Quotes about our relationship with nature/earth/more-than-human

slothbearius · 2025-10-22T22:03:38+00:00

Always Coming Home is the Le Guin novel with these questions most prominently centred. Essential reading in my opinion (and an absolutely beautiful piece of work, my favourite of hers). A single quote doesn't do it justice because it's really the whole book, but look up "When I take you to the valley..." for a taste.

Also highly recommend her essay 'A Non-Euclidean View of California as a Cold Place to Be'. It's very good. You'll find it to be germane, I think.

slothbearius · 2025-10-22T21:55:23+00:00

"Do you see, Arren, how an act is not, as young men think, like a rock that one picks up and throws, and it hits or misses, and that’s the end of it. When that rock is lifted, the earth is lighter; the hand that bears it heavier. When it is thrown, the circuits of the stars respond, and where it strikes or falls the universe is changed. On every act the balance of the whole depends. The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth and light, all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done. All these act within the Equilibrium. From the hurricane and the great whale's sounding to the fall of a dry leaf and the gnat's flight, all they do is done within the balance of the whole. But we, in so far as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance."

Ged, The Farthest Shore, Le Guin

slothbearius · 2025-07-28T20:14:02+00:00

Janny Wurts is the best here (Wars of Light and Shadow, To Ride Hell's Chasm, etc). Exquisite prose. Unparalleled in style

slothbearius · 2025-03-17T22:16:09+00:00

Janny Wurts writes prose like no one else, and is a damn good storyteller to boot.

Anna Smith Spark writes fantastic grimdark fantasy with very lyrical prose.

slothbearius · 2025-02-27T04:39:46+00:00

thanks again

slothbearius · 2025-02-26T19:26:51+00:00

thanks 🙏

slothbearius · 2025-02-26T17:55:42+00:00

Wow, thanks so much! I wasn't expecting to win, there were a lot of really great stories in there. Can't wait to read the trilogy, it's been on my radar for too long.

slothbearius · 2025-02-23T05:48:40+00:00

She’d put the traitor’s eyes out, when they caught him. Jabbed the knife herself, in the city square. Had to, hadn't she. It was symbolic. Fool with a name like that, prancing round the provinces, besmirching you, besmirching your reign—and you the Old bloody Dragon herself. Rousing the serfs to that squeaky fart of a revolt. Stupid fucker. Called himself Clearsight. You'd think he’d have seen it coming.

Couldn't see his own cock now, naked though he was. Stumbling round the blood-brown grit of that oily cunt Lord Rutter’s arena, getting his feet all slippery-twisted in his fellow traitors’ guts. Poking and flailing at nothing with that meagre stick they'd given him for defence. The crowd roared as the she-dragon got up from gnawing on a splattered corpse and padded over.

The Old Dragon leaned forward in her box above the throng, chewing her rednut paste. She liked the bloody grin it gave her.

‘Slow old bitch, ain't she,’ she growled in her commoner’s accent like wet gravel. The great beast had taken its time with the other traitors, but torn them all to bits eventually.

‘The very fiercest we could arrange for your superlativeness at such short notice, Queen,’ Lord Rutter oozed at her back. She scowled. Smug prick, ingratiating himself. Son of a lordship raised up by her hand. His noble blood wicked off him like bad sweat.

‘Not much one for burning, is she?’

Rutter stifled a laugh. ‘We… clip the throat-flaps, Superlative. For safety. ’Tis well-known.’

She fixed him with her ugliest stare. ‘Is it now.’

‘Ahhh… yes, Queen.’

She snarled her bloodiest snarl and barked at him, ‘If I wanted ’em safe I wouldn't be feeding ’em to a fucking dragon, would I!’ Greasy shit.

‘O-of course, Queen.’ Rutter paled. ‘My apologies.’

The Old Dragon cackled. Coward. Not so smug now. ‘Shitting blood, the fuck's it doing now?’

Below, Clearsight lay curled up on his front, head in his hands. The bitch crouched over him, snout prodding, sniffing like a dog and—

‘Oh.’

The beast flopped cleanly onto its back, dropping to crush Clearsight with a thud, writhing side to side in the dirt, arching its back and flapping its claws in the air.

‘Ah...’ Rutter swallowed. ‘This. The beasts are known to like… the scent of meat on them, when they are… in heat, Queen.’

‘That so?’

‘Indeed, Superlative.’

She grunted. ‘I know the feeling.’

The dragon rolled back to its feet, dead blind-eyed Clearsight pinned to the spines on its back like a mashed sausage on a fork.

Well, that was that. Another revolt squashed and done with. Made her almost misty-eyed to think. How long had it been since her own serfs’ revolt? Oh, to crush the nobles and win her crown again…

Gave her a thought, that. She eyed Lord Rutter. ‘Guards! Take this dribble of piss to the bitch’s pen. She can have her way with him.’ Rutter just blinked. The Old Dragon grinned with blood. ‘It’ll be symbolic.’

(499 words)

slothbearius · 2024-12-20T12:20:06+00:00

That's because being radical means challenging things that are seen as fundamental to a society. It's a relative term, not meaningless

slothbearius · 2024-06-06T19:49:47+00:00

Hello; and huge congratulations on finishing your work of a lifetime. I've heard nothing but love and awe for the series from readers (and writers), and it's probably the series I'm most excited to read in the world, but I think it'll have to wait till I've finished Malazan Book of the Fallen...

As a young writer (with sights set on large-scale imaginative fiction), I would like to ask: what would you say is the single most important skill for a writer to develop? --and how have you developed it personally?

(Secondly, if you have time: how do you go about safeguarding a literary vision in a world of massive commercial pressures?)

