#new mexico flora

[tempural]

Stickers and postcards have been printed and cut for DA SCUMSUCK sticker club. Even made a new design for the sealing sticker!!! Now to pack n' ship them.

You have until Sunday night (tomorrow!!) to sign up if ya want this month's cowboy themed designs in da mail.🤠

Dackel Pack gets digital downloads

Hot Dog Sticker Club gets the sticker in da mail

Zeenie Weenie gets the sticker AND postcard in the mail.

I'll be shipping these out ASAP Monday morning.

[rabbitcruiser]

Benches/Chairs (No. 72)

Winslow, AZ

Jack Rabbit Trading Post, Joseph City

Flagstaff, AZ

Seligman, AZ

Kingman, AZ (three pics)

Cool Springs Station, AZ

Montezuma Castle National Monument, AZ

[joelalorian]

Masterlist

Series

Tides of Desire

Complete: TLOU no outbreak AU. Joel Miller is a luxury yacht captain running charters in the Caribbean. You join the crew as a deckhand and unexpectedly complicate Joel's peaceful existence. Basically the TLOU bunch on a Below Deck yacht.

Chapter One - A Prelude to the Open Sea

Chapter Two - The Adventure Begins

Chapter Three - The Cut of One's Jib

Chapter Four - Cut and Run

Chapter Five - Red Sky in Morning

Chapter Six - Edging Forward

Chapter Seven - From Stem to Stern

Chapter Eight - As the Crow Flies

Chapter Nine - Close Quarters

Chapter Ten - On Your Beam Ends

Chapter Eleven - All at Sea

Chapter Twelve - Turn the Corner

Epilogue

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fall Into Me

dbf!Joel x f!reader, ongoing

Summary: Joel is hanging on by a thread as a single father to a tenacious 10-year-old Sarah. Feeling like he's drowning, like the world is about to spit him out, he needs some help before he breaks in half. At your dad's insistence, you show up in his life and change everything.

Story is inspired by the song Fall Into Me by Forest Blakk. Chapter titles will be lyrics from the song.

Chapter One: The Day That I Met You

Chapter Two: It All Turned Around

Chapter Three: No Mirror for Monsters

Chapter Four: Until I had met you there was no sun in my sky

Chapter Five: My whole world came alive

Chapter Six: And I knew my heart wasn't mine

Chapter Seven: I'll Catch You Darlin'

Chapter Eight: We'll Dance in the Street like Nobody's Watching

Chapter Nine: I'd Fall for You Twice if That's What You Wanted

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Petals of Affection

Complete. A floral mystery in three parts featuring Jackson!Joel x f!reader

Summary: A secret admirer gifts you a different flower and a riddle ten times before you put the clues together and discover that he's been right in front of your face the whole time.

Written for @morallyinept's Flora & Fauna challenge. Please check out all the wonderful works created in Jett's honor!

Part I

Part II

Part III

One-shots

Lost Cause

Summary: Joel thinks you shouldn’t waste your time on him. You disagree. Oneshot.

Warnings: Explicit MDNI; Jackson-era Joel; canon-ish but also not; drinking; mentions of cigarettes, drugs, dark thoughts, and death; unprotected p in v; oral (m and f receiving); interesting use of red wine; unspecified age gap; despair and hope.

