#also i fucking love elves

[hellafluff]

LADY SENSHI???!!!!!!

#thank you ryoko kui for my life #this whole oneshot page is cracking me up #female kabru flirting with laius??? holy shit #also male falin and marcille still being gay as fuck #i love that male elves are just femboys?????? apparently???? #like i noticed that earlier but its sooooo funny seeing it in the genderbent page #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #senshi dungeon meshi #crazee talk

[maironsmaid]

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

~ Maglor / Finrod (or as I call them Macarato)

#FINALLY DONE WITH THESE TWO LOVEBIRDS #OMGGGGGG hdhfjsjs #soooo exited about this ngl #also this maybe showed me that i should really learn how to render metal and crystals etc lmao #fuck shiny things #not really though bc in this house we love jewellery #it's a rubber #silmarillion #elves #noldor #maglor #sons of feanor #finrod felagund #Finrod/Maglor #Macarato #valinor #years of the trees #tolkien elves #j r r tolkien

[bardsandbees]

there’s a lot of things i love about fandom but in the case of the witcher fandom they took a named but dead character from a lambert side quest in the 3rd video game where lambert has a vague emotional attachment to said character and turned him into a fully fledged, three dimensional and beloved love interest for lambert. i think lambert says his name no more than twice during the whole quest. and yet the fandom consensus on not only aiden’s personality but also general physical appearance is incredible

#the witcher #who was the first person to say ‘he’s a tall pretty boy made of sunshine who is sometimes an elf’ #cause they’re a GENIUS #he’s always an elf in my writing just cause i think it fits his vibe and i also like the lore of cat witchers almost always being elves #it also opens the doors for SO much banter with lambert when they first meet #idk i just love fandom #they took one look at lambert’s actual tw3 love interest kiera and went “nah fuck that’. #dead friend was OBVIOUSLY the love of his life #don’t get me wrong i get it #lambert “’i’m an emotionless dickhead’ going on a murder revenge spree for his ‘friend’ from a DIFFERENT WITCHER SCHOOL #is suspect at best #but i digress #i <3 aiden #my words #witcher aiden #witcher lambert

[tanoraqui]

a fascinating, impactful thing about Elrond and Elros’s Choices to be Elf and Man respectively is that no way did they not start out Pretty Fucking Codependent. Since the age of 6, it’s been just the two of them surrounded by kinslayers, and then just the two of them surrounded by Gil-galad’s people and the Host of the West who don’t understand their many, many complicated feelings about the kinslayers. Like their parents before them, they are the only two half-elves alive in the world, completely alone but for each other. And their primary models for healthy relationships are Elwing “I will not let you suffer the wrath of the Valar alone” Dioriel, Eärendil “[I’m exhausted and want to leave but] My wife may Choose for both of us - immortality? Alright, babe” Tuorion, and Maglor “this is a terrible idea but I will not let you take further blood on your hands and Eternal Darkness on your soul alone” Fëanorion. There’s no way for them to have not been Pretty Fucking Codependent!

Yet still, still, for the love of boldness and fortitude and the mystery beyond the edge of the world, Elros chose to be a mortal Man; and for the love of wisdom and grace and the beauty of the world, Elrond chose to be an Elf forever in Arda; and as price, they both accepted that they would be sundered from one another until the end of all known time.

#elrond #elros #[softly but with fervor] i mean FUCK #the silmarillion #lotr #peredhil #obv reasons for choosing are written here for poetry more than character analysis BUT we do VERY MUCH in this house #hold to the idea that neither elrond nor elros chose out of anything like 'well my experience with elves has thus far sucked' #nor even 'i feel in love with someone' #but rather out of understanding eagerness and truly matched temperaments for their respective paths #we also hold that elrond made it like 5 years M A X I M U M in being-built lindon before gil-galad was like 'do you wanna just...go...' #and elrond was like 'YES THANK YOU it's not permanent if i don't go MORE west right?' and immediately built and sailed a boat to numenor #and in general split much of his time between the shores until elros's death and even after (though much less so) #was this supposed to be what they did? [wobbles hand] ehhhh... #was ulmo clearly tacitly endorsing it? yeah #elrond carefully never sailed off the western coast of the island it was fine. he was just visiting

[lordofthemushrooms]

Not to be dark and kinky in the Dragon Age tag but Solas’s wolf symbolism should be slightly more than symbolism. He may be quiet and calm normally but I know him and Inky had weird fucked up sex in the fade. I know he chased her down I know he ripped her heart out with his hands. I know that Solas understands devouring as devotion more than anyone else usually can.

