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elficially-done-with-life · 3 months

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Hundred Years Ago

Pairing: Haldir x Reader

Summery: Haldir wants to ask you an important question, but you two are interrupted.

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"Will we be there soon?" you asked with feigned impatience.

Haldir snorted in amusement: "Can't wait, can you?"

"No." you admitted. You really wished you could see something, but Haldir was very thorough in covering your eyes. "I finally want to know what you are making such a secret about. You even took the day OFF! Until two days ago, I was sure you did not even know how to do that."

"Oh, shut up," you could hear from his voice that he was grinning. Then you felt him gently press his lips to the tip of your ear. "Do not worry, Meleth nîn, we will be right there."

Haldir had been very secretive for the past few days, sometimes whispering quietly with his brothers, but would stop talking when you were within earshot.

At first you didn't think anything of it, but you were very interested in what they were talking about.

When Haldir took the day off from his duties, you were sure that something was up.

And now he was leading you to a 'mysterious place'. Whether it was really that mysterious you didn't know, but as he covered your eyes you had no idea where you were going.

Suddenly he stopped and said: "Ready?"

"Of course!" you said excitedly and he carefully took his hands away from your eyes, and you couldn't help but notice that they were shaking a little.

It took a while for your eyes to find out where you were.

Spread out on the ground in front of you was a large picnic blanket with a huge basket on top, which, judging by the smell, was filled with all your favourite treats.

You were in a clearing that you knew only too well. "This is where we met for the first time!"

Haldir nodded. "Exactly one hundred years ago."

"What?" you asked in surprise and turned to face him. To your surprise, his cheeks were slightly flushed, which was a little unusual for Haldir.

"Exactly one hundred years ago," he repeated, "we met here for the first time."

"You mean when you nearly shot me with one of your arrows?" you replied, smiling gently. That he had actually thought of that was incredible.

"I thought you were an orc." Haldir only replied. "You were walking around far too close to the borders. Be glad I did not have such a good aim back then," he leaned forward so that you could feel his breath on your lips as he said, "I would not miss my target today."

He was probably expecting you to playfully punch him in the side or come up with a counter-argument, but he had surprised you today, so you wanted to surprise him too.

You quickly leaned forward and before Haldir could react, your lips had already captured his in a gentle kiss.

Haldir returned the kiss and wrapped an arm around your waist to pull you tighter against him, while the fingertips of his other hand glided over your spine.

Eventually he pulled away from you again and nodded towards the picnic blanket. "How about we sit down and eat something."

The food tasted delicious, and you knew from the first bite you took that Haldir must have made it all himself. It had probably taken ages.

You loved the food your beloved made, but unfortunately you couldn't eat it that often because he always had to work.

"I am really surprised that you remember exactly which day we met. I have to admit that I remember the year but I could not have told you the day," you admitted.

Haldir laughed softly. "I could not either. Orophin still knew. He accompanied me here for the first time because he was finally old enough to learn how to handle a bow and arrow."

You remembered well. Both of Haldir's brothers had been quite young at the time and he had cared for them since the death of their parents. One of the reasons why you had practically helped raise them after you two had become close.

"Then I guess I will have to thank him later," you said playfully and winked at him.

Haldir shrugged his shoulders. "He only provided the date, but I was planning to come here with you anyway." Suddenly his voice became a little quieter, almost uncertain. "I wanted to ask you a really important question."

He swallowed and put his plate aside, then reached for your hand. "Meleth nîn, I- "

But something interrupted him. Just as he was about to get to the question you were dying to know, there was a rustling in a bush not far from you.

Haldir jumped up and stood protectively in front of you. He pulled a knife from his sleeve, which he always had there, whether he was working or not, so that he wouldn't be unarmed in an emergency.

"Who is there?" he asked loudly, his eyes fixed on the bush.

You held your breath.

Then two elves you knew all too well poked their blond heads out of the bush. Orophin and Rùmil.

"You did not ask her!" Rùmil said indignantly and grimaced. "Do you know how uncomfortable it is to hide in a bush? We were here a few minutes before you and now we haven't even seen the big moment."

Haldir put the knife away again and massaged his forehead. "You two really are- "

"Besides, I contributed more than just the date," Orophin said to you with a pompous look, "I also chose the picnic basket! I borrowed it from Lord Celeborn, you have no idea how many he has lying around because he goes on picnics with Lady Galadriel all the time!"

You could hardly stifle your giggles as relief washed over you. For a moment you thought you were going to have to fight an orc or a wild animal.

Orophin and Rumil now climed out from the undergrowth of the bush with some difficulty and went over to you.

"Some stupid root cut me." Rùmil cursed.

"Serves you right." Haldir grumbled, but you could see his eyes immediately moving up and down his brothers body to see if he was seriously injured. Since he apparently wasn't, Haldir gave him an angry look.

Since his brothers obviously realised that they couldn't simply talk their way out of it, they turned to you with a nervous smile. "You are happy to see us, right?"

You gave Haldir a sideways glance before grinning back. "I am always happy to see you. But there are sometimes very inopportune moments, you know?"

They blushed and nodded cautiously.

Haldir rubbed his face with the hand he had just used to massage his temple.

"We will talk about it later," he finally said, turning to his brothers. "Go now."

Slowly, he let himself sink back onto the picnic blanket.

"I am sorry." he whispered, "I do not know if you still- "

You put a hand on his arm and gently pressed your lips to his cheek. "I would love to hear your question."

"We have known each other for a hundred years now," he began nervously, placing his hand under your chin so that you could look each other in the eye. "Would you do me the honour of courting you?"

Excitement rose in you and it took a few seconds before you were even able to form an answer in your head.

You couldn't believe he had actually asked that! No wonder his brothers had made such a fuss.

Meanwhile, Haldir's face looked very strained and only now did you realise that you still hadn't answered him.

A broad grin spread across your face and you said in a voice trembling with excitement: "There is nothing I would enjoy more."

Haldir slowly pulled you close and together you snuggled up on the picnic blanket under the stars.

When it was already very late, you made your way back.

Haldir carried the basket while you tucked the rolled-up blanket under your arm.

At first he had insisted on carrying both, but when you said you couldn't possibly leave everything to your future husband, he blushed and gave you the picnic blanket.

When you arrived home, all you wanted to do was fall into bed, but when you opened the front door, Haldir's brothers came to meet you.

"Now you are breaking into our house too," he said, but you could tell from the grin on his lips that he didn't hold it against them.

His brothers also seemed to have noticed the grin and with an excited squeal they ran towards you with open arms. "She said yes!"

#haldir x reader #haldir x you #haldir of lothlorien #haldir of lorien #haldir #x reader #tolkien x reader #tolkien #elves x reader #lotr #lotr x y/n #lotr x you #lotr x reader #lord of the rings

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dmsden · 2 years

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Survive the Night - Using survival horror tropes in D&D

Hullo, Gentle Readers. This week's Question from a Denizen is an an Anonymous one, and they ask, "Hello, I was wondering how you would go beyond simply adding horror elements. Instead, I am interested in having a heavy focus on Survival Horror elements! I have Van Richten's Guide, which I know is a great starting point."

Well, Anonymous, that is a very good starting point, but I will try to offer my own thoughts on the subject.

Survival horror is a genre that can lend itself well to D&D, but you really have to think about how to get that mood injected. One way you can start is by changing the essential formula of D&D's nature. Instead of making the PCs heroes that go out and seek out evil in a relatively normal world, you can create a world (perhaps your own Domain of Dread, should you be so inclined) where evil has more or less already won. Maybe the necromancers already cast their spell, and the world is overun with undead. Maybe this kingdom is patrolled by potent starspawn who walk the lands after the Great Old Ones have already come. Or maybe these forces still work in secret, but anyone could be their agent, adding an element of paranoia to the mix.

For survival horror, I would lean in the direction of making the world feel under siege. Maybe the home village that the PCs live in comes under regular attacks by what I'm going to simply call The Threat. The Threat could be cultists, zombies, aberrations, orcs, a neighboring kingdom, or what have you. In a scenario like this, if the PCs dare to leave the relative safety of their haven, it'll probably have to be for a good reason. Dungeons would still be all kinds of dangerous...possibly more dangerous than a simple night spent fighting The Threat. Obviously gold is not going to be a motivating factor here. Instead, it's more likely that the PCs would go to dungeons to seek lore, weapons, magic-items, or possibly even allies to help them turn back The Threat.

I remember a campaign I played in where we were traveling through a kingdom that had already been conquered by our enemies. We built up a caravan of refugees, guiding them through the dangerous lands to what we hoped was safety. We had to deal with patrols, check-points, potentially being betrayed from within, and the evil hunter-rangers that were pursuing us all the while. It was a nightmare, to be sure, and I will certainly never forget it.

One thing you can do to emphasize the survival horror element is to limit resources. Whether those are coveted material components (especially ones with a gold piece cost); weapons, armor, and ammunition (perhaps using rules for these getting worn-out and increasingly useless); healing magicks (if the Gods aren't granting them, why not, and what can be done to restore them?); or something as simple as food and clean water - limiting things can make a situation seem more dire. It also gives you a great alternative reward in the game to gold. Finding a decanter of endless water in a dungeon is likely as valuable, if not more so, than finding a holy sword, if the land is a parched desert.

One trope of survival horror that's difficult to manage but that is absolutely necessary to leverage is despair. While you don't want things to be completely bleak (as that can be kind of a bummer), the victories that the PCs have should be small, and there should be terrible things happening that they can't stop or fix.

