By God, I'll not lose Hardy!

I love writing and moaning about writing, history, reading, pretty things, cute things, and silly things. This tumblr is a mixed bag of them all! Perpetually stuck in rarepair hell. My fic on AO3. Dreamwidth.

[exhuastedpigeon]

The first rule of fandom is have fun. The second rule of fandom is find an enabler and become an enabler. Yes you should write that fic. What if it was even hornier? What if it was angstier? What if you wrote it just for me?

[talyris]

[hollypolllyy]

Final Fantasy IX Zidane and Garnet Stained Glass

[verecunda]

Started a new game of FFIX. Promptly got assailed by a lot of old FFX plotbunnies.

Because that makes complete sense.

[artanaros]

one year since the círdan reveal made my regular círdan obsession skyrocket

[eowyn7023]

I especially love Círdan's seahorse nightgown and Círdan as a L'Oréal model.

[verecunda]

@malkaleh

I was just falling asleep last night, when I was hit with the idea of Eönwë realising that Mairon is starting to recover when he asks him if he wants to go to Curumo's new smithcraft lecture, and Mairon fixes him with a withering look and says, "...don't you think one interminable age of torture?"

[malkaleh]

YES. To quote from one of my favourite books somewhat ‘oh the sweet birds of spring, I hear their glorious song’ says Eönwë as Mairon snarks his way through whatever Curumo is talking about.

[verecunda]

Mairon: 🙄🙄🙄 Eönwë: 🥹🥹🥹

(obviously, that should've said "don't you think one interminable age of torture was enough for me?" I managed to miss out about half a sentence there. X'D)

[pansyfemme]

close your eyes and imagine freshly roasted root vegetables perfectly seasoned and crispy as far as the eye can see

[nighttimepatrons]

Sam trying to get Frodo to take one more step

[nighttimepatrons]

Sam psychologically tormenting Gollum

[forked-tongue-blasphemer]

Isopod

British Library, Harley MS 3244, c. 1236-1250, folio 64r

[verecunda]

@malkaleh

I was just falling asleep last night, when I was hit with the idea of Eönwë realising that Mairon is starting to recover when he asks him if he wants to go to Curumo's new smithcraft lecture, and Mairon fixes him with a withering look and says, "...don't you think one interminable age of torture was enough for me?"

[seali]

[morphmaker]

the silmarillion bride

[xiaq]

One of the best things about being a writer is thinking of something small you can add to your work that’s just. Devastating. Like you’re sitting there going. Oh. That would be diabolical. People would get really riled up about that. Exquisite. Let’s do it.

[dduane]

It's just impossible to describe how delicious that realization is. Especially when you know your editor will approve.

(Though some of us would riposte with "It's even better when you know your editor will NOT approve." ...And this too is true.) 😄

...Writing is such a difficult (and sometimes painful) business that we have to get our small pleasures where we can. 😏

[system-coded-skirmish]

some people are taking "doomed" to mean "dead". this is actually a misconception! you can be doomed even if you don't die! it's sometimes worse if you don't die!

[invader-reggie]

Normalize answering "why do u ship them" questions with "because i felt like it" instead of writing out 200 pages of reasons why you ship it like u r begging for approval. Or give a nonsense answer.

"Why do you ship this??"

On the night of the full moon I dreamt of a talking rabbit who hopped onto my shoulder and whispered in my ear that I should ship these specific characters and I obeyed without question.

[ltwilliammowett]

This need to put a coin under a mast just won’t let me go. It is originally a Roman custom, as the Greeks also did and put the coins under the pillars of a temple when it was built to hope for protection and luck. This is also what the coin under the mast is said to do. However, there is one thing that may also play a role. A silver coin was placed under the tongue or on the eyes of a dead person so that he could pay Charon, the ferryman of the underworld, for his passage. If a ship sank, it was hardly possible to give a coin to the dead and not everyone had a coin directly with them when this happened. What if this coin was not only a good luck charm but also a means of payment for Charon when this happened? I will think about it further and read some books, maybe there is a clue for this thesis….

