Okay so the Valar make the sun
and Melkor
oh shit I mean Morgoth
(sorry
I think I’m starting to reach critical mass with all these names
pretty soon my head is just going to explode
splattering double-Ls and apostrophes all over everything)
anyway M-guy is all bummed cause it’s not so shady anymore
so obviously the Valar press their advantage, right?
WRONG
they park their holy asses in Valinor and do exactly nothing
and meanwhile Humans are busy existing

it never really explains where any of the living races come from
with the exception of the dwarves
the dwarves are sleeping in a mountain though so who gives a fuck
as near as I can guess
humans were just hidden in a valley somewhere snoozing their asses off
and the first sunrise was their cue to end their infinite naptimes

the humans get a much less awesome reception than the elves did
the elves got to hang out with Valar
and go chill in valinor
and learn cool stuff and drink milk and honey and look at cool trees
actually when you really think about it
how long would you be happy just drinking milk and honey
i mean don’t get me wrong that stuff is good
but i think there’s a reason you can’t chug a gallon of milk without vomiting
plus one time I was trying to buy acid in golden gate park
and my conversation starter was to ask shady looking people
if they would rather eat nothing but milk and honey forever
or bread and water forever
and EVERYBODY said bread and water
granted they were all pretty high
but that seems like even more reason
look, whatever

the point is when the humans wake up they are on their own
there is no welcoming committee
no banners or fireworks
there is just
THE SUN
and they are all staring at it
because there is nobody to tell them not to
and they’re all like whoah
that looks awesome
let’s go over there

so they do
they just start wandering west
trying to walk into the sun
and on their way the most knowledgeable people they meet
are the dark elves
the ones that opted out of going to valinor back in the day
so really those guys don’t know shit either

oh and here’s the other thing
did I tell you about this before?
elves are immortal, okay
and humans ARE SO COMPLETELY NOT
what the fuck Iluvatar
you had one perfectly good race
could’ve just copy/pasted that one
why you gotta go and make shitty dying dudes
with abandonment issues and acute heliophilia?
for anyone with any doubts about whether humans suck
this
right here

so yeah the elves kinda get wind of these humans wandering around
and they give them all these nasty names
like The Second-Comers
(actually good if you interpret it wrong)
the Usurpers
(No way to spin that)
and the Heavy Handed
(which is probably where all that second coming is coming from
if you know what I mean)
meanwhile Morgoth is just goin’ nuts up in the north
but Feanor will be DAMNED if he’s gonna let Morgoth be the only one going nuts
i’ll tell you about that shit next week.

So the moral of this story
is that people are terrible
not morally terrible, necessarily
just objectively terrible

the end

Alright guys I’m still alive
barely
and here is a story about hurling fruit into outer space

so the story of Feanor is making me too sad and furious
let’s not talk about that guy for a while
let’s talk about the Valar and their problems
see, Feanor told everyone the Valar were being emo little bitches up on their mountain
just moping and not doing shit about the unending mystical bowel movement Melkor is perpetrating on the world
but that’s not entirely true
yes they are moping
yes they are on a mountain
but what feanor is forgetting is that these are dudes who wear flesh like a suit
they don’t need to be doing stuff with their bodies
they straight do shit with their MINDS

so what they do is
do you remember those trees Melkor burned down?
the ones with lights all up ins?
well they garden those trees SUPER HARD
and they get exactly one more fruit from each tree
and then both the trees die
and they leave them where they are so they can be sure never to forget to mope
but now they have these two weird radiant fruits
and they’re like what do we do with all this fruit
it is probably radioactive or something
and it is like wayyy too valuable/radioactive to eat
and if we don’t do anything it’s probably going to rot or give us cancer or something
OH
HEY
LET’S MAKE IT INTO PLANETS

so that’s what they do
they make the gold fruit into the sun
and the silver fruit into the moon
yes all these things have special names
but guys
I am just barely hanging on as it is
do not ask me to string fake elfy syllables together on top of everything

