[seanastinhopeunquenchable]

Adorable cartoon version of the Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring by twitter user kn0nker.

[the-old-fashioned-girl]

lotr fans, have you read the silmarillion?

yes and I loved it!!

yes but it's not my favorite book

did not finish the book

no but I plan to read it in the future

no and I have no desire to read it

i literally have no idea what the silmarillion is

Voting ended onFeb 23, 2023

I'm very curious about this one. give me statistics. as always, you can elaborate in the tags if you want!

[catscafecomics]

Frododo & Lambwise

[seffersonjtarship-deactivated20]

give it up for trans guy cleavage

[tlirsgender]

Hobbits are SO judgy and nosy but I don't think they're homophobic I think they'd find some random other thing to be like "those people are odd over there" about

[tlirsgender]

His husband folds their towels differently, I heard. Starts with the wrong end it's rather strange..

[tlirsgender]

[ID: a reply from @monkeybean29 that reads "Tbh hobbits would only be judgy about shit within your control or whatever. Like you can't choose to be gay but you can absolutely choose how you fold your towels" /end ID]

Yes exactly... You get it. They have small town gossip (not a whole lot else going on) but hobbits can clearly be gay. I think they'd love butch lesbians tbh. Weird to fold your towels like that though

[diaspora-transan]

The hobbits always get my gender right, but they despise the fact that I eat cereal with a fork

[tlirsgender]

And so do I that's demented

[fyeahegerton]

I’m a huge fan of yours (requested by Anonymous)

[arrghigiveup]

For context: In that production of King Lear by the Royal Shakespeare Company, Sir Ian McKellen, playing the titular character in a scene where Lear has essentially gone round the bend, strips completely naked right there on stage. New York critic Michael Portantiere, noted in his review, “Special note for those who care about such things: In a brief nude scene, McKellen amply demonstrates the truth of Lear’s statement that he is ‘every inch a king’.”

[ceebee-eebee]

#wow go ian mckellan #also a+ flirting there taron

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

The above scene is amazing but I also feel we need to take a moment to appreciate the fact that a respected theatre critic took time to mention in their review of this production of King Lear that Ian McKellen has a truly impressive penis

[mossadspydolphin]

@bucklikethedollar why would you hide poetry like this in the notes

[lesbiansforboromir]

"If Tolkien were here he-" "Tolkien's intent was-" "Tolkien would be rolling in his grave if-" "You soil Tolkien's vision when-" "-which was Tolkien's whole point when he wrote-" "Tolkien would actually support x social issue-" wooooah there bucko.. buckeroono, buckyboy... was Tolkien your fucking dad? Your priest? Was your uncle a Tolkien? Was Tolkien literally without moral fault? No? Then please ask yourself #1 how the fuck you would know any of that and #2 why the hell you should even care in the first place. Love is love, stories are stories, discuss Tolkien's work without invoking him like some kind of avenging angel of literature 2023. He's literally just a guy.

[lesbiansforboromir]

The only Tolkien quote any of you clowns ever need in order to talk about the Legendarium (other than ones in the legendarium itself) is this one; I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author. An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are (at best) guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous. - JRR Tolkien, literally in the foreword to FotR

So put down that inadequate and ambiguous 'evidence' for Tolkien's '''intent''', claim for yourself the reader's freedom of applicability out from under the (for some reason often self imposed) domination of allegory and tell me what YOU think Lord of the Rings is about, not what you believe TOLKIEN meant for it to be about because he wrote in letter 183 a sentence that is thoroughly antithetical to some paragraph he wrote in letter 153 anyway, Good god.

[lesbiansforboromir]

The fact that Eowyn changes her mind about what she wants in like 3 seconds while talking with faramir about marriage is just so???

Admittedly we're lead to believe that they've been talking to each other for a while but since that 'while' can be no longer than nine days (although probably much less since they're both barely conscious last we see of them) I simply do not believe it, cannot care about it, steadfastly hate it perhaps. The scene is sweet and has lovely dialogue but it absolutely is a 'righteous moment where Eowyn repents her rebelliousness and desires and realises all the things she hated so much that she wanted to escape them through death were just fine actually' and I will never support it.

[saentorine]

Man, in theory I love the concept of the two of them helping each other to heal and find renewed joy for life, two survivors with deep physical and emotional scars recognizing and nurturing the small embers of hope within each other, making each other ready to live anew after the near-annihilation of their own lives and the entire world they knew. Yet every time I read that conversation, I’m like 😬😬 Maybe it would have been better executed through description rather than dialogue? Maybe I would have preferred to see more emphasis on what Eowyn learns and tells about herself and changing her own mind over Faramir basically just convincing her? Maybe it needed more give-take in which we also see how Eowyn in turn sees and heals some broken parts of Faramir? Idk.

