#meta: er

[addictedtostorytelling]

Hi, aj!

How are you?

This will be about ER. Who is your favorite character and why?

hi, anon!

i'm well! how are you doing?

honestly, i have a hard time deciding on one single favorite character on er, just because a) there are so many characters i absolutely adore (mark, susan, carter, benton, lucy, and neela among them), and b) my answer tends to change based on the era.

that said, forced to choose, i'd say my all-time favorite er character is abby lockhart.

while certainly there are some parts of abby's storyline i enjoy more than others—i've never really liked any of her canon romances, tbh—in terms of her personality and overall arc, i find her so endlessly compelling.

given what her background is, she reads exactly as she ought to.

she is so real and three-dimensional and dynamic!

watching the way she evolves over the course of her nine years on the show is one of the great delights of er's later seasons for me.

and, of course, maura tierney is such a consummate actress! i can only imagine that had she not been in direct competition with west wing-era allison janney for most of her er career, she probably would have much more major award show hardware on her mantel for this role.

just on a pure character design level, i love abby's wry, sardonic sense of humor; that she is a fellow minnesotan and has that "well, i guess this may as well happen—" kind of fatalistic midwestern outlook; how she occasionally is possessed of a streak of "bored housecat" naughtiness; how deeply she cares about her patients and will go out on limbs for them, oftentimes literally; her complicated relationships with her family members; how steel-trap clever she is; the way she struggles with her self-esteem; how she has to really work to initially find her confidence and speak up but then becomes such a firebrand (and sometimes rebel) in the department; her love for dead flowers; her deadpan comedic scenes; that she has some of the deepest, most fleshed-out female friendships on the show (particularly with kerry and neela); the way she so often self-sabotages and then has to deal with the consequences but always does deal with them, however roughshod the effort; how she gradually overcomes her hard start in life and eventually grows into this really graceful, wise, centered person, both professionally and personally; etc., etc., etc.

i also love that her story isn't a linear one: that she starts and stalls, not only along her path to becoming a doctor but also with her own recovery from alcoholism and her mental health issues; her interpersonal relationships and her struggles with her own self-doubt.

the way she is written is remarkable in a good way.

she is allowed to make mistakes to a degree that few female main characters on primetime television ever are—to fuck up royally and even at times be downright unlikeable—and yet she is also allowed to progress, however slowly and unevenly, and to grow.

to me, her long-in-coming triumphs are that much sweeter and more earned because of her numerous setbacks and failings along the way. you really do travel a wending road with her, and by the time you reach the end of it, the destination is so welcome.

there are multiple abby-centric episodes that are among my favorites of the whole series, including episodes 07x07 "rescue me," 10x12 "nicu," 11x10 "skin," and 14x08 "coming home."

i've said it before, but i have never seen such a well-done character sendoff episode on any series as episode 15x03 "the book of abby," which serves as a bittersweet, beautiful forty-five minute love letter to our much-beloved protagonist as she leaves county general for the last time.

her overall arc is one of the best examples of character development i've ever had the pleasure to watch.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

[beannoss]

So I've been thinking about them:

Specifically I was wondering what the moment was (if there even was a specific moment) that cinched it for Twilight developing feelings for Yor.

[Spoiler warning: this post references manga chapters not yet animated]

I think for Yor it's pretty quick. Like, this moment here:

Not that Yor fell in love with Twilight then (ymmv) or that she's fully aware of her feelings, but it's explicit that she felt connected to him here and attached in meaningful ways.

But for Twilight, it wasn't so clear. For a while I'd kind of decided that it just came over him slowly (and I think there is something to that) and that there wasn't any singular moment which stood out. But that didn't feel quite right. The more I thought about it, the more I thought there were two stand-out moments, only one of which Twilight actually (semi-)clocks.

The first, which I think passes him by entirely, is this:

In my view, this laugh is an entirely authentic response. I think he is, despite himself, delighted by this woman who 1. just unexpectedly saved him from being stabbed, and 2. did it by sending the guy flying across an entire alleyway.

This is accentuated in the anime, I think, by the jaunty, puckish music that makes up the first part of their marriage theme song. I am dying for the reappearance of this music in some fashion, btw, it's so fun and cheeky and I'm hoping foreshadows their vibe after various revelations and particularly when they start working together as Agent Twilight and Thorn Princess:

The second moment for Twilight, I think, is more subtle for all it's more impactful. Or at least, the degree of its importance passed me by on initial read/watch, and I think it's deliberately downplayed by Twilight himself. Because he does actually clock it but if he looks more closely at it, well... then he might have to do something about it. And maybe that something won't comport with what the mission needs, and then what?

It happens when Twilight first bugs Yor, and then poses with Franky as SSS agents to test whether she knows Yuri is with the SSS.

It's clear in the lead up that Twilight recognises he has some feelings about/for Yor, and he doesn't want to spy on her; he doesn't want to mistrust her at all. He has to convince himself to take seriously that she may be a potential threat.

And even then, the convincing only sort of mostly works, because he hesitates again:

Which is, by the way, bananas. At this point, they've been a fake family for maybe a handful of weeks? Twilight is an experienced, accomplished spy with a finely honed and necessary sense of paranoia. Of course he should be suspicious. Her brother is an SSS agent! Canonically, the SSS are both Twilight- and SSS self-described as Twilight's greatest existential threat. It shouldn't be a question whether or not to verify Yor's knowledge here. And yet.

We all know how the rest plays out. He decides that listening in isn't enough, he needs to confront her insofar as he's able. I wrote previously about Twilight's relationship with Anya and the pivotal moment for him in how his view of his relationship with Anya changes based on Anya's (and Endo's) choices. I think a similar thing happens in this scene with Yor.

See, it would have been enough for Yor to continue to deny, continue to not call on Yuri's help, to prove she didn't know, and to put Twilight's mind at ease.

Endo takes it further.

Y'all: THIS IS ABSOLUTELY WILD. It borders on levels of impulsive foolhardiness that Twilight should actually take as a negative for the person playing his wife for Operation Strix. Yor even alludes later to the problems this could cause!

The SSS are indiscriminate; if Yor was facing down actual SSS agents, first assaulting and then threatening them would 100000% land her in custody. Were it not for Yuri, it may even get her disappeared, based on how casually and frequently Yuri references having people executed. It would absolutely put the Forgers at risk, in general and in the implicitly sexist Ostanian society, because if Mrs Forger behaves this way, how does Mr Forger behave? And why can't he control his wife? The Secret Police are not known for their leniency, their modesty, their discerning, their temperateness, their mercy. They are known for the exact opposite of those things. And due to being a spy, Twilight probably knows they're actually much worse than even their public reputation.

And here's Yor saying: you can question me but if you threaten my brother or my husband, I will fucking end you. Bodily.

