#and the world is populated with mythical beings so it's like not uncommon for it to happen

[yeenybeanies]

Hallo, guess who's got some naga au questions! These are just general world building questions, but I'll probably have character specific ones in the future. You might get another list for your hybrid au soon

Does a nagas breed depend on their birthplace?

Is it only nagas, or are there other "mythical" species?

Like your g/t au, is naga x human relationships looked down upon or seen as disgusting?

Are two-headed/conjoined nagas possible?

Are there sea snake nagas?

Do nagas live longer than humans?

Like snakes, do nagas shed their teeth as well?

howdy howdy again!! thank you for the questions! 💖

so unfortunately i kinda shot myself in the foot when i designed naga!soap to be so wildly different from naga!ghost, so now i feel compelled to make them separate species within the same genus, as opposed to just being the same species like i'd prefer. so, with that in mind, i'm gonna say that there is only one extant genus of naga, but there are a few (maybe a half dozen or so? not too many) different, closely-related species. so closely related that they can all interbreed, & it is not uncommon for many nagas to have dna from one or more other species. there's likely some ongoing argument about whether or not they should all be reclassified to exist under the same species name. TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION: it depends. mostly, yes. certain species do originate from certain areas. however, there's also been thousands of years of intermingling ever since methods of travel have expanded, so... i suppose it kinda works like humans. there's native species, but there are often immigrant species that have settled as well.

i'm thinkin' it's just nagas. there aren't any mermaids or centaurs or anything. just so happened that evolution allowed these weird, legless, half-mammal-half-reptile creatures to succeed.

hmm. romanic or sexual relationships between humans & nagas probably are to a degree frowned upon. kinda unrealistic to think that humans would at one point frown upon interracial or homosexual relationships & not interspecies relationships. but things have probably seen great improvement over the last few decades. so, interspecies relationships, while likely still pretty uncommon, are likely not going to face open backlash from the general public. they're gradually being normalized & accepted.

in the same way that conjoined twin humans & other animals are possible, conjoined naga twins can & do exist. they're very rare & do not usually survive to adulthood.

to an extent, yes! some populations of nagas that live near the sea may have somewhat flattened tails & a bit of webbing in the fingers to aid with swimming. but, unlike sea snakes, they can still slither & function on land just fine, & they can be away from the water.

nagas live about for about 200 years. naga!ghost & naga!soap are like 80-something & 70-something respectively, & they're still quite young. the equivalent of early 30s & mid 20s humans.

they do occasionally shed teeth. each tooth probably lasts a couple of years, but when one gets old or damaged, it'll fall out, & a fresh, new tooth'll pop back in within a day or so.

#naga au #naga!ghost #naga!soap #hyena asks #fun things to think about!! #just know that some of this stuff i am coming up with on the fly tho so it's all subject to change

[dailycharacteroption]

Half-Elf Double Scion (Vigilante Archetype; Half-Elf)

(art by Yutaan)

We’ve discussed it repeatedly on the blog, but being a half-elf, stuck between two worlds, comes with some baggage that most societies, be they human or elven, are not equipped to answer. Too long-lived to grow up alongside humans, and too short-lived to not outpace their elven peers. In many cases, half-elves often feel like they are caught between two worlds.

Whether it is on purpose or a side effect, today’s entry focuses entirely on that duality! I present the half-elf double scion!

Sometimes, when such a half-elf feels such conflicting feelings and otherness, their solution is to divide their heritages into two distinct halves and identities, and use them to act as a vigilante. Typically, their social identity is the same as the majority population of their home city, all the better to blend in. However, their vigilante identity, achieved not just with concealing their faces but using cosmetic prosthesis to reshape their ears and body proportions, is used to let them act as the other part of their identity, a ethereal and whimsical elf among humans, or perhaps a brash and direct human among elves.

Of course, their exact goals in doing so may vary, as some may be heroes writing wrongs in a way they feel the native ancestry they share will not, or as villains indulging in vices their contemporary identity wouldn’t allow.

Either way, these vigilantes demonstrate an interesting take on the double identity aspect of the class.

The dual identities of these vigilantes play more into their dual heritage than they do aspects of their personality, so not only are they adept at pretending to be wholly human or elvish with their disguise, but their morality does not have to shift when they switch.

In lieu of any other abilities, these vigilantes gain access to special vigilante talents. Some, for example, train with elvish weapons to better secure the illusion of being elvish in their vigilante identity, treating them as more familiar and being especially skilled with one of them.

Drawing upon the graceful confidence of elves an the bold confidence of humans, these warriors can strike for their foes weaknesses with unerring skill every now and again.

Finally, some learn to move with surprising agility, moving a bit further while still keeping their guard up.

While this archetype does claim that you can go both ways, it does seem like all three of the special talents associated with it are geared towards pretending to be an elf, but then, they’re optional. Honestly the one consistent ability is really there mostly for flavor and maybe the occasional time when you use disguise to pretend to be either an elf or human. That being said, these talents are begging to be used with a weapon with a large crit range, such as… oh, say… and elven curve blade or similar weapon, as well as having surprising mobility on the battlefield, weaving between foes and striking them down.

There’s a lot of interesting places you can take this archetype. For some, it may be a way for a character to get in touch with the other half of their heritage that they simply do not have access to where they live. This can of course lead to situations where their persona might lean into stereotypes that one ancestry has about the other, but maybe that’s part of the character’s storyline? Finding out more about their heritage.

In the elven city of Svosa, the Brute is the name given to a human man that is supposedly in hiding around the city, baying at the moon like a deranged wolf, attacking corrupt elements with sudden viciousness and brutality, and generally seeming frightening and more trouble than any good he does. If only they knew that he wasn’t a human at all, not entirely, anyway.

Freed from their tomb, the millenia-old elven mummy Veshia, who bears uncommon, mythic power, has been unleashed. Putting a stop to them requires knowledge of the magic that sealed them away the first time, which luckily is known to a half-elven scholar named Mishri. Those that balk at dragging a mild-mannered scholar along on such a dangerous quest need not worry, however, for she hides a surprising secret: a double identity as the Masked Blade!

Brakkos is well-known for it’s dueling scene, but a recent newcomer has been creating something of an upset. This masked elf has appeared practicing the art of the curve blade, making a fool of many. Those that have searched for the true identity of this upstart have found nothing among the sparse elven population.

#pathfinder #archetype #vigilante #half-elf double scion #half-elf #elf #mummy #Heroes from the Fringe

[the-blind-geisha]

All I can think about is Fem!Demiurge's lustrous voice, and how kickin' she is in a suit. ♥♥

#i really wanna draw her again #she's like hella heavy on my mind #next to irl demi and his lore #b/c i kinda wanna make irl demi still a demon #and the world is populated with mythical beings so it's like not uncommon for it to happen #thoughts thoughts #mod muses #fem!demiurge #demiurge #overlord #mod talks

[yandere-sins]

omg i’m such a dumbass i can’t believe i missed your prompts😭 if it’s not too late can we get some window with suna? he’s just so perfect for it. hope you’re doing well!💓

Awa, you didn’t miss them at all! Thanks for requesting, I hope you’re doing well too ♥ I decided to make a continuation of the Kitsune!AU I did with Suna before here so I could work on his character more.

Window - “…How fucking dense are you?” 

»»———————— ♡ ————————««     

You started buying groceries for two.

It was utterly idiotic that you tolerated that... person’s demands. Especially when you could barely afford to feed another person. More than once, you found yourself holding your phone, dialing the police. But when you looked up, seeing him merely laying on your couch watching TV, you completely forgot what you wanted to say. He didn’t look menacing. He didn’t even try to scare you like a robber would. And how would you even start to explain the fox ears and tail to anyone?

A hunter might have been a better option. But were they and their guns effective against mythical creatures as well? You tried to research it, google for every information you could find, but aside from stories and myths, there were no hints on the internet that this man should actually exist. If you believed the old tellings, they weren’t as uncommon to see back then, but their population seemed to have decreased with the humans taking over most parts of the world.

Thinking logically, that was still no reason for you specifically to endure him. Especially if it were the humans having the upper hand, he should be afraid of you, rather than the other way around! So what if you were nice enough to feed him?

You still couldn’t understand why he was sticking around you.

His ears folding back, Suna finally turned to you, glaring at you in annoyance. “Why are you staring?” he asked, and you flinched, noticing how you had peeked around the corner for too long. It was hard to avoid him, considering he took up a lot of your living space, but you were still reluctant to interact with him. “Just come over here if you want to watch the show.”

Truth be told, he never looked as if he was enjoying what he was watching, but you had seen him put on the same kind of program again and again over time, so surely, he must have taken a liking to it either way. “Is that... your favorite show?” you asked timidly, approaching the couch with a reasonable distance. Even if he was annoyed from your staring, he did invite you over, and it was as good of a time to ask him to leave as any.

“It’s alright,” he replied, and his tail gave a slow wag, making you think he did like it. “Cool, cool...” you mumbled, shooting the TV a short glance, the flashing of bright colors and the loud voices of the moderation appalling you. Suna’s attention returned to you, his eyes giving you a slow, appraising look up and down before he patted the free space next to him on the couch. “Sit,” he kept inviting you as if your presence standing next to the amenity was dissatisfactory for him.

Making this step was harder for you than you thought at first. Hesitantly, you slid on the cushion furthest away from Suna, pressing up to the armrest on your side while he was leaning on the other one, watching you from the corners of his eyes.

Why you even followed his instructions was puzzling, but you hoped he’d take what you were about to say better when you made him comfortable. Clearing your throat, you announced, “So, when do you plan on leaving...?” avoiding to look at him even after you finished speaking.

“Leave what?” A yawn escaped him before his attention shifted back to the program on TV. “My home... this house. Here?” was your lousy explanation, and fiddling with your fingers, you noticed that you were growing nervous with every silent second between you two.

“I don’t know--”

“I’m not going to feed you anymore.”

These words left you the second you heard his dismissive tone of voice and without much consideration. Simply, you were too scared to listen to his rejection. You wanted him out and rather yesterday than tomorrow at that. “I... I can’t keep feeding you. It’s too expensive; I’ll run out of money,” you tried to explain, hoping this was enough to persuade you.

“Huh...” he grumbled, his fingers tapping against the leather on the couch. “I don’t want to leave,” he eventually mustered to say, taking a deep breath before sitting up straight. “But you can’t stay...” you disappointingly replied.

“Can’t I?”

“No,” you said firmly, standing your ground.

Inching closer to you, his presence was suddenly unnerving. You wondered what the point was in closing in the distance, not sure what he would do. “I can’t feed you anymore a-and, uh, you are over... over-staying your welcome!”

It sure didn’t help that he was leaning towards you, slender features and pure skin soon covering all you could see. Black hair as you looked towards the ceiling, an unpredictable expression when your gaze graced his face.

“... How fucking dense are you?” he asked you suddenly, using harsher words than you had ever heard him do before.

Next thing you knew, he had your hands restraint, pushing your upper body back to bend over the armrest. The burning you felt of the strain in your back was your smallest concern at that moment; instead, you immediately focus on thin lips brushing down your neck and to your collarbones. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying.”

“B-But I-” you stuttered, trying to convince him and find a peaceful solution. Twisting and turning your wrists only revealed Suna’s strength, something he hadn’t used on you before, so you never had a chance to find out about it until now. “You won’t get rid of me just because you don’t feed me, you know.”

“What?” you squeaked, so sure of yourself that all your research had shown that animals who lost a source of food would move on. You had bet your entire confidence on this fact. “I don’t even need food,” he explained, seemingly reading your mind.

“Then why... Why did you stay?”

What followed was a long pause. So much so, you noticed your back pain again, twisting your torso to appease it and also moved your head around to free yourself of hair blocking your view. There was a vase on the coffee table. If only you could reach it, you’d have a chance of breaking free. But being able to see again, you noticed something moving rather excitedly behind Suna’s body, his tail wagging putting every dog to shame.

No second later, you felt the sharp pain of fangs in the soft flesh between your neck and shoulder, and you flinched hard at it, only worsen the feeling. “Ah-!” you wanted to cry out, but the sound got stuck in your throat as he loosened his jaw, moving slightly more to the right to bite down again.

This time, you felt the tears shoot into your eyes, shock, pain, and fear covering your senses. “Who knows~” he chuckled, seemingly amused about your reaction. Pulling away from you, you could see the bloodstains around his mouth, almost making you faint as you could ultimately realize that he did, in fact, bit you twice just now.

“Maybe I stayed for you? I couldn’t wait to get a bite for sure. Want me to eat you up?”

He leaned down again, and this time, as weak as you felt, you could see your life flashing before your eyes, especially when you felt his tongue drag over the wounds he had just induced. In what must have been a survival instinct, you managed to shove your hands into his shoulders, his grip having weakened as he didn’t expect you to resist. The next moment you were free, falling off the couch and to your feet, gone in the blink of an eye. You only stopped when the door to your bedroom closed behind you, and you locked it, sinking to the ground.

You had nothing on you; no phone or cell, nothing to make yourself known to the outside world. If you climbed out the window or exit through the door, you were almost sure you were a feast for the fox. There was barely anything you could do to calm your racing heart or stop hyperventilating as your mind desperately thought of alternatives. If this was just one of his jokes, you were taking it way too seriously, but how could you know?

How could you know what was true and false about the grinning fox spirit standing in front of your bedroom door, licking his lips in delight?

#Suna #Suna Rintarou #Rintarou Suna #Suna hq #yandere suna #yandere!suna #Haikyuu!! #Haikyuu #HQ!! #yandere haikyuu #yandere!haikyuu #yandere #yandere imagines #yandere headcanons #yandere scenarios #yandere fanfiction #yandere writing #yandere oneshot #yandere drabble #yandere x reader #yandere x darling #Yandere TW #lovelove prompts #Anonymous

[danco110]

If you ever start thinking “Hey, maybe I have too many Commander decks,” let me tell you: you don’t. I do:

WARNING!!! EXTREMELY long post below, describing each deck and a brief summary of its strategy in overly abbreviated and nerdy Commander lingo. I mean, I’m talking a real wall of text, here. I mean it! Read more at your own risk!

