#I just found out about the third Silmarillion recently

[middle-earth-mythopoeia]

The most ridiculous thing happened to me. My friend gave me a copy of the new edition of The Silmarillion for my birthday. But my mom ALSO gave me the new edition of The Silmarillion for my birthday. But when the first Silmarillion came from my friend, my mom didn’t know what it was or who it was from (the box just had the store’s name on it, not my friend’s) and so she put it somewhere else in the house and forgot about it, leading me to inform my friend (who was asking) that her package had not come, leading her to order ANOTHER one from the store, which was then sent to me... And that’s how I got three Silmarillions for my birthday <3

[ladysternchen]

Just say there was a third child of Elu Thingol and Melian, one that like Túrin was not genetically their own. What if there is an explanation for the Daeron is Lúthien's brother version that does not contradict the published Silmarillion? See, for quite a while, having children of their own was quite out of the question for Elu and Melian, given that a) Melian is a being that is not per default designed to bear children. None of her kin ever did before her, nor after. b) even after Elu had got to the point of saying 'we'll just give it a go and see if it works', Melian held back. She was terrified. Terrified what begetting a child with her might do to him. Funny though everyone who knew about it found it later, Melian was in the beginning sure that trying to have a baby of their own would actually kill her husband. (Fun fact: Elu totally couldn't keep his mouth shut later when they finally did beget Lúthien, telling Melian something along the lines of 'if I die, don't tell anyone how. They need not know that their king died fucking their queen. It's enough that all of Mandos will have a laugh'. He was punished for that.)

so anyway, they never thought they would have children of their own when they made a trip around their realm and came to a settlement in the north that had only recently fallen victim to a terrible landslide that had wiped out half of said settlement, killing many. On of the only survivors they had managed to dig out was a newborn boy by the name of Daeron. All his family was dead

Elu bade to see the child, being forcefully reminded of thee events of his own childhood and youth, and once he held Daeron in his arms, he knew he would not be able to let him go again. He offered to take the child back to Eglador, and Daeron's tribe was relieved- nursing a motherless child was never easy, especially one that no-one felt particularly bonded to, and what more to wish for this poor thing than to grow up under the protection of their otherworldly queen?

It was Melian, however, who first suggested actually fostering him themselves.

"Just imagine that little one were actually ours" she said to Elu as they travelled back with little Daeron, a mother's love awoken in her, a strange and brand-new feeling for an Ainu.

Needless to say, Elu needed no persuasion. And so Daeron grew up as the son of the king and queen, and was honoured and loved as such. They never hid his origins from him, though, not wanting to take a child from his parents, even if those parents were now in Mandos beyond the sea.

Also, once Melian found herself essentially a mother, she herself yearned to know the entire experience, a yearning that over time grew greater than her fear for her husband.

And so, when Lúthien was finally born, Daeron grew up as her brother and her best friend. He did love her, in brotherly ways and not-so-brotherly-ways. But he was content with the brotherly part. Until Beren came along.

[emarasmoak]

The Rings of Power: Charlie Vickers on That Monster Revelation

This is probably the most insightful interview I have read about Charlie's understanding of his character' motivations.

Taking a break from Season 2 production outside London, Charlie Vickers discussed the big revelation about his character and what it means for Halbrand’s relationship with Galadriel (Morfydd Clark).

When he auditioned for the Amazon prequel series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” Charlie Vickers did not know he would be playing two roles: the conflicted human Halbrand and the ultimate deceiver, Sauron. But he began to have suspicions early on.

During his audition, he was asked to read pieces from William Shakespeare’s “Richard III” and John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” — “literally auditioning as Satan,” he recalled by phone on Thursday, just hours before the Season 1 finale dropped overnight, on Friday. “That was a bit of a clue.”

But it wasn’t until filming was about to resume for the third episode (after a Covid production hiatus) that the series’s showrunners, Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne, took Vickers to the set for an evil fortress, turned to him and said, “Hail, Lord Sauron.”

“That was a seminal moment for me,” Vickers said.

While he missed out on playing the spiky armored version of the dark lord in the show’s prologue in Episode 1 (“I wish that was me!” he said), Vickers went all-in on his Sauron studies, reading “The Silmarillion” in its entirety and combing through obscure passages in Tolkien’s Legendarium as part of his “subconscious work.”

How does it feel to be the answer to the question tormenting the internet? Or if you’re Sauron, maybe you enjoy tormenting the internet.

"[Laughs.] Exactly. Maybe there has been some kind of sick enjoyment that I’ve been getting. Luckily, I’ve managed to stay off the internet, but it’s been hard to avoid. I’ve had friends guessing and telling me I’m Sauron ever since the second episode, which I’ve not been able to confirm or deny. So it’s a relief."

"What’s been so interesting about the show is that it doesn’t shy away from the lore. For the people who know, there are little Easter eggs or hints here and there. When you look back to the second episode, you’re like, “OK, that makes sense in the grand scheme of things.” So I think it’s great that there’s been so much debate."

You once mentioned that you found useful things in Tolkien’s letters, although you didn’t specify which ones. I took that as a possible reference to the period in which Sauron sought redemption. But then the showrunners talked recently about another way to read Sauron-as-Halbrand: as a power addict. What was it that you found in Tolkien that helped shape your portrayal?

"I think the repentant Sauron is a really interesting thing. But I like to leave it ambiguous because it was ambiguous in Tolkien’s writing, such as in Letter 131, and in “Morgoth’s Ring,” in the History of Middle-earth series. He spoke of Sauron repenting “if only out of fear.” I think his repentance is fascinating — and this is why I don’t want to say necessarily how I interpreted it as an actor — because it creates two different [possibilities] for Halbrand."

"If you look at him as if he’s genuinely repentant, and he wants to escape this dark path and live as someone who’s been humbled, then Galadriel inadvertently draws him back to this power. She says to him in the smithery, “There’s no peace here,” and that scene illuminates this whole idea for him of: “Well, you’re right, there is no peace for me as a regular person. My peace is in power. I need to rule. I need to lead.” And she literally gives him the keys to the kingdom and sends him back down the rabbit hole. That is, if you view him as repenting genuinely."

"But, if you view his repentance as an act, then it leans more into his deception, and his deception of her, in that she’s a tool for him to get back to where he wants to be. You rarely see Halbrand alone before the finale, save for this moment when he’s in the smithery, staring at his pouch, making his decision. Otherwise, you mostly see him through the eyes of other characters."

And yet he’s about to cry in that moment by himself.

"I always like to think that in shape-shifting, the best way to deceive is to fully take on the form of what you’re trying to portray: thinking, feeling, living, breathing as a human man. Only through a wholehearted embodiment of his form could he deceive these massively influential figures. This is even when he’s by himself, because the gods are always watching. And we know that he fears the gods; we know that he’s scared. Because Tolkien says that explicitly."

"He can use Galadriel as a tool. She knows the right people. She gets into the right rooms. If he’s by her side, it can only lead to good things, as long as he remains undiscovered. So I made a decision as the best way for me to approach it, to make it real for me. And let people interpret it as they will."

Did you decide for yourself about a lot of little details? Like, what’s in his pouch? Why was he at sea? Was his injury was self-inflicted so that Galadriel would take him to the elves?

"I have a belief about what’s in the pouch, but I won’t share that. Him being at sea may or may not be explored farther down the line. The injury, yes, I think he wounds himself, because he was very aware of what was coming. He thought he had stopped it, but he knows there’s only one way to get out of this mess. He risks this Halbrand form to get to the elves because he understands that the only way he can be healed is through their power and magic."

Do you think he wanted Galadriel to figure it out?

"Yes. He’s ready for her to see him for who he is, and he thinks she’s ready to know it. He makes this pitch to her, and it’s so closely linked to the mirror of Galadriel in “The Fellowship of the Ring.” It gives it an interesting context, I think."

He offers to make her his queen. Is that a marriage proposal?

"That’s something I thought about a lot, but I don’t think so. W.H. Auden wrote an essay on Tolkien, and he said something along the lines of, “Evil loves only itself.” [“Evil, defiantly chosen, can no longer imagine anything but itself.”] So I think in his pitch to Galadriel, it cannot mean that he loves her or that there’s any kind of romantic relationship. There should be no ambiguity around the fact that Sauron is evil — he’s terrible, and he’s using Galadriel to enhance his power."

"Throughout the season, she shows him a different way of ruling and maybe illuminates some things for him. So in making that pitch, I think he’s saying, “Join me and we can rule, and I can coordinate everything and rehabilitate Middle-earth.” But having said that, I also think he would have gotten there anyway without her. He would have descended back into evil. It was inevitable."

Haladriel shippers will despair.

"[Laughs.] Shipping, by the way, is actually a word that Morfydd taught me! Hopefully people will see that any kind of romantic feeling, which couldn’t exist, vanishes into thin air."

What’s the plan going forward, given that Sauron is a shape-shifter?

"There are a lot of twists and turns coming with the character of Sauron. We know that [his disguise as] Annatar is such a massive part of this world, and the prospect of that is really exciting to me. I can’t say much more than that."

"I love that cloak so much! I didn’t get to keep it, unfortunately. I have one gift that was given to me by one of the stunt guys, Daniel Andrews, which is a T-shirt printed with an artist’s image of Halbrand doing the sword flip on the back. That’s Danny’s trick; he’s had it in his stunt arsenal for 30 years, and he’s been trying to get it into a show for 30 years. There’s been nothing released with Halbrand, so I haven’t dared to wear it, even around the house. But that’s the coolest souvenir."

Annatar is the lord of gifts. Did you get or give any gifts on set? Maybe that wonderful hooded cloak you wear to Mordor?

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Today in Tolkien - September 27th

Today the Hobbits spend a rainy day with Tom Bombadil, and Gandalf crosses the Greyflood on his ride north to the Shire. “In the House of Tom Bombadil” is a chapter that I usually skim, so this is a chance for me to take a closer look at it.

One thing of interest is that Tom, despite being attached to a specific space in the world, does not isolate himself or ignore the world outside; he has contact with Farmer Maggot and with Gildor, and has learned much of recent events from them. And he has a sense of context, and a disregard of scale - the doings of a bumblebee or a hobbit-family or a tree or an ancient kingdom are all of similar meaning to him.

He appeared already to know much about them [the hobbits] and all their families, and indeed to know much of all the history and doings of the Shire down from days hardly remembered among the hobbits themselves. It no longer surprised them; but he made no secret thhat he owed his recent knowledge largely to Farmer Maggot…It was also clear that Tom had dealings with the Elves, and it seemed that in some fashion, news had reached him from Gildor concerning the flight of Frodo.

Tom has a strange effect on the Ring - as Gandalf says at the Council of Elrond “the Ring has no power over him.” But it seems to go a luttle beyond that, even - at this moment, the Witch-king is just beyond the Barrow-downs, seeking for the Ring, and yet when Frodo puts it on (in annoyance over how lightly Bombadil seems to be treating it), that does not seem to have any effect; we are given no sign that the Ringwraiths even notice.

At the Council of Elrond, Gandalf also says that of Bombadil: “And now he is withdrawn into a little land, within bounds that he has set, though none can see them, waiting perhaps for a change of days, and he will not step beyond them.” (Bombadil seems to have a strange effect on other people’s speech patterns! His own speech and his singing blend into each other, with the spoken works having a similar cadence to the singing, and the hobbits find themselves singing as naturally as talking in his house - and even in the quoted passage, when Gandalf talks about him, he starts speaking in the same cadence as Bombadil. Start from ‘within bounds that he has set’ and you’ll see what I mean.) The stating of “has withdrawn” indicates that Bombadil’s scope was once larger, which to me fits with my idea of him as a spirit of the land, perhaps of the great forests of Eriador before they were destroyed.

Tom’s stories, however, are for the most part of the Old Forest and the Barrow-downs, though by the end they pass to far earlier times, glancing at the world of, and before, The Silmarillion:

When they caught his words again they found that he had now wandered into strange regions beyond their memory and beyond their waking thought, into times when the world was wider, and the seas flowed straight to the western Shore; and still on and back Tom went singing out into ancient starlight, when only the Elf-sires were awake.

I wonder if Tom knew/met Thingol, and Denethor of the Green-elves, and others who stayed in Middle-earth? I wouldn’t be surprised, as the connection of the Sindar with the firests is certainly deep; remember that the sole mention of the Ents in all the wars of Beleriand is that they act to avenge Thingol.

On the Old Forest:

He told them tales of bees and flowers, the ways of trees, and the strange creatures of the Forest [I wonder what these are, besides Huorns?], about evil things and good things, things friendly and things unfriendly, cruel things and kind things, and secrets hidden under brambles. As they listened, they began to understand the lives of the Forest, apart from themselves, indeed to feel themselves as the strangers where all other things were at home.

…Tom’s words laid bare the hearts of trees and their thoughts, which were often dark and strange, and filled with a hatred of things that go free upon the earth, gnawing, biting, breaking, hacking, burning: destroyers and usurpers. It was not called the Old Forest without reason, for it was indeed ancient, a survivor of vast forgotten woods; and in it there lived yet, ageing no quicker than the hills, the fathers of the fathers of trees, remembering times when they were lords.

