#Top Of A Cliff versus Bottom Of A Cliff

[postmakerkiwi]

🌕 Starlit Fracture Hills - Molten Moat 🐖

The temple sitting in the midst of a field of lava is meant to protect it from any potential intruders, but all it's done is given the Earthshapers a safe zone where nobody can reach them without being caught between pickaxes and rumbling, hissing lava.

photo by CatbatQuartet

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Ryan Burge

Published: Oct 26, 2023

The nones are rising.

If there’s anything that I’m probably known for - it’s that simple statement. There are more non-religious people in the United States today than at any point in the history of the country. The best estimates put the share of folks who are non-religious right about 30% of the American population.

You can’t get to that share of the population without touching every single demographic group in a country. This can’t just be a phenomenon that impacts younger people, or white people. You name a niche demographic in the United States, there’s a very good chance that they are less religious today than that same demographic group fifteen years ago.

Obviously one of the biggest predictors of this phenomenon is age. Younger adults are way more likely to be non-religious compared to older Americans. The graph below makes that clear.

Among the Silent Generation (those born between 1925 and 1945), just over half are Protestant and nearly a quarter are Catholic. At the same time the share who are non-religious (atheist, agnostic, nothing in particular) is just 19%. Seventy-four percent are Christians and 19% are nones. Pretty big spread between those two groups.

But here’s that same spread - Protestant/Catholic vs Non-Religious by Generation:

• Boomers: 67% versus 27%. +40 points • Gen X: 56% versus 39%. +17 points • Millennials: 45% versus 48%. -3 points • Gen Z: 38% versus 51%. -13 points

Generation Z is the first generation in American history where it appears clear that the share who are non-religious outnumbers the Protestants and the Catholics.

A very crucial part of this conversation needs to be laid out, however. This is not happening at equal rates among generations if you break it down by racial groups. The religious composition of white Americans looks much different than the patterns exhibited by Hispanics or Asians. The graph below makes that really clear.

The white graph at the top is just such a consistent stair-step down for each successive generation. Each younger generation is significantly less likely to be Protestant. A typical decline is six or seven percentage points from one generation to the next. For Catholicism, the drop is still there but it’s way more modest, just 2-3 points per generation.

At the same time, the nones are just exploding. Nineteen percent among the Silents, begets 27% among Boomers, 39% among Gen X, 49% among Millennials, and then 52% among Generation Z. 19% to 52% - that’s the rise of the nones among white Americans by generation.

That same stair-step down is also clear among Black respondents, too. The share of Protestants among Silent Generation African-Americans is the highest of any category in this graph - 70%. There are still a lot of Protestants among Black Boomers, too - 67%. But then, it just falls off a cliff. Fifty-two percent among Gen X, 40% among Millennials and just 27% among Gen Z African-Americans. A forty-three point drop from the top to the bottom.

At the same time, the nones are rising. It’s about a quarter of older Black respondents, but leaps to nearly forty percent of Black members of Generation X. That seems to be the biggest leap for African-Americans, by the way, between Boomers and Gen X. Something shifted there, big time. Now, 52% of the youngest Black adult Americans are nones. Basically the same share as white Gen Z.

For Hispanics, it’s not Protestants who take the biggest hits - it’s Catholics. I think this is fascinating. Among Hispanic Boomers, 21% are Protestant. It’s the same share among Gen X. It does drop slightly to 15% among Millennials and Gen Z. But that six point slide is minute compared to the forty point drop between Black Boomers and Gen Z. That same number for whites is 22 points. Hispanic Protestantism is just not declining that fast.

The Catholics, though, are a much bigger story. Nearly three quarters of the oldest Hispanics in the United States are Catholic (72%). However, there’s a huge decline between the Silent Generation and Boomers - down nineteen percentage points. Then, the declines slow down some. It’s a six point drop for Gen X, a five point drop for Millennials, and then a huge dip - 11 points for Gen Z. The total decline in Hispanic Catholic share is 41 points from the top to the bottom.

The nones are the big gainers among Hispanics, clearly. Just 23% of Boomer Hispanics are non-religious. It’s 30% among Gen X and 40% among Millennials. Nearly half of Gen Z Hispanics are non-religious. Not that much different than white or Black young adults.

The pattern for Asians is just completely different, no other way to describe it. The share of Asians who are Protestant or Catholic by generation doesn’t really deviate that much. I think it’s very fair to say that younger Asian Americans are just as likely to be Catholic or Protestant compared to their older counterparts. That’s the only racial group where that’s the case.

In fact, there are just not these huge generational differences between older Asians and younger ones when it comes to religion. About the same share are from the “other world religions” category, regardless of generation. When it comes to the share who are nones, I can’t definitively say that the youngest Asians are more likely to be atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular compared to older Asians. That really stands out in comparison to every other racial group in the sample.

[ Continued... ]

Unfortunately, the rest of the article is behind a paywall, and a cached/archived version doesn't seem to be available at the usual locations.

[schraubd]

Build Back Better Colleges

In the wake of last week's anti-affirmative action decision, Larry Summers wrote an editorial urging that elite colleges respond by becoming less exclusive. Grow. Admit more students. Add more programs. Invest in education.

I could not agree more. And it's something we need to do on all fronts. Yes, the Ivy Leagues should get bigger. But the great public universities in our country should also be expanded on. The University of California system is one of the great engines of economic mobility and advancement in large part because it is huge. But there has not been a new UC campus created in almost twenty years, and UC-Merced is by far the smallest undergraduate campus in the entire system. You have to go back another forty years for the most recently established UC campuses which are of a size comparable to the system average (both UC-Santa Cruz and UC-Irvine were established in 1965). Why not create a new UC in Sacramento, or in the Bakersfield or Modesto? Or hell, put one up in Redding? 

Higher education is in a weird moment where there is simultaneously an approaching demographic cliff that will obliterate demand at the bottom end of the scale even as student demand for the top schools surges to unprecedented heights. I don't have answer to the former problem. But the only way to respond to the latter is to increase capacity in "elite" institutions, and that in turn will take a massive investment in education to absorb the tidal wave of demand. 

It's not enough for colleges to exist -- we probably have enough dorm room beds already in the United States. They have to be great colleges -- colleges that are well-supported and well-endowed and well-resourced so that the students who attend can afford to go and know that they're getting an excellent education from top-level professors. Certainly, the far longer-standing crisis in graduate education means we don't lack for supply in the last category. But we also know there's a huge difference between setting up a new fly-by-night program that exists just to exist, versus actually investing in new educational opportunities. UC-Irvine Law School immediately stormed to a top-50 ranking from nothing when it was founded in 2006 because, unlike most other newly-established law schools, it boasted a level of public and private investment that showed it was serious about being a serious institution.

The problem we're experiencing is not actually one of bad minority students taking away the rightful spoils of White and/or Asian students. The problem is one of meritocracy and equalization paired with scarcity: an explosion in students applying for (and being qualified for) "elite" positions with no increase in the number of elite positions available.

Equality means that more and more people have at least nominal potential access to elite institutions, which means that it's harder for any one individual person to access these institutions, which results in a terrifying and never-ending arms race to become (and stay as) one of the elect few, which generates new inequalities in terms of who has access to the resources that allow them to win the arms race and who doesn't.

In a very basic way, it is true that "equality" is the problem here. In the old days, if you were an elite, you could be pretty confident your kids would stay elite so long as they were basically competent: with relatively few people who could or were allowed to compete for prestigious social positions, being "okay" generally was good enough. 

Once the doors are flung open, though, you're competing against everyone, and now it's off to the races. Today, we don't want to say that "only the children of elite university attendees should attend elite universities"; we want to say that every child should have an equal chance to join the Talented Tenth. But saying that means that, if you're in the top 10% right now, you're committing to the notion that your kid should only have a 10% chance of staying in your social strata, and that's a very unpleasant thought that only grows worse as the gap between the top 10% and everyone else increases. But unless your solution is "we should go back to reserving elite roles for the current incumbents", this is necessary feature of an egalitarian social sphere combined with extremely limited "elite" social roles. So if we're not going to accept going back to overt exclusion, we need to tackle the omnipresence and power of scarce "elite" roles. The only actual way to ease the sting of redistributing the pie is growing the pie. The actual, actual villain here is terrifying inequality -- the massive and growing gap between the power, influence, autonomy, and life chances of the elites versus everyone else, which makes so that not getting into Harvard feels like a death knell.

The only way to ease the sting of redistributing the pie is growing the pie. If you're panicking at the seemingly impossible task of seeing yourself or your child admitted to an elite institution, ending affirmative action will not help you. Nor, if we're being honest, will ending legacy admissions. The only thing that will make a difference is a true commitment to investing in education to such a degree that there is space for each of our outstanding youth to receive an outstanding university experience. There's no shortcut, no scapegoat that can substitute for that.

We are blessed as a nation right now to have surfeit of incredibly talented, hard-working, diligent young people who are eminently qualified to attend a great university and deserve to have that chance. The only thing standing in the way is our own willingness to pay for it.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/TOEo6B0

[raindownforme]

“I love you” in Comic Sans

Charlie Slimecicle x reader [they/them used] (CW: slightly sexist undertones)

“CHARLIE.” Their voice echoed through the trees as they ran. y/n hurriedly weaved through the thick woods towards where they hoped their friend would be. “CHARLIE. CHARLIE I NEED HELP.”

“Jesus Christ with what?” Hearing Charlie’s voice in the distance washed a wave of relief over them as they neared a familiar cliff face. y/n made their way though the secret entrance all the way to the top where the small dug-in home was. Charlie was standing near the wall of glass overlooking the woods.

“Charlie, I have a problem.”

“Oh shit okay.”

y/n stared at him for a moment, not sure how to address the issue without being incredibly blunt. “I need a husband.”

“I- wh- uh- what?” He sputtered as if he was wrapping himself around the subject. He didn’t quite look at them.

“Schlatt trapped me in a contract months ago and he literally phrased my only way out as my permanent death or being in ‘control’ of some other man. Which he also stated meant a husband.”

“Right. And you need to be married to get away from Schlatt?”

“I knew you’d get it!”

Charlie watched as y/n went to rummage through their assorted clothes and armor pieces. “y/n, where are you gonna get someone who would do that; Who would marry you that quickly and also do it just to defy Schlatt?”

Their voice was slightly muffled as they continued searching for something. “What, are you saying I’m not marriage material?”

Charlie felt his cheeks grow warm as he stammered again. “NO! I mean you are, it’s just Schlatt, but you’re still mariable! Marriage-able? You’re worth it!” The words seemed to put from him like a waterfall, but y/n payed no mind.

“Here! I found it.” y/n pulled out a long flowey cape from deep within a chest. Whatever material it was drifted and flowed as if a breeze was carrying it, and the soft blues and greens danced in sunlight. “It’s a marriage cape! Some old traditional thing my parents did, but you wear it over armor or something. Suppose I can’t get married without this. Even if it’s fake married.”

Charlie watched as they swung it over their shoulders. It was the perfect length, landing just slightly above the ground. They swirled the cloak around their feet, laughing at the way it felt, and Charlie stared: entranced by what he was seeing. y/n looked so happy as they danced in the sunlight, Charlie almost thought he’d never seen anything as beautiful, if he hadn’t already seen them every day before this one.

y/n placed a hand on his shoulder and lightly shook him. “Charlie, are you listening?”

“YEah. Yeah no i am.”

“Right. So I need your help finding someone that could marry me. I suppose I could ask Cooper or Joko...”

Charlie felt a hot anger bubble deep inside him. “No! Not them.” He felt himself blush again. Was he jealous? No. He couldn’t be. Right?

“Okay, maybe someone with more power then? I mean Sparklez is royalty to him. Also I feel like Techno has some sort of stature here-”

“No! Not them either.”

“Well why not then?”

Charlie sat silent for a minute, unsure of what to say. “Me. Marry me.”

y/n began blushing and stared at the ground as they fussed with the edges of their cloak. “Why? That’s a lot of risk for you with Schlatt. I know you guys are friends.”

“But we’re more of friends. Yeah me and Schlatt have known each other for a while, but it’s you.”

“It’s me?” y/n felt an awkward smile creep onto their face. “And what does that mean?”

Charlie froze for a minute as the two stared at each other. He could see how much their face had flushed, but he wasn’t sure if it was the sunlight or something else. “I’m, more, friends with you than I will ever be with Schlatt. And that’s because you’re different. I feel different about you.”

They stared at each other, until y/n started laughing. “God this must be the most awkward we’ve ever been!”

Charlie smiled a chuckled a bit. “Yeah. I mean if we get married, I can always tell you-“ Charlie rushed over to the kitchen table, then came back holding a basket of fruit. “How I love you berry much.”

y/n kept laughing. “Oh god I don’t know if I can’t stand our fake marriage.”

Charlie’s smile grew wider. “y/n, I’d love to call you my significant otter!” y/n doubled over, holding their stomach as they laughed, and Charlie kept going, laughing his way through his own jokes. “This might sound cheesy, but you’d make a really grate partner!”

“Charlie-!”

“No no no one more. Come here.” They both lowered to the floor, sitting close to each other as Charlie took y/n’s hand in his. “We’ll make a nice pear. Meow and for ever.”

y/n erupted into laughter, leaning slightly on Charlie. They both kept laughing for a while, laughing even harder every time they made eye contact. They stayed laying on the floor for what felt like hours.

y/n turned their head to look at Charlie. “Hey, do you think you’ll be okay?”

He turned back to look at them, confusion riddled all over his face. “Why?”

“Because it’s Schlatt.” y/n turned to look back up at the ceiling. “It’s a big risk for you. I’m not going to ask you to put yourself on the line like that.”

“It’ll be okay. I mean yeah he’s scary but in the end it’s just him versus me and you. We’ll be okay.”

“Okay. But you better not tell me you regret this tomorrow.”

Charlie chuckled and looked back at the ceiling too. “There’s no way I’ll regret this.”

———

“I REGRET THIS.”

Charlie and y/n sprinted out of Schlatt’s office to the elevators. Just moments earlier, they had stood in front of Schlatt, hands laced together, telling him they were to be married.

“And why is this? Do you hate me that much y/n?” Schlatt’s voice had felt laced with venom.

“I love Charlie.” y/n squeezed his hand tighter and Charlie swallowed whatever fear he had been struggling to hide. “This has nothing to do with you, but with legality in mind I had to tell you.”

“Well then,” Schlatt stood from his seat and gestured to Connor, who was only a few feet away from him, to do the same. “I can’t say you didn’t follow my rules. But until I see a certificate you’re still mine.”

“Schlatt,” Charlie took a step back, trying to pull y/n with him. “What are you doing?”

“Connor.” He turned towards his lap dog, who pulled a bright blue diamond sword from the hilt on his left hip. “Get the guy. But y/n is mine.”

And now, y/n and Charlie were stuck in the ever slow elevator and they knew Connor was racing down the stairs to kill Charlie.

y/n looked at him, eyes wide with fear. “Charlie I’m so sorry. I should never have gotten you into this I am so, so sorry.”

“It’ll be okay. We’ll be okay it’s a little messy right now but we’ll be okay.” Charlie stared at the doors, dreading the moment they opened. They were only two floors from the bottom. “You have any weapons?”

“No. They took my axe at the check in. You?”

“I have one enderpearl and some buttons.”

“Why do you always have buttons.”

“Pun material.”

They sighed, a slight smile betraying any annoyance they tried to give off. “Okay. Then when we get out you enderpearl out of here and maybe I’ll see you later.”

y/n’s grip loosened, but Charlie grabbed on tighter, now staring at them, with the pearl in his other hand. “I’m not leaving you. Maybe the pearl can take the both of us.”

The elevator dinged and y/n took a deep breath. “Whatever happens, happens.”

As the doors opened, Charlie felt time slow. Connor was a few feet away racing towards the two of them. Charlie and y/n, still holding hands, raced towards the front doors. Charlie launched the enderpearl through the open front doors, and he felt himself launch with it.

Charlie blinked for a second, then seemed to wake up in a shallow lake with his clothes entirely soaked. He rummaged around for a second in the mud, looking for his glasses, but someone tapped him on the shoulder instead.

“I found them.” He could see a blurry y/n holding his glasses, and he had never been more relieved to see anyone than in that moment.

“Are you okay? You’re not hurt right?”

“I mean, might be a little bruised, and I think I broke my wrist. But other wise good.” y/n looked down at him, smiling. “I’m glad we’re okay. Now come on, Schlatt’s gonna hunt us down until we get that certificate.”

Charlie gladly took their good hand in his and stood up. “How do we even get one?”

“Well I guess we need an officiant or or something. You think Traves would do it?”

“I think Ted is closer. He’s just east of here right?”

“Sure. But where’s east?”

