tardislemur:

My dash is freaking out over the Sansuhk update, and I’m right there with them. I mean: it’s four in the morning, I didn’t get to sleep before 5am the past two days, I know I need sleep but I can’t even feel my exhaustion I’m so…wow. And what’s funny is that most the excitement is being caused by ‘Light on the Horizon’, which..wasn’t actually my favorite thing about the chapter. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in absolute awe at @determamfidd. This song is 6 minutes of gorgeousness. I’ll probably steal the piano from my dad tomorrow and try and it out, and definitely force my friends who haven’t even heard of Sansuhk to listen to it. But my favorite part was actually the scene between Gimli and Dis. The symmetry with their first meeting way back in chapter 4, maybe. The words; the emotions. Even Thorin echoing himself. They’ve gone the full circle right back to where they began 

(If you haven’t read this fic and you’ve even remotely heard of LotR, go read it. Now. Here’s chapter 1.)

And then I realized: Dis’ own marriage was controversial. A princess marrying a poor stonemason? What scandal! She gave up her place in the line of succession (so her sons could inherit.) Of course she would be the first to support Gimli and Legolas. She’s been there. Which makes this scene all the more powerful. She’s looking at this young cousin of hers, a cousin who’s called her ‘aunt’ for 80 years, who’s she’s grown close to, and he’s telling her something that has to be the cruelest joke in Arda. How betrayed she must feel! But then…it’s…true.

I had to grip the side of my laptop while reading this because WOW OMG WOW holy heck you are so damn insightful I am just. staggered. Holy wow. 

Yes.

yes, it is COMPLETELY meant to bracket and reflect the first conversation between Gimli and Dis. It’s meant to echo it: the new loss versus the old – and unlike the first conversation, this one resolves. Thorin is, at last, heard. They all are. Before, they were shouting in hopeless desperation: now, she knows. She hears their words at long last.

And yes: Dis knows what it is to be at the heart of a controversy. And she knows what it takes to weather it. She’s behind them. All the way.

Lastly, absolUTELY yes: it seems like utter cruelty to parade before her all that she has lost. The first time we saw her in the fic, she was raging that she was alone. She was completely wretched with her utter aloneness. It appears to be the most exquisite and vindictive cruelty on Gimli’s part when he tells her – until she finally believes it – and then, at last, she understands that she is not alone. She has never been alone.

That whole scene is a circle – or perhaps a mirror. It’s meant to be. 

I am so, so honoured that you felt that, and saw that, and it touched you.