New and Updated Writing

Elros and Elrond enact their plan to escape from their kidnappers and find allies along the way. Reunions are made in the dense forest of southernmost Ossiriand, just not the ones that were expected.

Idril and Meleth (my OC) welcome Finduilas, Niënor, and other refugees into Havens after the Fall of Doriath, hoping they can start anew there. Finduilas's daughter is distraught about the situation. Also, how did Finduilas and Niënor make it to the Havens after the Fall of Doriath?

Part fandom-commentary and part literary-critical reading, this essay considers the interpretive ease with which Elrond’s “kindness” is conflated with moral coherence, particularly when it comes to treating his affective attachments to the Fëanorians and/or Elwing and Eärendil as absolute ethical verdicts. Drawing on affect theory, trauma theory and adaptation analysis, I explore a way to read Elrond’s kindness as a cultivated practice which is not incapable of bias or harm. By reframing Elrond as a figure whose kindness arises from ambivalence rather than moral certitude, I try to offer a perspective that considers how 'virtue' is not an innate or fixed quality but one shaped by violence, grief, loss and the structural constraints of doctrine.

Ñolofinwë makes a pained noise and pulls back enough to look him in the face, before his eyes seem to get caught on Fëanáro’s collar, on his chest, his shoulders. “You are in my colors,” Ñolofinwë says softly, traces his finger along Fëanáro’s collarbone and down the front of his tunic. His eyes, when they meet Fëanáro’s once more, are blown out with a disgusting, greedy desire, and understanding strikes Fëanáro.

“Oh,” he breathes, thinking that he should likely have guessed at the reason on his own. He had anticipated that the outfit would garner a reaction from Ñolofinwë, this is true. He cannot say that this was ever one of the reactions he had anticipated. “How shameful of you,” he says quietly, watching the way Ñolofinwë’s eyes drop down to his mouth as he speaks. “Does it not shame you that you should want me in such a way?”

Celebrian has a few demands for her wedding

About the Battle of Unnumbered Tears.

Beleg seeks, by all means that he might, to persuade Túrin to return to Doriath with him. But two can play at this game.

In Valinor, little Tyelpë wakes up from a scary dream and braves the shadows to find his Atto, who will keep him safe from any monsters lurking in the dark.

(Inspired by a cut snippet from chapter 3 of my fic "but for the look in his eyes". It's not necessary to read that before reading this, however.)

He knows that he’s supposed to say, if he’d known what would happen, he wouldn’t have done it. That he wouldn’t have paced through the halls, watching the tapestries appear, and seen his brother poised in front of Morgoth, preparing to fight, preparing to die, and gone a bit mad with grief.

He knows he should say he would not again go find a tapestry of where it all went irrevocably wrong and begin shredding it apart.

But he is suddenly standing in the middle of the library, treelight dancing through the windows, and staring at him with open mouthed shock is Ñolofinwë. So no, he finds he does not regret it at all.

Fëanáro thinks of many things during his exile for he has nothing but time and a chest full of fury.

He thinks of his hatred for Melkor. He thinks of his children and the toil the exile is taking on them even if they will not voice it. He thinks of his father and the disappointment he’d just barely been able to see hidden beneath the concern. He thinks of Nerdanel and cannot help but wonder if she saw this coming. More often than not though, he finds his thoughts dwelling on Ñolofinwë.

On how wide and endlessly blue his eyes had gone when Fëanáro had set the point of the sword to his throat.

One set of twins meets another. A tragic start to the kidnap family, from Amrod's point of view.

A Noldo follower of Fëanor laments the First Kinslaying and the Flight of the Noldor

Adaptation of the lyrics of a German song to the Legendarium: Zogen einst fünf wilde Schwäne. (With English translation).

“I do love you, Russandol. You know I do, do you not?”

For a long, drawn-out moment, Maedhros only stares. Something is taking root in his chest, something he knows, then, he will not be able to extricate from himself again. “I know,” he says, voice rough. “I—“

But Fingon stops him, pressing a hand to Maedhros’ mouth. “Don’t, not yet; tell me when we see each other next.”

---

Five times they share their own small ritual upon separation and reunion, and one time it takes a little longer than either of them can endure to mark its completion.

Klexos: Views of the Death of Míriel (3 Narvinyë - 30 Víressë, 8 Fourth Age) represents the first public exhibition collecting textile-based approaches to the death of Míriel Serindë, including Amanyar and Middle-earth works spanning four ages. The symposium is held in conjunction with this exhibit through the generous collaboration of the University of Valimar.

And of course, of course it is about the boats. Fingon wants—oh, Fingon wants to forgive Maedhros so badly, but he dreams of leaping flames, of the feeling in his chest like something is crushing his ribs, slowly, inevitably, to dust and grime.

“What do you want, Makalaurë?” he asks again, except that this time, it comes out angry. He has ever had an atrocious grip on his temper.

“You should ask him about it.”

---

Forgiveness takes time and honesty. Fingon has never been a patient person; Maedhros, in recent times, has not been an honest one.

Eventually, they work it out.

“Have you ever kissed anyone?”

Findekáno stills, and finally looks at Maitimo. Finds him already staring back, unflinching and—hungry, almost, Findekáno would call it, if he did not know better.

“I have not,” he says, his heart hammering madly inside his rib cage. Still, he adds, all bravado, “Why? Have you?”

---

It starts reckless and stupid. Which is to say, it starts with them.

Now a great crowd of spirits, both Elves and lingering Men, were gathered before the newest tapestry as it fell open down the wall, luminous, gold and silver threads glittering in the pale light of Mandos.

What is it to be made for a kinder world?