Unable to shut up

⸺ on soulmates and suffering.

thank you for tagging @hobbitwrangler !!! excited to see more of Miryeman!!

I am working on chapter three of brightest star, would I were stedfast as thou (detective Celebrian) which is, as usual, really fun. this chapter has an intense focus on Cel's own emotions surrounding the assassination attempt, as well as how she feels about settling into Valinor with this looming over her head. below, she's visiting Lorien and encounters her own strange dreams in the waters there.

The skin of her ankle turns a righteous cold, and slowly her foot within her slipper follows. She stands in a puddle, half a pace from where Lorien ends–the silver trees gather around her and their flowering buds seem to caress her nape, little white pupils peering down at her with sorrowful eyes that almost seem to understand. We see, they say from their small budding mouths–their leaves are slick like apples, and their limbs are long; lithe like the group ahead of her. We see. We know. We see.  When she looks down, for her slipper is wet and her foot is cold, the puddle she is in is no puddle at all; but a grand expanse of infinity. The pond seems to go on and on, so far she can no longer see the end of her leg, it is just distance and in the distance, she has lost a portion of herself. Though she feels it, she feels it keenly, cold and wet, cold and wet. Until–the chill is vivid suddenly and the distance turns its face to hers and leans in.  There is Fëanor, and there is wine at his lips. There is a fox at his feet, it laps the wine that has puddled there, from its white mouth comes a pink tongue, like when a root pops from the ground, and it drinks until its teeth are red. Then, it smiles; but Celebrían can see its fox teeth are not fox at all, the fox has the smile of a human child, half-there and half-not, and stained with joy. But Feanor’s hands are upon its scruff, and his smile is like that of a fox’s. When he moves, so does the fox–until he is as a puppet, moved when the one holding the strings so wishes.  It is a strange dream, and the lips of the white buds tickle her neck. Swiftly, Celebrían pulls her foot from the puddle and closes back into the group, seeking comfort in their fathomable oddity. 

Thanks to @hobbitwrangler for the tag and the lovely look at your Miryeman! ♥️ Here is a bit from The Way is Shut, the Baldor and Aldor entry in my House of Eorl ficlet project. They’re (canonical) grandsons of Eorl and princes of the Mark.

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Even so, Baldor has no illusions that the men celebrating in front of him will seek to join themselves to the new quest he is about to announce. Indeed, they have never been especially eager to follow his lead. His pronouncements seem always to meet a muted response, tinged with an undercurrent of hesitation as uneasy eyes seek some sign of reassurance first from Aldor that a plan is sound, its details considered. It is not from dislike but rather the general sense that his brother’s is the surer hand. Aldor is bolder, more clever, more easy in the role of both commander and friend. If he were not the second son, he would make the better king, or so the whispers say. Baldor knows, for he has heard them.

He cannot stop hearing them.

If his life has purpose now, it is just to prove those whispers false. It is, he must admit, a daunting task. Most things don’t come easily to him as they always do for Aldor, and he cannot best his little brother as a strategist, rider, or craftsman. Even this newly built hall where they are now gathered is Aldor’s achievement, its freshly hewn timbers a monument to his sharp mind and creative eye. But Baldor has a plan to make his own mark. To stake his claim as first son by more than simple age.

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I got tagged by @ladysterndust at the right moment because I have *just* finished my fingolfin/maedhros fic! (now the editing begins).

In honour of this, here's a snippet, I think it'sthe last before I start publishing it. Enjoy!

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“Your majesty,” interjects Findarato, “if our goal is to deal in friendship with the Sindar, is it not perhaps better to find common ground with their King? He seems proud and willful, not dissimilar to Olwe, and our relationship with him may turn sour should we answer harshly to his words.”

Nelyafinwe turns his terrible gaze to Findarato, pinning him in place for a long moment.

