#elfmaiddryope

Hi! I answered this one before and said my favorite cosmetic pets are probably Bingo’s MM pet goats and Faroth the ranger hound but I also love 

                   you can take boat tours, and there are persimmon bearing trees. a gorgeous place if you ever get near hangshou :D      

i would honestly love to?? mentally bookmarking this for in a few years, maybe, hopefully :) :) :)

yavieriel replied to your post “��technological development.”

                   I’ve always been baffled at the number of authors who assume the elves don’t have at least Roman-empire-level technology, especially indoor plumbing.  Passive forms of indoor climate control as well, basic steam engines, that sort of thing.            

i have yet to read a fic that actually focuses on the question of whether elves had indoor water-closets or were stuck with outdoor privies but yeah, i think a lot of people don’t realise how early some technologies were developed? i really like arrogantemu’s take that elves might not naturally come up with labour-saving devices because “saving time” is for people with a finite lifespan, but like… steam- and water-powered automata, maybe? clockwork songbirds? elaborate aeolian harps? (i bet the fountains in eregion were impressive.)

vardasvapors replied to your post “lots of replies!”

                   oh wait it was only lion’s comment ah well                

vardasvapors replied to your post “lots of replies!”

                   elf hair bondage, but i think there might have been another post too: http://actualmermaid.tumblr.com/post/157078120424/vardasvapors-replied-to-your-post-i-need-to          

you know, i was like, I bet lion is involved in this somehow, how reassuring not to be wrong. :) anyway thank you for the link and i am glad that as a fandom we have reached this good, logical, and clearly LACE-supported place :)

vardasvapors replied to your post “�� Fading, or if you don’t have any for that one, �� Dwarves??”

                   i am forever aksjfhskjdfing in frustration about the fact that 99% of all thoughtful/varied dwarf content in lotr fandom is movieverse, and i can’t deal with movieverse fic            

Shameful admission: I really stuggle to get invested in Dwarves? I read LotR and it’s like, ah, yes, this is good, and then I go back to not thinking about them. :/ I feel like even people who aren't just falling back on stereotypes keep Doing A Thing with Dwarves that is just… Not My Thing somehow, idk, what’s up with up with subjective taste.

vardasvapors replied to your post “��Ar-Pharazon’ s relationship with Sauron.”

                   this is just a perfect paragraph of content omg          

otoh, I am far, far too invested in Sauron, but thank you :D

elfmaiddryope replied to your post “�� Fading, or if you don’t have any for that one, �� Dwarves??”

                   book!Thorin was nowhere near blunt or gruff, either, so….idk, somehow Generic Fantasy Tropes get assigned to Tolkien when they don’t actually apply at all and I don’t really understand how it happens.    

there seems to be this weird feedback loop around the movies and also the one million bad-imitation fantasy series where people are so familiar with the like, badly photocopied tropes that they project them back onto Tolkien? (I went through a really long phase of not actually being into Tolkien, tbh, and then a few years back I caught myself reluctantly counterarguing with someone that wait no Tolkien was more complicated than that, etc, and thereby psyched myself into rereading the books as an adult, and… slow descent into elf hell from there, I suppose.)

thepioden replied to your post “�� Fading, or if you don’t have any for that one, �� Dwarves??”

                   Anyone who is unmoved by Gimli’s incredibly heartfelt adjectives about Aglarond was clearly reading a different book tbh    

11: their family life

Alright!

Family life was generally good and ordinary – to a certain point. Melindalived her childhood at an urban city apartment with her mom and dad who lovedher very much. Her mom Miriam was the main worker of the family while her dad(who I struggle to find a good name still) stayed home most of the time; hewould take up some temporary jobs here and there to help with the bills. Fromhim, Melinda learned a bit about her heritage and Middle Earth’s peoples and earlyhistory of Arda. From Miriam, she learned about the modern Disney-type stories, and ofc she watched TV cartoons and shows, etc. Of course, when Mel wouldmisbehave she’d get time out or something of the sort, but overall she was agood kid and they had a happy life together. Being more attached to Miriam,Melinda got quite a few traits from her like stubbornness, playful nature,street smart and the occasional quick temper. From her father she got the aptfor knowledge, kindness, patience for certain things, and a sense ofresponsibility. When Melinda was 10-11 years old, her mother died (accident orillness are my to-go scenarios), and because it hurt so much her father decidedto take them away from the pain by traveling to Arda: Middle Earth.

oh my thank you :3c

11. Is your OC a blanket hog?

Caladhrîn - has actually never shared a bed with anyone, therefore her blanket is ALL HERS MUAHAHAH. (her blanket sucks anyway, it’s thin and full of holes. ah well, the life in the barracks.)Maeldris - is absolutely the biggest blanket hog but there is a high chance she’s gonna wrap herself around you instead of the blanket. only one way to find out.

23. What is your OC's first memory?

Caladhrîn - sitting on her father’s lap as a kid on their terrace, the leaves from the trees were swept in by the wind and flying all around, and together they were admiring the colors ranging from dark greens through browns to rich reds. :’)Maeldris - watching an organized marching sentinel group walk through her home village in Feralas, with Shandris Feathermoon at their lead. that was probably the moment that made her go “whoa, sentinels!”

