Especially considering that it feels my writing has been slipping rather than improving for a while now, this is balm to hear - thank you so much, Dawn. I'm still very intrigued by Cuiviénen and the shape Elven society took before the coming of the Valar, but I agree that it was more liberal and free-spirited. The emergence of customs of Aman was for the most part not imposed on the Amanyar, I think (if directed and shaped by the Valar), but of course that doesn't have to mean contentedness for all of them, especially after a certain someone shook up the status quo with his rebellion. 

You raise a really interesting point about the Darkening as well - it does fall somewhat short, I agree, but that may be partially owed to the format and narrative/mythical distance the story takes from most of the more cataclysmic events (the War of Wrath and Númenor fall into the same category, I think) because it's hard to convey the full scale of it accurately. I've had, come to think of it, the same feeling re-reading the Völuspá recently as I've gotten for the Darkening, and one of the major aspects that made "Our Share of Night to Bear" tricky was to envision something that's outside the scope of human experience. This is also why I resorted to locking it out, for the most part, in this fic, to give it some significance as a backdrop and something symbolic that might be harder than dealing with all the ugly realities of it. It'd have been a very different story in that case. 

Either way, thank you so much! I'm glad I remembered to post this fic here - your review made my evening. :)