#gil-galad's still the king who rebuilt a large portion of elvendom in middle-earth and stood against sauron regardless of whose son he is

[thevalleyisjolly]

Crack AU concept: Every Second Age Finwëan apart from Galadriel doesn’t actually have the origin they’re commonly purported to have:

No one is sure of Gil-Galad’s parentage because he’s actually a highly competent Green-Elf who looked around at the general chaos and destruction near the end of the First Age, sighed, rolled up his sleeves, and decided that someone had to start taking responsibility for this shit.  Look, he never actually stated that he was anyone’s son, it’s just that people are more likely to listen to someone named “Scion of Kings” than they are to a random (if exceedingly capable) elf, and the assumptions kind of snowballed from there.  His favourite pastime is dropping contradictory hints about his parentage and watching the ensuing confusion.

The fact of the matter is, Celebrimbor is a popular name among Elves.  There was a Celebrimbor of Gondolin and a Celebrimbor of Doriath and even a Falmari Celebrimbor, formerly of Aman, who insists that he was the first Celebrimbor.  They also all happened to be very skilled craftspeople so maybe there’s something to the name after all.  So when a dark haired Elf with incredible skills in craft shows up in Lindon after the war calling himself Celebrimbor, son of Curufin, the only part that anyone bats an eye at is the “son of Curufin” part because who would knowingly associate themselves with the House of Fëanor in this day and age?  Surely nobody would lie about that, and if they wouldn’t lie about that, why would they lie about anything else?

When it comes down to it, nobody really understands what it means to be peredhel, and especially not when it comes to their lifespan and aging.  Furthermore, nobody really knows what happened to Elwing’s sons after the Third Kinslaying; everybody just assumed they were taken hostage and/or killed.  Therefore, when during the War of Wrath, a pair of grown, clearly half-elven twins with a strong resemblance to Lúthien wash up in Balar, everybody assumes (with more than a little wishful thinking) that they must be Elwing’s sons, miraculously spared by the Fëanorians.  As for the twins themselves, they feel more than a little guilty about assuming the identities of the nephews they never met, but they also figure that if they told the truth of their survival, they might be disbelieved or taken for spies of Morgoth, so they’ll go along with it for now and if their nephews do turn up, they’ll deal with it then?

(They did actually turn up a few decades into the Second Age, having been in the East where Maglor sent them before shit really started going down.  They’re honestly just delighted to have living family more or less on this side of the Sea, and agree that it’d be too much of a bother to reverse the identity confusion now.  One of them decides to go back east to the Greenwood where he’d made some good friends with the Silvan elves there, the other stays on with “Elrond” as a councillor and ambiguous “kinsman” who helps him fill in any missing details in the story)

Out of all of them, Celebrían is actually the child of Galadriel and Celeborn.  Sometimes people are a little confused because they heard once that her parents had a son, Amroth, but it’s chalked down to poor communication and confusion with Amdír’s son since Amdír was friends with her parents.  Celebrían thinks it was incredibly tacky to give your child the same name as your friend’s child, so really, she was doing her parents a big favour by renaming herself Celebrían.  And honestly, while they don’t mind being Amroth (the superior Amroth because Amdírion is an idealistic romantic with his head in the clouds), they also like being Celebrían a little more. 

(Galadriel concedes that naming them Amroth was not the most creative move and that Celeborn possibly lost a bet with Amdír before their birth, but she also thinks that Celebrían could do better than the lady of a little valley in the middle of nowhere, so really, Celebrían’s had enough of her mother’s advice for the next long-year or two)

+Gildor never claimed to be Finrod’s son, he’s just never actually disclosed how they’re related and since none of the other Finwëans (real or otherwise) have ever said anything about it, people just sort of follow their lead and assume it’s a non-issue.  It’s actually the most mundane thing ever - his parents were among Finrod’s retainers in Aman and crossed the Ice with him; when they were both slain in the Dagor Aglareb, Finrod took the young Gildor on as a ward of his House.