“Uhhhh, opposite of the sun?”

“Oh. Right.”

The two trudged on, making it to Ted’s house hours after the sun had set. As they approached the door of the dark abode, Charlie felt himself looking over his shoulder more and more. y/n noticed, and paused before knocking on the door.

“Charlie, Ted wouldn’t betray you. It’s Ted.”

“Even then he can’t make us married right now. We’d have to stay a night here and then get married.”

“Why?”

“Because you need the cape. You said you can’t do the fake wedding without the cape.”

y/n stared at him, wonder washing over them. They didn’t seem to realize Charlie would care about something as minuscule as that.

In their state of bewilderment, Charlie had gone to knock roughly on Ted’s door. The odd couple heard a few muffled noises from inside; mostly someone falling and a groaning sound, and the clattering of some sort of metal.

“What????” The door swung open and y/n staggered backwards, but Charlie caught them with an arm around the waist. Ted squinted at the two of them. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, his hair stood straight up, and his shirt was both backwards and inside out. “Oh. Charles.”

“Yeah. Hey, Ted.”

Ted waved lazily, then looked over at y/n. He seemed to think for a moment, then turned back to Charlie and gestured towards them. “Who’s this?”

“Oh. Right. Uh well this is y/n-“

“We’ve met before Ted.” y/n waved at him and he turned to squint at them again. “It was like a month or two ago. I was one of Schlatt’s lackeys.”

“Oh. Wait then why are you here?”

“Well,” Charlie interjected. “We’re getting married.”

Ted didn’t react. He blinked a few times, staring at Charlie, then shut his door.

Charlie sighed and pounded on the door. “Ted, come on man we need help. Ted-“

The door flew opened and Ted stood with a smile on his face, his shirt the right way, and his round glasses resting on his nose. “You’re getting married??”

“Yeah, we are, and I can explain in the morning but right now we need somewhere away from Schlatt-“

“Get in here Charles!” Ted pulled Charlie into a hug and led him through the door. He looked back at y/n and furrowed his brow. “Hey your hand okay? It’s kinda purple.”

“Oh.” They looked down at the limp joint. “Just broken I think. Do you have anything I could wrap it with?”

“Yeah of course. I should have a potion or something that could help, too.” Ted led y/n over to a set of chests near a brew stand and began looking through the lot of things. He pulled out a red potion and some off-white bandages. “Here. Drink this and it should be better by the morning. And these will hold it in place just to make sure.”

Charlie took the bandages from Ted as y/n downed the drink. Charlie began to gently wrap y/n’s wrist, holding it as if it were glass and he could damage it more than it already was. y/n smiled at him, then looked back up to Ted.

“Thank you. For all of this.”

“Of course, Charles is one of my best friends.” He looked towards Charlie, then back towards y/n. “Why’d you guys come to me anyways?”

“Well, we need an officiator, and Charlie thought of you. I mean, if you wouldn’t mind that is.”

Ted’s eyes seemed to sparkle at the idea. “Oh my god! Of course!” He picked up Charlie from behind and flung him around like a rag doll in a hug. “Oh my god I’m so excited! Who are we inviting? When? Can I wear the milk suit? Do you have a suit charlie? Oh my god we’ll get you a suit. And what about y/n? A suit? A dress?”

y/n laughed. “There’s a cape back at my house that I was gonna wear.”

Ted frowned. “How are you going to get it then?”

“I’ll work it out.” Charlie was almost too quiet but y/n still heard him. They turned to him and smiled so wide their cheeks hurt.

“And how’s that Charlie?”

“Oh I’ll just push around a few buttons.” He pulled the buttons out of his pocket from earlier and y/n erupted into laughter. Charlie blushed a bit at the reaction, but fell into laughter too. Ted stared at the pair, a thought working through his mind.

“Alright you two. Time for bed.”

“Oh come on no need to sound like my dad.”

“y/n, it’s four in the morning. Come on you’re getting married tomorrow. You guys can take the living room.” Ted led the two of them to a set of gray couches that faced each other. He grabbed a few blankets from some shelves nearby and handed it to the two of them. “Sorry it’s all I’ve got.”

y/n shrugged and went to sit on one of the couches. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you both in the morning?” The boys nodded and Ted went back to his room. Charlie turned off the light and went to lay on the other couch, covering himself with a fluffy blue blanket.

“I’m kind of excited for this. Who do you think we should invite?”

“Oh everyone.” y/n stretched as they yawned. “Anyone and everyone. Especially my bestie Traves.”

“Hey! I thought I was your bestie!”

“Eh.”

“I’m literally marrying you.”

y/n laughed. “Charlie of course you’re my bestie. I’ll let Traves have second place.”

“And what about me?” Ted’s booming voice echoed through the house and the other two laughed.

“Don’t worry Ted you’re MY bestie.”

“Shut the fuck up Charles.”

y/n turned to look towards the ceiling, but Charlie still stared at them. “Goodnight, Charlie.”

“Goodnight y/n.”

———

y/n sat straight up on the couch. Sunlight danced around every inch of the room, but when they looked to the left of them, Charlie wasn’t there.

“Charlie?” They yelled out into the unfamiliar house. They threw the blanket - that they only remember Charlie falling asleep with - off onto the floor and stood up. “Charlie where are you?”

They ran towards a doorway and ran straight into someone wearing stark white. They backed up, trying to be anything but dizzy, just to see it was Ted.

“Hey look who’s up!”

“Where’s Charlie?”

“He went on an errand, said he’d be right back.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Maybe half an hour?”

y/n paused for a moment, eyes wide, then turned and tried to run to the door, but Ted grabbed their arm and pulled them back in. y/n wrestled against his grasp. “Let me go Ted! Schlatt’s looking for him he’s gonna kill Charlie!”

“He went by nether, Schlatt can’t catch him there. He will be back momentarily. And before he gets back you should eat something before you pass out!”

They knew Ted was right. They relaxed in Ted’s grip and followed him to the kitchen. Ted gestured to a wide array of boxes. “I have every single cereal. Please take some.”

y/n had been fully engaged in a bowl of Frosted Flakes when they heard the door open. Mouth full, they met eyes with Ted, then dashed for the door.

“Charlie?” They choked slightly on their food as they ran, but they couldn’t help feel disappointed when it was Traves instead.

“y/n!!!” Traves ran to hug them. “Charlie came over and told me you were getting married!!! I’m so excited!!! Oh and hi Ted!” Traves let go of them a little to wave at Ted.

“Hi Traves. Come inside why don’t you.”

“Oh.” Traves looked back towards the door he had left open. “I’ll get it!”

y/n sighed as Traves released them. “Traves, when did you last see Charlie?”

“Not super long ago?”

y/n nodded and went back to their cereal. Traves looked over at Ted with confusion and Ted sighed. “We haven’t seen him for almost an hour now. I think y/n’s really worried about him. They think Schlatt’s going to try and kill him.”

“Oh. Wow.” They stood in silence for a minute, not sure of what to do. “He’s going to come back. He was so excited to marry them. It’s nice they love each other like that.”

“I thought it was leverage.” The boys stared at each other with confusion. “y/n said it was a political thing with Schlatt. That’s why he’s trying to kill Charles.”

“Oh. It makes sense they’d pick him. They’ve been in love with Charlie for forever.” Traves went to sit on one of the gray couches in the open front room.

Ted sighed and took a seat near Traves. “Thank god for that because he’s been pining over them all night and it’s going to make me vomit.”

Everyone sat in silence - save for the scraping of y/n’s spoon against the bowl - for a while. By the time there was any new noise, the sun had moved just barely farther across the room.

But that new noise was more exciting than anything else.

Of course the three of them all knew what a nether portal sounded like, so they all knew what it sounded like when someone went in and out, and when someone fell out holding something that made a loud bang. Ted and Traves ran towards the stairs leading towards Ted’s basement, as did y/n. At the bottom of those stairs, past a set of oak wood doors, lay Charlie at the foot of Ted’s nether portal. He was flat on his back, staring at the ceiling, with armor pieces around him and a cloth bag on his chest.

“Charlie!” Traves smiled wide and glanced at y/n standing behind him.

“Where’s y/n?”

“Right here!”

“Wait don’t look!” Charlie slapped a hand over his eyes and Traves forcefully turned y/n around. “It’s bad luck! I can’t see you! You can’t see me!”

“Charlie, it’s been hours.” They tried to act annoyed, but they still smiled at the boy’s antics.

“Oh! I brought your cape! And your fancy stuff. I figured you’d want to get married in that. The capes in the bag, and so’s my suit. And there’s some of your armor on the floor. Just in case.”

y/n giggled. “Any armor for you?”

“Uh. I have a sword this time! And my shield and helmet. I didn’t think much more of it was my wedding style. Oh I invited a couple more people!”

“Okay, but Charlie where are we even doing this?”

“Oh. I mean there’s a church in town.”

“The purple church?”

“Yeah! I mean we should make it kind of official. I know it’s not the prettiest but you can save that for your real wedding.”

y/n felt something in their chest drop. “Yeah. Real wedding. But are you sure there?”

“Schlatt’s gonna want authentic.”

y/n nodded, then remembered Charlie couldn’t see them. “Right. Well I guess we better get ready then.”

“Yeah! Meet me there in two hours, okay?”

“Yeah! I’ll see you then.” y/n allowed Traves to grab the cloth bag from Charlie and then steer them upstairs.

Ted sighed and Charlie took the hand off his eyes. “Charles, this is ridiculous.”

“What is?” The lanky boy picked himself up off the ground.

“This! You spend the whole day pining after them and then cut them straight off of it. And then do it all over again! The first thing y/n asked me this morning is where you were. What had happened to you. If Schlatt has gotten you. And then you go around inviting people to your wedding, gathering clothes for the two of you, and then remind them it’s all fake. That’s just mean Charlie.”

“Hey, before I offered to marry them, they were gonna marry Cooper!”

“And why didn’t they?”

Because-“ he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Because I was jealous.”

“I knew it! You’re not as much of a trickster as you think Charlie. You’re not showing them anything-“

“Well I just don’t want them to marry anyone other than me.”

“Then fucking say that Charlie!”

He sighed, taking a moment before he could say something he didn’t want to. “Ted, it will be fine. If they want to get un-married to marry someone else later, then I will deal with that.

Ted rolled his eyes. “Fine. But I’m officiating this, I should get a little say.”

“You’re already wearing the milk suit, I think you had enough say.” Charlie started walking towards the stairs. “I’m sorry I got angry. But my feelings don’t really matter right now.”

Charlie walked upstairs and went to sit in the living room. After waiting for a moment, Traves came out from a hallway, holding the cloth bag from earlier.

“Here you go.” He handed Charlie the bag. Charlie reached inside and pulled out his only suit; a navy blue three piece suit with a pear-green traditional tie.

Charlie smiled, looking at the cloth in his hands. “Thanks Traves.”

“No worries! I’ll see you later.” Traves walked down a short hallway and knocked on a dark oak door.

“Come in.” y/n’s voice came from inside the room. Traves opened the door and saw them sitting on a chair facing a full length mirror. They were wearing black slacks, black shoes, and a long-sleeved black shirt that fit them quite well. It was a stark change from their usual jeans and a colored shirt, but it looked nice to Traves. He looked a bit to the left to see the cape Charlie had brought draped over another chair.

“Hey, why don’t you have that on yet?” y/n turned to look at him with slightly red eyes and he frowned, lightly shutting the door behind himself. “y/n, what’s wrong?”

“Charlie is such a good person.” They almost choked on their own words. “He offered to marry me because he knows that I had to get away from Schlatt and he went out of his way to go to my house and get the cape that he knew I wanted to be married in and these stupid clothes that are really nice. And it is gonna hurt so much when he wants to marry someone else.”

Traves went and sat next to them, wiping gently at a tear. “Why would he want to marry anyone else?”

“Oh come on.” They gave a half hearted laugh. “Do you really think Charlie loves me the way I love him?”

“I mean you were the one to say that he went out to do all of this for you.” y/n smiled and looked down at their lap. Traves frowned and took one of their hands in his. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I am.” y/n pulled Traves into an awkward side hug from their seated position. “You’re the best Traves.”

Traves smiled into the hug, before gasping and letting go. “I need to get dressed! I can’t wear a hoodie to your wedding! I’ll be right back.” He ran towards the door, but turned back quick. “You better be wearing that by the time I’m here.”

y/n laughed as Traves ran out of the house. They stood and slowly walked over to where the cape laid. Gently, y/n picked it up and swung it over their shoulders. They ran their hand across the silver ornate clasp and down the soft flowing sides. They flipped up the the loose hood and let it rest just over their hairline. They forced a small smile and stared into the mirror. “I will be okay.”

There was a knock at the door and y/n jumped. “Hey it’s Ted.”

“Oh. What’s up?”

“Uh, me and Charles are going to make sure everything’s set up at the church, so we’ll see you down the aisle in an hour?”

“Yeah! Oh and Traves-“

“Don’t worry I saw him leave. I know he’ll be back in time to get you there.”

“Good. I need someone to walk me down that stupid aisle.”

Ted laughed. “We’ll see you soon then.” He went back down the hallway to where Charlie was standing waiting. Ted could tell he was anxious; he was tapping his foot and rolling his sword in his hand. His shield rested upright against a wall. When he heard Ted coming he looked up with a nervous smile.

“Are they good? They okay?”

“Yep. I told them we’re going and they know how to get there.”

Charlie nodded slowly, then looked back up at Ted. “And Traves? They’ll need him-“

“He’ll be back sooner than you were.”

Charlie nodded and picked up his shield. The two boys walked down the stairs and into the large portal. A familiar warbling feeling washed over them as they stepped into the hell-hole of a dimension. They continued down the path Ted had constructed until they reached the main hub of portals. There were a few odd people running around or some standing in conversation. There was a group standing by the spawn portal, who turned and walked over to Ted and Charlie.

“Hey guys!” Condifiction walked up to the two, followed by Grizzly, Jawsh, Macro, and Cooper. They each wore some sort of appropriate dress. Condi looked around at their small group. “Where’s y/n?”

“They’re back at Ted’s right now. They’re gonna meet us there with Traves in a little bit.”

“Oh cool. Small ceremony then?”

Charlie nodded. “The smaller the better.”

“I mean you did invite all of us.” Macro interjected.

“Actually, I don’t remember inviting Jawsh.”

“You didn’t invite me. I was just there.”

The group stared at Jawsh for a moment, but Ted interrupted the silence first. “We should get going. We still have somethings we need.”

“Oh maybe we can help.” Cooper started digging through his pockets. “What do you guys need?”

Ted began listing off his fingers. “A book, something to write with, and some flowers. y/n doesn’t have a bouquet.”

“Does y/n want a bouquet?”

“They didn’t say they didn’t. And with the circumstances I figure it could be safe.”

Cooper looked at Ted with confusion. “Circumstances-?”

“Later. But I think we can get some books from cooper’s store and the flowers-“

“They like the blue cornflowers. There are some behind the tree.” Cooper seemed slightly surprised to see Charlie speak. “And we’re doing this because it’s the only way she gets out of Schlatt’s custody.”

Everyone seemed to pause for a moment before Ted spoke again. “Everyone ready?”

Charlie nodded, rolling his sword in his hand again, and stepped into the portal. Everyone followed behind him.

Back at Ted’s house, y/n was pacing the hallway. “You should have been here a while ago!”

“I know! I told you I got distracted and my dogs-“

“Traves, we need to go.”

“Just a minute!” His voice was muffled coming through the door. y/n groaned and leaned against the door. The wedding was supposed to be in twenty minutes, and Traves was somehow the one still getting ready.

“I don’t even care if you have your tie on right we just need to leave!” y/n looked at the clock on the far wall and went back to knocking on the door. “Traves!”

The door swung open. “Okay!” Let’s go!”

y/n grabbed on right to Traves���s hand and the two ran towards the downstairs portal. They made it through the purple wall, through the tunnel, and all the way to the other portal. A little dizzy from the portal, they ran out of the massive tree onto the paths. They stopped, slightly out of breath, and looked around.

“y/n?”

“Yeah Traves?”

“Why isn’t there anyone around?”

He was right. The streets were completely empty. Of course all the automatic lights and water features were on and you could hear a far away spider, but there was really no one.

“I guess we keep going? Right?” y/n turned towards Traves, who was still staring out at the town. It wasn’t desolate or abandoned, it was just empty. And it didn’t make sense.

Traves didn’t respond, but the two kept walking towards the church. The sun had started to set by the time they were there, and there were hushed voices coming from the few people standing in front of the church. As they got even closer, y/n felt panic run through their blood. Through the tinted windows they could see Charlie waiting for them, but in the way were Schlatt and Connor arguing with Cooper.

“I know for a fact you weren’t invited.”

