#terrifying tolkien week

[balrogballs]

Finding Celebrían

For Tolkien Meta Week — an essay on autofiction, archives, healing, and why I moved across the country after finding out Elrond Peredhel had a wife. Being an essayist irl, believe me when I say I was thrilled to see @silmarillionwritersguild have the personal essay form as a format for Tolkien Meta Week! Here's something from the heart - warning for discussion of cPTSD and (non explicit) references to violence.

When I first found Celebrían in a footnote, I wrapped up warm and followed, certain she'd lead me to where she truly lived in the text.

By that point, it had been a good decade or so since I first read Tolkien – I had been aware that Elrond had a wife, and assumed she was dead or hung up in some other cold meat locker alongside a procession of wives spanning literary history.

It was only years later that I properly came across her, and blinked, realising she was a cursory line which led to a footnote in Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, one which referred to her torment in passing, meant to explain why the sons of Elrond and to an extent Elrond himself, were the way they were. 

Fridging was one thing, but torment was another entirely, I thought — and so casually! Tea and torment in the Third Age, tra-la-lally traumatised into "losing all joy" in Middle-Earth and leaving the year after, taking ship to Valinor and leaving behind a grieving family. It was simple curiosity, really, until it turned into a cold, familiar grasp: the clear-cut knowledge of exactly what sort of torment it would have been, that drove away the wife of a noble lord living in what was very clearly described as being one of the last great sanctuaries in a ravaged realm. 

But to understand why The Footnote stopped me in my tracks, I need to tell you about The Fields. 

When I speak of The Fields (which are of course not really fields and neither are they called The Fields anywhere but here), I refer to one of the most beautiful spots in the country. The Fields combined the peaceful pastoral with quaint urban charm, rustic without being remote, safe without being detached. I lived in The Fields for several years, and made a little life for myself that grew into something bigger. 

I had been an activist in The Fields — moved from scrappy student to card-carrying revolutionary — and I did it because I loved where I lived very, very much, enough to think I could kiss it better. And I was good, I was! I belonged on the stage in that sense, I was invited to panel after panel, talk after talk, and I stood on little podiums that grew alongside me. I knew how to carry myself, present myself, leveraged my palatability and conventionality in return for rights and bare-minimum environmental reparations. 

Such wonders, of course, came with a cost I hadn’t foreseen — an incident, a couple really, that tossed a diagnosis of cPTSD into my lap and turned my lovely home into The Fields. And because I had been so good at presenting myself and clambering on podiums with shiny hair, the incidents became the talk of the town, and I in turn very quickly became a subject, the walking, talking cost of resistance. 

A feature of cPTSD, one that sets it apart from PTSD, is the overarching dullness with which the emotional flashbacks grasp you. Not like being plucked off the surface of the earth by a monstrous thing, but rather drowning quietly in sludge you never realised was beneath your feet in the first place. There was never a thing that terrified me about The Fields, it was only ever a quiet, creeping mass taking over everything, and in being so — easy to ignore and disguise. 

I love The Fields, I told myself, even after. I loved The Fields, even though life had turned into air and static, and I had turned into an unfeeling thing. I lived in the middle of that little city but felt as though I was in a small hut on no-man's land, or a joint security area, suspended between towers. I couldn't stand the wonderful hills and valleys, so I tried my hardest to cling onto the reasons I loved them, tried to medicate them back into my heart with the forcefulness of a pacemaker. I shoved things down throats and up noses, walked back onto all those stages, turned myself into an electric hearse chasing a long-dead dragon. I would walk around The Fields on some nights, very cold and very young, the bleached bones left behind by something very promising. 

Can you see why I stopped still at Appendix A, at Celebrían? I tried to follow her, and see where her story began, and what wonders it would end in, because if Celebrían's story ended in wonder then maybe, there might be a chance, perhaps….. 

It would be easy, I thought, I was a writer, a journalist, a researcher - I trained in asking questions and knowing things, even sticky, stunted, back-of-the-throat things that you'd rather not catch sight of in a mirror. The History of Middle Earth book sets were ordered, fresh copies of all the old texts, magnifying glasses held over Unfinished Tales. 

I’d been so certain I would find her. That Celebrían would ramble across page after page, legs dangling over the edge and an indolent expression fizzing on her face. She would be stubborn and glorious and righteous in her fervor to change the world. I would find her in the flesh, and then no longer would I stand in The Fields each night, hollow-eyed, self-haunting spectre holding myself thrall to a single series of events in what has been, objectively, a lovely, loving life.

But a full month went by, and all I found was footnote after endnote after cursory mention, almost all of them clothing her in torment, growing stiff and sharp against the tooth of the page: vicious, like a blade angled backwards. For Celebrían and I, the richest text in the world turned into a landscape of loss. 

What a wonderful, rich, textured world you have!

All the better to swallow you whole, my dear. 

I couldn't find her in the story. I spent weeks and weeks on her, and I couldn't find her in the story and by then I had already fancied myself and Celebrían to be counterparts, like if she laughed, I would laugh too, like if she ran, then I would run too, and if she was lost, then… well. I suppose it shows the power of an enduring text. I had a PhD, at that point I had just gotten my publishing deal through, I'd spoken on all those podiums and done all those real-world, adult things, and still I was not immune to the indulgent tether of a good old self-insert. And then it turned out we were not counterparts but rather more akin to co-morbidities, that The Footnote and its friends were all I would ever know of Celebrían. 

It was summer, I remember, but my hands were cold — autopsy-fingers, my partner called them. Archive-fingers, autopsy-fingers, scrabbling around to find nothing, no indication as to how Celebrían's story truly ended and why I was the person I was. The texts shifted uneasily under my hands, like the Professor himself was turning out his pockets and shrugging, reminding me that it was neither Celebrían's nor my story, not really. Pointed me back to The Footnote like it was a pacifier, and still I turned in circles like a dog chasing its tail, looking for other instances of her name. I found nothing. I began to fear that I had wasted my life.

The Footnote started to blur across weeks, and soon it turned itself into My Footnote. The one I had found, a year or so before the hunt, in a fantastic, recently published book that spoke about activism in The Fields, where I came face to face with myself. But there, I hadn't been standing on a podium or being interviewed or writing pressure pieces or anything I had really, truly done, but I was instead a single footnote — condensed into the things that had happened to me, as opposed to the things I had made happen. As the months went on, I looked for references to myself in new books, newspapers, magazines — and I would find myself, but in the same scrap of footnote, wearing the same costume of torment, tragic poster children of a violent world. 

I sat there looking at the thousands and thousands of pages in the legendarium, the stack of books on things I had worked upon, statutes I had pulled down and little laws I had changed. And then at the scraps of Celebrían and I, reduced to scribbles and crossing outs in the margins. It was like we never lived at all. It seems a rather childish reaction, perhaps, to not finding the story you want in a book you bought. Still, that afternoon, when I put down the last page of HoME I had access to, I crawled into bed and stayed there for a very long time, trying very hard to not touch even the bedclothes around me.

But I think that was always what drew me to her, that absence. I didn't find myself in Celebrían, but in the footnote that gestured to her presence. It wasn't that I understood her so much as I knew how to decrypt the desperate scratches left behind by someone who drowned on dry land. That was how she and I were truly alike: people who wanted to change the world, or a little part of it, and did, did something good — and had all of it forgotten, crammed into a footnote read with a tender, pitying fret. 

But that's not canonical, is it? Yes, her absence shaped the story of the Ring War in certain regards. But who said Celebrían, Celebrían the Person, not Celebrían the Footnote — had ever changed anything, let alone the world in which she lived?

Simple – I did.

My Celebrían was a complete nutcase. I wrote her as a daughter born to a borderline-squirrel of a wood elf, who herself hated small creatures with a passion. I had her take off her shoe and beat earwigs to death, had her talk the ear off a perpetually grieving mother, irritate a kinslayer into planting a pine forest, and threaten the High King with a shovel. She would shove cotton in her ears to block out her husband's snoring, and put four teaspoons of sugar in her tea. She bribed her sons to dispose of a snake, and demanded magical healing for a little scrape on her forehead. 

I cut her into familiar shapes: the shape of someone who spent months unable to bear the slightest touch, whose loved one slept on the floor beside the bed, clinging to a listless hand dangled off the side. The shape of a small house in a forest, and the shape of a wonderful ending, in which she truly did change the world in all the ways she could. I don't know, if I'm being honest, whether Celebrían changed me, or if I changed her. Whether change was an instant or a process, whether this version of almost-Celebrían mattered to anyone but myself. I knew one thing though — my Celebrían is a thousand footnotes long, and counting. 

Footnotes, like most things in the archive, are of course caging things: keeping unpalatable violence in the past, or at least elsewhere, keeping the here and now good and quiet. It's easier to outsource healing and rediscovery to other places, to archives and museums and books and Valinor. Was being a footnote a punishment? What’s worse, being pickled wrongly or never being pickled at all? Was this yet another installment of the cautionary tale stretching all the way through time and reality from Celebrían to me; footnotes about women who held themselves thrall to the memory of violence, who lived as well as they could, till they couldn’t? Would it have been better if she never existed at all?

I don't know. All I know for certain is this: at some point between finding Celebrían and writing her, I moved out of The Fields and across the country.

It had been a long time coming. But for years, I had thought I would weather living in The Fields because even after the Torment, the Footnote, the Diagnosis, I never felt a disconnect from the place, because I was still extroverted and irritating and fizzing with the desire to stay in the Fields and love it, as I had always done. And then suddenly, I wanted to run.

It wasn't as if Celebrían burned The Fields down, leaving me there to watch flames eating its flat, starless sky. But what she did was this: carefully take off my rose-tinted glasses, and say run —- this earth has swallowed you whole. 

I had assumed it was my fault, my attachment to The Fields, that I was looking at things wrong, that I was maintaining unhealthy attachments to sites of trauma, prioritising the wrong perspectives, the body keeps an atlas and all that. But Celebrían did not call me crazy. Celebrían was not the kind of person who would ever call you crazy. She was the kind of person who would lay in a wide-open field beside you and ask you what you were looking at. 

And when you say "oh, just up at the big sky", she wouldn't probe. She would know exactly what you mean when you didn't say "-- because there is nothing ahead of me", and she wouldn't say a word about how the ground around you was soft with decay, reeking like a corpse, that you were caught in the straggling grass of its hair. 

She would instead shrug, wink, and point you towards Gollum, because of course she would. She would tell you that Tolkien, ever the Catholic, had drawn out a perfect depiction of what might have happened if Lazarus was left in that cave. And then she would say, run, for god's sake, girl, run, and you would. I did!

How stubbornly we all cling to the idea of staying fixed until being fixed, to the idea of a ready-made Valinor to sail to if we do well enough at life, stay still enough in the margins! How faithfully we believe that if you spend enough time being a very, very good cracked vessel, maybe one day you might feel the quiet triumph of bearing water again. Celebrían, not the Celebrían of The Footnote but my Cel, the manic pixie freakshow of Imladris, said shut the fuck up and run. That it was no use hungering for the impossible and thumbing listlessly though footnotes, and to instead run, and run, and start digging a garden at the ground you come to a stop at because it is only in new soil that something gentle could unfold unbidden. That as time passes, you will belong less and less to the ground you left behind and more and more to the ground you walk upon, to the new trees and new hills around you, to those who love you still.

Run! she said. How alive you looked, hunting for me. How badly you craved my story. See? There are still stories you crave. You are still human enough to crave. Run! 

I think many of us who love this brief, inexorable footnote of a Celebrían, whether we read her or write her, are bound by a similar truth: that in her we caught sight of something within ourselves. All around the world, these tiny, unflinching mirrors in Appendix A and the rest, tie together and create a hundred different Celebríans, all part of the same thread, each version carrying its own burden, though rarely do we ever acknowledge it in each other. It's a quiet nod, an unspoken connection, a reminder that we are all more alike and less alone than a cursory footnote might imply.

To find Celebrían, I had to write her. And in turn, she wrote me in her image. I look at her now, as she is in my head, and there Celebrían is neither alive nor dead. No, what is most clear in my mind is a girl in a dusty wing mirror, a life packed into boxes, sunglasses sliding down her nose. One hand sandwiched in an ordnance map, prying the pages open, hurtling at a perfectly legal speed down an M-road, The Fields growing smaller, and smaller, and smaller in the rearview mirror. Not gone, not truly, but invisible to the naked eye, unless you know exactly where to look. A grain of sand in a bucket of water, a single, sad-looking fish half-buried on a tropical beach. A finger to the past, a wave from a window, a footnote in an appendix. 

[tolkienhorrorweek]

Welcome to Tolkien Horror Week! This is a new event, following in the footsteps of Terrifying Tolkien Week, last run in 2019. This event celebrates all things spooky and creepy in Tolkien's work—both the things he tells us explicitly and the things he leaves up to our imaginations.

The event will run from October 27th to November 2nd and accepts all types of fanworks. There is an AO3 collection for the event here.

