just another facet of Dream

"Facets, Matthew. Each facet catches the light in its own way. It glints and sparkles and flashes uniquely. It would be almost possible to believe that the facet was the jewel; not just a tiny part of it. But, then, as we move the jewel another facet catches the light...." | ao3: themidnightbard | fanfiction and Sandman and storytelling

[themidnightbard]

Credo

When it comes to interacting with others in Fandom (and life in general) after much internal (and external) conflict and debate I’ve decided to adopt the Neil Gaiman thought process. Feel free to consider these the “rules” of my blog, along with the very simple rule of ‘Don’t be an asshole’

-I believe that in the battle between guns and ideas, ideas will, eventually, win.

-I believe that it is difficult to kill an idea, because ideas are invisible and contagious, and they move fast.

-I believe that you can set your own ideas against ideas you dislike. That you should be free to argue, explain, clarify, debate, offend, insult, rage, mock, sing, dramatize, and deny. 

-I do not believe that burning, murdering, exploding people, smashing their heads with rocks (to let the bad ideas out), drowning them or even defeating them will work to contain ideas you do not like. 

-Ideas spring up where you do not expect them, like weeds, and are as difficult to control. 

-I believe that repressing ideas spreads ideas. 

-I believe that people and books and newspapers are containers for ideas, but that burning the people who hold the ideas will be as unsuccessful as firebombing the newspaper archives. It is already too late. It is always too late. The ideas are already out, hiding behind people’s eyes, waiting in their thoughts. They can be whispered. They can be written on walls in the dead of night. They can be drawn. 

-I believe that ideas do not have to be correct to exist. 

-I believe you have every right to be perfectly certain that images of god or prophet or human (or fictional character) that you revere are sacred, and undefilable, just as I have the right to be certain of the sacredness of speech, and of the sanctity of the right to mock, comment, to argue and to utter. 

-I believe I have the right to think and say the wrong things. 

-I believe your remedy for that should be to argue with me or to ignore me, and that I should have the same remedy for the wrong things that I believe you think. 

-I believe that you have the absolute right to think things that I find offensive, stupid, preposterous or dangerous, and that you have the right to speak, write, or distribute these things, and that I do not have the right to kill you, maim you, hurt you, or take away your liberty or property because I find your ideas threatening or insulting or downright disgusting. You probably think some of my ideas are pretty vile too. 

-I believe that in the battle between guns and ideas, ideas will, eventually, win. Because the ideas are invisible, and they linger, and, sometimes, they can even be true. 

-Neil Gaiman, Credo

[amuseoffyre]

[caffiend-queen-deactivated20260]

I’d laugh harder but this is uncomfortably accurate.

[themidnightbard]

Personally I look forward to Tom Sturrage as Morpheus becoming the next Tumblr Sexyman

[sandmancentral]

THE SANDMAN (2022-)

[themidnightbard]

.....I refuse to apologize for the absolute hellscape this blog is going to become once this show drops

[seananmcguire]

How many Wayward Children books are there going to be? According to the wiki, there are 10 planned. Is 10 for sure the last one? Do you have any characters you're considering writing about but you're not sure yet?

As many as I am allowed to write. There are currently ten under contract, which is not the same thing as "ten planned."

[themidnightbard]

I will literally sell my soul just to keep that series going. 

[lindswyrm]

You could say he’s rather Dream-y…

I will see myself out.

[books-and-cookies]

watching the rings of power trailer

[vildo]

[littlemisspascal]

A message to the writers of the fandom from Javi 💜

[sindar-princeling]

a friendly reminder 🔫🙂

(ID is added in alt text)

[themidnightbard]

Jeff Bezos claiming to be a “fan” of Lord of the Rings and this show being his “passion project” is such a perfect example of how you can be a fan of something and still not understand it at all. 

[karkkidoeswriting]

Learning this drove me mad. I have so many thoughts about this. Sorry for the incoming rant :’D

So one of Tolkien’s biggest influences was The Arts and Crafts Movement. He has said he took very intentionally inspiration from William Morris, one of the most influential figures inside the movement. The Arts and Crafts Movement started in the mid-19th century and it was an artistic movement born in England as opposition towards the industrial revolution. They basically birthed modernism in arts and no one ever talks about them. The movement was built on top of industrial reformist and anti-capitalist thinkers of late 18th and early 19th century. I’m saying they were socialists.

They believed industrialization and capitalism led to financial, moral, spiritual and creative decline of society. This can be seen very easily in how Mordor, Saruman and the orcs industrialize destroying nature, creating artistically uninspired war machines and being just evil. It’s depicted as efficient but it’s all for more efficient suffering.

The Arts and Crafts Movement sought to elevate traditional craftsmanship and applied arts in general on the same level with fine arts. They believed people’s life could be improved with beauty in day to day life and in home. Beauty was achieved with devout craftsmanship by a content craftsman in a good working environment. This was the most important standard of art. They also believed division of labour would prevent the craftsman of truly enjoying his work. These ideas are woven into every fiber of Tolkien’s writing. It’s very apparent with the hobbits, who appreciate their home and the little everyday joys the most in life. It’s in the care which Tolkien writes about elf and dwarf craftsmanship. A lot of importance in the worldbuilding is put on crafts, which culture and life is build around. The whole story is build around them. In Silmarillion the Silmarils are more than just MacGuffins, they are an example of craftmanship of highest order. Same with the Rings of Power, their creation is almost as big of a story as the quest to destroy them. In his world craftsmen have higher appreciation than warriors. Fëanor was the high king of Ñoldor and the most famous smith ever. Celebrimbor was also a prince and the second famous smith ever.

Another big thing in common with Tolkien and The Arts and Crafts was both of their interest in the Medieval. The Arts and Crafts Movement didn’t advocate for feudal system ofc, they were socialists, but while they wanted to revive medieval crafts, they didn’t want to just recreate Gothic style (Neo-Gothic style was the dominant style in applied arts when Arts and Crafts Movement was born) they wanted to use the methods honed for centuries and create new things that would fit for the new age and modern life. Function was just as important as beauty for them. I think this is also displayed in Tolkien’s attitude towards creation. He translated medieval texts like Beowulf, but he wasn’t just content in repeating old things, with mythology traditions in mind he created his own world and own stories.

They were both also more or less anarchists. Tolkien wrote to his son, that his politics are closest to anarchism. The Arts and Crafts Movement’s brand of socialism was anarchist. They advocated for communal living and communal non-hierarchical artist guilds (with various success in achieving that). The whole movement was self-organizing and with no authority figures. Even William Morries who is often seen as the one, who really kick-started the movement in practice, wasn’t in important roles in any of the biggest organizations inside the movement. Tolkien’s anarchism isn’t very overt in his writing, the world is very monarchist (his second favorite option for societal structure was bizarrely parliamentary monarchism) and vaguely feudalist, but I think it can be seen in the themes of co-operation and comradery. There is a distinct “let’s band together to oppose the expanding imperialist” energy in his stories.

So what about Jeff Bezos? Do we think he relates to these themes? Agrees with them? Is it the reason why he allegedly loves these books? Or would Tolkien despise everything about him and what he represents? Who can tell.

But in my humble opinion, his dream of a fully automated online everything-shop would horrify Tolkien. I’m guessing Tolkien would be pretty pissed about Amazon’s working conditions and the very high level of mechanization that has taken the division of labour inside Amazon warehouses to a logical extreme. Tolkien also probably wouldn’t appreciate the very hierarchical and dictatorial regime inside the company or the fact that it’s monopolizing the whole fucking world. Since environmentalism was so important to Tolkien, I think he maybe would appreciate the least Amazon’s terrible part in the destruction of our ecosystem.

tl;dr: If Jeff Bezos was in Middle Earth, he would be a manager in Mordor.