“Oh please they’ll want me here. Speak fo the devil, Y/N.” Schlatt shouted out at them. They gripped on to Traves as they approached y/n’s former employer. “Thought I’d make a customary appearance.”

“Customary?” y/n glanced over at Cooper, who gave a slight shrug.

“Yeah you know, last man that was I charge of you gets to give you away to the next.” He threw an arm over their shoulder and pulled them tight against his body. He was somewhat taller than them, and he smelled slightly of alcohol and an obnoxious cologne. y/n glanced between Traves and Cooper, waiting for anyone to do something. “Let’s get this wedding started!”

y/n watched as Cooper escorted Connor through the doors. Traves gave y/n a worried look before following them inside. They took a deep breath and closed their eyes.

“Cooper said there wasn’t any music so I’d assume it’s when ever you want.”

“Why are you here, Schlatt.”

He slid his arm into the crook of her elbow, holding it so tight they thought he was going to tear it out of the socket. “Because you’re not bullshitting me out of this contract.”

Par t 2 here!

[serararku]

Crescendo: Castrum Aeternium

Tullus sas Virilus was accompanied by an entire century to escort him safely through the wilds of Mor Dhona; all of which were carefully examined and hand picked himself to put his paranoia to rest. Failure was not an option he would entertain, and after witnessing firsthand how the Emperor found more to be desired from the last man in charge of Castrum Aeternium, he wasn't about to leave this mission to an incompetent underling; there was simply too much ceruleum on the line to let this end up in flames.

The night was fading. Beneath the cusp of the dwindling moonlight, the small stretch of trees remaining in Mor Dhona proved the ideal spot for her ambush. They all resided in the dark, separated, isolated, and at their positions, waiting for their signal to proceed with S’era’s plan. Conobharo Cobharo sat on the outskirts of the virgin forest, humming glibly in the getaway carriage with a tangled mess of wires and cables in his lap. He had just finished setting up his part of the plan, and had devoted the nerve-wracking waiting to the formation of a new ditty for his incoming Imperial guests. "Come out ye black an' reds, come out an' face me head-ta-head…" 

Sir Pherond Baldarrak stood beside his gilded chocobo to await the impending battle from the west, gazing up at the pale moonlight while he readied himself for battle. R’zevi, on the other hand, traveled remarkably light, and remained hidden along the cliffs, sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed and mind focused on the task set before him. Lastly S’era remained at the peak of the nearby plateau, keeping an eye out for the infamous black armor and glowing magitek colossi while she waited for K’thalen to arrive.

She paced back and forth, staring intensely at the treetops below for any sign of the Garlean presence. All she could think about was spilling their blood and making them suffer- every time she closed her eyes she saw S’tage’s cold sunken face. A fire in her gut kept her warm in this freezing morning, and even now, when all was quiet and peaceful, her heart pounded against her chest and she craved violence.

A twig snapping behind her was enough for S’era to spin around on her heel and draw her sword. “Who’s there?!” She blurted out, straining to recognize the silhouette approaching her; but the sudden flash of his striking yellow eyes put her mind at ease.

“Don’t cut my head off, lass. It’s yours truly.” K’thalen stepped through the underbrush and out into the pale moonlight with his magitek rifle slung over his shoulder. “We uhh… we need to talk.”

“You’re late.” Was all she responded with, at first. She turned to point at the treeline with the edge of her blade, before continuing with, “Are you going to get into position, or is this another attempt to second-guess myself? Because if it’s the latter, don’t waste your breath. We’re here now, we’re ready, and we’re minutes away from this battle commencing. Plus, you swore you would repay your debt.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “After tonight, consider us even.”

K’thalen grinded his teeth together while he stared at this stubborn broad; it felt wrong to say anything now, not while her heart bled for a ghost, not while her mind was made up. But he had to anyway. “I found out who killed S’tage and mailed him to our apartment.” Her eyes widened, but she didn’t say a word. After a long pause and awkward silence, he opened his mouth and forced it out. “It was your master, lass. Lord Isenhart.”

Slowly the tip of her sword was lowered to the ground. A rock the size of a goblin’s head sat in her stomach as she stared at K’thalen, her eyes glittering a steely blue. She opened her drying mouth to speak, but the words caught in her throat. “Lass…” he whispered, taking a step forward. “I think he did it to stop you from gettin’ yourself killed.”

“My life…” She answered weakly. “Is not his to d-decide…” S’era looked down at her trembling hands during her long pause, feeling tears beginning to swell in her eyes. Hadriel was the only one she knew who could survive a castrum by himself- the only one capable of slaughtering scores of Garleans without breaking a sweat. The burns from when he ordered her to stick her hand into the fireplace to begin her training was proof enough he was capable of great cruelty- but this went beyond what little understanding she had for that man. S’tage’s corpse, the mocking letter, all of it- she couldn’t believe it. She refused. “You’re certain…? Absolutely?”

“He said so himself.” K’thalen inhaled sharply before straightening up. “Era… this battle. This ambush… it’s a waste of time, aye? Let’s go back to the apartment… and plan our next move.”

The sadness scrawled across her face slowly shifted to anger. Her fingers curled into a fist on one hand, while sliding her uchigatana back into its sheath with the other. “You’re lying.” 

“Era…!”

“He could have stopped me at any time. He could have refused to train me. He... he could have taken my hand if he so pleased.” S’era paused long enough to blink the blinding tears away. “He would never write such a disgusting letter. No… I don’t believe you. He just doesn’t want me to get hurt.”

“We have proof.” He sighed, taking another step closer.

S’era narrowed her gaze at him. “We?”

“She’s down the hill.” K’thalen answered, his ears flattening against his head. “Let’s go see what she has to say, lass.”

“We don’t have time for this.” She turned her back to K’thalen to gaze down at the treeline again. “The platoon could be here any minute and you’re wasting your breath trying to throw me off. If you’re so terrified of dying, then go- run back to New Gridania where it’s safe. I’m here for answers, not excuses… and I don’t want some craven watching my back when the battle starts.”

“As I suspected. Like talkin’ to a wall.” K’thalen pinched the bridge of his nose and took in a deep breath. “I’m here to help you survive this, Era. But this battle… it’s a whole century versus five people. And if Tullus sas Virilus is really among them… he’ll be packin’ some heavy weaponry we don’t have the means to handle.”

“I don’t have a choice!” S’era shouted at the top of her lungs, startling K’thalen. “S’tage was murdered! His killer roams free! I will avenge his death one way or another- I swear it!”

“Come with me, then. Hear what Vyna has to say.” K’thalen sounded defeated, but the mention of her name was enough to put shock in S’era’s voice.

“Vyna… is here?”

The path they meant to cross that was scheduled to be void of patrols was instead guarded by a single Miqo’te, no taller than S’era herself. A familiar raven-colored long coat waved in the air about a black suit. She rested her hands on a rapier whose point was buried in the ground. A white mask adorned the woman’s visage, covering it completely, black streams of tears painted on it from below its empty eyes to where its lips should’ve been. White hair flowed about her as the wind blew ever gently. Two katanas appeared to hang at her back. She was a vigilant statue waiting for something, or someone.

None of this made any sense to K’vyna. To blame Hadriel for this transgression that S’era held so close to her heart? It made sense in a way if his aim was to give her pause, or stop her, but why would he pit her against his other pupil. He was always calculated and calm. There was always a motive to his actions. But if she faced S’era with the wrath she held in her bosom and proclaimed that their own master orchestrated her descent into madness, wouldn’t that put them both at risk? S’era would be out for blood and she would have no choice but to retaliate in kind. He wouldn’t pit them both against each other in a life or death battle… would he? Unless… he trusted her enough to win with all certainty. Even then, she wasn’t aware of how much S’era had improved under his tutelage. This all seemed like a rushed, hurried mistake. K’vyna’s breath trembled as she awaited the person she almost regarded a little sister. Someone she brought to his attention. This was her fault.

“Vyna…?” A familiar voice came from the bushes, following footfalls, crumbled leaves, and snapping branches. S’era came out from the darkness first, her gaze bewildered the moment they settled on her longest-running friend; it seemed like ages ago when she was scrubbing tavern floors, speaking with this once-stranger. “What are you doing here…?”

“Era…” she spoke softly at first, “You need to go back.” a confident, commanding tone came from the Miqo’te with trembling breaths just a moment ago.

“I came here to kill Garleans and get to the bottom of this…” She retorted, as K’thalen stumbled out of the bushes behind her. “Help me bring S’tage justice. Help me avenge him.”

Sand flew from the earth as K’vyna drew her rapier from the ground. Her heart weighed heavily, reluctant to sell out her master even at his own request. She knew this was wrong. Teeth audibly grounded for a moment, “There’s no point in going. Era… please. Come with me, abandon this quest you’re on.” S’era glanced over her shoulder at K’thalen, but he remained silent. She then looked down at her burned hand, blinking away another round of tears, before her gaze slowly crept back up to K’vyna.

“Is it true?” She weakly mumbled, her words catching in her throat. “Did Hadriel kill my S’tage?”

K’vyna’s heart leapt into her throat as she found herself unable to speak. She knew what she had to say but couldn’t muster the courage to lie to herself, her sister, and her master. She knew that it wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true… could it? “Era.” she changed the script ever so slightly, “I’m here to stop you. If you… if you want revenge you shouldn’t continue on this path you’re on. Era. Please… stop.”

“I can’t.” S’era forced out the words. “They deserve to die for what they did to him and everyone else they enslaved. This is justice.” Slowly she turned to peer over at the valley below. “If you plan on stopping me… then do it. But I’ll defend myself…”

K’thalen made just enough noise with his boots for S’era’s ears to turn to his direction. “Era, this isn’t-” 

“Stay out of this, Thal. Go back to your position and wait for the signal.” S’era didn’t have the time nor the desire to try and convince two people at the same time. K'thalen lowered his ears before returning to the shadows. S'era would never admit it, but she was tired. Tired of being angry. Angry at being so tired. She just wanted this nightmare to end, to wake up and find herself still preparing to save her promised Nunh from the castrum. With everything that’s transpired over the past week, she swore this was all just an elaborate prank. A joke in incredibly poor taste. But it wasn’t.

K’vyna huffed inaudibly, “I want to save your life…” She steeled her resolve. “I will stop you.” she pointed her blade at Era. “Prepare yourself.” she offered as an unnecessary warning, giving her fellow pupil the upper hand.

S’era’s gaze flashed wide when she stumbled back and placed her hand on her hilt, drawing her uchigatana just in time to stop K’vyna from crippling her at the knee. The shock of her oldest friend attacking her wore off in between her violent heartbeats, and she had enough time to compose herself for this scuffle. Darting forward, she lunged at the white-haired Miqo’te, blade drawn and ready to spill blood. 

“An opening!” K’vyna thought to herself. Her blade was on its way to punish S’era for such a rash move but she found herself hesitating- she withdrew, backstepping and going on the defensive. S’era, on the other hand, kept on her reckless offensive, slashing low to the ground in an effort to get her off balance; if she could get Vyna to fall, she could puncture her leg, leaving her down for the count so she could focus on her mission.

A single step came after each swing, a jump for another, and a sidestep for the last. K’vyna skillfully dodged each sloppy strike yet held no killing intent yet she still held no intention to lose. She would believe in her master and that his faith in her was well-founded. “Verfire.” she whispered, aiming to incinerate Era’s blade. The bright orange flash of fire burst before S’era, but she was ready. Frost formed on the edge of her blade when she turned it sideways and slashed upward, vanishing when the flames turned the ice into a cloud of steam; K’vyna jumped up into the air to avoid getting caught in the creeping haze, far and away from potential harm. “When did you learn how to do that?!” She shouted from atop a tree branch. “Hadriel hasn’t taught you anything of the sort!”

“Hadriel isn’t my only mentor!” S’era shouted back, her glowing pale blue eyes revealing herself in the cloud long before it disappeared. She held her uchigatana aloft and pointed it at K’vyna, but didn’t move to rush forward. “Stay out of my way, you hear?! Or I’ll stop aiming for your legs!”

“If I can just disarm her…” K’vyna thought, weighing her options; the longer this scrap lasted, the higher the chances of someone getting hurt became. She was here to distract S’era long enough for Hadriel to show up- yet he was still nowhere to be found. “It doesn’t have to be like this you know!” She decidedly huffed, sliding her rapier back into its sheath. “Think of what you’re doing! If even one Garlean manages to escape your ambush, all of the Revenant’s Toll will be in danger! There are children there!”

The woman slowly lowered her uchigatana until the tip of the blade tapped along the ground. She blinked away a few more tears, and reluctantly, her grimace softened into a disapproving frown. “I’m just…” Her voice was almost too low for K’vyna to hear her properly. “I’m just so tired… tired of training. Tired of waiting. I dreamt of the day I would be in his arms so often… there was nothing else… nothing else I wanted more.” Her head lowered until her straw hat concealed her eyes. “I just… I need to know who did this. I need to know who killed S’tage Tia.”

“He might have once been a proud Nunh in your tribe but he has no one else to blame but himself. He got captured. He got killed. Now consider whose lives you are risking for someone who is nothing but at fault in all this…”

S’era didn’t move an ilm, nor did she say a word. She stood there as if frozen in time, staring off at nothing. She hated the Garleans and everything they represented now more than ever. She wanted them to suffer for what they’ve done to S’tage, and everyone else they’ve tortured, enslaved, or slain- but K’vyna was right. Innocent people resided in the Revenant’s Toll: unarmed civilians, families, and children. Despite being so close to three separate castrums they would be overwhelmed if any of them retaliated for what she planned to do. But letting them get away with this injustice? Letting Castrum Aeternium get off scot-free? It didn’t sit right with her- and she would carry the burden of mercy and restraint for the rest of her days.

“Alright.” Her voice trembled on each syllable. Slowly she raised her head to meet K’vyna’s gaze. “But you’re going to help me find who did this. Who really did this.”

“S’era…” she rasped out. She was smarter than she gave her credit for, but at the same time, perplexingly foolish. She was prudent enough to gauge the situation properly, but dumb enough to want to go on a suicide mission on a wish and a prayer. Her feelings drove her, which made her dangerous. “I’ll help you…” K’vyna admitted, not wanting to continue implicating her master wrongfully even if that was the order given to her. “We’ll do this together… okay? I promise… just… come back with me.” she laid down the rapier. 

Tullus had just reached the edge of the woods. He sent his scouts in first before the full caravan ventured in shortly after, keeping his heavy magitek colossi right where he wanted them; close at hand and covering his flanks. There was something off about how the forest around him seemed to be as silent as a crypt. He didn’t like it, truth be told, but he felt confident anyone foolish enough to attack him when he was this vulnerable would pay with their lives long before they got close. “What is taking you so long?” He barked into his wrist-mounted radio, while keeping his eyes fixed on the surrounding darkness. “Do I have to do everything myself?!”

“The path is clear, sir.” The voice cracking over his receiver put his mind at ease. “No sign of the savages.”

“Good. Good.” He raised his hand and motioned the platoon forward. “To Castrum Centri! On the double!”

“Oh no…” The sound of splintering wood carried far enough for S’era to hear. She rushed to the edge of the steep incline to peer down into her ambush spot; she couldn’t see the Garleans from here, but she could see the trees in the distance shifting and toppling, as well as the foreboding cerulean lights glittering on the armor of a pair of magitek colossi. She reached up and activated her linkpearl. “Cobo?! Are you there? Can you read me?!”

The plucky plainsfolk's voice rasped desperately through thick static, and not a word was understood. Scrambling communications was a common tactic Garlemald employed… but why would they be using it now? K’thalen clutched his rifle and used his scope to get a better look; S’era couldn’t see what he was looking at, but watching his ears slowly flatten against his head was all she needed to know. “Cobo!” She tried again, “Turn them off! Disable the charg- ah!”

THOOOOOOOUUUUUUMMMM… 

All three Miqo’te saw the flash before they heard it. A brilliant blotch of red and white light peppered the forest, followed by trees swaying against the shockwaves rolling across the woods. They clapped their hands over their ears and closed their eyes once the sound of rolling thunder and the scorched wind swept over them. When S’era stood back up and opened her eyes, she was greeted to a swath of flames and a growing column of smoke; the explosives she bartered from the goblins of Idyllshire had under-promised and over-delivered, sending globules of ignited napalm to scatter in every direction. Another round of explosions rocked the once peaceful woods, but this time the flames burned an eerie blue; the Garleans were carrying refined ceruleum with them.

Sir Pherond Baldarrak glanced down at the blinding light as he swung his leg over his chocobo’s saddle. “About time.” He lifted his gauntlet over his helmet and pulled the visor down, before he pressed the spurs on his treads against the thighs of his mount. “We ride Sophea! For S’tage! For S’era!”

