Try: The Loyal messenger Bird with many sharp edges aka Eonwe. (it’s time to spam you with such requests)

*rubs hands together* I actually have A LOT of ideas about Eonwë!

starting with the fact that he’s a total hardass with a bone to pick

AND WHAT BETTER BONE-PICKING BIRD COULD THERE BE TO MODEL HIM ON THAN OUR FRIEND, the Bearded Vulture. ❤

My headcanons for Eonwë: 

He takes his job VERY seriously. 

Eonwë is ready to throw down any time, anywhere, with anyone– and is constantly disappointed by the lack of violence in his job description. 

What is he supposed to do when haughty Elf Criminals mock his Master and laugh at his infinite clemency?? Just sit there and take it??!? JUST LET THEM SAY WHATEVER THEY WANT AND NOT SCOOP OUT THEIR EYEBALLS???

Manwë doesn’t order NEARLY enough smiting, so how is a lawful-good fanatic to cope? Sometimes one just has to take matters into one’s own hands if one wants to ensure that one’s master does not go around pardoning every traitorous backstabber and villain in Arda. 

My theory is that there is a lot that can go on between when a message is given and when it is delivered, and there’s a reason why negotiations between the Valar and the Exiles, Sauron, and the Numenorians, seem to go so poorly. History does not spend nearly as much time considering the impart of scribes, translators, and heralds as it does kings and generals, but just think about how much power is given to a messenger. 

For example, a message saying “come home and submit to a trial by your peers” can sound an awful lot like “go on punk make my day” if you say it juuuuust right. 

__

No one is more loyal or uncompromising in their duties to the Valar. He is more than a herald of the Elder King, he his paladin, his standard-bearer, the word and the sword of Manwë. He has no doubt that those who stray from the path of light and the justice of the Valar will get what is coming to them, and he would love nothing more than to deliver that justice, swiftly and without mercy. But his master is too kind, too benevolent to deal out the punishment his enemies so richly deserve. 

If Manwë has one flaw—and Ah! the flaw of a true king!, it is that he too noble to see the evil in men’s hearts; being so elevated in nature, the Elder King fails to see that his enemies are beyond redemption, and cannot imagine that Justice need be meted out with the sword and not only the open hand.  All have seen what becomes of goodness and light when evil is given second chances…

But it is not Eonwë’s duty to judge. His master, infallible in wisdom and insight, has counseled him against violence, forbidden him to raise his hand against the unrighteous without leave from Valinor. So he finds other ways of enforcing justice. He would sooner be unmade than disobey his lord, but he might, within the margins of the law, find ways to accomplish what he knows to be in his lord’s best interests. He knows wicked men are filled with pride and fear; they need only the gentlest push to be convinced that a message of peace holds in store the promise of utter humiliation, imprisonment without end, the banishment of freedom, erasure of selfhood… It is what they would promise, afterall. 

It might grieve Manwë that so few lost souls return to him— that the rebellious High King does not repent, Umaiar who strayed into his brother’s service do not seek redemption, do not fly home to await trial and forgiveness. But this grief is the lesser evil. Valinor is a holy refuge, no place for the wicked who turned their backs on Eru’s appointed powers.

When Eonwë is given leave to smite the enemies of Aman, he falls like lightning from the heavens, wearing lightning and storm as his raiment, the great clap of unseen wings driving a tempest before him. Kings are crushed beneath hills of salt, temples are split asunder, and devils fall before his wrath like withered leaves. He revels in the delivery of justice. 

But more often he is sent to deliver messages concerning Fate and the will of the Valar, and this he does to the very letter, with utmost pride and not a whisper of doubt in his heart. It is a privilege to serve the lords of the West; he would have all remember it.   

 ___

Some notes: My headcanon is that all things relating to Manwë are covered in bells, fluttering pennants, flags, things that catch the wind and glitter or sing, chimes and wind flutes and aeolian harps and so forth. Eonwë’s armor has tassels and small brass bells attached, bringing with it the holy sounds of Valmar. It bears the symbols of the stars and rays of light, as well as the stylized blossoms of Laurelin. 

–I see him as being the unnamed messenger that delivers the ban to Numenor. (In my mind, the ban has a physical manifestation, a sort of glowing handprint that hovers in the air in the court as a reminder. The looming hand fades over the years, and by the time Sauron arrives it is barely visible, long forgotten. He waves away whatever is left of it with great amusement). 

