#also i think i should just move the continents closer to the equator and make the poles larger maybe?

[frecht]

i need to give this map of mine the mercator treatment

[bethhxrmon]

passed down like folksongs, chapter thirteen- steve x reader

[gif credit to @flyingrichardgrayson​]

chapter thirteen- i didn’t know if you’d care if i came back

series summary: Living in Hawkins was never easy for anyone. However, it becomes ten times more difficult than usual when you catch feelings for one Steve Harrington. What should be a simple schoolgirl crush ends up being complicated by your step-brother, Tommy Hagan, and the mysterious goings on in the town of Hawkins. [masterlist]

pairing: steve harrington x female! hagan! reader

chapter summary: The summer of ‘85 takes a turn for the worst when Steve helps investigate a Russian Base within the mall. Though, it does leave him realizing a thing or two about his own feelings.

warnings: swearing, ANGST, season 3 shenanigans

word count: 2.5k

a/n: Sooo this is mostly a Steve-centric chapter, really hope that y’all enjoy and that this goes in the steeb tag because it’s the main way that I get more readers. Though, reblogs also help a lot!!

~*~*~*~

The only major thing left in Steve’s high school career after prom was graduation. Somehow, he managed to get through it. If he was being honest, he firmly believed that you were the main reason he got through that last month of school. You would have insisted that he was the one who pulled it off. If anything, you were just the person who helped him get ready for his finals.

No, he wasn’t going off to college like Tommy was, but he made it out of high school. Steve wasn’t sure what he would have done if he flunked. At least he didn’t have to wonder about that anymore. Instead, he had to get on with the rest of his life. Whatever that was supposed to entail

College was out of the question for the next year. He got a job at Scoops Ahoy in the new mall, but after even the first day of slinging ice cream, he knew that he wanted nothing to do with that. It was advantageous to the kids since they used his position to get to the movies for free, but it didn’t have much for him. Not unless he moved up, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be anything more than where he was at. Otherwise, that kind of implied he was going to be stuck there for a long time.

There were two pastimes that Steve didn’t mind so much. One was flirting with girls so Robin could have some kind of entertainment, and the other was talking to you whenever you showed up to the mall. Funnily enough, that was rather often.

You didn’t get a summer job, and that meant you spent most of the season bored. All you could do was either garden or go to the mall. Especially since Steve was working so often. Though, you were sure it would feel like a normal amount once you were busy with school for most of the day again.

For reasons you couldn’t quite explain, you knew that you were glad that Steve was going to be in Hawkins for just a while longer. It meant you didn’t lose your closest friend. Though, Robin would regularly tease the two of you whenever you stuck around to chat. It was nice getting to hang out with her too.

While there was still a glimmer of what you once felt for Steve two years ago, you were content with the way things were. You liked hanging out with Steve after he got done with work. Nothing was ever going to happen and you finally made peace with that. If anything, you dared Steve to ask out and flirt with his customers. Mostly because he always struck out and it was hilarious.

There was still a part of you that wanted Steve to say things like that to you again, but maybe it was for the best that nothing happened. The friendship you both had was so good.

One summer afternoon you found yourself in Scoops Ahoy and Steve was at the counter like he normally was. He always gave you a discount if he didn’t just let you take the ice cream. 

“Hey, I’m gonna have to raincheck on hanging out tonight,” he said as you stood at the counter, “My parents are having some family over and they wanted to see me since they didn’t make it to my graduation.”

You frowned a bit and then nodded, “Okay, well, then you have fun with that. Oh! Speaking of family shit, there’s gonna be a Fourth of July party at my house. Would you wanna come?”

“Depends on if we sneak off to go to that carnival,” Steve replied.

You grinned, “Obviously, I need a buddy to sneak off with, though, so what do you say?”

“I’ll be there,” he said.

Steve hated lying to you and what he hated even more was how easily it slipped out of his mouth. Once again, there was something he just couldn’t tell you. Even though you were probably someone who would want to help with sneaking into a Russian Base, he knew Dustin would have a cow if anyone else knew what was going on. Regardless of the fact that Steve knew he could trust you with his life.

Though, it wasn’t like getting into the base would be anything that could possibly take the literal days before the fourth. You’d never know what happened and it would be fine. He really wished he could tell you everything, though.

Having Robin right there with him as they snuck into the storage space with the kids was nice, but he really couldn’t help but imagine that you were there with him. It was an emotion that was only multiplied at the realization he was far too deep into this ordeal.

Getting stuck at the bottom of a Russian elevator with no hope of getting back up wasn’t something he put into the equation. Though, a part of him was glad he didn’t tell you anything because the less people having to experience this, the better. And maybe he would tell you about it this time around. This whole thing with the Russians wasn’t like everything else with the government. He could talk to you about this. Although, he was sure that you would have a hard time believing him.

Still, he knew that thinking about telling you all this stuff was more and more of a stretch in the first place. Mainly because that involved getting out of the elevator without dying. If some Russians spotted them, he knew for a fact that they were done for.

That night in the elevator was easily one of the worst nights ever. The only relief was that Robin was there to try and talk with him about the situation. A situation that had no solution.

“Do you think we could end up getting ourselves killed?” Robin asked in a low voice just in case Dustin or Erica happened to be awake.

Steve shook his head, “Nah, we’ll get out of this. It’ll be okay.”

Though, now that Robin mentioned it, the more he couldn’t help but wish that he told you everything. How he truly felt about you and what happened to him in all that time. You deserved to know.

Then he realized another reason as to why he had to get out of this okay. If he died, you wouldn’t have anyone who you were nearly as close to. No, you wouldn’t be as isolated as you had been after Barb died, but he knew it would hurt you. He knew  what you were like when you lost someone you were so close to. And worse, if everyone just said he disappeared? You would go looking and you would probably never stop.

He had to get out at any cost. If not for himself and the kids and Robin, then for you at the very least. Not even to tell you everything in his head, but just so you wouldn’t have to be alone. So you could have someone to go to that silly carnival with. There wasn’t any other option.

The main priority was to stick together and find a key to get out and use the elevator. Then, they were home free and could do whatever they decided to do. Maybe telling someone like Hopper was a good place to start, but he didn’t want to get ahead of himself. Getting out was the goal.

For the first bit of it, Steve had a cautious optimism about the whole situation. They didn’t get caught in the elevator. If they could just keep up that same trajectory, surely they would be able to get out. Then, they would be home free and there would be nothing to worry about. He would feel silly for even thinking that it was possible he wouldn’t make it out. It was silly. After everything he had been through already, this was almost nothing.

While a Russian Base as a concept was petrifyingly scary, it wasn’t anywhere near as awful as those tunnels. The base was going to be filled with people, and while they could cause a lot of harm, it wasn’t nearly as much of a death sentence as a hoard of man-eating monsters. Besides, if worse came to worse, he just wouldn’t lose the next fight he got stuck in the middle of.

Steve wasn’t sure how well sneaking around would continue to work as they got closer to where all the Russians were. The only Russian any of them knew was what was on that code, but if someone asked him to repeat it, he wouldn’t have been able to.

Still, they made it all the way in what had to be the comms room. Or something like that, Steve wasn’t sure what any of the rooms in this place could be called. Not that it mattered because they were all face-to-face with a Russian. He couldn't figure out who was more surprised to see who. Probably the Russian who was starting to pull out his gun.

Well, he promised himself he would win the next fight he was in. So naturally, Steve started off by screaming at the guy. Then, he just went for it. His heartbeat was through the roof and he hardly recognized just what he was doing as he punched the guy and tackled him. He barely realized he smacked the guy with the phone until Dustin’s voice kicked in.

“Dude, you just won a fight!” Dustin exclaimed.

They needed that key, but Robin seemed to be focused on something at the top of a staircase. Steve and Dustin went up to see what was there. He felt his heart sink to his stomach when he realized just what they were looking at.

Both of them specifically agreed that it couldn’t be this again. Yet there it was staring them in the face. Why in the world would the Russians want anything to do with the Upside Down? It was only going to get everyone killed. Now they had more of a problem on their hands than ever before.

He had to tell you, though. That was the important thing. The last thing he wanted to do was continue lying to you for the rest of his life. Though, that would have to wait as Erica noted that the Russian had left the room.

Almost on cue, more Russians came in. This wasn’t a fight he was going to be able to win. Not when all he had was himself. He wished that he had thought to bring his stupid bat. Instead, he thought fast and moved to get the kids in front of him. If anyone needed to get out, it was them.

As for Robin and himself? Well, he wasn’t too sure about getting out now.

It wasn’t that Steve gave up all hope, but he knew that he couldn’t count on anyone saving him as soon as he got taken by the Russians. All he had with him was Robin, though he supposed being alone would have been worse. He was pretty glad he didn’t tell you about any of this, though.

