IT IS STILL VERY STRONG

This is an independent, private and selective blog for book!canon Boromir from the Tolkien Legendarium. Read the Rules if you wish to start a thread. Asks and starters are very welcome! Written by ERRAN/GULL. Tracking the tag 'abrazimir'.

[abrazimir]

Hello there! This is an independent, selective RP blog for BOROMIR II from Tolkien’s Legendarium. I am book-based with no influence from the films and I will stick to roleplaying within book timelines, characters and events. I will also not be doing crossovers or modern AU’s, my muse for Boromir is pretty tightly tied to the world and circumstances he’s involved in I’m afraid!

I go by ERRAN and they/them pronouns. I am 28 and I live in the UK so GMT time. I have been roleplaying, drawing and developing Boromir, the Stewards and Gondor itself for a very long time so I have a lot of personal and ingrained ideas that might appear in my writing. You also might find me complaining about how Boromir was portrayed in the films and, indeed... complaints about the films in general! These will be tagged film critical.

Feel free to IM me, send me asks and whatever else if we’re mutuals! Plotting always welcome. Other blogs are THEODRED SON OF THEODEN, ANARION SON OF ELENDIL and my CUIVIENEN ELF OC. 

[talktoten-a-deactivated20240813]

friendly reminder that I’m comfortable with MINOR godmodding if:

it’s genuinely in the interests of advancing plot (e.g. ‘Pass the screwdriver?’ and you can assume my muse passes the screwdriver over, or even just that your muse ended up with the screwdriver one way or another, without having to stop the reply altogether for my interjection)

it’s NOT my muse’s dialogue, inner or outer

it’s REASONABLE for my muse (e.g. if they’ve already made it quite clear the screwdriver is a sentimentally precious family heirloom or something, then the screwdriver might not reasonably change hands)

the reply isn’t solely about my muse’s actions, thoughts or feelings, but rather is about your muse, with reference to mine

you are willing to accept criticism & critique and change the reply if I can’t reasonably see my muse doing that

roleplaying, for me, is about exploring characters and worlds through story. Interaction with both the muse and the world, then, is vital, and I do not mind sacrificing a small thing from one to significantly advance the other. It’s always a good idea to talk to me if you’re uncertain and it will be easier once we know each other better, but I just wanted to put this out there so you lot know what I’m comfortable with. There’s a lot of ‘no godmodding whatsoever!!’ going around in this community and obviously, with big things, it’s a no-go – but I’m still more interested in the story.

[edenmemes]

