#but the point is for Earendil and Elwing to there's abuse

[lendmyboyfriendahand]

Modern AU kidnap family

Maedhros and Maglor are high up in the mob. They kidnap Elrond and Elros for leverage over Earendil and Elwing.

Elwing leaves town and cuts off contact before she can hear exactly what she's being extorted into.

Maedhros and Maglor aren't going to actually abuse the boys if they can't give orders to the parents - that would just be cruelty for it's own sake.

But they sign Elrond and Elros up gymnastics and children's karate. Every time the boys fall during practice, Maedhros takes pictures so "we can track how well you're healing, in case you need a doctor". He posts the pics online tagged only "my kids are so clumsy", faces carefully cropped out so the police algorithms won't spot them. The message history of that account is obviously him though, if anyone knows about Maedhros's mob position. He links the photos on any message boards Elwing might be reading.

Maedhros sends links to the whole forum to Earendil's email as well from a burner account, so Earendil will have to wade through dozens of irrelevant pages while getting more and desperate for word of the twins. (Maglor got Earendil's email from the family group emails that Anaire still sends out for everyone's birthdays.)

Maybe if Earendil thinks his sons are being abused, he'll actually be motivated to take up his part in the family business, if only to save them.

[psstwantsomecheese]

Everyone is always so critical when it comes to Elrond and Elros' caretakers, judging Elwing and Earendil's parenting skills and arguing over whether Maedhros and Maglor were abusive or not but like...

3/4 of the twins' parents attempted suicide so at some point you gotta ask yourself, are the parents really the problem? Maybe the elflings had bad vibes? Or maybe they were unpleasant to be around?

[spiritofwhitefire]

As someone who still gets triggered by the Elwing bashing (and Earendil as well), even if it's 2024, I understand your frustrations so badly. It's the fact that a man can do the most horrific shit ever to that woman and people will feel more sympathy for the man and ignore the woman's pain/insult the decisions the woman made in a very emotional moment (it's even worse because it reflects real-life situations too). Using the twin's age to justify that everything was 'uwu happy adoption' makes me cringe so hard like why are y'all celebrating the fact that the twins were orphans, that they lost their actual home and their people? They were safe in Sirion and that wasn't adoption at all, that's kidnapping and they were treated as hostages which consequently is traumatizing for the twins but nope, they won't acknowledge that. And the 'they were better off with m&m' I'm sorry these two were already at the lowest point in their lives, they were not mentally and emotionally there. Very nice that love grew between them, at least we know the twins weren't abused but guess what, they were already loved by the people of Sirion. Cirdan and Gil-galad were about to save them so the decision to keep the twins instead of returning them was so fucking selfish of m&m. The twins aren't emotional crutches for those two, they are children who deserve to grow up in a safe environment, not in the vicinity of murderers of their kin. "If they still prefer m&m to their parents that’s some manipulation going on there." finally someone says it, it's very true and leaning on the 'm&m are better parents' and 'the twins hate their parents but love the kinslayer's more' agenda that they have going on. It's so true that "no amount of love can erase the loss and blood that someone inflicted on you" yet somehow the fandom lovesss to portray that there was no trauma at all, it's all happy and fun and all the bs. I've read this from a post but they said it's always the twins 'resenting' their parents but there is never a 'the twins resent m&m' for putting them through that shit. Might I add that Elwing's suicide attempt is always grossly made fun of by the fandom but Maedhros's suicide gets so much analysis and sympathy. And I just wanna say, despite me loving the feanorians, it's so hard to digest content that purposely shits on Elwing and her family. Fuck, this was too long, I am sorry, it's just that I still see shit like that floating everywhere, and it never fails to make my blood boil.

Fucking thank you, it’s nice to see someone who actually agrees with me. I’m glad I haven’t seen anyone actually make fun of elwings suicide attempt. But in general they seem to demonize her to a degree that just gals me. And it’s specifically because they don’t like what she represents about the feanorians. With doriath everyone can sympathize with the victims because it s celegorm curufin and caranthir who are mainly the monsters. But no one wants Mae or mags to ever come off as cruel and guess what?? They are! Or rather they have it in them to be. Are they always cruel? No! It would be boring if they were but it’s also boring and frankly asinine to rewrite a classic work of fiction because you’re kindlaying meow meow committed an atrocity after already committing two whole previous atrocities. And to throw one of the few women in the story under the bus after her home was destroyed, her family destroyed and her livelihood destroyed? Say you hate women without saying you hate women, go ahead say it

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

I don't get all the Earendil and Elwing hate. Like Earendil made an incredibly difficult choice to save Middle Earth. You know, the place where his family lived?

As for Elwing, y'all act like if she had just given the Silmaril to the Feanorians, they'd have said, "Thank you" and left.

Leaving Eluréd and Elurín to starve to death or die from exposure to the elements did absolutely nothing to get the Feanorians the Silmaril. It was done out of a sadistic desire for revenge.

The Feanorians had slaughtered people in Doriath and already begun to slaughter people in Sirion.

Lots of real-life serial killers have this "if only" story they tell. "If only she hadn't broken up with me, I wouldn't have killed women who looked like her." "If only my parents hadn't abused me, I wouldn't have raped and murdered people." "If only they hadn't called me a mean name..." "If only they did what I said..." Excuses all of it. An attempt to pin the blame on someone else.

