#clear winner

[gleesongtournament]

[sillylotrpolls]

Didn't expect this one to have such a clear winner that wasn't "Gandalf is Pippin's granddad" (12.7%), but apparently the power of pipeweed is just that strong. Even if you add the votes for all three "non-hobbit ancestor" options it's still only 23%; not within even a statistical margin of error of "pipeweed's" 28.3%. (As a reminder, perfectly even distribution would result in 8.33% for each option.)

I was also surprised that "his name means 'old man'" placed third (10.8%), but then again, Tolkien fans do love their linguistics. And interestingly, "he borrowed the One Ring" and "he had a lesser magic ring" had very distant 11th- and 12th-place finishes, with only 0.9% and 0.7% of the vote respectively.

Other than that, not much to say beyond that I hope we see more fanfiction plumbing this clearly deep well of ideas.

(Credit and a truly absurd amount of context below the poll in case you don't know who the Old Took is.)

Today's poll looks at a question posed by @sindar-princeling:

Bilbo barely passed Old Took's record lifespan after having a supernaturally-life-extending ring for 60 years. which begs a question. what the hell did Old Took do

In the notes on that post, the most popular theory by far was espoused by @mitsuhachiinthehive, who posited that Gandalf hooked up with a hobbit at some point and [some of] the Tooks are his descendants. This idea was further spread thanks to @the-haiku-bot.

Additional theories which I cribbed for poll options:

The diamond cufflinks were magical in more ways than one @elodieunderglass

He drank an ent-draught courtesy of the missing ent wives @betterofflost

He got hold of a random magic elven ring @morgulscribe

If you would like some a lot of context from canon so you can decide for yourself, more information about the Old Took is beneath the cut.

First off, it's established multiple times in the books what a big deal it was for Bilbo to beat Old Took's record. From The Return of the King:

He opened his eyes and looked up as they came in. 'Hullo, hullo!' he said. 'So you've come back? And tomorrow's my birthday, too. How clever of you! Do you know, I shall be one hundred and twenty-nine? And in one year more, if I am spared, I shall equal the Old Took. I should like to beat him; but we shall see.' [...] Little Elanor was nearly six months old, and 1421 had passed to its autumn, when Frodo called Sam into the study. 'It will be Bilbo's Birthday on Thursday, Sam,' he said. 'And he will pass the Old Took. He will be a hundred and thirty-one!' 'So he will!' said Sam. 'He's a marvel!'

Here's a biography on the old hobbit from Tolkien Gateway:

After the death of his father in 1248, Gerontius became the twenty-sixth Thain of the Shire. He was a friend of Gandalf, who gave him a pair of magic diamond studs and performed firework tricks during Gerontius' midsummer-eve parties. Gerontius Took reached the impressive age of 130, which made him the oldest Hobbit until his grandson Bilbo Baggins celebrated his 131st Birthday. He also held the record of most offspring, until Samwise Gamgee bested him with Tom's birth in S.R. 1442.

And from Tolkien Gateway's page on the Took Family:

Tooks were mainly of Fallohide Hobbit stock, and had quite a reputation for unusual behavior (among other things being more adventurous than the other Hobbits), a quality not valued in the Shire. For this they would be seen as less respectable, but those traits were "tolerated" thanks to their large numbers and wealth. An absurd legend among other families, was that one of the Took ancestors married a fairy. The Wizard Gandalf was a known, if disreputable, associate.

Here we have Gandalf introducing himself to Bilbo in The Hobbit. Note that Belladonna Took is one of the Old Took's 12 (!!) children.

“Yes, yes, my dear sir—and I do know your name, Mr. Bilbo Baggins. And you do know my name, though you don’t remember that I belong to it. I am Gandalf, and Gandalf means me! To think that I should have lived to be good-morninged by Belladonna Took’s son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!” “Gandalf, Gandalf! Good gracious me! Not the wandering wizard that gave Old Took a pair of magic diamond studs that fastened themselves and never came undone till ordered? Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties, about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesses and the unexpected luck of widows’ sons? Not the man that used to make such particularly excellent fireworks! I remember those! Old Took used to have them on Midsummer’s Eve. Splendid! They used to go up like great lilies and snapdragons and laburnums of fire and hang in the twilight all evening!” You will notice already that Mr. Baggins was not quite so prosy as he liked to believe, also that he was very fond of flowers. “Dear me!” he went on. “Not the Gandalf who was responsible for so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures? Anything from climbing trees to visiting elves—or sailing in ships, sailing to other shores! Bless me, life used to be quite inter—I mean, you used to upset things badly in these parts once upon a time. I beg your pardon, but I had no idea you were still in business.” “Where else should I be?” said the wizard. “All the same I am pleased to find you remember something about me. You seem to remember my fireworks kindly, at any rate, and that is not without hope. Indeed for your old grandfather Took’s sake, and for the sake of poor Belladonna, I will give you what you asked for.”

