My Autistic Brain: I Realize That Toast With Jam And Cereal With Yogurt Are Your Go-to Meals When You

“Long before, in the bliss of Valinor, before Melkor was unchained, or lies came between them, Fingon had been close in friendship with Maedhros.” 

Okay honestly I am fascinated by this line and I feel like it doesn’t get touched on much in fanon. The implication here (”lies came between them”) seems to be that whatever friendship Maedhros and Fingon had was already deteriorated to some degree by the time of the Flight of the Noldor, that they had begun to mistrust and be in opposition to each other which in a way, makes Maedhros’ apparent betrayal in Alqualonde/Losgar worse for Fingon–it may feel like the nail in the coffin to a friendship that was already on ice. It also makes it potentially more powerful for Maedhros that Fingon comes for him anyway, in spite of everything that had broken between them.

It also sets up a more awkward dynamic going forward in Beleriand. These are not necessarily two bosom friends reunited after a single misunderstanding. Clearly this relationship had issues before the Exile and while Fingon’s rescue of Maedhros was a grand gesture (although far from lacking in political considerations) recovering trust from someone you’ve lost it with is not easy, especially if they don’t yet realize the hand Melkor played in what went down in Aman.

It would also be fascinating to examine a more contentious and possibly even competitive dynamic between Fingon and Maedhros in Tirion, as their friendship goes downhill and they begin to mistrust each other as Melkor works the knife in between Feanor and Fingolfin. Which makes Fingon’s kingship in Beleriand even more interesting, particularly in light of the fact that by the Maedhros Rule (rule by the oldest/most experienced of the royal family), he could make a second bid for the crown, and Fingon has to be aware of that.

There just seems to be a lot of room for exploring a more complicated friendship between these two and how that affects them going forward.

It puzzles me when people cite LOTR as the standard of “simple” or “predictable” or “black and white” fantasy. Because in my copy, the hero fails. Frodo chooses the Ring, and it’s only Gollum’s own desperation for it that inadvertently saves the day. The fate of the world, this whole blood-soaked war, all the millennia-old machinations of elves and gods, comes down to two addicts squabbling over their Precious, and that is precisely and powerfully Tolkien’s point. 

And then the hero goes home, and finds home a smoking desolation, his neighbors turned on one another, that secondary villain no one finished off having destroyed Frodo’s last oasis not even out of evil so much as spite, and then that villain dies pointlessly, and then his killer dies pointlessly. The hero is left not with a cathartic homecoming, the story come full circle in another party; he is left to pick up the pieces of what was and what shall never be again. 

And it’s not enough. The hero cannot heal, and so departs for the fabled western shores in what remains a blunt and bracing metaphor for death (especially given his aged companions). When Sam tells his family, “Well, I’m back” at the very end, it is an earned triumph, but the very fact that someone making it back qualifies as a triumph tells you what kind of story this is: one that is too honest to allow its characters to claim a clean victory over entropy, let alone evil. 

“I can’t recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass. I’m naked in the dark. There’s nothing–no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him with my waking eyes.”

So where’s this silly shallow hippie fever-dream I’ve heard so much about? It sounds like a much lesser story than the one that actually exists.

Currently thinking about a Maglor Requiem: the kyrie is a seven-voice fugue

8 year old Dick’s third trip to Bruce’s office and being so helpful that he pressed ALL the elevator buttons so that they could shout good morning to each floor

Music by treelight, at the House of Finwë.

Foreground: Turgon playing a flute, Galadriel annoyed by Fëanor, Finrod and Maglor singing a duet, Aredhel playing a tambourine. (Aredhel and Galadriel are the same age, and maybe the elven equivalent of 13-14 years old here.)

Background: Eärwen and Finarfin dancing, Celegorm objecting to Huan's singing, Fingolfin with baby Argon and Anairë, Fingon and Maedhros more interested in each other's company than in music.

who else in the silm fandom had their worldview on morality, religion, free will, love, loyalty, punishment, redemption, and tragedy profoundly shifted by jirt’s power of words?

*Advisor to high king Elessar voice* You can go play with your friends after you finish your politics

What do you think would happen if Zhao was stopped from killing Tui? Yue would probably stay in the NWT and marry Hahn like you said, but again Sokka would probably try to persuade her to stay with him. He probably wouldn’t be able to convince her enough, but if he did, what do you think would happen?

I'm gonna be real with you: I think it would be very boring and unsatisfying. I think a lot of other people think so too, because every time I see a "Yue leaves the North Pole" concept, unless it's like a conflict-free modern au, Yue's character is altered from how she's shown in canon. They make her more adventurous, or more of a romantic, because as she is, she doesn't add much to the group dynamic. If the show was paced more like Game of Thrones or Harlots, more based in smaller scale machinations, more following characters' introspection, then maybe there would be something to work with. But in something so action-heavy (and I think we sometimes forget just how action heavy it is due to how often lots of action means just okay writing), a character with no interest or skill in combat doesn't mesh well long-term.

