#and on Maeglin's end

[thefandomstorage]

A part of me wants to write a fic with Gil-Galad somehow meeting up with an injured and still heavily traumatized Maeglin who now has white hair after the fall of Gondolin and just “Well I obviously can’t just leave you alone and injured in the wild, so I’ll take you with me.”

Gil-Galad then proceeds to lie his ass off to everyone about the strange elf he brought back and is obviously hiding. What elf? Oh that one! He’s just a friend. What’s his name? Uhm...What a coincidence, it seems to have slipped my mind! Gottagobye!

Gil-Galad keeps telling himself that he’ll exile Maeglin or hand him over to the Gondolin survivors, but he keeps putting it off, even when Maeglin is majority healed. Next thing they know, the armies of Valinor have arrived and the War of Wrath ramps up. With nothing left to do, Gil gives Maeglin a disguised name, armor and a sword, and together, they fight. They are quite surprised to discover that they work very well together. That’s probably when they start becoming friends. 

And then Elrond comes in. And Gil is trying so hard to keep his two friends separated. Which is hard when you’re friends with a very curious and nosey peredhel who is very suspicious about the mysterious white haired elf who is always with the king.

It’s even funnier if Elrond is hiding Maglor 

Elrond: Is that Maeglin?! Gil-Galad with an obvious Maeglin behind him: No no no, you’re seeing things. 

*Maglor passes by behind Elrond*

Gil-Galad: Is that Maglor Feanorian?!

Elrond: No, you’re seeing things.

[hirazuki]

Maeglin (Tolkien) Cosplayer + edits: me Photo credit: tranimaging2 Wig: Wig Is Fashion (straight jet black lace front synthetic wig LF002) Contacts: Uniqso (Sweety Pearl Black) Ears: Aradani Costumes (Sun Elf Ears) Circlet: mass produced/store-bought Clothes, boots, and jewelry are my own daily wear. The Lord of the House of the Mole.

[aotearoa20]

Lil' Ëarendil: (grumpy because he was not allowed ice cream on account of having the flu) Maybe the Valar hate me

Maeglin: Dont be ridiculous

Lil' Ëarendil: Uncle Mae:)

Maeglin: The Valar dont hate you

Lil' Ëarendil: aw thanks, uncle

Maeglin: Youre not interesting enough

Lil' Ëarendil: Oh...

Maeglin: I'd say, at best, the Valar are mildly ambivalent to you. if they even exist...

Lil' Earendil: WHAT!?!

[sesamenom]

more from the reverse gondolin au

[sakasakiii]

Hi!

I love your work!! Your art is very pretty. Do you have a specific idea of how old everyone is ? Do you lean more towards canon or do you have your own dates in mind ? If don’t wanna a answer it’s ok!

Hope u have a nice day

(Remember to drink water!)

hiiii nonnie!!! thank you for checking in, and im happy u like the stuff i put out!! when it comes to ages, it's difficult to answer sometimes bc of the way professor tolkien's timeline is-- it makes gauging one singular place where most of the cast can be compared something that makes my tired brain go 😵🤧🤕 but i love the prompt youve given! and thus heres my attempt at it

with most of my tolkien stuff, i always try to stick to canon wherever possible emphasis is on try lmao and the topic of ages is one such place. i do make exceptions to the Professor's canon sometimes for a few reasons: 1) i like some of the scrapped ideas in his drafts, or 2) i just prefer other options. with ages, i think the only charas with canon-established ages i deviated from are fingolfin, finrod, turgon, and aredhel. i try to keep cases like these minimal tho, so i hope it doesn't bother anyone too much... 👉👈

anyways i figured just dropping a list of numbers would be kinda boring to look at so heres an illustrated guide to what the ~rough~ ages of the finweans are in my head whenever i write or draw. Y.T. 1495 (the year Finwe dies) is the controlled medium ive used to enable a fair comparison of the Finweans

note: "born Y.T. xxx" means this is the canon date of birth listed on Tolkien Gateway. "est. born [xxx]" means this is a noncanon estimate:

the First Age gets a lot more muddled from there due to the hullaballoo of everything going on, so ill only be including the doriathrim and a few other denizens of nargothrond:

it's mostly the older elves that are more undefined/vague with their ages (i.o.w. others like elwing, earendil, the peredhil twins, and most Men all have set dates of birth), so they're all i'll be doing for now. but it's that vagueness which makes hcing all the more enjoyable, isn't it! plus since we’re on this subject, under the cut are just a few headcanons and musings ive had that i wanted to put somewhere 😙

Finarfin and Earwen were born within months of each other! Finwe and Olwe made a Really Big Deal out of when they found out their wives were pregnant at the same time. As a result, the two were often sent on many playdates with each other to “bolster healthy relations” between the Noldor and the Teleri. It wasn’t an arranged marriage situation, but I like to think they were goofy for each other from the start… Resulting in the two eventually getting married as soon as they came of age, the fastest out of all of Finwe’s kids to do so. 

