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I tend to get New Age-y types trying to sell me bits of dying plant matter in Canterbury a lot more than Roma or other travellers; I realize and accept that this may be an anomaly peculiar to my circumstances. However, my point was that I don't find the various Tolkien languages particularly pleasant to read or hear, especially Sindarin, because it sounds so forced and trite. Lest you think I'm just dumping on Tolkien for the sake of contrarianism, I have exactly the same problem when imagining Marain from the Culture series; I just get the impression that everyone involved is trying way, way too hard.

Serious question, hS: how do the elves of Rivendell talk about bowel movements? Or athlete's foot? Or dysentery, or ringworm, or any one of a hundred other awful and/or embarrassing medical complaints? I mean, I know the answer is something akin to "leaf-ears don't get sick", but that always felt like a handwave to me. It makes Quenya and Sindarin sound fake, as though they were designed solely for the purpose of sounding pretty. As languages, they ring hollow.

However, I apologise for being offensive to the groups in my previous post; while it was not my intent to be so, that's not an excuse. This apology does, however, exclude Tolkien fans. I'm not about to lie, it was intended to be snarky about the tongues of the elves and written in a deliberately dismissive way. I could have phrased my points better, but chose not to; to suggest otherwise would be disingenuous.

On Missions

Nume: Knowing I will probably regret saying this out loud... just a simple, straightforward crossover. No Sues, no squick, no teaming up with anybody else for any reason. I mean, I work in the Department of Implausible Crossovers. Is it too much to ask to just get a frelling crossover for once?

Ilraen: I concur. I would add, however—knowing that I, too, will probably regret saying this out loud—that I would very much like to visit my homeworld someday. On the other hand, I am happy if no one is writing bad crossovers about it. ∗knocks on wood∗

Derik: Anything that isn't hand-chosen to drive me insane. I mean it. I don't know how or why, but I know a pattern when I see one, and this is happening on purpose, with malice aforethought. ∗scowl∗

Gall: One word: superheroes. We had our heroes of legend, too, but man, you people do it with style!

On Dragons

Derik: ∗stares∗ ... That's like asking what is my favorite aspect of mountains, or thunderstorms. They just... are. Reducing them to a single dry fact would take away the grandeur, the majesty of the whole. I don't want to talk about this anymore.

Gall: Oh man. Okay, for starters? Fire-breathing! I mean, come on, duh. Then there's the wicked sharp teeth and claws, and the flying at high speeds. Not that they all fly or breathe fire, but the ones that don't have other cool abilities, like—

Neshomeh: Hi. Um, sorry for butting in, but she's gonna go on like this at some length, and I don't really feel like typing it all out. Sorry. If you're curious, here's the HtTYD wiki!

P.S. Apparently asterisks render the text between in italics here, so I used HTML for these low asterisks. I figured if I had to encode them anyway, might as well do something a little different. The code is ∗.

After bloody Bronwyn\*, I'd relish the chance to experience the music of your world unadulterated. It would be a fitting way to redeem this lute of hers, too.

\*OOC: A Sue from a mission as yet unwritten, to this monster.

Be aware that the Silmarillion as published is actually four books. Here's a summary of the first two (Ainulindale and Valaquenta):

In the beginning God and the Valar made the world. The Valar (~ angels) are pretty cool, except Melkor, who sucks and wants to destroy everything. He's a persuasive blighter, though.

Unfortunately I can't really summarise you past the beginning of the Quenta Silmarillion proper. You could try just skipping ahead (jump down to Chapter 18 for where the story starts getting some space to breathe instead of being 'and then two hundred years passed'), but you'll then probably need to poke around the index to find out what a Gondolin or a Thingol is.

One more option: next year the Estate is releasing a standalone version of the tale of Beren and Luthien, to go with the Children of Hurin one. Between them, they should actually do a decent job of orienting you in Beleriand and help you get through the denser parts of the Silm.

hS

Because I was thinking of New Age types, the Welsh, various travelling folk (I think lucky heather is usually Romany gypsies, but I could be wrong), and of course Tolkien fans.

I was the one insulting an entire dead royal line. ^_^

hS

She was the one I designated Girl Me/Tomboy. And she managed to work part of her own name into her daughter's - the 'Maiden Crowned with a Radiant Garland' gave birth to the girl 'Gifted with a Silver Crown'. Hmm... crowns, royalty... yeah, sounds about right for this family. (Come to think of it, CELEBorn and GaladRIel had CELEBRIan...)

