Episode 7 - Silvergifting

Transcript

Speaker: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Queer Lodgings, the queer led podcast about everything Tolkien. I'm Grace and I'm here with my co -hosts, Leah and Alicia. Hello. Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us. Go ahead and pull up a chair near the fire, settle in with a warm festive drink and get ready for a Middle Earth story time and discussion hour. Now, toward what we in the West often consider the end of the year, so many cultures around the world have celebrations of light and occasions for gift giving.

Speaker: gold and silver imagery and traditions abound, from Burl Ive singing about Suuuuver and gold, and Rankin Bass's Rudolph the Red -Nosed Reindeer, Teleplay by Romeo Muller, who also did the Teleplay for the Rankin Bass Hobbit and Return of the King specials, and who was famous to me for being Santa in my hometown when I was a child. On to Hanukkah Gelt, which began as a tradition of payments of thanks to laborers and workers long before it became chocolate coins for children,

Speaker: to the tradition of buying gold and silver on Dantares, the first day of Diwali, to ensure good luck, and many yule celebrations where gold and silver represent the light of the sun and the moon, not unlike the light of the two trees of Valinor.

Speaker: And we're also going to embrace that imagery of precious metals and gifts in a uniquely middle -earth setting. You see, today we're going to be talking about silver gifting. Silverfisting. What is that, you ask? We're so glad you asked. Silver gifting is a ship name. Silverfisting.

Speaker: Alisha, let me get to the warnings before we get to it. It's okay if you're underage, you don't know. It's just his name! It's just his name. Nothing to see here. Move along. Move along. Alright, moving along.

Speaker: It's not uncommon on the modern internet to see ships or shipping discussions, and we're not talking about ocean -going vessels here. In the briefest possible terms, shipping is the desire to see two or more characters enter into a relationship. Often that's romantic or sexual, though not always. Deep friendships and queer -platonic partnerships also fall under shipping, though the majority of discussion and works produced do tend to be of a romantic and or sexual nature.

Speaker: Fair warning, we're going to be discussing topics related to romantic and sexual relationships between characters in this episode. Shipping can be about hoping to see characters come together in canon. That is, hoping that the creative minds behind a book series, movie, video game, or TV show, or another art form, will write official content that includes that ship preparing. It can be about thoughts and imagination on the part of the fans.

Speaker: often referred to as headcanons and exist in sort of a more idea -oriented space. Or it can be about creating transformative works that bring those thoughts and theories to the page or screen in the form of fanfiction, fan art, or fan bidding.

Speaker: Those are all transformative works, which the OTW, the Organization for Transformative Works, draws upon the words of the U .S. Supreme Court to define as a work which is transformative from original source material. It adds something new with a further purpose or different character, altering the source with new expression, meaning, or message.

Speaker: They give examples to help us understand what a transformative work entails, things like retelling a story from the villain's perspective or writing a story about a celebrity in a way that illustrates something about current attitudes toward celebrity or sexuality.

Speaker: There's a rich and complex history of fan works in their present form that stretches back decades to Star Trek fanzines in the 1960s and reader response criticism beginning in the 1970s. It's generated academic study and archiving projects that are deeply impressive. There are scholarly discussions being had as to how to categorize various fan works over time and whether they count as quote unquote fan fiction specifically.

Speaker: but it's often pointed out that the Aeneid, paradise lost, Shakespearean histories, hagiographies of the Virgin Mary dating back to the early 200s, and pretty much every Arthurian legend are modern for their time reworkings of established stories.

Speaker: Manfiction ain't new. The major difference is that throughout history, cis men have been more likely to get paid for their creative work than women and queer people. As recently as 2018, an academic study showed that the more female authors write in a genre, the less they typically get paid compared to genres with predominantly male identified authors. I have a graph in here that was part of that, that write up of that study.

Speaker: and we'll put a link to it in the show notes, but just suffice to know that this graph that charts the relationship between gender and the genre and how much the writers in that genre make is really just a study in how to turn a scatterplot into an arrow pointing at no money.

Speaker: Yeah, seriously. Yeah. That particular study didn't include fan fiction, but that trend continues there. With most forms of fan works due to copyright laws and the requirements of fair use, people aren't trying to get paid.

Speaker: And creators of fan works are predominantly women and queer people. Across a number of surveys and studies throughout the last decade or so, somewhere around 80 % of fan fiction readers and writers identified as a gender identity other than male, so female, non -binary, gender queer, and significantly more than half identified as being part of the queer community. In fact,

Speaker: Tabitha Carvin in an article from Overland notes that a lot of people who create fan marks actively embrace the anti -capitalist nature of the art form with a focus on exchanges and collaboration. She terms that a gift economy, which brings us right back around to silver gifting, our charming ship name from the era of the internet where

Speaker: In comparison to simply listing out names separated by slash marks or smashing names together in portmanteaus like Benifer, it was more common to each individual relationship in an IP being granted their own unique name by fan consensus, usually with particular significance to the characters involved. So when we say silver gifting, who are we talking about and who are they to each other?

Speaker: All right, I will step in here. Silver gifting is Celebrimbor in Anatar or Sauron, depending on the author. Most people are talking about Sauron as Anatar, which is a slightly different character than Sauron as Sauron in Fanfic, which if you are new to Fanfic, that might be a little difficult for you to wrap your head around, but you do have to keep in mind Sauron canonically

Speaker: trans in a lot of different ways and inhabits different beings throughout his tenure in Middle Earth. Silver gifting is also known as we should give some warnings here. We mentioned earlier that this is going to contain sexual content. That is 100 % true. It's also, as you now know, about Sauron. So keep that in mind. There's going to be some violent content as well.

Speaker: The other name for silver gifting is silver fisting. It is my preferred name for this particular grouping because that's just who I am as a person. Honestly, we only went with silver gifting in order to have the link to like an holiday excuse for this.

Speaker: Indeed, indeed. Merry fucking Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Yeah, I guess also to kind of expand somewhat. I don't think that we're going to get too far into this in this particular podcast, but if you

Speaker: get interested in sofa gifting, just kind of be aware that there's also some content warnings you should be aware of, specifically around the relationship dynamic between Celebrimbor and Annatar, which some people might not find to their taste, tends to be more manipulative and non -consensual, that sort of thing. So darker sexual themes.

Speaker: There can also be some dubious consent involved because Sauron is canonically concealing his identity. Exactly. So just be warned and if that's not your jam, that's totally great. You know, take care of yourself.

Speaker: Yeah, if this isn't your jam, see you guys in January. Yeah. So I do want to take a moment just for folks who aren't necessarily up on all of their Silmarillion level.

Speaker: lore, given that, you know, we know a little bit about Sauron from Lord of the Rings, if you've read or seen that, but Celebrimbor gets like one quick mention in all of Lord of the Rings that blink and you'll miss it sort of thing. We know that he crafts the rings, that he is the elven smith who crafts the doors of Moria, Durran's doors with Narvi, and that's kind of the reference that we get within the text of Lord of the Rings, especially like the first edition of it.

Speaker: So a little bit of context or backstory is that, and anybody can jump in here to assist me with the storytelling, but Celebrimbor is the smith who forges all of these great rings under the wisdom, influence, guidance of Annatar.

Speaker: who comes to the elves as this emissary of the Valar, right, to help. I'm from the Valar and I'm here to help, sort of thing. Which technically not a lie.

Speaker: Yeah, technically not alive. But Anatar is just kind of holding back this really key detail that Anatar is actually Sauron. And so there is this fairly significant period of time where Celebrimbor believes that there's this

Speaker: friendly, very fair guys, very attractive. Tolkien is very keen in particular in stating this is Sauron's fair form. He comes in the form of Annatar, who is known as the Lord of Gifts.

Speaker: So that's where the gifting comes in here as well. So there's this long period of time in the canonical timeline where these characters do meet and interact and have time in which to develop whatever type of relationship, which as we know does kind of end up in not a great place with a lot of war and death and terribleness. But I do like to note that

Speaker: Tolkien himself uses some pretty interesting words when he talks about Sauron's deceptions and this Annatar guise and all of that. And those words just, you know, a smattering off the top of my head include lust, desire, and snaring, and seducing. These are literally the words that Tolkien writes.

Speaker: There's certainly some basis for fandom to sort of latch onto this and look into

Speaker: trying to contextualize what that relationship might look like and why events may have happened, or recontextualize events in alternate storylines. Yes, with rabid fervor. Those little words like seduce and lust, especially. You can spin whole worlds off of that. So, of course, fanfic writers being what they are, they do.

Speaker: And people will sail a ship on a lot less than that. Like how many ships got sailed off of one hug between Thorin and Bilbo? Ah, so many. So many. Yeah, I will say that this isn't actually a really common pairing. It's not a really niche pairing, but it's also not like a bag and shield, which is Thorin Bilbo.

