#the nomad’s field

[airctrl]

[tohakumaru]

(previous chapter)

stillness, like an unbroken curse. your trailing limbs cut a line in the sand like a cruel finger over milky adolescent skin.

the walk seems endless. the sun never comes up and the nomad maintains an impossibly even rhythm. after a while it feels almost too natural, too comforting, as if this is exactly what you're born to do.

---

and you know, darling? you're so beautiful. you wear death like an angel drowning in a sea of stars . have i told you i love you today? love you. love you. love you.

love you when the flesh falls off your bones and your soul leaks from the cracks in your skull.

---

you don't notice it, but the nomad starts to hum, softly at first, then louder, enough for you to make out that it isn't a melody but an airy cacophony of ringing, like bells on a fishing line in winter. and then you can taste it in the air, a pungent yet pleasant smell of burning that fills your lung with warmth. you arch up your neck to see a field spanning as far as the eyes can see. it is lined with perfect intervals of clothing lines, on which thousands of blankets hang burning, tongues of flames licking up at the dark sky as if reaching to swallow the stars in their grasps. there is no smoke.

the nomad signals you to stop, and takes off its cloak. you observe that its body is small and smooth, like that of a child, but proportions slightly elongated and with just a hint of deformations at the joints, like a bird ripped of its wings and forced to stand. you linger on the nape of its crooked neck, and find it strangely endearing. unperturbed by your gaze, the nomad leaves its belongings and raft by your side, and continues alone into the field of the burning blankets.

like a good dog, you lay down in the sand, waiting. your eyes glued to the fires, as their crackling smoulders soothe a fever you don't realise you have.

---

the sacrificial lamb pulled its mottling wool over your eyes dressed you in white linens and crossed your hands over your heart. lamentation is for those who can afford it, but that's alright now. lies don't hurt when you're dead. you lay your head on the altar it was the best sleep you'd ever had.

---

when the nomad returns its skin smells like coal and eyes glitter like diamonds. now it gazes at you, quietly. against all odds, you feel your heart break. you want to pull it into your arms and hold it against your chest. but i won't let you do that. mine. mine. mine. you shan't hold another being unless i allow it, and i only want you to hold me.

but there is no need for us to bicker. the nomad puts a stop to all that by gently placing a light sheet over your shoulder, careful to place the flesh and entrails and are constantly spilling from you inside the fabric.

this feels ceremonial, this feels like love.

read the full story up to date here

[goatsandgangsters]

new (silly) headcanon that the reason aleksander has a secret tunnel cluttered with So Much Random Stuff is that he has a lucrative side business as an antique dealer, so he just holds onto his furniture and goods for a couple centuries until it's valuable

[rithmeres]

i cant even look at this dude augh it actually makes me sick with jealousy. that should be ME!!!!! I SHOULD BE SPENDING A MONTH SOLO ROADTRIPPING THE ENTIRE UNITED STATES ON A MOTORCYCLE

[pinkyjulien]

Valentin & Mitch | 601/?? | His touch...

[impossible-rat-babies]

rotating possible eyrie home lore in my brain

[art-fern]

It's fairly status quo for D&D characters to have dead parents, but June is an exception to the rule. Her mama is a wonderful tiefling herbalist who's running away from her life as a servant for a high-ranking military family of dragonborn. June is the bastard daughter of the patriarch of that family. I'll let you put the pieces together on that one, but June grew up in the Western half of the continent with her mother, which was similar to late 1840's-50's western North America.

[slowkeyhigh]

if only those signs were facing the opposite direction, wouldve made a sick shot

[driveintheaterofthemind]

Original Art - Steve Roper And Mike Nomad Sunday Comic Strip (Mar01st1970)

Art by William Overgard

Field Enterprises

[oasismm]

[airctrl]

twitter sucks and i couldnt log in so I'm posting here again

[columban-von-iona]

[kinghlaaluhelseth]

i have a lot of headcanons for horse breeds in tamriel i should manifest eventually

[uaninja]

The nomad!³ #aiart #digitalart #nature #sky #clouds #field #meadow #BlueYellow ##Blue #Yellow #nomad #traveler #sunrays #endless #fantasyart #dramaticatmosphere #dramaticlighting #hyperdetail #hyperrealism @nightcafestudio https://www.instagram.com/p/CmFlHzQuc-j/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[burntoutdaydreamer]

To Write Better Antagonists, Have Them Embody the Protagonist's Struggles

(Spoilers for The Devil Wears Prada, Avatar the Last Airbender, Kung Fu Panda 2, and The Hunger Games triology).

Writing antagonists and villains can be hard, especially if you don't know how to do so.

I think a lot of writers' first impulse is to start off with a placeholder antagonist, only to find that this character ends up falling flat. They finish their story only for readers to find the antagonist is not scary or threatening at all.

Often the default reaction to this is to focus on making the antagonist meaner, badder, or scarier in whatever way they can- or alternatively they introduce a Tragic Backstory to make them seem broken and sympathetic. Often, this ends up having the exact opposite effect. Instead of a compelling and genuinely terrifying villain, the writer ends up with a Big Bad Edge Lord who the reader just straight up does not care about, or actively rolls their eyes at (I'm looking at you, Marvel).