the problem though is that these people are not magic enough
they can grow weird atomic cantaloupes
and they can preserve them forever in the sky
but they can’t for the life of them make those fuckers drive themselves
so someone has to go pilot each of these things forever.
They get this chick Arien to drive the sun
because she’s a fire spirit anyway and her eyes are fire and she’s made of fire
and they get this dude Tilion to drive the moon
because … he really likes silver
i mean he REALLY likes silver
this dude is pretty much just like
an objectively worse dwarf
who is responsible for night time
seriously he’s terrible

let me tell you why he is terrible:
they try to give this guy some very simple instructions
like
do not get too close to the sun
she is a fire spirit and her eyes are fire and she is made of fire
and Tilion is like OOH SHINY
and just drives his moon-boat straight up Arien’s radiant ass
which singes the moon hardcore
which is why that thing is so dark
so then they make a rule
which is like okay
only one of you can be out at a time
when you’re done for the day you get to rest underneath the horizon for a bit
and then you have to take the subway to the other side of the world
so you can rise again tomorrow
and Arien is fine with this
it is not a very hard thing to do
but Tilion cannot fucking figure it out
he’s like wait
do you mean you want me to take turns with Arien
or like
fly all over the place at random and show up fuckin whenever
and then like sometimes fly in front of the sun and black shit out
and sometimes just not show up at all
and everyone is like uhh
the first option, please
and Tilion is like OPTION TWO IT IS

so that’s why the moon basically sucks ass
obviously melkor is not happy about this whole light thing
because i guess before this everything was just pitch black?
and that’s why all the crimes have been happening?
Melkor even goes so far as to send an army to the moon to fuck shit up
but Tilion is not a worthless asshole for once in his life and he keeps shit safe
and that’s good
because dudes are going to be showing up soon
and the Valar are trying to clean everything up because the place is a MESS and that is EMBARASSING

so the moral of the story
is do not hire someone to drive a thing around for you
just because they have an unhealthy obsession with the type of thing you want them to drive
that is not a job qualification
that is a fetish

THE END

Okay so when we talked about this shit last week
it seemed like Melkor had pretty effectively fucked everything up
but it turns out he didn’t actually fuck up everything
because if he had
then there wouldn’t be anything left over for Feanor to fuck up
and let me tell you
Feanor fucks up
PLENTY THINGS

so the Valinor and the Noldor elves are cleaning up after the party
and Yavanna is being all sad about how her light-trees got ate
but then she’s like holy shit wait a second
didn’t Feanor make those fancy Silmaril gems using the light of my trees?
if I got my hands on one of those gems I could totally fix these trees i bet
hey Feanor, wanna lend a sister a cup o’ gems?
and Feanor is like NAW
GET YOUR OWN IRREPLACEABLE GEMS OF LIGHT
and Yavanna is like dang
but then it turns out it doesn’t even matter
cause right then a messenger shows up
to tell everyone that Feanor’s dad Finwe just got dead
cause Melkor and professional spiderbitch Ungoliant romped right through Feanor’s castle
and guess what else guys
they took
ALL THE TREASURE

okay so lemme put this in perspective
let’s say you have a computer
(i do not think this is too challenging of a scenario for you to imagine)
and let’s say you are a diligent computer user
who regularly backs up all your important files onto an external hard drive
you keep your computer in your room in your house
and you keep the external hard drive in an iron room at the roots of your mountain stronghold
guarded by all the fiercest warriors in your kingdom
one day you go to a party
not because you want to party, but because it’s some kind of weird social obligation
like, it’s your friend’s boyfriend’s birthday or something
and you don’t really like him but you like your friend
and it would look really bitchy if you didn’t go
and while you are at this party
some dude and his giant spider go into your room and smash your computer
so you’re pretty bummed
but you’ve still got your external hard drive right?
nope, no
they blew that shit up too
and they killed your dad
and oh, i forgot to say
those important files you were backing up?
those were actually ALL THE LIGHT AND GOODNESS IN THE WORLD
so naturally Feanor is not really happy with anyone at this point in this story