Speaker: I mentioned it in the Galadriel episode, actually. It's about the same popularity as Galadriel Gandalf. Yeah, I think as I was looking today, I saw about six hundred and eighty, six hundred and ninety fics with this pairing listed. There may be more that have the same characters and explore things that people aren't categorizing as a ship, but that ship tag on the archive of our own has about six hundred and eighty five fics.

Speaker: Wow. Archive of our own, if people aren't familiar, is an archive of fan works that is run by the Organization for Transformative Works and really just seeks to archive fan works on the internet and make a place to house them safely. Speaking of those fan works, one of the things that we do want to do today is actually give some readings out of some selected fix.

Speaker: Hey, Shouty. Shouty wants to read, too. She's ready to read. Shouty, what's your favorite silverfisting fact?

Speaker: Aww, let's find out. She's pondering. By the way, that ship name of Silverfisting, which is such a delightfully naughty sounding one, is actually really just a description of Celebrimbor's name. It literally translates to Silverfist. Right. And you need to only turn that into an action to get some explicit rated fan fiction ideas.

Speaker: And before people get too nitpicky, people will go like, well, actually it means more like, you know, a hand grasping a tool as a craftsperson or something like that. Yeah. Okay. We know. Yeah. But it literally be silver fist. So there you go. Grasping a tool. Yeah. Take that where you will.

Speaker: And listen, listen, there can be 689 of these fics if our listeners want to go ahead and contribute to be the change you want to see in the world. Oh my God, if you are writing silver gifting fanfic

Speaker: link it in the comments to this. Please let us know when we post it on Facebook. I would like to know. Feel free to make that anonymous too if you don't put your real life

Speaker: wallet name on any of your really smutty fan fiction works, or as I have heard one college student refer to it recently, the short fiction that I publish on an archive. That's good resume talk right there. That's really good resume talk. Great.

Speaker: But yeah, this is our like a holiday sort of gifty, you know, hang out and read some fun stories. Yeah, I think Alicia has read at least the longest fic in the genre that any of us have. So I think maybe we'll start off there.

Speaker: Cool. So I am going to be reading three chapters from a work called Silmarillion prompts. It's by Ebony Kitty 552. It's a 680 ,000 word FIC that has 432 chapters. It's not all.

Speaker: Silver gifting, sadly. It is other things as well. There are like eight or ten chapters that are specifically silver gifting. The three that I'm going to be reading are 100 % out of order. The way that this fic is written is because it's a series of writing prompts. It really skips around, but she manages to skip around in time and location in such a way that it still reads as one cohesive narrative.

Speaker: I have done the work of putting these kind of in order for this reading today. Also, there are a bunch of Quenya words in this that I'm going to butcher, so just cut me some fucking slack, all right? All right, we're starting with Chapter 226 called Heat. It was not mere beauty that captured and enraptured the last of the infamous House of Feanaro.

Speaker: Having grown up in a family of naturally and intensely attractive men and women, Telper Quenyaar was not drawn to anything so shallow and empty as physical prowess or elegance of the face and form, not when he knew what ugliness could be lingering underneath such an inconspicuous facade made for the sole purpose of deception. To him, beauty was nothing more than an outward image painted over something intrinsically different and intriguing and unsettling.

Speaker: something hidden and dangerous, worthy of searching out, but also potentially harmful and equally worthy of weariness and caution. It was nothing to be concerned with in the end, beauty of the body, for it was as oft a lie as it was the truth.

Speaker: and thus Topra Quenyaar liked to take pride in the fact that he knew some of the most stunning and breathtaking beings walking Middle Earth and felt not a drop of lust for a single one of them, not even his cousin Artanis, who was a great and profound beauty among

Speaker: even the glory and perfection of the elves. Telper Quenyaar did not shy to admit that he was more attracted to Narvi of Khazadum than he would ever be to the haughty and wild -spirited daughter of the House of Arafinnwe.

Speaker: I love that so much. It's so sweet. So admittedly, Annatar outshone even Artanis in perfection of face and form with incredible ease. It would not have been enough to draw forth the attentions of the Lord of Aragion in of its outward appeal. There needed to be substance. And substance had been provided, offered upon a silver platter for tasting.

Speaker: Many other things there were about the golden haired Maya that bound up Telprequinjar's arms and legs, left him breathless in that overpowering presence and wordless in the face of that smile, stumbling over himself like a newly minted colt who had never so much as wooed a woman to his favor before. It was the intensity. How Annatar could walk into a room and fill it completely, no matter its size, no matter who might already be present.

Speaker: All eyes would immediately be drawn to the pale form and odd wonder. When Annatar was present, Toprakwinyar felt it, pressing against him from all directions, washing over him, blocking all else from his sight and senses but that porcelain skin upon the handsome face of his fellow -smith. It was the pure intelligence.

Speaker: Being able to sit and speak plainly to another about his passion, being able to lean across the dinner table and hold a riveting discussion of metallurgy for jewel cutting, of which even the most talented of the Gwaith Myrdan could scarcely make heads or tails, being able to hear that low melodic voice thrum in excitement and delight vibrating through the air around him, it was the feeling of the powerful spirit brushing up against his own.

Speaker: Not burning, as many of the others described the feel of Amaya in their midst. Not like touching an open flame and feeling the sting of reddened skin protesting as it was roasted and peeled away. Instead, Anatar would draw close, peering over his shoulder or brushing against his side. Telper Quenyaar would shudder from the base of his spine down to his toes and utter awareness of the body nearby.

Speaker: of the warmth radiating from its center and raining down upon his skin. The spirit in of itself was as a star radiating iridescence to shame even on our, but it was the heat that encircled and entrapped, the simmer under the skin that glowed and writhed. As a son of the blood of Feanaro,

Speaker: rare it was for Tobruquenya to feel scalded. But the spirit of this Maya stoked his flame. It was not cool to the touch as a splash of water meant to douse, but rather an inferno that swallowed him whole, washed over every inch of his body and cradled tenderly, blanketed his bare skin with a strange feeling of camaraderie and safety and attraction.

Speaker: To the point where Talbuquenya craved that touch, wanted to languish in the presence of the other all day and all night, if only to have it close. Wanted to touch that skin coated in a thin sheen of gold, but still so pale, just to see if it was as metal left beneath the sun to his chilled fingertips.

Speaker: wanted to run his hands through the untamed curls spilling over broad shoulders, wondering how they would feel if he slept within their tangles and nothing else. Wanted to cup high cheekbones and tilt that head down so that he might stare into those eyes, eyes that spoke of the true nature of the being with such a sultry, delicate appearance, that spoke of the molten core of playfulness and passion and seduction and of the organized chaos of creation from destruction.

Speaker: Eyes that left the elf panting and shivering in the darkness of his bedchambers when sleep eluded and his body itched and trembled. Eyes that had the elf imagining them, looking down upon his coiled and impassioned form from above, as they... it was an obsession. Coper Coynyard knew that. Knew the danger.

Speaker: Remember the tragedy, recognize the look of mania in his own eyes when they were reflected back from the polished silver surface of a mirror, the truth of the matter lying out naked in the brightness of the noon, summarily, family, revenge, attraction, freedom, atonement,

Speaker: The House of Feanor was a den of obsessions, a den of tragic downfalls. But he knew now the ugly truth of the matter, that when this heat struck him down and trussed him up and held him captive, he could not flee and could not think rationally and could not untangle himself, could not drive it off or put it out so simply as he had thought, wanted only to hold it closer and closer until it merged with his being. If this was what Turka Fenway felt when he looked at the Lady Luthien, Tilber Quenyaar knew

Speaker: He could never again think his uncle a possessive psychopath. Because it was agonizing, this want, the very thought of allowing Annatar to slip through his fingers, of seeing that glorious visage smiling crookedly at another, that warmth of spirit wrapping his arms in an intimate embrace about someone else. Tilber Quinear knew the taste of true obsession.

Speaker: of the blood of his kitten kin, the fake gleam in the eye that led Fanaro to the sin of slaughter and the reckless passion to bind, to charge, and to battle. At the overwhelming pull of lust toward another person that could not be quenched or stifled, only be fulfilled or remain tormenting and unrequited, the heady desire to

Speaker: protect what mattered most, even at the cost of honor and reputation and sanity, even at the price of eternal damnation and the smear of innocent blood across pale warrior's palms. When he looked upon Anatar, he felt the fire in his own blood ten times more fiercely, felt the possessive desperation, the willingness to do almost anything to grab hold with unshakable fists, and it was within his reach, watching and waiting in the depths of fire -opel eyes, if only he could reach out to touch.

