Elanorpevensie - Dreaming Of A Castle Library

obsessed with re-embodied First Age war heroes interacting with the aman-born youth

Youth: Wow, your hair is so pretty! Such a first age throwback. Could you be related to Maedhros Fëanarion? Maedhros Fëanarion: Never heard of him

Finrod Felagund: That's a cool ring, kid. Reminds me of early first age bëorian metalwork. Youth: Gee, thanks, that's exactly what I was going for! Does it make me look like King Felagund? Finrod Felagund: Absolutely. He'd be proud

Youth: Atar said you're from the first age. Did you know the sons of Fëanor? Was Celegorm hot? This blond guy the other day told me he was really hot Caranthir: Don't listen to that blond guy again. I know what he's doing

Finally finished my Silmarillion/Lord of the Rings bookmark design! (Tumblr predictably destroyed the quality but you can click to see the original 🥲)

The top follows the story of Silmarillion from the Darkening of Valinor to Elwing’s flight from Sirion (upper left to upper right), and the bottom follows the Lord of the Rings from Bag-End to Mordor (lower right to lower left). At the end, of course, we end up back in Valinor to close the loop.

It ended up a bit cluttered because there was so much I wanted to fit in, but overall I’m rather happy with it :)

Different Stories Resonate with Different People

authors!!

quick question...

This is an interesting thing I'm noticing as I'm reading but it kinda seems to me like a lot of the Tolkien characters all seem to have elemental symbolism that seems to follow their characterization.

Like Gandalf and Bilbo both seem to have a lot of fire symbolism that follows them around. Gandalf uses light and fire as kind of his two go to weapons and he's the keeper of the ring of Narya which is the fire one. And of course Gandalf the White is forged out of flame. And then Bilbo's introduced in the middle of smoking, and he spends a lot of time hanging around campfires and hearths, like the campfire storyteller he is. He seems to like hanging out in the Hall of Fire at Rivendell, and his conflict with Smaug obviously also involves a lot of fire. He's also arguably the character who is closest to Gandalf.

Frodo on the other hand is like all water imagery. One of the first things we learn about Frodo is his parents were weirdos who hung out in boats and then drowned, and he's introduced filling drinks at Bilbo's party. He makes his stand against the Nazgul at the river. He himself nearly drowns like three times in the story, and spends a lot of time in boats, being haunted by dark waters, and the sound of the ocean (and of course ends the story going over the sea). Like the water symbolism with Frodo is nonstop and he shares that in common with Gollum, who specifically is characterized by pools, rivers, and lakes, as well as fish, worms, mud and roots and caves—very wet and slimy compared to Frodo's more mariner/wayfinder imagery. But they're still kind of two sides of the same coin.

Pippin and Merry get a lot of plant and tree symbolism. Besides hanging out with ents and drinking tree wine and that time they both got eaten by a tree, it's clear Merry grew up wandering forests and knows a lot about wild plants (and writes a book on it later) and Pippin gets a ton of association with Gondor, y'know, that place that is represented by a big ol' tree. Their tobacco leaves too actually kinda play a pivotal role, and are again, very plant focused.

You'd think Sam would also be more earth oriented, being he's a gardener, but not really? Unlike Merry who's out here spitting plant facts 24/7 and working on his plant book, Sam's interest in plants seems like to only be around when he's on the clock. His symbolism is all very celestial. He's the guy who ends up using the Star of Earendil. He sees Earendil while he and Frodo are walking through Mordor. He evokes Elbereth, the Star Goddess like multiple times. He names his daughter after the star-sun shaped flower Elanor which literally means "Sun and Stars." And if you think about it, Gardener is actually kind of a perfect role for a star-guy when you remember how dependent plants are on the sun. He also seems to share some kind of connection with Galadriel who is also caked in a lot of star imagery. It also tracks he'd be paired with Frodo thematically as he serves as a guiding light to a mariner, in contrast to how Gollum represents the depths.

IDK what all that means, I just think it's neat!

Underrated HMC moments I've never seen anyone talking about part 2

Howl choosing "H. Jenkins" for the shop's sign wich is the one and only moment in the series he actually uses his legal initials, as "H" can stand for "Howl" and "Howell" in the same time

Lettie being so angry about Prince Justin calling her "a sweet lady" that she said that she would prefer ever Howl over him. Wich is. Telling.

The King assuring that he never pushed Justin off and that everyone who knows them both wouldn't assume that.

Sophie being so RAGED with the whole weedkiller and daffodils situation she wasn't saying A SINGLE FULL WORD for about a page in the least. All of the sounds were like "argh!" and "Sophie gave the wordless glump of range"

The seven-league boots having the funniest description of use ever, as every time someone used it then the effects were simply narrated as "Zip!"

