Latest Posts by gimlelul64 - Page 4
Some unposted Tolkien art I've been collecting over the years 💫
Huan and Lúthien | Yavanna and Aulë | Celeborn and Galadriel | Fingon | Galadriel but Art Nouveau | Vairë, the Weaver | Lórien and Mandos | Some Hobbiteses
Hello Autumn!
<3
you’re putting magic into the world with every stitch you make, every painting you create, every note you play, every word you write. everything you create and put out into the world will touch or inspire someone. everything you keep to yourself will be special and personal, like a mosaic piece of yourself that will last forever. all the little things you created into the world will like a museum exhibit of your existence, and your own love letter to the universe.
Daeron pouting in Doriath | Second Age locations | Maedhros
how to write a plot twist:
surprise your readers!
surprise yourself because you have no idea what’s going to happen next either.
the problem with reading and writing leading to a strong vocabulary is that you tend to know the vibe of words instead of their meanings.
if I used this word in a sentence, would it make sense? absolutely. if you asked me what it meant, could I tell you? absolutely not.
because my English level is AO3 dupes
“I think fanfiction is literature and literature, for the most part, is fanfiction, and that anyone that dismisses it simply on the grounds that it’s derivative knows fuck-all about literature and needs to get the hell off my lawn. Most of the history of Western literature (and probably much of non-Western literature, but I can’t speak to that) is adapted or appropriated from something else. Homer wrote historyfic and Virgil wrote Homerfic and Dante wrote Virgilfic (where he makes himself a character and writes himself hanging out with Homer and Virgil and they’re like “OMG Dante you’re so cool.” He was the original Gary Stu). Milton wrote Bible fanfic, and everyone and their mom spent the Middle Ages writing King Arthur fanfic. In the sixteenth century you and another dude could translate the same Petrarchan sonnet and somehow have it count as two separate poems, and no one gave a fuck. Shakespeare doesn’t have a single original plot—although much of it would be more rightly termed RPF—and then John Fletcher and Mary Cowden Clarke and Gloria Naylor and Jane Smiley and Stephen Sondheim wrote Shakespeare fanfic. Guys like Pope and Dryden took old narratives and rewrote them to make fun of people they didn’t like, because the eighteenth century was basically high school. And Spenser! Don’t even get me started on Spenser. Here’s what fanfic authors/fans need to remember when anyone gives them shit: the idea that originality is somehow a good thing, an innately preferable thing, is a completely modern notion. Until about three hundred years ago, a good writer, by and large, was someone who could take a tried-and-true story and make it even more awesome. (If you want to sound fancy, the technical term is imitatio.) People were like, why would I wanna read something about some dude I’ve never heard of? There’s a new Sir Gawain story out, man! (As to when and how that changed, I tend to blame Daniel Defoe, or the Modernists, or reality television, depending on my mood.) I also find fanfic fascinating because it takes all the barriers that keep people from professional authorship—barriers that have weakened over the centuries but are nevertheless still very real—and blows right past them. Producing literature, much less circulating it, was something that was well nigh impossible for the vast majority of people for most of human history. First you had to live in a culture where people thought it was acceptable for you to even want to be literate in the first place. And then you had to find someone who could teach you how to read and write (the two didn’t necessarily go together). And you needed sufficient leisure time to learn. And be able to afford books, or at least be friends with someone rich enough to own books who would lend them to you. Good writers are usually well-read and professional writing is a full-time job, so you needed a lot of books, and a lot of leisure time both for reading and writing. And then you had to be in a high enough social position that someone would take you seriously and want to read your work—to have access to circulation/publication in addition to education and leisure time. A very tiny percentage of the population fit those parameters (in England, which is the only place I can speak of with some authority, that meant from 500-1000 A.D.: monks; 1000-1500: aristocratic men and the very occasional aristocratic woman; 1500-1800: aristocratic men, some middle-class men, a few aristocratic women; 1800-on, some middle-class women as well). What’s amazing is how many people who didn’t fit those parameters kept writing in spite of the constant message they got from society that no one cared about what they had to say, writing letters and diaries and stories and poems that often weren’t discovered until hundreds of years later. Humans have an urge to express themselves, to tell stories, and fanfic lets them. If you’ve got access to a computer and an hour or two to while away of an evening, you can create something that people will see and respond to instantly, with a built-in community of people who care about what you have to say. I do write the occasional fic; I wish I had the time and mental energy to write more. I’ll admit I don’t read a lot of fic these days because most of it is not—and I know how snobbish this sounds—particularly well-written. That doesn’t mean it’s “not good”—there are a lot of reasons people read fic and not all of them have to do with wanting to read finely crafted prose. That’s why fic is awesome—it creates a place for all kinds of storytelling. But for me personally, now that my job entails reading about 1500 pages of undergraduate writing per year, when I have time to read for enjoyment I want it to be by someone who really knows what they’re doing. There’s tons of high-quality fic, of course, but I no longer have the time and patience to go searching for it that I had ten years ago. But whether I’m reading it or not, I love that fanfiction exists. Because without people doing what fanfiction writers do, literature wouldn’t exist. (And then I’d be out of a job and, frankly, I don’t know how to do anything else.)”
