ʜᴇᴀʀᴛꜱᴏꜰᴛ / ʜᴇᴀᴅꜱᴛʀᴏɴɢ

[saltuary]

SALTUARY  ⪼ † noun . a forester , a ranger . a headcanon-based , highly selective & private interpretation of FARAMIR from TOLKIEN’S LEGENDARIUM as appreciated by Puffin . crossover friendly, with many verses available . affiliated with the wonderful @pxnxply , @ranasta , @skrimslis , @aithynne and @gravityslingshot . ♡ ( sideblog ft. fíli : @deaurate )

themes ↠ heroism in the face of impossible odds , moral integrity , duty and self-sacrifice , bonds of brotherhood , the price of peace , a pen in one hand and a sword in the other , the father-son relationship , mercy and compassion , love as a healing power .

bio | lore | verses | thread tracker | prompts | inbox : 60

01 . Hey, I’m Puffin ( she / her ) – I’m in my 30s and I’m from Ireland.

02 . I only write with adults aged 21+.  If you’re underage, do not follow.  Please don’t follow unless you intend to interact.  I keep my following list small and curated – I’m here to write, not collect followers.

03 . This is a crossover-friendly, OC-welcoming, multiship, multiverse space.  I love deep plotting and layered, meaningful dynamics.  That said, I’m not a rapidfire partner – writing takes me time, and I appreciate patience.

04 . Common courtesy applies.  Be kind.  Be patient.  I’ll do the same.

05 . Mun ≠ muse.  I curate my space to suit my comfort, pace, and interests.  I encourage you to do the same.

06 . Potentially upsetting and mature themes include but are not limited to :  war, violence, dissociation, death, grief, emotional abuse, psychological distress, low self-worth, fire-related injuries, suicidal ideation.  Nothing is written for shock value, but nuance is important to me.

07 . I intend to keep my circle small so I can give focus and care to my threads.  I rarely follow first but, when I do, I’ll usually initiate something once we’re mutuals.  If you follow first, I expect similar initiative in return.

08 . I’m liberal with soft-blocking.  That might be due to inactivity, an excess of OOC content, chronic negativity, one-sided plotting, or a general mismatch in vibe or interest.  Receiving asks and engagement is great, but if I find I’m the only one keeping momentum, I’ll quietly bow out.  Roleplay is collaborative.

09 . I will not follow back blogs that don’t include a Tolkien verse or a clearly compatible setting for Faramir.  I have limited bandwidth and prefer to invest where our canons overlap or where plotting feels seamless.  Similarly, while I enjoy plotting, I also like a balance between talking about characters and actually writing them.  Writing is my creative outlet, what I do to unwind, while OOC chat can be draining for me.  If we spend too much time talking about scenes and never writing them, I lose steam and eventually interest. 

10 . I am not interested in exclusive, single-ship or heavily entangled dynamics that limit outside interaction. I fully support mains and affiliates – I practise those myself – but if your blog functions more like a closed ship or duo, I’m likely not the right fit. I’m not here to be a side character, filler, or back-up plan.

11 . I don’t mind personal blogs following, liking, or sending OOC or headcanon asks.  I love that you enjoy what I do!  The occasional reblog of a headcanon or aesthetic post is fine too – just don’t reblog roleplay threads.  If you’re a personal blog and you start spamming reblogs ( headcanons, musings, aesthetics, etc. ) and flood my notifications, I will hard block.  All I ask is that you please engage with care and consideration.

12 . Graphics by the wonderful and talented @nassycomms . ♡

[saltuary]

modern faramircore.

[saltuary]

ooc . Took my kids to see Super Mario Galaxy today and because Fox McCloud featured I’m obligated to tell you that I used to write Falco Lombardi and Wolf O’Donnell back in the day.

[sioltach]

this website lets you listen to the sounds of all different forests around the world 

[saltuary]

headcanon . Thinking about the fact that Faramir was hunted by the Nazgûl. Not in some distant, abstract sense, not as one soldier among many, but actively – singled out.

Nazgûl don’t only pursue the body, they assail the spirit. They wound the mind, filling it with dread so complete it feels like inevitability. A slow, suffocating certainty that all things must end in shadow. Still, Faramir resists. Again and again, he meets that creeping horror and does not break, does not yield, does not surrender himself to despair – even when despair is weaponised against him.