Below are some suggested prompts for each day of the week. They are not mandatory; feel free to combine them or disregard them entirely.

Day 1: Angband & Utumno | seeth all things crooked | captivity Day 2: Angmar, Rhudaur, & Minas Morgul | of such dread and dark enchantment | sorcery Day 3: Mordor & the Dead Marshes | the pitiless land | control Day 4: The Barrow-downs & the Old Forest | the clinging mists | corruption Day 5: Mirkwood, Nan Elmoth, & Taur-nu-Fuin | the shadows grew long in the forest | hunting Day 6: Nan Dungortheb & the Paths of the Dead | by perilous paths | terror Day 7: Isengard, Moria, & Númenor | we cannot get out | trapped

Please mention @tolkienhorrorweek in the body of your post and tag #tolkienhorrorweek and #tolkienhorrorweek2024 in the first 10 tags. You may also submit a post.

Given the nature of the event, please also tag for any potential triggers or content warnings and place any NSFW content beneath a read more/link to AO3.

For more information, please see the FAQ. If you have any questions, drop them in the ask box.

Art is by Alan Lee.

[vivwritesfics]

Shine A Light Into The Wreckage

Chapter Ten - Fired

Bob Floyd was many things. He was an instructor at Top Gun, a lover of Tolkien books and a huge fan of coffee. But Bob was also clumsy. That was how he bumped into the table, knocking her drink onto her notebook. He felt bad about it. Bad enough to come back time and time again, in the hopes that she would be there. And, every time, she is. Each time looking a little worse for wear. It doesn't take Bob long to realise he has to save her.

Series Warnings: Abusive relationship! Abusive hair pulling! Abusive choking! Forceful sex! Domestic abuse! Seriously don't read if you're affect by stuff like this! Talks of stalking (but in a non serious manner), talks of non consensual groping. she gets called a whore, choking, SA, 'missing' birth control, blood, pregnancy, hint at child abuse (not explicitly written)

Series Masterlist

Things weren't right, they both knew that. But they were pretending things were normal and, for the time being, pretending was good enough.

After a week of pretending, three weeks of her living in his home, Bob knew he had to address things. Not the baby, not until she was ready.

He sat beside her on the couch as she reached for her drink. Not coffee (something she was certainly missing). "Hey," he said, voice almost nervous as he looked at her face. But she wasn't nervous. No, she looked normal, and that was terrifying.

"Bob," she replied, holding her cup of water like it was a steaming mug on a cold day.

He sucked in a breath. "Do you want me to drive you into work? You know, talk to your boss so you can take time off and not get fired?"

She let a smile cross her face and put her cup down. "Thanks, Bobby," she said and stood. She went into the spare bedroom that had since become her own and got changed into the "grandpa sweater" Bob had brought home for her the other day.

She held it up to her nose and breathed in, but it didn't smell like him. It should have. That would have made her grandpa sweater perfect. But she didn't let it bother her as she left the room.

The moment she stepped out of the spare bedroom, Bob reached for his keys from the bowl.

She followed him out of the house. While he locked the front door, she climbed into the passenger seat of his truck. The entire time she was focusing on Bob, watching as he locked the front door of their house. No, his house. Not their house. It was his.

Her hand settled on her stomach. As soon as she realised she pulled it away as if she had been burnt, let it drop into her lap.

"You okay?" Bob asked as he climbed into the truck. He looked at her grandpa sweater and let himself smile. But his smile wasn't wide, it didn't meet his eyes.

She nodded and turned on the radio as Bob pulled out of the driveway. He hummed along to the radio and she turned it up just slightly, head against the window.

Moments like this with Bob had been few and far between since he'd gotten her out of the apartment. But she loved them, cherished them. Bob glanced at her for just a second, but she kept looking at him. She couldn't help it.

After Ken, she'd expected to be so fucking terrified. And she was, but not around Bob. Bob, Bobby, Robert. He was a man like no other. Every hand he had laid on her had been soft and gentle, to help her instead of harm her.

His fingers drummed against the steering wheel as she directed him towards her office. When they drove past the café where they'd met, past her old apartment, she couldn't look away from him.

Looking at Bob kept her panic at bay. She didn't know what it was about him, but he made her feel so goddamn safe.

He parked up outside of her office building and killed the engine. Sucking in a breath, he turned his attention towards her. "Want me to come with?" He asked, voice soft and sweet and gentle.

He was too good for her, that much was clear.

She shook her head. "I think I have to do this one on my own," she said as she climbed out of the truck. And then she turned and braced her arms on the seat. "Wait here for me?" She asked with a quirked brow.

"Of course!" He responded, usually deep voice squeaking slightly. And then he ever so quietly added, "wouldn't dream of going anywhere."

Maybe she should have stopped grinning by the time she walked into the office. Her bottom lip was pulled between her teeth as she knocked on her boss's door and thought about the man in the parking lot. The one with the glasses that he thought were ugly but she thought were so damn cute.

"Come in," her boss called. She let her lip fall from between her teeth and strode into his office.

His eyes widened as he looked at her. But then the surprise dropped from his face and he rolled his eyes. "If you've come to beg for your job back, don't bother," he spat and returned his eyes to his computer.

Her brows furrowed in confusion. "My job... what?" She asked and he rolled his eyes again. "Dave, have I been fired?"

Dave shrugged his shoulders. "You didn't come into work for weeks, what did you think was going to happen?" He spat back.

Helplessly, she turned and looked towards the office. Where her co-workers were. Well, ex co-workers, she supposed. "I'll pack my things," she said.

"No need," Dave said quickly. "Marjorie already packed your shit up."

She backed out of his office. As she walked around her co-workers desks, she couldn't meet their gaze, keeping her eyes fixed on the ground. It was a mix of embarrassment and hopelessness as she made her way back to the annex.

"Hey, love," Marjorie said gently. She grabbed a box and placed it on top of the desk. A box full of her things. It was real, she really had been fired. "You'll be fine. You'll get on your feet in no time."

Sniffling, she grabbed a hold of the box. "Thanks, Marge," she said and took her leave. There was nothing left to be said, no point pleading for her job back. It was a shitty job, anyway. A shitty job with a shitty boss, she tried to tell herself. But she still wiped at her tears as she travelled down in the elevator.

As she walked out of the building, Bob reached over and pushed open the passenger side door. "How did it go?" He asked as she approached. He hadn't yet noticed the box in her hands or the look on her face.

Not until she placed the box on her seat. "What's this?" He asked as he reached into the box and pulled out a frame picture. A framed picture of her and Ken at their graduation, looking sickeningly in love. He placed it back, face down.

She wiped at her eyes and grabbed the box again, shoving it into the back of the truck. "I've been fired," she spat and climbed into the passenger seat. But then her head dropped. "I... he was right. I haven't been in for weeks. I don't know what I expected, really," she mumbled and sat back.

Knocked up, jobless, homeless. Fuck, she was gonna throw up.

"Oh, God," Bob whispered, his hand coming to rest on her knee. "I'm so damn sorry, Doll," he whispered.

But she just shook her head and rested it against the window. "Wanna go and get some junk food?"

The nod she gave was only small, but Bob still caught it.

Bob took her through the drive thru. "I don't wanna go back to the house," she whispered as Bob paid for their food. They drove to the next window, collected their meals, and then Bob drove off.

He thought about it for a moment. He parked up in the car park as he debated where to take her. He knew she only meant to the time being, but the images that flashed in his mind had the tips of his ears turning pink.

Her in Montana, collecting eggs from the chicken coops with him. Wearing one of those dresses that showed just how round her bump was. Squeezing into his small bed with him and sitting with him on the porch as the two of them watched the sun set. Bob's grandmother would love her, and his sister would come to visit nearly every day.

The spot he parked up in overlooked the beach. It was busy, family's on picnic blankets, kids building sand castles and dad's stood in the water, talking about something or other. It was just them in the spot that overlooked it. Nobody came to disturb them, not midday dog walkers, nobody.

"Thank you," she whispered as she stared ahead, at the gentle movement of the ocean. She cradled her bump in a way he hadn't seen her do before. It was, quite frankly, concerning. "I-I genuinely don't know if I'd still be alive if it wasn't for you."

It was horrifying, terrifying to hear. But, mostly, Bob hated that he couldn't disagree with her. He let gaze travel to her bump, but didn't let it linger.

No, he sucked in a breath, gathered all the courage he had. "Do you want to get out of here?"

Her eyebrows raised as she wiped under her eye. "Out of here as in out of the car?"

"I'm trying to be serious," he said quickly, but he couldn't stop his own laugh. "Out of San Diego. Out of California."

A hum left her lips. "Out of California, huh?" She asked, turning her attention towards the sea. She loved it here, on her good days. Loved the freedom of going to the beach whenever she wanted, loved the café where she did her writing, loved the area she lived in.

California wasn't the problem. But getting out of there sounded real damn good.

"Where would we go?" She asked as she grabbed her drink.

Bob drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. "My family has a place in Montana," he said. "We've got a ranch with horses and chickens and stuff." He leaned forward against the steering wheel and turned himself towards her. "I think you'd like it. My grandpa put seating beneath the oak tree so my grandma could sit and knit while we took care of the cattle."

She grinned, straw between her lips. "Sounds amazing, Bobby," she mumbled as she reached across and touched his shoulder. "Are you sure you can get out of work?"

When her hand met his leg, he stared at it. It felt too intimate for the situation, but he didn't push her away. "I'll speak to Cyclone tomorrow," he said, hand touching hers.

As soon as they had eaten, Bob drove them back to his place. They didn't turn on the radio as they drove, but they still had something important to talk about. "If we're gonna go to Montana, I think you should make a decision about..."

"About the baby?" She finished, pulling her hand from his leg.

Bob swallowed, but he nodded his head. "Yeah, about the baby," he said as he turned into his street.

A sigh left her lips. "I know," she muttered. "Trust me, Bob, I know." Her hand settled on her stomach and a mournful smile crossed her face. "It would be nice, though, wouldn't it? A sweet little baby girl to spoil."

Pulling into the drive, Bob parked. "A baby girl, huh?" He said with a grin. He could see it, her little mini me, chasing the chickens in Montana. It was simply a dream. "You know I'd help you spoil the hell out of her."

Her eyes lit up. But she shook her head, though, and climbed out of the car, still sipping her drink. "You don't have to do that, Bob," she said, following him towards the front door. "I feel back enough that you're letting me crash."

The moment he pushed open the door and let her in, Frodo came running. He let out one long, loud, drawn out meow as he brushed his body against her legs. "Oh, buddy," she said, reaching down to stroke the top of his head.

She spied his empty food bowl, but Bob had her moving out of the way before filling it up himself. "I got it," he said, waving for her to go and sit herself down.

"Can we watch something?" She asked as she sat herself on the sofa.

"Of course we can," Bob replied, the sound of the dry food hitting the bottom of the bowl echoing through downstairs of his little house. "Put on anything you want."

As soon as Frodo had everything he needed, Bob joined her on the sofa as the movie began. Back To The Future, he noticed as he sat down beside her, his arm on the back of the sofa. Immediately, she moved closer to him, making herself comfortable against him. "This okay?" She asked, voice so quiet he almost missed it.

"More than okay," he whispered back, fingers brushing against the skin of her arm.

She fell asleep against him that night, drool falling from her lips and onto his shirt. But Bob didn't mind in the slightest. He halted the movement of his fingers, but didn't move his hand away from her arm.

Bob watched her, but he could never begin to imagine the horrors playing out in her head.

Taglist: @nurse-sainz

@not-nyasa

@burningwitchprincess

@darksparklesficrecs

@primroseluna

@littlemsbumblebee

@wretchedmo

@imaginecrushes

@calpalsbestie

@hiireadstuff

@lyn-js

@emma8895eb

@teacupsandtopgun

@finnydraws

@mp0625

@writtingrose

@afriendlyneighborhoodhufflepuff

@callsignwidow

@els-marvelvsp

@daggersquadphantom

[apoloadonisandnarcissus]

Let’s talk about hypothetical Dark!Galadriel

In recent interviews, we got a small clue that Galadriel is moving towards the light… for now. Evidentially, this is not a spoiler nor a guarantee of anything, it’s more of a tease to keep the fandom speculating and theorizing.

So far, in both seasons of “Rings of Power” we had foreshadowing of Galadriel spiraling down into darkness. This notion is present in the prologue of the show, when her brother Finrod gives her advice: “Sometimes we cannot know until we have touched the darkness.”

Adding the confirmed parallel between Frodo/Galadriel and One Ring/Sauron the show is doing.

There’s, indeed, foreshadowing in place for a hypothetical Dark!Galadriel arc for her to emerge victorious as “Lady of Light” in the aftermath.

The argument against Dark!Galadriel is that Tolkien never wrote it, which, frankly is no argument at all because it’s obvious, since episode 1, that “Rings of Power” is not following “Tolkien canon” but “Tolkien legendarium”; the show is working the themes, not word-by-word Tolkien. Besides it’s well-known that Simon Tolkien didn’t particularly enjoyed that the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy was too close to the source material, because adaptations must stand on their own.