he’s so pissed in fact
that he decides Melkor needs a new name
he’s like “hm, melkor is pretty evil sounding and all
but what with all the darkness he’s constantly creeping around in
I think we need something a little more goth
hey, that’s it! Moregoth!
but people might mispronounce that if we leave the E in
so we better just shorten it to Morgoth”
and that is what that dude gets called forever
because Feanor has him some fucking CHARISMA

he has so much charisma in fact
that when he climbs up on top of a mountain
and starts screaming at all the elves about how they should come with him
on a suicide mission to get the Silmarils back from Morgoth
only a few of them are actually like “Fuck you and fuck your treasure”
and most of them seem to think it’s a really good idea for some reason
probably because Feanor uses all the lies he heard from Melkor back in the day
and lies are great.

MEANWHILE
Morgoth and Ungoliant are back on the north side
on the way to Morgoth’s stronghold
and Ungoliant is like yo
you said you’d give me whatever I wanted
and I’m a huge spider with magic powers so you should keep your promises to me
and Morgoth is like fuuuuck what do you want
and Ungoliant is like FEED ME GEMS
so he does
but he keeps the silmarils for himself
even though they are totally burning his hands
and Ungoliant tries to put him in some webs to get the silmarils
but then all of Morgoth’s old pals from underground come running out and set her on fire
and she leaves
and goes and lives with some other evils spiders and fucks and eats them forever
Morgoth, meanwhile, rebuilds his fortress
and puts the silmarils in a big crown on his head
even though like I said they are INCREDIBLY PAINFUL
and then he basically just sits on a chair for years and years
waiting to be thwarted
like most supervillains

Looks like he’s gonna have to wait a long time though
cause the Noldor are not off to a good start
right out of the gate they have a little schism
cuz Feanor wants to be king of all the elves
and like two-thirds of the elves want their king to be Fingolfin
by the way I looked up some of the elements of elvish names in the appendix
and it turns out fin means “hair”
so fingolfin’s name actually means “Hairgolhair”
i don’t know what “gol” means
probably “hair” though.

But even though the noldor pick different leaders
they still all think it’s a good idea
to hurl themselves into a frozen morass full of orcs and demons
mainly because they’ve all been cooped up in valinor for a long-ass time
and they want to see what the actual world looks like

Now, Feanor made everyone leave pretty fast
cause he was worried that if he gave them too long to think
they’d realize how fucking stupid this whole thing was
and in fact Manwe even sent a messenger to remind them how fucking stupid it was
which Feanor ignored obviously
but after a few days of marching towards doomtowne Feanor starts to actually think
and he’s like fuuuuck
there are a lot of us
and in order to get to Melkor’s place we’re going to need boats
and I am too impatient to actually sit and make boats
good thing there’s a whole race of elves called the Teleri
(Swimmy elves)
who have tons of boats and will totally give them to us

except it turns out that the Teleri don’t want to just give away awesome boats for free
or for money, either
it’s pretty obvious to them how grade-a stupid Feanor’s plan is
and they paid good money for those boats
so Feanor is like fine, fine, that’s cool
I’ll just murder all your boat dudes and take your boats anyway
and all the swimmy elves are like what the fuuuuuck
and while he’s doing that Fingolfin’s part of the army catches up
and they see a big fight going on
and they don’t know why it’s happening, but dudes are getting killed
so they jump in and swarm on the Teleri
and get on the boats
and then Fingolfin is like hey what was that about?
and Feanor is like boat thievery
OBVIOUSLY
and then everyone feels terrible

then there’s storms, and more people die
then Mandos, the hand of fate, appears on a cliff
shouting DOOM DOOM DOOM MOTHERFUCKERS
THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO TURN BACK
and some of the dudes do turn back
but most of them stay
because they feel pretty shitty about killing all those Teleri
and they don’t want to go to jail for it or anything

here’s the problem though
now they’re at this awful river of ice and danger called the Helcaraxe
and there are not enough boats to get everyone across at once
even though I thought they sailed there on the boats?
I guess I’m missing something
anyway no one trusts anyone enough to let anyone else go ahead
so finally Feanor is like fuck this and just steals the boats AGAIN
he steals them from himself, basically
and he puts all the dudes who are loyal to him on the boats
and sails to the other side
and then when they get there one of his sons is like okay
so who are we sending back to pick up Fingolfin’s dudes?
and Feanor is like HAHAHA NO ONE
IN FACT
I’M SETTING THESE BOATS ON FIRE NOW
IT’S BRILLIANT DON’T YOU SEE??

