The Bacon Sandwich Of Regret

What have you been up to? Um well it's getting warmer so I've been having to brush my cat every day.

Like no it's not that interesting of a thing to say. But now they can respond to it. They could say, man yeah it really is heating up, I've been trying to think of things to do inside more often. Or, oh you have a cat? What's their name?

iukhimov was ukrainian by the way, possibly from odesa though there’s very little info on him i can find in english. his now-dead website exists on the internet archive but text only sadly. someone on the tolkien collector site i’ll link below at one point compiled a bunch of his illustrations on weibo though that link seems to be defunct now unfortunately

The figures look like, say, the illustrations in Old English Genesis A. There might be a little Eastern Orthodox icon style creeping in, or it might just be that that style has a lot in common with early medieval British and Irish manuscript illustration (ca. 600-1100 AD). These are great, and an extremely clever nod to the texts Tolkien was drawing from, and even the literal manuscripts in which he was imagining his work (or at minimum Bilbo’s work, in-universe) to be written:

As Tolkien says, “Further information will also be found in the selection from the Red Book of Westmarch that has already been published, under the title of The Hobbit.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, “Prologue: Concerning Hobbits”). Or, perhaps, in the Red Book of Hergest (Welsh, Llyfr Coch Hergest) — another Red Book of the West (or Wales, that is). Obviously The Hobbit does not actually show up in one of the most important medieval Welsh manuscripts (currently housed at Oxford), but from the very first page of lotr, Tolkien was playing with an incredibly specific manuscript history!

The first cat comes in ready for a fight. Low down, trying not to be seen, stalking/wary posture.

Second cat jumps in the air and then does the exaggerated arch. That's an absolutely terrified cat. No cool, no chill. A cat willing to fight would not have gone full arch because it's moving them out of a position where they could launch themselves at the other cat. However, a scared cat can move from this to a preemptive attack if they think the other cat is going to attack them and just moving slowly.

Realizing the second cat doesn't want a fight, the first cat comes out of the low, threatening slink quickly to roll around to say hey, whoops, they weren't here to attack, they don't want to fight either.

With similar speed and exaggeration as the arch, the second cat does the same wiggle that yes, I too have no desire to fight, look at me doing the same thing and conspicuously not attacking when you're vulnerable.

“NO PLS”

“Oh okay look how cute I am.”