#sprinkled with fëanor i guess

[shiroandblack]

I actually really wonder how Fingolfin and Anairë got together. Because we get details about Fëanor and Nerdanel, and to me it's a little easier to imagine how Finarfin and Eärwen met.

But Fingolfin and Anairë was just a blind spot for me and I didn't really come up with anything until now.

So basically my headcanon now is that they were competitive debate rivals.

It all starts one day during the finals of a debating competition (because looking at the Noldor, debating seems like something they would enjoy. Also, picking on people's arguments and tearing it down like their hopes and dreams is a craft in itself). I think Fingolfin would prefer being the Opposition, because while his actions are motivated by his own ambition a lot of his actions are also reactions to Fëanor's actions. Opposition of course, have their own arguments to bring it but they also rebuke the Government's arguments (the Government being the team who is arguing for whatever motion is presented).

So Fingolfin feels like he's doing great, he's the first speaker of the Opposition (whereas Anairë is the second speaker of the Government) and he is absolutely ready to tear apart her partner's arguments. So he does what he's good at, destroying people's opinions of something into itty bitty pieces and razing his opponent's confidence until it is just ashes (like Fëanor's corpse when he died).

That is until it's Anairë's turn to speak. And Anairë basically drags his argument through the mud. She destroys the philosophy behind his argument, completely dismissing his stance, and moreover she proves to the jury that Fingolfin's burden of proof is basically 0.

And Fingolfin is just seething. But because he's the king of restraint, he sits there with an amicable expression and hopes that one of Fëanor's inventions will malfunction and blow up in Anairë's face somehow.

He embarrassingly, gets second place.

And it is a fucking embarrassment because Fëanor airs out his loss during the family dinner that week and Fingolfin becomes ever determined to crush Anairë so badly she can never rise from the ashes of her defeat.

So Fingolfin is practicing so hard, he's going through different kinds of motions, different ways to frame his argument better, and ways to ensure his arguments are without any exploitable loopholes.

Enter Fëanor, who is like "I am going to help you because you embarrassed us as a family, the House of Finwë does not ever get second place". Basically, he's trying to help his brother because Nerdanel put him up to it (but she didn't even need to push hard at all) and because he also genuinely believes that whatever mongrel Indis is, his father is the superior creature and Fingolfin being Finwë's son means that he is an extension of that superior creature and must act accordingly.

So Fingolfin and Fëanor plot and practice. Fingolfin actually has a really good time, and Fëanor does too but he'd rather die than admit it.

So the day comes, and Fingolfin's feeling confident.

Only to lose once again.

This time it's Fëanor who's fucking livid, and he tells Fingolfin that during the next competition he will be Fingolfin's partner because obviously Fingolfin's teammate is shit if despite everything Fingolfin couldn't beat Anairë.

So again, the two boys practice. While their practicing, Fëanor decides to do a little background check on Anairë via his friends at Mahtan because she shouldn't be that good. She must be doing some kind of sorcery.

But nope. Anairë comes from a pretty well-off family, she's not common born like Nerdanel but she's also not high nobility. She's somewhere in the middle, with her family being of high enough social status to have access to private galas and balls but not high enough to meet Finwë on the regular. Oh, and her father made a fortune from breeding sheep. In fact, Míriel used to source the raw materials for her yarn from Anairë's family and that Anairë has a pet rabbit called Ball-Snow.

Fingolfin doesn't want to know how Fëanor found out about all that. It's pretty creepy honestly, but he does say yes to finding out how Anairë builds up her cases. And during this time, he starts noticing details about Anairë. Like how her dark hair shines silver under Telperion and how she has dimples when she smiles.

One day the two brothers basically stalk Anairë at the library, and act like fantastic creeps in general. These two are not subtle at all, so Anairë catches them quite early on. Turns out she's with a friend, who is to be her partner for the next competition. Eärwen of Alqualondë. Naturally, Fingolfin and Fëanor can't continue to be creeps around a princess because that would be a diplomatic crisis.

So their stalking amounts to nothing.

Come the debate competition. Fingolfin and Fëanor actually win. Fëanor is pleased, so whatever truce between the two is now broken.

Fingolfin is high on victory when he overhears Anairë talking to Eärwen, and she basically says that she lost on purpose because she could see how it was driving Fingolfin crazy to keep losing and she felt bad. So it was basically condescending pity.

Fingolfin bursts into the conversation. Eärwen, sensing this is gonna be a shitty argument sees Finarfin and is like "Let's climb over a wall" and Finarfin, because his longtime crush is talking to him is like "Sure!".

