#cirth ithil

yeah. good luck!!

tagged by @bagginshield thank you!!

instructions: search your name on pinterest with core or aesthetic (like “navii core,” “navii aesthetic,” “naviicore aesthetic”). choose 9 photos and make a moodboard.

i cheated and used the pinterest board @cirth-ithil made for me, lol. ty river ily <3

[id: a 3x3 moodboard. 1: green pebbles. 2: the words “dear brother” on a white background. 3: dark green strokes of oil paint. 4: a gray background behind the text “Sell your soul” and “Sign here:” followed by a line for a signature. 5: boromir from the lord of the rings on the background of the aromantic flag. 6: two sword hilts on a white background. 7: strokes of green watercolor on a white background. 8: close up of a grey breastplate. 9: a green neon sign reading “it’s all in your head” on a black background. end id.]

river we can’t keep doing this,

1. Have you ever called out a friend or a relative in front of a bunch of people? What happened?lmao no??? what kind of question is this??

2. What are your three most valued possessions?uhh idk, ever since i got robbed last year i feel like i realized that the things i valued most aren’t...tangible? like everything is replaceable, basically. i mean i like having stuff, dont get me wrong, and getting robbed sucked, but. i guess my phone and my laptop and my notebook? i use those things to connect with people and my notebook is full of stuff i haven’t backed up anywhere else yet. but once i get it in The Cloud, all i really need is my google account tbh

3. Do you have any enemies?uhhh not to my knowledge hjhfjhfd

4. Fëanor, Fingolfin or Finarfin - who are you most like in real life?lmao finarfin probably. i try not to be a Big Idiot and i follow rules and i’m not the most adventurous. tho i probably have some nolofinwean traits too, if i say i’m gonna do something i will stick to my word

5. Best canon ship in the Silm?do turin and beleg count? no? okay, in that case probably aegnor and andreth. (i’m a slut for doomed interspecies relationships, dont judge)

6. Best m/f ship?uhh, this one was harder than i thought it would be! since i already said aegnor/andreth... i know i really like the canon peredhel ships so elwing/earendil and elrond/celebrian are very good! and i think caranthir/haleth is really interesting too, but i don’t see them as romantic

7. Best f/f ship?hmnnn... i mean ALL the f/f ships are so good! i guess- nienor/finduilas is some Good Shit right there, and i’ve always liked anaire/earwen!

8. Best m/m ship?answered here!

9. Best canon friendship?uhh, all of them?? ok but: luthien and huan,, my HEART! (also aredhel and celegorm and curufin!!)

10. What made you read the Silmarillion in the first place?the fandom, tbh! when i got into the tolkien fandom thru the hobbit movies i devoured all the content i could but i never thought i would be a silm person, but then all the posts seemed so interesting and i was starting to enjoy the silm by proxy and fanon so i decided to read the silm and never looked back :’)

11. Ainulindalë and Valaquenta - yay or nay?i mean they are definitely the least interesting parts of the silm, so nay? i’m not really sure what this is asking? i don’t think they’re pointless or anything, but i cam here for the ELVES

12. If you had to describe yourself with a character from Tolkien’s works, who would it be?answered here!

13. Where in Middle-Earth would you most like to live?answered here!

14. Who is your dream partner from Tolkien’s works?they are all such DISASTERS...i’d be lying if i said it wasn’t gimli and/or fili though, lol (in an aro way, ofc)

15. Which two characters would you want as friends to defeat Voldemort with?luthien and ... finrod! both very powerful and good people!

16. Your opinion of Eru Ilúvatar?i don’t think he can be judged by human standards, because he’s so inhuman. like, elves are kind of Super Special Magic Humans but Eru and the Valar are so far removed from that... I don’t think Eru is evil or anything like that. i think the valar can’t really understand the Children and their conflicts come from that - idk about Eru, though, we don’t see a lot of him. he seems very powerful and absent, i guess? he only really intervenes when the situation is Truly Dire and then he shows more of a force of unimaginable power than like, divine mercy or anything

17. Favourite AU setting?i really like the two-steps-to-the-left-of-canon AU settings where everything is juuuusst slightly more magical than it is in canon and things like wraiths and revivification are more commonplace. that may be cheating though so i got to say that i’m always here for scifi/space AUs! (normally i’d go right to modern AU but i feel like because of lifespans, modern AUs fall apart with the silm unless you’re going very small-scale with them)

18. Favourite crack pairing/concept/headcanon?“crack” is weird in the silm because of the dubious canonosity of Literally Everything... my fav ~crack~ pairing is probably turgon/finrod but that has evolved from “crack” to “rarepair hell” for me lmao. i also really love @princess-faelivrin‘s fin-galad headcanon! and i am currently daydreaming about some way that nienor is connected to goldberry - oh and tar-miriel as the witch-king is always a good one. really, anything that keeps the ladies alive for longer!

