#i almost feel like tolkien did this on purpose | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tathrin · 5 months

Text

My little Tolkien-fic pet-peeve of the day? Writers calling elves, dwarves, or hobbits men or women in their* narration.

"Pippin shaded his eyes, squinting until the sight of the man walking up the road resolved itself into the familiar form of his cousin Merry..."

Hobbit. Just say Hobbit. You don't need to gender everything. Or if you must, then "Hobbit-lad" or "Hobbit-lass" how's that? Or person! Being! Individual! Literally any word that isn't an inaccurate use of the word "man" for someone who is not a man!

"Gimli looked up at the taller man and scoffed at the sight of Legolas's pointed ears, now drooping with dismay..."

See this one just sounds silly, doesn't it? Silly and also confusing! Because you've just called Legolas a man, but clearly you're talking about an elf or he wouldn't have pointed ears, now would he? And Gimli's a dwarf! So why did you say "man" at all? There are no men here! (Unless Aragorn is playing Third Wheel in the background I suppose, but that's neither here-nor-there right now.)

"Glorfindel turned upon the edge of the fountain and greeted the other man with a smile like a sunrise..."

No no no stop, they are not men. Neither of them are men. They're elves. That's kind of a big important plot element in fact, that the Firstborn and the Secondborn are distinct and sundered from one another, please don't call elves men it's weird and awkward and often confusing because then I'll think you're talking about "A Man" but no, you mean an elf but you said man and it's just so off-putting...

They're different species, guys! (This drives me nuts in scifi too. Stop with the humanocentricism! You're not the Galactic Empire!) Replace the word "man" with something else and see how silly it sounds. "Elephant," perhaps; or any other species that isn't the one you're actually talking about.

"Gimli looked up at the taller raccoon and scoffed..."

"Glorfindel greeted the other ant-eater with a smile like a sunrise..."

"The sight of the giraffe walking up the road resolved itself into his cousin Merry..."

See? Yeah, that's how inaccurate it feels to me every time I read the word "man" or "woman" when you're talking about somebody who is not a human. It's not something on the level of squick where I'll reverse out of a fic if I see it, no, but it absolutely is jarring enough to throw-off the rhythm and mood of the story, for me.

(And if I see it in the first line or so before I've gotten invested in the story...yeah. That'll get me out of a fic almost as fast as lack of paragraph-breaking.)

Because I'm such a sucker for world building, I suspect, and the fact that these are all different peoples with different cultures and capabilities and outlooks and understanding and history and everything is such an interesting and important aspect of Middle-earth to me...and lumping all these different folks into one thing like that as though gender is the most important and indeed only notable aspect of their identity, and overrides everything else about them is just weird. It doesn't make sense. And I do not like it.

(Exceptions obviously made for when the character's identity is being deliberately obscured or confused, and they are erroneously thought to be a human and then revealed as something else; that sort of thing is on purpose and thus is fine.)

(Also exceptions for folk like Arwen or Elwing or Elladan etc who straddle the line between species.)

Anyway thank you for coming to this session of Tathrin Whines About Little Things To Avoid Doing Productive Writing Today.

*none of these lines are actual examples taken from real fics; I made them up for this post. Please do not attach call-outs to actual fics or authors in the notes. No need to be mean!

But absolutely fell free to gripe along with me if this silly little world building detail bothers you too. Or laugh at me for being a ridiculous spec-fic nerd. I'm fine with that too!

#squicks #pet peeves #my squicks #lotr fanfiction #writing #fanfiction #fandom #lotr #world building #fantasy world building #elves #dwarves #hobbits

54 notes · View notes

sotwk · 6 months

Note

Hi! What character do you think most people get wrong? Or what’s a character that you see differently than most other fans?

Hi Elleth! What a great question--and the kind of topic I'm amazed anyone wants to hear my opinion on!

I'm of the belief that there is no wrong way to write fanfiction or headcanons. I support creative freedom in all fandoms, even in one so "classic" and "high literature" as Tolkien's work. We all have a right to our own takes, interpretations, and AUs, as long as it's all done for fun and love of the original content!

Some takes on characters are more popular, some are less popular, and that's all there is.

I'm one of those writers who tend to be more canon-compliant and less "out-of-the-box" creative, whether in Tolkien or any other fandom. I guess my Type-A mind likes having a structure and "rules" to work with! I like to tweak things here and there to please myself, usually by "saving" doomed characters, but for the most part, I tend to run with what Professor Tolkien wrote and fill in the blanks as best as I could.

What do I see differently from most other fans?

I'm probably in the minority regarding Thranduil's "once in an immortal lifetime" love for his wife, his Elvenqueen, the mother of his children.

The "Eldar marry only once" custom, as described in the "Laws and Customs of the Eldar", is one that I personally subscribe to for my Elven characters, but perhaps even the most for Thranduil.

Not only does Thranduil have zero desire to marry again after the death of his wife, but he never takes interest in anyone else romantically, passionately, or sexually, ever again. Most writers enjoy giving him a second chance at love by having him fall for and/or marry someone else, and that's totally valid, but I personally don't envision that for his character.

In my mind, Thranduil in his youth was disinterested in romance, and perfectly content with staying unmarried for his immortal life. But then he met Maereth, who changed almost everything he believed about his own purpose and destiny. He saw her as his life partner, someone meant to exist alongside him and he beside her, forever, whether on Middle-earth or Aman. That's how he explained the deep affinity and immutable love he felt for this lady, anyway. She was simply irreplaceable.

Thranduil is arrogant, self-assured, and supremely confident in his attractiveness, and combining this with this extroverted, mischievous nature means he tends to be a playful flirt. But he views love as the most serious of matters, and the giving of one's heart as nothing to be trifled with.

Another unpopular take of mine is that Thranduil is not lustful or easily sexually attracted to others. He did not even feel that desire for Maereth until he had already known her for a few centuries. While their marriage included a healthy sex life that begot many children by Elven standards, without Maereth, Thranduil's interest in sex disappears entirely (again aligning with what was written in LACE).

Although I wholeheartedly agree that Thranduil is a sexy character, I suppose I just don't view his character as actually being very sexual. (Hopefully that makes sense?) There is more than enough to preoccupy him with his many duties: standing guard against The Enemy, serving his people as a good king, caring for his wife, and raising his children and grandchildren well.

SotWK Fancast: Jennifer Connelly as Elvenqueen Maereth

I could certainly write countless essays about how much Thranduil loved Maereth, but goodness, I really need to actually write STORIES about it! Part of my writer's block is probably intimidation, since I feel I have to justify Thranduil's eternal devotion to this one special person. What a lady she must be! He certainly must have had many good reasons to love her so dearly!

Receiving Asks certainly helps motivate me, so thank you again for this great question and giving me a chance to share my thoughts!

Elves HC Tag List: @a-world-of-whimsy-5 @achromaticerebus @aduialel @asianbutnotjapanese @auttumnsayshi @blueberryrock @conversacomsmaug @elan-ho-detto-elan-15 @entishramblings @fizzyxcustard @freshalmondpandadonut @friendofthefellowshipsnerdblog @glassgulls @heilith @heranintomyknife23times @ladyweaslette @laneynoir @lathalea @lemonivall @LiliDurin @quickslvxrr @ratsys @scyllas-revenge @stormchaser819 @talkdifferently6 @tamryniel @tamurilofrivendell

For more Thranduil/Mirkwood headcanons: SotWK HC Masterlist

More Reading Thoughts: Minas Tirith

(So I would like to start this off by saying that I’m writing this from the perspective of having already finished the chapter a while ago and had a couple days to chew on it. This is not a live-blog; this is a recap. The reason for this disclaimer will become clear below. ;-P)

I want to say something about these portions of Pippin’s ride with Gandalf, but nothing I say will really do it justice. There’s just something dreamlike, spell-binding, nostalgic, melancholy, and longing about it. The whole world whirling by under Shadowfax’s hooves while Pippin slips in and out of sleep.

People talk about the strange, extraordinary feeling that the scene at the Grey Havens gives them, but I can actually kind of identify that feeling, because I’ve thought about it a lot. This, though? I can’t even identify what emotion this is giving me. It’s like waking up and yearning for a dream you can remember less by the second. Wow.

“Sleep again, and do not be afraid! For you are not going like Frodo to Mordor, but to Minas Tirith, and there you will be as safe as you can be anywhere in these days. If Gondor falls, or if the Ring is taken, then the Shire will be no refuge.” “You do not comfort me.” Hahahaha there’s Tolkien’s bathos!

“He wondered where Frodo was, and if he was already in Mordor, or if he was dead; and he did not know that Frodo from far away looked on that same moon as it said beyond Gondor ere the coming of the day.” Hnnnngg my heart TT-TT

Hahaha the way that Pippin takes offense to being called a man AND being called brave X’-D

Bruh I dunno how people can read the description of Minas Tirith and actually picture in their heads what it looks like. I can see it now, because I’ve seen it in the movie, but it’s no wonder that this description made Little Me’s head spin.