lotr: fellowship of the ring (book) starters

❝ it is perilous to study too deply the arts of the enemy, for good or for ill. ❞   ❝ not all those who wander are lost. ❞   ❝ nothing is evil in the beginning. ❞   ❝ peril is now both before you and behind you, and upon either side. ❞   ❝ i wish you would trust me, as you used to. ❞   ❝ i’ll do as i choose and go as i please. ❞   ❝ you still mean to come with me? ❞   ❝ the world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair. ❞   ❝ there is more about you than appears on the surface. ❞ ❝ i am very weary. i must rest here a moment. ❞ ❝ i cannot thank you as i should for all your past your kindnesses. ❞ ❝ do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. ❞   ❝ i don’t know what has come over you. you’ve never been like this before. ❞   ❝ many that live deserve death. and some that die deserve life. ❞   ❝ may it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out. ❞   ❝ short cuts make long delays. ❞   ❝ what do you want, and where do you come from? ❞ ❝ it is going to be very dangerous. it is already dangerous. most likely neither of us will come back. ❞   ❝ i see there is some shadow of fear upon you. ❞   ❝ all i ask in return is: take as much care of yourself as you can. ❞ ❝ if i’ve done any harm, i’m sorry. ❞ ❝ why the disguise? who are you? ❞ ❝ you can keep your secret for the present, if you want to be mysterious. ❞   ❝ i am sick of my doings being noticed and discussed. ❞   ❝ you ought to go quietly, and you ought to go soon. ❞   ❝ i wish you would tell me what happened. ❞   ❝ have you been eavesdropping? ❞  ❝ i am bruised and in pain, but it is not too bad. ❞ ❝ we surely aren’t staying here for the night, are we? ❞ ❝ my name and my business is my own. ❞ ❝ you do not understand and cannot imagine what lies ahead. ❞   ❝ i haven’t got any courage to keep up. ❞   ❝ go back to the shadow. ❞ ❝ if there’s any help i can give, you’ve only to name it. ❞ ❝ i think you are not really as you choose to look. ❞ ❝ i am not safe here or anywhere else. ❞   ❝ i have never known you give me pleasant advice before. ❞   ❝ i am glad to see you safe and sound. ❞   ❝ perils known and unknown will grow, but we must go on. ❞ ❝ faithless is he that says farwell when the road darkens. ❞ ❝ you doubt that you will find what you seek, or accomplish what you intend. ❞   ❝ we are not going through the village tonight. too many ears pricking and eyes prying. ❞   ❝ i am going. i am leaving now. goodbye. ❞   ❝ what did you blush for? ❞ ❝ it would be death of you to come with you. ❞   ❝ even the smallest people can change the course of the future. ❞   ❝ the wide world is all around you. you can fence yourself in, but you cannot for ever fence it out. ❞   ❝ if by my life or death i can protect you, i will. ❞   ❝ being fearless, ruthless…this alone will achieve victory. ❞ ❝ i am weary in body and in heart. ❞ ❝ it is no good trying to escape you. ❞ ❝ there is mischief about. i feel it. ❞ ❝ have your weapons close at hand. ❞ ❝ how wide and empty and mournful all this country looks. ❞ ❝ don’t adventures ever have an end? i suppose not. someone else always has to carry on the story. ❞   ❝ even the very wise cannot see all ends. ❞ ❝ let us hope that no evil has come here yet. ❞     ❝ i am weary in body and in heart. ❞ ❝ a madness took me, but it has passed. ❞   ❝ what’s done cannot be undone. ❞ ❝ if you don’t let me go with you, i will follow on my own. ❞ ❝ in every wood, in every spring, there is a different green. ❞ ❝ i don’t ever remember feeling so wretched. ❞ ❝ i hate this place, too, and i am afraid. ❞ ❝ you are worn with sorrow and much toil. ❞ ❝ i wish i had never come here. ❞ ❝ it is plain that we are meant to be together. ❞

[abrazimir]

wreths​:

perhaps it was a testament to how much has died. the remnants of what once was man pulse in sickening, subdued waves beneath his ribs in place of where heartsick agony would’ve lied so long ago. if he could, he would’ve welcomed the sight of his brother; a warm kinsman compared to the cold, terrible dreaded ones who had claimed him. those that had called him brethren while under the red eye.

❝   my story is not a kind one,  ❞  nor a particularly short one, either. torn as he was between two realms, with but a speck of light to keep him stable, he still had the mind to keep time with the sun. the fortress, though free of the witch-king’s influence, still reeked of the evils and trapped dead of the fallen that had leeched her of her beauty. talion beckoned him closer; a clawed, armored finger curled,       ❝   and it is not one you mourn.   ❞     

(     his guest, so large and grand. who filled the oppressive space with a quiet poise that was almost envious, and talion wished it warmer for him.      )     ❝ could it not be that fate has spun another thread for you to follow? ❞  @abrazimir​​

❝   it matters not what fate so desired,    ❞    he said,     ❝    i made my choices and they are mine alone. i cannot change what was. it would be folly to do so.   ❞

It was a strange thing, to feel echoes of himself within the words of a wraith. It was unusual of Boromir to have asked such a question in the first place, when had he ever paid heed to fate? And yet perhaps within the world’s changing he had also changed, and the worries of his brother and father now sounded less superfluous than they once had. Still, he did not voice the empathy he felt, he doubted it would be welcome. 

In any case, the experience was surreal enough. 

Minas Morgul (it’s title still, until Boromir returned home and proclaimed it won, as would be his last act as Captain-General of Gondor) was so alike to Minas Tirith as to give him an uncanny chill. Some parts of the sixth circle were nigh perfect mirrors and the courts that now surrounded Boromir and his accursed host felt indeed like some dark alter to the Court of the Fountain. As such, to stand before the city’s last remaining Captain, a broad man when he had been a man though half a head shorter, in the midst of the corpses of a day-old bitter victory... it should have been unnerving. Would have been, to anyone else. 