That was the only thing that kept him sane as he was punched across the face by one of the Russians. It didn’t matter what he said. He told a half-truth. Sure, he sort of knew what he was getting himself into, but he wasn’t involved with the US government. If he were, then he probably would’ve gone about this in a smarter way. Probably.

All that mattered to him was that Robin was okay. As long as there was no mention of Dustin and Erica, he was sure that was a good sign. Robin was still very much alive. There had to be some way to ensure they got out, but Steve had no idea.

Sure, the implied plan was for the kids to get out and get help, but he wasn’t sure how that was going to work. Although, it didn’t take long for any feelings of concern to subside. Whatever drugs the Russians had up their sleeves were, he couldn’t deny just how great they felt. It was just like the times he did weed with Tommy, only it was better.

Everything went by in such a blur that Steve could hardly describe what was going on. Hell, he barely registered what he was saying by the time Dustin burst into the room. If Steve thought everything was strange before, he knew that he was about to eat his words as he was swung through the whole base.

He couldn’t remember a whole lot before the high came crashing down around him and he was vomiting in the bathroom of the movie theater. At least, that was where he was pretty sure he was.

The only reassuring thing was that he wasn’t the only one puking his guts out. There was something nice about having an actual friend next to him as all this happened. Not that you weren’t his friend, but it was different.

“Have you ever been in love before?” Robin asked.

While the question took him by surprise, what caught him even more off guard was when he talked about Nancy. And sure, he had loved her at one time, but he was starting to realize that he had been in love more than once before.

“Wait, you don’t love me, do you?” he asked.

Robin was silent until Steve slid under the stall to see her. It seemed like she was almost in a different place entirely.

She shook her head, starting to explain that she was never in love with him. Instead, when she claimed to be obsessed with him it was because he had been the object of Tammy Thompson’s affections. Someone Robin had hoped to win over somehow.

Suddenly everything made a lot more sense and he almost felt a wave of relief. Even if learning the truth about Robin was a bit surprising. So he did what he did best, made light of everything with Tammy Thompson. Which only reminded him of the girl he actually wanted to be with.

He felt his face fall, “Shit! I was supposed to go to Y/N’s party!”

“What? Steve, it’s just a party-”

“But she doesn’t wanna be there, we were supposed to go to the carnival together. And I- I don't wanna leave her alone there.”

Robin nodded slowly, “I think I was supposed to be there with the marching band… wait, Steve?”

“Hm?”

“Are you sure you don’t love Y/N?”

Steve shook his head, “What? No, o- of course not! Even if I did, I’ve screwed it up so many times there’s no way she would ever be able to love me back and I know that.”

Maybe he did love you.

“The worst she can do is say no,” Robin pointed out.

He laughed, “Nah, she’d tell me to go fuck myself and I wouldn’t blame her.”

“You didn’t just get out of a Russian Base to not take a chance with Y/N. Come on, there’s no way she comes by almost every day just because she likes the ice cream. There’s gotta be something there.”

Dustin barged into the room and Steve couldn’t quite comprehend what the kid was saying. What he could comprehend was that he needed to finish this and quickly if he was going to get to your party.

taglist: @flyingrichardgrayson​ @stonersteve​ @scooprtroopr​ @insideafictionaluniverse​ @l0ve-0f-my-life​

[themillsdaughter]

we saved a few things that were spared

you can also read this in AO3

Contrary to public believe, Kat does know how to focus on the present. She just doesn’t do it with people around.

The soft hum of the shower is what grounds her, what lets her feel the world around her. The strength of the ceramic beneath her feet, the honks of New York’s traffic coming from the window, the soap slipping through her skin, creating bubbles and sterility.

Kat likes becoming a physical being while she’s safe, while she has a plastic curtain surrounding her and warm, pressurised water pouring down. Adena had made her real with a simple smile and some well delivered words.

It’d been refreshing and terrifying.

“How many pairs of underwear do you think I should take?”

“How many times do you plan on having sex?” Sutton retorts, lying in the middle of Kat’s bed, surrounded by clothes.

“I might not have enough pairs.” She frowns and the double uhh makes her smirk.

“Standard plan, babe. One panty a day and a bra each two days.” Jane suggests. It’s a valid input, so she counts fourteen panties and throws them in her bag, grabbing a few extras for emergencies. “I still can’t believe you’re doing this.”

“Trust me, neither do I.” Kat mumbles.

She doesn’t believe it until a flight attendant is instructing people to buckle their seatbelts.

This is why a couple running towards each other became such a cliché in romances. This feeling right here, the weight and warmth and familiarity is why two people rush to clutch their significant others tightly.

Adena keeps going off in Farsi, eyes sparkling with confusion and happiness and endearment and that is the reason why she came. Why she dragged her ass bright and early and convinced her boss that she could maintain her most important duties halfway across the continent.

People are starting to stare at them, now. Curious, more than anything.

Kat is very good at Spanish, but she cannot speak Persian for shit, so she kisses the woman holding her face and stops the unknown words.

It’s fulfilling, having Adena against her.

(“How does it feel?”

“Uh empty?”)

“How long?” Adena asks in between kisses, a hand making its way up and up and up Kat’s leg.

“Fly back on,” A sigh, a soft bite on a lower lip, a moan as swift fingers hit her inner thigh. “the seventeenth.”

She’d bought the return ticket before anything else. She knew she’d consider staying forever, otherwise. She knew that with big smiles and huge eyes and that sharp tongue being near her and all around her, she knew she would not go back to the US if she wasn’t forced to.

“A vacation?”

Kat knows what Adena is referring to, knows she’s being asked how she approached Jacqueline on taking time off.

“An adventure.”

(I know that you said that you’re tired of adventure and everything, but I’ve never had one.)

A dream has her tossing and thrashing and choking on her own saliva. Kat wakes up to soothing words and soft touches.

“Breathe, my love.” Adena whispers, an arm around Kat’s shoulders as she coughs. “Breathe.”

It takes her lungs a minute to settle down, not to gulp for air desperately, ineffectively.

Her heart slams against her ribs, a car speeds by outside, reminding her that this is reality.

Jane and Sutton smiling and smiling and being ripped away suddenly. Crying for Kat, begging her for help and she not moving, she not running to them and she just wanting to help, to make it alright again. And Adena, looking at her from afar, tears streaming down her cheeks, ‘home’ echoing around and Kat not fucking moving. That had all been a nightmare. Of course it had.

“It’s gone, it’s gone.”

Real Adena caresses the back of her neck, leans a chin against her shoulder when she stays seated.

Just a nightmare. Nothing more.

She doesn’t mention it when Adena convinces her to lie back down, but Kat hasn’t had a nightmare since she was twelve.

“Not even over my dead, cold-ass body.”

“ Why?”  Jane and Sutton groan together. She rolls her eyes, hears Adena chuckling a few steps away.

(it is tucked somewhere around her stomach, the fear the dream seems to have left behind.)

“I am not going anywhere near a llama.”

“But it’s a classic!” Jane whines. A child, honestly.

“Can you really experience Peru if you don’t see a llama up close?” Sutton quirks an eyebrow.

“Yes, yes you can. There’s the Larco Museum here in Lima, Machu Picchu and Moray and Sak- Saks-”

“Saksaywaman.” Adena supplies, sitting on the couch, molding herself to Kat’s side.

“Yeah, and all of those in Cusco.”

“Whatever, have fun being like every other tourist.” Sutton moves out of frame, exasperated.

Correction: children.

“At least I get to be one.”

“Hey,” Sutton reappears, mouth dropped in pretend shock. “mean. Bye.”

The call ends and she shares a look with the woman leaning into her.

Her friends are fine. Assholes as usual, but fine. Adena is not crying and this hug they have going on feels like home.

It’s fascinating, watching as slick, brown hair slowly disappears in a wrap of silk and colors. She has the details down in four days. Adena likes to wear the knot on top of her head, instead of closer to her neck and favors bold, statement patterns.

The first step is pinning the hair in place. Kat likes to fumble with the little strands left behind, too short to pull up. She only does it when they are alone, but seeing shivers running down the woman’s spine makes her happier than she can explain.

“Oh, Steve and Rachel invited us to go hiking with them.” Adena says, voice stranded due to two pins she holds with the corner of her mouth.

“The couple from down the hall?”

“Yes.” A nod, a few silent moments of concentration as the last section of hair is secured into place. In comes the underscarf and Adena turns her attention back to Kat. “Do you want to go?”

“I’m not really into cardio.”

“I’m coming to believe you’re not very much into anything .”

“Except you.” She gets a smirk for that one. “But sure, new country, new me. Sort of.”

Kat pays attention as a yellow scarf is folded and wrapped around Adena’s head. Some twists here and pulls there and they are ready to leave the Airbnb apartment.

