Somehow, you, a perfectly ordinary human, has ended up the alpha of a pack of werewolves.
A Little Bit
The trick, she discovers, is kindness.
~
Werewolves are notoriously violent. They are said to “lose all autonomy” on night of the full moon, and transforming on other days still results in “heightened levels of testosterone and violence.”
If you tell someone that they are something their whole lives– if you tell a little girl that the color white is purple, that she is dumb because she writes backwards, or that she is bad because her hair or her financial situation, she will believe that. She will grow into that. If you tell a werewolf that they are evil and violent when wolves, that at their freest they are their meanest: they will believe that. They will become that. They will expect that of other werewolves and become defensive, will have bred hatred for their brethren before they ever transform.
An outsider’s perspective is sometimes needed.
And it starts, as most things do, with a child.
~
“Look,” her brown fingers forcefully unfolded from the fist it had been making. “I know what I want. I want the child you said you couldn’t even find fosters for. I already signed the paperwork!”
The social worker sighed, skin washing out under the light and wrinkles deepening. “I have to make sure. I’ve been trying to find little Zora parents for years now, but…”
“The only issue would be health issues. I can afford an unhealthy or disabled child, so that’s not an issue for me at all. I don’t get why you’re being so–”
“Zora is a werewolf.”
Silence.
Hailey took a breath. Let it out.
“So?”
The social worker smiled, “Then one more signature, and in a few weeks you will have your child, and Zora will have her home.”
Neither of them mentioned his tears. They both talked over what she would need to buy to handle a werewolf child– her werewolf child. They drank tea. She signed papers.
She would never regret that.
~
Zora had the yellow eyes of all lycans. She grinned shyly with too-sharp teeth, and fiddled with her too-long nails.
Hailey gave Zora the softest blanket she could buy, and settled her down for hot chocolate as they watched the sun set from the porch.
She had dimples and threw her hands around and enjoyed talking. And loved the color green. And brown. And blue. Maybe red was her favorite color, but pink was certainly a close second. No, wait, purple. She liked ice cream and steak and chicken and flowers that grew between the cracks of the sidewalk.
Zora was perfect.
The doctor said that Zora would transform the next full moon. To lock her in a cage. To muzzle her. To chain her up.
Hailey looked at Zora. At her large yellow eyes so filled with hope. At the way she used her too-long nails to open bags of chips or used her too-long teeth to open cans. At the sundresses she wore; pictured the paint-stained overalls. The room they had painted like a galaxy, the glow-in-the-dark stars they’d taped and hung on her ceiling.
She thought about the small, lycan-run website she made, and some controversial, revolutionary ideas it proposed.
She snorted. Yeah, right. Lock and chain her child up? No.
~
The first transformation was always painful. An online forum said nothing more than a Aspirin or two could be taken for this first Shift.
“Mom?” Zora’s lips wobbled. Her bushy hair tangled from the nervous pulling it had endured that day. “I– I don’t want to be bad, mom. Will the Shift make me bad?”
Hailey could have said anything to that, and no one would blame her. She could say it’s not you, it’s the wolf, like one website recommended. She could say yes, and every second you have to fight against the evil inside you, like one Christian-extremist group urged. She could have said anything. She said,
“No. You are good, and the wolf is a part of you, so it must be good, too.”
And it was that simple.
The moon rose. A daughter screamed, a mother cried. A mother prepared to have to wrestle her child, so much stronger than her, to have to assert an unwanted dominance.
A werewolf– too large to be a real wolf, spine to straight, claws too split, to be something so mundane. It yipped. Saw the hesitation in the mother’s eyes. Rolled onto its back, tongue lolling, and yipped again.
Hailey laughed. “Good girl! I love you so much! Want pets, or play?” A yip, the lycan bounded off. More laughter. “Play it is, then!”
~
There’d been complaints. A neighbor said they “feared for their life” and that “the lycan had attacked” her. Zora didn’t leave the backyard, despite how much she wanted to. So, once a month, they drove to a werewolf forest-reserve. They hadn’t encountered any other lycans.
Until then.
A grey wolf burst out from the bushes, snarling and snapping. Intent on Zora. Zora.
