#gratuitious tolkien reference

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Getting a bachelor’s degree in music.... call that a macalaurëate

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Do you like hobbits (well, "Shirefolk", because this is an inofficial and unlicensed project)? Do you like cooking? Do you like hobbit cuisine? Then I'd like to invite you to have a look at this Kickstarter for... dun dun dun... a cookbook inspired by hobbit cuisine! The English translation of that cookbook which has already been published in German, to be exact. The Kickstarter runs from July 21 to August 6, 2023, so there's a couple of days left to jump on board!

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Either folks are using the concept of a "hard" consonant very differently from how I learned it or they're reading the appendix on pronunciation wrongly

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Don’t even know what pisses me off most about the “LOL evil Tolkien Society coming after a poor innocent fan account for posting a copyrighted image” post Like. Is it

- people being genuinely too stupid to understand the difference between copyright and a fucking NFT

- people just reblogging for the LULz without even bothering to understand what the situation is actually about

- people defending the M/ellonH/eads’ and their followers’ right to behave like assholes bc the TS were kinda petty

- people acting like Tolkien would be horrified about the whole thing as if he didn’t sue AceBooks back in the day (rightfully) and his descendants haven’t regularly been coming after every uncopyrighted use of his name writing or art (sometimes understandably, sometimes less so)

- people apparently not understanding that whether or not the image is widely available via google search, IT CAN STILL BE COPYRIGHTED? And those other places may or may not have paid for the right to use the image, either to the TS or the previous copyright holder? Like. What the hell is too difficult to understand here?

- people acting like this is covered by fair use like the M/ellonH/eads aren’t a commercial podcast (no matter how fan-run) using this image to advertise their project? Like, no, that is not actually a non-profit use. What isn’t clicking here

- people acting like asking whether they have permission to use that image is harrassment. Like. The TS literally asked “Do you have permission”. How is that “harrassing” or “threatening” IDK how you people survive

- people blaming the TS for everything the Tolkien Estate and/or Middle-earth Enterprises ever did like those aren’t three entirely separate entities

- rightwing dudebro fanboys using the whole kerfluffle to once again hate on the TS for acknowledging that POC and/or queer and/or disabled people reading Tolkien’s works might kinda have a right to exist and do their thing

- people acting like the TS was stupid for paying 18K pounds on the picture as if they didn’t buy an entire set of photographs by photographer Pamela Chandler as well as several letters at that price

- again, people acting as if paying (or expecting) money for the use of a picture (or the accompanying copyright) is the same thing like people creating NFTs? Like no? That’s just how art works?

- people mocking the TS for privating their account now like that isn’t the result of days of bullying

NO WAIT IT’S DEFINITELY

- volunteers for a non-profit literary society getting harrassed (actually harrassed, not just asked “do you have permission to use that image”) and sent individual hate messages because one of them may have been a little graceless but ABOVE ALL because a fucking COMMERCIAL podcast didn’t do their fucking research and instead of being graceful about it  and going “my bad, will remove the picture” or else asking for permission to use the image , acted like they were in the right and basking in the applause of various social media platforms

And thanks to the combined reading comprehension and critical thinking skills of Tumblr and Twitter, somehow the TS are the “monsters Tolkien warned us about” here? UUUUUURGH.

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where's the lie

where'd you get that tablecloth? blanket? curtain? whatever the gondorian textile thingy in the background is OP. we wants it precious

All of my special guys are in here

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Priscilla Tolkien passed away two days ago (28th February, 22).

I know there are more dramatic things going on in the world right now, and 92 is a good innings, but I still don’t want to let it go entirely unremarked. It’s the end of an era. Enyalien.

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Ruthandol? How the everloving fuck would you come up with Ruthandol? There’s. There’s a reason that it’s written with a double-S. Means that it has shit fuck all to do with the TH -> S development (not to mention that... not all later Quenya S once were TH?! Some have always been S? silmë as an individual Tengwa exists? I mean, it’s a fairly significant sound in, IDK, Silmaril?!). The double-S in transcription represents a whole-ass Tengwa of its own (essë)? This isn’t even complicated or ambiguous it’s just... IDK? Revisionism? Hypercorrection? Pseudo-Fëanorian bullshit? I mean, you can name an OC Ruthandol (or rather, Rúthandol) because rúsë/rúthë “wrath” exists. It’s correct Quenya. But. It very much isn’t a valid form of Russandol (Don’t mind me, I’ve been reading the AMA with Bill Fliss and someone asked the poor man whether Ruthandol would be more correct than Russandol. He wisely abstained from answering and declared that he was out of his depth there. I, however, am not.)

