#gilthawen

[tathrin]

Quick little designs for a few of the elves of Mirkwood from my fics.

Height not exactly to scale, because it was a very small doodle, but generally accurate. Rílaerloth should be buffer tbh, but I was running out of room on the paper I was doodling on when I got to her so she accidentally got a little skinny because I was trying too hard to squeeze her in, sorry. Also there isn’t any embroidery or patterning on anything not because they dress bland in Mirkwood but because again: very small doodle. We’re talking each elf up there was drawn smaller than one of my fingers, so. Not a lot of space there to fit in smaller details.

Third Age designs for everyone except for Gilthawen and Oropher, who didn’t live to see the end of the Second; they’re in their Last Alliance gear.

[tathrin]

The file titled Oropher’s Return?

A response to this WIP Weekend game.

Thank you for asking! I haven't written anything on that one in quite a while, and it was good to get it going again because it really is a fun one. I'm not sure if we're supposed to post what we write for this or not, so in case we are here it is:

"Imagine my surprise," Nellglind drawled, "when I returned to life only to be confronted with an entire forest of Wood-elves I had never met before who wished to adopt me, while the Noldor and the Vanyar kept trying to convince all of us that I ought to be calling myself their king." "But that is not true at all," Angmeril laughed. "You returned to life almost two thousand years before I was forced to Sail here, and there was no Greenwood in Aman before that. You seemed to be quite happy living among the other Sindar of Doriath before you came to our woods." "If you wish to be strictly accurate about the order of events, then yes," Nellglind allowed, "that is how it went. But you must admit that it was a shocking thing to learn that my own husband had become a king of a people I had never met, regardless of how long I had to digest the story before there were any of you here on these shores so that I might see the results myself." "Well, I am glad that you came to see them, regardless of when it happened," Oropher said. "And that you have learned to love them, too." "Of course," Nellglind scoffed. "How could I not come meet my own daughter-in-law the moment I heard she was on these shores? And of course I fell in love with her immediately, for how could one do otherwise with such a charming elleth?" "That is also untrue," Angmeril said, laughing harder than before. "You found me to be absolutely irksome when first we met, and we both know it. There is no call to pretend otherwise now." "True," Nellglind shrugged, "but I found Oropher irksome, too. Being irked is how I fall in love." Oropher laughed very loudly, and pulled Nellglind in close to kiss his ear, and said, "That is true indeed, fortunately for me!" Gimli had not been able to keep from snickering at that. Legolas shooting him a scowl that said he knew exactly why Gimli was laughing had not helped, and he had to press his mouth into his beard to try and stifle his amusement. "You can be irksome too, you know," Legolas muttered. "True," Gimli said, still chortling. "But this is one contest in which I fear you shall always best me, my dear Legolas!" Legolas muttered something very vulgar in Sindarin in response, and Angmeril laughed so hard that her mother frowned in concern and told her to be careful she did not fall from the log on which she sat and roll into the fire. That, of course, had only made them all laugh harder. Then Oropher had asked his husband, "Have people really been pressing you to declare yourself king of the Greenwood?" Nellglind responded with a grimace that was almost as eloquent as Legolas's cursing and said, "Yes. It is the most nonsensical, irritating—" "They do the same to me," Angmeril said, scowling. "At least you have actually been to the forest whose echo they now want us to rule," Nellglind griped. "I have never even seen the original Greenwood!" "These Noldor do love their crowns," Oropher snorted. "Perhaps if they had ever learned to love their kith and kin as highly, they would not have been so quick to spill elvish blood in the pursuit of jewels and power." "We are not going to get into all of that," Nellglind declared firmly. "You have only just returned from the Halls of Mandos, and this is a night for joy. Not for dwelling on our losses and our sorrows." "My sorrows are all abated now that you are at my side once more," Oropher declared, his sharp eyes softening with warm affection. Then he frowned and glanced at Gilthawen and asked, "Is not your husband here as well?" "No," Gilthawen said, her voice very quiet. "He was not here when I disembarked," Angmeril told them all. "Whatever happened to my father after he left the Greenwood, he did not make it to Aman." Oropher reached over and took Gilthawen's hand. "I am sorry," he said. Gilthawen mustered a smile. "I am sorry, too. But we parted long ago, and by his choosing. I will not waste my days mourning him now." "Quite right!" Oropher declared, and stood to pour them all more wine.

