No Visuals!

Hiding fandom in the underwear drawer since 1977

[anthraxofeffervescence]

The core conceit of Lord of the Rings is pretty funny. You are a twenty three year old in a suburb of Maine. The little bracelet in your grandpa’s attic has an inscription on it that is the password to the world’s entire nuclear arsenal. It is up to you to walk to the only hydraulic press in the world, located in Arizona, before the FBI finds the bracelet, kills you, and enslaves the suburb of Maine you currently live in

[anthraxofeffervescence]

Also the 90-year old hobo that your grandpa beat in a rap battle for possession of the bracelet while hiding from the Romanian secret police really loved the bracelet because it was coated in small amounts of LSD and tried to hunt and kill your grandpa to get it back. He was then apprehended by the FBI and instantly gave them your grandpa’s address. Seal Team Six is about to break down your door and shoot you, says your local congressman who can also do cool magic tricks

[bloodyraven1001]

There's a guy in NY who MIGHT be capable of destroying the codes but won't coz he simply wants to spend time with his wife. So it's up to your grandpa's old friend in rural Ohio to get you the friends capable of finishing the task.

[ariaste]

And we must not, at any point, remember the existence of aircraft and ask aloud why we can't just fly to Arizona

[crazy-pages]

The aircraft are all under the command of the Australian government, which has declared that the nuclear arsenals are not their problem and that no aircraft will help anyone out with that problem. Your grandfather did fly with the bracelet one time, but he only got away with that because no one involved knew what the bracelet was and it would have been a huge deal if anyone had realized what was up. If you charter a flight towards the world's only hydraulic press, the Australians will know and throw lightning at the plane.

[kandoros]

You can't fly to Arizona because the FBI has a massive radar installation located right next to the hydraulic press, and part way through the story Seal Team Six gets upgraded to also being fighter pilots.

[kawuli]

random PSA, I know a lot of people use duckduckgo as a Google alternative search engine, but it always kind of annoyed me when I was using it because it felt like No Name Brand Google

I have switched to using Startpage.com and vastly prefer it. for one thing, instead of displaying an "AI summary" at the top of the search results (unless you turn it off, yes I know), it displays the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article, with link, whenever it finds one that's relevant.

also a waaayyyyy better sense of design than duckduckgo

also private, European based, least annoying search I've used lately (RIP old "don't be evil" Google)

[yomikoreadsbooks]

Keeping a list of Google alternatives just in case…

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

i have one of those, scraped from multiple different rec posts:

Search Engines

Infinity Search is an alternative search engine with a special focus on privacy

DuckDuckGo is a popular search engine for those who value their privacy and are put off by the thought of their every query being tracked and logged. Uses bangs, ![site] for in-page search (sells your data to microsoft and draws from fucking bing)

WolframAlpha is a privately owned search engine that allows you to “compute expert-level answers using Wolfram’s breakthrough algorithms, knowledgebase, and AI technology.” A data search engine.

Boardreader is a search engine for forums and message boards. It allows you to search forums and then filter down results by date and language.

Based in France, Qwant is a privacy-based search engine that won’t record your searches or use your personal details for advertising. Uses “&” as a bang search.

Another privacy-based search engine is Search Encrypt, which uses local encryption to ensure that users’ identifiable information cannot be tracked. Metasearch across multiple engines. 

Offering unbiased results from several sources, SearX is a metasearch engine that aims to present a free, decentralized view of the internet. Can be self-hosted. 

Gibiru’s tagline is “Unfiltered private search” and that’s exactly what it offers. Requires AnonymoX Firefox add-on for privacy. 

Disconnect allows you to conduct anonymous searches through a search engine of your choice.

Swisscows provides fully encrypted searches to protect your privacy and security. Built-in violence/porn filter cannot be overridden. 

MetaGer offers “Privacy Protected Search & Find” through its anonymised search. A plugin will allow it to be made a default.

Gigablast is a private search engine that indexes millions of websites and servers real-time information without tracking your data, keeping you hidden from marketers and spammers. Variety of filtration and refinement options for searching. 

Oscobo is a search engine that protects your privacy while you search the web. By not using any third-party tools or scripts, your data is protected from hacking and misuse. Has a Chrome extension to allow use in toolbar. 

https://search.marginalia.nu/ an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed. Use old-school searching rather than query-based for the best results. 

https://www.mojeek.com/ 

https://wiby.me/ - It’s goal is to index as many personalized websites as possible, and NOT commercial sites. 

https://4get.ca/ it works a lot like SearX, but honestly better. It doesn’t have its own index, but pulls from many others. I think it’s the best for research, since it allows you to search for answers from different indexes, is easy to configure, add free, and avoids censorship as much as it can.

https://www.searchenginemap.com/ for more on how search engines relate to each other.

https://yep.com/ is a crawler

https://www.etools.ch/ retrieves from Google, Mojeek, Bing, and Yandex, like Searx

https://www.dogpile.com/ 

https://searxng.org/ (next gen Searx)

https://luxxle.com/ - possibly conservative?

https://presearch.com/ - good for academic?

https://kagi.com/smallweb - free/randomised Kagi.

