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wavesoutbeingtossed · 1 year ago

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Screaming from the crypt (or how the past haunts the present on Midnights)

I know it's been discussed so much since Midnights came out but just.

I love how there is such a clear narrative throughout the album (and perhaps especially on the 3am/Vault tracks). About questioning and regret and choices and coming to terms with all of it. It is one long story about how we're all a mosaic of the choices we make, each one taking something from us and leaving something else in its place.

(And now a disclaimer: I'm looking at this mostly through a narrator/subject lens, and trying not to dive too deeply into real-life events or speculation except for in a general sense. For this purpose I like to look at the body of work as art, like literature, because I find it makes it easier to see the common threads in the different songs and cohesion in the narrative.)

In looking at the 3am+ tracks in particular, it's fascinating how some turns of phrases or themes repeat themselves in different songs, in different contexts. (I'm only focusing on the non-standard tracks because there are too many songs and I'd be here all day but I bet I could do a part two lol.) I know many people have pointed out the parallels throughout her discography already and I’m not saying anything groundbreaking by writing this, but I love how these parallels run through in the same album, because it makes it seem like it's one long story, or at least, one long rumination on many different stories that are coalescing into a single narrative.

Battle (let’s go)

For instance, the one that jumped out at me when I started writing this post the other week was, "Tore your banners down, took the battle underground," in The Great War and "If clarity's in death, then why won't this die? Years of tearing down our banners, you and I," in Would've, Could've Should've. It's a story about staying stuck in the same cycle of reliving trauma and coping mechanisms and bad habits over and over again and fantasizing about how taking the “antagonist” out and gaining the upper hand for good would bring closure (WCS), but the truth is that nothing ever will. All that cycle does, though, is repeat itself in other situations, and in this case pushes someone away the narrator cares for (TGW). The difference is that the imagined battle in WCS is a two-way street in her mind (that is ultimately unwinnable because it was never a fair fight), but in TGW it's one-sided -- she's the one fighting dirty, taking shots, the way she'd been doing in her imagination (or nightmares) all these years. But the person in front of her isn't fighting back the way the person in her mind in WCS would, because their intentions are honourable instead of exploitative.

And that's paralleled in another pair of lyrics from the two songs, "And maybe it's the past talking, screaming from the crypt, telling me to punish you for things you never did," (in TGW) and "The tomb won't close, I fight with you in my sleep," (in WCS). In both cases, the funeral imagery makes it seem like this past event should be dead and buried in WCS, but it keeps rising from the dead, haunting her no matter what she does and in TGW, another (or perhaps the same?) tomb that won't close keeps unleashing new ways to hurt her and in turn the new person in her life. In other words, the trauma from the past continues to bleed into the present.

(Again from a literary point of view, I'm not saying the events of the two songs are linked IRL, but they're fascinating textual parallels on the album as a string of chapters, which is why Dear Reader is so compelling, but that's a whole other essay.)

To keep the battle motif going, there’s yet another parallel, this time between TGW’s "[You were a] soldier down on that icy ground, looked up at me with honor and truth," and You’re Losing Me’s "All I did was bleed as I tried to be the bravest soldier, fighting in only your army.” In the former, the subject is laying down his armour in the war she’s projecting onto him, waving the white flag, and she realizes that she’s about to destroy something if she doesn’t put her sword down too. By the time we get to YLM, the roles are almost reversed; at the very least they’re supposed to be on the same team, but in this case she’s doing all the heavy lifting, fighting for their relationship in contrast to his apathy killing it. It’s also pretty interesting (if not outright intentional) that one of the 3am+ editions of the albums starts with The Great War, where they find themselves in conflict (even if it’s in her head) that ends in a truce, and ends with You’re Losing Me signalling the end of the relationship, evidence that the resolution in the first song wasn’t an ending but merely a ceasefire before the last battle.

Putting the rest under a cut because this is waaaaay too long now ⤵️

(There’s also another metaphor there in The Great War with its battle imagery: World War I, aka The Great War, was supposed to be the war to end all wars, because loss on its scale was never seen before and when it ended, most thought never again would the world embroil itself in such battle, the horrors and implications were so devastating. Two decades later, the world found itself in WWII, with an even larger scope and more horrific consequences, the intervening time between the two a period of festering conflicts and resentment leading to some of the worst acts the world would see. Bringing real life into it for a second, there’s something a little poetic, though sad, about The Great War the song being about a fight that could have ended the relationship that they ultimately resolved and was meant to be evidence of the strength of their love, but so too did it end up being a period of détente, the greater battle coming for them years later. But that is not the point of this post.)

If one thing had been different

Another major theme in these editions is pondering the "what ifs?" of life, but I think it takes on even more significance in the broader context of the album in the lyrics of "I'm never gonna meet what could've been, would've been, should've been you," in Bigger than the Whole Sky and the repetition of would've/could've in Would've, Could've, Should've (I would've looked away at the first glance, I would've stayed on my knees, I would've gone along with the righteous, I could've gone on as I was, would've could've should've if I'd only played it safe, etc.) In both songs, the narrator is mourning an alternate course their life could have taken* and questioning what they could have done differently, in the aftermath of trauma and loss, and the regret that comes with that loss, and with the loss of agency in the situation because ultimately it was never in their hands. In an album full of questions, wondering about the path not taken, or the forks in the road that have led to a different version of your life, it's digging deeper into the contrast of choice vs. fate, action vs. reaction, dwelling on the past vs. moving on. When you're supposed to let go of the past, what do you do when it is holding your future hostage?

(*I know there are different interpretations/speculation about BTTWS which I am not getting into on main. I'm just saying that whatever the song is about, it's grieving something that never came to be. The literal origin of the song is less important to the album than the sense of loss it portrays. Whatever the inspiration is, it's crafted to tell part of the story of Midnights of ruminating over how, to borrow from her previous work, if one thing had been different, would everything be different?)

(Also I was today years old when I realized that the words are inverted in the two songs. Apparently I've been hearing BTTWS wrong this whole time.)

There's also an interesting tangent in the role of faith in both songs: in WCS, the events of the story cause her to lose her faith (e.g. "All I used to do was pray," "you're a crisis of my faith,") and question all the things she felt had been unquestionable until that point in her life (e.g. "I could have gone along with the righteous"), whereas in BTTWS, she questions whether that very lack of faith is to blame for the loss in that song ("did some force take you because I didn't pray? [...] It's not meant to be, so I'll say words I don't believe"). It's like pinpointing the moment her life changed and upended her beliefs (WCS), but as a result then leaving her unmoored in times of crisis because ultimately there's no explanation or comfort to be taken from what she used to hold true before that (BTTWS). The words she once relied upon to guide her have long since lost their meaning, but in times of trouble it leaves her wondering if that faith she once held then lost could have prevented this pain.

(Shoutout to WCS for being Catholic guilt personified lol.)

To keep on with the vaguely faith-y notions, an obvious parallel is the line in Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve about, “I damn sure never would've danced with the devil at nineteen,” and, "When you aim at the devil, make sure you don't miss," in Dear Reader. All of WCS is about her fighting with an antagonist who haunts her, with whom she wholly regrets ever becoming involved. DR could be seen as a reflection on that fall from grace, warning the audience that if you choose to go after the person (or thing) haunting you, make sure you do so clearheaded enough to be decisive. Again, these “devils” may not be related in real life: the IRL devil in DR could be speaking about her naysayers, or Kim*ye, or Scott & Scooter B, etc., meaning not to cross your enemies until you know you can win. But taking real life out of it and looking at it textually, I am intrigued by the link between WCS and DR, so that’s what I’m going with here. And perhaps that’s even the point in a wider sense; there will be multiple “devils” in your life, or threats to your well-being. If you’re going to commit to taking them down — whether it’s an actual person, or the demons inside you that refuse to let you go — make sure you have the right ammo so that they can no longer hurt you. (Of course, one lesson from these experiences is that sometimes you can’t win, and you have to live with the fallout.)

(Sidebar: I know that “dancing with the devil” is a turn of phrase that means being led into temptation and engaging in risky behaviour, as opposed to describing the actual person. Given the religious metaphors in the song, that could very well be/is the intention, particularly when it’s preceded by, “I would have stayed on my knees” as in she would have continued to follow her faith — in whatever sense that means — had she never met this person, which could also be a more eloquent way of saying she would have continued to be live her life in a way that was righteous (even naive) and seen the world in black and white. Either way, it’s a force she wholly rejects. Like I said, multiple devils, same fight.)

Regret comes up too: in WCS, she says, "I regret you all the time," obviously directed at the person who manipulated her and led to her perceived downfall, citing him as the one impulse she wished she'd never followed, because it won't leave her no matter how hard she’s tried. In High Infidelity, she tells the person to, "put on your records and regret me," and on the surface, it’s like she’s turning the tables, painting herself as the one now causing the regret in someone else, the one inflicting the pain this time. Yet the verse preceding it and the lines following it in the chorus depict a partner who is also emotionally manipulative and vindictive like in WCS (“you said I was freeloading, I didn’t know you were keeping count,” “put on your headphones and burn my city,”). It’s not so much that she’s intentionally harming the person (the way the person in WCS does to her), but rather that the venom in the subject’s feelings towards her seeps through; she’s imagining the way he’s going to feel about her when she leaves, hating her just for by being who she is. (There could be another tangent about how in both songs she’s there to be a “token” in a game for both of the men, who play her for their own purposes.) The regret is dripping with disdain. It’s as though she’s picturing how the person is going to hate her for doing what she’s thinking of doing the way she hates the person who first hurt her.

Sadness, unsurprisingly, shows up in a few lyrics. In BTTWS, “Everything I touch becomes sick with sadness,” sets the scene of a person so overcome with grief that it permeates everything around them; they cannot see their way out of it and feel like the fog will never lift. In Hits Different, it’s, “My sadness is contagious,” the result of a breakup where the person’s grief again touches everything and everyone around them, pushing them further in their despair and loneliness. The reason behind the grief in either case may vary, but regardless of the source, the feeling is overpowering and isolating. They may be different chapters in the story, but the devastation is hauntingly familiar. (As is a recurring theme in Midnights as a whole: there are situations and feelings that present themselves at different points in her journey and colour in the lines in different ways along the road. Like revisiting an old vice and realizing the hit isn’t quite the same as it was in the past.)

Death by a thousand cuts

She also writes about wounds on this album, which isn't surprising I suppose given that the whole conceit is that these are things that have kept her up at night over the years. WCS is perhaps the driving narrative on this never ending hurt when she sings, “The wound won't close, I keep on waiting for a sign, I regret you all the time,” suggesting that no matter what she does, the pain of this experience has permeated everything she’s done afterwards. (Not unlike the overwhelming grief in BTTWS, for instance.) Elsewhere, in High Infidelity she sings, "Lock broken, slur spoken, wound open, game token," and in Hits Different, "Make it make some sense why the wound is still bleeding.” Again I'm not suggesting they're about the same events; the line in HI is about a situation where a partner crosses a boundary, hits below the belt, picks at an insecurity (or creates a new one) and treats the relationship like it's transactional, opening the floodgates in turn. In HD, the wound seems to be more self-inflicted, where she's pushed the person away. (Over a situation real or imagined she feels she needs distance from.) But again, something has picked at her like a raw nerve, and just like in the past, she's hurting, even in a different time and place and person. Almost like the wounds of the past break open over and over again to create new scars. If one were to extrapolate further, it wouldn’t be the biggest leap to wonder if the wound open in WCS, then torn apart in HI makes the one in HD hurt even more.

(I once wrote a post about how I think as time goes on, WCS is going to turn into one of those songs that will be found to drive so much of her work, because it’s just… kind of the unsaid thesis statement of so much of her songwriting.)

Another repeated theme is that of the empty home and loneliness. In High Infidelity, she sings, "At the house lonely, good money I'd pay if you just know me, seemed like the right thing at the time," painting a picture of someone who may have everything they'd want to the outside world, but in reality feels metaphorically trapped in their home (or at least alone amidst abundance), a symbol of a relationship gone sour and a failure to build connection. She just wants someone to understand her, want her for her, but as she's written earlier in the song, she's just a pawn in the game, a trophy from the hunt. Home, in this case, is lonely, isolated, an emblem of her fears. In Dear Reader, she continues this thread, then singing, "You wouldn't take my word for it if you knew who was talking, if you knew where I was walking, to a house not a home, all alone 'cause nobody's there, where I pace in my pen and my friends found friends who care, no one sees you lose when you're playing solitaire." It's the same idea, admitting to listeners that the gilded cage she lived in kept her distanced from her loved ones and real connection, keeping her struggles close to the vest but feeling desperately lonely amidst her crowning success. She's pushed people away and it may have felt like the right thing at the time, but in the end maybe felt like she was trapped. And when you push people away, eventually they take you at your word and stop pushing back; you’re a victim of your own success at isolating yourself. What starts out of self-preservation then further perpetuates the underlying problems.

(There's another interesting link about "home" also feeling unsafe with HI's "Your picket fence is sharp as knives," which further leads into the theme of marriage/domesticity feeling dangerous, which is a whole other thing I won't get into here because it's another discussion and may derail this already gargantuan word salad.)

