#ferns are so old its interesting to see how long some have survived

[aisling-saoirse]

Cinnamon Fern - Osmunda Cinnamomea

One of the more interesting ferns, the cinnamon fern is named after the spice colored fertile frond (seen erect in image 2 and 3). Like all ferns this grows best in moist shade, however they can also grow in full sunlight in wetlands at the cost of leaf appearance being more leathery and yellow.

I commonly find these in mountains, Atlantic White Cedar swamps, and north facing slopes. Visible in picture 1+3, these can somewhat frequently be found growing near mountain laurels. All images are taken near the Appalachian trail. Native from Labrador Canada to the American southwest and the tropics. Allegedly, this species is the only living member of its genus and also native in Eastern Asia, which is extremely fascinating. Scientists believe this is one of the oldest still-living plant species according to late cretaceous fossil records.

[cycas]

Wolves of Winter

I made this for the Scribbles and Drabbles event by @fall-for-tolkien and it came out better than expected, so I ended up doing more detail than I'd originally thought.

It was vaguely inspired by this quote from Gandalf, about Hobbits in the Long Winter, 2758-2759:

"I began to have a warm place in my heart for them in the Long Winter, which none of you can remember. They were very hard put to it then: one of the worst pinches they have been in, dying of cold, and starving in the dreadful dearth that followed. But that was the time to see their courage, and their pity one for another. It was by their pity as much as their tough uncomplaining courage that they survived. I wanted them to survive.”

Although it could also be the later Fell Winter, (T.A. 2911 – 2912), when the Brandywine river froze over, and white wolves invaded across it, and Gandalf and the Rangers helped the Shirefolk by bringing them food. 

When I drew this I wanted to put some ornamentation around the two circles, and I chose ice-covered fern leaves for the hobbits, because of their skill in disappearing and the old story about how fern seed magically makes people invisible. 

Then I needed something for the Wild Wood Across the River side of things, and I picked holly, because it’s a plant that is green with berries in mid-winter.  But of course, holly is the sign of Eregion too, so it might be that the wolves are possessed by dead spirits out of Eregion.  

Or maybe the Rangers use the berried holly in its traditional role as a charm against witchcraft?

Anyway, I don't know if anyone will pick this one to write for, but if they do, I'll be interested to see what they come up with!

[juniper-tree]

The real flora of fake Zion

Fallout: New Vegas was a formative game for me. It gathered up and solidified a lot of disparate interests I’d had for years: desert life, survival medicine and ethnobotany (what Arcade does), being dumb and causing a ruckus. 

The botany really stuck with me. Still working on the desert life. I am an herbalist but not a botanist (yet—for now I just watch Joey Santore and vibe) but plant IDing is a fun hobby. And nothing’s more fun than looking at 10 year old brown pixels and figuring out what the hell they’re supposed to be. 

Continuing my “video game plants in real life” studies (here / here), and because I can’t stop myself from writing plants into my story, here’s a non-exhaustive list of the flora unique to FNV’s Zion Canyon in Honest Hearts.

Ephedra viridis (Mormon tea)

Mormon tea, as you may surmise from its scientific name, is a main source of ephedra, and it will fuck you up. This is trucker speed. As for its common name, well here’s a long post on some of the evidence for and against the idea that Mormon settlers used this as a coffee substitute. If you would like to imagine Joshua Graham and Daniel’s speed-fueled arguments carrying on into the night, I will certainly not stop you. By all accounts, it has a nice flavor.

(lots more behind cut)

Adiantum capillus-veneris (southern maidenhair fern)

Maidenhair fern clings to rock faces and overhangs in Zion, with no observable soil and sometimes very little water - a xerophyte. It tends to cluster and spread in crevices, as around the opening to Crossroad Cavern above. This fern is pretty prevalent in actual Zion, so it’s nice they included some climbing/vining vegetation to break up all the brown-red rock lumps.

Quercus gambelii (gambel oak)

The gambel oak is indigenous to Zion, and in the game—as well as in life—you’ll see it in various states of coloration: bright green, rust red, golden yellow.  It’s one of two tree species to remain in post-apocalyptic Zion, which is still rather lush and green compared to the surrounding wasteland. I imagine that without significant acorn-eating (and spreading) wildlife, the oaks don’t thrive the way they might, radioactive blight aside.

Datura wrightii (sacred datura)

Boy, they did a nice job rendering the sacred datura plant, didn’t they? Datura wrightii is as presented in-game: highly toxic, known to cause hallucinations and sickness (death, really, if you are not knowledgeable and skilled in indigenous peoples’ practices with it), and grows in individual green clumps in the desert soil. A poisonous little oasis with inviting, pretty white flowers.

I will tell you that seeing sacred datura in person for the first time (in Joshua Tree) gave me that “she is too fond of video games and it has turned her brain” feeling. I wanted to lightly pluck the flowers and have them disappear into my invisible backpack. I did not.

Pinus ponderosa (ponderosa pine)

It took me many go-rounds to decide whether the in-game tree above was ponderosa pine or douglas fir. Something tells me the design was more “generic conifer” and not as true to life as it might be. I’m fairly confident I picked the right one, and anyway, the ponderosa pine is much more interesting. Brachyptera is the subspecies which grows in the Four Corners area. It can grow tall and bushy like the digital ones up there at Ranger Substation Eagle, or it can grow spindly and bent with high elevation and wind.

Did you know ponderosa pines were used to test atom bombs in Nevada? They took a bunch of pines from elsewhere, planted them at Area 5, and then kaboom. The trees largely fell over (video of test). Seems like they could have guessed that.

Artemisia filifolia (old man or sand sagebrush)

The sages in Honest Hearts are very scraggly indeed, sharp, spiky silvery white shrubs without much soft leaf or fuzz, like real ones. They look a bit more like Artemisia cana (silver sagebrush), but perhaps they’ve just become hardened like everybody else in the Wastes. The sand sagebrush has tons of documented uses among the indigenous peoples of the west, including as toilet paper.

Others!

Unlike some of my other investigations into video game plants, because this is set in a real, identifiable place I can touch with my own hands and feet, I don’t have to make real plant analogues from fictional ones. Except in the case of broc flower and xander root. The wiki suggests broc plants resemble Sphaeralcea ambigua, desert globemallows, and while the flowers bear a similarity, I do think this is quite intentionally a fictional plant with fictional properties. As is xander root—essentially, a turnip. Turnips are very good for you.

Of course, there are other plants common to the Mojave Wasteland which I’ve not covered here: Yucca baccata (datil or banana yucca), prickly pear Opuntia cacti (the ones they’ve drawn look kinda like Opuntia polyacantha but Opuntia phaeacantha would be more correct for the region), Agave utahensis (Nevada agave - var. nevadensis wouldn’t be in Zion but var. kaibabensis would so I won’t be picky, and anyway who’s to say how plants spread after 2077).

[guardianreadersofthegalaxy]

My July ‘20 - June ‘21 film ranking:

1.       His House (AKA ‘Walls… I Scream’) – A Sudanese couple seek refuge in the UK, but are unable to escape the horror they left behind. It’s a tried and tested horror formula: a strained family unit try to come to terms with shared trauma against the backdrop of a serious social issue. But it’s really well executed. The understated tone left me unprepared for the brazenly nightmarish imagery.

2.       Sound Of Metal (AKA ‘Deaf Becomes Him’) – A punk drummer and recovering addict deals with a sudden and severe loss of hearing. I wish I’d gotten to see more of Riz Ahmed drumming with his shirt off but maybe that’s point? The sudden silence hits Ruben and the viewer like a tonne of bricks with ‘point of hearing’ sound design ensuring you empathise. Olivia Cooke is great too and the desperate romance between addicts really appealed to the angsty teen in me, until it resolves in an appropriately mature way.

3.       The Dig (AKA ‘Ralph Fiennes A Boat’) – On the eve of World War II, a wealthy widow hires excavator Basil Brown to dig up an Anglo Saxon burial mound. The stakes are low but it’s just nice to spend time in the countryside with these characters. I normally like shaky-cam and creative sound mixing but both are overused enough to be a bit distracting. Where director Simon Stone really shines is with his handling of the cast, who give some great naturalistic performances, particularly Ralph Fiennes who seems to be channelling Toby Jones.

4.       Nomadland (AKA ‘Van Clan Thank You Ma’am) – After losing her home, unemployed widow Fern takes to the road to join the American nomads. Why are non-actors so good at acting? This is pretty light on characterisation, to the extent that it wasn’t until halfway through that I started to get a grasp of Fern’s personality, but it makes up for that by immersing you in the nomad culture, as well as showing you tonnes of lovely nature porn. Paid for by the tourism board of Nevada.

5.       Mank (AKA ‘So What If It’s Not Citizen Kane?’) – Alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz draws on his experiences of 1930s Hollywood while writing the screenplay for ‘Citizen Kane’. I was more interested than emotionally invested. The old timey aesthetic felt like a gimmick, and though it was cool to hear Nine Inch Nails playing jazz tunes, the black & white gave me a headache. The real highlight was the late Jack Fincher’s screenplay, with tonnes of snappy and insightful dialogue.

6.       A Quiet Place Pt. 2 (AKA ‘Now With Talking!’) Pursued by monsters with powerful hearing, the Abbot family struggle to survive after the apocalypse. Remind me to always see horror in the cinema from now on. The big screen and sound system, and your inability to pause for a pee break, make all the difference. Though I prefer the first ‘Quiet Place’, this was a scarier watch, by virtue of me seeing it in the theatre. ‘Pt 2’ mostly lives up to the original, but lacks the emotional punch of its ending, and suffers from being split into two plots that don’t overlap.

7.       In The Heights (AKA ‘I Am Not Throwing Away My Shop’) – An adaptation of the Tony award winning show about Washington Heights’ Latin American community. It’s not easy adapting a stage musical for the screen, particularly a good one. And while I’ll still credit Lin Manuel Miranda’s source material for any and all gooseflesh I got, director John M. Chu did a pretty respectable job, with some nice creative flourishes. A lot of changes were made, many to the film’s detriment, but some provided new opportunities for characterisation.

8.       Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (AKA ‘I Miss Theatres’) – A 1920s Chicago blues band embark on a tumultuous recording session. This has all the strengths and weaknesses of a play. The spectacles of cinema are done away with in order to spotlight the many duologues and monologues in a way that feels unnatural for a film. But the source material is excellent and the cast definitely do it justice.

9.       Tenet (AKA ‘Taco Cat’) – A mercenary known only as ‘The Protagonist’ gets caught up with time travel, a Russian oligarch and the threat of Armageddon. This is way too long and the endless, inaudible exposition gets dull very quickly but the inventive and heart-racing action sequences more or less make up for that. The male actors all play their roles with charisma while Elizabeth Debicki is left to do the emotional heavy lifting.

10.   Saint Maud (AKA ‘I’m Walking On Thumb Tacks Oh-oh’) – A hospice nurse and recent Christian convert believes she must save the soul of her terminally ill patient. I never say this, but Saint Maud should have been longer. The first seventy minutes go for slow building tension but that leaves the last half hour with not enough time to bring things to a head. The creepy atmosphere is carried by the music and visuals more than the understated performance of the two leads.

11.   Luca (AKA ‘Started Out As A Fish, How Did I End Up Like This?) – Young sea monster Luca ventures onto dry land to see the world with his friend Alberto. It’s a much breezier story than Pixar’s ‘heavy hitters’ but there’s nothing wrong with that. The underwater animation was so beautiful I was disappointed when things moved to dry land but fortunately the seaside setting was just as evocative. Plot-wise, it’s pretty standard coming-of-age fare, with any pubescent ‘awakenings’ relegated to subtext.

12.   Soul (AKA ‘Jazz’) – A New York school band teacher struggles to escape the ‘Great Before’ in time to play a gig with his hero. This is absolute treacle to the eyes and ears as you’d expect from Pixar, and the narrative theme, of living for the sake of it rather than obsessing over your goals, is insightful and well delivered. The problem is that the story did too good a job of getting me invested in Joe’s hopes and dreams for me to be on board with his final epiphany. Perhaps it’s a lesson I still need to learn, and when I have, maybe I’ll appreciate ‘Soul’ more.

13.   News Of The World (AKA ‘Not Enough News’) – A travelling news reader takes a dangerous journey through post-civil war Texas to return a young girl to her relatives. This is one of the most unremarkable films I’ve ever seen. The plot is fine but predictable and its execution is forgettably competent across the board, with few distinguishing features. It adequately killed two hours of a lockdown evening, but then so would a screen of white noise.

14.   I’m Thinking Of Ending Things (AKA ‘The Arty-Farty Film For Clever Cloggses’) – A young woman goes to visit her new boyfriend’s parents as she contemplates ‘ending things’. This would have made a great short film in that it seems very deep and, for the 50 mins before I stopped watching, doesn’t really have a plot. Problem is it’s 135 mins long and I can’t take that much unbroken weirdness. Directing, acting and writing choices are all so offputtingly deliberate that watching it felt like listening to a band where every member is soloing at the same time.

15.   Uncorked (AKA ‘Billy Sommeliot’) – A young man from Memphis dreams of leaving his parents’ barbeque restaurant to become a sommelier. This is just kinda follows the formula of ‘young working class guy wants to do something his parents don’t approve of’. It’s competently made but not very imaginative and wastes the opportunity for some great food porn.

[gothamcityneedsme]

I saw this bouncing around my dash and decided to fill it out myself for fun :)  I decided to not double-list any games, and I tried to mix up the companies I used too so that the list would be more unique.

Long post, so I’m doing a readmore for my longwinded part lol.

(read more)

Favorite Game: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords - I could talk about this game forever.  How it tears apart the Star Wars universe from within, how it creates a compelling story while challenging the usual themes, etc.  I could talk for ages about the characters and how their motivations slot in place, and how this game lends itself to interpretation and analysis alongside roleplay.  It’s just a wonderful game, one I deeply love and will always love.  It’s a game that isn’t afraid to have you talk to other characters for twenty or thirty minutes at a time and honestly I’m always riveted at every line.  This game deserves the cult fanbase it has, but I think there’s a lot the fanbase misses in appreciating this game.  (Note...gameplay is a little janky and a community made mod restores a lot content that was cut before shipping-the game wasn’t properly finished).

Best Story:  Fallout New Vegas - It’s the setting that makes the story here, and all the moving pieces and factions alongside the main conflict really make this game stand out.  There’s so many little pieces to find along the way in the world and the way the main quest splits based on who you want in power feels important--and you are choosing a future for this whole region.

Favorite Art Style: The Witness - This game is peacefully wonderful with its visuals.  There are wonderful nature scenes and nests of wires and panels spreading in various parts of the island that are fascinating to look at.  The environment is half of the gameplay in most areas, so it’s important to look around even though exploration is not really the gameplay.  You find puzzles in the world, even in nature, and it’s fascinating.  The colors are bright and beautiful.  There is even a map in the middle of the island inside of a lake that helps you track your progress if you notice it (it isn’t like a normal ‘map’).

Favorite Soundtrack: Shin Megami Tensei IV - I love video game soundtracks, but SMTIV is something special.  The music booms in ways that make you really understand the atmosphere of the world, and there’s a great mix of different kinds of tracks for different places.  I love the tracks for the other worlds you enter, and the themes of the different routes are done so well.  Some of the music draws from past SMT games, but the remixes done for this game really are stunning to me, and there’s so many fantastic original tracks.

Hardest Game: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - I love this game but I literally never touch it without a walkthrough, which is why it gets to be the hardest game on the list, despite being a point and click adventure game lol.  Also just emotionally this game is challenging too, but I definitely mean this more in terms of getting a ‘perfect run’.

Funniest Game: The Stanley Parable - Trying to make this list has taught me that I don’t really play many ‘funny games’.  I don’t know if a game where multiple endings demand that you kill yourself should count as a ‘funniest game’, but it is also a game where the narrator tells you to stare at a fern and memorize its features, so....it counts.

Game I Like that is Hated: RWBY Grimm Eclipse - I’ve been playing this game since it was in early access and have loved it the whole time.  I find the gameplay soothing and fun, and I like playing the different characters.  It’s a game I play to chill out and just enjoy some fun battle mechanics.  It’s a fun game and I’ve spent over 100 hours in it, so I hope I like it, lol.