—Eonwë does not eat or drink. He does not want to taint himself with the matter of the world, or in doing so, become bound to it. He finds Maiar who partake of fleshly indulgences to be distasteful and borderline heretical. 

—He doesn’t blink much. 

—Favorite weapons: vajra, glaives, ringed swords (for show). 

—Favorite pastimes include: perching somewhere high in the Pelóri mountains to observe the flight of birds and the passage of clouds for days on end, listening to the wind, playing a simple bone flute which he is surprisingly good at, smiting the wicked, keeping a tally of Sauron’s ever growing list of Treason And Gross Indecencies so he can read the full list to him when he’s standing trial at the end of the world, keeping a separate itemized list for everything he’d like to do to Fëanor in order of most to least poetic, Thinking About Justice, meditating upon the Theme and the Harmony of Eru’s designs, whistling, singing. 

une-amie:

Then he glimmering passed to the starless vast
As an isled lamp at sea,
And beyond the ken of mortal men
Set his lonely errantry,
Tracking the Sun in his galleon
Through the pathless firmament,
Till his light grew old in abysses cold
And his eager flame was spent
The Book of Lost Tales II, The Tale of Eärendel

For B2MeM18 Day 4 bingo prompts

Ostinato: Obstinate, persistent, Restez: Stay, Estinto: Extinct, extinguished, Lacrimoso or lagrimoso: Tearfully, Silenzio: Silence

Source: une-amie

nimium-amatrix-ingenii-sui:

Entulessë by yours truly

Here must be told of the custom that when a ship departed from
Númenor over the Great Sea to Middle-earth a woman, most often of the
captain’s kin, should set upon the vessel’s prow the Green Bough of
Return; and that was cut from the tree oiolairë, that signifies
‘Ever-summer’, which the Eldar gave to the Númenóreans, saying that they
set it upon their own ships in token of friendship with Ossë and Uinen.
The leaves of that tree were evergreen, glossy and fragrant; and it
throve upon sea-air.


I love this Númenórean
custom. I love the sea and old-fashioned wooden ships. I love Tolkien’s
Númenórean carpet ornaments. I felt like doing something simple and
bright and summery. And that’s the whole story behind this, really.

Source: nimium-amatrix-ingenii-sui

*A package arrives to Thu’s forge. Inside there is a small music box and a cake with words “Happy creation day anniversary, Brother!” and note “From your old family. You are an ass and we are/were at war but we miss you still and we hope that you have found yourself. P.S. package might’ve arrived late. apologies”*

“On the contrary, you are one month and ten days too early… or else 355 days too late. But it hardly matters– the date is arbitrary, time as a construct did not exist in the ages of our birth. 

The music box is quite clever. Did Aulë let you off the leash long enough for you make it yourself? I’m touched. 

Miss you also, despite everything. 

~Thû

P.S. I hate cake I have always hated cake and you KNOW I hate cake”

Try…Yua? Or Elrond

Oh gosh, another tough one! I’ll do Elrond because I can’t even imagine how I’d play other people’s OCs :’D sacrilege 

I’m going to just spitball my headcanons and understanding of his character here… I’ll work my way up to how I’d play him. 

Elrond, first and foremost, strikes me as being cautious.

He’s born into a period of decline and chaos, also unparalleled diversity and tenacity, amongst the combined refugee populations of Beleriand. His mother is a survivor of elf-on-elf violence, his father is a survivor of Morgoth-on-elf violence… he grows up in an era where elves are betraying elves, and the Dark Lord is not just winning, he has indisputably won. He sees unexpected acts of mercy from enemies, a strange urgency and hope brewing amidst those teetering on the brink of extinction. His father and mother, as far as he and Elros are concerned, both disappeared into the West and are probably dead– except one day apparently they both became demigods and bring the Valar across the sea to wage war?? and they can’t come back to earth. So, basically dead. The actual Gods are tearing the earth apart underneath them in a war he was born into the last fraction of; the hosts of Vanyar are there, who no one in Beleriand have ever seen before; he and his brother are both of uniquely divine lineage but it’s a little hard to lay claim to any kind of birthright when you’re both orphans being shifted from one batch of exiles and refugees to the next, trying to stay alive.