Make them make difficult choices...maybe they have to decide between protecting a small farm community from a full moon zombie rampage and entering the Temple of the Moon at the once in a hundred years moon's height to get the Necklace of Prayer Beads stored there. In a game where the gods are blocked from offering healing magic, a Necklace like that can be an absolute, literal life-saver...so do the PCs retrieve it, thus letting staunch allies be wiped out, or do they turn their backs on it, knowing they need all the allies they can get.

I'm going to recommend two non-D&D sourcebooks that I think handle these kinds of things well. The post-apocalyptic RPG Legacy has a lot of cool things about it, but I particularly like its scarcity system, in which specific items are abstracted into scores of what the PCs have a surplus of or what they lack. If I were looking at a survival horror game, that's what I would look at to handle those mechanics. I also recommend the small book Keeper Tips from Chaosium. Even though this is advice for people running the Call of Cthulhu RPG, it has a series of essays with fantastic tips for maintaining the mood in a horror game. Both boosk are available physically or in PDF format, and both are excellent additions to your gaming library.

Anonymous, I hope this has given you some ideas on how to run survival horror in D&D. I have an idea for a future campaign that might be fairly survival horror in tone, so I might be using this advicem yself before too long. Until our next article, keep ahead of the zombies, and may your crossbow never run out of ammo.

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theladyregret · 11 months

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I've seen you make commets concerning Drow skin color here and also in the authors notes of your fics. Could you go into it more? I find it a lot more interesting then what a lot of people insist on doing. Also how do you balance it with in game racial lore or do you just dismiss it completely?

God, I love asks like these.

I'm pretty sure I've already gone into it somewhere on my blog but it was in response to an angry ask so likely something people would skip over because...drama. Which is of course totally valid but I'm glad I get to go into it again in response to a nice ask instead.

I'll start with the lore question which honestly isn't very complicated in it's solution. You can choose whatever lore you like for your preference and you really don't have to change anything. All you have to do is sweep it into the nice neat corner of "creationist myth" or "religious propaganda". That is to say that these things are not meant to be historically accurate or factual retellings. Hell, they could just be outright lies depending. Even goodly folk and religions with goodly deities can have these things and followers who take it as fact and it doesn't make them bad people necessarily. Ignorant maybe? Bad...it depends on how they go about it once being faced with the truth.

So when lore says "Drow have dark skin to show everyone else that they are evil and they were banished to the depths of the Underdark as a punishment" that is just something someone decided was true...but really isn't, but people certainly may believe it is. Just as the Drow are taught that they were forced underground by the evil surface races and that Lloth is their sole protector and they are the only goodly people in the world. It's not true...but some of them certainly believe that it is.

The key is to remove the idea of black and white in terms of what is good and what is evil and whether both can exist within every race regardless of stereotyping. No race is inherently one thing or the other regardless of cultural norms or upbringing. Every race is capable of evil and good. Period. Anything that says otherwise is a myth people may have been taught and may believe is true even though it isn't.

As for the skin tone thing. I have always been a big promoter of the fact that magic existing in a world does not mean science does not. So...even if it is a fantasy world with magic...genetics still exist. Evolution and adaptation still exists. Not everything is just magic. I'm also completely against the idea of locking races that aren't human into set ethnicities. Every race should be capable of having varied ethnic features based on where they are native to and I don't mean subraces either. So...if humans in a certain area have certain ethnic features like darker skin and hair, hair texture, certain facial features...that should equally apply to all other races that also come from that area in addition to their racial features. So a gold elf can have dark skin, darker hair, broader or narrower facial features because they come from a warmer region...and still be gold elves. Same for a wood elf, or an orc, or a halfling, or a gnome etc

Applying this to Drow is a bit different only because the Underdark is a fantasy construction but largely they can have the same differing in ethnic features but also...it's always been my belief that their dark skin tone (which tends to be more purple or blue toned rather then orange) is the result of an adaptation to the Faerzress radiation. This also explains why other Underdark races also have this adaptation...even the goodly races. And why do they have white or extremely pale hair in contrast to their skin? Because the adaptation that makes their skin dark is not the same as melanin and is not designed to protect against UV light but a completely different type of energy. As a result their hair doesn't have melanin and likely their skin would be sensitive to sunlight similarly to how people with low or no melanin would despite being so dark. If a Drow has darker colored hair...or red hair, this could either be a left over recessive gene or a gene mutation. Still possible just not common.

This can also explain why red eyes are so common as well because low or no melanin levels can make eyes appear pale blue, pink, red, or pale purple as well as not being able to filter glare from light well (among other things but I'm not going into all of that here). Humans don't typically have red eyes with albinism but you can bend those rules for the fact they're elves and not humans. Just like with the hair color it's also just as possible for some of them to inherit a recessive gene that puts more melanin in their eyes giving them an unexpected color or higher tolerance to light. (this could explain Drizzt's eye color certainly but I actually think that's a whole different thing which I have also talked about before in another post and won't go into here)

So yeah, this is generally how I feel about the whole thing and have for a very long time...and honestly...solves a lot of recent issues people have with it all, I think anyway.

#asks #dungeons and dragons #the legend of drizzt #Drow #dungeons and dragons lore #fantasy racial issues

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aureentuluva70 · 2 years

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Spoilers for Rings of Power Ep 4: The Great Wave (mostly just talking about favorite parts)

Numenor:

Tar Miriel's dream of the Downfall of Numenor was insane. Like, if this is but a mere glimpse of what we're going to get to see when Numenor actually falls...holy cow. And it's the very first scene of the episode too! (I also find it rather haunting that the baby Miriel holds at the start is named Eliniel, who was a woman from the first age who was the wife of Gorlim the Unhappy. Gorlim bargained with Sauron, revealing the location of his fellow outlaws for his wife to be set free from imprisonment, only for Sauron to cruelly reveal afterwards he had killed Eliniel, and then proceeded to kill Gorlim himself.)

Galadriel telling Miriel that "there is a tempest in me", reminds me of the scene from Fotr when Galadriel is tempted to take the one ring. "...Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! As tempestuous as the sea!" Coincidence? I think not.

If you look closely in the scene where Tar Miriel shows Galadriel the vision of Numenor's Fall, in the room you can see four rather interesting relics, those relics being the sword of Narsil(looking identical to the blade from the Jackson films), the Dragon Helm of Dor Lomin, and Tuor's Axe and Shield.

Something someone on reddit pointed out is that the Palantir seems to be made out of labradorite, which is traditionally connected with visions and dreams. It's a nice touch!

Adar:

The interactions between Adar and the orcs has to be one of the highlights of the episode for me. And what makes it one of my favorite parts is because of just how...strangely moving it is?

Everywhere else, the orcs are depicted as terrifying, ruthless enemies, but in the presence of Adar, they display something I never would have expected to see from orcs: emotional vulnerability.

It was actually kind of surreal to watch. Because since when have we ever seen orcs displaying vulnerability or reverence of any sort? Well, we do here.

The orcs don't just revere Adar though, they adore him. They quite literally see Adar as his name suggests: A father-figure, one who actually seems to genuinely care for them.

In the introduction of Adar we see him comforting a dying orc, who whispers his name, smiling up at him. Adar smiles sadly back, tears of genuine sadness forming in his eyes, caressing the orc's face, all right before he mercy-kills him. The others then carry the orc's body away presumably to be buried. It's all so strangely moving that the entire scene has been totally burned into my brain.

As for theories as to who he could be, I still think he could be one of the first "orcs", among those elves who were taken and twisted by Melkor soon after their awakening. So in a way he is literally the father of all orcs, hence why he's called Adar. Of course this begs the question of whether there was an Orc mother, but I won't get too into that right now. As for now it seems like a pretty solid theory, and one I could definitely see being true.

But there's a new theory about Adar's identity that popped up when the episode was released, one that I really like, and it's that Adar could actually be Maeglin, who survived the fall from Gondolin's walls, and even if he didn't survive, those of Morgoth's armies could have found his body and used some dark magics to bring him back to life. He fits the physical description for one thing: dark hair, pale skin, black armor, even right down to the soft voice, it's all there. The scars on his face are definitely burns, which matches perfectly with his supposed fate of being thrown into fire. The black glove on his hand reminds me of an early draft of the Fall of Gondolin, where Earendil, after being taken hostage, bites Maeglin's hand before Tuor comes in and breaks Maeglin's arm right before he throws him over the edge.

Adar speaks Quenya, meaning he could be one of the Noldor. When Arondir reveals he was born in Beleriand Adar asks "by the mouth of the river?" He doesn't specify much on which river except that he traveled down that river when he was young, and that it was covered in sage blossoms. Maeglin was known to travel down the river Gelion often when visiting the Dwarves. So perhaps that is the river he is referring to.

It's probably less likely than the "Adar being the father of all orcs" theory, but it's still cool to think about. Not to mention the way it could tie into Elrond's storyline would be AWESOME.

Elrond and the Dwarves:

Just when I thought I couldn't fall more in love with Robert Aramayo's portrayal of Elrond, this episode proved me wrong. Dang, Celebrian is one lucky woman. Elrond is such a sweetheart, how could anyone with a soul not love him? This version of Elrond perfectly fits the book's description of "kind as summer". I love Hugo Weaving's Elrond, but he always came off as rather cold and stern. Rings of Power's Elrond features a much more book accurate portrayal of him, and Robert Aramayo does it flawlessly. There's just this care and feeling behind how he plays Elrond that's so genuine, how could I not love him?

