#Fairlie-Poplar

[atlantathecity]

Five years ago this week we moved out of the Fairlie-Poplar district of Downtown (pictured) where we had lived for eight years, and relocated to Old Fourth Ward.

Downtown has a lot of issues, no doubt.

But I miss the architecture, the density, the mix of uses (residential, office, government, school, parks, etc), the MARTA rail access, the restaurants...more of Atlanta should look like this.

The fact that this kind of built environment is so uncommon -- that it's 'the other' in Atlanta -- is part of Downtown's problem.

But in the end, the main issue with Downtown is that it doesn't have enough permanent residents populating the streets 24/7/365. The mix is off.

Some people will argue endlessly as to why Downtown can't sustain a huge influx of residential development, or why people wouldn't want to live here. I don't buy any of it. This place needs a giant infusion of residential property. Many thousands of units. And not just students.

[potato-lord-but-not]

Where do I find this discworld you speak of?

first and foremost: your local library !! or library apps like libby or hoopla. And if you look up ‘discworld reading order’ you’ll find plenty of helpful charts to get ya started.

[maggiecheungs]

poems in episode one of the story of kunning palace

in episode 1 of kunning palace, xuening grabs a book of poems in order to trick her maids into thinking she keeps a ledger. my knowledge of classical chinese isn't particularly high level, but it's good enough to at least identify which poems are on the page that she opens to, and i'm certain they were deliberately chosen because of their relevance to the characters and themes of the show 👀 so i thought i'd do a post about them :)

this page contains three poems by the tang dynasty poet wang changling (698–756): 芙蓉樓送辛漸 (farewell to xin jian at lotus tower); 閨怨 (boudoir lament); and 春宮曲 (spring palace song). detailed analyses under the cut:

1 - 芙蓉樓送辛漸 (farewell to xin jian at lotus tower):

my translation

poem summary: the poet's friend came to wu on a night when cold rain was pouring into the river, and departs again at dawn. the poet accompanies him on his journey as far as the chu mountains [but cannot carry on journeying with him because he must stay at his official post in wu]. as he bids goodbye, he asks his friend to tell his family back in luoyang that his heart is still pure and resolute.

key themes: loneliness and solitude; duty; having a pure heart and noble character

analysis: this one is a fairly famous poem about parting before setting off on a long journey. it's particularly notable for its final line, 一片冰心在玉壺, which roughly translates to "my heart is as pure as a piece of ice within a vessel of jade"... which could easily have been written as a summary of zhang zhe's character.

however! while there's a definite emphasis on having a pure and guiltless heart, when you combine with the previous line, the couplet as a whole also gives a sense that the speaker wishes to be remembered by those they love as someone pure and righteous ("tell my family back in luoyang that my heart is still pure etc"). this seems to be a theme of xuening's second life: wanting to correct her past wrongs and treat the people she cares for better, and to prove to zhang zhe that she can be a good person in future

in particular, this poem makes me think of xuening's last moments in her first life. the poet's final request before he bids farewell to his friend? for his companion to tell his family that he is still noble at heart. xuening's final request before she dies? for xie wei to take her life in exchange for that of zhang zhe, as her way of repenting for being dishonourable and ruining his life... 🤔🤔🤔

2 - 閨怨 (boudoir lament):

poem summary: the young wife in her boudoir knows nothing of sorrow, but as she completes her toilette and ascends the emerald tower, she suddenly sees the hue of poplars and willows on the roadside and regrets letting her husband leave home to pursue official position and power.

key themes: love and marriage; abandonment; ambition (and the effect that ambition has on love)

analysis: it's essentially about how the husband's ambition causes him to abandon his wife to grief and loneliness, which seems like a clear parallel with xuening's willingness to abandon her faithful lovers for the sake of her ambition; there's also the implication that political status is ultimately less meaningful than a loving marriage.

i think it's worth noting that the character 怨 (yuan) in the title is fairly hard to translate, as it implies a mixture of grief and anger/resentment, or even hatred. it's fairly common in boudoir poems about women left behind by their husbands, and in that context it's often translated as 'lament' or 'grief', but i think the ambivalence of the term is fairly important, particularly if you apply it to kunning palace and the mix of grief and anger that xuening inspires in her old lovers in her first life.

