#celebrian: who’s that?

[aotearoa20]

Celeborn: I said you could bring Elrond to the council with you, not half of the free peoples of Middle Earth

Gilgalad : (close to tears) he doesn’t come separately!

Celeborn: (looking behind him) Is that then fallen hero of Gondolin!?!

Elrond: (smiling) Found him up along the way

[whorefindel]

this has me in tears yall 😭

[psstwantsomecheese]

I swear all these third generation Finweans know how to do is be bisexual, fall in love with a different species, eat hot chip and lie

[laerien]

Never got around to taking proper photos at NYCC, so bringing our Queen back out for Halloween

Bonus heavily-edited jump scare:

[lordgrimwing]

Circa early TA 2500

Celebrían loves her star-dust husband. 

She’d loved him since she first saw him—or felt something special at least, even if it had taken her a few years to realize the depth of those feelings. She hadn’t said anything at first, of course; neither had he, though it wasn’t long into their courtship before he admitted (blushing and so sweetly shy for someone nearly four hundred years her senior) as much to her. She’d stayed silent at first because she thought it was a youthful fancy, something she would forget after a few months of knowing and working beside him, and later because he was her mother’s dear friend and Galadriel certainly would not approve (she’d been wrong on that last point, at least once her mother got used to the idea). Now, there was nothing stopping her from sharing her love every day, every moment.

He had an ageless kind of quality about him. His agelessness went beyond the classical elven beauty that went unchanged by time as the centuries rolled ever onward. At first, she was hard pressed to describe precisely what that meant. After so many years of watching how his body changed with the passing time in a way no elf’s ever would, she found the words: he was ageless as the constellations; ageless as the stars that shone before the sun and the moon, before the Trees or the Lamps; ageless as Ilúvatar’s Music.

And sometimes, the divine shines through.

***

Celebrían and Elrond are in bed; she is sitting, sketching the crescent moon as it sails toward the far end of the hidden valley while he sleeps beside her. The short summer night is a few hours away from drawing the nocturnal orchestra to a close, and she listens as the sounds of birds and insects shifts toward diurnal patterns. Her charcoal whispers as she drags it softly over the linen page, filling in the last details.

She has many pages filled with drawings like this one. She never grows tired of the view across Imladris from her bed, and she likes to have a little something to keep er hands occupied on nights when she wishes to stay with her husband but has no need of sleep herself. She will show him the sketch when he wakes and tell him all about the pair of bats that play-chased each other outside while she worked.

The mattress shifts. Her hand stills as she looks over at Elrond.

He is still asleep, dark hair pooled around his head. Stars blink in his hair, weaving in and out of existence with each breath as they are so want to do these days when he cannot be troubled to hide them (it hadn’t been like that when they married. Back then, if he did not choose to share his light then it stayed hidden under his skin for the most part, and when he came to Ereinion’s court, he could not choose one way or the other, it merely happened—sometimes at very inopportune moments, which she wishes she could have seen). He sighs in his sleep and twitches.

She watches. Mannish sleep is cyclical, she’s learned, guessing he is entering the phase when his body can move but is not ready to wake up yet. She spent many nights charting the peculiar cycle and knows it well. He should wake in about an hour, perhaps an hour and a half if they are lucky. His sleep had been troubled as of late, and she’d hoped her presence would deter whatever half-forgotten memories were plaguing his rest. She sooths the back of her hand across his forehead as his breath speeds up, brushing their fëar together as she does to share the calmness of her spirit.

He seems to settle after that. For a minute, she thinks that is the end of it, that all will stay calm until he wakes, rested and happy.

Celebrían should know better by now than to tempt Doom, but she is ever optimistic.

A minute draws into two draws into five. She turns back to her drawing, picking up the charcoal stick.

A twitch of his arm and a shiver against her fëa are the only warnings before Elrond is struggling back into wakefulness, gasping like one half-drowned and fighting against the sheets to escape their confines.

Art entirely discarded, she turns back to him, pulling the bed cover down as he blinks, unfocused and shaking. Light pours from behind star-strewn eyes, leaks from the lines in his skin as he sits up. Fireflies flash in each ragged exhale. In the panicked moments between sleep and full consciousness, his elven veneer is thin and brittle.

“Elrond,” she murmurs to him. When she reaches for him, she finds his fëa has completely retreated behind thorny defenses thicker than any briar growing in Middle-earth. She doesn’t touch him yet; his heart is beating like that of a panicked deer, and she may only startle him further. “Peace, Elrond. Peace. I am here.”