“No! No no no…!” S’era yanked K’thalen’s rifle out from his hands and peered through the scope to see Pherond charging down the cliff toward the blaze; R’zevi had doubtlessly seen the signal and moved in to engage as well. “We…! It’s too late!”

“We can’t let a single Garlean escape, lass!” K’thalen politely yet firmly took his magitek rifle back. “Especially Tullus! Or Revenant’s Toll is history! Again!”

“C-cover both ends of the woods! Don’t let any of them escape!” S’era shot a weary glance to K’vyna before clutching the hilt of her uchigatana and leaping off the side of the cliff.

“Era… what have you done?!” K’vyna stood there in shock, staring at the chaos that erupted before her. These explosions were loud enough to wake the dead, or worse- the other castrums; if they are alerted, then their reinforcements would come swiftly and in lethal force. But there was no way to contact her friends now that her traps went off. There was only one real option left.

Pherond loosened the iron flail on his hip and began swinging it high and hard over his head; the spiked ball at the end whistled through the smoke and embers when he reached the bottom of the hill, and it took nearly all of his strength to keep it from ripping out of his gauntlet. His eyes flashed underneath his visor when he saw his first target- a legionary separated from the rest of the platoon from the explosions. The soldier looked up at Pherond in shock right before he swung the flail in a downward arch, striking him in the helmet. The Knight began to spin the flail again, hearing the full helmet strike a nearby tree, as his chocobo Sophea continued the charge. Two legionaries caught alone this time, with one trying to revive the other; the flail nailed him dead-center in the chest, sending his broken body backflipping into the dirt. Sophea pecked at another soldier with her armored beak, shattering his shoulder and collarbone underneath his armor. The Knight switched hands amidst the preparation of another swing, striking the back of the neck of a distracted medicus; the flail caught this time, and Pherond was moving too fast to pull the spiked ball out from the falling corpse- so he was forced to let it tear from his grip and leave it behind.

In the distance he saw the towering shadow of a magitek colossus. A leg was covered in napalm while it struggled to remain standing, using its massive blade as a cane to keep it upright; a perfect time to take it down for good, as any. He whipped the reins and Sophea took off, trampling and goring several more soldiers with her long and curved talons. The Knight grit his teeth when his armor began deflecting arrows but he didn’t flinch, reaching up over his back to pull his greatsword from its harness. The colossus turned its tiny head in his direction and pushed off the ground to force itself to stand, but the ceruleum burning at its armor caused one leg to buckle, and it dropped to a knee again.

"For Ishgard!" Pherond leaned to his right and swung the heavy blade as hard as he could, clipping the dirt and grass along the ground with his crescent arch. Right under the knee, just between two plates, his greatsword bit down hard through the fiber mesh underlay and crippled the mechanical monstrosity for good. “Sophea, go! Yaah!” The Knight swung his leg around and slid off his chocobo’s saddle, his open palm striking the flank of his mount to send her running. Pherond balanced the greatsword on his shoulder and charged at the colossus again, covering the eye slots on his visor with his free hand to protect himself from the Garlean Sagittarius Archers from getting any lucky shots.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

His heavy boots carried him and all his weight forward, slamming against dirt, then stone, then the length of a fallen tree trunk. Pherond gripped his greatsword over his head when he heaved himself into the air toward the crippled machine, and with a surge of strength he brought his mighty weapon down onto the neck with an executioner’s precision.

Garlean soldiers scurried through the forest in an effort to surround and overwhelm this armored knight, completely leaving their backs to the rest of the burning woods. Gliding over the underbrush, hidden in the trees, and landing in the darkness behind them, R’zevi waited until the perfect time to strike; and he didn’t have to wait long. He pressed the knuckles of his left hand against the bark of a sturdy tree and closed his eyes. “Ssssshhh… hooooohhhhh…” Four deep breaths would be enough- he slowly twisted his fist against the bark before both eyes and all five chakra shot open; power surged through his right hand and gathered in his fist, and he sent it forward with everything he had.

The five soldiers standing in the tree’s path never saw it coming. It was ripped clean by the roots and sent flying into the squad, rolling over their crushed bodies before shattering against its brother trees in an explosion of splintered wood and dirt. R’zevi dashed across the open field with more power surging into both hands, setting them ablaze. A Garlean Hoplomachus Gladiator raised his shield in his defense, but the Monk’s fists dented the shield on the first punch, shattered his arm on the second, and sent his broken body flying on the third.

“Over there! Another one!” A soldier cried out, alerting everyone within earshot. Bows and gunblades alike were whipped around to fire on him, but he was almost too fast for the eyes to follow. R’zevi performed a powerslide toward the closest Garlean, and with a forceful kick with both feet, inverted the man’s knees and shattered his legs into pieces. His blazing fist swiped away the lunge of a lance before imploding a man’s breastplate; R’zevi held his broken body and used him as a meat shield against all manner of arrows and spells on his way to cover. “Where did he go?! Don’t lose sight of him!” Like the fleeting evening breeze, the Monk vanished almost as quickly as he appeared. 

“Stay away from the trees!” Someone warned, causing the few standing dangerously close to the shadows to move more out in the open. Just as they began to cover each other’s backs, the heavy pounding and rumbling of earth caused them all to look to the west; a giant tree as ancient as it was thick came toppling over with a crackling rattle. Most of the soldiers leapt out of the way in either direction, but one was crushed for his slow reaction.

R’zevi appeared again to catch the divided forces off guard. He twirled through the air and caught one in the side of the helmet with his heel, before a barrage of punches turned another into a crumpled heap of broken bones and dented armor. One by one they died before they could even defend themselves, all except for one- he held his gunblade steady and open fired, nicking the Monk’s ear while he barely dodged an otherwise lethal shot to the head. “Come here you filthy savage! Let’s see how good you really a-” The soldier didn’t even have time to finish his taunting once R’zevi practically glided through the air to him; he pointed his gunblade at him for a point-blank shot, but barrel nor the blade never found its mark. The Monk caught the gunblade between the fingers of his left hand, and the palm of his right, and with a violent twist the weapon split in half. A lightning-fast jab to the throat brought him to his knees, but before he could react properly, R’zevi grabbed him by the helmet with both hands and twisted his head all the way around.

Tullus sas Virilus opened his eyes to the blinding orange haze and the muffled sound of his own breathing. The spinning branches overhead were reluctant to slow down, and the dizzying ringing in his head felt like it would never cease. Tullus tasted blood in his mouth, and when he tried to move, a sharp ache struck him in the chest and right thigh. “Sir! Sir!” He finally noticed one of his guards kneeling over him and clutching his hand. “Get up! We have to get you out of here!”

“S-status…” He weakly coughed out while trying to blink his disorienting fatigue away.

“Explosives were concealed in the forest and detonated once we were right on top of them! It’s an ambush, sir!”

Tullus’ eyes opened once the gravity of the situation dawned on him. He clenched his bloodstained teeth through the pain when he forced himself to roll over onto his hands and knees; where the ceruleum canisters he was supposed to deliver once resided, now only a crater of cobalt flames and molten glass remained. “Damn these primitives…! Without that ceruleum the Emperor will have my head…!” His gaze panned to the chaos unfolding around him; men were cooked alive in their suits, turning dependable armor into melted prisons. The discordant wails of his subordinates filled Tullus with dread. Many soldiers clawed at their own bodies to put out the fires, while corpses crumbled and burning lay sprawled about the once quiet forest. It was clear he wouldn’t be able to regain control of his men- not while the burning ceruleum interfered with his communications; they were cut off, disoriented from the ambush, and were easy prey to those that set him up.

“Sir!” The soldier grabbed his attention again. “We need to get you to safety! The fate of Castrum Aeternium depends on it!”

“Raagh…!” A sharp groan slipped from his clenched teeth when he was hoisted to his feet; his magitek suit saved him from a mortal wound, but he could feel more than a few of his ribs were broken behind his dented breastplate. He reached up with a quivering hand and yanked his helmet off for some much-needed fresh air, letting the wind brush against the wet spot on the side of his head. “S-sound the retreat! Back to the castrum…! We’ll be sure to repay these fools once we’ve regrouped!”

“Sir! Behind us!” Tullus strained his neck to look over his shoulder; a heavily armored knight dropped from above and landed on one of his men, crushing him beneath a knee. On his way up he put all his weight behind the swing of his greatsword, cleaving two men in half at once. Red light flashed from his visor when he drove his blade into the ground, causing large black teeth to shoot up from the nearby shadows to tear several soldiers to pieces. Another foe appeared from the dark, smashing his fists and heels against the hard armor of those under his command, sending broken bodies twirling, spinning, and flipping into the dirt.

“Overwhelm and surround them!” Tullus commanded, clutching at his chest. “Buy me enough time for my escape!” Only a handful of his most loyal soldiers stayed at his side to escort him to safety; the others raised their weapons with a rallying cry and charged the two who dared spill Garlean blood this morning. He looked up at the familiar sound of gunfire- flash after flash of a muzzle proved those two weren’t working alone. Not that it mattered; once he brought down the full might of Castrum Aeternium on their heads, they would be lucky if he was in a gracious enough mood to give them quick deaths. It was a long limp back to his fortress on foot, but perhaps if he could just get away from the burning ceruleum, he could call in air support to pick him up.

“What’s that? Ahead of us!” 

Tullus snapped his gaze forward to see a lone silhouette atop a small hill. The twitching black tail and the glimmering blue eyes under the straw hat revealed it was yet another savage, but this one was armed with only a uchigatana. “I will only ask you once!” A female voice called out. “What did you do to the silver-haired Miqo’te you held prisoner?!”

He wasn’t in the mood for conversation- especially one with lesser races. “What are you idiots waiting for?! My blessing?!” Tullus spat, glaring angrily at his guards. “Kill her! Kill her now!”

Four times S’era performed her mudra hand gestures. Four times the air around her fingers shimmered in the growing morning light. She gripped the hilt of her uchigatana with both hands and pulled the blade up into the air; lightning came down from a cloudless sky to strike the tip of the steel, wreathing her weapon in a cloak of fire and lightning. Unperturbed by the savage’s tricks, three Garlean swordsmen rushed her position while the two riflemen at Tullus sas Virilus’ side took aim and fired. She saw the flash of their gunblades, felt the gentle tug against her armor, but all she could hear was the familiar ringing in her head.

Eeeeeeeeeeee…

Her ninjutsu enchantments quickly destabilized until the blade turned white hot from the excess heat. S’era brought her blazing blade down with all the strength and speed she could muster, slicing through the first man’s like a hot knife through butter; flipping the edge around, she brought it back up, taking his arm and head in one clean fluid motion. Her uchigatana was plunged into the chest of the next in line, slicing him into pieces with four violent pulls of her blade. The third soldier collapsed onto his rear, dropping his weapon and panicking at the sight of how easy her terrifying weapon cut his comrades down. “W-wait! Wait mercy! MER-!” S’era leaped into the air and landed on him, thrusting into the eye-hole of his helmet. 

Morale was abandoned at the drop of a hat. The two riflemen didn’t bother hanging onto their weapons when they tried to make a run for it. “Where are you g-going?! COWARDS!” Tullus’ insults fell on deaf ears. S’era slid her sword along the ground before flicking it upward, sending a slash of fire and lightning to ravage one of the craven until he fell lifeless onto his face. She plucked the wakizashi sword from its sheath and hurled it into the back of the last man.

"You bitch…!" Tullus dove at the rifle on the ground and raised it up to send her to whatever primitive gods she worshipped; no sooner did he fire the last round in the chamber did she vanish in a cloud of smoke. Tullus sas Virilus slowly rose to his feet while he strained to locate her again. His body screamed in agony from his broken ribs, but now wasn't the time to worry ab-

S'era reappeared behind him. He spun around to slice at her with his gunblade, but she struck first.

"AARGH!" Her glowing blade sliced through both the weapon and his wrist with ease. Tullus dropped to his knees with a hard thud as he clutched his burning stub with his other hand; the searing heat from her uchigatana instantly cauterized his wound, but the agony stopped him from rising to his feet. Instead of cutting him down right then and there, S'era became as still as a statue.

Defeating such a high-ranking Garlean was… easier than she expected. Five people and a king’s bounty of explosives slaughtered nearly a hundred people in the span of an hour- and all without any casualties on their end. If killing Garleans was this easy, she would have stormed Castrum Aeternium by herself months ago. After all, why not? This Tullus sas Virilus was a total pushover… barely worth the effort to even swing this blade. And yet victory tasted hollow in her mouth. S’tage was still dead. His killer was still loose. And no matter how many Garleans she put to the sword, neither of those would ever change. If only she was faster. If only she was braver.

“Are you p-planning on staring me down to d-death…?” Tullus sneered, forcing his words through clenched teeth. “Finish what you started! S-strike me down and be cursed!” S’era snapped out of her dazed stupor and lifted her blade over her head. She could have split his head in half, or severed his shoulder from his torso, or even drove the edge of her blade between his eyes; but those options were still too quick for her liking. She obeyed the ringing in her head when she snapped her boot into his chin, shattering his teeth and causing his head to whip back. When he collapsed onto the ground, she planted her bloodstained boot on his thigh, before slowly driving her superheated uchigatana into his stomach.

“AARRGH! AAAAUUUGH! HAAAHHHGH!” 

His agonizing screams were music to her ears. She twisted the blade and drove it deeper into the ground until the melted blade finally snapped, shattering at the hilt. Then she stood there to watch him writhe and struggle against his torturous execution, losing the rest of his fingers when he desperately tried to pull the blade out of his roasting body.

“S’ERA!” A familiar voice cried out. Hadriel Isenhart stepped forward with his hand on the hilt of his katana, but the color was flushed from his face while he glared at her.

There were tears streaming down her face despite her grin spread from ear to ear. Watching Tullus sas Virilus burn to death in his armor was perhaps the most satisfying thing she’s ever watched, but the sight of her master robbed her of what little joy she could scrounge up from this mess. In a heartbeat the ringing in her head from her dizzying anger and righteous fury had fallen silent, and in that moment she realized just how exhausted she was. She didn’t understand why he began sprinting- was he going to kill her? The forest floor began to spin when she looked down and touched her stomach; she pulled back her hand to find her fingers covered in blood.

S’era looked back up at Hadriel before her leg buckled. She hit the ground hard with a heavy thud against her chest and the side of her face. Unable to keep her eyes open, the last thing she saw were her allies rushing over to her, with their voices so muffled and distant.

Slowly, gently, S’era gave into the temptation, and her consciousness abandoned her.

She found herself adrift in an empty void that stretched onward in every direction, forever. She couldn’t move a muscle- her limbs felt so heavy. It was difficult to think, exhausting to breathe, and impossible to feel. Her limbs were too heavy to move, like countless hands were holding her down.

“It felt good, didn’t it?” A booming voice rolled through the void like an underwater explosion. With nothing else to focus her attention on, she was compelled to listen. “Killing all those men. Putting fear in the hearts of Garlemald. Avenging your fallen Nunh.”

“Who are you…?” S’era could barely speak the words. 

“Have you developed a taste for it yet? Do you not want to hear the discordant screams of all those who wronged you? A crescendo so pure and beautiful. You are a songwriter. A poet. A painter.”

“W-what do you want?!”

“How many innocents did Tullus sas Virilus kill? How many prisoners were tortured at his command? They are all guilty. All of them. But by your hand the world is now safer. What do I want? I want you to hear them sing again. Savor the symphony you write with their screams. Let them know your wrath is not to be trifled with, your fury cannot be bartered with, and your hatred will not be calmed until you drown in their blood. Arise, S’era Rarku! Slash and sever until it is done!”

Sera's deathlike slumber came to an abrupt end at the buck of a chocobo carriage rolling into a stone… or a dead animal. “Keep her steady, godsdamnit!” Someone shouted to her left. “Are you trying to knock us out the back?!” Slowly she opened her eyes to the glare of the midday sun, the tattered remains of the drape barely holding together that once served as the canopy, and soft blue eyes staring down at her; her gaze focused and widened at the blood trickling down the side of his head, and the piece missing from his ear.

“She’s waking up…” R’zevi warned. “Did you hear me?! I said she’s waking up!”

“It’s no use! My magica isn’t working!” K’vyna’s voice echoed in her head this time. “These wounds are preventing my spells from healing her! Stop the carriage!”

“We stop and we lose her.” Hadriel chimed in, kneeling over her to inspect the injuries himself. “Just keep pressure on her wounds until we reach Gridania… and give her something for the pain.”

“I can’t…” S’era forced herself to speak, hardly recognizing her own voice. “My... legs…!”

“Era don’t try to move…” R’zevi wiped away the cold sweat glistening on her forehead. “Breathe in. Breathe out. We’re taking good care of you but you have to remain calm okay?”

