#I can go to this particular Mordor alone

[steddieas-shegoes]

Read Vampire Eddie first!

Dustin shows up first.

They didn’t call him yet, he just seemed to have a fucking sixth sense or something.

Steve had fallen asleep in Eddie’s lap after crying it out, as anyone would do when their sort of friend/sort of enemy comes back from the dead (kind of) unexpectedly.

But he was woken up by a yell that either belonged to a young girl or Dustin Henderson.

“Steve! You better explain what the hell is going on!”

Steve’s eyes blinked up at where Dustin was standing in front of them with his hands on his hips. If it were any other time or day, Steve would probably be proud of him for it.

“Did you have to wake him up? He only just got to sleep.”

Steve sighed before he answered Dustin’s question.

“It was really late and you didn’t answer the radio. We were gonna call when we got up.”

“This isn’t wait to call news, Steve! This is show up at my door news. This is take an ad out in the paper news.”

“Dustin, you’re being dramatic.”

Dustin just stared at him for a moment before throwing his hands up.

“You’re. Sitting. In. Eddie’s. Lap. Steve, you realize he’s been dead for a month! A month!”

“I haven’t been dead for all of it! Only like, three or four days of it!” Eddie looked away. “Or at least that’s how my math is working. But I failed math a few times.”

Dustin was staring between Eddie and Steve.

“What do you mean?”

Steve was still trying to wake himself up. He apparently hadn’t been out for long, but it felt like he was pretty deep into sleep.

He suddenly felt Eddie’s fingers running through his hair.

“‘S not helping.”

“Go back to sleep, sweetheart. I’ll talk to him.”

Steve let his eyes close, but he still listened to them for a few minutes.

“And why the hell did you come to Steve? You barely know him! You could’ve come to me.”

“Dude, I didn’t pick this. I just appeared here.”

“What do you mean?”

Steve couldn’t see, but Dustin seemed to be calming down from the shock now, focusing on his natural curiosity.

“I just. Thought about being here I guess. Maybe I was delirious or bored. I was definitely lonely. It’s hard wandering that place for so long by yourself, man.”

“Yeah, I don’t know how Will did it.”

“I don’t know either. I’m not even completely human anymore and I was ready to give up.”

Steve was drifting, catching only a few words here and there.

“….explain….Steve….him sweetheart?”

“Just….and….I know….love….”

— — — — — — — — —

Steve woke up in his bed again.

The sun was shining much too brightly for it to be early in the morning, but he couldn’t think of the last time he actually managed to sleep more than a few hours.

He looked over to the bundled up mound under his comforter and everything from the night before came flooding back.

He heard a snore from the floor to his left and leaned over to see Dustin curled up with a blanket and pillow.

Steve has two guest rooms, one of which is frequently used by the kids when they stay over after movie nights. Why wasn’t he in those?

“He didn’t wanna leave either of us.”

Steve jumped at the sound of Eddie’s voice.

It wasn’t loud, in fact, it was barely above a whisper. But he’d assumed Eddie was asleep.

“Woke up a few minutes before you. Dustin snores so loud.”

Steve snorted and then lifted the comforter so he could look at Eddie, who was cuddling with one of Steve’s pillows.

Oh, that was cute

“Okay, I have to tell you something. I should’ve told you before.”

“What is it?”

“I can…kind of…read your mind?”

Oh no.

Oh no.

“Yeah. Sorry. I’m not trying to. You’re the first person I’ve been around so I figured it was just a new thing I could do, but I can’t read Dustin’s mind and we tried a bunch of things. I’m trying to block it out, but it’s hard when it’s just us.”

Eddie looked…was that shame?

Steve couldn’t let him feel ashamed for this. It was not only out of his control, but also a super shitty thing to have to deal with. Listening to Steve’s thoughts? Steve didn’t even like doing that.

“Hey. Be nice.”

“I’m not being mean to you!”

“Not to me! To you!”

Steve couldn’t help the confused look on his face.

Then he realized that if Eddie could read his mind, he could hear when he put himself down.

“You do that often?”

“What?”

“Treat yourself this badly?”

“Well…”

“Steve.” Eddie placed a hand on his cheek, rubbing his thumb back and forth along his cheekbone. “You know how amazing you are, don’t you?”

Steve shook his head.

What else could he do? He couldn’t lie. Eddie would know.

Eddie’s other hand was settled on Steve’s hip, squeezing his fingers just enough to ground Steve.

“Well, since I’m being honest this morning, let me hit you with another truth. This one’s been hanging around for years, and got much worse when you decided to make it worse in the Upside Down.” Eddie took a breath before continuing. “I’ve had a crush on you since your sophomore year. It’s so stupid, right? You were everything I was against. I actively fought with Tommy frequently and you just watched. But I’d always watch you when he was finally done and you’d just be watching me with this look. I don’t even know what it was, maybe I was reading too much into it because you were so god damn cute, I dunno. I’m rambling. Jesus Christ, I’m shutting up now.”

Eddie started to pull away, but Steve wasn’t gonna allow that. Not after that confession.

Not after he’d spent the last month mourning a lot of would’ve, could’ve, should’ve moments.

Steve pulled himself closer to Eddie, hands curling up against his chest, telling himself not to panic when he didn’t feel a heartbeat. He’s alive.

“I didn’t know then. I didn’t know why I looked at you like that. I didn’t know I could feel the way I did about girls and about you. I didn’t have anyone to explain it to me.” Steve’s breath stuttered as he looked up at Eddie, who was watching him with wide eyes. “But I know what it was now. You were pretty god damn cute, too.”

Eddie’s hand found its way back to Steve’s cheek. Steve leaned into it, letting his mind run through thoughts he remembers having about Eddie through high school, the Upside Down, and after.

“You really thought that? You’re not making this all up?”

“I wouldn’t make it up, Eds. You don’t have to believe me, but I want you to know that you’re amazing, too.”

“You two are disgusting.”

Steve and Eddie both jumped at Dustin’s voice, but smiled at each other before Eddie pushed the comforter off of their heads.

Dustin was sitting up on the floor, sleepy eyes still managing to glare at them in bed.

“Sorry, bud. Forgot you were there.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dustin yawned. “I’m gonna go let everyone know that Eddie’s back and wants their blood.”

“Hey! I do not! I just want some blood, not their blood.”

“It’ll be fun to make them think so, though.”

“Dude, the way to break this news to them is not gonna be making them think Eddie’s Dracula.”

Eddie snorted at Steve’s words and Dustin shook his head.

“There is no other way to break the news. You two get whatever this is out of your system by dinner time. Everyone’s gonna want to see you.”

When Dustin had this particular tone, they knew they had to listen. Which was kind of annoying because they’re the adults, but whatever.

Steve was kind of just glad that Dustin was showing some emotions besides anger and sadness again.

“Fine. Don’t come back before 7. If you do, I’m not sorry for what you walk in on.”

Steve felt himself blush as Eddie spoke.

“Gross! Can you at least pretend I’m not leaving you two to have sex? Jesus.”

“Nobody said anything about sex. You’re such a teenage boy, Dustin.”

Steve giggled as he rested his head against Eddie’s chest.

Dustin didn’t add anything else to the conversation, probably sensing that Eddie was going to say more embarrassing things the more he argued.

“Seriously. 7:00. Be dressed and at least mildly presentable,” he said as he left the room.

Steve felt Eddie relax and wrap his arms around him, resting his fingers along his spine and tapping a melody. He did that a lot against his own leg or tables, Steve had noticed before everything happened. It seemed like a nervous habit, but he shouldn’t be nervous now. They’d done the hard part already; Admitted feelings and faced the possibility of rejection.

“Hey. What’s wrong?”

Steve didn’t want to look up at his face yet. Not if he was changing his mind.

“I’m. Well, I do need some blood.” He started to pull his arms away from Steve, like he was actually going to leave this very warm and cozy bed. “I can be back quick. I mean, animal blood seems to work pretty well so.”

Steve looked at him.

Really looked at him.

He shouldn’t do this.

He really shouldn’t do this.

“I mean I have plenty of blood. Like, if you didn’t wanna go out.”

Eddie stared at him, possibly not even comprehending what he was subtly (not really) offering.

“Uh.”

Steve tried not to feel too proud about rendering Eddie nearly silent, but considering how much Eddie always spoke, he counted it as a win.

“I mean, you don’t need much right? It’s like donating blood. People do it all the time.”

“Steve. I can’t. I can’t drink your blood.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not sure I’ll stop.”

Something about that made butterflies appear in his stomach, which is probably not the right reaction to someone saying they could drain your entire body of its blood. Steve was learning a lot about himself today.

“You’ll stop.”

“I’ve never had a human’s blood before, sweetheart. I don’t know if I could stop even if I wanted to.”

“You’ll stop.”

Eddie shook his head.

“I can’t take that risk with you. Not unless I know I could stop.”

“How else will you know if you don’t try?”

“I don’t know, but I can’t use you as a test subject. Especially not while we’re alone. Someone should be around in case I can’t stop.”

“We’ll call Robin then.”

Steve started to sit up so he could use the phone by his bed to call her when he felt Eddie’s hands on his shoulders.

“Steve. I don’t know if it’s a good idea. The few times I’ve drank from an animal that was still alive, they were like, hypnotized? I don’t want you to get like that. You wouldn’t have any control.”

Steve’s reaction was probably not what either of them expected, and it definitely wasn’t normal.

He whimpered. Like he was already being drained of blood.

And he was, kind of. It was all going to his dick.

Eddie looked like he might actually eat Steve. Steve was gonna be okay with that, actually.

“Steve. I have to go. I don’t think I have enough control.”

“Please.”

Steve sounded desperate, which was what he was. He’d be embarrassed about it if he could think about anything other than having Eddie’s mouth on his neck, teeth in his skin.

Steve was crawling into Eddie’s lap, wrapping his legs around his waist and arms around his neck, pulling him as close as he could.

If Eddie had any type of super strength, he wasn’t using it to push him away.

Steve counted that as another win.

“I can hear what you’re thinking. This isn’t fair to you. I have every advantage.”

“I want you to.”

“What if I can’t stop?”

His voice was quiet and Steve paused for a moment to gently cup his cheeks in his hands.

“I know you can. You’ve had every opportunity to hurt me, Eds. You could’ve hurt Dustin. You could have run from here by now and gone to anyone’s house and hurt them. But you haven’t. And you won’t hurt me. You’ll stop when you’ve had enough.”

“I don’t know that I could ever have enough of you.”

If Steve wasn’t fully on board with this before, that would have sold him on it for sure.

This may be a risk, but it was a risk Steve would rather die than not take.

“I trust you, Eds.”

He felt more than saw Eddie give in.

Steve rested his forehead against Eddie’s and closed his eyes.

He took a shaky breath, suddenly nervous that he’d made a fool of himself. He pushed the nerves down, though, knowing Eddie would leave if he thought Steve was having doubts.

“I want you to take what you need from me. Please.”

Part 3

TAG LIST: @bisexualdisastersworld

[sgiandubh]

The ripple effect

So finally, it would seem the news from Hollywood are not good at all. A press release from SAG-AFTRA informs us that AMPTP/TPTB chose to drop the towel after a very long negotiation process (not a good sign, in my book), that continued even after their latest unacceptable offer, as you can read down below (https://x.com/sagaftra/status/1712368110253285730?s=20):

The mainstream media (always NYT, in this house) reported also on the studios' offer, which may or may not be helpful for understanding what exactly is at stake (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/business/media/actors-strike-talks-suspended.html?searchResultPosition=2):

Now that is a very hardball, completely insolent position. I am peeling my eyes in disbelief at the idea of offering 'further protections around the use of A.I.', when it was hoped that the use of A.I. would be treated as an exception, not as future reality the industry should work 'around'. This is what really is at stake, not the almost abusive allegation of 'unbearable economic burden' (that is a mafioso pretext) an 800 million USD yearly viewership bonus would supposedly entail. The real financial impact of such a compromise solution, as disclosed by SAG-AFTRA, is negligible: 'less than 57 cents/subscriber'.

And, to make things worse, it would seem the studios deliberately lied to the press, too (it would not be the first time - we shippers know it so well, eh?):

All this circus, despite a cataclysmic impact on California's economy:

(Sourced at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/21/realestate/writers-strike-rent-ny-la.html).

And that was the situation three weeks ago, when I found this article and promptly set it aside, waiting for the right moment to share it with you. And you know the situation is serious, when news like these are to be found not in the business, but in the real estate section of the newspaper. Along with this kind of comments, likely to suggest the possibility of unrest, if things go on like this:

People living in their flats without electricity or sleeping in their cars: it would seem this strike added unwanted insult to the drastic COVID injury in this particular sector of the labor market.