In a slightly similar vein, we have the metaphor of bad weather for a rocky road or unstable relationship, in High Infidelity again with, "Storm coming, good husband, bad omen, dragged my feet right down the aisle" and You’re Losing Me’s "every morning I glared at you with storms in my eyes.” They aren’t speaking of the same situation or even same kind of breakdown, but it is pretty interesting how the idea of clouds/storms/floods/etc. play such a role in Taylor’s music to signal depression, apprehension, fear, uncertainty, etc. In HI, I think the “storm” coming is the looming threat of commitment to a partner who makes the narrator uneasy (if not fearful). In this case, the idea of making a life with this person is not one that incites joy or comfort, but instead makes the narrator feel that dark times are ahead if she continues down this path. Perhaps in some way, the “storms” in YLM have made good on the threat in HI in a different way; it’s a different home, a different relationship, but the clouds have settled in regardless, and some of her fears have come to fruition in ways she did not expect. The person she once trusted no longer sees her or her struggles (or worse, doesn’t care), and the resentment and pain build with each passing day.

Coming back to heartbreak, one of the obvious "full circle" moments is the beginning of a relationship in Paris, where she says that, "I'm so in love that I might stop breathing," clearly enthralled in a new love that allows her to shut the world out and grow in private, capturing the all-encompassing nature of the relationship. This infatuation has consumed her in the most wonderful way (in contrast to the sorrow of some of the previous songs), and it feels like a life-altering (or even life-sustaining?) force that is so strong she may forget what it’s like to breathe. (Metaphorically speaking, of course.) By the end of the album, though, in You're Losing Me, that heart-stopping love has become a threat: "my heart won't start anymore for you." In the former, her racing heart is full of excitement, but by the latter, her heart has given out completely under the weight of the pain she bears. (YLM is full of death/illness imagery which I already wrote about awhile ago so I won't hear, but needless to say that song deserves its own essay for so many reasons.) She's gone from the unbridled joy of the beginnings of a relationship to the unrelenting sorrow of its end, two sides of the same coin.

Love as death appears elsewhere in the music too, for instance, in High Infidelity’s, “You know there's many different ways that you can kill the one you love, the slowest way is never loving them enough" and You’re Losing Me’s “How can you say that you love someone you can't tell is dying? […] My face was gray, but you wouldn't admit that we were sick.” Though not completely analogous situations, they both tell the tale of one partner’s apathy (or at least denial) destroying the other. In the former, the partner’s actions (or inaction) are more insidious, if not sinister; in the latter, the lack of momentum (or admission of a problem) is passive. In both cases, the end result is the narrator’s demise; it’s a drawn out affair that chips away at her morale and her health and her sense of self. (Breaking my own rule about bringing in alleged actual events into the discussion, but the idea that the relationship in High Infidelity, which was obviously fraught with unease and even fear, ended in a similarly excruciatingly slow and hurtful death by a thousand cuts as the relationship in You’re Losing Me almost did at that time must have been so painful. It almost feels like YLM is wondering why what used to be a source of light in her life was mirroring a situation that caused her such pain in the past.)

From the same little breaks in your soul

I said early on that part of what is so compelling about Midnights is that it feels like an album about ruminating — on choices, on events, on people — and the two final “bonus” tracks of the album depict that as well. In Hits Different, she sings that, “they say if it’s right, you know,” an ode to the confusion of a breakup and struggling with the aftermath of calling it quits. It’s a line that has always intrigued me, because the typical use of the phrase is in the sense of, “you’ll know when you meet the one,” but here it seems to have a double meaning, a reassurance perhaps from the friends (who later on tell her that "love is a lie") that she’ll know if she’s made the right decision in calling it off, but could also be her wondering if the relationship is right, she’ll know, and want to reconcile. In the final bonus track, You’re Losing Me, she sings, “now I just sit in the dark and wonder if it’s time,” this time leaving no doubt about the dilemma she faces, though it’s no less fraught. She’s wondering, perhaps for the last time, if now is finally the moment to end the relationship for good. They say that if it’s right she’ll know, and now she’s wondering if that feeling inside her (that once told her her partner was the one, which is why it hit differently), is telling her that it’s time to go for good. Wait Alexa play “It’s Time To Go.” These are not only the things that keep her up at night, but the things that play over in her mind like a film reel in her waking hours.

Midnights as a whole is a deeply personal album, as is most of Taylor's work, but the 3am+ edition tracks seem to dig even deeper to a lot of the issues raised on the standard album. Almost like the standard tracks are the things she wonders about on sleepless nights, but the bonus tracks are the things that haunt her in the aftermath. The regret, anger, sadness, grief, relief, even joy— they’re the price she pays for the memories she keeps reliving. Midnights might be the most cohesive narrative of all her albums, and really does feel like we’re watching someone work through her journal over time, stopping short of outright naming those giant fears and intrusive thoughts (except for when she does) but making them plain as day when you connect the songs together, and perhaps never more clearly than in the expanded album. It’s incredible how the songs stand on their own to relay a specific moment in time, but that they are also self-referential to each other (whether thematically or overtly) to weave a larger web over the entire work. We’re so lucky as fans to have these stories and to keep peeling back these layers as time passes. (And my literature-analysis-loving ass loves her even more for it.)

This is obviously by no means an exhaustive list, and I know there are more parallels and probably even stronger links (particularly when you add the standard version into the mix), but these were the ones that particularly struck me and I’m just glad I’ve had a chance to sit with this and think it through. ❤️

#writing letters addressed to the fire #me thinking too hard about taylor lyrics #taylor swift #midnights #long post #lyrics analysis #song parallels #Gabby this one is for you friend <3 #here goes nothing #Happy Friday or something idk!#(also i know i said there are things i wouldn’t discuss on main but my dms are open lol)#this is not as structured or well plotted out as I wanted it to be #and turned out to be more stream of consciousness than legit essay #but whatever at least i got my thoughts out there and it can release some plot of land in my brain for other stuff to think over lol #If anyone ever reads this thank you! And I’m sorry?#The best compliment i ever got in school #was when we were doing an analysis of a poem in English lit in college #And i brought something up casually #and my prof went ‘I’ve been teaching this class for eight years and that’s the first time anyone’s ever brought it up like that’#’and that just blew my mind’#and i was like ‘who me?’#so that’s all you need to know about me lol #Midnights: The Great War #Bigger than the whole sky #bttws #Midnights: Paris #Midnights: high infidelity #would’ve could’ve should’ve #Midnights: dear reader #midnights: bigger than the whole sky

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thescullyphile · 6 months ago

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not the original tgw anon but would love to read your whole spiel on the kalicia dynamic

TWO of you? oh this just makes my day. now that I have an excuse, I will /definitely/ spiel.

I think an understanding of Alicia and Kalinda separately is the best place to start when thinking about their dynamic, whether you read it as friendship or otherwise. (Personally, I think it's pretty much canon that Kalinda at least was like, horrendously in love in a way she didn't expect.) Putting the rest under the cut because I don't want to overwhelm anyone hahaha.

Let's start with Alicia, because it's so easy to. She's the Good Wife™. In the show we get to see her break that mold, express herself and her opinions and develop her mind as she pursues a legal career with great success. All of this positive evolution has to come from somewhere though, the change has to result from an unchanged state. The Alicia Florrick at L/G is not the same person as the mom at Highland Park talking about pilates. The show answers the question of how she grows from there, but it never talks about how she gets there. Saint Alicia, good at school. Incredibly bright, driven, and still sweet. She graduates with honors, top of her class at one of the best law schools in the nation, followed by a year of smashing success right out of the gate. And then...she throws it all away. Because for all of her drive, and intelligence, she's not quite firm. She gets pregnant and Peter wants her to stay home, and so she compromises. The next 13 years are a series of compromises that take her further and further away from the person that she was. Like I've already said, Alicia is a listener. And the idea of such an incredibly bright, responsive mind essentially wasting away in her attempts to fit in to the catty and social extension of suburbia is just galling. The fact that none of her friends stick around, not one, is evidence enough to me that she was completely bereft of true connection. The fact that this was Peter's preference for her...well, it says a lot to me.

Essentially, she has been hiding herself for years, perhaps without consciously thinking about it. She's pressed further and further into this model what other people think is perfection. She doesn't get to explore herself, and she puts this moral attribution on things that truly are neutral characteristics. Alicia is not just a flower waiting to bloom, she is someone who represses the richness and intelligence and complexity of herself, usually unconsciously, in her attempts to strive for other people's ideals.

MEET: Kalinda Sharma.

You want to know the only person on the show MORE repressed and emotionally reluctant than Alicia? It's Kalinda. We never see what she was like as Leela, but as Kalinda, she is a force to be reckoned with. I know a lot of people put stock into the idea that Kalinda is all morally grey and shady or whatever but if you look at the series that is not at all the case. She is fiercely, breathtakingly loyal to Will and Diane, and somehow, inexplicably, she extends this to Alicia as well. The woman that holds everyone at arms length and denies all connection except where she professionally expresses herself (but come on, she would die for Diane or Will without a second thought and that extends way beyond professionalism) meets Alicia Florrick and cannot help but be drawn by her into the most meaningful friendship and connection to someone else that she's ever experienced. And this is CANONICAL.

Because for all of their individual difficulties in you know, those things like expressing their emotions and being genuinely themselves and whatnot, Alicia and Kalinda understand one another and are really drawn to one another intuitively. Insert three paragraph long digression on their first drinking scene together that I can provide if asked lol.

What do they get out of their friendship with each other? Like I said, they're both listeners, but Alicia is at this pivotal point where she is becoming something new and she is so alone and it is so difficult but she's being brave and doing hard things. There is NO ONE that she can talk to. And Kalinda just...listens. And there's something about Kalinda that draws Alicia to honesty, and there is a relief in feeling like she doesn't have to be anything in particular because, as I said, there's this image of Kalinda not being someone that you have to be morally responsible to. Alicia doesn't have to care about impressing her. And so she talks. And unbelievably, she finds herself connecting to someone who is so different from her and it is genuine and it is real and it is everything that she didn't have in her old life. It is without expectations of a 'certain her.' And it's just what she needed.

(They're so different but they're so the same. Alicia may have remade herself for others, but Kalinda remade herself for herself. Really they're two sides of the same coin with desperation leading to invention as Alicia starts on the same path at the beginning of the series that led Kalinda from Leela to Kalinda but I can talk abt that another time).

As for Kalinda, she gets someone who is struggling to find the difference between nice and kind and how to navigate a world that has become unfamiliar. Someone who is earnest and (mostly) honest (because for all of her obfuscations, she never really lies to Kalinda. She's always honest with Kalinda). All of Kalinda's connections are premeditated, balanced by the transaction of what each party can do for one another. And Alicia...doesn't want anything. She doesn't want to know about Kalinda because she's looking for leverage to manipulate her or for more information about xyz job-related-things. She's just curious. She wants to know about Kalinda for the sake of being interested in her as a person, no ulterior motive. Granted, Kalinda doesn't often indulge even Alicia's curiosity, but she gets much closer than she does with anyone else.

At the end of the day, two people who are unlikely friends find not just what they were looking for, but what they needed, in one another. And sure, it gets endlessly more complicated and I could talk about that too, but at the start, it is just two women who are more or less adrift. And by chance they work together and defy expectations of everyone by their unlikely pairing. And their friendship blossoms with humor and honesty and this unrecognized 'this is important to me' aspect that makes every scene with them so unique and captivating to watch.

Honestly that's not even my whole spiel but this is getting pretty long so sorry about that. But if you want more, you know where to find me! I'm just getting started! (and if you've read this far you should check out ao3 for fic because there are some great ones out there. I'm riling up TGW engagement whereever I can hahaha).

I'll be here if anyone would like more questions or commentary or meta or whatever you would call this! But I am truly so delighted to talk about this show (and especially alicia and kalinda)

#the good wife #alicia florrick #kalinda sharma #kalicia #musings

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hoarah-babylon · 1 year ago

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2nd DLC session round-up yupppp

Started to explore a settlement called Belurat, v beautiful, I love all the draped cloth over the buildings and the beautiful trees. I found a key and unlocked a door that opened a storeroom, with an old woman and a horned lion head inside. She wasn't too happy to see me

damn they really hate Marika lmao. I find it so interesting that these 'hornsent' people are identifying me as something aligned with Marika/Messmer, and cursing me for it. We go through the whole game being shunned for being Tarnished because we are people stripped of grace, now we're being shunned for (I'm assuming) being a creation of Marika. It's super interesting. no one fucks with me fr

I continued on through the settlement and climbed the tower, and eventually got to the first major boss!! It's the Lion-Dancer we saw in the DLC trailers, and it's a really beautiful boss fight. It takes place on a stage, and the theatrics of it all are really so awe-inspiring. It wields different elemental damage in different parts of the fight - lightning, wind/storm, and frost. There's also lion sculptures with horned heads dotted around the stage and settlement. You can summon Freyja to help fight it :) not an easy fight at all, but eventually he went down and I got the reward of its remembrance, along with the lion head itself as a helm.

I absolutely love that this culture took their skills in theatrical performance and repurposed these skills for battle, that's just. I love it it's so cool. Another helm that makes you weaker to sleep, like the golden mask I found previously. The prayer it's talking about is heard at the beginning of the fight in the opening cutscene, and it is said by the old woman I found earlier. The map identifies her as 'Hornsent Grandam'.

I did something I'm not super proud of. But I read messages that alluded to it and mama I'm trying to research. I put the lion head on and went to talk to her again to see if anything would change. Her reaction made me feel really bad... she was so relieved to see a 'sculpted keeper' and was overcome with emotion. She mentioned something about wanting her son to fight alongside me (the keeper) against Messmer, and take revenge. And then she promised to sing for me and gave me an incantation.