#I’m sorry but this won’t get out of my head #I want to get into this in detail so bad like!!!!!!!! #also I know (at least am 95% sure) they don’t sleep together in canon but I do. not. care. I have ideas #he either ate her heart or they ripped each other’s hearts out and traded their places #it was primal and bloody and terrifying and they are so fucking in love with each other #dragon age #solavellan #also also also this connects SO WELL to a headcanon I’ve had about elves/my warden specifically and it’s making me crazy

[vulpinesaint]

listen i am geralt of rivia hater number one but one thing i actually CANNOT stand is when the fandom mischaracterizes him. took one look at this man who speaks very straight-forwardly and matter-of-fact and is a little recalcitrant with his words sometimes and went "haha he communicates in grunts! man who only says 'hm'!" and then won't even write him to speak in full fucking sentences. hello???? hello???????? yes the netflix show was a bad influence on everybody because they were trying too hard to depict geralt as a stoic manly badass but we CANNOT let that distract us from the REAL thing to make fun of geralt for. which are his Constant Unprovoked Monologues

#also the fact that he fakes his dumb stupid little rivian accent because the man was NOT raised in rivia. but i digress #'haha he only says hm!' where were you for every episode when he launched into a speech about the lesser evil. that's like. the whole thing #geralt of rivia will do nothing But talk once you let him. don't give that bitch a chance! he'll start up about honor again!!! #convinced that most of this is because netflix show insisted on showing us him around jaskier so much #and jaskier does not shut up. love him to death. but geralt genuinely does not have time to get a word in edgewise #i will admit that this is something that i had to learn by reading the books and paying more attention to it #but it's not like he DOESN'T do it in the show. if you ever sit with a witcher episode transcript for whatever reason #and really take a look at geralt's lines. man he talks a whole fucking lot. #again cannot emphasize enough that he Monologues. HE TALKS HIS WAY OUT OF SO MANY SITUATIONS. #me when i look filavandrel of the elves in the eyes and 'hm' at him and he lets me go. no bitch he monologued!!!! #terrible. terrible. let this man speak. if i see you fanfic bitches continue making him talk in sentence fragments again i'm gonna kill #as for my own fanfic. i will always prefer a geralt who talks too much to be believable over a geralt who barely speaks at all. #both because i believe in letting him speak his mind which he OBVIOUSLY likes to do. sideeyes him. #and because it's just fucking boring and a little annoying to read speech patterns that don't sound like how people talk. #cough cough lan wanji the untamed. man i'm not sitting here and reading this motherfucker's two word sentences #let him speak!!!!!! #anyway. #geralt of rivia #witcher #fanfic

[ride-a-dromedary]

Do you ever consider that Larian could have homebrewed with BG3 and imported their "Elves can absorb the memories of the dead by consuming their flesh" detail, because I sure do.

#BG3 Musing #Divinity elves are unhinged and i love them #but also in the way that makes sense - they do it as an honour thing #like consider mixing that with star's vampirism for a sec #consider halsin just *casually fucking doing this* because who needs speak to the dead? #make the elves alien dnd #larian's species lore in divinity was so *interesting*

[mystic-mauve]

He came to me in a vision in the middle of the night

#art #curse of strahd #ive had an inportant npc for a while that i could not for the life of me figure out an appearance for #well now ive got this for when the party meets dusk elves in #*checks watch* #like half a year #i love it when. pink #ama-rants #dicen-art #also yk what fuck it he's so close to looking like my bg3 durge #im gonna pretend i did not make him for a campaign hes just one of my guys now

[girlmadeofclockwork]

I do find the, well maybe not historical revisionism, but perhaps profoundly misremembering and or just changes in tastes that has gone down when it comes to Zevran and dragon age: origins to be quite interesting, like now that he’s very openly being compared to the newest hotness of Astarion, people talk about him as if he is/was the most popular because people love broody elves (even though Zev is the farthest from broody in his demeanor, and which kinda go hand in hand with people comparing him to Fenris, which isn’t new mind mind you, but it was fucking rare I saw anyone make that comparison 9 years ago) but I was there mind you, I was there 8-9 years ago. I remember clearly Zevran being the least popular romance option in origins when it came to the fandom.

