#I love earendel so much ;;

[book-of-legends]

@ask-noonescity: Cresselia trotted over to the Jirachi in excitement "Oh my ! I can sense it! You are a Jirachi correct??" she giggled lightly "You even look like my universes little star so tired ~" she chimed happily before eyeing the crown as she titled her head "Are you a...so called...roy-al-itheee...?" she awkwardly stammered through her words as she clearly hasn't interacted with anyone as much "I-I apologize im new to whole terms and stuff...I dont really venture out of my bubble" she chuckled awkwardly "Basically the crown its important correct?"

"D-do I know you??" Earendel seemed completely baffled at the fact someone approached him, Usually people ignored him. He wasn't exactly the most talkative of Hope's children, or... rather people never gave him the chance to be. Despite the confusion, he looked more worried than anything.

"I am a Jirachi... you're right about both those things... How did you know what kind of Pokemon I was?" How odd. Maybe she was some kind of soul reader? Wait... was it also that obvious how sleep-deprived he was? Perhaps he was just easy to read.

As he spoke he nervously looked around, he still found it extremely strange how direct she was. But it was a nice change from people generally avoiding him. "It's okay, I'm not really good with words either. It's actually why I don't talk at public events and stuff, I don't have the vocabulary to do that like the rest of my family. I'm kinda the odd one out in that area." "Pretty sure it's pronounced royalty but... don't take my word for it. You'd have to ask my little brother, he's the smart one, not me. I might be the older one, but It really feels like he is sometimes... even if I baby him a lot." "Oh! Yeah. Sorry. Um. I forgot, you asked a question."

"My mom's pretty well-loved, so, our people demand we wear the crowns at events to... you know, bring Hope and Harmony to the realm. I guess just think of it as a blessing of good times and prosperity?" "I don't wear it in my free time, trust me. Not really my cup of tea, I'd rather exist in the background." He sighed before looking back towards her. "Hmmm."

"You kind of remind me of a little bird too... so. Uhmmmm." The Jirachi quietly stared at her for a long moment, taking in all the details of her appearance before giving his final guess.

"Maybe a shiny one?" He gave a nervous smile, "I'm not really good at guessing... If you couldn't tell." "I really like your clothing though... I honestly wish I could pull off cute outfits like that. I'm not really used to my human form so this is the only thing I own. Pretty lame but yeah. That's about it."

[ Ask from @ask-noonescity ]

[snackara]

Earendel

And here he is, the little lad himself.

Like with Asha, I took a different spin then what most people have been doing with Starboy. Some of the early concepts took inspiration from Peter Pan, so I decided to go all in with this idea and make him a young boy instead of an older teenager. Which was also an idea mentioned in the Art of Wish.

He has a similar personality to what was shown in the movie, being the definition of chaotic neutral while also being very sweet and naive.

I wanted him to really be the emotional glue of the trio, letting Asha and Miguel open up to him about their feelings. He also has his own character arc, learning what it means to be human. That they can be very malicious and cruel, but also compassionate and empathetic. This was something mentioned briefly in the Art of Wish book I wanted to incorporate, shown below.

His appearance is very similar to the one above, especially in terms of clothing. He has a typical prince getup that’s black, and a long cape made of stardust. Also the little hood with the antlers. He appears to be around 12 years old, being a much younger star. Minus the clothes, his appearance is also similar to the art below.

(via Saira Vargas)

He doesn’t have an important backstory in this rewrite (at least at the time I’m writing this) so this section will instead explain the star’s and their magic.

Stars exist in a place known as the Celestial Realm. It is sort of hard to explain exactly what it is. The Celestial Realm is technically another dimension, though it can be seen through the night sky via magic, and can even be accessed by very powerful magic.

Older stars have the power to go from earth to the Celestial Realm through conjuring a portal fairly easily due to how powerful their magic can be. Though they mostly choose not to. More on that in a minute.

Very few humans have the ability to go from one realm to the other. Only those who have studied magic their entire lives are able to do so.

However, most people don’t try, thinking the Celestial Realm is just a myth. Meanwhile, the stars believe the humans are selfish and hollow beings because of their lack of natural magic and some bad history, so they don’t bother with them.

So, what can stars actually do? Well, nearly anything, as long as it does not bring harm to others. They can transform things, give inanimate objects life, let things talk, create physical things from stardust. The stardust can also be used to just create pretty visuals. The only things they cannot do are make people fall in love, or again bring harm to anyone in any way.

Phew, alright. That was quite a bit of rambling to get through. Hopefully I explained everything well, but feel free to ask for clarifications if needed.

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more.

[annes-andromeda]

Why did they have to make the stupid star marketable and cute and cuddwy

According to the concept art book, Star was designed after the classic pupil-less Mickey design used from the late 20s all the way to the late 30s when he was finally given pupils by artist Floyd Gottfredson.

While it may sound admirable and a nice homage to the literal mascot of Disney, it’s so obvious why the creators made this choice: to sell toys.

The creators also said that they were afraid that shapeshifting Star would be too much like the Genie or something, but like… it’s not wrong to take inspiration from that character.

Star was originally going to be inspired by the Genie and Peter Pan, and even possibly be Asha’s live interest, but the idea was scrapped for the more “marketable” version.

My version of the story has both the cute version and shapeshifter version of Star, albeit the human version goes by Earen after the star Earendel, and Earen is Asha’s love interest.

Was it really so hard for Disney to incorporate both versions? Like deadass, we haven’t had a focal Disney Princess love story since Princess and the Frog and Tangled. No, I don’t count Frozen cause the main focus was Anna and Elsa.

Are they just allergic to love stories and taking risks now? Kids aren’t gonna care that Star took inspiration from Genie and Pan, they’re just gonna see a new character they can have fun with and a new (potential) Disney Prince to join the lineup.

And fans/the internet were just gonna see a new couple they can ship (if the relationship was done right that is). That’s it.

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

Bury the Dead (with a Stitch Through the Stars)

@inklings-challenge

1.

though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light

i have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night

[The Old Astronomer To His Pupil, Sarah Williams]

Thirsty.

It’s the only thing she can think. It’s all dark and her eyes are sticky shut and she’s so thirsty. It isn’t supposed to make a sound.

Her eyes flicker open to the weak barking whine that come out of her without meaning to. “Thirsty,” she whines, though it’s not supposed to sound like that. When she blinks the stickiness from her eyes a person comes into view, blurry at first. It isn’t one she recognizes. She hopes this one won’t hurt her. She hopes this one will help her.

“Ah, there you are,” says the person in a soft rumbly voice. It’s a man with strangely colored eyes and a wiry beard speckled and striped with white around his mouth. He presses a hand to her back, making her shiver, and she sits up almost surprised to have been lying like that. 

