So it’s a rainy November morning, and I feel like writing a new blog. It’s nearing the end of another disappointing year and I’m trying to not feel anxious, panicked and full of dread. But, as much as I am trying to remain positive and in uplifted spirits, I probably am going to veer into some negative/ranty thoughts with what I intend to talk about. Not completely, I just have some musings and opinions I want to put out there about certain things.
Currently, I’m taking a nice, long break from making things on Leonardo.AI. I spent well over three and a half months generating tons of images and making sure I used every single token. I even used both my dad’s and sister’s accounts for a bit because they weren’t using them much and I wanted to be able to make more art. It was a really compulsive thing. I couldn’t stand the idea of letting tokens go to waste. Not when something could be created with them. I’ve really had to step back and relax about that. Let myself be more casual with my creating instead of so manic and obsessive. It certainly did take up a lot of my attention and focus. I spent the whole summer generating images and working on this website. Which was fine for the most part, since I am progressively trying to make this site look better. I’m basically trying to revamp it with Leonardo-created content. It’s somewhat restrictive with my layout limitations, but I’m trying to do what I can.
Anyway, I definitely did have a lot of fun making characters on Leonardo over these past few months. I just love bringing them all to life, and it’s been especially interesting making the more life-like versions of my Neverwinter characters. I really feel like everyone is becoming more fleshed out and turned into true, cinematic heroes. Or villains, in some cases. Some still need more fixing and editing. And some I even plan on trying to redo or upgrade to fit in with the other more photorealistic images. But overall, I’m quite pleased with the results. I’ve even made several of my sister’s characters, and got them posted on her character website. I’ve also made a lot of things besides just people. I’ve made tons of food images and game items. Weapons and larger equipment are proving to be more difficult, but they are something I plan to try to work on more as well, especially as the technology advances and improves.
So, while still on the subject of Leonardo, there’s another medieval fantasy topic I have not yet discussed in a blog and would now like to delve into quite a bit. You see, I’ve added a lot of pages to my site since July. A lot of character pages that is. But not just Neverwinter and general D&D, I’ve also started adding my Lord of the Rings Online characters. Yes, I do play LOTRO too. I actually started playing it back in 2021 around the time I started playing Neverwinter. But I had only played it for a very brief amount of time, and didn’t start playing it again until summer 2022. That’s when I made new characters and was able to spend more time on it. It might seem odd that I never mentioned it before and don’t have any screenshots on here. Well, the reason being is because I didn’t initially connect with my LOTRO characters the way I did with my Neverwinter ones. And I actually have taken an incredible amount of screenshots on LOTRO, so much so that it’s too overwhelming to sort through them and pick which ones I want to keep and post. I might get around to it someday, I don’t know. I actually still have some Neverwinter screenshots I haven’t added. In-game stuff has all kind of taken a backseat to my Leonardo creations. But, it is because of those Leonardo creations that I’m discussing this now.
Like all my characters, my LOTRO people have become so much more fleshed out and cinematic. I can see and get a sense of their personalities so much better, and their stories are starting to unfold. I already had some vague ideas, but like I said, I found it difficult to connect with them before. Part of that is because I found it more challenging to carve out a place for them within the stories and universe of Middle-earth. Everything just seems to be so centered around the Ring and all the characters involved with that. It just felt like a world that was hard to fit into. But ultimately, I’ve really taken to the Bree-lander perspective of it all. The simple, rustic life of common folk and the towns and villages that are largely unaware of the growing evil trickling down from faraway lands. Evil, that if unaddressed, will invade and destroy everything they know and love.
With that in mind, I have formed a group of fed up heroes who are desperate to protect and defend their homeland from the encroaching darkness and the enemies that are seemingly closing in on all sides. Eventually, I hope to go into more detail with my characters’ bios regarding that story idea, but as of right now I’m taking a break from that as well. I played quite a bit of LOTRO in September and October and I’m kind of burnt out on it and those characters again. The only bio I’ve written up so far for LOTRO has been for my Dwarf Hunter, Rolfenar Stoutiron, who I’d actually like to shift to now because I was considering him my main on LOTRO for a while.