3 - 春宮曲 (spring palace song):

poem summary: the wind is mild, the flowers are in full bloom, the moon is full and bright. the emperor has fallen in love with one of his sister's singing serving women, and is showering her with imperial favour and bestowing brocade robes upon her to keep out the spring chill.

key themes: happiness, success, security. (however, with contextual knowledge, there's also the implication of future doom, and that nobody can stay on top of the world forever)

analysis: i didn't quite catch the full significance of this one until i googled it and realised it's a poem about a real historical figure: wei zifu, a song-and-dance girl serving the princess pingyang, who wins the favour of pingyang’s brother, emperor wu of the han dynasty, eventually becoming his second empress (the second-longest serving empress in chinese history!).

wei zifu's story is essentially about a young woman of humble origins who survives numerous palace intrigues and eventually manages to ascend to the position of empress, trusted by the emperor to the extent that she was allowed to rule in his absence. however, after maintaining her position for over three decades, she eventually fell afoul of a conspiracy against her and her son, and committed suicide rather than allowing herself to be deposed.

i mean… the way this links to jiang xuening's first life is so obvious i don't even feel the need to explain it.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

You Have My Attention: Anne of Green Gables First Lines

The icon of Canadian girlhood needs no introduction, as Anne of Green Gables is a global phenomenon at this point. What those of you who read the first book at like age ten and then didn't bother exploring further might not know, however, is that LM Montgomery wrote a whole Anne series. So how did she catch a reader's attention? Let's find out!

"Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof."

-- Anne of Green Gables

"A tall, slim girl, 'half-past sixteen,' with serious gray eyes and hair which her friends called auburn, had sat down on the broad red sandstone doorstep of a Prince Edward Island farmhouse one ripe afternoon in August, firmly resolved to construe so many lines of Virgil."

-- Anne of Avonlea

"'Harvest is ended and summer is gone,' quoted Anne Shirley, gazing across the shorn fields dreamily."

-- Anne of the Island

"(Letter from Anne Shirley, B.A., Principal of Summerside High School, to Gilbert Blythe, medical student at Redmond College, Kingsport.)

Windy Poplars,

Spook's Lane,

S'side, P. E. I.,

Monday, September 12th.

DEAREST:

Isn't that an address!"

-- Anne of the Windy Poplars 

"'Thanks be, I’m done with geometry, learning or teaching it,' said Anne Shirley, a trifle vindictively, as she thumped a somewhat battered volume of Euclid into a big chest of books, banged the lid in triumph, and sat down upon it, looking at Diana Wright across the Green Gables garret, with gray eyes that were like a morning sky."

-- Anne's House of Dreams

"'How white the moonlight is tonight!' said Anne Blythe to herself, as she went up the walk of the Wright garden to Diana Wright's front door, where little cherry-blossom petals were coming down on the salty, breeze-stirred air."

-- Anne of Ingleside

"It was a clear, apple-green evening in May, and Four Winds Harbour was mirroring back the clouds of the golden west between its softly dark shores. The sea moaned eerily on the sand-bar, sorrowful even in spring, but a sly, jovial wind came piping down the red harbour road along which Miss Cornelia’s comfortable, matronly figure was making its way towards the village of Glen St. Mary."

-- Rainbow Valley 

"It was a warm, golden-cloudy, lovable afternoon. In the big living-room at Ingleside Susan Baker sat down with a certain grim satisfaction hovering about her like an aura; it was four o'clock and Susan, who had been working incessantly since six that morning, felt that she had fairly earned an hour of repose and gossip."

