just something full of goodness. 

IS THAT A JEWISH UNICORN?

What are you talking about? All unicorns are Jewish.

Fokking Messerschmitts

Hello everyone and welcome to the Official Post For The Announcement of The 2nd Annual Queen’s Thief Appreciation Week!!!

What is it? Well, my friends, it is an appreciation week for all things Queen’s Thief! 

What can I do for it? You can post gifsets, graphics, fic, videos, art, meta, basically anything at all as a way to show your appreciation for our favorite series.

When is it? We will be holding it this year from April 8th to April 14th!

How can I make sure my stuff gets reblogged and shared with the fandom? And how can I see the other awesome stuff the fandom makes? There are two ways: firstly, you can follow us because we will be reblogging everything so everyone can see your beautiful creations! Secondly, you can tag it “qtappreciationweek” to ensure other people see it and so you can go through the tag to see everyone else’s stuff.

That all sounds great? Is there a theme of some sort? Why YES there is, decided on by our fantastically creative fandom. Here are the themes for each day:

Wow Rani that’s very cool. Thanks Imaginary QT Fan, we all try our best!

GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR CREATIVE STUFF EVERYONE! CAN’T WAIT TO SEE IT!!!!!!!!!!

actually ive decided that infinity war just needs to be 2.5 hours of peter parker trying his best to address various adult superheroes as politely as possible and struggling a lot. attempts range from “your majesty mr panther sir” (accepted with only a small twitch of the lips & shuri giggling a lot) to “starlord”, which earns him 2 hours of riotous mockery from a talking raccoon

dad!tony:

- is 9047% okay with peter making a ‘video diary’ of his trip to berlin (even holds the camera for him for a brief moment in the car when they go to drop him back off in queens)

- hugs peter (that was a god damn hug fight me) and then blatantly lies to peter about how it wasn’t one, saying “we’re not there yet” (no one opens the fucking door like that, tony)

- makes sure peter has a parachute even when tony DOESNT HAVE ONE AND HE’S THE ONE THAT FUCKING FLIES

- monitors peter all the way from india and sends a suit to save him approximately .3 seconds after he was in serious danger

- not so subtly hints at the fact that he listened to every voicemail and read every text peter sent and not only that, REMEMBERED THEM TOO (“like that lady that bought you the churro” “i thought happy said you quit band six weeks ago”)

- put a heater in peter’s suit (y’all know he actually had to SIT THERE and think of these things. He got into Full Mechanic Dad Mode and made this suit specially for peter)

- like five minutes after saving peter’s ass he talks to him about college

- names protocols in peter’s suit “training wheels” and “baby monitor”

- MAKES 576 WEBSHOOTER COMBINATIONS????

- calls peter “mister parker”

- compliments him multiple times on his work (“nice work, kid” “nice job, kid” “you did a good job” “nice work in DC”)

- “MY DAD NEVER REALLY GAVE ME A LOT OF SUPPORT SO IM JUST TRYING TO BREAK THE CYCLE OF SHAME™” THE WAY HE SAYS “MY DAD” LIKE TONY HIMSELF IS ALSO A DAD. LIKE TONY IS PETER’S DAD. I CANT BELIEVE TONY IS LOWKEY REFERRING TO HIMSELF AS ONE OF PETER’S GUARDIANS AT THIS POINT WOW !!!!!!!!!!

- calls the FBI as soon as peter hangs up on him and immediately gets into his own suit and flies from wherever-the-fuck he is to where peter is (and assuming tony immediately left after peter hung up, it took him four minutes and twenty-four seconds (YES, i did the math))

- “don’t cut me off when i’m complimenting you” 1. either he’s just putting on that Public Tony Stark™ persona or 2. he’s making it seem like his compliments are worth a lot so when he DOES compliment peter (which is, again, relatively a LOT), peter feels Extra Good about himself

- “i think you’ve done enOUGH” MAD DAD™ TONY IS HERE AND HE IS ANGRY BECAUSE IF ANYONE DIED HE KNEW PETER WOULD FEEL GUILTY AND IF PETER HIMSELF DIED TONY WOULD HAVE THAT ON HIS CONSCIENCE AND GOD KNOWS HE DOESNT NEED ANY MORE GUILT IN HIS HEART

- (also i’d just like to appreciate the dialogue in between vulture and one of his workers- “so that’s it? you’re just gonna run?” “feds were waiting for us- now we’re on iron man’s radar? yeah i’m running. you should too.” like i’m so proud of my son striking fear into criminals)

- “if you even cared you’d actually be here”

tony: *is here*

peter: (งO_O) ง

i’m totally here for Intimidating Dad Tony who has so much fear for this kid’s life that it comes out as anger and scares peter

- “did you know i was the only one who BELIEVED IN YOU everyone else said i was CRAZY” TONY BELIEVING IN PETER SO MUCH THAT HE TRUSTS HIM MORE THAN WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE SAYING LIKE DAMN THATS DANGEROUS I KNOW BUT HOLY SHIT TONY! BELIEVES! IN! THIS! KID! SO MUCH!!!!!!

- “THIS IS WHERE YOU ZIP IT AIGHT THE ADULT IS TALKING” that’s just. a dad thing in itself.

