keeping up with the finweans

icon credit: @daily-smol-silm ll gen z ll blog for fandoms and other stuff ll kinda regret not tagging anything on my other blog so that's pretty much the reason why this blog exists || 22 ||

[letoscrawls]

i may or may not have made most of these TODAY. I'm sorry guys this is the most creative i've been in months helppppp anyways this is the last update from the dads i think, we gotta go back to regular scheduling but i think the thing that fascinates me the most about their lore is that so much is left to the reader's imagination so we can just headcanon shit for a while lol (like for example the dragons hating eachother. completely made up on vibes)

[kibutsulove]

been rotating them around in my head recently actually . a simpler & stupider set of drawings due to whatever the fuck it was that i finished two days ago & artfight yay….

[yourlocalshade]

Small study sketch with hornet

[click on image for better quality]

[throngsss]

When your character foil is just u but Better + Cooler

[nakariiale]

watched Avatar for the first time recently (shameful ik)

here's some drawings i made of Ozai cuz ofc the asshole evil dad has to be my favorite

after reading some fics where Ozai got sent down to the water tribe for Hakoda to watch over, i had to draw it out too

[nakariiale]

when the Fire Nation prince decided to fight off an entire band of bandits without a weapon or bending so now you have to carry his injured ass around

lil sneak peak doodle to our upcoming ATLA AU featuring Ozai and Hakoda as the main focus

[em-niwa]

late night draw because have you considered moth manwe

????

[na-chloridee]

(Not) A Devil

[licaijun99]

Still, made for art telephone

[overthinkinglotr]

The racism in Lotr really is the worst…………….like…..Lotr supposed to be this story about love that transcends where you’re from or who you are, about different people coming together at the end of the world, but that message ends up feeling so hypocritical when racism is embedded in the fabric of how Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings, and in how Peter Jackson and co chose to mindlessly reproduce Tolkien’s racist coding in the films.

I do ultimately have the view that you can enjoy things while acknowledging terrible aspects of them.  I don’t believe we have to throw Lord of the Rings out, just that we should “understand the author’s prejudices, and be mindful of how they affect his work.” But again I’m white, so this issue isn’t really as painful/visceral for me.

 But yeah it’s just……. Lotr is about the good quote “white-skins” from the English-coded countries of “the west”  fighting the quote  “least lovely Mongol types” and “black men like half-trolls” and “slant-eyed foreigners” and Asian-coded easterlings/African-coded Haradrim of the sinister “East…” I know people like to twist themselves into knots trying to explain how it’s Secretly Not Racist (even though it obviously is) but it’s horrible that there’s clearly a reason so many people on the far-right see Lord of the Rings as something that validates their awful awful worldviews. It’s ultimately a story about the Good White People from the West vs the evil POC from the East. The speeches about the glory of the West wouldn’t be out of place in videos by vicious monsters like Jordan Peterson

And I know that some of the racial coding on the heroes is ambiguous in the book (like Sam) but I hate it when that’s used as a way for people to pretend Lord of the Rings “secretly isn’t racist at all.” Like, Sam is described as brown, and you can make a convincing argument that Tolkien intended for him to be a POC– but Sam is the pale white Frodo’s lower-class servant who literally calls Frodo his master. A couple characters possibly being POC doesn’t fix the huge overarching problems with the insidious way Tolkien used racial coding (white/fair= good, hero, wealthy; brown= evil, villainous, lower-class, servant, shady). It’s not a problem of a couple characters or just “not enough representation,” it’s a problem with Lord of the Rings on a deep thematic level.

Side note: I do think the racism in the Peter Jackson films is different from the racism in the books, but I am also very wary of this Thing I occasionally see where people act like the PJ films were the ones that created all the racism…… the PJ films deserve every ounce of criticism they receive on the way they handled race, but the books do as well, and I’m uncomfortable when people bring up the racism in the pj films specifically only to downplay, excuse, or flat-out deny the racism in the books. Even if a lot is different the overarching problems with the horrible racist coding in the films have their origins in the overarching problems with the racism/racist coding Tolkien wrote.

It’s a problem with literal racial cariacatures like Ghan-Buri-Ghan, and all the times when Tolkien uncritically portrays colonialism as a thing that was ultimately Fine while portraying the people who fight back against their colonizers as Deeply Misguided at best (the Wild Men joining Saruman because they don’t understand that the Rohirrim who colonized them are Good Actually.) And thematic things like the way the book ends with the Shire closing its borders to anyone who isn’t of their race, and this being portrayed as a good decision. earlier Tolkien says “the wide world is about you– you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out” but in the end the Shire just fences the world out, fences out all the foreigners and immigrants, and this is portrays as the Right solution to their problems. (Honestly I HATE this plot point so much! It also is a clear example of what I was saying about how the racism/xenophobia is hypocritical…the plot point where the Shire fences the world out makes no sense with the overarching idea that “you cannot forever fence the world out.” Tolkien was so busy being xenophobic he didn’t notice it contradicted the themes of his own book)

I really hate how that hypocrisy really is at the center of Lord of the Rings– the hypocrisy of preaching love and kindness while at the same time coding the villains as POC and coding the heroes white, they hypocrisy of trying to be a critique of fascism/the industrialization of war while using imagery that fascists love and agree with.