#dragon age #this isn’t a digg on anyone I like all three of them (Zev. Fenris and Astarion) #but like the only thing I’d say these three characters have in common is being elves and having a terrible and horribly abusive past #well Zevs is different because he had an fucking awful and still not distant child hood (both Fen and Astarion don’t recall theirs) #but I think what’s really the kicker is that despite all that Zev dosen’t really hate the world at large and Is still nice to people #like yes he lies and manipulates and definitely offers to sleep with the warden out of self perseverance to a degree #but like Zev cares so fucking much about other people that finding out he was tricked into killing Someone he loved #made him stright up suicidal #another interesting fandom shift is with how the fandom treats Blackwall (who I also adore he’s my canon romance for my inquisitor) #like he was also the least romanced character in inquisition and people were fucking nasty about him (and very ageist) #but these days he’s much more beloved and people can understand and see that his story is likely the most completed and interesting #our of the companions in that game #anyway I’ll stop my musings now I doubt anyone actually cares much about what I have to say about it

[guideaus]

look at her

#personal #i love every time falin is shown not using magic. shes abt to mace this guy's head in #on an excellent kabru page btw #anyways i get la/bru as a ship and it feels impossible to talk abt kabru w/o laios but its based on his role #this section sums it up well. kabru wants to be the main character but isnt. our guy is the monster weirdo. and kabru hates monsters #kabru relents to laios having more of a chance of conquering the dungeon but also isnt sure abt his goals (monsters vs humanity) #and... idk if its the fucking elves or failing in a dungeon but he is cynical as hell and is prepared like hes scheming in game of thrones #agonizing endlessly even up to the last minute over laios. and post dunmeshi is very happy to be his advisor. elated probably #im looking. im looking

[blujayonthewing]

more dnd and adjacent media should be run and written by people who think dwarves and elves are boring but care very sincerely about halflings and gnomes

#me it's me they should put me in charge #welcome to my campaign. all of the halfling and gnome NPCs are richly developed and well-rounded. maybe sometimes a dwarf will exist #actually I almost left elves out of this post because imho they're more interesting than anyone ever bothers to remember or implement #and I don't think they're boring and I would give them loving and meaningful worldbuilding-- but I DO think most people run them boring #'oh they're like humans but better. they're like beautiful humans who are old' that's IT?? I am ASLEEP!!! #anyway why do people just flatly refuse to engage with the small races at all!! #are they boring or are you just writing them off for no reason!! #I have one(1) dnd friend and DM who Gets It-- oh no sorry I forgot Justin is also my DM and dnd friend dfkjhgdfj. TWO DMs who get it #so halfling and especially gnome NPCs actually get to 1) fucking exist at all and 2) feel like real people but also distinct from humans #I think people just don't know what to do with them. which is a bummer and also boring. #I dunno like. as a reasonably intelligent and fully realized adult who is also playful and silly #I have pretty strong feelings actually about gnomes getting to be real people and ALSO culturally value goofiness and whimsy #and very strong feelings about how hard that is for most people to understand or believe (: #about me #gnome stuff #worldbuilding

[rightpastnowhere]

(submitted by @enchantedmerry)

Hi! People are sending you fluffy headcanons, so here’s some more!

Vex and Percy didn’t actually tell Tary that they’d gotten married, it’s more that they were both all caught up being sappy newlyweds and in their defence they both find it really hard to concentrate on anything around them when the other’s kissing them and calling them lovely things. Normally, Tary would just quietly leave as quickly as possible when he walked in on them making out but this time he heard Percy calling her ‘Lady de Rolo’ and he can’t really be blamed for making a squaking sound, he maybe can be blamed for assuming that they were just into some very elaborate roleplay but honestly at least his mind jumping to that makes them eloping seem less shocking.