- “AND IF YOU DIE-“ -whispers because he can’t even talk in a normal voice when he says this*- “-i feel like that’s on me… i don’t need that on my conscience.” AGAIN, TONY PHYSICALLY CANNOT HANDLE THE AMOUNT OF GUILT PETER’S DEATH WOULD CAUSE HIM

- “i was just trying to be like you” “and i wanted you to be better” okay but imagine what’s going through both their heads??? peter is probably thinking ‘how in the bloody fuck can i be better than iron man’ and tony’s probably thinking ‘c’mon, kid, it’s not that hard’ because tony only sees himself through the mistakes he’s made and peter sees tony through his achievements

- literally grounds peter by taking away his suit- like if that isn’t the most dad thing he did this entire movie

- “IF YOU’RE NOTHING WITHOUT THE SUIT THEN YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE IT” PASSING ON SOME WORDS OF WISDOM™ TO HIS NEXT OF KIN- TRULY A FATHERLY THING TO DO

- “god i sound like my dad” TONY IS JUST SO AFRAID!!! FOR PETER’S LIFE!!!! TO END UP LIKE HIS FATHER!!!!!!! THE ALIENS!!!!!!!!! HIS EX-TEAM!!!!!!!!!!!! HE FEELS SO TINY AND THERE’S. TOO. MANY. THINGS. THAT. ARE. TOO. BIG. FOR. HIM. TO. HANDLE. LET. HIM. REST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- peter: *is sad* i don’t have any other clothes

tony: *sees peter is sad* okay we’ll sort that out

tony: *gives him a souvenir shirt and hello kitty sweatpants to try and make him feel better which probably just ended up making peter feel humiliated but A++ for effort babe*

- HAS SUCH AN IMPACT ON PETER THAT PETER LITERALLY HAS A FREAK OUT AND THEN REMEMBERS TONY’S WORDS OF WISDOM™ AND THEN WOW PETER CAN SUDDENLY REMEMBER HE CAN LIFT A FUCKING BUILDING JFC

- gives peter that shoulder bump thing while smiling at him fondly idk that was just so cute

- puts his arm around peter’s shoulders, which he can just barely do because they’re literally the same height- rdj is 5’9 and tom is 5’8 (we all know tony wears high tops and high heels. he totally rocks them)

- asks for a little privacy with peter and then immediately apologizes for taking his suit

- “TOUGH LOVE MOMENT”

- sighs contentedly like he’s just so proud of peter that he has to breathe and take it all in. “my son did that. he fuckin Did That”

- mentions peter can be on the team and then when peter is all like “to the-to THE team?” he’s all like “ya lol anyway-“ like it’s no big deal. tony i know you’re fucking ecstatic inside to have someone on the team who loves and appreciates you as much as you love and appreciate them, don’t you try and cover that up

- MAKES PETER A NEW SUIT????? 1. IF IT WAS ALREADY MADE BEFORE TONY TOOK AWAY HIS OTHER SUIT, TONY DIDN’T THROW IT AWAY. HE FUCKIN KEPT IT. 2. IF IT WASN'T ALREADY MADE, TONY KEPT WORKING ON IT??? 

- smirks when peter isn’t looking because he’s a VERY proud dad

- gives peter a room???????

- PURSES HIS LIPS A LITTLE WHEN PETE SAYS “i’m good” AND U CAN TELL HE’S TRYING NOT TO SHOW IT BUT HE’S DISAPPOINTED (not in peter ofc but in his response because tony was just so excited to have peter live with him) and then his immediate “HOW ARE YOU GOOD WHAT DO YOU MEAN”

- is AN EXTRA FUCKING PROUD DAD™ when peter explains he’d like to stay on the ground and look out for the little guy for now. I SWEAR TONY LOOKED AT HIM SO SOFT AND THIS MIGHT JUST BE ME BUT I SWEAR TONY’S LIP TWITCHED A LITTLE BECAUSE HE WAS TRYING NOT TO SMILE

- FINALLY SMILED AT PETER WHEN HE WAS WALKING AWAY BECAUSE HE WAS SO PROUD

- anyways ya tony loves peter have a nice day

I will always remember Christopher Lee as that horrifying moment in the LOTR commentaries where Peter Jackson says he started to direct him on how to act like he’d been stabbed and Christopher Lee goes “no no peter dear, when someone is stabbed like this, THIS is how they look, they don’t make a sound, air just leaves them all at once” and peter jackson remembers in that moment that lee was in the secret service and just slowly backs away.

Y’all… Christopher Lee was literally James Bond. He and Ian Fleming were cousins, he was one of the real life sources of inspiration for James Bond, and was Fleming’s first choice to play Bond in the movies. Saying that he was in the secret service doesn’t do it justice. His unit was informally referred to as “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” and his service records are still sealed. When an interviewer asked him about his service, he asked “Can you keep a secret?” the interviewer of course said yes, so he leaned in, lowered his voice, and said “So can I.” He also performed for a metal album in his 80′s. Christopher Lee was one of the most awesome humans ever to walk the Earth.

To quote my favourite article about his life, written before his passing:

“Christopher Lee is a 6'5" tall world champion fencer, speaks six languages, does all of his own stunts, has participated in more on-screen sword fights than any actor in history, served for five years defending democracy from global fascism as a British Commando blowing the shit out of Nazi asses in World War II, and became the oldest person to ever record lead vocals on a heavy metal track when, at the age of 88, he wrote, performed on, and released a progressive symphonic power metal EP about the life of Charlemagne (because why the fuck not?). 

