#over valleys and hills

[gnossienne]

Irakl Khvedaguridze, 81, is the only licensed doctor across 386 sq miles of mountainous region, serving a dwindling community of Tush people in north-east Georgia. During the summer and early autumn, he gets to his patients on his white horse, Bichola. When the snow gets too deep, Khvedaguridze converts his shoes into skis using birch planks nailed with wide canvas. Once the snow rises above his knees, he can only travel on foot (x)

#photography #over valleys and hills #natural wonders #le monde #the solitary life

[shannonsketches]

Weird Horsegirl Ganondorf fun fact of today is that in Ocarina of Time Ganondorf rides without a bridle! Even in the concept art his horse lacks any bit or reigns (as does Epona, and every other horse).

What it mainly means is that the N64 didn't have the power to mess with an unnecessary complex item to render -- but what it could be interpreted to mean for the sake of fandom fun is that the horses are raised and trained to be ridden bridleless.

Not to be up my own headcanons about horses being a big thing in Gerudo Valley and Malon's mom being Gerudo and there being a reason that Gan's horse is specified as a pure black Gerudo Stallion because other Gerudo horses don't look like that but -- have you seen the dressings on the other horses?

All of them, even Zelda's horse, have a call to Gerudo patterning. Except for Epona, who was only able to be approached, touched, and ridden by Link and presumably Malon herself.

It's no secret that the Gerudo are more or less pulled from African and Arabic cultures, but fun fact about Arabian horses, they used to be given as prized gifts to royalty and important political figures.

So if they are inspired by Arabian horse history --

Although the specific area of the Arabian Peninsula where the breed originated can’t be pinpointed, it is widely accepted that around 2500 B.C., the Bedouin people were responsible for developing the desert horses that became the ancestors of the Arabian horse. The nomads’ keen horse sense and meticulous attention to proper care and breeding created an animal that could withstand the harsh environment of the desert, surviving extreme heat and cold with little water and the food they shared with their handlers. A life of travel also required horses with great lung capacity, endurance and stamina. (x)

It's very possible that all of the horses in OoT have ancestry in Gerudo Valley!

#lays on the ground and thinks about how Zelda's horse might've been a gift from Gerudo Valley celebrating her birth #anyway i'll be over here!!! thinking about Gerudo and Horses and still being salty I can't ride in the desert in the wilds era aklsjd #clinging to my Malon's Mom Was Gerudo because usually dairy farmers don't breed horses -- it's a different specialty and a full time job #and Talon is definitely more dairy farmer so. It makes sense to me that Mama was doing the horse breeding. And mama had the red hair. #And Ingo was SO eager to kiss Gan's ass which seems to me like he's been there before -- and he wouldn't if his horse was Gerudo bred #anyway tl;dr this is a hill i cry on #I told my friends once that I hc the Gerudo came to get Mal's mom when she got sick and she refused to leave even if it would've saved her #and that they would come back for her body so she could be buried in her homeland #and when Malon was old enough she'd be welcome there but of course when Malon was old enough Ingo didn't let her leave #and she wouldn't leave the horses behind -- just like her mama. there was just no safe way to get herself and the animals out #anyway. :) good morning. #lozhc #oot eidolon

[good--merits-accumulated]

OK, SEVERELY rambly post incoming but - Anderperry Stardust (2007)/ The Little White Horse AU, anyone?

Rundown: I think many of us are familiar with Stardust, originally a Neil Gaiman book but also a great film, starring Claire Danes as a falling star and That Guy Who Plays Daredevil as the lad who promises to bring her to the girl he's infatuated with. The Little White Horse is, to the best of my knowledge, more unknown, but equally very good (for sentimental reasons, I think of it much more highly than Stardust). Published in 1946 by Elizabeth Goudge, it tells the story of thirteen-year-old orphan Maria Merryweather, who moves to her cousin Sir Benjamin's Moonacre Manor in the West Country, where she finds a) a thriving cosy community and a long family history, b) the little white horse of the title, c) a longstanding family feud cutting off Moonacre from the sea, d) her imaginary best friend Robin, real and in the flesh, and e) some of the most deliciously-described food that has ever been or will be. It's a great book even past the rose-tinted glasses of my childhood. Go read it. (The one (1) marring is that you can't find a bloody edition that doesn't have a JK Terfling quote pasted onto the cover, because apparently it was one of her favourite books, but fuck OFF, I'm reclaiming it now. Thou shalt not keep the cosy low fantasy from me.)