It’s kind of funny actually, because I used to really not care for Dwarves at all. I mean I accepted and appreciated them as a race within medieval fantasy, but I was never into playing them and wasn’t fond of any Dwarven characters I knew of. I think I’ve also been somewhat disgusted by them because of the stupid male humor associated with them. I’ve seen memes that jokingly glorify Dwarves as the peak, ideal male body. I just don’t like crap like that.
And I personally don’t think Dwarves have to be disgusting or unattractive at all. I mean sure their body type is different, they’re short and stout, but they should still be fit, muscular fighters. And their faces don’t have to be terrible either. Yes, I picture all adult MALE Dwarves with beards, but their beards don’t have to be gross, and their personalities don’t have to be obnoxious.
And if you noticed, I specified male Dwarves having beards. That’s because I’m completely against the lore and idea that female Dwarves have beards too. I know it’s a hardcore lore thing within Lord of the Rings, but you know what, I’m not actually a fan of Tolkien or LOTR, and I’d still be against it even if I was. Yes, that’s right, I’m not actually a LOTR fan. I’ve never read the books. Well, I attempted to read The Hobbit back in 8th grade but I could barely get past the opening pages. Maybe I’d feel differently about it now, maybe not, I don’t know. My mind did change about the movies as I’ve gotten older. I found them to be rather boring in my early teen years but now I like and appreciate them more and even own them on dvd.
But one thing my mind isn’t going to change about, is the ludicrous and unappealing notion that female Dwarves have to be bearded. I REFUSE to believe male Dwarves would be attracted to that. Dwarves aren’t gay. They wouldn’t want a woman that looks like a man. And the women themselves wouldn’t want to look like a man. I mean good lord, give them some femininity for fuck sake. And yes, I am aware it’s not just LOTR that has bearded female Dwarves. I don’t know if it’s from folklore that predates Lord of the Rings, or if other people were just inspired by Tolkien’s work, but I know lots of fantasy stories do it. D&D mentions it sometimes too. Yet on the Dwarf page in the Player’s Handbook they show a female Dwarf, and she does not have a beard. And in the Neverwinter game none of the female Dwarves have beards. You know why? Because people don’t want to see that. Even the people behind LOTRO obviously don’t want to see it because it has never been an option to make a female Dwarf in the game. Although I did recently come across my first and only “female” Dwarf in Tighfield in the Yondershire. It had a female name and voice, but the NPC was a typical male Dwarf NPC you see all the time. Yes, they literally used a Dwarven man that looks nothing like a woman to be a Dwarven “woman” – male beard, body and all. Again, no straight Dwarven man would want to touch that. I don’t know why fantasy writers want to treat Dwarves like gay-turned prisoners, but I certainly won’t be doing that.
Ironically, LOTRO did a character appearance update earlier this year and added the option for beards for the Human women, obviously in a pathetic attempt to appease the woke Liberal crybullies and the ridiculous normalizing of the transgender trend. I’m not sure if that means that they plan to finally make female Dwarves available, or if they just wanted to add the feature to Human women, knowing it wasn’t really going to be used much. Just their spineless way of saying, “Look, see, we’re not bigots!” But you know what, I’m just fine with being a “bigot”. It’s kind of a compliment really.
The other ironic thing is that Human women got beards but male Elves still don’t. Another bit of nonsense within the realms of fantasy I think. Male Elves should be able to have facial hair. I can understand it not being common amongst them, especially the dainty scholarly types, but the more rugged Elven hunters and warriors ought to sport some beards or at least some heavy stubble. I definitely would make the Elves in my own fantasy universe that way. I actually haven’t found Elves to be very appealing or likable in fantasy franchises, especially LOTR. The Elves are extremely boring in the LOTRO game. So boring in fact that they’re part of the reason Dwarves became more appealing to me. I just really expect nature-dwelling Elves to be more…naturey. Sure the LOTRO Elves love their flowers (boring-ass spring sunflower quest, anyone?), but they mainly seem obsessed with scrolls, scholarly things, and their own immortal history.
