By God, I'll not lose Hardy!

Thingol:

Also Thingol:

Thingol: doesn't want a human

Family The elves of Doriath: get a human anyway

Thingol and the human: 😍😍😍

“ao3 should have an algorithm” ao3 should continue only giving me exactly what I ask for which happens because I know how to use the search, sort, and filter functions

One more for @doriathweek —Daeron, singing of Doriath: his King and Queen and Lúthien. Ink drawing.

this is an old-new drawing by Manwe. When I'm sad, I return to this story.

this drawing is freely available on my boosty.to and here

THE LORD OF THE RINGS costumes appreciation: ― Elrond’s council robes (costume design by Ngila Dickson and Richard Taylor)

the only way to slide (via)

That C.S. Lewis quote says friendship is about meeting someone and going, "You, too? I thought I was the only one," but I think Tolkien's portrayal of Legolas and Gimli provides an important corollary, where friendship can be about, "You like that?"

Lewis tends to portray friendship as two people bonding in a shared interest over something, and only then getting to know each other as people. His descriptions of friendship in The Four Loves (at least in his lecture version that I listened to) sound a lot like fandom friendships. But they're not the only kind of friendships, and I like that Tolkien shows us that the reverse can also happen.

Legolas and Gimli have very different interests. They're from totally different cultures that don't much like each other. Each one loves environments that the other one finds creepy and terrifying. Before Helm's Deep, Legolas talks about how much he hates being surrounded by stone, while Gimli loves it. But after they bond at Helm's Deep, Legolas finds himself interested when Gimli waxes poetic about the beauty of the caves beneath it. He's like, "I don't get why you like that, but you make it sound awesome, so I'll try it." His respect for Gimli as a person made him willing to expand his horizons to share his interests. Friends can find connection, not just because of their similarities, but because of their differences. And I think it's really cool that Tolkien portrayed that.

So I finally got my hands on a ps5 and the first thing I did with it was play my ps4 copy of Shadow of Mordor (as one does) and maaaaannnn im thrown back into how much I love and adore Talion and Celebrimbor but not as this angsty game canon "forced to be together and betray each other" but in a "God wouldn't it be fun if fanon celebrimbor just went off about how much he loves Dwarves and crafting and Talion is being haunted by a loveable and brilliant yet socially naive ages old Elf who is burdened by Elf made horrors beyond comprehension?"

Talion asks about Celebrimbor's skills with a bow and he goes off about his uncles Ambarussa and Celegorm, or asks about Eregion and ruling and he gets tales of Maedhros and Caranthir, maybe Talion has trouble sleeping one night and Celebrimbor sings him a song he learned from his uncle Maglor.

He tells tales of his Dwarven husband Narvi, of his mother who died when Eregion fell, of the young Elven girl he adopted with Narvi as a babe, who kept him going after his husband's passing, and never got to grow up. He learns about cousins and uncles and aunts and grandparents who should by all accounts are important figures of history but Talion only knows of them as Uncle Finarfin that got bit by a swan, or cousin Fingon who once climbed a tree to help Celebrimbor get down and broke a tree branch on his way down and ended up breaking a wrist protecting the young Elf.

For that is all either of them have, just stories to tell of people they have loved and who have moved on without them, by no fault of their own. They are each other's company during such horrible times, and they both care for the other deeply.

When the Age of Elves is at an end and the Shadow is banished, I believe they deserve a kinder ending, one with one last journey together, and being able to visit the White City one last time, maybe having a glimpse of the New King. Maybe They keep walking, passing through the Gap of Rohan and walking into the Land of Holly. Celebrimbor could tell a few more tales, maybe even one of the father he never speaks of. They sit in the ruins of an old castle, one that feels like home to both, and together they pass over to The Halls and whatever the Gift of Men has in store for Talion. A red dawn can kiss the cheek of the body they both inhabited as they leave.

Cat finger ring

Faïence

New Kingdom Egypt, 18th Dynasty, c. 1390 B.C.E.

Art Institute of Chicago

#ancientEgypt #catmagick

some of you think ‘nuanced’ only means ‘morally grey’ and I’m here to tell you that actually straight up good characters can still be nuanced and unapologetically evil characters can still be nuanced. the character doesn’t have to be an anti hero or morally dubious to have depth. they don’t even have to feel sorry about their crimes to have depth.

I can’t stop getting emotional about how tenderly a shepherd caresses his dog’s face on this marble sarcophagus from the third century

The dog’s face is just so lovingly crafted and it’s much more finely detailed than some of the other animals in the piece. The expression is pure contentment and devotion. This scene is a tiny portion of a huge elaborate sculpture but I really feel like the artist was trying to capture a specific emotion with these two. The way that you feel when you look at your dog is thousands of years old.

I want you to write for pleasure—to play. Just listen to the sounds and rhythms of the sentences you write and play with them, like a kid with a kazoo. This isn’t “free writing,” but it’s similar in that you’re relaxing control: you’re encouraging the words themselves—the sounds of them, the beats and echoes—to lead you on. For the moment, forget all the good advice that says good style is invisible, good art conceals art. Show off! Use the whole orchestra our wonderful language offers us! Write it for children, if that’s the way you can give yourself permission to do it. Write it for your ancestors. Use any narrating voice you like. If you’re familiar with a dialect or accent, use it instead of vanilla English. Be very noisy, or be hushed. Try to reproduce the action in the jerky or flowing movement of the words. Make what happens happen in the sounds of the words, the rhythms of the sentences. Have fun, cut loose, play around, repeat, invent, feel free.

Ursula K. Le Guin, Steering The Craft

I might or might not have just downloaded the entire aubreyad + the terror + a bunch of non-fiction books about seafaring and put them all in a big folder 👀

Mouth of Sauron commission done for me by the wonderful

for the redditors coming here, this is how we spread news of important events in the world, with a Destiel meme

The Handmaiden and the Herald 

BOOM. Dior and Huan!! Now, does this make sense continuity-wise? No. But it's cute, so hush. Bask in this close up.

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