I’m glad the movies took the comedy route here because Gandalf giving Pippin a long list of Things You’re Not Allowed to Talk About is very funny

Broooo Denethor’s face reminds Pippin more of Aragorn than it does Boromir 8-O Something something noble lineage and dramatic parallels…

Pippin immediately stuttering as soon as Denethor asks him a question is a huge mood

Movie!Denethor when you meet him: Grumpy. Grieving. A few crayons missing from the box. Easily not somebody you’d ever want to be around on purpose. Book!Denethor when you meet him: Serious. Level-headed. Shrewd. Asks intelligent and uncomfortably probing questions. A little bit manipulative. Still not somebody you’d want to have over for lunch, but someone you have to respect even if you don’t like him.

“[Denethor] turned his dark eyes on Gandalf, and now Pippin saw a likeness between the two, and he felt the strain between them, almost as if he saw a line of smoldering fire, drawn from eye to eye, that might suddenly burst into flame.” This is literally the same comic book effect that I used in these comics what

Speaking as a normie who also doesn’t have this stuff memorized, I find Pippin wondering about Gandalf’s age to be absolutely hilarious. “Well, my boy, to understand that, you’ll have to read this little thing called the Silmarillion—”

“Was it so, or had he only imagined it, that as he spoke of the Stones a sudden gleam of his eye had glanced upon Pippin’s face?” Ohohoho, foreshadowing??

(This is brilliant because at this point you could just write it off as Pippin’s overactive guilt from looking into the Palantir a couple days ago, but I’m also fairly certain we’re gonna find out later that Denethor has one of the Stones too, so?? Maybe he saw Pippin too?? Who knows???)

Denethor calls Pippin “my liege”, “half kindly, half mockingly”. I don’t really have a comment on this except that I find it fascinating he’d refer to Pippin as a superior, even sarcastically.

I can’t even paraphrase Denethor and Gandalf’s rap battle without making it less concise and biting than it actually is. Denethor says “let your wrath at an old man’s folly run off, and then if you’re going to come back, let it be to my comfort” and Gandalf says “BOI don’t even start with me, you can’t use your grief to hide, I see your game and we both know you’re no old man yet; when you’re a dotard, you will die!” SAVAGE—

“I am also a steward. Did you not know?” I’m sure Gandalf is just talking about the free peoples of Middle Earth being under his care, but my first thought went to, “I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Arnor…”

“Yet in the wizard’s face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, where it to gush forth.” Bro there is something INCREDIBLY Biblical about that, I can’t even. The utterly overwhelming wellsprings of joy in a being powerful enough to see beyond the present grim circumstances into a bright and glorious future. “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God…”

“Indeed you did your best, and I hope that it may be long before you find yourself in such a tight corner again between two such terrible old men.” Gandalf’s self-depreciation is genuinely making me feel better. Pippin isn’t even full-grown yet, and I’ve been a kid before, so I know getting stuck between the grown-ups when they’re arguing is TERRIFYING. This little bit of encouragement is badly needed.

“Well, there is no need to brood on what tomorrow may bring. For one thing, tomorrow will be certain to being worse than today, for many days to come.” First of all, mood. Secondly, I think that’s a good role model for how to deal with times like these. “This is gonna suck! Now let’s get out there and do what we have to do.”

Pippin’s first concern, the instant he’s left alone: “I want breakfast :-(”

(Okay so here’s where the recap disclaimer comes in. I’ve had a couple of days to think about it, and after much careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that Beregond is my new husbando.)

(NONONONO LISTEN. SHUT UP, STOP HECKLING ME, LISTEN. Look, I didn’t REMEMBER about Beregond until rereading this, okay?? I’m fairly certain I skipped through the Gondor and Rohan bits pretty quickly—because kingdoms of Men looked a LOT the same to Little Kid Me—and Beregond is NOT in the movies, so there was nothing to make him stick in my mind. BUT. HOLY COW. HE IS THE BEST(TM). So I’m gonna be keeping a counter of Beregond Being A Dreamboat for the rest of this post. Ready? Ready. Okay.)

Pippin has been left alone. Gandalf left on business, and now he’s stuck in an unfamiliar place with no idea of what to do. He sees a man coming up the street and makes up his mind to say hello because he’s lonely. He doesn’t need to! That man comes right up, introduces himself, welcomes Pippin to Gondor, and offers his hand to shake. He doesn’t gawk at Pippin. He doesn’t spend too much time interrogating him about who and what he is. He’s just like, “Hi :-D You’re the Halfling, right? I’ve been sent to show you around.” He’s so friendly and laid-back and easy-going I love him <3 DING!

Gandalf is gone for all of two seconds before Pippin almost blabs about Aragorn to somebody. Can’t take this fool of a Took anywhere.

Beregond asks good questions. He asks for clarification of terms, like “who is Aragorn?” and “what is a Hobbit?”. That proves he’s paying attention, and that he’s intelligent and curious and attentive and genuinely interested in what Pippin has to say. DING!

Beregond: “Is there anything you would like to know?” Pippin, hesitantly: “B b break fast? ? 🥺”

Beregond laughs so easily. I freakin’ love him. He asks Pippin “you haven’t eaten anything today?” and Pippin says “I had some wine and a white cake or two, but I had to answer questions for an hour and I’m hungry >_<” and Beregond laughs and jokes “at the table small men may do the greater deeds, we say”, clearly thinking of children—OF WHICH HE HAS ONE, so he’d know! DING!

And THEN he says “sounds like you’ve had as good a breakfast as any of us soldiers get around here” and when Pippin’s face does a “D-8 !!!” he laughs AGAIN like “nonono it’s okay I’ll find you some food, don’t you worry!” He’s kind and understanding AND he’s got snacks!! DING!

And then! When Pippin says “wait, Gandalf asked me to check on Shadowfax,” Beregond says: “But come! You shall make me acquainted with this good horse. I love beasts, and we see them seldom in this stony city…” LIKE HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THIS MAN, HE LOVES ANIMALS, HE’S SO EXCITED TO SEE A HORSE, I’M— DING!

I love that Pippin talks to Shadowfax like you’d talk to another person—and even better, that Shadowfax seems to understand, and lets Beregond pet him.

Shadowfax can neigh loud enough to shake a stable. Noted.

“Then they took their leave, seeing that the manger was well filled. ‘And now for our manger,’ said Beregond.” DAD JOKE DAD JOKE DAD JOKE— DING!

The way Beregond vouches for Pippin to Targon the Food Guy is the funniest thing. “He has had sore labor this morning,” not “he was sitting and talking for an hour”. Love it. DING!

Beregond learns a lot about the Shire and Pippin’s adventures, and apologizes for assuming Pippin was just a kid that Denethor took on “as a whim”. But there are two factors here: 1) he apologized proactively, before Pippin even had any reason to feel offense, and 2) he treated Pippin so well that there was no need to feel offense in the first place. I imagine his thought process must have been, “The lord has taken on a page, and I’m supposed to teach him the passwords? Sure, I’ll take this as seriously as I take any other duty I’m given.” No talking down to Pippin, nothing to make him feel any less than welcome.

Why is this important? 1) Because anyone who is quick to apologize is a person of humility and integrity. DING!

2) Because it says good things about his personality that he’s willing to accept what seems like a ridiculous situation with good humor and complete sincerity. DING!

And 3) Because if that’s how he treats someone he thinks is a kid, that means he treats kids really, really well. DING!

“And there were always too few children in the city; but now there are none—save some young lads that will not depart, and may find some task to do: my own son is one of them.” And it was at this moment —at this exact moment—that everything made sense.

You wanna know why Beregond immediately knew to treat Pippin the way he did? ‘Cause it’s ingrained. Him’s a DadTM. He saw Pippin and the paternal instinct in him immediately went—

—and now, even despite knowing that Pippin is nearly full-grown, he can’t shake it. Mans is warm and nurturing and attentive and an excellent teacher because he’s had practice and I absolutely love him. DING!

Also ohhhh he has so much reason to be invested in how this battle turns out. He’s gotta make sure his kid has a future that isn’t in death or slavery to the Dark Lord. That’ll motivate ya.

“It is but the deep breath before the plunge.” Duuuude. That was Beregond’s line at first! I can definitely see why they gave it to Gandalf tho.

“It is over-late to send for aid when you are already besieged.” That’s…actually really good advice. Both militarily, and also in a lot of other circumstances. Cf. why I’m taking steps to avoid the clinical depression that runs in my family BEFORE it gets to the point that I need medication.

The way just witnessing a Black Rider immediately makes Beregond and Pippin become overwhelmed with despair until it leaves. That thing deals psychic damage just by existing.

And then, as soon as it’s gone, the mood passes, and both of them declare “nope, actually, I’m gonna hold on to hope, thanks”.

“‘Rightly said!’ cried Beregond, rising and striding to and fro. ‘Nay, though all things must come utterly to an end in time, Gondor shall not perish yet. Not though the walls be taken by a reckless foe that will build a hill of carrion before them. There are still other fastnesses, and secret ways of escape into the mountains. Hope and memory shall live still in some hidden valley where the grass is green.’” I just. I. Hjzzzg.

First of all, standing up and walking around to shake off the unwanted foul mood. I can see that in my mind, it’s so clear. Second, practical speech mixed with utter poetry. “Hope and memory shall live in some hidden valley where the grass is green”?? That’s just. Get out, that’s brilliantly evocative. And third: holding on to hope bare-knuckled, despite KNOWING the odds are stacked against you; despite realizing you might very well lose the fight, lose everything, even lose your life; despite having a family, and so much more reason to worry about what the world will look like on the other side of the storm; but stubbornly choosing to believe that light and song and goodness will endure, even if it’s after you’re gone. I just. I. HHHHNG. DING!