There is also something to be said about the fact that, among the shifting tides of men and war, he stood out enough to be marked, to be pursued. It says something about his will, about the light in him, about the threat he posed the growing strength of Mordor. He is someone steady enough, noble enough, bright enough, that creatures of shadow felt the need to extinguish him.

There is something of his father in this.

Denethor, for all his failings, was a man of immense strength of mind, one who dared to look into the palantír and contend with the will behind it. He was not broken quickly, nor easily. It took long years, and a war of attrition to wear his spirit down.

Faramir bears that same terrible endurance, but where Denethor was eventually hardened by it, bent inwards, Faramir remains open, merciful, gentle. Even being hunted by the Nazgûl was not enough to make him close his heart.

[tolkien-shitposting]

[saltuary]

[   POEM   ]     ,     sender  writes  a  poem  for  receiver.   /   cept not a poem, but words from a memory of what was said to him before --

Which first to wither and pass, shallowness of sunlight in the eve, or the moon pane of the grass? For it is the morning walks with you I look forward to.

eowyn

It came to him not as a composition, not as any crafted verse fit for courtly recitation, but as something softer. Heart-felt, half-remembered.

In the grey tide of early morning, in the newborn gardens of Ithilien, dew clung to blade and petal alike, each droplet the shivering mirror of a sky still undecided between darkness and dawn. Faramir stood in the teetering gloom. Beside him, Éowyn.

She had spoken, her voice not raised, nor adorned, but with a simplicity more dear to him than any flourish of courtly speech:

“Which first to wither and pass, shallowness of sunlight in the eve, or the moon pane of the grass? For it is the morning walks with you I look forward to.”

Faramir turned it over, not with the scholarly quarter of his mind, but with the ache of one who has lived too long in the company of endings. He had seen the thin gold of evening slipping quickly from the sheer walls of Minas Tirith. He had seen the argent shimmer of night upon the Pelennor, where hope had once seemed fragile as frost.

Around them, grass bent beneath dawn’s breath. Each blade caught the half-light, each drop of dew a trembling star. Heavens above, heavens below. Heavens between them too, in their matrimony.

His hand settled, at last, over hers. A returning home.

“How the mind gathers such things,” he murmured. “Fragments of what was, what might have been. And yet…” He paused, his thumb brushing lightly against her knuckles. “And yet it is this – this hour, this place, you within it – that I feel will endure above all.”

The light germinated and grew, threading gold through the silver of the world. It caught upon Éowyn’s hair, kindling along its strands, tracing the curve of her cheek, and in that moment he thought her wrought of that very meeting. Dawn and dusk reconciled in a single, fleeting grace.

Yet she was no fleeting thing.

She stood beside him still.

“If it is the morning you look toward, dear heart, then I shall meet you here again, and yet again, for as long as we are granted such hours.”

[saltuary]

⪼ @partyhcaler // cont.

Faramir had not expected to be praised so warmly for so small a thing.

He lowered the little book a fraction, gaze lingering not on the page but on Amrûn, who shone in the firelight with almost troubling sincerity, hands cradling their own face as though to contain an excess of feeling.

Joy.

That furtive, bright-winged creature – admired, yet seldom known to alight upon his own hand.

“You are generous with your praise,” he said at last, his voice was softer than he intended. His lips curved faintly, the ghost of a smile that seemed a surprise even to him. Joy, it seemed, was catching. “I fear I have only stumbled my way through.”

Between them, the fire whispered and shifted, sending up thin threads of smoke that curled like illegible script.

“Another?”

He thought of long years given to study and discipline, of thought and speech tempered beneath the ever-watchful shadow of his father. Of words weighed not for beauty, but for worth. Language as a tool, as a weapon, as a measure of a man and his intelligence. Far, far removed from this tender sharing of syllables for the sake of delight.

He found he had no wish to disappoint his companion.

“If you will bear with my imperfections,” he said, inclining his head slightly. “Then I would try again.”

The next line waited for him. He began anew, shaping each sound with care – deliberate, gentle – though not yet with the easy grace of a native speaker. There were flaws still, falterings in the flow, but he did not rush them. He gave each word its due.

When he finished, he did not immediately look up. Instead, his grey eyes lingered on the final word.

“Did I fare better this time?”

[partyhcaler]

🌸 ˗ˏˋ ❝Ai.❞ The tut was fond rather than scolding. ❝I am not generous! I have very high standards, actually,❞ one finger lifted for emphasis, ❝and you are simply exceeding them, mellon nîn!❞

They chuckled softly, pouring them more tea brewed from the sweet flowers and dried fruits they always carried on their person. Faramir had been so kind to share his campfire (Amrûn had gotten rather turned around in Ithilien's dark) & what a blessing it had been to find such a darling human to spend the evening with.

