omg, itunes, WHY

[bedlamsbard]

What the fuck, iTunes, why is all my music in FUCKING PICTURES?

...well, at least I know where it is after I opened up iTunes and everything was gone for the second time in three days, but WHAT. WHAT. I DON'T EVEN.

I honestly don't have the energy to deal with this at very nearly midnight on a Monday, so I will fix it in the morning, but WHAT THE FUCK. (I don't know how it got there, but I guess that makes sense because of the album artwork? I don't even know.)

(For reference, and in case this happens to everyone else: after some frantic googling, I did what someone suggested and just did a search on my computer for "mp3" which, thank fuck, got me all the music that was no longer present, and I chased it back to...Pictures. I. Don't. Even. Know.)

But I am now afraid of, on top of actually shutting my computer down, closing iTunes, SO THANKS FOR THAT, UNIVERSE.

*

My mood is almost such to rec another BotFA art set, but if I don't have the energy to fuck around with iTunes again I don't have the energy to chase down links. I expect to see a lot more Thorin/Thranduil fanart over the next few months, though, after last night's Desolation of Smaug sneak peek. (I didn't see it, but I've seen clips. MY BABIES. And now I shall go back to my pre-AUJ freaking out that OH MY GOD WHAT IF IT'S TERRIBLE.)

I have, however, come to the conclusion that the Mirkwood elves are clearly the redneck hillbilly elves of Middle Earth. (Actually, I think I was already of that opinion due to an old, old fic from the LotR days; IDK if the canon actually backs that up or not.)

*

I am in a weird mood where I just want to post stuff, so in conclusion, have a dwarf backstory snippet. Actually, I shouldn't say "backstory" here, since this scene is concurrent with the present chapters of Dust and I'm probably going to end up reworking it-slash-rewriting it from a different POV (we'll see) to actually fit it in, since it works in nicely with some of the stuff planned for Dust III.

(I keep thinking we've seen these two before -- well, we have, but very very briefly -- because I wrote about half a chapter of a Jill POV that keeps getting pushed back because of the Murder Island subplot, and they feature prominently there. Sometimes I forget what I've written v. what I've posted.)

Slang definition from earlier in this scene: "Folly” was slang for a member of one of the more outré Circle cults, though usually the only the way you could tell was if they happened to be a divine. This bloke clearly was, given the four-source chain he had around his neck.

He heard Lev’s breathing even out as he fell asleep again. Merry might have been inclined to do the same, but he was too cautious for that, and busied himself with his tea and the book he’d stuck in his pocket instead, though really he was too tired to focus on the words. He looked up when he heard the click of hooves coming towards them, though. Lev jerked up, probably woken by the sudden stiffness in Merry’s body.

It was the Folly, frowning gravely down at them. It was a long way to look up, the more so since they were seated in one of the low tables specially built for dwarves or talking beasts, and Merry resisted the urge to stand up; it wouldn’t make that much difference anyway.

“You seem familiar,” the centaur said, the familiar burr of Glasswatershire in his voice. “Have we met before?”

“I don’t think so,” Merry said, knowing that his own accent was a clear stamp of his own origin – the Anvil, Glasswater, Glasswatershire. Lev was tense beside him, staring frowning at the Folly. “It might be our uncle you’re thinking of – Sir Athan Ironstone?”

“Ironstone,” said the centaur thoughtfully. Something sparked in his eyes and his frown deepened. “You are Deny Sin and Hope for Joy’s children.”

“Our mother’s name was Kerasti Ironstone,” Lev said, before Merry could tell him to shut up, not to engage – getting into a discussion with Follies never ended well and Lev should have known that by now.

“Hope for Joy,” the Folly corrected. He looked at them with more interest – with an expression that made Merry’s skin crawl, wanting to shove Lev away and tell his brother to run and keep running. The best that he could do was shift a little, putting himself a little more firmly between his brother and the Folly, and raise his chin.

The Folly had a black coat, now speckled as salt and pepper as his hair, and two white feet. Something about the coloring and his sharp features nagged at Merry’s memory. “I remember you,” he blurted out, and felt Lev start in surprise. “You were at the custody hearings.”

“Excessive Merriment, I assume?” asked the Folly, inclining his head in acknowledgment. “And Inappropriate Levity? Unless, of course,” he added with a bite to the words, “your uncle changed your names to something that he believed more appropriate.”

“Nobody says all of it,” Lev said slowly. “Who are you? I don’t remember you.”

“He’s from the commune,” Merry said, belatedly realizing that he had one arm flung out, as though to hold his brother back. “You’re the headman, aren’t you? The one who sued Uncle Athan for custody after he took us away.”

“My name is Zeal of the Land,” said the Folly. “Your memory is good, little one.”

“It’s Merry Ironstone,” he snapped, bristling at the words. The Folly probably hadn’t meant it as an insult, but he’d been called enough variations on “little” since arriving in Archenland that his reaction was all but automatic. Back in Narnia, at least in Glasswater, which had the largest urban dwarf population in Narnia, hearing that from a non-dwarf would have been grounds for a fight. If Merry threw a punch at everyone who called him that in Archenland, he would have spent the last five years in jail. “Not ‘little one.’ Look, whatever you want, we’re not interested. We’re not Circle, we don’t want anything to do with the communes, so just leave us alone.”

“Did your uncle take your faith from you as well?” Zeal of the Land said sorrowfully.

“It was our parents’ faith, not ours,” Merry bit out. “I remember you from the hearing. You told Lord Glasswater and the Chief Justice that our uncle wasn’t fit to raise children.”

The centaur frowned. He didn’t deny it, and Merry felt his hand clench into a fist. “And where is your uncle now?” he asked, his voice silky.

“He’s in Narnia,” Lev said. “Fighting the Calormenes.”

“I’m surprised,” said Zeal of the Land, “I would have thought that he might have kept his precious nephews with him, even in such dangerous circumstances.”

“The choices our uncle makes,” Merry said, “are none of your business. And you don’t have a claim on us anymore, not that you ever really did – we’re both of age now.”

Lev looked between them anxiously, the set of his mouth just slightly uncertain. “The courts saw to that,” he said.

Merry knocked his knee against his brother’s reassuringly. Lev wasn’t old enough to remember the commune or the custody hearings, but Merry was, and he could remember how bitingly vicious they’d gotten near the end, when both Zeal of the Land and Uncle Athan were fighting tooth and nail – metaphorically, though Uncle Athan probably would have gone to war for them if he’d had to – to keep them. Merry could still remember the silence in the courtroom after he’d stood up and announced that he and Lev wanted to stay in Glasswater with Uncle Athan. You could have heard a pin drop. That had settled it; Lord Glassswater, after his surprise had faded, had turned to Zeal of the Land and said, “Well, you heard the lad.”

Zeal of the Land was looking at them speculatively. “You have your father’s face,” he said to Merry, and after a deliberate pause, added, “Mister Ironstone.”

Comments

[cofax7]

... you know what I love about your world here? that it's all so real and human, despite the magical trappings and the centaurs and dwarfs and naiads and murder islands and all. The characters are people, and they do the regular awful/wonderful/selfish/brilliant things that people do.