#valar aesthetic

[aesthetic--mood]

Sauron Aesthetic

[massivewonderlandtragedy]

Not quite formed an opinion on this, so Silmarillion fandom thoughts please? 😁

Atsushi Sakurai as Namo's aesthetic or as Namo himself?

[theyoondiary]

THE VALAR | AESTHETIC MOODBOARDS

like or reblog if you save ♡

YAVANNA The Queen of Earth, The Giver of Fruits, The Protector of Plants

Sources

Faceclaim: Sunmi (Heartburn MV)

Font: Silk Flower & Corbel

[nuisancehelicopter]

morgoth committed to the bit

but in Angband Morgoth forged for himself a great crown of iron, and he called himself King of the World. In token of this he set the Silmarils in his crown. His hands were burned black by the touch of those hallowed jewels, and black they remained ever after; nor was he ever free from the pain of the burning, and the anger of the pain. That crown he never took from his head, though its weight became a deadly weariness.

.

.

slay.

[unheartbreakable]

Obliviate

[quiet-flower-wonderlings]

I love you @sorisooyaa

[wardingprotector]

the tweet that goes "you can't truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of great violence. if you're not capable of great violence, then you are not peaceful, you're harmless."

and when victoria erickson said “just because you are soft doesn’t mean you are not a force. Honey and wildfire are both the color gold.”

and when the brother's bright wrote "i will burn your kingdom down, if you try to conquer me and mine"

that's valar. that's the very core of his being.

[xaneamiartblog]

Melkor - Manwë

I've always wondered what kind of outfits Manwë and Melkor would chosen if they were humans. I think this would be their aesthetic for sure

[feanoryen]

Finweans ranked by Aura

Feanor - So powerful he sucked the life force out of his mother, invented a ton of cool shit, had more children with his wife than any of the other Eldar, died in battle while his body combusted into flames because he was just that hot, & the King of the Valar who he hated cried over him.

Earendil - Cool as hell, has a wife who's cool as hell. Predestined to be a hero even though he comes from a basic vanilla bloodline (besides his great grandpa Fingolfin). Even though most of his ancestors were nobodies or flops, most of his descendants that came after him were cool as hell.

Maedhros - Might have been higher than his father & cousin if he didn't khs, Lowkey an Aura loss moment but he makes up for a lot with his gorgeous red hair, height, surviving Morgoth's torture, & sorta fulfilling his dad's dumb oath.

Fingolfin - The only good thing his bland vanilla mother did was give birth to him. He was a total badass I've got to admit even as a Feanorian stan. Him crossing the helcaraxë & his death were top Aura moments.

Elrond/Elros - They're twins so they can share a spot too. Both badass as hell.

Fingon - Called "the Valient", braids gold into his hair, saved his sexy redheaded cousin, & became King of the Noldor. Everything about him screams Aura.

Galadriel - Despite the fact she's a Feanor anti (Booooo!!!), she admittedly has a ton of Aura. She's smarter than possibly everyone else here given she survived when the rest of her generation either got themselves killed or spends all their time being a sad beach cryptid.

Gil-Galad - Cool as hell, managed to make an alliance Maedhros could only dream of.

Maglor - Has a couple Aura loss moments but in the end he LIVED which is an Aura gain. Also gets Aura points for having the best voice in Arda.

Celebrimbor - Pretty rad dude, love how he's more like Feanor than his father Curufinwe Jr is, unfortunately he died.

Finrod - His death is cool as fuck. Looses points for cockblocking his little brother & dying for that basic joe Beren though.

Caranthir - Goth Icon. Love how despite his raging anger issues he's also an awesome guy you'd want to be friends with.

Finwe - A massive flop in a ton of ways but definitely still has Aura. Looses Aura points for failing Feanor & choosing to marry an unsexy Vanya when he could've waited for his sexy talented silver haired Noldo wife to come back to life. Only good thing about him besides his awesome hair is that he's Feanor & Fingolfin's father.

Aredhel - Cool as hell but has terrible taste in men. Her whole white aesthetic & her wild personality gain her Aura points though.

Turgon - The only cool thing about him is that he built Gondolin which wins him some Aura points. Looses Aura points for getting played by his nephew & dying pathetically though.

