I like things. All sorts of things, my interests vary. I don't give a damn WHO you are, but WHAT you choose to do. I’m a 20 something, she/her. Please tag your spiders - I really really really don’t like them.
What has been really interesting about going back over ASOIAF for the dude’s descriptions is realizing just how much the show has influenced me over the years. I 100% forgot that Bran had auburn hair. Anyway here he is, back in his “pilot episode” Winterfell era. The Lannisters have barely arrived and life has so few complications. He is dressed in the lighter greys of his older brother, while also having a shorter tunic for better range of (climbing) motion.
I am the artist! Do not post without permission & credit! Thank you! Come visit me over on: instagram.com/ellenartistic or tiktok: @ellenartistic
My favorite Tolkien illustrations by Cor Blok in no particular order:
Bilbo and Gollum. Bilbo is the moon for some reason which is cool i guess
Smeagol and Deagol. I love the seaweed in the background, great attention to detail
Frodo serving Robin Hood-realness at his and Bilbo’s birthday party. Literally iconic
Isildur taking the ring from Sauron. Its great but I would like to see more of Sauron than just his hand, because I think he has the potential to look really cool
Pippin jumping into the bath at Crickhollow… no comment
Bilbo gives the Mithril coat to Frodo. Great poses, very stiff and awkward. I like it.
The fellowship. This one is a classic.
Gandalf and the balrog. Amazing
Boromir trying to take the ring from Frodo. I love the way he reaches for his sword, it looks very natural
Merry and Pippin and Treebeard. I like his legs and the fact that it looks like he’s wearing shorts.
The battle of Helms Deep. This one is just great for a lot of reasons. I like how the orcs in the background are just happy and sad smileys. Gimli is throwing a rock at them. I don’t know who the guy with a red hat is in the background, but I love him.
Gandalf, Theoden, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli finding Merry and Pippin in Isengard ft fucked up Shadowfax. Look at them smiling!
Sam, Frodo and Gollum. Frodo got rid of his Robin Hood hat which is a shame, but Gollum with a beak makes up for it.
Eowyn protecting Theoden from the Witch King. The fellbeast is a crow or perhaps a raven. Merry is hanging on the side, stabbing Witch King in the leg and he looks amazing
Mt Doom. Frodo looks very chill about getting his finger bit off, and Sam is just kind of floating there. I love everything about Gollum
They don’t make art like this anymore (possibly because various laws forbid it), which is a shame.
I recently read in a Tolkien art anthology how Tolkien saw Blok’s illustrations and loved them! He even owned a few originals. Source: “Realms of Tolkien: Images of Middle-Earth,” HarperCollins, 1996
I actually like them. They might look strange and in ways awkward but in the way medieval manuscript illustrations do, even if the style is not the same. They’re not bad, just not what a lot of people expect today.
there’s tons of people giving a rundown of ao3 for those who are migrating to it (which, yes, listen to them) and I wanted to add my own bit that I havent seen mentioned yet
you can block and mute accounts
^ this is what they do respectively, I’d say muting follows along more with what blocking does here (dont mind the censored name, I just clicked a random account for this)
I’m a MASSIVE advocate for just blocking things you dont like, makes life oh-so easier, my block list is in the hundreds
so yeah, use the block/mute, dont leave hate comments and all that jazz, thanks for coming to my TED-talk
So, I got one of my first comments on AO3, but it was deleted after a while. Which is fine, a person can do whatever they want but now I'm thinking that it was a bot, I guess. The user complimented my writing, said that they draw comics, offered to make one for one of the scenes in my fic, and invited me to Discord. It was a registered user, but they had a profile picture when they commented, and after they deleted the comment, it went blank (i checked it from my mail). They may have blocked or muted me (again, it's fine, it's their choice), but I was wondering if it could be a bot.
it is one of the most common types of scam bot. and they almost certainly deleted their comment after they haven’t gotten a response from you and they know the longer they leave the comment up, the riskier it is for them to get reported.
any comment that offers to draw art of your fic, any comment that asks you to contact them outside of ao3 (mostly on discord or instagram) is almost definitely always a bot. even if it’s from a registered account. a lot of bots have their own registered accounts.
what will happen if you agree to chat with them outside of ao3 is that they will try to persuade you into commissioning them / giving them money for the “art” you will almost certainly never receive. or maybe you’ll receive something ai-generated that’s definitely not worth what you pay.
not only that, they may try to hack your account/steal your personal information somehow.
if you get a comment like this in the future, the best course of action is to report them to ao3.
ao3 strictly forbids it and your work can get taken down if you do it, as it is a direct violation of their terms of service.
any mention of money—be it donation or commission, be it directly or indirectly—is strictly prohibited.
any link or mention of a monetization platform such as ko-fi—be it directly or indirectly—is strictly prohibited.
their number one rule to prevent them from being sued by studios, whose copyrighted characters are written about on their platform, is that nothing that is posted on their site can be monetized, and nobody is allowed to mention money, no one is allowed to mention and/or link a monetization platform anywhere on ao3
you can link your tumblr and/or twitter on ao3, because those are not monetization platforms, and on your tumblr/twitter, you can post the link to your ko-fi or other monetization platforms as many times as you want. but you cannot link or mention a monetization platform directly on ao3.
So hey, I was new to AO3 once upon a time, and I had no idea how to use it either when I first started, so here’s a basic guide:
Searching on AO3
Your first instinct to start by typing things into the search bar is not gonna get you very far. AO3 has a specific kind of search system that’s best mastered by using the “Fandoms” and “Browse” drop-down tabs on the left hand side, and of course by utilizing the filter sidebar
Start by choosing a fandom by selecting the “Fandoms” drop-down tab and then the type of media in which the fandom is categorized. For example, something like Avatar: The Last Airbender would be found in the Fandoms section under “Cartoons & Comics & Graphic Novels” (note: all fandoms listed under their respective media types are in alphabetical order)
Clicking your desired fandom tag brings you to a page that displays 1-20 of the most recently posted fics in that fandom tag. Also printed at the top is the total number of fics that have ever been uploaded to the archive under that fandom tag. This is where you start your true search!
