Tag: replies

crocordile replied to your post “The First of the Twelve”

i ship them!! ;_____; HEGET… THAT LAST LINE OUCH!!

Not gonna lie. That was exactly the response I wanted.

A series about each of the OCs I’ve created who died with Finrod and Beren in the dungeons. In other words I want readers’ tears. :DDD

It’s Gareth Bryne and Siuan Sanche as grumpy old elves so it’s one of my biggest ‘I ship you two so hard, everyone can see it, you are the highlight of every chapter you appear in, WE DO NOT SPEAK OF AMOL’ otp – so I had to ensure that shippiness carried over. Plus, the idea of one of the twelve as this very old elf, one of the original Eglath who doesn’t want to cross the sea even through he started the Journey, and so now he finally will make it to the Hither Shore. Like, a lot of this is inspired by the Leithian Script, but Terrible Gifts just as much.

By the way, for reference, here is the gallery of one of my favorite artists for Wheel of Time. Scroll down a bit and you’ll see the one for Siuan, which is my mental image for her and what I was picturing the whole time I was writing ‘Elphil’. Also, WoT has icons for every chapter, and whenever it was from Gareth’s POV or dealing heavily with him (and Siuan) it was this symbol. (Oh you bet WoT had me trained to immediately get excited depending on which icon it was)

firewingedlion replied to your post:firewingedlion replied to your post…

The silmarils are DERIVATIVE, they are the bottle around the Valar’s lightning and the longer I am a Tolkien fan the more I hate them. I wonder what the impact would be on Men & their culture/s if they had ties more to the Teleri instead of Noldor.

Preaching to the choir. 

Ugh, I can’t see the in-universe reason for why the Silmarils are as completely and utterly hyped as they are unless I account it to hype from back in Tirion when they were made, coupled with Fëanor’s boasts of them being his ultimate masterwork and then limiting their access, added to the Noldor Exile nostalgia for the lights they were familiar with and pinning all the lost feelings of innocence and peace pre-listening to Fëanor and Melkor onto a physical object – they don’t want the Silmarils back as much as they want to reverse their bad decisions and Melkor’s attack on Valinor. But if the Valar themselves are going to wax nostalgic about light, it would be about the Lamp light or the Flame in the Void- the Trees were replacement lights in the first place. And at least half if not more of Varda’s stars are made from Two Tree light, and there were lamps and lights around Valinor made from the collected Treelight. The impressive thing about the Silmarils was the ‘bottle’ . But I can’t be impressed by what they contain when the Sun and Moon are superior for me in the ways that matter – that is, bringing illumination to the world- especially because the illumination the Sun and moon bring is like the stars: available for everyone. 

Swan-ships >>>>>> Silmarils

Re: Humans and Teleri Yes! Like, the Silvan elves already are the groups the humans have most initial contact with anyway, and Finrod and his siblings would still be there to meet the Edain. And there’s so many sub-groups of Teleri- forest or shore. Emphasis on singing and ship-building – Tuor is not first Man to meet the sea. And going by the Haladim, there might be more live-and-let-live separation. Less cultural assimilation. Trying to think what other differences? I wonder if, having all the elves be of the same tribe even if they have their sub-groups and different interests, if that might not spill over to how they see the Edain, that they see the humans as all one group instead of different tribes, wondering where the humans’ ‘Thingol’ is. 

War effort against Morgoth won’t have as many frontal assaults and assaults, but at the same time no allies ignoring or working against each other. And if things get really bad they still have all the Swan-ships to sail back – said ships just might be packed with a lot more elves and mortals, that’s all. 😉

firewingedlion replied to your post “allonsymiddleearth replied to your post “Stares at the list of…”

……….“feanor never exists” is the best au I have ever heard of and I am high fiving a million maiar

I love this sentence. And yeah, like the AU wins all the best awards just on the simple premise of “No Fëanor Ever”, but then thinking about what would also change and it’s Nerdanel held up as the epitome of elven thought, no Melkor soft targets, all the personal conflicts set up from the divisions during the Great Journey are fully explored. Like, I’m not sure if the Two Trees are even gonna get axed- Melkor has no Silmarils to lust after, and even if he kills the Trees, the Valar did not need the Silmarils to coax out the Sun and Moon. 

Nor do I understand how they are absolutely necessary for Arda Reborn, as they aren’t a piece of Arda Unmarred – their light came from the Trees which are a creation of Arda Marred- and not even the first round of lights. They are plot trinkets of what the Exiles are nostalgic for.

Plus, bitchy Míriel vs Rockstar Nerdanel. Characterization and plot importance for Olwë’s sons. Finarfin never separated from any of his children or wife.

Second-born still get all the nice and advanced elves to help them out.

