Ai Weiwei: Chandelier (2015)
For as much as I think Le Guin misunderstood Gandalf (as suggested by the assumptions she made conceptualizing Ged), one thing she hits dead on the fucking ringer is that Ged losing his magic but getting to live more humanly is a quiet triumph in the exact inverse of how Gandalf largely losing his more human traits (affinity for pipes, mischievous streak, occasional foul temper) to become a more perfect embodiment of divine power is a quiet tragedy.
Le Guin asked “who was Gandalf as a boy” which is the wrong question, he was always an angel and was never a boy. He only temporarily took on the quirks and mannerisms of a human before giving them up to return to his divine calling. In that way perhaps Ged is his inverse: a human who assumed transcendent power and authority before giving it up and allowing a new world to be born without needing him.
bro this rends flesh (new way of saying something is really good)
Отдых.
Келегорм, Куруфин, Келебримбор, Хуан.
Rest.
Celegorm, Curufin, Celebrimbor, Нuan.
Тысячастопятисотмульонная картинка в жанре:
Попой в камни, мордой ввысь,
Зашибись у эльфа жизнь.
An 11th century “ornamental shield” that was carved from an elk's antler, found in the funerary chapel of Louis the Pious in Metz, France.
"You wear the crown well, but not, I think, for long" (c) You drove me wild (by LiveOakWithMoss)
Some Maitimo and leaves make a good sketch
(apparently you can't add video to another post, so ...)
I want you all to listen to the Faroese version of this scene, because Hans Tórgarð is the best Treebeard!
Tað vóru góðir dagar! Tá kundi eg ganga og syngja allan dagin og ikki hoyra annað enn afturljóðið av míni egnu rødd í fjallaholunum. Og skógirnir vóru sum skógirnir í Lothlórien, men tættari, sterkari og yngri. Og angin í luftini! Tá kundi eg ganga eine heila viku og bara anda.
Those were the broad days! Time was when I could walk and sing all day and hear no more than the echo of my own voice in the hollow hills. The woods were like the woods of Lothlórien, only thicker, stronger, younger. And the smell of the air! I used to spend a week just breathing.
Sudden theory about the sinking of Beleriand
For use in future projects:
Continents don’t just sink, they’re not floating landmasses; but they can be covered by rising sea levels.
What’s a cause of rising sea levels? Melting glaciers.
Where does Morgoth live? Where all the glaciers are.
Melkor’s forces are entrenched and burrowed all throughout the Iron Mountains. He’s got the whole north to himself, the reaches of Everlasting Cold; the opposing armies can’t even get past Thangorodrim, let alone get into all the nooks and crannies, the hiding places and secret strongholds that are scattered throughout the mountains. So, the best way to wreck his complete shit all in one pass is to simply melt the icecaps– with the help of Arien or Varda or Aulë or Ulmo or all of them.
The mountains become totally uninhabitable. The orc armies are trapped, buried in avalanches and drowned in mud, or forced to flee South, pushing Melkor’s forces into the waiting armies of the Valar.
When the great forges flood, they explode catastrophically. The subterranean levels of Angband fill with water.
The flooding doesn’t stop once the war is over; the great thawing of the North can’t be reversed. Melkor was camped out in the highest elevation in Beleriand, everything else is downstream.
Beleriand doesn’t sink in a day, it takes its time.
Ossiriand doesn’t stand a chance as the seas rise, Doriath is encircled by water and finally submerged; even the Encircling Mountains and the ruins of Gondolin are eventually swamped, waterlogged, becoming a lake of brown water.
The weather changes. Mudslides ruin the hills and mountains. The rivers back up and overflow with brackish sea water, killing all the freshwater life. Forests die, are uprooted, and swept away.
Everything turns to mud and logjams and floating corpses long before it is taken into the sea. Elves scramble to save what they can of their history from water damage and mildew, but much is destroyed before it can be carried to safety. And the past seems less and less worth saving, buried in the mud and volcanic ash and grey rain.
The migration east is weary and cold; men and dwarves suffer from the constant wetness in their boots and clothes, while the Eldar suffer unthinkable loss in their souls. The remaining umaiar and Melkor’s creatures slink over the mountains wherever they can, masterless, their fires dulled to dying embers.
It is a long time before the refugees of Beleriand find reason to be joyful again.
@histemar's tag meta is exactly the right stuff:
#I love this #think about ulmo’s role in this #he spends the days walking the ruins of the civilisations he was forced to destroy #the towers of beleriand now watch over watery fields #old bloodstains scabbed over with coral reefs and the great trees replaced with kelp #new life but the loss ever haunts that part of the sea
I swear I’ll draw proper art aside from silly doodles soon but in the meantime, it’s still art-
(I like the idea that Luthien have eerie eyes for some reason)
-slithers around Angband in search of rats, or warmth... or dark lord necks to coil around-
Sweet smoke-black little scale-child, hraefnseart wúscbearn, wrap your coils round me throat-wise and rest your arrowhead beneath my chin.
…..I always took it for granted that “Dungalef” was Felagund backwards, but it’s not. It’s “Felagnud”.
crocordile
Look, he couldn’t take the risk of Sauron figuring it out.
And everything worked out great for him!
Here’s my @officialtolkiensecretsanta for @outofangband! Húrin and Morwen sharing a tender moment during the sunset :D It’s been snowing quite a bit where I am, so I went with a warm palette for this painting! I can’t wait for a bit of warmth weather loll
In the meantime, I wish y’all a wonderful holiday and happy new year!! <333