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novemberthecatadmirer · 1 year

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Confessions on My Personal Headcanon of Eol

Have been thinking about things for a long while.

Here are my personal reasons for making headcanons involving non-evil-still-toxic Eol that actually had consensual relationship with Aredhel:

I fucking hate the “nobody foreigner indigenous savage abducted our helpless innocent noble woman” narrative. I am foreigner & woman so somehow I get twice offended out there.

I don’t like “overpowered enchantment that can control people but never get mentioned before and after, and existed only to conveniently explain why this woman will get married with him and have child. She must be under wicked evil magic.” Luthien did weird enchantments but at least those were cool and basically power of love.

@diversetolkien’s analysis on racial coding was too great & powerful I will never forget

Of course LaCE is dead and should stay dead for everyone’s sanity. However the “elves cannot have children without consent & Eru’s blessings (human can, unfortunately)” makes doing my headcanons on why there are not so many elves around and how orcs were made (from tortured abducted children of multiple origins, mostly human) a lot more easier.

I do not like the narrative that a female character gets punished by the world for having personal desires and leaving family for such desires in the “if you leave the protection of men you will be raped by some evil man and have your life ruined forever” way. I am fine even if Aredhel was killed by Orcs or some random dark creatures (punishment for underestimating the danger, tragical but acceptable), but punishing a woman’s desire for independence with a random man out of nowhere... Well, such a traditional approach. Tolkien can have that. I can dislike that out of personal reasons. Like, all the male writers out there can use rape as a nice angsty divice over female characters, but I still do not like reading that overused trope.

The “Aredhel getting abducted and brainwashed and raped and abused by Eol” is a little bit… Overdone. No offence, there are so many absolutely great fictions based on that. Just... I do not like that take being the only way people interpret the canon text.

I get personally frustrated when I keep seeing the stereotypical type of abuse depicted in media all the damned time. There should be more representations of the less extreme but still very damaging subtypes. (Arguably those types are more common and often overlooked in nowadays society?)

Let me introduce you to “couples who love each other but have so many damned mental troubles and surprise surprise love is not a cure for mental illness so they end up hating & feeling guilty for each other and falling into this very bad codependent downward spiral. Oh and their kid SUFFERS.”

I love my personal headcanon that “enchantment” is a metaphor for “mad, dumb, intense romantic attraction.” The power of helpless crush & obsession, pure and powerful, that will absolutely make you throw your identities & believes, social backgrounds, and personal duties behind and jump into a lava pit together.

It would be more interesting the other ways.

To me Aredhel does feel like the type who see some stranger in strange forest with strange background from a foreign culture and decided “okay I totally want to fuck that one.”

Eol did have reasons to dislike Noldor. He lived unfortunately close to the “Chaotic Evil Elven Realm where Curufin and Celegorm were.”

Eol did crime and became a kinslayer. He did evil, no argument for that. The thing is, before that he did choose death over being trapped in a colonizer’s kingdom (from his point of view.) He chose freedom even freedom meant death. I can see why he could actually share similar values with Aredhel in that particular aspect.

Eol being a typical abusive abductor & rapist makes fix-it stories a lot more easier. If he was pure evil you can just have someone slay the evil then save the innocent princess and unfortunately conceived child. Or you make Aredhel never meet him, problem solved. However, sometimes we don’t like convenient set-up that avoids all moral dilemmas do we?

I like Maeglin and I want to do evil to him because I am evil and I want to make his troubles A LOT MORE complex and helpless and miserable. And absolutely no one in Gondolin could understand his situation because they chose to believe the “evil foreigner” theory to ease their consciences. How can I make it easier for Sauron to mess up his mind.

I like Tolkien’s “dark elves were corrupted traumatized by Morgoth and released back to the world to do evil like he later did to Hurin & Turin” idea.

The “your father tried his best to love & protect you but even his best was not enough also his idea of ‘best’ was fucked-up. Much of what he did to you was abusive and you hate your father for making your life miserable. However you also know his action was caused by something far worse done to him by someone else, and if the same thing happen to you you will end up the same as well. As the result you cannot really hate him. You can hate the one who did the fucked up stuff to your father, but Morgoth does not care about your hatred and is probably laughing somewhere in his evil lair. Your father’s love was toxic and poison everyone he loved, and you hate him, and you still think he deserved to never be turned this way and had a happy life and never met your mother.” <--I personally like this.