The scenes between Celebrimbor and Elrond, and later Durin and Elrond talking about Earendil was definitely one of the best parts of this episode. I was grinning from ear to ear whilst also melting at the same time whenever Earendil was talked about. The way Elrond's interest is immediately peaked when Celebrimbor tells him how he reminded him of Earendil gets to me. But it's Elrond's words to Durin about Earendil that really had me bawling. I'll just let Elrond's words speak for itself:

"For many years, at day's end, I would look up at it...wondering what might he think if he were watching me. Would he be proud of what I've accomplished with his legacy? Or disappointed by the countless ways I'd failed to live up to it? But then, one night, it struck me, that I would be only happy to hear any judgement, so long as it granted me the opportunity to have but one more conversation with my father. Do not waste what time you have left with yours."

That had me bawling.

You can literally see the tears forming in his eyes when he says that, can feel that he means every word of what he's saying. Earendil was one of the greatest heroes of the First Age, and Elrond knows that. Just imagine the weight that must press down on Elrond's shoulders as the son of that same hero. Whenever he looks up at the evening star, that's his dad up there. He wonders what his father might think of him, whether he would be proud or disappointed with him.

But in the end, that doesn't really matter to Elrond, because all he really wants is to just be able to be speak with his father at least one more time, and it especially hurts when you think about the fact that Elrond didn't really know his father all that well. Earendil was always off on voyages, seeking help from the Valar. He was more of a distant figure of legend to Elrond than a close family member, and yet to just be able to talk with his father would be enough for him, no matter if he was proud or disappointed.

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I continue to adore Elrond and Durin's friendship, and the Dwarves in general. I continue to be amazed by just how well the Dwarves are written in this show. And Disa's singing? 👌 She's hands down one of my favorite characters so far.

But even as much as I love them all-*inhales*

ELROND EARENDILION WHY WOULD YOU TAKE THAT OATH HAVE MAEDHROS AND MAGLOR TAUGHT YOU NOTHING?????!!!!!! *Starts shaking him by the shoulders*

Well, okay, the Oath of Feanor and the oath that Elrond takes in this episode are two very different things(for one thing there's no killing involved) and there's no nefarious intent behind it and it's obvious Elrond just wants be friends with Durin again and gain his trust BUT STILL. There's no way this isn't going to bite him in the back later on.

#Rings of Power #lord of the rings #Tolkien #jrrt #silmarillion #Elrond #Durin #Tar Miriel #Galadriel #Adar #Earendil #Celebrimbor #Maeglin

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jaggedwolf · 8 months

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CR2 genderswaps, ranked

Obviously subjective opinions, file your complaints with someone else.

All genderswaps are to the gayest possible versions of themselves, because I am like this. (In other words, bi->bi, gay->gay, straight->gay). Pros is more of “interesting possibilities” section.

....this was supposed to be all of the Nein but I wrote this post in 2020 and apparently stopped after the top three so that’s all you’re getting! I think it was going to be Fjord and Yasha after the top three, and then Nott and Caduceus are like, the absolute least interesting to consider for this, why would you ever.

F!Caleb

Pros:

Look, for me, F!Caleb takes everything I like about the guy to the next level, while everything I dislike about him become things I’m here for her. Incredibly brilliant wizard with a dark past that she hates herself for? Nice.

Beau/F!Caleb as a ship is still one that murders me. They were colleagues oh my god they were colleagues

Cons:

Genuinely trying to find one...ah, here, I think of canon!Nott as very straight, so losing Nott->Caleb seems unfortunate. But we’re not in canon territory here, my dudes. Nott can still think this smelly hobo looks attractive in a jail cell, and she and Beau bickering about it becomes even funnier.

M!Beau

Pros:

There’s something to be said about M!Beau being the son Thoreau asked for, but still absolutely not the one he wanted - the boy has no care for propriety, he sleeps with the workers, he flippantly ignores the daughters of nearby important families, he gets so unbecomingly emotional in these family arguments tsk tsk

Which is to say, family angst-wise, I think canon Beau draws a little bit of comfort in that she was never given a fair shot because of the son nonsense. M!Beau? Nah, that’s all on him, or at least that’s a pretty easy perspective to have.

Rummaging through the candidates for M!Beau to flippantly hit on and realizing that it has to be Fjord is cracking me up. This half-orc cannot escape being flirted with.

M!Beau/Molly probably happens in a hit-it-and-quit-it type fashion while in Hupperdook, between all the arguing and horny energy actually synergizing. And then Molly dies, and so Beau gets to be even more fucked up about it :D (And that tattoo...damn)

Absolutely nothing changes with the Nott dynamic, which is fun to realize! Except maybe now they both agree the minotaur is hot.

Cons:

Probably not BFFs w Jester and I can’t abide that :( Their friendship really did kick off with the roommate stuff. Aw, would Jester end up rooming alone whenever Yasha wasn’t around? Maybe that would get them to somehow still room together

?????? with Yasha - maybe closer to the canon Caleb dynamic. Though actually, hm, I wonder if M!Beau would be more confrontational with her since he has neither guilty feelings or horniness distracting him. (Less jokingly, I do think canon Beau reacts to women differently, even outside of attraction being a factor, in a way where she’s more....protective or considerate of them.)

M!Jester

Pros:

Has read all the gay smut that has ever existed, has recs, yes, still thinks that’s how romances work.

Overall, it’s kinda fun to imagine the slightly naive and very affectionate Team Heart of the Nein being a dude! Regardless of whether or not the Nein are still as protective of him, which is also an interesting question.

Both him painting wildflowers for Yasha and Caleb saying Jester is the one who changes people remain good moments

Marion still calls him Little Sapphire, duh

Cons:

Again, the Beau dynamic is all ???

but it makes one contemplate m!beau/m!jester, which I am not opposed to

I suspect M!Jester would not be very popular (funnily enough, the caleb and beau swaps above might also swap the populations who really like them)

#critical role #jaggedwolf rambles #some people aim for inbox 0 but when am i in a mood what i want is drafts 0 #mine #caleb widogast #beauregard #jester lavorre

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imakemywings · 2 years

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Why didn’t Durin’s Bane seemingly have any ambition of his own, like his fellow Maiar in Sauron or Saruman? Obviously Gandalf, Radagast and the Blue Wizards all had their own thing going on as well, but the Balrog was seemingly content to chill in Moria for thousands of years, for some reason? In theory, would the Balrog have been cognisant enough to seek rehabilitation in Valinor, as Sauron was offered during the First Age?

Anon, if you're one of the anons who's been here before, you ask some very interesting questions.

As with some of my past answers I think there are a few viable options.

a) You nailed it and Durin's Bane just did not really have much personal motivation or ambition, so without a leader he was directionless, but once Durin VI and then the Fellowship intruded on "his" territory, he was moved to action.

b) He was asleep, possibly dormant after the War of Wrath, and awakened by the activities of the Dwarves of Khazad-dum, and then later further disturbed by the Fellowship and the Orcs following them.

c) He had been weakened enough by Melkor's defeat/possibly injuries he received during the War of Wrath that he did not want to venture out into the world, but again, was still willing or motivated to defend what he saw as "his" space in Moria, either against Durin VI or the Fellowship.

The Tolkien Gateway appears to support (b), stating:

"For more than five millennia, the Balrog hibernated in his deep hiding place at the roots of the mountains in Khazad-dûm. He remained undisturbed throughout the Second Age and most of the Third, before the mithril-miners of dwarf-King Durin VI awoke him in T.A. 1980." (Tolkien Gateway, entry: Durin's Bane, section: Awakening and the Third Age)

But I pulled out my copy of The Return of the King to check the citation on this statement, and while it does say in the timeline of the Third Age that "A Balrog awoke" and slew Durin VI, it does not mention what Durin's Bane was doing prior to this. Appendix B says:

"1980: The Witch-King comes to Mordor and there gathers the Nazgul. A Balrog appears in Moria, and slays Durin VI." (Page 1087, 2020 hardback ed.)

So I'm not sure if Durin's Bane being "asleep" or "hibernating" during the Second Age is actual canon, or just an assumption/interpretation of the person who wrote that section of his article.

However, I do find it a plausible scenario. To your point, it seems unlikely he was just chilling down there for 5,000 years. Then again, time passes differently for Ainur, so it's not impossible. Most of Melkor and Sauron's creations seem to run rampant without direction, causing mayhem and destruction in their wake as their MO though, so I feel like if Durin's Bane had been awake, he would have made his presence known.

Furthermore, Gandalf himself uses the phrasing "awoke/awakened" when referencing the causes of Khazad-dum's downfall and the actions of the Dwarves, which I feel supports theory (b). The way Khazad-dum's destruction is framed certainly seems to evoke that they had disturbed a slumbering evil which might have otherwise continued to lay dormant.

I also think that Sauron and Saruman are perhaps exceptional in their ambition. They are both portrayed as extremely driven and ambitious and become over time very fixated on the growth of their own power and their own self-promotion. I'm not sure if this necessarily holds true for every Maia who was in service to Melkor or Sauron. For example, neither Gothmog nor Thuringwethil seem to have the same drive. Frankly, Gandalf and Radagast, while not layabouts, do not seem nearly that ambitious either, being more content to just explore Middle-earth and learn what they can, helping people along the way. So these may just be quirks of character, as with people.

As to whether rehabilitation is possible--that's a tougher question. Tolkien seems to imply, in my view, that the turning of a Maia to a Balrog is an irreversible kind of corruption. Why else is it that some of them are Balrogs, but others, like Sauron and Thuringwethil, are not? Sauron is offered a chance at redemption at the end of the War of Wrath, but there's no mention of the Balrogs. That could be because there were no Balrogs around, being either dead, dormant, or in hiding, but it may also be because they were too far gone. It may also be that they were offered it, but it wasn't mentioned because they were not as plot-relevant as Sauron, but I feel Tolkien would have at least dropped a sentence or two on it if they were.

