more at www.swordwhale.com Earth: (animals, environment, science)... Life: (inspirational, funny, serious) Fandom: (you know, fandom) Yes, it spells ELF. And for the forseeable future I will be elfspamming this page. Here there also be Elves, Dwarves, and other denizens of Middle Earth, as well as timelords, pirates, Sherlockians, Avengers, Enterprise crew, Jedi, Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks and other animation, animals, nature, science, and whatever else wanders in... You'll find random art tutorials here as well as some fine fanart from random fandoms around the web, some of my own scribblings and cartoons, and photosets of real life adventures you could be having too. We strive for PG-13 here, but I have no control over the language of goodies I have reblogged. My website full of all of the above: www.swordwhale.com You can buy Swordwhale's Stuff here: swordwhale.redbubble.com and here: http://swordwhale.deviantart.com/
College is wild because it really isn’t about intelligence or the ability to understand the material at all. It’s literally just a test of executive function and abled-ness. I had good attendance. I participated in class discussions…possibly to an annoying extent, I got A’s on my tests. When we did group work in classes, it was usually me knowing the answers and everyone else just writing them down from my paper.
But I watched those same people who copied my in-class work and who barely passed tests and who only understood the material enough to regurgitate it, not to expand on it, graduate while I flunked out. Why? Because I didn’t have the executive function to do homework outside of class. That’s it.
when I was a teen dealing with chronic illness, I was just abled enough to go to school and do the work in class. I got As on all my in-class work and tests. I understood the material. when I got home everyday, I was so exhausted I went straight to bed and didn’t get up until it was time to go to school the next morning. I stopped hanging out with friends or having any free time, and I dedicated every ounce of energy to school. but, on the basis of needing to pass out as soon as I got home everyday, I was unable to do homework (I also had missed more days that I was supposed to, but again, I passed every test and hadn’t fallen behind in the material). despite having As in everything except homework, I failed every class and had to drop out of high school.
our education system is structured less around an actually well-rounded education (which would look different for different people depending on their needs) and more around conformity to neuro-typical, abled standards that prepare you for being a worker under capitalism, which itself enforces these standards in the attempt to drain as much profit from the individual as possible. even people who are “lucky” enough to be NT and abled enough to survive in these environments deserve more than to be treated like a renewable resource.
Tolkien never said anything abut pointy ears (as I remember, and as I fervently asserted for many eons of playing them in D&D and illustrating them). He did mention "sea-grey eyes and "the elven-light" in their eyes. (cough*Arondir*cough)(IRL too*cough).
According to some knowledgeable sources, the pointy ear thing comes from the Victorian Age, where oral traditions had become legend become myth and then were bawlderized by new cultures and religions. As a one time keeper of Northern Dogs, I see the pointy ear thing as the "wild type", the Original Model. Roundears, whether canine or peoples, are the later version, less tied to the natural world, less cognizant of a connection with it.
Deep in the appendices of LOTR Tolkien states: "Elves... this old word was indeed the only one available, and was once fitted to apply to such memories of this people as Men preserved, or to the making of Men's minds not wholly dissimilar. But it has been diminished, and to many it may now suggest fancies either pretty or silly, as unlike to the Quendi of old as are butterflies to the swift falcon--not that any of the Quendi ever possessed wings of the body, as unnatural to them as to Men. They were a race high and beautiful, the older children of the world..."
In European mythology, there are a few Elven types who stand out: the Irish Sidhe (Tuatha de Dannan), the Welsh Tylwyth Teg, and the Norse Ljósálfar (light elves). Cultures around the world have their own versions of these beings who stand somewhere between gods and humans.
In my tales, some are still here, still at work in a world that is overrun by humans, and losing its natural places. For some humans, the veil is thin, and we see through it, perhaps becoming allies in the fight against darkness and greed.
“I speculated a lot with Joseph Mawle, the actor that played Adar. […] That scene is actually a bit longer, so there’s a little bit, maybe when they do an extended cut, but there’s a longer bit of familiarity. And that’s something that I’ve been with the showrunners and that I’m very curious about. I believe, myself, without giving anything away, that there’s a moment - and you see it in the scene - there’s a moment of kind of recognition, of origin, and of elvenhood. That’s a big thing, who are these beings? And that’s Adar’s entire thing. It’s ‘we came from the same origin, why are we fighting each other?’ kind of thing. So I have my own speculation, but maybe I say the wrong thing and I get fired [laughs].”
— Ismael Cruz Cordova about Adar & Arondir at MagicCon 2022
In the past 24 hours I have seen three separate video essayists I admire talk about how YouTube is currently screwing them over with bullshit content claims. Something fucky is going on here.