Game I Hate that is Liked:  Nier Automata - Neither this game’s gameplay or story impress me, and the fact that you have to replay basically the same stuff from a more boring-to-play-character’s pov in order to SEE all of the plot is a huge damper on the experience.  The story, to me, someone who engages with a lot of robot-focused fiction, is far from impressive or new, and it hardly engages with genre specifics at all, let alone in a new or interesting way.  I view this game as ‘a story with robots in it’ rather than ‘a story about robots’, which, to me, is a detriment.

Underrated: Nevermind - This game is amazing and very unheard of--and when it is heard of, it has been marketed incorrectly.  Nevermind seems like a horror game, and does market itself as one a bit, but it’s much more than that.  It’s more about trauma, recovery, therapy, etc.  This is a game that is so mindful about the topics it engages in that I am impressed by it every time.  It’s heavy with symbolism and character, despite lacking conversations or other similar game mechanics.  This is a lovely game that I really wish more people knew about-`p5-all of the patients are so interesting, and the focus on recovery and mental health is impressive.

Overrated:  Fire Emblem - I sort of mean this as the series as a whole really.  I have enjoyed the entries I have played somewhat, but I overall consider the series much less impressive than I was led to believe by others.  The gameplay especially is not impressive to me in any regard, even though I sometimes do find myself enjoying it.  The stories are alright, but many of them are weighed down by the gameplay and as a writer and person who likes to analyze writing, it’s very hard to do so when it isn’t able to fully exist under the chains the gameplay forces on it.  There are ways to mix gameplay and story well, Fire Emblem has not really done that in any of the entries I’ve played.  That being said, I don’t regret playing them, and I will occasionally replay, but I consider them mediocre games at best.

Best Voice Acting: Devil Survivor 2 - I love the voice acting in this game.  I feel like all the characters are really suited to their voices, and it’s really easy for me to visualize their voices.  They really bring the game to life and make both the dramatic and the funny scenes more enjoyable.

Worst Voice Acting: Jedi Knight Jedi Academy - I love this game, I really do, but some of the voice acting is janky.  Some of it is okay too--I think Kyle Katarn’s voice actor does fine, and some of the others I like NOW but hated when I was a kid, but the male protagonist voice in this game is just awful.  Which is bad when Jennifer Hale is the female voice actress lol.  His performance is passable though unless you’re playing darksided--the darksided ending to the game lacks all punch when you’re playing the male protagonist.

Favorite Male:  Battler Ushiromiya from Umineko no Naku Koro Ni - He’s the protagonist for most of the visual novels and I adore him utterly, especially once you move past episode 2.  He’s a wonderful character who I care about deeply.  I love his drive and how he fights--he’s someone who is easy to cheer for.  He matures well throughout the series and his character development is just wonderful.

Favorite Female:  Naoto Shirogane from Persona 4 - I really like how Naoto fits so well in the game, especially for being a final recruit--oftentimes the final recruit of Persona games (post 3) have a bit of a more difficult time feeling right with the group.  Naoto works really well though, and I love her struggles and story as well.  I think the difficulties she has concerning living as a woman in her field hit very deep to a problem that has existed for a very long time.

Favorite Protagonist: Connor of Daventry from King’s Quest 8 Mask of Eternity - I’m like, one of four fans of this character in the world, lol.  KQ8 is not a very well liked game and it does have a lot of issues, both with age and with how much of a departure it is from the series prior to it.  It’s strange to take a puzzle adventure game and make it a hybrid with what basically is a shooter, and it doesn’t really work.  Add to that the fact that you spend most of your time in the game without anyone around to talk to and it leads to this really polarizing and weird experience.  For me, Conner goes through what I would consider to be the ‘Ultimate Nightmare Scenario”.  Everyone in the world is turned to stone except him (and he survived out of mere chance) and so now it’s up to him, practically alone, to save the entire world.  There is no game lonelier than this.  I adore him for his bravery in the face of it, and how he just picks up to do what must be done because someone should do it, and if no one else can, then he will.  I also really love how he apologizes to people who are encased in stone while he takes money from their houses to help him on his journey.  I really do think he went back after the game was over and gave everyone heaps of gold to pay them back with interest lol.

Favorite Village:  Oakvale from Fable - The first Fable is the only one I really like, and it was one of the games I played when I was little, so the hometown in the game always meant a lot to me.  I like how you grow up there and how your tragic backstory is there--and then how you get to return to the town years later after you’ve come into your own, and you can see it completely rebuilt.  I like to spend a lot of my time in this town, just wandering around it and playing the minigames.  Even though I have a house in every town, Oakvale is where my hero calls home.

Most Hated Character:  Merril from Dragon Age 2 - I don’t really want to lay into how I feel about Merril, but what I will say is that it was suggested to me that I totally ignore her when playing, and I did so.  I only met her for her quest, dropped her off in town, and literally never spoke to her or interacted for the rest of the game.  I had a much better experience for it, honestly.  She appeared after I made my choice in the end of the game, which felt weird since I hadn’t spoken to her in several ingame years, but other than that, the game was totally fine without her.  I sort of just wish you could kill characters in DA2 the way you can in DAO, then I’d just do that, tbh.  It doesn’t suit very many (or any) of the characters I rp in DA2 to keep her around or support her in any way.

First Game I Played: Mixed up Mother Goose Deluxe - I’m not actually sure if this is the FIRST game I’ve ever played or not, but it’s one of the first I played alone as a kid.  I really loved it--this is probably what created my love for point and click adventures, and the game was very silly and fun.

Favorite Company: Bioware - I’ve always been a sucker for Bioware games, ever since Knights of the Old Republic 1 was my favorite childhood game.  I love how they do stories and party members, and while I’m not a fan of all of their games, I really love what they’ve made and their style of storytelling and character driven plot.  Even though sometimes their stories get cliche, I think the suit video games well and most of my early gaming was within their games.

Hated Company: EA - Bioware truly only started to go to shit after the EA acquisition, so I fucking hate EA.   I know Bioware had issues before EA too, but I definitely don’t think EA has helped the situation whatsoever.

Depressing Game: The Beginner’s Guide - I relate to this game as a creator and a writer, and it affects me deeply because of the story it tells and the questions it raises.  It makes me reflect on how I think of myself as a creator, and it reminds me of friendships I used to have.

Creepy Game:  The Path - God, I love this game.  It’s just aimlessly wandering around and finding symbolic scenery and watching your current character comment on it.  Then, you go off to find your girl’s wolf, and each one is different and unique to her, and you watch it ‘kill’ her--and facing her wolf is the only way each girl can truly mature.  Whenever you get to grandmother’s house, the camera switches to first person, and your eyes keep closing, so you can only see while clicking to move.  It forces you to keep moving so that you can see, but since you are moving, you only get to see things somewhat vaguely.  It’s got a great atmosphere, and I love the symbolic storytelling.

Happy Game: Eastshade - This game is so sweet.  There’s some drama around to with many of the quests, but I like this as an rpg without combat, and I think this would be a really good kids game.  There’s a lot to see and explore, and the game was made to be really pretty so that you want to paint several aspects of it.  It’s really lovely to just wander around in this game and bike around the area, painting anything that suits your fancy.  As long as you don’t finish the main quest, you’re free to wander, and materials do respawn, so you essentially can infinitely paint once you get far enough.

Favorite Ending: Virtue’s Last Reward - I love the questions this game asks and where the ending goes.  It thematically ties together--the whole reason the game itself exists is to get the attention of a ‘higher being’--the player, essentially.  I love how it plays with that concept, and even though the final game in the series doesn’t entirely pick this idea up where this game left it, standalone this game is stunning in how it comes together.

[dansnaturepictures]

10/10/2020-Bushy Park-Part 2: Another set of 10 different photos to those I tweeted tonight 

In continuation from my last post (linked at the bottom of this text) we walked to the bottom of the lake at Bushy Park and around some trees by a river type area then around a second lake further down. I took the first four pictures in this photoset during this. Through this I got to enjoy some great views of this parkland to the backdrop of the urban area. And I was embraced again by the great feel of the park, with certain shaped trees and the way the landscape looked. I felt very happy to be back taking in this precious landscape. It struck me today with as I said in my last blog that little undertone of missing Richmond Park I had been there every year for a decade but as I looked around Bushy I realised how much it does look like Richmond with that rich parkland and nice buildings. A landscape as ever on these trips that looked nice with autumnal colour for the time of year we come its such an important part of any memories and vibes on these trips especially the red and yellow leaves. I also took the fifth picture in this photoset another one of a Carrion Crow this week another strong supporting bird on the trip today.

On this walk I justified taking my macro lens with me today by seeing nice harebell flowers which I tweeted a picture of one of my favourite flower species to learn and enjoy this year, some mushrooms which we often see at the royal parks and yet another lovely snail I photographed which I tweeted this year I’ve notice and celebrated them a lot last year and especially this year and the past few months now I really enjoyed seeing this snail and taking a picture of it. We also saw two more groups of Red Deers walking around one we got great views of in particular. I felt very lucky having these deers around and getting to view them. A shower coming on didn’t dampen my enthusiasm for the wildlife and landscape and around. It was special to see the Ring-necked Parakeets sail across the sky throughout the walk. 

As we walked back and beside the lake and time was getting in I found myself making the most of the wildlife around especially the Egyptian Goose not around so much immediately at home they really were a star of our Bushy Trip this year compared to past years maybe as they were in the Norfolk holiday I loved seeing them and the Red Deers and Ring-necked Parakeets. We saw one of the letter land in a tree and it picked nuts there for a bit. We edged carefully closer to it and enjoyed some of our best views ever of this remarkable bird as shown by the sixth picture I took in this photoset. A fantastic moment. 

Behind it we just noticed some massive red deer stag antlers in the long ferns. And we got safely closer and saw a tired Red Deer on the ground and a female further back on the edge of the lake. I took the seventh picture in this photoset of the Red Deer stag and eighth of the female by the lake in a landscape. As we watched the stag awoke in response to the roars from fellow stags the other side of the lake where had walked earlier. It was fantastic to watch and hear it bellowing it’s iconic roar in front of us. I remember when we first visited Richmond Park in 2010 that iconic and loud sound stayed with me so much I woke up that night with it in my head. And today I heard it and thought that it was the sound of autumn for me. A special moment again and we saw this one walk on and walk across the bridge as I admired the Mute Swans with many cygnets and other of the impressive array of waterfowl on the pond. As we walked the other side of a stream from it we saw it scratch its antlers too which was nice. Around here I took the ninth picture in this photoset of Egyptian Geese. Its interesting the swans I saw most of today were grey ones so big looking young ones. I saw some young Moorhens on the walk today too or at least one and I didn’t really bend over backwards to photograph them as I have had so many chances to see them at Lakeside next to our house whilst working from home this year but the swans at Lakeside only produced one cygnet which didn’t survive and I’d not seen many older ones with the grey baby feather this year so it gave me my fix of it. 

We took a quick walk around the circular pond that the road within Bushy Park surrounds just in case the Red-crested Pochards had moved there. We didn’t see them but this is where the Diana statue is housed which we have always enjoyed coming here and I photographed for the first time last year and I took pictures of it looking nice again today too including the tenth and final in this photoset. There were some great autumnal leaves scenes here too. We saw among many other water birds some Gadwall on this pond too another great species to see in an urban area and a star of the Bushy part of the trip last year too. 

As the sun came out I soaked all the views and species up and then we headed off I tweeted pictures of the sunny views towards the end of the trip. This may have been so different to our normal trips here, but it was still an amazing afternoon out seeing stunning wildlife. And the whole day today felt like a holiday day giving me that excitement in the build up too and just really enjoying myself today. The views and wildlife really were stunning, the variety of species and the action I saw and that closeness of everything too us again a key attribute of these annual trips of ours. There was so much colour and vibrancy of autumn about today. And as expected I took another unbelievable amount of photographs it really was sky high as I just enjoyed taking so much in. One of my best days of 2020 for sure. This year of all years, I felt so lucky that I was able to come here and enjoy all these species today. 

Wildlife Sightings Summary: One of my favourite mammals the Red Deer, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow, Woodpigeon, Feral Pigeon, Ring-necked Parakeet, Song Thrush, Meadow Pipit, Blue Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Black-headed Gull, Cormorant with one sitting on the Diana fountain statue at one point, Grey Heron, Egyptian Goose, Canada Goose, Coot, Moorhen, Mute Swan, Mallard, Tufted Duck and Gadwall. 

Driving home we loved seeing the Lakeside/regular Greylag Geese on the field of my old secondary school and then they flew over our house noisily as I processed my photos this evening not unusual but I got a great view of them through the window the same time the sun was setting I tweeted a sky picture at home tonight too. A fantastic, wild and packed day! Started with a dentist and appointment in my usual work city so I covered a lot this Saturday and feel very positively tired now! Thanks for sharing it all with me! 

Part 1 of this blog is: https://dansnaturepictures.tumblr.com/post/631627944998141952/10102020-bushy-park-part-1-10-different

[tiptapricot]

May I request something fluffy with the Batfam, like a fun trip or something? Maybe Cass Cain as the main character bc she don’t get much love

Anon this was an absolute joy to write. AO3 link here as always and enjoy!

Cass had never been camping before. There were times when she’d been forced to survive in the wilderness, times she didn’t like to dwell on, but those had never been fun. This, camping, real camping, was wonderful.

Dick had wanted to take everyone on a road trip to celebrate the beginning of summer break. Sibling bonding, he had called it. After a bit of heckling Bruce had agreed, and the following week everyone had piled into the car and waved goodbye. 

The ride up to the campsite had been less chaotic than Cass had expected. After a short scuffle between Steph and Damian the car had made an agreement to rotate the AUX cord every two songs, but that had been the only real argument the whole ride. The windows had been rolled down and Cass had smiled as the highway flew by. She hadn’t had much time alone with her siblings, and it was almost refreshing to be away from Bruce for once.

Dick had been driving, Jason in the passenger’s seat, and the two of them had talked for most of the drive. It was the first time Cass had seen the two of them so relaxed. Their conversation had been light and familiar, that of two old friends sitting down for a chat.

They had rolled into the campground at sunset, and the ensuing scramble to get the tents up before the light faded had resulted in more than a few bruises. It didn’t matter though. In the end they had all collapsed in a heap on the dusty ground and laughed. Duke had helped get a fire started and they had spent the rest of the night roasting marshmallows and eating snacks that probably didn’t count as actual dinner.

Cass crouched lower in the bush, breathing slow. She couldn’t hear anyone, but in this family that hardly meant anything. After taking one last look around she crawled quickly across the hiking trail, hoisting herself up into the branches of one of the trees. She climbed until she was well hidden among the leaves, in just the right spot to spy on the ground below.

It had started out innocent enough. They had just finished breakfast and Jason had suggested they play a game to get their blood pumping. Hide and seek seemed too hard with all the trees, and Babs wasn’t interested in playing at all, so they couldn’t divide up evenly to play a team sport. After a short debate everyone had agreed on tag, and really, it was the only game left that wouldn’t end with someone’s eye out. Well… most likely at least. There was a quick round of nose goes, pinning Dick as It, and then they were off, sprinting through the trees.

Cass had split from the group early on, running into the denser area of forest that bordered the hiking trail. She supposed she’d turned it into hide and seek after all, but it was working, and that was all that mattered. 

She had narrowly avoided a run in with Jason, sliding under the cover of a fern patch as he ran by, only to hear a scream of surprise when he turned the corner. Other than that, she hadn’t seen anyone. She wasn’t sure who was It currently, but it sure as hell wasn’t going to be her.

Cass shrank back into the leaves when she heard footsteps below. A moment later Duke and Damian stumbled onto the trail, panting heavily.

“Holy shit, how is she so fast?” Duke asked, glancing behind them.

“Stephanie has a competitive drive, do not underestimate her in a situation like this.” Damian said sternly, chest heaving.

“Yeah I picked up on that.” Duke leaned back against Cass’ tree, catching his breath. She made sure not to move a muscle, watching them intently.

“Do you think we lost her?” Duke asked.

Damian looked back into the trees, craning his neck.

“Not sure. It would probably be wise to keep moving.”

“Agreed.”

They continued running further up the trail, their footsteps slowly retreating. When Cass was sure they were gone she swung her legs over the branch and leaned back. 

So Steph was It, that was good to know. Now she could be sure to avoid her. Steph was a formidable opponent, especially when she was properly motivated. She was faster than Cass, though not quite as strong. If worse came to worse Cass could probably escape her by climbing another tree. Though it would do her no good if Steph followed, the trees were too dense with foliage to jump safely between them. 

Cass pushed herself up and peeked through the branches, making sure the coast was clear before dropping to the ground. Damian was right, it would do no good to stay in one place. Cass took one last look behind her before taking off down the trail.