Inspired by the song Save Me by Jelly Roll. Some of the lyrics have been woven into the story.

~~~~~~~~~

Fevered Flame (Marcus Pike x f!reader)

Summary: When Marcus Pike lost himself in work after that debacle with Theresa, he didn’t expect to take on a sizzling new case in the quirky town of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Nor did he expect to meet you, an up-and-coming agent also looking for a fresh start. An unprecedented heatwave, mind-boggling art thefts, ancient Aztec legends, this case had the works. How would he ever solve the case with the temperature rising between you both?

This fic is my contribution to @iamasaddie's Little Lady Kinky May writing challenge. Prompts were Marcus Pike and Temperature.

WC: 10.4k – I’m sorry, I have no idea where all these words came from

[reasonsforhope]

"Mexico’s government recently announced the creation of 20 new protected areas across 12 states and two coastal areas in the country, covering roughly 2.3 million hectares (5.7 million acres). This follows a series of budget cuts to the nation’s environmental agencies.

Officials introduced four new national parks, four “flora and fauna protection areas,” seven sanctuaries, two biosphere reserves and three “natural resources protection areas” under the protection of the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas (CONANP).

“This is a commendable step toward biodiversity conservation and environmental protection,” said Gina Chacón, director of the Wildland Network’s public policy program in Mexico. She told Mongabay these new areas will help preserve the country’s rich ecosystems, foster sustainable practices and protect a broad range of important species and habitats. Though some environmental and Indigenous groups are wary the budget cuts could hinder efforts to conserve these areas.

The newly protected areas will preserve habitat and ecologically important marine areas for various species, including whale sharks (Rhincodon typus), Mexican prairie dogs (Cynomys mexicanus) and jaguars (Panthera onca). They will also help safeguard ecologically important coral reefs and areas of cultural significance to Indigenous communities.

Bajos del Norte, a new national park in the Gulf of Mexico, is the largest new protected area, covering 1,304,114 hectares (3,222,535 acres), almost nine times the size of Mexico City. The area is important to the more than 3,000 families that belong to fishing communities on the Yucatán coast. It is also one of the main grouper fish (Epinephelinae) reproduction sites in the Gulf of Mexico and will safeguard threatened species, such as the rocky star coral (Orbicella annularis) and the hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata).

Joaquín Núñez Medrano, the secretary of the UEFAHG or Union of Forestry and Agricultural Ejidos Hermenegildo Galeana A.C. (Unión de Ejidos Forestales y Agropecuarios Hermenegildo Galeana), lives in an ejido — a type of communally owned land used for agriculture and forestry purposes — called Cordòn Grande in Sierra Grande of Guerrero, along the Pacific Coast. For more than 10 years, Medrano’s community has monitored species such as the jaguar and sustainably managed the ejido’s natural resources, without government assistance.

But now, the ejido has been designated a protected area in this latest round of decrees, as it falls inside part of the new Sierra Tecuani reserve. “The goal is to strengthen what we have already been doing but with support to do it much better,” he told Mongabay.

The second- and third-largest newly protected areas are Sierra Tecuani, a 348,140-hectare (860,272-acre) biosphere reserve threatened by illegal logging, forest fires and land use changes, and the Semidesierto Zacatecas Flora and Fauna Protection Area, which is important for the recovery of the Mexican prairie dog.

The state of Oaxaca is where the government created the most new protected areas, numbering three: the 90-hectare (222-acre) Playa Morro Ayuta Sanctuary, the 56-hectare (138-acre) Barra de la Cruz-Playa Grande Sanctuary and the 261-hectare (645-acre) Playa Cahuitán Sanctuary. Other protected areas were created in the states of Quintana Roo, Veracruz, Campeche, Nayarit, Zacatecas, Chiapas, Colima, Durango, Jalisco, Chihuahua, Guerrero and the State of Mexico...

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has protected more areas than any previous administration, with a total of 43 new areas across 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres). But Mexico’s Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT), which works to safeguard the environment, has become severely cash-strapped throughout his six-year term.

SEMARNAT is one of many sectors in Mexico undergoing funding cuts. In recent years, Obrador’s government has implemented a series of strict austerity measures to free up more money for other areas like pensions and wages, boosting the leader’s popularity among citizens, particularly the working-class. Judicial workers, health services and academia have also had their budgets slashed in 2024...

Juan Bezaury-Creel, the director of the organization Fundación BD BioDiversidad Mexicana, said a protected area is better than no protected area because, once a decree is formalized, the government has a duty to protect it. However, this puts “huge pressure on existing personnel because they have to take care of more surface area with less resources,” he told Mongabay.

“The personnel from CONANP are heroic,” he said. “They are putting their lives on the line many times with little budget and little help.”"

-via Mongabay, January 25, 2024

[mochinomnoms]

I love your idea for Hanahaki! Like you said, it's always so tragic and dramatic and angsty (and who am I kidding, I'll keep reading it), but your take on it is so refreshing!

For the event, can I request Ruggie with 15, Trey with 1, and Jade with 18? Romantic; fluff and/or suggestive, please?

And if I completely misunderstood how to request properly, I'm terribly sorry. 😬

So excited to see more of your work!

part 2: jade leech x gn!reader ruggie bucchi (15); trey clover (1) [separate] x gn!reader [tags] – fluff, suggestive [wc} – 2,500+ each prompt 15: “Sooo, are you gonna apologize for puking dahlias all over my breakfast?” prompt 1: “Why is your trash can full of flower petals? Are you secretly a botanist, or is there something you're not telling me?” note - both ruggie and trey got real long, so i will post jade's snippet separately later! a floral inconvenience

Dahlias – In pre-Colombian Mexico and Guatemala, wild-growing dahlias and their tubers were seen as a food source. 

Ruggie has been absolutely miserable for the past week, as one would be when they have mysterious large, red flowers sprouting out from their mouth and head. It also didn’t help that all the other second-years, especially the twins, were giving him a hard time. 

“Hey, hey Jade! You know plants.” Floyd was currently picking at the flower that Ruggie just spit out, undeterred by the spit on it. 

“I bet we can figure out who Sharksucker likes if we figure out what flower he’s spittin’ out. What kind is it? 

Jade leaned down to study the intense red, ray-like petals, poking at the central disk of yellow florets in the middle. Ruggie was NOT a fan of how interested Jade was, attempting to lean out of the twins’ grasp. 

“Hmm, I’m not sure. I certainly haven’t seen it on any of my hiking expeditions or in the botanical gardens.”

Ruggie yelped as Jade plucked a flower from a particularly sensitive spot behind his right ear. 

“Ow! Watch it man!” 

Rubbing his ear, Ruggie glared at Jade, who was still looking curiously at the flower bringing his arm down for Azul who also seemed eager to identify the flower. 

“I certainly don’t recognize it either, looking up similar flora, there aren’t any that are quite the same as this one.”

Ruggie could just make out under Azul’s breath, “Imagine all the money we could make if we say we discovered a new flower!”

He scoffed at Azul, rubbing his eyes from mental exhaustion. The twins and Azul weren’t the only ones interested in his hanahaki. 

“It’s a really pretty flower, Jamil! Do you think we have any like it in the gardens back home?” Kalim eagerly asked, trying his best to lean in without disturbing Silver, who’d fallen asleep on his shoulder. 

“Hmm, no I don’t think so.” Jamil looked mildly interested, holding a hand to his chin. “The Asim gardens have a variety of exotic and rare flora, so the fact that we don’t recognize this one is certainly interesting.”

Jade chuckled, “So, it would be easy to narrow down the person of Ruggie’s affections, yes.”

“Why are you all suddenly so interested in my love life?” 

“Why, we’re being benevolent, of course!” Azul replied, a cheeky grin on his face.

“Yea Sharksucker, it must be reeeeal annoying to puke up flowers all the time. Besides—” Floyd gave a nasally laugh as Jade continued his sentence.

“—wouldn’t it be nice to have some assistance getting rid of his annoying sickness? After all, with your background, you’re not the most eligible bachelor around.”

“Okay, first of all fuck you—” Ruggie jabbed a fork in his direction. 

“Not interested, but thank you.”

“Second of all—ew no, gross—second of all, you guys aren’t exactly the most pinned for guys, even with your family money.”

Riddle let out a laugh, nodding in agreement. “Certainly, no price in the world could make up for your personalities.”

“Aww, come on Goldfishie.” Floyd pouted. “You don’ wanna go out with me? Why? I don’t meet your mama’s standard?”

“Why you—”