I’m not going to throw Lord of the Rings away, because I imprinted on to it when I was a Child and it’s incredibly important to me. I especially need Lord of the Rings now, because it helps me get through times of stress! But I do think that part of adulthood is realizing that you can’t love anything “purely”  and it’s okay to have complicated relationships with the things you care deeply about. I also think that if your love for something is so shallow that it shatters under the realization that it’s deeply flawed, you might not have actually loved it that much to begin with.

Idk if this is coherent but a major theme of Lord of the Rings is that stories are like language; they have to grow and change with the cultures that created them if they want to stay relevant. And if I want to end this essay on a somewhat hopeful note I’ll say that I think if lotr wants to stay relevant, it does need to change, and it’s capable of changing. And acknowledging the deep awful racism of the original story is the first step to allowing the story to grow.

[beanaroony]

It's a WIP that's taking me forever because I don't remember how to draw things.

[lotustiled]

zuko and katara attempt to soft parent the gaang (and fail)

[artinthetrap]

Melian enchants Thingol in Nan Elmoth

[faustandfurious]

Oh so you’re a real Tolkien fan?

Tell me the duration of an elven pregnancy, the number of Sun Years from the Awakening to Fëanor’s Rebellion, and the name of Gil-galad’s dad

[armenelols]

Tolkien is not a real Tolkien fan, then.

[faustandfurious]

Yes

[solume]

I adore the elves of Tolkien, because you read The Hobbit and you think oh, they're a little weird and fey-like. Then you read The Lord of the Rings and you're like they're very alien, but Thranduil just seems to be Like That™. Galadriel, Celeborn and Elrond are pretty chill actually. Yeah Glorfindel is like the strongest fighter ever and Cirdan's a little off-putting but they're most likely outliers. Legolas forgets he is surrounded by non-elves half the time and trolls the rest of the time, but otherwise he is not weirder than Aragorn.

And then you get to the Silmarillion. And you encounter the Noldor.

Fëanor "spirit so strong his body cremated itself" and Maedhros "got amputated for reasons™ being suspended on one of the highest moutains and probably tortured by Evil Incarnate but got over it in a week". Fingolfin "calling Morgoth to a 1v1 seem like a reasonable solution" and Fingon "climbed Melkor's highest mountain right after having survived the most hostile, icy, treacherous cliffs in existence while singing, to rescue his estranged situationship". Finrod "teeth count as a plausible weapon against a werewolf" Felagund and Galadriel "just in it for the possible crown and this very pretty Sindar I just met".

And that's not even touching Elwë "will marry a goddess at the first opportunity" Singollo or Luthien "sang so well the notoriously inflexible keeper of souls & Judge of the Valar let her and her man have another chance at life". Or whatever Ëarendil was on.

Reading about the elves of Tolkien when your first encounter with them is the Third Age brings the slow realisation that they are not wise and good and all-knowing. The most batshit crazy ones are just already in Mandos or Valinor (except Glorfindel, he cannot be Contained). They are actually the most chaotic people in the lengendarium and are trying very hard to leave behing a dignified image, and it's the funniest thing ever.

[salmonhere]

There's no turning back

⚔️Nerdanel and Feanor ⚔️

[diseases-for-center-control]

FLY MY MOSQUITOES 🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟

[diseases-for-center-control]

HELL YES UNTREATED STANDING WATER

🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟

🟦🟦🟦🌾🟦🟦🟦🌱🌾🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🌾🟦🟦🪷🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🌱🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦

[diseases-for-center-control]

GROW MY CHILDREN

🟦🟦🥚🪱🟦🟦🌾🟦🟦🟦🟦🪱🟦🥚🟦🌾🟦🪱🟦🟦🟦🪱🟦🪱🟦🥚🟦🟦🪱🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🥚🟦🪱🟦🟦🟦🥚🪱🟦🟦🥚🟦🪱🟦

[diseases-for-center-control]

YES

YES

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[diseases-for-center-control]

My children have invented a new mosquito-borne illness of Crash Your App

[sistersorrow]

Reblog to give your mutual's browser Digital Dengue Fever