Likewise, serial killers almost always have a point where they promise they won't hurt their victim if they just do what they say. "Just get in the car, and I won't shoot." "Just don't fight me, and I'll let you go."

Has it ever occurred to people that Elwing believed the Feanorians would kill her whether she gave them the Silmaril or not? That such fucking cruel people who had by then murdered her brothers and parents and hundreds of people would have taken the Silmaril and just kept on killing people? Or that maybe they'd spare her life but take her captive and torture her? And that if they were going to kill her and everyone in Sirion anyway, she might as well make sure they at least didn't get the satisfaction of getting the Silmaril?

[runawaymun]

if nobody's been here yet I'm gonna be very cringe and on brand and ask about the Partake Prequel

also Rivendell's Tiny Tearaway sounds DELIGHTFUL

Ahhhh thank you!

Ask me about my not-yet-written-fics from this list

The Partake Prequel

(also if you wanted to know more about Rivendell's tiny tearaway just lmk I can make another post for that haha. But I am glad it sounds good!!!)

(cw: discussions of pretty abusive dynamics and questionable consent, also discussion of sex)

so this only exists in my head because a) I'm morbidly curious and have a fascination with the psychology of messed up relationships and b) I am a masochist.

I am just constantly thinking about how the fuck We Got Here when it comes to To Partake. Like how do things get to a point where it's this fucked up and messy and tangly and Bad?

and of course there are bits and snatches that are mixed in to Partake -- like little glimpses into the backstory of Elrond and Gil's situationship, but I want to know more specifically how we got to where we are now.

We know that Elrond started pining after Gil sometime in the late first age when he was roughly in between the age of fifty and seventy. Which...for a Peredhel is a perfectly acceptable age to be sexual (Elwing and Dior had kids and were married by 30). But from an Elvish perspective (i,e. Gil's) that's a baby.

Literally he does not think about anyone else. This is a somewhat unhealthy obsession already. There's a fealty-kink wrapped up in here somehow that's all messily combined with the fact that Gil is currently the only adult who is really present in Elrond's life (if we're going with ROP's timeline Galadriel seems to fuck off to hunt Sauron shortly after Morgoth's imprisonment in the void, and you know...Earendil is busy Earendiling)

So to start I don't think Gil even really saw anything with Elrond as being on the table until sometime in the very early second age, after he appoints Elrond as herald. It's unclear when this happened -- I couldn't find a date for it. But I presume it to be sometime after Lindon is founded and Mithlond constructed and certainly after Elros sailed for Numenor (Elrond would have been emotionally vulnerable and attached to Gil-Galad even more -- and in my head Elros would not have approved of anything going on between Elrond and Gil-Galad so that's very off limits until he's gone)

But--- with Elros gone indefinitely, yeah Elrond gets more attached to Gil.

They're still not sexual yet though.

Elrond is taking regular trips to Numenor etc.

So I generally imagine that things really Began between the two of them sometime shortly after SA 432, when Elrond is around 500 years old. He's "mature" at this point in Elvish terms, and Elros has just died -- so, unhinged and probably at one of his lowest points.

SEX CW: I have a VERY firm idea in my head which I was planning to make a oneshot of. But Elrond at this point does get Very Horny about Gil and starts masturbating about it sometime around here. Gil catches him and that's how....uhhhh things start.

Because OBVIOUSLY (Gil brain here) he is into Gil and THEREFORE this is a PERFECTLY NORMAL and FINE thing to do!

Plus he is OF. AGE.

Nevermind the fact that Elrond is incredibly unstable and vulnerable and depressed & still extremely young, completely inexperienced, and there's some really fucky power dynamics -- all of which affect his ability to consent properly to ANYTHING.

So that's how it starts. They just start having sex. I think nobody really knows about it at this point.

(we start with mostly just Gil on the receiving end of some oral sex that Elrond is getting rapidly better at)

Gil's the one to broach anything more than that and Elrond is down for anything as long as Gil is happy.

rumors do start circulating at this point but absolutely nobody is keen to confront them about it.

I feel like there's potential here for Galadriel to catch wind of things, directly ask, and for Elrond to deny absolutely everything.

If she asked Gil there's no way that he'd admit that anything is going on either because she makes him fear for his life haha.

Elrond has been actively suppressing links to Melian at this point because it freaks out most Elves -- and because Gil doesn't like it.

At some point Gil broaches-- and by broaches what I really mean here is tries (he doesn't ASK!!) an osanwe link. Likely either during or just after sex.

Elrond does not know any better and his brain is full of dopamine and he thinks this is AWESOME. The king wants to be EVEN MORE INTIMATE

boom osanwe link. Far more of an osanwe link than they ever should have had.

boom immediate dissonance which is painful for Gil and so he assumes it is painful for Elrond

Elrond has not had enough osanwe experience to know this is pretty insular to the specific way his and Gil's Themes don't mesh.

"Let me fix it ok?" "Oh god please fix it"

Also there's the undertone here of Gil doesn't like it and Elrond feeling the need to manage his emotions and divest himself of anything displeasing even if that's his fucking Theme.

Hence the theme fuckery begins.

And things really really really start to devolve with their relationship.