But Tolkien also repeatedly emphasizes that anyone is capable of change, although they may not choose to do it. That's why Melkor and Sauron and Grima and plenty of others who we think perhaps should not have gotten a second chance got one anyway. So I'm not sure I would entirely rule out that Balrogs are capable of reforming and perhaps returning to their original Maiar state, but I would imagine it's very unlikely. However, if a Balrog asked for the chance to repent and change, I’m sure Manwe would allow it.

#durin's bane #lord of the rings #lotr #tolkien tag #meta #asks #balrogs #I whine all day long about having to follow a trail of citations for work #but when it comes to double-checking the fan wiki hang on let me whip out my on RotK copy #and see if that holds up #mine

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comparativelysuperlative · 3 years

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The great thing about Tolkien fandom is that anybody can just say things. Did you know that all Elves can astral project according to, uh, a footnote in LACE, they just don’t? Yeah, I don’t know if that’s true. You don’t know. Neither did Tolkien. Canon is whatever you want and it all depends on how good your lawyer is.

#Silmarilion #LOTR #'what do your elf eyes see' 'ugh do we have to do this again?' 'WHAT DO YOUR ELF EYES SEE?' 'fine give me a minute and watch my hroa'#for the record my opinion is that this is sort of true but obviously no Elf would think of it in those terms #and it has probably been done around zero times for a mix of bad and good reasons #the really interesting question is whether *orcs* can and if not why not

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running-with-kn1ves · 2 years

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I loved that last elf story you just put out! I really feel for the reader. But my question is, why is it that humans are so rare now? Can I get an estimate? Your writing has me day dreaming all the time, it’s really immersive!

Thank you so much!! I noticed that the engagement with my work has been going down recently so it makes me really happy you’re interested. I actually got a comment that someone hated the reader in that scenario haha, so it’s interesting to know your opinion on it!

OG piece

Well, when there are so many different species existing at once, that are all somewhat genetically compatible, there tends to be a lot of hybrids and interspecies mating. Finding a “pure-blooded” member of a species is very rare. Stronger or closed-off species usually have offspring that are solely from that species. Especially if that specific type of creature has an elitist or speciesist mindset. Elves for example, hardly have offspring that are hybrids. Mostly because they are very self-involved and pompous, believing that others are unworthy to grace the elven bloodline. For others like humans, shapeshifters, orcs etc. interbreeding is necessary to evolve and to live. There’s less prejudice surrounding interbreeding for those communities because it's so common. Out of all the creatures and beings that exist, humans are one of the weakest. They are low in the strength department, incapable of harnessing magic, and live for a very short time. Most humans have been wiped out either through war, time, or colonization. In order to survive, a human would likely need to find a stronger species to marry or tie a bond with in order not to be killed or enslaved. Humans might be worthless when it comes to fighting and magic, but they sure are handy in brothels and servantry.

I’d say, ‘pureblooded’ humans (I hate that word but I have no idea how else to describe them) are either threatened or endangered. Maybe around 8000-5000? An endangered species irl is classified as having less than 2500 living individuals, but considering how quickly the human race is depleting, and the fact that they’re all spread out across the world, the number really isn’t that high. A majority of them are enslaved or have turned to entertainment as their line of work. It’s demeaning, humiliating, and borderline suicidal to subject yourself as means of pleasure for these species. They could crush you with one fist, kill you for a small mistake. Your life wouldn’t even mean anything to them, they already see you as less than livestock.The only reason why humans are kept around is the small bit of use they provide. It’s almost an accomplishment to obtain a human, though. It’s just like any other collector's item-- pointless, but desirable due to its rarity. Most species have their specific set views on humans, which is why sometimes you may never know whether you’ll live or die.

#oc #reader insert #writing #fanfiction #og fiction #fiction #elf x reader #elf #elf race #elf romance #male elf #male x reader #elven #elf oc

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wishingtobeinadifferentuniverse · 3 years

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A Peculiar Hobbit (Pippin x Fem!Reader)

Word Count: 1857

Warnings: fluff, fighting

Requested: by anon

I thought this would be a fun write, and I had a lot of freedom with this one and it was fun! Short and sweet! Might possibly do a part 2, maybe super angsty, who knows?

You walked through the stacks of books, trying to find the right one for your research. “No no no, this isn’t right!” you talked to yourself, almost kicking a stack of papers in your frustration. “They must have gotten lost. These boneheads lost valuable information, they’ll have hell to pay.” This time, you kicked another stack of books, and it fell. It slammed down onto your legs, and you cried out in pain. You fell to the ground, and moved the books off of you, rubbing the sore spot it left.

“Um, excuse me,” You heard from the darkened corner. Whoever was speaking had a peculiar accent. It sounded like a male, but a young one. “I hope I’m not interrupting something. I was sent here to find something, and well, it seems like something happened?”

You rolled your eyes, you had a bad enough day already. Now you had to deal with actual people. “Well, I am fine enough. What can I do for you?” You tried your hardest to speak in a polite manner, but it came out a bit snappy. It was odd to speak to darkness in the corners anyway. Who could blame you?

“Miss, I truly am sorry for interrupting, if you just want me to leave, I will.” The voice stuttered.

You sighed. “I promise it is fine. Come in.” The fire was dwindling, so you threw some more kindling in, giving the stranger some time. When you turned around you saw a child looking at you. No, he had the height of a child. But he looked older. Clearly, you looked astonished, as the child thing started chuckling.

“Oh, you have never seen a Hobbit before. For someone that spends much time in here, you haven’t seen much outside. What is your name miss?” He spoke between his laughs. His cheeks were a merry red, and his curls framed his face.

But something about his statement rubbed you the wrong way. “Well excuse me, you know nothing about me. You don’t know whether I go outside or not, whether I spend all my time in here.” You spoke indignantly, after all, who was he to judge your lifestyle. This only caused him to laugh even more. “And for your information, I know exactly what a Hobbit is, I just have never come across one. Very well then, go find what you’re looking for. Also, my name is y/n, not that you need to know.”

“Ah, a beautiful name for a beautiful woman.” He grinned and began looking around, leaving you with your mouth gaping.

As he shuffled through the books and scrolls, you looked at him curiously, at his frame, his size. As you scanned him, you noticed things that made him look less of a child. His chest was broader, and his arms were bigger. His face still had a childish innocence about it, one that hadn’t quite been taken during these dark times. His cheekbones were beginning to hollow out though, and the light in his eyes was probably not as bright as they used to be.

He sneezed, making you jump, and you hurried over to where he was, making sure he hadn’t disturbed too much. You picked up some books, placed them on the counter, and began questioning him. “Now tell me, what is your name?”

“Peregrin. Peregrin Took,” he stated proudly.

I cocked an eyebrow, doubtful of that. He seemed to be too much of a jokester to have such a formal name like Peregrin. It was a nice name, no doubt, but it didn’t fit. “Peregrin hm? Are you sure?”

He looked down bashfully, but then looked up with a sly grin. “Ok fine, I go by Pippin. Now that you have seen a hobbit, your life is complete! Especially since that hobbit is me.” He winked, and you suppressed a smile, not wanting him to be egged on. “Anyways, I am the best hobbit for you to meet since I am the most handsome. I have the best smile, except maybe my friend Merry, he has a good smile. Oh also, my friend Frodo, he has good eyes.” His smile faltered for a second.

“Are you ok?” You questioned.

He looked up from the scrolls he was reading, the happiness he previously had slowly melted away. “Aye, I am alright. I am. But I don’t know about the rest of my companions.”

You grabbed two cushions and planted them on the floor. “Would you like to talk about it?”

He nodded and sat next to you. It became apparent how much he had lost during this time. He told you about his home, The Shire, and how he ended up on this journey. The encounters he had along the way. How they were in danger very quickly. He also told how he lost many friends, including the Captain of Gondor, Boromir. He teared up, telling the sacrifice he made to save them, even if it didn’t at first. It hurt to see such a fragile creature have the need to toughen up, to harden, to scar. He spoke of his friends leaving, how he was not sure where they might be. If they were still alive.

Once he was finished, you spoke. “Well, that is certainly a story to tell. And there will be more chapters to your book. I sincerely hope everything goes your way, a person as young as you should not have had to go through all of this.”

He smirked, his happy demeanor slowly coming back. “How young do you think I am? I am 29, a fairly good age if I do say so myself.”

You spluttered, surprised at that. You remember reading somewhere something about that, but you thought it was rubbish. “You must be joking. No way are you older than me!”

Pippin smiled and nodded. “Well, I hate to break it to you, no, I love to break it to you, I am 29. Not younger, not older.”

“Hmm, interesting,” You hummed, picking yourself up off the ground. “Well, we should probably find what you’re looking for.” You turned around, accidentally slamming into a huge pile of books. Something about that hobbit made you flustered and turned you into a clumsy mess. And this was not going to get better. The pile slowly teetered, and you stayed frozen, unable to move your legs.

“Y/n, watch out!” Pippin yelled, tackling you to the ground. Just in time, the stack made an earthshattering sound when it hit the ground, sending dust everywhere. Pippin laid on top of you, his head resting on your chest.

You coughed, and he rolled off, laying next to you instead. “Thank you,” you whispered, brushing some of the dust off of your clothes. Pippin’s curls were covered in dust, and he smiled wryly, brushing some specks off your forehead. You cleared your throat and he pulled away quickly, the slightest hint of pink warming his cheeks.

He sat up quickly, brushing the rest of the debris off of himself. “Well, this wasn’t what I expected when I decided to make my way down here, but it was better than I could have hoped for.” He helped you sit up and then planted a kiss on your cheek. “Until next time!” he joyously called, skipping back up the stairs. You touched where he kissed you, beaming. This was going to be a better day than most days.

