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Some hurt-comfort russiingon for @russingon-week

Day 3 - Song

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@russingon-week day 4- peace

Some colouring experiments wanted to make something with dreamlike softness feeling

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I hate retellings that are advertised as feminist but instead are just the same plot from the female character's pov and her pov is that all the women in her life are inexplicably terrible and shallow and she hates them all

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bisexual maeglin please!

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bingqiu human/demon role reversal as requested by alliechickfics on twitter! for a modest donation to the listed organizations and individuals over at SVSSS Gotcha 4 Gaza, you too can get a prompt fulfilled in exchange.

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“Climbing that hill, I gaze afar for my father.”

Elrond went to visit Nerdanel. They talked about persons they both knew, and shared details only known to each of them.

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Things that run in the House of Finwe:

Good hair

Being dramatic

Fits of craft-related madness

A love of jewelry

Choosing violence

Impressively good hair, even by elvish standards

The willingness to fight a Vala

Stubbornness

Heroic deaths

Being infuriatingly good at things

Hair that is suspiciously perfect even after crossing the Helcaraxe, hanging from Thangorodrim for thirty years, thousands of years of being a beach hermit, etc.

Unexplained, vaguely mystical powers

Autism

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Maedhros: I didn't understand why Finrod cared so much about his dumb Men until I got a dumb Man myself. *pulls out Bór* I've only had Bór for a day and a half, but if anything happened to him, I would kill everyone in this room and then myself. Bór, dangling a foot off the ground: :D

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Washing the blood of the battle away

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fast night sketch of sleepy Fëanor.

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Well, at least he tried (Achilles and Pyrrhus attempting some father-son bonding)

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Finwe and Míriel, in which the latter doesn't die? (Hopefully something involving Feanor)

Sometimes she slipped back into long periods of darkness, even now, but as Fëanáro grew she found that her son’s brightness could help to bring her out of them somewhat, and she clung to that, forced herself to think of him when she felt the black moods and exhaustion coming on… and gradually, almost to her surprise, those times in which she only wanted to sleep forever began to grow shorter and farther apart.

Finwë held her differently now, he touched her as though she were the finest glass filigree, wont to break into a thousand pieces, and sometimes there were tears in his eyes when the three of them sat together, ate meals together, or when Fëanáro showed his mother something he had made.

Fëanáro was grown and gone now, he had a wife and child of his own, and as Míriel leaned back in Finwë’s encircling arms and watched Fëanáro play with his tiny, laughing, red-haired son she knew she thought suddenly that she would not have missed this for the world. 

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I think think this would be one of the funnier interactions in an “Ezra and Luke are in the rebellion at the same time together” timeline.

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The thing about the Valar paroling Morgoth is that it's easier to judge in hindsight.

Basically, the reader always knows their trust will be betrayed. Even if you don't know the Silm yet, heck, even if you don't know LotR, you're familiar with the Dark Lord archetype and this right here is Tolkien creating it. This is how Palpatine, this is how Voldemort, this is how Sauron Expy №14 would have acted.

And furthermore, I don't know if it's that obvious to everyone, but to someone familiar with Christian beliefs, it's pretty obvious from the start that Morgoth pretty much represents the devil. Yeah, it's Tolkien, it's never 1:1 - but it's as close to 1:1 as it gets in the Legendarium, and it's pretty darn close. Of course the devil is a liar, that's pretty much in the definition, you don't trust him, how well did you think that could end?

And even if one was to be somehow unfamiliar with both Christianity and three fourths of pop-culture, it's a story, and I think the rules of story in the majority of cultures imply that if someone's been evil without any redeeming qualities for three chapters straight, they're not going to suddenly change allegiance in the fourth. (Also, let's not kid ourselves, we're straight up told he feigned it.)

That said - from the perspective of the Valar? We like to talk - or at least I like to talk - about how many of the mistakes that the Noldor (and the Fëanorians in particular) make are much more understandable in the light of them living at the very beginning of history. Fëanor doesn't know any better than to leave half his army behind, because he really cannot know any better. It's a moral betrayal, sure, yet as a tactical blunder it feels foolish, but can be explained. (And of course, despite ample historical evidence to the contrary, even we, every time there's a war, believe we'll be home by Christmas). They don't have any historical examples of overcharging leading to failure, they don't have any cautionary stories about rash oaths; they're only going to become one for future generations. And the Valar pardoning Morgoth is even farther back.

This is the first instance of treachery within the count of time! Heck, I doubt the Valar even know one of their number can lie at this point! Maybe they understand the concept as something Elvish children do before they know any better; maybe not even that. This is Paradise, and treason intruding into Paradise, and they cannot see into his heart, and he's always been very open about his goals before.

Does the situation scream "this is going to end very, very badly", even without the additional in-text explanations of Morgoth's purposes? Very much so. But is there an easy explanation, that does not assume incompetence on the part of the Valar? Also yes.

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Maglor + playing around with pixel textures

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youve heard of missionary position. now get ready for MERCENARY position