I was thinking again about how Movie Aragorn is so much hotter when he’s dirty and unkempt (as one does), and I just had a very belated realization. At his coronation, Aragorn is sporting a much fuller beard than he has at any point before that. This:
vs. this:
Since the coronation proves that he can/will grow a full beard if he doesn’t shave, does his appearance in the rest of the trilogy imply that he was shaving then? Did this man lug a razor or beard trimmer around for hundreds of miles of hard core trekking through snow and mines and wilderness, on boats and horseback, and into battle? Was he getting up early every morning so that he could do a quick touch up before fighting a Nazgûl or summoning the king of the dead? I think the answer has to be yes, right? Surely someone else has considered this and has an answer already.
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„ minor. any/pronouns. Sprout Seedly main 🍓 „
I'm multifandom so it will be normal to see hcs/oneshots of:
• forsaken
• crk (or cookie run kingdom)
• pressure
• villainous
• billie bust up (or bbu)
• Dandys world (or DW)
• Phingting (or P!)
And others, but these are the main ones in question ;)
MASTERLIST★
"Fresh out the Oven !„
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please,, i ask for not steal my work or repost w/o permission.
Basic dni criteria.
He had a crush on MC in elementary school, but then was really shy. He mostly grew out of his shyness, though, a bit later in life.
He loves reading crime and mystery novels. They challenge is mind, which is why he's dreamed to be a crime reporter for so long.
He wanted a dog his whole life but unfortunately never had the opportunity to get one. His parents didn't let him and his landlord doesn't let him either.
He loves upbeat music, but when he's calm he listens to soft rock. He listens to pretty much everything, though.
He wants to know how to play piano, but unfortunately never got the chance. (His apartment's too small and there was never enough room at home, either.)
Rules: Make a poll with five of your all time favorite characters and then tag five people to do the same. See which character is everyone’s favorite! (Sorry, non-Yanks, I had to drop the U from your favourite! I felt like a poser to keep it!)
Thanks for the tag @camille-lachenille ! As I have a particular affinity for smaller, lesser known characters, I’m hesitant to put my actual faves in a poll for fear that no one will vote for them. So here are 5 well established LOTR characters instead, all of whom I deeply love even if they aren’t at the tippy top of my personal rankings:
Your favorite of:
Éomer
Éowyn
Samwise
Haldir
Bill the Pony
Voting ended onJul 31, 2024
But just know my actual LOTR list based on canon would be Háma, Elfhelm, Ioreth, Fatty and Théodred!
(And my Silm list would be Haleth, Gwindor, Nienna/Mandos (they’re a pair to me, sorry), Aerin and Ecthelion.)
No pressure tags to @emmanuellececchi @highkingpetermagnificent @asianbutnotjapanese @thetempleofthemasaigoddess @thranduilseyebrows
Ok, so I wussed out on putting my actual LOTR canonical faves in my favorite character poll for fear that no one will vote for people who aren’t especially significant presences in the fandom, but @celeluwhenfics suggested that I do it anyway and I am actually curious so:
Favorite of these minor characters:
Háma
Elfhelm
Ioreth
Fatty Bolger
Théodred
Voting ended onJul 31, 2024
I will be gutted if any of them end up with zeros!!! (Especially Háma oh please no!)
By 3018 and early 3019, it must have been quite obvious to Éomer and Théodred (and of course Éowyn) that Gríma was a bad influence on the king and on the Mark in general.
Why did they not... Do something about it? Was he that powerful? Or were they so bound to their allegiance to the king that they could not do much?
I'm feeling a little embarrassed because I can't find a satisfying answer to this and it's turning out to be a problem in my fic. Any ideas, quotes or headcanon to help me get unstuck?
My copy of UT has not arrived yet... Is part of the answer in there?
I hear you on how this is a weird sticking point in the larger Rohan story! And it’s another place where LOTR suffers a little from the absence of Théodred – if he had been in it, we’d have surely gotten some answers to this question because it would have been the focus of his life at that moment. But instead, it’s a big blank space.
That being said…here are a few canonical things (if we count UT as canonical, which I do for the Rohan chapters) that might help as you think about how you want to fill in that blank space:
1. Théodred and Éomer didn’t live in Edoras – Théodred was based at Helm’s Deep and Éomer in Aldburg – and they were both constantly dealing with emergencies in their lands (border raids in the west for Théodred and orc attacks in the east for Éomer). Being so often at a distance and also distracted by the grind of their jobs would have kept them from being able to see everything happening with Gríma up close on a daily basis. So they would know the vibes were off, but they wouldn’t necessarily have a clear sense of exactly why and how.
2. When Gríma failed to turn Théodred and Éomer against each other or the king, he switched to turning Théoden against them instead. So if Éomer and Teddy were falling out of favor with Théoden, that would reduce their access to him and to court and to info in general, and that would then further impact their ability to fully understand what was happening or to take steps against it.
3. Théoden was still the king, and he wanted Gríma around (or, you know, thought that he did). And if that’s the case, what can you really do? You could kill Gríma or run him out of town because you suspect he’s up to no good, but then you’ve committed treason by directly defying the king on a matter of utmost importance. Éomer says in TT that disobeying orders could cost him his life, so that kind of defiance would have been the absolute last resort.
4. The overriding goal of the First Battle of the Fords of Isen was to kill Théodred at all costs. That strongly implies that Gríma/Saruman saw Théodred as a threat that was so significant that they absolutely HAD to eliminate him. And that, to me, further implies that knew Teddy either already had or soon would figure out their game and get a plan in place to oppose them.