Everything was going fine, and you kept on replaying the time you had spent with Pippin until you heard a large boom, shaking the entire city. You heard the war cry of thousands of orcs and realized very quickly that you were under attack. “Damn it! This is why I shouldn’t have holed up here!” You yelled, quickly grabbing your sword from the dustiest, dark corner. It was a gift from your father, that he had trained you to use, but you thought you would never need.

You sped up the stairs, reaching sunlight. You shielded your face, letting your eyes adjust to the brightness, before turning to the pathway. You jogged through, trying to conserve some of your energy, though it might all be in vain. Objects were being thrown at the city, tumbling buildings and humans alike. All was chaos, and it swept you into it.

You made it to a small alcove where you could see the army that had amassed before Gondor. The army that would bring the fall. Your sword hung loosely by your side, and you saw everything flash before your eyes. Memories forgotten, brought back, people you vaguely remembered. How much you had missed out on the world, hiding out in your book-hole instead. How much you could have seen if you had taken the chance. And now it was your time to go, just like that. You shook yourself out of that stupor, and raced on, trying to get farther up.

Soldiers were being rallied by a stranger in white cloaks, and you passed by, working your way up farther. Out of nowhere, a person turned the corner, slamming into you. You fell to the ground, your sword clattering. “I’m sorry,” you spoke hurriedly, picking up the sword and moving on.

“Well, are you really just going to run off like that?” Pippin asked in his strong accent. You turned back, your jaw dropped. You had never expected him to be part of a battle, but here he was. You didn’t have time to answer before another crowd of orcs attacked. You took down as many as you could, and heard a cry of pain from behind you. You turned to see Pippin’s sword cutting deep through an orc. He had some bruises on his face but otherwise, he was fine. You grabbed him, pulling him away from the chaos. A battle was no place for a hobbit.

“What are you doing?” He yelled, thrashing his arms about. You grit your teeth, finally at the citadel.

You sighed, turning to look at him. “I need you to be safe. If I know you’re out here fighting, it will only distract me.”

He crossed his arms, his face slightly pouted. All of a sudden, his eyes lit up, and a smirk grew on his face. “Fine, I’ll stay here. On one condition. Let me kiss you. Just once.” He laughed, and you looked astounded at his cockiness.

You had nothing left to lose though, so you agreed. “Okay, I will, but I am warning you Pippin, no tongue.” He grinned, and leaned in, planting a kiss directly on your lips. He didn’t linger for too long, his chapped lips creating a little friction. He pulled away first, leaving you a little dazed. You shook yourself out of your stupor and brushed your hair out of your face. “Goodbye, Pippin. I will see you soon,” you promised, even though you knew it was unlikely. He knew it was unlikely as well, you could see it in his eyes, but he still had a little bit of hope. And even a little bit of hope goes a long way.

#Pippin x reader #pippin #pippin x y/n #pippin x you #lotr #lotr writing #lotr oneshot

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wuxiaphoenix · 2 years

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Worldbuilding: Hordes of Reasons

Sometimes you just want to give your characters something to fight and survive. No pesky moral questions, no politics, no negotiations; just kill or be killed. At the end you’re alive, someone or something else is dead,

and you can just keel over for a while. To the modern reader who’s often stressed beyond bearing but has no good outlet to go take out all the rage and primal screams on, characters surviving can be very cathartic.

If that’s the fight you want in your story, then you probably want a horde. Individual threats are, well, individual. They tend to lead to character development, a la Dracula from generic undead menace, or even just the anthropomorphizing of a particularly vicious storm or cliff face. (If the characters don’t give such a threat hints of emotion and motive, the readers will. Humans are human that way.)

Hordes, though - hordes by their nature are a mass of threats, all blending together. A swarm of piranhas, a circling school of sharks, a stench of zombies. Everything comes at you at once, to overwhelm the senses and rational mind. If your body goes down into freeze mode with your mind, you’re dead.

This is another bit that differentiates hordes as a threat from individual predators or villains. “Freeze” is a perfectly legit survival strategy against most individual enemies; if they don’t see you, they might miss you, and go after something else moving. Which sucks for the other guy, but....

You can’t beat a horde that way, any more than freezing works against a march of army ants. The column spreads out so it hunts farther and more thoroughly than any one predator can. Freezing just means they find you faster. It’s run, or fight. Either one gets the reader’s adrenaline out, and usually you can have a mix of both, especially if you pull a scenario like “run from the zombies across a bridge, then blow the bridge at the very last minute”.

(At which point we all hope zombies don’t swim. Heh.)

So if your story needs a horde, where do you get one?

If it’s something like an insect swarm, it’s easy to explain. Either the horde normally tramps across the landscape munching away, or it does so under certain circumstances your main characters have to fall afoul of. Bees out to form a new colony are one example, army ants another, locusts yet a third. If it’s a horde of orcs or other monsters, you have some worldbuilding to do to explain how they built up enough numbers to switch to large-scale looting, burning, etc. And how they did it before humans wised up and nipped a potential horde in the bud, because we tend to do that when we get wind of man-eating threats. Demons or monsters from another dimension are a bit easier; “they were always there, they just couldn’t get over to this world to eat people.”

This may be why zombie hordes are often popular. All you have to do is worldbuild in your Patient Zero, and things explode outward from there.

(“All”. Heh. There’s a lot of worldbuilding that goes into whether or not you want this to be a zombie apocalypse or a beatable zombie outbreak. From what I’ve read Kingdom (2019 Korean historical drama, currently on Netflix) really pulls it off for a horror that can be beaten. I’m hoping at some point they’ll put out official DVDs so I can check it out - the TV Tropes page is interesting.)

And then of course there’s the option of a horde of robots. Which might act like any of the above critters, or possibly all of them. Imagine Skynet with our modern-day drones available. Brr.

When all’s said and done, shape your worldbuilding and your heroes so they’re smart and lucky enough to survive the horde... barely. Stretch your creativity; make it more than just being fast and strong enough to fight on. One of the integral parts of being human is tool use, and the environment around us is a host of potential tools. From Improvised Weapons to Combat Parkour to Badass Bookworms remembering one obscure fact about the enemy; hit all the facets of what it means to be human, the better to contrast against the inhuman hordes trying to kill them all. Your readers will love it.

Once they catch their breath, at least....

#creative writing #worldbuilding #zombies #hordes #kingdom 2019 #tv tropes

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jazzistolkienfanfics · 4 years

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Melleth - Legolas x Reader

Type: Imagine Pairing: Legolas x reader Summary: Y/N knows some Elvish, but she confuses the two meanings for one word Legolas is continually saying: melleth (which can translate to both ‘female friend’ and ‘love’) Warnings: middle finger, mentions of being high, crushing obliviousness, ‘shit’ Word Count: 1462

Y/N and Legolas certainly made for a strange pairing wherever they went. Y/N, constantly covered in sweat, dirt, and occasionally blood, a decent height but absolutely dwarfed by elves (or most men, really), with a mouth like a drunken sailor also high on pipeweed and an irritating level of clumsiness. Legolas, ethereal, stupidly good-looking Prince of Mirkwood, taller than was comfortable for Y/N, never tripped onto his face in front of other royals, and spoke in a calm, agreeable voice on most occasions.

Outsiders to their life would never have assumed them acquaintances, let alone the most familiar of friends, with constant inside jokes with one another and the occasional awkward moment brought on by what the less ... stately members of society liked to call ‘sexual tension’.

According to Y/N, Legolas had absolutely no interest in her whatsoever. She’d heard his stories of his ex-flame, Tauriel, and how his father, King Thranduil, had declared her a ‘lowly Silvan elf’. The beautiful, talented, Captain-of-the-Guard Tauriel, ‘lowly’. Y/N was quiet certain Thranduil would choke on his imported wine if he heard of a human girl who was infatuated with his son, who didn’t like her anyway, as far as Y/N was concerned and aware.

Y/N allowed herself some of her rare minutes alone, when she wasn’t caught up in all the action and battle as a result of joining the Fellowship after they’d helped her in a battle against Orcs, to contemplate on what life could be like with Legolas, permitted herself to briefly think of how he would hug her, how he would kiss h-

“Y/N! Are you coming, melleth?” the blonde elf in question called her name from where he exited the stable where Arod and Hasufel were kept.

Y/N jumped in surprise, her cheeks now a deep red and she was fervently thanking the Valar that Legolas was not telepathic. Though her embarrassment was muffled by the disappointment at hearing him call her ‘friend’. “Mellon! (friend!) Yeah, I’ll be right with you.”

Legolas’s face fell almost imperceptibly at her use of the word friend - he was constantly confused that every time he greeted her as ‘love’ Y/N would respond with ‘friend’. The beautiful, wild, headstrong human girl, he’d fallen for from the moment he first spoke to her, rejecting him so casually day after day, and yet still smiling at him and hugging him and ... it was all very confusing for Legolas. He knew that elves only fell deeply, truly in love once in their long, long lifetimes, and he was so sidetracked by her continuous ... ‘friend-zoning’ that he didn’t know if his feelings for her were the true kind, or just the kind he’d harboured for Tauriel - the same love young, naive children declared for each other.

But he did know that he found Y/N very attractive - from her e/c eyes that could hold thousands of emotions and subtleties at once, to her s/c skin that pleasantly reflected sunlight and was soft despite the fact it often had some small amount of dirt or blood on it, not to mention her unruly h/c hair that she was constantly blowing out of her face/fidgeting with in a most adorable manner.

“Hey! Legolas!” the blonde elf jumped at the unexpected speech, looking down and starting when he saw her only centimetres away from him. “We going, or what?”