Words and spirit infused with all the calm assurance and love she could pour into them, she let her presence wash over him, gentle and safe.

“Celebrían?” The whispered word comes out of his mouth half broken on a sob and repeats off the walls as though they are in a cavern. He reaches out blindly for her.

She takes his hands in hers. “Yes, love, I’m here. We are in Imladris. All is well.”

He repeats her name as he cries. Relief so thick it’s almost cloying fills the space around them. She tries to hug him, but he grips her hands tighter to stop her from moving them away from his. Instead, she rests her chin on his head, tucking him against her as she murmurs sweet nothing to him until he calms. Stars prick her skin like forgotten needles.

“Was it Sight?” She asked at last when he’d dried his face and was no longer leaking light like it would all burst out of him at any moment.

“A nightmare,” he says firmly, resolutely. He repeats the words again with a shudder.

“Of the children?”

It isn’t uncommon when Elladan and Elrohir went off traveling, as they were now, for Elrond’s sleeping mind to mix the twins into his memories of things that had or might have happened to his own twin brother and himself in war-torn Beleriand. Arwen, too, is not spared from his terrors. The great evils of that time are long banished, but that detail is easily forgotten in the throes of a nightmare.

“Orcs,” he shudders but tells her no more.

She refrains from pushing him. She knows he will tell her more if needed to rid himself of the last of the dream. She strokes his stary hair as they sit entwined, waiting for the sun to rise.

[iamnotshazam]

acidentally plunged myself into the idea that Arwen, daughter of First Age survivor Elrond and poor sweet Celebrían, granddaughter of Middle-earth's OG elvish battle-queen Artanis "I Possibly Took Part in All Three Kinslayings and All I Got Was a Loving Husband" Galadriel, and a long-time seasoned traveler between Rivendell and Lothlórien, has all the exact same incredible wilderness survival and combat skills as Aragorn

but nobody in Minas Tirith realizes this until, one afternoon when the Queen is inexplicably late to some court function, a vaguely familiar mud-splattered walking clod of earth dances up to Elessar Telcontar I, King of the Reunited Kingdom of Gondor and Arnor, and he sighs and lets the apparition kiss him on the cheek.

"I thought I saw one of the mearas and grew distracted," the Thing says to him, sheepishly. It scrapes a bit more mess off of its face and reveals grey eyes that are still not-quite mortal.

"You should have known, then, that you wouldn't be able to catch it," the King says back, clearly teasing.

The eldritch ball of dirt that grew legs and walked into court giggles and twines a curl of something that might have once resembled long shining dark hair around its finger. It now resembles nothing so much as seaweed that somehow took on the quality of Ithilien topsoil. "I am back in time to clean up before dinner, at least."

"Well, at least your priorities are in the correct order, dear," the King says. And with that the amalgam of woman and wilderness gathered from at least half the length of the Pelennor Fields turns and goes to Queen Arwen's chambers to order a bath.

the military leader the King was just speaking with: "hey sir what the Fuck"

"oh that's Strider's wife, don't mind her"

[runawaymun]

some Celrond smoochies warmup sketches

[holysappho]

now why am i seeing age gap discourse about celebrian and elrond….

THEY’RE ELVES

[gwaedhannen]

I wonder if Elladan and Elrohir don't go to Valinor because they're afraid of showing their mother what they turned themselves into to avenge her.

[anetherealpoetess]

Celebrían was the Lady of Rivendell, the daughter of Galadriel and Celeborn, and the wife of Elrond. She was the mother of Arwen and the twins Elrohir and Elladan.

[ghostinthetumbchine]

No no listen. I just read an amazing fic about how the crown stab made Gal pregnant w a miracle baby and while in the fic it was a lure, the idea has now colonised my brain.

Think about what a fascinating, delicious twist on the Virgin Mary allegations it would be, what a powerful confrontation with both of their deepest, unadmitted desires, what a great manifestation of the foreshadowing in the (obviously false) story of mithril, of the "what is beauty if born from evil? no less beautiful" line it would be

If Celebrian turned out to be a Magic Special Baby, daughter of Galadriel, created in the powerful, soul deep confrontation of representants of light and dark who secretly share a cosmic soul bond, unexplainable to anyone else. The music created from the shocking harmony between the Lady of Light and Lord of Darkness and completely unexpected because nothing like this has ever happened before

[oroniel]

This little exchange from Ep. 2.02 is giving me pause -

Cirdan: Do you not wish to live in beauty?

