People and Places and Things of Arda

This blog is dedicated to Professor Tolkien's works | Personal/Inspiration blog @funkytoes |  Main Art Blog @funkytoesart | Ko-fi.com/byleahgracie

[essenceofarda]

the youtube algorithm after a long and thankless day of trying to keep up with my many varied interests:

[essenceofarda]

I headcanon that Nerdanel's works of art are less Greek-esque statues carved out of stone or marble, but rather old timey mechanical animatronics that so well mimic the elven form, movement and mannerisms, that many an elf has been caught accidentally mistaking them for real living, breathing elves, interacting or speaking to one as if they were alive :)

[essenceofarda]

Question to the masses: If the Feanorians were anthropomorphic animals a la the design sense of Zootopia and Kung fu panda (aka no DDD tiddies on animals lol I just can't do that shit) what kind of animal do you think they would be??

And/or other Silm/tolkien/lotr characters as animals? Got any headcanons about such things?? Looking for suggestions 👀

[gigolas-week]

Hello Everybody!!

Like my wonderful banner that I made says, I'm here to announce that I'm gonna be hosting Gigolas Week this year (and hopefully the years coming)! Rules, prompts, and extra tidbits below! :)

Heelllooo!! This year's Gigolas Week is being hosted by @beetletusked :)

To add your post to this blog, you can tag it with #gigolasweek2026 and tag me @gigolas-week , OR submit it through the submissions box on my profile <3

I apologize, I dont really know how Ao3 collections work, so if something goes wrong, please message me @beetletusked or leave a comment under this post. Feel free to message me if you have any questions as well!! The link is right here!!

All images are made by me, on Canva

NS/FT prompts are under the cut!

You don't have to do anything with these prompts if you do not want to, these prompts are just for if you're a freak (/affectionate) like me :)

[essenceofarda]

I am once again having to come to terms with the fact that Ryan Gosling and Jake gyllenhaal are NOT, in fact, the same person

[padmesthreads]

A few years prior to the events of A New Hope, a young woman named Mara Jade, under the guise of a unimportant Imperial recruit, leads an special operation to Tatooine to hunt down any remaining Jedi that may be hiding on the planet.

While there, she meets and befriends a young man her age named Luke, who sparks the first seed of change in Mara's loyalty towards the Empire.

--

Aka if I were to ever write a Mara Jade centered fic that takes place in the new canon,, where Mara is masquerading as your average child solder on Tatooine, but secretly the leader of her squad/operation, and Luke is the '"dorky farm boy" (her words) who is "kinda cute" (Again, her words) that she befriends and kinda falls for,,

More to story than just that lol, and it would take place both when Luke and Mara are around 15/16 or so, and then the story would pick up again later after the events of the Return of the Jedi :)

anyway, just a silly fic idea of mine haha

[essenceofarda]

single braincell thought today: what if Celebrian turned into a cat 🥺

Now I wanna animate Celebrian with Cat!Elrond 😅

[byleahgracie]

Magical Moth better Watch Out!! Cat Wizard ain't playing 😾

[decomposingfungi]

fandoms are obsessed with giving children to characters who would HATE being parents

[essenceofarda]

WIP tag! Tagged by @balrogballs (thank you!)

This art is gonna be called "Let's Garden with Mama!" (haha, very original name I know I know), and is basically Eowyn teaching and sharing the love of gardening and horticulture with her young son, Elboron, to distract him from the fact that papa is off at war :')

it'll be kinda semi-comic format? I have a bunch of illustration ideas planned for this particular post :) some sequential, some just related to the two of them gardening.

I'm not sure who has or hasn't been tagged yet, so I'll cheat (sorry!) and put in a wild card of YOU dash passerby, I tag you 🫵

Thanks for tagging me Balls!!

[essenceofarda]

"Just a little bite," Éomer pleaded, inching the spoon closer to Éowyn, as if she were a small child needing to be coaxed into eating her vegetables. "This is your favorite."

Éowyn's response tasted bitter on her tongue. "Perhaps when I was twelve," she replied quietly, her tone as bland as her feelings towards the soup in question.

