Eldritch Friends 3: Chaos
Introducing Sleeth, and her commitment to TRUE unexpected chaos, and Velayn-uul, who loves his rock sculptures.. and is a bit bewildered by Sleeth’s style.
There’s always beings who “revel in chaos” in the eldritch horror genre, but do they really? I think writers avoid the fact that if a being were TRULY committed to disorder, they’d occasionally be very nice for no reason.
Saw this trend going around and knew Discworld would be a fun one for it. Really wish I could make more and longer poll options.
Other options I considered (all real);
This question was brought up among me and two other people. It completely started as a joke but quickly turned into a longwinded, heated debate about it. Alas, we still never got a consensus. So, of course, the only logical explanation is to ask the good people of Tumblr.
In a very broad, cross-cultural sense, tea is, generally, defined in some way or another as a drink typically made by soaking leaves, herbs, sometimes fruit, or other plants in (usually) boiling water.
On the other hand— soup is, generally, in a very broad cross-cultural sense, defined in some way or another as a liquid dish typically made by soaking herbs, other plants, vegetables, and sometimes meat or fish, in (usually) boiling water.
Person A's Arguement: Tea can never be soup because of the contextual meanings of the words are too different. The cultural and social association of the definitions of words we more important than the literal ones, and if everyone collectively decided tea was now soup, or vice verse, then the significance of language would be null and void. Language would eventually lose the broader impact of its meaning.
Person B's Arguement: Tea can be soup because of how close the similarity is between the two literal meanings of the words. Language is always subjective and forever evolving, and if enough people collectively decided that tea was now soup, or vice versa, then we could realistically make the words synonymous with eachother without necessarily making the significance of the language we use lessen. The broader impact of language is decided by interpersonal cultural and social change.
Unfortunately I need a yes or no. Either it can be soup or cannot. I'm being serious about this, too. It sounds like a silly argument and it definitely started out that way, but I want actual answers now.
Please, explain the reason why you voted for what you did in the comments, and I implore you to reblog for a bigger sample size and that precious, precious exposure.
Mr Neil Gaiman why do we have to wait for season 2 💔 im too inpatient for that why cant we have it now?? /j
Because we're not there yet.
On the off-chance that people don’t know this...
This style of bridge dates from the days when barges were towed by horses. When the towpath switched to the opposite side of the canal, the horse would, obviously, clippy-clop over a bridge and happily plod off again. Now, the automatic way to do this would be like this:
However, note that rope (black line) between the horse (brown blob) and the barge (red blob). If you cross the bridge the automatic way, it all goes a bit....
However, if you cross the bridge like THIS
it all works out fine!
Now, sure, you could trust people to remember how to cross a bridge. But there are a lot of numpties out there, and people were working extremely long days and were extremely tired. Also, the canals were BUSY. One boat getting snarled up was the equivalent of the Ever Given.
So, instead, the canal companies built Numpty-Proof Bridges.
They also had the benefit that the horse could be left to plod along on its own, rather than needing human guidance. (I have no idea how this worked. My horse would have her nose buried in the grass and wouldn’t go anywhere, if I left her to it.)
im re-reading the hobbit and its so funny
Gandalf: “thorin your dad wanted me to give this to you when i found him in a necromancers dungeon”
Thorin: “why were you in a necromancers dungeon”
Gandalf : “dont worry about that”
I don't usually post art here but this Barbie Movie poster was making the rounds and my first thought was how into it Vala would be and the thought would not leave my head until I made this
Went fishing today as a Stargate reference and I’d just like to say that Jack was on to something. I haven’t been that relaxed in years. Not a SINGLE thought crossed my mind. It was just me and my brother wordlessly standing next to a river. Didn’t even catch a single fish. I’d literally rather be fishing rn what the fuck
“Went fishing today as a Stargate reference.” I’m just gonna go ahead and admit to the fact that I relate to the experience of planning whole-ass outings “as a Stargate reference” on a spiritual level.
I am not kidding when I say I applied to the Air Force as a Stargate reference, passed the aptitude test, passed my medical, passed my interview, picked a trade and then nearly got sworn in before I realized that my life isn’t actually an elaborate LARP and I would actually have to have the responsibility of fixing aircraft electronics.
