Latest Hamster Wheel My Brain is On

Little or no sexual attraction

Little or no sexual desire

Little or no libido

You don’t want to have sex and that’s significant to how you navigate the world

When you do feel attraction, you have no desire to act on it

When you feel sexually aroused, you don’t want to involve another person in it

A disconnect from expectations and narratives of “normative” sexuality

Any combination of the above

A lot of people identify as asexual based on sexual attraction. And that’s good and valuable. I just want other, or intersecting, reasons people identify as asexual to be respected too.

But honestly, au in which legolas is genuinely just some random elf that showed up to deliver a message, was roped into the council and saw the most amazing oppurtunity to fuck with everyone and took the elf spot in the party?

Like, no-one knows who tf he is, he’s just a messenger (no one knows he’s thranduil’s son) and elrond gave him a seat at the council out of indulgence. And then this one motherfucker no one knows ends up joining one of, if not the most, important quest in ME.

Legolas, knowing damn well no one’s got a clue who tf he is: hold on, i sense an opportunity to do the funniest shit ever.

And after he volunteered himself, it’s not like elrond can just go: no, wait a minute.

Legolas has got the audacity. He’s sensing all the imlardis elves’ daggers in their eyes and is full on cackling in his head.

They are having a horrible time and legolas is thriving!

But also, Mirkwood is the only elven kingdom to have been actively holding out against the enemy in the last few centuries. Rivendell and Lothlorien are protected by magic rings, but all Mirkwood has is their own determination and probably spite. They're the elven equivalent of Gondor, basically. Holding out alone against an enemy everyone else is happy to say is not their problem. But they're also old, they've done this before, and they didn't believe it was over the first time. They're also private, trading with their one neighbor, not calling on allies for help but still lending it out when needed (trying to make sure the people of Laketown were compensated for it's destruction).

Yeah, the people of Mirkwood remember when it was Greenwood the Great. And they'll do what they have to in order to prevent it from getting worse and maybe someday getting back to that. But they also know the enemy is smart. The enemy keeps track of the big names and important people. The enemy can remember your name and the enemy can remember your family name too. So the wood elves aren't big names. They're 'more dangerous and less wise' remember? They don't appear in the histories. They aren't recognizable. Elves love naming and linguistics. If all the soldiers of Mirkwood use a sword-name instead of their parent-names, maybe that's just their custom. But maybe its for safety too.

For this, I'm leaning real heavy on Gandalf calling Legolas "Legolas Greenleaf". It's literally the middle earth version of "Moon Moon". But what if, in Greenwood, young or 'green' soldiers were called greenleaves? What if Legolas is young enough in a people that reproduce slowly, that he's essentially stuck getting called 'rookie'. And Gandalf, who is known to take the opportunity to full-name people, is working with what he's got. Gandalf probably knows Legolas' actual heritage, but he's not the sort to talk where the enemy can hear. Or he doesn't know, and the minute he figures it out, his (re)life flashes before his eyes as he imagines Thranduil's reaction to his son being involved on the suicide quest to dispose of cursed jewelry.

someone will

someone out there will see you and say "yes. the world is scary. but let me hold your hand and show you how to do it anyways"