[verecunda]

Oh! Is this a widespread custom, then? I know I’ve read about a Roman shipwreck in the Thames that was found with a coin in the mast-step, but I didn’t realise it was a common thing. That was the first time I’d ever heard of it.

Interesting theory about it being intended to pay Charon!

[ltwilliammowett]

Oh that was even very common, so far 17 ships have been found with a coin, like this one

Dr. Deborah Carlson has written a very interesting article on this subject,  “Mast‐Step Coins among the Romans”  maybe you want to read more about it.

[archaeos]

If you don’t mind me adding — ships themselves were often held to contain a sort of divine or living spirit, which may possibly connect to this notion of payment for the dead. From Brody, A. 2008, ‘The Specialised Religions of Ancient Mediterranean Seafarers’, Religion Compass, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00079.x:

Evidence for divine spirits imbued in ships is found in diverse sources. There are very few extant Canaanite or Phoenician maritime texts, yet we know from the Ugaritic Kirta epic that the sacred mountain, Mt. Zaphon, was represented as a ship, and a parallel reference from an Egyptian papyrus details that Ba‘l Zaphon was worshipped in the form of a ship (Brody 1998). In later periods, seafarers dedicated ships, or model ships, to Zeus Kasios, Ba‘l Zaphon’s direct Hellenic counterpart, or more generally to Zeus the Savior, Zeus Soter. A letter from the king of Tyre to the king of Ugarit details the sinking of a ship in a storm. This ship is said to have literally died in the tempest, suggesting an animate spirit that perished with the loss of the vessel […] (Wachsmuth 1967; Göttlicher 1981; Brody 1998).

[ltwilliammowett]

Thank you for adding it. This is really a very exciting topic and I had already talked about it with one of my former professors who works a lot in the field of ancient religion. She hasn’t come across it yet either, she also finds my suggestion exciting and now we’re sitting down together to see if there are any research approaches in this area. However, it’s still at the beginning and quite rough, because so far we haven’t found anything in this direction. So now we have to search through ancient texts…

[depsidase]

[cilil]

The thing that the people who get mad about Nienna defending Melkor and other bad people don't understand is that, being the Lady of Mercy, she is quite literally the public defender archangel. She was created and designed to be able to have empathy for literally everyone in existence, so that no one is ever alone without anyone to speak for them.

And for those who get mad at public defenders and defense attorneys I will also point out that it's absolutely vital for having a state under the rule of law that respects human rights and is not run on the whims and good (or ill) will of those in power that even the worst person imaginable has someone defending them in court.

Similarly, it is vital that someone like Nienna exists. You can probably see now why her close connection to Námo is not a coincidence - he needs her. And why she is counted among the Aratar.

[mhevarujta]

For it is said that even in the Music Nienna took little part, but listened intent to all that she heard. Therefore she was rich in memory, and farsighted, perceiving how the themes should unfold in the Tale of Arda. But she had little mirth, and all her love was mingled with pity, grieving for the harms of the world and for the things that failed of fulfilment. So great was her ruth, it is said, that she could not endure to the end of the Music. Therefore she has not the hope of Manwe. He is more farseeing; but Pity is the heart of Nienna

It's important to note that Nienna's pity and mercy does not come out of ignorance, but out of undestanding. It's a different kind of strength. Of course the idea that she defends Melkor has its roots in a version of the Annals of the Valar in which she, Melkor and Manwe are siblings and Nienna supports Melkor "because of her kinship". But I think it makes sense for her to do so even outside of that familial relationship.

There is a quote by Nienna which does not concern Melkor, but I think it can be used about her stance in many situations:

'In the use of Justice there must be Pity, which is the consideration of the singleness of each that cometh under Justice."

Nienna's mercy alone is at times excessive. She is consumed by it and by her compassion. But the Valar were not created to stand alone. They encompassed different aspects that are all necessary for Eru's great plan to run as smoothly as possible. Nienna's empathy, her grief, her forgiveness, are vital. What would be the alternative? For everything to be left to Mandos' pittiless (with one exception) jurisdiction? The Valar without Nienna would have ended up being more alike to Melkor that they'd ever wish to be.