“Hey guys!”

A chipper voice interrupted a reddening Riddle, who looked like he was ready to launch himself over the table to strangle Floyd. Ruggie perked up to look at you and Grim perched on your shoulder, carrying a lunch tray with some coffee, a bowl of oatmeal, and a singular powdered donut. 

Adjusting the tray in your hands, you let Grim jump off onto the table as you sat. You grabbed the donut with your freed hand and reached your arm out to Ruggie.

“Hey, I got you a donut, powdered’s your favorite right?”

Oh. Oooooh powdered was indeed his favorite. So were you. By the Seven, he thinks that you’d be his favorite snack. You were so cute. Your lips looked soft, plush. He wondered if you took a bite out of the donut if the first thing he’d taste was you or the sugar. 

Opening his mouth to reply, Ruggie found himself instead choking, a tickling sensation developing in the pit of his stomach and growing up his throat to his mouth. He gagged as various shades of bright red blooms fell out of his mouth and onto the table. Specifically, onto your tray as you sat directly across from him. 

Ruggie could make out the stifling laughter of his peers . He internally groaned, looking at your tray, now covered in red flowers. Riddle tapped his shoulder, offering him a cup of warm tea. 

“Here, it should help soothe your throat.” 

Taking the cup, he started drinking what he thought was honey lemon tea, soothing his throat. 

Across the table from him, you let out a soft cough, drawing his and the other’s attention. 

“Sooo, are you gonna apologize for puking dahlias all over my breakfast?”

The tea went down the wrong pipe. Ruggie started choking, Kalim frantically reaching over to pat his back. 

“Oh? Does the Little Shrimpy know this flower?” Floyd asked, he and his brother slithering over to sit on either side of you. Their eyes met briefly, then at Ruggie, both giving him a knowing grin.

“Dahlias? Yeah! They’re my favorite!” you answered, blissfully unaware of the predicament they’d just put him in. 

Ruggie wished he could be just as carefree.  

The other five slowly turned their heads to stare at Ruggie, each looking especially gleeful and teasing. 

“You don’t say?” Jamil drawled, smirking at Ruggie, whose state of mind was rapidly deteriorating. “We’ve never heard of it.”

You looked at Jamil in surprise. “Wait really?”

“Yes, these, dahlias you called them? They’re not from Twisted Wonderland.” Riddle had a mischievous smile, tipping the end of Ruggie’s cup before he could interject, making him choke on the tea again. 

“Aw really? That kinda sucks.” you pouted, twirling one of the loose flowers in your hand. “I love them, fun fact, did you know you can eat both the flower and the tuber?”

Ruggie would never admit it out loud, but your cute, excitable grin makes him feel all warm and giddy inside. He’d even give you his grandma’s homemade donuts if he got to see more of it. 

By the Seven, he’d give you his donuts. He really had it bad.

“Really? How fascinating! Isn't it Ruggie?” Jade asked, giving a closed mouth smile. The tone of his voice made it clear though, he and the others figured out you were the root cause of his hanahaki. 

Ruggle got up abruptly, snatching the donut from your hand (why miss out on free food?) and the breakfast sandwich he’d gotten for Leona. 

“I gotta go take Leona’s breakfast to him, I’ll see you guys later—”

“Wait, Ruggie!” Kalim cries out, startling Silver awake. “But the Prefect knows the flowers—”

“WOW I GOTTA GO! BYE GUYS SEE YOU LATER!”

Ruggie rushed out of the cafeteria, red petals flying behind him as he ran. The remaining 8 at the table stared after him, you in particular looking confused. 

“Is he okay?” You asked, looking confused and disappointed. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Ah, perhaps we went a bit too far…” Jamil muttered. 

Riddle sighed as he nodded in agreement, “Yes. Don’t worry yourself about it Prefect, we were discussing something else, you didn’t say anything wrong.”

You hummed as you cleared off your tray of dahlias, taking small bites of your oatmeal. 

“Why’s he puking flowers?”

The group stayed silent, sharing knowing looks with each other. The twins and Azul in particular were smirking, while Kalim perked up. 

“Oh he has hanahaki, it’s like a love sickness.” Kalim blissfully replied, Jamil pinching his nose and sighing heavily. 

“Love…sickness?”

Riddle placed a hand on Kalim’s shoulder, giving him a stern look. “We had our fun earlier, but it’s not our business to share his medical information with anyone.”

He turned his gaze to you, making you shrink in on yourself. “It would be best to ask him yourself, Prefect.”

Floyd tsked. “Aww, that’s no fun! Don’t you wanna help Sharksucker? You do, dontcha Shrimpy?”

The twins leaned into your ears, like an angel and devil on your shoulder if the angel was just a devil with a halo and wings taped on. 

“Why, you care for Ruggie, don’t you dear Prefect?” Jade cooed, chucking at your pink cheeks. 

“Hehehe, of course they too, look at their blush!” Floyd giggled, poking at your right cheek. “Little Shrimpy isn’t a shrimp for nothin’!”

“And after all, only you can help him!” Azul came up behind you, startling you as he placed his hands on your shoulder. 

The trio chuckled, coercing you to listen to their honeyed words, feeding on your soft spot for the hyena beastman. 

Riddle shared a look with Jamil before sighing and walking off. Jamil followed suit, grabbing Kalim by the arm to drag him away before he too, inevitably, got involved in their scheme. Silver, now that he was bright and alert, similarly left, nodding at you. 

Here you were, alone amongst the “benevolent” Octavinelle trio, now regretting waking up early to get breakfast instead of just sleeping in.

Ruggie had been leaving trails of dahlias behind him all day, getting on the ghost janitors’ ire and lectured by Crewel specifically. 

“Loose flowers in a lab is the perfect example of a hazard to lab safety! Have you not gone to the nurse to get this taken care of?!”

He hadn’t had a fit since seeing you this morning, luckily. He had noticed you in the hallways in between classes though. Everytime your eyes met his own, you’d flush and rush away. 

“Ugh, one of the guys must’ve told them.” Ruggie groaned, slumped over as he walked over to the kitchens, feet aching from running around his shift at Sam’s and now Mostro Lounge. 

Azul had asked him to collect some perishable items that he’d purchased from a supplier, having it delivered to the school’s walk-in fridge until he could have someone pick it up. 

Jade and Floyd were supposed to be there, ready to help, but they were nowhere to be found. Ruggie shrugged, walking into the kitchen and heading to the fridge before he felt himself get yanked by his collar. 

“Hahahehehe! Be sure to thank us later, Sharksucker!”

“Fuhuhu~ Indeed Ruggie, I’m sure you’ll appreciate it later.”

“Oof! Hey!” Ruggie stumbled into the pantry, landing on something soft. “What the-Jade, Floyd this isn’t funny—”

“Mmph!” The floor beneath him started wiggling and groaning, startling Ruggie. His eyes were slowly adjusting to the dark, his hyena genes serving him well as he yelped, looking down.

A white cloth was tied around your mouth while your hands and feet were bound by what looked like Floyd’s scarf. Ruggie’s ears and dahlias drooped down as he saw that your cheeks were covered in tear tracks. 

"Mmmphie! Mmmphie! Mmmph mmph mmph!" came out from behind the tightly-bound cloth.

“W-what? FLOYD! JADE! WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU TWO?!” He could hear the twins’ laughter from outside the door. Ruggie started pounding on the door with his fist, growling before freezing, hearing your muffled crying.

The hyena scrambled to turn on the light switch before returning back to your curled up form, gingerly untying the bound on your mouth. 

“R-r-ruggie!!” You bawled out, fresh new tears spilling out of your eyes as he undid the knot on your hands, then feet. 

“Hey, hey it’s alright Prefect, Y/N? I’m here—AH!” He yelped as you launched yourself in his arms, landing on his back, red petals flying . He stiffened as you shoved your head into the nook of his neck, hiccuping as you began babbling. 

“I’m sorry Ruggie!!!” Softly glowing dahlias started popping up from between his ears and vines growing down his arms as he spat out petals. 

“What’re you talking about? This isn’t your fault—”

“But it is! Azul and them said you were sick and that it was my faaaaault!” He froze, pulling you away to look at your teary eyes and snotty face. 

Gods you looked terrible. Red-faced, puffy eyes, and pout made you look like an ugly crier, not doing you any justice. Ruggie couldn’t help the squeeze in his heart as you reached back out to clutch onto him again. You were the cutest ugly crier he’d ever seen. 

“What? What do you mean—”

“They said that my crush on you’s been making you puke the flowers!” Ruggie’s ears perked up, and despite the growing blush and the resembling dahlias, he let you continue.

“Your crush?”

“My crush!!! It’s making you sick, a-and that I needed to confess to make it go away but-but-but-” You wailed, Ruggie allowing you to shove your head into his chest. 

“I was embarrassed! Then Floyd got mad a-at me and he and Jade tied me up and threw me in here.”

Ruggie hummed in response. It made sense now why Azul specifically asked him to collect the produce from the kitchen, instead of letting him manage the floor like usual. 

“They said I was ’ppose to be a present. I’m sorry Ruggie, I didn’t mean to drag you into this.”

