#Desert Springs

[longlistshort]

After hearing the sad news of Shelley Duvall's passing, I decided to watch a few films from her filmography and started with 3 Women, released in 1977. Based on a dream writer/director Robert Altman had, the film follows Duvall and Sissy Spacek as their lives and identities intertwine in the California desert. Later a third woman played by Janice Rule, becomes more important in the pair’s world.

Using reflections, water, mirrors, mirrored actions, and twins, Altman creates a mysterious space for these women to inhabit. Adding to the unsettling energy of the film are a series of murals created by artist Bodhi Wind (Charles Kuklis).

It’s definitely worth a watch, with an ambiguous ending that has been subject to many interpretations.

[vangoghcore]

by desertarrowphotography

[luxebeat]

Summertime Fun at JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa

During the summertime,  JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa, Palm Desert’s largest resort, offers an array of cool activities for guests while the temperatures rise. This luxury resort is situated on 450 acres of desert gardens with signature lakes, four swimming pools, mountain views, and two championship golf courses. JW Marriott Desert Springs. Photo Jill Weinlein Here’s What to See and…

[expressions-of-nature]

Arizona by Todd Michael

[leahberman]

moon mirage

instagram - twitter - website

[rosechata]

emilie.hofferber

[stoat-party]

How Much Territory Are the Fallout Player Characters Actually Micromanaging: An Analysis

I did some amateur research to figure out which of the Fallout protagonists (specifically 3, NV, and 4) have a reasonable area of land to constantly traverse. I used Apple Maps to find the straightest possible walking path from a point on either end of the game map, then multiplied the north-south and east-west figures to get an approximate square mileage. Since none of the walking paths were completely straight, these numbers will all be a little higher than actual. BUT the game maps also don’t completely correlate to the real-life locations, so consider these numbers to be estimates.

The Commonwealth: Around 600 square miles. This is honestly pretty manageable, especially if you’re teleporting or helicoptering all over the place. It would be exhausting, but you could theoretically get across the map in a day with time to spare for questing.

The Capital Wasteland: Around 800 square miles. Fairfax is the halfway point; very few locations on the western half of the map actually correspond to anything in real life. The exception is the cavern Little Lamplight is based on, which would make the game map 100 miles long. The map definitely doesn’t extend that far into Virginia.

New Vegas: Kind of hard to calculate at this scale, but we’re looking at a little under 3000 square miles! Through. the Mojave. Desert. The Courier is really going to have to commit to a course of action before traveling, because they won’t be coming back for about a week.

If you’re a fanfic writer, remember that you don’t owe realism to anyone. BUT, if realism is something you care about for your writing, keep these distances in mind!

(Sequel: distance from game maps to DLCs)

[mournfulroses]

Arthur Rimbaud, from The Complete Works of Arthur Rimbaud; "Deserts of Love,"

[arc-hus]

Desert Palisades House, Palm Springs, USA - Woods + Dangaran

[zachbradleyphotography]

To build this golden house

Ash Meadows, Nevada

[dangermousie]

Top Dozen cdramas - 2024

This can obviously change but nothing truly exciting looks to air for the rest of the year so that's unlikely. My Top Dozen for the year are likely be set in stone.

It's a very idiosyncratic list which has two mini dramas, three moderns (!!! for me that's insane) and a lot of vibes dramas.

12 Hard to Find - all vibes all the times. A tragic romance that feels like a Gothic fairytale, this is what minidramas could be.

11 Love In the Desert - out of all the dramas on this list, this is the one that screams most "a good time." It's a romance and visual feast and webnovel madness and sexy good time and it made me cry.

10 Fortune Writer - a mini that is so smart and meta and fun about narratives and fate and villainy and fighting the story itself. So clever.

9 Derailment - a puzzle and a love story, telling most anything about it would be a spoiler but this story about a rich girl from 2025 who seemingly wakes up in a parallel universe in 2023 in body of a poor doppelganger, and the young man who was in love with the original has everything including addressing what it must feel to people to have a transmigrator possess a loved one.

8 Tender Light - the ending was just - it's the reason it's not n1. But the rest of this drama about an abused wife and an idealistic young man refusing to bow to societal pressure was just exquisite. It addresses morality and loneliness and complicity and sacrifice. Just incredible. Poetry in motion.

7 Will Love In Spring - a modern romance cdrama? In my list? Is the world ending? But seriously, this is such a gorgeous, realistic yet intense exploration of love and loss and trauma. It made me utterly reevaluate Li Xian to boot.

6 Snowfall - this is such a fever dream of a mood piece of a vampire romance, with seriously BDSM and gay vibes, as well as utterly incredible canon age gap ride or die OTP with Ouyang Nana bothering to act for the first time in her life and Vengo Gao embodying a gentleman vampire to perfection. Li Muge remains one of my favorite directors for a reason.

5 Heroes - the story of three very different men all consigned to the dustheap of history by changing times (the best swordsman in the era of guns, a former imperial guard of a regime about to be overthrown, a constable obedient to obsolete code who studied for imperial exams which got abolished) as the Qing dynasty is about to fall, this has fights, humor, three (!) separate love stories, philosophy and utter and complete heartbreak. The performances, the ideas, the filming and the writing all combine to make a bleak masterpiece with a 99% death rate (I am not kidding, only tertiaries make it out.) If I were in charge, it would get all the awards.

4 The Legend of Shen Li - the one truly mainstream idol costume hit on the list. It's an adult, passionate xianxia that reunites Zhao Liying and Lin Gengxin as deities and battle powerhouses in a love story that is so full of yearning and passion and intensity I feel like peeking through my fingers. This is everything xianxia romance tries to be and almost never is. This just might be my favorite xianxia of all time, tbh.

3 Eternal Brotherhood - a dark horse whose existence I didn't even know about before it aired. Visually stunning despite its tiny budget, this narrative about three sworn brothers in a kingdom and world in crisis, is pitch perfect in its humor, its intensity, its tragedy and its themes (also THREE!!!! amazing love stories despite not being a romance-centric show.) The battles, the friendships, the traumas, the darkness at the heart of it all!

2 Fangs of Fortune - the sole drama that can rival JoL2 for me (only caveat is it's still airing), this is visually the most jaw dropping drama I've ever seen, but it's also high fantasy the way it should be - making me feel so immersed that stopping feels like coming up from a deep dive or waking up from a hypervivid dream. It has impeccable performances (many from actors who I don't normally even like), and its plot and relationships and themes - fate and sacrifice and choice and found family bonds and trauma and so many other things - make it feel as if it was made just for me.

1 Joy of Life 2 - THE drama of 2024 for me. It's somehow better than the incredible first installment. It's funny, it's heartbreaking, it has insane performances, a narrative that hits all my personally favorite themes (a person trying to remain human in an inhuman world, righteousness not being weak), a large cast of fascinating characters who feel like they live in front of me (there are no throwaway roles in this), my favorite ship of the year (though it's not even a ship-centric show) and above all, Zhang Ruoyun's live wire of a performance as Fan Xian, arguably my favorite cdrama character of all time. It should not work yet it does. Brilliantly.

[desert-love]

[vangoghcore]

by elliotmcgucken

[pangeen]

" Colorful mornings " // © Austin Pedersen

[expressions-of-nature]

by Max Vuong

[leahberman]

desert blooms

instagram - twitter - website