#you're looking for a 'pale elf'? sorry sir

[ohsotragical]

sure astarion doesn't have death level vampire sensitivity to sunlight while the worm's in his brain. but he's still the palest bitch we encounter. i was stuck on the thought of The Only Vampire With Tan Lines BUT... the vampire forgets that just because sunlight won't kill him immediately doesn't mean sunburn doesn't still exist for those with paper-white skin who haven't seen the sun in 200 years

[laneynoir]

Last minute desicions will be the death of me. But here, have a crappy fic I wrote really quickly.

No really, First off, I apologize for the quality, I just decided to do this challenge earlier today 😅 second, it's not a major plot point or anything but Legolas is transmasc in this so.

Legolas x reader, no specific pronouns :)

Safety Net | Swooning | “How many fingers am I holding up?”

In. Out. In. Out. Out.Out. You shake as you try to draw another breath, lungs empty you wrench your mouth open and force a gasp of air. Half regestering the knock at the door, you lift your head from your knees, resting it agaist the wall, if indeed you could be so generous as to call the movement resulting in an obvious thump 'resting'.

The knock sounds again, this time more urgent. Rubbing at your eyes and gathering the discarded shoes, you call out, "One moment please!" The chipper tone giving naught away, or so you hope.

All hope of this is thrown aside when a familiar voice calls back. "It's me, Legolas, open the door. Please."

Not half a minute passes, though it still feels far to long, yet not long enough, before your knees pop as you scoot yourself up the wall, and slide the lock away.

When Legolas' face comes into view, it already wears the expression of worry. Grief imeadiatly joins when he sees you propped heavily against the wall, chest visibly shaking, and struggling to control yourself. You make an attempt to walk toward him, to reasure that you're ok amd he need mot worry, but you've hardly pushed away from the wall when. Your vision begins to swim and strange dots seem to begin floating around you. You knock back against the wall and slump again to the floor.

He whispers your name, dropping to his knees beside you. "May I touch you?" At your jerking nod he places his hands over yours, stilling the scratching movement from causing more harm to your arms.

He draws you to your feet, and into an embrace. Taking his cloak away from his shoulders and warping it around you, Legolas leads you through the doorway and down the hall.

A soldier -not one of the Rohiram, more of a gatekeeper really- stops your progress by moving in front of the door. "Dreadfully sorry Lady," He says to Legolas. "You two need to move along. These chambers are for the visitors of the King only."

"It is entirely regrettable for you then," Legolas voice as cold as you've heard it, and that coupled with the obviously unfeminenity of it, has the guard's eyes going wide. "That we are both visitors of King Theoden."

"Well- I cant really just take your word-"

"Legolas Thranduillion, of Greenwood. I should like to pass by you peacefully, but you are testing my patience."

Whatever may have been the man's response, you would not know. As Aragorn opens the door, quickly glances at each person, doubling back to you at your pale expression. "Y/n?" He turns to the guard. "Can I ask what's wrong, sir?"

Suddenly respectful he shifts on his feet nervously. "I was just explaining that only the King's guests are allowed past."

"And you have other elves stashed away? I should certainly like to meet them, however if you would kindly let the prince past I would much appreciate it." Aragorn is altogether to amused, and the Guard has gone bright red.

Apparently deciding not to further embarrass himself, the man waves you and Legolas past, looking not a little afraid of the threatening glance your elf spares him.

By the time the darkness of the inner room swallows you, your breathing has steadied slightly, and you are content to ball up in Legolas embrace.

"Is there more that I can do, Meleth?"

You shale your head quickly, and ball fists into his tunic. "No there's just... So much. Everywhere. Nothing seems to stop and breath a moment. It all so fast, and I cannot breath. It seems that we are surrounded by death, and yet here there is feasting, children, children have died, yet we are still so loud. Would it be so awful if we just had but a moment of silence?"

His arms tighten around you and he begins softly singing in his mother tongue, you stay this way until again the horns are rung, ams again you must go to battle.

