#the evil that cannot be defeated

[sesamenom]

alright you’ve been extremely extremely kind and indulgent to me about my oc and i cannot possibly thank you enough <333333 so MY turn now to ask YOU about YOURS. please tell me about maglor’s distant granddaughter who is also your bbeg?? .w. or about the chatty hobbits i would very VERY much love to hear about both!!!

~ @nelyoslegalteam, reporting from main <3

(long post, sorry for the random people stumbling upon this lol)

so I'm the dm for the chatty hobbits campaign and essentially it's set in a beleriand-adjacent continent, but with a few extra races and stuff. of the founders of the original settlements, the king of elende (the elf kingdom) is Gil-galad's (invented for the campaign) twin brother Finellach/Finwain. originally he was inspired by the fact that gil galad has a ton of names but only uses ereinion/gil, so I just invented a new character and gave him half the names. I headcanon gil galad as maglor's son, so finwain is in universe maglor's son (left at the havens with gil bc his wife divorced him for kinslaying and his kingdom, being next door neighbors with morgoth, is far too dangerous for small children).

Anyways, his descendant Elinyel (also known as aramire or elinnor) is the current queen of Elende! she's an evil fire-themed bard who is extremely feanorian in all the worst ways - her actual kingdom prospered under her reign, but she just does not care about everyone else as long as she's protecting her people. There were some tensions with one of the major kingdoms to the north (conflict over unclaimed territory between the kingdoms and some tariff stuff), so instead of risking the other kingdom starting a war and hurting her people, she just preemptively invaded it and started burned all the border territories to the ground.

her actual coronation was pretty weird- so she's the second child, but her older sister was born in wartime and there's a general belief in elende that children of peacetime make better rulers, so Elinyel was chosen as her family's heir. her grandfather (the crown prince of his generation) died defending Elende in one of the major wars, but his younger brother and two young kids survived. there's a whole feud between their houses because the brother chose to retain the kingship even after the kids were old enough to take the throne. anyways, two generations later Elinyel killed her cousin Arendil (the previous king of Elende) over a dispute about the legitimacy of his house (and what she believed to be a dishonoring of her grandparents' sacrifice) and took the throne.

obviously she has many Issues. arendil also has two surviving kids who are now essentially trying to stop her from murdering all their neighbors in proactive defense of her people.

however, when she first ascended she recruited her friend group as her elite guard/vassals of the kingdom. (aka the other bosses in the storyline). so it escalated to a war between her forces and the children of arendil, which ultimately culminated in her beloved sister being killed by one of arendil's children. this in turn led to her having basically a massive mental breakdown and feeling like she failed to protect her loved ones (exacerbated by some of her other friends being killed in battles she led). a normal person might decide this is was kind of her fault for starting a war and putting her friends in charge of the army. instead she decided she needed to destroy everyone who could ever potentially pose a threat. which is, in her eyes, literally everyone on the continent (except for her kingdom, of course).

so now she is at war with absolutely everyone of all factions! She is also somehow winning by virtue of Song almost on the level of maglor himself, and ten (now six) also incredibly powerful friends. Anyways, she has decided that the best way to wipe out the continent (except her kingdom) and start fresh is to literally find an ancient lost stone that can break the Doors of Night, summon Morgoth himself, and start the Dagorath. obviously this will Not go well for anyone at all if she succeeds, but she is on a full-on rampage and genuinely believes she (plus friends) can protect her kingdom from Morgoth's army while he wipes out everyone else.

Here's some old art of her btw!

And some slightly more recent unfinished art of her and the Evil Friend Group from when they were younger:

and here's (L-R) her cousin who is the 3rd boss, Elinyel, and her sister from before the war!

