The Writer’s Life According To The Lord Of The Rings

if you’re offline or away and i message you something (like a link to a meme or a picture or w/e) honestly just assume that i’m just leaving it there for when you get back and not expecting you to answer straight away. i don’t need you to respond with “hey, sorry, i wasn’t at the computer!” or anything. i was leaving u a gift for later.

The first verse of What Child is This but over a painting of the Pieta

hold on a sec lemme see something

reblog this post if you are/were a homeschool girlie

Technically the reason the Pevensies were told they wouldn’t return to Narnia after certain adventures is because they “learned all they can from this world,” and not because they were literally “too old.” How else could it be that Peter was too old at 14, while Lucy was too old at 10, and yet Eustace and Jill still got to go back at 16? So now I’m thinking a little bit about what that means for each of them…

Peter learned all he could after his second trip. It was during this trip that he truly learned to surrender control, and he found the strength to make a home back in England. At this point in the story, he has solidified his faith in Aslan, and is ready to find him back there.

Susan, on the other hand, couldn’t learn any more for a different reason. It is apparent from the later books that following her second trip, she forgets the country she used to love. Susan, obviously, had not yet become firm in her faith, and I think Aslan realized that she couldn’t do that in Narnia. Susan believed only when it was easy. She had to go back to her own world and forge her own path in order to eventually strengthen her faith.

Edmund finally sees what it is like to be out from under the shadow of his brother in Voyage of the Dawn Treader, in a way that he hadn’t been able to before. This allows him the final room to grow, as he is put in a position as the oldest child, and he learns to accept his role in the family. Finally confident with who he is, he is ready to reaffirm his faith, and find Aslan in his own world.

Lucy, of course, had always had faith, but she needed Narnia the longest. Perhaps she didn’t behave badly during her time in England, but she didn’t understand her world at all, and desperately craved more time with the physical person of Aslan. She would not have been able to bloom in her own world without that extra time. Lucy needed to put together the little pieces of who Aslan was a little better, but once she did, she knew she could find him in England, too.

I guess these are mostly just theories and/or headcanons, but I’m curious what the rest of you think! I really do believe “too old” is a more metaphorical thing in this case, so I wanted to examine the personal reasons for the individual characters a little closer. :)

Modern AU in which Megan and her family know about Ingary, and Howl and Gareth are good buddies who text each other all the time (Howl magicked their phones to work between worlds)

I hate the term "religious guilt" because most people who use it are severely muddling up (a) religious OCD (b) some messed up heresy like "it's wrong to be happy" (c) religious doctorine you don't agree with but aren't sure whether you're right not to

Mini-Review: Jet Lag: The Game

An American travel competition series, each season features a contest that sends players to achieve a geographical objective in different parts of the world, some of which are inspired by board games. Whether it's teams traveling to to US states to claim a Connect Four-style row or column, circumnavigating the globe via air travel, playing tag across western Europe, or driving the vertical length of New Zealand, players will race against each other and the reliability of transit to get the win.

Imagine: you are an adult, collapsing into a hotel bed after a long day of getting lost on the public transit of your vacation city. You're about to stream something funny and not difficult to follow—maybe Nailed It!, maybe Taskmaster—when you companion interjects, says they've been watching this really fun travel race show, and starts a playlist where a quartet of people in predawn darkness run away six seconds into the video, and suddenly you're watching people race to circumnavigate the world?

That was my introduction to Jet Lag: The Game.

Each season is a self-contained game, and they mix it up: the first season (which, for some reason, is the second playlist on YouTube) is a game of "Connect Four" across America, where teams must "claim" four states in a horizontal or vertical row by traveling to each one and completing challenges, while the second game is a race to circumnavigate the globe, and the third season is a game of tag across western Europe, primarily using train systems.