With that out of the way, how would this play out on screen?

This treat is about to hit the theaters (December 25 in the US, other dates worldwide).

A gothic tale of obsession between a haunted young woman and the terrifying vampire infatuated with her, causing untold horror in its wake.

Perfect. Delicious. Right down my alley. From the reviews, it’s said this film highlights desire and shame, since it’s set during the Victorian era, and deals with repressed female sexuality, tied with Christian modesty and guilt. In short, evil incarnated Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) is the object of Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) shame and sexual desire.

I’m extremely excited to watch this film, by the way, but I have to wait until January.

These themes would also fit Tolkien heavy religious legendarium to a T.

Unfortunately, we aren’t getting any of this in “Rings of Power” with Sauron and Galadriel.

Maybe on a subtextual symbolic level.

If blood binding theory is proved correct in Season 3, I imagine this will play out like glimpses into each others minds. Yes, the “Voldemort-Harry Potter” route, not the “Reylo force bonds” angle. And, indeed, this fits Tolkien legendarium, where Galadriel can look into Sauron’s mind (and see his intentions and plans), and vice-versa.

I don’t think Galadriel will be “Lady of Mordor”, either. Not even temporarily. If the Frodo parallel is to continue in Season 3, and Galadriel does succumb to darkness, which means her joining Sauron, this will be as temporary as it gets.

Like Frodo, she’ll want this. Like Frodo takes the One for himself, she’ll join Sauron.

In “The Return of the King”, it’s Gollum who prevents Frodo from taking ownership of the One Ring, by biting his finger off (and then falling down Mount Doom and getting the One destroyed, at last).

In “Rings of Power” we have two characters paralleling Gollum. In Season 2, the parallel was more visible in Adar’s character. But Sauron himself has been given some Gollum inspiration as well, mostly in Season 2. What does this mean and will this continue? I have no idea, but it could work with the Morgoth/Silmarils too:

They say that Morgoth found the Silmarils so beautiful that after he'd stolen them, for weeks, he could do nothing but stare into their depths. It was only after one of his tears fell upon the jewels and he was faced with the evil of his own reflection that the reverie was finally broken. From that moment, he... he looked upon their light no more. (Celebrimbor to Elrond, 1x02)

The overall idea is that Galadriel joins Sauron but is prevented or stopped in the next scene or so. And that’s pretty much it.

All of this seems kind of anticlimactic, but personally, don’t, see it going any other way. I’m open to be surprised if “Rings of Power” decides to go with Dark!Galadriel for Season 3, though. Or if fellow fans have other theories about Dark!Galadriel feel free to share.

[hopeforchanges]

For the longest time, I've dreamed of writing within the Lord of the Rings fandom, but let’s be real—Tolkien’s world is so richly woven and masterfully complete that it left me a little in awe…and maybe a bit terrified to dive in! I found myself stuck in the gutter unable to bring my ideas to life without feeling like I was disrupting perfection.

The Rings of Power opened the door for me, giving me a way to explore this beloved universe and finally put pen to paper. I’m beyond grateful that this fandom has welcomed my first story with such warmth and enthusiasm.

Enjoy and tune in for new chapters every week.

[11x13kyle]

clyde will literally believe anything his friends tell him. tolkien goes to clyde and says “tweek ate a guy once.” and clyde goes “really????” and tolkien goes “yup.” and clyde walks around for the next few weeks terrified of being alone in a room with tweek because he thinks he’s next, meanwhile tweek is so confused and really stressed.

[lassieposting]

Lassie's Fic Prompts: Tolkien Edition

Usually I haunt mutuals or the prompt channels of Discord communities but the Tolkien ones are all massive and I have anxiety, so I'm gonna shove them in the tag instead! Fic concepts from your friendly local prompt goblin, because god knows my ass will never get around to writing them. This post will get updated as ideas occur to me. Tags are mostly to help express The Vibe™. Anyway feel free to come talk to me about this shit I have feelings.

Bagginshield

T+ || Fluffy || Post-Canon, Reunion Fic

When the ringbearers arrive in the Blessed Realm, as a reward for the great peril they have suffered on behalf of all of Middle Earth, they are granted a single boon by the Valar.

Bilbo Baggins knows that elves, dwarves and men go to different realms after death. But Mahal's halls are vast and grand, and he is only a very small Hobbit. Surely room can be found for a single burglar in the dwarven afterlife?

Barduil

G+ || Angsty || Post-Canon, Loss, Closure, Bonus Points For Bard's Memorial Surviving To Be Unearthed In The Modern Day

Before leaving Middle Earth, Thranduil pays a final visit to the memorial he had carved for Bard.

Saurondriel

T+ || || Debates & Bickering, Sauron Drawing Parallels Between His Life & 'Halbrand's', Sauron As A Calming Influence On Morgoth's Genocidal Tendencies, Galadriel's Black & White Thinking, Small Moments Of Goodness

Halbrand takes Galadriel out to eat with his first week's wages from the forge in Armenelos, but the puppetry performance going on in the plaza - in which she is the heroine and he one of the villains - proves a distraction from their definitely-not-a-date.

When Halbrand admits that he's never seen the Sauron/Morgoth duo portrayed as utterly evil before, coming as he does from a land of their allies, Galadriel asks him what kind of stories the Southlanders tell. Sensing an opportunity to humanise himself in her mind, Halbrand dredges up some painful memories to introduce her to Mairon, Melkor and the path to hell paved with twisted love and good intentions.

T+ || Comedy || 5+1 Fic, Sauron Doing His Best, He's Not Spectacular At Being A Human But He's Trying, Galadriel Is Suspicious But Doesn't Know Enough About Humans To Call Him Out, Entirely Normal Mannish Behaviour™, Galadriel Will See A Guy Leave Scorchmarks On The Bedsheets When He Comes & Be Like 'It's Fine They Probably All Do That'

Halbrand is quite possibly the most realistic fana Sauron has ever created. He's designed to be so believably human he'll fly completely under the radar. But ultimately, a disguise is only ever as good as the actor wearing it. Halbrand is a fire spirit piloting an exquisitely crafted meat suit, and Sauron's idea of Totally Normal Mannish Behaviour is sometimes...slightly off base.

Galadriel is beginning to suspect the truth: her new significant annoyance is many things, but human is not one of them. But that's a terrifying prospect. And - and she hasn't spent all that much time around the race of Men herself, really. She's used to other elves. So it's probably fine. It's totally fine. Men are just Like That, is all.

AKA, five times Galadriel notices Halbrand's weird-as-fuck Maia traits/behaviours, but deliberately excuses them as Just Human Stuff because she doesn't want to deal with who and what he really is.

And one time where she already knows who and what he is. Many years into their marriage, Galadriel is mostly accustomed to her king's more unusual quirks. But sometimes, Mairon can be so human it almost breaks her heart.

T+ || Future Fic || Redemption Arc, Sort Of, Ainur Family Drama, Where Is Celeborn? Who Knows, Sauron Slouching Less Into The Light Of Goodness & More Into The Mist Of Moral Ambiguity, For Galadriel™, Dagor Dagorath

At the close of the Third Age, the last of Arda's elves take ship for Valinor, leaving Middle Earth - and the disembodied spirit of its former Dark Lord - to the race of Men. For thousands upon thousands of years, the Undying Lands enjoy a hard-won peace.

But when Morgoth manages to escape the Void, that peace is shattered, and with Valinor itself under threat, Ossë is dispatched to the world left behind to find the one soul who knows the enemy as well as Morgoth knows himself. He tracks Sauron to the deep south, where he's managed to claw back a physical form and has been living out his powerless exile as Hal Brand, old-timey blacksmith to the local ranchers.

When Ossë appears on his doorstep with news of Morgoth's escape, offering clemency in exchange for information, Sauron suspects a trap, and turns the offer down, intending to go into hiding rather than face his old master's rage at what's become of his dark kingdom and faithful servants. To sweeten the pot, Ossë leverages Sauron's greatest regret: the knowledge that Galadriel is in Valinor, and the implication that she'd like to see her old enemy again. Unable to resist the opportunity to reconcile with her, Sauron agrees to finally go home and share what he knows of Morgoth's plans and likely next moves with the Valar.

But with age-old grudges and rivalries causing trouble in Valinor, and Morgoth determined to retrieve his wayward lieutenant at any cost, can Sauron really turn back from the darkness long enough to hand victory to the Valar in the Last Battle?

T+ || Hurt/Comfort || Trauma, Nightmares, Identity Reveal, Sauron Has Seen Some Shit, He Probably Has Impressive Telepathy Defenses Most Of The Time But Shh, He Loves Her & He Wants To Be The Person She Thinks He Is,

Fighting for his life on the road to Eregion, Halbrand slowly succumbs to a murky world of fever dreams and infection-addled hallucinations. Trying to ease his restless sleep, Galadriel reaches out to to touch his mind...and finds herself dragged into a disjointed maelstrom of her most hated enemy's worst moments and greatest fears: Morgoth's bitter rage, the judgment of the Valar, the agony of bleeding out in the snow at Adar's feet, the inevitable pain of her own rejection if ever he's discovered.

Too weak to repel her or even really realise what he's sharing, Sauron lets her in, taking comfort from her presence. Presented with an opportunity she never thought she'd have - to look through the mind of her enemy unhindered - Galadriel stays her hand long enough to look for closure, for confirmation that he is the monster she's been hunting, that he's been manipulating her all along. Instead, she might just find something worth saving.

T+ || AU || Enemies To Lovers To Enemies To Friends To Lovers Again, Yelling At Sauron As Therapy, Halbrand!Mairon, Probably Because He Feels The Most Himself With Her Or Something, Aulë Knows Whats Up, He 100% Lets Slip On Purpose, Healing

After the destruction of the One Ring, what's left of Sauron's spirit is rounded up by the Valar and imprisoned in Valinor.

Galadriel does not find peace in the Undying Lands. After everything she has seen and done, she struggles to settle back into the realm of winterless spring. When a slip of the tongue from Aulë gives her the location of Sauron's prison, her restless nighttime wanderings begin to take her there to see him.

Sometimes, she is incandescent with rage and betrayal, and she vents her age-old anger on him without expecting any answers. Sometimes, she comes for information, and her questions are cold, cruel, demanding things flung through the bars. Sometimes, she is just sad and tired, and her questions are quiet things passed between them as they sit either side of the door. At first, there is no fight left in him: he takes what she throws at him in defeated silence. But the more she visits - to berate him, to needle him, to call him names, to ask him why, to reminisce - the more he starts to respond to her. And as her anger finally begins to die out, and their time together is increasingly spent remembering, and talking, and getting to know one another anew, the more the broken, amorphous creature in the cell begins to resemble the Man she once thought she knew.

M+ || Shameless Smut || Romance, Sauron's Complicated Relationship With Sexuality, Service Top Galadriel, Maybe Grayspec Maiar, The Mortifying Ordeal Of Emotional Intimacy, He Thinks She Wants To Subjugate Her Enemy, She Actually Wants To Love Her Idiot

Millennia ago, Mairon learned the value of sex as a bargaining chip, and he's been using it to get what he wants from the Incarnates - and Melkor - ever since. It's become a well-honed staple of his negotiation toolkit, a performance so well-rehearsed he barely needs to think about it. It's almost unheard of for anyone to notice that he tends to zone out partway through.

Almost.

Halbrand's tendency to seduce his way out of the doghouse hasn't gone unnoticed by his new queen, and nor has the way his eyes glaze over just as things start to get interesting. She's beginning to wonder whether anyone ever actually told him that intimacy is supposed to be fun. Determined to keep him in the moment with her, she decides she'll just have to teach him that herself.

AKA, Galadriel notices that Halbrand tends to dissociate and put on the act he thinks she wants from him in the bedroom. Concerned, she makes it her mission to show him he's safe to relax and enjoy himself with her - and absolutely wrecks him to make her point.

T+ || Canon Divergence || Galadriel Says Yes, Ainur Family Drama, Mairon's Aulë-Shaped Daddy Issues, Arondir & Theo, Could Be 5+1, Angst & Fluff, Maybe Comedy, Lucifer-Style Therapeutic Breakthrough, Aulë & Mairon Have Different Love Languages/Communication Styles, Galadriel Eyeing Sauron Suspiciously: What Are You Scheming Now, Meanwhile Sauron To Arondir: IDK Man I Just Never Felt Like I Was Good Enough YK? Why Wasn't I Good Enough?, Arondir Just: Your Majesty Have You Considered Therapy

Galadriel names Bronwyn advisor to the newly-restored crown of the Southlands, which means the new king and queen start seeing a lot of her husband and child. Mairon seems fascinated by the little family, and the pseudo-paternal relationship developing between Arondir and Theo - suddenly, he's full of questions about family dynamics for humans and elves. Gradually, the advice of his new wife and friends helps Mairon realise a few things about his own relationship with Aulë.

