#ofahattersmind

[ofahattersmind]

Baby hatter is here, and he looks awfully familiar 🤔 the right is my newborn photo 👀

[i-am-pinkie]

@ofahattersmind you are brilliant! That is so absolutely true and right!

andrew garfield saying, “i hope this grief stays with me because it’s all the unexpressed love that i didn’t get to tell her” about his mothers passing is so gut wrenchingly beautiful because we rarely talk about the love we want to express but can’t, not because you’re not brave enough to say it out loud but because they’re not here to listen to it anymore. calling grief the love you never had the chance to share makes it less of a burden and more of something you want to keep and not something terrible you want to move on from. i love love how everything about grief always comes down to “what is grief if not love persevering?”

[gatheringfiki]

The following artwork was created by @ofahattersmind​  in 2019.

[dragonquill]

Durin’s Day: Boxing Day Edition??

Here is my fic for Durin’s Day!  It was inspired by the amazing @ofahattersmind, who was 100% more patient than I deserve with my writing issues this month. 

See the lovely art here!

Happy Durin’s Day ah....delayed!

----

Fili is five the first time it happens. 

It begins with a sense of warmth and contentment that almost makes sense - he’s by the fire with his parents, and happy enough - but the warmth is stifling and the contentment brief.  But what follows - a sense of searing brightness, fear, indignation, is so clearly foreign that he bursts into tears, burying his face in his father’s chest and shaking with the power of it.  

He tries to explain, but he’s only a child, five years old and precocious but with no point of reference for what’s just happened to him.  It passes in minutes, and his sobs give way to little gasps for breaths and the occasional hiccup as his father rubs his back and kisses his hair and worries over him.

His mother has her suspicions, but keeps them to herself.

Keep reading or Read on Ao3!

----

For Kili, there is no “first time.”  From the day he’s born, he seems oddly mercurial, his mood shifting suddenly from time to time.  He’s a cheerful, loving child, outgoing and friendly nearly to a fault (“We don’t talk to strangers,” he recites after his mother, but once someone says hello, they’re not a stranger anymore!).  But there are times when he goes quiet and thoughtful, watching the world instead of forcing himself on it.  He likes those times, he says.  He feels peaceful.  Like he’s not alone.  

“That’s our Kili,” his mother says fondly, watching him go from spinning in hyperactive circles to curling up happily on the couch, watching the crackling fire. 

----

Kili hears words first.  Perhaps it should frighten him, but it doesn’t.  It feels like his quiet times, and the voice in his head isn’t saying anything scary.  It’s a little boy voice, like his, and it’s studiously practicing multiplication tables.  Kili’s years from learning them, though when the day comes he’ll already know them and won’t quite be able to explain how. 

In the stories about soul bonds, the first communication is usually dramatic and meaningful, the beginning of something otherworldly.

For Kili, it makes his nines tables a sinch five years later.

----

Fili’s parents die when he’s twelve.  His uncle takes him in, serious Thorin with his Durin-blue eyes and limited understanding of how children work.  He is the one who tells Fili about soulbonds, how rare they are, how their minds meet across the entire world.  He suspects Fili has one.

“And if you do,” he says, as gently as he knows how, “they’ll be feeling all the pain you’re feeling, and might be very scared by it.”

Maybe it’s a dirty trick, using a boy’s empathy for others to dry his tears and toughen up, but it appears to work.  Fili stops crying so much, starts getting out of bed and living life.

But what Kili feels, far away, isn’t the facade but the real thing.

His parents worry and fuss and arrange for therapy as he cries himself to sleep, night after night.

-----

Fili is rather secretive by nature.  He doesn’t want to bother anyone into worrying about him, and by the time he’s fourteen, he certainly knows they’d worry if they knew he talks to himself in his head all the time. The fact that the voice is different from his own only makes it more disturbing.  

I hate living with Thorin he’ll sulk, because Thorin is trying but he isn’t Fili’s parents. And his own mind answers Yeah he seems like a and a stuttering pause before dick that makes Fili laugh.  

And then he’ll find himself defending Thorin, who isn’t so bad, and the voice makes up a silly song about Thorin’s tendency to talk like it’s 1854 until Fili is sprawled in bed grinning to himself over how clever the voice in his head is, and why can’t he be that clever in real life?

----

Kili is an open book, and he forgets not to just talk back to the voice in his head.  It’s cute when he’s a little boy with his invisible friend, but the older he gets the more concerned the adults in his life get.  

He doesn’t know about the quiet meetings among counselors, teachers, and his parents.  He doesn’t really understand the new doctor who tries to convince him the voice isn’t real.  

