#YOU FLY!

[crow-caller]

as a child there's nothing cooler than a kid who gets subjected to evil experiments and gains special abilities. it's even cooler if these abilities also cause unfathomable suffering to use/against others. children love stories like this.

[wileycap]

I don't think I've seen anybody talk about how absolutely insane The Boiling Rock is from Hakoda's perspective.

Imagine getting captured, and your son tells you that you won't be apart for too long. That's sweet, but obviously your son has no resources to spare for organizing a breakout. You hope that the Avatar can defeat the Fire Lord soon - that's the earliest time you could hope to be rescued.

You get put into a temporary holding facility until the guards can sort out who is who. After a while, they put you on a prisoner transport to the Boiling Rock. Your captors try to intimidate you by telling you that it's the highest security prison in the Fire Nation, probably the whole world. It's far away from the capital.

You arrive at the Boiling Rock. It really is in the middle of a boiling lake. There's only one way in or out, and it's a gondola that takes you above the boiling lake. You meet the warden. They take you to your cell. You settle down to wait for the end of the war.

And 15 minutes later Sokka comes in like "hey dad I'm here I got the prince of the Fire Nation and an Earth Kingdom ninja leader gf ok let's go I'm busting you out"

[daisywords]

One of my biggest nitpicks in fiction concerns the feeding of babies. Mothers dying during/shortly after childbirth or the baby being separated form the mother shortly after birth is pretty common in fiction. It is/was also common enough in real life, which is why I think a lot of writers/readers don't think too hard about this. however. Historically, the only reason the vast majority of babies survived being separated from their mother was because there was at least one other woman around to breastfeed them. Before modern formula, yes, people did use other substitutes, but they were rarely, if ever, nutritionally sufficient.

Newborns can't eat adult food. They can't really survive on animal milk. If your story takes place in a world before/without formula, a baby separated from its mother is going to either be nursed by someone else, or starve.

It doesn't have to be a huge plot point, but idk at least don't explicitly describe the situation as excluding the possibility of a wetnurse. "The father or the great grandmother or the neighbor man or the older sibling took and raised the baby completely alone in a cave for a year." Nope. That baby is dead I'm sorry. "The baby was kidnapped shortly after birth by a wizard and hidden away in a secret tower" um quick question was the wizard lactating? "The mother refused to see or touch her child after birth so the baby was left to the care of the ailing grandfather" the grandfather who made the necessary arrangements with women in the neighborhood, right? right? OR THAT GREAT OFFENDER "A newborn baby was left on the doorstep and they brought it in and took care of it no issues" What Are You Going to Feed That Baby. Hello?

Like. It's not impossible, but arrangements are going to have to be made. There are some logistics.

[shitty-check-please-aus]

What we need to do is convince all the disney adults in america that high speed rail would be a preferable way of getting to disneyworld compared to driving or flying. We could maybe harness their fondness for the monorail or something, but this is a group of people that has time, income, and passion that we could leverage. If we could direct 5% of the enthusiasm they have for limited edition popcorn buckets into calling their representatives and demanding high-speed interstate rail, we could get it by 2030

[frogaroundandfindout]

Bruce gets knocked over the head with a lead pipe and without even looking at eachother dick and Tim start circling around him making tweeting noises

Meanwhile bruce wishes the hit actually knocked him out so he didn’t have to witness his kids acting like this

[phantomrose96]

Thinking about Edward Elric as the Amestrian Military's specialest little unfireable boy

State alchemists can be fired for underperforming. We know this up front from the likes of Shou Tucker. And this makes a ton of sense from the homunculi's standpoint since the state alchemists are sacrifice candidates, and the homunculi would want to cull the weakest candidates and focus only on cultivating the strongest ones who stand the best chance of opening the portal.

........Then there's Edward. Who's already opened the portal.

There's no need to cultivate him. No gamble taken on whether he's good enough to open the portal. He passed the final test already. Graduated 4 semesters early.

And as such, has a free pass to do Absolute Fuck All.

And I'm imagining how funny this is from like an outside perspective.