The camping area itself was beautiful. It was bordered on one side by a lake so clear you could see to the bottom, and on the other by a large mountain. They had made plans to hike up to a meadow later that day, but for now that didn’t matter.

Cass heard a shout echo through the trees to her left and skidded to a halt, changing directions to run into the woods, sliding down a small hill. She reached the bottom and continued through the undergrowth, pushing off of fallen tree trunks. She passed a mushroom patch and skirted around a thicket before she burst into a clearing, shaking the leaves out of her hair.

When she looked up Cass froze. Steph was standing on the other side of the clearing, an elated expression on her face.

“Finally! I’ve been looking for someone else for like ten minutes!” She yelled, jogging across the field.

Cass turned and sprinted back into the woods, ignoring Steph’s shouts of protest. Over the logs, back up the hill, she could hear the footsteps pounding behind her. 

“Cass, come on!” Steph called.

“You aren’t catching me tod—umph!” She slammed into someone else just as she reached the trail, careening backwards into the dirt.

“Holy crap Cass, are you alright?” Tim’s face appeared above her, eyes wide. 

“Fine.” She mumbled, trying to get her breath back. Tim helped her up, brushing the dirt and leaves from her shirt.

“You sure you’re alright?”

“No time, Steph’s right behind me, come on.” She said, grabbing Tim’s arm.

“A little too late for a retreat.” He said, pointing over her shoulder. Cass whirled around, her whole body poised to run. Steph had just emerged from the woods, her brows knitted in confusion.

“Why did you run?” She asked.

“You’re It.” Cass said, fingers tightening on Tim’s wrist. If they didn’t move soon Steph was going to get one of them for sure.

“What do you mean? I tagged Jason way before I saw you.”

“Than who’s It?” Cass asked.

“Uh,” Tim tapped her lightly on the shoulder, and when she turned around he was grinning like an idiot, “tag.”

Cass stood still for a moment, her eyes wide. Tim had betrayed her. 

“Oh you bastard.” She hissed. His grin widened. No… wait. What had she learned? Change every situation into an advantage. Tim had tagged her, and now everyone else would be scared of her. A smile crept its way onto Cass’ face. This was going to be much more fun.

“No tag backs?” She asked.

“Yep, you can’t touch me.” As soon as the words left Tim’s mouth his smile faded. He looked at Cass, then down at the hand still resting on her shoulder. He paled as the realization dawned on him, an expression of absolute horror washing over his face.

“Oh shit,” he whispered, “what have I unleashed?”

Steph was gone before she turned around.

***

Duke stumbled down the hill, heart beating loud in his ears as he thundered through the grass. He could hear her. He could hear her. He rounded another tree stump and put on a burst of speed, emerging back at their campsite.

“Oh hey, game over?” Barbara was sitting in her wheelchair, a thermos in one hand and a book propped open in the other.

“Not… exactly.” Duke glanced up at the canopy, scanning the branches.

“You look terrified, are you alri—”

A shrill scream echoed through the trees, followed closely by thundering footsteps. Jason burst through a bush, scrambling away from the woods with a fierce desperation.

“Dude did she follow you?” Duke asked, panicked.

“Don’t know,” he was breathless, panting, “She just jumped out of nowhere, thought I was going to have a fucking heart attack.” He said, grabbing Duke and yanking him towards the car. “We should be fine here right? No cover, no bushes, she can’t hide, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. Do you think she got one of the others by now?” Duke asked, crouching next to one of the tires.

“Dunno. Hope so. I swear I’m gonna kill whoever tagged her, I mean holy shit.”

“Cass?” Barbara called over.

“Yeah.”

She snorted. “Good luck.”

There was a crack from somewhere nearby and Duke tensed.

“Did you hear that?” He asked.

“Yeah shut up I’m trying to listen.” Jason swatted him hurriedly, scanning the tree line.

There was another crack, closer this time, and Jason pressed both of them against the car.

“Oh dude we are so dead.” Duke whispered.

“I know I know shhhh!”

They waited in tense silence, straining their ears for any noise, any sign. One second. Two. Duke didn’t dare to breath. Twenty seconds. Thirty. Jason held a finger to his lips, slowly moving to look around the car. Forty seconds. Fifty. Sixty. Duke felt like he was going to explode. 

Finally, finally, Jason relaxed, head lolling back against the car door.

“I think she’s gone.” He said, relief clear in his voice.

Duke let out a long breath, huffing. He took a moment to recover, his heart feeling like it was beating a million miles an hour, before he glanced up at the woods.

“Should we go back in?” He asked.

“Oh hell no. I wanted some exercise, not to be in some—some,” Jason waved his hand dismissively, “some goddamn horror movie.”

Duke chuckled. “That is what it feels like huh?”

“Yeah, remind me never to cross Cass when she’s in a mood. Jesus Christ.”

They both laughed, the tension slowly melting away. Honestly, Duke wasn’t even sure why they were so scared in the first place, now that it was over. It was just tag. A leaf landed softly in his lap. It was a game, and it wasn’t like Cass was more or less scary than the others. Another leaf landed in Duke’s lap. They had just gotten freaked out for no reason, there was nothing to be—

Duke froze. He looked at the leaves in his lap, quietly nudging Jason.

“Dude…” he muttered, voice lower than a hush.

“What’s up?”

Duke pointed to the leaves and Jason’s smile dropped, his face paling. 

“But then she would be…” Slowly, carefully, they both looked up.

Cass descended upon them in the next second, and the campground erupted in screams.

[cynically-optimistic]

With a week to sit back and think “what the fuck did I just watch,” I thought I would now do a review of American Horror Story: Apocalypse.

As we know (and may or may not agree upon) ahs8 had its various strengths and weaknesses. Many aspects of this season I found riveting but unfortunately by the end of episode 10, the season is left chalked full of plot holes and continuity errors that effectively make so much of this particular story obsolete. This season had all of the components we have loved for years and the potential to be the most amazing season yet, however it fell flat either in the writers room or the editing room. They cultivated this story for 8 years but with the vast underdevelopment of this season and it’s protagonists, they have effectively caused us to ask more questions like what was the entire point of season 8 of American Horror Story?

So here are some notable plot holes and criticisms I have for AHS: Apocalypse.

First and foremost, my biggest problem with this season is that we have almost no information about Mallory at all and they never spend time developing her character. And what the actual fuck is she? There is no way she is a witch, and this season was drastically underwhelming in this regard. I think we were all expecting an epic, biblical battle for the end of days to be fought between the Antichrist and the second coming of Christ or even an Archangel, but no such luck. It is only ever said that Mallory is just a witch...just a witch who got on my fucking nerves. We spent the whole season in flashbacks pertaining to Michael and never developing Mallory any further beyond “oh well her powers are cool,” and honestly, what gives? She has these amazing powers, never before seen by the witches, and we’re just supposed to believe that she isn’t some sort of celestial being? By the time she does defeat Michael, she is not a character we empathize with, she was basically an empty shell of the potentially badass character she was supposed to be. She has all of these powers and runs a 4 year old Michael Langdon over with an SUV...thrice….three times… Mallory could have been an amazing character and I would have completely rooted for her to defeat Michael with all the righteousness of Heaven, regardless of his tragic backstory that the writers spent too fucking long cultivating. But since we know practically nothing about her, all I can say is that she’s just ended up being a dick who murdered a child. Yeah, he was going to end the world, but he had the potential to be turned around, as depicted in his extensive backstory. Too many people wanted him to survive and just be allowed to end the world because Cody Fern is hot and Michael Langdon falls into the typical “tragic backstory, white, villain dude who is moderately conventionally attractive and therefore should be allowed to murder people without scrutiny.” He fits in that trope to a T and it works regardless of it being a tired trope fandom culture tends to fawn over. But no, I truly think, because of the amount of time they cultivated his character in both the light and dark, he could’ve been not such an evil son of a bitch. I cannot say the same for other examples of this trope like Tate Langdon, or Kylo Ren from Star Wars, or even Loki to some extents. This paragraph was supposed to be about Mallory but here again, I have veered into talking about Michael since he is her direct counterpart with way more backstory. I wish I had more to say about Mallory but she was such a blank slate. It’s sad that Coco of all people had more of a personality and backstory. We knew everything we needed to know about Coco and we knew literally NOTHING about Mallory. Ugh. In no way is this a criticism of Billie Lourd, I honestly think she just fell victim to bad writing this time around.

How did Emily and Timothy conceive the new antichrist when in season 1, Billie directly states that the antichrist, who would bring about the end of days, had to be conceived via human and spirit - like Michael. Furthermore, what is this “special DNA” Emily and Timothy have? We can surmise that it makes antichrists but HOW? And how did the Cooperative isolate and identify this DNA makeup to send these two individuals to Outpost 3 in the first place? And if the Cooperative knew that they could potentially make a new antichrist, did Michael know about it? My guess is no, but we will never know. Which begs the question, is the new anti christ going to be worse and if so, what was even the point of this season? Either way, in a few years, the entire world is fucked…again. The only redeemable aspect of that for Michael was that he craved to be loved and spent most of his time looking for someone to care about him rather than carrying out the Devil’s plans. Constance didn’t do this so he went searching for it and was systematically turned away which lead him right into the arms of his true father. This new kid is deeply loved by Emily and Timothy, and without the potential failsafe of him wishing to be loved and cared for, I believe this kid will be so much worse than Michael.

What is the Rubberman? The only new information we have gotten on this since season 1 is from Cody who says that Rubberman is not always Michael or Tate, but something else entirely. Like what? A demon? And it’s literally never addressed. Rubberman shows up unexpectedly (unexpectedly because you know, the world ended…) in Outpost 3, fucks Mr Gallant (why doesn’t he have a first name by the way? ) and is then the catalyst for Mr Gallant murdering his grandmother. So what exactly is this entity?

Also, what was the Sanctuary supposed to be? I don’t think it was just bullshit on Michael’s part to fuck with the desperate people in the Outposts. I do believe there was a sanctuary but we never see it and we never get any further information. I saw some interesting theories that maybe the Sanctuary is the Murder House, which would have been so interesting given that everyone in there rejected Michael, but he might still care about them, and potentially save the house in the nuclear blasts.

{Trigger Warning for sexual assault on this one regarding Tate Langdon} I think the theory Madison has about Murder House is a little off base. She tells Violet that the house made Tate evil but… here’s the thing: yes, we have watched the house and it’s resident ghosts interfere and influence people’s actions, but ultimately they all make their own choices, like Lorraine who set the house on fire which killed herself and her two daughters, and then influences Ben’s sleepwalking and fabricating his obsession with fire, but nothing drastic ever comes from this. So, I honestly don’t believe the house forced Tate to set Larry on fire (as revenge for Larry killing Beau) and shoot up his high school, killing 15 people, because those atrocities did NOT take place in the house. I don’t even know if I can believe that the house possessed and forced him to r*pe Viven and impregnate her with Michael but that seems to be the only horrific thing he did that could even begin to be blamed on the house. The house is a Hellmouth but doesn’t affect those who leave it’s property lines apart from encouraging them to return, almost like an addiction, but one that you can dismiss by just not going back to the house. So while Return to Murder House is a lovely nostalgic experience, I call bullshit. Ultimately though, I do think Madison was just trying to help and give the souls trapped there a little peace which was nice of her, but I’m not fully convinced she was right about Tate.

What happened to Kyle? This season was a crossover between Murder House and Coven but he is never mentioned by Madison or Zoe and is never shown at Miss Robichaux’s Academy. So where is our favorite unproblematic zombie Evan Peters at?

One huge problem I had with this season was Cordelia. She spent this entire season fighting her own fear of decay and death, while trying not to be like Fiona, and ultimately bringing them all to their doom. She sees a vision of the future apocalypse and every single step she takes thereafter to avoid it is a contributing factor that leads them all directly to it. Michael only fully set his sights on murdering all of the witches after Cordelia burnt Ms. Mead at the stake. Mead wasn’t even a witch, so how was that acceptable under witch law? Cordelia wasn’t even allowed to light the fire to burn the warlocks, so how was she allowed to murder a normal human? Mead may have been a ruthless spy and a satanist, but she was human all the same. Then Cordelia tells Michael, as he is devastated to find the charred corpse of Ms. Mead, that he can still choose to be good. Let’s be real, anyone of us would tell her to fuck off and set our sights on revenge if she did that to one of our loved ones. By having another maternal figure taken away from Michael, the only one who accepted and loved him (in her own way) Cordelia put the nails in her own coffin and that of the world. She is among the notable figures that push him along the darkest path, such as Constance, Ben, Tate, Viven, the Warlocks, Ms. Mead (even though she loved him, she loved Lucifer more), the Satanists, The Cooperative, and Mutt & Jeff. He is manipulated at every turn to bring about a future of mass destruction that other people want, and Cordelia was a definite contributor, but let it be known that Michael’s actions are ultimately his own.

The fact that Madison never met Charles, Nora, or Thaddeus while she was at the Murder House is a travesty. That would have been SOOOO interesting.

What the fuck was Ms. Venable’s issue? She was such an asshole to everyone and we never really figure out why other than she works for a bunch of idiots.

I enjoyed the culture around the warlocks because it was so ridiculous, they were the whiniest bunch of assholes, but I also hated this because they were the whiniest bunch of asshole. They were so desperate to overthrow Cordelia, even though none of them even come close to being able to do so (sorry not sorry boys) that they basically invite the apocalypse into their school. The only one who was like “nah, this is probably a bad idea,” was John Henry Moore, played by the incomparable Cheyenne Jackson, who I wish had bigger role to play in this storyline. He was the only warlock worth a damn, but ultimately they were all murdered. Or wait, no they weren’t. Time travel..

Some of the things changed by Mallory’s time traveling:

The warlocks are never murdered but they are still a bunch of whiny assholes

Tate and Violet don’t get back together (good)

Michael never destroys those nice lesbians’ souls, or anyone souls, which is good but who knows what this new Antichrist is capable of and when he will begin to tap into those powers

Constance (as far as we know) doesn’t commit suicide in the Murder House

Moira never finds peace in the light with her mom

Viven and Ben never reconcile

Which also means that Ben is still spending all of his time with Tate and crying while he masturbates out the window so…

Michael never lives in the Murder House

Ben never connects with Michael, Tate never screams at him in disgust, and Viven never tries to kill him

Queenie is never murdered in the Hotel Cortez by Ramona Royale and James Patrick March

Cordelia never has to bring Myrtle back from the dead, so she is still gone

Madison is still trapped in her own personal hell and Mallory doesn’t feel the need to bring her back even though Madison was way more useful this season than Mallory was. We knew Madison, we cared about her, we watched her grow into being a caring person this season, and Mallory is the self righteous ass that thinks Madison doesn’t deserve to leave hell

Michael is never taken in by Ms Mead. He never attends Black Mass and he never eats that poor girl’s heart (all of this was encouraged and initiated by the Satanists - not Michael)

Marie Laveau is still in hell with Papa Legba. She was anyway because Michael ripped her heart out of her chest 2 seconds after she got back but she never returned at all thanks to Mallory

Dinah obviously never gets her talkshow but she is still out here being shady as fuck and will inevitably betray the witches and voodoo queens again, probably for a fucking talkshow, when the new antichrist is running around burning the world down

The end of days doesn’t come, but again, we don’t know that for sure. At best, Mallory only bought the world and the witches a few extra years. So we can only really say that the apocalypse might not happen the exact way Michael (the Cooperative) makes it happen

Some of the thing I actually liked about this season:

THE ENTIRE FIRST HALF WAS INCREDIBLE and it’s really the lack of development throughout the final 4 or 5 episodes I had an issue with

Cody Fern is undeniably a spectacular performer and I very much enjoyed all of the layer and nuance that he brought to the character of Michael Langdon even though in the end it didn’t amount to much. Still, I can’t wait to see what he does next.

I have always loved Cordelia, and even though I very much expected her to be an influence of growth for Mallory and she never really got there, she was still a lovely presence and she spoke some of my favorite lines in this season being “Satan has one son, but my sisters are a legion, motherfucker,” and “I only knew you for a short time, but I missed you forever.”

DayFoxx or MistyXCordelia. You cannot convince me they are not in love, you just can’t. Their interactions were nothing short of magic.

Other than DayFoxx interactions, hands down the best line was, “the stew is Stu!”

Return to Murder House was arguably one of the best episodes of the entire series, directed by one of our high queens, Sarah Paulson in her directorial debut. It had everything we loved about season 1 and I would have loved to watch 5 hours of Madison walking through Murder House, meeting all the ghosts, instead of the last 5 hours of the season we got.