Speaker: and pray that he did not get burned. Woof! Man. Oh my. Oh my, I'm like, panning myself. Wow. All right. Would you like to discuss this now or let me read through the other two? Oh man. I think we should discuss and then we can kind of break it up into bits. Yeah?

Speaker: Sure. Yeah. So Grace, we've been having some conversations back and forth about what we like in a silver gifting fic and what are your thoughts thus far?

Speaker: I don't know, I don't think I've formed an opinion on this one yet because my opinions on what I like in silver gifting are still pretty nebulous. It's not actually, even though it's the first pairing that we're talking about on the podcast, it's not actually one that I had read that broadly in. So I'm still getting familiar with the content and what there is.

Speaker: In a general sense, though, I know I like like trope inversions and things like that. So I'm excited to see where this goes and how things get reframed from our initial understandings. I will say that I really like that he brings up Galadriel and Narvi here.

Speaker: Yeah, me too. I don't like the overuse of French words and that is such a fucking nitpicky thing and I know that but like every single time I see a word like visage I'm like alright. I would definitely like to see more

Speaker: silverfisting fics lean on the, like, Anatar's appearance being usually at least depicted as a very, like, light haired elf or whatever, and Celebrimbor's

Speaker: at least in one version of the legendarium, his canonical feelings for Galadriel that are not reciprocated. And then, you know, where he may take that in terms of, you know, Celebrimbor has a type. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hadn't thought of that. That's a good point. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, I was really digging the the fire imagery and some of the other like the obsessions sort of callbacks to his family, especially, and all of his, his kin, of course, like the the history of Middle Earth is sort of

Speaker: defined by their obsession, I guess. And, you know, it's kind of one of those themes, I think, that in Tolkien that becomes something that's so fraught. And so it becomes very complicated and complex when you kind of try to pair this idea of obsession with something like really deep romantic feelings as well. Yeah, we didn't actually mention that when we were going over who Celebrimbor is, that he is Feanor's grandson.

Speaker: Yeah, he's the son of Kurufin, and he's also sort of like the lord of the smiths of Eregion. And we kind of glossed over it. He did forge the three elven rings, which is probably his, I guess, his greatest work. But he had a lot of aspirations towards becoming as

Speaker: creating works that were perhaps as famous and great and renowned as that of his grandfather's. And that's a theme that I would I kind of would love to see embellished more in some silver gifting fics and explored is like

Speaker: How does Anatar sort of take his knowledge and history of his family and stoke those fires of ambition and aspiration? And how does this bring them closer together in wanting to create something great? Like the two of them want to create something really great for Middle Earth.

Speaker: I definitely, I confess that one of my favorite tropes that exists within silver gifting fic is where Celebrimbor at some point amidst the deceptions becomes aware of who Sauron actually is, what Annatar's identity actually is, and

Speaker: like makes a conscious choice to either believe that he's changed or give a second chance or whatever. And in some things that is supported and there is a happy ending or a happy for now ending. And in some that's, you know, a great flaw and tragedy. But that addition of agency is something that I definitely find fascinating within the options for this pairing.

Speaker: There is an author's note in one of the fics that I was looking at that is basically just like, listen, there are so many different versions of what this could be within the legendarium. And it's written so loosely with so much space. There is so much room to envision all the different ways that this particular story could have played out. And I like that. I like those like mirrored parallel options and all that. Yeah.

Speaker: And in one of the chapters I'm not reading today, it actually goes into why Celebrimpor started making the elven rings. And he started with the Ring of Fire as a love gift to Sauron. And in making that ring, that's when he found out that Sauron had betrayed him. Oh, my God. I kind of love that. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah.

Speaker: Okay, I told you before we started the episode that I was going to confess to one of my frustrations with silver gifting, silverfisting, thick. And I will do that now. Because it kind of relates to this, like this making of the rings and all of that. I have not read every thick on archive of our own in this particular pairing. So if listeners do want to correct my assumptions or find me the things that I have not found, but

Speaker: it seems just like a tremendous missed opportunity to me that Sauron and Celebrimbor make rings together.

Speaker: one ring. A ring which changes size to fit the bearer as her sons will. And I have seen absolutely no instances of using the one ring as a cock ring and I think this is a problem.

Speaker: Yeah, I agree. I was just saying, are you serious? There's got to be at least one. There's 680 something. There's got to be one. I honestly spent 20 minutes before this episode looking to make sure that I could not find it. So if any of our listeners can actually find one and you can tell me in the comments because I would be delighted to know about it. But certainly there's nothing that is tagged that way. There are in fact, and I think this is also just a travesty.

Speaker: only two fics that have the tag of like Sauron, that even have the tag of cockering. And that's, again, an overseer's a missed opportunity. Internet, you are failing us right now. We cannot be the only three who have thought this before. Like, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, maybe everyone else has the good taste not to write it, but

Speaker: Okay, so if one were to Google Sauron cock ring in the first line that comes up on Google images, are someone actually producing one ring cock rings? And one of the other one internet, you know, one of those scale versions of the rings that are like so big, you have to hold them in both hands. One of them is that picture.

Speaker: Oh, bless you internet. There is a YouTube video that I'm not sure I'm going to click on, but it has the subtitle, Sauron's ultimate penis ring for that corrupting feeling you love. campaign like that. Okay, thank you. Thank you internet. You have not failed. It's just people on our kind of our own who have perhaps not lived up to this this challenge. Folks,

Speaker: Folks, we have work to do. We have our work done afterwards. Get to it. Get to it. And I would, by the way, be delighted to be wrong. So go ahead and send me those links. Oh, my God. Start furiously writing right now. Hey. Hey. Be the change you want to see in the world. We will give you a special shout out on our next episode if you are the one who crafts.

Speaker: These Sauron cock ring fanfic. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, you want to segue into the next chapter? Sure. Next chapter is chapter 43. Like I said, they are very much not in order. This one's called Lust. Ooh.

Speaker: For as long as he could truly remember, as long as he had walked upon the earth in the raiment of a man, Sauron had had one ultimate desire, one need that consumed his entire existence and demanded his complete and utter attention at all times.

Speaker: It was all -encompassing, and had driven him to such desperate lengths that he had knelt at the feet of his most hated enemy and master, demeaning himself in uttering oaths of false loyalty, if only to stay in favor with the power that could have crushed him without a second thought, if only to further himself to gain peace by peace.

Speaker: But in the back of his mind, he had always desired more, so much more, than that ugly existence. He had never been satisfied as Morgoth's lieutenant, his revered, reviled tormentor, the best of the best and the greatest of the greatest. It had never been enough to be feared by all upon the Earth.

Speaker: by the elves and the men and the orcs and even his own fellow servants of darkness. Always he had hungered for more, more power, more and more and more until he could languish in the golden, honeyed feeling of being obeyed and worshipped, until it surrounded him and cradled him and bent to his will. Oh, how he had hated his master Melkor!

Speaker: But Melchor was no more upon this earth, and Sauron was free. Free to pursue his greatest desire, his unquenchable lust for power, the longing to have the world driven to its knees by his armies, ravaged by his forces, begging and pleading for his non -existent mercy, and licking the toes of his boots. What a delicious image it would be to have all the free peoples of Middle -earth prostrated before him.

Speaker: utterly in his hands, changed more efficiently and effectively than any metal of the earth could hope to bind, for they would wear chains of devotion, obedience, and terror.

Speaker: The very idea gave him a noxious eye, a feeling that made him glue with pleasure. All he had to do was think of that. The goal waiting at the end of the long, arduous task and his golden face would become more radiant than the stars. No one would ever look at him and think him a monster, though that was what he was. And then something had gone terribly wrong.

Speaker: Something had changed. Sauron now had a new desire, an unwanted desire. One that nearly trumped the urge to burn and consume and remake and own and everything and everyone utterly. It was but an elf. One elf. But what an elf he was. Tall with a face that would make the Valar weep, with eyes sharper than any spear and brighter than any divine light, the sheer fire that burned within this elf spirit tingled against Sauron's flesh and soul.

Speaker: as if it radiated sheer strength of will and turbulent, behemoth determination.

Speaker: Radiated, all he wanted to subdue to his will. This elf was the embodiment of everything Sauron desired and wished to control, wished to contain, wished to chain and lock up and hide deep beneath the earth so it would never see anything but him again, never see Anor, never see Ithil, never see the starry dome overhead. He lusted, oh how he lusted, oh how he desired, oh how he longed to possess. Celebrimbor was his.

Speaker: From his raven hair to the rippling muscles of his smith's arms, and back to the delicious curve of his rear end to the tips of his elegant fingers and toes, every sultry inch belonged to Sauron, and he would allow no other to touch what was his.