Ask a Mortician, a channel that posts educational content about death and the funeral industry, is getting content claimed under accusations of “display of non-graphic bodies without educational intent” and “violence with blood and gore,” among other things, which is completely untrue.
Dead Meat, a channel that does reviews and analysis of horror media, is getting aggressively hit with copyright claims despite all their content falling under fair use review and critique. The most recent claim is over single tiny clip in an hour long video.
Kaz Rowe, a video essayist who talks about history and media, is dealing with the same thing, over a tiny clip included in their video about the Wizard of Oz.
All three of these channels are ones I really enjoy and admire, so if you’re looking for new content to check out, go give them some love? They’re all fighting uphill battles just to get their work seen and could use the views right now.
Jessie Gender is now also getting hit. She’s a trans woman making videos about gender, sexuality, and pop culture, and her new video has been hit with a strike for “sex and nudity.”
I know that YouTube is generally garbage and has been garbage for ages, but four big channels I watch all getting hit in the span of just a couple days? Weird. Very weird. Not liking it at all.
Folks in the notes have added several other channels getting hit recently, so yeah, something’s definitely fucky. I don’t know if it’s more fucky than YouTube’s usual level of fucky, or if I’m just noticing it more, but goddamn. :(
Rachel Oates, who makes videos about poetry and literature as well as feminism and debunking of far-right content, recently got a video taken down for misinformation. The video was her debunking misinformation that was being spread by anti-maskers. She’s been trying to contact youtube about it for a month and they still won’t reinstate it.
While not exactly a video essayist, a couple months How To Cook That had a video taken down for misinformation that was debunking a viral wood burning hack that was extremely dangerous. Her video got hit but the videos of people demonstrating the lethally dangerous technique didn’t.
Not to mention James Somerton, who makes videos about queer depictions in media, has had basically everything he’s uploaded for the past half a year demonetized or taken down.
This is definitely a trend that has been increasing over time.
Arondir needs a horse. (but also, get him a saddle and a horseman's bow, cause a longbow doesn't work so good, and you need the stirrups to stand up off the bumpity bump).
Summary: While captive in the orc pit, Arondir reflects.
Warnings: Forced Labor, Heavy Angst, Grief, Fear, Pining
Read on AO3 or below the cut
Happy new Rings of Power night! And thanks so much to all the folks who've said sweet things about my first ROP fic. I warned y'all I was gonna write a lot of tragic Arodir POV and it turns out that was not an idle threat! Angst is my (fic) love language, and ohhh, is Arondir's arc giving me some fodder. Do I feel a little silly about being THIS invested in the original characters after *checks notes* three episodes? Maybe. Do I ultimately care? not really, no.
Arondir had never loved the sun. He bore no specific allegiance to the fruit of Laurelin or to Arien, its keeper. He never made rites at the roots of that blessed tree.
Still, he didn’t loathe the sun, for it had its own ferocious beauty when unmasked — the kind of beauty that demanded respect. And moreover, he couldn’t loathe its works — the way its light scattered itself across the earth, the warmth by which it tended seed and leaf and living flesh.
But Arondir had grown in the shade of a great forest. He loved the sun best when filtered through a hundred hundred layers of greenery. He could never love it as he loved the moon, for he could never fully gaze upon its face. Perhaps that’s why his people had not made the passage, could never submit themselves to that bright Western land: they loved light best when held by night.
But Arondir loved the sun now. He tracked its every motion. When it became shrouded in cloud, he felt his spirit sink into dread and uncertainty, when once he might have taken comfort in the pleasure of a moment of shade. The sun was his ally, his savior, his keeper, and he swore never to forget this fact for the rest of his life, no matter how long that might be.
It was currently looking to be rather short.
“Ey!” called an orc, his form swallowed by the shade. There was a scuffle at the mouth of the hooded passage, two orcs jostling with each other for the chance to point their blades at Arondir’s chest.
“Quit idling,” said the closest. Arondir could see fresh blood licking the edges of his teeth.
Arondir stiffened and drew his attention back to the dusty earth. He had been watching the sun too closely, pulled in by its whispered promises.
The earth gave him less heart, but it was worthy of observation, too. It held its own beaten beauty. The way the shelves of clay wrinkled and crumbled beneath his bone-pick. The twisted shape of a root clawing out from the soil. The sound of cracking and bleeding as he broke into it. The smell of sap dissolving quickly in the parched air.