Alternatively, five times watching Arondir and Theo interact recontextualises a memory for Mairon, and one time he makes a parenting choice with Celebrían and saltily realises Aulë had a point in doing the same thing to him

T+ || Time Travel/Time Loop || Sauron Fucks Up The Timeline, Then Tries To Fix It Without Killing Finrod, Bonus Points If Halbrand Finds He Begrudgingly Likes Finrod, Alternate Meeting, Maybe She's Still A Soldier But Doesn't Remember Him, Maybe He Has To Go Back To Valinor To Even Meet Her, IDK Lots Of Options

The thing about Galadriel's rejection is that it all goes back to the death of her brother.

Either by his own power, or by the power of a Vala who wants to teach him a lesson, Sauron finds himself transported back to shortly before everything fell apart, and realises that, as Halbrand, he has an opportunity to fix everything...by breaking Finrod Felagund out of his own dungeon.

But he's surrounded by dangers, not least of which is his own former self, and time travel is tricky. Saving Felagund's life may have unexpected consequences - without her quest for vengeance, would he ever have met Galadriel at all?

T+ || Canon Divergence || Body-Sharing, The Equivalent Of Having Your Shitty Ex Crashing On Your Couch, Road Trip, There Was Only One Body

Ever since their falling out on the banks of the Glanduin, Sauron has been trying to get into Galadriel's head. One night, furious at yet another invaded dream about a man who never existed, she lashes out. She channels all her power into shoving him off the raft, or stabbing him with Finrod's long-lost dagger - and wakes, shaken and convinced that she just felt Sauron die.

She's half-right. She's successfully caught him by surprise, and ripped him out of his body. Unfortunately for her, since they were connected at the time, she's failed to leave him formless and impotent.

She's dragged him into her own head.

When he awakens, psychological warfare erupts as they battle for control of her body and mind, a twisted back and forth - she tries to drown him in his nightmares, and he tortures her with her broken heart. Eventually, as it becomes clear that the only way to evict him from her brain is to bring him back into proximity with his own body, they reach a tentative, fragile truce. They can hold off on killing each other for as long as it takes to journey across Middle Earth. They hope.

But it's a long way from the Shipwright's home in the Grey Havens to the half-finished tower of Barad-Dur, and a long time to get to grips with someone else's pain. When Halbrand reawakens in Mordor, Galadriel might find she's not so keen to kill him after all.

T+ || AU || Kidfic, Single Mom Galadriel, Halbrand Has A Dog And He's Gonna Make It Everyone's Problem, Step-Sauron, Romcom Vibes, Quite Wholesome Actually, Modern AU

Galadriel's marriage has been hanging by a thread for years, but when her estranged husband Celeborn is confirmed KIA overseas, she unexpectedly finds herself utterly lost in the world. Now a single mother to their heartbroken six-year-old daughter Celebrían, she takes a job offer that moves her little family halfway across the country and finds herself struggling to adjust to her new normal as she tries to settle in to a new area while transitioning from stay-at-home mom to…well. Putting a roof over her daughter's head and making sure Celebrían can see the play therapist a couple times a month.

Lonely, struggling and beginning to wonder if she fucked up by moving away for a fresh start, if she ought to just go home to her parents with her tail between her legs, Galadriel is delighted when Celebrían announces she's made a friend in the next garden over, and goes to introduce herself to her neighbours and invite their child to dinner.

The man who answers the door has tattoos, no kids, and is very happy to introduce her to the new friend Celebrían has been playing catch with over the fence: Carcharoth, an absurdly oversized shepherd mix.

While Galadriel is initially wary of her child getting friendly with a strange man and his rowdy dog, it's nice to have someone her own age to talk to. Someone who looks at her like he sees her, and doesn't find her wanting. Someone who supports her, and lets her support him in turn.

As their lives begin to twine together and they figure out how to fit their jagged edges together in a way that works, Galadriel starts to think she might just want to stay here after all.

AKA: Halbrand kept the dog in his messy breakup with Melkor. Carcharoth learns to play fetch…and fetches Halbrand a whole-ass family

M+ || AU || Wrong Number, Text Fic, Modern AU, Romcom Vibes, Strangers To Friends To Lovers, But Also Strangers To Rivals To Lovers, Halbrand's A+ Flirting, Found Family, Halbrand Uses His Middle Name In His Personal Life I Guess, Tevildo Is Spoiled And Orange

When Galadriel is offered one of four coveted associate spots at a prestigious inner-city law firm, she barely stops to think before wrestling a lifetime's worth of belongings into the trunk of her sensible hatchback and exchanging her sprawling family home in Tirion for an overpriced one-bed apartment in Eregion, halfway across the country.

While she's settling in, she receives a text from an unknown number - a picture of the sender's cat. And although she's not usually the type to strike up a conversation with a stranger, she's feeling rather alone and isolated in a new city while she waits for her first day at work, and so she responds with both a 'wrong number' warning and a question about the cat.

Unexpectedly, Wrong Number Guy texts back.

And keeps texting.

Over months, she develops a friendship with this stranger she's never met. Wrong Number Guy is apparently called Halbrand, has bizarre taste in music, can recommend an excellent restaurant for almost any cuisine, and should be jailed for excessive use of the smirk emoji. He sends her a good luck text on her first day at work, sends her pictures of Tevildo the cat to cheer her up when she's having a bad day, and once orders pizza to her apartment when she's having a really bad day. He also listens to her vent about her fellow associate and work archnemesis, Mairon, who's smug, shady as all hell, and gunning for the same promotion Galadriel wants, which naturally makes him the worst person alive.

As their relationship evolves, Galadriel starts trying to get Halbrand to meet her in real life. But he seems strangely hesitant for someone so charming and sociable, and it makes her wonder. Who is he, really? And what is he hiding from her?

M+ || AU || Modern AU, Sex Work, Accidental Voyeurism, Porn With Plot

Halbrand, being the fortunate owner of a Sexy Voice, has a nice little side gig doing audio porn on OF/Patreon/whatever, and he's Galadriel's go-to jill-off material. When her elderly neighbour transitions into a nursing home and the most obnoxious man alive moves in next door, she can't help feeling as though she's met him before. But it's not until she hears him getting off through their shared bedroom wall that she realises why his voice is so familiar.

G+ || Canon Compliant-ish || Half-Maia Celebrían, Werewolf!Sauron, Father-Daughter Bonding

When Celebrían is small and life is peaceful, Galadriel believes her lands to finally be safe, and the little princess of Lothlórien is free to wander the forest at will. Near the outskirts of her mother's realm, she befriends a strange wolfish creature with yellow eyes.

AKA: Galadriel has custody. Sauron, living as the Necromancer in Dol Guldur, risks sneaking into Lothlórien as a wolf or a warg for visitation.

M+ || AU || Modern AU, Sex Work, OnlyFans, Porn With Plot, Halbrand Is Loaded & Galadriel Is Making Bank, But Also Halbrand Is Interested In Her As A Person So That's A Plus, Online Flirting

Struggling to feel attractive and reclaim her sexuality after the breakdown of her marriage, Galadriel impulsively signs up for OnlyFans following a night out with Nori and one too many cocktails. It's fun and validating and boosts her confidence to get back into the dating scene. But the mediocre men she's meeting at bars and on dating apps quickly begin to pale in comparison to the lavish attentions of her most supportive follower, "darklordsauron", with whom she's beginning to feel an undeniable spark.

M+ || Canon Divergence || Dream Courtship, Prison Penpal, Trauma, Hurt/Comfort, Morally Questionable Valar, Reeducation, Attempted Brainwashing

The war is over. Morgoth, brought back to Aman in chains, has sued for clemency, but the Valar do not fall for the same trick twice: it will be the Void for him this time. Thousands of his Úmaiar have been imprisoned in Valinor. And Galadriel, her oath fulfilled, joins the legions of Eldar taking ship back to the Undying Lands.

As she struggles to pick up the threads of her old life, embroidering and baking and waiting for her brothers to return from Mandos, a figure begins to appear in her dreams - in the background at first, becoming increasingly prominent the more she notices him - and she comes to know him as Halbrand the blacksmith.

Galadriel is no fool: she knows "Halbrand" is a Maia, paying court to her through her dreams. And she knows well the Aulendili who worked the Smith's forge when she was apprenticed there: she is certain she can discern the identity of her admirer, with a little time and effort.

But her dreams, she will come to realise, are not coming from Aulë's forge, and her Halbrand is no simple worker.

AKA: The war ends with Morgoth's defeat. Imprisoned by the Valar, Sauron's only escape is osanwe. Galadriel, a powerful telepath in her own right, gets unwittingly signed up to a prison pen pal program.

T+ || Canon Compliant || Third Age Haladriel, Sauron Can Still Be Halbrand In The Mind Palace, Just Not In Real Life, Nightmares, Hurt/Comfort

In Caras Galadhon, Galadriel wakes up screaming from a horrifying PTSD nightmare. Instinctively, unintentionally, she reaches out for comfort, for safety, for understanding - not from her husband, sleeping soundly down the hall, but from an ancient evil she's been shutting out for centuries.

Hundreds of miles away in Barâd-Dur, Sauron answers the knock on the door to his mind -

-- and Halbrand does his best to give her what she needs.

M+ || Canon Divergence || Consensual But Neither Safe Nor Sane, Sauron Poking The Bear, Past Abuse, Past Torture, Deliberate Triggering, Halbrand's Morgoth Trauma, Galadriel's Finrod Trauma, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Aftercare In Both Directions, Galadriel Goes Too Far & Finds It Quite Upsetting, Halbrand's Shitty Coping Mechanisms

Sauron has spent hundreds of thousands of years devoted to Morgoth, in a relationship where every dynamic was characterised by power and domination - corrupter and corrupted, king and general, master and servant. In that time, he's learned that pain and punishment are unpleasant but essential components of absolution. When he fails or angers Melkor, he is punished for it, and then - eventually - forgiven.

Now, as Halbrand, he's not getting that same routine, and it's making him antsy and unsettled. Galadriel may have agreed to stay with him and bind him to her light, but he's painfully aware of her hatred for Sauron, the way her brother's corpse still lies between them. But she hasn't taken her retribution, and he hates waiting for the hammer to fall. He remembers all too well what happened the last time he failed to address this kind of resentment from an important ally. He wants her to get it over with.

At his invitation - and after a considerable amount of goading with which he manages to make her snap - she vents centuries of loathing and long-nurtured pain on the monster she's hunted for entire lifetimes - and, for reasons she cannot understand, he lets her. This makes Halbrand feel more stable, but she's horrified at her own loss of control. Together, they try to figure out a better way forward.

M+ || AU || Modern AU: Famous Musicians, Enemies To Lovers, Fake Dating, Romcom Vibes, He Makes Her A Little Bit Worse, She Makes Him A Little Bit Better, Writing Songs Together

Galadriel is a folk singer-songwriter with a squeaky-clean image, fighting to break out of obscurity. Halbrand is a trainwreck rock star on his third tabloid scandal of the year. Frantically attempting damage control, his long-suffering manager makes a deal with hers: a fake relationship. Being seen with her will make it look like he's finally getting his shit together, while being seen with him will give her much-needed exposure to a massive and passionate fanbase.

There's only one downside. She hates his guts.

G+ || Canon Divergence || Bronwyn Is Fine Guys, Comedy, King Of The Southlands Halbrand, Life Lessons, Romantic Cliches, Galadriel Just Wants A Little Bit Of Honesty Y'all

When Halbrand returns to the Southlands elfless and withdrawn, everyone seems to have Opinions on how he can win back Galadriel's affection.

Five times Halbrand follows the well-intentioned romantic advice offered by Bronwyn, Arondir, Theo, Celebrimbor (via letter, probably) and the newly-rescued Isildur, plus one time he finally gives up on the scheming and manipulation and gives Galadriel what she really wants from him: the truth.

G+ || Canon Divergence || Step-Sauron, Celebrían Has Balls Of Steel, Bonding

Halbrand doesn't really understand how to play. Celebrían attempts to bond in a way that will make sense to him.

AKA, Galadriel's eight year old challenges Morgoth's former right hand to a (play) swordfight

T+ || Canon Divergence || Lifespan Differences, Forgiveness In Mortals Vs Elves, King Of The Southlands Halbrand, The Southlanders Know, Bronwyn's A+ Ancient Immortal Entity-Wrangling Skills, Halbrand Goes Back To Pelargir With The Freed Southlanders

When baffling intelligence informs Galadriel that Halbrand has returned to what's left of the Southlands and taken up the crown she helped him steal, her conscience cannot allow her to sit idly by and leave those innocent people ignorant of the snake in their midst, vulnerable to whatever foul plan he's concocting for them. At the head of a train of humanitarian aid from Lindon, she rides for Pelargir to reveal Sauron's secret to his people.