Other Searchers

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free.https://cosine.club/ is an electronic music similarity search engine

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[batri-jopa]

world_of_engineering_75 on Instagram

[airandangels]

You know it’s a great puppet when you don’t even notice the two entire people under and behind its body moving its limbs until it’s halfway across the stage.

[diamondintherug-blog]

All I can think of is what must be going on with the puppeteers. Look at their faces. All three of them are LOCKED on this new body they are all sharing.

[agelessphotography]

Margaret Bourke-White, 8th Bomber Command, Northamptonshire, Lee Miller, 1942

[creepingirrelevance]

(Read more about her HERE.)

[mirkwoodest]

One of the ballsiest things Tolkien ever did was write 473k words about some hobbits called frodo, sam, merry, and pippin and then write in the appendices that their names are actually maura, ban, kali, and razal. 

[mirkwoodest]

This just in: Eowyn and Eomer’s names actually start with the letter “L.” [source for other nerds] 

[mirkwoodest]

#wait so they have hobbitish names and common names?

No, they have Westron names and English names.

What you’ve got to understand is that everything Tolkien wrote was him pretending to merely translate ancient documents. He was writing as if the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were actually been written by Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam (or Bilba, Maura, and Ban) and he was just some random contemporary academic translating it all into English for us. 

There are many languages in his books, but generally speaking, everything written in English in the books is a translation of the language “Westron.” Therefore any names that come from Westron, he translated. Names coming from other languages, like Sindarin, he left as they were. Why? IDK. Maybe because the stories are from a hobbit perspective and hobbits speak Westron, so he wanted the Westron parts to sound familiar and the other languages/names to remain foreign? 

“But Mirkwoodest!” you cry, “The word ‘hobbit’ isn’t an English word! And the names Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took, and Meriadoc Brandybuck” all sounds super weird and not like English at all!”

Psych! They are in English! (Or Old English, German, or Norse.) Once again you underestimate what a nerd Tolkien was. Let me break it down: 

In Westron, hobbits are actually called “kuduk,” which means “hole-dweller,” so for an English translation, Tolkien called them “hobbits” which is a modernization of the Old English word “holbytla” which comes from “Hol” (hole) and “Bytla”(builder). 

“Maura” is a Westron name which means “Wise.” Weirdly enough, “Frodo” is an actual Proto-Germanic name that actual people used to have and it means the same thing. 

“Banazîr” is Westron for “half-wise, or simple.” In Proto Germanic, the prefix “Sam” means half, and wise is obviously a word we still use. 

“Razanur” means “Traveler” or “Stranger” which is also the meaning of the word “Peregrin(e)” This one is a twofer because  “Razar” means “a small red apple” and in English so does “Pippin.”

“Kalimac” apparently is a meaningless name in Westron, but the shortened form “Kali” means “happy,” so Jirt decided his nickname would be “Merry” and chose the really obscure ancient Celtic name “Meriodoc” to match. 

Jirt chose to leave “Bilba” almost exactly the same in English, but he changed the ending to an “O” because in Westron names ending in “a” are masculine. 

I’m not going to go on and talk about the last names but those all have special meanings too (except Tûk, which is too iconic to change more than the spelling of, apparently). 

The Rohirrim were also Westron speakers first and foremost, so their names are also “translations” into Old English and Proto-Germanic words, i.e. “Eowyn”  is a combination of “Eoh” (horse) and “Wynn” (joy/bliss). 

“Rohirrim/Rohan” are Sindarin words, but in the books, they call themselves the “Éothéod” which is an Old English/Norse combo that means “horse people.” Tolkien tells us in the “Peoples of Middle Earth” that the actual Westron for “Éothéod” is Lohtûr, which means that Eowyn and Eomer’s names, which come from the same root word, must also start with the letter L. 

The names of all the elves, dwarves, Dunedain, and men from Gondor are not English translations, since they come from root words other than Westron. 

The takeaway from this is that when a guy whose first real job was researching the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter “W” writes a book, you can expect this kind of tomfoolery.

Notes: Sorry I said “Razal” instead of “Razar” in my original post I’m a fraud. 

Further Reading: 

Rohirric , Westron 

[aviculor]

I’m having a stroke

[lotrheritageposts]

LOTR Heritage Post

[rthstewart]

just wanted to drop a line because i read your marvelous fic Flee from Memory and you had turned off comments. it is an absolutely astounding piece on memory and the vulnerable nature of it and the fluidity of truth. What we do with the stories we tell ourselves and about ourselves. It was unsettling but that is a marvelous feeling, esp because Tumnus is also unsettled and cynical and in pain. Just a truly masterful piece of work. I've been telling my friends about it as we also struggle with the stories (my son is 13, i would never put him in charge of a country) and reading it now at my venerable old age as opposed to a child and it strikes that note. thank you so much.