He let out a heavy sigh, rubbing the back of your head affectionately.  

“Nah, it’s not your fault entirely.” He tilted your chin to look up at him. “You are the reason I got the flowers, but not cause of your crush though.”

You made a questioning noise, blinking curiously at him. You looked like one of the kids back home after throwing a tantrum. 

“Shyehehehe! They didn’t say what the flowers ‘re from?” Ruggie laughed as you pouted, pinching his cheek.”

“What do you mean? Is it still my fault? And I basically just confessed! I’m crying in a closet, just confessed and you’re laughing at me!”

Ruggie’s laughter died down as he grabbed your hand, moving it to cradle his cheek instead. His ears perked up as he heard your soft gasp, his eyes meeting yours, blown wide. 

His tail wagged, despite himself. “It’s cause I like ya, Prefect. I like ya so much that it makes my stomach ache and flowers sprout from all over. I gotta hand it to ya, for a cute little herbivore, you sure got your teeth dug right into my heart.”

You scoffed, using your other arm to wipe your face clean. 

“The dahlias make sense now…did you at least try eating them?”

He let out a barking laugh, followed by your giggling. “I thought about it! I spat out enough of them that I got sick of the taste, besides…”

Ruggie could hear the rustling of his tail under his clothes as he wrapped an arm around your waist, grinning wider at the gasp that left your mouth as he yanked you onto his lap. 

He pressed you against him until your bodies were flushed against one another. Heat pooled in the pit of his stomach as he gazed up to your flustered face. Ruggie nuzzled his head into your chest, feeling your rapidly speeding heartbeat. 

“Ruggie…” You tangled your hands through his hair, making him groan as you gently pulled his head back and rubbed the backs of his ears. 

You leaned down to graze your lips over his, giving Ruggie a heady whine as he nibbled on your lower lip.

“Shyehehe~ You’re awfully clingy for a poor little hyena like me, you sure I meet your standards?”

Despite his attempt at humor, Ruggie was sure that you could hear the apprehensive tone in his voice, your eyes softening. 

Instead of pointing his insecurity out, you answered his question with a deep, open-mouth kiss. He groaned into your mouth, returning your kiss with desperation, as if you’d disappear in his grasp. 

Ruggie’s hands wandered along your sides, slipping underneath your shirt and tracing your spine, causing you to shiver in delight. You pulled away from his lips, causing him to let out a displeased growl before shifting into something closer to a purr as you left wet kisses along his neck. 

Feeling your teeth softly dig themselves into the crook of his neck and chest, Ruggie rolled his hips into yours, delighting in the moan that left you. 

Just as you started suckling, no doubt leaving a mark, his world turned upside down as he suddenly fell backwards onto the ground of the college kitchen. 

“Ow, shit!” Ruggie winced as the back of his head smacked into the hard tile flooring, you splayed over his body. 

“What is wrong with you two? When I said get them into a room together, I didn’t mean—oh my!” Azul squeaked, glasses skewed as he saw the two of you. Ruggie developing a dark red hickey and you with your shirt nearly half off. 

“Aw, see it worked out!” Floyd chirped, delighted at the turn of events. 

Jade chuckled, taking his phone out to quickly snap a photo. 

“W-what, hey! Don’t go taking pictures!” Ruggie cried out as the both of you scrambled to get up and tidy yourselves.

Jade smiled innocently. “Oh? Don’t worry, I’ll only share it with the other second years, just to win a bet.”

Ruggie narrowed his eyes at Jade. “Alright but how much did ya bet? You’re gonna split it with me right—”

The four men winced at your shrill shriek. 

“RUGGIE?! NO!” 

Zinnia – A purple zinnia flower symbolizes spiritual exaltation and honoring the divine. It also symbolizes love on a soul mate level.

Pink cosmos – In the Victorian era, cosmos flowers symbolized joy in love and in life. Dark pinks ones should be given to a romantic interest.

The latest unbirthday planning was going well. Since spring had just arrived, it was tradition for the first spring unbirthday party to have the desserts be made with the seasonal harvest. Riddle was especially happy to hear that Trey would be making strawberry and apricot tarts for this party. 

Trey was especially excited to try his hand at his mother’s sugared lavender cupcakes, a family recipe that she insisted on keeping out of his hands until he guaranteed her an in-law. 

Luckily he’d managed to convince her by telling her that the cupcakes might help him dazzle a certain someone. She was quick to mail him the original copy with the promise of a visitor during the next break. 

Now if only he could find the recipe card. 

“Hmm, I thought I brought it down from my room…hey Cater?”

“Yeah Trey?” Cater answered in a sing-song voice. 

“I can’t find my mom’s recipe card.” Trey groaned as he rubbed his face. “She’ll kill me if I lose it, can you go to my room to check if I left it on my desk?” 

Cater winked and gave him a finger gun. “Sure thing Trey! Cay-Cay in on the case! Brb!”

Trey nodded as Cater left the kitchen, now focusing on preparing the jam and frosting for the strawberry-lemon cake, which was cooling on the counter. He was so focused on making the jam and whisking the cream cheese frosting, he failed to notice a certain someone sneaking up behind him. 

“Boo!” 

Trey hummed, looking over his shoulder to look down at you with your arms out and teeth bared. “Oh, hey Y/N, you’re here early.”

“Aw booooooo! You were supposed to get scared!” You pouted at the taller man, pulling at his arm as he laughed at your little tantrum. 

“Haha, scared? Of you? Hardly.” Trey winced and held his arms up in defense, still laughing as you started to pound on his arms and back. 

“Ow, ow! Okay I concede!” He grabbed your hands, holding them over your head as he leaned down towards your face, smirking. 

Trey hovered his face over yours, enjoying your pouty blush. With a teasing lilt, he cooed, “Don’t be a brat, Y/N. Or else you won’t get a treat later~”

“Hmph, maybe I’ll just steal some later. What are you gonna do? Punish me?” You replied in an equally teasing tone, stepping on your tiptoes, making yourself just talk enough to brush your nose against his. 

“Mmm, don’t tempt me, I just might—”

“Hey Trey I found your—whoa! What did I just walk into?”

The two of you rapidly distanced yourselves from each other, Trey nearly knocking over the bowl of jam and you tripping into the table chair. 

Both of you answered Cater with a louder than needed, “Nothing!” as your faces turned the same shade as the strawberries he was baking with. 

“Riiiiight, uh, Trey I got your mom’s recipe card!” The ginger looked between you two with an absolute ecstatic grin, making eye contact with Trey and wiggling his eyebrows. 

“I can come back though, if you two need a moment—”

You interrupted, “No, it’s fine. I promised Ace and Deuce I’d help paint the roses.” 

Trey looked at you wistfully as you tidied yourself, pulling out a bouquet of dark-pink cosmos from your bag. 

“Here, you like these right? I thought you could use them to decorate the cake ‘n stuff.”

Trey smiled and accepted the bouquet of admittedly stunning cosmos, ignoring Cater’s open mouth smile and silent squealing. 

“Thanks, I’m sure they’ll go great with the cake, I’ll see you later.”

His eyes wandered up and down your body as you left the kitchen, waving your fingers as you gave a playful “Bye~”

Trey replied with his own enamored “bye” as he waved after you, a lovesick grin on his face as he watched you leave. 

Eyes still on the doorway you left through, it took a few moments and Cater waving his hand in front of his face to get his attention back. 

“Helloooo? Wonderland to Trey~” Cater sang, snapping his fingers in Trey’s face. “You’re a lil out of it, got something juicy you wanna share with me? Come on! Give Cay-Cay the deets!”

Trey rolled his eyes, swiping the recipe card from his friend’s hands. 

“There’s no ‘deets’ for Cay-Cay to know, not if he wants me to make him a spicy fruit cocktail for today.”

Cater hummed as he watched Trey resume building the strawberry-lemon cake, gesturing for him to grab stuff from the pantry. 

“Now, help me grab the lavender from the pantry, and get some more flour, I’ll need it for the cupcakes.”

“Sure! Speaking of flowers…” Cater leaned over to whisper into Trey’s ear, “why’s your trash can full of flower petals? Are you secretly a botanist, or is there something you're not telling me?”

Cater let out an uncharacteristically giddy cackle as he watched Trey drop the clean bowl he’d grabbed, whipping around to stare at him with wide eyes. 

“You saw those?” 

“Yeah, zinnias right?” Cater called out as he collected the items Trey requested. “Little Y/N’s favorite~ You want to tell me where you got so many?”

“Uh, the botanical gardens, where else?”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure, the gardens.” sneaking up from behind him, Cater plucked a light purple colored flower from the back of Trey’s neck, who hissed at the sudden prick. 

“Not from hanahaki popping up on your body, tooootallyyy!”

Trey groaned out loud, attempting to look behind him for any other blooms. “Damn it, I thought I got rid of them. Are there more I can’t see?” 

“Nah, you’re fine.” Cater waved him off, looking around the hard-to-reach places for his friend. “It was just the one.”

