#doriath

Since Tolkien gives us little detail about Curufin’s death, I drew this headcanon of mine where he’s killed by Nimloth :3

Zoomed-in faces below

an attempt at drawing almost every named character in the silmarillion (minus a bunch of Men characters bc i didnt have designs for them, as well as assorted minor elves like salgant or elenmire + the valar and most maiar cuz im still redesigning them) 😙

been really busy these past months but i worked on this on and off in-between (you can see a process gif here!!). since ive got a bit of free time for now, ill try to get back to being more active :D sorry for disappearing out of the blue again but happy almost half a year... wait wdym we're almost halfway through 2025 already...?!?! ToT

The Ruin Of Doriath

the last memory of Doriath，move on in sorrow

not my art but my commission.

There are days Elwing herself believes the heroic and cruel songs sung about her, and is convinced that through some brutal act of contrition, she might yet split herself in two and extract the mother she might have been, could have been, or, like the cruelest songs say, should have been. What would that surgery look like—what knife could separate bird from the body that was thrust into it? What is the velocity of a woman falling from a cliff? Fast enough to blur the lines between the human and the inhuman, certainly. She wonders.

She pictures often, this other woman she might have been, clawing her way out from inside the seabird like she were breaking through a shell, blood-slicked and wet from the womb, a little-girl-lost who did not sell her own motherhood in exchange for the life of every child in darkening Beleriand, who let herself choose the crying of her children over the wailing of the world.

Perhaps that-Elwing would have loved those boys better than this-Elwing ever could, would have turned in mid-air and flew to them. But all that could be salvaged from burning Doriath were the daughters who knew how to flee, who saw survival only through wings, not roots. Which is to say: Elrond is his mother's son. And Elwing is her mother's slaughter. [from she that was young and fair on ao3}

you can see pretty far, right?

The Falathrim, under Cirdan, are nominally Thingol's vassals, but notably act independently to build friendships with the Noldor. Cirdan swore friendship to the Noldor at the Mereth Aderthad; gave military aid to Fingon during the 2nd attack on Hithlum; is very close to Finrod, who also built him a watchtower; and by the end of the 1st age, when he is on Balar, is notably not Elwing's vassal. From then through the end of the 2nd Age is primarily associated with Gil-Galad, a Noldorin king.

The green-elves, per Tolkien's notes and IMO a lot of in-text evidence, are not Thingol's vassals but a separate but allied kingdom and people with what appears to be complex internal politics. After the death of Denethor, they refuse to name another king and pull back from the war against Morgoth, but some green-elves live within Thingol's realm (Saeros; the guest-elves). Beren and Luthien live in Ossiriand after the Silmaril quest, and Dior (in some continuities) marries a green-elf; additionally, Beren and Dior rally an army of green-elves to defeat the dwarvish army that sacked Menegroth. However, the green-elves are not noted as participating in the defense of Doriath during the 2nd Kinslaying (the precise date of which may have taken Dior by surprise, but considering his ongoing correspondence with the Sons of Fëanor regarding the Silmaril was not exactly unforseeable). The sons of Feanor are strongly implied to also have a consistently decent relationship with the green-elves, including after the 2nd Kinslaying. Strong factionalism or politically independent clans seem likely.