#in which finrod is a NERD and also a very good heart

[potatoobsessed999]

Finrod Felagund. "Philosophic discourse regarding the enmity of Orcs with Elves." The Philosophy of Finrod Felagund. 2nd ed., edited and translated by Vardamir Nólimon, Armenelos, S.A. 130.

[Ed. note: Private papers of Finrod Felagund. Written in his own hand. Dated to the season of Firith in the year 455, shortly before the Dagor Bragollach.]

Fact: According to the lore of our people from the days of Cuiviénen, the Enemy fashioned Orc-kind by his torture and slow corruption of Elven captives.

Question: How did our people learn this lore? Can it be that any ever escaped from the depths of Utumno to serve as witness?

Fact: In the lore we got of the Valar there is to my knowledge no teaching regarding the origins of Orc-kind.

Conjecture: It may be that our lore is not reliable on this point.

Fact: There are a few among us who dwelt at Cuiviénen, and others of their number abide yet in Aman; none of them have to my knowledge disputed the accuracy of our lore on this matter.

Fact: The fëar of Elves and Men have their differences from one another, but none so fundamental as the distinction between the fëar of the Eruhíni and the spirits of the non-speaking creatures. The spirits of non-speaking creatures cannot properly be called fëar, as the distinction in question is one of kind and not of degree. (Indeed fëar cannot be spoken of at all in terms of degree or size, as each fëa is itself indivisible.)

Fact: The lore we got of the Valar tells us that the fëa cannot be destroyed by any means.

Fact: Also of that lore, we know that the Enemy cannot truly create, only twist in mockery what has been created.

Fact: Also of that lore, we know that the Dwarves have their fëar of Ilúvatar alone, and not of Aulë. Before the granting of their fëar they could not speak, nor had they any will of their own, but could only obey the will of Aulë.

Fact: Orcs speak, and there is sense behind their words.

[continued on Ao3]

#finrod #finrod felagund #silm fanfic #silmarillion fanfiction #silm #silmarillion #the silmarillion #tolkien #tolkien fanfic #tolkien fanfiction #my writing #my fic #in which finrod is a NERD and also a very good heart #in-universe philosophy as angst is after all his Thing (as well as andreth’s) #finrod is my son and i give him my orc emotions. i do this because i love him

[eilinelsghost]

Writing Year Wrapped

As someone who struggles to name things in my own writing that I enjoy (thanks, childhood of being repeatedly told that anything but self-derision was arrogance), I thought it might be nice to have an excuse in case anyone else needs a reason to talk about things they're proud of.

So for the year end, let's get this going!

3 Favorite Fics You've Written This Year

Atanatárissë || My 2023 TRSB fic written to accompany @anerea-lantiria's absolutely incredible art. It was an unexpected delight to get to push into the Atani mythology and this one will always be really close to my heart.

A Heady Fragrance of Honey || Finrod's moment of Balan-epiphany and my chance to delve into a bit of his background in Valinor.

And Still the Light Returns || One of the things that has always made me flinch about the Finrod/Bëor dynamic is how Bëor pretty much abandons his kids. Getting to wrangle with that (and make Balan wrangle with that too) was good for my heart. Also have I mentioned that I adore Belen? I adore Belen.

3 Fics That Stretched You the Most

In These Holy Waters || I hated this one with an absolute passion when I posted it. It was like pulling teeth trying to get words on the page. I've now come to terms with it and find I have a fond spot for it after all.

A Harmony Refracted || Honestly either of the anon smuts would count here, but this one is the better of the two so it's the one I'll list. Never thought I'd write smut, but it was weirdly freeing to try it after a very shame-centric upbringing.

Many a Dreadful Path || Writing Beren has been one of the hardest things in the entire Atandil series so far. I just cannot find that guy's voice for the life of me. This continues to be a struggle as the series continues, but I wrangled a lot with him on this one and was fairly pleased with where it landed.

3 Favorite Lines You've Written As always, I'm going to stretch the definition bit on what "a line" is because I need these to make sense.

