Excuse Me But I Am Aggressively Interested In Your Tales Of The Dreamer Project. Is There Anything More

Took a break from england to listen to the new History of Byzantium and I'm just immensely charmed by the anecdote about how the Niceans very carefully brought Mongol ambassadors to court via the route that required going through as many mountain passes as possible to try and minimize how invadable-by-horse-archers they seemed.

One of the best-written, cleverest, and loveliest fics I've ever read. Yes the premise is SO crack but the realization is simply a masterpiece. Also it comes with amazing art. What's not to love.

The epilogue is out!

That's it, darlings. This is finally it. So it ends, after three full years of smitten work. The last 50K is out there on A03 and there will be no more. Freude is over, and yet, never-ending.

The story of those eternal idiots will remain on the Archive and there it will wait for its audience of oddities to find it. It might take time, and it's just fine, time is hopefully what I have. I will be there to cherish the comments, even in 3 years from now.

I'll keep that blog rolling for as long as I have things to draw, write or say about those lovely idiots of mine, and after that, eh, who knows what else my obessive mind might dive into? Cheers to you all, close and far, chatty or silent, old or new. Find pleasure where it lies, fight for it if you must. Remember joy is resistance.

My eldest begotten is besotted with you, The Weeping. I see why. Who are you? TWILIGHT OF THE GODS — Now Hear Of… (Episode 6) written by Eric Carrasco & Caitlin Parrish directed by Dave Hartman & Andrew Tamandl ››› John Noble as Odin ››› Sylvia Hoeks as Sigrid

The fool on the hill (I'm transfering this one on a sweater to paint it. It's gonna be cool).

This was one of my favorite songs since I was a little outcast of a baby (small town are somewhat evil) and still is to this day.

Fëanor Lives AU

Inspired by comment-tags on my poll about whether Fëanor or his sons were worse, I’m going to try to theorize what would have happened if Fëanor hadn’t died within a few weeks[1] of landing in Beleriand.

First, there’s the question of whether, even if he had survived Dagor-nuin-Giliath, he would have survived until Fingolfin arrived. There’s a decent case to be made for no. His sons are fairly rudderless and inactive after he dies and Maedhros is captured, and don’t do a lot between that point and Fingolfin’s arrival; that would not have been the case if Fëanor had lived. (Setting aside the possibility of “he lives but is too severely injured to do anything,” just because it’s not what I’m interested in here.)

I don’t see him just sitting in Hithlum (even if Maedhros was captured, and I don’t see that happening either if Fëanor had lived; it feels like another product ofhis sons’ disorientation in the wake of his death). And considering his mindset from his speech in Tirion and Oath through to the point where he dies in canon, I can see him throwing his army against Angband until a large part of them are dead, and potentially until he himself is dead. Given that they successfully take out pretty well the entire orc-army in Dagor-nuin-Giliath (“Ten days that battle lasted, and from it returned of all the hosts that [Morgoth] had prepared for the conquest of Beleriand no more than a handful of leaves.”), they might have even made it into Angband. This isn’t Morgoth as of the Dagor Bragollach or Nirnaeth Arnoediad, when he’s got dragons and the accumulated armies of 400 years; at this point he’s got balrogs and Sauron and some other Maiar and a fortress and some kind of reserve forces. Morgoth may be best off retreating enough to lure them into into Angband, and then capturing or killing them when they’re in the dark, disoriented, separated, in mazelike tunnels.

So that’s one possibility: that by the time Fingolfin arrives, Fëanor and much of his forces are dead or captured. The ‘captured’ possibility lends itself to interesting AUs by itself.

In any possibility where Fëanor does survive until Fingolfin arrives, but has realized he can’t defeat Angband on his own, I feel like there’s an extremely high likelihood of another Kinslaying then and there. Not primarily because the elves who crossed the Helcaraxë are angry with him, though they certainly are, but because we’ve seen Fëanor in this position before: with a determined sense of what he wants to do, without the resources to do it, and with someone else denying him those resources. That was Alqualondë. Given the mindset Fëanor has displayed all through the Return, he would see it as Fingolfin’s usurpation standing between Fëanor and the forces he needs to conquer Angband (and would not recognize that the other elves’ total unwillingness to accept him as king is associated with him stranding them at the far end of an icy wasteland, more than with Fingolfin specifically, and that killing Fingolfin is not going to get them on-side). This battle would be fairly brutal, with a lot of bad blood on both sides; it would be very amusing to Morgoth, and pretty well put an end to any chance of an equivalent to the Siege of Angband ever coming to pass.

(I know there are plenty of fanfics where Fëanor survives and Fingolfin recognizes him as king. I just can’t see this happening; not only because of the very justified resentment, but because Fëanor’s decisions have been uniformly terrible, and not abandoning his people to that kind of terrible leadership was the main thing motivating Fingolfin to join in the Return at the start. In the extremely unlikely event that Fingolfin did, I don’t see most of the Noldor who crossed the Helcaraxë following him rather than breaking off under Turgon or someone. The reason why Maedhros’ abdication is so crucial in canon is because it’s the only thing that’s ever going to enable the Noldor to form a united front.)