Shadows of Mordor: I think book-canon could blow holes through it a mile wide, but I also thought it looked interesting as a way to explore (parts of) Middle-earth. I've not played it, though.

hS

And that the ones dead aren't exactly prioritary for reincarnation, and that the living ones are far, far away...

(Minor) case in point, Blizzard games.

The Warcraft RTS had characters called for instance Sylvanas Windrunner. Yes, boring in English, but in my opinion classier than the french translation 'Coursevent' that the MMORPG brought.

Heck, for all I now, english-speaking people could judge the latter classier, because that's not their tongue.

Now, the Noldorin royal line is really screwed up. No wonder Elrond or Galadriel never tried to claim a place in this duckfest when the place was open.

Last OT point: Out of (morbid) curiosity, what did you think of the game called The Shadow of Mordor, provided you heard about it?

... but it's a pretty wide range. ^_~

hS

And despite all of them sounding like a drunk New Age druid with a lisp and an accent from up near Rhyl trying to sell you some lucky heather outside Oddbins, woe betide you should you mix them up. =]

First was Finwë, whose name doesn’t mean anything (though it can be interpreted as ‘Hairy man’. House of Finwë: werewolves? Worth considering.) He got married to a woman who was named Jewel by her father, and Weaver by her mother, elves tending to get one name from each.

The couple had a son, who Finwë called Finwë (as you do). Fortunately his mother named him Spirit of Fire, which he went by, so that makes things easier.

Finwë’s wife died, and Finwë got remarried (big drama there) to Indis, whose name pretty much means ‘woman’. Their first child was a daughter, who was called Findis, in the Meyer-honoured tradition of portmanteau names. It could mean ‘Hairy woman’. (House of Finwë werewolf theory: confirmed.)

Then they had a son, who Finwë named Finwë, because it worked once, so why not twice? Luckily Finwë the first had an attack of good sense and gave his sons add-on names: the older became Skilled Finwë, while the younger became Wise Finwë. His mother called him High Chief, which – given that Finwë was High King – was something of a slap in the face to the eldest son. (Hint: irritating someone named Spirit of Fire is not a good idea.)

Then there was another daughter, who Finwë called Sexy (all right, ‘desirable’), and her mother named Laughing Maiden. And then a third son, who was of course named Finwë. He got upgraded to Noble Finwë, while his mother continued her project of upsetting the previous son by calling him Wisdom.

Now, Skilled Finwë didn’t much like the fact that his mum was dead, and really hated his stepmother (possibly due to her malicious naming habits), and for that matter wasn’t too pleased with the implication that his half-brothers were wiser and nobler than him. When he got married, he decided to assert his position as his father’s son with a very large naming stick. He had seven(!) sons, all oh whom he named Finwë with various epithets.

First came Third Finwë (because Skilled Finwë and Original Finwë were the only other ones who count, you see). Then Chief Finwë, stealing the latter half of Wise Finwë’s mother-name. Then came Strong Finwë, Dark Finwë, and Skilled Finwë the second (who’s the only one who ended up using his father-name – surprise!). Finally we have the twins, Little Finwë and Last Finwë.

Fortunately their mother was one of the few members of the house with a lick of sense. She named them (in order) Handsome, Gold-shaper, Swift to Anger, Red-faced, Little Father (this is Skilled Finwë the second; apparently it was really obvious), and then the twins, both of whom she called Redhead. Of course Skilled Finwë (the elder) objected to the duplicate name, so she called one of them Doomed; he didn’t like that much better.

At the same time, Wise Finwë was having his own kids, and it seems like his wife had a bit of a controlling hand over his naming tendencies (well, she was called Holy herself, so she had a vested interest). His first son came very near to being another Finwë, but ended up as Hairy Chief instead. On the other hand, remember that Wise Finwë’s mother-name was High Chief… yeah, there’s a lot of Chiefs in his line.

So his second son was called Mighty Chief. Then he had a daughter, whose name doesn’t seem to be translatable; probably a good thing, frankly. Then he had a third son, and decided this ‘partial self-naming’ thing wasn’t good enough, so he just straight-up called him High Chief. As you do. Then he stopped, because there was no point competing with Mr. Seven Sons, was there?

Noble Finwë was… pretty much as bad. He called his first son Champion, which is original, but his wife kept up the crazy by naming him Wisdom, which was also her husband’s mother-name, and another slap in the face for Wise Finwë. Then they had another son, who Noble Finwë named… Champion again. Hey, it worked for dad! He distinguished them by naming the eldest Hairy Champion (House of Finwë werewolf status: howling at the moon) and the younger Iron Champion.