Like I imagine in the beginning Gil was pretty cautious and careful -- not in a lovey dovey way but he's not wholly inconsiderate and it's within his Partake characterization that he doesn't like to hurt his partner unless it's in a fun kinky way. He also does not get off on someone being scared. That's an ick for him. So initially he would be careful.

But Elrond starts getting really good at masking things and figuring out that Gil likes to be rough.

And of course, anything for Gil.

Do you see where we're going.

Well and it's compounded by the fact that Elrond does actually like it, too. It just scares him. So he as a lot of really confusing feelings going on that he doesn't know how to handle and there's also a lot of shame wrapped up in it too

And obviously Gil is not um. Guiding him through this in the way that a more experienced partner who is sometimes building scenes and domming should.

And again -- there's that messy thing of "I need to please you in absolutely every way possible and also clearly my differences are Bad, and therefore I must mask all of them as best I can and keep up with my work demands because being useful is better than being loved."

(Which is a lesson he learned from literally everyone, even Elros in the end. It is not a lesson that Elros meant to teach him. But Elros loved him. And then he left.)

Anyway that's as far as I've gotten. The beginning is much more specific and it gets more nebulous as we get closer to the Partake timeline, but it's very easy for me to see the trajectory of their relationship, and that's really what I want to explore.

OHHHH also the undertone of codependency because Elrond and Gil are both fundamentally isolated and find solace in each other. And Gil isolates Elrond further to ensure that He Will Not Be Left. Because Gil is afraid of being inadequate and has literally no one else except like, Cirdan, who cares for him so deeply. (I mean, he would. If he wasn't an asshole. But you get where I am going with this.)

Yeah. Sorry.

There is no happy ending to this fic it is just a dissection of how we get from point A to point B. The happy ending would be Partake alkdhg.

[child-of-hurin]

Outside of the faithful/kings men/Sauron situation is there even much explicit religion in there? “Earendil/Aragorn/Frodo is Middle Earth’s Jesus” isn’t that literally eru, think it’s in the athrabeth

Anon, I have so much on my mind about this topic in general, it really became a full ramble and I'm not sure this is useful to anyone besides me. These are my thoughts:

I don't think there is a Jesus-like figure anywhere in Middle Earth, at least not in a way that matters. The son of god, born from a virgin, who teaches a new doctrine, gathers apostles and is betrayed by one of them, goes though abuse and murder by the hands of the state, redeems mankind from original sin by his death, then is reborn three days later; is alive in heaven waiting at the end of time to judge mankind. That's Christ. You don't get that in Tolkien, in fact you don't even get anything remotely resembling the framework that would allow such a figure to arise.

We can see traces of a framework akin to 'original sin' in some extra-canon stuff, like in the tale of Adanel, and some references Andreth makes in the Athrabeth. In the tale of Adanel, Men fall into thrall of Melkor and thus invent, among other things, slavery, and, as punishment, lose their immortality/long life. This is undeniably a narrative of "fall". If you incorporate it in your understanding of the Legendarium, even if not as a cosmological truth, but as a story that exists within the story and that is part of Edain culture, then it's really very easy to imagine that much later, in Númenor, that lost mortality is what the King's Men, their descendants, are trying to reclaim.

This is not, like, /completely incompatible/ with the published Silm, it's just irrelevant: the published text puts immortality as something the Dunedain covet and decide to conquer by force, and associate with the material Aman, not something they think originally belonged to them, that they are reclaiming. King's Men do not understand themselves cosmologically as "fallen men" -- on the contrary, they are men on the rise.

Middle earth has no Jesus, Middle earth needs no jesus, because there is no original sin in Middle Earth. Noldor have more of a narrative of "fall", but even so it's sketchy at best, and their "redemption" doesn't come from Jesus. I mean: Earendil isn't sent bu Eru to die for the sins of the Noldor after teaching them a better doctrine. Earendil is not even Earendil, he is Earendil and Elwing.

There isn't much religion explicit in Tolkien's legendarium in the sense of an organized religion with rites, but I'm also not sure how much it is fair to dissociate magic and lore in M.E. from religion. Some 'religions' in this world have no gods or worship. Many amerindians, for example, have an extremely complex and ritualized, even political, cosmology -- is it religion? Is it religion when a shaman has a spiritual conversation with a leopard? But going further: is it religion to believe in ghosts? In the evil eye? That fasting and positive thinking can cure cancer? etc. IRL the key "religion" needs to be conceptualized every time we open a discussion about a specific topic; it is a conceptual tool, right? So I think to talk about "religion" in Middle Earth we first need to assess what we are trying to discuss, and conceptualize "religion" and its opposite, "secular". If Middle Earth is not Religious, then is it Secular?

You see my point? Like, I'm not trying to be difficult: I don't think there is religion in the Legendarium in any analogue sense to Christianity, period. The closest thing we have to christian religion in the Silm is Sauron's temple to Melkor in Númenor (lol!).

But at the same time, Tolkien populates his world with a historian's understanding of lore, the past, and by consequence, the future. Aragorn talking about Beren and Lúthien is, at the same time, history, art, folklore, AND a spiritual belief in a certain afterlife, a certain organization of the cosmos and of life. When Sam sings about stars in Cirith Ungol, is that a prayer? What do you think?