“I am no warrior at all and dislike the thought of any battle; but waiting on the edge of one that I can’t escape is the worst of all.” It’s interesting to see how much of this conversation was given to the conversation with Gandalf in the movies instead.

Beregond laughs again at the mere notion that he might be a captain. But he’s not the least bit bitter about his lower rank, and actually seems very proud of it. Humility and quiet confidence and still a good sense of humor. DING!

A rumor has already gone through the Citadel Guard that all the Riders of Rohan “each would bring behind him a halfling warrior, small maybe, but doughty”. They’re not right, and they’re not entirely wrong, because Merry, at least, is going to be riding behind Eowyn.

Pippin gets all the food and drink he wants and his only problem is keeping his mouth shut. Seems about right!

Aaaaand the final point in Beregond’s favor before we leave him for the day: Man loves his son. “But if you are lonely, as you say, maybe you would like a merry guide around the City. My son would go with you gladly. A good lad, I may say.” Can you imagine the twinkle in his eye when he says that?? Ugh, it’s too cute. DING!

I’m just imagining the thought process here. He’s getting to know Pippin and he’s like “Bergil would absolutely love this guy, he’s a hoot, he’d get a kick out of it”, and as soon as he knows Pippin pretty well he’s like “I’ll betcha he’ll like Bergil too, and I think he’d be a good influence”, and then he puts those two pieces together and sets up a playdate for his son and the hobbit he just adopted. Adorable.

People really do come out to stare at Pippin, don’t they?

Bergil is just. Written perfectly. His vernacular is much more polished than that of a kid nowadays, but the things he wants to talk about are EXACTLY what kids always want to talk about. “Hi! Who are you? How old are you? I’m ten, and almost five feet tall, and very grown up. Have I told you about my dad? He has the greatest job ever! Wow, you’re a grown-up already?? That’s so weird. Wanna wrestle?”

Also. One more point in Beregond’s favor. I love the fact that Bergil introduces himself with the name and occupation of his father. Is this likely a standard way to identify oneself in a culture without surnames? Yes, probably. Are kids usually proud of their parents’ occupations by default? Yes, if they’re allowed to keep that enthusiasm. Is it still very telling that Bergil draws himself up and puffs out his chest to proclaim whose son he is? Yes, yes it is. Beregond is a dad worth being proud of. DING!

I have nothing to say about the procession of reinforcements from the Outlands pouring into Minas Tirith, except that it’s a brilliant show of the diverse cultures Tolkien dreamt up for Gondor, and also FORLONG THE FAT

Also Beregond wants to hear all about his son when Pippin gets back. They’re so darn cute.

The lights are being dimmed in Minas Tirith. Somebody lived through the bomb raids in Britain….

“The Darkness has begun. There will be no dawn.” Dun dun dunn…

Final Dreamboat Points: 15

Results: Husbando

#peregrin took #pippin #gandalf #denethor #shadowfax #beregond #bergil #mention of:#frodo baggins #aragorn #boromir #lord of the rings #lotr #my writing #assorted thoughts #if beregond dies i am going to be. very upset.#please let the good dad live tolkien i beg you

91 notes · View notes

eunoiaastralwings · 2 years

Note

Hi!!! I have a request for Maeglin if it's still open 🌻🌻

I was thinking about Maeglin speaking words of endearment and even confessing to the reader in Sindarin/Quenya (whatever language is used in Gondolin) multiple time on purpose since he knows that reader doesn't understand it.

And like one of the lords (preferably Glorfindel (he's my favorite)) finds out and decided to translate to reader what Mae has been saying the whole time and she ends up confessing to him too in Sindarin /Quenya (with the help of the lord)???

Thank you for your time 🌻🌻

Please feel free to ignore if your don't like it ✌🏻

featuring maeglin x reader

fandom tolkien- the silmarillion

a/n am sorry this took so long hun @spidergirla5 ! Please enjoy!

warnings mention of eol's domestic abuse towards Aredhel, awkward teenagers in love

You watched him from your window seat inside your given room- kneeling before the foundation Lord Ecthelion planted in the great garden Turgon had built initially for his little sister- now given to the son of that elleth.

You remembered her- a brave elleth that took pity on you- a lost Nolder crying on your hands and knees- because of what foul creatures that down to the little human village you were raised in- burnt to the ground- nothing but ash and the smell of burnt flesh left.

You had lost your parents a long time ago- and was found by the human village- too scared they left you out for days- hoping your parents would come for you soon- but in realizing no one was coming for you- the village took you in.

But Aredhel was someone who immediately took you to safety- because you has no one left- and though her son- Lomion as she dearly called him at the time- was hesitant- he lifted you up onto his horse and placed you behind him.

Throughout the journey to Gondolin and even arriving there-he never spoke a word to you- only turning his head over his shoulder to make sure you were still there- as you were quiet as a mouse- no longer have the energy to cry or speak.

The death of Aredhel- from her abusive husband Eol- had broken the poor ellon you were currently watching.

The only time- he properly began talking to you was after his uncle Turgon had thrown Eol off the cliff.

You thought for a moment- you think he thought you were the only one that knew what he felt like- to lose everything in life- and be surrounded by strangers.

But to his greatest surprise- his uncle was looking after Maeglin has his own.

You felt almost like an outsider- everyone here had great artistic skills- and knows their mother tongue- you however- were simply like a human to them.

Everyone except, Maeglin- who took great pleasure talking to you in Quenya, because you did not understand a word he spoke of.

“Good morning, melda."

He said to you just this morning- before he made his way to the gardens.

You groaned- only making him smile slightly at you- that was a rare sight and sometimes you pushed away the urge to know the meaning of the words he spoke to you- just to see that smile.

He seemed to only let his guard down beside you sometimes- causing you to blush.

Rumor had it- Maeglin had a liking towards the princess- and you truly hoped that wasn’t true.

You sighed and hopped off the seat- you made your way across the city- politely smiling to everyone that passed you- even if it made you feel awkward and scared inside.

As you were too busy still marveling at the city’s great architecture- you bumped straight into an unsuspecting elf.

“Humph!”

You said- rubbing your forehead.

“You should really watch where you are going, elenya.” (my star).

The voice was soft and endearing- and one you knew all too well.

You lifted your head up- his eyes staring right at you with a soft- slightly nervous look.

“Maeglin. . . What does that mean?”

“What?”

He blinked at you- confused.

“Elenya?”

You repeated the word- as carefully as you could.

His cheeks colored- and before another second passed, he quickly excused from you.

Was it because many people was around- he scattered away from you- looking very different from the ellon that smiled to you this morning?

You watched his retreating figure saddened- you wrapped your arms around yourself- feeling insecure.

Maybe he did show interest in the princess- he didn’t fleet away from her like that.

With a groan- you made your way to Lord Ecthelion’s study- you almost slammed your bag on to the desk- feeling frustrated with the ellon.

“What seems to be the matter, little one?”

Laughter broke out across the door- it perked up your ears.

A smile came to your face as you turned to see your friend and lord, Glorfindel. He was literally a ball of sunshine- as you liked to call him- always having the ability to lift your spirits.

Glorfindel was loud and ambitious- but he means well to his friend- always daring poor Lord Ecthelion- who you were learning frim- to daredevil stunts.

You sighed again- remember his question.

“What does elenya mean? Or melda! Or hantanyel! Mean!”

You throw your hands up- frustrated.

The bright lord let out another laugh.

“Who has been calling such things?”

You frowned- now worried it those words were meant to be bad.

“Umm . . . Maeglin?”

“Ele! That boy seems to have shown interest in you.” (wow).

You blinked- surprised not believing what Glorfindel was saying to you.

He nodded happily at you.

“Elenya means my starlight. Melda mean beloved. And hantanyel? That means my heart! That boy is head over heels for you.”

He laughed again.

“Honestly- Ecthelion- as much as your master doesn’t say anything- and myself was hoping sooner or later you two some interest in one another- and all this time little Maeglin has been calling you by words of endearment- and you never understood them- that little brat.”

“Umm. . .”

You blushed- patting your face- too much information as once thrown at you.

“Does it really mean that?”

You looked at Glorfindel with hope.

He smiled at you encouragingly- and nodded.

“Do you not feel the same way?”

He asked- confused by your reactions.

“I do! . . . I just- . . .how do I?”

You didn’t know what to say or do- Maeglin, actually likes you enough to call you that?

“I might have a few ideas. . .”

“As long as they don’t involve any daredevil stunts!”

You slightly glared at your friend.

“Well- I was going to suggest- flying doves and you standing on a horse with a big poster that says ‘I love you too’ - but am thinking that’s out the windows”

Your jaw dropped- before you broke into laughter.

“Definitely not happening!”

The next time you saw Maeglin in passing was when he just came out of the forges.

You smiled- turning to Glorfindel who gave a thumbs up.

“Hello melda. . .”

He said to you quietly.

“A tule asenye, melda” (come with me, beloved)

You said clearly- smirking at how his eyes widened.

Just as he found the words to speak- you turned away from him and walked down the halls.

Maeglin stood there for a good minute- shocked- did you know?

After taking a deep breath- he followed you.

