#moonrise hill material

[electrospective]

Traboules Nights

[outofangband]

Collection of Nargothrond headcanons for @eilinelsghost. Working on updating my two larger Nargothrond world building post

Nargothrond has a variety of languages spoken! Noldorin Quenya and the Falathrim dialect of Sindarin are the most common. Telerin is spoken to a much lesser extent by elves like Finrod who have Telerin family but does become more common. As I’ve spoken about here, Telerin and Quenya actually have more similarities than Telerin and many of the Sindarin dialects in Beleriand do The Mithrim dialect of Sindarin is also spoken to a lesser extent. Of course phrases are traded and after awhile most residents speak at least two languages, similar to other large elven strongholds.

The Beleriand and traditional Sindarin modes of Tengwar as well as earlier Sindarin writing systems are used with the Beleriand mode becoming most common. There is also a system of pictographs invented by the Falathrim which is used primarily for recording weather, sea conditions and other natural phenomena as well as directions and travel instructions. There are a small number of dwarves who speak their own language, specifically a dialect of two groups in the Ered Luin and surrounding communities to the East.

Food is typically served on ceramic plates. The River Narog is rich in clay deposits and both Noldor and Sindar craftspeople in Nargothrond are highly talented potters working with red clay. Orange from alder bark, yellow from dyers greenweed for yellow, and woad for greens and blues along with imported dyes and pigments were used to decorate dishes, often with scenes and stories. The woods around Nargothrond was called the forest of the hunters and presumably hunting was practiced especially as we know Finrod took place in hunts before its founding. Most if not all meat in Nargothrond comes from hunting, likely primarily venison, rabbits and game birds such as pheasants. The woods and fields also provided the opportunity for foraging and the cultivation of edible plants including daylilies, stinging nettle, wild spinach, juneberry, chestnut, hazel, and wild garlic. Rowan berries which we know are canonically found in the region are made into jellies.

The architecture of Nargothrond is a combination of inspiration from Menengroth with input from Finrod’s dwarven allies who helped build it. Finrod was also inspired by his memories of the spacious, often communal homes of the Teleri, though the landscape was quite different, similar materials were used including clay and limestone. (In Valinor the clay was an import from the mountains though by Nargothrond it was collected from the river)

One favored tradition in Nargothrond was the annual hunting trip taken in the wooded hills outside the fortress itself. Dwarves who had aided in the building often traveled back for this event and feast. Trade was discussed and gifts exchanged. The event is in late autumn and corresponds with both a Noldor harvest festival and dwarven celebration of the full moon which began shortly after the first moonrise.

[tank-head]

[lanegradiabla]

I hope Saint Paul comes back to us soon 🥹

[1-800-paradiset]

Folamour - Oyabun EP

Redaktionen har äntligen nöjet att använda funktionen posta-flera-låtar-i-samma-inlägg igen!! Den här gången bjuds det på en RUGGIG EP från Folamour. Både Folamour och Moonrise Hill Material som EPn är släppt på har sin bas (haha) i krokarna runt Paris vilket man ju nästan hör va??!! Eftersom det låter som lite houseigare fransk house vilket just i detta nu slog redaktionen att det kanske är vad fransk house är år 2017?? Nu blev det som vanligt kanske lite snurrigt men för att summera är ju såklart house från Frankrike =/= fransk house men den här houseigare franska housen kanske = fransk house 2017? så. skönt att vi lyckades reda ut detta

[cercandolacosaperfetta]

(Ethyène)

[jetpoplocate]

(Moonrise Hill Material)

[comfort-questing]

"blood loss"

by the time we reached the hilltop her pace had flagged beside me, face drawn beneath the hood of her cloak, rain weighing down her shoulders. I had my own exhaustion to reckon with, and my fumbling fingers half numb with the cold and damp as I worked on lighting the campfire. thankfully the last patrol to come through had left a few armfuls of wood under a scrap of canvas, so we had some decent materials to start with.

"sorry to leave it all to you," she said, from where she'd huddled in the shelter of one of the old oak trees, leafless now in the autumn storms. "I'm just... so tired."

"of course you're tired," I said. "how's your leg?"

she chuckled, shortly. "not great."

she was never one for complaining, so I looked at her more closely then, as the first flames of the fire began to lick along the soggy wood. the pallid cast under the tan of her skin worried me, and the tremor in the hand she reached up to scrub her hair back from her eyes. she saw me watching her, though, and tried to smile.

"let me see," I said. I hadn't checked the bandages since that morning when we'd left our last camp, and felt a little regretful for it now, but then we'd been in a hurry. and still were in a hurry, at that.

she acquiesced and let me undo her bootlaces, wincing only a little though I saw her biting her lip instead. her trouser-leg was soaked through, with rainwater partly, but as I rolled it up further I saw the bandages beneath were cloudy red in the firelight.

"I should have known the stitches wouldn't hold," I said, through gritted teeth. "you should have said something."

"would it have changed anything?" her face was bleak above mine. "we're still three days out from base and aren't getting any closer for waiting."

"if you bleed out on the trail we're definitely not going to be getting back any sooner." I had no idea how much blood she'd lost throughout the day, what with the rain soaking us through; but from the look of her bandages and the nasty mess of the old knife-wound below, it seemed to be a worrisome amount.

I redid the stitches, her grimacing wordlessly throughout the job, and tied on fresh bandages in hopes of staying ahead of infection as well. she was shivering heavily by then, her lips several shades paler than her face, and I wrapped one of our blankets over her shoulders in a further gesture against the rain. "stay there," I said. "I'll get us some food. don't worry about helping, just rest."

above us, the clouds had begun to thin, a hint of moonrise somewhere at the horizon between the inky black pine-tips. by the time I'd boiled our dried meat into a semblance of soup over the fire, she'd fallen asleep, and I hesitated on whether or not to wake her - sleep and food were both valuable at this point.

some kind of capable leader I was turning out to be. if we made it back to base this time, I was never volunteering for the southward patrol again. let someone else deal with the enemy's border guards and the wretched hill country...

"hey," I said, and nudged her gently. "supper's ready."

it was really terrible soup, but we both finished it off.

[stronghours]

THREE QUEENS OF DOMESTICITY

Ava’s husband Reuben, as Ava informed Domme Lux in the unfinished basement beforehand, had only contributed to the collaring ceremony through draping the gaping drywall with swags of lavender gauze and twinkle lights from Christmas, which blistered the fabric in a damp whimsy Lux hadn’t thought the man capable. But then, Ava said, she had never brought a boy into the household before, and she thought it was only fair to respect Reuben’s distance in the matter. Where he was, she didn’t say. Evey, one of the four usual girls, was already naked but for papery hospitality slippers and trying to tame the blank concrete with a shredded mop. She squeezed the handle to a thin, practical breast each time she lost hope. Her clavicle was tense with little red marks.

Ava sat on her own padded stool applying lotion to her arms as she held court with Lux, Celeste and other colleagues regarding the guest list and particulars. She possessed downy Marilyn Monroe skin and her expression was luminous, while Lux, simultaneously underdressed, clammy, and overheated (it was summer, high noon outside, but Halloweentown below) started to feel the depression sink in. She’d chosen to wear a sleeveless mock turtleneck cinched in via a skintight pencil skirt and knee-high chunk pumps, and it all looked charming enough to her when she texted a picture to Jules. Sexual language arts teacher or Lorelai Gilmore season 1-2? She’d typed. But Jules had been AWOL since Thursday and now Lux had no chaperone and no wisdom. Ava didn’t let it go unremarked.

