#pathless-wood

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

I was rereading Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden and was struck by the magic ease with which the characters fall in love. Has that ever happened to you? Do you think it's normal, or perhaps something that occurs more in fiction than real life?

I think it depends on what you mean by "fall in love."

I don't think "falling in love" means the same thing in a book as it does in real life -- you could never describe the path to marriage with an accurate series of steps like "Become friends. Have a few fun dates. In five years, you'll be married."

But there are certain things that books can do to make the outcomes of the emotional arcs feel more "natural" in a way that I don't feel is present in real life. I've often thought of it as "the narrative resistance of the universe." People in a book can have a certain emotional desire, and after a series of problems and misunderstandings (but not too many) the desire will reach its natural, "obvious" fulfillment. The characters will just get what they wanted from the very start, and this will be perfectly natural to the story because it's the plot that they were supposed to have.

But the real world is often like that! I may prefer the uncertainty of real life -- it's certainly much more fun to write -- but there are aspects of the real world that are like that.

[apoemaday]

There Is Pleasure in the Pathless Wood

by George Gordon Byron

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean -- roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin -- his control Stops with the shore; -- upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own, When for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths, -- thy fields Are not a spoil for him, -- thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth’s destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray And howling, to his gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth: -- there let him lay.

[videogames-i-wish-were-real]

Videogames I wish were real #42

A farming game set in a world inspired by mesoamerican civilizations of the past such as the aztec and the maya. You'd get a lot of the usual gameplay mechanics of farming games (such as fishing, foraging, mining, etc), but the farming mechanics would feature some of the characteristic farming techniques of the region, such as floating gardens, raised bed farming for the swampy areas or terrace farming in the mountainous areas. Your crops would be staple mesoamerican crops, such as corn, beans, squash, cassava, cacao and peppers, but there would also be travelling merchants selling seeds from other regions, such as tomato or potato seeds. Instead of a sprinkler system, you could create irrigation channels for your crops. At the start, your settlement would be a small village, but as you progressed in the game you'd be able to expand and turn it into a prosperous town.

Similar games that actually exist: (and by this I mean farming games set in something different from the stereotypical setting of the genre. There are a lot of other farming games with different settings, but for this list I only picked the ones inspired by real cultures and civilizations) Roots of Pacha, Daomei Village, Litchi Town, Tales of Seikyu, Gaucho and the Grassland, Pathless Woods

[thspod]

A quick break from Dave the Diver month.

[dryadalismagicae]

@blackarrcw || LIKED for a STARTER

"You would be truly astounded to know just how much has been lost to time - the knowledge that has nigh evaporated from common knowledge and sank into legend." Sat, now falling far quieter, Lyrian adjusts the poise of his hood and the fixation of his gaze; the beauty of the distance captivating to he of whom had not seen such lands in a length of time uncomfortable to recall.

"Though, that isn't to say that everything lost to the past was worth remembering.."

[rangers-arecool]

For: Open | Within reason Unspecified Muse: Hal Verses: Pathless Dúnedan & the Sentinel

Something was coming.

  The former Ranger didn't need her abilities to tell her that much- or the fact that it was related to the former residents of the Lonely Mountain. Although banned from returning to the North Downs, she never lost contact with anyone living there. Mainly because Saeradan and Candaith had threatened to send Hannar after her if she stopped writing, much to said Dwarf's amusement.

  Seeing Hal up on the Bell Tower didn't surprise many of those within Lake-town. It was the highest point in the town, providing her with an almost clear view of the surrounding land and lake. And she knew that if she turned, Erebor the Lonely Mountain, would be seen towering above them all. Yet it was in the direction of the forest, formerly known as the Greenwood, that her blank gaze turned.

Durin's Day was nearly upon them and with it, came change.

  Whether that change would be good or bad, Hal didn't know. But a warning in one of her adopted Dwarf father's letters had got her to preparing for the worst. It wasn't just her though, most of the Sentinels and Guides in Lake-town had followed suit. Under her direction, they had made parts of Dale stable and secure, giving the citizens somewhere safe to go to should the town fall. All of them knew the truth: Smaug was merely asleep.