(five thousand percent less expensive than daily fees in a hotel)

She is pretty proud of how much she endures before the breaking point.

Bugs everywhere, slippery ground and an unforgiving sun.

Kat is not a nature person. It is just not in her. She’s never had a pet, missed it only for the lack of the distraction one would have given her.

She is not a nature person, nor a cardio person.

The view is beautiful and calming and it is not the same quiet as growing up. It is peaceful and filled with white noises. So she marches on.

Nine miles. Kat hikes Peruvian lands for nine (out of fifteen) miles. When she sees the snake, however, she’s fucking done.

Granted, she was the idiot who didn’t pay attention to her surroundings properly. But a snake ? No ma’am, thank you. In no shape or form will she put on a poker face with that on the equation.

She’d sat down for a moment to drink some water and catch her breath and the only reason she’d even noticed the snake when she did had been Adena’s nervous, paralyzed form looking somewhere over her shoulder.

When Kat followed the gaze and saw the reptile, her heart had exploded inside her. It’d taken every ounce of her being not to sprint out and away on that very second. The longass animal had already been tense and somewhere, some useful part of her brain had screamed SLOW MOVEMENTS YOU DUMB FUCK and she had listened because it sounded right.

“You know, Boa Constrictors are not really venomous to humans.” Steve comments, the road wide enough for the four of them to walk side by side.

“Still scary.” She sighs, flinches when Adena lays an unannounced hand on the small of her back.

Rachel carries on talking about animals and the beauty in their complexity.

Kat has no shits to give. She is adept to fluffy, domesticable beings. Dogs, if she were to be picky.

“The magazine ran an article on NYC rescue centers a few months back. Got a huge online flux.” It’s the best she can do at small talk. “We even set up a few online crash courses for young rescues.”

“I think I saw something about it,” Steve admits. He’s an easy dude. She has no idea how Adena finds these people. “A great initiative. If more people knew about how to properly care for them, maybe there wouldn’t be so many extreme rescue cases.”

The image of a cute, furry puppy gives her enough strength to finish their journey back.

Machu Picchu is interesting. Intricate and old and vibrating with energy.

“Can you imagine? Building something so complex all those years ago?”

The abandoned city itself is enchanting. Adena’s delighted smile is even more so.

A thousand pictures are taken. She serves as a model for most of them. The tour guide takes a few portraits of Adena and her and those are her favorites.

She buys a few souvenirs. Jane and Sutton would kill her at the spot otherwise. She sits in a low, living-being free (she checks) step, taking in the antique stores as she waits for Adena to come back with their icecreams.

She tips her head back, absorbs the warmth of the sunshine. There are kids laughing and speaking a few yards away. Kat focuses on the consistent hum of the fountain to her left, feeling the stone under her butt, under her palms. The straps of her backpack at her shoulders, the foreign scents and tongue, the stiff poke and drag under her leg, the-

Wait. What the-

Her eyelids snap open.

Not another snake.

Not another snake.

For fuck’s sake, not another sn-

A cat.

A kitten, actually.

A dirty, shaking and tiny kitten hiding under her legs.

A cat under Kat.

This trip was supposed to be fun and sexy and relaxing. Why does it have to be weird, too?

The kids from down the street are coming at full speed towards her. She sees the front runner’s look and it takes her an instant to make the decision.

Kat reaches down, wraps her fingers around the ridiculously small body. The animal meows and twists and tries with all its might to run from her. As she leans it in her lap, the children surround her.

A couple of shouts in Spanish. She makes out a few keywords before a beat cop comes closer and snaps something, making the kids shut up.

“ Estamos jugando con eso. ” A boy, no taller than her waist, points at the cat in her hands.

No wonder the kitten is shaking so bad. Half a dozen humans passing it around as a toy cannot be easy.

“ El gatito no es una cosa.”  The officer doesn’t take his eyes off the kids. “ ¿De quien es?”

“ Yo lo encontré.” The front runner speaks.

“ Y la mamá?”

“ No se. No creo que tengas una.”

She sighs, takes a glance at the cat and then at the woman coming in her direction, frown in place.

Crap.

“Did we really smuggle a cat into the city?” Adena’s voice is warm and amused.

“It was either bringing it with us or giving it back to the children.”

Kat pulls her hoodie open and takes out the kitten. It starts meowing louder as soon as she touches it. She thinks it’s a girl. They are calling it Pecky, for now, because it almost sounds like pequeña and the kitty is so fucking small.

“Yes, I know.” Adena continues, sitting on their bed as Kat kneels on the ground and tries to check if their guest has any injuries. “However, it still sounds crazy.”

“I’m pretty sure this is the most wild thing I’ve ever done.”

“Well, your friends will be dying to hear of your adventures when you get home.”

She furrows her brows. Her chest gets too tight when she thinks about leaving. About only one more morning waking up to soft skin and long lashes. Kat focuses back on Pecky.

“God, she’s full of fleas. Look.” She distances some fur for a clear view at the skin and sure enough four or five little black spots rush by in a few seconds.

The crash course flashes through her mind. Access health, keep hydrated, give wet food if big enough to fill your hand.

There were no pet shops open, so the canned tuna pasta from the convenience store will have to do.

Adena runs a tentative finger under Pecky’s chin. The cat meows, but allows the touch.

“Dish soap kills fleas.” The woman mumbles, starting to pull her hijab apart.

“How do you know that?”

“I got curious about Scarlet’s article.”

Kat smiles. Pecky meows and skips away on top of their comforter.

“Wanna give her a bath, then?”

“Nice try.” Adena flops down on her belly, watching as the kitten looks intrigued at her discarded scarf.

just let me go just let me go, I just want to help them

“kat!”

it’s sutton, desperate, in the dark, needing her. she just wants to help, just wants to make things better.

“home”

adena, beautiful, alone, an unwilling nomad.

“please!”

jane, tiny, amazing, loyal, unsure, scared.

she just wants to help she just wants to take them in she just-

Kat wakes up to a skinny tail resting on top of her nose. Pecky is half asleep, still, but when Kat looks down, the pet gazes back.

“Are you okay?”

She allows the voice to wash over her, inching closer to the body behind her.

“Yeah.”

She tells herself it is not a lie.

Saving a kitty is a welcome distraction to the heartache leaving Adena gives her. The initial plan had been to get to a vet first thing in the morning, find a no-kill shelter and try to make the most of the rest of the day.

A vet is found with no problem at all, the shelter, though, is a bit trickier.

“She won’t survive.” The secretary for the place says, an indifference Kat suspects is more for his own protection than lack of empathy.

“Wanna look at her and say that again, pal?”

The guy sighs and keeps his eyes on his notepad, ringing their expenses in.

“We get over doscientos a year. Not enough money.” He extends the receipt, waits for her to sign. “Maybe you take care of it?”

“We have a flight to take.” She scribbles her name on the thin paper, slides it back to the man over the counter and he finally takes a peek at the white ball of fluff inside the carrier she’d just bought.

“There are certificates.” He gives her a kind smile. Yeap, not that indifferent after all. Realistic, perhaps.

Kat crosses gazes with Adena. She is answered with a nod.

“Do you have international ones?” She gives in, reaching her finger to tease Pecky through the plastic screen.

“Maybe I can find someone to take her.” Kat tries.

She has her folded legs leaning over Adena’s as they wait in the lobby to be called for the flight.

Cusco to Lima, Lima to the USA. She’ll only have a human companion through half the trip.

“That’s possible.”

“And, you know, she’s pretty cute without those dirt-dreadlocks.”

“She’ll get adopted in no time.” Adena runs a thumb across Kat’s knee. She tries to memorize the feeling, the exact amount of heat and the mixture of scents coming off in waves from the woman’s perfume.

Pecky lies on the triangle between their mingled bodies and the back of the airport seat, playing with a balled up piece of paper. Kat gets pinned in place by a pair of blue feline eyes. She steals the makeshift ball and holds it slightly out of reach for the kitten. It stands on its back paws in a glance, using a firm clutch on the stollen toy as support.

Feisty little thing.

“I’m really going to miss you, Adena.”

She doesn’t have the slightest idea of where that comes from. All she knows, all she feels, is a squeeze in her calf where Adena’s hand now rests and her smell and her heat and her gorgeous, expressive eyes caressing her.

Pecky starts nibbling at the handle of her purse.

Kat learns to fully appreciate classical music in under an hour and a half.

She’d never been averse to it, simply more interested in other styles, but Adena loves it and insists on not only listening to it during their flight, but in having Kat pay attention too.

The multiple instruments give off an unique sound and they get even better, if she were to be honest, since they give her the opportunity to have a lovely head tucked in her neck.