I believe that Faramir and Eowyn’s love for each other is genuine and transformative, but there remains the tragic shadow to Eowyn’s reality that even after all she has done and longed for, the best “liberation” she can hope for within the patriarchy is to tie herself to a not-terrible man-- and only when she accepts this can she find happiness.

[lesbiansforboromir]

Yes I think this is generally my divergance from most opinion on Eowyn and Faramir, I cannot see it as anything other than a net negative. To me, Eowyn marrying a man, especially a man of such lofty positions, is worse themactically than if she had remained alone and is essentially a betrayal of the very real anguish that had been Eowyn's whole drive for all the time we had known her.

There was a semi-good moment where Eomer recognised the struggles of his sister (through Aragorn's patronising reconfiguration of them to suit his gendered sensibilities but it was at least a start) and the point COULD have been 'Eomer finally sees Eowyn as his equal and supports her towards claiming the agency over her life that she had always longed for, thereby also finding a support in his own struggles that he had never properly acknowledged before now'. But that is all entirely discarded by Eowyn's marriage and honestly I do not see any way for that to have been mitigated, nor can I see how Eowyn could be healed by a man so distant from her reality and so patronising of her birth culture.

I think also my feeling is that like... Eowyn did not need to change. She was not in the wrong, her hopelessness did not come from her or anything within her except her own increasing desperation for freedom and agency, which is really what Faramir 'cures' her of. Hopelessness is not wrong when your situation is hopeless, dire actions are not wrong when you are in dire circumstances. It was the men around Eowyn who claimed to care about her who needed to change, not Eowyn herself. And any transformation she undergoes is then necessarily criticising those completely rational and understandable reactions as wrong, which is what I fundamentally disagree with whenever the 'Eowyn found peace' justifications for her marriage to Faramir come up.

I think I also never buy into any 'anti-war' narratives when they involve Faramir or the rohirrim, considering Faramir's opinion that the Rohirrim (like all middle men) are warlike and brutish and they should 'become more like us, enhanced in arts and gentleness'. So, essentially, Eowyn has been 'gentled' by Faramir, giving up her desire for agency and freedom in her life and capitulating to the demands of her femininity AND to the demands of her 'High race' husband to discard the more 'barbaric' ways of her homeland. I just can't find it anything other than uncomfortable these days.

[legible-scribble]

still proud of this one

[marissasketch]

Baby chick Frodo and Gandowlf in the Shire 🐥🧙‍♂️

[rutobuka2]

after the 2018 curse on Tumblr, I never thought I’d be reaching this number! Thank you everyone for following me, for having faith in this blog! 💖 This is fucking bananas to me!!!!!

🎁 I’m doing a giveaway! The 3 randomly selected winners will receive a colored illustration each. 2 characters max, fandom and OCs are fine! Any rating is fine, as long as I agree with the concept! 

☛ How to enter: you must be following me, likes and reblogs count as entries, do not spam reblog or you’re out!

I’ll be drawing the results on December 27th, so we have 3 weeks!

[lesbiansforboromir]

Whats up with shippey and hosstetter? I know i didn’t spell that right, sorry :( I’m extrapolating from your posts that shippey is a racist but Ive never encountered his academic works so I’m like, who is he and why was he associated with trop? And isnt hosstetter one of the guys who put together NOME? the other two incidences of eowyn scholarship you described are ludicrously awful btw. Thinking I need to do some more tolkien scholarship reading simply so that I’m in the loop on the terrible academic takes

Tom Shippey is one of the most well known 'Tolkien Academics' there are. He was incredibly present for the Jackson films and featured on the BTS footage for the extended editions quite a bit. He is also one of the guys who SO insists on comparing Sam and Frodo to 'officer and batman' rather than allowing any queer interpretation. In this paper I just read, Melissa cited Tom Shippey's pushing for the rohirrim to be viewed as a barbaric culture. His academia is as bland and traditionalist as you can find, he works tirelessly to reinforce the most narrow minded catholic-nationalistic ways of reading Tolkien and really the reason he is known so well and cited so widely is because he does indeed have an academic background and can write fairly cogent arguments (not that that's saying much, and memorably he stated that Denethor killed himself because he saw the corsair ships coming up the river, when Beregond says they've been aware of the corsairs for days). Tom Shippey insists on propping up this culture of Tolkien idealism and is a major part of the problem with Tolkien academia.

He's associated with RoP because he was originally a part of the project but left after a while. There is a rumour he was fired, which had the whole goddamn anti-rop mob frothing at the mouth, but Tom Shippey himself stated his leaving was unrelated to the project itself or it's runners and that he'd not been fired. Secretly I still hope they fired him though.

