So this is SO GOOD and I've kept trying to write a proper comment on it and getting stuck on FEELINGS instead so like, I give up, here are my incoherent reactions, thank you for how much this fic fucks me up!! <3
"wasteful", "leaving you to do all the work" - god this is such PEAK SAURON. THE MOST SAURON. "as if dying is such a difficult thing to do" ahahaha Sauron you're going to eat *those* words :)
(what great Sauron characterisation tho and I love how well you convey his inhumanity here, both in terms of personality and of - never having felt illness, not being just his physical form, how time passing just doesn't affect him in the same way it would most people, how utterly incomprehensible the idea of ever wanting to die is to him) (or time hasn't affected him YET ahahaha)
"Celebrimbor stumbles back, a hand fluttering to the gushing red where his high, smooth throat once was. He falls, and you follow him, crouching over him like a carrion bird to make sure that this time, he is truly dead." ugh this is great Celebrimbor's sheer incomprehension and Sauron absently wrecking everything good around him - the vase, Celebrimbor, practically like there's no difference! without even really thinking about it! - and picking over what's left like a scavenger aughhhh.
"You find yourself counting his fingers. You vividly remember what it felt like to remove them." insert my horrified laughter here!!
"It’s a flaw of his nature, rather than his person. All his kind are built weak, bound into flesh as they are. You find yourself wishing he was better than that, wondering perhaps if you might find a way to make him stronger, harder." no feelings involved at ALL here right I love Sauron's ongoing lack of self-awareness it's PERFECT. that almost sympathy for Celebrimbor - it's not his fault he's stuck being just an Elf - and yet at the same time how totally selfish it is.
"You’re more aware of your physical form around Celebrimbor, the ways in which it expresses itself, the subtle pushes it allows. He seems aware of it too." *slightly less horrified laughter on my part* yeah Sauron AWARE that's what it is <3
"as if he knows that his death will erase everything you've accomplished each time" oh god Sauron complaining about how SELFISH it is of Celebrimbor not to be all that hot on staying alive once Sauron's destroyed everything he cared about and is busy on Project: World Improvement alsfjng;ang!!
"You did not see it before because the possibility simply did not occur to you." yeah it's almost like Celebrimbor's a person with feelings rather than a useful tool who could have thought??
"You have seen the birth of the universe, and Celebrimbor—he is a child of the atoms you sung into being. And yet, you do not know him, cannot break him down to his parts and components the way you can with any other thing that you have had a hand in making. He is not your own. Not yet. He will be, soon enough, and you think you see a way." I LOVE THIS the difference between them and Sauron continually confusing love and possession, and yet Celebrimbor almost forcing him to confront his own limitations, Sauron running into the things *he* doesn't really understand <3
"He drives you back, blow after blow, the power of his Three and your One locking like the teeth of four mighty gears. If you had known you could drive him to this—that he was capable of this— " \fknsdogbsogb i love this image and i'm UPSET and i love how continually Sauron UNDERESTIMATES Celebrimbor, how impossible Celebrimbor is for him to break to his own ends, every time
"You look at him with a vague sense of unease from then on, remembering that he could become something you did not anticipate, something dangerous and cruel." god the fucking IRONY :/
"The mind is a delicate thing, and you are not a gentle creature. But still, you really thought he would recover, in time. You wait until it is clear that he is not coming back to himself, and then you wait a while longer. You sit beside his empty form, the knife in your hands, held idle." this fucking kills me like okay the whole situation is entirely Sauron's own fault but it's still so sad?? :(
"What is it all for? You cannot help but ask the question, lying in bed at Celebrimbor's side with his even breathing beside you. You do not sleep, though you find it enjoyable to lie beside him as he does." is this - actual self-awareness from Sauron? APPARENTLY NOT. and yet. i'm UPSET. god it's so stupidly obvious how in love with Celebrimbor Sauron is and yet he still just - can't bring himself to stop being SAURON. and yet you do so well at showing how he's getting to the point where even he just can't stand it any more.
(I mean I am obviously kind of an easy sell here but like - Sauron is so perfectly characterised, he never stops being the trash nightmare of a person he basically is, and yet this is so painful to read and you get him to this point so well. it's a long way from him casually breaking Celebrimbor and complaining about "waste" but there's no sense of discontinuity, it's the same person every step of the way)
"Soon, your offers of alliance, partnership, will find fertile ground within him. You write to him of his city, your thoughts on its improvement. When you offer him the knowledge on ringmaking, you recall that once the price of this knowledge was his city, his life. You give it freely, now. He will come to you, and then the real work will begin. We can accomplish so much together, you write. There is so much I could show you, Tyelpe—and you did come to love me, time and time again—" aughhhhh. like it's so - it's ALMOST like Sauron's actually managing to put Celebrimbor's wellbeing above what he wants himself? but it's Sauron, so he can't accept not getting to have something! Celebrimbor *will* come to him. he can't let himself believe anything else.
HELLO IT IS I, LAZARUS BACK FROM THE DEAD (almost typed "lyra back from the dead" hoo boy I am in Rogue One d e e p) AND HERE TO REPOND TO COMMENTS FROM 4 MONTHS AGO!!!
Ahem. Sorry about the wait ;)
I feel like "peak sauron" is going to be a description I aim to emulate in all my future fics from now on :) Making Sauron eat his own words is possibly the number one premise of this fic?
"Sauron absently wrecking everything good around him" IT'S HIS SPECIALTY!!!
"Celebrimbor almost forcing him to confront his own limitations, Sauron running into the things *he* doesn't really understand" Ahh I'm so glad this came across well!! One of the best things about time-loop fics is that they let you work with the feeling of being trapped; I loved it in yours, and tried to return to that feeling in mine. Because I think a lot of what makes Sauron and Celebrimbor's relationship so tragic is the way that they're both already trapped by their histories and personalities long before they meet each other. Their relationship could have played out so differently, but they were already set on the path ahead of them, and though there was a chance they might guide each other to a different destination, in the end it's not enough. I love and hate that feeling of inevitability. Maybe in this fic, with enough trial and error, Sauron can finally get himself off that track to nowhere :)
Thanks so much for your lovely comments; they made my day every time I went back to re-read them <3
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simaetha Sun 28 Aug 2016 09:19AM UTC
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simaetha Sun 28 Aug 2016 09:19AM UTC
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Ias Wed 04 Jan 2017 01:03PM UTC
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