labingi | Network

Fandom: Tolkien
Rating: T
Characters: Sons of Feanor, Elrond, Feanor, Daeron, various others
Warnings: n/a
Summary: After years in Lórien, Maglor and Maedhros are ready to return to their family and to make something new with their lives--but to move forward, all of Fëanor's sons must decide how, or if, they can ever reconcile with their father.
Note: This fic is a direct sequel to High in the Clean Blue Air.

Prologue / Previous Chapter

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Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Into the West - Peter Hollens

james_davis_nicoll

The corebook and 19 supplements for Tab Creation's tabletop fantasy roleplaying game Age of Ambition.

Bundle of Holding: Age of Ambition

yourlibrarian

1) I am starting plans for a fall foliage road trip in October through Michigan. Anyone have any recommendations?

2) Following up on what I wrote about in my last post, I watched several episodes of Paradise S2. I'm not sure why I'm still watching this. ( Spoilers )

3) By contrast, I saw the Muppet Show (special? Apparently a one-off?) and found it a delight. Disney has definitely struggled in finding a way to utilize the Muppets and two shows have now failed. I'm glad they tried to do something different with them, and I rather liked the show where they were trying to make a more realistic "behind the scenes" Muppet show.

But maybe these days a return to the past would be particularly welcome (and surely there's still a lot of appeal for kids). I've got to imagine they've got a potential guest list a mile long. My partner and I kept thinking that some of the puppeteers must have been filled with glee at being able to recreate this show.

It did make me laugh when Sabrina Carpenter said she'd watched the show, her parents had watched the show, and her grandparents had watched the show. We'd be rather young to be her grandparents but, yeah, 50th anniversary after all.

4) I found the first of my top 3 shows of the year last month when we watched How to Get to Heaven from Belfast. I'd quite enjoyed Derry Girls, so was interested in trying this. I found it had a lot of the fun from Derry with an added mystery at the center. ( Read more... )

5) When in his latest charity auction batch Stephen Colbert listed a Lord of the Rings sword that had been on the stage wall, we couldn't believe he'd be selling such a thing at any price. Turns out it's a replica of the actual sword used in the film, which he already has (and he joked he would be buried with). Even so, I figured it would go for a lot, and it's going to be well over $25,000. His neckties are going for over $1000.

Poll #34344 Kudos Footer-562

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aurumcalendula

I'm a bit sad VidUKon no longer doing DVDs/USBs of premieres (I totally get their decision), but it did get me thinking about trying to make DVDs (or possible Blu-Rays) of my vids so I have them on physical media.

Any recs for software for Windows? (something that creates basic menus would be nice)

lirazel

susandennis

I rolled over and went back to sleep and woke up at 6:30 and it was still dark and had coffee and internetted and it was still dark. I slapped on my swim suit and went to the pool and it was still dark. My perfect kind of morning. We have only a handful left. I plan to enjoy each. There is something about getting so much done before daylight that makes me feel delightfully productive.

The laundry is laundrying and I'm pretty much caught up on everything.

I'd really like to find out what's up with the car and get it fixed but since I really am in no rush and I'm sure their Mondays are stressful enough, I'll probably wait and take it in tomorrow.

Bonny texted yesterday and wanted to go to happy hour at a nice local restaurant. I wasn't interested but said yes anyway. I wasn't doing anything and the place is nice and Bonny really needed a distraction. She's having a battle with her daughter and it needs to be over before May 4 when Bonny gets her new hip. I don't know the details but I do know she's stressing over it. We had a drink and happy hour food. I ate more than I wanted to but it was good. And nice to get home before dark.

In my quest to find thin sliced bread, I picked up a loaf of Keto bread. Turns out Keto is another word for tasteless. Yuck. That stuff is not worth the calories. I tried it toasted, air fried and straight out of the bag. Nothing made it better. No more Keto bread for me! I've kind of lost my taste for sandwiches anyway. And I found other thin bread for toast.

Oh! They are planting 3 new trees just outside my window. Right now!