Some newish state alchemist who'd only ever read up on the stories of Edward Elric, ready and excited to start their career of being paid handsomely with endless freedom to research and travel and do anything they want in the pursuit of science... surprised and confused to find themselves put on probation their first month for things like "ignoring orders." Which is, as best they had thought, a famous Edward Elric pastime.

Roy showing a slight bit of stress about his yearly state alchemist report, and Ed just snorting and rolling his eyes at Roy because every year HE just hastily does his on the train ride over (canon in the manga, a travesty it was left out of the anime) and it gets rubber stamped. Ed not realizing that other alchemists' reports get genuinely scrutinized and torn apart while Ed is free to turn in whatever absolute bullshit he thinks of 36 hours ahead of time. One year his report was about whether alchemy could be done via dance (conclusion: no it can't) and no one cared. Roy WANTS to tell Ed there's some kind of unknown favoritism around Ed making him literally bullet-proof but Roy has no way to phrase this that doesn't sound like he's just in denial and mad at how good Ed's train-reports are.

Guy from the Internal Amestrian Affairs sector who's responsible for auditing other internal military personel for any suspicious activity hitting about 1 million red flags for Edward Elric, issuing a STRONG and URGENT recommendation to suspend the alchemist pending further investigation into things like "literal bunk-buddies with two members of the Xingese royalty (enemy nation)" and "spent $10,000,000 of his stipend on a librarian to make her re-copy (what he seemed to interpret as?) military records in some extremely transparent effort to unearth state secrets (it was a recipe book but he was literally asking her about state secrets)" and "literally has never once obeyed an order, ever, not even once in his career, and is on public record having said 'I do not care about the goals and protections of the Amestrian Military. I am in fact only pursuing my own interests several of which are diametrically opposed to the safety and well-being of the governing body of Amestris'"

The issued recommendation is intercepted before it even reaches its intended desk. President Bradley himself has taken issue with it and denies it before a single set of eyes has seen it. The President's veto stamp is a terrifying hammer, used rarely, and it is now sitting on the auditor's desk.

The auditor sleeps with one eye open from then on out.

[the-eclectic-penguin]

[lxboratorii]

and they say wine is romantic

[greelin]

it’s so crazy that i grew up in a town with like 300 people and now i live in a city with over 66,000. anything can happen

[aerial-ace]

sick and tired of seeing these ace trainers brag about their super smart badass level 100 shiny mons.

This is Sol. She is a fucking idiot. She regularly forgets that she is a flying type and sits at the bottom of cabinets n such crying cause she doesn't know how to get up. I would die for her.

[foolsocracy]

put dick on a team and trust he will make sure they can perform as an acrobat troop

[hypoel]

im not even sorry

[regonold]

Danny gets deaged and heads to Gotham to find jazz at collage there's only one problem he knows where the collage is just now where jazz's class is

Enter one bruce wayne who genuinely just so happened to be there (he's pulling a brucie wayme stunt) seeing a small kid looking around worried so what does the serial adopter do? Well he goes up to the kid of course crouching down to ask if he's ok whats his name wheres his parents or siblings?

Now jazz, jazz all but raised danny she protected him from a young age and helped him with anything he needed and durimg her time at collage she had worried for him, with the amount of bull her parents spouted she wouldn't be surprised if danny up and left

So imagine her surprise when she spotted her baby brother de aged talking to some stranger and at that moment every instinct flared and she remembered every warning she read or heard about Gotham and she acted

Danny was just looking for his sister when some guy crouched down to talk with him after asking some questions danny heard a sound he was familiar with jazz running

Bruce really wasn't expecting to be kicked for trying to help a kid

Artistic representation of jazz kicking bruce\/

[formulahs]

that one time mclaren hung lewis from the ceiling and cast him as apollo in homer's Iliad. in his racing suit.

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: black science fiction

As february and black history month nears its end, if you're a reader let's not forget to read and appreciate books by black authors the rest of the year as well! If you're a sci-fi fan like me, perhaps this list can help find some good books to sink your teeth into.