Trey sighed in relief, thanking Cater as he placed the bag of lavender petals in his hand, “Good, it was a pain to get them out of my hair, let alone my mouth. They’re really bitter you know?”

“O-M-G, Treeeeey!” Cater gasped, throwing himself against his friend. “That’s, like, a supes easy fix! Just confess, you already have the flowers to give!”

“Ha, I know, I plan to later.”

“Plus, with the way you two were allover each other earlier, there’s no way they won’t say yes—OMGWAITWHAT!”

Cater shook Trey by his shoulders, while the latter attempted to steady the bowl of dry ingredients in his hand, guarding it with a vigor akin to a knight and their liege. 

“OMGNOWAYWHENHOWAREYOUGONNADOITINFRONTOFEVERYONEAREYOUGONNADOITINPRIVATECANIRECORDCANIPOSTITTREYTREYTREYTREYTREY—”

Trey smacked his free hand on Cater’s mouth, effectively silencing him minus a few muffled sounds. He breathed out a heavy and deep sigh before slowly replying to Cater. 

“If I take my hand off your mouth, will you quiet down?”

Cater gave an enthusiastic nod, eyes twinkling. Trey could feel the grin against his hand, and reluctantly and slowly removed his hand. 

“...So when did you find out? When did you decide to confess?!” The ginger asked giddily, watching as Trey resumed his task at hand, preparing the ingredients for the lavender cupcakes. 

“A week ago, I overheard Ace and Deuce talking about the Prefect coughing up a bunch of pink cosmos, they were arguing over what tea would help with their symptoms.”

Cater made an ‘O’ shape with his mouth, pointing at the cosmos you’d given to Trey earlier, placed carefully on the counter. 

“You mean—”

“Mm-hm, those are probably their hanahaki, grew up with those in my mom’s garden, she used them as garnishes on cakes, especially wedding ones.”

Trey smiled fondly as he reached to grab one of the small flowers, rubbing the soft petals between his fingers. “A bit after that I started to find zinnias in my bed, coughing them up and everything. I think the nurse probably put two and two together after I went to see her.”

He shrugged as he grabbed his mother’s recipe card, twirling it in his fingers. 

“I figured, why wait? Mom always said that it was these cupcakes that snatched Dad up, I’ve always wanted to try my hand at them plus she wouldn’t pass down this recipe without a partner in the picture.”

“Oh, Trey!” Cater clasped his hands together as he squealed, “You want help? I get some of the froshies to finish up the tarts and cake, so you can focus on those! Like, don’t even worry about it boo!”

Cater winked gave Trey a half-arm hug. “I’ll make sure they follow instructions to a T! All I ask for in exchange is the exclusive right to snap the first pic of the brand-new school couple, capiche?”

True to his word, Cater was quick to round up a handful of freshmen who he’d found goofing off instead of painting roses. They were more than happy to take over Trey’s baking, after he gave them strict rules and a talking too on what to do, in order to not be snitched off to Riddle. 

Thankfully, the cupcakes weren’t difficult to make, what with his experience in the kitchen. He’d cut the recipe down by half so that he’d only make four, medium sized cupcakes. In fact, the most difficult part was making sure that he ground up enough lavender to turn the glaze a soft purple, which complemented the zinnias he’d placed in the small basket. Using the plush flowers as a cushion, he placed the blooms of your cosmos in between the gaps, creating a beautiful, pink and purple presentation. 

He was sure you’d love it, carefully hiding the wicker basket, covered by a white tablecloth, underneath the table. 

Later, Trey smiled as he looked around at the dorm members enjoying the party. His cake was a big hit, and Riddle in particular was enjoying the flower themed desserts, specially the daisy-shaped fruit tarts. 

“You’ve outdone yourself this time Trey!” Riddle praised him, “It seems that everyone has particularly enjoyed the sweets this time around. Well done, I’d expect nothing less!

Trey chuckled bashfully, rubbing the back of his head. “Thanks Riddle, be sure to praise the freshmen too, that group over there helped out a lot as well.”

Riddle nodded, his mood in high-spirits as he walked over to the group Trey gestured to. Trey raised his head to look over the crowd of red, white, and black for Cater, who was currently adjusting his slice of cake for the perfect angle. 

Grim was also with him, hungrily waiting for Cater to give him the okay to make the sacrifice of scarfing down the sweet dessert. Perfect.

Trey briskly walked over to him, basket in hand, leaning down to whisper in his ear. Cater perked up and nodded before calling out. 

“Hey Acey, Deucey! Com ‘ere real quick, Cay-Cay needs ya for a super-duper important task!”

The pair perked up mid-conversation with you, nodding at you and rushing over to Cater per his request. Trey walked over to you, though he could make out Cater asking the duo for assistance with a Magicam post. 

“Hey, Y/N.” You smiled up at him as he approached, wiping the tart crumbs from the corner of your mouth. Trey had the impulsive to lean down and lick the mess off of you himself, though he shook it away. 

“Hey, what’s up Trey!” You clasped your hands behind you, rocking back and forth on your heels, unaware of the petals. “You did great with the desserts, I noticed you didn’t use the flowers I gave you on the cake though…are they not edible?”

“About that…I actually wanted to show you something else I did with the flowers,” Trey held his hand out to you soft smile growing bigger as you laced your fingers through his. 

Trey led you to an isolated corner of the rose maze, stiffening slightly as you wrapped your arm around his, relaxing as you leaned in. The small basket was being carefully guarded against his right side, being carefully cradled like a precious stone in a gold necklace. 

The two of you remained in a comfortable silence, basking in each other’s presence like an old, aging married couple on a stroll. The image made him smile. 

I wasn’t but a few minutes later that you’d arrived at a secluded white gazebo, roses and vines crawling up the sides. It was just far enough away that the sound of laughter and chatter from the party was but a faint white noise, giving Trey the perfect ambiance needed for his plan. 

“Take a seat right there, I got something for you.” Trey gestured to the stone bench, a fitting heart-shaped backrest further setting the mood. 

“Oh? Alright.” You took a seat, still looking up at him with a curious expression. “Is it something in the basket?”

He let out a soft chuckle, “Why don’t you close your eyes and let me surprise you?” 

You squint your eyes in suspicion, scoffing as you obey.

“Fine, if I get another spoonful of vanilla extract though—”

Trey barked out a laugh. “I told you it was bitter! Now keep those eyes closed.”

“It smells sweet! It’s made of vanilla!” You huffed, flinching and then relaxing as you felt him place the basket on your lap. “That’s not the worst thing even, I’m still angry about the oyster sauce donuts!”

“Okay that one was your own fault, you saw me do the same thing with Ace and the chestnut tarts, remember? When we first met?”

You smiled fondly, as did Trey though you couldn’t see it. What Trey could see though were the cosmos blooming along your exposed nape. He let out a soft cough, spitting out a lilac zinnia. 

“Hmm, yeah, I do.” He wiped his hands clean, gingerly placing the zinnia on the bench next to you, uncovering the basket and grabbing one of the still pristine cupcakes. 

“Okay, here—” Trey took the sugared lavender stem and held it up to you mouth. “—open up and say ‘aah’~”

“Pfft—okay, aaaah~” Grinning, Trey placed the stem on your tongue and watched as you slowly chewed. 

“Well? How’s that taste?”

You hummed. “It’s sweet, flowery…it tastes like the evening tea Riddle has before bed…soooo lavender?”

Trey hummed in affirmation. “That’s right, now take a bite of this.” He unfolded the wrapper off of the cupcake, holding it up as you took a small bite. 

“Mmmh! Trey!” Your moan of delight caused a pleasurable shiver down his spine, less than pure thoughts filling his head. “It’s so good, it’s lavender too? Is it a cookie…no wait, a cupcake!”

“Heh, good guess, I have one last thing for you to taste, ‘kay?”

He watched as you eagerly nodded, mouth open for the next treat. Trey leaned down, hovering his lips over you own, noticing the light purple glaze still on your bottom lip.

Feeling his breath over your own, you stuttered out, “T-trey? What are you—mmph!”

Trey gently, but firmly pressed his lips to yours, licking the glaze and swiping his tongue along your lip as you opened up to let him in. Your hands reached to tug him by the lapel, returning his kiss with eagerness and tugging him closer and closer, gasps leaving both of your lips. 

Still hands were now wandering, gliding up your thighs and along the curve of your back, deciding to settle on the backrest. Trey found himself leaning down to match your height, knee settled in between your thighs. 

A beguiling groan rang from between your mouths, from who you didn’t know, then another as Trey’s tongue met your own. Then a gasp as you felt his hand hook underneath you as he lifted you to curl against his body, left hand still cradling and rubbing soothing circles at the small of your back. 

Your back was so far arched, chest meeting chest, that you moved your hands from their steel grip on his lapels to instead wrap around his shoulder and neck as he dipped you further to feel your body press into his. 