Elrond’s “normal” is batshit crazy. Nothing that was true for the Exiles and the older elves is true for him; almost everything that the last generation built and valued is in complete ruins, or being carried around as stories and relics by the survivors, old hierarchies are destroyed, ancient lineages and rights to kingship are nearly meaningless because there are no kingdoms anymore; elves from every corner of Beleriand are banded together, trying to save whatever they can of their history, their wealth, their civilization.

I think that atmosphere molds him. The kingdom he goes on to found is rooted not on oaths and fealty, but secrecy and the dedicated preservation of history and knowledge. He’s inheriting the Fall of Gondolin and bearing the memory of it and all the kingdoms of Beleriand on his shoulders. 

He doesn’t trust easily– he has too much at stake, too much to lose, and he’s seen too many betrayals. He does not commit to action quickly, and acts of violence even less so. He must despise violence more than anything. The struggle against loss and grief, the preservation of what little solace and joy remains, practically defines him. 

But when he does trust, and does commit, he does so with complete assurance and life-long loyalty. He is all the slower to heal when that trust is broken. 

I would play him as quiet, slow to speak his mind, ready to watch and listen and learn before turning his hand to anything. He served under Gil-Galad, watched how he ruled, learning how to rule himself, taking time to determine what his priorities and strengths were. He is cautious. He is careful with his words; diplomatic and not unkind, but open to few. Underneath he hides a deep, nearly bottomless well of frustration– the world seems so dedicated to destroying itself. Even those who champion righteous causes do so recklessly and to the endangerment of themselves and those caught in their orbit. Everything he loves seems determined to leave him behind; and he does love. He loves everyone more deeply because he has always been mindful of their fragility. All lives, all love, is brief, even for immortals. 

I think Elros would be his opposite in this matter– He’d have been closest to his brother more than any other person besides maybe his wife. His brother gives him hope that there is a way to live with temporality that is not full of grief. Even when Elros is gone, Elrond carries his words and memories in his heart like a talisman against the greyness of entropy, just as much as the ring Vilya. That wisdom helps him let go, when he must. He does not covet; he is not greedy. He would not sacrifice more to preserve what is left. He has faith– a hard won faith that he fights to maintain– that there is no real ending wherever life is. 

I think if I were to play him, the most satisfying parts would be to find out what makes him excited, what gets him angry, how he’d react to the temptation of building a “Tirion on earth”, and the greater temptation of the rings ( I always manage to bring it back to Sauron somehow, goddamnit…) Seeing him school the fuck out of a young Aragorn would be mmmmmm *chefkiss* choice. Think of all the things he’d have to say to Isildur’s Heir about unnecessary, risky heroics and Not Listening To His Elders…. 

Also, I mean, he is a Total Goddamn Nerd, right? I MEAN…. he’d get so fired up about old surviving texts, lose his absolute shit over Important Swords. He’s a Gondolin fanboy, he knows more about the Lords and the Houses and the weaponry and the infrastructure than Turgon did probably. He’d be arguing himself blue with Bilbo over comparative Quenya translations, critiquing modern poetry, making sure important textiles were handled with gloves and stored at the right temperature; he’d constantly bother the hell out of Glorfindel because like, HE WAS THERE MAN!!! HE KILLED A BALROG!! HE LIVED IN -GONDOLIN-. DID YOU MEET MY GRANDPARENTS??

I’m not actually convinced I COULD play a convincing Elrond. I could probably manage to write him on occasion, but I think a lot of what makes him tick, and a lot of what makes him a successful ring-keeper and ruler, is a lot of what would make him difficult for me to play. I don’t think he has a lot of room in him for temptations, or sympathizing with the devil. As a life-long Villain Stan, I deeply appreciate characters like him. I think it’s part of a healthy fiction ecosystem to have characters who can’t, won’t, and will NEVER like your sexy villains, have NOTHING to spare for romantic evil, and are generally Tired™ of people’s glory-hounding bullshit that endangers innocent people and would like it to stop. 

I’d love to see someone ELSE play Elrond so I could appreciate his nuances and foibles; I think a lot of people other than me could really make him shine as a POV character. 

Daddy Aulë voice: “Your mother and I aren’t angry, Mairon – We’re just disappointed. I know Yavanna has said you prefer the name Sauron now but I LIKE THE NAME I GAVE YOU, BOY”

image

This is why I moved out

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