"Guess sleepin' beauty 'ere finally got done dirt-nappin'.” Only one person she knew had an accent that thick. Across from her sat a rather bruised Lalafell by the name of Conobharo Cobharo; Conor to his friends. His favorite bandana enveloped his right arm, and was stained a deep shade of crimson. “Gave us all a right scare, lass, up an' faintin' an' bleedin' all o'er the bloody place." He winced as pain flared up in his injuries. "Ack… s'pose 'at makes a pair of us, though, aye?"

Sera was hardly in the mood for the inarticulate Plainsfolk's witty rejoinders after all she'd been through. And yet, she had more questions than she knew what to do with, and anything to help get her mind off the dizzying pain in her stomach and her possibly crippled body would be a boon. Curiosity drove her to ask, "What... what h-happened...?"

The bleeding bantam began to chortle, but was interrupted by a blood-flavored cough rising in his throat. “Brain-addled slag with magitek limbs ambushed me. Lucky I'm still availed of all me extremities, lass. Not what I'd trade wounds with ye.” She could barely understand him when she was in perfect health, but simply hearing his voice and mannerisms was enough to put the faintest of smiles on her face. “So… didja skip rope with 'at Tullus feck-shite's innards?"

“That’s enough of that.” R’zevi shot Conobharo a sharp glare. “He’s dead… it’s done.” S’era tried to focus on anything but the pain, but it was unbearable. Her gaze drifted to the front of the carriage to see the backs of K’thalen and Pherond on the reins, driving the whole group away from the chaos she wrought in Mor Dhona; she wanted to ask them if they were hurt, but her jaw was beginning to swell and lock.

Then she looked down. Her left hand was still gripping the warped hilt of her broken uchigatana; she could barely move her fingers in her gauntlet- they would have to cut through the threads to free her hand. She then reached for the pain on her stomach, feeling wetness along her fingers before K’vyna grabbed her by the wrist and forced her hand away. “Don’t touch it!” She snapped. “Don’t look!”

S’era couldn’t help herself; her gaze snapped to her bloodsoaked hand, and the ringing in her head returned once she realized this blood was hers. “She’s panicking…!” R’zevi warned, gently guiding the back of her head into his lap. “Look at me. Keep your eyes on me Era. Breathe in, breathe out.” She looked deep into his eyes but she could barely hear him, the throbbing pain was only made worse the more she tried to move. She tried to force her jaw open to say something- to say anything, but to no avail; she could neither breathe nor think straight, as the fear of death hovered over her like a spectre. 

“Restrain her!” Hadriel commanded, moving to pin her arm down while Conor scurried over to help hold down the other. R'zevi continued to stroke her cheeks and temples in an attempt to calm her down, but nothing was working. 

"Breathe! Era! … Era?!"

S'era's eyes slowly rolled into the back of her head before she slipped under once again. 

---

Mentions: @rzevi-tia-ffxiv​ @hadriel-ffxiv​ @conobharo-cobharo-xiv​

[paperwick]

Dragon Age Tarot Style Guide: Part Two

The second of my at least three part set of tarot tutorials. This sentence will link to the first one on composition if you haven’t seen it. It’s been a four year gap between these, and I apologize for that. To all you who messaged me and reminded me of this project, thank you. You kept me from forgetting and I’m glad. <3

It won’t be another four years until I post the next segment, which will be pattern and texture focused. It’ll hopefully be in the next month or two. 

This is going to be a long post, so I’m putting it under the cut. Apologies to the mobile users! 

As a general disclaimer, this is an unofficial guide, I’ve never worked with Bioware. All of this is based on how I approach tarot design, my inspiration being heavily rooted in Dragon Age Inquisition’s companion card designs. 

Secondly, I know nothing about tarot. I tend to use http://www.ata-tarot.com/resource/cards/ heavily as a resource for my understanding of the cards and their meanings.You don’t need to know anything about tarot to do illustrations, just have as much fun as you can. <3 

So I typically work with a color composition in mind, but for those who are struggling to imagine a color scheme, my best advice for coming up with a palette is to just throw down some colors in this sort of an arrangement.

Your Main is going to be whats forming the base of the card, or it’ll be the most widely used color. Backgrounds usually make up the main, but sometimes it’s a foreground element or the character’s clothing. 

Your Cores are going to be colors that accent the base. You can make these pretty wild to be honest, but complementary colors and triads tend to work best for a balanced color composition. That’s what you’re trying to achieve with these--balance. Think about what’s drawing the most attention. The red in this example I did with the Iron Bull is very strong, and the teal I chose is fighting with it so my last color is something a bit more desaturated that accents the teal instead of picking another aggressive color, like a saturated yellow. 

The Accent or HL color is whatever you’re going to use to add the final focus notes. It will typically be your brightest or your most saturated color, though not always. Sometimes your HL color might be the darkest of the composition because your main and core colors are naturally bright. It should be used sparingly, or if you’re using a lot of it, focused in one area.

You can use more colors than this! For my example card with Bull, you can see I made his pants a sort of subdued yellow and added accents to the background and lit parts of his body in in different colors, But you’ll want to keep your major colors limited to keep it cohesive. If you start losing cohesion, I recommend using a gradient map over your picture set to multiply or soft light (not at 100%) to tone down your most divergent colors, and you can mask out areas where appropriate. 

This Bull card is one I made by picking my colors first then deciding on the content and composition. Color picking can be done first, or second as I’ve done with the rest of my examples. 

Card #1: Rayne Amell   [ @dracoangel​ ]

The Queen of Cups

This card went though several iterations with color, and the end product is less about story and more about atmosphere. The drawn composition reflects more of the story: she conceals her thoughts and feelings, but the world bends around her like water. I wanted to add more purple to this card, considering the character’s preference for it, so I skewed the color scheme in the final to be more purple. The first version probably makes for a more cohesive palette, but it lacks the same depth and drama as the one with purple. I added another core color to the second palette, which is totally okay to do. Sometimes the core palette might be 7 colors, sometimes it’s 2. The idea is to strike a balance. Colors that are super eye catching like the red in the scarf might better serve the composition as a lesser accent, whereas the purple core is a great fill because it’s fairly desaturated and doesn’t demand as much attention.

The HL color takes up a fair amount of this composition, but note that it’s strongest in the top two thirds, and is centered in the top third. The foreground water also cradles it against one of the darkest purples of the card, which helps center focus up top.

Card #2: Valora Lavellan [  @kylorensprettymuchanasshole​ ]

The Devil

This was the most difficult of the palettes, I’m working with two separate light sources in two wildly different locations. On the one side you’re at an ancient elvhen temple, on the other, in a burning chantry. It only made sense to have two different palettes for this composition. Where I really failed here was in not having a color that bridged the two sides. If you can engineer a color to be in between two differing palettes, you’re in a good place. 

With that in mind, I revisited the thumbnail. 

The execution is a little weak, but the idea works. The bridge color could work in either of the palettes and is a midway point between the two most similar values of the core colors. It’s used primarily where the separate palettes meet each other smoothing that transition. In this instance, it also helps to define the figure and double down on where the focus is, since before it was fighting between the top left and bottom right corners. Now the focus works as a diagonal from one corner to the other.

Double palettes are hard, but can make for some truly dynamic color compositions.

Card #3: Iothari Mahariel [ @theuselesspotoo ]

Six of Swords

This card was a struggle for completely different reasons. The palette is pretty homogeneous, primarily purple, with a hint of green. This one could use far more variation, and the challenge is in driving interest with such a limited palette. This is where your values are going to be super important. Your darks vs lights are always hugely apart of composition, but in limited palettes they do the most work in driving interest. Make sure to break up some of your larger and more prominent shapes with value differences, the snow vs the dark stone beneath it.

If that isn’t enough though, there’s a few tricks that can help push focus where you want it without heavily changing the color scheme. 

We have three very distinct planes in this; the sky, the distant mountains and skyhold, and the cliff the figure is standing on. We can push the far mountain plane back by reducing the brightness of it, and we can pull the nearby plane closer by adding stronger highlights to the lit areas. I also brightened up the figure since they were getting lost in the sky a bit. 

In addition, I popped the foreground colors with just a bit more red, to separate that plane from the more bluish purple mountain plane. 

Just those small changes really sharpened up the focus of the composition, and we were able to keep the palette fairly limited. 

Card #4: Tighe Lavellan   [ @queen-scribbles​ ]

Nine of Wands

This palette was a breeze compared to the others. We’re working with complementary colors, reds versus greens, and very little divergence in either direction. The bottom half is primarily reds, the top greens, and they meet in the middle with a soft orange and harsh yellow. Palettes with complementary colors are the easiest to work with, the important part is making sure their balance works with your drawn composition because they like to fight. All of my reds are limited and desaturated because the greens and yellows, by the nature of the composition, are the most demanding elements. 

Card #5:  Lathari Lavellan [ @jisabeau​ ]

The Chariot

I knew what I wanted for this one immediately when I started it. I really wanted the character to be falling into a void, to mirror their emotional crisis when dealing with the deadly white bear of their past. But though this works fairly well as a base palette, it’s really missing the intense horror I wanted when I started. 

So in my edits I pulled them further apart, and pushed the darks even further. The challenge here is having a dual focus, since I don’t really know if either stand out enough from one another at this phase. I have to pick a focus, either the bright whites of the bear or the strong orange/green tones of the character. 

This is probably the strongest focus-wise.

But I enjoy the color notes of this one far more. 

The point here is, sometimes things aren’t perfect, and that’s also okay. Pick your favorite, or at least pick one, and take that to completion. It’ll occur to you while finishing it what I needs. Which brings us to the final point, similar to that of tutorial part one: 

Final Note: Don’t spend overlong on one thumbnail. I’ve spent days in the thumbnailing stage, that’s fine, but don’t spend more than 1 hour on any one color thumbnail drawing; it’s not worth it. If an idea is good but not great, just start a new thumbnail of something similar, and you’ll stumble onto the right composition.

Remember to explore your own color intuition. My way of doing this might be helpful, but if it’s not, don’t feel compelled to follow it. Everyone has a unique vision, and we’ve got to feel out our own paths. 

If you have any questions, send them to paperwick [at] gmail [dot] com under the heading “Color Tutorial: Questions”, OR comment on this post (I might not see them on a reblog) and I’ll pool them into one area and answer as many as I can in a separate post.

Finally, I’d like to give another shout out to everyone who sent their character breakdowns to me for this. I wish I had time to get to all of them, and I really appreciate you taking the time to put them together! Thank you all so much!

Not making promises on when Part Three will come out, but it WILL be coming out. Thanks for reading through all this, I hope it’s been helpful. 

[bellatrixobsessed1]

Kissing Dead Pearls (Part 13)

When he was a boy he and Iroh were bold. They made a game of cliff diving from the highest that they could find. They’d race each other on jet skis at speeds that had them in overnight juvenile detention centers. They would have wrestled sharks if they could. And how much trouble would they get in when Azulon caught them.

There came a summer when that all stopped.

It wasn’t that he’d lost his sense of adventure nor his brazen recklessness. It wasn’t that Iroh had either. And they certainly hadn’t grown tired of their high risk games and thrill seeking antics.

It was that he’d found a new thrill. She had the most gorgeous eyes--eyes that her daughter would eventually come to share--and hair that shimmered under mid-july sun. He’d spent that summer chasing her and hearing jests from his brother about how such a flower like her wouldn’t go for a prickly shrub like him.

His flower wasn’t so delicate. A summer later and she’d already beaten their record cliff diving height. Ursa was a storm, destructively alluring. And she’d went out like a storm, went out in a storm.

He didn’t know it then. Then he was just another teenage boy. Then he was high on life and testosterone and the whoops and hollers of his peers.

Then he and his brother were going to conquer the world. They were already on top of it.

So many summers later the world has conquered him.

.oOo.

He is in an abysmal state physically and mentally. It has been three days, three long and horrible days since his last drink. They promise him that his symptoms will begin to in another four days. He isn’t sure that he can last that long.

He hasn’t seen his children since he’d but the bottle down. His mood has been too unstable. He has already seen Azula look up at him with hate, fear, and pity once. Such a cocktail of emotions is horrible to feel exuding from her.

And Zuko. He has that same fear and hate, but Ozai senses disappointment. He is a disappointment to his own son. He supposes that it is a helping of karma considering the rough patch the two of them had, had when Zuko first began high school. He expected Zuko to share his love of surfing. He’d done it as a boy and his father and his father before him. Zuko took interest in beach volleyball which was acceptable enough and then he’d dropped that to spend time with Katara and join a culinary club with her.  

He felt a sense of betrayal somehow, that his son so adamantly refused to carry on the family tradition of becoming the school’s surf champion. Hell, Ozai hadn’t even expected him to be a star, he just wanted the boy to join the team and carry on the legacy.

He felt a sense of loss. Loss over what could have been an opportunity for solid father-son bonding. And that feeling of loss and betrayal, the paranoid notion that he’d chosen cooking just to spite him turned to anger and disappointment. It drove a heft wedge between them. Even with Ursa there to mediate for a while, a sense of unhappiness permeated the household and only grew more palpable when a twelve year old Azula proudly declared that she’d made the middle school surf team.

It was innocent, truly she hadn’t meant to escalate the situation. He would later find out that’d she’d joined the team solely because her friends were on it and she wanted to make time to see them when there otherwise would have been none. Later he’d found that she was trying to cheer him up, to bond with him, and to let him know that the family legacy would uphold. Zuko took it as his little sister trying to one up him. And Ursa had scolded her well and good for making things harder for her older brother.

It was a feud that lasted the rest of the year. Father verses son, mother verses daughter, brother versus sister, and husband verses wife. The siblings had cleared the air between each other first. Zuko when he came upon his sister practicing with her friends. That level of enthusiasm couldn’t possibly have come from a place of ill will. He’d also noted that, at the time, she wasn’t even particularly good at surfing. She usually placed in the bottom three, much to her frustration. And thus the tension with her mother was cleared. Ozai had caught his wife consoling her after a particularly bad competition.

After that, Ozai made a point of at least pretending to be interested in Zuko’s culinary hobby. Eventually he’d decided that it couldn’t be so bad to find a meal already made after a strenuous day of working the lighthouse.

He misses that. He wishes that Zuko would trust him to come around a second time. But he has probably worn the boy’s trust too thin and this time Ursa is not around for damage control.

For it he finds himself alone. Azula offers to visit him, he refuses her company. God forbid he says something in a fit of withdrawal induced rage that will drive her away too. More than that he does not want her to see him in such a pathetic state. She’d idolized him once. She wanted to be like him…

For the life of him, he hopes that she never will be.

Perhaps another bout of anxiety is coming on, he finds himself dreading that she will. She has lost a lover the same way he has, to nature’s merciless sea-salted hands, and addiction runs deep in her genetics. His mind carries itself away to images of her alone in the dark, disheveled and shaking with a half-empty bottle in her hand. He fights to put the visual out of his head. His little girl is stronger than that. He taught her to be. She has more control than that...and yet she had almost ran out to sea fueled by her grief.

He rakes his fingers through his hair. They can dim the lights, they can hush the noise level. They can give him lots of water, they can feed him well but they can’t free him from his own thoughts.

His head pounds and his hands shake and he is consistently on the verge of losing whatever meal they have given him. It should be easier with each hour that passes, but instead, he thinks that things are reaching a head. A new peak. A new intensity. Minute by minute the pounding in his head heightens until he thinks that his brain may burst--and this might be a mercy. Minute by minute the shakes grow worse until he can barely hold a fork steadily.

He can’t move, he can’t even shift lest he upset his stomach. He wishes that Ursa were there to take him through it. Instead he has a team of nurses checking his heart rate every half an hour or so. Apparently a rapid heartbeat isn’t uncommon. Maybe if he is lucky, it will quicken so furiously that it will cease beating entirely. His children might be better for it.  

Hakoda and Kya watch them well...

.oOo.

Azula glances back at the hospital with a queasiness in her belly. Her father is angry with her. He had said that he wasn’t but he is. He is angry with her for trying to run away. He is angry at her for losing her senses and nearly doing something recklessly stupid. She can’t see any other reason for him so adamantly refusing to let her visit.

She storms up to Zuko’s car, climbs in, and slams the door.

“He still didn’t want to talk?”

Azula shakes her head. She notices the way Zuko presses his lips together. The way his brows crease. “Lets go pick up Jet and Katara, you’ll have a lot more fun with them. We’ll have more fun.”

Azula nods. “Sure, Zuzu.”

“I’ll let you pick the station.”