“It’s June,” she informed, like Lux didn’t know. “So, he’s sucking up to his leather daddies and his drag queens, while the rest of us behave like grown-ups. Correct?”

Guests arrived. Lux decided on strategic retreat and glued her spine to a far swampy corner and gradually became happier to have interpreted the dress code on the conservative side. Ava sent out the invite via her personal newsletter, with the esoteric instruction to dress within the modes of business or pleasure and it became clear of the basement filling nobody had made a collective interpretation. Celeste, shivering underneath her partner’s bomber jacket had prevailed on a frail sundress and the man in front of Lux wore a boxy Uniqlo blazer on top and a polyester jockstrap that read PIG BOY in an eternal ring around the waist. His white ass loomed beneath her line of vision, a sobering reality check to Evey and the other girls kneeling like wraiths up front, their smudged outlines harkening more toward Salo than Ava would ever intend.

Candles were lit. Lux could not get rid of the haunted house excess bringing her mood down, even as Ava, up front on her dais and methodically strapping her bagged up new boy onto his striker frame, vamped in a costumy corset of sectional purple brocade (Jules) opera-length latex mittens (Jules) and slick black shoulder plate and hood of indeterminate material (no doubt made by an enemy of Jules), and if Jules himself would ever show up, as promised, Lux could decide what was worse: Ava mixing materials or mixing designers.

But what was worst above all, she already knew, was that three poems had already been read and Ava was reading one still. She read one stanza per one buckle. Her new boy, before being lowered into his body bag, had read one himself to clarify his submission. His face had been beaky and palling. He had flat blue eyes. She liked him much better totally hidden from view and wondered how a hardline heterosexual like Ava could entertain delicate styles in women but such insipid taste in dudes.

A ray of light split the room like a knife and vanished. A couple people moaned, blinded in one eye. The crowd to Lux’s left grunted and spat, ruffled, then parted. She didn’t notice Jules until he had a cold hand behind her neck. Even with walls on both her sides, he found a blind spot.

He stuck his tongue in her ear, knowing full well she couldn’t shout him down in this scenario. “What’s up sugar,” he said, barely acceptably hushed. “How many poems has it been?”

“And the moonrise over the hill,” Ava recited, yanking a new strap, “Rises in tune – to your mind upon my person – to your body upon my person – to your devotion to my person –”

“It’s been this one for a while,” Lux said. She grabbed him and squashed him to her side. You had to meet Jules nuisance per nuisance when he felt energetic, or he’d trample you to death. When he was overbearing, she preferred him coldhearted, and when he was frosty, she preferred him needy. It was wedding season, and he hadn’t had enough brides to wear him out. “What took you so long?”

“Stopped for food. I’ve been up for uh…thirty-six hours.”

PIG BOY’s head turned back fractionally, then he thought better of looking and faced front.

“Wedding?”

“Shereen Allure made the Miss Continental Elite lineup. She got her hooks in me. She needs an evening gown, an interview moment, talent outfit that’ll stay together through the twenty fucking backflips I know she’ll want to do – baby, sweetie, honey, let me just stone you a fucking leotard, but no, she wants everything to sweep the toes. Insanity.” Jules craned his head around PIG BOY’s shoulder, and, seeing the wild look on his face, she wormed her hand underneath his shirt and pinched his ribs before he could think of speaking above sotto voice.

“Work function,” she warned. “Work function!”

“I wouldn’t go to my boss’s wedding,” Jules said, but he shriveled back into her shoulder obediently. “Gross. What’s she wearing?”

“A couple things of yours.”

“Against medical advice.”

Ava’s boy was buckled in midway up his ribs. They had to last to the neck. Somebody close to the front of the house darted forward to re-light the tea candles extinguished in their little glasses, scattered among Ava’s stilts. Lux thought: Suck-up.

“Cocksucker,” Jules hissed into her neck.

Profound is your sacred neck –

Ava claimed.

And affectionate, my lips, on its nape –

The boy in the bag didn’t judder or wince or squirm or move an inch. If Lux hadn’t been around to watch him step inside it, she would have considered him a mannequin. More guests arrived, fashionably late, and she and Jules alternately jostled the roach hotel between her ankles as they bandied to stay upright. PIG BOY had enough of them and forced his way further into crowd.

“What’s his name, anyway?” Jules asked, of bag-boy.

“Shawn. Mark. Uh…Jake.”

“Fucking John Donne up there has a boner for a goddamn Cody.” Jules wiped his nose on her shoulder. “I can’t breathe down here. Come on, ta-ta.”

The basement door opened into a little cairn staircase and led them blinking into the lawn (a lawn!) a black walnut tree dripping with green baubles (a tree!). Jules assisted her over the porch railing (a porch!) and spanked the dust from the seat of her skirt. They entered the gleaming kitchen, already occupied by Ava and Rueben’s straightest friends who, thin-lipped, met their sangrias with unenthusiasm.

“One thing I will say for Ava,” said a woman wearing a mock turtleneck similar to Lux’s own, “She certainly has…flair.”

A man turned to Jules and asked, helplessly, how long these things lasted. The preliminaries, Jules asked, or the mingling, or the primary ceremony, or the potluck or the afterparty? And while he laid out the etiquette Lux stared at the dustless countertops and the seafoam green cabinets, smooth to the touch, and their silver handles and the tile floor and the padded breakfast nook with its stained glass overhead light and the jazzy track lights situated over the looming kitchen island. Lysol lingered underneath the tawny fumes of a candle labeled CARMEL TRUFFLE SUNDAE and the photo pasted to the candle, she was ashamed to say, made her hungry. A kitchen-aide, which Lux had seen featured in some of Ava’s private photoshoots, gleamed, an untouchable ruby atop a mounted wall cabinet.

Jules’s conversation partner said he had tried to muscle through the ceremony but one of Ava’s slaves (the man himself hedged, politely, and referred to her as Ava’s housemaid) had accidentally brushed him with her nude bosom and he thought, well, better safe than sorry and beat it to safer pastures. “I don’t want to get her in trouble,” he claimed. The sangria was doing nothing to free him from this downward spiral of nakedness.

The mock turtleneck woman held the pitcher out to Lux for a sniff. “It’s virgin,” she pronounced, disgusted.

Jules shifted his backpack into the nook. He removed a pair of purple Easy Spirit pumps, a wad of pantyhose cut off at the thigh, two rolls of duct tape, a greasy paper bag from a Vienna Sausage, a Ziplock of loose bronze eyelets, a lacy bridal bralette and ouvert panty set Lux thought she had permanently lost and finally a half-empty bottle of white rum, which he handed around.

“She and Reuben,” the mock turtleneck woman confided, tit for tat, “Had two cash bars at their wedding.”

“I get it’s a private residence,” the man continued, wide eyed, as he tilted the bottle drop by tiny drop into his cup. “But is the nudity like – mandatory?”

“Don’t be shy,” Jules suggested, happy in his eternal revolving door from Bitch to Hostess. “Really tip that bad boy in there.”

The man turned on Lux, aghast. “Mandatory nudity?”

“Jules,” she said. “Bathroom escort, please.”

The floors were fake grey wood and if they’d been in socks, they would have slipped and slid like newborn colts through a framed gauntlet of Ava and Reuben’s documented civilian life. On the right, a picture of Reuben T-posing against the horizon of the Grand Canyon. On the left, Ava’s Reiki Master III certificate from Sat Nam. A family reunion and matching T-shirts (Ava’s side of the family). A newlywed embrace at the foot of an anonymous waterfall in the Upper Peninsula. She’d seen all this before, well acquainted with the ground floor of Ava’s house, but now she wondered if Zach-Cody-Jake-Shawn, petrified below her feet, was feeling the weight of the roof on his chest like she felt.