The path was familiar- he should know- he always took this path to his mother’s gardens after his work in the forges - you knowing that filled him to warmth and peace.

When you reached- you instantly sat down on the ground- leaning against the foundation.

“A tule sira.” (come here)

You said- patting the space beside you.

The red color rushed to his cheeks- but he did- hesitant.

For a good minute- you didn’t say anything- but when your shoulders brushed against each other- he almost jolted away.

“It’s ok, Mae. . .”

You used the nickname- you wanted to call him for so long.

Now that you were using the common tongue again- he seemed relaxed- only to tense up again- and the color on his cheeks brighter because of the nickname.

“So you know. . .I’m sorry- it was selfish of me.”

He whispered- looking down at his hands.

“What you mean?”

You gently asked him.

“You like Lord Glorfindel. . .”

He said- surprising you- you almost chocked on your own breath.

“But- I had grown to like you since the moment my mother took you in . . - and it tore me when I realized you loved Glorfindel- so for my own method to ease my heart- I kept calling you loving words- because I know you will never know. . . - Forgive me- I should have known you'll learn sooner or later.”

You almost laughed- but kept it in.

“You think- I love Glorfindel?”

“Don’t you?”

This time- you let out a few laughs.

“No! I don’t! And- as handsome as he is- I don’t! He’s my friend, Mae- if anything- I see him like an older brother! It was him - who helped me learn a few phrases and talk to you.”

Maeglin did all but blink- processing what you just said.

“And why would ask for help and find out what the words you called me meant- even learn something myself- if I do not return your feelings?”

You smiled at him.

“So. . .”

He smiled- he truly smiled- his eyes lighting up like starlight- like you always imagined- always hoped to see.

You laughed gently- carefully held his hand- knowing that Maeglin was uneasy with any form of touching- he tensed a little but slowly relaxed.

“Melin tirie hendutya sílila yá lalat.” ( I love to see your eyes shine when you laugh).

You gave you confused look.

“Your friend didn’t teach you everything- I said: I love to see your eyes shine when you laugh.”

You blushed.

“Maybe not- but he did teach me- Melinyel, Lomion.” (I love you, Lomion)

The words took his breath away- even calling him by the name his dearest mother called him by.

He brought his shaky hand to your face- cupping it gently- a little scared.

“Melinyel, Y/N - it’s like my mother knew. . .”

“Am happy she did, elenya.”

You said- just as your lips met for a slow chaste kiss- testing the waters- before you pulled each other closer.

silm taglist: @doodle-pops

tara’s taglist: @aeonianarchives @mslizziesblog

maeglin taglist: @i-did-not-mean-to

#maeglin #maeglin lomion #maeglin x reader #Maeglin needs more love #the silmarillion x reader #the silm #the silmarillion #the silmarillion fandom #the silm x reader #aredhel #eunoiawrites #maeglin you sweet tender boi

41 notes · View notes

imakemywings · 15 days

Text

Thank you @hobbitwrangler for tagging me! <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

155...I've had the same account since I was 17 XD (although I have definitely deleted things since then)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

855,882

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Generally I only write for one fandom at a time, and right now that's all things Tolkien.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Transcript of Divorce Proceedings: Mairon v. Melkor with 170 kudos (Angbang, Tolkien)

Surprise Developments (Recalculating) (Solavellan, Dragon Age)

The Sleeping King (Thorinduil, Tolkien)

Laying a Foundation (Thorinduil, Tolkien)

You're going out like that? (Maglor & family, Tolkien)

5. Do you respond to comments?

Almost always, because it's really important to me that commenters know how much I appreciate their taking the time to leave their thoughts

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Angstiest? That's hard to say (。﹏。)

Haunted, Hunted is pretty angst, but also the ending is pretty much parallel to canon, so I can't really take credit for that one.

Sandbox Love is angsty in the true sense of the word I think, because the central grief of it is that Luthien does not seem to return Galadriel's interest in her.

OH and there's my first-ever Silm fic, which focused on Anaire in the wake of the rebellion of the Noldor, that's pretty angsty First Ruins of the Noldor

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Also hard to answer. I feel like I've written a lot of emotional fluff which is tonally "happy" even if the ending isn't a "happily ever after." Any of the trio of flash fics I wrote about Silm parent/child relationships would qualify.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Once in a while

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Do I lol My percentage of smut fics has skyrocketed in the last three years.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Very rarely, because they usually don't compel me. However in February I did write a Silm/Crimson Peak crossover, Fruit of the Family Tree.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

If it happened I don't know about it

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! <3

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Technically no...one time as a teenager I agreed to do it, but I totally failed to uphold my end of that bargain ;;;; I would have to feel pretty close to someone at this point to agree to cowrite.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

All-time forever? idk. Silm OTP is Feanor/Nerdanel though. I believe in marriage counseling 🫶

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Any WIPs I currently have are all effectively discarded. If I can't finish a WIP or make significant progress on it within a few weeks, I can almost guarantee it will never be completed.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Scenery descriptions and subplots

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Generally I think it serves only to distract and frustrate the reader. If they happen to speak that language it's fine, but in the majority of cases they probably don't, and it doesn't really fulfill any purpose. If they're not familiar with the language, especially if it has a different alphabet from the one you're using for the rest of the fic, a reader isn't even going to know what that dialogue sounds like, let alone what it says. If I include it--and I try not to--I always include an immediate translation in the same line of dialogue. Having to scroll to the bottom and then back up for a translation is super frustrating and as a reader, I usually will not bother, so I don't expect my readers to either.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Star Wars

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Honestly, I couldn't come even close to picking one

#tagged

1 note · View note

nizar-dreams · 4 months

Text

IM FINALLY GOING TO POST MY BLOODY STORY ON NEW YEARS

Not that anyone on here probably cares, but as I sit at my desk at home and finally let my sick nasily mind do something, I FINALLy finally went back to writing my HP fic that I've been trying to write for nearly two years now. Finally tackle a section in a chapter that just wasn't writing itself how I wanted.

I let myself be distracted with other things, such as Baldur's Gate 3 (Astarion has taken up almost 99% of my mental capacity since I've played. It's bad guys listen--) and other random things and letting work keep me busy. But since I'm sick, and not at work, while also having time off for the holidays, I've had a lot more time then I have in months to actually write something down.

Also reading some HP fics to inspire my imagination again for this fic.

As exciting as that is, I'll have to post like, once a month. Because one chapter is easily 6k+ words. I'll post in a few minutes the summary of the story, the blurb, and why this idea suddenly sparked brilliance in my brain. Enough that im currently sitting on 114 pages of story, and 123 pages of notes, references, and information for this story that almost 90% won't actually be included but I need it for character work and world building and the "incase".

(I feel like JRR Tolkien, like it isn't that deep, but damn it, I did so much of my own world building for this fic and took a lot of canon and kicked it in the face and built stronger foundations, added stronger buildings, and even added some fun details that don't have much purpose but it's fun to think about.)

Anyway, I'll leave that here, but for something that got so out of hand, I am simply so excited to finally start sharing this fucking story lmao. I hope you will all come to enjoy it when I finally post this on Jan. 1st! Until then~!

#ao3 writer #fanfic got out of hand #harry potter fanfic #writers #how big of a story is too big?#obsessed with my story #i’m suffering it’s okay #it’s fine #work in progress #literally don’t know how i got here #harry potter world building #sanityisforlosers #fanfic #writing fanfic

1 note · View note

amarysso · 3 years

Text

It turns out we’ve been misjudging the Nazgul all along. Come on guys, they’re really just beautiful flower ladies, there’s nothing to be afraid of!

75 notes · View notes

absynthe--minded · 2 years

Note

So I'm excited about the POC characters in the LOTR show if nothing else. But many people in fandom are really nasty about that. Is there anything concrete in canon saying dark-skinned elves are possible existing?

so first off, whatever Tolkien says or does not say ultimately doesn't matter. the existence of people of color in real life is a fact and there is no reason why elves and Men and dwarves can't be racially diverse. it doesn't matter that it's Eurofantasy, it doesn't matter that it's "a mythology for England". nothing about the Legendarium is inherently white in a way that cannot or should not be racebent.

gonna say that again, louder:

it does not matter what the intent was. adding racial diversity to a cast is not dependent upon authorial approval. Tolkien is literally dead and I don't care if this would offend him. I don’t think it would offend him for the reasons I’m including below, but even if it would, that doesn’t matter, racial diversity and an inclusive imagining of this world are more important than the hypothetical feelings of the author.

now. Tolkien was racist. this is an undeniable fact that everybody has to engage with when they read his works. it is uncomfortable equal-opportunity racism where no matter if you’re Black, indigenous, or Asian, he’s said something gross and loaded about you. you cannot avoid this in The Lord of the Rings, though it’s much less present in the Silmarillion and the greater Legendarium. I’ve made a study of his life and I tend to come down on the side of “he wasn’t well-informed enough to be truly aware of the racist aspects of his work, and was echoing stereotypes held by his society or put forward in the literature he drew from as inspiration”. this is for two reasons:

when he did get called out on the antisemitic portrayal of the dwarves in The Hobbit by a Jewish associate he apologized and wrote Gimli in The Lord of the Rings with a care to not behave that way again; Gimli exists almost as an apology for former antisemitism. this demonstrates he can learn and grow when he’s made aware of what he’s doing, and that he’s not doing it on purpose.

