#fastitocalon

[gardengalwrites]

2023 FFVIII Fanart

I had never planned to share my artwork on here for the usual self-conscious reasons: Nobody will be interested in my stuff...Digital art seems way cooler these days...I'm honestly more of a writer than an artist.

But then I remembered that my vision for this blog was to preserve and showcase and honor different expressions of my favorite game of all time!

So here I am, contributing a couple of pieces to the FFVIII Museum. I drew these to go along with my fanfics and originally posted the art in the author's notes of the relevant chapters.

Enjoy. ☺️

Magazine spread featuring the Fastitocalon:

Xu as a glamorous movie star:

I look forward to creating more fanart in 2024.

Happy New Year to all of my Tumblr mutuals (and anyone else who is reading this)!

#final fantasy viii #ff8 fanart #my art #fastitocalon #xu

[naryaflame]

Fastitocalon

One of my moodboards for @tolkienrsb 2023, based on the poem 'Fastitocalon' from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. I've been lucky enough to see previews of @thedaughterofshadows's fic and it's SUPER cool. If you like in world meta, folk tales, Círdan, hobbits, and the transmission of tales through the years, this is for you!

#tolkien #fastitocalon #the adventures of tom bombadil #moodboard #my stuff #trsb #trsb23

[swanmaids]

ulmo grants his favourite couple a gift on the day of the birth of their first grandchild. written for the @yearoftheotpevent april prompt ‘peace’.

It was sometimes said by the Men of Númenor that in the early days of the reign of Elros Tar-Minyatur, the Star of High Hope was four times seen to shine in place from morning till night, never moving nor fading, and this tale was indeed the truth.

~

Elwing, albatross, soared with the rising dawn to greet Eärendil her beloved aboard Vingilot as he drew in towards her tower. She landed on the deck barefoot in her woman-shape, nude, and wound her arms around his shoulders.

This was how Elwing began each day in Aman, yet this morning was different. For instead of preparing to land as always, as she released him Eärendil raced to the wheel at the bow and turned, so that the great sail billowed across the other side of the wind, and Vingilot turned.

“We haven’t time to spare!” he cried, “Ulmo came before me as I sailed tonight, and he spoke to me of one blessing he has granted us; but only for today- we must make for Númenor with haste!”

~

Elwing dressed herself in Eärendil’s spare tunic (too wide in the shoulders) and trousers (which barely grazed her ankles), and returned to Eärendil’s side on the deck. He wrapped an arm around her waist, and pressed his face into her neck, breathing her in, the light of the silmaril bound to his brow glowing in the blue-black of her hair.

“It’s beautiful in the dawn,” she said, meaning the ocean, and it was. The coral-pink sky sparkled with Arien’s light and the light of the silmaril on the water, and off the coast of Aman it was so clear that flying low as they were, they could see shining pearls tossed about on the sea-floor, and fish like many-coloured jewels.

As they crossed the Enchanted Isles, and over the wider sea, many among the great and small creatures of Ulmo appeared to the flying ship. There was the mighty whale Uin, shooting a jet of water up onto the deck in greeting as he swum among the islands; and as they came closer Elwing and Eärendil saw that one rock was no island at all, but the dread turtle Fastitocalon, yet he did them no harm. Swimming among a school of porpoise were a dozen mermaids with hair and scales of many colours, who rose to the surface and sung in a tongue unintelligable to see Vingilot; and following them was Uinen their queen, unmistakable in her beauty and fierceness.

After Uinen had passed, Eärendil raised the ship higher in the sky and Elwing armed herself with a boathook; for where Uinen went Ossë was sure to be close. Yet when they did encounter him, he simply skated over the waves and raised a hand to the mariners.

Eärendil smiled, and said that all the spirits of the sea must have come out to see his fair wife, and she laughed. And at last when they reached the star-shaped island of Númenor, Salmar appeared before them and he played the great horn of Ulmo, and the song awoke in the hearts of many mariners across the land.

High above the island they soared, and each looked down through a spyglass. As they flew, the seabirds of Númenor flew to join them, the sea-mews and the puffins and the gannets, and they spoke to Elwing and told her to sail as far as the Palace of the King in golden Armenelos.

~

Elros Tar-Minyatur, Elrond his twin, and his wife Gennoril and their newborn child, yet to be named, had waited since the coming of dawn under the tree of Nimloth for their miracle, and late that morning, it came. The star of Elros’ father shone upon his grandchild beneath the tree, and the boy smiled. And though they could not see nor speak to their parents, Elros and Elrond knew that they were with them then, and had never truly left their sides, and they smiled and wept.