19. First, Second or Third Age?i mean they all have their good parts, but like... first age, probably. third age has gigolas and all the characters from the hobbit, which is tempting, but there’s just so MUCH to work with in the first age! second age is neat too but i’m not really a numenor person so...

20. Funniest moment in the Silm?tie between turin throwing the cup at saeros and “GET THEE GONE FROM MY GATE, THOU JAIL-CROW OF MANDOS”

(if turin and feanor ever met, arda would collapse)

21. Saddest moment?i mean, turin killing beleg always fucking gets me, but also maedhros’s suicide and also the nirnaeth arnoediad and also just the whole fucking book!!!

22. Do you read/understand/speak any of the languages or alphabets?lmao no!! with resources i can put together names for folks and i can recognize certain elements of words, but that’s about it.

23. Who is Gil-galad’s father?i’m throwing my hat in the ring for Orodreth, but that’s only when i don’t want to make it like, a Thing. i really love explorations of this uncertainty (@elvntari‘s gil-galad fic springs to mind, as does @thishazeleyeddemon‘s lalwen theory, maybe with cirdan as the dad, and fin-galad is again a blessed concept) and i’m also very fond of the idea that his parentage is “no one in particular” and that he just stepped forward to claim the throne when no one else wanted it. really i’m open to every interpretation! except fingon. i don’t think it’s fingon. i mean, it could very well be that fingon is his dad as in he’s the one who raised him and claimed him, but if we’re going biologically i don’t think fingon contributed any genetic material to gil-galad

24. Angbang, Russingon or Silvergifting?i mean this is a no-brainer. of course it’s russingon! i do enjoy angbang and silvergifting, but like cmon.one of these days i’d love to write a really long angbang fic detailing everything btwn them, probably mostly from mairon’s pov, from ainulindale to the fourth age but that would be an undertaking. i do have a lot of tiny ideas for them that would be fun to weave together. as for silvergifting, just...poor tyelpe. poor dude. but i am suuuuch a slut for russingon lmao.

25. What would you most like to see in a tv series or film based on the Silmarillion?i would LOVE to see a book-accurate version but like. that’s VERY unlikely. a COH adaptation would be neat but probably too dark to make it to audiences without being seriously watered down. Beren and Luthien might be able to do it, if they could condense the supporting lore around the story. that’s really the problem with the silm - it’s like a greek myth in it’s epic sprawl. there’s so much story that you can’t really take just one aspect of it to the screen without taking all of it. if you don’t know about the silmarils you can’t do B&L, if you don’t know about the nirnaeth and the histories of nargothrond and doriath you can’t do COH, if you don’t know about the sundering and the exiles you can’t do literally anything tbh.BUT i would love a COH adaptation, if it’s done right. or a very ~experimental~ take on B&L. i have a lot of ideas of how to incorporate all the different versions of that story into one cohesive canon... ok i admit it i just want to see telvido on screen!!! and also werewolves are neat!!

also i’ve said it before but a 3-act play set in numenor....HMM that would be some good hsit. really, i think the mariner’s wife would make an excellent drama, but again there’s so much CONTEXT around numenor!the 3 acts would be 1. elros’s transformation into tar-minyatur (there’s so many possibilities to explore! it’s basically uncharted waters once you get to the details!) 2. the mariner’s wife (a pretty faithful adaptation, also tar-meneldur’s monologue when he passes the scepter on to aldarion is just. WRITTEN to be performed on stage imo) and 3. akallabeth (again, lots of ways this could go. i also think it would be really neat to double cast elros and pharazon. and sauron should be double cast too, though idk who as.)

river OF COURSE i want to, thank youuuu <333

links are all bolded so you can find them easily and go READ ALL THE AMAZING FICS LINKED! (including mine!)