[raayllum]

Wildly accusing anons of having some internal ableism doesn't really hit hard when said anon is personally familiar with non-verbal communication, not that you'd be aware so it's very fair

I wasn't trying to come across rude, I'm sorry if I was, I was just asking if you want to like, look at the creature you are discussing being pregnant and acknowledge it is written as a child, like it's very blatant, the crew weren't exactly subtle? fantasy creature or not it's still an uncomfortable concept to expand upon?

If you are personally grossed out by it, you can blacklist my "tw pregnancy" tag, which I've used for various posts regarding any character being pregnant for a few years now. If I am on the defensive, it's because of the (minimal, but still upsetting) albeism I've seen directed toward Amaya in the fandom over the years for her being deaf and mute.

Now, my opinion is informed by me being Autistic who also works with some Autistic children as a tutor, and I probably don't have to tell you this but am not going to assume, but there are many many behaviours neurodivergent adults do that get labelled as "childish" and then used as an excuse infantilize you. This is doubly so for someone like me who is also asexual (and concepts of sex and adulthood being weirdly interwoven in puritan North American bullshit).

You can see Sir Sparklepuff as a child if you want to, but given that he walks on all fours, secretes goo, eats uncooked bugs with his bare hands, and is a butterfly born from little bug pal and has innate knowledge to guide the group given to him by Aaravos, an ancient elf, I think it's a bit of a stretch. In a lot of ways he is far more comparable to being a mute, more benevolent version of Gollum, from Lord of the Rings. Y'know, down to the hobbling, loincloth, and acting like a guide?

In my eyes there are only two moments where Sir Sparklepuff acts remotely like a child (I suppose) and that's when Viren takes him by the arm to guide him, and when he does his happy clap (which adults can definitely do the last one).

One of the things I talk about a lot in regards to 10+ years in fantasy writing and writing groups is how sometimes fantasy has things where there is, legitimately, no real world equivalent unless you're bending your back to break it. For example if you want to ship Aaravos with anyone who isn't another (currently non-existent) Startouch elf, you are dealing with an age gap of literally thousands of years, even for an adult male in his 40s. So Viren is fully an adult, and yet his 'experience' of adulthood still pales in comparison. There are a lot of other reasons these two would be / are a clusterfuck of a relationship (which sometimes, is precisely the point), but on the basis of age - would it not always be too big of an age gap to breach?

Sure maybe, if you're not willing to engage with the Fantasy, indeterminable elements of a Fantasy story.

Your perception regarding a character who's status is ambiguous as best and what makes you personally uncomfortable regarding them does not have to make me uncomfortable. I can have a radically different perspective than you and it is not wrong for me to make content that aligns with my own perspective. It's also not wrong for you to be uncomfortable with it by accordance of your own perspective, plenty of things in fandom make me uncomfortable, I just blacklist tags or unfollow and don't go into people's inboxes about it.

I would also argue that most people, myself included, have internalized albeism to work through, because we live in ableist societies, and we never stop being allies to people who's experiences are different than ours. It's not necessarily a flaw or a moral judgement, it's a fault line and sometimes it can be good to consider those variances. The fact that you assumed, rather than me just having a different interpretation of the character (that he's more like a highly intelligent animals), that I must have the same as yours (that he's a child - which the best bit of evidence would probably be the fact he's recently hatched, and you didn't bring that up) and therefore reached a bonkers conclusion (I'm writing about a child being pregnant) says something noteworthy about perhaps your familiarity with ideas and literature in ways that are radically different than just your initial interpretation or viewpoint (which is not wrong, but everyone's is accordingly limited unless you expand)

It also assumes that I have to have black and white thinking rather than engaging in something ambiguously, i.e. the same way I can engage with and make content about Rayllum that is platonic/QPR or romantic, rather than just sticking definitively to one viewpoint or dynamic, I can also engage with things that have different views of Sir Sparklepuff in fandom because unlike canon, things that would normally cancel each other out as definitive interpretations do not exist in a more ambiguous fandom space

If you are interested in more thoughts regarding Sir Sparklepuff you may interested in an upcoming oneshot I'm working on titled "twice as many stars," in which I take us down the existential horror story that is his existence - a sentient life, created for a singular specific purpose and then abandoned by said creator who does not care for him at all, completely unaware he is living (presumably) on borrowed time and that the family he loves has varying degrees of affection for him in turn.

