#namarie

[septembersghost]

my queue was supposed to run out tonight (11/19) - i'm nothing if not someone who clings to dates and anniversaries, and exactly a month ago, i realized i had enough posts stowed in it to last until today. of all the days. kismet. you know when it's time to go. but i ended up adding some posts from my (still copious) drafts, and no matter how i finagled it, it was impossible to make them all fit by the time today ended. so it gets a little bit of extra time. maybe, in honor of this blog's existence, that's fitting.

you all know this, i've said it, typically in gratitude, many times already. this blog was never meant to last. i came back in november 2020 expecting a couple of months, maybe to be here until the new year. i told very few people, anticipating the goodbye, not wanting to cause anyone undue anguish when i had to vanish again. something i didn't expect was the sheer (admittedly devasting) emotion that would tie itself to those two weeks when i started interacting again, nor that it would have any outreach or impact, but somehow it did. then time kept spinning on, extending itself, gossamer threads unfurling each day. my following kept growing, far beyond what i could have anticipated, greater than i'd ever established on any of my previous blogs. moving around is unfortunately a pattern at this point, every time for reasons that felt quietly catastrophic. not being able to pay bills for a while. angel's death and the ensuing difficult circumstances. so here, i kept anxiously imagining why i'd eventually have to leave, how to plan for it. poverty issues. the homelessness we were facing through the entirety of a couple of years until last august (and my dad having to be the saving grace). worsening health issues. i never knew, i couldn't predict it, i just worried about it. often tried to brace for it. maybe i got too comfortable this year, because this was when i started to think it wouldn't happen, that i really could stay. little did i know. and the reasons...are not reasons i ever fathomed, why would i have? how could i have? i wish it weren't so. (i wish a lot of things.)

i thought sometimes about the words i would leave you with, none of which are suitable now. i almost wrote nothing, yet found that feeling wrong, couldn't leave without something about parting.

thus it turns out i'm leaving before it's strictly necessary, before it's the fear of personal catastrophe coming to fruition, not knowing what i'll do or where i'll metaphorically go, as that is the downside of chronic illness and isolation narrowing this to my sole outlet. (lyrics keep running through my mind, there are always lyrics stuck in my head. no matter where i go, there'll be memories that tug at my sleeve, but there will also be more to question, yet more to believe...teach me to be more adaptive...help me say goodbye). my body is in such a fragile state right now (my mind not far behind) that maybe what i need to do is rest. just rest for a while.

this blog was never meant to grow the way it did, to take asks and have conversations like i did, that was a somewhat new (sometimes scary! often fun) experience for me. it's one that will never be replicated. to my loyal and lovely anons, i'm so sorry that i had to cut you off unexpectedly and couldn't reinstate communication - i know that you weren't able to reach out to me as soon as i did that, and that certainly wasn't your fault, it was a response to the tenor of this website. i apologize for the hundreds of messages i never had the chance to answer. i'm appreciative of the things you shared with me and all the times we got to talk.

i sincerely hope some of you learn to be kinder and wiser and less reactionary and more willing to learn and to listen rather than to attack those who have never wronged you and who do not deserve that. i'm being too nice, but i hope you learn that misusing your supposed social justice to do harm and foment hatred and stew in ignorant cruelty makes any principles you purport to have utterly void. my hope for that is low at the moment, but it's still got to be there. waiting to be found.

to those of you who have never been anything but kind, you are true treasures, the lights in the darkness, the loving and compassionate embodiment of human spirit. some of you have (quite literally) helped keep my mom and me alive, and i can never repay that or do enough in this life to quantify it. some of you have been here for me every single day, to listen and laugh and cry and understand. i don't think i would've bothered to fight through these past three years had i not had your presences in my life. i wouldn't have had as much of a reason. there are times when i still haven't felt like i had a reason, i struggle through so many varied griefs, but then i continued to wake up, and would come on here and find something joyful or beautiful or affirming that someone had sent or posted, and it gave me an anchor. there are passions and interests i shared or discovered here that were so uplifting and enlightening, and i will carry them in my heart always. being here to find those was such a blessing. being here with you to indulge in them was such a blessing. thank you. i pray your continued paths have more of that ahead. look at all the things you've done for me. there are certain things that once you have no time can wear away.