Frodo has another significant dream this night (the third night in a row that his dreams are described):

Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind: a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise.

This is what Frodo will see, a little over three years hence, as he passes into the West.

[ipsomaniac]

watched the first 2 eps of Rings of Power yesterday and it was basically what i was expecting - a sequence of clunky, overproduced videogame cutscenes - but despite my low expectations i was still surprised by just how bad the writing was. here’s my post bitching about it.

caveat: several years ago i attempted to read The Silmarillion but found it boring and only got about a third of the way through. i’m less interested in how faithful Rings of Power is to its source material (though i do care about faithfulness-of-vibe) and more concerned with critiquing the show on its own merits or failings as a story.

so first off: the aesthetics. i’m not gonna mince my words here, rings of power encapsulates a recent aesthetic tendency in tv and film which i despise. i’ve seen some reviews praising it as “visually stunning” and i’m like, are we watching the same show? are there some people who like this horrible modern fantasy aesthetic where nothing looks real, everything is CGI and has this oversaturated, sort of shiny quality; where even the physical costumes manage to look computer-generated and even “gritty” scenes like battlefields or a rustic tavern are uncannily sanitized? people enjoy this?

the overall shiny videogame aesthetic is compounded by some truly bizarre character design. number one is giving all the male elves a hairstyle that can only be described as “80′s corporate prepster quiff”, sometimes bordering precariously onto greasy mullet territory. each individual elf has a metric tonne of gel holding his quiff in place. apparently this is the standard for male elf beauty in the Second Age:

it is inherently untrustworthy and undignified hair; the only conceivable explanation is that the director wished to evoke the atmosphere of 1980s boardroom dramas and douchebag frat boys to convey that the elves of the Second Age are dumb political animals. 

beyond elf hair, the costuming is not great overall. stand out sins: a general plasticky quality to the costumes (the show seems to have a proclivity for a particular mottled-metallic fabric which looks very odd; at one point galadriel is outfitted in a fully sequinned dress; the prosthetic elf ears look like fleshy plastic protruberences. all the characters are caked in highly visible makeup: the only thing that looks materially real in the whole show is galadriel’s over-highlighted pores and the stark delineation of her smokey eye.

Bonus hair issue: no beards on the dwarf women. cowards!

a few positives: there are some cool sets and landscape designs. i thought Lindon was well-conceived and pretty (although undermined by the greasy-ass elves inhabiting it) and i loved Khazad-Dum: they captured the cavernousness of the space, the sense of constant productive motion within the dwarven stronghold, the pulleys and technology and the clever ways of bringing light underground. also loved the geometric Dwarven design sensibility.

basically, the heavily CGI’d approach does in fact work quite well for landscape-establishing longshots, and the sets themselves are generally decent. i could more easily appreciate the backdrop, and be more forgiving towards the videogame aesthetic, if the characters inhabiting the world didn’t have such a consistently jarring appearance.

As for the actual substance of the show... where to begin.

First off, for a show with so much exposition, it really does a poor job of orienting the audience in the world. For a general audience with passing familiarity with the cast of LOTR and The Hobbit, there are a lot of new characters to get to grips with, and the show is bad at basic things like telling you characters’ names and how they are related to each other. Galadriel’s dead brother - who dat? Galadriel and Elrond are clearly friends/relatives but what’s the connection, when did they meet? Elrond used to be friends with Durin but again, when, how? I have the background knowledge to recognise the elf-king (i.e. the only male elf sporting appropriate hair) as Gil-Galad, but I would not know this just from watching the show. And then there are large clusters of random supporting characters where i just have no clue who these guys are.

this leads to the biggest problem, which is that not only do i not know who half the characters are, i also do not have much of a reason to care. the only character with a clearly laid-out motive is galadriel: she is haunted by her brother’s death and wants to find and defeat Sauron. ok, so far so good. but then the next thing we see is her free-soloing up an icy cliff - this apparently has something to do with finding sauron, but how? what is she looking for? why should we be invested in this wild goose chase? we don’t know and neither does her mutinous elven troupe. she is framed as a warrior girlboss, but by episode 2 she’s had a lot of action to very little purpose. and this is the one character who does have a backstory and motive - with every other character it’s like, who are you and what do you want?

another issue is tone. the problem with having an elf-centric series is that the tonal baseline of elves is heightened, serious and formal and this gets to be a drag pretty quickly. in addition, the writers of Rings of Power simply do not pull off the tolkienesque register very well. exchanges like the following are characteristic:

Elrond: After all you have endured, it is only natural to feel conflicted. Galadriel: Conflicted? I am grateful you have not known evil as I have, but you have not seen what I have seen. Elrond: I have seen my share. Galadriel: You have not seen what I have seen.

the whole thing smacks of bad pastiche. the word “conflicted” is anachronistic (i did a quick ctrl+f of LOTR and i’m correct, there is not a single instance of the word “conflicted” in the text, it’s a jarringly modern usage). then the rest of the exchange is just redundent repetition and tautology, and i guess we are meant to be very impressed by the weight of galadriel’s trauma here but it’s so lamely expressed. and it’s meaningless because, actually, we don’t really have any idea of the horrors they have seen - we had one shot of galadriel wandering around a wrecked battlefield and mourning her brother, but we haven’t really witnessed her suffering beyond that, and have literally no idea what Elrond has been up to prior to the start of the story. so this exchange carries absolutely no weight. this is clearly meant to convey the high seriousness of tolkienesque dialogue but it’s amateur hour! it's just unclever, bad-sounding dialogue. this is basically the level throughout.

the writers occassionally try to lighten things up with jokes:

Medhor: ...or do you think me blind? Arondir: I think you talk too much. And you smell of rotting leaves. Medhor: No, I don’t! Arondir: Yes, you do.

Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha!

Harfoots are naturally the designated comic relief race. the harfoot scenes are constantly gesturing towards mischievious frolicking but no one ever does or says anything actually funny. the harfoots are also unfortunately landed with the role of “spiritual primitives”; there are a few circle-of-life speeches, lenny henry plays some kind of hobbit shamen, it’s annoying stuff. the one positive thing i’d say is that at least with the harfoots we actually get a sense of how far in the past we are vs. LOTR; it’s basically impossible to convey the passing of millennia when your focal characters are elves because they live forever and never change, but with the harfoots we see a recognisably more primitive ancestor-culture to the hobbits, so that helps to locate the series in time.

other bad things: - the voyage to valinor, fuck that was weird, are we supposed to infer that the elves just stand there clasping their swords in armed formation for the whole journey? - celebrimbor... :’( he has such strong willy wonka vibes, why would they do this. i think they deliberately made him off-putting to pre-emptively thwart the celebrimbor/annatar shippers.

good things: i like that they depict Olorin/Gandalf as deliriously disoriented by the experience of corporeal manifestation, looking forward to seeing baby’s journey of learning how to use limbs and process sensory input. i am also keen to see more dwarves.

[hecallsmehischild]

Recent Media Consumed

Books

The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. About ten or fifteen years ago, I tried to read this and was totally overwhelmed by it. I kept it around, hoping maybe someday I might be able to read it. I finally have, and here are my impressions: WHY SO MANY NAMES. WHY YOU HAVE TO NAME EVERYBODY, AND EVERY TRIBE OF PEOPLES, AND EVERY INANIMATE OBJECT, AND EVERY LANDSCAPE FEATURE. WHY. *ahem* So. I have a general comprehension of the events of The Silmarillion, but I dealt with it by doing what you do for an impressionist painting. I (mentally) stepped way back and let all the names flow by me, and if there were names that were repeated a lot, then I mentally attached appropriate plot points and character details to those names so I could track with who they were and what they were doing. And, actually, I found myself able to hang on and enjoy the book for the most part. This is going to lead into a re-reading of the Lord of the Rings books, since I haven’t read those in about as long…

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I haven’t read some of these books since pre-teen years, with one required re-read of The Two Towers in high school (i.e. it’s been many an age since I’ve read these and my memory of the stories has been far more heavily influenced by the movies). In re-reading the first book, I was struck by the extreme tone shift for the Elves and Dwarves. Elves seem much closer to happy, mischievous fairies than these ethereal, solemn pillars of elegance and grace the movies show them to be. And Dwarves are far more bumbling and craftsmanlike than the movies show. Aside from that, The Hobbit was a pretty solid adaptation from the book, and the book also reminded me that this story was the first time I experienced “NO, MAIN CHARACTERS DON’T DIE, HOW DARE YOU,” and probably was the first book to make me cry. I must have been 8 or 10 years old. I FORGOT HOW MUCH THIS STORY INFLUENCED ME.

A Conflict of Visions by Thomas Sowell. I have a longer-than-usual list of things to say about this book. First is that it was just that level of difficult that I was struggling to understand while reading it (on Audible), but I think I got it. Sowell has several base concepts that I see repeated throughout his books, though he does like to dedicate whole books to specific aspects of the same topic. He is pretty damn thorough that way. So, for example, I would put this book in the middle of a three-book spectrum of similar concepts: Intellectuals and Society (most concrete and easiest to read), A Conflict of Visions (next-level abstraction, a little difficult to read), Knowledge and Decisions (root abstract concept, very difficult, I have not been able to get past chapter 2). The second thing I have to say is about a couple interesting concepts it proposes. Its whole point is to help readers understand the roots of two ways of seeing the world that come into severe conflict politically, and he calls them by their root titles: the constrained and the unconstrained visions. He traces the path of each back through the intellectuals that most spoke of them (tending to contrast Adam Smith with William Godwin and Condorcet). Though he leans heavily toward the constrained vision (based on reading his other works) he does his best to make this book an academic study of both, with both of the visions' strengths and flaws and reasoning and internal consistencies fairly laid out. In doing so, he helped me understand a few things that make this situation really difficult for people on opposing sides to communicate. One of them is that root words and concepts literally mean different things to different people. I had some vague notion of this before, but he laid out three examples in detail: Equality, Power, and Justice. It was kind of astounding to see just how differently these three words can be defined. It makes me think that arguing about any specific issues rooted in these concepts is fruitless until first an understanding has been reached on terms, because otherwise two parties are endlessly talking past each other. Another really interesting idea he brought up is the existence of “hybrid visions” and he named both Marxism and Fascism as hybrid visions. This was especially fascinating to me because I have seen the accusation of “Nazi” flung around ad nauseam and I wondered how it was that both sides were able to fling it at each other so readily. Well, it’s because Fascism is actually a hybrid vision, so both sides have a grain of truth but miss the whole on that particular point. In any case, this was a little difficult to read but had some fascinating information. For people who are wondering what on earth this gap is between political visions, how on earth to bridge the gap, or why the gap even exists in the first place, this is a really informative piece.

Movies

The Hobbit & Fellowship trilogies (movies). I mean, it’s definitely not my first watch, not even my second. But I went through it with Sergey this time and that means the run-time is double because we pause to talk and discuss details. This watch came about partly due to Sergey’s contention that Gandalf’s reputation far outstrips his actual powers, so we ended up noting down every instance of Gandalf’s power to see if that was true. Conclusion: Gandalf is actually a decently powerful wizard, but tends to use the truly kickass powers in less-than-dire circumstances. That aside, this movie series was always a favorite for me. I rated The Hobbit trilogy lower the first time I saw it but, frankly, all together the six movies are fantastic and a great way to sink deep into lore-heavy fantasy for a while. And I’m catching way more easter-egg type details after having read the Silmarillion so it’s even more enjoyable. (finally, after about a week of binge-watching) I forgot how much this story impacted me. I forgot how wrenchingly bittersweet the ending is. I forgot how much of a mark that reading and watching this story left on my writing.

Upside-Down Magic. Effects were good. Actors were clearly having fun and enjoying everything. Story didn’t make enough sense for my taste, but it was a decent way to kill flight time.

Wish Dragon. So, yes, it’s basically an Aladdin rewrite, but it’s genuinely a cheesy good fluff fest that made me grin a whole lot.

Plays

Esther (Sight and Sound Theatres). < background info > This is my third time to this theatre. There are only two of these in existence and they only run productions of stories out of the Bible. The first time I went I saw a production of Noah, the second time I saw a production of Jesus. My middle sister has moved all the way out to Lancaster, PA in hopes of working at this theatre. My husband and I came out to visit her. < /background info > So. Esther. They really pulled out all the stops on the costumes and set. I mean, REALLY pulled out all the stops. And the three-quarters wrap-around stage is used to great effect. I tend to have a general problem of not understanding all the words in the songs, but I understood enough. I highly recommend sitting close to the front for immersive experiences. This theatre puts on incredible productions and if you ever, ever, EVER have the opportunity to go, take it. Even if you think it's nothing but a bunch of fairy tales, STILL GO. I doubt you'll ever see a fairy tale produced on another stage with equal dedication to immersion.

Shows

The Mandalorian (first two seasons). Well. This was pretty thoroughly enjoyable. It felt very Star-Wars, and I’d kind of given up after recent movies. Felt like it slipped into some preaching toward the end? Not sure, I could be overly sensitive about it, but I enjoyed this a lot (though I did need to turn to my housemate and ask where the flip in the timeline we were because I did NOT realize that the little green kid IS NOT ACTUALLY Yoda).