The third son was another Champion, and may have been born after Skilled Finwë’s twins: he ended up as Champion of Doom. His mother’s contribution was to call him Fell Fire, riffing off Skilled Finwë’s preferred mother-name – look, these people really didn’t like each other, is what I’m saying.

Finally we have the daughter of the house: Noble Woman. Sounds good, but remember this is Noble Finwë’s daughter – he basically called her Girl Me. Her mother was even more baffled by having a daughter, and called her Tomboy.

At that point the sheer madcap naming ends; the following generation all have fairly sane names. But as a final capstone to the whole thing, when Wise Finwë became High King after Skilled Finwë’s death, he decided to add his father’s name to his own. The fact that it was already there didn’t bother him: he just stuck it on the front, becoming Finwë Wise Finwë.

This, naturally, the sons of Noble Finwë couldn’t stand (what with their father being High King back home now). So they did the same thing, retroactively renaming poor dad as Finwë Noble Finwë.

See? It all makes perfect sense!

(Conclusion one: Elves aren’t as imaginative about their names as we’d think. Conclusion two: House Finwë really hated each other. Conclusion three: they’re probably werewolves.)

hS

Hilarious as it would be to have you read the entire Lay, I'll think of something slightly shorter. ;)

hS

Can I pay you guys in energy at all? 'Cause that'd be easier, and I've got plenty of Galinergy to spare. I can do basic stuff, like pure metals, pretty easily, too, but more complicated stuff might take time. Also, either of you guys any good at snatching special stuff from weird places?

Tell me about it. I put down Intel and Crossovers as my preferences, and then I ended up in DMS because of a 'staffing shortage' even though I didn't know much about how to kill things.

Yeah, he's 1500 years or so at this point in his life, so Zeb's long gone. As for how things play out in the future, it's a stable time loop, so things happen the same way as before.

You really did the thing! Oh, right, ought to hide the thing. Ahem.

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It's kind of interesting to see Ave talking to Zeb after, I'd guess, Zeb's already gone for him. Got a question, though: In the future, will Ave use his perfect memory to guarantee that he does the exact same thing every time, or does it change a little every time?

Starring two angry birds, a crackfic, some very poor life choices, and way too much Suebuprofen.

I know this thing is a lot shorter than what I usually produce, but with the new house rules largely preventing me from any major PPC writing until further notice, I might as well drop it off here while I still can. That and, well... This fic pretty much speaks for itself, really. ^^;

Anyway, enjoy - and welcome back, you stupid tin turkey! XD

>COMMENCING OPERATION: [REDACTED] IN T-MINUS NINE MISSIONS_

For at least half an hour, or until I go to bed! I recently added to the FicPsych deck, and I'd love to try it out. {= D

~Neshomeh

If we did an HQ-wide Pokemon tournament, would you enter as yourself or let one of your partners control you? Would you enter the tournament at all? I'd enter the hypothetical tournament if I had more Pokemon who I thought could handle it than Meganium.

I wanted to go into Intelligence when I first arrived, but someone said since I showed up with no backstory and only an outline of a personality, I might accidentally go native if I investigated a pony fic or something. I dunno, maybe he just didn't like ponies very much.

As far as I can tell, they put me in Floaters because Chris had recently shown up as confused as I was and he needed somepony to balance out his serious nature. There's probably another reason, I just can't imagine what that reason might be. I hope that answered your question. n_n

If you could choose what type of mission you did next, what would you choose and why?

For RC 1110 specifically: What's your favorite aspect of or fact about dragons from your respective home verses?

Kali, practically (literally, to tell the truth) squeaking, hurriedly strapped on her leather armor and began frantically searching for a sling. "I'm coming!" she called, tossing unidentified weapons through the air as she dug through the armaments. "Oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear oh dear--"

[Kali searches for a trusty Sling, for she is Sling-woman, slinger of slings!]

((-Alleb))

Lessee... if you're right, and the EM drive works, I'll post a recording of me singing/reading a Tolkien song/poem of your choice--even the Lay of Leithian!--and if I'm right (I hope I'm not, honestly), and the drive doesn't work, I'd like you to draw me a picture of that OC I never stop talking about, Amy. Deal? ^_^

-Alleb

CAHQ is NSFW, just so you know, but it's still fun.


Here's the link!

Password is AVIATORFEELS.

He waits to see if any others will come to help the Orc, ready to begin attempting to enthrall them the moment he sees them. ((That is how it works, right? I can enthrall people who want to attack my character?))