Tag: replies

Omg what you’re writing a fic for this??!?!??! I didn’t know!! I would’ve put more thought into it (honestly I was kinda bullshitting everything?? Some clicked and they we’re just PERFECT!!!!! but others were just not???) I’m very curious as to how this is going to turn out!!!!!!! (if you want we can bounce a few more ideas of each other, I had multiple creatures for each one (except Ulmo sadly, honestly I drew a blank with him))

Yes! For a few years now – I can give the AO3 links, but they’re also on my blog. Of Ingwë Ingweron – it’s the long labor of love (and niche interests) where I started writing the part of The Silmarillion I thought I never would aka elves pre-Great Journey, focused mostly on the Minyar/Vanyar. So far the only Valar to appear is Oromë and Nahar, and the chapter I’m trying to finish is has the majority of the shape-changing. (a WIP is the most recent post in my young bucks of cuiviénen tag) In the side-story collection is more prehistoric animals cameos- or at least one vaguely referenced, also where I complain that having the elves encounter mammoths and mastodons don’t contradict canon, but having them gather water reeds and rushes does. But the only other fic I’ve written that uses these ‘Valar in prehistoric megafauna’ ideas is this Ilmarë one.

Eh~~ Ulmo doesn’t show up to meetings, he doesn’t get to show up on these lists 😉

And it’s a spit-balling ideas post, so these off-the-cuff ideas are perfectly fine, so yes, would love to hear ideas!

kingbratwurst:

sindefara:

squirrelwrangler:

Okay, Valar fans who are also paleontology fans or just big dinosaur fans- help me brainstorm what other extinct megafauna the various Ainur are

Ossë is a basilosaurus- those gigantic sea serpent looking toothed whales of the warm shallow seas.

Oromë is a giant ground sloth and the large antlered deer like the Irish elk.

Ilmarë is a terror bird, and so might Eönwë.

Is Aulë one of those giant beavers? 

Who is the saber-tooth cat? Or the tiny precursor to the horse?

Is Ulmo a coelacanth?

Ulmo was a Dunkleosteus)

I wanted to do all the Valar so please bear with this long post (also please excuse any language mistakes this was done by a non-native speaker in a hurry)

Keep reading

Yay, more lovely detailed replies!

So as someone who loves vultures and already wrote vultures into my Bór series as the always paired with eagles positive royal iconography of their culture and thus also very prevalent in early Númenor, having Manwë as a beautiful giant vulture is frankly more delightful that giant eagle. Also something something symbolic cleaning up after Melkor’s violence, repairing of Arda Marred so it’s livable, be nice to the scavengers and decomposers because the ecosystems depend on them.

Varda can be as big or small as she wants, and since her handmaiden is a terror bird, we can go back further. To be honest, something about that collecting and using the nectar/dew of the Trees in vaults and pools to make more stars does bring to mind the image of bees making honey, but the connection to flowers and spring and dancing means the bee iconography might show up in depictions for Vàna or Nessa instead. Still. Let’s let Varda have her bees.

Ulmo….lol, dunkleosteus, coelacanth, lungfish … yeah I don’t want some animal that’s very impressive for him. I don’t like him that much, and when he has to do overwhelming grandeur and awe, Ulmo can do that giant manifestation in scale mail that towers like a tidal wave. Ossë the basilosaurus and Uinen who switches between jellyfish and coral when they aren’t in humanoid bodies is here to stay, though.

I like armadillos too. Aulë honestly is the craftsman, so a form without thumbs probably isn’t his jam, but I ain’t saying no to a Vala as an adorable giant armadillo.

Vána as the tiny horse ancestors! OMG YES! Because that’s a) the cutest thing ever and b) Oromë the rider of horses and how this concept of Oromë and Nahar introducing the elves to horseback riding has been a multi-chapter thread so story thematic this is perfect.

Nienna the mammoth – I’m nodding along with you.

Yes- Oromë as the one with most page time and getting to show off his various animal transformations- and as the one where animal transformations seem most aligned to his character- gets to list out several choices: giant deer, over-sized auroch, ground sloth, wolf, panther, weasel… But even if I wrote the hunting scene where he only shifts between ‘elven’, deer, and bull, if Oromë is just by himself and wants to be something other than human/elf, giant ground sloth would be imho the perfect fit for him.

