#NO SINDA WOULD SAY THAT. GUYS

[curufiin]

Petition for people to stop using ellon/elleth. Please. No elf would say that. That’s like specifying human woman. WE KNOW IT’S AN ELF WOMAN. THEY ARE IN AN ELF SOCIETY FILLED WITH ELVES.

[silvantransthranduiltrash]

Suggestion: the reason other elves think Thranduil is a bad king is because they misunderstand Silvan humor. It's normal for them to talk smack about each other, their "king" isn't an exception because why would he be. Based off that one guard who was like "say whatever you want about our king, he has excellent taste in wine."

They hear this, can't tell if they're joking, Thranduil looks annoyed whenever they say things like this, and they assume it must be the truth. Meanwhile Thranduil looking at his elves like "thanks guys, now everyone thinks I have a stick up my ass"

Omg yes! To add onto that: the silvans know that by doing this they are painting thranduil in a more bitchy light. It’s a gigantic prank on the sinda/noldo. Thranduil is just so done with his elves’ shit.

He knows it’s all in good fun, but also- he’s the one that’s dealing with the sinda/noldo elves! Help him out, guys!

[skyeventide]

taking a stab at the whole valinor trauma rebirth tragedy thing

without getting into the various iterations of mandos throughout its development, the fact that it shares the etymological root with angband (angamando in quenya) or its use as both a prison/punishment place and as the temporary "afterlife" of elves, I think it should be obvious why "mandos cures everything" doesn't work for most people. it's simply narratively unsatisfying. we know that, technically, spirits are solitary in mandos and don't tend to interact with each other, and we know (iirc) that nienna does most of the healing work, when those spirits don't reflect on things by themselves.

healing in complete isolation might work one rare time, but it's otherwise simply not how healing works, how adjusting to a new life works. being way too in your own head is discouraged. healing all your traumas because a goddess did it via magic counseling gives, at best, uncanny vibes, at worst erases the struggle and journey of adjusting, with help, into the life you're actually living. so people either say that spirits can actually meet in mandos and figure things out among themselves, or subvert the narrative and have people come out of mandos either not truly healed or only partially so, and needing the real living feedback of society to exist within it again. a reading which allows mandos to still function as a recovery, but whose achivement is to "prepare" for the journey of spiritual healing, to bring elves back to a stage where they're able to face the circumstances that generated their trauma (aka the living, embodied world, and maybe more precisely even the people involved in it).

this barely touches on the grievances that dead elves might have with the guys who are running this show. this isn't just feanorian followers (or the exiles more at large) who renounced the valar's authority, it can also be the avari, who now either get valinor or they get valinor. it can be the falathrim, who wanted to go to valinor and lost the chance. it can be those sindar who were waiting for a full intervention from valinor, and it didn't come until earendil came around. it's hard to envision healing within a system when the system itself is what you take issue with. it requires a personal compromise, or an acceptance of the system's authority, and that's simply not always possible, nor can fanworks always easily tackle it — which is also why I think fics where living relatives "bully" or like, strongly entreat, the valar into releasing specific elves from death are popular. it's one way of giving that specific problem a solution, though it may in effect be unrealistic. it's less about realism (I for one don't believe the Valar would ever do that) and more about trying to find a way through wanting to see those characters heal without having to bend and accept the system and its authority.

which also brings me to what comes after and the necessary divide, real or perceived, between people who were always in valinor and people who returned to life after conflict.

to put it simply, making sweeping statements about whether amanyar elves can understand the trauma of exiles and other reborn elves is not possible and in itself pretty silly. even the amanyar themselves don't perceive their experiences of trauma and the darkening in the same way! the teleri refuse to set foot in beleriand despite their own kin being there, and despite the fact that noldor and vanyar embark on a valar-sanctioned war. it's pretty obvious that their own internal experiences and cultural understanding of the darkening or of valar authority is still vastly different, that even going by the imprecise and generalising divide of clan, that trauma was processed differently. or not processed at all.

and then, would those who fight the war of wrath understand the trauma of a continent-wide collapse? yeah, surely in a sense they can, they live through it. but can they understand it from the point of view of a sinda who had lived in beleriand all their life and didn't simply come here with the understanding that this was war? who saw their home be destroyed slowly and painfully, and in the end, when the saving arrives, it's a saving with such an immense and heartbreaking price? maybe they can empathise, maybe they can't. the darkening, by the time of the war of wrath, is no viable term of comparison. even among the living, this isn't cookie-cutter.

so what of those who die and return? I think it's obvious, in the text itself, that someone can go through a death, real of metaphorical, return to their old home which has itself gone through some considerable trauma, and realise that no matter if both you and your home have changed, both have bled, you're still unable to readjust to it the way others can. other people who were with you in your journey can integrate, they find old friends and loves who help them in this. you can't. I'm obviously talking about frodo.

it's not the same for everyone and it will never be. and I do feel as though the reading of valinor being in itself unable to take back people who went through trauma is a push-back against the idea that valinor must inherently be blissful, healing, and perfect; but the text presents us many situations where the environment of valinor plants the seeds of dissatisfaction; the fact that it doesn't work as neatly as it seems is at the core of the early conflict in The Silmarillion (even without pointing out stuff like: troubled people, Frodo included, go to the gardens of Lorien in search of that healing and peace of mind that the rest of the land can't actually provide. it's just a land. it's mostly free of toil because there's literal gods providing things, but it's just a land). valinor is not perfect, but its status as blessed realm invites a certain unease in many readers. I believe this unease leads easily to cotradictory and equally extreme positions, ranging from "no one would or should feel out of place after rebirth" to "actually no one would understand the trauma of someone who died and returned".

plus, of course, the obvious: someone's trauma, collective or individual, and how people process it, doesn't somehow erase someone else's and how they process it. the two things can come in conflict with one another, but they're not, like, mutually exclusive.

[sallysavestheday]

For Pengolodh please?

■ -  Bedroom/house/living quarters headcanon

☼ - appearance headcanon

♥ - family headcanon

Thank you! You get the Pengolodh of my Examined Lives and O, How I Have Missed Our Scholarly Debates ;). Both of these are post-canon, which is when I enjoy him the most, because I headcanon that he and (angry Feanorian loremaster) Erestor end up as a couple, to the astonishment of all and the delight of themselves.

They have a house together in Tavrobel on Tol Eressea (canon for Pengolodh; I add Erestor), in which Erestor is very tidy and Pengolodh is...not. Pengolodh is a spiderwebby type of thinker, finding and tracing connections from odd point to odd point, and the house is full of his notes and manuscripts. He enjoys bookbinding as much as he does writing, and his half of their workshop holds all the necessary equipment for making beautiful books (the binding glue and press are involved in a rather lusty accident in O, How). They have a holiday home on the coast, as well, because Pengolodh misses the water when he's away and needs an occasional dip to promote health and happiness.

I stick pretty close to canon for Pengolodh's background: born in Vinyamar to one Noldorin parent and one Sinda, grew up in Gondolin, fled to Sirion and thence to Balar and Lindon with the survivors of the Fall. So there are some predictable points of tension with Erestor, but they learn to work them out. Their relationship is a lot of negotiation about the meaning of historical "truth."

