Fingon commission finished ... and a few words on men kissing
Added 2022-05-28 16:26:36 +0000 UTCHere's the last of the three commissions! I'm really happy with how this worked out and will certainly open a few slots again later this summer. In the meantime, if anyone has any Critical Role commissions they've been thinking aabout, you can throw them my way already. <3
I also have an important thing I need to put out there, seeing as the image of Vax and Gilmore kissing last week brought me the largest slew of people leaving my Patreon that I've ever seen. I'm sad to see them go. I hope it's a weird coincidence that brought in that stampede for the exits, but just in case it wasn't, best make sure where I stand.
1. Love is love.
2. Canon is canon. If anyone's been frightened I might do Legolas/Gimli erotica next, or Galadriel/Gollum, never fear. I hope you know my love for the subject matter I draw from, all the subject matter, and while I may push the lost scenes and interpretations, most of all I look at how much romance/sexuality there *is* in any given story. If there is none, I'm hesitant to put it in. If there is loads, I'll feel free to explore it if the muse descends.
3. Tolkien fandom is diverging, not least with the upcoming series, and I have absolutely no idea where I'll fall. Part of me sees the books rooted in early 20th, almost 19th century mindsets, and wants it to stay there, while another part of me yearns to welcome Middle-earth to the 21st century, with all the diversity and inclusiveness it can muster, which I love so much about Critical Role. I actually think the series will do that for me - a Middle-earth reloaded, without a lot of the cultural baggage the original has, while the original can stay the way it is for all time.
*steps off soap box and shuffles back to the drawing table*
Comments
Also, having read the article above, which makes many of my same points, I will add that I have been told of another paper where it is pointed out that Celebrimbor’s ultimate fate is very, very suggestive of St Sebastian iconography, which has been associated with queerness. (And personally, the fact that Sauron sees Luthien and unlike every other male creature in Arda including Huan and Namo he doesn’t go all gooey over her but only thinks “My master would like that a lot”, gives me food for thought.)
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
2022-08-13 22:48:15 +0000 UTCI think a lot of people projects far too much homophobia and general sex-negativity backwards in time. And in the case of Tolkien, they also think that because he was a devout Catholic he must have been a straight-laced prude. Which makes me think they haven’t met a lot of actual real life flesh and blood Catholics. Tolkien wrote exactly zero words about homosexuality. In part because if he had, anything with even a mild content would become gross indecency and unpublishable in England in his time. But nothing would have stopped him from including somewhere a scribble that of course the Eldar were only attracted to the opposite sex. And he didn’t. He was also an admirer of Mary Renault, a good friend of WH Auden who was one of the least closeted men alive, and valued immensely the company of men he had grown up studying and living and later fighting with. Statistically, a few of his beloved friends had to be gay. Despite the harsh penalties and horrible fates meted out to gay men (Wilde’s trial happened during Tolkien’s lifetime), there was a widespread tacit tolerance of homosexuality. The laws were on the books but seldom enforced if people were discreet. That is why poor Alan Turing got into trouble - everybody knew about him and didn’t care, so when he reported a burglary at his flat he candidly volunteered that it might have been an ex-boyfriend, without realising that the police were not going to be able to ignore it. I find it very very hard to think that Maedhros and Fingon’s friendship was written as strictly platonic, I really do. Maybe not quite as the unproblematic love story we would concieve these days, but Tolkien was not blind to the breath and variety of the movement of the human soul.
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
2022-08-13 22:30:49 +0000 UTC