I need to find a book to read. My last three have been losers including one of my favorite authors with a new book in a series I used to like. The Seattle Library has this very cool feature - Your Next 5 Books. You fill out a form and a librarian does your research. I'm waiting for results. Please please please don't tell them I no longer live in Seattle. Also there is Book DNA. I need to refresh my toberead list.

EDIT: Also Meet New Books

I just got an email from a woman in admin who is not the sharpest tool in the drawer, actually I think she's not even actually in the drawer but anyway. Her email says my email attachment (sent last week) did not come through AND she cannot read it. And she included 3 heart emojis. I so want to sent a heart with a bullet hole in it. Instead, I'll just think good thoughts about Timber Ridge the 'challenged' an opportunity.

Ooops laundry is done. I need to get the stuff hung before it wrinkles.

vriddy

For my Karaoke Iko people out there, the Let's Go Karaoke movie live-action is available on the Japanese Film Festival website until June 3rd (JST)! Hopefully for your region, too.

If you're not familiar, I can also warmly recommend the 5 episode anime that's on Crunchyroll, if you have access.

I haven't read the manga or its sequel yet but I'm sure they're great fun too ;)

It's been super interesting to watch the movie after the anime and see the tweaks in the adaptation!! I think it all worked really well and I enjoyed it a lot. If you've also watched both (or any!!!!) you should talk to me actually :D

Current Mood: excited

kitarella_imagines

So I sometimes like to discuss the craft of writing, when issues really hit me in the face. I'm not generally a fan of plotting stories, 3 act structures, rising and falling tension, midpoints etc. I usually just write but sometimes I can see how story structures are important.

I read a fanfic recently, I will not be giving any details as I don't want to embarrass the author. And it's nobody I know, just a random person on a website.

The fanfic showed clearly why we have a 3 act structure…because one vital part was missing.

The first half of the fic was two antagonists thrown together, they had to go on a rescue mission together and they didn't want to, so there were a few arguments, wondering how to actually achieve it, with few details.

The second half was afterwards. They’d done the mission, it was finished and they were discussing how it went with few details.

Can you see the problem?

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Current Mood: determined

naye

Recently I've been on a free art kick, browsing images of paintings, sketches, sculptures, photos, needlework and so many other types of artworks that various institutions have digitalized. Here are two such fantastic resources.

The Met Collection
Travel around the world and across 5,000 years of history through 490,000+ works of art.

This is where I found this absolutely fantastic 19th century sketchbook. The artist is unidentified - the only information available is that they must have been Japanese (even though the sketchbook was marked "Chinese Drawings"). I loved their art so much I have turned two of their pieces into embroideries! (But that's a different post.)

And then I learned about the Integrated Collections Database of the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan, (ColBase) where you can find treasures like THIS!!

Painting of a tabby and white cat licking it's paw. It's got its ears back and its eyes focused on the paw. It's originally a painting by emperor Huizong of Song, this copy is by Sakuma Gantaku. It has so much personality it's amazing.

Painting of a tabby and white cat licking it's paw. It's got its ears back and its eyes focused on the paw. It's originally a painting by emperor Huizong of Song, this copy is by Sakuma Gantaku. It has so much personality it's amazing.

See it here on ColBase.

ColBase is a database containing the collections of the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan. It encompasses the four National Museums in Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, and Kyushu, the two National Research Institutes for Cultural Properties in Tokyo and Nara, and the Museum of the Imperial Collections, Sannomaru Shozokan.

About ColBase & (very generous!) Terms of Use.

I have spent so much time doing random browsing, and I've found so much lovely art - and several amazing pieces I kind of want to call "ye olde shitposting" for lack of a better term for something that is clearly a little weird and maybe meant to provoke a reaction in the viewer?

Or what else would you call He's Made Up of Many People, which. Yes. That is indeed what's going on here.

But that kind of stuff is in the minority! It's all art that is out of copyright, but some of it still feels very modern, like this painting of Mount Hiei from the 1920s.

Anyway, I can definitely recommend art scrolling as an option to doom scrolling!

shadowhive

So I had been hoping to do more things this past week. I’d hoped to do posts, to fic, to watch stuff (I was planning on watching Clown In A Cornfield again finally) but everything went wrong.