“Zora!” Hailey didn’t need to think, she was moving before words could form.
“Don’t you DARE touch my daughter!” She stood in front of Zora, arms spread wide.
That did not deter the lycan, who prowled closer. Yellow eyes. She could not hurt yellow eyes. But she must.
~
Werewolves have exceptionally large forms. A younger, adolescent lycanthrope in its Shifted form can easily tower over an adult man. These large forms are one of their greatest assets: they can overpower their prey though sheer size. It is, however, also a weakness. For, you see, their vulnerable points are that much more exposed. Which is why, if one becomes cornered by a Shifted lycanthrope, it is recommend that you strike at their diaphragm or throat, if help cannot be contacted, before absconding away as quickly as humanly (or superhumanly) possible.
~
She rushed forward, swinging her elbow and digging it into the small hollow near the creatures chest. It yowled, falling to the side. It growled and backed away.
Zora whimpered, tail between her legs and ears down. She nuzzled at her mother worriedly, terrified of the bigger werewolf and scared for her mother’s life.
“It’s okay, baby.” she hushed, holding out a spray-bottle (Zola loved to try to bite the sprays of water) like it was a gun, eyes never leaving the (violent, evil, human) attacking lycan. “See? Mommy knows what she’s doing.”
She stepped forward once. Twice. Four steps and then she hit a stride. She stood nose-to-nose with the lycan, all five-feet of her stretching tall, towering in presence if not height.
“Bad.” The lycan growled. She sprayed it twice in quick succession. “Bad.”
It blinked. Surprised.
“Now, if you wanted to play, you could have just waited!” She turned, walking purposefully in Zora’s direction. “Come along, now.”
They did come along, by lunging. Zora howled, bunching up her muscles and preparing to attack, but Hailey whirled around, spraying their face. “Don’t be mean! We don’t want to fight. I have steak, and am willing to share. But only to those who play. Nice.” They considered, head tilting, before thumping to the ground and rolling over, whining.
Hailey laughed, but wiped the anxious sweat from her forehead. “Okay, let’s go!”
~
The next full moon, the black-and-white wolf found her, a pack behind them, all barking and waiting for plays and pets and meat.
~
The full moon after that, everyone fell asleep just before the sun rose, and Hailey met them as people.
Hardin was the black-and-white, and she was alpha. Or rather, she had been.
“What.” Hailey couldn’t comprehend.
“My name used to be Phir’Hilaaya, but now it is Hardin. Normal pack members are given two-syllable names. The Alpha gets three-syllables. As previous Alpha, I name you Melora.” Hardin was gigantic in her human form, as well. Hulking muscles, and she stood at least at six-foot. Her yellow eyes had become softer than when Hailey– Melora?–
“Okay, yeah. I get that part. But how did I become Alpha?” She bit her lip, held Zora closer to her.
Hardin gave her a look like she was particular stupid, but humored her regardless. “That first night, I showed my belly to you. An Alpha can never submit to an opponent, else they lose their place. I submitted to you, so you are Alpha.”
Hailey hunched in on herself, and whispered, “I don’t know how to be Alpha.”
“That’s okay,” Hardin put an arm around her shoulders, giving her a kind smile, “I’ll help you get on your feet.”
Melora stood taller. Looked at her daughter. And knew.
~
Melora’s pack was not the first to fight for werewolf rights. No, they were simply the first to have a human leading the pack, and for that human-Alpha to be dating the previous Alpha.
As they strode towards a better world, a better life, Melora suggested, “Maybe we can help the vampire community, once we make more progress here.”
Hardin, bouncing Zora on her hip, barked a laugh, “You’re too good. But wherever you go, we’ll follow.” Howls broke out around the Alpha.
Hailey, now Melora, had known she wouldn’t regret this.
A little bit of kindness goes a long way.
~Fin~
Oh, geeze. This was supposed to be a little thing, but I wrote six pages on google docs for this and hrrrggghhh. I didn’t get to include everything I wanted, otherwise it would have taken hours longer! I hope this is something like you were imagining for your prompt idea. I wish I had more time to do things for this, but it wasn’t meant to be D:
This isn’t written in my usual style, but it was fun. I hope anyone reading this enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
[Yasmin Benoit: You barely see asexual people as it is, let alone a black asexual person.
