Next up someone is going to claim that the Narnia series isn't kids books.
Kids books is probably not the best way to word it, you can enjoy them at every age, including your childhood, as you get older you may find new truths in them, but they're still good for any age.
*Is repeatedly called the worst parent of all time for daring to not be glued to her kids 24/7
*Smeared and slandered as loving a jewel more than her own kids (in contrast, a male character who actively led to the death of his own kids over the same exact jewel/s including one of his sons being burned to death as a direct result of said male character's COMPLETELY unnecessary act of spite is very VERY seldom called out for preferring the jewels over his children by the same fandom).
*Is called worse than two mass murderers because the two mass murderers are men who are depicted as hot and traumatized.
*Keeps facing claims that she only thinks about herself and no one else, despite her choice being a deciding factor in saving the world from a tyrant demigod who would have destroyed it all if no one would've managed to get other demigods to intervene.
*Keeps facing claims that she's a bad mom for "abandoning her kids" while her husband who was on the exact same mission she went on has "abandoned his kids" first and never faces any backlash for it whatsoever. At all. Genuinely never.
*Keeps facing claims that her actions, which result in the survival of every mortal in the entire world, aren't important enough to be away from her kids for any length of time, despite her actions being directly canonically supported by a benevolent demigod who shared in the knowledge of what THE (Also benevolent) CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE has planned for the future.
Prompt: Work and craft for day 4 of @tolkiengenweek
Summary: In which Finrod remakes Nargothrond, and Nerdanel remembers her losses.
Sequel to Renewed.
Rating: G
Word Count: 1k
“Tell me of Nargothrond,” Nerdanel says in the morning cool of her workshop, warming clay between her hands.
“It was—” Finrod begins, falters. His hand seizes upon air, upon words, and closes empty. A silence stretches.
“Not all that is remembered need be spoken,” says Nerdanel gently. He is not the first to return to her workshop without words with which to speak the memories that ache within.
Finrod’s brow furrows, and images half-shadowed slip through the doors of her mind, hesitant. A glimpse of a garden beneath stone starred with lanterns; the coronet of a pillar shaped like living leaves, ever unfurling; ceilings rising into darkness domed with stars; waters falling from shadows into rivers runnelled through rock; the emerald eyes of serpents gleaming above a throne—
He sighs, ragged, and sags against the table.
Nerdanel presses the clay into his palms and cups his hands in hers. “Not all that is remembered,” she says again, “need be spoken.”
Chapters: 6/?
Fandom: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Celegorm & Daeron (Tolkien), Celegorm & Eluréd & Elurín (Tolkien), Daeorn & Eluréd & Elurín, Eluréd & Elurín (Tolkien)
Characters: Daeron (Tolkien), Celegorm (Tolkien), Eluréd (Tolkien), Elurín (Tolkien), Ent Characters (Tolkien), Original Characters
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Amnesia, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Second Kinslaying | Sack of Doriath (Tolkien), Found Family, Platonic Relationships, Kidnap Fam But Slightly To The Left, (no one is actually kidnapped but you get the vibe), Friendship, Hope vs. Despair, Enemies to Co-Parents to Friends, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Grief/Mourning, Curses, Lúthien haunting the narrative
Summary:
When uneasy dreams bring him back into Beleriand, Daeron finds a pair of twins who have lost their home, and an enemy who has lost himself. The Shadow’s reach is growing ever longer, and if they are to survive, they must do it together.
You know, when I've remarked that a lot of the responses to my posts feel like people are just plucking out keywords they think they recognise based on the shape of them and replying to what they imagine the post says based on that, the possibility never occurred to me that this is actually how many American schools are currently teaching kids to read.
Like, my assumption this whole time has been that when folks go "I misunderstood this post that says [thing] as saying [unrelated thing] because I mistook [word] for [completely different word that happens to start with the same letter]", that was a bit. What do you mean they're teaching kids a reading method that's tailored to produce this exact error?
