#tolkien never explained how

[urwendii]

i need to know how did the elves come to learn Black Speech, did they take some Orcs prisoners and learn from them - orcs who barely spoke it properly, if at all ? Were there books? did Sauron have a youtube channel where he talked about his conlang?

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

why did i write this oc like he's in love with thingol

[heyclickadee]

So, my family is rewatching Rings of Power, and since I’m the one in the family that read The Silmarillion (like a masochist), I’m the one who keeps getting asked all the questions.

[andorians-antennae]

if there are any Tolkien nerds who are also metalheads around here then hold onto your seats because I'm about to blow your minds.

The schedules so happened to align that I went to a Wind Rose concert and a Blind Guardian concert the very same weekend. One day I'm there shouting and stomping, yelling about the sons of Durin and then the next day I'm screaming at the top of my lungs about Fingolfin fighting Morgoth.

TELL ME THIS IS NOT THE MOST INCREDIBLE THING THAT EVER HAPPENED

[clownboy-yeehonk]

.

[elodieunderglass]

Having dug out the Unfinished Tales to reference a conversation Tolkien wrote between Gandalf and Pippin (but didn’t publish) I thought I’d share it. Gandalf is talking to Pippin about the history of Thorin’s company, hobbits and why he chose Bilbo.

This is evidence for the grand statement I just made about how Bilbo was intended to be a catalyst that changed his society, and that hobbit society was indeed significantly different after his journey, with large social changes occurring between The Hobbit and Fellowship. But it’s also a very funny passage to me so here it is:

‘And then there was the Shire-folk. I began to have a warm place in my heart for them in the Long Winter, which none of you can remember.

They were very hard put to it then: one of the worst pinches they have been in, dying of cold, and starving in the dreadful dearth that followed. But that was the time to see their courage, and their pity one for another. It was by their pity as much as by their tough uncomplaining courage that they survived. I wanted them still to survive.

(😭😭😭😭. Also the theme of having pity for each other is what redeems both Bilbo and Frodo re: Gollum.)

But I saw that the Westlands were in for another very bad time again, sooner or later, though of quite a different sort: pitiless war.

(This is possibly one reason why this passage didn’t make it to publication - Gandalf shouldn’t have had this much foreknowledge of the upcoming war of the ring.)

To come through that I thought they would need something more than they now had. It is not easy to say what. Well, they would want to know a bit more, understand a bit clearer what it was all about, and where they stood.

(It’s also explaining that Bilbo’s role in Thorin’s company was predetermined both by a more omnipotent Gandalf and by Fate; that Gandalf selected Bilbo to be a social catalyst, to return and provoke hobbit society into a more adaptable, resilient state; therefore increasing their chances of surviving.)

They had begun to forget: forget their own beginnings and legends, forget what little they had known about the greatness of the world. It was not yet gone, but it was getting buried: the memory of the high and the perilous. But you cannot teach that sort of thing to a whole people quickly. There was not time.

(Thus Bilbo was supposed to be changed, and return changed by his journey, to teach his people.)

And anyway you must begin at some point, with some one person. I dare say he was “chosen” and I was only chosen to choose him; but I picked out Bilbo.’

‘Now that is just what I want to know,’ said Peregrin. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘How would you select any one Hobbit for such a purpose?’ said Gandalf. ‘I had not time to sort them all out;

(He is SO funny)

but I knew the Shire very well by that time, although when I met Thorin I had been away for more than twenty years on less pleasant business. So naturally thinking over the Hobbits that I knew, I said to myself: “I want a dash of the Took” (but not too much, Master Peregrin)

(This is brilliant we are always BODYING pippin constantly. NOT TOO MUCH TOOK 👀. We were ROBBED not having this in canon )

“and I want a good foundation of the stolider sort, a Baggins perhaps.” That pointed at once to Bilbo.

(Eugenics! Observing them like laboratory mouse lines! Call him a Charles River BILB/o the way you’re genotyping these poor little bastards for your purposes)

And I had known him once very well, almost up to his coming of age, better than he knew me.

(??? Hiding in the bushes spying or…?)

I liked him then. And now I found that he was “unattached” – to jump on again, for of course I did not know all this until I went back to the Shire. I learned that he had never married. I thought that odd, though I guessed why it was; and the reason that I guessed was not the one that most of the Hobbits gave me: that he had early been left very well off and his own master.

(Was it cos he’s gay as fuck, Gandalf)

No, I guessed that he wanted to remain “unattached” for some reason deep down which he did not understand himself – or would not acknowledge, for it alarmed him.

(I 100% now and for always love a narrator in a constant state of Just Fucking Lies To Everyone All The Time, Giving Us Nothing, Acknowledging Nothing Including Himself. NOPE NOT PROCESSING ANYTHING TODAY THANKS. WE’RE CLOSED. COME BACK TOMORROW. just A Massive Liar about everything and for what!!! Bilbo Baggins my beloved you were born wrong.)

He wanted, all the same, to be free to go when the chance came, or he had made up his courage. I remembered how he used to pester me with questions when he was a youngster about the Hobbits that had occasionally “gone off ”, as they said in the Shire. There were at least two of his uncles on the Took side that had done so.’

You can see why I love this! And I can see why Tolkien didn’t include it, too. Still very fun passage and near enough to canon to be used if you ever want to.

[fragiledewdrop]

WHERE NOW THE HORSE AND THE RIDER-Aka how I just had a Tolkien related freak out on the train

I can't believe what just happened to me. As in, it's such a weird chain of events that it has left me a little dizzy.

I was reading "Les Nourritures Terrestres" by Gide, and I got to a point he cites parts of a poem which I liked very much. The notes informed me that it's a French translation of "an 8th century saxon elegy called 'The Wanderer' "

That intrigued me, and, being on a train with a lot of time to pass (plus being a little tired of reading in French), I took out my phone and searched for the poem.