Howl raises the skull and quotes Hamlet directly to it, wich becomes a hundred times funnier when you remember that this Skull is canonically and ironically the only "person" in the room who can understand the reference.

Howl saying "Denmark" in the same sentence. And, again, they're in a fairly tale fantasy word. Sophie has absolutely no clue what to hell is Denmark. For Howl this is the basic knowledge of elementary school level.

Poor Percival being almost KILLED for transforming in the middle of a valley because people thought he's a WEREWOLF.

Poor Percival being STROKED with information of him being made of part of two other people right after experiencing heavy trauma, beheading, physical damages, not really well-planed adopting and moving a house.

Percival describing laying on the shelf and looking at the other parts of himself. What a lovely kids book.

Sophie accidentally making cayenne pepper magical. She would make a great seller-witch career because she doesn't need to know the spell in order to make. She takes random powder. She says it will do the duel fair. It makes the duel fare by making an opponent sneezing uncontrollable (wich is also just a way cayenne pepper affects people lmao)

Sophie's first thoughts after she heard that Howl is leaving the black door knob where it is being "Of course! There's miss. Angorian!'. Sophie, dear, he has a family out there.

Michael, apparently, hiding the money under the same brick Sophie will soon describe in CITA as "the brick where we're hiding money from Howl"

Miss Angorian and Howl acting like the spell in a modern Wales is the most normal thing ever. "That's a spell!!" "Oh yeah of course I suspected that"

“Didn’t know I used to fly up the wing for my university, did you, Mrs. Nose?” “If you were trying to fly, you must have forgotten how,” aka Sophie absolutely not understanding modern world sport terminology

Drunk Howell trying to get through the door MULTIPLE times, bumping on it before "discovering" the door

Calcifer "taking" that huge mention they lived (and almost never visited) in without buying it. It was literally said the owner is just Not Here.

Sophie loosing an acces to her own room. Wich must be really sad.

Witch of the Waste leaning on a swing when literally capturing Howl's family

Additionaly: Howl canonically NOT altering his clothes while rushing to save his family. He was running around in a long-sleeved medieval closes on a welsh playground

Sophie and miss Angorian having a whole fight over the guitar pulling it back and forward while it was making horrible sounds

Sophie literally pushing miss. Angorian off the house using the said guitar

Howl immediatly reacting when someone mentioned that the star Michael tried to catch looks sad.

Scarecrow literally running around with parts of Justin's body on its sticky shoulders for eighty percent of the book's finale

Howl saying he could be "the evil fairy at his own christening" which is probably a reference to the "Sleeping Beaty". Also. rises a question: did Howl HAD a christening. There's a huge chance he actually did.

Ben and Justin just. smiling at each other for enough amount of time for Sophie's narrative to say "If she had paid any attention she would see them". Am I interuppting something???

Lettie hating Howl's courting SO MUCH she asked Percival to bite him several times.

Additionally: Ben apologising to Howl for trying to bite him. That's also probably first time they're interacting

Howl ignoring all of it because sOPHIE HATTER

I like to think I'm funny.

HELLO HI YES YOU

ARE YOU GETTING TIRED OF A LOT OF RECENT MCU PROJECTS BC THEY JUST REPEAT THE SAME ASPECTS AND THE CHARACTERS DON'T SEEM TO EVER SHOW UP AGAIN

ARE YOU LOOKING FOR SOMETHING MCU-ADJACENT BUT NOT TO THE POINT OF REWATCHING ALL THE MOVIES?

THEN MAY I PRESENT TO YOU: AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D.

COMPLETELY MCU WITH THE PLOTS WE KNOW AND LOVE ONLY DONE CONSIDERABLY BETTER THAN THE MCU EVER COULD

FOUND FAMILY!! PINING!! ANGST!! SEASONS-LONG RELATIONSHIPS!! WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT

TRY AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D. TODAY

Eilonwy held up the golden ball. He took it, cradled it reverently in his hands, and whispered something she could not make out. He looked her in the eye. “Did you know this was your mother’s?” 

Warm gladness bloomed in her chest. “I thought it might be,” she said, “because I couldn’t imagine Achren giving it to me. But I wasn’t sure. She never tried to take it away.” 

“No,” Gwydion said, that wistful smile back on his face. “She coveted it, beyond a doubt, but it would have done nothing for her. But for you…” he hesitated. “Can you use it?” 

“I can do this.” She took it back and cupped the smooth sphere, raised it glowing before his face. A spark of glimmering gold mirrored it in both his eyes. She felt from him a rush of emotions so palpable it almost knocked her over, too many, too intense even to unravel one from the other. He was looking at the light as though transfixed, and with an effort that felt like a dam breaking, he tore his eyes away and gently pushed her hand down, blocking the glow from his vision. 

CTF Japan is underrated and over hated. Hot Take.