#olrin

[princelegolasofmirkwood]

(via GIFER)

[cuppacuppacoffee]

First art of 2023 that is not shit post art, woo!! Honestly this was supposed to just be flat colored, but I got carried away. Olrin finding something he's skilled at was a fun prompt for me to do. Not to mention, I wanted to capture the colors of this piece from I Don't Wanna Talk (I just Wanna Dance) by Glass Animals. I can imagine Olrin being super skilled with hula hoops he incorporates them into dance routines (along with beating the shit out of enemies lol).

I mean, professional hula hoopers (?) are intimidating as hell- to me at least. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEnhhhWqnWQ

[joffyworld]

I MISSED AN OLRIN ANTHEA LORE DROP EARLEIR?????????

Nightmares and Masks

Unbeknownst to vessels, the Crown's loyalty isn't solely theirs whilst in service. By order of its master, it is to monitor and report any red flags to Narinder-overtly heretical takes on his doctrines, concerning levels of violence, reluctance to complete tasks, or, in Anthea's case, mental or physical health concerns.

Upon first being crowned Anthea comes across as cheerful and eager to help. Kindhearted, but not naïve. Effective in a fight, yet doesn't revel in violence.

And yet...why is it that the lamb's smile feels so practiced? Why is it that, regardless of the request, do they follow through on it? Why do they seem to encourage the cult's playful teases of them being a 'big sis'?

Most vessels suffer nightmares for a while post-first resurrection. Yet it's when Anthea's nightmares prove to be unrelated to their death that the Crown starts to grow concern. Nights where the lamb awakes screaming names not found among the cult, before, in an all too practiced a manner, staggering to a crate to snatch up a potion bottle and downing it. Only after do they fall back into a completely silent, motionless sleep.

For Narinder he first thought the lamb to be a somewhat overly friendly, but overall harmless vessel who knew their task and was surprisingly attentive to not just his situation, but also that of his typically ignored kits'. Thus he was confused at first at the crown's reports of a despondent, silent lamb when they thought themselves alone. It's only after receiving reports of the Lamb waking up screaming for an entire week post-encountering a razed village that he starts to really pay attention.

Narinder remembers how easy it is to don a mask for those relying on you. And he remembers just how hard it is to remove once in place. The lamb is doomed to die once their role is through, but part of him wonders just who lies underneath.

[joffyworld]

Fitting Out, Falling In

The zip of the clothes,

The story thus goes,

Lips tight and tied closed,

As the lamb's plans unfold,

Those arts most bold;

Those artisans untold,

Now lost to the story,

Now known to one soul.

The significance lingers,

In the nimble young fingers,

The history hinges,

On they who now sows.

From wool that unfolds,

The hope of the sole

Last lamb of the flock,

Last God of the world,

Their partner in crime,

He who started decline,

He who waits for the time,

That the lamb's plans are told.

Presented an outfit,

Casted in gold,

Embroidered in silver,

And pressed with the woes;

Of a dead generation,

The truth now unfolds,

Survival of history,

Woven into clothes

(Inspired by @olrinarts's WIP Fittings comic series)

[lyrics365]

나 이제 너만 보고 살게 (Use me) (by ONSEEON)

eojetbame yeonrakhaetneunde an batdeora diemdo bonaeteotneunde an ikdeorago na yosae ot mani sajana hoksi bwateo da neo boyeojuryeogo olrin geoya animyeon iyu eopeo igeo ne jalmotijana geunikka nal wae ireotge mandeuleo onmomeul da neoro chaewonotgo wae ijeseoya nal beoryeo neon ige sarangi anirae geuge deo nalkarowo kalcheoreom 8514 jip bimilbeonhoya han dal jeoncheoreom waseo mun yeoleo na ije…

[dropsofspirit]

“Not all who wander are lost..”

-J.R.R. Tolkien

For more inspirational content visit www.dropsofspirit.com

[joffyworld]

OLRIN YOU DEVIL YOU

i'm never gonna finish this despite attempting fairly recently so here, have this old messy inconsistent comic as is

we deserve to laugh to something dumb and ngl this is my personal favourite possible reason why he's fine with it all (which is why it exists in at least three of my unposted fics)

[thorgrihm]

Orc "You are doomed dwarf." Olrin (the bard) "kuchiyose no jutsu" #lego #Лего #afol #instalego #legocastle #legogram #legolife #legomoc #legominifigures #legophotography #legostory #brick #brickcentral #toyart #toys #toyartistry #toyphotography #toygroup_alliance #miniature #moc #geek #nerd #knight #medieval #fantasy #instagood #battle #war #forest #naruto https://www.instagram.com/p/CAxxvjFqJjw/?utm_medium=tumblr

[rukiexramen]

big ass WoW arts post woohoo <3 :D

and that cute lil’ elf belong to @faebelina <3

im really proud of the first one, look at how soft the color is ;;;

[kolyanovka]

. . . . . . . #349amcollection #Moscow #reflections #lowlight #tones #streets #urban #nightwalkermagazine #visuaambassadors #cityscape #citylights #mood #urbanphoto #way2il #gramslayers #moodygrams #travel #tonesbox #nowherediary #illgrammers #streetmobs #citygrammers #trappingtones #deepincity #shotzdelight #street_Vision #rawurbanshots #midnightdreaming (at Moscow) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bu16J-OlRiN/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=2n2ujkatstqa

[olrinarts]

i was so anxious about this i wrote a 70k novel in two weeks

i wish i was kidding

what a week huh?

