#there's never enough gil-galad

[maglorslostsilmaril]

imo one of the pitfalls of being afab is that my voice will never be low enough to do justice to tolkien’s songs 🥲

#im an alto #which is better than nothing #but my voice will never be low enough #I JUST WANT TO OMINOUSLY SING MISTY MOUNTAINS COLD #AND THE BATTLE OF SAURON AND FINROD FELAGUND #AND THE SONG OF DURIN #AND THE FALL OF GIL GALAD #🥲🥲🥲 #tolkien

[thesummerestsolstice]

I love it when Elrond is portrayed as someone who is a little bit incomprehensible to most of the elves at first. Not even just because he's a half-elf, but because he reminds them all of so many other people, and that layering can be kind of jarring.

He sings beautifully, with a voice that sounds like no elf or man, and it reminds many of the Sindar of Luthien. It reminds some of the Noldor of someone else, another singer with raven-dark hair and starry gray eyes.

The braids he does his hair in– and he always keeps it braided at first, because letting it run loose is another thing that makes people whisper of Luthien– are in the traditional Noldor style. The survivors of Gondolin love that; Turgon always wore his hair in classical styles too. The other part of the House of Finwe that clung to traditional braids goes unmentioned. But everyone knows.

And he was clearly taught about court manners; taught to be gracious and charming, and a very good listener. The elf who could have taught Elrond those things is usually skipped over entirely, in favor of those reminiscing about Idril's graceful poise or Melian's endless patience.

He looks very much like Luthien, but there is a particular Finwean sharpness in his facial structure; something that makes him look a lot like Fingolfin, as well. Fingolfin looked very much like his father. And his older brother.

His smile is just like Earendil's (whose smile is just like Tuor's), and his strange, birdlike laugh is from Elwing. He fights and writes with his left hand– but then, so did Earendil, because while all elves are right-handed, not all humans or half-elves are. He eats no meat– just like Beren, they say, but the way Elrond tells it the choice had nothing to do with that history. There is ainuric power in him and something very human in the set of his shoulders. The flowers grow around any place he stays long enough. He gets sick in a way no elf, and certainly no maia, ever would. His accent is odd, and archaic, and changes noticeably when he's too tired to obscure it. His mannerisms are a mixture of about twelve people, almost all of whom are dead, and several of whom are not spoken of by the time he shows up in Gil-Galad's camp.

And the reflections of Elrond unsettle a lot of people; because one moment they see a fallen hero or loved one, and the next they see the person that took them. Or perhaps someone else, that they never knew at all. There is reverence and fear and uncertainty. It's messy.

Elrond himself is coming to peace with this by the War of Wrath. There is love in carrying the parts of your ancestors with you, even when they aren't around any more. And he knows better than anyone that he is always himself, first and foremost. Still, it takes everyone else a while to stop seeing a ghost and start seeing Elrond.

#silmarillion #silm headcanons #elrond #elrond peredhel #eldritch peredhel #maglor #maedhros #kidnap fam #earendil #elwing #luthien #it's Elrond hours in my brain again #*holds gently* #he deserves everything #he's never met any of his grandparents or other ancestors but he still has something from all of them

[valacirya]

In all the long years of his life, Elrond had never once resented his mother. He had grieved for her. He had raged at everyone who took her away from him. But he had never resented her. How could he, when his first memory was of her, illuminated by moonlight, singing an ancient Doriathrin lullaby? When his last memory of her was of her tearful but fierce eyes, looking at him like he was the hope of the world. Even in his darkest moments, Elrond never doubted his mother’s love for him.

Earendil was a different story. Earendil had left. To save the world, yes, but that hadn’t mattered to a six year old boy who had just wanted his father. Elrond could never truly forget the despair of those days. It had been simpler when Earendil was the Star of High Hope. Easier to name his daughter and foster son after him, to wear his sigil with pride.

Now though, in a house on the shores of Tol Eressea, Earendil isn't a legend. He’s just a man, with Elros's eyes and Elros's hands and Elros's smile. A man who left his sons… to save the world for them. "I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: someone has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them."

The sun is setting below the glistening sea. Celebrian and his mother are engaged in a game of chess. Gil-galad and the twins are plotting some new mischief. There is a letter from Maglor on the table, waiting to be read.

Earendil is watching him with so much love and pride that he feels his heart break a little more. Enough is enough, he thinks. It is time to heal.

Elrond goes to him and says, “Teach me how to sail.”

The smile his father gives in return is brighter than the stars.

#ficlet #elrond #earendil #elwing #peredhel fam <3

[echo-bleu]

Noldor Hair Headcanons (4/4)

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | On AO3

There isn’t anyone left who knows how to do Maglor’s Mourning Braids, but they are described in a lament for Fingon that’s still doing the rounds, so Elrond and Elros make their best try. That style is henceforth known as Elrond’s Mourning Braids (because Elros gets forgotten by the elves a lot after he dies, let’s not lie to ourselves).

A decade of nothing but Mourning Braids really hammers in that Elrond and Elros weren’t just hostages.

It doesn’t do a lot for their reputation, but they don’t particularly care.

Bit by bit, Elros adopts mannish customs after making his Choice, and even goes so far as to cut his hair above the shoulder. Elrond is pre-grieving his brother too much to be properly shocked about this.

(It’s still long enough to braid. It’s fine. It’s not like his brother is leaving him on purpose. Or rejecting him. Elrond knows that.)

Everyone thinks Elrond should wear his hair in the Sindarin custom but he refuses to give up his Noldor braids. Elros braids his brother’s hair until he leaves for Númenor.

Elrond and Gil-galad do each other’s hair through the Second Age. Because they’re the last of their family and the only ones to keep to the old traditions. Not at all because they’re close. Of course not. Wouldn’t be proper. (They spend two hours at it every morning alone in Gil-galad’s chambers.)

Elrond revives his Mourning Braids on his 500th birthday.

Celebrimbor learns about dwarven hair culture. It’s Very Different but kind of similar, in that fancy hairstyles are a status thing. (Or really, long hair/beard is a status thing and then you have to do something with it because otherwise it catches everywhere.)

Narvi isn’t in fact the first dwarf to touch elven hair, but that’s only because Finrod had a very extended concept of family.

Annatar magically braids his own hair, when he even bothers (his hair doesn’t even singe in the forge if it falls into the fire). This hurts Celebrimbor’s sensitivities, but he adapts to Annatar’s ways, and adapts again, and adapts, until he really can’t.

Sauron cuts off Celebrimbor’s beautiful dark braids full of dwarven beads and ties them to the spears of his personal guard. Elrond never quite manages to get that image out of his head.

At war again, Gil-Galad invents locs. Well, re-invents them really, because Silvan elves have worn them forever, but he’s the first Noldor to do it. (He has Fingon’s hair texture. Does that mean he’s Fingon’s son? Who knows. He’s not telling.)

It’s only after Gil-galad’s death that Elrond teaches himself how to braid his own hair.

He hates it.

But he won’t wear his hair loose.

(The first style he masters is Maglor’s Mourning Braids.) (It really shouldn’t be because it’s Intricate but Elrond is nothing if not stubborn.)

Imladris has a full salon, like the Noldor palaces of old.

It doesn’t get that much use, to be honest.

Erestor learns to braid really tiny braids into Glorfindel’s hair, so that he never wears his hair fully loose but it still looks like it’s loose. Everyone else thinks it’s ridiculous. Glorfindel thinks it’s the best thing. Elrond watches them with a knowing smile.

Celebrían wears her hair half-loose in the Sindar style until she marries Elrond. It takes him several years to find the strength to ask her to do his hair, but she lets him do hers and he sneaks in more and more braids until they settle on a mixed-style. When he finally allows her to do his hair, Celebrían makes her mother grumpily teach her proper Noldor braids.

Elladan and Elrohir only wear practical Sindarin braids for the day to day, but they delight in doing each other’s hair in complicated styles for feasts and ceremonies. Elrond cries the first time they accidentally replicate Maglor’s favourite hairstyle.

Arwen is a little gremlin who squirms out of her parents’ lap when they try to braid her hair. She’s also inherited even more of Melian’s hair than Elrond, so even when they manage to do a braid, it’s gone in a few hours.

It takes years after Celebrían sails, because they’re all grieving, but eventually Elrohir offers to do his father’s hair, and Elrond lets him. They don’t do it every day, but it’s a large step in their recovery process.

By the way, Thranduil’s thing for flower/leaf crowns isn’t a Sindar or Silvan practice, it’s just that he wanted to be Fancy but Not In a Noldor Way, thank you very much. He’s also very vain. His servants do his hair.

Little Estel is very cute, has very silky hair for a man, even of his line, and makes a great doll for the twins to play with. He likes his hair touched A Lot.

Arwen learns about that early on. She’s a very good silver smith. Aragorn now owns a lot of hair jewellery. He can’t make a braid to save his life, but that’s fine, because Arwen can’t wear them anyway.

In the North, he wears his hair like Elros, cut above his shoulders. Once he becomes King, he lets it grow to his waist. He’s the first Man since Tuor to casually wear his hair in elaborate Noldor braids. He accidentally sets a fashion.

Arwen also does Éowyn’s and Faramir’s hair regularly. The first time is for their wedding. Éowyn isn’t a fan of the unpractical Fëanorian styles, but the Nolofinwëan battle braids look incredibly good on her.

Wandering on the coast for two ages, Maglor no longer does anything with his hair. It doesn’t enjoy the salt at all.

When Elrond finally finds him, he almost has to cut it all off. Instead, he spends weeks carefully untangling and moisturising Maglor’s hair until he can finally braid it in the old style for him. Maglor cries.

Elrond cries too. He cries even more when Maglor sits them down on the floor and braids his hair like he used to.

They sail together with the other Ring bearers, and there’s a lot more crying when they find Celebrían, Gil-galad and Maedhros waiting for them together.

Celebrían is wearing her hair in one of the Fëanorian styles that can be done one-handed.

Galadriel isn’t entirely happy about that, but she sees Finrod and forgets about it.

There’s some more crying.

Fingon is also there (the amount of gold in his hair is a bit blinding, not that Elrond will ever tell him) and also wearing a one-handed braided style.

There are some fights over who gets to do Elrond’s hair in the next few weeks.

Celebrían wins most of them, because she’s inherited Galadriel’s viciousness, but she lets everyone have a turn.

Elrond would like to know why he doesn’t have a say in it.

(He does. They would never touch him if he didn’t want to. They’re just very happy to see him.)

He does go to visit Elwing and Eärendil in their tower, and he goes with his hair down, because he’s a peace-maker at heart.

But in Tirion, he always sports the most complex hairstyles, just barely coming short of overshadowing the High King’s (mostly because his hair is still too silky for it to hold well), because his family all want to outdo each other.

He earns the reputation of being the most beloved of all the Noldor.

It’s not wrong.

Some visuals & more in my art tag

#noldor hair headcanons #if i am to braid my mystic crown #echo's fanfiction #silmarillion #tolkien #silm fic #tolkien fanfiction #elrond #gil-galad #lotr #the lord of the rings #aragorn #arwen #celebrimbor #maglor

[middle-earth-mythopoeia]

No, Amazon’s Rings of Power is not “woke”

It annoys me so much when people complain about Rings of Power being “woke.” First of all, because of the way they overuse the word, woke has become a next-to-meaningless term that can be applied to anything conservatives don’t like. Second, Rings of Power is only progressive in the most surface-level way; underneath that it is in fact extremely regressive. People who whine about Rings of Power being woke are not only annoying, they’re also just plain wrong.

Ever since the casting was announced, right-wing idiots have been shrieking about Black actors being cast in Rings of Power. These trolls have made all kinds of dumb statements about how Middle-earth = Europe, but they seem willfully ignorant of the fact that Europe has never been exclusively white, and there is no reason to exclude people of color from the cast of any Tolkien adaptation. Still, this didn’t make the show progressive in its casting (which was tokenistic) or its writing (which ranges from bad to horrible).

For instance, the only storyline Amazon writers could apparently think of to introduce Arondir was literally him being enslaved. I mean, really? Is that really the best plotline to go with? To be clear, I’m not criticizing the actor, I’m criticizing the writing. In addition, Amazon cast actors of color overwhelmingly in parts invented for the show—rather than as actual Tolkien characters—which more easily allows them to be sidelined by the narrative, and the casting overall was in no way diverse enough. So I find it bizarre that people criticize the show for its so-called wokeness, when very little effort was made from a diversity and inclusion standpoint.

Right-wing nutjobs also threw a fit about Amazon portraying Galadriel as a warrior, to the point where they started calling her “Guyladriel.” They whined about Galadriel being too feminist and too masculine in the show, but that’s the opposite of what happened and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of Galadriel as a character. First of all, she fought at Alqualondë in one version of the story, so no one should have a problem with her wielding a sword. What IS a problem is everything else about her portrayal.

Amazon’s writers took one of Tolkien’s most interesting characters and stripped her of her power, her authority, her gravitas, her wisdom, and her ambition. They had Gil-galad, her younger cousin, order her around. They had Elendil compare her to his children, even though she’s older than the sun and moon. And they made her a petty, naïve, incompetent brat whose entire first season involves being manipulated by Sauron, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, having a bizarre will-they-won’t-they relationship with him. In addition, Galadriel is canonically tall and strong, and one of her names means “man-maiden,” but they made her short and waif-like instead.

Galadriel in Amazon’s show doesn’t even resemble the character Tolkien wrote—the character named Nerwen, who never trusted Annatar, who certainly never had some creepy Reylo thing with him, who was powerful and wise and authoritative, who had a marvelous gift of insight into the minds of others—not a quippy, rude, annoying idiot who is constantly being controlled by the men around her. I don’t know why anyone would look at Rings of Power and think this portrayal is progressive. It’s actually a failure of imagination: Amazon’s writers literally cannot conceive of a powerful woman even when all of the work of imagining her has been done for them. In addition to the faux-feminist-and-actually-sexist portrayal of Galadriel, Rings of Power is also on the whole weirdly regressive from the standpoint of gender roles and gender expression. Tolkien’s Elves are canonically tall, beautiful, and long-haired, regardless of gender. Tolkien’s Dwarves all have beards. So what did Amazon do? They gave most of their male Elves short hair, while the female Elves still have long hair, and they did away with female Dwarves’ beards. They patted themselves on the back for “letting” Galadriel fight, but don’t show other female warriors—in battle scenes, for instance, why are all the soldiers male? In general, they made their characters adhere to conservative gender roles and gender expression, which is especially glaring because it contradicts what Tolkien actually wrote.

On top of all this, they decided to throw in some anti-Irish stereotypes with a side of classism, just for fun. They had the ragged, dirty, primitive Harfoots speaking in Irish accents, while the regal, ethereal, advanced Elves speak with English accents. None of the actors playing the Harfoots are Irish themselves, to my knowledge, which makes the choice to have them speak this way especially questionable. Seriously, who thought this was a good idea?

All in all, it makes absolutely no fucking sense to criticize Rings of Power for being woke. It may look progressive on the surface because there’s a Black Elf and a woman with a sword, but that’s as far as it goes. The show isn’t particularly diverse to begin with, and it treats its characters of color poorly. Galadriel’s portrayal is disgustingly regressive, as is the show’s overarching take on gender. This is to say nothing of the caliber of the writing in general, which is unsurprisingly low. There is so much to criticize—like the nonsense about mithril, or the fact that Celebrimbor of all people doesn’t understand alloys, or the fact that you can apparently swim across the Sundering Seas now—which makes complaining about the show’s supposed wokeness especially irrational.

I also have to wonder if the people still whining about wokeness know anything about Tolkien’s works. Do they know that the crown of Gondor was based on the crown of the Pharaohs of Egypt? Do they know that Tolkien considered Byzantium the basis for Minas Tirith? Do they know that female warriors already exist in Tolkien’s books? Do they know when they rant about how much they hate “Guyladriel” that Amazon’s portrayal is actually too feminine? Ultimately, people who complain about wokeness in Rings of Power—or any Tolkien adaptation—are just betraying their own idiocy. I honestly think if Tolkien’s books were published now conservatives would scream that they’re woke too.

#anti rings of power #my writing #to be clear I have not watched this monstrosity and never will #I have unfortunately learned all these things about its horrible plot regardless #please no one comment on this post telling me that I have to watch it in order to make criticisms - just no

[tamurilofrivendell]

Sleeping Beauty | Chapter 1

Read on AO3 [x]

Pairing: Thranduil/Fem Reader Summary: A Sleeping Beauty inspired tale with Thranduil the Elvenking, and a female elf living in Mirkwood under the care of Radagast, who is actually the 'lost' daughter of the late High King Gil-Galad. Note: This is x reader but I have given ‘you’ a name. Also I needed Radagast for this story but I think technically she’d have been born before he even arrived but let’s just ignore that. If you’d like to be tagged in future chapters let me know. Translations: lothíriel (flower-garlanded maiden) anarórë (sunrise) vanwa (lost) aranel (princess) melui (lovely)

“Lothíriel!” Radagast cried out the nickname he had called you since you were but a babe in his arms, standing at the door of his little cottage deep in the forest of Mirkwood. His fingers curled around his wooden staff as he looked this way and that, brows furrowed with just the mildest hint of frustration. He was rather used to this song and dance by now. You would seemingly go missing from right under his large nose, sneaking off through the trees to mingle with the wildlife and sing to the flowers. You were a daughter of the forest, sure enough, and there was seemingly nothing that Radagast could do to keep you in check. Not that he would ever wish to dampen your spirit or dim your light, but it was his job to keep you safe and sound, after all. Keep you... hidden.

A great many years had passed since the days when this task had been appointed to him. Since that fateful day of your birth in Lindon when the Enchantress had dared show her face, laying ruin to all that could have been for you. Then the darker days that followed still. The Last Alliance. Your father, High King Gil-Galad, being slain by Sauron himself, alongside King Oropher. Dark days, indeed.

You knew nothing of any of this and that was how Radagast intended to keep it. For now. You were i vanwa aranel, as the tales told, the lost princess... and you needed to remain that way for at least another thousand years or so yet. When the full danger of the Enchantress was no longer a danger to you.

“Anarórë!” Radagast called again, using the name that you had been given just before being smuggled from Lindon under the cover of darkness. Your name was the only thing your father had been able to give you and he had gifted you the name that his beloved Queen had longed to bestow upon you - naming you after her most favourite time of day - before she was killed by the evil Enchantress that was to blame for your being out here and not in the halls of a palace as was your birthright.

“Ooh!” Radagast shook his head, turning to the bird on his shoulder with a worried expression as he heaved a sigh. He was always prone to concern, especially when you were not within his line of eyesight. “Now where has she gotten to!”

You were rather far away from the cottage where you had grown up, and from your uncle Radagast, whom you loved with your entire being but who could at times, to be quite frank, drive you rather mad. He made such a big deal of keeping you safe but some days it could feel like you were suffocating. Like treading water and never being able to move forwards. Some days it seemed that he would have enchanted the cottage to keep you inside at all times if he could. Still, you knew that he simply loved you and wished to keep you from harm.

The Greenwood was beginning to change, even you could feel that. There were pockets of thick, suffocating darkness and you could have sworn that once you saw a spider. Not just any spider but the largest spider you had ever seen in your whole life. It was said that the Elvenking was preparing to lead his people further north across the forest river due to this growing shadow.

Despite being an elf yourself, you had never met any of the wood elves that lived under the Elvenking’s rule. In truth, you did not even know the King’s name. You had watched a few of them in secret but you had never dared approach them. Radagast had always explicitly told you never to speak to strangers and something about the look in his eyes made you realise that he had some genuine reason and you followed that rule rather explicitly.

Still, you did not understand why, for how could you? How could you know that evil could take the fairest of forms to trick you into its clutches? How could you know that such evils were indeed looking for you? Actively seeking you out all over this world and had been since your birth? Radagast kept your history from you to keep you safe. As far as anybody need know, you were naught but a simple elf-maid dwelling beneath the trees of the Greenwood.

Still, it could be lonely, and you often imagined yourself outing your own presence and being welcomed into the fray of others of your kind. You adored your uncle, you truly did, and you loved your life in these woods with the wizard - but some days only conversing and interacting with him and the squirrels could become quite tiresome in a sense.

“Hey!” You laughed, lifting your gaze as a little robin gently tugged on strands of your hair from where it hovered in the air beside your head. Your thoughts melted away as you turned your focus to the little creature, suddenly realising that it was not alone. A group of familiar little animals were lined up on a nearby tree branch, looking down at you rather expectantly.

“There you are!” You chuckled, moving closer and reaching out to run your fingers through some of their fur and feathers. “I was beginning to think that you had all decided to abandon me this day!”

The animals tittered and shifted, little sounds coming from some of them as they shook their heads in dismay, eager to let you know that they would never! This little group of beasts made up some of your closest friends in this wood and a lot of days you would meet them in the clearing and pass your afternoon together.

“Oh, I am only teasing.” You laughed brightly, moving over to sit upon a fallen log, gazing up at the sky.

One of the birds began chirping and you turned to look at them, shaking your head a little as they told you Radagast was looking for you. “Well, I am not ready to go back yet.” You replied. “I have barely been out of the house in the last few days.” Another little chatter from the bird came, telling you he was worried there were strangers in the woods, and you shook your head. “He needn’t bother. Even when there is, I do not approach them. Does he not trust me? Sometimes he treats me as thought I am still a child!”

A soft silence fell upon the clearing, all your little friends looking sad as they contemplated your words, your loneliness. Even they seemed to know that even though you had them, and even though you had Radagast, perhaps it wasn’t always enough.

“Come on now!” You chuckled, brightening a little. “Let us not dwell on all of that. I will go back soon, I promise. He will not start to truly panic for another while yet.” You knew him well enough to know that you had some time to spare before he came charging through the trees with his trusty rabbit sled. “Come, keep me company while I pick some berries. Tonight I am going to make some more cakes!”

A distance away through the trees, a large brown elk was moving at a gentle trot. Astride him sat a lone rider, shoulders straight and guard up just slightly. His long white hair was cascading down his shoulders, free of any elaborate adornments, and as he rode he looked about him, studying the forest.

King Thranduil was travelling alone, something that he did not always do anymore, but his trusty swords were at his side and he knew that, if necessary, his elk could outrun any dangers that they may come upon. If he did not get them first. There was a shadow falling somewhere, he could sense it, but it was still faint and with any luck it would stay that way.

Thranduil turned his attention to the path ahead of him as he moved through the forest, aware that he would have to turn back soon and return to his realm. There was a lot to do, many preparations to make, however he had been rather needing a little bit of peace and quiet. He could defend himself well enough and it had been some time since he had been able to be truly alone. He had a heavy weight on his shoulders and he had since his father, Oropher, had fallen to Sauron, leaving him to rule. Thus the Prince had become the King overnight and, while Thranduil had often had an urge to flee and hide, it was not a whim that he would give into.

As his elk moved through the trees, Thranduil suddenly became aware of a sound filtering through all the other woodland noises. It wasn’t exactly close by and it appeared to be coming from somewhere to his right, which was not the direction he needed to go, but he found himself pulled towards it somehow.

It was somebody singing, he realised, and he normally would have simply smiled and left them to it but it was such a beautfiful melody, a voice the likes of which he was not sure he had ever heard before in all his years - and Thranduil had heard a lot of singing in his lifetime.

“Melui...” He murmured to himself, lost in the beautiful tune for a few moments before he stirred again and urged his elk to the right, struck by the sudden desire to find whoever could produce such a sweet sound.

“Come on, my friend... this way." He directed to his elk as he gently tugged the reins to redirect the beast, heading off in the direction of the singing, not caring if it was perhaps a little out of his way as his curiosity got the better of him.

His elk snorted, disgruntled at going off track, though it reminded the animal a little of the prince of old and it easily gave in, shaking its large head as it trundled off through the trees in the direction its master commanded.

#thranduil x reader #thranduil x you #thranduil fanfiction #thranduil fanfic #lotr x reader #lotr fanfic #sleeping beauty #ok loves here u go

[amethysttribble]

“He resembles Princess Luthien greatly,” Oropher said and Celeborn stiffened on instinct.

He side-eyed his kinsman, bracing for the impact of whatever came next. Oropher never made idle comments. Oropher epecially never made idle comments to him, not without the direct intention of starting a fight.

Celeborn hoped this wasn’t intended to be a fight. He’d promised Gil-galad, and more importantly, Galadriel, that they wouldn’t so much as bicker tonight. They were supposed to stand next to one another in solidarity and pretend like the High Council of Lindon wasn’t fracturing at the seams and about to fall apart, the direct consequence of Oropher’s words and desires and pride.

But right now, Oropher at least wasn’t speaking of their king- ‘I don’t remember choosing him, do you think you speak for all of us?’- but of the one standing next to him on the ballroom dais. Of perhaps the one person whose name and presence between them was just as, if not more, incendiary than Gil-galad’s. Poor Elrond.

“He does,” Celeborn replied mildly, biting his tongue before he could ask why Oropher was bringing this up now. It wasn’t like he’d never seen the young lord- no longer a boy, not a child by any race’s measure, though it was hard to remember- before. It wasn’t like they all didn’t meet and talk often enough.

“More than either Elwing or Earendil. Or her.”

And, ah. There it was.

“True enough,” Celeborn said, and he wasn’t sure if Oropher wanted him to agree or not, but he wasn’t going to lie.

Elrond took greatly after dear Aunt Luthien. In some lights it was slightly nerve wracking.

Oropher crossed his arms rather than reply immediately, his face closed off. Not stony or hard like at council meetings, but his thoughts and feelings were far away from any observer. He actually looked like the lord they pretended he was, rather than the rogue marchwarden he actually was; regal. When Oropher looked like that he reminded Celeborn of Galathil.

He looked away.

“I think, in the details though, they are more present. His cheeks, for example-“

“And it’s funny,” Oropher said, and he even huffed a very sad laugh, trying and failing to make it sound like he actually was joking. The two of them hadn’t shared a joke since… since.

Celeborn certainly wasn’t laughing. He closed his eyes and swallowed his annoyance at being interrupted. He knew Oropher did it on purpose, perpetually the preteen at his brother’s table delighting in ribald and shock.

And there were his words to consider.

“El-Elwing didn’t really take after Luthien very much.”

She didn’t. She’d taken after the person whose presence hung between Oropher and Celeborn like the unlight of Ungoliant, sucking the air out of the room. Which was a horrible legacy for someone they both loved so much, but grief did strange things to already strained relationships.

“I keep asking myself if there’s something about Earendil I’m forgetting.” Oropher was rambling now, highly uncharacteristic. Celeborn drew in a long breath and re-centered himself in anticipation for wherever this was headed. “Has Galadriel said anything about a resemblance to anyone in her family?”

Celeborn raised an eyebrow, but Oropher wouldn’t look at him. His eyes were locked somewhere past Elrond’s head. Hopefully he hadn’t noticed.

But Oropher acknowledging Galadriel’s family, Earendil’s family willingly?

Oropher had always seemed to operate under some purposeful mental dissonance, wherein he forced himself to think of Galadriel as some Telerin princess who had mystically made her way across the sea alone and by sheer force of will. And Earendil? He might as well have been prince to some lost, entirely independent Elven kingdom- not Sindar, not Laiquendi, certainly not Noldor- for how Oropher acted, for the most part.

He’d slipped in an argument about Gil-galad once when he shouted that, ‘Earendil was the only Noldo I would have ever had for my king and he’s gone!’

“She’s never made any special mention of a resemblance,” Celeborn said carefully. He didn’t want to call attention to the… mannerisms picked up from certain half-cousins that Galadriel had noticed. That wasn’t a resemblance, after all. “Why?”

“No particular reason,” he said, though it was becoming clear that there was a very particular reason, “just, many remark that his brother took after Earendil and I never saw it, so I-“

“I always thought Elros more so resembled Dior.”

Oropher’s head snapped over to finally look at him. He nodded, slow and low, not even slightly upset at being interrupted.

“Yes, I thought the same,” he said. “Funny that. Identical twins, but it’s in the- the bearing. Who they take after. Luthien and Dior.”

Celeborn fought off the shudder that threatened the shake him, to make him crack and crumble under the weight of the thing between him and Oropher that would never go away. He actually looked Oropher in the eye, and in that faraway gaze, this time he saw the same weakness.

“How much have you had to drink this evening?” Celeborn asked.

Oropher shrugged casually, with one shoulder, and that was plenty of answer. Surely he couldn’t be as drunk as either the time Celeborn found his and his friends deep into Galathil’s liquor cabinet or the night they drank themselves into a state in Sirion after… after. Still.

“That’s very unbecoming.”

“You see it though, right?” Oropher said, voice still uncharacteristically even, but when they met eyes…

He was such a weepy drunk.

“Elwing and Earendil’s boys, they carry themselves well,” he said, voice bitter as could be. “Beautiful, kind, clever, magnetic, the both of them. Princess Luthien’s wildness is in Elrond, and Dior’s wonder at the world is in Elros. They stand so tall. And, yes, you’re right, Elwing and Earendil are there in the margins, but there’s also- also them. And so much space is taken up, our- Lothig is eaten whole.”

Hearing Nimloth’s childhood nickname come out of Oropher’s mouth was like being stabbed. There was no more air. Just like that, Celeborn was drowning.

“You should be proud,” he hissed back, trying to keep his head above water. “That is a fine legacy to resemble, our princess, our king. We loved them as well. At least, I did.”

Oropher wasn’t listening. He never did.

“Do you think any of these people-“ he swept his arm out to gesture at the entire room, the entirety of Lindon’s court; Noldor, Sindar, Nandor, Men and Dwarves in the margins, and one peredhil. “-care that they killed her?”

