gobath

Terracotta figurine of a fox scratching his neck (Greek, late 6th–early 5th century B.C.)

"TESTIFICATES" of My World AU

Lore Masterpost. More stuff:

things like

the desert as a lifeless wasteland where ‘life is crushed underneath the shifting sands and blazing sun’ blah blah blah. deserts are full of life and they are beautiful and people have lived and prospered in them for eons. please read a book

the desert as an ugly or barren terrain where everything is harsh and threatening

the desert as something scary

the inhabitants as backwards religious zealots

the men as overly violent and oppressive

the inhabitants in need of outside instruction/intervention, i.e. “civilizing the savage”

the “harem” and women as exotic, sensual, mysterious

writing tribalism with no knowledge of how tribes actually function

djinn (or for the westerners, genies)

Islam Lite (the aesthetics or spiritual practices appropriated and stripped of meaning)

sprinkling random arabic words for ✨flavor✨instead of expanding your worldbuilding to include language as well

clothing as oppressive or mysterious, instead of serving its actual purpose (protecting you from the elements, which should be obvious but i guess it isn’t. covering your skin keeps you cooler and safer in most deserts)

people who live in deserts as ignorant, superstitious, uneducated

To anyone writing stuff set in the Mojave/Sonoran Deserts (and maybe the Colorado?) Please please please look up Palo Verde forests!! The trees are green but completely bare of leaves- they photosynthesize directly through their bark. And instead of leaves they have spikes! It's so trippy and cool to be walking through a lush green forest knowing that the nearest water is 50+ miles away.

Other Mojave/Sonoran specific things:

There's tortoises! They're pretty rare to see but you can often find their burrows, or sometimes skeletons

Nightjars will wait till you get super close and then fly up, scaring the crap out of you

There are areas called 'desert asphalt', which are large expanses of black volcanic rock. Looks totally different from any other part of the desert

There are jackrabbits everywhere

Everywhere there aren't jackrabbits there's lizards

It's actually pretty loud; there's loads of insects- mainly crickets and the like- but also lots of birds! You won't see them but by God you will hear them

Wildflower blooms in the rainy season are the most beautiful thing you'll ever see in your life. There will be so many flowers that you never even knew existed

If you live near any mountain range, you'll actually see thunderstorms fairly often. You'll never actually get rained on, but there's almost always thunder on the mountains, especially in the evening. Idk maybe that's a metaphor or something