Tag: replies

Varda

Melian’s skill with barriers came not from her study under gentle Estë, nor was it an innate skill of the beloved teacher of nightingales. Like most powerful handmaidens of the Valier, she had been drafted during the billion-years war between the Valar and their fallen brethren, that long attrition before Arda had fully formed and cooled, before she knew what a nightingale was and had only the dimmest ideas of what Arda would be. Yet Melian knew she loved Arda, so she was taught hold to hold Melkor at bay. Her instructor was the Queen of the Valar.

Melkor feared the burning eyes of the Star-kindler, and hated her as much as she him, desiring most to humble her but unable to touch her or her craft. Her strength was in hallowing creation so he could not hold it. This ability of Varda, first taught to Ilmarë of the same indomitable shining will, did the other Maiar learn. Melkor strove to destroy each creation of the Valar, to freeze away or burn Ulmo’s oceans, smash Aulë’s mountains, maim and murder and turn monstrous Yavanna’s creations, and replace madness and despair for rest and desire. But of all the Valar’s works, the most dangerous for Melkor to corrupt would have been the stars of Varda. Glaciers could be recovered from, forest regrown, and spiritual trauma healed. There would be little to salvage if the wrong star imploded.

Vigilant and vicious was the Star-kindler as she compressed nebulae into her new-born stars, blasting the fallen spirits of flame and shadow with the force of supernovae, all the while casting her eyes back to the fragile barrier that protected the growing Arda from such winds and rays of radiation. Deep into the Void she cast her invisible barriers, deflecting the corruption of a dark will that sought selfish tyranny. She allowed no wavering and no weakness in her barriers, and ensured the same standards in the smaller efforts of the Maiar. It must be unimaginable that you fail, was the searing thought she sent to the handmaidens of the Valar. Your light does not gutter out; you do not fall, you do not give him an opening. If your voice is overpowered by his, you will have no voice. If your barrier is broken, you will have nothing left.  In this alone you must be stronger than him, or else there is nothing of you. 

From a distance Melian had seen the holes in creation from the destruction of Varda’s stars, where all light and particles of the world disappeared. She saw where the barriers of Varda had failed, the strewn asteroid fields and wandering planets and catastrophic explosions whose light has yet to reach the visible eye.

“A Elbereth Gilthoniel,”whispers Melian in thanksgiving, as her Girdle stands firm year after year against Morgoth. 

kazaera replied to your post:To use the proper names or not?

true story this is one of the big problems with writing early Valar for me and also there was that time I had to work through PE->Quenya sound change to get late CE/early PRQ vocabulary for a fic because LINGUISTIC ACCURACY

Ugh yes, Linguistic Accuracy and having characters use the ‘authentic’ names they would be saying at the time period/place is one of those thorny issues of writing Silmarillion fic with a priority thanks to the linguistical focused nature of Tolkien’s work – and something I have a love-hate relationship with.

The decision to use Quenya or Sindarin forms of names is this annoying constant quandary. Even in the Ingwë of Cuiviénen story where I use PE, my focus isn’t on the linguistic development of elven tongues or wanting that to be an element (the development of agriculture and social roles, yes), so whereas I’ll use the PE name for some of the Valar, it’s more like how I use some PE names in dialogue but refer to the characters as Ingwë, Elwë, etc… The narrator is looking back. I think Maktâmê / Mahtamë is the only one where I’m breaking my quasi-consistent internal rule of referring to them by the name they would most commonly be spelled, but also because I have the moment where I switch to Mahtamë. But also it comes down to that I always keep in mind that the majority of readers are going to be more familiar with the names in the published Silmarillion. I only rarely use the Quenya names for the sons and grandsons of Finwë, because I know not everyone has all the blah-blah-finwës memorized (and to be honest those that refer to characters by the Q names from the HoMe article are linked forever in my mind with fans writing long epics about the sons of Fëanor in Tirion during the Time of the Two Trees anyway). So even stories or head-canons I write for characters speaking only Quenya (or Lindarin Quenya), I rarely bother to translate Finarfin back to Arafinwë or Turgon back to Turukáno (my first instinct in the recent Elenwë fic was to leave it Turgon, but the Quenya-translating is prevalent enough that I worried I’d be questioned if I left it). But the other hand, I have Elu swear and think ‘by the Belain’ instead of Valar, so there you go. Two warring viewpoints, and I can’t stick to one.

I don’t want to make -or use- ‘Original’ Valarin names for the Valar because I think it would be way too distracting, the reader paying attention to my name-crafting skills or serious lack of, and momentarily remove the reader from the story- and also puts a distance between the Valar being addressed, because they see each other as a whole, as the notes of the Song, and the idea of short proper names was something for the Children’s benefit.  

That annoying dilemma between how does the POV address characters vs how does the reader know them…

kazaera said: this is beautiful aww Nimloth and Dior and Beren <3! I love it! also funnily enough my Oropher is also Galathil’s son

Thank you! I’m always worried if the requestee will like the ficlet.