Anyway even though I mention Stardust this isn't really part of the AU I have in my mind, except for the bit with the Star, because Todd as a main character who thinks he's a very forgettable bland boy-in-the-corner until he finds out he's a star is a great thought to me. Particulars on /how/ he's a star to be fleshed out later! (I only thought of this AU about two hours ago, lol.)

In my mind this is how it goes - nebulously Olden Times setting (TLWH is set in 1842, so perhaps then). Todd is around seventeen/eighteen and Geoff has just graduated from university, and gone off around Europe, accompanied by their parents. Months go by. Something happens - he's never given the liberty of knowing, but Geoff and their parents stay in Europe, and the townhouse in London is sold, and Todd is packed off to stay at a distant relative's - Keating, as it turns out. It's a blessing in disguise, because Todd is finally away from his family for the first time in his life and around people that appreciate him. He begins to bloom under this new care - but there are strange family secrets only now being revealed to him, and dark forces beyond the valley which threaten to disrupt the haven he's found...

The rest is very cosy fantasy, featuring Mr Perry as the local uptight vicar locking horns with Keating at every opportunity, Neil as his withdrawn but friendly son just longing for a rebellion, and more! (Read: Charlie is here and he is Outrageous as usual. Read also: Pitts as a sailor because I think he'd like it.) Right now I'm thinking of adding an equivalent of Monsieur Cocq de Noir for a villain (Mr Perry is NOT the villain), and Cameron can play a part there so I can give him a good redeeming! Here are a couple of extracts from TLWH to show the kind of mood/tone we're working with:

Thematically, I REALLY like the idea of Todd as a star because it allows me to work in a very fun trope, of "not of the rose but near the rose" - when a character perhaps is shy and a little quiet and reclusive, but inspires other people around them to brilliance and greatness. (Honestly I do think this kind of goes in with the film, where it's not just Keating's teaching but Todd's reaction to it and his presence that galvanise Neil to continue.) This ties in really well if Todd's a star and adds to the overall self-confidence journey - plus I was really thinking about the sun/moon motifs! They're very prominent in TLWH (Maria is a "moon" Merryweather and Robin is a very sunny boy), and I really want to implement them here with slight twists. I think of Todd as a sunny moon; yes he's warm and caring and cheerful but once you go a little closer it's more of a luminosity rather than a blaze, there's a coolness and quietness to him I like. You know, a quiet character doesn't always have to be quiet because there's something "wrong" with them, sometimes they're just like that. For Neil it's the opposite, he's a moony sun; under the thumb of his father he's polite and decorous and demure but somewhere under all of that there's a very loud and booming laugh and a healthy sort of ruddiness. I don't know, I just like sun/moon motifs!!!!!!!!!!

(On a more personal note: this AU, which I already love very much despite not having known very long, would be above all a careful love letter to the West Country. It's been lovely living around here almost all my life and by this time in September I'll be hopefully up very far north at uni, so I'm pre-emptively kind of :') about it. Mutuals who are at uni/college how on earth did you cope?)

#story time! the little white horse was actually the first book i ever read #all by myself in english. i'd only just learnt it #and a friend's grandparents gave me a copy as a present - i must have been four or five #thanks phyllis and peter. i miss you :( #anyway i revolved around that book for the better part of a year #even years and years later sometimes i walk home from school #down the big hill that looks over the valley with the lightning-burnt tree stump at the bottom #and when it gets green and bowery in the summer #and the little hollow at the foot gets very thick with cow parsley i always think i could find the entrance to moonacre #in it. if i really really looked #:') #maybe i will write this over the summer #anderperry #dead poets society #dps #tristan writes #ah. can you tell i'm feeling so so sentimental.

[elisa6102]

Never realized how tall Lance actually is until I compared my Farmer to him side by side

#i did the same to victor and we're practically the same height #and then there's this giant looming over the damn hill #also am i the only one that's oblivious to lance's flirting? #i know he's flirtatious but personally i never felt that #he just seems normal all of the time and it never occurred to me that he's flirting #maybe i'm the odd one out lol #stardew valley expanded #sve #sdve #sve lance

[arumidden]

Could you imagine a buzzfeed unsolved episode covering Hill Valley? I imagine there’s a blog (or even series of blogs) covering all the weirdness that people have witnessed and Ryan and Shane are baffled

Just So Many witnesses to the delorean, flying or otherwise

Lots of people who confuse the delorean for a UFO, but lots of people very clearly recognize the car

The time train was also seen flying away

The fact that Old Man Peabody claimed a 'space zombie' crashed into his barn and hit his pine tree

At first it seems like a clear aliens case, but then they dig further into the town and just have absolutely no fucking idea how to explain Hill Valley