And the “everyone think your father was evil and expect you to hate him and you cannot explain to them because your father did do evil. Also you absolutely hate your father for trying to murder you and murdering your mother and you feel you are honor-bound to want him die for murdering your mother so you go to watch him being pushed down a cliff. Somehow you feel worse and wondering if you should die as well because you did let your father die.” <-- I am sadistic and think this is delicious.

I love the “there is love in this family and it seems like they really could be happy but the world is fucked up Morgothed so they end up hurting & killing each other when their love gets turned toxic” trope.

Again, always more interesting the other ways.

Be kind to me! I think I just have different perspective based on personal experiences so I enjoy reinterpreting things differently out of personal interest. I understand why the evil-Eol & abused-Aredhel trope is extremely popular in fanon now, because it opens ways to hurt/comfort, found family, discussions of issues that worth to be discussed (and traditionally avoided), etc. Which are valuable, necessary, and absolutely respectful approaches. I just like things otherwise because of personal preferences.

I tend to be so afraid that someone will think I am evil for not headcanoning Eol as evil (well I also have opinions on petty-dwarves but that would be for another post another day.)

#tolkien #the silmarillion #silm #silmarillion #silm meta #silmarillion meta #silmarillion headcanon #silm headcanons #eol #aredhel #maeglin

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silmaspens · 3 years

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Diverse Tolkien Week day seven:

Something Black

#boom it’s a Fingon!#I might redo this #it was a pain in the butt and I’m not quite happy with it?#ugh whatever #Fingon #my art #tolkien #silmart #silmarillion #my artwork #dvtw21 #diversetolkien #diversetolkienweek #diversetolkienweek21

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odium-amare · 3 years

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Miss Universe (2015) Vietnam ‘Phạm Hương’ as Melian

I understand we like to cast Asians for Tolkien’s universe, but I would like more Southeast Asian representation. Not just Northeast Asians and Kpop.

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diversetolkien · 3 years

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Diverse Tolkien Week (#dvtw21) Official Post:

Hello Lovely Followers and Friends! Welcome to the official promo for #DiverseTolkienWeek or #dvtw21. You can find the page here! This is a week for Tolkien fans to reimagine their favorite worlds, books, movies, characters, etc., in a more diverse and inclusive way.

It will take place February 22nd-28th, 2021!

That said, even though this is a specifically Tolkien fandom week, all fans who enjoy fantasy are free to partake in the event and reimagine their original works or Fantasy/Sci-Fi fandoms in an inclusive way.

Below are the prompts. Interpret them how you will! Be that writing, art, music, essays, meta, etc., Be creative. Think outside of the box! Tag appropriately.

Use the hashtag #dvtw21 on both twitter and tumblr to post your work in. Feel free to @diversetolkien on both twitter and tumblr as well and I will share them on my platforms. · Day 1: Women of Color · Day 2: Disability · Day 3: LGBTQA+ · Day 4: Religion/Faith/Culture · Day 5: Anti-racism · Day 6: Create A Diverse High Fantasy · Day 7: Something Black (For Black History Month!!)

And those are the prompts! A special thank you to the followers who suggest these to me. please share, share, share! If you have any questions or concerns, my ask and IMs are always open. You can also reach me on twitter!

#dvtw21 #mepoc #diversetolkien #the silmarillion #the hobbit #lotr #tolkien #jrr tolkien #tolkien fandom

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crieativity · 4 years

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And now back to business as usual with Elrond just not being down for Gandalf doing this insane thing cause Mithrandir, we really don’t wanna deal with this rn w h y

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spvce-oddity · 4 years

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maedhros insisted on being in the middle so he could distract everyone from his father’s terrible fashion sense

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ytdn · 3 years

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Kind of hilarious that on here it's the Diverse Tolkien week while on r/LOTR_on_Prime its... well just have a look at the International Women's Day thread 💀

#tolkien #diversetolkien

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haleths · 4 years

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Hi! Do you know of any blog that frequently posts characters of color from the lotr fandom or any tags I should follow? I would love to see more diversity, especially in the head canons.

Ohh anon, I feel you!! Any fandom can be improved with a shot of diversity. The best tags I’ve found are #mepoc and #diversetolkien (which is also a blog!)

I’m not an expert however and there are probably loads more amazing blogs out there for this kind of thing.

Can anyone help us out?!?!

