#examples of lettering

[anghraine]

I know I've ranted about it a million times, but every time someone brings up Roman, Byzantine, and Egyptian inspirations/influences on Gondor in more mainstream Tolkien fandom spaces (not me, because I don't even talk about it off Tumblr/DW), it seems like there's always someone who gets super weird and defensive about it. I've seen so many "well actually there's no need to consider any influences outside of England, mythology for England blah blah" responses.

And it's like! Oh, you want to play the decontextualized Tolkien quotes game? How about this one:

“But this [the setting of LOTR] is not a purely 'Nordic' area in any sense. If Hobbiton and Rivendell are taken (as intended) to be at about the latitude of Oxford, then Minas Tirith, 600 miles south, is at about the latitude of Florence [in Italy]. The Mouths of Anduin and the ancient [Gondorian] city of Pelargir are at about the latitude of ancient Troy [in Turkey]. Auden has asserted that for me 'the North is a sacred direction.' That is not true. The North-west part of Europe, where I (and most of my ancestors) have lived, has my affection, as a man’s home should. I love its atmosphere, and know more of its histories and languages than I do of other parts; but it is not ‘sacred’, nor does it exhaust my affections. I have, for instance, a particular love for the Latin language, and among its descendants for Spanish ... The progress of the tale ends in what is far more like the re-establishment of an effective Holy Roman Empire with its seat in Rome than anything that would be devised by a 'Nordic.'”

Or this one:

we come [in ROTK] to the half-ruinous Byzantine City of Minas Tirith

Or:

In the south Gondor rises to a peak of power, almost reflecting Númenor, and then fades slowly to decayed Middle Age, a kind of proud, venerable, but increasingly impotent Byzantium.

Or:

The Númenóreans of Gondor were proud, peculiar, and archaic, and I think are best pictured in (say) Egyptian terms. In many ways they resembled ‘Egyptians’ - the love of, and power to construct, the gigantic and massive. And in their great interest in ancestry and in tombs. […] I think the crown of Gondor (the S. Kingdom) was very tall, like that of Egypt, but with wings attached, not set straight back but at an angle. The N. Kingdom had only a diadem (III 323). Cf. the difference between the N. and S. kingdoms of Egypt.

Or:

Thank you very much for your letter. … It came while I was away, in Gondor (sc. Venice), as a change from the North Kingdom

Middle-earth is not equivalent to England, or northern Europe in general, and Gondor especially is not northern at all!

[snowysaur]

an oc named/cursed 'odysseus', whenever someone offhand mentions 'nobody' in conversation, they're compelled to perform the action. this causes a lot of problems support me on: patreon | kofi | redbubble

[apis-vergilii]

mods asleep post cute sassy Petrarca

(detail from La farandole de Pétrarque, 1900(?), Marie-Alexandre Valentin Sellier)

[andryushas]

Joining the Les Mis fandom for Les Mis Letters as a long-time member of the War and Peace fandom is so fun because it's like you guys do that? We do that! It's like...idk like visiting cousins. Nice, fun cousins with a good book!

[pseudoquiddity]

Here's my little piece on (P1) Utopianism and orientalism/Utopian co-opting of (other) cultures (and some broadly Asian fun facts):

What's always struck me is the undercurrent of Asian aesthetic influence in P1 and one obvious reason for why it's there at all is the fact that they're bordering Mongolia and China. Many Eurasian nomads are artistically influenced by regional, cultural styles in the middle east, India, China, etc. that central and southern Asian area. But since the Kin's artistic aesthetic (in P1) reflect a utilitarianism use of leather and, broadly speaking, the Earth, where this influence appears most is with the Utopians.

Take Eva Yan, for example! I've only heard her clothes described as "strange," but the style is very reminiscent of a certain kind of dress ...