1. favorite fic you wrote this year

Not to toot my own horn so much, but...I really like all the fics I wrote this year!! I'm gonna split it into two categories :)

For longer fics: Maybe it's because that's where my head is right now, but "Roads Go On" takes the cake here! This fic is just so fun, and I see connections to it everywhere on tumblr, which is delightful.

For oneshots: Oof, this is hard, considering oneshots are the main thing I write... In the end I'm tied between two of them, and neither are Tolkien! I'm very proud of my Barricade Day 2018 fic, "A Witch's Gift" - I pretty much only write one Les Mis fic a year, even though Les Mis means a lot to me, and I think I achieved what I was going for and more with this fic. Also, I just love Musichetta!

The other one is frankly a surprise to me because I almost forgot I wrote it this year: "meant to be", a TAZ hurloane fic. That one didn't get a ton of response but I've had that concept in my head literally ever since I first listened to Petals to the Metal, and I'm really happy with how it turned out!

3. favorite line/scene you wrote this year

do you know how hard this is to answer?? do you know how little I remember from january 2018?? a whole fucking year ago??

okay, this is 100% cheating, cuz I didn't go back and reread any of my other fics to find That Perfect Line, but I'm just proud of my poetry in "The Lay of Maedhros", another fic that y'all slept on. my dudes, I wrote in Tolkien's Very Own Poetic Style for this!! my favorite scene from this fic is Sauron's conversation with Maedhros.

(Oh, I am also pretty damn pleased with the philosomancy blabbering that goes on in "Gravity" between Gandalf and Fili!)

10. shortest wip of the year

Okay, this fic started out as a oneshot but I couldn't keep it down... I swear i'm working on the final chapter, ok?? I am??

It's "Wedding Blues" my qp!Domadry fic for @buffintruda's birthday that was... uh... 6 months ago.... oops. It's 9.6k, which isn't nothing! But it's shorter than the other two WIPs I've got going, which are both in the 20k range.

13. favorite writing song/artist/album of this year

i legit just listen to my spotify saved albums on repeat all year long with no particular soundtrack for writing... That being said, I've got a "Study Tunes" playlist on spotify that I use (on shuffle) for studying and sometimes writing! it's almost entirely instrumental with a focus on piano, and that really helps me get into The Zone while working!

15. something you learned this year

i swear i'm going to write a longer post on this later, but COMMENTING IS CREATING. this is something i've always believed, but i've been fleshing out the concept in my head and i believe it even more now.

Comments DIRECTLY influence the creation of more fic, and not only that, they are an integral part of the fic itself! Every time you or I leave a comment on a fic, you are creating fandom!

18. current number of wips

I try to keep myself to 2 long fics at a time, with oneshots here and there, but right now i'm at 3! "Roads Go On" + "Wedding Blues" i've already mentioned, but there's also my botfa fix-it "Moonlight" (that i will be turning my attention to asap, i promise!! it's only been uh... 5 months since the last update...yikes.)

19. any new fics to start next year

Honestly, I'll be astounded if I conclude "Roads Go On" and "Moonlight" this year. Especially now that I'm in college! So no, I'm not planning on it, except for oneshots (which I'm sure I will write several of).

Although if I can get around to it .... i have had a Legolas-as-Merida Brave AU floating around in my head since FOREVER... maybe I'll bust that out for Arospec Awareness Week...but probably not, oops.

27. favorite fanfic author of the year

@milesofkeeffe is the obvious answer! all your kiliel stuff is so so lovely :) but I also really enjoyed @waitineedaname's taz fics, and of course my homie @buffintruda always knocks it out of the park!

28. longest fic you read this year

it's got to be @milesofkeeffe‘s "Spring After Winter and Sun On the Leaves" coming in at 123k words! of course I've been reading that fic since it began in 2017, so for a fic that i read in its entirety in 2018... that would be this blupjeans fic, "The Last Days of the Legato Conservatory" by goldfishoflove. (warning: it gets nsfw) That one is only 10k words.... can you tell I prefer shorter fics? (Long fics intimidate me! so much time commitment!)

  30. favorite fandom to read fic from this year

probably TAZ! I mean, the past few weeks i've been drowning in Tolkien fic (esp Silm fic) but for the overall year I've got to go with TAZ, this fandom's got so many talented writers!