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[theredheadlefty]

[theredheadlefty]

Eowyn, 04.2024

Experimenting with a new medium! Ink! It's a quick study of light. I'm rather busy, so it isn't my usual post, I know. I hope you like it still.

[theredheadlefty]

:’) more sam n frodo content ..

[theredheadlefty]

Éowyn with the starry mantle donated by Faramir 💖

+ timelapse ❣️

[theredheadlefty]

do y’all ever just

look it up

and the poor guy’s head is spinning

[theredheadlefty]

Frodo, pre and post quest.

@autisticgenderworm wanted to know my headcanons about pre and post quest Frodo.

💐 ASK ME about my headcanons about hobbits and the Shire! 💐 Want to know if yours has been answered? Check here.

Let's see, where to start... My fic deals a lot with Frodo's post-quest transformation, so I needed some time to organize my thoughts and decide on what was most important. Most of these changes revolve around the fact that post-quest Frodo has PTSD and chronic pain.

APPEARANCE : Before the quest, Frodo was a jolly, round-cheeked hobbit with the large blue eyes and elfin features whom we all know and love. He was taller than average for a hobbit, and somewhat thin for a hobbit as well. Post-quest, he seems to age a couple decades on fast forward, which is in line with him losing the Ring, which slows down the aging process. As a result, his features become more angular, and he loses the youthful baby fat around his face. In fact, he loses weight as a whole because his PTSD puts him in a constant state of fight or flight, and that makes it hard to eat. His eyes are also more serious, sometimes haunted, as well as bloodshot and dark-rimmed at times because he has a hard time sleeping.

CLOTHING : Before the quest, Frodo was a bit of a dandy, just like Bilbo. He did not have rooms and rooms devoted to clothes, but he did have a decent collection of quality, well-fitting clothes and he got new ones on a regular basis. His wardrobe was well-tended -- no spots or buttons out of place here! -- and he liked his brocades, his damasks, and his velvets. After the quest, however, he hardly ever gets new clothes, and his old ones hang off of him like a rail, but he does not seem to care. He is not planning for the future, nor is he conscious of appearances.

HEALTH : On account of having PTSD and chronic pain, he eats poorly and sleeps ever worse. Before the quest, he enjoyed long, beautiful, engaging dreams, and could fall asleep anytime and anywhere, which helped him early in the journey. Post-quest, however, he repeatedly wakes up in a cold sweat, searching for the Ring in the sheets. He also does not walk nearly as far, and feels unsafe going far from home. He is bothered by bright lights and loud noises, including his tea kettle (which he fancies sounds like a Nazgûl), and imagines people spying at the windows. At times, if particularly stressed, he dissociates or has flashbacks and hallucinations.

INTERACTIONS WITH OTHERS : On account of his illness, Frodo understandably has a hard time engaging in normal activities, including socializing. Before the quest, although he is somewhat odd and bookish, he is nonetheless sociable enough, and he wanders around the Shire, engaging in conversation with everyone he meets. He is also house-proud, and there is always a kettle on in his kitchen for visitors, and he drinks at the local inn along with the rest of the neighborhood. After the quest, however, he becomes decidedly unsociable, and rarely goes out. He has a hard time with large groups of people unless Sam is with him, and unfortunately, being unsociable does not help his case in gaining sympathy for his illness and appreciation for sacrifice.

[theredheadlefty]

It puzzles me when people cite LOTR as the standard of “simple” or “predictable” or “black and white” fantasy. Because in my copy, the hero fails. Frodo chooses the Ring, and it’s only Gollum’s own desperation for it that inadvertently saves the day. The fate of the world, this whole blood-soaked war, all the millennia-old machinations of elves and gods, comes down to two addicts squabbling over their Precious, and that is precisely and powerfully Tolkien’s point. 

And then the hero goes home, and finds home a smoking desolation, his neighbors turned on one another, that secondary villain no one finished off having destroyed Frodo’s last oasis not even out of evil so much as spite, and then that villain dies pointlessly, and then his killer dies pointlessly. The hero is left not with a cathartic homecoming, the story come full circle in another party; he is left to pick up the pieces of what was and what shall never be again. 

And it’s not enough. The hero cannot heal, and so departs for the fabled western shores in what remains a blunt and bracing metaphor for death (especially given his aged companions). When Sam tells his family, “Well, I’m back” at the very end, it is an earned triumph, but the very fact that someone making it back qualifies as a triumph tells you what kind of story this is: one that is too honest to allow its characters to claim a clean victory over entropy, let alone evil. 

“I can’t recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass. I’m naked in the dark. There’s nothing–no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him with my waking eyes.”

So where’s this silly shallow hippie fever-dream I’ve heard so much about? It sounds like a much lesser story than the one that actually exists.

[theredheadlefty]

No man

Éowyn faces the Witch king of Angmar on fields of Pelenor. Inspired by Anato Finnstark.

@anato-finnstark

[theredheadlefty]

Another coffee painting from the archives! It's been 9 years since I painted this portrait of Pippin.

I made if specifically to gift the original to Billy Boyd himself, and then made prints to sell. It was the first time I actually sold out of a print during a convention 😅

Billy's always been such a sweetheart every time I've met him. He came to several conventions in Sweden shortly after this one, and he ended up stopping by my booth to give me a hug and look at my art 🥰 I doubt he'd still recognise me now, but maybe the coffee paintings would jog his memory 😂

As usual - painted with instant coffee on smooth, heavyweight paper.

[theredheadlefty]

I can't stop thinking about the fantasy version of Santa Fe prologue that's actually a prologue. Would you even draw little kid Jack and Crutchie who just met vs. Jack and Crutchie now?

Absolutely!! Here's Crutchie and Jack age 8 and 10 vs age 15 and 17!

[theredheadlefty]

you are strong. you can do it. resist the pippinification of merry

[theredheadlefty]

Haven`t drawn too much because i was away so here are some older Lotr paintings from my sketckbook, plus a Thorin pencil sketch

[theredheadlefty]

🦔

This is Charles. He wants to go on a journey around tumblr. could you show him around?

[theredheadlefty]

Arwen, 04.2024.

I dislike this piece with a burning passion. But I have no clue when I'll post next (I'll be quite busy this week), so I'm posting what I have.

Anyway, enjoy! I love you all and hope you have a good day.

[theredheadlefty]

‘No!’ said Aragorn, taking his hand and kissing his brow. ‘You have conquered. Few have gained such a victory. Be at peace! Minas Tirith shall not fall!’ Boromir smiled.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

[theredheadlefty]

Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers 2002, dir. Peter Jackson

[theredheadlefty]

tres hunters….. tw*ttr liked this so i am posting it here 🗡️🪓🏹