  The young woman sighed quietly, dark eyes following the familiar boat as Bard headed out. She left the bell tower after a few minutes, heading towards her home next to Bard and his children's. Should anyone need her help, they knew she would be found sorting out her medical kits. Living in Lake-town, it was mostly Men who she patched up and the rare Elf.

~~~~

  Later that, it was Sigrid who pulled the Northern Guide from her quiet and next doors. She paused momentarily, not expecting to see Dwarves or a very familiar Hobbit but soon realised why she was there. Hal loosened the hold on her abilities enough to scan both Kili and Bilbo, pointedly ignoring the sudden silence. She set her medical kit out on a table and put out what she needed to help the younger Prince.

"When did Kili get hurt?"

[gwydionmisha]

There Is Pleasure In The Pathless Woods - George Gordon Byron

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

[pnwander]

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods–

[fatesundress]

⭑ settle soft and as pure as snow. tom riddle x reader

summary. he’s tender the way snow is. devout as a prayer that it will clear come spring.

tags. gn reader, ooc tom to 99% of the world but man do i love the 1% to whom it isn't, short little blurb, fear of death / discussions of mortality, fluff, hurt/comfort if you squint but mostly comfort, just. lovers! being lovers! kind of a sequel to your kitchen table in that it's as much an analysis of tom's fears and desires as it is an x reader, i needed this so i wrote it idk what to tell you okay

note. in my long absence i hit 1k followers (!!!???) and while i've struggled to write anything substantial, i really enjoyed this and wanted to share something to somewhat express my gratitude :') have some healed tom (inspired by hozier) and as always, my requests are open in case something sparks inspiration. in the meantime, thanks for everything!!

word count. 791

He’s so suited to this. Beautifully, frustratingly so — born in its longest nights and shaded in its sundry tones; its stellular blues and soft, powdery whites — Tom Riddle is December made mortal. (An offensive turn of phrase, you’re sure, but he’s suited to mortality too.) You think he used to charm his cheeks not to flush but relented the effort at some point, some years ago with you, because the cold splashes them pink to his ears now, snow dotting his tousled hair. He has the integrity still to deny your caps and earmuffs with a signature scowl, but — one day.

It’s a walk through the night for no particular reason, with no particular direction. There’s moorland past the trail that winds around your shared abode, tall and dense and magical. It satiates something in him. The unknown. The need for it.

Sometimes he gets restless and doesn’t tell you, only stares furtively from the northernmost window, fingers conjuring spirals of ice on the sill absentmindedly. You take his hand and kiss the cool digits one by one. To remind him of intention.

It’s the decay, you presume. A little voice always tugs him that way, but it gets louder this time of year. With everything shedded, rotted, buried and slumbering, Tom endures watching the cycle he hates most echo into spring. Rebirth, yes, but not how he pictures it. What he knows in the steepest dusks is that one winter will come where he will not wake up again with the flowers, where you might vow to tend whatever garden someday blooms over his grave, a name etched into the stone that none but you will remember. Many winters after that, when you follow him into death and the house is mildewed and lichen clusters his favourite window, the grave will wear until even that is gone to time.

It terrifies him.

So you walk. Intention. Your hand is in his.

The magic of a simple charm warms you somewhat, but you enjoy the subtle sting of cold. You can feel it because you’re alive. It’s the same life that strung you to him in a way that can’t be severed, and now you make new trails in pathless woods and wonder at constellations, spiles broaching syrup into buckets from the trees. You collect them for potions. You invent new ones together, and tease him over a coughing fit in cauldron smoke that immortality is more than living forever.

He kisses you quiet, but he’ll listen later. There’s so much time.

You wonder if it suits you, too — winter — by the way he tends to you when it comes. Doting. You would never have imagined considering him having such a virtue when you met him, but he’s… tender, the way snow is.  Devout as a prayer that it will clear come spring. Stinging, soft, ephemeral. You weather him. But how he keeps you warm when the night drags on, and talk of constellations turns to talk of grief, he shelters you.