-- Rilla of Ingleside

[yamayuandadu]

Did ancient near east have any equivalent supernatural beings to nymphs

Overall not really, with small exceptions restricted pretty much just to Hittite Anatolia.

Jenniffer Larson in Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore (p. 33) suggests the notion of nymphs - or rather of minor female deities associated specifically with bodies of water and with trees - was probably an idea which originated among early speakers of Indo-European languages. While I often find claims about reconstructed “PIE deities” and whatnot dubious, I think this checks out and explains neatly why despite being a vital feature of Greek local cults nymphs have little in the way of equivalents once we start moving further east.

Mesopotamian religion wasn’t exactly strongly nature-oriented. Overall even objects were more likely to be deified than natural features; for an overview see Gebhard J. Selz’s ‘The Holy Drum, the Spear, and the Harp’. Towards an understanding of the problems of deification in Third Millennium Mesopotamia. It should be pointed out that in upper Mesopotamia mountains were personified quite frequently, but mountain deities (Ebih is by far the most famous) are almost invariably male (Wilfred G. Lambert’s The God Aššur remains a pretty good point of reference for this phenomenon) Rivers are a mixed bag but in Mesopotamia the most relevant river deity was the deified river ordeal (idlurugu referred to both the procedure and the god personifying it), who was also male, and ultimately an example of a judiciary deity rather than deified natural feature.  Alhena Gadotti points out that there is basically no parallel to dryads, and supernatural beings were almost never portrayed as residing in trees in Mesopotamia (‘Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld’ and the Sumerian Gilgamesh Cycle,  p. 256). You can find tree deities like Lugal-asal (“lord of the poplar”) but there’s a decent chance this reflects originating in an area named after poplars and we aren’t dealing with something akin to a male dryad (also, Lugal-asal specifically fairly consistently appears in available sources first and foremost as a local Nergal-like figure).

All around, it’s safe to say there’s basically no such a thing as a “Mesopotamian nymph”. Including Hurrian evidence won’t help much either - more firmly male deified mountains, at least one distinctly male river, but no minor nature goddesses in sight.

Probably the category of deities most similar to nymphs would be various minor Hittite goddesses representing springs - Volkert Haas in fact referred to them as Quellnymphen (“spring nymphs”). Ian Rutherford (Hittite Texts and Greek Religion: Contact, Interaction, and Comparison, pp. 199-200) points out that the descriptions of statues of deities belonging to this class indicate a degree of iconographic overlap with nymphs in Greek art. Notably, in both cases depictions with attributes such as shells, dishes or jugs are widespread. There’s even a case of possibly cognate names: Hittite Kuwannaniya (from kuwanna, “of lapis lazuli”) and Kuane (“blue”) worshiped in Syracuse. They aren’t necessarily directly related though, since arguably calling a water deity “the blue one” isn’t an idea so specific it couldn’t happen twice.

There is also one more case which is considerably more peculiar - s Bronze Age Anatolian goddess seemingly being reinterpreted as a nymph by Greek authors: it is generally accepted that Malis, a naiad mentioned by Theocrtius, is a derivative of Bronze Age Maliya, who started as a Hittite craftsmanship goddess (she appears in association with carpentry and leatherworking, to be specific). There is pretty extensive literature on her and especially her reception after the Bronze Age, I’ve included pretty much everything I could in the bibliography of her wiki article some time ago. Note that there is no evidence the Greek interpretation of Maliya/Malis as a nymph was accepted by any inhabitants of Anatolia themselves. While most Bronze Age Anatolian deities either disappeared or remained restricted to small areas in the far east of Anatolia in the first millennium BCE, in both Lycia and Lydia there is quite a lot of evidence for the worship of Maliya. In both cases there is direct evidence for local rulers considering her a counterpart of Athena (presumably due to shared civic role and connection to craftsmanship; or maybe they simply aimed to emulate Athens). There’s even at least one instance of Maliya appearing in place of Athena in a depiction of the judgment of Paris (or rather, appearing in the guise of Athena, since the iconography isn’t altered).

