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cranity

Here’s the still image to the Obi-Wan animation!

retellingthehobbit

Retelling The Hobbit Chapter 16: The Song of the Lonely Mountain First chapter / Previous / Next

To view full comic: Webtoon/A03 / Tumblr post with links to all chapters

Other blogs: TikTok/Instagram/Tumblr Sideblog

*crumbles into dust after finishing this* Thank you for reading! This The Hobbit webcomic adaptation thing takes a lot of effort to put together and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate every comment. I also really appreciate the people who’ve spread the word of this comic to their friends! <3

And finally, we’re at the Song of the Lonely Mountain! Within Tolkien’s canon, The Hobbit is an in-universe book that was “written” by Bilbo Baggins, who occasionally lies/embellishes/exaggerates things. The tonal differences between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are explained by Bilbo and Frodo/Sam being different kinds of storytellers, with different relationships to “the truth.” This idea is the core of how I’m adapting the novel! Bilbo is an unreliable narrator who is literally ‘drawing’ from his own limited experiences; the different art styles reflect the different perspectives of other characters. The “dwarf art style” in this chapter is inspired by stonework/metalwork in general— but especially by a mix of art deco, Celtic art, and European folk art.

The central tension of the comic is between Bilbo and Thorin, who each have wildly different ideas about what kind of story they’re in. Thorin is in a grand fantasy epic, while Bilbo is in a lighthearted children’s book adventure. The tragedy is, obviously, that only one side of the story ever gets to be fully told.

On a sillier note, a few years ago I had my first gay crush on a lesbian who sang while playing the piano. This chapter is dedicated to the piano lesbian. I hope they’re doing well, wherever they are. XD

I think I might need a bit of a break but I’m hoping for the next chapter, titled “Dawn,” to arrive on January 13th. And your comments/support really do help motivate me to get more done! ^_^

startrek-by-secret

Things that are going to happen in 2024 according to Star Trek:

1) the absolutely giant homeless-population of the USA (or was is just New York? Idk, I‘m from Europe) is going to start a civil-war fighting against the upper class and police.

2) Ireland is going to get united

chatdomestique

Like to charge, reblog to cast

saca kintsugi

Yep that's art

Nap time.

My cartoon for this week’s Guardian Books.

jayadan-deactivated20240228

Took this photo about 7-8 years ago while I was reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

dankmemeuniversity

explorerrowan

They’re also shooting for 100% renewable plastic sources by 2030! All of the soft plant/leaf elements in sets right now and going forward are made out of bioplastic made from sugarcane, and they’re working on getting the regular hard plastic bricks out of that, too.

lynnafred

They’ve done it, actually! The full bricks are in the prototype stage now, and are expected to be 100% biodegradable without the need for a commercial compost facility. It’s very cool. Right now they’re testing the durability and playability of the bricks and seeing what needs to be revised/reworked on their final model.

So its that easy huh

Of course it is

Actually, this isn’t “easy” and is huge news. You see, Lego is absolutely meticulous about their quality control. Their standards for manufacturing are stupidly high, as are their safety requirements. You know that distinctive “click” when you pop two Lego bricks apart? They engineered that. That sound is so distinctive that it can be used to tell genuine Lego bricks from counterfeits and it’s a sound that would be based on shape and material.

Furthermore, one of the hard requirements for a Lego brick is that it must be compatible with any other Lego brick. If I buy a set today and pull a set from the 1980s? Those bricks would fit together perfectly. This requires a huge amount of precision engineering and controls on manufacturing quality. (I can’t remember the source, but I’ve at least heard that once the brick molds wear to a certain point, they’re pulled from the line and either melted down or turned into construction material for Lego HQ. Point being, no one is getting their hands on a worn Lego mold)

Recycled and non-petroleum plastics are different from other plastic. The chemistry is different. The timing and process to use them is different. This has been a reason why more companies haven’t moved to them, because there’s a drop in quality for material (so they claim).

What Lego just did is completely obliterate that argument. The corporation with some of the strictest quality control requirements for plastic just kicked the basic foundation of the “bad quality” argument out from under it, because if they feel confident enough to guarantee the same experience as using a brick from over 40 years ago, if they are confident enough that they can meet their own metrics at a huge industrial scale….

Nobody else has any excuse.

srvphm

there should be plushies of the strange but endearing creatures that live in medieval texts margins

medievalthymes

HE!!!!

srvphm

HE!

but also, they

electricslug

HER 💜

shikisshiki

as much as I enjoy CGI Luke (yes I think they did a great job in tbobf), I still wish Graham Hamilton could have the chance to play Luke without his face being covered because he has such a graceful and elegant demeanour that I can’t dream of a better jedi master luke

I NEED to see more of him playing post-empire luke in his prime

postpunkpixie

No but seriously, Fuck Minimalism

Minimalism lied to you.