Speaker: Some days, he wondered which lust triumphed in his mind. If he forgot, even for an hour, about his plans and schemes, about the purpose of the bejeweled rings forged in the fires of Eregion, that he would never admit it to himself. Nothing could be more important than succeeding where his revolting former master had failed, than obtaining all that he had ever panted after for as long as his spirit could recall existing in Aya.

Speaker: Yet even as he thought such things, things that had once given him unspeakable pleasure, the image of naked glistening flesh and the sound of hushed breathy cries would ring in his ears, and Sauron wondered bleakly how this elf had gotten under his skin, would wonder why the image was never complete unless that raven beauty was in his sight. More than anything, he despised Celebrimbor for being everything he wanted. He both hated and loved his dark nodal.

Speaker: reveled in their time together in the fucking and the writhing and the joining, but at the same time wanted to slit open the long white throat so off -bared to him in trust just to remove this obstacle. This test that the father himself must have put down on his long winding road to block his stubbornness and obstinacy, his will to dominate and his lust for greater things than even Melkor could claim to his accursed name. Scowling at such thoughts,

Speaker: He found that he held a deformed, twisted bit of metal beneath his hammer. For once, he had lost his focus, thinking about him. In disgust, Sauron tossed the metal into the fire, listening to the sharp clang of the gold against rough stone. The misshapen ring landed amongst the flames, lit up with orange and red and ash, reflecting back all the hatred Sauron felt at the moment and all of the passion. Perhaps it was time to put the final pieces of his plan into motion.

Speaker: What has you so frustrated, Lord Anatar?" That voice. Sauron resisted the urge to shudder and glare as he faced the elf that haunted his dreams and all of his waking moments without thought or effort. Celebrimbor truly was a sight to behold.

Speaker: Any man or woman would be lucky to have such a bedmate, and in the firelight, with no shirt to cover his sculpted body, with sweat streaming over a heaving chest and live muscle, he was the epitome of tantalizing. The lust panged. Nothing of great importance. He lied as easily as he breathed.

Speaker: What brings you here? Eyes met his, and the look in them was all too familiar. Even though he was a Maya, even though he should have perfect control of his being, the heat still bubbled in the pit of his belly like lava as such a half hooded look of pure longing and promise. What temptation had the father heaped upon him? Had he been one to lament, Sauron would have been weeping for the shame of his weakness at only a heated glance. I was looking for you.

Speaker: But how could he resist such a blatant offer? Even now, he felt himself drawn away from the forge and the fire and the twisted gold in the flames, the promise of his dominion over all beings, lingering loss in the darkness of the horizon, just beyond sight. His throat was dry and tight as a gentle, cool touch burned at his forearm. Sauron allowed himself to pull that body closer. So I see, he replied, his voice low and hoarse, reverberating with the power of his fury and need.

Speaker: the body against his shivered delightfully so easily that face in that form consumed his thoughts and so on could not help but wonder if this divine creature truly was a test laying out by the father himself to put a stop to all of his plans and schemes to halt the corrupted fallen angel in his tracks

Speaker: to cage him with bars more solid and terrifying than any iron or methyl. Because if he had to choose between the lust for power and the lust for this fiery spirit, he could not say with any certainty what he would choose, and that instability racked him with his first taste of fear.

Speaker: Intense. Intense. Indeed. So yeah, this kind of speaks to something that, and again, like I'm somebody who doesn't read like a lot of Fic, like period. So I'm coming to this, like, I don't know, I guess, fresh quote unquote, but it's sort of like, like one of the things I like, I like seeing explored in silver gifting is just how much like what's going on in Sauron.

Speaker: mind as he's going through this. And there's a couple of really interesting places that I think different authors will go to. Like here, like this author is going to like, oh, he's he's really in love with Caleb Rimbore. Like his feelings are both extremely real and something that he's really, really angry about. And like he he does not like that he's in love with Caleb Rimbore.

Speaker: And, you know, there are other other authors who will kind of explore like how his feelings are pretty completely not genuine and that it's all sort of a particular manipulation on his part and that there's no reciprocation between Celebrimbor and Sauron. So, yeah, it's really interesting to kind of see how how folks explore this, what what's going on in Sauron's brain when he's there in Eregion for so long.

Speaker: what's going through Sauron's brain as he's making his lover into a blanket. Spoiler alert, man. I mean, it's like I think something that I have been kind of thinking about lately when we were talking about this episode was like how there's definitely vibes of the TV show Hannibal and the ship of the murder husbands of Lucille and Hannibal.

Speaker: and how terribly toxic that relationship really is and how much fun it is to ship those two together because they kind of have these same sort of feelings where it's like, oh, I'm really scared that I have real feelings for this person because

Speaker: they're a monster, but I can't deny that there's a really powerful connection between us. And with the murder husbands, it's like they kind of bring out both the best and the worst in each other. And it's really hard to distinguish which will line between those two things. And I sort of feel like this is kind of an interesting dynamic to go to with silver gifting is like, you know, do they bring out the best in each other? Do they bring out the worst in each other? You can ask such interesting questions about

Speaker: how things go right and how things go wrong and the tensions between that. And fiction is a brilliant place to ask those questions because murder husbands is not real life relationship goals. Yeah, yeah. But one of the things that's very fascinating to me in something like this where canonically the characters have a lot of darkness and pain and harm in their overarching storyline

Speaker: There is a lot to mine and pull out and ask questions of and to explore in either leaning into those tropes and complicating them or inverting those tropes and doing something unexpected with them in either way. Yeah.

Speaker: Also, wow, Alicia's pronunciation of the word writhing is still just in my head. Oh no. I think I probably would have skipped over some of that phrasing and terminology as I was reading. I would have kind of gone too fast for it. So hearing it read out loud is kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, I'm reading it different because I'm having to slow down to, you know, read it with my mouth because I read much faster than I can actually fucking talk, right? I'm definitely picking up one. I'm picking up something that I don't like in the way this particular author writes. There's repetition that really stands out to me when I read it out loud. That doesn't when I'm just reading it because I glance over it.

Speaker: Yeah, but some of it's real good. She doesn't quite hit the lyricalness that Tolkien's writing sometimes gets to, but I think occasionally she touches it and it's great. Yeah, yeah. Some of the stuff I was thinking about when you were reading it was, honestly, touching on another ship with Sauron, which we may or may not get to in another episode, which is the relationship between Sauron and Melkor.

Speaker: I'm mining this fic for Aang Bang when we get to that point because Sauron and Melkor's relationship in this fic is real good. That is a relationship that Tolkien explicitly states is seduction. There are different ways linguistically that seduction has a linguistic importance and all of that. There has historically been an element of deception

Speaker: to it, but that's a pretty notable connotation that a lot of academia tends to shy away from because these are stories about men and the seduction must mean something different, of course. Of course. They were just pals.

Speaker: Yeah. Just rumors. Just enemies for reasons that definitely didn't have emotions involved. Yeah, just bros trying to tick over the world. Together. Yeah. By gifting each other jewelry. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: It kind of brought to mind this author was kind of moving through subtle thought processes about how his lust for power is still like this driving force and how it was also a driving force for his master and kind of how like that sort of translates into like

Speaker: he wants to be the master, you know, he doesn't want to be the one who's submitting underneath somebody else. And I definitely think that there's some very kinky elements to explore in that relationship and also in silver gifting for sure, because it's Sauron we're talking about whose entire motive really is this power, whether it's power for

Speaker: complete domination of the of the earth or it's for complete sort of remaking of the earth. Like what are his goals in seeking this power? And it seems like it kind of can get a little bit fuzzy about how it manifests a bit. But I don't know. It's just like thinking about like how that relationship between Melkor and Sauron is sort of directly impacting Sauron's relationship with Celebrimbor in terms of somebody in power

Speaker: over another person is really making him pause and think about what's going on. Kind of twisting him up. Sauron could definitely use just a little bit of a refresher course in BDSM etiquette, though, because right now he's a little bit of a bad dumb. Oh, yeah. Just not quite where we need to be on the negotiation piece.

Speaker: of everything just yet. Enthusiastic consent is something that I don't think that Sauron is very aware of or very... Not in a sustained sense. Long -term arcs. He struggles with that, I think.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. And again, that kind of harkens back to some of like the issues that I kind of have between some people's enthusiasm for particular ships, like between Melkor and Sauron, and to some extent, with Silvergifting, is kind of this

Speaker: bypassing or sort of ignoring some of these power dynamics that are that are at play and some of the more dubious consent that can kind of arise with some of the some of the relationship dynamics. Okay so silver gifting AU where they are in 50 shades of gray. Oh my god.