As much as I grew to hate Constance this season, it was still so lovely to have our Queen Jessica Lange back.

Sign me up anytime to see Angela Bassett as Marie Laveau like holy hell yes

I absolutely LOVED the idea of Zoe being a teacher at the Academy.

We could have all benefited from seeing more of Bubbles. Joan Collins was a fantastic addition to the AHS family.

FRANCIS CONROY. Need I say more? I don’t but I will, Myrtle dragging the patriarchy cleansed my soul

It was actually really lovely to see Connie Britton as Viven again. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for Viven and I feel terrible for everything she has been through. She never gets closure because of Mallory’s new timeline but I just hope she does find peace at some point.

With this rich of a storyline, I think we can all agree that 10 episodes was simply not enough to fully deliver this story after a build up of 8 years. Other seasons of AHS range from 11 to 13 episodes, with the exception of Roanoke which was also only 10 episodes. But with those extra hours, Apocalypse could have been incredible. There simply wasn’t enough time, and what time they did have and utilize was almost entirely spent on Michael which we find didn’t matter at all by the end.

Leave your thoughts in the comments if you have anything you’d like to add.

[signs-of-the-moon]

Moon Rise: Chapter 25

"It's great to see you again, Shadowfang," meowed the strange tom with long, white, sand dusted fur. His pelt carried the strong scent of seawater, and Swiftcloud had to resist scrunching up her nose. Shadowfang let out a chuckle, blinking at his Oceanclan friend warmly.

The full moon hung high in the sky as Grassclan made its way through the Forest Patch northward, far past the river, all the way up to the Gathering Clearing. Pale moonlight shined upon their backs, lighting their way and guiding their paws. Swiftcloud could see every leaf and fern on the bushes surrounding them as they padded single file through the woods. The moon seemed to be shining brighter this evening, and Swiftcloud couldn't help but think it was for her sake. Her bright blue eyes traveled to the sky above. Silverpelt's glow too seemed strengthened this night. Was this how things appeared to every cat upon their first Gathering as a warrior?

One by one cats spilled past the shrub barrier as they arrived to the gathering, waiting to be dismissed by Whitestar. Swiftcloud glanced around eagerly, flanked by Shadowfang who nudged her towards a shedding beech tree where some of their friends had gathered. On Whitestar's command the patrol was free to separate. Swiftcloud and Shadowfang hurriedly walked towards their friend group, mewing a greeting as they came to settle beside them. There were three cats here by the tree, each friends from different clans. Two of which were cats Swiftcloud had introduced to one another a few gatherings ago. There was Pinepelt, an old friend of hers from apprentice-hood. She'd gotten larger since their first meeting, her fur growing thicker and longer in preparation for the colder seasons ahead. Then there was Stemflower. Swiftcloud had had the pleasure of meeting her through Quailbelly. She was the oldest of their clique, but still acted as youthful as a freshly named warrior. There was a third cat here Swiftcloud didn't recognize, but figured was at least acquainted with the rest of the group. Shadowfang stepped up to raise his tail to the cat as the stranger spoke.

"Likewise, Hazestorm. Meet my partner, Swiftcloud. She was just made warrior last night." A deep purr rumbled in his throat as he spoke, eyes full of fondness as he rested them on Swiftcloud.

"And you still had energy to make it to the gathering after your vigil? Impressive," Hazestorm commented, twitching his whiskers.

Swiftcloud ducked her head in embarrassment, feeling the nudge of Shadowfang's shoulder against hers once more. She glanced up to see the corners of his muzzle twist upward into a reassuring smile which warmed her heart and gave her back her confidence.

"I couldn't let the Land's Star find out about my new name and not be there to hear them cheer it." She lifted her chin now, a grin of her own forming on her patched face. "After all, I'm a warrior now. I have to push myself like one, even if I am tired."

Hazestorm flicked his fluffy tail, nodding along in agreement.

"So, Swiftcloud, is it?" An intrigued purr rose from Moonface as she addressed the new warrior. "What a pretty name, I really like it. It suits you."

"Very true." The white warrior's attention was quickly taken off of Swiftcloud as a new cat approached the group. "Moonface." He purred, turning to bump his head against the arriving she-cat. Swiftcloud trilled with joy.

Moonface, her friend from Treeclan, had earned her warrior name two moons ago, after surviving an attack from a supposed rouge. Though there were rumors floating around that it had been a member of her own clan who had viciously attacked. Supposedly, this cat had launched an attack against Sunflower, a cat Moonface had shown interest in from what Swiftcloud had seen at previous gatherings. Moonface had intervened, ultimately saving her friend's life. Swiftcloud wouldn't have known any of this, had it not been for the ever talkative Jaybird. Despite the talk, and despite the nasty claw-moon shaped scar the battle had marked Moonface with, the molly had earned her name reminding all those who'd speak it of her beauty. And beautiful she is at that, Swiftcloud noted. In some ways, the shape of her body, and the gleam of the molly's silver and white coat reminded her a lot of Mistypaw. But Mistypaw is still far more beautiful.

Swiftcloud let out another trill. "Thanks, Moonface."

"Was your vigil hard? It had gotten pretty chilly last night."

"It was a bit cold, but I was flanked by Frostfeather and Rabbitstorm. The pair are so fluffy they kept me warm all through the night."

The group of cats burst into a series of mrrows.

"Well well, look at what we have here," meowed the cat, voice laced with spite. Swiftcloud lowered her head as she watched the tip of Moonface's tail begin to wag. Others in their group frowned at the new arrival, displeased by the interruption. Stemflower's tail flicked while Pinepelt muttered something quietly to Shadowfang, who snickered in response.

"Its a good thing they were there then," Moonface giggled.

From behind the molly, a fluffy black mass passed by, rounding the group and stepping out of the shadows.

"What do you want, Nightshade?" Moonface asked flatly. Nightshade lifted her head and smirked, revealing her inner mischievous urges.

"A little birdie told me there's a new warrior among your ranks," she responded trying to sound cheerful. But Moonface did not seem pleased, and Swiftcloud felt the same. A bad feeling formed in her gut, forcing her to press herself into Shadowfang's side for moral support. She hated this feeling, the sense of dread that came to her every now and then, seemingly for no reason at times. Though right now this was not one of those times. There was obvious ill intent shining in Nightshade's cold blue eyes. No doubt she was up to no good.

"I'm the new warrior," Swiftcloud spoke up, attitude apparent.

"You?" Nightshade snorted. "I can't believe Whitestar actually made you a warrior! I'd thought you'd have run home to your Twolegs by now." She took a pace closer to Swiftcloud, lowering her head so they'd meet eye to eye.

"That's where you came from, isn't it? A soft life of pampering and comfort?" Nightshade watched the nubby tailed molly carefully to see if her words offended her. It's what she wanted; she was just itching to pick a fight and it was obvious to everyone who was there to bare witness.

"It's bad enough that an ugly cat like you has to be such a blemish in Grassclan's ranks. It's worse to know that this blemish is a nasty little kittypet!"

Swiftcloud did not react. Not physically. Her voice, however, betrayed how she was feeling inside.

"You have kittypets in your own clan too," Pinepelt commented.

"I left that life behind moons ago," Swiftcloud growled. "I am a warrior now. And I always will be." She took a step forward so that she and Nightshade were in each other's faces. "My name is Swiftcloud. If you have an issue with my status, I'll gladly demonstrate how capable I am. I'm not as soft as you may think."

Nightshade drew her lips back in a snarl, a look of despise crossing her features. Swiftcloud stared her down, keeping a straight face as she did so. Though inside she was panicking. She didn't want to fight unless it was necessary. Certainly not at a gathering. But she wasn't going to stand by and allow herself to be insulted, in front of her friends no less. She was afraid of what Nightshade could do, but she had to stand her ground no matter what. You must prove yourself fearless, even in the presence of something that scares you. Tigerfang's words echoed in Swiftcloud's mind from her first day in camp. She had never forgotten that first lesson, and used it well even til this day. It served useful. Though Swiftcloud feared the loud thudding of her anxious heart may divulge the fright she tried so hard to mask.

"The kittypet that we have came to Treeclan as a young kit. She doesn't count the way Swiftcloud does. She wasn't raised to be soft like her."

"Don't listen to her, Swift," Shadowfang murmured.

"Your argument is weak, Nightshade. The Land's Star was founded by cats who weren't clan born, including kittypets. They are just as capable as the rest of us," Moonface chimed in.

Swiftcloud's friends began to move closer together, alienating Nightshade and staring her down. Nightshade glanced at each cat, shoulder fur rising in obvious discomfort. She parted her jaws to say something but promptly clampt her jaws shut. She lowered her head, turning to walk away without another word.

"You're alright," Moonface assured. "She's nothing but a bee-brained enabler."

"How do you stand having her as a clanmate?" Stemflower asked Moonface, smoothing down her shoulder fur. "In Marshclan, a cat like that would be getting mud and beetles stuffed into her nest for being so disrespectful."

"Let the gathering begin!" Trilled Brightstar from the giant split boulder, grabbing the attention of all those in the clearing. Cats all around Swiftcloud settled down, taking their seats and tilting their heads back to give their undivided attention to the leaders of The Land's Star. The flame point she-cat, Brightstar, stood tall on her place ready to speak once the chatter had died down.

Moonface sighed. "She's incredibly difficult to live with, I'll tell you."

Hazestorm gave the molly a nudge, beckoning her away from the group. The duo talked quietly for a heartbeat then mewed a goodbye before running off together into the crowd. Shadowfang stood with a stretch, prompting Swiftcloud to follow him away as well. The partners said farewell, then left the rest of their friend group behind to find a place to sit closer to Split Rock. The gathering would begin shortly no doubt. The pair managed to get a decent seat close to where the medicine cats had gathered. Mistypaw abandoned her peers in favor of laying beside Swiftcloud, pressing her warm fluffy body into hers. Swiftcloud couldn't be happier to have her two best friends with her here tonight. And their warmth in the chilly night air was certainly welcoming, too.

"Marshclan is doing wonderfully this time of year! Firstly, I'd like to introduce the Land's Star to our medicine cat apprentice, Cherrypaw, along with her warrior apprentice sibling, Hummingpaw! Secondly, I'd like to introduce our newest warriors: Spiderbelly and Sedgebelly."

"Cherrypaw! Hummingpaw! Spiderbelly! Sedgebelly!" Cats from the various clans caterwauled together, turning to the named cats to give them congratulations. Brightstar paused to allow cats to cheer before piping up again, instantly silencing the clatter.

"Grassclan is also fairing well this moon. To start, I have also named three new warriors just last night, and they are here among us this evening. I proudly present to the Land's Star: Frostfeather, Rabbitstorm, and Swiftcloud."

"Lastly, I'd just like to say the prey is running well in the marsh, and it looks like this will be a good Leaf-fall. Here's to another good moon!"

Whitestar was the next to address the clan cats as Brightstar took a big step back to hand over the spotlight. A buzz of excitement like static electricity prickled Swiftcloud's fur and she couldn't help but press herself further into Mistypaw.

"Frostfeather Rabbitstorm Swiftcloud!" The crowd roared. Swiftcloud purred loudly, earning her licks on each ear from both Mistypaw and Shadowfang.

"We are expecting three new litters to be born in our ranks at any time now. Prey is running well, and we have faced no troubles in the past moon. That is all I have to report."

And with that, Whitestar stepped back to allow the next leader to come forward. It seemed to be Treeclan's turn to speak now. Blazestar stood tall on his part of Split Rock, turning his judging orange gaze down on the cats below. It was clear whatever news he had to share tonight would not be pleasant.

"A cat attacked our Den Mother last night while she was out hunting. She only has a few wounds, thankfully, but it's obvious that whoever went after her aimed to kill. I am displeased to have to report this, as Treeclan has been left in peace for several moons now. However, I will not stand by and watch while one of our best warriors is harmed so maliciously," he began, turning his broad head to look at said cat.

"Brightsky, describe your attacker."

The queen in question, a white and black patched she-cat, rose to her paws. Those around her backed away to give her some space. The queen's sky blue eyes shone all the anxiety she was still clearly feeling. A tom stood next to her, his long fur a recognizable sight. The cat was none other than Wolfheart. Swiftcloud had learned moons ago that the two were mates, and tonight he seemed to prove that. Wolfheart stood protectively next to Brightsky, his fluffy grey and white tipped tail draped over her shoulders. Near it, a bundle of cobwebs lay plastered against the back of Brightsky's neck and shoulder. It was a big wad too, probably covering a wound that was just as large. Swiftcloud wondered how the Den Mother managed to drag herself to the gathering when she was clearly badly injured.

"No Grassclan cat would dare attack a Den Mother; we are not savages!" She spat. "Where is your proof, Blazestar? How do you know it wasn't a rogue who attacked her instead?"

"Everything happened so fast, I barely had a chance to have good look at them," Brightsky meowed, leaning against Wolfheart. "I only caught their main pelt color: white. And their eyes...their eyes were startling. Piercing blue, even in the shade of night. I noticed something else too; they had the undeniable scent of wild flowers and dew clinging to their fur like a tick. If there's one thing I know for sure, its that the cat who attacked me is a member of Grassclan."

A murmur broke out among the crowd, cats from four of the clans-mainly Treeclan-turned to glare at all Grassclan cats who fit the description.

Swiftcloud looked around, searching for her clanmates who may be under watch. The first cat she spotted was Dewstone, with head held high and muzzle turned away from those who dare even glance in her direction. She's a Code Keeper for Starclan's sake! Do cats really think someone who has devoted their whole life to up keeping the Warrior Code would attack another for no reason?! Her gaze wandered around further, landing on Sheeptail and Rabbitstorm who stood side by side, staring daggers and snarling at their accusers. Swiftcloud's blue gaze turned to find Snowfrost. When she found her, she noticed that the lynx point molly was the only mostly white Grassclan cat with blue eyes to be ignored. It must be because she's a medicine cat. Swiftcloud suddenly felt herself being watched. She whipped her head around, finding the judgmental eyes of those around her baring into her. She felt small under their harsh gaze. The white and black patched molly crouched down, pinning her ears back against her head. Her eyes were as large as the full moon that shone overhead. I didn't do anything! She argued in her mind. Am I really a suspect..? She felt like screaming and pleading innocent, or running. But she knew she could do neither, cats would judge her more harshly if she cracked under pressure for a crime she didn't commit. Shadowfang pressed into her as he caught Swiftcloud's fearscent while Mistypaw moved to knead her paws gently against the other molly's flank.

In the near distance a growl rung out, drawing the attention of the gathering cats back onto Split Rock. Whitestar's fur was bristled, her tail wagging like Swiftcloud had never seen before. Whitestar was always so calm, but with tensions being so high between Grassclan and Treeclan, it was no wonder that she finally lost patience with this harsh accusation. Swiftcloud was surprised it took so long.

"I'd recognize the stench of Grassclan anywhere!" Brightsky defended herself, shooting a cold glance over at where the medicine cats sat. Snowfrost turned her head away, grooming her shoulder as if she were nervous. Wolfheart shrank back a bit, whispering something into his mate's ear. The injured Den Mother hissed at him, turning her attention back up to the clan leaders.

"What if she was the one who attacked Brightsky?" meeped a Treeclan apprentice within Swiftcloud's range. Swiftcloud had to resist the urge to turn and box the disrespectful cat's ears. Rage boiled inside her belly. Whitestar was once a Fighting Warrior, but she'd never attack a cat unprovoked. Everyone in Grassclan knew that. Did cats outside the clan really think a leader would stoop so low as to attack a cat on another's territory? Swiftcloud's thoughts were dragged back to the stories of Pebblestar the Malevolent. From what she knew of her, the Oceanclan leader would pick needless fights, even with cats across the border. Perhaps The Land's Star hadn't fully recovered from her rule just yet. Cats were still wary that an enemy leader may pull those types of shenanigans again. Swiftcloud could understand, but was still outraged knowing cats thought the leader most likely to do that right now was Whitestar.

"Brightsky is a very capable cat, Whitestar. One of our finest trackers. She knows the scent of every clan and every prey in the forest, just as well as she knows the scents of her kin. When warriors came to her aid, they also scented Grassclan on her pelt. I don't doubt Brightsky's identification, even for a heartbeat. There's my proof. What proof do you have that none of your cats committed this crime?"