I am a model and an asexuality activist, and I am an aromantic asexual.
There was never really a time where I didn’t think I was asexual. I noticed when I was about eight and I was in primary school like everyone’s hormones seemed to kick in and all of a sudden the boys and girls didn’t want to just play with each other; they were going out with each other and they fancied each other and I was like, “Alright, what’s this?”
The default is straight so when people would ask me I’d be like “Well I guess I’m straight but I don’t like boys.” And they were like: “Well then you’re probably not straight.” They said: “Well do you like girls?” and I was like “No, I don’t really like anybody.” And they were like: “Well maybe you’re asexual or something?” And I was like “Alright, that sounds good.” So I Googled that and I was like “Yeah, sounds about right.” So when I was about 14, I just started using that word.
I find that most of the time, in my personal life, people just kind of re-interpret it their own way. So I’ll say: “Hey, I’m asexual” and they’ll be like: “Oh ok, so you’re well behaved.” They’ll just switch it. I’ll be like “I’m asexual” and they’ll be like: “Oh, you’ll find the right person, don’t worry” and I’ll be like “That’s not what I said.”
It has nothing to do with being a prude, it has nothing to do with being insecure, and antisocial, and introverted. It has nothing to do with how you look—that’s something I get a lot—people are like: “Oh but you’re good looking, you don’t need to be asexual,” which usually tells me that A) people think that there is an asexual look and that it isn’t a good one, and 2) that asexuality is a choice that people take when they can’t get dates or that they can’t get laid, which is really strange.
One of the benefits of being asexual is definitely that you don’t have to worry about–if you’re aromantic—you really don’t worry about relationship stuff. I know some asexual people do worry about that but I don’t have that problem.
I think that representation is definitely very important because I think the LGBTQIA+ community in general is pretty whitewashed in its representation. That is not only ironic for the community that’s supposed to be so inclusive and diverse if it doesn’t look like that, it’s also counterproductive for minorities that are part of it because it’s kind of seen as being a white thing, which definitely doesn’t help when you are trying to come out and people don’t take it seriously in your community because it’s seen as being this white kid thing.
Even in the LGBTQIA community, I find that people tend to cut out the A or think that the A stands for allies. I notice a lot of the time in organisations or in the media, people only care about the LGBT part and even though they put the plus, they don’t actually acknowledge the plus. But last time I checked the community is about, you know, people that aren’t heteronormative and they don’t fit that and it’s supposed to be inclusive of that. I think that LGBTQIA+ platforms should do a better job of acknowledging what’s in the plus and not just the LGB and the T.]
you’ve probably seen posts telling you that it’s okay not to have sex if you don’t want to, that you’re never obligated to perform sexual acts if you’re uncomfortable with it
and that’s great, I’ll repeat that a thousand times, but I would just like to add that you also don’t have to sext if you don’t want to. you don’t have to send nudes if you don’t want to. you don’t have to do anything sexual if you don’t feel like it or it makes you uncomfortable, even if it’s “just” digital.
if somebody tells you they “need” it, they’re an asshole. you don’t owe anybody anything sexual, not even if they’re your partner. you don’t have to send them anything to make them like you or keep them interested, because someone who cares more about sex than about your comfort isn’t somebody you need in your life. sex is just a want, but consent is a need.
you don’t have to sext.
you don’t have to take nudes.
you don’t have to do anything to please somebody else if you don’t want to.
Here’s the second part of mindfulness I learned in therapy that helped me to function after a breakdown. If you, like me, were taught growing up that some emotions were unacceptable, you may need to learn to handle them now as an adult in order to be healthy. All emotions are important indicators that are there to help you.
there aren’t enough posts going around about the swedish cryptid known as the skvader which is a rabbit with pheasant wings and also a very good boy.
like this one dude just made a fake taxidermy and spread it around as a hoax for a good ass while and it lead to this really cool fantasy creature and i am genuinely dissapointed that it never gets used in anything
THE BOY
Rabbirds, by the amazing @tkingfisher/Ursula Vernon (source).