So yeah, I have to agree with the people on the poll who said it’s probably for the best that Fëanor didn’t survive longer. What he would have done if he had been alive during the later parts of the Silm feels like a moot point because I can’t imagine a scenario where he survived but events were otherwise similar to canon. He’s a force of nature; he makes the narrative different, it’s what he does. It’s why him setting everything off and then suddenly dying makes for such a great story.

[1]: I’m making an educated guess.The Fëanoreans travel up the Firth of Drengist and into Hithlum, start setting up camp by Lake Mithrim, and are attacked by orcs before they can finish making camp; the battle against the orcs, Dagor-nuin-Giliath, lasts 10 days, and Fëanor diesat the end of it.

THE FOOL ON THE HILL .     recorded: September 25-27 / October 20, 1967       filmed: October 31, 1967, in Nice

PAUL: I used to know Marijke [member of “The Fool”, the Dutch design collective and band], she was a quite striking-looking girl. She used to read my fortune in Tarot cards, which was something I wasn’t too keen on because I didn’t want to draw the death card one day. I still don’t like that kind of stuff because I know my mind will dwell on it. I always steered a bit clear of all that shit, but in fact it always used to come out as the Fool. And I used to say, ‘Oh, dear!’ and she used to say, ‘No no no. The Fool’s a very good card. On the surface it looks stupid, the Fool, but in fact it’s one of the best cards, because it’s the innocent, it’s the child, it’s that reading of fool.’ So I began to like the word ‘fool’, because I began to see through the surface meaning. I wrote ‘The Fool on the Hill’ out of that experience of seeing Tarot cards. (…) I think I was writing about someone like Maharishi. His detractors called him a fool. Because of his giggle he wasn’t taken too seriously. It was this idea of a fool on the hill, a guru in a cave, I was attracted to. I remember once hearing about a hermit who missed the Second World War because he’d been in a cave in Italy, and that always appealed to me. I was sitting at the piano in at my father’s house in Liverpool hitting a D 6th chord and I made up ‘Fool on the Hill’. There were some good words in it, ‘perfectly still’, I liked that, and the idea that everyone thinks he’s stupid appealed to me, because they still do. Saviours or gurus are generally spat upon, so I thought for my generation I’d suggest that they weren’t as stupid as they looked. [myfn]

//

PAUL: It was during that time, A-levels time, I remember thinking, in many ways I wish I was a lorry driver, a Catholic lorry driver. Very very simple life, a firm faith and a place to go in my lorry, in my nice lorry. I realised I was more complex than that and I slightly envied that life. I envied the innocence. [myfn]

Lineart and color thumbnails.

The Mad Dreamer, chief Archivist of the Library of Alagadda, Master of the Alchemic Arts. Sworn to the White Lord, Albedo of Alagadda.

The Dreamers that freely roam the Darkling Plain and the people of Celephais and Serannian, who live under King Kuranes call him by many other names :The Lost One, the fool, the forsaken . But more often he is known as the Prisoner, because in his folly he bartered for his life and the scraps of his sanity with his freedom.

He was a Dreamer on a leash, a political advantage to the Faction of the White Lord . He was a cherished tool for his master, feared and respected, until he vanished from the City, leaving behind his citizen's mask and rumors of betrayal.

For Chandra however he was mentor, friend and father all in one, and she would not forsake him.

Concept sketch/ WIP for the Mad Dreamer.

@amyma-ymamy feel free to add.

Next commission: finish!! 

This one was a fun one to do; inspired by the Soviet Propaganda recreation posted by John Amor, the client wanted a header text that read “Our cause is just, enemy will be crushed” based off of this classic soviet poster! Our subject was dear Cherno Alpha, based off of the client’s idea that “Russia would not easily give up a giant robot despite the PPDC protests, so why not some reenforce Cherno’s looming strength?“

Top text reads “Find your nearest PPDC enlistment station today,” subheader text reads “Enlist in the PPDC,"and bottom text reads ”Made by request of the Russian PPDC Department in year 2018.“ GOOGLE TRANSLATE IS FOR NERDS; THANKS TO THE RUSSIAN BLOGGERS FOR HELPING ME OUT

buy here 

Self reblog for obvious reasons.

Happy birthday on the other side.

Also: propaganda for one of my favorite live album.

Small oil study of David Bowie in his thin White Duke era.

I've been a fan of his music since my mum made me listen to Space Oddity when I was ten and obsessed with space stuff. Occasionally I am reminded of how pretty he was (this time I blame Pinterest for showing me the photo this was based on) and I Just have to paint him.