“You have leave to embellish the message as much as you like, child of Indis,” he spits, “but I refuse to compromise on this. If Sindicollo wants to call himself lord of Beleriand, he should be where the true front is—” he slams his hand on the map spread in the middle of the table, index pointing at the line between Ard-galen and the feet of Angband –”here, right at the gates of Angamando, and listen to the cries of his imprisoned people slaving barehanded under some urqui’s whip, dragging heavy chains of iron and eating rotten meat. He hides, instead, behind his girdle and desires to lord over people he has never seen. I have little respect for such a King.”

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Rules: Post the last line you wrote and tag as many people as there are words (or as many as you want)

Tagged by @mnimeresponding @whirlception @thescrapwitch @stormsbreadth @ecofutural @starshadeemilyart @riding-with-the-wild-hunt, thank you!! 🫶 In between other more important projects and in my very limited free time I have been slowly picking away at toxic badwrong reembodied Fingolfin/Miriel 🙂‍↕️

“To live, but not amongst your kin. To live, not as an elda but as a voiceless ghost haunting Vairë’s halls, hiding away behind your tapestries like burial shrouds. To live, but not as one of the living. How is your life worth more than your death? What purpose is there in your living while he does not?”

An interesting game where you are presented with 10 artifacts from the MET. You have to place where the artifact is from and what time period it is from. Each artifact scores up to 10,000 points, and you lose points the further away your guess is and how far off in time you are. You can only play once a day. Thanks to @baebeylik for showing this to me.

Today I scored really well. Yesterday ... not so much.

Anthropeum.com · Jun 9 2026

🟩🟦🟥🟦🟨🟩🟩🟨🟩🟥

It was only legalized in 8 US states (the 8th only a few months before), and wouldn’t be legalized nation-wide until 2015.

It was only legal in TEN COUNTRIES in 2011. We wouldn’t hit 20 countries until 2017. (Australia was 23rd)

As of today (April 14, 2026), I believe only 38 countries have fully legalized same-sex marriage. Out of somewhere around 200 countries in the world. That’s only ~19% of countries.

the city of los angeles

the city of new york

sex

how drinking alcohol works

how getting high works

how a child of any age speaks

how nuclear physics work

how [my job] works

how debilitating being shot in the shoulder is

how hypothermia works

things I have never before seen someone fake their way through writing about, until today:

SHRIMP COCKTAIL:

banahbanah: #flashback to that one fic where Peter Parker frets about drinking shrimp cocktail because of the alcohol

generaldeliciousness: adding: what a prawn/shrimp cocktail is

#why is your character turning it down because they're under 21 #do you think prawn cocktail is a cocktail #this lives in my brain rent-free constantly #the rest of the fic was so normal #and good enough that i'll still re-read it #but bro

And then many, MANY, people wondering if this was actually authour mistake, since Peter really would do this!

POMEGRANATES:

zhajhassa: #haha where's that post that was like someone describing someone eating a pomegranate but they ate it like an apple

thornhands: #once someone wrote persephone biting into a whole Pomegranate #had to stop and stare at a wall for a minute

sungsingsanguine: I once saw someone very confidently write about a character eating slices of pomegranate.

FRUIT TREES:

zagreuses-toast: #given a very endearing glimpse into a writers blindspots by seeing them describe someone sitting under a ''pineapple tree''

salatrash: I remember something about picking watermelons... OF A FUCKING TREE

baander: #cranberry trees

DOUGH/BATTER:

maycelium: #I'm a chef so I'm really used to people not accurately describing how to cook food #But I was surprisingly flabbergasted when someone was writing making a cake and was kneading it. Which uh #Not necessary for cake. It was interesting for sure but just bizarre

livebloggingmydescentintomadness: #the one that drove me nuts was when a character set aside a batch of PASTA DOUGH 'to rise' #pasta doesn't have yeast!! #it does need to REST but it will never RISE #you do not want an airy crumb on your noodles

lovesodeepandwideandwell: #THE ONE WHERE THEY MADE COOKIES BY LADLING BATTER INTO A TRAY

Some other topics: