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brighter-arda · 11 months

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Galadriel in aroace colours for Day 1 @aspecardaweek 🧡💛🤍💙🔵

Part 15 of toi's indigenous tolkien series

[Image description: edit in yellow/blue/white/orange

1: Nontobeko Mbuyazi sitting with one arm on her knee. She is a albino Zulu woman. Photo is orange, background is blue, text = Galadriel, Lady of Light

2: art (The Trees of Valinor by Aronja-Art, link to original)

3: white messy fabric

4: Nontobeko Mbuyazi in front of window. Photo has blueish greenish tones and background is yellow. Same text as before

5: Nontobeko Mbuyazi in front of a pale sky. Picture is white and background is yellow. Same text as before

6: a glass beach (beach covered in many-coloured sea glass worn down to pebbles)

7: a blue forest

8: Nontobeko Mbuyazi with orange eye make-up. Photo is orange and background is white.]

#galadriel #silmarillion #lotr #the third age #tolkien women of colour #black tolkien #southern african tolkien #disabled character #moodboards and edits #toi's creations #toi's indigenous tolkien series #aspecardaweek #mepoc #contains image description #for prompt: asexual

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mirillel · 1 year

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Don't mind me bragging a little, I'm just very in love with this little bag <3

#not usually a purse person but the colours are so perfect #plus during summer time when i don't have big coat pockets it does get annoying to have to carry my backpack for like 3 things #anyway middle aged women at work showing me cute stuff are the best <3 #personal #not tolkien

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ettelenethelien · 1 month

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ok, but how much did the numenoreans know about the fate of men? because...

the thing is, when you share Tolkien's Faith, the way it's always presented as such a huge mystery is almost funny. because you can so, so easily guess -- well, not even guess, you just know what he meant; it has to be the same as ours, whereas in-world it's always "well, mandos knows, and maybe manwë". kudos for being aware of something most of the valar aren't, then.

but how much do the numenoreans know or guess? they say "we must die and go we know not whither" and I used to pity them a bit for that uncertainty -- which, of course, would not excuse anything, but might be disquieting, especially when you're placed next to the immortal elves. we seem to be pointed towards the edain of the first age having no beliefs they were certain about in regards to this, going only on hope -- one of the closest things we get is when hurin has his moment of defiance to morgoth: "well, you cannot keep on tormenting us after we die! then we're out of your reach", but interestingly, as far as what concerns us here, he replies to an accusation that he's just repeating what the elves taught him (which is not a valid counterargument, but never mind), saying that no, it just came to him in that very moment. in general, we get the idea that they know very little, though some of them vaguely hope for something good (and I do wonder whether news of Beren shook things up at all, even if he did not, after all, meet the full fate of men that first time, just waited in the hallway).

so far, so good, if a bit bleak, but then we get to The Mariner's Wife, and Meneldur's dramatic monologue:

'May Eru call me before such a time comes!' he cried aloud.

and

'I am in too great doubt to rule. To prepare or to let be? To prepare for war, which is yet only guessed: train craftsmen and tillers in the midst of peace for bloodspilling and battle: put iron in the hands of greedy captains who will love only conquest, and count the slain as their glory? Will they say to Eru: At least your enemies were amongst them? Or to fold hands, while friends die unjustly: let men live in blind peace, until the ravisher is at the gate? What then will they do: match naked hands against iron and die in vain, or flee leaving the cries of women behind them? Will they say to Eru: At least I spilled no blood?

and you could read it differently; to be honest the polish translation gives less room for doubt, which may colour my interpretation, but it does seem that he knows, or guesses with seeming certitude, and that is such a different attitude from everything else I've mentioned.

what have I to say to this? nothing except that beliefs may have grown or changed. I am very far from an expert on this, but, within ancient Israel which might be the closest analogue, and was even mentioned in connection to Númenor by Tolkien, beliefs regarding the afterlife seem to have indeed evolved with time; compare, say, the Psalms with (2nd) Maccabees (*the latter is in the Catholic Bible, but not in the Protestant ones, if you're puzzled) or Wisdom?

yes, it's not much of a conclusion, l admit, but there isn't really anything else I might say, unless it were to add that third age gondor seems to be somewhere in between, with a vague and hopeful sense of something, aragorn's "and beyond [the circles of the world] there is more than memory" and faramir's "till that time, or till some other time, beyond the reach of the seeing stones of númenor" (italics mine) being the relevant quotes. (the rather dramatic, if you think about it, context for the latter, being that faramir is probably well aware neither he nor frodo are that likely to see the next month. also worth noting that the italicised phrase is in text paired with the image of an alternatively possible - though "beyond hope" - meeting where they could "laugh at old grief, in the sun")

(the rohirrim seem to have their own beliefs, but they also seem to come with their own traditions, which, while not on the most part incompatible, may at times have been different. on the other hand, what we have is not much less vague either, just cloaked in different terms, so there isn't much evidence either way.)