“Yes, of course,” he stuttered a little, then cleared his throat and smoothened out his speech. “Come on.”

He mounted Arod in one smooth movement, and held out his hand to Y/N. She was definitely gladdened by the fact that he was inviting her to hold his hand, but she glanced suspiciously at the horse he sat upon.

“Normally, I just walk next to you,” she said, and Legolas cursed internally at her quite valid statement.

“Aragorn said that we must move quickly today,” he said quickly. The Ranger had, indeed, said that. “And Arod does not like Gimli very much. So ... would you ride with me?”

Y/N grinned and let him pull her up so she sat in front of him, leaning over Arod’s neck. Legolas brought his arms around her waist so he could hold the reins. Gimli looked at the two of them and muttered something about ‘lovesick fools’, which made Legolas shoot him a scathing glare and Y/N give him a withering middle finger. Aragorn just sighed quietly, mounting Hasufel and pulling Frodo up.

---

Hours later, Y/N began to shift uncomfortably and blink sleepily.

“It’s all right, melleth,” Legolas said kindly. “You can lean on me.” He was silently hoping, praying that she would say anything but-

“Thank you, mellon,” Y/N said through a quiet yawn, leaning backwards so her head (and then her entire top half) was resting against Legolas’s chest.

The elf waited until he heard her breathing even out, and he was sure she was asleep, before he began to talk to her softly.

“Why must you do this to me, Y/N? Why do you flirt with me and blush around me and then reject me moments later?”

Unbeknownst to Legolas, who was still expressing his frustration aloud, Y/N had opened her eyes, and was fully awake and listening.

“I don’t understand!” he burst out, almost making Y/N reveal that she was awake as she struggled not to jump in shock. “I say that I love you, I call you love ... is it a human thing to ignore romantic advances?”

“Oh!” Y/N couldn’t stop herself and she sat straight up, twisting around to look at Legolas, who was somehow both pale with shock and flushed with embarrassment at once. “Melleth! It means love in Sindarin, doesn’t it? Shit - I thought you were calling me friend!”

Legolas took the hand that was holding the reins and smacked himself on the forehead. “I forgot that I was the one who taught you Sindarin! And I taught you that melleth meant-”

“-friend,” Y/N finished. “Does it really mean love?”

At this point, Legolas was wondering whether to tell Y/N the truth or not: to save him from the crushing mortification he felt of misunderstanding her for a period of months, but he decided that a late confession of his feelings would be better than potentially hurting her. Not that she would be hurt if she didn’t return his feelings, which was what he expected after Tauriel.

“Yes, Y/N, it does,” he said slowly, looking at her - her e/c eyes wide with confusion. “I told you that elves only love once in their lives. And I think that my love is you.”

“You ... love me.” Y/N repeated slowly, knowing she sounded stupid but being too shocked to care.

“Yes. And you probably don’t-”

“Legolas, if you say ‘you probably don’t love me’, so help me I will throw you off this horse.”

Legolas blinked rapidly.

“I kept thinking you were deliberately calling me friend because you knew I was attracted to you and you were discouraging me!” Y/N explained. “And, honestly, look at you! You’re the Prince of Mirkwood! And you’re an elf - I didn’t even think that elves fell in love with humans.”

“We do,” Legolas smiled, his entire expression transforming into one of soft happiness. “Or, at least ... I do.”

Y/N stared at him for a moment, before laughing loudly and unapologetically. Legolas’s face fell a little.

“I am so stupid,” Y/N laughed. “I can’t believe I kept calling you friend.”

She turned on the horse, lifting one leg over so she now sat side-saddle, and gently reached out, touching his cheek so softly it felt like a stroke of the wind.

“I am sorry for hurting you,” you said, taking a deep breath to steady yourself for what you would say next. “Gi melin. (I love you)”

Legolas breathed in sharply, surprise sketched all over his features. You gave a low chuckle.

“I thought elves were meant to be more observant than this.”

Legolas just rolled his eyes, pulling you towards him and connecting your lips softly. He tasted like the kind of pure, sweet water one could drink straight from a spring, and like something citrusy and a little earthy. Everything he did was gentle - how he pulled her towards him, how his lips softly brushed across hers, and how his arms wrapped around his waist.

“OI!” Y/N and Legolas broke apart at the loud shout, that had come from Gimli’s direction. “STOP MAKING OUT AND KEEP MOVING! Oh, and Aragorn? You owe me ten gold.”

Aragorn muttered something under his breath along the lines of ‘shit’, waving a hand for you to get moving.

Legolas kicked Arod into motion, both of his arms remaining firmly around your waist. “Gi melin, melleth.”

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to heart this imagine, give me a follow and/or request (it makes my day so much!).

#legolasxreader #legolas #xreader #lordoftherings #lotr #lotrxreader #you #x reader #legolas x reader #lord of the rings #lotr x reader #imagine #legolasimagine #legolas imagine

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ernmark · 3 years

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Writer Tag Game

I got tagged by @sapphosewrites. Thank you! I'm a sucker for these~

If you want to do this too, just go ahead and pretend I tagged you. But also, I'm tagging @ryosei-hime, @dangersocks and @alecjmarsh because reasons.

How many works do you have on AO3?

112, though I'm very early in the process of importing my old ff.net stuff.

What's your total AO3 word count?

749,450

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Haunting, but not haunted (The Penumbra Podcast), The Issue of Omniscience (Welcome to Night Vale), Just Like an Angel (Welcome to Night Vale), The Case Files of J. Steel (The Penumbra Podcast), Skin and Scales (The Penumbra Podcast)

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I'm trying to be better about it, but generally I don't. I'm just a socially awkward person, and I feel like I'm being inane when I just reply "thank you" when I have nothing more interesting to say, or when answering the question would be a spoiler for what happens next. But honestly, most of the time I have nothing more interesting to say.

But I'm a sucker for comments.

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Define angsty. Because we have some categories:

Character dies and there's nothing you can do about it (angsty, but in the direction of bittersweet) :

Stay with me (Wolf 359 (Radio)), For King and Country (Welcome to Night Vale), The way things end (Supernatural), Off the path (BioShock Infinite)

I've fucking given up on good things, especially you: (I think these are darker)

Hell is Cold (Supernatural), Blood Moon (10th Kingdom), Like a terrier (Sherlock (TV))

What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

...I mean, if it doesn't have an angsty ending it probably has a happy one?

Most of my fics end with settling to move forward in their new circumstances. The ones that feel most hopeful in the end are also the ones that are most angsty and hopeless early on-- which is where you get some really depressing stuff like When You Wake (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Disconnect (The Penumbra Podcast), Fragment of Memory (The Penumbra Podcast), and the space between (is where I'll be hiding, waiting for you) (The Penumbra Podcast), Heartless (The Penumbra Podcast), Event Horizon (The Penumbra Podcast), Lost in Translation (Welcome to Night Vale). That's the thing-- I'm all about contrast.

Do you write crossovers? If so, What is the craziest one you’ve ever written?

In the most vain and self-indulgent way possible. But they're not marked as such.

There are several characters from a book series I wrote that I have play with the characters in fanfic. I tend to change their names and scrape off any identifying information. You can find two of those characters repeated in Dragons Love Things That Shine (The Penumbra Podcast) and Our Wall Against The Dark (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), but the craziest iteration of that would be my attempt at a choose-your-own-adventure: Peter Nureyev and the Blue Persephone. In that one I changed the names and... pretty much nothing else.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Only ever on ff.net, and that was a long, long time ago. I've been pretty lucky in that regard.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

AO3 seems to be under the impression that I've only got 17 smut fics, which... doesn't sound right? Probably because the overwhelming majority of them are hidden away in one-shot compilations.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I think it's happened once or twice, but never in a personal way-- just one of those site-aggregator bots that grab a few thousand fics in one go.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I recall, but my memory is crap.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I once tried to do a 9/Labyrinth crossover with a friend, but that turned out less successfully than intended. I also wrote a bunch of back-and-forth with @dangersocks.

What’s your all-time favourite ship?

That changes entirely depending on what fandom I'm in at a given moment. What really sets off my heart-eyes is devotion, though: that willingness to go to the ends of the earth ensure your beloved's happiness whether or not they can return or even are aware of your love.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

The Blue Persephone (TPP) is probably never going to be finished, which is frustrating because I have an ending very clear in my head. It's just that it's a choose-your-own-adventure, and that requires more than one.

I kind of wrote my way into a corner with Shadows of Azoth (WTNV) and I have been mortal (Wolf 359) and The Siren (TPP) and... god, so many more.

What are your writing strengths?

I like to think I'm pretty good at keeping people in character, and in twisting weird AU scenarios in such a way that they stay as true to the original as I can get them.

I'm also a sucker for extended metaphors.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Finishing things. Hard Conversations (there's a reason those tend to happen off-screen, as it were). I'm so finicky about staying in-character that I'm fairly reluctant to include characters that I'm less familiar with. And I tend to get super anxious about being too samey from one fic to the next, especially in things like turns of phrase.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I have ALL the admiration for those writers who dare to do it, but I get too stuck in my own head about things like linguistics and grammar and stuff like that, so I tend to just stick with "and they spoke to each other in French" or whatever.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I didn't publish it, but it was a Lord of the Rings portal fantasy where the Modern Girl meets one of the original elf-turned-orcs before joining the fellowship.

Turns out I liked the orc more than the rest of the fellowship, so I tried to file off the serial numbers and turn it into an original story. I was in middle school, so it went about as well as expected.

What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

Oof.

Okay. I think The Silken Tether series for Star Trek.

Skin and Scales and Fragment of Memory for The Penumbra Podcast.