The lack of skvaders is particularly frustrating when you realize it forms the third point of a wonderful cryptid trifecta.
You got the jackalopes, which are rabbits with antlers.
And you got the wolpertingers, which are rabbits with antlers and wings.
And then… what? Do you escalate? That’s unbalanced, those two rabbit cryptids don’t have the same number of extra things, the wolpertinger is clearly the jackalope But More.
BUT with the skvader on the other side, balance is restored. Antler rabbit, winged rabbit, winged antler rabbit. It’s a classic Venn diagram of imaginary lapine beasts, and it’s only complete if you acknowledge the fucking skvader.
Good thing Ursula’s got our back, at least.
This is a really excellent point and I applaud your advancements in Cryptid Theory.
Gentleman, if I might add:
yes you may add this
I think balance in crypdids is VERY IMPORTANT.
I like this post because as a pre-internet child I really believed jackalopes were a real thing from going out west to visit family (I was naïve and maybe gullible). Learning about this many more cryptids really warms my soul.
i like never add to posts but these r from my town and i wanted to show our pride and joy: on top of the towns mountain is a HUGE skvadern slide for all the kids to enjoy…. there’s a tube if u enter its head… cryptozoology for the whole family!
@elodieunderglass I wasn’t going to tag you until I saw the venn diagram
I love wolpertingers – I saw one in a ripley’s believe it or not museum as a child and was profoundly affected by it.
We’ve been talking a bit about disaster preparedness and end-of-the-world fantasies, so here’s something I never really see discussed:
How would a significant interruption in access to modern pharmaceuticals effect medical transition?
The only thing I can think of is I find a veterinarian (because every zombie survival team needs a veterinarian) to cut my balls off and then I start drinking pregnant horse peepee, as our foremothers once did upon the steppes of Scythia.
And I really don’t think I can find words to adequately describe how badly I want that to Not Happen.
This is a good point. I mean, you can only raid pharmacies so long.
A lot of chronic illnesses, or people using hormones, or elderly folk and disabled folk who need regular medicine are gonna have a really hard time during a larger scale disaster or transportation shutdown, it is true. It’s something to account for when one plans for “apocalypse” natural disasters or transport/power shutdowns.
For one very, er, strong medication I am on, I have a stash of the few extra pills I have ever gotten and I’d probably spend the first few weeks of a transportation shutdown using them to nurse other people and myself through the withdrawal process of this particular drug. I have a lot of experience with this.. and enough other basic medical knowledge to become a support for the doctors and actual nurses and caregivers who will be run off their feet during such a time. I’ve learned a lot of general triage and field trauma medicine.
Also try the fantasy webcomic White Noise. TW, It’s got a lot of mature themes and a major disruption of government, but it also features several trans characters and handles how being refugees makes their lives especially complicated.
An interesting dichotomy you run into with this sort of specfic: I definitely want to read that but I also definitely don’t want to read that
I’m pretty much prepared to just die. My mom keeps talking about fixes but without insulin it’s just delaying the inevitable. It’s fun to be confronted with that.
Well, the reason we’re asking these questions now is so that we can be sure that doesn’t happen. Despite all the stuff about zombies and the end of the world and whatnot, this is not just idle chatter, but something that a lot of people are actually trying to find a solution to.
Like, as for me, I mostly know soils and wood, not medicine, but I definitely know my way around a laboratory. That bit I said about drinking horse peepee was a poetic flourish; given an adequate laboratory space and a supply of pregnant mare urine, I’m confident that I could figure out homebrewed premarin. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjugated_estrogens).
I am absolutely sure that something can be done about insulin.
Like it says in the the preamble to the IWW constitution, “…we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.”
I want to believe that, but at the same time it’s very hard for me to feel like it’s worth the effort on my end. It’s kind of why my plan for like, inevitable collapse is to just make sure I’m not a burden. But I’m just a bit bleak when I think about that kind of thing in general.
You would NOT be a burden.
A person is NEVER a burden.
Insulin can be extracted from pig and cow pancreas. You’d better believe that we’d figure out a way to keep you alive and kicking.