[macadoodle1996]

The three girls did not head back to the Slytherin Common Room until late that night-decidedly not making it to bed by Professor Snape's curfew. The girls ran through the corridors, giggling and shushing each other in equal measure, when Evanna heard it.

"Come...come to me…"

"Did you hear that?" Evanna demanded sharply.

"Hear what?" Eva replied.

Evanna held up a finger demandingly as she heard the voice again.

"Let me rip you…"

"It's past curfew, we'd best be getting-Evanna!" Elin cried after her as Evanna took off down the hallway in the direction opposite of the Slytherin Common Room as she followed the voice.

"Let me tear you...Let me kill you…"

"There's someone in the castle," Evanna said, running, hoping to find a professor, a prefect, somebody…

The other two girls ran after her, calling her name as she rounded the corner, but this time did not go crashing into Harry. One look at him and she knew.

"You heard it too?" she demanded. He nodded, pale as a ghost. She opened her mouth again, but a voice cut her off.

"I thought you were done luring other students into antics last year, Potter," Professor Snape drawled. Evanna nearly groaned out loud, but good breeding would not allow her to do something so common.

"I had detention, sir, I was just getting out and I heard-" he trailed off.

"Something you shall get very used to Potter. Ten points from Gryffindor. Get to the Tower before I take more."

The older boy immediately did as Snape told him, bouncing off to Gryffindor Tower. The professor then rounded on the three Slytherins.

"You think I wouldn't be informed of an entire dorm missing?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "If you are going to break the rules, do not be so Gryffindor."

Eva looked down at the floor. "Sorry, sir, we-erm-got lost on our way back and then Malfoy heard… something."

The professor's eyebrows crept up his forehead. Evanna fought the urge to sigh at her Housemate's lame excuse.

"Undoubtedly, you will eventually learn to tell a proper lie, but you will not endeavor to tell those lies to me," the Potions Master replied. "To your dorm, all of you."

Eva and Elin scampered off, eager to not tempt the Professor into taking points or giving detention, but Evanna hung back for a moment.

"I know for a fact, Ms. Malfoy, that your parents would not approve of you gallivanting the halls dressed like that, nor with such company as Harry Potter."

Evanna shook her head. "Eva wasn't lying, sir, not completely. I did hear something and that's how we ran into Ha-Potter."

He rose an eyebrow and gestured for her to continue. She bit her lip, unsure that she should have said so much. What if he thought her crazy? But, if there was some sort of murderous loon on the loose, a professor needed to know.

"There was a voice, sir," she said trepidatiously.

"A voice?" he said skeptically.

"I'm not crazy!"

"I did not say you were," he replied. "What did this voice say?"

"It… it said," she gulped, icy fear washing over her as she remembered the words. She had been too caught up in the adrenaline of the moment before, but now she was able to fully realize what it was saying and she had run after it. "It said it wanted to kill."

If possible, Snape went paler.

"I believe it is best I escort you back to the Common Room, Ms. Malfoy," he said carefully. Evanna looked up at her professor fearfully.

"Do you think I'm mad?" she demanded. "Hearing voices in my head?"

"I believe, Ms. Malfoy, that Hogwarts has often proven itself to be less than safe, despite our Headmaster's insistence that there is no safer place," he replied. "You do not strike me as particularly unhinged, Ms. Malfoy, so if you say there was someone speaking murder… I would feel better knowing all my Snakes are in the Common Room. Slytherin has not been breached for nigh on seven hundred years."

Evanna nodded, following behind her professor in thoughtful silence until they reached the Common Room and he shoved her in. Almost immediately, she was accosted by her brother.

"What have you been doing? It's past curfew and you're looking halfway like a muggle and those two girls in your year came in babbling something about you and Potter. If Father hears you are associating with him-"

"And how will Father hear that I'm associating with him? Are you going to tattle tale on me?" she sneered.

"You know Father had asked me to keep an eye on you-"

"And you know Father keeps me like a glorified prisoner!" she snapped, rather louder than she meant to, causing half the Common Room to stare at the two siblings. Evanna felt blood rise to her cheeks as she stared at them all in horror. Draco pulled her over to a study nook.