“Alright, there you go,” says this careful man. He tips his head in a question she cannot answer, then quickly walks away. She wants to follow him, instinctively, but thinks she does not have the strength. So she just whimpers. There is no one else to hear her. But it’s as if that calls the man back, because he returns with a worried look and holding a small clear cup. She can nearly smell the liquid inside it, can taste it already, and finds her limbs flailing as she reaches for it. 

The strange man holds up a finger. She knows that that means wait. She forces herself to still and the man smiles behind his beard. That’s good, isn’t it? 

“Drink it slowly,” he says. “Don’t shock your system. You’ll feel very thirsty for a while, but you had an IV the entire time to keep you hydrated.”

She isn’t sure what most of that means, but she tries to drink the cool, sweet water slowly like he said. She wants this man to be happy with her. She dips her tongue into the cup first, as if to lap it up, and ends up spilling much of it when her hands fumble. 

“Careful, now,” chuckles the man. He has a familiar rolling accent, and she both knows and does not know the language he speaks in. “You were a part of the younger batch, but your charts didn’t show a name,” he says once she has sipped down all of the water. “You can call me Daniel,” he continues. “and you are?”

She tips her head sideways. There is only a piece of something she thinks may have been a name, once. “I don’t know,” she tries to say, her voice raspy from dis- and mis-use. 

The man, Daniel, nods. He turns and writes something down somewhere. She tenses at this. This is familiar. She doesn’t think this is good. “That’s perfectly alright,” Daniel reassures her, though. “Amnesia is a noted side effect of this type of cryogenic inducement, especially at these rates.”

She tries to clear her throat. It sounds like a growl. “Is it… forever?” She asks. It does not bother her. She would just like to know, since it seems that she can ask. 

Daniel hesitates, tipping first one shoulder up and then the other, one side and then the next, like swaying back and forth. “Most often, no. It can be permanent in some cases, but usually it’s a case of time and patience. You’ll be fine,” he says kindly. “Do you have a name you would like me to call you in the meantime?” 

She thinks of the last warm voice she remembers. It fades in and out of her memory, black and white. “I think…” she licks her lips. “Lai?” And watches for a reaction. 

Daniel nods. He writes another thing down, maybe her name? And smiles. “It’s good to meet you, Lai. I’ve already told you my name. I’m this vessel’s generational medic. If you have any health concerns, you may come to me anytime. And since you seem to be suffering from post-cryosleep memory loss, let me explain:

“We are aboard the mid-journey ship Aleya, en route to an experimental colony on the upper edges of the star Earendel’s solar range. As you likely learned in school before your boarding, if you remember that, humans can only stay in a cryogenized state for so long before bodily systems begin to break down, so this journey has been planned in stages. You and I will not see the light of Earendel in our lifetimes.” His voice quietens at this, a wry smile faintly visible in his eyes if not his mouth. “This generation will grow old and reproduce and raise each other so that when they are of a safe age, the next can go to sleep knowing they will wake in their new home.” 

Lai sits very still, watching Daniel intently. All of what he is saying sounds very big. Big words she does not know, big ideas she can’t understand, but what she does hear is that what they are doing is big, very big, bigger than anything she’s done before. “I’m… important?” She hears herself say, strange raspy high voice she isn’t used to. 

Daniel nods, smiles again. She likes that. The smile directed at her, mostly, but also the being important. She thinks she’s been told that before. She thinks it’s nice. She tips her head. “So what now?” She questions. There must be more beyond this space they’re in. How much is there she can’t see? From what Daniel said, everything seems very vast. She isn’t sure about that.

Daniel breathes out thoughtfully. “There are semi-private living quarters enough for everyone onboard this craft. You were the last of the batch to come out of cryo, so I will escort you to re-meet the rest of them, so you won’t run the risk of getting lost. Do you feel strong enough to walk a slight distance?” 

She hesitates, then nods. She believes she can manage, but Daniel still has to steady her for a moment when she slides from the cot she was on. Standing on two feet feels strange. She looks up at Daniel, nervously licking her lips. She sneezes.

“будь здоро́ва,” Daniel chuckles as Lai stares at him, wide-eyed. She feels her face form into a grin, teeth showing and all.

“мой родной язык,” She exclaims in kind. My mother tongue! 

Daniel nods thoughtfully. “I thought as much. It’s mine as well, ancestrally at least.” He says the last as an aside, half quietly and looking off as it at nothing before his gaze fixes back onto Lai. “Shall we go?” He holds out his hand in beckoning and from instinct, Lai reaches out and takes it. Daniel watches this, puzzled, but does not pull his hand away and she is grateful. 

He leads her into a long, high-roofed hallway, walking slowly as if he worries she cannot keep up. But she does. She follows him by the hand through the tall white halls, head turned wonderingly up to see the ceiling, tiled in reflective blue. “What is that?” She asks softly. 

Daniel follows her gaze up. “Ah. Stained glass,” he says. “This hall ends in the chapel, if you were to return the way we’ve just come,” he explains. “The stained glass lights the way. I like to think it offers some semblance of hope, as well. The rest of the Aleya is not so artful.” 

The blue-ceilinged hall opens into a wide, vast place that immediately dizzies her when she reaches it, and she grasps onto Daniel’s hand harder. There are platforms at all levels around the edges of the tall, too tall walls, some wrapping all the way as far as she can see and disappearing into halls that must be similar to the one they’ve just emerged from. She gasps softly taking it all in, layers upon layers of floors and platforms, small forms moving around atop them and at the bottom, maybe a real floor. There are dozens of enormous glass windows, filled with inky blackness broken up by specks and swirls of light. It’s familiar. It scares her. It’s all she can see. 

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Asks Daniel softly. She looks up at him again, eyes pleading, don’t leave me, keep me safe. “Are you okay?”

Lai shudders. “это огромно,” She whispers. It’s vast.

Daniel hums and nods. “действительно.” Indeed, he tells her. “It’s our whole world.” 

He leads her across the platforms in a complicated thread where her feet stutter and hesitate at times. She follows blindly, still staring around at this place, so big, so cold. She can hardly wrap her head around it. The sky outside is so dark, but is it still the sky with them in it? She doesn’t know. She isn’t sure she wants to know. The sky is their whole world, it seems.

They turn down another hall, plain ceiling tiles above them instead of stained glass. She follows them with her eyes, losing count every few, and follows Daniel by sound. His footsteps are steady, steady, then stop and Lai finds herself in a more shadowy room, where there’s a rustle of blended sounds and smaller doors that lead off into who knows where.

There are more people in there, in varying states of motion. A man with dark skin sits on a rounded, cushioned bench frowning and squinting at a flat, glowing object in his hand. Two children hover behind a different man who stands in a corner speaking to a woman with green eyes. In a chair near a doorway there is a girl with curly hair holding a book, turned sideways with her legs thrown over the arm of the chair. Scattered all about the room are little metal bottles that she is sure are full of water. 

“Last one?” Asks the dark skinned man, looking up. He sets down the glowing thing and stands. “Took a while, didn’t it?” 