[inevitableisopod]

Utterly Ridiculous

Okay so, as promised, today is sword review day!

Last year, i bought a LK Chen sword, my first one in fact! For those who don't know LK Chen is a Chinese sword manufacturer that specialises in high fidelity replicas of original Chinese swords

Enter the Yan-Ling Dao. so, what is a dao? its basically the equivalent of a European falchion or messer, especially the yan-ling dao, or goose quill sabre; which usually has a (sometimes sharpened) false edge near the point where it narrows dramatically to a honestly somewhat worryingly fine point, as well as one to two fullers (grooves) running most of the length of the blade.

Specifications 

Sword only weight:  approx. 878 g (1 lb. 14.9 oz)

Blade length approx.         69.50 cm  (27.36")

Handle including fitting     18.00  cm  (7.08")

Total length                        87.00 cm  (34.25")

Point of Balance approx.     8.5 cm (3.35") from hand guard

Blade thickness  

at base:                   8.50 mm  

40 cm from base: 5.00 mm  

5 cm from tip: 2.20 mm  

Blade width  

at base:                   33.5 mm  

40 cm from base: 33.0 mm

50 cm from base: 35.0 mm  

60 cm from base: 31.0 mm  

it features wrought iron hilt and scabbard fittings, a (what looks like oak) handle; which is glued and pinned to the tang in 3 places, 2 bamboo pins and a hollow copper pin that allows a lanyard to be attached; wrapped in waxed cotton what is not glued in place, but is however wrapped so tightly that i sincerely doubt it will ever come loose. the sword carries a sun and sky theme with a sun shaped guard and brass decoration around the copper pin. the scabbard fittings match the square handle fittings and feature cloud motifs at the attachment points with copper rivets to continue the colour scheme.

it comes with a wood cored and vegan leather wrapped scabbard that does not retain the sword. i have few problems with this especially concerning that the blade widens until about 2/3 of the way along but it could certainly be a tighter fit. fit aside i have no problems with the scabbard. the general fit and finish of the sword is superb, everything is extremely tight and i could not find a gap or seam i could actually get a fingernail in. the peen is very clean and the hollow copper pin and brass washer are sanded smooth enough you cannot feel them in your grip.

a final thing to note in details is that it comes as standard with a pattern welded blade, and while this doesn't effect the blade performance in any way with modern steels (in fact perhaps decreasing the durability) it is extremely well executed and honestly beautiful to look at, the pattern reminding of ink in water smoke,or perhaps a wood grain. the pattern is very fine and lightly etched, and the overall blade finish is a mirror polish

Onto usage! this is what inspired the title because the bastard thing is absolutely terrifying. its rather forward weighted but still fast and agile, and most importantly, boy does it cut. it's honestly perhaps too good at cutting? bottles? no resistance, even if you significantly bugger it up, wood is absolutely fine so long as you don't go too far, there is almost zero hand shock and due to the fact that the blade is oh so slightly convex, the edge is shockingly durable and like a razor. I've shaved with this sword, and it was bloody smooth. early on i had a small accident with it where it bit through 4 towels, a hoodie and about 6mm into my arm while i was wiping it off with no notable resistance

above is a cardboard tube i cut with it. these make fairly difficult targets as they are relatively hard on the surface and very light, so they just tend to go flying if the cut isn't perfect. this sword doesn't have that problem. it just does it. below is an example of a rising cut where i massively messed up my angle

here's a poplar branch it cut through in one blow (thumb for scale)

it cuts. really well. it also handles very nicely, it feels half way between a very nimble and agile blade that just wants to move, and a blade that desires to be swung into a target as hard as possible with no finesse, and honestly, it does both really well. it stabs extremely well too, i first tested it against bottles and then wood, deliberately twisting the point slightly, and it's still completely straight.

