tenn' ambar-metta

for us to keep something burning, to carry what light we can forward into the darkness and the wind

[enceladian]

Super excited to be tackling @tolkienrsb this year!! (As if I could pass up on an excuse to force someone to write fluffy Fëanor/Nerdanel fic for me, hah.) @ladygavroche has been amazing to work with over this summer, and it’s been so much fun watching the fic come together along with the art - I’m really looking forward to y’all getting to read it too because I’ve been getting sneak peeks and it’s a delight :D

This year’s collection will open on September 9th - expect a working link to the fic itself in the next little while!

[enceladian]

And here’s the fic link! Go forth and read!!

[frodo-baggins]

Away eastward the sun was rising red out of the mists that lay thick on the world. Touched with gold and red the autumn trees seemed to be sailing rootless in a shadowy sea.

[huariqueje]

Small Swell   -   Jean Arcelin

French  -  Swiss,  b. 1962 -  

Oil on canvas ,  61 x  50 cm.

[elliscky]

At the beginning of 2021, I started making this personal piece. At first were just a few images like these two scenes, to memorize and honor my sister. Little by little it is coming to form a full picture - Bluebird in the wind. It also gave me the strength to go on. It is for you, and for us. https://www.instagram.com/elliscky/

[calico-finch]

obsessed w the resurrection beasts istfg its so gender, based off of @briarwickart’s design

[tanoraqui]

has anyone written an AU where instead of paranoidly getting a jump on that “treason of kin unto kin” thing, Fëanor’s response to the Doom of Mandos is to be like, “Fuck you and fuck your ‘prophecy’! You WANT us to fail—I bet this is a working list of what NOT to do in order to defeat Morgoth, like you’re scared we’re capable of! Come walk with me, Nolofinwë, my new best friend whom I trust completely. Let’s plan how to fucking kill this gem-stealing, father-murdering brotherofabitch.”

(For real I am asking for recs if anyone has them)

[shrikeseams]

...the sheer comedy potential. Feanor trying to act like he thinks a Good Big Brother should act, which is both stilted and CLEARLY cribbed from Maedhros and, idk, maybe Nerdanel has an older brother, but it's so clearly a bad fit but also everyone is captivated by the sheer novelty of watching Feanor TRY. And Nolofinwe sitting next to him, slightly shell-shocked, slightly flattered in spite of himself but also wondering if he can leverage this to maneuver his way onto the throne. Meanwhile he has never received so much unwanted advice in his life (some of it genuinely VERY BAD and yet also so clearly well-meant, how did Formenos not blow itself up??).

[tanoraqui]

Fëanor’s Big Brother technique is cribbed partly from Maedhros, partly from 500ish years of knowing that Finwë was silently, not even via osanwë just eye contact, begging him to do this or that, and 90% of the time not being able to bring himself to do it even for his father’s sake. So it’s like,

Invite your terrible unwanted half-siblings to do activities with you? Check! We’re all going to go kill Morgoth and take back the Silmarils together!

Let your terrible unwanted half-siblings see what you’re doing in the workshop, maybe even explain it to them, and make things together? Okay, let’s make battle plans and sketch out ideas for larger weaponry! No, not like that, ugh, who taught you calculus? They were an idiot. Or you’re an idiot for not grasping basic principles of kinematics. Like this…

Give nice, earnest, well-thought presents for holidays and begetting-days? Wow, is that your sword? That’s the best “your people” could do? Curvo, come here, we’re going to make your terrible unwanted half-uncle a real blade.

Compliment their children and works, without adding how your own are superior? …well, obviously Fëanor’s children and works ARE superior, and he’s not biased in this thought. But he recognizes that his (ugh) beloved siblings probably are blinded by parental affection, and he can summon the eloquence to indulge them in it. Many of their children have good qualities. Findekáno is loyal, bold, and skilled with a variety of weapons. Findaráto has good taste in jewelry. Artanis gets on his nerves more than anyone but Nolofinwë (complimentary).

[shrikeseams]

#this is now my favorite au#i can't stop picturing maedhros and fingon standing by sharing horrified-yet-amused looks like 'do we. do we intervene.' -@tolkien-feels

Look, Fingon may be looking to Maedhros to intervene, but Maedhros is thriving. He can not safely leave Feanor and Fingolfin to distract each other while he gets shit done! He's been Finwe's backup supervisor for like, centuries. Now he can let them keep each other busy! Fingolfin is too busy finding new strategies to deal with Feanor to get in Maedhros's way! He can now Strongly Hint to Feanor that finwe would want him to do xyz brotherly bonding activity, and feanor will squinch up his face and do it!

I'm saying there's a non-zero chance that this ends in Maedhros usurping both his father and his uncle.

[tanoraqui]

I’m crying, you’re right, I take back my prediction of doom in my initial tags. Maedhros has spent the last [mumbleTreetimemumble] years managing Fëanor on behalf of everyone and managing/playing 3-D politics chess with Fingolfin on behalf of Fëanor. He has experience maneuvering both of them and he is going to USE it, and to be clear this is the best possible outcome for leadership of the Noldor. (Though, re: initial predictions of unaverted doom, I’m not sure Maedhros as this point has figured out that the Oath was a mistake and kinslaying is very very bad either? So maybe they’re still very doomed in the long run.)

Lalwen is alternately helping Maedhros, helping Fingolfin (Maedhros shouldn’t get things all his way), enjoying the bizarre benefits of Fëanor’s attempts at affection herself, and eating popcorn on the sidelines. With Fingon’s help, Maedhros has successfully bullied all his siblings and cousins into helping him sustain whatever the fuck is happening here. Incidentally, they all get to Middle Earth and start fighting orcs, etc, and send back…like half the ships. A navy is useful! The Teleri can make new ones.