Speaker: It's almost one to one Christian Grey. There was that previous Dom who really like fucked him up. And now he's fucked up relationship with it. And he's gotta learn how to do all the etiquette things correctly. And there's a lot of stalking and

Speaker: Oh my god. Oh my god. What's the middle earth equivalent of creepy helicopter ride? No, it's cool. I don't think it's a high school ride, I guess. Like really, you solved that equivalency and you've got it. Oh my god. Oh, it would have to be a dragon, yeah? It would have to be. Could be a dragon, yeah.

Speaker: Like that came to my mind and I was like, this is brilliant, but also it makes me very sad. So I'm just not like an image of someone in Celebrimbor doing this dragon ride a la like Aladdin and Jasmine. I can show you the world. Oh, fuck me. This is cursed.

Speaker: Yeah so the preview for our next episode I'm just going to post like Sauron and Christian Grey and that's it. Wait no can we do the meme that's like corporate would like you to find the difference between these two pictures?

Speaker: I'm doing that as soon as we get off this cult. Brilliant. Oh my god. Oh yeah, it's brilliant and terrible. Oh my god. You know, we've been saying it's Twilight Fanfic all this time, but we were all deceived. We're all deceived. It is Twilight Fanfic, so it is still Twilight Fanfic. God. Oh god.

Speaker: Please, if you're listening to this right now and you weren't quite following the conversation we just had about enthusiastic consent and being a bad Dom and I don't know after care, we didn't mention that, but that's also very important.

Speaker: Like, those are real things, and Fifty Shades of Grey is a depiction of abuse, as is silver gifting in general is a depiction of abuse, and it's cool if you like that and that's your thing, but it is not a good thing to face a relationship off of.

Speaker: It's not relationship goals or aspirations for sure. And that's kind of what I was sort of getting at with some of my issues with Ang Bang, which is the ship name for Melkor and Sauron. I feel like there's so much stuff that goes terribly, terribly wrong in the way that some folks want to, I don't know, like rehabilitate that relationship. Or again, like I said, kind of bypass or completely ignore what's actually happening.

Speaker: It makes a huge difference to me when an author knows and is very obviously aware of the issues at hand and either, I mean, definitely tag things appropriately, label things appropriately, but either

Speaker: is very clear in that knowledge, and the reader is aware that the author knows of the problems, even if the characters struggle with that, or where the author sidesteps some of those problems by changing events and shifting things so as to have a different contextualization.

Speaker: of that, so that there are ways to enjoy, you know, a happier for now ending or whatever, where maybe Soren doesn't go on and forge the one ring and use it to murder everyone and what have you. Yeah. There are different ways to write things and just have that awareness. I appreciate when authors do that. I enjoy those much more.

Speaker: Yeah. And again, like not to yuck anybody's yum, but I just kind of want some self -awareness and some reflection in my fic about what's really going on and some thought given to folks who are reading it and to where people might be taking things and educating folks on what is strictly in the realm of fiction and fun to keep in the realm of fiction and what is good to bring out into your real life and your two year real relationships.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I mentioned earlier too, fiction is a phenomenal place to explore and unpack some tropes and concerns and thoughts and all of that. And that doesn't mean that it's advocacy for those same things occurring in real life. One thousand percent. One thousand percent. Fiction being fiction is really, really key. Again, Sauron and Celebrimbor as canonically written, not relationship goals.

Speaker: No, I'm sorry guys. It's not. It doesn't end well. Chapter 3, Alicia? All right. Chapter 47, Disaster.

Speaker: Around them, the darkness curled and twisted, blackening the world to Celebrimbor's eyes with the rising of the new moon. It was nights like this that he had once despised that would remind him of the curse that lay heavily on his shoulders, that kept him apart from all others, isolated, alone, that he was not alone.

Speaker: Safely, he was wrapped in powerful arms, cradled, comforted, warm, a familiar chin, square and sharp, rested atop his head. Every time he blinked, his eyelashes brushed the delicate skin of his lover's throat, blue veins visibly throbbing so close that he could count the pulses. About him, the thick musk of sex twined with the other man's natural lavender scent, perfuming their room so intimately it made him shiver. Annatar, his beloved, his one,

Speaker: the only one he would ever love with all his soul. He had become used to discomfort wrapped around his body, holding back the chill of shards of memories that he never wanted to piece back together. He had become used to the presence at his side, driving back the knives that waited in the dark, the nightmares that haunted these chambers, waiting to ensnare and devour him, protecting him.

Speaker: But tonight he had felt no rest, felt no comfort, no protection was to be found in this embrace. Celebrimbor held still, hardly daring to breathe, where he lay entwined with Anatar, golden hair blanketing their glistening bodies.

Speaker: He hardly dared to think lest he wake the other, lest he be discovered. His world had collapsed, and he could be certain of nothing, not his lover, not himself, not his own mind. The tower of his trust had broken at the foundations, crumbled and toppled and buried him beneath thousands of tons of stones, carved from secrets and cemented in place with the glue of sweet memories. Sweet memories of lying together, sharing heat, their laughter lighting the shadows crawling over the land until they were banished from his sight,

Speaker: Memories of strong hands guiding his arms of gentle touches that barely brushed skin, yet burn hotter than white flame. Memories of lying beneath the wide open sky, blanketed only by darkness and cushioned by only the thick grass and earth, were nothing existed in the world but them, two becoming one.

Speaker: Memories of being together in the most intimate way two beings could be, so close Celebrimbor could not be certain where one ended and the other began. It only happened once in all an elf's life and he had chosen Annatar, what a fool he had been. You should not trust so easily that which appears divine Galadriel had mourned. I would not keep his company in my kingdom even

Speaker: Were it to kill me, Gil -galad had informed. Watch him closely. Keep your counsel, quiet to your breast. Here Dan had advised. Blinded, infatuated, fascinated, he had ignored them all, for they had never met Anatar, never spoken to him, never basked in his golden warmth and his sweet, deep amber eyes. They could not possibly understand how he felt. They could not possibly condemn the stranger on a mere whim of their ancient hearts. For what did they know?

Speaker: more than he had. They had trusted their intuition and had not been blinded with powerful false -bite and slippery seductive words. Even now, even with the afterglow haze around him, Celebrambore Shifford, listening to the steady, deep breaths of the man wrapped around him,

Speaker: Those hands that touch with such tenderness and control could wield a whip or a knife with equal proficiency, could make a poor soul scream and wail with but a slash, could draw forth the blackest secrets from a heart in but an hour. Stained in blood and hard, they now felt spidery and unclean where they rested on his back, no longer reassuring, but traitorously threatening.

Speaker: Everything he thought he had known now felt wrong, sullied and violated. This was the Maya, the man, with whom he shared even the sanctuary of his mind and body. Pain rippled through him at the thought, almost physical in the destruction it wrought, in the sting of tears it brought to the eyes that had not cried since the long -lost days of terror and fire wrought by Feanor.

Speaker: Without Anatar, how could he be whole? Without his golden presence, the sweet lavender and amber gaze, the comforting strokes on his shoulder and the sultry voice in his ear, the nights without loneliness and despair, the days full of laughter and company, how could he possibly survive?

Speaker: Without his other half, who was he supposed to be? In the wake of devastation, what was left? Not his freedom, not his dignity or pride, not his innocence, not even blessed ignorance. There was nothing left to him but knowledge of betrayal, for even the fury that burned in his heart of hearts was tempered and smothered by the powerful devotion he felt towards his other half.

Speaker: Reality had been uprooted, revealed for what it was. Nothing but a naive daydream. The truth slashed across his spirit like a rusted blade and left him broken on the ground. Uncertainty, terror, confusion, betrayal so powerful that he wanted to scream and cry, to break something, to wrap his fingers around Annatar's throat and strangle him so that the voice in those hands could never do harm to anyone ever again, so the Maya could never fully carry out his ultimate betrayal of Celebrimbor's unwavering trust.

Speaker: frightened to death, the Lord of Aragon closed his eyes and prayed. He would need all his strength to balance on the edge of the disaster that had uprooted his soul. The war was only just beginning, and if he did not do something, he would lose before it even began. Now the betrayed would become the betrayer, and the cursed would become the savior. And then, when all was said and done,

Speaker: when the last vestiges of his scarred and shattered soul had been crushed to dust by hatred and beloved eyes and agony from familiar fingers. He could close his eyes and welcome the peace that lay only beyond the cage of the body. Maybe there he would recover, would rebuild himself from the ground up, would reclaim some of who he had once been before Anatara had welded himself into all that Celebrimbor was and would ever be, but he would never be the same. The damage had been done,

Speaker: irrevocably and irreversibly. I'm not reading the next chapter, but the next chapter is Celebrimbor falling at Eregion and being captured and tortured by Sauron. This fic covers that and what happens in the aftermath of Celebrimbor's death. Yikes.