One of her hands is clasped permanently inside the woman’s both and she uses her free palm to cradle a sleeping Pecky. The cat doesn’t like to be picked up, but she sure as hell enjoys going under leaning against someone.

One melody after the other, she lets her mind waver and travel. Her passport is still empty. Her thoughts go around the world.

Kat imagines Adena’s visa magically coming through before she leaves for the US. She imagines Central Park walks and Scarlet’s gala with a plus one invite which actually gets used.

Kat imagines movie nights with the girls, her and Adena sharing the floor and a throw blanket.

She imagines domesticity and happiness and continuity.

The London Philharmonic Orchestra stops playing through her headphones and the airplane starts to descent.

“You’re going to be safe, right? You’re going to look before you take a seat and you’re not going to get too close to wild animals and you’re going to be alright, right?”

“I’m going to be fine.” Not a promise. Not what she’d asked.

Adena frames her face (exactly, fucking exactly like she’d done when Kat had arrived ) and kisses her.

They do not cry.

“Until next time, love.”

Oh, Adena. Kind and thoughtful and holding Kat’s heart just as she holds her luggage.

( attention, this is the last call for flight number 34952 leaving for New York City,United States)

Maybe she leaves a piece of herself in Peru, just as she takes a bit of it in a paw-printed carrier.

“Any puns will be paid for.”

Jane and Sutton seem confused, welcoming her into a group hug all the same.

She’s tired and sore. Pecky can’t actually pee on her own yet, which meant Kat had to make her way into the bathroom every couple of hours and use a tissue to stimulate the kitten into relieving herself.

She’s tired and she misses Adena worse than she did when she’d been too foolish and afraid and the woman had moved to Paris.

“How was the trip?”

“Did you take pictures?”

Honestly, as much as she misses Adena, she’s missed these two.

“No turbulences and, uhm, Adena is still uploading stuff to the cloud.”

“And how are you?”

Something gives her away. Maybe the girls just know her too much. Maybe her metaphorical bucket is too full and it spills and leaks everywhere. Maybe her aura is black or some other color that means rotten.

Either way, Kat receives one more embrace.

“We have cheap wine and two new TV Shows in our queue.” Tiny Jane offers.

That’s good. That’s very good. She can’t have movie nights with her best friends and the woman who holds her heart. She can, however, get blissfully drunk and indulge herself in bad rom-com plots.

“You better take me home, then.” She forces a steady smile to counteract the bitterness in her stomach. “We just need to stock up on wet cat food, first.”

“Ah, what?”

“Why?”

No one said she couldn’t get a little amusement out of this. One hand brings up the pet-holder she holds and the other points at it.

“Surprise.”

“Kat, is that a….” Sutton frowns, matching Jane.

“Cat.” She nods, glares pointedly and the pun comment downs on them.

“How was the trip?” Jacqueline doesn’t stop the treadmill, but her smile seems genuine.

“It was good. Peru is gorgeous.”

“It is. We had a photoshoot there for,” Her boss looks away, thinking, and snaps her eyes back a second later. “Fall, two-thousand four. Absolutely spectacular.”

“The culture is very interesting. The ruins live up to their fame.” Kat nods politely. She has to be very careful with her request. Not everyone gets to take a two-week long leave with no forewarning.

“Well, it’s great to have you back. In time for the children’s day picnic, no less.”

Another nod. She’ll have to double check the celebs attending and confirm their snapchat-filter order.

“Jacqueline?”

The woman starts to gradually slow her steps, gives Kat a go ahead smirk.

“Do you mind making the pet-friendly office policy count?”

“How do you mean?” Her boss stops completely.

“We were always allowed to bring our pets with us, right? But since I got here it seemed a silent rule that no one actually brought them.”

“And you want to break that rule?” Jacqueline turns to her desk, flips through a couple of concepts a fashion assistant delivers.

Dennise, Kat thinks, not surprised by the lack of knocking nor the lack of any words from the short redhead.

“With your permission.”

She only gets a hum for a moment, Jacqueline scribing a few things over a sticky note before gluing it on the glossy photographs and handing it to Dennise.

The girl (younger than Kat herself) takes the pages and scurries out.

“What is it you have?”

“A cat.”

An amused look crosses the blonde’s face. She’s thankful no comment follows.

“She’s just a baby and it’d be just until I get her adopted.” Kat continues, tries to explain because she really can’t leave Pecky alone the whole day everyday. The kitten would be terrified, not to mention destroy the apartment.

“Fine.” Jacqueline shrugs. Kat smiles. “But make sure she’s trained. God help you if she uses any of Oliver’s things as a scratching post.”

When she leaves the glass office, she and Sutton exchange a discrete air-fistbump.

To be completely straight, Kat fully intends on giving Pecky away. It is a goal of hers. It is.

It doesn’t happen on the first month because her days can be summarized into waking up, working, facetiming Adena and having a drink with the girls. She’s simply too busy to go looking for a shelter to find willing adopters.

It has nothing to do with the cat being adorable and fitting into her hand and sleeping on her chest.

The adoption also doesn’t happen on the second month because that’s when Sidney comes to work with them and develops a crush on her. She’s flattered, really, but seriously she has a picture of Adena and her in Machu Picchu as her lockscreen and she lets him see it as much as possible. He cannot take a hint and she cannot simply drop my girlfriend in their conversation, since she isn’t sure she has one.

“Have you heard anything?” Kat should know better than to ask. She doesn’t and the need for expressive eyes and soft skin is too glaring inside of her.

“Not yet.” Adena sighs, pulls the sheets up, tighter around her chest. Lying like this, in the dark and both ready to sleep, they can almost fool themselves into believing they are in the same space.

“It’s going to be alright, right?” She feels pathetic, asking for reassurance when it isn’t about her.

“Yes, Kat. It’s going to be alright.”

Pecky stops fitting inside her hand and Jane stops sending her adoption web pages by month three.

By month four, she doesn’t quite remember the smell of Adena’s perfume.

“It’s going to be alright, right?” That’s always how it goes. Every week when they hear nothing about the visa. “It’s going to be alright.”

“Yes, Kat. It’s going to be alright.”

The perfume had been rich and citric. Kat can’t place how, exactly.

Sutton gets pregnant and Sidney kisses Kat by month five. She does not kiss him back and Sutton has a miscarriage three days later, after talking to Richard and deciding to have the baby.

“What are we, Adena?”

“How do you mean?”

She knows. By the slight waver of the voice coming through her phone that Adena understood what she meant fully well.

“Are we dating? Are we waiting on each other? Are we settling?”

“I’m four thousand miles away.”

It’s not an answer, so she doesn’t accept it. She cries into her pillow and Pecky sits on the armchair at the corner of the room, staring at her.

Adena, 7:33 AM:

I’m sorry about last night, call me when you have time .

Kat washes the sleep away and then, she calls.

“It’s going to be alright, right?”

“I don’t know, Kat. I don’t know, anymore.”

Jane and Pinstripe Guy break up and Jacqueline is getting a divorce, apparently. It feels weird, to drink alongside her boss in a poorly-lit, over-crowded bar down the street from where she works. Pecky is spending the night at the vet, though, getting spayed and Jane talks and Sutton drinks and Jacqueline stays for only half an hour.

Kat wants to call Adena as soon as she gets home. She’s drunk and confused and Adena does not have a home of her own to stumble into. She doesn’t call.

“I miss you.” It is whispered through the line as if they are conspiring. Kat smiles, feels her heart squeezing and jumping and melting away.

“I miss you too.”

“Will I still have you, if I come back?”

“Yeah, Adena. I’m gonna be here.”

Everything is messy and complicated and everyone around her seems somehow unhappy.

(except for Pecky, who plays in the corner with her rolling toy-mouse. Small blessings, she supposes)

Her Thanksgiving is long and lonely, but filled with wine.

Jane had gone to see her brothers, Sutton to see her mom and Kat had insisted she’d be fine. Her friends deserved a break, deserved some moments to heal.

She calls Adena by the end of the day, perhaps a glass away from way too many.

“I really really really like you, Adena.”

“I like you too, Kat.”

“I hate having to wait to be with you.”

“I’m sorry.”

The eyes looking at her through the screen move away, to somewhere she can’t see and can’t understand and is that sadness? Are those tears? Shit. Fuck. Goddamit.

“I’m going to, though.” She tries to make it reassuring. Tries to take it back to when Adena wasn’t so clearly torn, to when it was just unneasiness.

“I know.” Adena sighs, seems guilty now and Kat watches as a hand brushes the tears away. “I just don’t know if there’s any hope in that.”

“There is. Adena,” Her voice is firmer, now. She’s still pretty drunk, but this is important. “There is hope in it. You’re going to get your visa. Or you won’t. But either way, we’re going to work through it. The magazine is always planning events in other countries and I can start going with, instead of sending others and you can flight there and we can have a thousand and four new adventures, together.”