#Anonymous #answered #mepoc #diversetolkien

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arofili · 5 years

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So why do you like Maeglin and Eol so much? I’m not asking to be antagonistic or anything - I’ve tried to like them, but imo the way they treat women is appalling and completely kills my ability to find them complex or interesting. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

hey anon! that is fair, and tbh i felt like that too for a long time (esp. wrt eol) but the thing is… i just think tolkien did a bad job of writing them.

as it stands in the canon of the silm, both maeglin and eol are pretty repulsive and like you said very misogynistic. but tolkien also coded them very heavily as people of color, so looking at them from that perspective makes me think twice about so readily condemning them. the misogynist man of color trope is too common, too ugly, and too blatant for me to not want to break their characters apart and figure out a way to redeem them without the racism.

maeglin, especially, seems ripe for redemption. here you have this kid who grew up isolated, with parents who didn’t like each other very much, and then when he tried to escape his father chased after him and killed his mother. he was then thrust into society in gondolin completely unlike anything he’d ever known and even more isolated. his relationship with turgon is complicated, as turgon killed his father, and furthermore he has feelings for his cousin idril who not only doesn’t like him back but distrusts and hates him for no reason other than the situation of his birth and the belief that she can sense his “strange and crooked” thoughts. and then, of course, maeglin is kidnapped and tortured by morgoth into becoming his spy. even though his narrative paints maeglin in a pretty bad light, tolkien makes sure to point out that maeglin was “no weakling or craven” and that he made the deal with morgoth to save his own life. and who can blame him, really? after all, not everyone can be maedhros.

so that is what endears me to maeglin. he’s got a tragic backstory, and his poor treatment of idril is reciprocated by her in a way that makes me feel like the narrative is inherently biased against him. after all, if noldor historians, including some from gondolin like pengolodh, are the ones who supposedly wrote the silm, why would they give maeglin’s side of the story?

as for eol, he’s definitely harder for me to come around to. tolkien went back and forth over and over again on whether or not he raped aredhel, and in any case he was almost definitely abusive to her at least in isolating her. but the fact that he’s called over and over again a “dark elf” and both he and maeglin are described as “swart” … that racist coding is there again, you know? i want to dig past the surface-level interpretation and find something there that isn’t so … awful. sure, maybe eol was an awful dude. but the fact that tolkien spends so much time connecting that awfulness to his status as a dark elf [coding for being a person of color] makes me extremely uncomfortable dismissing him as outright evil. i don’t have that more complex version of eol quite figured out in my head yet, definitely not the way i understand and sympathize with maeglin, but i’d really like to try and get there.

plus, these are some of the very very very few elves tolkien condemns within the text. the feanorians commit terrible, awful, horrific deeds but the fandom loves them, and tolkien clearly did too. if we can forgive them and all their murdering, why can’t we extend the same sympathy and benefit of the doubt to the oft-maligned maeglin and eol?

there’s more connection to racism here, i’m sure, but i am white and certainly not the expert on this topic. @diversetolkien has written a lot about maeglin and eol and the problems with how both tolkien and the fandom deals with them, i would suggest you look through their blog if you’re interested in more nuanced takes on the two of them.

#anon #answers #diversetolkien #racism in the legendarium #racism #meta #silm meta #tolkien meta #my meta #tefain nin #eol #maeglin

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macabretrees · 5 years

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Title: Necessary Adjustments Summary: Crowley runs the risk of burning (or seriously injuring himself) every second he's with Aziraphale. Some days he can take the light, and somedays Azirapheal really needs to work on self-control. Read on ao3 HERE!

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Today Crowley wore his shades indoors and sat a comfortable distance away from Aziraphale so that the angel wouldn't take it upon himself to remove them. The thought of removing the glasses was absolutely nauseating, as the angel was nothing short of a blinding beacon in the middle of a dark night.

He'd either made a small visit to Heaven or had spent the last few hours in some religious establishment. Normally he was bright to the point of slight irritation, but this was a migraine waiting to happen.

"Hey angel, do you think you could tone it down?" Spoke the demon from behind his book.

"Tone what down, Crowley?" Aziraphale turned from the shelf he was currently stocking to look at the demon. Crowley nearly gagged.

"The...light thing you have going on." He gestured to the angel, and the seemingly obvious halo of light he had radiating off of him. Aziraphale raised a brow to his suggestion, looking curiously around his space.

"Do you mean the light switch?"

It had been painstakingly clear that Azirapheal was not aware of his light, and Crowley wasn't exactly sure how to spell it out without possible offending him. So he brushed it off with a, "Do you have any alcohol strong enough for a migraine."

Big mistake.

"You're getting sick Crowley?" In a blink of an eye, Aziraphale had moved across the room to mere inches away from Crowley, "what are your symptoms?"

He was too close, definitely too close. Crowley could practically taste the holiness coming off of him.

"You know I just remembered I left the television on at home, I'll be back la--" Crowley maneuvered himself out of the chair in the most uncomfortable of fashion, partly to avoid being touched by Aziraphale, and partly because his eyes were shut tight.