And for context, Sam was 102 when he sailed West, Merry was at least 103 and almost certainly older when he died, and Pippin at least 95. The uncertainty is because Tolkien describes their last years thus in the Appendices:

1484 In the spring of the year a message came from Rohan to Buckland that King Éomer wished to see Master Holdwine once again. Meriadoc was then old (102) but still hale. He took counsel with his friend the Thain [Pippin], and soon after they handed over their goods and offices to their sons and rode away over the Sam Ford, and they were not seen again in the Shire. It was heard after that Master Meriadoc came to Edoras and was with King Éomer before he died in that autumn. Then he and Thain Peregrin went to Gondor and passed what short years were left to them in that realm, until they died and were laid in Rath Dínen among the great of Gondor. 1541 In this year on March 1st came at last the Passing of King Elessar. It is said that the beds of Meriadoc and Peregrin were set beside the bed of the great king. Then Legolas built a grey ship in Ithilien, and sailed down Anduin and so over Sea; and with him, it is said, went Gimli the Dwarf. And when that ship passed an end was come in the Middle-earth of the Fellowship of the Ring.

[tainebot01]

Saying farewell to the fanon names, in my own special way…

[krazieka2]

I've played the Fire Emblem Husbando Dating Simulator Games

[ckret2]

rock paper scissors time, here's how this is gonna work: you win if you vote for the option that beats the option that gets the MOST votes. you lose if you vote for the option that the most people choose.

[naffeclipse]

I love that two people tagged me in this ALDSFJAF

it’s mothman’s birthday everyone say happy birthday mothman 🥳🎉

[whereispearlescentmoon]

If you have ever used the phrase “Scott gave Pearl her win in Double Life” or “Scott let Pearl win” or “Scott also won” or anything that implied Scott had anything to do with Pearl winning Double Life other than blowing himself up I have probably blocked you if I saw it and I’m not sorry. Pearl killed the last two soulmate pairs who weren’t her and Scott. She eliminated the last competitors. He gave her nothing, she won completely on her own merit.

Yeah he blew himself up, but like, she was going to kill him anyways? She was better geared and had a wolf army? I know people probably don’t mean it a way to invalidate her win, but the idea that her “gave her” or “let her” win is complete BS that discredits Pearl’s actual skill. She won by herself fair and square.

[14dayswithyou]

Quick question !! For those who have mobile notifications turned on for this side blog, how many notifications do you typically receive per hour?

From what I've been told, most followers have been receiving individual notifications for every single post I make, which can get annoying over time — especially considering how I (usually) publish 3 posts per hour. Because of this, I'm considering switching the queue to one post per hour instead.

Pros: less annoying notification pings lmao Cons: it would take longer for the queue to finish (though you'd still get the same amount of posts)

So, with that being said...

[16th-of-a-twigg]

🧚‍♀️💧

Ko-Fi

[carveredlunds]

heavy is the head that wears the cunty little bob (inspired by this incredible text post by @overthegardenwirtt)

[jinxedshapeshifter]

Has anyone else noticed that every prosecutor in the Ace Attorney series has at least one hyperfixation/special interest

Edgeworth's is Steel Samurai

Franziska's is whips

Godot's is coffee

Klavier’s is rock music specifically

Simon's are birds and samurai

Nahyuta's seems to be Khura'inese hells

van Zieks’s is vintage wines

Eustace's is classical music

Portsman's is athletics/sports

Excelsius's are fire and motorcycles

Conclusion: all the prosecutors in Ace Attorney are autistic

[semisolidmind]

Catnap and Dogday fight over being on Y/n's lap whenever they sit down in the cabin. You can't change my mind... Also, my compliments to the chef *Takes a chomp outta some art on the way out*

yep. though i don't think y/n would sit through it. they'd probably just get up and go do something else if the toys were going to fight over lap privileges. besides, dogday has the advantage because he actually gets to stay in the house. catnap has to wait for y/n to leave and get far enough out of the dog's reach so that he can snag them for cuddles.