She's wearing something close to an Indian petticoat and blouse, but she's missing the saree. It might actually be what's around her neck. Indian blouses typically end above the stomach and are either long-sleeved (like what Eva's wearing) or go to the elbows. It even looks like the material might be the same, which would be silk. It seems to me that Eva Yan is doing in P1 what she's doing in P2; she's taking all of her favorite parts of a certain culture's dress and outfitting it to her tastes. Indian clothes are designed to be breathable, but Eva uses that design to look alluring. I would say that the Stamatins do the same thing in their own way; The Broken Heart's interior design and opium pipes evoke the Western-exported idea of Asian drug dens and they name their dead colleague Farkhad, based off the Persian story of Khosrow and Shirin, whether he was Persian, in the area or not - we wouldn't know.

Maria(and Eva?)'s occasional use of the honorific en-Daniil is reflective of this, too. "en" is short for "encik" and is a Malaysian convention. The reason why it's "en-Daniil" and not "en-Dankovsky" is because Malaysian names are structured like "Razak bin Osman," where the "bin" means "son of." It would be odd to call someone "Mister son of Osman," so it's either "en-Razak" or "en-Razak bin Osman."

Off the top of my head, those are the most explicit examples ... and, obviously, the Utopians all use the Kin's culture and aesthetics, too, and incorporate whatever about it interests them into their lifestyles. That aside (or not), as for why the Utopians specifically do this --- it may really be because they live in Asia. Personally, I interpret this as a very individualistic case of orientalism that expresses how Utopians seek out aesthetic beauty and concepts they find both appealing and "other" --- whether this is natural-law-breaking ideas or other cultures. I think this is a very cherry-picked kind of admiration.

[mariatesstruther]

okay but sarah celebrating tommy every year for mother’s day

[loz-chainsofcorruption]

You know what I don't see talked about enough

Intelligent monsters in the Legend of Zelda

I'm talking the moblin who was writing love letters back and forth with that girl in Wind Waker, aka a moblin with a canon name, Moe, that can fall in love and give gifts and read and write

Batreaux in Skyward Sword, a talking monster that just wants to be human

The moblin disguised as a woman in Minish Cap who asks Link to keep her identity a secret

There's the friendly, talking dodongo in the oracle games

A hinox who bribed for his life in Lorule

King Bulblin in Twilight Princess can talk too

These aren't even all the examples!!

There are so many instances in these games of intelligence beyond just using weapons, making food, forming rudimentary patrol routes or camps, etc.

At least some of these guys can talk, read, write, form connections, have hopes and dreams, and so on. At least some of them, if not all of them, have names. They're not all just mindless "me see, me attack" brutes full of nothing but bloodlust.

And I dunno, I just think people should be talking about that more

[garfrigerator]

will never get over how the most heart breaking, gut wrenching, toe curling, romantic love letter is in the kids section

[ghost-bard]

Unfortunately i woke up early so all im thinking about is the fact that the viraan siblings care for each other so much and the fact they likely didn’t have anyone other than eachother until they left üthevhenan, and that theyd all sacrifice themselves for the other

[lady-merian]

I'm curious-- why did Til We Have Faces fall short in your book?

Ooh yay I get to rant. XD

Short version: I’m not the target audience for it. I’ve never been a fan of mythology (and this myth is in particular is abhorrent to me for the sheer reactionary ICK I feel when thinking about a woman sleeping with someone she’s not even allowed to see).

Longer version: it’s probably influenced by how little I like the myth, so do take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I found most of the theology iffy at best. Trying to make a story with not only multiple gods but multiple gods with opposing goals (at least in the original myth, I don’t remember getting a clear understanding of how Ungit and the god of the mountain even work but it did still seem like their goals were not aligned) and make it say anything True without muddling things just doesn’t work for me.

