You know that Ada Limón poem where she’s like “i can’t help it i love the way men love”? my dad recently confessed to me that he became a shoemaker because they buried my grandma shoeless
oh…………………………………
Accident Report in the Tall, Tall Weeds - Ada Limón
@olliesaurus-rex OLLIE LOOK IT’S YOU IT’S YOUR TAGS!!!!!!!
Some fanfic authors, you find one work and binge their entire collection immediately.
Other fanfic authors, you find one work and have to microdose on the rest of their collection because you know you can never experience their works for the first time again.
Both of these are adoration.
i read the hobbit in 3rd grade and i thought it was really lame. however i liked bilbo baggins for some reason and i was fully convinced he was some sort of rabbit/mouse thing until i saw the lotr movies and was really, really confused
One of the most delightful parts of any fandom experience is always making the Author rotate in their grave like a rotisserie chicken.
How DARE Tolkien omit in the final draft the information that the traditional hobbit marriage custom is to have unspoken vibes for years and then disappear without explanation for an indeterminate length of time!?
This woman made a miniature Bag End and it is so friggin’ cool and detailed, I can’t even…
To see more pictures and read about the incredible process, check over here! She actually added a bit at the bottom describing the actual process - with pictures! - so maybe you can make your own miniature hobbit hole too ^_^
The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton will never be not funny. Holmes and Watson try to save a woman’s reputation by breaking into her blackmailer’s house? Too bad because the woman in question just straight up murders the motherfucker in cold blood. Watson lives the dream of “Be gay, do crime”, except they both are horrible at crime and he can’t concentrate for shit because Holmes holds his hand the whole time.
Nerds These Days: You can’t have epic fantasy without epic battles, it’s a necessity of the genre!!!!
Jolkien Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien, originator of the genre: … anyway, Bilbo got hit on the head, and then when he woke up the battle was over!
Jirt writing “Helms Deep”: I guess I can tell you about the battle that happened, but I’m only going to spend half a page on it, so pay attention.
Some other post somewhere made this point before but it’s worth saying again: this is probably partially because Jirt served in WW1 and was kept from dying at the Somme by pure chance, and he knew better than to write lengthy scenes of glorious battle because war is not glorious, it is horrific and the less time spent in it the better.
every time I see the words “Tolkien ripoff” in reference to fantasy I laugh, because while there’s a lot of Tolkien ripoff in worldbuilding it almost never crops up in plot or theme or characterization
like
where are my stories about the decay of the world from the glory of days gone by?
where’s the motif of limb loss?
where’s the longing for the return of something worth following?
where are the bloodthirsty oaths that tear sanity to shreds?
where are the evil spirits who try and destroy the gods with steampunk V-1 buzz bombs (looking at you, The Lost Road)?
where’s my continent-wide dialectical shift ending in massive arguments over the proper pronunciation of a name? where’s my family drama centered around sparkly rocks? where are my dragons the size of mountain ranges?
Tolkienesque Fantasy™: there’s a quest, the elves are bitchy, the dwarves drink a lot, farm boy hero.
Tolkien’s Actual Writing: absolute power corrupts absolutely, a little bit of power corrupts a little, to what extent are people responsible for their actions? does God/the gods really answer our prayers? and pacifistic undertones.
Also actual Tolkien: The world is full of hope even in dark times. Kindness and friendship are what heroes are made of. Absolutely do not fuck with nature or you will regret it.
Also actual Tolkien: actual heroes are little people who band together because it is right, and because they must.
Actual Tolkien: write your spouse into the story as an Actual Demigoddess whose song can charm even the Big Bad and the Keeper of the Dead themselves. Write your best friend into the story as a longwinded shaggy tree who takes hours to get to the fucking point.
Actual Tolkien: a true leader values peace rather than war, and is identified by their ability to heal rather than fight. We are all essentially shaped and guided by the past, what was done and what stories we know of it. We are part of that great ongoing story. Despair is the enemy; hope is never foolish.