He's a lovely young (compared to Erestor) fellow. Sturdier than his lover, with broad shoulders and competent square hands and big brown eyes and dimples. Often laughing. Charming. Very sexy in a "healthy outdoorsy" sort of way, oddly enough for a guy who spends a lot of his time buried in books. Irresistible, Erestor would say, even after the glue incident.

Thanks for asking!

List is here, if anyone else wants to send in another ask. Tolkien characters, please. Save me from my work burden this weekend! ;)

[elysiumxxx]

During dinner, my mom told me that when I was young, they would have a conversation that goes like, 'Pano pag may naghatid hatid na din sa anak mo? Pano if may bumisita na dito sa kanya?' and my dad would say, 'Basta magtultol sana sinda ta kung dai bukudon ko ang lalaki (Basta umayos lang sila kundi hahabulin ko yung lalaki)'. My papa knew judo karate eh. Haha. I told my mama na it's scary pala now kasi what if there's this guy that would visit tapos nagloko, ghost na hahabol sa kanya😅

My papa is really protective of me. I love you, Pa.

[absynthe--minded]

So I'm excited about the POC characters in the LOTR show if nothing else. But many people in fandom are really nasty about that. Is there anything concrete in canon saying dark-skinned elves are possible existing?

so first off, whatever Tolkien says or does not say ultimately doesn't matter. the existence of people of color in real life is a fact and there is no reason why elves and Men and dwarves can't be racially diverse. it doesn't matter that it's Eurofantasy, it doesn't matter that it's "a mythology for England". nothing about the Legendarium is inherently white in a way that cannot or should not be racebent.

gonna say that again, louder:

it does not matter what the intent was. adding racial diversity to a cast is not dependent upon authorial approval. Tolkien is literally dead and I don't care if this would offend him. I don’t think it would offend him for the reasons I’m including below, but even if it would, that doesn’t matter, racial diversity and an inclusive imagining of this world are more important than the hypothetical feelings of the author.

now. Tolkien was racist. this is an undeniable fact that everybody has to engage with when they read his works. it is uncomfortable equal-opportunity racism where no matter if you’re Black, indigenous, or Asian, he’s said something gross and loaded about you. you cannot avoid this in The Lord of the Rings, though it’s much less present in the Silmarillion and the greater Legendarium. I’ve made a study of his life and I tend to come down on the side of “he wasn’t well-informed enough to be truly aware of the racist aspects of his work, and was echoing stereotypes held by his society or put forward in the literature he drew from as inspiration”. this is for two reasons:

when he did get called out on the antisemitic portrayal of the dwarves in The Hobbit by a Jewish associate he apologized and wrote Gimli in The Lord of the Rings with a care to not behave that way again; Gimli exists almost as an apology for former antisemitism. this demonstrates he can learn and grow when he’s made aware of what he’s doing, and that he’s not doing it on purpose.

he taught nonwhite students at Oxford and none of them have come out and said that he was cruel and racist to them, which indicates at the very least that he was at least capable of respecting their personhood and treating them fairly even if he held racist beliefs. he also spoke positively of at least one of his South Asian students, calling him one of the best English literature scholars he’d encountered, which shows he wasn’t personally malicious.

of course, none of these things matter if you’re a person of color reading his works and you encounter what he wrote. this does not make Tolkien less racist, at all. I am not trying to excuse his racism or say that it doesn’t matter, because it does, and if the fact that it exists is a dealbreaker for you that is fucking understandable. There are parts of The Return of the King that I genuinely cannot fucking read without getting sick to my stomach. The reason I’m trying to provide this context is to show why I, as a scholar, consider his work worth studying and examining and loving despite that flaw, and why I don’t think he’s on the level of someone like Hates Phoreigners Lovecraft. I can’t make that decision for anyone, but that needs to get out of the way first because before I start talking about the genuinely surprising diversity in Arda I need to acknowledge that the guy who was making it diverse didn’t have the best intentions all of the time.

now, onto the actual examination of things. (more below the cut, the tl;dr is ‘dark-skinned elves have exactly as much canonical precedent as Gil-galad being the son of Finrod + a Sinda named Meril, so there’s no reason to discount them. also, the mortal Men and hobbits in Arda have a canonically established range of skin tones even among the heroes, so elves and dwarves having those too makes complete sense.’)

Maeglin is the only elf whose skin tone is ever explicitly mentioned, and it changes between the drafts. In his earliest Book of Lost Tales appearance, he’s “swarthy” and dark-skinned, in his latest appearances he’s pale-skinned. BoLT’s draft has the benefit of being the only complete account of the Fall of Gondolin that we have, which makes it large and weighty and too great to be ignored. In The Shaping of Middle-Earth (I think, that’s off the top of my head but if it’s not in Shaping it’s in Peoples) he’s described as physically resembling his mother and mentally resembling his father. Shaping as a draft is relevant because this is what Christopher Tolkien pulled from to write the ‘Of Maeglin’ chapter in the Silmarillion. If Maeglin is interpreted as both dark-skinned and as resembling his mother, that means Aredhel was herself dark-skinned, and that means her family isn’t white.

(note: Christopher Tolkien, so far as I can tell, invented the idea that Idril and the Gondolindrim found Maeglin disgusting for wanting to marry his cousin from whole cloth. I’ve scoured the drafts and Vinyar Tengwar and all the tidbits I can find and I’ve found absolutely no indication that Tolkien included a taboo against cousin marriage anywhere in his actual writings. he in fact explicitly allows it in one draft of Laws and Customs among the Eldar. In Shaping, Turgon loves and trusts Maeglin but Maeglin is scheming for the throne, and in BoLT - where Maeglin is outright villainous and the most racially loaded - Turgon is opposed to his marrying Idril because he doesn’t think Maeglin will love his daughter, he thinks Maeglin will use her as a tool for political gain. this is not really relevant except to say that Maeglin being seen as disgusting by the Gondolindrim reads in a very loaded and problematic light, and it seems to not be present at all in the original text.)

In most cases, Tolkien doesn’t really describe skin tone, instead reverting to somewhat vague descriptors like ‘pale’ or ‘fair’. I will admit that in a strictly literal interpretation of the text, that does seem to indicate that there’s a relative dearth of heroic elves of color, but I’m going to repeat what I said above (authorial intent does not matter more than making Arda inclusive) and continue on with the fact that ‘pale’ can mean things other than ‘white’.

Plenty of people who are not white are pale, or pale compared to others in their family or community. if you’re committed to a racially diverse Arda, this genuinely should not stop you, and if you’re bothered by people playing with this, that’s a sign you should examine yourself. the same goes with ‘fair,’ which Tolkien uses just as often to mean ‘beautiful’ as to mean ‘light-skinned’ or ‘of a light complexion’. someone can be dark and fair (Lúthien comes to mind) and that’s not a contradiction. again, it does not matter what the author thought, and while this is an admittedly creative reading of the text, it’s certainly not impossible.

We have significantly more textual and paratextual evidence for nonwhite mortals, and frankly that’s what I would consider the biggest evidence for nonwhite elves. And it’s not just the evil Men, either!