As it turns out…they know. They've noticed. Several people saw him shield the village when the volcano erupted. Those who were imprisoned with him in Mordor have heard him use or understand Black Speech, or seen him calm the wargs. Bronwyn, who spends most of her time with him as Chief Advisor, is convinced that he doesn't sleep enough to be human, and he occasionally references events that happened long before he should've been born. But Sauron - an enemy most living elves have personally fought against - is a name from the very oldest of the Southlanders' stories to these people. A fairytale evil, defeated before their grandfathers' great-grandfathers were even thought of. They're more inclined to judge Halbrand based on what they've seen him do in person - save their lives, suffer for them, shield them from Adar - than on oral history from thousands of years ago, and as it stands, they're feeling considerably safer with their odd Maia king protecting them than they would feel without him. They're giving him a chance to prove he's changed for the better. So, shh, Commander. Let him pretend. He thinks nobody's noticed. There's a betting pool on when he'll figure out that they all know.

To Galadriel, this is…a rather alien viewpoint she has to wrestle with. Can someone really change that much in just a few thousand years?

T+ || Canon Divergence || Single Mom Galadriel, Teenage Celebrían, Step-Sauron, King Of The Southlands Halbrand, Mother-Daughter Relationships, Halbrand's Aule-Shaped Daddy Issues, Family Feelings, Bad Mom Galadriel Rights

Elves have immense lifespans and enjoy commensurably long childhoods; when Galadriel left her very young daughter in the care of distant relatives to go off and hunt down Sauron, she always assumed that she'd miss very little of Celebrían's youth in the grand scheme of things. But she's been gone a very long time, and when she finally sends for the newly-minted princess of the Southlands to join her in Pelargir, what arrives is not a sweet little girl but an angry, uprooted adolescent whose memories of her mother and father have gone fuzzy over centuries.

As mother and daughter struggle to reconnect and understand each other, Halbrand - poster child for parental abandonment issues - tries to bridge the gap.

T+ || Canon Divergence || Galadriel Said Yes, King Of The Southlands Halbrand, Power Couple, Kemen Being An Asshole, Political Manoeuvring, Halbrand Is An Incredibly Savvy Diplomat, Kemen Is Way Out Of His Depth, Kemen Trying To Sway Haladriel To Pharazon's Side, Possibly By Spouting The Lie That Míriel Has Allied With Sauron, Careful My Guy Or Sauron Might Just Decide To Uphold That So-Called 'Alliance' And Start Causing Problems, Galadriel's A+ Maia Wrangling Skills VS Her Friendship With Míriel FIGHT, Halbrand Getting To Go A Bit Feral

Kemen arrives in Pelargir to take control of the city, under the impression that no grubby, uneducated low man would dare challenge the new prince of Westernesse and his contingent of Númenorean guards.

But the king of the Southlands is not, in truth, a low man.

And neither is his new queen.

G+ || Canon Divergence || Pippin Took's A+ Life Choices, Butt Dialling The Dark Lord, Pippin Tries His Hand At Relationship Therapy, Outsider Perspective, Gandalf POV

In ROTK, Sauron answers the Palantír like he's really hoping it might be Galadriel this time. Pippin Took is not Galadriel, but he has recently met her, and - since he's not the brightest bulb and doesn't really cotton on that he's just accidentally facetimed the Dark Lord - he's perfectly happy to tell this complete stranger all about that experience in detail. Sauron, smart enough to realise that he might get some usable intel about Lothlorien out of this strange little creature, entertains the conversation for longer than he otherwise might have. Pippin is even pretty easy to talk to.

And when Gandalf bursts in, half-expecting the dear little soul to be driven mad with agony, he finds Pippin…very earnestly trying to talk Mairon through how to fix his relationship problems - an undertaking of such colossal stupidity that the entire West gave it up entire Ages ago.

And Mairon actually seems to be listening.

Angbang

T+ || Angsty || Outsider Perspective, Ainur Family Drama, Melkor Is A Mess But He's Mairon's Mess, Even Evil Has Loved Ones, The Valar Concept Of Love & Melkor's Concept Of Love As Very Different Things

Angband is a smoking ruin. The Enemy is a captive of the Valar. The war, it would seem, is over.

But the Ainur are uneasy. Not all of Morgoth's forces have been subdued. The Enemy's favourite servant has slipped the net, and getting information out of Melkor is like pulling teeth. Under questioning - and even the threat of the Void - in Valinor, he still refuses to tell them where his devoted lieutenant Sauron has gone into hiding.

Aulë, waiting for news of his wayward Maia, tries to make sense of how even the most corrupted of them all can be beholden to forces like love and loyalty, and how it can be that none of them ever saw this coming.

T+ || Fluff & Comedy || Epistolary Fic, Long-Distance Relationship, Leading Armies Means Being Apart A Lot, First Age, Love Letters, Complaint Letters As Well Lbh They Probably Bitch To Each Other A Lot About Everyone Else

Melkor's rise and fall, as told by the orders Melkor sends to Mairon, the reports Mairon sends back, and the informal postscripts attached to both.

M+ || PWP || Creative Use Of The Mind Palace, Telepathy, I Could Not Find A Mention On The Wiki Of Where Sauron Was During This Siege, So Let's Assume He Wasn't Like. Also Stuck In Angband

During the 400 year Siege of Angband, Melkor uses ósanwë to leave the surrounded fortress and spend some quality time with Mairon.

T+ || Angsty || Sanity Slippage, Hallucinations, Melkor Trying To Envision His Happily Ever After Even Though He Doesn't Know What Happily Ever After Looks Like

Sentenced to eternity in the Void, and slowly losing his mind to the isolation and sensory deprivation, Melkor comforts himself with visions of his little fire spirit.

Silvergifting

G+ || Fluffy || Celebrimbor Has A Crush, But He's Very Sweet About It, Possible Angst, Celebrimbor Probably Needs Closure Too, Halbrand Should Not Be Forging But He Can Still Hang Out

Celebrimbor likes to work late. Flattered by the admiration of a handsome young king, and delighted to have a fellow passionate smith to bounce ideas off, he takes to letting Halbrand join him in his workshop in the evenings while the latter is healing. One night, while swapping theories about the mithril and definitely not watching the candlelight catch on Halbrand's hair, he finds himself making a gift of his own. After all, a king should have a crown, and what better crown than one made by 'the Celebrimbor'?

(Possible angsty bonus scene: many thousands of years later, Galadriel seeks closure and a final goodbye in Mordor after Sauron's downfall. In the ruins of Barad-Dur she finds the crown that Celebrimbor made for a king who never existed, kept in Sauron's quarters as though treasured. Maybe she rescues it to take back to Valinor)

Poly/Multiple Ships

M+ || Saurondriel/Angbang || Past Abuse, Telepathy, The Mortifying Ordeal Of Learning To Make Better Romantic Choices, Sauron Loves & Fears Melkor Equally, Letting Go, Saurondriel Is Not Healthy But In This Case It Is HealthIER, So Like. That's Something

Sauron and Morgoth were still telepathically connected when Morgoth was thrown into the Void. A fragment of his consciousness remains in Sauron's mind, manifesting as a hallucination that only he can see and hear. At first, he is Melkor, the doting lover Sauron chooses to remember, amusing and affectionate and comforting and so, so missed. But, as rage and fear take over and the Void begins to drive Melkor mad, he increasingly behaves like Morgoth, the side of himself Sauron would rather forget - the cruel master whose wrath he fled after his defeat at Tol-in-Gaurhoth. With 'his' Melkor appearing less and less, Sauron becomes more and more burned out under the slew of criticism and mockery, and his confidence in his own ability to lead takes an additional battering when his subordinate turns on him at Forodwaith. When he happens to cross paths with Galadriel, he realises almost immediately that the light in her silences Morgoth's voice in his mind. As they grow closer, her unwavering belief in him - or, at least, in "Halbrand" - makes him want to do good, to please her and prove he's worthy of her support. But Morgoth is not the only voice silenced by proximity to Galadriel, and letting Melkor go is an agony he's not sure he can survive.

T+ || Angbang, Saurondriel, Galadriel/Celeborn || Having The Same Conversation While Thinking About Entirely Different People, She's Thinking About Celeborn, He's Thinking About Melkor, Halbrand's Species Has A Mayfly Lifespan & A Casual Approach To Intimacy So She Is Not Expecting Him To Understand At All, But He Really Really Does

When their flirty banter turns to their respective races' romantic customs, Galadriel finds herself opening up to Halbrand about elven marriage, about her long-lost husband, and about her feelings of guilt over her attraction to him.

Halbrand empathises. More than she ever thought he could.

M+ || AU || Saurondriel, Galadriel/Celeborn || Modern AU, Porn With Plot, Safe Sane & Consensual, Sex Work, Polyamory, Threesomes, Kink, Switch Halbrand, Galadriel & Celeborn Are Figuring Out What They Like So Who Knows, Halbrand Blacks Out & Has A Consensual Workplace Relationship

Galadriel's marriage has been going stale for years by the time her husband hesitantly comes out as bisexual. Secure in their relationship and trying to support him, she suggests a threesome to liven up their staid, predictable sex life - and, after some thought, Celeborn agrees. His one condition is that the third should be a professional, so that the situation won't get messy. Halbrand is the professional; they have a fantastic time with him and begin seeing him regularly. The first time they hire him, they all believe that this is the best way to avoid anyone catching feelings for anyone else. This, of course, goes really well for everyone involved.

M+ || AU || Saurondriel, Galadriel/Celebrimbor, Silvergifting ||Polyamory, Open Marriage, Copious Blacksmithing, Hurt/Comfort, Halbrand Recovering In Eregion, Relationship Miscommunications

A long time ago, Galadriel married Celebrimbor. They're fond of each other, but since circumstances so often keep them apart (Galadriel hunting Sauron for decades at a time, Celebrimbor inseparable from his forge), they've been quietly maintaining an open marriage for centuries, each occasionally seeking out discrete companionship when they feel the need.

This arrangement has worked well for them for hundreds of years. Neither of them expects it to ever change, or cause drama.

Enter Halbrand.

When Galadriel returns from Númenor with her wounded Southlander king, Celebrimbor is delighted to discover his wife's lover is a fellow smithing nerd. As Halbrand convalesces, Celebrimbor finds himself increasingly drawn to the charming young man and, in spending time with him, actually grows closer to his own wife.

When Halbrand's true identity comes to light, Galadriel is devastated, and Celebrimbor finds himself fighting to keep the three-way bond they've built from imploding.

M+ || Canon Divergence: Early S2 || Saurondriel, Silvergifting || Adar Frees The Southlanders & Creates A Problem, King Of The Southlands Halbrand, Aftermath Of Torture, Celebrimbor Rescues Halbrand From Mordor, Because He Has A Little Crush, Halbrand Recovering In Eregion AGAIN, Reunions

The Men of the Southlands have always been a stubborn, difficult people. Having waited over a thousand years for their royal line to reassert itself, and having seen control over their occupied lands ceded by no less than an elvish general, they're now proving very reluctant to give up on their shiny new king. When Halbrand trades his own surrender for his people's freedom, the displaced refugees descend upon the elven realms, petitioning Gil-Galad and Celebrimbor - Halbrand's apparent allies via Galadriel - to mount a rescue.

Although Galadriel's unsanctioned diplomatic manoeuvring has put him in a difficult position, Gil-Galad opts not to intervene; he thinks leaving Sauron and the orcs to duke it out between them will spare elven lives. For Galadriel herself - still reeling from the shock and betrayal of Halbrand's identity reveal, firmly in the doghouse with her High King, and demoted from her military station - this decision is a difficult one to stomach, as she struggles to reconcile her hatred for Sauron with the sudden fear and concern she feels for Halbrand, along with her own loss of her king's trust and inability to influence or counsel Gil-Galad to her advantage anymore. She's been cut out of the decision-making completely.

When she hears that Celebrimbor - for reasons she cannot begin to understand - has disobeyed Gil-Galad to send soldiers into Mordor to retrieve Halbrand, she rides for Eregion immediately, still not entirely sure whether she wants to see for herself that he's safe, or take the opportunity to kill him personally.

T+ || AU || Saurondriel, Silvergifting, Angbang || Goo Sauron, Sauron As The Rings, Maybe Being Split Into Three Rings Also Splits Him Into Three Personalities, So Galadriel Gets Halbrand/Repentant Mairon Who Is Smitten With Her, Celebrimbor Gets Annatar Who Grows To Be Fond Of Him, And Gil-Galad Gets Sauron Who Is Above All Things Fond Of Morgoth, The First Two Are Varying Degrees Of Tractable & Willing To Work/Compromise With Their Elven Bearers, But The Third One Is Manipulative And Wants Melkor Back, Which Is A Problem, And Now Sauron Is Attached To Possibly The Most Powerful King In Middle Earth At The Time

Galadriel does not find Sauron in Forodwaith, but she does find something that catches her attention: a strange ooze that moves almost like a living thing. Disturbed and suspicious, she catches it in a container and takes it back to Eregion with her, hoping one of the scholars there will be able to tell her what it is. Despite a few odd moments on the journey that make her wonder whether the goo might somehow be sentient, Eregion's scientists determine that the ooze is not an animal - it's a highly magically potent substance, probably leftover from Sauron's experiments.