But what interested me the most about this whole affair was the ripple effect on the British film industry, in an attempt to see what is next for OL's Season 8. Thankfully, I didn't have to go very far and speculate more than the NYT did itself. Oh, and before Mordor starts shouting insanities, their LHR's correspondent paper, back in September, is called 'Hollywood Strikes Send a Chill Through Britain’s Film Industry' (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/19/business/hollywood-strikes-uk-filmmaking-industry.html):

Despite my unflappable optimism, I have to say that doesn't sound good at all, especially when you know this is precisely the case for OL, a production 'with stars who are SAG-AFTRA members' (or at least compelled to stand in solidarity with the strike, by SAG-AFTRA's own statement of conduct). I predict a very late start for the shooting of Season 8. And further unrest in the UK sector 'in the middle of next year' means that UK based and staffed productions may be fewer and less important, since that calendar announced by Equity could seriously compromise their promotion, a risk not many studios are willing to take. So less alternatives for both S&C, at least for the UK alone.

The writers' strike was a very long one - five months. I suppose the studios are willing to play for time and prefer a long stalemate of the negotiations with SAG-AFTRA, in the attempt of breaking the union consensus from the inside. With people's economies gone and the prospect of a dire, uncertain way ahead, there is no way SAG-AFTRA's compensations, mainly aimed at keeping people afloat with their rent costs, could cover the real impact on its members' everyday lives, on the long run. They would also prefer to foolishly cry over a fictitious 800 million USD 'burden' and not see the (at least) six times bigger negative impact on the local economy, which translates both in net losses of profit for thousands of businesses (mainly SMEs) and thousands of lost jobs.

And in the middle of all this, it would seem that Herself is on her way to the NYCC. Whatever for, sweet summer child, I would brazenly ask this strange, diminutive woman who started it all.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Rereading The Fellowship of the Ring for the First Time in Fifteen Years

Ok, so I apparently internalized almost nothing when I read this book in high school. And although I have learned a lot about what you can and cannot get away with in both written and cinematic media in 11 years of higher education...SOMEHOW THIS MAN LITERALLY GOT AWAY WITH "And then the Mirkwood Elves walked Gollum on sunny days" AND NOBODY MENTIONS IT BECAUSE THAT IS TOO RIDICULOUS FOR WORDS!!! So I guess let's talk chapter 2, "The Council of Elrond," because otherwise I'm going to keep yelling about how we just casually skated over Legolas walking the Gollum.

Ok, so this is a long-ass chapter that is mostly everybody putting together narrative puzzle pieces in real time. It's practically a TTRPG. So we're just going to make this easy and chunk this reaction out by narrative, because after Gandalf puts the kibosh on Frodo going on a leisurely hike around Rivendell, we end up in this council for almost 50 pages. Although apparently even TOLKIEN knew that he had to keep this shit moving--such as it does, at a snail's pace--because he explicitly says right at the too of the chapter that "Not all that was spoken and debated in the Council need now be told." So basically, this is the Sparknotes version of the meeting, and it STILL feels long.

But I guess we're starting with Gloin, whose tale was apparently new to Frodo. I knew about the mission to Moria and how Balin, Ori, and Oin have been missing for THIRTY GODDAMN YEARS because we covered that at the party in the last chapter, or at least enough of it to get by. What was SUPER NEW was that apparently Sauron has weirdly good information about the dwarves and what Thorin and Co. were doing in The Hobbit, because a YEAR ago, a messenger from Mordor rocked up to Dain's mountain going, "Hey, Sauron wants to be BFFS, and also what do you know about these things called hobbits?" Why is Sauron asking the dwarves? Because, says the messenger, "Sauron knows [...] that one of these was known to you on a time."

First of all, I appreciate that we aren't going to get every single little piece of info here, but...HOW THE TITMONKEYS DID SAURON RANDOMNLY KNOW THAT DAIN KNEW A HOBBIT but absolutely nothing else about either Bilbo in particular or hobbits in general? This seems like a weirdly realistic information hole to have, but given the depth of the rest of the information we're about to get in this chapter, it feels a smidge hand-wavy. Anyway, the TLDR for Gloin is that they want to warn Bilbo, ask Elrond WTAF is this ring Sauron is being coy about, and get some help ASAP because King Brand is about to fold like a house of cards. Which honestly? I gotta give the dwarves props for understanding their own internal politics that clearly and being willing to cop to weak points. Although then Elrond throws one hell of a wet towel on things:

"You have done well to come," said Elrond. "You will hear today all that you need in order to understand the purposes of the Enemy. There is naught that you can do, other than to resist, with hope or without it."

Cheery, Elrond, thanks for that. And even if he DOES follow it up with "But you do not stand alone," I'm not entirely sure that this is the moment to be brutally honest about there not being anything to do but hold the line.

This is followed up by a Middle Earth history lesson from Elrond that even TOLKIEN glosses over, since it spans the history of Sauron and the Rings of Power, Sauron's betrayal, the history of the One Ring, the entire history of Numenor, Elendil and his coming, the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, and the prologue of the Fellowship film. We get a little more detail about Isildur taking up the ring--as a weregild, apparently--but otherwise the TLDR here is that the victory was...y'know, ok, but not permanent or all-encompassing.

And then Elrond KEEPS GOING to tell us about how Gondor endured, rose to something that echoed Numenor's greatness (the SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAADE of the word choice there is just savage though; like way to damn Gondor with faint praise), and then declined as Sauron re-powered; he also recounts the loss of Minas Ithil and the pseudo-loss of Osgiliath.

Which is about when Boromir pops up because Elrond insufficiently praised Gondor, and also he needs to impress on everyone how close Gondor is to ACTUALLY falling. We're going to yaddah yaddah over this first little bit, because the key piece that brought Boromir to the council was a dream that both he and Faramir had that encompassed the following wee bit of a poem:

Seek for the Sword that was broken; In Imladris it dwells; There shall be counsels taken Stronger than Morgul-spells. There shall be show a token That Doom is near at hand, For Isildur's Bane shall waken, and the Halfling forth shall stand.

I don't know who controls dream visions in Middle Earth, but thank you to whoever it is for being this blunt, because humans are kinda dumb sometimes, but even they should be able to do the basics of interpretation and interpolation required in the context of the Council to go "Oh cool, we gotta send a Hobbit."

Especially since the next words out of Elrond and Gandalf are "Show them the Ring, Frodo the halfling." Unfortunately for whoever is doing dream visions in Middle Earth, Boromir is both tense, stressed, and Gondor-centric AF, because his immediate reaction is "Is then the doom of Minas Tirith come at last?" Which...HONEY...

"The words were not the doom of Minas Tirith," said Aragorn.

Literally, someone needs to get a necromancer up in here because I want to know which students (or possibly fellow faculty members) Tolkien was channeling for this exchange. Literally anyone who has ever been in a university classroom has watched this exchange play out, and I'm now having Vietnam flashbacks to the time I asked a class of students how to identify German Expressionism in a film and one kid piped up, "The actor's names are German."

Reader, that is not the answer.

But back to Middle Earth, because Aragorn has just been a sassypants at Boromir, and Boromir returns the favor by questioning Aragorn's lineage, at which point BILBO pops up and I read the next poem in Arwen's voice because Peter Jackson gave it to her in the third movie:

All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken: The crownless again shall be king.

So we don't really need the most famous bit of verse from LOTR repeated here, except that I think it's pretty and also in context it's fucking HILARIOUS. Boromir was like, "Sure, we'd take help from the line of Elendil...IF WE HAD ONE" and Bilbo pops up with a SELF-WRITEN POEM and everyone--including Elrond--is just like, "Yeah, seems legit."

That is the equivalent of a lawyer showing up in court, reciting Rudyard Kipling, and everyone just...accepting that as a rational argument that supports the defendant's position. This is so absolutely ludicrous as to verge on farcical and I honestly kind of love it. BOROMIR doesn't even question it, we just kind of accept Aragorn's bona fides and move on...to Aragorn basically going "we Rangers do ten times the work that Gondor does for a tenth of the respect and recognition you get, and we wouldn't have it any other way, so SIT THE FUCK DOWN."

Boromir very reasonably drops his beef with Aragorn here and switches to "How the fuck do we know that this is the ring? Where are the receipts?" And the receipts are...basically Bilbo retelling the "Riddles in the Dark" chapter from The Hobbit and Frodo recounting his life with the Ring, which get glossed over because WE HAVE ALL BEEN READING THE BOOK UP TO THIS POINT.

This is where we get a new and quite interesting question though:

Galdor of the Havens, who sat nearby, overheard him. "You speak for me also," he cried, and turning to Elrond he said: "The Wise may have good reason to believe that the halfling's trove is indeed The Great Ring of long debate, unlikely though that may seem to those who know less. But may we not hear the proofs? And I would ask this also. What of Saruman? He is learned in the lore of the Rings, yet he is not among us. What is his counsel - if he knows the things that we have heard?"

A damn reasonable couple of questions here. I'd also want more proof than two hobbits, and I'd also be SUPER wondering where the Ring expert was, since the Ring is the main subject of this whole meeting. So this is where we finally hear what Gandalf was up to for the majority of the first half of the book, while Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin were hauling ass out of the Shire.

So, I am deeply used to and familiar with Christopher Lee's Saruman, but one of the few things I internalized from reading this book in high school was that Saruman was super not chill when Gandalf called him "the White" and was from this point on self-referentially called "of Many Colors." I also remember him being a freaking drama-llama. What I did NOT remember was that he confidently said, "Into Anduin the Great it fell; and long ago, while Sauron slept, it was rolled down the River to the Sea."

WHICH EXPLAINS WHY NOBODY THOUGHT THE ONE RING WAS IN PLAY FOR SO MANY YEARS!!! Because while everyone knew that the Ring betrayed Isildur and bailed in the river, only those of us who had read The Hobbit or the early chapters of this book knew that it hadn't actually made it to the fucking sea! There was a (sport metaphor of choice about interception or interference or whatever here) from Deagol and Smeagol! Which makes it kind of hilarious that the Ring has been in hobbity hands all this time, and Sauron just...didn't know hobbits even existed. Because life is often stranger than fiction.

Then we get a rehash of Gandalf's research trips and field work to try to track down information about the ring, and a lot of this we got in earlier chapters when Gandalf was giving Frodo the cliffnotes version in the Shire. Had I been the editor on this book, I would have strongly recommended we do a little less retreading of this ground, but apparently Tolkien was anti-editor, so I'm just going to skip to end when Gandalf and Aragorn are like, "So we handed Gollum over to the Mirkwood Elves, and he's still imprisoned there to this day."

At which point Legolas immediately pops up with "Um, so actually, we fucked up. We were walking the Gollum dog and he escaped. Our bad." Which all and Sundry generally agree is a bad thing, except for Gloin, who has a REALLY DAMN GOOD POINT when he says, "'You were less tender to me,' said Gloin, with a flash of his eyes, as old memories were stirred of his imprisonment in the deep places of the Elven-king's halls." Thorin and Co. did not get their daily walkies, and that's a valid point. Gandalf full-on silences Gloin here, and that is wildly uncool of him, because again, Elf-Dwarf racism is real and he probably shouldn't invalidate Gloin's experience.

Reading this book again is REALLY damaging my love of Gandalf, I have got to say...

So skipping over the well-known attempted turning of Gandalf by Saruman and the eagles thing (I am not talking about the eagles. Find another corner of the internet to yell about that in), we get a first look at Rohan! Gandalf needed a horse to get back to Frodo, and Rohan is apparently Middle Earth's Horses R Us. Unfortunately, they're besieged by the forces of the enemy, they're paying tithes to Mordor in horses, and Theoden is probably starting to fall under the sway of Wormtongue at this point. So Gandalf gets the wonderful Shadowfax from Rohan, who is APPARENTLY A CAMOFLAUGE HORSE:

And there is one among them that might have been foaled in the morning of the world. The horses of the Nine cannot vie with him; tireless, swift as the flowing wind. Shadowfax they called him. By day his coat glistens like silver; and by night it is like a shade and he passes unseen.

I am not a horse girl (horse smell is gross), but even I can appreciate a color-changing horse that lets you haul ass across the world unseen at night. Good horse. *Pats him awkwardly on the head.*

And then we get MORE expansion of information we already largely know or could extrapolate from the available data--seriously, did NO ONE have the balls to tell Tolkien he could get repetitive?--before we come to the vital question: We have the Ring; what the hell do we do with it?