[joffyworld]

joffy at this point i can only conclude that you're so thirsty for kallamar that it's a miracle you haven't drowned yet /j

Olrin

It's not thirst

I won the war

That's all it was, my duty and my honour

[olrinarts]

I've said it before, I'll say it again: original fiction and fanfiction have different skill sets. They both require skill with writing, sure, but where original fiction requires expository writing etc in order to establish the baseline, fanfiction relies on a skill that's equally important: consistency.

Part of why I like doing so many different AUs and premises when I'm writing fanfiction is because it's fun to see just how far I can pull things from canon and still have them be recognisable as built from canon. Consistency in characterisation while still allowing the characters to develop is a skill that a lot of original authors haven't developed, honestly - consistency and flexibility aren't mutually exclusive, but it can be a careful line to walk. Fanfiction - where the characters come with pre-established frameworks of personality/history/etc. - is a great vehicle for playing with that idea. It also comes with some self-reinforcement, if you're posting - most readers know the difference between a different interpretation of a character versus an OOC interpretation.

When I'm writing original fiction, it requires more focus on worldbuilding to establish the audience's relationship with the world and the characters. That's part of what I love about it, but it's flexing a different set of muscles in a lot of ways. People already buying in to the canon of the fanfiction as your source material means you can spend less time on exposition and the like, but there are other expectations.

None of this is knocking original fiction, obviously, and it's not meant to argue against the original point. I just think sometimes fanfiction is described in ways that make it sound like 'fiction-lite' when it's much closer to a different discipline, rather than an easier version where you skip the hard work to get to the good bits.

Everybody's all "fuck canon", "death of the author", [insert Ron Swanson meme here] right up until the point that they realise they've sufficiently departed from the source material that they can no longer safely assume their target audience is already familiar with the basic premise, and that they've thereby put themselves in the position of actually having to write establishing scenes.

[olrinarts]

pov: the god of life and deity of death are about to 'mysteriously vanish' early from the festival and you (nor anyone else) is going to have a restful night's sleep

(cats are not quiet)

also if literally anyone else tried to fiddle with narinder's tail, they'd best be willing to lose that arm

[olrinarts]

Day 3: Rise From the Dead, featuring both my godform lamb and a bonus short:

Narinder had never died before.

Even when the Lamb fought him, he hadn’t died – he’d been humiliated, he’d been reduced, but he hadn’t died.

As he watched the cliff edge race away above him, the watery air of Anchordeep doing nothing to slow his fall and the monster that had tackled him now tumbling in his wake, Narinder had time to wonder if it would hurt.

It did. The first crash snapped his spine, and wasn’t even kind enough to numb him; he felt every broken limb after, and the first blinding instant where his skull caved in – and then it was done.

Only, it wasn’t. The pain was gone, but he was still in a jumble of limbs in the darkness. For a moment, he thought that he had simply gone numb and was dying slowly. Then something touched him. Fingers. Very large ones. Some were warm skin; some were smooth bone; some were soft velvet.

Narinder was picked up by six hands and tenderness, and by the time he was set back on his paws, he knew both where he was and what was happening.

‘You spoke truly, when you described how you looked as a god,’ he said, looking up at the Lamb’s godform and doing his best to ignore the sense of vertigo. ‘It is… unusual.’

The Lamb laughed, voice no louder than usual but much, much bigger. ‘Thanks, you sure know how to flatter a god,’ they said dryly, poking him very lightly with one of their doll fingers. ‘I take it something went wrong? The missionary pendant didn’t work?’

‘I imagine it had some difficulty mitigating a fall into a near-bottomless chasm.’

‘Oh, yeah, that’d do it,’ they said, nodding. ‘And you’re doing okay?’

‘You have resurrected me, so yes.’

They poked him again. ‘You know what I mean.’

He looked away. He’d been Death for millennia; something so paltry as a single death wouldn’t shake him. He refused.

They sighed. ‘Alright, I’ll make you a deal,’ they said, and he looked back up at them. ‘You know and I know that you’re going to need a minute, and as much as I’d like you safely home, you’re also safe right here. So if you’re willing to pretend you’re doing me a favour by staying a while, I’ll tell you a secret.’