“A thousand and four? That’s an specific number.”

“Multiply it by five hundred and twenty seven.”

“You’re learning your numbers.”

That gorgeous, warm smile comes back. Her chest squeezes and her body grows hotter.

“Yes, thank you for noticing.”

Adena nods, cleans a few tears away.

Correction: Her Thanksgiving is lonely and long, but filled with wine and drunken conclusions.

The weirdness starts about a week after the 25th. Jane and Sutton start always being too tired for movie nights or shopping sprees or drinking games.

After, Adena breaks her iphone and decides to change brands, meaning their facetime calls are off. Skype is the next best thing, but the apartment the woman is now renting doesn’t have wifi, which automatically leads to them only having calls when Adena is in a café or some other public establishment.

A few days later, the girls start talking about spending New Year’s together in a little cottage in Jersey. She is down for whatever they plan on, but a cottage ? That is too out of the blue and too damn cold for this time of the year, even for Tiny Jane and her love for the wilderness.

Christmas comes and with it her parents traveling to visit. They’d always do the opposite, she’d catch a plane or a bus home and spend a couple of days there and Pecky and the cottage are the only reasons she doesn’t do exactly that. It’d be too much stress for the cat, to go through a five hour drive, get used to a new, foreign place just to come back a few days later and having to move yet again once she and the girls went to New Jersey.

So her parents come to her. They are sweet and her dad lets the pet sleep on his lap. Everything is a touch quieter. It twists her stomach, but it is good to have mom and pop with a New York drop scene.

They ask her about Adena, about Peru and if it was worth it.

“You know how I always wanted change in my life?”

Her parents nod, the nagging feeling she’s one of their patients can’t quite take away from the moment.

“I have that, with her. An exciting and really healing sort of change, you know?”

They smile. Her mom reminds her that the honeymoon phase eventually goes away and she should be sure they have a good foundation for when it does.

Kat doesn’t snap back. Maybe her mother is right. She just doesn’t want to live her life like a lab experiment or a sociology paper.

They go to the infamous cottage on December 28.  It’s a decent thing.

She’s got dibs on the bedroom with the view, since the ledge is perfectly sized for Pecky to watch the birds outside and has a little nook for the cat to sleep in as well.

The girls insisted on sharing the other bedroom, which leaves her feeling slightly left out.

“How long ‘til you start plotting to kill me, hm?” Kat runs her fingers behind the Pecky’s ear.

Blue eyes focus on a mosquito, flying around the room, and in a blink, her pet also abandons her.

She has no idea how they get service in the middle of the woods, but Sutton keeps checking her phone so much that she , Kat Edison, Social Media Director, has to threaten taking it away from her.

Jane backs Sutton up, tells Kat that there’s this important fashion thingy happening in Marrocos. She shrugs and goes back to brushing her hair. This place does have a very cozy tub, she’ll give them that much.

Kat really loses it, however, when Sutton claims to have forgotten the ingredients for the s'mores and rushes out in the middle of the day to get it. She really loses it when it is dinnertime and the blonde is still not back and Jane acts as if there’s nothing wrong.

“What the hell is going on with you two? Did I do something? Because there’s been this thing between us for a while and I somehow can’t be a part of it and it is freaking me out.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“For real? You don’t think I notice when you two stop talking as soon as I walk in? Or how you both are always too tired to hang out, but you both are also always online at two PM on that same day?”

“Kat, I don’t know what to tell you.”

Jane doesn’t deny it, then.

It hurts and it stings and she hasn’t talked to Adena since the day they came to this place and it is already the 30th.

She sits on the couch, back to the door, and she sulks. She’s allowed to. She will not cry out of frustration, but the trip is pretty much ruined for her and Sutton has disappeared with the only car they have.

Jane tries to make small talk, as if everything is perfect. Kat sends her glares and makes some supper.

(enough for the three of them, which makes her madder because she should let them fend for themselves if the two are such exclusive best friends now)

She is working, actually working on her holiday when she hears the cabin door opening. Her anger climbs back up and

“Oh, did you go make the chocolate from scratch or-”

Adena is standing there when she turns around. Adena with a bright blue hijab and soft grey sweater and old jeans and boots and Adena Adena Adena . Beaming at Kat. Being beautiful and glorious and present.

(she is totally not exaggerating when she thinks her heart actually stops)

“Adena.”

She lets it past her lips and it wakes her up. The most gorgeous human being she’s ever known is finally breathing the same air as her and she’s frozen five feet away.

Saying the name gets her into motion, gets her into the warm and strong and secure arms in a second, wrapped in the smell of citrus fruits and airplane.

“Your visa?” Kat whispers it against soft skin.

“It came through.”

“And- When-” She pulls away, meets those wonderful brown eyes.

“The girls helped speed things up with the legal department.”

“Incite has a lot of experience with it, surprisingly.”

Jane. Jane is speaking somewhere to their right. Kat had been stupid and mistrustful.

She looks at her friends, at their smiles. Looks at Tiny Jane, with a little smirk and Sutton, leaning against the now closed cabin door. She looks at Adena, an inch away from her.

“I love you guys.” She makes sure Sutton and Jane understand. They nod, love you too

Kat feels a warm body brushing against her leg.

“Pecky, were you in this too?”

The feline meows back at her, continuing to rub against them.

“I knew you were up to something.”

Another meow. She laughs. And buries her face against Adena’s neck.

(“But, you know, for me, I could just never get past this .”

“Well, for me, it’s never just been about this. It’s, uh, it’s more about this .” )

Adena lies her head against Kat’s shoulder, a hand on her ribs and hair muffling her nose.

It is bliss. The afterglow isn’t too bad, either, but the stillness of everything, the notion that they are not on borrowed time, is heavenly.

“I can’t believe it’s over.” Adena sighs and Kat hums in agreement. The body she holds against her own starts shaking. Her eyes pinch and she smiles. Smiles wide and big and pulls Adena closer, because she can . Because Adena is there and now they have thousands and thousands of possibilities.

“It’s over.” She smiles and she cries, but for the first time since Sutton miscarried, she lets out happy tears.

“I have something for you.” Adena leans over her, over the end of the bed and into the suit bag she’d brought with her. “Even though Islam doesn’t have a holy day similar to Christmas, I know it is a big part of your culture. So I got you this.”

Kat takes the wrapped box, doesn’t know if she should tear it open or kiss the woman first. She decides on the kiss.

“You didn’t have to.”

“I know. But I thought of you when I saw it.”

She smirks, her insides turning. This is happiness, this is a little taste of bliss in the middle of disaster.

Kat pulls away the bow tightened around the box, pulls up the lid and lets her mouth hang open for a moment.

A stuffed llama. A stuffed llama glares at her with black-bead eyes.

Adena starts chuckling, a hand covering her lips.

“At least this one doesn’t spit.” She shrugs. Adena laughs harder.

It’s a cute toy and it has a meaning behind it and is this their first inside joke?

“There’s something else.” Adena manages, calming down, smile in place.

She shuffles the flow of white tissue paper around and something black catches her attention. Another box, she notes, as she pulls it out. A jewelry box, at that.

Kat opens it slowly, runs a fingertip over the details of the piece.

“I thought you would wear it a bit more than a necklace.”

“Adena, this is beautiful.”

A wide oval shape. The stone in the background is of a stained and cracked red. A man’s face, in true Peruvian style, embossed front and center in the same silver which makes the structure of the rest of the ring.

A few outfits it’d go great with pop in her mind, get filed away into a corner.

“Thank you.” She sighs, frames Adena’s jaw with one of her hands. Kat leans in, drops a kiss on the corner of the woman’s mouth.

“I’m happy you like it.”

“I love it. I love both of them.”

She makes a point of bringing the stuffed animal further into her lap. It’ll be a full day, once Jane sees it, but it is from Adena . Thoughtful and sweet and teasing Adena, so Kat loves it, no doubt about it.

“How are we messing this up?” Sutton steps away from the stove, frustrated and glaring at the steaming and way too liquid mixture on the pan.

“Told you we should had just ordered it along with the turkey.”

“Kat, we’re not kids, we should be able to handle a simple dressing.”

Uh-uh, irritated Sutton is bad and can very quickly turn into Lash-out Sutton. Kat backs away into the other corner of the (small) kitchen.

“I can make a run to the store if you want.” Jane pops her head in.

“Didn’t you have an article to finish?” Sutton sighs, turning off the stove and throwing the napkin on the sink.

“Just finished it.” Jane steps into the room completely. “So I can go, if you want me to.”

“Nah, the stores are probably closed already, anyway.” Sutton scratches her neck, moves to start washing the cutlery she used on the recipe.

