#aglarond

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

obviously Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli would know all about conducting themselves in a courtly manner. Aragorn learned from Elrond and spent time in Gondor beforehand, Legolas is a prince and Gimli is a lord. But it's crucial to me that they forget it all or forget to care. (Because they do forget, in the books and movies. Aragorn's diplomatic skills fly out the window whenever somebody asks for Anduril, Legolas AND Gimli threaten to kill a king's nephew several times over heated words, and they're very used to being filthy, ragged and so wild people mistake them for fairy tales.)

So rather than to imagine they were completely out of their depth as King and Lords after the war of the ring I cling to the belief that they were very bizarre to be around but that it was a conscious choice because they could not be arsed.

It's not that Aragorn doesn't know he's supposed to be waited on, but he's a firm believer in 'eat when you can' and he will gut that wild fowl he caught himself when he's in an official delegation headed to Important Negotiations. It's not that Legolas doesn't know you don't stroll in the middle of a council meeting still muddy and bloodstained from a hunt, he's just on a tight schedule. It's not Gimli doesn't know you're not supposed to sleep on top of the battlements but he's tired and he has a free half hour and that was the closest flat surface. Completely undomesticated behavior all around but in a completely deliberate way.

[tathrin]

The next story I am definitely 100% Not Writing: An Unexpected Wedding.

So: Elvish marriage is, we all know, a very simple thing that you don't need much...let's say ceremony to complete, wink-wink.

Dwarven marriages, on the other hand...! Well, let's just say that Durin's folk know how to throw a fancy shindig, yeah? Plus, there are the contracts. Oh, are there ever contracts! Can't have a marriage without proper contracts. No contract, and it's just a fling (even if lasts over a century), everybody knows that who knows anything.

And these sort of flings are lovely and can be very fulfilling, and many a dwarven family-unit has been based entirely upon such long-term flings; but without a contract to account for the merging (or not) of your crafts and your work and such, well, it's not a marriage, is it? Of course not.

So one day, Legolas discovers that while he's been calling Gimli his husband for like thirty years now, according to dwarven cultural standards, they're not actually married!

Gimli isn't bothered by this, and never has been, because everyone knows that he and Legolas are Together(tm), and he knows that elves consider the idea of a public "marriage ceremony" to be pretty weird, also. And it's not like there's any shame about these sorts of "flings" in dwarf culture, so everybody in Aglarond is content with the status-quo of having an unmarried lord who's known to be attached to a strange elf, and they respect that relationship entirely (even if most of them still find the fact that Legolas is an elf pretty odd).

(Also, Legolas is is going to live forever, while Gimli still assumes at this point that he'll be bound by a normal dwarven life-span, so of course from Legolas's perspective their relationship must inherently seem like a short-term affair, anyway, even if neither of them like talking about that fact...)

So Gimli's perfectly happy with their elvish-marriage. Lots of dwarves never get married at all, it's nbd.

Except Legolas doesn't see it that way. How unintentionally selfish of him, to have only wed Gimli according to the standards of his own culture, and not that of Gimli's people as well! He had no idea, but now that he knows, he must set about fixing it at once!

And that's the story of how the entirety of Rohan got roped-into helping a Wood-elf plan a dwarf-style wedding ceremony as a surprise for the Lord of Aglarond.

Needless to say, the "surprise" aspect of it doesn't last very long—just long enough for many and varied hijinks to ensue—which is good, because A: you can't really negotiate contracts without representatives of both parties involved and B: as well-intentioned as he is, Legolas has very little idea of what a dwarven wedding actually is or how to throw one.

But by gosh, is he going to try!!!

(Fortunately Gimli finds Legolas's earnest intentions endearing even when he's completely off-base about just about everything, so he looks at the near-debacle of what Legolas and his bewildered human assistants have done so far and declares it all to be extremely sweet.)

Even more fortunately, once he realizes that it matters to Legolas that they be wed in dwarf-fashion—because Legolas thinks it matters to Gimli—Gimli takes charge of the rest of the arrangements, which also means acquiring the help of a bunch of competent dwarven friends and advisors, now that the rest of Aglarond know what's going on much to the relief of Éomer and the Rohirrim who are now off the hook for anything but attending the resultant party.

Which is how we end up with Thranduil being invited to a dwarven marriage ceremony in the Glittering Caves of Rohan along with the entire royal family of Gondor and the elvish colony of Ithilien and a whole bunch of Hobbits.

He thinks the whole idea is ridiculous, of course (they've been married for years, everyone knows it, why are mortals so weird about this stuff?), but he goes along with it because it seems to matter to Legolas, even though Thranduil gets rather offended by the notion of signing contracts on behalf of his son, and has to be talked-down from interpreting that as a mortal insult by the combined efforts of Aragorn, Arwen, and Faramir.

But mainly he's just irritated that they couldn't have gotten their shit together earlier and done this before Bilbo left, because his Hobbit bestie loves a good party, and he's going to be so pissed in like four or five hundred years when Thranduil crosses the Sea and tells him about it.