[shrikeseams]

#fingolfin is smart he can pick up maedhros’s feanor managing tricks#but his instincts are all backwards (as you say HIS feanor managing is USUALLY focused kn riling feanor up)#and he keeps getting completely thrown by…#I believe that if feanor took 5 minutes to TRY to like each of his siblings he really would find at least something in each to be like#‘oh hell yeah we Vibe’ about#(​mostly shared raw finwean stubbornness but hey)#and even in this au it’d take him a while to get around to GENUINELY EARNESTLY TRYING. not just spite (ok some spite - but REAL)#and /then/ Nolofinwë gets knocked flat by being the object of feanor’s Undivided /Affectionate/ Focus for the first time since he was…6#(feanor likes babies)#and I think that’s kind of like being the affectionate-focus of a wildfire or small star#so really out of this I want a moment of feanor staring at his (terrible unwanted half-) brother and having a sudden revelation of#‘wait he’s cool actually? I like him?!?’#and then staring HARDER but like a cat who loves you and wants to play#and nolo internally is like ‘oh eru oh fuck right THIS is why I’m going to follow him to the ends of the earth whether he likes it or not#I spent so long sublimating my desire for this love and regard below my desire for father’s love and regard below completely justified#fury at the unfairness in our family and common fucking sense that feanor would be a terrible king in a purely practical sense#—fuck should I say something?’#and what comes out is a trying-to-be-cool undeniably breathless ‘do you want something brother?’#and feanor’s like ‘…do you wanna build a catapult with me; to launch explosives at angband’ and fingolfin is like ‘YES’#maedhros checks an item off his to do list as he watches them run off together; then goes to write a letter to thingol where he’ll continue#to Blatantly Lie about How We Got These Boats#(obligatory joke: fingon is also on the to do list) -@tanoraqui

...oh no, Feanor & Fingolfin & Lalwen's Sibling Group Project in Beleriand is 100% an experimental fortress. Which parts are experimental? All of them! At different points in time, of course, but there's One Particular Fortress that they all use as testing grounds for new defensive architecture/weapons and armor/managementsystems/spy crafttechniques . Nonzero chance that it's rigged with Ye Olde Self-Destruct when the au!Bragollach happens.

[vvnnie]

We found some sea caves too // Instagram / Website

[catchymemes]

[teaboot]

Counter argument: Immortal, invisible, malevolent mouse

[zohbugg]

[kiralamouse]

ohhh I’m going to burn for this… but it scans too perfectly with this:

Immortal, invisible, malevolent mouse From dark indivisible, hope shalt thou douse Most curséd, inglorious, as treach’rous as seas, Hand-bitey, uproarious, our journey thou’lt ease.

[obobro]

[urgetocreate]

Janet Fish (American b.1938) Bag of Tangerines, 2000, Oil on canvas

[costis]

queen's thief appreciation week(s) - day two: the queen of attolia

and she believed him.

(all images have alt text for screenreaders. image sources below.)

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

[jamiebythesea]

Still drawing my boy Onfim.

Onfim was a little boy from Novgorod in the 13th century, and his drawings on birch bark survived until today.

[liridi-deactivated20250617]

man lord of the rings just fills me with such profound sadness its a world that just…… makes me feel whole and hollow at the same time

[liridi-deactivated20250617]

14 yr old me saw this and knew I would spend the rest of my life trying to explain what the feeling this frame invokes in me is

[liridi-deactivated20250617]

the tacking-a-story-onto-the-end-of-my-elaborate-linguistics-exercise to emotionally-devastating-an-entire-generation pipeline

[stevishabitat]

“[Eucatastrophe] is a sudden and miraculous grace […] It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies… universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.” — J.R.R. Tolkien, On Fairy Stories

[unfortunatelyuncreative]

“And when the glad shout had swelled up and died away again, to Sam’s final and complete satisfaction and pure joy, a minstrel of Gondor stood forth, and knelt, and begged leave to sing. And behold! he said:

‘Lo! lords and knights and men of valour unashamed, kings and princes, and fair people of Gondor, and Riders of Rohan, and ye sons of Elrond, and Dúnedain of the North, and Elf and Dwarf, and greathearts of the Shire, and all free folk of the West, now listen to my lay. For I will sing to you of Frodo of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Doom’

And when Sam heard that he laughed aloud for sheer delight, and he stood up and cried: ‘O great glory and splendor! And all my wishes have come true!’ And then he wept.

And all the host laughed and wept, and in the midst of their merriment and tears the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver and gold, and all men were hushed. And he sang to them, now in the elven-tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness.”

[charminglyantiquated]

paper lanterns

[tarninausta]

@finweanladiesweek day 1:

MIRIEL THERINDE

[ID: An edit consisting of four images

1: A woman with brown skin and dark hair, looking out of a window. She’s dressed in a green shawl and golden jewelry with green gems. At the top of the image, there’s text reading “Miriel Therinde”, “Queen of the Noldor”, “The Broidress”, and at the bottom there’s a quote from “The Peoples of Middle-Earth” reading “her chief talent was a marvellous dexterity of hand”

2: A weaving loom

3: Embroidery done with golden and green thread on sheer fabric

4: The woman from image one, now slightly receding from the window. Like in image one, text at the top of the picture reads “Miriel Therinde”, “Queen of the Noldor”, and “The Broidress”, while the quote at the bottom says “she could show an ultimate obstinacy that counsel or command would only make more obdurate”

/End ID]

[lionfloss]

by chasingtheshiftinglight

[ltwilliammowett]

Barque Europa