I will say that I appreciate that Gandalf knows Tom Bombadil well enough to know that he would be THE WORST possible guard for the Ring and shoots that idea down fast.

I also found it really interesting that Glorfindel was super ride-or-die for the idea of actually yeeting the Ring into the ocean, as if putting it back on the course it started when it betrayed Isildur would somehow put everything right. As if the intercept by hobbits was the problem, and not that the Ring itself is the receptacle of all evil in Middle Earth. Like, points for trying, my dude, but I'm pretty sure that magic trumps the crushing pressure of the depths of the sea floor and Sauron could summon that shit back if he really put his mind to it.

Elrond is correct that we have to yeet the Ring into the volcano, and he is equally correct that the task is appointed to Frodo. It just takes everyone a hot minute to get there because everyone keeps trying to avoid volunteering or handing the Ring off to someone who would be DANGEROUSLY powerful with it.

Bilbo's attempt to volunteer was super heartwarming and cute, but I'm with literally everyone else in the room that he's too old and the Ring wouldn't have it anyway. So Frodo volunteers, and Sam absolutely pops up, because he'll be DAMNED if he's leaving Master Frodo <3 <3 <3

HOO BOY, that was a long one, and there was a lot of graduate-level contextualizing, adding of detail, and citing of sources, because apparently Tolkien can't get away from his academic roots even when he's writing about nine dudes on a quest to melt down some jewelry. I don't mind thorough, but I'd be lying if I said that chunks of this didn't feel like unnecessary repetition. At the very least though, we have made it through this chapter, and that's about where I'm going to leave it this time. It looks like next time we'll be picking up to really get this quest moving though, and I'm looking forward to setting out with our fellowship!

[birbfeeder2artisticboogaloo]

GOOD LORD that film is a FECK of a lot longer than i remembered _(:3」∠)

i had a blast tho!!! and i would like to share some thoughts that i had this time round!!!!! thus i have put them below the cut, in no particular order!!!! read them......if u dare huehuehuehuehue >:D

how did no one notice. that there was a GIANT FUCKING CASTLE. being built in mordor??? wHO WAS BUILDING IT. WHERE DID THEY GET THE MATERIALS. HOW MUCH NOISE DID THEY MAKE. (im not invested in the answers, i just find it funny 🤣)

HOW IS THERE A GIANT FUCKING CREATURE IN THE WATER RIGHT NEXT TO THE DOOR TO MORIA???????? how DEEP is that fucking water??!!! HOW COULD A CTHULHU THING POSSIBLY LIVE COMFORTABLY IN THERE????? is this its NATURAL HABITAT??? is it an INVASIVE SPECIES??? WHAT IS HAPPENING

is ANYONE going to ask gimli if he's ok. ur mans pure SOBBING ON THE GROUND and nobody is going to say 'oh gimli, i'm so sorry about ur friends and relations. let's hold hands. let's destroy toxic masculinity with a brotherly forehead kiss ;A;'. U CAN DO BETTER THAN A GENTLE SHOULDER PAT, SURELY!!!!!

when legolas catches boromir before he can fall in the mines. i wanted them to fuck nasty 👀

wHEN LEGOLAS CATCHES ARAGORN BEFORE HE CAN FALL IN THE MINES. I REALLY REALLY WANTED THEM TO FUCK NASTY

(i HAVE drawn it tbh but it was terrible and bad and it's on my old laptop so it shall NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY. NEVER NEVER NEVER 😳)

my favourite scene is when they all dance in the shire ;A; ive actually got that tune ('flaming red hair' it's called) in a few of my playlists, it's just so catchy~~

i used to be able to play the ~shire~ melody on the pennywhistle. badly. very very badly. but i've lost track of the whistle so ur ears are safe from me 🤣

gandalf and saruman flopping round the room for their ~fight~ will never NOT be funny to me

(12th july 2023 - still in love with aragorn 😔)

(wait no i watched it before midnight so it was the 11th)

(....whatever it doesn't matter, shut up birb 😔)

i passed out IMMEDIATELY after the film ended, i've still got a sore head ;A; it took SO MUCH out of me, i knew it would but it took MORE THAN I THOUGHT ;A;

wheN SEAN BEAN SAID THE THING

legolas out here like 'omg he doesn't even know aragorn 😳' and 'tee hee i'm sprinting atop the snow~ 🤭' are two of my favourite Legolas Expressions, but my ABSOLUTE FAV is his 'oh dear everyone is crying, are they having emotions?? what do i say?? what do i say when ppl have emotions?? can i get out of this. how do i get out of here' face right after gandalf tells them all to FECK OFF U FOOLS and leave him behind

i suspect they PROOOOBABLY had enough time to help him, but. u know. we need drama. abair drama~~~~ 🤣🤣

WHEN SEAN BEAN SAID THE THING. AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!

'my brother. my captain. my king.' im fucking SOBBING

what if aragorn and boromir fucked nasty with EACH OTHER as well. pls consider this

'they have a cave troll' is VERY GOOD but WHAT IF: 'they have a fucking cave troll.'

when aragorn tells arwen to 'ride hard', i get the feeling it's neither the first time he's said it nor the only context he's said it in 👀 good for them tho!!!!

arwen: the rivers obey ME and ME ALONE!!!!!!!! oh shit oh fuck frodo are u ok oh my god oh no DADDY HELP ;A;

'ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR!!!!!!' she's damn RIGHT i will, mY POWERFUL SCARY QUEEN I WILL PEEL UR FRUIT FOR U SO U WILL NOT HAVE TO SULLY UR DAINTY HANDS ;A;

(frodo didn't seem to agree with me but that's ok. friends can have different opinions and still love each other!!!)

HIS HUG WITH SAM. that was baby birb's favourite scene, before i got older and discovered that i wanted the handsome human men to FUCK NASTYYYY 👀

that's all for today. AND TOMORROW?????? the second film in the trilogy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[shipcestuous]

The Last Rinbearer isn't really a book I'm enthusiastic about... it's a deconstruction of The Lord Of The Rings were the very premise is that the events described in Tolkien's book are conservative pro-Elvish, pro-magic propaganda slandering the technologically advanced Mordor, a land of scientists and philosophers, and its enlightened ruler Sauron. Which could be an interesting story, if played well, but the book lacks internal consistency, makes many decisions that don't make much sense from the "this is what really happened, LOTR is propaganda" angle, takes cheap potshots at Tolkien's works and ideas that feel unnecessarily mean. That said...

There's this one moment with Eomer and Eowyn that I think is kind of... interesting. Now, these version of Eomer and Eowyn seem more like the author's own OCs than new versions of LOTR!Eomer and LOTR!Eowyn, so I'm not really sure how interesting the scene might be to people who ship them in Tolkien's novel. But, taken as its own thing, it really did make me raise an eyebrow and chuckle a little.

In The Last Ringbearer, Eomer is ambitious and greedy, having a bit of a struggle for power and control with Theoden and forcing him to send away his relatively decent and helpful "consultant" from Isengard, Grima. He's also quite a lech, rallying his men during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields by giving them a speech about dying heroically so they will get to feast in the afterlife while attended by beautiful and very eager girls wearing golder bracelets and nothing else. While everyone else cheers and starts fantasizing about those girls, only a young, unusually pretty rider blushes in embarrassment...

Naturally, that turns out to be Eowyn. Who doesn't get to kill the Witch-king of Angmar, with Tolkien's version being dismissed as Aragorn, here a dishonest thug with even bigger ambitions than Eomer, making up some ridiculuous tale to mock an enemy both stronger and more honorable than him. At least she gets to kill a regular human enemy, at least... anyway, Eowyn mostly chose to fight to help Aragorn, who's been cruelly stringing her along while telling her he couldn't marry her just yet because of the ongoing war. Far from Tolkien's cold and pessimistic but honorable and brave shieldmaiden, she acts more like a naive, lovestruck schoolgirl, to the point Eomer can see through Aragorn's act right away and is distrustful and hostile towards him but she doesn't suspect anything, making her brother despair for her.

Eventually, Aragorn takes advantage of Eowyn going to the Houses of Healing to take care of a battle wound to take her as an unwitting hostage and blackmail Eomer, who can't do anything to give in to his pressures to save her.

So, yeah... the little sister falls for the wrong guy, whom the protective older brother instinctively dislikes and wishes would leave her alone, until said wrong guy uses the older brother's love for her against him. A classic, right? But as I was saying, there's this one moment in particular, after Eowyn reveals her identity post-battle...

"“Éowyn!” was all Éomer could say. “What the hell!..”

The shield-maiden stuck her tongue out at him, tossed him the Haradi cape in passing – he was left standing, stunned, clutching his sister’s trophy – and stopped in front of Aragorn.

“Greetings, Ari!” she said calmly; Nienna only knew the price of that calmness. “Congratulations on the victory. As I see it, the wartime excuses are now void. So if you don’t need me any more, say so now and, by the stars of Varda, I will immediately stop bothering you!”

“How can you say that, my Amazon!” and there she was in his saddle, looking at him with shining eyes, prattling nonsense, and then kissing him in front of everybody – the girls of Rohan are not big on southern ceremony, and a heroine of Pelennor could not care less…

All Éomer could do was look at this idyllic picture and get more upset by the minute, thinking: “Fool! Open your eyes and look at his face, it’s all written plainly there – what he is to you and what you are to him! Why, why do the idiot girls always fall for scoundrels – this one isn’t even handsome…” not that he was the first or the last such in that World, or any other…

He said none of that aloud, of course, only asked: “Show me your arm.” Only when Éowyn protested that she was adult enough to handle it and that it wasn’t even a scratch did he let out some of his frustration by yelling loudly and profanely enough to curl ears, describing to the heroine of Pelennor, in graphic detail, what he was going to do to her if she didn’t report to the medics by the count of three. Éowyn laughed and saluted: “Yes, my general!” and only the unusual care with which she mounted his horse told him that much more than a scratch was involved here. But the girl had already leaned on her brother’s shoulder: “Éom, dear, please don’t sulk, spank me if you want, just don’t tell Auntie, please?” and rubbed her nose on his cheek, just like in their childhood… Aragorn was watching them with a smile, and Éomer shuddered when he caught his look: it was the look in the eye of an archer right before he lets fly."

To recap: this happens AFTER Eowyn's already heard Eomer's very explicitly sexual speech and blushed at it. She's old enough that her marrying Aragorn wouldn't be weird except for his obvious disinterest in her as a person, yet here she is, acting all bratty and then letting Eomer yell at her about spanking her "in graphic detail" as punishment for endangering herself and getting hurt, even laughing about it, calling him by sweet little pet names, cuddling him and casually telling him she'll let him do it and won't mind it as long as he doesn't tell Theoden's wife... who shouldn't actually still be alive at his point, but alright...

All of this, after coming on to and making out with Aragorn, who Eomer hates and knows has no good intentions or true feelings for her, right in front of her brother... whose frustratiton and threats do seem to be the result of the whole of Eowyn's behavior, with her stubborn refusal to see a healer being only the straw the broke the camel's back. And all while Aragorn looks on creepily, giving Eomer all the more reason to feel protective towards Eowyn and wary of the man she's crushing on.... who's not even THAT handsome, at least in his totally unbiased opinion.

I swear, when I got to this point, I literally stopped reading and thought, "Uh, if this turned into some kind of incestuous, BDSM-flavored sexy parody all of a sudden, with Eomer losing his patience with Eowyn and spanking her for real only to find her just as giggly, affectionate, and blushy as she's been up until now, and realizing then and there that he doesn't need any heavenly virgin and he has a perfect way to make his sister forget all about Aragorn the Creep for her own good right at hand, I think I would start actually enjoying this. Wonder if there's any fic like that out there..."

Sorry for the long ask, but you see where I'm coming from, right? TLR!Eomer and Eowyn are nothing like LOTR!Eomer and Eowyn, and imo are also much worse characters, but at least, they're good shipping fodder. And I did get a good laugh out of their unintentional kinkiness!

I've never heard of this book. The premise sounds like it has a lot of potential but I'm definitely not interested in something that's going to make digs at the original work! But incest shipping has taken me many strange places before.

I really enjoyed reading your description of Eowyn and Eomer in The Last Ringbearer. That scene where she tells him to spank her is hilarious. I would definitely have to see them as new characters but they seem pretty shippable, in spite of everything. I would very much like to see Eomer making Eowyn forget all about Aragorn.

Thanks so much for taking the time to write this up and share this with us. Thoroughly appreciated and enjoyed.