I found it here. It's the lament of a warrior in exile who has lost his lord and mourns the joy and glory of a world that has now disappeared. I was enjoying it a lot.

And then I got to this point:

And my mouth actually dropped open, because what?

Are you telling me that the Lament for the Rohirrim, one of my favourite poems in LOTR, which I learnt by heart at 13 and later took care to learn in the original English, which I sing when I do the dishes and which routinely makes me cry, is Tolkien's translation of an 8th century Saxon elegy?

Well, the notes at the end of the page confirmed it:

"Tolkien's rendition is hard to resist" I bet it is. I love that professional philologists add notes to their work saying "yeah, by the way, this bit here? It's in your favourite fantasy novel, and I am kinda jealous of how well it was translated, but it's Tolkien, the man spoke Old English, what can you do? Carry on, xoxo"

I mean, I had gathered that the Tolkien poem played on themes used in medieval literature, but I had no idea it was based on an actual, specific text. That makes it a hundred times cooler!

Maybe it's common knowledge, but it was a delicious tidbit of good news to me. Especially since I wasn't expecting it in the least, so I was blindsided by it.

Cherry on top? I had ignored the Old English text, since I don't understand it, but at the end I gave it a cursory read , and the line "Alas for the splendor of the prince"? "Eala þeodnes þrym!"

Now, I have never studied Old English, but I know roughly how to pronounce it (what kind of Silmarillion fan would I be if I didn’t recognize the thorn?). þeodnes has to be where "Theoden" comes from, right?

Apparently yes. I googled the "Lament for the Rohirrim", and Tolkien Gathaway has a nice little parapraph in which they explain all this. I don't know why I had never read it before, but it was a lot more fun learning it as an unexpected detour from my French practice, not gonna lie.

Bottom line: Tolkien was a both a nerd and a genius and continues to make my life brighter, and this is one of those moments in which I am very happy I have spent years of my life learning languages.

Thanks for coming to my impromptu TedTalk.

[a-araiguma-a]

He loved only her

No one in particular, just an elf from the universe of J. R. R. Tolkien. Elf x f!reader

In the ancient forests of Middle-earth, where tall trees concealed the sky, there lived an elf. His people were as eternal as the forest itself, and their hearts were rarely clouded by mortal emotions. But one day, he met a woman—a simple, human, mortal woman. There was something about her that made his heart beat faster: her beauty, which could neither be captured by the finest poets nor sung by the greatest musicians, her mind, so unlike that of other humans, filled with thoughts, ideas, and philosophy, or her eyes, in which one could drown if they gazed too long. It was something he could not understand, but this only made his love grow deeper.

"Cormamin lindua ele lle"—he always wanted to tell her that his heart sang at the sight of her, but it was not the right time, not yet. From the moment of their first meeting, he sought her out and waited for her in this forest every day when the sun's rays gently touched the ground, filtering through the thick foliage.

She told him about her world, about the brief lives of humans, about how they lived and died, dreaming and suffering.

"Lle naa vanima,"—he blurted out one day, not even realizing when he had said it: "You are beautiful." "What did you say?"—fortunately, she didn't understand his words, and that saddened him. It was not enough for him to meet her in the evenings; he longed to extend their conversations, to stretch them out for an hour, two, or forever. He listened to her stories, captivated not by the words themselves but by how her voice filled the emptiness in his soul. Without her, he would never have known the need to fill it.

"Tua amin!"—But did he need help? Did he need to be saved from her? Honestly, no, he was ready to drown in her eyes, ready to die if only to meet her once more. He was ready for anything...

But the Elf did not know how to tell her about his feelings. He understood that the time she gave him was limited, and each moment with her was precious. But how could he explain this? How could he tell her that his heart, which had always been eternal and free, now belonged to her? "The more you love someone," he thought, "the harder it is to tell them." "Nin lithiach, Meleth nín"—she truly enchanted him every time he saw her, even in his thoughts. His beloved. "Guren mil gaim lín"—his heart was in her hands—"Tessa sina ten’ amin"—he asked her to keep it, but in truth, she was free to do with it as she wished, as long as it was her.

And she accepted him. She had loved him too, ever since then, but she understood that it would be difficult for him; her life was short, and what would happen afterward, when she left him? She was ready to weep over such a truth. "Amin uuma malia, Arwen en amin"—it didn't concern him. Being with her and having her even for a moment was already enough. The chance to call her his—that was his happiness. His Lady, who ruled his heart and mind.

As the years passed, she began to talk more often about parting, though it pained the elf to hear it, he couldn't disagree. "When the day comes that we part," she said quietly, "if my last words aren't 'Amin mela lle,' you'll know it's because I didn't have time." In those moments, he remained silent, lost in thought, unable to find the words to express that his love knew no bounds of time. "Meleth e-guilen, my love is selfish. I can't breathe without you,"—she was the love of his life. How could she speak of them parting, not seeing her, not inhaling her scent in the mornings, no more afternoon conversations about books, about how Ellen had messed up her work again, no more seeing her smile, or those gentle eyes full of love for him... "Aa’ lasser en he coia orn n' omenta gurtha!"—Let the leaves of her tree of life never wither, he prayed. Just a little longer, he wasn't ready yet, but how could he stretch this time?

But when the fog enveloped the forest, and the cold wind brought with it a premonition of farewell, the elf finally spoke what was in his heart. He took her hand and said: "I was destined to live a thousand years, and I belong only to you for all those years. If we were to live a thousand lives, I would want you to be mine in every one of them." She looked at him, and a tear glistened in her eye. She knew their time was running out, but these were the words she believed in more than anything in the world.

For the elf's love was as eternal as the forest itself, and he continued to love, despite their parting, carrying his feelings for her through the years and ages of his life.

"Cormamin niuve tenna’ ta elea lle au’"—My heart will wait until it sees you again. "Le me ithon anuir"—I will love you forever. "Quel kaima"—Rest well.