#my post #Númenor #edain #Tolkien meta #tolkien #Silmarillion #lotr #peoples of arda #mini essay

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lotrladiessource · 10 months

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Lord of the Rings Ladies Week is just one week away!

This year we’re hosting a week dedicated to appreciating the female characters of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, from the queenly Arwen and courageous Eowyn to merry Goldberry and fierce Lobelia Sackville-Baggins.

Guidelines:

Tag your posts with #lotrladiesweek andmention @lotrladiessource

We’re focusing on female characters from The Lord of the Rings itself & ones with connections to it, such as second age characters like Tar-Miriel, and characters from The Hobbit like Belladonna Took. There are many other amazing women from the Silmarillion and such, but this is the LotR Ladies chance to shine!

Fanwork of all kind is welcome- art, fanfic, gifsets, graphic/aesthetic edits, fanmixes, headcanons, crafts, anything!

Per our usual policy, we will not reblog nsfw content

Bigotry of any kind will not be tolerated

Prompts:

(Note: the prompts are completely non-mandatory and can be mixed and matched however you would like to use them! They’re just meant to provide a range of creative inspiration and you don’t have to use them at all!)

Happy creating! Feel free to send us an ask if you have any questions ⭐

#lotredit #tolkienedit #hobbitedit #lotr #the hobbit #the lord of the rings #tolkien #eowyn #galadriel #arwen #celebrian #rosie cotton #rop #rings of power #lotrladiesweek #lotrladiessource

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nikethestatue · 6 months

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I didn’t know sjm got hate because she doesn’t include poc characters. I am latina born amd raise and that never bother me, because if want to read a book about my people I would look for a latin author . A white author would have cero idea of how to represent my culture. Do you also think she is racist or that her books are full of cultural appropriation? I don’t think so her books are clearly inspired by multiple folklores.

I think in books, things have to make sense and have a reason--if a writer makes someone of a certain colour, or socio-economic background, or anything else then it has to have some meaning behind it. Otherwise, it's just tokenism.

I actually appreciate that SJM did NOT make ACOTAR racially-based. Instead, it's based on High/Lesser Fae, and power and backgrounds. I appreciate that she made the Illyrians a race apart--not High and not Lesser. They are just a separate race, and it's interesting to see how she wrote prejudices based on who they intrinsically are, and not on colour. There is a time and a place to explore heavier topics in fantasy (because let's remember. it IS fantasy) and obviously, what SJM chose to explore is women's rights, women's place in these worlds, their struggles. It's not perfect, but to me, it's much more meaningful than if she threw in a random black character for example, and said, well, here you go! I think in CC, race is much more organically represented, because that's their world. The world of Prythian is just differently built.

No, I do not think that she is racist, or that she has culturally appropriated anything. That's the core of all fantasy writing--from Tolkien, to Rowling, to Martin and everyone in between--to borrow from the wealth of human experience and storytelling and create something original. It's a retelling of myths and fairy tales and stories borrowed from history and the author's personal experience.

The job of an author is to write an interesting, compelling story--not check off a bunch of boxes in a meaningless way.

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teabooksandsweets · 7 months

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A short – but finished – entry for this year's Inklings Challenge. These are ten drabbles serving as glimpses into the story I have planned, and of which I have begun (and intend to finish, and post later on) two different versions. Everything went a little different from my original expectations and plans, but a challenge is a challenge and I decided to make the best of it. So I finished a "miniature" version of sorts, rather than nothing. Some elements are alluded to that will appear in the longer stories.

Team Tolkien // Secondary World Fantasy // Visit the Imprisoned – Shelter the Homeless – Clothe the Naked // Finished – 1000 Words @inklings-challenge

This is not the story as told by the girl who was said to be dark-leaved; that will be a longer story, penned by said girl in her study in the tower.

She has fire and shoes — she knows what these things are now. She is warm, she is at home.

She knows many other things and will tell her tale in time.

This is also not the shorter story, as told not from too far away, which will follow in due time.

This is a glimpse into a faraway world and two lands, both not too far away.

Come along into this world.

Oh, do not ask “What is it?” — let us go and make or visit.

Let us go now, you and I —

and the bird (large, dark, a friend) will show the way, to meet a boar (Great and brown), a doe, a hare, a (strong, brown) bear, the moon, lamp and woman, wolf and man, and another man, who has a beard, and a princess or a prisoner (from what I have heard).

Her first friend in October — the girl's friend, in that land — will show the way.

Let us go.

The Princess in the Tower has shoes and fire, is not warm, is not at home.

The Prisoner in the Tower has no comfort but her conscience. (A clean conscience is no comfort in this place. Contrition is.)