Trey licked your lower lip again, positive he could still taste the sweet lavender on your lip, causing you to whine as he instead took your lower lip between his teeth and tug. Breaking the kiss to observe your red face, gasping breaths, and half lidded eyes. 

He has to say, of all the cakes, cookies, and pastries he’s made and tried over the years, you were by far the sweetest, and most divine treat he’s tasted. Trey decided that he needed another taste to confirm as he lips met yours for another passionate kiss.

[artsandculture]

Lake George Reflection (1921–1922) 🎨 Georgia O'Keeffe 🏛️ Private Collection 📍 Somewhere

Painted circa 1921-22, Georgia O’Keeffe’s Lake George Reflection embodies the contradictions inherent in the artist’s best work which came to define her career and cement her legacy as one of the most enduring and intriguing figures in 20th-century American Art. Lake George Reflection, the most ambitious in scale of her works from the 1920s, is a meditation on the sublime, building upon the tradition of the 19th century Hudson River School artists who sought to capture the drama and beauty of the unspoiled landscape surrounding Lake George. Presented alternatively as both a vertical and horizontal composition, the work is an expression of the artist’s experimental thought process as she considered what it meant to be representational in an age of burgeoning abstraction in American Art. Horizontally, the painting exemplifies the boldly colorful landscapes which have become a hallmark of O’Keeffe’s career, foreshadowing the abstracted paintings of the New Mexico hills from her later years. When viewed vertically, as Lake George Reflection was first exhibited in 1923 at the Anderson Galleries, the infinite horizon shifts to a powerful vertical thrust, with the formerly symmetrical reflections of the landscape morphing into the interior folds of a magnified flower or echoing the bold and daring heights of a New York City skyscraper. This ambiguity of orientation results in a painting that is at once highly representational and wholly abstract, carefully constructed and malleable, and which defines the subtle power of O’Keeffe’s most dramatic and admired works. O’Keeffe signified the importance of certain works by including a hand-drawn star on the reverse or backing board; she noted this distinction on the verso of Lake George Reflection.

On June 10th, 1918, Georgia O’Keeffe moved to New York City. That August, she visited Lake George in the Hudson River Valley with Alfred Stieglitz, the influential photographer and art dealer twenty years her senior whom she would marry in 1924. On this first extended trip to the area, the Stieglitz family’s 36-acre retreat provided a welcome respite from the city, and one that afforded creative inspiration and freedom. “Stieglitz, like many urbanites then and now, also had a rural base, at Lake George in upstate New York, and every year he joined other members of the large family at his mother's home there. In August 1918, he was accompanied by O'Keeffe, who was warmly received by the mater familias and the sundry siblings, in-laws, and offspring of the Stieglitz tribe." (Georgia O'Keeffe, New York, 1991, p. 39) Over the next decade, O’Keeffe and Stieglitz frequently visited Lake George, spending most of every summer and early fall on the family compound, first at ‘Oaklawn’ and later at ‘The Hill.’ The landscape and its environs seemed to stimulate her creatively and she often referred to it as ‘perfect.’ The flora and fauna, and the relationship she developed with botanist Donald Davidson, a Stieglitz family cousin, provided veritable fertile ground for artistic discovery.

Just as Lake George exhilarated O’Keeffe, it also ushered in a period of creativity and artistic exploration for Stieglitz, allowing him to view the landscape through new eyes. “Although in earlier summers he had all but overlooked the landscape at his family’s home in Lake George, New York, he now began to photograph it, stimulated both by O’Keeffe’s infectious enthusiasm for the natural world and her own paintings of the area. Citing her ability to put ‘her experiences in paint,’ Stieglitz wrote that he too endeavored to ‘put his feelings into form’ in his photographs of the trees, barns, and buildings, as well as the landscape and clouds that surrounded him.” (B.B. Lynes, Georgia O’Keeffe, 2001, pp. 26-27) Whether sparked by lively competition or simply that O’Keeffe’s admiration of the landscape invigorated Stieglitz, both artists created some of their most bold, dynamic and experimental imagery during this time. Barbara Buhler Lynes notes, “Stieglitz’s investigation of equivalence began in the early 1920s at Lake George. O’Keeffe was involved with a parallel effort, working with color as Stieglitz had worked with light. Both his photograph and her painting suggest grand panoramas and infinite distances, while at the same time that vastness is overridden by patterns of flat, undulating shapes.” (Georgia O’Keeffe, 2001, p. 38)

In addition to the myriad of visual delights that the great view from the property afforded, it would not have been lost on O’Keeffe that she was on hallowed artistic ground. “As any visitor to Lake George, then or now, she would have been more aware of its role as a popular tourist destination reaching back to the early 1800s. In the wake of the French and Indian War (1754-63) and the American Revolution (1775-83), it captivated the hearts and minds of Americans, who were increasingly nostalgic about their history. The 1826 publication of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans sealed Lake George’s fate as an American icon.” (Modern Nature: Georgia O’Keeffe and Lake George, p. 23). Many 19th century predecessors captured the autumnal foliage, verdant hills and crystalline lakes, putting forth a vision of the landscape as untouched and unspoiled. These Hudson River School depictions, often dramatized with sunrises and sunsets, emphasized the sublime in nature, a concept that would have no doubt interested O’Keeffe. “Over the past two centuries, the concept of the sublime—with its immediate sensation of awe inspiring infinite space and evocative color and light directly internalized to moments experienced in our own lives—has been substantially redefined by a small number of artists, writers, and critics, for whom it has become a vital source of spiritual values at times of increased secularism.” (Georgia O’Keeffe: Visions of the Sublime, 2004, London, p. vii)

Seen as a landscape, Lake George Reflection is a meditation on the awesomeness of the open countryside of upstate New York found only a short distance from the hectic metropolis. Incorporating the groundbreaking experimentations from her early career, the rolling hills and water are depicted in the undulating forms so prevalent in O’Keeffe’s early abstractions of the previous decade. Similarly, the bulbous forms that line the foreground recall her abstract ‘Special’ series, also executed at Lake George a few years earlier. Taking these elements one step further, all is reflected, creating a virtual mirror image bifurcated by a dramatic horizontal cross-section. With its monumental scale, the resulting image echoes the images of sublimity in 19th-century art, which captured the grandeur of the landscape, an untouched splendor and a vastness seemingly born from the imagination. Lake George Reflection similarly suggests a landscape of infinite scale, confined by but not limited to the expanse of the canvas.

For the exhibition at Anderson Galleries in 1923, the first time Lake George Reflection was exhibited, O’Keeffe dictated that the painting be hung vertically. While the title suggests a certain formal interpretation to her work, the adjustment of orientation altered the viewer’s understanding of it, particularly when viewed in context with other work from the period. The change solely in orientation of Lake George Reflection, not to the painting, forces the viewer to understand the forms in a different manner. Marjorie Balge-Crozier describes this phenomenon in O’Keeffe’s works from this period, writing, “Manipulation of scale, depictions of fragments, precise lines and blurred edges, bold colors—all of these devices are used to create works that are emotional equivalents for her experiences. These are devices that can also elicit feelings of uncertainty, awe, and even terror in the spectator, whether one is looking at a close-up view of a flower or the splitting darkness of the Black Place. Paintings that are extremely minimal can appear at first as objects for calming meditation, then dissolve into uneasy questions of identity, with hills resembling body parts. In the end, the spectator is left with an equivalent sublime experience.” (Georgia O’Keeffe: Visions of the Sublime, p. 103)

Particularly when understood vertically, Lake George Reflection encourages anthropomorphic comparisons. Sharyn Udall explains, “Some of her landscapes do contain forms that—perhaps without any conscious intention on her part—insist on some relationship to the body. At Lake George in 1919 O’Keeffe produced several paintings of bifurcated glowing forms that begin as landscape but become increasingly abstract.” (Georgia O’Keeffe: Visions of the Sublime, p. 118) As a vertical work, the painting most closely relates to her magnified flower imagery, which she was simultaneously exploring. In works such as Flower Abstraction (1924, Whitney Museum of American Art), undulating lines and soft coral tones are quite clearly evocative of the delicate petals of a flower but the cragged vertical white line serves to bisect the image, echoing the compositional format of Lake George Reflection. Other more abstract works from the period, including Music—Pink and Blue No. 1 (1918, Seattle Art Museum) which was also in the Anderson Galleries show of 1923 and Grey Line with Lavender and Yellow (1923, Metropolitan Museum of Art), are similarly suggestive.