Bleak dystopias, high tech space adventures, alien monsters, alternate dimensions, mash-ups of sci-fi and fantasy - this list features a little bit of everything for genre fiction fans!

For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!

If you want more book recs, check out my masterpost of rec lists!

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

Something massive and alien crashes into the ocean off the coast of Nigeria. Three people, a marine biologist, a rapper, and a soldier, find themselves at the center of this presence, attempting to shepherd an alien ambassador as chaos spreads in the city. A strange novel that mixes the supernatural with the alien, shifts between many different POVs, and gives a one of a kind look at a possible first contact.

Nubia: The Awakening (Nubia series) by Omar Epps & Clarence A. Hayes

Young adult. Three teens living in the slums of an enviromentally ravaged New York find that something powerful is awakening within them. They’re all children of refugees of Nubia, a utopian African island nation that sank as the climate worsened, and realize now that their parents have been hiding aspects of their heritage from them. But as they come into their own, someone seeks to use their abilities to his own ends, against their own people.

The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown

Novella. After having failed at establishing a new colony, starship Calypso fights to make it back to Earth. Acting captain Jacklyn Albright is already struggling against the threats of interstellar space and impending starvation when the ship throws her a new danger: something is hiding on the ship, picking off her crew one by one in bloody, gruesome ways. A quick, excellent read if you want some good Alien vibes.

Dawn (Xenogenesis trilogy) by Octavia E. Butler*

After a devestating war leaves humanity on the brink of extinction, survivor Lilith finds herself waking up naked and alone in a strange room. She’s been rescued by the Oankali, who have arrived just in time to save the human race. But there’s a price to survival, and it might be humanity itself. Absolutely fucked up I love it I once had to drop the book mid read to stare at the ceiling and exclaim in horror at what was going on. Includes darker examinations of agency and consent, so enter with caution.

Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson*

Utterly unique in world-building, story, and prose, Midnight Robber follows young Tan-Tan and her father, inhabitants of the Carribean-colonized planet of Toussaint. When her father commits a terrible crime, he’s exiled to a parallel version of the same planet, home to strange aliens and other human exiles. Tan-Tan, not wanting to lose her father, follows with him. Trapped on this new planet, he becomes her worst nightmare. Enter this book with caution, as it contains graphic child sexual abuse.

Rosewater (The Wormwood trilogy) by Tade Thompson

In Nigeria lies Rosewater, a city bordering on a strange, alien biodome. Its motives are unknown, but it’s having an undeniable effect on the surrounding life. Kaaro, former criminal and current psychic agent for the government, is one of the people changed by it. When other psychics like him begin getting killed, Kaaro must take it upon himself to find out the truth about the biodome and its intentions.

Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh

Young adult. A century ago, an astronomer discovered a possibly Earth-like planet. Now, a team of veteran astronauts and carefully chosen teenagers are preparing to embark on a twenty-three year trip to get there. But space is dangerous, and the team has no one to rely on but each other if - or when - something goes wrong. An introspective slowburn of a story, this focuses more on character work than action.

The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord

After the planet Sadira is left uninhabitable, its few survivors are forced to move to a new world. On Cygnus Beta, they work to rebuild their society alongside their distant relatives of the planet, while trying to preserve what remains of their culture. Focused less on hard science or action, The Best of All Possible Worlds is more about culture, romance and the ethics and practicalities of telepathy.

Mirage (Mirage duology) by Somaiya Daud

Young adult. Eighteen-year-old Amani lives on an isolated moon under the oppressive occupation of the Valthek empire. When Amani is abducted, she finds herself someplace wholly unexpected: the royal palace. As it turns out, she's nearly identical to the half-Valthek, and widely hated, princess Maram, who is in need of a body double. If Amani ever wants to make it back home or see her people freed from oppression, she will have to play her role as princess perfectly. While sci-fi, this one more has the vibe of a fantasy.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon

Life on the lower decks of the generation ship HSS Matilda is hard for Aster, an outcast even among outcasts, trying to survive in a system not dissimilar to the old antebellum South. The ship’s leaders have imposed harsh restrictions on their darker skinned people, using them as an oppressed work force as they travel toward their supposed Promised Land. But as Aster finds a link between the death of the ship’s sovereign and the suicide of her own mother, she realizes there may be a way off the ship.