Narcissus taking a selfie is the ACTUAL best.
These are REALLY cool
Humanity has finally reached the stars and found out why no one had contacted us. The universe is in a sad state. As such, Doctors without Borders, Red Cross, and many othe charities go intergalactic.
The thing the recruiters don’t tell you about space battles is that you die slowly.
Ships don’t blow up cleanly in flashes and sparks. Oh, if you’re in the engine room, you’ll probably die instantly, but away from that? In the computer core, or the communications hub? You just lose power. And have to sit, air going stale and room slowly cooling, while you wait to find out if the battle is won or lost.
If it’s lost, nobody comes for you.
It had been about half a day (that’s a Raithar day, probably a bit shorter than yours) and Kvala and I were pretty sure we had lost. Kvala was injured, Traav and I were dehydrated and exhausted, and Louv was dead, hit by shrapnel when the conduits blew.
Most fleets give you something, of course. For Raithari, it’s essence of windgrass. I looked at the vial.
“It’s too soon,” Traav said.
Kvala gestured negation, shakily. She had been burned when conduits blew, and her feathers were charred, and her leftmost eye was bubbly and blind now. Even if we were rescued, she probably wouldn’t survive. “You know we’re losing the war.”
They couldn’t deny that. “It doesn’t mean we lost the battle.”
“Doesn’t it? The Chreee have better technology. Better resources. And they have their warrior code. They don’t care if they die.”
“We can’t give up!” Traav protested. They were young, a young and reckless thar who had listened to a recruiting officer and still believed scraps of what they had been told. “Any heartbeat now—”
There was a clunk. Something had docked with our fragment of the ship.
“You see?!” Traav crowed triumphantly.
Kvala exchanged glances with me. The Chreee never bothered to hunt down survivors. What was the point, after all?
The Aushkune did.
There weren’t supposed to be Aushkune here. They were supposed to hide in nebulas.
But if there were—
If there were, we were too late. The windgrass couldn’t possibly destroy our nervous systems in time to stop the corpse-reviving implants, and once you were implanted, it was over—or it would never be over, depending on how you looked at it and whether Aushkune drones were aware of anything—
Footsteps.
Bipedal. The Aushkune were supposed to be bipedal.
And then the blast door opened, and a figure stood in it. My first thought was, robot? That’s almost worse than Aushkune . . . But no, it was a being in some sort of suit.
Who wore suits?
“Friendly contact,” the suit’s sound system blared, as the being moved over to Kvala. “Urgent treatment. Evacuation.”
“Who are you?” Kvala struggled upright.
Despite the primitive suit, the blocky being was using up-to-date medical scanners. “Low frequency right angle shape,” it explained—or maybe didn’t explain. Two more figures came into the room and put Kvala firmly onto a stretcher.
“You’re with the Chreee, aren’t you?” Kvala was not at all happy to be on a stretcher.
“Not Chreee,” the sound system said. “You Man. Soil Starship Nichols.” The being hesitated. “Rescue Chreee as well. On ship. Will separate.”
“You what?” I said faintly. Who would do that?
“Oath,” the being explained.
“What kind of oath? To what deity?”
The shoulders of the being moved up and down. “Several different. Also none. For me, none. Just—oath.”
I exchanged glances with Traav, who looked as unsettled as I was. I had never, ever heard of groups cooperating when they couldn’t even swear to or by the same power.
The being scanned me. “Have water,” it said. “Recommend.”
Raithari have fast metabolisms. I could—would—die of thirst quickly, and painfully.
“Where will you take us,” Traav asked, “after you give us water?”
“Raithari to Raithar. Chreee to Chreeeholm.”
“Chreeeholm would kill them for failing,” Traav remarked.
The being hesitated, and then said, “War news sometimes bad. Sometimes lie.”
We had learned long ago not to believe the recruiting officers, but what did that have to do with anything?
“And you—what?” I asked. “Just fly around looking for battles and rescuing victims?”
The being seemed to consider this. “Best invention of soil,” it said finally.
