#misc tolkien
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Hi all
I have made a little Tolkien sideblog, because I feel like it will be just easier.
Feel free to follow me there.
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Tolkien Webcomic Recommendations!
I know people here follow me for my webcomic adaptation of the Hobbit. So I thought I’d share recommendations for my favorite similar Tolkien comic projects, in case people are looking for other Tolkien webcomics to read! :D
My recs will be mainly Tolkien comics that adapt portions of the original books, just with their own unique spin on them.
1. Sam and Frodo Comics, by Molly Knox Ostertag
Ostertag is probably the most well known artist on this list! She is a professional graphic novel artist who does gorgeous adaptations of scenes from Lord of the Rings, read through a queer lens, in order to tell the story of Frodo and Sam’s love for each other. This is mixed in with comics based on her own Tolkien-inspired writing. I’m focusing on comics in this rec list, but I’ll add that Ostertag has also written a lot of engaging prose fanfic with illustrations.
“Sam and Frodo Comics”
“In All the Ways There Were” (illustrated prose fanfic adaptation)
2.Lord of the Rings Book Canon Comics, by @yambits
Yambits does beautiful adaptations of scenes from the original lord of the rings books that do not appear in the New Line Cinema films, hewing very close to the original prose, and focusing on the love between Frodo and Sam. I especially love the way they depict the magical temptation of the Ring.
“Ithilien,” an adaptation of Frodo & Sam’s encounter with Faramir
“In the Lair,” an adaptation of Sam & Frodo journeying together into Shelob’s lair
“The Tower,” an adaptation of Sam journeying to the tower of Cirith Ungol to rescue Frodo
“Escape from the Tower,” an adaptation of Sam and Frodo leaving Cirith Ungol to journey into Mordor
The Ringbearers, a comic about the One Ring reflecting on the resilience of hobbits
3. Sansukh the Webcomic, by @fishfingersandscarves and @determamfidd
Sansukh is a well-loved Bagginshield fanfiction that is now getting a webcomic adaptation co-created by the original author. The premise is that after his death, Thorin Oakenshield is not able to speak to his surviving loved ones, but can influence them in subtle ways; he uses this power to help inspire Gimli to join the Fellowship of the Ring and protect Bilbo’s nephew. From there the fic becomes an “adaptation” of Lord of the Rings, retelling the trilogy through its new lens until the very end.
This is a bit of an outlier on this list because it’s an adaptation of a fanfic that’s an adaptation of the books, rather than an adaptation of the book. However, if you’re into the Hobbit fandom/Bagginshield, I recommend checking it out! It’s also one of the few comics on this list that is currently updating. :)
@sansukhcomic (tumblr blog)
Chapter one
Original fanfic the comic is based on
4. The Ainulindalae from the Silmarillion, by Evan Palmer Comics
People who know me, know that I’m *usually* not a big Silmarillion person. However!
Comic artist Evan Palmer did a gorgeous adaptation of the Ainulindale. This section of the Silmarillion describes the elven myth of creation, the ancient years where the world was created through a divine magical song. Palmer’s Fantasia-inspired expressive watercolor art really helps bring this section of the story to life!
Full comic
5.The 1989 Hobbit Comic adaptation, by Chuck Dixon and David T Wenzel
This is another outlier because it’s a physical comic book, rather than a webcomic- and unlike all the other recs this is an “official” adaptation produced by an actual publishing company rather than a zero-budget work made by an indie creator working alone/with a partner. I’m unsure if it can be found online.
It’s an adaptation of the Hobbit that hews extremely close to the original book, making practically no changes at all. It has very gorgeous watercolor illustrations! ( It’s been a big inspiration for me on my own little comic adaptation of the hobbit shsjd.) This is also the only comic on the list I’ll offer critique of, because it’s the only one made by an actual company with a budget— so I’ll say that because of page limits imposed on the comic many of the pages can feel overcrowded with prose, and emotional beats/comedy beats sometimes aren’t given the time to properly land. At times it feels less like a comic adaptation and more like reading the original prose of the Hobbit accompanied by some very beautiful illustrations. But if that’s what you’re into it’s great!
It’s a fun well-illustrated read that I recommend. I’m not sure where people can find copies; I stumbled across it in my library, so they’re definitely still around.
If anyone has additional tolkien comic recommendations,especially ones that can be found easily online, feel free to add them to this list! : D
#the hobbit#lord of the rings#lotr#the Silmarillion#Tolkien#sansukh#the hobbit comic#retelling the hobbit#webcomics#middle earth#webcomic recs#not chapters#misc#let me know if I’ve written anything incorrectly in this post and all correct it!#(if the comic authors see this)
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Aw, the thought of showing your artwork to elves sounds adorable. They would hang it on the fridge if they had one haha
Can I ask, do you draw too? Which elf would you show your artwork to?
I would give mine to Feanor or Maedhros, I don't know, I would just really love to hear their thoughts :]
Me?! Draw?! In my dreams if it allows me to lol. Otherwise, they'll be getting stick figures of themselves and I rather not.
But when I said artwork, I meant all forms of arts and crafts, that the elves would appreciate us creating and perfecting as best as we could.
As for showing the elves my art, as in my writing?! Heavens no! My fanfiction would make most of them avoid me at all costs 🤣. Don't even get me started on the angst! They'll beg me to give them a happy ending or to stop writing about them forever. However, the fluff would make them pardon me, I'll get points over there 😗
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I am drowning in half-planned fic right now because I made the mistake of rewatching Veronica Mars (and seeing the new season) and then there was very very little of the stuff I wanted to make me feel better, so I am now writing it myself all at once??? (Yes, juggling like six AUs at once is a bad idea, no I did not do it on purpose.) And I know better than to post unfinished stuff, so give me some feedback, guys:
What are people interested in?
(Relevant information: I am here for Weevil, and I am decidedly not here for Logan. Also, these are mostly not the actual titles, I just don’t have one yet.)
Finish the short ones first!
*The long, sad, bittersweet Weevil/Jade reunion, where she runs into trouble post S4 and has no one else to call. (Pros: As a (long) oneshot, will probably be finished in the next millennium! I’ve also not only started it but made some decent progress. Has a likely sequel which is… maaaybe less sad. Kind of. Jade POV, which is, uh, scarce. Cons: Sequel is less well-planned-out and kind of self-indulgent, this is a ship that like two people are on. Also it’s sad.)