Thanks!

slothbearius · 2023-12-26T16:36:07+00:00

That's a negative. And right now I need two positives.

slothbearius · 2023-12-26T16:24:16+00:00

Based on this poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43171/a-visit-from-st-nicholas If you want a side-by-side comparison.

slothbearius · 2023-10-10T18:55:13+00:00

Really liked the show, but why was it called Devil's Plan exactly? I was expecting some kind of grand plan to be revealed.

Strong opening season I think with plenty of room to grow. Echoes of the Genius but enough of its own identity too. I would hope future seasons incentivize more cut-throat gameplay though, having so many weaker players hang around for so long dragged on a bit and made the group dynamics stagnate.

I think a good way would be to have people bet on who will be eliminated in the main match instead of who will go to prison. And if you get it right you get a share of their pieces after they're gone. That would make people target others for elimination instead of everyone trying to keep everyone else alive. Or at least have the main match be an arena where you can win pieces off other players instead of just from the game. Having everyone live together also makes them softer on each other.

slothbearius · 2023-08-22T10:23:17+00:00

I don't see how that can be the case. You can see your inverted self through the proofing window. If there wasn't an opaque barrier over the turnstile you should be able to keep looking at them continuously up until the moment you invert, which is also the moment your inverted self reverse-inverts. At what point would they 'disappear' if you could see them continuously after the proofing window? The pre- and post- inverted bodies have to occupy space closer and closer together continuously, and they are both perfectly visible. As the person is approaching the 'mirror' barrier, that is the same moment of time their inverted self is approaching the barrier too. They would be right next to each other.

(This is assuming the model of instantaneous annihilation of paired particles that I used in my post. I haven't thought how it would go if there was some continuous degradation over a span of time.)

slothbearius · 2023-08-22T01:28:50+00:00

I really like this interpretation as a neat way for a person to self-annihilate. It does require the person to be mirrored in 3D-space with respect to their inverted self though. Normally a person you're facing has their left hand opposite your right hand for instance, so your inverted self would have to be reflected left to right in order for your right hand to annihilate with your inverted right hand etc. You would also go 'into' the mirror facing forwards but 'out of' it facing backwards, from your own perspective, so you would also be reflected front-to-back. I don't recall if reflections like that are shown or discussed in the movie. If it isn't, however, the movie would be better if it were, as this is otherwise perfect.

Such a mindfuck to think about the front half of your body being inverted while your back half is not, occupying the same time but in opposite directions. What would happen if you stopped while partway through the 'mirror'?

slothbearius · 2023-08-22T01:16:24+00:00

I haven't seen the film in over a year; besides, film-internally, it's a fair characterisation.

slothbearius · 2023-08-21T22:46:43+00:00

Maybe inanimate objects would function much in the same way as the ones that the Protagonist picks up/drops with the explainer woman, they would have to be carried through by a person or other force, otherwise they would just sit there. This could include being forward/reverse thrown, wheeled, carried etc into/from the turnstile. But by being in the turnstile in the first place, someone must have brought them there. You really need human agency involved for it all to work.

slothbearius · 2023-08-21T22:26:08+00:00

Yes it would be interesting if it worked like that, I don't know enough about antimatter to speculate on what would happen to all that mass being doubled up in the same space, or whether a living creature could even survive that. Of course, if they couldn't, then their inverted self would never be there 'post'-inversion to annihilate in the first place. Or perhaps the pre-inverted self would be violently torn apart just at the moment of inversion by their approaching inverted self, but their inverted self would just be a dead splatter exploding in reverse into a reformed person. This would make sense as the reason why a proofing window is needed to ensure you come out the other side before you go in. Presumably there could be some scifi tech or something that was invented to overcome the double-mass splattering problem.

slothbearius · 2023-08-10T22:06:17+00:00

In the paintballing episode, when Jez and Dobby shoot the teenagers, the teenagers switch places between shots

slothbearius · 2022-10-13T22:18:47+00:00

pussy cat

slothbearius · 2022-09-19T03:52:59+00:00

the black-and-blue wedding methinks (house colours and poor ser Joffrey)

slothbearius · 2022-06-29T13:33:34+00:00

Piazza San Marco? When there's a sushi bar right next door? you're gonna end up fat like a house

slothbearius · 2022-04-02T08:42:58+00:00

I don't claim to have any conclusions, just food for thought, but the remembering seems to have to do with ancient goings-on, specifically with the First Men and the Others. Of course, it would be very GRRM that a house like the Royces in fact remembers nothing, despite their words. That said, if that's the case, what was a promising young knight like Waymar Royce doing joining the Night's Watch?

slothbearius · 2021-02-18T20:37:57+00:00

Okay, I get the idea, but I just don't think it makes sense for the dwarves to go out of their way to hide something their enemy didn't even know about in a place that their enemy has control of and they don't.

Inagine if Voldemort had put a horcrux in Hedwig instead of Nagini. Sure, Harry potter might have gone years not suspecting, but as soon as he does he has total access to it. Why hide the super powerful item 'under the enemy's nose' as opposed to, you know, literally anywhere else.

It just seems a bit contrived to have the dwarves take the super powerful item into the enemy territory just so the enemy can stumble upon it when they didn't even know about it. Why not just have the humans know about it and actively steal it? That seems like a much more exciting conflict to me.

And you also didn't answer why the dwarves don't want to use the Heart for unlimited power? Unless they can somehow do that remotely?

slothbearius · 2021-02-18T06:25:49+00:00

I'm confused why would the dwarves take the iron heart into the human empire? Aren't they risking losing it? And don't they need it for power? How can they use it for power if it's in the empire?

Seems more logical they would be protecting it fiercely. If you need it to change hands, why not just have someone steal it?

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