And actually, it’s not just the Elves I find unlikable in LOTRO, it’s pretty much all the races. Or at least the males. Even the Human men. They seriously need some new voice actors and lines because the NPCs say really annoying things, with really irritating voices. They sound either woefully pathetic or really crabby. And Hobbits….oh to get me started on my hatred for male Hobbits. Before I even played the game I already had an extreme dislike for Hobbits based on the films. I have always absolutely hated Frodo/Elijah Wood. I think he’s one of the worst main “heroic” characters ever. I actually think he ruins the movies. I mean I dislike how sappy and overly emotional all the Hobbits are in general, but I can at least appreciate the courage and loyalty of Sam, even if his moments with Frodo get a little too gay. Pip is a fuck-up but I’ll commend him for helping to save Faramir. (He also says one of my favorite lines, which I feature in the Favorite Movie Quotes section here on the site.) And of course Merry was brave and became a fighter who went into battle. And to top it off, I actually found Bilbo to be the most likable character in The Hobbit films. So I don’t hate all of them. In the movies I mainly just hate Frodo. And all the Hobbit crying. But in LOTRO, my god, the male Hobbits are so much worse. And yes, specifically the males. They are cowardly, they are pathetic, they are unmasculine, they are wimpy, they are spoiled, they are pompous, they are lazy. They are so damn repulsive I cannot fathom how they ever manage to attract a female and breed. And in contrast, you come across female Hobbits who are bold and adventurous and willing to stand and fight. Yes, the females will fight while the males will cower. There are a very few select Hobbit males in the game that are an exception to this. Most of them are exactly how I described.
My sister and I were so utterly disgusted by the male Hobbits that when she created a female Hobbit on the game she came up with the story that her Hobbit was a spinster who had remained alone, until she met and got with a Dwarf. I thought the story sounded fun so I eventually decided to make that Dwarf. And that is how Rolfenar came to be, my first ever Dwarf character. I never thought I’d make a Dwarf, but oddly enough I really enjoy playing him. I also love decorating his Dwarven home in the Thorin’s Hall Homesteads, something else I never thought I’d do. Most surprising of all is that I actually find the Dwarves to be the most likable males in the game. At least from what I’ve come across. My sister and I have basically just decided that the female Hobbits are the women for the Dwarves, and the male Dwarves are the men for the Hobbit women. Mostly anyway. I actually did make a male Hobbit, one purposely to contrast and counter all the unlikable qualities of the rest of the Hobbit race. But that’s what I usually do with everything – make something in rebellion because I don’t like how things are. I suppose that’s truly the driving force behind all my artistic and creative motivation.
I know, I sound so malcontent. I really am with a lot of things in life and in this world. But here I am, dissing a good deal of a game I choose to play. I guess it probably begs the question of why I even play LOTRO at all. Well, I play mainly for two reasons. One reason being that I love player housing. I love being able to have a home within the game world and being able to decorate it. And the other main reason is for travel and exploration. I really enjoy exploring the different lands and riding my horse continuously through the open world. Those are two things that Neverwinter lacks – housing and an open world for relaxed riding and exploration. I do feel Neverwinter has more pros when it comes to graphics and character creation. It also has better voice actors and much more individual, unique NPCs, who have quite a bit of personality actually. Neverwinter doesn’t have nearly the amount of quests per zone as LOTRO does, but that’s probably a good thing. It’s not overwhelming, and it’s not a bunch of the same quests over and over again just in different places, which quite frankly, LOTRO has a lot of. Honestly, both games have things I like and dislike about them. Neverwinter can get a little weird and too silly for me with some stuff, but it is definitely a more dynamic game. LOTRO has a more peaceful, homey feel to it. It also has a very kind and helpful community of players.
