mixed feelings about Tolkien making people of the east and south come to Aragorn for pardon like he’s actual jesus christ on judgement day, but I really appreciate that Tolkien’s idea of a good king is 1) realising that the true enemy is defeated, and not making the war last longer that it needs to last 2) sending free the people who used to be on the other side of the war, but now come to you in peace 3) freeing slaves 4) giving people their land (the woses’s land is their own and no-one is allowed to enter without their permission, same for the shire, rohan does not become a part of the Reunited Kingdom, slaves of mordor get land of their own)
Reading Tolkien is a continual psychic whiplash because it shows what happens when you mix 1) a sincerely held belief in the importance of kindness, compassion, unity and caring for our fellow men, versus 2) the deeply entrenched racism of a white Englishman born in a Boer Republic
The vibes are a rollercoaster from start to finish
“In the past as in the present, there have always been people who strove even then for a more just accord with their fellow man, and there have always been those who allowed their greeds and hatreds to rule them to the greatest allowable excess. The purpose of classics education is to teach you to distinguish between the two, in the past and also in the present.”
I often refer to my bottle-raised lamb as my adopted daughter, because it’s mostly true, it temporarily keeps nosy strangers from knowing I’m an eeeevil childfree woman, and it’s hilarious when people find out. And by that time they’re usually too disturbed by the “her-daughter-is-a-sheep” thing to get on my case about the “woman-with-no-husband-or-kids-oh-the-horror” thing.
Most of my friends are aware that I do this, and will back me up in conversations without batting an eye when I reference my daughter. And the best part is that they literally never drop the story. They just 100% all the time accept that I have a two-year-old adopted daughter. The fact that she happens to be a sheep is an unimportant detail, not worth mentioning until an anecdote gets too weird to plausibly be about a human toddler.
Which actually takes much longer than you’d think, since human toddlers apparently have absolutely zero sense. “She bites if you stop paying attention to her” is believable, “she tries to eat rocks out of the landscaping” is believable, “she stuck her head through a fence and couldn’t get out” is believable. “She jumped a five foot fence and came screaming back into the house through the dog door when I left her outside in the pasture” does get some strange looks, though usually not for the right reason.
Occasionally the joke gets turned around on me, though. I posted a picture on my not-tumblr blog of her wearing my glasses, and every comment was “Oh my gosh she looks just like you!!!” “I would never have known she was adopted If you hadn’t told me!!” “Are you sure that’s not an old picture of you?!”
So apparently this is what I look like:
At least she does look cute in glasses.
[ID: a close-up photo of a brown sheep, stylishly sporting a pair of glasses. End ID]
lying on the couch stressed as hell, and out of the corner of my eye I can see Belphie dragging boxes out of the recycling container and spreading them across the kitchen. and when he sees me looking he goes “MEEP” because he loves me so much
It’s good and cool to give your characters a single simple, straightforward, non-urgent, super-achievable goal that shouldn’t really cost anything or hurt anyone, make that the driving factor for most of their decisions, and then have the Plot do everything in its power to stop them.
Goals include but are not limited to:
Wanting to go home
Wanting people out of your house who shouldn’t be there
Trying to find a reliable babysitter
Trying to deliver a letter or package
Trying to do a favor for someone
Wanting to see a specific thing, place, or kind of animal
Wanting to collect the money somebody owes you (the lower the debt the better)
Trying to win a bet
Wanting to punch a specific person in the face
“wanting people out of your house who shouldn’t be there” is my favorite because that was literally Shrek’s main goal
Also both Bilbo Baggins and Thorin Oakenshield for that matter.
