existentialwail



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  1. Public Bookmark *

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    F.A. 560. While the War of Wrath rages in Beleriand, the House of Olwë attempts to assemble a more complete account of the First Kinslaying than what seems to be the common version these days.

    ("I feel like we could have done a better job passing it all along in song. But it's so much easier to lament for murdered kin and lost ships than it is to, to… Lament for my niece's harpoon collection which she can't look at any more. Lament for my husband being kicked by a panicking horse and not seeking a healer until it was too late because he was trying to help people. Lament for my daughter's expression when she talks about the drownings. Lament for coming to regret a mass grave.")

    Language:
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    10/10
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    23 May 2026

  2. Public Bookmark 27

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    According to a popular saying in Tirion, history is written by the survivors and edited by the dead.

    Language:
    English
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    18,312
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    5/10
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    54
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    69
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    27
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    22 May 2026

  3. Public Bookmark 7

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    When Elrond learned the choice of his daughter, he was silent, though his heart was grieved and found the doom long feared none the easier to endure.

    – Return of the King, Appendix A, The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, J. R. R. Tolkien

    Or, Arwen tells Elrond of her betrothal to Aragorn. He – doesn’t take it well.

    ---

    Her father! Her dear, dear world of a father. As ineluctable as the seasons and as unknowable. She was made in his likeness. They were a mirror and its reflection, spiralling on for eternity. A virus self-replicating, an aberration; their riverine bloodline nothing but a glitch in the great fabric of the universe, perpetuating itself over and over in the hopes of resolving its own paradox once and for all. The line of the peredhel – Arwen and Elrond and Elrond and Elwing and Elwing and Dior, all the way back to Lúthien herself – a poem of fixed meter and rhyming pairs, each generation following the same pattern time after time after time. No hope for escape.

    Arwen had to get out; she had to break the mirror. That was the only way any of it would end. Could he not see that? He had to. He had to.

    Language:
    English
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    28
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    30
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    7
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    20 May 2026

  4. Public Bookmark 11

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    A dead man and a former queen bid each other farewell. Neither is sorry to see the other go.

    Or, Fëanor and Indis, in the aftermath.

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    11
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    19 May 2026

  5. Public Bookmark 22

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    Finrod and Fingolfin, an Age after their deaths, look back on their assorted triumphs and tragedies, compare cairn locations, mourn the kingdoms of Men they raised up in Beleriand, and conspire around a novelty cake.

    ~~

    “I came to terms with my own betrayal a while ago,” said Finrod. “If you’re correct, it was only the minor refrain of a long-running and very disappointing theme.”

    “I don’t mean to open old wounds,” said Ñolofinwë. “Although I suppose we’ve been doing little else since I sat down in this chair. It’s a very comfortable chair, at least.”

    Language:
    English
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    19 May 2026