#i cannot make this shit up. i want to die

[aran-morinorea]

Tar-Telepta, Aran Morinórea: I want to hear about Annatar's Shit Paradigms, of course :D

...All right so here's the thing you don't get Annatar's Shit Paradigms because it needed so much groundwork before I can begin to write actual prose. But you do get this whole thing describing Annatar's interiority in the months after The Inciting Event for the whole au. Because I needed to pin it down so I can even start Annatar's Shit Paradigms.

--

Celebrimbor confronts Annatar - Tar-Mairon - about his activities in Mordor, gives him the “Your evil plans or me” ultimatum, and then Mairon fucks off to go have a tantrum.

This tantrum involves: 

Going back to Barad-dur and killing some people who definitely 100% deserved it for sure. 

That thing where someone goes to a bathroom and splashes water on their face and looks in the mirror while leaning on the sink except it’s lava instead of water. 

Laying facedown in the fires of Mount Doom and rethinking his life. 

Causing multiple earthquakes. 

...Thinking about the joy of watching Celebrimbor learn and make things. 

Thinking about the satisfaction of working in partnership with someone else, someone as vibrant and strong and smart and wonderful as Celebrimbor. 

Thinking about going and taking Celebrimbor by force, laying siege to Ost-in-Edhil and putting him in chains and bringing him here and keeping him.

… Thinking about how strong and vibrant and stubborn and principled Celebrimbor is. 

Thinking about whether Celebrimbor would be one of those people who would rather die than live as a thrall. 

Realizing that yes, Celebrimbor absolutely would die for what he believes in, and it would be so much work to try keep his spirit around, and it wouldn’t be nearly the same as having him - really having him - having him to work and argue and play with - having his love.

Remembering that Celebrimbor still doesn’t know about the Sauron thing, and he might be able to keep it that way.

Remembering that Celebrimbor did not cast him out of his life unequivocally - he will not be the friend or lover of a slaver and an imperialist, but if Mairon takes steps to stop being those things -

Thinking about how hard it would be, really, to stop being those things.

Realizing he’s genuinely considering just giving up on the vision of Melkor.

Spontaneously filling the whole room with flames.

That was the throne room. He’d been sitting there, motionless and completely unresponsive, for four days.

There might have been people in there who will be annoying to replace. Mairon simply cannot care about it right now.

Remaining on fire while thinking about Melkor’s promises.

He said it was only a matter of time.

He said it would be better to put the rightful king on the throne of Arda quickly, and get back to the business of metals and fractals, than to fight a long defeat and be judged unworthy at the end, never having time for beauty again.

And then He lost.

Three times out of four.

As soon as the Valar bothered to interfere.

And maybe, at the end, after the final battle, it would be better, safer, to have been working toward His purposes the whole time He was gone, but -

Thinking about what would happen if the Valar bothered to interfere with his current projects.

…Thinking about how hard it would be, really, to be - in truth, even, maybe! - someone Celebrimbor could love.

How hard would it be to act within the boundaries of Celebrimbor’s principles?

He did not say “Believe what I believe.”

He did not say “Cease to be a monster.”

He said “Your policies are monstrous and I cannot support them,” which suggests that it is the action that matters most to him. That the problem is what he is doing, and not what he is.

Changing that does not seem so hard.

Perhaps it will be a fun challenge, like an arbitrary restriction for a jewelcraft competition.

And really - if anyone is going to change him - if he’s going to accept anyone’s judgement - if there’s anyone currently in Arda who Mairon thinks is right - would it not be Celebrimbor?

Of course it would.

Deciding that, you know what, Mairon would be willing to commit to Celebrimbor’s vision - if Celebrimbor will fucking commit to him.

This is so Mairon can keep him.

So that they will twine their souls together and be - be that partnership which is so full of joy.

Deciding that if Celebrimbor won’t do it - if he wants “Annatar” to give him this without giving anything in return - then - yes.

Then he will find another way to keep him. 

And it would not be as good, it would not be Mairon’s shining vision, but it would be something. And eventually Celebrimbor would see the value in Mairon’s methods. He’s sure of it.

When he’s finally done with his tantrum, Annatar climbs out of the magma-filled crevasse he'd been sulking in and goes up to draft the words to a wedding proposal.