One thing I’m still pissed at Bernie Sanders about is turning a generation against the Democratic Party. Every piece of social progress in the last 80 years, from Social Security to Medicaid to Medicare to integration to the Civil Rights Act to Title IX to Roe v. Wade to labor rights to environmental protections to public health protections to Obamacare to Obergefell, all of it directly or indirectly powered by the engine of change that is the Democratic Party. And then Sanders comes and says this whole apparatus, which he had no hand in building, is corrupt and needs to be completely replaced. Now we have countless young people who think Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the same partly because they were told that an engine of change and an anchor of stagnation and oppression are equally bad because they were fed the lie that no one in the Democratic Party does anything to improve their lives.
Nothing makes me more embarrassed about my age or generation than BernieOrBust/StillJill/NeverHillary supporters who are basically doing the GOP’s work for them and refuse to acknowledge it.
As much as I hate the ageist bullshit I see Baby Boomers come up with, I can see why they think so many millenials need to get their head out of the clouds or don’t know how the real world works when I see the way people my age talk about politics.
Like, I know it’s bullshit and I still don’t blame baby boomers for getting mad that young people think they know everything. Because fun story: my university campus is very liberal and very politically active, and during the last quarter there most students strongly supported Bernie Sanders…except for most of us in or connected to the Political Science Department (so Poli Sci majors, International Relations majors, certain other ‘bureaucratic’ majors, etc.) We also loved Bernie, but we all pretty bluntly said we were voting for Hillary and thought she’d be the best President.
Most of us were pretty blunt about how “as much as we love Bernie’s message of change, we think Hillary can actually accomplish more of it in the real world”. We were basing our decision on our studies of politics, of what kinds of change have and have not worked in history and why. This support for Hillary, even with our love of Bernie, came from a place of deep understanding of how politics work, of why certain policies or political goals fail, and what various political leaders’ real powers and challenges are.
We were called “over-educated elites” because of this.
It’s worth noting that much of our greatest progressive reforms came from LBJ, very much a political insider, and a guy who was kind of slimy in his personal life. He was not a soaring idealist.
And some of the other progressive greats? JFK, FDR, and Teddy Roosevelt all came from long-established political dynasties
I supported Bernie in 2016 (although I did vote for Hillary in the general, and have voted Democrat every two years since), but in hindsight, I think you’re right, attacking the system is not the best move to get real reform done. H. Clinton probably would have done a good job
And let’s be real: many of them were assholes. JFK was a serial cheater. FDR–who anyone on this blog for more than five minutes can tell you I love for his social policies–was antisemitic and didn’t challenge racial prejudices that blocked many Black citizens from accessing those wonderful social policies. Teddy Roosevelt was an ardent supporter of, and participant in, American imperialism. LBJ used to talk about his dick to staffers. This is not uncommon, because in spite of the many jokes, politicians are people.
I don’t have a problem voting for “political insiders” because *they freaking know how the sausage is made.* I want a goddamned professional in the job. Wanting an “outsider” strikes me like saying, “I don’t want a surgeon that went to some hoity-toity university and is friends with the the department head! I want some guy who learned how to remove appendixes by pulling himself by his bootstraps and learning by trial and error!”
☝️🤓 it’s because the further you move toward the earth’s poles, the lower the angle of the sun is at the hottest parts of the day, meaning the radiation hits your whole body, causing it to feel 10-20 degrees warmer than the thermometer reading will tell you. People from tropical climes, aka close to the equator, are used to the sun’s radiation hitting a much smaller target- their head and shoulders.
Also the further you move toward the poles the more pronounced the difference between the length of day and night is. Worst part of a far-north (or south) heatwave is it doesn’t get dark long enough for meaningful cooling.
I know a few people wanted me to try Eöl or Maeglin, but I was already working on this as a way to distract myself from the nightmare of a bigger project.
After finishing Aredhel's portrait, I started wondering what the shared features of Fingolfin's House would actually look like. In my mind, most of the House of Finwë inherited Finwë's features to varying degrees (with Finarfin's line being a bit of an exception). This was really an excuse to explore that idea: for example, I picture Aredhel and Argon taking more after Anairë, whereas Fingon and Turgon inherited more of Fingolfin's features. Then there are the little family traits that show up, like Indis's blue eyes.
The fastest way to accomplish The Project is to cease being afraid of The Project. The Project cannot maim you. The Project cannot kill you. The Project is more afraid of you than you are of it. It is okay if The Project turns out differently from how it was in your head, and it is okay if it has flaws. You are capable of engaging with The Project.