The most prolific actor in motion picture history, Christopher Lee was born somewhere in England in 1922. His mother was an Italian Countess who was actually descended from the line of Charlemagne, and she was so important that she was allowed to wear the royal seal of Frederich Barbarossa and so MILF-y she had her portrait painted by something like a half-dozen famous Italian artists. One of Lee’s ancestors on that side was the Papal Secretary of State who refused to attend the coronation of Napoleon and is buried in the Pantheon in Rome next to Raphael (the painter not the ninja turtle), which seems like kind of a big deal. Lee’s father, meanwhile, was a distant relative of Robert E. Lee and was multi-decorated war hero who’d served as a Colonel in the 60th King’s Royal Rifle Corps during World War I and the Boer War. Growing up, Lee studied Classics at Wellington College, where he was also a champion squash player, a ridiculously-badass fencer, and spent his spare time playing on the school hockey and rugby.

Shit got real in 1939 when Christopher Lee quit his day job, caught a boat to Finland, and decided to enlist in the Finnish Army to help them fight off the Soviet invasion of Finland. Lee got geared up to kick some commie asses up and down the frozen wastes of mid-Winter Finland, but didn’t see much action, returning home in 1940 to deal with a much bigger and more England-centric problem: Nazis. Christopher Lee enlisted in the Royal Air Force in 1940, where he worked as an intelligence officer specializing in cracking German ciphers and skulls and any other Nazi bullshit he came in contact with. In North Africa he was attached to the Long Range Desert Patrol, the forerunner of the SAS, where he would jump in a badass fucking four-wheel-drive jeep with a gigantic machine gun mounted in the back, drive hundreds of miles behind enemy lines, survive the scorching heat of the Sahara Desert, then sneak-attack Luftwaffe airfields by rolling up on them at sixty miles an hour with his .50-caliber machine guns blazing out curtains of white-hot Nazi-smiting justice, planting dynamite on their airplanes, then peeling ass out of there leaving nothing but bullet-riddled corpses and gigantic explosions in his wake. After working with the LRDP, Lee was assigned to the Special Operations Executive – better known as Winston Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare – a group that did shit like lead a twelve-man assault that destroyed the German top secret nuclear weapons development facility in Norway and assist brave Eastern European partisans and rebels sabotage Nazi supply lines to prevent them from bringing reinforcements up to fight the Soviets. His service records are sealed and Lee doesn’t talk much about his service (when pressed on the subject, he reportedly asks his interviewer, “Can you keep a secret?”. When they excitedly say yes, he leans in close and says, “So can I.”), but we do know that by the time he retired as a Flight Lieutenant in 1945 he’d been personally decorated for battlefield bravery by the Czech, Yugoslavian, English, and Polish governments and was good friends with Josip Broz Tito, so draw your own conclusions.

In addition to his iconic, definitive role as Dracula, Christopher Lee has also portrayed some of the most memorable villains of all time. Sure, everyone knows him as Sauroman the White from Lord of the Hobbits: Return to Fellowship Towers and Darth Tyranus from those otherwise-terrible Star Wars prequels…  he played the ultimate Bond Villain in The Man with The Golden Gun – a role he got thanks in no small part to the fact that Bond creator Ian Fleming was not only Lee’s cousin, but the two men had fought together in the SOE during WWII. So Lee was basically part of the team that inspired James Bond, then he went on to play a fucking Bond Villain

I won’t get too much into it, but Christopher Lee has basically been in every movie ever, from billion-dollar Academy Award winners to the sort of shit that Elvira pimps on Channel 875 at four in the morning on a Tuesday. He’s almost always the villain, and as such has probably died on camera more times than anyone ever. He’s been Fu Manchu five times. He was the definitive Count de Rochefort in a couple Three Musketeers movies. He’s been The Mummy, Frankenstein’s Monster, Willy Wonka’s Dad, the Emperor of China, the Grim Reaper, Lucifer, Grigory Rasputin, Charles Marlow, Ramses, Tiresias the Blind Prophet of Thebes, Vlad the Impaler, one role where he’s simply credited as “Ship’s Vampire”, and another where he’s “Resurrection Joe.” He’s hosted SNL and been in Police Academy, the Last Unicorn, Charlie’s Angels, Season of the Witch, Gremlins II, a Polish Tales from the Crypt-style TV series and a softcore porn based on the works of Marquis de Sade, but he was also in Lord of the Rings, Shaka Zulu, A Tale of Two Cities, The Wicker Man, Moby-Dick and the Hamlet with Lawrence Olivier. He’s worked with Peter Cushing, Jimmy Stewart, Charlton Heston, Errol Flynn, Patrick Stewart, Stephen Spielberg, Orson Welles, Vincent Price, Christopher Walken, Sam Eliot, Jeff Bridges and Jayne Mansfield, but also Nicholas Cage, Heather Graham, Sacha Baron Cohen, Tom Arnold, Casper Van Dien and Armand Assante, and he once appeared in a movie called “Howling II: Werewolf Bitch” with the dude from Space Mutiny.