Games

Portal & Portal 2. Portal is probably the first video game I ever tried to play, back when I had no idea what I was doing. Back then, I attempted to play it on my not-for-gaming Mac laptop. Using my trackpad. Once the jumping-for-extra-velocity mechanic came into play, I just about lost my mind trying to do this with a trackpad and gave up. Later I returned to the game and played it with my then-boyfriend on a proper gaming computer. Now, after having played several games and gotten better at "reading the language" of video games, I decided I wanted to see if I could beat the Portal games by myself. Guess what. I BEAT 'EM. Yes, I remembered most of the puzzles in Portal so that's a little bit of a cheat, but I'd say a good 2/3 of Portal 2 was new puzzles to me. It is crazy how proud I feel of myself that I could beat Portal 2, especially. Learning how to play video games at this age has really knocked down the lie, "You can't learn anything." Though I still suck at platformers and games that require precision. Since I find those types frustrating, I probably won't be playing many. Games are about enjoyment, so I'll push myself a little, but not to the point where I can't stand what I'm playing.

The Observer. I like the concept and the art but I don't think I could keep trying to play this game. It's really depressing. My in-game family members all died of illness or accident or committed suicide. I also kept getting executed by the state. In order to keep us all alive I'd have to do pretty terrible things that I have a hard enough time contemplating even in a fictional setting.

Baba Is You. Fun and interesting concept, but I got stuck pretty early on. Don't think I want to push as hard on this one.

[thatfeanorian]

I was tagged to do this writer game by @arofili! thank you!!

how many works do you have on AO3?

33 (counting my two unrevealed TSRBs)!

what’s your total AO3 word count?

177758 (wow somehow thats only a third of what I’ve written)

how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

I’ve written for.... literally one fandom published and 5 unpublished. We’ll stick with published since I don’t want to expose myself lmao: Just Silmarillion because I’m a high key nerd. That and the whole fandom and work facinates me to the extreme because it is so open ended and nearly any interpritation of the text can be canon!

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

All The Ways To Love - 198 (a longfic about Maedhros and Fingon in an arranged marriage finding exactly what they need in each other, side appearances by baby feanorians)

Make You Mine (the way you should be) - 99 (a short Kidnap Family fic featuring prophetic dreams E&E who have known Maedhros and Maglor would always be coming for them and loved them for it)

Fëanor Finds Out Sort Of But Not Really - 78 (another Russingon fic about Maedhros and Fingon’s secret relationship being found out at the consequences that go along with that)

From The Ashes, Rising - 69 (a 13k four chapter fic-- medium length?-- about Maedhros and Fingon growing up and falling in love, a Modern AU.)

the difference between you and I - 69 (a kidnap dads fic about E&E’s first night with Maedhros and Maglor and how they began to understand that their first impressions might not have been right.)

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Always. Comments are one of the best things I, as an author, can receive and I adore each and every person who takes time to put their thoughts and appreciation into words. Thank you so much to all of you who have done that for me!!

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Hooooo boy that’s a hard one. So many of mine have angsty endings on purpose because pain is always fun. Still if I had to pick one, I would choose Learn Your Place, another fic in my Modern AU “To Build the Bonds That Tie,” featuring middle school age Maedhros questioning his sexuality and being told that he doesn’t belong.

do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Very rarely, and I almost never publish them. The only one I have published as of right now is very old and embarrassing so I won’t link it but it was about Finrod, Turgon, and a self-insert OC being tossed into The Hobbit to try to retrieve the silmaril-arkenstone.

have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes I actually got my first bit very recently and I laughed so hard I almost threw up. I just don’t understand why people keep reading my fics if they know from the first few sentences they don’t like them. I’ve read my fair share of fics that weren’t my style and somehow I’ve never left a single piece of hate on any of them.

do you write smut? if so what kind?

Absolutely. I write everything from very kinky sex to soft aftercare and all the variations in between. The one thing I absolutely refuse to do is non-con although I am okay with sex used as a method of torture. I love love love writing LGBTQ+ themes and do my best to incorporate as much diversity as I can into all my pieces NSFW and otherwise just because they’re not realistic if I don’t.

have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

have you ever had a fic translated?

 I’ve gotten one request but the person who asked dropped it and never got back to me :(

have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! A few of my fics are based off of an old RP server I was in with a couple friends and so as such the ideas are theirs as well as mine and I at least consider the fics co-written.

what’s your all time favorite ship?

.....if you can’t guess.... go take a look at my AO3 (I’ll give you a hint 90% of my fics contain this ship)

(it’s russingon)

what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

My (first) Modern AU. I have it two thirds finished and only a third published but the entire idea is so enormous that I don’t think I will possibly be able to finish it. I adore my baby and I’ll do my best but I think I made the right decision splitting it into seperate fics so that we all can enjoy the parts I do get out instead of waiting ages for things to go in chronological order.

what are your writing strengths?

I adore writing emotion and description! I feel most comfortable writing long winding explanations of the scenery and people that put you (as people have told me) right in the scene.

what are your writing weaknesses?

oh my god smooth dialogue. I struggle so much it’s painful. That’s the part of any fic that takes me the longest because I sit there saying each part out loud to myself like it’s a play and trying to decide if it’s at all reasonable.

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Yes! Absolutely. I love including in-verse languages in my writing in both names, pet names, and even small sentances, but it really really bothers me when people will go on a winding speech or a chunk of dialogue in another language and then have to translate the whole thing at the bottom. Another huge pet peeve of mine is when people use words in other languages and then *don’t* translate them at the bottom. I can’t at all get the full vibe of the fic if there’s words I don’t understand!

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

Uhhhhhhhhhhhh.... I wrote a self insert fic when I was 10 about this one elf statue at the Santa’s Village Amusement Park in NH (please don’t ask)

but if that doesn’t count --please tell me it doesn’t-- then PJO and I still write the occasional fic for them now because PJO is just iconic.

what’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Omg that’s a hard one. I really struggled picking just one because there’s so many that I’m proud of but if I had to pick a genuine favorite I’d say... Inure, a fic I wrote a couple months ago detailing one of the darkest experiences of my life from Maedhros’s perspective. It was both incredibly hard to write and extremely cathartic for me and will remain one of the most terrifying things that I have ever had the courage to publish.

Mind the tags though, it is quite dark and can be triggering if you’ve had an experience similar to mine!

I’ll tag.... @findrahil, @sianascera, @admirablemonster and @secretlythranduil if any of y’all feel up to it!

[sweetteaanddragons]

For your fic prompt event; How about a time travel fic about a Tea-cozy of Doom with Fëanor and Celebrimbor? I love your time travel fics!

I feel like the Tea Cozy of Doom probably deserves some explanation, so here it is for anyone who cares:

Last year a friend and I were talking about fate, and about the imagery usually associated with it, like the cut thread. We’re both fans of the Silmarillion, so Vaire’s tapestries, although not strictly fate, also came up.

At which point, we mutually decided that these dignified images were all well and good, but what if a seer decided that the thing to do was to put her prophecies on really ridiculous knobby hats? Nice thick scarves? Tea-cozies? Things that no dignified adventurer, heroic or villainous, would want to cart around but would have to because it’s the only copy of the prophecy they have?

My friend knit me a beautiful square depicting a tea cup and the words “Tea Cozy of DOOM.” I ended up writing a very bad poem about it.

And so now between the two of us, all objects of power that come in ridiculous packages are tea cozies of doom.

And now Feanor has one.

Celebrimbor had accepted that he was about to die.

He’d held out some small bit of hope that they might fight off Sauron’s forces at least until reinforcements came, but that hope had fallen with the gates.

Cornered in his own workshop with only a table between him and his one-time friend, there was no hiding the truth. He was going to die. His fast fading hope was that he would die quickly.

Judging by Annat-Sauron’s cruel smile, he doubted it.

He gritted his teeth and raised his sword in useless challenge -

And the world -

Tore -

Stretched - 

It settled, and he couldn’t stop himself from falling on his knees, gagging helplessly. So this was how he would fall. His father would be so proud.

Only, when he looked up, Sauron was grasping the doorframe, looking quite as ill as Celebrimbor felt.

And there was someone else in the room. 

Sauron’s eyes widened. “You.” His gaze swung to Celebrimbor. “This is what your rings do?”

“You’re the one they called a necromancer,” he said as he forced himself back onto his feet and a few wary steps away. It was almost like old times when they’d bickered over who’d been responsible for the failure of a project.

Except none of their other projects had ever called up the dead before.

Or his hadn’t, anyway.

Although he had to admit that while he could easily see Sauron calling up his grandfather to unsettle or taunt him, he wouldn’t have expected him to call up his grandfather looking like . . . this.

Namely, holding the most ridiculous looking hat Celebrimbor had ever seen. The colors were eye searing, there was a little bobble on it like Mannish children sometimes wore, and there was a long slit on either side that’s purpose was frankly baffling. The elegant elvish script along the brim only made things worse.

Grandfather was beginning to look annoyed. “I called myself up, thank you, though admittedly this was not the time I was aiming for.” He frowned down at the  . . . object . . . in his hands and turned it slightly. “Ah, I see. I shouldn’t have rushed so, Namo or no Namo. No matter; now is when I’ve been woven back into time, and so now is when I shall do my best to reweave things.”

Celebrimbor took a few moments to process this. “You broke out of the Halls of Mandos with time travel?”

Grandfather looked pleased that he’d grasped this so quickly. “Exactly.”

“So there’s another of you,” Sauron said slowly. “Still in the Halls.”

“Presumably.” Grandfather looked thoughtful. He was picking at the hat-thing now, presumably making some adjustment to whatever had gone wrong, and pacing idly as he did. Celebrimbor had fond memories of watching his grandfather doing that in his workshop back in Tirion. “I wonder what would happen if we met.”

Celebrimbor was also rather curious. Sauron did not look at all curious, and Celebrimbor was forced to admit, very reluctantly, that just this once Sauron might be showing the best sense of the lot of them.

“And the key,” Sauron continued in his silken, sneering voice, “was that ridiculous thing?”

Grandfather grimaced. “Unfortunately, I had rather limited materials to work with and this shape was the stablest I could contrive, crude as it is.” 

Sauron’s eyes glowed with new avarice.

Celebrimbor suddenly wished he had a ring to distract him with. Surely even him getting his hands on one of those would be better than this.

“You want it, I presume,” Grandfather said almost idly.

Celebrimbor wanted to scream. His grandfather had stopped at the point of his pacing closest to Sauron. He was surely within reach. Where was the fire that had so consumed him? Where was his fight? Why did he just stand there?

“And you, I suppose, want to make a trade,” Sauron said silkily. “Your . . . grandson, disclaimed you though he has, for this device.”

Grandfather looked around the workroom. Namely, at the Feanorian stars that Celebrimbor had, perhaps, had a bit too much defiant pride in putting up everywhere.

“That’s what Curufin says,” he said dryly. “Going by the evidence, I’m beginning to think he was being a bit dramatic, but that’s neither here nor there.”

He moved even as he spoke. He made to slam the absurd hat down on Sauron’s head. Sauron’s eyes widened, and he thrust his hand up to stop it, but Grandfather only shoved the hat down on that instead.

For one moment, the workshop was frozen in that ridiculous tableaux.

Then Grandfather sprang back, and Sauron - and the hat - were gone.

Even for Celebrimbor’s quick mind, that was a bit much. 

“What did you just do?”

Grandfather looked very, very pleased with himself. “Trapped him in a time paradox. It should have fallen on me for doing this, but by taking possession of the device, it passed to him.” He hesitated. “I think. Properly speaking this is just a prototype, you have to understand, but if it was going to have catastrophic effects on history we would have noticed already, so all we really have to worry about is him figuring out how the thing works and coming back. At the very least, he’s gone for now.”

“The orcs are not,” Celebrimbor said somewhat shakily as the shock of what had just happened really set in.

Grandfather dismissed this with a wave. “Orcs we can handle.”

Celebrimbor was less sure, but then, he was still rather stuck on - “You defeated him with a hat. A bad hat.”

Grandfather looked a little offended. “A tea cozy, actually. They’re an invention of Man’s Finrod apparently told Fingon about, and they came up in conversation - “

“How?”

Grandfather ignored this. “ - and the idea of the two openings seemed symbolically interesting, as it provides both an entrance and an exit into the tapestry of time. Caranthir could have made it more aesthetically pleasing, no doubt, but he had to teach me through Fingon carrying messages, and your cousin was strangely reluctant.”

Celebrimbor couldn’t imagine why.

“The next one will be better.”

“The next one?” Celebrimbor asked. He finally tore his eyes away from the door where Sauron had so lately been standing.

“The rest of the family remains trapped,” Grandfather reminded him. “We need to fix that one way or another.” He hesitated again. Twice in one conversation. Practically unprecedented. “I suppose I presume a bit when I say we.”

Celebrimbor was not at all sure what the right thing to do in this situation was, and even if he’d thought he had, he’d recently gotten confirmation that his judgement was terrible.