Where It Rains in Color by Denise Crittendon

The planet Swazembi is a utopia of color and beauty, the most beautiful of all its citizens being the Rare Indigo. Lileala was just named Rare Indigo, but her strict yet pampered life gets upended when her beautiful skin is struck by a mysterious sickness, leaving it covered in scars and scabs. Meanwhile, voices start to whisper in Lileala's mind, bringing to the surface a past long forgotten involving her entire society.

Eacaping Exodus (Escaping Exodus duology) by Nicky Drayden

Seske is the heir to the leader of a clan living inside a gigantic, spacefaring beast, of which they frequently need to catch a new one to reside in as their presence slowly kills the beast from the inside. While I found the ending rushed with regards to plot and character, the worldbuilding is very fresh and the overall plot of survival and class struggle an interesting one. It’s also sapphic!

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah*

In a near future America, inmates on death row or with life sentences in private prisons can choose to participate in death matches for entertainment. If they survive long enough - a rare case indeed - they regain their freedom. Among these prisoners are Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker, partners behind the scenes and close to the deadline of a possible release - if only they can survive for long enough. As the game continues to be stacked against them and protests mount outside, two women fight for love, freedom, and their own humanity. Chain-Gang All-Stars is bleak and unflinching as well as genuinely hopeful in its portrayal of a dark but all to real possible future.

Parable of the Sower (Earthseed duology) by Octavia E. Butler*

In a bleak future, Lauren Olamina lives with her family in a gated community, one of few still safe places in a time of chaos. When her community falls, Lauren is forced on the run. As she makes her way toward possible safety, she picks up a following of other refugees, and sows the seeds of a new ideology which may one day be the saviour of mankind. Very bleak and scarily realistic, Parable of the Sower will make you both fear for mankind and regain your hope for humanity.

Binti (Binti trilogy) by Nnedi Okorafor

Young adult novella. Binti is the first of the Himba people to be accepted into the prestigious Oomza University, the finest place of higher learning in all the galaxy. But as she embarks on her interstellar journey, the unthinkable happens: her ship is attacked by the terrifying Meduse, an alien race at war with Oomza University.

War Girls (War Girls duology) by Tochi Onyebuchi

In an enviromentally fraught future, the Nigerian civil war has flared back up, utilizing cybernetics and mechs to enhance its soldiers. Two sisters, by bond if not by blood, are separated and end up on differing sides of the struggle. Brutal and dark, with themes of dehumanization of soldiers through cybernetics that turn them into weapons, and the effect and trauma this has on them.

The Space Between Worlds (The Space Between Worlds duology) by Micaiah Johnson

Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there’s a catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying. As such she has a very special job in traveling to these worlds, hoping to keep her position long enough to gain citizenship in the walled-off Wiley City, away from the wastes where she grew up. But her job is dangerous, especially when she gets on the tracks of a secret that threatens the entire multiverse. Really cool worldbuilding and characters, also featuring a sapphic lead!

The Fifth Season (The Broken Eart trilogy) by N.K. Jemisin*

In a world regularly torn apart by natural disasters, a big one finally strikes and society as we know it falls, leaving people floundering to survive in a post apocalyptic world, its secrets and past to be slowly revealed. We get to follow a mother as she races through this world to find and save her missing daughter. While mostly fantasy in genre, this series does have some sci-fi flavor, and is genuinely some of the best books I've ever read, please read them.

The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings*

In an alternate version of our present, the witch hunt never ended. Women are constantly watched and expected to marry young so their husbands can keep an eye on them. When she was fourteen, Josephine's mother disappeared, leveling suspicions at both mother and daughter of possible witchcraft. Now, nearly a decade and a half later, Jo, in trying to finally accept her missing mother as dead, decides to follow up on a set of seemingly nonsensical instructions left in her will. Features a bisexual lead!