When your back is bare and you’re laid away from him, he traces the skin like he’s never seen it before. It’s a wonder, you think, to learn the mechanisms of touch like a foreign language. Perhaps it would feel the same for the first thousand times. How many winters did he trace the cool tile of his bedroom wall just like this, with skinny fingers scraping at the mortar on another empty birthday? There are questions even now you think to ask but don’t. He offers the answers mostly as he’s reminded of them: that a clearing in the moors evokes a memory of a bad field trip, a mantelpiece of tchotchkes echo a stolen box in a burning wardrobe, that most things, at times, feel fleetingly disparate, ready to be returned to their right place. Tea will go without sugar again as he will go without you.

Nonsense. This is yours, you tell him, the word sewn between you.

His pink cheeks are all the colour you see in the dark. The tree sap is sweet and light. You write a letter to a potioneer in New Guinea to draft, and turn left instead of right the next night, a new forest discovered within the first. Your New Year’s Eve is a swell of light in birthday candles, laughing into his cheek at some bad joke until the sound is smothered by a kiss he breaks too soon by laughing too. It’s a sound you can’t invent or imagine, words failing you even when you find them for everything else he is. 

Spring comes one unsuspecting morning, twice and twenty times, greys strewn in the black of his hair. You smile with crow’s feet into winter again.

taglist. @lyis @indimoss @poddzi @esolean @d1anna @maripositanoctruna @mentally-in-northern-italy @ronniemaximoff1234 @moobell55 @jaerang @ramayantika @saltwaterbythesea @acube07 @togenabi @adazito @kitcat334 @blaurghhh @shutupfinn @jaymeeshayden @lilu842 @leaosee @garfunkelworld @definitely-not-captain-america @multiplefandomstan @mangoesareorange

[jadeseadragon]

Lili Anne Laurin, The Pathless Woods, 18 × 14 inches, oil.

[jazzcathaven]

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more” ― Lord Byron

[julesofnature]

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more.”

~ Lord Byron

[apoemaday]

Birches

by Robert Frost

When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy’s been swinging them. But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay As ice-storms do. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust — Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows — Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone. One by one he subdued his father’s trees By riding them down over and over again Until he took the stiffness out of them, And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer. He learned all there was To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim. Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It’s when I’m weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken across it, and one eye is weeping From a twig’s having lashed across it open. I’d like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love: I don’t know where it’s likely to go better. I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

[amicus-noctis]

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more” ― Lord Byron

[heyjude19-writing]

Favourite spring time Drarry fics you could recommend ? 🌺(Again inspired by the dramione answered list you kindly made prior!)

Happy reading anon!

Who we are when no one is watching

Wine and Whale Bones

Reparations

Save the Date

Harry’s Herbaceous Borders

let him lead me to the banquet

Kiss me (you coward)

Pathless Woods

[dryadalismagicae]

@thecacklingcrow asked: There you are~)

For but a moment, mayhap a few heartbeats more, Lyrian can find no words to speak nor form any variety of thought within his consciousness. He hadn't set eye on the other in... well, frankly it had been a damn long time. His sudden disappearance had been concerning, even in the beginning but it only grew more so the longer it had gone on.

Lyrian had been petrified to leave their camp in case he returned, but eventually... he had no choice but to leave with pressing threats lingering too close for comfort. He had often wondered just what had happened...where the other had gone to, why--- but he had resigned himself to never knowing.

"Zevran." He finally manages, voice erring somewhat on the side of surprised and breathless. "You---" He's happy, he's angry, he's uncertain and confused all in one volatile mix and, frankly, Lyrian doesn't quite know where to start. With his anger, perhaps? With his upset? With his relief?

"I thought you had been killed somewhere-!" Though he attempted to show anger first, his sheer upset and emotional turmoil was clear in his pale expression. His heart clenched, his stomach twisted, and he found that he could do naught more for a moment other than sit himself down and breathe.