I’ve already included this in a fic but I love the idea that part of Vex rebuilding the Dawnfather’s temple in Whitestone included making the gardens into an orchard resembling the one they saw in Pelor’s realm. Obviously, it’s very religiously symbolic but also the fruit/selling the fruit could be used to help feed the poorest of Whitestone. Also, it’s very fun to imagine that in centuries time after the specifics of vm’s exploits have begun to drift into myth some poor future Star of Whitestone having an absolute what the FUCK moment when they realise their local church just casually looks that much like the Dawnfather’s actual house.

Pike makes her kids these really elaborate birthday cakes. She asks Kaylie if she wants one too, because it feels mean to leave her out, and she acts like she isn’t bothered but then gets so chocked up when Pike makes her one anyway.

Sometimes the twins just forget that not everyone’s bi. They were mainly round each other for so long and homophobia isn’t a thing in Tal'dorie so it’s not something that comes up much. This very nearly leads to an uncomfortable situation where Vex is just barely able to stop herself from saying 'well obviously’ when one of her kids is just starting to work out their sexuality and tells her they think they want to date people the same gender as themselves.

Whitestone Castle is an incredible playground, there’s so many hidey-holes and different roots to escape capture if you’re being chased, or places to tuck away for more quiet play and avoiding siblings. Cass goes through a very disconcerting series of emotions after stumbling on one of her niblings hidden where she hid from the Briarwoods after the initial attack, the paranoid part of her brain is glad they’re learning the best hiding spots, the rest of her just hopes they never need that knowledge. Ultimately, such morbid thoughts get drowned out as the priority becomes banning magic from their games because it’s unfair, then trying to work out how to re-balance it when at least Gwen (and probably others of the quarter elves) have clearly inherited rogue stats from their mother.

_____________________

IDK THE PROTOCOL FOR POSTING SUBMISSIONS BUT I’M ADDING MY OWN THOUGHTS BECAUSE IM SCREAMING HE L P

I HAD THE SAME THOUGHTS ABOUT TARY FINDING OUT GKJRNGKRJ i knew they would try so hard to be discreet but i ALSO know they’d be giggling to themselves and grinning while calling each other husband and wife because they’re absolutely smitten with each other, and poor tary not only almost sees vex’s tits, but also becomes one of the keepers of The Secret That Shook Vox Machina. his pulse fucking skyrockets any time one of VM came to visit whitestone during the break. the poor man gets grey hairs because of this

NGEKRJGNEKJ CAN U IMAGINE SOMEONE TELLING U THAT THE LOCAL TEMPLE ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE A GOD’S ACTUAL HOUSE. LIKE CAN U IMAGINE. and also the picture of vex just going through and picking fruits and organizing food drives (but also just keeping a few to herself every once in a while, so she can take them home and try to bake an apple pie like what she remembers of her mom’s). the champion of pelor, glowing golden, in an orchard in the sushine.

picturing pike trying to make a multi-tiered cake that is taller than she is, she asks percy for a step stool and he shows up with this elaborate motherfucker that has shelves at intermittent heights so she can take the icing and shit with her, because heaven forbid percy ever do less than The Most. AND PIKE MAKING KAYLIE A CAKE.... SOMEONE CALL AN AMBULANCE FOR ME

GNKJGNEKJRN GOD the twins are so SILLY i LOVE THEM SO MUCH

AWW CASS <33 i love any content of her interacting with the lil de rolo babies, how she is brought a little out of her paranoid shell by the Joys of being an aunt <33 but i do think she and percy and vex all stay QUITE paranoid, and when they teach the kids about the protocol for if the castle is ever attacked, the fact that they’ve already been playing in the tunnels definitely makes it a little easier. (although i do wonder how often, in their earlier days of parenting, one of the babies disappeared into the tunnels and sent percy and vex into panic attacks, only for cass to show up holding them in her arms after crawling out of an entire wall LMAO)

#submission #HELP HELLO THESE ARE ALL SO CUTE ?!???!? HELLLO ? ? ? ? ? #THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THESE ;; #THEY BRING ME SUCH GENUINE JOY #also i love your icon <333 mighty vibes art of vex wearing TWO jackets never ceases to make me smile #like she is so cold that she is wearing three layers INSIDE #southern girlies and their weakness to heat (it's me i'm southern girlies) #vex’ahlia #percival de rolo #taryon darrington #pike trickfoot #kaylie shorthalt #cassandra de rolo #quarter-elves #i don't think i've used that tag before but fuck it #perc’ahlia #vox machina #critical role #enchantedmerry