headcanon that after his adventures, when bilbo did the dishes, he sometimes sang ‘that’s what bilbo baggins hates’ quietly to himself
Gandalf: Hmm, I think the Shire-folk need to be reintroduced to the outside world… Gradually, though, this isn’t the sort of thing you can do all at once. I’ll just bring one hobbit on an adventure again, to start with, just to plant a seed…
Bilbo Baggins, having gone on one (1) adventure: *acquires a mithril-coat, Gondolin-blade, and the One Ring; becomes an Elf-friend, close to the Elvenking and Elrond Halfelven; orders party favors from Dale and Erebor decades later; learns Quenya; goes to live at Rivendell; compiles a comprehensive history of the First Age in Westron from translated Elvish epics and primary-source accounts; becomes personal friends with the Heir of Isildur; eventually sails to Valinor*
Bilbo entering the outside world;
something that i love about lotr is how the films show the reality of the quest. they get tired. they get hungry. they cry. it’s not just quips and one liners and then fights. its the slog. its the climb. i saw aragorn cry over dead boromir and it hit a nerve.
the lord of the rings is a great work of literature and film for a lot of reasons but one of them is that it understands the importance of having a little treat
there are multiple scenes in both the books and films where the characters stop everything they're doing to have a bite to eat because this is an necessary part of their hero's journey
Between the Arkenstone, the One Ring, and that cache of magic swords Bilbo uncovered during Thorin and company’s confrontation with the trolls that just happened to be the former property of the High King of the Noldor, Bilbo and Gandalf’s relationship is just a constant process of Bilbo showing up with some random artifact of world-changing significance and Gandalf sagely stroking his beard and making a pithy remark while internally screaming “WHERE DO YOU KEEP FINDING THESE THINGS”.
Alternately, this is why Gandalf always brings/sends hobbits on adventures. Because if you take a hobbit out of their nice safe holding-pen in the Shire, it will take them approximately ten minutes to stumble across whatever item of world-shaking importance is currently knocking around the vicinity. You take a hobbit out and set them loose and they will find ancient weapons of a godly age, ancient beings that pre-date the world, the one treasure in the middle of a hoard of treasure that you actually need, the single most deadly magic item in the world in the middle of a river, the same magic item in the middle of a cave centuries later, the local magic rock with a direct link to the current villain’s mind (which, in this case, was not necessarily a blessing, Pippin) …
If you put a hobbit down, basically, and there is an item of plot importance within a fifty mile radius, they will put their hand down and pick it up. Guaranteed. (Again, as with Pippin and the Palantir, this is not necessarily a good thing, but at least you’ll know where shit is)
The other reason he always brings/sends hobbits on adventures is that they will also kickstart world-shaking actions if left unattended for more than five minutes. See also: Merry and Pippin toppling Isengard the minute they were left alone near people they could trick into war-slash-mischief. See also: Bilbo giving Bard and Thranduil the Arkenstone in an attempt to negotiate because the dwarves left him unsupervised and somebody needed to at least try and keep the peace. See also: Pippin suborning a Gondorian guard into outright treason in the place of the dead to save Faramir and the Gondorian Stewardship from Denethor’s madness. See also: Frodo, Sam and Gollum royally mucking up Sauron’s everything while entirely alone and unsupervised under his very nose.
Like, it’s a gamble. Taking hobbits out into the wider world and letting them loose unsupervised is not an action for the risk-adverse or the faint of heart. But if you want results in a relatively short time-frame, by the Valar it’s effective.
Bilbo was declared dead while he was away in the Hobbit (and had to do a bunch of paperwork to get declared alive again) but there’s no indication he was formally declared dead after leaving the Shire, even though most people assumed he had died.
Therefore I posit: having a missing person declared dead in the Shire requires the consent of their next of kin. Whoever Bilbo’s next of kin was at the time of the Hobbit (possibly Otho? I’m not sure) had him declared dead at the first opportunity but Frodo refused to ever do it.
Frodo had anxious hobbit bureaucrats knocking on his door every couple of years like ‘Mr Baggins… blease… it’s been 10 years… he was eleventy-one… can we fill out his death certificate yet’ and Frodo was like ‘absolutely not’.
Early on he genuinely couldn’t bring himself too but after a while it was more that he enjoyed irritating the local magistrate’s office than anything else.
I raise you: the hobbitish bureaucracy has no means to re-declare someone dead. They had no precedent to declare someone who was once-dead dead again. They would need the Thain, the Mayor, and the Master of Buckland to agree to changing the statute, and since the Thain and the Master are too amused by the whole henclucking that they haven’t gotten round to it just yet.
I’m upping the stakes with: last time Bilbo was declared dead when he was, in fact, not dead, they removed the law stating that you can have someone declared dead without a body, so when Bilbo left (happily aware of this legal loophole and snickering) he could never become legally dead again.