But Boromir had followed the beckoning of this captain’s clawed gauntlet and walked apace with him unbowed. The men he had left behind were equal parts relieved and dismayed to watch him go, trembling and pale in the wraith’s presence. Yet he felt no more peril in the hollowed face of this once-man than that which emanated from the stone of the city itself. Certainly less than the haunting mists of the Thuringwath that still poured from the dread-filled Houses of Lamentation. No, he was the diminished remnant of a noble man, perhaps, but that noble man could still be known in his echo. He planted no fear or dread in Boromir’s heart, only a small mourning that Talion had already rebuked. 

“No.” He agreed instead, looking up to the strange and slow moving cast of the citadel’s light that tracked across the entire valley. “Mercilessly however, there are yet more choices before you.” If the comment was meant with humour, or a deep-set empathy, or both, it was impossible to say but Boromir was not smiling when he met the shade’s gaze again. “I suspect you know it already, but the remnants of the Morgul forces within the fortress are killed or fled. Our campaign here nears it’s end.”

Whatever Boromir expects from offering these truths, he leaves for his host to guess. Simply, patiently, his hands clasp at his back and he stands as enduring and noble as the statues that line their path, so unconsciously at home in their company.

[abrazimir]

As collaborators and coworkers, Denethor and Boromir’s relationship was very much one based on trust. Boromir did not tell his father everything he was doing until he believed he needed to know about it and, conversely, Denethor trusted that Boromir would make that judgement well. It kept their work loads helpfully separate and made it clear to others at court and within the army which issues should be taken to the Warden and what needed the Steward’s eye. 

But that did not mean that Boromir and Denethor didn’t work closely and with a casual familiarity. They both had their own offices, but moved between them easily. Often, when Denethor was not taking councils or hearing concerns, Boromir would just take the opposite seat at his father’s desk whilst Denethor penned letters or notes and thought upon his own plans and conundrums in the companionable silence. Every now and then he would actually break said silence to go over the problem between them but most often he would simply exchange a fond smile and farewell with his father before leaving to his own work. 

Such high cooperation between the High-Warden and the Steward was actually quite unfamiliar to most of Gondor, especially the older courtiers and officials within Minas Tirith. Denethor and his father Ecthelion had had, at best, a combative relationship in the past and at worst (some said) the Father had Son had been actively undermining each other, fundamentally disagreeing on Gondor’s defense. It was a significant shock and then relief to the country at large that Boromir and Denethor had settled into such a comfortable and communicative working relationship. 

Boromir had initially (covertly, with the usual social graces) been praised for ‘finding a way to work so well with the grim Steward’ but he resented such assertions and had always bluntly responded that, if a man found his father difficult to work with, that reflected far poorer upon that man, than it ever reflected well upon Boromir himself. 

[toadmemes]

* FRANK HERBERT'S DUNE PROMPTS ,

"something cannot emerge from nothing."

"any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere."

"the mind commands the body and it obeys."

"desperate people are the most dangerous."

"the concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future."

"hard tasks need hard ways."

"you must teach me someday how you do that, the way you thrust your worries aside and turn to practical matters."

"i cause pain out of necessity."

"you must learn to rule. it's something none of your ancestors learned."

"people need hard times to develop psychic muscles."

"what is important for a leader is that which makes him a leader."

"the people who can destroy a thing, they control it."

"be prepared to appreciate what you meet."

"take your time and be sure."

"it is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future."

"survival is the ability to swim in strange water."

"you fight when the necessity arises—no matter the mood!"

"even occasional greatness will destroy a man."

"humans are almost always lonely."

"my father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality."

"greatness is a transitory experience. it is never consistent."

"from the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain."

"climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it's a mountain."

"knowing where the trap is—that's the first step in evading it."

"may this place give you as much pleasure as it has given me."

"paradise on my right, hell on my left and the angel of death behind."

"try looking into that place where you dare not look! you'll find me there, staring out at you!"

"it's shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult."

"i often wonder in these later days if anything about him was as it seemed."

"the storm passed through us and around us, it's gone, but we remain."

"the mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience."

"mood's a thing for cattle or making love, it's not for fighting."

"fear is the mind-killer, fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration."

"when you imagine mistakes, there can be no self-defense."

"hope clouds observation."

"one should never presume one is the sole object of a hunt."

"if you rely only on your eyes, your other senses weaken."