Elrond: What is beauty if it is born in part from evil?

Cirdan: No less beautiful.

Elrond: Not to me.

The way that this could be interpreted to hint at some of the (supposedly) wilder fan theories! It would be incredibly ironic if Elrond had to eat his words when he falls in love with a half-Maia Celebrian.

Or maybe it's just a veiled real-world commentary on learning to be okay with beautiful art produced by problematic artists. Who can say.

[corsairspade]

They say that mice speak to ravens- or at least that ravens speak to Mouse.

[tanoraqui]

The Rise and Fall of Empires

Chapter 9: The Downfall of Númenor

24 Days Before the Fall of Númenor

The plan had been, wait for Ar-Pharazón and his fleet to get halfway to Aman, then break every Palantir connection between them and anyone else, cueing everyone else to start their coordinated military campaigns, slave rebellions, etc. On the mighty Isle of Númenor itself, they’d been going to stage a smooth coup in favor of Míriel and get everyone not rabidly a King’s Man off the island, before setting off the volcano in their wake and leaving the rest to Ulmo.

No plan, however, survives contact with the enemy. In this case the enemies were fear, ignorance, and several decades—several centuries—of pent-up aggression between the various political factions of the Númenorean Empire.

“I told you I could’ve started a civil war in just a few years,” Annatar said idly, sitting on the plinth that had once hosted the King’s Square Temple statue of Morgoth-as-Fëanor-as-a-Man. 

[keep reading on AO3]

[g00seg1raffe]

And now, the thrilling sequel: Celebrían, Elrohir, Elladan and Arwen’s names!

I’m not touching their titles with a 6 foot pole. I'm sorry but this already took like 7 hours and I do actually have work I’m meant to be doing. It also makes my life easier that the kids do not need two separate identities from each side of the family since their parents are not mortal enemies who murder each other, which is half the amount of work for everyone. :)

*

Celebrían

Celebrían, Celeboriel a Galadrien, Hîril Imladris

Teleperína, Teleporniel ye Alatárien

Tyelperína, Telporniel Naltarienyë, Heri Arcimbele

Celebrían = Sindarin meaning silver queen, from celeb = silver and rían = queen/crowned lady.

Celeboriel = Sindarin meaning daughter of Celeborn, from Celeborn (minus -n for smoother pronunciation) and -iel = daughter of.

Galadrien = Sindarin meaning daughter of Galadriel, from Galadriel (minus -l for smoother pronunciation) and -ien = an alternative form of -iel meaning daughter of.

A = Sindarin meaning and.

.

Hîril Imaldris = Sindarin meaning lady of Rivendell, from hîril = lady, feminine equivalent to Elrond’s hîr, and Imladris = Rivendell.

Teleperína = Telerin meaning silver-crowned, from telpe = silver and rían = crowned. (Technically rían is Quenya but whatever, Tolkein loves his mutually-intelligible languages so I can do what I want.)

Teleporniel = Telerin meaning daughter of Telepornë (Celeborn’s Telerin name), from Telepornë and -iel = daughter of.

Alatárien = Telerin meaning daughter of Alatáriel (Galadriel’s Telerin name), from Alatáriel and -ien = an alternative form of -iel meaning daughter of.

Ye = Telerin meaning and, specifically for two items.

.

Tyelperína = Quenya meaning silver-crowned, from tyelpë = silver (the archaic inflection of the Teleri-influenced telpë, probably used exclusively by Fëanorians due to their little pet peeves about linguistic purity) and rína = crowned.

Telporniel = Quenya meaning daughter of Teleporno (Celeborn’s Quenya name), from Teleporno and -iel = daughter of.

Naltarien = Telerin meaning daughter of Naltariel (Galadriel’s Quenya name), from Naltariel and -ien = an alternative form of -iel meaning daughter of.

-Yë = Quenya suffix meaning and, used when combining two titles into one rather than in daily use.

Indori Arcimbele = Quenya meaning lady of Rivendell, from indori = lady or mistress of a house, the likely feminine of Elrond’s indor, and Arcimbele = Rivendell.

.

Why no Telerin ‘Lady of Rivendell’? because I can’t figure out how to translate that, so I’m going to invent some reasons why she would never use Telerin enough to bother translating her titles.

Galadriel speaks both Quenya and Telerin - which are very similar and mutually intelligible but not actually the same - and was originally named in both, due to having a Noldorin father and a Telerin mother.