he taught nonwhite students at Oxford and none of them have come out and said that he was cruel and racist to them, which indicates at the very least that he was at least capable of respecting their personhood and treating them fairly even if he held racist beliefs. he also spoke positively of at least one of his South Asian students, calling him one of the best English literature scholars he’d encountered, which shows he wasn’t personally malicious.

of course, none of these things matter if you’re a person of color reading his works and you encounter what he wrote. this does not make Tolkien less racist, at all. I am not trying to excuse his racism or say that it doesn’t matter, because it does, and if the fact that it exists is a dealbreaker for you that is fucking understandable. There are parts of The Return of the King that I genuinely cannot fucking read without getting sick to my stomach. The reason I’m trying to provide this context is to show why I, as a scholar, consider his work worth studying and examining and loving despite that flaw, and why I don’t think he’s on the level of someone like Hates Phoreigners Lovecraft. I can’t make that decision for anyone, but that needs to get out of the way first because before I start talking about the genuinely surprising diversity in Arda I need to acknowledge that the guy who was making it diverse didn’t have the best intentions all of the time.

now, onto the actual examination of things. (more below the cut, the tl;dr is ‘dark-skinned elves have exactly as much canonical precedent as Gil-galad being the son of Finrod + a Sinda named Meril, so there’s no reason to discount them. also, the mortal Men and hobbits in Arda have a canonically established range of skin tones even among the heroes, so elves and dwarves having those too makes complete sense.’)

Maeglin is the only elf whose skin tone is ever explicitly mentioned, and it changes between the drafts. In his earliest Book of Lost Tales appearance, he’s “swarthy” and dark-skinned, in his latest appearances he’s pale-skinned. BoLT’s draft has the benefit of being the only complete account of the Fall of Gondolin that we have, which makes it large and weighty and too great to be ignored. In The Shaping of Middle-Earth (I think, that’s off the top of my head but if it’s not in Shaping it’s in Peoples) he’s described as physically resembling his mother and mentally resembling his father. Shaping as a draft is relevant because this is what Christopher Tolkien pulled from to write the ‘Of Maeglin’ chapter in the Silmarillion. If Maeglin is interpreted as both dark-skinned and as resembling his mother, that means Aredhel was herself dark-skinned, and that means her family isn’t white.

(note: Christopher Tolkien, so far as I can tell, invented the idea that Idril and the Gondolindrim found Maeglin disgusting for wanting to marry his cousin from whole cloth. I’ve scoured the drafts and Vinyar Tengwar and all the tidbits I can find and I’ve found absolutely no indication that Tolkien included a taboo against cousin marriage anywhere in his actual writings. he in fact explicitly allows it in one draft of Laws and Customs among the Eldar. In Shaping, Turgon loves and trusts Maeglin but Maeglin is scheming for the throne, and in BoLT - where Maeglin is outright villainous and the most racially loaded - Turgon is opposed to his marrying Idril because he doesn’t think Maeglin will love his daughter, he thinks Maeglin will use her as a tool for political gain. this is not really relevant except to say that Maeglin being seen as disgusting by the Gondolindrim reads in a very loaded and problematic light, and it seems to not be present at all in the original text.)

In most cases, Tolkien doesn’t really describe skin tone, instead reverting to somewhat vague descriptors like ‘pale’ or ‘fair’. I will admit that in a strictly literal interpretation of the text, that does seem to indicate that there’s a relative dearth of heroic elves of color, but I’m going to repeat what I said above (authorial intent does not matter more than making Arda inclusive) and continue on with the fact that ‘pale’ can mean things other than ‘white’.

Plenty of people who are not white are pale, or pale compared to others in their family or community. if you’re committed to a racially diverse Arda, this genuinely should not stop you, and if you’re bothered by people playing with this, that’s a sign you should examine yourself. the same goes with ‘fair,’ which Tolkien uses just as often to mean ‘beautiful’ as to mean ‘light-skinned’ or ‘of a light complexion’. someone can be dark and fair (Lúthien comes to mind) and that’s not a contradiction. again, it does not matter what the author thought, and while this is an admittedly creative reading of the text, it’s certainly not impossible.

We have significantly more textual and paratextual evidence for nonwhite mortals, and frankly that’s what I would consider the biggest evidence for nonwhite elves. And it’s not just the evil Men, either!

Hobbits are a canonically ethnically diverse group with varying skin tones and a lot of intermarriage and ‘mixed-race’ (by contemporary Earth standards) individuals; the smallest Hobbit ethnic group (the Fallohides) is the white one. Sam is darker-skinned than Frodo is, and he’s the true hero of LotR according to the author. And, The Peoples of Middle-Earth confirms that the House of Bëor is brown-skinned, which means Tolkien’s own self-insert Beren is not a white person. If Beren isn’t white, neither are Barahir, Andreth, Emeldir, Aerin, Rían, or Morwen Eledhwen. This means that Dior wouldn’t necessarily be white, and that Elwing, Elrond, and Elros are mixed-race both in terms of their actual bloodline and modern conceptions of the term.

On top of that, Gondor is a canonically racially prejudiced society, but Gondor is racist based on blood and ancestry and not on skin tone and is diverse in terms of the people living there - the Rohirrim are described as paler and lighter-haired than they are, indicating they’re already not white, and when Pippin is watching the reinforcements come into Minas Tirith in the first chapter of RotK he observes that there are some warriors who are significantly darker-skinned-than-the-others but are counted as men of Gondor. Aragorn’s crown as drawn by Tolkien in his letters also bears a resemblance to Egypt’s double crown, and Gondor has a Mediterranean climate, which famously yields extremely white-looking people here on Earth (that’s sarcasm lmao) And if Gondor isn’t white, that means Arnor and the Dúnedain aren’t white either, which means Númenor wasn’t white (Unfinished Tales says that a lot of descendants of the House of Bëor ended up on Númenor, so...)

tbh this indicates to me that we have absolutely no reason why elves - and not just silvan elves or Sindarin elves, Calaquendi too! - can’t be diverse in terms of skin tone and the races of the actors. the only thing stopping anybody is their own racism and their own lack of commitment to diversity. Tolkien was racist, but he’s dead, his ability to impact the world now is dependent upon the fandom and the scholarly community, and I think the way forward is to embrace diversity and also to explore and acknowledge his racism and his failings. crafting a version of Arda where everyone is included is to me reclaiming a space that I was both welcomed by and excluded from, and the fact that this sometimes means standing in opposition to supposed ‘purist’ reads on the text is fine by me.

so... what are we left with?

well, it’s contradictory. we’ve got a racist guy who nonetheless makes his heroic characters explicitly brown, a society that could either be read as very racially segregated or very racially diverse, and a lot of mixed messages (I haven’t delved into his takes on colonialism yet, I do not have the strength for that). It’s a space that has just as much evidence for including people of color as excluding them, and as a result, I say to include. if you’re not for that, you’ve got some self-examination to do.

#replies #anon replies #absynthe's meta #tolkien

677 notes · View notes

warrioreowynofrohan · 2 years

Note

How Arwen for the Character Ask Game?

Oh, this is challenging! We get so little of Arwen in canon that it’s challenging to get a sense of her as a person. Two of the best things I’ve read on her are the fic ‘a marvellous thread’ by @arrivisting (arriviste on AO3) and this essay by @tolkien-feels.

One aspect about them I love: I didn’t realize this until I started thinking about this post, but I love Arwen as Queen of Gondor, and it’s something I wish we got more about. Arwen would be an exceptional ruler. She’s the daughter of Elrond and the granddaughter of Galadriel and Celeborn; she has spent millennia learning from them; she understands the complexities and challenges of governance and leadership. She retains the knowledge of the Elder Days passed down not in books but from person to person. And it feels like a final gift from ancient times to the Fourth Age world of men: here is what we remember, here is what we have learned. The most interesting, and arguably most important, part of the Tale and Aragorn and Arwen comes after their marriage.

One aspect I wish more people understood about them: One of my favourite things from @tolkien-feels’ essay was the point that Arwen’s story is a tragedy and that it’s worth it. It’s more of a tragedy than Beren and Lúthien in a way, because Lúthien embraces mortality, whereas Arwen find the Fate of Men very hard. But that doesn’t mean Arwen chose wrongly; it means that she chose that a life with Aragorn was worth everything, even if it was short by elven standards. And the other things that strikes me now is that it’s not her own death that she finds hard and painful, it’s Aragorn’s. If she could have married him and remained an elf, I don’t thonk she’d have wanted that in the end, given that her death is precipitated by his own. I think that she wanted to follow him beyond the world. It’s striking that none of the main elf-human couples we see stay together in canon (Beren and Lúthien, Idril and Tuor, Elwing and Eärendil, Aragorn and Arwen) are described as having separate fates - Idril and Tuor are left ambiguous, but we’re encouraged to headcanon Tuor becoming an elf. (The exception is Nimloth and Dior, who die by violence and never have the choice, and oh boy do I have feelings and sad headcanons about that.) Tolkien wites elven marriage as a fusion of souls, and I don’t think any would wish to be parted in their fate.