From a writer pov, Yue joining the group as it's shown to be in canon is pretty inefficient storytelling. There's nothing she could really bring with her canon personality and back story that isn't already there with Aang's connection to the Spirit World as the Avatar or Toph coming from a wealthy family. Not to mention that with her being the oldest of the group (Sokka is 15 during the events of the series, while Yue is introduced as being 16 years old, making her about a year older than him) any of the "innocence of the world" that people would wanna play with would have her come off as a bit ditzy when actual 12-year-olds in the group are shown to be more streetwise and worldly. Yue isn't a bad or poorly written character, in fact I think she's one of the most interesting minor characters in the entire franchise, but she wasn't written with the intention of being part of Team Avatar so it's no wonder she doesn't fit well among them.

So, yeah, I don't know because I don't care enough about this concept to give it any thought. An AU where Yue is sent to study statecraft or philosophy or similar topics under King Bumi's tutelage or where she has post-war peace talks with Mai representing the Fire Nation or where she goes on her own journey separately from the group with her own entourage, running into familiar faces and keeping a log of her experiences; it would be a lot more contrived, but the quieter, gentler, more introspective atmosphere it would allow would suit her much better than her staying put while the others fight their way through active war zones and bring her along.

Cries in writer

So my friends and i came up with a sort of AU where people sprout flowers in their hair when they feel any sort of love. So anyways, ahklut crew teases Zuko about how many blue family flowers have been growing in his hair the longer he stays on the ship.

This puts his Season One hair into a whole new perspective.

---

Uncle's hair has dried flowers: his wife's panda lily, Lu Ten's dragon ivy. Everyone knows that dead flowers aren't as fragile as they seem, but he has the crewmen carry an umbrella over him when it rains, anyway. Carefully, he combs around them every morning. Leaves from the vine, Zuko hears him crooning sometimes, even though Lu Ten won't ever lose his leaves. He won't grow any new ones, either.

(Tucked away under his greying strands, still too close to the scalp to be easily seen, a bud has been growing for years. Iroh does not pressure it to bloom, but he does look forward to the occasion.)

(And then a storm, and the Dragon of the West realizes there is no way to tell a dead bloom from a live one without prying its petals open, and this he cannot do. A dead bloom can never heal.)

The Akhlut's crew find the Fire Prince's shaved head profane. When he's caught stealing razors, they crack down. Stubble grows around the black ponytail. Flowers don't.

(At thirteen, the Fire Lord set a hand on Zuko's face, and burned Ursa's sheltering rose bramble away. It would have grown back if she was alive.)

("It would have grown back if she still loved you," Azula corrects him, and he's never sure it if was a fever dream that placed her next to his sick bed, or if she really was there, her precise flames as good as any garden shears as she burned his fire lily from above her ear.)

"Whose is that?" Toklo asks, delighted and too loud, when he catches sight of the little sprig of blue flowers that are only visible when the Fire Prince lets his hair down to wash.

"No one," Zuko says, loudly. "My little sister," he says, more quietly.

Uncle's white jade flower is too large, too showy, it sticks out as it curls above his head. He snips it off between his fingers each morning, but it never stops trying to come back.

The crewmen, their own heads in ruckus and unashamed bloom, watch his daily pruning with distaste. No one ever catches what the Fire Lord's flower looks like; they can never catch him pruning it.

(They assume it's there to be pruned.)

(Zuko would like to know what his father's love looks like, too.)

His outrage at Toklo's snowdrops peaking their way through his black fuzz is as hilarious as it is worrying.

("Don't get attached, Toklo," they warn.

"But warm water," says their younger crewmen, who has never seen a reason to be stingy with his love.)

The Fire Prince shouts and steams. The snowdrops shake quite merrily in his rage. He doesn't pluck them.

He doesn't pluck Kustaa's grudging little cloudberry flowers, either.

"Are you loving me to spite me?" the Fire Prince accuses.

"Yes," says Kustaa, who parted his hair specifically to show off the new little bud trying so hard to hide.

They don't give the boy to the Earth Kingdom. They forget to scowl while they teach him how to do new things. They stop threatening him, mostly. That shouldn't be all it takes for those little buds to start spreading among the crew.

(The Wani's crew had them, too. Back when the prince was a shouty little thirteen year old monster, they'd taken it as a sign that things would soon get better. Things did not get better. Most of them forgot about those under-developed buds, except on the odd occasion when their combs would jar against them.)

Then they fight a Fire Navy ship, and find the prince curled up as far as he can get from the man he's killed. Kustaa holds him as he shakes, a fire lily in full bloom on his head. It would look ridiculous, if it didn't look so much like blood.

He's not the prince for long after that.

His hair isn't so barren of flowers for long after that, either. Eventually, he even lets his real uncle's bloom find its place among the rest. It doesn't look so overbearing, when it's not so alone.

"I miss him," The boy admits, as they sit on the main mast (as one does).

Somewhere far, but not too far, a tired old man passes his mirror, and catches the impossible flash of something new. A red fire lily, finally unfurled into bloom.

"Zuko," he says.

This neatly accelerates his plans for active treason.