Speaker: It's real dark. Yeah, that's intense. That line about the hands feeling spidery is such a good line because it draws on so much of Tolkien's like disquiet around spiders and Shelob and Angolian. It draws upon this Tolkienian imagery.

Speaker: in a very, very swift, very evocative way that just gets at the wrongness of it. That's brilliantly done. I'm taking a stab in the dark, but I'm guessing this is after Celebrimbor has realized that Sauron has made the One Ring? Yes. In this moment?

Speaker: Okay, I do have some questions about why he's in bed with him after he's found that out, but okay, that's a question from another time, perhaps. In this particular book, did he know that when he got into bed with him this time, or was that a realization that he awakened with?

Speaker: There's some ambiguity into the in the timeline and about this specifically because of how this is written. I am almost positive that this is after he has made Narya and realizes that he's been betrayed, but I'm not 100 percent sure whether this is the awakening of his suspicions or the

Speaker: after the proof or like he actually is like oh you're wearing the one ring you know okay yeah okay one of the things that i really like that some authors are able to accomplish is we talked about canonically this this relationship is abusive whether it's romantic or sexual or not in canon or fic or whatever it's abusive and

Speaker: I think there's something very powerful about authors being able to write that experience and convey it in ways that are both a warning and a validation to people who have or might go through any sort of similar experience. And doing that well is a very uncomfortable thing to read, but it's sometimes very important.

Speaker: Yeah, reading about this particular kind of trauma, and especially like, I was thinking about, you know, when this author was kind of reflecting about how Celebrim War could possibly come back from this kind of trauma, and how it might not even happen until he's literally dead, like he might not ever get the chance to do this.

Speaker: you might never heal from this. That's rough to really process and to read about. And it's also something that's really important and cathartic, I think, for a lot of people. And I feel like Fanfic is one of those mediums where it can feel really safe to process trauma and to move through trauma and talk about it in a protected sort of way and in a way that

Speaker: feels very validating in a way and honors the experiences that you've gone through and what others have gone through. And so I feel like this is kind of an area where I've been really interested in with this particular ship is unpacking this moment of betrayal and unpacking what's going through Celebrimbor's head as he goes through this. Yeah, and I think that even

Speaker: I am not 100 % sure of the gender of this author, but I am willing to bet this is a woman or someone who has assigned female at birth because there is so much socialization surrounding sex and betrayal that girls get that boys don't. And I see that here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, statistically, 80 % of fanfiction authors thereabouts are

Speaker: women or a gender that is not the cis man. So, you know, marginalized genders, it's like we've been writing this stuff forever because these are the stories that we have, you know, and the stories that that we can tell. There's a reason that the particularly large multifandom fandom archive that has the most preeminence on the Internet right now is called Archive of Our Own and draws upon that Virginia Woolf

Speaker: terminology, like a room of our own and all of that, because it's a place for so much of the voice and writing of people of marginalized genders can be archived in access and preserved. What drew you to choose these chapters, in particular Alicia?

Speaker: Well, one because I thought the torture chapters were a little bit too much. Probably was. There's another chapter that I was going back and forth about including because it's the aftermath of Sauron having murdered Celebrimbor as he's

Speaker: grappling with the fact that he realized that, oh, my God, no, I really love him only after he's dead. And then he fucks his way around Numenor trying to forget Celebrimbor. And there's just something about that that I think is beautiful. And like he's he's honestly he's being haunted by the ghost of what his he's perceiving as the ghost of Celebrimbor. And that's actually what ends up

Speaker: pushing him to establish Baradur. It's a stretch, but it's an interesting stretch. But I thought these three chapters were good because it really sets up where they're both beginning and then at least where Celebrimbor ends. And I think in this particular ship, the journey of Celebrimbor is really the important one.

Speaker: Because he's the one who really goes through it, right? Like there's not a lot of growth in Sauron in this particular bit of time. Yeah. Except that chapter I didn't read about how he dealt with the death, which is it's interesting. Also, a lot of the other chapters that are surrounding this ship, this author has an AU where the entire house of Fenway comes back.

Speaker: in the third age. Oh, shit don't go so well for Celebrimbor.

Speaker: So this is like the least depressing and disturbing chapters that I could have chosen, essentially. Extremely valid reasons. Yeah. I really like the way that she's dealing with some of this like really heavy shit. It's something that's peppered throughout this entire fit because she writes a lot about my throws and other like really conflicted characters that have like essentially PTSD. And that's how Sauron is treated for the majority of the time that she's writing about him, because it's

Speaker: he was seduced and betrayed by Melkor and eventually it becomes this festering grudge where he feels like he can become what Melkor should have been. But at the beginning of it, there's this tiny hurt little boy Sauron that turns into a monster.

Speaker: And I was just the way that she treats this stuff is surprisingly relatable and deep for a fanfic, honestly. She's dealing with some really heavy shit in a way that's very theft. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was debating if I was going to read a section of any fanfic. And I think, yeah, I think honestly, there's a section that I am

Speaker: going to read partly because this was one of the first fics that I read in this pairing that it like made me question what tropes and roles and all of that I sort of mentally assigned to the different characters because I tend to think of this relationship in kind of exactly the same ways that the fic that Alicia

Speaker: a red lays out like Sauron as this manipulative abuser and Celebrimbor as earnest

Speaker: for lack of a better word, victim who doesn't perceive what's going on until it's too late and I kind of have a hard time looking at any sort of happy ending for the two of them given how canon turns out and kind of what could you do that might shift that or change that aside from just like ignoring a lot of stuff.

Speaker: Yeah. And the thing that I like about this particular fic that I am going to read an excerpt of is that it has like a nebulous happy ending. It sets up a place where something might change and it might become an AU sort of thing.

Speaker: And the premise of this book, it's called Surrender, and it's by Ancient Moonshine. It's the sequel to another work that they had written. The premise of this is that Celebrimbor, at the point that this book happens, already knows that Annatar is Sauron, and Annatar doesn't realize that he knows.

Speaker: Now definitely a content warning here because the fic is mostly porn, which we love, but this is definitely picking up mid -coitus and I am actually just trying to keep it fairly clean in all of this. But I also enjoy it because it turns the narrative of

Speaker: Who is in control and seeking dominance and everything on kind of on its head and that still works for me for Sauron's character because if anyone is familiar with sort of BDSM etiquette and all of that the person who's in the submissive role actually holds the most power because Consent is kind of like hard stops with them Yeah, so

Speaker: Here is our narrative selection. Annatar's flesh is heated gold. His fingers touch light, reverent trails doubt Celebrimbor's back, legs wrapping around his waist, and Celebrimbor thinks hazily that he can spend an eternity between his thighs. His breath catching, as Annatar's mouth opens in a silent song. And Celebrimbor sees that flash of light there again, quivering and faint, but so, so pure.

Speaker: a trembling flame that Celebrimbor cups between his hands as he kisses him firm and hard and possessive, like he was daring Morgoth to return from the doors of night and take back what now belongs to Celebrimbor. And as Anatar responds with eager innocence, Celebrimbor decides to make the most singularly reckless decision of his life. He'd been given a taste, and now he wants everything. Do you know what I'm thinking about now? Celebrimbor asks softly.

Speaker: Anatar shudders, shakes his head. Celebrimbor kisses him, lingering and gentle. Pouring out all centuries of pent -up affection, tenderness, need and grief into the kiss. Everything he'd kept hidden, leaving Anatar shaking as he hands it. And thinking of you, your true name. Celebrimbor breathes against Anatar's lips. Sauron.

Speaker: The name feels wrong in Celebrimbor's mouth, but it is the name his lover chosen for himself here in Middle -earth and what he'll be known as until Arda can be healed of the hurts he and his old master caused. Anatar flinches, eyes going wide with something approaching fear as he tilts his hips up to meet Celebrimbor's thrust. Celebrimbor pushes the hair away from his forehead and nuzzles at his cheek. Anatar looks at him with shocked eyes, too overwhelmed to attempt any manipulation. His lips fall open at a particularly hard thrust, but Celebrimbor almost comes right then and there.

Speaker: Somehow, he manages to contain himself, brushing his mouth against Annatar's throat. Nipping at it, Annatar shudders, hurt, flashing through his gaze, but Celebrimbor chases it away with a lingering kiss against the vulnerable flesh. Look at me, Sauron. He lets the command weave through his voice. Dear one, look at me. Sauron obeys. His hazy eyes stare into Celebrimbor's disbelieving bewildered. Celebrimbor presses a gentle kiss against his forehead, smiling faintly.