There were so many ways this could go wrong. Possibly even more wrong than the rings.

The distant clamor of the orcs was getting closer.

But Grandfather didn’t rush him. Just waited, looking at him expectantly.

“Alright,” he said in a gust of breath. At least this was an excitingly new and different mistake than the last one. “Alright. How are we getting out of here?”

Grandfather pulled out a second hat.

If Celebrimbor found out there was a third one of those somewhere, he was going to either laugh or cry, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to find out which.

[tolkien-fandom-history]

Interview with Jenny Dolfen

Much thanks to acclaimed artist Jenny Dolfen for doing this Tolkien-fandom-history interview!

Jenny is a German artist and illustrator. Her art is well known and much admired in the Tolkien fandom. She won the inaugural Tolkien Society award in the category "best artwork" in 2014, for her watercolour “Eärendil the Mariner" and is nominated for that award again this year for her artwork "The Hunt."

Jenny also published a book of her art in 2016. “Songs of Sorrow and Hope” contains sketches and full color artwork dating from 2003-2013. The book includes many of her Tolkien inspired works as well as works inspired by fantasy, mythology and Jenny’s own work “The Rhyddion Chronicles.” It is available in her Etsy store.

Jenny's art can be found on her web page https://goldseven.wordpress.com/galleries/tolkien/ as well as her Etsy page https://www.etsy.com/shop/JennyDolfen and her Patreon site https://www.patreon.com/jennydolfen

She does YouTube tutorials as well--it's fascinating to watch her creations come to life in the videos. https://m.youtube.com/user/GoldSeven/videos

Jenny can also be found here on tumblr @goldseven

(Interview by @maedhrosrussandol)

TFH: When did you originally become involved in Tolkien fandom?

Jenny: I’ve been a Tolkien fan for most of my life (my mother introduced me to the Hobbit when I was six), but I didn’t know there were any other Tolkien fans until I discovered the Internet in the early 2000s.

TFH: What was your initial experience with the online fandom? Did the advent of the LOTR movies have an effect on you?

Jenny: I have treated and still treat the books and the movies as two very different things. The movies interest me as much as any movie I enjoy; the books are a major part of my life. I encountered the Silmarillion fandom around 2003, and above all, was amazed by the fact that there were people who had read it (I had only met one in my life).

TFH: How do you feel the Tolkien fandom has changed since you initially became involved in it?

Jenny: I don’t feel it has changed much. If I had known it before the films, it might be different, but I still see the major groups there that existed in the early 2000s – film fans, book fans (which minor crossovers), fanfic writers, and scholars.

TFH: In the mid-2000s, it often seemed that there were two groups of people creating fan art. There were the artists sanctioned by the Tolkien Estate--Alan Lee, John Howe, Ted Nasmith--who were mostly men, and then there were the so-called "fan artists," who were mostly women. The latter group were also often professional artists and were much more widely embraced by the fanfic community (for example, you and Kasiopea seemed much more instrumental in determining how Silmfic writers saw the characters than Nasmith, and your name is probably more readily recognized by Silm fans today than Nasmith's). Did you perceive this as well? If so, do you have any thoughts on why the Estate and fanworks creators might have had so little overlap in their visions of Middle-earth and its characters?

Jenny: I have actually talked to Ted Nasmith (whom I met at Return of the Ring 2012, a perfectly wonderful bloke!) about this very thing. Ted told me about his illustrated Silmarillion, in which the Estate had been very clear on a policy that follows what we know from the “Big Three” (John Howe, Alan Lee, Ted Nasmith): a lot of location, a bit of characters, and absolutely no monsters!

In a panel at Return of the Ring, which I attended together with Ted, Anke Eissmann, and Ruth Lacon, the same question was asked, and it does seem to fall along gender lines. Typically, characters are more often and more prominently portrayed by women, and many viewing habits seem to follow a similar gender divide on the audience’s side. It makes sense, then, that the Tolkien Estate, under the firm influence of Christopher Tolkien, would favour the a more setting-oriented approach that depicted the scope and poetry of his father’s work, while other artists explored the characters in a more intimate and obscure way.

TFH: I'm interested in your experience with both the artistic and writing sides of the Tolkien fandom. Were there differences in the respective fandoms when you first became involved and in the response to your works in the two mediums?

Jenny: I have always kept a slight distance to much of the fanfic side. There are several fanfics I have enjoyed, but even in some of the ones I did, slash was never far away, and it just makes me uncomfortable. (The fact that it’s mostly gay sex is secondary, incidentally. I simply feel that sex in the exploration of those characters is as irrelevant as exploring their, say, bathroom habits. I may be pretty alone in this as a female recipient of Tolkien’s work, but his characters strike me as rather asexual on the whole.)

On the art side, I find that the response from and interaction with the fandom has been overwhelmingly positive from all sides. I have formed long-lasting friendships with other artists and fans.

TFH: There has been tremendous expansion of artistic interpretations of Tolkien’s work in recent years--through Tumblr, DeviantArt, weibo--how do you continue to reach your audience and interact with those who have an interest in your art?

Jenny: I consider myself very lucky, in that I have stayed in contact with a large and wonderful group of people over all these years. I had the good fortune of being recognized quite early on, and while there has been some fluctuation, an amazingly strong core of my audience has stayed with me.

TFH: In what other Tolkien-related events, gatherings or challenges do you participate? How is it interacting with fans at such events?

Jenny: I try to make it to the major local events – Tolkien Tag, organized by the Dutch and German Tolkien Societies – and I’ll be at the (British) Tolkien Society’s Tolkien 2019 event in Birmingham next year. Apart from that, my job as a teacher and my two young children mean I can’t travel much.

I hugely enjoy those events – to interact with other fans usually feels like a breakaway together with people I rarely meet in the “real world”.

TFH: What drew you to Professor Tolkien's work originally?

Jenny: I have loved mythology from a very young age, devouring classical, Germanic and medieval folk tales since primary school, so Tolkien fell squarely into those preferences, and continued to do so when I got older and became a student of literature rather than just a consumer of Fantasy books.

TFH: Which of his characters are your favorites? Why?

Jenny: It will come as absolutely no surprise that it’s Maedhros son of Feanor. He stuck in my head even when I first read the Silmarillion, standing out against that huge cast of often-confusing people. He’s like a Greek tragic hero, trying to do the right thing and striving to justify his means, and dragging everyone else into ruin with him. His fate is heartbreaking, and I love heartbreaking tales.

TFH: Why do you love Tolkien's universe? What inspires you?

Jenny: It’s always been mostly about the characters, but I find that, as I get older, other aspects of the legendarium speak to me more strongly than before. When I was a child, I used to skip the descriptions of landscape; today, I both read them closely, and find that I appreciate beauty in nature far more than I used to, which I then translate into my art (my older work, up until I was about twenty, usually featured characters standing around in a perfect white void).

TFH: To what extent do you think it is important for a fanfiction writer or fan artist to follow and respect the original author's work and concepts?

Jenny: First off, I think for a fan creator, there are, by definition, no such constraints. Preference is another matter entirely. Personally, I enjoy writings and works of art that, in my subjective view, feel close to what Tolkien might have meant, and thus strike a chord with me.

When we extend that question to any matter that is supposed to be a more general representation of the original work, I feel it’s essential to be faithful to a common theme and feel. If we take Peter Jackson’s movies, I do think that he managed it in many places in the Lord of the Rings; his Hobbit, from what I have seen of it (I haven’t watched the second and third films), felt weirdly like the output of an Instagram creator whose fanbase latches on to a very small part of his original body of work, and who then suddenly starts churning out more of the same, comical, self-referred spoofs which feel like a continuation to him and to his base but really leave most of the essence behind for everyone else.

TFH: Which was the most unexpected occasion, the most unusual platform where you have ever encountered one of your artworks?

Jenny: Thaaaaaaat would have been a Russian porn site. I get around, you know.

TFH: Which one of your drawings is most special to you and why?

There are a lot of drawings I’m very attached to. “In pain and regret” is probably far up the list, as are the more recent “The Hunt” and “And the Orcs fled before his face”. The one I’ll mention here has to be one where I, probably accidentally, nailed Maedhros’ face for the first time. I drew it in 1995, when I was twenty, and I remember that this was a piece that told me that I was still improving. As a young artist, you often think that one day, you’ll be a grown-up, and that’s that. At twenty, I had just moved away from home, and had subconsciously felt that I was now finished, feeling some regret at the belief that my art would no longer improve – and suddenly I realized how wrong I’d been. It was an eye-opener for me, artistically.

The artworks and book referenced in this interview are as follows

Jenny Dolfen's book "Songs of Sorrow and Hope" featuring the cover art of Maglor "The harp no longer sings":

"Earendil the Mariner":

The 1995 artwork referenced:

"And the orcs fled before his face":

"The Hunt":

"In pain and regret":

[niennathegrey]

Top 10 Husbandos

Rules: list your top 10 husbandos (as in fictional characters from tv shows, video games, and/or anime), and then tag people)

(Thanks for the tag, @snowywarriors! I’m sorry it’s so late--I’ve gotten pretty bad at keeping up with tag games lately. I’ll try to do better next time!) 

10. TIE: Finrod Felagund // Maglor (The Silmarillion)

(Credit: “Finrod” by ilxwing // “Maglor” by ilxwing )

I honestly can’t choose between them. I love Finrod because he’s quite possibly the nicest person in the entire book, and I will never not be sad about his death. I love Maglor because even after all the horrors of the First Age, he still had enough light left in him to show kindness to - and grow to love - Elrond and Elros.  

9. Frodo Baggins (Lord of the Rings) 

Aragorn, Faramir, Boromir, Legolas, etc. are all well and good--but I like Frodo the most because he’s the most like me. He’s bookish, I’m bookish. He’s a hobbit, I’m a hobbit in all but size. He brought the Ring to Mount Doom when almost no one thought he could (yes, he had Sam’s help, BUT STILL)? That’s pretty uplifting to read for someone Doing Her Best™.  

8. Haku (Spirited Away)

My dad introduced me to Studio Ghibli when I was… about 10, I think? And Spirited Away was the first one I remember watching. It’s been one of my favorite movies ever since then, and yeah, I did go through a short but pretty intense crush on Haku. I still have a soft spot for him, even now.

7. Peter Pan (Disney)

I think this Peter was my very first childhood crush. I wanted him to take me to Neverland so much, and I used to look out my window at night and try to find the second star on the right. I love the 2003 movie, but I’ll always have a soft spot for the Disney version.

6. Obi-Wan Kenobi (Star Wars)

My first clear Star Wars memories were of the prequels, and I remember always being more interested in Obi-Wan than Anakin. Add in the fact that I recently finished the Mandalore arc in my ongoing The Clone Wars watch (shout-out to @bistormtrooper, @fernandabarrera, and @tarrkin!) and you have one (1) more confirmed Obi-Wan stan. 

5. Itachi Uchiha (Naruto)

I had it really bad for Itachi in my early teens. I found it fascinating how this stock Stoic Evil Brother™ actually had all this honor and altruism(? principle? selflessness?) and capacity for love and attachment buried way deep down.

4. Peter Pevensie (The Chronicles of Narnia)

The second Hot Older Brother (and second Peter!) on this list. He’s another adolescent crush that I still have a soft spot for today. I loved how deeply he cared about his siblings, and about Narnia and Aslan.

3. Robb Stark (Game of Thrones)

The third Hot Older Brother on the list. I loved that he never wanted the Iron Throne—only justice for Ned, Sansa, and Arya, and independence for the North. (I should probably mention that my love for Robb stems from the show—I’ve only read the first book, but I do plan to read the rest eventually.) Needless to say, I was a wreck after the Red Wedding.

2. Bucky Barnes (Marvel)

[inarticulate T-rex noises] Bucky is a good man who was made to do bad things and wants to atone for them, even if he feels he can’t possibly. How could I not love a man who’s that fundamentally good?

1. Steve Rogers (Marvel)

I have MANY FEELINGS about this man. But I’ll give you the tl;dr version of the gushing and just say that he’s (obviously) one of the fictional characters I love and admire the most. Seeing him onscreen just makes me feel safe and warm. 

(As you can see, I definitely have a type. Or two.)

Tagging @stark, @chewbacca, @apawcalypsemeow, @usethehorseluke, @fernandabarrera, @carrie-reylo, @dmhnllgleeson, @reyssolo, @stvrmbreaker, and @spaceamazon!

[dailythranduilproject]

Today it’s @floranocturna turn with being interviewed! I would like to thank you for sharing with all of us! - Mirky.

General Questions: Username(s) we can find you under: Floranocturna and The Real Floranocturna (FanFiction.Net)

What Media do you create? Fanfictions, sometimes image edits

Are you self-taught or did you go to art school? I have a Masters degree in Literature (and History) and writing is indeed my job, but writing fanfiction and fantasy stories is my passion.

Which artists have influenced your style? Mainly Tolkien and Rowling, but there are numerous others along the way,which have shaped my style into what it is now.

Which are your favourite artists? Fragonard and Boucher (yes I love French rococo) and in the fandom my favorite artists are Kinko-White and Bohemianweasel.

