From That Rubble - Chapter Four
May. 22nd, 2026 11:24 amFandom: Tolkien
Rating: T
Characters: Fëanor, Fingolfin, Findis, Lalwen, Sons of Feanor, various others
Warnings: (past) Character Death
Summary: Decades out of Mandos, too many things in Fëanor's life remain broken. He can't do anything except wait for his sons to come to him, but he can do something about the old and crumbling house where they once lived.
Note: This fic covers the same ground as A Hundred Miles Through the Desert, but from Fëanor's perspective.
First Chapter / Previous Chapter
Rating: T
Characters: Fëanor, Fingolfin, Findis, Lalwen, Sons of Feanor, various others
Warnings: (past) Character Death
Summary: Decades out of Mandos, too many things in Fëanor's life remain broken. He can't do anything except wait for his sons to come to him, but he can do something about the old and crumbling house where they once lived.
Note: This fic covers the same ground as A Hundred Miles Through the Desert, but from Fëanor's perspective.
First Chapter / Previous Chapter
Heart,
I implore you,
it’s time to come back
from the dark
…
Let the world
have its way with you,
luminous as it is
with mystery
and pain—
graced as it is
with the ordinary.
- “Summer Morning” by Mary Oliver
.
( Read more... )
Reading Wednesday
May. 20th, 2026 03:48 pmI finished another book!
Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers That Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe – How Charlemagne's Dynasty Fell and Why It Matters for Understanding Political Collapse, by Matthew Gabriele & David M Perry
For all my interest in medieval European history, I know very little about the Carolingeans, so this was really fascinating, especially coming off of reading The Dark Queens, which was about the Merovingians a few generations before Charlemagne. I enjoyed it a lot.
Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers That Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe – How Charlemagne's Dynasty Fell and Why It Matters for Understanding Political Collapse, by Matthew Gabriele & David M Perry
For all my interest in medieval European history, I know very little about the Carolingeans, so this was really fascinating, especially coming off of reading The Dark Queens, which was about the Merovingians a few generations before Charlemagne. I enjoyed it a lot.
Add Another Stone - Chapter Five
May. 19th, 2026 03:13 pmFandom: Tolkien
Rating: T
Characters: Finrod, Celegorm, Curufin, Fingon, Turgon
Warnings: (past) Character Death, general Doom of the Noldor, some violence
Summary: The thing about forgiveness, he thought, was that it was so much easier when the object of it was far away—or dead. It was so much easier to let it all go when those responsible were far away and unable to do any more harm.
First Chapter / Previous Chapter
Rating: T
Characters: Finrod, Celegorm, Curufin, Fingon, Turgon
Warnings: (past) Character Death, general Doom of the Noldor, some violence
Summary: The thing about forgiveness, he thought, was that it was so much easier when the object of it was far away—or dead. It was so much easier to let it all go when those responsible were far away and unable to do any more harm.
First Chapter / Previous Chapter
( Read more... )
the plot bunnies are breeding
May. 18th, 2026 09:54 pmHighs in the 90s today and tomorrow, whyyyyy. It's been cooler than usual up to now, so why did we just skip ahead to the middle of an August heatwave? I hate it.
The township also repaved our road today, so that smelled great whenever I stepped outside. BUT my peonies are starting to bloom!!
A friend of mine is expecting a baby come fall, so I found some nice cotton/acrylic yarn that's a very pretty shade of purple that I can't remember when or why I bought, and started a baby blanket for her. It's very nice to work with, and it's helping me out of my reading slump--I finished an audiobook I'd stalled out on months ago, and started another. And in looking for the yarn I found where I put the sock yarn I got ages ago with a vague aspiration of learning to knit those, so maybe there are badly-knit socks in my future? We'll see how confident I feel.
After over a year of having a very hard time focusing on anything except one single story, I'm finding myself being smacked in the face with new ideas with shocking frequency. There's the silly Crablorandom crossover I've been poking at, as well as From that Rubbles and The Fire of Life--both of which I had hoped to focus on once I was finished with Desert--but also Finrod showed up in my head and wouldn't leave until I wrote Add Another Stone, which was originally "if I could make Celegorm/Finrod work, how would I do it?" and turned into, well, that plus a character study of Finrod. Also part of it is set by Ekkaia, because I wrote it so of course it is.
And now Celegorm won't leave my head, and this fic is going to be much longer and I'm not even sure how to describe the idea, which came to me with shocking clarity while I was shampooing my hair last week--and then stayed in my head until I could get out of the shower and to a place where I could write it down. Canon-divergence AU where Celegorm survives Doriath but massively injured, and also with amnesia due to a combination of a curse from Dior and a head injury, and then somehow we get to Kidnap-Fam-But-Slightly-To-The-Left when Daeron ends up having a very weird day, and also the Els 1.0 are there (and no one's actually kidnapped* but you get the vibe, right?). I'm not really sure where it'll go from there, which is of course most of the fun, but I had hoped to be focusing on a very different Feanorian.
