#samarqqand

[theghostinthemargins]

For the book asks! 📔Which book character do you relate to the most, and why?

(bookish asks)

I thought about this one a little – there are lots of good answers! Ultimately I think I’ll go for Catherine Morland from Northanger Abbey – she’s just so SILLY and delightful and her biggest flaw is that she can’t tell the difference between books and reality which… yes that sounds like me. Honourable mention to my darling Anne Shirley as well 💕

[thelordofgifs]

💙 a ship that you like, but disliked at first!

(ship ask game)

My initial reaction to Finrod/Bëor was “sigh people really will just ship anything” and I was SO WRONG it is a gorgeous beautiful thematically resonant ship. Shoutout to @eilinelsghost and @actual-bill-potts for completely changing my mind on this with all their wonderful writing ❤️❤️

[quixoticanarchy]

camellia and aloe vera for the ask game!!

camellia ⇢ what were you like when you were younger? do you think you’ve changed a lot?

I was... a lot angrier, or maybe had more energy in general, which turned into anger. a lot more likely to go on rants about foreign policy to any unsuspecting friend or stranger. also unkinder to myself, I think

aloe vera ⇢ what’s something (mundane) you really want to experience in life?

At this point I'd just like to worry less about various health-related things - do whatever I liked without (health) consequences

[aquaregiaart]

Maedhros (the cat.)

[batshape]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤

thank you @samarqqand for the tag!! i spent the last two years finishing my masters, writing papers and proposals and a thesis etc, so i’ve been largely ficced out for a long time. but these five are my most darling works, and i will inevitably write more lesbian feanor/nerdanel, because i am addicted to dyke drama and they do it so well.

unfortunately, my two year break from writing fic also coincided with a very long sabbatical from reading fic, and i am desperate to catch up on the everybody’s greatest hits. tagging @i-am-a-lonely-visitor, @undercat-overdog, @crackinthecup, @aipilosse, and @potatoobsessed999 (but if you’ve already done it, feel free to do it again or to ignore)

now in no particular order (at least that i’ll admit), my top fic self-recs:

1. affectation: celebrimbor/annatar, t, 5k words, content warning for inevitable gore and torture mentions

Annatar knew the irritation in his own expression, could taste the disdain in his mouth. He said, rather plainly, “Celebrimbor of Eregion. I am going to eat you.”

i was taking a seminar on archive theory when i wrote this, and the idea of sauron curating an archive of things he took from celebrimbor’s rooms and personal library after his ruin of ost-in-edhil got its teeth into me. the archive building ended up mostly off-screen; instead annatar begrudgingly advises grad students, discovers archive anthrax, and is overall too familiar with his most tolerable colleague.

2. little tenderness: feanor/nerdanel, e, 4k

“Is it not exhausting to imagine abandonment around every darkened corner, wife of mine?”

feanor and nerdanel have t4t lesbian divorce sex following feanor’s exile to formenos. nothing is resolved, and arguably they both get worse. feanor’s missed character potential as a genderfucked lesbian with the same extremely large chips on her shoulder regarding primogeniture, her sons, and high kingship still regularly turns my own brain to soup.

3. letter 97: fingon/maedhros but also gen, t, 9k

“Still the question remains,” Maedhros continued tranquilly, “whether you were offended on my behalf or on yours, when you were accused of keeping a monster leashed for your own amusement.”

the elfschatology one! featuring my own wretched and reprehensible darling, an orc angband escapee doing a little bit of an anthropological study abroad. fingon visits maedhros in himring, wrestles with both his own and maedhros’ wartime uncertainties on what makes an elf, what makes an orc, and what an end to a war would even mean if they made if there. ‘so you want to understand your monstrous boyfriend’s lukewarm concern for his immortal soul,’ a generally unhelpful how-to

4. on gold, and the wearing of red: caranthir & maedhros, g, 4k

“My messengers wear gold in their mouths,” he said curtly, and his brother flashed him a brief smile. The gold of Maedhros’ own teeth shone in firelight.

caranthir’s pre-nirnaeth relationship with his eldest brother as demonstrated through the fashion trends he disapproves of, the ones he adopts himself, and the ones he actively enables. maedhros is more than a little monstrous and simultaneously very beloved by his men and his little brother both. in other words, the sharp teeth fic.

