Blood and Copper on the Cliffs by Tathrin  

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Fanwork Notes

This is my first fic set in the First Age so I implore you to be gentle with it. And by "gentle" I mean "please tell me if I got anything wrong so I can do better with the next one, no need for gentleness at all, thank you." It is also my fist fanwork posted on the SWG, and I am both excited and nevous; please tell me if I've done any formatting/tagging/etc incorrectly that I ought to correct. Thank you.

Content Warnings (probably nothing surprising, but best to be sure):

  • the customary "recovering from injuries/torture" experience of having been recently plucked off the cliffs of Thangorodrim.
  • an oblique reference to periods of past starvation.
  • narration from a very messy mental state: a significant portion of the fic is narrated from the premise that our protagonist is experiencing an hallucination (caused either by his own damaged mind or Morgoth's arts) and it is dotted throughout with various references to previous hallucinations/dreams/mental-torments and a great deal of self-loathing (some justified, most not).
  • one (unintentionally) non-consensual kiss.
  • no one is doing okay. but at least some of them are choosing hope by the end.
Fanwork Information

Summary:

Trapped upon the bitter cliff, Maedhros dreams. Or hallucinates. Or endures the mental torments of the Dark Vala, Morgoth. Surely, one of those must be the case; for he cannot have been rescued from Thangorodrim's torturous peak. He cannot.

But then, why is Findekáno here?

Maedhros finds in many ways that those visions which do not end with his own blood and breaking are the worst of all: because they end instead in waking, and the inescapable knowledge that such things will never again be aught but dreams to him. That knowledge is a tighter shackle than the one that holds him to the cliff-face, and the pain of it around his heart is much sharper than that which throbs through his arm. An arm goes numb much faster than a heart, and there is a limit to how much pain a body can bear before the sensation of agony starts to crumble beneath the onslaught.

If there is a limit to how much pain a heart can hold, Maedhros has not yet found it.

Major Characters: Maedhros, Fingon

Major Relationships: Fingon+Maedhros

Genre: General, Hurt/Comfort

Challenges:

Rating: Teens

Warnings: Check Notes for Warnings
Chapters: 1 Word Count: 14, 835
Posted on Updated on

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Table of Contents

Blood and Copper on the Cliffs

Comments on Blood and Copper on the Cliffs

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Tathrin has requested the following types of constructive criticism on this fanwork: Setting, Spelling, Grammar, and Mechanics, Worldbuilding. All constructive criticism must follow our diplomacy guidelines.

Very moving! I was especially struck by that angle that he allowed himself to think about Fingon because he thought Fingon was safe in Aman.

(As you asked, I noticed nothing unusual about the tagging, but just double-checking:  from my reading, both Fingon+Maedhros and Fingon/Maedhros seems possible tags, depending on point of view. I suppose you chose "+" deliberately, being aware of both options?)

Thank you! I'm so pleased you enjoyed that aspect.

And thank you for the sharp eye on the tags, too. You've guessed correctly, I did, and I think it's splendid that the SWG has + as a relationship option instead of just the common & or / as that's a really useful third option. I think it suits them best here, because while for Maedhros the relationship has switched over to a / for Fingon it's still in a state of uncertainty and curiosity/potential, and I like how the + can capture that more layered situation — but if SWG hadn't had the + option, yeah I would have gone with the more basic / instead, as that could certainly apply too (albeit more on one side than the other lol).