Dorian's Sideblog

Sideblog of Dorian, God of Literature. My main blog is top secret.

[prokopetz]

The reason you can't be the next J R R Tolkien isn't because you don't have the talent, but because you're not the right kind of unwell. Tolkien wasn't bent for fantasy worldbuilding; he was bent for constructed languages, and got into fantasy worldbuilding in order to provide a material context in which to ground the notional evolution of the languages he invented. If you want to be the next Tolkien, you can't start with the worldbuilding; you've gotta find something extremely specific to fixate on, and develop it in such depth that inventing a world to contain it is genuinely the most logical next step.

[dorianisreading]

Hope I'm doing something right, then, because my world developed entirely out of reading dense decades-old critical theory for fun. Wonderful feeling to be reading Michel Foucault in the middle of the night and suddenly think, "Ooh this could be a magic system"

[thewritersatlas]

idk who out here saying "fëanor did nothing wrong". incorrect. fëanor didn't do ENOUGH wrong. morgoth stopped him just as he was hitting his stride. let my babygirl commit some real war crimes.

[txttletale]

at some point it became a very common talking point that science fiction and fantasy ought to Represent Trans People and that exploring Weird Gender Shit without also depicting characters who are legibly transgender in Normal Ways is passé. and honestlyyyy i don't care give me a hundred more male characters possessed by female ghosts or nonbinary robots or whatever. literally what is the point of the scifi fantasy genre if you cannot connect to the fantastical

[txttletale]

if i wanted to read about people being transgender without a wizard being involved i would open my tumblr dash. Representation will kill the reader she needs a guy who accidentally downloaded the memories of a woman on the CyberLine and can't tell them apart from his own to live

[currentlycryingaboutlancelot]

horatio yelp review

[lilliankillthisman]

“#pictured: one of maybe five sensible people in the setting” - making a note to ask you the top five most sensible terra ignota characters if I ever see you reblog the top ask meme

Goshhhhhh what a coincidence. Just reblogged one of those.

The Spanish catholic priest who takes Madame's confession and tries to beat her to death with a censer.

Ockham Saneer. Obviously not, like, a Good guy. But it's hard to point to anything he did wrong except covering for Thisbe, and at the time that had to seem like the right option. Overall an extremely responsible and level-headed young man.

Ojiro Sniper, but specifically the Ojiro Sniper who Bridger brought to life from a doll because he thought it looked nice and within 24 hours shot JEDD Mason in the head. Maybe a little too blasé about starting a global conflict but it's the most clear-eyed action anyone took in Seven Surrenders bar none.

Ojiro Sniper, but the normal one. Once again "we need to kill this guy" unbeaten as a logical response to JEDD Mason.

Fuckinggggggggggg... wow I'm struggling. The new Censor, Jung Su-Hyeon Ancelet Kosala. Competent administrator, probably didn't know about all the inane gender nonsense, steps up in Book 3 and does the job adequately.

Lesley Saneer was scraping into the shortlist until I remembered she let Dominic Seneschal into her house, bumping her down ~35 places.

[partywithponies]

My woke take, as someone who has worked in both a public library and a school library, is that we desperately need both more books that are at a higher reading level but a less mature subject matter, and more books that are at a lower reading level but a more mature subject matter, because 8 year olds who are advanced readers are still 8 year olds and don't want to read about graphic violence and torture, and teens and adults who have learning difficulties or who are just later readers for whatever reason are still teens and adults and don't want to read about Billy the Bunny going to school or whatever the hell.

[partywithponies]

Shoutout to people in the notes also mentioning people learning the language, I should've mentioned that really, given that I've been stuck reading German picture books myself while learning German.

[balrogballs]

Completed Fëanor commission, but specifically a young adult Fëanor, around about the time of Finwë’s remarriage, hence has the stark features of my usual Fëanor but also the light of youth suffuses him, and the desire for augmentation and penchant for mood lighting is growing within him at the moment.

commission details (due to a cancellation, i have ONE late september slot available again, so feel free to nab it and get your own sulky hot elf)

[distressednoise]

A niche literary review magazine asking a literary translator to comment on an adaptation of a work of literature is not "bizarre" or "a hit piece".