Sidequest-like challenges are an integral part of these games. In most of them, players must unlock coins or money (as in a video game) to have the in-game balance to buy tickets, or unlock information about opponents, etc., so the series is never a straight race. The challenges vary by season and location, but include things like:

Logic or trivia challenges

Go to a museum for half an hour and tell the camera 5 fun facts you learned

Eat a menu item at McDonald's you can't get in the US

Get 1000 feet from any building

Get a hole in one in mini golf

Find [animal] at [local attraction famous for animal]

Make cheese

Cursed! Listen to Tom Lehrer's "Element Song" on repeat until you reach the next city [over an hour away]

Cursed! Only take trains that leave at odd-numbered times

Acquire any food produced in your current state and mail it to your family

Explain the birds and the bees to a bird or a bee

Ride a horse

Get goosebumps while at least one goose is in the camera frame

Because the challenges are random (usually drawn from a shuffled deck of cards), it adds tension to the games: the player or team needs money/coins/points in order to travel, or thwart their competitors, and there's a real risk that they'll fail because it's physically impossible or there's not enough time to complete.

If you, like me, are wary of YouTubers™, worry not. The focus here is the game, and the players do a decent job trying not to bother other people: most faces of passers-by are blurred, players try to set up in out-of-the-way corners when filming, and when they need to interact with people, like at a customer service desk, the camera is usually pointed at the player. There's also a lot of being very polite to customer service, drivers, and others they interact with. You can see them get strange looks sometimes, but overall they do a good job of trying not to be Social Media Personalities™ disruptively.

And the players themselves also seem to be nice people to watch; they'll send "curses" or other interruptions when the game allows for it, but there's no out-of-game interpersonal unpleasantness that makes it into the show. Also, one player, Ben, consistently wears the brightest, most funky clothes. He has no camouflage in a crowd, but who cares.

Final comments: Highly recommend. It's fun, safe for most ages—swears stronger than "damn" get bleeped—and you can tell that a lot of planning and thought has gone into game development to balance things. If you like the idea of race-type reality shows combined with good attitudes and sportsmanship, you'll probably enjoy this.

Subtitle availability: English closed captions are available and very well-done, sometimes including different font colors to indicate different people in conversations, and some excellent phonetic spellings of mispronunciations! However, for the first two seasons (Connect 4 and Circumnavigation), only auto-generated captions on YT are available.

Where to watch (USA, as of December 2024): YouTube (playlists link [X]) and Nebula (which was partially founded by the game's creator)—which also has recap/discussion podcasts, and series outtake video tarting with season 8, and the service gets new episodes a week early.

Start watching with: The friend who introduced me started me with the first playlist that shows up on YouTube, Circumnavigation, so I feel like if it worked on me, it'll work on others. But if that doesn't appeal to you, starting with either the next playlist—Connect Four Across America (which is actually the first season) or the third season, Tag Eur It, would be good. I started my parents on Tag Eur It, a game of tag across multiple European countries, because I think it's got one of the strongest hooks of any early series, explains the rules very quickly, and the immediate urgency (runner must run; chasers start to follow soon after) draws you in very quickly.

But really, starting anywhere will work. However, because the creators sometimes reference outcomes from earlier games, especially when they are playing near the location of previous games, I recommend watching any similar-geography games in order (Tag 1 before Tag 2 or Hide and Seek, and New Zealand [Race to the End of the World] before Australia).

Status/Frequency: There are currently 11 complete seasons on Youtube (12 on Nebula), and so far new seasons premier roughly 3-ish times a year, with most seasons lasting 5-6 episodes, and episodes tend to be 30-45 minutes each. As of this review, there is no indication that this is likely to change anytime soon, and the 12th season premiers this month.

Click my “reviews” tag below or search “mini review” on my blog to find more!

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God grant me the strength to do the things I enjoy

obsessed with re-embodied First Age war heroes interacting with the aman-born youth

Youth: Wow, your hair is so pretty! Such a first age throwback. Could you be related to Maedhros Fëanarion? Maedhros Fëanarion: Never heard of him

Finrod Felagund: That's a cool ring, kid. Reminds me of early first age bëorian metalwork. Youth: Gee, thanks, that's exactly what I was going for! Does it make me look like King Felagund? Finrod Felagund: Absolutely. He'd be proud

Youth: Atar said you're from the first age. Did you know the sons of Fëanor? Was Celegorm hot? This blond guy the other day told me he was really hot Caranthir: Don't listen to that blond guy again. I know what he's doing