“Don’t put that on him,” Celeborn snapped quietly, “he doesn’t owe you grief for someone he never knew-“

“I don’t care what Elrond feels, I can’t even look at him,” Oropher spat out, every word sounding pained, and there was torment in his whisper quiet voice.

That whisper, more than anything, tipped Celeborn off to the fact that this conversation wasn’t just one of their drunken spats about trading blame.

“I would have raised that boy like we raised his mother and your brother raised me,” Oropher said, “but that didn’t happen, and I can’t look at him. He looks like Luthien. His brother looks like Dior. And that’s a wonderful thing for everyone else in this room, isn’t it? That’s hope. The beautiful king taken too soon reborn and the Nightengale who stole her happy ending walking among us, and that’s such a lovely end to this tale for them. But what about for us, Celeborn?”

For Celeborn? Celeborn was shaking with the effort it was taking to keep his breathing even. Galadriel touched the edge of his fea to ask if he was okay. He gently pushed her away.

Oropher was right about one thing, this was about their family; about Doriath and Menegorth and being the last two members of Thingol’s inner court on this shore.

Eru Iluvatar, how did it end up being them? Just a pair of hot-headed youths with the weight an entire dead kingdom on their shoulders.

“Gondolin and Nargothrond are gone too,” he replied, the words dull even to his ears. “Hithlum and Dorthonion, half of Ossiriand, and even Himlad and Thargelion. It’s about building something new for all of us. Hope is not a bad thing.”

“It’s different for us.”

Yes. It was. Because Doriath and Sirion need not have fallen like that, and the monsters who took their homes and their loved ones from them weren’t even defeated. They faded, sad and pathetic and allowed to escape by everyone and everything but their prize, and there was no catharsis in that.

And in this kingdom they spoke Sindarin, but they took a Noldorin king who ruled through Noldorin traditions- with a few of Cirdan’s lessons thrown in there- in a city built by Noldorin hands. After his death, Thingol had lost his war of cultural influence. Badly.

“No one here remembers her but us, Celeborn,” Oropher urged. “They remember our heroes and our most tantalizing tragedies, but they don’t remember her. They don’t see her. She’s just one more dead wife and mother, if they get that far, but not a cousin, a niece-“

“Enough, Oropher.”

“-an astrologist, a troublemaker, a queen, a girl who was so scared of being outshined-“

“Oropher!” Celeborn snapped, more harshly than he meant to. It made Oropher stop long enough that he could put a hand on his shoulder, though.

“Oropher, you’re weeping.”

He blinked harshly, then brought up a hand to wipe at his cheek. When he pulled away, Celeborn could see how wet the palm was. Oropher glared at the remnant of his tears like they’d personally offended him.

He muttered, half to himself, “Surely you can’t keep living like this. Ignoring what was done to us because it’s awkward and inconvenient for the new age they’re building.”

Could he? Celeborn didn’t know. He was trying. Galadriel was trying; she had as many wounds as him she was trying to swallow for the sake of something new and bright. But it was hard. Lindon made Celeborn feel old, somehow. But with Oropher he was always just a boy again, strutting around Menegroth, trying to make his place, being too loud and too proud and too sure of himself.

Perhaps that was part of why they couldn’t stop fighting. Always just boys when together. And those boys, they had a few things in common.

Doriath, Galathil, and Nimloth were in Oropher. And when Oropher looked at him, those same things were in Celeborn. There was no place for those things in this new world.

Because Doriath, Galathil, and Nimloth were forever gone on this shore. Oropher needed to realize that. Not matter how much it fucking hurt.

“Go to bed, Oropher,” Celeborn told him softly. “You’re drunk and emotional. You’ll embarrass your son. He’s one of those young people looking for something new. Something hopeful.”

And when they looked back towards Gil-galad’s dais and the youths surrounding him, there was Thranduil, charming smile on his face, making Elrond toss his head back and laugh. If anyone took after Nimloth, it was him; her mother and Oropher’s had been identical twins.

Celeborn’s hand was suddenly colder and hanging in the air. He turned back to the kid who showed up one day and took so much of his older brother’s attention and who he’d never forgiven for that small slight. Oropher was composed and looking like Galathil once more.

“I hate that you’re right,” he whispered. “And he probably needs me to be better than this. But I can’t be better here.”

And he left.

The next week, Oropher would formally announce his intention to travel east and settle there, alongside anyone who would join him. Celeborn, to the surprise of every other council member but Galadriel, raised no objection. Very briefly, the thought crossed his mind to join Oropher.

But that desire faded quickly. The envy didn’t, though, not for many, many years.

Not until the day he planted a little silver tree in Lothlorien.

#this didn’t go where I thought it would but *shrugs* #Oropher and Celeborn grieve for Doriath and for Nimloth #celeborn #Oropher #tolkien #the silmarillion #I need a 2nd age tag #fanfic #tribble post

[darklordsauron]

I WATCHED THE FIRST EPISODE OF RINGS OF POWER (illegally) SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO:

I will list all the bad things and the good things of the first episode. Fair warning, I am right and those articles which calls this piece of steaming shit a masterpiece is wrong.

BAD THINGS-

The acting is sub par and so uncaring that it literally didn't feel like a real, just under a billion dollar, fantasy show based off of the legendary writing of J.R.R Tolkien.(Rest in peace, you deserve the world.)

Galadriel is a Mary-Sue (the perfect person. Everybody wants to be her, she is so 'cool' Rawr XD Uwu) and she is short despite being described in the books as taller than most elvish women and almost half of elvish men.

Elrond seems to have a crush on her and that just makes me nauseated.

Galadriel, if I should even call her that, wears the fëanorian star on every wardrobe item she owns it seems.

Actually, all the elves are the same height or even under it when compared to the humans.

The music sounds more like Game of Thrones than anything even remotely associated with LOTR.

The costume design in terrible. The material is cheap and plastic, they don't even try to conceal it. In one scene you can see that one of the background characters is wearing a black T-shirt underneath the clothes.

They barely say any of the characters' names (except Galadriel, which they repeat almost constantly). I had to google their names.

Brondir is the edgy warrior who is in love with the single mother (already forgot her name) who tries to help everyone around her.

The Harfoots, I also forgot all of their names, are the Hobbits of the second age and I hate the other main character whom comes from them. She is the relatable, clumsy character who is super curious. In other words, the most over used and predictable trope in all of film history.

They bring in new monsters/creatures that Tolkien never, ever wrote about. They probably needed these cliches to make the first episode more interesting.

The CGI sucks especially when Galadriel is climbing the glacier, icy, mounting thingy. The water is jelly and a piece of Valinor's sky literally clips out if you look really closely.

They jump locations every two minutes which gave me a headache and somehow the series is both fast and slow...AT THE SAME TIME!

There is really no heart in it. The entire thing was apathetic and simply lacked soul (because they sold their souls for money).

GOOD THINGS-

Gil-galad, his character actually looks canon and the actor is putting his heart into the performance thus making him the best.

The make-up of the orcs is simply beautiful. If only the rest of the series was.

Any scene with Sauron and the mentions of Morgoth is cool as it feels as if they have actual power in the otherwise boring show.

So far it sucks (no surprise there). I wanted to break my TV simply because their disrespect towards the source material is so obvious. Tomorrow my brain will have recovered enough to watch episode 2: Shit becomes shitier.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

#lord of the rings #the rings of power #lotr on prime #middle earth #tolkien #lotr #lotr amazon #fuck amazon #j.r.r. tolkien #i hate it thanks #amazon is a mosquito #the silm #galadriel #the mary-sue #the first episode was terrible #literally the worst #my brain is fucked #why

[tar-maitime]

bring myself to hold you

Rating: G Characters: Maedhros | Maitimo, Maglor | Makalaure, Elrond, Elros Relationships: Maedhros & Maglor, Maedhros & Elrond & Elros Additional: post-Sirion, questionable adoption, slowly becoming a family WC: 1k

“What’s the Quenya word for ‘mother’?” Elrond asks.

The question is a little out of nowhere, but ever since Maglor started with his insistence on teaching the twins Quenya, one or another of them will pipe up with a random vocabulary question at odd times. Maedhros shrugs, and tries to not let the mental image of Elwing falling with the Silmaril clutched to her heart take over.

“There are several,” she says, not looking up from the maintenance she’s doing on a pair of daggers. “Ontaril is perhaps the most technical of them - it only means ‘she who begets’. The most commonly used is amil, although there are several variations on that, as well as a couple of...warmer diminutives - ammë and amya.”

Elrond nods, looking serious, thanks her, and goes his way. 

Maedhros doesn’t really think about it afterward. Even if it’s been pretty much assumed that they’re keeping the twins indefinitely ever since the new star rose, she doesn’t like to let them occupy too much of her thoughts. She helps Maglor with them as needed - probably everyone who’s left has at some time or another - but she won’t play along with his fantasies of parenthood, won’t get too comfortable. If Maglor can fool himself into thinking he’s unmonstrous enough to raise children, good for him, but she can’t.

“Really, Nelyë? I know you weren’t like this with Gil-galad,” he’d said to her once, early on.

She’d stiffened at the mention of her no-longer-son. “That was entirely different,” she’d said shortly. “I was not responsible for his first home’s destruction. And even he wants nothing to do with me now.”

And there is, after all, plenty to concern herself with besides the idle questions of children, if they want to keep on surviving here in this poorly-manned fortress in the midst of the wild, so she’s almost entirely forgotten the conversation a few days later, when Elrond says casually over supper, “Ammë, would you pass the bread?”

At first, Maedhros ignores him entirely - it’s been decades since ammë meant her. When he nudges her and repeats, “Ammë?”, it finally dawns on her who he’s talking to.

She continues to not look directly at him. “I don’t know who you mean,” she says evenly. “No one’s mother is here. Yours is...in the West.”

“Naneth is in the West,” Elrond agrees. “You’re here, though. Do...do you not want us to call you that?”

“I told you she wouldn’t,” Elros mutters from the other side of the table. 