Idril - She's cool I guess, the only thing of note that she did was give birth to the chad Earendil. Tuor is such a basic guy though, he's not the worst but she could do better.

Aegnor - Cool hair. Pulled a baddie. Fumbled the baddie.

Angrod - Not the most stand out Finwean but he seems to be a mama's boy & he didn't do anything wrong so I'll put him above the family flops.

Finduilas - She's a sweetie but she looses Aura points for falling out of love with a great guy like Gwindor & falling in love with Turin the walking L.

Celegorm - Stupid as hell for trying to use a powerful half-Angel as a political weapon against her father. Looses more Aura points for getting abandoned by his dog & dying at the hands of said half-Angel's 30 y/o mortal son while he's over 1000 y/o. Gains some Aura points for being able to talk to animals, his hair, & his hot bastard energy.

Curufin - Feanor with 99% less Aura. His only achievement is having Celebrimbor yet he still couldn't even succeed at being Feanor 2.0 and having 7 kids to continue the family line. Had the chance to kill Eol but didn't which led to his favorite cousin dying (that's a huge L).

Finarfin - Takes after his mother in the sense he's vanilla af. The tiny percent of Aura he has is from his Noldo side obviously and he used that to pull a baddie like Earwen. All his kids get their Aura from their mother's side.

Orodreth - I like the guy, but he's definitely a dumbass with no Aura. He inherited a kingdom but isn't particularly good at anything. His only accomplishment is possibly fathering Gil-Galad.

Maeglin - Orodreth might have no Aura but this guy has negative Aura. His childhood sucked but he's such a walking L that's he's somehow more of a loser than both Celegorm & Eol combined.

[vinnfeyntheinsane]

The Shitmarillion

(This is a new thing that I am doing in which I take a chapter of the Silmarillion and simplify it in shitty ways.)

Chapter One: Daddy Iluvatar's Quinquartet

In the beginning, there was nothing, except for Eru (Iluvatar), the One. He was bored and lonely, so he shat out a barbershop quinquartet (15 singers) called the Valar. (There was a backup choir too, called the Maiar. All together, they are the Ainur.) They started harmonizing real smooth, and Eru was vibing with it. Except one of the quinquartet members, named Melkor, kept trying to perform rock and roll riffs. Eru countered this with some sick bluesey tie-ins, and thus the first Battle of the Bands began. Eru and Melkor were vying for first place, when suddenly, Iluvatar signaled for everyone to stop singing. Melkor listened in spite of himself. Iluvatar stoop up, and spoke fifteen words, "Bitch, stop disrespecting me. I created your ass, I can uncreate you just as fast." Melkor was silent, but secretly pissed. All he wanted was to rock n' roll, but his Father Iluvatar didn't support that lifestyle. Daddy Iluvatar stood up and said, "Behold, little shits, what your music created." He then showed the Ainur the world (Arda), which had been created from their scatting. They were pretty psyched, and Iluvatar explained that Arda had been created for his kids, the Elves and Men. The Ainur volunteered to go down and make the world look pretty for the disgusting little creatures that were about to inhabit it. Melkor went with them, but he was still really pissed. He flicked his long ebony black hair with purple streaks and red tips over his eyes, and thus began his emo phase, which never ended. The Valar Quinquartet Minus One (Melkor was kicked outta the band) started trying to make Arda look pretty, but Melkor had a different aesthetic. The Valar wanted to make everything happy and fantasycore, but happiness gave Melkor a headache. He preferred the thorns to the rose, and tried to turn Arda into his personal grungecore moodboard. The Valar got pissed at this, but they didn't really do anything about it. So, every time they made something pretty, Melkor slathered it in cigarette smoke, bad hair dye, and shitty poetry (reference the aforementioned grungecore moodboards on tumblr dot com). The Valar would try again, and Melkor would promptly desaturate everything.

Stay tuned for chapter two of the Shitmarillion.