It's funny to me that I'm complicating this when it would serve me better to just tell you: there is no religion in Tolkien! Because I am an atheist and because I am bothered by fans who, in their eagerness to defeat Christianity, end up shoehorning it where it literally has no place.

[anna-dreamer]

More grumpy Valar thoughts

I’ll just vent here for a little bit

Had a little thought about the Valar, mercy, and judgement. (Still think the Valar do a rather poor job of being in charge of things, though i suppose it’s a discussion on its own what ‘in charge’ means in this case.)

I’ve encountered a notion that by releasing Melkor out of his confinement in the Void Manwe executed an act of estel, so it was a good thing actually, because themes and everything. I believe it very well might be a thematical thing, but the way the Valar executed it made it hardly moral or responsible from a leadership point of view. (Again, is it even a valid concern when it comes to Silmarillion, Doom and all? Dunno, just like to think about it.) 

Like, sure, it is incredibly virtuous of you guys to let your mortal enemy go and to believe him when he swears to never again, to give him a chance because everyone deserves one. But what about his victims who you specifically brought to the same place to protect from him? How is it a great idea to let Melkor lose, unsupervised, unchecked? Both Melkor and the Eldar are Valar’s responsibility, but the former they seem to favor more. And by the way, isn’t it clear that the confinement itself might have made Melkor extremely vengeful? Of course he would want revenge, and if he couldn’t touch the Valar themselves, he had the Eldar at hand. That should have been at least plausible for anyone who new Melkor, the rejected jealous child he was. But the Valar are apparently bad both at talking and at empathy, as Eru must have been not a great dad for any of them.

So Melkor does what he does, and as far as I am concerned the whole conundrum is Valar’s responsibility as much as his. 

Now, i thought of other times when the Valar had to seat in judgement. 

First case is Feanor, and frankly it seems to me it was absolutely not the Valar’s business to punish him at all. It doesn’t mean he did no wrong, but it all seems to be an internal Eldar affair which Melkor exploited. And the Eldar already have their own authority, their king. It must be he and them who decide what to do. But the Valar apparently strongly believe it is their right to interfere. I wonder, was there any rule or a law that prohibited weapons and armored assaults the the Valar previously imposed? Did they state that there would be times when their judgement precedes the one of Eldar’s authorities? Because if they didn’t it looks like another case of arbitrary unspoken rules based not on law but on faith, that apply to the flight of the Noldor. Essentially, nobody knows what the Valar’s rules are, but everybody will know once they’re broken. That is abuse. 

At last, Earendil and Elwing. Their case frankly makes me angry. They too broke the rules (finally some clearly spoken rules, though no clear punishment for breaking them), and the judgement was unfairly harsh. They were essentially both removed from the world they knew, parted from their children forever, Elwing was turned into a bird, and an ever solitary mission was imposed on Earendil which he can never abandon or complete. And for what? For them coming to plead for help and mercy. As if they were already guilty somehow. The Valar probably felt they were. 

Now, granted, Melkor was imprisoned for a long time, but he was released and fully pardoned as if nothing happened. And he tried to destroy an entire race. While Earendil just trespassed. And he is still up there in the sky.  

And, granted, I am not discussing any metaphysical reading of this story. Rather I am concerned for the implications it makes because i feel it is important. The Valar are willing to give a chance to one of their own, however fallen he might be; but when it comes to the Eldar, the Valar’s compulsion to judge and punish is without fail. 

Freaking pre-built inequality. 

[sunflowersupremes]

Entreat

You shall find little pity, though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you.

Characters: Maglor, Earendil, Elwing, Elrond, Celebrían, Erestor, Glorfindel, Egalmoth, Finrod

Tags: Fourth Age, Sailing To Valinor, Kidnapping, This time it’s Maglor getting kidnapped, Arda is an escape room and Earendil has the emergency escape button, Earendil sneaks his son’s father into Valinor, Manwë is just done with the entire line of Finwe at this point, Elwing is just along for the ride (literally)

Read on AO3

At some point, it seemed, he had lost track of the years. It was well into the Fourth Age, perhaps even the Fifth, and all seemed well in the world. Sauron was gone, a houseless spirit who would never again take shape. Morgoth, too, was gone, trapped beyond the Doors of Night.

Even Cirdan, the only elf he had had any contact with in his long years of solitude (not because he had invited him) was gone. He knew only because the aged Shipwright had suddenly stopped leaving parcels of food and then the Grey Havens had finally crumbled to dust.

The world was peaceful and quiet.

And Makalaurë was dying.

It hadn’t been an Orc - they were gone as well - or a wild beast or even a mortal with a violent streak. No, Makalaurë Feanorian had stumbled in the dark, fallen to the bottom of a cliff, and the tide was rising.

He had fallen in the night, and when the sun had come up he’d realized how helpless his situation was. The small rock he was lying on jutted at least a foot out of the water, but with the tide… soon it would be engulfed.

I shall join my Silmaril then, in the depths at long last. And my brothers too, in Mandos, and there we shall remain, I imagine, until the unbreaking of the world.

It wasn’t that he was keen to die, or that he had given up, but his leg was shattered and there was no way off the rock he had landed on. The water was too choppy to swim, even without his shattered leg, and the cliff to steep to climb for a man who only had one functioning hand.

There was a ship in the distance, but he could not raise his voice enough to call it.