Now the description of the incantation just about blew my head off. It referred to this woman as the 'Empyrean Grandam'. Empyrean??? I was not expecting to see that. I looked up grandam and apparently it's an old word for grandmother. Empyrean grandmother... does this mean she is/was an Empyrean, or she's the grandmother of an Empyrean? I'm surprised that Empyreans exist in this realm, considering how hidden everything and everyone is in this place. Can the Greater Will still reach this place? She does mention her son, does he have children? Empyrean children? So intriguing. I assume it's not her son because it seems like TGW/two fingers choose non-men as Empyreans (Miquella has ambiguous gender and a feminine alter-ego St. Trina).

Went back to the second Miquellan cross and met Sir Moore. I love him. I love him I would die for him if anything happens to him I'm going to scream from the rooftops

!!! I explored the river running through Gravesite Plain and found a couple of sleep/night adjacent items. The deep purple lily got me super excited because TRINAAA I could use some tbh I haven't been sleeping well. can you tell

Found a ghost down there too, these lines are making me Think about the connection between sleep and death. What if Miquella is really dead in some way, and this gives way to St. Trina being alive in his place... or something. I don't know but I'm Thinking

Even the turtles have horns here!! Found a new more powerful stamina talisman that depicts a two-headed turtle. There's a lot of depictions in this realm of two converging intertwining objects like trees, turtles, Miquella's sigil/needle is intertwining too.

Went back to Roundtable hold to see what the Remembrance rewards are. I wasn't sure in my last session but after watching some old lore videos to refresh my memory - divine in the context of ER seems to refer to the Crucible or aspects of it. What does it mean that they are messengers of the heavens though? The only other thing in game that I could relate to that are Two Fingers considering they commune with TGW. I have no idea

Was exploring and MET ANOTHER TRAILER GUY. He was sitting by another Cross of Miquella. Identifies himself as a Tarnished named Thiollier. Has 0 self confidence, says he's unintelligent and bad at fighting. Kinda weird for a Tarnished? Makes me wonder how he got there too, he's literally like just behind an encampment of Messmer soldiers. His special interest is poison, and sells you poison things. His armour is super interesting, the cloth/white hair is braided a lot like Miquella/Radagon's, and there's a gold figure in the middle of his chest. The mask is the most striking to me though, and looks like its lined with silver thorns. I just had a thought - who else do we know that wears masks like this and is all about poison? House Marais! Idk what the link could be but, something to keep in mind I guess

Got jumpscared by this guy yelling in pain. He yelled about someone he called 'vile Bayle' so I assume they're the person that maimed this guy. "Exquisite pain" though... reminds me of Mohg/Varré. Then I got invaded by an 'Ancient Dragon-Man'. I followed that path down and found a draconic cave, where I fought the real Dragon Man at the end. He was kicking my ass I can't lie. But I got him eventually and the reward was hmm-inducing

Anti-dragon spray. Wait what, what is the Dreaded One???? And what do you mean it's devoured by people?? What does any of this mean bruh. It sounds like an outer god but if people eat it (?) it can't be. Uhhhhhhhh ok I don't understand and I'm tired. I opened the door at the back of the boss room and...

Hell yeah. It led me out to a precipice overlooking the jagged peak I could see in the distance from where I entered the DLC. There's dragons sleeping below. I took some baller pics of my Tarnished.

I have so much to figure out I still can't really believe all this, it's so jarring running around not knowing anything. it's awesome i love this game

[also small PSA it's fine if anyone reading this wants to reply with their thoughts, but please don't spoil anything, this is my blind playthrough and i want it to stay that way :)]

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rose-of-the-grave · 3 months ago

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Hii again🌹😆 just wanted to say that I finished re-reading the great war because I was bored today and THE AMOUNT OF TIMES MY MY HEART WAS SCREAMING AND BUTTERFLIES WERE SWARMING MY STOMACH😫 OMG,, MATTHEO AND YN HAVE A CHOCK HOLD ON ME😍😫 I LOVE PANSY AND YN FRIENDSHIP 😍💖

Other than thattt, I wanted to ask regarding yn's parents, were they disappointed when yn got sorted into griffindor? Did they raised yn in a strict way like most purebloods do? Or are they the caring type? Or perhaps a bit neglectful, bcuz I barely see yn mentioning about her parents and when their mentioned, it's how she misses them (I do think it's bcuz their hiding away but I can't really decide🤣) also was yn ever been promised to someone? Like did her parents decide any future partners for her? Andd Since her parents are hiding somewhere from the bald man, where would yn be during the holidays? Weasley? Hogwarts?

Enough about her parents, now it's Pansy and Draco,, ever since yn was sorted into griffindor, did they perhaps missed her company or moved on, making new friends? What was their reaction to yn befriending the golden trio especially hermione, did they felt betrayed? Had a sense of longing when seeing her happy with them? Did they perhaps regret insulting yn before?

Another question, has yn ever had a crush on anyone before meeting mattheo? And has anyone ever had a crush on yn? Not including mattheo🤗

Lastly, if these questions contained answers that would somehow spoil the future chapters, it's ok to not answer😘 also if my questions are too overwhelming, don't answer it😅 I just wanted to let go of my thoughts on this🤗

(I read one of your original stories from 2023 and looking back to your current writing style, I'm impressed😍 not saying that it was bad but I feel like you improved so much‼ If I compared it to "the great war" I feel like more connected to "the great war" 🔥)

This lowkey is my face whenever mattheo and yn are in the same room, when talking or when glancing at each other secretly or not🤣

I'm sorry this was so long😫 but I'm basically immune to writing short ask or sentences 🤪

Omg as a writer I love getting your asks!!!! I can't tell you how happy it makes me that you went back and reread tgw! I am so glad you love it!

Ok so yn's parents. You're right, they haven't really been explored but my hc is that they were glad she was sorted into Gryffindor because they love her and their only concern about it was that other people would look down on her, specifically the malfoys who are family friends. They care but for right now the safest place for her is Hogwarts and they need to stay away from Voldemort and the death eaters. Think how slughorn was hunted for. They want to recruit her parents because, when they were younger their parents and friends pressured them into being death eaters. Yn was raised in a more caring fashion but they were still a bit distant because of their jobs at the ministry. My hc is that there was a thought that she and draco might get married when they were older but her parents were firm in the belief that it would be her choice so they didn't arrange it. Over holidays she stayed at Hogwarts for Christmas and her parents went into hiding at the start of the school year so she spent the end of the summer with the Weasleys.

Pansy and Draco. They missed her and were still friends until she became friends with Hermione. That's when they cut her off. Draco made Pansy stop talking to her. They both felt a bit sad but their rivalry with the trio and the years of separation led them to a point where they only viewed her as a part of their childhood.

Crushes. I haven't really thought this out but in one of the early chapters there was a mention about Blaise. Basically they went to the yule ball when Harry and Ron were procrastinating. They were friends in their youth but didn't know each other well so when they got to know each other in class it eventually led to a mutual crush. Then stuff happened when Draco, Harry, and Ron found out, leading her to pretend she said yes as a joke.

I don't think any of these are spoilers but this information will show up in later chapters. Thank you so much for asking!!!

Also thank you, metro meet cute was one of the last pieces of original writing before I started writing fanfic and I did eventually revamp it as an acotar fic but I am so glad you think that!

I love long asks so thanks 😘 the only issue is I am doing this on my phone 😅. Thank you so much for asking all of these questions, I can't tell you just how much this made my day!!!!!!!!

#rose's moots #rose answers #rose gets asked #the great war

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cornleypolytechnicgoeswrong · 2 years ago

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ik this is a big ask but could you explain the stuff on the iceberg [https://www.tumblr.com/cornleypolytechnicgoeswrong/687078174822137858/my-proposal-for-a-mischief-iceberg-theres-so] because i'm very new to this fandom and i have no idea what most of it is referring to or any way of finding out.

Hi! Yes of course I'd love to explain this post!!!

It's a very long post so I'll put the full explanation under this cut. I've tried to provide the clips where possible and actually had a really great time going back through my blog to find all these fandom memes haha! Lmk if there's anything else you want explaining + welcome to the fandom!!! :))

Thank you to everyone who's videos/posts/compilations I've included in this post!!! And if anyone has any more context or clips they'd like to add please add them :))

Winston - a dog that is supposed to be in their play Murder at Haversham Manor (The Play That Goes Wrong) but they lose the dog and run around the audience asking if anyone has seen him .

Bunk beds - In Peter Pan goes wrong there is a triple bunk bed that collapses into the actors (bbc recording of it)

Max + Sandra - one of the biggest ships in the fandom which is actually canon. They get together in Peter Pan goes wrong and their relationship develops across the 'goes wrong extended universe' (BBC ppgw video)

Snap snap guy - Dave Hearn originated the role of Max who plays the crocodile in ppgw. He said that people would recognise him in public and call him the 'snap snap guy'

[Corpses corpsing] - In one of their mischief movie night in improvised films, actors that were playing dead bodies started laughing at Harry Kershaw attempting to make something that rhymed with 'amygdala' and saying 'you have the feeling like the tightening of a sphincter' which was posted by mischief on their socials with the caption 'corpses corpsing'

Doors - mischief shows always have plenty of door gags where doors won't open, break, actors get stuck in them etc etc another source

Old neighbour Joe - a character in '90 degrees' an episode of the goes wrong show where half of the set is built sideways so they see 'old neighbour joe' falling past the window outside their house

Tattoos - a fandom hunt to try and work out what Dave and Shields' tattoos are of one two three

Doctor frog - in 'harpers locket' (TGWS) max has a piece of paper on which he's written his idea for a play about 'doctor frog'

BaEeEr? - confusion between Dennis and Vanessa about whether Vanessa is asking for a 'beer' or a 'bear' (90 degrees - tgws)

Delta Von Tassel - a character suggested for a mischief movie night in movie who was a character with no name that spoke in rhyming couplets which became Harry Kershaw playing 'delta Von Tassel' and struggling to rhyme DVT compilation

Bryony + Laura kiss - 2 people kissed during a performance of mischief movie night in after forgetting they're not allowed to due to COVID restrictions

Shields and Dave 54 below - shields and Dave hosted '54 celebrates the muppets' and caused a little bit of mischief one two

DOCTOR josh Elliott? - running joke during mischief movie night runs over one of the actors being a doctor and fandom confusion about what this actually meant one two three

Max/Trevor - another popular ship in the fandom between Max and Trevor (the stage manager/techie)

Jonathan Vs Harry Kershaw - rivalry between Jonathan sayer who played 'oscar' in most mischief movie nights and Harry Kershaw who frequently caused chaos in mischief movie nights rivalry compilation

MIND MINd Mind Mind - 'magic goes wrong' features a character called the mind mangler who does 'magic tricks' and has powers of the mind (mind mind) but the repetition effect after he says 'mind' starts to not work properly

Enjoying the armoire? - one member of mischief plays an armoire in one mmni but they soon discover none of them know what an armoire actually is one two

Put your trousers in the cabinét - Harry Kershaw plays a 'salacious filing cabinet' and sings a song where he rhymes 'say' with 'cabinet' which completely breaks Dave Hearn

Chris leask's rump - Chris leask (plays Trevor in tgws) lies on a table with his arse out as the other actors prepare to 'carve the rump' one two

Execute dick - at the end of their Shakespeare gws episode they wanted to have Robert say 'execute dick' but had to change it to 'execute Chris' because of the Bbc (timestamp- 16.39)

Sandra/max/Trevor - max has two hands meme merging 2 popular gws ships

Henry shields scarf - shields just wears a specific scarf a lot

Nancy and Dave fistbump - Nancy revealed her and Dave Hearn try to sneak a fist bump into lots of the goes wrong show episodes

Trevor/BBC guy - a ship that evolved out of the scenes in BBC Peter Pan goes wrong between cornleys techie (Trevor) and the BBC stage manager

Henry Shields + hot air balloons - Henry shields was trying to get his hot air ballooning licence before COVID

Catching the hat - a miraculous hat toss and catch during a mischief movie night in hat catch compilation

Harry Kershaw thrusting - Harry Kershaw thrusted so hard in a mmni that he fell over

Chris + Robert in the Amazon rainforest - as part of some advertising they created a video that means canonically Chris and Robert accidentally went to the Amazon rainforest

Cpds family run the BBC - big discussion about the reasoning behind why the BBC let cornley back even after the chaos they caused in the past condensed post of the discussion and a bit extra

Papel enforcer - a character created in mmni to catch 'a rogue nun' that was honestly baffling and confused even some cast members (looking at you Henry Lewis) papel enforcer compilation (the very first section of that video)

Koala/human love story - mmni where Bryony Corrigan plays a human spy and Henry shields plays her pet koala. They fall in love.