He’s the only person to play both Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes (he was also Sir Henry Baskerville). His characters have executed both Charles the First of England and Louis the Sixteenth of France (and, as a badass side note, Lee is so into the idea of public executions that in real life he can recite every official executioner in England since the 15th century). He’s portrayed Englishmen, Egyptians, Spaniards, Transylvanians, Frenchmen, Greeks, Poles, Chinese, Indians, Italians, Wallachians, Romans, Germans, Arabs, Gypsies, and Russians, played the lead role in the biography of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, speaks English, German, Russian, Swedish, Italian, and French, can do any English accent he wants, and sings everything from opera and death metal in a hardcore bass voice. IMDB credits him with 274 acting roles, Guiness says he’s appeared in more films than anyone ever, and the Oracle of Bacon lists him as the Center of the Hollywood Universe because anyone in history links to him in 2.59 steps (he links to Bacon in 1). If that’s not enough, Lee’s movies have grossed more than any actor ever – his top five alone grossed $4.4B (number two is Harrison ford with $3B) and that doesn’t even include the new Hobbit stuff

Lee also belongs to three stuntman unions, does all of his own stunts, once busted his face smashing head-first through an actual plate glass window for a scene, injured himself falling into an open grave while portraying Dracula, and once had his hand slashed open during a drunken sword fight with Errol Flynn.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of swordfights, Lee has appeared in more on-screen sword duels than any other actor ever. A masterful fencer, he’s been in everything from cutlass fights on the decks of waterlogged pirate ships to rapier duels in seventeenth-century France to taking on a couple guys one-third of his age with a lightsabers and a fistful of force lightning on the deck of whatever the fuck they called Imperial Star Destroyers in the prequel movies.

A classically trained singer, Christopher Lee also released a heavy metal hardcore symphonic power metal concept album about Charlemagne when he was 88 years old. He’s played with Rhapsody and Manowar, and on his 90th birthday he released a metal single called “Let Legend Mark Me as the King” with music written by some of the guys from Judas Priest.

He is [was] still acting at ninety years old.”

Basically…

[Source]

When a Gargoyle converts to Judaism do they become a Garjewle?

Come on, Stark…

Insp. x

Luthien and Huan, as per new year tradition. May we have a good 2018 :’)

FAMOUS AUTHORS

TEXTBOOKS

MATH AND SCIENCE

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

PLAYS

MODERN FICTION, FANTASY AND ROMANCE

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

HISTORY AND CULTURE

RARE BOOKS

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

MYSTERY

POETRY

MISC

Thank you, angel who made this.

YOU GUYS THIS SO BEAUTIFUL I WANT TO CRY THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY. IT MAKES ME SO SO SO HAPPY.

i feel like the house of finwe just found a confused, crying, and lost little boy in the woods one day and decided to keep him and call him gil-galad

and thats why his parentage is so confusing because everyone claimed he was theirs 

that kind of makes it sound like he was Elured or Elurin haha

haha yeah that’s kind of NO NO THAT’S NOT OKAY THAT’S NOT OKAY

GET.

OUT.

Maedhros lied. Maedhros did find them. Both of them, for all the good it did Eluréd with his fragile neck broken where he’d fallen down a ravine trying to run from the Noldor who had been seeking him, trying to draw them away from where he had hidden tiny Elurín. 

They buried the child next to his parents, then Maedhros was left to ponder the still, crying creature he now had in his care. There were mental wounds too deep for their own healers to care for, and he doubted any child could survive the life that loomed before them both.

“We will send him to Balar,” he decided at last, the child on his hip since placing Elurín down usually resulted in screaming and crying fits, and sometimes actual convulsions from the terror that chased after the child so young he was practically a babe.

It felt like acid though, returning to the thindar one of the family that had stolen and continued to deny them their birthright.

Ah but…

It galled Cirdan to receive a messenger from the Noldor at such a time as this. But the child clinging to the messenger’s chest, in a deep, Power induced sleep stilled his tongue and made him curious for the babe was wrapped in clothing speaking of wealth, and had a regal cast to his or her young features already.

“I have been charged with delivering this child to you,” the messenger bowed deeply, “he is Gil-Galad, Scion of Kings. He is the only one left.”

“Technically we told him who the child was,” Maedhros said when the messenger returned successful.

“Save the name,” Maglor reminded him.

“I merely thought it a terrible burden for a child to grow up named literally as the reminder of a once mighty king who ultimately became nothing more then a thief and a failure,” Maedhros said, and turned away.

DID YOU FUCKING DO THIS ON PURPOSE YOU MONSTER

Oh gosh no. Golly not me, I never write angst. My hands slipped, that’s all.

SYRISA WHO ALLOWED YOU TO DO THIS

He remembered his father’s laughter.

And after that there was the woods, and darkness, and cold. And his brother (his brother?) left him behind, told him to hide in a tree and he would be back. But his brother (his brother?) never came back.

Cirdan asked him, once or twice before giving up, because really Gil-Galad’s memories were too fragmented to be coherent, and what was left was so tinged with horror it could make him shudder and scream to try and remember what had happened after his father’s laughter for very long.