Minimalism told you that the past was monochrome. That the height of ancient fashion was a plain white robe, that the Enlightenment was the most important art movement of the eighteenth century, that Victorians wore nothing but plain black, white and brown. It told you that Japanese art was its inspiration but stripped away every beautiful detail.

Minimalism told you that the functional must be unadorned. That simplicity is elegance. That plainness is clean. It told you that ornament is clutter. That trim is only used to hide mistakes. It tells you that beautiful things collect dust, that intricacy is dirty.

Minimalism told you your cultural heritage is tacky. It told you vibrant African prints clash. It told you intricate Islamic tiling is fussy. It told you beautiful European embroidery is quaint and old fashioned.

Minimalism told you to limit your vocabulary. It called clever wordplay purple prose. It told you clarity was in short, dull sentences.

Minimalism told you that masculinity is expressed in dull simplicity. It gendered the ornate.

Minimalism told you that nature is only expressed in simple lines. That certain colours shouldn’t appear together.

The truth is, minimalism lied. It’s an ugly 20th century fad that has long overstayed its welcome. It endures for two reasons. 1: It’s easy to mass produce. Flat pack furniture is cheap and easy. Tailoring printed fabrics and adding well-placed trim takes effort. Designing architecture that’s more than just boxes takes time. 2: It allows boring white men to erase the importance of POC, women, and their own heritage in the history of art and design. It keeps influence in the hands of the few and devalues the work of thousands of skilled people.

So fuck minimalism. Embrace ornament. Wear as many accessories as you want. Decorate the space you inhabit. Perform theatre in beautiful places, not in dark boxes. Support artisans and craftspeople. Use the words you found in thesauruses and old literature. Celebrate real history. Make the most of modern synthetic dyes and use colour in everything you can. Enjoy beautiful things.

Less was never more.

aurekfonts

Domabesh (an ancestor of Aurebesh)

t00thpasteface

at the risk of sounding like a raving lunatic, i think one of my favorite trekkie memes/posts is that one where someone comments on a screenshot of tos and asks if sulu is texting, because it PERFECTLY encapsulates star trek's strange little place at the intersection of pop culture and the tech world:

like listen... 55+ years ago a bunch of actors had to use a mix of existing habits and wild imagination to come up with what they felt would be believable movements and muscle-memory for someone using completely unbelievable tech a few hundred years in the future. like tv had less than ten channels and the screen was a foot across, and they had to go "ok how would someone who's used to a tiny wireless gadget with a screen hold it and use it? how would they talk to a computer? how would the computer sound when she talked back?"

and over half a century later our own tech has surpassed the clunky retrofuture gizmos in so many ways, no doubt inspired by it, that now someone two decades into the 21st century sees an actor in the 60s holding some tiny rectangular plastic prop in both hands and immediately recognizes it as "oh, sulu's texting!" now THAT is a called shot. hell, that's putting your money on a roulette wheel in a casino that hasn't been built yet. i LOVE it. it's so star trek. sulu is absolutely texting.

proletarianprincess

lmao on the edinburgh zoo site it says “there is a daily penguin parade at 14:15 but it may be cancelled last minute as it is a voulntary parade, we do not coax the penguins with food, and they may not want to go out” lmao anarchopenguinism

cannibality-deactivated20250227

this is the cutest goddamn thing i’ve ever heard

livenudegirl

I saw the penguin parade. It was a very slow parade, because the pingüinos take their sweet time and aren’t very fast walkers to begin with.

airyairyquitecontrary-deactivat

can I volunteer to be a penguin

commander-damneron

I feel like the world needs to know the context of the edinburgh zoo penguin parade, becausr I’ve been going there my entire life and I only found out about this the other year.

So a while back (I can’t remember exactly when but I think it was some time around the 40s/50s), a bunch of penguins escaped. A keeper left the gate open so a bunch of penguins just… followed them. And the people loved it. Look at these adorable birds outside their cage just following that guy around! So they get all the penguins back inside and realise that none of them really ran off, they just followed the keeper and went back inside and crowd thought it was amazing, so why not make it a regular thing? Get enough people there that if one of them goes to make a run for it (which at least one has in the past), they can’t get past the people, and let the ones who want outside have a little wander. So every day, they get a crowd, they open the gate, and whatever penguins want to get out can go, waddle about, squawk at people, and then hop back inside.

Also, one of those penguins is Brigadier Sir Nils Olaf III, Colonel-in-cheif of the Norwegian King’s Guard. This isn’t really related to the parade at all, I just love the fact that there’s a penguin in the Norwegian army

runrunningrunner

Reblogging with Brigadier Sir Nils Olaf III inspecting his troops.

Carry on …

breatherunlive

I love everything about this post.

thefingerfuckingfemalefury

A GOOD POST

shadesofmauve

A lovely older friend of mine lived in Edinburgh when she was a small child, and regularly attended the penguin parade – as a penguin. That is, she was a small toddler and thus about the right height and speed, and she just waddled along with everyone else who was about 2’ high.

So the answer to ‘can I volunteer to be a penguin’ is at least occasionally ‘yes.’