I think it's interesting that when Gandalf describes Denethor's ability to "perceive, if he bends his will thither, much of what is passing in the minds of men," he ties it less to his wisdom or general insightfulness (though he possesses both) than to his difference from "other men of this time," his near total Númenóreanness, and as bolded here, the active exercise of his will.
Tolkien also attributes Denethor's resilience against Sauron (by contrast with Saruman) to not only his right to use the Anor-stone, but "great strength of will." He notes that Sauron had no servant with greater mental powers than Saruman or Denethor, and Gandalf remarks that Denethor was "too great" to be subdued to Sauron's will.
Denethor and Gandalf have a strange and unsettling silent confrontation, carried on by their gazes, yet it strikes Pippin as like "a line of smouldering fire" and "as if reading each other's mind." Gandalf afterwards says Pippin was stuck between two "terrible old men," lumping Denethor in with himself. Pippin also sees some kind of kinship between Denethor and Gandalf, as Sam saw between Faramir and Gandalf.
In his letters, Tolkien said that the ancient Númenóreans became barely distinguishable from Elves in appearance and in their powers of mind. In Unfinished Tales, he notes that they loved their horses, and when a Númenórean had a strong bond with a horse, it was said that the horse could be summoned "by thought alone."
In LOTR, Faramir—who has inherited Denethor's Númenóreanness/wizardliness—has a reputation for command over both animals and men. When everyone else is thrown by their horses upon being chased by five Nazgûl, he not only keeps his seat, but mysteriously gets his horse to ride back towards the Nazgûl. And during the retreat across the Pelennor, the soldiers in the city conclude that Faramir must be with the men who are managing to retreat in order, repeating Beregond's remark that he has some undefined command over both men and beasts.
Gandalf suggests that this is a result of Faramir pitting himself against the effects of the Nazgûl in some way, but his abilities (whatever they are) are outmatched. In the event, the effect of Faramir's Aura of Courage commanding abilities remains until he's shot and finally falls to the Black Breath.
Faramir also makes repeated references to perceiving or reading things in Gollum's mind. At one point, he describes Gollum's mind as dark and closed, yet unable to prevent Faramir from detecting that he's holding something back about Cirith Ungol specifically. Noticeably, this only happens when Faramir orders Gollum to look at him (which Gollum does "unwillingly"), and the light drains from his eyes as he meets Faramir's. It seems decidedly reminiscent of the later Gandalf vs Denethor duel-by-eye-contact.
Faramir's exact words about Gollum's secrecy are "That much I perceived clearly in his mind," in reference to his earlier questioning of him. He says that he can "read" previous murders in Gollum and Gollum cries out in pain when he tries to lie to him.
When Faramir gives staves to Frodo and Sam, he says that a "virtue" of finding and returning has been placed on them, with zero explanation of what he means by that. He adds a hope that the virtue will not altogether fail under Sauron's power in Mordor. He describes the people who did the woodwork but not who placed the virtues (it doesn't seem inherent to the wood itself, given his phrasing).
We do know that Dúnedain can potentially embed enchantments into items. The Barrow-daggers carried by Merry and Pippin are specifically enchanted against the Witch-king of Angmar by an unknown Dúnadan of the North, and when Merry stabs the Witch-king, the dagger breaks enough spells for Éowyn's ordinary sword to finish the job.
Meanwhile, Aragorn uses his healing powers to help the city, wishing for the presence of Elrond, because he is their eldest of their kind and more powerful. Aragorn, also, has at least some part of this ability to actively exercise his will and mental powers, perhaps an equal share, though he uses it less often.
In the book, he doesn't physically attack the Mouth of Sauron, but instead holds his gaze (again, eye contact is important!). There's another silent struggle that involves no weaponry or any other contact.
He prevails in some way over the Mouth of Sauron (not a warped creature of Sauron in the book, but a cruel Númenórean who has "learned great sorcery"). The Mouth indignantly says he has diplomatic immunity and can't be attacked like this.
But, I mean, maybe they're all just smart and perceptive, it's really unclear.
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Entry Five: Date December 14th 1898
I have come to a most disturbing realization.
Dracula appears to have both sex organs native in both male and female humans. I am not certain if they are functional, but the discovery that this creature is in possession of a uterus and ovaries is quite possibly the most destressing thing I have found about the creature aside from when I first learned of his mere existence.
Asking Dracula about it does not ease my confusion for the creature seemed to panic upon being questioned as to why he possessed female sex organs. It appears not even the vampire, himself, realized it which makes me wonder what other sort of strange things I will find as I continue my dissection.