5. to my father’s house: caranthir & finrod, t, 17.5k (4 chapters), content warning for major character death and gore

“It is not a very long dream. There is a servant atop the stairs with a carafe, and one of your brothers is giving a toast, though in the middle of it the servant drops the carafe and—” He gestures vaguely. “—wine, all down the stairs.”

caranthir and his damnably likeable arafinwean cousin, until both their deaths. in which caranthir is also cursed with perhaps the most useless gift of foresight in first age history, and dreams since childhood of the various ways in which he could, would, and ultimately does die. relatedly, there is something so special to me about a man who does fiber arts and is also unfalteringly miserable.

you can find the rest of my fic at ao3 under batshape.

[alnilamen]

“My eyes have never shut to you. Do you hear me, Nelyo?”

He presses his palm against Maedhros’ breast to place the dear heartbeat, but he feels only the wind scything through Maedhros’ ribcage.

“Can you hear me, Nelyo?”

inspired by @samarqqand's anabasis 💞💗

[lindonwald]

mags for @samarqqand! thank you for your kofi tip T–T

[samarqqand]

Hello samarqqand, I love your Maedhros and Maglor fanfictions, I always reread them, I wonder if at some point you will write something about them again, your writing is beautiful and conveys what one feels, I also read one you wrote about Maglor and celegorm, I liked it a lot, there are times when it made me laugh celegorm, greetings.

wow, hello hello!! this is such a pleasant surprise of a message -- thank you so much for reading my fics and for this superbly-kind feedback :] <3 i'm so glad to know they resonated with you-!!

i have one very long Maedhros/Maglor wip, Amon Ereb and Kidnap Dads era -- as is typical of me, it stalled after i wrote myself into a corner and i've been kind of helplessly poking at it ever since, BUT there's more than enough written that i'm delighted to share a hefty snippet -- hopefully gives some idea of what Maedhros and Maglor are up to!! no warnings, except... blood. and blood... licking? tasting. (please excuse any errors in the snippet; it's a draft!!)

thank you very much again-!

*

“No,” Maglor murmurs, the sight of Maedhros donning a wolf fur mantle. Beyond him, the Star, there: past its perihelion it sails on a journey beyond, aloof to the two sons of Feanor. “No, it will not do. A hooded cloak for these climes, I say.”

“My eyes need no veiling,” Maedhros says.

Maglor curves a long, assessing look his way as Maedhros takes his rucksack. He looks beyond Maedhros’ starless eyes: obstinate. “I would remind you,” he clarifies as loftily as any erstwhile High King at Hithlum, “you are no icy tor.” 

He takes his long fingers to the mink at Maedhros’ collar to fluff up what he can. “Could a measure of warmth be so ruinous to you?” Maglor meddles: old, bad habit. Maedhros his bad habit.

“You haven’t recovered from exposure.”

Before Maglor can ask, his head turning hither-thither as if he might find an answer just beyond, show him, show him, Maedhros lifts his chin toward the stooped fortress town beyond the forbidding briarwood. Eyes naturalized to Beleriand’s bosky chaos, he assesses the ferns and woody roots flinging themselves into a silent fervor. It is too wild here for even the dead to lie in wait. “This way.”

Maedhros could sink himself into every grumbling corner, a simmer of potential energy waiting to surge, if not for Maglor’s hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, recognizing the instinct in Maedhros.

“Oh, but I do,” Maglor contends, swinging his rucksack over his shoulder and wending around the witch-hazel. “And it has compelled me afield, to attend to the honey yet untasted upon the lonely larder shelves; further, to reward our Elrond and Elros for their patience with our monotonous menu of lentils and warg. Lentils and warg. Lentils,” he sighs, "and warg."

“Selfless saint,” Maedhros mutters.

Maglor wants to be close to him. There is no other thing living in Beleriand to want this.

There is no other living thing closer to him than Maglor is now, a veiled smile and his eyes clear, still claiming Light.

Only a fool loves a knife.