Shark monologue - Henry Lewis was playing Oscar in a mmni in which there is a shark monologue

Niall's fan catch - niall has a fan thrown to him in a mmni which he catches with one hand and it's very impressive

Teletubbies - at the end of the Bbc Peter Pan goes wrong, their set of a ship breaks off the main set and goes through various BBC studios. Along the way it picks up some teletubbies

Where be my man penis - Annie plays a king in their Shakespeare play (tgws) and has her clothes ripped off her by accident and looks down at her crotch and trying to maintain Shakespearian language says 'where be my man penis? Tis vanishèd' (timestamp 1.48)

Merry Fodliman's green fruit pastilles - groan ups cast performed at the royal variety performance in 2019 George Haynes did an Instagram takeover in which he and Nancy zamit gave fun celebrity stories but changed the celebrities names so you wouldn't know who they were talking about (but it was pretty obvious who they were talking about. Merry Fodliman for example was Kerry godliman a comedian)

Chris bean's speculum - Chris gets very weird about how Vanessa hands him a speculum during an improvved piece in the festival episode of tgws prompting discussions about why he cared so much the clip (timestamp 1.29)

Hello, Steve/it's ben - harry Kershaw as delta Von Tassel tried to rhyme something with another characters name but ended up using the wrong name

Very bad kiss, many dead hamsters - a quote from Groan Ups (a criminally underrated mischief show) after some characters have kissed at a school reuinion and accidentally killed/lost the school's pet hamster groan ups summary here and this post shows a decent view of the hamster situation though it's a joke that continues through most of the second act

Dennis/Vanessa/Sandra/max/Trevor/BBC guy - the max has 2 hands meme taken to the extreme combining many popular ships

70s family photo - all of cornley dressed like they were in the 70s as a gag in an episode of the goes wrong show

Mary had a little lamb (sexy) - a song from a mmni that is honestly just extremely disturbing but difficult to look away from

Jonathan on a dog lead - it's pretty much what it says. Jonathan was in a mmni instead of playing Oscar and he played a dog that crawled around on a lead and made everyone uncomfy

Harry Kershaw's YouTube channel - does what it says on the tin again. He has a very funny video posted.

I have painted myself green - shields painted himself green for a bit on twitter

Hope this was helpful in your mischief journey!!! There's so many more things I wish I could include on that iceberg haha

#this was genuinely so much fun but i spent way too long on it haha #i hyperfocused so hard making this i genuinely spent at least 3 hours putting it together and it felt like 10 minutes haha #mischief theatre #mischief comedy #the goes wrong show #the play that goes wrong #peter pan goes wrong #mischief iceberg #mischief movie night in #mmni

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andreal831 · 1 year ago

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I know you like bonenzo, but what are your thoughts on Carenzo?

I loved their banter throughout season 5, and in season 6 I fell in love with them and was really disappointed when they didn’t ever get together. Enzo is actually my favorite Caroline ship, as Matt was just bad for obvious reasons, Klaus hurt her multiple times (you could honestly call it abuse) and she used him all the time, and I just found her and Stefan extremely boring. I actually liked her and Tyler together, but too much damage was done for them to ever end up together imo.

Also do you think you’ll continue with TGW outtakes? If so, would you consider writing some extra scenes with Elijah, Hayley, and Astra while they were in France?

I adore platonic Carenzo.

If the writers hadn't been so determined to sideline Bonnie and prioritize Damon, Steroline and Bonenzo could have been such a fun group. Enzo and Stefan would have annoyed each other but they would have put up for it for Caroline and Bonnie. I wish they would have continued Stefan and Bonnie's friendship from the early seasons rather than giving it to Damon. It always seemed more realistic for me. Also, Enzo's loyalty to Damon and hatred of Stefan never made sense to me. Honestly, Enzo and Stefan could have bonded over being betrayed by Damon. Enzo just decides to forgive Damon for abandoning him and killing his love and blaming Stefan for everything??

I personally never wanted Caroline and Enzo to be romantic. They bonded during a time where Caroline really needed a friend and Enzo stepped up. It is one of the reasons I love Enzo's character. Enzo was the character they wanted Damon to be. He did a lot of bad (even terrible) things but was striving to be a better person and actually made himself a better person. I would have been fine with them writing Damon off and brining in Enzo for better storylines than they gave him. I also just love Michael Malarkey.

I am a huge advocate for platonic relationships. It's fine to ship people, but not everyone who gets along needs to be romantically invovled. Although I do definitely see why people ship them. But I liked that Caroline and Enzo grew to care for each other but never needed to make it romantic. And honestly, Caroline needed just friends. I feel like the writers were matching her up with anyone she came in contact with. Stefan was gone for five seconds and they had Enzo flirting with her. I wanted the show to focus on friendships/family more than the ships at times.

My favorite ships for Caroline are Steroline and then Forwood. I love friends to lovers. Nearly all of my favorite ships are. Both Steroline and Forwood had that great foundation before they started dating. They were each other's best friends. To me Steroline was always endgame. The way they fought for each other and looked out for one another was great. Forwood is a close runner up and would have been endgame had Klaus not gotten in the way for no reason. Tyler didn't deserve anything Klaus put him through. I think they could have found their way back to each other but they had both already moved on by the time the dust settled.

I did actually like Matt and Caroline at times but they were both just in emotionally fragile spots when they dated. But they were a cute high school relationship. I don't consider Klaus and Caroline a relationship -- it was just straight abuse.

I know I went on a lot of side tangents, but thanks for the ask! I don't talk about TVD nearly enough.

I am continuing TGW Outtakes! I'm also already writing scenes of them spending the weekend in Paris. There will be lots of wine, art, and kissing. I am just writing very slowly now that we are near the end of the story. There are so many lose ends to tie up.

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likeadevils · 1 year ago

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Claire, because you are the rearranging tracklist queen, I have come to you for help.

Since Maisie came out with the deluxe tracks of TGW, I have been STRUGGLING with where to place them on the tracklist. I love the original tracklist of TGW so much but having the deluxe tracks on after the end feels so jarring??? And I really only love The Last One and YOKO but I just can't figure out where to put them.

So I would like to consult you on tracklist wisdom and any advice you have is greatly appreciated. ❤️

i’m OBSESSED with yoko like. me and @loveaffairmaimyou were talking when the tracklist was released about how like, terrified we were that it was going to be bad, because it’s so easy to flatten her and the beatles into like. yoko is either Evil or Girlboss when both of those readings are just. bad. like it would be annoying to hear either of those takes. and then the song is like “sometimes there is no villian, there’s no big easy crisis point, there’s just two people who can’t express how much they care about each other in a way that the other person can hear” WHICH IS WHY THE BEATLES ACTUALLY BROKE UP mostly kinda it’s complicated

ANYWAYS i think yoko pairs really well with two weeks ago (like, i never told you i loved you but you know i did -> i never told you how i felt oh god you don’t know), and two weeks ago makes a perfect track five— absolutely devastating, but still the start of the story. my one hangup is it’s two slow songs right on top of each other, so maybe slide like. bsc in the middle?

my instinct with songs like the last one is like. it either has to be the first song or the last one. and i think the last one has big start of the story energy. like do good witch-> last one -> not another rockstar i think that would go so hard

i don’t know but now i’m hooked on playing around with this so i might come back to this later today

#asks*#claire's versions*

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thegreatimpersonator · 2 years ago

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but her voice is just a little too on the verge of being childlike for me - I thought the same thing but the songwriting was so good it started to grow on me. Same thing happened with Taylor once I got to White Horse on Fearless. It was like, fine, her voice isn't great (love it now btw) but the songwriting is killer and that is what I come for. I am glad I gave Maisie another chance after turning her off in the middle of the first song off TGW because her songwriting had me by song 2. Her lyrics are witty and sharp and rapid fire. You can hear the english teachers daughter in every line.

same! and thats the perfect way to describe her writing, very sharp.

#answered #anonymous

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lovewithoutresin · 4 months ago

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💌 sorry for a delayed reply! but I’m BACK and ready to Interpret

*warning: this is long 😬

I will never trust Elias, I promise. But I am so compelled by the way you said it’s the WAY we don’t trust him that changes. But if you want to hear myyyyyy theory, I maintain my puppettering comment and think he can control people, and he’s been around a longggg time. Which means there’s ample opportunity for him to be shady. Pulling the webs in the spider strings?

omg hiiiiii the-sound-and-the-furry, I cannot believe I, a random anon, have another person in my corner. I do not want to let you down.

Okay, song time. I know I sent two asks, but in the first one (about the end of 87), the first song you mentioned didn’t have a link :( Retry?

First ask, second song: The Great War. It’s very interesting that you said this one is obvious! Because at first, I didn’t see it lol. But now I see the very literal lines (“took the battle underground” and “crimson clover,” as two examples). But I’ve come around to the rest of the song as a message, too. Especially as a reflection on season two and as a taste of where Jon is at in the start of season three.

Second ask song: Castles Crumbling. Dude, the potential this song has for a kickass fan video, if this was a show was visual media. Just everyone going back and licking their wounds after everything with the S2 finale. Another one that’s great for having a *sound* that matches the vibes (in addition to lyrics).

Misc song thoughts: You mentioning that the Not-Thems being something a Taylor fan would appreciate (fascinating) is making the gears turn. Obviously idk what other themes will come up in the show, but based on just that, I feel like The Archer could work here. At first this was just because of the nose line, but now I feel like everything can relate (or has the potential to relate) to TMA. I’ll have to start drafting a playlist so we can compare notes 📝

I’ve listened through the first 6 episodes of season 3, and I hope you can answer a question for me: Who is Jon staying with? I don’t remember this person. (I saw you once mention you were taking notes. That’s something I should’ve done.)

Up next: episode 87, The Uncanny Valley. I love the concept of the uncanny valley, so I’m looking forward to this one! (Not-Them fan and uncanny valley fan—I have a type, don’t I?)

HIII Listener Anon!! Oh I get so excited to hear from you.

You should absolutely be compelled by that. Elias is quite the compelling one. Fascinated by the allegations here and obsessed with you for mentioning the spider strings - hold onto that thought for me, will you?

I am SO sorry I failed to supply the link - I will do so much better in the future. The link to that one was here and while I sent it at the end of 87 along with TGW, it was TEEECHNICALLY sent to allude to a different episode before it. Though maybe in a non obvious way. We'll talk way down the line (insert wink here).

Re: TGW: yeah! Mostly it's just that a lot of the back and forth, the mistrust, the paranoia and the sense that someone is against you is a hallmark of s2, including just how much it can cost (or nearly cost). We will spend probably the rest of this series unpacking how this segment of time has impacted things in the long run.

And for Castles Crumbling, ohhh you have no idea. I think the lack of fandom overlap is the only reason there aren't animatics of this already (if there are, I'm too scared to view them, but I wouldn't look it up bc we are Not done with Castles Crumbling). The sound hitting as WELL as the lyrics is not always super common here, but when it hits, it HITS.

I'd LOVE to compare notes once you get down the line!! I sort of have a Google Doc for you that I work with at this point LOL. The Archer is def one I CAN see with regards to one specific theme in Taylor's work that relates to the NotThem line of thinking. But you know how these themes are... they cross over and one relates to another and soon you've got a big muddled mess. So It's a bit hard to clarify lines in particular at this point. Post S3 though I think the reasoning behind me feeling that a Taylor fan would be into that will be perfectly clear.

HELL YEAH season 3 time! I can absolutely answer that: her name is Georgie, but at this point you don't know a whole lot about her yet! We've only heard of her one other time, in Skintight (ep 28, Youtube ghost hunter Melanie King's Cambridge Military Hospital encounter with... one Sarah Baldwin who stapled her skin on. Hm). But otherwise, it's not really relevant to her dynamic with Jon or how they know each other, so you're not missing anything!

For the song following the s3 premiere, I'll grant you this one. It'd take some mulling over, but there's a very specific way I see this song as tying in on its album and why it belongs on there so much, and that same logic can be applied to Jon here! Another one whose tone I think fits well too.

I'll see you next after 92. And I do mean RIGHT after 92, because songs notwithstanding I have a STRONG sense you'll have stuff to say after that one. BTW, when you get there... well. I'll actually tie it into the song later.

A 'type' huh? Well....

#LOVE YOU LISTENER ANON!#listener anon #tma spoilers #rambles #anonymous #answered asks

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wordpress-blaze-216226969 · 14 days ago

Text

Pointer Wars: Linked List Edition is Expanding!

The initial, ongoing, run of Pointer Wars was phenomenal. We received 34 contestants of all skill levels, and have seen some phenomenal code.

Now, my wife and I are expanding it more. We've changed it from a competition to a challenge, and participants starting on June 15th have through September 15th to complete four coding challenges, center around a linked list.

Week 1 is mostly the implementation of a linked list. The other weeks will be tweaking and adding functionality to solve real world problems. Participants get a full code review and a performance review for each submission, including feedback on how to make things better. The code review is done as if it were being checked in to a professional repository.

We added a FREE version so that everyone can participate this time around.

Want to join us for a summer of wonderful C code? Express your interest on the Google Form here.

Source: Pointer Wars: Linked List Edition is Expanding!

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warningsine · 11 months ago

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Full corporate, huh?

Don't make me start drawing parallels between "Succession" and "The Good Wife."

And I don't just mean the obvious ones:

and

The season 3 premiere of "Succession"? Clearly influenced by "Hitting the Fan" (5.05).

Alicia and Kendall? There are parallels there. Shiv too if I squinted.

People who find "Succession" boring don't understand that it's a slow burn character study. It has graced us with some of the most richly fleshed out figures on television. Just like "The Good Wife." The suspense and tasteful drama are present on both shows.

The difference is that TGW was built on the network model and with 22 episodes/season (7 seasons), the quality dropped at times, whereas "Succession" kept its legacy.

Anyway, the Julianna Margulies (Alicia Florrick) to J. Smith Cameron ("stone cold killer bitch" Gerri Kellman) pipeline is real.

I could definitely see the former in a "Succession"-like universe post finale.

Oh, and I would put Gerri and Diane in the same room together and grab my popcorn.

Another crossover possibility: Waystar Royco covers a Peter Florrick presidential election. :>

People hate Alicia either due to misogyny (she can make frustrating choices but she's no Tony Soprano or Don Draper) or because they hate JM (and they let that influence their opinion of her character).