Most of what it was saying didn’t make any sense. Did it worship soil? But it had said that it had sworn to no deity . . .
Madness.
On the other hand—war was a deliberate, rational act by deliberate, rational people, and I wanted no more of it. So why not embrace madness and see what happened?
“Soil Starship—Rrikkol?” I asked, stumbling over the word.
“Yes. Soil Starship Nichols.”
I followed the being in the suit.
Took me well over a minute to realize "low frequency right angle shape" was Red Cross.
This whole thing is brilliant with translation stuff.
Ok friends, this has bugged me for awhile now so help me solve it.
In LOTR we're giving two contradicting depictions of Elves and their horses: the Glorfindel approach and the Legolas approach.
In the Glorfindel approach, we're told through various references that he rides Asfaloth with a saddle, stirrups, and reins.
While in the Legolas approach, we're told instead that the "Elvish way with all good beasts" is to ride them with none of these items and direct them solely with the spoken word.
So how do we square these, friends?
Extra points if you give me your unhinged headcanons about this in the replies/tags. I want to hear all about those.
SO.
Here is the thing that sometimes people do not realize: riding without a saddle is actively harder on the horse.
Think of it as the difference between using a really well designed long distance camping, hiking or infantry backpack, vs just having someone dump all that shit in a bag hanging off your shoulders.
Now the Noldor fucking love horses. The Noldor are big on horses. The Fëanárioni shipped across as many horses as they could in the open-decked swan-ships, Maedhros apologized to his uncle (and thus by proxy to the rest of the Indisioni Exiles) by gifting them horses, and the strong implication is that Fingon essentially gleefully lived the entire Siege of Angband as a ferocious horse nomad.
Likewise, they fought on horse-back and while it is not impossible to fight on horseback without stirrups, it's much harder and much more likely to hurt both you and the horse.
The Noldor and the Rohirrim have the same attitude, about horses.
They have also had horses for thousands of years, learned horse-care from the creators of horses, and so on. Glorfindel's first round through life was as part of those born-in-Aman Noldorin Exiles.
So of fucking course the Noldor have saddles. Similarly, of course they have reins: reins are how you communicate with a horse whose head is way the fuck over there. (As is pressure from your knees, and so on.) Now, none of these are of the coercive kind, and none are the kind that would use discomfort as a communication way, but none of those are necessary anyway.
On the other hand, the Nandor of Mirkwood-once-Greenwood . . .don't seem to have any significant equestrian history.
And why would they? They are intensely forest-dwelling people. Horses are not naturally forest creatures, and in particularly dense forests do not provide a significant transportation advantage - especially not when being ridden. A horse in Mirkwood in a battle is mostly a liability - you can see echoes of the same thing with the Rohirrim in both their relationship to Fangorn, and in their intense apprehension at getting the guidance of the Druédain through the woods to get around that one orc-host during the journey to Minas Tirith.
Sure, sure, stories of deep woods monsters and so on, but also part of the reason that the forest is part of the Rohirric Cultural Imaginary as a Terror Place is that their one major military strength doesn't work there. They're a cavalry-based fighting people, and deep tangled forest is no place for cavalry.
Horses, to get through woods, need roads. And the Nandor of Mirkwood don't seem to be big on roads. They only even seem to have roads when interaction with other cultures demands it; they prefer using rivers and using their own feet in the forest. When trade with the outside world decays because it gets dangerous, the One Road through their kingdom also decays and is abandoned. And even if you do keep around a few very sure-footed little ponies for baggage, because they're pretty good at that part and can keep their feet through the trees, well . . . you don't RIDE those. And frankly they're more likely to keep donkeys.
Legolas' people do not appear to have significant traditions of riding horses and particularly not for battle.
But you know what specifically the royal, Sindar-origin line of the Greenwood has a history of?
Pride, and being massive show-offs, sometimes in ways that get them into deep trouble.
This is how Legolas' grandfather died, and how his father became king: during the Last Alliance, Oropher got it so up his craw and his neck so out of joint about actually following the directions of Those Obnoxious Eldar and Númenórean Snobs* that he and his compatriot Nandor king charged very prematurely and got themselves and their people slaughtered, basically To Prove That They Couldn't Be Bossed Around/Did So Know What They Were Doing.
