Notes For Portraits
Notes on "Portraits of An Evenstar"
by Elelome

What Are The Portraits?

"Portraits" is what it sounds like, a series of "snapshots" in Arwen Evenstar's life. They come from all parts of her life, beginning, middle, and end. They can be from anyone's point of view. They are not a single ongoing work, they are a bunch of little ficlets all in the same "universe." There is an undetermined number of them, and no end in sight.


Why the Portraits?

Because I can't stand what they're going to do to the character of Arwen in the movies? Because I'm inspired to write them? Because I adore Arwen? Because it's a childhood dream to write these?

Well, pretty much all of the above. I want people to come here after seeing the movie, and say, "Oh, Arwen wasn't some Xena-type warrior-princess, she was just a girl." Or I want people who have just read the books to come here and say "Oh, Arwen wasn't some high-and-mighty-elf-princess-following-in-the-footsteps-of-Luthien, she was just a girl."

Because she was. Her life is either glorified or reduced by the masses. I want to treat her as a Elven-human, a woman. One who fell in love, but also into infatuation, one who failed and triumphed, who had secret griefs and hopes and fears and longings.

Because that's who she really was.


Archiving Info:

Want to archive my "Portraits?" Good, you can. But I do have a few guidelines you must follow.

1. Email me to tell me you are archiving them and where. This is a courteous thing to do, and if I find my work on your site and have received no email from you, I probably will ask you to take them down.

2. Your site, the place you will archive them, must have something to do with Tolkien or fanfiction (preferably both).

3. You must have an email link to me and a link to my website on every page with a "Portrait" on it. The easiest way to do this is to go to my "Portraits," save them as HTML documents, and customize them with your own graphics, leaving the main text alone.

4. Each Portrait must be separate, on its own page.


And that's all! If you have any questions about either archiving or this series in general, please contact me. I'd love to hear from you!

I'll be working on a timeline of the Portraits eventually, but for now you can just guess what years of Arwen's life they happen in.