[theheirofthesharingan]

(I know I'm butting in but i feel this particular writeup belongs here (for the original post by @feytouched ) deserves to be read by anyone who loves Frodo as well as who doesn't. I found it on Barrow Downs, a Tolkien discussion board, and it's stuck with me since then. It made me appreciate him a lot more. The link to the main post is in the 'source').

I can't help feeling that Tolkien wished to explore the effect of war on a survivor, someone who goes through the worst trauma imaginable & survives it. Sam, for all his suffering, does not go through the worst experience - Frodo does. Frodo is broken by what he goes through, but survives. The final chapter would not have been as powerful if Sam alone had survived. Frodo had to be taken to the lowest point a human could reach & still go on. Tolkien stated that Frodo expected to die in achieving the Quest. The fact that he didn't, but survived, broken & without hope, is the point.

My feeling is that Frodo had to survive - Tolkien owed a debt to those who survived the war he had fought in, not to those who died. The ones who died had found peace & could be allowed to rest. Those who survived were the ones who mattered, because they were the forgotten ones. Having Frodo survive forces the reader to deal with what survivors of horror have to live with. Its too easy for us to mourn the dead, wear our poppies in November, lay a wreath & think of them as stories that have come to an end & move on. Through Frodo Tolkien forces us to confront the reality of the survivors of horror who have to live on with their experiences. They are living instances of the fact that wars don't end when the ceasefire is announced & the peace treaties signed. Wars go on as long as the survivors live. Frodo was still fighting the War of the Ring till he left Middle-earth, still trudging through Mordor, still struggling up the Mountain, still claiming the Ring. Over & over & over. His wounds never healed, he never was able to find rest.

The fact is, all the others were able to move on & find a new life - which most of the survivors of WWI did. Some weren't - & Frodo personifies them - the ones who needed to find peace but could not.

Now, this is not to treat LotR as an allegory in any way. Frodo is a broken survivor of the War of the Ring, but there are always broken survivors of Wars - in the Primary (& occasionally in Secondary) world(s); & not just broken survivors of wars, but of violence, rape, abuse - those who have to continue on without hope. The ignored & forgotten ones who we wish would go away because their very existence denies us the chance to pretend that we can all live happily ever after, whatever happens to us.

It would have been so much easier for us if Frodo had died on the Mountain, because then we wouldn't have been stuck with him moping around & making us miserable. Or if he didn't have the decency to die then at least he could have snapped out of it for our sakes so we could enjoy Aragorn's & Sam's weddings & had the 'And they all lived happily ever after.' that we deserved after our long journey through Middle-earth. But no, that bloody Frodo has to hang around, getting under our feet, making us feel guiilty, when all we really wanted was to enjoy Sam's healing of the Shire & a quiet pint in the Green Dragon.

There's always one who has to spoil the fun...

____

In case the link isn't showing in source, here's the original post.

the lack of compassion that a good portion of lotr fans show for frodo ("why can't he fight or do simple tasks" "why is he so weak" "why does he always need help / to be rescued") mirrors the lack of compassion of people for those who bear the burden of invisible disabilities. he's struggling against an immense weight at every step! something that actively tries to destroy him, worsening at every moment! his heroism is in just continuing to walk his path, step by step. his bravery is in just existing as himself under the debilitating weight of the ring. but because the influence of the ring is invisible, it is forgotten, and frodo is written off as a weak, cowardly, and/or useless character, much like disabled people irl. in this household we do not stand for frodo slander!!!

[fiddleabout]

in honor of you watching the episode with The Hug, what would you consider worthy runners up

buddy...pal...friend...."what are the best hugs in media" do you have any idea how much i did not know this was a question i DESPERATELY needed to answer??? do you??? let’s DO THIS bro i am READY

FAVORITE HUGS, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

(links to the gifsets these are all from included, i couldn’t make a gif if my mother’s life depended on it)

agents of shield, daisy and jemma, aka the one to start all of this

the DESPERATION. the RELIEF.  they’re surrounded by androids pretending to be their friends and didn’t even know if they were androids themselves until this exact moment! jemma is so traumatized she can barely think straight and daisy is running on nothing but adrenaline and fear but they’re together and that means they can handle this shit!

captain marvel, carol and maria

carol is BACK FROM THE DEAD and a bigger damn hero than maria ever knew and having a mental breakdown about her lost memories to boot.  and what do you do when the love of your life who died mysteriously and tragically half a lifetime ago shows back up with superpowers and amnesia and has an emotional breakdown? you stand up and hold on.  look at them!! they’re forever in love and they were lost and now they get! another! chance!

rwby, weiss and yang

i could write a NOVEL about this hug.  the hand on the back of her head! weiss deadass HANGING OFF THE GROUND! the way weiss’s superknight just fades away because she’s being held! weiss schnee is the only person who never willingly left yang xiao long and now they’re back together and everything is GOLDEN even though they’re back together because weiss was kidnapped by yang’s heathen birdbrain dingbat of a mother bless you raven but you are such a shitshow

motherland fort salem, the bellweather unit

the way abigail and raelle SPRINT to tally! the hold she has on the both of them! the hand on her head! leave me here to die i will never recover.

fellowship of the ring, frodo and sam (and every hug in this gifset actually but MOST OF ALL this one)

he’s going to mordor alone! of course he is but sam is going with him! sam can’t swim! the hands clasping underwater and I MADE A PROMISE, MISTER FRODO and way it’s frodo pulling sam out of the water just like it’s sam pulling frodo out of the volcano in rotk because they! need! each! other!! i have been feral over them since 1992 and i will never stop!

BONUS ROUND it’s not really a hug but it shreds me to pieces every time specifically because of the way he’s just absolutely howling when he thinks she’s dead and the way he’s just clutching her in the middle of a battlefield of other dead people he loves but he doesn’t love anyone as much as he loves his sister: eomer and eoywn, return of the king

[animebw]

If there’s one thing Nanoha A’s makes clear, it’s that this show is to early 2000s anime as Symphogear is to 2010s anime. They’re not so much stories as they are melting pots for the ecosystem they were born into and helped shape, combining and remixing the foundations of their particular eras of anime into a big pulsating love letter for everything that makes this medium special. Hell, with all the similarities between them, you could argue that Symphogear is basically just a Nanoha remake modernized for anime’s current landscape. Same building blocks, different configuration. And it’s fun to think of these two shows in that way, as complimentary landmarks for their respective generations, both inspired by and further inspiring the ecosystem they pay tribute to.

There’s just one tiny little problem.

And that problem is that I really, really, really am not a fan of early 2000s anime.

Look, modern anime has plenty of issues, there’s no denying that. But the era of anime that Nanoha basically defines- that awkward five-year stretch from 2001 to 2005- has consistently been the most impenetrable era of this medium for me. I hate the aesthetics, I bounce off the common tropes, I struggle to connect with the vibes, and I just don’t like almost any of the stories. There are so few anime from Nanoha’s era that I like, and most of them are clear exceptions to what most shows were like. This show is a celebration of a creative millieu that I barely even tolerate at the best of times. That alone would be a nigh-insurmountable stumbling block, even if the show in question did turn out really good.

But that leads an even bigger problem, something that might as well have spelled Nanoha’s death knell before I watched a single episode. Because now, we also have to remember that Symphogear exists. Nanoha’s spiritual successor, a show that basically hits all the same beats and fulfills all the same points of interest on a conceptual level. A show I could watch and pretty much get exactly the same kind of experience as if I watched Nanoha. A show so thoroughly dedicated to copying its predecessor that it can easily work as a full-on replacement.

Or, in simpler terms: there is very little I can get out of watching Nanoha that I can’t also get out of watching Symphogear.

And if you’re competing against Symphogear for my attention?

Then sister, you are going to lose.

Yes, it probably doesn’t help that A’s is a substantially weaker installment than Nanoha’s first season. Nanoha and Fate are reduced to side characters in their own story. Without Shinbou in the director’s chair, the visual style is so much less interesting. The final battle is a bloated letdown that barely even focuses on the emotional bonds the season had been building up between Hayate and her knights. But even if A’s had been as good or better than the first season, it would still inevitably face being compared to one of my single favorite anime of all time. Symphogear, for all its faults, is a show that continues to dominate my mind and heart like few pieces of fiction even come close to. And Nanoha’s fighting to take up that exact same place in my subconscious, except it’s trying to do so with the style that speaks to me the least out of anything I’ve seen in anime. You might as well try to storm the gates of Mordor with a dozen untrained farmers and an incontinent mountain goat.

The fact of the matter is, some things are left behind by the passage of time. Ideas get iterated on, improved, and refined to such an extent that their old versions no longer have any real use outside of historical interest. And watching Nanoha A’s felt like pointlessly trying to use a rotary phone when I have a portable Samsung Galaxy tucked right into my pocket. Why do I need to put up with these outdated early 2000s aesthetics when I can pop on Symphogear and watch some of the most gloriously bonkers action ever put to the silver screen? What’s the point of a story that shoves its ostensible protagonists to the side when Symphogear can give me a similar story that always puts Hibiki front and center? As interesting as these sympathetic villains are, are they really more compelling than Kirika, or Shirabe, or Elfnein, or Noble Red?

And look, I like NanoFate a lot. I’m having a lot of fun with their developing relationship.

But look what I’m forced to fucking compare them to.

Yeah, suffice to say, this match was over before it even began.

Now, does that mean I’m going to stop watching Nanoha? Hell no. In fact, I may be more excited for Strikers than anything else up until this point. Because Strikers has the potential to actually deliver something that Symphogear didn’t: grown-up yuri relationships. We never got to see Hibiki and Miku grow old together, but I know that Strikers is going to focus on Nanoha and Fate living their adult lives together and even adopting a kid. That, for once, is something that I won’t be able to compare to Symphogear. That’s something that only Nanoha is capable of giving me. And if seeing that play out is worth it? Then this franchise may not be doomed to antique status just yet.

But that’s gonna be a bit. For now, I’m gonna get back to Kaiji and finish that up, and I’ll be back for Strikers when that’s done. In the meantime, I’m unfortunately gonna have to give A’s a score of 4/10. I didn’t dislike it, but so much of it felt like a first draft in need of tighter pacing and greater focus. Hopefully Strikers will be the moment this franchise truly earns its keep. See you then!

[magpie-trinkets]

Before they go, I wanted to make a list of five walls for them to mingle with (and maybe become friends?) so, at least, I can be at peace knowing Mx Wall won't be alone.

Top 5 Walls (in no particular order, the number means nothing really)

5. Hadrian's Wall (real life)

Considered a UNESCO world heritage site, this wall is located in the UK, more precisely Northern England, and spans the width of the island. It started construction in 122 AD under the reign of Emperor Hadrian of the Roman Empire. It's 117 km long (73 miles) and was used as both a defensive position and customs.

4. The Great Wall of China (real life)

Another UNESCO world heritage site, this wall is also considered one of the wonders of the ancient world. Its construction spans centuries, millenia, even, as different parts of the wall were restored and built. One of the first parts of the wall was built around the 7th century BC, to get an idea. It's 21,196.18 km long. It also served as a defensive construction.

3. The Black Gate of Mordor (LoTR)

(For Frodo!) This wall is situated between Gondor and Mordor, across Cirith Gorgor. It started construction in SA 1600. It's also known by the name of "The Morannon". It serves as the direct, fortified entrance into Sauron's realm. During the War of the Ring, the battle of the Morannon took place, with Aragorn's army facing Sauron's army at the gate. It was all a distraction so that Sauron didn't see Frodo and Sam hiking Mount Doom, to cast the One Ring into the fire.

2. This thing (Super Mario 64)

Uhh. This thing. I think it's called a Roco?

1. The Great Plateau (LoZ)

The Great Plateau is an area in the games Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, a central, small zone in Hyrule, which is surrounded by a high, insurmountable wall. It plays a major role in the first game, as it serves the tutorial area: Link wakes up in the Shrine of Resurrection, deep inside a cave, and is trapped inside the Plateau until he gets the Paraglider, after beating the tutorial. It holds the ruins of some fortifications, but most importantly, it houses the Temple of Time and King Rhoam's grave.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

On Gondor and Nationalism

Gondor, and particularly Denethor and Boromir, is characterized more than any other realm in The Lord of the Rings by nationalism, and there is a sharp contrast between its actual role in the war and the way Denethor and Boromir percieve its role. Two quotes in The Return of the King form the core of Tolkien’s discussion of nationalism, and both are conversations between Denethor and Gandalf.