Galadriel has some misgivings, but ultimately, Celebrimbor has some projects he thinks the goo might prove useful for, and she hands it over. He incorporates it into his Rings.

It's not until Galadriel slides Nenya onto her finger and begins having some strange dreams/hearing voices that she realises the truth: they've accidentally trapped a disincorporated Maia in there. Now they have to figure out how to free him.

And all Sauron has to do is not let on which Maia they've unwittingly imprisoned.

AKA: Mairon's ëala is in the Three, and he wants out. This has consequences (whether funny, romantic, horrifying, etc) for the ringbearers.

[ramblings-of-lola]

October '24 Wrap Up

The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings #1) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Genre: Classic Fantasy

Thoughts: Rereading this book always feels like returning home. I haven't read this series in a few years and forgot how funny it is. Diving into Tolkien's rich world of Middle-earth is always lovely. This reread I've also noticed more connections to Christian symbolism and that's fascinating.

The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings #2) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Genre: Classic Fantasy

Thoughts: I had a little bit of a harder time reading through this one, mainly because life got busy and the descriptions of walking in nature got a little tedious to read. But, I still loved my reread of it, some of my favorite moments in the series are in The Two Towers. The main one is the part with Shelob. It's written so well and the second half of the book has been building up to it, and it delivers. I also like when Merry and Pippin are with the orcs (it has the same terrifying feeling as Shelob) and Treebeard (he's such an interesting character). And Gandalf's return with his greater powers and authority is also so interesting to read.

Books I DNFed (did not finish): None this month

Goal Progress (under the cut because it's a little long)

I have a tag list for when I do wrap ups! If you want to be added or taken off of it, please let me know!

Tagging: @thatrandomlemononyourcounter1 @qylinscafvne @book-girl4evaaa @sunflxwcrs @bookwormgirl123

@thoughts-of-caly

These aren't all of my goals, I'm only including the ones that apply for this month. Here's a link to all of them, if you're curious.

Read more books I own ✅ -> I bought the three books and got to read these copies for the first time! Before, I only had a bind up that's over 1000 pages.

Regularly go through Goodreads list to remove books ❌ -> I've just been adding books 😅

Keep up with reviews for wrap ups. ✅

Less scrolling, more reading. ❌ -> I did okay with this for a few days then barely read for a few weeks. Hopefully I can do better next month.

Try to read more classics ✅ -> I'm counting this because even though Lord of the Rings is a reread, it's still classic fantasy.

[corporatefrog]

꒦‧₊ ꒷ HEADCANNONS: tricking team craig into thinking you're a magician ✧.*

✧.* tags: college au, ✧.* Characters: jimmy valmer, tweek tweek, craig tucker, tolkien black, clyde donavan a/n: i wrote tweek's then had the panicked though "i haven't written tweek for any of my other team craig posts" even though that's literally not true and i forgot that i didn't forget him? idk i put myself through the ringer for no reason lmao

masterlist

Jimmy

Finally! The other half of his magic comedy routine! 

Instantly wants you to go on stage with him

You guys do the circuit to different bars and coffee shops in south park

Honestly he doesn’t care if it’s fake or real

All he knows is it’s PERFECT for marketing

“You don’t want to know how I did it?”

“All i need to know is if you can do it again at 6 pm tonight at tweek bros coffee for a crowd.”

Give him a lil top hat and sparkley vest and he’s THRIVING

He’ll purposely mess up tricks to make people laugh and then you amaze them with an awesome trick

The poster for the show is him in one of those boxes where your legs get cut off with you holding a saw

Tweek

Terrified of any and all magic

You’d do a simple trick and he’d be spiraling all day

“Is this your card”

“AHHHHHHHHHH HOWD YOU DO THAT WHERE DID IT COME FROM”

Probably avoids you for the next week

You walk down the hall, he’s diving into the closet room to avoid seeing you

Skips study sessions for the next week because they’re at your apartment

You need to show him how the trick works before he begins to calm down

Even then, he gets suspicious if you find something a little too quickly or catch a falling pencil a little too well

Craig

Doesn’t care. 

Well, he PRETENDS he doesn’t care

Until you find a way to put a quarter in his hat without being anywhere NEAR him

Suddenly you are a threat

“How did you do that.”

“A magician never reveals their secret”

“No but deadass how did you do that.”

“I would tell you, but seeing you annoyed that you can’t figure it out is so much more entertaining.”

Que him doing intense researching into magic tricks to figure out how the fuck you pulled that off

Constant side eye whenever you’re in the same room because he’ll be damned if he lets you get another trick past him

Won’t admit it but lowkey thinks you’re actually magic

Trick successful >:)

Tolkien

I feel like he would think it’s cool

Not in a genuine belief way, but just as someone who enjoys magic

Another magic phase person. He was the opener for kyle and stan’s magic extravaganzas 

Probably specialized in card magic and can do some pretty sick tricks

Doesn’t think you’re genuinely “magic” or anything

But he wants to know more about how you do your tricks

Asks you to teach him them too!

“Yeah when I showed Kyle and Stan they freaked out so much they didn’t sleep for a week because they couldn’t figure it out.”

“Teach me.”

“What?”

“You ruined stan and kyle’s week just with a magic trick. Please teach me.”

Definitely keeps the magic trick in his back pocket until stan’s gang annoys him so he can send stan and kyle spiraling

clyde 

Tried to learn magic when everyone else had their magic phase but could never figure out how to do the tricks properly 

So now he just gets pissed whenever someone else is good at magic

Doesn’t want to see it at first

But then you do a trick that’s a little too good

And now he’s invested

Wants to see more

Genuinely thinks you’re a wizard like harry potter style

“Can you dye my hair black?”

“That’s really not what I specialize in”

“Ohhh haven’t learned that spell yet. I got you.”

“...yeah definitely.”

[emmanuellececchi]

Status check

Here where I am (after posting my last prompt about Boromir):

two prompts left to fulfill

a letter to answer to

two stories to beta read

the Tolkien OC week shorts to write

My FFXVI Two Idiots in love to finish editing

My FFXVI Following a dream to finish editing

My two novels to finish editing....

All my other fanfics, LOTR and FFXVI to finish

Am I writing too much? no. I am pacing myself. Right now I just want to write short, fun, LOTR stories. Many of those characters were living in my head, just waiting for me. I've decided to take a break from my "serious" writing, as well as FFXVI.

It feels good.

(it feels terrifying because I do not use beta reader and I know there are mistakes but you know what? it's also freeing.).

[raointean]

Tolkien OC Week-Day 6: Background Characters

Also part of my Broken Souls series, this is about Nethril (Maechui's mother) who is a refugee in Mithlond and makes boots for the army. I kind of wanted to explore how the "women's work" of the military might work out. (But really, it's just an excuse to write more in this au. The story follows Nethril reuniting with her son after 15 years apart)

All Nethril could hear was the blood rushing in her ears as she dashed across the plain, her son Maechui close behind. She did not hear the howls of the orc pack behind her, or the thundering falls of their feet, nor could she hear the shouts of encouragement from the soldiers’ camp they were running towards. All she could focus on was putting one foot in front of the other and looking back every few seconds to ensure Maechui was behind her.

Evidently, that was not enough. She was only a few steps away from the camp when she heard a sound that froze her blood in her veins. Maechui’s terrified scream, surrounded by the victorious hooting and howling of the orcs.

Nethril skidded to a stop and started back to save him, meaning to fight the entire pack of orcs with nothing but a pair of fabric shears and determination, but one of the soldiers caught her around the waist.

“Let me go!” she'd shouted. But the soldier had refused.

That had been nearly fifteen years ago. The soldiers had taken her in, dried her tears, bandaged her wounds, but they had not saved her son; they hadn’t even tried.

“We have to save those we can,” they had told her.

“We shall keep a sharp eye out for him,” they had assured her when she pressed.

“He is likely already dead,” they had admitted when she tried to leave to look for him herself.

“This is why you should not have children during times of strife!” one of them had finally snapped after a week of Nethril pleading with them to do something.

It was true, of course, but it still did her no good. Neither empty platitudes nor harsh truths could bring her son back to her; back to life. She had been led to the protected elven city of Mithlond when the winter snows became too thick to fight in, someone had informed her husband of their son’s death, and she had been given a job making shoes for soldiers.

Objectively, she knew it was an honorable thing to serve her king and her people in such a way (if, perhaps, a much less glamorous life than that of a merchant’s wife that she had lived before), but she could not bring herself to care. Her soul was tethered to her body by only a ragged thread, but still she plodded on. She rose from her bed every day to work, she fed herself most days, even washed occasionally. She did not know why she was still there as the world crumbled around her; her son dead, her husband all but a stranger, soldiers and civilians alike dying in droves every day, the lands to the west literally crumbling into the sea; and yet she still drew breath. She had decided many years ago that, while she would welcome the fading when it came, she would do nothing to hasten it. In the meantime, she may as well do something, even if that something was just making boots.

“Bess Nethril,” a low voice roused her from her work. A city guard; a young elf, too young to fight but old enough to hold a sword; stood above her workstation. “You are summoned to the barracks; there is someone who wishes to speak with you.”

After a moment of consideration, Nethril began stowing her tools and tidying up her workspace. She was nearly done for the day anyway, and there was no harm in leaving a little early. Despite the ever-looming fog that hung over her head, she found her interest piqued. Who would be summoning her? And to the barracks, no less?

“Why am I being summoned?” she asked as she swept the last of the woodshavings from her workstation.

The guard shrugged apathetically. “I do not know. I was only sent to fetch you.”

Nethril huffed, but followed him regardless as he led her to the south side of Mithlond, where all military operations were housed. They walked in silence, leaving her to guess about the identity of the one who had summoned her and their reasons. Her first thought was of the newly freed peredhel slaves King Gil-Galad had brought back with him from his last campaign. They were being kept in the barracks until the king could decide what to do with them.

That wouldn’t quite make sense, though, Nethril thought. She did not know any half-elves, nor did she know any couple that could have created one.

Perhaps, then, it was her husband. He was not due back in Mithlond for a few weeks, but he could have been injured! Or perhaps his commanding officer was calling her to him to inform her of her husband’s death. No! No! She would not think such things until the undeniable proof was before her. She did not think she could bear another loss so great.

Before she had time to worry herself too greatly, the rounded a corner and the barracks came into view. They were tall, compact buildings made of slate grey stones and framed by living trees to keep the walls in line. Many warriors were camped along the street and in the greens surrounding the area, presumably to make room in the barrack buildings for the rescued children.

They approached the door of the leftmost building, where Nethril was stopped by another city watchman. He looked older than the one leading her, but no more intimidating in his oversized armor. “Are you Nethril Ferediriel?” he asked her.

“I am,” she confirmed, wondering why she had been asked for so specifically.

The watchman nodded, seemingly satisfied, and opened the door behind him. Out stepped- no, it couldn’t be! A boy; nearly a young man, now; stepped blinking into the sunlight. He was much thinner than Nethril remembered and his curly black hair had lost its former luster, but a mother could always recognise her son.

“Maechui!” she cried.

With a wordless sob, Maechui ran and threw himself into her arms, clinging to her as if his very life depended on it. Nethril clung to him just as tightly. She couldn’t believe he was here, alive in her arms. For twenty years, he had been missing, apart from his friends and his family, dead as far as they knew.

For twenty years he had been… where?

She held him silently for several minutes, listening as his sobs faded to sniffles and trying to get her own storming emotions under control. At last, when she deemed him calm enough, she pulled back - just a few inches - to examine his face. “Are you hurt, ion nín?”

Maechui shook his head. “Not badly.”

That was not what she had asked. Had he been hurt so often that “not badly” was the same as not hurt at all? In defiance of her will, a tear slid down her face. “I am so sorry I lost you,” she breathed. “I wanted to turn back the moment they took you but was… prevented. You have not left my thoughts once all these years.”

Maechui scrubbed the tears from his face. “I missed you too, Nana.”

“What happened to you?” Nethril asked. She knew that she would not like the answer, but she had to ask anyway. It had not escaped her notice that he had come out of the barrack housing the peredhil slaves.

“The orcs took me alive, so they would have fresh meat when they needed it,” he began. Nethril felt her stomach begin to churn. She did not imagine that the rest of Maechui’s tale could be much worse than this, but already it was worse than she had imagined.

She was right, but only just. Her son went on to tell her of how he was rescued by a mannish war party, only to be immediately enslaved by said men. He told her how he was beaten, starved, and run ragged as an errand boy, and how grateful he was that he had it better than some of his friends. He told her how, a few weeks ago, King Gil-Galad had come to inspect their camp and been enraged at the thought of slaves doing his dirty work- so enraged, in fact, that he had sent their general to his death on the front lines. He told her how they had been marched to Mithlond, many of them confused and afraid, and been confined to the barracks while more permanent living situations were sought out.

What could she say to that? ‘I looked for you’? ‘Your loss nearly killed me’? ‘I am glad you survived’?