Cats from Treeclan yowled in agreement while Grassclan cats spat and cursed at those who even so much as sniff at them wrong. Swiftcloud felt as if she were caught between a rock and a hard place. On one paw, she could agree with the evidence presented; if multiple cats had reported scenting Grassclan then there must have been a Grassclan cat on their territory. On the other she was torn by her loyalty; Swiftcloud couldn't imagine one of her clanmates attempting to kill a cat in cold blood, Treeclan's Den Mother no less. What was the truth? Only Starclan and the attacker knew for sure.

Whitestar stood speechless on Split Rock, staring daggers at Blazestar as she thought about what to say next. It was clear she was trying to be careful with her words. If she were to say something out of line right now it would surely cause a fight, which would break the full moon truce and thus the Warrior Code. Doing so would prove Blazestar right and make Grassclan seem even guiltier than they already did.

Judgemental eyes settled upon Grassclan's leader. Whispers rose from the cats in the clearing.

"I will have a Spy Warrior investigate..." Whitestar finally mewed after heaving a harsh sigh. "Whoever is responsible will be punished accordingly."

"Don' go easy on em eitha!" yowled Oceanclan's new deputy, Silverdrop. "Give 'em ah Warrior-Paw ceremoneh."

"Or better yet, exile them!" cheered the same Treeclan apprentice in a far too enthusiastic tone. Arrogant kit. A warrior hushed the young tom.

"What good is your word?" He snarled. "We had an agreement before. And your clan broke it! How could I trust you to find the cat responsible for attacking Brightsky?"

"This is not your place to speak out, Sleekpaw," she hissed, swatting the apprentice behind the head with her tail. Sleekpaw let out a whimper, crouching in his place dismissively.

Murmurs of disbelief rippled through the crowd. Whitestar glared at any cat she spotted who spoke out negatively. Blazestar let out a low growl, tail lashing.

"Blazestar-"

"Don't you dare speak my name as if we were allies! I have had it with you, and your pompous group of cats. You accuse my clan of killing your warriors, of trespassing, and now this! I cannot stand by and watch the innocent suffer, Whitestar. Tonight, I will uphold the full moon truce. But starting tomorrow, our clans are at war."

"War?" Brightstar meeped. "Isn't that a little harsh?"

"A little war could do them some good," Wavestar grunted. Blazestar turned on him.

"If you think this will give you an opening to take more of Treeclan's land, you are surely mistaken!" He spat. Wavestar narrowed his eyes.

"Watch who you're talking to in that tone. There isn't a need to drag me into this feud."

"Says the fox-heart who advances into our territory at every chance he gets!"

"You must have me mistaken for Pebblestar, you-"

"I wouldn't put it past you to turn out like her. You may have been against your sister, Wavestar, but you've certainly gone out of your way to carry on a lot of the traditions she left behind."

"That's enough, tonight is a night of peace, not an opportunity to pick fights!" Whitestar jumped in. Blazestar swung back around and slashed the Grassclan leader's muzzle.

"Lo..look!" She yowled as loudly as she could. Collectively the crowd looked to the medicine cat apprentice, then followed her line of sight. Swiftcloud tilted her head back to give her attention to the stars. Or lack thereof. Clouds had mysteriously started to gather, though only heartbeats before the sky was clear. The thick shapes floated across the inky blackness, consuming starlight, and eventually covered the moon. Gasps and outcries of shock rose up from the crowd, panic and fear surging through those of the gathering. Swiftcloud too found herself feeling alarmed.

"Stay out of this!"

The crowd below Split Rock broke out into a crescendo of yowls. Cats began to disburse and regroup with those from their own clans.

Swiftcloud had never seen the leaders act like this before. Blazestar had to be madder than a fox in a fit. The rest of The Land's Star was no better, she decided. Though cats had split up, the individual groups still took the time to spit hateful words and shoot angry glares. The gathering was in chaos. As Swiftcloud watched the mayhem, she started to feel a cat bristle and shake beside her. Mistypaw pressed her larger body into Swiftcloud's, making herself small against the floor. Her pale green eyes were as wide as the full moon above, her gaze fixed on the sky. She trembled, mouth parting slowly as she struggled to choke out what she had to say.

"Starclan has spoken their disapproval. This gathering is over!" Declared Fogstar. At once the feuding leaders broke away from each other, falling into silence.

"Had it not been for the three of you, Starclan would not have been angered. Go now, settled your scores on your own time. And pray for forgiveness for breaking tonight's truce. May the stones guide your path."

With that, Fogstar jumped down from Split Rock, calling his clan together. Brightstar glanced at each of the other leaders before going to do the same. Wavestar was the next leader to leave, although he took his time doing so. Meanwhile Whitestar and Blazestar were locked in each other's glares, a silent battle waging between them. Blazestar was the one to break away, finding no pleasure in this staring contest. At last, Whitestar came down from her perch, stalking across the open field.

Whitestar made it to the edge of the clearing, observing her clanmates as they warily padded towards her past testy Treeclan cats and the judgmental meows of others. The Grassclan leader had an array of emotions scrawled across her face. Insecurity, fatigue, confusion, sadness. Nothing good, Swiftcloud noted. The white and black patched she-cat looked behind her from where she still sat with Shadowfang and Mistypaw. Hazestorm and Moonface had become noticeable in the thinning crowd, the white warrior giving the molly a few licks goodbye before scurrying off to join his clan. Moonface made her way over to Wolfheart and Brightsky, reciving nuzzles from both of them. Swiftcloud noticed Snowfrost trying to slink over to the family, eyeing them with what Swiftcloud assume to be fascination. Moonface locked eyes with the lynx point medicine cat before nudging her injured mother in the opposite direction. Wolfheart bristled, assisting her in bringing the Den Mother over where Treeclan gathered. What's that all about? Swiftcloud wondered, her attention stolen back by a tail brushing against her ear. Swiftcloud flicked her gaze onto Shadowfang who nodded towards their clanmates. Swiftcloud blinked in understanding, rising to her paws to follow her friends back towards the others. Judgmental eyes still bore into Swiftcloud's pelt as the three regrouped, the uncomfortable heat of embarrassment burning the molly beneath her fur. She forced the fur on her shoulders to lay flat and kept her eyes steady on the path ahead. Giving anyone who judged her attention would lead to no good, no doubt. Keeping to herself was for the best. As the last of Grassclan's warriors huddled around their shaken leader, Whitestar flicked her tail and slipped through the bushes. One by one the rest of the clan followed suit, making the wary journey home to report the news from tonight's full moon meeting to the rest of the awaiting clan.

[themangoeater]

Rowdy three gardener AU

@intricatecakes you really had most of these ideas but I thought I’d start typing them up! 

The Rowdy 3 aren’t good at settling down and staying in one place for long, but Gripps does own a small cottage (inherited from his late great-auntie) which they go to if they need to lie low or if they want to cool off together.

Gripps’ great-auntie was a great gardener and along with the cottage, left him a full flower garden, greenhouse and space for a vegetable patch. During the time that the rowdies stay there, each one begins to get more and more interested in one particular type of plant and become rather good at taking care of them.

(Each garden style under the cut bc it got rather long)

Vogel loves succulents. He’s a scatterbrain at the best of times but these plants suit him well due to their hardy nature. If he forgets to water them sometimes the plant can survive. His neglect is infrequent, he can often be found demonstrating his swings for his room full of plants, talking to them animatedly. He has given them all names (‘Smasher’ ‘Thrasher’ ‘Basher’ and the like) but due to his forgetful nature he mixes them up a lot. After a while Amanda helps him write them all down on sticky labels and he sticks them on their pots. As succulents do well in bright, sunny light, he’s often caught snoozing in the sun beside them, one arm loosely curled around his gigantic Jade plant (which he calls ‘the Destroyer of Worlds’ fondly).

Cross is the orchid man. There’s nothing that he doesn’t love about these finickity, fancy plants. Each one has its own unique charm and allure and he can spend hours talking to them quietly as he tends to them. Due to their highly specific needs, he spends a lot of time measuring the humidity and temperature in his room, which is filled with extra lights and heaters. (Be prepared to run if you ever open a window in that room without his permission). He refers to his plants as ‘his ladies’ and is an enormous sap with them all, treating them as gently and with as much panache as if they were French aristocratic women from the 17th century. Cross adores each and every plant that he owns and can tell you every single story about where it came from, where they’ve been and how they’re doing now.

Martin isn’t big into plants until he discovers the tantalising, odd-looking stone plants. These plants are extremely susceptible to moisture and humidity so he finds the hottest, brightest space in the cottage (the dry, cobweb-filled attic) for his small, but ever-growing collection. As stone plants are a rarity, he has to go to many plant fairs and festivals to find any sellers but once he has some contacts, he goes directly to them. The sellers are always odd too, but then again, Martin supposes he must look rather different from the usual crowd of old ladies and young men who go to those fairs. The stone plant thrives on neglect and only needs watering once a month, but despite this Martin still gives them lots of attention. He tends to sit beside his collection, smoking out of the open window and talking to them. He claims not to have named them, but secretly has and greets them by name when he goes to sit by them.

Despite the fact that his great-aunt left him a vegetable patch, Gripps isn’t all that into growing veg. What he prefers is growing flowers. He adores bright colours and tries to have some patches of things in bloom at every time of the year to keep his garden bright. Unlike most other gardeners, he encourages weeds like dandelions and bindweed as he enjoys their fresh colours. He always has a hedge of lavender around the garden and at the front of the cottage which smells amazing in the summer. He dries it and the smell helps all the rowdies sleep better when they’re on the road or sleeping badly. He adores sunflowers and poppies, but also tries to plant flowers and plants which he knows attract bees. The trumpet vine plant soon takes over most of the wall on the back of the house and the buddleia is always full to bursting with butterflies of every shape, colour and size. Every summer evening you can watch him trudging about with watering cans so full they spill as he walks, as he meticulously waters every inch of his babies and every spot where he’d planted seeds.

Unknown to all, Amanda turns out to have a really green thumb when it comes to vegetables. She takes over the vegetable patch and greenhouse and within weeks has new greenery sprouting all over. Though she enjoys growing rhubarb and seeing the large leaves grow bigger than her entire body, she has an unparalleled love for tomatoes. She grows them in the greenhouse, dappled sunlight on her babies as she talks to them, inspecting them for bugs or bites that betray the actions of slugs. If she ever does find any marks or insects, she is ruthless. She carries around a pot of salty water and will drop whatever hurt her plants straight into it. She grows herbs and lettuce, tries her hand at baby cucumbers and beetroot of which they have such a bountiful harvest of that they resort to pickling it all (the cupboard is full of jars of the stuff at all times). Along with Gripps, she waters her plants every evening and the two of them chat as they do so, gripping their sunhats when they bend down to water them.

Beast didn’t seem all that interested in plants at first, but she then grew to have a love of simple houseplants. The ordinary spider plant is her favourite and she loves seeing it flower and grow babies so often. Murmuring to them as she tends to them, she often strokes the long, thin leaves. She has a whole collection of them, stripy and curly ones, variegated ones. After she gets the hang of them, Cross buys her a stripy Calathea plant, because he thought it would match the other stripy plants she has. From then on she buys more of the Calathea family, slowly getting the hang of their more difficult needs. She moves the spider plants to the communal areas and turns her room into a rainforest. All plants in the Calathea family require a high level of humidity and low lights, so she transforms her room to fulfil those needs. She then branches out to ferns and ivy and her room turns into a misty, dark place that resembles her home forests. She always feels at home when she sleeps in the slightly damp bed and due to the low lighting at all times, her room is the best place to have a nap.

[crownoyami]

My Jolly Sailor Bold

Pairing: Gabriel/Lucifer

Rating: Teen

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Warnings/Tags:  Warnings: AU, Magical abilities, Pirates, Messing with the timeline, Open for more but don’t have time right now.

Prompts Used: All of them. (in order)

Ambiance: Footsteps crunching leaves in the night

Statement: The rain fell around him, the water cold but gentle in its cascade down his face, and he couldn’t help the smile that spread across

Song: Feel It Still–Portugal, The Man

Dialogue: “Are you going to come in, or just be creepy in my doorway?”

Trope/AU: Pirate AU! Arrrr!

Aesthetic:

 AO3 URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16103366

 Summary: When he left his family to sail the seas, Gabriel never thought he would stumble upon a legend of a creature who grants wandering sailors their greatest desire. When he meets the creature, he’s expecting a beautiful woman. Instead, he finds himself drawn to the man he discovers. Hopefully, his wish will be granted, though he’s not sure it’s what he wants after all.

 Authors Note: Hey guys! So once again I managed to completely forget about the Gabriel Monthly Challenge until the end of the month! (which you can find here: http://gabriel-monthly-challenge.tumblr.com/ ) I don’t know how, it’s a MONTHLY challenge, but somehow it always sneaks up on me. Anyway, I hope you enjoy, I feel like there is more to this story, but I don’t have time to continue it. Let me know if you think I should! I feel like there isn’t enough Gabriel/Lucifer in the world. My next chaptered story posted should be my WBB (Wincest Big Bang) so have a look out for that as the art is fantastic! Though it might be my SBB (Sabriel Big Bang) depending on the dates assigned which is also freakin awesome art, I’m so so lucky that these artists picked me, like you have no idea.

@gabriel-monthly-challenge @archangelgabriellives @archangelsanonymous @revwinchester @ttttrickster @archangel-with-a-shotgun @warlockwriterr

My Jolly Sailor Bold

  It started when his father wanted him to take over his position at the king’s guard. His father, Charles Shurley had worked hard to be where he was, training every day until he was able to finally rise in the ranks and be recognized for his skill. It was expected of Gabriel since he was young to follow in his father’s footsteps, to take to his training with the sword and enter the ranks just like his father before him, just like his brother Michael who had gained work four years prior.

 Gabriel hated it.

 He had no desire to work the rest of his life under someone else’s command, to stay in the village and settle down, get a wife and kids and come home to the same house every day, doing the same thing every day. What he longed for was far more dangerous, which is why he complied to the training his father thrust upon him. Every day the ocean called to him. During what time he could sneak away, Gabriel would take every free moment he could to go to the docks and learn from the sailors.

 Some were happy to share their knowledge of the sea, and what he could find on the open ocean, some were more reserved, not wanting word of their adventures to get back to Gabriel’s father. It was those men who interested Gabriel, that made him work harder each day to break free of his family. By the time he reached eighteen summers, he was ready. Gabriel left a note for his brother, packed a small bag and climbed out the window. Taking one last look at the house, Gabriel turned around and walked away, hopeful that he would be able to buy passage in one of the ships until he could make his way off the coast to the next port.

 **

 There was magic to be had in the world if you knew where to find it. Gabriel had traveled for years searching, hopeful for a way to remain on the sea for the rest of his days. It had been mentioned by an old sailor shortly after he left home, a crippled man with one leg and no teeth, who spoke of a treasure not in gold or gems but in power given by creatures so scarce only a handful of men had ever seen them. At first, Gabriel had believed he was talking about mermaids, creatures the young man had known to be true as he was the only surviving member of a crew who went down with the beautiful half-women.

 The man had shaken his head, taking another drink of his ale before explaining what Gabriel would need to do to find the creature who grants wishes. The creature, the man had said, would appear to him as a woman, one more beautiful than any mermaid. The woman would ask him what he wanted, and should Gabriel ask for he desired. The creature, the cripple had gone on to explain, would only grant one wish, and one only, and though the being would not lie, should Gabriel not be clear in his desire he could find himself not with what he wished for, but with he asked for.

 Finding a way to the island the creature was said to frequent had been hard, Gabriel had to sell what little remained of the ship which was left to him once the mermaids claimed the rest of the crew, to buy one which would take him the journey alone. It took far too long for Gabriel to find the island, by the time he stepped onto the white sand his water reserves had near run dry and his food had run out two days before.

 While he wanted to hunt down the creature who would help him, Gabriel looked for water first, finding it in the form of a small brook not far into the forest which was close to shore. Cupping his hands, Gabriel crouched down and guzzled the fresh water, his stomach clenching once he drank his full. Closing his whiskey-colored eyes, the blond man took a moment to breathe and give his stomach a rest. It still grumbled with the need for food, but he could survive a while longer until he could find something in the forest.

 Following the brook, Gabriel walked farther into the woods; a bag slung over his shoulder with his worldly possessions. If he were to gain the favor of the creature he would bring all he had to offer in exchange for his wish. The day quickly turned into dusk, and though he wanted to continue his trek, Gabriel knew better than to wander strange lands at night. He didn’t have much to set up camp, but he was able to turn some of the ferns and larger leaves into a make-shift shelter. Laying down after starting a fire, Gabriel huddled in on himself, clutching his bag to his chest while trying to get some sleep.