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden

South African-set scifi featuring gods ancient and new, robots finding sentience, dik-diks, and a gay teen with mind control abilities. An ancient goddess seeks to return to her true power no matter how many humans she has to sacrifice to get there. A little bit all over the place but very creative and fresh.

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson*

Young adult. Young artist June Costa lives in Palmares Tres, a beautiful, matriarchal city relying heavily on tradition, one of which is the Summer King. The most recent Summer King is Enki, a bold boy and fellow artist. With him at her side, June seeks to finally find fame and recognition through her art, breaking through the generational divide of her home. But growing close to Enki is dangerous, because he, like all Summer Kings, is destined to die.

The Blood Trials (The Blood Gifted duology) by N.E. Davenport

After Ikenna's grandfather is assasinated, she is convinced that only a member of the Praetorian guard, elite soldiers, could’ve killed him. Seeking to uncover his killer, Ikenna enrolls in a dangerous trial to join the Praetorians which only a quarter of applicants survive. For Ikenna, the stakes are even higher, as she's hiding forbidden blood magic which could cost her her life. Mix of fantasy and sci-fi. While I didn’t super vibe with this one, I suspect fans of action packed romantasy will enjoy it.

Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany

1960s classic. Rydra Wong is a space captain, linguist and poet who is set on learning to understand Babel-17, a language which is humanity's only clue at the enemy in an interstaller war. But Babel-17 is more than just a language, and studying it may change Rydra forever.

Pet (Pet duology) by Akwaeke Emezi

Young adult novella. Jam lives in a utopian future that has been freed of monsters and the systems which created and upheld them. But then she meets Pet, a dangerous creature claiming to be hunting a monster still among them, prepared to stop at nothing to find them. While I personally found the word-building in Pet lacking, it deftly handles dark subjects of what makes a human a monster.

Bonus AKA I haven’t read these yet but they seem really cool

Lion's Blood by Steven Barnes

Alternate history in which Africans colonized South America while vikings colonized the North. The vikings sell abducted Celts and Franks as slaves to the South, one of which is eleven-years-old Irish boy Aidan O'Dere, who was just bought by a Southern plantation owner.

The Sound of Stars by Alechia Dow

Young adult dystopia. Ellie lives in a future where humanity is under the control of the alien Ilori. All art is forbidden, but Ellie keeps a secret library; when one of her books disappears, she fears discovery and execution. M0Rr1S, born in a lab and raised to be emotionless, finds her library, and though he should deliver her for execution, he finds himself obsessed with human music. Together the two embark on a roadtrip which may save humanity.

Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase

Lelah lives in future Botswana, but despite money and fame she finds herself in an unhappy marriage, her body controlled via microchip by her husband. After burying the body of an accidental hit and run, Lelah's life gets worse when the ghost of her victim returns to enact bloody vengeance.

Orleans by Sherri L. Smith

Young adult. Fen de la Guerre, living in a quarantined Gulf Coast left devestated by storms and sickness, is forced on the run with a newborn after her tribe is attacked. Hoping to get the child to safety, Fen seeks to get to the other side of the wall, she teams up with a scientist from the outside the quarantine zone.

Everfair by Nisi Shawl

A neo-victorian alternate history, in which a part of Congo was kept safe from colonisation, becoming Everfair, a safe haven for both the people of Congo and former slaves returning from America. Here they must struggle to keep this home safe for them all.

The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa

Space opera. Enitan just wants to live a quiet life in the aftermath of a failed war of conquest, but when her lover is killed and her sister kidnapped, she's forced to leave her plans behind to save her sister.

Honorary mentions AKA these didn't really work for me but maybe you guys will like them: The City We Became (Great Cities duology) by N.K. Jemisin, The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull, The A.I. Who Loved Me by Alyssa Cole

[whimsyfemme]

single femmes who stay inside all day and only go out to go to work, daydreaming about a butch just randomly bumping into them in the way the romantic movies do. i just want to let you know you are real, seen, and loved.