#asks #THANK YOU FOR THIS BTW #i only have 1 friend irl who plays dnd and is also not affiliated with the campaign #and they aren't a silm person #so i cannot talk w anyone irl about the Lore #one of the few kingdoms who could really oppose her is the magic one #bc max level wizards might as well be ainur and the monarch of the magic kingdom is Very Powerful #however. said monarch is also the twin sibling of one of elinyel's friends #(who is also an evil lich now and also maybe dating a diff friend who is an evil sorceror? not sure of details yet) #so the super powerful battlemage monarch is remaining Politically Neutral so they don't have to fight their literal evil twin #currently the party is level 6 and just defeated the very-weakened wraith of one of the friends #she was a druid but sort of decayed when she was corrupted and was kidnapping untrained/low level sorcs as servants to siphon power from #and also living in the Grove of Resurrection in order to stay intact #i forgot her dialogue while running the battle so while i looked through my docs i just had her say 'loading please wait' lol #also more chatty hobbit stuff #the grove is a huge grassy area with a walking tree in the middle #so the whole thing is constantly roaming aroudn #the wraith-druid had her castle built on it so she could have a moving castle that also heals her #the grassy part will resurrect any dead thing put on it #for the battle they had to drag her off the grass in order to kill her #technically shes been dead for some years but is surviving via constant contact w the grove #the hobbit (Shade) is from the Alder family who has historically been the guardians of the grove #he discovered he could talk to the tree in the middle and immediately started trying to figure out a way he could use the grove to #clone one of the party members #the tree does not approve of intentionally cutting off people's arms to see if it regenerates into a clone lol #oh! and they found anglachel in the grove. the dragonborn monk wants to keep it

[mudwisard]

zelink shippers are so boring when they look at the text and go 'they are in love with each other'. like, yes but we knew that already. the fact that they are in love is not even close to the top of the list of reasons why their relationship is so cool. get a grip

#zlk #it's about the yearning and jealousy for something you cannot have but cannot live without #it's about a complex relationship to duty and the mess of feelings getting mixed up in it #it's about losing yourself to protect your imagined ideal version of them #and the immeasurable weight of having to live up to that ideal after they're gone #'they are in love' #the purpose of their souls is to defeat an ancient evil for all eternity #zelink #yes this goes in the main tag #tloz #totk #botw

[slavicafire]

popculture would like you to believe werewolves and vampires are two very separate and distinct beings. folklore hopes that would be the case because gods would it make things much easier

#but no #the evils lurking in the night cannot be easily categorised and described... nor defeated... not understood... #but can they be... loved all the same...

[hipsofsteel]

ITS DONE

THE WIP IS DONE (WE ARE IGNORING EDITING)

ITS DONE!

89.6K OF WORDS DONE

WE POPPING THE BIGGEST BOTTLES TONIGHT! WWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

#tragically i cannot actually have a little intoxicating beverage bc im donating plasma tomorrow #BUT ITS DONE AND THE EVIL (not really) IS DEFEATED #IM SO FUCKING HAPPY #jess talks too much

[maid2n]

thinking about just how far back zelda is from in dragon age verse. she is like...she's pre-fall of arlathan y'all. somewhere in the late -2000s ancient. pre elves meeting humans. this world is fucking weird now! what happened!

also she knows nothing of the typical cultural touchstones now. what's a chantry? what's an andraste? what's a maker? what does he make? orlais?? ferelden?? tevinter????? huh? what?

#* ooc #there's a myth abt her somewhere that's pretty much lost to time #that is just the good ol 'princess who sealed evil and her swordsman who defeated it' #she cannot escape ganondorf no matter the universe xoxo #* v ; dragon age

[antihcroes]

the 'look how they massacred my boy' meme is me constantly abt ricky bowen any time there's something new for that goddamn show

#( ooc ) #(the evil will finally be defeated august 9th cannot wait tbh) #(btw if u don't already know i do not follow canon for that show & have not since s1 ... i haven't watched it since then either) #(i have zero interest anymore) #(my ricky is living his happily ever after w nini & their two kids thanks <3)

[farragoofwires]

don' dweeblog

truly and honestly feel that actually for real adding lucas and amber absolutely would have stabilized the world's evilest polycule.

#house/cuddy/wilson is obviously more plausible long-term than house/wilson or house/cuddy on their own but it's insufficient. #jealousy gives house something to obsess harder about his partner; which both cuddy and wilson interpret as flirting bc of the many things #wrong with them. amber enjoys the competition so it works. lucas interprets it as friendship; because of the many things wrong with him. #just let yourselves admit you want this. god. please please please just do a triad+ thing. #house needs polyfidelity restrictions imposed on him; for containment; but wilson and cuddy need to not get sucked into his black hole #(which absolutely includes the other third of the throuple); so they cannot have them. #f: house #m: house #and once again. gotta clarify. 'stabilizing the evilest polycule' does not mean removing the evil. the evil cannot be defeated.

[aerithisms]

"...there is something basically unsatisfying about the idea of the Doctor saving this particular day so straightforwardly. As well as being dramatically inert, it would be a strange instance of the master's tools dismantling the master's house.

[...]