He wondered what Mandos was like, and remembered the Doom that had been put upon him:

‘your houseless spirits shall come then to Mandos. There long shall ye abide and yearn for your bodies, and find little pity, though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you.’

Ha! No one would entreat for him.

He would remain there, in the haunted depths of that place, until the Breaking of the World. Perhaps… perhaps they would even forget to Sing of him, in the Second Song, and let his soul simply slip away into nothingness.

That would not be so bad.

Was he hallucinating or was the little boat coming closer?

Maglor managed to raise his head, startled to see that, in the time he’d been contemplating his own death, the little boat was coming steadily closer.

Perhaps… perhaps he was not destined for Mandos just yet?

The man at the helm was young, his eyes gleaming, blonde hair blowing in the breeze. He was beautiful, but mortal.

It came to a stop beside him, but Maglor found his throat was still too dry to speak, barely able to raise one hand in greeting.

“Hail and well met!” called his rescuer. It was a mortal tongue, although the dialect had seemingly shifted since the last time Maglor had heard it. He was able to follow along well enough though.  

The boat was secured to a rock, and the man jumped out, landing lightly beside Maglor, helping him to sit up. “Steady,” he murmured.

Maglor’s head spun, the world around him growing blurry.

“I have you, brother,” the man said quietly, crouching beside Maglor, sliding his hands under his legs and shoulders, carefully lifting him up.

He moaned as his leg was jostled.

The boat was larger than he’d realized, though it was still a brave little thing, with a cabin that Maglor was carried to. It was a good thing he’d been the smallest of his brothers, otherwise a mortal would never have been able to pick him up.

“I saw your fall,” the man said, bringing him a glass of water and holding it to his lips. “I thought to go on, that there was no chance you had survived-“ he shook his head. “And then I told myself, ‘no, no you must go for him, for if not you then who?’ “

No one, thought Maglor glumly.

“No one,” agreed the man, as though he had heard his thoughts. “For no one else could have reached you before the tide.”

The tea tasted faintly of herbs and he found himself growing more relaxed, his body begging for the bliss of sleep. He struggled to keep his eyes open, but his rescuer waved his hand, as though urging him to sleep.

As he drifted into unconsciousness, he thought he heard the man say, “No one else, I think, would even have tried.”

When he awoke his leg was wrapped and propped on a pillow. The boat was swaying slightly, rocking on the waves, and he imagined he was going to be dropped off on the nearest stretch of shore.

Very well.

It was more of a chance than he deserved, and he would savor it. The cabin was sparsely decorated. Just a bed, a desk, and a chest. Nothing seemed to signify where the man was from, or what the purpose of the little boat was. It didn’t seem to be a fishing boat. For pleasure, then? He could be a lordling who simply enjoys the sea.

Maglor laid on his back, studying the ceiling until the door finally opened and his rescuer stepped inside. Beyond him, Maglor could see miles of open water.

“You’re awake!”

“Tha- thank you,” Maglor choked out. His throat was sore from Ages of abuse and a lack of decent folk to make conversation with, but he managed anyway.

“Of course,” said the man easily. He brought Maglor more tea and helped him to sit up to swallow it.

Maglor pointed to the door, uncertain how to communicate that he needed to leave before he brought any Doom upon his rescuer.

“No, no,” said the man, “Stay here and rest a while, brother. Shore is a ways off yet, I should think.” He tucked the blankets around Maglor with surprising gentleness before slipping back out of the cabin as the medication once again sent Maglor to sleep.

A storm started up that night, tossing their brave little boat in great huge waves that reminded Maglor of the sinking of Beleriand or the fall of Numenor.

His rescuer came inside the cabin to shelter with him, soaked from having struggled to get the sail down so it wouldn’t rip. “I knew it was coming,” he said ominously. “The birds scattered.”

Was that some sort of Mortal saying? Maglor frowned, then groaned and attempted to push himself upright. He had to do something, after all, the man had saved him from a long and very wet death. The least he could do was ask Ulmo to maybe have a bit of pity on this child of Eru.

He wasn’t certain the Vala would listen, but it wouldn’t hurt to try, as long as he was careful how he worded the request and made sure to exaggerate that it wasn’t for his own benefit.

“Easy there,” said the man, pushing him back into bed as he tried to sit. “Stay down.”

Weakly he pointed across the room, where he’d noticed a flute earlier in the day. The power of Elves had once been well known, hopefully those tales had remained and the man would know what he wanted to do. His harp was long gone, but he could make due…

But the man shook his head. “You cannot Sing away this storm, I am afraid.”

“I can,” he whispered, willing the man to understand that he was not just any elf. “I can calm it-“ his voice broke and he struggled to cough “-perhaps a little.”

He was given a sad smile and a squeeze on his shoulder. “Rest, brother.”

The storm was gone by morning, and Maglor was again alone in the dark little cabin. The mortal had gone outside as soon as it had calmed, only returning some time later to say, “We’ve been blown off course, but it won’t be hard to correct.”

“The seas are calm,” Maglor croaked. The boat had ceased it’s incessant rocking.

“Lord Manwë is in a merciful mood this morning, it seems.” A man of Gondor then, if he knew the old tales.

Maglor studied him, then quietly said, “Lord Manwë is seldom in such a mood.”