you know that line from the wizard of oz?: hearts will never be practical until they are made unbreakable. maybe that isn't true, maybe our hearts being broken is proof of something. there are people who hurt me on such a profound level who i know weren't affected by it at all, but i refuse to define my sensitivity as a negative. my softness (too soft for all of it, indeed) does not quite provide me with a weapon, but it doesn't crumple. hearts can be broken repeatedly and still beat, which i've thought about a lot lately. shattered souls just make a new mosaic. it's a different picture than it was before, but the color and light persists. and in the remains of that, a handful of people have shown me depths of caring and resilience that i wouldn't have gotten to hold onto otherwise, which is an extraordinary thing. the precious rarities have to mean something more, don't they? i would think so. i believe it. or i'm trying. i keep trying with all my might.

maybe i stayed too long at the fair. maybe this is a consequence of overplaying my hand, gambling a little too much with time to where it had to teach me something. maybe i needed the reminder that sometimes we have to fight to retain our spirits, and other times we have to retreat. maybe i needed a reminder that all that extra time was a miracle. i don't take it for granted.

whether we've spoken directly, be that consistently or in scattered flurries, whether we've interacted in very personal ways or simply in liked hearts on the dash, i hope there was goodness and light in it. i hope there's a memory i leave here that's sweet. (as long as i'm borrowing phrases, i hope you'll think of me fondly sometimes.) i hope there was something warm and enriching here. i hope you know what you've been and meant to me. i said so many times that this blog was my cozy haunted house - the ghosts will linger here forever, and i know they'll never mind if you want to step in and visit.

with all my heart, i love so many of you so dearly. i am so lucky to have your friendships. please move gently through life. please hold onto the things that illuminate it for you, and provide that where you can. please do your best to repair even the smallest of tears in the world. you are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.

there must be lights burning brighter somewhere.

something yet remains. i remain. and i do my best to be brave.

[greeneyed-thestral]

Namárië.

[bishkebab]

Surrender your laudanum, ice pick, electrodes

You cannot unhaunt me nor render me sane

No more than a canyon can be uneroded

Or visions returned to the eye from the brain

The paths in our cortices deepen with sadness:

The lines of the crane when the paper unfolds

For what else is grief but a requisite madness-

What is a ghost but the clay in the mold?

[felagund-fiollaigean]

Stardew Valley Expanded references to Galadriel's song Namárië from the fellowship of the ring just for me??? you shouldn't have!!

[ebaeschnbliah]

‘In this phial is caught the light of Eärendil's star’

`And you, Ring-bearer,' she said, turning to Frodo. `I come to you last who are not last in my thoughts. For you I have prepared this.' She held up a small crystal phial: it glittered as she moved it, and rays of white light sprang from her hand. 'In this phial,' she said, `is caught the light of Eärendil's star, set amid the waters of my fountain. It will shine still brighter when night is about you. May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out. Remember Galadriel and her Mirror! '

Frodo took the phial, and for a moment as it shone between them, he saw her again standing like a queen, great and beautiful, but no longer terrible. He bowed, but found no words to say.

Now the Lady arose, and Celeborn led them back to the hythe. A yellow noon lay on the green land of the Tongue, and the water glittered with silver. All at last was made ready. The Company took their places in the boats as before. Crying farewell, the Elves of Lórien with long grey poles thrust them out into the flowing stream, and the rippling waters bore them slowly away. The travellers sat still without moving or speaking. On the green bank near to the very point of the Tongue the Lady Galadriel stood alone and silent. As they passed her they turned and their eyes watched her slowly floating away from them. For so it seemed to them: Lórien was slipping backward, like a bright ship masted with enchanted trees, sailing on to forgotten shores, while they sat helpless upon the margin of the grey and leafless world.

Even as they gazed, the Silverlode passed out into the currents of the Great River, and their boats turned and began to speed southwards. Soon the white form of the Lady was small and distant. She shone like a window of glass upon a far hill in the westering sun, or as a remote lake seen from a mountain: a crystal fallen in the lap of the land. Then it seemed to Frodo that she lifted her arms in a final farewell, and far but piercing-clear on the following wind came the sound of her voice singing. But now she sang in the ancient tongue of the Elves beyond the Sea, and he did not understand the words: fair was the music, but it did not comfort him.

Yet as is the way of Elvish words, they remained graven in his memory, and long afterwards he interpreted them, as well as he could: the language was that of Elven-song and spoke of things little known on Middle-earth.

Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen, yéni únótimë ve rámar aldaron! Yéni ve lintë yuldar avánier mi oromardi lisse-miruvóreva Andúnë pella, Vardo tellumar nu luini yassen tintilar i eleni ómaryo airetári-lírinen. Sí man i yulma nin enquantuva? An sí Tintallë Varda Oiolossëo ve fanyar máryat Elentári ortanë, ar ilyë tier undulávë lumbulë; ar sindanóriello caita mornië i falmalinnar imbë met, ar hísië untúpa Calaciryo míri oialë. Sí vanwa ná, Rómello vanwa, Valimar! Namárië! Nai hiruvalyë Valimar. Nai elyë hiruva. Namárië!