The reason the Ambarussa are significantly younger than the other Finweans (especially the Feanorians-- there’s a 100 Valian year gap between them and Curufin alone!) is because I imagine they were accidental babies that even Feanor didn’t expect to conceive. too bad morgoth said "its morgin time!" and started Messing Things Up shortly afterwards.....

Anaire was Lalwen's good friend long before she married Fingolfin; they met through Lalwen who wingmanned Fingolfin the whole time. i like think Anaire'd be the best out of all the wives at keeping good, healthy bonds with all the women of her family :DD

luthien's potential 姐姐/big sis dynamic with all the younger doriathrim elves is something i daydream about a lot 😌 but sometimes the fact that she's older than finarfin keeps me up at night

this has been really fun, so thanks again for asking-- annnd yessir, i am chugging water as i write this so you better be doing the same ❤️ have a great start to your week!

[cosmic-walkers]

going into maeglin's tag every so often and seeing people trying to convince maeglin fans to hate him is most certainly an experience

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

someone saying idril is "cold" because she "never tried to understand maeglin despite him being in love with her"... free the silmarillion women from the fandom's misogyny

[disabled-tolkien]

I'm growing more and more enamored with the idea of Maeglin having borderline personality disorder. Hear me out.

I think that for him it's related to an unstable childhood and early life trauma, like many (but obviously not all) people with BPD. He ends up with an all-consuming fear of abandonment. He has difficulty forming relationships and has that all-or-nothing approach, adoration or detestation. Maeglin latches on to Idril like a drowning man, with all the intense desperation of someone terrified of abandonment and starving for love. Of course he's confused about whether he's romantically attracted to her.

He puts her on an unhealthy and unrealistic pedestal. He idolises Idril, and she recoils from the intensity of it. She rejects him. It's devastating.

He struggles with a lack of social skills. Because of that, he never really finds a place in Gondolin. His inability to form healthy stable bonds only worsens the already crushing feelings of worthlessness. Maeglin doesn't understand his emotional instability, and neither does anyone around him. He lashes out without meaning to. His repressed anger and trauma burst out at the smallest triggers. He becomes self-destructive, impulsive. He's overwhelmed with misery.

So he retreats into his mines in the mountains. He completely isolates himself, all alone where he can't hurt anyone and they can't hurt him.

They don't even notice when he goes missing.

[wilwarin-wilwa]

aredhel and indis are similar in that their respective marriages probably made everyone think "whY would you marry him????"

[artist-owl]

Why I can’t finish any of my Silmarillion fics:

Me: ok, let's do this fun little universe alteration!

Me: now how is this going to impact the events of Middle Earth up through the war of wrath and into the third age.

[silmawensgarden]

Maeglin & Friends ✨😌

This silly idea had me in a vice grip. It wouldn't let me go! 🤣

[mediumsizedpidegon]

Imagine: you are Idril and you hate your cousin viscerally and this hate is later justified in every way possible. He is a monster and a traitor and as unlike your belovéd aunt as possible. And he dies, and he does not come to the Halls of Mandos and does not reembody. Perhaps you are horrible for thinking this: but you are glad. You are glad he is gone and unable to return. He was a nightmare who crawled into your stainless city and tore it down when it was least expected. He made your father love him, and then he betrayed him, and you will never forgive nor forget it. Now there is no way he can hurt you, your husband, your son, your people– and there is no one he can betray.

and then your aunt reembodies.

Your aunt reembodies and yes, she died for that monster, but she was blameless for she was forced to marry evil and birth evil and love evil. But now she's reborn without those cobwebs of enchantment and you are prepared for her grief and rage over having been controlled. She will not be the same. But she will be back, at long last.

Except. she comes back and none of these things happen.