One (or more) headcanons I have about them: I wish we knew more about Arwen in the approximately-2700 years before she met Aragorn: what did she do, what did she think, what did she believe? What did she feel/want when her mother was wounded and had to go over the sea to Valinor? Arwen was already over 2000 years old then. Did she wish the family would go to Valinor with her mother, or did she agree with Elrond about staying in Middle-earth and having a role and purpose there?

One character I love seeing them interact with: There’s so little in canon of interactions between Arwen and others, but I really like how @arrivisting wrote her and Celeborn in ‘a marvellous thread’. Arwen’s been being told all her life that she’s like Lúthien, and he’s one of the few people remaining in Middle -earth who knew Lúthien well and can express the ways in which they’re different.

One character I wish they would interact with/interact with more: I would love to see (/read fic about!) interactions between Arwen and Faramir. In The Two Towers, Faramir admires - almost reveres - elves, but thinks it is perilous for mortal Men to interact with them. Thinking about his reaction to or interactions with Galadriel, Elrond, or other peoples of Rivendell and Lórien when they come to Monas Tirith for the wedding is fascinating, but they’re only there for a couple of months. Arwen is Queen of Gondor now. Her father saw the First Age; her grandmother knew the world before the Sun. How does Faramir react to this? On the one hand, ‘intimidating’ is an understatement (I’m thinking now of Faramir’s statement of his aspirations of Minas Tirith - “not feared, save as men may fear the dignity of a man, old and wise”…well, substitute ‘woman’ for ‘man’). And on the other hand, Faramir loves lore and history, and Arwen is literally living history. Does he in time become comfortable enough with her to ask about and recieve second-person accounts of the Elder Days?

One (or more) headcanons I have about them and another character: I wonder if Celeborn came to visit her fairly regularly when she was Queen of Gondor, since we know that he stayed in Middle-earth until after her death and possibly much longer. I wonder if her brothers came to visit her. I think they did. I don’t think she spoke with her family in Valinor (Aragorn has a palatír, and there’s a stone in Eressëa, so it’s possible to do so), except possibly to say farewell to her mother; I think the parting and the knowledge that she would die and leave the world permanently was painful enough that both she and Elrond (and Galadriel) would need a clean break to cope with the grief. But I think the division would feel less stark for her family who were still in Middle-earth, and she’d see them regularly.

#tolkien #the silmarillion #the lord of the rings #aragorn x arwen #arwen #faramir #elrond #celebrian #celeborn

155 notes · View notes

dothwrites · 3 years

Text

15.18 coda--the best of things

The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

---

There’s something.

This is significant because, for as long as Castiel can remember, there’s been nothing.

The Empty alternates between shoving him forcefully into sleep and yanking him out of it, just so he can experience the full horrors of wakefulness. He wanders and doesn’t know if he’s walking, screams and listens as his cries are swallowed by the darkness. He pulls at his hair just to feel, but even that bright pain is muted.

I want you to suffer, the Empty had warned, and so far, it’s lived up to its promise. No, he doesn’t regret anything, he’d make the same decisions time and again, as long as they led him here, but he can’t deny that he is suffering.

It would be better if he could somehow quench the little gutter of light and warmth that still resounds in his chest, but he can never quite manage to do so. Somehow, it still beats, giving him purpose, allowing him to set his compass by its enduring beat.

And somehow, impossibly, there’s finally something for it to latch onto.

Castiel walks forward, feeling the sensation of movement for the first time since he can’t remember when. His steps quicken as he runs towards the something, towards something that he almost forgot.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been here, how many centuries have passed. Time ceased to have meaning a long time ago, and in between bouts of sleeping and waking, Castiel forgot the knack of telling it. Now, he remembers, along with other long forgotten concepts such as fatigue and hope.

His long neglected heart beats then, violently, with enough force to send him staggering. Castiel runs faster.

If he were human, if this were earth, then the breath would be tearing out of his lungs. As it is, he feels a ripping in his chest, like he’s shredding apart from the inside out. He feels like a piece of paper torn in half, and he doesn’t know how much of him will be left by the end, but he continues to sprint forward.

There’s something up ahead.

A faint golden glimmer, a thread of hope so slender that if he thinks about it too long then he’ll shatter. It twists and turns in front of him, so far in the distance as to almost be a mirage.

But for once, there is distance.

Castiel forces his legs to keep moving, even as the pain claws through his chest, ripping into his very essence. Every step brings him the worst pain he’s ever known, but he doesn’t dare to stop. He keeps his eyes fixed on the golden line, now guttering as though it’s struggling to survive. With every step, memories flood back to him.

The scent of coffee in the mornings when he would start a fresh pot before Dean and Sam awoke.

The smell of leather and gasoline as he sat in Baby’s backseat.

The feel of blood and grit underneath his fingernails.

The salt and butter molecules of popcorn exploding across his tongue as he watches yet another inane movie starring a young Harrison Ford.

The clear sound of Charlie Bradbury’s laughter.

The whiff of sulfur that followed Meg, the crisp ozone of Hannah, the tang of what he was informed was an ‘84 and not 19, you have no taste, Cassie, by Balthazar.

The rough flannel of Bobby Singer’s shirt.

The whisper of Eileen’s fingers moving through

The fragile strength of Jack, warm through his jacket as Castiel hugged him for the last time.

The warmth of Sam’s arm slung around his shoulders, the steadiness of him, the unwavering loyalty, the brightness of his smile and joy of his friendship.

Dean.

Breath finally tears out of him as he sprints, pushing legs which refuse to move faster to fly. The golden tear glows in front of him, the only bright thing in an eternity of nothing. He has to reach it. He has to.

A scream rips out of his chest as he stumbles his way forward. By now the pain is almost overwhelming, obliterating everything else except the most basic desire for survival, but he can’t give up, he can’t, he can’t--

Even in Hell, Dean’s soul glowed like a beacon, even when he lost hope he was still the most beautiful thing Castiel had ever seen. The smoke and whiskey smell of him, the strength and gentleness of his hands, the rumble of his laugh, the rasp and growl of his voice, the careful way he handled delicate things, the light in his eyes as he would look at Sam and Jack, the sheer love he’d seen shining out of his soul--

With a desperate cry, Castiel launches himself forward, straining towards the beautiful golden tear.

His hand goes through the rip in the world and for a second, there’s nothing, nothing, nothing--

Strong fingers grab his wrist and pull.

It feels like being tugged through quicksand, the Empty finally realizing that something is wrong and seizing onto him. Darkness covers him, and Castiel can’t see anything, can’t scream, can’t hear. All he knows is the strength of the grip around his hand, the fierce flare of hope in his chest even amidst the ripping pain.

No, he thinks, with all the force left to him, no, I want--

Something finally bursts in his chest, and he thinks he screams, though he doesn’t hear any sound leave his mouth. Instead, he’s pulled, shredded, torn apart, eviscerated, and then, and then--

There’s light and sound and sensation and touch and smell and taste and a thousand different things like gravity and mass and body and Castiel can only gasp, helpless as a newborn as his sightless eyes blink through all the light.

He’s shivering, cold and aching, and he’s never felt this kind of pain before, but it’s glorious. He wouldn’t give up feeling like this for anything, the sunburst of agony flaring through his body as he tries to sort through his senses to try and understand where he is.

Something warm and soft settles over his shoulders and it’s then that Castiel becomes aware of his body, down to his toes and fingers and the tip of his nose. Naked, he thinks, somewhat innocuously, that’s why i was cold.

Then the larger realization comes, which is, if he was naked, that means that he has a body to be unclothed.

With a final blink, sight returns, though it’s unreliable. Smears of color appear and disappear from his vision, too quickly for him to hope to make sense of them. Sound returns, in deep rumbles like he’s underwater. Stop, he tries to say, let me just wait a second, but his voice doesn’t seem to work. He opens his mouth and all that emerges is a pathetic sounding croak.

Syllables garble above him and then something cool and hard is pressed to his mouth. Cold and wet explodes over his lips and tongue, and Castiel thinks Water.

It’s never tasted this good before.

He gulps greedily until the glass is taken from him. He whines, wanting more, but his wordless request is denied. Touch explodes over his cheeks, his neck, and shoulders, and Castiel struggles to make sense of it. He would like to rest in the comfort of those hands, but they’re gone before he can process their being there at all.

The sound coalesces into a single word, and Cas blinks, stupefied. He knows that word. More importantly, he knows that voice.

He tries to force his rusted voice to work, but only a low croak comes out. Frustrated, he licks his lips and tries again, putting all of his force into the word.

“Dean?”

Touch returns to his cheeks and this time, it stays. He blinks again, and the haze in front of his eyes clears, and he can finally see that face, familiar and beloved.

“Dean?” he asks, sure that he must be dreaming, even though the Empty never allowed him to do so. Perhaps this is a hallucination, a cruel manifestation of his hopes, perhaps he’s still there, in all that nothing, and this is no more than a dream--

“Cas, stay with me,” Dean says, his voice urgent and worried. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.” His voice breaks on the last repetition and warmth envelops Castiel.

A hug. Dean is hugging him, somewhat fiercely, if the lack of air in his lungs is to be trusted.

Castiel blinks, surprised. He’s never needed air before. Come to think of it, he’s never needed water either.

He shifts underneath the blanket, careful not to dislodge Dean’s arms from around his body. His palm presses flat against his chest. Underneath it, he can feel his heart, beating steady and strong.

“Human?” he asks, blinking in wonder.