[comicaurora]

do you have any tips on writing soft magic systems? I only ever see them talked about when people are comparing it to hard magic systems or criticising it, which is a shame because I love systems where magic is just in the background being unimportant, with implied rules that will never be explained

god I wrote up like eight paragraphs of explanation and I was really working out some cool stuff there and then the app glitched and destroyed it all and I'm so upset

Unfortunately this reduces to a previous problem, which is "figure out how Tolkien did it and then do that."

Middle Earth is laden with magic. Hobbits being good at hiding is magic. There's a random throne in the ruins at the end of Fellowship that lets whoever sits in it see literally the entire world, and that's hella magic. Aragorn radiates One True King magic and occasionally heals people with a touch. Galadriel's mirror lets people see any point in time, past or future. Gandalf knows several spells, but most of the time he's doing less granular stuff by making lights or small fires or going all Servant Of The Secret Fire Wielder Of The Flame Of Anor etc etc. Elves are inherently so magical that the words of their language are never forgotten by anyone who hears them, the laws of physics don't apply to them, their havens are magically pleasant and beautiful, and the planet itself is magical for them - flat for the elves, round for everybody else.

The benefit of a soft magic system is that it produces a feeling in the characters and audience that the world is vast, wonderful and unknowable. It's at its best when it can answer why, but not how.

Why did the old empire of men have a throne that let you see the entire world? That makes sense! It's hugely tactically advantageous! HOW did they get the damn thing? No idea, doesn't matter, they clearly made it work somehow because the throne's right there. Why does Galadriel's mirror give you limited, randomized omniscience? Because while it's a useful tool if you can use it, seeing the future is a dicey and weird game, and the future can change if someone knows it's coming. HOW does riverwater in a birdbath do that? No idea.

Soft magic systems start running into difficulties when the writer needs to decide how it can or can't solve a given situation, which is a very common issue in storytelling, a format almost entirely centered on problems and solutions. For hard magic systems with clear parameters on what is and isn't possible, this is comparatively quite easy. The wizard can't magic this problem away because-

They're out of spell slots :(

They don't know a specific spell that can do that specific thing

There's another caster nearby stopping them

The object that lets them do magic isn't working

They need to speak words/do gestures/use materials to cast, and they can't for whatever reason

There's something "antimagic" around stopping them

Etc etc. The possibilities are easy to run through, because the "how" is clearly defined, and can be negated into a "how NOT." If magic uses spell slots, stop the characters using it by taking those slots away. If magic needs a material focus, break or destroy it. This prevents magic from feeling like an unsatisfying "a wizard did it" fix for all difficulties because the wizards can only do specific things under specific circumstances.

Soft magic systems can contrive answers to this too, but it can be a bit tricky to justify, and if it's Too Convenient it can feel like the magic system really just does what the writer needs it to do. When asked "why can't magic solve this problem?" soft magic systems can answer in several ways:

Too tired, sorry :( magic is Taxing and stuff so the caster can tip over whenever's convenient

They're in a Bad Vibes zone that's hindering their ability to cast because soft magic can be impeded by soft problems like "somebody was very mean here once"

That specific magic is tied to a specific location, like a magical elf forest, and doesn't work outside of it because it's intrinsic to the place and can't be replicated

There's another magical being around and their kung-fu is more powerful

These explanations work, but that's conditional on the story not making the audience think the magic SHOULD work in this situation, and this is entirely based on what's been established in the story thus far. If the wizard has been able to fly up until now, parking the gang at the bottom of the cliff and saying "sorry, fly machine broke" feels contrived. But if we've only ever seen other, intrinsically magical beings fly, the audience is unlikely to expect that the party's humble wizard will suddenly bust out a set of feathery wings as a gift from baby jesus himself. On the writing side, it's really a matter of feeling it out and making sure nothing feels too jarring - if the character who's previously displayed a certain specific space of abilities suddenly does something completely unrelated (like going from clairvoyance to slinging fireballs, or from a healing touch to earthbending) that feels inconsistent AND it teaches the audience that this soft magic system is softer than they realized, and can then make it much harder for the writer to then convince them that this caster CAN'T spontaneously manifest a power or gimmick that'll save them. But if the magical characters or objects operate within a specific space - one character that specializes in fire, one object that specializes in remote viewing, one artifact that lets its holder control the winds - then the audience will expect and accept things that fit in those broad, soft categories without speculating too much on the underlying "how" of their mechanics.

But the temptation to explain "how" is very strong for writers, and soft magic systems especially have trouble with this, because soft magic systems start calcifying into fragmentary hard systems when they're forced to explain "how". It locks in a hard-defined axiom that can be logically extrapolated. Because a soft system is not DESIGNED for that kind of internal logic, doing that will usually cause axiomatic collisions as they contradict one another. If a hard system is a crisp, geometric crystalline structure where any tangent line drawn through it will intersect cleanly with other lines in very predictable ways, adding "how"s to a soft magic system is like drawing tangent lines through a bowl of pudding - you're gonna get a lot of intersections in awkward places.

To pull an example out of absolutely nowhere, if a soft system without clear rules establishes something like "this spell can be used to summon an object towards the caster, but it DOES NOT WORK on living things", there are a number of questions that can become relevant:

Who made that spell to have those limitations?

Why can't WE make spells that DON'T have that limitation?

How is the spell defining "living things"? Would it work on a plant or a skeleton or a piercing in someone's body?

Why did you let this character use it on a living thing anyway, joanne?

In a lot of soft systems that try to lock in hard spell parameters, "who made these spells" and "why can't WE make spells" become the first and most obvious axiomatic clash. If magic can be created to do what the caster wants, why and how does that work, and why can't WE do it? This forces the writer to come up with an explanation to solve the clash without letting the protagonists make up whatever spells they want, therefore solving all plot problems forever - sometimes something like "the inventors of spells were intrinsically magical beings, like elves or dragons or whatever, and thus we ordinary scrub mortals can't make new ones." That's a functional explanation, but it reduces to a previous problem again - that this hard-ish magic system was created by someone with access to an unstructured soft system.