“Perhaps Orodreth,” Cirdan suggested. That made sense, Gil-Galad thought, touching his silver hair, for Orodreth’s grandmother had been Teleri hadn’t she? And Orodreth had a daughter, it was said. Gil-Galad remembered having a sister, but not what had happened to her. He wondered perhaps if he had mixed things up, in his fright, and it was not his brother (his brother?) that had left him behind in the tree but his sister (his sister?).

That might make more sense.

His tutor Erestor said he had something of his face that resembled King Fingon.

The timing was off though, he was far too young to be Fingon’s child, and anyway the Noldor King had never married, nor had any known bastards.

Orodreth seemed the most likely candidate, but no one could ask him now.

Gil-Galad had his own theory; or perhaps his own desperately held secret. Or perhaps it was merely a yearning wish.

He could remember a warm arm around him, and curling his hands into hair that was the colour of a cheerful copper pot. He could remember his relief when his surprise had faded away, and reaching eagerly for the tall shining warrior that had reached back for him, whispering it was alright and he would protect him, that there was nothing to fear. He thought of the way that warrior chased the terror away, and held him close though he must have been a burden and an inconvenience.

“Queen Míriel the Broideress was a Noldor of small stature, and unusually for her pedigree was of only Tatyarin descent, silver hair,” a creakily old history text that he read to please Erestor once said.

“Maedhros Fëanorion is my father,” Gil-Galad said to his mirror, still touching his silver hair.

To say it warmed him from the inside out, and a lingering memory of winter within a unending forest faded a little more to speak the words loud.

“I am Gil-Galad Maedhrosion,” he looked himself in the eye through the mirror, “I am the scion of Kings. I am the son of Maedhros once King of the Ňoldor, son of King Curufinwë Fëanor, son of King Finwë and Míriel the Broideress whose silver hair I bear.”

He tilted his chin at his reflection, then grinned at how haughty that had made him look.

He was still young yet, he had much more growing to do, that was what Cirdan said. Perhaps he might grow as tall as Maedhros was said to be.

“Maedhros Fëanorion is my father,” he said a final time.

It was more plausible than Fingon, and as plausible as Orodreth, or at least it was to him.

And it pleased him.

And it made him hope.

I think I’ve started caring about Gil a lot more thankyou and goodbye

And then you realize that Elrond was by his uncle for millenia, only to see him die in front of him.  He never knew he had one other relative left.

[jumping on this bandwagon; hope nobody minds!]

"You," said Maglor, very firmly, "have a problem." Maedhros ignored him, but after hundreds of years, Maglor was well versed in persisting against Maedhros ignoring him. "You have a problem," he repeated.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Maedhros answered gravely, not looking away from the practice field before them in the camp of the Noldor on the steps of Angband. They were nearly a year into the siege of Angband, and by now the camp had taken on the appearance of a small city. In the field before them, they could see a lone figure clad in Fëanorian red working through drill after drill - thrust, step, block, step, block, step, step, step, feint, thrust, step. His form was excellent, as was the obvious determination with which he went through the moves.

"What would his people say if they saw the son of Dior Eluchil wearing that?" Maglor demanded.

"That's not the son of Dior Eluchil, and we are the only ones here to see it," said Maedhros, blandly. There was only the slightest trace of tension in his voice as he added, "Everyone knows the twin sons of Dior were killed in the sack of Menegroth, and besides, the High King of the Ñoldor can wear whatever crest he wants." There was a pause, as both of them watched the figure in the center of the field work through another step sequence. "Even if it is Fëanáro's."

"How did he even find that?" Maglor asked, after a moment. "There were only eight true copies ever made, and I know where all of them lie," he said, with a pointed glance at the flowing red cloaks swung around both of their shoulders. "And you and I both know there is no possible way in the heavens or the deeps that he is the child either of Fingon or Orodreth."

"Obviously he inherited the skills of Míriel Þerindë." As Maglor stared in astonishment, Maedhros finally turned to look him in the eyes, expression utterly bland. "And obviously he's Artaresto's son; can't you see the resemblance?" Maglor, electing to ignore the obvious contradition and instead looking across the field, saw nothing of short, golden-haired Orodreth in the gangly, silver-haired High King doing battle with the air before them. "Círdan said so; obviously Círdan is correct," Maedhros added. Maglor turned to stare back at him with dead eyes.

"The son of Dior Eluchil is wearing the crest of the Fëanorians, in a Noldorin camp, holding a Noldorin blade, practicing the Fëanorian style of fighting, and you have nothing to say to it," he said, voice leaden.

"You are in a Ñoldorin camp, wearing Fëanáro's crest," Maedhros pointed out composedly.

"I am not Dior's son," Maglor ground out. "I do not carry years of grudges against the House of Fëanor for murders they have done against me, and moreover I have earned the right to the Star I wear."

"And, as it would appear, Ereinion is not a son of Dior either," Maedhros said. His voice was light and pleasant, like plain sugar, and was giving Maglor a toothache. Either that, or his jaws were clenched so tightly that it amounted to the same thing. "He is Artaresto's long-lost son, and has the right to bear the crest of whatever High King he chooses."

Below them, Ereinion was moving through yet another series of drills, grimly swinging his sword back and forth in his left hand, with his sleeve tied over the right.

"It's a little horrific, to be honest."

"I think it's flattering, actually."

"Really," said Maglor, disbelief dripping from his voice like rain.

