#Tolkien fandom in all its glory
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Where to now?
It's my birthday, and my 1k event is long overdue...
So, here we go! I shall give you a choice, and you decide. Every week, I will post a new chapter based on the choice of the previous week :D
You wake up, disoriented, on a slab of cold, uncomfortable stone.
Looking down at your tingling hands, you realise that you’re shockingly naked, and you half expect to start spinning against your volition like the tiny, animated characters in the games you so love.
With a heavy sigh, you scan your surroundings—all you can make out in the ominous, greyish chiaroscuro is a heavy door.
Naturally, you’re left with no other valid choice than to open it, and, as soon as it swings open with an atmospheric creak, you realise that you’re at the bottom of a valley from which several paths lead up.
Where will you go now?
#og post#Event#Birthday Event#1k followers event#write your own story#Tolkien fandom in all its glory#let's capitalise on my readiness to write so many characters#fun fun fun#IDNMT writes#fanfiction#writing#tolkien writing#jrrt
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I don’t think some people realize why the gray jedi thing pisses some of us off so badly.
Imagine you like lord of the rings and you decide to look around the fandom.
And it turns out that 10+ or something years ago someone wrote a piece of fanfiction where they rewrote the rules for the ring. So instead of it only having one master and corrupting everyone else that tried to use it, it sometimes chooses to take a new master if it feels the person is worthy of it. And therefore this author’s self-insert OC can now use the one ring in all its glory without getting turned crazy.
This fanfic gets published (as some fanfics do) and most of the fandom has read it and loves it.
Now, when you (someone who has only dealt with canon works written by Tolkien) see this fic you go… huh. That’s nice, but it goes against the very point of the books and the lore tolkien created. So while it’s a good fic I’m not going to interact with it.
But then people keep harassing you for taking about/ writing the one ring the way tolkien wrote it to begin with.
And they SWEAR that this is the Actual lore of the one ring, and that YOU are wrong. Which is completely insane to you, because FRODE TOOK IT TO MORDOR FOR A REASON. There is only one lord of the ring!! That’s literally the name of the series that’s what it’s about!! If what the fandom was insisting about was possible, there would be no plot. In the original books.
This is why we are so upset over gray jedi!! Bc if it was possible to use the dark side but still be a good guy then wtf is wrong with Anakin? Why the fuck did Darth Vader fall to the dark side? Why did Luke struggle so much? If you can have your cake and eat it too why are the movies so fuckin long?? Why did Luke fail against Vader in Empire? what lesson did he learn in Return? Why would the movie be called Return of the Jedi if Luke had not learned the Jedi ways????
You can write OC’s as gray jedi all you want but when you start forcing it into canon it literally ruins the movies!
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On Maglor’s Fate
(and why it’s a good thing)
I’ve seen several excellent posts by people far more knowledgeable about HoME than I pointing out that Maglor’s fate in the published silm – wandering the shores in eternal lament – was in fact taken by Christopher Tolkien from a single draft of the legendarium, and that JRRT’s later conception of Maglor’s fate was that he died by suicide at the same time as Maedhros, casting himself into the sea along with his Silmaril. This is a very good point, but despite the fandom’s general lack of adherence to published silm canon (see the prevalence of crispy Amrod truthers, or the lack of consensus on Gil-galad’s parentage) most people seem to have cleaved rather strongly to the idea of Maglor’s survival. Why?
Well, I would like to argue, because it’s SO much more interesting.
Of course, your headcanons are valid! If you prefer thinking that Maglor died at the end of the First Age, go for it; most of the texts support you! But for all the Maglor girlies (gender-neutral) out there, here’s a non-exhaustive list of reasons why Maglor’s survival is better, more satisfying storytelling, and you should continue to cling to this one outdated draft of the silm.
It fits Maglor’s arc better. For such a popular character, I always find it interesting that Maglor is only really developed in the final chapter of the silm – but what we do get in that final chapter is so fascinating. He takes pity on Elrond and Elros, he speaks against stealing the Silmarils, and, most pertinently to my point here, he effectively relinquishes his claim to Eärendil’s Silmaril. The straight line from "its glory is seen now by many, and is yet secure from all evil", to wanting to surrender to Eönwë, to actually throwing a Silmaril into the sea is SO delicious. A lot of that character growth is wiped out if Maglor instead casts both himself and the Silmaril into the sea.
It better sets up Maglor as a foil to Maedhros. I will never shut up about how Maglor's last debate with Maedhros is the best and most heartbreaking dialogue in the book. Its construction is exquisite, and one of the things I love about it the most is the way they mirror each other's words, becoming, in a way, reflections of each other. ("Who shall release us?"—"If none can release us...") All of Maglor's actions in the final chapter are in direct contrast to Maedhros': compare the fostering of Elrond and Elros with Maedhros' failure to save Eluréd and Elurín, and then consider why it is that Maglor still seems to have some hope that things will all work out (which is why he wants to surrender) while Maedhros despairs completely. That contrast makes it important to me that Maglor reacts in a different, more optimistic manner than Maedhros to the Silmarils burning them. ("More optimistic" by the bleak bleak standards of the end of the silm, at least.) I also really like the kidnap fam parallels of Elros and Maedhros both choosing death in very different ways, whereas Elrond and Maglor both choose life - E&E almost repeating M&M's decisions in a healthier and more wholesome manner.
It better preserves Maedhros' arc. Leading on from the last point, but, I think, separate. Maedhros' suicide, in addition to being just ridiculously tragic, is fascinating. The despair, the profundity of the realisation that it was all for nothing, the idea that Maedhros, who spent decades as a captive of Morgoth, is the one person knows exactly what being burned by the Silmarils means - aahh it's so good I can't dissect it all here. But do also consider Maedhros begging Fingon to kill him, and how he finally got his wish, centuries later! That terrible fall from grace is Maedhros' story. I think having Maglor also die by suicide actually diminishes Maedhros' tragedy, with the rather perverse outcome that two deaths end up being less sad than one.
Unresolved endings are good. This is a rather more personal one, tbh - but I love those last messy loose ends, and Maglor's survival is a quintessential one. Don't the great tales never end? There is, of course, so much excellent fanfic potential in Maglor still wandering Middle-Earth into the Second and Third Ages. Here's a legend from the Elder Days, and you can have him stroll into Rivendell if you want! So much more satisfying than neatly wrapping the story up and tying a bow on top.
As far as I can tell, Tolkien's own reasons for having Maglor die instead were that he wanted Galadriel to be the last surviving leader of the rebellion of the Noldor; I've also seen it argued that Maglor needs to die so that Celebrimbor can be the last surviving Fëanorian. To be honest, I don't think Maglor's survival does much damage to either of these arcs. He's effectively a non-entity after the First Age; the text specifies that he "came never back among the people of the Elves". So you can definitely prefer a version of canon where Maglor lives without losing all those Very Important Feelings about Celebrimbor!
There are, of course, myriad self-indulgent reasons why you might also prefer to think Maglor doesn't die. Maybe you just like him and it would be too sad if he dies; maybe you ship him very specifically with someone born in the Second Age; maybe you just want Elrond to have one thing left after everyone he's lost. I didn't include these in the above list because that was attempting to focus more on literary reasons why Maglor's survival makes for a better story, but they are all so valid and I agree with all of them! But hopefully Points 1-4 can be emphatically whipped out the next time someone implies that the fandom is clinging to Maglor's survival for solely sentimental reasons. There are good, solid grounds for wanting Maglor to live, we promise! It actually improves the story!
you're just jealous our blorbo survives and yours doesn't—
#silmarillion#meta#my meta#maglor#maedhros#the line of miriel#chris actually got some things right guys#this is one of them#cw suicide
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I forget what the opposite of strawmanning is called, but it's like ... I don't doubt that Tolkien genuinely disliked feminism, I just find it rather odd that his way of addressing this in his work seemed to be writing bitter, hard-edged, and incredibly eloquent women who give fantastic speeches about being fucked over by patriarchy. And either there's no real response from other characters or the response is deeply underwhelming, so I'm like ... okay, what are you even trying to do here?
These women are also usually very beautiful, in the interests of full disclosure, so you get all these ... like, tall hot women who do not fear pain or death!!! and are full of towering resentment at very real injustice and/or suffering. The details and nuances of these characters are quite different, but these characters obviously represent a type that Tolkien found compelling and kept returning to without really finding a solution to the problems these characters raise and pose.
I've read a lot of female characters by a lot of authors, and maybe it's just because my personal taste in female characters is really similar to Tolkien's, but few things click with me so much as Éowyn's speech to Aragorn, or Erendis's to Ancalimë, or Andreth's and Morwen's... everything, or even the shorter defiant responses we hear from Haleth, Aredhel, Niënor, Galadriel. There's even a trace of this with someone as improbable and deliberately unlikable as Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, who confronted Saruman's men, survived imprisonment, and tottered out to hobbit glory.
I don't know, really. Maybe giving angry female characters kickass speeches was as far as he was willing to go with them. And to go by his favored types in male characters, he did have a taste for proud, attractive, talented, often abrasive, and hubristic characters regardless of gender. But it's not only a general type, IMO, when you've got a bunch of these women talking about gender specifically and its impact on them, so—I don't know, sometimes I just shrug and get on with my fandom life without trying to navigate the quagmire of intent. But it's definitely a question I return to.
So there's no real conclusion here. I guess I'll just leave you with my personal favorites! Here's Éowyn's response to Aragorn:
"All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more." (LOTR 767)
But also Erendis, my love:
"...Númenor was to be a rest after war. But if they[men] weary of rest and the plays of peace, soon they will go back to their great play, manslaying and war. Thus it is; and we are set here among them. But we need not assent. If we love Númenor also, let us enjoy it before they ruin it. We also are daughters of the great, and we have wills and courage of our own. Therefore do not bend, Ancalimë. Once bend a little, and they will bend you further until you are bowed down. Sink your roots into the rock, and face the wind, though it blow away all your leaves." (Unfinished Tales)
#i honestly don't remember how much of ancalimë's backstory he even came up with before mentioning her in lotr#but the idea of going 'what if there were ruling queens' and then coming up with 'the mariner's wife' to explain it#is the most tolkien writing women thing ever#anghraine babbles#long post#legendarium blogging#gender blogging#legendarium fanwank#i'm not sure i have another canon where the women manage to exude so much 'fuck all y'all' without a single expletive tbh
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hiii! 1 and 10 please! :D
A fanon characterisation that you love
I like what the fandom has done with Caranthir and I've definitely been influenced by it in how I write him. Fanon has taken a one-dimensional angry guy and made him compelling: cranky but sensitive, hardworking, independent... and sexy. I also enjoy the way he's typically presented in fanart.
10. A popular character you actually really like and why
No secret here. Maglor.