The first:

Denethor: Yet the Lord of Gondor is not to be made the tool of other men’s purposes, however worthy. And to him there is no purpose higher in the world as it now stands than the good of Gondor; and the rule of Gondor, my lord, is mine and no other man’s, unless the king should come again.

Gandalf: ...I will say this: the rule of no realm is mine, neither of Gondor nor any other, great or small. But all worthy things that are in peril as the world now stands, those are my care. And for my part, I should not wholly fail of my task, though Gondor should perish, if anything passes through this night that can still grow fair or bear fruit or flower again in days to come. For I also am a steward. Did you not know?

And the second, discussing Denethor’s views on what should have been done with the Ring:

Denethor: It should have been kept, hidden, hidden dark and deep. Not used, I say, unless at the uttermost end of need, but set beyond his grasp, save by a victory so final that what then befell would not trouble us, being dead.

Gandalf: You think, as is your wont, my lord, of Gondor only. Yet there are other men and other lives, and time still to be. And for me, I pity even his slaves.

Denethor: And where will other men look for help if Gondor falls?

Both of these conversations point to the fundamental flaw in Denethor’s worldview, and it is a nuanced one. He is not the weak, selfish old man presented in the films; he is intelligent, pragmatic, and realistic, and his strategy and tactics are thoughtful. Again unlike the movies, the mission he sends Faramir on - to prevent the armies of Mordor from crossing Anduin, and cause them heavy losses if they do cross - is not a pointless suicide mission but a crucial and tactically necessary battle. He is wrong in his attitude towards and treatment of Faramir, not in sending him into danger.

Denethor represents (as, in another way, does Saruman) the wisdom of the world. His statement that, as the steward of Gondor, his highest purpose must be the good of Gondor, would be approved by many political theorists. But in the wider vision of the story of The Lord of the Rings, expressed by Gandalf, it is critically flawed in its narrowness and arrogance. The war against Sauron is not about the victory or preservation of one realm alone; it is about saving anything and everything good in Middle-earth, in the present or the future. This is the moment when Gandalf comes closest, of any point in the story, to stating outright who he is and what his purpose is; he doesn’t say outright that he was sent by the Valar to preserve the world against Sauron, but he comes near enough to it that Denethor, an intelligent and learned man, could pick up on it if he wanted to. It is important to Gandalf to at least try to get Denethor to understand the importance of what he’s saying.

In the second conversation, though, Denethor has fallen still farther from the truth. In the first one, he only said that Gondor’s good had to be his highest priority, as its ruler; now he says that if Minas Tirith falls, Sauron’s conquered the world anyway and it doesn’t matter if he gets the Ring. In his eyes, Minas Tirith is the only thing standing against Sauron, and the only thing that matters; its defeat is to him synonymous with the destruction of the world. People across Middle-earth are fighting against Sauron: on the very day of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, the elves of Lothlórien are fighting off an assault by Sauron’s forces, as are the wood-elves in Mirkwood; the Battle of Dale in which the kings of both Dale and the Lonely Mountain fall will be two days later. Gondor is not alone in this war; it is not the only realm fighting and not the only one whose battles matter. It is not the bulwark sheltering the peaceful rest of the world from war; the rest of the world is fighting. But Denethor chooses to regard it as the only place of importance.

These are perspectives that he passed on, in part, to his eldest son, as seen in some of Boromir’s deeds at the Council of Elrond as well as in his later temptation by the Ring. At the Council, he takes the tone that Gondor is unacknowledged and unappreciated and is doing all the work of fighting Sauron: “Few, I deem, know of our deeds, and therefore guess little of their peril, if we should fail at last...By our valour the wild folk of the East are still restrained, and the terror of Morgul kept at bay; and thus alone are peace and freedom maintained in the lands behind us, bulwark of the West...those who shelter behind us give us praise, if ever they hear our name: much praise but little help.” He also - very importantly - instantly conflates “Doom” in the prophecy he hears with “the Doom of Minas Tirith”: the same thing Denethor is doing when he says that, if Minas Tirith falls, the world has already fallen and there’s no point in keeping the Ring away from Sauron. When he is told that the Ring cannot be wielded to defeat Sauron by force of arms, he acts as though the other members of the Council are abandoning Gondor. And so the Ring tempts him with the power to save Minas Tirith, because that’s the only way he can concieve of for the world to be saved.

Aragorn’s response to Boromir, in speaking of the Rangers, is not a counter-boast but an attempt (like Gandalf’s with Denethor) to give Boromir a broader perspective: many people are fighting and resisting Sauron and other evil things, in their own ways (“the servants of the Enemy...are found in many places, not in Mordor only”). Gondor is not alone; it is playing one particular role, while others play other roles.

This attitude, that its battles are the only ones that matter, is quite unique to Gondor. Legolas and Gimli, fighting in the wars of Rohan and Gondor, recognize that their kin cannot come to them: “They have no need to march to war...war already marches on their own lands”. The hobbits continually think little of themselves and their actions, even while achieving great things. (One example that amuses me is the contrast at the Council of Elrond between Boromir, who thinks his comparatively uneventful journey quite heroic - “since the way was full of doubt and danger, I took the journey upon myself” - and Frodo, who regards his achievement of escaping to Rivendell while pursued by all nine of the Nazgûl, and surviving a wound that would have been worse-than-fatal to most other mortals, with an attitude of ‘well, I rather muffed that up’.) The Ents very much have their own priorites - Treebeard says “I am not really on anyone’s side, as no one is really on my side - no one cares for the woods these days” - but they involve themselves in the war beyond merely defending Fangorn, by destroying the orcs who invade Rohan from the north. Théoden likewise keeps the big picture, not just the narrow ‘good of Rohan’ in mind, continuing with his army to the relief of Gondor even as news comes of Rohan being invaded from the north and east (the aforementioned orcs whom the Ents deal with).

Frodo comes closest to understanding what Gandalf is saying in the first-quoted conversation with Denethor. After seeing the Witch-king’s army march out from Minas Morgul, Frodo is tempted to despair: “Even if my errand is performed, no one will ever know. There will be no one I can tell. It will be in vain.” But he resists this: what he had to do, he had to do, if he could, and whether Faramir or Aragorn or Elrond or Gandalf or Galadriel or anyone else ever knew about it was beside the purpose. Aragorn, too, understands it: the march on the Black Gate is the antithesis of Denethor’s perspective: sacrifice of the armies of Gondor and Rohan without even knowing what may happen after they are defeated, in the hope that they may enable someone else to win the victory. They have no way of guessing that Frodo and Sam will reach Mount Doom at the same time as the armies clash at the Black Gate; their hope is founded on the idea of distracting Sauron long enough that Frodo and Sam can destroy the Ring days later, after the armies are all dead.

And Denethor and Boromir’s attitudes are all the more ironic because, in the end, Gondor doesn’t hold up very well. They fall apart and stop even trying to man the walls of Minas Tirith after a mere two days of siege, when food supplies haven’t even begun to be an issue. For a fortified city, especially one as well-designed for defense as Minas Tirith, that’s a very short amount of time to hold out against a siege! During the march on the Black Gate, even the sight of the Plains of Gorgoroth is too much for some of the men of Gondor and Rohan, and they can’t keep going. Yes, they’re just regular people and have never seen anything this horrible before, but Frodo and Sam and now Pippin are also just regular people used to peaceful lives, and they keep going. The purpose of this comparison isn’t to run down the Men of Gondor, but to point out how deeply wrong the idea is of them being the only ones whose fight matters, the only ones with the nerve and determination to protect the rest of the world. The hobbits, who don’t think of themselves as anything special or important or strong, are the ones who save the world, and they do it through hope, endurance, self-sacrifice, love, and compassion, not through military might.

[fortuitousraven]

Sauron's dynamic with Tar-Míriel

I tried to establish what we know about Sauron and Míriel’s interactions in canon, but found absolutely nothing. Frustratingly, we know how Sauron dealt with Ar-Pharazôn and Amandil, and even how Annatar interacted with Galadriel, but nothing on how he treated Tar-Míriel. On the other hand, the omission itself is also weirdly telling.

According to Akallabêth, Sauron hated Amandil above all others in Númenor. Why single out Amandil, wouldn’t he be more angry at Pharazôn for taking him hostage? That might be because he was already getting his vengeance by messing with Pharazôn, but Amandil kept making a nuisance of himself. Or Elendil was just overestimating his father’s importance, but let's not go into the ‘unreliable narrator’ rabbit hole.

Why leave out Tar-Míriel, though? We don’t have a clear idea of what she was actually doing during the story (especially with the alternate versions for her), but all the reasons Sauron hates Amandil or Pharazôn should logically apply to her as well. If she was supporting Amandil then he should hate her as much, and if she was supporting Pharazôn then he should have been plotting vengeance against her as well. Sauron might have considered her not threatening enough to pay attention to. Except Amandil never actually does more than Míriel at stopping Sauron’s plans, and he withdrew to Rómenna while Míriel was at court the entire time. In light of that, it seems strange that Sauron would have considered Amandil to be a much bigger problem.

When the Great Armament is gone and Númenor is no longer a military threat to Sauron, the first thing he does is order Elendil killed, but apparently he leaves Tar-Míriel alone. Really? The reason the Black Númenóreans became a faction was because, even post Downfall, only the Faithful were willing to follow Elendil over Sauron. It makes no sense to prioritize Elendil over Míriel, Míriel at least has legitimacy on her side and is in much closer reach for Sauron.

Sauron targeting Míriel can’t just be assumed to have happened off-page, because this is during the time she is actually back on page and doing something by trying to ascend Meneltarma. It really should have come up in the story if she also had to run for her life like Elendil did, so it seems like she didn’t. Going after Elendil first and then after Tar-Míriel serves no purpose and is strategically stupid, since that just tips off Míriel so she can escape as well. Not going after Míriel at all is also stupid and pointless. Even if Sauron thinks of her as a complete non-threat, it would be far more convenient for him to install a puppet that will cooperate with him, than to keep the Faithful Míriel around.

Maybe it’s still a tougher sell to have his Númenórean minions kill their own Queen and then obey a puppet without a fig leaf of legitimacy. Except the entire point of Sauron’s scheme with the Downfall was to flip the power difference between Númenor and Mordor so that he can do what he likes without them being able to stop him. So why bother to still partially play along with their hierarchy?

I’m fairly sure Sauron not hating Míriel or trying to get rid of her are side-effects from how absent she is in the narrative, and not intentional implications; the Doylist explanation is pretty clearly that Christopher Tolkien just wasn’t very interested in Míriel’s role. If we want to put more focus on Míriel’s part though, then we still need to make a Watsonian explanation for why Sauron makes the weird strategic choice of keeping around the Faithful Míriel.

 The face-value explanation is that Sauron didn’t have any particular ill-feeling toward Míriel and planned to keep her on as the new proxy ruler over Númenor. That doesn’t really feel like something I would have expected however, since that still leaves the question of why he would do that instead of installing a more cooperative proxy. All right then, I’m going with the shippy motivation XD. I’d apologize to Tolkien, but he put Morgoth→Lúthien in the text text so he can’t really complain :p.

 Now the question is on how and why that would work?

 At the basic level, you have the pretty standard trope of the Villain fancying the Heroine. I don’t think I need to say anything more there, it’s common in narratives and an interesting element if done well.

 For the two of them in specific, any details on the characterization would have to depend on your headcanon version of Tar-Míriel. She, unfortunately, doesn’t have much of an established character for us to go on. Unless you draw on the other Akallabêth versions in Histories of Middle-earth, and those drafts are neither consistent nor comprehensive. Her only unambiguous character trait is being very gorgeous, sigh.

 Well, you can build a ship off that :p, Tolkien’s Morgoth→Lúthien subplot is entirely caused by Lúthien being Just That Gorgeous. Míriel isn’t said to be a Lúthien clone like Elrond’s daughter, but (according to "Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner's Wife") she is the most beautiful of all of Elros’ descendants, so she should still be in a fairly comparable league. Her not being a Lúthien clone would probably be a plus to Sauron anyway, considering his bad history with Lúthien ;).

 Side-note, but I find it very funny that Tar-Míriel, who lives generations after Aldarion and Erendis and has nothing to do with their story, still gets a reference: “[Ancalimë] the woman most beautiful, as old tales tell, that ever was born in the line of Elros, save Ar-Zimraphel, the last”. Míriel barely appears in her own story, but it’s relevant to mention that Ancalimë is less good-looking than her, lol.

