#númenórean lady academics

[anghraine]

After Glóredhel and Princess Telperiën, I got to thinking of another Númenórean headcanon involving OCs.

The basic underlying headcanon is that Númenor’s patriarchy becomes increasingly oppressive in its later years, and this pervades Númenórean academia, leading to some unlikely bonds between a group of female academics in Armenelos. @elwing, @kareenvorbarra, @houseofhaleth, @heckofabecca, a friend who left Tumblr, and I collaborated on it. One who wasn’t inspired by any of us, though, was Azruphel, a King’s Men partisan who becomes gradually disaffected with her party and in the end, secretly defects to the Faithful, covers for the others, and manages to escape with them.

I wrote several fics/ficlets involving her (the first is here), but my favourite is probably the last, about the interplay of language and trauma after the Downfall. It was written nearly eight years ago (!!), but I’m still fond of it.

[heckofabecca]

Silm30: Day 6

6. Someone from the Second Age you love - SAURON

I'm not heavily invested in the Second Age, so I can't honestly say I 'love' any of them, but I find Sauron's work during the SA (particularly the very end of it) to be incredibly fascinating. And I know he's around pretty much consistently from the get-go up until the end of the Third Age, but I think his actions at the end of the Second Age, particularly pre-Akallabêth, show him at his very best.

Tolkien writes so few characters with the manipulative skills that Sauron-- excuse me, Tar-Mairon-- shows. His story in Númenor is almost a backwards retelling of the story of Joseph— where a captured slave earns a position of honor in his new home— but of course here we don't have a wise prophet, but a Dark Lord seeking to destroy the people he's living with.

I also do quite like that he's actively seeking to destroy Númenor while he's living on it— like, I'm enjoying the possibility of him actually surviving the Akallabêth as a lucky (for him) accident because he just did not see that coming. Go Eru!

Anyway, I also find religion in Middle-earth really interesting, especially since with such an expansive 'pantheon', there is really very little information as to how worship was carried out. Sauron's twisting Ar-Pharazôn's hubris and death anxiety into worshipping Morgoth is probably the most detailed information we get about religious practice in Arda.

Plus, can we talk about how fabulous Sauron must have looked in Númenor? Fair form and all?

HOLLA

[lossebeth-blog]

guess who has a picture of Lômizôr and Lossebeth and Catairë and Uilian with roses and daffodils and bleeding hearts and seaweed

meeeeee

[anghraine]

A meme!

I was tagged by @incognitajones—thanks!

Favourite colour: red or deep blue. It’s really hard to choose.

Last song you listened to: I thiiink it was the instrumental version of “Descendant of the Sun” by Two Steps From Hell. Most of my playlists are some mix of TSFH/Audiomachine/Epic Score and that track is particularly suitable to my current project. :)

Favourite musicians: Queen!

[more under cut]

Last film you watched: The Rise of Skywalker, I think. Sure was a movie!

Last TV show you watched: in its entirety, The Mandalorian, which I loved. The last TV thing I watched was “The Venom of the Red Lotus” from Legend of Korra, which I also love (Korra and the airbenders taking down the most aggravating of her villains! and there’s actual focus on its impact and consequences!)

Favourite original character: My favourite of my original characters in fanfic is probably ... well, I have a bunch of technically-not-OCs whose personalities I completely made up, but for pure OCs, it might be Azruphel of Númenor, a King’s Men partisan whose loyalties are gradually chipped away until she becomes a stealth agent of the Faithful. I’m also fond of F-2VA/Tuvié and LX-3/Ellex from my f!Luke fics, who are two of Vader’s overhauled personal droids that get assigned to supervise Lucy. For original fiction, it has to be a bossy, self-absorbed, and short-tempered (and also just short :P) fire mage who nevertheless has a wide streak of kindness and good intentions.

Spicy, savoury, or sweet: Spicy! I do like a lot of sweet things, though.

Sparkling water, tea, or coffee: I hate both sparkling water and coffee, and drink a lot of tea (...if it has enough milk and sugar in it).

Pets: I have a grumpy and high-strung grey cat named Andromeda. 

tagging, if you want to do it: @steinbecks, @ladytharen, @crocordile, @kareenvorbarra, @heckofabecca, @arsonlupin, and anyone else who feels like it!

[anghraine]

incognitajones replied to your post “A meme!”

I like the sound of Azruphel! Is she in any of the Silm fic you've published?

Thanks! She’s in the first of my Númenórean lady academics fics here, in the sequel here, in a brief fic with @kareenvorbarra’s Catairë here, in Longing is upon us (an actual title appears!), and in a post-Downfall fic here. So it’s pretty scattered, but there’s a sort of arc.