#ask game #fanfiction #soulmate au

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ebficnotes · 3 years

Text

Arkay's "blessed neutrality" is full of shit. Maybe.

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/2cowhz/eso_guild_memo_on_soul_trapping_describes_the/cjhqi0p/?context=8&depth=9

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/1viqa9/why_are_briar_hearts_souls_black_while_hagravens/cesttbz/

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Order_of_Arkay

My first ever (pre-eso) take on both Arkay and Mannimarco was that Arkay was some kind of Empire shill who determined, by Imperial consensus and general sentiment of his worshippers, who was and was not a real person, and thus gave them the soul-trap advantage over anyone who was not Imperial-aligned, and/or possibly Aedra-aligned in general. All the races of TES where the being in question is a white soul despite having observable sapient-like intelligence are only trappable because Arkay just doesn’t care about them. And he has the power too, if you believe the ancient Nordic tales of how he is responsible for shortening the lives of Nords and possibly all men.

Arkay's race is never stated I don’t think, but if he was originally elven, it would also explain why the present-day Thalmor don’t hate him but do hate Talos, despite them both being ascended mortals. Talos was a man, Arkay may have been elven. They aren't butthurt over elves ascending, just human-humans. Also, several sources link or equate Xarses and Arkay, Xarses being definetly an elven god. When Allessia integrated Xarses/Arkay into the 8 divines, he became an empire-man, but his influence over life and death didn’t change, it just became empire-attuned. So Arkay is ruling-party biased by definition, whether he's with the men or the elves.

Mannimarco in contrast, was/is a heretic who seeks to level the playing field in typical TES overkill by usurping Arkay and thus offering those oppressed races, and anyone else who wants in, the opportunity for true moral-neutrality in matters of death. Instead of a privileged few getting away with not getting soul trapped because Arkay (and the empire of the day) says so, he's making it so everyone can be trapped, npc race or not. He can't usurp him entirely as we see in Oblivion, but he can do a little, through the infamous black gems.

He gets his cut of course, but in this world, where selling your soul to some eldrich horror divine or another is a normal everyday thing, who doesn’t? That’s why he sounds so angry in his oblivion books. Arkay really gets his goat for some reason, and this is a not-stupid reason. Heck, maybe in Daggerfall he had an orc girlfriend. Or maybe he's just really really pissed off by double standards. I know I am...

Another interesting thought: Vanus might hate the idea of soul trap because his kind, or former kind, were denied Arkay's blessing because of their status. This Morrrowind book talks about slaves being used in necro experiments, and even though serfs aren't technically slaves, I can see some asshole noble using his charges as fodder in some of those experiments in "extending Altmer lifespans".

Vanus wasn't allowed to learn to read as a kid, which is insane because Xarxe's charge to every Altmer is to keep a record of their achievements for posterity, and if you can't read, then how are you gonna write? But maybe that commandment only applies to those born closer to the top, yeah?

Though for some reason, Mannimarco's "well lets make it so EVERYONE can be soultrapped then, including your asshole kinlord!" doesn’t go over so well with him *shrug*.

As for why the talking dremora in Skyrim need a black gem despite presumably not being Arkay's'/Xarxes faves? Idfk. Xarxes is Auri-el's/akatosh's scribe and presumably right-hand-man, so maybe it's a deal regarding the liminal barrier? So Convention itself is class-discrimination for both daedra and mortals. Because why not?

#mannimarco #vanus galerion #arkay #speculation #black souls #tes #eboriginal

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years

Text

Humans Are Space Orcs, “Psych Eval.”

I know some of you were hoping for the stuff going on in between, but I needed to get us moving for purposes related to the 23rd, so I think you guys can forgive me. I hope you like it.

A lot of you were calling for something similar to happen, so I hope it all works out. The last little bit was super fun to write.

Dr. Adric Jakande wasn’t entirely sure what he had signed up for. When he had moved from The coastal African provinces, it had been to attend the school of his dreams, and from there his path had led him to the UNSC where he had spent most of his time counseling veterans of the Panasian war. Then a letter had come across his desk looking for volunteers brave enough to take on a very new, and dangerous mission.

He had planned on ignoring it because his life here was stable and comfortable, but there was something about it he just couldn’t get out of his head.

It would be the hardest thing he had ever done: and it wouldn’t be just humans he would be dealing with.

Somehow, however, he found himself writing his name on the contract that signed away five years of his life to the crew of the Harbinger.

There was no turning back now, so might as well get to work.

He wanted to understand the dynamic of the ship and so had filtered through a hundred or more psychological evals. He didn’t read them all, and he wouldn't interview them all, but there were a select handful he was very interested in, and planned to take a look at himself.

He pressed the button on his desk causing the call light above the door to blink on in green inviting his first patient into the office. Footsteps followed, and a young marine, not too much younger than himself, slipped into the room walking over and sprawling out in the seat across from him, a smile pulled taught over his olive-tan face.

“Cprl. Angel Ramirez?”

“Yes, Sir, that’s me.”

He glanced down at the stats on the eval. The corporal seemed in pretty good shape except, “Tell me corporal, on your evaluation you reported higher elvels of anxiety than normal, Would you be willing to tell me why?” The corporal sat up sraighter his dark amber eyes narrowing a little.as he thought.

“Well, sir…. It has nothing to do with me really…. But a friend of mine has been having some problems lately, and I’m not sure if he will be able to get it together before we are on our way. It would pretty much ruin my life if he was….uh…. Not allowed to com .”

“Ruin your life? That seems pretty serious.”

He shrugged, “He holds the ship together, everyone loves him, and I don’t think we would make it in deep space without him.”

“Do you find deep space to be mentally taxing?”

He frowned a bit forced to think about it, “No, not really but I think that has to do with this friend of mine. He does a lot of stuff to get us to come together, activities, holidays, group meals, it really keeps crew morale and I’m not sure we would have it without him.”

“Is there anything particularly bothering you corporal, besides that/”

“No, I guess I miss my family a little, but I was just there, so that is expected. I’ll video chat them from orbit, so it will all be cool.”

He let the corporal go with a nod. The man was stable, happy, and well-adjusted. He would use him as a baseline.

The call light came on again, and another figure stepped into the room, at first he assumed they were a man, though turning around he could see that wasn’t the case. She had very short hair, and a face that could have gone either way, not unpleasant just different.

She took a stiff seat in the chair opposite him.

“Sgt Maverick Morozov…. Russian?”

“My family was a long time ago.”

“Says here you are the ship’s Chaplain.”

“Yes, sir/”

“Do you have a lot of work on the ship?”

“Not really sir, most of the crew is Agnostic, though some come and visit me to talk, though now that you’re aboard the ship that will probably trickle off.”

“Does this bother you?”

“No, not really. I will help people if they need it, but I don’t actively try to solve other people’s personal problems.”

“I am assuming you have a good relationship with your religion?”

“Yes sir, it saved my life once.”

“Do you think this has helped you cope with being in deep space?”

“Deep space feels safe to me/”

“Why is that.”

She shrugged, “I don’t know, its one of those feelings like maybe nothing has touched that place other than you and the will of some kind of creator. Space isn’t malevolent to me, its empty and dark-- in a comforting way.”

“Do you often experience malevolent things when you aren’t in space?” She paused frowning, “This makes me sound insane doesn’t it, but yeah, and don’t ask me why I don’t know. It doesn’t bother me that much, I can handle it, I just don’t like to.”

Interesting, he would have to take a look into that later.

“And your reported anxiety levels have been high lately. Why is that?”

“On the behalf of a friend of mine.”

Interesting.

“Someone on his ship.”

“Yes sir, if he can’t come with us, I will probably quit.”

“That’s a lot of loyalty.”

“I’ve no doubt he would do the same for all of us, so….. Yeah.”

He let her go thinking about this friend of there who seemed so important to them. He had no doubt she was talking about the same person they all were. He had picked this group of people very intentionally.

The door opened again, and a very, very large figure ducked through the doorway. Adric had to sit back in his seat to contain the surprise. The Drev was HUGE, he had never seen one in person before, and this creature was just massive. Six limbs, and bright red carapace. It almost had to duck to avoid hitting its head on the ceiling.

It ignored the chair, which made sense, and happily kneeled on the floor before his desk still coming into eye level with him even as he sat on his chair.

“Kanan?”

“Yes Kanan Lumnus’s son though all my human friends call me Cannon.”

“Forgive me, I have never interviewed a Drev before.”

“I have never been psychologically evaluated either, so I suppose we share a commonality.”

“Your file is a little sparse, but it says here you were a veteran of the Drev war, and that you were injured during that time. Do you experience any psychological symptoms related to the event.

“Not to the war itself, Drev don’t respond to trauma like humans, mostly because we do not perceive it as trauma. The worst part came after the war when I was exiled.”

He blinked, “Exiled?”

“Yes, i received a grievous injury during the war and my mother banished me from the clan to sacrifice myself to the burning spirits.”

He simply blinked, “Your mother wanted you to……”

“Throw myself into the volcano.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No I betrayed our traditions and left Anin. I nearly died starving a month later, but the humans took kindness on me, and I was recovered.”

“Feel free not to answer this question, but it says here that your…. Mate died during the war.”

His golden eyes saddened a bit, “She did, but she died in glorious combat, so I am not sad for her death. I am sad because of how little time I got to spend with her. Nechal and I would have had a strong brood, but we never got the chance.”

“How does this affect your daily life?”

He shrugged, “It does not, but i think about her sometimes at night before I sleep. And I do my best to honor her memory, and the memory of my father who died during the war as well.”

The Drev had plenty to be psychologically unstable about, but otherwise he seemed fine. He wasn’t sure yet just what a stable Drev looked like though, so he would have to do some more digging, “Thank you, Cannon, you may go.”

