todays bird
DEAR READER
ojovivo
art blog(derogatory)
Kiana Khansmith
Not today Justin
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
Keni
⁂
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
No title available
blake kathryn
Sade Olutola
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
we're not kids anymore.
izzy's playlists!
Janaina Medeiros
Origami Around
taylor price
tannertan36
seen from United States
seen from Sweden
seen from Netherlands
seen from Argentina
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Brazil
seen from Brazil
seen from Brazil
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
@sesamenom
Oh, to be granted the power to speak to animals for just like 38 seconds, so that I could tell this pebble-brained feathery fuckass that nobody is impressed that he started singing earlier than anybody else. There's no bird pussy available at 2 am. The dames can sense your desperation. Stop screaming for at least three more hours.
how many times do you think celegorm's been woken up at 2am by a distraught brother asking him to tell the birds to shut up
in honor of the last day of mermay:
gil galad was a swordfish king, of him the harpers sadly sing: the last whose realm was fair and free between the mountains and the sea.
his legs were long, his bill was keen, his shining fin afar was seen; the countless stars of heaven's sails were mirrored in his silver scales.
but long ago he swam away, and where he dwelleth none can say; for past the halls has claimed his soul fish-galad, son of plothole.
do yall ever wonder what you’re best known for in the fandom ?
Excessive levels of historical detail, or fisting. I hope it's the fisting
based off my notifs and my askbox, i'm pretty sure it's the gil galads
the Singing Toadfish from @thescrapwitch's would you still love me if i was half-fish, based on @peasant-player's reverse mermaid trend :)
(is a reverse mermaid technically a peredhel?)
landlord didn't pay for the building backflow test and the city shut off the water :/// it'll be back on tomorrow hopefully but for now here's an ulmo
maglorath tidbit: Cirdan's spent the past few thousand years wandering around the Mediterranean. he can't leave until Maglor (hermit, soundly ignoring the cry of the gull) and Daeron (even more hermit, too far inland to hear the gulls) do, so for now he's just hanging out in france. he speaks a bizarre hybrid of french, italian, latin, falathrin sindarin, and ilkorin; Maglor and Daeron avoid talking to him partially because of the offense to their linguist senses
mae's followers are his Loyal Subjects / Political Supporters. celegorm's followers are his weird vaguely cultish Cruel Servants. maglor's followers are his crazed-megafandom-turned-heavy cavalry.
two different types of hunting outfits for celegorm!
Celegorm tends to get pigeonholed into Forest Woodsman, even though he's one of the most politically active feanorians (i think i have another post about this somewhere in my drafts?) - he was one of the few active during mae's captivity, nargothrond obviously, not to mention leading the second kinslaying and the mentions of the cruel servants- so it stands to reason that he must have been on almost as many Social Hunts as running-through-the-woods-in-a-fur-cloak hunts. sure, he loves hiding in bushes and stalking deer with aredhel and the ambarussa, but he's equally comfortable riding and chatting with various cousins while huan does the tracking.
personally i think celegorm likes the hiding-in-bushes type of hunting in the same way feanor goes on backpacking-and-mining trips: he likes it, but it's definitely not the only thing he does. after all, he does have to return to himlad/nargothrond and actually govern.
(Aredhel, meanwhile, is the one who actually spends most of her life out shooting boars, no politics in sight)
happy(?) mother's day
who shall see a white ship leave the last shore
(happy belated @crablorday!)
@who-needs-words @overlord-of-fantasy i just watched eps 7 & 8 of maul shadow lord - i dont want to spoil it if you havent watched it/arent planning on it but that last episode just whacked me in the face with Brother Tragedies
and at the same time i'm writing maglorath again & am currently on the parts where maglor's going out to himring because he doesn't know where else to go. and just like feanor poured his fea into the silmarils and maglor into the noldolante, there's a bit of nelyo lingering in the old fortress. and so now he's having a full chapter of Brother Tragedies
anyways i am beset on all sides and i do not know how i shall recover from this
WAIT I FORGOT CRABLOR DAY
If he had an additional five minutes, I think Feanor could have figured out fire bending.
i mean... he did, just one-time use only
so i was lookin around at all of Mairon’s names cause why not and i came across it on a baby name website
implying humans are out here naming their children Sauron
and on the same page it said “looking for a name for Sauron’s sibling?? FINROD”
hey at least that's better than turin, lalaith, and nienor!