Azula toys with the radio dial and finds the rock station. Zuko pushes the pedal a little two far down and they leave the parking lot at a fairly questionable speed. She doesn’t call him on it, she is in the mood for a little thrill. A pinch of rock and a little speed, the wind in her hair and the prospect of a night on the town doing who knows what…

Realistically she knows that they will only make it to a club parking lot. Katara isn’t the rule breaking sort. She supposes that, that is just one more reason to bring her along. They could use someone who’d talk them out of truly foolish acts of rebellion.

They get to Jet’s house first, she climbs into the back seat next to him. He slings an arm over her shoulder and pecks her on the cheek. It is such a different feeling than the one Sokka had given her.

This is probably a good thing. It would only hurt more if it felt the same.

In her head, Jet smokes a cigarette and she has a glass of rum. In her head Zuko drives faster. In reality Jet is sucking on a twizzler and Katara offers her a juicebox. Jet gives a humored snort and a remark about how he hasn’t had a juicebox since grade school.

In reality Katara has lectured Zuko about his speed and she shares a juicebox with Jet.

Azula thinks that she is alright with this. There is something pleasantly simple about sharing a juicebox and sitting on the swings of a park with an ocean view. For a moment she doesn’t think of her father, her losses, and the future. For a moment she feels the freespirit of her childhood. Jet chucks the juicebox, receives a rant for littering, and begins pushing her on the swing.

[savage-rhi]

👕 JOEL HELPING GENE PLS uwu

@themechaneer Here you are💙

👕  :    your  muse  helps  my  muse  get  dressed  after  my  muse  sustains  an  injury  or  illness .

“I’m telling you, you’re overreacting,” Gene said with a sigh, losing count of how many times she had to remind Joel her latest wound from her delivery run wasn’t a problem. Gene had been through a lot as a porter. She had fallen off cliffs, gotten into fights, killed MULEs when it came down to it. Some of her actions she wasn’t proud of, but it came with the work. Getting slashed across her upper chest, right below her breasts was a haphazard waiting to happen. The fault had been her own this time, a miscalculation on her part when trying to scale down a mountain edge with hooks versus what little rope she had. 

“And I’m telling you, you’re not being careful enough so up at it.” Joel said and gestured for Gene to stand up from the couch in the garage. 

Gene reluctantly did so, letting out an irritable puff of air while she shook her head then started stripping out of her porter uniform. The bloodstain on the front didn’t help validate her words. Once she was out of it and left in her tank and cargo pants, Gene stopped and looked up at Joel. She raised her brows at him, almost like a kid that didn’t take their parent's words to heart. 

“The tank top comes off.” Joel said and crossed his arms, giving a small smile as he stood firmly in place. 

Gene shook her head and scoffed. “Joel, it’s not bad. I can change when I get back to my quarters in BRISK Harpy.”

“The huge slash across your shirt, the stitches, and dried blood would suggest otherwise. It’s barely holding onto you.  Now c’mon. I have an extra set you can have.”

“Since when did you become my parent?” 

“Since I actually give a shit about you contrary to popular belief,” Joel said with a chuckle.

“All this time I thought you loved me for my credits.” Gene smirked, shaking her head in disbelief. Nonetheless, she was in no position to argue. Joel could be persistent much to her displeasure. Gene waved him off to go get the tank top. While Joel went over to his locker to pull it out for her, Gene started to lift the tank over her head. A series of curses left her mouth as pained groans made their way past her teeth. 

“You alright?” Joel asked, still rummaging. 

“Never better.” Gene said with a weak laugh. 

Joel approached Gene shortly after, holding the new tank top tightly in his grip. He bit his bottom lip, seeing Gene was shuddering after she managed to pull the tattered tank off of her. There was a watery glaze in his eyes that didn’t go unnoticed by Gene as she raised a brow at him. 

“Everything okay?” Gene asked. 

Joel nodded, taking a step towards her. “I just don’t like seeing you hurt that’s all.”

“I’ll live. I always do.” Gene said with a wink, then stretched her hand out. “Hand it to me?”

Joel hesitated for a moment, almost ready to go along with Gene’s request but hearing how she had struggled and seen for himself how bad the wound was, he decided to take a different approach. 

Joel calmly walked right up to Gene. Their bodies inches from each other as he carefully used his free hand to guide her arms up. Gene was evidently confused at first but then got the idea. A grimace crossed her face as Joel gently rolled up the tank and started to put it over her arms and head, sliding the material down with care. He made sure it didn’t make contact with her stitches. After all, was said and done, he made sure the straps were tucked on her correctly and smiled. 

“Now I can rest a bit easy,” Joel said with a quiet laugh as Gene rolled her eyes.

“If I didn’t know better, you were trying to gawk at me.” 

Joel shrugged, playfully grinning for a moment before he gazed over her eyes. “And if I was?”

Gene was going to say something but then felt her face heat up. She shook her head, nervously rubbing the back of her neck as they both chuckled. Joel then reached out a hand, gently clasping it over Gene’s left cheek and brought her attention onto him. They were silent for a time. Both of them taking in the other’s features until Gene sighed, blinking a few times as she stepped back. 

“I gotta get going.”

Joel let out a breath and nodded.

“Right. I’ll see you on the next run?”

Gene nodded with a smile. “Of course. Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.”

Joel rolled his eyes as he grinned, heading back for his station to work on a project. No point in putting it off now that she was going to leave. “I’m pretty sure you took care of that for us both. See you around Genie.”

“Fuck you.” Gene laughed, slipping her porter uniform back on with haste along with her pack. 

**A link to my ko-fi account. If you enjoy my content and want to support me getting my monthly medication for fibromyalgia and arthritis, I would be eternally grateful. It is NOT a requirement however! All my work is free to read!**

[thelastchair]

Blank

(Written by Ezra Butterfield - January 10, 2020)

Without doing any hard, scientific math or comprehensive data analysis, the average age of the core unit of Junkshow would hover around 38. We have had the pleasure of scabbing on some “young guns” if you will, but with that, comes the associated logistical challenges and anomalies that come with a generation plagued by helicopter parents and social media.

Teetering around what 20 years ago would be labeled as “over the hill”, comes with its own associated risks and challenges. Most of us have full time jobs or careers. Which has and continues to limit the amount of risk one is willing to take when your cash cow may be slaughtered at the bottom of a haphazardly scoped line or a saturated night prior to boot packing your “line.” Risk of injury looms near and clear when you have to rely on physical and emotional stability in anticipation of the next fire season. One starts to question the whole, risk versus reward montage if you will. “I know I can ski this line, I know I can shred this line, is it worth my career?”

Indiana Jones in ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ summed it up best for me one late night while hammering down beers, “It’s not the years honey, it’s the mileage” or perhaps Micah Black in some foggy memory of a Powder article, and to grossly paraphrase, “I woke up one day and the cliffs just looked bigger.” Regardless of what it is, you do start to lose some of your “marbles.”

Most of our reward comes from the search. The ability to do the research, gather the crew with abilities and the want and go zone hunting. Understanding fully that you could be lapping The Wall stacking your Epic Mix account whilst dealing with the kooks and conundrums that come with the current state of our ski industry and its blatant disregard for the local “hamsters” that keep the machine turning and burning, or be out with a select group of trusted, mountain savy, brothers and sisters that share the thirst for exploration and memories as fresh as the nights re-up or as foggy as your first light goggles.

So when the opportunity presented itself; the opportunity to scope zones both old and new, drink beer and ski with our friends (our new friends being a Canadian conveyor belt of smiles and dials) while capturing some frames and contributing to the cause, lets just say we were more than eager. More than eager to make a top ten list of the last 20 years of broken A-arms, gas caches and good times and open the ark to the chosen ones.

As stated previously, the mileage starts to add up. The drive, the want and the need are still there. I imagine much like a lead dog having its “young guns” nip at its tail all day and night, he may have the vision and the desire, but the abilities just flat out diminish. The knees hurt a bit more, the swag is a bit maligned, the mind may have a harder time catching up with the body or even vice versa.

So when the code is cracked for a new zone, there may be lines that sit for winters. Lines that we all see year after year. Morning light, no light, flat light, headlight?  On the perfect day, with the perfect light and the perfect breakfast, your line may go down. May not be you. Hopefully it’s you. Usually it’s you picking your shit up and digging for a ski while they try to keep you out of the next shot. Hoping for that next perfect breakfast.

Point being, it was downright badass to go out, drink beer and ski with your friends. Your friends that absolutely shredded each zone. Those lines that were perused and glassed year after year going down as warm-up laps. With second breakfast, lunch and dinner being French Cuisine that I couldn’t even pronounce. All with a smile, a beer in hand (or a Rockstar) and a good time in ready supply. Even while falling prey to our fearless leaders “oh we got this” or “20 more minutes and it’ll be in”, they trusted, followed and wallowed all in search of the source.

It was an honor and a privilege and a helluva good time. Hope ya’ll enjoy

-Junkshow

(During the winter of 2019, Junkshow linked up with the Blank Collective for several weeks to assist with filming and scouting locations for a portion of their new film The 7 Stages of Blank)

[ottofreycinet87-blog]

Western Music Historical past

Contemporary folks music refers to all kinds of genres that emerged within the mid 20th century and afterwards which were related to conventional folk music Starting within the mid-twentieth century a brand new form of popular folks music evolved from traditional people music. Lounge music refers to music played in the lounges and bars of hotels and casinos, or at standalone piano bars. Typically, the performers embrace a singer and one or two different musicians. The performers play or cowl songs composed by others, especially pop requirements, many deriving from the days of Tin Pan Alley. Notionally, much lounge music consists of sentimental favorites loved by a lone drinker over a martini, although in practice there is rather more selection. The time period may also refer to laid-back electronic music, additionally named downtempo, due to the reputation of lounge music as low-key background music. First, bradleykavanagh7.wikidot.com I see lots of people saying, properly this is only a small segment of music. There may be plenty of good music being made right now!" Perhaps so, however that wasn't the purpose of the post nor the video. The video discusses how fashionable music right this moment is not very good, and how most of what frequently makes the top 40 is homogenized crap. Both jazz and classical symbolize just 1.4% of whole U.S. music consumption a bit. Nonetheless, Classical album sales were larger for 2014, which places Jazz on the bottom of the barrel. An ideal instance of Tubby's deft touch for reverb is current on the observe Dub You Can Really feel." Listen for the reverb on the snare — it's the classic spring reverb boing" impact common in dub music. Learning to play a musical instrument can usually be costly so purchasing around is a good suggestion. The typical value of studying a musical instrument in the UK can fluctuate anything from £15 to £40 depending on the tutor, the area, the instrument and the extent of expertise, and naturally can typically be much more, particularly in areas resembling London.

Sensible! I applaud your ability to data mine, nevertheless lots of your questions and fatal flaws in your logic may have been reply by researching the fundamentals of main key harmony. Music Theory" is not a law, however an explanation of how western music makes use of chords in a key, eloiseortega.pen.io and what carefully or distantly associated keys a song may modulate to. These can usually have genre specific explanations. Take some concord courses and then figure those patterns" into your analysis and you may find some solutions. Syd Nathan, the top of King Records, thought it was a lousy idea. R&B followers don't shell out for stay albums, he tried to inform his headstrong star, a hit single is what they dig. So James personally financed the recording of this blazing half-hour set on the storied Harlem theater, and soon radio DJs were taking part in total LP sides on the air. Had this historic doc accomplished nothing more than introduce the wider world to the majestic, violent grace of a James Brown dwell performance, that'd be lots groundbreaking. However as Dwell on the Apollo crossed over to the pop charts, it convinced each artists and businessmen that black music might thrive commercially not by making concessions to genteel white tastes. Part heady avant-garde improv, half properly-thought of Molotov cocktail, all methods disorienting, Throbbing Gristle's debut steamrolled a new path for underground noiseniks by eschewing many of the formal guidelines of rock music — drums, guitars, melody and, on Aspect B, pulse completely —going instantly for the primal enchantment of distortion. "Industrial Music for Industrial Folks" learn the tagline for the band's personal Industrial Records, spawning a style fueled on grinding, mechanical terror and offered affect for everyone from Nine Inch Nails to Aphex Twin. Built on disturbing samples, disturbing electronic textures, and disturbing live recordings, Second Annual Report employed the LP as a medium of moveable transgression. Those that are good at writing songs in line with a new pattern or involving elements which might be new and authentic will, in all likelihood, not be those that rise to famous person status, at the very least not straight away. Just have a look at Vangelis. He may not have the views" that Bieber has on Youtube, however, musically speaking, he is about 88 000 656 890 x more authentic. That doesn't imply he is higher than Bieber, in fact (regardless that he clearly is). As an enormous fan of Laborious, basic and Psychedelic rock and being based in India, I would know. I've to say Rock music has taken a nosedive off a cliff in the past decade here and there actually will not be any music coming from this nation. The earliest songs that may very well be thought-about American popular music, versus the popular music of a particular region or ethnicity, have been sentimental parlor songs by Stephen Foster and his peers, and songs meant to be used in minstrel reveals , theatrical productions that featured singing, dancing and comedian performances. Minstrel shows generally used African devices and dance , and featured performers with their faces blackened, a method known as blackface 1 By the middle of the 19th century, touring firms had taken this music not solely to every a part of the United States, but in addition to the UK, Western Europe, and even to Africa and www.magicaudiotools.com Asia. Minstrel reveals have been typically marketed as though the music of the exhibits was in an African American model , though this was often not true.Rock's late-Sixties psychedelic sojourn was brought to a screeching halt with the August 1968 launch of the primary country-rock masterpiece, an album whose reverberations can still be heard in the arduous-rocking sounds of nearly every current nation hit. The industrial success of the Eagles, America, the Doobie Brothers are all attributable to fledgling Byrd Gram Parsons's resolute perception within the cosmic power of actual nation music. Parsons fan Elvis Costello introduced the phrase back to the punks on Almost Blue; the Blasters, Long Ryders and even X added a twang to their sound; and "cowpunk" turned a thing. Likewise, Uncle Tupelo's 1990 No Depression album; band spinoffs Wilco, Son Volt and Bottle Rockets; and numerous subsequent alt-country advocates can all be traced back to Sweetheart.For as faithfully as they recreate their namesake, YouTube's '80s remixes really remind me of a newer second. The internet music culture of the late '90s and early 2000s was a interval of fast transformation, however whilst illegal file sharing accelerated music discovery, the shortcomings of the technology saved things grounded. MP3 collections took up vast amounts of digital area and have been playable only via certain packages. And, like file retailer crate-digging excursions, online hunts didn't always pan out: You may spend hours downloading a music, solely to seek out out it had been mislabeled.

[docholligay]

Rei's gone, but Michiru's still here, and so is the fire.

I’m frustrated by what I wanted to do with this versus what it ended up being but HERE WE ARE. 900ish words. 

Michiru did not burn, until she did. 

Fire consumes. Fire crackles and pops and throws off the heat of itself, and all the fuel you throw into it can only be devoured, and it will never be enough. The fire will always require more, and it will not rest, it will fly across the fields and the forests, it will run into your home and your bedsheets, it will rip and roar and tear with licking fangs of flame. Fire will tell you how dangerous it is. Fire is immediate.

Michiru has never known this element. Michiru’s ocean is beautiful and expansive and reassuring in its gentle lapping at the shores, bounded and contained and slowly chipping. The sea waits. It allows you to look upon it, day after day, and it does not come to you. You come to it. God help you if it ever comes to you, if it slowly recedes from the shore only to crash in a great wave upon you, to break you and your family and everything that surrounds. The ocean is patient, and smiles. The ocean is long.

Rei had been the fire, and Rei had seen the fire, and Rei’s visions had been born of it, fast and hot and immediate. Michiru had envied her, the way her visions were so linear, so correct. There was none of the strangeness of the future, none of the different rocks moved here and there to wear at a cliff, she hadn’t seen. If Rei saw it, it was happening. If Michiru saw it, it was one of the fifty two possibilities in fate’s deck of cards.

And then the fire had been extinguished.

Death is heroic, in stories, with soft and tender goodbyes as someone slowly bleeds out in the arms of one they love, and in fact Michiru had, in her more dramatic moments, imagined this sort of death for herself, cradled by Haruka.

Life is not a story.

There had been a moment with the enemy, and Rei had leapt  behind him, arcing gracefully as she went to shoot her bow. There had been a flash from the enemy.

She had fallen like a downed bird, thumping to the ground, her transformation shot away from her the instant it struck her body.

Usagi had screamed. There had been no goodbyes to say. Rei had died with the immediacy with which she had lived.

Rei was consumed by the fire, too, in the end, only a small urn left with the last of her on earth. The prayers were said, the catering done. Michiru had laughed darkly at all the expense her father had gone to, how if there were a way to revive the dead it certainly would have happened over the lavish tables of food and the exploding garishness of the chrysanthemums, all too much money and too much her father for Rei to ever have tolerated, if any of her had lived.