[anghraine]

Arzruphel and Lossebeth, Azruphel gets caught spying

Azruphel had never thought she would be glad to see Lossebeth, but her heart nearly stopped when a hand landed on her shoulder. She twisted away, already reaching for the knife she kept strapped to her arm—

"What are you doing?" Lossebeth hissed.

[anghraine]

arrgh I've been struggling with this NLA fic for a few weeks

(admittedly mostly because I'm busy with grad school applications but)

anyway, an excerpt!

--------

It was countless hours later when she spoke again, reaching with her free hand towards the shivering figure on Lossebeth’s other side. 

 "I’m glad you lived," she said in Sindarin, less to Catairë than to all of them. Another set of hands brushed theirs. Raveccë’s? Lossebeth’s arm slid around her waist.

"Thank you," she whispered. As if Azruphel had saved her. 

Is that a light down there? Lômizôr had demanded, stalking about Azruphel’s office like they owned it, like the two of them were friends. Silly child.

Azruphel just caught the bright gleam of Catairë’s hair before the lamp was extinguished. Her companion was a shadow, a little taller, a little darker. There was only one person it could be. 

A moment later Lômizôr was turning to the window, pressing their face against it.

I saw nothing, said Azruphel, in her sternest professorial tones. But the moon is bright tonight.

They’d all done their part.

[anghraine]

NOT YOUR SORT OF THING but here's a thing anyway

----------

Åruphel had grown up in the Hyarrostar, not far from the shores of the great river Siril--there were other streams in Númenor that were called rivers, but nothing to the Siril. She hardly considered them to count. In her home they spoke Adûnaic, and they had little statues of the kings and queens in the windows. She knew Sindarin and Quenya, of course, since one of her several degrees was in Elvish languages, but none would look at her, or hear her stories of home, and think she might be an Elf-friend. 

In fact, her family and neighbours held to the old ways and always had. The names of the Avalôi were revered, and her parents and their friends mumbled discontentedly when the king stopped going to Minul-tarîk. Even in later years, few understood why she had gone to Arminalêth and less why she had settled in at the university.

The university wasn't everything she said in her letters, which were largely intended to keep them from worrying about her. She was startled at the outspoken contempt for the Nimruzîrim, as if one could not think well of the Elves or honour the gods and study the old stories with proper academic rigour. One particularly obnoxious girl had a name that sounded almost exactly like Åruphel's; to add insult to injury, the professors constantly confused them, and their work. Åruphel had to constantly filter her opinions and spend hours writing establishment rubbish to have any hope of a patron and a future career of her own. She spent hours straining to read under flickering candles. 

But she couldn't imagine anywhere she'd rather be. The university was home, somehow, in a way her father's house had never been.

One day, as she trudged home from (censored, bowdlerized) History of the Wars of Beleriand, she found a note in someone else's handwriting. Terrible handwriting, as it happened, but Åruphel quickly realized it was in forbidden Quenya.

It said:

Tar-Telemnar will not live forever, and his heir is a friend to us. Carry on and have hope! 

(Burn this note.)

----------------

(Åruphel = princess in Adûnaic :D)

[anghraine]

croclock replied to your post: croclock replied to your post: Also, Azruphel...

uilian staring was a+ too wow.. but elizabeth im so sorry for azruphel :(( bby

Haha, poor Uilian was just o_O am I reading what I'm thinking I'm reading is it a plot or is she seriously?????

Poor Azruphel, seriously. Honestly, without suggesting that it was worse for them, I think being a moderate King's Man in the time of Ar-Pharazôn would be awful. 

[anghraine]

Númenórean lady academics, for kaywinnet! No Catairë this time, sorry, since she probably hasn't been born yet :D. It follows directly from this. 

--

Azruphel spent three weeks poring over the accumulated letters, books, notes, receipts, sketches, and journals locked away in Lossebeth's tiny study. It would have been longer, but at ninety-seven Azruphel had yet to be appointed any position but teaching the youngest, rawest students. Thankfully, she did not need her meager income, and for once she was grateful that she had little else to occupy her time.

It would have taken her longer, too, had the material been gathered by a less organized mind. Lossebeth had sorted every scrap by year, and day where it was known, then inserted cross-references in her neat script, and added thorough annotations. Azruphel read with as critical an eye as usual, all the more because of Lossebeth's clear bias, but in fact no one could have done more scrupulous work, though an Adûna specialist's might have been more rigorous.

If anything, Azruphel thought, Lossebeth's arguments were too indecisive, her conclusions too tentative. But that was always her besetting fault as a scholar. She was better at gathering evidence than presenting it. In another world, Azruphel might have offered to do it herself. Not this one.