Dean’s arms release him, though they take a long time to do so, as though he’s regretful. “Yeah,” he says. Castiel’s eyes aren’t working well enough to pick out the intricacies of his facial expression, but he thinks he sees guilt in the depths of Dean’s eyes.

“It was the only way to get you out. Sam found the spell and Jack powered it up, and I...” It’s then that Castiel comes aware that one of Dean’s hands is bleeding, is leaving smears of red across the blanket and the skin. “I did what I had to do, but there was a catch.” Dean’s breath hitches for a moment before he looks back at Castiel. “You see, we looked into it, and it turns out that the Empty only cares about angels and demons. Humans, it doesn’t have any power over. So in order to get you out--”

“Human,” Castiel repeats, his mind working through the problem. It’s an elegant solution in its simplicity. The ripping and tearing makes sense, as does the pain.

Anna described tearing out her grace as the worst pain she’d ever felt, like digging a kidney out with a spoon. Castiel understands. His whole body aches with the memory, muscles screaming for rest, his stomach for sustenance, and his nerves for peace. He doesn’t want to sleep; there’s been too much of that. But he does want to rest.

“Dean.” Castiel pauses to let the word sit on his tongue, to feel the weight of it. It feels as good as it ever did.

“Yeah, Cas?”

Castiel could get lost in Dean’s eyes. Have they always been that green? Have those crow’s feet always bracketed them, like lines on a map, proof of a life well lived?

“Home?” Castiel finally asks, once he realizes that Dean is waiting for an answer. “Can we go home?”

Dean’s face splits in a smile, kinder than the dawn and brighter than the sun. “Yeah,” he says, though he makes no effort to move. “Yeah, Cas, we can go home.”

Castiel tilts his head, wondering why Dean doesn’t move. Instead, he looks like he’s working himself up towards something. His teeth bite at his lower lip, while his eyes dart to either side of Castiel, like they can’t bear to land on his face. An unwelcome spike of fear lances at Castiel’s chest.

“Dean,” he begins, but a harsh movement stops him.

“I gotta say this,” Dean says, his voice rough. “What you said, before you were...” He swallows before he finally looks at Cas, his eyes brimming over with tears. “I haven’t been able to sleep in a year because all I could think was that I never had a chance to say it back to you.”

Hope flares and bursts in Castiel’s heart. A happiness so bright it’s searing tears through him, and this time, he can feel it, he can feel it all, he can have it--

“I love you,” Dean says, his unbloodied hand resting on Castiel’s cheek. “I love everything about you, you stupid bastard, and don’t you ever, ever try and leave me again, don’t you ever, you’d better die after me because I’m going to stick with you until we’re old and gross and creaky and we’re going to have to figure out how to have old people sex with all my fake joints and--”

“Sex?” Castiel’s brain might not be working fast enough to pick up on every word Dean says, but he’s aware enough for that.

Dean blushes, the tips of his ears turning red. “Yeah. I mean. If you wanted. And if you didn’t want, that’s fine, because i know you said once that angels didn’t--”

“I’d very much like to have sex with you,” Castiel interrupts, because even in his state, he can see when Dean is trying to work himself into a hole. “But not right now.” Exhaustion hits him like a wave, dragging him under and only reluctantly giving him up. He looks up at Dean, finally allowing himself to be weak, allowing Dean to step in and take care of him. “Home?” he repeats, wanting nothing more than to sink into Dean’s bed and rest.

“Yeah, Cas. Let’s go home.” Dean shifts, but doesn’t move, and Castiel is just about to complain about the lack of progress on the home front when Dean leans forward. His eyes are determined, his lips slightly parted, his hand trembling where it rests on Castiel’s cheek. Fireworks and galaxies explode in Castiel when he realizes Dean’s intentions.

He’s lived through several ice ages, through meteors and wars, through life and death and rebirth. He’s seen the formation of planets and constellations, seen entire solar systems collapse into themselves only to birth a new sun.

But he’s never seen or felt anything as wondrous as the first touch of Dean’s lips on his.

The kiss is soft, barely pressure, but it feels like everything. It feels like a promise and a wish. It feels like a homecoming.

It feels like a beginning.

---

Remember, Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.― Stephen King

A star falls from the sky and into your hands. Then it seeps through your veins and swims inside your blood and becomes every part of you. And then you have to put it back into the sky. And it's the most painful thing you'll ever have to do and that you've ever done. But what's yours is yours. Whether it’s up in the sky or here in your hands. And one day, it'll fall from the sky and hit you in the head real hard and that time, you won't have to put it back in the sky again.― C. JoyBell C.

#spn spoilers #spn15 #spn season 15 #destiel #destiel fic #destiel fanfic #deancas #deancas fic #deancas fanfic #castiel #dean winchester #coda fic #15.18 coda #15x18 coda #fare thee well spn #no angst here only sweet sweet fluff #dothwrites #remember this morning when i said i was going to take a vacation #yeah i fucking lied

924 notes · View notes

moony-artnstuff · 3 years

Text

Holding on where I am able

Erestor/Glorfindel x daughter!reader

Note: First official chapter is here! Thank you so much for your kind comments on the first part, it really means a lot! Like I said before, this is still a work in progress and I’m figuring things out as I go, but I’m really excited to share this. Questions, feedback and constructive criticism are always welcome, as long as it’s respectful of course!

Story: Mitzuki wakes up in a forest with no recollection of how she’d gotten there. As she’s trying to figure out where exactly she is she remembers a terrible fact:

She died.

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

She awoke to the feeling of raindrops gently falling on her face. A bone-deep chill followed, and then the pain settled in. Opening her eyes she was met with a grey sky and the thick foliage of trees. The soft drizzle created a pattering sound on the leaves, and the earth smelled of musk and petrichor. Grunting slightly, Mitzuki pulled herself up into a sitting position and looked around. She was lying on the shores of a river, the pleasant sound of flowing water blending in with the rustling of the forest. That’s strange. She didn’t remember there being a forest near when she--

When she--

Oh no...

What the hell happened to me?

Panic started to rise in her chest as Mitzuki looked down at her body. She wore a simple white dress and no shoes. There was mud caked to her hands and feet - which was not a pleasant feeling - and everything felt bruised, but there were no wounds. No indication of her bones breaking as she hit the ocean’s surface, of her body being thrown against unwavering rocks. No signs of her skin being torn open, of saltwater mixing with blood, of her lungs being crushed by the weight of merciless waves--

Nothing. This was her body, but it held no memory of it’s death. And yet--

She remembered.

‘Just breathe’, she told herself, and she let the air fill up her lungs and clear out her mind. The luxury of being able to do so again filled her with so much relief it almost made her cry. A few more breaths of the pleasant forest-smell, and she could feel her heartbeat slowing and the ringing in her ears quiet down. ‘Just breathe… what can I see?’ Once again she looked around. Aside from the occasional bush, a few flowers and many, many trees, she didn’t see anything that could help her situation, until she looked up. Big black clouds of smoke rose up from somewhere in the forest, indicating that something was burning, and where there is fire, there are people. Pulling herself up she immediately fell down again, letting out a strangled yelp.

“Damn legs...” Carefully she stood up again, and with wobbly steps made her way into the forest, following the rise of smoke.

--------------------------------------~ ( . ) ~--------------------------------------

It was a village. Or at least the remains of it. From the bush where she was hidden she saw half-burned down houses and shattered glass on the ground. Several items - was that a sword? - littered the streets and all was deathly silent. ‘How strange’, Mitzuki thought, ‘everything looks so medieval’. As quiet as she could she crept out from behind the bush and made her way down to the streets, careful not to step in any shards of broken glass and checking every corner to see if she could find people. She had to stifle a yelp when she stepped on a sharp rock, cursing under her breath as she grumbled to herself that - although she wasn’t certain whether or not she had been wearing a dress when she had drowned, she most definitely had been wearing shoes, so where had they gone off to?

Then she heard voices. A soft murmuring from a few streets further down, and as she rounded the last corner and peaked from behind the safety of a half-burned down wall, the sight she was met with made her stomach turn. There, in the middle of a square was a pile of disgusting looking creatures, with deformed limbs and black-greyish skin. The part of their eyes that should’ve been white was yellow, and the unseeing look on their horrifying faces made her skin crawl. Smoke rose from the pile, and as the stench of burned, rotten flesh hit her nostrils Mitzuki had to fight the urge to vomit. Surrounding the pile of… creatures, a small group of people were discussing something. They wore strange clothes and carried swords, and all of them had long hair braided tightly onto their heads.

‘Did I stumble across some renaissance fair?’ That would have been pretty cool though, she had always wanted to go to one. Then all of the sudden one of the men turned his head and looked her straight in the eye, making her freeze in her spot.

Shit.

The man said something to his companions, and then they all started making their way towards her with very real, very sharp looking swords in hand.

Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit--

Stumbling back and tripping over her feet in her haste, Mitzuki quickly tried to get away, but froze again when she felt her back hit something solid and alive, something that most definitely wasn’t there a minute ago. Spinning around and looking up, her gaze was met with sapphire eyes and a stern face. Before her stood an incredibly tall man, dressed in leather armor made for riding, a hand resting firmly on the pommel of his sword and a head of long braided curls that looked like they were spun of gold. He was gorgeous… but also way too close for her liking. Behind him stood a group of people who were dressed in a similar fashion, and she could hear the footsteps of the other soldiers coming closer. Before she knew it she was surrounded, pressed up against the wall and fists up in the air, ready to fight whoever decided to come closer--

-- but no one moved. Mitzuki looked back at the man she had bumped into, and saw that his previously stern face had turned into a smile (which made him look unfairly beautiful, but okay). He pressed his hand to his chest and then extended it to her, saying something that sounded like a greeting, though she could not know for sure as she didn’t understand a word of it. At her lack of response, the man raised an eyebrow though the smile never left his face, and he spoke again, slower this time.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.” Mitzuki responded, and the man looked at her confused. A soft murmur started between the soldiers surrounding them, people glancing at each other as if to ask what was going on, before they were quickly silenced by the blond man raising his hand (Mitzuki guessed he was their leader, then). Once again the man said something to her, though the words he used seemed to be of a different language, a more flowing one than the one he used before. She still couldn’t understand him, which did not improve her mood, but perhaps he could understand her if she--

“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” At her attempt to speak German the man looked even more confused. Surely her pronunciation wasn’t that bad?

“Est-ce que tu parles français?” Once again she was only met with confusion, and people started murmuring again. In one last hopeful attempt she tried;

“Anata wa nihongo o hanasemasu ka?” Nothing. Someone stepped forward - a woman, now that she looked closer - and started conversing with the blond man, again in that flowing language she couldn’t understand. Now Mitzuki really started to panic. She woke up in a strange place with no idea how she had gotten there, then found a burned down village that looked way too medieval for the 21st century and now she was surrounded by a group of strange people playing a dress-up game, speaking in a language she couldn’t understand! They had not yet made a move to harm her but that could change any minute, so she kept her guard up, purposely ignoring the voice in her head that said that fighting a group of people who were all at least two head taller than her and carrying swords with just her bare fists was probably not going to do her any favors, but that didn’t matter.

The blond man had turned his attention back to her, and with his hands raised, palms facing her he slowly made his way over. She scowled at him, but that just made him smile. He kneeled down in front of her, patted his chest and said;

“Glorfindel.”

What??

He patted his chest again, “Im Glorfindel.” ‘Yeah buddy, I understood you the first time. It’s just your name that surprises me’, she thought, because seriously? Glorfindel? Named after one of Tolkien’s heroes? Oh wait, now he was pointing at her. Did he want to know her name?

Oh. He did.

“I-- uhm… I’m-...” Mitzuki hated how pathetic she sounded in the face of such a simple question. What is my name? She knew her name, of course, but for some reason she couldn’t get the word past her lips. Mitzuki. It felt so… distant. Like it wasn’t really hers anymore. And then the realization hit her again;

I died.

I’m not supposed to be here.

“I… I don’t know.” She did not see the look of concern that passed through the man’s eyes at the slight waver in her voice, and she barely noticed when he wrapped a cloak around her shoulders and then oh so gently pulled her along. As they joined the group the blond started to give out orders, and within a minute they were on the move, making their way out of the burned-down village and into the forest. It didn’t matter where they were going, not really.

This isn’t real. Mitzuki could feel a lump form in her throat.

I died.

--------------------------------------~ ( . ) ~--------------------------------------

@luna-xial @tolkien-fantasy @guardianofrivendell @awkwardkindatries @aduialel @kumqu4t @trxblemaker @asraime @aduialel @legolasoftherings @miriel-estelwen I hope I’m not bothering any with you with tagging you again, it’s just for this chapter, but I you don’t mind reading this - you’re not obliged of course - I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback! Constructive criticism is welcome.

#Holding on where I am able #Erestor/Glorfindel #erestor/platonic!reader #glorfindel/platonic!reader #found family #lord of the rings #the hobbit #oc story #tolkien oc #moony's oc #mitzuki

30 notes · View notes

lord-of-the-queers · 4 years

Note

So...I wish to hear the parallels.

OH IM SO GLAD YOU ASKED, HOW PLEASANTLY UNEXPECTED (/s /j)

Ok so I’ve seen too many posts comparing Thorin and Aragorn. I mean I get it?? But it’s surface level compared to Boromir and Thorin. The first is a given; both Aragorn and Thorin are lost kings. They’re also not the main protagonist (Frodo/Sam and Bilbo respectively) but they’re still pretty significant characters. That, and having dead parents is abt as far as it goes for me. (If anyone has any more im happy to hear them.)

However, Boromir and Thorin’s storylines and characters as a whole are so similar it’s crazy.

We’re gonna bulletpoint this bitch. Just off the top of my head:

Boromir and Thorin are sons of rulers. Now I know what you’re gonna say. “What’s Aragorn then, just some bum that everyone liked well enough to hand over the Throne of Gondor to? Did you not read the book at all??” Again, going back to the “lost king” idea. I know. But the thing is, Denethor and Thrain we’re still ruling over their people; a people that had once been renowned in Middle Earth for their might, majesty, wealth and knowledge but have since “sunken low” through some form of great catastrophe. For the dwarves of Erebor it was Smaug and the loss of their home and riches, for Minas Tirith it was decades of constant battle with the growing strength of Mordor. Both Boromir and Thorin lived through it (or in Boromir’s case, had been exposed to it his entire life) and watched their fathers and their people as this was happening. Aragorn has seen some of this, true, but it wasn’t as personal and the times when he did witness a part of it, he was really just a passerby. There’s emphasis put on the fact that the line of kings (of which Aragorn is a descendant) was broken well before his time.

Next, their arcs are very similar as well. Both, after watching the steady decline of their once might people, are made aware of a chance to restore it and end their people’s suffering. They go on long journeys trying to fulfill this goal (though aiding Gondor is more of a secondary goal in FOTR, it’s still a goal (Elrond, Aragorn and Boromir even vaguely make a plan in the books for Aragorn and Boromir to go to Minas Tirith, and it’s also part of the reason why Elrond agrees for Boromir to be a part of the Fellowship), and Boromir’s main motivation for even going with them in the first place). As the journey goes on, you can feel their sense of urgency to make it back. Thorin has a physical deadline, Durin’s Day, whereas Boromir knew the dire situation Minas Tirith was in and wanted to make it back to make sure there was even a city left to save. Although Thorin manages to physically make it back to his home in his lifetime, both die before their goals are completed.

Which brings me to my next point: their deaths play a big part in redeeming them. As we know, Thorin is overtaken by dragon sickness, which as we understand it is extreme greed beyond ones control. It’s interesting, because that’s also how we come to understand the effects of the Ring too. One could even go as far as to say that dragon sickness is like the effects of the ring, only less extreme at its end stages and being caused by different things. You see both Thorin and Boromir feeling the effects of that greed akin to illness early on in their journeys, and it appears to worsen slowly but steadily until the very end, when both seem to snap. Thorin does this by going back on his promises to the men of Esgaroth and being (partially but significantly) responsible for starting the Battle of the Five Armies. They even have a more personal episode with them and the main protagonist of their respective stories. Thorin, upon finding out Bilbo stole then gave the Arkenstone to his enemies, attacks him. Boromir attacks Frodo in an attempt to get the Ring in Parth Galen. It seems to be fleeting, because both also seem to snap out of it soon/immediately after. This also comes just before their deaths.

Once again, their death arcs are almost the same. Upon snapping out of it, they realize the wrongs they’ve done and immediately try to make amends, by stepping up and doing what seems right. Thorin does this by coming to the aid of Dain, the Men of Esgaroth and the Elves of Mirkwood, and providing much needed support. For Boromir, it comes by helping to search for Frodo. Then, by following and protecting Merry and Pippin. Both ultimately lead to their deaths.

When they die, they both have had time to think over their wrongs and prepare a sort of confession. In the books, it’s said Boromir was laying there dying “for no small amount of time” before Aragorn finally found him. Thorin was the same before Bilbo was lead to him. Then they give this final confession, stating their specific wrongs and begging for forgiveness. Aragorn and Bilbo do forgive them, and they give a final farewell before taking their last breath. Though both were tragic, they were crucial to their redemption.

Finally, their personalities are incredibly similar. (maybe it’s because of how similar their storylines were, who would have thought?) Boromir and Thorin are both very honor driven, having strong moral codes that guide their decisions. For example, in the book, part of what gets Thorin to not kill Bilbo is Gandalf reminding him of all Bilbo had done to help him get there the first place. I can’t remember specifics for Boromir off the top of my head, but I’d argue that it’s still very present in his character. Both have seen many battles. This links to their sense of honor. They also value loyalty. (This one is probably a bit of a reach, but they’re also distrustful of elves. I say this because of how Boromir is in Lothlorien, especially after Galadriel does her mental test thing with the Fellowship when they first arrive.) Both also are bound by a sense of duty to their people and their ancestors. You could say they also hold a deep sense of nostalgia and pride for the former glory of their homes.

Granted, they have their differences, but those dwarf (sorry) in comparison to their similarities. I should also note that this is just off the top of my head. I’m sure if I looked harder I’d find more. It makes me wonder sometimes if Tolkien made them so similar on purpose, or if it influenced his decision to change Boromir’s storyline from a traitor that sides with the enemy (like Saruman) to that of an otherwise noble hero brought down by an antagonistic element in the story.

But yeah. There you go.

136 notes · View notes