[sillylotrpolls]

Results

Someone let Tolkien know his instincts were right on: when he was debating names for the second installment of his trilogy, he considered "The Treason of Isengard" before ultimately deciding that it wasn't relevant to Sam and Frodo's journey and so shouldn't be the full title. It did, however, get used as the title for the first half of the book.

I'm not sure how many people voting for it picked it because they knew it was Tolkien's second choice vs because they simply liked it out of the available options. However, the fact that it got all the way up to ~35% of the vote before falling back down to 26.7% strongly suggests that a good portion of the early votes were indeed from book readers. (My polls usually reach the hardcore fans first, then gradually spread to the casuals.)

Most of the other options were pretty close to the expected average for a poll with 12 options (8.33%). Much to my surprise, however, the least popular option was Frodo and the Mountain of Doom (1.4%), which I personally thought was a quite clever take on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Not sure why that didn't catch on.

Additional context

For those of you too young to remember or who simply weren't paying attention at the time, when 9/11 happened and the Twin Towers were destroyed in a terrorist attack several movies that were then in production made last-minute changes in response.

Most famously, Spider-man (the first one) removed all references to the towers after having featured them prominently in promotional materials. And animation fans are probably familiar with the story that Stitch originally hijacked a plane which he flew perilously close to buildings in Lilo and Stitch.

Obviously, The Two Towers was released with its original name intact, but there was a small movement to rename it at the time. Or more accurately, people pointed out the obvious "problem" with the title and wondered on the internet if it was going to "have" to be changed. This being 2002 and not 2022, the powers that be thankfully did not particularly care what some people on the internet said.

Also, although not strictly relevant to this poll, please appreciate this graphic someone on Wikipedia went to the trouble of making showing possible pairs of towers Tolkien considered having the title refer to.

In case you missed it

@rohirric-hunter shared a touching story about ordering the audio book of The Two Towers as a Barnes & Noble employee.

The movie references

If you wanted to know what movies were being referenced, a complete list is below the cut.

2 Lords 2 Rings (10.3%) 2 Fast 2 Furious - This was the title that made the least sense if you thought about it, but the format is a relatively common meme so I'm assuming that's why it overperformed the expected average.

Frodo and the Mountain of Doom (1.4%) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - Well, I thought it was clever.

The Ents Strike Back (5.4%) Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back - Honestly, I was pretty proud of this one too.

Look Who's Walking Too (3.2%) Look Who's Talking Too - This got my own vote. It's so broadly applicable to the story!

Rohan Family Values (2.8%) Addam's Family Values - I didn't expect this one to do well, and it didn't.

Frodo & Sam's Bogus Journey (8.2%) Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey - Looking at the notes, I'm not sure how many people voting for this one actually knew about the Bill & Ted sequel versus just liking the word "bogus."

The Desolation of Saruman (7.9%) The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - I didn't expect this one to do well either, but it held its own well enough.

The One With Helm's Deep (8.8%) Friends episode names reference - All Friends episodes are titled something like "The One With..." or "The One Where...", to the point that titles often use the abbreviation "TOW."

The Treason of Isengard (26.7%) As discussed above, this came directly from Tolkien himself. The Treason of Isengard is Book III (aka part 1 of The Two Towers), and The Ring Goes East is Book IV (aka part 2).

Lord of the Rings 2: Electric Boogaloo (9.7%) Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo - At this point, the sequel's title is better known than anything else about Breakin. Know Your Meme has a nice article on the topic.

Lord of the Rings 2: The Search For More Money (3%) Spaceballs reference - I was sad this one didn't do very well either (10 of 12), but I think people were aiming for more "serious" answers so they laughed but didn't actually vote for it.

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: Part 2 (12.5%) Reference to the glut of movies titled this way nowadays - Honestly a little disappointed this one placed second, actually, since to me it's the most boring of all. But I guess that's also what made it funny?

[social-cocoon]

Squid Game S2 spoilers

I think it was really interesting that the start of the season we see Gi-hun sort of running a tiny version of the Games. I saw the whole search as him, a wealthy man, offering less fortunate people money if they played a game with a big payout to the person or team who won. And the game was another children's game: hide and seek. He even had his own control room - his car with all the gadgets in it to monitor the "players". The main differences are that he wasn't purposefully sending them to their deaths over the money, they would all be paid so long as they participated, and the intent wasn't to exploit them.

The thought isn't going anywhere, I just think it's pretty neat

[amber-tortoiseshell]

Click for more pictures

Chiyo (@since-times-long-forgotten)

Inception cat

[a-caterpillars-world]

The Chariot and his entourage

[I] [II] [III] [IV] [V] [VI] [VII]