*Five Children Veronica Mars Never Had (Pros: Short enough it might get finished before the heat-death of the universe! I’ve also already started it. Takes a bit of a turn from the typical children-as-a-ship-exploration/validation these things often have (most of these children are not biologically Veronica’s). Novel canon is relevant! Some very solid V/W friendship in at least one. Cons: Tremendously, horrifically depressing; I literally just keep killing people to make the premise work. Very little shipping.)
*The Jade/Eli Chronicles (Pros: Related oneshots so, again, will probably be finished in a semi-reasonable time. Fluffy if you block S4 from your memory. Jade gets, like, lines. Cons: Not a ton of substance, only happy if you block S4 from your memory, this is a ship that two people are on.)
*Five (Or Some Number) Worlds Veronica Didn’t Grow Up In (Pros: Fun crossovers/fusions! All the chapters will be more standalone, so I might even post it serially. A BtVS where Veronica isn’t the Slayer (Lilly was). Animorphs!!! Cons: Fusions are automatically disinteresting if you don’t know the other canon. Some of them are not super well-developed yet. Also, how do you make Veronica Mars more upsetting? Cross it with Animorphs!)
I want longfic, because the literal problem is not enough V/W longfic!
*Veronica Mars, Intrepid Reporter
A Lilly lives AU where canon splits whenever Lilly (doesn’t) begin her affair with Aaron. Veronica copes with Duncan’s sudden cold shoulder by becoming an investigative high school journalist.
Pros: This is my first-concieved AU, and maybe the project I’m most proud of? (Pending completion.) Heavy focus on the death of Marisol Reyes. Features a not-irredeemably-awful high school experience for Veronica. Lilly is still flawed as per canon but she’s not evil and she loves her brother and her friends. Eventual (very eventual) Veronica/Weevil. Meg lives. Lots of Keith and Veronica’s relationship. Probably the most optimistic of all my AUs.
Cons: Spans a long time and will probably be gigantic (these things always get bigger once I’m writing them), so will take approximately forever to finish. Planned out to some extent but not started yet. Somewhat critical take on Logan (I almost put that in the ‘pros’ column but I know how the fandom is about him).
*The Lawsuit Story
An AU where Weevil doesn’t settle as soon as in canon (or maybe Lamb just panics quicker), and an attempted attack on him kills Jade instead.
Pros: Hello to the novel canon! This is probably my favourite of all the universes I’m messing around with. The Weevil/Veronica friendship is so strong with this one that I am legitimately conflicted over whether to actually even have them get together. Valentina has an extremely strong presence and I love her. It's pretty charitable to Logan, considering I wrote it. Carmen makes a few appearances. Celeste Kane goes down.
Cons: This was originally just part of ‘Five Children…’ so the long version probably won’t be written until that’s finished. May or may not contain Weevil/Veronica, but if it does, it is a loooong wait. Does contain LoVe.
*High School Revenge Story
Another Lilly lives AU, where Lilly definitely IS having an affair with Aaron. And also Weevil, but not anymore. And also, Veronica’s (post-Troy) boyfriend. Anyway, Veronica finds out about the last point and decides to get revenge/prove she’s not some virginal innocent sidekick by hooking up with Lilly’s sidepiece, who she imagines wants to piss Lilly off as much as she does.
Pros: Not only is it Veronica/Weevil, but Veronica/Weevil is, like, eighty percent of the plot. There’s definitely smut (plot- and character-advancing, even!). There’s an unexpectedly touching strangers-with-benefits relationship even before the extremely unplanned pining. This one felt the most like the show when I was planning it out, especially with the nature and timing of the twists. Lilly is not evil, she’s just a teenager in over her head who doesn’t want to admit it and coping maladaptively.
Cons: I always feel weird touting porn as a selling point when I wrote it, because I have had zero sex in my entire life (although I am thirty, and I feel like life experience and general knowledgeableness about actual human anatomy count for something here). I have not started this one yet, although it’s more or less outlined. Logan also does not come off well (this is because he is a teenager having a Very Bad Time, but his actions are still not excusable). This was originally two different AUs before I realized they should probably be one (I cannot say what the other one was, because it’s a major spoiler), so there’s the possibility of disjointedness where they meet. Also, I’m not entirely sure I have the chops to pull this one off – there’s a lot of dark stuff going on under the surface (well, there’d have to be, for the plot to work, because otherwise it’s just very OOC), and it’s not the kind of thing that’s usually my forte, but I’m going to give it a shot anyway.
*Platonic Co-parents
AU where Veronica stays at Hearst. She and Weevil have a one-night stand in her third year and end up getting a child out of it.
Pros: It’s just a lot of fun! It’ll probably end up W/V but in the meantime they’ve got a solid, supportive friendship going on, to the aggravation of everyone either of them tries to date. (“What do you mean your daughter’s father is sleeping on your couch because the hot water broke in his apartment???”) I have a later scene planned out where they go to the high school reunion separately and deliberately show everyone the same picture of Mariana to see if anyone realizes it’s the same kid, which sums up the vibe pretty well. There is Keith+Weevil awkwardness and then probably some Keith+Weevil friendship later on. Lots of time given to Weevil’s family. Also, Veronica looks into Susan Knight’s suspicious drowning. I have also (technically) started it.
Cons: Listen, I know it’s a reach for Veronica to be willing to have a child at this point in her life, but I’ve done my best to justify it and I think I did okay. Plus, you know, the entire premise is a junk food trope – it’s not evil, but it’s trite. I love it anyway.
No, I want something else/FINISH YOUR OTHER STUFF
*[Earth’s Children] The story where an adult Durc and Brun’s former clan meet the post-Ayla Lion Camp!
Pros: Ambitious dual narrative I think I’m pulling off well (time divergent; one strand moving forward from the first encounter, one from Ayla’s departure), lots of screentime for supporting characters with wasted potential (Vorn, Frebec, Ura, Brac, not to mention Durc), several chapters already written.
Cons: Extremely ambitious so it will take me forever to finish, there’s basically no one in this fandom.
*[Earth’s Children] The Echozar/Joplaya fic
Pros: Actually develops their friendship into something that makes sense, development of Echozar’s childhood and of the Lanzadonii, I’ve got a rough outline and a few pages written.
