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Sticky: One Last Update
Aug. 14th, 2026 08:05 pmHey, everyone! As of today, I've now officially gotten all of my formatting finalized for my dissertation! That ended up taking a lot more of my time and effort this week than I'd anticipated - the university is very particular about that, as it turns out, and Word can be very finicky when you have to be this precise. And, unfortunately, this resulted in me having to yet again delay some of my sporking plans, for which I apologize. The good news is that everything I have to do on the dissertation is now 100% done - everything else involved in prepping and eventually releasing it is in the university's hands! Whew. Anyway, I just wanted to share this so that people had an idea of where I've been and why I've been delayed this past week, and also because this is, at long last, the final milestone and I wanted to share. Thank you for understanding!
This is a repost from Das_Sporking2; previous installments of this sporking may be found here.
Warning: This post contains discussion of some of the more unpleasant aspects of Making of a Mage, such as violence (including sexual violence) and transphobia.
Hey, everyone! Just wanting to let everyone know that I’m back from my extended break and hope to resume regular posting going forward; I also have a very important announcement at the end of this post that I would encourage everyone who’s followed my stuff so far to read, even if you’re not really into my Greenwood sporkings. Thank you for understanding!
( Realmslore from Elminster: The Making of a Mage )
( A Personal Announcement )
Warning: This post contains discussion of some of the more unpleasant aspects of Making of a Mage, such as violence (including sexual violence) and transphobia.
Hey, everyone! Just wanting to let everyone know that I’m back from my extended break and hope to resume regular posting going forward; I also have a very important announcement at the end of this post that I would encourage everyone who’s followed my stuff so far to read, even if you’re not really into my Greenwood sporkings. Thank you for understanding!
( Realmslore from Elminster: The Making of a Mage )
( A Personal Announcement )
Hey, everyone! Just wanted to let you all know that my hiatus is officially ending later tonight (by my time - US Central), as I have a new post ready to go! Not Embers, Iron Tower, or Vox Day, but something I've been wanting to wrap up for a while and thought I'd get to before continuing my usual rotation. I also have a personal announcement to make. Thank you all for your patience, and see you tonight!
Hey, everyone, just wanted to thank everyone again for bearing with me in my extended absence, and let you know that I'm aiming to get back in the swing of things with my sporkings very soon - maybe by this Friday sometime, fingers crossed, but next Monday might be more likely. And I'll have some other news as well, having finally decided to commit to going through with something on here that I've been toying with for a long time. So, if you're interested, watch this space! Also, I'll try to finally get around to replying to the comments on the Saruman post. Sorry about that! ;)
I just finished up a reread of LotR, something I like to do in the early fall, and it got me thinking about some things related to my *Iron Tower* sporking, in particular about LotR’s supporting antagonists (Saruman, Gollum, and Denethor most obviously) and how load-bearing they actually are in the story, and why I think it’s a mistake that Iron Tower(and, to a lesser extent, fellow LotR-clone Sword of Shannara) mostly end up eliding them. I’ll probably discuss this in a lot more detail when I get to my final thoughts, but I thought I’d go ahead and share some of the rough ideas I’ve been thinking about.
Basically, I think Iron Tower has a bad guy problem, mostly because it pares LotR’s basic story down to just the War of the Ring, and then simplifies its “Winter War” down to just Modru (and, ultimately, Gyphon) vs everyone else, and it really hurts itself by snipping almost all the supporting antagonists (Sword of Shannara, which I will reiterate I have no plans to spork because it’s not actually reskinned fanfic like Iron Tower is, just a very similar story, has a similar problem though not quite as extreme – it also has no Saruman-expy, but at least manages a Gollum expy and sort of has a Denethor expy). The resulting story still looks a lot like LotR on the surface level but is in practice much more simplistic.
Honestly, this most recent reread of LotR really convinced me all the more that Saruman specifically is a much more critical part of the story than is often discussed (obviously, how critical a character Gollum is has been discussed at length by many, many many people and doesn’t need to be gone into more here) and the “evil” side is much less interesting for the absence of a counterpart of him. Really, I think that among other things Saruman’s existence highlights that the forces of evil aren’t just one giant monolith serving Sauron in lockstep but also contains other factions with their own agendas, and the (offscreen, but discussed and important to the plot) dynamic and interplay between the two of them helps add another layer of depth and complexity to the story. And while the two characters are superficially similar in many ways (Sauron as the reigning Dark Lord, and Saruman as the would-be Dark Lord following in his footsteps and seeking to supplant him) I think a lot of the different details in how Tolkien characterizes them (in particular, the way that Sauron is practically a distant evil god, more of a force than a character, while Saruman is much more tangibly human, for lack of a better word) is very instructive. Modru doesn’t really have anyone to play off of like that, and Iron Tower is poorer for it.
