Fruit Harvest Festival

Shout out Haleth. The It Girl of the Edain. Centuries later and all these shield maidens have posters of you on their walls. Showed up, served no nonsense badass, refused to elaborate, left.

👑Nerdanel 👑Eärwen 👑Anairё

"A king is he that can hold his own, or else his title is vain" says Maedhros and it reveals something interesting about how he sees kinship and his role as leader.

A king is he that does not delegate and when wants something done, goes himself. He leads by example, he negotiates (attempts to, at least) with Morgoth, he places himself at the northern border of Beleriand, and the text tells us that he is even "very willing" that Morgoth's force falls heavier on him. He is ever watchful, he goes personally into battle, and is at the frontline, doing deeds of surpassing valour.

And when he is king no more, when Himring has fallen, and what little hope they had of defeating Morogth has vanished, he has his oath. He loathes what the oath makes him do, this the text says plainly, but the fact remains that he does it all the same.

He clings to the oath, terrified of what could happen if he breaks it. In his last conversation with Maglor, he appears to be more concerned to be an oathbreaker, than anything else, convinced that the doom of an oathbreaker is worse than that of a kinslayer. Because a king that breaks his oaths, is no king at all.

He is trapped in the condrum that the 'heroic' mentality poses. Until the bitter end. When faced with the very fact that the oath was void, his entire worldview, his certainties crumble, and his life has no meaning anymore.

Every fantasy story should have a Tom Bombadil type character. Fantasy takes itself way too seriously these days. Throw in a fucking random singing fairy weirdo you cowards. Oh it doesn't fit the tone of the story? Grow up. Your story isn't too good for a a random vaguely eldritch wife-guy singing random rhymes about on his walk through the woods.

Nerdanel, strong Nerdanel, young and curious. She travels alone throughout Valinor, to the edges of the light of the Trees. She sleeps on the fields under the stars, she eats what the land offers. She follows streams and wild beasts, she collects rocks and takes notes of the different types of mineral and stone, her drawings filling the pages of the little notebook she carries with her. She goes on foot, and her legs get strong and quick. She ascends the peaks, where the snow crunches under her boots, and running water carves shapes into the rock. She is on the summit of the Pelori, where the air is thinner and cold, and she can see the plains of Valinor stretch underneath her. She wonders if this is what Manwe feels like, if he feels the same exhilaration that she expereiences in her bones. She reaches the sea, she swims with the dolphins and imagines to fly with the seagulls, and her eyes are drawn to the dark sky far in the east. She wonders what had the Elves in Cuivenen seen, how they had lived in the dark, the stars their only guide. She feels observed, a kind presence that watches over her, and the stars look a little brighter as her voice raises in song to Varda. She stays there, at the fringes of the territories of the Eldar, mourning in her heart the day that she has to return home, under the bright light of the Trees - beautiful, but the stars are not as bright as they are here. She would like to take their light with her, to preserve that gentle and distant beauty. But she has to return at some point, she cannot wander forever.

One day, as she is making her way back home under the light of the Trees, she meets an ellon. He is tall and dark, but when he looks at her, his eyes shine brighter than Varda's creations. And Nerdanel knows that she will keep starlight with her forever.

Anyone else: the hands that cradled your face and tilted it upwards to kiss your forehead are soaked in unfathomable quantities of blood.

Elros and Elrond: But they cradled me, yes?

(Credits to @queen-of-hobgobblers )

Family Happiness

Evening had fallen upon Tyrion, but Finwë's chambers were alive with light. The king listened with delight to young Macalaurë's new work, a quiet but surprisingly profound motif that spoke of longing for distant lands and the majesty of Aman. Finwë, now free to consider himself a musical expert, was immensely proud that his grandson could express his feelings so skilfully through melody.

Next to him sat Maitimo, the eldest of the grandchildren. He studied the map intently, tracing the winding lines of the roads with his finger. Plans and dreams of wanderlust stirred his thoughts, and Finwë smiled warmly at the eagerness in the eyes of a grandson who knew the world only through stories.

Finwë felt at the pinnacle of happiness. His son, Feanaro, had found someone who shared his passion and thoughts, and now, sitting on the terrace with Nerdanel, they quietly discussed plans for a new journey through Aman, where every corner held ancient wisdom and every stone held its secrets. They planned to visit places hidden even from prying eyes, ancient rock formations to which they were both drawn as craftsmen and creators.

But the king suspected there was more to these plans. Feanaro's eyes shone with the same brilliance as they had years ago when he first met Nerdanel. Though they discussed routes, Finwë noticed how their voices sometimes fell silent, and the same spark that ignited when someone dear to him was near.

As if chuckling to himself, Finwë wondered if he might soon have a new grandson.

I just dipped into Appendix F for an unrelated reason, and I think it’s funny that out of everything Sauron ever did — a master craftsman and teacher, a commander and conqueror, a deceiver and seducer, who achieved so much and, even in defeat, usually came verrrry close and tended just to reappear later all the stronger — one thing he utterly failed at was making Black Speech the common language of all his servants. He made grammar and vocab and syntax, and then the orcs could never figure out how to use his system. They ended up with such a hodge podge of fragmented, bastardized versions of the language that they were often incomprehensible to each other and had to fall back on Westron, the language of their enemies, to be understood even within Mordor.

It feels extremely JRR to me that he would let his Big Bad Villain kill and maim and enslave and despoil the environment, but he simply couldn’t allow Sauron to succeed at…linguistics.

hug :D

I said in my last post that Maglor needed hugs and now he has a big hug!!!! :D

This drawing has me very emotional, I wanted it to be the 7 brothers hugging each other, Maglor in the center, after many years of him being alone and sad wandering the coasts. Is this a dream? A hallucination? Or is this a miracle and his brothers came back for him? :) ……I actually wrote a whole super silly fic about it but I don't think I'll finish it soon haha ​​mmm we'll see haha

It's 2am and I'm happy, I love this drawing, even though I had a bad time at some moments because of mistakes that were completely avoidable but because of who I am I decided to take the more complicated path hmmm….This whole drawing is on the same layer haha….that wasn't a good idea haha ​​but I love it anyway.