The “science experiment” train hijacking

WESTERN UNION MAN

The random Libyan nationalist group that had two of its members randomly show up dead at the mall at 2 am

The fact that the town tends to blame lots of its weirdness on the local disgraced nuclear physicist, who has never confirmed nor denied anything

#back to the future #bttf #bttf fanfic #buzzfeed unsolved #i love outsider POVs #you know that someone must have made a blog of all the town's weirdness somewhere #i imagine some people got in an argument over whether or not Clint Eastwood stole his 'stage name' from Hill Valley's local hero #and by investigating the town's history they discovered how much craziness happens there #and decided to go down the rabbit hole

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

#there's something really beautiful about experiencing the weather patterns of a new place #where i live now. its not like where i grew up. not like the foothills of Appalachia but its more familiar than the Chihuahuan desert was #when i go home to ohio everythings so green. so green. unimaginably green and the towns are in the woods. the hills roll #and trees billow deciduous and packed so tightly the treeline is like a wall of plant matter. here there are trees but they are tall and #evergreen. patchy in places like shrubs in the desert. the grass grows green but also pale tan and dead. houses are routed in valleys #between mountains. they're made of wood and not stucco but they still look strange and the landscape is crumpled together tall. and there's #water. it rains. days can be dreary and gray with drizzle. i forgot what thats like. when a single low stratus cloud blocks out thewhole sk #and fog clings to the trees. my school bus used to drive by a lake where thr fog was so thick i didnt kno how the driver could see the road #but somehow i forgot how much joy suspended water vapor gives me living in a place where when it rains it pours so hard the streets flood #and the greedy ground drinks the landscape dry. but there are new things as well. here smoke rolls up over thr mountains and gets stuck in #the valleys so that the weather forcast reads: Smoke for days on end. im used to tornado warnings and heat warnings and dust storm warnings #but ive never expected Smoke as a type of weather. and im sure there's more to experience. ive only been here like 3 weeks. its not as gree #as home. the storms dont seem to get quite so violent. the woods are so full of bears that its an active threat. but its not the desert #and while ill miss the shapes of desert plants and little lizards. when i look up at the pine and spruce trees i feel like i can breathe a #little easier. well see how i feel once the long cold winter sets in haha #but i dunno. part of me still longs for a violent thunderstorm. one where u can feel the temperature drop and u csn feel it building all da #one that bends the trees and smells like ozone. it was never like that in thr southwest and im not sure that happens here #but maybe thats just a desire for chaos and violence as a product of my pathological internal control. i cant be spontaneous so let nature #bring the fear to me. some of my favorite memories are watching lightning strikes #so it goes i suppose #unrelated #listen. is it fucked up to have ohio nostalgia? maybe so. but in my defense i grew up in the pretty part of ohio lol

[paisholotus]

JAH FREE THE PEOPLE. OVER HILLS AND VALLEYS TOO

#black reader #black writers #black tumblr #self post #tumblelog #black representation #black girls #black excellence #poc reader #poc writer #Jamaican #bujubanton #over hills and valley's #paisholotus

[articskele]

Guys the yearning….. gguys……..

#i love him so much you have no idea #the YEARNING #i need to fall asleep as he holds me close and runs his hand through my hair #i need to get into all sorts of cooking and baking shenanigans with him #THE TRUFFULA TEA #i wonder how that stuff would be made :o #like do you dry it and grind it up like matcha? #on that note i need to make all sorts of silly contraptions with him #i need to just. exist there. #i need to wake up and see truffula trees out the window #i need to explore the valley with him and make a big ol map covered in doodles and notes #like how there's a hot spring up and over the second hill in this hidden little spot that's easy to miss #and we keep almost forgetting where it is every time #or just following the river and seeing where it takes us #THE YEARNING. PLEASEEEEEEE #I WANNA LIVE A GOOD LIFE OUT THERE AND HAVE FUN AND KISS THE ONCELER DAMMIT #my nonsense #silly self-indulgent tag

[gnossienne]

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North! The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth!