I want to point out that at the time of LoTR Turin is canonically a name people give their kids. Even if they're an only child, I feel like this would be awkward all things considered.
so i went looking to see if all the Turins were only children, and:
off the top of my head I don't think there's any Lalaiths/Urwens or Nienors in Gondor, but Morwen was a common enough name at the time... so Turin I's family has the potential of having the most unfortunate/funny names ever
so on the subject of stolen property, i’ve seen various arguments on this point but it is in fact true that inheriting something from a relative, when you know full well that it was stolen, does not make it yours.
this clearly goes doubly so for powerful magical artifacts, and especially for artifacts which are strongly implied to contain part of their creator’s soul!
you can talk about consequences - maybe the artifact in question has benefits for you, maybe you’re not convinced its rightful owners would use it responsibly - but talking about the consequences doesn’t erase the fact that whatever benefits you think you’re getting are achieved through wrongful means.
which is why i, too, think Frodo should have given the One Ring back to Sauron. thief.
Hahahahaha here comes the law student nerd ready to complicate your wonderful post, op.
(Really this is just pretext for me to study for my property final in a week, so thanks yeah)
Because according to the principles of common property law, the matter of who actually owns title to the One Ring becomes really complicated really fast.
Buckle up babes for the pedantic law lecture no one asked for.
(more under the cut)
Keep reading
EXCELLENT
The best part of this is: trust me I guarantee Tolkien knew this much about the Common Law (English mediaevalists end up knowing ridiculous amounts about both Common Law and mediaeval Catholicism whether we want to or not), and indeed if you look at the text, this was relevant to the story.
It’s part of the reason that Sauron is as terrified of Aragorn’s potential claim on the Ring as he is of Gandalf’s or Saruman’s or Galadriel’s - if not more. Because in Middle Earth this shit matters. This is a world where a broken oath will literally bind your unhappy restless soul to the earth in spite of the dictates of the literal creator of the universe (who designated humans as Passing Beyond The World when they die). This is a world where a damn oath is responsible for Everything That’s Wrong With The First And Second Ages.
Oaths, ownership, duties, rights, things owed and owing: this shit matters.
And sure Aragorn is also direct line from Lúthien, but so is Elrond, and so are Elrohir and Elladan. So is Arwen. But what none of them have that Aragorn has? Is a rightful claim to ownership of the Ring.
So much of what Aragorn spends his time in the second and third volumes doing is Establishing Claim - establishing that everything that Isildur owned, he now owns. Why? Because it means he has power that is absolutely needed. “Isildur’s Heir” isn’t a woo-woo floofy-high-concept thing: it’s a literal matter of rights, duties and authority.
When he takes the Palantír from Gandalf and uses it, his companions are aghast, but he reminds them that he has both the right and the strength to use it - and the Right is actually important. Saruman was, face to face, stronger than Aragorn (never doubt that) and Sauron completely pwned him, but Saruman had no right to the Seeing Stone, no more right than Pippin.
But the Palantíri belonged to Aragorn: he’s not only Melian’s ever-so-great-grandchild, he’s also Fingolfin’s ever-so-great-grandchild, and since the Fëonori died out with the poor Ringmaker, the only competition Aragorn could have for ownership of the Stones are Galadriel and Elrond. (And that’s only if you are going right back to the maker-rights, and ignoring the establishment of the Stones as the property of Elros’ line rather later).
It matters. It changes how power works and doesn’t work. Aragorn’s status as the Heir is in fact grounded in these ideas, which play a hugely powerful part (in fact the fight over who rightfully owns the Silmaril Beren and Lúthien brought out of the dark is part of the bloodshed that makes it so that in the end the Silmarils themselves actively reject the last two living sons of Fëanor, negating their claim). Because Aragorn is the rightful inheritor of everything Isildur ever had, he can use the Palantír. Because he is the rightful inheritor of everything Isildur ever had, he can summon the Dead. And because he is the rightful inheritor of everything Isildur ever had, he stands equal to two of the Ainur, to the oldest member of the Trees-blessed Noldorin royal house, and to his own much more powerful (straight up) relatives as a potential claimant of the Ring.
