#mountain holly

[gradienty]

Holly Mountain Meadow (#00180d to #1ce796)

[avas-poltergeist]

To the five people who also read The Modern Faerie Tales alongside The Folk of Air series. have ya'll talked about the parallels between Roiben and Kaye and Jude and Cardan? Has anyone in this place talked about how Cardan more times than not is like Kaye? Has anyone talked about the Kaye and Cardan got along right before the coronation and how she sent him a mug with a phrase that imitates the mug in Knives Out, apparently a movie that Cardan likes? Has anyone even tried touching upon the way knighthood is just constantly unattainable to Roiben and Jude?

[bonefall]

Hello! I absolutely adore Better Bones despite never reading beyond the first series of Warrior Cats. Last time I checked canon, Bramblestar was a kit that nearly died in a fire. So your canon is canon to me and it’s probably better that way.

I do have a question though. How big do your cats think the world is? The meaningful size of their world is from the Lake to the Forest to the Ocean, but I keep thinking of how medieval peasants sometimes had their whole lives uprooted for a crusade thousands of miles away, and wondering what Clan Cats think the real edges are. Do they see Ireland and France as mythical, far off lands filled with fairytale creatures? Do they know that anything exists beyond the oceans at all? The other side of possibility is that kittypets have given them some concept of human geography, and the cats can tell stories about a land further south than a cat could walk in a lifetime, where the stars are unrecognizable and the very moon is upside down.

Have fun with your worldbuilding!

Clan cats believe that the sky, earth, ground, and aquifers below are actually one big mobius strip, and that existence repeats from top-to-bottom. Water that soaks to the bottom ends up in the sky just as steam rises up to it.

Moles dig down so far that their pelts become gently touched by StarClan, and that's why they're so soft without shine.

The world in a horizontal sense is less important, they don't talk to kittypets very much, not enough for cultural diffusion to take place in regards to human geography. They are blissfully unaware of London, let alone anything beyond the coast of Albion.

The closest anyone's really come to learning more was Heartstar, when she was on her Dovewing Quest, seeing trains and a singing cat. She decided that this was not anything she needed to know about.

SO when they see something like the sea, they believe it's a really big lake. Airplanes are probably birds flying far away. Clan cats believe that StarClan is the greatest force in the world, so surely, wherever they choose for the cats to live must be the most beautiful of all. They're a pretty self-absorbed bunch, but more than that, culturally discourage "wandering" cats!

Depending on where they are exactly (this is why Albion isn't exactly the isle of Great Britain and it's been renamed, I'm shuffling some geography) they may also be able to see part of Wales, Ireland, or the Isle of Man from where they usually collect salt. Which just leads to them believing the ocean is just a big, salty lake, given time.

[caribeandthebooks]

Caribe's YA Fantasy & Science Fiction TBR - Part 2

[cookiecrumbconundrum]

on getting distance and a fresh start

| This Year, The Mountain Goats | personal photo | Act 1: “Viva Stiffelio”, Giuseppe Verdi | Jujutsu Kaisen, Gege Akutami | On forgiveness, bell hooks | Return Trip, Holly Warburton | Clean, Taylor Swift |

[yourbelgianthings]

fire fist ace and straw hat luffy

he ain’t heavy, he’s my brother (the hollies) / bleed out (the mountain goats) / soul flame (elena sattarova) / solitary confinement (henri cartier-bresson) / save rock and roll (fall out boy) / the gardener LXVIII: none lives forever, brother (rabindranath tagore)

[tracingpatternswrites]

My darling @heartofspells has printed this beautiful copy of Wilder than Mountain Thyme and sent one to me 😭

It’s so gorgeous and I cannot tell you how weird it is to hold an actual solid copy of something I’ve written in my hand.

I love it so much.