"science is made up of so many things that appear obvious after they are explained."

"what senses do we lack that we cannot see or hear another world all around us?"

"the power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it."

"highly organized research is guaranteed to produce nothing new."

"i should like friendship with you ... and trust."

"a killer with the manners of a rabbit—this is the most dangerous kind."

"once you've given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject."

"prophets have a way of dying by violence."

"do as she says, you wormfaced, crawling, sand-brained piece of lizard turd!"

"this world has emptied me of all but the oldest purpose: tomorrow's life."

"a ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel."

"the mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off.

"the human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who so survive."

"a stone is heavy and the sand is weighty; but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both."

"greatness is a transitory experience, it is never consistent."

"do not count a human dead until you’ve seen his body, and even then you can make a mistake."

"but it’s a human trait that when we encounter personal problems."

"but it's well known that repression makes a religion flourish."

"the person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."

"i am not the kind of person i want to be."

"there was no mercy where there could be no stopping."

"your life is stolen."

"the hunter does not seek dead game."

"are you already training my replacement?"

"we tend to flounder around, blaming everything but the actual, deep-seated thing that’s really chewing on us."

"where the fear has gone there will be nothing. only i will remain."

"what do you despise? by this are you truly known."

"i should've suspected trouble when the coffee failed to arrive."

"sad? nonsense! parting with friends is a sadness. a place is only a place."

"who asks for justice? we make our own justice."

"behold, as a wild ass in the desert, go i forth to my work."

"in such perfection, all things move towards death."

"there is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the one in which you discover your father is a man—with human flesh."

"i never could bring myself to trust a traitor."

"i must not fear."

"a plan depends as much upon execution as it does upon concept."

"what is the son but an extension of the father?"

"you have eyes, yet cannot see without light."

"proper teaching is recognized with ease, you can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you have always known."

"it's easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire."

"fear is the mind-killer."

"the way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training."

"to accept a little death is worse than death itself."

"life produces a different taste each time you take it."

"it's what we were meant to do."

"i see us giving love to each other in a time of quiet between storms."

"a popular man arouses the jealousy of the powerful."

"don't sit with your back to any doors."

"there's steel in this man that no one has taken the temper out of..."

"any man who retreats into a cave which has only one opening deserves to die."

"we went soft, we lost our edge."

"you can’t buy security."

"we faced it and did not resist."

"thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."

"there is no escape—we pay for the violence of our ancestors."

"it is so shocking to find out how many people do not believe that they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult."

"what has mood to do with it?"

"the day hums sweetly when you have enough bees working for you."

[jaywalkers]

ON MONSTERS AND THEIR LORE KEEPERS

1. the long and short of it, richard siken, 2. gretel, from a sudden clearing, marie howe, 3. goldrush, taylor swift 4. the nyt book review (1957), isak dinesen, 5. start here, caitlyn siehl

[abrazimir]

I’m very grumpy I have all this desire to write but I’m far too sleepy to do anything about it >:|

[abrazimir]

UPDATE I have a migraine, which should not be a surprise but apparently it is

[abrazimir]

Update; I still have a migraine and I am exceedingly grumpy about it, I wish! To Write the five things prompts!! 

[starsspin]

 ━━    HE WOULD HAVE BROUGHT ME THE OCEAN ONE SPOONFUL AT A TIME.   *ੈ✩‧₊˚.  [ starsspin: a multi muse featuring muses from starz’s spartacus, legend of the seeker, tolkien’s legendarium, star wars, leverage, bridgerton, original characters & more. ]

[abrazimir]

I’m very grumpy I have all this desire to write but I’m far too sleepy to do anything about it >:|

[abrazimir]

UPDATE I have a migraine, which should not be a surprise but apparently it is

[abrazimir]

I’m very grumpy I have all this desire to write but I’m far too sleepy to do anything about it >:|

[theoptia]

Hélène Cixous, from The Selected Plays of Hélène Cixous; “Black Sail, White Sail”

Text ID: There’ll be no hymns to our glory. / History has cut our throats.