That day, the Star of High Hope looked down on the royal family of Númenor until Arien journeyed out of sight, and Gennoril looked upon her child and said, “Vardamir”.

~

Elsewhere in the ocean, fishes darted through the wreckage of Sirion and mussels and limpets clung to the sunken skeleton of Ancalagon. The remains of Turgon’s ships continued to rot and crumble under the water, the bones of their sailors laid in the sand while their bodies reborn walked in Aman. And above it all, the Blessed Mariner and his wife winged with feathers looked down together as they sailed; and while they knew that the gift of today could not make up for their many losses, they held each other in gladness that it had been granted them all the same.

#earendil #elwing #starwing #the silm #my post #my fic

[vellichorvaults]

Rereading Strange Practice and recording my favourite quotes as I go. First up is a gem from Fastitocalon, settling into Ruthven's house while his copd improves.

'he’d never met a sanguivore quite so ineffably domestic, silver-screen looks and all. Ruthven ought to be wearing pearls and a frilly apron. Possibly with little bats on it. Slowly Fastitocalon was beginning to suspect himself of being ever so slightly feverish, if the quality of his thought process was anything to go by.'

#strange practice

[captainbool-bool]

Mysterious Island.  Pirates of the Caribbean Art.

Captain Jack Sparrow and Aspidochelone (aka Fastitocalon).

#my art #art #Illustration #potc #Pirates Life #pirates of the caribbean #Captain Jack Sparrow #Johnny Depp

[kangamommynow]

I am listening to the third book in this series and I just love it.

Dr. Greta Van Helsing is a doctor who treats creatures of all sorts, ridding mummies of fungal infections, helping banshees with arthritis, that kind of thing. She gets brought in to help a vampire who has been attacked. Her relationship with the demon Fastitocalon is one of my favorites.

Somehow, the series exudes a kind of decency, lack of prejudice, and kindness that I like even though it's a murder mystery.

[tolkienmatters]

Look, there is Fastitocalon!

An island good to land upon,

Although 'tis rather bare.

Come, leave the sea! And let us run,

Or dance, or lie down in the sun!

See, gulls are sitting there!

Beware!

Gulls do not sink.

There they may sit, or strut and prink:

Their part it is to tip the wink,

If anyone should dare

Upon that isle to settle,

Or only for a while to get

Relief from sickness or the wet,

Or maybe boil a kettle.

Ah, foolish folk, who land on HIM,

And little fires proceed to trim

And hope perhaps for tea!

It may be that His shell is thick,

He seems to sleep; but He is quick,

And floats now in the sea

With guile;

And when He hears their tapping feet,

Or faintly feels the sudden heat,

With smile

HE dives,

And promptly turning upside-down

He tips them off, and deep they drown,

And lose their silly lives

To their surprise,

Be wise!

There are many monsters in the Sea,

But none so perilous as HE,

Old horny Fastitocalon,

Whose mighty kindred all have gone,

The last of the old Turtle-fish.

So if to save your life you wish

Then I advise:

Pay heed to sailors' ancient lore,

Set foot on no uncharted shore!

Or better still,

Your days at peace on Middle-earth

In mirth

Fulfill!

-  Fastitocalon by J.R.R. Tolkien (The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book)

#lotr #tolkien #giant tutle?!

[kwojciechowicz]

Good news! My miniature graphic 'Fastitocalon' and 'Paradise Setting I' have found a new home :D

#artsold #sold #success #kamaarts #kamila wojciechowicz-krauze #illustration #art #warsaw #poland #warszawa #illustrator #graphics #grafika #ilustracja

[loremastering]

fastitocalon my beloathed

#lotro #there's a giant wyrm and saber tooth cat too in west rohan

[invincible-heaven]

Fastitocalon Rank B Monster Hunt - Final Fantasy XVI

#final fantasy xvi #ffxvi #squareenix #invincibleplaysffxvi #Youtube

[aleheartilly]

And the complete Caterchipillar set.

Quistis will need the Mag UP too, so now I'll slaughter the entire Bite Bugs Balamb's population for loot, and then maybe I can try again with the Glacial Eyes and the Fastitocalons.

