One historical fiction cliche that needs to die is aristocratic/wealthy women being surprised that their parents have arranged their marriages like?? How do you think money and property works in this period?? How do you think marriage works in this period?? How naive can you get?? Viola de Lessops in Shakespeare In Love being like “bUt I dO nOt LoVe YoU mY LoRd” like srsly girl wake up.
Elizabeth of York- oh I’m sorry, “Lizzie” in The White Princess being like “but i always dreamed of marrying for love!!1!” like honey… you were raised the eldest daughter of a king, in an age of political instability, where marriages could mean life or death. Even if after you were made illegitimate your ‘beloved uncle’ planned to marry you off to Portuguese royalty. You really thought you could just pick some guy and everyone would be chill? That thought actually crossed your mind? You weren’t raised on the idea you’d marry a prince or a king and leave England?
Where are the characters who dreamed of a doomed courtly romance where they’d never even touch their devoted True Love and are horribly embarrassed to find that they actually like their arranged spouse?
Now that would be something interesting to explore!
Whenever I read LotR and reach the battle between Eowyn and the Witch-king, I get the impression that the reason why the prophecy loophole works isn’t that the Witch-king is unkillable except for some illogical weakness nobody had thought about yet for misogynistic reasons, but that the Witch-king himself derives so much of his power from the fear he instills in others and from his own belief that he is unkillable. Eowyn doesn’t fear him, because she doesn’t fear death. When she twists his words right back at him, she’s not trying to exploit a prophecy loophole, she’s just making a play on the double meaning of the word «man» with fairly standard battlefield bravado.
But, crucially, it gets the Witch-king wondering if there might be an actual loophole in the prophecy. He starts doubting his own invincibility. There’s no logical reason why a woman might be able to kill him if a man cannot, but prophecies are tricky things. What if …
And this is what undoes him, in the end. This last minute doubt. The Witch-king, deep down, believes that Eowyn can kill him, thus making it possible for her to do so.
The elves care about the prophecy. The Witch-king cares about the prophecy. All the old, powerful beings of Middle Earth play by the rules of prophecy and live by the logic of Norse Sagas and Germanic legends.
Eowyn marches up to the Witch-king like Jared (19), goes “that sign won’t stop me because I can’t read”, and because the storybook logic, the fairytale logic, of the prophecy allows for her kill him, the Witch-king as a creature of stories and nightmares has to play by his own rules and die by her sword.
As people have pointed out before, the phrasing of Glorfindel’s words about the Witch-king allow for quite a number of the inhabitants of Middle Earth to kill him, if we’re only looking for possible loopholes in the prophecy.
not by the hand of man shall he fall
According to this, the Witch-king could technically be killed by elves, dwarves, ents, hobbits, orcs or maiar. Why doesn’t Legolas kill the Witch-king? Why doesn’t Gandalf?
As mentioned, elves are very aware of the story logic that governs Middle Earth. They see their own place in the narrative, they know which foes are beyond them. Gandalf, too, knows that he cannot be the one to kill the Witch-king, and the Witch-king knows that Gandalf cannot kill him. Through their combined beliefs, the outcome of their fight is predetermined.
Eowyn doesn’t know what she can or cannot do according to story logic. The Witch-king has killed her Theoden. She sees no reason why she shouldn’t avenge him. And when she hears the Witch-king tell her that no man can kill him, she simply decides that that rule doesn’t apply to her.
Eowyn isn’t the only person who could have been the exception to the rule, but she is the first person who decides to genuinely, honestly believe that she is the exception to the rule, and this is why she ultimately kills the Witch-king.
[id: Edited tweet that reads, Eowyn: rip to the witch king but i’m different. end id]
if you have a problem with any of the fictional pairings that i enjoy on the internet, for the low cost of $9,000 you can pay me to care about what you think
This is a recurring monthly fee also. Not a one time thing.
Seeking allies against the Fatui, the Knights of Favonius host a
diplomatic delegation from Sumeru. When Jean finds that the scholars
think she and Lisa are together, and think better of her for it,
perpetuating that mistaken belief seems like an ideal way to win the
alliance the Knights need. But the masquerade stirs feelings she’s long
held for the Ordo’s librarian, and her heart soon threatens to cross the
lines she’s drawn for it. The situation is only troubled further by a
former research partner of Lisa’s, a member of the delegation, who’s
willing to go to extremes to get his hands on research that Lisa has
long since determined is too risky to pursue.
First chapter of the Jean/Lisa fake dating fic is up! It just needs a few final edits at this point, so my goal is to edit and post a chapter a day.
During the heatwave, for lack of anything better to do I talked a lot about some of my D&D characters, and got an unexpected level of interest in them! This was flattering, and a few of you expressed interest in hearing a little about my character development process, so I’m making some posts.