“She did,” Daniel agrees, lightly squeezing Lai’s hand before letting go. She tries to not be upset at that. But then he puts his hand on her shoulder and it warms her. “This is Lai. She’s suffering from a touch of post-freeze memory loss, so if someone would like to help her settle in…” 

The girl with the book unfolds herself from the chair. “I’ve got her, doctor,” She says in a lilting accent. “There is a bed in our cabin anyway, with Marla and her sister as well.” She offers Lai a smile. “I’m Esperanza.” 

“Hello,” Lai says. This girl is taller than her, moves strangely. Her hair is long and curly. Lai thinks she is interesting. 

“I will leave you to settle in,” says Daniel. Lai turns to watch him go and wishes he wouldn’t leave. “Желаю вам удачи,” He says in their shared first language. I wish you good luck. 

[boxylocks]

Lunala's Kingdom Rambles

Trying to get back into the mood of drawing and creating things so have a bunch of random lore and info.

The Royals (Human Forms)

Look it's Hope, Sirius, and Earendel! (Plus a tiny Haven)

God how to instantly embarrass Sirius 101, mentioning his social status over other Pokemon. The things I have to draw for asks, I'm going to be very excited when I get to mention Hope and her family I love them so much! o((>ω< ))o

Please note humans do not exist therefore what the fuck are shoes?? Only Sirius really knows honestly. You pick up a few things from traveling to different human-dominated universes.

Did you know the universe is split into two kingdoms? That of Lunala and the other of Solgaleo. Lunala's kingdom is dominated by the night and Solgaleo's by the sun, the day/night cycles are very strange. Lunala's kingdom is lit mostly by artificial light and the moonlight itself during certain times, the sun doesn't really go up beyond a certain point :D

Some info regarding Lunala's family:

Sirius is obviously not Lunala's Bio child, he was adopted but he is still considered her child therefore he receives the same status and treatment. Dude's the middle child look at him.

Haven Lunala's youngest child does not have a human form yet as he's too young to even know how to use magic.

Human forms in the kingdom are generally reserved only for royalty. Lunala is constantly in hers so she can be closer in size to her Pokemon subjects.

Sirius and Earendel are more often in their Pokemon form, they only really do the human forms for in-universe appearances ✨ This outfit is entirely something they only wear when having to appear in public as a group, they do also have a version of it for their Pokemon forms.

In Lunala's universe, it's considered mandatory for all of them to wear a type of crown so everyone knows who they are. I think Sirius would actually die of embarrassment if he had to wear it 24/7 though. When he's not visiting his mom you know that thing isn't going to be in a 30-foot radius of him.

You know... the more I type about Sirius and his family the more I realize exactly WHY he doesn't have any friends and isolates himself from others.

This poor man cannot go anywhere without being treated nicely purely out of want to not anger his mother (aka. the literal GOD and queen of their kingdom) jfc.

[polutrope]

Ya know, reading your wonderful fic Everlasting Darkness made me realize the Earendil x Maedhros ship kinda makes sense cause like in one version of Silmarillion, Maedhros did hang out with Earendil in Vingilot or something while sailing the skies, and then after went to the Valar to beg forgiveness so yeah.

Are you the same Anon who sent me an Ask about this fic a few weeks ago? Anyway, so glad you love the fic! It's one that's close to my heart despite (because of) its crackiness.

Now I hope you'll forgive me for diving into an analysis here because what?! Hahaha I never heard this idea of Maedhros spending time on Vingilot, but I suspect I know where it came from. I thought I'd share because I'm genuinely fascinated by how the "tales grow in the telling" in the fandom with respect to Tolkien's drafts. AND, I discovered to my surprise in revisiting this passage, this interpretation isn't exactly wrong.

Here's a passage from The Sketch of the Mythology, titled The 'Original' Silmarillion by Tolkien. It was a summary of his mythology written for a friend as background to his alliterative Lay of the Children of Hurin. It dates to 1926 and underwent various revisions between then and 1930. I've incorporated revisions in the excerpts below. The relevant quote isn't until the very end, but it's such an interesting passage so I couldn't resist quoting the context.

The Gods [Valar] [...] march through the lands summoning the remnant of the Gnomes [Noldor] and Ilkorins [Sindar] to join them. All do except the people of Maidros. Maidros prepares to perform his oath, though now at last weighed down by sorrow because of it. He sends to Fionwe [Eonwe] reminding him of the oath and begging for the Silmarils [etc., much as in the published Silm]. Maidros and Maglor submit. [...] On the last march Maglor says to Maidros that there are two sons of Feanor now left, and two Silmarils; one is his. He steals it, and flies, but it burns him ... [Maglor casts the Silmaril into a fiery pit.] One Silmaril is now in the sea [because Elwing cast it there], and one in the earth. Maglor sings now ever in sorrow by the sea. [There follows a long passage about the prophecy about the end of the world, including the line:] In those days the Silmarils shall be recovered from sea and earth and air, and Maidros shall break them[1] and Belaurin [Yavanna] with their fire rekindle the Two Trees [...] And thus is was that the Silmaril came into the air. The Gods adjudged the last Silmaril to Earendel -- 'until many things shall come to pass' -- because of the deeds of the sons of Feanor. Maidros is sent to Earendel and with the aid of the Silmaril Elwing is found and restored. Earendel's boat is drawn over Valinor to the Outer Seas [...] From sections 18-19, The Sketch of the Mythology, History of Middle-earth Vol. 4: The Shaping of Middle-earth

"Maidros is sent to Earendel" -- yep! That's there. And, to my surprise, this is after Earendel "sails by the aid of [seabirds'] wings even over the airs in search of Elwing, but is scorched by the Sun, and hunted by the Moon, and for a long while he wanders the sky as a fugitive star." (Section 17).

Fascinating! I can't say I think Tolkien intended in this sketch to suggest Maidros served some time as Earendel's crewman but I also can't say the text precludes that reading. Thank you, Anon, for bringing this little nugget to my attention. I wish I could say I was playing on it in Everlasting Darkness, but I was not.

[1] Maidros is replaced by Feanor in all subsequent versions of this prophecy. I do find Tolkien's first impulse to make it Maidros fascinating.

Btw if you're intrigued by the role of Maglor in this passage, a little plug for my Maglor Biography on SWG.

[vardasvapors]

Eärendel the Wanderer who beat about the Oceans of the World in his white ship Wingelot sat long while in his old age upon the Isle of Seabirds in the Northern Waters ere he set forth upon a last voyage.   He passed Taniquetil and even Valinor, and drew his bark over the bar at the margin of the world, and launched it on the Oceans of the Firmament. Of his ventures there no man has told, save that hunted by the orbed Moon he fled back to Valinor, and mounting the towers of Kôr upon the rocks of Eglamar he gazed back upon the Oceans of the World...