Of course, it's entirely in keeping with her character, and it's an entirely revealing moment of who she is. And I think this is the moment for Twilight. He's already been trusting her bit by bit, as he says above, intuitively. I'd suggest that maybe even more than that though, Yor taps into something Twilight deeply wants: backup. Someone and somewhere safe. Maybe we could describe a person fulfilling that role in an adult relationship as a partner...?

It's because he doubts his intuition (his wants, his feelings, things he shouldn't be countenancing) that we get to this point where he (overzealously) tests her.

She blows his test right out of the water.

The SSS are basically the group he fears most; this is reiterated throughout the story. He doesn't trust them specifically because of who he is and also just generally. He doesn't trust their judgment. He doesn't share their values or their priorities. He doesn't like them around. He doesn't like them looking. He doesn't like being anywhere near them. (Also, he's right.)

And here's Yor. Not only standing up to them on his behalf but actually going on active defence on his behalf.

(I pause here to note 'on his behalf' is a bit, mm, tricky, since it's actually technically on Loid's behalf and I have Thoughts and Feelings about Twilight & Identity. But for the sake of the impact of this moment on Twilight, we'll take it as writ that in this moment there's no appreciable difference between Twilight and Loid.)

I think from here on out, it's incredibly difficult for Twilight to ever doubt or distrust Yor. He perceives her as firmly in his corner, that if the chips are down — if his worst enemy and his worst fear come knocking — she'll be on his team, unflinchingly. He may not think there will be much she can do (heh.) or much she can offer given the power of the SSS and her civilian status (I reiterate: heh.), but it matters that he believes that she'll be by his side.

And you know what? He's right. She will be.

That isn't something he's had since he was a little boy. Even WISE doesn't seem to offer that to its agents, given Nightfall's thought here:

Twilight's had to rely on himself for decades and now here's this astonishing woman who will threaten the Secret Police for his sake. Of course he trusts Yor. Of course this moment widens the cracks in his barriers. And further: of course those cracks start to reach into those walls deep, deep inside that protect his heart. This is all before getting to other moments, like when he reflects on how Yor is creating a better world in ways he (thinks he) can never aspire to do himself. That she loves Anya openly, freely, with such dedication, to the point of sacrificing her own needs. That she just never gives up, she persists and persists and persists, always doing her best. That she reminds him it's okay to accept peace and to rest. That she wants and tries to take care of him... On and on and on.

Of course we get to this point:

I'm particularly taken with his body language a little later in the scene. He manages to get himself to sitting but he's still sprawled, open, even as he can't wrap his mind around what exactly is happening or why, and he's feeling vulnerable for all that. But at the same time, this is Yor. And she's safe.

In my view, if the Mole Arc hadn't happened immediately between this moment and the earlier where Yor declares herself unhappy, it would have been clearer how much stress he felt specifically due to Yor's apparent sudden unhappiness with their arrangement. The stress got subsumed (conveniently, ahem, Endo) into the stress and violence of the Mole Arc, but I think it rattled him pretty profoundly. It's also additionally why her warm greeting hit him as hard as it did: relief across multiple lines, such that he had to remind himself not to relax, despite Yor's apparent return to normal.

And there may be added layers to Twilight's reactions to Yor's bad moods due to his familial history, as pointed out by @unhappy-sometimes in this post; the inverse, of course, is that Yor's general good-naturedness would add layers to Twilight's sense of security with her. And the apparent loss of that, all the more devastating.

Rounding out the original moment though, I think this in many ways demonstrates the point:

Twilight throws away the bug. That is also wild. It isn't like that bug could only be used on Yor; it wasn't somehow modified to only respond to her person. It was a device that could be used and reused on different targets, on people who actually are worthy of being bugged, etc. But instead of pocketing it for later use, Twilight throws it away.

Actually: he not only throws it away, he crushes it first. Perhaps because he couldn't stand to have that particular device around, the device he used when he doubted Yor?

Seems kind of irrational, Twilight.

Seems kind of telling.

I mentioned my last Twilight meta about his relationship with Anya: in that, I suggest Twilight recognised entering into a compact with Anya, which subtly modifies, for him, the motivations around Strix. I think something like that happens here, too. If Yor is willing to go to such apparent extremes to protect him, he'll do his utmost to protect her.

I've had this meta in my drafts for a while, but I'm chuffed by this panel from the most recent chapter, as it kind of underscores all this by Yor's positioning of herself:

(Of course the point is there isn't a dichotomy: they'll protect each other, as indicated by Yor's if I had to choose: she won't have to choose.)

Back to Twilight, at this point, he can still justify all this as being within mission parameters. Of course he should protect Yor: she is an innocent civilian and if anything happens to her it would threaten Strix. But if/when this line is tested, if/when there comes a point where protecting Yor is actually the option that may put Strix at risk or put him somehow in opposition to WISE, then we'll see.

And more importantly, Twilight will see, too.

[cameronhcwes]

ER (1994-2009)

14.10 — 300 Patients

[medebaki1]

Metadede week 2nd day-first day :3

They dont know what they're doin ૮₍ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ₎ა

[outofangband]

Thoughts on Nan Dungortheb

Thinking more about Nan Dungortheb, the Valley of Dreadful Death. This is the mysterious land in the foothills of the Ered Gorgoroth (Mountains of Terror), where it was rumored Ungoliant and her spawn fled to and lived for some time. Its primary mention in The Silmarillion after that is when Beren travels through it at great peril. We know little about his journey other than that it was a harrowing ordeal.

Here are some headcanons about the valley and its monstrous inhabitants. I had a lot of fun coming up with strange effects. Also thanks to the lovely @rana-temporaria because talking with them made me want to write about more creepy locations

Nan Dungortheb is a meadow steppe with the foothills of the mountains on its Northern border. The river Mindeb ran on the Western border and the river Esgalduin on the east.

It is cold though with higher rainfall than the mountains. Mists are common, both natural and unnatural. The waters on either side of the vale are largely devoid of fish and what species do live in the rivers are inedible

The spiders of Nan Dungortheb are not true spiders of course and their forms vary widely as does their size. Some appear as mere shadows.

The webs themselves are mildly corrosive and slowly kill the trees they are woven between, creating an eerie landscape of hardened skeletons of wood.

The spinning of their webs produces a lulling sound that is used sometimes to lure prey though most of the elves know enough to be wary.

Just like with Glaurung, the toxins created by these creatures can spread throughout surrounding flora and even infect the water. Run off from Ered Gorgoroth can be deadly. Other times it can cause almost psychedelic effects.

The presence of the spiders and other monsters was partially contained by the Girdle of Melian for the enchantment that wove and sang it was one they despised and avoided. Starved of prey, their own numbers began to decline. Some of course escaped East and their original forms began to more clearly resemble the spiders around them.