"He's making good progress. I might go down and do a few drills with him, some other time."

"Really," said Maglor, this time with a little more sarcasm.

"Yes. It's obviously not natural to him; his arm is not quite yet as strong or as controlled as his right, and he has not quite caught the trick of using his whole back when he moves, but he has the basic form down, and I believe that with a little more - ah, here he comes now. Well met, Ereinion Gil-galad," Maedhros added to the newcomer, and Ereinion smiled brightly at him. Maglor fought the urge to groan, and inclined his head slightly toward their technical High King. "Your skill with the sword is most impressive; I was just remarking to my brother that any father would be proud of your dedication to improvement." Behind him, Maglor choked on his breath and went into a violent coughing fit.

"Thank you, my lord," Ereinion answered, with another brilliant smile. If possible, it seemed that he stood a little taller and squared his shoulders a little more fully. "Is there perhaps any advice you might offer?"

"Consider a spear," Maedhros said. The surprise and disappointment on Ereinion's face was more than obvious, but Maedhros went on, "It would suit your balance better, especially with your height and reach - we do have a somewhat similar build, I believe. When I was your age, I favored the spear, and did until the choice was rather taken from me. In fact, I believe mine would serve you well, if you would have it - it is by far the finest you will be able to find, this side of the Sundering Sea."

"I - thank you, my lord," Ereinion said in a rush, with a grin as wide as the chasms in the plains before Angband's gates. "Thank you; I would be honored." The giddy joy on his face was painfully obvious, and Maglor stifled another choking cough rather badly in his sleeve. "Perhaps you could show me some of the basics, some other time? Círdan will be looking for me soon."

"Of course," Maedhros answered, with his own smile. "You know where to find me." He gestured behind them to the red-gold banners blazoned with the Star of Fëanor, and behind him Maglor suppressed another sigh at the obvious longing in Ereinion's eyes.

"Thank you again," said Ereinion, and then, as Círdan appeared like an avenging angel from the other side of the training field, bowed frantically and dashed away.

"Maedhros, you hated the spear when you were younger. I never saw you happier than when you finally used a sword instead of that quarterstaff."

Maedhros grimaced, scuffing at a tuft of grass with the toe of one boot. "I know." He sounded almost guilty. "But look at him and tell me that he will do better with a sword than with a spear. If I can only get him to use one, he'll never look back from it. And it's quite true; mine is the best he could ever hope to find, what with the craftsmanship on this side of the Sea. I did not tell him a single lie, Makalaurë, and I dare you to prove me wrong."

"I am not saying that you told him a direct lie; I know you better than that, but Mae, consider what he will say when he finds out?"

"What did the twins say, when they found out?" Maedhros asked steadily, looking Maglor squarely in the eyes, and Maglor fell silent. "You have the twins, Makalaurë; you delight in them and they in you. As you have your sons, let me have mine, whether he be Findekáno's or Artaresto's or Dior Eluchil's." He turned to go, the centuries-old stitching of the great flame-ringed seal of Fëanor fluttering on his cloak.

"He has your eyes," Maglor called after his retreating back, the sarcasm thick in his voice, and Maedhros halted with a sigh, still not turning to face his brother.

"Makalaurë?"

"Yes, Father of Kings?"

"I know where you sleep."

*walks into bar* *sits in a booth with ppl in it* dont yall love being cis? i love to be cis, its good. (whispering to small lizard under the table: what do cis people drink? milk? you said milk?) yall got milk at this bar?

The 1969 Easter Mass Incident

Content Warnings: Religion, food, symbolic cannibalism, symbolic gore, penis mention, Blasphemy, SO MUCH BLASPHEMY, weapons, war mention.  Mind the warnings and your health always comes first. Its a HILARIOUS story, I promise.

As always, all the names have been changed to protect people’s identities.  This is a long one, so Press J now if you want to skip it.

When my dad was a young man and still a practicing catholic, he participated in a small church communion that nearly got him and six other people excommunicated.

Father Patrick ran a small church outside of California Polytechnical and tended to be… rather more liberal in his interpretations of scripture than most of the church was, which made him something of a hit with the local students and liberally-inclined populace.  Pat went to all manner of civil demonstrations, condemned the shit out of the vietnam war and the politics that lead to it and so on.  In January of 1969 a series of incidents lead him to start exploring “nontraditional” means of holding Mass as a means of reaching out to his community and exploring his own faith, which ultimately culminated in the 1969 Easter Mass Incident.

For those of you who weren’t raised catholic, Communion is this ritual where you become one with Jesus by eating a really horrible bland wafer cookie and taking a shot of wine (called hosts), which then *literally* become the flesh and blood of jesus in your mouth, allowing him to become one with you.  It’s big McFucking deal, and you have the opportunity to take communion at every mass.  All this had to be explained to me second-hand because after this and Dad’s 51 days in the army, Dad decided he wouldn’t inflict religion on any children he might have in the future.

“Hey dad,” Six-year old me asked the first time he told me this story after my practicing friends were talking about getting wine at church. “Isn’t that cannibalism?”

“We’re getting to that.”  He waved.

The First Incident in January when, due to a serious cock-up by the church, all the hosts Father Pat received were moldering and spoiled and probably would have killed someone if he’d actually fed anyone them.  But it was the first mass of the year, when a peak number of people came in after vowing to got to church more for new year’s.  He couldn’t NOT have communion.

