#If I don't get to watch DoS or at least a fanedit this weekend I will riot

[bitterseaproduction]

An Indispensable Silver Lining | The Hobbit Ref Dump

So, I can’t (see: don’t want to) go on with An Indispensable Silver-Lining until I can sit down and rewatch some Desolation of Smaug to pin down some character locations, and I really wanna decide if I’m going full movie-verse or embracing a specific fanedit or book+movie mix and what timeline I want to hold myself to for Thorin—

Can you believe I started this fic thinking ‘I’m not going to get bogged down by canon or details this time. I just wanna write for the fun’? 😂 That went well.

Point is, just because I want to gather some canon facts? It hasn’t stopped me from writing up 1500 words of a chapter 2+ plan, or over 6 THOUSAND WORDS of long-term storyboarding in less than THREE DAYS covering Smaug and the men/dwarves/elves factions and the orcs and some of the bagginshield progression and the ‘act 1’ climax and like three ways ‘act 2’ could break bad, and— well, you can tell it’s a true passion project when I keep stepping away, think of another thing, and scramble back to my phone to jot down a few hundred more words in whatever moments I can steal. And, more pertinent to this post, I can’t stop devouring a ton of resources and inspiration.

So, with that in mind, I thought I’d just share something of those sources! For fun, for later reference for myself as I write, for practical use if you’d like it yourself, or maybe you just want something else to read and these are great fics/lore bits to choose!

Updated May 15th, 2024. Additions marked with a *

The Hobbit Trilogy Fan Edit Sources

A Comprehensive Guide to Fan Edits of the Hobbit Trilogy An older list, but viable for what it covers

Help on choosing Hobbit fan edit? Which is the best? A second reddit list, a bit more modern.

FanEdit.org: Lord of the Rings franchise A comprehensive list of options for The Hobbit + other LotR works

* Specific Fan Edits

I still need to watch all of the edits I've found properly from beginning to end, but after skimming through a number of options, looking for specific wants and do-not-wants in each and reading/watching a few things on how each version was created, I think I have narrowed my interest down to these three fan edits:

Chris Hartwell's Hobbit Trilogy A very comprehensive cut that keeps pretty much all of the movie beats intact, just trims down the trilogy's more clunky spots to create a more polished film experience. (i.e. a reduced Radagast, Alfrid, older Bilbo, some of the action scenes, etc.) Generally prioritizes Bilbo as the MC and his dynamic with Thorin as the through-line of the story and includes some of the extended scenes that highlight both, which I really appreciate.

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again An edit that more fully cuts some of the less loved factors of the movies like the Tauriel romance, but not nearly as cut-heavy as a lot of the more well-known fan edits.

The Compromise Cut Very similar to 'or There and Back Again' but more ambitious in rearranging footage to create new beats to cover cuts vs 'or There and Back Again' being more of a clean 'straight from the source' cut.

~

For my purposes, Hartwell's will probably be my go-to for full lore and plot inclusion & the most 'bang for my buck' while being a cleaner watch than the OG, while There and Back Again or The Compromise Cut are what I would share with friends who despise some of the film-only content, but are willing to give the trilogy another try.

I know there are a number of other great edits of there, M4 and MapleFilms being especially loved, ~but~ I set a rule for myself that any edit that cut the carrock hug was instantly out, so these were the three I landed on.

Resource Websites

The Encyclopedia of Arda Tolkien Gateway LotR Online

Specific Details

TEoA: A Viewer’s Companion (AUJ) TEoA: A Viewer’s Companion (DoS) TEoA: A Viewer’s Companion (TBoFA) TEoA: Longbeards + The Other Clans

TG: Quest Motivations Generally good overview of the point of the quest and what happened.

TG: Smaug Role / Gandalf motivation "Following the sack of Erebor, Gandalf felt that Sauron would take advantage of Middle-earth's weakened state and attack Rivendell and Lothlórien or try regain Angmar; he also feared that Sauron "might use" Smaug "with terrible effect". [...The White Council] attacked Dol Guldur in TA 2941, while Sauron and Smaug could not "help one another". [...] his adversaries were able to drive him from the fortress with relative ease. [...] Sauron abandoned Dol Guldur willingly, and returned secretly to Mordor, where he would openly declare himself in TA 2951, and began preparations for his final war to dominate Middle-earth."

TG: The Arkenstone Arkenstone info from book and adaptations

* Khuzdul Words for Fanfiction Writers A resource for Khuzdul words for - as the name says - fanfic writers!

Durin's Line Tapestry from DoS Shows the family connections with original book birth dates for all. Even though it was presumably made pre-sacking in 2770, and 3 of the company depicted were born after Erebor fell. That... is curious.

The Line of Dwarves A more thorough (and intriguing) look at the dwarf lines and relevant dates, all book-based.

Comprehensive Genealogy Chart of all the Hobbits from J.R.R. Tolkien's Legendarium My gosh is this expansive... and hard to load up on a screen, but if you don't want to miss something, check this!