When Ungoliant’s spawn die, their forms become even less animal like, becoming spots of darkness that distort or even trap light, further impacting the ecology of the land

[shih-coulda-had-it]

FEBUWHUMP | KILLING IN SELF-DEFENSE | WC: 999

a/n: Set in that AU where Sorahiko (Prime Torino) time-travels to AFO and Yoichi's childhood and manages with his B+ parenting skills. TW for ableist language (used in context of this being a very anti-Quirk era) and, well, Sorahiko knifing the guy.

//

If it had been Nana or Toshinori in this position, Sorahiko muses, they would have had a tougher time getting accustomed to the sheer brutality of the era. Their present isn’t perfect, but they at least have the economy and government in working order. This is just chaos, through and through.

People lie, cheat, and steal to make it through the day, and Sorahiko genuinely has no idea how the country’s still managing an influx of goods when it seems like the world is too busy imploding to maintain a trade network.

Not his problem.

He’s got two children to mind. Food and shelter, that’s what he promised them, and he aims to deliver. The latter is a broken-down residential building, empty of any permanent legal inhabitants because of the roaming mobs and people like Sorahiko (squatters).

And as for the former, well. Sorahiko’s working on it.

“You kids want to go to the countryside?” he asks idly. Against his better judgment, he’s had to let them follow him outside the building, because the probability of Chibi-AFO taking his absence as permission to run away is much, much higher than zero. Sorahiko carries the smaller boy on his hip, and Chibi-AFO has the dubious honor of sitting on his shoulders. 

He left the uniform at home, opting for a beat-up denim jacket over his black turtleneck, jeans, and sneakers. The boys have been scrubbed clean(ish), and dressed in better clothes (though when Chibi-AFO’s base standard is a repurposed garbage bag, anything is a massive improvement).

Wandering down a street in broad daylight would have had them clocked as a family. Sorahiko uncomfortably represses the weird twist of his gut, in favor of being grateful that it’s the dead of night, as they are looking for a convenience store to rob.

“What’s that?” the smaller boy asks.

“The countryside? It’s outside the city. Quiet, if you don’t count the bugs, but pretty boring after a while. Lots of green. Probably better food.”

“No,” Chibi-AFO mutters into his hair. “Don’t wanna go.”

He sighs. Part of him--the city boy who much preferred streets of asphalt and plenty of high buildings--agrees with the toddler. The rest of him thinks that Chibi-AFO is simply being contrary. 

Ever since they discovered that Sorahiko can’t be affected by his Quirk-stealing power (it was a downright relief to know that Jet wouldn’t disappear in the middle of the night; it was absolutely hilarious to see Chibi-AFO’s face as his last murder attempt failed to spear Sorahiko’s shin, bouncing off like the black energy was made of rubber), Chibi-AFO’s been pouty and prone to temper tantrums. The smaller boy is awed to see Sorahiko survive every time.

“It’s nicer in the summer,” he says.

“Why?”

Sorahiko considers his memories of going to his grandparents’ house as a child. The backyard garden, the forest surrounding the mountain village, the many terrifyingly large bugs that found cozy homes in his blankets… He clears his throat. “Because it’s worse in the winter.”

“That’s not an answer!”

“Well, what do you know,” Sorahiko drawls, hitching the smaller boy a little higher. “You’re just a baby. I know a lot more than you.”

The specifics of what the boys seemed to know and understand about the world, their life, or even each other remains a total mystery to Sorahiko. They haven’t given him names yet, and he’s not inclined to do anything like renaming them. They don’t know how old they are, and they don’t know the name of the city they were wandering in. They can’t read, and they certainly don’t know how to write.

Chibi-AFO digs his tiny gremlin fingers into Sorahiko’s hair. “Not babies,” he mutters, and Sorahiko is about to jostle the kid when, of all the times and places, a man staggers out of an alley ahead, spots them, and brandishes a familiar whistle.

“Metas,” he snarls.

Sorahiko makes several rapid calculations. The man is sober, not drunk. That means Sorahiko can’t rely on inflicting a simple head concussion to compound any memory issues. Chibi-AFO is tense on his shoulders, and the smaller boy has instinctively made himself smaller, even as he clutches one of his brother’s ankles.

“Move even once,” he hears himself snarl back, “and I’ll make sure it’s your last. We’re just on a walk.”

“Diseased freaks shouldn’t be allowed out of the quarantine zones,” the man says, and he pulls out a knife too. Then, like a true fanatic, he goes to blow the whistle in order to flag a squad of Meta X-ers to gather.

Sorahiko crouches down and pries the smaller boy’s clinging hands off, wrenches Chibi-AFO off along with his jacket. The shrill call of the whistle sings in the previously quiet night; Sorahiko catches both boys in the jacket and squeezes their shoulders, stares hard at them.

“This’ll be quick,” he promises, and whips around at the sound of rubber soles hitting asphalt.

Knife raised. The man is mid-lunge. Sorahiko pounces with a burst of Jet, tackles him back, wrestling the knife out of the now desperate grip. The man writhes under him, like he’s just realized that he’s picked a fight against a Meta with teeth. Insults spill out of the man’s mouth, filthy enough that Sorahiko sees red when he takes the wooden handle and pins his opponent to the ground by the throat.

How many Meta X-ers are in the area? Does Sorahiko have enough time to smash and grab a few containers of instant noodles before they need to flee to the roofs? Why are people so stupid--

“White hair,” the man wheezes, and Sorahiko redoubles his grip on the knife. He wishes the man would just shut up and preserve his own life. He wishes he hadn’t brought the boys along. “White hair, light eyes, two kids. White hair… light eyes… two kids…!”

Sorahiko plunges the knife down, and hears the man manage one more, “Monster!” before sharpened steel pierces flesh and bone.

[miquellah]

small ER thoughts here

ymir saying “yeah the moons arent actually Powerful Beings, they were just the nearest things to worship” and then ranni being under the darkmoon (new moon/nonexistent?) and then her ending leading to the removal of the spiritual from the physical… yeah i think its connected

also. something about how so many people seem to hate ranni’s ending because “its effects are unknown” which isnt really anything different (entirely) from all the other endings, something something people are afraid of the unknown and the uncertain but there that fear also directly impedes progress, or at the very least impedes the severance from the old, definitively rotten systems (which every other ending bar chaos is still underneath)

[yurikotigerisnotmaiwaifu]

Yuriko Tiger instagram post 5/24/2024

My cosplay of BLACK LAGOON - BALALAIKA ブラックラグーンのバラライカ

🚬＊fake cigar

[braisedhoney]

never lets me have any fun. this is exactly why i mess with him all the time, spoilsport… lol

