Do You Ever Think About How Staggeringly In Bad Taste It Is That Gandalf Brought A Firework That Turns

idril is the only person who thinks turgon is funny

the mortal LaCE loophole

Anyway fun little factoids for fanfiction writers who want to be maliciously canon compliant with LaCE are that: 1. an elf without descent from Earendil and Elwing does not have the Choice, and does not necessarily die when their mortal partner does out of grief; case to point; Mithrellas, who just left one day 2. the rule post-statute is that no elf may have more than one spouse in this world at the same time 3. even if you go by the very strictest of LaCE interpretations (it’s not a cultural document but literally biologically true, sex = marriage even if no vows to Eru/Valar are made) … this still allows for what I refer to as the Mortal Loophole 4. because mortals do not stay within the circles of the world after death 5. congratulations! your elves can practice serial monogamy with mortals and be entirely canon compliant 6. literally, this is not against any of the laws. infinite mortal spouses. 7. this can either be a horror scenario (pre-existing inequalities in the first age between elves and humans + disposable spouses? hm…) OR just an excuse for 100% canon compliant slutty elves I guess. Just with mortals. 8. No, elves don’t only marry for true love guaranteed to kill them in the event of death – as noted, again, both by LaCE and demonstrated by Mithrellas’ actual behaviour. Luthien was an exception adn should not have been counted. 9. Then why did Aegnor leave? As stated in Athrabeth; he’s Noldorin royalty and has some wacky idea about No Romance During War* (*in part because to Tolkien as a Catholic marriage = children, and children during war = big no no to Noldor for reasons that do make sense) and also he was afraid of seeing Andreth age, elves are capable of living more in memory etc. 10. Anyway not every elf is highly principled Noldorin royalty. 11. Unfortunately the outcome of elf/mortal pairings = default mortal child unless you’re a descendant of Earendil. Somewhat traumatic for an elvish parent 12. But as Eol demonstrates shitty elvish parents exist, and also having a child is a conscious act for them anyway. So they could just. Not.

I need authors to write a oneshot of their characters so I know what I'm getting into before I commit to a whole book about these people

god i hate how aesthetic-obsessed we have become. i'm not talking about cottagecore or dark academia or any of the other -cores, i'm talking about everything being so glossy and pretty and perfect and smooth and one-liner hot takes and feel-good own-the-conservatives progressivism and Top 10 Company Tweets We Laughed At and ring lights and young vloggers with pastel-perfect colour-corrected lives and carefully curated messy title cards and perfect montages being called "photo dumps" and bookstagrams or booktoks or bookblrs who buy every book they read, not a library edition in sight and "that girl" and this is how you age when you're unproblematic and glow ups and "clean" "inclusive" beauty and earth tones and minimalism and filming random people without their consent and definition of the self through consumption of goods and ggrgehwrgehrgehrgehrgehrrerg

[Frodo] appears at first to have had no sense of guilt (III 224-5) he was restored to sanity and peace. But then he thought that he had given his life in sacrifice: he expected to die very soon. But he did not, and one can observe the disquiet growing in him. Arwen was the first to observe the signs, and gave him her jewel for comfort, and thought of a way of healing him.

[It is not made explicit how she could arrange this. She could not of course just transfer her ticket on the boat like that! For any except those of Elvish race ‘sailing West’ was not permitted, and any exception required ‘authority’, and she was not in direct communication with the Valar, especially not since her choice to become ‘mortal’. What is meant is that it was Arwen who first thought of sending Frodo into the West, and put in a plea for him to Gandalf (direct or through Galadriel, or both), and she used her own renunciation of the right to go West as an argument. Her renunciation and suffering were related to and enmeshed with Frodo’s: both were parts of a plan for the regeneration of the state of Men. Her prayer might therefore be specially effective, and her plan have a certain equity of exchange. No doubt it was Gandalf who was the authority that accepted her plea.] -Letter #246

The entire letter is worth reading re:Frodo, but I love how it’s Arwen who noticed how Frodo was traumatized, Arwen who comes up with a plan to help him, and Arwen who initially argues his case, not Gandalf or Galadriel or Elrond. She was no doubt thinking of her mother, but I also wonder if her choosing to be mortal played into realizing how much the Ring had hurt Frodo, giving her a visceral understanding of how he didn’t have all the ages of Arda to recover but only a limited time. 

(Side note: it’s not explicit, but I firmly believe Arwen made the white jewel that she gives Frodo. Arwen as a weaver and jewelsmith both? Yesssss.)

ive realised there isnt a huge market for shakespeare shit posts

this looks like love

~ This was Beleg’s knife. It was more beautiful than any knife he had seen before, the blade covered with intricate designs of leaves and stars and the crossings of rivers and trees.

‘This looks like love,’ his father would have said. He said that about beautiful things wrought with care: knives and swords, baskets, shawls, quilts, jackets. His broken harp. Túrin still didn’t know what it meant. Not entirely. ~

***

Túrin woke to find himself alone. Beleg’s bed was made up, so were the others'. He got up and washed. He was close enough to Menegroth that there was no real danger if he did not run off alone. He drank sweet water and ate lingonberries and cheese and bread.

Beleg had not woken him early, so he would not study to hunt that day. Beleg had let him rest. Perhaps Beleg had gone to hunt without him. Túrin stepped out onto the small porch of the cabin in his nightshirt.

There Beleg sat, making arrows.

‘You’re awake,’ he said. Túrin nodded. He sat cross legged beside Beleg and stared at the sun. It was midday.