From the notes [preface to The Shores of Faëry] of J.R.R. Tolkien, The Book of Lost Tales Part II, “The Tale of Eärendel”

[dimsilver]

so NASA just discovered a star 13 billion light-years away, 50 times the mass of our Sun and millions of times as bright, and they named it Earendel, and I love it so much (source).

[starspray]

opinions on the book of lost tales?

It’s been ages since I picked up either volume, so I can’t quite remember everything in them, alas. I should remedy that one of these days.

HOWEVER, I remember Aelfwine and I like that whole idea, of this random Anglo-Saxon dude just rolling up to Eressea out of nowhere. I’m also kind of delighted that the name is recycled later for Eomer and Lothiriel’s son Elfwine.

I also remember in the original Tale of Tinuviel Beren is cast as a Noldo, and I’m very glad that that got changed later because Beren as a Mortal Man is so much more compelling to me.

And there’s an Earendel poem in volume 2 that I really love:

Éarendel sprang up from the Ocean's cupIn the gloom of the mid-world's rim;From the door of Night as a ray of lightLeapt over the twilight brim,And launching his bark like a silver sparkFrom the golden-fading sandDown the sunlit breath of Day's fiery DeathHe sped from Westerland.

He leaps and launches and speeds and it’s so dynamic and the imagery is beautiful and ahhhhh Tolkien is just so good at words.

[alyssa-ward]

Year One

(Alyssa and Damien by @raen-art)

Today, May 1st marks exactly one year since my first piece of real writing on tumblr for Alyssa.  She existed a few days prior to that, but it really did mark the actual start of the character.

I’d been writing Serelia for a few months at that point, but I’d always had a fascination with Gilneas, really wanted to learn more about it, and wanted to start a second RP character.  Alyssa ended up who she was for a few reasons.  One, I hadn’t played a Warlock since Vanilla, I wanted to see what they were like now.  Two, I’d never played a Worgen past the starting zone.  The animations and model issues just bothered me too much.  I wanted to level one and explore it.

Alyssa’s in game name is Alyssatraven.  She was created with that and the TRP name Alyssa Traven, named for an elder scrolls Breton I had RPed for awhile in the past.  As I leveled through the starting zone, I reached out to Dardillien, who I wrote with on Sere occasionally as friends.  I’d already found him to be a delightful person, and I wanted to make some connections for Alyssa’s history in Gilneas.  We talked about doing old friends.  One of his old bar patrons, and to be honest, I don’t remember how we settled on the idea of asking if it would be reasonable for her to be his sister.

I do know that I’m so glad we went that direction.  Her story is so much richer for having him in it.  I’d just like to take a moment to thank some of the people I owe a great deal to for this character that I adore writing so much.

Thanks:

(Alyssa Ward by @the-zornbie-cat)

@dardillien-ward - Obviously, how could I not?  Nothing about Alyssa would exist as she is today without him.  He’s a fantastic writing partner, an unending font of Gilneas and Worgen lore, and an amazing supporter.  I’m honored and thrilled to play his character’s sister, and to follow the stories of every character he makes.

@thalsianiii - Alyssa was created shortly after the plot line where Serelia fought Percival alongside friends to retrieve books for Rian.  I was fascinated by your villain, by your knowledge of demons and warlock mythology and lore.  It made me want to write my own take on a demonologist, and really sparked the spec I’d end up playing and leaning into ICly on Aly.

@earendel-wra - Goes without saying that I adore your art.  I also just adore you as a person.  You’ve done so much to bring Alyssa to life.  From the utterly brilliant and incomparable piece above, to letting me in to the stories you told around Raen’s complicated life and end.  You’ve always been a great supporter IC and OOC, and a great shoulder to lean on, and I can’t thank you enough for it.

@thetobaccoman - You helped give Aly her darkness in a way I wasn’t really sure how to explore.  I knew it was a part of her, and that I wanted to write stories about it too, but Clyde and his grand schemes gave her reason and fuel.  I know more about her morality, her problem solving measures, and what ‘too far’ looks like thanks to you.

@kat-hawke - You inadvertently jump-started life into Alyssa.  As BFA started, some complications with an RP partner mostly put her on ice.  I took a break from Alyssa, focused on Dar’thea, figured I’d come back to her ‘some day’.  Other than a few asks here and there, I mostly didn’t touch the character for a few months.  You sent me a ‘starter’ prompt, and responding to it reminded me of how much I love this character.  Chatting with you about Gilneas, headcanoning about ships, you’ve just been a joy to write with.  

There are so many more I probably owe thanks to.  @the-real-arcanist-val; @alliesweetsong-wra; @tirasiantrouper; and more who have all had parts in shaping this character and the last year of writing her in ways big and small.  Thank everyone who has followed and engaged with me.  I look forward to what the next year brings.

Below the cut, I’ve included links to a number of relevant Alyssa writing for anyone interested in learning more about the character!

Writing:

Alyssa’s return to Stormwind and first post: Her Father’s Daughter

Dardillien’s writing about Aly and Damien reuniting: Brother and Sister

Post about Alyssa’s room at the Blue Recluse.  Interesting to see what stuck and didn’t from this.  I dropped the glasses, and most of the the stuff about demons mass manufacturing jewelry for her.  Still a close picture of who she ended up as: Privacy

Account of the 5 years from Age 20 to 25: Making a Warlock 1 2 3 4 5

Helping a Man from Duskwood solve his sleeping problems: Alyssa Ward and the Curse of the Hanged Men

The trip to Silvermoon to do her last job for Clyde: One Last Job

Alyssa talks to her father after learning Damien is a vigilante and returning from Silvermoon: Home, Family, A Better Life

Alyssa tries to give up summoning.  This didn’t last: Smash Your Problems with a Hammer

A look at a possible future where Aly has the power to ‘save’ everyone: Everyone Lives

Alyssa receives her charm bracelet: A Small Package

Alyssa relapses after trying to quit her magic: Coping Responsibly

A starter for Kat Hawke: Walks Through Elwynn

Alyssa visits her mother’s memorial: Celeste

Alyssa experiments with the Onyx Talon: Sequence

Thank you again everyone for the past year.  Alyssa’s had her ups and downs, but I look forward to the stories I’ll get to tell with all of you going forward.  Here’s to the next one.

[book-of-legends]

[ Reaction to this post from @ask-noonescity ]

"I just met her please!" Hope only gave them a knowing smile before she waved her hand dismissively.

"Perhaps, I can converse with her Guardian, and we could set up a little arrangement for you two to get to know each other further!" She teased, giving her son a playful nudge. But it seemed the more she spoke the more their face flushed with red. "Doesn't that sound pleasant, hm? She was quite adorable too, I think you two would match nicely, No? Oh, Don't be so shy!"

"MOM-NOnoNONONO-" Their pleads however were ignored.

→ Oh? Seems the Cresselia has made quite an impact on them, Luelle has been added to the relationship page!

[snackara]

Character Fun Facts

Progress on Chapter Six has been a little slow, so I decided to offer something different in the meantime.