I had been low energy at the start of the week and that got worse, not helped by the loud noises from the drilling outside, which got steadily worse until Friday morning when I was so bad I had a terrible headache even after it ended.

Then. My stomach felt a bit funny. I think it started Thursday but it got worse over Friday, but I put it down to the headache.

Then Saturday morning hit and I was consumed by a fever. I spent the entire day in bed, in a dizzy haze with no voice or anything. It meant I couldn’t do anything of what I planned, nor could I do dnd on Sunday. (Even though it had eased up some I was still incredibly hazy and out of it at times).

TodayI finally felt better voice wise, so of course mum decides to be bitchy. I dunno why she yelled at me because she didn’t get things, or because she didn’t try something on that she saw when we got her meds (which she didn’t even tell me at the time) but ugh. It just irked me even more.

Then I had my stupid call which ugh. It’s still not with the usual guy and was half an hour later, both which would have annoyed me and made me chase up on if I wasn’t feeling rough still. (I had no desire to waste my voice on that). But ugh.

(Plus side though being sick has meant mums friend didn’t come today but she will be next week which ughhhhh)

***

Oh the plus side Pokopia was released a few days ago yay! If got it on digital which feels a good decision cause I feel this is gonna be a big time sink. But ahh it’s so cute! I was sold on it cause it looked like animal crossing meets Pokémon but it’s so much more than that. Though it is very similar. The world is just so… big. I got to the second area today (if I’d not been sick I’d have done it sooner) and it’s a whole other huge area.

But ahh I’ve seen some of my favs already, there’s scyther, goomy and Bulbasaur, plus so many others (I even found a suicune!) and ahh it’s just so cute, I love all the Pokémon and all the things you can find. I’ll post more thoughts sometime.

And I also popped into a charity shop and got a dvds of contact and day of the triffids.

Current Mood: drained
Current Music: Seapeekay pokopia stream

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/03/09/the-long-and-short-of-it/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=59746

I promised Krissy that I would not buy any new guitars in 2025, and that was a promise I mostly kept (I did buy one guitar, but it was for her). However, it is now 2026, and last month I turned in two full-length books, and I thought therefore it might be okay to treat myself. That said, I pretty much have every guitar I might ever need, in most of the the major body shapes, so if I was going to get any more of them, they needed to fill a niche that was not otherwise occupied.

And, well, guess what? I found two stringed instruments that fit the bill! What a surprise! And as a bonus, neither is technically a guitar.

Small one first: This is an Ohana O’Nino sopranissimo ukulele, “sopranissimo” being a size down from the soprano uke, which is typically understood to be the smallest ukulele that one might usually find. The O’Nino here is seventeen inches long from stem to stern, and is absolutely dinky in the hand. Nevertheless, it’s an actual musical instrument, not a toy, and if you have small and/or nimble enough fingers, plays perfectly well. It’s not going to be anyone’s primary ukulele (I have my concert-sized Fender Fullerton Jazzmaster for that), but if you’re traveling — and I often am — and want to take along a physical music instrument — which I sometimes do! — then this is very much the travel-sized uke to tote around.

Watch on YouTube

There are even smaller ukes available, but those do start being in the “is this a musical instrument for ants” category of things. I’ll stop with a sopranissimo.

Almost literally on the other end of the scale we have the Eastwood BG 64 Baritone Guitarlin. The one type of guitar I did not have in my collection was a baritone guitar (which adds an additional four frets to the guitar on the low end, allowing for a lower/heavier/twangier sound). This particular baritone is one of an esoteric variant of guitar known as a “guitarlin,” in which the guitar adds frets on the high end to be able to access notes that one would only usually find on a mandolin. So, basically, this instrument goes from baritone to mandolin over 35 frets, which is, to be clear, an absolutely ridiculous number of frets to have on a single instrument. I can already see the serious guitarists out there despairing about the intonation in the mando frets, but those people are no fun.

I was traveling when my guitarlin arrived and I haven’t yet been able to play around with it yet, but here’s a short video of the guy who helped design it fooling about with it:

Watch on YouTube

(And yes, I got the one with the tremolo, because of course I did.)