Cons: Definitely chaptered so it will take some time, there are even less people in this part of the fandom.
*[The Old Guard] Give An Inch Fall A Mile (Joe and Nicky friendship-with-benefits their way into being Joe and Nicky)
Pros: Lots of sex scenes (obviously) on which I have had positive feedback, several chapters written (probably half-finished), I'm very proud of the writing quality on this one, and I absolutely should be writing this first.
Cons: I have been stalled out on it for more than a year, it may not be finished before the new movie comes out and possibly makes it incompatible with canon.
*[Veronica Mars] The Firebird AU… crossover… fusion… thing
Post-S4, Veronica travels through alternate universes and learns that she needs to get her shit together and apologize to Weevil.
Pros: Um, the Firebird Trilogy is cool but is not required knowledge for entry, alternate universes are neat, and even though this idea is probably dumb I can’t stop thinking about it. It would probably even technically comply with canon.
Cons: Half of the universes I have up my sleeve are from the AUs mentioned above, so it probably won’t get written (if it does) until they’re finished in like ten to twenty years. The actual plot is thin; I mostly have a bunch of scenes. There is a decent chance this idea is self-gratifying and pointless, but I also just cannot stop thinking about it.
*[Veronica Mars] Zombie Apocalypse
Post-S4 zombie apocalypse lands Veronica and Keith on a stolen yacht with a bunch of Weevil’s gang, Jade and her new boyfriend, and this one other guy.
Pros: There’s a lot of compelling (I think) personal drama, which is largely not rooted in anyone being an asshole (except Veronica, but that’s canon and I can’t do anything about it except try to fix it with zombies). Weevil finds out his kid is trans and does his best to speed-run the acceptance ladder despite his personal doubts because he’s extremely concerned about being killed by zombies (and thinks he's dying for a minute) and knows this is his only chance to make them feel supported. Eventual W/V, probably.
Cons: I do not know where I’m going with this. Author is not trans herself and might fuck up.
*[Veronica Mars] The Babysitter Effect
Valentina’s babysitter is still in the truck when Weevil stops to help Celeste, and she witnesses everything.
Pros: Teenage awkwardness, but in a fun way. Weevil gets the justice he fucking deserves. Beginning already written.
Cons: I have no plans at all for what happens after the inciting incident, and even if I did I don’t know how long this would be.
Soooo... if you're not in the Silm fandom you've probably never seen my writing before, but I'm happy to back it up with excerpts! Please ask me for excerpts.
If I keep up the volume of writing I've been doing I can probably get something substantial finished by the end of the year but I need input, please weigh in even if we're complete strangers and you found this post two years from now, best-case scenario I can link you to the completed fic. :)
#veronica mars#eli navarro#weevil navarro#fanfic#fandom misc#earth's children#i seriously keep bouncing between these ideas at the speed of light#give me some direction and i promise i will finish SOMETHING#i just want to keep my momentum up#yes i know this is going to look bizarre to 90% of my dash but hey you can veronica mars AND tolkien#so hopefully i am not screaming into the void#although that's not much different from talking loudly about weevil in my empty living room which i already do#so i'll be fine either way#revenge gambit fic#the jade/eli chronicles
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Ironically, the Most Strangest Part of the Entire World that we all live in is that while Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" is so widely popular than Charles Kingsley's "The Water Babies", Kingsley actually had influenced Carroll's BFF (George MacDonald) which lead to many inspirations behind Many Authors that we all know of today like C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and even Madeleine L'Engle.
Just let that sink and rot in your Brain for a Moment, Literature Fans.
#indie text#lewis carroll#charles kingsley#george macdonald#c.s. lewis#j.r.r. tolkien#madeleine l'engle#authors#misc: literature#alice in wonderland#the water babies#the princess and the goblin#the chronicles of narnia#the hobbit#the lord of the rings#a wrinkle in time
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where are the cringe elitist metalheads that like 4/10s hello i'm waiting
#guys pleasw i like lotr and tolkien & grausamkeit and chainmail and i want a big sword too#and and metalocalypse and#you get it#i need a bf that's horrifically out of my league but enjoys my insanity#euro.txt#misc
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Romantasy is the new bit-lit
#misc#idk how to feel about it#all these micro classifications they come and they go#i know it's a tiktok word so I'm not really neutral on it lmao#not that it's bad reading whatever you want#but like all the labels... it's just marketing#also personally i prefer to have a big ass fantasy worldbuilding that happens to have romance in it#rather than a romance story with set in a minimalist fantasy settings#minimalist is obviously to my standards#i think that's what happens when you read tolkien too young sjsjsjzzs#but to come back to the topic#it's not the books that are the problem#and again everyone should read whatever tf they want to read#but please stop labeling everything#it's like all this -core aesthetic things#it is capitalism working#and i saw what happened with bit-lit#there were some small publishers who tried to jump on the trend#and now they don't exist anymore#only the big ones survive#obviously because when you are Editis/Hachette you are going to survive#publishing is a hardcore business in which small ones are fighting everyday to survive#i mean just being a general SFF publisher is so hard in itself without restricting to one small box#as for readers... it's ok to have a favourite genre#i do to#but we need to jump out of our comfort zone because there are amazing books everywhere#calling out myself too on this one#I'll give one thing to romantasy books though#they have some very pretty covers that bit-lit never had lmao
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The most challenging thing about writing Eddie is I know nothing about D&D. This should be easily fixed right? I can just research. Except, for some reason, almost everything I learn about D&D just slides right out of my brain and I have no idea why! Nothing sticks!! It’s totally bizarre and it happens no matter what I try 😂
#not even from friends who’ve played for years and would talk to me about stuff#one person did say early D&D was heavily inspired by Tolkien??? and I know Tolkien well enough I guess#but literally nothing about the game play will stick in my head#(okay not literally nothing but very little!)#it’s honestly bizarre lol#it’s the same thing that happens to me with sport tbh#misc#pizzaqueenwrites#idk why I’m posting this#but because it’s such a huge part of his life it feels integral to know about it#but it won’t stay in my brain! lol
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CATCHING UP ON SP …. S26E2
#🦑misc#KYLE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT ?!??!? I LOVE THIS SOUP#sorry in advance 4 the possible mini sp brainrot I MISSED IT SO BAD </3#btw tolkien/kyle/stan the ultimate polycule
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I fuckin made Eye of Sauron lace crocheted earrings 😭😭
#lotr#Silmarillion#tolkien#made by ME#theyre done#i finally figured out how to attach them to the earring part#in hindsight it was super simple lmao#im literally so proud of them#ih#my gramma would be so proud of me#<- for the crocheting not the sauron part idk if she knew anything about sauron lmao#misc#rose crafts
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How I made peace with my favorite franchises getting fucked over
I talked about this to @effervescentdragon and it was kind of an epiphany, so I felt like sharing, because maybe someone else feels the same and can use a few positive thoughts.