That literary translator talking about the thematic and character decisions in the adaptation, which is her area of expertise, and not the cinematography, which is not, does not mean the review has nothing insightful to say about the film.

That literary translator pointing out that, while the director likes to associate her name with his work - to the point that people think he is adapting her translation specifically - he is not actually engaging with any of the themes she cares about, is not "emotional and defensive".

There is no such thing as a perfect or complete review. They are opinion pieces. Each reviewer focuses on different things. This is fine and good and part of a healthy ecosystem of cultural journalism. Saying you think her review is stupid because you're "just a lowly film watcher, not a poem reader" and feel judged is... Wild? She's comparing the film to the poem in a magazine for which she covers ancient poetry! You are not the audience for this review if you don't care about its relationship to the poem.

I feel like I'm seeing a lot of people insulted that Wilson called Nolan's film a fun summer blockbuster rather than high art, but it has objectively been released to function as a summer blockbuster, and there's nothing wrong with admitting that? She's not calling viewers lowbrow for liking it, she's calling Nolan boring for taking out the weird uncomfortable bits of key characterisations in order to make his film more accessible.

[flipspring]

some drawings from an old "draw fat characters" challenge. in order: Murderbot rescuing a human client. Pin-Lee in combat lawyer mode. Three standing awkwardly. Miki giving a friendly wave.

[blabbinbab]

can u draw jon doing a silly dance

look at our saviors dawg we are not surviving the apocalypse!

[the-zenith-calls]

My favorite scenes in the LotR books are the ones where Legolas has vital information and just decides it's not important to share.

Like when Gandalf spent literal PAGES trying to figure out why the vibes were off in Moria and Legolas chimes in with just "it's a balrog :) that shit's evil :) we're so fucked :)" like what do you MEAN you knew already and just didn't tell him??

Or at the beginning of Two Towers when Aragorn thinks there's something nearby so he puts his ear to the ground to listen, and then like 10 minutes later is like "hmmm i hear horses" and Legolas is just like "mm yep. there are 105 blond bitches with spears" like you just let your friend put his face in the dirt and you can SEE them??

Legolas please gain a sense of urgency

[knives-in-the-dishwater]

It's because legolas hasn't spent enough time with non-elves to remember that they don't know what he knows.

gandalf is scratching his head in moria, and legolas is thinking "oh man, the wizard noticed something off *besides* the obvious balrog that we all are aware of??"

"I wonder what aragorn is listening for? must be hard to hear, what with all of the horses. How many horses are there, actually? 1... 2... 3..."

[taavicleric]

"What do your elvish eyes see?" is Aragorn saying, as politely as possible, "Because the REST OF US are at a significant disadvantage, Prince Dipshit."

[ochiody]

fragments of a comic. lots of lines r missing

[solprinsen]

The thing I love most about Tolkien is how explicitly homosexual he accidentally made Sauron.

1) Got seduced by Melkor.

2) Seduced a man by disguising himself as his wife.

3) Seduced Celebrimbor.

4) Seduced Ar-Pharazon.

5) Seduced the Kings of Men.

But when it comes to the only 2 women he's canonically interacted with, seduction is never on the table for him. No, he just tried to placate Galadriel and give Luthien to Melkor. The same two women who Tolkien describes as the most beautiful women to have ever lived, and he doesn't even try or care.

[nougatnora]

More random doodles of them,hehe~♡

( I really wanna draw them being hot nd stuff but it always ended up looking cute xD)

[johannestevans]

Btw when critics say "this is fetishistic" we don't just mean, i think the author was writing this one-handed

A "fetish" can be when you fixate unduly on an object and end up worshiping the object rather than what it represents or what it's made up of, so your fixation bears no fruit

It's not really a problem if an author gets off on what they're writing, the author's feelings about a subject aren't inherently an obstacle

But treating a specific theme or topic as one-note, so that your portrayal of it is one-dimensional and unnuanced? That IS an artistic obstacle

So when we say that an author's portrayal of women is fetishistic, for example, it's that they're reduced to their sexual appeal and lack depth as characters, or only serve aesthetic or shallow emotional purposes within a given text, and THAT's the problem, not whether or not they're hot

[pumkin-patchwork]

Annatar’s stay in Eregion, summed up

[anonymusbosch]

the preview of my phone notes while reading Terra Ignota books 1 and 2