[*please note: these Eldar and Númenórean snobs had been fighting wars - significantly against Sauron, and in the case of the leadership quite personally, and in the case of one member of the leadership against fucking Morgoth - for several thousand years and were intensely good at it. Oropher did not, as far as is recorded anywhere, even participate, let alone lead, in any significant military campaign.]
Like don't get me wrong, I'm deeply fond of them, but also this is a thing they do.
Similarly, we know that Legolas personally is both a showoff and gets his nose a wee bit out of joint when he feels miffed or insulted. Gandalf has to tell him and Gimli to stop sniping at each other, and at more than two thousand years old, Legolas has a lot less excuse for getting involved in petty fights than most anyone else in the party.
When they're snowed in on Caradhras, Legolas expends no small amount of energy in exerting himself to run across the snow for relatively little gain - but damn does it make him look impressive when he gets there! He is VERY touchy about the idea that he should be treated like everyone else in the party (ie as an outsider) when they're trying to get through to Lórien, and later feels the need to make sidelong comments about feeling young, as he hasn't "since travelling with you children" when they're on the edge of Fangorn, and so on.
And right up to that point, Legolas has had a couple of unpleasant experiences - the hobbits were kidnapped and Boromir was killed and the three of them haven't been able to do anything in particular about it; Aragorn has been much more materially USEFUL in the chase than he has, even if he himself might have been able to run without stopping more; and just now this bunch of humans insulted an ally, implied insult to his entire species, and threatened to kill his friend, and then Aragorn resolved the whole issue by being DIPLOMATIC about it instead of anything else - and is surrounded by a bunch of mortal Atani.
I put it to you: might it not be a major temptation to show off?
Because to be clear, while yes Glorfindel has saddle and bridle, he is able to verbally instruct Asfaloth to ignore Frodo pulling on that bridle and run, from a couple meters away. I don't think the idea that the Quendi can get horses (and other positively inclined animals) to do what they want regardless of external measures of control is at all inaccurate. Glorfindel has a saddle because a saddle makes Asfaloth more comfortable carrying his weight (and is terribly convenient for storage and baggage), and has a bridle because laying reins across the neck is very useful way to communicate without making noise, which has all sorts of advantages.
But Legolas - given that his family trades extensively with the Atani on their eastern border - certainly knows that Atani find the way that Quendi can just naturally ~*communicate*~ with animals and get them to do what they want very impressive; and also likely knows, from the same source, that riding bareback is considered an indicator of great skill.
Also, critically: as he does not ride horses OFTEN, he may have no idea how to put a saddle on, take it off, ditto a bridle, how to care for them, how to care for the horse after having them on, and so on, and in order to learn this in their current situation he would have to ask Aragorn and there isn't really any way he could hide that incompetence from Gimli, who is certainly now his friend but is also someone he still wants to impress.
Finally, practically speaking, depending on the exact design it might well be very difficult to keep Gimli on with him if the saddle remained.
So what better way to do that, and to overawe these belligerent Atani (who insulted his friend AND his people AND the Lady of Lórien AND mutter mutter muttermutter humans being stupid muttermutter), than to pull off this great trick?
Bonus: since he's always going to have to stop to let Gimli off before they fight, he doesn't need to worry that much about staying on DURING combat, because he won't be fighting that way.
Additionally, if you take the framing premise of the book (that it is written out of the recollections of the hobbits, primarily Frodo and Sam but with some additions from Merry and Pippin who are the other major points of view we have) seriously, this is a bit that would have been added in afterwards, and you can actually see that reflected in the language used (it is a LOT more High Register, throughout the sequence with "the three hunters", than it is anywhere that it's from Merry or Pippin or Sam or Frodo's primary point of view), very possibly Gimli's or Legolas' own, or some combination, suggesting a possible origin for the claim about "way with all good beasts" as Legolas would want to maintain his image, and Gimli's sense of what Quendi can and can't and do and don't do would be primarily shaped by, well, Legolas.
