Half Goblin, half Hobbit.
Goblit.
God dammit I did this just for a pun but now Iâm imagining this whole backstory where a wounded female goblin flees from some battle and winds up on the edges of the Shire and sheâs gonna jump some Hobbit dude named Blinko Tumbrush but Blinkoâs so unfailingly polite that his first reaction on seeing someone in a rough situation is to invite them in to dinner and gobbo chick is just like â⊠uh⊠âkay.â
And then she has dinner and itâs the best thing sheâs ever eaten and even her little green brain is able to put together âIf I knife this guy so I can take his stuff he canât cook more of thisâ so when he asks her to stay the night sheâs just like âFuck yeah breakfastâ.
And all the other Hobbits in the area are staring at this new arrival who starts begrudgingly working in the garden (she can pull out the weeds theyâd normally have to hitch livestock to) and theyâre all thinking âUhhhhh thatâs a fucking Goblin there, chiefâ except if they actually acknowledge that sheâs a goblin then itâs a huge to-do and a lot of excitement and possibly there would be adventure involved in chasing her off. So they just sort of silently, collectively decide theyâre going to ignore it and all go âOh, Blinko finally found himself a lady, how nice, she must be one of the Glumbrushes from over the far side of West Farthing, I always did hear they were on the homely side, not much hair on their feet you know.â
And eventually in due time along comes Korbo Tumbrush and decently cute Hobbit baby but the biggest fucking ears you ever saw on a Hobbit and heâs a bit green and everyone is thinking âThatâs a fucking half-Goblin youâve got there, chief, you fucked a fucking Goblin, you made a baby with a damn Goblin my guyâ but this would be an immensely rude thing to say to someone so theyâre just like âOh how nice, Blinko, he looks just like you, has those Glumbrush eyes though.â
And Korbo the Goblit grows up a proper little man in his waistcoat and pipe and every so often someone visits from a different part of the shire and sees this plump green dude with massive flappy pointed ears and they start to open their mouth only for a local to leap right in and go âHAHA YES THAT IS KORBO TUMBRUSH A VERY UPRIGHT HOBBIT WE ALL LOVE KORBO HEâS GLUMBRUSH ON HIS MOTHERâS SIDE (WE THINK) THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING!!!â and the visitor just starts nodding along emphatically because this is clearly something that is Not Spoken Of.
I fuckin love it
I. I have to know âŠ
Does Korbo know!? Like is the Gobit aware his momma is a goblin? Or does he just grow up like
âyup us Glumbrushes sure do look differentâ
He leaves home on an adventure and stumbles n a hoard of goblins marches right up like
âhow do ya do fellow hobbits? You know Iâm half Glumbrush myselfâ
Alright, so, Korbo got in a fight once.
Once.
The Tumbrushes are, as a family trade, purveyors of fine pieces of wood. Not of large amounts of lumber, for which Hobbits donât have a particular lot of call save occasionally, but rather of particularly nice pieces suitable for the making of fine window trimmings, floors, or the occasional carved bit of artwork to be given at a fancy event. Obviously for this one doesnât go cutting down any tree willy-nilly, and Korbo had spent most of the day out and about looking for suitable trees.
(Korbo also personally assisted in cutting them down, being rather well known as on the strong side for a Hobbit, wink wink, nudge nudge.)
Having put in a genuine hard dayâs work and rather pleased with himself, Korbo retired to the local bar to have a few beers and a smoke and to partake in good company, all of whom had gotten so used to pretending there was nothing odd about him that it was almost as if there was genuinely nothing odd about him.
Until along comes Humdil Thumbletoe.
Now the Thumbletoes were what was known in the Shire as âexperts on genealogyâ. This might sound like quite a good thing when you consider how well-versed most Hobbits are in their family lines, until you consider that most Hobbits are already well-versed in their family lines. A Hobbit being thoroughly knowledgeable of their family tree is not much to be remarked upon, so when it is remarked upon it is more to mean that the Hobbits in question are such tremendous mooches that they have had to dive far more deeply into their bloodlines looking for more relatives to leech off of than any Hobbit would generally consider polite.
Humdil was fairly brawny as Hobbits go, which was about all you could say for him. In fact Humdil had realized that was really all that could be said for him and had become a bit of a bully. And so it was he entered the bar that night with a very put-upon third cousin twice removed (by marriage) and caught sight of Korbo for the first time.
âWhy, look at that one!â he bellowed, guffawing. âHeâs so ugly his mother had to have been a Goblin, ey!â
The whole bar goes quiet. Aside from the obvious abominable rudeness of this, Humdil has said the thing that is never supposed to be said, and is clearly too stupid to realize heâs right. All heads slowly turn to Korbo.