If imprisonment is not undeserved, can liberation be deserved?

Her greatest grief is loneliness. The doe (water-coloured) knows, the woman (by the lamp-post) knows.

The bird (large, dark, the girl's first friend in October) knows snd leads the way, to make a visit, if a visit is her need.

(The damsel in the tower doesn't know; the girl will soon find out.)

For a girl (dark-leaved, they say) who knows neither shoes nor fire, a cuppa is a strange thing, especially if there's tea in it (— especially if there's brandy in the tea).

Pickled walnuts are another surprise if you grew up in a warm, wet forest with only fresh fruit and ripe nuts to eat.

But the greatest surprise is how a fire's warmth feels on cold skin in October air, in a stable, in strange company. Company that looks neither up to you (though you come from the forest) nor down on you (for you are dark-leaved).

Strange comfort.

The Great boar makes no promises, but he speaks the truth. He said the girl would see her tree again.

(Not yet, not yet!)

Said the girl would meet her friends again (vixen, and robin and pale blue eggs).

Said the girl ought to follow him, out of the forest, into the land beyond.

(“The wasteland!” said the girl. The boar accepted this term as hers. The bird called this place “the middle of October.”)

But what was the girl to do?

What could a (dark-leaved) girl do?

Good deeds? Great deeds? (A “naked child” in the middle of October?)

Ground like water, only dry — cold ground, that's what shoes are for. (Are there shoes for breasts? For hands? Ears? the girl wonders. A cape, perhaps, as winter-women wear. No such things in a green-leaved forest.)

The Great boar had brought the fallen leaves — sunlit leaves, golden leaves. Change scares the people of the forest. The dark-leaved children scare them, too, for they are not scared of change.

Following a hot cuppa in the stable, the girl received a cape against the cold. Out of plain kindness — and of good use for a later kindness, also plain.

The doe is the colour of water, and the moon is the colour of milk. (The hare is of the moon, but the girl doesn't know.)

A friend of the bird (her friend!) is the doe. Never seen from the forest, is the moon.

To the tower they lead — to visit the Prisoner.

(“Is she dark-leaved, too?”

“Is that what you call those who have dine horrid things?”

“It's what my people call those who might yet do that.”

“Then we are all dark-leaved except for the Princess, for she already has.”)

But leaves turn dark before they fall.

Every spring come green leaves, unless it is always spring. (So if it is always spring, it can never be spring again.)

The girl wears a crown of dark leaves, but the Princess' head is bare.

The doe leads the way up the moonlit stairs, leads them to the Prisoner.

“Who's there?” a light voice asks (an aged voice of a young throat).

“A friend — and me.”

“Come what for?”

“To see a tree in winter.”

“Oh — is it winter again? No wonder I'm so cold!”

(It's the middle of October, but for the Princess comes another spring.)

In her forest she was dark-leaved.

“But really, it's the middle of October,” she says to her friends. “My spring will come again.”

“You will want to go home.”

“I wish I knew how!”

“What — how?”

“Where!”

“Oh.”

“The forest is not my home. I will go there again (for the Great boar always tells the truth) but it will not be my home, for spring will never come in a forest that is always green.”

Spring comes after winter, after fall.

And yet, one woman's prison is another woman's castle, and one woman's desolation is another woman's solitude.

“Take my cape, for it is cold outside.”

“It's cold in here and you wear but a few leaves around your hips.”

“The fire is warm, you are cold now from within. (I know someone who can warm you with a cuppa tea.) I your woollen dress you are more naked than I am in my leaves. Take the cape and bring it back to the man in the stable, and thank him from me.”

“And then?” asks the Princess.

“Go into the forest, and find out how to turn dark leaves green again.”

And so the women parted ways.

#inklingschallenge #inklingschallenge2023 #inklings challenge 2023 #team tolkien #theme: shelter #theme: clothing #theme: visiting the Imprisoned #genre: secondary world #story: finished #(technicallly also unfinished re the other versions)

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arwendeluhtiene · 10 months

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✨🍃Tolkien throwback🍃✨ - Silmarillion Elven sketchdump (mid-to-late 2000s). Featuring Míriel Therinde (my apologies for spelling her name as 'Serinde' and making her dark haired by mistake, as her most common canon hair colour is silver - which her mantle is 😅), Ecthelion of Gondolin, Melian, and Elwing. Swipe for full pics and details! . . 🎨Media: Graphite, sanguine, inks and colour pencils . ✨References: Míriel's pose is based on Edward Burne-Jones' 'King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid' (both women are seen in a passive light by the male gaze and feel uncomfortable by it heh); Ecthelion is based on an Elven design by Alan Lee; Melian is based on crying Demeter from a book on Greek myth illustrated by Giovanni Caselli; and Elwing is based on an Arthurian design in a boom illustrated by Howard Pyle.

