"They cannot conquer forever!" said Frodo.

I always found this moment by the cross roads very moving: The last light shining on the head of the old king and Frodo feeling a sudden spark of hope when he sees that a crown is growing there.

Made these in the TRSB discord, and figure they'll be useful for a multitude of causes, so:

ALT

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I am being SO productive right now.

ARWEN ÚNDOMIEL

some old art (really not my best but i am too busy with comms to draw anything else atm) with some new writing, in which Elrond watches his daughter dance, and reflects on his mother, Imladris, and the temptation to avert one’s eyes from atrocity and history in pursuit of peace in the present.

Arwen is just past the cusp of her mid-thirties. She’s young, haughty, temperamental, an adolescent heart in an almost-adult body. She pulled a handful of Elladan’s hair right out yesterday, because he said she was thundering down the staircase like an oliphaunt. She nearly wept when he shoved her in turn, and hid his favourite saddle, and it remains hidden, and Elladan had turned her entire room upside down to look for it. Then the boys found and read out her journal (in which she was waxing at length about how lovely Glorfindel’s hair looked that week) to Glorfindel and then she did weep, and slapped them, and oh, his three have never, never known war. His mother had been no older than Arwen when she leapt from the tower. He does not search for this revelation. He has always known how old Elwing of Doriath had been, when she screamed that scream and leapt that leap. Arwen is squabbling with her siblings, and Elrond can no longer look away from thirty five. Thirty five sits in Arwen, and it has nowhere else left to go.

Every child arrives in the world bearing every face its parents haven't quite finished setting down. No matter what shape Arwen actually takes, she is always, in the corner of the eye, some earlier woman Arda has not yet mourned fully. Her father too, does not manage to see her as Arwen alone, not even he who sees her clearest. But he does not see Lúthien, and that is some comfort at least. Elrond has never seen Lúthien in Arwen because he has never seen Lúthien. He sees instead the dances of Doriath, that did not come to his daughter through him but through Celeborn who taught Celebrían who taught Arwen. In her faltering attention to choreography, her unwillingness to abide by the rules of hand-position and neck-tilt, there dances Elwing upon the sand. They are both beautiful and yet they are both awkward, tense almost-swans, both far too conscious about what they’re doing and what the doing means. Neither have seen the dances of Doriath performed by those not rendered near-immobile by grief for the same. Neither will ever truly dance as Lúthien had danced.

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wip

Sciel, autrefois tu écoutais nos voix
Sciel, you once listened to our voices

À présent, notre absence t'émoi
Now, our absence moves you

A collection of time travel humor text posts, not censored by me.

All of these really made me laugh, and laughter is a very good thing sometimes. All of the time, actually. Unless you're doing something that requires a still hand or silence I guess.

Sweet and safe night everyone, except russia and russian supporters.

in june i started reading discworld and im so obsessed, im really enjoying the watch!!!

so this is a wip of some of the members, yesterday i started reading feet of clay and im definitely adding cheri, i love her

hopefully ill finish this lol

secret organizations for studying paranormal phenomena are always calling the creatures they find like "specimen 58008" or some fake latin taxonomy or something vague and ominous like "the red angel" or whatever and thats all well and good but i want a story about a bunch of cryptozoologists going around naming things the way people name like actual birds and lizards and shit.

i want to get lost in the woods and meet the ring-tailed tree creeper and roger's false elk. i want a character who is desperate to prove this monster is actually a distinct species from that very similar looking monster so they can name it after themself. i want two field researchers narrowly escaping an encounter with some ten foot tall thing made of carnivorous vines and one of them is like wow wait til the guys back at the lab hear we got that close to a lesser thorn-backed bone eater 🙂 and the other scientist is like.,...... 😰lesser?

I'm new to the party, as I'm still in the process of reading Discworld, and there is something profoundly fresh and dare I say healing that I noticed just now (I'm reading Lords and Ladies) :

In Pratchett, it doesn't matter if you're beautiful as a woman.

I can't give precise names because I'm reading a translation*, but the latest example, that made me realise this, is the mages going to the King's and Magrat's wedding, and Ridcully reminiscing about the young woman he would have married if he could have (and what a surprise it was to understand who she is lol), saying, no, she wasn't beautiful, she had eyes like she was piercing you with them. Like we know who she is, we know she's intense, scary, impressive, a bit domineering, unapproachable to most... And these qualities, that you rarely see in a woman in fiction, are exactly why he loved her. Magrat is also not beautiful, she can't find clothes that fit, can't do anything with her hair, has an unfortunate red nose, doesn't have curves, and yet, she charmed someone enough that he keeps following her when she awkwardly and hurtfully pushes him away in the name of her independence. Isn't that beautiful? And she also is charmed by him even though he was pathetic and sad and an underdog (I do wonder if they'll really end up together because it looks like they can't actually talk to each other normally and that's not a great start lol).

Pratchett wrote women not like a man writes women but like a person writes a person. And he's not selling the lie that you have to be beautiful or agreeable or soft to be loveable and likeable, because it's true! Plenty of us of any gender are really intense and have jagged edges, and aren't hot or pretty or handsome or dreamy, and we still live full lives. Lives where people love us, are drawn to us. It feels so surprising and new to me, to see this in fiction. And Nanny Ogg is a prime example, she was probably never classically beautiful to start with, but now she only has one tooth left and is sometimes described as pretty ugly, but she can still get some lol, but she's also so carefree and happy and approachable that it felt more evident and a bit on the comedic side, like, oh yeah, the sexually liberated woman is still slutting it up in her 70s (?), ahah - but for the frigid, sanctimonious, terrifying, solitary one to have inspired love and devotion? I didn't expect that.

I'm endlessly charmed. The more I read (chronologically), the better it gets.

*nevermind I found them through the tags