And beyond that of course, you still have Saruman’s status as a fallen hero, and his personal history with Gandalf and the rest of the Council and how all of that further complicates the narrative (and I do think it’s interesting that knowledgeable characters like Gandalf and even Aragorn are always quick to point out how Saruman wasn’t always evil and once really was every bit as great as his reputation made him out to be when other characters express their doubts, and how various characters go out of their way to offer Saruman the chance to repent and make up for his evil deeds, even though he always slaps their hands away). All of this adds a dynamic with the villain you really can’t have with just Sauron.
OTOH, I think it’s not just literary LotR clones that miss the mark here; while much ink has been spilled over the Jackson movies’ shabby treatment of Denethor compared to his book counterpart, I do think it’s underdiscussed how Jackson’s Saruman is also rather flattened, with his private ambitions and agenda going largely unstated (or at best implied) and mostly just being reduced to another loyal subordinate of Sauron’s. Of course, as I noted in I believe my sporking of the Boorman LotR scripts (Boorman, for a reminder, made the baffling the decision to composite Saruman and the Mouth of Sauron into a single character, and IMO the resulting take was… pretty bad), a great multitude of sins can be covered for by the casting of Christopher Lee😉.
Anyway, just some musings I’ve been having that I thought I’d throw out there. Again, I’ll probably go into a lot more detail about some of this stuff (and bring in more on Gollum, Denethor and even the Nazgul as well as Saruman) when I actually get to my final thoughts on Iron Tower. In any case, just wanted to go ahead and share as I chew over some of this!
Basically, I think Iron Tower has a bad guy problem, mostly because it pares LotR’s basic story down to just the War of the Ring, and then simplifies its “Winter War” down to just Modru (and, ultimately, Gyphon) vs everyone else, and it really hurts itself by snipping almost all the supporting antagonists (Sword of Shannara, which I will reiterate I have no plans to spork because it’s not actually reskinned fanfic like Iron Tower is, just a very similar story, has a similar problem though not quite as extreme – it also has no Saruman-expy, but at least manages a Gollum expy and sort of has a Denethor expy). The resulting story still looks a lot like LotR on the surface level but is in practice much more simplistic.
Honestly, this most recent reread of LotR really convinced me all the more that Saruman specifically is a much more critical part of the story than is often discussed (obviously, how critical a character Gollum is has been discussed at length by many, many many people and doesn’t need to be gone into more here) and the “evil” side is much less interesting for the absence of a counterpart of him. Really, I think that among other things Saruman’s existence highlights that the forces of evil aren’t just one giant monolith serving Sauron in lockstep but also contains other factions with their own agendas, and the (offscreen, but discussed and important to the plot) dynamic and interplay between the two of them helps add another layer of depth and complexity to the story. And while the two characters are superficially similar in many ways (Sauron as the reigning Dark Lord, and Saruman as the would-be Dark Lord following in his footsteps and seeking to supplant him) I think a lot of the different details in how Tolkien characterizes them (in particular, the way that Sauron is practically a distant evil god, more of a force than a character, while Saruman is much more tangibly human, for lack of a better word) is very instructive. Modru doesn’t really have anyone to play off of like that, and Iron Tower is poorer for it.
And beyond that of course, you still have Saruman’s status as a fallen hero, and his personal history with Gandalf and the rest of the Council and how all of that further complicates the narrative (and I do think it’s interesting that knowledgeable characters like Gandalf and even Aragorn are always quick to point out how Saruman wasn’t always evil and once really was every bit as great as his reputation made him out to be when other characters express their doubts, and how various characters go out of their way to offer Saruman the chance to repent and make up for his evil deeds, even though he always slaps their hands away). All of this adds a dynamic with the villain you really can’t have with just Sauron.
OTOH, I think it’s not just literary LotR clones that miss the mark here; while much ink has been spilled over the Jackson movies’ shabby treatment of Denethor compared to his book counterpart, I do think it’s underdiscussed how Jackson’s Saruman is also rather flattened, with his private ambitions and agenda going largely unstated (or at best implied) and mostly just being reduced to another loyal subordinate of Sauron’s. Of course, as I noted in I believe my sporking of the Boorman LotR scripts (Boorman, for a reminder, made the baffling the decision to composite Saruman and the Mouth of Sauron into a single character, and IMO the resulting take was… pretty bad), a great multitude of sins can be covered for by the casting of Christopher Lee😉.
Anyway, just some musings I’ve been having that I thought I’d throw out there. Again, I’ll probably go into a lot more detail about some of this stuff (and bring in more on Gollum, Denethor and even the Nazgul as well as Saruman) when I actually get to my final thoughts on Iron Tower. In any case, just wanted to go ahead and share as I chew over some of this!
Hiatus Update
Sep. 16th, 2026 07:30 pmHey everyone, I just wanted to thank you all for bearing with me during my unplanned hiatus over the last few weeks; after getting my finalized dissertation submitted I was just absolutely beat and needed some time to decompress, and I've also been trying to get caught back up on my "fun reading," which I'd let slide due to aforesaid dissertation taking up so much of my energy and attention. Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know that I am currently working on the next Embers post, and hopefully I'll have it ready to go before too long, and after that I hope to get back pretty quickly into the regular swing of things. Thank you for understanding, and hopefully I'll see you all soon!