37. Does your OC get excited when they get mail?

NOO IM GLAD UR ASKING ME! ;-; :D

4. Is your OC good at keeping secrets?

It’s the circumstances that matter here the most - both Mael and Cal don’t really have much friends (Mael tried to make some when she was restationed as a sentinel, but getting that close is really hard.) so the need to vent isn’t really there - so yeah, both of them keep secrets really well. But Mael would probably tell everything to her best friend, and Cal might just reveal them out of spite, who knows :’)

30. What is your OC's favorite drink?

i didnt think this through for these two but my castanic Cairene is a big nerd and loves getting drunk of all kinds of wines, but the redder the better :)

39. A strange talent of your OC?

Here you go, hope you like it!

Note: I wasn’t sure if you wanted them both or just the guy…but anyway I did both. Didn’t know how short you wanted his hair; I kinda originally had it to mid neck length, but them cut it shorter…and don’t know if I managed the round face for him ;o man, I gotta practice anatomy some more.Her hair came out redder than I originally had, but since auburn means ‘brown-red’ or something like that, I think it passes off ok? Lol, idk. I was also experimenting with some patterning on this one, hope you don’t mind!

First I have to go back to the relevant chapter of RfB. That was originally just the lead up to what became chapter 9, but as I worked through the logistics of how Faron and Faelindis got out of the internal confines of Angband, I started describing the panicking wargs. And until other sections that required research of imagination winging it, the sentences where Faron tended the wargs was me drawing on firsthand memories. My mom bred and shows dogs. And especially withe the whippets, and the one line of bitches ultimately descended from a popular stud dog Red- whippet bitches can be squirrelly and mean to each other. The dog throughout high school and college (when I’d come home from college, by that point she was very old and spent the overwhelming majority of her days curled up on my bed on the pillows next to my head. She was my comfort cuddle buddy.) was legit crazy. And of the two litters she had, the one bitch she kept from the first litter was a mean shit that hated the full sister from the second litter (better personality/looks but very much her momma’s daughter). Those two bitches really weren’t allowed together if one was in season. Rarely violent- but they did get into fights once or twice and I still remember clearly the one time that my mother yanked them apart (and berated herself for doing that because that’s how injuries happen) - and the puncture wound on her arm because second bitch accidentally bit her (and yes, you could immediately tell that the dog was upset because she knew not to do that to her humans, knew it was an accident but the shame. Whippets have very expressive eyes and faces (well, first daughter was a ‘pig-eyed ugly bitch with perma-scorpion tail’. I disliked her. She was my middle sister’s dog and sister loved her- someone had to.) Long tangent - Faron was getting bite by the wargs- but even if these were malicious Morgoth-bred wolves ....I’m not going to stop thinking of them in writer-space as dog. And the dogs that have bitten people around me have all be results of accidentally play, fear, or because they were arguing with another dog and the human accidentally got collateral damage. I know aggressive bites happen. But I can’t default to blaming the dog for any time that I hear that happens.

So I wrote this passage:

The oldest warg stood behind Faron, panting through its stained yellow teeth, ears pinned back as if wishing it could block the divine sounds. It made no move to stop Faron from unlatching the tender's gate and crawling out of the pen, but it panted and watched. The younger wargs were beginning to howl, mournful calls that irritated and unnerved the orcs. If the pack continued to howl for more than a few minutes the overseer would come to castigate the warg tender for not keeping the beasts quiet, so Faron had a short grace period before he could expect the whip. The howls were not yet piercing, nor had the entire pack joined. The red eyes of the oldest warg implored him, a softening fear in those blood-colored eyes. Pity’s poison squeezed Faron’s chest.

“Maybe I’ll see you in Mandos,” he whispered to the warg, wondering what had prompted him. “Yavanna shall find your spirit and heal it, and the Hunter. One day those horns won’t frighten you; you’ll run proper and free like you were supposed to.”

And some of it was to stress the opening passage about how the Army of the Valar are playing Music that is counter-poison to Morgoth’s Poison Song (Capital Song here). And that the warg howling is going to cover Faron’s escape- but this oldest warg bitch becomes the audience surrogate- she’s sees Faron leaving, and the acknowledgement between them is also the nod to the reader.

And thus this promise I wrote making concrete the emotions, that there’s no bad dog, only bad owners/trainers. Oldest Warg Bitch needed her release from Angband as much as Faron did. They were in exactly the same boat.

... So a few days (maybe it was weeks?) I’m with my mom for lunch. It’s cold and rainy and I’m waiting for my food at Jason’s Deli. So I start typing this out on my phone. I’d already established Faron and Faelindis’s garden cottage in Tol Eressea for the sequel fluff fic (the file in Google Docs is “Ban and Fan’s Excellent Adventure”). It was easy enough to have Bran Stark Craban walk out with Restored Oldest Warg Bitch. The dialogue was both easy and hard to write- her lines were easy but then I didn’t know how soon I could stop it.

My favorite line is, “I have discovered I like pets!” IDK if it has to be read aloud in the voice I hear it, because it is just super charming and funny and just heartwarming to the extreme.

Visually she looks like a large Cavalier King Charles Spaniel to me.