Literally My Favorite Moment In The Book. Eight-year-old Me Read And Cried. I Won’t Finish It, But

peaceful valinor days feat. the cousins

Left to right: (curufin, celegorm, aredhel) (fingon, caranthir, maedhros) (turgon, finrod, maglor)

Maeglin for @kaiartx

“If you have time to be on social media, you also have time for…” “If you have time to watch Netflix, you also have time for…” Yeah, but do I have the energy for it? Do I have the emotional and mental capacity for it? Am I pain-free enough for it? Can I focus on it? Can I do it without leaving my bed? Can I safely do it without risk of (physically or emotionally) injuring myself by pushing past my boundaries?

Sauron sacrifices a branch of Nimloth, the white tree of Numenor, in the Temple for Morgoth.

I don't know I'm not done talking about it. It's insane that I can't just uninstall Edge or Copilot. That websites require my phone number to sign up. That people share their contacts to find their friends on social media.

I wouldn't use an adblocker if ads were just banners on the side funding a website I enjoy using and want to support. Ads pop up invasively and fill my whole screen, I misclick and get warped away to another page just for trying to read an article or get a recipe.

Every app shouldn't be like every other app. Instagram didn't need reels and a shop. TikTok doesn't need a store. Instagram doesn't need to be connected to Facebook. I don't want my apps to do everything, I want a hub for a specific thing, and I'll go to that place accordingly.

I love discord, but so much information gets lost to it. I don't want to join to view things. I want to lurk on forums. I want to be a user who can log in and join a conversation by replying to a thread, even if that conversation was two days ago. I know discord has threads, it's not the same. I don't want to have to verify my account with a phone number. I understand safety and digital concerns, but I'm concerned about information like that with leaks everywhere, even with password managers.

I shouldn't have to pay subscriptions to use services and get locked out of old versions. My old disk copy of photoshop should work. I should want to upgrade eventually because I like photoshop and supporting the business. Adobe is a whole other can of worms here.

Streaming is so splintered across everything. Shows release so fast. Things don't get physical releases. I can't stream a movie I own digitally to friends because the share-screen blocks it, even though I own two digital copies, even though I own a physical copy.

I have an iPod, and I had to install a third party OS to easily put my music on it without having to tangle with iTunes. Spotify bricked hardware I purchased because they were unwillingly to upkeep it. They don't pay their artists. iTunes isn't even iTunes anymore and Apple struggles to upkeep it.

My TV shows me ads on the home screen. My dad lost access to eBook he purchased because they were digital and got revoked by the company distributing them. Hitman 1-3 only runs online most of the time. Flash died and is staying alive because people love it and made efforts to keep it up.

I have to click "not now" and can't click "no". I don't just get emails, they want to text me to purchase things online too. My windows start search bar searches online, not just my computer. Everything is blindly called an app now. Everything wants me to upload to the cloud. These are good tools! But why am I forced to use them! Why am I not allowed to own or control them?

No more!!!!! I love my iPod with so much storage and FLAC files. I love having all my fics on my harddrive. I love having USBs and backups. I love running scripts to gut suck stuff out of my Windows computer I don't want that spies on me. I love having forums. I love sending letters. I love neocities and webpages and webrings. I will not be scanning QR codes. Please hand me a physical menu. If I didn't need a smartphone for work I'd get a "dumb" phone so fast. I want things to have buttons. I want to use a mouse. I want replaceable batteries. I want the right to repair. I grew up online and I won't forget how it was!

Carved this for Halloween this year but I thought I’d post it for @nolofinweanweek!

Fingolfin v. Morgoth, very much inspired by this piece by @gvalesthedumb!

And a daytime shot, for more pumpkin and less fires of angband:

DAY TWO of @silmsmutweek! "Coast" and "cross-cultural relationships" both suggested to me Finarfin/Earwen, so under the cut is another 400 words of one of their first sexual experiences together. Content note: contemplation of sexual morality in a world with gods who live next door and, uh, butt stuff.

“Those who live outside the Calacirya,” Arafinwe's mother had reminded him, “do not always honor the Valar in the same way we do, here in the fullness of Their light.” And in her frustrating, this is something you need to learn for yourself way, “You must be prepared to choose the ways that seem right to you.”

He understood better, when he saw his friends in Alqualonde slipping away into the shadows beyond the beach bonfires in pairs or triads or more, leading each other by the hand in every possible combination of genders behind boathouses and under piers, to elicit sounds from each other that the humid, starlit air did nothing to muffle.

And while his mother certainly must have an opinion of her own, he had been given leave to decide his own path.

He didn't say no when his best friend took his hand and led him to a small grotto well prepared with quilts and cushions. Nor when she began to kiss him, really kiss him, with lips and teeth and tongue. Nor when she stripped them both of the finely-woven cloth they had been draped in.

Then she asked if he wanted to see something fun, and showed him the suggestively carved rod of ivory and bottle of fragrant olive oil she'd brought along. 

He didn't know why, exactly, he'd agreed to be the one to receive it. Misplaced gallantry perhaps? She'd told him she'd enjoy it either way. Or maybe he was too curious and too trusting for his own good. This time, she made him say yes with his actual mouth before she directed him onto his hands and knees.

She was merely petting him softly along the back and telling him how very good he was doing for her as she slowly, gently pressed her little toy deeper and deeper into his asshole. He was merely gripping the fabric beneath his hands, trying not to weep and failing not to moan at the intensity of the sensation.

They weren't touching each other anywhere they shouldn't, he told himself, though he'd grown achingly hard and she kept wriggling her hips needily. They hadn't even unbraided their hair. He could almost assert that they weren't getting up to anything improper at all. 

But she was the princess of this land, after all. Surely she wouldn’t encourage her best friend into any behavior that might be considered sinful.

They just honored the Valar differently here, was all.

Literal definition of spyware:

Also From Microsoft’s own FAQ: "Note that Recall does not perform content moderation. It will not hide information such as passwords or financial account numbers. 🤡