to darkness and ruin

Find me in Middle-earth.

[dorwinionwhining]

I gotta start sleeping more than once every other day so I can actually, like, exist as a person and think thoughts again

[unavidas]

More of them <3 🌿🍂

[eol-deactivated20240605]

[unavidas]

quiet afternoons in Rivendell 🌿🍂

[valtsv]

guy kneels down and holds out his sword to swear loyalty to me but i just take the sword and run

[3cosmicfrogs]

Feanor…

[radicalposture]

i’ll be honest the crushing weight of the silmarillion bearing down on lotr really elevates it to exquisite new heights

[crocordile]

Akallabêth family draws

[maglor-still-lives]

DNI: friend / foe / foul / clean / brood of morgoth / vala / elda / maia / aftercomer

[fanficmemes]

Babygirl I know fandom history that you wouldn’t even care about

[mikkeneko]

i know fandom history that even I don’t care about

[tanoraqui]

theory: Aredhel was the most skilled among the Noldor at spells of concealment

support:

she was particularly friends with Celegorm, so it's reasonable to conclude that she, too, was a hunter. stealth is a valuable skill for a hunter.

why did a woman who grew so impatient with Gondolin that she badgered her brother for years into letting her leave, and then slipped away from the escort he insisted upon, even move to such a secret city in the first place? Because she's the one who helped hide it in the first place

seriously, someone in the building of Gondolin must've been an expert at concealment spells. Even with Ulmo's blessing, you simply can't build and move en masse to an entire city without anyone finding out where it is without serious juju. why not Aredhel?

Turgon let his sister leave Gondolin on vacation when he never let anyone else go not out of weakness to the pleas of family, but because he knew that if Aredhel didn't want Morgoth or his spies to see or track her, they fucking wouldn't see or track her - and if they could, Gondolin's hope of secrecy was lost anyway.

alas that Eol was even better at it than she was (maybe this intrigued her at first. maybe there was delighted hide-and-seek beneath the dark trees before there was only hiding)

alas that she didn't have time to teach Maeglin all she knew

[eucyon]

mushrooms aren’t a vegetable they are the flesh of god

[crocordile]

last scions of beor

[ohmyarda]

Tar-Vanimeldë, Third Ruling Queen of Númenor who gave most of her authority to her husband and Míriel Ar-Zimraphel, the Fourth, whose husband took away her authority ✨

[dorwinionwhining]

the racism and sexism exhibited by mainstream tolkien fandom - dare i say the majority of tolkien fandom - is truly horrifying and cannot be understated

it is bad

it is so bad

and anyone who has ever hemmed and hawed over whether or not diversity has a place in tolkien’s works, or what that place should be, or which characters should be allowed to exhibit diversity, is aligning themselves, whether they want to acknowledge it or not, with the worst of that racism and sexism

going around reminding people that tolkien probably intended all of his heroic characters to be read as white europeans, and thus anyone who interprets them differently, regardless of how little description we’re given in canon, is going against the intention of the text is directly handing ammunition to white supremacists 

there is no legitimate reason to debate the canonicity of an artist’s character designs in terms of race or gender expression

that kind of argument, regardless of its framing or its original intention, is only ever going to be used to push an agenda of white supremacy within and outside of the fandom

if you believe whole-heartedly in defending tolkien’s original vision and the intentions behind his works then spend your time on his ideals of simple living, of anti-aggression, of restoring nature, of hope in dark times

do not spend it on how white, straight and male you believe his characters are

[aipilosse]

I actually pretty strongly disagree that saying Tolkien intended all his heroes to be white Europeans is inherently bad and gives ammunition to white supremacists. Because Tolkien was strongly influenced by white supremacist historical narratives, devised racial hierarchies that haunts fantasy to this day, and has many racist elements in the work. Denying this reality sweeps conversations we should be having as a fandom under the rug, denies the experience that many people, especially POC, have while reading, and frankly weakens you if you’re trying to counter white supremacists if they are coming from a place of accuracy (there are elements in the text that line up with their world view) and you are not.

I think the ideal response to ‘this is what Tolkien intended’ in regards to race is to say 'Yes, and that is why it is incumbent on anyone who is reinterpreting Tolkien’s work, both licensed and unlicensed, to combat and undermine the white supremacy in the text when creating.’

I totally agree that if you want to combat white supremacy you should certainly not be telling artists or anyone else who’s working to reimagine the heroes and people of middle earth as POC that their depictions are inaccurate.

I think we’re coming at this with similar intentions, but I’ve seen this idea that we should deny the problematic elements inherent in the text and I think that’s a bad way to go about defending diverse casting decisions and similar things. As a fandom, we worship Tolkien’s intentions too much and we need to be confidently saying that actually we should be going against his intentions when we encounter racist elements in the text.

[dorwinionwhining]

We’re definitely coming at this with similar intentions. I agree with you that it’s important to acknowledge Tolkien’s very real racism and sexism and how it influenced his works. In my original post I was speaking mostly about a specific type of person who goes around correcting every single alternate interpretation of the text with blanket statements about how none of Tolkien’s heroes can be read as non-white. Often in a way meant to shut down any criticism of all-white adaptations, or in a way to imply fans who like non-white interpretations of his characters are lesser for it, or going directly against canon. I’ll note that I’m also someone who feels that certain area of the text, regardless of Tolkien’s racism, are ambiguous enough that claiming all his heroic cultures and characters are canonically white rings false to me. Did he intend it that way? Probably. Did he show it in the text? Not always. So people who use “all of Tolkien’s heroes are white” as a dig or framing device for arguments annoy me, in the same way a lot of arguments about creators not intending characters to be queer, thus all queer interpretations are automatically invalid annoy me. But yes! Despite that, there definitely needs to be discussion of Tolkien’s flaws and the very real harm his racism, some of which is absolutely disgusting, has done to people who want to enjoy his works but can’t because he’s excluded them. And I love some of the counter-arguments you’ve come up with here. I’ll be using them myself as needed. So thank you for addition to my post. I wrote it during a very specific time in fandom to address a very specific type of person, and I’m not sure that was ever fully clear, but it’s definitely becoming less clear as time marches on.

[arofili]

“I was saying—oh, that tickles, Russo, stop it—I was saying, I told him there was no one in all of Tirion who would care about a treatise about the angulature of—Russo, I can’t focus if you—”

But Maitimo did not care about the story: he had long since been distracted by Findekáno’s hand on his chin, his arm curled around his back, and if he interrupted the sweet cadence of Findekáno’s voice with a few ticklish caresses, it was well worth his surprised laughter as Maitimo snuggled closer to the gentle, comforting warmth of his melotorno’s fëa.

thanks so much to the incredible @navyinks for this beautiful charity commission of Maedhros and Fingon in a field of flowers <3 they are so sweet and happy here, I adore them!!!

[navyinks]

kano about to tell nelyo news that he knows is going to ruin his day

it’s most likely related to one of their stooge brothers