Short reason: He is the embodiment in one character of so much of what I love about Tolkien's works. Difficult to explain in few words, but for example:
He's a singer and storyteller, someone who carries history and tradition, a theme that is central to Tolkien -- I mean, the stories themselves are presented as part of an in-universe tradition that Maglor (composer of the Noldolante) is literally a part of. That makes me insane.
Oversimplification here, but among a crowd of doomed characters, he seems to believe in choice (let's break the oath), and in taking a leap of faith (maybe we'll be forgiven) at the end; he seems to have a kind of estel ("Then let us be glad, for its glory is seen now by many.") He throws the Silmaril away (this also makes me insane). He decides to stop killing and to nurture instead. To me, these actions come together to demonstrate that kind of radical hope that defines so much of Tolkien.
The Sea. Capital S. That's it.
I know I'll go off about how he's not all soft and good (and he's not), and I'll drag him for being delusional, complacent, and a procrastinator, but the truth is I have decidedly accepted the narrative's invitation to feel pathos for him.
Long reason: I wrote 10k words about him here, there's not much more I can say 😁.
[Spread Love Asks]
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The prompt for day 1 of Angbang week is actually Seduction and/or Adoration, but for some reason I got it into my head that the first prompt was “Worship.” So I spent several hours last night preparing both a photo set and some Sauron character meta around that theme.
I think the aspect of Sauron as high priest of the dark religion of fallen Númenor is often under-explored.
A lot of people interpret Sauron starting a Morgoth-worshipping cult under Al-Pharazon as entirely about building his own power, or as Sauron using the worship of Morgoth as a way to corrupt the Númenoreans in order to make them follow him, and ditto for the way the orcs are all made to worship first Morgoth and then, eventually Sauron himself. Or, if they’re Angbang shippers, they assume the sacrifices in Númenor were purely an attempt by a grief-stricken Sauron to resurrect/summon/contact Morgoth.
Both of those are equally valid interpretations (and you can easily opt for ?porqoi no los dos? and have Sauron motivated by both desires at once), but I think it would be really interesting for fandom to explore the idea that actually, it was all completely sincere and Sauron literally did worship Melkor as his god. Melkor is a vala, after all, and worshiping one of the Valar as your primary deity rather than Eru Illuvatar isn’t unheard of in Arda -the dwarves worship only Aule. And Melkor isn’t just the greatest of the Valar (from Sauron’s perspective), he’s also a prophet-like figure who “saw through” the hypocrisy of Illuvatar and the other Valar to find his own truth and create his own vision.
Whether you add a romantic element or not (I personally think there was definitely love there, and like to envision Sauron conducting gruesome human sacrifices in Númenor while giving off the same weirdly horny-for-god vibe as those medieval catholic nuns who liked to go on and on about how tasting Christ’s flesh during communion filled them with ecstasy, or that’s embodied in Bernini’s porntastic statue of The ecstasy of Saint Theresa), I’d like to see someone portray Sauron-as-religious-zealot, a Sauron convinced that Melkor’s guidance and influence “saved” him from an existence of blind, mediocre servitude and opened his eyes to the true nature of reality/power/creation. A Sauron who sees Melkor’s defeat and exile within the void as a form of martyrdom, something like an evil Christ-figure, who was persecuted at the ignorant hands of his complacent siblings and on some level sacrificed himself so that Sauron and his other most beloved followers might continue on. A Sauron who wants to conquer all of Arda not simply to rule it or destroy it, but to bring all its peoples into the dark light of the only true Vala, or else slaughter them as offerings to his dark glory.
I think, given the Catholic underpinnings of Tolkien’s cosmology, that a sort of Melkor as warped dark Christ figure/anti-christ (or technically Sauron as antichrist, since he’s the one presenting himself as a helper of mankind in Númenor only to lead people astray, a la the biblical antichrist, in a way that is probably not a coincidence) wouldn’t be that far out there as an interpretation of canon, and honestly, if the otherwise dreadful-sounding Rings of Power series happened to feature religious-zealot!true-believer!Sauron then I’d be willing to forgive them a lot for having a truly different/original take on the Dark Lord that no official adaptation had done yet. (They won’t, though, because if anyone on that show’s creative team was putting any real thought into it, then they’d have thought to get the actor playing Elrond a halfway decent long wig.)
#angbang#sauron#numenor#Cult of Melkor#the role of the white tree shall be played by ghost eucalyptus#the role of the temple of Morgoth shall be played by the Roman pantheon#the second-best irl double for it#because the building that’s the best match is too instantly recognizable
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that awkward moment where you re-read a crack post only to find that you accidentally edited out the "crack" part.
i'm sorry hugo weaving: it's not your fault they used the character you played to make drama for "character growth". > _ <
additionally must i apologise to:
Fans of the Live-Action Adaptions, old and new, whose introductions to the Legendarium through said works has undoubtedly gifted us all with new friends to nerd out with.
Fans of the above who met the books first & nonetheless enjoyed the motion picture: adaptions allow us all to better analyze our own, personal readings of "canon" through new perspectives. The Legendarium's uses Adaption (in the form of "Translation" to ENG) as its Framing Device: contesting canonicity is Encouraged within the text itself (which paints itself as "unreliable").
Hugo Weaving, for acting the role as it was written for him (no matter my Opinions on Said Writing): apparently Aragorn & Arwen needed a Direct Antagonist to "grow" from.
the employees of Weta Workshop, who did incredibly meticulous work for Tolkien's Legendarium (& continue to do so).
Sir Christopher Lee, who fully conveyed the Might & Majesty of the Wizard Saruman and wielded fully his Greater Experience (with Tolkien's works, stabbing people & just ~generally~) for the bettterment of LOTR's production. The good Sir rests now in Valinor but is ever One Of Us.
Sir Ian McKellan, for his fearsome & canny portrayal of Middle-Earth's Most Persistent Busybody. He has ever been "Mellon" to Fans & Fandom.
Cate Blanchette, who embodied "Galadriel" in all her beautiful glory: she ascertained the power of the character, subtle and fearsome and ancient. Her Graceful Swooshing of The Big Swishy Sleeves prompted my younger self into gaining an interest in the films at all (& thus Those Books I Forgot I Had). If I ever successfully sit through all three films, I'd gladly argue for her place as an Honary "Great" of Chinese Fantasy Dramas (LOTR isn't xianxia but it certainly resembles it in some parts, at least with its Immortals).
Viggo Mortensen, whose castmates found in him a "Strider" worth following, and who has everafter provided the Tolkien Fandom with its very own Cryptid.
Kiran Shah, for whom we can thank wonders untold in the cinematic Legendarium, in his roles as Frodo and Stunt Actor for all four hobbits. Rightfully was he named "Lord of the Scale Doubles" by his castmates: his laurels are well deserved!
Shah's Fellow Doubles in the LOTR films¹, who have long shared in his obscurity: I have added Footnotes that name The IRL Fellowship in its entirety, as best I could ascertain (corrections welcomed!).
Sophia Nomvete, who suffered first and worst in the Racist Backlash against TROP (her image amongst the very first released in Amazon's Promotions): she is beautiful in the role, even in her beardlessness.
the remaining POC cast of TROP, in its first season & those upcoming: they trailblaze against everything set against them² and I collate them in hope that "Tokenism" become a thing of fable... but mostly because TROP has enough of Us in its cast them to make "namedropping" the work of a paragraph (to which i say: took you long enough, Hollywood).
Alex Tarrant & Kali Kopae: they, amongst others cast as "Numenoreans" in TROP, are the first Polynesian actors to star in Tolkien works with their own faces³. They carry with them the Weight of Legacies, fictional and truthful: may the writing do they & their characters justice.
every & anyone who sets the Legendarium to Song, its "truest" incarnation by a Watsonian's metric. yes, even those responsible for the whole "they're taking the hobbits to Isengard!" meme.
Footnotes below the cut: there I touch on Prejudice & Politick, as found throughout Tolkien works: Racism is the primary focus (Anti-Semitism is tied-therein, made "implicit" because This Is Tolkien afterall) though I make reference also to Ableism.
¹The IRL Fellowship of the Ring: Doubles & All
Frodo Baggins was played not only by Elijah Wood but by Kiran Shah, who doubly served as "Size" & "Stunt" Double for Wood.
Sam was played by Sean Astin (principal), Bhoja ‘BK’ Kannada (size) & Kiran Shah (stunts).
Merry by Dominic Monaghan (principal), Martin Lenisson Gray (size) & Kiran Shah (stunts).
Pippin by Billy Boyd (principal), Praphaphorn ‘Fon’ Chansantor (size) & Kiran Shah (stunts).
(Yes, Kiran Shah was apparently the stuntsman for all of the hobbits: finding this out required my reading of More Recent Journalism, as Wikis only credit their principal actors & size doubles in the roles, with Shah's stuntwork credited only generically in-film & in wikis)
Gimli was primarily played by Brett Beattie but, despite Some Effort from his colleagues to confer co-crediting, only John Rhys-Davies was named in main billing ("movie politics", apparently). Beattie was initially cast for stunt & scaling work, but soon became a full-time "stand-in" for much of principal photography (Davies was Infamously Allergic to the Gimli Prosthetics, which restricted how long he could work).
An Aside: I remain personally ??? at why the production bothered to cast anyone, only to give them a full-face of prosthetics. The prosthetic wig & facial hair? Yes: modern beauty standards made it unlikely that a "fully haired" actor would be found for the role. The prosthetic nose, forehead & [whatever else] too? Those served no narrative purpose save, perhaps, an idea that "dwarves should look Old and [conventionally] Unattractive". This is my conclusion upon recalling the general "effect" of Gimli's changed characterization in the films & PJ's Pointed Rejection of casting "little people" in principal roles to begin with.
Legolas was played by Orlando Bloom (principal), Paul Randall (size) & Morgan Evans (stunts). Though Evans was only credited as Legolas in Fellowship, given that the entire trilogy was shot together, it can be Assumed that Evans retained the role as theirs is the only name that came up.
Aragorn was played by Viggo Mortensen (principal), Paul Randall (size) & Kirk Maxwell (stunts).
Gandalf was played by Sir Ian McKellen (principal), Paul Randall (size) & Basil Chapham (stunts). Chapham was credited as a "riding double" (or otherwise under "stunts"). A photo exists of all three Gandalfs in costume together: it's adorable.
Boromir was played by Sean Bean (principal), Paul Randall (size) & Lance Louez (stunts).
Paul Randall did indeed play as Legolas, Aragorn, Gandalf AND Boromir. Though I could only found him specifically credited as Legolas, interviews & cast photos do indeed name him as a "Stand-In" for all four roles. At 7"1, Randall could be used to scale "Big Folk" into scenes with the principal hobbit actors.