“I’ll bake.” offered Maria, the parish secretary and probably the best baker in the county. “So we have hosts.  Jesus will understand.”

Father Patrick, not one to pass up the chance at Maria’s cooking, immediately agreed.

A Host is supposed to be composed solely of unleavened wheat flour and water, which is why they taste terrible.  It’s a theological point of some importance relating to Exodus or something but Maria had an important theological counterpoint: Jesus both divine and loves all his children, ergo, Jesus would neither be a nasty bland cracker nor want his children to suffer as such and so instead, she made Mexican wedding cookies.

They were a SPECTACULAR hit.  Many praises were heaped upon father patrick for the Much Better Wafers and that they’d be sure to show up next week as long as Maria kept making them.  Father Patrick figuring that hey, anything that gets people in the doors is good and really, if it was turning into Jesus once inside the parishioner, did it really matter what the wafers were made of?  So he continued to let Maria bake the Hosts, and encouraged her to try out new flavors, like nutmeg and cinnamon.

This went on swimmingly for a few weeks until The Bishop showed up for a surprise visit the same week Maria decided to experiment with rainbow sprinkles.

Dad remembers hearing the bishop through the windows roaring “THE HOLY BODY OF CHRIST DOES! NOT! CONTAIN! RAINBOW! SPRINKLES!”

The matter went clean up to The Archbishop, who decided that while Pat was probably right to not feed spoiled hosts to his parish, he should attend some remedial classes to remember what Communion was all about, so that if it happened again, he’s come up with a more suitable substitute.

Father Patrick returned in late March, full of spite and some fascinating new ideas.

“Is this where the Cannibalism happens?” Six-year-old me asked, eager to get to the good parts.

At his remedial classes, the teacher had stressed the importance of transubstantiation, aka “That bit where the wafer and wine, Actually, Literally, become the flesh of Jesus Christ and we expect you to swallow.”  Also on the syllabus was understanding the importance of Christ’s suffering and sacrifice.

“So, I was thinking about Easter Service.”  Said father Patrick one afternoon while dad was doing his computer science homework at the church because his dorm was a barely-standing fire hazard and the library was where you went to have sex.

“Well, we do re-enactments for christmas.  Why not on easter?  Why not re-enact the crucifixion of Christ right here? Make it real for everyone.  Trauma’s great for bonding a community together.”

“Who’s playing Jesus?” asked Maria, always one for a good laugh.

“That’s the thing- A Host, it doesn’t look much like flesh, right?  Doesn’t look like much of anything, really.  Not great for reinforcing one’s belief.

What if, instead, we- and I mean you, Maria, I can’t cook to save my life- make a man-sized loaf of bread, maybe in the shape of a T, and we have some of the boys dress up as romans and whip the bread and we pour the wine on so it’s bleeding and them- then we make a big wooden cross and actually nail the bread to it with, I don’t know, railroad spikes, more wine all over. And we raise the cross, all while telling the story of the crucifixion.”

He paused to take a drink, Maria slowly crumpling onto the floor in horrified laughter and Dad now thoroughly distracted from his homework.

“Then we lower the cross, and invite everyone who wants to take communion up to tear a hunk of Jesus off.  Just descend into his corpse like vultures.  I think that’d really be a good bonding experience for the church.”  he nodded thoughtfully.  “The hard, part, I suppose, will be finding enough romans.”

“I WANNA BE LONGINUS.” bellowed my father, barreling into the room.

And so, the plan was hatched.  Dad hit up every other guy in the Church and eventually rounded up four more romans, three of them from the Education Department of Cal Poly, and one guy from Chemistry, who just liked to watch things burn.

This, being a play, naturally meant that there was a rehearsal, and test Bread jesus.  Maria had decided that if they were going to start being extra-literal, she needed to make the most lifelike Bread jesus possible, and made a distressingly buff and human-proportioned Jesus by Advanced bread-braiding, complete with plaited hair, quail’s-egg-and-raisin eyes, bready muscle groups, and an eight-pack because why not make the lord completely shredded?*  She also made the important theological decision that since Jesus loves everyone and was happy to die in spite of all his suffering, he should be smiling, and had a toothy corn-kernel smile.  He was Wonderful and Terrifying all at once.

“Maria,” asked Father Patrick after a few minutes of delighted and horrified cooing over Jesus’ toothy grin and abdominals. “Why is he wearing a tea-towel?

“Well, he’s the Son of God. A Man.  With all that entails.”  She said, pointedly staring at Father Patrick while everyone stared at the suspiciously lumpy tea-towel.  “And he might have… burnt, slightly.”

Everyone nodded and agreed that the tea-towel was the best course of action.  The rehearsal goes splendidly and everyone agrees that this is the most delicious Jesus they’ve ever had.

Easter Sunday arrives and the Church is PACKED, from the more lapsed Catholics showing up for a high holiday, parents visiting for spring break and a whole horde of newcomers who had gotten wind that something was up and they ought to come.