Where can we find your work? AO3, Wattpad, tumblr, FanFiction.net, Quotev, DeviantArt and Inkitt.

What would you say you are best known for in the fandom? My writing

Do you have a favorite pairing? *ahem* I ship Thranduil with me of course XD

Do you have a favorite creation of yours you are especially proud of? My ongoing Thranduil story *The Secret of the Forest*, which I have recently rewritten into a Thranduil/OC story (it used to be a reader insert before). I have been working on this since 2016 and this story is very close to my heart.

Do you have a favourite fictional character, besides Thranduil of course? Severus Snape, because I really love how his character is neither good nor evil and the astounding amount of depth Rowling gave him.

What other fandoms are you part of? Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Avatar

Do you do commissions? Nope, sorry, no spare time left.

Any advice/words for others in the fandom?

First: Be kind and respectful and always remember that we are in this fandom to share our love for Thranduil and not to fight over him.

Second: Do not steal other people’s hard work. This is something I had to experience myself and it is NOT nice! Create your own works and if you cannot do that then support the artists by sharing their work and encouraging them with likes and comments.

Third: If you are a writer getting started I would like you to remember that only practice makes perfect. Keep writing, keep searching for that voice of yours and keep reading! Read books, read stories and then read even more! And then sit down and write again, let the words flow and don’t think about what others will think of it. Write for yourself and only when you feel comfortable with it, then put it out there for others to see. Don’t take criticism personally, but try to see it as a possibility to grow as an author.

Personal Questions:

If you could name a song (or two or three) that would describe you or your life, what would it be? ‘Unknown Legend’ by Neil Young, ‘Lost Direction’ by Beecake, ‘Resolve’ by Sleeping At Last

Favorite color? Green

Favorite Book? Since I cannot choose only one here go my top choices: ’The Silmarillion’, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’ by Tolkien, Harry Potter 1-7 by Rowling, ‘Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell’ by Susanna Clarke.

Favorite movie? ‘The Fall’, because of its absolutely stunning cinematography, magical storytelling and of course Lee Pace and the adorable Cantinca Untaru.

Do you have a pet peeve? Ignorance and rudeness.

What country are you from? Austria, that place where the hills are apparently alive with the sound of music ;)

Who do you think you might have been in a past life? I have no idea, but hopefully someone remotely cool.

What do you like to do in your spare time other than create the media you work on? Photography, cosplay, reading and I enjoy taking walks alone or with my dogs while listening to music and thinking about new plot twists for my stories (yeah I can never really turn off the writing)

When did you join the fandom? I have been in the Tolkien fandom for a while (since the LOTR movies) and I have been a fan of Lee Pace already before The Hobbit movies (because of ‘the Fall’), but I started being more active around 2014/15.

TheMirkyKing’s Questions:

What is the hardest part of writing for you?

This is a difficult question, because many parts can be hard depending on my inspiration or the lack of it. The easiest part is usually the dialogue, because I just listen to what my protagonists say in my head and write it down. What’s hard is to keep track where everyone is standing, walking, moving around. Sometimes I think that my characters take on a life of their own and keep walking around and then I don’t know what are they doing. Sounds crazy, but it does happen! And actually sticking to my decisions regarding the plot is hard for me too, because I keep constantly having new ideas.

How do you fell about the upcoming series based off Middle-earth?

I do have mixed feelings about this. On one hand more Middle-earth is always a good thing and maybe a fresh take on Tolkien’s writings might bring a whole lot of characters and events to life on screen. But, and yes there is always a but, I honestly hope that the producers will not try to drag Middle-earth to Westeros, wanting to have a share in the success of Game of Thrones. Tolkien is not Martin and as much as I like Game of Thrones — hey, why do we have to wait until 2019 for that final season? —, I do not think that trying to imitate something that is successful in its own way is the path for this new Middle-earth series. Finding a new voice maybe even away from what Peter Jackson has set as standard might be a more logical and creative way to go.

If you could travel to Middle-earth, where would you want to call home?

This is an easy answer: Mirkwood of course. I would love to see Thranduil’s kingdom, especially after the War of the Ring, when the darkness has been destroyed and the forest has been renamed *Eryn Lasgalen*, the Wood of Greenleaves. I want to see the beauty of this primeval forest restored, the sunlit canopies of green and gold, the peaceful glades, flowers and trees growing in a new spring. Maybe even catch a glimpse of Thranduil’s new elk, which I am sure he will have. I’ve written about these woods so many times in my story that I somehow feel at home there although I’ve never even been there. Well, my heart is there and that is enough for me.

Follower Questions:

From @moonofmorrigan - How did you conceive the idea for your story, The Secret of the Forest?

This story started out quite simple because of my love for Thranduil, but it has grown into a much more complex project. I first had the idea of a romance, a love story with many obstacles involving an elf and a human. Over the course of 1,5 years many more layers have been added to it. I really love exploring Thranduil’s past, finding a credible backstory for his wife’s death and the many hardships he has suffered in his long lifetime, but I also have discovered that I enjoy playing around with my own characters, like the brothers Amardir and Faeldir. And the best part is that the readers like them too! This story is not just a fanfic about a beautiful Elvenking, but it is a story about love and loss, grief and sacrifice and the search for absolution. There are some universal truths to be found in this tale showing us that elves and humans might not be so different from each other after all.

From @moonofmorrigan - What things inspire you to continue writing it, and your original story about the dark elf?

Thranduil is the one thing that continues to inspire me every day to keep writing this story. But also all the readers and their comments, kudos, likes and votes keep me going. I am still overwhelmed by all the support I have gotten and the nice people I have met along the way in this fandom! My original story *The Enchanted Spring* about the dark elf Andor is my new ‘baby’ and I have a complete plot laid out already. It is quite different from my Thranduil story, although it does feature another beautiful elf. It is much darker and closer to folk tales and folklore. What I love about it is that this is all my own creation, no boundaries, no given facts. I can do whatever I want and play god in my world *evil laughter*.

@bellevox asked- I loved the fact that your husband made a song for your story. He’s a very talented musician! This is real love! If you do not mind, could you tell us a little about your family? If you do not want to, you do not need to.

I am really blessed to have such a loving husband! Not only does he support my writing, but he is also extremely patient and listens to my ramblings about plot twists, character arcs and synonyms. He has written 2 songs for my story (Nameless Lady and Thranduil’s Lament) and he keeps asking me for the next poem ;). As many of you must have guessed around here, I am a bit older than your average tumblr user, but hey, one is never too old to be passionate about something. I am a working mum of 5 (in between the age of 20 and 7) and we have 2 dogs (Yavanna and Nenya) and 3 cats (Mina, Zuko and Sansa). Our kids are growing up with Tolkien, Harry Potter and fantasy in general, Gandalf is a household name and even the little one can sing ‘They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard’ ;).

@beelovesbutterfly wanted to know- What is one cause that is dear to your heart?

As a mother of an angel baby, miscarriage and stillbirth are causes that are very close to my heart. These topics are still widely a taboo in our society and yet it happens to mothers all the time. I strongly believe that it is important to offer those mothers help and support and to let them know that they are not alone in their grief.

@beelovesbutterfly - What is your favorite flower? Daisy (it’s small, simple and perfect)

@beelovesbutterfly -Do you have a bad writing habit? I write too much. Just kidding, but no, seriously, I can deviate too much from what I want to say and I can spend hours researching synonyms and searching for that perfect word instead of just going ahead with the story. I’m trying to keep my sentences short and focused, but it’s difficult. And I have the tendency to get enamored with specific words, says my husband ;)

@beelovesbutterfly -Who is your Hollywood crush? **ahem** Lee Pace (obviously ;))

And from @eldritchmage - What story would you want to write about your favorite king that you haven’t written yet?

In have lots of other ideas about possible stories with Thranduil. I’ve been thinking on a story with an elvish OC, just to give it a different twist away from the dichotomy of mortal and immortal. But what I really would love to write is a humorous story, something light and funny and completely different from the angsty romance I am writing now. Possibly even a modern AU with Thrandy running a beauty parlor or something like that ;). I’m sure this would be loads of fun!

[the-seas-song]

Tolkien Gen Week Day 5

DAY FIVE: diversity How does diversity affect Tolkien’s characters and your interpretations of them? Does a disability or orientation affect relationships with other characters? Have you lost sleep thinking about hobbit race relations? This is the day to consider all the other factors that go into a character’s life.

Work has been insane lately, so unfortunately I wasn't able to write everything I wanted to for this amazing week, but I really wanted to make sure I got this one done.

This is mainly a thank you post. First, I want to give a big thank you to @starlightwalking for creating and running this week. A lot of time must have gone into it, and I've had a great time.

I love all forms of love, and one of my favorite things about Tolkien's works is that he highlights a large variety of emotionally intimate platonic relationships. Thank you Tolkien. And also thank you to everyone who worked on the films, for not only portraying those in the texts, but actually adding and expanding the amount of deep platonic relationships.

As someone who is gray aro/ace, another one of my favorite things about Tolkien's works is the diversity in racial sexualities.

Elves only fall in love once in their life (technically it is possible for them to fall in love a second time, but we are only given two cases in all of Tolkien’s works, and both times there was a greater power at work). The foundation of elven-kind is memory and emotion. Their souls control their bodies. Elvish memories remain crystal clear, no matter how many decades or centuries pass. They never fade, even the slightest bit. Connected to memory is emotion. Elves feel things in a clearer way. They are ruled by emotion. They can literally just lie down and kill themselves with their mind, if they wish. Also, because of this clarity, they know from the beginning if they are feeling romantic-love or friendship-love for someone. There is nothing more important to an elf than their relationships, of any kind. Their anti-possessiveness goes so far that they will not even say 'I have two children’.

Tolkien says in LACE that almost all elves marry, and marry young. However, the entire legendarium contradicts that. Over half the elves we meet very marry/are never said to be married, and almost all of those that do marry do so well into their centuries and millenniums. Feanor and Nerdanel are literally the only elven couple that we are told married young.

Also, who could ever forget the tragedy of Beleg's death? “Thus ended Beleg Strongbow, truest of friends, greatest in skill of all that harboured in the woods of Beleriand in the Elder Days, at the hand of him whom he most loved; and that grief was graven on the face of Túrin and never faded.” - The Silmarillion

We are also given a tantalizing hint of one deep female friendship: “Fingolfin’s wife Anaire refused to leave Aman, largely because of her friendship with Earwen wife of Arafinwe (though she was a Noldo and not one of the Teleri). But all her children went with their father.” - The Shibboleth of Feanor

Another thing I rarely see people mention is Tolkien explicitly separating sex and gender:

According to the Eldar, the only 'character' of any person that was not subject to change was the difference of sex. For this they held to belong not only to the body but also to the mind equally: that is, to the person as a whole. [cut] Those who returned from Mandos, therefore, after the death of their first body, returned always to the same name and to the same sex as formerly.

[cut]

For the [souls] of the Elves are of their nature male and female, and not their [bodies] only. - LACE

Because their souls control their bodies, there are no trans elves. However, the fact that Tolkien took pains to explicitly say this for elves, throws the door wide open for all of the other races!

We're also told that about two thirds of dwarves are naturally aromantic, and those who aren’t only fall in love once. So, another gray aro/ace race!

There are so many amazing fanworks out there that diversify Tolkien's works even more.

Throughout my years of being a fan I've met a fair amount of purists, and there's nothing wrong with being a purist. Most of them are lovely people. I am, however, a firm believer in Roland Barthes's The Death of the Author (found here) theory. The great thing is Tolkien was too:

The Lord of the Rings has been read by many people since it finally appeared in print; and I should like to say something here with reference to the many opinions or guesses that I have received or have read concerning the motives and meaning of the tale. The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them. As a guide I had only my own feelings for what is appealing or moving, and for many the guide was inevitably often at fault. Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer. But even from the points of view of many who have enjoyed my story there is much that fails to please. It is perhaps not possible in a long tale to please everybody at all points, nor to displease everybody at the same points; for I find from the letters that I have received that the passages or chapters that are to some a blemish are all by others specially approved. The most critical reader of all, myself, now finds many defects, minor and major, but being fortunately under no obligation either to review the book or to write it again, he will pass over these in silence, except one that has been noted by others: the book is too short.

As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical. As the story grew it put down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches: but its main theme was settled from the outset by the inevitable choice of the Ring as the link between it and The Hobbit.

[cut]

Other arrangements could be devised according to the tastes or views of those who like allegory or topical reference. But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.