²Hollywood Racism in Fantasy Film Casting: Watch This Space?
We all Cringed at the blatant yellow & brownface of the Live-Action "Avatar the Last Airbender" film. The author of the Wizard of Earthsea series has long battled for its primary protagonist, Ged, to look like himself on book covers: he came to adaptions "pre-whitewashed" (to the great frustration of his creator, writer Ursula K. Leguin).
While there is no Public Ado About TROP from its BIPOC cast, save their grace in the face of Racist Backlash, Amazon's making the series at all was inspired by the success of HBO's Game of Thrones. The nature of Streamed Media is something currently protested: actors & writers own nothing they make, can say nothing of their work nor on its reception, and this has yet to Change for the begger.
Those Aware of how GoT handled its canonically POC characters (the Dornish, the peoples of Essos & the Summer Islands) are likely Aware of its Incredulous Killing-Off of the only black woman in its primary cast (Missandei, adapted to screen as an adult woman). Missandei's actor, Nathalie Emmanuelle, has been Very Diplomatic in interviews on her experiences while filming & later watching the show.
Additional instances of how racism has affected more recent Big Budget Fantasy Productions, "internally" (through casting & writing choices) and "externally" (racist backlash against adaptions & actors) can be found in the Star Wars sequel trilogy (Disney) and the televisation of Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" (Freemantle). Kelly Marie Tran (Rose Tico, SW) & John Boyega (Finn, SW) have spoken on their respective experiences with both (both went on to work on other Disney projects but Disney is its own Balrog) , while Orlando Jones has spoken of the racial discrimination within the production of American Gods.
The ongoing Writer's Strike is Informative on the limits of speech imposed on those working on Streamed Media such as TROP, writers & actors both. While TROP's 2nd season had already "wrapped" prior to the Strike, its production team & cast are still very much affected it: their speech is policed, by contractual obligations & self-preservation. Many of TROP's cast is "fresh": they do not have the clout to break convention, especially those acting as "trailblazing minorities" & whose continued employment is more vulnerable for it.
³The (Accidental) Diversity of the LOTR film trilogy & its (Deliberate) Othering of its BIPOC
PJ's films are sometimes joked as being (very long) tourism ads for New Zealand: the islands had been "cast" as Middle-Earth, something retained in pop culture ever since.
To fill out the wide landscapes of Middle-Earth required more cast than Hollywood could affordably export: thusly was casting opened to the local populace. This is how PJ's LOTR films' were made Accidentally Diverse.
Much of the Cavalry in the LOTR films (all those extras on horseback) were IRL Eowyns: the majority of the locals with the horsemanship the production required turned our to be female. Given that entirety of Eowyn's Plotline requires gender-exclusion in Rohan's armies? All those female riders in the background were "disguised" with beards.
Lesser known (certainly less publicised) is the quickness of the LOTR production in deciding which local New Zealanders would be cast & in what roles: a myth of whiteness in "New Zealand as Middle-Earth" was actively chosen at every opportunity.
Tolkien's Imperialist Guilt kicked in, eventually, for his depicting the Enthralled Armies of Sauron as... IRL peoples traditionally colonized (in many cases enslaved) by European Powers. He'd accidentally-on-purpose written "reverse racisn" into Middle-Earth. He'd also depicted & decribed orcs with much of the dehumanizing rhetoric used against peoples of African. This prompted both White & Catholic Guilt in his personal writings (...that never made it into printings of the Legendarium).
Decades later, when filming a big budget live-action adaption to Tolkien's Legendarium, the Production (Peter Jackson definitely included) decided that all their visually BIPOC extras should be cast exclusively as... Orcs and Foreign Invaders of Middle-Earth. Y'know: the very same Enthralled Armies of Sauron that had so troubled the Professor (very belatedly) for the Blatant Racism of it all.
Amongst those Visually BIPOC persons cast as Foreign Invaders? Just about everyone who was Maōri: Maōri, the very people native to "Middle-Earth", and a country that was very much colonized by European Powers (there were also some Attempted Conquest, though "there were no New Zealand Wars" was still the "historical canon" taught during LOTR's filming: mayhaps that explains how the Irony went unrealised).
I will note that it's been twenty-ish years & several more films yet we're still waiting on PJ to have his Belated "Crisis Of Conscience" RE: Racism. TROP, at least, cast its Maōri actors as Proper Numenorean Conquerors so... progress?
#tolkien meta#hollow whispers#i began this in earnest penitence to fellow fans bc i know the films are deservedly beloved#but then i went looking for the IRL fellowship & half of them were uncredited??#that half was somehow the disabled &/or POC half#i've tried to Hide The Dreaded Politick under the cut#cw ableism#cw racism#cw antisemitism
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first thing we'd climb a tree (...and maybe then we'd talk)
read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/wKzsjFI
by MindyMN
After the Battle of the five armies, all the pieces and tidbits that once upon a time represented Erebor's strength and finesse are being slowly picked up in an effort to return the kingdom to its former glory. Eventually, that also entails ensuring Durin’s line will not come to its end. You are the princess of Nurava, a dwarven kingdom with a shameful past and barely any prospects of having allies. It makes no sense you’re being considered to marry Prince Fíli, the heir to the throne of the kingdom of Erebor, but the letter doesn’t lie. You never felt the Longing you'd heard so much about, never been really in love and as much as you would like to hide that fact, it bothers you and has hardened your spirit throughout the years. But duty is a duty and if you threw away saving your kingdom for having something you might have zero chance of ever finding, you would have never found a way to live with yourself.
Words: 7165, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English
Fandoms: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Categories: F/M
Characters: Original Female Character(s), You, Fíli (Tolkien), Bilbo Baggins, Original Male Character(s), Thorin Oakenshield, Kíli (Tolkien), Tauriel (Hobbit Movies), Dís (Tolkien), Bofur (Tolkien), Bifur (Tolkien), Bombur (Tolkien), Óin (Tolkien), Glóin (Tolkien), Dori (Tolkien), Nori (Tolkien), Ori (Tolkien), Balin (Tolkien), Dwalin (Tolkien)
Relationships: Fíli (Tolkien)/Reader, Fíli (Tolkien)/You, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, Kíli (Tolkien)/Tauriel (Hobbit Movies)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Post-Battle of Five Armies, Arranged Marriage, Angst, Fluff, This will probably turn sappy really quick, No beta we die like my heart after BOTFA, Dwarven Ones | Soulmates, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/wKzsjFI
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first thing we'd climb a tree (...and maybe then we'd talk)
read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/gqJescE
by MindyMN
After the Battle of the five armies, all the pieces and tidbits that once upon a time represented Erebor's strength and finesse are being slowly picked up in an effort to return the kingdom to its former glory. Eventually, that also entails ensuring Durin’s line will not come to its end. You are the princess of Nurava, a dwarven kingdom with a shameful past and barely any prospects of having allies. It makes no sense you’re being considered to marry Prince Fíli, the heir to the throne of the kingdom of Erebor, but the letter doesn’t lie. You never felt the Longing you'd heard so much about, never been really in love and as much as you would like to hide that fact, it bothers you and has hardened your spirit throughout the years. But duty is a duty and if you threw away saving your kingdom for having something you might have zero chance of ever finding, you would have never found a way to live with yourself.
Words: 7165, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English
Fandoms: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Categories: F/M
Characters: Original Female Character(s), You, Fíli (Tolkien), Bilbo Baggins, Original Male Character(s), Thorin Oakenshield, Kíli (Tolkien), Tauriel (Hobbit Movies), Dís (Tolkien), Bofur (Tolkien), Bifur (Tolkien), Bombur (Tolkien), Óin (Tolkien), Glóin (Tolkien), Dori (Tolkien), Nori (Tolkien), Ori (Tolkien), Balin (Tolkien), Dwalin (Tolkien)
Relationships: Fíli (Tolkien)/Reader, Fíli (Tolkien)/You, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Bilbo Baggins/Thorin Oakenshield, Kíli (Tolkien)/Tauriel (Hobbit Movies)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Post-Battle of Five Armies, Arranged Marriage, Angst, Fluff, This will probably turn sappy really quick, No beta we die like my heart after BOTFA, Dwarven Ones | Soulmates, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/gqJescE
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7/5/2020 How Bullies Run Us Over. Why We Let Them.
Reposted from DeviantArt. Crosspost.
Pretty funky title for a journal series that is supposed to be about the experience of writing, huh? You'd think so, there is little room for an ode to possessive pronouns and no participles are dangling thus far, with that for a subject. No, no, as with so many things, this would be the intersection of assorted topics in my sphere of thought. These essays are like rapidly forming moons; enough disparate things spin for a while and gravity gloms them together until an opinion spews forth. No one will read it, but at least I'll be able to quit thinking on it so it's all good.
I mentioned bullies, so let's discuss. Bullies are like rotten eggs. Everyone in theory knows what they are, everyone knows they are undesirable, but until you have had one break open under your nose and experienced the intense miasma in all its retch-inducing glory, you really have no idea of the severity under discussion. There are bullies in schools, in homes, in offices and oh yes, on the Internet. The ones in the latter location are particularly difficult to eradicate, for like their real world counterparts the cockroaches they strike from a hidden place of safety, make themselves inaccessible and invulnerable as possible to attack, feel entitled to use the resources of others to their full advantage with little or no compunction, and will accept zero personal responsibility for any conflict (including failed communication) left in the wake of their activity. Any attempt to resist them usually leads to...a greater infestation.
Any who feel online bullies are not a problem might wish to take the time to view Natalie Wynn's exactingly detailed video discussion titled 'Canceling' viewable here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8 sorry for the clumsy link, my account must not be fancy enough to embed URLs. However it does open with the powerful quotation by Spinoza:
I shall return to this sentiment but do not wish to digress. In my observation of writers, which is admittedly flawed, limited, subjective and skewed -- and yet reinforced by not only my personal acquaintance and friendships by the dozens but a lifetime of perusing biographies and autobiographies of dozens more authors that contributed to the literary canon, I feel it fair to say that I have noticed some commonalities of temperament that transcend time, culture, and gender. Interestingly, as a fanfic writer, my literary circle is almost overwhelmingly female. But the authorship of the literary canon is almost overwhelmingly male. So I'm going to argue the gender balance is fairly represented. Obviously my circle is alive, now. Most lit. fiction authors I have read are quite dead. Almost all hail from Western European or American culture, so there are my attempts at disclosure. What are these commonalities? A propensity toward melancholy (depression/anxiety or other behavioral health difficulty), emotional sensitivity (sometimes extreme), introversion (also sometimes extreme), really damn smart, artistically gifted, and able to use words like a fish moves through water. Of course it is anyone's prerogative to disagree, but then there would be essays with footnotes and citations going back and forth and that would be so very tiresome.