In a soft magic system, the only answer to the question "how does this magical thing work" is "because magic." If any other explanation is needed, things rapidly collapse into hard lines and axioms and covering for edge cases. How can elves run on powder snow, shoot targets in the dark and see for hundreds of miles? They're magical. Does that mean they can fly like a balrog or sling fire like gandalf or control weather like saruman maybe can? No, of course not, that's not their kind of magic and we have no reason to expect it from them. They're just magic. Magic means a lot of different things, and in a soft system the audience has to operate based on vibes rather than rules.

This can be difficult to balance. For instance, Star Wars has a soft system in The Force, and if you squint, every single movie and show uses it differently. It's not super disruptive to the audience's immersion because it's never framed like a Hard System with Hard Rules and it almost never pulls something out of COMPLETELY nowhere, but if you look at what it does from movie to movie and then show to show, it expands from "influence the wills of the weak-minded", "seeing the future a little bit" and "force choking" to "general telekinesis" and "limited telepathy" to "FUCKING LIGHTNING FROM THE HANDS MAN" which is a hell of a twist the first time you see it, to some even more buckwild stuff in the two different animated Clone Wars (like Mace Windu fighting an entire droid army Samurai Jack style and using the force to pull every bolt out of one of them at once, or the planet with the living incarnations of the Light and Dark Side) and the explanation never goes further than "The Force is magic, it's in everything, people who are good at The Force can use it to do a buncha stuff." It's not consistent, it doesn't have rules, but the audience accepts that Force users can just kind of do stuff that fits the Vibes of the stuff it's already been shown it can do. And as SOON as they tried to say "The Force is strong in people who have LOTS OF MIDICHLORIANS" everybody hated it, because it gave us a "how" answer to a question nobody wanted to ask and it made this pervasive, wonderous, soft magic system that Surrounds And Binds Us Luminous Beings Are We into "we are space wizards because we contain an above-average number of bugs."

As a chronic worldbuilder myself, I absolutely understand the impulse to explain and overexplain and lock in the Hows and the Whys, but as far as I can figure it, soft magic systems live and die on the writer's ability to restrain themselves from saying "how." The answer is "magic." The rest is just writing the story in such a way that "magic" doesn't become plot-breaking.

[a-leg-without-fear]

Reading to Each Other 🪻

day one of tuna tober y'all!! i'm SO fricking excited! :D

Ship: Duke Leopold Mountbatten x f!Reader

Rating: 13+

Wordcount: 1.3k

Warnings: lots of LOTR, tobacco mention, riddles, kissing, cuddles

Series: Leg's Tuna Tober

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon. Rain pattered on your apartment's windows, the occasional roll of thunder booming outside. The spiced scent of your pumpkin candle floated through the living room air. Warm light shone from shaded lamps positioned on either end of your green-clothed sofa. A thick, soft blanket was draped over your lap.

You held your worn copy of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Images of a dark cave filled with still water and an eerie sense of calm floated from the yellowed pages. Sounds of whispered riddles and shaking hands holding shining jewelry bounced around inside your head. It was nearly impossible to read Tolkien and not get entirely engrossed.

"How's your book?" Leo asked from the other end of the couch.

You nearly jumped out of your skin. Your head snapped up from where you'd been hunched over your book, eyes wide, as you met Leo's amused gaze. A light laugh filtered through his bright smile.

"Sorry! Didn't mean to alarm you," he said, amusement clearly indicating that he wasn't sorry in the slightest. You shook your head and sighed at his antics.

"Uh huh. Sure," you groused with a growing smile.

Leo was equally curled up on his side of the sofa. Fluffy blanket draped across his lap, glasses fitted over his thin nose, copy of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen balanced in one of his hands. Hazel eyes trailed over the "grumpy" expression you'd forced over your face.

"Anything interesting standing out so far?" he asked, nodding to the book still clutched in your hands.

"I'm at one of my favorite parts, if that's what you mean," you replied as you burrowed deeper into the couch cushions. Leo tucked his bookmark into his novel, then set the book and his glasses on the end table nearest him.

"Care to elaborate?" he pressed with a cocked eyebrow. You bit your lip as you scanned over the pages again. Hisses and riddles and splashes of ground water leapt from the ink. Hmm. Riddles.

"Well, this part is about Bilbo bargaining, with a creature named Gollum, for his life. They're exchanging riddles as a sort of game," you explained, trying your best to not confuse a man who'd never heard of the Lord of the Rings.

"And what riddles are they?" Leo asked with a growing smile. He crossed his legs under his blanket to give you his undivided attention. You glanced between him and the book in your hands.

"You want to try and solve the riddles, or do you want me to read the whole part?"

"Just the riddles," he specified. You hummed in response.

"Alright, just know that they can get pretty tricky," you said in a singsong manner. Leo stared at you with apt interest as you turned to the correct page in your book. Inked words flew past your eyes, descriptions of swords and hobbits and tobacco and goblins filling your mind, nearly sucking you back into the story, before you found the first riddle. You cleared your throat and read, "What has roots as nobody sees, is taller than trees, up, up it goes, and yet never grows?"

"Has to be a mountain, isn't it?" Leo guessed almost immediately. He seemed rather confident in his answer, dimples digging into his cheeks with how wide his smile had stretched.

"Yup. Mountain," you answered, already thinking of which riddle to do next. Do you be nice and keep giving him the easier ones, or kick it up a notch? He did invent the elevator, after all.

"Give us a harder one, love," he said. That decides it for you, then.

"It cannot be seen, cannot be felt. Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt. It lies behind stars and under hills, and empty holes it fills. It comes first and follows after, ends life, kills laughter."

Leo blew out a long stream of air, "When I said hard, I didn't mean that hard!"