 He managed maybe a couple of hours before he heard it; footsteps crunching leaves in the night. Eyes shooting open, though his vision was limited to a few feet surrounding the embers of his fire, Gabriel tried to see what caused the disturbance. When nothing met his gaze, the young man curled in on himself tighter for a second before sighing and leaving his shelter. When he heard the sound again, Gabriel got out of his housing and grabbed one of the sticks by the fire, lighting the end to make a torch.

 There was nothing there.

 Looking up, Gabriel sighed before placing the torch back into the flames and pressing his torso against the most massive tree he could find. With nimble arms, he began to climb. It took far more energy than he could spare, only seeing some wild berries that day to eat, but the last thing he wanted was to be eaten himself. Once he was far enough into the tree that no animal could reach him without climbing themselves, Gabriel closed his eyes and fell into a light doze. He couldn’t afford a deep sleep here, not without risk of dropping out of the tree to his death, but he could close his eyes.

 **

 It took two night before he saw it. On the third day since arriving on the island and the forest that didn’t seem to end, Gabriel saw a small shack. The sky had opened hours before, and as the rain fell around him, the water cold but gentle in its cascade down his face, and he couldn’t help the smile that spread across. It wasn’t much, but the house was more shelter than he had seen in days. Once he spotted the small home, the sailor sped up his footsteps to reach the wooden structure.

 The closer he came to the shack, the colder the air was around him. By the time he reached just outside the door, Gabriel had frozen as the rain changed from chilled to small flakes of snow. He had only seen snow twice in his lifetime, and never this early in the season. Reaching out his hand to turn the knob of the door, Gabriel quieted his breath when he heard something coming from inside the house. It was a soft sound, barely able to be heard amongst the wind which swept snowflakes against his frigid body. The music was sweeter than the voices he had listened to the night the mermaids took the rest of his crew, softer and welcoming in a way their voices had not been.

 It was also male.

 We could fight a war for peace

Give into that easy living

Goodbye to my hopes and dreams

Stop slipping my enemies

We could wait until the walls come down

 For a while Gabriel stood there, ignoring the way his skin was turning a pale blue and listened to the song coming through the door. It was like nothing he had ever heard, and though he wished he could listen to it forever after a moment, it stopped, leaving Gabriel to want for its return. Instead of more song, a clear voice rang out, making Gabriel jump back slightly and retract his hand.

 “Are you going to come in, or just be creepy in my doorway?”

 Pausing for a second, Gabriel took a breath before turning the knob and opening the door. Inside was nothing like he was expecting. The small home was warm and inviting, lush fur rugs and soft furniture polished to reveal the most luxurious fabrics and design spread throughout the room.

 What made Gabriel’s breath hitch, however, wasn’t the gems he could see proudly on display, of the magic which would have been used to create the illusion of a rundown shack. It was the man lounging on the sofa next to a burning fire. Shutting the door behind himself, Gabriel took in the sight before him. The man was stunning. He had blond hair a shade or two lighter than his own; his face had the start of a beard growing in, just enough fuzz that Gabriel wanted to feel it against his skin.

 His hair was cut short, leaving a slight spike to the front but it was his eyes that drew Gabriel in. He had seen men with blue eyes before; his little brother had eyes as blue as the ocean. The man before him, however, was watching him with orbs that matched the blue glimmer on the snow he had just escaped from, the same shade of blue he had seen on the surface of the ice. Those eyes told Gabriel precisely what he needed to know.

 This was who he had been searching for.

 With his small bag clutched at his side, Gabriel stepped farther into the home, his eyes locked onto those pale blue ones, though he didn’t back down as the man stood. Licking his dry lips, Gabriel cleared his throat his voicing coming out hoarse from lack of water on his journey. “I ahh, I was expecting you to be a woman.” It wasn’t what he wanted to say, but though he knew the being before him could destroy him, instead of getting angry the man laughed.

 “You know I was expecting it as well. Most men who make the journey see me as one. My job is to offer you whatever you want most in the world; it tends to throw men off their game if they are asking an irresistible woman for something. You, however, see me like this, it makes things a bit interesting.”

 When the man spoke, Gabriel could understand where the other was coming from though he, himself was confused. If the one before him was supposed to be representing his greatest desire, then his form made no sense. Gabriel had been with both men and women, but though the form before him was attractive, it wasn’t what he would picture ‘irresistible.’ “So, what you look like now, that’s now how you really appear?”

 At the question the stranger paused, crossing his arms in front of his chest and tapping the side of his mouth with his finger. “Actually, it is. Well, my true form is a bit much, but if I were human? I would look like this. It’s a bit strange, to have someone be able to look through my illusions, which I can assure you should be far beyond anyone else, even my own kind.”

 Opening his mouth about to ask what the man as exactly, Gabriel didn’t get a chance before the man continued to speak. “My name is Lucifer, by the way in case you were wondering. And though I would love to debate what I do or do not look like, I believe you came here for something.” Letting the sentence trail off, the man, Lucifer, raised an eyebrow in question.

 Swallowing, Gabriel nodded his head, holding his bag out in offering though he had the feeling the other would refuse what he had inside. His trinkets were nothing compared to the gold which would have gone into the home he was standing in. “I came to ask you to grant me a wish, I don’t have much to offer, but what I have I give to you freely.”

 Lucifer took the bag and looked inside, Gabriel knew what he would find there; a few trinkets that he had managed to find through the years of sailing, some clothes and a picture of his family. The old man had told him never to lie to the being, and so when he packed his belongings saying it was everything he owned, it included his only picture of his family. The creature looked at the picture in his hand before placing it back in the bag and faced Gabriel.

 “And what is it that you want? What is your desire, Gabriel?” asked the taller man, and for a moment Gabriel paused before answering, unsurprised that the man knew his name. Hands clenched at his side; the whiskey-eyed man shook his head for a moment before speaking. “I wish to be able to sail any boat without a crew, to live my life on the sea with no expectations besides my own. For a ship whose food and fresh water never run dry so that I never have to make port.”

 The man looked at him for a moment, then back at the bag in his hands before sighing. “It would be a lonely life. You wish for a ship who can sustain and provide for you; if I do this she would never let you go, you could never step on land again. She would be a jealous creation. Could you live without human contact again?” Hesitating, Gabriel sighed before shaking his head, though he didn’t speak with people all that often, he hoped to one day find someone with his love of the sea where they could sail together.

 Lucifer took his former seat by the fire and gestured for Gabriel to do the same. The closer he got to the flames, the colder Gabriel became until he was curled in on himself on the sofa waiting for the creature to speak. When Lucifer didn’t talk again, Gabriel looked at the man before him. He seemed lonely, far too lonely for one with his abilities and for a second Gabriel questioned if the cold wasn’t a reflection of how the other was inside.

 “Why are you here alone, Lucifer? If you normally take the form of what the wanderer desires, surely some of them wish to remain with you.” It must have caught the other man off guard as Lucifer jerked slightly, glancing at Gabriel for a moment before his gaze returned to the flames. “I am ice, long ago before humanity I was given a gift by my father. He wished for his sons to be equal, and thus gave us control over the elements. To me, he gifted the power of fire, and I loved it with every passing day.”

 Lucifer blinked then, his gaze not moving from the flames while he spoke. “Then one day he asked us to do something I wasn’t willing to. In punishment, he took away my fire leaving me with ice. I am alone, Gabriel because even if I were to try and be with someone, prolonged exposer would freeze them to death.”

 Silence broke between then before Gabriel turned to face his host. “I would like to change my wish if that’s all right?” asked the human, his face set in determination. When Lucifer nodded, he continued. “I would like to give you back control of fire, can you grant my wish?” Lucifer smiled sadly at Gabriel before shaking his head, to which the smaller man frowned for a moment. “Could you give it to me?”

 At the request, Lucifer's eyes widened, “you wish for me to grant you power over fire?” he asked, his voice low. When Gabriel nodded, the other man sighed heavily, shaking his head a moment later. “I still have control over the element, and though I could transfer it to you, it would be more than merely snapping my fingers. You would need to receive me.”

 Shuffling over to the other man, Gabriel placed his hand on the other’s arm, his palm instantly chilling. “If I have control over fire, could I not cancel out your ice? You’re right I don’t want to sail for the rest of my days alone, perhaps we could leave together and return here when the call of the open sea isn’t as strong. Wouldn’t you like that?”

 Looking at the hand on his arm, Lucifer nodded. “We could sail for a few years at a time, Gabriel… but don’t expect me to turn a blind eye to those who escape justice on the sea. Many men come here hoping for revenge on those who they perceived have wronged them, when they were the cause of someone else’s pain. I give them what they deserve Gabriel, a punishment to fit their crimes. I know what kind of people are on the sea, those who trade slaves, who are running from the law to escape punishment for their crimes. If we sail out, I will give them their due, do you believe you can stand back and do nothing while I work?”

 Gabriel didn’t hesitate to nod, his eyes glimmering in the firelight. “Yes, I can understand wanting to deal out justice, we can sail the seas, Lucifer. The two of us. Perhaps we can even look for those who deserve punishment, to have their possessions ripped away and teach them a lesson. We’ll carve out a new name for ourselves, just the two of us.”

 A chilled hand came to rest on his cheek, blue eyes flickering between his own. “And what would we call ourselves in this world of yours?” asked the creature, his face leaning closer as Gabriel answered. “I like the word pirate; we could be the first of many, of those who take from evil. They will hate us, persecute us, but if you grant me my wish we could be unstoppable.” Gabriel tilted his head up in offering; his words lowered to a whisper. “Take me tonight, Lucifer, give me the fire you were denied, and I will keep you warm for the rest of our days. We can each have what we desire.”

 Frigid lips pressed against his own, and Gabriel brought a hand to the other’s hair, tangling his fingers in the blond locks while the other man pushed him down the sofa. While it wasn’t what he originally wanted, Gabriel wished for nothing more than to have the creature kissing him beside him while they ruled the seas. The water still called to him, but as a chilled tongue explored his mouth, Gabriel felt a spark of something ignite inside him, a longing for something more. A need for the creature before him, his very own angel.

  P.S. If you want to keep up to date on my writing add me to Facebook, Tumbler, Twitter or Instagram as CrowNoYami ;-) Also, if you want to see what I’m reading (I always review so you know what you’re getting into) I’m on Goodreads as well, the same name as always.

[wunjold]

Reflections on Memorial Day

I sang at a lovely memorial day service in a small county cemetery for an unincorporated town. My mother's father's family is apparently heavily associated with the cemetery (though I didn't hear there last name when veterans' names were listed, but my father's father's, twice). I warmed up on the way there and thought on the lyrics of the star-spangled banner as I attempted to convince myself I wasn't nervous (the last time I had performed for an audience was for this very event last year, if I recall correctly).

"Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hailed

At the twilight's last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars

Through the perilous fight, o'er the ramparts

We watched, were so gallantly streaming?

And the rocket's red glare,

The bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag

Was still there.

Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner

Yet wave o'er the land of the free

And the home of the brave?"

After singing this to myself, getting lost in the words, momentarily forgetting them and finding them, as I ventured through the hills, I wondered how I could connect a song with such specific inherent idealistic connotations to the beliefs I have developed along my path. I first noticed the structure of the words, phrased like questions, with the last sounding almost mourningful and longing. "Does that banner STILL wave..." A different way to look at the question is to ask if the realm that resilient flag flies over is STILL "the land of the free & home of the brave."

Freedom and bravery...two interesting words to think about in these strange and trying times.

At the beginning of the service, participants were asked to gather flowers to be placed on headstones marked by tiny starry flags, indicating a veteran buried there. I noted how, unless someone was going to collect them, the flowers would be left to nature, to rot on the stone, be lost in the wind, eat,, or fed to to ground. It felt strange having so many people treading on ground that was relatively undisturbed throughout the year, and, like last year, and every year before that at a service of its kind, I found it hard to connect. The act of leaving the flowers on the tombstone felt so much like an offering to a spirit, ancestor or deity. I'm sure many who attended had ancestors there, so, in a sense, they were making offerings to ancestors.

Then, I wondered if there were any heathens in that cemetery. Probably not, given it's location, but who knows? Or perhaps those that kept folk practices and old traditions without thinking of it, or even in secret. I wondered about the battles my ancestors may have fought, the violence heathens often glorify and the justifications we have for it. I placed my carnations, lilacs, and ferns on the headstones of two nameless civil war soldiers as taps rolled through the hills with the wind. I did not know them, but I silently thanked them, assuming they fought with the Union.

What is Memorial Day, an American holiday honoring fallen soldiers of the nation, but a holy day honoring fallen kin, ancestors, and warriors? Given, we must look into the cause of each conflict. Some were not very honorable or even necessary. Our ancestors fought to survive in a harsh world, a world with terrors much different from those of today, and their amazement at its wonder is reflected in the myths and histories we enjoy. We know that violence can have justifications, and that's what warriors have always been for.

I sang the national anthem, eyes fixed on the sleepy hills as the sun attempted to inch by thin clouds. The shallow valley was quiet aside from my call, my questions to the sky through song, and the small gathering joined in. I knew we all sang for different reasons but I wondered aloud, mind focused on the two nameless civil war soldiers, the warriors throughout my family tree, branching back to their struggles in the North, "Oh, say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave o'er "the land of the free and the home of the brave."

On this day, marked by honoring fallen warriors, I look to the emptiness of the full moon, just as I must look in the Shadow of myself for lost bravery, embrace it, and pursue freedom. I honor the unnamed warriors, whatever familiar or foreign stead they may rest in, whatever hall they reside in, and the unknowable ancestors, blood under my flesh.

[acsversace-news]

“You can’t do it, can you?” “I can’t what?” “Stop.”

The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story is what Matt Zoller Seitz once described, by way of a subtitle to his blog, as “a long, strange journey toward a retrospectively inevitable destination” — the titular murder, seen in the cold open of the very first episode. We’ve already seen where we’re going; what’s left to the show is to depict how we got there. Even those swept along and killed by Andrew Cunanan during the journey seem to sense it. Hence the exchange above. Promising young architect David Madson is the love of Andrew’s life, to hear Andrew tell it. He’s a man to whom the murderer is so fanatically committed that he not only slaughters his rival for David’s affections, his own former love interest Jeff Trail, with a hammer, thus beginning his murder spree, but then manages to convince the shellshocked David that he has some how become an accomplice to the crime and must flee by his side. As time wears on and the shock wears off, David grows less pliable to Andrew’s nonsensical advice and admonishments, but also more honest with himself about where his journey as the Bonnie to Andrew’s would-be Clyde will end. He has no more hope of survival than Andrew has a chance of shutting the fuck up and telling the truth. He can’t do it, can he.

Or can he? “House by the Lake” is the second “murder spotlight” episode of ACS Versace in a row, revealing the fate of victims one and two and tantalizingly hinting at the paths the two men walked to put them in Cunanan’s crosshairs in the first place. They’re old California acquaintances since relocated to Minneapolis, where David seems reasonably well-situated to begin a career on a par with the soon-to-be late Lee Miglin’s. Andrew can’t have that — not unless he can have David too, which Jeff renders impossible. So Andrew hoodwinks David into luring Jeff to his death, venting a lifetime of frustration, resentment, and hatred into the man’s skull. “I lost control,” he manages to reassure David half-apologetically, after he bathes the stunned witness clean of all the blood he’s been splattered with. “I love you.” Later, as they walk David’s dog together to keep up appearances, Andrew says “I promise you no one else will get hurt as long as you’re by my side.” They begin a road trip. You can guess how it ends.

The most compelling contrast between “House by the Lake” and its predecessor, “A Random Killing” — as well as the assassination of Gianni Versace itself — is that at this point, Andrew may well believe what he’s saying. He killed Jeff to punish Jeff, yes, that’s clear enough. But he also killed him as a means to an end: a fantasy life with David over the border into Mexico. The operative word there is, of course, life. At this early stage in the spree, Andrew still harbors delusions about being able to move on, escape, perhaps even thrive. To paraphrase his final words to Lee Miglin before he crushed the man’s chest with construction materials, he’s not out to simply destroy. He still wants to build.