Peter is a piece of shit and should be in prison. So I'm glad that TGF confirms that and the divorce. Given what happened with Illinois politicians, it's an organic choice too.

#succession #the good wife

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tgrailwar · 2 years ago

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Tumblr Holy Grail War, Another Start: Wave 1 - Day 1 (Team Avenger, Team Foreigner, and Team Archer)

Heed my words… My ████ creates your body, And your sword creates my ███████… If you heed the Grail's call, and ████ my ████ and ██████, then answer my summoning…

"…Ehehe…ehehehehe…!"

A Servant was summoned. Beautiful and ephemeral, like a sunflower. Vines gripping and corroding the wood of the church, and the data compiling the Holy Grail War.

The purpose of the Foreigner Servant was clear. Annihilate the other Servants. Claim the Grail. Annihilate the other Servants. Annihilate the other Servants. Annihilate the other Servants. Annihilate. Annihilate. Annihilate. Annihilate. Annihilate!

'FOREIGNER': "Masters... Masters... are you all my Masters...? I'm Van Gogh... let's repaint this world... together... ehehe... ehehehehe!"

Angra Mainyu: "...Well, I tried. Your Servant is here. Congratulations. I sealed some of her skills, so this won't be awful, I don't think. And I'm not dead thanks to you, which is also neat. That being said, going from 'outside threat' to 'internal competitor' is a fine change, but still makes her dangerous. Guess this'll be my first real fight as a Servant!"

As he readied himself to fight, another Servant burst in through the doors of the Church, readying his bow for battle.

Angra Mainyu: "Finally, the cavalry is here! Okay, let me catch you up to speed. That's Foreigner. Bad news, honestly. So… let's work together on this one, Archer."

Arjuna: "…I'll agree to that, simply because the other Servant seems more dangerous. Though… I can't say that 'teaming up' with a Servant like you is an idea I'm fond of. Just looking your direction is giving me the impulse to rend you asunder."

Angra Mainyu: "Yeah, yeah. Believe me, I don't like you very much either, but I'd prefer NOT dying. Anyways, since we're in a new phase-- ahem, some 'things have changed' in the Grail War, I guess we're dealing with new mechanics! Uh, 'new' mechanics? Overseer?"

[ Avenger has forged a temporary 'alliance' with Archer!

If an allied Servant wins first place during a Free-for-All, then their partner won't sustain a wound! When fighting alongside an allied Servant, they both gain a +5% boost! Additionally, they're immune to ally debuffs!

Due to the nature of this alliance, it will fade once the battle ends if not renewed by the Masters of Archer and Avenger! ]

Angra Mainyu: "Look at that, making old mechanics make sense. Better late than never, so... go us! Here's the thing though… I'm basically a lost cause, so as much as some of you will probably hate this, you'll need to dump as much mana as possible into Archer or things will get ba--"

The connection crackled and shorted out, before a voice came out from the other side.

'FOREIGNER': "Masters... Masters... It's me, Van Gogh... I've answered your call... I came here as fast as I could..."

VAN GOGH: "Can you lend me some of your mana...? I can work on commission... ehehe... just a Gogh Joke...!"

As Masters who summoned the Foreigner-class Servant, Van Gogh, it seems as if you can command her! Which means... you CAN win the Grail War with her if you band together to support her, just like any other Servant! Maybe her winning the Grail will unlock a 'special ending'? While the other Servants may stand against her, that doesn't make her any different than the others. Though... it doesn't seem like she has proper Command Spells?

Well, that's a topic for later. For now... fight on, Masters of Foreigner!

Angra Mainyu is uninjured!

Arjuna is on his final wound!

Van Gogh is uninjured!

Angra Mainyu and Arjuna are allies! They both gain +5%!

Based on skills, augmentations to the final score are:

Angra Mainyu: -12%

Arjuna: +3%

Van Gogh: -3%

Active Skills:

Angra Mainyu (Avenger)

Zarich: Right Fang Grinder (C) - Reduce enemy Servant boosts by -3%.

Tawrich: Left Fang Grinder (C) - Gain a +3% attack boost.

Annihilation Wish (A) - When fully healed, gain a -20% demerit to his final score. With one wound, the demerit is reduced to -10%. With two wounds, the demerit is changed to a +20% boost.

Arjuna (Archer)

Hero of the Endowed (A) - If fighting an enemy Servant, and the difference between scores is within 3%, take the win.

Mana Burst (Flame) (A) - Gain a +8% boost to combat poll results when attacked during 'playing defensively', rather than +3%. When not ‘playing defensively’, gains a 5% boost to final combat poll results instead.

Van Gogh (Foreigner)

Het Gele Huis (A+) - When winning first place in a Free-for-All, inflict 2 wounds on the bottom Servant, rather than just one. If engaged in a one-on-one, inflict 2 wounds instead of one upon victory. Additionally, reduce Servant bonuses by 10%, and if the gap between scores is greater than 35% when winning, recover from a 'wound'.

#combat phase poll #team avenger #team foreigner #team archer #tgw: another start

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pebblysand · 2 years ago

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Started reading castles and it’s so good! Don’t know if saying this correctly but… how did you came up with it? Like what made your brain go “ I wanna write about this”?

aw thank you so much! glad you're enjoying!

wow, this is such a deep question. i don't think there was, like, one thing that made me want to write it. i didn't wake up one day with a fully formed idea of what this fic will be. even now, while i do have the overall structure in my head, i definitely also make things up as i go along. castles has known many iterations of itself over the years, and it just kept growing until i felt i was finally able to write it.

the first time i got the urge to write something was when i was 14, right after i first finished reading DH. i remember writing fic in my little school notebook during class. at the time, it was mostly a harry/ginny story about how-they-got-back-together after the war. i lost it and never finished it, but i remember very clearly it already had that sort of quiet, blurry sort of vibe that you get in the early chapters, especially chapter one. that sense of the calm after the storm, and not really knowing what to do with all that time. back then, i was writing exclusively shippy content, and so that's the sort of iteration it took. but i think what drove me to write it was this sort of frustration at the epilogue and at the "lack" of a direct aftermath of the battle. i'm not an epilogue hater, i actually like the epilogue for what it represents, but i think i would have liked more details on the characters and the "rebuilding" prior to it. i think that's where that came from.

the second time i tried to write it, i had just turned 18. i'd done a re-read that summer and by then, i already had a lot more writing experience under my belt (for context, i started writing at 13). i remember, again, it being post-war, and a sort of more "polished" product than what i'd written prior. i think i didn't finish it/publish it back then because a) the hugeness of the HP fandom scared me as a writer, and i didn't want to expose myself to the crazies, b) that's around the same time i fell into House MD, then TGW, and both shows took over my life, and c) i think, looking back, maybe some part of me knew i could write a better story, if i just waited a bit. but, it was then that i wrote the very first draft of what you will now know as the "first time" scene between harry and ginny, and also the line that has now become the fic's summary: to him, the spring of '98 is about sex and funerals. i remember this re-read was also the first time when i actually sat down and thought about what might have happened to ginny in hogwarts and (i'm remaining vague here cause you've said you only just started reading), had the idea for The Thing. which wasn't so much an "idea" as much as the fact that i was 18 and now a lot more attuned to the world i was living in as a young woman.

i picked up the books again in late 2017 (then, 24) and i remember pulling the story out of my massive archive of abandoned projects, and reading through it after finishing DH. i remember getting to the line "to him, the spring of '98 is about sex and funerals" and thinking: jesus, that's a good line, lol. and, i think at the time i wrote a bit more of it (i specifically remember writing the scene where ginny, ron and hermione help harry move in to his new flat - now chapter 3), but the issue was that i was knee-deep into writing another long-work in another fandom, and so this sort of took the backseat.

finally, we got to the 2020 lockdowns. i used the first lockdown to fully finish and put in the edits i wanted to add to my previous long work (which i'd finished writing in 2018). then, there was a second lockdown, and a third, and was a bit like: what now? and i re-read HP for comfort (considering the global crisis ongoing lol), and, well, the rest is history. i reviewed and repolished what i already had and put it out in september 2020. i thought to myself, i'll write another five chapters (LOL) and be done by december and, well, again, the rest is history.

so, i think, to answer your question, what made my brain go "i wanna write about this?" - time, really. the passage of time and the idea maturing in my brain. harry/ginny came first, then ginny, then the sort of broader environment (harry moving into a flat, etc), and finally, the overall arc of the story. i think the fascination with the post-war era is just - this idea that how do we get from kids who have been through so much and so deeply traumatised to "all was well". i remember seeing an interview from jkr once where she said that would probably have been the hardest part, and being like "yes, exactly." and, i think that fascination was always there, for me, but it just took a while to fully form.

which is something i now very much try to keep in mind: just because you abandon a project now, doesn't mean you are abandoning it forever. maybe it just needs more time in your head to fully bloom.

#castles #asked and answered

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space-blue · 3 years ago

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@nylazor I shall do my best!!

It's a world co-designed/written by Hidetaka Miyazaki (the mind behind the whole souls/borne series) and G.R.R. Martin.

So in very short it's set in a place with a very fucked divinity system. When you arrive as the player, things have been going tits up for untold centuries, lots of big players locked in a stalemate, Demigods and other sus beings at each other's throats, in possession of fragments of power, but unable to conquer all.

That's your job. You come in to mow them all down and either fix the system or erase it and go for another one.

Whether you play the game or not, there's a lovely community that does amazing lore videos! I recommend this guy, these two, but the current "go to" for a complete story would be this video :

youtube

But who are the puppers?

Well, there are three puppers, who all have somewhat unclear origins, more under the break, for your dash's sake!

Blaidd the Half Wolf, your average vanilla monster lover dream boy, who is a friendly NPC associated with a main quest...

Maliketh the Black Blade, who made so many gamers cry in the early days, it was glorious. He's not optional either, and a player who ranked all bosses in the game by difficulty rated him as toughest.

The last is Red Wolf of Radagon, with his sexy earrings... He knows magic. I'm not going to touch on him because I'm too uncertain.

The short of it is that the world of Elden Ring, a place called "The Lands Between", has been sort of invaded by a divinity. You can picture them as alien. They're "an outer god" with lovecraftian flavour, almost. There are several outer gods, and some characters follow others instead (a major no-no).

The god currently "ruling" the LB is called "The Greater Will" (TGW) and is never featured in the game. You only see their envoy/vessel, which is a big beast and one of the most gorgeous bosses I've ever seen. That beast came along with a seed, for the Erdtree, the pretty golden tree you see everywhere in the game. This is a source of power, and things get EXTREMELY HAZY lore-wise, so I'm going to skim and let the lore videos clarify that.

The envoy of TGW, the "Elden Beast" can't rule itself, and invested the powers of the "elden ring" into a woman, who rose to the position. She's called Queen Marika, and you may recognise her from the promo :

She IS the Elden Ring, literally. By *becoming* the Elden Ring (depicted as a set of magic-like runes) she became the local "god", but in effect is a vassal of TGW. Her children are the various demi-gods.

She had quite a few, not all as cute as the others!! They're the ones warring among themselves after the Elden Ring was shattered, and are in a stalemate when you start the game. Marika herself is nowhere to be seen.

How do the puppers come in? Well, Marika may be a "god", but she's under a fair bit of supervision. In order to ascend, she had to have a consort (the Elden Lord) and a "shadow". They're basically prerequisites.

Enter her half-brother, Maliketh! YES. They're apparently related lol Although... the lore can be very vague, and often leaves a lot for the imagination (or the DLC...) so is he adopted?? Or was Marika's mom a monster lover degenerate like us? Who knows.

Anyway, Maliketh became her "shadowbound beast", supposedly a sort of champion. However, they also server a darker (secret) purpose, unknown to them.

I have neglected to introduce a gross yet major player in this already mad political structure : the fingers.

They're LITERAL big, creepy ass FINGERS. They're the vassals of TGW, can apparently talk to it directly (though it takes thousands of years lol), and they meddle in decisions of succession and how the show is run down here in the LB.

They're the ones who "gave" Maliketh to Marika as a shadow.

They're said to have "created" Blaidd to gift to Ranni as well.

Radagon's Red Wolf is more uncertain (not even getting into this), but I guess he's also a shadowbound beast.

Why the darker purpose? Because if Marika, or Ranni, were to rebel against the Greater Will, their shadow would turn on them and kill them, the drive overriding their entire personality in the process. It's sad shit.

Who's Ranni, you ask, and why does she get a pupper? She's a type of being called an Empyrean, which qualifies her as replacement for the God job position. She was chosen by a set of fingers to one day replace Queen Marika, but didn't want that fate.

She SO didn't want it, she got into some serious shenanigans to get out of it, including killing her body, and kickstarting the events of the game.

What was going on?

Well, when Marika got into power and became the Elden Ring, she decided it was time for sweeeeeet immortality, baby! She plucked from the Elden Ring (aka, herself??) the rune of Death. She became "Queen Marika the Eternal" in the process.

She made it into a "black blade" and entrusted it to Maliketh, her shadow.

So if Maliketh hits you with that sword of his, he gives you a "Destined Death". Forever death of body and soul. No reincarnation. (You know, lore wise. He doesn't "game over" you for real, although it'd be MAD shit if he did lol).

However you have to realise, a lot of that lore is hidden in tiny little item descriptions! So the item that tells you about that, also tells you that Marika's "only use" for her shadow was as a holder for the rune of Death, and "even then, she betrayed him"

And I'm like... WHAT?? Hoooowww??? TELL ME MORE!!