Between these two instruments my collector itch has been scratched for a bit, and I look forward to messing around with both in the upcoming months. I won’t say I won’t get any other guitars ever, but at this point it’s getting more difficult to find where the gaps are in what I have, so I do imagine my acquisitions will slow down rather a bit. Let’s hope, anyway. I’m running out of room in the house for them. Although I guess I do have a whole church, don’t I. Hmmm.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/03/09/the-long-and-short-of-it/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=59746

osprey_archer

We begin Hornblower and the Hotspur with Horatio Hornblower standing at the altar with his blushing bride Maria, desperately informing himself that they’re not married just yet! There’s still time to run for it! Only he can’t bring himself to commit the cruel act of leaving her at the altar, so instead he stands there like a lump and gets married.

This is one of the most inexplicable marriages I’ve ever encountered in fiction. It appears that Maria confessed her love for Hornblower and Hornblower was unable to think of any response except “Will you marry me?”, despite the fact that he doesn’t love her, in fact doesn’t think he should ever marry, and lives in dread of passing his temperament on to his children. (I should note that he is in no way honor bound to her before the wedding: she’s not pregnant with his child and he didn't seduce her. He didn't even flirt with her! He just existed in her general vicinity and she fell for him.)

He then spends the rest of the book asking himself “What would a good husband do?” and then enacting the part of a good husband, in much the way that he sometimes enacts the part of a good captain.

littlerhymes and I discussed many possible explanations for Hornblower’s behavior, none of which were entirely satisfactory, but to be fair, what WOULD be a satisfactory explanation?

1. Hornblower is a deeply closeted gay man who is marrying Maria for reasons of social pressure. However, there seem to be plenty of bachelors in the Navy, so it’s unclear how much social pressure he would actually be experiencing, especially since he seems to have no family clamoring for grandchildren/an heir.

(Whether or not he’s gay, there is alas little evidence here that he sees Bush as more than an excellent lieutenant, although Bush is clearly still nuts about Hornblower. The bit where Hornblower fails to mention his own act of heroism in a letter to the Gazette and Bush is like “It isn’t RIGHT, sir.” And also the bit where Bush is tells Hornblower he’s worried about Hornblower’s health and Hornblower is like who cares about this SACK of MEAT that is my BODY.)

2. Hornblower is SO deeply repressed that he can’t cope with the fact that he is experiencing the weakness of having a human emotion (“love”), but actually does love Maria on some level. He keeps feeling surprising upswellings of tenderness for her. Also, he castigates himself severely every time he DOES experience an emotion (or also human weaknesses like “sleepiness” or “hunger”), which I feel has probably damaged his ability to recognize emotions at all.

But even if he loves her, he clearly doesn’t have a lot of respect for her. Might love her purely in the sense of feeling an animal attraction, and also gratitude for the fact that someone cares about him? He muses at one point that it’s strange to be going to sea with someone on land who gives a damn about him.

3. Hornblower doesn’t think that he deserves nice things, so he marries Maria to make sure that he will have a wife who is ill-suited to him, as he deserves.

Oh, also there are some sea battles and stuff. Hornblower is sent with the fleet to capture some Spanish ships carrying a fortune and then has to hare off chasing another ship at the opportune moment so he doesn’t get a share of the massive amount of prize money. But then the Crown takes the money anyway so he actually would have gotten nothing even if he had been there.

I’m pretty sure these Spanish treasure ships formed the basis for a similar incident near the end of Post Captain, only you better believe Jack Aubrey was on hand to win his part of the prize money. I finished Post Captain confident than Jack could pay off his debts and marry Sophie, but now it looks like maybe he won’t be getting the money after all…?

We will find out in HMS Surprise, but not for about a week, as I am setting off on a trip to Massachusetts on Wednesday!

littlerhymes and I will resume our sailing voyages once I return.

swg_archive_feed

Posted by Isilme_among_the_stars

https://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/node/9049

After Ancalagon is cast down Eärendil seeks out his sons and Elrond grapples with the feelings the meeting brings.
Written for Tolkien Sea Week 2026: Day 5 - family

https://www.silmarillionwritersguild.org/node/9049

joshreadscomics_feed

Posted by Josh

https://joshreads.com/2026/03/who-needs-the-tv-show-to-experience-a-dark-gritty-riverdale/

https://joshreads.com/?p=48280

Comics Curmudgeon readers! Do you love this blog and yearn for a novel written by its creator? Well, good news: Josh Fruhlinger's The Enthusiast is that novel! It's even about newspaper comic strips, partly. Check it out!