[dizzybevvie]

Why was the Until Dawn fandub literally life changing

[athalantan]

OH END ME. I looked up the relevant quote in Elminster's Daughter [because again I haven't read it in full yet]. It's not that El has control over their fertility. MYSTRA does. Mystra has full say in whether her Chosen have children and when. I'm gonna start eatin the fckn drywall.

[vandaliatraveler]

Hazy mid-summer day on the Sods, Part 2.

The planet's fantastic life energy reaches its peak in mid to late summer as the sun's precious light shrinks by the day and every living thing senses its time is running out. On the Plains of Dolly Sods, where the growing season is already compressed by the high elevation, plants compete for the swirling, buzzing masses of insects with their gaudy blooms and produce successive waves of berries to seed new generations. The drone of the insects carrying out their instinctive missions of renewal is constantly in your head as they dive and dart and skirt around you. You barely register as a distraction against the great drama playing out here - one whose stakes are survival, regeneration, salvation. I feel so privileged to have connected with this life force in the most intimate way, even for the few short years of my mayfly existence. I will die a happy man for having immersed myself in its lovely, purposeful chaos and becoming part of something much greater than myself.

[activatebutterflyshield]

The Muses hit me with some random inspiration today so here’s a proper design sheet for He of the Lingering Smog and the Glittering Lights, aka Hollywood Angel, aka the God of Los Angeles, featuring the script Chahvinik by @thecrazyneographist.

He’s mostly based on the name of his city, the fashion sense of the famous bit of Humanity that calls him home (clothing is half gala dress, half black tie suit), all the ink those writers use up, paparazzi, Hollywood’s history of censorship, the smog that blankets his land, the manipulative nature of the industry, and the horses of the Spanish who took the land for the Angels.

[wariowaretrans]

today's mood is annoyed I'll never write a song with lyrics as powerful as the joke song John Darnielle wrote about Star Wars.

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

This Rotten Work Playlist: Lefstebany Acosta!

As @evelynhug0 so kindly requested, I'm going to release each of the main character playlists (and one for the main ship, Rachel and Daiyu) once a week leading up to the release of the book!

Fourth up is Lefstebany "Stebbie" Acosta. Though a Render by magical gift, she is damned if she will let anything disturb her pacifist values. The best friend of a hot-tempered Chosen One and in love with a man who thinks that Mountain Dew is the height of cuisine can sometimes make this difficult, not to mention having to survive a death tournament her freshman year of high school. Being the most well-adjusted of any of the graduates of the Academy of the Rising Sun doesn't mean that she doesn't deal of nightmares of her own; it just means that she's more able to call out Rachel and Zell when they start spiralling.

Excerpt:

Stebbie’s a Healer. Well, more accurately, she’s a Render: someone who can manipulate the insides of bodies, coaxing veins and tissues and cells to heal or fray further. Headmaster Nightbane had the same powers, though he used his very differently.

Stebbie’s nothing like the Headmaster. She hates violence. She loathes the idea of bringing harm to anyone, even those who hurt her. She refuses to use her powers for anything but healing, and as far as the Academy was aware, that’s all she was able to use it for. She was constantly kept at the bottom of the class in battle classes, thus preventing her from ever breaking into the top ranks of students despite her clear academic superiority. The Academy under Julien Nightbane treated healers like the lowest of the low, practically useless. Even Katalyn was considered higher than her, as Katalyn would at least participate in battle training. 

It rankled Stebbie, going from the top of her middle school class to so low at the Academy of the Rising Sun, but she refused to give up her pacifist values for anything. She made it through the Tournament entirely by her survival skills instead of by violence.

Her punk aesthetic actually comes from that attitude. Punk, Stebbie likes to tell Zell and I, is about revolting against the system by being kind, treating people better than the system wants you to. It’s about hanging fairy lights and clay calaveras skulls on the walls of the living room, about caring about those who no one else cares about.

