#ainulindale

[elves-as-things-my-friends-said]

Melkor: does your brain ever just...randomly provide you an image that just. You’re almost in awe of the sheer what-the-fuck of it all?

Manwë: ...what is it?

Melkor: what if horses had human hands...and also were ambush predators.

Manwë: stop talking. Please. Can we just...go to sleep. And not think these things.

[saintstars]

Forging Arda

I couldn't stop thinking how terrifying Melkor must have been at the beginning and how much fun he was probably having. basically what i was envisioning when i wrote this fic

[hopecomesbacktolife]

I’ve been enjoying Philomena Cunk recently and just found this (incredible) meme and subsequent comments while looking for a different meme

I would give so many nauglamirs to see a Cunk on (Middle)Earth show omg

[farewell-to-lorien]

I started rereading The Silmarillion today for the first time in at least fifteen years. I’ve been feeling for a while that it’s time to revisit these stories, given the endless march of evil at work in politics these days. The Silmarillion seems particularly suited for these sorts of times, with its basic dynamic of hope found even in the midst of absolutely unrelenting tragedy, and light shining brighter, perhaps not only in spite of, but because of the overwhelming victory of the dark.

Anyway, reading this book now for the first time from a consciously trans perspective, I found this passage from The Ainulindalë really fascinating:

But when they desire to clothe themselves the Valar take upon them forms some as of male and some as of female; for that difference of temper they had even from their beginning, and it is but bodied forth in the choice of each, not made by the choice, even as with us male and female may be shown by the raiment but is not made thereby.

I’m sure this can be interpreted in more than one way, but the text absolutely leaves room for a gender-nonessentialist and perhaps even trans reading. This passage seems to be saying at least two things:

Gender is something that the gods can both choose their expression of (“bodied forth in the choice of each”) and have as an identity separate from and pre-existing their physical forms (“that difference of temper they had even from their beginning”); and,

The physical forms they take do not actually define or determine their gender (“male and female may be shown by the raiment [i.e., the outward, bodily manifestation] but is not made thereby”).

(It’s true that we never actually see any trans Valar or Maiar; since they have the ability to choose their outward forms, it seems unlikely they would ever choose ones that didn’t match their gender. But if the basic nature of gender we see here (having an identity and yet having a nondefining or nondeterministic relationship between their outer form and this identity) is true of them, it stands to reason it would be true of the Children of Ilúvatar—elves and humans—as well, whom the gods were explicitly imitating in taking their physical forms.)

It’s also interesting to me that the Valar themselves don’t simply follow blindly the Music that Ilúvatar declares to them. They interweave it with matters of their own particular thought and, in so doing, not only make it more beautiful, but also end up fulfilling Ilúvatar’s ultimate purpose in a greater and more profound way (it’s not Melkor’s decision to make his own music that makes him evil, but his attempts to drown out everyone else’s and subsume theirs to his). The text implies that, by fully embodying who we actually are as individuals, we end up not acting counter to the design of the creator, but actually fulfilling that design.

[wisteria53]

The TRSB 2025 reveals are coming up soon and @slashmarks has written a fic for my art piece!

AO3 fic link: peace somewhere around the bend by slashmarks: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68753941

AO3 link to TRSB 2025: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TolkienRSB_25/works

I also made more paper-cut art for each chapter, from the writer's suggestions, which are below the cut....

[gracefallingart]

Nienna

The Lady of Sorrows with a mourning veil and robes as I usually picture her. So I drew her that way, enjoy!

Nude version:

Honestly, I have no good excuse for this other than the fact that my base sketch was nude and her shoulder was so pretty I didn't want to cover it.

[vigilantsycamore]

Considering Tolkien's musical tastes I'm pretty sure Melkor's loud cacophony disrupting the music of the Ainur was just Yellow Submarine

[mysteriesunfoldthemselves]

The Professor!

"[I]will sit and hearken, and be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened into song."

Happy Birthday, Professor Tolkien.