❝Hush about imperfections,❞ Amrûn said warmly. ❝A birdling learning to fly is not expected to soar just yet. Though I will say, you are very nearly soaring~❞ Their smile turned playful & they leaned in a little closer — close enough that he could pick up their scent of sweet honeysuckle and wild herbs — following the line Faramir was reading. Amrûn's lips moved quietly along with the words.

When he finished, they were just as delighted as before, even offering a brief round of applause.

❝Ohh, you fared beautifully, dear Faramir~! As you did before and as I suspect you will continue to do!❞ They looked at him, tilting their head. ❝Tell me, have you studied the Grey-tongue before? This can hardly be your first attempt at Sindarin!❞

[saltuary]

At their insistence, Faramir bowed his head a fraction, his faint smile lingering, unwilling to be entirely dismissed.

“Then I am doubly honoured,” he said, a note of amusement threading his voice. “To have met such exacting standards.”

Their nearness did not escape him. He was not a man unaccustomed to closeness – long years of war had seen to that – but this was of a different order altogether. There was no urgency in it, no necessity. Only curiosity and the golden presence of another soul who seemed to take delight in him.

“I have studied the Grey-tongue – though not, I think, as your people would reckon mastery.”

He closed the little book gently, marking a gentle turning of the moment.

“Among the Rangers of Ithilien, Sindarin is no stranger to our speech. We keep it, as we may, in memory of older days – of Númenor, of those who taught our fathers before us.” His moon-coloured eyes lifted to them again, thoughtful now, still soft at the edges. “It is not merely study, but inheritance.”

A pause. With a subtle shift, he set the book aside altogether.

“If you will permit me,” he said, and there was the faintest trace of something almost shy beneath the courtesy. “I might fare better yet without the page.”

He spoke again, the words coming differently. Not haltingly, not shaped from ink and guesswork, but drawn from memory and long use – from evenings beneath leaf and shadow, from low voices shared among war-worn men under Ithilien’s boughs. His Sindarin was not flawless. There were rough edges still, softened vowels where the Eldar might have been more precise, but it lived with far greater ease upon his tongue.

“Le hannon, Amrûn, an i chîn lín nîn meltha.” That ghost of a smile manifested into one more tangible. “Man cenich? Maer naid i lam edhellen an le?”

A small laugh then, musical and sincere.

“I fear,” he added, returning at last to the Common Tongue. “That I remain your birdling, though I thank you for the grace of letting it fly tonight.”

[oldpaintings]

John Williamson (Scottish/American, 1826–1885)

[leneemusing]

devoted, yearning & obsessive

❝ you occupy my thoughts. day and night, even in dreams you're there. i want you to never stop haunting me. ❞

❝ i am eternally yours. until the stars go out. and maybe, even after that. ❞

❝ my heart bleeds the color of your soul. i would cut it out and put it in your palms if i could. ❞

❝ it's like you have knit yourself around my ribs. i could no more cut you out than i could remove my own lungs. ❞

❝ you are woven into my soul and i dare not cut a single thread. ❞

❝ i am yours, body and soul, to do with as you wish. ❞

❝ i don't require you to love me back, or to care for me as i do you. only let me be here, let me devote myself to you. that would be enough. ❞

❝ i want to trap your smile in a bottle and take it out when no one else can see. ❞

❝ you belong to me and i to you. ❞

❝ do not look away from me. i cannot bear it when i do not occupy your vision. ❞

❝ i will follow you. to the ends of the earth, to the very gates of hades and whatever might lay beyond. ❞

❝ i will always be here. no matter how far you go you can always come home to me. ❞

❝ tell me all the places you have been hurt, every rejection, every scar. let me love you in all the places where you have burned. ❞

❝ i will not ever let you go. ❞

❝ you cannot escape this. you cannot run away from the love we share. ❞

❝ what we have is deeper than words could capture. ❞

❝ i will be anything you desire. i pluck out the parts of me you find distasteful and stuff your love in the craters left behind. ❞

❝ tell me what you wish of me and i will do it. ❞

❝ i could spend all day merely watching the air in your lung. i would count every blink. i would cherish every sigh from your lips. i could watch you merely exist for the rest of my life. ❞

❝ don't let go of me. i think if you lost me i would die. ❞

❝ i will cut out the tongues of every man who has wronged you. ❞

❝ i wish i could crawl inside you and make a home out of the hollows of your bones. ❞

ACTIONS:

WATCH: for sender to watch receiver sleep.