So maybe thinking about it in that context will help to spur some ideas for how you personally want to square this circle? Though obviously canon compliance isn’t always the most important consideration, and if any of this messes up other story elements you have in place then it shouldn’t constrain you! I only offer it as food for thought and hope it’s helpful in some way! 🙂
I’ve got my own HC for this whole question, developed as part of an older story I did about Théodred and how he was spending the last few days before his death, but I’ll put that below the cut in case it’s either not of interest or you’d rather not have it influence your own thoughts.
In my story, Théodred and Éomer are obviously aware that Théoden is Not Well, and they also know and are frustrated by the fact that Gríma is giving Théoden lots of shitty counsel about how to deal with the rising threat of Isengard. But they don’t know that those things are connected. To them, the illness afflicting Théoden is an unexplained mystery – one that they’d had every healer in the realm try to remedy, with no success – and Gríma is just a purveyor of ridiculously bad advice rather than someone executing a nefarious strategic plot. So they are each dividing their time between home and Edoras, trying to keep an eye on things, to blunt the worst of Gríma’s bad counsel, and to figure out a way forward. But they’re struggling, and everyone is super stressed out about it all.
When Théodred arrives at Meduseld in late February 3019 to hear that Théoden’s condition has taken a significant turn for the worse, he decides to seek the help of his buddy Boromir with the thought that maybe Gondor’s healers will have an idea of how to cure Théoden. He goes to see his father so that he can observe his latest condition directly, but Gríma has convinced Théoden that Théodred is trying to usurp him and Théoden sends him away. That experience, together with info gained from Éowyn and Háma (both of whom ARE around Théoden and Gríma regularly), allows Teddy to finally put all the various pieces together. [This is multiple chapters compressed into a paragraph, but you know…]
But if Théoden isn’t in his right mind and will let Isengard overpower Rohan as a result, the only way for Teddy to fix things is to do exactly what Gríma had accused him of: seek to take power for himself, at least until Théoden can be healed. Teddy is VERY hesitant to do that. It’s breaking the law, it’s disrespectful of his father, and he’s got no real ambitions to power anyway. But he can’t think of another way, so he decides he’ll do it if he can get the support of all the other significant lords of the land (Éomer, Erkenbrand, Elfhelm, that whole cast of senior leaders).
He writes his letter to Boromir (which, of course, Boromir will never receive because he’s about to die at Parth Galen) and has drawn up a list of everyone whose support he’s going to seek for his attempt to take temporary control of the throne when word arrives that a full-on invasion is about to happen at the Fords and he is needed there for reinforcement. He leaves his fiancee to send the letter to Boromir and to start working on lining up support while he goes to deal with the emergency at the Fords, but he’s tragically killed, which obviously derails the plan. At which point, we hook back into the main narrative where Éomer is kind of flailing on his own…
This is an encouragement to share any headcanon you might have related to Elfhelm, more specifically about his eyebrows. 🥸
Ah, Elfhelm, my beloved. Currently getting spanked in the favorite character poll but deserving of so much more! ♥️ Here are my random Elfhelm thoughts:
—He’s in his sixties, so he’s part of Théoden’s generation. In fact, he’s distant kin to Théoden by marriage (Elfhelm and Elfhild being from the same broader family only makes sense!)
—At Elfhild’s request, he moved from the Westfold to Edoras just before Théodred was born so that her son would be raised around members of her family, too.
—Because Elfhild died in childbirth, Elfhelm and Théodwyn cared for Théodred until Théoden got his head together enough to really start parenting. Théoden’s gratitude for that is part of why he trusted and relied on Elfhelm to such a large extent and allowed him to function as First Marshal (even tho that was Théoden’s title).
—Elfhelm was a social ANIMAL. There was nothing he loved more than a party, and he became the default center of attention as soon as he arrived. He’d lead singing, buy rounds, win an impromptu arm wrestling contest, dance with all the old ladies and little girls, and tell bawdy jokes that people laughed at even as they acted shocked.
—He was naturally gifted with people. He could talk to ANYONE and make them all feel like the most important person in the room. He had a fantastic memory and always remembered to ask after that horse of yours that was sick last month or to congratulate your son on finishing that apprenticeship you told him about in the spring.
—He LIVED for harmless gossip. He had a million sources (he wasn’t above hanging out in the line for the women’s privy at the mead hall because that’s where the best scoops were shared), and people just felt drawn to confide in him about all kinds of things. But he had very keen judgment and never shared anything that would hurt anyone else.
—He had a daughter, who he was crazy for, but he also collected surrogate children – youths who were lacking a parental figure of their own for whatever reason and that would be welcomed to his family table and given all kinds of love and advice. (Over the years this included not just Théodred and Éomer but also Guthláf and later Wíd.) (Even though Wíd was a full-on adult at the time, he needed extra care!)
—He definitely knew that Éowyn was in his éored on the way to Gondor and agreed to look the other way because he understood why she wanted to be there. Éowyn tried many times over the years to thank him for this, but he always just winked and then pretended not to know what she was talking about.
—He had some unresolved trauma (nightmares, flashbacks, etc.) around Théodred’s death at the Isen and specifically the very visceral fighting over possession of his body. He was only able to get some closure on this after the war, when he suggested – and Éomer readily agreed – that they go back to the Fords and have a REAL funeral for Théodred so they could all grieve as a community.
—He did, indeed, have classic Grandpa Eyebrows! His wife tried to keep them trimmed, but he really couldn’t be bothered and joked that they helped keep the sun out of his eyes.