@snazzy-hats-and-adhd @blufox3542 @neshatriumphs @khruschevshoe @weedpoop @thesirhandsome-tepalehuia @sillylittlecheeto @nefertittti @henrythepug @meet-me-behindthemall12 @aboutblankpages-blog-blog @artemisiaarm @profiterole-reads @marchionessdebrannas @harrietmjones @thearcaneuniversity @little-bloodied-angel @artemisbones @jacksope-lives @fleuranna @shehungthemoon @spacecatrainshell @celestedeluna @thefiresofpompeii @gerardway-jpeg @fleuranna @smokecloudsandrollingpapers @idealuk @aceumbrellaheroes @evelynhug0 @madhare0512 @fool-for-luv @nealmcclure @elposting @mikereads @corvidspectre @thanatosdetesreves @sapphicsigh @ameliapondmd @possumsmushroom

[shitpostingfromthebarricade]

2 & 3 for the book asks :)

2. Did you reread anything? What?

... okay, so.

I listened to The Foxhole Court trilogy as audiobooks (and read the Sunshine Court as an eBook after).

And then I went back and reread the the trilogy as eBooks because there were a lot of names to keep up with and I felt like I missed a lot the first time around.

And then I still didn't understand Andrew's character, so I read the entire trilogy from his PoV (a fanwork, but a very complete fanwork).

I have no defense except that this series is fucking insane.

3. What were your top five books of the year?

I am choosing to count series as one "book" and also doing a top 10 because I read a lot of really good books so, in no particular order,

The Poppy War trilogy by R.F. Kuang

The Baru Cormorant trilogy by Seth Dickinson

Lady Susan by Jane Austen

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Poor Thing by Alasdair Gray

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq by Stephen Kinzer

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

and as a bonus because I accidentally put it in the wrong place before and therefore didn't count it

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

[sonicmusicmusings]

Sonic Battle isn't a soundtrack we cover that much over here, so let's give another GBA track a listen!

I always find it impressive when a limited soundfont like this can produce an atmospheric track. This one goes for a couple of repeated mellow synths in a counter melody with each other, while the bass is a trusty square wave. The drum samples include a rim tap and an open hi-hat, as well as another low hand drum. The pentatonic movement in both the bass and the main melody keep the tonal center open. It's cool and mysterious to contrast with the high octane, almost hip-hop influence of the rest of the soundtrack. One could say this is the same, just dialed down a few notches. Very cool!

[krispyweiss]

Phil Lesh & Friends Harp on “Darkstar” in Latest “Darkstarathon”

- Mikaela Davis brings classical flourishes to episode 8

Phil Lesh’s latest group of Friends makes no effort to sound like the Grateful Dead in episode 8 of “Darkstarathon,” though the spirit of the bassist’s former band is etched in the sonic cosmos.

Featuring harpist Mikaela Davis and augmented by fellow classical musician Holly Bowling (keys), guitarists Grahame Lesh and Stu Allen and drummer Nathan Graham, the latest exploration finds the band nosing around the gurgling edges of sound for 10-plus minutes before the titular theme emerges. As the band picks up steam and aural light flies by, Grahame Lesh steps to the mic … and sings “Dark Star” really poorly.

This is the only downer of the session as the collective engages in consonant meanderings that lead them through improvisations and parts of songs that demonstrate a sincere sense of adventurism rare in one-off groupings.

Here’s a ragged spoke of “The Wheel,” Davis’ vocals underpinning the attempted harmonies. There go the blues on the hopeful “New Speedway Boogie” coda.

One verse of “Cold Rain and Snow.” A thunder crack of energy. Dissolution and reconstruction for a wordless drive with “St. Stephen.” And Davis struggling to recall the words to “Mountains of the Moon” before the music gently floats back down like a feather to Terrapin Clubhouse and the earth on which it sits.

Lesh the elder often talks of searching for the sound. This time around, he and his pals went looking for the ethos that produced said sound. And they found it.

Read Sound Bites’ previous “Darkstarathon” coverage here.

9/6/24