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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
basilandtheblues
Source: anhaga the hobbit

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avelera
earendil-was-a-mariner

George R.R. Martin: dragons are huge ferocious beasts who answer to a master  

Tolkien: dragons are annoying, talking assholes

jenniferrpovey

One interesting thought on this:

Fairy tale dragons? They’re like Smaug. They’re arrogant, talkative, they hoard treasure, they eat virgins. They’re amoral rather than evil, but they are intelligent monsters.

The dragon in Voyage Of The Dawn Treader, the one indirectly responsible for Eustace’s draconic curse is along the same lines.

At that time that is what a dragon was. There was a general consensus in western literature that dragons were, well, that.

In Medieval stories, dragons are to be killed by brave men. Gawain fights “wyrms” - a kind of wingless dragon. St. George slays a dragon. So does Beowulf. So does King Arthur. To be a worthwhile myth hero you have, at some point, to slay a dragon.

Early modern and nineteenth century dragons - we see one counter example - Faustus chariot is drawn by dragons in “Doctor Faustus.” The first really solid “friendly dragon” story is The Reluctant Dragon, which became a 1941 Disney film. That is the first story I can find about a dragon that befriends a human - but it’s friendship, not “human masters dragon.”

The second friendly dragon is E. Nesbit’s “The Last of the Dragons” who decides he’d rather hang out with the princess than fight the prince (the first example of subversion of the dragons eat maidens trope that I can find).

But they’re the minority.

In the 1930s, when Lewis and Tolkien were writing, dragons were the bad guys. The rare exceptions were dragons deciding not to act like dragons.

Then something happened.

That something probably started with a 1948 children’s book called “My Father’s Dragon - about a kid who runs away to Wild Island and rescues a baby dragon. Heard of it? If you’ve studied kid lit, sure, it won a ton of awards. Otherwise…nope, and certainly in Dawn Treader, written in 1950, dragons were still bad.

In the 1960s we start to see a couple more “good” dragons. But it’s almost always the same thing. Dragons are bad, except this one. This is a special dragon.

Then in 1967 John Campbell ran a story in Analog named Weyr Search. Heard of that one? Yup.

It was part of a novel called Dragonsflight, written by Grand Master Anne McCaffrey.

And she completely changed what dragons were.

Anne’s dragons were gentle, genetically engineered protectors who bonded to a human rider at birth and were “mastered” by that rider - the dragons offered instinct, but the reason came from the humans.

Anne McCaffrey was one of the first female authors to write science fiction by women about women - and while she had a number of flaws and was honestly a better worldbuilder than writer she inspired a lot of people.

And changed our view of dragons as a fantasy trope.

Since then most fantasy writers that include dragons have them as friendly and willing to be ridden by humans. Even the “good” dragons in the DragonLance novels.

In other words: In the space between Tolkein and Martin, who’s first short story collection was published in 1976, almost a decade after Weyr Search Anne McCaffrey turned dragons on their head.

Daenerys’ dragons owe more in their lineage to Ramoth than they do to Grendel, the dragon slain by Beowulf.

(In other words, literary evolution is fascinating).

genufa

Did… did people not assume Daenerys’ dragons came from the lineage of Anne McCaffrey’s dragons (and indeed fire lizards)?

unicornmagic

My instinct is that this also correlates to some extent with the broader shift (courtesy of increasing urbanization, in part) in cultural views of predators, from “nasty beasts to be extirpated” to “wild & majestic frands,” though of course I couldn’t prove it.  Credit to McCaffrey, though, for sure.

The shift is observable in microcosm in Le Guin’s Earthsea series: in “The Rule of Names” (1964) and A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) the dragon is Smaug-ish, whereas by The Farthest Shore (’72) Orm Embar and Kalessin are powerful allies, and by The Other Wind (2001) dragons are not just friends, but family. I dunno whether Le Guin would cop to being influenced by McCaffrey, though; maybe she had in mind that dragons would become family all along.  

Source: earendil-was-a-mariner dragons anne mcaffrey she's so cool and her books have dragons awesome
n-oy-a

the aesthetics of the gods

nightquills

Aphrodite: the bruises of love bites left by lovers on necks and thighs; smudged lipstick from hasty kisses; blood red roses with their sharp thorns still intact; the way you hug someone you love when you reunite after a lengthy separation

Apollo: polished instruments gleaming, held like the most precious of jewels by their owners; a sunny day with a clear blue sky where there are no clouds in sight; the rough script of poems penned out on scraps of paper or napkins before they’re forgotten; when music is so loud that you feel it reverberating in your bones; the pale lines of fading scars

Ares: the hands of a fighter, short finger nails and bloodied knuckles; split lips that have scabbed over; the smooth and intricate lines of old weapons you see mounted on museum walls; deep trenches dug out from the earth; the way barbed wire contrasts against whatever it surrounds