Obviously I write in the Tolkien fandom, yet I exist socially somewhat at its fringes. Often what I learn of it is told to me by friends who have been involved far longer and far more deeply than I. While mostly positive, I was beyond flabbergasted to hear of some of the gobsmacking BS that has gone on in some of these groups. Backstabbing and Machiavellianism worthy of the era of Versailles, apparently engineered by a handful of narcissists with too much time on their hands. Small minded people, Internet Kardashians whose purpose is to exist for the sake of having sycophants. What an interesting world except not! of which I want no part. However, the appeal and also the danger is that like anything else on the Internet, online relationships can bleed into real life both to amazing benefit and amazing Oh Noes, when one meets the wrong sort. And it's so, so easy to be duped.
I belong to a few Internet spaces where writers and readers of Tolkien themed material lurk, and as a writer-advocate for those who are Other I definitely am at home in spaces that are wholly welcoming toward LGBTQIA+ but I am also an incredibly busy writer who generates a lot of output, and when I am not writing I am trying to learn digital art software so that story illustrations can be possible. In short, I live under a rock and that is my running joke in many online groups. I keep up with a very few close friends. So I became dismayed, and then quite angry, to learn that a friend who I deeply admire as a talented writer and a dear human being was being openly trashed by an online bully who had formerly been her writing collaborator. I read what the man had written about her. It was not left to vagaries, couched in terms of a general essay such as what I am writing here.
No, her very well-known pseudonym was trotted out for all to read, so that the magnitude of her alleged sins could be broadcast to all. And then, once he had itemized all the ways in which my friend had abused his good nature, he made a point of being so magnanimous as to instruct his hangers-on not to 'cancel' her. Oh, how very generous, after he took a character she created, used it, and had a misunderstanding unfold concerning said character. Then, instead of graciously parting ways, he elected to vomit out a temper tantrum for all to behold, trying to smear the name of someone who has earned nothing but respect in the writing community -- whose characterization skills have reached so high that they will dwarf his own for years to come. Whose ability to weave complex narrative from external sources soars so high over his own I don't have words. It was a mistake to behave so untowardly, and an ugly mistake at that which left him appearing terribly pathetic.
Newsflash. I have my own original characters (OCs), and I have written stories that use the OCs of other people. In my opinion, the OCs of other people are sacred. They are brainchildren. I've written massive, massive story lines (yes, hundreds of thousands of words and up and if it were millions I would still give no f*cks) that have gone unpublished because the character owner was unhappy. Hasn't wanted to get around to the story. I don't care. If the OC creator so much as twitches that's all I need to know. The reason? The comfort of the creator concerning their creation is my absolute priority at all times, not how many words I have written. The OC under discussion here is not the equivalent of Schroeder on Peanuts, some relative obscura; we might as well be discussing one of Tolkien's flagship characters such as Frodo or Sam. Writing with others requires first and foremost humility, caring greatly about the other writer, patience and consideration. Sacrifice any of those to put the story first and I guarantee a shipwreck. If a person needs to sacrifice any of those, frankly, they will struggle to collaborate.
I said I wanted to return to Spinoza. "Not to mock, execrate or lament human actions but understand them." Spinoza is a better person than I, because I did have to vent some anger. I had to vent some anger at how fed up I am with entitled children taking cheap shots at people when they launch vitriol like that from a web page and don't have the basic courage to allow comments on what they've written. But Spinoza prods me to abandon my criticisms of the behavior in favor of comprehending the reason for why it occurred in the first place. To which I must respond that I am not a reader of hearts or minds, but I know someone who feels hurt and who is lashing out with emotions similar to that of a teenage boy having his first breakup when I see it. I have seen others accuse this individual of a pattern of unkind behavior of similar nature. Maybe that is true maybe it is not; were I to claim to know him I would be committing the same folly he himself sets forth. But I can comment on what this man did not consider. He never took into account that maybe none of the things he claims were said and done against him were done with the motivations he projects onto my friend. It interests me, when a person can write an entire diatribe using the second person voice, "you this, you that," as if he actually can know what is in the thought of another person. The level of assumption and overlooked possibilities is staggering.
Enough about the bully. What about the bullied? My friend's business is her own. I'm going to discuss my own experiences with being bullied. It's happened to me more than once and interestingly, of the three serious instances two of them were from women. The first time I dealt with this I was in my early twenties. The second time, my thirties and the third time my forties so I felt like the spacing was really nice in terms of seeing how my responses changed over time. Each time I put up with the crap for a shorter amount of time before finding a means to assert what resources were available to me. The first time, I honestly caved to the bully. I just wanted it to go away. The second time I had HR, I was at work at a large institution and didn't have to put up with such treatment. The third time concerned someone who used up a lifetime's worth of chances and I learned there are risks when a person refuses to tolerate certain things; this complex circumstance is too much to elaborate on here but...a bit more about it at the end.
That's just it though. Certain things. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Actions have consequences. Standing up to bullies, or trying to, is an action. Cancelling, doxing, hacking, cyberstalking, online threats, message bombing, or if you are a writer, mass spamming of your story comments, or attempts to sully your name or otherwise make your life hell in your online communities. They sound like just words until they happen to you. In my short time in the fandom I've had an angry person start a fake account with my own pseudonym so they could try to leave comments on all my stories saying what a shit writer I am, harass me in chat groups or direct messages trying to trash talk about online personal drama, and a few other instances that I like to call Teh Dramaz and that I endeavor to avoid. Even this above mentioned instance I might usually call Teh Dramaz but this escalated beyond that into actual bullying which is why it has my attention. So to call out this abysmal behavior is that thing where in order to rebuke, one sticks out one's neck and we all know that in this world that can lead to it getting chopped off.
Isn't that sad? Doing the right thing, speaking out about an injustice can basically get a person lined up for some pretty crap consequences, and so this is why people stay quiet? Clam up? Remember though, I mentioned earlier about writers and temperaments? As a group, a lot of us can ill- afford to stand up for ourselves at all. Even an ordinary person thinks twice about rocking the boat. So what about when one self-describes as mentally ill? When one is actively under treatment for depression and anxiety and perhaps more difficult things yet? Well hello there! Lining up to potentially be in the sights of a person capable of doing what was done to my friend is quite literally asking to have life brought to a halt. If that shitbomb were levelled at me, I might be pondering a whole lot of evil to find out where this guy lives and do something special five years later, but would I try to do anything at all online? Would I try to stand up for myself, and risk even more of this crap coming at me? Or worse, risk it escalating, because if someone can do this, how far are they capable of going? I wouldn't, because of everything I just wrote above. I'd roll over and take it. I'd let them get away with it. Because in this day and age, one has to consider all the scenarios, and I personally would not be able to navigate the added stress. I'd desperately need this to all just go away, and so the bad egg wins.
Except he does not, and here is why. I truly believe that Karma sees all things, She is a right bitch, and she in fact knows where everyone lives. It's seriously the universe. What goes around comes around. How one treats people, whether a person does good or ill; it finds its way back time and again. So yes there is anger, and the terrible sense of violation and feeling helpless in the short term. But eventually....well. I mentioned a third person who bullied me, earlier. There was a night I was so, so angry, I literally went outside and screamed at the moon for something to happen to him, because he was a horrible person. Now that man is living in a ramshackle RV, a drug addict, his family won't speak to him, he lost the respect of every friend he ever had and I never did a thing.
**********
Comments:
spicedwinefanfic
Jul 6, 2020
You have reached 5 million words! That’s astonishing and many congratulations 🥳 Reply 2likes
spicedwinefanfic
Edited Jul 6, 2020
Oh, and I’ve been in the fandom (as in posting fanfic) since 2007 and in that time yes, you meet a few strange people that you choose not to interact with, or people you simply don’t mesh with and avoid, but I still talk to people now that I met in those early years. Unlike *him*, I don’t need to move from community to community, changing names and shouting ‘Victim!!’ Because I’m really not that bad. I’m not a Narcisstic Predator, which he is, or a bully, which he also is, and I don’t think I’m above everyone else, that everyone else is wrong and I’m right. Which he does.
He would very much like me to be as he describes me, I’m sure, so again he can shout: ‘Victim!’ He stamped about because he apparently heard at second hand that I didn’t want him writing my characters. A lie. I certainly didn’t want him to and I made it plain his version of them was nothing to do with my ‘verse, and that I didn’t like it. However I never told him to stop. I believed he would simply get bored and fizzle out and hoped he would take the large hint that I would prefer it if he didn’t write them. There was no more reason in fact, for them to be in his fics (except that he wanted to ‘play’ with them more, write more bad porn and write a seven-some orgy, but for storytelling purposes, there was no need for them to be there. I thought I couldn’t actually prevent him from writing them and was not in contact with him so I thought, just let him get bored. Please!
I could have gone his vindictive route. I could have posted all the links I have about his previous damaging behaviour, with screenshots, showed all his various names, shown people who had had their reputations trashed by him over the last 15 or more years.
However, I didn’t. A big part of me thinks he simply isn’t worth it. And he is such a massive energy vampire that having nothing to do with him and his dirty, sticky hands-all-over-my-characters ideas-thievery is the best thing for me. Reply 2likes
AnnEllspethRaven
Jul 6, 2020
Makes popcorn and sits down to read
spicedwinefanfic
Edited Jul 6, 2020
Okay, this was a letter I wrote to someone I respect before he wrote his diatribe.
so you can see that he did want an excuse to vilify me.
I’ll keep the person’s name out of it, but she is highly respected in the Silm fandom.
____
Early in ‘19, someone ( I’ll call him Seb for a reason — this is not his fanfic pseudonyn, but it is one he has used) added me to their access list on DW. I had no idea who he was, but it transpired that they were in an online relationship with someone I knew and who sometimes podfics my fic. So I added him back.
Although, oddly enough it transpired I had heard of him, although not by that name, a few years before.
A little later Seb announced he would be offering his work for FandomTrumpsHate, which was laudable, and so I bid on him. It became clear from what Seb said that they wanted to (had already been) writing my OC Vanimórë in a Star Wars fic and so I said well, if you want to write him, write him for FTH, in anything. Apparently they’d read my work, introduced to it by their partner.
I thought it would be a short fic, and wasn’t bothered really, what he wrote, as it was for charity. I was interested, as who does not like someone writing their OC’s? A few people have written mine and I’ve been delighted. But, well, my stories are quite long, and I tend to think if a reader has read them they’ll also understand them and the characters. I didn’t comprehend that to Seb, characters he deems ‘hot’ are there for sex. They’re meat. And they’re his. (He is, by the way, 40, not a fandom baby).
At the same time, a friend of mine in the Tolkien fandom was also added to this person’s access list and — a little later — we opened a Discord, when it became ever clearer that this person wished to use all our OC’ s in their fic. We had, prior to to this, decided to write a ‘crossover of both our ‘verses and Seb wanted to be a part of it. And how!
