#Soft Passage

[trevlad-sounds]

For The Birds 04

Intro 00:00 Mario Luciano, Lauren Santi-Lauren’s Astral Vision 00:11 arovane-Treut 01:28 Soft Passage-Radiant Dreams 03:33 MikeKSmith-Rain on the lines 06:39 Urban Meditation-Inner Circles 11:12 Beefus B-In Your Own Universe 14:40 Willebrant-Inlet III 19:49 Ruby Singh-Amrit Vela 29:38 CIALYN-GardenWall 37:05 Mitseliy-Blue Tape IV 39:35 Audio Obscura-Through Nuclear Skies 46:48 Outro

[nomstellations]

"Aren't you excited? After this you're going to be a real predator like the rest of us!"

I look down at your trembling form, curled up in my palm. I'm not too sure where they found you, but I'm sorry that you were found at all. I never asked to be a part of this, but being born into a family of people-eaters isn't something anyone asks for. I have no interest in eating anyone alive, but traditions are traditions...and I worry that if I don't, someone else will definitely hurt you. The expectant, excited looks on everyone's faces are mirrored by my reluctant expression, and I study you again. I'll try to make this quick.

When I lift you up to my mouth, you don't make a sound. Even when my warm breath washes over you and you touch my tongue, you don't kick or cry out. Have you already accepted your fate as my food? I nearly choke on you when I swallow- you're so small, yet you're bigger than anything I've ever eaten. Cheers and applause ring out from my peers, but I can only focus on how strange it is to have something living sliding down my throat. It feels good, which makes a pang of guilt stir up within me. I was made for this, but I don't like it.

I can feel you slide into my stomach, still shaking out of fear. My peers congratulate me, but all of my attention is on you. I couldn't apologize then, but when I am left alone I will free you. Neither of us asked for this, and I can only hope you'll forgive me.

[deadpanwalking]

you may have addressed this in the past, but i am pretty sure i'm too dumb to read james joyce. how do you improve your reading comprehension? i'd like to move beyond the nyt bestseller list, but going from stephen king to faulkner seems like a steep jump.

Nobody is too dumb to read a book, but plenty of people have been conditioned into perpetual incuriosity.  The only way to improve reading comprehension is by reading outside of your comfort zone, which necessarily means letting go of the notion that the relationship between an artist and their audience is adversarial, and that a challenging work of art is booby-trapped with mean tricks designed to make you feel bad.

What do you do when you run into a word or concept that you don't immediately understand in the wild? You don't (I fervently hope) drop what you're reading like a hot potato—you keep reading to see if there’s clarification, and if there's none, you find a reliable source that gives you the definition, context, and examples, then circle back. What do you do when you're watching a movie you haven't seen before and the camera lingers on a random detail, or a character makes an inexplicable choice? Unless you are my dad, you give the story a chance to play out before asking what the deuce is going on. 

Faulkner and Joyce aren't cyphers, which is why their short fiction is a standard in the public high school English curriculum, and As I Lay Dying and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man are frequently assigned to juniors and seniors in AP classes—but even their denser writing is more accessible now than it's ever been. Over the past century, so many people have loved them enough to devote their lives to studying their work—and they’ve passed the savings down to you. They’ve written annotations that explain literary, historical, and biographical context and that's aligned with the pagination of the books, they’ve integrated hyperlinks into the hypertext.

There's exactly one (1) acceptable excuse not to read Faulkner or Joyce: not wanting to read Faulkner or Joyce.  You don't even need to give them a chance—millions of people (among them, many prolific and intelligent readers) have and will continue to live rich, meaningful lives after deciding that a particular book or author is simply not a priority, even if the author is famous and the book highly recommended by several friends who wear glasses.