Jules, on his own agenda, bypassed the bathroom door which was modestly shut and tugged her toward the staircase.

“Oh shush,” she warned preemptively. “We’re not allowed!” They’d never been upstairs before.

“What? They don’t have a bathroom up there?”

“She’ll know,” Lux said as they tiptoed upward. She imagined their footfalls pounding through the ceiling of the basement and Ava, coolly, directing her eyes toward the ceiling and right up Lux’s skirt.

“If you quit being so aware of her, she wouldn’t be aware of you,” Jules counseled.

Every door upstairs was closed, sanded and paper-smooth and plumbed correctly in their jambs. Her apartment had more in common with Ava’s basement. Melancholy prevented her from noticing Jules bypassing the obvious bathroom door where the shadow of a jailed cat paced and opening another. It was Ava’s and Rueben's bedroom.

“Uh-oh,” Jules said. “What an honest mistake.”

 “Stop, stop, stop,” she begged, dancing backward, but the arrested step of somebody entering the downstairs hallway had her shoving him inside. Jules grabbed her wrist before she could slam the door shut in panic and guided it closed himself, soundlessly.

“Somebody’s coming!” She hissed.

           “Nobody’s coming,” he said. “Not upstairs, at least.”

           Next door, the cat mewed piteously.

           The bedroom, to her surprise, held no accoutrements of Ava’s work at the club, not a stocking on the ground or a corset thrown over the back of a chair. The only suggestion of her taste for grandeur Lux recognized was the four-poster bed and the plum carpet. Even the makeup mirror standing up on the desk was just an electric plastic-framed Conair. The same kind Lux, at 14, had hidden underneath her bed.

Jules touched one of the bedposts. “You think she ever spread-eagles ol’ Rueben on these babies?”

Reuben worked in software. He had a crew cut, no distinguishing features, and upper veneers. When grouped together, he referred to all of Ava’s dommes as you kids. Alone, he called Lux Little Lady and Jules Hey, It’s My Man! Before thumping him with lethal force between the shoulder blades. Lux didn’t want to imagine Ava and Reuben fucking in the four-poster bed. But, on contemplation, she realized it was an impossible task.

She peeked into the master bathroom long enough to confirm Ava installed a whirlpool tub. Jules had already thrown open her closet and was sifting through hangers. He stood rumpled in his flip-flops and she was worried his hands would leave marks.      

“She’ll know someone was snooping.”

“Did she ever notice when you and Celeste moved everything in the dungeon three inches to the left on April Fools?”

Lux sat gingerly on the desk chair. The Conair makeup mirror was still lit, and she checked her hairline, her face, her cleavage (she’d been paranoid for two months that she was shrinking) in the mock turtleneck. In a silver stand-frame was a black-and-white of Ava alone, on her wedding day. She posed in black-and-white before a crumbling brick wall, body positioned forward but facing right, absurdly fresh, and nearly sweet-sixteen in a sweetheart neckline and ruffled cap sleeves.

 Jules loomed like a vulture over her shoulder and judged for himself. “Not what I would have picked for her,” He decided.

But Lux couldn’t look away from the picture. Ava, pre-Entrance, pre-homeowner, pre-stable-of-subs, pre-whirlpool tub. In the sterile silence of the bedroom, she had nothing to cloud her thoughts. “Ava always knew,” she announced. “Look at her expression. She knew all along.”

“Knew what?”

“That it was always going to work out. That she was always going to lock this down.”

“Lock what down?”

Lux tried to set the picture frame exactly where she’d left it but couldn’t quite recall. She pushed Jules away from her, annoyed, and tried a different a different route. “Do you think he really loves her?”            

“Reuben?”      

 “No, Zach – Jake – Shawn – whatshisname. In the basement.”

She felt Jules descend into sulky silence, that his magpie-plan of breaking and entering was not rendering hilarious fruit. She heard the bedsprings creak and two little claps as his sandals hit the floor.

“We make fun of her,” Lux insisted. “But she’s got the husband who loves her, and four full-timers cycling in and out of this beautiful house with a beautiful tree and green grass underneath and now this new kid. He wrote her a poem. She can inspire people to do things like that.”

Jules huffed.

Lux prodded: “Remember her interview in the Reader a few Prides ago? She said she owes it all to her Unapologetic Femininity. A successful woman constantly births this psychic potential in observing bodies.”

 “He wrote a shitty villanelle and climbed into a gimp bag in front of twenty-three perverts, so Ava’ll suffocate him with her titties for three years. That’s psychic potential?”

 “And what about Carmen, and Robin, and Deanna, and Evangeline?”

“What about Analise Petro? She split from the coven pretty fucking publicly.”

“Years ago. And she was immature. You and her were the same age.” At that time, Lux hadn’t made the decision if Jules, then a furious little boy-twink, would be nemesis or pal. She’d half-believed Jules poisoned Analise against Ava on purpose.

Jules, blissfully not thirty, ignored her. “Evey is my age,” he claimed.

“Carmen is thirty-six.” Lux, thirty-two, fretted, twisted her fingers. “Think of the responsibility. It’s all in her hands and she just…molds it.”

“Because of her essential femininity? You’re out of your mind.”

Downstairs, the sliding glass door to the backyard rattled. A few hoots of laughter drifted ghostly through the walls. Then the doors rattled twice, and silence seethed.

           “They change until they stay the same,” Jules said, too self-assured for someone sylphing on a strange bedspread with dirty feet. “And they’ll stay until they go away. Right about when Ava stops making them feel safe.”

“With –?”

“With her social nets and her two-story house and her dual income,” Jules said, sitting upright.  He was all the sudden blank-faced, voice poisonous, and she wondered automatically if his mother had been calling him late in the night. “With her sex gear she commissions from me. With the soothing atmosphere that Carmen interior designs, that Robin cleans, and the fucking homemade meals with the kitchen aide that only Deanna knows how to use. And you want me to think she’s this red-hot all-natural Madonna? You know better.”

Jules was rumpled beyond repair. He wore a tank top she’d gifted for his 27th birthday. It had ITALIAN FILLY printed on the front, and already the letters were starting to peel. He glared. Lux questioned the sincerity of his anger, if he only played it up because he noticed she was too sad to dig up anger herself, anger she felt all the time when she was perfectly alone, but she decided she was too pleased being noticed at all. Maybe in half an hour, she’d be happy enough to preen.

She got up and went to him on the bed and he sat up like a human being so she could clap his face in her hands. But he wasn’t done yet.

“She’s only a woman because she’s surrounded by one hundred sycophants who let her be one,” he sneered, and she felt the little muscles in his jaw. “Sisterhood is powerful!”

She slapped him on the mouth, but only a little bit. “What does that make me?” She asked, houseless, sycophant-less, suspicious her only sisters were biological.

“A woman who doesn’t need her yeast infections to remind her that she’s a woman.” He squirmed in her grip, for her enjoyment only, and his face reddened where it usually got red, close to the ears before it began to band his big nose. It was almost enough to make her forget she was only attracted to him when he was worn down to a nub of exhaustion. Usually, he was belly-up on the floor, with one arm thrown over his eyes, and one of his wrists in his carpal tunnel brace. Something about that brace lit her ass on fire. It made her want to pull down the blinds and eat him alive through his armpit. “Are we going to do something horrible to this bedspread or what?”

“Close your eyes.” He had an insane habit of kissing with his eyes open, and even she, the honorable first girl who’d ever fucked him, hadn’t trained him out of it. “Close your eyes,” he countered, and pulled the zipper on the back of her skirt so he could pull out her turtleneck out of her waist. It jammed. They struggled.