He met with a few other humans before moving on to his next patient Both of the humans were fine aside from concerns abut this unnamed friend of theirs, which seemed to be a recurring theme.

The door opened again and looked over confused at first when he did not see anyone , however a sharp scuttling across the floor caused him to look over his desk where a small, almost spider like alien was skittering across the floor.

As he watched it inflated a flap of skin at the back of it’s head and floated up onto the chair turning to face him. Its large orange prismatic eyes watched him cooly.

“Dr. Krill.”

“Yes, and you are Dr. Jakande.”

He glanced down at his paper and blew out through his cheeks. He wasn’t sure how to go about this. The anxiety this creature was experiencing nearly broke their scale, and on a scale of neuroticism he almost broke that as well. If he saw this in a person he would be very concerned.

“You seem anxious, doctor.”

“I am always anxious, it is a proclivity of my species. If you want an accurate reading on your test, you should lower the levels to a halfway point”

He glanced down at his paper, “That is still pretty high.”

“I am the commanding physician on a ship where all you humans are bent on getting yourselves killed, and even when you aren't I have to worry about whether or not you will choke on a grape because your larynx are so poorly placed. I am constantly surrounded by creatures that don’t understand the meaning of caution.” he looked very seriously at Adric just then, “These are my humans and I do not want any of them to die if I can help it though they seem to defy me at every opportunity.”

“Your humans?”

“Yes , my humans, my responsibility therefore they are all MINE.”

Ok this little guy was a bit on the crazy side. If he saw this out of a human he would be concerned, but i the creature was already prone to neuroticism than he wasn’t entirely sure what to do.

“Not to mention a friend of mine may not be returning to the ship, and if he doesn’t I will be out of a job.”

He paused, there was mention f that friend again, “Why would you be out of a job?”

“Because he is the only reason I am on this ship in the first place. He holds my loyalty.

Very interesting.

He let the little doctor go taking mental notes to talk more with him later.

A woman stepped into the room next,her long dark hair falling about her shoulders, large glasses glittering in the overhead lights as she adjusted her coat.

“Dr. Katie Keddrick you are the second attending physician on the Harbinger.”

“Yes, I was brought in to ease some of the burden from Dr. Krill.”

“And how are you coping with that.”

“Oh I am doing very well. I love it aboard the ship. Its just one big family honestly, very nice and homey.”

“That ‘s good. Tell me is your reported anxiety to do with a friend of yours who may or may not be able to return to the ship?”

The doctor paused her eyes wide, “How did you know.”

“A common theme.”

“Well yeah actually. He has a tendency to take all the burden on his own shoulders, so he doesnt cause issue to anyone else. He likes to control things though I don’t think he knows that. It never bothers any of us, but it is getting to him, and we are all worried that they won’t let him through.”

“This friend means a lot to you.”

“He brought our little family together, so yes.”

“You see the crew as family.”

She smiled, “Well doctor, yes but you will find that out there in the galaxy humanity survives by creating families. Everything that makes us human is magnified under the lens of space, our power our weakness, our goods and our bads.”

He talked with her a little more, she was intelligent and insightful about the workings of the crew, information that he found valuable before letting her go.

He only had one more evaluation before the big one.

This Drev dd not have to duck through the door as she came in. She was very small though the color of her carapace was a pleasant electric blue. She was able to seat herself on the chair tilting her head to look at him.

He wasn’t sure what to make of her evaluation.

“Chalan.”

“Call me Sunny.”

“Chief weapons officer.”

“Yes.”

“I am going to be honest, I was not sure what to make of your evaluation. You come across as someone trying very hard to prove they aren't affected by something very important.”

She tiled her head. She had the same gold eyes as the other Drev, “My mother didn’t like how short I was, or that I was not as talented as my brother, she treated me poorly and my father died during the war, so forgive me if I still have some unresolved conflicts.”

Very blunt, interesting.

“”How do you cope with those.”

“I remind myself that I beat my mother in open combat, also I have friends now.”

Hmm yeah they were going to have to talk some more for sure. This was less of a healed kind of thing and more of a stick it to the man sort of attitude. She was still trying to prove something, probably more to herself than to others.

“And you are anxious about a friend of yours?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because if he does not board this ship again, I don’ think he will live to see next year, and if that happens, I doubt I will either.”

That was…. that was kind of concerning and intense.

“Who is this friend of yours.”

She shook her head, “No, I will not be telling you.”

Aggressive loyalty, very, very interesting.

He tried prodding a little more out of her, but she didn’t budge, and he eventually let it go allowing her to leave.

He had one more evaluation…. The big one.

***

It was late, this evaluation had been scheduled for the last possible second, and he was curious to see what would come through those doors. He heard the clatter of UNSC issued dress shoes long before he saw anything coming steadily up the hall. He left the light on, and waited at his desk for the person to pass through the doors.

It paused outside his door and then slowly opened inward.

The light fell on a man much, much younger than he had expected. In fact, he could have passed for early twenties, if the uniform he wore hadn’t suggested at least seven years of service, which would make him, at minimum, in his mid twenties. He wore the uniform well, almsot comfortably as he crossed the room.

The look on his face was pleasant like it was just about to break into a smile. His one visible green eye was curious flickering around the room with some interest.

He made his way to the desk and held out a hand, “Dr.”

He took it, the grip was strong, “Commander.”

He sat in the seat just opposite and Dr Adric stared at the eye patch that covered his other eye.

He nodded to it, “I thought you had a mechanical eye.

“I do.” He said softly lifting the eyepatch up, so he could see the workings of the cold metal ball and its black aperture.

“Why do you still wear an eye patch?”

“Because, the eye has better vision than my normal one, and it can be overwhelming. I generally only use it when I need binocular vision.”

“Why not just shut it off, why wear the eye patch.”

He paused thinking head tilted, “It was a gift from a friend after losing the eye in a moment where I wasn’t sure I would make it through the injury. It lightened things up for me reminded me that there is always a way through.” He smiled, “Plus I think it makes me look dashing.”

The two of them laughed together for a moment.

“Why did you call extended leave like this, commander.”

HE sighed leaning back in his seat, “I had to work on myself for the good of the crew. I mean I saw how surprised you were, probably based on how young I am, right? Well due to that I am a novice at leading. I haven't had the time to cultivate how things work when commanding a crew, and I have made some mistakes that have almost cost me my job in the past.”

He listened.

“People tell me I shoulder too much burden and take on too much guilt. I recently learned that I have a tough time relinquishing control on things.”

“Why is that/ Do you often feel out of control.”

“No, but I think that’s why. The last time I was out of control is when I was a child and didn’t know how to fix it, so I assume bad habits formed from there.”

“Your family was stable?”

“Yes very, but school was…. Less than easy for me. I joined the flight academy after my freshman year of high school, so I don’t think I really had the life experience that most other people do when it comes to interacting with people my own age. The point is moot now, but it did hold e back a little maturity wise, I think.”

“You left due to extreme anxiety and stress?”

“Yes, I wasn’t handling it well.”

“And how are you doing now. I don’t see any records here saying you went to see someone .”

The man sighed, and for the first time Dr Adric noticed the German Shepherd sitting at the man’s side resting her head in his lap. She was wearing a service vest.

“I didn’t. I have done therapy before but the first time it didn’t work and the second time I was left with more questions than answers.” He patted the dog’s head, “She helped me the most and I decided that it might be prudent for me to try other avenues. I realized while I was gone that I was neglecting time for myself, and so I have developed a schedule to combat this.”

“Oh.”

“My average working day should be around nine hours, I only need about six hours of sleep. IN that case that gives me eight hours of free time, one of those I will use for exercise in the morning, and another for flight time.”

“Flight time?”

“My greatest stress relief, there is no better way to feel in control in an out o control way than flying, so I have worked it into my schedule and into budget in some way or another so that I can do what this fleet and the UNSC needs.”

“So, you have given up some responsibility, found yourself some free time, discovered stress relieving alternatives. Have you changed the way that you command in general?”

“I have made some changes to the command structure including a panel of advisors, which was just a good idea anyway.”

“You talked about maturity in your earlier statement. Do you feel that has increased much in the past few months?”

The man smiled and sighed, “As it turns out doc, that is the one thing I couldn’t fix at least in part.”

“Oh?”

“I can handle conflict and issues like an adult, but I have decided that some of that isn’t a maturity thing, it is simply a product of personality. So if the UNSC has an issue with a commander that makes too many Star Wars’ references and listens to 2000 year old rock music on the bridge, then I guess maybe I am not the man for the job.”

They talked a bit more until eventually Dr Adric stood.

The commander followed, he looked openly nervous now, though that was to be expected, this was the moment of truth.

Dr. Adric held out a hand, and the commander took it tentatively though his grip was still strong.

“I look forward to working with you and your crew.”

The near smile broke on the man’s face into a pleasant grin that sent little crinkly lines up through his eyes.

“You are in for a good time, Dr. Make sure to read the rules before you come aboard”

Dr Adric stood confused for a moment before glancing down at his hand.

He had not noticed the Commander slip him the folded piece of paper. He glanced up towards the door as the man’s foot vanished around the corner.

He stood in stunned silence for a moment before looking down and tentatively opening the note.

Welcome Dr. Adric Jakande to the UNSC Harbinger,

On behalf of my crew, we look forward to having you, and I am pleased that you are here to help my men with whatever they may need. You will be an amazing asset to our team.

There are a few ground rules I would like to lay out first. Of course, you know the UNSC code of conduct which I will not repeat, but I have a few personal rules that will make our lives all the much easier.

Rule number 1: Don’t chuck Marshmallows at Neutron Stars.

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