Steady, Steady, Steady. Stepping over broken bodies, ignoring warnings given fair. All that strength and will, and what have you to show? A broken sun, a murdered queen, your daughter—
“Do not speak of her,” snapped Steady.
The curling murmurs chuckled. Loss and death and disappointment, Steady As It Goes. That’s all this world has left to offer. The Red could be salvation. The Red could bring them back. A sun of deepest crimson. A fire, hot and black. Your family can be whole again. Isn’t that your quest?
In 1909, the biologist Jakob von Uexküll noted that every animal exists in its own unique perceptual world — a smorgasbord of sights, smells, sounds and textures that it can sense but that other species might not. These stimuli defined what von Uexküll called the Umwelt — an animal’s bespoke sliver of reality. A tick’s Umwelt is limited to the touch of hair, the odor that emanates from skin and the heat of warm blood. A human’s Umwelt is far wider but doesn’t include the electric fields that sharks and platypuses are privy to, the infrared radiation that rattlesnakes and vampire bats track or the ultraviolet light that most sighted animals can see.
The Umwelt concept is one of the most profound and beautiful in biology. It tells us that the all-encompassing nature of our subjective experience is an illusion, and that we sense just a small fraction of what there is to sense. It hints at flickers of the magnificent in the mundane, and the extraordinary in the ordinary. And it is almost antidramatic: It reveals that frogs, snakes, ticks and other animals can be doing extraordinary things even when they seem to be doing nothing at all.
imagine u lived in elder scrolls and your khajiit friend was like “ah, come and look upon khajiit’s son, a fine warrior that one will be one day, yes?” and he just shows u this
u and ur equally drunk nord friends absolutely losing it over your khajiit comrade’s tiny smug son (everyone is so proud of him)
Brianna Albers, “The Audre Lorde Questionnaire to Oneself” // Anne Carson, Glass and God // Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood // @iasoup-deactivated20190921 // @puppy__problems on Instagram // p.d., “Rest Achilles, the world will wait” // Lyra Wren // @heartfeltbot on Twitter // Latin phrase translations // Emily Berry, Dear Boy
war of the foxes - richard silken / waterloo - ABBA / euripides’ medea - the little theatre / anne carson / the three fates - luca cambiaso / the oresteia - aeschylus / road to hell II - hadestown / when i met you - mira lightner / andersen’s fairy tale anthology
Steady, Steady, Steady. Stepping over broken bodies, ignoring warnings given fair. All that strength and will, and what have you to show? A broken sun, a murdered queen, your daughter—
“Do not speak of her,” snapped Steady.
The curling murmurs chuckled. Loss and death and disappointment, Steady As It Goes. That’s all this world has left to offer. The Red could be salvation. The Red could bring them back. A sun of deepest crimson. A fire, hot and black. Your family can be whole again. Isn’t that your quest?
“People are inherently terrible” no!!! Have you ever seen a child wait for their friend while they tie their shoelaces? Have you ever known someone who would bring hurt squirrels and rabbits and mice to the nearest vet just so it doesn’t suffer? Have you seen someone grieve? Have you ever read something that hit your heart like a freight train? Have you looked at the stars and felt an unexplainable joy? Have you ever baked bread? Have you shared a meal with a friend? Have you not seen it? All the love? All the good? I know it’s hard to see sometimes, I know there’s pain everywhere. But look, there’s a child helping another up after a hard fall. Look, there’s someone giving their umbrella to a stranger. Look, there’s someone admiring the spring flowers. Look, there’s good, there’s good, there’s good. Look!!!!