But the fire was gone, you see.

Except for one small ember.

Michiru had not noticed it at first, consumed in her own way by the turbulence of the sea inside her, the loss of something she felt might have been wonderful, remembering the thousand small ways that she had Rei had shared something. A glance, a cup of tea, a meal at the small cafe Michiru favored, the one Rei always called too decadent but at which she always ordered a slice of cake and a glass of champagne. She had been too consumed with Haruka’s fretting over Mina and Usagi’s grief, and how they seemed barely able to understand each other now, separated by the loss of a love that was a fraternal twin and not an identical one.

But that ember burned on the bottom of her sea floor, and she felt it when she reached for it, in the back of her mind. The sea quieted it, running each cold wave over the top it, but it would light again, hissing with the steam of any attempt to thwart it.

The visions came stronger, now. Any jealousy she had over Rei’s visions dissipated as she saw them too, not so much a written explanation as the light of a train, barreling down the track, with barely the time to step aside. Sleep had never come easy, but she could barely close her eyes, now. She did not dare glance into a candle, did not dare ask the fire to come.

Had Rei seen her own death? Had she known it inevitable? Michiru was never sure, the things she saw so short and quick, leaving her to puzzle them out.  They were true, but they seemed only hints on the horizon, and the sea would spin over them with its waves of possibility, one into the other until they made a steam so thick Michiru could not See.

Michiru Kaioh felt the fire burn her like a brand, to curse of the Seer hot in her chest. It refused to leave her, yelling and burning and eating, always eating, gnawing at the beams inside of her, the ones that had been made driftwood by the years of the sea, exploding in those blue and lavender toxic flames.

There was no escape. An urn held Rei’s ashes, but it could not contain the Sight. And the sight licked and crashed and cooled and burned, and the structure of Michiru’s very bones shook.

MIchiru did not burn, until she did.

And it would consume and crash and eat until it had taken its fill.

[sportsnightnut]

because this is yours

Once upon a time, I was really good at keeping up with the XF Writing Challenge prompts from @leiascully​. And then grad school happened, and I lost all interest in reading and writing for fun. But now that I’m getting back into it, I want to return to these awesome prompts. So, having said that, here’s my work for XFWC prompt #68, forgiveness.

This story takes place pre-revival, shortly before Season 10, in the same personal headcanon as “rivers and roads” and “i can’t do this alone.” You don’t need to read either of those for this one to make sense, but they give a little more backstory that you might enjoy. Y’all remember wifegate and ringgate? That was a good time. ;)

I am a little nervous about this one because I don’t usually write in first person, but I felt that it worked well for Scully to tell this story.

Last but not least, tagging @fictober and a few lovely folks: @i-gaze-at-scully (who gave me some terrific advice re: this fic yesterday--thank you!), @baronessblixen, @scully-eats-sushi, @because-they-dont-exist, & @megk18​.

I didn’t mean to take this from you.

You might have forgotten it. Accidentally left in the cupholder in my car. Maybe I brought it to the hospital one morning and kept it in my locker without thinking about it.

It’s most likely that I grabbed it from the cupboard when I was packing other things and neglected to consider that it was technically yours. Before I reached for it, touched it, held it, put it in a box, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what was yours or what was mine. Everything in that kitchen cabinet was ours.

But now there is a delineation. A boundary. My things versus your things.

I took what is mine and left behind what is yours. I left behind many of the things I’ve come to think of as ours.

A separation of our belongings along with the separation of ourselves.

Temporary as I hope it is.

Wednesday morning. 5:51 am. Nine minutes before my shift begins and I’m staring at this object in my hands, trying so very desperately not to let something as trivial as a coffee cup be my undoing.

But as soon as I realize what I’m holding, I can’t stop staring at it. This isn’t an inexpensive, indistinguishable cup. It’s a titanium tumbler, double-walled, with your initials engraved on the bottom. Practically indestructible. You could drop it off a cliff and it would survive the fall. I gave this to you. I spent fifty-something dollars on this piece of metal for you.

It wasn’t about how much it cost. It was about what I wanted it to represent. I wanted it to represent the fact that I knew you needed to be out there. Driving down dimly lit Midwestern highways at eighty miles per hour. Searching for answers. Clinging to every shred of evidence, every small piece of information that might bring you closer to the truth. And as foolish as it seemed, I wanted you to have this because I knew it could endure all of that alongside you.

What I didn’t know at the time is that I wouldn’t be able to.

I didn’t know that despite everything we had survived together, this diagnosis would break me.

Except it wasn’t the diagnosis. It was your reaction to it. Your unwillingness to accept it. To treat it. To do something about it.

I don’t discount the fact that I shouldn’t have been the one to do it. To diagnose you, that is. It was acceptable for me to serve as your physician for the simple things like cold remedies and flu shots. It was even fine for the more serious ailments that required stitches or bedrest.

Being the physician who diagnosed you with clinical depression was not acceptable. I should have known better. I’m just not certain you would have taken it any more seriously had it come from another doctor. It was more of a nuisance to you than anything else. A distraction. It took you away from your work.

It also took you away from me.

I urged you to seek treatment. I begged you to, and I so rarely beg anyone for anything. I don't think you heard me. I don’t think you could.

Some nights, you came to bed at three, four in the morning. Other nights, you didn’t come to bed at all. I would be waking for an early shift at the hospital and you would just be climbing into bed. Sleeping during the day and working long into the night.

We lived together, but we weren’t living together. You were immersed in your search. Paralyzed by your obsession. So isolated from the world that I could barely get you to sit at the kitchen table and have dinner with me.

I made the decision to leave not because I wanted to, but because I felt I needed to. Because I believe the physical distance is necessary for us to heal. You need to work this out by yourself, at least for now. You need to find yourself again before I have any real chance of helping you.

But I am also frightened by the thought that I may not have made this clear: it isn’t just you who needs to get better. I am broken, too.

We have to heal for each other.

I turn the mug over in my hands, feeling the cool surface against my fingertips. Titanium is known for its strength despite the fact that it’s a lightweight metal. You once pulled this mug from the shelf and told me I was the personification of titanium. “Lightweight but strong, Scully,” you said, smiling. "That’s you.”

Then you kissed me on the cheek and reached for the pot of coffee.

It’s also why your wedding band is made of titanium. The wedding band that now hangs on a chain around my neck, tucked neatly underneath my scrubs. The night I left, you removed it from your finger and placed it in the palm of my hand, folded my fingers around it, and let go.

The way you removed it with such ease and precision told me you’d practiced that maneuver already. It was, in some way, a confirmation that I, too, had failed. Because you anticipated it. You knew that I was going to leave.

“Take it,” you told me. “When I deserve to wear it again, you can bring it back to me.”

I grasp the chain and pull it out from underneath my top so I can hold the ring between my fingers. The metal has been warmed by my skin, as the chain is long and the band rests somewhere near my heart.

These objects make me miss you because they are yours.

This mug is yours, and the hands that hold it are yours.

This ring is yours, and the heart that beats near it is yours.

Because I am yours.

I take my phone out of my pocket and stare at it for just a few seconds because I think perhaps I should call you, just to hear your voice and know that you’re alright.

But I decide against it. It’s 5:57. I have to start rounds in three minutes, scrub in for surgery after that. I haven’t talked to you in over three weeks. Three minutes isn’t going to be enough, because I know you’re not alright. And neither am I.

I tuck the ring back underneath my scrubs and set the mug in my locker before closing it gently.

I didn’t mean to take something of yours.

I hope you know that, Mulder.

And I hope you’ll forgive me.

[sceptilemasterr]

ES Act 1, Scene 10 - The Raj Rage

Title: Endless Summer: The (un)Official Screenplay

Main Pairings: Estela x Ian (M!MC), Jake x Alyssa (F!MC)

Other Pairings: Craig x Zahra, Grace x Aleister, Michelle x Sean, Diego x Varyyn

Genre: Full Rewrite

Rating: PG-13 for swearing, violence, alcohol, and sexuality

Summary: Raj and the others celebrate their first night of vacation with an impromptu pool party.

Previous Scene: More Questions, No Answers

Masterlist: Link

EXT. CELESTIAL POOLSIDE AREA - NIGHT

Alyssa, Diego, and Ian enter the poolside area to find the party in full swing. Dance music blares from some speakers, and Grace is fiddling with a circuit box near the outlet where some string lights are plugged in. Jake stands behind the poolside bar, mixing drinks and arguing with Craig about something. Raj stands by the grill, cooking chicken and shrimp skewers. Every so often, he pops one into his mouth.

DIEGO: Whoa. This is impressive!

GRACE: Hi, Alyssa! Glad you could come!

ALYSSA: Grace! Hi! Uh... this is my brother, Ian, and our friend Diego. Not sure you’ve all met yet!

Diego and Ian wave awkwardly.

DIEGO: Hi...

SEAN: Hey, it’s the wonder twins!

The trio glance toward the sound of Sean’s voice to see him standing, shirtless, in the pool. Quinn and Michelle are there as well. As they watch, Craig walks over from the bar area and suddenly cannonballs into the pool.

CRAIG: Boo-yaaaaaaaaah!

Michelle shrieks as she gets splashed.

SEAN: Nice, we got four! Diego, Ian, Ian’s sister, you in for some Marco Polo

ALYSSA (muttering): First Jake, now you? I have a name.... I’m getting a drink.

Alyssa makes a beeline for the bar.

DIEGO: I’ll play! Let me just grab a snack first. How about you, Ian?

Ian shrugs.

IAN: Dunno. Whatever’s on the grill smells pretty good, though.

DIEGO: Well, come on, then!

The two boys walk over to the grill. Raj looks up and smiles, his mouth full.

RAJ: Mmrph’ts mumph, ooooo’s?

DIEGO (laughing): Sorry, what?

Raj swallows the food in his mouth and tries again.

RAJ: I said, “what’s up, dudes?”

IAN: What’s this? Smells awesome.

RAJ: Check it out! They’re my trademark Raj Special Skewers!

Raj hands a skewer each to Ian and Diego. Diego immediately takes a bite.

DIEGO: Yah! Burned my tongue!

Raj laughs.

RAJ: I did literally just take those off the fire. Might wanna blow on ‘em first.

Diego blushes while Ian starts blowing on his skewer.

DIEGO: Uh...I knew that! I was just...testing you!

RAJ: It’s all cool, dude! Just glad you could make it to the “Raj Rage!”

IAN: The what?

RAJ (indicating the party): The “Raj Rage!” I named it myself. Pretty cool name, huh?

IAN: Uhh...

DIEGO: Hah! That’s awesome!

RAJ: Right? By the way, there’s more to try! Quinn made some cupcakes, and of course, there’s plenty of the good stuff...

Raj winks and points toward the bar. Jake and Alyssa are standing together, talking and laughing about something. At the sight of them, Ian scowls and walks off toward the edge of the fence. Diego hesitates.

DIEGO: Sorry, Raj, be back later!

He smiles awkwardly at Raj before following Ian away from the crowd.

DIEGO: Ian, we talked about this.

IAN: I know, Diego. Deep down, I’m glad she’s happy, but it’s just...

DIEGO: You still can’t shut off that big brother instinct. I get it. ...Well, okay, I don’t get it, being an only child and all, but I understand it.

Ian sighs and leans forward onto the fence, staring up at the towering moonlit cliffside nearby.

DIEGO: Y’know, maybe you should just... find time to talk with him. Give him a chance. Who knows, you might end up being best friends!

IAN: After the way he treated Sean? I dunno. I feel like he’s forcing everyone to pick a “team.”

DIEGO: What, like Team Edward versus Team Jacob?

IAN: More like Iron Man versus Captain America. I’d rather this not turn into “Island Vacation: Civil War,” you know?

DIEGO: ...Yeah. Alyssa sure shut them down fast, though. I bet if she’d been in that movie, the whole plot would’ve been over in, like, the first five minutes!

Ian and Diego both laugh.

IAN: One big “shut up” from her would make any superhero listen.

Diego sighs and shakes his head.

DIEGO: I just want this week to be fun, you know? I want it to mean something. As soon as it’s all over, we go back home and it’s back to the bottom of the social ladder. This is our one chance to make something happen! I mean, can you imagine if we hadn’t made you come today? If I were you, I’d have been so mad at myself if I’d spent the night in my room instead of here!

IAN: But that’s you, Diego. You and Alyssa. Too much has been bothering me lately. And not just ‘Lyss and that...pilot guy, either.

Diego wraps an arm around Ian’s shoulder.

DIEGO: What, like the whole “nobody else here” thing? That problem will still be there in the morning. Sitting here moping about it isn’t going to solve it. You’ve just gotta forget about it for now!

Diego’s eyes light up as he gets an idea.

DIEGO: I know! We need some drinks. There’s your problem. I’ll go get ‘em, so you don’t have to get all overprotective about Alyssa, okay? What do you want?

Ian sighs and shakes his head.

IAN: To be alone for a little. I’m just gonna go clear my head.

DIEGO: Are you sure-

Ian smiles and waves at the others in the pool.

IAN: I’m sure, no need to worry! You go have fun and make some friends, huh? I’ll be back later. Promise.

DIEGO: Okay, but if I catch you in your room asleep with a book over your face again-

IAN (laughing): That was one time! Are you ever gonna let that go?

Diego grins and starts walking back toward the party.

DIEGO: Nope!

Ian unlatches the gate and walks off down the illuminated path leading up the cliff. Diego heads toward the bar, where Alyssa is mixing a drink.

ALYSSA: Here. Try this.

She slides a drink across the bar toward Jake, who grins and picks it up.

JAKE: You better not be tryin’ to poison me, Princess...

ALYSSA: I make no promises!

She turns and notices Diego approaching.

ALYSSA: Oh, hey, Diego!

DIEGO: Alyssa! And...uh...

Jake takes a sip of the drink, and pulls a face.

JAKE: Holy shit, that’s bitter! And strong as hell. That’s the kinda drink nobody could stand for long.

Alyssa winks conspiratorially at Diego, then smirks.

ALYSSA: That’s the idea! I call it “The Jake.”

Jake scowls, suppressing a grin.

JAKE: ...You’re a real comedian, Princess. Let me show you how it’s done.

As he starts to mix another drink of his own, he notices Diego for the first time.

DIEGO: ...So your name’s Jake?

JAKE: Yeah. Alright, hang on...

Jake continues mixing the drink as he looks Diego up and down, thinking of a nickname.

DIEGO: Uh, I’m Dieg-

Jake holds up a hand. Alyssa rolls her eyes.

JAKE: You’re the guy with the movie references...alright, “Reference Ricky” it is!

DIEGO: “Reference Ricky?”

ALYSSA: That’s Top Gun for you. He still doesn’t even know my name.

JAKE: Sure I do, Princess! I just don’t feel like usin’ it.

He finishes making the drink and hands it to her.

JAKE: Try that. I call it “The Princess.”

ALYSSA: Diego, I might need my stomach pumped after this-

She takes a sip, and her eyes widen in surprise.

ALYSSA: Huh. It’s kind of... all over the place. No idea how to even describe it.

Jake smiles, and for the first time since Alyssa met him, it’s a sincere, genuine smile.

JAKE: Yeah. It doesn’t really know what it wants to be. But it has the potential to be anything.

DIEGO: Wow, who knew this guy was a poet?

ALYSSA: That was... surprisingly thoughtful.

Jake returns to his usual sarcastic demeanor.

JAKE: Oh, sure, even when you compliment me you’ve gotta say “surprisingly” first?

Alyssa takes another sip.

ALYSSA: Alright, that’s enough of you for one party. Diego, wanna test out the water?

DIEGO: Sure!

Alyssa winks at Jake as she and Diego pull off their shirts and head to the pool. Jake shakes his head and smiles after Alyssa.

JAKE (muttering): Damn, Princess. I’m actually gonna miss you.

Next Scene: Beneath the Stars

Taglist: @brightpinkpeppercorn @mysteli @edgydepressedchoicesthot @bbaba-yagaa @endlesshero1122 @endlessly-searching-for-you

[thisiskatiek]

Stairway to Heaven

About an illegal hike in Hawaii that the kids do anyway

--

A relentlessly unhappy baby bemoans the pain of a red-eye from Honolulu to Atlanta. Despite my best efforts (three jack and cokes, three Tylenol PMs), the baby’s wails trump Mr. Sandman. My body is jelly, and I would do well to be spread on toast, I think, as I feel the hydrogen ions in my blood render my body to wet cement with every movement. I should be sleeping!

Last night, my teenage cousin guided me to a summit whose leading journey was so continuously upward and life-threatening that it masked the spookiness of us going in the witching hour. Adrenaline and coffee filled, possessed by the want for Mother Earth (or Papa and Honua, the Hawaiian earth gods), to enliven my spirit with her humbling and majestic ways. I paid little attention to the maximized effort my body was making. I felt like jelly.