WATCHED: for sender to wake up and find receiver watching over them.

DISCOVER: for sender to find a journal full of sketches receiver made of them and sender finds them looking at it.

DISCOVERED: for receiver to find a journal full of sketches receiver made of them.

FOLLOW: for sender to stalk receiver, claiming they're doing it to protect them.

FOLLOWED: for receiver to stalk sender and claim they're protecting them.

GOING: for sender to take receiver to a secluded cabin for a romantic getaway.

GONE: for receiver to take sender to a secluded cabin for a romantic getaway.

SACRIFICE: for sender to kill someone who wronged receiver as a grand gesture.

SACRIFICED: for receiver to kill someone who wrong sender as a grand gesture.

CAUGHT: for sender to catch receiver staring at them.

CATCHING: for receiver to catch sender staring at them.

REVEAL: for sender to slowly undress themselves while receiver watches, but doesn't touch.

REVEALED: for receiver to slowly undress themselves while sender watches, but doesn't touch.

BATHE: for sender to bathe receiver, meticulously and tenderly as if serving them.

BATHED: for receiver to bathe sender, meticulously and tenderly as if serving them.

[saltuary]

⪼ @through-fire-and-flame // cont.

The marshmallow stick was warm in Faramir’s hand, its sweetness already beginning to slacken and blister above the flame. He turned it slowly, watching the sugar darken to amber, then to a perilous, smoking gold. Firelight gilded the planes of his face, softening what the day had carved there – his father’s voice still lingering like an iron aftertaste.

Laurentius’ words brimmed with an almost comical bluntness, yet carried irrefutable kindness. Farry, he had called him. A name made smaller, warmer.

Faramir lifted his eyes then – clear, grey, luminous in the dark – and gazed at that bright, unruly soul who refused solemnity as a matter of principle. There was something in Laurentius that resisted despair not by denying it, but by outpacing it, laughing just ahead of its grasp.

All around them the woods breathed in resinous sighs. Sound and scent pressed gently upon him, as though the wall-less world conspired towards mending.

He regarded the offered marshmallow again, then leaned forwards, closer to the fire, closer to Laurentius, the space between them narrowing.

He lifted the marshmallow in a small, mock-toast.

“To burned sugar then,” Faramir said. “And to bad jokes, and to weekends that might yet set a poor week right.”

A pause.

“And to smiles. I’m out of practice, but this one is yours.”

With that, he did smile, the warmth of the expression reaching and creasing the corners of his eyes.

“Satisfied?”

[noctisoma]

@saltuary

IT WAS A SLAUGHTER . A HORRIFIC MASSACRE . the air was thick with the smell of blood and death . Corvo flapped onyx wings above her head as he led her to the corpses that littered the earth --- which drank up crimson . she stood upon the hill , the large black bird circling overhead . she could see the spirits of the departed that lingered by their bodies --- the only things she could see . some were confused as to what had happened . many were angry or full of regret .

[saltuary]

The grasses lay flattened and darkened, the earth having drunk deeply, greedily, of blood. Now it exhaled a copper-sweet miasma that clung to the throat and would not be swallowed.

He had seen war. He had walked among the fallen in Ithilien, had knelt beside dying men whose names he would carry in the sinews of his heart.

This was less a battle and more a butchery.

His gaze lifted from the horror, drawn upwards by the slow, deliberate flap of black wings. A bird circled there – no common carrion creature, its shadow passing again and again across the hill, like the sweep of a priest’s hand.

Below it, the stranger stood.

There was a terrible vitality in her stillness, as though she stood at the centre of a world invisible to him. Dead men lay strewn about her feet, but she did not move among them as a mourner. Horns marking her lineage clawed skywards, yet her bearing was not monstrous.

Faramir stepped forwards.

“My lady?” His voice bore a gentleness ill-suited to such a place. It was the voice he used for the wounded, the grieving – the voice he had learned in defiance of harsher teachings.

[lovecrumbss]

James Baldwin talking about love

[weltenwellen]

“I sit up in the dark drenched in longing. I am carrying over a thousand names for blue that I didn’t have at dusk.”