Estë the giant wombat I have only one minor quibble: can they swim? Because she’s in the middle of an island.

Ooo~ Irmo as a snake, and if we tie in a little bit of the caduceus symbol it connects to healing and thus Estë, but then the Sumerian rebirth says Nàmo should be the giant snake, not his brother, but then the two snakes of Finrod’s ring so one or more of the Valar have to be snakes or associated with snakes…

Tulkas is the hell pig. Of course he is the hell pig. Frey and the boars of the Celts and other Northern European traditions on which Tolkien was drawing inspiration demand that someone is a giant pig. And let’s face it, Oromë has sort of claimed the cattle iconography, so Tulkas is the only one left. Like, you have bull, pig, and bear (and deer and horse) as your main three that have to show up. If Tulkas isn’t the Entelodon, then only Melkor is. Yes, pigs are evil. 

Reblog if you dont shave your legs everyday.

therearecertainshadesoflimelight:

anarchistcuddles:

neshtasplace:

therearecertainshadesoflimelight:

daenys-dreamer:

geneva-pnw:

I just want everyone to see how unrealistic some expectations are.

Wait, there are people who do this? There are actually people who shave their legs everyday? I shave them like once a year and only because I wear shorter pants in the Summer. I was seriously unaware that shaving everyday is something that people do.

So…I’ll share. I shave my legs every single day. I can do it very quickly and have it down to a reflex. I wax my eyebrows regularly too. Really really regularly. Or I have one. My mother did too and I learned it from her.

I’m Sicilian. Dark Body hair maintenance is part of the deal. I can’t go to work in a skirt in a professional setting without shaved legs and be accepted/respected so, yes, I shave every day. My tights wouldn’t even lay smooth if I did that. I have to.

When I hear other women talk about how they shave every few weeks and it’s no big thing I think….yeah….that’s like never been my reality. I was mocked and teased and bullied as a pre-teen because of the black hair on my arms and legs and I begged my Mom for a razor by the time I was in grade school bc I couldn’t take the teasing. I shave in the morning and could literally shave again 6 hours later.

As @captaindove and I have discussed in the past….some of us can’t just stick it to the patriarchy and not shave for months. We don’t all have the same :::kind:: of body hair to get away with that and as silly as it sounds I wish more convos about female body hair remembered that. For a lot of women, body hair maintenance is a necessity or we would face legit public scrutiny/be viewed as gross or lacking in hygiene. It’s not fair but it is what it is.

This kind of feels like some conversation I have with cis women in terms of performing femininity.

I also have dark and thick body hair, and I have a similar experience… I like cannot wear a skirt or shorts unless I wanna show off my bushy legs and be read as a man or like shave the morning of (something something transmisogyny). But like… I often see discussions about leg hair (in various contexts) exclude women of color. Like, yeah sure Sarah, you can not shave your blonde fuzz and talk about how you’re defying the patriarchy (which is definitely a valid and real struggle), but don’t forget about the rest of us : P

I’m super glad this resonated with some people because Tbh I was hesitant to say anything but….yes. And, look, I can’t speak for women of color because as I said above…I’m Sicilian so I can’t speak to what they go through. I can only speak for me and, generally, most of my other white girlfriends have literally no idea what goes into body hair maintenance for some of us. They brag about how they have not shaved for a few days or even weeks and I look at them like …ok not an option for all of us to be accepted by society and not mocked but congrats I guess. :/

Started shaving my legs when I was eleven/twelve – and wanted to sooner to avoid the teasing I got. Another white woman here (Not Mediterranean, let’s blame the Hungarian genes)- with very dark body hair, curly and wiry. Have two sisters – redhead and blonde – with much finer and lighter body hair, enough that it isn’t noticeable if they don’t shave. But yeah, if I don’t shave my legs, it would poke through my socks, leggings, pants (even jeans), you name it. And you bet I was teased for it, and still teased for the rest of my body hair (arms, face, etc…) in school. I don’t bother shaping my eyebrows, but I also pluck to avoid a uni-brow. And some of that is just because after doing so for half of my life, I’ve adjusted to it feels weird and ‘itchy’ otherwise.