The man’s laugh almost seemed nervous, although who wouldn’t be frightened by the Light of the Trees that still shone from Maglor’s eyes? Even if he had met elves before, those that remained were not exiles like Maglor, but rather elves of the Greenwood.  

“Rest brother,” he said, then nodded his head and slipped back outside. He heard a key turn in the lock.

Maglor was out of bed in an instant, ignoring the pain in his leg. He didn’t like being locked up, even by foolish and well-meaning mortals. Perhaps I made him nervous when I sought to calm the storm last night. And clearly he was not pleased when I spoke of Lord Manwë. He must not have realized the full danger of what he had saved.

But he wasn’t about to stay locked up for long. He needed to know why it was taking so long to get to shore. He’d thought the man would drop him at the earliest convenience, but instead it seemed he’d decided to either take Maglor to civilization or hang onto him until he healed. Neither one would do.

The door was locked - and damn it, why? - but he was a son of Feanor, he’d learned to pick locks in infancy, and soon he had the door open.

Maglor stepped outside and froze.

They were not in the ocean at all, but rather sailing in a sea of stars. Realization dawned.

“Ah,” said the-rescuer-who-was-clearly-Earendil-son-of-Tuor nervously, stroking the head of a white-bird-that-was-probably-the-woman-Maglor-had-once-tried-to-kill that rested on the ship’s rail. “I wondered when you might try that.”

The Fic has several more chapters on AO3 than it does on here.

[diversetolkien]

What are your thoughts about Catharsis of Bad Treatment? I made that term up, but I use it to describe a situation where bad things happen in a narrative (ableism, homophobia, etc) but you derive some emotional healing from it? It’s hard to articulate, but sometimes I like to see a character suffer because it mirrors my suffering? I guess an example for me would be Miriel. I relate A Lot to her depression, the way society doesn’t/can’t give her what she needs - to the point where I’m not sure I would want to change that narrative. It makes me feel Seen? But I also understand that others don’t enjoy that, which is why I like transformative work - ten scenarios can be explored with equal value... thoughts? Do you ever relate to Catharsis or Bad Treatment? (I also know that ppl use media to feel Peace/avoid seeing depictions of their trauma, which is where I’m at right now, tbh, I’m not in the headspace for Dark Media)

I relate to this anon, and I think this is a really good way to sum this up! I've spooen about how my feelings towards Elwing and Earendil partly stem from my own history of child abandonment, and in this I relate heavily to Elrond and Elros. First by being abandoned by a parent, while also learning to find figures in people you wouldn't have expected-both positive and negative.

Having a parent leave you is incredibly gut wrenching. It effects how you grow up, how you navigate with the world. And you trust.

And like Elrond and Elros, my parent is very much alive and until recently made a conscious choice to stay out of my life while chasing other things.

There's something about having to realize other things are better to your parent than you are, and while I'm grateful one parent stayed with me, the onslaught of trauma that followed afterwards REALLY makes me relate to Elrond and Elros more, and has informed a lot of my research on different forms of child abuse.

Would I want to change the narrative 🤔 sometimes yes, but because I dont, I can relate to it a lot. I really grew onto Elrond due to our shared history. And because I dont think fandom considers the situation from his perspective, I feel very protective of it XD

you should really make a whole post about this term you've cultivated and tag me! You deserve the credit for this.

[amethysttribble]

Elwing of Sirion

A half headcanon dump / half kinda fic thing about Elwing’s life in Sirion.

Beacause I’m hearing distant rumblings of discourse? In the year of our lord 2020? And I want to write fic but I don’t have the energy for it. Proper Sirion fic goes on the to-do list for May. In the meantime, have this kinda sorta, bullet-point fic.

Warning for attempted suicide, as Elwing didn’t know she was going to be bird-i-fied.

Elwing grows up by the sea, surrounded by salt smell and broken pride and crashing waves and echoing rock, and she’s happy.

She lives with her Uncle Oropher (hc’d as Nimloth’s brother for self-indulgent reasons) and Uncle Celeborn and Aunt Galadriel are always nearby.

Elwing and Thranduil spend their sunny and rainy and cloudy and basically all the days together in the beach sands and on the cliffs’ edge and exploring water caves that remind them of Menegroth.

She doesn’t actually remember Menegroth, but it makes Thran feel better when she says she does.

Doriath was filled with trees, Uncle promises wistfully, and Elwing looks to see her ocean and can’t bemoan moving.

Then she feels bad because there’s a mother and a father and two brothers that everyone else is mourning and she… Elwing wishes Aunt Galadriel and Uncles Oropher and Celeborn and Thran were Mother and Fathers and Brother.

She feels immensely guilty over this.

The bad feelings are gone, though, when they go fishing or swimming or exploring, so they do a lot of that.

There areother children at Sirion, five others, most of them older. Most of them were born shortly after Dior, in a small baby boom that created Thran; no one expected Dior to grow so fast, so the playmate plan was worthless.

Aeriel is closer to her age, meant to be a playmate for her brothers, in a vain hope that more Elven blood would slow the aging. Only marginally.

The children don’t all get along, but they have to try because there are so few of them. They play together.

Elwing is the leader, but she doesn’t quite understand that for a little while. What she does get is that her word is law for the children as she’s the ‘princess’; she abuses this power as kids are wont to do, but not too much.