In 1942, a wooden ladder was spiked to a cliff on the island of O’ahu to enable the installation of antenna cables, which were later used by the U.S. Coast Guard in the 1950s. Upgraded from ladder to stairway, the trail hosted open traffic by many until the state deemed it too treacherous and shut closed it off in 1987. Sixteen years later, the state of Hawaii paid $875,000 to have them repaired and yet they remain restricted. The hike is officially named the Haiku Stairs, or the Stairway to Heaven. It is off-limits to the public and therefore desirable for its forbidden views as well as the unique challenge of climbing 3,922 steps.

Reckless but sober, we ambitiously started the journey around two in the morning. Perhaps a little too early, but rumor had it that the guard stationed himself around three. Cloaked by the dark, I followed my deer-like cousin through a bamboo forest and under a fence, sneaking like hungry raccoons but clumsily cracking nests of broken bamboo. Approaching the entrance to the path, we were startled by a sweaty, curious man meandering by the mouth, so we rather quickly grappled around the final obstructing fence and landed on the first stair.

Moonlight illuminated the ascending path and framing foliage in milky streaks, casting an ominous glow on the looming trail. The stairs crawled at a steady incline like an endless chrome centipede, flanked by a rail on either side and studded with grips. While the slopes were lush with bedded foliage, there was no branch or boulder to break a fall should either of us do so. As I hauled upward through the mist, thoughts of life’s impermanence and constant unpredictability swam along my brain. I was a recent college graduate living in New York, supporting myself with earnings from an industry I have little interest and continuously sideswiped by those I assume are more ambitious, lucky or talented than I.

Silently climbing the stairs, I pondered the concept of “making it” in the big apple, and the significance of it all fell off my shoulders like the sweat off my neck. Perhaps the Hawaiian gods were near, or maybe I was merely experiencing firsthand man versus nature philosophy. Either way, the physical effort combined with the quiet thrill of a prohibited nocturnal hike successfully revived my existential engine. Catching our breath on the second platform, my stoic and positive little cousin weighed the consequences of this exercise on her upcoming track meet. As casual as one choosing a good pineapple or better pineapple, she shrugged off notions of fatigue and glanced upward. We were making good time–it was just shy of 4–and judging the stunted forthcoming stairs, I thought we might have time for a nap at the top before dawn. Nodding to the above incline, I asked “Is that where it ends? Just up there?”

“No, laughed Christine. We have to go through the clouds!”

The force of roaring wind and the splattering rain held my breath outside of my body. We looked like struggling wet butterflies, our bright ponchos clinging to and blowing away from us like dampened and damaged wings.

As night remained ever present, cloaking the surroundings with her inky shroud, our arrival to the top was not rewarded with a panoramic view of southern O’ahu. Rather than linger and take photos, we cautiously peered inside the concrete hut that marked the peak. Layers of graffiti and grime covered the walls, but the musty air was ours alone. A plank of creaky plywood served as our sanctuary where we began the wait for sunrise.

Twenty minutes into the mini-vigil, the first to mark a steady stream of young adventurers stepped into the quarters. One toted a plastic bag filled with wrinkled, blackened hot dogs, and her companion, a bearded fellow, had a pack full of the necessary accoutrements for a sunrise stake-out: a lantern, some blankets, and potato chips. Following them was an exhilarated and garrulous group in complimentary University of Hawaii sweatshirts and on their tail, vagabonderie in the teenage male form. Shaggy-haired and shoeless, the wiry young men bring up the rear, sauntered around like one might in their kitchen before stepping out to surreptitiously smoke a bowl of marijuana. Inside, snacks were timidly passed around, and my cousin’s iPhone soon met a friendly UH student’s portable speakers to serenade all with reggae and island tunes.

On a time-limit (school started in two hours), we waved our newly formed and never-to-be-seen-again comrades goodbye and prematurely began our descent just at the cusp of dawn. When the sun finally raised its glowing head, the shroud of settled mist rose to the heavens and the bushy green life beneath stirred with the dawn. Sweet and pungent odors wafted through the morning breeze, as I discovered God’s cuckoo clock in the chorus of tropical birds.

There was no time to meander around or pause for the view.

Getting down was less like walking down a long flight of stairs and more like controlled falling: lifting, sliding, planting. I tested exactly how durable my gloves were as my arms stepped up to be the one barrier between my body and the slippery steep ground. As the bottom rose to focus, so did the guard. Avoiding a citation was the final worry, but as his blue hair came into focus, my anxiety disappeared. Any guard with a blue Mohawk had to have the Aloha spirit, right? Toddling on wobbly limbs, we awkwardly passed him with a guilty greeting. “Now you,” he alleged, looking at my red face, sweaty head, and mud-splattered body, “you look like you just went to Heaven.”

[davidmseth-blog]

WTFAID?

WTF Am I Doing? Bike touring and camping on the gorgeous Olympic Peninsula, while applying for permanent housing. Adventuring until something great opens up in Port Townsend, WA, or nearby. Incredible biking opportunities abound, while PT is an awesome little lefty paradise in itself, with bike / bus / ferry access to downtown Seattle just an hour away. Awesomeness. Just spent 5 days camping in the middle of the Olympic National Forest, in a crafty little spot I call my Hideout. It's deep in the rainforest, at the top of a cliff on two sides, at the bottom of a cliff on a third side, and almost impossible to access on the only thin, tiny, twisting route in. Getting in requires throwing yourself into a thick, virtually impenetrable mass of bushes and foliage 6 feet high for dozens of yards, then scaling a hill so steep it's practically a cliff face, while the mud and roots and logs underfoot make it a bit nightmarish to navigate -- if you can navigate it all. The spot is so hard to get to that I don't worry in the slightest that anyone would ever get to it without my guidance, while I imagine even the bears in the area are like, fuck THAT noise. Bears are the main issue. Have had a few close calls with them in the past. You see, this is a spot I've actually lived in for months, covertly, on various adventures Into The Wild. Took me weeks of hunting and thinking about spots until I found the perfect one. Once, at this spot, I was awoken at 3 am or so by this horrendous scraping, rending, ripping sound a couple dozen yards away. Sounded like a very large monster eating a very large tree. Found out later that bears sometimes like to claw the living shit out of trees, for some reasons I can't remember, other than to terrify he living shit out of solitary campers in the middle of the night. Another incident involved an open packet of mustard that made a mess throughout my backpack. Ultra pungent food scent + being in bear territory = BAD NEWS. Felt very iffy about exploring much that day as a result... And then I can across what looked like a human leg bone. Stared at the leg bone a bit. Then decided to say Fuck THAT Crazy Shit. Went back from whence I came, across a field for a hundred yards, then across a road, to where my bike was. Suddenly, a car stopped, a couple nice round fat people got out, and were gawking in EXACTLY the direction I had just come from. "Holy Shit!" Exclaimed one, "That's the biggest fucking bear I've ever seen!" I was a couple dozen yards away, behind a mass of bushes, and by the time I came out to see, the bear had scampered back into the forest... Exactly where I'd been 20 minutes prior. So I currently have 3 defenses versus a bear attack. Bears fear loud shrill synthetic sounds, and the million-volt stun gun I have makes the craziest loudest electric crackling synthetic sound imaginable. So I'm pretty sure just the sound of it would scare off the vast majority of bears in the area. Then I have pepper spray with a wide area effect that shoots 20 feet, for when I'm out of my tent. But you don't want to be spraying pepper spray INSIDE of your tent, in case of a bear attack, so I have a second, gel-based pepper spray that requires you to aim well (as it comes out as a stream of gel), but doesn't fill the air with a cloud of devastating pepper mist that would choke and blind you as much as your attacker were you to fire it in your tent. So I feel pretty safe in my little tent, in my Hideout, in the middle of the deep dark forest... Except for sometimes, in the middle of moonless nights, when it seems like The Blair Witch is right outside the tent, waiting to devour me. It's a pretty unusual thing, being alone in a tent deep in the forest, deep at night... And sometimes, just freaky as hell. Feels like you KNOW She's out there, waiting to kill and eat you, and maybe not in that order. But for the past 5 days, no sign of The Witch. Felt very peaceful, quiet, tranquil out there, every night. But should The Blair Witch threaten, I have a plan. Which I'll go into in my next blog post: Smoking Death Star With The Blair Witch.

[j0sgomez-blog]

Skyline Arch in Arches National Park.

Hi Michael,

My wife and I are heading to Moab at the end of April for a week of hiking in Canyonlands and Arches. We’re excited about the trip; it’s our first to that area. We are dayhikers, but we’re not afraid of mileage. (The Highline Trail from Logan Pass down to Swiftcurrent Pass in Glacier National Park was one the most enjoyable days we’ve had in the national park system.)

I’ve been weighing our many options for hikes and I have a question: What are the must-do dayhikes in Arches and Canyonlands?

I’ve read varying accounts of the Syncline Loop Trail. Some say it’s straightforward, others say it has some difficult scrambling. What’s your take? Others on my list are making the trek to the Horseshoe Canyon to see the Great Gallery; hiking to the confluence overlook; Druid Arch; maybe the Peekaboo Trail.

Thanks for your input!

Scott Madison, WI

  Backpackers in Squaw Canyon, Needles District, Canyonlands National Park.

Hi Scott,

Thanks for writing and following The Big Outside, I hope you subscribe for full access to all stories at my blog (including the feature story I link in the next paragraph).

For starters, I highly recommend all of the hikes described in The Itinerary section near the bottom of my story about backpacking and hiking in Canyonlands and Arches (that story requires a paid subscription to read). Even the popular hikes are really worth doing, and you can avoid the heaviest crowds on some trails by going early in the morning or late afternoon/evening. Given your attraction to longer hikes, you might dayhike the 20-mile route through Chesler Park and Elephant Canyon in the Needles District of Canyonlands that I describe in that story as an “alternative Needles backpacking trip” (an alternative to what I did with my family); to shorten it, you could skip the four-mile, out-and-back to Druid Arch, but I recommend you visit The Joint Trail, and perhaps even hike the full loop around Chesler Park.

Jasmine Wilhelm hiking the Chesler Park Trail, Needles District, Canyonlands.

Sounds like you’d also have no problem dayhiking Big Spring, Squaw, and Lost canyons and the Peekaboo Trail in one day, too.

The Big Spring-Squaw Pass is a highlight of the Needles District, and also described in the story linked in the above paragraph.

I have mountain biked out to the Confluence Overlook, a really nice spot, even though the trail out to it (as I recall, it was some years ago) is atop the plateau and not terribly interesting for most of the distance to the overlook.

Try to schedule a ranger-guided hike in the Fiery Furnace in Arches ahead of your trip; it’s popular and gets booked well in advance. I tried hiking it unguided some years ago and we had to backtrack to the start because we could not figure out the route through that fascinating maze of narrow canyons.

  Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside, which has made several top outdoors blog lists. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Subscribe now to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip. Please follow my adventures on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube.

  Devils Garden in Arches is popular, especially the first section of trail as far as Landscape Arch, and it can be difficult to park at the trailhead. But it’s worth hiking out to see all of the named arches along the trail’s various segments, and you lose much of the crowds once beyond Landscape Arch. Just get there early. See my photos from Arches in this story (same as I linked above); even some of the arches reached on short hikes from the road, like Skyline Arch, are very pretty; in the side canyon just below Skyline Arch, you can scramble up onto some ledges for a different perspective of Skyline.

I have not hiked the Syncline Loop Trail in the Island in the Sky District of Canyonlands, though I’ve wanted to and I’m sure I’ll get there eventually. I’ve read that there are steep sections with loose talus and one short traverse above a cliff. The answer to your question really depends on how any individual person defines “difficult scrambling.” My experience is that most hiking trails in national parks, even those described as having some exposure or difficult scrambling, are not beyond the abilities of experienced hikers who are comfortable with some scrambling that involves using your hands at times, and are comfortable with some exposure. Hikers who don’t like that sort of trail might want to avoid the Syncline Loop Trail. But I don’t think you’d face any level of scrambling or exposure where you’re in great, imminent danger, as long as you exercise reasonable caution. Plus, you can always turn around and backtrack if you encounter an uncomfortable situation.

  A tiny canyon behind Navajo Arch in Devils Garden, Arches National Park.

If you’re up for a big, fantastic loop (with a short walk on pavement to connect the trailheads) that I’ve seen described as 18 miles, combine the Syncline Loop Trail with the trail down Upheaval Canyon, a short stretch of the White Rim Trail, and the dirt road up Taylor Canyon to the Alcove Spring Trail. You’ll go from the mesa top of the Island down into spectacular Stillwater Canyon on the Green River, see the tall, slender spires called Zeus and Moses, then climb back up to the Island—a grand tour. I’ve seen parts of that loop while mountain biking the White Rim Trail and floating the Green River through Stillwater Canyon. As with any hike in these parks, you’ll have long, hot, shadeless stretches, so be prepared for that. (I like a wide-brim hat for hot sun.)

And visit Dead Horse Point State Park—ideally for sunset—and drive to the end of the road for the very short walk to the overlook above the Colorado River Canyon, for a view that will blow your socks off.

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  As you may know, the districts of Canyonlands are geographically closer to one another—as the crow flies—than they are convenient to reach by car. The entrance to the Needles District is a 90-minute drive south of Moab; the Island in the Sky entrance is about a 30-minute drive north of Moab. Horseshoe Canyon is more than three hours from Moab, and the condition of the dirt road to the trailhead can vary (although we made it in a Subaru Outback).

The Maze District is the least-accessible area of Canyonlands; its ranger station is more than a three-hour drive from Moab, and from that station it’s at least three hours of driving on high-clearance, 4WD roads to get into The Maze. For that reason, most visitors don’t try to get to all of the districts of Canyonlands on the same trip. But if you have more than a week and this is a big trip for you, then you can try to hit them all.

See menus of all of my stories at The Big Outside about Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park.

Thanks again for sending a good question. Have a great trip.

Best, Michael

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  I can help you plan the best backpacking, hiking, or family adventure of your life.

Got a question about hiking, backpacking, planning a family adventure, or any trip I’ve written about at The Big Outside? Email it to me at   michael@thebigoutside.com. For just $75, I’ll answer your questions via email or in a phone call to help ensure your trip is a success. See my Ask Me page.

—Michael Lanza

  The Great Gallery in Horseshoe Canyon, Canyonlands National Park.

Hi Michael,

Thanks so much for you excellent and thorough reply!! You’ve given me a lot to consider as we plan things out.

The long driving distances are something that I’m aware of and have been wrestling with. For instance, I’d really love to see the Great Gallery, since I’m a big fan of pictographs. But seven hours of round-trip driving, much of it through questionable terrain, makes me really stop and think. On the other hand, I won’t likely get another chance, so we may burn a long day just doing that!

I’ll let you know when we get back what we decided and how it all turned out!

Thanks again, Scott

Landscape Arch, Devils Garden, Arches National Park.

Hi Scott,

You’re certainly welcome. It’s a tough decision between more time in the car versus not seeing a place you’re excited to see. I try to spend a much higher percentage of my time on trails or engaged in enjoyable activity than driving, so I tend to focus my objectives in a destination, as opposed to ranging far and wide. But I live in the West and can access these parks more easily than you can, so your priorities may be different.

There may also be alternative areas you could visit that would provide an experience similar to the Great Gallery without driving as far, if you do a little more digging. There’s a lot to see in that part of the country. I backpacked in Grand Gulch, on Cedar Mesa in southeastern Utah, some years ago, a canyon system with fascinating and largely intact Ancestral Puebloan cliff ruins and rock art. If you’re going to Canyonlands Needles District, Grand Gulch is several hours closer than Horseshoe Canyon. This N.Y. Times story made me think about returning there again.

But then, if it’s really important to you to see the Great Gallery, then the driving probably won’t matter to you.

The other consideration is that you would need to rent a vehicle built for those roads to Horseshoe Canyon and The Maze, and to make sure the rental contract allows you to drive roads like that. I was with a group of friends that rented a big, 4X4, for the White Rim Trail (everyone mountain biked and took turns driving the one vehicle, which carried camping gear and food), so I believe you can find those rentals in Moab.

I’d love to hear how it turns out. Whatever you do, you won’t be disappointed. Good luck.

Michael

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Hi Michael,

Well, we had an absolutely fantastic trip to Utah. What a beautiful part of the world!

As we expected, everything is pretty far apart. But we did end up making the drive out to Horseshoe Canyon. It was well worth it! I would recommend it to anyone, as long as you can get there. The hike isn’t bad, except for the climb up out of the canyon. It was only in the low 80s the day we were there, and I can’t imagine one of those upper-90s days making that climb.

Thanks again for all of your input!

Scott