Speaker: Don't hide, he murmurs. He trails the thumb down Sauron's face, thrusts in deep. Sauron's query breaks around Celebrimbor's ears as he picks up the pace, punishingly gentle. Reaching up to encircle Sauron's wrists with his fingers like manacles, binding Sauron to him as Sauron damn near keens, hips thrusting up to meet Celebrimbor's merciless pace. How? Sauron's question is a silent sigh against his mouth as Celebrimbor kisses him. Why?

Speaker: Celebrimbor can answer neither, so he doesn't try. Just kiss his Sauron as softly as he can, touching him everywhere, transmuting him. Sauron's body moving in time with his as Celebrimbor molds his body according to his design.

Speaker: collaboration that neither expected nor planned for, and Asaron seeks Celebrimbor's mouth in a desperate kiss, arching against him with a soft moan. Celebrimbor knows it's a project he never wants to end. A sudden sense of urgency seizes him. Words bubbling up inside him, lodging deep in his throat, beef forces them out. Certainty like a shard deep in his chest, telling them if he doesn't say this now, he'll never have another chance.

Speaker: When Hyon had his jaws around your throat, Luthien had you yield your tower, your dominion to her, or be unhoused. Celebrimbor says, his voice low. Sauron, staring at him, his eyes are a ruin. I want something else. I want you to yield something else. He punctuates this with a firm thrust, and Sauron lets out a gasp. Celebrimbor had escaped his grandfather's oath, only to have bind himself with his own, and he can feel the weight of it hanging between him and Sauron, binding them ever closer.

Speaker: Do you yield yourself to me? Caleb Rember's voice is devastatingly soft against Sauron's ear. Sauron, Lord of Werewolves, Goroth of the Cruel, Anatar, whatever name you call yourself, whatever name you'll have. He buries himself inside Sauron as deep as he can go, crushing him with his body, unable to stand any minuscule amount of space between them, and he can see the exact moment where that quavering piece of light in Sauron's eyes flares bright and breaks. Are you mine?

Speaker: For a moment he sees Sauron hesitate. Celebrimbor kisses him and Sauron crumbles. My lord, master. Small tapering cry that tears out of Sauron's throat as he comes his answer enough, and Celebrimbor lets out a broken breath as he lets go.

Speaker: It continues a bit from there and ends on this sort of nebulous happiness point of like, what if this was a way that the narrative shifts and changes, right? And I just kind of love the idea that like, if Sauron had a good Dom, things would be so much better. My God, yeah. Fuck this Morgoth guy.

Speaker: Yeah. Oh, God, fuck you Murph, man. I'm screwed everything up. But it was an interesting pick to me because that's not the role that I usually think of Celebrant War taking. I don't usually think of him having that agency in the situation and being able to be the agent of change in that dynamic.

Speaker: And that's one of the things that I really, really like about fanfiction is that different authors can take things and just completely make you think about them in a different way, turn them on their head, and you can have all of these parallel versions and questions asked.

Speaker: Totally. Yeah. I think this is a great example of that. I'm like, again, I'm like fanning myself. That was the least spicy part of that pic, by the way. Yeah. My goodness.

Speaker: Yeah, I think that that's such a great example of how transformative works work in that way and how you can really question power dynamics and really question the particular relationship between these two and really turn them on their head. Yeah.

Speaker: And I think that there's so much room in a lot of Tolkien's characters to be able to play with that sort of thing, because that's not out of character for Celebrimbor. He's the grandson of Feanor. Obviously, he has that within him, right? Yeah. I think one of the things that's really key for me, too, is that within fandoms, we end up with head cannons, right? We end up with ways that we think of a particular character as being

Speaker: We have ways of thinking of a particular character as being and the ways in which they interact that are in character. And sometimes that's more a reader conceptualization than it is within the original text. And we can go back to the text and take things a different direction. And that's really cool.

Speaker: Yeah, I love being invited to to think about things differently and to really like, but the best kind of thing I think really makes characters into full people who are complicated and do contradictory things and give a much fuller view of

Speaker: Like a full person who has a full interior life and a complex and confusing and weird way of being. And I love it when Fick sort of invites me to really go back and rethink about my own conceptions and how what I'm reading is more of a reflection of myself than perhaps what could be interpreted or seen by somebody else. That is one of the beautiful and also

Speaker: terrible things about doing reader response work. Because the basis of doing reader response work is that there is no canonical text, essentially, and that every single reader, what they get out of a text is the canonical text, which is something that's really hard to wrap your head around because a lot of people will read a book

Speaker: And what it is that they picture in their head, that movie, that is what's canon to them. And they don't understand that every single person who reads the book has their own paint brushes and paints, as it were, to make their own movie in their head.

Speaker: and that those are going to be different because everyone's lived different lives. And that's one of the things that is so fascinating about fan works in general, like fan art, fanfic, is that you get a glimpse into how someone else has depicted this same thing that you read and saw completely differently.

Speaker: until you start getting into adaptations that canonize things that you it's really hard to get away from. I've had conversations with other scholars about how the Lord of the Rings movies have

Speaker: both made better and worse the fan sphere because it canonized Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn and Ian McKellen as Gandalf and it's really hard to find depictions of them where they are not those particular actors in the case of art or they're not portrayed the way that they were in the movies in the case of Fick.

Speaker: It's one of the things that's so cool about the Silmarillion because it's probably never going to be adapted. Or if it is, it's probably going to be after we're all dead. I can't imagine the estate's going to give up the rights to it. It's this fertile ground. It's a very fertile ground to play in.

Speaker: Yeah, I can get why people have, you know, state like, you know, can spend a lifetime in this, in this particular sandbox and this particular corner of fandom and spin out 600 ,000 word fix about, about it, you know? Yeah. One of the things that's really notable to me with this particular

Speaker: pairing though too is that no, we don't have a film of the Silmarillion depicting all of this. We're still pretty unclear on where the Rings of Power adaptation is going to do some things, although certainly

Speaker: the visual characterizations of some of the involved characters are different than what a lot of fans were expecting based on their mental movie. But also, there is another type of IP involved here, and that's the video games. It's like Shadows of Remore and all that, in which Celebrimbor and Sauron or Annatar are characters.

Speaker: There are some things in there that are not Tolkien's canon, at least, but that are very fondly held by fans of that particular type of IP and the art that comes from it and the fanfic that's come.

Speaker: from it, if I remember correctly, spoilers for this video game that I have never played or seen or whatever. Because like 10 years old? Yeah. But if anyone was like looking keenly for that story, I'm pretty sure that there's something at the end of like, Celebrimbor and Sauron become one being who are the the Lidless Eye, Wreath and Flame together and like Celebrimbor's ghost and like inhabits the body of a ranger. There's some stuff. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, Celebrant Board inhabits the body. I forgot the Ranger's name. It starts with a T. It does. It's Talon or something like that. I think it's Talon. That is 100 % who it is. I've also never played that game because it just sounded like such horseshit to me that I couldn't get on board with.

Speaker: There's also, there's a depiction of Annatar and Celebrimbor's relationship in Lord of the Rings Online in a flashback that happens there when you were going through Eregion, which is, it's Lord of the Rings Online. It's a fucking 15 -year -old game, so it looks like it was made on a potato.

Speaker: You get to watch Sauron as Annatar walking into Eregion the first time and meeting the elves and that's kind of cool. That's very cool. But yeah, I think we see some of those depictions are very dearly held in the fandom.

Speaker: thoughts around these characters for people who are familiar with the video game IPs then have been a point of debate, discussion, discourse as other adaptations come forward and those don't necessarily match with the computer -generated imagery or fan art that was popularized

Speaker: sort of on the basis of those depictions. So I think that's another just interesting piece of the puzzle for this particular pairing where there is this sort of like mid -level popularity visual depiction that really influences things, but that not everyone is aware of and it creates a lot of different entry points for folks. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, this is the primary reason why I don't like Celebrimbor's casting and Rings of Power. I did see a lovely meme in this regard that I will read the internet to you all and share with you. It was just someone on Tumblr had said, listen, mad respect for all of the people who are shipping like

Speaker: Grandpa Celebrimbor and Hot Young Things Sauron. That is exactly the thing that the producers wanted to avoid and you are doing it anyway. And like, that is God's work. Yep. I'm super into it. I'm super into it.

Speaker: like elves with wrinkles and time with some mortal maya who looks like boy band i'm kind of like cute i wouldn't mind other like old elves

Speaker: Like, fucking make Gil Galat old. Make Cirdan old. Cirdan looks old. He's got a fucking beard. He's the only elf that does, for whatever fucking reason. Thanks, Tolkien, for just throwing that out there. And beard, and not, like, a little hipster stash, okay? Yeah. He better, like, win the fucking beard off thing that, like, people spend, like, years, like, preparing their beards for. Right. Yeah.