TLDR: The Noldor and Eldar in general of course use (very well made and perfectly fitted/suited to the horse and rider etc) saddles and reins to ride, because they're actually horse-cultures. They don't necessarily "need" them, and can in fact communicate with and convince horses to do things via other means, but saddles are for the horse's comfort as much as the rider's, and reins are just a SMART way to communicate in a rider context.
Legolas is not from a horse-culture and is not particularly accustomed to riding horses but figures it can't be that hard if humans can do it (and does have enough unfair elven advantage to pull that off) and is a massive showoff, and therefore made a big deal about not needing a saddle etc etc.
Aragorn let him do this because it wasn't that important (the horse was strong enough to carry both of them, this was not the time) and frankly it was kinda funny.
The text has this minor confusion because it's being written by hobbits who are outside of both cultures and lack significant context, were compiling a massive BEAST of a volume based on multiple contributors, and so on.
postscript: @lireavue absolutely reblogged this in order to trigger this post, and don't let her pretend otherwise.
Someone in the notes has pointed out that we have Gandalf referring to how he doesn't ride "elf fashion" except on Shadowfax. This is correct!
I will merely note that:
a) he is saying this to Pippin, in a section which is primarily from Pippin's point of view (ie Pippin would have been the one recording it for The Book).
b) he is saying this to Pippin after having been around saddle-less Legolas for a large amount of time.
c) Gandalf's major coping mechanism for the Worst Job and Grief is in fact a monumental amount of deadpan trolling, from which he does not in the slightest spare Quendi, ever, at all.
So there's that.
I saw a post saying that Boromir looked too scruffy in FotR for a Captain of Gondor, and I tried to move on, but I’m hyperfixating. Has anyone ever solo backpacked? I have. By the end, not only did I look like shit, but by day two I was talking to myself. On another occasion I did fourteen days’ backcountry as the lone woman in a group of twelve men, no showers, no deodorant, and brother, by the end of that we were all EXTREMELY feral. You think we looked like heirs to the throne of anywhere? We were thirteen wolverines in ripstop.
My boy Boromir? Spent FOUR MONTHS in the wilderness! Alone! No roads! High floods! His horse died! I’m amazed he showed up to Imladris wearing clothes, let alone with a decent haircut. I’m fully convinced that he left Gondor looking like Richard Sharpe being presented to the Prince Regent in 1813
And then rocked up to Imladris a hundred ten days later like
Some people have been wondering about the raccoon. Listen. Listennn. Don't ask about the raccoon.
Writing fanfic as a non-US citizen like
In case anyone actually wants to know the answer: it’s the plot of Cars. The difference is literally the plot of Cars.
Highways are usually two-to-four (at the widest) lane roads that meander the US landscape. Think Route 66, dinosaur statues, mom-and-pop diners, southern gothic. There are state-level and national-level highways. Some run for a 100 miles, some, like US HWY-17, run most of the East Coast:
That red line is US HWY 17. If you follow it, you will go through tiny towns. You may hit stoplights. I kid you not, you will see spinning cows on poles. Businesses exist along highways that you are encouraged to pull over and visit. They were designed to let you see America.
Yeah.
Now, interstates were made in the 50s and were made to get people from Point A to Point B. These suckers range from four lanes to eight lanes around big cities. They cut through everything. If you want to get to a business, you have to take an exit ramp and detour. They are great for getting places fast. You can still have weird experiences on them, but usually at night, when your eyes start playing tricks on you. Or there are deer.
I-95 is a massive corridor that runs from the Florida Keys to the Canadian Border. You can see the difference just looking at the maps.
As far as writing goes:
If you want quirky character development inside the car, you’re looking for an interstate. The majority of Americans take interstates to go on road trips.
If you want mysterious and/or supernatural hijinks, you’re looking for a highway. They are weird, weird places, and they’re surprisingly easy to wind up on if you leave the interstate.
(Even in America, no one’s really sure what a freeway is. Just ignore it.)
Freeways exist in big cities where cars are more prominent than public transport, such as LA or Atlanta. You’ve year of liminal spaces? Freeways during rush hour are a physical manifestation of hell.
