That was the first thing I liked about you, you know. You were so angry and wanted so badly to fix it but you didn't, you know, treat him as a project, or make how you felt about him his problem.

Helps that I was sort of thinking of it as like 'that thing that happened to my mother only moreso'.

Hugs.

Such hugs.

I like that I have higher standards for myself than most people do but it's strange, sometimes, to hear someone commend me for meeting expectations. Like it was something I was going to the trouble of doing instead of something I was being.

Not bad, mind you. Strange, but definitely not bad.

People either react to Maitimo by letting him steer them - usually into believing he's okay - by pitying him annoyingly until he exerts more effort to steer them, or by deciding that he deserved it. That's - not as uncommon as it should be. Kinslaying and all. There are a few exceptions. I'm not sure I am even one. I let him steer me, he's good at it and what the fuck am I supposed to be able to do. Fingon did weirdly well with it, he just sat there by his bedside feeding him strategic information and then once he was well enough offered to teach him to wield a sword lefthanded...

Getting really angry on his behalf and giving him powerful magic is the best possible response.

I'm glad.

You liking my family is really important to me.

Let's see, I've met...Maedhros and Curufin and Amrod. I haven't met--Amras, obviously, Caranthir, and...oh, right, the seventh one was Maglor. Maedhros I like. Curufin I like. Amrod I didn't really form a specific opinion on besides 'lost his twin and this needs fixed'. Maglor I didn't really form an opinion on besides 'his music is bloody amazing.' I certainly don't expect not to like the ones I don't already actively like, and the sample size of ones I have actually met well enough to form an opinion on, while statistically small, is informative. And, let's be frank, if I would otherwise have been on the fence about any of them I'm probably going to like them just out of spite at the hypocrisy over what does and does not count as murder to the people who hate you. And, you know. Because it's important to you and they're your family and I love you.

I don't even like them all all the time.

Well, I won't have had to grow up with them.

Suppose it is possible that has something to do with it.

I don't know, maybe I won't. I've only really met two of them.

They're all pretty great. But I'm biased.

Snuggle. Well, you think I'm great, so I have a certain self-interest in trusting your judgement. What're they like?

Ah, who? It's a bit of a broad question.

Any or all of them? I'm not short on time.

S'pose not. Trades off against kissing, though. Macalaure once said to me that he thinks we're all only half people on our own but we can make up for each other. I think he might kind of be right about that. Nelyo forgets that he counts, too, as an end in the ends he is juggling, and because he uses himself so unrelentingly, he ends up using everyone more than he means to. When we're around we can demand him - his love, his time, not his work on our behalf - and that snaps him out of it. You shouldn't feel like you have to do it, I've never seen anyone who wasn't family do it successfully - Father does it oddly, and with inconsistent results, by pretending to be unimpressed with everything Nelyo does until Nelyo admits to himself that he's proud of himself and in fact pretty fucking impressive. Fingon does it just by openly and aggressively caring a lot about Nelyo's wellbeing until if Nelyo cares about him at all he has to care about himself. 

The piece Macalaure is missing is that he forgets other people exist. Or - he knows they exist, he cares a lot what they think of him, he wants to impress and entertain and perform for them, but he forgets that most people are not performing all the time and that they keep existing when they leave whatever stage he's encountering them on. It is not good for him to be alone for too long. He was King when Nelyo was in Angband and he was good at it but only in a day to day way, there was nothing he intended to achieve with it, and I had to point out to him when people had emotional needs for reassurance and affection from him. 

Both of the two of them live life at too many removes. That's a new thing. Before the war these failings were much slighter, and harder to notice.

Well. They're not going to have to live with the war any more. Maybe they'll get better.

It works out fine when we're all around to help each other. 

Caranthir dislikes people as much as me but he likes Dwarves, they're more reasonable in his opinion. He forms opinions of people very rapidly and is a good judge of character but - people find it annoying to be sized up and immediately evaluated as worthless and uninteresting, and he doesn't find many people so but when he does he's not shy about saying so and the sort of people he finds worthless and uninteresting are disproportionately represented among politicians. So even worse than me at politics. He likes economics, sociology, history, people in the abstract rather than the particular. He's generous. He's easy to embarrass. He's ridiculously good with money and is the only reason we have any, Elves in general don't really understand it. 

I don't think I could pull of worthless if I tried but I'll do my best to avoid uninteresting.

He'll like you. It's a specific politician type - not having any principles beyond 'coming out of this looking like I did nothing wrong'.

Ecch. Can't blame him. ...Slightly jealous, actually.

That he can get away with aggressive disdain for a lot of important people?

Important people who deserve it. But yes.

They do deserve it, but we still do not take Moryo to parties. Curufin you've met and I think you know everything important about him except that he constantly has minor injuries inflicted at the workbench and before my father died I do not think he ever accidentally injured himself. And he doesn't smile anymore. There's no one left who he'll believe when reassured that he's brilliant, our father was the only person whose opinion he ever took seriously on that.