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Unironically love being in a fandom where ‘It's in footnote 51 to "Of Dwarves and Men" in The Peoples of Middle-earth specifically' isn’t even an uncommon thing to say in casual conversation

The Tolkien fandom really is just... people who for one reason or another didn’t get a job in academia but still want to do academia like. One the side. As a hobby

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OK listen. Listen. The damn Noldor can talk how they want. Languages change, that's fine, it happens. But the people who maintain Quenya dictionaries or do Quenya translations? I am BEGGING them to PLEASE note the words that used to have the TH sound in a manner that is CLEAR and IMMEDIATELY VISIBLE and NOT EASILY OVERLOOKED. Because here's the thing. When you write those damn sounds, you still need to use the erudamn thúlë/súlë tengwa. It doesn't matter whether you say [θ] or [s], you still need to write th. Which means that unless you (or the translator you work with) remember to watch out for the teeny tiny note that's like "oh hi this is one of the words affected by the th->s change!" then you WILL end up using silmë and it WILL be wrong. Because some words had [s] all along and you spell those differently from those that used to have [θ]! HOW MANY beautiful Tengwar projects have I seen where the creators forgot just that? Many. And that includes stuff by Big Name Tolkien Linguists who could and should have known better. For that matter, how many possibly not beautiful but at any rate ambitious Tengwar projects have I begun and then had to overhaul when I actually looked up the words bc the translators didn't bother to write/mark the th issue and I was naïve enough to trust big names? Too. Damn. Many. And you may wonder who cares about spelling Tengwar accurately, and technically you're right, but let's be real. This is the Tolkien fandom. Someone will always notice and at some point it WILL bother you that the g*ddamn Ainulindalë that you painstakingly transcribed illuminated and illustrated is full of spelling mistakes. (Yes, I am speaking from experience.) TL;DR Unless the fricking Noldor adjust their bloody spelling alongside their pronunciation I say we keep the erudamn [θ] sound

Idea for the poll submitted by anonymous – slightly altered.

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Shocked when copyright holders are tightening the language around their copyright so suddenly everyone understands just how many things that copyright includes. Absolutely shocked and completely surprised. Oh wait, actually none of this is new. It’s just being made more explicit so people don’t build a whole website around selling Elvish translations and then are surprised when the TE drags them to court about it. So folks don’t put Tolkien’s art, maps or entire books on the web so people can download them. So companies don’t buy Tolkien-related domains for the sole purpose of selling them on to the highest bidder, hoping to cash in on the latest adaptation. (And I honestly can’t believe that people here on Tumblr think that some sort of shady business wouldn’t open a “Tolkienworld” theme park in a blink if they didn’t have to fear the TE slapping their fingers. Y’all know this would happen and you’d hate it.)

The point is not that they’re planning to crack down on every single fanficcer cheerfully sharing their fanfic anymore than they previously did. It’s not about dragging everyone who translates a line into Quenya or transcribes someone’s name in Tengwar to Angband and back. It’s specifically about having worded it in such a way that it is plain, easily understood without having studied Legalese(TM), and pretty much covers their base whenever they decide that they need to crack down on something. (Which might as well be some white supremacist assholes trying to use Tolkien quotes for their purposes. Just saying.)

You have always had to ask permission for public live readings. You’ve always needed to stay within certain limits concerning quotation, even in a scholarly context, and in a commercial context you’ve always needed permission. None of this is new. Stop monster-shouting and chill down. (And stop asking money for your fanart or translations or, good grief, fanfic.)

The TE haven’t “gone crazy”. They haven’t “lost their minds”. They have decades of experience with people disregarding their copyright, either because these people didn’t give a damn or - and this is the relevant bit - because they thought they’d found a loophole. The TE are trying to make the language on their website as painfully self-explanatory as they can so they can avoid some of these lawsuits in the future.

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ppl keep talking about how the Amazon show can’t mention Feanor and the Silmarilli bc they don’t have the rights to the Silmarillion (only to the LotR appendices) as if Appendix A didn’t namedrop Feanor on the very first page like

What the hell are you talking about. What LotR appendices were you reading.