#ffviii #ff8 #final fantasy viii #final fantasy 8 #final fantasy viii remaster #ff8 remaster #ffviii remaster #ffviii maelstrom #ff8 maelstrom #final fantasy viii maelstrom #final fantasy 8 maelstrom #squall #squall leonhart #quistis trepe #quistis

[ifonlyitweregay]

the FINAL camp nano update + stats!!

day 28-30: i was on a roadtrip this weekend, so i just managed to hit my 15 minutes a day goal. still, i kept making good progress on the loretto chapel CNF piece line edits, finished up edits on the fastitocalon poem, and worked very briefly on the fall out boy essay. AND THAT’S A WRAP ON CAMP!

to recap: my goal was to write for at least 15 minutes every day this month, which i did! (with the exception of one day where i had a bad migraine, which i’m not counting)

STATS!

i don’t usually keep track of word counts/etc, i prefer time-based tracking, but i do like seeing how much i work i do on each of my projects since i hop between different things so frequently. 

for the purpose of stats, i group individual small-scale projects (individual poems, essays, etc) together under a larger genre heading (“poetry,” “essays,” etc), and i track larger projects like novels separately from each other. i also usually work on multiple projects each day, so all the days won’t add up to 30.

with that, here are my stats for camp:

the rest of the month!

#writeblr #camp nano #camp nano april 2023

[lumau]

Sam and Fass, likely preparing for the quaterly video meeting with Heaven. (As we know, Samael likes to be the snake to annoy the hell out of Gabriel.)

#samael #fastitocalon #the devil #and his favorite demon #hells civil service #grave importance #dr greta helsing series #greta helsing #vivian shaw

[tehri]

You know what, I’ve mentioned Fastitocalon at times and I feel the need to talk about this magnificent bastard who only exists in a Hobbit-verse in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.

So. Tolkien talks about Turtle-fish in literally just the poem Fastitocalon (linked here from the Council of Elrond website), in a letter (Letter #255) and in The Book of Lost Tales Part One. We don’t know much about them at all. But Fastitocalon is referred to as the last of his kind - the last of the great Turtle-fish.

Fastitocalon is essentially a giant turtle. When he’s not submerged, vegetation grows on his shell and gives him the deceitful appearance of an island. Sailors may decide to step “ashore”, but as the poem goes, Fastitocalon will notice their footsteps after a while on his shell and will dive or roll around to drown them. The poem literally advises sailors to “set foot on no uncharted shore”, which is pretty self-explanatory. If you don’t know what it is, don’t go there.

I don’t remember where I read it, because it is not in the book that I have (Tales from the Perilous Realm, which is a collection of stories and poems - Farmer Giles of Ham, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (being the original poem-collection), Leaf by Niggle, and Smith of Wootton Major), but I have read a theory somewhere that the poem about old Fastitocalon is a Hobbit-version of the Fall of Númenor - a mostly child-friendly version, mind, as it really only deals with a gigantic turtle what might drown you and not the whole “Sauron convinced the Men of Númenor to worship Melkor and to make war on the Valar” thing. But it’s a really interesting theory to me, especially considering that this is (to my knowledge) the only existing Hobbit-verses talking about the sea that we don’t know for certain were written by Bilbo or Frodo or Sam. Who wrote Fastitocalon? Who had heard stories about the Turtle-fish and decided to write this?

What makes it more interesting is that the name itself is a derivation of astitocalon in Shire-speech, which is in turn derived from the High Elven word Aspido-chelöne - which, as Tolkien mentions in letter #255, rendered in Greek means roughly “turtle with a round shield (of hide)”, and the F was added in to make the word more alliterate.

So. A High Elven word, with an alteration in Shire-speech. All clearly referring to a gigantic Turtle-fish.

What damn hobbit met a High Elf and heard stories about these creatures and wrote a poem about them? If not Bilbo or Frodo, then who? The poem is only marked as “a Hobbit-verse”, and the writer is not mentioned.

Point is, I find this fascinating, and Fastitocalon is easily one of my favourite poems by Tolkien.

#tolkien legendarium #Fastitocalon #Tales of the Perilous Realm #The Adventures of Tom Bombadil

[astrangertomykin]

Tolkientober Day 27 - a creature

Fastitocalon, the last of the turtle-fish, mentioned in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. A treacherous race that fooled men into landing on their shores and would drown them. Just a sketch because lord imagine how long this gonna take me to line. 💀

#Tolkientober #tolkien #turtle fish #my art #lotr #illustration #wip #Fastitocalon

[chimeride]

Can you draw Fastitocalon? Have you done so already? The turtle whale that mimics an island? Please tell me you have a picture of my boy

Fastitocalon, the one hundred and fourth Known One.

#Fastitocalon #Tolkien #here you go ! #its hard for me to draw turtles and whales because of the vertical format #i hope you will still enjoy it ! #turtle #whale #sea creature #the Known Ones #chimera #octem 54 #aqva 2 #416 #suggestion #anon