Hobbits are a canonically ethnically diverse group with varying skin tones and a lot of intermarriage and ‘mixed-race’ (by contemporary Earth standards) individuals; the smallest Hobbit ethnic group (the Fallohides) is the white one. Sam is darker-skinned than Frodo is, and he’s the true hero of LotR according to the author. And, The Peoples of Middle-Earth confirms that the House of Bëor is brown-skinned, which means Tolkien’s own self-insert Beren is not a white person. If Beren isn’t white, neither are Barahir, Andreth, Emeldir, Aerin, Rían, or Morwen Eledhwen. This means that Dior wouldn’t necessarily be white, and that Elwing, Elrond, and Elros are mixed-race both in terms of their actual bloodline and modern conceptions of the term.

On top of that, Gondor is a canonically racially prejudiced society, but Gondor is racist based on blood and ancestry and not on skin tone and is diverse in terms of the people living there - the Rohirrim are described as paler and lighter-haired than they are, indicating they’re already not white, and when Pippin is watching the reinforcements come into Minas Tirith in the first chapter of RotK he observes that there are some warriors who are significantly darker-skinned-than-the-others but are counted as men of Gondor. Aragorn’s crown as drawn by Tolkien in his letters also bears a resemblance to Egypt’s double crown, and Gondor has a Mediterranean climate, which famously yields extremely white-looking people here on Earth (that’s sarcasm lmao) And if Gondor isn’t white, that means Arnor and the Dúnedain aren’t white either, which means Númenor wasn’t white (Unfinished Tales says that a lot of descendants of the House of Bëor ended up on Númenor, so...)

tbh this indicates to me that we have absolutely no reason why elves - and not just silvan elves or Sindarin elves, Calaquendi too! - can’t be diverse in terms of skin tone and the races of the actors. the only thing stopping anybody is their own racism and their own lack of commitment to diversity. Tolkien was racist, but he’s dead, his ability to impact the world now is dependent upon the fandom and the scholarly community, and I think the way forward is to embrace diversity and also to explore and acknowledge his racism and his failings. crafting a version of Arda where everyone is included is to me reclaiming a space that I was both welcomed by and excluded from, and the fact that this sometimes means standing in opposition to supposed ‘purist’ reads on the text is fine by me.

so... what are we left with?

well, it’s contradictory. we’ve got a racist guy who nonetheless makes his heroic characters explicitly brown, a society that could either be read as very racially segregated or very racially diverse, and a lot of mixed messages (I haven’t delved into his takes on colonialism yet, I do not have the strength for that). It’s a space that has just as much evidence for including people of color as excluding them, and as a result, I say to include. if you’re not for that, you’ve got some self-examination to do.

[thepinkseat-askthemoonbunny]

@tolkienocweek Day 1- Diversity

Hey guys! This is gonna be my very first tolkienocweek and since I have enough OCs to fill the Pacific Ocean, I couldn't not participate! To kick things off on Day 1, my girl Tirien is reluctantly showing Fingon the vision of his fall at the Nirnaeth.

(Facial references I used here: https://www.deviantart.com/kibbitzer/art/Head-Up-and-Down-636150700)

Born into the Noldor clan, Tirien and Fingon were betrothed from a very early age due to her family's sporadic but powerful gift of prophecy (most elves are foresighted to some degree, but Tirien's bloodline was known for producing great Seers even if it was only once in a blue moon). When Tirien started showing signs of the gift, King Finwe and her parents arranged the match because the parents wanted clout and status and the king wanted Seer powers in his bloodline...it's a win-win.

Due to the Prince's own gallant and charming personality, as well as her folks and Finwe talking him up every chance they got, Tirien fell head over heels for her fiance like it was a real-life romantic novel. She had a vision for her life, her parents told her she'd be a princess someday and that she'd be happy...but you know what they say. The best laid plans and all that? As they grew up, Fingon realized that although he could appreciate the charms of nissi and neri, he leaned moreso toward neri as he and his best friend Maitimo fell in love with one another. He knew that his duty was to go through with the marriage, but he's simply not the type of dude who's built to live a lie and so he sat Tirien down one day and spilled the beans to her. To say that she was pissed was an understatement of epic proportions...she went home, burned all the gifts they exchanged and refused to appear in court or leave the house...the only people she would see were her parents and two sisters . She berated her parents for "lying" to her, and she would've fallen into a depressive state were it not for her sisters bullying her into calming down and seeing sense. It took about a year before she stopped avoiding Finno in public (she wouldn't even hear his name mentioned at home, her sisters jokingly referred to him as "The F Word" for a whole twelve months) but once the dust settled, she realized that he'd been given as much say in this as she had, which was to say none at all.

As things began to heal, Tirien and Fingon were able to resume their friendship and when her family followed Fingolfin's host to Middle-Earth, Tirien came along in hopes to save them and mitigate the troubles that she had foreseen (spoiler alert, it didn't work). When Maedhros gave the High Kingship to Fingolfin, Tirien stayed on as one of his advisors due to having a highly useful if not foolproof asset. She would subsequently advise Fingon, and then Turgon after him when Fingon fell in the Nirnaeth.

It was in Gondolin where she met her future husband, Lord Legolas of the House of the Tree in Turgon's court. The two fell in love and married, eventually having a son. After Gondolin fell (which Tirien foresaw but was powerless to prevent), she fled to Tol Eressea with her husband, son and sisters, the only two surviving members of her birth family where they live to this day. Tirien's eldest sister Lindaiwe married a Sinda huntress she met during her travels and her younger sister Morinke never wed, instead living out her days with Tirien and her law-brother.

[aragornsrockcollection]

Hey guys, wonder if anyone ever had any theories about how the two male heirs of the Elu Thingol are abandoned in the woods after the second sacking of Doriath, never to be found (though elven legend says they survived in a very Anastasia way where they almost certainly didn’t but people believe it anyways)-

-then, wierd, around the same time two new woodland kingdoms are founded by Sindar princes. And Tolkien never quite places king Oropher and king Amdir decidedly in the family tree of the Sindar royal family. (Though most assume they must be the sons of Elmo and therefore Thingol’s nephews).

Like. I’m not the only person who thinks that’s odd right?

click below for full crack theory

Like I doubt Oropher and Amdir are Elured and Elurin, because the latter were children at the time.

But hypothetically, if some survivors of Doriath had found the children in the woods, and escaped with them… and then decided to split up so it would not be commented on that someone just showed up with twin sons, and weren’t some twins missing? And establish realms amongst the Silvans to keep them safe…

I’m just saying Thranduil and Amroth could be Elured and Elurin. Which would make Legolas Elrond’s baby cousin. And technically a Peredhel, in the same way Elrond’s children are, children of a half elf who married an elf. In this case probably a Silvan elf, like Amroth tried but never quite accomplished with Nimrodel.

Thranduil has always struck me as Thingol-lite.

He’s that other Sinda King who’s name begins with a Th has an N in the middle and ends with L, whose weakness for white gems causes beef with dwarves, lives in a series of caves in a forest (which is intentionally modeled after Menegroth) with one entrance, which you must cross a bridge to reach, and who wants to stay out of the war with the enemy and just preserve his people.