——

——

THE A-TEAM: These decks have all been around for a while, and have all seen their fair share of wins.

-Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain. Artifact storm, and probably the closest I’ll ever come to cedh. WARNING: my Mana Crypt is in here!

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. OHKO tribal. Seeks to blast people wide open with either Embercleave, Kaya’s Onslaught, or Uncaged Fury.

-Bruna, Light of Alabaster. Voltron that can either play nice and fetch Eldrazi Conscription, or not, and grab Spectra Ward.

-Sigarda, Heron’s Grace. Human tokens tribal, and the rightful recipient of my only Doubling Season.

-Admiral Beckett Brass. Pirate tribal. Taking commanders and wincons is fun. WARNING: somewhat unfun to play against!

-Gishath, Sun’s Avatar. Dino tribal.

-Hallar, the Firefletcher. Kicker tribal.

-Syr Gwyn of Ashvale. Knights and equipments and equip 0 Colossal Hammers.

-Nikya of the Old Ways. A creatures-only deck that probably has more interaction than most of my other decks!

-Atemsis, All Seeing. Azor’s Gateway / Twiddlestorm / Untap shenanigans. WARNING: somewhat unfun to play against!

-Gnostro, Voice of the Crags. Flicker tribal with a non-Narset commander so as to not draw too much heat.

-Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty. Cascade / big spells / Simic is broken change my mind / tribal

-Aragon, Roar of the World. Cat tribal, and my first-ever Commander deck!

——

THE B-TEAM: My decks with fairly good performance across their games, independent of wins and losses

-Halana, Kessig Trapper and Alena, Kessig Ranger (Partner). Big bodies / EtB tribal.

-Khorvath Brightflame and Sylvia Brightspear (Partner). Knights and dragons tribal.

-Virtus, the Veiled and Gorm, the Great (Partner). Quietus Spike / force block shenanigans. WARNING: somewhat unfun to play against!

-Linvala, Shield of Sea Gate. Azorius party aggro.

-Zagras, Thief of Heartbeats. Phantom Rakdos party control.

-Tazri, Beacon of Unity. 5C party +1/+1 counters.

-Kazarov, Senior Pureblood. “I can’t play against Krenko anymore today” Pyroclasm tribal.

-Liesa, Shroud of Dusk. Angel and demon tribal (NOTE: no synergy there, I just wanted to stick to the flavor of “alliance with a demon lord”)

-Orah, Skyclave Hierophant. Clerics tribal that always tries for an Angel of Destiny win before it (always) defers back to aristocrats.

-Bruna, the Fading Light. Angel tribal that tries to meld Brisela every game.

-Anafenza, the Foremost. +1/+1 counters tribal, and the deck that made me realize Outlast really should’ve been instant-speed.

-Samut, Voice of Dissent. Exert tribal with vigilance, untap, and extra combats.

-Juri, Master of the Revue. Sacrifice tribal, with a burn subtheme.

-Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas. Big tribal, and the deck that made me realize Experience counters were busted. Run Suncleanser, people!

-Quintorius, Field Historian. Reanimate and blow up your graveyard. Also, Purify the Grave is hilarious!

-Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire. Chaos warp tribal, and a Primal Surge deck that doesn’t have Primal Surge because that card is extremely boring.

-Ishkanah, Grafwidow. Spider tribal that seeks to make opponents forget about Ishkanah’s activated ability until it’s too late.

-Omnath, Locus of the Roil. Landfall and elementals.

-Savra, Queen of the Golgari. Grave Pact tribal. WARNING: somewhat unfun to play against!

-Feather, the Redeemed. Haha, combat tricks go brrrrrr!

-Adeliz, the Cinder Wind. Wizards spellslinger aggro. Also one of the few decks of mine that actually uses cantrips!

-Aryel, Knight of Windgrace. Knights tribal with a removal/control subtheme.

-Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice. Mentor + Double Strike tribal. I only built this deck because I pulled a borderless Outlaws’ Merriment, ok?

-Araumi of the Dead Tide. Self mill encore, and the deck that made me appreciate the singleton rule in Commander.

-Kaza, Roil Chaser. Big spells. BIG! I mean, Electrodominance for 10, into a Karn’s Temporal Sundering, big!

——

THE C-TEAM: My decks that just don’t cut it at a lot of pods, sometimes even against those at appropriate power levels. That being said, however, these tend to be my more storied decks, that I still enjoy playing.

-Syr Alin, the Lion’s Claw. Mono-White go wide, with commons and uncommons only. Part of my cycle of Eldraine uncommon legendary knight decks, 1/5.

-Syr Elenora, the Discerning. Mono-Blue Voltron + draw power, with commons and uncommons only, 2/5.

-Syr Konrad, the Grim. Mono-Black aristocrats...kind of...? It’s complicated, but with commons and uncommons only, 3/5.

-Syr Carah, the Bold. Mono-Red storm, with rares and mythics for Underworld Breach and Past in Flames, because I feel like storm needs those, 4/5.

-Syr Faren, the Hengehammer. Mono-Green infect, with rares and mythics for Phyrexian Swarmlord, because I really wanted a deck that could run that, 5/5.

-Jodah, Archmage Eternal. Avengers Assemble! legendary tribal. I had a lot of bulk legends at the time, and wanted to make something of them!

-Abomination of Llanowar. Literal elf ball. Built in response to my irritation at someone’s Lathril, Blade of the Elves deck.

-Licia, Sanguine Tribute. Lifegain is good, I swear, built in response to my disbelief at the $200 price tag on a store-built Licia deck. Mine costs maybe $100, if you count the sleeves and box?

-Thalisse, Reverent Medium. Tokens tribal that breaks Anointed Procession even further, which made me wonder why green gets all the token doublers *cough*adrixandnev*cough*

-Hamza, Guardian of Arashin. +1/+1 counters, with commons and uncommons only, built because someone at my store wanted to play commons and uncommons only with an uncommon Commander. Thanks for getting me into Artisan Commander, Will!

-Siona, Captain of the Pyleas. Enchantress, with a tokens subtheme. Built because I and a friend both commented that she looked like Wonder Woman.

-Mina and Denn, Wildborn (NOT Partner). Landfall aggro, with all the creatures that pump on landfall.

-Ghired, Conclave Exile. Populate and tokens. Built because I was bored one Saturday and saw I had an extra set of sleeves.

-Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor. Landfall tribal, (again? Sheesh!) built the same lazy Saturday as Ghired, above.

-Armix, Filigree Familiar and Eligeth, Crossroads Augur (YES Partner). Artifact tribal, with a super janky 4-piece Marionette Master loop wincon! Built because Eligeth turns Preordain into “Draw 2 cards, then draw a card.”

-Akiri, Fearless Voyager. Equipment tribal, with an asymmetrical boardwipe subtheme. Built because I pulled an Akiri from a pack, and someone said “ooh, sorry,” from over my shoulder.

-Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch. Unleash counters tribal. Built because I found a Chaos Imps in my bulk!

——

THE MEME-TEAM: These decks...are. Yeah, they are. Not necessarily good or bad. Just...are.

-Kenrith, the Returned King. The game plan is “Get to Trostani’s Summoner, and either flicker it or make a bajillion copies of it.” One day, I found a card named Trostani’s Summoner, and it was love at first sight! My Demonic Tutor went in here!

-Phylath, World Sculptor. Landfall tribal...with 99 basic land cards.

-Rograkh, Son of Rogahh and Keleth, Sunmane Familiar. (Partner) Kill one guy and die tribal.

-Etrata the Silencer. The “I wanted a non-Koma Mirror Gallery deck” deck. Also with a guest appearance from flicker!

-Lazav, Dimir Mastermind. Literally just “Oops! All Control!” Draw, counter, and remove. WARNING: don’t play against this.

-Ravos, Soultender and Livio, Oathsworn Sentinel. (Partner) War of attrition, etb and control. WARNING: don’t play against this. It has like 15 boardwipes!

-Valki, God of Lies / Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter. (NOT Partner) “I want to piss off the table” tribal. It mills your opponents, it plays their stuff, and it removes the stuff it doesn’t play. WARNING: don’t play against this. It runs Jokulhaups, Obliterate, and Decree of Annihilation!

-Svella, Ice Shaper. Colossal Dreadmaw tribal, as in, anything that’s roughly 6/6 makes the cut! It’s actually won games!

-Brion Stoutarm. Hijack and fling tribal. “You know, I’ve never had an Eldrazi titan before. Can I borrow it? Well, see, I wasn’t exactly...asking...?”

-Grumgully, the Generous. Non-human “uno mas” tribal. Tries to run all the counters cards like Renata and the Rhythm of the Wild.

-Subira, Tuzuldi Caravaneer. Small tribal. Just think “mono-r blitz in Commander,” and you’ll get the gist.

-Neheb, the Worthy. Minotaurs and discard tribal. Not as oppressive as Tinybones, or as explosive as Nath, and that’s a good thing. Trust me.

——

THE ALL-RAVNICAN REJECTS: These decks are... *sniff* no longer with us. They were broken down for pieces, for sleeves, or because I slept through each time I played them.

-Najeela, the Blade Blossom. Boring warriors extra combat steps. Broken because I wanted her tri-lands, and I wanted some of her warriors for my party decks.

-Golos, Tireless Pilgrim. Maze’s End lands. Golos is broken and we all know it. Broken for sleeves, and because my first land tutor was always Field of the Dead because of the incoming hate, and not Maze’s End, and I wasn’t happy with that.

-Arcades, the Strategist. Walls. As it turns out, not a lot of decks can contest 3-mana 8/8’s. And against those that could, the deck was put in the ground extremely quickly. Broken because it just wasn’t fun to play.

——

THE DRAWING BOARD: These decks are in the works. Will they see the light of day, and the protection of sleeves? Well, we’ll see, will we not?

-Borborygmos. Go wide and SMASH! My first attempt at a pile of cards; I’m trying for a goblins/saproling hybrid tribal, because both make lots of tokens, but we’ll see how well that translates into actual play.

-Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer. Thopters and artificers and myr, oh my! All joking aside, I just wanted a deck that wants to run cards with Fabricate, because I thought it was a really cool mechanic!

-Garna, the Bloodflame. Reanimator/sacrifice, AKA corpse carousel. It’s a revolving door between the graveyard and the battlefield, yknow, and most of my store’s meta does not run graveyard hate.

I tried to warn ‘ya!

#magic the gathering #mtg #edh #commander

[asianartsblog]

LEK BORJA RENEWS FILIPINO HISTORY THROUGH ART

BY PRECIOUS RINGOR

Asian Pasifika Arts Collective New Outlooks Blog

April 2, 2021

http://ow.ly/fEby50FlQWZ

Editor’s Note: Precious Ringor brings us a second artist profile, this time of Filipino American interdisciplinary artist and poet Lek Borja, whose work is an attempt to track the continuous colonization across time, first within the Philippines from Spain and the United States, through present day America and trying to give voice to Filipino life against a white hegemony. Precious displays how Lek crosses borders of cultural stereotypes, seeking to expand the visions placed on Filipinos by other oppressive powers, and inserting her culture in art spaces where they are new and unfamiliar, but for the community, reminders of home.

Header Image: “Heritage at the Threshold” by Timothy Singratsomboune | Digital photography collage, 5400 x 4050 px, 2021.

Getting to know someone virtually is one of the sad realities we’ve had to face because of COVID-19 regulations. It’s both a blessing and a curse—we’ve become a global village, but at the same time we’ve all had more eye and back problems from sitting around and zooming this past year. 

A zoom call and an hour was all I had to get to know Lek Vercauteren Borja, a Filipino American interdisciplinary artist and poet widely known for her thought-provoking work into the Asian diaspora. Chatting with Lek didn’t feel like a job though; time flies fast when you’re having fun.

One of the things I noted was Lek’s warm and friendly nature. Most of the time, it’s uncommon for an interviewee to ask questions about the interviewer. Lek unabashedly admitted that she did a bit of ‘stalking’ before we hopped on Zoom, “I like to know about the person I’m talking with, even before the interview starts.” 

Lek started in poetry. Armed with a love for Shakespeare, she pursued a dual concentration in Art and Creative Writing at Antioch University. It was there that she first fell in love with art history and sculpture. During that time, her first chapbook, Android, was published by Plan B Press. She took this as a sign to continue pursuing a career in arts. 

As an artist, she admits that’s where she gets inspiration from, “I want to talk about the history of Filipinos, the invisible stories. Growing up in the Philippines and studying there, I realized there was a lot missing in our history books. It seemed as if it were written from a western perspective.” She reminded me so much of the Philippines, of home. Because of our similar upbringing, I immediately understood her search for truth.

The themes of home and longing, of memory and the present, and of giving Filipino lives new voices, carry across her work, and no more palpably than her piece Evolution of the Aswang Myth, what she calls “seed and the origin” to all her current works. Lek says “Without it, I wouldn’t be thinking about art, the way I’m making now.” This 8 x 8 feet painting explores the origins of the aswang or manananggal, a Filipino mythical creature typically depicted as a woman feared for its penchant for eating infants and unborn fetuses during the night. Interestingly, the aswang was also a word ascribed to the Filipina women who went against the forced religious conversion by Spanish friars during their colonization of the Philippines. 

March 2021 marked 500 years since Spanish ships first arrived on the shores of the Philippines. 

Since then, our country fought hard for liberation, first from Spain and then from the United States of America. In retrospect, it hasn’t been long since the Philippines became an independent nation. Today, we are striving to find our voice amidst the imperialistic erasure we’ve endured.