With Hollywood running out of ideas respectively courage, a very specific generation of fandom is facing a renaissance recently. If you are a dinosaur like me and were online from the moment, internet went big, if you were part of the first big online fandom spaces from ca. 2000 on, chances are good you’ve been feeling like you’ve used the TARDIS in the last few years a couple of times and were stuck in it for good in the last few months.
I think it started, for me … Well, with MCU still being one of the major franchises these days, let’s not forget that the first huge superhero online fandom grew around 2000 with what was - along with the first two Maguire Spider-Man-movies - one of the first excellent big screen comic adaptions, X-Men. So this process of rehashing geek icons of the last, say, 30 years, at least for me already started a few years back when they tried to save the old X-Men movie series, including not only a timeline that was supposed to fix what X-Men: The Last Stand fucked up but also some of the original actors.
Well, turns out that was only the beginning, doesn’t it? In the last couple of years and especially months, we have seen the original 3 Jurassic Park icons return and Keanu and Carrie-Anne return for Matrix. We have Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen teaming up for a series set in an era that - surprise, surprise - people don’t hate half as much as the dudebros wanted to make you believe around 2005. We have a Star Trek series that put a closure to one secretly beloved character like Wesley Crusher, who is - not least thanks to his nerdy and mental health advocate actor being very active on social media - also not half as hated as everyone thought. And reviving the rest of the old crew is coming up in the next season of Picard. We had Jamie Lee Curtis returning for Halloween and Neve Campbell and the rest of the original actors once more returning for a Scream movie. Not to mention MCU hogging those Spider-Mans and even the original Professor X now.
And a couple of days ago, the bomb was dropped that what’s probably one of the most beloved Doctors aka Tennant will return for a special with his companion.
I don’t know how you guys feel, but a geek of my generation (proud Xennial, born ‘82, bullied for 8 years straight in school so I had nothing but movies and series), I’ve been getting whiplash lately.
Here’s the thing: Most of these franchises I just mentioned that I’m in have let me down beyond belief. Some of them more than once.
X-Men: The Last Stand was the first major disappointment I ever had with a franchise I loved. The new movies couldn’t save that for me.
Star Wars died for me the moment they killed the old EU. I gave the new movies a chance. They sucked for me.
I stopped watching Star Trek mid-Voyager, and my interest as a whole not least dropped because of how they treated Wesley in Star Trek: Nemesis. I’m okay with the new movies but nothing I hear about the new series had hooked me up so far.
I still haven’t watched Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom because boy, did I not think they could make it any worse after Jurassic Park III but holy shit, is Chris Pratt annoying in this reboot.
After Avengers: Age of Ultron happened, I had to leave tumblr. I simply couldn’t deal with fandom anymore, with all tags and my dash filled with stuff I hated. I only watched MCU movies when I had to watch them for my magazine. And just to be very clear, I’ve been such a die-hard MCU fan, I paid a lot of money in 2014 to go to SDCC just for that experience. And I still haven’t been able to get myself to watch Hawkeye and Black Widow. I was hurt too much over those characters.
So what I’m trying to say is: I should be feeling anxious as fuck right now, with that rehash process going on and on. Eru knows I have been for far too long.
Like, when I get my hopes up for a beloved franchise too much, usually things like the The Hobbit-movies happen that I can’t watch unless I’m drunk enough to deal with them, or a franchise goes downhill so unbelievably quickly, like in the moment when they let Joss Whedon take the first pen for Age of Ultron in his sexist little hands. It always felt like whenever I loved something too much, it was doomed to go to shit.
I was already torn between being devastated and so fucking EXCITED when they rebooted the X-Men movie series back then. Especially when it was clear Patrick, Hugh and then Famke and James were coming back. What can I say? They managed to turn me away from the new movies as well. It is beyond me how you can fuck up a brilliant story like the Dark Phoenix saga two times in a row.
At this point, I don’t even expect Hollywood to do anything but fuck it up further when they try to fix things using elements people used to love.
So when news broke about that new Obi-Wan series and Hayden, I should have been fucking GUTTED. Star Wars was one of the best times of my life. My eating disorder was doing okay, I had several expensive, beautiful cosplays and at the Revenge of the Sith premier, I met George Lucas and Hayden and was told by them, my AOTC Pastel Lake Dress was beautiful. I love the PT, unashamed and unironically, and everyone can suck my ladyballs about that. And now they got Ewan and my boy back and JFC, I should just be shutting my internet down, now that the promo has started and I’m beginning to see this everywhere.
And here I am sitting, realizing, quite amazed ... I no longer care.
After The Hobbit-movies, I think it was, I decided something very important for myself. I don’t need to accept the official canon. Just because I’m a fan of something, doesn’t mean I have to be a fan of each and every aspect. I don't need to watch/read the parts I hate. In fandom online spaces, I don’t need to follow people posting about these things, and I can use extensive blacklists. I can leave conversations when they’re about aspects of franchises that I don’t like. I’ve never been someone who tries to spoil other’s fun of something I hate. So if a place is not for me, I can just go.
I didn’t realize how liberating that was until like, 2015. Until that point, canon had always been a mandatory fact for me. That’s coming a lot, I think, from having been a fanfiction writer for 30 years. When I started publishing online, canon purists were still far more common. Your stories were far more likely to be widely ignored and even dragged if you didn’t stick to canon accurately. With time, I found that I’m a niche author anyway, and the stuff I write won’t appeal to more or less people, just because I force myself to acknowledge parts of canon I hate.
So I started slapping “verse: movie(s) x exclusively” on my stories and started to just fucking ignore what I didn’t like. And after I while I realized, I didn’t need to limit that approach to fanfiction. Time is far too short and too precious to waste it with consuming media I know I won’t like.