Maglor looks. He tilts his head, marking the immethodical snarl of skin flayed and healed, a torn ear nearly looking Secondborn, and the adulterated raptor-yellow coloring his stare when the meager light angles against his irises just so — , the shrug of pauldroned shoulder down to unyielding hand upon the sword pommel. Maedhros in parts.

To live, Maedhros had left some things behind.

But Maglor regards him with whole attention, the same he’d reserve for a tapestry: a story the storyteller would know by heart. 

“Not there,” Maedhros grunts, abruptly. Maglor’s veiled smile dimples his cheeks even as he plays along, a cant of interested eyebrows. “Here.” Maedhros nods toward a trail through the witch hazel and bramble, walked by generations of deer into existence.

“No caltrops to be found,” Maglor supplies.

“Set your watch here.” Maglor parts his lips to protest, though his gaze is perilously soft. “I’ll find them.”

But Maglor ladders himself gingerly into the razorwire foliage. “We muddle through the thorns together,” he announces, the scion of the proud suffering effortless in his role. “I have borne my share of scrapes, Nelyo.”

Better than that, brother: Maglor has borne all his lashes beautifully.

Maedhros joins him in the thick.

Under Maedhros’ hand, an icy splash of lichen laces a stone before abruptly the blue-white erupts with a sunset-orange hue. There is iron in the soil. 

Maedhros halts: aware.

If he were to bore straight on into the wooded depths, hand shoveling past the leafy protests and boots squealing beyond the mud’s warning, the vines might well keep a mind of their own, of their master’s. They might well snap awake. They might ensnare an ankle. Hissing arsenic-green ropes rearing up only to drag him back down to the underworld. 

The rusted metal doors in the earth which he may well have only just escaped might be open and gulping already. 

Drop his broken parts down, down to his darklong origin. 

Welcome back to a prodigal thrall.

– But for Maglor’s scent again. A tap at his shoulder. 

Maglor, the only thing in this world wanting to touch him, is crouched and slotted close to Maedhros at the end of the tree tunnel. Just another step, and they’ll be out. He’ll be out.

With a fond and regretful reach, Maglor plucks a thorn from the palm of Maedhros’ hand, and watches where the skin has broken. A question shadows Maglor’s starry gaze and does not lift.

“It is still red,” Maedhros says. He means to jest. He means to reassure. To be rueful. To wonder for how much longer. 

He does not know what he means by it.

He can smell his own blood, and hear Maglor’s heart, in all its selfless heat.

Maglor guides Maedhros’ palm against his surcoat to wick away the fresh bloom of blood.

Insinuation of ribs caging all Maglor’s soft insides; plane of torso. 

And when Maglor sees the bleeding won’t stop, he brings Maedhros’ palm to his mouth, his lips lavishing comfort on skin. 

Plush of lower lip skims flesh – and then presses flush, as if to accept the edge of a cup. A soft ripple.

Maedhros’ palm feels.

– And then his palm returns to his blade’s pommel.

And Maglor turns away in a show of modesty, letting the arrival of deer on the path interrupt him from what he might do if they were given time.

But not before his tongue has darted out, daring to taste Maedhros at his lips.

[ruiniel]

Hi there!

I'm a newbie in the tolkien works, I've finished off the hobbit and the lotr books but have no idea where to go next. I've looked at different websites about it but I haven't gotten any clear answers. There's like a million of these books and I feel so lost!

I figured that as a long time fan that you'd know the answers to this question if it's not too much of a bother.

Thanks in advance no pressure!

Augh, anon! This is one of the best things to ask of someone with a lifelong interest in this universe.

I WILL get back to you on this, but.

Was thinking (midnight brain) could we make it a group effort? It feels as though seeing different perspectives from other people in the fandom would be of help here, and since I do want this covered I'm calling on mutuals and followers in the Tolkien fandom.

Please if you deem, I do encourage people to add to this.