First we received the: I never give many people access because of bad experiences but you two are wonderful, which was a bit of a warning sign to me.
And then it got more and more bizarre.
Seb was trying to get me to bring my verse into line with his and add his characters to them; he wanted his characters to be in anything we wrote, as well as his own AU series. He got really, really upset if they were not in the stories and said that his own OC’s were incredibly upset and impossible to live with if they were not in all the stories. Oh, the drama, the pain.
He tried to steamroller — and I was just relieved at that point that I’d finished my main series last year. I didn’t say much, due to the fact I thought I might come across as ‘precious’. I didn’t like to make a fuss.
He took over any ideas we had and incorporated them into his fic as if they were his. Many of mine are very ‘in ‘verse’ specific, not canon, and don’t make sense without knowledge of my stories. All he ever talked about was his main OC having sex with ours, (His tag line was ‘When do they fuck?) and then he began to drop his guard a bit and say that he was in fact his character, and also an Elf (Fëanor) reborn as a mortal.
I thought, oh not not again! Because this happened to me in 06-7 just when I was writing and posting my first story, and that person did get the better of me in that she insisted on writing within some of the fics and changing the storyline, resulting in my having to edit her part out when she left in a strop. (I was glad to, it was the same thing, every male in the story apparently loved and wanted her OFC)
Anyhow, she said she was Legolas’ wife, (reborn as a mortal) not Fëanor, but the same basic claim going on. (I honestly don’t care if people want to call themselves a god, a reborn Elf etc, as long as they don’t deceive or hurt vulnerable people or screw them for money).
Something was niggling at the back of my head at this point, that I had heard of someone in the pagan community doing this kind of thing: data mining for ideas, stealing (in that community) people’s spiritual experiences and saying they were their own. I am not a pagan as such, but do read pagan Wordpress blogs and have for some years. Seb had been a pagan, or something like it, I gathered.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on what niggled, and I had no energy. My mother was in worsening health all last year and I was already in grief about her dying; I just didn’t have the wherewithal to fight or wonder all that much.
Seb soon proved to be impossible to deal with. If you said something like ‘I don’t think that would work because...’ He would throw a huge fit and storm off, leaving the server and then rant on his Dreamwidth about people being mean to him. He would constantly demand to know why his OC was not in a story, or how mine could be in one world when they were supposed to be in his (I have no idea, mate, you wrote them into your fic and it’s an AU, anyhow).
In the end, he simply left the server in a tantrum, but we remained briefly in touch on DW. He said he avoided Discord because it was too ‘immediate’. (Couldn’t control it, I think).
When my mum died in Feb, I had already decided to cut ties with Seb, but I was still wondering why I was so sure that he’d done this kind of thing before. So I emailed two people I knew in the pagan community and asked if they knew him, or rather someone who acted like him.
Oh they did, although not under the pseudonym he uses for fanfic. One of them said: ‘What did Seb do now?’ (I thought who the hell is Seb, that’s not how I know him?) And the other linked me to something that pretty much blew my mind.
(It is worth noting at this point that Seb was in the Star Wars fandom immediately before Tolkien, last year, and left because they tried the same trick with some people there, as they did with me and my friend).
Bear in mind, this deals with people who believe in demons, spirits, etc (well, I do in a vague way but the meat of the matter is the behaviour of this person)
And this was where I realised I had heard of Seb (or rather what he called himself on Tumblr: Nornoriel Lokason) I read this post at the time! I still cannot quite believe that I came across him via a different venue and ended up knowing him!
I have also screenshot a couple of other people regarding him. He has gone through many, many names.
So Seb, also known a few years ago in the pagan community as Nornoriel Lokason, (and many other names) is a long-time predator of vulnerable people apparently. He cuts people out of the herd by making them feel ‘special’ then bullies, gaslights, controls and plays the victim card for all he’s worth. He has reinvented himself many times.
This was more important in the pagan community, obviously, as it involved peoples’ spiritual beliefs and those communities do tend to have a lot of vulnerable people. In fandom...well, the first people (as far as I know,) he’s tried this on with in the Tolkien fandom was myself and my friend — who aren’t vulnerable, but apparently had something he wanted. (He called us both ‘Senpai’ — ‘Senpai has noticed me!’)
On a post about Narcissistic Predators that was inspired by Seb/Nornoriel Lokason someone said that:
In some cases the NP (Narcissistic Predator) may actually leave the community when called out. Or they may stick around and construct several false identities to sockpuppet and manufacture the illusion of support for their cause. (In a non-pagan community I once watched an NP use at least four separate author identities at once to congratulate himself on his accomplishments in forum threads and give his own stories high ratings and good reviews, and he was only proven as a sockpuppeteer when he accidentally answered an email for one identity as the persona of another.)
Seb has sock puppet accounts on his DW to reply to him, that he answers (like a kind of role play I suppose) and also, I am very sure, on his AO3 account to leave him shining comments.
He used sock puppet accounts when he was in the pagan community apparently. That doesn’t really matter, only in that it shows that this is what he does, wherever he is, whatever community he’s part of.
His DW, when not filled with references to his characters banging, talking to him, etc was all about how abused he was, how much PTSD he suffered, how disabled he was, in how much pain. I sent him adding up to about $180 via his Ko-fi so he could buy marijuana as he said it eased his pain, and it was legal where he was. He is used, it seems, to people sending him money.
He was moving, also, as his relationship with his mother was toxic. Some of the money I sent him was to help with the move. I don’t care about the money, but it seems I fell into the same trap as a lot of other people. I was sorry for him.
What he did to me (and my friend) was basically this (from the post about Narcissistic Predators)
* Love-bombing, IE really intense relationships really fast, combined with “everyone else in my life has been terrible and abusive, but Not You!” I know many people who have had multiple previous toxic relationships/friendships and who are lovely. Equally I know of a few who have a repeating pattern of deciding everybody in their life is terrible for them, burning all their bridges, finding new friends/lovers and deciding they are perfect and the only good thing in their lives and their saviour. Rinse and repeat. People who see every last person in their life as either terrible or up on a pedestal are toxic and sooner or later, everyone up on the pedestal will end up being The Worst.
Except, I’m not in the pagan community, save tangentially, and am not vulnerable and neither is my friend. I don’t need to be love-bombed, but for a while, I was quite caught up in the possibilities of the ‘multiverse’, and am still using some of the ideas. (My ideas).
I hoped that Seb’s full-on enthusiasm to the multiverse and his desire to utterly control it (and us) would burn out, but as he’s disabled and never goes out, he writes all the time and so far it has not.
I don’t want to tell him to delete my characters from his fic; I think that would mean, but I do want to tell him not to use them any more, and at this point, he no longer actually needs them. When he told me he would be writing an idea I have not even developed yet, I asked him not to (except as an AU) because I’ve not even got to it — and of course he wanted his OC to be in that too, but that was never going to happen. I never got an answer to that.
He has asked (on a public DW) post that anyone he’s fallen out with not comment on his fics or via a mutual on DW and he moderates his AO3 comments.
Am I within my rights to ask him not to use my OC’s any longer? I have had to change my policy on people borrowing my OC’s due to him just treating them like masturbatory fantasies to service his OC (himself). His stories are two thirds bad porn, and I simply don’t want characters I’ve spent years writing and developing being reduced to ‘porn stars’. (Yes, I know orig fic authors have to put up with that,lol, but I don’t mind people writing my OC’s — I just don’t want him to!)
The thing is, in all my years in online fandom I have known mostly Silm-fic writers who I would completely trust to write my characters; they wouldn't even have to ask really, I’d just wave and say, go ahead. (Which I did with Seb) They also write stories, not just porn with a thin plot and no character development.
Then Seb came along, very complimentary about my OC’s. I didn’t know him prior, had never read anything he wrote and didn’t bother due to the fact what he was writing was for charity, which was the important bit. He knew a friend of mine so I thought that was okay (they split up a few weeks ago by the way!) He isn’t a Silm-fic writer. He just wants his porn.
There’s something extremely off about Seb, and I thought that even before I knew about him, and is partly why I did some investigation.
He’s gross, in the truest sense of the word. He demands people respect his boundaries, but seems not to recognise other people have any. Any form of ‘No’ and he would just, as I say, go into a massive mood and slam out of the server than accuse people of being bullies.
The people he lived with said (in that link) he used to scream and throw things, and I can well believe it. Also he acts as if he owns you, all your ideas, stories and characters. It really was a very weird experience. Imagine someone did that with your verse, not only wanting to write stories within it but wanting you to write and act as if their own stories had always been within it, and including them — and ending up that they were acting, talking and thinking as if they in fact had written your ‘verse. I’m still trying to wrap my head around that as I’ve never come across anything like it.
I did hope he had dropped writing my characters until recently one of them was mentioned in a current WIP of his, with the suggestion that he might be involved in a foursome, and my heart sank, as I really don’t want Seb to write him. He also has some kind of seven-some orgy planned with my OC’s in another fic. I just honestly don’t want him to put his sticky hands on them any longer 😭
I don’t want to sound horribly precious. Another fanfic author wrote her OFC having extremely explicit sex with one of my OC’s but she is a superb writer and in her hands there is elegance and some agency and beauty (and an actual story) What Seb wants to write is just dirty porn, over and over. My characters have agency beyond being used for someone’s sexual fantasies. And I know that is all they are because Seb heavily hinted out that he knew Van and shagged him on the ‘Astral’ and all sort of hur hur innuendoes which (I think) were supposed to ‘mark his territory’ as in ‘I have absolute freedom to write your characters and there’s nothing you can do about it as I KNOW them (better than you)’. And his constant comments that ‘Vanimórë is like a cat, he knows who he likes.’ (Him and not me apparently).
Whatever.
I absolutely do know that if I request he not write my OC’s any more, I will be a bully and he the victim — he thrives on that kind of drama. he will undoubtedly talk of it on AO3 comments and chapter notes; he will probably make a (public) DW post and have his sock puppets rage at me on both. I may lose readers and all good feeling in the fandom, I suppose. I am not well-known, my fic is definitely niche, and in general am quiet, so there is no reason for people not to believe him. He has readers who comment on his stories because they read mine, and I expect he will rant to them, as well.
His aim (I believe, going by his past history and comments on Discord) is to be a BNF and have followers as he had in the pagan community; he seems to need followers, to control people. He always made a great fuss about not getting many comments when he was such a good writer, and about never reading hardly any Silm fanfic as there was no ‘good sex’. I think he does not really know the Silmarillion at all, just googles it. His work is all set in modern times with Elves being reborn as human because that’s what ‘he’ is. It’s an interesting premise, but the continual porn and the same story (retold) gets old really fast.