“It was worth a try!” Elrond retorts, with a brief glance at Maglor, whom Maedhros has been trying not to notice gaining the title of Atya occasionally from the twins. Maglor, for his part, is a study in neutrality, although she knows him well enough to see the hope seeping through the cracks.

“If you insist on giving me some kind of familial title,” she manages, “I would have thought you would try atarnésa.” ‘Aunt’ is still not something she thinks anyone ought to call a kinslaying kidnapper, but it would make more sense if they insisted on calling Maglor a father.

Elros shrugs. “We’ve never had an aunt, so we don’t know what it’s like,” he says. “And you - you’re like Naneth.”

Aside from them both being female, Maedhros cannot think of anyone else she would be less likely to be compared to.

Elrond seems to sense his brother’s floundering and picks up the thread. “You’re busy a lot, and you’re always working to make sure everyone stays safe and has enough. You don’t like to stop and rest in case somebody thinks you’re broken, but you will if it’s to spend time with us. That’s how it was with Naneth, too.”

Maedhros is unable to speak for a moment, and when the ability returns, she rasps, “I drove your mother off a cliff. I was part of the reason she was hurt like she was.” She doesn’t usually lay it out that baldly for them, but there doesn’t seem to be anything else for it.

“We know,” Elros says, not casually, but calmly. He shouldn’t know how to sound like that at his age. Just one more thing she’s broken. “It’s...marred. So is everything. But we’re all here now, and it would only make things worse to hate each other, so we might as well try the other thing.”

“We don’t have to call you Ammë if you don’t want it,” Elrond says quietly. “I just thought it might be nice to try.”

Maedhros is silent for a few long seconds. She’s not sure how to explain that Ammë isn’t supposed to mean her, Ammë is supposed to mean strong, gentle, chisel-callused hands and a warm smile and the smell of clay and dust and someone who can comfort and fix things. The name had only barely started to sit right with her when she had to send Gil-galad away, and now it chafes against the sticky new blood on her hands.

But the twins seem to think it would make them happy, to call her this, and doesn’t she owe them that, after everything? She took away their real mother; she can deal with them using her as a substitute, wrong as it is, if they consider it some kind of restitution.

“It’s all right,” she finally says. “You can call me that if you want to. Whatever you like.” 

The children’s eyes go wide with delight, and a hopeful smile slips onto Maglor’s face.

#silmarillion #maedhros #maglor #elrond #elros #kidnap fam #feat. quenya education #soft despite maedhros' best efforts #roots compliant

[gffa]

My problem with Rings of Power’s opening episode is that it is nowhere near strong enough to overcome its most fundamental obstacle:  It doesn’t have the rights to The Silmarillion, HoME, LaCE, Unfinished Tales, etc., so it cannot reference those events but it wants to tell stories based on those events anyway.  So what you end up with is this story that can vaguely gesture in the direction of the Kinslaying and the Feanorians, but it can’t actually tell you about those events.  It can gesture in the general direction of the political structure of the First Age, but it can’t actually tell the story of the characters’ relationships with each other. So you’re left with vague, unspecific events instead, you’re left with the show trying to give gravitas to Galadriel’s campaign against the Enemy, but you can’t fill in the details, they don’t even say Finrod’s name, they can’t reference anything more than “and then the Elves went to war”, like, that is the flattest version of those events that you could possibly give! It’s not that there’s not sparks of something really lovely in the show, I actually genuinely enjoy Elrond’s character, there’s a warmth and earnestness to him that wasn’t conveyed in the trailers or character descriptions, where yes he’s young but you can see the person he’ll grow into being.  But I spent the entire first episode feeling like something was missing and it really slapped me in the face when Gil-galad asks if he knows Celebrimbor and my mind was immediately like, “I mean, Celebrimbor is Curufin’s son, pretty sure Elrond would be aware of him, yes??” but none of that can be in the show, just that Elrond’s aware of him as an artist.  That lack of touching on the connection there made me realize that, so far, nothing in the story has shown us that Elrond is anything more than just some random Elf. That’s my problem with the show!  You can get away with it by the time of the Third Age, because Elrond is the head of Rivendell, he’s thousands of years old, there are very few Elves left, you can feel his importance to the history of the world.  But when he’s younger, you can’t lean on that, the only things we know about his background are that he’s not an Elf-Lord, he’s Gil-galad’s herald, and he’s Galadriel’s friend.  There’s nothing about how Elrond is Thingol’s heir.  Or what that means.  There’s nothing about how he’s descended from Finwe as well and is a prime candidate for king of the Noldor, after Gil-galad.  There’s nothing about his connection to the Feanorians.  To Elwing and Earendil. Then there’s Galadriel, who the show does all right with, when they shift her inability to go home/the refusal to turn back from when she first crossed over to Middle-earth to her inability to let go of the fight against Sauron, and I can see some potential in that, that they’re working as an adaptation as best they can, since they can’t reference the events that her source material was built on.  But when she was speaking with Elrond over the memorials, all I could think about was how these characters felt like a half-finished story.  Celebrian doesn’t exist yet, so that connection isn’t there.  This Finrod didn’t die to save Beren, so there’s no sense of, “Oh, had Finrod not sacrificed himself, Elrond wouldn’t be here.”  And there’s too little that takes the place of it to fill it in with another story, just that Galadriel’s seen things.  Worse things than anyone else.  Things.  Stuff.  She’s seen some shit. Maybe, as the show goes on (I could only finish the first episode before I fell asleep), it’ll do its best to reference these things as much as it can, but it can never overcome its fundamental problem: It’s trying to tell a story about events that it cannot reference and it’s not a strong enough show to overcome that with what it can tell us.

#lumi.txt #tolkien stuff #rings of power

[doodle-pops]

‧₊˚. Can You Kiss Me More | Kissing the Elves‧₊˚.

Headcanons: Amrod, Amras, Turgon, Angrod, Aegnor, Gil Galad

༉‧₊˚. Amrod — like you were made of glass.

His arms would encircle your waist while the other rested on the upper portion of your back between your shoulder blades. Lips a few inches away from yours, you could feel his breath ghosting your cheeks and causing your lashes to flutter. Your lips were moist from all the anticipation you were building in your nervousness when he stood before you with determination. Eyes darting from your lips to your eyes, he hesitated at first, testing the waters to ensure you were on board with his actions. Once he saw the gleam of eagerness in your eyes, he tenderly leaned in and planted his slightly rough lips against yours.

The first kiss was fleeting before he planted another, this time, with more vigour. His arms pressed you against his chest while yours gripped his for balance. Amrod kissed you with fiery passion, though, it did not burn. It was warm and welcoming, beckoning you for more. Your lips danced with one another as you tasted the cherry-flavoured wine on his lips and grew eager for more. There was something about him that was addicting, but Amrod was patient enough to pull away with a gentle peck. “Why don’t we continue this inside?” he breathlessly whispered.

༉‧₊˚. Amras — like a cheeky lover on a summer day.

You couldn’t help but giggle as Amras's hands roamed your sides, tickling as they travelled up and down to draw all the laughter he could. Knees planted on either side of your waist as he partially sat on your legs, he hovered with his face near yours, marvelling at the beauty you were. Suddenly, there was a fleeting touch of something wet against your cheek and a grinning Amras gleaming above you. One kiss was never enough for the mischievous ginger, and you didn’t need to be told twice that he was making his rounds for another. This time, you met his halfway when his lips came down to collide with your cheek, with your lips.

Expecting him to be stunted, Amras used the opportunity to strike with his endless puppy-like kisses by grabbing your face. The more you laughed, the more playfully aggressive Amras grew with his kisses, covering every ounce of your skin with his lips. They felt like the sun kissing your skin repeatedly. The pleasures of the summer wind dancing across your skin and caressing you with utmost love and affection were endless and euphoric. Amras blessed you with his sweet kisses from your forehead to your lips. “I expect to receive my share after I’m finished here!”

༉‧₊˚. Turgon — with all his undying passion he’s suppressed.

Feeling your back pressed against the soft picnic blanket, a pair of soft pillows collided with yours, filling you to the brim with passion. You could feel the tension in his movements; he’s been dying to have alone time so he could express his affections. This was the first time he ever took a step towards displaying affection in public—couldn’t call it public when you were miles away from the city. His lips moved against yours with the burning desire to make you feel his love, even his hands that cupped your face held you with might. The soft moan and sigh that escaped his mouth as the kiss progressed told you he was pleased.

Tilting your head upwards to deepen the kiss, your hands trailed to cup his face to meet you at the required angle. The action caused your lips to part and eyes to open, allowing you to witness his mirth. A smile played on his lips, swollen and plump from all the passion he was drunk on delivering. He appeared carefree like the silly young prince who fumbled with his words when he first confessed and bumped heads at your kiss. To see how he had matured and felt comfortable kissing you vigorously was a dream come through. Lifting your head to close the gap, you placed a small peck on his lips and nose before you both giggled. “I can never get tired of kissing you.”

༉‧₊˚. Angrod — kisses you with desperation and hunger.

Standing at the entrance of your home, Angrod stood chest to chest with one hand around your waist and the other cupping the nap of your neck. The evening was peaceful as the sun setting in the background set the ambience while you and Angrod shared your first kiss. The air was filled with passion and desire, the desperation to finally kiss you after waiting for months. Your lips were finally locked with his, and he wasn’t wasting the opportunity to make it everlasting. Whatever space was left between you was closed when he pressed you into his chest to deepen the kiss.

Your lips moved in sync, breaking apart only to gasp for air before returning to make progress. For a moment, you felt like he was devouring your lips with small bites and nibbles. He took control and led the kiss. Occasionally, you would knock your teeth and bump your nose against each other; the action provided humour among the seriousness. Soft chuckles erupted and urged you to pull apart with reddened and plumped lips, and bliss in your eyes. The hands that held you lifted to caress your cheeks. “I can’t wait to kiss you all over again.”

༉‧₊˚. Aegnor — like it’s a fairytale and a dream come true.

