#his relationship with nan elmoth was possibly the most healthy one in his life and should probably have remained the only one

[galadhremmin]

Also Treebeard’s "Ents are more like elves: less interested in themselves than Men are, and better at getting inside other things.” ...very important description of what elves are like to me. 

#elves my beloved #suing jirt for inventing an entire species of nonexistent beings cooler than us. not counting eol. #even though i suppose eol could probably speak with nan elmoth #his relationship with nan elmoth was possibly the most healthy one in his life and should probably have remained the only one #ANYWAY

[iwillgoalone-m]

Dark!Aredhel

I’ve been spending a little while trying to consider how to turn Aredhel dark, since she’s the fluffiest, most loving character I have ever played and seriously is very very difficult to consider going dark. So this is just me rambling, trying to get my thoughts out there as to just how one might turn Aredhel to the dark side.

So to begin this, one must look at Aredhel’s personality and the aspects that make her the way she is. I think everyone here would agree Aredhel’s most obvious personality trait is her ability to roll with the punches and love and forgive, something which makes her unique, but also makes her problematic for me when I think of her dark. So after about two hours of thinking, and talking to my friends about why she might turn, I’ve come up with reasons/scenarios etc.

So Aredhel loves and loves deeply, she is someone who is very attached and loyal, who meets people and determines what she thinks relatively soon after. She has a basic faith in others, a faith that good and love will win--- in other words she is an idealist. that’s how she could be so irresponsible to wander into Nan Elmoth, to seek out cousins whom her family has basically decided not to talk o anymore. She looks at others with a sort of innocence, which is a blessing and has taken me by surprise. Now while this love has made her quite strong ultimately, it can also be her greatest weakness, and here’s why.

Her love and belief in others gives her great hope, which is what she looks to whenever bad times hit, she always pauses and goes ‘tomorrow the sun will rise, and soon enough all will be well’ , and through such she acts as a sort of mascot to others. So to break her, one would have to take away her hope, her reason for living, which if one took it away would leave her lost and stumbling in uncertainty. When in Nan Elmoth, she came close  in a way, her isolation and relative hopeless environment would have possibly stripped her, except two things: one, she knew that outside of the forest’s confines were people who still loved her, who wanted her to return, who if she could only get away everything would be alright. The second is that of Maeglin, who with his birth brought her more hope than he knew, he was her stars in her eternal night, and for him she kept going, and loved and taught him how to love.

When Eol threw the javelin and she jumped forward, she died that night, but perhaps that was the lowest she had ever been as she crowed her her husband over how much he’d fucked himself over. At least that’s how I see it, and being that I had to consider then what would it have taken to take her completely over the edge.

And here i the answer I came up with:

The opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of beauty is not ugliness, the opposite of faith is not heresy, the opposite of life is not death...it’s INDIFFERENCE. How would one twist the mind of one so deeply attached, deeply loving, deeply hoping and having faith? You strip them of the thing which makes all that matter. You detach them. Now detachment can be a healthy thing in certain scenarios, detaching yourself from a bad relationship for the sake of healing the pain is good. But when one stops seeing people as people, stops seeing individuals with feelings, and thinking only objectively in a ‘I don’t care’ attitude, it gets dangerous. But it’s more than that, and I’ll explain here.

So here is a scenario which I might use for her dark!Verse, I’m not sure yet I need to figure out the details. Let us say that for some reason Aredhel needed to study an enemy, perhaps to rescue one she loved by infiltrtion, and through doing such she would need to understand them. To understand them, she would have to get into their heads, contemplate what drives them, so she can mimic. To succeed however, she would have to at least pretend to be detached, to force her conscience to be silent. This is possible, and looking at her I can see it happening--- or if not infiltration, perhaps being imprisoned and trying survive might make this happen too, but I digress--- and so she would bit by bit compromise. Say then that for some reason she is betrayed by an ally, or one she loves was, and is captured and tortured. While pain and death do not frighten her, any extended rescue would chip away at that hope she always carries. While Maedhros survived hanging off Thangorodrim and was able to still function afterwards, albeit in pain and tormented, she would not have.

An extended period without anyone coming for her would cause her to begin to lose faith, becoming not hateful but indifferent, because ‘well what does it matter anyway’. Eventually she would be in a constant state of limbo, going from ‘they’re coming to save me’ to ‘why haven’t they come’ to ‘they’re not coming, who cares anymore.’

The opposite of love is not hatred it’s indifference.

So then, caught in this world of nothingness she could easy be used to anyone’s ulterior ends, likely becoming a ‘follow orders’ person more than anything else. Her excitement of life brought about her natural spark which would be gone, making her cold and heartless, because love is a lie. No one really comes. It’s better not to love. In a way she’d be scary, at least to me, because while those who operate out of hate have a level of mercy in their cruelty. They’ll kill you quicker. Like Caranthir evil would likely just be a hurricane of death--- Aredhel, however, lost in indifference would completely lose that moral compass, meaning anything and everything is permissible while Caranthir might still have a moral code of such.

I think that’s more dangerous, because it means she’ll be more likely to torture you for days or months because she needs information, not really giving a damn as she keeps it going until you break. And to her, what’s the difference, you might as well give up now because she’s got nothing better to do other than to make your life hell until you give in.

Besides, what are you holding onto? Your faith? Faith doesn’t exist. Love doesn’t exist. They’re just words for flimsy things that little children believe. No one is coming for you. What’s the point of you fighting anymore? If you give me what I want I’ll end your torment, just give it to me. It’s such a desolation it’s weird to talk about with her, since she’s so hyper and loving and full of life, to discuss how dark she’d basically be a living death. She wouldn’t care what side you were on, if you were in her way you were her enemy...and it isn’t because she hates you. She’s just...indifferent.

So yeah, I’ll be 95% of that did not make sense, but I needed it out.

#v: No One Is Coming You're All Alone || Dark!Verse #The Adventurous Huntress || Headcanons #gosh this is actually painful to picture #i have no idea if it even made sense. #maybe that's the wa of thinking of it #aredhel normal is sunny and lively #but dark would be the embodiment of death #there are no sides when you're the embodiment f death #everyone dies #it's just a matter of when