So even though I wear makeup very rarely – I might put on lipstick for work, sometimes some eye-shadow, on the odd occasion some mascara, yet to bother with full make-up i.e. concealer and foundation and all that which is a ‘normal routine’ …yeah, maybe twice a year? But I shave my legs at least every other day, even in winter when my legs are completely covered. It’s not about if my legs look good at this point but that they feel uncomfortable, to put it mildly, if I let the hair grow out beyond two or three days- especially if I want to wear anything on my legs.

So yeah, some many of those congratulatory don’t shave your legs posts majorly disconnect with me, so thanks for pointing out why.

crocordile replied to your post:
crocordile replied to your post:
…

Has Ravenne met Elu? She has, right?

Yep- the oh wait I haven’t finished and published it- okay that WIP I posted a while back with 85% of the chapter, the opening scene is that Ravennë and her brother stay in the village with the nursing moms and babies and Elwë and Finwë/ Cue Inkundu being an obnoxious shit to Finwë, Elwë swooping in to rescue Finwë and subtlety ignore Inkundu/treat him as someone beneath any notice or respect, and Ravennë think ‘my brother is worthless, these two friends of ‘That Hot Persona Non Grata who is Maybe Worth A Lot of Consideration’ are decent connections.

As Elwë is eldest child of village leaders, he is roughly the same social position as Ravennë, so she’s been aware of him.

Harps

austerlitzborodinoleipzig:

squirrelwrangler:

squirrelwrangler:

A thought just now- this must have been blindingly obvious to everyone else.

So it seems like about every thing an elf (or anyone) is said to use a musical instrument, its a harp. Fingon plays a harp, one of the human bards -Glirhuin- played a harp and composed a song about the Narn, Tuor plays a harp (assuming here he learned how to make one from Annael.) It doesn’t look like the published Silmarillion actually says if Maglor played a harp, but he probably did. [Edit: I checked the text and nope. Maglor is never said to have a harp in the Silm, only Fingon, Finrod, and Glirhuin. But at least in the older Lay of Leithian is has one line of  "Maglor, son of Fëanor, / forgotten harper, singer doomed".]

Bëor has a crude harp which Finrod will pick up and play- and even Finrod has a harp in silver on his sigil.

And then it hit me- that silver harp of Elrond is a symbol of the friendship between men and elves, of the Edain and Friend of Man. And symbolically Elrond fulls that role as the Friend of Men in the Third Age, so of course he’s going to play his silver harp- it’s as strong a symbol as the Ring of Barahir of this bound, and as the symbol given to Finrod by the people of Bëor, in that context an older and pure one.

[cut]

Still thinking about Elrond’s silver harp. And how it’s Finrod.

Because this:

“Then he [Finrod] went among the sleeping people, and sat beside their dying fire where none kept watch; and he took up a rude harp which Bëor had laid aside, and he played music upon it such as the ears of Men had not heard; for they had as yet no teachers in the art, save only the Dark Elves in the wild lands.
Now men awoke and listened to Felagund as he harped and sang, and each thought that he was in some fair dream, until he saw that his fellows were awake also beside him; but they did not speak or stir while Felagund still played, because of the beauty of the music and the wonder of the song.”

and his sigil, designed by Tolkien with a silver harp:

image

coupled with the quotes on Elrond and the Hall of Fire, when Frodo enters after the feast and the music starts:

At first the beauty of the melodies and of the interwoven words in elven-tongues, even though he understood them little, held him in a spell, as soon as as he began to attend to them. Almost it seemed that the words took shape, and visions of far lands and bright things that he had never yet imagined opened out before him; and the firelit hall became like a golden mist above the seas of foam that sighed upon the margins of the world. Then the enchantment became more and more dreamlike, until he felt that an endless river of swelling gold and silver was flowing over him, too multitudinous for its pattern to be comprehended; it became part of the throbbing air about him, and it drenched and drowned him. swiftly he sank under its shining weight into a deep realm of sleep.

which sounds almost exactly like what happens when Finrod began to play, (and here’s the rest of the quote):

Now men awoke and listened to Felagund as he harped and sang, and each thought that he was in some fair dream, until he saw that his fellows were awake also beside him; but they did not speak or stir while Felagund still played, because of the beauty of the music and the wonder of the song. Wisdom was in the words of the Elven-king, and the hearts grew wiser that hearkened to him; for the things of which he sang, of the making of Arda, and the bliss of Aman beyond the shadows of the Sea, came as clear visions before their eyes, and his Elvish speech was interpreted in each mind according to its measure.

