burst&decay

My name is gray, and I like the stars ☆ watch easy allies ☆ he/him

[memewhore]

[phantomthread2017]

Deleted scene of what followed the campfire scene in My Own Private Idaho (1991) directed by Gus Van Sant, where Mike Waters, played by River Phoenix, confesses his love for his best friend Scott Favor, played by Keanu Reeves. The campfire scene was written entirely by River Phoenix himself, and the director Gus Van Sant confirmed it was River who wanted his character to be in love with Keanu’s character, and the scene today is considered to be the first LGBTQ+ love confession scene in cinema.

The clip above was used in My Own Private River (2012), a re-contextualized version of Van Sant’s original film, directed by James Franco as tribute to River Phoenix.

[theparistimes]

remember how the Greeks said ars longa vita brevis, art is long, life is short, and how in The Secret History the kids toast to an eternal life with Julian, and how we try to make our lives into something more meaningful and lasting through the having of children and the having of grandchildren so our time on earth does not feel like a total waste of time, and how my professor asked us to name our grandparents and greatgrandparents and how no one could, and how the artist in us want to mould our art to reflect ourselves so that we too can have the eternal life, and how no matter what you do or try there will never be an eternal life because fame will always have an ephemeral nature and things will always perish, but also how art can be rediscovered and transport the feelings of one person to another without losing any of its significance, and how I am now sobbing because art is long but life is so very short.

[inkwell-attitude]

all the tips I found for drawing a fantasy map are like :) “here’s a strategy to draw the land masses! here’s how to plot islands!” :) and that’s wonderful and I love them all but ??? how? do y'all decide where to put cities/mountains/forests/towns I have my map and my land but I’m throwing darts to decide where the Main Citadel where the Action Takes Place is

[fatal-blow]

okay so i know i said most of this in the replies but it might be easier to actually reblog and say stuff instead lmao

Cities - go near water!  freshwater lakes and rivers (rivers especially) are the best places for cities because A) source of water and B) travel and trade is much easier cus you can put your boats like right there.  Basically ever relevant city ever was built on a lake or a river.

for rivers in general - because gravity, rivers run from mountains (forming from melting snow and ice (this is why they get fat in spring–more stuff melting)) to lakes/ocean where they can empty out (and even lakes will have rivers leading out that eventually get to the ocean), which can help when mapping out where those start and end.  rivers are also much thinner and faster in steeper elevations and very slow and wide when the land is flat

mountains - i like to think of what the tectonic plates look like because that’s what makes mountains!  mountains are also never standalone they’re always in mountain ranges (archipelagos are really just underwater mountain ranges babey).  a cool trick I like to do is occasionally separate mountain ranges across continents, because over time the tectonic plates shifted and literally split the range in half.  These mountains are really old tho so they’ve eroded and therefore it makes them smaller and rounder (like the appalachians) as opposed to relatively young mountain ranges like the rocky mountains which have taller and sharper peaks

Another mountain trick: if your mountains run along the ocean, the ocean side of the mountains will get a LOT of rain while the other side will be very dry–almost desert-like, in fact.  think of temperate rainforests in British Columbia vs the drier conditions in the canadian prairies

forests - depends on how warm the area might be.  coniferous forests are found further north (before you hit the tree line, and then it’s only tundra onwards) but as you head south you get leafier trees, and the leaves tend to get larger too

If you think about general elevation too, you’ll have places that might be swampy (wet + lower).  if your world has an ice age like we did, then glaciers may have carved the land, leaving piles of soil in the south that was left when the ice receded and places where the bedrock has been bared north of that (like the Canadian Shield in Canada–the reason we see that is because of the glaciers)

You might also have a land that’s dotted in a shitton of freshwater lakes as well because the meltwater filled the holes that the glaciers scraped out (this is why canada has so many goddamn lakes)

and if the ice age was more recent than it was in our world, then you might not even have the forest re-growth and it could be a lot of open plains

tl;dr i like to think of major climate events that might have also shaped the land on top of some basic rules

[possiblypedanticrpgideas]

The Artifexian has an entire series on building your world from literally the stars down and then the ground up.

Worldbuilding Videos - YouTube

All my worldbuilding videos

Though, for fantasy, you can make the world operate on entirely different principles:

With that done, the actual topic of city placement can be covered by videos like this:

Or

Once you have your places, if you want help naming them in realistic ways, this video can help:

This one is on architecture, which is definitely a subset of cities:

But for a more relevant practical guide on making settlements realistic:

Here’s a quick guide for making demographics:

[inkwell-attitude]

holy shit?

[exai]

[ceechow]

After three months of labor-conducive love, my silkscreen book is complete! 

Based off of the video game ANATOMY, it tells the story of what it really means to live in a haunted house

This game has some of the best writing and one of the most original ideas I’ve seen in a while, so please, take a look!

[no-longer-another-bondi-blonde]

In 1990, the high school dropout rate for Dolly Parton's hometown of Sevierville Tennessee was at 34% (Research shows that most kids make up their minds in fifth/sixth grade not to graduate). That year, all fifth and sixth graders from Sevierville were invited by Parton to attend an assembly at Dollywood. They were asked to pick a buddy, and if both students completed high school, Dolly Parton would personally hand them each a $500 check on their graduation day. As a result, the dropout rate for those classes fell to 6%, and has generally retained that average to this day.

Shortly after the success of The Buddy Program, Parton learned in dealing with teachers from the school district that problems in education often begin during first grade when kids are at different developmental levels. That year The Dollywood Foundation paid the salaries for additional teachers assistants in every first grade class for the next 2 years, under the agreement that if the program worked, the school system would effectively adopt and fund the program after the trial period.