She doesn't care that her son is evil and treacherous, more his father's son than hers. She doesn't care. She grieves for your city and in the next breath she wishes for her son's return. So you love your aunt and your aunt loves the creature of your nightmares– the betrayer that nearly killed your son and brought your home to ruin. So you love your aunt but she does not listen when you tell her to let her son go because she never saw–

and so your aunt leaves. and it feels like betrayal. like your cousin ruining your family further from beyond the grave.

she still visits, but no one in the family knows where she lives. She is strange– both the steely eyed aunt you remember and yet sometimes she looks like she has never seen you before. you try to break the enchantment that she must be under to keep looking for your Marred cousin, but there is nothing for you to find. all your trying does is send her into a rage the likes you have only seen once before: when she dragged your father away from following your mother in death for your sake.

you love your aunt, and most days, you are sure your aunt loves you.

but you cannot understand her, and in this you have lost her as surely as when she died.

[hirazuki]

Hush, child, the darkness will rise from the deep And carry you down into sleep, Child, the darkness will rise from the deep And carry you down into sleep. (Loyalty loyalty loyalty loyalty Loyalty loyalty loyalty only to me.) -- Mordred's Lullaby

Personal preferred interpretation of *gestures to everything* under the cut! Warning for blatant and shameless conflation of multiple versions of the text with pure, self-indulgent headcanons.

I've gone back and forth on this a lot, but I think I've finally settled on preferring Eol to be both a Dark Elf (i.e. never went to Aman) and a "darkened elf" (i.e. former thrall of Angband/corrupted by Melkor). I know Tolkien changed his mind on both of these later, but I don't find it repetitive at all to have Maeglin also suffer the same fate; I think the cycle is meaningful and adds another layer of complexity to these characters. Also, it would give Eol's "ill at ease" within Melian's girdle and seeking to stay away additional meaning, making it a physical consequence of his circumstances and not only a predilection of his personality. Idk, the more layers and reasons something has behind it, the more enjoyment I draw from it :)

I do like Eol being Sindar and Thingol's kin, but also more alike in spirit and behavior to the Avari than anything else. Witch of the Wilds aesthetic, and more in tune with nature and the land than the Sindar in Doriath. He and Maeglin have always given me a Morgana and Mordred vibe. (fun fact: the mirror is supposed to be obsidian, which is used for scrying.)

He truly loved his son, and his relationship with Maeglin was no more and no less positive/negative than your average father-son relationship -- some minor disagreements as any parent and child are bound to have -- until Maeglin started expressing a desire to see the Noldor; and it was all downhill from there. He still loved his son, however, despite everything, and his attempt to choose death over Gondolin for him was done out of love as well. Perhaps not a healthy love, but a genuine one all the same.

Eol being a darkened elf + Maeglin being born in Beleriand + the "Melkor ingredient" present in all matter outside of the Blessed Realm = a compounded (x3) tendency towards Melkor within Maeglin's spirit that was there since he was conceived. If everyone who has a body that is nourished by Arda (outside of Aman) has an inclination towards Melkor that they can't be free of in their incarnate forms, how much stronger might that be if one of your parents is a former thrall who -- going off of his behavior and tendencies -- still bears the marks of that bond? I like to think that the way Melkor affects his thralls can carry down genetically, even for elves that remain elves and weren't turned into orcs.

I personally prefer Maeglin to not be under an enchantment as a way to explain why he betrayed Gondolin -- I like him being responsible for his own actions! Even if he also never had a chance and was doomed from before he was born. I like the interplay of those two concepts and generally don't find them mutually exclusive -- but I do love the idea of compulsion. Of his pre-existing link to Melkor through Eol and through Arda being used (I prefer this to be Mairon's work, but it certainly can be done by Melkor instead) to sway him. Like, not Mairon actually spelling him and making him not be in control of his body or not being able to warn people in Gondolin because his speech is bound, etc., but like. Mairon slipping certain elements into the fabric of his voice -- he is Ainur; underscoring his speech with Music is no big deal -- to manipulate that Melkor ingredient within Maeglin and make him be more receptive. Compliant. Add to that some carefully crafted understanding as one talented smith who knows what it is like to feel ill-suited to his surroundings to another, a little bribery, and, of course, the ever-present and very real threat of torture -- in delicately balanced respective quantities -- and done.

This is totally entirely self-indulgent headcanon territory here, especially since Mairon is never actually present for Maeglin's imprisonment in any version of the text (to my knowledge) BUT: I like to think that, just as with Maedhros in my headcanons, Mairon formed a kind of reluctant attachment to Maeglin. But whereas with Maedhros it was more of an equal footing type of thing, a grudging acknowledgement of a worthy opponent being cut from the same cloth, with Maeglin it's more of a foster situation. Like: "Here is this very valuable prisoner who we can work with, who -- with a only a small amount of effort -- is amenable to working together and he's the son of a former thrall so there's already a connection there and, oh, he's also a smith? Oh, he's actually pretty good. Wait, he's only 189 years old, idk because I've never cared much for elves but isn't that ridiculously young wtf, he's clearly ambitious and reeling for approval and acknowledgement and will easily take to a guiding hand. Well, there's no one else around but me, I guess I'll take one for the team and the war effort and all that" *accidentally transfers all the instructing instincts he possesses that had previously gone to his wolves now all long dead, he doesn't keep wolves anymore since losing Tol-in-Guarhoth, it's too painful to this strange elf* Again, not healthy, but complicated and messy and invested.