[tathrin]

I’ve been working on that LotR Zombie AU that I talked about a while ago, and it’s been fun! I’m actually several chapters in, and still enjoying it mightily, so I’ll hopefully start actually posting it soon but.

I keep going back-and-forth on whether or not I want to include this chapter or not. It’s pure exposition scene-setting, and while I enjoyed writing it and it was very helpful initially when I was figuring out the background for it all, it’s mostly exposition that gets covered better in other places now.

And I just can’t find a good place to insert it. I keep moving it around in between other chapters, and every time I’m like “yes, there, it fits there”...until I change my mind and move it again. So I think it might be time to just admit that it doesn’t fit anywhere, and cut it completely.

But before I do that, I figure I might as well share it with all of you:

It started, at least in Mirkwood, when the king came home. He was dead, of course; had been dead for three thousand years at that point. The world had changed so much in the years since his death that he would have barely recognized it—had he been conscious enough to see the lands he walked through. But he wasn't; he was dead.

He was Dead, and the Dead followed after.

Oropher, and Gilthawen, and Rhosslas, and Teithion, and Hebinastor, and all the others who had died with their king in the land of Mordor where the shadows lie. It started when the dead came home.

Their bodies should have rotted away to nothing long ago, nothing but the ghosts of dead faces staring up unseeing forever out of the fetid waters. They should have; but the Necromancer who had ruled that dark land, who had clawed his way out of his own grave more than once before, had left a mark on Mordor too deep to be erased even by his own destruction.

He had been a craftsman, after all, that maia once called Sauron and once called Mairon and even, once, named Annatar. He had been a craftsman, and his favorite medium was souls.

Perhaps someone should have worried more about those bodies in the Dead Marshes outside the land of Mordor. Perhaps someone should have worried sooner about the way their faces did not fade from the foul waters, even when their flesh was centuries gone.

Perhaps someone should have remembered that “Necromancer” had been one of the names by which he had been known, too. Perhaps someone should have remembered why.

The bodies in the Dead Marshes had drained to dust and rot centuries ago, leaving nothing but dead echoes rippling in the water. But that water lay outside a Necromancer's lair, in lands that had been long poisoned by his arts. Dead and gone they were, those Men and Dwarves and Elves and Orcs who had died fighting there so long ago; dead and gone and rotting…

But even dead, the echoes of their souls endured. Trapped, corrupted, their spirits rotting from within, they endured. And, eventually, they Rose.

The Risen Dead were no army to be commanded by the Wraiths who held dominion over the ruin of Mordor now. Their unliving corpses were driven only by hunger for life, for flesh.

Many of the Dead eventually followed the smell and sound and flickering lights of a great city to Minas Tirith, and there they fell on the white walls of Gondor's great capital first in a trickle and then as a tide. By the time the city knew to shut its gates, death was already inside the walls. An army of the dead stands there now—frothing and snapping, moaning with mindless hunger—outside the walls they cannot breach, while the few who slipped inside before the gates were shut lurch and spread through the winding tiers of the city so that Minas Tirith rots from within.

Others scattered, wandering off in whatever direction their lifeless eyes turned to in pursuit of any whisper of life that caught their senseless attention enough to draw them onwards. The Dead are everywhere now, found far beyond the reach of the rotting legs of those first corpses, for their infection spreads even faster than they do: it passes silently through air and water, undetected, not strong enough to kill…but inescapable, too. Now those dead who die in Middle-earth by other means Rise as well, and they spread the infection ever onwards in a growing wave of corpses and moans.

But Oropher…Oropher came back to Mirkwood.

Some said it was Dol Guldur looming like a lodestone, drawing the Dead. Others said it was because even in death, the forest still called her old king home.

Whatever the reason, he came, and Death followed with him.

Oropher came home, and the Rising began.