[pleuvoire]

i'm still in the locked tomb meta hole sorry.... i think it's really interesting that ntn as the third book in the series is such a jarring break from the atmosphere of the first two books, which was such a "decadent feuding court with swords and magic and shit (but like, in space and sci-fi)" type of setting, really elevated #aesthetic drama, and then ntn finds us living in an ordinary dirty crowded city among ordinary people trying to live their every day lives amidst the scarring of imperialist violence on one of the many planets said decadent feuding court has colonized, and suddenly all the elevated aristocratic sci-fantasy stuff starts feeling like it's off in another world, and suddenly people are fighting with guns and bombs instead of swords and bone magic. and this is insanely whiplashful and leaves you feeling like you're reading a whole different book series and i will confess is a factor in ntn not being my favorite book in the series, what can i say i love some decadent sword court drama, but i think it does what the decadent court drama genre often shies away from even when criticizing the decadent court in question, which is actually showing us the real people and worlds oppressed by said decadent court instead of relegating them to a far-off hypothetical, putting us down on the ground with how the 99.99999% live. and from the perspective of ntn, all the campy theatrical #aesthetic drama of the previous books that you just accept as part of the setting when you're situated within it starts to seem like ludicrous pageantry. the evil empire is larping and we all bought into it... i don't really have a conclusion to follow this train of thought to except that it's funny that criticisms of tlt as "fanfiction-y" often focus on this overdone #aesthetic and yet that very same thing starts to unravel as the Narrative of imperial power throughout the books starts to unravel in turn. also it reminds me of rgu and how much the #aesthetic in that show is directly a symbol of oppressive power (the swords, the flowers, etc) and it reminds me particularly of the imo quite viable interpretation/headcanon of rgu, that all the crazy surrealism happens within the bounds of ohtori academy specifically as a mechanism of the suffocating self-contained patriarchal system it is, and once you get out of there you're just in the normal regular world with no symbolism. tlt is like that but if ohtori academy was actively invading and colonizing everywhere else

[rallamajoop]

Hi! I saw your analysis posts about the Lords of RE8, and I am absolutely in love! The early concept of the Duke as the fifth Lord always fascinated me, especially since I wonder what "motif" there could have been in term of horror for him. I mean, the other lords all answer obvious archetypes and that ever since their concept art (vampire, werewolf, Frankenstein, ghost). I wonder what would have been the plans with the Duke and his early, more zombified-like version... What d'you think?

Well, as I've said before, I don't think there's much to suggest the Duke was ever meant to be "the fifth lord" in the sense of having his own domain or a big boss battle, or however else you're thinking here. He doesn't appear alongside the other lords in any of the early concepts for Ethan's trial, and all the lords' iconography is big on square corners and blocks in a way that really wouldn't work with a fifth entry. All we've even got to go on to tell us he was ever meant to be a lord at all is a single line attached to one piece of concept art (below). I don't even see him as looking all that much more zombified there ‒ it's just a sketchy art style.

My guess, FWIW, would be the Duke was always going to be Ethan's ally/shopkeeper, but with some late-game reveal that he was a (deposed? former?) member of the lords as an explanation for his implied powers and connection to the village. But the Duke doesn't need to be explained for the story to work, which may be why the 'fifth lord' idea was ultimately dropped.

If you really want to dig into fairy tale archtypes though, there's an obvious one that already corresponds to the Duke, with his horse and carriage ‒ and that's the old, wandering fortuneteller. Typically this would be a Romani woman (although I don't imagine she'd be called 'Romani' in any authentic fairytale), and our hero would more likely be trading money or favours for advice rather than treasure for weapon upgrades, but the Duke fits the bill otherwise.

In fact, as I mentioned in my post on some of the game's unused assets, the Duke actually has a number of unused voice lines that seem to relate to him selling Ethan more information (“You won’t come across this information just anywhere,” “A little bird whispered this to me,” and “Not to presume, but some advice if I may.”) ‒ possibly treasure photos or hints to significant locations.

Fortunetellers and other folk who offer cryptic-yet-vital advice are a regular feature in horror stories too, not just fairy tales. If offended, their role can easily overlap into that of 'witch', for greater monster cred. But for my money, the Duke himself doesn't come across as the easily offended type, so expanding his role into 'monster' might be reaching.

Alternately, you could also look at the villainous Masked Duke from the Shadow of Rose DLC. I doubt he much resembles any authentic 'original' plan for the character, and he's very much his own entity, but he's certainly an effective villain.

(Though if neither of those work for you, given the Duke's size and association with food, 'literal giant who eats people' might also be a fairytale archtype that could fit.)

All that said, I do wonder just a little if there was ever a plan for the Duke to have a proper villain-reveal moment, when you learn he's the fifth lord. I have this whole semi-developed theory that the Duke is actually working on Miranda's direction for most of the game we all played: after all, she seems to want Ethan to destroy her 'false children', and it's the Duke who sets him on the path to do that (with some input from the old hag, our other cackling-fortuneteller-character). It's only once Ethan wakes up in the Duke's carriage at the very end that he unambiguously picks a side against Miranda. After all, even if he was always privately rooting for Ethan, why stick his neck out for a man who might not even survive the day? That's just not good business.

But even if the Duke wasn't working for Miranda from the start, how much do we really know about his motives? It's far too easy to read his eagerness to buy the crystalised remains of mould-infected individuals as the stuff of war profiteering. How much would the additional remains of Miranda, and even Ethan, be worth to him? And these are hardly the only possibilities for what he could really be after!

In short, I would actually love to see more villainous takes on the Duke. Don't get me wrong ‒ I do love that a character as shady as him doesn't turn out to have been Evil All Along, but he's still sinister enough that I'm intrigued by AU possibilities where he has his own twisted plans for Ethan all along, whether as part of Miranda's scheme or all his own. There's stuff you could do here, I'm just saying!

One one final note, people have suggested the owl crest you can see in the background of his shop and the carpet of his carriage was intended to be the crest of his house, and that seems broadly plausible (more on that & translations in my post on everything we do know about the village lords). While I'm at it, have some high-res versions of both from the game assets.

I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that an owl represents wisdom, or how that tracks with his role as a source of information for Ethan either.

Does it actually look like the crests of the other lords, though?

Eh, a little? You'd have to do some heavy reworks to make it fit in a diamond like all the others. As for overall shape, you could even say it bears more resemblance to Miranda's crest.

Does that mean anything? Eh, if you want it to. Who knows?

(I am also going to nitpick you just a little and say that none of the lords was ever a werewolf. The werewolves are the werewolves, the missing lord in your list would be Moreau as the hunchback or swamp monster. We really don't need anyone else thinking Heisenberg is a lycan, that's really getting tired.)

[the-mallorca-files]

I know a lot of people were upset about not getting a Wintake kiss or a hug or whatever at the end of s3 ep8, but honestly as someone who identifies with Miranda a slightly concerning amount, the hand nuzzle and the shoulder bump were actually so much more special in my opinion.