What brings it all crashing down is David’s ability to see through it, even if Andrew himself can’t bring himself to do so. Eventually, David realizes that Andrew sent him to let Jeff into his apartment building that awful night rather than doing it himself so that he could incriminate David in the eyes of the law. (Which indeed he did, as well-intentioned but obliviously bigoted cops treat David like a suspect and sex freak at every point in their investigation, wasting time they could have spent saving his life.) He unsuccessfully seizes the wheel of their getaway car, demands they call the police about the murder even as Andrew draws a gun on him in the middle of nowhere. “It’s not real,” he insists. “It could have been,” Andrew replies. “No,” he insists once more. “It couldn’t.”

The episode is structured by writer Tom Rob Smith and director Daniel Minahan (an early Game of Thrones veteran) to contrast the flight of fancy constructed by the murderous Andrew, and David’s ability to see through it, with this relationship’s flipside: flashbacks to earlier times in David’s life, when he feared his deviation from traditional masculinity would incur his father’s anger, only to discover his dad was a loving, forgiving figure. When Mr. Madson takes little David hunting and the kid freaks out, it’s no big deal — hunting’s not for everyone, and besides, they can just go for a walk together. When David graduates college at the top of his class and uses the occasion to finally come out, his dad’s a bit taken aback from a moral perspective, but that takes a serious back seat to his abiding love for his son, which he expresses in no uncertain terms. He’s so sincere and supportive, in fact, that he wonders why David chose now of all times to tell him, leaving the younger man almost embarrassed at the crude “good news/bad news” approach he’d chosen to adopt. During David’s fatal flight from the law, the cops keep insisting to his parents that he’s up to no good, and that he has deep dark secrets from them. The fact that they don’t know shit is one of the most sadly satisfying moments in the whole sordid affair.

There are many darkly funny moments along the way as well. There’s Andrew’s absurd attempt to blow off David’s concerns about getting caught at the border: “Well I’ve been moving product across the border for years.” (This takes place during a lunchbreak that had me thinking the inane phrase “A man, a plan, a sandwich, Cunanan.”) There’s the entire grim splatstick routine that takes place at David’s apartment as various cops and friends and neighbors try to figure out exactly whose ruined corpse is rolled up in a carpet. There’s David’s heartsick, self-contemptuous monologue about being more worried about being disgraced than being killed, which we now know Andrew will plagiarize virtually word for word when he murders Lee Miglin in a few days. There are all the different ways the police mangle Andrew’s last name (my favorite is “Cunainoon”) and the ridiculous descriptions of himself he threw around in front of David’s friends (“a Jewish millionaire from New York”?). Here’s also as good a place as any to praise the casting of Cody Fern and Finn Wittrock as David and Jeff respectively: two all-American boys.

But I’m saving my final praise for Darren Criss as Andrew one more time. Not just for the delicate balance he must strike around David between unpredictable violence and careful reassurance throughout the episode, nor even for his final act of tenderness toward his victim (who’d hallucinated a reunion with his father before dying) — curling up with the corpse for a last embrace before driving away. No, the highlight here is the endless closeup on Criss/Cunanan’s face as he listens to a roadhouse performance of the Cars’ “Drive” by guest star Aimee Mann while his beloved victim sneaks off to the men’s room, debating whether or not to try and flee. He breaks before your eyes, there’s no other way to put it, and he does so over the same sentiment David will eventually express to him, getting himself killed in the process: “You can’t go on thinking nothing’s wrong.”

[stina-is-a-punk-rocker]

stephen king’s ‘it’: a rant-review

Alternatively titled: an almost verbatim account of the 12-page rant I wrote in my diary after being driven to a catatonic rage by the 1100+ page monstrosity that was IT.

WARNINGS: spoilers, blood and gore, violence and general icky stuff, death, suicide, demeaning descriptions of women, both adults and underage, mentions of child pornography, my two brain cells trying to make me sense of this damn book

I fell in hate with IT the way you fall asleep; slowly, then all at once. The beginning reeled me in- it was great, that perfect first sentence all writers strive for- it’s got a compelling start, and it gradually gathers momentum onwards. The writing’s good, nice diction, nice use of words, a bit too much exposition, but what’s a few hundred more pages of ultimately worthless crap if it keeps you engaged?

And then it starts to go downhill.

The book’s too long. I got really, really bored by around page 800, because the book was dragging on for way too long and there was no sign of it ending anytime soon. There’s so much extra crap you could’ve straight up cut out from the story and it wouldn’t’ve made any difference to the final outcome.

The back-and-forth between the past (1957) and the present (1985) was pretty interesting- I much preferred the past accounts to the present ones, admittedly.

There’s a fuckload of characters the book could’ve done without. Way too many people my lizard brain couldn’t keep track of; yeah, sure, you can include the people Pennywise made a meal of by name- but you could easily lop off a few pages’ worth descriptions of characters that don’t play a bigger role than becoming clown chow in the course of the story.

The Losers are pretty much your everyday group of misfits: you’ve got the ringleader William ‘Stuttering Bill’ Denbrough, Stan Uris, Richie Tozier, Ben Hanscom, Eddie Kaspbrak, Beverly Marsh and Mike Hanlon- alias the self-insert, the Jew, the guy who makes offensive jokes but gets away with it because ‘that’s just the way he is!’, one of the few characters in this entire book that I don’t want to punch the living daylights out of, the hypochondriac, the tiddies and the black guy.

It’s painfully obvious that Bill’s a self-insert. Everyone and their grandma know that the moment there’s a character in a book who’s an author, they’re going to be the self-insert. Middle-aged cis het white male author? Now, whoever could that possibly be based upon, Mr. King?

And hey, despite all my mediocrity, I’m guilty of doing the same. I’ll write a story about someone who likes to write, and then suddenly the character’s a woman with dark hair and brown eyes and horrible myopia.

And yet, there’s something about Bill that makes it impossible for me to like him. I liked him well enough as a kid; he had a very Peter Pan role with the rest of the lost boys + person with boobs, and everything he did was a bit too perfect (because Big Bill- yes, they really called him that- had ALL the answers) for me, but I’m willing to let that slide.

(I’m not, I’m really not. Please give me flawed characters, not Characters with One Singular Flaw Who Do Everything Else Perfectly.)

I don’t think calling Bill a Mary Sue would be too far of a stretch. Also, he cheated on his wife with Beverly- big surprise there, I called it way before it happened- and characters who cheat will never be redeemable for me.

And then we have Stanley Uris. It’s been a couple of months since I last read IT and I’ve already forgotten what greater purpose Stan served for the story. I might be wrong- remember, lizard brain, goldfish memory- but I honest to god cannot, for the life of me, remember what Stan meant for the plot. Except, well, to die a couple pages in.

(According to my quick Google search, his suicide was sacrificial. As a wise woman once said, “Wait… what.”)

Richie’s actually not a character I hate, despite what I said about him. He’s comic relief for the most part at the beginning, and there are loads of things he says that would immediately cause #RichieTozierIsOverParty to trend on Twitter had he existed in 2020, but he’s an interesting character all the same. He’s got some amount of depth to him, more personality outside of being just another kid who encountered Pennywise.

I have a soft spot for Ben, I’ll admit. I’ve been the Designated Ugly Fat Friend of every friend group I’ve been in, so maybe I’m a bit biased, but I find him a lot more likable than a lot of the other characters I encountered in the book.

About Eddie, I’m not actually sure what there is to write. I remember more about him than I do about poor Stan, but aside from Eddie marrying a woman who’s a caricature of his overprotective mother, there’s not much that comes to mind. I’ve heard that Eddie and Richie had some #moments- my dumbass didn’t notice while reading, I’ve read IT only once and I’m awful at reading between the lines- though the boys more or less ogled Beverly all the damn time (poor girl couldn’t even wear a pair of shorts, but I’ll get to her later) so I hadn’t really considered the possibility of them being anything other than Raging Heterosexuals.

Beverly is straight out of r/menwritingwomen- if I took a shot every time her breasts were brought up, I’d have passed out midway through the book. I find it interesting (no, I don’t, I find it demeaning) how every time there’s a female lead with ‘flaming red hair’ in a group with mostly men, she’s described as this fierce, bold, brave Bad Bitch whose actual Badness doesn’t get half as much as screen time as her boobs. And I get that Beverly’s attractive, you don’t have to constantly remind us that BEVERLY MARSH IS FUCKING HOT OKAY GET THAT IN YOUR HEAD SHE’S A GODDAMN SEX SYMBOL WITH HER FIERY HAIR AND VIRIDESCENT ORBS AND GIGANTIC ASS AND BOOBS SO BIG THEY MIGHT AS WELL BE CALLED UDDERS SHE’S THE HOTTEST WOMAN YOU CAN IMAGINE ONLY LIKE A GAZILLION TIMES HOTTER DON’T YOU DARE FORGET THAT BEVERLY MARSH IS HOT (DON’T FORGET THE GIGANTIC BOOBS).

I think we got that the first time around.

And the constant sexualization isn’t just adult Beverly. As if every man in her vicinity staring at her wasn’t enough to drive the point home, we are treated to delights the likes of eleven-year-old (!) Beverly’s ‘budding breasts’; ‘milky white skin of her flat stomach’; ‘her long, coltish legs’; ‘shorts barely long enough to cover her panties’ (which were yellow, in case you were wondering about the underwear choice of a literal child); amongst other lovely descriptions of someone who literally just passed the fifth grade. She’s sexualized by her own father, and I know those things happen in the real world, but what with all the sexualization we already have of Beverly, it doesn’t sit right with me. I think it’s just creepy and unnecessary.

Also, cis woman to cis woman out here, but those ‘sweet pains of womanhood’, am I right?

Mike’s the final one in the trinity of Losers I don’t hate with burning passion/completely forgot about. The fact that he has such a big role in the story but we don’t meet him properly until we’re hundreds of pages in confused me, but he’s an okay enough guy. He didn’t seem like too much of a Token to me, but maybe I missed it. His backstory’s pretty interesting, too. I would’ve preferred him as a main character- his interludes, though unnecessary and adding more weight to an already obese book, were intriguing- and I liked him better than Bill, sue me.

And then we have the Big Bad, Pennywise the Dancing Clown, It, whatever the fuck it is. After all the terror, the Teenage Werewolf, the Crawling Eye, finding out that ‘It’ was essentially a pregnant, mutant Aragog… I can’t be the only one who went, “That’s it? That’s It?”

After Pennywise being Its most common form, it was jaunting, but in a bad way, to find out that It was just some Daddy (Mommy?) Long Legs who was Fucking Shit Up. An invertebrate, a measly invertebrate, was Its ‘Earth Form’? Was there some symbolism, some subtext there that I missed before Pennywise embodied the spirit of the Other Mother from fucking Coraline?

Apparently not, according to yet another one of my quick Google searches. I tried to see if there was any sort of hidden meaning behind the cosmic clusterfuck in IT, but came up short. Maybe I watched too much BEN 10 in my Youth for aliens to scare me.

I’m gonna get really nitpicky here, but: judging by the huge fern forests the kids saw during the arrival of It, It must have arrived at some point in the Paleozoic Era. To my understanding, It is essentially a Boggart-Dementor hybrid; It manifests into your fears and feeds on that. But humans didn’t appear until the Cenozoic Era, if my memory serves me correct. How did It survive until then? Does It have the ability to feed off of animals and their fears? So many questions, Mr. King, and so little answers.

Pennywise was sinister enough as a killer clown. Giving It a completely different ‘final form’ was unnecessary. No one cares, Mr. King, just finish the damn book. Some ideas are best left unwritten.

Henry Bowers was genuinely one of the best-written antagonists I’ve ever read about. He evoked a visceral rage within me, but I was also downright terrified whenever he popped up, because that motherfucker was unhinged. He was even better of a villain than It, because It killed to survive. Henry was insane.

Also, Mr. King, too much blood. He really dumped it in bucketloads- the first few times were scary, but afterwards, whenever ‘dripping blood’, ‘pools of blood’, etc. came up, it felt contrived and like a tacky fairground horror house.

The Losers’ final battles with It (both as children and as adults) confused me. Maybe I’m too much of a simple-minded fool because some of that cosmic galactic science-fiction bullshit went right over my head. And I don’t mean grazing the top of my hair, I mean several thousand miles above it.

I won’t go too deep into it because I’m still not sure what happened exactly, but it came off like a last-minute addition to the book, because it just doesn’t fit in with the mood of the rest of the story. At most, I expected some contrived demonic exorcist bullshit on par with The Conjuring films- instead, I got some weird outer space (?) opera. I’m confused too, dude, but let’s just roll with it.

I didn’t get the metaphorical tongue-biting; I could only imagine a repulsive French kiss. Who the fuck was the turtle? Why did it choke on its own vomit? What were the deadlights? What the fuck went on in those last few scenes? Am I just stupid- don’t answer that.

And then we have The Scene. The biggest fucking yikes I’ve ever yiked. I’ve read my fair share of fanfiction with scenes of questionable morality, but this was just… ugh.

It’s child pornography, that’s all there is to it. I refuse to believe that Stephen King ‘didn’t think too much of it’ while writing, and I’m disgusted by people who say, ‘it’s just one scene, it’s not a big deal’. That’s easily the worst thing I’ve ever read in a published book, and it amazes me I the worst kind of way when I see people who think it’s excusable. It’s not, it’s really not.

For the people I’ve seen arguing that ‘it’s just a couple of paragraphs’… that doesn’t erase the fact that it happened. You might argue that it has some deep metaphorical connotations about ‘the Losers growing up’ and ‘Beverly taking her sexuality into her own hands’… they’re eleven, you cunt. They’re literal fucking children. Sure, they’ve been through crap no one, not even adults, have been through. And that sucks. But how does that justify an orgy between ELEVEN YEAR OLDS?

And we get a nice little tidbit about the boys’ dick sizes; thank you, Mr. King, I really wanted to know which fifth grader had the biggest penis. The constant sexualization of child-Beverly was bad enough without that scene- that was just the nail in the coffin.

To sum it up: the writing’s good, the pacing’s geriatric, the characters are horrible, the story’s meh, and I’ll probably never read it unless I’m at gunpoint. On second thought, maybe not even then. Stephen King can suck my dick.

[withickmire]

Torn Apart

Fandom: Deltora Quest Characters: Jasmine, Jarred (mentioned), Anna (mentioned). Summary: For the first time in her life, Jasmine is truly alone.  Notes: This is a rewrite of a piece I wrote on FFN back in 2010 or so, for a collection of stories called ‘First Wood’. The story itself was called ‘Like Spilled Water’. AO3

A storm tore through the Forests after they were taken. Great trees trembled as their roots threatened to pull from the earth. Rain pounded the ground like beating fists, smothering the fire and carrying away scraps of clothing and pieces of the treehouse. Every fearsome creature took shelter as the wind rampaged through the woods. First Wood screamed its rage and grief, and Jasmine did too, until her throat was ragged and her voice was ripped away.

The fire might have taken her, had the rain not come. Perhaps it was the shock of the icy water that finally forced her to move. She did not remember digging the trench to lie in, nor did she remember dragging the wet and fire-blackened piece of wood over her little den, but her fingernails were torn and her skin was filthy with charcoal. Mamma and Papa always said that if she should lose her way, she must stay exactly where she was, and they would come and find her. But Jasmine knew where she was. They never said what she should do if they were the ones who were lost. Jasmine opened her mouth to scream again, but her throat was too sore to produce more than a whimper. She inhaled a mouthful of mud, and choked it back out.

She lay in her hole long after the storm calmed. Her eyes were swollen with smoke and tears, but still she kept them closed. She had lain on her belly in the ferns as Mamma and Papa were beaten and chained by the Grey Guards. A thorny branch had dug into her arm as she pressed her free hand across her mouth, but she had not dared move. The branch had torn through her flesh as if she were a wet leaf, and blood had crusted over the wound. Mamma would be horrified to see it pressed into the mud, but she was not there to fix it. She was not there to care. Mamma— the very word was a savage knife in Jasmine’s heart. Mamma’s eyes, green like spring leaves, had been clouded by pain and fear as she motioned with her chin for Jasmine to hide, her hands tied cruelly behind her back, blood trickling from her nose.

Papa— the knife twisted, oh— would tell her to get up. He would tell her to climb a tree and get to higher ground. He had looked so wild and afraid, like a wounded animal, as his eyes had searched desperately for her as the Grey Guards bound him. Jasmine had wanted to run to him, and throw her arms around him— I am here, I am here, I am here!— but she had stayed in her hiding spot, still as death, unwilling to betray Mamma.