[metamorphesque]

— Henry Miller, A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller, 1932-1953

[abrazimir]

The image that people have of Boromir is so curated, but all of them are true to his nature in one way or another, they are all a part of him. To Lords, courtiers and scribes and the servants of the Steward’s house, Boromir is noble, calm, busy and distant but always courteous and practiced with polite smiles, it is not expected to see him in society or debate much, but when they do he is appropriate but focused, all know and respect his priorities and understand that he is always working to their interest. Of course, he has his detractors, especially amongst the more academic and faithful quarters of the nobility, and he is a polarising figure when it comes to more complex matters of both religion and society, but his foundational reputation is well solidified. He is an unshakeable stone of a public figure, he might as well be a stone in Minas Tirith’s walls rather than a person for the position he occupies in people’s minds.

To the Solders who fight with him, he is theirs, their warden to touch and to touch them back, fundamentally entrenched with them and beside them, heaving them out of danger as many times as they do the same to him, the leader of their murmuration, guiding their movements as though they were all one shifting body and yet so much a part of them that it is hard to discern that the command came from him at all. EXCEPT when it isn’t, except in the moments when their morale shakes, when their strength falters, when they need him most and flock to the sight, sound, feeling of him amongst them. The horn winds and the shockwave of it’s effects ripple through them and their enemy both. To Soldiers, Boromir is achingly open to them, they know him as a body, they know his blood, his raw flesh and his hands by touch, everything but his fear or despair. Soldiers may know Boromir’s grit, his brace, his grief and suffering better than even his family, but they have never seen him lost or irresolute. 

To Boromir’s family, he is warm, often quiet and happy to simply exist within the lively conversations of others, but sometimes overbearing in opinion. He has a sense of what should be done, how things should be handled and expectations of people that can be high, especially for those eldest sons in other branches of the family. Still, it is not to the extent that he is an unwelcome presence in their gatherings and, whilst opinion of him varies greatly from relation to relation, all agree that he is loved and valued. He brings a reliable and restful quality to most moments, often only breaking his silence to say something that brings a laugh to everyone present, and has the effect of making his family want to divulge whatever is on their mind simply because he is there, quietly, willing to give his honest and reliable answer. He is the keeper of quite a few secrets and has never reacted dramatically to anything he is told. It is a remarkably similar position to Lothiriel’s reputation in the family, hence they often find themselves quietly sat together to begin their usual ponderous conversations. 

To Gondor’s populace at large, Boromir is simply a hero. No more or less and with just the expected amount of elevation coupled with dehumanisation, he is a figurehead in it’s entirety, trusted and loved, perceived as the masculine ideal by especially the younger generations. Boromir is touchable to them too, but only in an almost  beneficent way, his hand on their shoulder, his commiseration with their grief, his leadership of their communal struggle and defiance, he is both theirs and impossibly distant at the same time. 

But to Theodred, Boromir sleeps. He is soft, weary and regretful, he is an open wound of guilt for all the death left behind him. He is wanting, something so incredibly at odds with every other iteration of Boromir that Theodred finds it nigh on intoxicating, inspiring too. The Boromir Theodred knows wants to live. He does not say it still, would never be able to voice it when, even to himself, wanting feels utterly incongruent with the person he is and has always been, but somehow Theodred and Boromir understand it within one another. The man Theodred holds wants to live, most particularly wants Theodred to live and restrains a very bitter anger that he cannot. But whilst that is perpetually true, he is also just a man who loves, he is tactile even as his body aches, he is talkative in a low and thoughtless way, saying whatever little thing comes to his mind, he likes to press his nose as deep as he can into whatever soft portion of Theodred’s body he can find, they communicate in wordless noises most often and, sometimes, he sings for him.

[abrazimir]

Boromir and Theodred don’t ask if they love their countries more than they love each other, they already know all the answers there are to that question and how they are all simultaneously true; “Yes”, “No”, “Which of the men within me are you asking?”, “It’s how I love you”, “It’s WHY I love you”, “You and she are the same”, “I am loving you as I love her”, “I wish I loved you more than her”, “I wish she loved me as you love me”, “I wish you were the only person in the world who knew I existed”, “Yes I have too, I’m so sorry, I have too”, “Yes, of course I love her more, I would never be so cruel as to love you that much.”

[abrazimir]

Pippa just types things with those evil little fingers of hers and I’m like

[abrazimir]

THE THING IS THAT BOROMIR IS LOVED EVERYWHERE BUT BELONGS NOWHERE AND THEODRED IS LOVED NOWHERE BUT BELONGS EVERYWHERE