🎨ArtStation

🎨Instagram

🎨 DeviantArt

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antiracist-tolkien · 1 year

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Fingon is Black...ish?

Compared to the Hobbit or LoTR fandoms, there seems to be much more of a tendency in the Silmarillion fandom to portray characters of colour with Eurocentric features like blue eyes and a straight nose or button nose.

Fingon is the biggest example of this. Black Fingon is popular on tumblr and the depictions of him range wildly in skin colour and facial features. But even compared to characters like Aredhel, who is also often drawn as Black, a lot of people draw or write Fingon with blue eyes or light skin.

Black people can look like anything and elves especially can look like anything. They’re not human, so there’s no reason they need to conform to human phenotypes. Besides, light coloured eyes are not unique to white people. But we both know that’s not why people draw Black characters with blue eyes.

The majority of Black people (and PoC in general) have dark eyes. PoC with dark eyes are vastly under-represented in character designs, writing & art and it's because of racism and white beauty standards. While I’m not assigning motives to any individual artist or writer, the trend towards giving characters of colour 'white' features is fueled by (and regardless of intentions, contributes to) Eurocentric beauty standards and racism.

It's very common in literature and art for PoC (particularly WoC) to be given unusual or Eurocentric features to make them stand out. Think Hazel Levesque in Heroes of Olympus, who's African-American but has gold eyes and 'cinnamon' / 'caramel' hair. These features get added to characters of colour to make them seem a) unique and special, not like those other PoC who all look the same (/sarcasm) or b) more beautiful and desirable (again, particularly WoC). We're only beautiful, only worthy, if we can approach whiteness.

It's why light skinned actors get cast more. It's why Hollywood loves giving rebellious Asian women a neon hair streak (see, she's not like those other docile submissive Asian girls!). And I do think it's why people default to drawing Fingon as essentially a white European with skin tinted a few shades darker.

Imo, in Tolkien specifically, hair colour is a different scenario. It’s one of the few features that frequently gets explicitly described, and it has in-universe importance. Eye colour doesn't.

There are suggestions that many Noldor and Sindar have grey eyes, but not all of them. For example, Miriel:

silver was her hair and dark were her eyes

I think part of it is also that many people imagined Fingon as white when they read the Silmarillion and probably saw art of white, blue-eyed Fingon before they saw art of Black Fingon. It's somewhat understandable that the image of blue-eyed Fingon was cemented in their headcanons and remained even when they began headcanoning him as Black.

It can be a self-perpetuating cycle, too. When lots of Black Fingon art has him as light skinned, straight nosed and/or blue eyed, that becomes the image of him in your head.

But intentions don't change the outcome of racism.

I get it. Sometimes you get firm character images stuck in your head and nothing is going to change them. And like I said, I'm not assigning motivations to any particular individual. I don't think every single instance of Fingon having grey eyes or light skin is a bad thing. The issue is that it's not equal. I wouldn't care about designs of blue-eyed Black elves if they didn't so thoroughly outnumber brown eyed ones. If straight noses didn't outnumber wide ones.

It can be hard to change the image of a character that you have in your head. But that's not an excuse to not try.

#fingon #silmarillion #tolkien fandom racism #personal thoughts #meta

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warrioreowynofrohan · 9 months

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Favourite Female Tolkien Character Poll - Round 1, Match 28

There are three polls today, all featuring women of Gondor and Arnor!

Berúthiel

A queen of Gondor remembered for her cats. From a note in Unfinished Tales:

She was the nefarious, solitary, and loveless wife of Tarannon, twelfth King of Gondor and first of the ‘ship-kings,’ who took the crown in the name of Falastur (‘Lord of the Coasts’), and was the first childless king. Berúthiel lived in the King’s House in Osgiliath, hating the sounds and smells of the sea and the house that Tarannon built below Pelargir ‘upon arches whose feet stood deep in the wide waters of Ethir Anduin’; she hated all making, all colours and elaborate adornment, wearing only black and silver and living in bare chambers, and the gardens of the house in Osgiliath were filled with tormented sculptures beneath cypresses and yews.

She had nine black cats and one white [my note: sonehow this feels like a metaphor/imagery for Sauron and the Ringwraiths], her slaves, with whom she conversed, or read their memories, setting them to discover all the dark secrets of Gondor, so that she knew those things ‘that men wish most to keep hidden’, setting the white cat to spy on the black, and tormenting them. No man in Gondor dared to touch them; all were afraid of them, and cursed when they saw them pass.

…her name was erased from the Book of the Kings…and King Tarannon had her set on a ship alone with her cats and set adrift on the sea before a north wind. The ship was last seen flying past Umbar under a sickle moon, with a cat at the masthead and another as a figure-head on the prow.