“Suck it in,” he ordered thoughtlessly, and the second she pulled in a deep breath she every inch of him sprang, alert, into a frenzy she couldn’t understand. He caught her around the waist and rolled them both off the bed and into the space between the wall and the gap where the bedclothes hung. She was just about to shriek at him when she heard bare feet pat-pat outside the bedroom door. Jules swept her under the bed (you could stack three bodies on top of each other, under there) and followed her himself just as the door opened.

Lux curled into a little ball. Jules elected to lay flat like a tapeworm.

A woman’s voice cooed. Lux waited. Doom squeezed her heart. But the voice wasn’t Ava’s.

“Sugar-pants, sugar-pants,” the voice caroled sweetly.

Then she saw the bare feet tip-tapping over the carpet, and she clocked the voice as Evangeline’s. She had freed the cat from the bathroom, and presumably held it in her arms, sweet-talking it. Lux dared to roll over to face Jules. He pinched his nose shut against a sneeze.

“I know baby, fluffy-baby,” Evey said. The desk chair scraped when she settled down into it. “You don’t like it in there. I know. I know. No huggle-wuggles for baby in there. You’re claustrophobic. So am I! Ugh!”

Evey gagged. She sobbed wretchedly for five whole minutes (Lux counted). The cat’s purr reached torrential volumes of pleasure. Near the end she reached for Jules’s hand, and they lay, foreheads together, too shy to look each other in the eye as Evey opened a drawer somewhere for tissues and was paralyzed by an attack of hiccups. Lux had to put all her muscle into not echoing her in sympathy.

Evey muttered to herself. “I’m claustrophobic, so I can’t let Her put me in the bag. If I can’t go in the bag, then I don’t get a poem.”

Click. Tap. Click. The drawer shutting. The lights of the makeup mirror turning off.

“I don’t get a poem,” Evey asserted. “I don’t get a poem.” And lower – “I’m not allowed to have a poem. I can’t have a poem. Or a tattoo.”

The cat gurgled.

Evey fled, down the hall, where a door slammed. Then, as if to fix the breach of discipline, the door opened again, and was closed so quietly Lux wasn’t sure it was closed at all.

She and Jules waited, then parted and unearthed themselves on either side of the bed. Jules zipped her skirt and together they patted down the bedspread. He had the faraway look in his eye he usually had when he was thinking about pattern-drafting and Lux replayed in her brain Evey’s Ugh! She wondered if one of her clients had ever gone home, away from her, looked in their bathroom mirror, stuck out their tongue and gone Ugh!

“Come on,” Jules said. The cat, abandoned again, eyed him from the desk chair. “Let’s go down and pay our respects to King Tut.”

And to the cat: “What the fuck are you looking at?”

If he’d acted smug at having his cynicism proven, she might have hit him for real. She’d hit him for real – which in their shared experience, meant purely out of anger – twice. The first time he’d deserved it. The second time he punished her, said she hit like a nelly fag and blocked her phone number for a month. Then he reemerged as swiftly as he’d removed himself, but pointedly, with an uncharacteristically physically proximate boyfriend who lasted exactly three months. She considered that his way of informing her she had been on probation.

“I’m lonely,” she said, because that was the problem.

“I’m literally right here, idiot.”

But when they reached the staircase the noise of the swelling party in the kitchen reached their ears. They decided to go down separately, for the sake of modesty, and Jules went first. He kissed her ear, conciliatory, and she watched the high yoke of his shoulders descend until she was alone again.

Who needed it, she thought, the fifteen-dollar candles and the floors constructed so they do not have to be waxed, the fleet of morose women and the sexless men? Years ago, she’d walked into Jules’s squalid, long-gone basement apartment with a frayed leather harness and been shocked at the sight of the missing Analise Petro sleeping on his futon. Split by her own precarious position in Ava’s club at the time, she’d whipped out her phone, as if to rat them both out then and there. Jules never even looked up from the dress form he was taping.

He asked: What do you give a cunt to convince her a community matter is a private matter?

He clipped off the tape with scissors longer than his hand.

A house!

Lux wanted a house. She wanted to jam her hooks into a hunk with big delts, and huge tits, and chain him up under the bed, somebody the opposite of Jules in every way, and she wanted to bake a successful quiche and she wanted, most of all, her and her sisters’ beloved childhood mutt Chessie, who had leapt off the family pontoon one 4th of July weekend on Indian Lake to his idiot death, to be revived and come trotting up the staircase and into her arms, panting with joy, not because he had been resurrected, but because he loved her best of all.

[onceuponanaromantic]

The Truth about the Fyrokol Curse (recorded)

[start recording]

             You might have heard of the rumour flying about the witch that cursed the entire kingdom of Fyrokol into suffering and disease and pain and bad luck.

  Depending on which version of the rumour you heard, she might have done it from any reason ranging from an imagined slight to being in love with some member of royalty that rejected her or for not being invited to some kind of royal event and she took offense. Or whatever.

             (Castore, you’re starting to smoke.)

             Right. So, hello, I’m Castore. You might know me as the Guardian of the Pathways. No idea what my heritage is but sort of faerie. I have four older siblings: three sisters and a sibling. You might know two of them as them as Code F and Iridesca of the Hills. I don’t know anything about my birth but I was raised by my older sister, Aurum because our oldest sibling, who took me in, was always wandering about and couldn’t.

             Aurum’s a researcher. You might call her an alchemist. Her lab partner is called Hecate and is a witch. In the literal sense. And her sister you might know as Code D. But this is not about the ones you know (or I’m assuming that the listener is human but you know, if you’re magical, you’ll probably know who Hex and Aurum are.)

             (Castore, the story.)

              As I said, I’m the Guardian of the Pathways, which means I’m the one who guides whoever gets lost in the Mist back to where they should be. You can thank me later.

             Where do I start this?

             Aurum and Hecate are lab partners and basically live together and work together and everything. Their lab is constantly a mess and they have multiple experiments ongoing at any particular time. The lab is also easily identifiable so any magical being that needs help or information of any sort usually can just come to the lab and one of them will be in. There’s a field behind and near the Mist where Aurum helped me with my magic when I was growing up. They both also do field work, but that’s more Hex’s thing than Aurum’s.

             Hex, that’s Hecate, and Aurum were also in love with each other for the longest time. You would have thought they figured it out, spending so much time together and practically raising me together, but no. It’s not as much of a given as you think of it is. I had to watch them pine after each other for several centuries. They made each other their soulmate and said it was just for ‘easier communication’. That’s how oblivious they both were.

             So, as the singular being spending time watching them pine after each other, you might come to the conclusion that I was the happiest being, after both of them, when they finally got together.

             It was so sweet and also horrifyingly ridiculous.

             See, Aurum finally got the courage to confess that she had romantic feelings for Hex, but wasn’t actually ready to look at Hex in the eye and say it, and was also a huge coward in general, and was terrified of ruining their friendship if things went wrong despite the fact that Hex had been in love with her for ages. So, she wrote a letter that told Hex about it and then left it on Hex’s desk and then left for a month to ostensibly do field work.

             Which is a huge joke really, because Aurum hates field work. She can deal with it, and she can defend and attack (which all comes with being raised faerie by the by) and study and all the other parts that come with working in the field with research and was on great terms with most of the magical beings in the area. But, see, there is a very good reason why it’s Hex which does field work most of the time and it’s Aurum that runs and takes care of the experiments and observations and internal studies back at the lab and it’s that Aurum hates doing field work.