So what I do is when something like Wesley’s return or cameos of my favorite characters in franchise incarnations I hate happen these days is: I wait. I’m not in a hurry. I don’t need to write reviews the moment these things are out. I can lean back and wait until my anxiety issues allow for a new piece of media to consume. In the meantime, I read up what they did with elements I love so much. When I feel I can stomach seeing them and/or if the new incarnation actually FIXES something for once, I’ll watch either just the scenes in question or maybe even catch up with some other franchise installations I missed.
Sometimes that works out, sometimes it doesn’t. Like. The X-Men timeline is far too fucked up to repair that canon in any way, not least because of the Logan movie. I might as well give Picard a chance soon though, because watching that Wesley scene (and reading Wil’s thoughts about the whole process), for the first time in a long while, I had a feeling we're dealing with writers here who actually UNDERSTAND. I’ll probably watch the Obi-Wan series, but I already know there is no way this is going in “my” verse since it’s new EU. But I might enjoy it anyway.
So every now and then, I’ll visit current installations of my favorite franchises, and every now and then I might even like them. Might even incorporate them in my own verse in one or the other way (if nothing else, usually faceclaims and/or other material for graphics and videos is the least I can get out of new installations like that; we do NOT talk about Days of Future Past though, because how they managed to fuck up things like Scott's glasses like that is beyond my wildest imagination).
Sometimes, canon surprisingly kind of fixes itself in a satisfying way, like in MCU where they now introduced multiverse and everyone feeling like me can just pretend we’re back in Winter Soldier and nothing coming after that happened in canon, because there’s millions of canons now. Seriously, multiverse is the best that can happen to a writer and a broken fan heart.
I’ve had people tell me “BUT YOU CAN’T DO THAT, YOU HAVE TO CONSUME AND TAKE CANON LIKE IT IS, EVERYTHING ELSE IS DISRESPECTFUL TO THE WRITERS” and I’m like. What? Gonna cry? Gonna shoot me or something? What fucking business of yours is it how I consume my media? I’m not posting hate in character tags, I leave conversations when fans of things I hate are around, I label all my fanfics clearly enough to not steal any reader’s time.
Fanart is not always but very often fixing the canon reality you don’t want to deal with. And for me, that saved my whole fandom experience.
Gosh it feels GOOD, finally no longer giving a fuck.
TL;dr: As my dear effervescentdragon said: "if i dont like it it didnt happen, xoxo, fuck off"
Seriously. It will give you so much peace.
#misc stuff#that made me stop scrolling#personal#writing#star wars#phallic glow sticks and cheese#star trek#my love before I was old enough to turn on the tv#MCU#the one that let me down harder than my first boyfriend#lord of the rings#and all tolkien lore#dysfunctional elves ftw#x men#everything after x2 didn't happen sue me#x men original timeline movies
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Individual fandom Masterlists coming this week, my nerdy hoes
#Masterlist#Harry Potter#marauders#marvel#MCU#misc#Star Wars#supernatural#Tolkien#the hobbit#lord of the rings#twilight#Vikings#Witcher
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Guide to this Sideblog:
Because I use this sideblog for everything that is unrelated to the specifics of my other blogs, there's a lot of random content here. This is mostly just for my own personal navigation of this space, but if you're here and you'd like to use it, feel free. It's to make it easier to find similar posts all in one spot and designed to be accessible for both phones and computers (I've noticed on my laptop that when you click a tag on a post, it'll take you to all the posts on Tumblr with the tag opposed to the app which will allow you to view that tag specific to one person's blog).
All my tags are master-posted here for easy navigation.
As of making this post, I am still updating this sideblog. But you can find all the things I post in the tags and can click it to find everything I post in that category.
Happy diving!
-LH
My Other Blogs:
lawyer-in-law for Ace Attorney (finally dedicated a whole blog to it; I was just posting stuff here)
flamealchemyfreak for Fullmetal Alchemist
bagginshield-anthology for The Hobbit (this is my main blog. I'm not super active there anymore but it's still there)
#LH: Humor#LH: Photography#LH: Interior Design#LH: Art#LH: Writing#LH: Poetry#LH: Quotes#LH: Inspirational#LH: Advocacy#LH: Memes#LH: Birds#LH: MISC#LH: Movies#LH: Fandom#LH: Fandom: Fanfiction#LH: Fandom: FMA#LH: Fandom: Spy x Family#LH: Fandom: AA#LH: Fandom: Tolkien#LH: Fandom: LOZ#LH: Fandom: Over the Garden Wall#LH: Fandom: Moomin#LH: Fandom: Blue Eye Samurai#LH: Fandom: B99#LH: History#LH: Fandom: His Dark Materials#LH: Fandom: Ghibli#LH: Books
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Personally I'd be too shy to show my art to an elf, like?! I'm shy enough with humans let alone an ethereal being whose been around for centuries. Probably look like a toddlers art project to them🫠
I think we'd all be a bag of jitters around an elf if we were to show them our artwork 😅. But in honesty, I don't think they would put your art down since they're aware of the gap in honing one's skill between them and humans. They have centuries while we have a few decadds, so they'd be impressed at what we can accomplish in a shorter period. That's a feat to be proud off.
All in all, you'd get encouraging compliments 🤗
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Five Women Who Never Loved Brandir Son of Handir
Uhhh... so I've been sitting on this one forever, I don't know why. Enjoy my original author's note:
Five things fic, because I wanted to. This is the third five things fic I’ve started, but the first one I’ve finished. (Besides, the Handir one has sort of mushroomed into this weird 5+2 format and I don’t know if it even qualifies anymore.) So, until I finish Five Things That Never Happened To Nienor Daughter Of Hurin and Five Ways Handir Son Of Haldir Could Have Survived The Nirnaeth Arnoediad (And What Would Have Happened If He Hadn’t), have Five Women Who Never Loved Brandir Son Of Handir. Unapologetic shippy fluff, OCs, and odd pairings ahead. Well, odd pairing.
1.
Niniel
It’s spring when she comes to him and takes his hand and at first he doesn’t think anything of it because that’s what she does.
Then there’s a movement of her thumb against the back of his hand and when he looks up she blushes, though her eyes don’t skitter away, and he’s never seen her blush before, and everything changes.
There’s a nervousness in the way she bites softly at one side of her lip, and Niniel isn’t nervous – she gets along well enough normally, but she doesn’t have that sense of embarrassment other people do. She doesn’t fidget. She doesn’t blush.