Now, it is well known that Korbo has inherited his fatherâs tendency to never give a single solitary hairy-toed fuck about anything. He has currently been in the running to be at least the second most chill dude to ever be born in the Shire. And indeed, right now heâs still looking perfectly calm, puffing on his pipe. He sets the pipe aside, finishes off the last of his beer, and stands up.
âSir, weâll be needing to step outside.â
Now Hobbits are mostly a peaceable lot, not given to wars or fighting for any old thing, but a bit of fisticuffs outside the bar is hardly unheard of. Mostly everyone is kind of nervous about this because theyâre still not sure how Korbo is reacting to this whole Goblin thing. So someone takes Korboâs jacket and Humdilâs third cousin twice removed (by marriage) grudgingly takes his, and the two square off.
Now, Humdil was a big Hobbit, it was true, but there were a few things that, being a moron who didnât realize he was right, and who had never been outside the Shire or seen a Goblin anyway, he could not possibly know.
For one, Goblins have long, spindly arms, giving them a surprisingly good reach for their size⊠not abominably long, certainly not in the case of a half-Goblin, and certainly not above being concealed by the cut of a well-tailored shirt. Second, they are compact, wiry creatures, with dense muscle over their otherwise lanky forms, and given to that a Hobbitâs already greater mass and the anchoring benefit of large, wide feet, well.
The moment Humdil stepped forward and started to swing, Korboâs fist shot out like one of Gandalfâs better rockets and struck him directly in the nose. His flight was also, for some weeks after, compared to one of Gandalfâs rockets, though not quite as far and the explosion at the end was mostly him laying on the ground cursing wetly due to all the blood streaming from his nose.
Korbo apologizes profusely to all and sundry for the disturbance, collected his jacket, and goes home. Honey is out picking mushrooms (still being of the more nocturnal persuasion after all these years), but Blinkoâs sitting by the fire reading a book. Korbo sees that thereâs a newspaper (full of lots of extremely important things like how the pipeweed was growing and which barrels of beer were going to be uncasked that month), so picks it up and sits down to read.
âEvening, Da.â
âEvening, son. Pleasant evening out?â
âOh, fine. Save for I broke Humdil Thumbletoesâs nose for him.â
âHm, hm, I see. Why did you feel the need to do that?â
âWell, he called Ma a Goblin, you see.â
Blinko slowly lowers his book, and slowly raises his head. Looks at Korbo for long moments. Raises one eyebrow a little.
âSon. You know full well your mother is a Goblin.â
âWell, yes, but he didnât know that, and he said it as an insult anyway so it being true or not doesnât really matter that much, does it?â
âHm, hm. I suppose thatâs true at the end of the day, isnât it?â
Blinko goes back to reading his book. Korbo continues reading the paper.
âYou could have stabbed him,â Blinko eventually notes.
âAye, could have stabbed him,â Korbo agrees easily enough. âBut itâs a bit of a mess, isnât it?â
âTrue, true, probably would have been a bit of a mess in the road, not very thoughtful to the community,â Blinko allows.
And that was the end of it.
I love all of this so much. Also-
âSir, weâll be needing to step outside.â
The power. I set down my drink after that one.
Oddly enough, one might expect Korbo to have trouble finding a lady hobbit. Heâs not given to being as plump as his fellows, and his feet are a bit small, and heâs rather, well, tall for a hobbit, isnât he. And green. Always looks a bit like heâs eaten something that didnât agree with him.
But he runs into Hilda Greebrook one day in town, and sheâs lost her favorite pipe, which is of course a tragedy of the highest order. Itâs not unheard of for a lady to smoke, but it isnât particularly encouraged, either, and so the general reaction is âyou poor dear, perhaps itâll turn up, hadnât you best be getting home for luncheon?â
Korbo, however, stops to help her look for the pipe, and when itâs nowhere to be found he offers to make her another just like it, if she can tell him what precisely made it so special that it was a favorite, for after all a favorite must be distinguishable by something.
Unfortunately the thing that distinguishes it is that she got it from Gandalf and itâs quite unlike most pipes in the Shire, so recreating it is quite the task. But Korbo sets himself to it anyway, working a bit each night and handing it to Hilda daily to see if it feels quite right, and six months later heâs done itârecreated a pipe that came from the world of men, or perhaps elves, but certainly not that of hobbits.
