ink & stars

https://anandhi.my.canva.site/grimm-little-graveyards

[occudo]

Turns out I'm not done with drawing Grace Project Hail Mary yet

[immorally-ambiguous]

[selinay017]

[immorally-ambiguous]

This is just stunning!!

[immorally-ambiguous]

2025 has been a difficult time, filled with turmoil and fear. In light of that, I wanted to post something filled with hope.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Let's enter this new year with hope, excitement, and most importantly: together.

[chthonion]

Annatar is the actual dictionary definition of a meow-meow and I've been made aware of it because of you. Dunk that man (elf) (ex-maia) in water and let him drip. He's my poor little meow-meow who commits war crimes and I love him so much. I've had this autism creature for a day and a half and if anything happened to him I'd kill everyone in Arda and then myself

—Me, writing the opening scene of the Harrowing to see if I could pull off a Sauron POV after I'd already written Anastasis

I really was not prepared for how much meow-meow I could fit in this fucked up maia. Look at him. He's got everything: incredible discomfort in many situations, autism, wildly fucked up paradigms in need of adjustment, a body that isn't listening to his unreasonable demands, Perfectionism of Mass Destruction...

[chthonion]

Chapter 10 of Fear Me Not!

Chapter 10 of Fear Me Not is here! This is a small one, but full of music and emotions, and I am very fond of it. Happy Friday!

[chthonion]

The temptation to post the next one is considerable

[immorally-ambiguous]

Do it!!!!

[sillystigmata]

I really can’t believe this.

[chthonion]

Sanctuary (I have written a Maedhros/Sauron oneshot)

Hello, everyone! Are you grumpy because it's Monday? Want to see Maedhros have a weirder day than you?

I have written a fucked up Maedhros/Sauron oneshot. Featuring:

Blinded Sauron

Maedhros at the end of his tether

Silmarils

Threats of fealty

A hefty list of content warnings

You can find it here, and here is the summary:

Sauron says, "I seek the sanctuary that you have so often offered in the past, to deserters fleeing from Morgoth. I am willing to swear any oath you like, give you any surety, to secure that sanctuary." Maedhros listens to what Sauron has to say for three reasons: 1. Because it seems less dangerous than telling him no outright. 2. Because there is something wrong with him, something that was not there the last time Maedhros saw him, and Maedhros wants to know why. 3. Because he has the Silmarils, and so Maedhros has no choice.

[immorally-ambiguous]

AO3 has decided to tell me the work doesn't exist.

[chthonion]

Ask game: #6–What Inspired you to write Anastasis/The Harrowing?

This is such a good question and so so hard to answer because all stories arise from whatever particular cocktail of circumstances is causing perturbations in my brain at the time, BUT

1. Reading @thearrogantemu’s In Full Measure I Return To You, something like a year or two years before I actually did any of the writing. Some stuff takes a while to percolate through my brain.

2. Having spent, at that time, uhhhhh seven years? Reading about theology and the history of Christianity? That is a Lot of theology and religionstuff to read and you can Not escape having it affect the ideas that come out of your brain if you read that much of anything.

2a. Having spent uhhhhhh seven years reading spectacular amounts of theology that I disagreed with, specifically (Augustine can fight me in a parking lot)

3. I was spectacularly, DIRELY stressed and overworked. This tends to produce Coping Projects.

4. I was also living apart from my spouse for most of the year. This produced critical levels of Yearning Across The Sea in my system which I hope will never be replicated. (Also visible in: Lost And Found/Fear Me Not/that whole situation)

5. I REALLY needed to see Frodo and Celebrimbor have a real, serious conversation about All Of That, and once I sat down to let them do it, the implications…implicated. In great abundance. Until suddenly I was elbows deep in the Harrowing with only a vague idea of how I’d gotten there.

I’m doing an ask game—the questions are here!

[chthonion]

Reasons why I want to fight Augustine: an incomplete list

@fancyfrogg my opinions are too numerous to go in a comment

He was an influential formulator of the doctrine of Original Sin, and I tend to find his take on it—all humans are inherently too sinful to be good without God; babies who die unbaptized cannot go to heaven—very unpleasant.

I find his opinions about babies morally reprehensible in general. He argues that babies are fundamentally bad/sinful and produces, as evidence, the fact that they manipulate everyone around them to do their will by crying. What else are they going to do, buddy? They're babies???

He's very much on board with the "Women should be submissive and obedient to their husbands" thing, which is not unique to him by any means, but it sure is annoying.

He's an ascetic who believes that most earthly pleasures, joys, and enthusiasms are distractions from God at best and terrible perversions at worst. I do not ascribe to this belief. Under many circumstances that would be his problem, not mine, but he's one of the most influential church fathers in the early history of the church and I live in the United States, which is deeply culturally influenced by Christian asceticism. So he's kind of made it my problem.