 Unlike with Morgoth, I don’t think just hotness would work on Sauron, however. Sauron’s reaction to seeing Lúthien, the most beautiful woman ever, is to think about the reward Morgoth is offering for her capture. Sauron doesn’t seem to have the slightest interest in Lúthien for himself, his only comments on Lúthien’s looks is when he is trolling Beren by going on about Morgoth’s lustful intentions for her.

 Which makes sense, desires of the flesh (lust in this case) aren’t urges for the Ainur. Judging by Morgoth’s lines in Lay of Leithian, he does get stuck with that issue, which I assume is just a special case because he is also stuck incarnated in a physical body. On the other hand, we get this intriguing info in Ósanwe-kenta:

if a “spirit” (that is, one of those not embodied by creation) uses a hröa for the furtherance of its personal purposes, or (still more) for the enjoyment of bodily faculties, it finds it increasingly difficult to operate without the hröa … Thus eating and drinking are binding, but not the delight in beauty of sound or form. Most binding is begetting or conceiving.

 “We do not know the axani (laws, rules, as primarily proceeding from Eru) that were laid down upon the Valar with particular reference to their state, but it seems clear that there was no axan against these things.

That is how Melian marrying an Elf and conceiving a Half-Maia kid with him is consistently part of the Legendarium, and is something she could just up and decide to do, without any special circumstances or permission involved. Any other Maia could theoretically also get involved with an Incarnate if they want to. Most of the Ainur are married couples, we can assume the rest also feel something equivalent to romantic feelings and Melian isn’t just an outlier.   

We don’t really see Sauron having interpersonal interactions much, but we do have some idea about it. We know (from Morgoth’s Ring) Sauron is different from the nihilist Morgoth in that people are specifically what he is interested in: “it was the creatures of earth, in their minds and wills, that he desired to dominate.” Sauron is beyond being able to make      healthy     connections to other people, but I think he still has them. Mairon the Admirable is only admirable when other people admire him, and Sauron the Dark Lord is a Lord only when other people bow down before him.

He wants his relationships to be entirely on his own terms, but it looks like he does want more than utilitarian interactions. He’s actually pretty chatty with the other characters during his few on page appearances XD. I don’t think he spent all those centuries with Celebrimbor and co without at least liking them as smithing buddies either, and “Annatar’s” complaint about Gil-galad and Elrond kicking him out does sound personally offended. He’s also fond of his pets: he has some of his wolves (notably Draugluin) sit by his throne and hand-feeds them, and he is wrathful when Lúthien and Huan kill Draugluin. And then there is his weird relationship to his “cat”, Shelob, where he amuses himself by sending her “dainties”.

We don’t really need a grand romance. He probably wouldn’t bother just for her being hot and politically useful, but as long as he also finds her likeable and/or interesting on a personal level (and it looks like he does, based on his willingness to keep her around?) then it looks like a perfectly good arrangement with some bonuses on his end.

As for using the ship narratively, I’ve  written before  that Sauron actually works well as a foil character for Tar-Míriel. You could get a lot of mileage out of building on that for developing their relationship.

It won’t end in Happily Ever After, but I think the ship works best as one-sided or tragic anyway. You can’t make it very satisfying to have Míriel give up and join Sauron on Team Evil unless you maybe go full tragedy, and it would take a very skilled author to make it feel convincing to have Sauron give up on his evil ways. Alternatively you could just have neither of them be actually invested in it, but, speaking for myself, that is not very interesting.

[sgiandubh]

Jottings: Season 7, Episode 4. Well then, best not die

As Tom Christie would say, "the Lord does answer prayer, you know": this week has been indeed bigger, better, brighter and more. Tissues might or might not be needed - it's up to you to decide (fun fact, I almost did), but ice cream is a must (steamy moments ahead, ahem).

Back at Lallybroch the pixies broke the alarm clock-cum-radio, while someone is wiping his nauseous mouth with the Declaration of Independence in Wilmington. And there can be no greater contrast when it comes to casting, than the one between SS and Vandervaart. She is trying, bless her heart she does, and it shows a lot. Yet no matter how hard she does it, she will never overcome, I am afraid, that stilted delivery and that genuine uneasiness that make you feel alternatively dismissive and sorry for her. In the economy of Outlander, SS is more than a waste: she is a casualty, because she managed to unwillingly kill Bree, a character with a difficult, often unsympathetic design to start with.

For his first substantial on-screen appearance, Vandervaart passed my scrutiny with flying colors. Now I might be biased, because I am a documented victim of this particular Boston Brahmin charm, that screams old money and boat shoes and Ivy League and effortless sophistication. But it's more than this, of course, and I suspect solid brains and a great deal of preparatory work. This kid has managed to impress me, with his subtle nods to the mannerisms of JAMMF and LJG. The scene with Young Ian and Rollo is flawless. The diction is perfect. He cares for William enough to become William and this is something to behold and applaud.

Both Hunters are quintessential. There is a sort of steel butterfly quality to Rachel and Denzell Hunter's kindness could melt my B&J's Chocolatey Love A-Fair bucket on the spot. Their likeability index will probably increase with time, and not only in this fandom, but also in the silent majority of casuals.

Which brings me to Tom Christie brilliantly showing us that, as my beloved Wilde once said with perfect clarity, "every saint has a past and every sinner has a future". This is the moment when I almost reached for the tissues, because I once was Tom Christie, and I know how damn hard is to keep your dignity in a hope against hope situation. And I could have done without that burlesque kiss altogether: but that is just me.

We've been waiting for this one since the trailer was released or even since I Am Not Alone. At last some bedroom maneuvers that are not: a) scampered; b) implied; c) muted and faded to cheesiness. I didn't even ask for much, did I?

Spoiler: "The thing about Tom is he wants you. Badly." That golden light. That serene grace. That perfect dialogue of bodies and souls. That cheeky raspiness. Not about Tom and not exactly JAMMF. I almost shivered, it was just like the good old times. And then, BAM!

A PLAGUE ON YOUR HOUSE, INTIMACY COORDINATOR VANESSA WOMAN, WHOSE NAME I DO NOT EVEN BOTHER TO GOOGLE AT 03:55 AM LOCAL TIME.

YOU SET OUR HOPES HIGH, PUSHED US TO THE EDGE AND THEN HAD THEM FADE TO THAT TOTALLY CLICHE MIRROR TRANSITION. HELLO? YOU FEEL OK WHEN YOU LOOK AT YOURSELF IN THE MIRROR, WHILE YOU BRUSH YOUR TEETH?

Enough said. And the next lost soul who darts out of Mordor with rumors of body doubles can go directly to jail, not pass GO (heh), not collect $200.

Is next week the Singapore (Sling) one? Lucky I am still in town, then. That is a mystery in the waiting. Onwards.

(Gif taken from @divineandmajesticinone, credits given accordingly - great work!)

[caitlinsfandomthoughts]

A film fan’s reaction to reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time.

I’ve been a big fan of the Peter Jackson films (extended versions - nerd that I am) since I was about 11 and I think I know all of the big changes made in the adaptation: Arwen, Faramir, Aragorn falling off a cliff. I did read the first book around the same age (in the first of many waves of my lotr obsession) but I only really remembered Saruman of ‘Many Colours’.

However I have always wanted to properly know the book version of the story so finally started listening to an amazing full audio book reading by Steven Red Fox Garnett which I highly recommend:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwLvFU2onc7cPIEBee-_xMw

………………………………………………………………………………….

And here are my silly reactions and occasional analysis of the differences between book and film that I didn’t know about.  

The Fellowship of the Ring part six, one, two, three, four, five

The Great River:

Oh Boromir’s feeling tempted

The first time Sam sees Gollum, he tells someone (Frodo) and actually voices his suspicion that it IS Gollum. Frodo’s been seeing him since THE SHIRE, and probably suspected who it was since Moria? At least Lorien, but is like nah I’ll keep this info to myself. Oh Frodo you are too much like me.

Sam says he’ll watch for tonight but Frodo insists that he wake him during and they share the duty. I want to see more of this breaking down of class boundaries.

The build up to seeing Gollum has had legitimate tension in it that it doesn’t in the films so much as he is only seen once, or twice, I think twice. And every scene when he is ‘seen’ has been frightening, as has the Balrog and Moria in general. This is a credit to the book but I also wonder if these scenes in particular work well with the medium of audiobook. The times I have been listening to them have often been in bed at night with the lights off, so that adds to the experience.

TIME works differently in Lorien! Is this how elves experience the world? Is this how they live forever they’re just on a much slower timeline?

The third Aragorn-Boromir moment I miss from the film is when Boromir is actually trying to get Aragorn to face up to his duty to Gondor (I really love how he switches between ‘Gondor needs no king, and ‘Aragorn please come to Minas Tiriiiith it’s really preeeetty!’) and Aragorn says something like ‘I will not lead the ring within x leagues of your city.’ Film Boromir is currently filling the role of heir to the leadership of Gondor that Aragorn should be. His temptation by the ring is also a reason Aragorn is afraid of taking that role. The film not only makes Aragorn less perfect, but also weaves his and Boromir’s arcs together in a way I would’ve liked in the book.

 The Breaking of the Fellowship:

Boromir is not dead! What?! Boromir lives! Well for slightly longer than I thought, I really thought I knew all the changes like this but nope.

I mean, I probably wouldn’t really leave Frodo, the guy with the ring, alone when they know the enemy is close behind them, even for an hour but ok.

I like Boromir’s give me the ring speech, it’s similar to the film, but there is just more of it, he mostly comes off as genuinely believing his justifications rather than being power hungry, and they are pretty convincing, it’s easy to see why he would believe them. A couple of people just ‘simply walking into Mordor’ with no real plan and their most powerful and wise member of the group dead is really unlikely to work. He does eventually say that he would be king, but this doesn’t really seem to be his true motivation to me, it’s more the ring’s influence, I think he is more deeply moved by the fear that this plan will fail. I do actually love that idealism wins in the end and the message that using power, or a terrible weapon always corrupts. But I also love that Boromir isn’t strawmanned I guess, that you can see both points of view even when you ultimately only agree with one makes it a more compelling conflict.

Frodo take the ring off! Seriously though I do like that it is difficult to do that, it makes sense, and we get to hear that Frodo is fighting an invisible battle (while invisible himself hehe) when he puts the ring on, I think it is a little clearer here than the equivalent moment in the film.

It’s been way over the hour that Frodo said he needed and you still haven’t gone to see if he’s ok?!!!

Sam knows Frodo best, he knows why he would try to go on his own (for the sake of the others not in spite of them) and he also knows it’s a dumb idea and he needs someone/him. I also love that Sam is the first person Frodo thinks of when he thinks of the others he cares about, then Merry and Pippin, then ‘Strider’ I don’t think it necessarily would have been that way when they first set off.

Frodo you would be dead so many times over or just be in a cave somewhere with the ring if it wasn’t for Sam! Or really anyone, you need people. It’s interesting to look at it from a mental health lens, particularly the way the ring affects the hobbits. Frodo, was already a little bit of an outsider in the Shire, now with the ring he slowly has to battle more and more to maintain his sanity. Frodo doesn’t ask for help enough, he doesn’t tell anyone about Gollum, but Sam does (even if that person was just Frodo and not Aragorn) and now he thinks he’ll be better off on his own, with a combination of I can’t trust others, and those I do I don’t want to put them in danger, don’t want to burden them with my burden. And Sam is like, that’s not possible, no one can do that, you need people to help, especially given the burden you carry. I know that Sam is very influenced by the WWI batmen, and Frodo and Sam function as an idealised version of a master-servant relationship. But because I’m not a big fan of that I like seeing Sam’s relationship to Frodo as being that of a carer (as well as friend) in a mental health setting, through this lens he is a reminder to Frodo, the one figuratively struggling with his mental health, that you don’t have to, nor should you do it all alone.

And while I realise the reasoning of ‘I can’t go with the whole fellowship cause they’ll all go the way of Boromir’ is sound, I think Frodo takes it too far the other way by thinking he can/has to do it alone and I think we’re meant to see it that way, hence Sam.

Aragorn doesn’t see Frodo after Boromir does like in the film, although I liked this scene I think it works better without it, Aragorn letting Frodo go on his own seemed pretty unrealistic, and Frodo being assured that Aragorn can be trusted, unlike Boromir, lessens the believability of him deciding to go on his own. Here while they all give him way too much time to think given the danger, no-one seems to be saying we should let him go on his own, and they all rush off to find him when they realise he’s trying that. There’s more chaos as everyone goes off without listening to Aragorn, that’s a scene I would have liked to have seen in the film, and I think I’ll add it to my own personal collated headcanon.  