Kill a dragon and then yourself
Run afoul of the Kinslaying Elves
Be crushed by God with the biggest mountain
Break both your arms and then drown in a fountain
Dumb ways to die
So many dumb ways to die
Dumb ways to die-ie-ie
So many dumb ways to die
Set on fire by your dad
Make Sauron really mad
Be poisoned by a javelin thrust
Fight all the Balrogs then spontaneously combust
Dumb ways to die
So many dumb ways to die
Dumb ways to die-ie-ie
So many dumb ways to die
Insult some Dwarves to their face
Get crushed by Morgoth's mace
Take advice from the guy who's really cursed
Stabbed by your best friend; that's just the worst
Dumb ways to die
So many dumb ways to die
Dumb ways to die-ie-ie
So many dumb ways to die
Enrage the father of the Black Sword
Fight a suicidal battle with the Dark Lord
Believe what Sauron says about your wife is true
I wonder … what does this Silmaril do?
Dumb ways to die
So many dumb ways to die
Dumb ways to die-ie-ie
So many dumb ways to die
Have a bunch of kids and then eat yourself alive
Have one great kid then refuse to be revived
Get thrown off a wall while kidnapping your cousin
Jump in a volcano after stealing a Silmaril
Have such amazing hair that it kills you
They may not rhyme, but they're quite possibly
Dumbest ways to die
The dumbest ways to die
Dumbest ways to die-ie-ie-ie
So many dumb
So many dumb ways to die
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Characters referenced as well as explanations are under the cut in case you want to guess:
Túrin Turambar (killed Glaurung and later threw himself on his sword)
Unspecified residents of Alqualondë, Doriath, and Sirion
Ar-Pharazôn (buried under falling hills in Aman. He was probably not crushed by Taniquetil itself, and is possibly not technically dead, but poetic license.)
Ecthelion (in The Fall of Gondolin he's said to have lost the use of both his arms but still managed to kill Gothmog the Balrog by stabbing him with a spike on his helmet and then throwing them both into a fountain)
Amrod (in one version he was asleep on the Swan-ships when Fëanor set them on fire)
Celebrimbor (refused to give Sauron the location of the Three Rings, so Sauron tortured him to death, shot him full of arrows, and displayed his corpse as a war banner in front of his relatives)
Aredhel (killed by a poisoned javelin thrown by her husband Eöl)
Fëanor (fought with several Balrogs almost alone and received mortal wounds, and his body fell to ashes as his spirit left him)
Thingol (insulted the Dwarves who had set the Silmaril in the Nauglamir for him, so they killed him)
Finwë (killed by Morgoth while defending Fëanor's house. In some versions his head is said to have been crushed.)
Orodreth (listened to Túrin's counsel about the bridge of Nargothrond, which caused it to be discovered and lead to his death)
Beleg (tried to free Túrin and was mistaken and killed by him for an Orc)
Mîm (killed by Húrin for his betrayal of Túrin)
Fingolfin (rode out to duel Morgoth alone after Dagor Bragollach)
Gorlim (betrayed Barahir's outlaws to Sauron in exchange for being set free to be with his wife; Sauron then killed him since his wife was already dead)
Dior (refused to give up the Silmaril which led the Fëanorians to attack Doriath)
Ungoliant (had many spider children including Shelob and eventually ate herself when her hunger grew too great)
Míriel (spent her spirit in giving birth to Fëanor and then bound herself to stay in Mandos forever)
Maeglin (laid hands on Idril during the Fall of Gondolin and was thrown from the walls by Tuor)
Maedhros (cast himself into a fiery chasm after he was burned by the Silmaril. I really don't think it can have been any named volcano but "gaping chasm filled with fire" does fit the technical definition of "volcano")
Glorfindel (fought a Balrog on a mountain pass who dragged him off the cliff to his death by his hair)
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Thanks for playing! Remember to never 1v1 a Balrog, love not too well the work of your hands, never swear any oaths, and always listen to your wife.
oh no. if Celebrimbor was attached to Finrod and if Celebrimbor repudiated his father then he must have felt so badly about his bystander's guilt wrt Nargothrond, maybe even thought he should have gone with Finrod...
and then years later when he finishes up in Sauron's dungeons regardless, he thinks it's a sign that it is so
yousharknotpass
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