He doesn’t like the summer he has to leave home and go stay in a hospital for two weeks during his vacation.  He’s furious, and lonely, and everyone is telling him to lie about the friend in his mind, but he’s not a good liar by nature.

I’ll know the truth his brain-friend says.  We’ll know.  Just tell them you don’t and then tell me you do.  It’ll make them happy.

Kili is reluctant, but he does as he’s told.

He still slips up sometimes,and he sees the worry in his parents’ eyes and laughs it off.  He’s a class clown, right?  He can get rid of these things.

Only his friend knows he hates it, hates the lies, curls up in his covers and sniffles some nights, feeling like a bad person.  

For a while, his friend promises to go away, and leave him alone. But that is so much worse, because it’s quiet in his head and he’s all alone and. “Is this what people want me feel?” he asks the dark, arms wrapped around a well-worn blush manatee he’s too old for as well (keeps it under the bed so his parents won’t take it away, as his friend suggested).  “It’s awful.”

And he tells his friend just how awful it is, until he comes back.

---

It’s sensible enough to name his inner voice Kili, Fili figures.  As good as anything else.  It is just an aspect of himself.  A..creative one.  Who tells stories about a life different from him.  Who lives out some of Fili’s fears (is he not quite sane?? Is his inner voice too much??  Don’t writers and such have this??  It’s fine, it’s fine).  Who is warm and funny and optimistic in a way Fili isn’t, but wants to be.  

Just a way of thinking things through.  It’s fine if he gives it a name.

He hopes.

----

His friend’s name is Fili, and Kili loves how they match. It’s like destiny in his favorite tv show!  They’re meant to be the best of friends!  The show is all about a legend about soulmates being bound from birth, and talking to each other, and finding each other and--

---

Fili visits the library, and researches, and wonders.

---

It happens on a lovely fall day in Fili’s home town. Fili is working on his post graduate degree in business administration - not the most interesting, but it’ll help out his uncle’s business, and that’s a guaranteed job that will pay enough that he can hone his own hobbies and interests on his off time. He’s still sensible, but that doesn’t mean he can’t turn some of that practicality to funding his personal interest in writing and travel. 

He’s also working at the business’s central office, actual pay instead of an internship, so he’s stayed close to home.  He’s saving money for a trip down south, for warm weather and sprawling beaches that remind him of stories he’s heard.  Or.  Made up.  Via Kili.

Fili tosses hair back over his shoulder, adjusts his coat, and walks into his favorite park.  The trees here were selected to look as colorful as possible in autumn, and he loves it.  Best time of year, hands down.

-----

Unlike Fili, Kili traveled for university.  He’s on the archery and lacrosse teams, with actual scholarships, and he’s studying English, which is mostly so he can go on into a proper specialty in myths and folktales.  He secretly believes he is a folk tale, despite the counseling and medications to convince him otherwise.  He loves the city, filled with carefully maintained parks and currently a chaos of fall colors.  It’s too hot back home for anything like this-

He sees someone out of the corner of his eye, and turns his head with practiced nonchalance for a better look.  Kili is a man who appreciates the human form.  Oh ho, he thinks, he’s hot.

And he is, all long golden hair and neat beard and fur lined leather jacket.  He’s shorter than Kili, but more solid.  He looks delicious, in the best way.

Stop creeping people out, says Fili in his head, and Kili laughs.

The man stops, frowning a little.”Odd,” he says aloud in a soft tenor voice that makes Kili’s heart thump.

He gives his head a little shake before looking around.  Blue eyes- so blue Kili can make them out from a fair distance - flicker in Kili’s direction.  He doesn’t seem to have a bit of Kili’s secret shyness.  He smiles, slow and inviting.

Never mind, I’ve found a pretty one, too, Fili says in Kili’s mind.

Kili nearly chokes on his own spit.  

The blond man turns and walks closer, more than a hint of swagger in his steps. 

“Hey,” he says smoothly.

-----

Kili feels his jaw drop.  His heart is racing.  He can hear it in his ears.  He bungee jumped once, Fili refusing to have anything to do with it.  It felt like this, like ziplines and roller coasters that flip you upside down.

He clicks his jaw shut.  

“Ah...hey,” he says back, intelligently.

---

Fili feels a flash of concern, and steps closer.  “You okay?”  He puts his hands up.  “Promise I’m not a serial killer after tourists.  I’m honestly just flirting.”

---

“I’m not a tourist!”  It’s not what Kili means to say, because he knows, in his bones, who this guy is.  He wonders why he never really thought about what Fili must look like.  He’d have thought taller, but everything else…

Yum.