An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous. It is also false, though naturally attractive, when the lives of an author and critic have overlapped, to suppose that the movements of thought or the events of times common to both were necessarily the most powerful influences. One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead. Or to take a less grievous matter: it has been supposed by some that 'The Scouring of the Shire' reflects the situation in England at the time when I was finishing my tale. It does not. It is an essential part of the plot, foreseen from the outset, though in the event modified by the character of Saruman as developed in the story without, need I say, any allegorical significance or contemporary political reference whatsoever. It has indeed some basis in experience, though slender (for the economic situation was entirely different), and much further back. The country in which I lived in childhood was being shabbily destroyed before I was ten, in days when motor-cars were rare objects (I had never seen one) and men were still building suburban railways. Recently I saw in a paper a picture of the last decrepitude of the once thriving corn-mill beside its pool that long ago seemed to me so important. I never liked the looks of the Young miller, but his father, the Old miller, had a black beard, and he was not named Sandyman. - LotR Foreward

And:

The Lord of the Rings as a story was finished so long ago now that I can take a largely impersonal view of it, and find 'interpretations' quite amusing; even those that I might make myself, which are mostly post scriptum: I had very little particular, conscious, intellectual, intention in mind at any point.* Except for a few deliberately disparaging reviews – such as that of Vol. II in the New Statesman,3 in which you and I were both scourged with such terms as 'pubescent' and 'infantilism' – what appreciative readers have got out of the work or seen in it has seemed fair enough, even when I do not agree with it. Always excepting, of course, any 'interpretations' in the mode of simple allegory: that is, the particular and topical. In a larger sense, it is I suppose impossible to write any 'story' that is not allegorical in proportion as it 'comes to life'; since each of us is an allegory, embodying in a particular tale and clothed in the garments of time and place, universal truth and everlasting life. Anyway most people that have enjoyed The Lord of the Rings have been affected primarily by it as an exciting story; and that is how it was written. Though one does not, of course, escape from the question 'what is it about?' by that back door. That would be like answering an aesthetic question by talking of a point of technique. I suppose that if one makes a good choice in what is 'good narrative' (or 'good theatre') at a given point, it will also be found to be the case that the event described will be the most 'significant'.

* Take the Ents, for instance. I did not consciously invent them at all. The chapter called 'Treebeard', from Treebeard's first remark on p. 66, was written off more or less as it stands, with an effect on my self (except for labour pains) almost like reading some one else's work. And I like Ents now because they do not seem to have anything to do with me. I daresay something had been going on in the 'unconscious' for some time, and that accounts for my feeling throughout, especially when stuck, that I was not inventing but reporting (imperfectly) and had at times to wait till 'what really happened' came through. But looking back analytically I should say that Ents are composed of philology, literature, and life.

[cut]

That of course does not mean that the main idea of the story was a war-product. That was arrived at in one of the earliest chapters still surviving (Book I, 2). It is really given, and present in germ, from the beginning, though I had no conscious notion of what the Necromancer stood for (except ever-recurrent evil) in The Hobbit, nor of his connexion with the Ring. But if you wanted to go on from the end of The Hobbit I think the ring would be your inevitable choice as the link. If then you wanted a large tale, the Ring would at once acquire a capital letter; and the Dark Lord would immediately appear. As he did, unasked, on the hearth at Bag End as soon as I came to that point. So the essential Quest started at once. But I met a lot of things on the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the comer at the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had Frodo. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothlórien no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there. Far away I knew there were the Horse-lords on the confines of an ancient Kingdom of Men, but Fangorn Forest was an unforeseen adventure. I had never heard of the House of Eorl nor of the Stewards of Gondor. Most disquieting of all, Saruman had never been revealed to me, and I was as mystified as Frodo at Gandalf's failure to appear on September 22.1 knew nothing of the Palantíri, though the moment the Orthanc-stone was cast from the window, I recognized it, and knew the meaning of the 'rhyme of lore' that had been running in my mind: seven stars and seven stones and one white tree. These rhymes and names will crop up; but they do not always explain themselves. I have yet to discover anything about the cats of Queen Berúthiel.8 But I did know more or less all about Gollum and his pan, and Sam, and I knew that the way was guarded by a Spider. And if that has anything to do with my being stung by a tarantula when a small child,9 people are welcome to the notion (supposing the improbable, that any one is interested). I can only say that I remember nothing about it, should not know it if I had not been told; and I do not dislike spiders particularly, and have no urge to kill them. I usually rescue those whom I find in the bath! - Letter 163

Tolkien's loathing of allegory is well known. However, most don't talk about the fact that his fundamental reason for loathing it is because it enforces the domination of the author over the freedom of the reader - “I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author.”

So, as we continue to love these works and create our own, let's never forget that Tolkien himself believed in our agency.

P.S. I have to share this quote from Letter 66. It's too funny!

A new character has come on the scene (I am sure I did not invent him, I did not even want him, though I like him, but there he came walking into the woods of Ithilien): Faramir, the brother of Boromir – and he is holding up the 'catastrophe' by a lot of stuff about the history of Gondor and Rohan (with some very sound reflections no doubt on martial glory and true glory): but if he goes on much more a lot of him will have to be removed to the appendices — where already some fascinating material on the hobbit Tobacco industry and the Languages of the West have gone.

[dailybestiary]

Knight & Megapon Ants

Knight ants are a special caste of ants dedicated to defending their colony’s home.  They grow particularly wide heads to protect their colonymates, who also benefit from the greater coordination signaled by the knight ants’ pheromones.  

Megapon ants, meanwhile, have the rare distinction of being (in the editions I own, anyway) the only Bestiary species I’ve seen to not merit a description. (Heck, I can’t even Google a good definition for megapon.)  But at CR 6, they’re nothing to sneeze at; they can carry prodigious amounts of weight; and their Strength-sapping poison suggests the sting of a fire ant or some aggressive, prehistoric lineage.

A clan of dwarves uses alchemical scents to tame and coax behaviors out of their ant livestock.  A local war calls most of the clan elders away from the hold, and when they return they discover that the artificial scents have spoiled.  Their knight ant guards now bar the way to the lower levels, no longer recognizing the dwarves as friends.

A martial arts master with some training as a druid believes in basing his forms and stances off of those in nature.  In order to learn his specialized skills (in game terms, teamwork feats), adventurers must study knight ants in the tunnels of their hill—without killing a single one.

Adventurers are racing through the canopy of the great god’s-home trees, fleeing cannibals hot on their trail.  They come across a column of megapon ants using their bodies to create a bridge for themselves and their giant aphid thralls.  If the adventurers can find a way to sneak across the ant bridge, they will easily lose their pursuers.  Otherwise they might have to fight the enormous ants and the kuru-maddened cannibals at the same time.

—Pathfinder Bestiary 5 27

I recently relistened to the audiobook version of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, read by the outstanding Simon Prebble.  I first listened to it during a massive, speeding ticket-filled, two-day road trip from San Francisco to Portland via Crater Lake several years ago.  I’m happy to say I loved it then—so much so that in my hunger for more I discovered Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series and Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey–Maturin books—and I loved it now—so much so that I accrued $28 in overdue fines because I had other books checked out and didn’t want to give any of them back.  (If you throw in the speeding tickets, that’s compelling evidence that good books make me make bad choices, apparently.)

JS&MN truly is an extraordinary book—all the more so because it’s a first novel.  (Neil Gaiman’s quote about a fragment from one of Clarke’s early drafts—“It was like watching someone sit down to play the piano for the first time and she plays a sonata”—still holds up.)  The true-to-the-1800s language, the sense of place, and the treatment of academic arguments as being as important as a battle are nearly perfect.  I love the characters; I love the world; I love the faerie lore; I love almost everything.

Because I love it so much, certain things still drive me nuts.  Most of these little things are insufficiently answered (to my mind, at least) questions or breakdowns in verisimilitude: How can Mr Norrell justify obstructing the progress of all other magicians if he publicly claims to want to restore English magic…why does Childermass remain with Mr Norrell for so long even after the meanness of his master’s character is revealed…why do Lady Pole and Stephen Strange’s maladies go so long undiagnosed, even with a faerie glamour to blame…things like that.  In reality, the book may be better for not answering these questions, but they still leave me fidgety with agitation.

A second listen did also confirm a major beef I had the first time I listened to it, though: It is a figure eight of a work, its whole shape constantly circling around two black holes of noninformation.  

The first is that the actual working of magic is barely shown and never explained.  Clarke has said that she “really like[s] magicians,” but weirdly she seems willing to gloss over the magic they do almost entirely. (Early in the book this is amusing—even the characters are impatient to see magic done—but by 2/3s of the way in it’s infuriatingly coy.)  We almost never get a sense of how it feels for the magicians to do magic, or why these two men have succeeded where almost no one else has.  (That they were prophesied doesn’t cut it.)  It’s a staggeringly strange omission, especially to a fantasy fan audience used to reading about how it feels to come into one’s power, whatever that power may be.  Strange in particular stumbles into magic and then the narrative curtain closes; when it reopens he is already a thaumaturgical Mozart.  That is, as the South Park kids would say, some total BS right there.

The second problem is that this is a work of alternate history that refuses to share its alternate history.  True, the novel purports to be written by someone from Strange’s acquaintance only a generation or so later, so much of this knowledge is assumed to be held by the reader.  But despite all its many, many, many footnotes, the book barely gives us a coherent alternate timeline, and so much of how the novel’s history diverges from our own is unclear.  (For comparison, Philip K. Dick is a downright clumsy author compared to Clarke, but I can tell you more about the history of Man in the High Castle, and it’s a mere pamphlet next to the Bible-fat JS&MN.)  I don't need much more detail, but I do need more.

Worse yet, not only has Clarke created a fictional northern England with a fictional Raven King that we don't know enough about, but she also seems to have fallen a little in love with him. (Strong evidence of this is that the characters positively won’t shut up about him; he even gives his name to the novel’s third act.)  It is dangerous to fall in love with fictional people or settings, and doing so is a surefire way to undermine the story.  (Notice, for instance, how Tolkien burns the Shire, and how J. K. Rowling—whose writerly smarts are often underrated—is careful to get her characters out of Hogwarts after the love letter to it that is The Order of the Phoenix.  Now compare that to, say, The Name of the Wind, which struck me as loving its central character just a bit too much, or the insufferable anime Clamp School Detectives, whose love for its own impossible setting is a veritable fountain of onanism (see what I did there?) that eventually feels like a taunt to the viewer who will never attend there. You can’t love your fictional children too hard, and Clarke loves John Uskglass.

So as I said, a great novel, but a figure eight thanks to these two crucial holes.  Do not under *any* circumstances let these prevent you from reading it though!

Unfortunately, a new qualm came up as I was listening this time: the novel’s hagiography of Englishness. In a 2005 interview with Locus, Susanna Clarke practically quoted Tolkien word for word in her lament that England did not have a myth of its own. (Sidebar: English culture is odd in that its most famous legend, Beowulf, takes place in Denmark, a divorce of a people from its mythic geography that seems to really bother certain writers.  In fact, this lack is responsible for both The Silmarillion and JS&MN.  King Arthur doesn’t work for them for some reason; he’s either too British rather than English—a distinction too arcane for my American mind, but there it is—or too Welsh, and his legend has definitely become too French.  Robin Hood doesn’t work either, for some reason, despite his being safely nestled in the East Midlands.  The tl;dr of all this is that there is no understanding the English mythic imagination when you’re a fat Yank git.)  So Clarke fills JS&MN with her love for England—its people, its cities, and its countryside, especially the North, where she revels in its preindustrial wildness.  And Englishness as a laudatory attribute fills nearly every page.  (More on this can be found over on Wikipedia, but don’t go there until you’ve read/listened to the book, because it’s spoiler central.)

The thing is though, Clarke is smart enough to know that glorifying England, Englishness, Englishmen (emphasis on the “men” there), and king/queen and country has caused a lot of pain for other folks in the world.  So she works very hard to undercut this worship of Englishness, giving strong roles to women, nonwhite, and poor characters, and amplifying their voicelessness in the society of that time through the narrative.  It’s all a genius balancing act, and it all serves to intentionally undercut and deflate the project of England worship that the novel is busily engaged in…

…And yet, Englishness, in the end, wins out.  England remains the hero.  The English countryside itself is instrumental in turning the tide in the final encounter.  Lovely, lush, green, hilly, moor-covered England is still the hero.

Which should be all well and good, but…  Well, I’m just not on board with cheering for England right now. 

I’m a Top Gear fan.  And I watched Jeremy Clarkson’s no-one-is-better-than-us casual racism—as an American I’m spared the overt racism of his other appearances—wax stronger with every season, slowly curdling my affection.  And I watched Brexit throw my expatriate scientist friends’ careers into a tumult and imperil their research.  It was also, more to the point, a triumph of Englishness over the needs of Britishness.  

And here on this side of the pond, I’ve watched a similar dynamic play out, as many Americans have taken to celebrating America—or at least, their mean, small-minded, and resentful notion of it—to the point that pride of place and race have become more important than the principals that make America work.

So I still love JS&MN.  And I think you should read and even love JS&MN.  And zero of what I’ve said in the previous two paragraphs is Susanna Clarke’s fault.  But in JS&MN, a country is a character—the protagonist even. And right now, in 2017, loving a place more than people doesn’t feel that good.

So I’m going to return JS&MN back to the library for another 7 years or so, or maybe for longer.  And the next time I get it out, I hope I’ve fallen back in love with England and America.

Because that is the magic I most want to see.

[urloth]

AU Silmarillion Drabbles 30/50

Prompt: Social

Summary: Bitter winter on a battlefield and all they can do is gossip and wait.

