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Unpopular opinion: I think it's worth thinking about social media in terms of sobriety much like we do alcohol.

I get internet addiction is it's own thing but as someone who's been sober for the last 2 years - longest point at any time in my adult life - they fucking feel pretty similar. I finally went all in on cutting out all social media but Tumblr a few weeks ago and I'm having very similar symptoms to when I cut out drugs and alcohol. It's like parts of my brain I didn't realize had shut off are coming back online.

And what I mean by this specifically is that in the same way that we have discussions about lack of sober (per alcohol) spaces in communities - especially the queer community - I think it's worth having those conversations around social media sobriety too.

The people who designed some of our biggest platforms used the same techniques as casino gambling. If every community event was held in a casino and gambling was basically required, we'd probably at minimum have a discussion about it. But mention it with social media and everyone acts like you're against the printing press/reading.

I'm just saying it should be normal to maintain friendships outside of social media. And it's been real slim pickings which friends have kept in touch off of it.

Reminds me of how part of what kept me in the bar scene was because my friends only ever wanted to hang out at them. Which kept me drinking. Which was...not great for me. At minimum.

Not pushing a specific solution - just saying it's worth considering. Does your community have gathering spaces that aren't selling ad space and dictated in part by an algorithm? Does maintaining friendships require a major platform? Can people find out about events without needed to sign up for a Facebook account? Etc.

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haladriel + text posts

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listen to me. listen. your actual job in life, and it sucks that your 5th grader teacher didnt explain this adequately enough, is to ask for help when you need it and to accept charity when it would take a weight from your shoulders. Otherwise you end up like Sisyphus- or even worse, Walter White

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Finrod and Beor inspired by True Thomas by Charles Vess

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The way he talks about Tolkien and lore and the books....and all his knowledge about middle earth makes him so attractive.... !!!

Charlie Vickers as Halbrand aka Sauron in The rings of power

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basically tv sucks because all the really good writers are fucked up recluse hermits that spend all day alone, vividly hallucinating about imagined worlds, and don’t have any industry connections or even earthly tethers

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articles written by the coronavirus

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Unbelievable that boromir only learned the ring survived AT the council

the fact that at the council of elrond glorfindel is like “just throw the ring into the ocean” is so funny to me after reading the silmarillion just because it feels like the subtext is him being like “yeah let’s try maglor’s patented and tested method: Just Yeet The Accursed Fucking Thing Into The Water”

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For the horrible MS paint art request: an Aegnor with canon-accurate hair: "while his hair was notable: golden like his brothers and sister, but strong and stiff, rising upon his head like flames." (bonus but not required if Andreth is in the pic, too) 💖

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maedhros in the midst of chasm (maedhros holding silmaril)

(do not repost or use my art)

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WOW thank you for kind words everyone i’m glad you like him 🥺🤲🏼💖

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also i mightve answered this vaguely in an ask before but

the bishops are sustained through blood and flesh. im sure youve noticed, but they are all based on predatory species of animals. they cannot entirely starve to death, but if not given flesh, they will get weaker

that being said

-heket and leshy love to eat things - heket is a connoisseur of food for sure. she will try anything you put in front of her and comment about it. her comments are honest, but not always nice. aside from flesh, her favorite thing to eat are salads because they are essentially a mix of raw ingredients from the farmlands that make up anura. a nice taste of home! - leshy eats things because he explores the world with his mouth. he cares a lot less how things taste and just loves the feeling of chomping down on something and it maybe breaking

-kallamar is curious about eating mortal food but is afraid - i think the bishops rid themselves of their own domains so he is very clean. he is afraid of germs even though he cannot actually get sick, just an anxiety thing. food is very foreign to him and he is very shy about trying it

-narinder does if offered but doesn't seek it - it's a nice treat to chew on something new but most, if not all the time he actually eats mortal food it's heket asking him to try something.

-shamura eats nothing - they dont need anything other than blood and flesh, why bother? they're strict in separating themselves from mortals, wanting to be seen more as an elusive, all-powerful being rather than a god for the people. not indulging in food is part of that seperation

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“Her [Nienna] song turned to lamentation long before its end, and the sound of mourning was woven into the themes of the World before it began. But she does not weep for herself; and those who hearken to her learn pity, and endurance in hope” The Silmarillion.

I depict Lady Nienna’s eyes as red, not as evil but as raw from her constant crying for the world. Lady Nienna’s mourning is also laced with anger for the suffering of the children of her father, Ilúvatar. She teaches pity and compassion to her apprentices, most famous among them, Istar Olórin, commonly knows as Gandalf.

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There’s another draft (“the Draft”) of The Silmarillion where Amrod and Amras (then still Damrod and Diriel) primarily lead the Third Kinslaying, with Maedhros and Maglor offering “reluctant” aid, and this is fascinating to me because it offers, frankly, the most characterization of the twins we get anywhere in the Legendarium.

We know almost nothing about them and I think they often get the treatment of a youngest sibling or set of twins by the fandom which is that they’re kind of cheeky and run a bit wild but are generally amiable and comedic. The picture painted by this brief mention in the Draft is very different. It presents a much darker side to the twins which perhaps existed before, or perhaps developed only after they had been apart from their brothers for a long while in Middle-earth.

Generally I still picture Maedhros as the “leader” but the idea of Amrod and Amras driving the effort to attack the Havens at Sirion even after the events of the Second Kinslaying is quite juicy. Not only are they the champions of this effort in the Draft, Tolkien describes how they “ravaged” Sirion. They were fearsome in their efforts to regain the Silmaril, perhaps to the point that their own willingness to violence led to their deaths there. This was not “just as much violence as we need to get what we want,” this is characterized as wanton brutality, which to me smacks of revenge for the deaths of their brothers.

They would have also been likely to know that the Gondolindrim–the remnants of their cousins’ people–were there as well, but clearly this did not stay their hands, if they knew it.

There’s something narratively fascinating about the twins returning from their travels and sojourns abroad in the wilds of Middle-earth as people their brothers don’t recognize anymore, in becoming drivers of the violence that’s now taken three of their brothers. Was it an act of revenge, primarily? Did they see themselves as avenging Celegorm, Caranthir, and Curufin on the refugees of Doriath? Was it about the Silmaril? And if it was, was it about retaking something that belonged to them, or avenging their father’s murder and robbery, or just about having something to show for all the years they had been chewing over that oath?

(I come again to the fact that Melkor still possessed two Silmarils, but the Feanorians chose to pursue Luthien’s–and again I think Amrod and Amras were not out for the Silmaril, but for revenge.)

And as to Maedhros and Maglor–why allow the twins to talk them into this? Did they see no other way and so considered it a necessary evil? Was it just that Amrod and Amras were willing to suggest that they all saw as the only path? Were they unwilling to let Amrod and Amras go alone, for safety? Did Amrod and Amras convince them it was necessary to avenge their brothers, or that none of them would be at peace without Luthien’s Silmaril? And what were Maedhros and Maglor’s feelings on it in the long run, when it became clear what a mistake they had made?

I know this part didn’t make it into the published Silmarillion, so it’s deuterocanonical at best, but being as it’s basically the only evidence we have of what Amrod and Amras were like as people, I can’t help but return to it. What were the twins like? Going off this, every bit as terrifying as the rest of their brothers.