the journey

I'm Keiliss everywhere, friends call me Kei. She/her, been around Tolkien fandom since 2004. I write mainly elves and like the late first to early third ages, fourth age Valinor, elves through history... slash, gen, some m/f, no hard and fast rules, average rating Teen - R. Journals carry links to AO3 posts, it's been a long time now since I posted fic directly onto a journal.

You can find me on LiveJournal, Dreamwidth, those Tolkien archives that are still standing, my own website, Braided Light (link on the sidebar - I am from That Time, yes), AO3 and Discord. Only AO3 has all my fiction (except the small bits and the handful I forgot about and may never find again). In fandom I am writer, commenter, the Other Mod on My Slashy Valentine, and fond of challenges (a favourite is the Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang) though I need to avoid taking on too much at once, a bad habit.

Also read in Good Omens, Game of Thrones, X-Files (still, yes), Mary Renault, Rosemary Sutcliff, some MCU though that's wearing off, and eat up Untamed fan art while still having a (long) way to go to reach the end.

Time was when I seldom made personal posts, my journal was about fandom stuff, but time passes, LJ and DW grew quieter, and the world also changed (rather a lot right now - 2020-2021). Family photos are more likely to turn up on LJ, for people who've known me long enough not to be bored. I live in South Africa, in Cape Town, a city on a peninsula with great beaches and a mountain in the middle. I have visited many places and still can't think of one where I'd prefer to live (okay, small town in Italy perhaps). Have raised children, dogs, cats, ducks, rabbits, chickens, mice, a very sweet rat, birds...

I'm friendly, welcome comments and discussion (no drama), and generally friend back if you show up. The graphic is something I put together a lot of years ago, it was the entrance to my first website and leaving it off would be Not Right.


Fiction on AO3

For:
elfscribe5 
pandemonium_213 
ysilme 
spiced_wine 

Also anyone else reading this who has a birthday this month. The wheel turns and once again it is our Big Birthday Month. A little early for some, a little late for others - mainly late, but it's been that month. Wishing everything of the best to all - may there be friendship and love and healing where needed, may there be future hopes and present joys.

Happy birthday, February people! We rock!  

From the Years of the Trees to the Fourth Age, from sultry tales of the Silmarillion to romances in the Ring Wars ... sound familiar? That's right, Slashy Swaps are back with another chance to make your Tolkien fanfic dreams come true.

My Slashy Valentine is a hand matched slash fiction exchange focused on the people of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth. There's still a whole week left to sign up and we would love for you to come and join us. The minimum word count is only 1,200 (there is no maximum, you just do you) and it's a lovely, fandomy way to go into the new year.

Sign-up Period: December 8th to December 22nd
Assignments distributed: by December 29th
Deadline for first time participants: January 31st, 2022
Deadline for veteran participants: February 7th, 2022
Archive opens: February 14th, 2022

For the rules and faqs, go HERE on Tumblr or HERE on AO3.

Click the link for our SIGN UP PAGE

It's Valentine's Day 2021 and finally a good thing comes out of this year... the MSV_21 swap is open and we have a veritable treasury of fifty-three (53!) fics this round. Go HERE for the full list with links and HERE for the AO3 collection.

Thanks to all the wonderful writers, and the equally wonderful readers, for keeping My Slashy Valentine as varied and exciting as ever. Go, read, enjoy!

In your own space, promote a canon/talk about a part of canon that you love. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

On a time of night Eärendil at the helm of his ship saw her come towards him, as a white cloud exceeding swift beneath the moon, as a star over the sea moving in strange courses, a pale flame on wings of storm. And it is sung that she fell from the air upon the timbers of Vingilot, in a swoon, nigh unto death for the urgency of her speed, and Eärendil took her to his bosom; but in the morning with marveling eyes he beheld his wife in her own form beside him with her hair upon his face, and she slept.

[Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath]

Something in that last line makes me shiver every time: this is true magic, the big, visible kind, but then she was Lúthien's granddaughter.

Somehow with all the blood and horror going on back at Sirion, the power of this thread of the story almost gets lost. Eärendil gets lambasted for never being home, Elwing is cursed for neglecting her children (Do we know she neglected them? Do we know she didn't try and hide them or send them to safety with a trusted servant? No, we just assume the worst). And yet they were the true heroes of the First Age.

Eärendil was at sea so often because he was seeking a passage west with the idea of reaching the Undying Lands and begging for help. No one else was doing this and some one had to. He was also keeping an eye out for his (in the case of his father, elderly) parents, who had gone off on a similar fool's errand. When Elwing reached him, flying against the wind, dropping finally to the deck almost dead from her efforts (and she probably had the form of an albatross, not a seagull, seagulls just don't go that far that fast), they had two choices: they could go back to Sirion, which Elwing had left in flames, their children's fate out of their hands, or they could go on. And they had the one bargaining chip the Valar might be impressed by, fastened around Elwing's neck. They went on.

They went on through storms, through mysterious mists and illusions, the light from the Silmaril cutting through the unnatural gloom. And finally, they breached all the magical barriers set up against them and reached Elvenhome. They did not, at that point, know they would never be allowed to leave and that their eternity was set to be very, very strange. It was a huge price - their youth (they were both very young), their children, everything and everyone they had ever known was gone. But that paid for the Army of the West and Morgoth's eventual downfall. To me it makes them as brave as, or braver, than any of the sword-wielding warriors who came before them. Also, they won.

(and they would see one of their sons again, after the ages of the world had turned and turned again, and grandsons, and before that they would meet the woman their son had married, and Idril and Tuor were there and I don't care what canon does or doesn't say about that bit).

Just made it in time my side - Happy birthday, Narya, may this year bring you more peace and pleasure than the last. Wishing you good memories and cooperative muses.

IIn your own space (or their own space) interact with someone new.

I often skip this one because I'm not sure about making an effort to say hello purely to fit a challenge prompt, but hey, this time I did it and enjoyed doing it!

The candles were our President's suggestion in place of fireworks seeing as we're locked down without even family visits allowed (watch people do their own thing, as ever). I lit one for the health care workers and one for all those we've lost. Please may this ghastly year be well and truly gone now.

Blessed New Year to all, and may it be kinder than the past 12 (56?) months and not be, as my second born so cynically suggested, 2020-lite. May you and yours stay safe.

Hope everyone's having a good weekend. If you're still on the challenge fence, here's a quick reminder...



Sign ups for 2021's My Slashy Valentine close tonight (no one's checking time stamps though, we accept whatever's in the inbox on Monday morning). The minimum word count is only 1,200 with no upper limit -- the only rule is that the story must be complete. All potential slash pairings from the Silm, LotR and The Hobbit are welcome as are all ratings from G to however high your scale goes.

Reminder:
Assignments to be distributed by December 20th
Deadline for first time participants: January 31st (6 weeks)
Deadline for veteran participants: February 7th (7 weeks)
Archive opens: February 14th, 2021

Rules, FAQs and link to sign up page: AO3 community profile

Title: The Pink Flamingo