Vidumavi

She married Valacar prince of Gondor and their son was Eldacar (if you followed the Obscure Tolkien Blorbo poll tournament, you may have heard of him).

Gondor had sought good relations with the Northmen, who lived the plains surrounding the south of Greenwood the Great. King Rómendacil II of Gondor sent his son Valacar to live for a while with Vidugavia, the king or chieftain of lands east of southern Greenwood. Valacar went further than he expected in marrying Vidugavia’s daughter Vidumavi. People in Gondor did not like this, regarding the Northmen as lesser than them, and fearing that intermarriage would make their descendents shorter-lived. After Vidumavi’s death, when Eldacar became king, there was a rebellion and civil war called the Kin-strife, in which Eldacar was ultimately victorious.

#favourite female tolkien character poll #queen beruthiel #vidumavi #gondor #the lord of the rings #unfinished tales #tolkien

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siena-sevenwits · 4 months

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Jan 5 - Day #6 - Fortnight in Books

Most beautifully-written book you read in 2023?

Beren and Luthien by JRR Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien

I think I have lived so long in Tolkien's sun that I can sometimes forget what an incredible wordsmith he is. This work was gloriously beautiful at times, both at the prose and substance level. This anthology is interesting in that it collects the many different approaches Tolkien took to try to do the story justice. The contrasts are so neat! The initial version reads something like an Edwardian children's story at times, both in the simplicity of the voice and the narrative choices. Beren is a gnome rather than a man in this version, and though Luthien is still an elf, she is a rather different kind of elf. At their first meeting, she hides from Beren behind a daisy, I believe. This is the famous "Tevildo, Prince of Cats" version of the story, where the role later filled by Sauron is instead filled by a giant feline whose penchant for dosing in the sun gives the protagonists their chance, and is the only version where Huan the sometimes-talking hound makes as much sense in relation to the rest of the story (still glad he was kept, though!) It also ends, delightfully, with Tolkien more or less saying, "And that is why, to this day, a cat will always run from a dog!" This version also features a scene where Luthien gets imprisoned in a tree house. She escapes by singing a song about long things, like ladders and strings and so on, which encourages her hair to grow to Rapunzel lengths. The verse versions are extremely lovely in wording and image, and i eventually got to the point that I just LOVED Luthien and how she and Beren save each other. Those who think Tolkien is misogynistic in his portrayal of Middle-Earth's women should really read about Luthien at greater length. There are also prose fragments, and, of course, fine linking commentary by Christopher. This book was certainly more readable than many passages in The Silmarillion, which i still haven't finished (yeah, yeah,) but I also sometimes got bogged down in it. This probably has more to do with my stamina than the book itself. I'm very glad i read it.

Favourite cover of the year award goes to:

Not sure this was much of a year for particularly beautiful covers, but I did love the colour scheme on this one especially:

#fortnight in books 2023 #recovering reader #coreander's old books

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child-of-the-danube · 1 year

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The BBC estimates that most people will only read 6 books out of the 100 listed below. Reblog this and bold the titles you’ve read.

1. Pride and prejudice - Jane Austen

2. Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien

3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë

4. Harry Potter series

5. To kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6. The Bible

7. Wuthering heights - Emily Brontë (TBR)

8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9. His dark material - Philip Pullman

10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11. Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott

12. Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (DNF)

14. Complete works of Shakespeare (TBR)

15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien

17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18. Catcher in the Rye

19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffeneger

20. Middlemarch - George Eliot

21. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26. Brideshead revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky

28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33. Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis

34. Emma - Jane Austen

35. Persuasion - Jane Austen

36. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis

37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres

39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41. Animal Farm - George Orwell

42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (DNF)

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47. Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy (TBR)

48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding (TBR)

50. Atonement - Ian McEwan

51. Life of Pi - Yan Martel

52. Dune - Frank Herbert

53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (DNF)

58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (TBR)

59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night -time - Mark Haddon

60. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt (TBR)

64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (DNF)

66. On the Road - Jack Kerouac

67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding

69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (DNF)

71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72. Dracula - Bram Stoker

73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74. Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson

75. Ulysses - James Joyce

76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78. Germinal - Emile Zola

79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80. Possession - AS Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83. The Colour Purple - Alice Walker (TBR)

84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (TBR)

85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87. Charlotte's Web - EB White

88. The Five People You meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom

89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94. Watership Down - Richard Adams

95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (DNF)

#books #tbr #dnf #bbc #read #reading #literature #classic literature #+ 6 DNFs #31/100

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brighter-arda · 10 months

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born into a time of hope, children when the Nirnaeth came, doomed by fate

For @tolkiengenweek

Part 20 of toi's indigenous tolkien series

[Image description

1: Leaves and text 'Luthien and Dior" "Born FA 470, Died FA 506, Aged 36"

2: Yolngu woman Magnolia Maymuru in water holding a Aboriginal boy

3: A Banjima woman holding her child

4: Leaves and text 'Beldis and Brandir" "Born FA 465, Died FA 499, Aged 34"

5: Leaves and text 'Morwen and Turin" "Born FA 464, Died FA 499, Aged 35"

6: a Ngarla woman holding her baby.]