Artemis: loose braids with wild flowers slipped in; the majesty of tall trees stretching up endlessly towards the heavens; the wide and captivating eyes of wild deer; cloudy nights where the moon is just barely peeking through; the colorful fletching of arrows drawn back to rest upon cheeks and along jaws

Athena: the straight and steady way a soldier stands at attention; fingertips smudged with ink; a stack of books to read piled on the floor or a nightstand; eyes gleaming with the glow of new ideas; the quiet and contemplative aura of museums and libraries

Demeter: the way sunlight catches dust motes in the air through the gaps in the leaves of the trees; the feeling of life you get from standing in the middle of an orchard with bees buzzing around you; crocuses and snowdrops peeking through the last dredges of winter’s snow

Hades: the bleached bones of animals in the forest when moss has begun to engulf them; the way that graveyard angels look like they’re weeping in the rain; the solemn aura of old churches, citadels, synagogues, temples, and mosques

Hephaestus: the pleasure of holding something you’ve created in your palms; the soft glow of heated metal; the intricate beauty of cogs and gears fitting together precisely and working in tandem; the smooth and polished surfaces of high-rise business buildings

Hera: the lacy white of flowing wedding gowns; the way a couple’s hands look clasped together; pairs of old wedding rings that are scratched from years of use; the feeling of surrealism that comes from looking at old family portraits; getting used to sharing a space with someone else and then seeing the mannerisms you’ve unknowingly adopted from them

Hermes: the way that the low beam headlights of a car touch the roads that stretch ever onwards at night; old maps yellowed at the corners from their age; the way that things rush past when you look out the window of a car or train; quick hands slipping deftly into pockets and taking what they find

Hestia: the light and protection of street lights in an otherwise dark city; the warmth of your bed on cold winter mornings; the heat of a fire as you sit around it with people you love; the comfort of a home-cooked meal

Poseidon: the way light looks when you’re seeing it shine down from deep underwater; the effervescent colors of cresting waves; the eery beauty of shipwrecks; the ripples created when you trail your fingertips through still waters; dust clouds kicked up by the passing of strong hooves

Zeus: the way that storm clouds darken the edge of the horizon; silhouettes framed against the sky by flashes of lightning; the splay of feathers of a bird’s outstretched wings; the polished and tarnished brass of old fashioned scales

Source: nightquills greek mythology aesthetics
schweetheart

Anonymous asked:

do you have good recommendations for standalone books?

nicoperseid answered:

yes yes i do!! sorry it took so long i’ve just been back and forth all day today with no time to just sit down lmao

* = i’m reasonably sure there are some more triggers than ones i’ve mentioned but i can’t remember them

young adult

new adult

adult

(sorry, i don’t do book recs in moderation….)

Source: nicoperseid wow books book rec
worldsonlylivingheartdonor
aesterea

more on writing muslim characters from a hijabi muslim girl

- hijabis get really excited over pretty scarves
- they also like to collect pins and brooches
- we get asked a lot of questions and it can be annoying or it can be amusing, just depends on our mood and personality and how the question is phrased
- common questions include:
- “not even water?” (referring to fasting)
- hijabis hear a lot of “do you sleep in that?” (we don’t) and “where is your hair?” (in a bun or a braid, usually)
- “is it mooze-slim or mozzlem?” (the answer is neither, it’s muslim, with a soft s and accent on the first syllable)
- “ee-slam or iz-lamb?” (it’s iss-laam, accent on the first syllable)
- “hee-job?” (heh-jahb, accent on the second syllable)

- “kor-an?” (no. quran. say it like koor-annn, accent on the second syllable)
- people tend to mess up our names really badly and you just get a sigh and a resigned nod or an awkward smile, maybe a nickname instead
- long hair is easy to hide, short hair is harder to wrap up
- hijab isn’t just covering hair, it’s also showing as little skin as possible with the exception of face, hands, and feet, and not wearing tight/sheer clothing
- that applies to men too, people just don’t like to mention it ( i wonder why)
- henna/mehendi isn’t just for special occasions, you’ll see people wearing it for fun
- henna/mehendi isn’t just for muslims, either, it’s not a religious thing
- henna/mehendi is not just for women, men also wear it, especially on their weddings
- there are big mehendi parties in the couple of nights before eid where people (usually just women and kids) gather and do each other’s mehendi, usually just hands and feet
- five daily prayers
- most muslim kids can stutter through a couple verses of quran in the original arabic text by the age of seven or eight, it does not matter where they live or where they’re from or what language they speak natively
- muslim families tend to have multiple copies of the quran
- there are no “versions” of the quran, there has only ever been one. all muslims follow the exact same book
- muslims have no concept of taking God’s name in vain, we call on God at every little inconvenience
- don’t use islamic phrases if you don’t know what they mean or how to use them. we use them often, inside and outside of religious settings. in islam, it is encouraged to mention God often and we say these things very casually, but we take them very seriously
- Allahu Akbar means “God is Greatest” (often said when something shocks or surprises us, or if we’re scared or daunted, or when something amazing happens, whether it be good or bad; it’s like saying “oh my god”)
- Subhan Allah means “Glory be to God” (i say subhan Allah at the sky, at babies, at trees, whatever strikes me as pleasant, especially if it’s in nature)
- Bismillah means “in the name of God” and it’s just something you say before you start something like eating or doing your homework
- In Shaa Allah means “if God wills” (example: you’ll be famous, in shaa Allah) (it’s a reminder that the future is in God’s hands, so be humble and be hopeful)