While O’Keeffe’s works, such as Lake George Reflection and her iconic flower paintings, seem to inherently suggest comparisons with the human form, something she patently rejected, the evolution of O’Keeffe from daring female Modernist to a sexualized media sensation was undoubtedly fostered, if not masterminded by Stieglitz. Beginning in 1918, he created a series of photographs which depicted O’Keeffe in the nude. “As art critic Henry McBride put it: ‘It made a stir. Mona Lisa got one portrait of herself worth talking about. O’Keeffe got a hundred. It put her on the map. Everybody knew the name. She became what is known as a newspaper personality.’ Moreover these photographs forged the first public image of O’Keeffe. She was seen as a sexually liberated, modern woman, and this idea of her became a visual equivalent of Stieglitz’s ardent and ongoing promotion of O’Keeffe’s art as a direct manifestation of her sexuality.” (B.B. Lynes, Georgia O’Keeffe, 2001)

Regardless of the source of these intimate connotations attributed to her most admired artwork, Lake George Reflection reflects the pictorial strategies that O'Keeffe developed as an avant-garde American Modernist: interest in a type of heightened realism that pushes an image to the edge of abstraction. It is this near abstraction that evokes the mystical and spiritual qualities that O'Keeffe associated with her organic subjects and which are the source of their strength. Hunter Drohojowska-Philp emphasizes the role of Lake George Reflection in pioneering this element of O’Keeffe’s best work, explaining, "In the spring of 1923, O'Keeffe incorporated Stieglitz's cloud motif into a pair of abstractions redolent of her earlier interest in Art Nouveau, Pink Moon and Blue Lines and Red Lines. Pink Moon and Blue Lines returns to a palette of magenta, lemon, and aqua arrayed in vertical waves on either side of a pink moon on a deep blue ground. She knew she was breaking down aesthetic barriers. Later, she said, 'When I entered the art world…you weren't supposed to paint yellow…and pink pictures.' Red Lines shows vertical waves of pale blue and buttressing columns of deep red divided by a think pink line. Both compositions derive from O'Keeffe's bisected canvases of the Lake George horizon, but upended. This technique began in her show with the vertical display of Lake George Reflection, a predictable landscape except that the horizon line runs up and down and is enlivened with pastel bubbles. Collector Peggy Guggenheim admitted that she could not decide which way to hang it. Studying photographs taken from various perspectives was enhancing O'Keeffe's ability to paint pictures that could be interpreted in multiple ways--paintings that could be hung vertically or horizontally." (Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O’Keeffe, New York, 2004, p. 219) Painted at the height of O’Keeffe’s most courageous and innovative creative output, Lake George Reflection confirms her prowess as a master colorist, daring modernist, avant-garde thinker and provocateur.

[heavenlybackside]

Experience the serene and otherworldly beauty of White Sands National Park in New Mexico, USA 🇺🇸. The pristine white gypsum dunes stretch endlessly under a vast sky, creating a stark yet stunning contrast. Delicate ripples in the sand and resilient desert flora add to the ethereal landscape, inviting you to explore this unique natural wonder.

[markrosewater]

Mark, I love OTJ, and how it uses the fauna, flora and folklore of North America to feel 'western'. Armadillos, Mountain Bighorn Sheep, Prairie Dogs, Buzzards, Coyotes, Roadrunners, Gila Monsters, Wolverines, Porcupines, Tumbleweeds (nevermind the Tumblewaggs), Beavers, Possums, Badgers, a knight riding a Moose, a battalion of various Cactus-folk and a Magic version of Paul Bunyan and his Blue Ox. Its like a roadtrip from my childhood through Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and western Texas was condensed into a set, even the panning for gold at a tourist trap! All I'm left wondering is when can we return so we can get a card inspired by John Henry, the steel-driving man, and maybe an ornery bison or two. Please dole out copious high fives to those who had the idea that this set needs a bunch of critters from the southwest and the Rocky Mountains to feel like a western setting.

High fives shall be applied.

[thedsgnblog]

Brand Identity for Mama Mexa by Seachange

Mama Mexa is a brand new pop-up taqueria, serving up delicious healthy fast food that celebrates family, friends and fun.

Strategically Seachange wanted to create a solution that embodied the spirit of Mexican culture, but avoided the obvious ‘Mexican pastiche’ that typifies most Mexican canteens because they all seem to look the same.

Looking into Mexican history, they discovered the importance of Mexico’s flora and fauna which is home to many of the world's most exotic blooms. In Mexican culture, flowers and flower arranging are steeped in symbolism, rituals, myths and celebration from ancient times to present. Home gardens, markets, shrines and altars come alive with an abundance of colourful bouquets.

Sechange took inspiration from this, and created a totally bespoke and overly flamboyant wordmark, which evokes a sense of floral bloom, bursting at the seams. Each letter comprises a set of varying width petals, giving it an eccentric energy.

TDB:  instagram  •  twitter  •  facebook  •  newsletter  •   pinterest

[southeastasianists]

Built within the administrative center of the Spanish government, San Agustin church was designed according to the plans approved by the Royal Audencia of Mexico and by a Royal Decree.

The church was built by Juan Macias in 1586 and was completed in 1607. It was renovated in 1854. Inside, a guided pulpit was installed and the altar was adorned with native flora and pineapples as decorative motifs. It served several purposes—as the earliest religious center of the Spanish new colonial outpost in the Philippines.

Manila was severely damaged during World War II. The walled city that was the administrative hub of the Spanish regime was 70% damaged. However, by a stroke of luck, the most important church in the region and the oldest in Luzon was spared and still stands today. 

[fatehbaz]

In the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and Northwest Mexico, many long-time residents claim that with the onset of the summer’s monsoonal rains, a feeling of elation and relief comes as fragrances fill the air in a way that makes it seem as though “the desert smells like rain.” 

For decades, geologists, botanists, atmospheric scientists, and ecologists have debated the causes and triggers of this euphoric sensation. Some scientists have focused on fragrances emitted by cryptogamic or biological soil crusts during rains, while other have focused on the terpentine-like smell of the creosote bush known in Sonoran Spanish as hediondilla, ‘the little stinker.” But now two scientists from the University of Arizona [...] propose a novel, but more comprehensive answer: 

The Sonoran Desert flora is one of the richest in the world in plants that emit fragrant volatile oils, and many of those fragrances confer stress-reducing health benefits to humans, wildlife, and the plants themselves. [...] [T]he biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) [...] evolved to protect plants from damaging solar radiation, heat waves, drought stress and herbivores [...].

---

Initially, desert scientists focused their attention on an earthy fragrance called petrichor that is emitted from the biological soil crusts by a compound called geosmin. Geosmin underlies the earthy taste of beetroots, with notes like eucalyptus, cinnamon, and cloves and can be detected by the human nose at concentrations as low as 400 parts per trillion. It is secreted from dead microbes in the soil crusts of many different kinds of landscapes but is now known to be emitted only sporadically in Sonoran Desert soils after summer rains.

---

Ecologists who studied the North American deserts then tried to explain this phenomenon through a “single cause” focus on one of the most common plants in the Mohave, Sonoran and Chihuahuan desert: Larrea tridentata, known in English as the creosote-bush. Curiously, it emits more than 35 distinct terpenes and other BVOCs, some of which (like trans-caryophyllene) are generated by an endophytic fungus growing “hidden” within the plant’s tissues. With the onset of monsoons, the high density of shrubs forming “creosote flats” emit terpentine-like fragrances (like isoprene) as potent as any botanical emissions into the atmosphere. Nevertheless, this dominant plant is by no means the only major emitter of BVOCs that give Sonoran Desert habitats their renowned fragrances.

---

