#but the relationship there is definitely not unequal- even rabbits will kick when cornered and she is far more than a rabbit

[an-eldritch-peredhel]

I would love to hear some nessa/vana/tulkas/orome thoughts if you wanted to share?

Ohhhh yes I have so many thoughts. Firstly for the vibes I have one ultimate Brainrot Song For They which is The Cult of Dionysus by the Orion Experience.

Before I was actually shipping them they already all occupied the same place in my brain because they make a neat little box of relationships- Nessa and Orome are siblings, Tulkas and Vana are their spouses along with functionally being the "youngest" of the Valar (Vana the ever young, Tulkas the last to come to Arda), Orome and Tulkas have overlapping Domains of hunting and fighting and chase after Morgoth's beasties, Nessa and Vana are considered the weakest Valar and are associated with flowers and general disney princess vibes. That's the basis I was working on.

So it started with... probably Tulkas/Orome but Nessa/Vana wasn't far behind. Tulkas/Orome is peak "construct intricate rituals to touch other men by 'wrestling' in the forest" and also I thought their character vibes suited shipping very well (Tulkas "canonically laughs in battle" Astaldo and Orome "canonically constantly pissed off" Aldaron). Even the Tolkien Gateway article directly contrasts the two. I'm working with what I've got.

Nessa/Vana have textbook fairycore forest lesbian vibes. Making each other flower crowns and braiding each other's hair and dancing in a lush clearing with birds and butterflies and bees and delightful woodland creatures (not to mention Vana's plausible association with fertility ;) Quoth Tolkien Gateway: "Vána robed Nessa with her flowers for [Nessa's] wedding." Could this be gal pals? Sure! But where's the fun in that when it's super gay! This is the least feral pairing simply because of how they relate to each other, but they're also the most shameless.

Of course the problem is that I'm a chronic canon-shipper unless I Physically Cannot Stand it, and I do very much like Orome/Vana and Nessa/Tulkas because you get fun hunter/gardener and dance/dojo vibes respectively, so I fix this the same way that I fix every problem: polyamory!

Orome/Vana has definite Hades/Persephone vibes to me, but wilder and without the whole. Kidnaping thing. Yavanna even slots nicely into Demeter's role but again, no kidnapping. She's much more chill with her brother-in-law. I have many inarticulate vibes about Orome's Domain of the hunt and dying opposing and complimenting Vana's Domain of new life and fresh growth, and how hunters weren't supposed to kill deer in the spring. Because of this, I think Vana is one of the few Valar who has no subjugation(?) at all to Orome's Domain despite the clear nature overlap (others who wouldn't are Varda, Namo, Vaire, Nienna, and Aule, but that's because their Domains don't really overlap with his at all, except for Namo who as Death would overpower Dying.) They are, functionally, each other's force-pairs in Newton's third law- the equal and opposite reactions.

My love for Nessa/Tulkas is more characterization related: to me, they are the epitome of those 20-something Fitness Couples who keep those super detailed daily planners with spots to fill in how much water you drank, who make really healthy delicious looking meals with seemingly no effort and constantly drink various smoothies but like. Fantasy Flavor. Their idea of a hot date is to spot each other at the gym, and martial arts sparring. They would go feral for Capoeira. Crucially, they thrive off of this. Their relationship is astonishingly healthy and peppy and they serve as each other's hype-man. My vibes-only Valar-in-modern-society AU has them opening a strip mall dance class/dojo place.

So we have the siblings, and the spouses, and the spouse swap (which has some very funny crack potential, I specifically find it amusing to imagine Nessa calling dibs on Vana and tossing Tulkas to Orome before stealing her away (they are both very amused, Orome is vaguely aggravated because she could just ask for time with their wife)

Tulkas/Vana starts as something like a relationship of convenience, along the lines of "Hey, our spouses are busy chasing each other around like idiots for Sibling Shenanigans, want to make out?" but ends up as something not quite romantic but past... FWBs I guess lol. A foundation of their relationship is committing to the bit- If Nessa and Orome are arguing it's even odds as to who will side with who, but if either of them has an argument with Tulkas or Vana it is the other's sworn duty to side with their bestie, no matter how utterly stupid. They will "Yes-And" each other's stories into eternity, even if it's a blatantly untrue excuse. This drives their spouses absolutely insane because "I know you're lying, and I know you know I know you're lying, and I know for a fact that you weren't doing something as dumb as convincing Aule to put smiley face shapes in rocks" but they will double down. (The one time they did this to Yavanna while on a warpath was unintentional and terrifying once they realized, but they committed and got her so frustrated and confused that she bluescreened and stormed off, forgetting why she had been interrogating Vana in the first place). Basically, they bring out the idiot in each other, and despite having very little in common they get along very well. It is also important to me that I see their typical physical forms as being a massive, firey, golden-veined stone giant (Tulkas), and a young, uncanny, bug-eyed and golden-haired hobbit lass (Vana). To the Valar this doesn't really register as strange beyond vague inconvenience for interacting, but to any elves who see them hanging out together it Very Much Is.

To use the terms I used in Appointed, Orome and Vana are Counterpoints, Nessa and Tulkas, Nessa and Vana, and Orome and Tulkas are Harmonies, and Nessa and Orome are Tone-mates and Harmonies. Tulkas and Vana are not quite Harmonies but they harmonize regardless. Don't mind if this makes no sense lol.

#asks #lesbianhaleth #my headcanons #valar #orome #nessa #vana #tulkas #i need to come up with a convenient ship name for them... #bacchanalian gods #re: orome/vana yes im aware that namo slots neater into hades direct role thats not the point #namo is lord of the dead but orome is hunter/predator/killer the inevitable instinctual awareness of death and being chased #which is CLOSE ENOUGH for my vibes when vana slots perfectly over kore/persephone #I haven't actually listened to the magnus archives but from what I understand I think orome works very well as a kind of amalgamation #of the Fears (give or take and obviously hunt-focused) but more morally neutral/grey and less overtly negative #i tend to have him and nessa as splitting the domain of sheer animal instinct with orome as cause and nessa as effect #so like orome is fear: something-watching-stalking-you-destruction-coming-death-and-sickness and nessa is fight/flight/freeze/fawn #but the relationship there is definitely not unequal- even rabbits will kick when cornered and she is far more than a rabbit #i saw a headcanon- i think from actuallyfingolfin? that suggested that measse and nessa were just two aspects of the same vala #and that has fundamentally shaped my characterization since #i also guess i should say i don't think there's really incest going on #(inasmuch as that can apply to non-physical beings all made by the same creator whos sibling statuses seem arbitrary) #but like. nessa and orome's relationship is *weird*. definitely eyebrow-raising if they were human but they very much aren't #what with their domains and the overlap and their spouses and the inbuilt codependency of fate and sharing most of your Song #it goes to a bit of a indistinct grey area. for Flavor and Zest. #also i wobble back and forth on whether all of them are out about the relationship #i generally think it's one of those things everyone knows but you don't *say* for the valar #bc while i like my arda to be as accepting as possible there's the issue of The Canon Opinions On Polyamory re miriel/finwe/indis #but on the other hand the valar don't get incarnates or their relationships and maybe figure that elves can't marry more than one person #bc ainur don't really get married as we reckon so the whole polycule thing is fine for ainur actually but better not risk it for elves