As the episode repeatedly points out, there is a similarity between the Doctor and the Old God - they are both, after all, sometimes known as Grandfather. This is stressed by the otherwise gratuitous mention of Susan earlier in the episode, and cemented when Merry tells us that, if the ceremony fails, Grandfather will 'spread across the system, consuming the seven worlds. And when there's no more to eat, he'll embark on a new odyssey among the stars.' The threatened 'odyssey among the stars' is a clear parallel with the Doctor's own wandering lifestyle, though in this context Grandfather becoming more Doctor-like is a thing of cosmic horror rather than a great spirit of adventure.

Metatextually, the notion of Grandfather feeding on stories reflects Steven Moffat's longstanding attitudes to Doctor Who. Frank Cottrell-Boyce recalls being advised by Moffat that 'Doctor Who gobbles up stories. You give it your best film idea and it'll use it in half an hour.'

[...]

Given this view of Doctor Who, the decision to make the villain of The Rings of Akhaten a story-consuming entity feels provocative. Grandfather's status as a long-lived being with legions of admirers invites comparisons with Doctor Who as an institution, as well as the Doctor's diegetic status as someone who has 'lived a long life and [...] seen a few things.' The Doctor cannot defeat Grandfather because the two are aligned at a fundamental level. This is not a moral equivalence, nor is it the dreary trope whereby the hero and villain ostentatiously mirror each other. It is simply that the Doctor, due to the limits of his own perspective on Akhaten, and his own similarities to the monster exploiting it, is unable to offer a compelling alternative."

William Shaw, The Black Archive #42: The Rings of Akhaten

#blahs #dw #doctor who #the rings of akhaten #just wanted to post this bc i thought it was so good! #i've cut around it but it also talks about the doctor and the old god as patriarchal figures #grandfather as leader of a patriarchal religion and the doctor as the western paternalistic figure looking down upon the customs of akhaten #and says 'the doctor cannot defeat the evil patriarchal god because he is himself inextricably patriarchal'

[fowlblue]

Character bingo, handsome man? From your video game, with the tooth

Handsome Jack!! Hell yeah!

#evil man evil evil man- but. stylish man. #he’s basically Jon Spiro but Not For Kiddos and I cannot wait to eventually defeat him in battle. #handsome jack #asks #not mine

[six-of-ravens]

you ever have such a bad week you just get like, an anxiety/anger hangover?

#i don't have to leave the house tomorrow! the evil is defeated! #and yet! i feel ill. what have i fucked up that i haven't discovered i've fucked up yet? #also a woman yelled at me in the parkade yesterday and im terribly anxious about running into her again #the exit/entrance ramp is only wide enough for one car at a time so its like established etiquette that the person at the bottom backs up #bc it's hard to get out of the way when you're pulling into the parkade esp if people are behind you #and so i just assumed she would but no. she rolled down her window and started screaming at me to pull my car into a corner #which forced me to do an awkward 3-point turn to get back into position to go down the ramp. fyi that's how i scraped my car previously #and i was just like ????? just back up!! its so easy!! but just gesturing bc im not going to scream at people #but she was just getting angrier and angrier so eventually i gave up. but like. i just know anytime i encounter her she's going to be a pain #and i cannot stress this. EVERYONE ELSE BACKS UP. EVERYONE. A GIANT PICKUP BACKED UP FOR ME TODAY. EVERYONE DOES IT. #idk what her problem is. if shes just scared shitless of reversing her car or if she just thinks shes the specialest princess baby #and everyone has to get out of her way regardless of etiquette bc shes soooooo important uwu #but like. lady. fuckin cool it. you are making everyone's lives so difficult. #i hope one of the giant pickups fuckin bulldozes her. bc there's no way they could do the manouvre i did in my lil corolla #if anyone deserves Pickup Dude wrath it's her #anyway this illness is anxiety about her in particular ON TOP OF feeling bad about everything that's happened the last 2 days #sigh #i really need tomorrow to be good. and just a like. nice weekend

[abimee]

i dont need to play or know anything about rpgs with child protagonists like that shitty omocat game because ill always know mother 1 and earthbound did it better. even if theyre entirely unlike games any game that has children as the protagonist i know mom1 and 2 did it better. mom1 and 2 always did it better

#you cannot show many any sort of twist or emotional ending thats better than geigue and giygas idgaf #nothing is better than games where kids defeat the evil with the love theyve gathered from others I DONT CARE