[iamnotshazam]

i saw the LotR films before ever reading the books and i love both. i turn now more to the books than the movies for enjoyment.

but i also feel like the three movies just. fucken. cracked it out of the park with some important things and i had NO idea how good i had it as a little nerd delving into the extended edition dvd extras. if i were a fan in the gritty-obsessed 90's hearing rumors of these movies, i would have expected at best stuff like: B-list acting that occasionally broke through with honest emotions. some skilled costuming and weaponry popping up in important scenes but mostly just knock-off viking opera aesthetic. homebrew DND imagery that made it painfully obvious by contrast which scenes they actually spent money on the set design and dressing.

and WETA and New Line and everyone on this!!! they did NOT accept lower standards cause it was fantasy! everyone else would have. This was genre filmmaking, this would have been perceived at the time as more like How the Grinch Stole Christmas than a Cecil B Demille-level epic movie. And the costuming department, composer, propsmaster and set designer all said "NO" and put their whole pussies behind it!

Jesus Christ the quality in those movies! Ian McKellan has undershirts like Gandalf the White might have! Bernard Hill has realistic quilted padding underlayers all made in the style a Rohirrim tailor and armorer would have made! Minas Tirith has a rat catcher because someone took a doodle and decided that would make sense in the lived reality of a massive city! Movie makers do not usually do this. It is NEVER about what isnt seen or necessary for the shot. You are judged professionally not by if you can cut corners in order to help production and still seem good, but by HOW MUCH.

I cannot blame anyone who worked on the Amazon series in the hands-on creative roles because the results are what they have been trained to do. Blame executives. Blame executives! Of course chainmail is going to be, i dunno, plastic or sewn into the edges of costumes if you dont have the money or time for real chain mail! And because it cannot be overstated how unusual the LotR trilogy filmmaking process must have been. It's like being given an average lower middle class family grocery budget and told to make a fancy Christmas dinner for 20 all by yourself with no help versus having a trained staff, a blank check, and Martha Stewart on retainer. That's not an exaggeration. That's the rhetorical gulf that someone (Valar BLESS them) in the bureaucracy had to wade across to convince execs to buy into the details. The Lord of the Rings movies are WEIRD.

And it shows. Bookfans bitch about the story changes, the balrog wings, the characterization differences. (Denethor was a reasonable person and even outsider Pippin could see he was very admirable to the people of Gondor, which made it sooooo much creepier when he suddenly snapped but i digress) but NEVER about the music. the filming locations. the set designs. the costumes. the props. the things that i really think count the most to help invest people in a different world!

No one ever complains about taking out the scene where Rohan is summoned to Gondor's aid with the Red Arrow, because yeah they could have made it work, they made the importance of other props like Andúril and, oh yeah, the One Ring very clear, but they had a better idea.

The beacons.

The beacons were not in the book.

Not in the same way, really, because while incredible to think about the narrative style was close third person, and you cannot follow beacons to rhapsodize about them when you're a tired hobbit getting saddle sore crossing national borders with a grumpy old wizard. Pippin sees the Beacons of Gondor at a distance when he's falling asleep and Gandalf tells him they're a mustering signal within Gondor. Which makes sense, really, they require some upkeep and would be awkward for two nations to negotiate how to handle - nevermind. That's it. That's all the beacons are in the text.

Someone adapting the script saw a moment that was ho-hum in the book but realized ! 💡⚡️That would look really great on camera! And it is now routinely listed as one of the most important cinematic moments of anything, ever.

There are so many things I still want to ask Peter Jackson, "Why???" but the original trilogy movies overall? Work. They work and they do more than work, they helped elevate an entire artform that I don't honestly know that much about and oh god i usually dont ramble about them like this im embarassed is this already acknowledged in tumblr tolkien circles? or are we just split into different little fandoms in order to keep the peace?

[cilil]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬… 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐭𝐞﹖﹖

We know Mairon as the dark lord in spiky black armor, witchy black robes and all the nice evil-looking stuff, but I believe he's also made excellent use of the color white, especially as Annatar in Eregion and Zigûr on Númenor.

White is seen as a balance between all colors and has thus been associated with both simplicity and perfection. It often symbolizes cleanliness, purity, innocence, elegance, grace, divinity, beauty, clarity, possibility, hope and goodness; on the other hand, it can also be associated with sterility, coldness or distance (source) and YouTube apology videos. Overall, it tends to be seen in a more positive than negative light (pun intended).