As Lek puts it, “What propelled me to tell these stories is the feeling that I had no voice. For one, I didn’t speak English well so I couldn’t really talk about what I was going through or how I felt. That’s why a lot of my work now focuses on bringing my experiences of living in the Philippines at the forefront and seeing how that’s connected to bigger conversations and narratives around us.” 

Currently, Lek’s work called Anak (My Child) is being featured in the gallery at Towson University’s Asian Arts & Culture Center. 

View Anak (My Child) Exhibit: https://towson.edu/anak

Besides online exhibitions and virtual galleries, Lek is also conducting several workshops in Baltimore’s upcoming Asia North Festival. These workshops are a good model for Lek’s philosophy in making art out of personal histories. Whether it’s experiences of displacement or change, she points out that everyone’s story matters and there will always be a community of people who can empathize with that.   

“I think it’s really important for our stories to be brought to light in the larger narrative. They think by calling us model minority, our problems can easily be brushed aside” I lamented the steady rise of xenophobic crimes these past few months.  

“I agree, it’s a really complex issue” Lek adds, “Why are we so silent? Why do we stand in the shadows? I’ll probably look for an answer my entire life. It’s hard to talk about our struggles and it’s not easy to have conversations about the past. There’s a culture of silence that’s been normalized and it’s perpetuated even in our own homes. But that’s part of the work I do, bringing everything from the past into the forefront so we can have deeper conversations about it.” 

Speaking of the past, Lek’s introduction to the arts started in Tarlac, a city located north of the Philippines. Besides being known as the most multicultural province, the city is home to numerous sugar and rice plantations. “The population of our barrio was probably less than 1,000. Our family had a farm as well as a sugar-cane and rice field plantation. My inang [grandmother] also worked in the market as a butcher. It was a pretty simple country lifestyle but my childhood was amazing.” 

Life in the country has been instrumental to Lek’s artistry. “The memory of the landscape and of the community is an extension of my art,” Lek explains. As a young girl, her biggest inspiration comes from her grandfather who, like herself, was also an artist. Lek would copy his drawings and eventually create drawings of her own. Recently, Lek has started to incorporate banana leaves into her work. Banana leaves are incredibly important to Filipino culture as it is used for cooking and traditional homebuilding. 

“Sounds like you had to find your own path, coming here at such a young age and experiencing culture shock. America is very different from the Philippines!” I quipped.

“It was snowing where I first came here!” she exclaimed, thinking back to her initial introduction of America. “It was November when we landed in New York, it was freezing. I remember our families bundling us in huge warm winter coats before wecould even say hello. It was definitely a huge shock.”

I laugh, thinking back to when I first arrived in California ten years ago. Silly to think I was already freezing in sunny temperatures when she had to endure piles of snow. “Do you think you’ve had to change yourself in order to adjust to that culture shock?” 

“For a long time I really didn’t know who I was,” Lek admits. “When I was younger, the school I went to was predominantly white. What I thought about how I should present myself came from that image. I dyed my hair blond and put on blue colored contacts to fit in. It was a lot of assimilation and cultural erasure. I started talking less Tagalog and less Ilocano. But art has really helped me find myself. It made me think more deeply about who I really was and what was important to me on an authentic level.” 

Halfway through our conversation, we slowly realized just how similar we were. From migrating at the age of ten to living twenty miles apart in the same city. It was also in chatting that Lek found out I spoke Tagalog fluently, one thing she regrets losing unexpectedly. As it is my first language, Lek asked me to speak it instead. Once again, her warm nature bled through the Zoom interview; I found it refreshing since hardly anyone thinks about the interviewer’s comfort. 

Unsurprisingly, community building is important to Lek. Before working, she likes to ask herself the following questions, ‘How is what I’m doing connected to my family and everyone in the Filipino community? How can I better serve my community?’ One of the main reasons she moved to L.A. is to network with other Filipino artists. 

“A few years ago, I showed my art alongside a group of all Filipino artists at Avenue 50 Studio gallery for an exhibition that Nica Aquino and Anna Calubayan organized (also both Filipinas). It’s crazy because I’ve lived in and out [of L.A.] for over 10 years now and it was only in 2019 that I started to be part of that community. It’s probably the most fun I've had at an art show, I really felt at home.” 

“I’d love to visit the studio’s galleries once it’s safer to go outside” 

“Definitely! I’ll keep you updated on any gatherings” Lek pitched excitedly.

“And I'll bring you guys homemade ube cakes and puto pao!” I teasingly replied back.

As our call came to a close I couldn’t help but ask Lek if she had any advice to give to budding AAPI artists. 

“I’ll echo what people who have supported me have said in the past: trust yourself and trust that you can make a difference. It’s hard to figure out who you want to be when [the world] has expectations and demands from you. We’re lucky to live in a time where there’s so many possibilities. Figure out what you want to do authentically and genuinely, and go for it.” 

Lek continues on, “Personally, it took me a long time to find my voice. When I was in grad school, I had a lot of doubt in myself because most visiting artists and curators couldn’t understand my work. What made it all worth it were the moments that people got [my voice] right away.”  

Getting to know Lek and learning about her commitment to showcasing invisible stories has been awe-inspiring; it made me proud to be a Filipino American artist. And in the wake of our hurting AAPI community, I believe it’s incredibly important, now more than ever, to highlight and support works of people like Lek. People who have had to fight for their voice in this world, who our youth could look up to and be inspired to become. 

About the Author:

Precious Ringor is a Filipino-American singer/actress/writer residing in Los Angeles, CA. Ringor graduated from Cal State University, Fullerton with a degree in Human Communication Studies where her research is geared towards Asian American socio-cultural communication norms. Besides performing in various theatre shows and indie film sets, Ringor also works as a content contributor to Film Fest Magazine and Outspoken

[vulpinmusings]

Letters from Buxcord #11: An Elemental Headache

In this Monster of the Week mystery, Ash confronts multiple personal frustrations.

Samantha,,

Either you’ve already read the letter I addressed to Noctus or I’m telling you these stories in person, so I won’t bother repeating my unexpected run-in with Meis N’cral a week ago. I’ve spent most of this week refitting N’Cral’s ship, to the best of my limited mechanical ability, into a serviceable fall-back shelter and secure storage for the materials I’ll need to perform the spell that will bring me home.

And to be quite frank, the sooner I can get out of Buxcord, the better.

I also finally got “Mr. Penn” to open up about his true nature. I’m still not sure if he’s the same entity as Nollthep or another “spawn,” but that’s not exactly a deal killer anymore. Penn describes himself as the spawn of a god-like being that’s holed up somewhere in Buxcord, unrelated to that demon sealed in the cottonwood tree but held in place by the same barriers, gathering power in an attempt to break out into the wider world and plunge it all into a state of mindless insanity. Penn has come to care for Buxcord and its populace as they are now, and so is now in open rebellion against his former boss/creator/Master/what-have-you.

A morag after my own heart, wouldn’t you say? And certainly an easier project than Noctus was (and you can tell her that if this letter doesn’t have to go through her to reach you). Don’t worry, I’m not planning to bring him home; I’ll just help him deal with his former master and then get him set on a nice self-discovery path. And at least one ethics lesson.

A couple days after scoring that confession, my dull daily routine was livened up by the uncommon sound of an ambulance siren from the east side of town. Considering the historic trends, I went immediately to Bayou Boating to see what was up. Penn, Lea, and Piper were already there, dealing in various ways with an agitated group of tourists. It appeared that one of their number had suffered a deep cut to their leg during the end of their boat tour, with no apparent cause except for an unusually large wave of water splashing into the boat.

It wasn’t much to go off of, but at this point that’s all it took to get Piper on board with supplying me and the usual suspects a boat to go investigate. And since Fitz apparently hasn’t come to work since before the N’Cral incident, there was nobody that Piper had to work around to get us that boat. (I think Penn’s first solo task should be accounting for everybody that he and his ilk have interfered with in some way or another…)

The attack had occurred not too far from shore, so it was a short trip to what turned out to be an even shorter search. Penn leaned out over the side of the boat, dunked his head underwater, and promptly resurfaced to say he’d seen a strange orb moving through the water. And the instant he finished explaining, the orb rose into view inside an animated tentacle of water. Figuring it to be some sort of elemental construct, I advised everyone to get onto the nearby island so we wouldn’t be quite as surrounded by deadly water. There were a few missed jumps and fumbles, but we all made it ashore without much harm, whereupon I tried to freeze the elemental solid. My spell came out as more of a blast of ice than the intended temperature manipulation, and the orb was knocked out of its tentacle. Piper flew up to grab the orb, but threw it away from herself almost immediately because of how cold it felt. Penn used his razor whip to slam the orb onto dry ground and I hit it with fire, expecting to neutralize the construct with its opposing element.

I severely misjudged. The orb absorbed the fire and formed a fire elemental body from it.

Lea called up a wave of dirt to try and smother the fire, which might or might not have actually put us up against an ersatz golem, but the orb floated itself over the dirt and fired back at Lea. As Lea dealt with that, Penn pulled out his combat umbrella and stabbed at the orb, knocking it back into the water.

I should have left well enough alone, but I hadn’t quite caught on to the thing’s nature, so I froze the area where the orb had gone underwater, and wound up just making it into a massive ice golem, with the orb safely hidden in its center of mass. It punched Lea out of the air, shrugged off a handful of Penn’s blast powder, and then clobbered me when I tried to pull its attention off Lea and also melt through its ice to expose the orb to fire again.

My intention was to carefully work the thing back around to water and then work out a plan to isolate the orb without giving it any other elemental properties, but Penn decided that it would best if the thing was just not near us anymore so we could all catch our breath. So, Penn cast a spell to teleport the elemental away without determining a destination. And it worked, so we were out of danger with no clue where the elemental was now.

Not ideal.

We returned to town, and I considered going to check Simone’s grimoire for any references to adaptive elementals. As we neared the sheriff’s office, however, we heard a commotion and ran over to see Sheriff Ragland and Officer Weaver trying to hold the ice elemental off with shotguns. And there was a crowd of civilians forming to see what was going no.

After we all gave Penn the stink-eye, I told Lea to fly to my apartment and grab Simone’s book while Penn and I went to assist the police. We opened with a combination of an umbrella stab and a Tangler while shouting, in vain, for everyone to clear the area. When the elemental broke free, I magically reinforced Penn’s umbrella as he opened it as a shield. Lea came back at this point, tossing me the book and then landing to summon a wall of earth between the fight and the bystanders as well as vines to restrain the elemental so I could consult the book in peace.

The book helpfully told me that the orb is known as an Arcane Core, an adaptive elemental construct that is drawn to active spells and considered to be a physical manifestation of magic. That made it the second big thing I require for my return trip spell, but it would only serve if unbroken and the only way to preserve its form while neutralizing its threat it to drain the elemental magic out of it.

I don’t think I have ever missed Carmilla and her ever-so-potent magebane gel more than at that precise moment.

When I explained the conundrum to my companions, Penn theorized that he might be able to drain the magic out of the orb and into himself, if he could get into physical contact with the orb for long enough.

At this point, the crowd was becoming very anxious. I… will save that particular rant for later, after I finish telling of the fight. Lea took it upon herself to try to calm everyone down while Penn and I engaged the elemental again. I blasted it with fire hot enough to expose the core but not cause it to shift, which was less than ideal but sufficient for Penn to get a solid grip on the orb. The ice beast punched us both before I could get it in a Tangler, and at that point it was just a matter of holding out until the ice melted away and the orb went dormant in Penn’s grip.

With the danger neutralized, I turned my attention to helping Lea with crowd control. And now it’s rant time.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if the majority of our world’s population were ignorant of the existence of magic and mythics? Well, pop on over to this universe if you want to see. Or better yet, don’t. I don’t know why those in the know have been so intent on keeping the masses ignorant of magic and whatnot, but the result is a population utterly unprepared to react rationally when an elemental starts rampaging in the streets and the local experts, such as they are, arrive to contain it. Perhaps Buxcord sees an unusually high number of monsters and magic incidents for this world, but that’s even less of an excuse to allow the Buxcord locals to remain ignorant of basilisks in their swamp, feral werewolves at their music festivals, and skvetchte demons and chaos beings locked up in local trees. People can die – have died – because next to nobody knows what to be on guard for or how to properly react when a faerie-spider possesses a guy and invades the local hotel.

There’s only so much that I, with the help of a drug-addicted and half-trained faerie girl and a chaos creature of still-dubious quality, can do if the bulk of the remainder in town just have a collective panic attack when trouble strikes. And I’m not sticking around this town, this skvetchte universe, any longer than I have to.

So, yeah, I’m probably not going to try too hard to help that certain raposinho to correct his experimental portal spell after I get home. Not unless we can figure out how to aim it at any other universe.

-Ash.

#MOTW #Vulpin plays

[critical-analysis]

UnDeadwood: Deadwood’s Real and Fictional Dead Bodies That Could Show up in the Game

UnDeadwood is kind of a funny thin, as it's operating on multiple layers of pre-exissting material. The world and many of the NPCs are taken from the show Deadwood, which aired on HBO in the early-mid 2000s. It took place in the South Dakota city of Deadwood, which at the time was not yet incorporated, so it was a relatively lawless place, where people came to seek their fortune in the gold-rich land. The show itself is based on true characters and true events. While its major storylines are, for the most part, mostly fiction, certain real events are dramatized and many of the character are based on real people. With UnDeadwood utilizing both the setting and many of the characters, what do both the events of the show and the real people these characters are based on mean to the story?

Obviously, I'll be discussing spoilers for all three seasons of Deadwood and the recent movie, so if you haven't seen it all and you don't want to be spoiled, maybe stop reading here and come back once you're all caught up.

Also, I do have many sources I want to cite, but I simply didn’t have time to add them in since I wanted to get this posted before it was too late. So I will be adding in sources sometimes later this week. If you’re very interested in seeing the sources, then keep checking back. I’ll make an update post when I’ve added them. 