Dad is a lanky as hell 21-year old composed mostly of technical jargon and acne but he is STOKED to be playing Longinus, the roman that speared Jesus on the cross, because he gets to do the BEST technical effect in the whole parade.  Since he came in at the end me missed a good portion of the sermon, but did hear the “oooh” from the crowd as the massive cross was dragged in by the other Romans, followed by horrified gasps and high screams and a discernible “What the FUCK” as they brought in Bread Jesus 2.0, whipping him enthusiastically, and hammering him into the cross, the sound of wine splashing onto the floor loud in the terrified silence of that Parishioners.

Finally Father Patrick gets to the part about Longinus, and Dad comes sprinting down the aisle as hard as he can, because in order for Bread Jesus to be seen by everyone, his middle had to be about 10 feet off the ground, so Dad had to run, shrieking latin curses,  down the length of the church, with a big honking spear and take a flying leap at Jesus in order to spear him in the gut.

Please take moment to imagine you are some normal god-fearing catholic who has decided to visit little bobby or maybe patricia at college and you’re all going to church together like a nice family and this Fucking madman has decided to go all Silence of the Lambs on mass and now there’s some sort of underfed translucently pale man in ill-fitting Roman armor and cape flying at a horrifying glutinous effigy of your lord and savior, with an actual fucking spear, screaming like a madman.  Don’t you feel yourself drawing closer to God already? Defensively, perhaps, like an octopus trying to ooze itself into a crevice against the horrors of the ocean.

However, two things happen that were not planned on

1. Dad misses.  In his defense, Bread Jesus is close to but not quite the size of a man- more like the size of a doughy teenager, and his middle is a small target 10 feet up in the air and dad is has a computer science minor, not an athletics scholarship.  He misses by about 8 inches and instead very solidly stabs Bread Jesus right through the groin, leaving a big hole in Maria’s tea-towel and the spear jutting out at a decidedly… attentive angle, as Bread Jesus’s Bread Dick drops to the floor with a splat.  Nobody notices this, however because

2. In rehearsal, Dad had managed to get the spear right in jesus’s navel but neither Father Patrick nor the other romans could get the wine up there to make his middle appropriately bloodied.  

Maria come up with the Genius solution that since wine is made of grapes and Jam is made of grapes, she could make a jelly-filled Jesus for Dad to stab.  There was a normal-sized test loaf and when dad stabbed it on the table, it had a nicely gooey dribbling effect.

However, this time the loaf was torso-sized, still hot from the oven and upright, so when dad speared the very end of the loaf, all the steam-pressured jam had collected at the bottom and a spray of lukewarm smuckers exploded out from bread jesus, turning the first three pews into a splash zone of symbolic entrails.

There was  a hot, sticky minute of complete silence in the church after that. 

Then, Father Patrick indicated it was time for the cross to be lowered, and continued on with the normal preparations of the Host, he himself covered in hot smuckers, as though nothing particularly ordinary was occuring, quietly kicking the bread-dick under the altar. At the end of it all, Father Patrick and invited everyone up with the Last Oration:

“Thou, O God, has kindly allowed us to have a part in this Holy Sacrifice; for this we give Thee thanks. Accept it now to Thy glory and be ever mindful of our weakness. Amen.”

…And everybody came up, shuffling like terrified zombies, pinching off tiny bits at first but then the madness took them and they began tearing apart bread jesus by the handful, weeping as they partook, scattered prayers and begging for forgiveness.  The whole congregation was kneeling about the altar, tearful and united in their guilt and their need for God.

“IS CHURCH ALWAYS LIKE THAT?” six-year-old me asked, absolutely stoked.  I’d convert on the spot if I got a show like that.

“No, it’s normally bland wafers and lots of chanting in latin.”

“Well that’s boring as hell.” I remember muttering and Dad snorting the coffee he was drinking out of his nose.

As people filed silently out of the Church to a gloriously sunny California afternoon, faces wan and smeared with wine and jam, Father patrick turned to Maria and asked “You don’t think that was too much, do you?”

“No.”  Said Maria with a sarcastic deadpan so intense it was hard to tell from sincerity.

It was the exact same tone she used when the Archbishop and Six other high clergy showed up, clutching a letter someone had written, Livid and almost foaming at the mouth, demanding to know if such blasphemy had transpired.

“No.  That’s crazy.”  She said, staring down the archbishop like he was an idiot.

“Such imaginations some people have!” Said Father Patrick, much less convincingly.

“And you-  you didn’t…  Spear an effigy of our lord and savior?”  the archbishop demanded of my father.

“Do I look like I can jump that high?”  Dad asked, having in the interim been drafted for 51 days then nearly died of pneumonia from it, and therefore no longer afraid of the Church, the Law or God.

Somewhat relieved that he’d only received the extremely detailed ramblings of a doddering parishioner, the Archbishop sat down and complemented Maria on her most excellent Mexican Wedding Cookies, may he please have another plate for his nerves? Perhaps the ones with sprinkles?

Dad went on to help build the internet, Father Patrick converted to Buddhism and Maria became a Nun.

*For those of you wondering, Jesus was made of Challah.

If you got a laugh out of this, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or Paypal, as telling stories on the internet is my only source of income right now.  Thank you very much and I hope you enjoyed it!

@raidstombs

People tend to imagine elves as playing music with flutes and harps and other soothing instruments, but trust me the Noldor would have gone to battle with the Mad Max: Fury Road rolling soundstage of electric guitars if they could.