And there’s people with a list of a lot harder to get medication, @mirronx, me for example given I had to be reanimated last year and am still recovering from that, yet I know that @systlin Would Not let me die young without dragging me back kicking and screaming.
You’re goddamn right I wouldn’t.
I’ve talked a lot about this in the past—usually with regards to fiction and how ableism affects the “survivor narrative” cause y’know, editor and disabled—but y’know what the biggest take away from all those discussions were? The lengths to which random people on the internet, people I’m not even friends with, who spoke up and said “you’re not a burden we wouldn’t let you die.”
I still remember the one time I referred to myself as a burden and how, in the event of a zombie apocalypse I should just be left behind with a shotgun to try and buy everyone else some time, and @undead-tealeaves response was “fuck that, if you can’t run we’ll carry you” and honestly it might have been a throw away remark, it might have just been a friend reflexively knee jerking against the idea of letting me die, but it meant so much. Because it’s hard to think of your life having value when you’ve been trained to think of yourself as a burden, it’s hard to envision your survival in such circumstances when all the narratives tell you you should just die to let other people thrive. But if running this blog has taught me anything over the years, it’s to never underestimate the human capacity for kindness and sheer dogged determination to survive against the odds. We may be capable of limited survival on our own, but it’s together that we thrive.
In unrelated news, Boromir is the only member of the fellowship of the ring that would have Valid Driver’s License in a Modern AU.
Sam has a Driver’s License but they drive on the other side of the road in Hobbiton so his isn’t valid in the rest of Middle Earth.
Frodo and Merry are Gays That Can Do Math, and therefore can’t Drive.
Pippin HAD a license but got it revoked due to Aggravated Shenanigans.
Gandalf CAN drive but is an insane paranoid hippie that hates both petrolum-based transportation and government paperwork. He does have a pilot’s license though. Don’t ask him to justify it unless you want a four-hour lecture on civil rights that sounds like it’s quoting law from another dimension.
Aragon can drive, quite well, but it never occured to him that he might need a license to do so on public roads. He doesn’t know about taxes either.
Gimli travels frequently but as a diplomet and royal, never was the one in the driver’s seat.
Legolas can’t be trusted to operate a blender, much less a motor vehicle. He will attempt to do so anyway.
I don’t know if you might’ve meant “taxis” in keeping with the driving theme but I am thoroughly and absolutely LOSING MY SHIT at the concept of Aragorn doesn’t know about taxes, Aragorn you’re gonna be king, Aragorn you’re supposed to know how to do these things, Aragorn this is THE MOST BASIC OF BASIC STATESMANSHIP.
And THE THING IS, I’m not certain it doesn’t also work canonically. Because like we can infer that Aragorn got most of his How To Be A King For Dummies lessons from the elves, and, well, do elves… have… taxes? It seems unlikely. (Do elves even have currency? There’s probably an answer to that one and I just don’t know it.) Somehow I can’t quite picture Galadriel going around Lothlorien like okay suckers pay up you’ve gotta pay a property tax on that tree you know.
So then he gets to Gondor and gets crowned and a few months later someone comes by and is like “how much are we taxing the peasants this year” and Aragorn panics and is just like “f…five? ……. too high? Too low?”
And I mean, who can blame the guy, he’s basically been wandering the wilderness for the majority of his life, it’s not like he’s ever really had personal property besides an improbable number of weapons, so he’s probably never, you know, paid taxes
Aragorn, son of Arathorn, Elessar, Isildur’s heir and rightful king of Gondor, is a tax dodger
You. You get this.
Like this is a Modern AU where Aragon becomes Mayor of a medium-sized mountain town*, but tbh this still holds in canonverse too imho. the first like. 3 years of Aragon Having A Real Job For The First Time That Happens To Coincidentally Be A Political Position, is him listening to people making suggestions about “So what are we taxing the pesants?” and “What’s this years Budget?” and him Turning to Arwen, one of like 4 people in all of Middle-earth with any damn sense, and saying
“Hey Babe? What’s a Budget?”
*In this AU The Riders of Rohan are a Biker Gang and Edoras is a really nice mom-and-pop convience store/bar/mechanic/tourist trap that’s been run by “King” Teddy’s family for as long as anyone can remember.
