My sun, my dear dear sun

One brave thing that I did towards the end of February was recovering ALL the fics featuring the uh...half-side of the family, including all the fics I'd written for exchanges, from the old USB drive I'd exiled them to. 

I did some reorganising - I gave Aredhel a file all her own (I was actually writing an Aredhel/Celegorm fic that turned into Aredhel/Fëanor into Aredhel/Fëanor/Celegorm, because YES), I put all the unfinished wips in another file and all the fics featuring a certain half-brother that fandom made me hate into an aptly titled file of his own. 

There were a couple of fics that I deleted from my AO3 and from everywhere else. One featured Elrond and I don't particularly regret deleting it, though I'd be curious to re-read what I'd written now. 

The one that I do regret deleting was a fic in which my OC Elthedir interacted with a recovering Maedhros, and damn, I vaguely remember it and I wish I had saved it somehow.

Yesterday night I decided to make a list of all my AUs...which would have been easy if around 1/3 of all my fics had not been AU!

But I wanted to have a clear idea of what I've already written, since all the fics I-sort-of-want-to-write/might actually try to write are AUs (LOL).

I've listed them by Age now and I've also decided to note how many Silmarils are involved - usually it's two (especially in end-of-FA AUs), but sometimes it's one (esp. if it's SA or late FA), and more rarely all three, if the AU is about FA going completely different. I could mark NO SILMARIL too, but if there is no Silmaril it's because the story doesn't involve a Silmaril, not because no Silmaril could be retrieved, or they were lost or whatever (never never never never never).

I still need to re-read some of the fics.

Some of my oldest fics are actually embarrassing.

Now I need to NOT overwhelm myself with wanting to fix everything at once.

For Reasons, I need to know which version of her I've used in the fics where she appears (yay to a couple of hours wasted on reviewing old posts, maps and so on.)


NO NAME (god bless)

She 
Take all the children where flood water's low -> EDIT I actually did call her Mineth once here but now I've changed it.



ÁYAMË HÉRUMINYË / MINETH (I'd like to change the Sindarin name at least, but maybe it's not worth it?)


Like Precious Embers
Treasure
The Dark
Indian Summer Sky
Teasing
Crotchety
Way To Fall
Toying
Play Your Games
(Through the Dark)

ERVANIË LALMIEN LALMIRILYA / LALMIR - LALITH [Edit: so I might have found a satisfying name to be just a tad ambiguous and also sort of referencing Miriel - Lalmirilya can mean both glittering laughter or glittering elm, likewise the Sindarin Lalmir can either be interpreted as jewel of laughter or elm-tree; Lalmirilya was probably shortened to Lalmirya, acquiring a new level of meaning (mirya = beautiful (as a work of art))]

Poacher
The Time of the Comet
Like Precious Embers
Take all the children where flood water's low



...The Root Connection - WHY ILINIË???

I unexpectedly spent most of my free time yesterday revisiting old fics, especially Shadan and (even!) Komorebi, because I have a third fic in this verse that is basically done, and if I just tweaked it a little bit I could post it...if I wanted to.

Komorebi is actually a very nicely written fic and I would like it more if it didn't have Elwing in it, LOL.

I revised some of the dialogue in it, and also posted the updates. (I would like to change the title as well, but my numerous song inspirations are all gone now that I need them? Damn.)

I did the same to Shadan, but didn't post the revised bits yet. 

I re-read them mainly because I wanted to be sure what the heck I was writing about in the third as-yet-unfinished fic. 

Then I also posted some tweaks I'd made to Pick the first apple (I tried to make the conversation between Nerdanel and Findis make more sense).

Before I'd even replied to some comments on AO3 (!!!). And then I looked at the whole list of my fics on AO3.

My reaction to my fics is always either "wow, how did I come up with this idea and write it so well???" or "ewwww what the f was I trying to say here?".

Then there's the divide between fics I wrote when I was still trying to care for characters that are not the Feanorians VS fics I wrote when I stopped caring for anyone other than the Feanorians. 

A lot of the former are fics I don't even remember writing and a lot of them are among my least liked fics...

And then there's Heart of Void, that never fails to make me cry.

Anyway, spending some time with the Feanorians in my fics never ceases to feel nice, and I keep being torn between a vague desire to write more and bask in that fondness and not really having the time or the motivation to do the actual typing and coming up with phrases and so on.

I did try briefly looking for fics to read, but that grows ever more unappealing the more fics I read in other fandoms. 

This post would have made much more sense a few months ago, but there's one book I want to discuss in detail, i.e. Common Bonds, an antology of aromantic stories. 


( Read more... )

It's that time of the year when my brain starts spitting out impossible fic ideas, a crossover (!!!) this time around.

( Fire and Thunder )

It makes sense that during an especially shitty year I would end up reading a couple really subpar (for me) books as well...