Asha 🗡️

She’s actually very good with children, and occasionally they’ll ask her to tell them stories from her adventures in Rosas. She also tells them a lot of the same stories Thomás told her.

She’s not very good at drawing people. She sticks to mostly drawing landscapes and animals.

Her sword was passed down to her from Thomás, who received it as a special gift from King Enrique himself.

She looks a lot more like her father then her mother.

She’s actually 20 in this story, while Flazino is 19. I decided to make her a little older in this story since she started stealing from Rosas at 14, giving her 6 years of experience, which made the most sense to me.

Earendel ✨

His real life counterpart is WHL0137-LS, which is actually the earliest and most distant star we know of at 28 billion light-years away.

His favorite animals are deer, hence the addition of antlers on his cloak. Quite a bit of the time he spent watching Earth was spent observing deer.

Since the sun is a star, his powers are connected to Rapunzel’s from Tangled. However, since he is a star himself, he doesn’t have to sing to heal people or make them younger.

He’s considered very odd for a star with his interest in Earth. The stars around him are old enough to still remember their conflict with humans, and they don’t understand how anyone could see them as anything besides monsters. But Earendel believes things could be different if they just tried to make peace.

Due to his beliefs he’s very ostracized from the rest of the stars. All except for Queen Charia, who seems to hold the same beliefs and treats Earendel with the most respect and kindness. Because of this he came to look up to her like a mother figure.

Flazino 🎵

On his eighteenth birthday, Dahlia scrapped up enough money to buy him a lute, which he absolutely loves. Which his parents watching him a lot closer however, he’s had very little chance to play it.

Although he lacks skill in magic, he’s very talented in things such as philosophy, literature, and the arts. Which really annoys Manuel, who is heavily into magic and politics.

Whenever he has a chance, he’ll slip off into the city wearing a cloak as a disguise and just pretend to be a normal peasant for a while. The only person besides Dahlia who knows this is Gabo, a local merchant’s son he befriended a few years before the story.

He’s actually a little allergic to cats, which he uses as an excuse to avoid Charo and Amaya.

Some rumors float around the castle that him and Dahlia are a thing, but that’s never been true. Him and Dahlia have always been just really close friends.

Manuel 👑

He always viewed Enrique as a weak and pathetic king who didn’t realize the potential of his own power. Although Enrique could never figure out why Manuel grew so distant from him.

He was actually the one to set Thomás up with Sakina when they were teenagers. He saw a spark between them and ultimately knew they would be a perfect match.

Instead of flowers, Manuel gifts Amaya bundles of herbs for special occasions that she can use in her potions.

He hates Charo just as much as Flazino does, but doesn’t dare to admit it around his wife.

He knew Asha before him and Thomás went their separate ways, back when she was a baby.

Amaya 🧪

There have been some accidents and shenanigans with her potions, like spilling a potion and making several of her books fly around the room, or Charo drinking a little and becoming huge.

Speaking of Charo, she found him as a kitten alone in a crate while walking through the marketplace. She took pity on him and took him in, even after Manuel told her no.

She’s actually very talented with the flute, and is probably where Flazino got his love of music from.

She always despised Tomás, viewing him as a dirty good-for-nothing peasant who just got lucky with the king. Completely ignoring her own history with Manuel of course.

She and Manuel never wanted kids, but since it would look off if they never had any heirs, the had Flazino out of obligation.

[arda-marred]

‘And he died with the Dawn in his eyes’

On the eve of war, Tolkien encounters ‘Earendel’

Exeter College, Oxford, 1914. 

Note: By the end of 1914, most of Tolkien’s Oxford friends and fellow TCBS members had enlisted. But as an orphan who had always struggled to stay out of poverty, and being by then engaged to his beloved Edith, Tolkien could not afford to abandon his studies, which were crucial to his future chances of an academic career. And so, despite immense pressure from his extended relations and intense societal scorn, he deferred his enlistment until after finishing his final exams the following summer.  

“ Back before war broke out, at the end of the university term, Tolkien had borrowed from the college library Grein and Wülcker’s Bibliotek der angelsächsischen Poesie. This massive work was one of those monuments of German scholarship that had shaped the study of Old English, and it meant Tolkien had the core poetic corpus at hand throughout the long summer vacation. He waded through Crist, by the eighth-century Anglo-Saxon poet Cynewulf, but found it ‘a lamentable bore’, as he wrote later: ‘lamentable, because it is a matter for tears that a man (or men) with talent in word-spinning, who must have heard (or read) so much that is now lost, should spend their time composing such uninspired stuff.’ Boredom could have a paradoxical effect on Tolkien: it set his imagination roaming. Furthermore, the thought of stories lost beyond recall always tantalized him. In the midst of Cynewulf’s pious homily, he encountered the words ‘Eala Earendel! engla beorhtast / ofer middangeard monnum sended, ‘Hail Earendel, brightest of angels, above the middle-earth, sent unto men!’ The name Earendel (or Éarendel) struck him in an extraordinary way. Tolkien later expressed his own reaction […]: ‘ I felt a curious thrill, as if something had stirred in me, half wakened from sleep. There was something very remote and strange and beautiful behind those words, if I could grasp it, far beyond ancient English….I don’t think it any irreverence to say that it might derive its curiously moving quality from some older world.’ But whose name was Éarendel? The question sparked a lifelong answer.

Cynewulf’s lines were about an angelic messenger or herald of Christ. The dictionary suggested it meant ray of light, or the illumination of dawn. Tolkien felt that it must be a survival from before Anglo-Saxon, even from before Christianity. (Cognate names such as Aurvandil and Orendil in other ancient records bear this out. According to the rules of comparative philology, they probably descended from a single name before Germanic split into its offspring languages. But the literal and metaphorical meanings of this name are obscure.) Drawing on the dictionary definitions and Cynwulf’s reference to Éarendel as being above our world, Tolkien was inspired with the idea that Éarendel could be none other than the steersman of Venus, the planet that presages the dawn. At Phoenix Farm [his widowed aunt’s residence in Nottinghamshire], on 24 September 1914, he began, with startling éclat:

Éarendel sprang up from the Ocean’s cup  In the gloom of the mid-world’s rim;  From the door of Night as a ray of light  Leapt over the twilight brim,  And launching his bark like a silver spark  From the golden-fading sand;  Down the sunlit breath of Day’s fiery Death  He sped from Westerland.

Tolkien embellished ‘The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star’ with a favourite phrase from Beowulf, Ofer ýpa ful, ‘over the cup of the ocean’, ‘over the ocean’s goblet’. A further characteristic of Éarendel may have been suggested to Tolkien by the similarity of his name to the Old English ēar ‘sea’: though his element is the sky, he is a mariner. But these were mere beginnings. He sketched out a character and a cosmology in forty-eight lines of verse that are by turn sublime, vivacious, and sombre. All the heavenly bodies are ships that sail daily through the gates at the East and the West. The action is simple: Éarendel launches his vessel from the sunset Westerland at the world’s rim, skitters past the stars sailing their fixed courses, and escapes the hunting Moon, but dies in the light of the rising Sun.