We know Miranda hates hugs, and she’s unlikely to initiate one — she’s more comfortable with physical touch now, particularly with Max, but she’s still not at that point yet. So if Max had put his arm around her at the end, he would’ve been completely ignoring her boundaries and comfort levels (which are likely even more important to her than usual, given the severe trauma she’s just been through) just so he could show affection in a “typical” way.

Instead, he lets Miranda guide the whole interaction, allowing her to show her feelings and how much she cares in whatever way she’s most comfortable with in that moment. He doesn’t push for the hug I’m sure he instinctively wanted to give her, because he’s listening to her and respecting her boundaries around physical touch. And this shows in the way Miranda interacts with him; it means she actually feels safe enough to push through her own boundaries to some extent, because she knows he won’t make her go any further than she’s comfortable with.

It’s this trust and respect that lets Miranda be so open in that final scene. She apologises for her part in their argument, which is an absolutely huge thing in itself given how much she hates admitting she was wrong (and really struggles to do so). She opens up about her feelings, and how she’s realised how important he is to her. She allows herself to be vulnerable and to cry in front of him, which, again, is an absolutely massive thing for her. And she gives him the physical affection of the hand nuzzle and the shoulder bump — something she previously would’ve baulked at in such an emotional moment

[whoopseydaisy]

On Witches, Wizards, and Wild Ones: A Conspiracy Board from the Walls of the Witch of the Wondering Path

Ahoohoo and crackle crackle!

This is an attempt of untangling some threads, stretching out their red yarn and connecting one thing to another or maybe to nothing at all. A series of notes and questions on what we know, what we may know so far, or at the very least what we have been told. The purpose is mostly to try and determine who might be behind the assassination attempt of the station of the Witch of the World’s Heart, before the Coven of Elders convenes, but also some other stuff, because these sorts of things balloon out quite quickly when one is combing through transcripts for clues. And also a dragon??

I shall analyze and speculate from what we have been told, knowing some inconsistencies may be characters concealing truths, interpreting them differently, or that some inconsistencies will be born of this beautiful improvisational medium. I will also do so knowing that Brennan is playing a long game, setting up characters and plot threads for a future he does not entirely know yet.

Settle in with your warm drinks and campfire blankets everyone, this is 12 page paper. 

THE CURSE(S)

There are several appearances of curses in both the Children’s Adventure and the first arc, often characterized by an exhalation of dark smoke. 

In the Children’s Adventure: While not confirmed as a curse, when Grandmother Wren leaves (to a meeting with friends that the wizards don’t know about, to see where the missing Eoighorain might be) to what is presumably a meeting with the Coven of Elders, she returns with a bandage tied around her forearm. But it does not look too horrifying and it is not soaked with blood. She describes the trip as eventful and necessary. (Possibly at the castle of Indri, the Witch of the Wind and Stars, as the conclave will be the second meeting there in a century.)

In episode 8, 2 days before Steel arrives to bring Suvi home, Grandmother Wren returns to the cottage after leaving to try and figure out why Soft and Stone have not come yet. She went to a place that they had told her was safe, and someone was there waiting to hurt her. Grandmother Wren tells Suvi “They’re gone now.”

Grandmother Wren looks ill; her hair is white and her hand is described as black and red and withered, burnt and cracking with blood streaming down from a wound that can’t set. Her breath is ragged, weak, and quick. The curse is described to Eursulon as not strong, but clever. He also learns that the curse uses her pain to keep the itself in place; that it gets stronger the more she tries to feel and deal with the pain. 

After the children work together to trap the curse and heal Grandmother Wren, Suvi recognizes the mist of wizardly teleportation magic outside. The girls just barely see Grandmother Wren’s footprints outside the door, but do not see anyone else’s, nor any other signs of entry. Suvi is able to tell that the magic is not Grandmother Wren’s. 

After investigating this caught curse, which Grandmother Wren at first believed was the work of the wizard, she determines the curse was expecting a wizard, and did not believe its origins were of this realm. She also says it should have killed her, but it didn’t, because they were expecting someone else. 

I was surprised re-listening that Grandmother Wren believed this portion of the curse expected a wizard. I think this curse may have been on an item capable of teleportation magic (no second set of footprints) perhaps meant for Soft and Stone, but when its target became Grandmother Wren, a contingent effect was triggered, or this is another curse altogether perhaps mingling with the larger curse on both her and Ame. Grandmother Wren thought Soft and Stone were spending the summer trying to find out who their true friends were - perhaps the Coven of Elders were also testing who they could trust. While “They’re gone now. Do you understand?” implies Grandma Wren whooping their ass 6 ft under the ground, she hadn’t figured out who cast it yet at that point, which leads me to believe that they were not present. The origin not being of this realm makes me think the origin of the curse is The Stranger.

In Ep 01: 

Here we discover the larger curse on both Grandmother Wren and Ame, when they realize a curse has robbed Ame of her memories and knowledge, of her station and of who she could trust and prevents Grandmother Wren from telling her about the Coven of Elders  or calling herself the Witch of the World’s Heart. Grandmother Wren breaks through the curse (but not breaking it proper) as it tries to “stop the coronation” by willing the house, and all that is hers to Ame. 

After, Brennan tells us “Grandmother Wren can no longer speak as she concentrates on magic, she has not fought off this curse”

Taro addresses the Granddaughters of Wren and tells them “The curse is powerful, but the secrets that Wren shared still live. You have been cursed too” and then, speaking of Wavebreaker, “But there is a key, a key to find where they are being kept, and a key to cut them free when found. There is a source with the power to disenchant and scry”

GrandaughterS of Wren - is Suvi afflicted by any part of the curse, or was Taro’s “you” only addressing Ame? Taro also says Wavebreaker has the power to find where the secrets are being kept, and the power to scry but this is not currently reflected in the statblock…but more on that later when we talk about the Stranger’s possible connection to Wavebreaker. 

We also learn in Episode 15, once Ame recovers her memories, that the Stranger had attacked Grandmother Wren at the Grove of the Well— a place sacred to the Coven of Elders, a month prior to her bed rest. She also tells Ame “For some time now, since you were a very little girl, in fact, he has been moving upon our world in a way that I cannot quite see.

Is part of the curse helping to obscure The Pilgrim Under the Stars, The Man in Black, The King of Night, The Stranger from Grandmother Wren? Did he start moving in such a way shortly after she took in Ame as her apprentice (which she was “cutting a bit close”) and the succession of her station was in the process of being secured, not going the way of either Scalvi, the Witch of the Watching Fire or Oruna, the Witch of the Wide Blue Sea? 

In Ep 14: 

In episode 14 when Eursulon breaks the curse on Ame we are told “Whatever entity placed this curse on Grandmother Wren and Ame put a spell so nasty that it was standing in front of successive contingent effects. That there’s like, a nested series of spells within Ame, and you’re excising all of them. But the big one that Ame was aware of was hiding some others” 

The curse afflicting Grandmother Wren at the end of summer, seems to be the larger curse affected both her and Ame. The children only excised and trapped one part of many of the curse. 

