains. It forms almost every day during a specific season, from early morning until noon. Credit Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/A. Cowart.

BOTTOM IMAGE: Lee waves are a special type of cloud created by the wind encountering obstacles and build up  on the ‘leeward‘ or downwind side. The geometries of the lee waves depend on the shape of the obstacles. Credit ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.

FINAL IMAGE: This image displays two atmospheric phenomena: the white curved lines are gravity wave clouds, while the brown areas are dust lifted from the ground by wind. The colour shift visible in the dust lifting event might be indicative of very fast winds, a phenomenon currently under investigation by other members of the team. Credit ESA/DLR/FU Berlin.

[princess-of-the-corner]

I’m usually not a big fan of stories where it’s "it's just X, but all the characters from Y" because in lot of cases the author ends up bending the characters around a tree to make them follow the narrative of the X story (like, owl house, but all the characters are from Steven universe or something). THAT SAID, using the PREMISE of X story with Y characters can be cool, and I feel like you could do something cool with the ML cast and the premise of Winx Club.

Oh yeah it's!!!

I think a chunk of it depends on if the world is good as a sandbox or not.

Like, for example, ATLA. That world is a hell of a sandbox to play with. You can put casts of characters in there and you can do whatever you want. Sometimes following the actual atla plot works, sometimes you follow the other series' plot but replace their magic system with Bending. Sometimes you take plot elements and create a whole new thing!

I actually do have an ML/ATLA AU that does the last thing, taking some plots from ML and adapting them, but mostly letting them go on adventures in the world.

But yeah Winx, while not having as solid a system as something as atla, does have plenty of room to sandbox. There's so many planets and types of Magic. We don't need to follow Canon's thing with our new lead being a lost princess or a group of Witches as the villains. We can just say the various ML cast are from whatever planets they vibe with and yeet them at Alfea/Cloud Tower/Red Fountain.

[msbarrows]

Some screenshots I took over the weekend while running around doing the newest No Man's Sky expedition, Liquidator. It's rather like Starship Troopers, in that it involves fighting hordes of bugs, both existing one like the biological horrors and some new ones, like brood queens that spawn littler bugs to fight at intervals:

There are also new wildlife models around, which can be adopted as pets just like most other land-based lifeforms. This huge specimen was the first wild pet I adopted. Isn't he... cute? In a very disturbing way.

The Worlds Part 1 revamp also added additional planetary graphics, like the pointy floating islands of the starter world for the expedition, and more flowers, and palm-like alien plants, and some really neat new plantforms on fire planets etc. Sadly only took a poorer quality in-game screenshot of that last rather than using the capture tool:

Also I LOVE the new water landing feature. That makes ocean exploration and water bases SO much easier:

One part of the revamp I am Not A Fan Of is the changes to on-world volumetric effects; it probably varies a bit based on graphics cards and settings, but on some worlds the effects are so strong you literally cannot see any real distance. And the effect is glued to the camera viewpoint, so you can't even lift the camera above the effect in photo mode to try and reorient yourself. This hot planet, for example, had stiflingly thick black clouds heavily occluding anything that was more than about 30-40 feet away from the player character, apart from parts of the landscape both distant and high enough to rise above the surrounding volume of it; this screenshot doesn't really convey just how opaque and claustrophobic the effect was in person:

But overall the expedition was a lot of fun, and at least when playing a character with lots of experience and a lot of prior expedition rewards to pull from, not too hard to accomplish (that Atlas multitool in particular is a godsend, you do A LOT of hunting of what might otherwise be difficult targets, though never fear, the player gets some rewards to boost their multitool level and destructive output fairly early in the expedition).

The community participation parts of the expedition have yet to be completed, so my character from it is still in expedition mode, though I've started trying out some of the other newer features, like being able to build a custom solar starship:

I plan to put in a bit of daily play on the community participation quests until those wrap up.

