I Have A Normal And Reasonable Amount Of Emotions When Thinking About Characters

One of the things that’s really struck me while rereading the Lord of the Rings–knowing much more about Tolkien than I did the last time I read it–is how individual a story it is.

We tend to think of it as a genre story now, I think–because it’s so good, and so unprecedented, that Tolkien accidentally inspired a whole new fantasy culture, which is kind of hilarious. Wanting to “write like Tolkien,” I think, is generally seen as “writing an Epic Fantasy Universe with invented races and geography and history and languages, world-saving quests and dragons and kings.” But… But…

Here’s the thing. I don’t think those elements are at all what make The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings so good. Because I’m realizing, as I did not realize when I was a kid, that Tolkien didn’t use those elements because they’re somehow inherently better than other things. He used them purely because they were what he liked and what he knew.

The Shire exists because he was an Englishman who partially grew up in, and loved, the British countryside, and Hobbits are born out of his very English, very traditionalist values. Tom Bombadil was one of his kids’ toys that he had already invented stories about and then incorporated into Middle-Earth. He wrote about elves and dwarves because he knew elves and dwarves from the old literature/mythology that he’d made his career. The Rohirrim are an expression of the ancient cultures he studied. There are a half-dozen invented languages in Middle-Earth because he was a linguist. The themes of war and loss and corruption were important to him, and were things he knew intimately, because of the point in history during which he lived; and all the morality of the stories, the grace and humility and hope-in-despair, was an expression of his Catholic faith. 

J. R. R. Tolkien created an incredible, beautiful, unparalleled world not specifically by writing about elves and dwarves and linguistics, but by embracing all of his strengths and loves and all the things he best understood, and writing about them with all of his skill and talent. The fact that those things happened to be elves and dwarves and linguistics is what makes Middle-Earth Middle-Earth; but it is not what makes Middle-Earth good.

What makes it good is that every element that went into it was an element J. R. R. Tolkien knew and loved and understood. He brought it out of his scholarship and hobbies and life experience and ideals, and he wrote the story no one else could have written… And did it so well that other people have been trying to write it ever since.

So… I think, if we really want to write like Tolkien (as I do), we shouldn’t specifically be trying to write like linguists, or historical experts, or veterans, or or or… We should try to write like people who’ve gathered all their favorite and most important things together, and are playing with the stuff those things are made of just for the joy of it. We need to write like ourselves.

Why am I…imagining this…?

sweet lil angel 👁

yknow ever since people realized tumblr isnt dead and have decided to flock here from twitter and tiktok ive seen a huge influx of people in fandom spaces who dont reblog anything. at all.

like, i used to have an art blog with 340 followers. not a ton but not a small amount either given how this website works with creators. and in my experience back then even the ones who only left likes still reblogged other things or at least posted their own stuff. literally the only empty blogs were clearly bots.

but on this New art blog, i've had so many people with fandom-specific headers and icons with actual usernames as urls and some kind of title or description, but have. Nothing. no posts. all they do is like things. and it's always public, too. their following list and their likes list.

and honestly all it makes me think is that these people are New and also don't know how tumblr works. how likes don't give exposure. not even in a "oh, i know it doesn't give exposure, but i'm still going to reblog anyways" way, but in a genuine honest to god straight up doesn't realize tumblr likes don't work like twitter's.

PLEASE please if you're from tiktok or twitter or whatever please reblog people's art both fandom and original if you like it!! and maybe actually pad out your blog's content in some way so people won't potentially see you as a bot and block you.

REBLOG ARTIST'S WORK. THIS IS THE ONLY WAY THEY GET ANY ATTENTION ON THIS WEBSITE OH MY GOD. PLEASE. I BEG of you

Do you have any links to posts that analyze how old Kakashi was when Sakumo died??? Be they your own or other people's

I explained Kakashi's ages in different stages of his life before in one of my reblogs but since I did it in a reblog, I'll do it again here.

Here are the facts that were directly stated in the manga:

• Kakashi graduated the Ninja academy and became Gennin at 5 after spending only one year in the academy, which means that he started the academy at 4.

• Kakashi became Chunin at 6

• Kakashi was promoted to Jounin 5 year after Sakumo’s death

Right before the kannabi bridge incident, the day Kakashi became Jounin Minato said that Sakumo died 5 years ago

Now in Naruto Shippuden episode 483, Kakashi visited Sakumo’s grave for his first death anniversary when he was still in the academy, and since we’ve seen Sakumo with him the day he got accepted in the academy, the only explanation for an entire year to pass before Kakashi graduate from the academy (since he only spent one year in the academy and graduated at 5) is that Sakumo died shortly after Kakashi was accepted in the academy.

So this means 2 things.

1- Sakumo died when Kakashi was 4.

2- Kakashi became Jounin when he was 9 (since Minato stated that Sakumo died 5 years ago on the day he got promoted to Jounin)

5 ibuprofen 2 garlic

help i accidentally created a cleric with a -1 to religion checks how the fuck did i even do that

Emo baby romper: the prequel

Based on comments from my other post here

lol

写輪眼のカカシ