"He could see all the way to the shore, the crags where he had perched only a few minutes before shining crisp and vivid through the water. And there to his right—Nóm dazzling in the midst of it. A cloud of gold, his hair floating about him; his body suspended as though caught in glass with the shimmering light cascading along its facets." —In These Holy Waters, Atandil 14

"So it was to be reborn, Finrod mused as he moved ever nearer his brother, the essence of your fëa lingering and binding you to your place in the world, to the memory of your vessel, but you knew the unmaking yet within every fiber. Each sinew held too the memory of that. You walked through the world, more permeable than before, light and pain both spilling more easily from its cracks." —Little Lords of the Brine

"Yet my reticence faltered once and in that brief moment she rose beside me—a balm and not a sharp thing of shearing edges. And she has remained there ever since, steady through the tempests, my first love gone before me as I go now before those who remain, a loss abated not deeper delved. Do not flee memory for fear of heightening pain, for it is the physic that soothes the long ache and that which binds the wound together. Remind Nóm of it as well, for he will forget it." —Atanatárissë, Chapter 5

3 Characters You Enjoyed Writing (that surprised you)

Belen || My dearest lil guy, my baby hedgehog, my adorable nerd. He has a single reference in the intro notes of the Athrabeth and has turned into one of my absolute favorite characters in the entire series.

Estreth || She showed up as an accident and ended up a damn delight.

Hiril || She was in a list of people I thought it would make sense to explore in my TRSB fic and she surprised me by ending up one of the easiest voices to find, when I expected her to be one of the more difficult.

3 Unexpected Inspirations

A joke about whether Nargothrond just had some random Lembas Lady resulted in one of my new favorite characters in Atandil: Meril, besain of Nargothrond who was born in Cuiviénen and is one of Finrod's chief counselors.

The Father Duck story from And Still the Light Returns is based on a story from my childhood. We lived on a lake and a duck got caught in the ice in the middle of our bay. My mom and our neighbor dragged a canoe down and chopped their way through the ice to get the duck. It lived in our neighbor's bathtub for a bit until the local vet was open and could help get it to a wildlife center to recover and be set loose.

My 4 year old blowing a penny whistle as hard as he could for an unbelievably long time gave us Belen and his carved flute in A Shuddering in the Air.

3 WIPs You're Excited About in the Upcoming Year

Darkly the Sundering Flood || Mostly listing this because I'm *hoping* that putting it on here jinxes me and makes it a fic from this year still. It's Atandil 15. It's a beast. It has been murdering me for 2 months.

The Reckoning of Souls || Still Atandil. The gang is in Tol-in-gaurhoth. Everybody's having a terrible time. We discuss souls and Orcs and making people complicit in their own breaking.

A Broken Reflection (working title) || The boys finally get together.

3 People Tagged to Share Theirs

Tagging with zero pressure:

@thelordofgifs

@sallysavestheday

@polutrope

#writing year wrapped #tumblr games #finrod #bëor #my fic #the silmarillion

[warthoong]

Hello, it's the "I'm about to watch Lay of Leithian"-person from earlier. I felt weird hijacking your post for this but I am taking your answer as an actual invitation to ramble so here goes nothing (you don't need to answer though, I hope this isn't somehow werid. But I have feels and I stumbled upon the rock opera mainly because of your posts on my dash so it's basically your fault.)

Anyway, having finished the rock opera just now, I gotta say it's amazing!!! I'll probably need to see it again to form a more elaborate opinion (also it's pretty late and I need to go to sleep asap) but here are some random things I liked in no particular order: The choreography (especially fight scenes) is s o good!! Sauron's cape!!! very important. As is edgy Mandos (and the costumes in general). I lost my shit about CxC being weirdass comic relief villains, they were literally perfect. Also Thingol is exactly how I always imagined Thingol to be, Melian's song is SO GREAT!!! and the battle between Finrod and Sauron may just be the coolest thing I have ever seen!!

I am very hyped rn (if you couldn't tell) and I suppose I will need at least the next few weeks to obsess over this masterpiece! So thank you again for talking so much about it and making me discover it! I hope you don't mind the rambling.