Boats still around to use as escape plans.

So many good things.

allonsymiddleearth replied to your post “Stares at the list of Silm-related fic projects I really need to get…”

omg yes I want to read the Ingwë and Elwë swap places AU! ❤

crocordile replied to your post “Stares at the list of Silm-related fic projects I really need to get…”

These are all so great, the ingwe-instead-of-elu one broke my brain omg!! And, Teleri relaxed rebellion? Tell me more… B)

(AUs discussed here and other places like here) That AU idea is really popular! O.O Well, luckily it is the one with the most actual plot and an idea of how I would go about writing it. The biggest problem stopping me is that it diverges from canon during the Great Journey (the first butterfly wing to flap away changes would not be Sauron trapping Ingwë but the turning back of Dan and the Nandor, as the AU idea is to swap the Lindar and Vanyar, so I need only the Minyar to be the non-Avari elves left in Beleriand. Thus Círdan and Dan go with Elwë). And the POV character is Ravennë, who I haven’t established at all.  I would need to write the Ingwë of Cuiviénen, then Ravennë on the March, and basically the AU is the alternate ending to that fic, with everything before it ‘canon’. (Klingon Vanyar ‘verse is weird because I treat it as canon, but canon gives nothing, textual ghosts and glossed over cultures and people, so I feel I have to introduce and develop everyone and everything)

There is this tiny opening when I first conceived this AU, though if I ever got around to writing it (siren call~) I’d start the prologue with Sauron…

The other AU where Fëanor is never born means Morgoth is still released on probation in Valinor. Like canon, the Dark Lord still isn’t going to be able to corrupt or turn the Vanyar, so he turns to the Noldor. However he doesn’t have the resentment-filled paranoid egomaniac with his SIlmarils feuding with half-brothers to exploit into a rebellion. 

More details:

The Noldor as a tribe are still a fractious and easily bored group wanting the latest shiny innovation and knowledge and feuding with each other – Tolkien set that up as their character, can’t change that too much. And there are divisions in the Noldor, especially between Míriel and Nerdanel and Finwë. Míriel is still conservative/reactionary against what she sees as changes for the sake of change i.e. the ‘th’ to ‘s’ switch, plus she did way way long ago reject the king’s hand. Finwë happily married Indis and had all his canon children with her, but he still does the petty switch to ‘s’ to spite Míriel and purposefully snubs her art, choosing to patron her artistic and aesthetic rivals like Mahtan’s genius daughter Nerdanel, who spearheads the abstract art movement away from the traditional Noldor obsession with creating art so life-like to fool the senses. (Nerdanel can and will make statutes like that, but she won’t limit herself and is fond of remarking that just because it was one way in her youth doesn’t mean it should always be – cue cat fights that the Valar are a little worried to be breaking up – Manwë wondering if he should temporarily banish one from Tirion if the knitting needles and stone chisels draw any more blood) Fingolfin is the eldest son and doesn’t have the constant need to prove himself or struggle for any fatherly affection from Fëanor, so less issues. Findis is still the eldest, and again she doesn’t have the crippling nastiness from her half-brother and his supporters and those doubting everything about her parent’s marriage and whether she should even exist. Instead she’s the Noldor heir and with the examples of Nerdanel and Míriel she’s expected to be another genius Noldor woman. Everyone’s waiting for her to create some art to impress everyone. I think maybe carrying over the introverted authoress headcanon of ‘canon’verse, Findis can be the one in this universe to apprentice herself under Rúmil, and together with him improve his Sarati into the tengwar. Finarfin and Fingolfin might not be as close as canon, but they aren’t rivals, as temperament doesn’t change – Finarfin still has a desire to escape from his family’s shadow/drama by going to Alqualondë, and he assimilates into the Teleri royal family pretty strongly. 

But back to Melkor. He can try to play up the Noldor tensions, and might find a lot of luck with Fingolfin’s two sons, as Fingon is the eldest prince of the third generation and still the brash and non-too-bright and ambitious – but with loyalty to his father and grandfather that it isn’t enough (Melkor still hates Turgon). Disappointed again, Melkor turns to where in canon he had dismissed as inconsequential: the Falmari Teleri.