[arttheclown]

gonna be thinking about this interaction for a while

#terry fitzgerald #jason wynn #spawnposting #at first i thought wynn was mocking terry or condescending him like he usually does & it can definitely be read that way #but to me it seems more like an acknowledgement that terry's got a serious set of stones on him #because this is the second time wynn has seen terry go up against someone or something that he doesn't have any chance of defeating alone #i don't expect it to stick because wynn is an egomaniacal asshole but at least for a moment it seems like he finally respects him #(not that WYNN'S respect of all things is something terry needs or is even looking for but still) #and then you have terry's quiet acknowledgement that wynn seems to have sided with the court of priests purely for survival reasons #which doesn't make him Not opportunistic or evil. but it makes him less of a threat than the others #because he isn't invested in their goal. he even refers to the throne as 'their' most prized possession #as opposed to 'our' to signify that detachment. and if terry wasn't sure then he definitely is now #i'm very curious if this writer will go so far as to have them begrudgingly work together #because unless im misunderstanding they both seem to be in agreement that al taking the throne would be Very Fucking Bad #terry doesn't want an apocalypse & to lose his best friend a second time & i cannot see wynn being thrilled about taking orders from al #idk man it's just. nice to have a writer for this series who's consistent #especially when it comes to character & relationship building. i enjoy it

[avoskorm]

#tumblr live #the evil is defeated #threw this together purely because i hadn't seen this meme version of it yet and that cannot stand #nothing to see here

[heretodefyfate]

"Madame X cannot be defeated"

They're right...madame X cannot be defeated...be killed...because multiple people can be Madame X?

From what i understand, the "lingering regrets" sidequest showed us a whole facility that specialize in making armors that resembles madame X (why the freak Narcissa never intervene whenever she passed here, i guess Keta lied to her about its purpose)

And...anyone can just wear that suit, or only a selective few can. But like, why bother making so many? When the armor can fix itself? Unless, Xara and Jean were making armors for multiple people... multiple Madame X

And you know those theory about who is madame X? What if those "candidates" are all true? It's just that they don't or have not met the requirements to become madame X.

Puppet Master said madame X cannot be defeated because there are so many people that can potentially become her. How can you kill off someone when that someone can be anyone.

In a way, it's similar to what Neved said to Emma (or was it to theplayer?)

"If we defeated this one, another will show up"

#pkmn rejuv #Gosh...this is...extremely messy #Again idk how to write as you can clearly see #I was watching let's play and the whole ''madame X cannot be defeated'' bpthered me #Because personally it feel...kinda of a boring way to scare the protagonists... #But then i thought...''hmm...what if madame X was just...a concept? She is the mebodiment of evil. And...can you really get rid of evil?... #Anyone is capable of hurting others...and anyone can turn worse under certain circumstamces'' #And if this madame X can be anyone...will you ever truly get rid of her? #Idk...i'm trying to sound smart here lol

[moss-on-trees]

Dp x Dc Prompt: Royalty visits the DC Universe AU

Pariah Dark is released again and instead of being his usual evil self, he decides to go and adopt the baby ghost who defeated him and didn't even shatter his core like a proper usurper would. The enforced naptime gave him time to think and he came to the conclusion that the kid was just too cute and just as angry as he was, though he hid it better. The Ghost King felt seen. And the Infinite Realms getting a Crown Prince was much more important than world domination. (That can come later.)

Danny did not sign up for this, and especially not for the lessons that come with the title. Queue him being dragged to the realms for tutoring and escaping repeatedly for weeks - he can't even fight him properly because then he'd have to take the Crown, no thank you - until he finally figures out how to make portals to escape more easily. The problem is that there's literally nowhere on Earth Pariah Dark and his blasted Observants (who are traitors to the cause of leaving the king to his naptime) cannot find him. On the latest chase, he's so desperate he doesn't notice he just portaled into a completely different dimension. Pariah Dark follows him soon after.

The Justice League aren't too sure what to do about the interdimensional kid arguing with his dad about not wanting the crown but their fight is starting to freak out the civilians (probably because the kid batted Superman away without noticing while he was angrily gesturing) so they might have to try their hand at being family therapists.

#the reason for pariah dark's obsession with having danny as his heir might be because he ate plasmius after waking up #dp x dc #dp x dc prompt #dp x dc au #batpham #batphantom #dp x dc crossover #dpxdc #dc x dp

[eelhound]

"I think Homer outwits most writers who have written on the War [fantasy archetype], by not taking sides.