And Éarendel fled from that Shipman dread  Beyond the dark earth’s pale.  Back under the rim of the Ocean dim,  And behind the world set sail;  And he heard the mirth of the folk of earth  And hearkened to their tears,  As the world dropped back in a cloudy wrack  On its journey down the years. 

Then he glimmering passed to the starless vast  As an isléd lamp at sea,  And beyond the ken of mortal men  Set his lonely errantry,  Tracking the Sun in his galleon  And voyaging the skies  Till his splendor was shorn by the birth of Morn  And he died with the Dawn in his eyes. 

It is the kind of myth an ancient people might make to explain celestial phenomena. Tolkien gave the title in Old English too (Scipfæreld Earendeles Æfensteorran), as if the whole poem were a translation. He was imagining the story Cynewulf might have heard, as if a rival Anglo-Saxon poet had troubled to record it.

As he wrote, French and German armies clashed fiercely in the town of Albert, in the region named for the River Somme, which flows through it. But Éarendel’s is a solitary species of daring, driven by an unexplained desire. He is not (as in Cynewulf) monnum sended, ‘sent unto men’ as a messenger or herald; nor is he a warrior. If [this early version of] Éarendel embodies heroism at all, it is the maverick, elemental heroism of individuals such as Sir Ernest Shackleton, who that summer had sailed off on his voyage to traverse the Antarctic continent.

If the shadow of war touches Tolkien’s poem at all, it is in a very oblique way. Though he flies from the mundane world, he listens to its weeping, and while his ship speeds off on its own wayward course, the fixed stars take their appointed places on ‘the gathering tide of darkness’. It is impossible to say whether Tolkien meant this to equate in any way with his own situation at the time of writing; but it is interesting that, while he was under intense pressure to fight for King and Country, and while others were burnishing their martial couplets, he eulogized a ‘wandering spirit’ at odds with the majority course, a fugitive in a lonely pursuit of some elusive ideal.

What is this ideal? Disregarding the later development of his story, we know little more about the Éarendel of this poem than we do the stick figure stepping into space in Tolkien’s drawing The End of the World. Still less do we know what Éarendel is thinking, despite his evident daring, eccentricity, and uncontainable curiosity. We might almost conclude that this is truly ‘an endless quest’ not just without conclusion, but without purpose. If Tolkien had wanted to analyze the heart and mind of his mariner, he might have instead turned to the great Old English meditations on exile, The Wanderer and The Seafarer. Instead he turned to Romance, the quest’s native mode, in which motivation is either self-evident (love, ambition, greed) or supernatural. Éarendel’s motivation is both: after all, he is both a man and a celestial object. Supernaturally, this is an astronomy myth explaining planetary motions, but on a human scale it is also a paean to imagination. ‘His heart afire with bright desire’, Éarendel is like Francis Thompson (in Tolkien’s Stapeldon Society paper), filled with ‘a burning enthusiasm for the ethereally fair’. It is tempting to see analogies with Tolkien the writer bursting into creativity. The mariner’s quest is that of the Romantic individual who has ‘too much imagination’, who is not content with the Enlightenment project of examining the known world in ever greater detail. Éarendel overleaps all conventional barriers in a search for self-realization in the face of the natural sublime. In an unspoken religious sense, he seeks to see the face of God. ”  

— John Garth, Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth

[gurguliare]

I would love your thoughts on Dirhavel, vocaroo or text? Just because you were recently blogging about Hurin and I suppose this is kind of related. :)

A lot of my interest in Dirhavel is in his sources. The most detailed description we get of who he consulted in composing the Narn is from a pretty early stage of Tolkien’s legendarium-composition, which, let me just paste that here:

…this lay was the work of a Mannish poet, Dirhavel, who lived at the Havens in the days of Earendel and theregathered all the tidings and lore that he could of the House ofHador, whether among Men or Elves, remnants and fugitivesof Dorlomin, of Nargothrond, or of Doriath. From Mablung he learned much; and by fortune also he found a man namedAndvir, and he was very old, but was the son of that Androgwho was in the outlaw-band of Turin, and alone survived thebattle on the summit of Amon Rudh.(2) Otherwise all that timebetween the flight of Turin from Doriath and his coming toNargothrond, and Turin’s deeds in those days, would haveremained hidden, save the little that was remembered amongthe people of Nargothrond concerning such matters as Gwindoror Turin ever revealed. In this way also the matter of Mim andhis later dealings with Hurin were made clear. This lay was allthat Dirhavel ever made, but it was prized by the Elves andremembered by them. Dirhavel they say perished in the last raidof the sons of Feanor upon the Havens. His lay was composedin that mode of verse which was called Minlamad thent / estent.

Okay. So the first glaring Problem is Mablung: we know Mablung didn’t escape Doriath in the final timeline. But of course Mablung is in all other ways the ideal source for the Narn poet—we need that Mablung’s eye view on Nienor and Morwen on the trip to Nargothrond, Turin as he was that final morning in Brethil, etc. There’s another possibility, I suppose, which is that Dirhavel talks to one of the unnamed riders who form the rest of Morwen’s escort and (perhaps?) escape the clusterfuck at Nargothrond to ride out with Mablung again when he goes seeking Nienor and Turin in Brethil—but that’s not super satisfying, unless we can come up with anything else about the rider. We could also think in terms of people Mablung might choose as a confidante. Beleg’s out. Melian’s out, unfortunately. Hmm. Well, let me not string you along, I obviously have an idea here, although it’s a stupid one: NELLAS. Maybe a) Mablung started talking to Nellas after the trial/Beleg’s disappearance, since no one else was going to keep her updated and she was not going to stop creepily staring at him from a tree until he gave her an answer … b) it developed into a genuine friendship?? … c) Nellas took inspiration from Nienor and disguised herself as one of the riders who go with Mablung to Brethil? Or just legitimately went as a volunteer, who cares. Or like, everyone knew she was going along as a volunteer, but she still went in disguise, because it made her feel better.

…Hmm. Anyway, my point is, I like the idea of Nellas among the refugees in Sirion, and I like the idea of her making Dirhavel promise that he’ll list “Mablung” as his source, not “Nellas, who hates publicity.” I think it fits well in a few other ways—we know she spoke (and passed on to Turin) the beautiful ancient Doriath dialect or whatever, and one of the few pieces of information we’re given about Dirhavel is that he “has great skill in” Sindarin, which suggests to me not just fluency but mastery of multiple registers and a linguistic interest in Sindarin’s character as a language: maybe he got some material from Nellas, or it was what allowed him to talk to Nellas in the first place, or ideally both. Also, I have no basis for this actually, but Nellas seems like the kind of person who would be a really good mimic, A+ impressions—I hope this played a role in her teaching Turin about animals—and again I think it would be cool if there really was this feeling of Nellas like, channeling Mablung for the purposes of getting his testimony, in kind of the flip of Beleg summoning her for Turin’s trial.

