I Put This On Twitter But It Feels Like The Sort Of Thing I Should Subject Everyone To

Nightwingi sketches heh

WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! another rhaenyra and alicent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOCK ME UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Even more nightwing fanart hihi

you guys are so annoying. why do i have to see discourse every year that's like "was tolkien really a woke king or was he your conservative uncle?" the guy was a devout catholic and a genteel misogynist who maintained lifelong friendships with queer people and women, and this isn't even paradoxical because that was part of the upper-class oxford culture he was immersed in. tolkien told the nazis to fuck off (and in doing so demonstrated a real understanding of what racism is and why it's harmful, beyond simply "these guys are bad news because they're who my country is at war with right now") but his inner life was marked by internalized racism that is deeply and inextricably woven into the art that he made. he foolishly described himself as an anarcho-monarchist, and it's kind of crazy to see people on this website passionately arguing that he likely never meaningfully engaged with anarchist theory, because...yeah, no shit, of course he didn't. tolkien didn't have to engage with most sociopolitical theory because as an upper-class englishman of his position, he was never affected by any of the issues that this theory is concerned with. what is plainly obvious from reading both his fiction and letters is that tolkien's ideal political system was that the divinely ordained god-king would rise up and rule in perfect justice and humility; he didn't want a government, he wanted a king arthur, even though (obviously) he was aware that outcome was impossible. why is it so hard for people to accept that he was just some guy! his letters aren't a code you have to crack. no amount of arguing or tumblr-level analysis is going to one day reveal a rhetorically airtight internally consistent worldview spanning jrrt's fiction, academic work, and personal writings, thereby "solving" the question of whether he was a woke king or your conservative uncle. his ideology was extremely inconsistent because, at the end of the day, he was just some guy.

Inside of you there are two wolves.

One wolf says that Sam and Frodo’s relationship is not romantic, and all the affection and moments between them that might make a modern reader question how platonic it truly is are simply moments inspired by soldiers in wwi, where tragedy and horror brought people together, ignoring societal norms such as the amount of affection you can show your friend before it’s seen as anything other that what it really is. When you live in a reality where death is all around and you’re lonely and starving and miss home and you might die tomorrow, and you got no one else but your companion, you are bound to become closer and create a bond that is unlike any other friendship. Their relationship is also influenced by the fact that Tolkien is a medievalist, and in the Middle Ages affection between a pair of friends was more normalized and there’s plenty of medieval literature where the characters have relationships similar to those of Sam and Frodo. The reader needs to let go of their modern lenses and see the story while acknowledging it’s temporal context and background.

The other wolf says that Sam and Frodo’s parallels with Lúthien and Beren, Tolkien’s amount of queer friends, and just how different their relationship has been since the start, before the horrors even began, is gay asf. He also says, and I quote, “if Frodo isn’t gay I’ll eat my hat”.

Both wolves are correct.

IT'S TIIIIIMEE

Your father and twin brother just died, and you were made chieftain of the Haladin, and now the weird elf lord in whose lands your people live is making what he thinks are f-me eyes at you.

Behind the scenes, really his work and dedication in the character is INCREDIBLE.

Some more nightwing fanart!!!

Did someone do this yet