Character of the Month: Marach
There are few details in the texts about Marach, but he is noteworthy for his allegiances and his descendants, who would become pivotal to the history of Middle-earth and the eventual defeat of Morgoth and Sauron.
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Character of the Month: Marach
There are few details in the texts about Marach, but he is noteworthy for his allegiances and his descendants, who would become pivotal to the history of Middle-earth and the eventual defeat of Morgoth and Sauron.
New Challenge: Allusive
Literature and art constantly refer back to each other using allusions, and this month's prompts are inspired by allusions to literature, myth, art, and history.
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New Challenge: Building Middle-earth
Let global architecture be your inspiration in this challenge, where you will work with a prompts that are architectural styles, locations in Arda, or both.
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Tata is offered a solution to a grave problem, at a very low price...
[Writing] The Mirror Crack'd by AdmirableMonster
Rescued from a brutal Angband hunt, an ex-thrall with a strange and powerful artifact embedded in his spine is brought to Himring, for it is one of the only places in Beleriand which welcomes such folk. Though he has no memories of his life before, Anniavas slowly becomes accustomed to his new…
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Fëanor shrugged, studying the contents of his wine glass. “Something must be done about that house. It will fall down eventually.”
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“It’s not as though I…
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Of course, she knew that in the Blessed Land, true harm was unlikely to come to him. The Valar watched over them all, and the lesser spirits were everywhere. It was a great hound of Oromë who had found him happily splashing in the creek, in fact. But anyone could drown in mere…
[Series] Eat, Pray, Love by AdmirableMonster
The Darkest Timeline AU for my Steampunk Númenor series.
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In the wake of Sauron's death, his Mouth remembers Númenor.
[Reference] Speak Friend and Enter: Trends in Fandom Entry Year by Dawn Walls-Thumma
Across three surveys and ten years, the Tolkien Fanfiction Survey has document when authors began writing. These data reveal trends in how film promotions, the films themselves, the books, and other historical contexts have influenced not only who writes but how long they stay.
Allusive
Choose from our list of allusions to history, literature, mythology, and art to create a fanwork. Read more ...
Ankle Biters
Create a fanwork featuring a character as a child or characters as children. Read more ...
Speak Friend and Enter: Trends in Fandom Entry Year by Dawn Walls-Thumma
Across three surveys and ten years, the Tolkien Fanfiction Survey has document when authors began writing. These data reveal trends in how film promotions, the films themselves, the books, and other historical contexts have influenced not only who writes but how long they stay.
There are few details in the texts about Marach, but he is noteworthy for his allegiances and his descendants, who would become pivotal to the history of Middle-earth and the eventual defeat of Morgoth and Sauron.
[Artwork] A Memento of Faery by Grundy
TRSB26 art 144 - an artifact brought back from Faerie by a Starbearer.
[Writing] Down the Long Years by Isilme_among_the_stars
Bilbo, the strange old hobbit with the wandering feet, senses something special in young Frodo the first time he sees the lad; as they become close, they find in each other a cameraderie not well understood by other hobbits. Five poignant moments between Bilbo and Frodo Baggins over the course…
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Sindar Week 2026
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I've often wondered if Curufinwe might not have been relieved when Celebrimbor refused to follow him from Nargothrond. I'd like to think that was the case. Interesting character study!
I'm of the rather firm persuasion that he didn't WANT him to follow, didn't WANT him to swear the Oath and throw his life away like the rest of them on an unwinnable goal - at this point, he has no illusions that they'll succeed in claiming the Silmarils... So my reading is rather influenced towards Nargothrond being his last-ditch attempt to be a Father to Celebrimbor...
I've even seen pieces in which the very public disagreement was scripted by curufin & Celebrimbor together, a way to limit the losses - after all, all of the people who had followed C&C Sr remained in Nargothrond with Celebrimbor... and of course, that might come down to "we won't follow you no more" but it might as easily be "Command is passing to him, you now owe my son your allegiance" type of thing.
Help, now I'm full of feels!
This is wonderful. I love your take on Curufin as a father - a great change from the much more frequent controlling, demanding, self-absorbed depiction of Curufin. Love the idea that Curufin was proud of Celebrimbor for taking a different road.
This is very much the Curufin of my Memory Lane fic ;) and I don't tend to see him in such a terrible light(if even Tolkien agreed that he was depicted as worse than reality in the luthien tale, who am I to argue?) so my Curufin is... Not glad, because he is going to miss his son, but at the same time there is no longer the threat of Celebrimbor taking the Oath hanging over him, which is a profound relief. He is also quite proud that he managed to raise a good man (a better man than himself, at least)... I still haven't decided how the argument panned out, but honestly I wouldn't put it past Curufin to have staged the whole thing with or without Celebrimbor's knowledge, just as a last attempt at saving him from the fate that awaits him and his brothers.
Part of him also thinks that perhaps Telperina will forgive him for getting her killed if he manages to save their son - an unspoken thought that has been his driving force since alqualonde in my head...
Thank you for commenting :D
Heartwrenching and lovely. Especially touching is the part where the letter mentions a possible child of Celebrimbor--one that never came to be.
In my verse it did! I reject your reality and substitute my own ;)
I think there is a richness in imagining Curufin as having other sides than the seemingly awful, scheming person he comes across in canon, especially the idea that a figure as sympathetic as Celebrimbor must have experienced something of love and nobility in the family whose star and creative tradition he kept.
I'm very firmly not in the Curufin-was-horrible-to-the-bone camp of fandom even though it does seem quite pervasive... I firmly believe that - as you say - Celebrimbor's later actions and subtextual readings of his character tells us a lot about the internal family dynamics of the Fëanorians, particularly in regards to Curufin (even Tolkien admitted that he was tarred with a rather too dark brush in the Beren/Luthien tale, after all)...
And also he's my favourite son of Fëanor XD
I don't really want him to be an utter horror as a person - so this was written in that frame of mind. I'm semi-convinced that the final blow-up between them was entirely orchestrated by Curufin in an attempt to save Celebrimbor from the Doom of their house - anything to keep him from taking the Oath alongside them - whether or not Celebrimbor was aware and played along, or his father was just manipulative/scheming/knew him well enough that HE fell for the ruse along with the rest of Nargothrond... one day, I shall write that scene, probably. And the scene where Celebrimbor finds the letter...
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