"Propriety, Evanna," he hissed, reminding her of their old nurse house-elf. "I'm just looking out for you-"

"No," she replied, realization dawning on her. "You're like Father. You're just looking out for the family name."

"Evanna-"

"I'm going to bed," she said simply. "It's past curfew."

With that, she simply turned on her heel and left, ignoring her Housemates as they tried to watch her leave.

[supesissuper]

“...last night a 9 year old Moon Elf child escaped from the adoption centre she was being kept at after a fire broke out in the kitchen. The rest of the children are safe with only minor degrees but the Moon Elf child has yet to return if you have any information-”

I pulled my hood over my head, letting my hair out to cover my ears as best they could. I turned away from the window I’d been peering through as the family switched channels and laughed in the comfort of their home. I left from my perch in their old oak tree and sprinted down the road till I reached a roundabout.

I checked for any signs of cars or life before making my way swiftly to the circle of land in the centre and disappearing into the foliage. The smells and noises of the habitat around me flooded my senses and I felt myself regain strength and energy. 

It wasn't the biggest or best space for a Rejoice, but my mother had always said any access to nature under moonlight is a gift at these times. I thought of her now, of her long white hair, her pitch black skin and the white marks that covered her cheeks like tears. And her eyes, the shining white halo that always got more vibrant when she looked at me. She was beautiful, and even now, in the small space between these trees and bushes as the moon starts to set I can feel her presence, watching over me.

---

I pulled my jacket tighter around me in the cold, running for shelter under a statue by the fountain as the rain started to pour. I pulled my legs up to my chest and attempted to wrap them in the rest of my jacket, I couldn’t zip it up but it was good enough.

I dared to lift my head and look around me, examining the busy street of people surrounding the fountain I was sta against. None of them bothered to even look at me, they're strange human eyes fogged over, barely looking past the world that surrounded them. I was able to pick out a few emps like myself. A tall Gorgon girl, shoving her lively hair under her subtly moving hood, a vampire discreetly taking a swig of something red from a barely discreet bottle, and a small dwarf lady, clutching her purse close to her body, rushing through the crowd to get home. 

All three of them kept their heads down low, to avoid catching the eye of someone less than happy with their existence. It was dangerous this time of night, I knew I should have moved on, but the people in the homeless shelter had told if I waited one more night they could get a hold of someone like me, someone who could take me to Ebrearion. I just had to wait one more night. One more night.

The lights seemed to get brighter and the streets louder and less cramped, a few steps away I heard a man let out a deep thunderous laugh before slapping his friend on the back and continuing on with whatever story he was telling;

“-Yeah! So this empie was looking me up and down, snarling, barely those gross ass teeth at me, and I was like, “nah mate I’m just saying if you're gonna live in Britan’ you gotta fit the part, none of that robe shit and those weird ass eyes, get some fucking contacts or somethin’ you know?!” His friends cheered in agreement. I tucked my head further into my knees. “Like he looked like one of those bloody foreigners, and you know I’ve always said, nothing worse than a foreigner ‘cept a fucking Unicorn humper!” 

At this point, I could practically feel them throwing drinks and limbs around like it was the last day on Earth, and they were nearly on top of me. I begged they were too drunk to notice me, or just assumed I was some homeless kid. Just anything that made them walk on.

But no, my luck wasn’t that good.  I heard him before I felt him trip over my legs and I froze. Suddenly I was still as stone, trying to fold in on myself like a chair, holding my breath and praying. He hit the floor with a loud crack, followed by a string of curse words and a chorus of shouting and laughing.

“What the hell?!” he screamed, searching for the cause of his fall. For the first time in my life, I wished I was a shapeshifter.

“Ey it was that lil’ git,” another guy shouted.

Abruptly my hood was thrown back and my grey hair exposed to the men surrounding me. With shaking breathe I dug my head even further into my knees and tried to hold back tears. Slowly I looked up, my face damp and pale with fear I took a deep breath and shut my eyes,

“I’m so sorry sir!” I cried.

But the men were silent, not even laughing or screaming anymore. Cautiously I opened my eyes and looked around, met with faces of disgust, disapproval, and fear.

Finally, one of them raised a hand and pointed at me before shouting, “Its one those bloody blood elf things the news been spouting ‘bout!!”