I am loving the implication here that Bilbo can literally never die in the eyes of the law. He’d love that.
a hobbit parent telling their kids the story of Mad Baggins and being like “thanks to a loophole in hobbit law he’s technically still alive today”
a hobbit child misinterprets this and lies awake at night worrying that Mad Baggins is still out there and will appear in their room without warning
Alternatively: the laws for declaring somebody dead if they’re missing for long enough are still in place, but the magistrates are just refusing to enforce them in this particular case.
After all, last time they declared Bilbo Baggins dead— which involved filling out all the paperwork necessary to declare somebody dead without a body— he had the rudeness to show up again, forcing them to do a lot more paperwork, and this time with an indignant Bilbo having a go at them while they did it.
As a result, the magistrates have decided that they’re not going to declare Bilbo Baggins dead a second time unless they have a body, a coroners reprt explaining the cause of death, and a three day wake to make sure that he doesn’t get up and walk away again.
Centuries later, hobbit parents tell their children that Mad Baggins is forever gone from the shire— at least until the day when somebody is stupid enough to declare him legally dead, at which point legend states that he will immediately come marching back, demanding an explanation.
i love the implication that its considered rude in hobbit society to show up alive after being declared dead
Two hundred years later the inheritance drama over Bag End is still going strong. The Sackville-Bagginses insist that even if Bilbo isn’t legally dead, he’s clearly abandoned the property; those responsible for overseeing the affair respond by pointing out that, as it’s well known that Bilbo Baggins could turn invisible, they can’t be sure he’s not still in the building.
We took the drunk train home.
They were all absolutely infatuated with him and whispering about how much they wanted to pet him and then shushing each other saying “no that’s rude you can’t! just leave him alone!” so I told them they can pet him if they want and they were absolutely overwhelmed with happiness, while simultaneously being very concerned for his well-being, continually asking if I was very sure that it was okay and that I should please please tell them if I need them to leave him alone.
Basically, it was a great ending to a VERY long day. Sometimes people are really great.
the composition here is honestly close enough to a medieval painting, and just fuckin beautiful in 2138908 ways, that i think we can go ahead and hang this in a museum, thanks
kink at pride is easy af to explain to kids, idk what yall are talking about. "mommy, why is that mostly-naked man wearing leather?" because lots of gay men think it looks nice. "why is that guy on a leash with a mask?" hes playing pretend. "why does she have a whip?" she thinks its fun. you know how you like to play with water guns? its like that but only for grown-ups, and she wont play with anyone who doesnt want to play with her so we're all totally safe
if your 6yo's next question is "is that a sex thing?", thats fucking wild and a completely different problem. for you. not really an "Us Problem" collectively for all pride-goers, tbh. something's going on there thats hard to call the dominatrix's fault
homophobes think that being gay is already a weird sex thing thats hard to explain to kids. did yall forget that already? why are you trying to play respectability politics for people who will never respect you?
‘washes their neighbours’ windows’ - a person who is too nosy. took origin (pretty much Always hypocritical)
‘starts their 4 o'clock tea at noon’ - a person who is overly cautious. took origin
‘they’d take their pony into the bar’ - a person who is very oblivious to what is going around them. origin unclear. common in buckland
‘can’t find the nose on a pig’ - when someone is very drunk. started with the proudfeet
‘swims like a baggins’ - can’t swim. took origin. obsolete for obvious reasons
‘goody two hats, soon to be none’ - a person who is so annoyingly ‘good’ that they make you want to trash them. took origin
‘their head is a hat rack’ - someone can’t think. origins in buckland. became wildly popular through use in gondor and is still in use to this day
‘harder than finding your child at a birthday party’ - a task is difficult. origins in buckland
‘can’t tell a bird from a butterfly’ - a person who is very foolish and naive. origins unclear. most common in south farthing
‘eyes like a spinning wheel’ - someone who is greedy for other people’s things. origin under dispute.
‘kissed by a fairy’ - a person who is insane. hobbiton origin. used extensively
Okay but “their head is a hatrack” is brilliant and catchy XD
Also “Can’t tell a bird from a butterfly” I SEE you sneaking in memes!!!
Christmas is coming! And there are some nice fandom greeting cards :3 I’m working on the new ones, so keep an eye on my Redbubble ^_~
This is gorgeous! It’s funny, I’m actually doing a paper on The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, and The Hobbit (I should be working on that right now actually.) The Narnia one makes me especially nostalgic.
ADHD got me like *straight up doesn’t do something if my brain decides it isn’t fun or immediately gratifying*