But her face is flushed, and he wants to raise a hand and brush it against her cheek. He doesn’t.
Her smile is hesitant, and he’s never seen that before either. There are a lot of things he’s never seen.
“I think,” she says, and the smile still edges around the corners of her lips, “that maybe you love me.”
“Maybe,” he says blankly, and although his lips feel numb his voice comes hoarse from his throat.
“I think,” she says, “that maybe I love you.”
Maybe? he means to say, but there’s no sound. The smile dances back and forth across her face, barely there but clear enough.
“I don’t know a lot about love.” It’s half apology. “I can’t remember ever loving anyone.”
And maybe she doesn’t know enough, not to choose. He doesn’t think it really, wouldn’t think it if she’d chosen elsewhere, but he’s used to cutting back, turning away, making endless small sacrifices because that’s what he does, that’s what’s necessary, because his happiness is always second. That’s what it is to be chieftain, to be healer, to be –
To choose happiness is selfish, surely. It’s always felt that way.
“That’s all right,” he says, voice rough as if he’s swallowed a roomful of smoke. “We’ll learn together.”
2.
Moriel
Brandir knows Hariel a little, though she and her family live outside of the Ephel. She’s a trapper and her son’s a woodsman who knows his game so they come to trade. Her daughter’s never come.
“We brought her,” Moriel’s brother says, blunt but apologetic. “I would have come ahead to tell you but Onda wanted me with her. I’m better for calming her down.”
“They’re not fits of emotion,” the girl says clearly. It surprises Brandir; she’s kept her eyes down this whole time, shy or nervous. He can see now she’s a bit older than he thought, maybe only a few years shy of his own age of twenty-five. The shyness, combined with her delicate looks, had thrown him off by six or eight years.
“Getting upset never gets you breathing better,” Aradir points out.
That doesn’t help much. “Hariel mentioned you didn’t travel because of this ailment,” Brandir says, voice friendly and neutral.
“The dust makes the fits come on,” she tells him straightforwardly. “The dogs can’t come inside the house anymore or it happens. I can’t run at all. Sometimes if I get very upset,” she allows, although she quite pointedly doesn’t look at her brother.
She doesn’t look at Brandir either, eyes fixed on her lap, though her voice is far too firm to put it down to shyness. He’s had people avoid his gaze before, but never avoid looking at him entirely. Is it so disturbing –
No. He has a patient.
“Flowers in spring?” he asks.
“Eh, sometimes,” she says. “It used to be fine. I didn’t start sneezing like Aradir. But now it seems like I move and I start wheezing.”
“It wasn’t always like this,” her brother says, more matter-of-fact than worried. “But she started getting ‘em when she was near ten year, they just weren’t so bad then.”
“Sometimes I think I’m going to die,” Moriel says. “The air just won’t go in. It’s worrisome.”
If she’d looked at him even once since they’d come through his door, he would like her for that. It’s worrisome.
“I can examine you,” he tells her. “But I think I know already. I can’t cure it, but I can give you medicine for when it happens. You’ll have to put it in boiling water and breathe in the smoke.”
“Good thing there’s always water on the boil,” Aradir comments. Brandir pushes up from his chair, trying not to notice that Moriel turns her head away while he arranges his crutch.
“I’ll fetch you some,” he says. “But I’ll have to prepare more.”
He left the door open as he puts together a packet and after a few moments hears Moriel whisper harshly to her brother, “That’s the chieftain’s son?” He swallows hard.
“What about him?”
There’s a soft thwack. “You never warned me he was handsome.”
Brandir almost drops his entire bundle of dried herbs on the floor. He swallows hard and fixes the crumpled leaves properly inside the cloth packet and then makes himself walk back through the door before he loses his nerve. It feels a little like the world’s turned sideways.
He’s never been handsome before.
“You’d better keep these with you,” he says. His voice is too brisk, but he forces himself to look at her. “About half what’s in the packet in a pot of hot water, to ease your breathing. I can make up something that will make the attacks less likely, but they’ll still happen.”
“But we don’t really know for certain if this works yet,” Moriel says diffidently. She meets his eyes, briefly, and then her gaze skitters around the room before she focusses somewhere just above his left shoulder. Her entire manner seems very different. “On me, I mean. I probably shouldn’t risk an attack somewhere with no hot water anyway, until I’m a bit better.”
“That’s probably wise.” His voice sounds even, which is a marvel considering all he can really think about is that Moriel herself is very pretty and surely she’s had practice speaking to all sorts of men?
“Then I guess I shouldn’t leave just yet.” She forces her eyes back to his and smiles a little awkwardly, but her voice is more confident. “I suppose I’ll have to stay a while.”
“Ah,” Brandir says articulately.
Moriel’s brother grumbles something under his breath, and she kicks him.
3.
Lalaith
The dog doesn’t really look like a dog, but it’s clearly an animal of some kind. That doesn’t feel like much of an achievement, when his father’s birds are so detailed that you can identify the species even when they’re not the same size as real ones, but it’s… something.
Nienor plops down beside him, all carefree eight years of her. “What’s that?”
“It’s just a… thing,” Brandir says, setting it down.
“Lemme see.” She picks it up.
“It’s supposed to be a dog. It’s not very good…”
“I like it,” Nienor says decisively, putting it down again. “You should give it to my sister. She has all kinds of animals Labadal made her, but she doesn’t have a dog. Only wild animals.” She frowns. “Maybe there’s a wolf.”
“I’m sure your sister would be nice enough to accept it,” Brandir says, cringing at the thought of his rough effort next to that of a lifelong carpenter, “but it’s really not good. My father does much better.”
“I bet she’d like it,” Nienor says. “She likes you.”
“I know.” Urwen likes everyone. And everyone likes her, but she isn’t conceited about it.
“Don’t you like her?”
Brandir frowns. “Of course I like her. She’s very nice.”
“Then why haven’t you given her flowers or something? Girls like flowers from boys they like.” She frowns back at him in consideration. “You’re kind of a boy. You’re younger than Turin. Maybe you’re too old to give her flowers. You should give her a necklace or something. Or the dog.” She brightened. “Can you make a necklace out of wood? Or a bracelet? Do you think you’ll get married? Naneth wasn’t that much older than Lalaith when she got married. If you get married, can I be – ?”