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On a more humorous note

I’ll say this for Tumblr - it’s making the Oath of Feanor a lot more relatable. You do something that feels like a good idea at the time, but then it takes on a life of its own. Every comment notification is a reminder of your past sins. Even if you delete the original post, reblogs of it still reappear on your dashboard every now and then, and you can only stare in horror at what your post has become. Whenever you think it has finally settled down, it’ll pop out of somebody’s queue and spark the whole fight all over again. Unless you delete your account and walk away from Tumblr altogether, it will haunt you forever

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That's not actually what happened though? Thingol at the very least developed from Common Telerin all the way back when Sindarin grew into its own language, way before any of the Noldor even dreamed about using [s] for everything. This is like saying that the Vanyar speak "Fëanorian Quenya" too (which is really more like Ye Olde Standard Quenya). Actually most Elven languages retained [θ]! Fëanor isn't special. I mean, of course he is the speciallest boy that ever specialled! but not with regard to how he pronounces his words

Thingol's Quenya ban gets 1000x funnier once you realize that a lot of older Quenya names are translated to Sindarin with a thorn sound instead of a ssss sound (Sorontar = Thorondor,  Singollo = Thingol, etc.). Great job, Thingol! You went to the trouble of banning a language, but your own name has Fëanorian Quenya elements! You claim to have slain a giant, and yet you stand on its shoulders and think yourself tall!

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Honestly I’m kinda sad that they’re probably not going to use the Aldarion and Erendis material in the Rings of Power series. It would be hilarious to see all the self-proclaimed purists shitting themselves over the ~*~insertion of feminism~*~ into their sacred dudebro fantasy when Tolkien actually wrote Erendis’ feminist speeches with his own hands

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Put this ramble in the tags of last night’ post but might as well give it its own post, so here goes.

I think younger/newer people in the Tolkien fandom need to understand that terms like ~*~morality~*~ and ~*~Tolkien’s worldview~*~ etc have been used to shut down queer and other diverse readings of the Legendarium for decades. In fact, judging by the backlash and commentry on the most recent Tolkien Society seminar, they’re still in use. So whenever they pop up - even if it has nothing to do with diversity in fandom/canon this time - it’ll prompt strong reactions from ye olde fans who are increasingly tired of being told that they’re doing fandom wrong, besmirching Tolkien’s memory, etc. etc. It may feel unfair at times, but there’s a history to these things.

Personally, I also find it hard to grasp why someone would feel that drawing a hard line between Good(TM) and Evil(TM) with no grey zones and no in-between makes a story more satisfying and less boring, rather than the other way round. Fandom and scholarship of Tolkien’s work (and other fantasy tbh) have been struggling - again, for decades - to counter the frequently used argument by the literary establishment concerning the over-simplified morality of fantasy - in which good and evil are always clear, in which (as one critic put it) “the good boys win and everybody gets to go home” - which simply is not true for the Silmarillion (or even The Hobbit or LotR, although it’s easier to get that impression there), and which probably is what makes the Silmarillion so satisfying for a lot of readers in spite of the obvious difficulties of the text. So that’s another thing that touches upon the very foundations of the fandom. Even if it ultimately comes down to different opinions on what’s “complex” or “interesting” (or different interpretations on a specific reading). So these are two things that, hm, are included in opinion pieces at one’s own peril. Even if it’s intended to be about personal opinion, it touches so deeply upon the foundations of the fandom that a bit of an earthquake will be unavoidable.

As for the Free Will vs. predestination debate - now that’s something that theologians have been trying to puzzle out for centuries, and as far as I’m aware the issue still hasn’t been settled to everyone’s satisfaction. My faith in the Tolkien fandom’s brainpower is nearly endless, but I don’t think we’ll manage to hash out that one.

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!!!

So apparently The Fall of Númenor is going to be published in November! I’m EXCITED. I was driving home two and a half years ago, randomly thinking that I was hoping that Christopher Tolkien would (again) deviate from what he’d said in the preface to The Fall of Gondolin re: this being the last work of his father’s that he’d edit, and go to publish the Númenor material in a single tome, too. And the next day I found out that he’d passed away. But now the book is coming anyway! Forgive my excited rambling, but that makes me so happy.