You refrained from making the obvious joke brewing at the back of your throat. An involuntary giggle leaked from your lips. You tried to play it off by resting your chin in your hand, fingers digging into your lips, to keep yourself quiet.

The room was quiet for a few moments as Leo considered the riddle. Raindrops trailed down the window, rivulets chasing each other and creating long tails that winded up the glass. This Sunday, utterly serene in its quality, was one of many you'd gotten to experience with Leo. Something about him just garnered peace in your life.

"Do I get a hint?" he asked with a sigh. You grinned at him from under your fingers.

"If Bilbo doesn't get a hint, neither do you," you said. Leo groaned, leaning back on the sofa and throwing an arm over his face. You couldn't help the laugh that breezed between your fingers.

"You are undeniably cruel," he grumbled under his arm.

"You wanted a harder riddle," you replied with a shrug. Leo grunted in return, making you laugh again. You waited a few more moments, letting him agonize over the riddle, before you decided to take pity, "What is it when your eyes are closed?"

"The hell are you on about? Is this a part two to the riddle?" Leo groused.

The blanket in your lap pooled into a pile on the floor as you crawled across the couch. Your sweatpants-clad legs framed Leo's hips, your hands running up his sides, as you sat in his lap. He begrudgingly lowered his arm and met your eyes.

"That was a clue. What do you see when you close your eyes?" you repeated as you ran your palms up and down his forearms. Leo's expression softened slightly.

"A spot of mercy," he said, smile returning, "I was wrong in labeling you cruel."

"Yeah yeah, Mr.1876. Just answer the damn riddle," you said as you rolled your eyes. Leo's warm palms found their usual place on your hips.

"You can't see it, feel it, hear it, or smell it. And closing my eyes has something to do with it," he listed, tongue darting across his bottom lip. A few more moments filled with pondering passed.

"For god's sake," you breathed as you clapped your hand over his eyes. The two of you had been together for so long that the action had hardly surprised him. You waited for a moment in hope that this obvious clue would help. Being met with only silence, you said, "What do you see right now?"

"Your hand, for one," Leo quipped back. He flinched with a laugh when you pinched him with your free hand.

"Close your frickin' eyes, Leo."

Silence settled over the two of you. Warm, comfortable, charged with amusement at your situation. Only Leo's smile could be seen from under your hand. His thumbs tucked under the hem of your t-shirt.

"It's dark," he finally said. You gave him a few moments to connect the dots. A gasp shook his chest, "Dark! That's the answer!"

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!" you exclaimed as you dropped your hand from his eyes.

Pure elation crinkled in the corners of his hazel eyes. He hugged you closer to his chest, a laugh shaking where your bodies met. You couldn't help but join in. Your arms wrapped around his shoulders to steady yourself.

"Do I get a prize for so effortlessly solving the riddle?" Leo asked with a hint of sarcasm after the two of you had calmed a bit.

"I'm deducting points for the use of a hint," you hummed, feigning consideration at his question.

"And those points, will they affect the prize I know I've earned?"

You answered his question by pressing your lips to his. Both smiling, both clinging to the other with absolute adoration, the occasional giggle buzzing between you.

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon. It was raining outside, your candle had burnt down to the wick, and you were cradled in Leo's lap as you both read your respective books. Your back to his chest, blanket draped over both of your laps, his cheek rested on the crown of your head. Every now and then you'd read a part of your book aloud, garnering the same in return from Leo.

AHHHHHHHHH this is so frickin cute i might CRY!!! happy tuna tober everyone!!!

taglist: @just-a-nightdreamer @venomqueen2002 @c1eepypas1a @www-interludeshadow-com

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[anghraine]

Speaking of the poll and the Stewards' background etc, I think the funniest part of the whole "well obviously Húrin of Emyn Arnen was of royal origin..." thing is that this is never explained in LOTR proper. So Pippin is just like, "hmm, Denethor looks a lot like Aragorn for some reason. And I feel like he has some kind of weird kinship with... Gandalf?"

And that would be a lot in itself, but it's wilder because Sam had the exact same reaction to Faramir, to the point of contrasting Faramir's wizard vibes with Elvishness as if it's something distinct from that, but there's no explanation, beyond it being some sort of maybe Númenórean thing.

Pippin at least has the advantage of Gandalf's vague explanation that Denethor has a fundamentally different background than Théoden that gives him certain powers and prestige. Tolkien's intent was for this to indicate that Gandalf doesn't know the details of Denethor's family history and doesn't really need to; he can tell Denethor is a descendant of Elros because it's just kind of written all over him and Faramir, as Gandalf sees things.

Now, it makes sense that nobody is going to get into this with hobbits because they have much more important and urgent matters at hand and there's no reason for most characters to suppose people of this unknown species would care at all, or possibly even have the context needed to get what "royal origin" has to do with "weird similarities to Gandalf." So instead the hobbits just receive these passing hints of some connection that no one bothers to clearly explain.

But the thing is, the hobbit protagonists are super enthusiastic about 1) Elves, 2) Gandalf, and most importantly, 3) elaborate genealogical charts.

Pippin would probably love an infodump about Melian and Lúthien's eldritch adventures and how Denethor and Aragorn are related to them and each other. It's just that no one in LOTR ever explains that wizards are Maiar, or what Maiar are, or that Gandalf and Sauron and the Balrog are all the same kind of being, as was Lúthien's mother, and sometimes her remote descendants still have that bit of Maia about them and it makes them strange and wizardly.

This is not a criticism of LOTR as written btw; it would not actually be interesting to most of the original audience of LOTR as a novel. But I think that in-story, the hobbits themselves would be thrilled to know that their pal Strider and the scary old Steward and, in a way, Gandalf are all related in a way that could be more or less charted out according to standard hobbit genealogical templates if they had enough paper and time.

[camille-lachenille]

I was thinking about Indis, which doesn’t happen very often, and decided she needed a craft of some sort after the Darkening bc her retiring in Valmar and mourning for the rest of eternity isn’t convincing me, thanks but no Professor Tolkien.