 *And that’s the end of book 1. I think I’ll post some final thoughts on it at some point then move onto the Two Towers*

[thewarriorandtheking]

A Moment in the Moonlight

I seem to always be writing about The Warrior and The King laying in bed talking...thought I would give them a moment in the moonlight instead :-) 

Excerpt from Engame: Chapter 7. HENNETH ANNUN

The Warrior and The King MasterList

*******************************************

It was quite late that evening when Kaylea went to look for Thorin. He had excused himself from the table shortly after dinner and had never returned. Eldarion and Pilot had retired to their rooms and Radagast was debating with the Elves about the best route into Mordor. The only Rangers about were the few who were assigned to the watch.

Kaylea went out of the cave, pausing to admire the veil of water, now looking like a curtain of tiny pearls in the moonlight. She had visited the Window on the West several times over the years and every time the water was different. Achilles sniffed at the ground then trotted toward a narrow passage off to the left. Kaylea followed it, through a narrow tunnel and up many steps, winding around the stone until it suddenly opened to a wide flat rock overlooking the deep canyon through which the swift stream ran, dropping down a series of rocky ledges to a pool far below. A chill breeze touched her face as she took in the view, the White Mountains in the distance, the crescent moon high in the western sky, the vista was breathtaking. Thorin was sitting at the edge of the flat stone, looking off to the east. Sif lay beside him, her nose on her paws. He gave Kaylea a weak smile as she sat down.

“Having second thoughts, husband?”

“No,” Thorin shook his head. Then he shrugged. “Maybe.”

“This is your plan,” she reminded him. “If Blackwolf senses any hesitation on your part, you will not succeed.”

Thorin took a deep breath. “I know it will work. I just don’t know if I can bring myself to do it.” He put a hand on his wife’s cheek. “What if he calls my bluff?”

Kaylea put her hand over his. “It cannot be a bluff. You must be committed to do this.” She smiled softly at him. “If you have any doubts, we should change the plan.”

Thorin chuckled mirthlessly. “Change it to what? We only have one play here, one chance.”  

“We do not know for sure yet if we must make that play,” Kaylea told him.

“Do you think the Vorlons are mistaken?” Thorin shook his head. He reached his arm around her, pulling her close. Kaylea lay her head on his shoulder. “The more I go over that message in my head, the more I think there is only one way this ends.”

They sat together quietly for a time, listening to the water make a happy tune as it tumbled into the pool far below. The stars were out, sparkling like tiny jewels in the clear night sky.  

“It is so strange to look at these constellations now,” Thorin said softly. “To look at Durin’s Crown and know that is the home of the Kzin, to know that the North Star is in Vorlon space, that the southernmost star in the Anvil is the best place to hire a spice smuggler. Remember that bar fight we got into?”

“Which could have been avoided if you weren’t so particular about your clothes,” Kaylea reminded him, with a laugh.

“That was my favorite coat,” Thorin hugged her against him, smiling at the memory. He leaned his head against hers, thinking it was not possible to love someone as much as he loved Kaylea Wolf. “This is quite a journey we have been on, my love.”

Kaylea shifted her head to look at him. “If you had to do it again, would you change anything?”

Thorin took a deep breath. “I would have made you my Queen after the Battle of the Five Armies, I would not have married Shurri.”

“But what about your children?” Kaylea said, amazed. “You have so often said they are the chief joy of your life.”

“We could have got Blackwolf to make us some,” Thorin shrugged.

Kaylea laughed. “I am sure he would have agreed to that!”

“You asked what I would do differently. Yes, I love my children with all my heart, I cannot imagine my life without them. But I would not spend 60 years married to someone I did not love. I should have spent less time thinking about what was good for the kingdom and more about what I wanted for myself.” He reached up to smooth her hair away from her face. “Lately I find myself thinking about our first days together. Thoughts of you filled my every waking moment, yet I could never be sure of your mind. I lay awake at night wondering if I would ever find a weakness in your armor.”

“You are my weakness,” Kaylea said softly. “I always prided myself on how I had none, and then I met you. Suddenly I could not control myself and it frightened me. It was fear that made me put you off for so long. I always envisioned living my life alone, but you changed everything. Now I wonder how I ever managed without you.”

“I know I managed very badly without you,” Thorin smiled at her. “I am very much looking forward to where this journey takes us in our next hundred years.”

“I love you, husband.” Kaylea pulled him close and kissed him. The soft breeze caught their hair, intertwining Thorin’s black and Kaylea’s gold, the sound of the waterfall all around them.

Read the complete story on AO3 & FanFiction, links on my homepage. 

@theelvenvalkyrie​  @sexybanshee666​ 

[elesianne]

A Lord of the Rings fanfic, chapter two of two

Story summary: At Éowyn and Faramir’s wedding Lothíriel daughter of Imrahil receives two proposals, and Éomer makes one.

Chapter length: ~3,100 words; Rating: General audiences

Some keywords: arranged marriage, proposal, getting to know each other, post-war of the ring

AO3 link

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Stars above the golden hall: Chapter II – Éomer

When after his sister and her husband's departure Éomer mentioned to Imrahil that he was going out to get some air, Imrahil asked him to keep an eye for Lothíriel whom he hadn't seen for a while. Éomer promised, wondering whether this was another of Imrahil's unsubtle yet not unwelcome attempts at making the two of them spend time together.

He happens on her on the lower terrace, alone but for her guard. She is a fair shadow of silver in her dress and cloak and appears to be staring into the distance, deep enough in thought that he startles her.

'Your father told me he'd not seen you for some time. Long enough for him to worry, it seemed', Éomer says to her.

'The hour was growing late for me, my lord', Lothíriel says. 'I will retire soon, but I wanted to have some fresh air and look at the stars first.'

'That is elf-like talk.'

She lets out a surprised small laugh. 'My intentions were not elf-like. The ladies of your court arranged so much to do inside the hall for us visiting women today that I have not stepped outside until now', she explains.

He notices that she shivers a little in her silk clothes, and without a word he unfastens his own woollen cloak and settles it on her shoulders.

Lothíriel's overeager young guard close by shuffles on his feet at that, and in his slightly drunken state Éomer almost snaps at him.

He decides to disregard him, though, instead giving Lothíriel a look long enough to border on staring. 'You look good in gold and green', he tells her. The cloak is a little too long on her, brushing the ground.

She looks him in the eye for the first time since she arrived in Edoras, emboldened by the dim light perhaps. 'It is a fine cloak, my lord', she says. 'Thank you.'

He looks at her for a long time again, thinking. 'Will you stay and talk with me a while, lady?'

'Of course, my lord. Is there something in particular that you wish to talk about?

There is. He hadn't meant to talk of it tonight, but here under the stars in as much privacy as they could hope for seems like a good place.

'I know that the negotiations are far from done, as is only right – they should not have been made complete before my sister was wedded. And I understand you father is hesitant to hurry because of your age', he says. 'But I want you to know that I will put a crown of gold on you, if I have my will. I think that the queen's coronet that has long lain unused in the treasury of the Mark would suit you well though it is a simple creation compared to the ancient, elf-like finery of Gondorians.'

Lothíriel seems taken aback at his straightforwardness but recovers quickly. 'Do you think I could suit the land of Rohan?' She makes a small gesture with her hand, indicating the Hall behind them, the city around them, and the spots of light in the valley that mark small villages and single homesteads.

'I think you would learn', Éomer says, finding himself more thoughtful than a man should be on a night of celebration like this. 'My lady, we do not know each other well yet, but you seem to me someone who knows their duty and works diligently to fulfil it, and knows how to. If you choose me and my land, I think that you will fulfil your duty to it and me admirably.'

The daughter of Imrahil smiles and bows her head. 'Thank you. It is a fine compliment from one who has taken on well whatever responsibility has come his way, expected or not. What an unconventional conversation this is!' She gives a little laugh though it seems she tries not to. 'I never expected to speak with you like this, my lord.'

'If we will be married, I would have it at least be with a good understanding of each other, though ours would be a marriage for practical reasons rather than a great love story worthy of song', he tells her.

Lothíriel bows her head again, and nods. 'That is wise. Do you believe, lord, that you and I might suit each other, too, as wife and husband and not only as queen and king?'

He cannot help smiling back at her rather jubilantly. He is a little in his cups, and he likes the way she dares to speak frankly here at the edge of darkness. She looks fairer than fair in the low light in her light dress and his cloak, the pearls in her hair like stars amid the black waves of it. Her eyes are dark and serious.

'I think we might', he replies. 'Very well.'

It occurs to Éomer for the first time to wonder whether Lothíriel is one of the many women who was promised to a man who fell in battle.

It is a strange kind of night, this wedding night of his sister's, and he is in a strange mood, and he and Lothíriel are already speaking frankly so he decides to simply ask.

'My father was putting together a list of options for me', Lothíriel replies. 'He was not in a hurry because I was – still am – young in the reckoning of my people, and because he could see the war gathering in the east and did not wish to see me widowed soon after marrying, he told me.'

'The war changed the fates of many even before it broke out fully.' Éomer looks to where a little way away a shield-brother's house lies empty and dark, ownerless since the battle at the Fords of Isen.

'I might be married but for it', he muses. 'I had thought for little other than the enemies slowly encroaching on our lands ever since I was a boy whose parents they slew – I have been fighting the fights of my people as long as I have been permitted to ride to battle. In spite of that, had my uncle been himself, he might have urged me to marry and suggested matches. But for five too-long years before Gandalf healed him, Théoden King was under Saruman's spell and had little thought that was not of fear and despair.'

Éomer likes the way Lothíriel looks at him then, with her calm grey eyes filled with much understanding but little open pity. She resembles her father as much as her oldest brother, the most serious one of Imrahil's three sons.

'I have attended a great many betrothals and weddings this last year', Éomer says. 'It seems that all around me people are becoming betrothed and married – my liegemen, my guards, my shield-brothers. My sister, too.' He smiles at Lothíriel wryly. 'My people seem as determined to increase themselves as we are to increase our horse herds.'

Lothíriel appears to fight a smile, saying, 'It is the same in Gondor. Those that were spared death are filled with a great desire to live.'

'And the lords of Rohan and Gondor have a great need for heirs.' Éomer finds himself frowning. 'Éowyn's sons will be Gondorians, heirs for the prince of Ithilien. My own heir is a son of a cousin, the son of the daughter of my mother and Théoden's sister. No king of the Mark has been so distant a heir, and my council keep telling me that I must not die before I have a son.'

Lothíriel casts her eyes at the sky at that, and says in a voice as cool as the light of distant stars, 'I can see why you would be impatient with my father's pace of preparing for marriage between me and yourself, my lord. Fortunately there are many other ladies who have no such impediment for a swift union with you.'

'No – Lothíriel.' He turns to her, grasping her arm under the two cloaks that she wears. 'It is not that – not only that, what I said so coarsely. It is for the chief part that once I have decided and begun something, I prefer to see it to its end as soon as possible. Your father calls it my 'regrettable rashness' and would lecture me out of it if he could.'

Lothíriel grants him a small smile at that. Apparently she bears no easy grudges. 'And do you allow him to lecture at you?'

'Often, though I do not always listen. He has many decades of experience in being a leader in both peace and war that I admire. I have learned much from him, and there is more yet he could teach me, I'm sure.'

With a small feeling of regret that he must, he lets go of her arm. Despite his hasty words she doesn't appear to be thinking of leaving.

'I am his only daughter, and his youngest child', Lothíriel says. 'He is protective of me. He doesn't want to hurry my marriage, not even to a king.'

'And that is another reason to hold him in high esteem.' Éomer sighs. 'Yet it remains true that in this matter we are of different minds, he and I, and have different interests.'

'There could be a compromise', Lothíriel suggests. 'A decision made soon, but an engagement of some length. A year or more.'

'A year is common for the betrothals of nobleborn folk', Éomer agrees. 'Yet we speak only of my desires, and those of your father's. I have learned, through bitter and shameful experience, that women's needs and desires can be ignored only at one's peril. What do you want, lady?'

Lothíriel takes long enough to answer that Éomer's impatience raises its head, exacerbated by all the mead he has steadily if slowly drunk over the course of the evening. But he restrains himself and waits, and at length she replies, 'You are a king of great valour and honour and I hold you in high esteem, my lord, and so does all of my family. I will be your queen if you so wish and if my lord father agrees.

'As for the time: my father keeps telling me that I am young, but I believe that all who were young when the darkness of Mordor waged war on us are not so young anymore. Not even us who awaited news in the safer western citadels of Gondor that faced less fierce siege and battle than Minas Tirith. We were the lucky ones, yet the shadow threatened all that we hold dear, too.'