Let me try tagging (there are legit so many of us): @arofili @actual-bill-potts @eveningalchemist @goschatewabn @cuarthol @melestasflight @thelordofgifs @outofangband @thegreatstrongbow @potatoobsessed999 @hennethgalad @jamcake-muses @i-did-not-mean-to @glorf1ndel @z-h-i-e @verecunda @naryaflame @mirkwood-hr-department @saurons-pr-department @welcomingdisaster @hirazuki @nuredhel @effervescentdragon @searchingforserendipity25 @cilil @hhimring @chrissystriped @yuzukimist @edensrose @awesome-bluehair-universe @swanmaids @herinke @celebbun @auntieaugury @auroramama @puelhathnofury @kiatheinsomniac @eilinelsghost @asianbutnotjapanese @i-gwarth @batsyforyou @aprilertuileviresse @fishing4stars @elamarth-calmagol @zeladanial @silmarillionwritersguild @silmarillionno @solmarillion @samarqqand @sallysavestheday+ anyone else and ALL the Tolkien visual artists who see this and I forgot to mention (love you all, so many) if you have the inclination to add your journey/experience/recommendations? Anything, we have a good topic here.

[nailsinmywall]

My new petit pocket-sized zine about the sons of feanor (includes this comic) will be available to purchase at the CP30 con in China later this year (if all goes well)! With beautiful words by the Best @samarqqand and @skyeventide !

I'm thinking about distributing a few copies in the rest of the world after if there is enough interest ❤️ Let me know!

[searchingforserendipity25]

Last 10 Lines & Writing Patterns

Thank you @starsuncounted, @eilinelsghost and @meadowlarkx for tagging me!

Third-Born: I will lead not my people into ruin assured, Arafinwë spat.

Whispered Tales: Beren could not help it - he flinched.

Trials By Fire: It had seemed an excellent idea, at the time; and if that was not excuse enough, Makalaurë would invent a better one soon enough.

Music, Too, That Sweet Madness: "There art thou, dear heart."

Where now she wanders none can tell: Mithrellas does not look back.

Beleriand Is Dead: A cold midnight over Hithlum, rain-damp and full of shivering, would have been sweeter than a dozen mild evenings under the stars of Amanyar.

Champion of the Sun: Times happened when Aredhel escaped the confines of Eöl's dominion, moving through the briars and the moss-faced oaks, long enough to find a slant in the high canopy.

The King's Son: "Envy is unbecoming."

The Second Self: Outside the Timeless Halls, and Eru's all-present care, they made for themselves new shapes and forms, as suited their purpose.

pilgrimage for the remaining: It was a very solemn evening, a night of drums and voices raised in thrumming rhythms.

I think at this point I can admit a certain fondness for media rest dialogue or short first lines. I am very fond of reading beginnings that carry a specific tone and stick with it, and it's something that is so much fun to try to achieve too. But the weakness for longer sentences peeks through. These always feel like more of a gamble, since I'm never sure if they work as hooks with the same efficiency, but I love how a semicolon can serve to create a bit of a two-step rhythm for scene-setting too much to abdicate them.

Tagging: @swanmaids, @melestasflight, @hobbitwrangler, @i-am-a-lonely-visitor, @samarqqand and whoever wants to participate!

[undoplease]

I've genuinely never faced the challenge of drawing the other eye before—this is the first time. I think it's because of the color palette, but either way I just gave up.

anyways i think this was an ask from @samarqqand!

[thelordofgifs]

'song' for the wip words?

(send me a word and if it's in my WIP I'll answer with the sentence containing it)

I couldn't find "song" in the WIP I'm working on today (my TRSB fic) but here's one from Ilimbe, another WIP I'm hoping to finish soon:

"There came a day of festival — in those days, before Oromë found us, we worshipped the stars above all, and all our songs were for love of them."

[melestasflight]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤

tagged by the lovely @grey-gazania Cheating with six, because so did you, friend, you started a howl! :))

Red 3k, G The world is aging, and Fingon entreats for Maedhros in the Halls of Mandos. It is simpler than he believed, but somehow it makes nothing easier.

What Lies Beyond the End 600, G Maglor casts his Silmaril into the Sea.

