If this is too many, pick any you want, or do none of these and choose other entirely. Anything you write is a treat and a half and makes my day!
🗡️🪞🏠🖤⚰️
As for a muse, I wanted to say dealers choice, but deciding can be hell. So, fem!Faramir and/or Aranuir would be wonderful, but once again: if that’s not who you want to write, then write anything or anyone
Thank you so much Hannah! And I'll try for both (they're probably who you would've gotten with dealers choice anyway)
🗡️ What's their "I've killed for less" trigger?
Fem!Faramir: I genuinely don't think fem!Faramir (or canon Faramir) has many of these, if any. However, I do think that things are pushed when the siege of Minas Tirith starts. At the moment I'm leaning towards Denethor being semi-rational (if unaccepting of Aragorn), and I think Faramir would struggle with challenges to Denethor's authority at that point as well. Even from Gandaf.
When the final battlements are in place, and she can hear whispers that the Stewards have mostly abandoned them she does want to scream. Because it's not true. Because they have are trying, and they have lost as well. She has lost Boromir to this already, and all of her family is trying to prevent further damage.
Aranuir: It is also family loyalty. During the Fellowship and at the start of Aragorn's reign, there's a little bit of Aranuir that feels very strongly about treason. He won't act on it (it'd be poor for his brother's reign to have critics be killed) but there is a very strong sense of... justice isn't quite the right word. Protectiveness (?) over the fact his brother is the rightful king, and it is not the place of others to question it. Aragorn-at-the-black-gate esque.
🪞 What do they secretly hate about their own appearance?
Fem!Faramir: She has a constant battle with the length of her hair, because whatever it is it doesn't quite feel right. Having her hair around Boromir's length is practical and it feels more like she's his sibling, but it is too sort to be feminine (yet not short enough to be a statement). If it gets longer, however, it starts to become an irritating and gets caught on things far too much.
She also had to learn a lot of styling her hair by herself, because a) she couldn't learn from Finduilas and b) she wanted to put it in styles traditional to Dol Amroth and there isn't anyone there to teach her.
Aranuir: I wouldn't go as far as to say he *hates* anything about his own appearance, but there is a general insecurity around it. You know how children tend to take after one of their parents? Aranuir takes after Gilraen, while Aragorn takes after Arathorn. It's not major, but just to the extent that it's commented upon. Aranuir wishes that occasionally he could get a 'you look like your father' from someone (stemming from the fact he would, then, look like Isildur's heir). Aranuir also has a slightly strained relationship with Gilraen, which doesn't incredibly help.
🏠 Describe their home when no one's watching - messy, spotless, chaotic organised?
Fem!Faramir: Mostly organised, with things having a place. There's a grace period of a few days with things meandering before she'll try and put them back where they should be. The exception is maps and books and writing equipment, they tend to make lots of small piles around the house wherever she decides to sit down and spend time. (Although eventually they get put their so often it's basically their place... kind of.)
Aranuir: Enjoys having an organised home; it's not flawless but most things have a place and they rarely stray further than a room or two away from where they should. It's a habit half picked up from Rivendell, and half from often living in borrow/guest quarters where it would be impolite to make a mess. Aranuir finds it quite soothing.
🖤 What's a "villain" trait they actually possess?
Fem!Faramir: I think she's meaner with ósanwë. We've seen that Faramir can be cutting when he wants to be ("I would ask you... to remember why it was that I, not he, was in Ithilien") and I think fem!Faramir would have to rely on a sharper tongue more. The power she has doesn't come from being a military commander any more, but by being the Steward's second child and daughter. (Which also means she has no sway over Denethor.) I do not believe that she would look deeply into people's minds and their secrets, but she would skim them.
Realise that a certain Lord is having a poor time, and that now more than ever is a good time to get their support. Understand why a certain person puts on a facade, and how much pressure she needs to apply before it can crumble for her.
Aranuir: Not that many moral qualms about how Aragorn gets on the throne of Gondor, as long as it wouldn't affect the general population's perception of him. There are points in RotK where the idea of Aragorn coming and Denethor refusing his claim play in his mind, and Aranuir is aware that if he cared about Denethor less (history is complicated) then he would genuinely consider if simply 'getting rid of' Denethor would be easier. Even if he'd probably not do it. Boromir and Faramir would support Aragorn, after all. This moral thinking is partially the reason he leaves Gondor at the end of Ecthelion/start of Denethor's reign (although I promise he didn't kill Ecthelion).
⚰️ What do they want written on their gravestone/what do they want people to remember them for?
Fem!Faramir: Something simple on her gravestone, in the same style of the Stewards that have come before her. Except this time it can add that she faithfully served a king. It is cliché, but Faramir wants to be remembered as good and as kind to people. She also, deeply, wants to be remembered as a successful Steward - not just for herself, but for her family and the young girls of Gondor who were told not to dream as large.
Aranuir: For a while, 'Prince of Gondor' and a quote in Quenya. The quote is for people to remember his personality (Aranuir doesn't particularly care what it is, because part of it is for the living). Quenyan because he spent a long time trying to learn that damn language, and because he's more fluent in it than most nobility, and his brother. 'Prince of Gondor' isn't for him, it's the hope that Aragorn would ascend to the throne. (There's a part of him, deep down, that doesn't want any mention of royalty at all. That there's just something on his personality and it all ends there.)
Later, he'd prefer to be Aranuir of House Telcontar, or perhaps of House Anarion (even if he has more of a claim to the first). Aranuir would still like a quote in Quenya, but more for the love of the language - that the children who will grow up around his grave will have time to study the elven languages even after elves have left the shore. He's never quite sure how he wants to be remember, except as someone more than Aragorn's brother.