(Tolkien does well in describing the transportive nature of listening to music)

And then later, travelling with old Bilbo, and all my Finrod and House of Bëor feelings~ Because Elrond has carried on the tradition of Finrod, of Friend of Men, not just in the legacy of Beren and Lúthien through the heritage he is so proud of, of the Half-elven and the fostering of the heirs of the Dúnedain, but of Nóm with Bëor the Old. That Biblo stayed in Rivendell into his twilight years, as Balan did in Nargothrond.

But yeah, silver harp of Finrod:

“Elrond wore a mantle of grey and had a star upon his forehead, and a silver harp was in his hand, and upon his finger was a ring of gold with a great blue stone.”

(Also, star on brow, how very Eärendil and Erendis).

But yeah, can Elrond’s harp please be the harp of Finrod, passed down all these years? 

Okay, it feels as if I’m jumping on the bandwagon but your headcanon was so beautiful I couldn’t help.

So, I have a possible explanation for how Elrond got Finrod’s harp, but it basically involves Gil-Galad being Orodreth’s son.

My headcanon about Gil-Galad is that he was born in Beleriand. Not entirely sure about Finduilas though. I think there’s a pretty big age-gap between the two siblings, and Finduilas being born in Valinor and Ereinion in exile would be a good explanation. However, I also like the idea that Gil-Galad’s mother is a Sinda, and even better, a member of the Falathrim. Because then you’d have Orodreth acting as Finrod envoy/representative in Falas and meeting his wife there. Soooo… Or you could have Orodreth pulling a Finwë and marrying a second time after his first wife died on the Ice, which would link to Finduilas falling for Turin over Gwindor.

But nevermind that, basically Gil-Galad is Orodreth’s son. Mother unknown and he was born in Beleriand, i’m adamant. And also I really like the idea that the last High King of the Noldor in Exile is… actually not in Exile ? And really more of a Sinda then a Noldo ? Basically the Noldor end up rulled by a Sinda. And Feänor’s spirit is spinning so fast in his cell, you can power Valmar AND Tirion with it. Or alternatively Alqualondë because screw you Feänor.

But the point is that Gil is very young so after the Nirnaeth, when things start to get really bad, he is sent away (to his mother’s kin). Finduilas stays because she’s older and doesn’t want to live, because it’s her kingdom as well and Morgoth can damn well try to take it. 

Anyway so after Finrod’s departure and subsequent death, Finduilas gets the harp. (Also Finrod teaching Finduilas how to play I say yes !). After the fall of Nargothrond, the survivors rally Cirdan, they take the harp with them and that’s how Gil-Galad receives the last heirloom of the House of Finarfin. I also really like the idea that Thingol’s house, here the only things we have left are a harp and the ring of Barahir which represents the alliance between Men and Elves ? I mean that’s glorious ! 

And you know that Gil-Galad’s hero and role model as a king would be Finrod Felagund. So Gil-Galad clings to the idea of the alliance. And he fulfills the role of Friend of Men during the Second Age. And after his death, that role goes to Elrond along with the harp and Viilya.

😀 Thank you!

While i don’t headcanon Gil-galad as Orodreth’s son (recent post reiterated), I do firmly believe his mother and Finduilas’s motehr were cousins and very close, that baby Gil-galad stayed for a while in Nargothrond with his cousins and was treated as a younger brother, adn that Finduilas’s mother was the one that took Gil-galad to Círdan and thanks to the war, ended up staying with him on the refugee island and became his second mother. Oh, and that yes! Gil-galad is Noldo in name only.

Looks for another old post –HERE! So it’s not the silver harp of the Bëorian meeting, but I have already posited that Finduilas saves/inherits her uncle’s harp, so yes, there had to have been more than one harp, of course Finduilas has them all. Hmm, actually, with the timeline, you could even say that when Gil-galad goes down to Círdan via Nargothrond, Finrod himself is still king and he could have bequeathed little Gil-galad a harp (same one? Who knows)- but that harp, from the very hands of Nóm himself, is the one that Gil-galad passes onto Elrond and is the one in the Hall of Fire. Yes. Head-canon accepted. Yes!