I remember reading somewhere that “the elven king” in the hobbit was supposed to be Thingol, but when he had to place the Hobbit into the larger legendarium as part of using it as a prequel for lotr, Tolkien changed that because the timing now meant it couldn’t be.

Which is probably why the Arkenstone is also like a Silmaril-lite (extra lite), because he was using pieces of his ideas for the story that would become the Silmarillion in the Hobbit, when the Hobbit was just a stand alone that wasn’t meant to overlap with his greater world.

Of course while technically possible, this is all highly unlikely…

But I enjoy it because if it were true, Legolas being blindfolded when entering Lothlorien gains an extra level of absolutely hilarious.

Because if Legolas is Amroth’s nephew, and of Thingol’s direct line he has a higher claim to rule Lothlorien than Celeborn, and Haldir might not know that but LEGOLAS WOULD.

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

more of tauriel’s hellfamily adventures! there’s still a couple of gaps in my conception of this au, which is why these are bullet points and not an actual fic, but i think i’ve got enough to progress the plot, such as it is. certainly got a bunch of anecdotes i think are funny

i’m not even going to bother explaining how tauriel ended up in one of the fëanorians’ boltholes being treated for mild injuries

nothing super serious, but enough that she’s out of action for the rest of the night. the palace is on fire

the bolthole opens, and celegorm (who’s doing first aid) turns his head. his preemptive scowl melts away instantly. ‘hi elrond!’

the former lord of imladris just sighs. ‘please tell me you idiots haven’t abducted tauriel’

legolas has concerns, apparently. he saw celegorm vanish into an alleyway with her slung over his shoulder and immediately started panicking

‘i've talked him into delaying his rescue mission until i had the chance to check that she was safe’ elrond finishes, sounding absolutely exhausted

tauriel confirms that she is doing fine, as much as she can through the concussion. celegorm’s like ‘if he’s so worried about her why doesn’t he just come up here’

elrond disappears, and a few minutes later legolas scrambles inside

he’s glaring at celegorm. celegorm tells him where the first aid kit is, punches him on the arm, compliments his tracking skills in a vaguely threatening manner, and jumps back out to assist with the chaos

legolas collapses by tauriel’s bedside, still clutching his bow. tauriel pats him on the thigh reassuringly

neither of them are surprised elrond knows the fëanorians - they stayed in his place in tol eressëa for a while, dude knows literally everyone - but they don’t really know why

closer to dawn, elrond’s voice drifts up into the hideout. he’s going on this long irritated rant that climaxes in an extremely exasperated ‘valardamnit dad!’

maglor cackles. tauriel’s like ‘huh didn’t know that.’ legolas makes a face like he accidentally swallowed a spider

by this point, tauriel’s known the brothers hellspawn for long enough legolas has been unnervingly close to a kinslayer way more times than he’d like

this is the longest he’s spent in proximity to them by far, but it’s not the only time he’s interacted with them. they seem to like tauriel, and he knows she can take care of herself

but like still

it keeps happening, though. as tauriel further ingratiates herself with these awful awful elves, her two separate social circles keep bleeding into each other

take the time legolas and co visited the aulendili

before they left middle-earth, gimli whipped round every dwarf they knew and assembled several volumes of complaints. they refuse to confirm or deny whether aulë is the maker, but they are determined someone’s gonna hear their grievances

and thus a small wagon train of wood elves head up into the mountains. including tauriel

tauriel offhandedly mentioned the upcoming trip to the twins, and amras was like ‘hey we’ve got family up there!’ a few messages went up and down the funicular, and now gimli and crew have a place to crash up there

they’re put up by some of the fëanorians’ less murderous (if equally loud) relatives. it’s a pretty interesting trip

half the town is redheads. several people still mistake tauriel for a fëanorian. it’s been happening a lot in the wider noldorin territory lately, it’s weird

caranthir stumbles up into town about halfway through their visit. he gets into an extremely long philosophical argument with gimli that somehow ends with a mutual dwarven nod of respect

he also ends up fighting back-to-back with tauriel in one of those debatebrawls so common among the noldor. neither of them is quite sure how it happens

that’s the way it goes, isn’t it. there’s no big official moment when tauriel becomes part of the family

she just grows closer to them over her time in valinor, as they do to her

she merges into their social world. she develops a rapport with maglor’s wife - a first age mountain sinda and a third age forest avar don’t have that much in common, but they are both looking at noldorin culture from the outside. they have so many injokes about ridiculous bling

(it goes the other way too. this childhood friend oc of hers i’m developing - pretty sweet guy, the token sane man in the legolas-tauriel-him trinity - gets along really well with celebrimbor)

this one time tauriel punches a guy out for calling elrond a traitor. it doesn’t matter that he’s like three times her age, he is babey

she gets chewed out by maedhros and tests out new devices for curufin and drops in on nerdanel for tea. even though she doesn’t permanently live in the definitely-not-fëanorian quarter, she has her own personal space in its innermost warren

she’s one of them long before anyone consciously realises it

what causes that realisation is, admittedly, partially the conspiracy theories. if you say something often enough, you’ll start to believe it, and while the tauriel origin stories circulating through the noldorin rumour mill vary a lot in the details they all agree she is a fëanorian

but that’s a gradual long-term thing. it’s one more thread that leads to the moment

because there has to be an inflection point, i think. the fëanorians have plenty of family friends within the ranks of their definitely-not-minions. some are even as close to them as tauriel’s become

something has to happen to show she’s something more. fortunately, as demonstrated by the darkening and the númenorian invasion, no matter how peaceful it seems, history never stops

shit goes down. the exact details i’ll admit i don’t know yet, but at some point some sort of massive crisis rocks all of valinor. it’s during that crisis that tauriel does stuff that makes it blindingly obvious she’s not just on her side, but one of them

what stuff? again, i don’t know yet. i have this mental image of her leading a strike team that’s half definitely-not-minions and half legolas’ people through a burning city to do... something badass, but that’s as specific as i can get atm

what i am certain about, is that throughout the unfolding of the crisis, tauriel is permanently on the fëanorians’ side, just like they’re on hers

it’s one thing to be someone’s friend in bright happy days. it’s another thing to stick by them when everything’s falling to pieces and the whole world is against them. it’s in the depths of this crisis that both parties have the chance to fully prove their worth to each other

that probably wouldn’t be enough on its own, but combined with the friendship and the conspiracy theories and just the general way she is, once the dust settles it’s blazingly clear that tauriel is a daughter of the house of fëanor

there’s a little debate about where exactly she fits on the family tree, but not much. our sample size is admittedly small, but third generation fëanorians tend to have the slightest modicum of common sense? elrond and celebrimbor both have a fair degree of self-awareness and at least a few brain cells

tauriel does not. tauriel is mad, bad, and dangerous to know, just smart enough to understand that her sheer chaoticness is something she can channel but not nearly close to regularly thinking through the consequences of her actions. she’s loud and violent and does whatever she wants whenever she wants without a single thought towards what people will think of her

and more than that, she doesn’t relate to the second generation fëanorians the way the third generation does. she’s their friend and partner-in-crime, not one of their precious perfect must-protect children. she gets jerked around and bullied and does all that stuff right back, and while she doesn’t have a solid place in the second generation’s internal hierarchy yet she would easily slot in

no, tauriel’s a second generation fëanorian, one of fëanor and nerdanel’s horrible children. the fact that fëanor is currently indisposed and unable to provide an opinion on the matter doesn’t seem to bother anyone

she gets inducted into the family in a massive group hug, and from then on out the brothers hellspawn are the siblings hellspawn

her new family doesn’t replace her old one, of course, she has a long talk with elrond wherein she hashes this out. she’s still a silvan of the greenwood

she’s just also the little sister of the most bloodthirsty elves in history

(that sound in the background is legolas screaming)

[undercat-overdog]

Elwing and Celebrimbor for the for the character asks?