[utilitycaster]

I spaced on sending this when you initially made the post, but if you were ever so inclined to make that full list of recommendations on metafiction/the liminal space of tangential genres, I would be very interested to see it! (the original list was 100% some of my favorite books/media)

Oh man I've been uh. bad at reading as regularly/much as I'd like for the past few years, something I'm attempting to remedy, and I've never been the biggest of film buffs, and as such that covers a lot of the high points.

(obligatory reminiscing): Truly the the most "not actually a real problem" tragedies of my life is that I was a teenager before the Goodreads era and so I was shaped, indelibly, by whatever Collected Science Fiction Anthologies of the Latter 20th Century my local library had circa 2004. As a result there's like a thousand 70s and 80s sci fi stories the titles of which I cannot remember but which are etched deep within the recesses of my brain. Occasionally I have enough details to go to some thread on the internet and say "pretty please can you find it," but often I don't. There's definitely one I'm thinking of in which a group of scientists keep doing an experiment to change the time line and they keep believing that it fails, but as a reader you clearly see the list of names and various details is changing. This is not super helpful to anyone other than to say "go read short speculative fiction." ANYWAY here's a few more.

On the topic of short fiction, Sword Stone Table is a collection of short stories inspired by Arthurian legend which I read last year, and not all of them worked but there were enough to make it worth it (and it's a quick read). Hilariously, the coffee shop AU was one of the more metafictional examples.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. I don't remember this well but I own a copy and might re-read it; I distinctly recall purchasing it because she made a chapter in the form of a PowerPoint presentation and got interviewed by NPR about it since she could see how many people quit reading at that chapter thanks to eReader data, and I was like "sounds cool". I love when authors are hostile to their audience in a way that's good for them, and I remember enjoying that chapter very much.

I mean your bio quotes Calvino so I'm assuming you're good there but like...I have not read all their work, but I trust Calvino, Borges, Le Guin, and Susanna Clarke to always deliver.

Jules Feiffer's A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears; Diana Wynne Jones' Fire and Hemlock (among other Diana Wynne Jones books); The Phantom Tollbooth; and the various works of Ellen Raskin (best known for The Westing Game but I read so many of her books) are middle-grade or YA but they are in fact a big reason why I eventually became a college student who would read House of Leaves and Calvino for fun and why I became an adult who devoured Piranesi in one sitting.

The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

It's also been a hot minute since I read Possession by A. S. Byatt but I do remember loving it at the time.

For...the best I can put it is "popcorn reads?" low postmodernism? mass-market metafiction? Fun shit? Jasper Fforde is your guy.

Technically The Princess Bride is metafiction. Fun fact: a good friend of mine in college did not realize it was not legit a translation when he read the book. His undergrad thesis was in part about translation. We made fun of him for this.

David Mitchell's literary universe, notably Cloud Atlas. David Mitchell is a very good writer who does tend to have a pretty dark interpretation of our world's future and so I sort of fell off following his works because they were particularly depressing but like, that's a me problem because he's immensely talented. (note: did not see the film adaptation, cannot speak to that.)

I am also going to plug the Teixcalaan books (two so far, starting with A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine which is a bit of a stretch but I'm doing it anyway because I think it’s underappreciated (it occupies the same space in my mind tbh as Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota and to an extent Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire, both of which I’ve mentioned before, of an incredibly intelligent SF story with queer characters and relationships that was well received but just doesn't have the buzz of some other modern sf series). It’s not metafictional per se, but it does have an incredibly strong theme running through it of engaging with narrative and controlling it (honestly? Similar to Black Sails in that regard.) The Teixcalaan Empire is hyper-aware of language and legend, naming patterns are a number and a word, and the cool thing to do is write complex forms of poetry. The second book also has a character purchasing an indie comic and drawing all sorts of interesting comparisons to her ongoing situation... a little bit like Tales of the Black Freighter within Watchmen.

Run Lola Run/Lola Rennt (I watched it as a non-German speaker with subtitles and enjoyed it)

[what-even-is-thiss]

Roman, I'd love to hear something mythology related about the mutual evolution of mythology - when two or more cultures feature the same mythological figures despite having little/no contact with each other.