#still thinking about the exquisite bonfire last night #over valleys and hills #melodies in the veins #pärt #burns

[twofoursixohjuan]

where the FUCK is all this smoke coming from

#just came over the hill into my valley and. smoke. #are we on fire already it's barely november

[thebirdandhersong]

Have been flip-flopping between full-out sudden and heart-wrenching sadness (the Sadie Sink sobbing her heart out in All Too Well kind of sad. Alas) and general cloudy sadness hovering at the back of my mind (I feel rather like my own personal Groke in those moments) these past few weeks and today had many moments of light in it. Lots of sunshine, tea, reading with Muffin (we're reading 1 Psalm a night together and praying together before bed--it is the Best), listening to music that isn't sad/grumpy (Jess Ray, Arcadian Wild, Paul Zach, Sara Groves), laughing with Froglet... it was easier to see the light and receive it. Things are looking up :)

#SORRY THERE ARE SO MANY LONG TAG RANTS THESE DAYS ABOUT SADNESS there is just a big presence of sad in my head and heart at present #i am fighting Hard against it! i am going to get better! i am not going to dwell in it forever! #my goodness i didn't know any sort of heartbreak could be this dramatic but there are definitely things that need processing/ #talking over when one finds oneself sobbing at church halfway through the service while everyone is singing Abide With Me #the takeaway here for me at least is that i keep holding onto this very tightly #and often forget that well i can and should let go of it and give it to God instead #WHY are the lessons that i learn lessons that i keep having to learn!! man!! one would THINK that after everything i'd know by now #that Sufferin on one's lonesome is unhelpful and damaging and also affects one's physical health #and that really i shouldn't be trying to hold it together myself. anyway i was and still am vastly comforted by the words in that hymn #and by the assurance that He walks through valleys with me as well as hills and nice sunny meadows #i hope that i come out of this a) not resenting mr knight the way i've been sorely tempted to (and have in some moments) #b) not Hopeless and Hard at Heart #c) understanding God and His character better having learned how to come close to Him in times of trouble #in any case. i am rambling again. BEDTIME :D #slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in year 21 #thinking of julian of norwich again and reminding myself Constantly that the all-shall-be-wellness of it all is not insignificant

[farminglesbian]

Valley of a thousand hills (2022) Bonie Sithebe

#valley of a thousand hills #mandisa vilakazi #sibongokuhle nkosi #sunday lesbian flick #bonie sithebe #not a recommendation #but i took all these caps as i was watching it and i appreciate the lead performances #depressingly enough it ends up being another one of those lesbian/gay movies with a truly TERRIBLE ending #like. bleak horrific and brutal. can't even fictional lesbians be free from male violence #...and to at first give the reunited lovers a happy end to then take it all away literal minutes before the credits? even more cruel #and so unnecessary since the story could have easily ended with them apart but alive #why why why #sigh #rant over

[bending-sickle]

zefrank1 - True Facts: Animal Awards

#wake up babe new zefrank just dropped #zoology #spiders #always with the penguins #through the hills and valleys over the mountains #kittens are always good

[pagesofkenna]

Palm Springs as seen in Trials of Apollo: Burning Maze because this is where I live and I spent too much time over-analyzing where Rick placed the characters!

to be clear, I'm being a bit overly literal with my reading. Palm Springs isn't a metropolis, so people in the surrounding area don't say they're 'from Palm Springs' the way people 30 minutes outside Seattle might say they're 'from Seattle' (though I will use both Palm Springs and the city Coachella as a reference point when telling people where I live). when I say I'm from here I mean I'm from the Coachella Valley; Palm Springs sits roughly at one end of the valley, and I live about halfway down to the other end

but both Meg and Apollo refer to themselves as being 'in Palm Springs' when they talk about Aeithales, and since Meg presumably knows the area, and Apollo also talks about Coachella [Festival] in this book, I'm going to assume they know where they actually are, and that they must be in Palm Springs (or nearby unincorporated land)

OK so with all that out of the way: when they first show up, Apollo mentions the 'San Jacinto wilderness' to the west. I didn't remember this until I looked it up but San Jacinto is the Spanish name for Saint Hyacinth, which, brb crying

Apollo also mentions seeing a patchwork of golf courses below, which is what the valley is known for... but those are mostly in Palm Desert, which is about 15 miles southeast of Palm Springs. this is where my placement of things gets confused, because in my brain this should put them south of Palm Springs, not west—in fact, the San Jacinto wilderness area is more southwest of Palm Springs than straight west. however, if they're high enough in the hills along the southern side of Palm Springs, they'd still have a view of the golf courses in the east with a wilderness to their backs, so this still tracks for me (putting Aeithales above the Tahquitz Canyon area)

(Also, just for a fun local history lesson: a part of this area of the valley is broken into a checkerboard of 1 sq mile plots owned by the state vs plots owned by the Aqua Caliento Band of Cahuilla Indians. idk Meg's father's ancestory, so I'm not sure if he would have built Aeithales on Cahuilla land or not, but I'm going to assume not for now. this helps me narrow down where it might be!)