It made for a very sloppy attempt at escape.

"Crowley, what on Earth are you doing?" Aziraphale cried as he grabbed the pile of demon that fell unceremoniously in his arms. The act was met with a sizzling, and a very high yelp from Crowley, who pushed at Aziraphale until the angel was a safe distance away from him.

Aziraphale stood dumbstruck by the occurrence, , and Crowley seemed to just be gathering his bearings. There was an awkward silence in which both demon and angel stared at each other--or Crowley attempted to stare.

"My dear boy, might this have to do with the light that you were talking about earlier?" Aziraphale said slowly.

"Wonder what made you think that." On the floor, the demon looked quite undignified, and yet somehow still managed to cross his arms and shoot an unfocused glare Aziraphale's way.

"My dear, I believe I owe you an apology. I hadn't thought it would affect you, but evidently, I was terribly wrong." In the span of his short sentence, he'd managed to reduce the glow that surrounded him to the normal shine, and with it went the nauseating brightness that had filled the bookshop not seconds ago.

"Oh do forgive me, Crowley." Sheepishly, Azirapheal begged.

Less concerned with apologies, and just grateful that he was no longer on the verge of death, he asked: "What was that?"

"Well...I got carried away at a church, you could say. The choir was singing the most lovely of praises, and I couldn't help myself, I had to stay for the entire thing. It seems that in my elation, I hadn't taken into consideration that the lingering energy of the church coupled with my happiness would have harmed you. But it appears I was greatly mistaken."

That made sense. An angel by itself could be hard for a demon to look at, especially when they were happy. Add prayers directed at God, and it got ridiculous. Over the years he'd grown accustomed to dealing with Aziraphale, but that was too much.

"Am I forgiven?" The angel extended a cautious hand to Crowley but stopped midway. The last thing he wanted to do was violate Crowley's bounders, especially after that ridiculous display.

"I was never upset with you." Crowley accepted the hand that was offered, and groaned as Aziraphale hounded him to his feet, "Just mind the halo next time?"

#aziraphale #anthony j crowley #aziracrow #good omens #diversetolkien

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lesbiansforboromir · 6 years

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Everyone should remember that the original elves were literally just sculptures Eru sprinkled haphazardly onto the landscape with no relation to each other and they were just picked up by their leaders randomly as they encountered them on a stroll one day so there is absolutely no genetic or lore reason why any elf couldn’t have been black, brown, thick, thin, hairy, smoothe or anything inbetween, the visual possibilities are nigh on limitless for nearly every elven character and making everyone white is very dull and uninspired

#also lmao there's no reason elves should even apply to human genetic workings anyhow but thats another thing entirely #tolkien #text post #diversetolkien #up your alley I feel #ser queue-thrien #erran vs tolkien

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diversetolkienarchive · 4 years

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Perpetuating tropes that disabled, ND, and/or mentally ill people are incapable of understanding “advanced reading” or “big words”.

#diversetolkien #inkstranger #myinkandtrees #ableism

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silmaspens · 3 years

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Diverse Tolkien Week day one:

Women of Color

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odium-amare · 3 years

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J.R.R Tolkien - Elwing

Cast: Miss Universe (2020/2021) Vietnam Nguyễn Trần Khánh Vân

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diversetolkien · 4 years

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Diverse Tolkien Film Fest Official Announcement!

Welcome to the first official announcement for the Diverse Tolkien Film Fest!

The #ddff is a Film Fest dedicated to highlighting diverse fans in areas such as acting, directing, scriptwriting, and producing. The goal of this project is to have twelve videos depicting canon or fanon scenes from Tolkien’s world, produced and acted by a diverse cast. They will be collected and put together in the first-ever Diverse Tolkien Film Fest.

Requirements:

-The crew must but 18+

-The majority of the crew must be people of color, disabled people, and/or lgbtq+

-Must be between 10-30 minutes

-our hashtag is #ddff

-Must Fill Out THIS Form

The form will be open until January 31st, 2020. After that, we will look through the submissions and let everyone know who made the cut by the beginning of March!

This is a chance for creatives of color, disabled creators, and lgbtq+ creators to get exposure for their work! Please only submit a pitch if you are serious about completing this project!

Follow this blog for updates! Also, please share and ask questions!

#diversetolkien #tolkien #the lotr #the hobbit #the silmarillion

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crieativity · 4 years

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And of course, we have Thorin in BotFA but this time someone got him to admit he was being a stupid fartface

Someone get parks and rec away from me

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