The storm is over, the ground is no longer safe, Papa would say. Jasmine rolled over in her hole, and thrust her uninjured arm over her eyes. She did not know how long she had been there, but it might as well have been all her life. Her tongue was heavy in her mouth from a lack of water, and her empty belly heaved.

Open your eyes, my dearest, the voice in her ear was Mamma’s, but Jasmine knew it was only in her head.

It is a trick, Jasmine thought. If I open my eyes, you will still be gone.

Yes, the voice was sweet and so sad. Something squirmed in the mud under her hair. Yes, I will. But you will still be here. You must get up.

She opened her eyes— one, two— and was greeted by the sliver of pale sunlight that filtered through a crack in the wood as thin as a hair. She drew patterns on the board with her finger, not ready to listen to the whispers Mamma had left behind. The drawings would not mark the wood, not like the burnt sticks Mamma would give her to draw with on torn tree bark. They would disappear, like her family. They would be invisible, like her. Every heart beat was a blow to her chest, every breath she took dragged knives down her throat.

Finally, she kicked the board away. The fire had burned away many of the treetops, and it was brighter than Jasmine had ever seen. Sunlight burned her eyes and blazed hot upon her skin. Her heart broke as she looked around her. The flames had turned the massive tree that held their home into a skeleton the colour of ash. It still stood, but many of the smaller trees and bushes around it had been completely destroyed. The house itself had fallen, smashed and burned into pieces that scattered the ground around her. The world spun around her, and Jasmine felt like she might be flung away.

Water first, Papa’s voice murmured. Jasmine staggered through the sludgy mud to where she had left the water bags, not too far from her hiding spot. She had brought them with her when she had been drawn back from the stream by Mamma’s screams, but all of the water had sloshed out as she ran. One of them had been left with its mouth facing the sky, and held a shallow pool of rain water. Jasmine lifted it to her lips and drank greedily. When she had had her fill, she poured what was left into her cupped hand and cleaned the small wound on her arm. It stung horribly, but she gritted her teeth and washed it until she was sure the dirt was gone.

Breathing heavily, she climbed to her feet. The sky was still bright, but the sun was beginning to set. Had her parents been there, they would be getting food ready for the evening meal. A night and day had passed since she had been left behind. Food next, Mamma’s voice breathed.

Jasmine stumbled obediently to the remnants of her home. The tree in which their house had stood had been burned black, and stunk of fire and evil. It looked nothing like the safe place where Jasmine had laughed and slept and played. The leaves that had concealed the little house had been consumed by the flames, and what remained of the house was scattered around her feet. The rope ladder hung limply from a branch, torn and with some steps missing, but likely still good enough to support her small body. She walked through the remains like a ghost, half-numb to the destruction around her. She dug blindly through the boards until she found a sack of dried berries and crammed a handful in her mouth, forcing herself to chew slowly. She followed it with a second handful, and then a third. The food settled her stomach and cleared her head a little.

She eyed the rope ladder again. It swayed gently in the evening breeze. It would be night soon, and even Papa, who was very strong, did not like to be on the ground in the dark.  

She rose, and made towards the ladder, when something on the ground caught her eye. A piece of paper fluttered on the ground, trapped by a broken branch. It had been sheltered underneath the wood from the rain, but pulled back out by the wind. Jasmine snatched it up and unfolded it. It was one of Papa’s rhymes, the one about the bear and the mouse. It was short and silly, but Jasmine loved it for the little drawings. With trembling hands, she folded it up and placed the precious paper into her pocket. Silent tears cut through the dirt on her face.

Good girl, Papa’s voice said. You are doing well. Now, climb.

Jasmine grasped the bag of berries and clutched it between her teeth. She made slow progress up the ladder, for her arm ached, and she was careful to test each frail step before she put her weight on it. As she neared the top, one broke under her foot. Jasmine’s stomach lurched as she clutched the rope for dear life and regained her footing. A fall from that height would not be one she could survive. Finally, she made it to the top. Although most of the house had fallen, some of the floor remained, including a piece nearly four times the width of her body. She spat out the bag and fell heavily upon the floor, her numbness bleeding into exhaustion. She reached into her pocket and clutched the paper in her fist, holding it like she might hold Papa’s hand.

The remnants of the house creaked and moaned in the wind, but she knew somehow that the tree would not let her fall. For all the damage it took, it was was massive, and still sturdy. Injured, perhaps, but not dead. Besides, she knew that tree. It had been her home all her life.

“I am sorry they hurt you, too,” she whispered, as loud as her voice would let her.

Rest now, little one, a deep voice whispered. Do not worry about me.

Jasmine sat up and looked around wildly. The voice had been realer than the soft remnants of her parents’ voices in her mind, but no one had spoken.

Do not be afraid, the low voice spoke again. I will keep you safe, as I always have.

Jasmine lay back down, and closed her eyes. Her panic faded as quickly as it had come. It did not seem so strange, really. She knew, in her heart, that it was the tree that had spoken to her. She knew that trees talked to each other, for she heard the whispers their leaves made in the wind, but she did not know that trees would ever take an interest in speaking to her. She knew that the tree would keep its word, for it had been her home all her life, and she could not see why it would betray her now of all times.

Still, she could not stay there forever, that much she knew. She would have to make a new home, and she could not bear to have it in sight of where the old one had lain. But it did not matter yet. She would sleep surrounded by the branches of the tree that had sheltered her for seven years. Tomorrow would be a new day. She would salvage what else she could from what had been left behind on the forest floor. If Papa and Mamma came home they would be so proud to find that she had made a new home and kept herself safe.

When they came home.

They had to come home.

[futurelivinginspiration]

Where Tiny Houses and Big Dreams Grow

A tech entrepreneur and his friends make a weekend community in the woods.

BARRYVILLE, N.Y. — Five years ago, Zach Klein, a successful tech entrepreneur then in his late 20s, was living in New York City but dreaming of the wilderness. A former Eagle scout, partner atCollegeHumor, and founder of Vimeo, the elegant online video platform, he was in between ventures, teaching entrepreneurship at the School of Visual Arts and spinning cycles, as he put it, while looking for land to buy — a lot of land — upon which he hoped to spend time building things and reconnecting to the scouting skills of his childhood.

Most urgently, he hoped he could persuade his friends to come along for the ride.

Mr. Klein got lucky in Sullivan County, N.Y., where he found 50 acres of forest with an understory of ferns and mossy boulders, lightly accessorized with a rough-hewed, one-room shack free from plumbing and electricity and a separate sleeping porch perched on a steep hill overlooking a rushing stream called Beaver Brook.

The property belonged to Scott Newkirk, a New York designer, and much of its appeal lay in Mr. Newkirk’s aesthetic: His shack and porch were lovely enough to have been featured in New York magazine. After 10 years there, Mr. Newkirk was ready to move on, and for about $280,000, Mr. Klein had found his utopia.

Beaver Brook, as he named it, inhabits a nexus of themes: a millennial’s version of the Adirondack camps of the robber barons, the back-to-the-land movements and intentional communities of the 1950s and ’60s, and a combination folk school/artists’ residency.

While hedge funders tend to express themselves in ever-bigger shingled simulacrums of early 20th century waterfront estates, those in the tech world who’ve enjoyed similar success may be more interested in experience, community and relationships, as Lane Becker, a founder of digital start-ups and the author of “Get Lucky,” a tech business primer on serendipity, pointed out.

“To the extent they want to spend their money, it’s on stuff like that,” he said. Mr. Becker and his wife, Courtney Skott, a furniture maker, were in Denver last weekend for a wedding, staying with a couple — a start-up entrepreneur and a television producer — who had rehabbed a Masonic Lodge. “They Airbnb some of the rooms out,” Mr. Becker said, “less because they need the money but because they’d like to get know different people. That’s sort of the model of what Zach’s doing. Some might see a sort of hipster-twee affectation, but I think there’s a more genuine impulse at work.”

Mr. Klein’s inspirations are familiar: the writings of Stewart Brand, the ’60s era eco guru and editor of the Whole Earth Catalogue; and John Seymour, the author of “The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live it, ” along with the architectural ideals of Christopher Alexander. Other touchstones included a maple sugar shanty he once visited as a child, a community of Hobbitlike tiny houses called Trout Gulch built by some tech friends in Santa Cruz, Calif., and a yurt village built by a family in the Adirondacks.

But his pitch was pretty simple, said Courtney Klein, a digital strategist and entrepreneur, who married Mr. Klein at Beaver Brook in 2012. “It was, ‘Let’s get a piece of land and we could bring all our friends together and have a good time.’ ”

And so it began. In August 2010, the couple hosted a weekend of “bonfires, contemplation and wood chopping,” among other activities. They cooked stew in the shack, now called Scott’s Cabin, for Mr. Newkirk, and which Mr. Newkirk had outfitted with a propane stove, and washed up by hauling five-gallon containers from the brook.

Some guests bunked in the shack and sleeping porch; others pitched tents among the ferns. The experience was the model for what would be a kind of weekend commune, an experiment in episodic off-the-grid-living with a core of eight friends that has grown to about 20, including five children (Nell Klein arrived just over a year ago. )

There was Brian Jacobs, a sound designer and composer and Mr. Klein’s former roommate in New York City. He had been a junior Maine guide and his proficiency with an ax served the group well. There was Jace Cooke, a founder of the tech start-up Giphy, and other young creatives — animators, app designers, musicians and filmmakers.

Mr. Jacobs brought Grace Kapin, who worked in fashion, one weekend; having survived that, they are now married and building a cabin there. Before long, everyone became handy with chain saws and other power tools; they brought in more experienced builders to oversee large projects and teach the group carpentry skills.

There were rookie mistakes. An early project, a barrel-shaped tub, floated away one spring when the snow melted and the brook rose. Composting drew bears. (Ms. Kapin named their ursine visitors: Alan Ginzbear, Stephen Colbear, Marion Beary.)

The group made art on their camping weekends, including a winsomeshort film about building a stool from an oak tree, and took enticing photographs that looked like they had been art-directed by the editors of Kinfolk magazine. Since 2009, Mr. Klein had been collecting images of sheds, shacks, cabins and huts into a Tumblr blog he called, cunningly, Cabin Porn, and he also posted Beaver Brook’s embellishments, captured in those photographs, there.

When the blog, an enchanting rabbit hole of tiny handmade houses, quickly went viral, his private utopia became public record, and book publishers came courting, seeing in Cabin Porn the architectural equivalent of Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York. The result, “Cabin Porn: Inspiration for Your Quiet Place Somewhere,” is out this week from Little, Brown.

Three years ago, Mr. Klein began inviting artisans like Tom Bonamici, a product designer with an expertise in woodworking and timber framing, to hold annual weeklong workshops at Beaver Brook for paying students to learn building skills. Mr. Klein, whose latest endeavor is DIY, an online “maker” site for children, is keenly interested in turning Beaver Brook into both a folk school and an artists’ residency.

After his first workshop, and at Mr. Klein’s urging, Mr. Bonamici, a gentle Oregonian with a passion for traditional Japanese timber framing, became a Beaver Brook resident.

Like all utopias, this one changed as it grew. It was three years ago that the Bunkhouse was built, on a piece of land across the brook with road frontage, electricity and a well. Camping in Scott’s Cabin or in tents strewn about the hill had lost its luster, Mr. Klein said, “People got slower and slower about volunteering to do the dishes on cold nights.” And without power, Beaver Brook’s season was contained to the warmer months.

Yet there is some nostalgia for the time “before,” when there was no cellphone coverage, Wi-Fi or hot water. This year’s Beaver Brook workshop project was timber framing, the foundation for an outdoor kitchen the residents hope will bring some of the action back to the Arcadian side of the brook. Six students paid $500 for Mr. Bonamici’s tutelage; the fee covered a week’s worth of chef-cooked meals and groceries (Mr. Klein and Ms. Klein paid for materials and Mr. Bonamici’s stipend).

On the last night of the workshop, students and residents ate by candlelight among the sturdy framework they’d built. “It was like old times,” Mr. Klein said.

The Bunkhouse, Mr. Klein said, was also bait for a plan he was hatching to draw Ms. Klein, Mr. Jacobs and Ms. Kapin into full-time residency at Beaver Brook. The four discussed buying a local market, perhaps putting a bar in its basement until Ms. Klein put the kibosh on the plan.

While Beaver Brook, she said, “did snowball pretty quickly from something that had more meaning than a weekend house,” it was not her life plan to settle permanently in rural Sullivan County.

“Courtney was the voice of reason,” Ms. Kapin said.

The Kleins have since moved to San Francisco, where DIY is based. Ms. Klein and Ms. Kapin, who still lives in Brooklyn, are partners inStorq, a line of maternity clothes that Ms. Klein founded.

Mr. Klein and Ms. Klein are Beaver Brook’s owners, and they pay taxes and insurance on the properties. Beaver Brook residents are divided by their dues into two categories: Bunkers pay $150 a month for a guaranteed bed in the Bunkhouse. Campers pay $75 a month for a spot across the brook.

Bedrooms at the Bunkhouse, an airy open-plan house designed around the frame of a 19th-century barn, are first come first served. It’s the most practical system, Mr. Klein said.

Last year, 100 people, give or take, spent at least one night in the house. Over Labor Day, he and Ms. Klein and Nell were sleeping in a first-floor bedroom that has been outfitted with a crib, one of three separate bedrooms.

Most of the sleeping options are communal: In an open loft space upstairs, there are two double beds; the Bunkroom, which is also upstairs, has eight futons on its wide-planked yellow pine floor. It’s Mr. Klein’s favorite place to sleep. “I love being up here with eight snoring buddies,” he said.

As for projects, there is one simple rule, Mr. Klein said: “As long as the thing you want to do doesn’t cause irreversible change, just go for it.” Idan Cohen, an amateur chef, organized the building of a cob oven one work weekend this summer. As it happens, Ms. Kapin’s and Mr. Jacobs’s stunning wedge of a cabin, dubbed Clydeshead for their dog, Clyde, was Mr. Klein’s idea.

“It’s his special skill to talk people into doing something ambitious,” Ms. Kapin said. (Given Mr. Klein’s hope to anchor his friends more permanently to Beaver Brook, one suspects in this instance a deeper motive.)

With a budget of $10,000, Mr. Jacobs’s and Ms. Kapin’s original vision of a cube tucked into the hill receded pretty quickly. “Once we talked to people who knew what they were doing,” Mr. Jacobs said, “we realized we’d have to build a retaining wall, there’d be backhoes involved...”

Mr. Jacobs’s brother, Mike, is an architect, and he designed a refined 350-foot rectangle cantilevered out over the hill that uses the surrounding trees as supports. That particular innovation depends on treehouse technology, an anchor bolt known as a Garnier Limb. (Michael Garnier, an Oregon based treehouse builder — and treehouse dweller — is sometimes known as the father of the modern treehouse movement.)

There are Beaver Brook rituals, like the annual talent show, held New Year’s Eve in the Bunkhouse. Newbies earn a nickname after their third night on the property, and following a requisite post-sauna plunge in the brook after dark. (Mr. Klein’s is Zubaz, for the virulently patterned pants that he and other Buffalo Bills fans like to wear. Ms. Kapin’s is Guns, for the Linda Hamilton-like biceps she developed building her cabin.)

On work weekends, newcomers might be assigned grunt work chores like path maintenance. “It is much, much harder than you’d imagine,” Ms. Kapin said with a slight shudder.

There’s an email chain, for planning projects and working out domestic issues. Laundry has been particularly thorny. With so many beds and no assigned rooms, the residents were struggling until it was suggested they bring their own sheets and towels. One resident offered to cross-stitch everyone’s names on their linens.

Beekeeping has been broached as a project for next summer (Mr. Klein has a hankering for mead). In August, Mr. Klein sent around a Beaver Brook logo he and Mr. Cooke designed as a book stamp for their growing Bunkhouse library.

Unlike the vicious, trollish tenor of, say, the internal communiqués of Manhattan co-ops, Beaver Brook residents write with civility and a regular refrain of “awesome!”

“I think this is an important step,” Mr. Klein wrote, weighing in on the recent laundry discussion, “towards delegating the responsibilities for making BB work, creating a more camp-like culture, and raising the bar of participation to be more intentional. Cheers or jeers?”

Back home in San Francisco, the email chain is Mr. Klein’s primary online community, as he pines for his East Coast retreat.

Sunday nights are rough, he added. “It’s when everyone is driving back to the city from Beaver Brook,” he said, “and I get a flurry of photos of the meals they’ve made, or of building the cob oven, and I feel on some level I’m missing out on the life I made.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/24/fashion/the-cabin-porn-commune.html