The new research from the Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill has found more than 60 species of 178 native plants in the ancient ironwood-giant cactus forests of the Sonoran Desert which emit fragrant biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) immediately before, during and after rainstorms. [...]  From these desert species, more than 115 volatile oils have been identified, as high a number as is known from any biogeographic region in the world. In particular, the researchers Gary Nabhan, Eric Dougherty and Tammi Hartung identified more than 60 potent fragrances emitted from the foliage and flowers of desert plants during the monsoonal rainy season of the iconic “Sonoran Desert summer.”

The authors hypothesize that a “suite” of 15 particular BVOCs emitted from this diversity of desert plants during the monsoons may function synergistically to generate tangible health benefits. [...].Their accumulation in the atmosphere immediately above desert vegetation can reduce exposure to damaging solar radiation in ways that protect the desert plants themselves, the wildlife which use them as food and shelter, and the humans who dwell among them.

---

Text by: Gary Paul Nabhan. “Why Does the Desert Smell Like Rain? New UA Research Suggests the Diverse “Osmocosm” of the Sonoran Desert.” Published under the “News” section online at University of Arizona Press. 13 April 2022.

[tempural]

🌷Desert Plants of New Mexico:

The postcard design for April's Zeenie Weenie tier, of da SCUMSUCK Sticker Club. I want everyone to know the vivid colors of desert flora:

Arizona Cottontop

Yucca

New Mexico Locust

Scarlet Globemellow

Agave

Desert Marigold

Pussytoes

[rabbitcruiser]

Benches/Chairs (No. 71)

Santa Fe, NM (five pics)

Albuquerque, NM (five pics)

[thesorcerersapprentice]

22.01.2024

Worldbuilding: For the past two weeks, I've been grappling with an issue in my worldbuilding that has been paralyzing all progress on the novel. To put it briefly, while I want the novel to address neo-colonialism, I don't want to locate the story in a region that resembles the location of neo-colonial powers in our real world, aka. the global north. This for two reasons: first, because I want to use the novel to highlight and celebrate the flora and fauna of my own home region, Colombia; and second, because I want to get away from the idea that the default setting for epic fantasy is a UK-inspired region á la Game of Thrones. However, setting a neo-colonial superpower in a region that closely resembles one that has suffered immensely from colonialism and neo-colonialism in our own world comes with its own issues. After all, isn't it a form of literary colonialism to elevate the region's aesthetics but obliterate the culture? But, then, what's the alternative? For a long time, I assumed I only had three options: either solve the issue by setting the entire story in regions that resemble the standard fantasy default and bypass the problem entirely, abandon the colonialism theme, or keep the global north/global south aesthetic divide we experience in real life, thus maintaining the global north inspired region as the superpower and the global south inspired region as the oppressed. All three options are, in my very humble opinion, a disappointment and fail to do justice to the story. That said, I think I may have discovered a possible fourth option that allows me to keep the superpower region resembling Colombia. Namely, I'm thinking that instead of basing the distinction in climate/geography on the different hemispheres (and sticking too close to our world), I can base them instead on the different altitudes of Colombia. There is a historical precedent for having the 2500-meter-above-sea-level mark be the colonial centre of operations, which would allow me to keep the Cloud Forest biome as the main setting and somewhat side-step the unfairness of it all (I hope?). It's also possible to create a racial distinction between the inhabitants of the different altitudes if, let's say, the 2500-meter altitude region has been conquered, the native people eradicated and replaced by the new arrivals. This would make them physically distinct from the inhabitants of the rest of the regions (á la US; for the below regions, maybe the colonizers took a more "Spanish Empire" route and mixed). Furthermore, if this same region then gains independence and establishes itself as a new superpower, oppressing the regions below, we also have neo-colonialism (also á la US). Maybe that can work?

Decided on Altaluna's Appearance: I couldn't really settle this until I'd settled on the updated worldbuilding (namely, decided the geography, the races, ethnicities, etc.). Since race plays a hand in galvanizing hostilities against Altaluna in the second and third acts, I needed to be certain that her appearance would satisfy the criteria of 'mestiza' within this universe.

Researched Colonialism: I read two books on the subject, Edward W. Said's Representations of the Intellectual and Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire. I also picked up a third book, You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue, a reimagining of the meeting between the conquistador Hernán Cortés and Moctezuma in the city of Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) where the tables are turned. My aim with Enrigue's book is to learn from what other people are doing with colonization in fiction today, especially as it pertains to South and Central America. I'm always up for recommendations if anyone has any!

Updated Writeblr Graphics: I was supposed to have this done by January 1st but I really didn't like the theme I'd come up with, so I remade everything to the tune of the new(ish) setting. Hope you like it!

REMINDERS

Answer pending asks. I am, as always, behind. My apologies to everyone who hasn't received a reply yet. I promise I'm working on it.

Publish Altaluna's profile... please? (I'm begging you, finish and publish it!)

Complete a full summary of at least one aspect of the reviewed worldbuilding (could be geography, history, whatever). Ideally, two.

In memory of my dear friend, Nicolás, who died two years ago last week. I miss you.

TAG LIST: (ask to be + or - ) @the-finch-address @fearofahumanplanet @winterninja-fr  @avrablake @outpost51 @d3mon-ology @hippiewrites @threeking @lexiklecksi @achilleanmafia

[sputnikodin]

i want to live in the desert someday. for at least a while. like new mexico or arizona or nevada or something. i've never even been to that part of the country (outside of california, obviously) i have no idea if i'd enjoy it in fact i could very well hate it -- but the reasons i might hate it are the same reasons it compels me: it's so different from anything i've ever known, both the long winters and cold summers and boreal forests of my childhood/adolescence and the inoffensive seaside dampness of my current young adulthood. and the flora and fauna fascinate me. and i want to find out if small cities are more or less the same everywhere

[cucullas]

Myths in the Frontiers | Legends and stories of border regions

Borders are strange places a separation and contact for different countries, cultures, and people. Contraband, death, and wars, the frontiers are also habitated by shared myths, merchants, and visitors. Why wouldn't some visitors from other dimensions walk those borders too?

i. The Sonoran desert is far from inhabited. Home to many cultures since Precolumbian times and to rich fauna and flora the desert has been a place of contact between Mexico and the USA, trade, immigration and also supernatural histories regularly roam the desert. Sasquatch sightings might have been registered since the Spanish chronicles and are still common in both sides of the border, legends of ghosts abound: from La Llorona, the weeping woman looking for the children she murdered, to ghost border patrols and Chinese camps haunt the cool night. The desert's clear skies might be the reason why many ufo sightings are reported from Hermosillo, a mexican hotspot of ufos to the alien lights that supposedly were seen over Phoenix.

ii. A sacred lake from where the mythical ancestors of the Incas were born and where Uros culture built their artificial islands and developped their totora boats. The lake is still central to many indigenous cultures and to inhabitants. Close to the busy border city of Desaguadero there are many legends of the lake, from a mermaid who can kill or offer riches, to underwater cities or tunnels connectings with other worlds. A large lake with seagulls and waves, 280m deep and nestled between mountains it's bottom remain unexplored but treasures have been undercovered at times my archeologists showing the rich stories and histories of the lake.

iii. The German-French border witnessed centuries of rivalry and war but also the glory of Charlemagne's Emrpire. Where Germanic encounters Frenc Romand and Celtic tradition many stories developped. Lorelei was a mermaid turned cultural icon in the XIX century and the gold of the Nibelungs might be on it's bottom. The Rhine river was also said to have been a vast sea where vessels rooms or contain lost souls. This area is at the origins of a legend commonly know in the western world: it's near the Rhine were supposedly an underground lake contains new souls that a magical dwarf fishes with a golden net and a storks delivers to new parents.

Iv. A rare tripoint or order between three countries the Mongolian-Russian-Chinese border is full of legends. From secret soviets cities that indeed existed to the ghost of Chinese merchants haunting the mongolian mountains. The Altai mountain range, home to the Altai people of Turkic origin these peaks are said by russian stories to be place of contacts between the human and supernatural world. Modern cities and trains cross the mountains where petroglyphs tells stories about ancient herding traditions and shamans.