Angsty Bilbo dying Bagginshield art giving me another story idea~ 😂😭💕
But no, seriously? A play on the popular time travel fix-it, but one where Bilbo dies protecting Thorin during the Battle of Five Armies? And Thorin is inconsolable, I can’t even. And he might pull himself together long enough to stabilize Erebor, but there is No Way he can be a good ruler in his grief, so he has to pass it on. (I was going to say to Dain just to twist that knife a little harder, but actually there are reasons hinted below on why Fíli & Kíli must have lived.) And Thorin just… he wanders, probably. A shell of himself for the rest of his days.
And yet, when he inevitably passes away, he awakens on the road to the Shire. And he’s younger. And he’s so confused, quickly suspecting he must be dead and this is nothing like what he was taught to expect. But then his instant impulse to check Bag End has him walking in on that same meeting from so many years ago, his Company intact, the wizard smiling at him, introducing him to… to…
Bilbo. His Bilbo. The sight of him makes Thorin want to weep and hold him and never let go again, but he is instantly terrified to do anything, because is this a dream? Will he wake? What happens if he says something new, will ‘this’ be ruined somehow? He doesn’t want that, doesn’t want to change anything, save for the end. The very end.
But, even as he strives to mimic himself, he knows something is wrong. He’s off-script from the start purely due to his shock, but he tries to recover, get back on track, and within words, he’s managed it. The discussion is righting itself, and no one there could possibly know the difference, right?
And yet, Bilbo stares at him. From the instant Thorin walked in, Bilbo was staring, looking lost. As he had before, that first time, but it wasn’t the same. Bilbo had been confused then as well, but it had been a light, anxious uncertainty then. This time? He was frowning, his expression tense.
His eyes haunted.
Because Bilbo has also lived that night before. Just once as far as that night was concerned, but it was familiar to him. So familiar. That first night had haunted him for decades, to the very end of his long, long life, when he thought he might know rest, and perhaps — if he was truly as lucky as some once claimed — he might get to see his friends again. See Thorin again.
Instead he had slept, drifted away, and awoken to a battle about to start.
And he had questioned it, had stumbled that first time, but he adjusted. He tried to save Thorin. To save them all.
And he failed. Again.
Then, when he finally slept for the first time afterwards, he awoke to the battle starting again.
And again.
And he tried, over and over, day after the same horrid day to find a way to get through. And sometimes Thorin lived. Sometimes the princes did. Sometimes, new people died. The wrong people.
Once, in his darkest moments, he thought that perhaps someone was trying to teach him humility, teach him to accept fate as it was and not try to fight it, not change anything. And so he went through the motions as well as he could remember them after all those years, following them to the letter, save for when he sobbed all the harder when it was done.
He sobbed again, the relief bone-deep, when he awoke again the next day, the battle still awaiting him.
He lost count of his attempts, and no one could rightly vouch for his state of mind when he finally resorted to the one thing he had refused to try: Not since that fourth (or fifth?) time, when he managed to be there for the fight and threw himself in Azog’s way, but Thorin pulled him out of the way, and screamed at him with such outrage and fear and despair in the few beats he bought by pushing Azog over, that Bilbo never attempted it again.
Until that final day. And that time, Bilbo didn’t give Thorin a chance to stop him.
And it broke a heart Bilbo thought long since shattered to hear Thorin scream, to feel him pick him up and hold him close and hear his voice like that. But the words faded soon enough, and he couldn’t feel anything, nothing except for regret and acceptance, because this was different. He felt it. This time, he would not awaken again, and that was fine. He had saved his king, kept all of his dwarves safe that last time. If that was to be the last, then that was all he could ask for. It was alright. He could sleep.
Then he woke up.
Not outside Erebor, but inside a hole. His hole. Bag End.
He walked outside, stood in the sun, and watched a wizard walk up the road to his door.
He did not understand.
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I feel like if Clemont had any social media he wouldn’t be posting much besides some random pictures of resources he got to make his new inventions or any bigger changes in the gym schedules that were done last minute and aren’t out on the official Lumiose gyms page yet
Yes that is End’s starter, yes the big guy just so happened to be End’s unofficial emotion support pokemon, he isn’t there often but it’s pretty much like that every time he decides to sleep in their shared bedroom
Occasionally, I think he would post some random ass stuff once in a while, since he doesn’t post much, it’s in and isn’t in character for him, and the subject of those photos would be mostly End, he never posts their face to the public since they told him they didn’t want to be on the internet, so their appearance on his account would be mostly like this lmao as they get up to do some stupid stuff around their now shared home
Both are 18 at that point and End is mostly living in the tower with Clemont and Bonnie! As both End and Clemont had been dating for a longer bit now, 2 years to be exact, and are steadily going on their 3rd year together!
Some older art as i take it easy and draw more for myself and focus on planning more Attacks for Art Fight! My future posts are about to be a mess but i don’t really care lmao
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"I honestly think both in terms of fic for the show itself and for RPF, it's about race"
Ah, I wasn't expecting this, which as a brown woman is incredibly naive of me.