[tathrin]

For the unusual OC asks: 6, 12, and/or 18 for Tarlas? Thanks!

Ooh, Tarlas! Fascinating choice, thank you, I have done very little concrete thinking about him yet actually, so this is a lovely opportunity to stop and make my brain go "hmm" about him for a while, thank you for asking. [From this ask meme.]

6. Do they consider laws flexible, or immovable?

I think that the way I've been writing Green/Mirkwood's culture and society makes for an extremely low-key, flexible place in this regard, in that they may not have ever even gone to the effort of codifying their standards and expectations into laws; despite having an ostensible king, they're very much a govern-by-consensus-and-vibes place (Oropher only got a crown because they realized they need a king to make everybody else take them seriously when they joined the Last Alliance and he got picked on the basis of "seems to know what he's talking about"; Thranduil inherited because Elendil and Gil-galad and everyone assumed that when Oropher died the crown would pass to him, and Greenwood went "oh okay sure why not") and the forest itself is a weird semi-sentient component in their society too, so...flexible, definitely flexible.

However, Tarlas personally is probably one of the less flexible of the Green/Mirkwood elves (which is why he and his husband, Tiraran, butt heads so much) and in a more structured society he would likely have ended up developing into a real rules-stickler sort of person — although still with a certain amount of flexibility for the sake of compassion, because if they were taking votes on which member of the Scary Spider Forest most merited the "kind as summer" label, he would probably win.

12. How do they deal with an itch found in a place they can’t quite reach?

He's married to a pretty tall dude and is bffs with an extremely tall king (this applies regardless of which of them is king at the time) so that's not usually a problem for him. Also, if none of them are around, he can probably get a tree to help him out because Green/Mirkwood is nice (to its elves anyway) like that.

18. What embarrasses them?

Ooh...honestly, everything probably XD I'm kidding, but Tarlas just seems like he veers between "sedately unruffled" and "ball of anxiety" with very little middle-ground in between. I say "seems" because I've only actually written him in one scene so far, and that was a scene that wasn't really focused on him or his feelings but rather him comforting someone else, so his actual personality may develop differently once I start writing him properly. But my initial concept of him is of someone easy to fluster (and one of the only people in the whole forest who can fluster the much more stoic Tiraran).

The original "unofficial ruling quartet of Greenwood" pre-Last Alliance is: Tiraran (who would be very sensible if he didn't have terrifying taste in friends and absolutely no concept of self-preservation oh dear), Oropher (who would punch god and laugh about it; easily makes everyone else look cautious and retiring), Gilthawen (who is all sensible-mom-energy on the surface but if you look at who her friends are you realize that her prudence maybe doesn't go as deep as she thinks it does), and Tarlas (who is the designated keeper of the braincell until he gets flustered, at which point Tiraran takes over custody...at least until they all collectively yeet the braincell into the forest and go full "charge 'em and they scatter" in grand Tolkien tradition).

...and you know what, since my brain is now churning on the subject, I think I might go work on some fic with the Mirkwood elves right now. Thank you for the inspiration!

[tathrin]

how would we give you a dwarf oc to borrow if we wanted to? asking for a friend

Ooh! Well, you can message me here, reblog or reply to the original post, leave it as a comment on the fic, write a post and tag or send it to me, whatever. I'm not picky about the format!

Unless you're asking more "how do I wrap-up a character and give them to someone else to use" than just logistically? If that's the case, just the basic foundational info about them would be great. I'll use some of the notes I keep on my Mirkwood elves to illustrate.