Crimes are committed and Quenya is banned. Telerin sounds close enough to Quenya that you’ll get arrested for speaking it, and people aren’t very sympathetic when she explains that it’s not actually Quenya but a different language that sounds exactly like Quenya that is also spoken in Valinor alongside Quenya, and in fact they share many words so it is really very, very close to Quenya - but I swear it isn’t actually Quenya. (It’s also close enough to set off Celeborn’s PTSD-induced anti-Noldor squick.) So, Galadriel attempts to distance herself as far away from Quenya and Telerin as possible while she remains in Middle-Earth.

In fact, there was a lot of soul-searching that took place before she decided to name her daughter in Telerin as well as Sindarin, and she never did name Celebrían in Quenya at all.

So Celebrían grew up speaking Sindarin exclusively, because while she does, intellectually, know how to speak Telerin because her mother sat her down and taught her, she has no real connection to the language. And, of course, Quenya is for war criminals…

…And apparently kind-hearted half-elven bad-boys with the most adorable dimples like Elrond, who is so whole-heartedly, incandescently in love with his House and his heritage that it’s contagious. So Celebrían drags out her never-used Telerin name and translates it into Quenya so that she can enjoy being Noldorin with her husband. It’s very sweet.

Of course, she does then decide she wants to connect with her Telerin heritage as well, but, well, there aren’t many Teleri in Middle Earth, so that has to wait until she sails to Valinor…

*

Elladan

Elladan, Elrondion a Celebríon

Laurefinwë Eldatan, Elerondion Tyelperínionyë

Elladan = Sindarin meaning Elf-Man, from eledh = Elf and adan = Man.

Elrondion = Sindarin meaning son of Elrond, from Elrond and -ion = son of.

Celebríon = Sindarin meaning son of Celebrían, from Celebrían (-an dropped for smoother pronunciation) and -ion = son of.

A = Sindarin meaning and.

.

Laurefinwë = Quenya meaning golden Finwë, from laurë = golden (of light, not the metal) and Finwë.

Eldatan = Quenya meaning Elf-Man, from elda = Elf and atan = Man.

No epessë = I couldn't think of a good one and neither could he. Suggestions welcome.

Elerondion = Quenya meaning son of Elerondo (Elrond’s Quenya name), from Elerondo and -ion = son of.

Tyelperínion = Quenya meaning son of Tyelperína (Celebrían’s Quenya name), from Tyeperína and -ion = son of.

-Yë = Quenya suffix meaning and, used when combining two titles into one rather than in daily use.

.

Why Laurefinwë?

Glorfindel/Laurefindelë my beloved!

Maglor/Makalaurë my extremely problematic but still very beloved genocidal mass-murdering kidnapper-turned-father!

Celeborn, my dearly beloved father-in-law who takes every opportunity to insult my family and heritage, may I present your grandson, whose father-name, which follows the Fëanorian family tradition, is a tribute to the name of your realm (Lóþlaurien, from lós/lóþ = flower, laurë = golden and -ien = land) translated into the illegal language and accent of the famous war criminals who destroyed your old realm of Doriath! (Celebrían loves Elrond’s blatantly passive-agressive responses to people’s prejudice and is a terrible enabler.)

Note: a more sensible translation of Lothlórien would be Lóslórien = flower dreamland, but in the interests of pissing off the father-in-law some sacrifices must be made

*

Elrohir

Elrohir, Elrondion a Celebríon

Tyelpefinwë Eldaroquen, Elerondion Tyelperínionyë

Elrohir = Sindarin meaning Elf-knight, from eledh = elf and ro(c)hir = knight. Ro(c)hir is a combination of roch = horse and hîr = lord.

Elrondion = Sindarin meaning son of Elrond, from Elrond and -ion = son of.

Celebríon = Sindarin meaning son of Celebrían, from Celebrían (-an dropped for smoother pronunciation) and -ion = son of.

A = Sindarin meaning and.

.

Tyelpefinwë = Quenya meaning silver Finwë, from tyelpe = silver (archaic form of the later, Teleri-influenced telpe) and Finwë. 

Eldaroquen = Quenya meaning Elf-horseman, from Elda = elf and roquen = horseman. Roquen is a combination of rocco = horse and quen = person. (Hence, the Quenya is gender neutral, do with that what you will)

No epessë = I couldn't think of a good one and neither could he. Suggestions welcome.

Elerondion = Quenya meaning son of Elerondo (Elrond’s Quenya name), from Elerondo and -ion = son of.

