do u ever think about how james must feel about silver’s betrayal, knowing that a failed revolution only strengthens england? only makes the myth of england’s inevitability that much stronger? only makes it that much harder for the next person to defy it?
silver didn’t just side with civilisation. he made james complicit in it – he ‘distorted’ james ‘to fit into their narrative’. he told the world that flint came to believe that england was right about them, and about him
This is right after Gandalf says, “A balrog. A demon of the ancient world.”
I just love how PJ chose to cut to Legolas’ face because he is exactly who you should cut to at this moment. You need an elf to show what it really means. Other than Gandalf, the rest of the Fellowship can sense something is gravely wrong, but they don’t understand just how grave. Like Gandalf, Legolas knows the terror. He understands the gravity of what lies around that corner. He’s got a piddly little bow and he is mere steps away from a demon of the ancient world. This frame shows a kid coming to the realisation that he is way out of his depth, that this mission will take him to places he only knew to exist in legends of the Elder Days, a time long gone, barely history.
He’s probably one of the youngest elves in Middle Earth at this point. He probably grew up on stories of the balrogs, slaying the ancient High Kings of the Eldar and tearing Middle Earth apart, thousands and thousands of years ago. They are legends in old crumbling books, read illicitly by a little elfling who was kept up at night by the terrible tales.They are the monsters under the bed and the shadows in the heart of the forest. They are the beasts behind the winged hordes of hell, that older elves, who’ve seen the worst that Arda has to offer, always assured him were no more than distant nightmares, stories relegated to dust and ancient memory. Except now they are real. They are here. They are coming.
(GOOD GRAVY THIS IS MY FAVOURITE THING. Gosh thank you I think I needed this prompt more than anything else today. GOSH.)
Bedlam had been hard cold floors with blankets and, sometimes, straw. Some cells had cots which were little more than piles of moth-eaten cloth. On the ship to the Americas it had been damp wood, sharing space with the rats and the sick or dying passengers being transported to their ‘new lives’. Once in Savannah the bedding had improved somewhat, though only because it was a few inches off the floor and just a little wider than his body. Thomas had gotten used to waking with aching muscles and bruised skin.
James told him of the cot in his captain’s cabin, how it had swayed with the motion of the ship. He told Thomas of the scratchy blankets and the floor of the Maroon Island’s cages. Neither of them had been given the luxury of a good nights sleep, though the darker part of Thomas’ mind told him at least James had been able to sleep alone, unwatched, unharmed, sometimes even next to someone he loved in that time.
All those thoughts are pushed to the back of his mind when he sits on the edge of the bed they’re sharing for the night. It is simple, a mattress on a rickety wooden frame in the spare room of a spinster’s house, but it is akin to the bed of a king in Thomas’ eyes.
He sat and felt the give of the mattress under his backside and hands where he leaned back. Tears sprang to his eyes, stinging and uncontrollable as he falls back onto the bed and sobs.
James was there in moments, quiet and gentle so impossibly gentle with him as he pressed his face into the blankets and pillows.
Pillows.
The warmth of the recently lit hearth began to fill the room and Thomas felt for a moment that he was well again. James disappeared for a moment and returned with a tray of bread, cheese, hot tea in a pot and a small jug of milk. There is no sugar, Thomas can no longer stand the stuff.
“Comfy?” He asked, voice gruffer and cracked at the edge but no less kind and loving.
Thomas nodded from his cocoon of blankets and pillows. The infinite gentleness was like the embrace of God, he thought. Jesus Christ Himself had come to tuck him into bed. He didn’t realise he had spoken aloud until James smiles, a broken thing, and climbed onto the bed next to him.
A hand stroked through the tuft of hair still visible. “Can I come in?”
Thomas carefully pried the cocoon open and welcomed his love in, wrapped himself around James and the blankets around them both.
“We’re like caterpillars,” he said softly into the warm air between them. “We’ll go to sleep and when we wake up we’ll be butterflies; resplendent and more beautiful than we were.”
James snorted a laugh and tucked his head under Thomas’ chin. “Alright,” he whispered, the tea and bread forgotten, “like caterpillars.”
They fell asleep as the sun went down, Thomas’ last thought was that he had finally found the meaning of his existence – to be there, surrounded by the softness of love on the cusp of sleep.
“i don’t know anymore, man. i genuinely do not know how to argue empathy at somebody. i don’t want concertgoers and schoolchildren to be routinely slaughtered in hailstorms of bullets. you don’t care. i don’t want some kid’s first memory to be a jackbooted deportation force kicking down their door and ripping their father from them. you don’t care. i don’t want a mother to bury her child solely because she couldn’t swing $600 for a two-pack of epipens. you don’t care. every day you wake up and deflect, but-what-about, twist, bend, contort, and echo whatever vile rationalization keeps you from having to admit that you’re, not just complicit in, but in fact actively facilitating this nightmare of a reality so many people are experiencing. i care about other people. you do not. it’s as simple as that. take your thoughts and prayers and shove them up your ass”
If writers took every bit of writing advice that was in the format ‘Don’t use X part of the English language’, all English fiction would read like Spot the dog
Not really, other than that I generally need silence to write unless I’m coming from a place of really, really strong emotion.
9. Least favorite trope to write.
Hmm. Not sure I have one, tbh! I don’t do A/B/O fic at all though, so I guess that one would probably qualify. I’m perfectly happy to let others headcanon it or write it in peace, it’s just not my jam.
44. Best piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten.
The one person who told me that I had made them think about a topic in a way that their history books never had. That is the highest compliment that any writer can receive – that their work made someone reexamine a subject and think “I never thought of it that way before.”
50. Weirdest story idea you’ve ever had.
hmmm. well, there’s the Whitechapel crossover story that I’ve got planned eventually – that might count. Basically the idea is that reincarnated Thomas as Chandler ends up investigating his own disappearance as part of a murder case.
53. What does writing mean to you?
It’s something I do to work through my emotions. It’s a thing that’s let me meet so many wonderful people, some of whom I legitimately trust more than my own family. It’s a thing that got me through some really rough times, and just something I enjoy doing because if I didn’t I think I might go mad. It’s the way that I go about trying to make the world better, really, because I like to think that sometimes something I’ve written makes someone’s day brighter, or makes someone think about something in a new way and then go out and maybe do something good they might not have done otherwise.
“This is not about us ! This is not about you!” The words burst out of her, her voice raised. She has been trained not to do this. She has learned, over and over again, but now, here, she is shouting, her anger and pain too much to be confined. “There are people out there now living in slavery – men and women and children who will be separated from their families not by my war but by men of your race who see them as property! Husbands and wives, brothers, and sisters, and grandmothers who will never know freedom because men like you would rather put your own comfort above their lives! You would put my life – my safety above theirs and that is not my role to play!”
It’s not exactly one line, but it’s arguably the easiest paragraph I’ve ever written and one where Madi just – took over and wrote herself. It’s also really, really important, story-wise and just in general.
54. Any writing advice you want to share?
Yes. Little things are so, so important. If you want someone to really feel a scene, to be there in their heads, you’ve got to give them anchor points – you’ve got to tell them if a character’s hands are clammy, or if there’s a lantern in the corner that’s making a creak sound with every roll of a ship, or if there’s just total silence other than some sound you want them to hear as if they were in the room with the characters. Don’t just say what’s happening in a scene – describe the little things the way you see them in your head and the way you hear them.
Meg's Mumbles 