*an argument can be made that Celegorm is the kidnappee in this scenario
I did, I think, fix the problems I was having in getting Plot Things moving in The Fire of Life, so there's that. At least I've gotten Maedhros out of Rivendell and it doesn't feel as forced as the last three times I tried. I am also again struggling with foreshadowing things on purpose because, uh. I know everything so it's hard to tell if I'm being more obvious than I want to be or not. I don't mind at all people guessing or seeing where things are going, but I do also like to have some reveals be surprising, you know? I somehow threaded that needle exactly how I wanted to in Desert, but I don't want to get overconfident here.
There are a couple of other much vaguer ideas that need to simmer on the back burner of my brain for a while, which is honestly a relief. I don't think I mean to complain about having so many ideas, but it remains as I said very weird after being so hyper-focused on one story for so long.
I'm also thinking I probably won't claim anything for TRSB. The gallery is incredible, as it always is, but there's nothing that really leaps out at me--or at least nothing that I'm immediately confident that I could write 5000 words for. I might write a couple of treats for some artists that I recognized, but we'll see.
The township also repaved our road today, so that smelled great whenever I stepped outside. BUT my peonies are starting to bloom!!
A friend of mine is expecting a baby come fall, so I found some nice cotton/acrylic yarn that's a very pretty shade of purple that I can't remember when or why I bought, and started a baby blanket for her. It's very nice to work with, and it's helping me out of my reading slump--I finished an audiobook I'd stalled out on months ago, and started another. And in looking for the yarn I found where I put the sock yarn I got ages ago with a vague aspiration of learning to knit those, so maybe there are badly-knit socks in my future? We'll see how confident I feel.
After over a year of having a very hard time focusing on anything except one single story, I'm finding myself being smacked in the face with new ideas with shocking frequency. There's the silly Crablorandom crossover I've been poking at, as well as From that Rubbles and The Fire of Life--both of which I had hoped to focus on once I was finished with Desert--but also Finrod showed up in my head and wouldn't leave until I wrote Add Another Stone, which was originally "if I could make Celegorm/Finrod work, how would I do it?" and turned into, well, that plus a character study of Finrod. Also part of it is set by Ekkaia, because I wrote it so of course it is.
And now Celegorm won't leave my head, and this fic is going to be much longer and I'm not even sure how to describe the idea, which came to me with shocking clarity while I was shampooing my hair last week--and then stayed in my head until I could get out of the shower and to a place where I could write it down. Canon-divergence AU where Celegorm survives Doriath but massively injured, and also with amnesia due to a combination of a curse from Dior and a head injury, and then somehow we get to Kidnap-Fam-But-Slightly-To-The-Left when Daeron ends up having a very weird day, and also the Els 1.0 are there (and no one's actually kidnapped* but you get the vibe, right?). I'm not really sure where it'll go from there, which is of course most of the fun, but I had hoped to be focusing on a very different Feanorian.
*an argument can be made that Celegorm is the kidnappee in this scenario
I did, I think, fix the problems I was having in getting Plot Things moving in The Fire of Life, so there's that. At least I've gotten Maedhros out of Rivendell and it doesn't feel as forced as the last three times I tried. I am also again struggling with foreshadowing things on purpose because, uh. I know everything so it's hard to tell if I'm being more obvious than I want to be or not. I don't mind at all people guessing or seeing where things are going, but I do also like to have some reveals be surprising, you know? I somehow threaded that needle exactly how I wanted to in Desert, but I don't want to get overconfident here.
There are a couple of other much vaguer ideas that need to simmer on the back burner of my brain for a while, which is honestly a relief. I don't think I mean to complain about having so many ideas, but it remains as I said very weird after being so hyper-focused on one story for so long.
I'm also thinking I probably won't claim anything for TRSB. The gallery is incredible, as it always is, but there's nothing that really leaps out at me--or at least nothing that I'm immediately confident that I could write 5000 words for. I might write a couple of treats for some artists that I recognized, but we'll see.
Add Another Stone - Chapter Four
May. 18th, 2026 11:27 amFandom: Tolkien
Rating: T
Characters: Finrod, Celegorm, Curufin, Fingon, Turgon
Warnings: (past) Character Death, general Doom of the Noldor, some violence
Summary: The thing about forgiveness, he thought, was that it was so much easier when the object of it was far away—or dead. It was so much easier to let it all go when those responsible were far away and unable to do any more harm.