... I did not mean to make it all about Mairon again lmao I am so sorry XD

I'm sure I'll have additional thoughts as I keep re-reading the Silmarillion, or my opinions/preferences may somewhat alter (I still have to sit down and read HoME and Nature of Middle Earth properly, I've only read snippets), but. an overwhelming number of you voted that you enjoyed reading stuff like this so. There you go. This is where I'm currently at lol.

[serregon]

Sorry if this is so random but I saw your posts about him and I remember something in the book where it said Maeglin laid hands on Idril (and Earendil) with an intent to kill her child and forcefully marry her and honestly Maeglin really digs his own grave with his actions in Gondolin that it's not absurd to call him a villain because he actually is. He was sympathetic in the beginning and he could've chosen to remain the charismatic and handsome bachelor he was known as he grew up but nope, from the looks of it he doesn't sound content with his life, and even before he was taken captive to Angband, he already held dark thoughts about Idril which is creepy af. In the end, he chose to betray Gondolin just to get Idril and I find it annoying and exhausting to read how the Fall of Gondolin was blamed on Idril, coincidentally a woman. I am in no way policing headcanons but to portray Maeglin as this poor meow meow while Idril and Earendil (and Turgon as well) are villanize is annoying. Forgive me, Maeglin discourse is surfacing again and I was glad to see a good take on Maeglin that doesn't make him look like he didn't do anything wrong.

Maeglin is a victim of both his father's terrible parenting giving him a twisted view of what relationships with women should look like (also the potential that Eöl may have abused Maeglin as well) and Morgoth's torture breaking him to the point that he revealed the location of Gondolin. but being a victim is not mutually exclusive with being a villain. having a sad backstory doesn't magically justify anything. can you still like him and sympathize with those traits? of course! this is a shame-free zone for villain enjoyers. but I think it's a major disservice to his character to like him while claiming that he's something he's not. if you think Maeglin did nothing wrong then you don't like Maeglin, you like an oc who shares his name

[sesamenom]

Lomion and Idril designs for the reverse gondolin au

au-verse maeglin (lomion) is argons kid adopted by aredhel (shes the exact opposite of a helicopter parent- she'll be like 'bye son im going hunting with celegorm, if you need anything ask uncle fingon!', so really, raising lomion was more of a group effort)

this idril was a bit younger on the helcaraxe, so she was still a kid when they got kidnapped. she doesnt get the name celebrindal until much later because no silver feet until she gets to gondolin (she made herself crutches out of eols dining room chairs)

lomion is much better socialized than maeglin, having grown up somewhat normally in nevrast & gondolin. hes still a smith (mentored by rog instead of eol, and therefore much less inclined to evil sentient weaponry) and is good friends (and rivals) with celebrimbor. growing up his major male role model was celegorm (who hung around gondolin a lot despite not technically living there) instead of eol, so he still has issues but not Capital I Issues. he has a tendency to attach himself to people (possibly stemming from helcaraxe trauma?) and is very violently protective of his friends/family

[thescrapwitch]

Chapters: 10/? Fandom: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Celebrimbor | Telperinquar & Maeglin | Lómion, Elros Tar-Minyatur & Maeglin | Lómion, Elrond Peredhel & Maeglin | Lómion, Ereinion Gil-galad & Maeglin | Lómion, Celebrimbor | Telperinquar/Ereinion Gil-galad, Celeborn/Galadriel | Artanis, Celeborn & Maeglin, Galadriel & Maeglin (Tolkien) Characters: Celebrimbor | Telperinquar, Maeglin | Lómion, Elros Tar-Minyatur, Elrond Peredhel, Galadriel | Artanis, Ereinion Gil-galad, Celeborn (Tolkien) Additional Tags: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Second Chances, Grief/Mourning, Survivor Guilt, Found Family, Canonical Character Death, (just not Maeglin's), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence Summary:

Maeglin survives the fall of Gondolin. Taken in by Celebrimbor, he spends the next two and a half ages trying to reforge himself into someone new. Someone better.