The Trojan war is not and you cannot make it be the War of Good vs. Evil. It’s just a war, a wasteful, useless, needless, stupid, protracted, cruel mess full of individual acts of courage, cowardice, nobility, betrayal, limb-hacking-off, and disembowelment. Homer was a Greek and might have been partial to the Greek side, but he had a sense of justice or balance that seems characteristically Greek — maybe his people learned a good deal of it from him? His impartiality is far from dispassionate; the story is a torrent of passionate actions, generous, despicable, magnificent, trivial. But it is unprejudiced. It isn’t Satan vs. Angels. It isn’t Holy Warriors vs. Infidels. It isn’t hobbits vs. orcs. It’s just people vs. people.

Of course you can take sides, and almost everybody does. I try not to, but it’s no use; I just like the Trojans better than the Greeks. But Homer truly doesn’t take sides, and so he permits the story to be tragic. By tragedy, mind and soul are grieved, enlarged, and exalted.

Whether war itself can rise to tragedy, can enlarge and exalt the soul, I leave to those who have been more immediately part of a war than I have. I think some believe that it can, and might say that the opportunity for heroism and tragedy justifies war. I don’t know; all I know is what a poem about a war can do. In any case, war is something human beings do and show no signs of stopping doing, and so it may be less important to condemn it or to justify it than to be able to perceive it as tragic.

But once you take sides, you have lost that ability.

Is it our dominant religion that makes us want war to be between the good guys and the bad guys?

In the War of Good vs. Evil there can be divine or supernal justice but not human tragedy. It is by definition, technically, comic (as in The Divine Comedy): the good guys win. It has a happy ending. If the bad guys beat the good guys, unhappy ending, that’s mere reversal, flip side of the same coin. The author is not impartial. Dystopia is not tragedy.

Milton, a Christian, had to take sides, and couldn’t avoid comedy. He could approach tragedy only by making Evil, in the person of Lucifer, grand, heroic, and even sympathetic — which is faking it. He faked it very well.

Maybe it’s not only Christian habits of thought but the difficulty we all have in growing up that makes us insist justice must favor the good.

After all, 'Let the best man win' doesn’t mean the good man will win. It means, 'This will be a fair fight, no prejudice, no interference — so the best fighter will win it.' If the treacherous bully fairly defeats the nice guy, the treacherous bully is declared champion. This is justice. But it’s the kind of justice that children can’t bear. They rage against it. It’s not fair!

But if children never learn to bear it, they can’t go on to learn that a victory or a defeat in battle, or in any competition other than a purely moral one (whatever that might be), has nothing to do with who is morally better.

Might does not make right — right?

Therefore right does not make might. Right?

But we want it to. 'My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure.'

If we insist that in the real world the ultimate victor must be the good guy, we’ve sacrificed right to might. (That’s what History does after most wars, when it applauds the victors for their superior virtue as well as their superior firepower.) If we falsify the terms of the competition, handicapping it, so that the good guys may lose the battle but always win the war, we’ve left the real world, we’re in fantasy land — wishful thinking country.

Homer didn’t do wishful thinking.

Homer’s Achilles is a disobedient officer, a sulky, self-pitying teenager who gets his nose out of joint and won’t fight for his own side. A sign that Achilles might grow up someday, if given time, is his love for his friend Patroclus. But his big snit is over a girl he was given to rape but has to give back to his superior officer, which to me rather dims the love story. To me Achilles is not a good guy. But he is a good warrior, a great fighter — even better than the Trojan prime warrior, Hector. Hector is a good guy on any terms — kind husband, kind father, responsible on all counts — a mensch. But right does not make might. Achilles kills him.

The famous Helen plays a quite small part in The Iliad. Because I know that she’ll come through the whole war with not a hair in her blond blow-dry out of place, I see her as opportunistic, immoral, emotionally about as deep as a cookie sheet. But if I believed that the good guys win, that the reward goes to the virtuous, I’d have to see her as an innocent beauty wronged by Fate and saved by the Greeks.

And people do see her that way. Homer lets us each make our own Helen; and so she is immortal.

I don’t know if such nobility of mind (in the sense of the impartial 'noble' gases) is possible to a modern writer of fantasy. Since we have worked so hard to separate History from Fiction, our fantasies are dire warnings, or mere nightmares, or else they are wish fulfillments."

- Ursula K. Le Guin, from No Time to Spare, 2013.

#ursula k. le guin #homer #quote #quotations #the iliad #trojan war #storytelling #fantasy #fiction writing #war #conflict #tragedy #john milton #paradise lost #greek mythology