The curse is described as something sliding and clicking, liquid poison filled with a puzzle, turning from the inside, made of shadow. something that twists and rotates and expands and pierces. The curse is also holding onto something as it leaves - Ame is able to grab and safekeep the knowledge the curse attempts to steal from her on a Nat 20 wisdom save, and then collapses to the ground and expectorates black bile that smells of iron and blood, like Eoighorain, with a 9 on her constitution save. Her breathing remains strong, not ragged (unlike Grandmother Wren). We are told, through Suvi’s identify spell, that the bile is not the curse itself, but was behind the curse - something hidden there, meant to kill Ame if the curse were to be broken

Does the bile smell of Eoighorain because its a contribution he made to the curse (he is a known entity to the Coven of Elders), or a signifier of a power both he and Ame are affected by? We learn later, in Episode 16 when Steel discusses Eoighorain with Suvi, that this smell is not common amongst shapeshifter’s, but a scent she has only ever smelled from him. 

When Steel arrives she says that the longer Ame remains in her unconscious state, the more whoever created this spell would be able to track her. 

More on this in the next section- but is that why Indri, the Witch of the Wind and Stars was able to send a message to Ame in the Citadel so easily?

THE COVEN OF ELDERS

In Episode 23, Mr. Soup tells us that Grandmother Wren was at odds with the Coven for many years— there was a plan she did not want to go along with, and had been searching for a long time to find a way to convince her sisters to do something else. We also see glimpses of this in Episode 15 in Grandmother Wren’s conversation with Mirara, the Witch of the Waning Moon. It’s a safe guess that this disagreement has to do with Wizards and the Citadel. 

What Sly has divined regarding the upcoming Conclave (which we are told in glorious metatheatrical fashion in Episode 23 that “All things occurring as they have been seen. With perhaps one or two tricks, just to keep the story interesting.”)

That if Ame does not go to the North Pole in 3 days, the Coven will meet without her and that they will try to destroy her and in doing so the stations of Witch of the World’s Heart

One of them will make an argument that Ame’s existence threatens the nature of magic in Umora. The majority of times Ame wins that argument, it is because magically if they were to get rid of her station they would probably have to get rid of another. 

If Suvi is not there as her advisor, Ame will die

We also know from Grandmother Wren that there is much the coven can do without full unanimity (but presumably would be far less powerful to do so), and the Coven is bound by laws of mutual respect and there will be tremendous repercussions if one insinuates that any of the other stations are not incredibly significant to the nature of magic itself. 

But which of the members of the Coven of Elders might want the station of the Witch of the World’s Heart gone the most? WHO IS IN CAHOOTS? Is The Stranger involved? Is Eoighorain? Who has the most against wizards?

Marara, the Witch of the Waning Moon (Mirara? The transcripts use both spellings.)

The death of light, the end of might, the all consuming dread of night. 

This is the obvious first suspect. 

If that’s not a witch well on the pathway to wickedness, I don’t know what is.

The Witch subclass says of The Coven of the Wicked: “Members of this coven like to paint themselves as misunderstood victims, but it’s not tragedy that turns a witch’s heart to darkness—it’s the inability to let go of their suffering. A wicked witch might claim to be an enemy to all the world, but they always have one kind of person in particular—usually related to their past self, and what soured their magic—that they despise above all else. When you become wicked, choose a virtue that is anathema to you: courage, fairness, generosity, innocence, loyalty, kindness, optimism, prudence, selflessness, or being in love. Beings that display this virtue are especially tempting targets for your ire.”

Like…you can’t have a piece of such juicy and gorgeous and cool design like the Coven of Wicked (and the rehabilitation therein) and not have a wicked witch in your story! 

Additionally, Marara’s domain is the Witch of the Waning Moon. The death of light, the end of might, the all consuming dread of night. The moon wanes as it goes from full to new. When Ame meets her on the road, to light her way to the cottage, the harbinger of her arrival is a candle on the verge of going out. 

Mirara’s domain speaks to cycles, to the fall of the mighty and to the fear of the unknown. It is also of the night, possibly putting her in natural cahoots with The King of Night who also hates wizards. The conversation he has with Eursulon and the conversation Ame sees in the water between Marara and Grandmother Wren, both in Episode 23, certainly mirror each other. 

She is also often accompanied by wind, which speaks to Indri’s domain, the Wind and Stars, another one of night.

Indri, the Witch of the Wind and Stars

Of frost and stone, of ice and throne, the ruler of the self alone.

Indri’s domain is the wind and stars, a domain that also overlaps with an appellation of the Pilgrim Under the Stars.  In the letter to Ame she tells her she knew Ame has assumed her station from how the stars aligned. She has an apprentice we know little of. She also did the most to reach out to Ame to arrange a meeting. 

Did she reach out to Ame so it was more likely she would attend the Conclave? 

The ice fairies say when they find Ame and Suvi in the bathroom, “long lancing spells and vexing hexes of old were made to pierce and plunder through the guises and guile of wizards”

Were they able to reach her because Ame was easier to track when she was unconscious under Indri’s spellwork? Is it because she does not like wizards and is practiced at secretly penetrating their defences? The ice fairies were particularly silly, one being evidently foolish. Were they perhaps sent by Indri by way of her apprentice, who is lonely and excited to meet another Great Apprentice? “Hexes of old” does imply that Indri may be practiced at getting through Citadel defences. 

Does Indri have any pull over celestial movements? When discussing that summer and Eoighorain with Suvi, Steel says “all of that changed as the celestial path shifted ever so slightly. And that slight slight shift meant that all of a sudden, you could teleport anywhere, pretty much unstoppable, very easily.” Grandma Wren also speaks of stars to Ame like they  have personalities. Could Indri have eased the way for the eras of easy teleportation? Did she ever go on long and friendly flights among the stars with Grandma Wren? Is her witchcraft more divinatory? I think Indri falls on the side of wanting to stop wizards, but something in my gut says she does not want to see Ame dead. 

Hacaea, the Witch of the Woodland Green

The holly branch, the towering oak, the limb and leaf an thorn her folk.

We know little of Hacaea so far, but I think she’s absolutely in cahoots mostly because she would have perhaps one of the greatest motives to hate wizards and want them gone, on account of the whole them turning a great forest into a huge snowy, mirror-y desert and a wizard tower who’s aerith depository is probably doing kind of fucked up stuff to the biome. We know she does not have an apprentice and I think Brennan singling her out as the one Ame could imagine hanging out with was in part was that it would hurt more when she’s in ASSASSINATION CAHOOTS. Might have sent Ame the letter on bark.