Another interesting tidbit to note is that the banners of the Host of the Valar were also white:

But the host of the Valar prepared for battle; and beneath their white banners marched the Vanyar, the people of Ingwë, and those also of the Noldor who never departed from Valinor, whose leader was Finarfin the son of Finwë. (Silmarillion)

I believe this detail is particularly important for Mairon's Annatar persona, since he was posing as an emissary of the Valar. A lot of art depicts him in white and golden robes which I like a lot; it basically screams "I am a divine being coming to your aid" and creates a false sense of security due to him wearing the colors of his enemies and their allies, trying to appear as one of the "safe" Ainur. He also doesn't hide his Maiarin nature and instead deliberately uses it to legitimize his supposed mission, present himself as an authority and pretend that only he knows best.

Perhaps part of the reason why some wise Elves were wary of Annatar was precisely because he appeared too bright, too pure, too perfect; some of them have met other Maiar before, both in Valinor and Middle-earth, and due to their vastly different personalities and natures it's likely that not all of them would have leaned this hard into the "We are the Holy Ones" (for those who don't know, "Ainur" means "Holy Ones") aesthetic.

I believe Mairon made use of the color white again on Númenor for his Tar-Mairon/Zigûr persona for similar reasons. The Númenóreans were also aware of his Maiarin nature and humans are famously more impressionable than Elves, so the image of this beautiful, elegant, graceful, wise, holy angel man works even better against them. What may have aided him additionally was that Eönwë had appeared on Númenor before, as a benevolent guiding figure and representative of the Elder King, and due to the color of the banners and his position, it's likely that he wore a lot of white (alongside Manwë's blue) and that this detail then made its way into depictions of him.

Mairon knew of course that, generally speaking, he had more to gain as a "bright lord" than as a "dark lord". People are more likely to listen and follow when they believe you have good intentions. Thus he had to overcome his little "image problem" of very much being known as a dark lord, an evil spirit, a fallen Maia; and by once again adopting the divine aesthetic of Valinor he created a mental dissonance between what the people of Númenor heard in tales about him and what they saw with their own eyes and gradually replaced their old image of him with a new, carefully curated one. I like to think that he once again opted for lots of white and gold and also took a good look at Númenórean Eönwë fanart depictions of Eönwë to copy a few details.

Additionally, Mairon could have used white to symbolize the enlightenment brought about by his religious revelations (aka lying to Ar-Pharazôn by saying that Eru isn't real and was made up by the Valar to scam people while Melkor is the real God and will totally make them immortal). It also seems deliciously cruel to use the color of hope for a cult whose purpose it is to destroy the hopes and dreams of Númenor forever and bring death and destruction upon the land and its people.

And aside from symbolism, I also think Mairon enjoys the sight of fresh red blood splatters on pure white fabric. It's just... very pretty and aesthetic, you know? And such a shame it was so often nearly invisible on his black robes...

@sauron-kraut look I finally wrote it all out xd

Thanks for reading! ♡

taglist: @asianbutnotjapanese @a-world-of-whimsy-5 @blauerregen @bluezenzennie @destinyeternity1

@edensrose @elanna-elrondiel @i-did-not-mean-to @just-little-human @melkors-big-tits

@melkors-defense-attorney @numenhore @urwendii @wandererindreams

[foedhrass]

Irmo the younger [Feantur] is the master of visions and dreams. In Lórien are his gardens in the land of the Valar, and they are the fairest of all places in the world, filled with many spirits.

I chose to cosplay Irmo when Silverlynxcosplay decided to take on Mandos. I never really connected to the first part of the Silmarillion, the Ainulindale and Valaquenta, and still don’t really care for the Valar, but I really like this cosplay for aesthetic reasons. It was one of the hardest one to pin down though: without a connection to the character I struggled to find a design (for the body) that I liked. I scrapped the first version immediately after making it, wore the second for about an hour at an Elfia a couple of years and disliked every photo I got back. So now, with our shooting week planned for nature and also the Elfia around the corner I made a third version which felt right very early on, even though I switched colors when I had already applied them (it was golden and silver at first but that didn’t fit to the rest of the cosplay and my vision for Irmo, so I brought back the crème tone from the second version). And I’m super happy about how this cosplay turned out.

Cosplay & edit: me

Photo: goldiepond

[mask131]

If Middle-earth is Earth in the past, is there any possibility for the magic to return? The magical creatures are probably all dead, but I assume the more spiritual beings like the Maiar and the Valar should still be around, right?