so it's an incredible cutter, it thrusts well, and it's durable beyond what you would expect it to be. so what's the downside?

well, the scabbard just straight up doesn't retain the blade. at all. and the handle is very square. i personally found the handle very comfortable if gripped below the iron fittings, and the handle geometry is certainly beneficial to edge alignment, but it's worth pointing out

Overall, i completely adore it. it's my favorite sword in my collection and the one i'd keep if i had to give up all the others. it's full of character, it cuts like a monster and honestly it's just drop dead gorgeous.

available from the knight shop (uk) or kult of athena (us) for the low low price of £475 (check kult of athena yourself icba)

in conclusion, get it. now. i am no longer asking. i don't care if you aren't a fan of Chinese swords or sabres but it's so magnificent you need one, even if you think you don't

Thank you all for reading my beloved readers, next post will be something? i'm open to suggestions. the next review may be coming in December or January. it might be another dao or perhaps a sidesword???????

May your edges stay sharp, and your points true!

[markrosewater]

To counter abilities is fairly rare (compared to counter spells), though for example Channel and other abilities are poplar and make them basically uncounterable. Do you plan to increase ability countering or are you happy with having abilities be harder to counter?

I think ability countering should continue to be rare. We want them to mostly happen.

[recoiloperated]

I've been thinking about how the hell I can make the scabbard for my sword for literally months now. Because you need fairly thin, low acid wood slats well, I'm a dumbass. Lowe's carries quarter inch thick poplar. Poplar is the traditional wood to make scabbards out of too.

They do not, however carry the low acid wood glue I need. However, I think modge podge will work...

[unladyboss]

PHOTOS SAVED FROM PHOTO AND VIDEO SHOOTS

Carmy and Sydney are fairly poplar cefs now and there are a lot of photo and video shoots

These are some of the photos the kitchen crew saved to their phones from Sydney's latest shoot

Carmy saved this

Richie saved this one to tease her with

AND this for himself

Marcus saved this

Tina saved this

Connor saved this

Luca saved this

Sydney saved this

In the same album she saved this

And this

[echolonely]

Poplar Hawk Moth - Mothtober #8

Today’s moth is the Poplar hawk moth. It has a distinctive look because of the way it rests with its hindwings further forward than the forewings. It’s also a fairly large moth, with its wingspan between 7 to 10 cm. It you annoy him a bit too much, it will reveal an orange patch on the hidden part of its hindwings to startle or distract you.

This moth can be seen from May to September in the paleartic region and the near east.

about the drawing

I only took 35min of drawing for this one, according to the app. It's nice to see some improvement in efficiency thanks to this challenge. I also like its simplicity, and the moth's shape is so interesting. Overall quite happy about it ☺️

[atlurbanist]

One car-oriented shopping center isn't evil; but 1,000 of them (with zoning excluding other options) kinda is

Downtown Atlanta's historic Fairlie-Poplar district, with its small blocks at a scale for pedestrians, takes up about the same space as the parking at Toco Hills shopping center, just outside the city.

In the last 80 years or so we've built a lot of places throughout the metro that resemble the shopping center on top, usually surrounded by cul-de-sac streets with nothing but detached homes (by some measurements, studies have found that Atlanta sprawled wider and faster than any metro area in the U.S. from 1990-2010).

And while there's nothing inherently evil about that Toco Hills format in itself, there's a major problem when it becomes the dominant 'species' in our growth across the metro, enforced by zoning laws that ban other options.

The scale of this is specifically designed for personal cars -- which makes it infeasible to serve well with transit routes, and bikeable/walkable only for the most brave.

Many people speak of Atlanta's metro sprawl as being a neutral entity that harms no one, even praising it for providing lower home prices.