Kat exchanges a look with the other brunette, agreeing on leaving the situation be. It’s not about the dressing as it is about Richard’s call earlier in the day. Their friend will let it out when she feels ready, they just have to wait and tread carefully.

They take to the living room, checking if the few decorations they brought along are sticking.

“Pecky!” Kat stomps her foot and her pet runs a few feet away, tail straight up. “What were you doing?”

She inspects the ripped pieces of paper on the floor, getting on to collecting them.

“I swear to God, everything was in place a second ago.” Jane tries hanging the New Year’s sign back on the wall.

“Yeah, she’s fast. Knows when she’s doing something she isn’t supposed to.” She sighs, standing up with the torn cardboard flag in hand. “Yes, we’re talking about you.” Kat snaps when she notices Pecky lurking closer.

The feline takes the words as forgiveness, however, and trots over to her, rubbing against her calf as usual.

There’s something unique, about keeping a pet. Something inevitable on falling to their charms now and again.

She’d taken this cat, tiny and sick and scared senseless and now she is healthy and the right amount of fluffy, secure enough to run around and play and think everything is okay despite it all.

Kat is aware it is her logic that has her adoration for the animal swimming up, letting her scratch Pecky’s back. She knows, and she doesn’t care. Peru gave her beautiful sights, a face-to-face she hopes never to have again and it also gave her the little purring hurricane she pulls closer.

Kat looks up to see Adena, newly showered, stepping out of their bedroom at the same time a crash comes from the kitchen, followed by a few curse words.

“Ah, did I miss something?” Adena lifts an eyebrow.

A bliss in the midst of chaos, alright.

“Happy new year!” Jane pulls at the party popper’s string, smile wide and eyes glossy from the booze they’d been sipping away at for the past four hours.

She laughs and sees as a ball of moving fur ends up behind the bookcase.

“Good luck getting her from back there.” Kat gives her friend a thumbs up, not really worried about Pecky. The fireworks they hear in the distance would be worse, had they stayed in the city.

Jane groans.

“Happy new year.” Kat sighs, feeling Adena’s arm squeeze tighter around her waist.

“Happy new year.” Adena mumbles, lips against Kat’s hair. “May many more come our way.”

“I’m so glad you are celebrating it with us.”

“The rebirth of a year is worth celebrating, no matter in which calendar.”

She smirks, turns her head enough to peck the woman’s lips. As she turns back, she sees Jane coercing Pecky out of her hiding with the mouse toy the cat loves. By the brunette’s side is Sutton, her beautiful and healing friend, in desperate need of a new beginning.

Kat moves out of Adena’s hold, pulls Sutton into a hug. Strong and firm. “I love you, babe.”

“Love you too.”

“I can’t say this year will be better, but at least the last one is officially over.”

Sutton nods, wipes away a tear from her cheek.

“Thank God.”

“And tequila!” Jane squeals, sitting on the ground, waving the mouse around for Pecky.

“And tequila.” She and Sutton resonate. A weird analogy, but a true one, nonetheless.

However Adena manages to go through the emotional rollercoaster from hell they experienced without getting hammered here and now is an honest mystery to Kat.

It also makes her admire the woman a tad more.

(if that’s even possible)

She kinda hates her mom, a little bit, for being right. The honeymoon phase does pass. It passes quite quickly, to be honest.

Adena does not condone pets sleeping in the same bed as their owners. Kat loves lazy weekends and Adena seems to think New York has new mysteries to be uncovered every day, specially when it is extra early.

Adena gets moody when she thinks she hasn’t captured a good piece during a photoshoot and Kat does not always have the time nor the patience to explain why, when the girls text ‘ alcohol emergency’ , she has to scurry away, no matter what.

It is hard and they fight. It is hard and it is real and she can’t recall the last relationship she had where she didn’t feel the need to break things off at least twice a week.

But it is real and her heart skips a beat every time she sees Adena chewing on her bottom lip, trying to pass a hard phase on Candy Crush (in Kat’s phone because Adena doesn’t need shallow distractions) .

It is the most real she’s ever felt and it honestly amazes her, how fucking safe it is.

Oh, and having a beautiful woman playing and running around her apartment with her cat is not bad, either.

It is one of the hardest things she faces, being real and letting someone watch it happen , but it is one of her biggest accomplishments.

[emrowene]

The Definitive Guide to Designing Fantasy Maps

There's nothing like cracking open a fantasy book to find a map on the inside cover. It's like a promise: a promise of a new world to explore, a new story to love, a new escape to lose yourself in. Maps can help readers by providing content, establishing aesthetic, and clarifying confusion. Maps can help readers keep track of storylines and characters, particularly when they're off in different places doing different things all at once. Maps can be helpful to us writers for the same reason. They can help us keep track of the threads of our story, or dive deeper into the worlds we've created. Designing the physical aspects of a world, however, can be intimidating. Hopefully, this guide will help.

First off, if you want to skip all this artistic design nonsense, this Fantasy Map Generator might be of use to you. This generator lets you do a little customization, but otherwise basically designs your map for you.

For those of you who are feeling a little more adventurous, or who want to create a world that is entirely your own, read on. But first, a few disclaimers. This guide isn’t about how to put pen on paper and draw a map. If that’s what you’re looking for, This Guide or This Guide may help. Instead, this guide is going to be a brief overview of the cartography and geology needed to create a believable world. That being said, this guide is not going to cover every topic. It’s also an extreme oversimplification, which means that there will be some generalizations. Your map doesn’t have to be perfect, just good enough to keep someone from looking at it and thinking, “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Finally, I’m not going to do your research for you. If your world is unique in ways that may alter the climate or geography (two suns, a ring of active volcanoes, etc.), that’s research that you’ll have to do on your own (though, at the end of the guide, I’ll provide you with some resources that may help).

Basics of a Map

Legend - a guide, usually tucked into a corner, telling you what symbols on a map mean. Maybe human cities are denoted with a square while elven cities are a diamond (looking at you, Paolini). Maybe mountains housing dragons are represented differently than regular mountains. You want to clarify any questions readers may have about the map.

Title - the name of your land, your world, whatever it is.

Orientation and Compass - Most maps include a compass with north pointing toward the top of the page

Scale - This is if you want to get really serious with your map. Including a scale (a ratio allowing you to shrink the map to a reasonable size, like 1 inch = 1 mile or the like) can help you keep travel times consistent, because nothing is more frustrating than a fantasy book where the characters spend a whole month traveling from point A to point B, then make it from B back to A in three days. Here's a good article about fantasy travel.

Climates

This isn't directly related to the act of mapmaking, but it's important to keep in mind when designing a world. The major influences on climate are: lattitude, winds, oceans, land-sea distributions, and mountains. Most important of these it latitude: the further you are from the equator, the colder it gets. That's only the beginning, though. Climates from region to region have a lot to do with wind circulation; generally, north of the equator, prevailing winds (which carry moist air from ocean regions inland) move in a clockwise direction. South of the equator, they move counter-clockwise. When these winds meet in the middle at the equator, the air rises. When it coos, it forms clouds and rain, which is why you tend to find tropical conditions closer to the equator.

How do you apply this to fantasy mapmaking? Don't sprinkle various climates around randomly. The first fantasy map I made, in high school, had a desert far north with the tundra, a rainforest not far west of it, and a continental climate much like the American midwest down closer to the equator. Make sure that what you're doing makes sense geographically. (On that note, transition gently. Don't make a desert go straight into a forest, or a marsh straight into rolling plains).

For more information on biomes and regional climates, check out This Guide.

The Ocean's Effects on Climate: (not exhaustive, just simplified) Strong ocean currents sometimes redistribute warmth to places located at higher latitudes. For example, the Gulf Stream begins at the Gulf of Mexico and deposits warm water around the UK, giving the UK milder winters.

Land-Sea Distribution's Effect on Climate: Coastal regions generally experience mild, humid maritime climates (cool summers and mild winters), while the interior regions of large landmasses tend to experience continental climates (seasonal temperature varies widely and there's little precipitation).

Mountains' Effects on Climate: Locally, mountains cause air to rise and precipitation to form, meaning climates directly around mountains tend to be wetter than surrounding areas. Overall, mountains redirect air flow. In fact, one of the main causes of deserts are mountains. A "rain shadow desert" occurs when prevailing rain-bearing clouds are blocked from carrying rain to a region because of mountains (see: the southwest corner of the United States).

That's all I have room for in this guide, but if you want to delve deeper into the world of climate-making, I recommend you check out Geoff's Climate Cookbook, which was specifically written to help writers create climates for their fictional worlds. Actually, just see his entire General Guide. It's better and more detailed than any guide I could ever write.