I don’t suppose anyone save me really cares about this, and I wish he would just go away, or just stop writing my characters. He ought to be aware that I don’t wish him to. I deleted the fics I had written for him every time he was ‘having a bad day’ (every day) I have excised all mention of his characters from my own fic, which frankly were just shoehorned in to stop him whining and causing scenes.
But I am beginning to wonder if he actually wants me to say something so he can cause drama.
I stopped commenting on his fics, removed him from my DW circle and he never received a reply to my request for him not to write my ‘future fic’. I just got on with things and hoped he would fizzle out. I wanted to cut ties completely, and then he begins writing about my OC’s again. There’s no reason for him to reference or write them in this current WIP.
He was exhausting be around. He wanted adulation all the time. And he is the kind of person you cannot give enough attention to. A few hours later it’s the same thing: He’s having a bad day, tell him he’s a brilliant writer, etc, etc. My strength was going into trying to keep my mum calm and bracing myself for her death. With that, Seb simply drained me.
I doubt he would allow any comment that I write on his fic to go through — except to use it to say ‘Look, look, Spiced Wine’s a horrid bully. I’m poor and disabled and writing’s the only thing that keeps me going and she’s trying to take it away from me, etc, etc.’
People have read his fics because they read mine (I mentioned it and some readers went over to see) and he knows my OC’s are a draw for those readers but also hates it. (which is why I think he wants to own them, to try to make himself believe they are actually his)
If people comment that they miss seeing my OC’s, he rants about why don’t people like his — I don’t know, Maybe because his OC is him and he’s simply not a nice (or interesting) person? So I think unless he just gets bored and finds another ‘shiny’ he will keep writing them (or rather not writing them (one of my readers told him that she did not recognise Vanimórë at all) writing them shagging with his OC).
So I’d be really grateful for some advice, XXXX
Should I just ignore everything and hope it burns out, or am I within my rights (as the creator of my OC’s) to ask him to not write them? As I say, where he has got to now, he does not need them, he just wants them for the porn. I’m not asking him to do a big rewrite, just not to write them into anything else. I don’t want to ‘out’ him.
Apparently in the pagan community, if people fell out with him he would threaten to ‘Fuck up their wyrd’ which I take to mean their entire lives, temporal and spiritual. He probably thinks he can, as well! That’s not why I don’t want to ‘out’ him, by the way, just that well...he’s not harming anyone, just aggravating me, so I think quietly is the way to go.
Thank you for reading this ramble, sorry it was so long. I thought I was overreacting until I read Seb’s history and realised he was doing (or trying to do) in fandom what he had done to people in the pagan community.
Take care Reply 1like
AnnEllspethRaven
Jul 6, 2020
Well, my thoughts settled. What you have described herein falls into the category of "gobsmacking bullshit" that I referenced in the body of the essay. The first thing that comes to mind is that anyone of a creative bent could have the time or interest to channel their efforts into this kind of communication or (let's sum it up) Teh Dramaz. This is why I don't watch TMZ, read entertainment magazines, or I guess go to parties. I just can't, it begins to feel otherworldly. Reading all this, I am just glad things settled for you however you were rid of the hassle. Going through the decline and passing of a parent...we've discussed this enough elsewhere and while our experiences were different they were profoundly devastating. It is indeed not something that leaves a person with extra energy to battle cosmic unicorns in the seventh dimension or whatever plane or planet is under discussion (gimme a multiverse, tell me what colour the sky is, beam me up!).
Regardless, I am grateful if this small corner of literary #WeToo gave a means to vent all around. I certainly feel better, and shall return to my projects. I am certain you will do the same! <3 Reply 1like
spicedwinefanfic
Edited Jul 7, 2020
There is so much more, which I won’t go into. Comments about this person, the damage he’s caused to people: dozing them, writing to government agencies about them, being the cause of people being physically attacked.
As I‘ve said, had I the energy at the time I would have put my foot down much earlier. (I began to have major doubts very early)
In one fic I wrote of a Mirror Fëanor created, pieces of which ended up scattered throughout the multiverse. And what was one thing he could think it would be used for? Vanimórë (after the destruction of the universe) using it to watch the main OC masturbating while using a dildo.
This incensed me. As did the comments of Vanimórë clearly being a perv. Of course it was a perverted thing to do, and Vanimórë never would. He has better things to do than watch some grotty little tit pleasuring himself 🙄 and never would anyhow; it’s just not the kind of thing he would do. It’s the author who was a perv, not my character. I was infuriated. It was clear then, and had been clear for a while, that the author didn’t know my characters in the slightest and was just using them for his own sexual gratification. Unlike him you read the last chapter of Magnificat IV; from the comments I received on AO3 and Faerie, the readers did absolutely comprehend how shattered Vanimórë was — he didn’t, because apparently Van’s so unfazed that all he can think of doing is being a voyeur.
If he wants to write what’s basically self-insert role play, fine; not with my characters, though. Reply 1like
AnnEllspethRaven
Jul 7, 2020
Wow. That is indeed incredibly out of character. I will not claim to be acquainted with how Van was used in all the other person's stories but I did read one out of curiosity just to see how Van 'was' and the depth of 'not-Van' characterization struck me quite a bit. I felt it was a Stepford-Van, the physical trappings of a Van but generally a vanilla wealthy mattress stallion and not recognizable as the intricate spirit forged out of thousands of years of trial and survival. The mirror-gate you describe would be a horrid misapplication of any creation of Fëanor; however sexually passionate your Fëanor may be, there is a difference between passion and insatiable, omni-directional lust. Makes me wonder if there is much comprehension there of the fëa Míriel bequeathed to her only-begotten, the burning brilliance meant for so much more than mere carnality; the mind that could not stop at even the Silmarilli but had to conceive of more, and more, and greater...far beyond what rests on the head of a dildo -_- so I can certainly understand your dismay and ire. It'd be so much easier if the person would simply stick to their own OCs. There is a subreddit r/Sindarin where one can get help with a nice elvish moniker, grammatically sound and everything. Alas. Reply 1like
spicedwinefanfic
Edited Jul 8, 2020
No there was no comprehension of who and what Fëanor was at all. I could never swallow the ‘is really Fëanor’, and never believed it. I’ve seen Fëanor written as mad, bad and dangerous to know, 😏 but never as someone who is only interested in who he can shag and who can shag him 🙄
An author has to make a reader believe in their story, but then his fics are not stories — they’re role-play. There’s no story at all, just the same thing over and over again. Fine, write it, but in the Silm fandom, no-one’s going to end up being hugely read by real Silm fans for something that is just role-play. Tumblr is the place to publish role play.
Silm-fic readers tend to also want to read about actual canon characters. Of course you and I both write OC’s, but we also write canon characters, too.
The bit you read was a mild OOC-ness for Vanimórë (even though he would never be with anyone like the OC in any universe anyhow)
I did wonder, very early on if the author was in fact trolling me, as Vanimórë was so OOC. As the first fic was for charity, I just shrugged and let it go.
At the end of the day, I think his lying, childish tantrum was supposed to get me ostracised from the Tolkien fandom, but although very few people know anything about it, I’m sure that those who have known me for many years would simply not believe his spite and falsehoods. He knows nothing about me at all, because everything is always about him. He wants certain things to be true and they simply are not. This is just his modus operandi; it’s how he acts. As someone said of him on a Tumblr comment, ‘same shit, different date on the calendar.‘ He acts like he writes, the same scenario over and over. Reply
AnnEllspethRaven
Jul 6, 2020
I have so many things to say about this...my thoughts need to settle a bit. I shall return...Reply 1like
spicedwinefanfic
Edited Jul 6, 2020
This was an amazing essay, and quite true.
Of course the person mentioned doesn’t want to engage in comments, as it might lead to revelations he most definitely doesn’t want to come to light: that he’s been engaging in this behaviour for at least 15 years in different communities and always leaves them (claiming bullying) and reinvents himself when people call out his BS. (There are so many links online about him I was utterly gobsmacked when I read it because his behaviour — taking into consideration the different venues — was exactly the same.
The onus is on him to correct his behaviour but he never has and never will, I think. He need ‘followers’ and he needs drama, and to feel himself above everyone else. (Hence claiming, even years ago, to actually be a god on the astral plane).
My mistake with him really, was to assume he‘d actually read my work and could write my OC’s, not just take them and mould them into sexual drones serving ’him’. A few people have written Vanimórë (going back years) and written him well, so I just assumed he would. I’m not *that* strict about it, but if you’ve written a character over 14 years, you expect there to be some resemblance. I don’t think that’s arbitrary.
He was just bitching and fuming because he planned to write some OOC rubbish that now he can’t. And that’s it. Reply 2likes
Note: there is one last comment that for whatever reason I cannot include in the post; if anyone is actually reading this please find the same entry at DeviantArt under the same username to finish reading; sorry for the inconvenience!
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Hi! I discovered your name metas and am hooked. (Maybe it’s my background in Tolkien fandom - I can’t resist this stuff.) I saw you allude to the character arc in Jiang Cheng/Wanyin’s name. Have you written more fully about him? Or do you plan to? :3
Hello fellow Tolkien fan :D There are already a good handful of name metas for Jiang Wanyin out there, which is why I just casually alluded to Jiang Cheng/Wanyin’s character arc being embedded in his names in one of my metas. But I’ll just throw out my very quick take on his name, while trying to focus more on where my interpretation differs from what’s already been written.
Jiang Cheng (江澄)
Cheng 澄 refers to waters that are clear because they are tranquil. Jiang 江 itself means river. This image of clear, still river waters…isn’t it the opposite of Jiang Cheng’s nature and the course of his life — that is instead so turbulent?
From, his youth he’s pitted against Wei Wuxian by his own mother, feeling inferior to him as well as less deserving of his own father’s love. Then, since the seminal tragedy of the Sunshot campaign, he loses almost everyone he ever loved in his family except Jin Ling. He’s burdened with the duty of bringing the Jiang Sect from the brink to its former glory. Through it all, he’s deceived time and again. The waters are muddied for him so he’s more easily taken advantaged of, or as the saying in Chinese goes, 浑水摸鱼 — muddy the waters so you can capture the fish. The deceptions he’s caught in are born both out of goodwill (such as Wei Wuxian lying to him about his golden core), but also out of ill-intent (such as the circumstances of his sister’s death). Thus, it’s lies that Jiang Cheng lives by for the longest time. It is only at the end of the story that Jiang Cheng gains any sort of clarity about the arc of his life, and the motivations of the people around him. But it feels almost excruciatingly ironic — because by the time the dust has settled the damage has already been done, especially to his relationship with Wei Wuxian… Jiang Cheng can thus feel very poignant as a personal name…
Jiang Wanyin (晚吟)
Then his courtesy name — Jiang Wanyin 晚吟. Both words have multiple meanings. Wan (晚) means late or night. Yin 吟 has more meanings, and I’ll get to them one by one.
