Dancing Under The Stars And Calling Clients While Lightly Bouncing On The Trampoline Are Not Mutually

Things that are really fucking me up today

Just how close in age Elrond and Elwing are, by the Elf standards. It must be so strange when they finally meet, to look at each other and realize the difference between them is only a little over thirty years.

Like, in comparison Finwe was a thousand years older than Finfarin, and Elrond was already roughly 4000 years old when he had Arwen.

So idk it just must have been so strange for them. A mere thirty years is such a wildly negligible amount of time. They’re basically peers when they first meet.

Every family gathering and you're with your favorite cousins.

Also,

the Dads. ❤

{older bro only irritated by the spilled drink.}

I really hope the Amazon show picks a side in the Gil-Gadad debate. Just for the drama. I think it will be funny to watch.

Hello! You have just been visited by the Crackship Fairy, as of now you will be given a crackship and you have to do good by them. Your crackship: Voronwë/Maglor

(This is much more of a gen take on their relationship than it is a shippy one, but my headcanon is that Voronwë is aro, so that’s just how it’s gonna be!)

~

It wasn’t often that Maglor came across another elf on these shores. They were rocky, dreary, generally abandoned; he liked to be alone, and this stretch of coastline was good for that. The few weary Secondborn who eked out a living here were suspicious enough to steer clear of him, and in return he did the same for them.

In ages past this land had been the border of Ossiriand, pressed up against the Blue Mountains. The mountains were still there, taller and grander than ever, but the seven rivers were sunk under the sea and the singing Laiquendi had long since fled for greener lands.

Mithlond was not too terribly far from these his favorite haunting grounds, but no matter how genial and polite Círdan was Maglor knew he was not welcome there: the Falathrim had not forgotten the ruin of Sirion. No, this was a place where he could wander alone, his mind free to catch forgotten melodies on the wind and his spirit unbound by any constraints of law or temptations of love.

And yet: here stood a simple dwelling, still clearly Noldorin in make, looking near as old as Maglor felt. He had wandered this beach a hundred times or more, and never before had he run across this little elfhome that appeared to have been here since Beleriand’s death throes had finally ceased and the lands he had bled and fought and suffered for settled under the vast ocean.

Entranced, Maglor approached the house, noting its angular shapes, the Tengwar over the door, shimmering with some faint enchantment. He shivered as his fëa brushed against it: he was not repulsed, per se, and yet he was permitted to pass through the barrier.

“Who goes there?” demanded a voice too soft for its tone.

Maglor turned around, tensing instinctively and letting his hand wrap around the hilt of his dagger. The speaker was an elf, as he had thought, though they conversed in Westron, and though his eyes did not shine with Treelight he had the stature and bearing of one of Maglor’s kin. Still, there was something a little off about him—the shell patterns on his clothing, perhaps, the shimmering blue of his blade, or the curve of his nose, which reminded Maglor strongly of a person he could not quite place. Perhaps he was of the Sindar as well as the Noldor.

“Peace,” he said slowly in Sindarin. “I mean you no harm. I was simply curious of your dwelling. I will leave you to your solitude.”

The ellon relaxed, though he did not sheath his sword. “Thank you,” he said in that soft voice. “But you have not answered my question. Who are you?” He glanced to Maglor’s cloak, tattered and torn and yet unmistakably blood-crimson. It was not the same one he had worn when he cast the Silmaril into the sea—that had long since unraveled into nothing but a painful memory—but thought Maglor no longer wore his father’s star openly, he would not abandon his Fëanárion pride, nor could he wash his hands of the blood upon them.

He could give the ellon a false name; he had done so to others in the past. But Maglor was so tired, of hiding, of running, of lying, and he did not have the heart to do so. He adjusted his grip on his dagger, knowing that if this ellon was part Sindar, there was every chance he would be met with long-sleeping anger reawoken.

And yet, still, he spoke his name.