Awesome! Now what the hell is a turnpike?
If you find out, let me know. Maybe ask someone from New Jersey.
A turnpike is a highway with a toll. Turnpikes are special highways where you drive really fast and it’s usually linking big cities with each other and you keep going until you hit a toll booth.
They’re called “turnpikes” because in the olden days, there were pikes or barriers up and you had to pay the toll for them to be raised or turned to let you in.
Also, just for the record, Hawaii does have interstates.
For everyone who didn’t want to know, expressways are a form of highway that connect both suburban areas and major interstates to a city They often have both an alphanumerical name and a colloquial name In Philly we have the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76)
Would like to add that highways and mainly interstates were made specifically so THE MILITARY could get from Point A to Point B. This combined with a post-WWII boost in the economy and car industry gave Americans the ability to tour the country on their own for the first time ever. A whole chunk of American culture was created by just expanding the road system.
All this being said, most East Coast US people will refer to all of these things interchangeably as “highways”/”the highway.”
Another note for non-USians trying to write a road trip story – if your characters would definitely be taking the interstate, but you want them on a highway in order for the supernatural shenanigans to start (or whatever), the solution is very simple: they hit a traffic jam. Could be due to construction, could be due to an accident, but traffic slows to a crawl and they say “there’s gotta be a way around this” and take the next exit. Then it turns out their cell phone has no coverage in that spot so they can’t just pull up a map, and VOILA. Into the Twilight Zone! One of the things about an interstate is that USUALLY, there’s an exit and an entrance right by each other, so you can exit, find a gas station or a place to grab lunch near the exit, then get right back on, but this is not always the case. Sometimes there’s an exit, but nowhere nearby to get back on.
I just want to add that there’s a slightly different vibe if you’re in the midwest. Because cities on the coasts are closer together, the interstate is just a super efficient point A to point B, city to city, no interruptions.
In the midwest, and I expect the southwest, to the interstate can get some real wonky vibes because YOU ARE ALONE. You are on one black strip of neverending road across hours and hours and hours of alone. You can drive very fast for a very long time and not see signs of another human being. Sometimes the alone-ness is added to by the sheer flatness of the land around you. You can see for forever and there’s nobody here. You sometimes see dead gas stations or billboards with only scraps of paper left on them.
You are in tornado ally and there is NOWHERE to hide if a blizzard or thunderstorm or twister comes for you. If it’s winter the snow is BLINDING.
It’s beautiful. But it’s horror is less small-town-gothic and more existential threat.
For clarity: the term freeway literally means it’s an interstate with no tolls. It’s free for every driver to use.
The West Coast of the US doesn’t have tolls on our interstates, but some of our big important bridges have tolls.
Seconding @leebrontide’s bit about interstates in the mid and southwest. I have Seen Things doing cross-country moves through the southwest and midwest. One experience that we refer to as “Silent Kansas” we literally went across the entire width of Kansas without seeing a single other vehicle, open gas station, or sign of life, while shrouded in a blanket-thick fog that dissipated essentially immediately upon crossing the border into Colorado. Or the time we were driving south on the I-17 in Arizona after midnight, and there was something following us for a full hour that was a pair of glowing lights that looked like headlights but, I swear it’s fucking true, was not another car. they disappeared in my rearview on a stretch with no exits just outside the Phoenix city limits, and to this day I have no idea wtf it was.
weird shit happens on interstates away from the coasts.
Also: if your highway goes through a national forest, congratulations, you’re automatically in an x-files episode. (for example, you dont expect to see bison in the swamps of Florida, and yet …)
Unfortunately for everyone else I have acquired the ability to embroider shitty homemade patches on old bits of black jeans and I spend hours doing it
A wee warm-up sketch of our good friend Jonny being 'in the toils' as he calls it, to fill the void of not having heard from him for several days
[Id: Inked sketch of Jonathan Harker, a young victorian gentleman who is making his way up a stairway with a small candle in his hand. He looks worried. Behind him is a chandelier and other small details hinting of him being in a castle, drawn very loosely, also in ink. ]