— Joy Harjo, from “The First Day Without a Mother”, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

[ridddermark]

middle earth aesthetics → gondor

even as pippin gazed in wonder the walls passed from looming grey to white, blushing faintly in the dawn; and suddenly the sun climbed over the eastern shadow and sent forth a shaft that smote the face of the city. then pippin cried aloud, for the tower of ecthelion, standing high within the topmost wall, shone out against the sky, glimmering like a spike of pearl and silver, tall and fair and shapely, and its pinnacle glittered as if it were wrought of crystals; and white banners broke and fluttered from the battlements in the morning breeze, and high and far he heard a clear ringing as of silver trumpets.

[promptshelf]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐊𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐓𝐇.

› prompts from rachel gillig's novel the knight and the moth (2025). feel free to tweak as you see fit , bartholomew.

❛ you don’t have to be good, or useful, for someone to care about you. ❜

❛ when you do the right thing for the wrong reason, no one praises you. ❜

❛ we all want to be special.”

❛ what is right and wrong depends entirely on the story you’re living in. ❜

❛ which is more intricate? the designs of men, trying to reach gods, or that of gods, trying to reach men? ❜

❛ people who love you for your usefulness don't love you at all. ❜

❛ you want to throw me down. ❜

❛ i, prideful, disdainful, godless. ❜

❛ i want to drag you into the dirt with me. ❜

❛ you know this story, (name,) though you do not remember it. ❜

❛ to tell a story is in part to tell a lie, isn't it? ❜

❛ it's hard to see who i am when i am lost in what's expected of me. ❜

❛ fear not, (name!) every day has its dog. ❜

❛ if you only ever look up at something, can you ever see it clearly? ❜

❛ it is easier, swearing ourselves to someone else's cause than to sit with who we are without one. ❜

❛ take my hand, you strange little creature. ❜

❛ it sounds awful when i say it out loud. ❜

❛ you are more special than you realize. ❜

❛ i would do anything for you. ❜

❛ i cannot decide which i like best. the sunrise, or the sunset. ❜

❛ i was losing my faith in everything. ❜

❛ the two of us meeting… it felt almost divine. ❜

❛ i think her quite the bitch. ❜

❛ how undignified. ❜

❛ did anyone see me fall? ❜

❛ i want someone to see me. ❜

❛ i want it to be you. ❜

❛ no honor among thieves, and even less among gods. ❜

❛ i’ll do anything you ask of me. ❜

❛ if i were beside myself, there would be two of me ❜

❛ oh, (name.) he's dreamy. ❜

❛ do you want to know how it ends? ❜

❛ does it end? ❜

❛ it ends when you kiss me. ❜

❛ why do we do these things to ourselves? ❜

❛ you’re an incomparable fiend, (name.) a truly accomplished asshole. ❜

❛ i’d like you better if you were on your back again. ❜

❛ it is not like me to be the bearer of bad tidings. ❜

❛ am i all that you imagined? ❜

❛ your hands are marked by the blood of my metamorphosis. ❜

❛ whatever my soul was made of was frail. ❜

❛ violence is a craft. so is compassion. ❜

❛ no is a sufficient answer. ❜

❛ anger is a fine weapon. ❜

❛ now have some soup. ❜

❛ i will shoulder any weight you give me. ❜

❛ would that things were different. ❜

❛ i think i would like to stop promising myself away, or else there will be nothing left of me to give. ❜

❛ i don’t know why i say the things i do. ❜

[nixscriptum]

𐙚⋆. APRIL POETRY PROMPTS a collection steeped in bloom and aftermath: love in its wild, fleeting forms, where sweetness tangles with melancholy, and everything grows whether it should or not.

1. bloom or break, either way: become 2. soaked through / still standing 3. love brewed slow as rainwater in a chipped teacup 4. I am not afraid of the flood anymore 5. louder than the rain  6. cherry blossoms in your ribcage 7. wildflowers on an unmarked grave 8. green things and their hungers 9. honeymoon phase in a haunted house 10. white dress, dirty hands 11. the motel where we pretended to be married 12. tulips wilting in the backseat 13. I planted a garden where we used to make love 14. the romance that died in winter  15. spring break forever (or never again) 16. rose-tinted rearview mirror 17.  so much bloom without apology 18. everything is coming up roses 19. sundress stained with red wine 20. his hands in my hair, magnolias in the air 21. botanical gardens at midnight 22. I kept every petal from every almost 23. young and drunk on something like love 24. porch swing conversation 25. dandelion wishes 26. a forgotten picnic basket 27. allergies (or tears) 28. abandoned greenhouse 29. roadside flower stand 30. spring fever