Grimoire, the Witch of the Wild Hunt

Where beasts have tread and monsters fed, the bloody fang and maw hath led. 

We also do not know much about Grimoire. We know she has an apprentice, and has so far been characterised as much more feral and concerned with catching and eating things. She might have also sent Ame a letter on bark. I think there is more with her connection to monsters and possibly to Gaothmai, and Eoighorain?? Certainly there is more to her than meets the ear. Again I think Brennan could have been trying to be tricky in his comments about her, trying to make her seem less important early on than she will be.

THE STRANGER

Who has held his breath since the dawn of time, the Pilgrim Under Stars, the Man in Black, the King of Night. Who attacked Grandmother Wren at the Grove of the Well and who has been moving across the world in a way Grandmother Wren could not see since Ame was a very little girl, who came to the cottage the moment after Grandmother Wren passed when the station was at its most vulnerable and requested entry, and who does not like wizards. 

The strings I am most interesting in detangling here, are his possible connection to Wavebreaker, and his connection to roads which we know are incredibly significant to Grandmother Wren’s wards.

In Episode 7 of Children’s Adventure after the cast each takes a turn describing a detail of Wavebreaker Brennan narrates “So you have this moment together in the hottest days of summer as this suit of armor hands you this thing”. The next scene, after taking a moment to roll some ability scores, is at night.

Suvi then rolls a 3 on a perception check, “So with a three in perception, you look and see that you were mistaken. You look deeper at the shadow and it's just a shadow. But it was a scary shape from one of the trees”

Ame investigates the spot the next day.

Taro had said back in Episode 01 “It will help you find whatever is keeping these secrets, and perhaps whoever took them.” What if that connection goes both ways for a powerful spirit with so many titles? One who has taken care to obscure himself from Grandmother Wren?

In Episode 23 once Eursulon entered the fire, eventually travelling from the Citadel to actual Gaothmai, the Stranger caught up to him enough to have a conversation real fast. 

As evidenced above (if that figure of shadow is indeed The Stranger, but the point still stands anyways) he is also connected to the motif of roads. 

The final line of Episode 01 (which as the last line from the first episode, carries extra emphasis):

From episode 21:

From episode 22:

But in speaking of roads we must remember,

The iron shoe of horses. 3 iron nails sprung out of a signpost. Could a connection to the Stranger cause Eoighorain’s blood to smell like iron?

EOIGHORAIN

In my folders of screenshots, within the one labelled conspiracy, this one is named “the unexplained Eoighorain fragment.” As I mentioned before, Brennan is playing the long game- placing pieces on the board, but he could not yet know all the ways they could move. Eoighorain is placed like a question mark, with great manoeuvrability. He could go one way or another. Too many NPCs think him untrustworthy and it makes me wonder if he is the flashy distraction of a magic trick so we don’t see what the other hand is doing. 

This one goes down a few rabbit holes. 

We learn much about Eoighorain in episode 16 from Suvi and Steel’s conversation but also, from the diagrams (which are 150 years old, made in the first 50 years of the Citadel) of garrans, which are a creature of the world of spirit. We learn that Eoighorain’s name means “Of Garran” or “Son of Garran” and that iron was always at the forefront of his smell, with the party speculating that the iron is perhaps used to bind him. 

In Episode 15 Grandmother Wren tells Ame she has doubts about how loyal Eoighorain ended up being. Steel tells Suvi in episode 16 that she discovered recently, in the weeks preceding the start of the campaign proper, that Eoighorain was alive, and this is why she sent the books including the diagrams made to smell like him to Grandmother Wren, in an act of admitting defeat and hoping she would be able to find him where she could not. 

She says she saw him at Fort Keiran, doubts herself, and then sounds sure.

Why was Eoighorain at Fort Keiran? Because the revolutionary forces of Gaothmai are fighting the Citadel? Because he is working with the Cauntaranacht now and perhaps always was? A secret third thing? Was it even him after all? Was Steel about to say that exact same scent? Was their revolution successful and so their forces hold much more power in Gaothmai now? Is that one of the reasons the war is spinning up again? 

We see Gaothmai ourselves only briefly, in Episode 23. Eursulon, after falling and landing in an unfamiliar deep forest, meets monsters caught somewhere between spirit and mortal, left to fester— simian feline monstrosities, somewhere between a baboon and a panther with diseased scaly and mottled hide. Brennan describes it like a yard with attack dogs in it, who attack because of his citadel badge and who eventually leads him to Kalaya. 

(And sidebar I think he sees a dragon?? Is the war spinning up again because of a dragon? Was part of the Coven’s plan raising a dragon to raze the Citadel and everyone else? Was that how the world burned before? I just realized now that Eursulon saw a dragon and I am spinning up about it for sure.)

But back to Eoighorain, and Steel thinking that he caused the death of Soft and Stone, who Steels tells us were prolific double agents with connections in both Rhuv and Gaothmai that pay dividends to this day. 

Grandmother Wren tells Ame in Episode 15 that Eoighorain was one of the outside members of the Citadel to alert the Acadator to the presence of agencies, jokingly referred to as the League of Whispers, which were dedicated to the downfall of the Citadel from within. She also says “When Steel came to collect Suvi at the end of that summer, the primary targets of their investigation were dead or missing.”

Additionally in the Children’s Adventure:

Steel tells us in Episode 16 that the mission Soft and Stone were on the summer that they died was searching for a dangerous sorceress named Nahani. This was the first time that instead of her and Eoighorain protecting Soft and Stone, he alone was charged with their safety. When Steel returned to collect Suvi she came back with scars on her face, and a new cloak. 

Why was Steel left behind? Was she needed by the Citadel elsewhere? A matter of trust? Is she telling the truth? Did Soft and Stone leave Steel behind so she would not know they were possibly acting against the Citadel? Because they knew she would not betray it? Was she really not there, or is that a cover up? Is guilt one of the forces that pulled her to be mother to Suvi? I don’t really think she killed them but I am not discounting that possibility.

I think Steel believes this wholeheartedly, but I don’t for a second.

Stone is a very prolific abjurer, who also studied divination. Just saying.

Additionally, 

This little nugget in Gaothmai perked my ears up the first time it was said. Ket, you say? Like Suvirin Kedberiket? Like Aman Kedberiket? THAT WAS A CHOICE BRENNAN. IN A WORLD WHERE NAMES ARE VERY IMPORTANT, IN A CULTURE WHERE NAMES ARE KEPT SECRET. IN A NATION SOFT WAS A DOUBLE AGENT FOR. WHO, 2 YEARS BEFORE SUVI WAS BORN, FREED A NUMBER OF SPIRITS, ONE OF WHOM WAS KALAYA, WHO THEN SETTLED DOWN IN GAOTHMAI. AND HE HAS A COLLEAGUE WHO IS THEORETICALLY A REVOLUTIONARY FROM THERE. A COINCIDENCE? I THINK NOT. Anyways I think Soft is from Gaothmai. 