Elwing notices early on that her skin blemishes in the sun while the others don’t, that sometimes the water is too cold for her but not the others, that everything about her is just… heavier. She moves different.

Aunt Galadriel measures her and Thran’s heights against each other on a door. Elwing has so many more markings than Thran. She’s taller than Aeriel now, tho she’s younger. Why… why does she get bigger so fast?

Elwing doesn’t care what ‘peredhel’ means. She just hates it.

She’s 7 years old but looks like 14 yo elfling when the Gondolin Elves show up. Uncle doesn’t really like them, but Lord Cirdan trusts them. They’re the ‘good’ Noldor, like Aunt Galadriel.

Elwing always imagined Kinslayers- heard about only in hushed conversations- as having dead, black eyes and blood stains on their skin. These people don’t look like that, so she supposes they’re alright.

Several children come with them!

One is their prince, he’s named Earendil and doesn’t talk much.

Thran says it’s ‘shock’ in his grown up voice, his sad voice, his eyes-far-away voice; the one he uses when he whispers stories about her brothers under the covers.

They still trek up to the Noldor settlement- up on the highest cliffs, where they build high towers; Elwing doesn’t understand why they want to be up in the sky so bad- before going to play, to invite Earendil.

He and a gaggle of others come, more often than not. But they cry easily and don’t smile much, and Elwing and Aeriel don’t really understand them

“Give them time,” Thran promises, and their older friends look grim. Elwing gives them time.

Earendil likes to wander off by himself and stare into the pools of water in the rocky shore, rather than dig in the sand

Elwing starts following him, curious about how his nose pinks in the sun and his Father has hair all over his face. She looks into the pools with him, and tells Earendil all the names of the fish and the snails and the crabs and plants in the water.

He doesn’t reply, but he listens, and Elwing likes that.

Every year, Elwing gets bigger, and so does Earendil. Before she knows what’s happened, she’s taller than Thran.

He’s ‘too old for tantrums’ and totally does not throw one.

Aeriel is still a little girl, and Elwing is… a woman? Nearly? She ages slower than a human child would, Lord Tuor assures her, but certainly not like an elf.

She and Thran are lanky adolescents together, and then suddenly she’s an adult allowed at the governing meetings and he’s still outlawed to play in the water.

He doesn’t understand, and Thran is more than a little bitter his baby cousin is grown, and they fight about it.

Elwing hates it too, doesn’t he understand, doesn’t he, doesn’t he know that she hates-

She just wants to be normal.

Earendil seems not to care about outpacing their peers or normality. He wants to grow up fast so that he’ll be allowed to sail alone.

He’s always been… quiet and reserved and kept to himself, even when he started to talk to her about the stars and the waves, and he grew into his rumbling laugh.

Earendil likes long stretches of silence and contemplation and Elwing likes that he can keep himself occupied while she fishes. They go crabbing together, him with the boat and her with the pots, and they kiss when they probably shouldn’t be. He’s the only one who can keep pace with her.

He understands how she feels about family she mourns but doesnt quite know. His names are different- Elenwe, Aredhel, Fingolfin, Fingon, Argon, even men, like Turin.

She knows that one! She tell him about Turin of Doriath, about Beleg Strongbow and Mablung, and about Lúthien and Beren once they’re talking about famous stories of famous kin.

They talk about kinslayers, both the ones who have faces- “Uncle Maeglin”- and those that don’t- “the Feanorions”

They agree: there is nothing left in the heart of a murderous Elf. Men they are not quite sure about. They debate, and it feels good

Elwing and Earendil marry, ostensibly because they like each other- maybe even love- but specifically because they want to know if they bond like elves do or not, and if they’re wrong about not bonding, Uncle Oropher and Lady Idril will never forgive them for not having a ceremony.

They do bond, and there seemed to be… something permanent about it. Something like a choice made. Something like they could have not bonded.

They are still not wholly anything, not counted among anyone. But they’ve tipped the scales closer to Elven.

Earendil keeps his silence but seems a little horrified; he likely would have liked more time to contemplate that choice.

Elwing starts looking at her self in the mirror and notices how her face has stopped aging every second for the first time in her life and cries in joy

The first person she tells is Thran. He’s still a minor, a teenager, but he’s almost grown these days. When he realizes Elwing will not die, that he will not lose her too, he cries as well, and their torn relationship starts to mend.

They go cave climbing together, and Elwing still gets too cold, but she moves more lightly.

Elwing is grown now, and does not feel like she is constantly dying- aging- anymore, and she’s brimming with life and certainty and love and for the first time she wants to throw herself at her people, her Elven people.

She wants to be their queen.

It will take time, she has to learn. She sits and talks and listens to Uncle Oropher and Lady Idril and Galadriel and Celeborn and Lord Cirdan and the other counselors of Doriath and Gondolin and now Sirion.

Earendil has little interest in such things, but he adores Lord Cirdan. They spend some years at Balar with him and another young ruler, Ereinion. Elwing really likes him, and they talk often of poetry and how to paint bouys.

Elwing is pregnant when they return to Sirion. She and Earendil have a plan. She will guide their people, the refugees of the fallen kingdoms. He will look west, for aid.

Their boys are named Elrond and Elros, after her family tradition, and Earendil lingers on his kisses when he says goodbye to them. They’re babbling when he comes back and that’s how it goes.