The most common interpretation I’ve seen of the courtesy name Wanyin, reads the word yin 吟 the way I think it is more commonly used — to refer to a moan or a groan, typically in pain or regret (as in the phrase shen yin 呻吟). Altogether, it would mean groan of the night, or a late groan. Perhaps at the end of MDZS, Jiang Cheng is full of regret that cannot be truly put into words, only let out in a sound.
Thus, where wan 晚 is interpreted to mean night, the image is of him crying out in a sleepless night.
Alternatively, where wan 晚 means late, it’s almost an indictment of his choices in his life — where by the time he knows to feel regret, to bemoan the decisions he made at critical junctures — it is already too late to salvage things, especially with Wei Wuxian.
But that begs the question — what did the person who gave Jiang Wanyin his courtesy name actually want for him? Surely neither Jiang Fengmian or Yu Ziyuan would give him an inherently tragic name.
This brings us to the other literary meanings of yin 吟, and how wan yin 晚吟 is used in premodern chinese poems.
Yin 吟 can also mean to chant or recite with rhythmic cadence — as in the phrase yin song 吟诵.
Or yin 吟 can be like onomatopoeia for the crying sound made by insects or the wind. Yin feng 吟风 for instance is the cry of the wind.
(One day I might get around to trying to translate a number of ancient chinese poems that use the phrase wan yin in these different ways, if it helps conveys the image of it better).
At any rate, 晚吟 wan yin is found as a phrase or even in the title of poems that are more subdued, wistful, contemplative; or even melancholic and regretful, because of the connotations of nightfall.
My personal theory is thus that the courtesy name Wanyin was given to Jiang Cheng to signify comfort through the vicissitudes of life — the way chanting or reciting a poem, or listening to the steady susurration of cicadas or the wind — can be a soothing accompaniment while one is staying up late. I’d interpret it as a realistic acknowledgement on the part of the giver of this courtesy name that there will definitely be dark times in Jiang Wanyin’s life. But also as their expression of hope that Jiang Wanyin will still manage to find some solace at the end of the day.
This, I believe, would be a kinder read on Jiang Cheng/Wanyin’s situation at the end of the story. He’s lost so much. But at long last his personal name has turned from a cruel irony to a reality — where now at least he has clarity and can move forward to fix things……and his courtesy name suggests he will be able to sustain himself through his newfound sorrows.
But yeah I would definitely be interested to hear other takes on why Wanyin might be given as a courtesy name :3
(PS: For those who can read chinese, this website is v useful for finding poems with particular phrases in premodern chinese poetry. Go knock yourself out looking for all the wan yins and the jiang chengs and how they’re used in different poems :3)
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Where to now? - Part II
So, here goes the second part, based on your choices in this poll!
As soon as you pass the first row of trees, a figure detaches from the shadows.
Tall as a tree, they incline their strangely luminous head—crowned by golden horns—making you gasp softly.
“Little one,” they greet in a melodious whisper. “We’ve been awaiting you! The Lord and Lady would love to hear your tales…”
Before you can decide, a flash of silver crosses the edge of your field of vision.
“I see others have sent out messengers,” the strange being, clad in soft furs, grumbles in dismay. “You are, of course, free to visit Curufinwë and his unholy brood first, if that is your desire.”
In the distance, the mournful song of a lone lyre catches your attention; the music is ebbing and flowing like a faraway ocean, and your heart aches with yearning.
“It seems that even the girdle of Melian would relent for such a guest of honour.”
Increasingly disgruntled, the enchanting vision whistles, and a blindingly white horse trots closer.
“Choose,” they purr, wrapping one of the warm, silken furs around your quivering shoulders. “You shall be safe no matter where your steps lead you!”
#og post#Event#Birthday Event#1k followers event#write your own story#Tolkien fandom in all its glory#let's capitalise on my readiness to write so many characters#fun fun fun#IDNMT writes#fanfiction#writing#tolkien writing#jrrt#Part II
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Aurë Entuluva
Lord of the Rings Secret Santa 2021
“Look,” says Aragorn at length. Faramir expects him to be looking at Ithilien too, but when he looks he sees that he is turned away from it, looking out over Anduin. Minas Tirith sits high and proud to the north, the shores of flowery Lossarnach to the west, and the northernmost reaches of Lebennin to the south. This is Gondor, as Éowyn has seen it for so many years. “Look,” repeats Aragorn. “This, too, is what has been wrought by her hands: for by her care and grace was Ithilien tended, leaving its Prince at liberty to care for all else that remained beyond it. Still there is work to do there, still there is beauty to bring forth, and glory to bestow.”
🌼On Ao3🌼
Fandom: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Rating: General Audiences
Relationship: Éowyn/Faramir
Characters: Faramir, Éowyn, Merry Brandybuck, Pippin Took, Aragorn, Samwise Gamgee, Frodo Baggins, Gimli, Legolas, (background) Boromir
Prompt: Faramir gets to know the people who shared the last months of Boromir's life.
#sorry to hurin for taking your battle cry and making it cheerful#unfortunately the other hurinionath needed it more xx#also lmao @ me never being able to write anything without including wretched farawyn ramblings#e writes
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Ficmas~ Day 18
Pairing: Eomer x Gender Neutral!Reader
Word Count: 1042
Warnings: religious tone, mention of Canon violence.
Summary: You, Eomer, Eowyn, and Faramir come together to celebrate (C)hanuk(k)ah.
Requested By: @groovyfluxie
A/N: I hope I did this justice. But if anyone wants to correct me on anything, please throw me a message and I'll fix it.
"Say it slowly again, my love."
You giggled. Teaching Hebrew words to Eomer was becoming a challenge. Sometimes he'd get close, but most of the time his pronunciation was nowhere close. Yet it warmed your heart that the prince would try to learn your religion.
For that, you were grateful.
"Tznuit," You tried once more, fighting the grin off your face as you tried not to laugh out loud. The sun had set over the horizon, and Eomer headed inside after a day of training his men.
He shook his head. "Elvish seems nothing compared to that beautiful language. Forgive me my love, but I'll keep on learning. I am nowhere near modest though."
"Will Eowyn join us?"
"Unfortunately not, Faramir and her have been joined at the hip ever since they've been wed," He shook his head. "She sent gifts in advance for tonight."
You brightened up at the thought. Eowyn always sent thoughtful gifts from jams to tunics. "I'll thank her on the next package over to Gondor."
Of course, it'd been a little more than a year since the Battle of the Pelennor Fields that made your husband King of Rohan. King Theoden passed on the fields, and without an heir, the crown changed to your then fiancé. Within a year, he was crowned King, you married him, and ruled by his side.
Eowyn also married Faramir, the last of the family that stood as the Steward of Gondor. The dead were mourned, the injured were treated, and lives were slowly rebuilt back to its former glory.
Suddenly, a Rohirrim rushed into the hall, breathless as he slid in front of Eomer and you, and bowed. "My Lord, Lady Eowyn and Captain of Gondor have arrived."
Sharing a giddy grin, you bounded out and met Eowyn with a bear hug. "Eowyn!"
"Y/N! Chag urim sameach!" (Happy Festival of Lights.)
You squealed in delight. "You actually learned how to say it! But I thought you weren't coming. Eomer said-."
"Eomer?" She laughed, letting you go and shaking her head. "No, no. Brother wanted it to be a surprise. I wanted to let the gifts arrive early or I would forget to bring them along the trip. I thought it would be nice to learn a little Hebrew, even Faramir knows."
“Hanukkah sameach!” Your brother in law greeted. (Happy Hanukkah.)
Both Eomer and Faramir nodded at one another, hugging each other with a one armed hug.
"We're not late are we?" She peered back at you with a frown. "I told Faramir here to leave earlier."
"No, no," You stepped back to Eomer's side. "Was just about to start actually, so you came just in time."
"Let us change out of our travel cloaks and we'll join you."
Placing the last candle onto the menorah, you took a deep breath.
"Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tsivanu l’hadlik ner shel Hanukkah," You started.
(Praised are You,
Our God, Ruler of the universe, Who made us holy through Your commandments and commanded us to kindle the Hanukkah lights.)
"Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haolam, she-asah nisim la’avoteinu bayamim hahem bazman hazeh."
(Praised are You,
Our God, Ruler of the universe, Who performed wondrous deeds for our ancestors in those ancient days at this season.)
With the shammash in one hand, you lit the last remaining unlit candle. Watching as the candle lit up, you smiled as you replaced the ninth one and turned to your small, but happy family.
"I'm starving, anyone ready for dinner?" You grinned, thankful that everyone you loved was alive and well. King Theoden's death was a hard hit on Eomer and Eowyn, and you understood their grief.
It took a moment for them to shake out of their own stupor. Faramir lost his older brother Boromir to the orcs, and his father on the eve of the battle. Much like your husband, your now sister in law had her own fair share of grief in pain.
But still thankful for the men that died serving for King, country, and Middle Earth.
"Before I forget, I brought your favorite jelly donuts too." Eowyn spoke, smirking as your eyes widened.
"You made sufganiyot?! You're the best Eowyn."
"I know I am," She laughed.
Soon, plates upon plates of latkes, a large pot of brisket stew, and a few dishes of savory kugel were placed on the table. Already you had sneaked in a jelly donut and nearly moaned out loud on how good it tasted. If it wasn't for your husband to literally toll you away from the dessert, you wouldn't have enough room for dinner.
The challah and pretzels were freshly baked. Even gelfite fish and tzimmes made a show this year, courtesy of Eowyn again.
"Thank you for coming," You spoke gratefully. "Edoras can be painfully silent without you. When your brother gets busy during the day, I have learned to find a hobby of my own or go out for some gardening."
"Oh don't I know it, Y/N," She teased back, helping herself to another portion of the potato latkes. "Eomer won't ever admit it, but-."
"Eowyn," Your husband cut in, a warning tone present in his voice.
"Oh come on, tell me. If he's already trying to stop you from telling a secret, I would love to know." You grinned, scooching your chair closer to hers.
"Only if I win the dreidel this year. I don't kiss and tell," She grinned wickedly.
"You're lucky I managed to make some gelts this year, nearly burned down the kitchen when the cooks messed up the first batch," You paused. "You're on."
"I have a little dreidel. I made it out of clay.
And when it's dry and ready, then dreidel I shall play.
Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, I made it out of clay.
Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, then dreidel I shall play."
As Eowyn sang the dreidel song, you leaned on Eomer's shoulder with a content smile. It had been a busy day filled with cooking and baking, but everything was all worth it to have the Great Hall filled with warmth and laughter.
"Y/N?"
"Hm?" You answered.