no one does see, of course
because it’s pure idiocy on every level
but Fingolfin’s men DO see the fires
and it’s pretty obvious to them what’s happened
so they’re like what should we do?
should we go back to Valinor and live forever in peace and delight?
NAH FUCK THAT
LET’S WADE ACROSS THE HELCARAXE, TRACK DOWN FEANOR AND BEAT HIS ASS
and that is exactly what they decide to do

but also
that is a story for another time

moral of the story
is if you are gathering an army of your kin to enact revenge on a mortal enemy
you should plan at least far enough out in advance
to book plane tickets

THE END.

So Feanor is kicked out of Party City
and Melkor is on the run trying to avoid Tulkas
who, if you remember, is a dude whose SOLE PURPOSE is to kill Melkor
everything is sort of bad, and people are bummed
which is why Manwe decides to throw THE ULTIMATE PARTY
they have these parties every year actually
it’s like a harvest festival
Yavanna schedules it down to the minute with her forest magic
and everyone chows down and it’s awesome
but Manwe feels like this has been a particularly bad year
what with releasing the king of doom metal into the world
and banishing the raddest elf
so he decides that this year he is going to spare no expense
bustin’ out champange jacuzzis, cocaine snowglobes and solid gold meat
everyone is invited, and everyone is bound to have an awesome time
there is only one thing that might ruin the party
(well okay two things but we’ll get to the other one)
and that one thing is that even though all the elves are invited
and even though Feanor is REQUIRED BY LAW TO ATTEND
none of Feanor’s bros show up
Like, feanor does
but he totally underdresses
and Finwe, his dad, is like “I’m not coming to any more parties
until you let my son back in the kingdom”
this shit is so highschool, seriously

Meanwhile, Tulkas and co are trying to chase down Melkor
they figure he’ll probably go back to his old fortress in the north
but when they get there they realize they are super wrong
and no one thinks to check the south side
which is apprently Middle Earth’s hotbed of crime
because literally none of the cops (by which I mean Valar) pay attention to it

see, not only is Melkor down there
but there is also this chick Ungoliant
she was one of Melkor’s key people back in the day
but she got sick of playing second-fiddle
(or second axe or whatever)
and decided to pursue a solo career as a giant tarantula that eats light and shits darkness
So Melkor goes and hits her up like hey
wanna help me fuck everything up?
and she’s like I don’t know
what’s in it for me?
and he’s like If you do it then I’ll straight up give you anything you want
literally anything
(he is lying
lying is great)
and that’s a pretty good deal, so Ungoliant agrees
and she spins them a bodysuit made of jet black hatred
and that makes them invisible or something so then they just go walk to Valinor

okay so back at the party
shit is real awkward
no one’s really seen Feanor since he got banished
and he’s not really in a partying kind of mood
but Fingolfin is determined to put a good face on the situation
so he goes up to Feanor and he’s like dude
I’m sorry about taking you to court and whatnot
let’s be bros from now on
and Feanor is like okay sure, bros forever
and they hug it out
and then right at that EXACT MOMENT is when Melkor and Ungoliant get to Valinor
and they cut open the trees of light that Yavanna made
and Ungoliant sucks out all the light-juice
and gets wayyy fat and sassy
so fat and sassy that Melkor is actually kind of spooked
and then Ungoliant sucks all the water out of all the wells
and darkness spreads across the land and whatnot
and then they’re like okay fuck let’s hit the road before the cops get here
and Manwe is like guys I was just trying to have a party I mean shiiiiiiiit
(Manwe, I am beginning to realize, is not a very effective king)
then they send Orome and all the other murder guys to go try to chase down Melkor
and meanwhile someone still has to clean up after the party

so the moral of the story
is never have parties
they are a dangerous distraction

THE END