“I am Kanafinwë Makalaurë Fëanárion,” he said, “though you may know me better as Maglor the singer; and you may wish my name had never had cause to be uttered here in the east. Certainly I wish that at times.”

“Oh.” For a moment the ellon’s resolve wavered, and then he grimaced, sighing, and sheathed his blade. “Well,” he began, switching to musical Quenya that made Maglor’s heart swell with a fondness long-forgotten, “by all I rights I ought to hate you, Fëanárion, and yet it is not often that I hear my father’s tongue spoken, especially not by a voice so lovely as yours.”

“Who was your father?” Makalaurë asked, dread coiling in his stomach. If this was another long-lost relative—

“Aranwë of Ondolindë,” said the nér, and a smile twitched at the corner of his lips. “I am Voronwë the mariner, once-friend of Tuor Ulmondil and Eärendil Morningstar.”

Voronwë—yes, he had heard that name before. A nér of Gondolin, a mariner, a friend to Eärendil and Tuor...and kinsman to Círdan, if he remembered correctly. Makalaurë shuddered, bowing his head.

“You were at Sirion,” he murmured. It was not a question.

“Not precisely,” Voronwë said. “Elwing, wife of my dear friend’s son, and her children—they were there. But I dwelt alone in a home not unlike this one, some miles away from the city, as I ever have since Tuor and Itarillë departed for the West.”

Makalaurë’s heart skipped a beat. “I—regret what was done,” he began, but Voronwë waved a hand.

“Come in,” he invited, walking past the protective enchantment around the perimeter of his little home and beckoning Makalaurë in. “That was an age long ago, and we have both suffered enough for our choices. I would speak with you, over supper, of those you called your sons—unlike Eärendil, I did not have the pleasure of seeing them grow to adulthood, and I would hear from you what they are like.”

Makalaurë took a deep breath, then nodded. Voronwë’s offer of conversation, of a meal, of companionship was more than he deserved—but he spoke truly, that he was not the same nér who pillaged Sirion and kidnapped little children. And Makalaurë could never turn down an opportunity to sing the praises of his sons, no matter how little right he had to call them that.

So he walked inside, let Voronwë lay a gentle hand on his shoulder, and let go of some small portion of his sorrow.

not even JRR Tolkien, who famously developed the concept of the Secondary World and firmly believed that no trace of the Real World should be evoked in the fictional world, was able to remove potatoes from his literature. this is a man who developed whole languages and mythologies for his literary world, who justified its existence in English as a translation* simply because he was so miffed he couldn't get away with making the story fully alien to the real world. and not even he, in extremis, was so cruel as to deny his characters the heavenly potato. could not even conceive a universe devoid of the potato. such is its impact. everyone please take a moment to say thank you to South Americans for developing and cultivating one of earth's finest vegetables. the potato IS all that. literally world-changing food. bless.

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.

silm fandom what's your wisdom?

One of the lawyers currently prosecuting Alex Jones got interviewed on knowledge fight. He talked about how he had to watch 150+ hours of Infowars content as background for the case.

He talked about how he had to take regular breaks because he could feel himself passively absorbing information against his will.

[ID: a black and white one-panel comic featuring a displeased Lobelia Sackville-Baggins in the foreground washing dishes in Bag End and Lotho Sackville-Baggins in the background moving a box. In the top left corner is written "Bag End, September 24, S. R. 1418" End ID] I love it!!! Thank you!!!

Here’s my @officialtolkiensecretsanta​ 2020 gift for @penelopes-poppies​! She wanted a character-motivation study so I was planning to write a fic but unfortunately I’m having a health problem that’s making it difficult to type comfortably for long stretches; however, she did also mention the idea of Lobelia and Lotho Sackville-Baggins rolling into Bag End after Frodo leaves for Buckland…and finding a ton of disorganization and dirty dishes to do! So here’s a little cartoon of that. (Lobelia is doing the dishes because Lotho is one of those guys who’s semi-deliberately inept at housework so mommy dearest will do it for him–poor Lobelia!)

Merry Christmas, @penelopes-poppies​!