Did Elwing already, so Celebrimbor! @feanorianethicsdepartment asked for him too! 

How I feel about this character

Um, my favorite. No, I really love him. Like Elwing, it was the cinematics that originally made him stick out (the banner and St Sebastian imagery - interesting that he may be the only true martyr figure in Tolkien? I can't think of another one.)

He's fairly unusual as a Tolkien character in that he explicitly wants to make the world a better place; most of the heroes (and antiheroes) are people who fight against the darkness to try to keep the world from becoming worse. Some of that is likely just a function of the time period when he was an active character, but that curiosity and skill and ambition melded with a vision that is genuinely good is appealing. (Which is not to say that his vision is without its weaknesses and faults, but the love of the world, the desire to heal it, is absolutely there.)

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Celebrimbor/Sauron is my OTP. Shadows of Mordor opened me to the potential that is silvergifting, and I immediately opened up ao3 and here I am, writing porn about the Lord of the Rings and the guy he tortured to death.

(Quick review of that game: it is lorelol - no, like it would be difficult to make the lore worse - and the four fridgings are overmuch. But the game play is fun and it is astonishingly shippy - Sauron's one and only motivation is to get Celebrimbor to come back to him. Seriously.)

Fond of him with Celeborn/Galadriel too (unsolicited fic rec).

Some day I will manifest Annatar/Celebrimbor/Galadriel into existence.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Celebrían! I headcanon that it was her, not Celeborn, that stayed in Eregion when Galadriel left (and, uh, given her and Celebrimbor's diplomatic talents, they were damn lucky that Annatar was there...) and that they reconnected in Valinor.

My unpopular opinion about this character

Hmmm. I'm not sure I have any truly unpopular opinions? Though I am very definitely on the "Celebrimbor wasn't an idiot" side and I think that welcoming Sauron and making the Rings genuinely was the best timeline - it was Sauron's poor life choices that made everything go terribly wrong, not Celebrimbor's (well, ok, best timeline is Sauron not failing his repentance, but that's on him). (Also, fucking Sauron is not actually the worst life choice a Finwean has made and isn't that saying a lot.)

Otherwise, I don't go for the born in Valinor version and I most definitely do not go for one big happy Feanorian family. My personal backstory is that he didn't know his non-Celegorm and Huan uncles well - I'm not sure he even met Amras and Amrod - and that he and Maedhros did not get along and that there's no love lost on Celebrimbor's side. General backstory is that he renounced his Noldorin heritage, not just the Feanorian one, after Nargothrond (or Doriath) and went around calling himself a Sinda and Penadar. Reconciled with it over the first few centuries of the 2nd Age.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

As usual, I'm happy with the canon story. This is partly because I am very good at imagining post-canon happy endings and am writing one right now. I view it as very decidedly post-canon and not at all an AU.

I would like to know how and when he attached himself to Galadriel and Celeborn. He's associated strongly with them in all the different backstories and, at least before Annatar shows up, said to be a friend of theirs, though it seems to go south. I go with very early 2nd Age, and I think the politics of Gil-Galad/Círdan/Elrond on one pole and Galadriel/Celeborn/Celebrimbor on another are interesting.

I'd also be interested in explorations of Tolkien's different backgrounds. Like, how the heck does "descendent of Daeron" work. (Presumably even more of a dwarven connection, and I like the non-craft scholarship it brings to him.)

[arofili]

🏳️‍🌈 + maeglin :)

CW: this one gets angsty and talks about prejudice and internalized bigotry :(

i had to have A Think about this one because i wasn’t sure tbh? and all of what i’m gonna say is not anything i’m particularly convicted on, i’m down for whatever with him tbh. but here’s my Thots:

so first off Maeglin is trans. this post by @daywillcomeagain is excellent and honestly changed the way i think about her? like a lot? even in verses / “canon” (whatever that means lol) where Maeglin is male I can’t really see him as cis anymore. so yeah, Maeglin is trans, sometimes i see her as a trans woman and sometimes i see him as a trans man and sometimes when i’m feeling Particularly Adventuresome i see them as nonbinary/genderfluid, but There Is No Universe Where Maeglin Is Cis.

secondly, and this is where i’m not particularly sold on any one interpretation: Maeglin is gay? question mark? usually in a situation where i want to ship a character w/ the “same” ““gender”” (again whatever that means lmao) but they have an “”opposite”” “”””gender”””” canon love interest i’ll go with them being bi, because there’s never too much bi content and i like to work with canon rather than against it (there are exceptions but that’s my general vibe) BUT-

in this case i think (trans guy) maeglin was overcompensating for his weirdness wrt idril. i don’t think he was Actually In Love with her, he was looking around for a reason to be a Normal Man, and Normal Men Like Women, Right? so he found the prettiest lady and obsessed over her…unfortunately that happened to be his cousin, but he had this fixed idea of Idril As The Embodiment Of Perfect Femininity And What Every Man Should Want. so if he’s a Real Man, of course he would be in love with her….

this is where i should bring up that it’s not until morgoth ~offers~ idril as a prize for betraying gondolin that maeglin even considers her a viable option; before then he “desired her, without hope” and didn’t even make a move. idril sensing Bad Vibes from him and “loving him not at all” is…well, at best it’s post-fall propaganda, at worst it’s idril being transphobic/racist (because maeglin is Extremely poc-coded). what i’m trying to say is: Idril is unattainable to Maeglin. He never had a chance with her, and that was part of her allure. frankly, her being his cousin only increased that impossibility of them working out. so in a way, she was a safe crush, in that he wouldn’t have to ever realize what was going on.

now, this is an experience familiar to me as an aro person. and honestly? aro maeglin is good and i stan that. but i also think maeglin being gay ties into his resentment for Tuor: he’s attracted to Tuor (and weirdly, probably to Hurin and/or Huor as well? he was mean to them too) and just Doesn’t Know How To Handle That. it’s bad enough that he’s trans (though if you want to be boring this would work if he’s cis too), that he’s an outsider, that he’s half-Sinda in a kingdom of Noldor, he can’t have this weirdness too. (because Gondolin is very Noldorin, and they spoke Quenya there, and the city is very much reminiscent of Tirion, and it’s hardass Turgon who’s the king, i think they had similar laws to Valinor. ie: LaCE (ish) and homophobia? but i’m not sold on that, considering I ship Glorthelion and I think Egalmoth is a Gay Icon, so idk, maybe not. and this all just My Personal Headcanon not canon in any way)

anyway, Maeglin is trans and gay. i also say this because i ship him with Turin and jrrt was homophobic to not have these two disaster gays meet in canon smh