Asked this to a couple of friends that are Tolkien fans and they couldn't answer me.

Now I am NOT at all a Tolkien expert. I will try my best to answer you but I can't recommend you enough to go check actual lore-wise people for Tolkien... I know there are a handful of Youtube channels dedicated to explaining little tidbits of lore and answering specific questions about Tolkien's works. "In Deep Geek" or "Nerd of the Rings" are good starting places for casual Youtube videos about Tolkien lore, to listen in some spare time or just as background.

Now it depends what you mean by "magic" but, taking into account the whole "Middle-Earth is just prehistoric Earth/England's mythology" angle, in this sense, yes you are right about the point.

Most of the fabulous and fantastical creatures of legends and myth are dead or gone, and it is the whole point of Tolkien's work. The Lord of the Ring is literaly the tale of how an entire Age ended. It is something that begins quite early in The Hobbit, with the death of what was the last great dragon, but one doesn't get the full scope until we reach The Lord of the Rings, and by the end of it we are hit with everything. The Elves are fading away, the Wizards have all broken off in various ways, Sauron and his underlings are no more, the rings of power have no power anymore, the Ents are doomed to extinction, even some of the last descendants of the eldritch horrors like the Balrog or Shelob are dead. The great wonders of Middle-Earth are gone, beautiful or horrible, and it is sad and an end - but also a new beginning for a new age. And in this sense, yes, magic is technically gone or going away by the end of the Lord of the Rings.

But, as you pointed out, it doesn't mean "magic" is still disappeared forever, because in the Tolkien universe, magic IS the world. As you said, indeed, the Valar/Maiar are still around, and will always be there until the end of time. They are just out of reach and out of sight: this is one of the big themes of the Silmarillion, since it is the book where we go from "The gods walk the same earth we walk today" to "The gods are nowhere to be seen and work in mysterious ways". The whole point is that the Valar slowly retracted themselves from the universe, isolating themselves in the West, acting less and less in mortals affairs, imposing indirect means of interacting with fate and events rather than direct action... And it is part of the entire aesthetic of Tolkien's Legendarium: the regression of magic is constant, and while the world described in The Lord of the Rings seems like the "magical world" we today lost, when one reads the Silmarillion you realize LotR's Middle-Earth was actually a pretty drab and mundane world compared to the earlier Ages of the World. It is just that the very passing of Ages means that less and less magic and wonders happen - it is the Tolkien's way.

But they are not gone. There is still of this "magic" left around, it is just out of reach, hard to spot, not usually seen - and you have to know what you are looking for. Just like the Valar, who will always be there, but mortals cannot reach them, nobody remembers them, and they don't interact with us anymore. I think it was in The Hobbit that Tolkien literaly began by saying that some Hobbits still lived around England, though they hide away from humans and thus one would need tough chance to ever find them. It was just a "child's story" narrative device, but it still set the tone for the idea that there are remnants of LotR's Middle-Earth in our day and age (well more like in the 19th/early 20th century England), the same way Middle-Earth had by the time of LotR remnants of the first ages of the world (Shelob reminding of the distant threat of Ungoliant, or Galadriel's vial containing a last piece of primordial light).

Plus, you have to remember Tom Bombadil. The guy is definitively still around. And that's his role. When did he get there, we will never know, because he was never born - but he was there at some point, and he was there long before everybody else, and he will be there long after everybody else, and he'll still be around probably until the end of the world. As I said in my previous post, many people dismiss Tom Bombadil in LotR because yes, he provides nothing to the plot - but they miss his importance, that he is here as a symbolic and almost metaphysical character, as a tool not just to worldbuild but also to show the whole idea of this world. Yes the elves and dwarves and orcs are gone, and there are no more great wizards or terrible dark lords... but there will always be somewhere this weird singing guy who is definitively not human and nobody knows where he comes from, with his nature-spirit of a wife, and his grumpy murderous neighbor Old Willow. And I think it is quite important to understand Tolkien's whole approach to the "fading of magic". Tolkien's world is one of constant "degradation" (to the point he even stopped writing his story about a Fourth Age because he realized it would be much too bleak and dark even for him), but it is also one that is tied to his production for children and an interest in fairytale and children stories, and as such it also teaches to go search the real magic today not in immense dragons, or powerful elf-queens, or cursed antique jewels, but rather in a few Hobbits living their life hidden in some shire, or in an excentric Tom Bombadil deep within beautiful old woods.