‘I slept a long time.’

‘You were tired.’

Túrin nodded again. He bounced his fingers on the bruises on his knees. He liked how his fingers felt as they bounced off his skin. Beleg did not ask him why he did it or call him strange. Túrin swept his hands up and down, turning his hands in the air, so that his fingers came down first facing his knees and then turned from them, again and again.

‘Do I go back to Menegroth today?’ he asked. He reached for mint leaves from the ground and pressed three into his mouth.

‘No,’ Beleg said. Túrin turned his face up to the sun.

‘When then?’

‘In two days.’

‘And then you will go far afield?’ Túrin said. ‘For all the winter?’ He let his hands fly again, bouncing off his knees. He chewed the mint leaves and swallowed their taste.

‘Not for all the winter, I don’t think,’ Beleg answered. ‘I would miss you.’

Túrin stopped bouncing his hands to pick mint leaves for Beleg. He handed them to him. Beleg took them and nodded his thanks. He ate them and kept making arrows.

‘Do you want to speak of which you dreamt?’ Beleg asked.

‘No,’ Túrin said. He waved his hand, letting it spin at his wrist. ‘I think everyone was dead. I was dead.’

Beleg patted Túrin’s knee gently. Túrin brushed the spot when Beleg had pulled his hair back. He didn’t like the lingering touch that seemed to tingle on his skin, even from those he loved. He tried to do it when Beleg wasn’t looking. He had brushed off his father’s touches and kisses. Sometimes he let his mother’s stay, but it agitated him to have a part of his skin even a little wet or a bit different from the rest. He didn’t know why being touched left an impression of the touch on his skin, but it did. He had asked Beleg if he could feel a touch after it was gone. Beleg had said yes, but he hadn’t been bothered by it.

Túrin looked at the yard. It was green and damp. Mud was spreading though. It must have rained a little when he slept. It was quiet, and it smelt like cold rain. Soon the leaves would change colour.

‘Are we alone?’ Túrin asked.

‘Yes,’ Beleg said. ‘The others left last night. They are needed farther North.’

‘Where you will go.’

‘Yes, where I will go.’

Túrin shoved his bare feet down onto the ground. It was soft enough that they sunk a bit into it. It was cold. The grass tickled his skin. Túrin stood and took a large step into the yard. His foot sunk down again, the ground giving a bit beneath him. He walked the yard around like that, in long strides, watching his feet leave impressions in the wet earth, feeling the cold of it.

He liked that the grass was green and not brown. He liked that the ground was wet and not frozen. He ran back to the porch and stood on it with his muddy feet.

‘Wash up,’ Beleg said. ‘You can’t go inside like that.’

‘I know.’ Túrin stood on his tiptoes to touch the very top of the porch where the two slanted roofs met each other.

Beleg patted his leg. ‘Wash. Then put some clothes on. Thingol and Melian will not be pleased if I bring you home ill.’

Túrin wrinkled his nose but threw some cold water from the rain barrel onto his feet and wiped them clean with a rag. He went back inside and came out dressed and with shoes on.

‘Don’t you look darling,’ Beleg said. Túrin had put this underneath ‘strange things that Elves say to each other and sometimes to you but that don’t need a response’ so he tramped off without a response to pee.

He came back to Beleg after and stared at his muddy footprints on the porch where he had been sitting. Beleg gave him a pointed look. Túrin wiped them up with the same rag and hung it over the side of the rain barrel to dry. He sat down again and took the knife that Beleg gave him.

This was Beleg’s knife. It was more beautiful than any knife he had seen before, the blade covered with intricate designs of leaves and stars and the crossings of rivers and trees.

‘This looks like love,’ his father would have said. He said that about beautiful things wrought with care: knives and swords, baskets, shawls, quilts, jackets. His broken harp. Túrin still didn’t know what it meant. Not entirely.

‘This looks like love,’ he said, for maybe Beleg knew the answer.

Beleg studied him. Beleg’s face was ancient but barely lined. It was his eyes that made it ancient. They were like the night sky and all the stars in it – maybe just as old, or maybe younger, but not enough that it would it matter to Túrin when he thought of the ages of the world.

‘Yes,’ Beleg said. ‘Care is love.’

Túrin said no more.

It is told that Curufinwë son of Curufinwë crafted for his brother a magnificent limb of metal to replace that which Fingon their cousin had rent in order to save him. Yet no lesser was the second of his cunning prosthetics: a palantír, small enough to be held between two fingers, a Stone to See by which Maedhros took and used for his own. For while one of his once-sharp eyes, now filmed milky white, lay still whole in its socket, its match had been destroyed and its place was sunken and empty.

Thus so did Curufinwë build his lord anew.

[img desc below cut]

Keep reading

I thing sometimes cats don’t actually know what specifically they want – they’re just generally dissatisfied, so they stand there yelling “I YEARN” on the off chance that you’ll be able to do something about it.

This time of year is always very nostalgic for me bc I used to be the Token Gentile at an office and every few months there'd be a Jewish holiday and my friend would be like "Hey, I need you to do Gentile things for us" and I'd be like hell yes dude. Gentile Things often meant I'd sign things in exchange for a few dollars on venmo but Pesach was a special time for me because it meant everyone gave me boxes of pasta, cereal, and other baked goods. The first time my friends were like "Hey for reasons we won't bother getting into we're going to give you all of our bread" I was like, it is a powerful responsibility but as an Ally I cannot refuse. Best time of the year, frankly