#the red desert

[acourtofquestions]

Ansel and Celaena lay on their backs on the side of a dune and stared up at the stars.

Her hands tucked behind her head, Celaena took a long, deep breath, savoring the balmy night breeze, the exhaustion ebbing from her limbs. She rarely got to see stars so bright—not with the lights of Rifthold. The wind moved across the dunes, and the sand sighed.

"You know," Ansel said quietly, "I never learned the constellations. Though I think ours are different from yours—the names, I mean."

It took Celaena a moment to realize that by ours" she didn't mean the Silent Assassins she meant her people in the Western Wastes.

Celaena pointed to a cluster of stars to their left.

"That's the dragon." She traced the shape. "See the head, legs, and tail?"

"No." Ansel chuckled.

Celaena nudged her with an elbow and pointed to another grouping of stars.

"That's the swan. The lines on either side are the wings, and the arc is its neck."

"What about that one?" Ansel said.

"That's the stag," Celaena breathed. "The Lord of the North."

"Why does he get a fancy title? What about the swan and the dragon?"

Celaena snorted, but the smile faded when she stared at the familiar constellation.

"Because the stag remains constant—no matter the season, he's always there.

"Why?"

Celaena took a long breath.

"So the people of Terrasen will always know how to find their way home. So they can look up at the sky, no matter where they are, and know Terrasen is forever with them."

[lindadarnell]

IL DESERTO ROSSO (RED DESERT) 1964 | Michelangelo Antonioni

[miamaimania]

Whispers of the West: A Surreal Journey Through Crimson Canyons

[frnndlcs]

Il deserto rosso, Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964

[chasingrainbowsforever]

~ Desert Tones ~

[fishbloc]

"c'mon, lemme teach you something humans do,"

"but scar, you're not human-"

"ah pap pap pap shush! let's not get too into details, shall we? anyway, just hold it up like this and..."

"like this...?"

"yeah! see you're getting the hang of it!"

"then what?"

"now you just watch and wave it around till it burns out,"

"that's dumb, what's the point of that?"

"not all things last, but they are beautiful regardless. don't cha think?"

[no-internet-history]

Dessert era 🧁 🎂 🍰

[celine-song]

Red Desert (1964) dir. Michelangelo Antonioni / La Chimera (2023) dir. Alice Rohrwacher / Stalker (1979) dir. Andrei Tarkovsky

[wolfsteax]

"You are still alive when I look to the sky…"

🏜️⛅️

(please share from my post directly, do not reupload)

[entiqua]

putting OOT link's ponytail in BOTW's styles because i can

[velvetsart]

it ends in nothing watercolour collage

prints

[acourtofquestions]

Cicadas buzzed in the trees of the keep, and somewhere in the gardens, a nightingale sang her lament. Talk. Talk about what?

She didn't have anything to say, so they sat on the parapet in silence for a while until even the cicadas went to sleep, and the moon slipped away behind them, and the sky began to brighten. Talk. Talk about what had been haunting her these months. Haunting every thought, every dream, every breath. Talk.

"I'm scared to go home," she said at last, staring out at the dunes beyond the walls.

The predawn light was bright enough for her to see the Master's brows rise. Why?

"Because everything will be different. Everything is already different. I think everything changed when Arobynn punished me, but ... Some part of me still thinks that the world will go back to the way it was before that night. Before I went to Skull's Bay."

The Master's eyes shone like emeralds. Compassionate-sorrowful.

"I'm not sure I want it to go back to the way it was before," she admitted. "And I think … I think that's what scares me the most."

The Master smiled at her reassuringly, then rolled his neck and stretched his arms over his head before standing atop the merlon.

Celaena tensed, unsure if she should follow.

But the Master didn't look at her as he began a series of movements, graceful and winding, as elegant as a dance and deadly as the asp that lurked on the roof.

The asp.

Watching the Master, she could see each of the qualities she had copied for the past few weeks—-the contained power and swiftness, the cunning and the smooth restraint.

He went through the motions again, and it took only a glance in her direction to get her to her feet atop the parapet wall. Mindful of her balance, she slowly copied him, her muscles singing with the rightness of the movements. She grinned as night after night of careful observation and mimicry clicked into place.

Again and again, the sweep and curve of her arm, the twisting of her torso, even the rhythm of her breathing. Again and again, until she became the asp, until the sun broke over the horizon, bathing them in red light.

Again and again, until there was nothing left but the Master and her as they greeted the new day.

[frnndlcs]

Il deserto rosso, Michelangelo Antonioni, 1964

[brucewaynehater101]

Red Robin AU: Maximum Angst

Tim left to go save Bruce. It didn't matter that no one believed him. It didn't matter that his loved ones, people he trusted, tried to stop him. It didn't matter that everyone wrote his theories off as some sort of mental breakdown and grief stage denial. None of that mattered.

Tim was right, and he was going to prove it.

Two years after Tim left, Dick gets a phone call. It's from Superman.

During a JL mission, some villain gets away from a large JL team up by mentioning one fact: Bruce died in the timestream waiting for someone to save him. He had left clues, as many as he could given his circumstances, of his continued existence and predicament.

Dick, with the help of Damian and some of the JL, leaves Gotham to gather the evidence. Even after two years, art curators and museums are weirdly tense when he brings up the exact piece he wants to see.

A few months of carefully collecting his dad's last momentos occur before Dick has the realization: Tim was right.

Oh gods, Tim!

He can't believe, with all the responsibilities he had to juggle, that he just forgot about Tim!

This cues another frantic search as Dick retraces all of Tim's steps. The man allows himself a little laugh when he realizes that Alvin Draper is wanted for being an art thief.

Despite the sloppily covered trails, Dick finds himself at a dead end. The last location Tim might have gone to is in the middle of a desert. When Dick arrives at the spot, an LoA assassin is waiting for him.

Batman is glad that he's dressed in his uniform, he's glad that Damian didn't accompany him, and Dick prepares for the attack.

The assassin regards him neutrally.

The vigilante lowers his fists, but he's still tense in preparation. The assassin rolls their eyes and holds their hand out.

There's a com.

"What's that for?" Batman growls out.

Another eye roll from the assassin as they sigh. "Ra's knows you're looking for Timothy Drake-Wayne."

Hesitantly, the retired acrobat plucks up the com. After placing it in his ear, a smug voice greets him.

The Demon's Head cordially invites Batman to dinner.

Great.

Dick, wanting to find out where his brother is, has no choice but to follow the assassin to what's most definitely a trap.

Later, when Dick is haunted by the memories he desperately combs to liberate himself from his guilt, he'll darkly chuckle as he longs for it to have been a trap.

When the doors swing open to reveal Ra's al Ghul lounging at the head of the table, a feast is laid out before the young man. He forces himself to sit at the opposite end and listen to Ra's prattle on and on about how extraordinary Tim is. How the young outcast knew his father was alive. How he had to resort to taking Ra's hand in order to finish his quest.

As the evening is winding down, Dick had only spoken a handful of sentences. Ra's swirls a wine glass and gazes wistfully into its crimson hue.

"It's a shame, Richard, that it took you twenty-six months to scour for information about Timothy. I'm sure the realization of such would bring him despair."

There's a pause as the Detective's successor runs mental calculations. It has been thirty months since Tim left Gotham.

Emerald eyes, not too dissimilar to the shade of green Dick's son owns, bear down on a man too small for Batman's mantle.

"He died knowing his death would kill his father. It's a shame we lost them both that day."

[beingharsh]

Red Desert (1964), dir. Michelangelo Antonioni

[dragondawdles]

hi been noodling with designs for block guys have some sandy boys