cycas

[cycas]

ily miffy 🩷

[cycas]

First contact, or a miscommunication about which miniatures you were supposed to bring to tonight's game (John Karp, The Space Gamer 17, May-June 1978)

#Rocannon's World

[cycas]

[cycas]

Submitted by @sky-the-snail-fanatic

#I know the national anthem in Welsh #various French nursery rhymes. #most of Mud Mud Glorious Mud in Latin #and A Elbereth Gilthoniel in Sindarin #I used to know a lot of the Finrod Zong songs (Russian) but I've forgotten most of them now.

[cycas]

Gloin was present at the Battle of Azanulbizar, where Thorin gained his Oakenshield name, where Dain killed Azog, and saw the Balrog.

Gloin was sixteen years old then.

When Gloin set off on the quest for Erebor, he didn't take Gimli with him, saying that he was too young. Gimli was 62!

I wonder how hard it was for Gloin at the Council of Elrond, to say to Gimli : yes, you are old enough now.

[cycas]

Throwback Thursday

I was tagged by @starspray, thank you!

A Feanorian Week 2017 offering:

See How They Burn

Fandom: Silmarillion Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Relationships: Fëanor/Nerdanel, Fëanor & his siblings Summary: Vignettes from the relationship of Fëanor and Nerdanel, from beginning to parting.

Tagging @cycas, @joyfullynervouscreator, @nimium-amatrix-ingenii-sui and anyone else who would like to play.

#fic #rec #feanor

[cycas]

It's not every day that I feel the tale of the god Tyr and the wolf Fenrir is particularly relevant to my daily life, but today I have been giving my dog his ear medication.

#I am pleased to report I still have two hands #but I have definitely been Threatened.

[cycas]

Rereading the Lord of the Rings series recently, and it's so fascinating to me how much the series is a denial of the typical juvenile power-fantasy that is associated with the fantasy genre.

Like, the power-fantasy is the temptation the Ring uses against people It tempts Boromir with becoming the "one true king" that could save his people with fantastic power. It tempts Sam with being the savior of Middle Earth and turning the ruin that is Mordor into a great garden. It tempts Gandalf and Galadriel with being the messianic figure of legend who brings salvation to Middle Earth and great glory to herself.

The things the Ring tempts people with are becoming the typical protagonists of fantasy stories that we expect to see. and over and over we see that accepting that role, that fantasy of being the benevolent all-powerful hero, is a bad thing. LotR is about how power, even power wielded with benevolent intent, is corrupting.

And its so fascinating how so much of modern fantasy buys into the very fantasy LotR denies. Most modern fantasy is about being that Heroic power-fantasy. About good amassing power to rival evil. But LotR dares not to. It dares to be honest that there is no world where anyone amasses that power and remains good.

I guess that's one of the reasons its so compelling.

[cycas]

I don't have time to keep up with all the clever, innovative, hand-crafted fics coming out even in my favorite fandoms...

I'm guessing that 1.8% of readers (at the moment) have a very specific kink and want to read two rarely-written characters getting it on in *exactly* that way, with no wider requirements for making sense or having a plot arc. Struggling to think of any other situations where anyone would choose to read those fics.

There are currently ~2300 works in AO3 tagged with "Created Using Generative AI"

I'll be upfront with my opinion, which mirrors my opinion in regards to my field: using AI will only hasten your own obsolescence. The point of fanfiction is not to crank out fics, but rather to enjoy the hobby and communities of writing and fandom.

[cycas]

Aaaaaaaaaaaa!  A lost short story by Rosemary Sutcliff has been found! No canon knowledge needed.  Under 3000 words.  

If you make things and are discontented with them and wonder why you bother, READ THIS.  

[cycas]

The Beast that Bothers

#all of these are better than the Beast that crawls under the duvet to viciously attack your toes at 3am

[cycas]

Odd interaction at the bookstore yesterday. Got summoned to the register in my capacity as Employee Who Knows About Old Books because a customer wanted to know what Don Quixote was about.

(Yes, this does mean that the employee already at the register wasn’t able to answer that question. I have a lot of “what are they teaching you in those schools?” interactions with my younger co-workers.)

Anyway, I gave the customer a quick synopsis. He asked if I’d recommend it, and I said I would, that it was not only well-written but also pretty accessible & engaging for a novel written four hundred years ago. Then he asked if he would “see things differently after reading it.”

He then elaborated that he really liked Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist and wanted other books he read to have a similar paradigm-shifting effect.

(I haven’t read The Alchemist, specifically because every time someone recommends it to me they use this same kind of language, which makes me feel like they’re trying to get me to join a cult rather than read a book.)

Anyway, we are in a college town, so “young person who’s just learned what philosophy and poetry are and now thinks of themselves as Deep” is a Type of Guy we encounter fairly frequently.

(Just a few hours before this, I overheard a young man recommending a book to his female companion because it would “help with her creative energies”.)

So it’s not that this is particularly unusual in vibes, it’s more that… this seems like an odd standard to hold a novel to before you read it. And it’s an odd question to ask your local bookseller — “will this book change my life?” I dunno, man, I don’t know your life. Maybe it will, books do that sometimes.

Anyway, I told him “probably”, because honestly Don Quixote is a really good book and I think more people should read it. And, I dunno, maybe it will make him see things differently.

(It might even make him see novels as intrinsically worth reading rather than as vessels for personal change.)

I have no idea if that worked, because as mentioned I wasn’t at the register at the time. I went back to organizing the used books and didn’t see him again. Kind of hope he bought it.

(To be clear, at no point during this conversation was he holding a copy of Don Quixote. I had to instruct him to look under “C” for “Cervantes” if he decided he wanted to buy it. His curiosity was sparked by a set of novelty bookends.)

#'His curiosity was sparked by a set of novelty bookends.' #is just the killer blow for this post #brilliant

[cycas]

Injured elf soldier

#pretty

[cycas]

[cycas]

OK. I have now posted 1,002,976 words on Ao3, and I am damn well going to finish writing Murder in Moria next.

I have 8,800 words of it already. HOW HARD CAN IT BE to get it finished???

#writing #whinge #moan

[cycas]

@cuarthol's tag #beorian descendants in the wild made me spit out my drink. :-D

Obsessed with the old lady in the store I overheard say, "Well, you know me. I can't resist a gnome"

#GNOMES

[cycas]

I was struck with how very long the House of Durin hung onto that last Ring, the Seventh Ring that the Elves of Eregion gave them directly. All the long years of Moria, and then almost 900 after that, when they had lost home after home and were seriously poor, and yet they kept Celebrimbor's Ring when they had lost nearly everything else.

Probably, doing that was why Thrain got snatched by the Necromancer.

#gimli #Celebrimbor #fic