They might be a little too nice actually. I think many of them would probably consider me quite mean and hateful if they got to know me. I don’t actually socialize with anyone on there, and I always figure it’s probably better that I don’t. From what I’ve seen I wouldn’t even be interested. There seems to be quite a bit of super lovey dovey, music-obsessed people on there. Way too damn many Minstrels. I actually had hoped to escape the obsession with song and dance, but it’s in full force outside the Prancing Pony almost every damn night. When I made my Human Hunter, Densen Darrowhill, on Landroval – the U.S. RP server, I had been curious, hoping to see some actual storyline and roleplay. But the dancing parties and nonsense hugging, kissing, and howling is mostly all I’ve really witnessed. They’ve tried to entice my character to join in but they have no idea how repulsed and annoyed I actually am by it all. Don’t get me wrong, I love music, I really do, but I like it as an enhancement. I like it as a soundtrack to support or express a story or scene. I don’t like it as the focus or at the forefront. That’s why people who are really into bands and musicians have never been my kind of people. Our society has put so much emphasis on encouraging careers in singing and music. That’s what’s all over television these days. Everything is about entertainment now. They want us to idolize and worship entertainers. It shows how flipped everything is. You don’t see much encouraging of traditional trades and actual practical, useful skills. Nope, just endless entertaining and performances. Bread and circuses, bread and circuses. Just a world full of too many bards, and apparently in LOTRO as well.
Yeah…so, I know if those in-game players read this they’d probably be pretty insulted. A lot of them come across as keep everything light, “positive vibes only” kind of people. And let’s smooch on everybody kind of people, which I can’t stand. It should be pretty clear by now that I don’t have a free-loving hippy personality at all. I’m very selective, about people and about pretty much everything else.
I’m especially selective these days about what I watch. I don’t watch tv anymore, for what should be pretty obvious reasons. Most of what I do watch are videos on YouTube. Been watching a lot of natural building, homesteading, and bushcraft. And stuff related to HEMA and medieval weapons. I love watching swords and other blades being forged. And I’ve recently started watching more educational and informative videos on medieval life and history. They’ve been pretty interesting so far. Although admittedly I was a bit kicked in the gut some months back when I watched a video that basically said medieval knights used to actually behave pretty terribly and spent most of their time being violent and getting away with what they could. It was really disheartening to learn that their code of honor was pretty much invented to try to stop them from being so awful. It definitely tarnished, and even kind of shattered my image of the righteous and chivalrous medieval knight. I guess it really shouldn’t be much of a surprise though. Most real life humans just seem to be inherently terrible. I don’t know why. I don’t get it. But, I will say that what I heard from the video goes a lot with a story I had already been creating in my mind. A story inspired by my cast of characters in The Sims Medieval game. It has a lot to do with corrupt knights and politics within the kingdom. Conspiring and backstabbing. But of course I have a good, righteous knight as well. A newly knighted knight actually. He gets with the blacksmith woman. There’s also pretty strong themes of persecution and religious war in it. I might go more into detail about it sometime later. I do want to make the characters on Leonardo first, as bringing them to life will of course fuel the brainstorming and help me develop the plot more. But, for now it sits on the shelf in my mind, alongside all my other story concepts and ideas.
While on the topic of knights, I think there’s one last thing I’d like to get into before ending this blog, which has turned out much longer than I had intended, and has taken more than a day to write. I swear after I get all this bitching off my chest I’ll switch to a more positive mindframe. But this is something that I think needs to be said. It needs to be expressed and understood, because I think a lot of people have it wrong. What I’m talking about is the concept of chivalry.
And what is chivalry?
Well if you google it you get “the combination of qualities expected of an ideal knight, especially courage, honor, courtesy, justice, and a readiness to help the weak.”
I know that’s not the original definition or meaning of the word. And yes, I’ve learned that our modern concept of chivalry is based on fiction, having been “adapted by neo-romantics to define ideal male behavior.” But how sad and pathetic is that? Ideal male behavior only exists in fiction? What’s even more sad and pathetic is that it’s considered being “perfect” instead of just the standard norm. What the hell is wrong with people? Why is this considered so impossible and unrealistic? Why? Are you telling me real life masculine men are just inherently and biologically disgusting, piggish, crude, violent, greedy, rapist savages? Well, for the sake of my sanity and any slight hope for mankind, I am going to try to retain some small faith that there are a few real men in this world that aren’t like that. Even if I personally haven’t seen anything remotely close to ideal behavior. Obviously anyone who engages in rape, pillaging, and killing innocent civilians is anything but chivalrous. That is the exact opposite of chivalry. But even just gross, piggish personalities and crude senses of humor denote a disrespect for sacred things that should be honored and taken seriously. Turning everything into a joke isn’t masculine or virtuous. It’s actually very repulsive.