But the result is not neutral. It's harmful. This is a level of car dependency that punishes people who need transit, and punishes kids who are unable to have the independence of walking or biking to a store safely, and punishes the native ecosystems of the Georgia Piedmont.

We don't need to build Downtown Atlanta everywhere. But we do need to stop sprawling and start retrofitting at least a gentle amount of density -- one that facilitates alternatives to driving -- into our car-dependent spaces. And focus on affordability of housing within that change.

Atlanta was called the "king of sprawl" in a NYTimes piece several years ago. It's a problem that weighs more heavily on us than it does on other U.S. areas, and it deserves special attention.

[atlantathecity]

Bricks and leaves at the intersection of Fairlie and Poplar Streets in Downtown Atlanta. In this view: a mix of residential units, retail, offices. Plus street trees, plus windows and doors on the sidewalk. We've already got some good DNA for walkable density in Atlanta.  [I'll add: It's not perfect. Apart from the skinny sidewalk there are also ADA issues with the buildings. And if I panned a bit to the left you'd see a gross parking deck. I don't claim that we should replicate this exact format 100%, but in a general way it's some good inspiration.]

[alwayschasingrainbows]

The signals between childhood sweethearts in L. M. Montgomery's novels (plus a little bonus!):

"There was no telephone at the Gordon place and she and Jingle had agreed that when she wanted him specially she was to set a light in the garret window."

Pat of Silver Bush by L. M. Montgomery

"We've been...friends...ever since we were kids. Why, I used to put a light up in that little window in the attic whenever I wanted him over particularly and he'd sail across at once."

Anne of Windy Poplars by L. M. Montgomery

"Emily always knew when Teddy was coming, for when he reached the old orchard he whistled his “call”—the one he used just for her—a funny, dear little call, like three clear bird notes, the first just medium pitch, the second higher, the third dropping away into lowness and sweetness long-drawn-out—like the echoes in the Bugle Song that went clearer and further in their dying.

That call always had an odd effect on Emily; it seemed to her that it fairly drew the heart out of her body—and she had to follow it. She thought Teddy could have whistled her clear across the world with those three magic notes. "

Emily of New Moon by L. M. Montgomery

A bonus:

"She was not always a Princess, and he was not always a Pauper,—and that's where the story came in, I suppose," sighed the man. "She was just a girl, once, and he was a boy; and they played together and—liked each other. The girl used to signal, sometimes, from one of the tower windows. One wave of the handkerchief meant, 'I'm coming, over'; two waves, with a little pause between, meant, 'You are to come over here.' So the boy used to wait always, after that first wave to see if another followed; so that he might know whether he were to be host or guest that day."

Just David by E. H. Porter

[pizza-feverdream]

I had a dream last night that someone turned my story into a live action disney adaptation, and while the irl versions of my characters were fairly accurate (and trippy to see since they are exclusively Drawn Beings) they made my favorite CHARACTER A BACKGROUND CHARACTER AND RUINED THE PLOT AND EVERYTHING ELSE THE SAME WAY ALL THE OTHER LESS-POPLAR DISNEY REMAKES DID and everyone's ringers were one and the keyboard clicks of their phones were audible

[wgbh]

2 Call 2 Midwives (season 13 edition) - episode recap here at the link!

No context spoilers:

[kittypets-unite-au]

Worldbuilding Tidbits: ThunderClan Territory

General description: ThunderClan calls the thick, rich forest in the southeast. Trees include alders, oaks, beechs, birchs, aspens, cedars, elms, maples, and sycamores. Undergrowth includes holly bushes, honeysuckles, laurels, dogwood, witch hazel, hemlocks, ferns, bracken, lilacs, dandelions, daffodils, wintergreens, boxwoods, peonies, thorns, vines, moss, poppies, and brambles. The canopy is fairly thick, but not so much that sunlight is blocked out, and streams that branch out from the river help moisturize the plants. Towards the thunderpath that cuts between ThunderClan and ShadowClan, the land becomes rocky and steep, as the road inclines from a mountain.

