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COMMISSIONS POST! My commissions are permanently open! Here are the current options! For any questions and additional info - feel free to DM me! Would greatly appreciate reblogs and likes!

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they say you can't pour from an empty cup but i've been doing it my whole life and aside from all of these mysterious ailments it's working out great for me

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if there's one thing i appreciate about americans, its that they are DELIGHTED by "american love burger" jokes. they cant get enough of them! much like how they cant get enough of burger……

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People often say LOTR is a story about hope. (I'm reminded of it because someone said it in the notes of my Faramir post.) And that's true, but it's not the whole picture: LOTR is in large part a story about having to go on in the absence of hope.

Frodo has lost hope, as well as the ability to access any positive emotion, by Return. He is already losing it in Towers: he keeps going through duty and determination and of course Sam's constant help.

For most of the story, Sam is fueled by hope, which is why it's such a huge moment when he finally lets go of the hope of surviving and returning home, and focuses on making it to the Mountain. To speed their way and lighten the load, he throws his beloved pots and pans into a pit, accepting that he will never cook, or eat, again.

When Eowyn kills the Witch King, she's beyond hope and seeking for a glorious death in battle. It's possible that in addition to her love and loyalty for Théoden, she's strengthened by her hopelessness, the fear of the Nazgúl cannot touch someone who's already past despair.

Faramir is his father's son, he doesn't have any more hope of Gondor's victory or survival than Denethor does, he says as much to Frodo. What hope have we? It is long since we had any hope. ... We are a failing people, a springless autumn. He knows he's fighting a losing war and it's killing him. When he rejects the ring, he doesn't do it in the hope that his people can survive without it, he has good reason to believe they cannot. He acts correctly in the absence of hope.

Of course LOTR has a (mostly) happy ending, all the unlikely hopes come true, the characters who have lost hope gain what they didn't even hope for, and everyone is rewarded for their bravery and goodness, so on some level the message is that hope was justified. But the book never chastises characters who lost hope, it was completely reasonable of them to do so. Despair pushed Théoden and Denethor into inaction, pushed Saruman into collaboration, but the characters who despaired and held up under the weight of despair are Tolkien's real heroes.

(In an early draft of Return, Frodo and Sam receive honorary titles in Noldorin: Endurance beyond Hope and Hope Unquenchable, respectively. Then he cut it, probably because it was stating the themes of the entire book way too obviously, because this is what Tolkien cared about, really: enduring beyond hope. Without hope.)

Also, people who know more than me about the concept of estel, feel free to @ me.

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i like to imagine the act 1 kirkwall gang hanging out on those steps outside gamlen’s place for no reason. just sort of lounging and bickering

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The fate of Marian Hawke and Anders after the events of Inquisition Second part of my Dragon Age epilogue series. First part: Amelia Tabris Third part: Maela Lavellan

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My favorite part of the whole "Hawke is just like their father" thing is the implication that whatever Malcolm taught his eldest kid got warped and twisted by the sheer weight of responsibility that fell on their shoulders after his death, by the war, by the loss of one of the twins, by Kirkwall...

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no revenge because I forgot what you did #memoryloss

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A group of curious preschoolers visits some beehives in Stockholm

Submit your cute pet here | Source: https://bit.ly/3qre7V4

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Insane brainrot moment: I referenced Leeroy Jenkins offhandedly, and then realized that meme is 20 years old now

Happy birthday Leeroy I fucking guess!!

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the endless search

— (fenris)

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when Brennan said "The first rule of existence is: as above, so below. People are fractal images of the universe. You are as we are. In the same way your heart feels and your mind thinks, you, mortal beings are the instrument by which the universe cares. If you choose to care, then the universe cares. If you don't, then it doesn't."

when Brennan said "It is a horrifying responsibility to think because things cannot remain the same, each and every one of us must shoulder some responsibility for how they will become different."

when Brennan said "Sometimes decisions are not difficult. Sometimes they are just hard."

when Brennan said "There is no moral. The Wolf eats you one day and until it does, the forest is beautiful."

when Brennan said "I always felt the fundamental substance of the universe is creation. None of this makes any sense, when you really break it down. It's like, none of this had to happen, but it's beautiful and art is the definition of 'this didn't have to happen, but it's beautiful.' [...] It resonates with the universe because the universe is consciousness playing with itself."

when Brennan said

when Brennan said

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sometimes you want to go someplace where everybody knows your name

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can I interest anyone in a dark Essek the Assembly prisoner + scourger Caleb AU...? 👀

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Shout out to the USA for pissing Canadians off so bad it flipped an entire election that was supposed to be a landslide for the center-right, forever in your debt o7