Ah, my sentence wasn’t very clear, was it? bad heget Oropher as the much younger brother of Nimloth’s mother. Therefore he’s not a direct blood relative of Celeborn, but he’s raised as virtually Nimloth’s older brother, and his family become the power-behind-the-throne / regents for Elwing. At first it was just Nimloth’s family and the knives, with a bit of bonus Dior the prodigy fighter partly thanks to Maia blood and because his dad’s side are also just awesome (Dior kills Caarnthir, Celegorm, and other Fëanorian soldiers, succumbs to blood loss because he doesn’t have a fully elven constitution, Nimloth knifes Curufin) but then Beren wandered in, sat down, and smiled beautifully.

Mandos and – or Lorien

Irmo knows that his brother is not as fond of the Second Children as he, though only because Námo does not know what to do with them. They do not come to his Halls after they die, so their spirits are not his responsibility, which in their own way does endear the mortals to the Doomsman, for they would be a crushing burden otherwise. For his brother that knows all that was foretold, even if he is disinclined to tell it, the mystery of where the souls of mortals go is disconcerting. Also that the mortals are not tied to fate, though they can be predictable in their own manner does Irmo’s brother declare, is a source of both frustration and  elation. They are a source of mystery, of surprises, of uncertainty, and that is why the Lord of Lórien loves them best of all his Father’s creations. The mortals do not have their fates set in inevitability before them, nor do they feel wholly satisfied or familiar with the world, always restless for more, always dreaming.

okay part of me wanted to just redo this dialogue in fic format. Aie, it’s hard for me to write Valar, as they are concepts and philosophy as much as characters

swampdiamonds replied to your post:Earwen! (for the prompt thing)

I love this! I laughed at the goat-beards and the “make way for ducklings” song—how cute!

Uinen makes me think of ducks. Ducks make me think of those countless examples of momma ducks + ducklings stopping traffic to cross streets – and that it would be the essence of the Teleri to help ducks and drop what they’re doing to assist and watch them.

Eärwen is very young in this, so her doesn’t recognize any of the erotic overtones – but elves I can’t see as prudish. Not particularly lustful and adultery and causal sex as something complete foreign to them, but a lot of sensual songs. And yeah, i still don’t know how I head-canon concepts of elves and beards, as I can’t picture any elf aside from Círdan and Mahtan with one.

crocordile replied to your post:Earwen! (for the prompt thing)

ThiS IS SO CUTE OH MY GODDDDDDD

I AIM FOR CUTE!

nelayn replied to your post:Earwen! (for the prompt thing)

AAAAAAAAAAW ❤ So lovely, thank you so much! Imagining Earwen growing up among elder women and being taught by them is a wonderful image…. And you capture the culture and essence of the Teleri perfectly, as always…

I’M SO GLAD YOU LIKED IT! The second I saw the prompt I knew I wanted to write Eärwen with women. Aw, thank you for saying I captured the Teleri culture/essence (sometimes I wonder if I have actual sea longing, or just that I feel my identity is strongly attached to the shoreline and sailors). But yes, that the Teleri are the Lindar, they should be constantly singing and singing together. That their songs would reflect their culture and have elements of playfulness and simple joy, but also that elves use song for magic, and they are supreme craftsmen at what they need. That the wives and daughters were the ones to weave the cloth and rope for the ships, Swan-ship or not, so Eärwen must have woven much of it herself, so I wondered why that element of her skills wasn’t brought up more. Also went with linen instead of another canvas because I figured the elves have plenty of time to craft, and for the association with purity. And Ilsë and her unnamed wife decided to join in. 

Top five foods!!!

Off the top of my head (and I could easily give another five that would qualify):

  1. German Chocolate cake
  2. French onion soap with dark or Jewish rye and extra Swiss cheese
  3. cheese ravioli or spinach and cheese tortellini, with only a little olive oil or pesto sauce
  4. those little beef tamales from HEB (w/ sour cream)
  5. scrambled eggs and little breakfast sausages, possibly with some cheese and hash-browns

honorable mentions include: coffee-flavored ice cream, shrimp scampi or panko-breaded butterfly shrimp, several stir-fry dishes especially with beef, broccoli, bean sprouts…, Swedish meatballs, Belgium waffles with lots of whipped cream, ….

….i haven’t had dinner yet.

(≖︿≖)

the worst idea for a crossover you’ve ever seen.

Sometimes I lurk at this one creative writing sub-forum that has a bunch of threads for plotting or reccing stories for various fandoms, generally SF or video games or anime, some other things, and crossovers are extremely popular. Most I have never heard of, and even in the threads for those fandoms I do know and read to see if anything interesting crops up, there are crossovers with things I do not have the slightest clue about, or things that would be awful. I’m sure I could pick out something, but to be honest my eyes glaze over. And I’m more a fan of ‘fusions’ than straight crossovers (actually, with only a few exceptions, I hate crossovers that keep both canons and don’t integrate them well, or use the excuse of plotmagic black hole or hidden barrier). On principle I imagine anything, especially live-action, to a straight-ish crossover with My Little Pony:FiM is gonna suck (especially with the brony baggage).

Some of the Marvel/DC crossovers with other properties or celebrities have looked hella weird and awful.