[essenceofarda]

ME: *Points at that one TikTok of the little girl trying SO hard to find a better more appropriate word than "Fuck" to describe the current snow situation but ultimately deciding that it truly is the only appropriate word* "Elrond. That's Elrond" Lol

Or, Elros might have gotten up to more trouble and mischief in his childhood/youth, but Elrond was the swear-y child. He took after Sailor Dadda lol. But never without good cause, and could always, always give a damn good dissertation as to why said swear word was the ONLY appropriate word for the situation lol

[essenceofarda]

Might open up commissions again soon? 👀

So I'm thinking in the next few weeks I might open up commissions again. If I do, I'd love to know what y'all would be most interested in me offering 🤔 Note: I can't see who votes, so voting is merely me gauging general interest, it will NOT lock you into getting a commission from me eventually or ever! Same goes for replying in the comments if you do :)

(Examples of my art presented below the poll!)

What would you be most interested in commissioning me for?

Character art (poses, simple interactions, busts, etc)

Full illustrations

Comic pages (of your original story or fanfiction, etc)

More general concept art (props/environment design/character design/etc)

2 or *more* of these options

None! I'm not interested in commissioning you :)

Voting ended onApr 13

Thanks for voting if you do! I'll probably end up offering all or most of these options but I'm just gauging interest in general :)

EXAMPLES OF MY ART :)

[essenceofarda]

Caught in the Act!

Elrond is a half vampire who was raised by vampires-turned-vampire-hunters Maedhros and Maglor, becoming one of the The most feared and elite vampire hunters alive. He's hunting down a dangerous vampire sect who are suspected of being responsible for his twin's death, only finds himself in a ✨predicament✨ when a leader of said vampire sect is the sexy vampire princess Celebrian 😏

Or, POV: You're Glorfindel, and your boss has disappeared on a dangerous mission and so you and your fellow vampire hunters go on a glorious and hair-raising mission of your own to rescue him, only to find that he's been,,, *ahem*, hmm,, how does one say it....

sleeping with the enemy lol

for my Vampire Celrond AU 😏

[essenceofarda]

there absolutely are things to be said about Eurocentrism and how whiteness dominates fandom spaces, and it is important to give space for people of non-white, non-European and non-American backgrounds to participate and create for fandoms. however, positing Europe (or Medieval Europe) as boring is a weird take, unless you think Europe = England. Even today countries like Ukraine and Sweden and Portugal and Croatia are very different compared to one another. it's a mistake to imagine them as "all the same" because they really are not. the continent of Europe has many rich and varied cultures and histories, and often they're surprisingly diverse. life in 1300s in Venice and Iceland was vastly different. the thousand year Medieval period holds highly fascinating stuff from Charlemagne's court, Kyivan Rus flourishing, Viking raids, settlement of Iceland and Greenland, crusades in the northeastern Europe, the hecking Byzantine Empire, the start of Renaissance in Italy, exploits of Saint Stephen I and that time Margaret was the queen of Denmark and whole of Scandinavia was united under the de facto rule of a woman... the sagas and Eddas hold some compelling examples of queerness and gender-nonconformity. some of the northernmost peoples were not converted to Christianity until very late in the Medieval period and they retained much of their pagan ways long after - at a time Christianity was already a millenia old religion in Rome. the ancient oral tradition of poem-singing lived among some of them, like the Finns and the Karelians, until 20th century. Jews and Muslims have been in Europe for centuries. there are so many smaller ethnic and linguistic groups, like the Basques, the Sámi, the Gaelic speaking peoples of the British Isles.

there's plenty of history and culture for a white artist to draw on if you feel conflicted about taking inspiration from non-European cultures - which is a valid concern but may be ultimately counter effective for diversity in fandom.

[I deleted the post in question that this ask is responding to bc per usual I randomly post personal stuff and then get exceedingly paranoid & superbly embarrassed at myself afterwards lol]

But this is excellent food for thought, and presents many good points. Definitely gives me much to think about and inwardly evaluate. Thanks for taking the time to send this in! Hopefully it's okay to respond to this ask publicly.

[essenceofarda]

Celeborn, Beleriand's most ✨pretty✨ eligible bachelor

(he won't be single for long... Galadriel is on a mission 😏)

I've been playing around with starting a prequel comic to Romance in Rivendell that's basically the start of Celeborn and Galadriel's love story. Celeborn is the prettiest most desirable boy on the block and Galadriel is wooing the heck out of him, and unbeknownst to her, he is wooing her, too. But due to ✨circumstances✨ outside of both of their control, their attempts at courting each other keep missing each other and/or misfiring 😅

idk would anyone even like to Read something like that??

[essenceofarda]

this is quite obviously THE most boring thing to post on here lol, but I'm honestly So proud of how these animation exercises have turned out! Obviously most likely very flawed still, as I'm still very much a beginner, but things are ✨clicking✨