#luthien #dior #morwen #turin #beldis #brandir #silmarillion #tolkien women of colour #blak australian tolkien #moodboards and edits #toi's indigenous tolkien series #toi's creations #mepoc #tolkiengenweek #contains image description

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acceptsonlynttnightwing · 2 years

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"Why are you being a killjoy, let people enjoy rings of power?"

Nope. Just nope. I genuinely think that would be a mistake. This isn't just about some random show or YA nov - it's about a series that defined fantasy books for the last 70 years! It's about an author who spent decades clarifying his books and making bloodlines and timelines coherent! It's about his son, a man who spent his entire life going over his late father's work to give us the silmarilians and other works and the published letters! It's about a group of people, who while they weren't perfect or even completely right, spent a decade of their lives trying to faithfully adapt the aforementioned peoples' work.

It's about a greedy, soulless corporation turning this seminal piece of literature into yet another random tv show (wasn't the Wheel of Time and Chronicles of Shannara enough for you ghouls?). It's about them not giving two figs about anything when the creator spent decades getting things right!! Why could Gil-galad's clothes have been silver? Would it have been so hard to get an age appropriate Celebrimbor? Why give male elves short hair and make female dwarves beardless? Why does Galadriel wear the star of Feanor when she disliked him the whole time?? Why does Finrod called her 'Galadriel' instead of Artanis back in Valinor, before Celeborn even gave her the name? Why do Gil-galad, Elrond and Celebrimbor treat Galadriel like she's younger/less experienced than them??? She's literally their aunt/great aunt, great great aunt and aunt!

These aren't conscious changes due to lack of screentime (like PJ made), they're just careless!!! And unlike Peter Jackson, who admitted to changing things, apologised and explained why, no one knows if the show writers even know they're wrong or if they even bothered to read the books!

And what's up with the fake wokeness? People keep trying to dismiss anti-rop complaints saying using PoC is an improvement, and I agree completely! I haven't seen a single post on Tumblr complaining about the race-bending, but every other defense post mentions it! Personally, I'd prefer all black or all asian elves if they'd just give them long, correctly coloured hair (a characteristic that ACTUALLY matters, unlike skin colour).

Also, Amazon's not being progressive at all? Like, Tolkien mentioned multiple times that male and female elves were physically equals - but the armies are all male. Male elves can be old instead of ageless, but the women are young and hot? Male elves have short hair and female dwarves don't have beards? How is that not just playing into gender stereotypes? The female character is inexperienced and is treated condescendingly by the male ones DESPITE THAT NEVER HAPPENING IN THE BOOKS! Galadriel fighting physically is shown as empowering vs her canon strength being wisdom and magical strength (more female coded). The hobbits have Irish accents and the elves British? Way to tick off every cliche in the book.

Everything Tolkien's ever written suggests that he would hate this! He thought Sameness and lack of originality/creativity was the difference between elvish and orc-language!

What happened to ownership and intellectual privacy? In a world where corporations can remove days of television and lifetimes of animators' work for tax benefits, where do we make a stand and say enough is enough, we won't let you destroy another unique piece of work you NEVER could have created. Art is not about making a quick buck!

And it's not just about Tolkien. It's about the swarths of awful new tv show, generic books and soulless comics being churned out by a gigantic machine that steals artists' work and underpays labourers.

And what better opportunity will we have to make a stand? There's a billion dollars at stake! Let's MAKE corporations respect us!

#rings of power #tolkien #its a affront to everything he stood for #i didnt say anything about Shannara #i didnt complain publically about the Wheel of Time #i let persuasion go #but there's a breaking point #and turns out Tolkien is mine #there's rumours about a percy jackson tv show #even divergent deserved more respect than it got #dont even get me started on Eragon #i dread the day Hollywood discovers Inkheart or the Magiciens Guild or Forbidden Realms or basically everything i care about

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lotrladiessource · 11 months

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Lotr Ladies Week is only a month away!

Starting July 17th, 2023, we’ll be hosting Lotr Ladies Week, a week dedicated to appreciating the female characters of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, from the queenly Arwen and courageous Eowyn to merry Goldberry and fierce Lobelia Sackville-Baggins.

Guidelines:

Tag your posts with #lotrladiesweek and mention @lotrladiessource

We’re focusing on female characters from The Lord of the Rings itself & ones with connections to it, such as second age characters like Tar-Miriel, and characters from The Hobbit like Belladonna Took. There are many other amazing women from the Silmarillion and such, but this is the LotR Ladies chance to shine!