             This is why I say Hex should have suspected that something was up when Aurum said that she wanted to do field work and go away for like a month.

           But anyway! They got together in the end and I was there to watch when Aurum returned from her trip tired and sweaty and having all the reasons she dislikes fieldwork written all over and Hex just wipes the stains and sweat from her faces, asks if she’s allowed to kiss Aurum and then does it.

             I think my cheering could be heard by all the magical beings in the neighbourhood.

             They were both blissfully happy for a day or two because that is just the kind of thing that happens after centuries worth of pining and they’re peppering little kisses all over each other and. Well if I’m being honest, nothing much changes because they’ve already been so domestic and fond of each other because they’ve been inseparable and best friends for the longest time and really close.

             I do not exaggerate when I say they were domestic. When I stayed over, a year after I moved out, Hex would help Aurum with the washing up and in the mornings, she would kiss Aurum’s forehead and would try to come back before moonrise for dinner.

             Now something else you should know is that this wasn’t a really good time to be faerie, or magical in any sense. It still isn’t actually, so really even though there isn’t an actual curse, I kind of wish there was.

             (You’re getting ahead of yourself.)

             Fine. I’m calm now.

             Alright no. I’m still really angry about this but I need to continue before I can do anything.

             One week after they get together, Aurum goes out on a field call because Hex isn’t home and there’s an emergency. One of the mother dragons called for help because her dragonet was lost and because she was terrified.

             Remember what I said about this being a dangerous time? There were a lot of humans who thought that killing or otherwise getting rid of magical beings was a great idea. In my journeys, I sometimes heard humans boast about how they took down magical beasts with a singular shot through the side. I heard some humans talk about kidnapping sylphs and animal shifters and forcibly making them stay in their homes by stealing and keeping their skins. It had been getting progressively worse and worse over the last few years, and there had been a surge in humans who somehow thought that killing magical beings or doing frankly horrifying things to magical beings was some sort of glorious state symbol.

             By the way, if you’re one of those humans and you think that’s the kind of thing that’s in any way appropriate or ‘understandable’, I sincerely invite you to go drown yourself and never approach any magical being ever.

             There are a lot of those kinds of humans and it was really bad around this time and it still is bad. Many magical beings had huge wards around their homes and refused to come out, or were already leaving. A lot were only staying because Aurum and Hex were there and this was their home soil where their magic had been sunk in for millennia. But mostly and especially because Aurum and Hex were there.

             Oh, by the way Des, if you’re listening? Fuck off and I hate you for refusing to step in and condemn it. Do you know how many humans used you as a reason to continue their horrible behaviour. Because if Iridesca of the Hills didn’t condemn it and was faerie then it was okay, wasn’t it? Yeah never talk to me again. I can and will kick you out. Oh and Fae, yeah, you too. Especially the kicking out part.

             Where was I? Ah yes, the fact that it was some kind of glorious and great thing to be killing and hurting magical creatures.

             The mother dragon was terrified when she asked for Aurum’s help and obviously Aurum said yes.

             She goes off and then she manages to find the dragonet by tracking its blood. The dragonet is stuck in some kind of trap that’s literally pierced through its leg and it was howling in pain and fear. The only lucky thing was that there wasn’t anyone there and so they had some time.

             So Aurum goes in and she helps to unweave the materials of the trap but the trap that stuck through the dragonet’s leg had poison in it, so on top of the blood loss, she had to treat that, without any of the equipment she usually has in her lab. She weaves the spell and she drains the blood slowly, and takes out the poison.

             The forest is quiet around this time and the dragonet is whimpering. It’s a slow and draining process, both on the dragonet and on Aurum, because weaving spells and unweaving the way Aurum does it is tiring and uses up a lot of magic, especially with complex spells like the poison draining one. Because what it does is it takes out the blood, Aurum picks out the poison drop by drop and then returns the blood.

             It hurts and it’s tiring and of course, to absolutely no one’s surprise because that day cannot get any worse than it already did, the humans appear as soon as Aurum is done and tired out.

             The humans have somehow got their hands on some kind of magical poison and fume the air with it directly in Aurum and the dragonet’s faces. Aurum who only has magic to save one being along with the warding she’s doing to keep the humans away, tells the dragonet to run while she fights.

             She succeeds in getting the dragonet away, but the poison overwhelms Aurum, and she collapses. The entire square of forest area is entirely covered in poison and she chokes on it. And because the entire square is covered in poison, no one can approach or exit, so frankly it’s rather lucky that she managed to take down the two humans.

             The only lucky thing right then is that the dragonet, not knowing any better, goes back in to pick up Aurum’s body and carries it out.

             I’m the one there when the dragonet comes. The mother dragon and I are first relieved to see the dragonet, but that relief immediately changes to horror when we see Aurum’s state. Aurum, at this point, is cold to touch and unconscious so none of us know if she’s alive. Her hair is covered in poison and sticky, and damp, so I remove that. Her skin runs warm usually but now she’s freezing and I tell you, I had never been so shocked and scared and horrified than at that moment.

             If you’ve never seen your sister who you love more than your own soul be dead at your feet, I don’t recommend it.

             I think seeing Aurum when I think she is dead might be my worst nightmare and I tell you, I couldn’t move or do anything for a moment because of how in shock I am.

             (Breathe. Breathe. Follow my breathing now. We can stop the story for now or I can continue what I saw happen.)

             (I… I think I would prefer it if you took over for a while for now.)

             (Alright.)

             When Aurum’s body comes back, Mama sees that Castore is in too much shock to do anything, so she flames for a moment to check if Aurum is still conscious. She isn’t. The first thing we do is get Castore to call for Hecate and Mama goes to try and remove the poison. She asks me what kind of poison it is, and I describe as much as I can to her.

             She nods, and tells me to start removing what I can, because I still have Aurum’s ward on me and I can touch it with fewer consequences.

             While we’re doing that, Hecate comes back. Hecate obviously used magic and she immediately takes over from us. She’s crying, I think, and her hands shake even as she puts Aurum in stasis and takes the samples to start analysing it. I ask if there’s anything I can do and she says to tell Castore to run it through some kind of machine. I don’t understand but I repeat what she says to Castore and Castore seems to know. She also says to call Soren and Nocten, who I don’t know so I tell Castore to do that too.

             There is some kind of grief in the household for a while and Mama and I both don’t really know what to do. I feel really guilty? Because it was my fault and all and everyone has said that it wasn’t me but I still feel guilty. I try to help as much as I can, but I don’t really understand anything so I’m also useless.

             There’s a knock on the door after a while and there’s this demon standing there. I can’t tell what gender they are and they say that they’re Nocten so I nod and let them in. They look a little scary, because their hair is silver and tied in tiny braids all over and their eyes are pitch black and their fingers are really bony and have really sharp looking black claws. But then they hug Hecate and tell her they’ll take over from here, so I’m not really scared of them.

             Hecate recovers her breath and then storms off. Nocten? Nocten, yes, tells me to follow her to make sure she doesn’t get killed but otherwise to just go after her. So, I do.

             Hecate just goes to the human palace, and I’m really scared for a while because she keeps slipping through shadows and I’m not very good at that, but I manage to follow her.

             When she gets to the palace, there’s some laughter and the windows are lit up, and that makes Hecate more angry than she was before.

             (Angrier, Syoril.)

             And that makes Hecate angrier than she was before. She blasts open the doors with a spell and storms in, cloak billowing and she’s furious, and her eyes have gone all black.