But we don't know, not yet. That's a fun element, mind you. Different people have different understandings of the lore, also because they haven't found all the items they could! The soulsborne series basically turns its players into archaeologists, and it's both a blessing and a curse for fic writers, for obvious reasons. My fun theory today can be "wrong" tomorrow when someone rocks up with a fucking rusty spoon with an item description that brings in new lore!

Basically, what went down is explained in the lore videos far better than I could, but the short of it is that Ranni REALLY didn't want to be the local "god", aka "slave" of TGW, and in order to escape her fate, she had to "discard" her flesh.

So she stole a fragment of the rune of Death from Maliketh (emphasis on stole, he's insanely OP and she couldn't take him one on one), and with this fragment, got involved into a plot to craft a set of black knives, imbued with Destined Death.

It's extremely unclear if Marika was involved, as the knives were given to assassins who were all women of the same origin as herself, and she was up to some really dicey stuff that smell like a long con...

What we know for certain is that on the same night, Ranni kills her flesh, and simultaneously, the assassins killed Marika's firstborn son, a demigod called Godwyn the golden.

This dual, simultaneous strike was necessary, as it "split" the rune of Death's power into two : it killed Ranni's flesh, but not her soul, and killed Godwyn's soul, but not his body.

If a demigod had not been killed, Ranni would have taken the full brunt of Death and died in body and soul.

Godwyn's death is one of the most disturbing cutscenes in gaming history...

He becomes "the Prince of Death". Major yikes.

Was Marika involved? Was she grief stricken? We don't know. Some sources say she was, but there's a TON of unreliable narrators in the game, and people will tell you stuff they believe but don't know for sure, or straight up lie to you!!

What we do know is that she shattered the Elden Ring (aka herself. When you see her body, she's all broken and fucked up), and as a result of this treachery was imprisoned within the Erdtree.

And her pupper? Maliketh? He went pretty apeshit.

After Death was stolen from him, he sealed the remainder into his own flesh (can't be healthy) so it couldn't be taken from him again. After Marika betrays TGW by shattering the Elden Ring... We don't know, but we can assume Maliketh went insane.

When we meet him in the game, "an age" has passed. Over a thousand years, during which Marika's kids fought over the runes/fragments of the Elden Ring. They were all deemed traitors basically, and lost their "grace", aka, support from TGW. You're actively encouraged to hunt them down and kill them to get their runes (that's... the goal of the game).

Maliketh is in hiding as a clergyman called Gurranq. He's clearly a bit deranged, roars in the night, and begs you to feed him "deathroot", like eating the by-products of that death leakage would somehow help... (it does, kinda, he grows more lucid the more you give him).

But then you confront Gurranq and realise, through his major mid-fight glow-up, that he's in fact Maliketh, and that depending on your level and character set up, you might be here a while lmao.

In the end, it seems like he's aware that Marika betrayed him in some way, but he's also very apologetic and guilt-ridden. This whole time he's remained loyal despite the madness. He still wants the Golden Order to be restored... But as far as we know, it doesn't seem to be something Marika wants.

It looks a LOT like she kept him in the dark and plotted behind everyone's back.

Blaidd, the other shadowbound beast, is also victim of a tragic storyline. It's not good to be a shadow to busy-body godling women. :-/

Although this fight with Maliketh is incredible, I really enjoy people who fight him with a friend or a summon, because you get to see his super cool moves from afar when is attention isn't on the player.

youtube

A large part of his charm is how dope he looks, and how mesmerizing he is in his movements. He caught my eye in the original gameplay trailer, and just captivated me from that video. I picked up all the lore I know solely in my quest to understand Maliketh's story, and the world just became fascinating.

There's a lot to it, and it's really cool that it lends itself to videos you can enjoy from the comfort of your armchair, even if you can't play the game yourself.

I hope this helped, but I can't stress enough how much watching the videos will help. I've completely skipped a LOT of the lore here to focus on the puppers, but the vids will give you a more rounded overview of the world!

Recs time :

At the time of writing I'm the sole English author for Maliketh. For Always is Maliketh x Reader 9but not player character!) and Little Brother is a one shot looking at Blaidd meeting Maliketh as a very young shadow fresh from his training.

For more Blaidd content, I recommend Have You Tried Dying Less? by Shirokoi. Sounds super promising and is from the POV of Blaidd. Really enjoy his voice.

Beyond the puppers, but still in the realm of monster fucking, The Golden Hour by Tanatanas is very well written. Morgott x Tarnished.

And I had a MAD blast reading Five More Minutes Please by The Third Iteration, which is under 300 words and is reader x Godrick the Grafted.

Redmane by Pearl Slug forcuses on a Tarnished reader x Radahn, where the reader remembers the past relationship as they fight. Kinda bitter sweet and tragic, very cool.

I'm sure there's a ton of great pupper fics out there... Well, clearly not for Maliketh, but MAYBE one day someone else will join me in that corner lmao. Blaidd is popular though, so you can find stuff for him, I'm sure. He's in about 30 fics in English.

Yeah. tiny fandom galore.

#elden ring #elden ring lore #blaidd the half wolf #maliketh the black blade #Queen marika #red wolf of radagon #PUPPERS #please don't skewer me for subpar lore retelling #this is a very vague overview #shadowbound beasts #Youtube

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florrickandassociates · 4 years ago

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TGF Thoughts: 5x08-- And the détente had an end...

I did not like this episode! I had many problems with it! More under the cut...

A purple line is painted on a curb and then we’re watching footage of Wackner’s show. Question: do they only wear the costumes when it’s a low profile case? It was very noticeable they didn’t have them on in the cancel culture episode, and they don’t have them on in the Julius scenes in this episode...

Also, can I pretend that the horse and cat wearing tiara are meant to be BoJack and Princess Carolyn?

Del is remote-watching a focus group about Wackner’s show when Liz walks in. He refers to Wackner as “your guy” and Liz replies, “Must not be going well if you’re calling him my guy.” Sounds like “why is she my stripper when she does something bad?”

The focus group is in Vegas “where the real Americans live.” The clips from Wackner’s show being tested seem to be only the most ridiculous ones. Unsurprisingly, the focus group hates the show.

And here is my first question: Why are they testing a version of Wackner’s show that seems to be exclusively silliness? I know, you know, the writers know, and Del knows that that’s not funny.

Wackner Rules is not a good title.

I love Liz being amused by the focus group going poorly.

Why don’t people like Wackner Rules? Well, the cases are stupid—fights over barking dogs, shoes that don’t fit. They’d rather see burglary or robbery. This is silly, because while I’m sure most of Wackner’s cases are silly, we've seen a fair number of cases with a little more substance (or at least zaniness that makes them less mundane), including the one with the high profile comedian that was filmed explicitly to be part of this reality show. So is Wackner Rules, despite its cases financed by David Cord, just the most boring shit possible? And if so, why? Again, everyone involved here knows better than that.

Also is this just Del’s pet project? Is that why he is producing it, testing it, and approving it?

Liz rolls her eyes at the “wisdom of the crowd” on display. Then she shuts the laptop without realizing what she’s doing and jokes around about it.

If I were Del and my partner had just disparaged my work and then shut down my laptop while I was working, I would be furious. However, this is a bad episode of a television show and I love Liz so I am amused.

Del goes to fill Wackner in on how the focus group went. Wackner does not care about the opinions of twelve people. (This is funny, given that he has decided he is the most important person when it comes to making decisions and also that juries have twelve people too.)

No, dear god, no, please do not make me sit through tiny office jokes again. Have we transported back in time to season seven of TGW? I hated the door slamming against Eli’s desk then and I hate the sudden addition of this “joke” to Wackner’s chambers now.

The calendar says February 2021. Is it supposed to be February?

Apparently, the focus group likes the court, the costumes, and, mostly, Marissa. Just not the cases.

Marissa’s all, “well what do they want, a murder case?” and Del gives her a look like, “Can you???”

Again, the cases weren’t so silly they were boring in any other episodes and we know that Del/Wackner/Cord were meeting to discuss the best test cases for TV. So, like, how did people waste their time and energy making this obviously awful episode of TV for the focus group? No one involved is that clueless and it makes me dislike this plot.

AND RIGHT AFTER LAST EPISODE WHERE THE CASE ESCALATED TO THE POINT OF PRISON? I think that’s maybe my biggest complaint about this plot, and this episode as a whole. The last episode gave the this season a lot of momentum. Prison! Stakes are raised! Will Marissa say anything!? How much power is too much power for Wackner?! And then we get this episode, and it’s like, jk, forget about all that, now Wackner’s cases are drying up and everyone involved has zero critical thinking skills and we’re going to forget the prison thing ever happened!

“His court needs this show. Look at Trump. He wasn’t shit until The Apprentice,” Del tells Marissa after Wackner exits. Marissa does not react to the Trump reference, which may be the low point of this episode. Does Marissa Gold want to build the next Trump!? Is Marissa Gold not concerned that someone has just suggested that the goal of her show is to make someone in to Trump!? Hello?! This is not a reference you drop casually! I would be concerned about partnering with Del if I heard this! Marissa would be too! So why isn’t she?!

Also, this line + the “real Americans” as the target audience for Wackner’s show + the USA! Chanting at the end make me think the point here is somehow supposed to be about Trump and, like, cults of personality? I don’t really see it but I’ll reserve judgement until I see where Wackner’s arc ends up.

Julius heads to Wackner’s court to meet with Cord. He pitches them on his new firm. How is Julius going to start a new firm already? Wasn’t RL the only place that would take him? And pitching Cord on a firm with the 20% of staff that was laid off is a stupid idea, too. As Cord says, hiring the people laid off means hiring the “B-Team.” I dunno if that is actually true, but I know that Cord and anyone else who knows those were the people who were laid off will see it that way. Why is this in Julius’s business pitch? Like, is Cord wondering where Julius would get employees from? Is that a question?

Reddick & Lockhart, Julius says, is no longer eligible for no-bid government contracts. I want to know why: is this because RL is actually STR Laurie, or is this because Diane is white? If the latter, then you’d think we’d hear a little more about it...

Why is Cord calling the Copy Coop somewhere near the courthouse in a business district in Chicago “the middle of nowhere”?

Anyway, Cord passes on the new firm because it is not innovative and it does not disrupt anything.

Then Julius pitches the firm but with known-innovator Diane Lockhart and her client list. Cord is kind of interested. Cord cares that much about Diane? Alright.

Julius, after involving Diane, calls her to tell her what he’s done. When he gets back to his car, he is being given a ticket for parking in a purple zone. A purple zone is, apparently, court staff parking for Wackner’s court.

Julius rips up the ticket, then gets another ticket for destroying the ticket, and another ticket for destroying that ticket.

Wackner asks Marissa to find out how he can get out of the reality show. Marissa refuses and says she’s going to find out how they’re portraying Wackner, since the show benefits him. This is because he has “fewer cases this week than the week before, and fewer than the week before that. This court goes away unless more people know you’re here.” What? Where did that come from? I’m so confused. Last week Wackner had infinite money and a prison and was dealing with cases with settlements in the millions and famous comedians. Now his audience is dwindling and I’m supposed to care about this plotline? Thanks, but I cared about the plot you already sold me on, writers!

Hey, wasn’t there a thread at some point in this season about David Lee bugging Liz’s office? Odds we ever hear about that again?

Diane does not like Julius’s new firm idea. “David Lee is insisting that I stay,” Diane says, as though David Lee actually has that kind of power over her.

Julius points out that all the other partners are threatening to resign unless Diane is replaced, and “at a certain point, it won’t matter what David Lee says.” Diane says she’ll think about it.

Julius tries to talk to Cord again and finds that his car has been towed. This scene is too long, and watching Julius get confused by shifting, fake rules feels a little too much like the first Memo 618 episode. This episode only has a 40-minute run-time and we spend a lot of it on building up this plot. I don't really get why. Sure, it’s fun to watch people act incredulous, but we already know Wackner’s court is trying to put some muscle behind its authority (violence to encourage compliance, literal prison) so I don’t know why we need to spend so much time on what feels like a lower key bizarro version of a theme we are already aware of.

Just, like, do a boring ass case of the week episode if you don’t have ideas. Don’t regress the plotting and kill the momentum.

SPEAKING of killing momentum, remember how Carmen got a stellar introduction, a few episodes of development, and then pretty much disappeared for several consecutive episodes?

Then there’s another one of these scenes where Julius tries to get his car and more and more people enforce Wackner’s fake ticket.

I do not like “Wackner’s City of Chicago” being on the seal. I think he'd have something more clever than that on the seal.

David Lee calls Cord in to pitch him on bringing over all of his business. This scene confuses me, because you’d think Cord would be a big get for giant corporation STR Laurie. But no, David Lee wants Cord to bring his West Coast, East Coast, and Europe business to boutique firm Reddick Lockhart. Or, at least, that’s what Cord’s hesitance suggests to me.

Cord tells David Lee that Diane is leaving and that he won’t go to a firm that is breaking apart. David Lee denies it.

THIS sounds like the Hitting the Fan score.

David Lee insists that Liz and Diane drop what they’re doing and come up to his office. They do.

David asks Diane if she’s leaving. She says she was asked to join another firm, and that she was told that the equity partners are planning to resign unless she resigns, so she’s considering it.

“No one is threatening to resign without my permission,” David responds. Those must be some contracts if he is this powerful...

David warns Diane about poaching clients and she’s all, they’re free to leave if they want (ah, so they’re free to leave when you’re leaving but they’re your clients and can be stolen when YOU’RE losing them, I see). Liz is irritated by all of this and pre-accuses Diane of stealing clients after what she’s already done to keep her position. Fair.