So what? Indis goes to Estë and learns the arts of Healing, because she has seen enough hurt and pain in her life and she wants to be able to do *something* even if it’s too late for her family. She becomes a pretty damn good healer and, when Eärendil manages to convinces the Valar to send an army to Beleriand, Indis joins the army as a battlefield healer. Her last son is going to war, she won’t sit back and turn her thumbs while he’s in danger.

What she sees in Beleriand is terrible and painful but, behind the grim reality of war, she sees what her children and grandchildren loved so much in Beleriand, and she remembers her youth under the stars.

Indis learns other healing methods from the Exiled healers, the Edain, anyone who is willing to exchange knowledge with her. She also meets a young healer named Elrond, who specialised in (more like invented) mind-healing, and Indis greedily learns everything he cam teach her, because healing the mind and soul is what her family would have needed.

The day Finarfin is grievously wounded, Indis is glad to have come, and she works restlessly along the other healers to save her son. Finarfin looses sight in one eye but lives, and it all she could ask for.

The war comes to an end and Indis returns to Valinor, weary but also feeling more like herself than in ages. Tirion is doing well under the regency of Findis, and Finarfin is able to recover peacefully.

Indis is there when Finrod is re-embodied and she helps him recover from the mental scars he still has. But this is not enough for her, not now that a lot of the Exiles have returned and most of the soldiers from Valinor are still scarred in many ways by the War of Wrath.

So Indis starts giving lectures on mind-healing in Tirion and Valmar’s universities, and teach any who is willing to learn. She has help from a few mind-healers who were taught by Elrond and sailed back West, and soon mind-healing is a fully recognised field of medicine.

Ages pass, people are re-embodied and others Sail, and Indis is happy to see they receive all the support they need. She retires, at some point, to spend time with her newly returned children and grand-children, and she finally takes the time to process her own grief she tried to forget for a long time.

And one day, Elrond sails to Valinor, and he asks an audience with the dowager queen Indis. Indis is surprised but accepts. The first thing Elrond does when he enters the room is to bow in front of her and thank Indis for everything she did here in Valinor. “Your teachings saved my wife, when she came here nearly fading,” he explains. “I wasn’t able to help her, but she told me everything about the support network she found here. And thank you for helping my parents, too.”

Indis can only hug Elrond closely, this great-great-great-great grandchild of her she never saw growing up. “I could have never done it without you, child, I must thank you, for your teachings healed my own family.”

And that is how Indis, former queen of the Noldor, and Elrond, heir to half a dozen titles but lord only of his own garden, became fast friends and a frankly terrifying duo when it came to talk some sense into someone.

[apoloadonisandnarcissus]

"Dark!Galadriel" needs to happen in "Rings of Power" Season 3

To make sense with the Tolkien canon they are building on. 

The “Rings of Power” show producers were inspired by the chapter “The Mirror of Galadriel” in the book “Fellowship of the Ring” (Part I of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy) to create the show itself, and the connection between Galadriel and Sauron: him grouping her mind nonstop, her being able to look inside his mind, etc. 

In the book, this scene goes pretty much like in Peter Jackson movie: Galadriel shows Frodo her Mirror, he sees visions on the Mirror, they talk about Sauron, Frodo offers her the One ring, and Galadriel declines, passing “the test” at last, and getting the Valar’s pardon to be able to return to Valinor (she was banished). Peter Jackson left out the part where Samwise Gamgee was also there, and that Sauron was always grouping Galadriel’s mind.

Dark!Galadriel

Tolkien gave us a description of Galadriel “dark form” in this chapter (in that context, this is what would happen if she took the One ring):

[she] stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. 

I already explained how Peter Jackson took this up a notch on his adaptation.

"I Wanted What He Offered"

And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!

These are Halbrand/Repentant Mairon's words: this was his offer to Galadriel in 1x08.

I would make you a queen. Fair as the sea and the sun. Stronger than the foundations of the earth [...] No. Not dark. Not with you at my side. You told me once, that we were brought together for a purpose. This is it. You bind me to the light. And I bind you to power. Together, we can save this Middle-earth.

But this is not Dark!Galadriel, as many assume: this is Queen Galadriel with redeem Mairon, her king consort, by her side, and ruling over Middle-earth. There is no darkness in this vision.

Sauron himself confirms this was his (previous) intention, in 2x08:

I would have placed a crown upon your head. I would never have rested until all Middle-earth had been brought to its knees, to worship the light of its Queen.

Here’s the catch: if Galadriel is using Mairon’s words (1x08) and putting emphasis on “And I shall not be dark”... why is she taking on a “dark form” in the next minute?

Mind you, only Frodo is able to see this form, because he has the One ring; in the book, Sam is also there, but he cannot see it.  

Passing the Test

Here, the “test” Galadriel is talking about is her letting go of her power thirst, and resisting her desire to take the One ring for herself.

However, “Rings of Power” has built upon this canon, already, and had her desire for power and for Sauron to be one of the same. So: can her “passing the test” have another meaning, too? Can this imply she has failed “the test” before? 

We are already saw Galadriel rebelling against the Valar and refusing to return to Valinor (accepting their pardon) in Season 1 of “Rings of Power”, like Tolkien described. However, the show has yet to mention the little detail that she has been banished from ever returning to Valinor. In the lore, this is due to her pride, her rebellion against the Valar and her thirst for power (by refusing them, and staying on Middle-earth because she wanted her own kingdom and to rule).  

The Wound aka Blood Binding

I already talked about this several times: Here, here, and here.

