#crownlessliestheking

(Ohtacare is 100% my favorite, but they're all just. So, so real.)

-crownlessliestheking

The fic in question!

Ask for a director's cut on my fics!

Oh yes, the Most Tragedique TM story I've ever written for Silm fandom lol. I started writing the story for Nienna in the Innumerable Stars fic exchange, and I need to give a lot of inspiration to that request summary, which set me off on a tangent re: dreams and magic. But as I started writing- initially the fic was going to be solely about Elros' wife, and maybe talk a little about the effect that being mortal and marrying someone who was effectively only mortal because he chose to be that way would have on a person- I also started grappling with what I've termed as the Tolkien Foresight Issue.

The TFI is very much a me problem, because I don't personally believe in predestination; the idea that elven mothers can genuinely hold their newborn in their arms and give them a name that describes something of their future genuinely frightens me as, like, a concept. I'd been wrestling with that idea for quite some time in my own head, but as I began writing this story I realized that this was a) the best medium possible for that tension, when unnamed/forgotten women are the primary povs (and of course, the unwanted and intrusive parts of the canonical narrative) and b) I was going to write about it one way or another, so might as well embrace it. Which led me to wanting to describe different reactions to the TFI- and for that, I needed more POVs than just Elros' wife.

Enter 24 other queens.

When I thought about individual perspectives, I started out by sketching out the queens whose characters I firmly knew; Eressecuina, for instance, but also Rilma, Ancalime, Tinolime, Vanimelde, Elenniel, and Inzilbeth. Then I started elaborating around those fixed points. For instance: Rilma has an antagonistic relationship with Almarian, who in turn makes an effort to be closer to Erendis, who in turn values freedom more than safety (i.e. the opposite of Almarian's choices), which influences Ancalime's perspective.

Elenniel's storyline was inspired by me wanting to explore what could have inspired a sharp break from the Quenya to Adunaic between Ardamin and Adunakhor: I just think that having it be a product of this one woman's (unnamed, forgotten, erased) actions made a lot of sense. Elenniel herself is one of my favorites in the story, tbqh; she's so secure in her love for her husband (and, in turn, his love for her) that she can bear to be more rebellious than many of the other queens. But she's also seeing the degeneration of Numenor from its heights- which began with Herucalmo, who usurps the throne and lets his son/grandson grow up in Umbar instead of Numenor-proper (thereby letting more rebellious anti-Valar sentiment foster)- and she loves Numenor enough to want more than what it has. But I also wanted someone to have gone through what she went through before while making the opposite choice, which is why Ohtacare exists at all lol.

The rest of the story just flowed from those fixed queens I mention above- apart from that, I knew I wanted a warrior queen, and a scholarly queen, and that the majority of the legacies of the queens would be tapestries; I also wanted at least one queen from Umbar and another from Harad. I think it's fairly obvious which ones were central to the storyline- Meluviel, for instance, doesn't play that much of a role, and neither does Gimileth or Handasse- but they were valuable to portray other nuances re: the TFI.

Separation

Arafinwë aches for his wife, but she is lost to him. To earn his place in her heart once more, he will allow her new lover anything.

Back to Middle-earth Month | 3/9/22 Polyshipping Bingo: Separation | F/F Bingo: Anairë x Eärwen | Family Bingo: The ones left behind | Photography: [Untitled] Candle from Pixabay

also a kinkmeme fill for @crownlessliestheking!

Rating: E | No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Eärwen/Finarfin, Anairë/Eärwen, Anairë/Finarfin, Anairë/Eärwen/Finarfin Characters: Finarfin, Eärwen, Anairë Word count: 2.4k

how many works do you have on AO3?

366!

what’s your total AO3 word count?

1,235,059  woahhh :0

how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

25 - my top 5 are the Silm (243 fics), the Hobbit (54 fics), LOTR (34), Les Mis (16), and TAZ (11), with Lockwood & Co at sixth with 7 fics.

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

“Love and Fear” (290 kudos) - Gigolas oneshot for TRSB19

“Half-brother, half-hatred” (274 kudos) - Feanor & Fingolfin fluff

“Free from the ties that bind” (264) - a goddamn Fast and Furious oneshot I wrote for my irl friends jdhfkdjh

Wedding Blues (215) - aro Kel + Dom fic from the Tortall universe, still quite proud of this one!