In today's part (the second part will be posted on Thursday or Friday), I'll be doing a quick overview of the Deadwood, both the show and the settlement, but I'll mostly be focusing on things that might be important in light of the most recent episode - episode two - particularly the bodies that might be in the cemetery, how they got there, and other things involved the dead of Deadwood.

The series starts in 1876, only about half a year after the camp of Deadwood was founded. Many people were flocking to the west in general, some hoping to get rich by striking gold, and others hoping to move to these camps and upstart towns to take advantage of these frontier settlements by starting shops, saloons, or offering their services in fields like medicine. Wealthy and poor alike went West, with poor people hoping to change their circumstances and wealthy people looking for both more wealth and a little adventure. Deadwood, as well as some other settlements, also drew its share of outlaws, as it hadn't even been annexed into the Dakota Territory, so the laws of the territory, and of the US, largely didn't apply. The Lakota people had originally been guaranteed the land of the Black Hills, putting it outside of US laws and territory, but once gold was discovered in the hills, white people moved in and settled, leading to a great deal of conflict with the native people which, sadly, ended in the US taking the land and annexing it into the Dakota Territory.

The series ended after three seasons, without a satisfying conclusion considering writer David Milch had not been expecting it to not be renewed when he was writing the season finale (though the book The Revolution was Televised describes a much more complicated misunderstanding that led to the lack of a fourth season). I'm not sure of the exact year in-story that the third season took place in, but I imagine it was probably 1879 or earlier, and the show had not yet depicted the great fire that occurred in the fall of 1879 that destroyed much of the town and led to many of the people who lived there to leave town. The movie, which was released earlier this year, picks up the story in 1889.

Deadwood was notorious for the amount of crime and, in particular, murder that happened there. The graveyard was quite full for this reason, among others. That's the first thing I want to talk about, since Undeadwood is dealing with the undead, and in this past week's episode they discovered two graves (who knows if there are more) without bodies in them.

Murders were relatively common in Deadwood, especially if we're going by the more popular mythical idea of the town than the reality. While experts and historians say that the crime in Deadwood in recent years, even as the population is significantly lower than its height in the 1800s, is higher than its ever been, even in the days of the Old West, it's commonly said that at its height there was one murder a day in Deadwood. Which means that there would be lots and lots of people buried in that graveyard from violence alone.

However, the violence in the town might not generate as many graves as you might think, as in the series the bodies of murdered people were often fed to Wu's pigs. While there have been cases of bodies being fed to pigs throughout history, there's no evidence that shows it ever actually happened in Deadwood. So the cemeteries in the actual Deadwood might have been a bit fuller than the cemeteries in the fictional Deadwood.

But violence wasn't the only thing that put bodies in graves in the early days of the camp. In 1876 a small pox epidemic swept through the settlement, killing many. This was dramatized on the show, starting with the illness of the character Andy Cramed and continuing on with many unnamed characters taking ill and dying. In the show, Jane helped Doc Cochran nurse the ill, as Calamity Jane did in real life. It also wasn't uncommon for people to die of injuries sustained while working the claims. So that graveyard is going to be filled with bodies of various kinds, various ages, genders, and types. Some with bullet holes, some disease ridden, some mangled from injury. If the bodies in the cemetery are being reanimated, there's sure to be some horrifying sights ahead.

One of the people whose graves we now know is empty is Wild Bill Hickok. By the time Hickok arrived in Deadwood in in 1976, he was already an incredibly well known figure throughout the country, having fought in the Civil War and becoming famous as a marksman, performer, and gambler. He'd become known for not just his famous shootouts, some of which had seen him tried for (and acquitted of) murder, but the wild west shows he put on and took part in. Sadly, by 1976, even though he wasn't even 40 years old, and despite the fact that he was still a well known figure, Hickok had fallen on difficult times. Glaucoma had impacted his marksmanship so much that it was in steep decline, and he'd been arrested for vagrancy one more than one occasion. He married a woman named Agnes Lake and left to travel to Deadwood, joining a wagon train with Calamity Jane and Charlie Utter. He planned to find his fortune in gold and to continue trying to earn income through gambling.

Hickok hadn't even been in Deadwood a month when Jack McCall entered the saloon Hickok was gambling in and shot him in the head, killing him. McCall had been playing cards with Hickok the day beforehand and had been insulted when Hickok suggest he stop playing before he lose all his money, and offered him money for breakfast. While on trial, McCall claimed his motive was revenge, that Hickok had killed his brother. He was acquitted, then tried again after he was caught bragging about the murder. He was hanged in March of 1877. He was buried in Yankton, and when the body was exhumed when the cemetery was moved a few years later, the noose was still around his neck.

Which, honestly, as morbid as it is, would be great imagery for UnDeadwood, if Brian were to take some dramatic liberties with McCall's place of burial. While the show depicts him fleeing Deadwood in light of the town's growing anger after his acquittal, Charlie Utter and Seth Bullock are late shown to have tracked him down so he can stand trial for a second time, with the result of the trial and the execution not happening on screen. For what it's worth, Hickok's body was also moved from the original cemetery in Deadwood in 1879 and moved to a new cemetery called Mount Moriah, which was built on a hill near the town.

Deadwood was accurate in regards to Hickok's time in Deadwood in some ways and not so much in other ways. He was in Deadwood for such a short amount of time,  and most of the accounts of his time there focus on his gambling and his death. There's no evidence that he was even close to successful in securing a claim, and much of the storylines the character took part in during the series were entirely fictional. It doesn't appear that he did any kind of law enforcement work, and considering the fact that his failing eyesight was having such a strong effect on his marksmanship, it's unlikely he would have been able to take part in a shoot out the like of that which occurred with Seth Bullock in the pilot episode. In fact, he probably never even met Seth Bullock, as Bullock and Starr arrived in the camp just one day before Hickok's murder.

But the depiction of the actual events of his death were accurate in a lot of ways. The show depicts the card games that occurred between Hickok and McCall and the growing resentment from McCall. Hickok usually sat with his back to the wall, so that he could always see the entrance. On the day of his death, such a seat was not available, so purely by chance, he sat in a seat with his back to the door, which allowed McCall to come up behind him without Hickok noticing. This is how events unfolded in reality, and they're accurately depicted on the show, as was McCall's first trial and his revenge defense.

Another body that could show up and be important is that of the original reverend, Reverend Smith. While the fictional Reverend Smith was based on a real person, not much of the real Henry Weston Smith made it to the screen. While the real Smith was similar to his fictional counterpart in that he chose to make the move to Deadwood himself without being assigned to the camp, and he was a man of god who truly believed in a preaching the gospel and had no need for material things, pretty much the entirety of Reverend Smith's story is fictionalized.

Which is both a shame and not a shame. The Reverend's story in Deadwood is a beautiful and unbelievably sad one as it leads up to his death. But his death in real life might be even more interesting, as he was the victim of a mysterious murder that remains unsolved today. In August of 1976, he had left his home to preach in a nearby settlement, leaving as note on his door. While many were concerned about the danger of traveling outside of camp without protection, due to both robbers who roamed the roads and the tensions that existed with the native people who had rights to the land, Reverend Smith said that the only protection he needed was the Bible. His body was found to the side of the road outside of town, shot to death. Because he wasn't robbed, the murder was blamed on the native people, but it was never truly solved, and many people within Deadwood having reason to not want a man of god preaching in their camp. Smith was buried in a hillside cemetery, and then he was also moved to the cemetery on Mount Moriah.

In the series, though, Reverend Smith suffered from a brain tumor which causes him to slowly deteriorate as he suffers from hallucinations, headaches, and physical impairment. In UnDeadwood, Al refers to him as being "like a brother". The two weren't close before Smith's illness, but as Al moved from villain into more "anti hero" status, the Reverend reminds Al of his adopted brother, who had seizures and fits like the ones Smith has. He cares for Smith at the Gem as the reverend becomes sicker and sicker, finally smothering him in an act of euthanasia, sending Smith away from his suffering to go with God.

There are also the bodies of the Metz family, who were slaughtered in the first episode by men working for Al Swearengen (though not on Swearengen's orders), as they were on their way out of Deadwood, having not been able to make their fortune and finding the camp too rough. The only survivor was a little girl, Sophia, who would go on to be raised by Alma Garret Ellsworth. So the family's bodies, including those of other children who didn't survive, could possibly also be among those in the graveyard, or among those that are no longer in the graveyard.

The Metz family massacre was an event that occurred outside of Deadwood in 1976, with the family being slaughtered outside of Deadwood in 1876. The crime was initially claimed on the native people, as is shown in the series, but it appeared they were robbed and word spread around town that it was the work of Persimmon Bill Chambers - though not on any orders by Swearengen or anyone else.  Chambers' involvement remained rumors, though, as Chambers was never arrest or tried, and he disappeared, with papers claiming he was killed later the same year. Sources disagree on whether or not there were any survivors of the massacre, and those that do say there was a survivor say that it was an adult man, not a little girl.

Of particular interest, given the events of the end of this past week's episode, is Doc Cochran. In the series, Doc Cochran is a complex character who is ultimately one of the most truly good people in the camp. As the only doctor in town he treats the entire camp, from the girls at the Gem to the smallpox-stricken residents, to a traumatized Sophia after the death of her family, and pretty much everyone else at some point.

Historical records show no evidence of Doc Cochran having a real life counterpart. It's likely that his general existence and relationship to the settlement is a combination of multiple doctors who lived and worked in Deadwood in the first few decades of its existence (and interestingly, at least one of those doctors, Flora Hayward Stanford, who came to the camp to work in 1888, was a woman).

At the end of last week's episode, a hat was found in Wild Bill's grave that displayed the initials D.C., and as the group remembered that Doc Cochran had been unable to find his hat when they knocked on his door, the assumption was made that Cochran must has had some part in the strange happenings of the empty graves and the walking dead.

But there's more to support the idea that he's at least SOMEHOW involved in what's going on than the presence of a hat with his initials on it. In UnDeadwood, while talking to the group about whether or not he had ever seen anything like what had occurred in the shootout, Cochran describes seeing similar things during the war. According to his backstory in the series, Cochran served as a doctor in the war, having to treat the wounded and dying soldiers. He was traumatized by his experience. But the real kicked is a little bit of info that dropped when the leaders of the community were trying to put together a government and assigning jobs. It's revealed that Doc Cochran has been arrested for grave robbing. Seven times.

People hear "grave robbing" and think that it signifies the Doc is not a good person, but grave robbing wasn't entirely uncommon when it came to the medical profession in those days. It was actually a pretty common practice in the 19th century, when those working in the medical field were showing an unprecedented curiosity and making more frequent advancement than ever before, demand for bodies to study and experiment on was high, but the amount of actual, legal product was low. While grave robbing is undeniably a crime and a horrible thing to do, it was a pretty common thing at the time, and not necessarily indicative of whether or not someone was a good or bad person. Doc Cochran shows throughout the series and during the movie that he's a good, decent person, compassionate and ethical in his practices.

The main thing that separates Doc Cochran from the real grave robbers of the era is that, in most cases, grave robbers were never caught. Cochran must not have been very good at it, considering he was nabbed seven times.

So Cochran being connected to an empty grave is not unprecedented. What could this all mean, though? Having a past that includes grave robbing could very well connect him to something mysterious and otherworldly going on that involves graves being found empty. He didn't play dumb when the group asked him about whether he'd seen anything like it before. Instead he was open and honest about what he had seen during the war.

Perhaps what's going on in the game is a result of Doc Cochran's experiments having gone wrong. Perhaps he took bodies from the graves to experiment on, and maybe he took the unburied bodies of the bandits to examine/experiment on before they were scheduled for burial. Maybe wasn't attempting anything nefarious and it's just innocent experimentation gone wrong.

Or maybe it's a red herring. It's possible that while he did take the bodies, and maybe even possible that the bodies he took were or will be reanimated, that he has nothing to do with the actual raising of the dead. That he simply took the bodies for experimentation/examination, and something else happened that he had no part of that reanimated them. It's even possible that someone knows of Cochran's past with grave robbing (as is stated in the series, he was pretty open about sharing it, so it's probably at least somewhat common knowledge), and has stolen his hat, placing it in the grave in an attempt to frame him.

I personally hope that it's one of these options and that he's not up to anything nefarious. Doc Cochran is my favorite character from the show, precisely because while he's a tough and complicated person, he's genuinely good and compassionate. I think it would very much go against his characterization for him to be doing anything intentionally bad or wrong.

But I think that the fact that he does have a history of grave robbing is going to play into things in a major way.

Deadwood was an incredibly violent show, and while the actual Deadwood settlement might not have been quite as violent as legend says, there was a lot of death and suffering that took place there, even in its first year. There are plenty of bodies produced by the series that UnDeadwood can capitalize on for its undead hordes, so I suppose we just have to wait and see what bodies pop up and what from the show is going to effect the narrative moving forward.

Stay tuned for the Thursday/Friday essay, where I'll continue the UnDeadwood discussion, talking about the other characters from the show that we've seen so far, their historical counterparts, and how their stories might come into play in the game. Thanks for reading!

#critical role #undeadwood #deadwood #one shots and other shows

[tyrantisterror]

REVENGE OF THE A.T.O.M. CREATE A KAIJU CONTEST!

Eons ago, when the earth was young, I held the first A.T.O.M. Create a Kaiju Contest, and creators like YOU populated my activity page with a legion of giant monsters!  Now, years later, in celebration of publishing the first volume of The Atomic Time of Monsters, the contest calls to us once again, and it’s only grown bigger and spikier with age.  If you wish to once more ravage the world with atomic titans of your own design, then please, read on after the cut to discover the rules of this thrilling kaiju role call!

Ok, for clarity’s sake I’ll drop the goofy melodramatic tone.

