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I'm getting YouTube algorithm recs for a bunch of dudebro takes on various properties. >_>

Anyway, I'm just going to go back to contemplating the next part of my always-sort-of-a-girl!Luke Skywalker fanfic.

harmless pet peeve

I'm irrationally annoyed by people going "oh, I thought you meant [other thing]" and saying nothing else, because ... okay? Why are you telling me this?

But I do sometimes have the temptation to do it myself, so I get it.

(Still annoying, though.)

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It's always weird to me when people are like ... oh, Obi-Wan and Yoda aren't really wrong about Anakin in ESB/ROTJ, and they aren't really saying Luke needs to kill him, Luke is just mistakenly assuming that's what they mean and misinterpreting their wisdom. He actually did what they wanted!

Meanwhile in ROTJ:

LUKE: I can't kill my own father.
OBI-WAN: Then the Emperor has already won.

Yoda is somewhat more ambiguous (he says Luke has to "confront" Vader, and earlier that the Dark Side forever dominates your destiny), but Obi-Wan is wrong. It's okay. He can be wrong.

and WHILE I'm ranting

I periodically see very nice posts about how sweet it is that Elrond is so kind towards all of Elros's descendants, and they are nice and I don't respond, because every time, my mind goes straight to Elrond talking about Gondorian Dúnedain's racial impurity right in front of a Gondorian Dúnadan descended from Elros.

I remember someone on Tumblr being like, okay, that's only one sentence, but ... uh, how many sentences of it do we really need? Unless he's misrepresenting himself, that sentence is still what he thinks.

Tumblr crosspost (14 May 2020)

I’m thinking about the moment when Pippin first sees Faramir in person and is struck by his raw charisma, thinking that it’s less “high” than Aragorn’s can be at odd moments, but also more immediate.

It’s such an odd moment—charming! but kind of odd. And I was thinking about a Faramir-at-Rivendell AU, and how Pippin would first react to Faramir there. It’d be without the context of Faramir’s extraordinary heroism vs the Ringwraiths, and also without the context of Aragorn’s moments of high but (by comparison) incalculably remote Presence, which iirc Pippin wouldn’t have really seen yet.

And, in canon, however their relationship develops after, it results in Pippin naming his son for Faramir. This is a big deal!!! But I’m wondering how it would register and develop in a scenario where he initially doesn’t even know who Faramir is and doesn’t have an easy metric for comparison.

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Tumblr crosspost (15 May 2020)

I really should fancast Faramir at some point (he’s only my favourite character in all of Middle-earth), but apart from a genderbent version from years and years ago, I never have. It’s weirdly difficult—my idea of him is both very clear and very unclear, so I can’t quite envision him but most people nevertheless seem Wrong.

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Tumblr crosspost (15 May 2020)

I reblogged this post I made in 2013:

I am generally very meh on the drafts of LOTR (because…drafts), but I love this idea:

[Pippin] rode with the Prince of Ithilien, for he was the esquire of the Steward

See, Pippin swore to serve the Lord and Steward—and was technically released, but given the circumstances it’s not surprising that that would be ignored—when they were the same person. But now the lord of Gondor is Aragorn. Yet the position of Steward (which, after all, existed long before Mardil’s time) is retained by Faramir. In the text as is, it’s sort of elided as Pippin is still serving Gondor, though I think the implication is that Aragorn essentially receives Pippin’s oath.

But here Pippin’s oath is strictly attached to the Steward, transferring smoothly from Denethor to Faramir. It’s not even to ‘the Prince of Ithilien,’ though that’s Faramir’s description there (Tolkien uses ‘the Prince’ and 'the Steward’ pretty interchangeably), and obviously they’re the same person. Rather he serves the Stewardship itself.

In some unlikely scenario where one of Faramir’s children became Steward and the other Prince (…hmm), Pippin would formally be esquire to the first and not the second.

(Well, if Faramir didn’t outlive Pippin by ~20 years.)

Anyway, I really like the idea, both because YAY STEWARDSHIP and because it collapses Pippin’s love for Faramir and oath to Denethor in a really lovely way, I think :)

In 2020, I added: #i'm still deeply committed to this

Tumblr crosspost (15 May 2020)

In response to this post, goueznou said:

How did I never notice that Faramir outlives Pippin?

I replied:

It’s easy to overlook how long Faramir lives! He’s not the longest-lived Steward ever, but 120 is still up there.

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