Speaker: Every dwarf is not over here, just like flirting with Kirdan because his beard is beautiful. Yeah, Kirdan is being like, what do you use? Yeah, like I just I wanted my hot Kello Bembor and hot Annatar because I have been all about this ship for an embarrassingly long time. You're absolutely valid. And they shat all over it. Amazon shat all over my ship.

Speaker: I totally hear you. I totally hear you.

Speaker: Do we want to kind of wrap it up in some kind of neat info? I was going to also make a comment just about the nature of fanfiction because I love transformative works. I think that they're amazing and very cool and really allow us to dig into a fandom and interrogate it and really ask deep questions of an IP. And sometimes there aren't deep questions and it's just smut and that's great too.

Speaker: Yep. Or it's just like this delightful little curtain thick of like this little moment that's, that's left to the side and that fills in the gaps and that's all delightful. But there was a couple of quotes from the article that I talked about earlier that had cited the, the study about sort of compensation for authors in various genres and was going on to talk about fanfiction. And Tabitha in here makes the point that

Speaker: John Updike rewrote Hamlet as erotic fanfiction from the point of view of Gertrude and Claudius. That was one of the examples that she pointed out in the article of transformative works that have existed at other points in time. Later on in the article, she makes the point that you will see some bad fanfiction, too. And you could say that the difference between the categories of published homage and fanfiction is quality, but John Updike, though,

Speaker: I just like that snark and sass and just pointing out that the argument that fanfiction is not good because it's free is really not a valid one. There's amazing stuff out there. It really is. It may not be everyone's taste, but that's okay. There's lots of flavors of tea out there.

Speaker: Yeah, and like that that it's an inherently of lower quality, because it's not published or whatever or that it's, it's, it's made by people playing with other characters, or you know things that they haven't created and generated of themselves.

Speaker: thing that a lot of people use in a really derogatory way like talking about rings of power you know they're all like oh it's just you know fanfic and they're they're using that word and that term specifically to you know demean and diminish it because fanfic is in their eyes inherently unworthy of your attention

Speaker: and of consideration and that's absolutely hands down not true and it's super as we've kind of have kind of hinted at like marginalized genders have been sort of

Speaker: taking fanfic into really new and beautiful places because we haven't been able to see ourselves in what's being published. And it's changing slowly, but the fact still remains that the vast majority of fanfic writers are of marginalized genders. And there's a reason for that. And I feel like we could do with some interrogating why we

Speaker: think of fanfic and other marginalized genres as inherently unlike romance or sci -fi and fantasy, as inherently unworthy because of the disproportionate number of marginalized authors who are working in those genres.

Speaker: I think it's a particular disservice to people who write Tolkien fanfiction because we've all seen I'm a 12 year old girl writing a 10th Walker fanfic. We've all seen that and like just random portal fiction and

Speaker: But like even even that stuff, even when it's not very good and it's obviously just someone cutting their teeth on writing, it's still someone cutting their teeth on writing. Like that's how a lot of fanfic comes into being is someone wants to write, but they don't know how to build out a world themselves that dabble in an existing world. And those people end up becoming very good writers. There are a lot of really good like Tolkien based fanfics that one are very well written and two are so well researched.

Speaker: There are people who write Tolkien fanfic who know more about Tolkien than I do and I fucking write academic papers on Tolkien. There are people who know more about the Silmarillion that I'll ever know in my entire life. Yeah. You will find fanfic in Tolkien fandom where the author's note is almost as long as the fic itself. Absolutely. I love it. I used these three words and here is the translation of

Speaker: Here, some of the author's notes will be like, I wanted to say this in kuzdul. So I learned how to fucking write kuzdul because I'm writing dwarves fucking each other. And they have to be able to say you're mine. So here's how I did that. And here's what it means. And here's the actual gloss that that that's so much fucking work.

Speaker: It's so fucking cool. I love it. I love it so much. The dedication, the creativity, the heart and the love for it. I feel like that's such a wonderful gift that people give freely and without compensation out into the world. I'm so here for it. There are such interesting pieces too that

Speaker: Like, there's a different skill in writing fanfiction where you need to be able to synthesize and incorporate information in ways that bring the world to life, in a way that if you're writing your own original fiction, you are only bounded by what you have previously written. Agreed. But if you're writing in a world of fanfiction, whether that is Tolkien or Star Wars or

Speaker: I don't know, like My Little Pony is the big thing. There are fandoms that are devoted entirely to stories and appreciation of bands and things like that. The level of knowledge that you need to have and research and be able to incorporate seamlessly is a skill that is often overlooked.

Speaker: So like I think of that example in the fact that I read like there's a reference to Baron and Luthien and this past set of events with Sauron. I think of the fact that Alicia read and there all of the information about like

Speaker: Morgoth slash Melkor and like these veiled references to Ingolian and Shelab and the the spiders in Mirkwood and the Hobbit and like all of this is being drawn on and incorporated very deftly to evoke all of those connotations but also be completely understandable if you've just glossed past it and you don't have that context as a reader.

Speaker: That's some skill. That's not just laziness or whatever. People like Robin Hobb, accused fan fiction authors of or whatever. That's some work. Totally. Totally. Yeah, that's writing. That's what writing's all about, you know? There's a reason that all of the authors on

Speaker: archive of our own are like Hugo nominated and everything. The archive itself was Hugo nominated. And I do not recall I would have to fact check myself on if there was any award given or whatever. But it's because that writing is real and interesting. And there are still published professional authors who also go and post their fanfic. So

Speaker: Absolutely. So how do you guys want to tie it up? Well, should I hadn't thought of that part? We hope that our little gift to all of you of our thoughts and impressions on fan works and this particular silver gifting ship is appreciated and keeps your thoughts warm through the holidays. And we will see you all in

Speaker: January. Keep your thoughts so, so warm. So very, very warm. So hot, so spicy. Very, very hot. Very warm. Like the fires of Mount Doom warm. The fires of Mount Doom or sexy Annatar's body. Hot. Yeah. What was the line that Alicia read out about? I don't know.

Speaker: I think it was smooth actually. I very specifically chose something where they weren't actively fucking

Speaker: That's what Grace wanted to bring. He chose the least spicy part of that pancake and I specifically avoided words that for me take me out of the narrative of very specific words about body parts that I feel like characters in the second age would not think of themselves that way.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. But that's a personal author choice. And like, it's not my choice when I write historical fictiony type things, but you know, more power to other folks. Yeah. So yeah, I avoided the incredibly spicy parts. I'm glad they got to have some holiday spice in our so forgiving episode anyway. Oh, our holiday cheer. Oh my god.

Speaker: So sweet. To be clear, I am dressed 100 % as a school marm right now and I'm delighted. I was going to ask you about your sweater a little bit later. As an absolute school marm of a lady with like an Icelandic kurtigan. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: But yeah, what an ending to this episode, kind of an ending, and now we're just chatting for 15 minutes. Okay, so hold on. I'm going to try to help out Editor Tim here. We hope to kind of dip into some more fan elements and shipping elements. We keep going in this podcast because that's a big part of our fandom and

Speaker: you'll have to explore this kind of wider world of Tolkien and our fan experience is the relationship between Tolkien and the people who read him. So hopefully we get to bring you more episodes like this and we hope that your holidays are warm and peaceful and that you get lots of rest and whatever you celebrate or you don't celebrate brings you joy and peace.

Speaker: So Alicia, do you want to read where folks can find us? Sure. Join us in the new year. We're going to have our first guest in January. Very excited about that. You can find us on Apple, Google,

Speaker: Spotify or stream our episodes directly on Zendcaster, that's zendcaster .com slash queer lodgings, the Tolkien podcast with a bunch of hyphens between all those words. Please leave us a rating like share and subscribe. You can find us on Facebook at queer lodgings, Twitter for right now at queer underscore lodgings, or you can send us an email with your feedback or episode ideas at queer lodgings podcast at gmail .com.

Speaker: You can also email us those FIC recommendations there. That's true. If you don't want to call yourself out on social. That's true. If you want to remain anonymous, we will totally take it through email. Thanks, everybody. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Speaker: you

Speaker: I bet we could make bank if we started doing audio recordings of fanfic for people. You were in fact not allowed to make bank. God damn it. You're right. Also, I promise you, I promise you that you do not want to get into the podfic -ing drama that exists. No one wants that. No one needs that. You're probably right.

Speaker: like you know how I go to drama like I'm off to a flame sometimes I don't go into these quarters I just watch a couple of my friends and I'm like how fascinating to spill the tea but like you know I'm not I'm not gonna brew that tea