The Crafting of Galadriel’s Mirror by Anérea

Mélamírë is one of my favourite OCs. Created by pandemonium_213 out of a need to link Robert J. Oppenheimer with his ancestors (according to the pandë!verse in Trinity (or listen to the podfic version read by the author) ), Mélamírë takes on a robust life of her own with a full-bodied personality and unique adventures.

Pandë’s writing creates such vivid imagery in my mind that I’m simultaneously inspired to paint them and also daunted that I’ll do her justice.

This illustration is from The Writhen Pool: Commissioned by Galadriel while in Ost-en-Edhil to create a scrying device that “flows with the very Currents of Time, a device by which the viewer can see not only what was, but also what is, and further, what will be, or at least the possibilities of the future”, Mélamírë crafts the vessel from a custom alloy while drawing on the “Threads of Vairë” to imbue it with the requisite properties. The one stipulated condition is that she makes it herself; Galadriel doesn’t want Aulendil—or Celebrimbor for that matter—laying their skilled-yet-dubious paws on it.

One of the aspects I enjoy so much in the Pandë!verse—other than excellent characterisations, engaging stories, and satisfyingly ‘blasphemous’ viewpoints (equally relevant to our Earth as to Arda)— is the scientifiction that pays homage to some of the fascinating (if not always quite so readily understandable) scientific theories of our age. 

(So I decorated Galadriel's mirror with some elvishised Feynman diagrams.)

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Click to view full screen, and again to enlarge
(I'm probably biased, but I'm proud of the detail in this one - and my elvishised Feynman diagram decoration around the bowl are only evident when zoomed in.)