I also think trans woman Maeglin could be seen as gay/a lesbian, tho? in that verse her feelings for Idril could be more genuine, and her insecurity coming from internalized transmisogyny/homophobia, like “i can’t be with idril because if i’m with a woman that’s just me using my femininity to take advantage of her, that would make me basically a man!” basically she’s got a LOT of internalized issues and Deserves Better!!!! (ETA: and like the post i linked above says, it could also be her being attracted to what she wishes she was like, confusing gender envy with attraction, or w/e)

or, if we want to go with the original thesis of Maeglin being attracted to Idril because Idril is impossible to be with, she could be aro too. and since then it would be sexual attraction without romantic attraction, she would have internalized arophobia and sex-negativity thrown into the mix, too, and the objectification fear would be even stronger.

anyway: Maeglin is trans, and probably gay, and possibly aro, and i’m open to really any interpretation that includes at least one of those headcanons. (honestly they can be All of those, not even all at once? like genderfluid abrosexual Maeglin who really just Doesn’t Know what’s going on with how they feel? yes please!) the only thing im NOT interested in is predatory straight cis Maeglin. ew. gross. get that away from me. can’t believe that was probably jrrt’s headcanon, smh

[lore-of-the-silvereyes-rwby]

RWBY Remnant’s Silver Legends

Chapter 7

Tower Ostirio/Silirin/Endemar  

The sun watches over the city. The Ostirios’ conversations about Horace spread like rumors. Most of them pay no mind to it. To the ones who do, give it their full attention. Some parents are withholding their children till they know it's safe. Everyday workers are scared to go. The bright sun may be watching, but a dark shadow has been cast over Silirin. But the worse has yet to come. Meanwhile someone contemplates on how he can deliver the tragic news to a friend.

“Thanks for getting us out Ithiel, Lucius said.”

“Don’t worry about it, you two would have done the same for me, he responded.”

“He might but I wouldn’t,” Ezer blurted out as he waits for the guard to return his items. “I’m still surprised that you came to get us out?” He asked as the guard came back with his items.

“As much as I hate to give him credit for this, but he does have a point,” Lucius stated as he crossed his arms. “But why are you here, I thought my father was coming?”

    Their questions caught him off guard. He stood there dumbstruck, and left in thought. Trying to think of the right words to say. After all, how can you tell your closet friends they had a death in the family. You can’t, not yet anyway. 

“You’re, ah  father um . . . “ he stuttered. He was never much of a liar. “ Your father is um busy at the moment,he implied. And after what happened yesterday in Yaramar I thought I would treat you for the day, since I kinda feel it was my fault for not stopping you two, Ithiel stated.”

    There was something off about their friend they thought. Then again being catered by the City Lord’s son. Why not, they thought

“Ok since you refused to come with us you owe us,” Ezer bragged as Lucius nodded his head in agreement with a smile plastered on his face.

 The guard finished giving him back all of his items. They began to leave the Tower until one of the Ostirio called out for Ithiel.

“Walk with me for amoment Ithiel, they exclaimed.”

“Steward Uriel,” he answered as the steward approached them. “To what do I owe thee, Ithiel asked?”

“Can I have a word in private,” Uriel asked as he gestured his hand toward the hall.

“As you wish,” he complied. He then told his friends to wait for him. Calming it won’t take too long. He then went to the Steward in the hall then began to ask what this matter was.

“What is it do you wish to speak with me abo-

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Uriel interrupted. “I understand they’re your friends, but I believe that kind of news should be told by either your father, the Arbiter, or one of their kin,” he testified. “I know you mean well, but for now just indulge them till the time is right, he advised as he put a hand on his shoulder. “That's all I ask of you, keep it a secret for now.”

    Torn by what had been asked of him, He knew the steward’s words were true. This is something that he feels that he can’t do. As their friend however he owes it to them. But for now he will keep this a secret. Hopefully the backlash won’t be severe, he thought. Then he left.

The river Isil/The Mountains of Isilme/Between Endemar, & Iresta

“Okay is that all of them?”

“Looks like it.”

“Ja.”

“Wszyscy tu nie żyją.”

“Ja. . . oh vait,” Isa said as he began to plunge his blade through the neck of the last grindylow. “Now zeir all dead.”

“Dzięki Bogu to koniec.”

     Linia Podzielona, and her surviving crew resume their course. The fog and Grimm are far behind them now. Though their ship is intact, they now lacks the necessary crew needed to operate it. As well  as the needed sails to make the voyage faster. The ride to Silirin will have to be longer than some expected it to be.

“W porządku, kto nie żyje, a kto odszedł, the captain announced throughout the ship.

“What did he say,” Wyn asked the guy next to him?

“He asking vo is dead und vo is left,” Isa answered.

“Thanks, whoever you are,” Wyn asserted.

“Oh I’m-

“Where’s Detlef,” Wyn interrupted?

“Dead, und I zink zis is zee only zing left of him,” Frida answered as she held what she believed to be Detlefs right forearm.

“Well there goes my hired escort,” he noted. He then turned to Isa. “Hey you worked under Detlef right?”

“Ja but-

“Good your my bodyguard now, Wyn declared.”

“VHAT, vy me, vy not her, aren't vu zwei friends, or zomething,” Isa fretted?

“Fair point,” he agreed. "Frida care to accompany me for the time being,” he asked?

“It's tembting put I Halready haffe vork zat avaits me,” she answered as she tossed Detlef’s hand to the side.

“Well your stuck with me then, um, what was your name again?”

“Isa.

“Well we're almost to the city. From here on out everything should be fine,” he declared as he put an arm and leaned on his shoulder. “I think?”

“Ich werde verdammt noch mal sterben,” Isa exclaimed as he lowered his head.

    Soon after a loud horn was heard in the distance.

“What was that,” they all asked?

The Sinda Castle/Silirin/Endemar 

    Home to the Arasule Order, Sinda has had a long history of honorable service to Silirin. The first of four castles that would later help expand the city. Now it serves as the first line of defence, and trains the forces needed to ensure Silirins’ safety. Especially In times like these. For now a pair of Edenyar converse as they finish their assigned task.

“Remind me again, why are we the ones on Armour polish again? It feels like it’s the fifth day in a row, and this is all we do.”

“Well we could’ve done something else, but someone angered the Confanonier,” the other proclaimed.

“Thanks Zim, I can always count on you can I,” bellowed Eran.

“How many times have I told you to stop calling me that,” she contended!

“Well it’s easier to say than Zimra.”

    As they continued their friendly banter, a loud horn was heard. They wonder what it could be. Then a loud commotion was heard outside room. They drop their respective work and exit out the armory door. The halls are filled. Everyone is rushing out of the castle. 

“Hey hey, Or, what's going on,” Zimra called out to her friend?

“Every one’s either going to the towers or the curtain wall,” she responded. “I’m going to the keeps’ pinnacle, care to join me,” Or asked?

“Sure,” they said in delighted unison! Any excuse to get out of armor maintenance they thought.