`Ah! like gold fall the leaves in the wind, long years numberless as the wings of trees! The long years have passed like swift draughts of the sweet mead in lofty halls beyond the West, beneath the blue vaults of Varda wherein the stars tremble in the song of her voice, holy and queenly. Who now shall refill the cup for me? For now the Kindler, Varda, the Queen of the Stars, from Mount Everwhite has uplifted her hands like clouds, and all paths are drowned deep in shadow; and out of a grey country darkness lies on the foaming waves between us, and mist covers the jewels of Calacirya for ever. Now lost, lost to those from the East is Valimar! Farewell! Maybe thou shalt find Valimar. Maybe even thou shalt find it. Farewell! ' Varda is the name of that Lady whom the Elves in these lands of exile name Elbereth.

Suddenly the River swept round a bend, and the banks rose upon either side, and the light of Lórien was hidden. To that fair land Frodo never came again.

The gifts for:  

Boromir, Legolas, Merry, Pippin, Sam: ‘I have brought in my ship gifts’

Aragorn: 'Now it is time to drink the cup of farewell.'

Gimli: `And what gift would a Dwarf ask of the Elves?'  

JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Farewell to Lórien

.

JRR Tolkien reads ‘Namárië ’:

‘Namárië ’ - setting by Donald Swann, sung by William Elvin, recorded 1967:

[starillion]

more stuff under cut

yo hi peeps dropping some namarie scribbles as a reminder that i am very much not dead, but just overly obsessed over chinese danmei that i spend 24/7 moaning over gay cultivators. mm those are good stuff. currently learning chinese as third(fourth including quenya) language to actually read at jjwxc alas, so given that, this blog would be dormant-ish but i shall almost definitely come round for this year's trsb!

[softlysilverfountainsfall]

Idea - Galadriel's Namarie song in Fellowship foreshadowed Frodo's (and eventually Sam's, but mostly Frodo's) choice to actually go to Valimar.

"But now [Galadriel] sang in the ancient tongue of the Elves beyond the Sea, and [Frodo] did not understand the words: fair was the music, but it did not comfort him. Yet as is the way of Elvish words, they remained graven in his memory, and long afterwards he interpreted them, as well as he could: the language was that of Elven-song and spoke of things little known on Middle-earth" (Farewell to Lorien).

Then the song, in (presumably) Quenya, then the translation:

"Now lost, lost to those from the East is Valimar! Farewell! Maybe thou shalt find Valimar. Maybe even thou shalt find it. Farewell!" (emphasis mine)

Then, not two sentences later: "To that fair land Frodo never came again."

Yes, the Namarie is largely about Galadriel's separation from Valimar and eventual return, but she's singing it to the Fellowship and the song is interpreted through Frodo's POV. I think it's not too much of a stretch to say that it foreshadows Frodo's pain and his voyage to Valimar.

[s-is-for-simp]

I'm so sorry, Marcille, that none of these people have good fashion taste

Dungeon Meshi chaps. 88 + 89

[wattse]

passing out

[officialspec]

heres most of the notes i have for brisbane meshi. i could draw this forever probably

[pien-art]

head full of Them :3

I wanted to post this with some other sketches but then those turned angsty so i will be posting that later fhfhjs

[toothwormfactory]

god imagine seeing this happen like every single day

bonus:

[greeneyed-thestral]

It means more than simply "farewell." It means… "Go towards goodness."

[bishkebab]

A brief portrait of 3 (I dreamed of last night)

Gail:

When I got my first Kindle she set it up for me, so that I started out already loaded up with classics and at least a dozen Terry Pratchett books along with a batch of custom screensavers.

She also had her email set up for send-to-Kindle and through the years I would sometimes open it and find she had dropped something onto it from wherever she was across the world - Taiwan, Costa Rica.

Less than 3 months after she died we flew to Norway for my friend’s wedding. I was 6 months pregnant with Éowyn and the second stretch of the flight was 8 hours from Atlanta to Amsterdam, so I stretched out the best I could and broke out the Kindle.

For the first time instead of rereading favorites I had loaded myself I decided to finally explore some of the books and short stories I wasn’t familiar with- after all, Gail had shown me Bloodchild by Octavia Butler so she seemed to have had a good grasp on what I enjoyed.