“I’ve been here a year!”

----

“Oh, pardon.”  Fili grins and bows like an old-fashioned gentleman.  “Practically a local, then.  Does that mean you’re familiar with the Ri Family Teashop?”

Fili is forward, but not usually this forward.  But somehow, he wants to know this person.

Or already knows him.

Something.

----

Kili starts to grin.  “Are you asking me to tea?” he asks, because oh, good, Fili knows him too.

“Hmm.  I don’t know.  My mother said never to have tea with strangers.”  Fili holds a hand.  “Fili Durin, local peacekeeper and not an axe murderer, and you are?”

----

The cutie is staring at him, and the stare is starting to look singularly unimpressed.  “You know who I am, Fili.”

“Ah, afraid not,” Fili answers, but there’s a tug in his belly like he’s lying to his uncle Thorin about why he was out so late as a teenager.  “But I very much hope to.”

The definitely a nine sighs and puts his hands on his hips.  “I honestly thought you were smarter than this.  But you can’t be completely perfect, I guess.”  But he’s smiling, fit to battle the sun, and Fili can’t even work up a sense fo indignation.  “It’s me, Fili.  It’s Kili.”

-----

Fili will deny it until they are old and grey, and Kili will just keep telling the truth anyway.

Fili’s eyes roll back in his head, and he stumbles, and Kili grabs Fili in his strong arms like the hero he is.  It’s not fair to say Fili passes out, maybe fades a bit would be more accurate.

Either way, he regrets it forever because it makes him the damsel who wakens (blinks and sees better, because he wasn’t unconscious or anything that dramatic, correct?) in the arms of a stranger who is no stranger at all.  And dammit, Kili even kisses him awake.

(It’s soft and chaste and sweet and Kili, a press of lips just like his voice, beloved and real and everything Fili ever wanted to be real.)

“Hi,” Kili says again, grinning down at him.  “Welcome back.”

Fili will argue later that he didn’t go anywhere and he would have been fine and etc. etc, but for now, he reaches up from his awkward arching slouch in Kili’s arms and brushes hair from those playful hazel eyes, and tugs him down for their second kiss.

----

Nice!, they think, and the kiss turns into laughter.

[rillils]

💖💞This is the Love SLAP Raid Chain, send this to all of your favorite blogs that you think deserve to hear these encouraging words. In return we ask that those blogs send it to their favorite blogs as well. It's December, everybody deserves to hear a few words of encouragement no matter if you're a small or big account. So let's all fill your dash with positivity these last few weeks of 2020. You are amazing. You matter. You are loved. You deserve to have an amazing month💞💖

dfjkgjdkfgh thank you so much, honey x3

[xxsparksxx]

ofahattersmind replied to your post: .

I know what you mean. I feel the same way about artwork. I try to be optimistic thinking maybe they’ve added it to their queue or their drafts, but you’re right. It’s hard to keep that desire to make more when it’s not being shared.

Yeah, exactly. I do wonder if it’s a trend in how people are using tumblr - liking rather than reblogging. I’ve talked before about how, as a content creator, what you’re after is as wide an audience as possible, and that only happens when people reblog. It’s just...definitely getting worse and worse. I compare a year or two ago to now, and it’s just utterly disheartening.

[ladycavil]

5 Facts Challenge

The beautiful and marvelous @itsreallylaterightnow slapped me with the five-facts-challenge gauntlet, so here we go.

1. This is all @ofahattersmind 's fault, but I don't know if I ever properly blamed her for it. I've been writing for 16ish years now, and it wasn't until she encouraged me to post my one and only Jane and the Dragon fic that I started putting my work out there. I'm still not that confident, but the only reason I'm out here posting fics is because of her. I have grown so much because of her and the wonderful people I've encountered on the internet. So thanks, Ruth.

2. I have 5 siblings. One is a half-sibling, but I can’t really say I have 4 1/2 siblings, can I? It just sounds weird. 

3. On the topic of 5s, I have 5 cats. They are Athena (4-year-old female), Merlin (4-year-old male), Ash (4-year-old female), Monet (8-year-old male), and Tiernan (1.5-year-old female). I joke that I really have 6 because my mom’s cat (the majestic 4-year-old female Anna Sophia) sleeps in my room and I scoop all of the poop, so she might as well be mine.

4. I love coffee. My first job was as a barista at a local coffee place. It made my soul happy. Side note: that job was magical fuel for my fanfic writing. Maybe it was all the wonderful coffee goodness in the air. Maybe it wasn’t. I wrote a crap ton of Hide and Seek and a few of my other Musketeers stories while working there.

