Intro To The 1989 Reprint Of The Color Of Magic The First Discworld Book By Terry Pratchett.

Damn, I'm old

People often say LOTR is a story about hope. (I'm reminded of it because someone said it in the notes of my Faramir post.) And that's true, but it's not the whole picture: LOTR is in large part a story about having to go on in the absence of hope.

Frodo has lost hope, as well as the ability to access any positive emotion, by Return. He is already losing it in Towers: he keeps going through duty and determination and of course Sam's constant help.

For most of the story, Sam is fueled by hope, which is why it's such a huge moment when he finally lets go of the hope of surviving and returning home, and focuses on making it to the Mountain. To speed their way and lighten the load, he throws his beloved pots and pans into a pit, accepting that he will never cook, or eat, again.

When Eowyn kills the Witch King, she's beyond hope and seeking for a glorious death in battle. It's possible that in addition to her love and loyalty for Théoden, she's strengthened by her hopelessness, the fear of the Nazgúl cannot touch someone who's already past despair.

Faramir is his father's son, he doesn't have any more hope of Gondor's victory or survival than Denethor does, he says as much to Frodo. What hope have we? It is long since we had any hope. ... We are a failing people, a springless autumn. He knows he's fighting a losing war and it's killing him. When he rejects the ring, he doesn't do it in the hope that his people can survive without it, he has good reason to believe they cannot. He acts correctly in the absence of hope.

Of course LOTR has a (mostly) happy ending, all the unlikely hopes come true, the characters who have lost hope gain what they didn't even hope for, and everyone is rewarded for their bravery and goodness, so on some level the message is that hope was justified. But the book never chastises characters who lost hope, it was completely reasonable of them to do so. Despair pushed Théoden and Denethor into inaction, pushed Saruman into collaboration, but the characters who despaired and held up under the weight of despair are Tolkien's real heroes.

(In an early draft of Return, Frodo and Sam receive honorary titles in Noldorin: Endurance beyond Hope and Hope Unquenchable, respectively. Then he cut it, probably because it was stating the themes of the entire book way too obviously, because this is what Tolkien cared about, really: enduring beyond hope. Without hope.)

Also, people who know more than me about the concept of estel, feel free to @ me.

I just want to like... exist

Maybe if I keep on lying to myself eventually I'll start telling myself the truth

Neil Gaiman’s Advice to Aspiring Artists

A history and mythology lesson reminding you that trans and non-binary people have always existed! [Long post]

This cr smells like febreeze the same way one would use febreeze to mask the smell of blood on the floor after a murder

Why is this me

So like I had a big family party a few days ago and we made mac n cheese cause I like mac n cheese a lot, but we made too much mac n cheese and had like 2 and a half trays of it left after the party

I didn't really mind cause I like mac n cheese a lot and so for the past few days I've just been eating mac n cheese for every meal and I've been loving it

But today my mom goes "we better put it in the freezer before it spoils" and I'm kinda sad about it cause what will I eat now, y'know?

So I go to take a nap and I have this like CRAZY distressing dream where I'm in this white blank void and in front of me is a glowing and floating tray of mac n cheese and I try to reach out for it but my hand just passes through it and then slowly the mac n cheese starts fading away and like I fall down to the ground straight up CRYING because I'm so sad about the mac n cheese leaving me, and I wake up with tears in my eyes and I have that like melancholic feeling of having forever lost something or someone very close to you

The meme above is an artists rendition

There should be a garlic bread that will be passed down from every generation of aces to be shared and sustained by past and future generations.

The ace garlic bread, the garlic bread that allos can only wish to taste in their lifetime.

The garlic bread is a living deity that will only manifest itself on those truly worthy of being ace, and the garlic bread will bestow upon the ace a part of its body.

It's stupid that bread goes bad so fast. Bread should last ten million years on your countertop. You should be able to feed yourself off the same loaf of bread from the day you are born to the day you die. They should pass down bread between generations like a family heirloom. There should be remnants of still-good bread after the heat death of the universe.