Merilgais — Silvan. oak-brown hair, grey eyes, elm-brown cheeks. Youngest daughter of Gilthawen, younger sister of Angmeril and Rhosslas. Short, wiry, fiercely cheerful. Sharp-featured, knife-blade smiles. Moves like a hummingbird; has trouble sitting still. Joy is spite against the Enemy so she is determined to be happy no matter what. Irreverent both by nature and in order to keep up other people's spirits; considers that her primary role in the forest. Prefers to fight with long-handled weapons. Favors a glaive but always carries a long knife too (sometime the trees are too thick for anything longer). Quick to anger and quick to laugh and quickest to throw herself into a fight. Crass and blunt, for an elf. (Learned a lot of swear words from Men during the Last Alliance.) Spent the three thousand years after the war refusing promotion to gon of a Greenwood company; finally reluctantly accepted a command shortly before the War of the Ring. Does not act respectful towards anyone "in authority" (including herself) but isn't as loose-canon as she seems: she respects experience and skill, just doesn't respect acting respectful. Treats Thranduil like a cross between a too-serious big brother whom it's her duty to bedevil into laughing and a climbing gym. Likes to be up high. Never met a tree (or tall person) she didn't want to scale.

Not that it has to be that detailed; there's just a lot to say about Merilgais (most in a tone of exasperation, I'm sure). Something more like this would work wonderfully too:

Ladinion — Silvan. beech-pale skin, cloud-pale brown hair. Gangly. Approx. sixty years older than Legolas. Earnest, anxious. Good archer, lacks confidence. Close to Gladhanar, but can get bowled-over by his friend's confidence and boisterousness. Particularly fair singing voice, although he is shy and sings only quietly and in groups unless pressed by his friends. Prone to blushing.

Tulinwen — Silvan. russet-brown skin, stormcloud-silver hair. Delicate-featured even for an elf, almost dainty. A little shorter than average. Has one wooden leg, cut-off a few inches below the knee. A singer and an archer, particularly renowned for her knack for shooting spiders dead right through the eyes. Shrewd, analytical, doesn't speak until she's thought things through.

Just a sort of quick cliff-notes "here's so-and-so." Does that help? (I hope so! Crossing my fingers for imminent dwarves!)

[tathrin]

No I’m not having too much fun designing Greenwood/Mirkwood’s elves for my stories why do you ask.

1. Oropher  - first king of Greenwood. would punch god. no chill. 2. Thranduil - second king of Greenwood. prince of sass. 3. Legolas - oh sweet summer child. 4. Rílaerloth - too much big sister energy in one container. 5. Angmeril - punched gil-galad once. not sorry. 6. Merilgais - SHE HAS A KNIFE 7. Tiraran - keeper of Greenwood’s one brain-cell. very gay. 8.  Tarlas - married to the braincell keeper. shares custody sometimes. 9. Eregmegil - tall. broad. very chill. might actually be a tree. 10. Gilthawen - did not ask for any of this. and yet here we are.

[picrew source]

[tathrin]

Either I got an anon asking if Gilthawen was Thranduil’s queen and deleted it, or I dreamed that I got an anon asking if Gilthawen was Thranduil’s queen, and tbh at this point in my brain I’m genuinely not sure. So either way here’s a quick (silly) run-down on the cast:

Oropher, Thranduil, and Legolas you obviously know (I assume).

Angmeril is the one who marries Thranduil actually, although they were very Stoic Warrior Bros about it when they first realized they like-liked each other during the Last Alliance, because they had Their Duties To Consider, and didn’t actually get together (or talk about it except That One Time Vaguely, as you do) until after they got home. She has the standard “no, fewer battles than that pls” Greenwood energy, but is (relatively speaking) Very ResponsibleTM most of the time because she’s trying to live up to mum’s example and be a Dutiful Leader. Deadpan humor, mean right hook. Likes short weapons so she can make sure her enemy is dead up close and personal. Y’know, ladylike queen shit.

Merilgais was pretty young when she want to war and lost her mum and now is basically feral. But a really cheerful feral! (tbh she was kind of feral to begin with.) On one hand, you definitely want her with you in a sketchy bar, because she is always down to fight so she’ll have your back when a brawl inevitably starts. On the other hand, you don’t want her with you, because she will also 100% start the brawl if one doesn’t happen naturally. Think: Gabby Kinney, Middle-earth style. Is single-handedly responsible for at least 60% of everyone else’s (metaphorical*) grey hair. (Thranduil gets the other 40%.) Likes big long weapons for causing maximum chaos.

*elves have silver hair, not grey. we get it, professor.