There's currently discourse on X about Louis being the most "boring" character which is also, undoubtedly, driven by racism.
(x)
Oh, I'm really sorry, anon, and you shouldn't feel naive. I mean, for starters, I could be wrong, and I'm being pretty speculative, but even if I'm right, the onerous of that isn't, or at least shouldn't be, on you. I think there's a lot of really great progressive things that happen in fandom, but at the same time fandom is created by People Living in Societies, and unfortunately biases and discrimination, at least in my experience, can and do seep through in ways that are both toxic and just flat out negligent.
The idea of Louis being boring is absolutely an insane and racist rhetoric too. He is so wildly interesting as a character, with so many layers of storytelling and nuance and contradiction, which I adore in him, and it makes me wonder if the people who find him boring are the same ones who want to make him the audience insert (insane given Daniel is literally right there) or to project all this 'battered housewife' narrative onto him, which - - look.
I've tried to shrug this off, but I literally just spent the entire day at a symposium on how the Australian government child support system is weaponised by abusive men against women post-divorce, so I'm a bit of a raw nerve about this topic, but it's made me even more pissed off at the Louis-Housewife arguments than normal.
Not only is it diminishing and completely at odds with his character, but what a way to show you've never, ever engaged with real survivors of, or conversations with, patriarchal oppression.
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summer winter reading/writing/arting tag
Thank you so much for tagging me @thealterscrolls in your post, you know I love an excuse to overshare about things I like and/or are working on. Though, I'll be nice and keep each list to a maximum of 8 cause otherwise I would go overboard and that would make this already long post longer than necessary. Alright, let's get into it:
Describe one creative WIP project you're planning to work on over the summer:
No summer for me for a while but hey, winter for me personally is a great time to work on stuff cause excursions outside the house are at a minimum, and I don't have to feel bad about being inside all day when the sun's already going down at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Anyway, I'm hoping to work on my In the Absent Place prequel slash companion fic focusing on Jake and the events that lead into that story. It's been an idea I've wanted to do for months and I have indeed started on it but I keep getting distracted from it by other ideas and fandoms (and also working on zine fics). But I do want to finish it. I also have a fic for The Owl House and one for Wolf 359 that I keep coming back to (aka the fics that have been distracting me), so we'll see if I ever get round to finishing those.
Recommend a book:
When it comes to reading books, I am both very easily entertained (I rarely give out 1 or 2 stars) and extremely reserved with what I consider a great book, to me at least. I have given only a few books 5 stars. These are those few books:
• 'Project Hail Mary' by Andy Weir
• 'Piranesi' by Susanna Clarke
• 'Loveless' by Alice Oseman
• 'Radio Silence' by Alice Oseman
• 'Elatsoe' by Darcie Little Badger
• 'Good Omens' by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
• 'The Witch's Heart' by Genevieve Gornichec
• 'His Dark Materials' series by Philip Pullman
Recommend a fic:
There are so many great fics I've read that are lost to time because I'm stupid and rarely bookmark stuff (it's that same 5 star problem, y'see). But here's some I have bookmarked or remember really liking:
• 'Mens Rea' by yellow_caballero (Moon Knight)
• 'the dotted line' by zippe (Moon Knight)
• 'An Evolving Situation' by whiskyrunner (Moon Knight, ongoing)
• 'Puddlejumping' by Davechicken (Moon Knight)
• 'Misguided Ghosts' by petrichorishly (Lucifer)
• 'Thermotemporal Equations' by blinkytreefrog (Captain America)
• 'No Echo' by sh0rtwave (Wolf 359)
• 'you were the song that i'd always sing, you were the light that fire would bring' by rnelody (The Owl House)
Recommend Music:
I like listening to a lot of genres, but I think indie pop is probably my go-to, so pretty much all of these will fall under that. Here are some of the songs I've really been enjoying lately:
• 'Word to the Trees' by whatever mike
• 'Christmas in June' by AJR
• 'Kelly Time' by Owl City
• 'Bite Down (Bastille vs. HAIM)' by Bastille
• 'Jigsaw' by Conan Gray
• 'Bloody! Bloody!' by Junie & TheHutFriends
• 'Serotonin' by girl in red
• 'Talking to Myself' by Will Jay
Share one piece of advice:
Nothing you learn is a waste of time. Nothing. Doesn't matter how obscure or pointless it feels like it is, everything comes in handy some way or another eventually (and, hey, even if it doesn't, it can still be fun to have that knowledge). So learn! Learn whatever you want, however big or small. Learn that fictional language or lore from your favourite story. Learn about a show you've never watched from an hour long video essay. Learn about that obscure historical event you found in a Wikipedia rabbit hole at 2AM. Learn not because you have to but because you want to and because you're interested. Because no time is ever wasted when you've gained something new.
That's it for me. I'll tag @pizzee, @yellowocaballero, @theophagism, and @mockspector. Consider it my not-so-sneaky way to learn about your projects and/or favourite books/fics. ;)
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