Fanwork of all kind is welcome- art, fanfic, gifsets, graphic/aesthetic edits, fanmixes, headcanons, crafts, anything!

Per our usual policy, we will not reblog nsfw content

Bigotry of any kind will not be tolerated

Prompts:

(Note: the prompts are completely non-mandatory and can be mixed and matched however you would like to use them! They’re just meant to provide a range of creative inspiration and you don’t have to use them at all!)

Happy creating! Feel free to shoot us an ask if you have any questions ⭐

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tinker-tanner · 4 months

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Tag Nine People You'd Like to Know Better

Favourite colour: intense, vivid green. I don't know how to describe it properly, but if you imagine the glow of radioactive waste in a cartoon, that's about it. Purple, orange, red, and black also suit me well.

Favourite flavour(s): My palate is unfortunately rather unsophisticated thanks to having almost zero sense of smell until age 27 (thank you estrogen for my life), so my sense of taste hasn't historically had a lot of room for variation. That said, there is nothing in this world quite like top-notch cheesy garlic bread.

Favourite music: indie rock writ broadly. This ranges from folky stuff like The Mountain Goats to metal-adjacent prog like Polyphia to the vast soundscapes of Sigur Rós. Also enjoy quite a bit of rap, electronic music, and folk.

Favourite movie: Attack the Block, always and forever. It's the perfect mix of horror, teenage shenanigans, comedy, and genuine emotion. This is also John Boyega's first starring role. I genuinely cannot believe he pulled off this kind of leading man energy as a teenager: watching this movie in 2012 lets me sincerely say I was into him before it was cool.

Favourite book: Two-way tie for first. Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe might be the smartest book I've ever read. Not that it makes the reader feel smart - I have rarely felt dumber than when I'm trying to understand what Severian is leaving out of a story - but that there's so much going on and every reread enhances how much you can extract from it. The Sisters of Dorley by Alyson Greaves helped give me the courage to finally acknowledge I was a woman and is also just a stupendous psychological drama filled with women who have so, so many things wrong with them. Honorary mention to The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, which is still up there but no longer quite in the top spot.

Favourite series: Revolutionary Girl Utena. I did not know TV could ever be this good. I do not expect any TV show to astound me this much again. Watching Utena, I could feel my brain physically reshape itself. The show is unexpectedly blunt about rape and child abuse considering it's shojo, so watch out for that, but if you can handle it, watch this show.

Last song: "Sun Bleached Flies" by Ethel Cain. The perfect song for a certain mood when you need to reckon with not being Christian anymore. The first time I heard her sing "God loves you, but not enough to save you" was like a revelation.

Last series: Afraid I don't watch enough TV to remember this.

Last movie: The Boy and the Heron. Miyazaki near the peak of his powers, which I never expected to see again. The big screen added a lot to this one. Even by the usual high standards Ghibli sets, it's incredibly gorgeous.

Currently reading: Beowulf (as translated by Maria Dahvana Headley). I'm a sucker for Old English literature. Took two courses on Old English in undergrad and they were some of my favourites of the degree until the person who taught me turned out to be profoundly racist. Headley's take is bizarre and therefore compelling to me: I'm always interested in seeing how weird someone can get with the source material.

Currently watching: Nothing. I weeded and organised my bookshelves for the first time in the 2020s and am taking advantage of this to read my TBR list at a ferocious pace.

Currently working on: Nothing in particular. I'm not all that creatively inclined and what little writing projects I did have were pushed aside by all the real-life nonsense I'm juggling. Tarot reading has been a joy to learn, though; attempting to interpret real-world events through knotty tangles of symbolism is exactly the sort of thing my brain likes. Shoutout to The Tarot Restless by Winslow Dumaine, which dared to ask "What if I made up my own Dark Souls cosmology and put it in a deck of cards?"

Tagged by @tobermoriansass, which I find terribly considerate given how hard it is to drag him away from his elves these days. Tagging @sophibeans @stackslip @licoricefern @deadciv @catgirltoes @loki-zen and whoever else would like to join in!

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miss-miaumiau · 10 months

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TAG GAME - FAVOURITES

Colours

black, grey pastel black, bordeaux, purple, violet, navy, teal, dark green, antique silver, antique gold

Gemstones

emerald, malachite, lapislazuli, amethyst, ruby, garnet, rose-quartz, moonstone, opal, amber

Flowers

rose, lily, lavander, orchids, sunflower

Animals

felines, wolves, spitz dogs, birds of prey, corvides, cetaceans, cephalopods, tube worms, tardigrades

Mythical Creatures

Ainur, Elves, Sphinxes, Phoenixes, Mermaids

Food

asian & mediterranean cuisine, spicy food

Beverage

still water, tea (preferably green), coconut juice

Music

Don’t take the listed “genres” too seriously. All those categories, sub-categories and sub-sub-categories seem quite redundant to me - imho, they’re just unnecessarily confusing … but, then again, I’m no music-nerd, after all.

