Interview with reese by Dawn by halethleia, Dawn Felagund  

Reese is the featured author for polutropos' Mereth Aderthad 2025 presentation, "'Kidnap Fam' and the Living Legendarium." Dawn spoke to Reese about her story, which is an epistolary found fiction, and the appeal of alternate universe, mythology and Tolkien and the many fruitful connections they share, the kidnap fam trope—and how the silences in all of these invite storytellers to fill the gaps.

Dawn: First off, we hope that, in doing these interviews, people attending Mereth Aderthad might familiarize themselves with the work of the creators who will be presenting there. So where can we find your fanworks?

Reese: You can find my fics on AO3 under the username LadyHaleth! I also have an account on the Silmarillion Writers' Guild as halethleia, although I haven't yet had a chance to move my stories over there. It's on the to-do list!

Dawn: Reading your work, you seem drawn to alternate universe (AU), with the breathtaking song of staying, which considers how The Silmarillion might unfold if one thing changed, and the delightful lured to be loved, which uses the Crablor crack!AU and manages to be both funny and moving. What appeals to you about AU stories?

Reese: I really do love a good AU! I'm not usually drawn to the classic AUs that show up frequently in fandom, things like coffeeshop or high school settings. The kinds of AUs that capture my imagination are ones that stay close to canon but ask, "What if?" What if this one decision had gone differently? What if a character survived—or didn't? What if a hero left, or was someone else altogether? That kind of speculative storytelling is endlessly compelling to me.

It's actually what drew me to fanfiction in the first place: the desire to explore the stories beyond the canon, to engage with the text in a different way. "Song of staying" was the very first Tolkien fic I ever wrote, and it came out of exactly that desire. I was fascinated by being able to dive into the idea of how just one life being lived a little longer could shift the entire course of The Silmarillion. It's like a ripple or dominoes, the way a little change can affect so much. Even the smallest AUs can change the course of the future! (It also helped that I had an amazing piece of art for that fic to inspire me as well!)

Dawn: What draws you to Tolkien and what is your favorite part of the legendarium?

Reese: I discovered Tolkien as a young child, poking around on my parents' bookshelves and stumbling across a well-worn yellow paperback of The Hobbit. I was instantly hooked and never really looked back! I didn't encounter The Silmarillion until I was a little bit older, but it quickly became my favorite part of the legendarium—especially all the messy, beautiful, and sometimes heartbreaking Elf politics.

Part of what keeps me coming back to Tolkien's world is how much it resonates with my love of mythology and history. There's a sense of depth and lived-in myth that I haven't really found anywhere else. As I've continued reading and exploring beyond the core texts—especially the History of Middle-earth series—I've grown to appreciate how layered and multivocal the legendarium is. It doesn't feel like a single, finalized canon, but rather like a true mythology, full of contradictions, evolving perspectives, and interpretive gaps. That richness invites a level of engagement and reinterpretation which is just so fascinating and endlessly interesting!

Dawn: Why did you choose polutropos's presentation to create fanworks for?

Reese: Polutropos's presentation caught my interest right away. I've always been fascinated by the "kidnap fam" dynamic, and the relationships between Elrond, Elros, and the Fëanorians are incredibly compelling—both in their canon ambiguity and in the wealth of differing fan interpretations that exist around them. We're given so little detail in the text, and yet that silence has clearly inspired so many people. There's tragedy and complexity, tenderness and trauma, and I love seeing how different creators fill in the blanks and sheer variety of interpretations, ranging from deeply emotional and tragic to wildly fluffy.

Additionally, the concept of a "living legendarium" is something that really speaks to me as a fan and a writer. It mirrors the way real-world myths evolve, and the way communities pass down and reshape stories to reflect new ideas, needs, and questions.

Dawn: You mention mythology several times in your responses. Do you have any mythologies or specific myths that move you or that influence your own work?

Reese: I first got into Greek mythology through Percy Jackson when I was a kid, but it's something I've stayed interested in over the years. I'm especially drawn to tragic stories (like Antigone or Orpheus and Eurydice) where things might not end well, but you still care about the characters and what they're trying to do. I also love epic stories like the Iliad for how complex and human they are and how the same events can look so different depending on who's telling the story. That kind of messy, and human storytelling is a big part of why I connect so much with Tolkien's world, especially The Silmarillion, where no one is all good or all bad. I also enjoy comparing different translations of myths: it's so cool to see how something as small as a single word can make such a big difference. That all being said, I'm not sure that mythology has directly influenced my own writing in a serious way—I feel like my work isn't quite on that level and tends to be more lighthearted. But mythology definitely shapes the kinds of stories and themes that move me, and in a smaller part what I enjoy exploring in fanfiction and beyond.

Dawn: Do you want to tell us a bit about the story you are writing?

Reese: I'm working on an epistolary piece that uses in-universe documents—letters, diary entries, historical commentary—to show the relationships between Elrond, Elros, and the Fëanorians through a bit of a different lens. I've always loved stories that use in-universe primary sources and archival or scholarly work, and I wanted to try it!

Dawn: This won't be your first kidnap fam story. "Lured to be loved," while it focuses on Elladan and Elrohir, is at its heart about the love between Elrond and Maglor. What draws you to the kidnap fam element of The Silmarillion?

Reese: As I mentioned earlier, the "kidnap fam" storyline offers such interesting grounds for exploration. What especially interests me is how fanworks can explore love in difficult, uncomfortable, or complicated forms. The bond between Elrond and Maglor, for example, is one that carries an immense emotional weight. There's grief and loss on both sides, but also understanding and love.

In "lured to be loved", I wanted to look a little bit at how the emotional inheritance of that strange, painful found family echoes out over time through Elrond's children and their own love for their father, and how a reunion between Elrond and Maglor would go (even though truthfully I really just wanted to have fun writing Maglor as a chaotic little crab!).