(Also the party would have been way more fun with Bilbo there to make scathing commentary, and Thranduil is grumpy not having him in attendance. What's the point of declaring your favorite Burglar an Elf-friend if you can't pull him out for your own personal entertainment at parties!?)

Anyway the whole thing is a disaster, of course, because half the people involved don't actually understand what the fuck they're supposed to be doing or what half of it means, but.

But it's lovely, also.

And the Glittering Caves have never glittered quite so brightly as they do when Gimli and Legolas say their vows at last (even if Legolas's Khuzdul pronunciation is atrocious! fortunately Gimli finds that endearing, too, although the elder dwarves all wince terribly). Even the bright crystal casing that forms the centerpiece of the great hall, the one that Gimli spent five years carving until it was just right, the one that holds those three long golden hairs he's always waxing so euphoric about...

Well, even that shines brighter than usual, that day.

And far across the Sea, someone looks into her Mirror, and smiles.

And then Bilbo promptly elbows Celeborn out of the way so he can see, too. Why are elves all so blasted tall!

[tomcat-tapes]

HIIII HELLO MORE LONELY KING LORE !! If you liked my last post here’s more sketches and another video (there are two more I still need to post but here’s the one that followed the previous video)

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It is completely up to how you wanna read or write the AU, cause even I myself and torn between the reincarnated Gimli logistics or just have be missing for x amount of years. But the updated idea so far is that there will be a Telemachus! Aka their kid Florí.

Gimli taking inspiration from old dwarrow traditions carved him from stone and prayed to Mahal thus breathing life into their firstborn son. (More to come on this) and Flori desperately wants to live up to his parents he has big shoes to fill with the two of them being great fighters and heroes of middle earth,,

[maironsmaid]

Just remembered that I dreamed of watching a special version of Lotr with my friends (I think in my dream someone called it the "Secret subscription Television version") and it was basically the same only that Gimli was book accurate and they included the Glittering caves of aglarond & other poet gimli scenes

I wish it was real

[villainous-space-horse]

Aglarond - Raistlin and the Rose (Lake of Tears)

[zeizeizeizei]

Drunk Legolas in the Glittering Caves, relentlessly tormenting Gimli—this is exactly that energy.

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

NOT YET A DWARVEN KINGDOM FOUNDED BY GIMLI -- THE MOST POWERFUL DWARVEN KINGDOM OF THE FOURTH AGE.

PIC INFO: Resolution 1000x1217 -- Spotlight on a Tolkien Legendarium piece titled "Gimli & Legolas in the Glittering Caves of Aglarond,” from "The Two Towers" & "Return of the King," Appendix A," artwork by Ted Nasmith, c. 1992.

EXTRA INFO: First appeared in the 1992 (Centenary) Tolkien Calendar, published by Grafton Books. (It was the painting for March.) Also used on the cover of a new edition of "The Tolkien Companion" by J.E.A. Tyler.

"Immeasurable halls, filled with an everlasting music of water that tinkles into pools, as fair as Kheled-zâram in the starlight."

-- "The Two Towers," Book Three, Chapter VIII: "The Road to Isengard" by J.R.R. Tolkien

OVERVIEW: "The Glittering Caves of Aglarond where under the fotress of Helm’s deep in the white mountains. It is believed they where delved sometime in the Second Age by the Numenoreans, and in the War of the Ring it was used by the people of Rohan as a escape route from Sauruman the wizard’s army of Uruk-hai, Orcs, and the barbarian Dunlandings. After the war in the Fourth Age Gimli son of Gloin [dwarf member of the Fellowship of the Ring and survivor of the battle of Helm’s Deep] lead a group of dwarves of Erebor to Aglarond and became the Lord of the Glittering caves. Later on in the Fourth Age this became the most powerful dwarven kingdom in Middle-Earth."

-- LOCATIONS IN ARDA, PART 1 (Wordpress)

Source: https://middleearth3791.wordpress.com/2015/02/05/locations-in-arda-part-i & Facebook.

[rachelillustrates]

"Perry-love" 💕

So as busy as things are, I have been taking moments to slowly delve into the “Sansûkh” Appendices, and I recently got to “A New Coat.”

I have a loooooooooOoOoOo000Ot of thoughts on Perry and Gimizh as course-correction and closure for the (in canon) tragedy of Bagginshield, but that is addressed, tone-wise, by the fic itself, so you should really just go read it 💚

Also, if you haven’t read “Sansûkh” yet and are daunted by the scope of it, but want to get a taste of the universe to see what it’s like, I highly recommend jumping in here! Even if that’s unorthodox. This story is just a lovely, self-contained Hobbit/Dwarf rom com on its own, and a great example of the beauty of @determamfidd ’s writing.

(And design for these two once again impacted by @fishfingersandscarves ' illustrations!)

In any and all cases, be surviving and coping as best you can, everyone 🌼

~

Bonus art and stories ~ Prints, comics and more! 