You felt like there were butterflies flapping in your stomach and taking you to the heavens, soaring high above the clouds and among the stars. Your stomach was performing cartwheels and tumbles the moment Aegnor’s lips meshed with yours and his hands cradled your face. He treated you as though you were made from the finest gems in all of Arda. The way his lip moulded against yours appeared like a perfect sculpture chiselled out of marble. They were soft and pillowy the more they moved against yours, only breaking apart to kiss at a new angle because one kiss wasn’t enough. The more he kissed, the more you felt yourself being transported.

The little hitches in your breath, when he nibbled on your lips before planting a kiss, felt playful. It was a sign that he was ready to break the kiss and litter your entire face in abundant affection. He always doted on you as if you were a lost treasure, most precious and rare, deserving of all the love he held in his heart. A kiss to your nose, followed by one to your forehead, he took the opportunity to bring you into a sudden dip and ended the last one on your lips. There was an air of charm and innocence as the moment became tranquil—just staring into each other’s eyes and basking in all the unspoken words he wished to say. “Perfect.”

༉‧₊˚. Gil Galad — with an air of playfulness and youth.

For the entire day, no matter how much you complained about it, your loving husband found it best to annoy you with treaties of kisses for everything you were doing. Whether you had made a correct statement at court or won an argument against a court official, he would lean down a litter kisses on your face. You could be walking by and decide to greet him, he’ll pull you in for a kiss or perhaps, adjusting the collar of his robes, he’ll distract you. It didn’t matter what you were doing, kisses were your payment for all you had done for him. A way of your King saying, ‘I love you’ and ‘thank you’.

He has you sandwiched between him and the mattress, hands pinning you to the bed, and lips scattering hundreds of kisses. Your neck, collarbones, upper chest and face weren’t free from the slaughter he chose to brutally attack with. It was all because you decided to take care of him with lunch—he tended to blow things out of proportion—he desired to return the favour. Loving the giggles and ignoring your pleas to let you go, Gil Galad continued to deliver his mountain of love, knowing that you secretly enjoyed every minute. “Stop squirming around my love and let me shower you with my affections!”

Masterlist | Underrated Character Event Masterlist |

Taglist: @eunoiaastralwings @noldorinpainter @ranhanabi777 @lilmelily @someoneinthestars @mysticmoomin @aconstructofamind @the-phantom-of-arda @rain-on-my-umbrella @singleteapot @wandererindreams @asianbutnotjapanese @justellie17 @justjane @silverose365 @bunson-burner @wisheduponastar @stormchaser819 @ilu-stripes

#underratedcharacterevent #amrod x reader #amras x reader #turgon x reader #angrod x reader #aegnor x reader #gil galad x reader #silmarillion x reader #silmarillion imagine #silmarillion headcanon #silmarillion fluff #middle earth x reader #middle earth imagine #middle earth headcanons #amrod headcanon #amras headcanon #turgon headcanon #angrod headcanon #aegnor headcanon #gil galag headcanon #x reader fluff #house of feanor #house of fingolfin #house of finarfin #x reader insert #silmarillion #doodlepops writings ✨

[annoyinglandmagazine]

Years Of Imitating Mastery, Have Only Made Me A Better Thief

Summary: There was a look in his eyes, a sorrowful longing that he was more familiar with than he would like to be. He didn’t look like Nimloth, not really. Or Elrond and Celeborn angst for Day 3: Extended Family @tolkienfamilyweek

Celeborn had avoided him thus far; nothing obvious or malicious, he was always perfectly civil, but over time it was hard to ignore that when they brushed past each other their eyes never met, that he always seemed to filter out of a room when the others present grew too thin to act as buffers between them, that he didn’t seem fully at ease when Elrond’s gaze rested on him on the rare occasions they did exchange pleasantries.

It didn’t bother him. It didn’t. He had dealt with far worse rejection than the polite avoidance of some distant relative he’d never known. It wasn’t as if Celeborn seemed to distrust him, he had never seemed wary when Elrond was to lead beside him in battle (which was more than he could say for certain Sindar). Occasionally disapproving to be sure but that could easily fall into the category of people who questioned the ethics of letting someone his age fight at all, which he did not mind on principle considering those people were probably right.

On one occasion he could have sworn he saw him flinch momentarily at the eight pointed star on the hilt of his sword when Elrond had been sharpening it over his knee; he had a right to that of course, they all did. It was no one’s fault, not really, it just was.

He rifled through his journal, leather dyed forest green with thick swathes of creamy paper, different shades, textures and scents betraying the way he’d been clipping things into it once the original piece had run out some 30 years previously. He’d have started using a new one, he could certainly afford to, but this had been the first thing he’d been given for no ostensible reason other than that he may like it (he’d gone with Maglor to gather some supplies and he’d assumed it was a ledger for official matters yet he’d come home to find it resting on his pillow. It had been seven silver coins, he remembered that still). He liked to have some reason to carry it around with him so he could remind himself that for reasons beyond his understanding he had been loved by those who were not meant to be capable of it.

At present he was searching for a particular section, the notes he had accumulated over a few particular Avari dialects, as if the few minutes before he needed to be the picture of composure and a fountain of diplomatic knowledge by the High King’s side would give him anymore conversational skill in some of the only languages he had never heard spoken. Still he could not take his page of verb conjugations into the banquet so best try while he could.

‘I hope I’m not interrupting?’ Elrond stifled a sigh and shut the journal on his desk, resigned to his fate of not understanding everything said in discussions for the first time since he came into Gil Galad’s service.

He turned to meet the gaze of his visitor ‘Not at all, was there something you needed Lord Celeborn?’

Rather than an answer he got another question, he should have been used to it after living with elves so long but it still grated at his edainic sensibilities. ‘Are you content in Lindon?’

Well what was he to make of that? Could it be political somehow, Celeborn and Galadriel had seemed pleased enough with Gil Galad’s position but who could begin to parse the web of complexities of their manoeuvrings? ‘Very, my lord. Gil Galad has been exceedingly welcoming and there is no one more worthy of my loyalty.’ Perhaps a little on the defensive side but not nearly as confrontational as he had the slight reputation for being at times.

He did not seem to take offence, smiling, ever so slightly unsure, and pausing before speaking again in a tone almost too gentle to be heard, ‘I’m glad to hear it. You remind me greatly of your grandmother, you know.’

There was a look in his eyes, a sorrowful longing that he was more familiar with than he would like to be. He didn’t look like Nimloth, not really. He’d seen paintings of her, talked to others who had met her, never had any similarity been apparent or commented on. Everyone always said the same thing, Luthien dominated leaving only the barest trace of anything else to be found by those who saw only what they wished to see. Elrond decided to be kind and turned to compose himself by fixing the braids bound above his head, hair black as a void, thick and wavy, as far as you could get from the smooth curtain of silver depicted on the statues of Celeborn’s long lost cousin.

He was interrupted out of his musings by Celeborn hesitantly moving forward to stand in front of him. ‘I- thought that you might like to have this. I guessed that you might not have many things from Doriath.’ In his outstretched hand was a hair clasp, beautiful in its elegance, emerald green coloured glass shaping interlocking leaves and blossoms.

He spoke, only confirming what Elrond already knew, ‘It was her’s.’ This was all he had of her and he was giving it away to someone he barely knew, someone who had never met the elleth he was clearly mourning deeply.

‘Really, lord Celeborn, I cannot accept-’

He placed it into his hand and gently closed Elrond’s fingers around it as if they were delicate, more delicate than the glass itself, liable to be snapped if handled too roughly. Celeborn had seen him rip an orc’s arm out of it’s socket once. He got the feeling that he had tried to forget that, it would complicate matters, make it harder to pretend he was that pale silver haired girl laughing among the trees and muddying her dresses by playing in the riverbanks trying to drag him along with her with childish pleading. Elrond wished once again that images and snatches did not cross from others to him so naturally. Without the confirmation he could have pretended as well.

‘Please. It is yours by right.’ They stood there for a moment, both uncertain but Celeborn hiding it a great deal better.

‘Would you like me to show you how to use it?’ Celeborn smiled at him. It was a nice smile, fond and soft, one you would give a favoured nephew of about ten, not an estranged cousin raised by your worst enemies and trained in all manner of brutal warfare. One he might have given an Elrond raised in the Havens of Sirion, a sweet and naive youth who had never come into being. Is that who Celeborn was choosing to see before him? The perfect Sindarin prince who had died many times since the siege of Sirion, who had perhaps never existed in the first place but who could know now?

Elrond nodded slowly and sank down in front of his mirror obediently; Celeborn gently pulled out the gold pins holding his hair in tight braids about his head and found the brush to slowly smooth out the kinks. Did he breathe easier when the Noldorin patterns were no longer visible or was it just Elrond’s imagination prescribing motives to kindness because that at least was familiar to him. He thought he could feel some satisfaction as the last one unwound; the mark of his ‘captors’ gone from an ellyn Celeborn wished to see as one of his own people.

He found himself wishing for one terrible moment that he could be who Celeborn so clearly wanted, that the complexities could be so easily brushed away with fond and comforting strokes. That maybe if he was Celeborn would stay for a few moments longer; he was gathering his hair in his hands and plaiting pieces of it back from his face patiently, genuinely trying to show him how so he could replicate it. He remembered hearing somewhere that Celeborn and Galadriel had a young daughter and thought fancifully if this was how he was with her. He’d had many families already and it seemed unfair to ache for another when all that he touched burned away in his palm. He wanted nonetheless.

It had been long since he’d felt someone smoothing his hair so gently and the warmth of the gesture made him ache and want to claw desperately and seize at this warmth that seemed so close to genuine affection until he looked up at Celeborn’s face and something in his eyes made the hopeful smile growing on his face falter. He had that far off gaze again, the melancholy one he’d known earlier that told him he was not truly here. He was in Doriath or in Sirion, with Nimloth, Luthien, Elwing or perhaps with a son that belonged to Elrond’s mother and no other.

