#this is...so long

[atlantablack]

For the passage ask thing!!!!

Now he can only stare, struck by how tame his brother’s dislike of him is, for he cannot even call what he is looking at hatred compared to the madness and disgusted hatefulness that he’d grown so accustomed to at the end. It seems in his memories that it was always hatred. That he was born knowing Fëanor did not want him to exist. And now here is his brother and Fingolfin realizes that he does not recognize him. Has grown too used to being hated to know what to do when he is not.

Hi!! Okay, let's see.

So, if you asked Fëanor in that moment, "hey do you hate Fingolfin?" his answer would be a resounding "Obviously I hate him." But, honestly, Fingolfin's closer to the truth. I think, that for a very long time, all the true hatred on Fëanor's part was aimed at Indis (and even if he won't acknowledge it, Finwë). Like, he does on a very logical level know that none of his half-siblings are at fault. Does he care that they're not at fault? I mean, no. But it's still not so much hatred as just general indifference and resentment at having to share his father's affection. Because he left like, as soon as he was of age right? Which would have been very young (Finarfin wouldn't have been born yet) and then fucked off and married Nerdanel and never lived in the palace again. So, it'd be easy to just be, out of sight, out of mind with his half-siblings. I think the actual hatred came about farther into Morgoth sowing discord and whenever Fingolfin got way too invested in political maneuvering.

And I was kind of thinking about like, there's that saying I read somewhere about how like, you can always keep being kind, but once you've started being hateful to a person you can't go back, or something like that. And I think for Fingolfin, who probably always interpreted Fëanor's attitude toward him as hate, that at the time it just seemed like a natural escalation of things. Hate to extra hate to a sword at the throat. And that hate just kind of cast a shadow on any earlier memories so that it seemed as if well, obviously Fëanor had always felt that way about him.

But he's got the perspective now knowing what actual hatred looks like on Fëanor's face and having gone backwards and gone from that hatred to what Fëanor was actually projecting toward him, it's easier to see that well, it's not hatred. Just a really fucking strong dislike, general disinterest in really anything to do with Fingolfin's life, and a slowly building resentment under it all. Which like, still isn't a great thing to grow up with but it's not hatred. So, voila, you get Fingolfin just kind of like ??????? and then promptly not dealing with any of that.

Also bonus DVD commentary on that scene: from Finwë, Fëanor, and Finarfin's POV in that scene - one I've decided that Fingolfin was at least an hour late, which already set off alarm bells for them. And then he walks in, looking a bit out of it, because tbh he's still comprehending the whole, wow I've gone back in time and everyone is alive thing, and then just stands there and kind of blankly stares at Fëanor for like a good solid 60 seconds at least instead of being snarky back. He won't look at Finarfin. He gets a weird look on his face every time he looks at Finwë. And then he just completely spaces out and ignores everything Finwë is saying. The alarm bells have turned into an alarm siren. Finwë and Finarfin don't immediately go after him because 1) they're not as inherently suspicious as Fëanor and 2) it clearly looks to them like Fingolfin needs space. They'd have confronted him about it later (if he'd you'd know managed to not get himself killed the same day). Fëanor of course sees this happens and goes "well clearly he's up to something to suspicious and i have to find out what". He doesn't actually start feeling worried until Fingolfin snaps at Morgoth. And then he's very mad at the fact that he's worried because fuck him he doesn't like Fingolfin he doesn't want to feel worried.

[remade-stopdisrespectingculture]

In your opinion, are tattoos on their own CA? I know it's unacceptable to get religious icons and things that aren't your culture tattooed on yourself, but I read somewhere recently that the act of tattooing is CA since it originated in the pacific islands. I don't know if you have any Pacific Islander mods, but I wanted to find out your thoughts on the subject.

In my opinion before researching, no, they are not. I believe I have also heard that claim but I believe it is false. Tattooing to me seems to be something that has developed in many cultures, and has not necessarily been introduced by others. When you think about it sort of “logically”, you can see this being very possible. Cultures everywhere developed their own, unique art. That art was almost always very representative of culture and religion, it represented the people and their beliefs. What better way to represent that, than putting that art on one another? While I may be wrong, I do believe separate peoples were intuitive enough to develop tattooing.

Now for my say on the topic after doing some light research, which I am clarifying to you because I’m pretty much about to word this as if I already knew it, which isn’t true.

It appears that the claim that tattooing was first seen in the Pacific Islands is an outdated theory. It is instead the first documented mention of tattooing (Well, by White people..)

“The first written reference to the word “tattoo,” or “tatau,” appeared in the journal of Joseph Banks, the naturalist aboard Captain James Cook’s ship the HMS Endeavor in 1769. Banks and the crew of the HMS Endeavor encountered the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand and found them adorned with indelible markings. However, tattoos date back as far as the Neolithic era, or around the fourth to fifth millennium BC.” - Skinsight.com

First off, ew, James Cook. Second, as you may read there, they are the first group to be documented, but tattooing has been around for much longer. This brings us to the actual evidence of the oldest instance of tattooing - which has been discovered through scientific evidence rather than written word of an encounter. This shows us that the oldest, therefore “first” by our knowledge, people to create tattoos are the Chinchorro people of South America.

“The oldest discovery of tattooed human skin was found on the upper lip of a Chinchorro culture mummy from South America, dating to approximately 6000 BC” - Wikipedia.org

“The oldest known tattoos date from 6000 B.C. from the Chinchorros culture. They show a thin pencil mustache tattooed on the upper lip of a male adult.But not only men were tattooed in ancient times: an obviously upper class female mummy was excavated in the Altay. She was enveloped in silk, crowned with a half-meter-high headdress and had a Skythian- pattern tattoo on her left arm.” - USAtoday.com

I do however want to repeat my initial statement, that I feel no one culture or peoples invented tattooing. While we have physically evidence of Chinchorro tattooing, I don’t feel that they own the entire concept of tattooing. I honestly think that would be comparable to saying it is CA to wear any form of clothing whatsoever because “Blank” culture/peoples were the first to cover themselves. Because of that, after this sudden and long history lesson for both of us, it isn’t Cultural Appropriation.

-Chantel