Notes: I have attempted to write a sort of cross over with the very talented @vanimore​‘s amazing fic a few times. This is a part I recently excised out of the fic I am dwadling my way through. It was too much of a diversion and change of scene and didn’t fit the rest of the fic’s tone. It also didnt really work and it was too explination-y. But I didn’t want to just delete it and I feel guilty all the time about not writing more the Silm AU drabbles. 

So this is cheating it I guess. And archiving a bit of writing so I can go back later and pillage it for usable bits.

Warnings: OCs and world building. A unholy mess of two different worlds hitting each other in a way that doesn’t really work at all which is part of why it got taken out. Likely OOC and not really compliant for Vanimore’s fics. That and the tone was too jovial. Be more serious Erevir.

There was a pair of Five Arrows guarding Thranduil’s tent, standing proud. There was shouting inside the tent. Erevir could identify most of the lords inside thanks to it. Thranduil had bid them to wait, even invited them to take wine and sit within the tent until it was their turn.

Erevir was fine outside. Away from the yelling and the inevitable stares and accusations of being Gil-Galad’s spy. The weather was fine and the Five Arrows were quiet and interesting company. Erevir liked the Five Arrows. They were the least likely to become offended if their hallowing reacted to them and more likely to just be amused.

It was a change from the Thindar who were usually given the honour of guarding the royal tent. Given or who had edged out others, whichever it was. Greenwood was a political and racially complicated mess. 

These guards were wearing the hardened leather armour over soft hides that Erevir was used to seeing them wear. What was new was the colours of Greenwood bright in their cloaks, the sigils clear and proud upon their chests.

Thranduil was honouring Oropher’s promise to the Five Arrows who came from the marshiest and wettest parts of the deep heart of the forest. For years, Erevir had heard, scholars had wondered where the people the kingdom of Doriath had called the sawadhrim; the filth people, had made their home when Doriath and the Laiquendi would not give them any space in their own lands. Then Oropher had found them.

Erevir knew the settling of the Greenwood had not been the most comfortable thing. There were more than just the Five Arrows spread through the expansive forests, and Tatyar within the mountain in the centre to boot. The political gymnastics Oropher had performed were impressive but instilled prejudice against Five Arrows had been hard to break.

It was… it was good. Yes it was good that Thranduil was continuing Oropher’s sometimes bloodily stubborn push to have the Five Arrows brought into the union of peoples that he had cobbled into his court and country.

Three years of fighting, Erevir remembered dim gossip by campfires. Three years of fighting for him had been what Oropher had asked in exchange for enshrining complete protection of the Five Arrows in his laws.

He had even signed those laws before Greenwood’s armies had moved out as a sign of good faith.

They were four years in now, and the war had not indicated when it would end and how.

There would be no forcing them to undesirable areas of the forest. They would have their own Lord in the Council and most importantly they would have their own name. They were Five Arrows and the king himself would lay grievances against those that used that other, long hurtful name.

Erevir hoped what they saw meant that Thranduil had taken his father’s word as his own.

They hoped Sawadhrim would not be an acceptable name for them within what would not be Thranduil’s realm. It was a terrible name. Instinct said that the nature of humans meant another, just as painful, name would be found by those who would not let their minds be changed.

Well the Five Arrows would likely deal with that themselves. Utumno and Angbad had gifted many of them with the jaw strength similar to the orcs they had crawled their way back to elf form from, generation after painful generation; changeling child by changeling child. Better teeth though.

Better looking teeth.

The right sided guard turned his head, seemingly unaffected by the glare of the sun on the winter ground into his face, dark tattoos of plants found near Greenwood’s heart framing his face. His companion had a fine twisted set of lines over his nose and cheeks, well displayed when he turned to look where his fellow guard looked, that Erevir wanted to say was perhaps a star-chart but was unwilling to commit. Who really knew.

An Ithiledhil walked past them. There was nothing unusual to them asides the usual. Erevir found themselves both overwhelmingly drawn to the Ithiledhril and utterly repelled. Thus they kept their distance. Anything with two different extremes of reactions was likely bad for their general health. They kept their distance and just watched... listened to the distant song of something that was carried in their fea as a flower carries pollen.

As for the guards… well Five Arrows and Ithiledhil, as far as they knew, simply ignored one another with a skill that was pure artistry.

There was only the slightest narrowing of eyes and a very subtle tension in the guards as the pale, strong figure crossed before them, and the song Erevir heard hissing through the cool air was one of flame white hot and cold.

Then it happened.

There was a patch of ice, hidden under mud that had not frosted over from the underlying chill.

The Ithiledhil stood on it…and slipped. Down he went. Straight down onto his arse with a squelch enough for them to hear across the way from him. His hair, it flew in the air from his high tail like a rippling peace banner. The colour was so pale and beautiful.

And the mud was very dark as that hair fluttered downwards and crossed paths with it.

From the Five Arrows came a sudden pure and golden joy. Erevir shivered from the strength of it as it passed through their bones and warmed all the places that had been chilled by the grey misery of winter. This happiness was so innocent and so sublime. It shimmered in the air and both the Five Arrows were, for a moment, transcendentally beautiful and Erevir was drawn to that like a proverbial moth.

“If I die tomorrow I go into the darkness fulfilled,” the one on the right said with great satisfaction and a great wave of contentment, his lips curled in a smile that revealed too many teeth, and not all of them quite in the configuration expected of elves. But Erevir was grinning back, so hard their cheeks were starting to twinge, and all because of this singular moment of joy.

It was not the right thing to enjoy the misfortune of others but where else would they ever feel this perfect happiness here in Baradur?

“A sight not to be repeated.”

“Ah and he heard us,” the left commented. The Ithiledhil had found his footing, refusing them the further viewing of his slipping and sliding in the mud. No he had righted himself on the first try to the disappointment of his audience of three, and had turned to stare at them.

The Five Arrows’ smiles became fixed, disagreeable emotion displacing that glorious happiness. The right had eyes flecked like bloodstone and the pupils were pulled into tight thin lines, the left had eyes more amber with sharp petals of crimson exploding out from around his thin pupils. Neither dropped eye contact but it was the left guard that slowly and deliberately let the filmy white of his second eyelids slide over his eyes in a lazy blink.

The Ithiledhil turned on his heel without a word and walked away.

Disatisfaction from the left guard and bitter amusement from the right.

“Stone cold bastards,” Left said.

“Ah they aren’t so bad if you pretend they don’t exist,” Right straightened his stance, his shoulders having almost crept out of perfect alignment.

“They cant even die and give us a funeral to watch properly,” Left complained, “no fun at all.”

“Master-Healer Lindlaer of the third mounted patrol was having a fling with one of them for a while, actually from before the war since third mounted had that region in their circuit,” Erevir supplied, “ended it last month. The fallout has been quiet enough, but kept most of the Healer Corps entertained.”

“There you go,” Right said to Left, “you can pester Pethras for details. He is apprenticed to that Healing Lord now. He should know enough to satisfy your strange fetish for Ithiledhil.”

Left made a gesture that was both obscene and demonstrative of his opinion of Right. Erevir had their interest wetted though. Five Arrows distrusted the Healing House, Lord Lithwaloth had, had trouble getting them to accept healers placed amongst them, and Pethras was a name they knew; he was one the Five Arrows’ more prominent shaman.

“I feel like I know the name Lindlaer,” Left mused.

“He’s the one who keeps having affairs with the sort of men who don’t take the end of those affairs well and make very public shows of it,” Erevir supplied, “the Lord of the Red Maple tried to kill him in the middle of a court service is the most famous example I think.”

There had been about three hadn’t there?

The incident of the Ithiledhil in the Night would never surpass that incident. Erevir had been living in Lindon and it had been the first thing anyone had mentioned in their letters to them for a season. Then the news of it had completely stopped.

 Greenwood’s Healing House protected its own.

Lord Healer Lithwaloth tended to crack down on gossip that exceeded acceptable parameters of the noisy air Healers seemed to need as much as food and more than sleep.

“Ah,” a nod.

Poor Master Lindlaer, you could be a master healer and a leading mind of your speciality and all people remembered was your torrid and turbulent love life. Though in Lindlaer’s defence he never slept with married men…which had also been the reason for so much of his laundry being aired publicly.

There was such a thing as being too beautiful it seemed. And Master Lindlaer was very beautiful. Enough to make Erevir wonder if, when this current furor had died down a little, they might see if his bedroll was feeling empty.

“The Lords have quieted,” Right noted, “maybe they’ll finish and you can go in out of the cold and speak your business.”

Someone suddenly swore and called another lord’s father a name that made Erevir rock back a little. Even the Five Arrows who likely knew black speech, blinked and though they did not break their positions, Right mouthed what they had all just heard. Erevir’s ears blushed just at the repeat. What had been the use of living in a brothel for ten years, they wondered sometimes.

“Never mind,” Left cast eyes to Erevir, “it would please me to hear more about the Master-Healer Lindlaer’s current predicament.”

[elesianne]

A Silmarillion fanfic

Summary: The problem with sneaking into dark corners is that you can never know what, or who, you might find there…

Tag-type thingies: rating: Teenage audiences and up; relationships: Turgon/Elenwë, Maedhros/Fingon; some keywords: romance, family, (not actually very) secret relationship, mention of sex, some humour, years of the trees

A/N: This one-shot that I wrote when I should have been working on a chapter of my ongoing longer fic marks the first time I've written any Maedhros/Fingon – it is something I am frankly terrified of doing because I have read so many fantastic fics about them. Best start small, I thought, so here is a silly, tropey little thing where they make an appearance. I freely admit to having been influenced by the many wonderful Maedhros/Fingon writers whose stories I have read.

Warning: There is a scene where a possibility of discrimination based on sexual orientation is implied, a possibility which is not realised in this story.

Scriptorium=a room where texts are copied. Turukáno/Turno=Turgon, Findekáno/Finno=Fingon, Nelyafinwë/Maitimo=Maedhros.

*

Cornered

'Please, my darling, I have missed you so, and we have spent barely any time alone together after I returned from my visit to Taniquetil. Let us just have a little while to ourselves in some quiet place. No one will even notice that we are gone.'

Turukáno glances around, his gaze pausing on his father and grandfather in the centre of the celebrating crowd before settling back on his golden-haired betrothed. He seems conflicted and a little uncomfortable, but his eyes are soft when he looks down at Elenwë.

'It is late, and most people at this party are drunk.' She continues her coaxing in a low, sweet voice that carries the merest hint of laughter. 'You and I have both done our duties – spoken with all the important people, danced with many enough partners to appear courteous and social – and your grandmother has already told me that she has no more need of me tonight. No one will miss us.'

'The palace is full of guests. Where are you suggesting we should go?' asks Turukáno with an air of still considering it, but Elenwë knows she has already won.

She smiles at him radiantly and tells him that she recently noticed a little nook behind a large statue on the second floor that should be a marvellous place for a private moment...

And it is indeed an excellent spot for some discreet kissing, Turukáno and Elenwë discover; unfortunately, they find this out by quite literally bumping into another couple who happen to agree on the suitability of this location.

It is Turukáno who discovers the two other lovers as he backs into the shadowy corner while pulling Elenwë to him to kiss her passionately, having finally given free rein to the ardour he has kept hidden behind a proper facade all night.

The other couple are equally engrossed in each other, so neither party realises the other's presence until Turukáno backs into someone else's back; both of them let out a cry of surprise, and then, recognising one another's voices, speak at the same time.

'Turno?'

'Findekáno?'

'Oh, no', says a third male voice, rather desperately.

Elenwë thinks she recognises it. 'Nelyafinwë? What are you doing here?'

There is no answer, only scrambling noises.

Confused, Elenwë cranes around Turukáno's tall form to see her future brother-in-law and his cousin and best friend, prince Fëanáro's eldest son. They are standing as far apart as is possible in the narrow space. Findekáno looks like he's struggling not to laugh, while Nelyafinwë looks like he wishes he were anywhere else.

And it might be the dim light playing tricks on her, but she rather thinks that they both appear flushed, their clothes look crumpled and... overall they have that look on them that Elenwë has seen on Turukáno, and in her own mirror, many times since they became engaged and were allowed some private moments. A well-kissed look, that's what she calls it.

On both Findekáno and Maitimo, hiding together behind a statue in a spot made for kissing.

She knows, of course, that Findekáno and Maitimo are very close, the best of friends despite their fathers' disagreements. She has also heard some of the other ladies-in-waiting whisper and giggle about them, implying that there was something else, perhaps an unconfirmed but entertaining rumour, about those two princes that Elenwë doesn't know. They have refused to explain it to her even though she's asked them to, and it has been one of the things that sometimes makes her, a Vanya among the Noldor, feel like an outsider.

Well, she has the explanation now.

All of this flickers through her mind within the space of a few seconds, and once she has come to the inevitable conclusion she finds herself the most collected of the four of them. The three men are just staring each other, Findekáno still stifling a laugh while Turukáno has turned almost as red as Maitimo. Elenwë observes that Turukáno does not appear particularly surprised, though, not like she is.

Elenwë clears her throat and says, very politely, to Findekáno and Maitimo, 'We are very sorry for disturbing your private moment. We did not know there was anyone here.'