HOBBIT FAMILY TREE: How are Bilbo, Frodo, Pippin, Merry, and Sam related? The less brain-breaking hobbit tree that focuses on the main 5 from the books.

Lord of the Rings Hobbit Family Tree More of a middle-ground on the 2 above options.

* Prominent Hobbit Families and Individuals A lovely breakdown of the hobbit families as a group, what they are like and who are the crucial members of those families.

Bag-End PJ Hobbit Map Crucial for Bilbo background & any Shire scenes if they come!

* Untangling Middle-Earth's many routes to evil A map of where all of the characters traveled in The Hobbit and The Lord of the RIngs! I found this handy when I was trying to track Gandalf in particular.

A chronology of The Hobbit A day-by-day breakdown of the journey in The Hobbit, great for what-ifs and assessing likely travel times!

Suggested Alternative Timeline For The Hobbit by @avelera A very nice older post on a potential timeline alternative for The Hobbit films. As said above, the films do use the original dates in places, but as this post says, they don't always make sense about it. This is a nice option to consider instead.

Major Inspiration Fics

Backs To The Wall by @conkers-thecosy My current top TH/LotR read, a great active WIP, definitely a direct inspiration to me with the failure to get into Erebor leading things off course! And I'll likely have a parallel Laketown focus for a bit, though nothing as detailed and lived-in as Conkers' fic. And, aside from great writing and general motivation to write TH/Bagginshield, I love the portrayals of the characters (BILBO, Thorin, Gandalf, Dwalin, Nori, Bard and the Bardlings--) and pairings. Definitely tempting me towards Dwalin/Nori here!

And I'm Your Lionheart by Lee_Whimsy There always seems to be a fic in every fandom of mine that draws me in very early, becomes an instant fave, and then hangs there unfinished but perpetually on my mind. The 'one that got away' fic. This is it, and I shall forever love it, and you can just bet it will bleed into my takes somewhere, especially with Gandalf and Legolas and Bard and Fíli, if I recall correctly. I should totally reread this, or at least sections of it. Reading to the 'end' is... painful.

The Most Precious of Treasures by @sapphireshelle91 Another long untouched WIP, but a VERY different one, as it is a) post-TBoFA, and b) features a female Bilbo and parentshield with dwobbit!Frodo. I include this one because a) I love a number of the characterizations, b) if 'And I'm Your Lionheart' gives me the infrastructure and maintenance inspiration for Erebor, THIS fic delivers on the politics and intrigue, and c) I am a HUGE sucker for parentshield, be it biological or adoptive, so naturally I'm contemplating it for my own fic. Still iffy on which way I'll take it, but I've fallen down some intriguing rabbit holes in regards to Shire culture and Bilbo's background while considering the biological option, and I'd be loathe to abandon those ideas now. But either way, this fic deserves a definite nod for motivating me to come up with ideas.

Home Behind and Home Ahead by Etharei Love the characterizations in this one, and anything that gives me a tap into Bilbo's character is appreciated. And I don't know if I'll draw much on it for this fic in particular, but I love all forms of parentshield and this is a lovely dynamic between the three characters, so I'd happily draw from it in the abstract.

* Planting a Hobbit by @northerntrash I adore the vibe of this! A sweet 'Bilbo in Erebor' AU focused on the dwarves (Thorin especially) being so silly and endearing in their efforts to make Bilbo happy, and featuring some nice world and dynamic building in the process.

* Bad Blood by @conkers-thecosy Yo~ give me a nice what-if any day, and having it feature a protective!Bilbo + ardent!Thorin + gremlin!elvenking in the process, with a side of dwarven culture and royal politics? For it.

* [explicit!] Safe and Distant by Lindzzz I ADORE a Bilbo like this. A Bilbo who isn't oblivious about his feelings or denying them, but whose self-image/image of Thorin makes him unable to Comprehend anything not one-sided could come of those feelings. Who celebrates Thorin's good regard with joy and accepts it as 'enough' and 'more than he could ask for'. Who would probably just combust at the idea Thorin might want more, might want something beyond what their adventure can provide, just as Bilbo does... or just as Bilbo would, if he would allow himself to even accept that as a possibility. A Bilbo who finds the idea of Thorin wanting him back terrifying, because to hope for that and be wrong? It would shatter him. ...Yeah, I am very, very for this Bilbo. (And that doesn't even touch on the Thorin or the last chapter, omg-)

* [explicit] Canoodling by @avelera This fic is sweet. This fic is funny. This fic touches on differences between the Tolkien cultures and misunderstandings and the unique ways that could affect intimacy with a couple, and you know that bagginshield is a gold mine opportunity for all of that. I love any explicit work that plays with experience levels and expectations and lets the couple mess up and then swing it back around to lovely afterwards, because that's realistic and relatable and thus, when done right, all the more attractive a read! And this one does it well, a good foundation read.