Hilda for her part discovers Korbo quite likes to read, and though heâs from a reasonably well-to-do familyâfor hobbits are always in need of new toys and fancy party decorations after allâcanât get his hands on books fast enough to satisfy himself, and, well, her daâs a transcriber, someoneâs got to write out the papers after all, and sheâs got access to practically every book in the Shire, and ways to make copies besides.
At first people think itâs odd, a hobbit who canât see asking to borrow books, but then they find out Korbo is involved and asking questions could lead to excitement and so they absolutely do not ask and simply offer up their histories and books of poetry and hobbit folklore (for even without want for excitement there are things itâs good to remember, and things every hobbit child should know so they, too, can grow up properly plump and staying well away from adventure), and resign themselves to never seeing their books again.
And then they find that far from their books quite disappearing, they return in fine formâalbeit usually in a timeframe rather too long to be politeâbut oddly quite a lot seem to have tiny bits of wood shavings in, although one wouldnât expect it in a hobbit home? And THEN Hoptus Redbranch finds Korbo one day in his workshop, heâs just stopped by for the wood to repair a door after an unfortunate incident with attempting to remove a colony of bees and rather too much smoke for the moving of bees, and Korbo is simply. Pressing small pieces of hot iron into a very thin piece of wood, making small triangle patterns like no hobbit decoration Hoptus has ever seen, and heâs quite frequently checking into a book on his left that turns out to be one of Hoptusâ own books, and very carefully turning the pages with a cloth so as to not get oil from the hot iron all over the pagesâ
âand THEN, not long after the news of Korboâs strange woodburning activities have spread across most of the Shire (and caused no small amount of consternation, because goblins are clever but so often the things they make are cruel and the cause of ever so much unpleasantness), Hilda is seen in her own garden with Korbo with a stack of these thin pieces of wood all carefully hinged together, running her fingers over carefully sanded and varnished pieces and feeling the triangles and reciting a hobbit tale.
For all those months of strangely disappeared books, Korbo has been translating Westron into an alphabet that can be read with oneâs fingers, and making Hilda books, and teaching her to read them.
Nobody is entirely surprised, after about three years, when the two of them vanish for a few months, and come back quite married.
Within a few generations, this is absolutely going to be a thing Not Worth Remarking Upon. So when a young hobbit finds themselves accidentally ripping the knobs off doors when theyâre cross, their parents will sigh and the elder hobbits in the village will remark that âthatâll be the Glumbrush in âim coming through, I told you his ears were a little bigger than his siblings, didnât I?â much the same as they always did on Bilbo and Frodoâs Took relations and the resulting hankering for adventure.
Were anyone from the outside to visit the Shire, theyâd find a small colony of goblins thoroughly intermarried and also avoiding the usual goblin tendencies towards stabbing, so long as no one is so gauche as to insult them for being goblins.
(Sooner or later, one very flustered hobbit is going to accidentally do the same thing with an orc.)
The Tumbrushes, as with all Hobbits, were quite proud of their work, and rightly so. Their works are fine, of the highest quality, and they fetch the appropriate price for their labors, making them quite well-to-do. In the Shire, wealth breeds respect, of course, and so the Tumbrushes are quite well respected.
And yet thereâs a difference between âwell to doâ and âscandalously wealthy.â
So when, when Blinko Tumbrush recieved a letter inviting them to the Baggins residence for tea, he of course brought his wife and son along.
Now, Korbo had crossed paths with Bilbo Baggins a time or two in the market, never for much longer than the time required for Polite Conversation, and so wasnât expecting much. Sure, everyone knew Bilbo was odd, and were willing to talk about it, since Bilbo made no effort to hide his adventures and had, on numerous occasions, commented on visiting the elves or poking around the mountains, but they were in the Shire, no adventure in sight, and so this should be a normal, proper visit between client and craftsman.
And then Bilbo opened the door, pipe in hand, took the three of them in, and said, quite out of nowhere, âAh, Shoebiter clan.â
Honey Tumbrush, late of the Shoebiter clan of the Misty Mountains, smiled with all her teeth and replied âDragon thief!â
Bilbo guffawed and waved them inside, offering them hospitality in the goblin tongue, with the guarantee of safety and threat of violence that implied. They had arrived in time for second breakfast, and didnât leave until past dinner, having hammered out a contract and shared many a story.
Blinko Tumbrush had only one thing to say as he walked home, arm in arm with his wife and son trailing behind. âHeâs an odd fellow, that Bilbo, but nice enough. Yes, nice enough indeed.â
I love them
Gets better and better every time I see it
What was removed?! Which guidelines did it violate? This post was complete last time I saw it.
Hereâs my art that apparently was too much for tumblr!
Iâm gonna need to write this.