Gilthawen was the mother of Angermil and Merilgais. They’re all native Silvan elves of Greenwood. She was a commander in Greenwood’s army in the Last Alliance and basically Oropher’s #2 during the war. They die together in the fatal charge, Gilthawen crumpled over the body of the king she died knowing she’d failed to save (because Greenwood is a tragedy underneath a golden smile, even when I’m being flippant). Always felt sort of guilty for bringing her daughters to war, but given the stakes she couldn’t come up with an argument good enough to justify stopping them. One of the few contenders in this madcap forest for role of The Sensible OneTM. That’s why chaos won and Greenwood is Like ThatTM now I guess: no more Sensible Mom Energy.

Tiraran is basically second-in-command after Thranduil, and oversees the warriors of Greenwood. He’s one of the oldest native-to-Greenwood elves still living (since most of them died in the L.A.) and was Oropher’s first good buddy in the forest. Often serves as the closest thing Greenwood gets to a voice of reason, which isn’t saying much. Generally unruffleable, so when he loses his cool you know shit’s hit the fan. Super loyal to Thranduil, but will not hesitate to tell him he’s being a dick. (Will also just smirk to himself silently watching the dick-moves when he thinks they’re funny.) Just because he can recognize what would be the sensible course of action doesn’t mean he’ll do it, though. He’s still a Greenwood dude.

Tarlas is Thranduil’s closest councilor and is the dude whom Oropher left in charge when he went to the Last Alliance. Favors speechcraft over warfare, and is probably 80% of Thranduil’s impulse control in any given negotiation. He and Tiraran disagree in just about every situation which makes them very effective advice-giving-partners actually, and they basically tag-teamed their way through the Third Age holding Greenwood (and Thranduil) together with spit and elf-tape. Eventually the dumbasses realized that they liked arguing a little too much and got married. This did not make them start agreeing on anything, they just smooch too.

Rílaerloth takes after both her aunt Merilgais and her grandad a little too much for her own health or anyone else’s good, and Legolas would like to point-out that having an older sister who is two thousand years older than you is unfair on many levels actually. Very much embraces the Greenwood Style of yeeting herself into combat even especially when the enemy is seven times her size. Teases her brother mercilessly. Believes that having fun is a way of fighting the Shadow, or at least giving it the metaphorical middle finger. Would give it the actual middle finger too if someone ever introduces that gesture to Middle-earth. Would probably get on super-well with both Boromir and Éomer; less so Faramir or Frodo.

Eregmegil is a Sindar elf who followed Oropher to Greenwood (or the son of two who did; I'm still going back and forth on whether or not he’s old enough to actually remember Doriath). Now he’s Mister Stoic Warrior Guy who is super zen about all things no matter how crazy everybody else gets about shit. Might make for a good calm-the-fuck-down effect on Thranduil (and Merilgais) if he wasn’t too chill to bother. Has an even bigger anti-Noldor grudge than Thranduil, he’s just quiet about it. Also super loyal. (Good thing Thranduil doesn’t want to do a Kinslaying of his own, because Eregmegil would just assume he had a good reason and start slicing without questioning.) About as buff and burly as elves can get. If anybody in Greenwood carries an oversized anime-sword, it’s this guy.

Also I don’t read The Hobbit enough so I kind of forgot Galion existed, so at some point I need to work him into things because you can’t just ignore the One And Only Named Elf In All Of Mirkwood whoops.

No I’m not having too much fun designing Greenwood/Mirkwood’s elves for my stories why do you ask.

1. Oropher  - first king of Greenwood. would punch god. no chill. 2. Thranduil - second king of Greenwood. prince of sass. 3. Legolas - oh sweet summer child. 4. Rílaerloth - too much big sister energy in one container. 5. Angmeril - punched gil-galad once. not sorry. 6. Merilgais - SHE HAS A KNIFE 7. Tiraran - keeper of Greenwood’s one brain-cell. very gay. 8.  Tarlas - married to the braincell keeper. shares custody sometimes. 9. Eregmegil - tall. broad. very chill. might actually be a tree. 10. Gilthawen - did not ask for any of this. and yet here we are.

[picrew source]