- Astaghfirullah means “i seek forgiveness from Allah” and it’s like “god forgive me”
- Alhamdulillah means “all thanks and praise belong to God” and it’s just a little bit more serious than saying “thank god” (example: i passed my exams, alhamdulillah; i made it home okay, alhamdulillah)
- when i say we use them casually, i really mean it
- teacher forgot to assign homework? Alhamdulillah
- our version of “amen” is “ameen”
- muslims greet each other with “assalamu alaikum” which just means “peace be on you” and it’s like saying hi
- the proper response is “walaikum assalam” which means “and on you be peace” and it’s like saying “you too”

missandaei

As a Muslim this post is so very important and it makes me so happy that it gives the small facts and details that one might be unaware of or confused about.

Source: aesterea islam muslim writing help
words-writ-in-starlight
Do you need an explanation for why there are dragons when the real world doesn’t have dragons? Because it’s a story. Do you need an explanation for why those dragons can fly when logically a creature of that size shouldn’t be able to do so? Because it’s a story. Do you need an explanation for why a human wiggling their fingers and saying certain words causes lightning to shoot out of them and fry that dragon to a crisp? Because it’s a story. Do you need a reason for why that finger-wiggling human is a gay woman and not a straight man? No, you don’t, because it’s the least absurd thing in this paragraph and you accept all of the others without question.
Rich Burlew, author of “The Order of the Stick”
(http://goo.gl/uENmqD)
Source: masterofalltoasters mmmmm hell yeah representation pride
avelera
princehal9000

ok but what if

the tolkien dwarves invented the printing press

give me that fic

words-writ-in-starlight

I never thought about it, but, I mean…of course it’s the dwarves.  

The elves would never think of it, fading out of Middle Earth with their perfect memories entirely intact, bearing the lore of ages in their own lifetimes.  Elrond would never think to write down the story of his life, for all that it stretches back to the Silmarils’ crafting.  When they do write things down, they believe in taking the time to inscribe the words with their own hand–no one knows the hard truths of permanence and impermanence like the Firstborn, and if you are going to take the time to make something ephemeral into something lasting, you do it right.  And besides, Quenya and Sindarin and forgotten Noldorin, all are made with elaborate curling letters, intended more to be written with a brush tip or a calligrapher’s pen than printed for clarity.  A printing press would never capture the fluidity quite right.

The race of men…well, they’re still trying to recover.  The great kingdoms of the human race–hard Gondor and broken Arnor, wild Rohan and poor shattered Harad to the South–took the brunt of the Ring War hardest of all.  Even the strongest of them is left in fragments.  New rulers, damaged walls, burned cities.  Not many have time, in those first years–and it does take years–to worry about the lore that might have been lost or muddled by water and fire and falling stone, not when there are still leaderless orcs roving and people starving as they try to stretch the harvests.  By the time they do, they’re trying to piece together what they used to have.  No one thinks twice about trying to piece it together the way it was, and the way it was, was handwritten.  Someday the race of men will be great innovators, reaching toward the stars with sure hands and bright eyes.  Now, though, the race of men is enduring, is rebuilding and making alliances, trying to prevent the losses of the war from reappearing ten, twenty, a hundred years down the line.  They are doing well, at enduring–pragmatists, grim and tough and determined–but they hardly have the time for mechanical marvels that don’t aid building, speed farmwork, or otherwise smooth the path.

The hobbits persist in being stubbornly hobbitish.  Oral history is what they do, and their memories for family ties and dramatic gossip could give the oldest Eldest a run for their money.  Who’s going to bother to write down the story of the time Athella Proudfoot–no, not that one, the other one, Odo’s great-great-great aunt–drank half the tavern under the table, got up on the bar, did a jig in nothing but her bloomers, and then settled in to drink the place dry?  (And still looked fresh as a daisy, if quite a bit less sober, the next morning.)  No one, because anyone you ask knows the story of everyone who ever did anything worth knowing the story of.  What do the hobbits care for legends and lore?  They know who they are and where they come from, songs and stories and all, and there’s a certain level of strength in that.  Strength enough to walk into Mordor, strength enough to reclaim the Shire.  