[arofili]

@tolkienlatamandcaribbeanweek day one | the valar & the orixás

Then those of the Ainur who desired it arose and entered into the World at the beginning of Time; and it was their task to achieve it, and by their labours to fulfil the vision which they had seen. Long they laboured in the regions of Eä, which are vast beyond the thought of Elves and Men, until in the time appointed was made Arda, the Kingdom of Earth. Then they put on the raiment of Earth and descended into it, and dwelt therein. 

—The Silmarillion, “Valaquenta”

The Valar are here represented by a selection of the Orixás deities of the Yoruba religion. All the images were created by Brazilian photographer Tiago Sant’anna, and edited by me.

Not every Vala is represented, as I only had so much material and space; also included is Uinen, who is a Maia, not a Vala, but still one of the most powerful Ainur. Likewise, not every Orixá is included.

Uinen is represented by Iemanjá; Yavanna is represented by Oxum; Aulë is represented by Xangô; Tulkas is represented by Ogum; Nessa is represented by Iansã; Oromë is represented by Oxóssi. They are all loosely connected to their Orixá deity by their aesthetics and domain of power.

Manwë and Vána’s images are not (as far as I can tell) actually artistic representations of the Orixá, but rather some inspiring photography on other topics, but I wanted to include them as well.

[lamemaster]

I Dropped College to Become a Dark Lord

Genre: Crack, Modern guy in Middle Earth

Pairing: tbh

Summary: At first look, Melkor’s form seemed to be devoid of any sort of essence. A chill ran through the Valar as they considered the possibility of his escape. Tulkas and Orome had almost packed up for their adventure to Middle Earth. But then they had felt it. A sudden surge of life.

AN: I think I am kinda funny. Nothing more.

PART 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |

“So, am I the bad guy?” Derek asked. They had somehow managed to reign in the emotions that ran wild in everyone’s mind. Introductions had been made and Derek got to know that Melkor is the name of the body he currently finds himself in.

“Yeah, no shit Melko- “

“Mandos!” the sky bluish light, who he had come to know as Manwe exclaimed.

Much to Derek’s dismay both the Vala switched back to the horrid Valarin. For beings who were the very source of music, one would expect a language calming, soothing, and sweeter than any other. Valarin…was horrendous. It stung in his ears like the noise of thousand nails scratching a blackboard.

He could understand it but trust him it was not worth it. It was the worst culture shock…worse than finding out his body’s origin.

Melkor, the body he entered, is none other than the ultimate bad boy of this world. A criminal who just barely got his parole on nepotism basis at that. Too bad he isn’t here to rejoice or anything. Derek wondered if the dark lord died or the worse possibility, Melkor switched bodies with him.

It was an amusing thought to imagine the dark lord as an engineering student. If there was anything worse than the endless void, it had to be the dark alleys of STEM. Well, he was glad that the report due the next day was not his problem now.

A distant, saner, part of Derek’s mind was still in the midst of processing the fact that he might indeed be dead in his world. His parents, his siblings, or roommates would find out and they would grieve for him. Or if they would delight in the chance of meeting his dark lord version.

The name Illuvatar had remained in Melkor’s memories, the only name that remained. All else was gone with him and so Derek tried it. ‘Umm…excuse me…Illuvatar are you there?’ Derek tried to talk to the possible god and his creator in this world. He had to be the one who must have had any idea of the stupid situation. ‘Am I still Derek? Or am I truly Melkor with an identity crisis or wait am I future Melkor and I time traveled back here. I mean it would be quiet a fall for Melkor to end up as an engineering student but hey it is a possibility.’ he tried asking, only to ramble and sound stupid in his inner monologue. None replied. Head empty no thoughts.

Well damn. This one’s got to have some daddy issues for sure. Derek wondered as he telepathically tried leaving a message for Illuvatar (don’t ask him how. He’s new to the whole thing. Trust the process).

‘ To Illuvatar, I do not know if this is you or not, but I must tell you I am not Melkor. Like I am in his body and it’s super weird. I don’t know if your feral son is dead (if he can die…) or not. I am just kind of in his body. I hope you can like tell me something about this all.’ P.S.- it's kinda urgent.

