Strange Horizons made their goal!

[kaberett]

Which means the entire AJ short story has been published! Part 1 and Part 2.

Discussion in the comments? YES I THINK SO.

Comments

Re: Ullamaliztli

[davidgillon]

*It's disappointing from the access side of things that there's no alt-text to explain the image for people who can't see it.

And as soon as I pressed post I realised it was stupid of me to leave it at that without providing a description, whilre discussing the image for what it tells us is potentially useful to the general discussion(though whether AL discussed it with the artist we don't know). So: the image is portrait format, of five players on a ball-court, the court itself is surrounded on all sides by a wall to around head height at the sides and well over head height at the rear, with seating atop, with a large crowd hazily sketched in. Behind the crowd are Greco-Roman style colonades and there appear to be streamers of flowers running the length of the court at the height of the colonades. Above is what appears at first to be an ornate ceiling, but may in fact be the distant opposite side of an orbital habitat, with parks and lakes and housing.

The court is lined, with our viewpoint looking down the court from low, almost at floor level, almost on the mid-point width-wise, and noticeably canted, with the left side higher. The lines appear something like you would see on a five-a-side football court, a goal drawn onto the rear wall (which wouldn't work for the description of the final point dropping beyond the line), a box is drawn on the floor around the goal, in front of that a line (a zone marker?) crosses the court, another line (the halfway line?) is just visible drawn on the court at the left hand corner of the image, this line is yellow rather than the white of the others.

Of the five players, all appear to be brown-skinned and dark, if not black, haired, though some of that may be that they seem to be lit with a orange-ish light from somewhere high and to the right rear (the court floor is also orange-ish). The image is framed by players to left and right, the left-hand player is visible only as a (noticeably hairy) leg, the right hand player is squatting, so only rises half-way up the margin of the image, their chest is flat, and their face has notably high cheek bones. All of the players are barefoot and dressed only in white, baggy, knee-length shorts (I'm almost tempted to say bloomers, but they aren't gathered at the knee), with an arm guard on their right forearms, however the player furthest from us (defending the goal? They're inside the box around it) may be wearing something (flower garlands?) across shoulders and possibly chest, this player's chest is shadowed because of their position relative to the lighting and it's impossible to tell if they are flat-chested or have breasts. The fourth player is shown turning on one foot, their position on the zone boundary line and offset to the left of court, their arms are low and to the sides, as though they have been caught wrong-footed and they are certainly in no position to defend. Their chest is flat, and their relatively light skin-colour combined with their position relative to the lighting means they could potentially be caucasian.

The fifth player is the focus of the entire image, with all four other players turned towards them, they are caught mid-leap, about to smash the ball (dead centre and just below the top of the painting) towards goal. Slightly offset to left of centre, I suspect they're centred just about on the golden ratio point for the image. Their face is long and narrow, cheekbones high, ears long and lobed, their hair chopped off in a shaggy bob at neck length and swept back. Their left arm is outstretched to top right, right arm pulled back for the smash, legs tucked up from the leap. Caught with their body turned mostly towards us, they are potentially darkest-skinned of all the players, and powerfully if compactly built, one breast is caught in semi-silhouette and it appears likely they are a relatively small-breasted woman - Sister Ultimately-Justice-Shall-Prevail.