First Chapter / Previous Chapter / Last Chapter
Rating: T
Characters: Finrod, Celegorm, Curufin, Fingon, Turgon
Warnings: (past) Character Death, general Doom of the Noldor, some violence
Summary: The thing about forgiveness, he thought, was that it was so much easier when the object of it was far away—or dead. It was so much easier to let it all go when those responsible were far away and unable to do any more harm.
First Chapter / Previous Chapter / Last Chapter
( Read more... )
Add Another Stone - Chapter Three
May. 17th, 2026 11:20 pmFandom: Tolkien
Rating: T
Characters: Finrod, Celegorm, Curufin, Fingon, Turgon
Warnings: (past) Character Death, general Doom of the Noldor, some violence
Summary: The thing about forgiveness, he thought, was that it was so much easier when the object of it was far away—or dead. It was so much easier to let it all go when those responsible were far away and unable to do any more harm.
First Chapter / Previous Chapter / Next Chapter
Rating: T
Characters: Finrod, Celegorm, Curufin, Fingon, Turgon
Warnings: (past) Character Death, general Doom of the Noldor, some violence
Summary: The thing about forgiveness, he thought, was that it was so much easier when the object of it was far away—or dead. It was so much easier to let it all go when those responsible were far away and unable to do any more harm.
First Chapter / Previous Chapter / Next Chapter
( Read more... )
Add Another Stone - Chapter Two
May. 15th, 2026 11:50 pmFandom: Tolkien
Rating: T
Characters: Finrod, Celegorm, Curufin, Fingon, Turgon
Warnings: (past) Character Death, general Doom of the Noldor, some violence
Summary: The thing about forgiveness, he thought, was that it was so much easier when the object of it was far away—or dead. It was so much easier to let it all go when those responsible were far away and unable to do any more harm.
First Chapter / Next Chapter
Rating: T
Characters: Finrod, Celegorm, Curufin, Fingon, Turgon
Warnings: (past) Character Death, general Doom of the Noldor, some violence
Summary: The thing about forgiveness, he thought, was that it was so much easier when the object of it was far away—or dead. It was so much easier to let it all go when those responsible were far away and unable to do any more harm.
First Chapter / Next Chapter
( Read more... )
From That Rubble - Chapter Three
May. 15th, 2026 04:34 pmFandom: Tolkien
Rating: T
Characters: Fëanor, Fingolfin, Findis, Lalwen, Sons of Feanor, various others
Warnings: (past) Character Death
Summary: Decades out of Mandos, too many things in Fëanor's life remain broken. He can't do anything except wait for his sons to come to him, but he can do something about the old and crumbling house where they once lived.
Note: This fic covers the same ground as A Hundred Miles Through the Desert, but from Fëanor's perspective.
First Chapter / Previous Chapter / Next Chapter
Rating: T
Characters: Fëanor, Fingolfin, Findis, Lalwen, Sons of Feanor, various others
Warnings: (past) Character Death
Summary: Decades out of Mandos, too many things in Fëanor's life remain broken. He can't do anything except wait for his sons to come to him, but he can do something about the old and crumbling house where they once lived.
Note: This fic covers the same ground as A Hundred Miles Through the Desert, but from Fëanor's perspective.
First Chapter / Previous Chapter / Next Chapter
One need not be a chamber—to be haunted—
One need not be a House—
The Brain—has Corridors surpassing
Material Place—
Far safer, of a Midnight—meeting
External Ghost—
Than an Interior—confronting—
That cooler—Host—
- “One need not be a chamber—to be haunted—” by Emily Dickinson
.
( Read more... )
Add Another Stone - Chapter One
May. 13th, 2026 06:59 pmFandom: Tolkien
Rating: T
Characters: Finrod, Celegorm, Curufin, Fingon, Turgon
Warnings: (past) Character Death, general Doom of the Noldor, some violence
Summary: The thing about forgiveness, he thought, was that it was so much easier when the object of it was far away—or dead. It was so much easier to let it all go when those responsible were far away and unable to do any more harm.
AO3 / SWG
Rating: T
Characters: Finrod, Celegorm, Curufin, Fingon, Turgon
Warnings: (past) Character Death, general Doom of the Noldor, some violence
Summary: The thing about forgiveness, he thought, was that it was so much easier when the object of it was far away—or dead. It was so much easier to let it all go when those responsible were far away and unable to do any more harm.
AO3 / SWG
Next Chapter
Hello, my old heart
It’s been so long
Since I’ve given you away
And every day
I add another stone
To the walls I built around you
To keep you safe
- “Hello My Old Heart” - The Oh Hellos
.
( Read more... )
It's a birthday!
May. 11th, 2026 06:35 amIt's
erullissedances's birthday! I know how hard you're working, my friend, and I hope today can bring a window of peace, joy, and feeling all our loving hugs. ♥

Rena says Relax....



Rena says Relax....