Aside from the myth, the story itself depressed me and I only kept reading because I thought “this book is so highly praised it *has* to get better” and to me it just kept getting worse. I was reading it initially for a reading group but I decided to go ahead and finish it early rather than drag it out a chapter a week because every time I finished a chapter I would end up in such a bad mood, hating everything. I was hoping the ending would make up for it somehow, only the ending itself was deeply unsatisfying to me. It may have worked better if it’d shown something like Ungit being a false god, and falsely attributed to being the god of the mountain’s mother, but the god of the mountain being the true God. Maybe. I probably wouldn’t have liked it any better, but it may have helped the sense of wrongness I had with the book that I consider separate from my vehement distaste for it. Or even something like Ungit not being someone to be worshipped directly but a forerunner in a sense of the god of the mountain in the same way that Lewis saw the pagan beliefs as being preparation for the acceptance of Christianity. It could be that him setting Glome within our world is also not helping matters.

In short, it doesn’t completely destroy my opinion of someone’s taste if I find out they liked it, and if God has used it positively in someone’s life that’s great! But you couldn’t pay me to reread it and put myself through that again.

[bookmatter]

“Before we met I also had these unpredictable moods; but then I seemed to lose all contact with the world; my life seemed disrupted; I rose to the surface and dived to the depths; now I have you, my dearest, I feel myself benevolently supported, and when I collapse I know it will not be forever, at least I think I know it, and can console you and myself with thoughts of better things to come.”

Franz Kafka, Letters to Felice, Dec. 13-14, 1912

[theresthespark]

So if we’re operating on the logic that the flashbacks happening during Louis’ retelling are essentially what goes to print and that the show will follow the same direction as the Vampire Lestat as far as Lestat having read Interview with a Vampire then does that mean he’ll know about Louis hallucinating him calling Louis a whore during one of the first Loumand dates?

[anza-redstar]

“The man is a public danger. There are lonely houses scattered over the moor, and he is a fellow who would stick at nothing.”

[…]

“I assure you, Sir Henry, that in a very few days the necessary arrangements will have been made and he will be on his way to South America.”

Reading it as a kid, I don’t think I gave it a second thought, but, uh… this seems kind of rough on South America.

[seleneprince]

When the Vanserra-Archeron twins find out that Nyx is courting their beloved friend, Zinnia (Tamlin's daughter), they're not amused at all. Specially Sylvie.

She doesn't care about her cousin, has a borderline hostile dynamic with him, but for the most part he's just "that guy from Night Court she happens to share blood with". Neth is on better terms with him and she doesn't mind spending time with him, but they're not close enough to see him as family. She considers him more a long-distance friend.

Meanwhile, they adore Zinnia. They grew up with her. She's their godfather's daughter, their beloved Uncle Tamlin. They spent their childhoods jumping from Spring to Autumn frecuently just to see each other. They love like her a sister. Their families are on the same circle. In their eyes, Zinnia has always been this sweet girl they must protect and who only deserves the best.

Which it's not Nyx Archeron. Or any other brute from the Night Court. They're sure of it.

It's not just them. Literally, no one in their circle approves of this possible union, except Elain (because she knows things). Both Eris and Nesta are amused by the whole mess but he doesn't think they fit together and she doesn't want her to be at the Night Court . Lucien doesn't like it at all and neither do his and Elain's kids. And let's not get started on poor Tamlin, having to see his exes' spawn court his precious daughter so insistently.

Back at the Night Court, it's more or less the same situation. Rhysand is the only person that openly supports his son on this and even gives him advice on how to woo the girl (which is awful advice because he only tells him to do the same things he did with feyre, ignoring that not everyone enjoys those as much as she did). Feyre doesn't understand why he's so enthusiastic about becoming family with Tamlin. The rest of the IC know where Rhysand is coming from and don't dare tell Feyre the truth...

[brionysea]

will talking to el at rink o mania was actually hilarious he was like 'I noticed you're dating mike and I have notes on how to do it better' lmao like just admit you want it to be you

[camzverse]

DOING MY LAST AP EXAM OF THE TESTING SEASON TMR