And that is why Sauron is willing to take the chance to catch Aragorn, and (he thinks) ensure his capture, rather than attacking him earlier on when there’s a chance that (even if Aragorn can’t possibly WIN) he could still escape and then bide his time before the next Ring-War and learn to use the damn thing.
But. It’s also important when it comes to Frodo.
Frodo uses the Ring twice, and lays open claim once. Both of the times he uses it are on Sméagol, both times overwheming him and in the second case cursing him (“if you ever touch me again you will be thrown into the fire”). We get both moments from Sam’s POV, where the physical reality of Frodo is replaced by an image of him as a much larger figure, alight from the inside, robed in light, and with a “wheel of fire” at his breastbone.
Frodo does not have any genetics (so to speak) more special than any other hobbit. It’s not like Aragorn vs most humans, where there’s actually a legit difference because most humans were not, at that point, descended from a Maia. Frodo’s just this guy.
The only thing that’s really special about Frodo in terms of the Ring is that, like Aragorn, he’s the other person who has a viable claim. It would, as it were, have to go to the judges to figure out whose claim is better.
And this is why in the moment that he claims the Ring, in the Mountain, Sauron is fucking terrified. It’s why he drops everything else, even the issue of trying to keep his mindless drone-fighters going, even the maintenance of his actual control of weather, of light, of whatever fight he and Gandalf have going, to get his best servants back to the Mountain now now now now.
Because Frodo having an actual rightful claim on the Ring means he can, in fact, use it. Not well, which is why Sauron can paralyse him for that moment it takes for Sméagol to strike (and carry out both Frodo’s demanded oath - “save the Precious from Him” - and his Curse - “if you touch me you will be thrown in the fire” - at once), but he could. This tiny little person is a threat to Sauron, in the heart of his own home, because he has the right to have and use this Ring.
The tricky thing about Tolkien is that whatever his flaws (and he has many), the one thing he’s never unclear of is that the concept of right and might are actually separate. Just because you are strong enough to do or take a thing doesn’t mean you have any right to do it; and just because you aren’t strong enough to enforce your right, doesn’t mean it goes away.
…/UTTER NERD
Celegorm being forced to repent by leading people out of woods/snow storms/desserts/extreme environments as a ghost.
He gets no credit, no tale to tell then a tall, pale man who speaks no known language but always leads those astray back on their paths.
He never finds you nor hunts you; you run into him. Some say he’s searching for a lost pair of twins, others say his search is find his lost treasure. No one knows the true reason behind his hunt.
To see him twice is considered an ill omen.
As the forest grows darker he leads you deeper into the woods, around twisted paths and fallen trees and then those trees standing tall. You always end up where you needed to be. He disappears as soon as you cross the threshold out of the woods.
The ghost carries only an old bow, arrows, and a hunting horn. If you get lost from his path, an even worse omen, follow the calls of his horn to safety. But do not try to stay for too long; He is not human.
There is a greed, or hunger as some say, in his eyes that tells you that if you lingered any longer, he would eat you. Legends say this cannibalism is because he is a wolf turned human, for his crimes of killing many men. Do you not see those sharp eyes? Do you not agree? Others say it was because of his vile greed in life that he has been cursed with a hunger that can only be satiated by eating his fellow kin. Do you not see the blood stains on his clothes? Do you not fear him?
Never once has he hurt one of the many people he has led, but do not think it’s because he can’t. His arrows are sharp and his aim impeccable. It’s continued punishment; to be a hunter who cannot hunt his own prey. But yet he still has fangs, so fear him still.
He has had many names throughout the years and many hypothesis for his origins. However, one thing every legend has in common is that this is not out of his own free will. It is punishment, punishment for a crime so great that it has lasted centuries. What has he done to suffer so greatly? To live his life forever hungry and without rest?
Who knows. The ghost can scream and shout but no one ever understands what he says. He must continue his hunt.
if you accept the 455 birth year, by the time the host of the valar left middle-earth, gil-galad wasn't even as old as finduilas was when she died. btw. if you were wondering