And lool yes, quickest way to say ‘wanna be friends?’ with me might be “screw you Fëanor.”

Balrog: wings or not?

We be pulling out the OLD SKOOL WANK 

The physical mass of a balrog is flame and smoke- there may or may not even be armor that a balrog wears and the whips are probably not a separate object but a thin tendril extension of itself because the visual should be more like genie than an ogre. If there are wings, it is the smoke flaring up into the shape of wings, which it might do for dramatic intimidation. Out in the sunlight or on the battlefield the smoke and flame may harden and tighten down into a humanoid shape, like lava cooling into igneous rock, brittle and hole-ridden as pumice but as cutting as obsidian, and that form has no wings.

Who do you think that Gil-Salad’s father was?

sosnowcomesafterfire:

squirrelwrangler:

Alas, I foolishly used ‘gil-galad’ as my tag for this character, thus using a dash and making said tag untraceable. Somewhere deep in my blog is my long response to the gil-galad parentage, but I’ll try my best to summarize the points, and basically it all comes down to Finduilas.

Gil-galad has two main contenders for parentage: Fingon and Orodreth. I’ll also entertain a dark horse candidate in claiming the throne via maternal line Lalwen, which does have some appeal in explaining the murkiness and silence on where Gil-galad came from. It also keeps the ‘sent from Hithlim down to Círdan’ journey and establishes a Lalwen and Círdan friendship (Lalwen as Fingolfin’s ambassador to Brithombar). I am especially warming up to this alternative because it adds a wonderful twist conclusion to Fingon ousting Lalwen from political power and influence after Fingolfin’s death in a combination of misogyny, pettiness, and desire to be independent (you will pry this headcanon from my dead fingers because it gives something actually interesting to bland beige wallpaper boy).

But Fingon was the version in the published Silm, and first, most widespread version wins. Plus it gives something for Fingon to do and means he marries a Sindarin lady -Meril of the original ruling family of Hithlum, distantly related via marriage to Thingol, and whose first cousin is the wife of Orodreth. I like the long-running rulers of Noldor-in-Exile to be Fingolfin’s line, and makes Gil-galad follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, complete with Pyrrhic death against a Dark Lord in a duel within his dark kingdom. Nice bookends. And Gil-galad’s sigil is a dark blue with silver stars, which is the colors for Fingolfin, not Finarfin or Finrod’s green.

Now Orodreth already has a canon wife and close allies with Thingol and a more logical and natural explanation for an alliance with Círdan, and the symbolism of the Kigns of the Noldor being both Arafinwë and his (great-)grandson on both sides of the sea are nice. But. Finduilas. I don’t like Finduilas staying while Gil-galad is sent for safety, that there would then be zero mention of him in Children of Húrin (which there is a parallel that should have been explored). And Gil-galad uses a spear as his signature weapon and the only other time a spear is mentioned instead of a sword, ax, or bow is the spear used to kill Finduilas. Making Finduilas and Gil-galad siblings thus unsettles me.

Now, I headcanon Finduilas and Gil-galad being second-cousins via their mothers because it gives an excellent reason in-universe for the conflicting stories and removes Orodreth’s wife/Finduilas’s mother from CoH without killing her off. When Gil-galad is sent to Círdan, he travels through Nargothrond first, and for the final leg of the journey is accompanied by his aunt. She -let’s call her Eregriel- stays with Gil-galad in Brithombar for a few years to get him settled/so he has family/her child is an adult or nearly so but his nephew is very young and thus needs her. But then events of the war happen, Ergriel is stuck unable to return home, then her home is destroyed, she stays in Gil-galad’s court, is treated and respected as if she was his birth mother, and the confusion in the historical records occur.

And not that it really matters. Biological headcanons be whatever. Gil-galad’s father is Círdan. He speaks Sindarin, his culture in more Falathrim than Noldor, and his history is the twilight days of the First Age Beleriand and the Second Age Middle-earth.

Another interesting exploration of my fav

Forgive me, @princeofyoghurts. It wasn’t until the reblog that I even noticed that the question was about Gil-Salad, not Gil-galad.

His father was an unimportant Green Elf of Prince Oropher’s retinue, obviously. Unless the character you refer to is the vegetable creation of one Elanor Gamgee, age 11, who was valiantly slain by a mashed potato oliphaunt.