Sephira Allen

Not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, socially, financially.

Life is asking a lot right now.

Pause when you can. Breathe when you remember.

Retraining

There were a number of things that SHIELD Director Nicholas J. Fury thought would happen after Captain Steve Rogers opted to sign up for retraining. 

He just didn’t quite expect this.

It had been obvious to anyone with eyes - and Fury could see a lot even with his one good eye - that Rogers was depressed, resistant to all the massive changes and culture shock that had happened in what would be an eyeblink for him, considering.  He was walking wounded but it looked like after the Battle of New York, Captain Rogers had found his purpose again.  Or a semblance of it.  Either way, Fury could at least be slightly less worried about having a potentially suicidal Super Soldier on his hands.

He really needed to have a talk with Romanoff on that.  Soon.

Cap wasn’t entirely brainless either.  Rogers knew he had a lot to catch up on and frankly speaking, keeping up with Tony Stark’s constant babble of pop culture references was really the least of the knowledge he needed.  New military tactics, strategies, weapons and practices were definitely on top of Things Captain America Needed to Know.

But Fury was still expecting that resistance, maybe getting reports of him being stubborn as hell, insisting on “old school tricks.“  Hell, he was already steeling himself for the various lectures and discussions he was probably going to have with Cap before this was over.

Except that Maria Hill came over with a thumb drive containing the latest video of Rogers’ progress.  She was smirking.

“Agent Hill,” Fury drawled.  “Is there any particular reason why you felt you had to deliver this to me personally, instead of just sending it on to my email?" 

"Some things are worth giving a personal touch.  Sir." 

Which meant Something had happened. 

"Should I grab some popcorn and beer while I’m at it?”

“You might want that, yes, sir." 

Huh.  This Fury had to see.

Like okay, you've got the species whose rulers live their entire lives in a dark room with no furniture to symbolise their commitment. The people who directly equate hair circumference with social class and get super angry if all six of their penises aren't accurately depicted on an action figure. The reptilian marsupials who will force a guy to become the central prophet of a new religion whether he likes it or not. The celestial entities who are so obsessed with being mysterious they pretend they can't breathe normal air and wear fake spacesuits everywhere they go.

Even the minor species are like this. The Roswell grey type guys who literally communicate only in crop circles. The ancient beings who will make you wait four hours for them to answer a phone call and then just say "Zog" and hang up on you. The species that apparently consists solely of ten of the same guy, and every one of them starts every conversation with a comment about how much it sucks having a menial job.

Reblog this on the first of the month for good luck all month long!

Then about a week into their journey like

Legolas: *in Elvish, for approximately the 20th time* ugh fucking hobbits, so annoying

Frodo: *also in Elvish, deadpan* yeah we’re the worst

Legolas:

Legolas: ugh fucking hobbits

Merry: Frodo what’d he say

Frodo: I’m not sure he speaks a weird dialect but I think he’s insulting us. I should tell him I can understand Elvish

Merry: I mean you could do that but consider

Merry: you can only tell him ONCE

Legolas: umm well your accent is horrible

Aragorn: *hollering from a distance* HIS ACCENT IS BETTER THAN YOURS LEGOLAS YOU SILVAN HICK

Legolas: y’alld’ve’ff’ve

Frodo: Good morrow to thee, frend. I hope we twain shalle bee moste excellente companions.

Legolas: Wots that mate? ‘Ere, you avin’ a giggle? Fookin’ ‘obbits, I sware.

english would probably have changed less since Chaucer’s time, if a lot of our cultural leaders from the thirteenth century were still alive and running things.

they’ve had like. seven generations since the sun happened, max. frodo’s books are old to him, but outside any very old poetry copied down exactly, the dialect represented in them isn’t likely to be older than the Second Age, wherein Aragorn’s foster-father Elrond started out as a very young adult and grew into himself, and Legolas’ father was born.

so like, three to six thousand years old, maybe, which is probably a drop in the bucket of Elvish history judging by all the ethnic differentiation that had time to develop before Ungoliant came along, even if we can’t really tell because there weren’t years to count, before the Trees were destroyed.

plus a lot of Bilbo’s materials were probably directly from Elrond, whose library dates largely from the Third Age, probably, because he didn’t establish Imladris until after the Last Alliance. and Elrond isn’t the type to intentionally help Bilbo learn the wrong dialect and sound sillier than can be helped, even if everyone was humoring him more than a little.

so depending on how much of a role Thranduil took in his upbringing (and Oropher in his), Legolas may have some weird stilted old-fashioned speaking tics in his Sindarin that reflect a more purely Doriathrin dialect rather than the Doriathrin-influenced Western Sindarin that became the most widely spoken Sindarin long before he was born, or he might have a School Voice from having been taught how to Speak Proper and then lapse into really obscure colloquial Avari dialect when he’s being casual. or both!

considering legolas’ moderately complicated political position, i expect he can code-switch.

…it’s also fairly likely considering the linguistic politics involved that Legolas is reasonably articulate in Sindarin, though with some level of accent, but knows approximately zero Quenya outside of loanwords into Sindarin, and even those he mostly didn’t learn as a kid.

which would be extra hilarious when he and gimli fetch up in Valinor in his little homemade skiff, if the first elves he meets have never been to Middle Earth and they’re just standing there on the beach reduced to miming about what is the short beard person, and who are you, and why.

Pippin, confused: Is he not speaking Elvish?

Frodo, sarcastically: I dunno, are you speaking Hobbit?

Boromir, who has been lowkey pissed-off at the Hobbits’ weird dialect this whole time: That’s what it sounds like to me.

Merry, who actually knows some shit about Hobbit background: We are actually speaking multiple variants of the Shire dialect of Westron, you ignorant fuck.

B5 rewatch: The Long, Twilight Struggle