Like the first A.T.O.M. Create a Kaiju Contest, the aim of this contest is to create kaiju that would fit within the setting of my big kaiju story series, The Atomic Time of Monsters.  Think of it as me letting you into my sandbox to play with my toys for a bit, or like you’re being put in the director’s chair of a new ATOM-verse kaiju movie.  That means your entry does have to fit into ATOM’s world, which in turn means that yes, there are limitations to your creativity here.  But limitations can be good sometimes - they can make us explore options we wouldn’t consider when given completely free rein to do what we want!

THE RULES:

1.  This time around, you are limited to one entry per person.  Last time we produced 60+ kaiju, which was awesome, but this time around I want to narrow the scope a little bit - especially if I end up doing something crazy and end up drawing them all like last time, since my carpal tunnel syndrome afflicted hand just can’t do what it did those years ago.  Work hard and make your entry count!

2.  Your kaiju must have some sort of description of its physical appearance and its personality - you can submit a drawing or a written description (or both!) for the physical appearance depending on what you’re most comfortable with.  Using the ATOM kaiju file template isn’t required, but it was cool when people did it in the last contest, so feel free to do so this time too!

3. The kaiju you create must specifically be created for this contest  - no repurposing characters you made for other, wildly different stories.

4. The kaiju must fit the setting and aesthetics of ATOM.  I’ll explain this in more detail down below.

5. The kaiju should add something meaningful to the world of ATOM. What would be the point of having another fire-breathing t.rex monster?  The more unique and interesting your kaiju is, the more likely you will win the contest.

6. The kaiju must be independent of the main plot of ATOM - not “Tyrantis’s long lost evil brother who’s the strongest kaiju in the world.” These should be to Tyrantis’s story what War of the Gargantuas is to Godzilla’s movies – heroes (well, monsters) of another story in the same world.

THE REWARDS:

I will make pencil sketches of the top 5 entries in the contest.

I will then make fully rendered illustrations (lineart, colors, & shading) of the top three entries.

The winning entry will be made into a model ala the ones I’ve been making for ATOM’s core 50 monsters, which can then be shipped to the person who created it (should they be able to cover the shipping costs).  That’s right, your kaiju could be brought to life in THREE GLORIOUS TECHNICOLOR DIMENSIONS!

THE DEADLINE: All entries must be submitted by August 9th, 2019.  You can submit it here on tumblr, via the horror flora e-mail, or any other channel you know how to reach me through.  I’m in a lot of places.

THE GUIDELINES (TO HELP YOUR ENTRY FIT THE RULES AND WIN)

The smartest thing you could do if you want to win this contest is familiarize yourself with the world of ATOM by, y’know, reading all the material I’ve published on the subject.  In addition to the many kaiju files that are free to read on horrorflora.com, the first actual, factual novel in the series was published very recently (and, y’know, is the reason I’m holding this contest), which you can get from amazon in both paperback and/or kindle editions (I’d recommend the former over the latter since I lack the technology to make a really nice ebook, but if money is an object, the kindle version is only $1).

However, since I know reading a bunch of stuff is, y’know, not something everyone is inclined to do, I’ll jot some good bullet points for you in an attempt to outline how ATOM works in a brief, easily digested way:

ATOM is an homage to the monster fiction of the 1950’s and 60’s (i.e. the Atomic Age), and is set in those two decades, albeit an alternate universe version of them where, y’know, monsters and space aliens exist.  If you aren’t familiar with the monster fiction I’m referring to, there will be some reference material provided at the end of this post along with some recommendations for further research.

Kaiju/giant monsters in ATOM work under very specific rules.  There’s a full description of those rules at this link, but here’s the jist:

ATOM Kaiju are created created by the radiation of a mineral called Yamaneon, which naturally converts harmful radiation into its own unique energy.  In natural circumstances, it takes hundreds of years of exposure to Yamaneon radiation for a creature to become fully transform into a kaiju (luckily, Yamaneon radiation slows the aging process while speeding up the healing process).  However, an explosive burst of energy - such as the geothermal and kinetic energy released by an earthquake, or the blast of a nuclear weapon - can speed up the process, turning a normal animal into a kaiju within a matter of seconds.  

All ATOM kaiju can heal grievous wounds within minutes or even seconds, are supernaturally strong and durable, and can convert harmful radiation to harmless energy that they then feed off of.  Kaiju do not have an equivalent of old age, and can theoretically live forever (though their violent lifestyle means that few do).

ATOM Kaiju generally don’t need to eat unless they are severely injured, getting most of the energy they need from solar or geothermal radiation - but many still have instincts that drive them to seek out food from time to time.

Most ATOM kaiju stand roughly 100 feet tall (depending on their body shape), i.e. smaller than the original 1954 Godzilla.  There are exceptions to this rule - younger kaiju can be smaller, while exceedingly old kaiju can be significantly larger, but these are rare.

In general, ATOM kaiju are significantly more intelligent and emotionally complex than people expect animals to be, though most are incapable of speech or complex tool use.  There’s a reason ATOM Kaiju Files have a “personality” section.

Most ATOM Kaiju are tooth and claw fighters - ranged weapons are a rarity in this setting.

While the terrestrial monsters in ATOM look strange, they are intended to fit within the taxonomy of animals in reality - reptiles, mammals, fish, arthropods, molluscs, etc.

ATOM’s mesozoic era was dominated by a fictional clade of crocodile-relatives called retrosaurs, which are based on the outdated paleoart that one would find in the 1950’s/60’s fiction - i.e. when dinosaurs were viewed as trail dragging lizards instead of strange birds.  You can learn more about retrosaurs here.

Kaiju appear on every continent in ATOM, but certain areas tend to be dominated by different types.

North America is mainly besieged by retrosaur kaiju and giant arthropods.

East Asia is technically also mainly plagued by retrosaurs and big arthropods, though they tend to look more fantastical and mythic - and, often, oddly well suited to being portrayed by a person wearing a monster suit.

Russia is beset by prehistoric monsters that seem to come from the Cenozoic, particularly the Ice Age.

Western Europe is plagued by creatures that vaguely resemble creatures from myth, if they were also prehistoric.  Dragon-y lizards, fiery birds, etc.

Towards the mid-way point of ATOM’s timeline, earth is invaded by a coalition of aliens from different solar systems called the Beyonder Alliance, and as a result a bunch of alien monsters can be found on earth.

Mars and Venus both host (or hosted in Mars’s case) animal life.  The surviving Martians colonized Venus, and sent some of their kaiju guardians to earth to help us fend off the Beyonders (who are responsible for the destruction of Mars’s ecosystem).  Martian and Venusian kaiju have specific anatomical quirks, which you can see by looking at these kaiju files:

Venusians:

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/03/atom-kaiju-file-29-karamtor/

Martians:

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/17/atom-kaiju-file-39-kemlasulla/

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/17/atom-kaiju-file-40-podritak/

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/17/atom-kaiju-file-41-sombarvot/

https://horrorflora.com/2017/01/17/atom-kaiju-file-38-ullawdra/

Giant robots exist in ATOM, but are big, bulky, and incredibly expensive.  Fancy beam weapons also exist, but are similarly clunky - there are no sleek, elegant machines in ATOM.

Since the fiction ATOM takes inspiration from was made at a time when interplanetary travel was only just beginning to be possible, its scope is significantly smaller than modern sci-fi.  Alternate universes/dimensions were pretty uncommon because the idea of alien planets still held a lot of wonder to it.  So, as a general rule, don’t try to go farther than the one galaxy.

ATOM is a setting for stories that are focused on humanity learning to co-exist with monsters, rather than humanity destroying them.  A certain level of sympathy is put into almost every creature of its canon, even the ones that are meant to be villains.

REFERENCE MATERIAL

Here is a playlist of 1950′s monster movie trailers.

Here is some reference material from various monster comics of the 50′s and 60′s.

Video of retrosaurs in action.

Good movies to track down to understand ATOM’s inspiration and tone include Ghidorah the 3 Headed Monster, Son of Godzilla, Destroy All Monsters, Them!, The Black Scorpion, 20 Million Miles to Earth, Gamera, The Giant Claw, and The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.

Finally, here’s the page for the original ATOM Create a Kaiju Contest, which has even more reference material for you to peruse.

#Revenge of the ATOM Kaiju Contest #The Atomic Time of Monsters #kaiju

[oktornadodb-blog]

The Great Debate Arises

Storm chasers, we’re the last of a breed. Like the mythical journeymen and cowboys of the past, we are truly the last “free birds” standing in the digital world of today. Every spring we trot our own paths down the back roads of America’s central plains in search of that one defining encounter. Some are hobbyists, some are with local emergency management units, and others are the lucky few who chase for major regional media networks. From David Payne to Val Castor, and from Dennie Brison to Bobby Hines -- Oklahomans more-so than those in any other place have come to know the names, the trademark voices, and even the clichés such as “back to you” that represent the men and women behind the “Getner” and the tracking dots on TV maps across our 8 major televised networks. The new era of chasers like Chance Coldiron, Lawrence McEwen, Chris Sanner, and Jeromy Carter seems to be riding the wave of technology into an even more comprehensive, yet maybe less private era. Gone are the days of running tape back to the studio in the midst of an outbreak, everything is connectable to social media at a moment’s notice. I don’t mean to blow my own bugle here, but I saw this coming 10 years ago when I was in college. I have begged almost every boss I encountered during my decade in the television and radio industries to give me the “green” to implement my grand vision; but alas as my personal life has encountered the snags that are currently constraining me, so too has my business venture. To get back on track though, things are changing. Things are about to become so personal, and so connected that even “media chasers” are going to be followed on an almost individual basis by a dedicated fan base; we just saw as much during the historic April wildfires. But with the increased visibility to the public eye will come increased controversy and scrutiny; sadly it is just where the human conscience is at in 2018. Even our kings and queens of the screen will not be immune from random ignorance. I am not talking to or about the Mike Bettes’ and Reed Timmer’s of the world; I am talking about our local severe weather warriors. Let’s face it; these people have, just as much as the meteorologists behind them, helped save hundreds -- if not thousands -- of lives. Maybe that helps them shutter away the ignorant cries of the trolls and drama seekers online; but they are not the only people to be targeted as “disaster lovers” profiting from despair and chaos. For every person who is lucky enough to land a network chasing gig there are easily 5 more than are still out on the open plains during tornado season hoping to save a life, catch a high, and pursue a passion be it of a historical, artistic, or scientific nature. As we have forged into the second decade of this new millennium, the growth in the storm chasing community has been almost unparalleled in any other sector of private media or content creation. With this has come an issue amongst some content consumers who see the chasing community as nothing more than a pack of rabid disaster enthusiasts. Sure in hindsight seeing this coming was almost blatantly obvious, but still it is a ridiculous accusation. This has led to mixed emotions amongst many of the men and women I know from my years chasing. I cannot speak for everyone, but for me and dozens with whom I have spoken over the weekend, the truth is a simple one; we are not. People may be put off by the excitement some get out of an up-close encounter with a violent rotating column of air, but that excitement is nothing more malicious than the excitement the average food critic gets from trying a 5-star restaurant or the excitement of a MMA fan over a TKO in the first round. The bigger issue is that it is not just about footage, it is about people’s own personal emotions. It is not uncommon to see an ignorant comment on Twitter or Facebook in which someone (often with atrocious grammar and filled with expletives to boot) berates a chaser for being upset when a weather event fails to materialize. “Do you get off on despair you f*****g pricks?” one man asked. The answer is no Mr. Robot, undeniable and affirmatively no. With recent events such as Moore, Joplin, and Tuscaloosa fresh on everyone’s minds it is easy to understand the miscomprehension of intentions, at least to some fair degree. Throw the events that occurred outside of El Reno on May 31st into the mix, along with a couple of keyboard warriors, and you have a recipe for borderline intolerance. Listen, do we get upset when we don’t get “our storm”? You’re damn right! For some members of the community, footage royalties and media appearances are a big part of paying the bills or building a nest-egg. I for one never sold my footage; it is still on a drive in my former chase partner’s truck and in some cases backed up on a cloud. We chased to warn the public in and around our hometown; not for money, hobby, or really even research. We were trained to spot and track these storms and relay that information to the appropriate people depending on our location at said time. The only reason for the filming of events was that through last season, Facebook Live ran through XSplit and a native copy was stored on the computer’s selected drive, a copy which I could personally go back on and look at for my historical research if need-be. Before the last couple of seasons we weren’t even taking video, maybe just a few phone shots if something looked really impressive. It was a way of keeping track of the day. As a historian and former responder, I can all but appreciate the power these storms represent. It was eye-opening and exhilarating to share space with these storms as they carved their own path across the plains of Oklahoma. It was truly an experience by every definition of the word. That all said, never once did we hope to see a Joplin or Moore style event. My partner feared seeing such an event and as I have said plenty of times on Twitter, he backed off of the Carney tornado in 2013 because of the possibility of such an event when it became apparent that the tornado was going to go into the city; thankfully it did weaken. Nobody that I have ever met online or on the chase dreams of a tornado hitting a single home, little on ransacking a heavily populated area. For anyone to assume so is not only ignorant and ludicrous, it borders on spiteful. This debate is sure to rage as long as critics have a platform to voice their opinions and then block anyone who can counter that opinion with facts, but I had to say what needed saying. My hypothesis as to why this issue is even ongoing? When something horrendous happens, we often see a person or group targeted to lash out at; with all of the documentaries and YouTube footage of the aforementioned 3 major events, the chasing community has been left open as easy prey for the keyboard warriors and crap-stirrers who live to cause drama on social media. Never mind that in several events chasers and spotters have concluded a chase early to become defacto first responders and help those affected by the tornado which they were just seconds earlier attempting to chase. So to all of the so-called critics and opposite thinkers I say this, take the chasers and spotters off the roads during these major events and then see what it is like with nothing but radar to keep you safe. Take the visual aspect completely out of it and see how much “safer” you feel without trained eyes on the storm. I refuse to stand-up for the tools and marks who go out in their mothers hatch-back to get “Snap Bait”, but for the trained eyes on the action who provide a service, be that keeping the public informed or documenting a historical event; I will always stand up for you and for this community.

#chasing #article #debate #Oklahoma #media

[mxladymorgan]

♡ with @fear-fuel-dragon; in response to this

Let us see now... half man, half mythical creature... Yes, that was the kind of physique that gave one the upper hand in a fight, all but determining its aftermath. Yet, that did not make the young man’s fighting style any more basic or the easiness with which he’d gotten rid of the bounty hunters any less impressive. 

Who was he? Someone important as the manhunt implied unless it was the uncommon appearance of the man that solely granted him the "privilege” of being pursued. It was not that outlandish a speculation in a world populated by beings so diverse in their looks and physical assets the rarer sightings made for easy targets and prized belongings to the bigger mass of common humans.

Whatever the reason behind the chase, Morgan decided she ought to stay watchful, just in case, should the man be a dangerous criminal, even if the man looked like he’d pose no threat to her. It was warmth that he radiated, but that might have a thing or two to do with the fact he’d just fought off a dozen or so men, in a hassle Morgan had nothing to do with but that could have ended up badly for her. Caught up in the mess. In the very centre of it.

And he was cocky too! Wit would always delight Morgan, so it was no wonder she raised his grin with a gentle smile.  

“Still you should not underrate yourself.” Oh, but why not get her answers straight from the source? “Now, since I almost got hurt as the by-product of your entanglement with bounty hunters, I have won the right to ask why you were being targeted in the first place. What I am asking is: should I be worried for no sake but my own?”

#fearfueldragon #fearfueldragon ♡ unplotted ♡ reply #(don't worry with this / i just wanted to write a little thank-you reply .3)

[southrift-galaxy-safaris-blog]

Hidden Gems of The Rift Valley

Away from the plus coast line is one of the most attractive geographical features of the country, there is more than half a million square kilometers of absolute marvel waiting for you if you look deeper into the country. The Rift Valley has so much to offer that we wouldn't exhaust its marvels in a whole book. Here are some of the uncommon/unknown/unexplored sites that will leave you breathless... Iten View Point Iten is a small town located about 50km north of Eldoret town. Although it is well-known as the home of Kenya’s world-class athletes, it also owes its reputation for great viewpoints of the Rift Valley, a geographical feature in East Africa The view point is one of the highest altitudes closest to escarpment where visitors view Kerio Valley. As the tarmac road meanders downhill, you get a perfect view of spectacular natural landmarks including the valley, Lake Kamnarok, Kerio River which hosts deadly crocodiles, Tugen Hills and Cherangani Hills. The magically laid out fault steps, steep escarpments and valleys covered with acacia vegetation paint a magnificent picture. Iten viewpoint allows you to see more of the Great Rift Valley than any other place on the ground. In fact, you can only see more of the Rift Valley if you are on a plane. Kerio Valley and Kerio valley  National Reserve Kerio Valley, one of the landmark features of the Great Rift, descends 4,000 ft, and is near the towns of Eldoret and Iten, The magically laid fault steps, steep escarpment facing and valley extensively covered with acacia vegetation paints a magnificent land on the Kenya Rift Valley. The floor of the Kerio Valley is covered by dry thorn bushes while the slopes have semitropical vegetation. Kerio Valley National Reserve offers a spectacular view of the Kerio valley in Kenya. You can also view the Torok Falls as well as the Chebloch Gorge while at the Kerio Valley National Reserve in Rift Valley part of Kenya. For the lucky few who happen to visit the reserve, you can experience the elephant migration via the Rimgoi reserve in Kenya Wildlife population including elephants, leopards and buffaloes, yellow baboons, bush backs, waterbucks and warthogs can be seen in the park. Kerio River Kerio River occupies the lowest level in Kerio Valley and hosts deadly Crocodiles. How Kerio River formed is extraordinary and mythical, Tugen and Keiyo communities have grounds to believe that long time ago, the two had undying boundary conflict and so a god locally known as Ilat became angry with the ongoing wrangles and stricken hard on the ground to demarcate Keiyo land from Tugen land hence end the dispute. Rimoi Game Reserve Its home to thousands of species of Rift Valley’s flora and fauna.  Gazetted in 1983, the reserve boasts a variety of animals including elephants, buffalos and dikdiks. There are also impalas, monkeys, baboons.   Bird life is abundant and various, with weavers, sunbirds, pigeons, honey guides, hornbills and turacos particularly prevalent Saiwa Swamp National Park Saiwa Swamp National Park is a forested paradise filled with exotic flowers, trees and bird. Arguably the smallest National Park in the Country, Saiwa Swamp gives the visitors a great chance to see one of nature’s peculiar creatures, the Sitatunga antelope which is semi aquatic. You can also see the white bearded De Brazza’s monkey that can only be found in this region.  Within this tropical wetlands and mosaic of riverine forest, sedges and acacia woodlands, with fringing dense rushes and grass bedsBird life is abundant. Water birds include the lesser jacana, grey heron and the African black duck while the forest shelters the Narina trogons, the collared and orange-tufted sunbird, the yellow bishop, Hatlaub’s marsh widow bird and the Noisy Ross’s turacos which are difficult to miss. Kipkoikoi Rock On the cliff side near Tambach, there towers a mythical Kipkoikoi Rock, a fairly cylindrical tip-pointed rock with a tabular platform at the foot. Our forefathers quips that Kipkoikoi  Rock was a Holy Shrine of Keiyo people. This is where they used to offer sacrifices to Supreme Being locally known as Asis. They would pour some milk or lay some green grass on the tabular rock beside Kipkoikoi and have their sins forgiven and fortune go their way. It is also bluntly believed that none would dare climb up to top of such rock, or else it befalls on him or her. Kolol Viewpoint About 15 miles away from Iten town downhill, you’ll never hesitate to stop at Kolol Viewpoint. The tarmac road curves at a fairly level platform that provides an open view of fascinating Torok waterfall on escarpment on the South West direction and diminishing Lake Kamnarok. Just ahead, lays a ‘snake-like’ tarmac road meandering down to Chebloch Gorge on Kerio River before leading to Kabarnet town. The Cherangani Hills They are the fourth highest mountain range in Kenya and include rolling hills as well as dramatic mountain peaks, and forms the highest, most breathtaking and spectacular escarpments of the Rift Valley. Unlike most of Kenya's mountains and ranges, the Cherangani Hills are not volcanic in origin. They are centred upon a forested escarpment and surrounded on three sides by sheer cliff faces. They are criss-crossed by walking paths, and ease of direction and undemanding slopes make this excellent country for relaxing hill walking. The paths cross open farmland, pass through sheltered valleys and wind their way up to forested peaks. All the main routes cross the 3000m contour, with decreased oxygen supplies Cherangani Hills Forest This is a collection of thirteen forest reserve blocks on the western ridge of The Great Rift Valey. The forested area is about 1,200 square kilometres. These forests form the upper catchments of the Kerio and Nzoia and Turkwel rivers. Attractions include, Beautiful Landscapes and scenery, Plenty of wildlife and bird watching. Kipteber Mountain Popping from approximately five kilometers off the range of Cherangany hills is a huge, steep, rocky and extraordinary mountain..A Mountain barring an extraordinary narrative of its origin spanning lots of generations ago. Mt. Kipteber strategically sits on the Elgeyo/Marakwet- Pokot counties borderline Chebloch Gorge This gorge was cut down into the hard, basalt rock by the power of the Kerio River itself. When in flood, the river increases tremendously in height and volume and carries a heavy load of fine, highly-abrasive silt which grinds down the river bed. Steel beams of the old colonial-age bridge are close by and in place to offer a perilous perch from which to view the gorge. Below the bridge, usually about 20m below, much less in the rainy season, are the muddy brown, crocodile-infested waters of the Kerio River. Young boys with primitive fishing rods compete with the crocodiles for the mudfish and catfish that are seasonally abundant. The Chalbi Desert Chalbi desert is located in northern Kenya, east of Lake Turkana. Chalbi in the local Gabbra language means "bare and salty." It is among the hottest and most regions in Kenya, a salty pan surrounded by volcano and lava flows .  Amazingly, you might still come across oryx, ostrich or even endangered Grevy zebra galloping across the great, shimmering whiteness. After the rains, the bone dry land turns into a shallow lake. On its northern fringes, where the wind piles up sand dunes, a chain of oases nourishes vast palm grooves. Chyulu Hills Chyulu Hills is located in Eastern Kenya, a mountain range that forms a 100Km long volcanic field. This destination is one of the prettiest places in Kenya, seeing the enchanted land of black frozen lava speckled with flaring poker trees is really something special. Ancient and new volcanic cinder cones and craters dot the landscape with black lava flow spilling down their flanks. Chyulu Hills provide to nature lovers. Large mammals include buffalo, bushbucks, elands, elephants, leopards, giant forest hogs, bush pigs, reedbucks and giraffes along with various reptiles and insects. Horse riding, camping, mountain climbing and bird watching can be enjoyed in this hidden part of paradise. Kapsowar Kapsower is a beautiful small town located in Rift Valley Province, Kenya. It’s a picture-perfect town; filled with quaint charm, crisp breeze and amazing scenic beauty. It’s one of the best places to explore the most breathtaking landscapes and unique attractions such as charming flowing rivers, herds of cows and gorgeous hills. Torok waterfall Elgeyo Escarpment  Lake Turkana One of the largest lakes in Africa, and the planet’s biggest permanent lake in a desert, Turkana lies in the Rift Valley, mostly in northern Kenya but with the tip running into southern Ethiopia. It is a spectacular place with some extraordinary landscapes, jade coloured waters, plentiful crocodiles, and incredible populations of massive Nile perch. It’s surrounded by some of the harshest terrain on earth where, somehow, some of the toughest but most delightful people manage to live too. Loita Hills The Loita Hills are one of Kenya's last remaining true wilderness areas which form an important part of the Maasai Mara Ecosystem. There are pockets of remote forests, wide open plains surrounded by the stunning hillsides. The escarpment is dotted with abundant wildlife and has a rich variety of different bird species. You can take a walking safari into the hills.  Local people and their donkeys carry the luggage and the camp, leaving you free to explore the beauty of the hills and forests. Walking with people who live here is the best way to do it, and you’ll learn a huge amount about life in such a beautiful and remote place, one that’s truly off the map. Olorgasailie Olorgesailie pre-historic site is world renown as the "factory of stone tools" and the only place in the world with the largest number. The prominence and accumulation of human tools represents actual camping places of early men and evidence that human species had a tropical origin. The site is in a lake basin that existed about 100,000 to 200'000 years ago. Olorgesailie has excellently preserved biological and cultural evidence about the evolution of man. This was made possible by heavy falls of alkaline volcanic ash from the nearby Mt. Suswa and Mt. Longonot, which might have contributed much to the accumulated ash in the lake basin.   Mount Suswa A true hidden gem, Mount Suswa is an excellent destination to add to your wish list, especially if you like camping. Another inactive volcano in the Rift Valley, Mount Suswa boasts a unique double-caldera, with an outer crater surrounding a second, inner peak. Hire local Maasai guide to help you find the road up to the crater, its isolation is a big part of Mount Suswa’s appeal. Its zigzagging hike along the outer crater rim will give you exceptional views of the volcano. Drive around the caldera to find Suswa’s famous lava tube caves and hike down into the caverns, which are full of bats, stalactites, and some interesting cave drawings of dubious origins. Not for the faint of heart, and not for those without a 4WD, Mount Suswa is a badge you’ll wear with honor. Koobi Fora Historic Sites Koobi Fora in the local language, means a place of the commiphora a source of myrrh, which is a common plant in this hot and arid area. The rich sedimentary rocks have yielded more than 10,000 Vertebrate and Hominid fossils. Most interesting here is a Stone Age burial site. Loiyangalani Desert Museum This museum was built on a bluff with a backdrop of Lake Turkana, the "Jade Sea." The name Loiyangalani means "a place of many trees" in the native Samburu language. The museum is hosted in this area by the El Molos, an almost extinct community in Kenya. Kapedo hot springs Two boiling hot waterfalls that plunge over a small escarpment before merging with Suguta river! Kapedo itself is a picturesque village where traditional grass thatched huts prevail. The surrounding has also a lot of charm with Silali volcano to the east and Tiati hills to the west which both are a rewarding hiking terrain. After walking the hills you can treat your tired legs with a swim in the huge bathing tub of Mother Nature, the warm waters of Suguta river. Whether you prefer it boiling hot or lukewarm, you will find the right water temperature depending on how close you are to the merger of the hot streams with Suguta river! Top holiday deals in Kenya Best Deals on Major Seasonal Holidays – Valentine, Easter, Madaraka, Mashujaa, Jamhuri & Christmas. Variety of options – Safari adventures, Beach, Getaways & International. Only top-rated destinations & pocket-friendly prices. Weekend Getaway Deals in Kenya Self Drive Holiday Deals in Kenya Outdoor Activities in Kenya Madaraka Express SGR Holiday Deals in Kenya Seasonal holiday Deals in Kenya Top Self Drive Holiday Deals in Kenya If you think you have to travel far to enjoy a nice weekend, you may never get away. Besides, you can enjoy a beautiful weekend right here in Kenya. There are countless wallet-friendly Kenyan self drive getaways that won’t even break your budget. Don’t spend your weekend, doing absolutely nothing at home. Whether you are looking for romantic destinations, pristine beaches, and adventurous outdoor activities, there are plenty wallet-friendly getaways that will satisfy your weekend desires. Malindi & Watamu Self Drive Deals Mombasa South Coast Self Drive Deals Mombasa North Coast Self Drive Deals Masai Mara Self Drive Holiday Packages Lukenya & Machakos Self Drive Meru Holiday Self Drive Deals Mt. Kenya & Aberdare Self Drive Holiday Deals Nyeri Holiday Self Drive Deals Samburu Holiday Self Drive Deals Read the full article

#magicalKenya #whyIloveKenya #adventuretravel #Kenyaholidays #Kenyavacation #placestovisitinkenya #toptraveldestinations #VacationinKenya

[soengineerhologram-blog]

How to Get Into Stanford (By an Accepted Student)

 How to Get Into Stanford (By an Accepted Student)

SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips

Many students want to get into Stanford, one of the most prestigious undergraduate institutions in the United States. While getting into Stanford is very tough, there are definite rules to Stanford admissions. Strategizing around these rules will greatly increase your chances of getting in.

Note: the following advice also works for admissions to UC Berkeley and Cornell. While Cornell University and the University of California at Berkeley are not the same as Stanford, they are both very highly ranked colleges with only a slight engineering tilt.

Stanford University is one of the most difficult colleges to get into, with a current acceptance rate of only 5.1%. It is consistently ranked in the US News’ top five universities. Stanford is the top choice of many students whose focuses coincide with what Stanford offers (e.g. a West Coast life or a large research institution with a slight engineer tilt). Stanford is also, by far, the top US-News-ranked school west of the Mississippi (the second is Caltech, which attracts a completely different crowd).

However, Stanford does follow certain rules when it comes to admissions. And no, these rules are not as simple as “focus all your time on academics” or “be as well-rounded as possible.” (In fact, those two phrases are the two biggest myths for admissions to Stanford!) Knowing the rules won’t guarantee you admission, but you’ll have a heck of a better chance than if you’re applying in the dark.

I'll go over everything you need to know to get into Stanford, whether you're a humanities or STEM student, and I'll explain which admissions strategies are false and could seriously impact your chances of getting accepted if you follow them.

Why Listen to Me?

There are lots of writers out there giving admissions advice without any personal experience. Most journalists writing articles on Stanford admissions do a few hours of research on the school (or a few days at most) to meet their article quota. However, I have personally spent weeks, if not months, thinking about Stanford admissions. I must have spent over 100 hours explicitly on Stanford admissions, and I got in:

A letter from my admissions officer to me after I was accepted to Stanford discussing the admitted-student weekend details. This letter has been modified to summarize meaning and protect privacy.

More than just getting accepted, I actually spent a substantial amount of time thinking about what Stanford was looking for and crafting an application to Stanford. To me, Stanford was one of the top two schools I was interested in, so I took the application very seriously. I actually visited the campus twice before even applying, attended admissions sessions where I asked dozens of questions about what they were looking for, searched online and in bookstores, wrote an entirely separate essay, and had a separate admissions strategy for Stanford alone.

Truths and Myths of Stanford Acceptance

Note: if you’ve read our article on Harvard admissions, I will cover some similar material here. You may want to skim this section, but definitely pay attention to the differences between the application processes of Harvard and Stanford. Also, pay attention after this section because I will talk about Stanford-specific aspects then!

In this section, I’m going to tell you the critical three truths and two myths you absolutely need to know to get into Stanford. The first ones will be well-known, but the final ones will be uncommon knowledge and will help you get that extra boost!

First Truth and First Myth

The first truth is that Stanford is, first and foremost, an academic institution, so you need to have spectacular academics to get in. The 25th percentile score of admitted students is as high as a 1400 (SAT) or 31 (ACT). This means that the vast majority (75%) of Stanford students get above these scores, and those attending with scores lower than these are superstars who make up for it. If your scores are below those numbers, the most effective thing you can do to raise your chances of admission is studying more for the SAT / ACT. If your scores are below that bound, the primary reason Stanford will reject you is based on scores alone. The 75th percentile of Stanford scores is 1560 (SAT) or 34 (ACT), so if you are above this, you can presume your test scores are sufficient.

This leads to the first myth of Stanford admissions. The first and most naive myth is that Stanford only cares about grades. Like most myths, this one results from taking the truth too far. Many people think that, since Stanford is an academic institution, shouldn’t they just care about academics? After all, if you’re trying out for the football team, they wouldn’t measure your skills in baseball, right? The truth is that Stanford, of course, cares about academics as its core, but it also cares about qualities beyond academics. Stanford is not just taking the people with the highest GPA scores and the highest SAT scores.

Why isn’t Stanford just looking for students with the highest scores? The first reason is simple numbers -- there are just too many students with stellar academics. The average ACT score for a Stanford student is 34 -- thus Stanford considers this score or higher stellar. Yet a 34 still puts about 1% of the high school population above you. With 3.3 million high school seniors a year, this is about 33,000 students, many times larger than the roughly 2,100 students Stanford accepts each year. Therefore, top colleges like Stanford need to look beyond academic scores to distinguish between these students.

The second reason starts with the understanding that many top colleges, like Stanford, are looking for students who can have a significant and positive impact on the world. Stanford believes that non-academic factors, in addition to top academics, help predict who will have a positive impact in the future. These non-academic factors (known under the umbrella term "extracurriculars") include participation in clubs or sports and dedication to helping others.

Therefore, we can replace the first myth with our second truth: Top colleges care about more than academics and want to see strengths in many areas, from GPA and SAT / ACT scores to extracurriculars and community service.

While the most naive myth is that Stanford cares only about academics, in reality, the above truth of multi-area admissions is actually well-known to people who have done even a minimal amount of college admissions research. The myth of pure academics is more of a non-myth: it’s a myth that lots of people love to bash, but not many people believe. In fact, over-bashing this first myth leads to the second myth, which is more insidious.

Second Truth and Second Myth

This second myth, the biggest and most harmful myth, is that Stanford cares about students being well-rounded in the sense that they should be equally excellent in all areas. This second myth is the most pernicious because so many people believe it, unlike the first myth.

From many personal surveys, I have found even well-researched students and parents fall prey to this myth. In fact, I myself, during my early years of high school, believed in this horrible myth, even though I had already done hundreds of hours of research at that point. Because so many educated people believe it, and because it has the potential to steer you wrong, I personally think this myth is the most damaging.

The well-rounded myth goes like this: because Stanford wants you to be well-rounded, it’s best to perform excellently in all areas. You should aim for a high seat in your school orchestra. You should be number one or two in your school debate team. Run for student council and become the treasurer. Get a score in the 95 percentile or higher on your SAT / ACT. Get an A- or higher in all your classes. The mythical implication is that the "Stanford Scorecard" grades you based on your weakest area, so you want to eliminate all weaknesses. Under this myth, you should focus all your time on your weakest area to eliminate it and become as well-rounded as possible. At the end of the day, you end up with a mythical optimal application, one where you’re (nearly) equally great at everything. Unfortunately, college admissions is much like being in an unstable boat: being too well-rounded will sink you.

The truth is that Stanford sees being very well-rounded as too boring. Mathematically, it is a fact that all circles, besides scale, are identical. Similarly, everyone who is well-rounded looks the same: they’re great (but not earth-shattering) in everything. There is nothing to set you apart. Also, dilly dallying in a large number of areas will make you look like a dilettante.

Third Truth

The third and final truth is that Stanford would much rather see a candidate who is OK at most things, but really great in one specific area. That specific area is called your spike, and it can be in almost anything: conducting microbiology research, publishing short stories, starting a small business, etc. Your spike makes you a strong candidate because it's unlikely many other students will have the same spike as you, so it help sets you apart and makes you unique. Admitting lots of students with different spikes allows Stanford to create the diverse campus they desire.

Furthermore, Stanford is looking for students who will succeed in the future. In our modern world, specialization is the key to success. Think about it, if you break a bone, you want to see a doctor who's great at resetting bones, right? Not a doctor who's pretty good at setting bones and also pretty good at diagnosing the type of flu you have and pretty good at recommending a diet to keep you healthy.

It’s okay to be lopsided-- in fact, it’s even desirable! You should aim to develop one area that you’re super strong in. In your spike area, you should definitely aim to be nationally or state ranked, or accomplish a goal that’s rare for a high school student. Think top 100 football player in California or top 1000 math competition student in the USA. Think getting a pilot’s license at age 12. In all other areas it suffices to be 99th or even 90th percentile. A moderately good score in your English class will do. A few dozen hours of volunteering will do.

The most naive and prevalent myth is that admissions is all about academics. In reality, selecting only for academics leads to an uninteresting community. Stanford cares about extracurriculars too, and doing well in just one area of school (or even all of school) isn’t enough.

Unfortunately, an overly-reactionary response to the above generates the worst myth. Myth #2 is that you should be well-rounded and great (but not necessarily excellent) in every field. In reality, being too well-rounded makes you look exactly the same as others who are well-rounded, and it makes you look like someone without direction.

The truth is that you want to be OK in every field but especially stellar in one field in particular.

Truth #1: Have great Academics (Stellar SAT / ACT Scores)

Myth #1: It’s all about academics

Truth #2: Be good at a diverse set of extracurriculars

Myth #2: You should be as well-rounded as possible

Truth #3: Focus on one area to be extraordinary

Truths and Myths of Stanford Admissions

How to Apply This Information to You

Based on the above information, your first goal is to ensure you are good at academics. Get good grades in school, and make sure you’re at least at the 25th percentile of the SAT / ACT cutoff for the school you are applying to. Even if you are above the 25th percentile, if you haven’t prepped at least few dozen hours yet, you should aim for the 75th percentile to strengthen your application. SAT / ACT prep is always one of the most time efficient ways to raise your chances of admission.

After you’re well above the 25th percentile cutoff, the next step is to overcome the first myth. Stanford cares about more than academics, and you’ll want to get good extracurriculars and volunteer experience.

Once you have a sufficient set of baseline activities, it’s time to overcome the second myth. Stanford is not all about being diversified and well-rounded. You want one area to stand out above and beyond others.

Stanford’s Tilt Towards STEM

One difference between Stanford (and Cornell and UC Berkeley) and some of the other top 10 colleges is that Stanford is not a pure liberal arts college. Instead, Stanford is a liberal arts college with a significant STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) tilt. What does that mean? It means that, all else being equal, if your interests are a bit more towards engineering, that will slightly help your admissions chances. For your base diversity of extracurriculars, it helps to lean towards engineering/math. It also helps if your spike is in engineering/math. All else being equal, if you were a top 100 young writer or a top 100 math competitor, it's somewhat more helpful for admissions to be the latter.

Don’t take my word for it. You can Google this yourself. Note how Stanford is in the US News’ top-ranked engineering schools, whereas Harvard and Yale are nowhere near the top 10. Stanford's strength is not just in graduate engineering, but also undergraduate engineering, making it truly stand out. (Most other stellar graduate programs, like my own Harvard Statistics program, have questionable undergrad programs). At Stanford, better professors mean more cutting-edge grad students and teaching assistants for your undergrad courses. Part of it is also a self-fulfilling prophecy: because good engineering-type undergrads come here, it becomes a good place for similarly interested students.

Note, however, that I said Stanford has a STEM tilt. It is, by far, not a STEM-only school, which places like MIT, Caltech, and Carnegie Mellon are a lot more like. This means that, unlike pure engineering schools, math and math extracurriculars are NOT the only things that matter.

These next two sections will give you advice based on which subjects you plan to study in college. If you're less into STEM, read the next section, but if you're already focusing on a STEM area and plan on continuing to do so, skip down two sections for guidelines for your situation.

Guide for Students Less Interested in STEM Areas

Do you plan on majoring in a humanities or similar subject? Then this section is for you!

Just because Stanford tilts toward engineering does not mean that the only way to get into Stanford is to be an engineer. You don't even need to be interested in engineering in general. Stanford is not MIT or Caltech. Stanford is incredibly strong in say, economics and literature, as well. Even if your interests are solely in those areas, Stanford will be a great fit for you as well.

However, you should not forget the fact that Stanford still likes baseline diversity. Your spike doesn't need to be related to STEM, but you should still be strong in quantitative subjects. Even if your subject of interest is Prussian history, you should be cautious about getting a B in AP Calculus AB, taking the easiest math classes, or getting as “low” as a 650 on the Math SAT section.

Since Stanford has a very large number of applicants, they have enough humanities-spike applicants who can, at least, get the basic A or A- in the hardest math and science classes. You should take care to put enough effort into these subjects that you don’t drop into the middle of the pack. Stanford doesn’t take the excuse “I’m just not a math person” (and, in fact, they’re probably against the culture that makes such a phrase commonly acceptable in the first place).

What’s a good enough baseline in math? I’d say something in the 720-800 range in the SAT Math section or 32-36 on ACT Math will do. The SAT/ACT is not competitive math -- doing well on it doesn’t signal you’re nationally ranked in math. In fact, the SAT / ACT Math sections are only designed to test the most basic common denominator areas covered in high school math classes across the United States.

Thus, scoring substantially underneath a perfect score on the SAT / ACT does actually signal to Stanford a lack of understanding of some rather standard areas of math. Once you get below a 700 (SAT Math) or 30 (ACT Math), Stanford will realize that you don’t have a full command of standard concepts like factorizing variables or applying the Pythagorean theorem.

The good news is that you can actually improve quickly and consistently to the 700+ level on the SAT. All it requires is mastering baseline content of math and understanding the highest-gain SAT math strategies (like a slight amount of question skipping and practice). You can study on your own by reviewing and mastering math content first while focusing lightly on math strategy. If you are studying with PrepScholar, we will automatically detect your situation and give you the right study material for this improvement.

Students whose forte isn’t engineering should realize that Stanford is very welcoming of interdisciplinary study. Stanford would love to see an applicant talk, not just about the humanities, but how your expertise in the humanities uses areas like computer science or math to help refine your analysis. If you are truly interested, it will help your application if you mention an aspiration to use some amount of engineering in your future studies. For example, if you are into religious studies, with a focus on the Old Testament, you might talk about how you’re interested in using statistical analysis to refine the documentary hypothesis.