    They’re on the move now. Hurrying to Sinda’s highest point. As they reach their goal, others were there. More specifically the Grand Marshall, Seneschal, and the Confanonier. One of them will not be happy to see our mischievous pair.

“Can you make out their banners?”

“Not yet, they need to get closer.”

“Should I light the beacon Marshal?”

“Not yet, but be at the ready.”

“Isn’t that for an emergencies,” Eran asked Or?

“It is, but it depends on what kind of emergency.”

“WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING HERE,” the Confanonier barked, as he notice that both Zimra, and Eran where there! Mostly at Eran.

“You can deal with them later Quirinus,” the Marshall intervened. He felt that he was going to need every able body that he can get his hands on. Even if their new bloods, that have yet to see combat. He prayed to Ilaini that he was wrong and it was something else. “Seneschal can you make out their banners now?”

“I can vaguely make out the largest one, but it appears to be The Silote Legion.”

    As soon as he said it a large commotion began to stir up. Everyone in the pinnacle, from the edenyar to the staff, and to the guard pondered why. Why was one of their legions here.

“The Silote?”

“Why are they here?”

“I thought they were in the north.”

“Hey Zim don’t have like three older siblings that were assigned to The Silote Legion, Eran asked.”

    The thought of seeing her siblings again brought joy to her mind. But it came to conflict with thoughts of worry. She herself wasn’t sure how she would respond to the outcome.

“Can you see who is leading them?”

“Judging by the white flag with the four curved lines, Marshal Laban seems to be in command,” he answered.

“Well it’s good to that still alive,” the Marshal declared.

“Yeah,” everyone else said disappointed.

“I take it he’s not really well liked,” Eran said.

“No he’s not,” Or answered.

    As they got closer the Marshal noticed something was off with their numbers.

“How many members are they supposed to have,” he asked.

“At least five thousand Sir. Why?”

“That doesn't look like a legion of five thousand, he argued. And far too many to be a regiment.”  

“Their raising more banners sir.”

“What kind of banners did they raise?”

     The Seneschal focused his sights to see. He waited for them to get closer to see them clearly. Upon first glance he thought he was mistaken. At least he hoped he was. But as they got closer the clearer it was that he was not mistaken. Dread was the only thing left on his face. 

“Seneschal what banners did they raise?”

“Grand Marshal . . . they fly colours of Black  marked by a red X,” he said solemnly.

NOTES

Sinda; Gray

Wszyscy tu nie żyją; Polish/ All dead over here

Dzięki Bogu to koniec; Polish/ Thank God it's over

W porządku, kto nie żyje, a kto odszedł; Polish/ Alright who is dead and who is left

Ich werde verdammt noch mal sterben; Germen/ I'm gonna fucking die

Edenyar; New Blood

[thelioninmybed]

Misc replies

berrysphase replied to your post “valaraukars replied to your post “AU maeglin in mithrim with grandad...”

I'm sideeyeing myself here for sounding so "MY PET THEORY" when my whole point was there's actually a whole bunch of ways to explain Earendil not getting the Kingship and some of them can leave Maeglin the legitimate heir -- lol sorry (Assuming Gil is Orodreth's, that is, I always do too!) I figure the relative Sindarin comfort with powerful women has a lot to do with Melian, but it turns out I could go on and add screenfuls about Elwe's special status

and king's choice etc etc so uh I'll spare you... Also surely this attitude has a lot to do with why Galadriel married a Sinda.

Elves arguing inheritance politics is my catnip but it's also a bit brain-breaking -- I mean here are these immortal beings arguing about different interpretations of inheritance law when inheritance was just invented out of whole cloth so recently, you get to blatant rationalization s and bad philosophical arguments so fast

No no, it certainly can be done but you’re right, I forgot about Earendil during my analysis. Gil as Orodreth has always made sense to me, especially with how small a player he is until after the War of Wrath. God, the Galadriel-Marries-A-Sinda thing is an excellent point. I tend to skim over the more overtly patriarchal crap in the text (and in my fic, unless I’m making a point) but it explains an awful lot about why such an ambitious woman would spend so much time away from the action - she has vastly more of a say in governance etc. in Doriath than she would have in her own peoples’ lands - and of course she’d marry a Sinda, this is great. 

God, yes, how did the issue of who would inherit Finwe’s crown break society when the issue was, as far as anyone knew, entirely academic? (because it was really a question of who daddy loved more :()

psychopompious replied to your post “valaraukars replied to your post “AU maeglin in mithrim with grandad...”

"and she's his great aunt" you say that like it would be a problem for him. that's only 4th degree consanguinity, same as first cousins!

also re: Celeborn's relation to Thingol, I think in that version it's through the schrodinger's cat brother (aka Elmo) but I'd have to dig up that lovely chart of Doriath's long line of cousin marriages to check

.......okay fuck, you’re right. Maeglin would. 

If that’s the case then I suppose I owe Tolkien an apology. But he’s dead and also we have no idea what happened to Lalwen so I’m just gonna sit on it. 

vardasvapors replied to your post “Paying attention to those things is not my forte but thank you for...”

I just wanted to mention that this series of prompted au's is like my fave thing in the fandom rn

Thx xx I just wish I could be more varied with them than ‘but then everyone died anyway’

crocordile replied to your post “valaraukars replied to your post “AU maeglin in mithrim with grandad...”

to be fair though, nothing in canon suggests elwing held a position of authority by herself; you can easily assume her position comes from her marriage :/ Though ofc that is not my interpretation/headcanon at all!

re: earendil's ellegibility for high kingship: on the purely legalist side cirdan and co might just be following finrod's logic and taking finarfin's to be the royal line after fingolfin's death, or something? i always assumed that (but then again i def hc gil as oro's son which not many do hahaha)

You: “I don't think Tolkien meant for us to interpret it this way."

Me, an intellectual w. a folder of Silm erotica: "He didn't mean for us to interpret a lot of things this way. But we did."

I.E. Elwing is queen and idgaf what Tolkien wanted. 

I am with you on Gil as Oro’s (AND NOT JUST FOR SHIPPING REASONS OKAY, I HAVE LAYERS), someone pointed out the thematic neatness of the three lines of Finwe’s descendants dying to other elves, to Morgoth, and to Sauron respectively and Gil as an Arafinwean falls neatly into that. 

simaethae replied to your post “Paying attention to those things is not my forte but thank you for...”

how about they win a decisive enough victory to reclaim *one* silmaril and then morgoth flips and... volcanoes. or something. anyway you could totally contrive an AU where some of the feanorians, i'm saying C&C for kicks, have to fall back to the safety of Doriath in the ensuing chaos with their newly-obtained silmaril (since after all we know a silmaril can get you through the girdle...)

like i'm sorry this is great but i feel like it just needs more terrible decision making from the noldor to be a silm AU >>;

I’m starting to feel bad for Anon, okay? Just like Mandos, even my cold heart can be moved to pity. 