“Eru’s Last Grace” (also 215) - Elros visits Maedhros in Mandos before he leaves to accept the Gift of Men

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

yes absolutely!!! I may take some time to get around to them, but it’s very important to me to respond to comments! commenting fosters community in fan spaces and I want to show my gratitude to the people who are kind enough to engage with me <3

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

it took me awhile to pick one, because I really don’t write angsty endings all that often? I love some good angst, but I need comfort with my hurt. that being said, there are a couple, and I think of all of them the angstiest is probably “out of reach,” a Kidnap Dads fic set right after the Kinslaying where Maglor watches Maedhros absolutely fall apart. though there’s a couple other good candidates, too.

do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

on occasion! I don’t really count intra-Legendarium crossovers as “crossovers,” though (and neither does AO3 if you sort by only crossovers, apparently!). the ~craziest~ is probably that MarioKart/Hunger Games crossover fic I wrote for a friend as a joke. it is very old and I will not be linking it, lmao.

have you ever received hate on a fic?

yeah, every now and again. usually it’s someone being upset that I’m not as much of a Feanorian apologist as them?? which is wild bc I am definitely a Feanorian apologist, lmao. MayaMarkova my nemesis </3

do you write smut? if so what kind?

yep! mostly lovey-dovey Russingon stuff, but I’ll branch out into other ships now and then. and I love writing trans smut <3

have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge

have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, twice! one was this Bilbo Dies AU and the other was this Findrahil piece; both were translated into Russian. and I think I’ve gotten requests for translations into Chinese of some of my Russingon fics, but either they’re hosted off-site or they haven’t been finished yet, because I don’t see them linked in AO3.

have you ever co-written a fic before?

a couple times, and almost always with my bff @buffintruder​ <3

what’s your all time favorite ship?

I mean - Russingon!

what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

uhhh probably something saved in the bowels of my Google Drive that has never seen the light of day. I try really hard not to post things I don’t intend on finishing. but right now I guess I’m most worried about not following through on Roads Go On and Moonlight, just because I’ve shifted focus to the Silm and it’s harder to get inspiration to write for LOTR and the Hobbit!

what are your writing strengths?

I definitely feel confident writing dialogue and emotion!

what are your writing weaknesses?

action scenes are difficult, I just don’t know what to say!! and I can get so caught up in the ~feelings~ of it all that I forget to describe anything else...

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

ok wow so I DO have opinions on this. if the character is shifting into another language, I’ll sometimes put the dialogue into italics (aka, if a native Quenya speaker switches to Sindarin for a few sentences, or just a word or two, the Sindarin will be in italics). other times I’ll just mention the language change in the dialogue tag. BUT if I’m writing a native Quenya speaker who uses a word in Quenya, that will NOT be italicized, because for the character the language has not changed. so like, I wouldn’t write, “Thank you, vanimelda,” because it’s implied that the “thank you” was also in Quenya, and I as the writer was just ~translating~ it to English for the reader’s benefit. It would be “Thank you, vanimelda.” The Quenya word would just be “untranslated.”

BUT if the character was speaking English and then called someone a nickname in Quenya, i.e. in a Maglor-in-the-modern-day story, then I WOULD italicize it. “Thank you, mellon.” - because mellon is a shift out of the “base” language. does that make any sense???

it’s also a matter of aesthetics, tbh.

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

..........warrior cats. do NOT ask me how many words of warrior cats fic I’ve written.

what’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I like a lot of my fics, but my favorite is probably the Russingon Fake Dating AU (Finno’s POV is still in the works!!), although I’m also very fond of Revelations in my modern AU series.

(You absolutely do not have to answer if it is too nosy! I'm just curious.)

-crownlessliestheking

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

Celebrían raises an eyebrow at him, pale on her face. Elrohir wonders why he didn’t get her hair. He and his siblings are all raven-haired like their father (like Elwing, like Lúthien) and though they share the storminess of their eyes with their mother, that is not what others see.

Sometimes, he wishes he had her hair.

“It is the way of our people. We sing of the sadness, we learn from our mistakes. But it is not only the sad songs they sing,” she repeats. She tilts her head back, and her hair spins as she does, reflecting the candles, silver and fair and full of light. “I promise you that, my love.”

i think this is one of my favorites, cause its melancholy and odd and strange in the way that i really want this whole fic (whenever i get to doing more of it) to be. i also think its a pretty alright way to describe the elves as a whole at this point in the third age - beginning to decline, sad and weary.

9. Which fic has been the hardest to write?

probably people like us - its very fun and i love the world im building, but putting all the puzzle pieces together (especially when i dont have all of them yet) gives me a bit of a headache sometimes

10. Which fic has been the easiest to write?