[turtlemagnum]

im not sure if i'm using this term correctly but i think pelinal whitestrake is probably the closest i have to a poor little meow meow

#pelinal whitestrake #oblivion #the elder scrolls #elder scrolls #tes #elder scrolls lore #the same can also arguably be said of dagoth ur #and maybe arguably possibly nerevar #my fucked up fantasy war criminals <3 #the contrast between Two Fucking Elves and the Guy Who Killed Elves Like That's His Whole Thing #i definitely feel like nerevar and pre heart of lorkhan dagoth ur were more normal type people #but i fucking love both dagoth ur and pelinal's whole absurdly powerful while teetering on the edge of lucidity and madness thing #also the line #LIKE WHEN A DREAM NO LONGER NEEDS ITS DREAMER #this line. this fucking line. it makes me feral holy shit #michael kirkbride i hope you realize what you've contributed to me. to us

[semi-imaginary-place]

Tolkien's Legendarium in the Modern World

It has been over 100 years since Tolkien first began his work on Middle Earth with the first draft verses of Luthien and Beren's story and the world has changed much in that time. Tolkien never published most of Legendarium until the end of his life he continued to draft and redraft its stories, and this begets the question of what Tolkien would have wished a completed Legendarium to look like and what I would have liked the Legendarium to be.

I personally disagree with most of Professor Tolkien's political opinions. While I do not think he was ever mean spirited, to the grave he carried with him many old fashioned ideas that while not quite bigoted in themselves, underpinned a lot of bigoted talking points. For example after people wrote to him about the troubling implications of his Dwarves on the Jewish people, Tolkien in response changed his depiction and mythology about Dwarves, he genuinely tried to do better. However what he never corrected was the view was that there were inherent differences between the different kinds of people of the world. Giving minorities a positive stereotype is not necessarily a good thing (hardworking, good with money, etc.). It feeds into the model minority myth that pits minorities against each other and acts as a rallying point for white supremacists that X minority is a threat to the white race.

The more racist parts of the Legendarium however are not the Dwarves but the descriptions of the Lesser Men, the Men of Darkness. There exists this hierarchy of the types of Men with the enlightened and European-like High Men such as the Dúnedain at the top, followed by the Middle Men or Men of Twilight like the Rohirrim or most of the other European-like Men, and at the bottom are the Men of Darkness those groups of men who fell under the control of Sauron (note how the European men were wise/strong enough to fight off Evil but the other types weren't) like the Haradrim, the Hill-men and others who are described with racist language that was also used to describe Middle Eastern peoples, African peoples, and really anyone Europeans considered a savage. Yikes, let's just scrub that, it would be impossible to rid the Legendarium of the eurocentrism but I would at least remove the most racist parts. Nor would I want to remove all of the Eurocentrism, Tolkien after all was directly inspired by European literature and epics, that is the literary ancestry of the Legendarium and I would not discredit it.

It is not bad for works to include racism or other sensitive topics, I would instead turn the Eurocentrism present in the Legendarium into a commentary on the ignorance of Middle Earth on the rest of Arda and the woes of a limited perspective. This idea was present in some drafts, that the entirety of the Legendarium was a story told to a human sailor that had washed up on the shores of Tol Eressëa and thus what the audience sees is actually a story within a story, thus making all the biases of the Legendarium the biases of that in universe storyteller. Of what Tolkien ever drafted, most of it is Noldorian history or history recorded by those associated with the Noldor. We barely hear mention of the Elves that refused the Great Journey presumably because the Noldor did not care for the histories of those people, placing themselves (Eldar and Calaquendi) above the Avari. Even the words used to describe groups of Elves are primarily Noldorian (or High Elvish) or Sindarian (normal Elvish) and the Sindar were greatly influenced by Thingol who saw the light of the Trees and Melian who was a Maia. Much of the Lord of the Rings is told from the perspective of Middle Earth (Gondor, Elrond, Hobbits), instead of completely eliminating the racism I would tone it down and make it more clear that the racism present if a product of the in story authors and their perspectives. Another option though I am not as fond of it and it would be harder to do is to lean into the bigotry, confirm that it is baked into the universe and thus lean more heavily into the tragedy that all the character's live in a universe there racism and a lack of free will are inherent parts of the fabric or reality and inescapable (more on this later).