What makes an antagonist or villain intimidating is not the sheer power they hold, but the personal or existential threat they pose to the protagonist. Meaning, their strength as a character comes from how they tie into the themes of the story.

To show what I mean, here's four examples of the thematic roles an antagonist can serve:

1. A Dark Reflection of the Protagonist

The Devil Wears Prada

Miranda Priestly is initially presented as a terrible boss- which she is- but as the movie goes on, we get to see her in a new light. We see her as an bonafide expert in her field, and a professional woman who’s incredible at what she does. We even begin to see her personal struggles behind the scenes, where it’s clear her success has come at a huge personal cost. Her marriages fall apart, she spends every waking moment working, and because she’s a woman in the corporate world, people are constantly trying to tear her down.

The climax of the movie, and the moment that leaves the viewer most disturbed, does not feature Miranda abusing Andy worse than ever before, but praising her. Specifically, she praises her by saying “I see a great deal of myself in you.” Here, we realize that, like Miranda, Andy has put her job and her career before everything else that she cares about, and has been slowly sacrificing everything about herself just to keep it. While Andy's actions are still a far cry from Miranda's sadistic and abusive managerial style, it's similar enough to recognize that if she continues down her path, she will likely end up turning into Miranda.

In the movie's resolution, Andy does not defeat Miranda by impressing her or proving her wrong (she already did that around the half way mark). Instead, she rejects the values and ideals that her toxic workplace has been forcing on her, and chooses to leave it all behind.

2. An Obstacle to the Protagonist's Ideals

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Fire Lord Ozai is a Big Bad Baddie without much depth or redemptive qualities. Normally this makes for a bad antagonist (and it's probably the reason Ozai has very little screen time compared to his children), but in Avatar: The Last Airbender, it works.

Why?

Because his very existence is a threat to Aang's values of nonviolence and forgiveness.

Fire Lord Ozai cannot be reasoned with. He plans to conquer and burn down the world, and for most of the story, it seems that the only way to stop him is to kill him, which goes against everything Aang stands for. Whether or not Aang could beat the Fire Lord was never really in question, at least for any adults watching the show. The real tension of the final season came from whether Aang could defeat the Fire Lord without sacrificing the ideals he inherited from the nomads; i.e. whether he could fulfill the role of the Avatar while remaining true to himself and his culture.

In the end, he manages to find a way: he defeats the Fire Lord not by killing him, but by stripping him of his powers.

3. A Symbol of the Protagonist's Inner Struggle

Kung Fu Panda 2

Kung Fu Panda 2 is about Po's quest for inner peace, and the villain, Lord Shen, symbolizes everything that's standing in his way.

Po and Lord Shen have very different stories that share one thing in common: they both cannot let go of the past. Lord Shen is obsessed with proving his parents wrong and getting vengeance by conquering all of China. Po is struggling to come to terms with the fact that he is adopted and is desperate to figure out who he is and why he ended up left in a box of radishes as a baby.

Lord Shen symbolizes Po's inner struggle in two main ways: one, he was the source of the tragedy that separated him from his parents, and two, he reinforces Po's negative assumptions about himself. When Po realizes that Lord Shen knows about his past and confronts him, Lord Shen immediately tells Po exactly what he's afraid of hearing: that his parents abandoned him because they didn't love him. Po and the Furious Five struggle to beat Shen not because he's powerful, but because Po can't let go of the past, and this causes him to repeatedly freeze up in battle, which Shen uses to his advantage.

Po overcomes Shen when he does the one thing Shen is incapable of: he lets go of the past and finds inner peace. Po comes to terms with his tragic past and recognizes that it does not define him, while Shen holds on to his obsession of defying his fate, which ultimately leads to his downfall.

4. A Representative of a Harsh Reality or a Bigger System

The Hunger Games

We don't really see President Snow do all that much on his own. Most of the direct conflict that Katniss faces is not against him, but against his underlings and the larger Capitol government. The few interactions we see between her and President Snow are mainly the two of them talking, and this is where we see the kind of threat he poses.

President Snow never lies to Katniss, not even once, and this is the true genius behind his character. He doesn't have to lie to or deceive Katniss, because the truth is enough to keep her complicit.

Katniss knows that fighting Snow and the Capital will lead to total war and destruction- the kind where there are survivors, but no winners. Snow tells her to imagine thousands upon thousands of her people dead, and that's exactly what happens. The entirety of District 12 gets bombed to ashes, Peeta gets brainwashed and turned into a human weapon, and her sister Prim, the very person she set out to protect at the beginning of the story, dies just before the Capitol's surrender. The districts won, but at a devastating cost.

Even after President Snow is captured and put up for execution, he continues to hurt Katniss by telling her the truth. He tells her that the bombs that killed her sister Prim were not sent by him, but by the people on her side. He brings to her attention that the rebellion she's been fighting for might just implement a regime just as oppressive and brutal as the one they overthrew and he's right.

In the end, Katniss is not the one to kill President Snow. She passes up her one chance to kill him to take down President Coin instead.

[chillskankasorous]