Located on the right hand side is the “Sort and Filter” sidebar. This is how you find exactly the kinds of fics you’re looking for! Let’s say you’re wanting to read Zuko/Sokka fics (the romantic pairing of Zuko and Sokka) - In the filter sidebar, scroll to the “Include” section and click the arrow next to “Relationships.” Put a checkmark in the box that says “Sokka/Zuko (Avatar).” From here you can curate the rest of your search how you see fit as well as organize how the fics appear to you by filtering according to date updated, word count, amount of hits, amount of kudos, etc, and filter out certain relationships or tags by scrolling down to the “Exclude” section and putting an X in any boxes of your choosing.
Important tip! A tag that appears as “character name/character name” indicates a romantic pairing. By contrast, a tag that appears as “character name & character name” indicates a platonic relationship (could be friendship or familial relationship, etc). This confused me at first, so it’s an important distinction to note for searching as well as posting fanfiction on AO3.
Many tags that an author has included in the tag portion of a posted fic are clickable! This means that when you click on a tag the author has used (for example, “Top Sokka (Avatar)”), AO3 will then display all the fics uploaded to the archive that have utilized that particular tag. This is a very useful function, especially for relationship tags! Most fanworks for particular ships within most fandoms can be found by simply clicking the “character name/character name” tags under fics that use them.
Tags can be “favorited!” Clicking “Favorite Tag” at the top of an AO3 search right under where it says “1-20 of [number of total] Works in [Specific Tag Name]” will save that particular tag under a “find your favorites” list on the AO3 homepage the next time you visit the homepage.
Play around and discover other ways to curate your personal preferred AO3 experience!
Once you have an account, you can log in and navigate to your “Dashboard” and personalize your profile, etc
For posting a new work, click “New Work” under the “Post” drop-down menu
Fill out the appropriate fields, making sure to be as accurate as possible when you add what fandom(s), which characters, and which relationships (if any) are included in your work
The “Additional Tags” section is for tagging any relevant genres, tropes, and any additional little notes you want to include under the title of your work in search results. (Here is where you can get goofy and/or creative and add tags such as “[character] is bad with feelings,” “the love is requited they’re just idiots,” or “no beta we die like [character]”)
The “Summary” is what will appear under the tags that will give readers an idea of what your fic is about or a snippet of the story itself
The “Notes” section is for Author’s Notes. Putting a checkmark in the “at the beginning” box will open a dialogue box to type what you want an Author’s Note at the beginning of the work to be. Putting a checkmark in the “at the end” box opens a dialogue box to type what you want an Author’s Note to be at the end of your fic or the end of ch 1 of your fic.
“Associations” is for marking a fic as being multi-chapter or part of a series and for denoting the language used. The rest can largely be ignored UNLESS you’re writing a fic for a collection, challenge, or as a gift to someone else
“Privacy” allows you to lock your work and make it only accessible to registered users (and not to guests)
When posting the actual body of your work, you have the option of using HTML or Rich Text. I highly recommend hitting “preview” before posting so you can make sure it looks right before it’s public! (I often use HTML while I’m writing such as using < i > for italics, so when I post, I paste my work under HTML and then I preview it and go back and edit and set it to Rich Text so I can add in line breaks and images [such as fan art] where appropriate)
Everyone is so weird about people who cry easily. Fellas, is it evil and manipulative to *checks notes* have an involuntary stress response?
actually a coworker of mine said something interesting about this. I was saying that I truly can’t help how easily I cry, and I hate when people assume I do it on purpose.
and he paused for a second and then said, “when you’ve been taught from a young age that crying is weak and you should train yourself never to cry for any reason, you assume that everyone else has trained themselves too, so anyone who cries has to be doing it on purpose. it took me a long time to realize that wasn’t true.”
listen we’re never gonna run out of ways the patriarchy hurts all of us.
For those of you looking for these recipes, they’re from Cooking for Engineers. Which should shock nobody. But it’s a great site. Sadly seems to be defunct, but I can personally vouch for the recipes being presented in a foolproof* manner. Not only is the card layout great (honestly, just having the oven temperature right there instead of having to keep trying to find it in the recipe is a game changer), but every step has a photo. None of this “until done” rubbish, it’ll have a photo of “yeah, here’s how it should look, and no, this photo isn’t overly produced”.
And unlike most cooking blogs, the commentariat substitutions are generally competent!
If you’re still not sold on the site, may I add that he once took a pair of calipers to Chili’s to test their claim that “their new Smokehouse Bacon Burgers […] have ‘the thickest bacon you’ve ever seen’.”
Unsurprisingly, his verdict was:
(on Friday, April 13, 2008 at the Chili’s in Santa Clara, California) they served bacon that was (to an accuracy of 1/128th of an inch) 3/16 in. thick (4.75 mm ± 0.2mm) after cooking. […] Does it truly hold up to its claim that it’s the “thickest bacon you’ve ever seen”? My guess is that for most people that’s true, but for me it was most definitely not the case.
So yeah, definitely check out his website, whether you’re a novice or experienced cook, whether you’re an engineer or someone who didn’t even know what a caliper was before you started reading this. I highly recommend starting with the shepherd’s pie (yes, it’s the same one from Joy of Cooking), and either the creme brulee or the biscotti for dessert. The recipe image OP used was for espresso brownies. Presumably roasting your own beans is optional, though.
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*It’s me. I’m the fool. I’m proof that even a fool can follow the recipes.