He’d been about to refuse, but much to his annoyance, that caught his attention. ‘What kind of secret?’ he said, all three eyes squinting up.

‘You’ll have to find out, won’t you?’ the Lamb said lightly. ‘I’ll let you go home instead, if you’d really prefer. But then you don’t get the secret.’

He huffed. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘since you are looking for an excuse for company.’

‘Yep,’ they said, nodding seriously, but their eye was twinkling. ‘It’s not like most of me is Above, and all the rest of me is meeting every other soul that’s dead. So? You want the secret?’

They set their left hand down (well, their flesh left hand. They did have two others.) It was only for the sake of the secret that he let himself sit on it, lifted in the cradle of their fingers, the way he’d once carried them. No other reason. ‘Well then?’ he asked.

‘I’m going to tell you my name,’ they said as they set him against the right side of their chest, where the wool was. He could hear the steady beat of the red sateen heart in their ribcage, and he supposed that someone else might find it soothing, if they were inclined to such things. ‘But there’s a story that goes with it first, before I’ll tell you. Ready?’

‘If you insist,’ he said, because he knew they wouldn’t.

[olrinarts]

Ref Sheet and Background: the Lamb/Esriaal

long post ahoy! (i'm serious. stupidly long. do not click that readmore unless you wanna scroll for a while)

A note about AUs: All of my AUs can be considered to be within the same ‘universe-cloud’, for lack of a better word ('multiverse' has frustrating associations, alas. curse you mcu, lmao.) That doesn’t make them directly linked or in any way affect another AU, unless explicitly said to (see: constancy must transpose and chimes of bone in the at the root series.) Otherwise, each is a standalone AU, either diverging directly from the Base Lamb and Base Narinder’s story, or in some way reflecting/echoing it (see: ashes ashes, the yuri rock god AU.) Any completely unrelated AU to this universe-cloud will have it mentioned that it’s not connected.

Name/Titles: The Lamb, The Shepherd, The One Who Welcomes, Esriaal (private name) Base Age: 34 (age at which they were executed by the Bishops) Gender: N/A, agender. Always uses they/them. Race:‌ Sheep, fine wool

Background:‌

Esriaal was born to Verchiaal and Raqib, a recordweaver and a dyemaster of the South Anuran herd, around ten years after the prophecy about the One Who Waits’ promised liberator was made. The sheep were actively hunted, but still relatively plentiful, and their cultures and traditions were still in use/valued. Through their mother, Esriaal is a quarter leadersheep, a kind of sheep that are more independent minded in nature, as well as a role that requires training if pursued. Leadersheep as in the role are rarely shepherds themselves, but instead work to support their herd’s Shepherd. Plenty of sheep have at least a little of the blood, so Esriaal isn’t particularly unique in that regard. Esriaal was determined to become one, anyway, inspired by their own namesake, the first leadersheep (no relation.) Though they faced a lot of pushback from their own herd’s Shepherd, Artecof, Esriaal was an insistent little creature. When they were nine, their Shepherd finally gave in enough to send them to the North Anuran herd, to train with the primary leadersheep under that Shepherd, Harut.

Esriaal was exceptionally awful at the whole thing at first, but they were too stubborn to give up just because they were bad at it, and Harut had a soft spot for them and helped them outside of their lessons. By the time their training was complete, at 16, they’d managed to turn it around and become known as one of the more competent young leadersheep, as well as Harut’s protégé and apprentice.

The hunts from the Bishops’ zealots had grown much worse over the years, however, and it was shortly after returning to their herd with their parents that the South Anuran herd as a whole was wiped out. It was the biggest single loss so far, and Esriaal as well as a few others were the scant survivors. Their parents weren’t among that number. Harut, who’d been with them at the time and was the reason they’d made it out at all, kept them with him as the North Anuran herd intentionally splintered, in hopes of avoiding the South Anurans’ fate. It was at this point that the zealots began to hunt not only with blades, but with fire. The South Anuran herd was the first to be hunted in that way, but not the last.

Over the next four years, Esriaal and Harut did their best to help the North Anuran Shepherd, but there was little to be done; eventually there were so few flocks that they were forced to flee Anura altogether for Darkwood, joining the Deepwood herd’s flocks, much the same as the scraps of the other herds already had. It was in this attempted consolidation that the last of the Silk Cradle Mountains’ herds were wiped out.

In spite of Harut’s objections, Esriaal volunteered to be one of their flock’s ‘Sacrificial Lambs’ – it was their job to distract the hunters while the rest of the flock fled an attack, and then successfully escape and rejoin the flock when it was safe. Esriaal was good at it. Good enough that in the end, their flock was the last one standing, but that couldn’t last.