He's an incredibly deep and reflective thinker with many genuinely beautiful ideas that I do want to engage with, and his Latin prose is incredibly skilled and beautiful. Which means every time I want to splash around in his yearnings and his thoughts on people and his relationship with God, I have to wade through all of the above to do it, thereby generating a current of animosity that is much more persistent than it would be if I could just be like "Wow, what an asshole" and write him off like I do with people like John Chrysostom.

(I write John Chrysostom off as an asshole because I have read his Against Jews literature and there's really no coming back from that)

[immorally-ambiguous]

AUGUSTINE NEEDS TO BE DECKED IN A PARKING LOT

[immorally-ambiguous]

I wonder what it must feel like to look in mirror

[chthonion]

I feel a Harrowing chapter coming on

You have been warned

[chthonion]

I SAID IT WAS COMING AND I MEANT IT

Chapter 56 of the Harrowing: Counting Debts

Here is a new chapter of the Harrowing! In this one, as promised, Annatar and Maedhros talk about their feelings by arguing about whether to get into an argument.

Also there is Fingon POV. And Maedhros POV. And a look at what was going on with Maedhros right after Chapter 50!

Everyone who has commented on Fear Me Not can feel smug about this one because I have felt very encouraged by it.

[immorally-ambiguous]

It is time.

[chthonion]

WIP Wednesday (it's Thursday)

@aran-morinorea tagged me to share a snippet, so here is a bit of the First Age Maedhros/Sauron oneshot I've been fiddling with in my limited spare time:

In the box there are two Silmarils. Fragments of the setting from the Iron Crown are still clasped around them, as if Sauron did not have time to do anything other than break them off and run, and Maedhros thinks of the hallowing that lies on the Silmarils: no evil thing can touch them without being burned. Which is probably why Sauron is not touching them. "A peace offering," Sauron says. "All I ask is that you hear me out. Hear what I have to say, and the jewels are yours, to do with as you will. What use have I for cursed gems?" He smiles, and there, in that smile, Maedhros sees the aftermath of Sauron's breaking: the jagged edges, the desperation, the razor edge of madness that has been running under every word he has spoken. Sauron says, "It isn't as though I can see them, after all." There is no heart beating in Maedhros’s chest. There is only the Oath, uncompromising and eternal, and there, cradled between Sauron’s two hands, is the answer to it. When he searches for words, he finds nothing; when he reaches for strategy, there is none. There is only the deep black current of the Oath, pulling him forward, ever forward, toward Sauron.

Tagging @tathrin and @thescrapwitch and @jaz-the-bard and @balrogballs and anyone else who wants to play!

[immorally-ambiguous]

I'm actually frothing at the mouth oh my god

[chthonion]

Fueled by the joy of the comments on Fear Me Not, I have been tinkering a little with the Maedhros and Annatar scene that I have to write for the Harrowing, and I have good news and bad news

The good news is that the next chapter is now written enough that I can sloooowly edit it!

The bad news is that you guys are probably getting another alt POV out of this one, because I don’t think I can fit all this Maedhros stuff into the main narration but I NEED you guys to see it

[immorally-ambiguous]

Your writing always floods me with awe and joy!! Excited to see what you write :)

[zzzx009]

Wanna do this trend but I'm a skk monoshipper...

[immorally-ambiguous]

The Silmarils Burned Them

A small Maglor Doodle

[lemonomelette]

one-half of a soul

[immorally-ambiguous]

"Half a man, without his other half"

[chthonion]

How's the Harrowing going?

I alluded to this in earlier posts, but it seems good to mention it explicitly!

The Harrowing is being worked on in the fringes of my life as I slog my way through the first, terrible phase of a new job, the part where I'm working 12 hour days and have no time to rest. It will get better in the new year, but in the meantime I barely have the brainpower to make dinner, let alone juggle the many, many threads that I need to handle well for the Harrowing edits to work.

Maybe I'll get another chapter done in the next few months! I know better than to predict my writing! I do have the next one like 70% of the way to where it needs to go, but it's a crucial chapter and I need to make sure it goes well.

Don't worry; as soon as I have the brain for it, I will absolutely be back. I have a whole Maedhros-Annatar conversation to write! And some awesome Finrod-Annatar feelings to look forward to! I can't wait!

But in the meantime...Finrod/Sauron/Celebrimbor road trip fic is much easier to work with, and gives me a sense of accomplishing something with my writing. So that's the consolation prize, for me and for you.

[immorally-ambiguous]

That makes total sense, take the time you need to produce art!! We'll all be here waiting and supporting you!!