[thefinalwitness]

i don't know if it's because i started playing mmorpgs with one whose fanbase was generally HOSTILE to people becoming invested in their characters as fully fledged members of the story being told (insane, i know), but one thing that environment DID teach me is how to bend the canon story to MY needs and the needs of the character i wanted to play, and i see a lot of ffxiv players, specifically those very invested in the "rpg" part, that don't... seem to grasp this idea?

i instead see a lot of (joking and serious) demands that the wol be portrayed differently in the source material, that we hug more characters, scream and cry over more events, and i think the mismatch happening here is you're supposed to WRITE IN any of those moments or divergences yourself. the portrayal of the wol cannot meet everyone's expectations about who the wol should be; they are, within the game, a narrative tool, as all characters in a story are. they serve a function in order to progress the story squeenix has chosen to tell.

but things like dialogue choices and an ambiguous timeline are MEANT to provide YOU with the option to rewrite the details yourself. they can't possibly provide every way every wol could react, so it's up to YOU to put an asterick in things and say, ok, this is how this scene went in MY version...

and the same is true of how other npcs treat your wol! op is completely right: the formula squeenix used in ARR is "you are an adventurer, and adventurers typically agree to crazy dangerous shit for money, and that's the agreement you and the scions began with". i think minfilia saying "we are family" is a two-fold thing: one, i think minfilia DOES care about you more than the average employer of an adventurer, just because she cares about people in general.

(the secret second reason is, if you were a 1.0 player, she RECOGNIZES YOU in ARR and thus already has a particular relationship and bond with you. ARR is weird because, if you're a 1.0 wol transferred to 2.0, you get lots of different story beats to reflect that—but also, a couple of those beats seem to persist in the non-1.0-transferred version of the story? remember when cid said you gave him his goggles despite never doing that in 2.0? yeah.)

but all of that is just the baseline, default version of a story YOU are meant to and encouraged to rewrite as needed. your wol WASNT the typical die-for-money-or-glory adventurer? you can rewrite the reasons the scions sought your character out, AND their treatment of that character to reflect the new circumstances! that's what an rpg IS: you MAKE the story YOURS.

to be fair to the scions regarding their arguable lack of concern for your wellbeing, despite minfilia's 'we are a family' hr spiel in arr they clearly hired* you in your function as an adventurer, people who by canon die like flies and who's job is to do the worst and most dangerous things ever for glory and shit money and maybe some used shoes. somehow i don't really blame them for taking you at your word. you clearly are off your nuts already

*allegedly we are paid

[questionably-audhd-oracle]

Catch me spiraling on this cloudy Tuesday morning because everything that comes out of my mouth is the Wrong Thing and I never used to be this shit at socializing but that’s only because I never actually socialized before so now I’m realizing for the first time how little I get social cues and I am throwing jokes out that I think are funny or imitating other people’s forms of humor but they always fall flat and I thought I was doing it right?? But I never am, and I think I would rather have my vocal chords surgically removed than ever see any of my college friends or boyfriend again

[wetpapert0wel]

i can just feel that my computer is about to kick it. firefox makes my cpu usage jump from 10% to 70% just by loading a single page.

[sherlock-is-ace]

.

[waywardsalt]

alright because it is now a list,

list of characters i want (need) to draw gore of:

My Elden Ring Tarnished

Linebeck

[faithfromanewperspective]

need a private tumblr to be an outlet for feelings had while activisming

[cloudd-nyne]

Bleh.

[cetoddle]

i know i just remade but maybe i’ll just delete completely. i lowkey hate it here

[ikishima]

.

[iknowwhereyousleepatnight]

i feel like i’m wasting my time on schoolwork that i ultimately don’t care about when i could be taking pictures of bugs and drawing yaoi and discussing what kind of lingerie light yagami would like based on his sense of fashion and personality

[widevibratobitch]

.

[bonebrokebuddy]

Aw man, just reread my document I wrote on my speculation on how the metagene works & how modern DC could rewrite it to being a result of retroviruses & transposons and man, I really wish I finished that post.

Unfortunately, the reason I stopped was explaining it all down to the point where someone with little genetic knowledge could still understand it proved to be too lengthy and long winded of a task.

Maybe one day I’ll pour myself back into research & finish that speculative paper. Bc I had a whole fun idea that relied on that background information that was about the Daily Planet reporting on the discovery of an entire city of metas with similar meta abilities. The town faced such high levels of radiation and contamination, only the population with the meta gene survived:(

[flippedorbit]

do you want me to fucking go off on you? do you truly fucking want that mother?

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

i think it would be a lot easier to examine the morality and effectiveness of setrákus' cause (spoiler alert: It's Bad), and the irl worldviews/rhetoric it's critiquing, if the books came out and acknowledged that the entity:

a) is working from the exact same fundamental principles, just glowier and prettier and has Nicer Neighborhoods about it, and ultimately gets away with it, and

b) in its own right is just plain fucking evil

[nonbinaryphantom]

ive been putting way too much lore into reaper au especially stuff like reaper biology/abilities and psuedo reaper abilities