✳︎ Unhinged jewelry lovers ✳︎

Do you remember the taste of strawberries?

[swellbythewind]

Fates and Choices

in their blood😭not my art but my commission. After communicating with the artist板儿爷 for a long time, these pictures were completed.

really love them❤️❤️❤️❤️🤲

[nadiajustbe]

As someone who has partial disability in the movement of hands and fingers especially (albeit I have all ten of them), I love to think about the possible little day to day and long-term struggles Frodo would have connected to him missing a finger.

Maybe he had re-learn how to write and get used to writing with both hands just in case.

Or maybe he gets incredibly annoyed at a singular aspect of tea time because he can't grasp the cattle as he used to.

And he has to always think at which part of any process requires better grip to choose which item take in which hand.

Maybe his hand coordination overall gets worse and even the hand that wasn't injured turned to be something he had to work on.

He struggles with buttons, and he struggles with them a lot, despite technically having enough ability to push the button into the little cuts on his vest. It doesn't help that all of his best vests are buttoned.

He has to change his algorithm of tying any knot, and sometimes has more success with tying his fingers than tying ropes.

He can't properly grasp at doorknobs and has to remind himself multiple times that there's only one hand with which he can properly open the door, up until he learns to do it with both.

He has to be cautious everytime he goes for a handshake and he managed to confuse multiple hobbits by giving them "the wrong hand" to take.

He has to tailor all his gloves in one way or another because the place for his missing finger on the glove keeps bending and wobbling while he walks, which he finds rather irritable.

It's just. There's so many barely noticeable but many impactful things that come with such, in comparison, little injury, and I find it incredibly interesting to think about.

[kibutsulove]

when u lowkey envy ur half-uncle just as much as you fucking hate him

[eedlitamm]

hello it's the most important day of the year

HAPPY MARCH 25TH HAPPY TOLKIEN READING DAY HAPPY DESTRUCTION OF THE ONE RING DAY HAPPY GONDORIAN NEW YEAR HAPPY FARAWYN DAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELANOR GARDNER !!!!!!!

[tournamentpollsinc]

Semifinals

Doomed By the Narrative

Turin Turambar VS Boromir

Turin Turambar

Boromir

Voting ended onMar 19

[twofoursixohjuan]

[abomination-unto-nuggan]

[thetiredprometheus]

So there's like gems in there? What kind of gems? Asking for a friend

[sindar-princeling]

[dreamingthroughthenoise]

[lesbienj]

i do still think the funniest thing to ever happen in the tolkien fandom is that time the silmarillion ao3 tags got updated to sindarin names only and it accidentally recreated thingol’s quenya ban. and i don’t think we talk about it enough

[silme-lorien]

how the hell did jrrt write the silmarillion without tolkien gateway

[taxfrauddotcom]

[tolkien-feels]

Okay, so this is just a very quick word search that is ignoring synonyms and descriptions, but I thought it might be fun (if not particularly accurate) to count who kisses who in Tolkien’s books because I strongly associate kissing with platonic affection in the legendarium, and I wanted to see if it holds up

Silmarillion

Luthien: 1 (Beren)

Nienor: 1 (Turin)

Hobbit

No kissies :/

LotR

Aragorn: 5 = 2 (Eowyn) + Arwen (1) + 1 (Boromir) + 1 (Merry)

Sam: 4.5 =  4.5 (Frodo - counting 0.5 because it says he “did not kiss” his hand, which feels weird to ignore or to count, so half a point it is)

Faramir: 4 = 2 (Eowyn) + 1 (Frodo) + 1 (Sam)

Merry: 4 = 2 (Theoden) + 1 (Aragorn) + 1 (Eowyn)

Frodo: 3 = 1 (Merry) + 1 (Pippin) + 1 (Sam) << these all happen in the same scene

Beregond: 1 (Aragorn)

So we have a total of 23.5 kisses, only 5 of which happen between people who are romantically involved, so you can totally go ahead and assume platonic kisses are very much a thing in Arda

Also another fun breakdown:

Hand: 9.5 (Sam → Frodo x2.5, Merry → Theoden x2, Merry → Aragorn, Merry → Eowyn, Aragorn → Eowyn, Aragorn → Arwen, Beregond → Aragorn)

Brow/forehead: 8 (Sam → Frodo x2, Aragorn → Boromir, Aragorn → Eowyn, Aragorn → Merry, Faramir → Eowyn, Faramir → Frodo, Faramir → Sam)

Unspecified (”kissed him/her” sentences): 3 (Luthien → Beren, Nienor → Turin, Faramir → Eowyn, Frodo → Merry, Frodo → Pippin, Frodo → Sam)

[disorganisedautodidact]

THANK YOU i have assumed for a while that platonic kisses are super common in Arda so now I feel validated :)

(i also headcanon that this is particularly the case among elves who are more physical about affection than men but tbh my reasoning for that part is entirely “I read it in a fic once and liked the idea” and I’ve seen many people very validly say the opposite)

[golwenlothlindel]

omg I love the amount of research that went into this.