As a solitary tear slipped past Celeborn’s cheek and was quickly brushed away he decided with a growing weariness that Celeborn needed this more than he did. Elrond was kind above all, a conscious decision for kindness’s sake and a selfish, childish impulse that still believed that if he was more obliging, more helpful, more sweet, more loveable they would stop leaving. One day. When Celeborn was visiting he wore his hair like he’d shown him and dressed in flowing silver, grey and white, certain brooches, necklaces, circlets and weapons left pointedly in his chambers.

He spoke Sindarin perfectly of course, when he sung in it there was no trace of who had taught him to do so. Maglor Feanorian was, rather ironically, entirely forgotten when he sang, no one questioned where he might have learned to manipulate the nature and possibly, some murmured, people around him despite how obvious it should have been that there was one particular bard infamous for using those exact techniques. After all with his ebony waves down to his knees, bright eyes and distinct otherness that could only be Maiarin why should his skill at Song be worth commenting on?

He still smiled brightly when Celeborn kissed his forehead in greeting or complimented and offered advice (generally very good when not affiliated with the Kazhad in any way) on his diplomatic endeavours. The snatches of that girl were never far from Celeborn’s mind when Elrond smiled. Was this all he was, a poor substitute for a thousand different people, a corrupted reflection from a mirror of other people’s regrets? Was it even right to resent it when as Celeborn’s hands had started running through his hair for one moment he’d closed his eyes and wished them to be those of a kinslayer? Even as the warmth he craved lingered in his chest it was replaced with a gnawing emptiness, even greater than before. But Elrond was kind so he smiled as if nothing was amiss.

#Tolkienfamilyweek #silmarillion #tolkien #Lotr #lord of the rings #elrond peredhel #celeborn

[thesummerestsolstice]

One of my favorite Elrond headcanons is the idea that he starts out looking very much human and elvish. He has ears too pointed to be a man's, but not nearly long enough to be an elf's, his father's (grandfather's, really) blue eyes and brown hair that shines like an elf's, but gets tangled far too often.

Sure, some weird things happen around Elrond as a child– the birds that seems to follow him, the way some injuries mysteriously resolve in his prescense, the unusual flowers that bloom outside his windows– but really, it's easy to see those as distant remnants of an ainuric power that Elrond clearly didn't inherit. When he comes to Gil-Galad's camp, it's much easier for them to see Tuor or Beren in him than it is to think he's descended from Melian.

But then time passes. The changes are slow enough– happening over decades or centuries– that no one really notices at first. Elrond's hair darkens until it is as black as the night sky– as black as Luthien's was. His eyes leach color until they are gray– not Noldor gray, mind, but a strange, starry gray that some of the Iathrim whisper about. His voice changes, almost seems to take on an echo of itself, sometimes.

The strange things that happen around him only get stranger– the trees bend to shelter him, during storms, and sometimes when he sings, the birds sing with him. Elrond got a cat, right at the start of the Second Age– a gift from Gil-Galad. Somehow, it never seems to grow old or die. The parts of Lindon Elrond most often visits always seem to be in full bloom, no matter what season it is. His healing abilities surpass what is to be expected of a man– an elf– eventually, of what seems possible at all.

At the end of the First Age, it would've been hard to believe Elrond had more than a trickle of ainur blood in him. By the beginning of the Third Age, many have started to whisper about Rivendell– a new Doriath, ruled by a Maiarin lord with all Melian's grace, and her eccentricities.

Elrond doesn't realize just how much he's changed until the day, late in the Third Age, when he finds Maglor wandering on the shoreline. Nothing he says will convince Maglor that he isn't Luthien's spirit, returned from death to haunt him.

#silmarillion #silm headcanons #elrond #elrond peredhel #eldritch peredhel #maglor #please tell me if you want more posts about this #this headcanon haunts me regularly

[awkwardtuatara]

The last two Silmarillion Daily posts have gotten me thinking about the War of Wrath again, specifically these points:

Why didn't the Elves remaining in Beleriand fight in the War? Were they tired, incapable, unwilling, or prevented from fighting by the Host of the Valar? Also notable is that Gil-galad is High King of the Noldor at this point, regardless of his genealogy, and working to maintain refuges for the Eldar. And given that this war shook the ground and spanned the entirety of Beleriand, there's no way they didn't know about it.

For that matter, why did the Edain fight when the Elves didn't?

This war took forty years. With its large scale and the ensuing destruction of the land, conditions must have been dire by the end - lack of supplies, low morale... The Siege of Angband lasted 400 years, but they didn't have to supply enough resources for an army that can cover an entire continent, and the land was more hospitable then.

How was the Host of the Valar ready to fight so soon? As far as we know, the Vanyar have never been involved in any combat. The Noldor wouldn't have had much experience in fighting or strategy either. This means that either: 1) at some point in First Age Valinor something occured to make the inhabitants arm themselves and learn to fight; 2) in the span of 1-2 years they gave themselves a crash course and procured all their resources, possibly assisted by the Valar (which is possible, depending on whether or not time passes differently in Valinor); or 3) the grand Host of the Valar was severely underprepared upon arriving to Middle-earth.

What were Elrond and Elros doing all those years? Did Earendil ever see them again?

#silmarillion daily #also we have almost *no details* about how the war actually went aside from a few incidents #war of wrath #finarfin #ingwion #eonwe #valinor #beleriand #gil-galad #silmarillion #tolkien

[tanoraqui]

Trick or treat!

This is the askbox equivalent of a king-size candy bar, I guess.

In the late part of Fingon and Celechwes's wedding (both in a continuity where Celechwes was already pregnant or in which pregnancy was the Plan but never came to fruition, and Gil-Galad was a random sergeant from Nargothrond who stepped the fuck up), Lalwen, very drunk, leaned against Círdan's side where they sat together on a balcony overlooking the moonlit first rise of the River Sirion, and asked if he wanted children one day.

After centuries of correspondence both formal and informal, such questions were easy between them, if particularly intimate tonight. Círdan admitted that he did think of it with yearning sometimes - but he had other duties and loves, and at any rate, he'd never found someone to have a child with.

Lalwen promised that if he still hadn't found someone when this was all over ("this" the war, the Siege, the Long Peace, which they had no real hope of ending in conquest themselves but which they thought Morgoth could never break, either), she would happily marry him, and bear "more children than Nerdanel."

Círdan said, amused and fond, that that seemed excessive, and one or two would likely be quite enough.

Lalwen agreed. "All my siblings are overly ambitious." Then she slid down and fell asleep in his lap, because quite frankly Lalwen could never hold her alcohol.

About 200 years later, after "this" was, in fact, all over - and they'd both helped raise a king to adulthood, and the Sirion and all the waters and lands of Beleriand were lost beneath the sea - they stood on a new shore and Lalwen wept because she would miss him terribly, her dearest friend left, as she would miss Gil-Galad and her few other remaining niblings, and all those of their jumbled people who chose to stay...but she couldn't bear to stay herself. Too many had died, from the first steps upon the Ice - from the blood-stained docks of Alqualondë, from the Darkened steps of Formenos! - and she couldn't endure a single change of seasons more, watching the trees go dull and bear again.

Anyway, she said, wiping her nose quite unprincesslike on her sleeve, those who Sailed now needed someone to speak for them in the high courts of the West. Even Finrod, even Idril...well, they hadn't been here in the end, much as those who had arrived (and survived) through the end had never been here for the long years of joy and peace. Someone of repute needed to go who had endured through the whole long Age, and Lalwen was more or less the only one left (humble enough to seek forgiveness).

Círdan, tears on his cheeks as well, promised to see her again first thing when he one day followed (which would be many, many years in the future, they both knew, because he had long-since been bidden to Sail West last of all the Elves of Arda).

(Now, that was always a little exaggerated, because even after Círdan the Shipwright has Sailed, for Ages unto the End of the World, there may always be one last stubborn elf isolated in a forest glade who decides that enough is enough and builds a clumsy canoe from a fire-hollowed tree, or maybe no more than a raft; and so long as their aim is true, Ulmo will see them safely to their promised home.

But the fact remains: one day, Men will look back and deem that the winters have grown harsher, or awkwardly more mild, and overall less wonderfully crisp; and the summers have grown more fiery, or awkwardly lukewam, and overall less perfectly golden; and the brooks babble less happily and the rustling of tree leaves sounds less like conversation... A few will say it is because the last of the Elves has finally left us behind. Most will say, in later days yet, that it was early signs of anthrocentric climate change and the pre-industrial revolution bringing increased population and burning of etc etc…)

Some years hence, Círdan and Lalwen sat together on a bluff overlooking the eastern sea, which once they viewed as the western sea, and Círdan said, "Do you remember our conversation just before you fell asleep at Celechwes and Fingon's wedding party?" (She did.) "If you're still willing - well, the truth is, I was speaking with Ossë and we..."

Now, a thing you should know about Círdan Shipwright, in his youth called Nowë, is that he is possibly the only elf of note to have stayed on good terms with all the Elvish peoples of Middle Earth through all the ages he dwelt on its shores. Even Elrond feuded with Mirkwood for a few centuries in the early Third Age! But Círdan was universally known and respected for his patience, his diplomacy, both his deep wisdom and his common sense...

Less well-known, though never deliberately hidden, was the fact that his dearest friend in the world was Ossë, Lord of Storms, and nothing delighted him more than to sail a sturdy one-elf coracle out to the heart of a wild sea-storm and fling his heart open to the crashing waves, the howling winds, the crash and the flash and the rain so hard and seas so high that the songs of air and water, up and down, tangled together in a glorious symphony that wasn't discordant, not anymore, but couldn't be said to be safe either... But Círdan was one of the greatest sailors the world ever knew and the ships of his own hand were steadier yet, and Ossë was only there to play, not to rage. Together they danced and sang, while Uinen kept a discreet eye out from a distance to be sure everything stayed safe, sane and consensual.

(This might explain, a little, why Círdan got along so well with the ever-tempestuous Noldor.)

Meanwhile, Lalwen had a reputation for being "the normal one" of the House of Finwë. She hadn't put any particular effort into this, she'd just never died in battle nor told a Vala to fuck off to their face, nor even created any legendary objects of power. She threw a good party and had a well-honed knack for stopping fights before they started.