Downsides to this theory: CoH specifically says that “Nellas of Doriath never saw [Túrin] again, and his shadow passed from her.” I don’t want to take this from Nellas!! I want to let his shadow pass from her! Still, I feel like ‘burning voyeuristic curiosity’ is distinct from ‘helpless loyalty to a memory,’ so maybe I can fudge it.

Moving on, I’m also suuuuuuuper interested in what “the people of Nargothrond” means here tbh. GWINDOR SURVIVED AND WENT TO THE HAVENS jk I love the freaking jab about “the little that… Gwindor or Turin ever revealed” too much to tamper with his post-mortem reticence, at least for the duration of this theory post. But, so, people from Nargothrond… I mean, I guess what puzzles me is the idea that it’s specifically Nargothrond’s survivors who know what happened to Mim, for example. Does that mean there were survivors in the area up to 5 years after the sack?? I guess that makes sense, now I think about it—people living off the land/going from part-time woodelf back to full-time woodelf, people who were left for dead in the battle—but I had never considered it before and it’s kind of weirding me out. Or do we imagine that Glaurung reserved a subset of the prisoners for his own slaves? That’s. Uhhh. Weird. I really don’t know what to picture for “witnesses to Mim’s death,” although I guess they could just have found the body after Hurin left. That’s a little more reasonable. That said what would make way MORE sense would be for Mim to have been one of the sources, given how many private Turin-Mim conversations are recorded. I realize Androg is supposed to have been eavesdropping but did he REALLY relay ALL of his eavesdropping to his adult son. Also, if you were Mim, would you not take this golden opportunity to pointedly enter your own “death” into the historical record

“I actually just camouflaged with the hoard because I was wearing so much shiny shit at that point. But listen, I saw his face, he WOULD have killed me if he hadn’t been busy playing hackey-sack with the Nauglamir. What do you mean he threw himself into the ocean somewhere near here, why would the ocean kill him, this isn’t safe”

…As for Dirhavel himself, I don’t know if I have a ton of headcanons. I guess I was thinking of him (??) as the kid of refugees from Brodda’s house, although man, now that I say that that feels like the kind of thing that would absolutely be mentioned if ‘true.’ Okay, here’s my thinking: I imagine him growing up in the Havens, not having ever been himself enslaved by the Easterlings, even as a child, and I also assume he was at least late 30s/40 when he died, so it would make SENSE if his parent(s) escaped in the 490s, and… hm. I guess that’s not super strong evidence. Because he’s listed as a man of the House of Hador and not, say, a man with a Hadorian mother and a Haladin father or something, I was thinking it would make sense if both his parents came from Dor-lomin and knew each other before Sirion, which was much more of a melting pot, but there’s really a bunch of unjustified assumptions I’m making there that don’t stand up to close examination, so, eh. On the other hand it’s kind of cute. Look. Whatever. I’m going to arbitrarily say I also picture him being related to Asgon. OH the other reason I was thinking about Brodda-refugees was because I was like, “where would the special affinity for Sindarin have come from,” and we know Brodda specifically seized most of Hurin’s holdings/people, and like sure everyone spoke Sindarin by then but I imagine nowhere moreso than in Hurin and Morwen’s service? To be polite to all the elf ambassadors constantly tramping through the garden if nothing else? So, that is my still deeply shaky basis. Thanks.

I was going to throw in some bullshit meta at the end here about blah blah the longest lay from those days not because more stuff HAPPENS in the Narn but because of the human preference for some granular description in the language whereas elves save the details for the telepathic music video, and also about the elves prizing the Narn because elf musicians never INTERVIEW people, the survivors of Nargothrond have never been INTERVIEWED before, no one ever talks to us!! It’s so enlivening. Then I decided I wouldn’t type it out. Then apparently I typed it out anyway. I do love the Narn being composed in Sirion because it really captures something about Sirion’s feeling of ill-defined urgency, like, we know we have to do SOMETHING… it’s all down to us… but what…… and in what timeframe… oh god, are we going to have to talk it out. I like the mechanical constraints—it can’t be a Numenorean reconstruction or whatever because it’s too immediate and living a piece of history, and he wants it to be history, and yet the Narn is in some senses about the end of history for Beleriand, or the end of its great bastions, so how do you get it written? Well, by engineering one more pause for breath. Okay. Sirion. And Dirhavel running around in the middle of that is someone I FEEL like I have a very clear image of, even if I haven’t actually talked about hypothetical personality at all here, nor would I because I suck at textual ghosts. Cute, though.

[garden-ghoul]

more HoME misc

“in which the ghoul pages desperately through a 3500 page document with no search function, looking for the shibboleth of feanor”

I’m not blogging leithian mk 1 any more but I just want to note that Chris included a detailed list of all the things that are long and tall, as an end note. He like, spent his entire life trying to decipher Johnald’s notes, so he could bring to us the faintly-pencilled name and origin of Nan, the giant of the south.

As I got lost somewhere in the beginning of “the tale of turambar” I started wondering why so many of our human heroes are intimately involved with Doriath, “the secret kingdom no-one can go into.” If we add Gondolin (”the other even more secret kingdom that REALLY no-one can go into”) I think ALL of the human heroes of the Silmarillion are involved with one of the two. Not counting heroes like Haleth who tragically didn’t get any dialogue. Is it just that the only humans who are heroes are the ones Special enough to trip into hidden kingdoms? Fate junk? Probably fate junk.

I was sort of skimming through Turin stuff and my eye was caught by Saeros (”Orgof”) insulting Turin’s... uncombed hair? Cute. In this one Turin throws a cup at him, killing him instantly, and everyone just kind of sits there silently at the overturned table as he runs out of the hall.

Turin laved his hands in the stream without the doors and burst there into tears, saying: "Lo! Is there a curse upon me, for all I do is ill, and now is it so turned that I must flee the house of my fosterfather an outlaw guilty of blood -- nor look upon the faces of any I love again."

Aw, Neithan. You neith’d yourself, dude.

I also want to mention (again?) that I really like Melkor being well known as a guy with an actual kingdom, where people worked. Granted, they were all Thralls, but he seemed a lot more like all of the other immortals who established kingdoms in Beleriand. I didn’t get the impression in the early drafts that like Everyone Was United Against Him. He was just an asshole neighbor? (later, in the Nauglafring story, we actually get the line “and there was peace with Melkor.”) This makes me suspect that the Porous Shadow of Doom overlaying the world in the final Children of Hurin would be a lot less huge and pervasive. But I’m not actually going to read it, just skim it. It was like 8 liveblogs long, or something, geez.

A manifestation of this lessened Porous Shadow of Doom is that when Turin returns home it’s late summer rather than winter; the grass has grown tall around Morwen’s house, and when Turin makes it to Brodda’s hall he doesn’t even pretend to be cowed, he immediately starts fucking things up. So, in that way, the original version of CoH was a lot less about Depression.