Embers Chapter Thirty-One, Part II
Aug. 9th, 2026 10:39 pmThis is a repost from Das_Sporking2; previous installments of this sporking may be found here.
Warning: This post contains violence, mention of neglectful treatment of a minor, and some racism.
( In which it's time to meet someone completely different. )
Warning: This post contains violence, mention of neglectful treatment of a minor, and some racism.
( In which it's time to meet someone completely different. )
Everyone, just wanted to drop by and apologize for the lack of a new Embers post yesterday or today, but the good news is that I've now officially completed my revisions to my dissertation, gotten the thumbs-up from my advisor, and submitted the final draft to my school for final processing! Woohoo! Needless to say, getting that taken care of has taken up a lot of my time and mental energy this week, but I'm very happy, relieved and proud to finally have it done with! At the moment, my current plan is to push my schedule back a few days for the coming week, so I'll post the next Embers chapter on Monday and the next Summa Elvetica short on Wednesday, then be back on my regular schedule from there. Thank you all for understanding!
MG Reads the Silver Age X-men
Aug. 3rd, 2026 08:38 pmI just had some brief thoughts on something I just wrapped up that I thought I’d share. To make a long story short, I just finished reading through the entire Silver Age X-men run, going one comic a day (including later appearances of the X-men during the Silver Age that aren’t technically part of the original X-men run, but were collected in the Marvel Masterworks omnibuses).
( MG Reads The Silver Age X-men )
( MG Reads The Silver Age X-men )
This is a repost from Das_Sporking2; previous installments of this sporking may be found here.
Warning: This post contains description of a character's experiences as a prisoner of war, as well as a death.
( In which the true face of evil is revealed... so to speak. )
Warning: This post contains description of a character's experiences as a prisoner of war, as well as a death.
( In which the true face of evil is revealed... so to speak. )
Embers Chapter Thirty-One, Part I
Aug. 1st, 2026 09:22 amThis is a repost from Das_Sporking2; previous installments of this sporking may be found here.
Warning: This chapter contains discussion of mind-control, racism, and implicit death threats made towards a character by her family.
( In which even with Zuko sailing away, the fic still isn't done kicking Aang and Katara while they're down. )
Warning: This chapter contains discussion of mind-control, racism, and implicit death threats made towards a character by her family.
( In which even with Zuko sailing away, the fic still isn't done kicking Aang and Katara while they're down. )
Personal Update
Jul. 28th, 2026 09:10 pmWell, everyone, you may have noticed that a new spork post didn't go up on Monday (and also that I hadn't posted any Forgetting Moon updates over the weekend either). The reason for that is that I had something very important going on IRL that was taking up most of my effort and mental energy; I didn't post anything on here because I was hoping that I would soon have good news to share. And now I can officially say that I do! As of this afternoon, I just successfully defended my PhD dissertation! Woohoo! This project has dominated my life IRL for so long now that I'm still trying to process the fact that it's done (well, almost done; my committee still have some revisions they want before I submit my final draft, but the most important part is now out of the way). Anyway, I just wanted to share, and to let everyone know that my spork schedule should indeed resume as planned with the next Embers at the end of the week; reading posts for Forgetting Moon should also resume shortly.
Embers: Chapter Thirty, Part II
Jul. 24th, 2026 09:10 amThis is a repost from Das_Sporking2; previous installments of this sporking may be found here.
Warning: This post contains depictions of violence and possible deaths, and discussion of abuse and mental health.
( In which at long last, we're finally getting off that beach. )
Warning: This post contains depictions of violence and possible deaths, and discussion of abuse and mental health.
( In which at long last, we're finally getting off that beach. )
Warning: This chapter includes depictions of death, torture and mutilation and reference to molestation.
( Chapter Seventeen )
( Chapter Seventeen )
This is a repost from Das_Sporking2; previous installments of this sporking may be found here.
This post contains depiction of violence and deaths.
( In which Princess Laurelin meets some unwanted company on the road. )
This post contains depiction of violence and deaths.
( In which Princess Laurelin meets some unwanted company on the road. )
Embers: Chapter Thirty, Part I
Jul. 17th, 2026 09:08 amThis is a repost from Das_Sporking2; previous installments of this sporking may be found here.
Warning: This post contains some violence and mind-control and discussion of racism and genocide.
( In which, as our time on the beach draws to a close, Vathara decides she's been too subtle and to just tell us exactly what we should think about certain characters. )
Warning: This post contains some violence and mind-control and discussion of racism and genocide.
( In which, as our time on the beach draws to a close, Vathara decides she's been too subtle and to just tell us exactly what we should think about certain characters. )