And here there are hooks in which Melkor can play. The Falmari Teleri are isolated away from the Valar and the rest of the elves – they ignore everyone but Ulmo, Ossë, Uinen, and some Noldor, they are looked down as latecomers and outsiders. And the Falmari like Olwë have the suppressed anger and guilt of leaving/being left by their kin back in Beleriand. Melkor can have a field day with all of these feelings. Easy to turn them against the rest of the Valar – “” the Valar took the first two tribes but didn’t care about any of you to wait the first time, and then only brought over the island and demanded you take this second chance or forever forfeit the land of bliss without caring about why you were staying. Your brother/king Elwë was as much an ambassador and king as Finwë and Ingwë, yet the Valar forgot him. Your kin wait for you in the darkness and wilds of the other shore while you live in light and bliss. Aren’t you guilty? Don’t you want to show them how wrong they were for not listening to you, to see all this magnificence they are missing? Don’t you want to go rescue them? “” Melkor can even use the rumors of the Second-born to twist the Teleri into rebellion – conflate the Latecomers with orcs and it becomes less ‘the Second-born of which you never met or no nothing about are going to replace you in the Valar’s affection and take over lands in the Hinder Shore you’ve never seen’ and more ‘the Second-born are coming and they are going to invade where your kin are – the Sindar don’t know about them so you need to go warm them, because you know the Valar have abandoned them your blood-kin completely’. And the Teleri sail out to Tol Eressëa and dream of Beleriand and the lands and rivers east. They dream of sailing a little beyond the island, sailing back to Beleriand. They look at their beautiful Swan-ships, the wonderful labor of their own hands that can do what the Valar once did with an island. They think that there is no prohibition against sailing back. Ulmo doesn’t forbid them. Ossë even encourages it in his own way, waxing lovingly about the shores of Middle-earth and his good friend Círdan. Olwë and the Teleri decide to leave, to take their great flotilla and sail to Middle-earth to reunite with all their missing family. They aren’t positive if they are permanently leaving Aman – just going for a visit and rescue and bring back all those refusing kin. And it’s not like the rest of Valinor will care or even notice they’ve left. One low-key rebellion exodus, no mass murder involved.

The Valar are still aghast and a little hurt, it causes a swarm of drama and discussion in Tirion, especially as Finarfin and his children left with the Teleri, citing that he didn’t dislike the Valar or anything, but this rebellion/cause was just and his loyalties are with his wife, brother-in-laws, Olwë, and adopted people. Some of Fingolfin’s children and the other most adventurous Noldor join this Excursion as well for the excitement. Aredhel for sure, and Argon. Maybe Fingon? Maybe even Anairë for the perfect mirror-verse reversal of who left and who stayed behind in canon.

Of course the Teleri reunion with the Sindar isn’t as perfectly rosy as the Sindar and Nandor reunion. Hard to rescue your big brother when he’s an establish king of an entire continent with a Maia wife and daughter, and extremely lovely and permanent underground kingdom… Olwë’s had several centuries as king himself out of his big brother’s shadow, too. Just because orcs are invading doesn’t mean the Sindar and Nandor really want to leave their homes and forests to Aman. Círdan is quite happy with his boat-building skills, thank you very much.  “”That short gentleman over there is a dwarf, please don’t stare or make rude comments, cousin, it took us a lot of awkward encounters and treaties to restore and create good relations and we don’t want to go through anything again – no they are not orcs, don’t you dare draw a bow at Telchar, please put down the ax! Mortals? I think they are but what is this Second-born Usurper nonsense about? “” The whole mess isn’t as bad as the Sindar relationship with Kin-slayers (again, no actual murder of anyone, let alone innocent blood relatives)

The Two Trees still need to get axed somehow/when and there needs to be another Plot Trinket for Eärendil and Lúthien/Beren to have without the Silmarils, but yeah. That’s the AU.

crocordile replied to your post:MY FRIEND, ARE YOU BACK? how was your trip?? how…

aawwww I’m glad!!!! Heget, remind me why I never asked you about what specific breed of dog each of our silm faves would own?

Ah shit, time to pull up this series of posts from way back when and see what I have in my notes. (Breaks down into generally Vanyar and other Aman breeds, Beleriand, and all the rest)

Hmm, for specific characters – I still haven’t resolved the tricolor hunting hound look, though more and more I’m leaning towards that appearance being the common look of many Sindarin breeds, partly because it’s too cliche to give the Grey Elves the gray dogs, it is very distinctive, and again I can’t stop thinking how those white-tipped tails make following on foot through dense underbrush in low light is very helpful. And it’s so very English, you know, that foxhound tricolor. So Celeborn has a pack of medium to large hunting hounds, probably larger than the harrier, thus approaching foxhound and pointers or bloodhound in size and look. There is this medieval to 18th century hound called the Talbot, originally bred in Normandy, which was the probable root of the foxhounds, basset hounds, bloodhounds, beagles, etc.. which were mostly white. So I could give him white hounds too. (The real reason I bring up this possibility is that two specific types of dog were used in heraldry – the greyhound and the Talbot). Again in comes down to pinning down exactly what hunting methods the elves of Doriath used, versus those up in Mithrim, or on the coast, versus Aman. And what type of prey, and if afoot or on horseback. Off the cuff, Celeborn owns a pack of the rangier-limb, swifter hounds, while Beleg has a lymer, a medieval scent-hound worked singly on a leash. (Celeborn’s would be called raches in Middle English) Now the small companion pet dogs in Doriath are Italian Greyhounds (Melian owns a few) because I say so and an assortment of terriers. Saeros is quite proud of the long luxurious coat on his Yorkie-like dog. Mablung cannot sleep in his bed due to the eight or so dogs, from a large mastiff to two scruffy rat terriers, that share it.