             She demands to know who was behind it, because apparently something I said when I described the humans to her made her think they were nobles, and apparently the humans have no sense of self-preservation because the ones responsible, who I recognise, just laugh and belch at her and ask if they can have the body as a trophy.

             I really would not have blamed her if she had killed both of them there and then.

             All Hecate says is that she and all the magical beings are withdrawing any goodwill or presence from the land and that they have a month before there is nothing left for them.

             I’m surprised as all right? But it’s actually really smart because I don’t know anyone who would still be staying in Fyrokol if it wasn’t for Hecate and Aurum. Also, the humans don’t seem to know how big a deal it is because they laugh in her face.

             And then Hecate leaves and there’s more jumping after her into shadows.

             She tells the magical creatures about her promise to the humans and about what happened but honestly, who doesn’t know that if Hecate does something she has a good reason for it? No one, right? So, she didn’t actually need to explain what happened but it helps, because everyone offers their help and aid in searching for how to help Aurum.

             When we gotten back, there’s another faerie there.

             (Get. It’s get back.)

             When we get back, there’s another faerie there. Hecate addresses them as Soren though so I take her word for it. Soren’s face is grim when they tell Hecate that after Nocten and them had discussed, the good news is that the poison isn’t too complicated, but that the bad news is it was prepared badly enough that they aren’t sure about how to deal with the impurities. Hecate just nods here and goes away. Castore is still sitting in the lab when I get back so I ask if she’s okay.

             (I wasn’t but thank you for asking anyway.)

             Yeah, she says she isn’t. Mama is with her and so are my other siblings. I tell Mama about what happened and Mama asks Castore if there’s anything we can do. Castore just shakes their head.

             (She. I was female at the time.)

             Castore shakes her head, but promises to let us know if we can. Hecate comes in too, and Mama also asks her but Hecate says spreading the word is all, and telling other magical creatures is all she really wants.

             Mama says okay, and prepares to leave, but I ask if I can stay. Because it was my fault, right? So. I should. I should be there to deal with it. And it should be me who helps them because they will need help at some point.

             (Oh, Syoril. No one blames you. We all know who was responsible and it definitely wasn’t you. There there. You sit back, I can continue from here.)

             Soren and Nocten treat Aurum as much as they can but there’s really not much that they can both do, not until they finish figuring out how to counter the impurities and their effects. So, they stay there for some time longer.

             Syoril and I leave for a while to help the other magical creatures, and to do what Hecate and Aurum normally did. In the weeks after, the effects of the magical creatures leaving are immediately obvious and the magical humans beg us not to, and to reconsider. The weather starts becoming unpredictable and violent. The seas rise and drown fields. The crops die. The livestock become ill and die. Illnesses come fast and hard.

             I tell them what happened and they all go quiet and then ask if they can do anything to help. They stay quiet when I shake my head and Syoril growls. They ask how long the magical beings will be gone, and I say, at least a century.

             Some of the magical humans leave too. Some warn the other humans about what is to come.

             Some non-magical humans leave too.

             Then, we go back at one point in those weeks and I find my sisters at the door. There’s Fae and Des and Nyx and they demand that I get Hecate to reverse the curse.

             (Castore lost her temper and yelled so loudly and with so many vulgarities. I was astonished because I thought they were her and Aurum’s sisters so shouldn’t they be the first to know? But apparently not, and they thought it was a curse for some reason. Then, Castore kicks them out forcefully and tells them to go away. She does it really loudly and violently too.)

             I was really really angry. And I still am actually. Des, Fae, Nyx? If you’re listening, you know what I said. And stay away. I have no patience for you. All my love is for people who actually deserve it.

             I mean, okay so there isn’t really a good end to this story because it isn’t at an end. The good news is that Aurum’s been doing better. Hex’s been with her pretty much all the time. For the few months until Aurum woke up, she was crying and talking to Aurum quietly. I couldn’t tell what she says to Aurum. But the last Soren and Nocten got back they’re hopeful that she’ll be able to try eating and moving soon and that they’ll be able to manage whatever happens from there.

             Uh. Yeah okay. If you’re magical and you’re listening to this, yeah please be safe and take care of yourself. If you need any help or anything, find me and Syoril. We’ve been around the Fyrokol area and the Pathways and we’ll do what we can. If you’re human and just want to find out the truth about the rumours, I hope this helped. Please stop other humans.

             Syoril, anything to add?

             (Nope, I think you got all of it. Mama, if you hear this, I love you. Tell my siblings I love them too.)

[end recording]

[apparelmusic]

Apparel Radio #176: St Paul 

The new episode [#176] of Apparel Radio show will see St Paul taking over our imaginary decks to deliver a exclusive closing-summer mix. A selection of classy engaging stuff with a hint of jazzy and deep-disco' gems.

Listen in Soundcloud, click [here] - Listen in Mixcloud, click [here]

Tracklist:

Folamour - Night Of Desirable Objects

Kisk - Clean up down

Ethyène - Every Drop

The Last Trip to Gandahar - Bartz Groove

T.U.R.F - East Side Harmony

Apparel Wax - 001B1

Apparel Wax - 001A2

Luvless - Heavy Button

Kian T - Flughafen (Daniel Leseman Remix)

Tochigi Canopy - Velvet Lane

Saint Paul - Diamond In The Sky

Artist bio:

Saint Paul is a Producer and DJ living in Lyon (France). From an Ivorian father and a French mother, the young artist was born in Abidjan and raised in Lyon. Influenced by African music, jazz, hip hop and funk are now an integral parts of Saint Paul's music. Since his teenage years, Saint Paul is building a style around groove and emotion. His music is produced to make the crowds dance. However some of his tracks are intimate and ideal to listen to at home. In 2015, surrounded by Folamour, Kaffe Crème and Ethyène with whom he shared common influences and affinities, Saint Paul co- founded his own label. More than a record company, the Moonrise Hill Material family is born and gives new impetus to his career with two appearances on VA and the release of his first solo EP on wax.

[iamhighlight]

Ain't No Love Lost (MH004) - B1 by Ethyène http://ift.tt/2ttDZAl High-Light

[lesbellesnuits]

Les belles tracks #08

Paris, 11h39 :

Pause café et musique de fond. Après l'incroyable dj set que nous a offert Folamour le 9 mars dernier au RexClub, on avait envie de lâcher un de ses sons.

Le cofondateur du collectif de musique house basé à Lyon Moonrise Hill Material sera présent au fameux Fusion Estivale le 18-19 mai à Orléans.

Lumineux et aérien.

Enjoy.

GL.

[jemimacaleyfmpyear1]

Quote: in nature, light creates the colour, in the picture, colour creates the light.- by Hans Hofmann. Hans Hofmann was a German born American painter, renowed as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced abstract expressionism. Hans Hofmann said that he created this quote as just like poetry, it never ends in the earth as nature ends in earth. Nature is a power, nature is a heal, nature is a peace, and more eternal ability nature is love. I like this quote as it says facts within the quote and the picture that goes with it is a natural object so that was a good choice of images to go with the quote, within the photo they have used bright colours too and that is a good effect as it’s more visible and noticeable. Quotes are important as it’s good to know what other people think. Hofmann is also regarded as one of the most influential art teachers of the 20th century. He established an art school in Munich in 1915 that built on the ideas and work of cézanne, the cubists and some art historians suggest it was the first modern school of art anywhere. After relocating to the United States, he reopened the school in both New York City and Provincetown, Massachusetts until he retired from teaching in 1958 to paint full time. His teaching has a significant influence on post war American avant garde artists including Helen frankenthaler, nell Blaine and others. As well as on the theories of Greenberg, in his emphasis on the medium, picture plane, and unity of the work. Some of Hofmanns other key tenets include his push/pull spatial theories, his insistence that abstract art has its origin in nature, and his belief in the spiritual value of art. Hofmann died of a heart attack in New York City on February 17, 1966. Hans Hofmann was born March 21, 1880, his father took a job with the government. From a young age, Hofmann gravitated towards science and mathematics. At age sixteen, he followed his father into public service, working for the Bavarian government as assistant to the director of public works. He increased knowledge of mathematics there, eventually developing and parenting devices including an electromagnetic comptometer, a radar device for ships at sea, Hofmann was interested in nature.