Thanks so much @hauscrashburn! I always appreciate hearing from readers and especially about the stories that never got much love, or the ones like Flee From Memory that generated a lot of hate.  Flee From Memory is a hard, harsh, cruel story, and not one I would have written when I first started in the fandom.  I was a nicer person then, and far more naïve.  But it’s also true, as you observe, that my work hits much differently the older the reader.  Stone Gryphon and the companion pieces are very much about, and dealing with loss – dealing with it well, not dealing with it so well, and how and whether you can heal and move on.  They are hopeful (something that is very hard to dredge up these days) but the loss is never far away. 

My final book is on hold until I retire the end of this year and hopefully my cognition holds on long enough to finish it.  I don’t have Richard Russell’s condition but I have multiple families who have or died from Dementia with Lewy Bodies or Alzheimer’s and I am neither as young as I was when I started this journey, nor as sharp. 

I hope you and your friends enjoy this and the other work and always feel free to reach out.  I cherish the interaction.

[ruinedchildhood]

This is how the world should be ❤️

[cryoverkiltmilk]

At no point did I predict what happened next in this video.

[coppercreationcreator]

(Tags by prev)

[captain-starskull]

There are many benefits to having a robust transit system.

[rthstewart]

paging @syrena-of-the-lake

[three-sentence-ficathon]

Post #2 is live

Because we’ve already gotten 4000 comments!

Holy smokes and well done, friends, we’re loving the enthusiasm 🥳

We are now closing Post 1 to new prompts, although please still go through and leave as many fills as you want.

(For anyone wondering why, Dreamwidth introduces captcha to replies after 5k comments, hence why we use multiple posts.)

[rthstewart]

Go forth and abuse grammar!

And for those who look at how big it is and panic, really, don't. From the 3SF FAQ, you do not have to read every prompt that has gone before, you can come and go as you please, you can start anywhere, any time, and you can search for fandoms and specific promoters with the DW search engine if you're logged in, and with the 3SF open for a month. Most important, remember that it slows down a lot as we move to each successive post (which we have to do to avoid the DW captcha at 5000 comments to a single post).

[partywithponies]

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." is one of the greatest character introductions of all time.

[elecktrum]

Considering the author of it is named Clive Staples Lewis, criticizing Eustace Clarence is pretty ballsy.

[three-sentence-ficathon]

Get ready, get set… Go!

That’s right, 3SF 2026 is now officially live. Time to sling some prompts, misuse punctuation, and have tons of fun!

[rambrandt-the-painter]

List of crocodilians - Wikipedia

Educate yourselves.

[rambrandt-the-painter]

the gavialidea need some help. lets make new kinds of gharial and false gharial

[rambrandt-the-painter]

my suggestion

[bowelfly]

!!

[ironmaidenhead]

the lion in winter (1968) dir. anthony harvey

[fanlore-wiki]

Featured Article: The Problem of Susan (topic)

In this week’s Featured Article, we’re covering The Problem of Susan, which alludes to the controversial ending for the character Susan Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia novel series.

The first book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, is set in Britain during World War II and tells the story of four siblings who discover a portal in a wardrobe that leads to the magical land of Narnia. The subsequent novels continue the adventures of both the original cast and new characters in Narnia. The story is often interpreted as a Christian allegory, with Narnia representing heaven.

In the final book, "The Last Battle," it is revealed that the second eldest sibling, Susan Pevensie, has been excluded from ever returning to Narnia because she has grown up and adopted materialistic values. Susan’s fate has remained a topic of controversy in both fannish and academic circles, with many criticizing the unjust treatment of the character.

The term The Problem of Susan was named after Neil Gaiman’s short story and has been used for analysis written on the subject, such as the essay by RJ Anderson. The term is also a common tag in the fandom on Ao3.

Do you have any thoughts to share on this topic? Add them to the Fanlore page!

------

We value every contribution to our shared fandom history. If you’re new to editing Fanlore or wikis in general, visit our New Visitor Portal to get started or ask us questions here!

[rthstewart]

Pegasus Bridge

Hey, guess where I went last year! Normandy France to see the places I've written fic about for so long.

Why yes, Pegasus Bridge, in Benouville, France, where Operation Tonga occurred at a few minutes past midnight, 6 June 1944. Which I wrote about in Rat and Sword Go To War. It was amazing.

In the pictures below:

A picture of Lea Vion, Administrator of the Chateux Benouville Maternity Hospital and the old hospital.

Corp. Wally Parr's Number 1 Gun, the marker where Horsas 1&2 (I think) landed,

the Ulta report of the success of Operation Tonga and the gravesite of Lt. Den Brotheridge, one of the first casualties of D-Day

(It was assumed he was the first but some time later, the body of someone in the operation was found drowned in the canal, so perhaps Lt. Brotheridge was second.) Unlike American fallen, British and Canadians are buried where they fell, so you see many of these graves throughout the Normandy coastal villages.

Stained glass in churches throughout the area include both typical Catholic iconography and D-Day symbols and insignia.

[javert]

damn i did not know that rthstewart is my parents age, i thought she was like, ~10 years older than me livejournal fandom age. respect o7

[theknucklehead]

I grew up reading Calvin & Hobbes, and one of my favorite running jokes was the snowmen that Calvin would build.