So- since Ivypool is becoming deputy, (and like, the fact you don't rewrite until an arc is done and the full book won't be out for a month aside), how likely would it be for her to use her rank as an excuse to confront Dovewing, seeing as she couldn't before as a regular warrior? Imagine being a ShadowClan apprentice who accidentally went over the border catching a frog and Ivypool marches you back to camp- you're thinking about how annoyed your mentor will be when Ivypool's conversation with Heartstar is over. But no, miss ma'am starts trying to talk to Dovewing who's already walking away from her and doesn't even mention your slipup, and is about to start a screaming match with your leader 💀
I went blank as soon as I hit "How likely would it be for her to use her rank as an excuse to confront Dovewing" because I already know EXACTLY what I'm gonna tell you, but hangon, lemmie read the rest of the ask too
...
YEP
IM SO EXCITED BB!IVYPOOL IS GOING TO BE SO PETTY
GIRLIE Dovewing DOES NOT want to talk to you, but Ivypool just lost a whole baby to the impostor. Dovewing will also lose a baby. Ivypool wants to bond with her sister over this because she misses her so, so much,
And Dovewing wants NONE of it. She doesn't want to reconcile. She doesn't want the drama that Ivypool is going to cause trying to get to her. HEARTSTAR is going to be doing everything in her power to try and stop this. OH my god. This is about to get SO annoying for these poor bastards. I love this.
Ivypool, spiritual successor of her great-great grandfather Redtail down to the bushy tail and drill sergeant shout, but 3x as petty. Angry that Dovewing left her. Wanting to apologize for supporting the impostor early on. Missing the brief period of closeness they had as allies opposing him. Not willing to believe that Dovewing really, truly does not want her back in her life
This poor apprentice utterly confused because they missed all the posts on the deep lore, just seeing a Category 5 Woman Moment brewing right in the center of the camp between Dove "I can't hear you and don't want to" Wing, Heart "Ma'am This Is A Family Establishment You Need To Leave" Star, and Ivy "I never met a grudge I wasn't willing to hold" Pool.
MESSY GIRLS LET'S GO
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Flings myself into the inbox to ask about your Queens of Numenor fic, which. Okay there's so much I /could/ inquire about, there's so much crunch to that story, but- can I get commentary/director's cut on how you decided who each Queen should be?
(Ohtacare is 100% my favorite, but they're all just. So, so real.)
-crownlessliestheking
The fic in question!
Ask for a director's cut on my fics!
Oh yes, the Most Tragedique TM story I've ever written for Silm fandom lol. I started writing the story for Nienna in the Innumerable Stars fic exchange, and I need to give a lot of inspiration to that request summary, which set me off on a tangent re: dreams and magic. But as I started writing- initially the fic was going to be solely about Elros' wife, and maybe talk a little about the effect that being mortal and marrying someone who was effectively only mortal because he chose to be that way would have on a person- I also started grappling with what I've termed as the Tolkien Foresight Issue.
The TFI is very much a me problem, because I don't personally believe in predestination; the idea that elven mothers can genuinely hold their newborn in their arms and give them a name that describes something of their future genuinely frightens me as, like, a concept. I'd been wrestling with that idea for quite some time in my own head, but as I began writing this story I realized that this was a) the best medium possible for that tension, when unnamed/forgotten women are the primary povs (and of course, the unwanted and intrusive parts of the canonical narrative) and b) I was going to write about it one way or another, so might as well embrace it. Which led me to wanting to describe different reactions to the TFI- and for that, I needed more POVs than just Elros' wife.
Enter 24 other queens.
When I thought about individual perspectives, I started out by sketching out the queens whose characters I firmly knew; Eressecuina, for instance, but also Rilma, Ancalime, Tinolime, Vanimelde, Elenniel, and Inzilbeth. Then I started elaborating around those fixed points. For instance: Rilma has an antagonistic relationship with Almarian, who in turn makes an effort to be closer to Erendis, who in turn values freedom more than safety (i.e. the opposite of Almarian's choices), which influences Ancalime's perspective.
Elenniel's storyline was inspired by me wanting to explore what could have inspired a sharp break from the Quenya to Adunaic between Ardamin and Adunakhor: I just think that having it be a product of this one woman's (unnamed, forgotten, erased) actions made a lot of sense. Elenniel herself is one of my favorites in the story, tbqh; she's so secure in her love for her husband (and, in turn, his love for her) that she can bear to be more rebellious than many of the other queens. But she's also seeing the degeneration of Numenor from its heights- which began with Herucalmo, who usurps the throne and lets his son/grandson grow up in Umbar instead of Numenor-proper (thereby letting more rebellious anti-Valar sentiment foster)- and she loves Numenor enough to want more than what it has. But I also wanted someone to have gone through what she went through before while making the opposite choice, which is why Ohtacare exists at all lol.
The rest of the story just flowed from those fixed queens I mention above- apart from that, I knew I wanted a warrior queen, and a scholarly queen, and that the majority of the legacies of the queens would be tapestries; I also wanted at least one queen from Umbar and another from Harad. I think it's fairly obvious which ones were central to the storyline- Meluviel, for instance, doesn't play that much of a role, and neither does Gimileth or Handasse- but they were valuable to portray other nuances re: the TFI.
And, really, even more than the character itself, I defined the queens by their reaction to the TFI (which, in-story, is the nightmare of the destruction of Numenor). I a) thought it was INCREDIBLY sexy to think of Numenor's drowning to be inevitable, bc what does that say about the Valar, that they could see the ending but still chose to put Numenor in sight of Valinor? Abt the ppl that follow the Valar even after the destruction of the entire island? Abt the idea that even if something is to die one day, there is something beautiful in it now? and b) to picture the queens fighting against it, accepting it, furthering it, ignoring it, etc etc. 25 POVs of different women having wildly different reactions. I have an excel sheet somewhere where I described some of that lmao. That and the dates. Of people's birth dates, death dates, ruling dates, age when ascending to the crown........ yeah. Idk if I've ever worked so much to make a fic canon compliant tbqh!
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Fun fact about us! We have precisely No filter for "how much gore is too much gore", because we just... don't get squeamish about it almost at all.
Part of this effect is that we spend ages waffling over how to tag things because we just... don't have a point of comparison for things, and trying to find them results in us running into a lot of stuff we wouldn't consider gory at all being tagged as gore. We'll sit there like "this is a skeleton! this is bones!" and we'll feel like it must be, like, overtagged "just to be safe" type stuff, because, well, it's not gore, it's just a skeleton arm! Maybe a cartoony cross-section! It doesn't read as gore, it just reads as, like, cool character design to cartoon violence.
Part of this is that we'll click on things with "MAJOR GORE SUPER UNSETTLING CLICK AT YOUR OWN RISK" and end up just... underwhelmed. Like, we know in theory that we have a much better gore tolerance than most people, but in practice, like. It's utterly baffling to us that people will be that sensitive over blood. It's just, like... you're calling this "major gore"? It's one arm with a slightly messy disconnect! Like, sure, put a gore warning on it, but we expected more than just one slightly messy arm! They barely even look anything more than surprised about it!
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