In Battle, That Is!

What’s the deal with tiny shields?

(Yes, I know my ‘big’ shield is stil pretty small)

Patreon - everything else

now that trump has tiktok, twitter, facebook and insta in his pocket, get ready for a massive wave of internet censorship. one of trump's greatest weapons has always been misinformation; it's going to become harder and harder to spread facts and criticism going forward. posts that aren't made invisible will be magically ignored by the algorithm. dissidents will have their accounts deleted and voices erased.

this is a suppression tactic. this is another stage of fascism.

It's ironic how a major part of Lord of the Rings is that storytellers always overlook hobbits in their legends because their simple lives are "less important" than the lives of Great Royals & Grand Warriors--- since that's ultimately been reflected in the current state of the Tolkien franchise itself! After the LOTR films, big-budget Tolkien franchise installments (and copycats) overwhelmingly focus on their Aragorn analogues, with hobbit-like characters shoved to the sidelines. The Lord of the Rings films may be flawed, but they succeeded because they had a strong central story-- the relationship between Frodo and Sam, and the fairytale-themes about small overlooked people who save the day while the villains are distracted by Great Heroes from Noble Bloodlines, are what give the story the deep lasting emotional impact that it has. But the franchise(tm) quickly decided that the royal warrior elves/men were the far more exciting marketable characters, and their battle skills could allow for more flashy spectacle. The Hobbit films gradually focused more heavily on the warrior characters, with Bilbo being a glorified extra by the last movie; The Amazon LOTR show focuses on a noble warrior elf of royal blood as its main character and political intrigue among the royalty of different kingdoms as its main plot; the recent animated film focuses on a noble hero of royal blood involved in epic battles. I've mentioned before that it's fascinating how all the new "Tolkien franchise" installments (as well as media inspired by LOTR) continue to center their stories on the Aragorn archetype-- a Destined Noble Hero/Warrior from a Royal Bloodline etc etc. The entire premise of Lord of the Rings is that Aragorn represents the hero of a typical generic fantasy epic, while the ordinary Hobbits are the heroes of this one. Aragorn is interesting not in spite of the fact that he is a side character, but because of it. If he were the central character of the story, Lord of the Rings would be very bland and generic. "Let's do a new version of Lord of the Rings but focus on powerful grand royal hero characters instead" is a lot like saying "let's do a retelling of Wicked from Dorothy's point of view." It's like, "congrats! you've successfully reinvented the exact type of story the original writer was commenting on and subverting." XD

Alternate take: Aphrodite thinks the is in an open marriage/polyamory type thing, but utterly failed to communicate that with any of her lovers.

I enjoy the idea that Aphrodite was actually super horny for Hephaestus. She is the god of sexuality. She is horny for everything. But! She is also the god of beauty. That means aesthetic and practical beauty as well.

In my mind, there is a furtive child of Aphrodite and Hephaestus who is the god of beauty-as-praxis, a god of architecture and product design. They would be the patron god of autism.

As someone who's been a lover of traditional folk music from the British Isles for several decades, one thing I've learned is that "True Love" didn't always mean what you think it means. In the older songs, "true love" is not some mystical quality, some type of connection that is magically better than other Loves. No. A love that is "true" merely means that your Love is "true TO YOU." "True" as in faithful and loyal and trustworthy. A lover who will stand by you and with you no matter what comes. True the way a good sword is True. True the way a good knight is loyal. The contrast is "False Love," which is a lover who betrays you, who cannot be trusted.

"True Love" isn't something you find, it's a vow and a choice that you make, every day, to BE TRUE.

Are the dwarves in Tolkien's works actually anti-Semitic or is that another thing that comes from Norse myths? I don’t know how much of The Hobbit was based on Norse stuff (the premise and size of Thorin’s company come from Beowulf), but two of the famous dwarves from Norse myth are famous for their greed, Andvari and Fafnir. Andvari had a lot of gold and a cursed ring, and then when Fafnir got the ring, his greed was so great that he became a dragon (probably where the concept of dragon sickness comes from), and his presence is sometimes said to have poisoned the land.

Either way, modern dwarves seem to have mostly grown past the anti-Semitic stuff.

thoughts on goblins in the DRG universe?

(I don't really like goblins as a concept bc of antisemitic story behind them)

But would be cool to see other sentient little creatures in DRG that are not dwarves

I know this is more of a joke post but the dwarves have a union with three chapters, it’s the discord integration feature. The chapters are Mighty Miners, Cave Crawlers, and Dirt Diggers.

ROCK AND STONE!

He actually cried for like 3 hours after this

Reasons I have seen webcomic authors publicly cite for cancelling their comic mid-storyline:

Too busy  

Lost interest  

Increasing age gap between characters and author made it difficult to relate  

Did the math and figured out that completing the planned arc with their current update schedule would take 150 years  

Ostensible author actually a fictional persona that’s now being retired, and they didn’t want the comic linked to their real identity  

Realised that the way they’d written the central relationship wasn’t emotionally genuine (note: this was a hobbit porn comic)  

The comic’s readership contained too many lesbians  

Converted to a religion that regards all representational art as a form of idolatry  

Broke up with the person the protagonist was based on  

Outed as not actually Japanese  

Imprisoned for manslaughter  

Aliens