She said none of those things, but instead held her son tightly to her and whispered, “I am so sorry you had to go through all of that, but you are safe now. I will keep you safe.”

@tolkienocweek

[rebelrebelwrites]

I’ve decided to resurrect…

Fic Friday! ❤️ Weekly Fic Recs

Years ago, I did this back in the Reylo fandom, but I’m bringing it back for the Saurondriel/Haladriel fandom because: A) I’m still obscenely obsessed B) I’m all about supporting creators and C) Since I’m not currently writing for this fandom, I want to contribute how I can. 😊

Let’s do it!

This week’s recs are…

As always, please mind the tags on any recommended story for your own personal reading preferences.

+++

The Classic You’ve Heard Of But Somehow Haven’t Read Yet: Across That Fine Line by @myrsinemezzo

What you need to know going in:

A post-S1 that’s got hype for great reason. After stealing the mithril and Fëanor’s hammer, Sauron spirits away to Mordor with Gal hot on his heels. Once they reunite, things get spicy — we’re talking banter, manipulation (on both sides), a devious and devoted Sauron who’s also terrified of falling too far in love (too late, bro), and a Gal who’s rightfully wary but wants to believe that there’s a way to thread the needle with him. As their journey progresses, so does the depth of their dynamic. Plus! Some awesome inclusions/characters from Tolkien lore. All in all, an absolute must-read.

WIP, Rated Explicit

Read the story.

Follow the author on Tumblr and on AO3.

+++

The AU You Need to Immerse Yourself In Because, Well, Wow: our souls were made from the stars by SilverWing12

What you need to know going in:

Oh gosh, where to even begin??? This lush, brilliant, meticulously measured slow burn of an AU is something I bask in every update. This story sees Mairon delayed in joining Melkor, and instead, he meets Galadriel in Valinor while she's still a child. Hundreds of years pass in which their friendship grows and grows, building to a point of mutual attraction and affection that is stifling in how well-realized and precarious it feels. The world-building, intentionality, pacing, characterization, and mounting pressure in this fic as Mairon falls deeper into darkness and Galadriel grows more suspicious (though both are clearly in love with each other) is simply luxurious.

WIP, Mature

Read the story.

Follow the author on AO3.

+++

The Complete But Never Forgotten Masterpiece: Queen of the Southlands by @formerlyir

What you need to know going in:

Gal doesn’t find out about Sauron’s deception for years, and as a result, she becomes his Queen. The post-S1 ensuing romance, angst, delicious tension and SCORCHING smut is sublime. Get ready for a delightfully unhinged, very devoted Sauron and a Gal who’s rightfully sharp, incredibly brave, and demands what she’s owed. This fic more than sticks the landing at the conclusion — it shreds it. In the absolute best way. I cheered, folks. Cheered.

Complete, Rated Explicit

Read the story.

Follow the author on Twitter, Instagram, on AO3.

+++

The WIP That Will Wreck You (In the Best Way): Litost by @demonscantgothere

What you need to know going in:

It’s no secret that this story, as with every other story I’ve read by Helholden, is wonderful — expect to see their work on this list a few times at least. That being said, I think Litost might be my favorite. It’s post-S1, but by many years, starting with Galadriel being captured and brought back to Numenor as a prisoner of Ar-Pharazôn and his new High Priest of the Cult of Melkor… wonder who that could be? 👀🙃 You guessed it, everyone’s favorite Dark Lord! The resulting twists and turns in this fic continue to surprise, and the angst and longing (on both sides) simmers. The dialogue between these two, when they really communicate, is stellar at getting at the heart of their every conflict. It will pierce you — and you’ll love it.

WIP, Rated Mature

Read the story.

Follow the author on Tumblr or AO3.

+++

The Can't Stop Consuming No Matter What Time It Is Fic: Instruments of Salvation by @scriberated

What you need to know going in:

It's Gal who gets hurt when Orodruin erupts, and as a result, Sauron must save her the only way he can — by forging a bond, all while she still believes he's Halbrand, rightful king of the Southlands. As with all of Scriberated's works, the writing is impeccable, the smut is steamy as all hell, and the characterization is 🤌🤌🤌. As Gal and Hal/Sauron's bond grows in strength, so does the pace at which you'll consume this tantalizing treat of a fic. Stop reading because it's bedtime? Doubtful.

WIP, Rated Explicit

Read the story.

Follow the author on Tumblr or AO3.

+++

🤩🤩🤩

Me at all these fics:

Don't see your story on this list yet? Keyword: yet. Please don't fret! I can only recommend so many each week, but I am always looking for more stuff to read, share, and generally shower with love, so please feel free to reply with your own fics or your personal faves. I have plenty more to recommend... ❤️

Until next week!

[tolkienhorrorweek]

One day until Tolkien Horror Week!

Welcome to Tolkien Horror Week! This is a new event, following in the footsteps of Terrifying Tolkien Week, last run in 2019. This event celebrates all things spooky and creepy in Tolkien's work—both the things he tells us explicitly and the things he leaves up to our imaginations.

The event will run from October 27th to November 2nd and accepts all types of fanworks. There is an AO3 collection for the event here.

Below are some suggested prompts for each day of the week. They are not mandatory; feel free to combine them or disregard them entirely.

Day 1: Angband & Utumno | seeth all things crooked | captivity Day 2: Angmar, Rhudaur, & Minas Morgul | of such dread and dark enchantment | sorcery Day 3: Mordor & the Dead Marshes | the pitiless land | control Day 4: The Barrow-downs & the Old Forest | the clinging mists | corruption Day 5: Mirkwood, Nan Elmoth, & Taur-nu-Fuin | the shadows grew long in the forest | hunting Day 6: Nan Dungortheb & the Paths of the Dead | by perilous paths | terror Day 7: Isengard, Moria, & Númenor | we cannot get out | trapped

Please mention @tolkienhorrorweek in the body of your post and tag #tolkienhorrorweek and #tolkienhorrorweek2024 in the first 10 tags. You may also submit a post.

Given the nature of the event, please also tag for any potential triggers or content warnings and place any NSFW content beneath a read more/link to AO3.

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Art is by Pete Amachree.

[vivwritesfics]

Shine A Light Into The Wreckage

Chapter Eight - Save Me

Bob Floyd was many things. He was an instructor at Top Gun, a lover of Tolkien books and a huge fan of coffee. But Bob was also clumsy. That was how he bumped into the table, knocking her drink onto her notebook. He felt bad about it. Bad enough to come back time and time again, in the hopes that she would be there. And, every time, she is. Each time looking a little worse for wear. It doesn't take Bob long to realise he has to save her.

Warnings: Abusive relationship! Abusive hair pulling! Abusive choking! Forceful sex! Domestic abuse! Seriously don't read if you're affect by stuff like this! Talks of stalking (but in a non serious manner), talks of non consensual groping. she gets called a whore, choking, SA, 'missing' birth control, blood

Series Masterlist

Worried wasn't the word Bob wanted to use. He didn't know her plans, didn't know what she was going to do. He'd desperately hoped that she'd break up with Ken, that she'd call him to help her move out. 

But it had been three days and he hadn't heard anything. He'd called and texted, but nothing, no response. Alarm bells would have been ringing if she hadn't at least been looking at his texts. 

God, he hated how much he missed. All it took was seeing her in his house, in that old Star Wars shirt one time, and he was hooked. It was a sight Bob would never get enough of. And, after not hearing from her in a week, he couldn't think of anything worse than never seeing her in his house, in his clothes, again. 

A week and a half after he'd dropped her at her apartment, a week and a half since he'd heard her soft, melodic voice calling out his name, Bob was given a distraction. A welcome distraction in the form of Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw. 

How long had it been since Bradley visited? Bob wasn't entirely sure, too caught up with other things. But, if Bradley was here, it was because Maverick was also here. 

They almost had all of the Squad back together. As much as Bob loved Jake and Natasha, Rooster and Maverick made a welcome change. Having them down at The Hard Deck while Slow Ride by Foghat, of all songs,  played brought back too many good memories, Bob could hardly grasp them all. 

They didn't even never to ask about her. It might have been one offhand comment about Bob's dating life and there he was, telling everyone about the girl he had fallen in love with. His cheeks were pink the entire time. 

It wasn't his place to detail the abuse, so he didn't. But he made it clear that Ken was an asshole, something that Phoenix and Hangman confirmed. Bradley's fighting spirit immediately came out to play. "Why don't we go jump the guy, get Baby Bob's dream girl back?"

But they all knew they couldn't. 

Until the next Saturday at The Hard Deck. Bob stared desperately at his phone as he waited for any sign of her. It had been two whole weeks since he'd last heard from her, abd he'd done nothing but mope around. It really was pathetic, wasn't it? But he couldn't help it. His dream girl seemed to be gone. 

And then Bob's phone rang. His breath hitched as her name appeared on the screen and he rushed outside to answer it. "Hey Doll," he said, holding the phone up to his ear. 

There was a noise, a noise like she wanted to say something, and then nothing. 

Muffled voices, that was all Bob could hear. He pressed his phone tighter to his ear like that would make any sort of difference. The voices muffled, but he could just about make out what was being said. "Barbie, there's still blood on the counter!" Roared a male voice. Kens voice. 

When she spoke, Bob could hear it a lot clearer. "I'm getting to it, Ken! I swear!" Her voice was hoarse, terror wrapped around her every word. 

The reply was muffled. There was so much happening in that apartment, and Bob didn't know what. It was so fuckibg terrifying.

The next sound he heard was a pained whimper. Natasha had come out to check on him, pausing and listening when she saw the look on Bob's face. Her eyes widened a the next noise, like something hitting the floor or the wall. 

Fuck, Bob couldn’t listen to this anymore. He said her name gently. "If you can hear me, lock yourself in the bathroom. I'm coming to get you."

There was no reply, the call just ending. 

Now, Bob wasn't stupid. He knew there was no way he could get in there and get her out without causing more harm. That was why he went up to Rooster, Hangman, and Phoenix. "I need your help."

That was all it took to get them into Bob's truck. He drove, knuckles white against the steering wheel as he headed to her apartment. The others found out what Bob wanted them to know, what he wanted them to do. 

It was a plan of sorts, but the word plan made it sound cartoon-y. Natasha was gonna keep the car running while they somehow got into the apartment. Bob was gonna get her while Jake and Bradley dealt with Ken. They didn't know what dealing with Ken meant, but they were prepared for anything. 

When they arrived at the apartment Natasha climbed into the driver's seat and Bob, Jake and Bradley climbed out. Bob led the way. He pushed into the entryway, but then he stopped. Which one was her apartment? Fuck, he should have asked on the phone. 

But then he heard shouting, loud and clear from the apartment on the top floor. 

Bob took off running, the others behind him. He took the stairs two at a time. At the very top of the stairs, he threw his shoulder against the door. 

When they met him at the top of the stairs, Bradley and Jake joined him, forcing the door open. It didn't take long before it gave and they were bursting in. 

"What the fuck!" Came the not so familiar voice of Ken. "Get out of my apartment!" 

Bob ignored him as he looked around. "Where is she?" He asked in a low voice, one the others hadn't heard from him before. 

Ken straightened up. "Oh. It's you." 

Before he could say more, Rooster strode forward. In an instant he had Ken up against the wall, holding him by the collar of his shirt. "Where is she?" He roared, spit flying into Ken's face. 

Bob left Jake and Bradley deal with Ken as he walked through the apartment. He ignored the broken glass on the kitchen floor and continued on. 

The first room he got to was the bedroom. It was a mess, sheets everywhere, broken photo frames and a smashed up phone on the floor. Paper everywhere, filled with writing but ripped up. But no her. Swallowing the lump in hid throat, Bob continued on.

There was just one other room. Bob tried pushing on the door, but it was locked. Knocking, he called her name. "Are you in there?" 

Pressing his ear to the door, he heard a muffled sob. "I'm here," he tried, pushing at the door handle again. "I'm gonna get you out of here. Can you let me in?" 

He heard the door unlock so he pushed his way in. He was slow, giving her time to move away from the door before he threw it open. 

And there she was, knees pulled up against her chest as she sat under the sink. The tears freely fell, but she didn't bother to wipe them. Didn't even bother to look up at Bob. 

His breath caught in his throat as he looked down at her. When he held his hand out towards her, she flinched away. His heart snapped in two. 

"C'mon," he said softly. She finally looked up at him. "I'm getting you out of here." 

As soon as she placed her hand in his, Bob pulled her to her feet. Immediately she was against him, holding onto him, arms thrown around his neck. "I got you," he whispered again and again and again. 

He held her against him as he walked her out of the apartment. She had nothing besides herself, but that was more than she ever thought she'd make it out with. Her hand was against his chest, feeling the way his heart was beating in his chest. 

It didn't stop the tears as he took her down the stairs. He didn't know what Hangman and Rooster were doing, just hoping they were following. And, on the stairs, she slipped. She would have fallen to her knees and all the way down if it wasn't for Bob holding her. "I got you," he kept saying as he got her to the bottom of the stairs and out to the truck. 