As for your spike, since your natural strength is outside of STEM, I would not go for a STEM-type spike. Usually, spikes are much easier if done in a field with natural talent, that you naturally enjoy. A STEM spike would make much less sense for you, not to mention it would be a lot less pleasant to accomplish. You should consider competitions for speech, debate, writing, essays, and so forth. For example, for enthusiasts in debate-type activities, there’s Model UN, Junior State of America, governor’s school, mock-trial, and nationwide debate.

Competitions provide a direct way for admissions officers to see how good you are, but you can also do other tasks that qualitatively seem similarly accomplished. For example, if you start a theater club that has a huge number of audience members, or do journal-quality academic research into Victorian English literature, you will be well positioned for your spike. To find out more, you can see this article on spikes (search for “Step 1” to get directly to brainstorming!)

Guide for Students Strong in STEM

If your strong point is actually quantitative, then that’s a great advantage. After all, Stanford is engineering tilted. Even more to your advantage, I personally got into Stanford using this path, so I will have much more refined strategies for you than usual, including naming specific programs to try.

Ensure Academic Excellence in STEM Fields

Since you consider yourself a strong STEM candidate, at your core, it’s important to be absolutely stellar in the STEM fields -- that means all A/A+ on your courses, with only the very occasional A- sprinkled in. Make sure you are taking the most difficult STEM courses offered by your school. That means taking APs when they are available and, within APs, choosing the harder option (Calculus BC instead of AB). For the AP exams, make sure you get a 5 as much as possible in these fields.

If you’re naturally talented at STEM and take the hardest courses, there’s a high probability you’ll get great grades. However, you want to turn that high probability into a certainty. The biggest reason for naturally talented STEM students to do mediocre in STEM courses is lack of diligence. Many students naturally talented at STEM want to focus on only what they’re interested in at the moment. It’s important to see the benefits to your STEM education that would be possible if you got into Stanford and convince yourself it is worthwhile to put in the grind that sometimes is necessary to get good grades in school.

To illustrate, let me tell you the real story of a high school classmate of mine. Let's call him Kevin. Kevin was intensely bright, would score at the top of intelligence tests, and was into battle bots. He would literally put all his time into building these robots, skipping English classes, Physics classes, and even sleep to spend time on his intense interest. In the end, he earned D’s in English and C’s in Physics (which he was otherwise great in). Sadly, when it came to admissions time, Kevin wasn’t able to get into any college ranked top 50. With his intelligence, he could have easily swept the US News top 50 if he had put even a modicum of diligence into schoolwork.

Okay, so now you’ve got your 5 in AP Calc BC and your A’s in math, science, and technology classes. What’s next?

Ensure a Good Academic Baseline Outside of STEM

The next step is to make sure that your academics outside of STEM meet at least some baseline of quality. This doesn’t mean that you have to be great in the humanities, but it does mean that you’ll want to keep the B’s in the humanities to a minimum. You don’t need to take any AP humanities classes (after all, I didn’t), but taking them and getting a 4 or 5 on the AP tests and an A/A- in the class will benefit you.

Standardized tests like the ACT / SAT are a great way to show well-roundedness. They are difficult enough that getting a sufficiently high score signals you’re in the 95% percentile or above in all the US -- certainly enough to qualify as well-rounded. However, the ACT / SAT isn’t specialized enough to be your spike.

If you’re a little weaker on the humanities side, again, shoring up your SAT / ACT score is the fastest, most effective way to improve. You’ll want to target an SAT score of above 650 (higher is better) or an ACT score of 28 or above. I firmly believe that being great quantitatively correlates with being smart in general. You can definitely get this score if you put your mind to it. (The only caveat is that you need to be reasonably fluent in English; if you are not a native speaker and aren’t fluent, I suggest you make this a priority, probably through immersion in an English-speaking culture.)

Your test prep strategy will be centered around the fact that the SAT / ACT is an analytical test. The same skills you used to become good in quantitative subjects will be useful in mastering these tests. Since you’re only targeting a 650 (or 28) or above on these sections, you don’t need to stress as much about the last few problems and being careless. You do need to memorize all the most common grammar rules and learn how to identify and skip the most difficult problems. You can do this yourself, or you can use our program, PrepScholar Online Prep, to automatically identify these weaknesses and fix them.

Include Well-Rounded Extracurriculars

Round out your application with some lower-hanging fruit if possible. Get to a leadership position in some club that requires public speaking -- whether that be debate, Model UN, Junior Statesmen of America (JSA), or something else. Many areas of politics and law are surprisingly close to the logical systems that you’re used to in STEM.

Consider joining a sport -- many JV teams are not incredibly competitive. Also, play to your strengths -- if you’re more dexterous than strong, choose squash, for example. If you’re fast and have good hand-eye coordination, consider baseball. Sports teams will take up a ton of time though, so make sure you’re well positioned and can handle the time commitment.

We have a guide that lists hundreds of extracurriculars, and you can use this list to brainstorm how you’ll build a well-diversified base. Remember, for your diverse activities, you don’t need to be great at them. Participation matters, getting small prizes like being treasurer or best debater matters.

Focus On Your Spike

Now that you’ve achieved good SAT / ACT scores and have a well-rounded base of activities, it’s time to build up that final factor that will get you in -- your spike! This is where you really get to show off your STEM skills.

When it comes to spikes, the name of the game is to be highly-ranked in recognized fields. One of the most natural environments to be ranked in is a competition. Now, naturally, the more recognized the competition, the better. As you might imagine, the most well-known, difficult, and participant-heavy competitions are the most prestigious. It’s better to rank in the top 1000 of one of the most prestigious competitions than it is to rank in the top 100 of a competition of middling prestige. Therefore, you should aim for the highest prestige competition you can do well in. You should consider competitions from highest prestige down in that order whenever possible. Here’s how to start.

The Two Biggest STEM Spikes

When it comes to prestigious STEM competitions, two of them take the day: the US Math Olympiad (I’ll call it the USAMO series here), and the Intel Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). These are two competitions everyone should consider.

The USAMO Series

The USAMO series is much more centered around pure math and solving problems relatively quickly (think a few minutes to an hour in a timed environment). If you want to get a taste of what an easy problem looks like in the USAMO series, just look at the hardest problems in the SAT / ACT Math section, or the hardest problems on the SAT Math II Subject test. (The hardest problems are usually the last ones.) The ISEF is more about tinkering around, spending days and months doing research similar to university academics, and then presenting your results. ISEF is closer to working on a hobby or personal project for a long time.

Here's a sample AMC 12 Problem. If you can get this, you may be a good candidate for a math competition.

Three real numbers in the interval [0,1] are chosen independently and at random. What is the probability that the chosen numbers are the side lengths of a triangle with positive area?

To see the answer and a full explanation, go here.

If you consider yourself good at math, you should seriously consider the USAMO series (more unofficial info here)-- it can really be your spike. The USAMO series is so prestigious that I have known Stanford students whose main spike was placing just within the top 1000 or 2000 in the USAMO series. Why is the USAMO so prestigious? It’s the oldest of the high school subject Olympiads, and it was the subject of Cold War tensions between the US and USSR in the old days. Most importantly, hundreds of thousands of the most mathematically strong students take it, making a top ranking really matter. The best way to sign up is to ask your high school math teacher, and if your high school doesn’t do it, you should aggressively petition them to do it or search for a neighboring high school who will accept you as a guest.

A good rule of thumb for whether this spike is for you is if your SAT Math score is 760 or above (or your ACT math score is 35 or above) and your SAT Math II Subject Score is 720 or above. If you don’t meet these thresholds, I would think very hard before making the USAMO series your spike -- the USAMO series, after all, is just a much harder version of these tests, in nearly the exact same format. Further, a college applicant who has competitive USAMO series scores but questionable standardized test math scores sends very mixed signals that will diminish the USAMO series accomplishments.

Conversely, if you are above the SAT / ACT threshold, you definitely will benefit from taking the USAMO series, even if it isn’t your spike. This is because, if you're above the stated SAT / ACT thresholds, your exam score is not showing your true skill. Your true skill is literally off the SAT / ACT charts; you need to upgrade to the USAMO series to show off all your math skills, even if you don’t perform amazingly.

To recap, go into the USAMO series if you do well on math tests like the SAT Math. The USAMO series will be a definite spike for you if you make it into the top 1000-2000 rankings. The best resource to train for the USAMO series is The Art of Problem Solving. If you’re good at tests and competitions, but not math, the rest of this section is for you.

Intel ISEF

There are also many students who are strong in STEM but aren't at their best when solving timed problems. Some students get anxious from the pressure while others just don’t do well on tests, even if they’re brilliant at STEM. These students might be found writing their own computer program for months at a time or working on a science experiment for weeks. If this sounds like you, the prestigious competition you should consider is the Intel ISEF.

Like most science fairs, the ISEF requires you to do research and then present it in a competition. Unlike most science fairs though, the ISEF is the premier science fair across the entire United States. While winning your high school’s local science fair is like winning a 100-meter dash in your town, winning the ISEF is like winning the 100-meter dash in the Olympics.

You can’t apply directly to the ISEF. Instead, you have to start out first in a regional science fair, and, if you do well at that, you can advance into the next ISEF rounds. You can read about their judging criteria here and about a real winner’s experiences here. Some of the key factors to winning include being innovative and original. You have to be rigorous, but not nearly to the degree of professional science research. Being interesting is the name of the ISEF game.

What does a winning ISEF project look like? Here’s an excerpt from a press release on a recent winner:

Raymond Wang, 17, of Canada, was awarded first place for engineering a new air inlet system for airplane cabins to improve air quality and curb disease transmission at this year’s Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, a program of Society for Science & the Public.

Wang’s system improves the availability of fresh air in the cabin by more than 190 percent while reducing pathogen inhalation concentrations by up to 55 times compared to conventional designs, and can be easily and economically incorporated in existing airplanes. Wang received the Gordon E. Moore Award of US$75,000, named in honor of the Intel co-founder and fellow scientist.

To show originality for the ISEF, it matters that you tackle a problem that is interesting to the scientific community. Since few high school students have a good overview of the academic science literature, it is important for any student to have a professional academic scientist or engineer be their mentor. This will ensure that you work on a problem the field considers important. Also, good mentors with previous experience will know which problems can be done by students and which would be too complicated or time-consuming. After you choose your field and mentor, having the tenacity and focus to put your creative thinking towards the problem is key. Students who have historically had a lot of trouble staying focused or finishing projects should be wary. To get started, you can sign up for the ISEF here.

With the USAMO, doing well on SAT Math is a good predictor of performance; being fast and being good on tests is important. With the ISEF, tenacity and the ability to stick with a project for hundreds or even thousands of hours from start to finish is important. Ranking in the top hundred for ISEF qualifies that as a spike for you.

Other Options for Spikes

Beyond the top two STEM competitions above, the number of competitions begins to increase dramatically. In the sciences, you have the Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Informatics (Computer Science) Olympiads. These competitions require you to work with logic very intelligently, and all require memorizing and being familiar with some facts. I’ll eventually have another article on these series (I personally participated in each one while in high school), but for now here’s quick overview.

Math Olympiad is special because it’s the most competitive, with the highest number of people taking the first round. Because so many people prep for the Math Olympiad, the field has changed so that a good part of doing well on it is having tons of practice, so you know immediately which equations you need to pull out when you see a particular mathematical expression. Biology requires the most memorization. In fact, most of the beginning rounds are all about recalling the text of Campbell Biology in a timed fashion. Chemistry is a happy mixture of using logic to solve problems and memorizing a moderate list of information to help solve those problems. The hands-on portion of Chemistry and Biology require you to be good at following memorized procedures. On the other hand, Physics and Informatics have a lot of hands-on sections that really require resourcefulness and novel problem solving. In these other competitions, I would say qualifying for the top 20-40 makes the competition a spike for you in the eyes of Stanford.

Further, not all spikes need to be in explicitly ranked fields. You could discover a new protein with significance to medical research. There wouldn’t necessarily be a competition for the discovery, but if the discovery is qualitatively stunning enough, it can count. For Stanford’s spike, you can brainstorm an amazing discovery: perhaps a biological process, an electrical engineering discovery, or something else. You can also build something new: whether it’s an awesome computer program, a cool robot, or a fun electronics project. You should make sure that the project is impressive though. For example, make sure that qualitatively, the project would feel “as good or better” as ranking 1000 or better on the Math Olympiad. Stanford is all about engineering, and they would love to see you build something of your own.

There are many other competitions and ways to show off your special skill within the STEM fields. Generally, beyond the top few listed above, you can also brainstorm your own fields. Once you have a competition or field in mind, it’s useful to evaluate how prestigious it is. Remember, the less prestigious a field, the higher you have to rank to be afforded the same credit. To estimate prestige, first look at how many people participate -- the more people who participate, the more prestigious. Second, look at the skills of the average participant: the more skilled people coming in, the more prestigious it is. Using this method, you can find spikes outside of the set ones above.

Conclusion

Stanford is one of the most difficult universities to get into, as are UC Berkeley and Cornell. However, all of them follow the same pattern of being a highly-ranked school with a slight engineering tilt, and all have a common admissions pattern.

Because these schools are highly-ranked, it’s critical to keep in mind the three truths: 1) you need high baseline academics, SATs above 600 and ideally 750 in each section; 2) you need to have a diverse set of extracurriculars that you’re decent at; and 3) you need to have one “spike” area where you’re ranked top 100-1000. Dispel these two myths: 1) Stanford admissions is all about academics; and 2) Stanford wants you to be as evenly well-rounded as possible.

Keep in mind that Stanford has a STEM (engineering) tilt. This means that, if your focus is outside STEM, you should be the best you can be in that area and, if appropriate, tie your work into potential interdisciplinary work with STEM. If you are in STEM, you’ll want to strongly consider pursuing success in a competition to show off the degree of your skill.

What's Next?

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Fred is co-founder of PrepScholar. He scored a perfect score on the SAT and is passionate about sharing information with aspiring students. Fred graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor's in Mathematics and a PhD in Economics.