A theme I noticed from posts talking about my characters was an appreciation for “contradictory” characters. That’s totally understandable–those posts were jokingly self-deprecating, full of phrases like “dragonborn barbarian who’s an anxious, bookish, easily-flustered academic with a delicate voice and posh accent who’s been trying to finish her thesis for six years and reacts to being startled by hiding behind the nearest pillar” and “a druid who hates nature”, so obviously I was leaning on those apparent contradictions intentionally! It’s funny on the surface, and I was looking to laugh.
But it’s also important that, when it comes to developing those characters past an initial concept? I don’t view any of them as “contradictory,” and I think that continuing to view a character that way (rather than just joking about the character) is going to damage your ability to really develop them.
Take a classic high-level premade dungeon. The party starts in the center. They are the contractors hired to construct the dungeon and now that it’s finished and all the traps are set the Big Bad betrayed them and teleported out without them. They have to escape their own creation backwards.
Early sessions consist of a lore run of Tomb of Horrors, with the express intent that the party is not there to “beat” the tomb but rather to acquire a nest egg and will leave whenever they’ve got enough money. The remainder of the campaign is a low-combat diplomacy-heavy adventure set ten years later in the floating dirigible city they founded and named after themselves with their obscene wealth, and centers entirely around civil infrastructure management. Your city’s wellbeing is directly connected to the size of the initial investment, ie how much money you got before you chickened out, but is ALSO directly connected to the party’s demonstrable teamwork skills, ability to compromise, and risk-taking tendencies combined with the psychological trauma of the ruling council as the result of any deaths during the initial run.
Everyone is multiclassed into a minimum of three classes. The campaign is a mid-level premade module played utterly straight with zero tailoring for the party’s specific needs.
Everyone Is Bards
The party are high-level adventurers who retain all class features and magical abilities, but they all got True Polymorphed in a brutal curb-stomp battle at the end of their ambiguous last campaign with a curse element that requires travelling to another continent to break the crystal binding the enchantment. The remaining 78 sessions will be a gritty Homeward Bound reboot.
You want to REALLY get a low-magic campaign without metagaming? Pure wild magic. You decide your spell slot and then roll on a table for the full range of spells available to cast at that level or below for your class. Spell components are eliminated as a mechanic. (Allowable: Allowing for restrictions by casting time. Also allowable: Casting time is removed as a mechanic. Bonus actions stay bonus actions, everything else is an action.) If a spell has effects that you can specify, you still get to specify them, other than that what you get is what you fucking get.
Combine all of the above. Get banned from D&D forever but go out a god damn legend.
Blog spring cleaning note: I’ve cleaned up the links on my sidebar, added a link to my custom tags and also to all my rec lists. Removed pinboard link because that’s apparently not public anymore.
[ID: a digital comic featuring a young blonde boy. He thinks, ‘I remember we walked for hours. We walked. And walked.’ We see him and his mother, dressed in plain and dirty clothes, walking away from a town, through a field, into a forest, the sun setting as they go. We see him sitting on a tree stump, kicking his legs and smiling as his mother bites her nails nervously. The boy thinks, ‘Til mother stopped us at a small clearing.’ Smiling shakily, she offers a bread roll to the boy and says, “I will be right back.” We see the boy eating the roll as the mother walks away, tears in her eyes. The boy recalls, “Wait here. And do not leave.” We see the boy waiting on the stump, curling up as it turns to night, eventually lying down as he thinks, 'And I did. For three days, and three nights, and finally, my mother found me.’ A voice says, “You there.”
A ginger woman carrying a basket of apples asks, “What are you doing alone all the way out here?” Bringing his hands together, the boy replies, “I’m… I’m waiting for my mother.” Face skeptical, the woman asks, “Waiting? …How long have you been waiting for her?” The boy holds up three fingers and replies, “Um… this many days.” The woman looks at him in worried silence, before kneeling down and offering a hand to him as she says, “Well, would you like to come home with me for something to eat? You are hungry, yes?” Sweating, the boy replies, “I’m not s'posed to. She told me to wait right here.”
Picking up her basket, the woman stands and says, “Well, surely she can wait a few minutes. Come along, then.” We see the boy looking conflicted, before he looks up and thinks, 'And I did.’ We see the woman leading the boy by the hand to a house as she says, “You may rest here a while.” The boy thinks, 'And I did.’ We see the boy sitting at a table in front of bread and soup, watching the woman peel an apple as she says, “You may warm yourself by the fire after you eat.” The boy thinks, 'And I did.’ We see the boy sitting before the fireplace and petting a black cat as the woman says, “It’s grown dark, you may spend the night here and wait for your mother come morning light.” The boy thinks, 'And I did.’ Sitting in an armchair and tucked under blankets and the cat, the boy asks, “My mother wouldn’t lie, would she? She’s too nice to lie.”