"An L’Dodi V’Dodi Li. Chag Sameach, Y/N.” (I Am My Beloved’s And My Beloved Is Mine. Happy holidays.)
Eats Everything: @asraime @aspiring-ginger @bluesclues-1234 @mournthewicked @keijibum @ladylizzieofdarbyshire @also-fangirlinsweden @fandom-imagination-ss @mysoulshideaway @mayday1284 @sayanythingcreations @lykxzandlove @supergeekfangirl @your-sparklywinnercollection
Tolkien: @im-a-muggleborn @fxngsfogxarty
Urban: @fandomsfeelsandfamily @justa-traaash @yueci
#eomer x reader#eomer#eomer fanfiction#x reader#x gender neutral reader#gender neutral reader#gender neutral#hanukah#hanukkah#chanukah#lotr reader insert#lord of the rings#31 days of ficmas#ficmas2020#deb writes
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The gen 3 kids and their parents, plus a bonus Amaire!
thoughty thoughts
- I have no idea how i ended up with orodreth like this. actually my all time favorite orodreth fanart that i cAN’T FIND to link had this cool bob and silver hair, which might be what influenced to make angrod with silver hair? anyway im certain that finrod’s nephew is always only slightly less blitzed out in jewelry and sparkly clothes than his uncle is
edit: arofili found it!!!! thank you so much! please go bask in the glory of elyksina ‘s designs for the nargothrond gang they are STILL among my favorite designs for these characters they’re just so excellent??? could not top them if i tried and im not even gonna try imma just bask
- tolkien said absolutely nothing about eldalote except her name, but in my search for like... any... canon details at all.... i found out she also has a sindar name, so it’s likely that she actually followed her husband and kid to beleriand! at least that’s how i chose to interpret it. her dress i found on google and its so BEAUTIFUL like goodness i want that. idk about her hair tho. i made it brown cuz she’s a typical noldor with dark hair light skin dark gray eyes
- i dont really reblog anything about racism in fandoms because tumblr is my safe space i scroll through when im sad and racism just makes me depressed lmao. but i do read it so i deliberately made eol white. anyway. the sindar apparently look very like the noldor except their eyes dont glow so tbh i recycled their skin tone bc im too unimaginative to create many variations... he’s also somehow related to elu thingol, but also his hair is dark (like the typical sindar)... i compromised by giving him dark gray hair. he’s wearing armor cuz he seems like the type of paranoid dude to wear that often
- maeglin i followed the canon description of black hair white skin dark eyes. maeglin gives me complicated feelings hah. anyway. i gave him the noldor bg bc i think he’d identify with the noldor more, despite (or perhaps because) of what happened with his dad.
- celeborn is my favorite spouse ever. we know just as little about him as about any of the other spouses but he also married galadriel and im like, really into some fandom portrayals. i love him. silver hair ftw. also he’s related to elu like galadriel so they actually ended up looking... very similar? especially cuz i drew galadriel similar to earwen. anyway in the movies he’s got this necklace thing that i didn’t add but i hc that galadriel made for him.
- celebriaaan. my girl!!! her hair is 100% inspired by some fanart i’ve seen. that big bushy vanyar hair with silver instead of gold is GREAT. she, unlike the rest of these kids, i hc as identifying with the sindar side of her heritage... i mean at that point, if we just go by movie hair, galadriel was trying to integrate into sindar culture as well so. (her circlet was totally a gift from galadriel as well)
- celebrimbor’s mom is an inside joke with myself. tolkien didn’t even bother to name her (for shame), so i was like, imma see just how many female spouses tolkien didn’t name by putting a little shrug emoji instead of their face. now i just feel like its playing into it??? i might just actually try and draw her and just leave her name as the shrug emoji instead...
- celebrimbor looks like CHILD lmao. i might update his design later. anyway i blame viery plus for his design.
- elenwe! i saw someone with these really tight blond curls... it might have been rupaul... and i knew she had to have them. her clothes are the weird draping/gold thing i have for the vanyar...?
- idril i had SUCH trouble with. i knew she had to inherit elenwe’s hair, and the fact that that’s so specified makes me think she resembles turgon otherwise, so i followed that. i had to re-do her hairstyle twice and it still kinda bothers me... i like the flower accessory tho
- amaire!!! i wasn’t going to draw her and then i was like, lets do it anyway, so i did. her hair and clothes i based on some random google images of greek clothing and hair... she has a cute hat bc i need to draw more hats. also hair jewelry and ear jewelry bc this girl dated FINROD she must have SOME appreciation for the shiny
#the silmarillion#silmarillion#silm#finrod#turgon#aredhel#galadriel#curufin#angrod#celebrimbor#amaire#elenwe#eldalote#celeborn#eol#maeglin#celebrian#orodreth#idril#silm abridged art
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I have an impression that some fandoms (like Lord of the Rings, Warhammer or Berserk) attract Alt-Right/Neo-Nazis a LOT more than other fandoms (like Song of Ice and Fire). Is this fact problematic for those fandoms?
Oh this question is difficult because I keep finding myself fans of things that Nazis also like, so a lot of my time is spent trying to drive them away from things that I like. I’m a big Lord of the Rings and Berserk fan (not so much Warhammer) and Nazis showing up is a big problem. I”m just going to talk through the examples you mentioned as to why Nazis like themt
Lord of the Rings has a lot of themes that Nazis are attached too, its has the conservative theme of loss of glory as things were great in the past and steadily degrade over time, morality as an absolute, a great war, and a largely male dominated story. Nazis tend to be attrached to very mythological stories which Lord of the Rings is, which is deliberatley written Also the story is full of Catholic themes and imagery (though it is not an allegory cause Tolkien hated that. Finally, Nazis have a huge fetish for Nordic/old Germanic history, and Tolkien was a Oxford Professor in Norse/Germanic mythology, and LOTRS is both Catholic and Pagan in a way that Nazis like. So on a surface level the attraction makes sense. however if you aren’t you know...stupid....then Nazi attraction to Lord of the Rings makes no goddamn sense
Tolkien hated the Nazis. like he really really hated the Nazis, there is a great instance where he wrote a letter about how much he despises that the Nazis were ruining his field because people kept associating his work with the Nazis.
Lords of the Rings is about a bunch of people of different races unifying and putting aside their bigotry in order to fight against a force of evil, with people who are close minded or intolerant being shown as bad. No character in this work. In the background of Lord of the Rings, one of the major reasons why Gondor fell from grace was that one faction of their monarchs were super into fantasy race science and tore the nation apart (which tolkien shows as bad) and the Numenoreans are British style Colonialists and that is shown as a bad thing.
While Lord of the Rings has an almost all male cast, what is funny about LOTRS is how...unmaco the whole thing is. War is not presented as glorious but a sad necessity, and the characters who love war inevitably fall (Feanor, Boromir, Thorin) while those who hate war do better. Men are shown to cry regularly and are very emotionally expressive, and the book clearly values tenderness, mercy and softness more than traditionally masculine traits. Unlike most works which lack female characters, LOTRS doesn’t feel like it is about marking an male only space, it feels like he just forgot to include them. It is really telling that Tolkien was a Beowulf scholar, but his protagonist, rather than being a hyper masculine hero figure like Beowulf, is the sensitive kind and nonviolent Frodo.
Its also worth noting that as a vet of the first World War, Tolkien doesn’t seem enamored with the glory of war, in fact glory doesn’t play much of a role in his books, war is devastating and scars those involved, Frodo himself can’t find peace due to his battle wounds
Tolkien is really Catholic and as such there is a huge focus on forgiveness, mercy, and the inevitability of human failure and the importance sympathy. He is less interested in the power of WILL as fascist works often are, and more about the acceptance of weakness as part of human nature, hence why no person can ever actually throw the ring away.
Tolkien was also a bit of a Judeophile, he was really inter Jewish culture. He was also anti colonial, anti Apartheid (he was from South Africa), Tolkien’s work do have issues with race, but his issues were the anarchic views of race.
Finally, Lord of the Rings, while it does have some parts of it that are problematic, is in many ways anti conservative. It is nostlagic for the past, but characters who attempt to regain what has gone past (Elves, Sauron, Feanor) inevitable create more evil than if they had just accepted that the past is past and moved on. Despite his drawing on Norse mythology, the story is not about a dramatic last battle, but living in a changing fading world.
Berserk is...more complicated., Because while i’m a huge berserk fan, there are things in it that Nazis would like
Firstly, Berserk is a very Nietzschian in philosophy, its about the power of will, individual struggling against destiny, Great Man narratives with most people being idiots, super grimdark, anti Christian context, a mythic story, its hyper masculine and its ultra violent. And also quite sexist.
Gust at first glance could fit a sort of fascist idealized version of a man, and if you only read like the first two chapters of Berserk you might see it as something which Nazis would like it. Except what makes Berserk good is that it is beyond that, if it was just a violent power fantasy it would have faded with the 90s, what makes it good is when it moves beyond that sort of thing.
Even if you don’t read the story as a gay relationship between Guts and Griffith (and you are wrong if you don’t), it is about the self destructive nature of toxic masculinity, in fact that is what separates Guts from Griffith, Guts is able to start to move past his need to be cruel and open up, while Griffith doubles down and destroys everything he loves. I have a lot of thoughts on Berserk.
Warhammer Fantasy is complicated in terms of its relationship to fascism, if you are interested I can talk about that latter, but Warhammer 40k,while starting out as a punk anti totalitarian parody, has by this point become almost entirely co-opted by the Far Right in terms of fandom. Because its a grim-dark parody of totalitarianism that nevertheless creates a world that conforms to a fascist world view, and while the Imperium of Man is an evil administration, it is also the one we are expected to sympathize with as our primary point of view characters.
So it is really interesting that by a contrast, Song of Ice and Fire, despite being also a grimdark re-imagining of a popular genre, doesn’t really have a fascist fandom. So here are the reasons for it.
The story is pushing back against the mythologize of the middle ages that is so prominent in the fantasy genre, a mythologize that fascists themselves love. Martin depicting medieval society not as a time when things were were simple and there was a clear image of glory war, instead it is shown as being just as murky politically as the modern day
There are a lot of female characters and toxic masculinity is presented as bad. Also lots of homosexuality
Individual human will, while being a factor, is less important in the world of Song and Ice and Fire compared to the larger forces of history which are outside individual control
The story is explicitly anti Romantic and themes like “the Nation” The people” “Faith” ect, instead all of these are shown as construct made by people
The story is also humanist, and avoiding both the absolute morality so beloved by fascists, but also it doesn’t really demonize people, most characters are shown as a mix of flaws and virtues.
Interestingly some fascists do like Game of Thrones, but that is another matter.
#ask EvilElitest#Fascism#Tolkien#Lord of the Rings#Song of Ice and Fire#Berserk#Warhammer Fantasy#warhammer 40k
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