Tyelperínion = Quenya meaning son of Tyelperína (Celebrían’s Quenya name), from Tyeperína and -ion = son of.

-Yë = Quenya suffix meaning and, used when combining two titles into one rather than in daily use.

.

Why Tyelpëfinwë?

Celebrían/Telperína my beloved!

Celebrimbor/Tyelperinquar/Tyelpë my beloved, you deserved so much better than Þauron and even though we’re still dealing with the fallout of your arts and crafts project two ages later, we still think you were awesome!

Celeborn/Telporno my dearly, dearly beloved bastard of a father-in-law, meet your grandson, whose father-name, which follows the family tradition of the fuckers who destroyed your birth-city of Doriath, is a tribute to your own name, translated into the specific archaic accent that they used (tyelpë) due to being linguistic purists rather than the still-effectively-illegal-but-not-quite-as-bad Telerin inflection used in your own name (telepë) to distance yourself from the mass-murderers whose adopted son your daughter has married! (Celeborn almost disowns the brat on the spot.)

*

Arwen

Arwen, Elrenniel a Celebríel

Þerifinwë Arwen Undómiel, Elerondiel Tyelperínielyë

Arwen = Sindarin meaning noble maiden, from ara = noble and gwenn = maiden.

Elrenniel = Sindarin meaning daughter of Elrond, from Elrond (why it’s changed to Elrenn- I have no idea) and -iel = daughter of.

Celebríon = Sindarin meaning daugher of Celebrían, from Celebrían (-an dropped for smoother pronunciation) and -iel = daugher of.

A = Sindarin meaning and.

.

Þerifinwë = Quenya meaning broideress Finwë, from þerindë = broideress, Fëanorian þþþ inflection of serindë, and Finwë.

Arawendë = Quenya meaning noble maiden, from Ara- = noble and -wendë = maiden. Almost invariably shortened to Arwen, just as Finwë's youngest daughter Lalwendë went by Lalwen.

Undómiel = Quenya meaning Evenstar

Elerondiel = Quenya meaning daughter of Elerondo (Elrond’s Quenya name), from Elerondo and -iel = daughter of.

Tyelperíniel = Quenya meaning daughter of Tyelperína (Celebrían’s Quenya name), from Tyeperína and -iel = daughter of.

-Yë = Quenya suffix meaning and, used when combining two titles into one rather than in daily use.

.

Why Þerifinwë?

She sews. And embroiders. And weaves. And knits and crochets and makes lace and spins thread and that’s her craft/special interest, ok? She’s damn good at it. She makes Aragon’s standard for the Battle of the Black Gate, the final confrontation of Þauron in the War of the Ring, emblem of hope and faith in humanity, a bright dawn of the Age of Men - that shit is important.

Míriel Þerindë my beloved! Y’know, the one who kickstarted literally the entire history of Middle-Earth with her death? The favourite devotee of Vairë, Weaver of Time? The one who channelled her Sight through her craft and ended up making a tapestry predicting, with staggering accuracy, the downfall of her lineage throughout the First Age? The one whose devotion to her yet-unborn-family was so strong that she chose to fade into Mandos to become one of Vairë’s assistants - basically promoting herself to the role of a minor deity - so that she might just have the chance to redeem something, anything, for her children? The one who caused the rocks to clatter just so in the cave where Elrond and Elros hid, leading to Maglor finding and raising them, the greatest thing the House of Fëanor ever did and the sole exception to the Doom of the Noldor: to evil end shall all things turn that they begin well? Yeah, I think she’s a pretty cool person to be named after.

Seriously, Arwen had to choose the Gift of Men, because Mandos couldn’t handle three badass weavers who quietly hold absolute dominion over the fate of Eä.

Celeborn, my most beloved father-in-law, have yet another grandchild named after problematic members of the House of Fëanor! (Headcanon that the shared Finwëan love language is pissing eachother off.)

*

In conclusion:

Celebrían, Celeboriel a Galadrien, Hîril Imladris

Teleperína, Teleporniel ye Alatárien

Tyelperína, Telporniel Naltarienyë, Heri Arcimbele

Elladan, Elrondion a Celebríon

Laurefinwë Eldatan, Elerondion Tyelperínionyë

Elrohir, Elrondion a Celebríon

Tyelpefinwë Eldaroquen, Elerondion Tyelperínionyë

Arwen, Elrenniel a Celebríel

Þerifinwë Arwen Undómiel, Elerondiel Tyelperínielyë

I have no life

[nanawaffles]

this fandom makes me want to smack people sometimes