**I think i might have come up with a “Great Westen American Roadtrip LotR AU”
Help.
***The Hobbits are Canadians. I know canadians drive on the same side of the road but the Idea of Sam having an invalid lisence is hysterical.
****They found the ring in the idyllic Waterton-Galcier International peace Park/The Shire, over the border where nobody thought to look for it, and end up on a quest to take it to the hellish land of raging Monsters and unlivable condiiotns known as Mount Doom/ Phoenix Arizona.
The Prancing Pony is the Pie Place in St. Mary, Montan- IT’STWO IN THE GODDMAN MORING I KNOW AO3 GOT NOMINATED FOR A HUGO BUT I DO NOT NEED TO BE WRITING THIS RIGHT NOW.
i totally am, later, but like. when the sun is out.
Elves basically invented feudalism in Middle Earth, but like. They’re so crazy long-lived it’d be easy for an elf to amass material wealth by just not being an utter dumbass, and plus they have magic so. Do the elf-kings actually NEED anything from their vassals other than the assurance that they’ll show up with a weapon when it’s time for the next attack on Literal Satan and his Black Castle of Evil?? Do elves need to levy taxes?
And even if they do, I bet Galadriel had to go through the exact same process Aragorn did in the post above, because SHE was born in the Undying Lands where life is beautiful all the time and the trees are somehow constantly both in flower AND bearing fruit at the same time, and nobody does any labor unless they like it.
And then just to make things even worse Galadriel learned rulership from Melian, who is a Literal Angel like Gandalf and ALSO pulled all kinds of magical bullshit on her elven husband’s kingdom. What I’m saying here is the first hundred years or so of Galadriel trying to rule on her own were A Very Rocky Time for Everybody.
Which is why she made sure her daughter and grandchildren got a firm grounding in stewardship and economic theory, so they’d never have to go through that embarrassment. And lucky she did too, or Gondor’s post-war recovery would’ve been completely FUCKED.
#aragorn: hey babe what’s a budget #arwen (already dragging him off to the bedroom): god estel you’re so fucking stupid
DRAKE YOUR TAGS
well it’s 3 AM and I made coffee, and i think this Great Western Road trip AU has legs , so I did a bad overlay and discovered the Hobbits are NOT Canadians:
THEY’RE CALIFORNIANS. I like this map becuase it puts the trip in some really fun places if you fudge the route a bit:
The Shire is near Mendicino, CA
Tom Bombadil probably lives in Jackson State Forest which is a old-growth redwoods kind of place.
Bree is now Yuba City, CA
Weathertop is Smartsville, a “Historic” ghost town that seems like a place that would harbour Nazgul
Rivendell is about in Lake Tahoe, maybe Trukee.
I CAN HEAR YOU, PERSNICKETY TOLKIEN CARTOGRAPHY PEOPLE. WE’RE FUDgING THE ROUTE. WHAT? YOU WANT RIVENDELL IN FUCKING *squints at map* FALLON, NV?? IT’S WAY TO PICTURESQUE TO BE THAT FAR OUT OF THE SIERRA NEVADAS.
moving right along
Moria can literally be an abandoned uranium mine. it’s terrific.
Lothlorien is probably the
Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, on account of that’s the one place in Nevada that I can verify has trees.
…I think othornac is in Bakersfield, CA, which puts Fangorn in Sequoia National Park. Appropriate.
Also Rohan is mostly in the Death Valley Area. Kickass. Helms deep can be an abandonded nuclear missle silo, it’s awesome.
This does make most of Gondor the Los Angeles Basin tho. Minas Tirith is now the bustling metropolis of… Palm Springs. Hm. eh, Gondor’s kind of a shit country as is. DOES put the cave fulla ghosts in the middle of LA tho, so that’s fun.
Shelob lives in the Kofa Nat’l Wildlife refuge, which is IRL famous for it’s tarantulas.
Mt. Doom is still, of course. Phoenix, AZ.
goddamit i’m actually going to have to write this thing now.
