meta monday except it's wednesday

[starspray]

I forgot that Meta Mondays were a Thing for the Block Party, whoops. But everyone else on my reading page is soliciting questions for this week's "Take us behind the scenes of one of your own fanworks!" prompt and that seems like a fun idea!

So. Ask away? My AO3 is here and my SWG is here.

Comments

[hhimring]

Would you like to talk about Elured and Elurin and your take on them, maybe?

[starspray]

My favorite twins! I would love to talk about them.

I haven't written about their childhood very much post-rescue, but they DO grow up around the Withywindle valley and more or less by Tom and Goldberry in addition to Nellas, which is a great excuse to write them as whimsical and more light-hearted--they fit right in with the elves singing tra la la lally at Thorin and Co in The Hobbit. It's also the way they deal with stuff--if they can laugh at something it can't hurt them. That's the trouble in "The Nights Your Heart Shivers" because you can't really laugh at the Nazgul, especially when you aren't expecting them.

But they are also very powerful in their own right, as much as Galadriel or Elrond. They learned a lot from Tom and Goldberry and Nellas, in addition to the innate power they inherited. That's why Elrond sends them out alongside Glorfindel when they hear that Frodo's running around unsupervised with the Ring and with Nazgul chasing him. They just aren't interested in exercising that power very often. They like wandering around and getting into mild trouble every so often, and teasing Elrond, and keeping themselves more or less out of the important happenings, or at least keeping away from playing a big enough role that it would end up in the history books, so the fact that Dior's sons are alive and well is something of an open secret.

The problem with my take is that I don't write these stories in any kind of chronological order so I'm not sure yet how exactly they react to like, the drowning of Numenor or what exactly they get up to during the War of the Ring. They DO sail west with Sam, though. I think that drabble series was the first Elured/Elurin Live story I ever wrote, and I am extremely attached to the concept.

[hhimring]

Thank you very much!
I enjoy your stories about them, so it was nice to hear a bit more about them!
It makes sense to me that they learned from Tom and Goldberry, also!

[narya_flame]

I'd love to know more about Tanith - headcanons, random ideas, whatever! I got really interested in her when I was making that moodboard :D

[starspray]

I'm so glad you like her! She's my only really Villainous OC and I'm quite fond of her myself. Though I admit that I have not fleshed her out much prior to now, because writing anything more substantial than that ficlet would require a lot of worldbuilding and I'm not quite THAT interested in the Easterlings as a whole, but here's what I've got:

She's from a fairly prominent but not super powerful noble family in wherever-they-live (somewhere a little north and east of Harad? the imagery you chose for your moodboard is spot on, though). So she's able to marry into the royal family but not to marry, like, the heir. But she's got ambitions and when her son is born she decides that he is going to be Capital-G-Great.

This means a couple of uncles and some cousins need to be quietly gotten rid of, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The thing about Tanith though is that she is very sweet and charming and tiny and she spends most of her time tending roses, for goodness sake, so NO ONE looks at her when heirs start dropping dead. They think maybe the family is cursed, or that maybe someone else is responsible, but not sweet Lady Tanith who makes love potions and cosmetics for the younger ladies of the court.

So she fits perfectly that trope of the mother who wants to put her child on the throne or in power or whatever, but she's a lot more patient and is smarter about it than, idk, Cersei Lannister or whoever. That comparison doesn't exactly fit, though. Tanith isn't interested in holding power in her own right, but she knows exactly how much influence women like her can have behind the scenes.

I think eventually Khamul gets wise to it, but he's as ambitious as his mother and possibly even more ruthless, so he's not exactly complaining.

I'm not certain what happens to Khamul's father. He's probably another victim.

She's extremely pleased when Khamul gets his ring and starts using it, because that is some Neat Stuff. But she's pretty old by that time and with his lengthened lifespan she never learns what kind of gift exactly it is, which is probably for the best because if she did she'd probably try to poison Sauron on his next visit and, uh, that would not have gone over well.

She dies peacefully in her sleep and Khamul very quietly disposes of her secret poison cabinet and erects a huge garden in her honor and everyone remembers her extremely fondly.

[narya_flame]

Thank you so much for such an in depth answer :D I especially love this:

Tanith isn't interested in holding power in her own right, but she knows exactly how much influence women like her can have behind the scenes.

And I really like that she is commemorated with a huge garden and remembered fondly!