Bob was a gentleman. He would have helped her in no matter what. But there was no way she would have been able to do it on her own, not in that moment. 

"What now?" Natasha asked as Bradley and Jake climbed in. (Jake climbed into the back with her and Bob, but Bob kept himself between the two of them).

"Drop me back at mine," Bob said quietly. She was holding his shirt so tight, it was almost like she was never gonna let go. "I'll pick up the truck tomorrow.”

The drive back to Bob's was silent. His arm stayed around her, large hand comforting against her back. It was only a short drive, Bob kept a hold of her the entire way. 

When they pulled up, Bob helped her out. The others were silent, only exchanging looks with him as he opened the door and helped her in. 

He heard the truck pull out of the driveway, but the wasn't what he was concerned about as he sat her down. She furiously wiped at her eyes with bruised hands. Hands that Bob gently took into his own and laid them on his lap. 

"What happened?"

She looked so tired, so goddamn tired as she looked up at him. There were bruises all over her skin, lip split open. She looked terrible. But she kept her mouth shut, didn't answer him. 

He could have begged, could have demanded that she answer him, but what good would that do? Instead, he stood, walked into the kitchen, and got her something to drink. 

When he came back with a steaming hot tea and a glass of water, she was already sleeping, face pressed pressed against the arm of the sofa. Bob lifted her ever so slightly, slipped a cushion beneath her head and threw a blanket over her body. 

He left her there, sleeping on the sofa. Now, don't get me wrong, Bob would have carried her to the bed. But he'd never seen her so scared before, didn't want to do anything would would scare her more than she already was. 

He kept his door open, though. Any noise that she made had Bob in the doorway, checking on her. But she slept right through, Frodo curled up against her.

Taglist: @nurse-sainz

@not-nyasa

@burningwitchprincess

@darksparklesficrecs

@primroseluna

@littlemsbumblebee

@wretchedmo

@imaginecrushes

@calpalsbestie

@hiireadstuff

@lyn-js

@emma8895eb

@teacupsandtopgun

@finnydraws

[c-is-for-circinate]

Kind of want to toss more snippets of things that probably won't become long extended fics up onto tumblr. So: Eddie/Chrissy, with deeply bisexual ADHD disaster child Eddie, because we deserve it. (Also background hints of Steve/Nancy, but rest assured Eddie is 100% projecting and highly incorrect about that dynamic.)

Chrissy lives, through sheer dumb luck -- a tape shoved into a player out of some vague idea in the back of Eddie's mind that he could be smooth, could maybe help a pretty girl who for some godforsaken reason seemed to like him have a good time -- and it's great, it's incredible, it's more luck than any of them should've ever dared hope for--

And Eddie is thrilled, obviously. Terrified out of his mind, pretty sure he should be running for the hills, but. Chrissy Cunningham is alive, and for some bizarre, unfathomable reason, she seems to like him.

It's just...jesus christ, what is he supposed to do with that?

It's not that Eddie doesn't like girls. Girls are pretty, and smell good, and have curves in places he's maybe imagined putting his hands a time or two (thousand), and have generally starred in at least thirty to forty percent of his favorite jerk-off fantasies for the past several years. But the general class of females of approximately his own age in Hawkins, Indiana have heretofore been somewhat disinclined to follow up on Eddie's occasional flirtations, and somehow he doesn't think the other skill set is going to be much help here.

It's just...look. Eddie knows, he knows goddamn well that for ninety-nine point nine percent of guys like him, whose eyes skate over the slope of a gentleman's broad shoulders as readily as the swell of a lady's hips, that the easy road would mean playing straight for sixty-some-odd years, marrying a nice girl who doesn't ask too many questions, and maybe getting the occasional blowjob in a truck stop bathroom from a pretty boy you pretend you don't want half as much as you actually do. Of course he knows that. He's given those blowjobs, a lot more often than he's ever had a nice girl like Chrissy Cunningham look at him twice. Because that's the thing, isn't it, once again the Munson luck striking right at the heart of things. Once again, Eddie isn't like every other guy in Hawkins or Indiana or, fuck, the whole damn world probably. Can't just do things the normal way. Has to do everything opposite, and look where that's gotten him lately.

Truck-stop bathrooms are easy. The grit of them, the feel of cold tile through thin denim, the taste of latex and the smell of musk and sweat and come, a thick-fingered hand in his hair and the press of tight muscle under his fingertips, the rush of knowing that even on his knees, he's the one with the power here -- it's good. It's so good, the back rooms of that bar in Indy where one flash of his fake ID gets him an all-access pass to all the sex a boy could want, no strings attached. Slipping into that space is almost as easy, as natural, as slipping into the DM's seat at Hellfire. He doesn't even have to change his look, just makes sure the bandana is tucked into the correct pocket and they come to him, ready to let Eddie take the reins and drag them into something just painful enough to be really satisfying when they make it through to the end.

That's the thing about being a freak. That's the thing, that's always the thing, the backwards mixed-up thing in Eddie's brain that had him reading Tolkien before he turned nine but can't get through one Charles Dickens novel without wanting to scrape himself out of his own skin. He can calculate probabilities and percentage tables for a D&D game in his sleep but can't sit still through a single math class. It took less than a week to get note-perfect on the entire Master of Puppets guitar solo and six years might not be enough to graduate high school.

So yeah, Eddie knows how to be a freak and a faggot, can take a grown man to pieces with his hands and his voice and his dick if he just clicks into that zone where he has all the power to shape the world the way he wants it. That doesn't mean he has any goddamn idea what to do when Chrissy Cunningham smiles at him like that and he trips over his own feet.

He should be looking at Harrington. Steve goddamn Harrington is striding around like that, absolutely shirtless, streaked in dirt and his own blood like some goddamn primal warrior come to life. That would be safe. Safer. Something. Pretty boy in just the right amount of pain, Eddie should be enjoying the eye candy, but he can't because: 1) they're literally in hell and monsters could come after them at any time, 2) Nancy Wheeler apparently has a bedroom full of actual guns and is still in love with her ex-boyfriend, so Eddie's pretty sure he'd better keep his eyes to himself if he wants to keep them at all, and 3) far more importantly than all of that, Chrissy is scared enough to be holding his hand and he's terrified that his palms might be sweating. She's so pretty. He wants her to actually like him so, so badly. This is an absolute nightmare.

"You doing okay?" he asks Chrissy quietly, letting her lean on his arm to help her over some rough terrain when they have to take a detour around a knot of vines. She clutches at his sleeve and smiles timidly, putting on a brave face that makes Eddie want to do something insane like find a suit of shining armor just so he can bow to her in it.

"We're going to be fine," she says. "We just have to get to Nancy's house and it'll all be okay. Right?"

"Gonna let Wheeler make you a a total badass with a gun?" Eddie asks, and then mentally kicks himself. Who flirts with a girl by calling her a total badass? How do smooth guys flirt with girls if they stick around past the initial five minutes of inviting them to come see your band, which literally no girl has ever actually said yes to before? Eddie isn't even sure he has a band any more, if Chrissy's ex-boyfriend has anything to say about it, which means he's kind of out of ideas.

Eddie has one blinding, insane moment of wondering what would Jason Carver do here? before he almost chokes on his own tongue. Fuck. He really can't do this.

"Maybe," Chrissy says, a little shy, and slides her hand down his arm to slip her palm into his again. "Do you think I could?"

There's a smudge of dirt on her perfect nose. Eddie wants to lick it off. Oh god he's a freak. You can't lick cheerleaders. Fuck, Eddie doesn't even know how to go down on a girl. Fuck, why did he think about that. It doesn't matter! He's never going to get the chance! Chrissy is never going to want him to touch her like that anyway!

"I think if the last few days have proven anything, it's that literally anything is possible," Eddie says, and then realizes he just implied that Chrissy being a badass is even more unlikely than alternate dimensions, which is probably even worse than calling her one in the first place, and holy shit, how is it even possible to be this awful at this? Why is she still standing here with him? "I mean, I could even stop being a coward who apparently runs away from absolutely everything, which I've discovered I am now, that's how weird things are, so yeah, compared to that, Chrissy, I think you could absolutely be a badass if you wanted to be."

"I don't think you're a coward," Chrissy says, and she's stepping closer, why is she stepping closer, tucking their arms together. "I mean, I couldn't even run away. He would've gotten me right there, if you hadn't..."

"Luckily I think Harrington and Wheeler are big enough heroes for all of us." Eddie catches sight of them up ahead, Wheeler on point like a hunting hound leading the way, Harrington keeping watch on all sides with that flashlight ready to spring into action at any minute. It should probably be Harrington back here with Chrissy, if he and Wheeler weren't so obviously the perfect battle couple together. Hell, even Buckley, who's up front with Nancy right now and who Eddie knows he clocked checking out Chrissy's legs earlier. She's awkward, yeah, but on her it'd be endearing, and maybe Chrissy deserves better than cowardly asshole boys for a while anyway.

She definitely deserves better than Eddie. She tugs him out of the way of a vine half a second before he trips over it in the dark, like a klutz and a dumbass, and Eddie curses himself for a failure.

[niennawept]

Tag Game - Fandom Edition

Tagged by @somebirdortheother, thanks so much, lovely! This was fun!

Your Name: On here, Nienna or Ni, if you please. I have 4-5 names that people regularly call me outside of that (IRL nicknames) but I prefer to keep that private.

Your First Fandom: Tolkien. Before I even knew what fandom was, I was composing fanfiction in my head about being Bilbo Baggin's niece (yes, before I read LotR, I somehow knew that he would have an adopted child because he definitely wasn't marrying a woman - A+, baby Nienna). At the time, I had no concept of what fanfiction was or what a self-insert was, but here I was, doing the thing at age 8. I think it counts, lol.

Your Current Fandom: Rings of Power specifically, wider Tolkien Legendarium also. And the thing you must know about me is I have two fandoms which are special interests of mine. 1) Tolkien and 2) Star Trek. Normally, when one is dormant, the other wakes up. So we'll count Star Trek too, even though that interest is currently sleeping (shhh, she needs her rest).

How did you first get into fandom?: Um, doomed by the narrative? My dad read The Hobbit aloud to me when I was little and then proceeded to read me LotR out loud a year later. I couldn't NOT form my whole personality around that (and Trek, which he introduced when I was 10).

How long have you been engaging in fandom spaces?: I discovered fanfiction online when I was 14. I used to write a long time ago, but college and grad school got in the way. I lurked for years (reading a couple longfics a week) but I didn't have the energy to create much myself. Adar and Rings of Power brought me out of that shell. So I guess the answer is: it's complicated.

How often do you read fanfic?: I'm almost always reading at least one longfic, although I have slowed down significantly now that I'm writing a longfic. These days I squeeze in reading one-shots because I set too ambitious of an update schedule and I'm trying not to get burnt out.

Top three characters from your current fandom?: Adar (my love), Tar-Miriel (who I am so worried about going into the next season), and probably Galadriel. I really admire how they let her be nasty enough to be credibly accused of being Morgoth's successor, by someone who would know. That's brilliant and gives her character a lot of room to grow into the Galadriel we know in the Third Age.

Have you ever written a fic for a fandom and if so, shout it out!: I do not think any of my very old fic still exists (thank the stars). But I'll link a few Rings of Power fics here (use caution, all three works are 18+):

Scars of Silver and Gold: A Second Age romance/adventure (Adar/OC) that will eventually answer the question "what is the best case scenario for Adar and his uruks that still fits within the constraints of Tolkien's legendarium?"

Until the Stars Burn Out: Set in Cuiviénen, under the light of the stars. Eren, the one who will one day be known as Adar, shares a moment of tenderness with the partner he was made for, Erenyë. (Adar/OC). Based off of "Awake, Arise or Be For Ever Fall’n"  by @dwarveslikeshinythings

Mistletoe Mischief: Christmas-themed smutty Adar/Reader fic. Modern AU.

Have you ever drawn fan art for a fandom?: I have, but I am not willing to share anything yet, because I'm just not where I want to be skill-wise.

Share a personal headcanon that you feel strongly about: Mmmm. I have many headcanons. It is hard to pick one. I'll say this: the elves that went to Valinor from the Waters of Awakening knew that some of them where kidnapped and taken but they did not see any orcs/uruks until the Noldor made it back to Middle-earth. It makes the Battle-under-Stars that much more existentially terrifying. Thinking about writing a horror one-shot about this - imagine recognizing your old friend, twisted by centuries of torture among the dead. *shivers*

You’re trying to convince a friend to get into your current fandom(s) with you. what episode, clip, or scene are you showing them?: Mmmmm. I don't think there's a clip of ROP that I can pick that doesn't have spoilers. All the parts I'm most attached to are in pretty deep.

And finally, what does fandom mean to you?: Community. Enjoying the thing you enjoy on your own is marvelous but enjoying it with other people is even better! People have such wonderful different ideas about things and that's very cool.

Tagging (no pressure, just love): @dwarveslikeshinythings, @lazymeriadoc, @bananaphanta, and anyone else to whom this looks like fun!