David asks Diane what her issues are. “I’m a name partner being squeezed out of the decision making process,” she says. “And why is that, Diane?” Liz asks. “Because of my race!” Diane insists. “Because no one respects your decision to stay in your position. It is not yours by right,” Liz says.

“I’ve fought as hard as anyone here to keep this firm solvent. And I didn’t inherit this firm. I was invited in, and I earned...” OOOH FINALLY WE ARE GOING TO ADDRESS THAT LIZ HAD NO EXPERIENCE RUNNING A FIRM BEFORE THIS ONE FELL INTO HER LAP. Shame it’s a throwaway line.

STRL’s presence both adds and removes tension here. I wish they pushed this a little further. Sometimes David Lee seems to be functioning as an outside mediator; sometimes he has more power. What’s the point of all of these dilemmas and battles if at the end of the day, STRL owns and controls everything? How much can RL really mean to them? There’s even an RL in their name that doesn't stand for Reddick/Lockhart. I just don’t understand what it means to be a name partner in a black firm when that firm is actually controlled by some giant company. The way I see it, Diane should want out of RL because she’s past retirement age and being controlled by David Lee and that can’t be fun, and Madeline et al should want out because the mandate to focus on profit over social justice is not mostly coming from Diane or even Adrian’s legacy... it’s coming from the giant power and profit hungry corporation that owns you!

David has Diane and Liz stand on opposite sides of his desk. “Are you gonna spank us?” Liz says. I love funny Liz. Funny Liz is my favorite. But you know what I wish we also got more of? Liz’s thought process in general.

David’s point with this is that David is going to “come live and work with” Diane and Liz if they don’t figure it out themselves. I know they can’t easily get out from under STRL but Adrian did it so there’s surely a way to resign... this feels so demoralizing... I can’t believe Diane just takes this.

As they walk downstairs, Liz says, “If you’re going to leave, there’s nothing to talk about. “Liz, I don’t want to leave this firm. And you don’t want me to leave. So why don’t we hire a partner to replace Boseman?”

(1) I like that they’re acknowledging that Liz and Diane clearly want to work together and like working together and are having this fight mostly because they have to have this fight, not because they actually want to. Pretty much nothing Liz has done suggests she actually wants Diane to step down and pretty much nothing Diane has done suggests she actually wants to switch firms. So good, that’s text instead of subtext now.

(2) Weren’t they going to hire a partner to replace Boseman in the first place? Why didn’t that just... happen then and avoid all this?

Liz says she’ll think about it, but we all know that this is what she and Diane both want. This is where they should’ve been weeks ago.

OMG okay I knew they had talked about it before! In 5x02 Diane suggests this strategy from the start! Why does it go away!? It’s clearly the right strategy and doing it that early could’ve prevented a lot of conflict and tension. At this point, it feels almost too little, too late. What’s it going to do other than smooth things over with Diane and Liz?

They really are keeping the cameras rolling for Julius’s dumb parking ticket thing? Guarantee this does not make Wackner look good. As trivial as parking spaces seem, this feels like the sort of issue that would really piss off a lot of people. Maybe that would make good TV, but you want people to like and trust Wackner to keep people coming back to a reality show...

Julius, being Julius, refuses to apologize to Wackner and make the whole issue go away. I think why this rubs me—and so many others; I have seen nothing but negativity about this episode among friends and on the internet—the wrong way is that this feels like power for the sake of power. It is trivial, self-important (“Wackner’s City of Chicago”), disconnected from anything resembling reality. That’s not to say anything else about Wackner has been realistic, but the writers have been walking a very fine line between surreal, allegorical storytelling and straining credulity. This feels so mundane and unneeded that I actually have an easier time accepting that Wackner has created his own prison system than I do accepting that he’s tried to reserve parking spaces for his staff. At least with a prison, I see the larger-than-life point the writers are trying to make.

The parking attendant tells Wackner she wants to add more reserved spaces up the street and Wackner is like, oh, good! I don’t understand! Who is this lady that just wants to enforce Wackner’s rules? Does she want more spaces because it’s kind of a powertrip to give people tickets? Why do they need more reserved staff parking when cases are dwindling? Who is Wackner’s staff? Why do they need more parking?

And like, it’s one thing when Wackner’s antics affect people who are part of his little bubble, since they all have agreed to be there. How can he just reserve street parking? Wouldn’t this get shut down in a day? Julius would NOT be the only one furious.

Then Julius decides to steal Wackner’s book of seals so he can make it look like his ticket is paid.

So if they have footage from the cancel culture episode of Wackner Rules, why wouldn’t they have used it? We see it here, in the editing room, so why are the cases so boring again? (I’m sorry, I know I've said this like 1000 times, but it’s bothering me so much that this episode isn’t even internally consistent.)

(This whole plot is a time-filling detour tbh. I have no problem believing Wackner Rules could be an interesting TV show seeing as how I am watching it as part of an interesting TV show, so I don’t get why we need to spend all this time on how this obviously bad first draft of the show is bad and that it can be improved by fixing a non-existent problem? Also, there are zero stakes because Del owns the show and is also the one deciding whether or not to air the show.)

(Like, there could be a version of this where the focus group really helps us get into where Wackner’s stuff does and doesn’t translate and the changes he’s asked to make and how the fact it’s television changes the court, blah blah blah. Instead, the premise seems to be that the show is capturing what Wackner’s court was like in the days before Marissa or Cord or Del became involved, which makes no sense and is also boring!)

They’re mentioning Marissa being in the IDF again. This comes up because the re-edit of Wackner Rules is all about Marissa. This is kind of fun and meta! Marissa would definitely be a favorite on a reality show!

It turns out this re-edit is mostly about how the editor has a huge crush on Marissa.

I know that these tv writers know the process for tv writing and production better than I possibly could. I still do not believe that this reality show has one producer (Del) and an editor who is making executive decisions about the content of the show, and that this is for some reason happening in a mobile trailer parked outside of the court. Surely there would be meetings about what direction to take, not just a vague instruction to “make it better”?

In case I needed more evidence that the writers did not bring their A-game for this episode, we get Diane talking to RBG, again, because apparently now there are no other ways to clue us in on what Diane’s thinking. This is just lazy.

The RBG thing worked for me in 5x06 because it felt like a novel way for Diane to get to talk out loud, and that episode that wouldn’t have worked if we didn’t have a way to see what Diane was thinking. Here, it feels like the writers are doing it because they did it before and it worked and it’s thematically connected and it’s easy.

Doesn’t this entire scene just radiate laziness????

I know not every episode can be great but just don’t try to do something interesting and innovative if you’re going to half ass it.

I’m not even bothered by the thought that Diane daydreams about conversations with RBG. I buy that. I just don’t need this conversation (which feels way too much like it’s supposed to be an actual conversation for my taste).

OMG please stop talking about how RBG and Scalia were friends, I beg you, if you’re going to do this device again can you at least have a different conversation.

So much exposition. Diane knows someone named Allegra through EMILY’s List and thinks she’ll be a perfect choice for the third partner. Diane did hear she had a meltdown, though.

Julius gets arrested for stealing Wackner’s sticker book. When he starts shouting about how it’s a fake court, the officer is like, “As real as Officer McFinely’s death?” calling back to the last episode. I do find it interesting the police would be willing to overlook Wackner’s complete disregard for the law because of a grudge involving the law firm, and I like that choice.

Allegra is basically a slightly more toned-down version of Elsbeth. She has a messy, rented office, and trails off mid-thought. Since she’s kind of a familiar character type, I’m not overly impressed by her, but she’ll be fine to add some little bits of humor to the office drama, I think. My hope is that they use her in small doses, because I have a low tolerance for quirk.

Allegra’s office has tons of books. I can’t see what most of them are, but she has a copy of The Nix, and I liked that book! It’s the only fiction title I can spot; the rest seems like political commentary or pop sociology/business stuff.

Diane mentioning her RBG hallucinations to Allegra is probably a very smart way to win over Allegra.

Marissa encourages the editor, whose crush is so obvious it’s uncomfortable, to put Wackner’s outburst in the show. The one about how Del is using the show to rehabilitate the comedian!? Why would Del air that?! How does this help anything?! If the goal is to get Wackner’s court more cases, why would this make anyone choose to take their case there?

The police bring Julius to Wackner’s court, which I have a slight bit of trouble believing (not that any of this is believable, but you know what I mean—I don’t feel like it’s logical given everything else I know about this premise) but I'll roll with.

Now there’s some ridiculous, awful fake lawyer who was “devil’s advocate” with devil horns in the last episode and David Cord is prosecuting Julius and... what the actual fuck is going on in this scene? This Devil’s Advocate man would not have lasted a second in what we’ve seen of Wackner’s court before this point—he is an obvious liar and showman who Wackner would have no patience for. And if Cord has a bone to pick with Julius, this is an odd way of showing it, because it feels like Cord is there as a familiar face and not for a story reason.

Like, does Cord actively HATE Julius? Is... that supposed to be the point of this?

Seriously though, Devil’s Advocate would get like two sentences into his story about how Julius grew up poor before Wackner would make him stop, and if he got farther than that, Julius interrupting to ask “What are you talking about?” would’ve prompted Wackner to hold up that “cut the shit” card.

This humor is so fucking lazy. In the worst moments of this show, they take gags that have previously been successful and run with them until you can’t believe you ever found them endearing. That’s this scene.

Also it just occurred to me when I referenced the “Cut the Shit” card that we’ve seen Wackner be able to get audience responses to his cases. Seems to me like you pretty much already have your focus group results, no? You do more of the things that make the live audience excited and fewer of the things that make them get up and leave. The things that the live audience plays along with and reacts to are the catch phrases you’re going to put on merchandise. I’m not a TV producer and this is very obvious to me.

Instead of telling this lying lawyer to stop, Wackner instead asks the court musician to play “This is Us like music.” Make it stop. I don’t know who finds this funny but it’s not me!

Can you IMAGINE the fake reality show airing any of this? I dislike it and I know all of the players and context.

There is a shot of Del looking excited to see what’s going to happen. I’m sorry, but if Del’s instincts are this bad I just do not believe he runs a streaming service. Maybe his main role is to do the business stuff, not the content stuff? (But if so, why’s he always hanging around Wackner’s court?)

This episode is full of extremely essential scenes, like Marissa and the editor having sex as they watch footage of Marissa. Good for Marissa, I guess? This could’ve really easily just been implied. And if you really want to give Marissa more material, give her an arc, not a hookup where the focus of the sex scene is the editor dude. Or, like, just let her react to the whole prison revelation from the last episode. WHY ARE WE NOT TALKING ABOUT HOW WACKNER IS SENDING PEOPLE TO PRISON?

Liz and Allegra meet. Allegra makes it sound like it is about her book but then she’s extremely (and intentionally, I think) obvious that she’s there to be the third partner and that Diane scouted her.

What is the point of Allegra asking if Liz has a view of Willis Tower and misidentifying the building? Presumably Allegra lives in Chicago, so you’d think she’d know its most recognizable building by sight (and would probably also call it the Sears Tower).

Liz likes Allegra.

Now there are a ton of cops in court and Del is loving the drama. Sure, it’s dramatic, but is this really want you want to air? Some convoluted thing where a bunch of police officers intimidate a lawyer who works at a firm that was unfairly linked to a cop killing because that lawyer refused to pay a parking ticket issued by a fake court? Who... who is this for?! What’s the angle? Who is amused by this?

Marissa sees Julius is the defendant and jumps into action. She asks Wackner why he’s prosecuting Julius and he says it’s his job. She argues that Julius is from their firm and this is bullshit. Wackner still won’t let him go.

If Julius is from the firm and Wackner employs the firm, is Julius NOT covered under the court employee banner? Why do I even care.

Wackner acts like he’s just not bending the rules, just like Marissa wanted. I’m not interested in this enough to decide whether I agree that this is consistent or think this is actually a different scenario. I just want to be done with this episode so I can forget about it.

I imagine—maybe hope is a better word—that this episode is bad because it’s hard to write five great episodes in a row without kind of phoning one in. I wish this episode didn’t kill the momentum coming out of 5x07 but I’m hoping that it is an isolated issue and not a drop in quality that will also spoil 5x09 and 5x10.

Wackner closes the door on Marissa, which I think is supposed to be meaningful, and Marissa calls Diane down to Wackner’s court to help Julius.

Diane and Liz both go to court. “I’m about to be sent to prison for parking in a purple zone,” Julius explains. “What does that mean?” Diane asks. “If I explained it to you, it wouldn’t make any more sense,” Julius says.

Oh so now we remember that Wackner’s prison exists. When I said I wanted more about it, I didn’t mean that I wanted it looming as a threat... I meant I wanted to explore what it meant that Wackner was promoting prisons...

Diane asks if they should call the police, “the real ones.” I like that it takes her a second longer than Liz and Julius to understand the cops are real. Liz also notes that the SA’s office won’t help either because they might be happy with anything that fucks with RL. This scene is decent. Some of the themes in here are decent. It just feels poorly timed and with the emphasis in the wrong place. I imagine the goal here is to show that Wackner is now more concerned with enforcement than with the process for trials, and that enforcement brings with it a lot of uncomfortable questions. I wish that we’d spend less time on the incredulous reactions and silliness and more time reckoning with those questions.