Though this now begs several questions, will I have to worry about female based ailments as I continue my study of the creature. Could he perhaps be susceptible to female hysteria? I do not know and dare I say, I hope not. That would be simply too strange, especially on the discovery that in the past the vampire has taken on the form of a woman before. Apparently he also does not seem to care when it happens, stating that his form means little to him.
I cannot see how that could possibly be the case, and I imagine there's something sinister or even perverse going on when he transforms into that of the fairer sex. I shall keep an eye on this creature, for I cannot fathom as to why he appears to be a hermaphrodite or why he would not care about the shape he takes on. It seems suspicious to me.
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gay skating night
So every Wednesday evening, me and my roommate and a growing group of friends go to Gay Skating Night at a skate rink in the city. It is a TON of fun, and it feels amazing to be in the midst of such a density of visibly queer people.
The first time I tagged along was when I was visiting in January, before I'd moved in.[1] I'd never roller skated before in my life[2] and it was super rough trying to acclimate. I had to go down two sizes on skates before I was able to even properly start[3] 😅. And even then I was barely hanging on, trying so so hard just to inch forward and not fall over. Didn't help that that rink is always super crowded-- when people are zipping past you and you're terrified of being outside of reach of the safety of the wall, well.
Anyway-- by the time I'd just started getting the hang of it, being marginally less rigidly terrified and loosening up some, I was also starting to get really tired. Decided to do one last loop or two around and then call it a night. But in my hubris I fell backward hard right onto my tailbone and realllly hurt myself. Like, "laid there totally unable to move because of the pain for long enough that one of the employees came to check that I was ok" style. It suuuucked, like, I didn't need an ambulance or anything but I was in a lot of pain for weeks afterward [4]
I also caught covid from that same skate night [5] so the question of did I have the courage to ever face that again didn't come up for a while. Man that was was a rough first time huh.
(When the time did come back around, what I did was buy an ass pad from Triple 8, the efficacy of which has not yet been tested because of how overly cautious I am about not falling backwards ever ever again ever. But given how annoying it is to wear hopefully it's at least serving some psychological function)
Anyway. That was January 2023. It is now September 2023. I've lived in the area for about 6 months (!)[6], and while I've skipped a lot of weeks in between [7], I've now skated enough times to be......... still terrible, but no longer the single worst person there. Not as petrified all the time. Noticing my little slow improvements-- having fun. Also I've now gone enough times to have settled into something of a routine, which was the actual reason I wanted to make this post, but wow it got out of hand huh. Oh well, that's blogging babey!
The Routine As I Have Thus Far Begun To Notice It:
Arrive just after the pre-opening line has been let in. Put in my earplugs and put on my mask while we cross the street to get to the door.
The guy who's usually at the door either recognizes me, or (more likely) recognizes who I'm with (@eiko-chatter , noted Blue Girl), and gives me a wristband without asking to see my ID. But if he's not there, get my ID out.
Go get rental skates. The lady who works there appreciates that I approach the counter with my shoes already off and ready to go. She seems really cool but I don't know how to interact with people when I can barely hear them or make myself heard and. Augh.
Make sure to hold up 6 fingers when telling her the size, because it is super loud in there and mask prevents any lipreading from being possible.
Spend a very long time tightening and tying those skates. I need them as tight as I can physically make them, especially the one on my left foot [8]. Struggle to tie them off tightly when it turns out the laces are knotted in obnoxious places. Put on kneepads and wrist pads.
Wobble out onto the rink. It isn't crowded yet but based on the rate of people coming in it's possible to estimate if it will be.
Do 1-3 laps. Feel very very stiff and unsteady, wonder if I've lost every scrap of ability I thought I'd cobbled together over the past bunch of weeks. Get sore and tired quickly, go sit down on the bench.
Re-tighten my skates, they are looser now that my feet have settled into them some. Slowly point and unpoint my feet. Whatever muscle in my ankle un-points them is very tired so it's hard to do this without it being very shaky. Do it for a while til they seem a bit less shaky. Go back out for a few more loops. Repeat a couple times, going out for longer each time.
At some point abruptly start feeling comfortable enough to not be super antsy again. Play around with shifting my weight experimentally and other maneuvers I don't really know how to do.
Start feeling fatigued and realize that Reverse Skate (when everyone skates clockwise for a bit) is probably soon, so I should rest while I can.[9]
Rest for like a minute and a half and then hear the call for reverse skate and be like agh dammit and go back out even though I'm still tired.
Marvel at how much easier it is for me to turn right than left, despite Reverse Skate overall feeling very weird. What's up with that. It comes so naturally. Why.