Ar-Inziladûn had done away with the advancements of his predecessors, of his own father--and with them, their worst excesses, too. She could admit that to herself if not Lossebeth. Removing the seditious Lords of Andúnië to Rómenna would have been one thing--still wrong, perhaps, and certainly impolitic, but understandable. Depopulating the Andustar was another. And now, any good they had accomplished had been done away with, perhaps forever.

Yet little had changed within the walls of the University. This sort of research would blacken Lossebeth's name forever. Blacken Azruphel's if she were even associated with it. And still, she turned over the pages. There was Ciryanna, second daughter of Tar-Atanamir. Her elder sister had resigned the scepter while Ciryanna, the official record said, had killed herself in her grief. But virtually every contemporary to comment on the matter doubted it. The princess Ciryanna was cruelly murdered today, said one; Ciryanna daughter of Tar-Atanamir was prevented from usurping her brother today. 

Tar-Alcarin's twin daughters, Eärnilmë and Laurien, drowned together at sixteen. The future Ar-Belzagar was still a child, and the few commentaries considered it a tragedy, or a fortunate mishap; only a handful suggested worse. 

Everyone knew Belzîrân, elder sister of Ar-Gimilzôr, had been murdered. Few seemed to care. They talked more of the new King's inordinate grief, of the fabulous tomb he built for, of his inordinate affectionate for his would-be rival, of the mystery of exactly who had done the deed. Her mother and confidante Bânath died a year later.

Then there was Queen Inzilbêth. But Azruphel already knew all about that; she remembered.

Her lamp flickered; it was nearly out of oil. It would be a good time to put the stack of paper aside. Azruphel, with a deep breath, pressed her face against her clasped hands.

"Uilian!" she called to her newest protégée. "I need another light!"

[anghraine]

Your Numenorean lady academics fic made me realize one thing: self-insert OCs can actually be pretty awesome when done right! ^_^ (The trick is, I suspect, a mix between acknowledging multiple valid viewpoints and carving out a place with some distance from the main canon events... whatever it is, though, it /works/)

Thank you so much!

I was definitely worried about crossing into Sue territory with Lossebeth, so I included Azruphel as a sort of check on her (I meant her to be someone in fandom, but then realized they hadn’t volunteered and just wrote her from scratch, though her beliefs are obviously inspired by fandom debates). It was actually easier in the second piece, with four self/fandom-inserts. I thought of having one of them interact with Anárion, but I think it worked best with him as a distant figure.

The main thing, for me, was that I didn’t want the characters to be exactly self-inserts; Lossebeth isn’t really me, for instance, just inspired by me. So, for instance, her name sounds a bit like mine (Elizabeth), and she shares some of my preoccupations (the House of Bëor, the period before the Bragollach, an intensely pro-Faithful perspective, esp linguistically, feminism), but I wanted her to be relatively organic within the world, with a history and personality of her own—she’s braver and more confident and more disciplined than I am.

And I tried to do the same with the others; for instance, Uilian is friendly with Azruphel because Juliana/croclock seems friendliest with the pro-King’s Men people in-fandom, she’s an artist (of happy things!), she brings up the social implications of the less-obviously horrific crimes of the King’s Men, but I did want to write her as a real person in the world.

Anyway, thank you again. I’m really glad you liked it!

[anghraine]

heckofabecca replied to your post: Longing is upon us

i TOTALLY have prophetic dreams <3

Prophetic dreams and foresight! :D

[anghraine]

squirrelwrangler replied to your photo: Númenórean lady academic self-insert society,...

(if I ever made a Númenórean self-insert OC, I’d completely miss the point by having her immigrate old ago to a colony in Pelargir. And complain about how far out in Hicksville she was - until youknowhat…)

LOL, I kind of want that--some just up and leave at Ar-Pharazôn's accession and others during his reign à la the Princes of Dol Amroth.

[anghraine]

heckofabecca replied to your post: heckofabecca replied to your photo: Númenórean...

Bless your happy heart! One gets the feeling that it would have mattered a great deal where you were from if you had the chance of survival later on, no?

All of them (/us :D) are born either during or after Ar-Gimilzôr's time, so after the deportment to Rómenna; I would imagine that most are from Armenelos itself, though with varying family origins. And I think it starts out as a sort of informal support group and evolves into a quiet anti-patriarchy networking organization through Tar-Palantir's reign, trying to combat the marginalization of women in academia that has escalated over the last few hundred years. Then it becomes abruptly politicized when Ar-Pharazôn usurps Míriel's place; over time, neutrality becomes less and less possible.

I think survival is most likely to be contingent on what they do: what they publish, what arguments they make (esp under Ar-Pharazôn), and also how secret they remain. Originally I figured they'd become more polarized over time, but atm I suspect that even the most ardently pro-King's Men would be driven to the Faithful camp in the end (aka the Say No to Human Sacrifice camp). How they handled that would also affect survival.