Their wedding was extremely tame by Noldorin standards, and only a little dramatic by the standards of the Falas - a simple beachfront affair with extended family and a few dozen good friends, with no more glitter than the gems mixed into the sand and Eärendil sailing brightly above. (In balance, Fingolfin, who'd been shipping this since roughly 200 FA and not just because it would've been wildly politically convenient, threw his sister THE most glorious gaudy bachelorette party. Possibly ever.)

They were entirely open about the fact yes, naturally, they were marrying because they loved each other dearly and, after so long apart, they looked forward to being bound together for eternity - though probably not living together all the time, because Lalwen was at heart a city girl and now that Círdan never had to worry about random large predators, bandits or shadow-laced bad weather, he slept on the beach or on a ship 9 nights out of 10 -

- and also that Lalwen was going to more or less serve as a surrogate birth mother for a child brought into the world by Círdan and Ossë. Ossë couldn't bear it himself, see; his nature was too inherently destructive...

People who didn't know them well tended to blink at this; think, Well, it's Círdan and Lalwen - they must know what they're doing. It must be reasonable and not insane; and move on thoughtlessly. Some even forgot as soon as the subject changed, because it wasn't in line with what they knew.

People who knew them well asked things like, "What?" and "How!?!", and even, "Is that safe? Have you consulted Thingol, the Vanandili, the Fëantúri - "

(Lalwen shrugged at her older brother. "We're going to make it up as we go. Don't worry, Nolo! Uinen will be involved as well, to keep everything as peaceable as an infant fëa needs, and myself as well. We've literally had foursomes before - and this time, it won't be stretched across several thousand miles plus the Straight Road.")

Faliel ("daughter of the waves") is a basically normal Elvish girl, except she casually runs on water, and breathes it if she gets into the rhythm of it (saltwater is much easier, but freshwater works, too.)

#ask meme #ceridawn #lalwen #cirdan #the silmarillion #my fic #ficlet #metaphysiogenetically weird girls of the extended house of finwe no.2 #celechwes concludes that this logically some sort of niece to her; and teaches faliel the joys of Really Fast #she races boats and waves and stormwinds

[anghraine]

I caught up with my re-watch of the second episode of Rings of Power! The episodes are long and have a lot going on, but it was fun and enjoyable—more than the first, actually, since it wasn't trying as hard to introduce everything and could breathe more.

I really liked the beginning with Galadriel in the sea, staring up at the stars before she starts swimming. Very apropos.

I thought Nori et al's stuff would be kind of tedious (I've never been super into hobbits or proto-hobbits), but tbh I find everything about it delightful to watch.

Arondir and Bronwyn are maybe the prettiest onscreen pairing I've ever witnessed. Their little theme/motif is also really nice and not overwrought the way the music sometimes got in the first episode. It suits my sense of their story being a bit like marginalia that doesn't exactly fit into the grand sweeping main narrative of Middle-earth, but is getting some spotlight anyway.

And now we've got Celebrimbor for real, with warning bells all over him! (Not literally.) I appreciate that almost the first thing he does is mention Fëanor, and he and Elrond immediately dive into a conversation about the Silmarils and craftsmanship, and Elrond seems deeply ambivalent off the bat. Him saying "So much beauty, and so much pain" about them/Fëanor's craftsmanship while wearing a feathery outfit that is hard not to associate with Elwing is ... yeah. You'd know, Elrond.

Celebrimbor's slightly snarky explanation that he asked for a massive team to build his tower forge thing and Gil-galad "has sent me you, instead" kind of worked for me? Robert Aramayo doesn't look anything like my idea of Elrond but I love his difficult-to-pin-down yet determinedly pleasant performance of Elrond's emotions and mannerisms. I also like Celebrimbor's robes.

And, oh man, seeing Khazad-dûm in its heyday? HELL, YEAH. The music is doing some of the lifting but mostly it's just fucking awesome to see. The show is clearly lingering on it with a lot of love and attention, which it's really nice to see the dwarves getting.

I liked getting references to Aulë from the dwarves (no, it's not what dwarves would ordinarily call him, but it's a reasonable concession to comprehensibility for people who aren't, well, us). During the whole challenge thing, Elrond is referred to as an Elf over and over and over, which I'm kind of :\ about as a firm proponent of Half-Elves Are Not Men or Elves, No Matter What Ultimate Fate They Chose. Elrond seems pretty uncomfortable with it (though that may be more about his relationship with Durin), but also does more or less accept it as a descriptor.

Nori was still trying to figure out the Stranger, which somehow is not boring, and meanwhile her father's ankle breaks or sprains or something as part of festival preparations. The Harfoots collectively treat this as a huge deal and are asking if he'll be able to migrate, which is not exactly framed as super ominous, but definitely seems significant and at least somewhat ominous. Nori is clearly pretty freaked out.

The first part of the episode is sadly a bit sparse on my girl Galadriel (though she got so much attention in the first episode that it's understandable), but we got back to her, still swimming. It'd be a bit unbelievably impressive from other people, but I can believe it for her. She sees the raft of survivors before we do, which I liked as a little detail.

The raft is really spiky, appropriately enough for a raft with Sauron on it. It's kind of hilarious that almost his first line is "Looks can be deceiving." No shit, lmao.

The survivors+"Halbrand" and Galadriel have this brief and slightly weird interchange about Corsairs, which strikes me as an odd reference both geographically and in the time period we're in.

Then there's a SEA WYRM that shows up out of basically nowhere and causes havoc resulting in the deaths of everyone except Sauron Halbrand and Galadriel. A coincidence, I'm sure.

Then we cut back to Elrond and Durin, and finally find out why Durin is so mad at Elrond. It turns out that Elrond basically ignored his existence for 20 years while he was doing ... things, and Elrond didn't even realize it'd been so much time because a couple decades is nbd to him. Angst and other difficulties around different lifespans = one of my most favorite fantasy tropes, so I'm onboard for this particular drama.

It's a little surprising that Elrond of all people would make this mistake, but then again, Elros himself lived so long that 20 years would have been a tiny fraction of his own lifetime, too. (Now I want lifespan angst or anxiety or something with Elros being the one who's "welp, it's really been that long?")

Anyway, I enjoyed how serious and fraught the whole discussion is and then the cut to comedy when Elrond arrives to apologize to Durin's wife, Disa. IDK, I didn't feel it was undercutting Durin as a character or his feelings, even while poking a bit of fun at his sulkiness—e.g., when Disa enthusiastically tells Elrond to make himself comfortable, and Durin is like, "But not too comfortable."

I love Disa's appearance, by and large. The patterning on her outfit is so cool and different. She's generally a delightful character, and I appreciate that while there's an element of calculation to what Elrond is doing, he seems genuinely interested in her and her work. The narrative itself feels really interested in the dwarves and their culture at this point, and I just enjoyed that a lot.

Meanwhile, back to Galadriel and Halbrand/Sauron. It's still really funny to me that there was so much indignation over Eminem Sauron being insufficiently hot, and then actual Sauron turned out to be this currently bedraggled but very conventionally attractive guy.

I like his little head tilt as he's ostensibly figuring out what's going on and his little "You're a deserter, aren't you?" As if he doesn't know who Galadriel is, hah.

When he says "My people have no king," it feels like a pretty blatant call-back to Boromir in Jackson's FOTR, but of course it's inverted, ultimately. Halbrand is a shadow Aragorn, not a shadow Boromir, and is himself (supposedly) the king he's rejecting. I'm not going to go on too much about it because I have a whole post about it here.

Anyway, Galadriel condescending to Sauron is kind of delightful. Sure, she's mistaken in assuming he's mortal. But everyone should condescend to Sauron, actually!

Back to Bronwyn, who is a bit more interesting in this episode, she actually makes it home and tries to convince her village that something is very wrong, but no one believes her. They seem kind of ridiculously stupid, tbh? Maybe not ridiculously—I can believe they would actually respond that way (I lived in the shadow of Mt St Helens for years, I know very well that historically sometimes that's the response to clear warnings of disaster). But come on, people.

Then there's Arondir in the horrifying claustrophobic tunnels with the glimpses of horrific claws. It is very successfully claustrophobic, especially when MICE start running all over him as they're trying to escape. Agh, the special hell. Then he emerges in a pool of water, only the water is super gross also, and he's focusing on the bubbles of something pursuing him only to get grabbed by a different claw monster.

We don't see him again for the entire rest of the episode and that's alarming!

I was taking little notes while I was watching, but at this point that got interrupted and I ended up watching the rest of the episode with other people and didn't take notes. But general thoughts:

Durin's final change of heart wrt Elrond and decision to take Elrond's offer to his father was a bit oddly offscreen, and it's kind of needlessly mysterious about what advantage the dwarves have over the Elves, but the show has already given us enough through both exposition and the behavior of the characters that it's not hard to buy.

Sauron saving Galadriel with Finrod's dagger is like. Hmm. Well. Yeah, that's a lot. I really like the scene of their raft in the storm—not much actually happens apart from it looking cool, but it did look really cool! And I love the imagery of Sauron desperately trying not to be drowned by the wrath of the sea, aka what will actually happen to him! :)))

I love how mysterious the Stranger is and basically everything that Nori and Poppy choose to be. Things like Poppy's "I don't speak firefly!" just work much better for my personal sense of humor than ... like, dwarf-tossing.

Theo's whole deal with the sword is ... menacing in a way where we know enough to know something is Very Wrong and related to Sauron, but not really what's going on with it. And the thing Bronwyn and Theo fought and killed was super freaky. I liked the abrupt cut to Bronwyn showing the decapitated head to the stupid villagers and them being like, "hmm. okay, guess we're moving now."

Aaaand Galadriel and "Halbrand" have been discovered!

#anghraine babbles #tv: lotr #legendarium blogging #long post #elanor brandyfoot #poppy proudfellow #arondir #bronwyn #my little piano: music is magic #celebrimbor #elrond #durin iv #galadriel #elros tar minyatur #disa #sauron #legendarium fanwank #theo #rings of power