— “As a professor, may I ask you what you think about fanfiction?” (via meiringens)
Acorn scene 2.0.
Bilbo: *sitting alone and reaches into his pocket*
Thorin: What is that in your hand?
Bilbo: *startled* It-it's nothing.
Thorin: Show me!
Bilbo: *opens his hand, revealing the magic ring he found*
Thorin: *looks confusedly at the ring and then at the hobbit* My answer is YES.
Some of y’all are not appreciating Bilbo Baggins enough. I am here to remedy that. This guy has:
• somehow managed to establish himself as a respectable, staid hobbit by the time he was fifty, despite being both a grandson of Bullroarer Took and the Shire champion of pretty much every aiming-game known to hobbitkind
• had an in-depth debate on pleasantries with a random guy passing by in the street, who turned out to be GANDALF
• collapsed in front of his own fire shaking and muttering “struck by lightning” over and over again in response to hearing about dragons and danger
• mind you, this was after he screamed loud enough to startle a roomful of Dwarves
• signed up for a dangerous quest completely outside of his league out of spite
• when told to scout out a mysterious light, saw some trolls, and instead of reporting back with the information, decided to PICK THE TROLLS POCKET
• arrived in Rivendell for the first time and said it “smelled like elves”
• upon meeting a strange creature that visibly wanted to eat him, he decided to play a riddle game with him- and guessed pretty much every one, and made up his own riddles, afraid and alone, that not only were good and full of linguistic puns, but actually stumped the other guy- AND THEN CHEATED AND WON WITH A QUESTION
• showed mercy to said strange creature who wanted to kill him, and was now standing between him and freedom
• eavesdropped on the dwarves arguing over whether to try to save him, then popped up casually smack in the middle of them just as they were debating
• somehow managed to sleep like a log at the really really high eyrie full of wild predators
• found himself in a bad situation, said eff it, and turned around and antagonized and fought off an insane amount of man eating spiders, like enough of them that fifty was a small portion, by singing at them with incredibly complex and punny insulting songs composed on the spot, while simultaneously slaying them in multitudes despite having zero combat training. Seriously, we don’t discuss enough how epic the spider scene is.
• broke a company of dwarves out of the very secure prison of the Elvenking by inventing white water rafting with barrels
• charmed his way out of being eaten by a dragon
• stole the frickin Arkenstone from the guys who employed him, one of whom was a king
• took part in an epic battle, only to be knocked out in the first ten minutes and miss the entire thing
• was named elf-friend by the guy who’s prisoners he sprung
• wrote his own autobiography, complete with all the narrative recognition of his own heroics
• spent 60 years writing said autobiography
• taught his lower class neighbor’s kid how to read
• taught his nephew Elvish- not only Sindarin, but Quenya too
• spent decades telling his cousins his own story as fairy tales, complete with character impressions accurate enough that one of them was able to fool a servant of the Enemy with a second hand impression
• used the One Ring of Power to hide from his neighbors
• planned an elaborate feast with multiple social faux pas to mess with his neighbors, complete with a purposefully bewildering speech and culminating in him vanishing into thin air in front of everyone
• left his cousins and neighbors very unsubtle passive aggressive gifts in his will
• settled into Rivendell, randomly befriended the heir to the throne of like half of Middle Earth, and apparently spent his time writing very personal poems about his hosts and reciting them to crowds of elves
• after being invited to a Council of basically every major kingdom in the continent, spent a quarter of the time reciting vague poems about his friends, a quarter of the time telling anyone who would listen about his heroic past, and half the time interrupting to ask when lunch would be
• volunteered to bring the ring to Mordor
• became one of only four or five mortals in history to live in Valinor
Seriously, Bilbo Baggins may well be the most chaotic, insane person in the entire legendarium, and that includes the likes of people like Finrod “bit a werewolf to death to save the life of guy who he just met and gave up his kingdom for” Felagund.
Beren: Don't kill me, I have a wife!
Sauron: You think I care about that?
Beren: Huh? Oh no no no, this isn't a plea for mercy. It's a warning.
Sauron: Wha-
Lúthien: (busting in with a dog and a can-do attitude) ARE YOU READY TO DIE?!
Bilbo at the start of The Hobbit: I am a Respectable Gentlehobbit.
Bilbo at the start of LotR: I am a Menace To Society. >:3
The Silmarillion according to someone who has never read it but only picked up bits and pieces from the tumblr fandom. For shits and giggles!