[themidnightbard]

‘The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim’ Sets April 2024 Theatrical Release

For those who can’t have their fill of the Lord of the Rings in the upcoming Amazon series, there’s The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim anime movie from New Line Cinema and W…

Okay! New plan, everyone! 

We’re going to spend our time and energy being excited about the Rohirrim film! 

It’s being done by New Line Cinema, the original studio who did the Jackson Lord of the Rings films, and the production crew behind it includes Philippa Boyens, Richard Taylor, John Howe, and is being directed by Kenji Kamiyama.

It also focuses on one specific time period within the vast history of Middle Earth instead of trying to crush down and condense a HUGE era FULL of moments that could easily take up an entire film or show themselves into a single show. 

The fact that the time period the movie focuses on happens within the lifetime of a single Human as well helps.  

(somebody please edit a gif of Gandalf arriving at Helm’s Deep with Eomer and the Rohirrim but put The War of the Rohirrim title over it because honestly that’s what it feels like right now) 

[themidnightbard]

Jeff Bezos claiming to be a “fan” of Lord of the Rings and this show being his “passion project” is such a perfect example of how you can be a fan of something and still not understand it at all. 

[avi17]

How do you absolutely hate everything you’ve seen from the LotR series especially today but also make it clear to the racists that you are absolutely not with them

Like fuck I want to support this purely bc they’re bitching that the diverse casting is ruining it, but so far the diversity is the only thing here that ISN’T a mistake

Also get these super gendered outfits and workplace acceptable short male hair the fuck away from my androgynous elves

[themidnightbard]

Can’t help but wonder if somebody (not me because I don’t have the time to moderate and I wouldn’t know how to anyways) should create a private Lord of the Rings/Tolkien discord so that those of us who either wish to ignore the show all together, or discuss it/analyze it/critique it in a respectful and intellectual way without having to deal with all of the bullshit racist assholes who have suddenly come out of the woodworks, have somewhere to hang out. 

If anyone either knows of a discord server already or creates one, drop me a link! 

[themidnightbard]

Really the most frustrating thing about the discourse surrounding the show right now is how anyone with any legitimate criticisms about how they’re representing Tolkien’s works is being overshadowed by a bunch of racist assholes screaming about “pc wokeness”, which delegitimizes any actual critiques because it allows anyone to just point at people who criticize the show and say, “If you hate this show you are just racist” and that is the death of intelligent and respectful debate. 

99% of criticisms I’ve both read and written about the show have mainly been to how they’re fucking with the lore, how the only female Dwarf character we’ve seen has no beard whatsoever, how two out of three of the Elven characters we’ve seen have short hair, how they’re completely rewriting established characterizations by having Elrond be “politically ambitious”, how they’re adding original characters where they really don’t need to, and just other things like that. The vast majority of us do not give a fucking flying donkey turd about the cast being POC. 

If you know anything about Tolkien at all you would know that racism and sexism have absolutely no place in the fandom, whether you’re strictly a movie fan or strictly a book fan or a combination of both. 

I mean it’s not like the character arcs of Legolas and Gimli was literally a commentary of how fucking stupid racism is or anything

And if you’re one of the assholes who is complaining about how they’re “trying to shove their PC wokeness down our throats” you can fucking fuck right back off to Mordor you fucking knob head because you are not only ruining this for the rest of us (even those of us who are against what we’ve seen of the show so far, you’re ruining it for us), but you have proven that you do not understand Tolkien at all. 

You are literally the reason that people think Tolkien is racist. 

Fuck right off, and go die in a goddamn hole. 

[themidnightbard]

Honestly the biggest crime the show has committed is how generic and boring it looks. 

You are dealing with not only the Grandfather of all modern High Fantasy settings, but are attempting to adapt a huge chunk of what is essentially the Middle Earth Bible (the Silmarillion). 

And you made it look like every other fantasy show and series that is out now like..... 

I don’t even have the words to describe my disappointment right now.