This is actually quite difficult for a layperson to research and because I do not professionally study comparative mythology and religion you're gonna have to take what I say here with that in mind.

It's partially difficult to talk about this because historically the world has always been a lot more interconnected than most people think it is. Some ideas are also way older than we think they are. For example, we have story tropes (not stories but tropes) that possibly date back to when humans first started to spread around and out of Africa. Like one of the Pleiades being hard to see and there being a reason one of the stars either left or became dim. We know this might date back all the way to Africa because while humans were still confined to Africa there was a slight shift in perspective for various reasons that made the seventh star in the Pleiades harder to see. But keeping all that in mind, Here's a couple of stories that I just think are neat.

The 7 sisters get chased into the sky:

The Kiowa people of the Great Plains tell the story of the 7 sisters or the Pleiades like this (based on a telling by I-See-Many-Camp-Fire-Places, Kiowa soldier at Fort Sill, Oklahoma,1897):

One day, seven little girls were playing together by a stream a little too far from the town. As they were playing, a bear saw them and began to rush at them. Seeing the bear coming, the girls began to run back towards town where the adults could fight the bears back. Soon they realized that they couldn't make it back in time so they scrambled up some tall rocks to try to escape, but the rocks were not tall enough. The bears began climbing. Seeing this, the girls began to yell and beg and plead with the rocks to save them, and the rocks did. They grew and grew into a steep pillar that the bears clawed at but could just not climb. And the girls? The kept rising even after the rocks had stopped growing. And they rose and rose up into the sky until they turned into stars.

Compare this to the Greek story of the 7 sisters:

The Pleiades were seven sisters, daughters of the titan Atlas. Because Atlas was stuck holding up the world, he could not protect his daughters and they did not know how to fight. So when the giant Orion saw them and became determined to rape them, all they could do was run and run and run. And they ran and ran and Orion chased them and chased them and would not give up. He was huge, his strides were huge, and he could walk on water. Eventually the sisters realized that Orion would literally never stop, so they cried out to the other gods for help. Zeus heard their cry and lifted them into the heavens to save them from Orion where they turned into stars.

Not exactly the same. The danger is different, but the result is the same.

The Earth is a dead body:

Pangu, from Chinese Mythology:

In the beginning, there was nothing. Then, there was an egg. From this egg emerged Pangu, a hairy unfathomably gigantic man with horns. Pangu separated Yin from Yang and earth and sky from each other with a swing of his mighty axe and to keep earth and sky separated he pushed them apart with his giant body, and after he died, his blood became the rivers, his eyes became the sun and moon, his breath became the wind, clouds, and mist, and his body became the mountains and valleys.

Ymir, from Norse Mythology:

In the beginning, there was ice and fire with nothing but the yawning void between them. Over time, the ice and fire mixed and together they formed a giant named Ymir, a cow, and block of salty ice. From the salty ice and the licking of the cow came a man named Buri. From Ymir came the Jotunns, and Buri's gransons were Odin, Vili, and Ve. The three brothers became tired of there being no world, and the only thing big enough to create a world with was Ymir, so they killed him and from his flesh came the earth, his bones the mountains, his hair the trees, his blood the water, his brains the clouds, and his skull the sky.

Tlaltecuhtli from Aztec mythology:

Before the creation of the 5th world, Quetzalcoatl and Tezcalipoca descended from the heavens and realized that anything they created would be eaten by the monster Tlaltecuhtli standing in the ocean so before the creation of the 5th world, Tlaltecuhtli would have to die. While wrestling with her, one of Tezcalipoca's legs was bitten off, but despite this Quetzalcoatl and Tezcalipoca each grabbed one of Tlaltecuhtli's arms and with a mighty surge of strength tore her in half. Half of her body became the land, while the other half became the sky. Her skin became the plants of the world, Her nose the hills and valleys, her shoulders the big mountains, her mouth the caves, and her eyes the freshwater springs.

So yeah, the earth as a dead body. Weirdly common.