The woman sweats, looking away as she mutters, “Oh boy…” She replies, “Perhaps… but nice does not always mean good.” Looking down at his blankets, the boy thinks, 'And days turned to weeks to months. And my mother never came. And soon my memory of her faded away. And I stayed.’ We see the woods later as the boy, hair longer, asks, “Mother?” The woman replies, “Yes, child?” The boy asks, “Why are the villagers scared of you? They never want to talk to us…” Stopping her work picking berries from a bush, the woman replies, “Because I am a witch, and that frightens them.” The boy asks, “But why?”
The witch sweats as she rubs the back of her neck, replying, “Because witches can curse.” The boy asks, “What’s curse?” The witch replies, “A curse is… ancient, powerful magic. Something you must feel with your whole heart.” Bringing her hands together, she continues, “It is anger, hate, sadness… Bad feelings. You want with your whole entire heart for bad things to happen to someone, and make it so.” Laughing, the boy says, “Oh! Well they shouldn’t be scared of you then, mother!” The witch asks, “Oh? How so?” Smiling, the boy replies, “Well, curses sound mean, and you’re much too nice to ever do that.” Serious, the witch says, “Maybe so… but nice does not mean good, child.”
The boy thinks, 'And as the years went by, my mother taught me all she knew.’ We see them both over the years, the boy’s hair getting longer as he grows. We see him watching in awe as the witch puts something into a cauldron smoking purple; we see the boy smiling as he makes the cat float, the cat and the witch looking equally terrified; we see the boy reading a book of enchantments as he reaches a hand behind him, not even looking as he makes a jug float and pour water into the amused witch’s cup. Now a young adult, he walks forward and smiles as he asks, “What will today’s lesson be, then?” Sitting in an armchair and grey streaking her hair, the witch replies, “No more lessons. I do believe I’ve taught you all I know.” Shocked, the boy shouts, “Wait, but- but you haven’t!” The witch asks, “No?” The boy replies, “No! You’ve never taught me how to cast a curse.” The witch says, “Curses are not taught, they simply are. All who know magic can curse. it is what makes it so powerful. And so very dangerous. You must guard yourself. Do not let your emotions get the better of you.” The boy asks, “Have… have you ever cursed anyone, mother?”
Raising an eyebrow, she asks, “Do you think I have?” The boy falls silent for a moment, before looking away, face shadowed, and saying, “No. It seems an evil thing to do. And you are far too kind.” Resting a hand on her face, the witch fondly says, “Well… Perhaps some lessons do bear repeating.” The boy thinks, 'And fall turned to winter, and melted into spring. And one morning, quite out of the blue, she said to me:’ We see them both sitting in armchairs, the boy reading a newspaper as the witch says, “I think it’s time you went off on your own, my son.” Standing up in shock, face flushed, the boy asks, “Have I… done something wrong?” The witch replies, “Oh, calm down… Of course not, but you are a young man grown now, and it is time you made your own way. The city, perhaps? Plenty of opportunities for one with your talents there.” Scratching the back of his neck, the boy begrudgingly replies, “Yes, I… suppose you might be right.”
The witch says, “Of course I’m right. Now, come try this on. See if it fits. She puts the coat she has been sewing onto the boy as he thinks, 'I left my mother one summer day.’ He smiles as he looks down at it, and the boy thinks, 'With a coat made with her own hand, protection spells lovingly sewed into every stitch.’ We see the boy looking in shock at a mirror, hair dyed a bright shade of blue, the witch laughing behind him. We see him, blue hair now darker, hugging his mother as he thinks, 'A teary hug goodbye.’ We see the witch smiling and leaning against the gate as the boy walks off, and he thinks, 'And a promise to visit come spring.’
We see the bustling streets of the city as he thinks, 'My mother had been right. I found many opportunities in the city. And soon I grew to call it home. Until… Until I met her one day, purely by chance on a busy street.’ We see two kids, one holding an ice cream and racing along the sidewalk, laughing as he runs towards the boy. The child smacks into the boy, ice cream staining his coat, inching away as we hear a voice call, “Children!” We see the boy’s eyes wide with emotion as he thinks, 'I knew her in an instant.’
We see the boy’s biological mother, now dressed in a fancy hat and dress, rushing towards them. He thinks, 'She did not recognize me.’ She calls, “Children! What did I say about ru… Oh, your poor coat!” Looking down at the children sternly, she says, “Apologize to the young gentleman at once!” Looking away, the children apologize. Smiling strainedly, she says to the boy, “And what a lovely coat it is!” Sweating, the boy replies, “…My mother made it for me.” The woman remarks, “My! What a good mother you must have!” The boy thinks, 'She was very polite.’ We see the woman holding out a card as she says, “I insist you send me the cleaning bill, sir! It is the least I can do.” The boy thinks, 'She was very kind.’ Once the boy has taken the card, she says, “Good day to you, sir!” The boy thinks, 'She was very… nice.’ The woman says, “Come along, children.” They reply, “Yes, mother.” The boy crushes the card in his hands as he looks up, tears in his eyes, malevolent magic brewing around him as he thinks, 'But nice does not mean good.’ End ID]