Elwë has a few greyhounds, befitting a king, but also a very large pack of hunting hounds, some lymers, some of those more primitive shepherd guardian flock dogs/mastiffs descended from the Minyar’s original guard dogs of Cuiviénen, and a blue-coated terrier. Lúthien grew up around dogs.

Olwë owns a few water spaniels.

Ingwë is a cat person (Siamese, Birman, and Turkish Van), but as the king of the Vanyar, he does officially own a few hounds. For hunting hounds, Aman has wide bright protected plains, so sight-hounds are the norm. And to avoid the obvious, let’s go with the Sloughi and Azawakh for our large fast skinny-looking dogs. And then on the mountain slopes, some large pale shepherd dogs in the spirit of the Great Pyrenees, Kuvasz, or Maremma Sheepdog. (This dog bred with the native guardian flock herding dogs of North Beleriand becomes the Gondolin Mountian Dog of which Idril owns. The various size breed variations, some of which were used to pull the carts in the Hidden City, are recreated in Aman during the Second and Third Age and are very popular.) At least one daughter of Ingwë owns the Tibetian Spaniel equivalent that has been bred down to populate the Vanyar monasteries along side the numerous cats.

…

In the Second Age, Galadriel owns some long-haired white and pale peach/golden Porcelaine, bred from Beleriand/Aman crosses and you bet were as a joke so her husband could have his hunting pack of maiden hounds crowned in gold.

…

Others in particular? the People of Bëor are ALL ABOUT DOGS, and Barahir owned many hounds. The dogs of the Haladin tended towards heavy low-set mastiff dogs. The Númenorean kings and queens owned Pomerians, while the common folk owned more prosaic spitzs. At some late point Cirdan is going to have a curly-coated retriever.

eluchil replied to your post:Asha Greyjoy

I’ve never actually read the ones with her in them but that “she would die as she had lived, with an axe in her hand and a laugh upon her lips” quote makes me think I would love her

YES. I don’t hardcore ‘stan her (to be honest, the characters in ASoIaF I truly care about are almost as limited as my ability to care about the series itself), but she isn’t one I dislike or feel indifference to. She’s awesome, and if I cared more about ASoIaF she would be a fav, but ugh….

(I can’t read more than snippets of his writing at a time and the world-building and plot bugs me, the grim-dark is off-putting and predictable, and the cluster-fuck that is the tv show soured me by association even more)

kareenvorbarra replied to your post “Just watched Mad Max: Fury Road (with my mom). Best. Decision. Yes,…” UGH I WANNA SEE IT

yavieriel said: you’re making me curious and I don’t even like Mad Max

YEESSS~ Like, same diesel punk and cars and post-apocalyptic anything are not my thing, but this movie~ On the visual use of color and the soundtrack alone I would rec it, and the action and pacing- but then the characters and story – it’s very sparse for the most part and so much of the dialogue and emotions are just from focusing on people’s eyes – and it’s about objectification without the movie falling into the lazy trap of objectifying – a (the) big theme is if you give others compassion and trust and work together and everyone, even the ones other movies would treat as helpless props, can help and contribute. But it’s also a flame-throwing guitar played by a guy in a mask and red onesie suspended in front of giant amp towers and so much other crazy props and wildness and ridiculous without being smarmy ironic – it revels in it.

But the Valhalla no straw-death but then to redefine a meaningful death heroic sacrifice metaphors killed me in a good way first.

crocordile said: I WOULD READ THE FUCK OUTTA THIS

With all the comparisons between what it did right versus last week’s GoT, the crossover/fusion demands itself (plus i started gushing over Nux and Capable and realized I was repeating Theon and Jeyne arguments, and now I’m torn between which ASoIaF lady would make the best Furiosa (my shortlist goes from Asha and Brienne to redemption and missing hand heroic Cersei) and is Sandor Max? plus the Dag looked like Dany…) That and a little inspiration for the Angband fic and I also really want the story now in Easterling-controlled Dor Lómin where several concubines are escaping with the help of a former Easterling lady warrior (or Aerin survived burning Brodda’s house and she has a plan to help others) and I think I know what Ruga was up to…