This is why we romantic idealists exist and feel compelled to create imaginary characters, because so many people in real life are absolute shit. So yes, I’m going to stick with the adapted, romanticized version of chivalry, because that’s what it should be. Although I do have some issues with that too. What I googled was a pretty good definition. Those are certainly admirable qualities and the kind of virtues a man (and everybody) should have. But when you start to get more into what it means to be chivalrous, the definitions refer to a man’s behavior or manner toward women. And this is where I start to get a bit bothered, because it seems to be more about being polite and courteous than anything. They talk about men opening doors for women, and things like that. This is the kind of stuff that irritates the hell out of me. Not because I find it patronizing. I don’t find it patronizing, I just find it extremely unimportant. Yes, a man giving a woman his jacket when she’s cold is very sweet, caring, thoughtful, and considerate. It’s more the door-opening stuff that I find worthless and untelling. And at times it’s even really awkward. Sitting in a car while the man comes around to open your side for you to get out, it’s just so unnecessary. And more than anything, it’s trivial and insignificant. Also, I’d like to point out, being polite and courteous around women means jack shit if a man is disgusting, crude, and disrespectful about women when he is not around them. That is actually the more honest and revealing scenario, how a man behaves about women when he is with his other guy friends. If he’s wearing a polite mask, pretending to be respectful and honorable when he’s in the presence of women, that’s where it falls off. That’s when you realize the charade of politeness means nothing.
Back when I was on Facebook, I would sometimes see posts and memes saying, “Where are all the men who open doors for women?” and stuff like that.
What? That’s what they want? I couldn’t believe that was the standard for “good men” and what they want in a relationship. Well, let me break the news: Opening doors does not matter. It’s a polite, considerate gesture, yes, but that’s it. There is nothing meaningful or deep about it. And in truth, some people just do it as part of their facade. I’m willing to bet plenty of murderers living double lives do it as part of their act to look so respectful and wonderful. But that’s just it, it’s a very surface level thing. And when it comes to strangers, the surface level is fine. Of course a man should be polite, courteous, and respectful of women in general. I just seriously hope women are expecting something a lot more telling and meaningful when it comes to what they want in a chivalrous man.
Which leads to me what I believe true chivalry really is. What it really means for a man to be considered chivalrous.
A chivalrous man is a man who is very protective, a man who is very righteous and courageous, a man who is very honorable, dependable, honest, considerate, and devoted. And a man who deeply loves and cherishes his woman, and is completely faithful to her, with his eyes, mind, body, heart, and soul. That’s what I think a real chivalrous manner toward a woman is. It’s not about being “polite”, it’s about something much deeper and more powerful than that. To be chivalrous is to honor a sacred union, and to forsake all others as they say. It’s not about a forced code or self-containment, it’s about a natural, instinctive desire to protect and fight for all that is good and pure, all that is right and just, and most of all, to protect and fight for everlasting true love.
On that note, I am ending this blog with a song. A very relevant one.
“Holding Out For a Hero” by Hildegard von Blingin’ & Whitney Avalon
This is actually my favorite version of this song. The only thing I don’t like about this version is the line “Could I but afford my very own sword, I would not require his might”. I think this is a very random, off putting line that throws off and contradicts the rest of the song. As does the video’s little doodle of the ladies becoming their own heroes themselves in the end. While promoting strong, capable women is a good thing, the rest of the song lyrics are about firmly and passionately desiring this kind of man. And the last thing this world needs is more of a message that these type of men aren’t needed after all, because they are actually very much needed, and yes, very much desired.
everdreamworld 