#aragorn's a third wheel

[idontcarecarebear]

'Two!' said Gimli, patting his axe. He had returned to his place on the wall.

'Two?' said Legolas. 'I have done better, though now I must grope for spent arrows; all mine are gone. Yet I make my tale twenty at the least. But that is only a few leaves in a forest.'

Poor Aragorn listening to these two flirt while fighting for his life in Helms Deep.

[tathrin]

Oh no help, why is my brain suddenly full of an RAF (or RFC) AU where Legolas is a pilot who gets the nickname “Greenleaf” because of how lightly and acrobatically he flies (and also he should probably be Irish or Scottish so the Brits can be derisive about his “more dangerous and less wise” people hmm? ooh or Indian! doesn’t really matter as long as he wears a lot of green so the nickname makes sense lmao) while Gimli was too short for the army but is a fucking amazing mechanic and basically single-handedly responsible for how amazing this unit’s planes are and how no matter how wrecked their planes are if they can get them back to base at all he can fix them, and Legolas fell in love basically the first time he saw Gimli work his miracles with that wrench and Gimli is not in love thank you, he is very very annoyed by this chipper pilot who keeps getting holes shot in his fucking wings and he definitely doesn’t like him at all and certainly doesn’t go out of his way to tinker with Legolas’s plane all the time and make sure it’s the absolute best machine in the air oh no nope definitely not dammit and he certainly doesn’t fret every time Legolas flies off into battle or comes back with his engine smoking again that fucker oh how Gimli loathes him! until one day he finally hops out of a just-barely-landed-successfully plane that is literally on fire Legolas what the fuck you idiot and oh and he stumbles what’s wrong oh no is he hurt oh no and Gimli runs over to help him up and instead they kiss right on the runway oh fuck—!

And the whole unit has been taking bets on this forever, so Commander Strider has to come break up the fistfight between Éowyn-who-definitely-isn’t-using-her-brother’s-ID-and-the-whole-unit-doesn’t-know-she’s-secretly-a-girl-NOPE and Boromir over who now owes whom money before Boromir’s little brother, the only one in the unit who hasn’t figured out that Éowyn is a girl yet, does something stupid trying to stop his brother fighting with “the fellow” he definitely doesn’t have a crush on Boromir please—!

Strider is so tired. He didn’t sign-up for herding idiots in love, he’s just trying to win the damn war, do you lads MIND???

Lord Mithrandir is sitting in his office watching the show from the window and laughing so hard, he fucking loves his deranged pilots so much. He has pulled  so many blatant cover-ups for their hijinks, and everybody in high command knows that he’s tossing aside regulations left and right, but his units are the most successful pilots in the damn skies so nobody can do anything about it dammit. (He’s also definitely in cahoots with General Galadriel, who pulls his ass out of the fire every damn time somebody tries to bestow some kind of reprimand or punishment, and who gets regular “briefings” about his pilots that absolutely aren’t just gossip in disguise, and which she certainly doesn’t pass along to her granddaughter who’s engaged to Commander Strider, who definitely isn’t royalty in disguise, nope nope and also nope.)

[tekitothemagpie]

Two towers in a nutshell 💀💀

[burnt-scone]

[sighonaraa]

i bet the three hunters' search for the hobbits was like. road trip of the age. i bet aragorn fell asleep every night listening to legolas and gimli giggling in the dark. i bet legolas got them lost and they had to stop at a middle earthen gas station. i bet legolas and gimli argued so loudly that aragorn told them to stop or he'd Turn The Horses Around This Instant. i bet gimli got abandoned at aforementioned middle earthen gas station and aragorn and legolas had to turn around to get him

[apricusapollo]

me, my sister and her boyfriend are having lord of the rings marathon at 4 am and he's explaining The Lore to her as well and to make her understand better he said "you're my arwen" and I was like girl that's the highest honour you can receive like,,, me when 😭😭😭

[nobutthanksanyways]

*Prepare to yell so loudly that I wake up all of u from across the earth*

HAAAPPPYYYYY VALENTINES DAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ah yes, the scene where Gimli calls Éomer stupid and Éomer threatens to kill him and Legolas takes it personally

[vur-amoth]

*dreamy sigh* sexual reassignment surgery

[assiraphales]

it’s the way that aragorn introduced his lifelong friend to a mutual and ended up becoming a third wheel on his own quest to save middle earth. like bro was covered in dirt trying to sleep for an hour while the dwarf n elf were giggling n flirting on their bedrolls forced to witness an enemies to friends to lovers fic in real time

[tathrin]

So we talk about Third Wheel Aragorn a lot, and that’s good because he is one of the Classic Third Wheels Of All Time, and the period with the Three Hunters running around Middle-earth while two of them are falling head-over-heels for each other is just perfection. In fact, we should have more Third Wheel Aragorn stuff, because it’s frankly the best of his many (many) identities, imo.

But. We do not talk enough about Third Wheel Éomer and Faramir.