Hello))) I'm actually beyond happy you did come here to ramble! I've been trying to make people watch this rock opera, and people like you, who come and say "hey! I watched it! and I learned about it because of your posts!", is the sign that everything I did was not in vain)))

I'm so glad you appreciated all the small details, like choreography and the ballet team, and Melian and Thingol, and Sauron's cape, because these things truly are amazing, but they may be easily missed amidst the main characters and their performances. you also mentioned that you loked Celegorm and Curufin, which I'm so glad you did!! some people don't like them, because they are so different from C&C from the book, but they are so good! bastards(affectionate)!!! they are played by actual brpthers and they seem so natural, and Huan-

I'm sorry, now I'm the one rambling😆😆 you were worried about texting me? you didn't need to, I have SO MUCH feelings right now, I'm reading your message in the morning, and truly it makes me want to jump and dance, like twirling sparkling Finrod singing AaaaAAaAaa!!!! I'm just. Lay of Leithian rock opera is very precious and personal thing to me, and also the straightest and easiest way to my heart)))))

I... well. me and my friends, we have a discord server that originally was dedicated to the Lay of Leithian rock opera(it's still, but also it's a place with bunch of nerds and Tolkien fans), and if you would ever want to join, you are welcome))))

p.s. I realized I used ")))))" quite a lot in this text, and I don't know where are you from, but I had met people who had been confused by these multiple brackets, so here's a small explanation: it's a cultural thing, a custom if you will. here, in my country, we use multiple brackets without the two dots to mark different intensity of smile. essentially those are just wide smiles

#personall stuff #lay of leithian rock opera

[i-am-the-inksinger]

hello, it is I, annoneth! (idk I tried to riff off of annatar with questionable results. Anywhoooo) I am here to ask if you have any broad headcanons about Valar, elves, or peredhil in terms of how they differ from humans. more questions to follow I'm sure, but that will do for the moment. happy december!

Greetings, Annoneth! Please don’t convince me to create rings of power and then torture me to death when I decide to keep them to myself. It’d make a mess everywhere.

Broad headcanons! Eru help us all, we’re gonna be here a while.

Concerning the Valar:• They are all huge nerds. To a one. Not just about their respective dominions, but also about the races of Men and Elves and even Dwarves. And especially about everything these races create and bring about. The second the Elves were discovered every single one of them flipped their lid. Some of them are known to nerd out over completely mundane things like tunics and baskets because, “YOU made this one, so it’s still unique and special!” Others fangirl hardcore every single time a child of Ilúvatar expresses a desire to study under them. It’s not even dignified in most cases. Tulkas especially is known to bounce excitedly in place and clap his hands together when nerding out.

• I do not for one second ship any Valar with any elf. I just don’t see the Valar as being interested in elves in that manner - less because they’re at all unattractive, and more because the Valar look at elves the way parents look at a child they’ve tried to have for years and almost gave up trying to conceive at all.

• I do think the Valar in general have and enjoy having sex. Depending on which pair exactly, they may not have incredibly kinky sex, but they do have… sometimes ridiculous amounts of it.

• I don’t think the Valar need to eat at all. When they do, it’s usually because they just enjoy the way food tastes - or else they’re trying to be polite. They each have a favorite food, though.•• Same theory applies to drinks. Unnecessary, but so delicious.

In regards to Elves:• Regardless of their description in canon, they’re as a rule all the sort of people you would think of as “fey.” Whether it’s a cheerful kind of fey with bright laughter and not-quite-civilized humor in their eyes; a dark and foreboding fey marked by a swift temper and an unusually cruel sense of justice; a quiet, almost listless fey wherein the elf in question is sometimes calm to the point of seeming unresponsive to their surroundings, even while actively engaging in an activity that requires a great deal of attention; or some other kind of fey entirely, for someone as capricious as an elf it isn’t a matter of occasionally being in a fey mood. Compared to what a human would call normal and natural, elves are always just a bit… odd.

•• It’s most pronounced in the elves specifically noted by canon to be fey or otherwise unusual of mind. Those elves are picked out and labeled that way because they are so very off that even other elves find them unnerving, which means they would likely register as outright deranged to a human.

•• Finrod was no different. If anything, he was just the best able to figure out what humans found so unnerving about him and then tone it down enough that they were put at ease.

• Elves are social creatures - bordering on pack animals due to their fey nature. Antisocial tendencies and behaviors will always register as unnatural and potentially dangerous to them, and an elf who notices such behaviors in any friend of theirs - even if the friend isn’t an elf - will do absolutely everything they can think of to break their friend out of that pattern. It’s simultaneously cute and annoying.

•• Similarly: Fury unnerves and frightens them. Too much of their history was made dark at least in part by elves and other people and creatures gripped in the throes of their own blind rage. If you want any elf to avoid you for several days or weeks, throw a tantrum that culminates in something being broken.