Here are some interesting facts about the raven:
• They are one of the most intelligent birds on the planet - they can solve tasks, play tricks on other animals and can count
• Ravens can imitate human speech just like parrots
• They can reach 2 feet in size from head to tail - bigger than some cats
• Ravens do things just for fun, such as sliding down snowy hills, swooping when flying, and they even build their own toys out of sticks and rocks
• People who have owned ravens have said they are cat-like in nature and can be very cuddly and affectionate, but can throw a strop when they don't get their way
• Science has found that ravens can communicate by "gesturing", and point their beak in certain directions to tell other ravens where to go
• When they reach adolescence, ravens leave their parents to find other teenage ravens and join "teenage gangs"
• Ravens are monogamous and mate for life
• Although they have been seen for centuries to represent death and sadness, ravens are compassionate, loving animals and will console their raven friends if they have been injured
All in all, ravens are amazing and beautiful animals!
you can't read shakespeare's plays. begging everyone i meet ever to WATCH them please they're so much more understandable and fun and whimsical and the comedies are funnier and the tragedies are more heartbreaking when you can actually just. see everything. like you can't just READ it it's NOT A BOOK!!!!
Here's THE masterpost of free and full adaptations, by which I mean that it's a post made by the master.
Anthony and Cleopatra: here's the BBC version, here's a 2017 version.
As you like it: you'll find here an outdoor stage adaptation and here the BBC version. Here's Kenneth Brannagh's 2006 one.
Coriolanus: Here's a college play, here's the 1984 telefilm, here's the 2014 one with tom hiddleston. Here's the Ralph Fiennes 2011 one.
Cymbelline: Here's the 2014 one.
Hamlet: the 1948 Laurence Olivier one is here. The 1964 russian version is here and the 1964 american version is here. The 1964 Broadway production is here, the 1969 Williamson-Parfitt-Hopkins one is there, and the 1980 version is here. Here are part 1 and 2 of the 1990 BBC adaptation, the Kenneth Branagh 1996 Hamlet is here, the 2000 Ethan Hawke one is here. 2009 Tennant's here. And have the 2018 Almeida version here. On a sidenote, here's A Midwinter's Tale, about a man trying to make Hamlet.
Henry IV: part 1 and part 2 of the BBC 1989 version. And here's part 1 of a corwall school version.
Henry V: Laurence Olivier (who would have guessed) 1944 version. The 1989 Branagh version here. The BBC version is here.
Julius Caesar: here's the 1979 BBC adaptation, here the 1970 John Gielgud one. A theater Live from the late 2010's here.
King Lear: Laurence Olivier once again plays in here. And Gregory Kozintsev, who was I think in charge of the russian hamlet, has a king lear here. The 1975 BBC version is here. The Royal Shakespeare Compagny's 2008 version is here. The 1974 version with James Earl Jones is here. The 1953 Orson Wells one is here.
Macbeth: Here's the 1948 one, there the 1955 Joe McBeth. Here's the 1961 one with Sean Connery, and the 1966 BBC version is here. The 1969 radio one with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench is here, here's the 1971 by Roman Polanski, with spanish subtitles. The 1988 BBC one with portugese subtitles, and here the 2001 one). Here's Scotland, PA, the 2001 modern retelling. Rave Macbeth for anyone interested is here. And 2017 brings you this.
Measure for Measure: BBC version here. Hugo Weaving here.
The Merchant of Venice: here's a stage version, here's the 1980 movie, here the 1973 Lawrence Olivier movie, here's the 2004 movie with Al Pacino. The 2001 movie is here.
The Merry Wives of Windsor: the Royal Shakespeare Compagny gives you this movie.
A Midsummer Night's Dream: have this sponsored by the City of Columbia, and here the BBC version. Have the 1986 Duncan-Jennings version here. 2019 Live Theater version? Have it here!
Much Ado About Nothing: Here is the kenneth branagh version and here the Tennant and Tate 2011 version. Here's the 1984 version.
Othello: A Massachussets Performance here, the 2001 movie her is the Orson Wells movie with portuguese subtitles theree, and a fifteen minutes long lego adaptation here. THen if you want more good ole reliable you've got the BBC version here and there.
Richard II: here is the BBC version. If you want a more meta approach, here's the commentary for the Tennant version. 1997 one here.
Richard III: here's the 1955 one with Laurence Olivier. The 1995 one with Ian McKellen is no longer available at the previous link but I found it HERE.
Romeo and Juliet: here's the 1988 BBC version. Here's a stage production. 1954 brings you this. The french musical with english subtitles is here!
The Taming of the Shrew: the 1980 BBC version here and the 1988 one is here, sorry for the prior confusion. The 1929 version here, some Ontario stuff here, and here is the 1967 one with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. This one is the Shakespeare Retold modern retelling.
The Tempest: the 1979 one is here, the 2010 is here. Here is the 1988 one. Theater Live did a show of it in the late 2010's too.
Timon of Athens: here is the 1981 movie with Jonathan Pryce,
Troilus and Cressida can be found here
Titus Andronicus: the 1999 movie with Anthony Hopkins here
Twelfth night: here for the BBC, here for the 1970 version with Alec Guinness, Joan Plowright and Ralph Richardson.
Two Gentlemen of Verona: have the 2018 one here. The BBC version is here.
The Winter's Tale: the BBC version is here
Please do contribute if you find more. This is far from exhaustive.
(also look up the original post from time to time for more plays)
understand him on all levels.