Because think about it! These two dudes were running Rohan and Ithilien when Gimli and Legolas were establishing their new dwarf and elf colonies. Which means that while Aragorn was busy being The Shiny New King Of Gondor, the Prince of Ithilien and King of Rohan (who yes was also busy being king, but surely had less Shit To Deal With because Rohan didn’t have a whole bunch of Huge Social And Practical Changes when Éomer got crowned like Gondor did, now did it?) took over management of his Two Idiot Friends In Love.

And depending on how long it took Legolas and Gimli to figure shit out...well. Just picture Éomer and Faramir meeting-up periodically to talk about political logistics and brother-in-law stuff...and eventually the conversation is going to turn to mutual friends, as it does. And one of them has this absurd poet dwarf running around waxing euphoric about pretty caves, and the other this weird half-feral tree-elf gremlin prancing around singing to the flowers. And both completely and absolutely obsessed with each other...and seemingly unaware of it. Would they commiserate? Absolutely. Would they try and wingman it? Ooh, probably. Would they somehow find a way to make things even more awkward, somehow? Almost definitely. And when Legolas and Gimli finally do get together, they can commiserate over that, too.

Just. You canNOT tell me that there isn’t bucket-loads of potential here for shenanigans and nonsense. And we need to see more of that, I think.

[throwingbread]

Also, the elf and dwarf are flirting the whole time.

aragorn's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week:

the fellowship breaks on his watch

forced to choose who to follow

runs over 200 kilometers in under four days

thinks merry and pippin are dead

meets the reborn gandalf (a rare win), immediately has to do a 180 and ride to edoras

immediately after that needs to ride to battle

takes part in a battle which takes place over the whole night

gets maybe 20 hours of sleep over the course of the whole week

and, I cannot stress this enough, this is all still very far from over

[graceofgondor]

Of all the lotr horses why does absolutely no one talk about Arod??? LIKE- HES THE GOODEST BOY.

He's the unofficial third wheel when aragorn isn't around, he loves to trot, and legolas calls him his friend in the books!! Like please I love him so much you guys give him some love.

[pastelsugar6w6]

thinking about how, when they're separated from the hobbits, between Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli it's two bros and the third wheel. Legolas has probably known Estel since he was a child and watched him grow up. They're very close friends if not practically brothers. I can absolutely see him fucking with Gimli by speaking Elvish to Aragorn but purposefully making it sound like he's talking shit about Gimli. And Aragorn will tell him Legolas is just talking about the weather but how can Gimli know? How does he know Aragorn is telling the truth?? He can't understand what's being said and Legolas has this shit-eating grin on his face every time

and contrarily Legolas sounds dead serious, almost angry, as he asks Aragorn in Elvish if he thinks Gimli will like some flowers he found by the river and if it would be too forward of him to ask if he can braid them into his beard

[bugstuff4ever]

okay okay headcannon that over the course of LOTR, legolas and gimli set up their bed rolls closer and closer to each other.

like when they’ve just left rivendale, they set up their sleeping mats/blankets on opposite sides of the camp, putting as much of the fellowship between them as possible.

then they get through moria, and they start to relax around each other a bit (grief), so they’re content with lying just a few feet apart.

then lothlorien happens, and they start to realize that they actually like one another, so they set up their bed rolls even closer together, maybe just a foot apart (they justify to themselves that it’s so they can continue whispering together through the night).

then the fellowship breaks and the three hunters are runningrunningrunning, and they’re both so exhausted that they can’t even feel self-conscious when they set up their sleeping pads right next to each other (touching), and fall asleep with their faces mere inches apart. (if they wake up the next morning to find they started cuddling sometime in the night, no one says anything).

and then finally, after the drinking competition in edoras, legolas kisses gimli (the jig is up), and they fall into each others arms; sharing lil smooches, whisper-flirting, and holding each other close until they drift off for the night (and every night for the rest of their lives).

meanwhile aragorn (third-wheel of the millennia) is like “good god if my obnoxious friends don’t GET A FUCKIN ROOM and let me finally GET SOME SLEEP i’m gonna lose my mcfreakin marbles”. (but, of course, he’s secretly really happy for them. everyone is).

[tathrin]

Another option: he noticed looooong before either of them figured it out...so long before, in fact, that he decided he must have been wrong (projecting because of how much he missed Arwen? yeah, that was probably it, SIGH!) and so when they finally DO start snogging at long long loooong last, he’s torn between “omg FINALLY!” and “wait, REALLY?” to the point of not even knowing how to react from the whiplash of it all.

it’s so funny to imagine either One: aragorn was aware of the fact he’s third wheeling legolas and gimli and he would just awkwardly be in the background of their cute couple moments respectfully looking away or Two: he never realised at all and is absolutely blindsided when they start kissing

[millenariumhappinesstheorem]

I like Gimli/Legolas not because of Gimli or Legolas but because it forces Aragorn to grimly third-wheel all the way from Rivendell to Mordor.