that's just from the introduction, though. much later in the book (p329 in my copy) Apollo mentions the winds shifting, 'filling the Morongo Valley with wildfire smoke' at which point I got real confused, because Morongo Valley is to the north, also about 15 miles (it's the area that connects the Coachella Valley through the northern mountains to Joshua Tree, another secluded desert town people like to escape to). based on previous estimate, they should be able to see that area, I'm just not sure why Rick chose to mention it; they shouldn't be driving that way at all. unless he meant Moreno Valley, which was mentioned earlier (they drove 'by' it to get to LA), or the Morongo reservation, which is usually just referred to as 'the pass' (between the mountains, into the Coachella Valley from the west; Apollo mentions going through the pass, in those terms, at one point). I think it makes the most sense that Rick meant the pass

I was also confused about where the ever-present wildfires are. from Aeithales, Apollo mentions a glow on the western horizon, but while driving 'by' Moreno Valley he mentions smoke to the north (I keep putting single quotes around 'by' because, depending on where the fires are, it might make just as much sense to go 'through' Moreno Valley) it's probable that the forests on top of both mountain ranges are on fire, given the situation, but the fact that they're able to get through the pass multiple times under these conditions?? nightmareish

final fun facts about driving times, since they drive so much in this book! depending on when you leave, driving from Palm Springs to Malibu takes around 3 hours, and Malibu to Santa Barbara is another hour and a half. thats a lot of driving while the mountains are all on fire! I wonder how expensive their refueling stops were!

anyway, I'm hazarding a guess that Aeithales is within one of these two red circle areas:

there's a couple hiking trails in both those areas, but they're otherwise unbuilt IRL. I'd be delighted to know where Rick intended for Aeithales to be when he did research for this book!

#percy jackson #trials of apollo #also this book has been out for long enough that i'm sure someone has already figured out the placement #its was delightful to read this book and have all these place names I'm familiar with casually thrown in though! #except for the huge chunk of time I spent assuming they were in the hills above Rancho Mirage #and rick was just referring to the whole valley as Palm Springs which made me so confused and frustrated lol #like......... i am personally so completely over palm springs as a concept #and the way out of towners say palm springs when they mean the valley in general #someone go back in time and tell meg's dad to build his natural oasis closer to the southern side of the valley #its like FILLED with farmland its a much better place for a mansion dedicated to natural life #...as long as the wind isnt blowing in off the salton sea that is...

[trinikins]

Oh look, I have started yet another stardew valley save

Let's see if I can stick to it this time

#i stop for a time due to college and feel the need to start all over again #oh well #i have plans for this farm though #and really want to stick to it #i even called it lavender hills farm #*side eyes midnights* #i'll stop rambling now #ramblings #stardew valley

[shieldling]

HEADCANON:  IMOGEN TEMULT.

        There's a lot that Orym knows he doesn't understand.  This can cover things that he'd expect not to know, such as the intricacies of whatever politics of the Feywild are hinted at in Fearne's backstory, and what he'd like to know, namely, the nature of the creatures that murdered his husband and attacked his home.  He wants to know, he wants to tie up loose ends, but he's getting used to not knowing  ---  at the least, he has to make peace with things being slow, and the revelation of them not coming easily.

        The one thing, though, that Orym does feel he does know is how to see love.  He saw it so clearly with Will, and with Will's family in Zephrah, that it was hardly a choice to say no when Will proposed:  how couldn't he say yes to what he saw so clearly?  He stepped into love, and the risks of it, with his eyes wide open.  Seeing, and noticing, the love around him is why he stuck with the Crown-Keepers and by Fearne and Dorian's side afterwards, it's why he took them to Zephrah, and it's why he stays with the Bell's Hells now.

        Sure, they'll all help each other.  Yes, he'll get some answers, someday.  But love is precious, love can be lost, and part of Orym's friendship with Imogen as it's developed, arguably, is trying to help someone else recognize that, to be an open friend and listener and reminder that she can let herself feel love, and all that it comes with.  When he's reminding Imogen that that "dead lady's got a lot of love in her heart," he knows she knows:  Laudna's fondness is clear as day.  But it's about pointing things out again, reminding someone so...  seemingly fiercely devoted and yet so, seemingly, once-alone as Imogen, that Orym wants to help her see the good.

        He worries, too, because of course he does:  he doesn't know much about magic, and wants his friends not to accidentally hurt themselves.  But moreover, he's starting to see the love they have given him, and wants to quietly steer them towards theirs, as well.  It feels like a good kind of payback, and like...  well, he tries to know his own heart.  Maybe he can help them with theirs.

#( this is both an imogen dynamic meta and a general one?? so i'll slap tags on it for both ) #not okay to reblog / #( headcanon. ) let the valleys awake. #( meta. ) over the hills and far away.