Finally Brandir manages to drag his internal organs back into his chest from wherever they’ve disappeared to and stop her by waving his hands in the air in front of her face. It’s not very polite, but he’s having difficulty with words.
“That is not what I meant,” he says finally, as calmly as he can manage. “I like your sister. And I like you, and I like your father, and I like…” He hesitates. Morwen always makes him feel deficient, like he’s broken, not just damaged.
“Oh.” Nienor stares at the ground. “She’ll be sad.”
Brandir wants to argue with her – clearly she misunderstood her sister the same way she misunderstood him – but he can’t think what he should say first.
“Maybe you could like her?” Nienor suggests hopefully. “She’s really pretty, you know. And nice. And she knows lots of funny stories –”
“Why don’t you keep the dog?” Brandir says loudly. “Go on, I don’t mind.”
Nienor looks hurt – she hates being talked down to – but she takes the thing sullenly and sulks off, pouting, without saying anything else. Brandir slides down off his hillock and leans back against it, rubbing his hands over his face. Urwen is pretty and nice, and he likes her stories. And he really, really doesn’t want her to feel sorry for him, which she would if she heard about this conversation.
“I guess…”
He jerks upright. Lalaith is standing there, smiling a little sadly. “I guess things are different in Brethil.”
“A little,” Brandir says, feeling his heart shrivel up inside his chest. “Were you looking for Nienor?”
“She ran off towards the house,” she says. “I guess Mother doesn’t need me to fetch her anymore.”
“She said you had a whole bunch of little animals,” he offers lamely.
Urwen nods. “From Sador.”
Sador. Not Labadal.
“I guess… when Haladin girls want to be sweethearts with a boy, they just…” She makes a vague motion signifying action.
“I… yes, I think so…” He wouldn’t really know how it goes. He ought to stand up, while she’s standing, but his walking stick is too far to reach and he doesn’t want her to see the kind of hobbling he’s reduced to when he doesn’t have it.
“Turin told me about… um, I think it was Bariel…?”
“They don’t usually punch anyone in the face!” Brandir exclaims, humiliation momentarily forgotten. “That’s very unusual!”
Urwen smiles. “I don’t want to punch you in the face,” she says.
“I don’t want to punch anyone in the face,” he responds without thinking. Her expression shifts a bit, but she smiles again with effort.
“Right. I just thought maybe it was… Nienor was embarrassing you, but… well, I guess I was being silly. I’ll just…” She turns to leave.
“Wait, wait,” Brandir says, reaching out for her arm. It’s too far up and he gets a handful of the skirt of her pretty yellow dress instead. It’s soft. She’s a little bit like the dress, and that sounds stupid even in his head. “I can’t… um, I can’t…” He can feel himself going red. “Get up.” Just when he was thinking he hadn’t been humiliated after all. He can’t look at her.
“Oh…” She turns and fetches his crutch for him. His face is still burning when she hands it to him but instead of making some excuse and hurrying away she sits down next to him. After a little while he gets up the courage to look at her again. She smiles.
“I do still like flowers better than wooden bracelets,” she says.
4.
Daerwen
His first duty, after burying his father, had been to bear his condolences to the families of the other fallen warriors. There had been a great many.
It shamed him to think that he couldn’t remember most of those meetings clearly, but it was true. Even those who had been angry, insulting, reaching out for someone to blame and striking close to the places that would truly cause pain – ‘And where we you, safe at home?’ ‘How could you understand, you’re no warrior!’ ‘Do you think to purchase my support, thus?’ – blurred together enough that they, and their suffering, were no individual, distinct entities in his mind.
He should have done better by them than that.
“You probably don’t remember me,” the woman by the fireside said. She smiled, but sadly.
“I do,” Brandir told her. “Daerwen.” He refrained from listing her husband’s name, although they both knew that must be how he thought of her. He’d meant to hold the bereaved in his mind as people, to remember their sorrow, their anger or guilt or acceptance – instead, he’d only managed to catalogue them by their dead. Daerwen’s husband had been Harlas, a spearman, and he’d bled out during the retreat, but all he remembered of her was that she hadn’t screamed or thrown him out of her house.
“You are kin to Aradis, I think,” he said to break the silence. They could have been merely friends, of course, but there was a strong resemblance in Daerwen to Aradis’s grandson.
“She was married to a cousin of my father’s,” Daerwen said, faultlessly polite. There was something in her quiet manner that put him in mind of his mother, so he imagined there was steel underneath. “Though not a close one.”
That meant that Aradis’s dead daughter was Daerwen’s kinswoman and agemate. If she’d ever had children with Harlas, they likely would have played with Mireth’s orphaned son.
“How unfortunate,” he said, meeting her eyes steadily so she would know him sincere. “I am afraid such losses are common.”
“Certainly.” She peered into the soup-pot, and, apparently satisfied, rose and came to sit nearer him. “I stifle, the way no one ever mentions it. But I suppose it is different for you.”
He looked at her cautiously. The last time he’d been in this house, Aradis had tried to throw him out, but ended by weeping so hard he’d had to hold her bodily from the floor. She seemed to hold no animosity or embarrassment, only worry over her grandson’s injury, but he could never be quite sure of his reception in such places.
“Having no time to grieve, I mean,” Daerwen said. She gave him that smile again, sad and half-yearning but not melancholic.
“And yet I did anyway,” Brandir said, “somehow. It was greatly against my judgement but I fear I could not do otherwise.”
Her smile spread a little, deepening, and lost some of its bittersweet quality. He only got a brief glance before she turned her face towards her lap. “It must have lost its hold on you, if you can say such things.”
“I –” It was necessary he be able to speak without tears or the suggestion they might be coming. “I still miss my father very much, and very frequently. But certainly I am no longer prevented from… going onwards in my life.” Was she unable to do so? At least she wished to, which was a good sign.
“I wonder if… you could put it that way to Aradis? Going onwards. It sounds much… friendlier than the words she uses when I mention hovering less over her grandson.” Her jaw clenched. “Or that I would like to marry again.”
“I think,” he told her seriously, “that you are admirable. And I shall do my best, although I cannot meddle if she has no wish for my help.”
“Of course not,” Daerwen told him. “And I want to thank you. Just hearing someone say it’s not wrong to want to move past him… it’s a comfort. I knew that –” She stopped.