He leaves, they grow, he returns, and looks sadder every tome.

The twins grow to fast, and Elwing’s heart hurts, because… what if they do not manage to become nearer-to-Elven as she and Earendil did? She tries not to dwell on it. Elwing has never liked dwelling on dark things.

She straps one baby to her chest and one to her back and goes fishing.

She and Thran split children and explore caves.

Earendil comes home and it is like breathing again.

Through it all, Elwing is attending meetings and giving advice and ordering weapon forging. They set up defenses. they are meant to be against the orcs that grow ever closer, but the dark-eyed elves linger in the back of her mind

Elwing maps maritime trade routes and settles disputes and tries to be a good Queen

Lord Celeborn- Uncle Celeborn, really, but Lord during ceremonies- presents her with the Nauglamír. It’s as close to a coronation as she gets.

Not long after- after they dig the Silmaril out from the trunk Oropher had shoved it in- they get a letter

The Feanorions ask for their property.

Everyone looks at Elwing. It’s her decision, her decision, her choice to make, to…

They will come. Elwing feels that in her bones.

She goes fishing.

Elwing tries to remember the Father she does not know, the brothers who were… lost. Murdered in cold blood. For no reason. Not for the Silmaril, not for honor, not for anything but anger.

Elwing has to wonder, even if she acquisitions, will they relent?

The Silmaril glows brightly, beautifully, and it makes her feel… stronger. Deeper. Greater.

More Elven.

Elwing can’t help but wonder what affect it’s having on the boys. She wants to believe it’s making them more durable, more pointy-eared.

More Elven.

And the Silmaril protects their borders at night, while the Orcs prowl. It keeps them at bay even when the sun it gone, as it is so bright, and Elwing cannot know how long her people- refugees, civilians, families, unlike the Fenaorion war machine- will last without that deterrent.

She makes her choice.

Earendil has made no progress yet, but she still hopes.

The last thing they need is the satiated Feanorions leaving her people weak and vulnerable while they try to coax Morgoth out of the north again

They can wait.

The sons of Feanor can wait until Dagor Dagorath for the Silmaril.

She tells them as much.

And if in her heart Elwing hopes they won’t come? Won’t answer her denial? Won’t risk it after losing three brothers (more than even her, she thinks in a twisted humor) in Menegroth?

Then she keeps that hope close to her chest but starts making plans.

Her mother-in-law is an inspiration and she and Thranduil know all the caves and tunnels.

Elwing really wishes Earendil were there. But he isn’t. She makes do.

The Feanorions come. Of course they do.

They want her and the Silmaril, Elwing knows this. She sends a maid to take Elrond and Elros down the secret passage into the caves. She locks the Nauglamir in a safe, stands on top of the battlements, and dares them to come get her.

She does not expect what follows.

The fires burn and air is nothing but screams and the waters have turned red with blood, and they walls crumble like paper against the seasoned Feanorion host.

Elwing is scattered among the soldiers, and the sons of Feanor- red haired mostly but one black- march right past her. March for the tower, for the Silmaril, for the boys.

Elwings runs.

She weaves and bobs through the crumbling streets that raised her, past the corpses of friends and advisors, onto the beach at the base of her tower-

and oh Eru, oh no, oh that’s Harion. That’s Harion, who splashed in the sea with her and Thran, who carried her on his shoulders, who requested to guard her home. He and nearly a dozen other bodies- including two with red hair- lay before the entrance to the passage Elrond and Elros escaped through.

Elwing looks back, and she got there ahead of the lost and fighting older Feanorions, but not by much. They see her standing over their brothers’ corpses.

She screams at them, all fury and panic and grief.

“You want it?! This much?! Come get it from my dead hands!”

Elwing runs up, up through her tower, away from the open passage where her boys are hidden, drawing them away. Drawing the kinslayers up.

Her feet are pounding upon the steps and she nearly slips to her death a few times. But she makes it to the top, to her bedroom with the massive windows so she and Earendil could watch the sea and the sky from, to the safe where she kept the treasure

It’s mostly seashells and glass and one necklace.

Elwing pries the Nauglamir out and wraps it around her hand.

She’s holding it up, standing on the balcony, when the red-headed, scarred one bursts through her doorway.

“Give it to me.”

She barely hears him as she climbs backwards up the railing.

“Stop! What are you doing, child?”

His eyes are bright, Elwing notices. Bright and grey like stars. Not dark at all, not dark and empty like his heart. It makes it worse as she stand upon the thin railing.

“No! Elwing, dont, stop, just give it to me and-“

They want her. They want the gem. They have destroyed the last hold against Morgoth to get it.

To save their own souls they have doomed the rest of Arda. Elwing doesn’t think they deserve to get saved.

Let them go to the void, to the same uncertain fate as her and her husband and her sons. Her brothers. Her father.

Elwing starts to fall.

“No! Please!”

She knows, logically, that they will just fish her corpse and the Silmaril out of the water. But maybe their searching will give Thran or Celeborn or Lady Idril the time to find Elrond and Elros.

With Elwing and the Silmaril washed out to sea, they might leave Sirion.

Except… Elwing never hits the water.

The wind catches at her wings, and she feels light as a feather, and her body twists in mid air.

All she sees is sea.

Elwing starts flying.