Carl Hostetter is indeed the author and compiler of Nature of Middle Earth. And after that book's publication he went onto reddit and facebook and wrote reams in disgust at 'The Left having to make everything about sex' when some fans were excitedly interpreting the melotorni/meletheldi (love brothers and love sisters) new notes that were in NoME as canonising queer relationships between elves. Carl Hostetter was also involved with RoP, in particular the translations and linguistics of the show, so hopefully not the plot itself. But hell will freeze over before a show set in middle earth gives us a canonically queer character so I doubt he had much impact on that front. In general he is also one of the traditionalists who idolise Tolkien and hold academia back from any interesting directions.

If you want to be more involved with tolkien academia I recommend actually starting with the tolkien society seminars on youtube, specifically the 2021 diversity seminar found HERE. It's both an easier way to get into tolkien academia than just trawling through all the disparate platforms of tolkien academic work in search of something worth reading, whilst also giving you an excellent snapshot of, essentially THE UPPER LIMITS of Tolkien academic progressiveness. I am not kidding when I say the works within are the furthest into feminist/queerfriendly/antiracist/disability-minded academia the tolkien community has ever gotten. So it's good to set your expectations, it's all downhill from here. Dimitra Fimi's work is still considered and often cited as THE best published work to do with Tolkien and racism and she STILL in that work has to devote pages to reassuring people Tolkien himself wasn't racist.

'Dwarves are not heroes: Antisemitism and the Dwarves in Tolkien's Writing' is an excellent piece (the only goddamn mythlore paper that's readable) and really does dig down into the clear issues, but the author, again, has to devote time to reassuring people that Tolkien himself was not anti-semetic. The culture of treating Tolkien like an un-impeachable religious figure is hardwired into the community.

[lesbiansforboromir]

Yes!! And whilst it’s more just a blog post, I would also add in Orcs, Britons, And The Martial Race Myth by James Mendez Hodes it is well cited and argued examination, also has some connotations for the Rohirrim that I think about a lot. 

[legible-scribble]

Frodo hadn't come prepared for a baking lesson, but it had been Marigold to answer the door, and before he could even ask after Sam's whereabouts, he was being ushered into the kitchen. It was warm on this morning, not in small part due to the oven and the bustle of the family's baking. May was just setting something that smelled deliciously sweet on the counter while Daisy shelled seeds at the table. They turned to greet him brightly.

"See, Mr. Frodo! You're right on time," explained Marigold. "We're makin' Mam's sunflower bread now." Then she leaned towards him, grinning as if she knew a secret, and half-whispering, "It's our Sam's favorite, y'see?"

Frodo was wearing one of his nicer weskits, and he had not thought to bring an apron with him simply to return a book, but that was remedied promptly. He practically swam in Sam's apron, although it must have fit the other hobbit very handsomely. Frodo awkwardly fumbled with the strings behind his back.

"Here you go!" offered Daisy, and made fast work of the knot, pulling it tight so that it wouldn't slip. The fabric in the front poofed and bunched rather unattractively. At least it covered most of his clothes.

"Mr. Frodo?"

Frodo gasped and turned to the door. Sam Gamgee stood there with a basket of market goods on each arm. All was quiet in the kitchen and the heat on Frodo's face was not from the oven. Sam looked confused, but gave a shy smile as their eyes met. Frodo smiled back, "Hullo, Sam."

<3 <3 This is an absolute delight and intensely sweet; thank you, anon. <3 <3 And a happy Hobbit Day to you!

[artnevoa]

Your grins the sweetest that I’ve ever seen <3

[weaver-z]

Guys it's kind of classless to be celebrating the fall of the Eye of Sauron like this :/ he's the only ruler most of Mordor has EVER known and was a cultural institution there for years :/ you can't blame him for all of the actions of Morgoth :/

[penny-anna]

I don't care for the Amazon lotr show but I also literally could not care less what Tolkien would have thought of it lol

[penny-anna]

Tolkien would likely hate a lot of what the fandom is doing w his work bcos he was a white British man born in the 19th century so a lot of his opinions were bad and stupid. It's not a comfortable line of reasoning for me.

[penny-anna]

the Tolkien fandom is rife with conservatives & some of them are more than likely on this site running innocuous-seeming blogs so it’s very important to think critically about the rhetoric you’re seeing.

[iamnotshazam]

"our son made it through the war to come of age, let's fucken party! rsvp only if you're a little bitch who's NOT coming. all y'all not dead of alcohol poisoning by morning (lmao losers) get dunkt on"