5. I love history. I get overly excited about it. One of my go-to Netflix shows is “Secrets of Great British Castles” hosted/narrated by Dan Jones. It’s excellent if you’re into history, castles, and whatnot. 

Coming up with 5 facts about myself should not be as hard as it was. I tag @ofahattersmind , @snowglory , @mistergandalf , and @iheardyoubrokeawindow

[averil-of-fairlea]

Hi! I was wondering what your header image is of 😊

Hi @oneweirdbean ! First of all, sorry for taking FOREVER to answer!! Second, the header is beautiful art I commissioned from my dear friend @ofahattersmind (Ruth Cavil) called “Thorin’s Family,” based on my head/heart canon that Thorin survived the Battle of Five Armies, married (Averil of Fairlea, of course) and had a lil army of his own 😊

[ofahattersmind]

We are so close to meeting our little buddy! Only 8 more weeks (fingers crossed 😅)

[gatheringfiki]

The following artwork was created by @ofahattersmind .

[averil-of-fairlea]

He was the inspiration for one of Thorin’s sons in a fanart commission completed for me by the talented @ofahattersmind (bottom, second from left). Rest In Peace.

Gaspard Ulliel

1984-2022 💔

Such a tragedy and devastating news, one of the best French actors of his generation 🤍

One of his posthumous roles will be in Moon Knight with Oscar Isaac 😔

[xxsparksxx]

baronmpontmercy replied to your post: ofahattersmind replied to your post: ...

as an artist myself, I feel this very deeply.

Right? And I mean, ‘all’ I’m doing is messing around having fun on photoshop, but even so. It’s time and effort still.

Everybody’s all about the gifset now. Which is fine. But like I said, if you like something enough to hit ‘like’, ‘reblog’ isn’t that much more effort :S

[rillils]

I was tagged by @goldenlionprince :3 Thank you, Lina! <3

Rules: tag nine mutuals you want to get to know better!

@aiidanturner @damnitfili @vickysnest @nelioe @czpla @littleravenkili @ofahattersmind 

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: very much taken, and by the most beautiful girl in the world at that, the precious light of my life <3

FAVOURITE COLOUR: blue, pretty much every shade of it, and greens and pinks too

LIPSTICK OR CHAPSTICK?: chapstick, I guess - it’s what I usually wear, anyway (also, I like to try and guess what fruity chapstick flavour Nat’s wearing by stealing extremely stealthy smooches) (haven’t guessed a single one right so far)

LAST SONG I LISTENED TO: That’s what I like by Bruno Mars

LAST MOVIE I WATCHED: “Amore a prima vista” (lit. “Love at first sight”), a favourite from my childhood - womanizer mob boss wakes up after eye surgery to find himself desperately in love with a male cop. Have I just always been into gay stuff or is it just my imagination

TOP THREE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS: Kili, Fili, Victor friggin’ Nikiforov, John Mitchell, and my 100% angsty son Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch and what do you mean they’re more than three, I don’t understand

TOP THREE SHIPS: Fili/Kili, Baz/Simon, Victor/Yuuri (why am I supposed to list only three hkjhfghl I’ve got so many babiessss *intense flailing*)

BOOKS I’M CURRENTLY READING:

“Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda” by Becky Albertalli - OMG GUYS YOU GOTTA READ THIS, IT’S SO FREAKING GOOD I JSUT !!!! KDFJH

“The Four Swans” - aka the sixth book in the Poldark series, and I’m reading like one chapter per month because. Well. Obvious pain?? I’m not entirely sure I’ll manage to finish this one tbh *twirls self into oblivion*

“That certain something” by Clare Ashton - so gay and cute and omg just give me all the girls feels *screeches softly*

“Reaper Man” by Terry Pratchett - haven’t really started this one yet, but it’s next in line right after “Simon...” and I can’t wait :3

and then I’m probably gonna reread Carry On for the 10928394867th time because I just can’t with these gay babies, okay, I am WEAK

[circuschickadee]

@queenmabscherzo tagged me in a thing! ...That I didn’t do for like a month, as per usual. Sorry Mab!

I’m tagging @oddly-ducky, @ofahattersmind, and @kivrinengle, if you guys feel like doing the thing as well.

Also, lemmy tell ya how much effort went in to writing this neatly and not having it be filled with dyslexic scribbles and cross-outs...

[ladycavil]

@ofahattersmind I'm calling you out! 🤣

at any given moment I am probably thinking about Oded Fehr in The Mummy movies

[ofahattersmind]

If you love the Odyssey and musicals, you'll love this! The GOOSEBUMPS 🤩 go to TikTok and give my sister some love 😊