During the same period, Parton founded the Imagination Library in 1995: The idea being that children from her rural hometown and low-income families often start school at a disadvantage and as a result, will be unfairly compared to their peers for the rest of their lives, effectively encouraging them not to pursue higher education. The objective of the Imagination library was that every child in Sevier County would receive one book, every month, mailed and addressed to the child, from the day they were born until the day they started kindergarten, 100% free of charge. What began as a hometown initiative now serves children in all 50 states, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, mailing thousands of free books to children around the world monthly.

On March 1, 2018 Parton donated her 100 millionth book at the Library of Congress: a copy of "Coat of Many Colors" dedicated to her father, who never learned to read or write.

[iwt-v]

“Black Sails is best at the kind of love that doesn’t involve character spelling it out. Gestures always speak louder than words: Vane beheading Ned Low; Jack being uncharacteristically brutal slaying Redcoats as Anne lay bleeding on the floor; Max and Anne holding hands in the snow. Idelle slicing bread for Anne; Jack blowing up the fort he’d spent ages rebuilding in Season 3 so that Charles could escape. Just like these actions, Flint shooting Dooley is an act of love.”

–Lauren Sarner

[anthropologyofwater-deactivated]

Frank O'Hara, Morning / Mikko Harvey, For M / Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life / Lorde, 400 Lux

[neovenoms]

ethan hawke and robert sean leonard in dead poets society (1989) / eleanor and park by rainbow rowell / an oresteia, euripidies (trans. anne carson) / two by sleeping at last / jenny slate / guardian by alex london / the goldfinch by donna tartt

[luxatoid-deactivated20200723]

chipped

[abreathofatmosphere]

Man, this is such a perfect analogy. “Chipped”… Just damaged enough for it to show at times, but not nearly broken enough to warrant fixing. And so often does the chipped cup turn itself to show its undamaged side.

[selfcare-journey]

Even if you are only “chipped” you deserve help. It took me a lot of time to convince my first therapist I needed pharmaceutical help. But I did, my parents called in to offer an opinion and more family history. They ended up recommending me for a psychiatrist. I know that can seem daunting and effort is so precious in those dark places, but it’s worth it to continue to push through. Push for your health and what you need.

[valarhalla]

I remembered once, in Japan, having been to see the Gold Pavilion Temple in Kyoto and being mildly surprised at quite how well it had weathered the passage of time since it was first built in the fourteenth century. I was told it hadn’t weathered well at all, and had in fact been burnt to the ground twice in this century. “So it isn’t the original building?” I had asked my Japanese guide. “But yes, of course it is,” he insisted, rather surprised at my question. “But it’s been burnt down?” “Yes.” “Twice?” “Many times.” “And rebuilt.” “Of course. It is an important and historic building.” “With completely new materials.” “But of course. It was burnt down.” “So how can it be the same building?” “It is always the same building.” I had to admit to myself that this was in fact a perfectly rational point of view, it merely started from an unexpected premise. The idea of the building, the intention of it, its design, are all immutable and are the essence of the building. The intention of the original builders is what survived. The wood of which the design is constructed decays and is replaced when necessary. To be overly concerned with the original materials, which are merely sentimental souvenirs of the past, is to fail to see the living building itself.

Douglas Adams (via valarhalla)

[this-onegoes]

- Blythe Baird

[gingerhaze]

a comic I didn’t quite know how to make about love and hope at the end of the world

[dnd-one-shots]

Have the party start in a tavern

Have the party start in the tavern, which is in fact a giant mimic they had just been devoured by moments before and must escape before they are all digested.

Have the party start in tavern, but its a themed tavern; the theme being ‘a tavern you would find in the mortal realm’.  Clearly visible from the windows is not the mortal realm.

Have the party start in a tavern, as it is where the X on their treasure map lies.  Somewhere within is 20,000 gold worth in stolen jewels.

Have the party start in a tavern with a famed magic mirror on the wall that shows the room 5 minutes in the future .  Eventually a party member looks over and sees them-self being murdered by assassins.  The party now has 5 minutes to prepare in order to change their fate.

Have the party start in a tavern.  The lights go out and when they come back on the baroness is dead.  One of the party members is a murderer..  

Have the party start in a, tavern, which is currently on fire.  The fire is wielding great-swords.  Roll initiative.

Have the party start in a tavern.  They were born here, grew up here, and the tavern is all they know.  Today, the front door opens for the first time.

Have the party start in a tavern.  It was the only thing that survived the great flood and is now floating on the surface of a vast ocean.

Have the party start in a tavern.  On the wall is a portrait of one of the taverns founders, one who looks suspiciously like one the party members; the founder was rumored to be an immortal vampire who disappeared long ago.  The serving staff grow suspicious of the party, and try to dispose of them in the night by an angry mob.  

Have the party start in a tavern.  It is a surprise birthday party for one the party members.  Orcs jump out of the cake.

Have the party start in a tavern.  They own and operate the tavern (bartender, cook, etc).  The low level adventuring party that promised to rid the rats out of the cellar come running up the stairs, dropping their adventuring equipment in panic as they flee screaming into the streets.  Something very not-rat comes skittering up the stairs towards them.

[terezi]

@the-tropical-son

[spoolesofthread]

so i’ve been reading mary oliver poems again

[blueberry-pie-moved]

i’m a body in a lake and i need to be pulled out and dressed in warm clothes again

[blueberry-pie-moved]

(Richard Siken)