The dwarves…the dwarves are a people who once had libraries, sweeping and beautifully full of knowledge.  The libraries in Khazad-dum have rotted, by now, ransacked by orcs and goblins or burned entire by Durin’s Bane.  Books and scrolls, illuminated with precious metals and expensive inks by the finest scholars, are worth nothing to a dragon, nothing but fuel for amusement, things to send sparking.  The library where Dis learned to read, where Thorin and Thrain before him learned statecraft, are nothing but ash.  The Iron Hills, Ered Luin, those places were filled by a people seeking refuge.  Few dwarrows snatched tomes as they fled Erebor.  Fewer still kept them at the ruin of Azanulbizar.  The dwarves escaped their ancestral homes with the clothes on their backs and scraps of bread baked on stones, with the pyres of the burned dwarves still smoldering behind them.

It’s a survivor of that flight who scratches down the first idle plans.  She remembers seeing Dain Ironfoot, barely more than a child–but then he seemed such a grown-up to her, at the time, when she was still a beardless babe only just walking–bloodied and limping on a crutch as he stood up to claim the leadership his father had left in his wake.  Dain and Thorin, young dwarrows still, but already old with the weight of the world.  She remembers that better than the dragon, better than the battle.  Her mother died in Ered Luin, but not before writing a poem for the burned ones, a poem for the two dwarves who had surrendered their own youth for the sake of their people.  She can’t stand the idea of her mother’s poem being lost, the way so many things were lost in flight after flight.

That dwarrowdam dies, an old dwarf in her bed with her loved ones around her, and it’s her best friend’s daughter who comes across the plans, many years later.  Yes, she thinks, looking at the levers, at the vague notes about possible lettering methods, yes, that could work.  

It doesn’t work, at first.  It doesn’t work a lot, really, but the dwarves are a stoneheaded bunch and not in a rush to be put off by a few petty failings.  Or by a total collapse of the base mechanics, the first time she tries to pull the lever.  The dwarrowdam unearths herself from a pile of metal and gears and wood, with the help of a few other folks who heard the complicated crash and weary cursing, and starts again. 

It takes most of two years and a lot of brainstorming–first with her friends, then with her guild, then with any poor fool careless enough to wander into her workshop–but the scribe-machine works.  She shrieks and bursts into tears when the first page comes out crisp and clean and beautiful, and sprints into the great hall waving it triumphantly over her head.

The paper says, in kuzdh runes, plain and clear, We are Mahal’s children, and we are yet unbroken.

Source: princehal9000 the hobbit lotr dwarves libraries dwarven printing presses this is the best honestly tho i'm so here for this and the ending so good
avelera
malmao

Okay but:

  • Ripped Thorin. 
  • Thorin who is a foot and a half taller than Bilbo.
  • Thorin with hands that are rough from overuse. 
  • Thorin with battle scars and burn marks from the forge.
  • Thorin with tattoos.
  • Thorin with body piercings.
  • THORIN WHO IS MUCH LARGER THAN BILBO AND ROUGHER AND FOREIGN AND BILBO IS SO INTO THAT IT KIND OF CONFUSES HIM AT FIRST.

Meanwhile: 

  • Bit fluffy around the middle Bilbo. 
  • Bilbo who has to crane his neck to look Thorin in the eye. 
  • Bilbo with small soft hands, only callused where a trowel or pen sits. 
  • Bilbo with scars that only have stories of childish mischief attached to them. 
  • Bilbo with freckles and the gently olive skin that comes from gardening.
  • Bilbo who has never even heard of piercings anywhere but on the ears.
  • BILBO WHO IS SO MUCH SMALLER THAN THORIN AND SOFTER AND IT LEAVES THORIN SORT OF BLUSHY AND SCARED TO BREAK HIM.

Leave me here to die.

Source: malmao lotr the hobbit thorin bilbo I AM WEAK FOR THIS
asterinxx
lilcowgirl4

It’s not that you have issues…… it’s that you have a tendency to continue using instincts you picked up in childhood that are no longer useful to you on your journey towards achieving openness and intimacy and reliability in your personal relationships w others. It’s not that you’re defective or difficult or incapable it’s just that what you learned to do to save yourself from the experience of abandonment or rejection or ridicule or failure is not helpful here anymore and you need to start thinking creatively and collaborating on better ways to cope with that instrinsic fear that you are not correct, that you are faking, that you will be found out and left, whatever it is

Source: lilcowgirl4 ah yikes
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