In conclusion: ?????????????????? I’m really excited for arc 3 because I really love witches and I don’t really know what up with Eoighorain, and I adore but do not trust Steel (but what else is new) and I do think there’s a dragon in Gaothmai apparently?? And I think The Stranger has a connection to Wavebreaker and I think Soft is from Gaothmai and I really don’t know if I can trust Indri or not but I hope we meet her apprentice and some more ice fairies. 

[princessofxianle]

thinking about that one study asking surviving suicidal ppl who jumped off bridges what their final thoughts were before hitting the water and finding that regret was a common thread...

hong-er may have realized last minute, mid fall, that maybe he didn't want to die and despite the logic prayed for someone to save him and then xie lian DID

no wonder he's obsessed and in love with him

[wraith-caller]

Never been a fan of people trying to shape the Golden Order into conservative Christianity. Reading fics where they talk about women needing to be "traditional" or seen but not heard, when the figurehead of the Order is a woman who has waged loads of wars, had two husbands, makes a point of examining her faith rather than submissively accepting it. Seeing posts that seem to say the GO is villainizing the use of sorcery, a way of deriding the carians, when one of the greatest champions of the Order himself studied sorcery of his own volition, and married perhaps the greatest sorceress ever known. There's nothing to indicate the GO ever had a beef with the practice of sorcery, and it's not like they shuttered Raya Lucaria after the union of the Moon and Erdtree. Cringing every time someone describes Fundamentalism as the "thoughtless extremist" wing of the Order when it's supposed to be about taking a scholarly approach to the examination of the laws of causality and regression.

Idk. It's just, there's so many reasons to be skeeved out by the GO, and it exists within a fantasy with a totally distinct history from our own world. While there are obviously influences from a wide variety of real-world sources on the mythology and world of the game, it's not a direct copy of reality. It's lame to see sth so full of opportunity for interesting world building from fans just turned into a watered down copy of what they despise in reality.

[outofangband]

I really loved @gwaedhannen ‘s post about wanting more strangeness in First Age Beleriand and I had a post awhile back about potential strange ecology for Middle Earth so I wanted to revisit it with some more thoughts!

Following up to my speculative biology ideas for elves,

Like the last list, these are more jotting down ideas, please please feel free to give me any to elaborate on!

Mammoths on the Helcaraxë and other cold reaches. Tolkien talks of all creatures that walk or have ever walked the earth existing in Valinor and throughout Arda hence prehistoric and extinct species can also exist here. I do also headcanon smaller herds of woolly mammoths and woolly rhinos in northern Hithlum and north of greater Beleriand. Stellar’s sea cows in the frozen waters:(

Early cenozoic aquatic birds such as Hesperornis off the coasts of Balar and Alqualondë.

 Enchanted orchards of Valinor; large, seemingly abandoned self containing gardens and orchards. There are fruit tree orchards hidden behind ivy covered walls; some always filled with Autumn breezes, citrus groves always kept warm and bright lined with lemon trees and deep green grass. Except for the Maia who tend them, the only beings who enter the orchards are elves who do so, usually by mistake.

There are places throughout Arda where the Music was not well, loud, enough. They can be the size of a footstep or a field and are not fully connected to the space time continuum. Those who tread on them will end up elsewhere in time or space and will never realize what had happened.

In the great expanses of unexplored Valinor, there are coves, glens, lagoons, and all sorts of other places that seem shift and change, being there one day and not the next. Even while walking through familiar, charted territory, there is always the possibility of ending up in a hidden clearing, covered in hanging mosses and with strange lights all around.

The forests of Beleriand are full of strange, sometimes dark creatures that have never been properly documented. They are the strange hybrids of Yavanna’s creations and Melkor’s corruption and a few have escaped the eyes of even the Ainur. 

The underground lakes of Middle Earth, especially around Angband contain blind, hungry beings, nourished by the volcanic soils. Strange fungi and lichen stick to the walls of the caverns and passageways beneath the fortress.

There are hot springs in several locations in Beleriand South of the Ered Wethrin (there are many in the Ered Wethrin of course but these are not exactly relaxation destinations). Namely in Himring, throughout Hithlum, north of Barad Eithel, parts of Dorthonion, in the caves of Androth, and parts of the Ered Luin. Not all of these are used by residents and not all maintain safe temperatures or conditions but some do! In many parts of Northern Beleriand, they're used for bathing and communal relaxation. There are other springs throughout the March of Maedhros and I like the idea of Himring being built around a hot spring. There are hot and warm springs in both Nargothrond and Menengroth. The definition of warm springs differs from hot springs only in average temperature

The caves of Menengroth and Nargothrond allow elves and others access to the strange wonders of the underground world of Middle Earth.  They are lit by lanterns and by certain bioluminescent plants. There are windows in key areas that allow sunlight to filter into some of the larger halls and though there are small gardens of species that do not require direct sunlight, some are stationed in the areas where sunlight filters in. A small tributary of the river Narog flows directly through one of the great halls of Nargothrond. Its flora and fauna remain untouched by the elves and algae and aquatic plants as well as small fish, salamanders in their early stages, and stranger creatures are visible to see for those who walk along it. 

In realms with Ainur or certain Eldar rule, natural life may not follow typical laws. Melian has great influence over the biodiversity and climate of Doriath for example even without meaning to.

The horror potential of the boundaries of the girdle or of Nan Elmoth. Time and space distorting, the forest becoming a maze, bird calls confusing and disorienting unwary or unlucky travelers

The Ered Gorgoroth, the eerie, mysterious mountain range, bordered to the north by Dorthonion and to the south by Nan Dungortheb. It was said the spawn of Ungolian haunted these mountains and the valley. I have some more posts on this but I've always imagined there being many pools and meres in Ered Gorgoroth, many harmless though frigid and some completely corrupted by the powers of Ungoliants spawn and other beings. Unfortunately, it’s not always possible to know which was which until it was too late.

Chemical reactions causing glimmering or colorful water. Elves learn carefully when this has occurred due to natural phenomena and when it is the result of unnatural influence or Ainur presence.

Salt lakes and landlocked waters mimicking ocean conditions. I’ve always imagined there being a lake like lake Baikal in the March of Maedhros

More Bioluminescence

The realms draped in dragon reek especially around Nargothrond. The pools of Ivrin are ruined by Glaurung and they are the source of the river Narog, the largest tributary to Sirion. The entire land could be poisoned. I imagine that plants wither or lose color, birds and frogs stay silent, animals are thrown off of their natural cycles, The orchards in the hills barren or producing foul fruit, strange happenings resulting from drinking from the river Narog or even eating animals that drank from it…

Alternatively the effects of the water where the power of Ulmo is still strong such as in Nan Tathren or the Twilit Meres