If you can parse this passage from Pet Sematary, you can parse just about anything Joyce throws at you:

[celine-song]

Passages (2023) dir. Ira Sachs

[banished-away]

I honestly can't wait to get to generations bc i need the massive shotgun of the whole zak-drizzt father-son relationship to go off

[moonlightsapphic]

wait wait wait wait so are we just not gonna talk about Nimona’s homoerotic childhood best friendship with Gloreth who turned out to be a brainwashed terf and then how it all ended with a traumatic breakup ooorrrrr

[invinciblerodent]

oh sometimes i'm overcome with the realization of just how sentimental a bitch i am

like i really am straight up just playing make-believe with these characters like they're digital barbies

okay so in Iona's inventory, i've had this necklace

since very early in act 1.

it was in Aradin's chest at the Grove, and it was the first thing "we" managed to get with the "I distract them with conversation/busking and you steal everything that isn't nailed down" act/trick I had thought up for her and Astarion. I thought it'd be kinda cute for him to, at the end of this test run, present it with a ~theatrical flourish~ once just out of earshot of its original owner, and for her to ~graciously allow~ him to drape it around her neck, as a hamfisted and silly act of mock-courtship they both know is false. (it was kind of a... "we both know what this is all about and where it's headed, but wouldn't it be fun to play make-believe and pretend it's something entirely different" type of thing.)

I thought it'd be cute, if a touch bittersweet for her to keep it, just slotted away in her little "sentimental items" pouch, like.... next to the dog toy, her old wedding band, and the other useless junk she couldn't bring herself to throw away or sell.

and then today, i found this as I was selling stuff in the Glittering Gala.

it's the same design. and i like to describe Iona's eyes as "amber" when I write about them (they're kind of a reddish/yellowish, pretty medium brown). and she looks much better in golds and reds than she does in blues and silvers.

so. um.

guess who got this bloody thing "sneaked" into her inventory at the long rest.

if you think i won't 1.) exit a trading screen abruptly, 2.) switch controlled characters, 4.) buy a silly and utterly useless junk item AS that character (thought about just picking her pocket but.... we have 35k gold. why would i.), and 4.) keep it in that character's inventory until it "seems like" the PC isn't "paying attention", and then 5.) drop it into their inventory "unnoticed", all for LITERALLY NO GOOD REASON other than just to act out a silly little gesture and support the little fanfic in my head, well.

you'd be very wrong.

((and i was grinning and giggling downright embarrassingly the whole time too))

[tennessoui]

Do you ever think about how one thing went wrong for Padme and she died of sadness meanwhile Obi-Wan was like on the sadness express for forty years and kept chugging along because I do

I often think about that one passage from that one Star Wars book where obi-wan is dying in like the middle of the war and he’s like “no not yet I still have things to do I am still needed I cannot rest” and the living force and death itself are like ok my mistake sir carry on right this way back to the land of the living have a great day

[eschercaine]

“You are fearless when facing a girl on a horse, I see. The next time I come, I will be on a dragon.”

Following Rhaenyra’s birth, many wondered if her uncle Prince Daemon would fall behind her in the line of succession, as she was the only child of Viserys, the heir to the throne.

Queen Aemma Arryn proposed a betrothal between Prince Daemon – dubbed Maegor, Second of His Name – and her daughter Rhaenyra in order to settle the succession issue. However, both her husband, King Viserys and the Hand, Ser Otto Hightower, protested the match.

The question of selecting a suitable consort for Rhaenyra had been of concern to King Viserys and his council. Great lords and dashing knights fluttered around her like moths around a flame, vying for her favor. Sons of Lord Bracken and Lord Blackwood fought a duel over her, and a younger son of House Frey made so bold as to ask openly for her hand. In the west, Ser Jason Lannister and his twin, Ser Tyland, vied for her. The sons of Lord Tully of Riverrun, Lord Tyrell of Highgarden, Lord Oakheart of Old Oak, and Lord Tarly of Horn Hill paid court to the princess, as did Ser Lyonel’s son, Ser Harwin Strong. Viserys even talked of wedding Rhaenyra to the Prince of Dorne, as a way of bringing the Dornish into the realm.

The best choice, king and small council finally agreed, would be Rhaenyra’s cousin, Laenor Velaryon. Though the Great Council of 101 had ruled against his claim, the Velaryon boy remained a grandson of Prince Aemon Targaryen of hallowed memory, and a great-grandson of the Old King himself, with dragon blood on both sides of his lineage. Such a match would unite and strengthen the royal bloodline and regain the Iron Throne, the friendship of the Sea Snake with his powerful fleet.