Such was his routine: a rotational observation. Before long, this vigil would sink his spirits even lower. He could not bear to give such attention to his own act of destruction, and he knew this was an inherent weakness of his soul, an enduring failure of his craft.
All things should be loved, even in their loss.
He would then turn his work to the orcs — to their faces, the shapes of their bodies, the way they moved and spoke to each other, the small trophies and punishments they passed amongst themselves. He knew them all, individually, to a sharp level of clarity, but he did not give the power of words and meaning to these observations. He let them live in his body instead. This, too, was a failing, for surely even orcs must hold some magic of the earth within themselves, some memory of elven beauty deep behind their eyes. But Arondir could find no evidence of this.
When every piece of the physical world around him had been exhausted of beauty and meaning, deadened into a veil of gray nothingness from which he could draw no life, he turned to the inner world within his mind. This was always the final resort, allowed only for fleeting moments, for it held too much pleasure and too much pain. Like the sun, he could not allow himself to gaze overlong.
He could not dwell there without meeting her.
It was not that he did not wish to think of her — of Bronwyn. He gave himself the pleasure of her name with the same forbearance he was granted water ration. He would drink until his throat swelled with the effort of swallowing, if they would allow him to, and he would do the same with thoughts of her, if he did not control his mind.
It was always pleasant at first, pleasant as an ache was pleasant in reminding his body of its own being. It was pleasant to remember how it felt when she touched him — how it felt when she looked at him — how it felt the first time he had realized his feelings were not unmatched, but were returned, and the precious, intense forbidden-ness that came with this fact, like an overripe fruit he had to carry everywhere without bruising or breaking its skin.
But soon the sensation would become overwrought, too intense. He had felt it before — this driving need, this compulsion — a desire to be joined with her that consumed his entire body, so he could do nothing but stand still, like a tree, until it passed.
But they would not let him stand still, not here, not for more than a moment at a time, and so his blood was forced to churn endlessly, hot and unyielding, until even his skin felt scorched and ashen from its heat. When it had burned clean through him, he became momentarily empty, like a vessel, like a hole in the earth awaiting water, like a silent mouth waiting for words.
That’s when the fear came. Like the enemy, it took root where all else had been leveled to its most naked form. She was dead, Bronwyn was dead. She was dead or in torment. He had sent her to her death, unthinking, unfeeling, his own intuition failing him at last. She was dead before she ever made it home, and it was his doing, for in 79 years he had done nothing, nothing, not one single thing to protect her. She was dead —
This feeling — finally — forced him out of his own mind. He emerged in the sunlight, covered in dust, wilting in his own sweat, alive. The world around him became resonant again, almost calming in its cruel reality. From its presence, he could draw some will to live, for it was not fully dead, not like Bronwyn, not yet.
And the cycle would begin again.
-------
Arondir’s history was not universally accessible even to his own memory. Through the passage of centuries, time necessarily stretched and turned thin, becoming for long periods like the glassy surface of an untouched sea.
The great moments of his life seemed instead like islands scattered across this silent ocean. He could visit them in turn, landscapes fixed by some specific point of grief or joy or longing. But between them lay a watery haze, the feeling of wakeful sleep.
Perhaps this was different for the Eldar. Perhaps they could access their own lives as if they were lore halls, plucking from memory any single moment, reliving whole ages through their resting dreams. It was not so for Arondir.
He had once asked Médhor how the other elf viewed the passage of his own life.
“The passage of my life?” retorted Médhor, moving through his ration of food in a matter of breaths, as was his common custom.
Arondir stifled a smile. “Yes. How does it feel to you? To look back upon your own life?”
Médhor chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then spoke as if divulging a deep and secret truth. “Well, I’d say there’ve been a lot of bits that have been just…fine. And then there were a lot of bits that were rather shit.” He looked into the middle distance, watching some invisible world. “But it’s mostly been…fine.”
Arondir took this as confirmation of his own experience and drew comfort from that knowledge.
But Médhor was gone now, snuffed out with a single slice of an orc blade, his spirit treading halls where Arondir could not follow.
He felt stranded, the islands of his past disappearing far, far over the horizon, no longer reachable in his memory.
The only island that felt accessible anymore was the one that held the last 79 years. 79 years, in this place, at that tower, with those people. He was barricaded in a fortress of his own present and the ships had been burnt, and there was only Ostirith and Médhor and Bronwyn and Tirharad and Devion and Bronwyn, and Bronwyn, and Bronwyn. Was this what it felt like to be human? Perhaps their souls were of greater size than they realized, all their days forgotten but for the short breath of one current life. 79 years, it might last, if they were lucky.
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