Voices That Were Once Ours 4.8k, M Finrod meets the host of Fëanor in the new lands. They are not the Elves he remembers from Valinor and Maglor, least of all. Reconciliation is a long road for them both until a Song brings them together, and they find each other again.

sown as seed in the dark 800, G Ard-galen witnesses Fingolfin's final stand.

Stay, Forever 1,3k, G The first snow brings bittersweet memories for Elrond. Through remembrance and song, he reveals a feeling that has been budding in his heart for a long time.

Monster 2,8k, T The Noldor come together in battle at the Dagor Aglareb, and Fingon must face his past and his feelings for Maedhros. Would love to know your personal favorites if you'd like to share @welcomingdisaster @searchingforserendipity25 @last-capy-hupping @danmeiljie @maglors-anion-gap @samarqqand

[aquaregiaart]

Maglor (+ closeup of alternate version,) a gift for dear @samarqqand.

[vidumavi]

Many Sentences Sunday!

thank you @searchingforserendipity25 and @grey-gazania for the tags! From my second age Nimloth & Kids reembodiment fic, the beginning of an excruciating social interaction:

_______________

The twins had found other children to play with on the beach and Nimloth, though letting them out of her sight for long still made anxiety coil tightly in her stomach, thought it best to leave them to it - new people would be good for them after their long isolation. They hadn’t gotten to play with children their age at all since they’d returned.

They were safe here. It would be fine. The sooner she accepted that she could not always hover over them, the better. Nimloth ran her errands, pointedly unhurried, forcing herself to stop and chat every now and then.

The palace of Alqualondë loomed over the docks, blindingly white in the midday sun, a jagged cloud against the azure sky. Nimloth thought that she quite preferred it out here, amid the amiable chaos of market stalls and fishing boats.

After some hours, her steps led her back along the road toward the beach. She was so occupied with keeping her pace measured that she did not take particular notice of the woman walking in the opposite direction until Eluréd and Elurín stuck their heads out of the cart she was pushing.

“Emmë!” Eluréd called and waved when he saw his mother.

The ground tilted beneath her feet. The woman’s face at once split into a cheerful and open smile as she turned toward Nimloth and lay torn and bleeding on the polished floor of Menegroth’s great hall, eyes unseeing. No, not this woman’s face, only one very like it, she told herself sharply and bit her cheek hard enough to return fully to the present, clenching her shaking fingers in the fabric of her bag.

“Children,” Nimloth said, and prayed that her voice did not sound as strained to them as it did to her, “I told you to wait by the beach.”

“We were coming to meet you!” Elurín clambered over the side of the cart.

“Do forgive me,” the woman said wryly, “Your sons have been quite the help and we thought we’d spare you another walk.”

“Of course, no problem at all,” Nimloth replied weakly.

The woman was dressed in well-worn, practical working clothes, her reddish hair was cut unfashionably short and she appeared to be pushing a number of rocks of uncertain purpose in her cart. Does she know? Nimloth thought wildly. But there was nothing in the woman’s easy cheer that spoke of recognition.

She’d been collecting rocks, she told Nimloth, who could hardly hear her over the sound of her own frantic heartbeat. Eluréd was still sitting in the cart.

Then, with a bow, she introduced herself as Nerdanel. I know, Nimloth wanted to say. The words stuck in her throat. Instead, she stumbled her way through her own introduction, giving the same false name she’d handed out all day, glad she did not need to hesitate. Memories she kept carefully detained throughout her waking hours pressed in on her mind.

“These two have quite the eye for colour,” Nerdanel said appreciatively as they began walking back toward the harbour.

“They’re rather neat, too,” Nimloth heard herself say, “I’ve rarely met children so neat.” I killed your son. He looked just like you.

Nerdanel laughed.

“I envy you! Our house was always a mess.”

“Don’t, my daughter is much worse,” Nimloth looked at the twins, away from Nerdanel’s bright, too-familiar eyes that told her to grab her children and run, “She’s a woman grown now, and I find myself sorting her kitchenware.”

_________________

This has been passed around so often now and everyone's been repeatedly tagged, but just in case someone wants to go another round i'm no-pressure tagging @theworldisquietheretooquiet, @samarqqand, @that-angry-noldo, @outofangband, @swanmaids and @polutrope!