Also in this version Nienor doesn’t lose her ability to speak, so when Turin finds her and names her Niniel she can actually say “no don’t call me that.” He calls her that anyway. When she goes to live with Turin’s friends in Brethil they all constantly say “Would that the Valar would lift the curse on Niniel!” I can only aspire to be that obviously cursed, yknow.

AH. AT LAST HERE IS THE NAUGLAFRING. I can’t even remember if I’ve read it before but I Have Been Waiting.

I’m taking a break here to eat dinner because not eating makes me really stupid. Have you eaten recently? Are you stupid? If so, maybe have a snack! Sometimes I wish the internet would periodically remind--oh, no, I have a Personal Device for this exact purpose. Mm. peace out.

I’M BACK. After reading a couple paragraphs of this I realized I have read it before, but I didn’t blog it because I was procrastinating on CoH. Hurin has brought a bunch of cursed treasure to Tinwelint (do you like my horrible mixture of “canonical” and “noncanonical” names) and departed without taking any, in a huff. Then everyone in Menegroth starts murdering each other over this treasure; Tinwelint wins, and his wife (now named Gwenniel; I don’t understand how Tolkien could fail to get attached to ANY of the names he put in his first drafts) soothsays to him that he should dump it in the river because it is TRIPLE CURSED. He does, but then he stares at it for a while because, cursed. Gwenniel tells him that this isn’t even worth a third of what a Silmaril is, but like, are Silmarils useful for anything? Do they, strictly speaking, have any worth beyond the prestige value associated with possessing something super evil rare?

Some visitor says that it’s a crime to let all that gold go to waste when it could instead be used to make pretty things (natch, he is a guy who hangs out with Naugrim) and Tinwelint looks at his jewelry and is like “dang. I am a king and I do not look NEARLY that fine. please make something nice for me.” but he also grabs the elf guy and takes him hostage in a really impolite way. I have seen a lot more polite hostage-takings in the Silmarillion! Some so polite that the hostages didn’t even notice!

There’s a bunch of stuff here that I actually really enjoy, mostly descriptions of treasure, but I’m not going to blog it because I’m too lazy. I just want to note that I really enjoy the descriptions of treasure made by the Naugrim (in captivity). It’s very much the same impulse that led me to page for hours and hours through the LotR prop jewelry recreations magazines that my household for some reason received monthly when I was young.

Mm and then there’s a bunch of naugla/elda murders that I don’t care about. UGH and halfway through this story he changed Melian’s name back to Gwendelin. STG Tolkien!! Later someone is trying to kidnap her and we get this great bit:

Then said Gwendelin: "Thief and murderer, child of Melko, yet art thou a fool, for thou canst not see what hangs over thine own head." By reason of the anguish of her heart was her sight grown very clear, and she read by her fay-wisdon the curse of Mim and much of what would yet betide.

Then did Naugladur in his triumph laugh till his beard shook, and bid seize her: but none might do so, for as they came towards her they groped as if in sudden dark, or stumbled and fell tripping each the other, and Gwendelin went forth from the places of her abode, and her bitter weeping filled the forest. Now did a great darkness fall upon her mind and her counsel and lore forsook her...

The moral of the story is there’s a fine balance of anguish you have to maintain to be really good at seeing the future. IMO it’s probably “really sad but not depressed.” Oh um also, Huan is there. He works for Tinwelint now. I’m extremely offended, because this means Tolkien killed him EXPRESSLY because he was dating Luthien and Beren in the final lay. He killed Huan just so we couldn’t have nice things! And to make a point about Huan’s death metaphor, I guess. It was very artful, but I’m still mad we can’t have gay.

There’s some more murders. The asshole with nice jewelry is haunted by Gwendelin’s Glare. Oh! Luthien actually gets to meet her mom again! Haha Gwenelin says not to wear Nauglamir because it is SUPER CURSED but Beren is like “don’t worry about it! The Silmaril is so holy it cancels out all curses!” Which reveals a severe misunderstanding of what a Silmaril is, I think. Unless the Silmaril curse is stronger than all the other curses and it eats them, maybe? Like helpful strains of E. coli. Except then it mutates into a harmful strain of E. coli again--no, I’m sure there’s a better biology metaphor for this that I’m not thinking of. it was a harmful strain in the first place.

After this there’s more murders, this time feat. some Feanorions. And with that (skipping the story of Earendel) we have come to the end of Lost Tales pt 2! Next one is Lays of Beleriand, which I am going to attempt to skip because I have read all the good ones already. But I have to skip it manually so we’ll see I guess.

[paradife-loft]

@allalpha​  - I found the HoME passage I was looking for on King’s Men and Earendil; it’s from The Lost Road, and it’s part of the time travel self insert fic section, with Elendil and his son Herendil speaking.

“Of whom dost thou say that our king, Tarkalion, is descended?”

“From Earendel the mariner, son of Tuor the mighty who was lost in these seas.”

“Why then may not the king do as Earendel from whom he is come? They say that he should follow him, and complete his work.”

“What dost thou think that they mean? Whither should he go, and fulfil what work?”

“Thou knowest. Did not Earendel voyage to the uttermost West, and set foot in that land that is forbidden to us? He doth not die, or so songs say.”

“What callest thou Death? He did not return. He forsook all whom he loved, ere he stepped on that shore. He saved his kindred by losing them.”

“Were the Gods wroth with him?”

“Who knoweth? For he came not back. But he did not dare that deed to serve Melko, but to defeat him; to free men from Melko, not from the Lords; to win us the earth, not the land of the Lords. And the Lords heard his prayer and arose against Melko. And the earth is ours.”

“They say now that the tale was altered by the Eresseans, who are slaves of the Lords: that in truth Earendel was an adventurer, and showed us the way, and that the Lords took him captive for that reason; and his work is perforce unfinished. Therefore the son of Earendel, our king, should complete it. They wish to do what has been long left undone.”

“What is that?”

“Thou knowest: to set foot in the far West, and not withdraw it. To conquer new realms for our race, and ease the pressure of this peopled island, where every road is trodden hard, and every tree and grass-blade counted. To be free, and masters of the world. To escape the shadow of sameness, and of ending. We would make our king Lord of the West: Nuaran Numenoren. Death comes here slow and seldom; yet it cometh. The land is only a cage gilded to look like Paradise.”

“Yea, so I have heard others say.”

…and then it continues on about their personal relationship and desires wrt the politics of the time and such.

if it wasn’t obvious, I love this passage so much for the huge wealth of detail and implication on late Numenorean myth and politics, holy shit. (also interesting little tidbit there on the Faithful and/or Numenoreans’ and/or Tolkien’s perspective on what death means, in the bit about whether Earendil “died” going to Valinor? that could be some nice thematic material for a whole bunch of fic right there. I’m into it.)