Hi and Lois, 3/9/26

Happy Monday, everyone! It’s another week and another entry in what’s quickly becoming my favorite genre in the comics: Hi and Lois muses melancholy on a single, ephemeral moment and forgets to deliver a punchline. “Isn’t this what the groundhog predicted?” Hi says, barely audible — but that’s fine, as he isn’t really talking to Lois anyway. “Isn’t it true that none of us can bend Fate to our liking?”

Archie, 3/9/26

Archie is traditionally a happy-go-lucky guy who rarely experiences distress deeper than some minor romantic slight at the hands of one of his two beautiful girlfriends. I’m not saying I like the fact that he’s experiencing some sort of profound mental disturbance right now, but at least it adds a little depth to his character.

Mary Worth, 3/9/26

Oh wow. Oh wow. Exactly the wrong thing to say, Harvey. Mary was going to try to gently guide you away from your current troubles by means of her judicious advice. But now? Now she’ll simply watch impassively as you let your sexual urges and romantic vanity override your good sense and lose everything, until you’ve sent your last bitcoin and abruptly stop receiving blatantly AI-generated photos of a twentysomething gal with a huge rack, until you need to take the bus down to the pawn shop to hock your only remaining cravat. You’ll look up and shout “Save me!” and she’ll look down and whisper “No.”

https://joshreads.com/2026/03/who-needs-the-tv-show-to-experience-a-dark-gritty-riverdale/

https://joshreads.com/?p=48280

cimorene

Our beloved floofy bun, Rowan, passed away a week ago. He was ten years and four months old (the average lifespan of pet bunnies I saw quoted some places is 2-4 years, and 10 years is the expected upper limit for his type of bun) and was healthy, cheerful, friendly, and sweet his whole life; he died very suddenly at home, apparently of old age. I miss him - he was always more friendly and cuddly than Japp - but I'm glad he had a long, happy life.

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andrewducker

1. Persistent attenuation of lymphocyte subsets after mass SARS-CoV-2 infection: (tags:immune_system pandemic )
2. Huge fire shuts Scotland's busiest train station indefinitely: (tags:Glasgow Scotland fire trains )

mific posting in

fancake

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: Ronon Dex/John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Dave Sheppard
Rating: Teen, Gen
Length: 3158 (Homework is 963)
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: Rheanna on AO3, busaikko on AO3, susan_voight on AO3
Themes: Siblings, Friendship, Going home, Established relationship

Summaries:
Ronon starts his e-mail correspondence with Sheppard's brother more or less by mistake.

For some reason, after his father's funeral Dave Sheppard keeps getting e-mail from Ronon Dex.

Reccer's Notes: This is a remix of Homework by busaikko, and they can be read in any order - this is basically a rec for both fics, Fieldwork being from Ronon's POV, and Homework, which is just as good, from Dave's POV. Ronon's in a relationship with John and as part of learning English he starts emailing John's estranged brother, Dave. Rodney then gets involved as Ronon goes to him for help. The characterisations of Ronon, John, and Rodney here are spot on, and it's both funny and moving - a wonderful set of stories.

Fanwork Links: on AO3: Fieldwork and Homework
Alternate DW links: Fieldwork and Homework
Susan_voight podficced both stories, both separately and collated.

gingicat

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mindstalk

I decided it was time to leave my walkable radius. Took train to Taipei Main, as that seemed quick and promising. Main is rather large and confusing but I eventually made it to the surface. Walking south a bit took me to 228 Peace Park; the '228' refers to something in Taiwanese history that I should look up. Park includes the National Museum, which is said to be really good and is cheap (NT$ 30, basically US$1) but I need to get up earlier for it. Park was nice. Album! ( Read more... )