The Badger's Smial @thehobbitbadger - Tumblr Blog

Her dress was plain and short, her hair fell loosely down her shoulders, her feet were bare, and she carried a basket piled high with fruits. As she entered the Prince’s hall, she brought with her the smell of soil and rain.

Commission by @puzzler00m of the Princess of the West. I am so so so thrilled how this turned out. Support artists! Detail shots below the cut.

tossawary

There are a few different factors to the One Ring's extended lack of success with hobbit ringbearers (Frodo, Sam, Bilbo, and yes, even and perhaps especially Gollum*), but lately I've been thinking about how the hobbits have... genuinely very little understanding of what the One Ring's powers actually are and how a hobbit could ever hope to wield them.

As opposed to, say, someone like Boromir, who has the education of a prince (including history, military studies, maybe some magical theory?) and grew up on the increasingly apocalyptic front against Mordor. Boromir understands that the One Ring's unmatched ability to influence and dominate could perhaps, if someone with sufficient magical ability could hack it, get the orc armies to back the hell off his home.

And I do think that urgent relief is actually possible on a very TEMPORARY basis before the situation somehow blows up. The One Ring is both a source of power for Sauron and his greatest vulnerability. I don't think either Galadriel or Gandalf would be tempted by it unless you could pull SOME significant benefit from the One Ring; but they also know that the downsides of keeping it are worse in the long run, and also that the short run is likely to be much, MUCH shorter than they'd like.

(I do think Denethor and Boromir are most likely to try to wield the One Ring themselves, but I just remembered that Faramir was tutored by Gandalf once upon a time. Now, I'm imagining a deliciously dark AU scenario in which Denethor makes Faramir try to wield the One Ring for them.)

I'm not necessarily making an "ignorance is bliss" argument. It's just... Okay, supposedly, a rather effective negotiation tactic is to calm the whole process down and to utilize "how" questions as both a soft, unspoken "no" and also move the conversation out of emotional "winning the deal" territory into a more productive "what are the actual logistics of implementing this ideally mutually beneficial agreement" area. I think the hobbits generally just have... a very different "And how am I (a very small hobbit of ALL people) supposed to do that?" questioning mindset.

Smeagol, Bilbo, and Frodo get the One Ring when it's at its relative weakest, for one thing, and they're not under the same overwhelming desperation as someone like Boromir. Sam gets the One Ring at perhaps its most powerful and his most desperate time, but even then, the One Ring tries offering him everything and he's like, "How is that supposed to work? I'm a hobbit. I'm a humble gardener who doesn't know anything about magic. How am I supposed to wield ultimate power or rule the world? Seems unrealistic, honestly." (It helps that he's also just intimately seen the One Ring screw over both Frodo and Gollum pretty badly. Other factors, yes.)

I think the One Ring is most in its element with people who have some power and self-importance already, with kings and princes and sorcerers. Meanwhile, you hand a magical item of unspeakable destruction to a hobbit and the hobbit is like, "How am I even supposed to use this? No, really, how does it work? I don't get it. What is this, again?" Starting with nothing compared to many other characters, Frodo and Sam have perhaps the plainest view that all the potential power and leverage is on the One Ring's side of any arrangement. And you have to first persuade them that this IS a usable tool for anything besides turning briefly invisible, because from their perspective, it's not.

nothorses

watching stuff with kids in it and talking to adults about kids is so fucking weird as someone who works with kids. it is extremely transparent that very few people ever interact with kids, so they just fully forget what they're like and lump them into a broad category of essentially toddlers with different levels of speech capability.

I genuinely believe the stringent age-based separation most of us are experiencing is one of the single most destructive forces in our society. you need to interact with people of all ages regularly or you start to get all "think of the children" and "parent's rights" and fucking "11 year olds can't comprehend basic ratios". or, worse and frankly way more common for leftists, "I hate kids they're so annoying" or "kids are fine I just never want to interact with them if I can help it".

They are people. they have complex thoughts and emotions and knowledge. they are aware of the political goings on in the world, and they think deeply and talk frequently about the issues that impact you (often because those issues impact them as well, but often even when they don't!). they share space with you in your communities, locally and online, whether you're aware of them or think of them as part of your communities or not.

you need to talk to them regularly so you can remember that they are people, the ways in which they are people, the kinds of people they are, the needs they have, and how to advocate for them in a society that increasingly flattens them to varying sizes of toddler. or, if nothing else, so you can share your communities with them instead of expecting them to take what they can get and fit themselves in however makes you, personally, most comfortable.

otherwise you get weird and start talking like a republican.

ovur

I won't ever get over the removal of headphone jacks, or micro sd slots, or cd drives. I won't. Fuck everyone and everything

honeyfaer

"theyll hate you for this" "but theyll be alive" is THE juiciest thing to me

honeyfaer

i will ensure you stay alive above all else. even if what i do to make it happen is horrendous. even if it violates all your wishes or moral principles. even if you can never look at me the same way again, even if you hate me for it. because at least if you hate me it means youre alive

jakerycakery

The Moment of Clarity

iamnotawomanimagod

me seeing a mutual's happy post: "hell yeah buddy :)" *hits like*

me seeing a mutual's sad/vent post: "aww no buddy :(" *hits like*

estel-and-agape

The like button is heart shaped for a reason and the reason is that it means I love you

bigger-rat

Vladimir Serov, The Worker (1960) and The Builder (1964)

lieutenant-sappho

transition timeline

estrogenesis-vaporeongelion

winding up for a thunderous soviet slap on th ass

theunfairfolk

people are saying this?

ashgunnywolf

Honestly, with all the tradwife cooking trash circulating, it only makes me love B Dylan Hollis more for baking vintage recipes while being openly gay, making sexual jokes, and screaming at the ingredients. He's the antithesis of every soft-spoken cishet woman cooking for her husband and children. You don't have to be an idyllic cottagecore housewife to cook.

onbearfeet

The swearing is essential. That's what "made with love" or "the secret ingredient is love" means. It means, "I love you so much that you're worth this fucking bullshit."

nattousan

cecilias-cool-stuff

Never stop hating

hellinglaozu

wizardarchetypes

okay already i desperately need u.s. americans to practice the phrase, "not where i'm from, but maybe in other parts of the u.s."

because it's genuinely insane the things i've heard americans say 'america doesn't have' when it's just factually incorrect.

for some perspective: during my longest move i did by-car in the u.s., i drove ~3,000 miles. That's ~4,800 km. It took nearly 50 hours drive-times alone. Meaning, if I could have driven without stopping once, it would have taken nearly 50 hours. Of course I split that up over several days.

Driving that same distance here, If there's a ferry+road from Rabat (in Morocco) to Kyiv (Ukraine), I could take it and keep on going another several hours.

So you can understand how silly it is for someone from the u.s. to be asked to answer a question on behalf of the entirety of the u.s.—geographically, culturally, etc.

So now that we've said all that, I need you to know that I listened to a guy from Idaho tell an Irish person today, "yeah, we just don't really get snails much in America."

Snails.

wizardarchetypes

Next. Even if someone does say, 'not where I'm from,' you might still want to check that out for yourself: