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i hurt myself with Big Jack by Pet Foolery (can find on instagram) again and no one seems to have posted the whole comic so. here. someone reminded me of it and i tracked it down. gonna go cry in a corner now.

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Lord of Himring

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Nothing wrong with a mid-quest-hot-spring-nap with the bros after sprinting like 7 consecutive marathons 🤍🤍

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Fated Ends

For Day 3 of @maedhrosmaglorweek

I was inspired to try this kind of poetry by @two-bees-poetry 's work, specifically this and this. And man oh man is it a lot harder than it looks.

Poem is also available on Ao3

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2000s ish narusaku

[by bloom | BLOOM76227940 ]

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what will it be, boss? the comfort of misery or the pain of change?

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Sister Michael could have handled the yellowjackets but coach Ben could not handle the Derry Girls

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i am a tragedy enjoyer before i am human

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I absolutely love love love the horror of late stage beleriand

Like at this point Morgoth has taken over literally everywhere except the haven of Sirion and the isle of Balar

The fruit is poisoned, rotten, or full of viscera

Animals are unnaturally aggressive and sauron''s wolves prowl through the land

Small ponds through beleriand are clear enough and look safe, even if you boil it you will die if you drink from these ponds

The land itself has been corrupted by Morgoth's evil, maybe beleriand itself is a thrall

Held captive and used against the very people it used to shelter

Nargothrond which was once a home for elves and dwarves now lies under a dragon's curse

Doriath that was safe in Melian's veil and the last place free of Morgoth's evil is now populated by fell spirits, Menegroth's once beautiful halls are now empty except for invasive plants and the glowing eyes of wraiths

Gondolin the secret city that hid away from war and bloodshed is burned

Himring which defended the frozen north is used as a fortress for the Enemy

The pools of ivrin once protected by ulmo now lie defiled by glaurung

The plants once foraged for healing now cause painful deaths and sickness

Beleriand itself is captured and controlled

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No one makes Galadriel spooky enough. Like yea I get she’s the most beautiful elven maiden the world has ever seen but she’s also downright unsettling.

I bet she fuckin stares at people without blinking for like a solid five minutes and then when you finally ask her what fuck is up she tells you how you’re gonna die.

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History was made with this tweet.

Naruto’s yearning over Sasuke and Sakura was so real

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15 years later i’m still in love with three idiots

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Thinking again about this post and making a separate one so as not to hijack op's one with my tangential ramble and less than charitable takes on Thingol but @tobermoriansass's points about Noldor identity made me try and put down into writing something I've been pondering for a bit, which is :

It seems to me that part of the issues between the Noldor and Doriath is a vocabulary one : they are both trying to operate around the concept of "kin", which seems woefully inadequate to their present circumstances and the solidifying of their respective, separate identities and to redefine it in ways that favour them. Who is kin and who is not is seemed to be used as the metric to know who you are allowed to kill (non-kin can be killed but not kin), who you are allowed to marry (you can marry kin (not too close !) but not non-kin, ie Men or dwarves), and also implies the existence of help/solidarity among kin. Now the idea that all Eldar are kin probably worked great in Cuiviénen, but seems to be become more and more obsolete the more the different groups of elves develop different identities and especially when they enter in conflict with one another (and I do find it interesting than when Fëanor asks Olwë's help, he doesn't ask for his help as one of the same "kin", but as a friend.)

And of course there are graduations in the notion of kin (close kin vs less close kin), but still Thingol seems to me like he wants a bit to have his cake and eat it when it comes to that. On the one hand making a clear distinction between who is close kin and gets to have some privileged relations with him or to come first in his preoccupations (the Arafinweans ; his brother Olwë's people ; not the descendants of his friend Finwë in general with whom he does not want to be in contact, or in alliance with) ; and the rest. Aredhel is turned around at Doriath's border because she does not belong to the right group of elves, and is told instead to take a dangerous route. Yet Thingol (and the narration !) does on a level expect that when C&C meet his daughter alone in a dangerous forest they should do the kinsman thing and help her, instead of expecting them to act hostilely the way they did. He also does fully expect Maedhros to intercede with his brothers and obtain his daughter's return. Meanwhile he does seem to think very little about the fact that Eöl, his kinsman and his vassal, did take a Noldo princess as a wife with questionable methods. The Noldor (or at least the SoF) on the other hand seems to be operating on a much more restricted notion of who is kin, and therefore who gets the kin privileges.

2. That rupture of solidarity among elves (and so the passage from a logic of "Eldar as one kin", to separate groups) seems to happen/solidify in contexts of geographical separation and even more so when territorial claims are at stake. The fact that the three groups of Elves live in different settlements in Aman does play a role in their consolidating their separate identities (or maybe even in their appearing in the first place if you consider the story of the three original group of Elves as a pure myth). And in ME in the meanwhile the one group that does develop a rigid, separate notion of its own identity is Doriath. Thingol doesn't want to have anything to do with the Exile returned ; he also does not want to have anything to do with Men and certainly not for them to settle in his kingdom(before Beren). He is fine with dwarves but then again they have no intention to settle anywhere near Doriath. He has good relations with the Nandor elves on the other hand. The rest of the non-Exile Elves on the other hand seem to be much less set in their identities and more open to other groups : Círdan happily collaborates with the Nolofinweans, the huge contingent of Sindar elves who follow Turgon to Gondolin seem to have no problem with having a Noldo King, and the Green-Elves of the Eastern forest call on to the Noldor to help them deal with their Men problem. On the other hand, once the elven kingdoms of the First Age collapse, the groups seem to be happy to mingle again. Sirion is a medley of different groups happily getting along under a half-elf lord ; I don't know how much we know about the "ethnic" composition of Lindon or Eregion during the Second Age, but I'd venture that it was probably a mix of Noldor and Sindar, even if the lords are Noldor. In the Third Age Imladris and Lothlorien are probably equally mixed ? Interestingly though Mirkwood as a kingdom is founded in part by Doriathrim who did not want to be mixed with the Noldor but preferred instead to move and mix in with the Green Elves.

3. I also have the impression that that laying down of distinctions between the different groups is mostly a top-down phenomenon. It mostly comes from those who stake a claim to kingship. Because again, Círdan, who has no such claim, is happy to work with the Noldor, while also recognising Thingol as his overlord. The Sindar of Gondolin have again no problem with having a Noldo king. The people of Nargothrond let Túrin call the shots in their final phase. And when during the 3th kinslaying the entirety of the population of Sirion becomes the target of premeditated violence, not everyone in the Fëanorian camp is on board and some of them side with the people of Sirion (they very much still see them as "kin").

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lotr version because this meme encompasses my entire being

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The Moth

'Will he be there, bright and tall, and the wind in his hair? Tell him. Tell him not to be reckless. Not to seek danger beyond need!' - Morgoth's Ring, "Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth"

Tolkien in Color: The House of Finwë (part 7/x)

for @arafinwean-week