Actually, there is just “Like” or “Don’t Like”, but this list might give you an idea:

Medieval, Renaissance & “Classical”

Walther von der Vogelweide, Guillaume de Machaut, Cantigas, John Dowland,Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Vivaldi, Rachmaninov, Tschaikovsky, Smetana, Schubert, Chopin, Rossini, Wagner, Sissel Kyrkjebo, Hayley Westenra, Sarah Brightman, Sumi Jo, Vanessa Mae, Thomas Bergersen, Two Steps from Hell, Audiomachine, Howard Shore, Soundtracks, …

(Neo-)Folk

Joan Baez, Esther Ofarim, Ofra Haza, Loreena McKennit, Nolwenn Leroy, Eivør Pálsdóttir, Gudrid Hansdóttir, Cecile Corbel, Enya, Celtic Women, Blackmore’s Night, Versengold, Sumerluft, Annwn, Anois, Garmarna, Arany Zoltan, Noel McLoughlin, Luc Arbogast, Patty Gurdy, Psalteria, Estampie, Dead Can Dance, Faun, Omnia, Skáld, Wardruna, Heilung, Vàli, In Gowan Ring, Hagalaz’ Runedance, Sonne Hagal, Of the Wand & the Moon, Gae Bolg & the Church of Fand, …

“Goth”

Sopor Aeternus, Helium Vola, Qntal, Dargaard, Arcana, Artésia, Ataraxia, Die Verbannten Kinder Evas, Trobar De Morte, Triarii, Wolfsheim, Deine Lakaien, Faith & the Muse, In my Rosary, Kirlian Camera, The Frozen Autumn, The Crüxshadows, VNV Nation, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Joy Division, The Cure, Clan of Xymox, The Sisters of Mercy, AlienSexFiend, Bauhaus, Lene Lovich, Depeche Mode, …

Metal & Rock

Van Canto, Blind Guardian, Rhapsody, Wisdom, Therion, Nightwish, Edenbridge, Within Temptation, Apocalyptica, Equilibrium, Kamelot, Sabaton, Finntroll, Dimmu Borgir, Ghost, Metallica, HIM, The 69 Eyes, Mono Inc, Subway to Sally, Evanescence, Garbage, Muse, …

Other

Kanon Wakeshima, The Brilliant Green, Onmyou-za, Rin’, Kalafina, Yuki Kajiura, Akiko Shikata, Kokia, Alan Dawa Dolma, Malukah, ShadowCa7, Erutan, Alina Gingertail, Karliene, Peter Hollens, Andra Ariadna, Minniva, Aurora, Lana Del Rey, Cher, The Doors, The Beatles, The Seekers, ABBA, ...

Literature

Fantasy & Sci-Fi

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, etc.

M.Z. Bradley’s Avalon-Novels & Firebrand

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter

Medieval & Antique Literature, Myth & Folklore

Ovid’s Metamorphoses

The Edda

Nibelungenlied

works of Walther von der Vogelweide

Arthurian Romances (like Erec, Iwein, Parzival, etc.)

Gregorius

Aeneasroman

Iliad & Odyssee

Murasaki Shikibu’s “Genji Monogatari” (the language is really beautiful, but I can’t stand the protagonist)

some Classics

Pride & Prejudice

Wuthering Heights

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

The Picture of Dorian Grey

Dracula

Faust I+II

Macbeth

The Life and Opinions of Tomcat Murr

works of the Brothers Grimm

Siddharta

some "regular" novels

Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist”, “Brida”

Nobara Takemoto’s “Shimotsuma Monogatari”

some fanfiction

“Father’s Heart” & “Process of Elimination” by Fern Withy

“Antiquity’s Corollary” by gonnabefamous

biographical books

Mineko Iwasaki’s “Geisha of Gion”

Paramahansa Yogananda’s “Autobiography of a Yogi”

Baird T. Spalding’s “Life and Teachings of the Masters of the East”

interesting non-fiction

such as science-related books / websites

those of a more metaphysical & occult subject matter

or those about more controversial topics, such as Extraterrestrials, so-called “conspiracy theories”, and the like (Problem!? Your loss. I don’t see why I shouldn’t look into these topics. It certainly is interesting, and it’s quite arrogant to assume we have it all figured out. Besides, no one says you have to believe anything you read, but it sure can’t hurt to approach things with a more open mind, and to just look where evidence leads us, when it presents itself.)

~*~

I'm tagging:

@aikoiya, @monkey-li, @mikeilo & @chattegeorgiana

#from an old tag game #I was bored

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