Have been to both Fallon, NV, and Lake Tahoe, I agree that Tahoe is a MUCH more Rivendelly kind of place. Actually I went to high school in that part of Nevada (well, the first two years anyway) and it fucking sucked. That part of the southwest is, indeed, Nazgul Country.
Hey, does this mean the Easterlings Sauron imported for the final battle are, in fact, Mormons? 😀
2. @gaslightgallows uhhhhh… Well, I have pre-orders for the Family Lore Nonfiction Book out right now, but I was wondering what I was gonna do after those ship so I think I’m gonna do this. So expect Pre-orders to open Late 2019/early 2020?
Other things from the Notes:
I want to thank the Arizonians for coming out and telling me about Sunset Crater, an actual active volcano in the right part of AZ to be Mount Doom. This means that Phoenix is actually Barad-dûr.
God bless the people in the notes trying to figure out if Canon!Aragorn would actually know anything about taxes, how or even IF taxes happen in Middle-earth, and what schooling Elrond could have foisted upon Estel during intermittent and extremely distracted visits to Arwen.
Apparently drivers lisences are intenrationally Valid no matter what side of the road you learned to drive on which given my family’s expirience driving in Ireland, seems like a terrible Idea.
I’m playing it extremely fast and lose with travel times, distances, what governments may or may not exist, what year it even is and when the apocalypse occured.
JRRT built so much world he built fantasy for the next fucking century and a half so I don’t have to. Thank you, Jonald.
There was at least one Apocalypse in this AU becuase the original Series is post-apocalyptic: fallen kingdoms, fading magic, long-forgotten statuary etc. but the details of which apocalypse and how it went down have been lost to time and the collapse of widespread governance. Maybe it was a nuclear event, maybe the Wyoming Supervolcano, Maybe the Second American Civil War, maybe all 3 at the same time. Who knows? Not the Fellowship, which can barely collectively remember to not leave Frodo at the gas station.
Aragorn is a Transguy and tried out like, a zillion names before settling on Aragorn, which is why everyone he meets calls him something different
Barkeep, gesturing to the mysterious dude in the corner wearing sunglasses at night and indoors: Nobody really knows who he is, but I’ve heard him called… Strider. Pippin: what, like Homestuck?
Boromir has a VW bus that’s older than his crap father and has what he thinks are cool modifications to make it intoa camper van, but in reality he ripped out the seats and adhered coleman products to the walls with duct tape
Aragorn: “You fell!“
Gandalf: “Through fire. And water.”
Gandalf: “From the lowest dungeon to the highest peak, I fought him, the Balrog of Morgoth.”
Gimil: “For the LAST TIME-” Legolas: “Dude, don’t interrupt!” Gandalf: “Until at last, I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin upon the mountainside. Darkness took me. And I strayed out of thought and time.
Stars wheeled overhead, and every day was as long as the life age of the earth.” Everyone: “Oooooh!” Gandalf: “But it was not the end. I felt light in me again. I’ve been sent back until my task is done.”
Aragorn: “Not to be a buzzkill, but I think you got high and went to a laundromat.” Gandalf: “Well. I did that too. Wonderous things they do with Bleach these days, took 30 years of grime right out!”
Boromir re-appears at the coronation wearing a sombrero and explaining that “Yeah, OK, I got shot a lot and blacked out but I got Better! Also really lost for a while.”
“Aragorn is a Transguy and tried out like, a zillion names before settling on Aragorn, which is why everyone he meets calls him something different”
@takiki16 I was gonna put the Dwimorberg pass in the abandoned, decayed and slightly readioactive remains of Disneyland
Becuase that’s the creepiest place I can think of in LA. But it also fits with the Dunlendings beign prosperous but backstabby jerks, so that’s neat.
I haven’t actually been near Yuba County in like. 15 years? so I’ve missed the drama with Yuba City/Marysville, and I’m thinking of fudging around that part of the route for more dynamic scenery anyway if you have suggestions.
Pippin: “I think I can see my house from here!” Merry: “You can probably see where the elves are schlepping off to from here.” Treebeard: “You’re facing East guys.” Saruman, in his Coroporate Skyscraper in Bakersfield, realizing Treebeard is about eye-to-roof-level: I May Have Made A Slight Miscalculation.