Hanging up the metaphorical phone Derek became aware of the quiet room. Manwe was staring at him again. It was the same look. Those puppy dog eyes just screamed of younger sibling energy. The look that siblings got seconds before they burst into tears. A precarious look for any older sibling ever.

Manwe was…bright. It was difficult to imagine how he was related to Melkor. Long white hair, glimmering blue eyes, and blue robes to maintain the angelic aesthetic. Manwe was pure innocence and uncorrupted power at the same time.

Melkor on the other hand. Well… Derek kinda could see himself without a mirror or anything. It was a Valar thing. A perk some would say. Just closing his eyes and he could see his form. He had almost screeched at his own reflection.

Melkor was…handsome. Sexy in the ‘I’ll be your fall from grace’ way. Dark black hair, the darkest there could be. Eyes bright like Manwe’s yet, there were glowing golden with the fervor of molten lava buried in the depth of the Earth. And contrasting such stark features was the palest skin ever. It was unlike Manwe’s healthy and flush tan. No Melkor was the supreme edge lord.

“Brother can you still not hear it?” Manwe asked. Derek, who had zoned out, realized that the focus from the previous quarrel had shifted back on him.

“Hear what?” Derek questioned. Was he supposed to hear something? Oh shit! Did someone call Melkor? It was hard remembering to respond to people when they called someone else’s name. Plus, he wasn’t that keen on the idea of discussing this weird possession with the guy who quite literally was a major simp for his brother. The idea of Manwe finding out his brother’s soul was gone was something scarier than Valarin.

With a barely concealed wince, Manwe replied “Do you not hear the music? The song of Arda? What about Illuvatar can you sense him?” Yikes, am I supposed to Derek wondered? To say or not to say, that is the question.

“I think don’t he can Manwe.” Another one of the Vala spoke instead of Melkor. If Derek remembered correctly, he was Ulmo. The Vala of seas, oceans, and rivers was visible in every facet of his personality and looks. Dark blue hair in the very predictably wavy in the fashion of waves, not that Derek disapproved of it. His first impression of Ulmo was that of the quiet kid who actually turns out to be really smart. The quiet kid you should not mess with. ‘Poseidon, Aquaman,’ Derek’s brain unhelpfully listed.

By the looks of it, Ulmo’s words did not sit well with Manwe. “I mean it is not difficult to see Manwe.” Mandos, the Vala who hated Melkor the most, added in support of Ulmo. It was surprising that even Derek felt the heavy animosity. And Derek was nothing if not dense.

Manwe continued to ignore Mandos and Ulmo collectively. “Can you truly not hear it Melkor?” he asked with an uncomfortably consistent eye contact. From his peripheral vision, Derek could see Varda take a step towards them.

“No,” Derek replied. “I cannot hear music or the song you speak of,” and the air in the room stilled. Everything fell silent as Manwe nodded in acceptance. However, Derek was not done. It was time to rip the bandage.

“I don’t remember anyone. I don’t know you or as matter of fact myse- “

“YOU MORON! WHERE IS MY MAIA?” before Derek could have completed his sentence he interrupted and was then promptly strangled by an unseen force. He truly had not seen it coming.

Put back the bandage he distantly wondered.

The room erupted in Chaos as Varda jumped in to save Manwe, who jumped in to save Melkor, who was attacked by Aule who was simultaneously being pulled away by Yavanna.

Chaos came to Valinor. Yet not the chaos that rained destruction but the chaos that mingled with the order to retain the world.

“He…he has returned.”

In the darkest canopy of unvisited forests, a voice whispered with a trace of hysterical joy. The sole existence of those woods. A shadow that lamented in unlit lands.

Once glazed eyes caught the first reflection of the light they once held. Ashen gray hair ignited as if a fire rekindled. Hair that now changed into the blistered red shade of flames. Gone was the lament and mourning.

Mairon had come to life.

“Master Melkor returned,” the silent trees of bleak woods shivered with fear as the fire captured them in its grasp.

With a crazed smile, Mairon wondered if it was time to go get his master back to their lands. Utumno would be rebuilt, and order would be restored.

So, it began as Mairon started making his way to Valinor.