In the sources Tolkien was using, kissing is hilariously common. Medieval people were like constantly kissing hands, cheeks, rings (you forgot Pippin kissing Denethor’s ring btw), etc. Even lip kissing seems to have been a lot less associated with romance, and more with fealty. Indeed, most medieval romance stories don’t have any kissing at all: but tales of adventure and chivalry usually do (even when they weren’t intentionally homoerotic: which some of them absolutely were). And then there’s whatever is going on in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which was weird even by the standards of it’s own time, and rather famously one of Tolkien’s favorites.

So yeah, platonic kissing is absolutely a thing. Specifically, kissing as a sign of fealty is absolutely a thing in Arda. Merry, Pippin and Beregond all seal oaths of fealty with a kiss (and likely this is true of other moments where characters swear fealty, but we aren’t told this directly). It also seems to be associated with prayer and blessing (most of the forehead kisses seem to be this kind).

Some of these kisses don’t even happen between people who know each other particularly well, or like each other that much. Faramir has known Sam and Frodo for like a week tops when he gives them his goodbye kisses: accompanied by prayers to the Valar. Pippin detests Denethor. Merry is less excited by Théoden personally as by Rohan generally, and they literally just met. Aragorn kisses Éowyn when she is unconscious, while he’s healing her.

Faramir in particular seems to have a habit of kissing people he just met, because he also does it with Éowyn. Like if that’s intended to be read as romantic then it is hella fast: they’ve barely said ten words to each other. But hey, being a casual kisser would certainly be one reason his men like him so much. This seems to be a part of his characterization as emotionally open and nurturing.

[tolkien-feels]

Yay, I love this addition @golwenlothlindel! I enjoy reading medieval literature (though I’m veeeery rusty) so I knew this already and was wondering if I should write an addition like this, but you beat me to it and you did it so very well! Thanks!

Also, for the record, I actually am confident I didn’t count a few instances of kissing. I was looking this up very quickly out of curiosity and didn’t expect other people to reblog it lol So my “methodology” was literally just using the search function to look up “kiss” and that was it. But any scenes where that is described in a way that doesn’t very specifically use this word was ignored because again, this was just a very quick word search. It’s also remarkably non-comprehensive - you’ll notice none of the Great Tales books or HoME texts are included, for example, even though I know for a fact there are many instances that that would add valuable data points.

[oatmealaddiction]

No but like, this is the thing about Sam carrying Frodo and the ring up the mountain. It's a cool scene in the movie, but they don't explain what's happening at all. The ring at this point is so heavy Frodo can't even lift his head. It's like essentially a cinder-block he has to carry around his neck. And finally he gives up and Sam offers to carry him and:

DO YOU GUYS GET IT? THE RING IS A BURDEN, BUT FRODO ISN'T. FRODO DOESN'T WEIGH ANYTHING TO SAM. SAM CAN LIFT HIM EASILY!!!! HE'S NOT A BURDEN AT ALL I —

[enbyofdionysos]

[bob-belcher]

Happy International Women’s Day!

[lotrheritageposts]

LOTR Heritage Post

[easterneuropeangirliedotcom]

[byjove]

It’s easy to forget JRR Tolkien was a fairly prolific academic translator with an interest in early medieval literature and philology. It’s so inspiring that he found time to write The Hobbit while fighting for his life over Beowulf.

[byjove]

JRR Tolkien’s introductory notes for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are like “This is a superb little poem. I really enjoy the author’s ability to weave existing narratives within folklore into one cohesive tale. This was fun!” and his lectures and notes on Beowulf are lowkey like “Translating and analyzing this was my Waterloo. I have been looking at it for 40 years. I am Sisyphus and this poem is my burden. All of you are misinterpreting it. Me too probably. God help us all.”

[olorinscombatboots]

hi turins resume on the gateway is fucking insane