“If you need help – not just interference, but advice or conversation – I am not so far away.” He’d made the offer many times in the last year, although it wasn’t frequently accepted. “You are always welcome, as long as you can find me.”
“Thank you.” There was a pause. He could hear Aradis descending the steps in the other room. Daerwen smiled a little. “I knew that you were the right choice.”
5.
Nienor
The envoy leaves in two days.
It shouldn’t matter quite so much – things have been as productive as they can be, when Dor-lomin’s new leader has somewhat unreasonable expectations – but it does.
Brandir silently and emphatically calls himself a fool.
“Why the stormclouds?”
He laughs despite himself, although he’s startled Nienor managed to approach without his knowing. “The storm clouds?”
She shrugs, leaning against the side of his house. “Aerin used to say that when I was small. I fought with my mother… well, often. ‘Stormclouds’ was kinder than ‘royal sulk’, I suppose.”
“Are you accusing me of sulking?” He takes care to smile, both to dispel the impression and to avoid giving offense.
“No. I only wondered.”
“’An acorn for your thoughts’, we say here.” He gestures to the step. “You’re welcome to sit.”
Instead, she straddles end of the log he’s sitting on. Brandir turns to face her. She’s wearing a split skirt, and he can see she has leggings beneath it.
“An acorn for your thoughts.”
He shrugs. “Just wool-gathering.”
“They seem like unhappy sheep.”
That makes him smile. “Just heavy ones.”
Nienor frowns. “Wouldn’t that be a good thing? More wool? Or warmer?”
“I have a great number of responsibilities,” he offers, half-amused and half-exasperated.
“I suppose.” She sounds thoughtful. “When I first came, I thought you were a strange man by way of a leader.”
Brandir keeps his voice carefully neutral. He’s not sure what to think. “Did you?”
“I haven’t known many,” she acknowledges. “Just my brother, I suppose, and Brodda.” The thunderhead that crosses her face at that name is formidable. “But people still talk about my father. And there’s the Elf-king, I suppose.”
“The king of Doriath.”
“He as well.” He should have known she’d meant Fingon. The People of Hador were married to the Noldor. “Living, dead, good, bad… they all loved war, or their own authority, or both.”
Cautiously, Brandir ventures, “I never heard that Hurin son of Galdor loved either.”
“Didn’t you?” She sounds surprised. “No one ever speaks of him but the words ‘mighty warrior’ follow.”
“I grant you that,” he says, “easily! But a man may fight like the whirlwind and still bear no love for war. My father always spoke of his kinsman as a young man more in love with a jest and a song than with battle.”
She startles. “I suppose I knew they would have known each other – but I never think of it.” There’s silence for a moment. “When we first met, I thought you weak,” she says slowly. “Now, I think of going back to being surrounded by men who think strength is a sword-arm or the ability to command by force and I cannot think well of it.”
“I have always heard your brother a good man,” he says, although that isn’t entirely true. He’s heard nothing of Turin son of Hurin’s character – only his fighting prowess.
“He is,” Nienor says, almost sadly. “And he is an able leader, although I cannot say if he is a good one.”
That she makes a difference between the two strikes him forcibly, and both her discernment and the hint of praise hiding in the shadow of her words cause his heart to beat distractingly.
“But he’s what he was made,” she says simply. “I don’t know what kind of life it was, hunting orcs through the woods – but I sat in the Easterlings’ hall, and I have no love left for masterful men.”
The sadness of that – a reunion that is but a continuance of the separation – moves Brandir profoundly. He reaches for her hand, to offer what comfort he can, but as their fingers touch she raises her gaze to his, and it takes all his will not to freeze and thus betray himself.
“I have performed my duty to my brother well here, I think,” she says, forcing a ghost of a smile. “I will bear it out and bring back word – and then, I think, it will be done. And then perhaps – ” she glances so quickly at his hand over hers that he almost doesn’t see it, “then perhaps I may return.”
A/N: I wrote parts 1-4 Way Too Long Ago, and then finally finished it, I don’t know, two years back and immediately forgot that I’d finished it. So… Here it is now? Requisite notes:
1. Turin doesn’t exist. He never existed. The story still happened the same way up to this point because, well, it did. Or, Niniel blew him off because he was being really horrible to her friend. Or, he’s off living in a cave somewhere. Or similar. Whatever you like to imagine. :)
2. Handir is still alive and in charge here, obviously. He won’t die for about five more years per canon. Moriel has asthma (as you may have guessed). I described her in my notes once as being a ‘delicate princess with the soul of a drill sergeant’ which essentially means that not only will she fight you, but if you argue back you will look like an asshole. I like to think that when Turin arrives in Brethil she’s also pregnant, and Dorlas’s attempt to use him to unseat Brandir completely dies under the strength of Heavily Pregnant Woman Having An Asthma Attack Because Of You.
3. Some happy (or happier) AU or other where Brethil/Dor-lomin kids are fostered back and forth. Brandir’s staying with Hurin’s family. He and Lalaith are both sixteen. (I put in a backwards-math hint with Nienor’s age and then remembered that not everyone in the entire world has gone and memorized their age differences.)
4. Obviously the shippy part comes later. (Whoops, I guess it’s not all fluff.) But there’s a nice grounding of respect and friendliness and understanding and with a relationship that grows slowly out of that and out of shared grief and especially when accompanied by a dead spouse and requisite baggage (on one side) and political responsibility – and baggage! – (on the other) is going to, well, grow slowly, so the point that I don’t think a snippet from anywhere but much later would even look that much like a romantic relationship, even after it was one. Anyway. I may come back and poke this idea later and I may not.
5. Turin retook Dor-lomin, obviously. Nienor is the head of his envoy to Brethil. (His ‘unreasonable expectations’ are military support that would leave the Haladin with very precarious defenses; Brandir is sending supplies to rebuild and offers of trading instead.) A line I wanted to use but in the end couldn’t fit in: “Aerin, my mother… they all lived in Dor-lomin before the Easterlings came. They call it home, but for me, there’s nothing there but bad memories.”
#tolkien#brandir#brandir son of handir#nienor#my own work#fanfic#lalaith#misc men#silmarillion#unfinished tales#children of hurin#'onda' is my made-up casual term for 'mother' in the haladin's language#since moriel and her brother live farther away from the ephel and haven't been sindarized as much
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