Adar: Sooner or later he [Sauron] sees you… His eye bores a hole, and the rest of him slithers in. For a while he even lets you believe that his power is yours. Irresistible power… that makes every desire’s fulfillment seem inevitable. An ocean of color against which everything else feels forever thereafter… Adar and Galadriel discuss their ex, Sauron, 2x06

Sauron is there to bind himself to Galadriel, no matter what. In his mind, she belongs to him. He can feel her love for him (Halbrand): I see you. I know your mind. He knows that she wanted to accept his offer. And that's what he (the "sharer of gifts") gifts to her: Sauron’s gift to Galadriel is himself, by having them binding together. This was his twisted way of saying: “You are mine, and I’m yours. Now and forever.” 

She refuses until the bitter end, and says “the door is shut”. Then, Sauron kicks that door wide open by having them binding together (by blood) using Morgoth’s crown (who already has his own blood on it):

This is the scene that starts Sauron's “grouping” of Galadriel's mind for thousands of years to come (not her “closing the door” on him, like everyone thinks. Are you all for real? Are you aware of just of powerful Sauron truly is? You think her saying a few words can stop him?).

What Sauron did is irreversible, too. And that’s why she will have to find a way to “close the door” in the future (through magic, not mere words). Galadriel needs to become the powerful elf-witch we know her as, before she can close the door of her mind to Sauron.

We already saw a tease of this when he mind communicates with her, in the next scene:

The Fall of Galadriel

The OST of Sauron and Galadriel's scene in 2x08 is not “Last Temptation”, but “The Fall of Galadriel”. Which isn’t the soundtrack for her “falling down a cliff”! This is symbolic of Galadriel’s downfall into darkness. And this has to come into play in Season 3. 

Straight out of "Harry Potter"? The scar hurts whenever Sauron is nearby? “A part of him lives inside of you?” Probably, because J.K. Rowling took a lot of inspiration from “Lord of the Rings” to create her own story.  

And this will most likely kick out Galadriel “elf-witch” arc, too, because Sauron, probably, transferred some of his powers onto to her.

Season 3 and "Dark!Galadriel"

Galadriel using Mairon's words and a Dark form appearing in her future scene with Frodo, when she resists the One ring (at last), can mean that she will accept that Halbrand and Sauron are the same, and it was with Sauron himself that she fell in love with, in Season 1. Because this is the only way to make sense with both Tolkien lore and "Rings of Power" canon.

And if this was to happen in Season 3, it would be subtle and subtextual, of course: don’t except any love confessions or kissing. The "Fall of Galadriel" (her succumbing to Sauron) can be embodied in her reluctantly accepting the darkness within herself, because she feels she can longer escape it (wound side effects).

Galadriel needs to succumb to darkness/Sauron in order to emerge victorious as the “Lady of Light” (and for her character arc to feel earned) because: to find the light, we have, first, to touch the darkness.  

This quote has been present on Galadriel’s story since the Prologue of Season 1 (the opening scene of “Rings of Power”, and the one who sets the entire mood and kicks out the story that’s about to be told), and it hasn’t come into play, yet. Galadriel hasn’t touched the darkness: she has resisted the darkness in every turn, so far.  

Side note: Galadriel killing Orcs isn’t “touching the darkness”, folks. Otherwise, every single Elf in Tolkien lore would be on Morgoth's side.

Season 3 will be the "War of the Elves and Sauron", with him wanting to retrieve the Three Elven rings of power, and attacking Lindon. "Dark!Galadriel” can come into play in this scenario.

Of course, this will be temporary, because Galadriel won’t stay on “Dark!Galadriel” mode. If this is to happen, not sure if her “snapping out of it” will be Season 3 or Season 4, even. Because Gandalf (the only character that makes sense and has the power to do this) needs to be introduced to her arc in order for her to escape Sauron’s grasp.

[kira-broflovski]

main 4 boys hcs: crushing on the new girl

note: more sleepover chapters to be out soon!! also i got carried away in kenny's part oops

STAN ☆

he thought he'd never be able to like a girl ever again, but that idea was short-lived when he saw you.

it was love at first sight.

he was planning on going up to you and introducing himself, but other guys were quicker.

i can see him being really jealous, especially if it's other football players or people he trusts. (maybe tolkien will come in and steal someone from stan again 💀)

at one point, he saw you getting uncomfortable with all the attention you were getting so stan saw an opportunity.

an opportunity to yell at the others while still looking like a good guy, that is.

"Alright, guys, that's enough!" Stan stomped his foot against the floor, silence quickly filling the teacher-less classroom. "Can't you see how uncomfortable she is?"

You couldn't stand to look at anyone while you were the centre of this unwanted attention.

The various types of guys hated the fact Stan was right and that you were visibly uncomfortable, but you were relieved at this sudden saviour.

While everyone backed off, Stan remained in front of you so you looked up at him while he approached with a subtle smile, which you thankfully returned.

"Hey, if anyone's ever bothering you, just text me." He stated before handing you a little yellow note, his phone number quickly scribbled across it.

"Thank you, uh..."

"Stan."

"Thank you, Stan." He was proud to be the first guy to get a genuine smile out of you.

"You're very welcome...?"

"Y/N."

"Well, see you around, Y/N." He might have fell in love first, but you fell harder.

"Bastard wanted her all to himself!"

KYLE ☆

when kyle first saw you, he thought you were cute of course but didn't think anything else until he sat next to you for a class you shared.

he is more of a hopeless romantic, so of course he would act on a classic trope when he got the chance to.

you were struggling with the question the teacher had set, so you turned to the person on your left but they made a snide comment and didn't bother helping you. thankfully, kyle came to your assistance.

"Ignore that asswipe, Y/N." You heard someone to the right-hand side of you say. "I'll help you."

You turned around to see it was Kyle, the smartest kid in the class!

"Thank you so much, Kyle!" It was good to know not everyone was mean here. At the mention of his name with your seemingly angelic voice, he felt his heart flutter.

"No worries," he smiled nervously. "What do you need help with?"

