Picking Fights with Sprites

Dragon Age: The Veilguard has GONE GOLD!

Thank you all for your support as we cross this important milestone. See you in Thedas on Oct. 31!

They have many names—beta reader, friend, Oh Fuck You—but you know who they are: they’re the person who is as rabid as you about a ship or a character, the one you DM with your most twisted headcanons, the one who agrees that YES, he SHOULD be tied to a chair and slapped in the face—that she SHOULD be allowed a little tragic backstory, as a treat—that they SHOULD be roommates who are secretly pining for one another…the one who hashes out with you, at past midnight, how soon is reasonable for people with superpowers to have sex after one of them has been shot in the leg.

They’re the person who reads your fic before you send it to anyone else, and raves with you about that plot point that you COULDN’T WAIT for them to reach, or points out where you’ve forgotten that they were at the bar, not the library, so you need to remove the reference to book stacks, or pokes you to finish the goddamn next chapter because they want to read it, okay?

Fandom would not exist without them. They enable and encourage. Some of them are also fic writers, and you get to enable them right back. Some of them create fan art, or meta, or text post edits, or run prompt fests, or edit wikis…some of them are simply just as in love with the same thing that you are and want to feed the squee.

If you’re lucky enough to have someone like this in your life, you’ll know how much impact they have. It’s different to getting comments and kudos (wonderful though those are!), because they come in before the fic is finished, sometimes even before it’s started, and say ‘yes, do it!’. The fact that I’ve written so much for Community and The Umbrella Academy is completely down to @bethanyactually and @wheresmytowel respectively, and I count myself incredibly lucky to have them both in my life (and not just for all this, but also because they’re both incredibly lovely and smart and fun).

It was Fanfic Writer Appreciation Day yesterday (Aug 21st), and it made me think that we should also give a shoutout to the co-conspiritors, because without them, an awful lot more fic writers would be stress-scrolling through tumblr instead of working on their WIP, and there’d be so much less fic in the world.

I need to give this some very belated love ♥

This all started I was thinking about the age-old debate between "In the absence of obviously canonical same-gender romances in Tolkien, of course people will look at other types of close same-gender relationships in a romantic light" and "In an amatonormative society such as ours, of course people will feel strongly about keeping platonic relationships in Tolkien platonic as a reaction against 'true love = romantic love' trope"

And I was thinking about both these things strike me as true. By which I don't mean "This is how every fan should feel" but rather "I do indeed identify with both positions." Which, long story short, led me to thinking about love in Tolkien's works, like I said.

The thing is that Tolkien pretty much unfailingly portrays love as a good thing. When Melkor becomes evil beyond any redemption, Tolkien describes it as "all love had departed from him for ever."

Love (not to be confused with obsession, which is Always Bad) is, I would say, the virtue held up by Tolkien as the single most important. It might beat even other strong contenders such as wisdom or hope. (Could I defend this position in a paper? Probably not, but this is a tumblr post, go easy on me)

"Love conquers all" is hardly an unexplored theme in fiction, but what strikes me about Tolkien - and what made me write this post - is what an all-encompassing view of love he has.

It's not just that platonic, romantic or familial love seem to all be held up as being equally important - it's that other kinds of love aren't considered superficial next to these.

Love of one's lord, like Edrahil and Finrod. Love of one's subjects, like Aragorn and Faramir. Love of one's homeland, like Frodo and the Shire. Love of the land one chose to call home, like Tuor and Gondolin. Love of what one doesn't yet know, like Sam and the elves. Love of what one misses, like Bilbo and home. Love of improving the world around us, like Gimli and his Glittering Caves. Love of the world as it is, like Legolas and, uh, every part of Middle-earth he sees. Love of expressing oneself through subcreation, like Nerdanel. Love of learning about others through lore, like Elrond. Love of what's been lost, like Elendil. Love of what is at risk, like Boromir. Love of the unknown ahead, like Elros. I could go on forever.

And I don't know, it's just really super refreshing to see that. So very often the definition of love is not only extremely narrow, but also rigidly ranked, and it's so nice to think of how that's not really a thing in Tolkien's world. When Tolkien talks about fantasy he often points out how fantasy helps us see our world more clearly, and one thing I unironically think Arda makes me see more clearly is how much love enriches life.

The sheer scope of things that can be loved is something I don't think I would've realized without reading Tolkien. Tea and cake, or a Cool Rock on the sidewalk, or images from NASA, or having the Mom Friend Social Anxiety Override, are all things I don't think I would particularly love if not for hobbits, dwarves, elves, and men, if that makes sense.

…becoming your friend was a choice…

…but falling in love with you I had no control over…

***

A Nerdanel

There is an old belief in Serbian villages and small towns that certain pumpkins (and watermelons), when left outside during a full moon, will turn in to a vampire.

Happy Halloween, everyone!