The ambush that wiped out the last sheep wasn’t one that any Sacrificial Lamb could have saved them from, and the only reason Esriaal was able to escape (or was even willing) was Harut’s plea for them to do their duty not as Sacrificial Lamb, but as a leadersheep – to preserve the memory of the sheep and not let the Bishops win. They fled while Harut bought them time, and then they were alone.

They successfully evaded the Bishops’ zealots for another fourteen years, never staying in one place for long, relying on their own skills and the kindnesses (or greed) of others. They might have continued to evade them, had they not met Yarlion. A brown goat (note: absolutely not THE Goat) who claimed to be from Darkwood. He successfully seduced the lonely Esriaal, and led them to believe there might be a way to safely escape the Lands of the Old Faith, and promised that someday they might even have lambs of their own. Yarlion then sold them out to the Bishops for an unknown price, and three weeks later they were sacrificed by the Bishops, and the events of the game take place. This is where the diverging AUs begin.

When initially resurrected, due to having lost their head and not all resurrections being clean and neat, Esriaal lost almost all of the details of their memory, though they retained broad strokes and certain kinds of knowledge that they seemed to have memorised. They couldn’t remember their name, however, and so chose to go by the Lamb rather than give themself a new name. (Diverging AU: untitled politific, where they do not lose their memory but still choose to go by the Lamb, concealing their retained memories.)

In a departure from canon, they are aware of the sacrifice that awaits them from the beginning, as for whatever reason the One Who Waits saw fit to inform them from the start that the ultimate cost of releasing him would require their sacrifice. The Lamb agreed to the plan, because it was a way to ultimately spite the Bishops – to take revenge for their people, then unleash the god the Bishops were so terrified of, which as far as they’re concerned is a worthy reason for sacrifice.

This is why the choice is between ‘yes’ and ‘absolutely’ – not because he was explicitly forcing them (though it’s not like they could say no), but because the Lamb had already made up their mind to do this. The only question was how zealously or cautiously they would do so.

Over the course of the game’s events and a span of around one hundred and twenty years, the Lamb grew close to the One Who Waits, though they were only able to reach the Below after a death or after a crusade. They became familiar with Aym and Baal, who admired the Lamb as an equal devotee to the One Who Waits and something of an older mentor figure, though the two cats chose to keep that to themselves and maintain their stoic personas. As for the Lamb’s personal connection with the One Who Waits, they were glad to be as close as they’d become, but wished they could know more about him/spend more time with him. Eventually, they realised they’d fallen in love with him. They weren’t actually alarmed by this, as it wasn’t going anywhere, and it didn’t change anything about the plan, so they never mentioned it.

One of two things then happens, after the demise of Shamura: either the Lamb fights the One Who Waits and wins (primary AU: constancy must transpose, where they claim the Red Crown), or the sacrifice is successfully carried out (diverging AU: chimes of bone, where they take possession of the Pale Crown.)

Other Notes: When in the Above (the world of the living), they are almost exclusively in their mortal form, save for when they get emotionally volatile and their godform begins to peek through. Their godform exists almost exclusively in the Below, the place between the world of the living and the Beyond, where the many afterlives coexist (as does the Last Peace.)

Their primary gimmick as a god is conditional omnilocation – when they die, every single person is met with an individual instance of the Shepherd that exists for no one else, all of which are identical to Esriaal themself, right down to the soul. Their other primary trait as a result of resurrection/eventual godhood is their soul’s insistence on being as close to a perfect ‘in-between’ as a Death for everyone, not only in terms of gender but in terms of physical shape. Esriaal has both sets of bits below the waist, to put it delicately, and their godform has one ram’s horn on their right and a ewe’s horn on the left. This happened primarily due to the symbolism of it, but it was also their subconscious fear of not only being the last of their kind, but of failing to change that with lambs of their own. This only comes up if/when there’s a spicy scene in a fic, and only applies in a fic where they’ve either undergone apotheosis or been resurrected at least once, but is otherwise just sort of a fact about them that they’ve decided to roll with.

‘Base’ Lamb The above backstory is almost always true in its entirety, with exceptions made for reflection AUs (such as ashes ashes, which takes place in a world where the Bishops were never crowned in the first place.) If a reflection AU is different enough, such as a different world setting entirely, then specific things are adjusted, but there’s always strong parallels, and the culture of the sheep/the basic facts about Esriaal’s identity are unchanged.

There is no story to accompany the Base Lamb beyond their end-game sacrifice on purpose. The closest to a ‘base’ canon for them is the world of the comic fittings, as that one is largely nondescript about the actual way Narinder and the Lamb/Esriaal came to be in the position of Narinder as his mortal form as part of the cult and Esriaal as the Red Crown’s bearer. It focusses almost exclusively on the culture of the sheep (and some of Narinder’s base backstory, as well.)