I did read some pretty interesting stuff too, though.

I think part of me just wanted to desperately re-live the joy I experienced in 2023 while reading "The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again" and "The Factory", but that was not to be.

( On to the books )

A new source of pain: browsing my order history on the site where I usually buy/bought CDs and remembering how happy and excited I was while I placed those orders. 

Now with sudden wave of nausea too!

A bunch of random quotes that are more or less relevant to my AU (and not only that).

( Read more... )

I went and read (actually read) Eol's whole wiki entry, among others, mostly to see what clan of elves he belonged to, and I was pleased to see that there are many versions, including a totally wild one where he is a Noldo born in Aman, but an "Avar at heart", and joins Feanor's host. See? My silly AU is backed by Tolkien himself!

Apparently Eol M has become a staple of my writing rn. I mean, he is basically just a declination of the tsundere archetype: cranky, foul mouthed, petty, with a penchant for violence under the wrong circumstances and a soft heart under the right ones + bonus competence! It pains me a little that, with Miriel and Sons around, I can't really have Feanor H as in the silly AU, but he's there in spirit. Mostly because I do believe Feanor and Eol are fundamentally the same (even if they would have been at odds, had they met).

Doriath keeps being a clusterfuck. Why didn't Melian girdle Nan Elmoth too? It's literally where she and her dumb husband met. 

"He was "restless and ill at ease in Doriath",^[4] and when the Girdle of Melian was raised around the kingdom, he left his dwelling in the Forest of Region to dwell in the dark forest of Nan Elmoth, east of Doriath" Of course the whole spiel here is that Eol was bad etc. etc., but this quote, coupled with the one about the Green elves "guest-elves" who sort of hated being in Doriath too, and the bit about Doriathrin being the true and pure version of Sindarin, makes me think it wasn't such this amazing, welcoming place to be in. 

It also backs up my idea that, had Eol been alive, Thingol would probably not have wanted him back in Doriath during the Dagor Bragollach and/or Eol would have chosen to go elsewhere (maybe south with Amras, Amrod and Caranthir).

"Anglachel he gave to Thingol as a begrudged payment for dwelling in Nan Elmoth" Begrudging, see? [Edit: didn't Feanor "gudge" the sight of the Silmarils to everybody but his father and sons??? SEE???]

"Height: Tall, but stooped by smithwork" What? LOL

"Hair-colour: Dark-haired" Nah

Also, where is Anguirel? I'd never considered that!

I wanted to write this post two hours ago but I ended up reading a couple of fics by SpaceWall, whom I vaguely remember from back when I was in fandom.

The fics weren't bad, I have to be honest - as far as "mainstream" Silm fic goes. Especially that one where Elrond is angry at his not-mom and then he goes to see Fingon and there's Maedhros too. The Fingon/Maedhros still rubs me all the possible wrong ways, but the fic was overall really nice. Repentant Feanor also still rubs me wrong, very very wrong. 

Mostly I'm just sitting here wondering how I ended up being sucked in this fic-writing business again, considering how I absolutely don't have the skill, as the above-mentioned person has. 

Considering also how I was perfectly fine just reading non-Silm fic on AO3 and looking at M posts on tumblr. 

If only I did have the skill, or still the practice at least. 

ETA 14/10:

I solved the Ivare problem by having Sayandil B, who is  p e r f e c t  considering his relationship to Feanor (of a bff/quasi-older-brother)

I also considered having Elthedir N but that would squander the 'replacement' drama. I thought of having a Sinda smith OC that goes to replace Ilmarwe* when Ilmarwe dies, but that would me one more character to juggle. *sigh*

It's not like I've even fleshed out my Green Elven OCs either...

For now I have:

- Sayandil, Hithfaer, Morlinn, Glaeril, Elthedir, Emmelin, Gilrinel and Romelinde in their usual roles.

All of them are deployed except Sayandil, and I'm not sure if Emmelin is treating the wounded out on the battlefield or at home; probably on the field.

- I don't remember if I ever mentioned Ilmarwe in any of my fics, I don't thinks so?

I'm thinking of maybe having Oliele Cll as the dead smithing bff from the good old days in the Halls of Aule. But idk, no name really "clicks".

- I considered the OC based on Lord Duvernay that I discussed once but I don't vibe with him at all rn. 

- Hrassenel and Gilthalont are the two main brand new 3/4 Green Elven ladies (it's so fucking hard coming up with names with the like 15 Nandorin words that exist)

- Midhir, Nurwe-Luchanar...idk, I feel like they would be too many... or I can turn Midhir into new-name-N? Mmmh. I think I've only ever mentioned him in one fic.

- I mentioned Hithwion once as the guy who saves Estelinde, but I haven't really fleshed him out