The next focus group likes the Wackner anger outburst, because, in Del’s mind, they want to see Wackner care about something. Does Del have the worst judgment ever? Wackner looks invested in every single thing he does—how could anyone accuse him of not seeming like he cares? His whole thing, the whole thing that got Del’s attention, is that he pays each case the kind of individualized attention it deserves. Now he only looks like he cares if he blows up? Even if the thing he’s caring about in the explosion in question is his own reputation? Is Del trying to make Wackner into a mid-2010s anti-hero? And if so... why?

Wackner’s outburst that accuses Del of corruption is apparently so good it got an unprecedented “95%” from the focus group. Sure. Why not.

Then Del tells him to keep doing cases “just like this” and they’ll keep the court going. Does that mean just like the ALREADY HIGH PROFILE AND ALREADY HAND PICKED FOR TELEVISION cancel culture case, or cases like the Julius case? If the first, well, duh, that’s why they picked that case in the first place. If the second, again, why?

“You and your colleagues think you get to decide when and how justice is determined. You think it is your right to make and break the rules as you see fit,” Wackner says to Julius. UM, WACKNER, THAT IS LITERALLY YOUR ENTIRE DEAL???????????????????????????

That’s the point, right????? Please tell me the point of this is that Wackner is supposed to look totally hypocritical and like an egomaniac who thinks his own judgment should not be questioned but everyone else’s should be????????????????????????? If this line isn’t meant to be supremely ironic I... I wouldn’t even know where to start.

“The law belongs to the people,” Wackner says, and the cops start chanting, “USA!”. What?!

And then we cut away from this and suddenly we’re welcoming Allegra to the firm and... did I miss an entire episode or something? What happened with Julius? Why are Liz and Diane smiling? How did Diane and Liz’s conversation about Allegra go? Did the other partners agree to this? Did David Lee? This is a very big development! I need more!

Madeline seems welcoming towards Allegra. She and another partner are still suspicious of Diane because they have seen right through this strategy. So... I guess we aren’t done with this arc yet.

Aw, Liz has a picture of herself with her son when he was a baby on her desk.

Diane and Liz drop Wackner as a client. It takes longer than it should for Marissa’s name to come up in this conversation.

If you were wondering about the Julius case we spent most of the episode building up, it’s resolved off screen by Wackner releasing Julius with time served. Why? Don’t know. Did it seem like it was headed that way during anything we previously saw? Nope.

Wackner won’t let Diane and Liz back out, saying he gets to choose his representation (does it REALLY work this way?) and also, probably more importantly, that they won’t be able to get all of Cord’s business if they piss him off by dropping Wackner.

Wackner also notes that they picked up his pilot. I’m sorry, what? Del didn’t just decide that the series he created for his streaming platform would be straight to series? That whole little “Wackner doesn’t test well” plot was resolved by showing an episode with the COTW they obviously should’ve shown from the start and then Wackner made a total of zero changes to his behavior or attitude and now the show is a huge success? What was the POINT? Why did I just watch that?!

“Fuck,” Liz says as the episode ends.

I’ve kinda always thought this, but it’s worth saying again: Madeline and company should resign from the firm. BOTH RL and STRL care more about profit than anything else. Liz and Diane want to work together. Liz and Diane both take the threat of losing Cord’s business seriously. If Madeline wants a firm that’s focused on social justice, it doesn’t matter if Diane is name partner or not. Liz is probably even faster than Diane to decide things based on money, and even if she weren’t, STRL owns them! Plus, I have a feeling that Diane, her clients, Liz, and Cord are probably individually worth more to STRL than Madeline and the other partners combined. If Allegra is down to pursue profit and deal with corporate overlords too, then Madeline and the others matter even less to STRL. Just cut your losses and start the firm you want to start. At this point it won’t even compete with RL.

Don’t get me started on this absolutely idiotic title sequence for Wackner Rules. I’m sure this is someone’s idea of a joke. If I take it seriously, then I have to write about how it is even worse than all of the things I just complained about for the entirety of this recap, and honestly, I’m exhausted.

#tgf thoughts #the good fight

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goldenvoicedminstrel · 5 years ago

Note

TGW prompt: I wanted to write something with Legolas and Beleg in Aman, but I didn't end up with the time - could you do it for me? :)

Sooo... first of all, thanks so much for this super interesting prompt! I never would have thought this up for myself so it was a lot of fun to come up with something. I hope you like it! Link to ao3 here.

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They say never meet your heroes, but what if your hero wants to meet you?

He lifts his bow.

There are no targets here in these unfamiliar woods of Aman, or at least none that he has not picked out for himself, but he would hate to lose his skill. Even if there is no use for his weapon in the Hallowed Lands, except for hunting and sport, 3000 years of battle readiness are not easily forgotten.

An understanding-he knows- that is shared widely in the Valinor he has come to know, where the elves of the First Age try their best to forget wars more gruesome than any warrior of Mirkwood could imagine.

‘How strange it is to walk in the company of Legends’, he ponders. ‘To wander alongside the great Kings of the First Age, of whose valour little elflings beg to be told before they are sent off to bed. I do not believe I shall ever be used to it.’

Yet they had not been his bedtime stories, not exactly, as his father was notorious for his dislike of the Noldor, including their Kings and their great warriors, who had battled against Morgoth himself.

No, it was not them the elfling in Legolas secretly wished to meet.

“Look Adar! Look at my bow! I’m Beleg Cúthalion and I will slay aaaaaall the orcs and rescue my friend!”

“I am sure you will, little one, but isn’t that bow a little tall for you?”

The little blond elfling pouts, while his blue eyes carefully measure the longbow that reaches a good few inches over his head and then, seemingly having come to a conclusion, he straightens his narrow shoulders.

“Then I will have to eat all the vegetables that naneth says will make me grow big and strong.” he pronounces gravely and his father struggles to keep an equally serious expression on his own face.

“That is a very smart idea, ion-nin. Your mother will surely be delighted and your friends grateful to have such a loyal and dedicated companion at their side.”

The elfling beams widely at his father’s approval and then takes off to get ready for supper with a new found determination.

Legolas smiles at the memory. His resolve to eat his vegetables had not lasted, much to his parent’s disappointment, and neither had his father’s approval of his great role model. Not once he had befriended Aragorn and not once he had decided to follow him on the long path to Mordor.

“It is the right thing to do Adar, you know this. I cannot stand back when the fate of this world hangs in the balance.”

“There are others, who can care for this world. Your place is here with your people.”

“My place is by his side and I will not leave him. Not now, when he is to set out on the path of his destiny.”

“His destiny,” Thranduil scoffs but his scorn his tinged with desperation “And what will your own destiny be? Is it not enough they call you Cúthalion for you skill? Will you have to follow a mortal man into a doomed quest so they can call you Cúthalion for your fate as well?”

He notches another arrow and aims for a bundle of pinecones that hangs half-hidden behind a distant branch.

Such a meeting would be most unlikely, he tells himself. After all, his, hopefully careful and discreet, enquiries had revealed that the elf in question does not often dwell in the great cities but prefers to roam the woods with his old companion and there is no reason at all, why he would come to seek out-

“You shoot well.” comes a voice from behind him and Legolas, who had been lost deep in thought and not focused on his surrounding- something that tells him he has become more used to life in Aman than he thinks- startles and let’s loose the string a fraction too high.

Before he can huff out a sound of annoyance at the interruption and his own carelessness however, the stranger has already fired his own arrow, which now flies with great speed towards Legolas’ wayward one and brushes it slightly, forcing it down. The pinecones fall.

Legolas stares.

Then he turns around.

And stares some more.

“You- who- what- ? No!”

There is a smirk tugging at the stranger’s lips.

“I do apologise for the rude interruption, I have not even introduced myself. I am Beleg, I hope I did not startle you too much.”

In this very moment it is only millennia of training in diplomacy and a courteous facade that keep Legolas from a very undignified display of disbelief. He answers reflexively.

“Legolas Thranduillion. It is - an honour to meet you, Beleg Cúthalion, your name truly serves you as well as the tales say.”

His companion- Beleg Cúthalion- laughs.

“Truly, you flatter me! But I shall never be used to being thought of as a character in a tale, it seems so strange don’t you agree?”

“I would not know for they are no tales sung about me.” Legolas answers a little breathlessly, still in awe of the apparition in front of him. Beleg raises his brows.

“Are they not? And yet I know you to be Prince Legolas of Mirkwood, one of the Nine, who set out to destroy the Ring of Power and end Sauron’s reign once and for all. Your archery is much praised, and from what I have seen before I so rudely interrupted, for good reason.”

Legolas tries his hardest not to gape at the revelation that Beleg Cúthalion did not only know his name but had also just praised his archery skills.

“I- thank you. It is a great honour, truly to hear you speak of me so. I never would have dreamt that-I mean I-“ he can feel the tips of his ears turning red as he tries to find the right words and is saved further embarrassment only, when the legendary elf puts a steadying hand on his shoulder.

“Peace, Legolas. You need not be afraid of me. After all, we have much in common you and I.”

“I would never dare to compare my skill to-“

“No.” Beleg interrupts him gently. “I do not speak of archery, even though I have heard there are those, who would gladly grant you my title. I speak of the company we have kept and lost, though fate seems to have viewed your friendship with kinder eyes.”

Legolas falls silent as years of memories well up behind his eyes, and his companion is quick to speak up again.

“Please forgive me if my words brought you pain, I know your grief must still be near.”

“No, no it is quite alright.” He shakes his head slowly. “I have made my peace with the price of our friendship long ago. I can call myself lucky it has lasted many years in the span of mortals…”

He trails of as he realises who he is speaking to, but Beleg seems to have taken no offence and only nods in quiet agreement.

“Indeed you are fortunate.” He pauses, and as he speaks his gaze is searching. “Not many of our people understand why I chose to follow a mortal man, but you do, do you not?”

“Yes.” Legolas answers, and there is a lump in his throat. “I understand.”

And he does, for he would have done the same. Had done the same. And it was only by luck that death had not been his reward.

“Their spirits burn so bright, perhaps because they have so little time. Always changing, evolving, flickering in a captivating dance that draws us like moths to the flame until eventually…” Beleg quietens as something flashes behind his eyes, and as he opens his mouth again his tone has changed to something that might be longing or might be resignation or might be something entirely else.

“We Eldar merely exist throughout our long days, while the Edain…they live. They cannot stand still, for life does not wait with them, so they move and decide and we move with them until our fate is decided. I envy them at times.”

“They make us feel alive.” Legolas echoes in agreement.

“Alive and of use for their goals are measured in years not centuries.”

“But why fish for reasons.” Legolas contemplates. “We do not decide who we lose our heart to, be it in the fashion of Beren and Lúthien or in great friendship like-”

He breaks off abruptly. In great friendship like Túrambar and Cúthalion that’s how the saying goes, but it feels ill-fitted in his present company.

Yet the other elf seems to know what he had wanted to say, for he smiles with a melancholy curve of his lips.

“Our tale was not ultimately a happy one but I am glad our friendship is remembered, at least.”

They fall into silence.

“They can be rather silly, though.” Beleg suddenly remarks, and Legolas startles at the sudden change of tone before he catches himself and snorts.

“Oh yes, I remember.”

“Always rather dramatic for a start.”

“Please, you don’t have to tell me. The amount of times I have had to search the darkest corners of an appointed meeting place for a shadowy figure, you would have thought I was playing hide-and-seek with him like a child!”

“And all the names! Collecting epessës like berries!”

“And Eru forbid you use the wrong name once!”

“And really they don’t wash often enough! Streams are there to be used, I would tell him! Only because we share the forest with the animals does not mean we have to smell like them!”

“Exactly! But no, it is too cold, he has only washed two days ago and there is no time to waste on such frivolities, his clothes are dirty anyway and he does not have a second tunic and have I mentioned it is too cold?” chimes in Legolas, remembering all the silly arguments that had turned into a friendly bickering, that had warmed them more than their fire during the long days in the forest.

“Truly a delicate species.” Beleg adds in a mock grave voice and it only takes a brief look between the two elves before they burst into laughter.

“He was a good man.” Legolas says, once he has caught his breath again, and makes to wipe away a few stray tears in which mirth and grief have mingled, from his cheeks.

“Yes, he was.”agrees Beleg with bright eyes and Legolas does not ask who he is talking about.

“We shall see them again. Someday. I believe that.” And only as he speaks this, he realises it is true. In Middle Earth death had been final, a sundering even for the elves for which the Blessed Realm had been a distant tale and their fate a mystery in the hands of unseen powers.

But here in Aman, where the Valar themselves walk among them, the edge of this world seems so much closer and sometimes Legolas feels as if he can almost see behind it.

They sit like this for a while, on the tree stump they had collapsed on in laughter earlier, before Beleg finally shakes himself out of his thoughts and jumps to his feet.

“Now, earlier I thought I might show you a little trick I invented, if you’d like. A slight modification in the way you hold your drawing arm that will give your arrow a greater momentum, while also not compromising the pace of your draw. I found this quite useful especially when-“

Legolas follows Beleg’s movements and explanations with rapt attention and only as he holds his arrow drawn on the string, his arm in a slightly adjusted position, his mind turns back to his earlier words.

‘I cannot wait to tell you of this, Estel’, he thinks and smiles, ‘after all, what could be called impossible when the Legends themselves walk among us.’

The arrow flies.

#tolkiengenweek #legolas #beleg #beleg has some mad skills i don't make the rules #legolas is meeting his childhood hero so forgive him for being an idiot #he comes out of it #first age tales are the brothers grimm fairytales of middle earth #dark disturbing and definitely unsuited for children #long post #golden writes

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