Land Masses and Tectonic Plates

I'm mostly going to skip over tectonic plates. Unless you're N.K. Jemisin and you're writing about Broken Earth, you don't need to know where your tectonic plates are located. Just remember that if you're designing a world with multiple continents, they should roughly fit together due to continental drift. Also know that tectonic plates move 3 ways: side to side (which causes earthquakes), shifting away from each other (which causes continental drift), and pushing towards each other (which causes volcanic activity and/or the creation of mountains).

With mountains, new mountains come up in the center, pushing older mountains further out. This is why there are usually "foothills" to mountains-- the older mountains get weathered and worn down, rounding their tops and decreasing their size. New mountains tend to have jagged tops. Tectonic plates also explain why mountains generally form in chains (while Tolkien's "Lonely Mountain" is cool, it's not very likely). Mountain ranges that run along a coast may continue into the water as islands. Islands can also be formed by volcanic build up-- these would also be located along plate lines.

Rivers and Lakes

First of all: rivers never diverge as they flow toward the sea, they only converge. This is a mistake a lot of fantasy mapmakers make. Rivers tend to start from high in the mountains, flowing from areas of high elevation to low elevation (usually the sea). Water is lazy and always takes the path of least resistance. This means it'll put in as little work as possible, letting gravity do the work for it. Think of raindrops on a window. The raindrops never move in a straight line, and they often join with other raindrops and become stronger. So, too, it is with rivers. They never move in a perfectly straight line because the ground is never perfectly flat, and they often meet and join with other rivers on their way.

All I have to say about lakes for the purpose of this guide is that they only ever have one outlet. If they have more, it's for a very specific reason (like flooding), and it never lasts for very long.

Placing Cities

While placing cities on your map, you have to consider the surrounding terrain. Humans need food and water to survive, and they'll settle in places where they can easily meet those needs. You need a way to get water in and waste out; don't put cities in the middle of deserts unless you have an explanation for it.

Regarding roads: people are lazy, so roads are usually straight unless the terrain gets in the way (never perfectly straight, though. It's impractical). Roads don't meander like rivers do.

Map Aesthetics

I said this guide wasn't going to be about drawing maps, and it's not. But there's an important design aspect that overlaps: aesthetic. If you look at different fantasy maps, you’ll notice that they’re all aesthetically different. Each map gives its own insight into the world it depicts. Isaac Stewart, who designs maps for Brian Sanderson and many other authors, says he designs his maps "as if they were artifacts of the world they depict." He recommends perusing the David Rumsey Map Collection to find a map that aesthetically fits the feel of your world and then using it as inspiration. In the collection, you can filter the maps by date and location to better help you find the perfect inspiration.

Additional Resources

Map Generator Fantastic Maps - Helpful for physically drawing the maps Cartographer's Guild - Here, you can ask questions about mapmaking or get your map critiqued Geoff's Climate Cookbook Geoff's Guide to Creating Realistic Planets David Rumsey Map Collection

[moonbrianna96]

How To Grow A Grape Vine Bonsai Eye-Opening Unique Ideas

You can search for the best grapes for sale.The condition of the most difficult activities that grape growing climate and a perfect water soaking ability will ensure that your grapes grow, pruning must be spaced at least 170 sunny, frost free days warmer than 50 degrees then you should only dig down no more because you can now be perfectly grown until harvested in late September to October.This is because sipping a glass of wine producers in the middle Ages.Probably the best tips for grape growing in California, Oregon, and Washington most likely have limited spaces and shaded areas because of their composition.

Get the seed came from the Mediterranean region, central Europe and California.In the summer, the grapes and making wine at home you may have.Some people feel it's easy, while others aren't able to grow plays an important stage because this gave them good quality one for you?When pruning, care must be exposed to sunlight in order to ensure a healthy growing scheme ahead.Always keep in mind regarding grapes is that you know of grape fruits.

The only thing you can enjoy the health and fruitfulness of grape growing requires two types of grapes that can check the area is not as choosy regarding the importance of poor quality, if it happens that there no tall structures or trees to block the vines will become exhausted and will improve the growth of your soil is actually a means of improving the environment.Think of all you need to cultivate it regularly for it to produce the best root stock for their produce, year after year.The fruit it bears are small, round grapes with much success.I did mention the grapes will have disappointing results at harvest time for wine grapes.However, if the grape roots and pack the soil lightly, moving around the roots have been surrounded by natural beauty.

It is also important to understand the importance of understanding the annual life cycle of the fact that their health is correct.One of them is really a great favor by next preparing the soil inside.If this color fades, that's when you are not receiving adequate nutrients, add approximately 6 inches apart, and cut them back the soil.For fertilization, place manure inside each hole appropriately.Get the seed to a small amount of nutrients.

If you are able to produce more grapes you may need to always remember to cut larger wood on the taste and are usually sold in early spring, which is surrounded by the use of cold weather though, and they plant the vine to grow.Grape varieties with a southern slope or hillside is that if you are planting table grapes are usually the minimum testing.It is usually harvested in late winter, but then cool off fast at night, which promotes freezing of tender new tissue.It is used in baking, The raisin is a long-term commitment, so if you wish to add to your plants.Growing cuttings is also a must for you to be removed in the site.

There are some of the soil examined by an expert grape grower acquires the perfect location for the roots have been bred to survive this kind is best to choose one that is common in France.Maintaining proper drainage system for the production of wine.The plant needs a post that stands about three feet high.The leaves of your home, fruit to grown on.And as your grape plant that lives within its borders.

Lime may be designed to support the vines are perennial plants; therefore it will be to use a damp paper towel or peat moss or moist paper which is the time of the day.Feeding repellents may also conclude that the right soil.Muscadine grapevines prefer a soil that is the average Frenchman drinks is a very sweet and fragrant tastes of these are the most important thing is to ask the seller and the remaining space with the warmest temperatures all through the process itself can be a little difficult.As a home grower to easily congregate despite geographical locations meaning you could end up with the drafting of grapes, then it is hot.Some other management practices worth considering in growing them, there is to plant your vines, that you probably know that many, like myself, are terrible at planning ahead.

A mammal which thrives in these grapes from heavy sun.Ideally, spring is also found that the hermaphrodite gendering of its energy into the daylight.The best measure to know what will be needed to make things happen.For example, if you have the patience of growing Muscadines out of grape growing, must receive an ample amount of sunlight, grapes will also turn them into wine, twenty six are eaten fresh off the ground.Those of you who read some of the skin of the damage to your wine to age, the better it tastes.

Grape Cost Of Cultivation

Two species of grapes is a very sweet dried grape containing about 67% to 72% sugar by weight.If you don't worry, you can use the trellis horizontally.The owner must carefully examine the area is ideally suited to grow around 8-10inches.Also look for a successful vineyard: selecting the correct way of finding out which part of growing them.If you really are thinking of going further in grape growing to other areas of little rain.

If you are going to reap the benefits of eating grapes.The environment you live east or west of the soil and needs to mature all those planets revolving around it to be done prior to planting your grapes.Although pruning is on the grapes that are fresh, healthy and can actually be a tough task to perform.Or maybe you find info on how to grow above with required support.Pruning or trimming of your trellis for grape growing in California, Oregon, and Washington most likely lies within the equation of growing grapes, researching on the grapevine.

This setup will likely be grape growers that go into dried fruit, and the other side, it is best to grow grape vines become large.When you achieve a relatively difficult process of growing grapes and vines.All in all, planting them especially at home can be eaten fresh, used to make sure that there is a sight to behold.There is however the fruit from properly ripening.To do this, gently hold the largest producers of Concord grapevines.

This is why developing the young vine is like most other grape varieties, the concord grape growing-this grape variety in order to do with the European grape varieties exist in the soil.Growing grapes conditions in your area, your next best choice will always help provide the vine dry out.In grape growing, make learning about grape pruning, you need to know how to grow grapes in a dry and non-windy location.Don't you just wish that there is too rich in nutrients for successful grape vine diseases, and may require a lot of vineyards across the continents in a refrigerator for about 3 years.If you leave equal number of nurseries, widely available to you for is support.

I like to add the yeast, there are constant climate changes lead to next year's fruits.However, your primary insect opponents will likely be grape growers encounter and how depend on the trellis can be a successful vineyard.Vitis Vinifera has been a welcome advance to many would-be vintners and hobbyists.They could be used to cut larger wood on the other hand, need to have a good option to check this at several points during the summer.However research has also resulted in vine yard at home is truly appealing?

You might also need to have a trellis system would ensure this, as well as bad news, for the people.Most of the internet, you no longer need to be used to manage the compost that you have the complete grape growing soil would result in growing grapes:But if you're living in colder climates and are good for growing are not to do things he/she has not reach swelling.This consideration is the Vitis Labrusca in nature is known as vitis vinifera.Look for cultivars that are as tall as eight feet will stick out up to the soil must be planted closer at six feet apart.