KENNY ☆

just like the others, when he first saw you he thought you were so pretty.

he just needed to have you.

but he's not as confident as his friends, so he shied away and decided to admire you from afar.

however, that changed when you were the one to go up to him: you introduced yourself and explained you wanted to make a lot of new friends.

kenny introduced himself, as well, he never thought he'd get the chance to talk to you like this. however, he made the mistake of making his liking towards you known to his friends... more specifically, cartman.

"You wouldn't like Kenny, new girl." Eric chuckled maliciously from behind the blonde-haired boy that was simply trying to admire the girl of his dreams in peace.

"Why not?" You huffed. "I've already taken a liking to him."

Kenny tried to act as if that isn't one of the sweetest things somebody has said about him.

"Well, he's poor!" Eric shouted as if it was obvious. "He'd be an even worse boyfriend, and he clearly already has a little crush on you."

The poor boy was mortified. Worried that he had just lost his chance with you when you stood in silence.

"What?" You were taken aback. Did Kenny really call this asshole a friend?

"I'm doing you a favour, whatever your name is." Eric continued. "Don't go for Kyle either, he's a stupid-"

"That's enough, fatass!" Kyle yelled.

Kenny started to panic. He didn't know what to do, and he's never felt more embarrassed. And it was all Eric's fault!

"C'mon, Kenny. Let's go somewhere else to talk." You said, much to his surprise, but he gladly accepted.

ERIC ☆

if this isn't enemies to lovers potential, idk what is.

he'd be more discreet about his crush because god forbid the others realise he actually likes someone!

he would just simply bully you, but you were different. you were just trying to be nice, so when he realised he actually felt a little bad he tried toning it down little by little before toning it down.

he's definitely the possessive type, so when he realised you had already became friends with the others... he wanted to be your friend too.

however, he just wanted you all to himself.

"Fuck you guys, I saw her first!"

"Saw her first? She's not an object, Cartman. She can choose who she wants to hang out with, and I'm surprised she even wants to associate with you!"

The boys were bickering back and forth as usual, arguing over you as if you weren't sat there with them.

"But, Y/N is mine!" Eric yelled, taking all of you by surprise.

"Yours?" You questioned.

"Ah, shit."

[balrogballs]

Sorry I'm sure you've got a lot of questions about your post but please tell me how the publishers reacted to your explanation that the Elrond porn they thought you plagiarized was actually yours

OK I'm just going to answer this one and keep it pinned because I've got a good 6 people in my inbox all asking the same question and I refuse to explain this 6 times 😭😭😭

Tbh the biggest hurdle was not the "twas I that wrote the filth" bit, it was actually convincing them (they were all rather old) that I was not actually writing smut about Hugo Weaving, which if you think implies they genuinely assumed I was writing smut about the actor Hugo Weaving, whom I have never seen in anything except LotR and that one film where he flounces about in a frock, then you would be correct. May be partially my fault though because from what I remember, I replied to a reviewer with an A/N that said I really liked film Elrond but his hair sometimes made him look like a catholic schoolgirl, which they may have... misinterpreted I guess? 😭

So mainly I just had to convince them that I did not have a kink for that poor man, that the smut in question was written about two elves aka mythical creatures, that Hugo Weaving is not actually an elf, and that neither Elrond nor Lindir are real and thus cannot actually sue them.

They then asked me if there was any chance Hugo might sue them had the fics been discovered post publication, and thankfully, considering that man's entire attitude is "jesus fuck guys stop yapping about that goddamn elf he wasn't even that great" bless him, I could confidently say that he would be the last member of the LOTR cast to give a singular fuck about someone writing Tolkien smut, probably because he's put the word "elrond" on his perpetual block list.

But other than that it was all pretty normal, they just looked very surprised and obviously asked me to delete the profile but all in all iirc it went better than expected, except my poor agent, who was sitting there turning multiple colours of humiliation (sorry again V).

[sindar-princeling]

I am still baffled by some of the choices made by rop so far, and in a big part it is because. there is such a good story right there. and unless they had no rights to literally any plotline ever described in any of tolkien's works... why fix something that isn't broken, you know? ESPECIALLY if you're not actually fixing it ajsjdjdjdfjffj

I can't really get (yet, at least. benefit of the doubt until the whole story is told) what justifies adding Isildur's sister or those women dressed in white or Sauron pretending to be Just A Human Guy On A Raft while the story we have, however generally described, is fascinating

elves get tricked by Annatar because he says he's an emissary from Valinor - the HOME they're banned from just got brought to them! you can show why and explain just how big of a deal it is that they can return at the end of LotR so much better than "we're told it's a big deal but Galadriel jumps and returns anyway". AND this way it's the elves' collective mistake, not just hers. were they too hubristic to believe Annatar's offers? did they just miss home too much? there's a big, deep story here about AGES of middle-earth's history. and even if you wanted to tell a new story in this show - it IS new to most people who know LotR anyway, because most people know it from the movies and have never read the book, let alone the Silm! this is a new story for them!

maybe things could get wrong slowly even before Sauron creates the one ring - at first deniably, until it can't be ignored anymore. maybe there's some agitation among the free peoples, and elves can see that their mortal acquaintances are different, they're not sure what is happening, but it's wrong. there's a growing, nearing sense of dread, and by the time the one ring is forged, by the time they realise the threat was right under their noses this whole time, it's too late, and it has been too late for a long time. by having made the three, the elves managed to create not a solution, but barely a means to stop MORE damage, but they only managed to help themselves anyway.

the world starts to grow smaller, weaker, diminish into the third-age middle earth that we know, and there's some sweetness in it for us as viewers because this is the world we're most familiar with, but it's first and foremost bitter and tragic. it's not a happy ending. the war will continue, and many of our characters will have no choice but to continue seeing it through because they're elves. they will live to see it, or they will die, or they will run - and not all of them can run

series fucking ends.

anyway, I will. try. to not make this blog into a pool of bile in the next few days after s2 comes out, but as it turns out I'm still pissed about the "stronger than the foundations of the earth" bit coming from sauron and not galadriel in s1 and stripping her of her best character trait so! 👍