[roselightfairy]

Wh--

"learning that Yoda had indeed left Aglarond with several seasoned masters to investigate the cloning facility on Kamino"

What is this wild "Aglarond" spotted in my SW WIP?

[tathrin]

hh

I'm very happy to show you the 2nd art I made for @tolkienrsb! This one is called Descent. Gimli is showing Legolas the Glittering Caves of Aglarond for the first time. Trying to incomporate all of the colors in this piece was a challenge. Thank you @coveredinsun for keeping me inspired this whole time!! I already know her fic is gonnabe amazing, and you'll be able to read it here on 6th of September when the collection becomes open for everyone!

[prokopetz]

I might be wrong, but I think you once mentioned in a post that older Forgotten Realms lore didn't relegate the Dommy Mommy Matriarchy exclusively to the drow, and there were good- and neutral-aligned dominatrix-y matriarchies. I'm wondering if you know/remember the names of any of those good ones, I want to read wikis about them to inspire my homebrew setting

The Witch-Queen of Aglarond, off the top of my head, though that dimension of her character is downplayed a lot in the post-2E era (and also I think they killed her off entirely at some point). Almost certainly others that aren't springing immediately to mind – Ed Greenwood knows what he likes!

[tathrin]

Hey, so do you ever stop to think about how the premise of Lord of the Rings being an in-universe book written by some of the characters who lived through that story means that they decided what parts and perspectives to use to tell that story...?

And when our authors weren't there to experience the events themselves, they have to rely on what they're told about them by the characters who were there, right...?

Okay so stop and think about the Glittering Caves.

We never actually go to the caves in the narrative. Tolkien LOVES describing nature and natural beauty, but we don't actually see the caves described "by him" the way we do other places. Obviously Gimli's words are Tolkien's, yes; but we only see the caves filtered through his words about them, after the fact.

When Gimli and Éomer and the other Rohirrim take refuge there, the narrative doesn't follow them. Obviously from a narrative standpoint this is to keep the focus narrow, and not to interrupt the battle-sequence with a long ode to the beauty of the caves, and to create tension in the reader who doesn't know if these characters are okay or not. Which all makes sense!

But think about it in terms of the book that was written in Middle-earth by the folk living there. Why DON'T we get to have a direct experience of those caves? Gimli obviously related several other parts of the story that none of the Hobbits were there to witness to them, and which were written into the books as Direct Events Happening In The Narrative (think of the Paths of the Dead scene, for one of the more visceral moments!). So why not the Glittering Caves?

Was it because they wanted to keep that narrative focus and tension, and so they didn't include his perspective on that part of the battle? Perhaps, that's certainly a possibility to consider.

But also consider: when we do hear about the Glittering Caves, what we hear is Gimli telling Legolas about the Glittering Caves. THAT is the part of that event that is considered of importance to include in the book: not Gimli's actual experience when he was in them, but rather the part where he relates that experience TO Legolas.

And I kind of just THOUGHT about that today.

And went HUH.

[roselightfairy]

Please may I recommend Fissures by Thundera Tiger

Gimli's rather unorthodox plans for the Glittering Caves raise a few questions (and more than a few concerns) about his friendship with a certain elf...

i love fanon calling gimli the “lord of aglarond” because aglarond is the name for the glittering caves in SINDARIN!!!!!!!! gimli brought legolas there and legolas said “HOLY FUCK” and called it beautiful in his own language and gimli just adopted that!!!!!!!!! so now the love between them will carry on forever in name long after they’ve sailed away together!!!!!!!!! CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME

[enderhood]

Getting Batty 🦇

My first Batstarion comic has finally completed after like a year with breaks and being busy in real life in the process 🥳

This story takes place in the Grove in Act 1, everything remains the same except for a bit of a twist. What if the locked storage room’s lock is cursed and will turn the one who fails to disarm the trap into a fluffy animal?

Hope you all enjoy this short silly comic. I will post more about my Tav Nyx in the future.

For those who are interested, she is a young half Drow Lore Bard who is originally from Aglarond, one of the highly concentrated half elves population areas located in the Unapproachable East, East Faerun. She had never been to the western part of Faerun until the Mindflayers captured her while she was traveling near Waterdeep during her study break. Nyx’s study break has turned into an involuntary adventure while she has to take care of a band of misfits in the process.

[earhartsease]

we were just discussing with a friend the bit in lotr where Gimli is first ranting to Legolas about the glittering caves of Aglarond and we love that dialogue, we imagine Gimli just lighting up like a firefly talking about the caves and Legolas' heart growing three sizes

we have this headcanon of when the two of them travel through Fangorn at the end and Gimli learns to love the forest through Legolas' eyes, and eventually tentatively asks him why Galadriel called him Legolas Greenleaf, and Legolas laughs lightly and explains that it's just literally what his name means

and Gimli murmurs shyly "I just thought she was describing you" because he loves Legolas and now also loves the forest and more and more sees Legolas as like a beautiful ash tree

*gets all emotional writing this*

[caramelldraws]

A quick piece of Legolas and Gimli visiting the glittering caves / Aglarond :3