They argue. For a very long time. Fingolfin says shit like "I don't need your pity" and how he could take Anairë any day, any time. Anairë is like "yeah, you do" because Fingolfin has basically not been sleeping or functioning like a normal elf because he's just so obsessed with beating Anairë.

The argument continues and Fingolfin basically outs himself. He's like "I can't focus because of your stupid smile while I'm presenting my argument" or some cheesy shit like that and Anairë's like "great, because I can't focus whenever I look at your shitty face. I feel like I'm gonna falter"

So the two are left with a dilemma. Hmm.

Naturally, Fingolfin tries to talk to his dad about his crush on his rival and Finwë is just like "I don't know, I just knew that we were meant to be". And Fingolfin is kinda like, what kind of ass-tastic bullshit is that?

So he goes to talk to Fëanor, the only other guy he knows that is married. And Fëanor proves to be equally unhelpful because "Nerdanel was the one who started making moves and I liked it".

So Fingolfin starts sending Anairë gifts out of spite. It's her begetting day? She gets a full collection of Master Rúmil's dissertation on the inherent prey vs predator nature of every living creature. She won another round of debate? She gets a nice bracelet.

Eventually, Anairë sits the dumb guy down and asks if he's seriously considering courting her and lists all the reasons why courting her is the best option possible for someone like him. She basically presents it like it's her thesis defence.

Some years later, there's a wedding and Fëanor is unhappy because Fingolfin married his mortal enemy.

So the moral of the story is this kids: if you can't beat your enemies, marry 'em!

[emyn-arnens]

20 Questions for Writers

@hobbitwrangler @grey-gazania @runawaymun @echo-bleu tagged me to do this, so I guess I really should do it! I did this one recently on my main for all the fandoms I've written for, so I'll keep this limited to Tolkien fics here.

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 82.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 128,198.

3. What fandoms do you write for? Currently mostly Tolkien, with the occasional dash of Timeless and Narnia.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

As the Hare Flees Before the Wolf (T, Celegorm & Eöl, 1.8k): Curufin is not the only son of Fëanor Eöl meets upon the plains of Himlad. Or, Eöl meets Celegorm while pursuing Aredhel and Maeglin, and things go very badly for him.

Here at Journey's End (G, Frodo & Legolas, 1.6k): They stay for those they love.

West, West Away (G, Sam & Thranduil, 3.6k): Sam meets an unlikely kindred spirit on the journey West.

and I will love with urgency, but not with haste (T, Aegnor/Andreth, 3.1k): A summer evening spent in a glade near the shores of the Aeluin.

with death on his brow like a crown (G, Aegnor & Finrod, ~600 words): Five times Finrod foresees Aegnor’s death, and one time he foresees his own.

5. Do you respond to comments? Yep! It may take a while depending on spoons, but I almost always do. The only exceptions are for comments that make no sense to me or demand me to write more for a pairing.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? There's a lot of contenders for this, but let's go with Like a Wave That Should Engulf the World (G, Faramir/Éowyn, ~700 words), in which Faramir foresees Éowyn's coming death.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? For Charity (Boromir, Faramir, Éomer, Lothíriel, and Éowyn, 2k), for sure. Two thousand words of pure ridiculousness.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not since ye olde days of posting on FFN.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Very rarely and very vanilla, with emotions and metaphor taking precedence over mechanics.

10. Do you write crossovers? Nope. Not much into reading or writing them.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Hope not!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Nope.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship? *looks at header, url, and blog title* I don't think I even need to say.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? For the sake of answering the question, my Glorfinwyn AU, but only because I'm not sure I have the skills to pull it off, and my perfectionism is a raging beast. But I do really want to finish it, even if it's three years from now because I'm the slowest writer I know.

16. What are your writing strengths? Characterization and description/scenery, although I've been struggling with the latter lately. Dialogue has finally been getting easier, though.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Plot, body language, and describing emotions.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I'll sprinkle in some individual words/pet names (all shamelessly ripped from RealElvish.net) here and there that should be guessable from context clues. I don't do full sentences very often both because I feel it isn't necessary most of the time (sorry JRRT), and because I know people don't enjoy having to scroll to the notes for translations. But I will admit to having a weakness for Elves lapsing into their native tongues during uh. heated moments with their partners.

19. First fandom you wrote for? LOTR, years ago. And here I am back again!

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? This is so hard, but Over Seas of Starlight (G, Frodo & Gandalf, 3.6k) is near and dear to my heart. Sailing West, my beloved.

Tagging @sotwk @afaramir @halfelven @curufiin if you haven't done this already!