C+C in Doriath would be exquisite tbh, it’s yet another closed system where they can feed on paranoia, claw for power, and Celegorm can get into a creep off with Daeron while Thingol despises them while coveting the jewel and Melian is like ‘for fuck’s sake guys’ but no one listens. At least maybe the dwarves are free of the murder shenanigans this time around!

emilyenrose replied to your post “Paying attention to those things is not my forte but thank you for...”

ok but any au where luthien doesn't dress up as a vampire is a bad end au anyway

Truer words have never been spoken. 

vardasvapors replied to your post “Idk if you'll agree or not, but for the au where the silmarils don't...”

this is so wonderfully terrible and perfect, i love the...honesty and simplicity of the things they say, in them talking specifically about their relationship, though the feelings and Maglor's claims about finishing it can map onto much more. Also "I'd like that" JUST KILL ME.

It didn’t kill Mae though, more’s the pity :( Okay but realtalk, thank you <3 I suppose by this point all pretension’s pretty much been stripped away, they’re well past the point where lying to each other or themselves would do any good. 

valaraukars replied to your post “Ok I've find that tag .. but you actually read it? You can find it...”

You know who defied the valar? You know who doesn't get any credit? You know who is a character of true depth and nuance, constantly dismissed by an undeserving fandom? Ungoliant

No no Ungoliant, as established, abandoned her children and is a bad mother and thus a bad woman giant spider. Please keep your vile glorification of her off my blog. 

imindhowwelayinjune replied to your post “Idk if you'll agree or not, but for the au where the silmarils don't...”

You are maddeningly good at feelings that cut to the bone and somehow have this soupcon of humor - 'I'd like that,' said Maedhros wistfully - that makes the feeling go straight through the bone to the marrow

I left off the hurtful swears cause I know you don’t really mean them. Maedhros wishes feelings really worked so literally :(

[undercat-overdog]

Most versions of Celebrimbor have him being born in Aman. This has some textual support in HoME, where his mother is said to have remained in Valinor (mind, there are also some versions that have him be a Teler or a Sindarin descendant of Daeron – you have to discard some backstory with him, though there is this fantastic meta). But LotR says he's Curufin's son, and imo LotR supersedes all other canon). There's a ton of interesting things you can do with him being Amanya, particularly if he's fought at Alqualonde (you could also do neat things with his relationship with Galadriel, having known her as a leader of the Exiles and a strong proponent of going to Beleriand).

But I still really what you can do with a Celebrimbor who was born in Beleriand. Reasons below the cut.

My fondness for this has almost as much to do with the first half of the Second Age as it has to do with him. It’s a time of rebuilding, and I think it's both interesting and thematically appropriate that its leaders are not the same as the leaders of the First Age. None of them save Círdan played a major role, and Celebrimbor arguably the most minor of all (he's less important plot-wise than every other great-grandchild of Finwe's – iirc it was Christopher Tolkien who added the line about him repudiating Curufin's deeds to the Silm). I also really like having Galadriel be the only person who saw the Trees – it gives her an appropriate role as an elder, sets her apart in interesting ways from the others, and imo it takes away something from her if Celebrimbor also saw them. It also allows for a certain bond between the named Second Age characters, even if/when they don't get along personally and/or politically: this is our home, not Valinor, that land only one of us knew.

The Elves in the early Second Age are recovering from a literal apocalypse. They've lost so much, not just the land they were standing on, not just the people who died or sailed, but so much knowledge too. If Celebrimbor was born in Beleriand (particularly if he was born a century or so before the Bragollach), he hasn't had the time to learn all the lore his father and others would have taught him, or that he would have learned in Valinor, and I really like him and his colleagues having to build from the ground up not just their cities but their science-magic-art from their own minds and whatever pre-apocalyptic records made it through. (I love the whole rebuilding theme.)

Aside from that, there are some other things I like about Celebrimbor being born in Beleriand:

It allows for him to be part-Sinda and I like the Noldor not having an exclusive claim on the second greatest craftsman. They have enough of a superiority complex already. It also helps reconcile some of the various backstories.

Speaking of him being part Sinda, his attitudes towards the Kinslayings get even more complex – his family killed members of his mother's culture (his culture – I doubt he was going around identifying as a Feanorian after Nargothrond and Menegroth). You can do fun things with the politics too – Celebrimbor calling himself either a Noldo or a Sinda depending on what he's feeling or reacting to. (I also want to see him and Elwing interact, and it makes a potential relationship with her even more interesting. They have very similar stories in some ways... aside, ofc, from Celebrimbor's being a dyscatastrophe rather than a eucatastrophe.) [Edit: making his feelings about the Kinslayings complex in different way, that is.]

It also it ties into how the various Elven cultures blended and melded in Middle-Earth: Lindon and Eregion would have been as much Sindarin as Noldorin, and Greenwood as much Silvan as Sindarin. Some of the other major Second Age figures – Gil-Galad, Galadriel, Elrond – are of mixed ancestry and I like Celebrimbor being likewise.

It lets him have a really interesting dynamic with Feanor's legacy, having never met the guy. I like him having to both live up to and live down someone who's a legend, not a person he knew. The culture considers Feanor both the greatest of the Noldor and their downfall, and if you get people (some of whom knew Feanor) looking at Celebrimbor, expecting him to be the next Feanor... How does he react to that? He repudiated Feanor's mini-me, after all, but still put the Star on the Gates of Moria. I tend to think he'd express, internally or externally, the opposite of what the person he's interacting with wants him to. It's a really complicated legacy, with so much to be proud of and so much to condemn, and I like him feeling that he doesn't understand it completely, having never known Feanor.

It means he's less likely to be close to his extended family. This is part personal preference of mine (I like having Celegorm (and Huan!) be the only uncle(s) he's close to), but it also ties into how the Finweans grew apart in Beleriand – some of them disappeared and never saw their other relatives again, some of them had children that never saw their relatives, and all the ones living after the War of Wrath declined to go back to Valinor, choosing Middle-Earth over their family in Aman (who, to be fair, they didn’t know). (Galadriel’s in a slightly different situation, since she’s under the Ban, but I imagine she had a “you can't fire me, I quit” reaction.)

It means he's less likely to catch weird things about what Annatar claims his backstory is, since he's never met another Maia besides perhaps Eonwe.

Finally, I like what you can do when Celebrimbor is reborn. The children of Middle-Earth (at least those born in the First Age and later) were born into a culture where death is a thing – even a culture where death is expected. There's a collective trauma that is appropriate for Celebrimbor and the Mírdain in particular, who are explicitly working to heal the world, but I think it also means that those people who die will have an easier time returning from Mandos and re-adjusting to life, since death is simply less of a shock for them (it was always in the back of their minds that one day it could happen). Otoh, living through eternity in a land of peace will be more difficult for them to adjust to, all the more so because it's not their home – in many ways, Aman is Exile for the Úmanyar. It would be especially difficult for those who came to Aman via Mandos – and Celebrimbor in particular, with the situation he left behind, knowing he'd given Sauron the ability to make a weapon of massive power, seeing Sauron destroy his city, and then not being able to go back to help? Angst aside, I like that adjustment, that culture shock. (I also like him returning from the dead sooner than most of the rest of the Finweans – and having to deal with their reactions when he does, especially since if he was born in Beleriand he doesn't know them well or at all; it leads to an interesting dynamic, particularly with Nerdanel, particularly particularly if in looks he's yet another Curufinwe iteration.)

Thanks to kazaera for talking with me about this a while back :)