Camp: A shallow, sandy ravine that’s shaded by a thick canopy. The dens are made of cave in the camp walls, burrows, and bushes intertwined with brambles and vines

Common prey: Mice, voles, shrews, blackbirds, starlings, magpies, sparrows, robins, cardinals, bluejays, grackles, grouse, pheasants, doves, pigeons, woodpeckers

Rare prey: Turkeys, falcons, hawks, eagles, ducks, rabbits, moorhens, eggs

Common threats: Coyotes, falling branches, foxes (they usually only target lone apprentices or kits, but they become a lot more aggressive and desperate in the winter), badgers (usually only if you're stupid enough to bother them, but they also like to go after lone or inexperienced apprentices), adders at snakerocks, wild dogs

Landmarks:

The Owl Tree is a tall poplar with a hollow in the middle of the trunk. Generations of owls have lived there as it’s close to mouse nests, and warriors usually follow the current tenant to find easy prey.

The Sandy Hollow is a hollow in the land that’s filled with soft, sandy dirt. It’s used as a place for apprentices to practice battle moves since the dirt is soft enough to not hurt upon impacting it

The Tunnel is a tunnel below the thunderpath that ShadowClan uses to get to and from gatherings. ThunderClan doesn’t mind this as long as they just use the tunnel for that purpose, but there is some hostility over the herb that grows there, Milkweed. Since it’s rare to find and is very beneficial for nursing queens, there’s been quite a few border scraps over who gets the herbs

The Shaded Brook is a narrow stream that branches off from the river. It gains its name due to the amount of overhanging, ferns, bracken, and mullien growing here. Cats come to get a drink of water and druids come here to gather herbs.

Sunningrocks is a contested piece of territory between ThunderClan and RiverClan that’s placed right by the river on the edge of ThunderClan territory. It’s not only a good place to sun, but it’s a good place for mice and water voles to nest between the rocks, making it a good hunting spot. However, the main reason it’s so fought over is because of land rights.The patch of land that Sunningrocks rests on used to belong to RiverClan when it was an island, but slowly the river grew smaller, leaving the rocks on ThunderClan’s territory. And they’ve bickered and battled over it since

Adjacent to Sunningrocks are wide expanses of meadows. They don't have an official name, but they're a popular date spot due to the sheer amount of colorful wildflowers and the clear view of the sky

The Alder Grove a patch of the forest filled with, you guessed it, alders. The thick canopy provides plentiful shade and the leaf litter is very soft. Friend groups like to hang around here and it's not uncommon to see cats wrestling in the thick leaf carpet

Tallpines is the only place in the forest where pine trees are plentiful. Every three summers the tree-eaters cut down the trees and take them to the treecutplace, but between those periods, it’s a good spot for prey.

The Treecutplace is where the pines from Tallpines are brought to be cut up for twoleg use. It’s usually avoided due to being so close to twoleg areas

The Twolegplace is a small yet bustling town. Warriors rarely go anywhere near the border, let alone in the town. The town borders the forests with a tall fence.

Snakerocks is a pile of rocks that is much like sunningrocks, but the stones are much steeper and bigger. Many herbs like Dill, Goldenseal, Peppermint, and Echinacea grow here, but the rocks are also swarmed with adders. It’s best to keep younger apprentices from here, as they don’t know the danger yet.

The Great Sycamore is the tallest, oldest tree in the territory, and is used by apprentices to see if someone is chicken by daring the newest apprentices to climb to the very top of the branches.

The Abandoned Cabin is an old, run down log cabin that has been overgrown with moss, vines, and other plants, including a birch growing right in the center. It’s considered a sacred place by the ThunderClan druids as it’s a good place to grow herbs

The Thunderpath is a long, busy road that separates ThunderClan territory from ShadowClan. It’s considered very dangerous since it’s usually very busy, so most cats avoid it