'I often wonder at the wise poetry that the people of Dol Amroth speak', Éomer says. 'But I am glad for your words, my lady, and hope that you will soon take as yours all that is mine.

'It would, I must suppose, be better for a king to be able to speak to his future queen of a flourishing, prosperous land. This country was that once, though it was so long ago that I do not remember it. And now.' He gathers his words. 'My people are strong of heart and hand, and proud in their own manner that may be different from Gondor's.

'But this land was rent deep by the war, and is not healed yet though we have all been hard at work. There are villages that still lay burned and empty, and horse-herds that have not recovered and will take years to build up again. Not only were our crops burned but many granaries as well, leaving us with little to resow our fields with. There are many widows struggling to get by without a husband, many orphans in the care of their overburdened relatives.

'There is much work to do in Rohan, much scarcity and need, and its leaders must keep hope and give it to the people. For a maiden of Gondor to take on that duty – there must be lighter ones on offer for Imrahil's daughter, I am sure.'

'You already told me that you believe I would do well, my lord', Lothíriel answers, a little infuriatingly.

'It is still your choice to take on that commitment.'

'And my father's. My lord, the ladies of Rohan have more power in the choosing of their husbands than do the ladies of Gondor, and the princes of Dol Amroth are known for being particularly careful in making marriages for their daughters', Lothíriel reminds him in turn.

But she continues, 'I saw some of how what this land had suffered and what it endured when I came here first a year ago, and now the second time by the same route. I saw how much was already rebuilt and resown despite the meagre resources you speak of: green fields that were burned and black the year before, and new buildings being raised up. Valour in battle is indeed not the only strength that lives in your people. I have no doubt that Riddermark will endure and prosper again.'

The Rohirric name of Éomer's country on Lothíriel's tongue sounds lovely: a little clumsy but no less charming for it.

'You will miss your home, so far away, on the other side of the impassable White Mountains', he finds himself saying.

'My lord, are you trying to make me regret my decision?' Éomer thinks he sees Lothíriel's eyes sparkle with amusement, though it may be a trick of the light. She has relaxed as their conversation has gone on, he thinks.

'By no means would I do that', he denies. 'I am only thinking of how my sister has in recent months visited all the places that have been dear to her, before she soon leaves to her new home in Ithilien.'

'I will miss my home, I'm sure. My family and friends and the sea that has always been the view out of my windows – my constant friend, for all her tides and moodiness – and, as you say of lady Éowyn, all the places that have been dear to me.' Lothíriel smiles a rather sad little smile. 'But it is the fate of most noblewomen – the price for the comfort and luxury we live in, perhaps – to leave their home of birth and join their husband's household far away.'

Éomer frowns. 'I have never thought of it thus.'

'There are many ways to see it, I am sure. For me, it is a loss that I have been preparing for all my life, and one that I hope and trust will bring new good things with it to take the place of what I must give up.'

'That trust must be what makes it bearable, giving up your old life in exchange for something that bears little resemblance to the great romances that some have – Aragorn and his Evenstar, my sister and Faramir.'

Her voice trembling a little, she replies, 'It is.'

He does not know what to say to that, for all that he was the one who raised the subject, and there is a moment of silence between them.

'Lothíriel.' As he speaks her name she raises her eyes to his, still bright and calm though she appears tired, he notices. 'After all that has been said this night, will you speak to your father for me tomorrow so that the negotiations and arrangements for our union may truly begin?'

'Tomorrow? I must agree with my father's assessment of you as a hasty one, my lord. He would have approached you about them soon anyway.' But she does not need more than a second to give him her answer, raising her chin ever so slightly. 'But I like your forthrightness, king of the Mark, and I will speak to him in the morning.'

Éomer likes that she dared to make gentle fun of him, and likes the rest of her answer even better. Relaxing in triumph that spreads warm in his veins like the best mead, he replies, 'I am happy to hear that.'

He gazes up at the sky, taking it in for the first time. The moon has risen high: the hour grows truly late and he believes that it is time he delivered the lady to her father. She has already indulged him longer than he thought she might.

'Let me escort you inside, my lady. I know that you have your own keen guardian –' Éomer amuses himself by glancing at the bristling young man in his swan-helmet '– but after so long spent in private conversation, I think it best that I take you back to your father and you can assure him that nothing untoward happened before you retire for the night.'

Lothíriel blushes. 'He would not suspect that of you', she says.

Éomer grins, that warmth in his veins making him wilder than he should be. 'In that, wise prince Imrahil might be wrong', he says. But before Lothíriel can become too startled, he very properly offers her his arm. 'Let us go inside, Lothíriel.'

To his surprise she doesn't take his arm. 'Your cloak –' she says instead, beginning to shrug the forgotten cloak off her shoulders.

'Let me.' Éomer indulges his rapidly awakening desires by taking it off her, revealing her silver glory again. The rich fabric of her clothes glimmers even in this light.

They go up the stairs and inside Éomer's golden hall, his personal guard and hers behind them, people parting before them to make way for the king and the lady on his arm. It feels like a good omen of the future, or a moment stolen before its time.

But if it is a stolen moment it Éomer receives no punishment for it, for Imrahil's face shows little surprise when Éomer brings his daughter back to him – for now – and more good humour than anything else.

Éomer bids them both goodnight, and leaves to find some old friends to share a cup or two more mead. No more, because he needs to have his wits about him in the morning.

He knows that he will still feel Éowyn's absence keenly – how could he not? – but the future seems lighter to him.

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The next afternoon, their wedding day is set on next year's Midyear's day, one day short of a year away. It is, after all, an auspicious day to marry.

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A/N: Lothíriel and Éomer both spend a lot of time explaining to themselves and other people that they will marry purely because of practical, sensible reasons, in the service of their countries and so on – but it is not quite the whole truth.

I'm going to write sequels showing their relationship developing so I made a series on AO3. You can subscribe to it to get notifications when I post a new fic in the series. I have one sequel written already.

I would love to hear what you thought of this chapter!

[dysphoric-affect]

Harnessing The Butterfly Effect And Omnipotence

I’ve recently been musing over the best and worst aspects of the main entries in the Elder Scrolls series, and as I was recently musing over the most popular quests from them I had a bit of an epiphany, specifically in regards to the “Whodunnit?” quest from Oblivion’s Dark Brotherhood quest-line. For those who aren’t familiar for whatever reason, the Dark Brotherhood is an assassin faction within that series, and this particular quest has you locked into a house with five other guests, gathered there under the pretense of a game they were invited to partake in: within the house is a chest of gold, with the first person to find it getting the spoils; the door will remain locked until there is a winner. The dark reality is the five other guests are all targets you are contracted to kill by the host, the game a pretext to have them lured into one spot and trapped so they’ll be easier to dispose of in one fell swoop.

Two things contribute to what make this quest so universally beloved. One is the emergent character development. When you come in, each of these characters has their own background and personality and preferences they operate from which are easy enough to learn given the smaller, more intimate setting and the lack of time limit to complete your objective. These give them definite opinions on all the other guests. As you start to kill them off one at a time, you will see your choice of who to kill influence those opinions for better or worse. Kill someone another character hates early on ? They feel some regret at having made assumptions about them and feel they didn’t deserve that. Don’t kill that same hated guest for a while? That hatred becomes suspicion they are the killer. Wait and then kill that same hated guest? The suspicious guest feels even worse than they would have if you killed them early, because they realize their bias clouded their judgment. Inversely, kill someone another guest loves and they will become suspicious of someone they didn’t dislike before. In contrast, keep killing everyone but the guest they are affectionate toward, and see that transform into fear as they logically become the obvious suspect in their eyes. All of this, critically, comes from the player’s choice. You have the time to learn who these characters are and deliberately choose the order you take them out in to play on these biases and crushes and fears and suspicions, granting a unique manner to be evil compared to elsewhere not just in that faction’s quests, but the entire game at large and in gaming in general.

The other critical aspect is that the quest is so open-ended in design. Rather than most quests that have a set chronology of steps that happen story-wise toward completion, you are only given an abstract final goal and are free to determine what the particular steps are toward achieving that, providing a toy box of different story elements, level design elements and gameplay capabilities which can be arranged however the player likes. There are 120 different possible orders the guests can be killed in, which alone is an incredible amount of choice, but once you account for the different events you can make happen by influencing them, places within the house you can kill them at and the actual way you execute them, it becomes impossible to calculate mathematically just how many different specific ways the quest as a whole plays out. That makes this quest rife for enthusiastic discussion among players, as it is practically impossible that any two players will have done the same thing, giving each their own story to tell.

The epiphany I had in relation to this quest is realizing that this quest isn’t primarily great because of the fun opportunities it provides for evil role playing within Oblivion, or Elder Scrolls more broadly, or in RPG’s and gaming in general more broadly still. The evil context within which those dynamics existed and how that was presented did make for tremendous fun that enhanced what made it great, but I think it is a mistake to see the core of that fun as something that can’t be divorced from the evil moral nature of the quest. Rather, those two dynamics of emergent character development driven by player choice on the one hand and player-determined methodology toward macro goal completion on the other hand are the true core to what makes this quest so popular.

This distinction is an important one to make, because without making it we may acknowledge that quest as a great moment in Oblivion, but we go no further. When we do make that distinction, though, then we can start to consider them independently of an evil context or an Elder Scrolls context and begin to see the potential of exploring and applying them in different ways in other games yet to be made.

The dynamic of emergent character development based on player-choice is a particularly important thing to consider toward the future of RPG’s in particular, although other games can also stand to benefit from incorporating such a system as well; Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War stand as especially salient examples of non-RPG’s that have begun exploring this kind of territory. For all the change players can affect in RPG’s up to this point, the influence they exert tends to be centered on macro-scale events and characters. Achieving the next level of sense of impact on the world by the player within these experiences, however, will be contingent on achieving the sense of ability to influence minor characters and events in the way the “Whodunnit?” quest does.

The trick to this isn’t a technical challenge I believe so much as a narrative one and a logistical one: that is, coming up with the sheer amount of content needed to apply this concept on a more global scale in the game world, keeping track of all of that on the part of developers to ensure the execution of all the specific parts are smoothly handled, and handling the presentation of this within the game such that players clearly understand how their actions have affected and are currently affecting characters, as well as having a sense of how their actions will affect things going forward depending on the choices they make. It may be practically speaking impossible for a player to keep track of all the specific instances where their choices have had or will have a butterfly effect, but ideally when approached this should be handled in such a way that most of the time it is easy enough to understand where the player’s actions played a role and in the rest of the cases that it can be figured out with a little effort on the player’s part, whether from memory and/or from in-game means, such as questions these affected NPC’s could be asked. The challenge this presents is monumental, but the closer to complete actualization of such a system a developer out there gets, the closer they’ll have come to making a living world within their game, a horizon larger games have long sought to reach.

The dynamic of player-determined methodology toward macro goal completion even more obviously has application to genres outside of RPG’s as well, though certainly application within it too. Often up till now the majority of freedom associated with quests in games has tended to be the timing on when the steps are performed. Giving more options on the nature of approach would greatly expand this sense of freedom. Part of this could and should come from existing in conjunction with a system of emergent character development and the opportunities that creates, but beyond that consideration should be given to give more options on types of approach, level design-based pathfinding, available tools to use in gameplay and so on - within reason for what is occurring in the story - to expand that freedom further still. Consideration should always be given as well to providing instances of all the above that are unique to given quests/objectives to enhance variety in general for its own sake as well as give that specific quest/objective its own unique flavor, but at the same time never overly pushing any particular method as the “right” way of approaching it. Even the subtle implication that there is a best or better way of doing things within an objective takes away from that true sense of full player self-actualization in their approach, so care should be taken to avoid that, at least if trying to provide true self-determination for the player.

As games - especially RPG’s - are getting ever more complex, there can be a tendency to get lost in concern for how big the world is, the number of quests and characters present and of course the graphics of the experience. It is fine to expand on those aspects, but getting lost on those at the expense of not considering these other avenues of adding depth and complexity to the experience seems to me to be not seeing the proverbial forest for the trees. It is a particularly unfortunate loss considering that these systems I’ve discussed, while undoubtedly able to make good use of advancing technology in games, are not dependent on that to be able to exist. They simply require creativity and hard work from developers who realize the vast potential that can come from their pursuit. I hope as we go forward more developers will tap into this relatively untapped well to provide us depth and immersion in our games we’ve never seen before, whether in Elder Scrolls or beyond.

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