I spent the next several hours crying and laughing alternately as I explored an involuntary portrait of her that was simultaneously poignant and comically on-the-nose.

The first Earthsea book I ever read, Tehanu, which includes themes about gender and how it affects magic and the expectations on peoples lives;

A series of short stories about bisexual polyamorous mages who become eco-terrorists and fight against prejudice and gentrification

A sci-fi short story from a universe where gender and genitalia are unrelated and people transfer penises back and forth when they have sex; unless I’m conflating two stories, this was also the one where the actual plot line was about a formerly passionately religious man deconstructing and then becoming an atheist, possibly by discovering that the religious raptures he had experienced were the result of psychostimulant compounds? OK, GAIL. WE GET IT. (Where do you find this stuff?)

Dr. James:

Talk about a man of contradictions.

He was a skilled veterinarian who had clients so loyal they traveled hours to see him at our practice.

He was a funny little old man who looked like Gargamel from the Smurfs.

He had a beautiful young blonde girlfriend who was clearly taking advantage of him.

He was a genius and a wily bastard who could take care of himself.

He constantly told me I should go to vet school because I was smart. He recommended me for a promotion.

I liked him, initially, because he liked me.

He loved smart women.

He hated women telling him what to do.

He thought Trump was a good businessman and was planning to vote for him.

He supported his lesbian daughter wholly and matter-of-factly.

He spent all his time on the phone talking to his divorce lawyer when he was supposed to be seeing clients.

One time I got so angry with him I slammed down a textbook, hard, on the surgery table while he was on his phone and yelled at him (me!!! Unconfrontational early 20s me!)

He had broken up his body so terribly skiing in his younger years that he was addicted to pain medications.

He stole multiple controlled substances from the safe, full knowing that as the one in charge of the logs I would be the one to take the fall once the discrepancies turned up.

When we reviewed the footage from the secret camera, I was the one who spotted the moment he slipped them into his pocket.

When I got the call from my boss, several months after he was fired, that he had shot himself in the bathtub, I was angry.

I didn’t think you were a coward, I said to him.

How could you do that to your daughters? I asked him. Why were you so selfish, at the last, to use a gun when you had drugs?

Why? I asked him.

He never would’ve answered anyway. He thought analyzing your feelings was nonsense for women.

My Grandfather, Raymond S

From my earliest memory of him Grandpa was hard of hearing and wore a hearing aid that whistled when you got too close to it.

He noticed my floppy laces when I was a teen and taught me, after years of improperly tying my laces, the difference between a grannie knot and a square knot.

He handmade wooden puzzles.

When we briefly had an organ at our house he would play it when he visited. When our dad bought an accordion on a whim he picked it up and played us the Costa Rican national anthem.

I picture him as made of squares, like a Minecraft character. Rectangular trouser legs. Square short-sleeve buttondowns, often with square patterns, tucked squarely in at the waist. Square little chin with his funny little square goatee and square mustache (apparently this was an affectation of his own that was completely unrelated to style norms around him). Square glasses. Squarely combed hair.

Once, during a visit when I was in college, he found a book at the linguistics library across the street and borrowed my library card to access it. Because he was learning German, in his 90s. He found out my best friend at school was from Germany and wrote me a list of grammatical questions for her, in his tremulous writing.

Once, shortly before my wedding, he drew me close and told me in a deaf whisper that was completely audible to everyone in the room, that I had secretly always been his favorite grandchild.

After he died I was talking with Grandma and mentioned that I had never seen him anywhere close to angry. She thought for a moment and then told me that in 70(?) years of marriage the only occasion she could think of was once when, after a long an arduous day in which nothing would go right and every possibly frustration was thrown in their path, he said to her quite calmly “I would like to go to bed now”.

[scarlethoodi]

What I really love about the Daydream Hour art is that it really shows that the characters in Dungeon Meshi aren’t just characters in a story, but they’re Ryoko Kui’s ocs. And sure maybe this is a perk that’s granted to mangakas that release on a monthly schedule opposed to weekly IDK but there’s just some about getting to see different interpretations of the characters and peeks into what she draws in her free time outside the story.

Like look Marcille likes to dance

And here’s the characters in Halloween costumes

Taking Covid precautions

And like I just love how casually she draws and depicts the characters in her personal work. There’s something for quite literally all the characters and like I said maybe other mangakas don’t have or can’t find the time to do so or choose to not release their personal work like she does but I think these pieces just make the characters feel more alive. Like she’s an oc artist through and through lol

[sunshinem0ths]

club meshis