‘Natural’ is an object, plant or being which is unaffected by humans and is made the same as when born, or created. Nature like the animal kingdom is very natural as they live in the wild and they defend themselves from harsh weather or dangers like they would of years ago when that certain animal was first around, unlike other animals, humans are not as natural anymore as we’ve adapted to better ourselves and we have now got various choices like makeup or plastic surgery to change our appearance which is unnatural as were not made that way when born; also the makeup or the things you put on your face is unnatural as them resources would not of naturally been on your face. Some natural resources include wood from trees, rock in the ground, water, air and coal (which has not been affected or touched by Human beings) natural can also include the food cycle for animals such as foxes catching birds or sharks catching and eating fish, we as humans now breed farm animals for food which is nit as natural as we don’t catch food like we would have done at the begging of time. Nature, in the broadest sense, is the natural, physical, material world or universe. Nature can refer to physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are part of nature, human activity is often understood as a separate category from other natural phenomena. Within the various uses of the word today, “nature” often refers to geology and wildlife. Nature can refer to the general realm of living plants and animals, and in some cases to the processes associated with inanimate objects- the way that particular types of things exist and change of their own accord, such as the weather and geology of the earth. It is often taken to mean the “natural environment” or wilderness wild animals, rocks, forest and in general those things that have not been substantially altered by human intervation, or which persist despite human intervention. For example, manufactured objects and human interaction generally are not considered part of nature, unless qualified as, for example, “human nature” or “the whole of nature” this more traditional concept of natural things that can still be found today implies a distinction between the natural and artificial, with the artificial, being understood as that which has been brought being by a human consciousness or a human mind. Depending on the particular context, the term “natural” might also be distinguished from the unnatural or the supernatural,

These are two paintings which include nature, one is a very famous painting of a wave called ‘the great wave off kanagawa’ which was done by Hokusai, this painting is a woodblock print by a Japanese artist. It was published between 1829 and 1833. It is Hokusais most famous work and is often considered the most recognisable work of Japanese art in the world. Hokusai began painting when he was six years old. At age 12 hid father sent him to work at a booksellers. In 1804 he became famous as an artist when during a festival in Tokyo he completed a painting . The other painting next to that is one of the most famous art works by van goth called ‘starry starry night’ which was also made into a song by don mcLean. The starry starry night painting is oil on canvas, painted in June 1889; it depicts the view from the east facing window of his room at sunrise. It has been in the permanent collection of the museum of modern art in New York City since 1941. Although the starry night was painted during the day van goths ground floor studio, it would be inaccurate to state that the picture was painted from memory. The view has been identified as the one from his bedroom window, facing east. A view which van goth painted variations of no fewer than twenty one times. Van goth depicted the view at different times of the day and under various weather conditions, including sunrise, moonrise, sunshine filled days, overcast days, windy days, and one day with rain. While the hospital staff did not allow van goth to paint in his bedroom, he was able there to make sketches in ink or charcoal on paper; eventually he would base newer variations on previous versions. The pictorial element uniting all of these paintings is the diagonal line coming in from the right depicting the low rolling hills of the alpine mountains. These are both natural as it’s the sky which cannot be changed by human beings and the sea which again we can’t affect (water)

This is an article based on the topic of nature and how we need to protect the wildlife from construction sites. Wildlife is greatly affected by construction sites as noise and light generated during construction processes may not directly harm individual animals but it could affect feeding and breeding behaviours which could have negative impacts on long term population levels. The use of land may also divide up land and separate habitats which were previously adjacent. To save or help animals we should preserve habitats, provide water, use eco friendly products like bamboo straws, wooden toothbrushes and metal water bottles. We should also feed birds and animals.

[kathleenseiber]

Look up for meteor showers in 2021

By Jonti Horner for the University of Southern Queensland and Tanya Hill from Museums Victoria

The best meteor showers are a spectacular sight but, unfortunately, 2021 starts with a whimper. Moonlight this January will wash out the first of the big three — the Quadrantids (seen above in 2020).

After that, the year just gets better and better, with the Perseids (another of the big three along with the Geminids) a particular highlight for northern hemisphere observers in August.

In addition to the year’s other reliable performers we’ve included one wild card: the Aurigids, in late August. Most years, the Aurigids are a very, very minor shower, but they just might put on a show this year.

So here is our pick of the meteoric highlights for 2021.

For each meteor shower, we give you a finder chart showing the radiant (where the meteors appear to come from in the sky) and where best to look in the sky, the full period of activity and the forecast peak. Most meteor showers typically only yield their best rates for about a day around maximum, so the peak night is definitely the best to observe.

The Zenithal Hourly Rate ZHR is the maximum number of meteors you would expect to see under perfect observing conditions. The actual number you will see will likely be lower.

Most meteor showers can only really be observed from either the northern [N] or southern [S] hemisphere, but a few are visible from both [N/S].

Lyrids [N/S; N favoured]

Active: April 14–30

Maximum: April 22, 1pm UTC = 11pm AEST (Qld) = 7am CST = 3am Hawaii time

ZHR: 18

Parent: Comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher

The Lyrids are one of the meteor showers with the longest and most storied histories, with recorded observations spanning millenia. In the past, they were one of the year’s most active showers, with a history of producing spectacular meteor storms.

A couple of Lyrids. Flickr/DraconianRain, CC BY-NC

Nowadays, the Lyrids are more sedate, putting on a reliable show without matching the year’s stronger showers. They still throw up occasional surprises such as an outburst in excess of 90 meteors per hour in 1982.

This year’s peak Lyrid rates coincide with the first quarter Moon, which will set around midnight, local time, for most locations. The best time to observe will come in the early hours of the morning, after moonset.

For observers in the northern hemisphere, the Lyrid radiant will already be at a useful altitude by the time the Moon is low in the sky, so some brighter meteors might be visible despite the moonlight in the late evening (after around 10:30pm, local time).

Once the Moon sets the sky will darken and make the shower much easier to observe, yielding markedly higher rates.

Across the US, the Lyrid radiant is high in the east before sunrise, above the Summer Triangle of Vega, Deneb and Altair. Low to the horizon, Jupiter and Saturn are rising. US around 4am local time. Museums Victoria/Stellarium

For observers in the southern hemisphere, the Lyrid radiant reaches a useful altitude in the early hours of the morning, when the Moon will have set. If you’re a keen meteor observer, it could be worth setting your alarm early to get out and watch the show for a few hours before dawn.

The Boorong from north-western Victoria saw the Lyrids as Neilloan, the Mallee fowl, kicking up shooting stars while preparing her nest. Melbourne, 5am. Museums Victoria/Stellarium

Lyrid meteors are fast and often quite bright so can be rewarding to observe, despite the relatively low rates (one every five or ten minutes, or so). Remember, this shower always has the potential to throw up an unexpected surprise.