Get fatigued even faster than usual and go sit back down before reverse skate is even over. Wonder why they do it for such a short time, everyone I've talked to is baffled by it and wishes the split was more even. Think about sending the rink an email (do they have an email address they check??) asking about it.
Make an online order for the nearby 24 hour burger place. This tends to involve a lot of coordination with whoever's there to make sure no one forgets [10]
Go out for a while longer but eventually my body's protests get loud enough that I figure I should finally listen to them because if I overdo it too much and tear something I won't be able to go skating again for who knows how long
MARVEL AT HOW SWEATY MY KNEES ARE WHEN I TAKE THE KNEEPADS OFF
MARVEL AT HOW BAD MY FEET HURT WHEN I TAKE THE SKATES OFF. HOLY HELL.
Wait a little while for everyone else to be ready to go
Go to the burger place and hang out with friends :^)
I am going to get my own set of skates soon. Or, well, I already tried to, but those ones turned out to be the slightest bit too small on the right foot[8] so I need to return them. But in another week or two hopefully I will have my very own skates, and I think that will be very nice :^)
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[1] Part of the point of that visit was as a roommate-compatibility test and I'm so so grateful it went well (I then moved in in March)
[2] I did ice skating lessons once or twice as a very young child but I didn't really retain any of that into adulthood and also it doesn't seem like it translates amazingly to quad-style rollerskates
[3] actually ok this is a useful thing I learned from ice skating-- that the skates need to be way tighter than you'd think.
[4] for the first week or so I couldn't bend over or lie on my right side without a ton of pain, it was really bad
[5] my first and thus far only time ever getting it! I have been wearing a cloth mask with a valve to skating ever since, despite feeling a bit like a dweeb and also knowing that cloth masks have limited efficacy for protecting you. hopefully it's helping any, my shit-ass immune system needs all the help it can get (I tried a valved n95 but it's harder to breathe in and is so horribly unpleasant once I get sweaty)
[6] God that's so long. I've done like nothing in all that time. Besides get marginally better at rollerskating I guess, but. What the hell, me.
[7] it turns out that when I'm very scared and overwhelmed and unsteady on my feet and the place is always mad crowded, it is very costly to decide to go to skating, so I've found myself skipping fairly often. thankfully as I've improved, going to skating has slowly gone from being something I stress out about to something I look forward to! (reminder to self: you did a thing that was hard and scary, that you were bad at, and you kept doing it even though it was hard and scary and effortful and being-bad-at-thing feels shameful, and you are now beginning to get rewards from that! the rewards were real! Trying Something was a good usage of your energy and mental/emotional bandwidth!)
[8] my left foot is smaller enough than my right foot for it to be a huge pain in the ass for sizing. I hate it so much.
[9] I want to skate for the entirety of Reverse Skate as much as possible because it only lasts maybe 10 mins out of the 2.5 hour night
[10] you can order in person but the service is cartoonishly bad so it will take forever if you do (everyone who works there is stoned and I don't hold it against em for a second. it's kind of charming in its way). just order online ahead of time
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so while i’ve been moving & not in the best position to draw real polished stuff, i’ve been digging through the dialogue files of sos awl, and basically there’s dedicated a dedicated file just for the stuff your child overhears about individual NPCs (one for your son and one for your daughter)
a lot of extremely juicy tidbits, everyone in town is airing their dirty laundry in front of your child i guess!! the naughty, normal, and shy personalities usually overhear different things… not to mention the sons lines slightly vary from the daughters, and there’s different lines per chapter. and the lines carry different nuance in japanese and english, in AWL vs AnWL vs SE vs SOS AWL. so many possibilities…
HOWEVER…
a bunch of the secrets for individual npcs are just “What?”. this infuriated me because the first block of “What?” on the list starts with Nami and Rock, both of whom I am absolutely dying to know more about, and they are both victims of this mysterious plague pretty consistently
my first thought was that they were lines cut from the original, but after checking the message files for AWL (in english and japanese) they always said “what?”..
so if your child says “what?” often, just know that they’re probably trying to tell you an npc secret so obscure that the game itself has silenced them !
i kinda wanna organize the existing secrets/comments by character and post em, lmk if that would interest you or if seeing this stuff would ruin immersion/be boring. there’s so much lore that feels Buried but so tantalizingly close to the surface to me and now knowing how it works it feels like you would be unlikely to see it all even if you married everyone (unless i’m missing something)
anyway here’s some brainless rocks (free secret,! he is the only ‘human’ in AWL aware that he is inside of a video game)
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