It is her betrothed who first replies to her. 'El –'

Turukáno doesn't seem to know what more to say, and he sounds rather pained, so Elenwë takes his hand before turning to Findekáno and Maitimo with a soft smile. 'I dare say that I have stumbled upon a family secret. Don't worry; I will keep it as I intend to keep all secrets of Finwë's house that I learn. Now, I believe it is time for Turukáno and me to leave and go find a quiet spot of our own. Please do accept our apologies for disturbing you.'

She tugs at Turukáno's hand but he is still frozen in place, now studying her with a worried expression. She can see a fierce defensiveness in his eyes as well. 'Are you not shocked?' he asks in a low voice.

'A little.' Elenwë notices Findekáno reach out to Maitimo and place a hand in his; she watches the anxiety in Maitimo's eyes abate as he twines his fingers around Findekáno's, and he no longer looks like he would rather be elsewhere.

Elenwë continues, 'I will get over my surprise; it is no matter. I will not object to anyone else's happiness or affection, not when I have so recently found my own and realised how precious it is.'

'I told you not to worry, brother', says Findekáno approvingly. 'I knew she would understand. In spite of all your starchiness you would not choose a woman without generosity of heart.'

'Thank you, Findekáno.' Elenwë nods at him and he nods back, a half-unravelled gold ribbon in his hair glinting as a shard of light from a distant wall sconce hits it. She continues, 'Do accept our apologies. Turukáno, darling, let us go now; I believe we would all like some privacy.'

Now Maitimo speaks for the first time. 'Of course we accept your apologies, but you do not need to leave on our account. Findekáno and I can go –'

'No, you were here first, we will leave', says Turukáno in the only slightly stiff voice he uses with family, and Elenwë stifles a giggle at how he retains his sense of honour even at a moment like this.

'Good night, Turno, I will see you in the morning. Elenwë, I believe you are dining with our family tomorrow evening?' Findekáno appears little affected by this encounter.

'Yes, I will see you then. Good night, Findekáno, Maitimo.'

Elenwë pulls her still-embarrassed betrothed along as she steps around the statue, leaving the two other men alone in the shadows. They can hear her telling Turukáno, 'Do not look so crushed, dear, it wasn't so bad.'

'I was kissing you when I backed into my brother! Yes it was bad, it was very bad...'

Findekáno smiles fondly as the two voices, one soothing and the other grumbling, grow fainter. Maitimo groans and leans against the wall. Findekáno stands on tiptoe to press a placating kiss on his forehead, and he glares at Findekáno, half balefully and half desirously.

'I would never have agreed to kiss you in a place this public if you hadn't plied me with wine all evening', he complains. 'See what comes of indiscretion?'

Findekáno waves his beloved's complaint aside. 'My brother is marrying Elenwë in a little over a year's time. She is going to be family, and she was going to find out eventually, one way or another. So think of it like this: now it is over with, and we don't need to worry about it. About her.'

'I just wish that she found out in a little more… dignified manner.' Maitimo shifts uncomfortably while Findekáno just grins.

'Think of how much more undignified it could have been – at least we were wearing all of our clothes.'

'Just barely.' Maitimo meticulously smooths out his overrobe that Findekáno had scrunched up to his waist before they were surprised. Findekáno eyes his movements with disapproval.

'Don't take too much care with that. Because next we are going to get out of here and find somewhere where we can get thoroughly undignified, aren't we?' Findekáno is still grinning, and as so often, Maitimo is struck by a desire to kiss that wide grin.

But he is still embarrassed. 'I'm not sure about that, Finno, your brother and his bride went elsewhere to leave this spot to us. Wouldn't it be wrong for us to leave too?'

'Why am I surrounded by idiots with an overdeveloped sense of honour?' Findekáno rolls his eyes. 'Let me put it this way, Maitimo, my dearest idiot: would you rather stay here and dare to barely even kiss me for fear of discovery, or find an empty room with a door that locks and let me do all kinds of undignified things to you, and with you, and –'

'Shh! Someone could hear.' Maitimo, blushing so riotously that Findekáno can see it even though he is now blocking all the light, puts his hand on Findekáno's mouth.

Findekáno licks it.

Maitimo groans. 'I think the scriptorium is closest.'

[thecosydragon]

My latest blog post from the cosy dragon: Interview with JW Golan

An Interview with JW Golan, author of the Stormfall Chronicles

What is your favourite Dragon in literature?

I will name two favourites: very different dragons, with very different reasons for appreciating each of them.

On the one extreme was the dragon Glaurung from J.R.R. Tolkien’s the Silmarillion. Glaurung was everything that you should expect from an evil, malicious dragon of legend. He was not just a great, fire-breathing monster, but a crafty, greedy, manipulator who took delight in how much misery he could inflict on others. Glaurung was the perfect embodiment of what an malicious dragon antagonist should be.

At the opposite extreme, were Anne McCaffrey’s dragons of Pern, who were depicted as partners with humanity with individual personalities of their own. Among the dragons of Pern, Ruth stands out by virtue of his intelligence and practical sense.

Why did you choose to become an author? What drove you to devote the hours needed to produce and polish a book?

As someone who has published both non-fiction, through a traditional publishing house, and fantasy as an indie author, I can say that in both instances I wrote because I had something that needed to be said. In both examples, there was a story that needed to be told, a story which fate had chosen myself to relay. In a very real sense, I was merely the conduit for its retelling. The story was already there, struggling to get outside. My only responsibility was to relay the tale to the best of my ability.

From among your published novels, is there one that is your own personal favourite?

I have released or will soon have released the first two installments in the Stormfall Chronicles. Comparing between the first two books, my beta-readers have concurred that the second novel is the better of the two. The first novel in the series really lays the foundation for everything that follows, and is a relatively short read – 300 pages in paperback versus 497 for the second book. The second book in the series, on the other hand, is where the tale rises to become an Epic Fantasy and not merely a High Fantasy.

Everyone has a ‘first novel’, even if many of them are a rough draft relegated to the bottom and back of your desk drawer (or your external harddrive!). Have you been able to reshape yours, or have you abandoned it for good?

My first attempt at crafting a fantasy novel came when I was in high school, decades ago. There are certainly elements and characters from that era which have remained with me and which found their way into my current series of fantasy novels, the Stormfall Chronicles. Many of those characters and elements, however, have evolved and changed over the years.

One of the reappearing characters of the Stormfall Chronicles, for example, is Eirlon. In his original incarnation, Eirlon was depicted as a powerful human mage. In his current incarnation, however, I have retained the character as a sage, whose knowledge and wisdom prove invaluable, but I have downplayed his own magical capabilities and have cast him as a gnome to further de-emphasize his role. On many levels, he has been overshadowed by other characters in the story. The result, I believe, is a more nuanced portrayal and overall story development.

Over the years, what would you say has improved significantly in your writing?

The most important changes in my writing abilities and style over the years have come from changes in perspective. When you’re experimenting with writing fantasy fiction as a high school student, your writing style and area of focus will naturally be heavily influenced by the novels and sources which you have most recently read.

With time, however, comes distance. And with distance comes perspective: the ability to see the larger picture of the story and how different story-telling techniques and elements can affect the reader’s experience. You become more self-aware as a writer, which places you in a better position to combine story-telling techniques and plot elements from a wider variety of influences.

Some authors are able to pump out a novel a year and still be filled with inspiration. Is this the case for you, or do you like to let an idea percolate for a couple of years in order to get a beautiful novel?

The Stormfall Chronicles was, for me, percolating for some time. The story combines some elements that I had experimented with decades ago, and others of more recent pedigree. So while it still takes me many months to compose and polish each novel, the story-arc which connects them was really developing across a decade or more.

The second novel in the series will be released in December of 2019, for example, eleven months after the first. And I’ve already begun the first draft for the third book. I’m expecting the original characters and story-arc to span a total of four novels, with material still remaining for both a prequel, and a stand-alone sequel set decades into the future.

So I suppose that for me, the ideas need to develop for some number of months or years, before the elements are mature enough to set the stories down.

I have heard of writers that could only write in one place – then that cafe closed down and they could no longer write! Where do you find yourself writing most often, and on what medium (pen/paper or digital)?

As a parent with a full-time job, I find myself writing whenever and wherever I can. Over lunch, at the table at home, while waiting for my daughters to untack their horses at the barn, wherever I happen to be.

I usually try to get my first draft down in digital form so I can begin to edit it, but it sometimes doesn’t work that way. If I have a particular scene that’s been brewing in my mind and nagging me to write it down, I’ll sometimes just write it out with pen and paper if I don’t the laptop at the time.

For editing, however, I always prefer paper medium. I need a quiet place where I can review and mark-up the printed copy, a process which will be repeated countless times before any scene is ready for my beta-reviewers to read.

Before going on to hire an editor, most authors use beta-readers. How do you recruit your beta-readers, and choose an editor? Are you lucky enough to have loving family members who can read and comment on your novel?

My teenage daughters, and in particular my two older daughters, have been my beta-readers for the Stormfall Chronicles since the beginning. They were really the audience whom I was aiming at when I wrote, and there are elements in the books that grew out of their personal experiences or the experiences of their close friends. Their added perspective has been invaluable, pointing out areas where I needed to add explanations, or scenes, or where additional atmosphere or character development was needed.

As for editing, my first published book was non-fiction, published in hardcover through a traditional publisher. It was an historical recounting dealing with a particular chapter of the Cold War era, and was ultimately published by a university press. Producing and editing a book for that audience was an exacting process. I went through countless revisions to get the manuscript ready for submission to the copy editor – who is expected to be the final step in the editing process. The copy editor is the one who formats the manuscript for the printer. If they find the manuscript to insufficiently polished as of that stage, they are expected to reject the text – not edit it for the author.

From that experience, I came away with an appreciation for how much editing and review was needed to prepare a manuscript for publication. I knew that if I could polish a scholarly manuscript until it was up to a university’s publishing standards, then doing the same for a fantasy novel should prove easily within my reach.

I walk past bookshops and am drawn in by the smell of the books – ebooks simply don’t have the same attraction for me. Does this happen to you, and do you have a favourite bookshop? Or perhaps you are an e-reader fan… where do you source most of your material from?

As someone who grew up with book shops and printed books, from before the digital age, there is a certain nostalgia for the printed medium. There are a number of book shops that I have fond memories of, most of which are long gone. I’ve had to learn to adapt to the e-reader medium, and have read a number of novels in that fashion now. But for certain books there will never be a substitute for having a hardbound or paperback copy on my shelf.

I used to find myself buying books in only one genre (fantasy) before I started writing this blog. What is your favourite genre, and have your tastes changed over time?

If I’m reading purely for entertainment, then I have an appreciation for both fantasy and science fiction – depending on what mood I am in.

I appreciate fantasy for its ability to transport us away from the everyday cares of the world we live in. That escape is a large part of I want out of fiction. I have to deal with enough real world consequences in my day job – and expect the fiction that I read to be worlds apart.

Conversely, I appreciate certain science fiction works, for their ability to comment on the world in which we live – and how technology has created new challenges and questions which humanity is still struggling to face. Which is why I am less drawn to the “space opera” genre, and more drawn to stories with a message about the world in which we live or may soon be facing.

For me, both fantasy and science fiction have a place – but with very different expectations and roles.

Social media is a big thing, much to my disgust! I never have enough time myself to do what I feel is a good job. What do you do?

Most of my social media energy is focused on either my blog page, or my Facebook page – the latter of which often mirrors whatever I have most recently posted to my blog. I do have an author’s Twitter account, but I make minimal use of it in comparison. I prefer both Facebook and the blog page, because they allow me to write at more length and in greater depth on the topics at hand.

I try to post an update at least once per week. If I’m in the midst of writing the next novel, I will usually post short articles describing my progress, or my observations about the writing process or perhaps about publishing in general. I did try to take a couple of months off between when I finished the first novel and when I started on the second, to catch up on other things which I wanted to do. Things like reviewing a novel or two, reviewing whatever anime I had been watching with my daughters, or writing short stories.

Answering interview questions can often take a long time! Tell me, are you ever tempted to recycle your answers from one to the next?

Although there is probably a certain amount of overlap in some of the general questions, I have been gratified to see many new or unique questions being raised. Coming at topics from different angles helps us to keep the subject fresh and allows for perspectives which might not otherwise have been added.

About the Author

A writer, father, and aeronautical engineer, J.W. Golan lives in New England together with his wife and three daughters.

The opportunity to write fantasy stories was once a youthful dream of his – something that he first experimented with in high school. In the intervening years, however, life happened: university, jobs, marriage, and children. Although he never completely ceased writing, he also had neither the time nor excess energy to complete a full-length novel.

It was his three daughters who reintroduced him to the world of fantasy fiction. Literature was something that all of them could share, discuss and compare – together with other fantasy and literary influences. He was able to introduce some of his favorites to his daughters, and they in turn, introduced him to some of theirs.

It was this latter experience, sharing and discussing stories and literature, that convinced him to try his hand at composing fantasy novels once again: weaving together tales and ideas that had been circulating in his mind for decades. It is his hope hope that the resulting stories and characters are as fun for others to read as they were for him to write.

from https://ift.tt/2S59yg0