• The vast majority of Elves - regardless of their specific culture or heritage - have absolutely no qualms about public nudity insofar as how “decent” it is. They do, however, find it intolerably foolish to wander about completely naked while in hostile territory, even in the comparative safety of a keep or fortress.

• You don’t have to have long hair for an elf to find you attractive - any head of soft, well-kept hair has a decent chance of attracting their attention. Long hair is only a bonus; after so many centuries of battling the Shadow, and especially with stories like the fall of Gondolin in mind, long hair is something of a mark of confidence and martial prowess - especially when it is worn loose or partially braided.

•• That said, braiding your hair completely - or tying it back at all, if it’s too short to braid - is considered a signal that an individual is ready for some sweet, sweet lovemaking.

In regards to the Peredhil:

• BEAUTIFUL HALF-BREED CHILDREN. PROTECT AT ALL COSTS.

• They will always bear a heavy emotional and mental burden, no matter their disposition or circumstances. They are elven and human in equal measure; even when they choose their fates, their hearts remain the same. They are filled with too much joy and wonder and determination, and know too much of grief and uncertainty, for it to be any other way. They feel as deeply as an elf, and as swiftly as a human. Only their human blood allows them to endure grief in greater measure than a pureblooded elf - and most are not so sure that is a blessing.

• Of all the races of Middle-earth, it’s the peredhil who have the most massive (and most frightening) appetites. Hobbits have their many meals and love of good food; dwarves have their boisterous feasts and borderline rude table manners; elves stress eat for days on end. Nobody can match a peredhil who’s gone more than five hours without a snack - and it’s suicidally unwise to attempt to get between one and his or her food.

• Everyone would call a peredhil fey. The humans would see in a peredhil the same odd, almost wild streak as their elvish cousins, often laid bare during times of great excitement or stress. The elves, meanwhile, would notice a decidedly human tendency towards calmness and constancy of temper - something just as odd to the Elves as bouts of unbridled fury or stubbornly antisocial behavior.

• There is no one in all the world who finds life and living things more beautiful or more miraculous than a peredhil. They are possessed of too much of the wisdom of the elves, and too much of the wonder and curiosity of humanity, for it to be otherwise. The simple acknowledgement of life and its bounty robs them of their breath and all sense of time and purpose, and it doesn’t stop as they age - it only becomes a softer, quieter reaction within them, easier to hide and work through as the years progress.

•• The upshot: They all squee over baby animals. Every. Single. One of them. Even Elrond.

[legolasgoldy]

WHICH ELEMENT ARE YOU?

Tagged by: @mikhailvalhidris <3

Phillip:

// Its accurate aside from the sentences that talk about judging and problems. Phil never ever judges people and i cant think of a single problem that hes ran away from.  BUT the part about its okay to say no, and being able to nurse someone back to health from a toxic state of being is so true <3 //

Your element is WATER. There is a lot of depth to you, probably much more than you let on. You prefer peace and little conflict but have no issue standing your ground when you are wronged. You have deep emotional currents, some you can't even explain, many might be intuitive. You must remember that despite your strong empathy, you cannot judge people so quickly. You also need to learn that it is okay to say no. Your avoidance of problems leaves you in more trouble then when you deal with them. That aside you are seen to be full of love and wonderful energy. You can help people relax and bring them back to a healthy state from a toxic one.

Finrod:

// Very accurate! Finrod just works so hard to learn everything he can about anything. Hes so good at everything he does that it can seem intimidating to people who dont know him because they dont realize hes not trying to seem better than everyone else, he just wants to learn. Learning is his passion and he works hard to ace everything simply because its fun to him to try new things and accomplish them. Finrod is really a sweet lil nerd who just wants to be friends. Altho hes not exactly rigid like that says but he can be in terms of being polite, and needs to just let his hair down sometimes //

You are EARTH. People of the Earth element are hardworking, genuine and determined. You know what needs to get done. You know how to get a good life, and you need to earn it. You have a powerful heart and an appreciation for the smaller things. You could stand to be a bit less rigid and take a breath once in a while. If you keep pushing forward without a rest you'll come off intimidating to others. That aside, you are sturdy and self efficient and make a reliable ally

Tagging: @truesanguinesoul, @minstrelmaglor, @castoutbymyown, @youcancallmepietro

#I got Air >.> it was accurate XD #Thank you!!! :D #rp related #Answered #mikhailvalhidris #Phillip headcanons #My Finrod headcanons #I was tagged