King and council had neglected to consult the princess, however, and Rhaenyra proved to be very much her father’s daughter. After having been made privy to Viserys’s plans through surreptitious eavesdropping using the Red Keep’s secret passages, she pleaded with her uncle – who had once again been banished from court – to take her away.

[bisexualmultifandommess]

If one of the crew (like Jim, Frenchie or Fang) haven’t got Lucius secretly hidden in one of the secret passages I’ll be annoyed. I just want him to be okay.

[gifti3]

Ahh i was finally able to read chapter 8!!!

i feel like a big revelation happened but with little elaboration so im just like...???

Something is happening, but my brain isnt connecting shit!

What i mainly got is that xavier is from a different galaxy and him and jeremiah already knew mc for some reason

I need to reread cause i feel like i missed stuff and if i read through everything at once without interruptions, ill probably understand better

Anyways ig next chapter, mc is about to test her acting skills in the n109 zone??? (btw i would be pissing myself if i was her! totally out of my pay grade...)

[thedragonagelesbian]

Find the word

thank you @the-eldritch-it-gay for the generous open invitation to do this challenge with the words hurt, soft, sleep, fire, and skin

Hurt

What a picture-perfect set-up Astarion had had, so close he could already taste the sweat on Cyrus’ body, all he had had to do was finish the first job and move on to the next. Let his hands wander, find what made that lethargic pulse skitter, what made that freckled skin blush and bruise. Cyrus would’ve let him. After that little display with the priest of Loviatar, listening to him roar to be hurt harder, Astarion had never been more sure of that.

Soft

“Eat the berry, ivaebhin.”

Cyrus’ Elvish was an underdeveloped muscle even in his more lucid moments, but the melody of the word in Halsin’s baritone was so charming that he crushed the goodberry without further protest. Its firm skin yielded to the soft flesh beneath in a squirt of thick, syrupy sweetness, like honey, leading Cyrus to wonder if the flavor was specific to Halsin’s tastes. It dripped warm and slow down his throat, underneath his sternum, and into his stomach, where it took root, flowering and unfurling and filling.

Sleep

Cyrus was just about to trance. It always came easier in Karlach’s arms— the hum of the infernal engine against his chest, cocooned in its warmth and the sturdiness of her arms, catching the faint traces of her talking to herself in her sleep on the edges of his not-quite-unconsciousness. It should’ve come particularly easy that night, with his emotions already burnt out of him. The heavy absence behind his eyes and his sternum demanded respite, and though Cyrus often fought against what his body thought was best for him, he was pretty sure he needed to listen to it tonight.

Fire

“And what about Halsin?” Shadowheart asked.

Cyrus glanced over at the other elf, who was studying the sigils that would have once again bound the Nightsong with that deep consternation that had been plaguing him since arriving in Baldur’s Gate. He had weathered the encounter best of all, cloaked in the semblance of the very same elementals that Lorroakan had set upon them. “What about him?”

“I mean he has a big heart, massive arms, and can set himself on fire. Kind of ticks all your boxes, doesn’t he?”

Skin

Cyrus listed, tempted, so terribly tempted, to lean forward. To rest his head on Karlach's shoulder and breathe in the slight acrid sweetness of her body, skin and ducts and all. Everything turned to vapor with her. He could just let the day disappear, weightless and immaterial and…

Aaaaand i'm gonna do a similar 'if you see this & want to do it, consider yourself tagged by me!!' for the words............ scar, stain, cold, dear, and heart.

[evanescentdawn]

it’s really good to look back at things the next day with fresh eyes because WHAT even is this

[jackienova]

Steady is the hand that's come to terms With the lessons it has had to learn I've seen the things that I must do But Lord, this road is meant for two, so I am waiting here for you — Cold Is The Night, The Oh Hellos

[anoddopal]

Pulling my hair out because I had the realization that all my selfships with villainous characters have that “lion laying down with the lamb” vibe and I AUGH am too predictable and AUGH fixated on a certain dynamic and AUGH-