Eta Aquariids [S]

Active: April 19–May 28

Maximum: May 6, 3am UTC = 1pm AEST (Qld/NSW/ACT/Vic/Tas) = 11am AWST (WA)

ZHR: 50+

Parent: Comet 1P/Halley

The Eta Aquariids are an autumn treat for southern hemisphere observers. While not one of the big three, they stand clear as the best of the rest of the annual showers, yielding a fine display in the two or three hours before dawn.

The Eta Aquariids are fast meteors and are often bright, with smoky trains. They are fragments of the most famous comet, 1P/Halley, which has been laying down debris around its current orbit of the Sun for tens of thousands of years.

Earth passes through that debris twice a year, with the Eta Aquariids the best of the two meteor showers that result. The other is the Orionids, in October.

Where most meteor showers have a relatively short, sharp peak, the Eta Aquariids remain close to their best for a whole week, centred on the maximum. Good rates (ZHR > 30 per hour) should be visible before sunrise on each morning between May 3–10.

The Moon will be a waning crescent when the Eta Aquariids are at their best. Its glare should not interfere badly with the shower, washing out only the faintest members.

Observers who brave the pre-dawn hours to observe the Eta Aquariids will have the chance to lie beneath a spectacular sky. The Milky Way will be high overhead, with Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon high to the east and bright, fast meteors streaking across the sky from an origin near the eastern horizon.

The crescent Moon, the two biggest planets, a couple of bright stars and the Eta Aquariids all in the east before sunrise on May 6. Australia, around 4am local time. Museums Victoria/Stellarium

Perseids [N]

Active: July 17–August 24

Maximum: August 12, 7pm–10pm UTC = 8pm–11pm BST = August 13, 4am–7am JST

ZHR: 110

Parent: Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle

The Perseids are the meteoric highlight of the northern summer and the most observed shower of the year. December’s Geminids offer better rates but the timing of the Perseid peak makes them an ideal holiday treat.

The Perseids are debris shed behind by comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, which is the largest known object (diameter around 26km) whose orbit currently intersects that of Earth.

A Perseid crosses the sky over the Teide volcano and Teide Observatory on Tenerife. Flickr/StarryEarth, CC BY-NC

Perseid meteors are fast, crashing into Earth at a speed of about 216,000km/h, and often bright. While the shower is active, at low levels, for more than a month, the best rates are typically visible for at the three nights centred on the peak.

The Perseids radiate from the north-east, with the radiant rising high in the sky during the early hours of the morning. London, 11pm (left) and 4am (right) Museums Victoria/Stellarium

For observers at European latitudes, the Perseid radiant rises by mid-evening, so the shower can be easily observed from 10pm local time, and remains high all through the night. The later in the night you look, the higher the radiant will be and the more meteors you’re likely to see.

Aurigids [N favoured]

Active: August 28–September 5

Maximum: Potential Outburst on August 31, peaking between 9:15pm–9:40pm UTC = 10:15pm–10:40pm BST = 11:15pm–11:40pm CEST = September 1, 1:15am–1:40am Gulf Standard Time = September 1, 5:15am–5:40am AWST (WA)

ZHR: 50–100 (?)

Parent: Comet C/1911 N1 Kiess

Where the other showers are reliable and relatively predictable, offering good rates every year, the Aurigids are an entirely different beast.

In most years, the shower is barely visible. Even at its peak, rates rarely exceed just a couple of meteors seen per hour. But occasionally the Aurigids bring a surprise with short and unexpected outbursts of 30-50 meteors an hour seen in 1935, 1986, 1994 and 2019.

The parent comet of the Aurigids, C/1911 N1 Kiess, moves on an orbit with a period far longer than the parent of any other shower on our list.

It is thought the orbit takes between 1,800 and 2,000 years to complete, although our knowledge of it is very limited as it was only observed for a short period of time.

In late August every year, Earth passes through debris shed by the comet at a previous passage thousands of years into the past. In most years, the dust we encounter is very sparse.

But occasionally we intersect a denser, narrow stream of debris, material laid down at the comet’s previous passage. That dust has not yet had time to disperse so is more densely packed and hence gives enhanced rates: a meteor outburst.

Several independent research teams studying the past behaviour of the shower have all come to the same conclusion. On August 31, 2021, the Earth will once again intersect that narrow band of debris and an outburst may occur, with predictions it will peak around 21:17 UTC or 21:35 UTC.

Such an outburst would be short-lived. The dense core of the debris stream is so narrow it will take the Earth just ten or 20 minutes to traverse. So you’ll have to be lucky to see it.

The forecast outburst this year is timed such that observers in Eastern Europe and Asia will be the fortunate ones, with the radiant above the horizon. The waning Moon will light the sky when the radiant is above the horizon, washing out the fainter meteors from the shower.

From Europe, the expected peak of the Aurigids occurs just before Moonrise. Be sure to look for the Pleiades whilst watching for any Aurigids – they’re a spectacular cluster of bright stars, commonly known as the Seven Sisters. Vienna, 11:30pm. Museums Victoria/Stellarium

The crescent Moon has risen in Asia at the time the Aurigids peak. Dubai, 1:30am. Museums Victoria/Stellarium

The Aurigids tend to be fast and are often quite bright. Previous outbursts of the shower have featured large numbers of bright meteors. It may just be worth getting up and heading outside at the time of the predicted outburst, just in case the Aurigids give us a show to remember.

While waiting for the Aurigids, the morning sky in Perth is also packed with many famous constellations and bright stars. Perth, 5:30am. Museums Victoria/Stellarium

Geminids [N/S]

Active: December 4–17

Maximum: December 14, 7am UTC = 6pm AEDT (NSW/ACT/Vic/Tas) = 3pm AWST (WA) = 2am EST

ZHR: 150

Parent: Asteroid 3200 Phaethon

The Geminid meteor shower is truly a case of saving the best until last. By far the best of the annual meteor showers, it graces our skies every December, yielding good numbers of spectacular, bright meteors.

The shower is so good it is always worth observing, even in 2021, when the Moon will be almost full.

Over the decades, the Geminids have gradually become stronger and stronger. They took the crown of the year’s best shower from the Perseids in the 1990s, and have continued to improve ever since.

For observers in the northern hemisphere, the Geminids are visible from relatively early in the evening, with their radiant rising shortly after sunset, and remaining above the horizon for all of the hours of darkness.

As the night progresses, the radiant gets very high in the sky and the shower can put on a truly spectacular show.

For those in the southern hemisphere, the situation is not quite as ideal. The further south you live, the later the radiant will rise, and so the later the show will begin.

When the radiant reaches its highest point in the sky (around 2am–3am local time), it sits closer to the horizon the further south you are, so the best meteor rates you observe will be reduced compared to those seen from more northerly locations.

At its highest point, the Geminids radiant sits higher from Brisbane (left) than from Hobart (right), which is why northern observers have a better chance of seeing more meteors. Museums Victoria/Stellarium

Despite these apparent drawbacks, the Geminids are still by far the best meteor shower of the year for observers in Australia, and are well worth a look, even on the moonlit nights of 2021.

Peak Geminid rates last for around 24 hours, centred on the official peak time, before falling away relatively rapidly thereafter. This means that observers around the globe can enjoy the display.

The best rates come when the radiant is highest in the sky (around 2–3am) but it is well worth looking up at any time after the radiant has risen above the horizon.

The Geminid radiant rises at about the following times across Australia., Author provided

So wherever you are on the planet, if skies are clear for the peak of the Geminids, it is well worth going outside and looking up, to revel in the beauty of the greatest of the annual meteor showers.

Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland and Tanya Hill, Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne and Senior Curator (Astronomy), Museums Victoria

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Look up for meteor showers in 2021 published first on https://triviaqaweb.weebly.com/

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