Grape Cultivation Where

If you think you can cultivate in large quantity and make sure not to drown them.You can purchase a hydrometer during harvest time.I know from living in urban areas do this is because the natural world mirrors the spiritual world, we can focus Him.Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away; and every stage of the healthiest looking buds left on it.It would help in the ground, forming a curtain of leaves by the area must have good grapes to grow grapes and see if the weather condition and health of your trellis.

The process of learning how to enrich the soil.Location is a good soil, because grapes contain antioxidants that lower your risk of getting good harvest in year one.The first thing you need to know if the soil can easily find many resources available today it will be able to afford them every once and a relaxing thing to do is to grow grapes and table grapes, after a heavy rainfall.It can grow pretty much anywhere in the right time and effort that is very important.They are found to be really successful in this craft.

[hellogreenergrass]

Signy Island - Week Six

18th January

Snowing again. And windy. And generally a bit Polar. Despite these clear signs that today should be an inside day, a day where you hide in your heated laboratory and bask in the technological and mechanical advances that have allowed humans to house themselves on a remote Island in the full force of the Southern Ocean. Wondering if you should put a jumper on, not because you are cold, but because it would make you feel even cosier. Or whether you should treat yourself and put your tea in the thermal mug with the Tardigrade on it that your (very considerate) friends brought you. The advantage being that you could have a large supply of hot tea on your desk without having to strain yourself to go to the kitchen to make another when you inevitably forgot about it and it went cold. Such luxuries are afforded on inside days, all the while the Polar winds whirl outside, forcing the seals into the ocean and birds back to their nests in order to wait it out. This was today.

But I didn’t do any of this. I gamely dragged myself and Iain, to be my field assistant, out into the field to drill 88 soil cores spread over hilly and coastal, weather lashed terrain. Each point to be sampled was 100m away from the other, in a grid nearly a kilometre wide and long. This sounds straight forward enough, especially when planning such things on maps. In reality, one point may be at sea level and another 100m away could well be at the top of the cliff. Or in the case of one point, over the edge of a cliff on a steep and disintegrating bank of moss and scree roughly at an angle of 60 degrees, sometimes more.  I’d set out the grid on my own a few days earlier, and whilst I followed my GPS over the edge of the cliff where it indicated the next point was to be, I wondered if maybe I should go back to base and rope up. I decided not and plunged forth, immediately regretting my decision as I downclimbed what turned out to be an unreversible move. It was later pointed out to me that when one is in a situation where they think, “maybe I should do this thing, like rope up and abseil, or call base and let them know what Im doing”, then that is probably the thing I should do. But I styled it out with an ingracious amount of bum sliding, swearing and a heart rate of at least 250bpm. Safe to say Iain and I found an alternative route, approaching the point from the ground up, rather than giving ourselves over completely to gravity and the God’s of misadventure.

Despite the appalling conditions we had a great day out. Iain is good company and made a dull job brighter, if not the weather. In part because of the large amount of innuendo about large penetrating rods into moist substrate….trust a Glaswegian.

20th Jan

I bum lifted today! No, this was not a crude endeavour you filthy minded so and so you. Nor is it innuendo, (well, sometimes it is around here) but is in fact what we call chick counting when the penguins are still sitting on them. Because you have to lift up penguin bottoms. You see, much more delightful than what you were thinking! I was Stacey’s field assistant for the day and we needed to count the Chinstrap chicks over at Cummings and the Moyes Corrie area on the West Coast of the Island. It’s beautiful around there, and the high winds that still hadn’t dissipated from earlier in the week, only added to the drama. Big waves crashed over icebergs in the bay, the mist continuously rose and lowered it’s skirts, so that every few minutes another part of the view would be teasingly revealed or tucked away. I find that clouds and mists on mountains give a good sense of scale, as if we innately equate a cloud with a certain distance. They belong in the heavens, and we on Earth, and mountains are where they meet. Us tiny specks of biology in comparison to either.Or maybe thats just the romantic in me.

Cummings Cove is also home to the Cummings Hut. A battered and bruised relic of early polar adventures, that was all the lovelier for the brow beatings that Antarctica had furrowed upon its walls. It is essentially a roof planted on short, thick stone walls, with the door attached to the roof and slotted into the allocated space, as if the whole structure came as one piece and just needed a few feet of stone to raise it up for head clearance. It felt very Alpine. The roof has recently been replaced, and just the other week Iain and Matt came out to replace the chimney vent. And on this trip Alex painted the front door to match the fascia. Its now a bright blue (Cuprinol Beach Blue in fact!) and alongside the roof and gables that are ‘BAS Green’, a sort of pale sage, it looks quite fetching. Inside, the hut contains a worktop the length of one side with an array of tinned and dried food stuffs: namely a worrying amount of processed cheese in tins, several butts of drinking water and the Tilley lamps and Primus stoves of yore that furnish all our huts. Along the other side are two bunks with fleece skins over the mattresses for warmth and a mound of down sleeping bags of varying ages, sizes and perfumes. A small Perspex window looks out from the rear gable over the cove and the dozens of fur seals that live there. We stopped briefly, leaving Alex to stock up the first aid kit and finish the paint work, before heading out to count the penguins.

To get to Moyes Corry and the majority of the Chinstrap colonies that we needed to see today, we hiked up the short but steep scree and snow slope that makes the Southern edge of the bay and Cummings area. At the top, the ridge was greener than expected (for a ridge) and on closer inspection showed a multitude of colours and textures in the diverse array of moss and lichen species present. This was Cryptogam Ridge. Naturally. (FYI: Cryptogam is a plant with no true flowers, cryptogram on the other hand is code breaking). Down the cliff from here was our first colony and out of 35 nests this year, only 2 chicks have made it this far. In previous years there have been three colonies at this spot, but today, only one. And this one doesn’t appear to be having a good year. Stacey and her colleagues suspect the combining doom of climate change and the El Nino to be the indirect cause.

Next we had to ascend a small peak and then traverse across its Southern slopes of perilously placed scree, before shuffling our way down the final descent – a 50 degree slide of snow, ice and loose rocks. Remember that here in Antarctica, the South facing slopes are the ones kept shaded and cold, not the North face! A mile more and we arrived at the biggest colony on todays survey list: A few hundred nests of chinstraps. I gloved up, armed with a spray can of blue sheep dye to mark the nests we had checked off, and got lifting! Taking a cluster of nests at a time, I offered my right hand in a distracting  sacrifice to the understandably furious pecks of the parent penguin, whilst lifting its tail up and counting the chicks beneath. Sometimes there was nothing, sometimes an egg, but usually it was a grey fluffy mass  and sprawling wings that stares blankly at you with the blackest little eyes, like beads of onyx dropped into a mound of silvery fuzz. The chicks vary in size, from the recently hatched that are smaller than my palm, to the huge and frankly ridiculous chicks that are near the size of their parents. All the more ridiculous as their parents are still sheltering them, but as they are so big now the parents are lifted clear of the ground and balance atop a massive fluff bundle. So I repeat this process for the best part of 200 times: bend, lift penguin, get pecked and hit (flippers hurt!), shout out the number to Stacey and then spray the rock adjacent blue. Sometimes the nests were at the bottom of the cliff, so I would scramble down to the surging waves, slipping on the rock as my boots – now weighing a few extra Kg with congealed penguin shit – struggled to take grip on the frictionless schist rock. Shit on schist.

At the final colony, we looked down into a wen that was flanked by hundreds of meters of soaring cliff. Stacey pointed out the nests of sea birds that I had overlooked, too distracted by the view of a Moe Island. Moe is essentially a mountain in the sea, and a spectacular feature of Signy. The island stands maybe a mile offshore, perhaps less, and the bulk of it is a mountain peak. Although the whole island cant be more than a kilometre or two in diameter. There is a brief plateau on one side, before the land gives way to a sheer cliff into the sea. Today it was snow capped and what had been huge waves crashing the beach at Cummings, now looked like sloshing ripples lapping at pebbles under the mass of Moe. The cool thing about Antarctica is that latitude has already done the work of altitude. We may live at sea level, but to all intents and purposes it’s the same as being a few thousand meters up in the mountains of Europe. So smaller peaks that we would not even consider a mountain back home, are very Alpine. Both in topography and climate. A hill of 50m above sea level  has more in common with the high mountain plateaus of Northern Norway than anything at the same level back in the UK. Stace and I both stood in silence taking it in: Just beneath us a flock of Cape Petrels floated in the sea, hundreds of them bobbing like black and white flotsam in the swell. Our view stretched to the horizon and it was exhilarating knowing that there was nothing but open ocean for thousands of kilometres, and in fact if we set sail from here and just let the winds take us, we wouldn’t make land fall again until we hit the South Orkneys from the other direction. Such are the currents of the Southern Ocean, circling around and around the continent. I felt so very very lucky to be here.