There's many social issues I could talk about here, but for me what is most blatantly chaffing is the Catholicism. Tolkien's Legendarium is a Catholic work. Professor Tolkien himself was devotedly Catholic and traditionally Catholic, and that undercurrent of Catholicism permeates every aspect of the Legendarium. The Catholicism shows up everywhere from the mythos have a one true god that is a all powerful, all knowing, and benevolent creator, to how weird the Legendarium is about divorce (like a divorce had the butterfly effect causing most of the First Age's problems), discussions of morality and free will are very much made with Catholic theology in mind, the Catholic focus on purity, marriage is a sacred act between two soulmates destined for each other, sex is what makes a marriage real, and divorce is evil. It would be impossible to remove all the Catholicism and have the Legendarium to still be recognizable. As someone who recognizes the sheer amount of cultural destruction Christianity has wrought upon this world, if I were to rewrite the Legendarium, to create its ideal form, I would tone down the Catholic-ness of it though not entirely eliminate it, the question is how.

In the Legendarium, alignment with Eru Ilúvatar's will equates good and to turn away is to be evil. Melkor, Sauron, and Saruman are all examples of this, all three started out wanted to do good, to improve the lives of the people of Arda. For example in the beginning of the universe Melkor wasn't out for destruction and suffering, no what he wanted was freedom of will and choice, individuality. It was in defying Ilúvatar that he was corrupted because Ilúvatar's will is good and to rebel against it is to do evil, good and fix are fixed universal constants in Arda. I personally am fascinated by the inherent existentialist themes present in the Legendarium's cosmology. If there is a fixed path before each person and to stray from it means to become cosmologically evil, what is the moral thing to do? The relationship between creator and created, Elves and Dwarves were designed for a purpose what does it mean to fulfill that purpose or nature? Ilúvatar's Theme as first envisioned was never realized, Arda was created marred, suffering and discomfort are inherent aspects to existence on Arda. Similar themes can be found in other existentialist series such as the NieR games. Elves in Arda are bound to it, they cannot escape their fates even in death, their very essences are tied to the fate of Arda. It is curious then that humans are the sole beings that can escape Illuvatar's will and the fate of Arda, the have what Morgoth sorely coveted, the freedom to individually choose how to live their lives, The Gift of Man. I would keep this aspect even if it does still reek of Catholicism.

This brings us to one of the pivotal events of the First Age, The Finwë Divorce Saga. Tolkien himself wrote that he did not intend the Legendarium to be a Catholic allegory mostly because he hated allegories, but the man was so deeply Catholic that it just permeated everything he created. One could view The War of the Jewels as a cautionary tale of how divorce is evil and will only cause trouble to everyone even if Tolkien did not intend that specific reading, his views on marriage and divorce still leaked through. But Feanor and his family drama is such a keystone to the events of the First Age that the entirety of that era cannot exist without him. What I would do then in a rewrite is shift the narrative blame away from Finwe and Miriel and over to the Valar. The problems that followed were primarily because of the Valar mishandling the situation, not that Miriel and Finwe wanted a divorce. Hints of this interpretation already exist in The Silmarillion and HOME so its not that I would be creating something new so much as shifting emphasis.

This would also necessitate making the Elves less Catholic as Elf culture is very Catholic. Because Elven spirits (fea) are tied to the fate of Arda they are immortal so long as the world exists, unlike humans when Elves die their spirits do not leave the world, so their loved ones and partners are not truly gone. To each elf, they have one true soulmate and thus their marriages are eternal, until the end of existence. I would just get rid of this or at least tone it down, remove some of the mysticism or marriage being a literal magic bond. For one I feel what the Elves do takes away the true joy and uniqueness of each romantic relationship, that it is something people chose, that people chose each other and they could have chosen differently. I think Tolkien wanted to highlight the unchanging eternal nature of his Elves, because to support divorce would mean acknowledging that people and feelings change (just like his marriage, yes I said it, in their later years John and Edith lived lives that little to do with each other even if they shared a house). There is something to believing that because each soul is inherently and immutably good, every single person can be saved no matter how far they fall because its impossible for that base nature to change. I do not believe that, but even if it were true (which would fit the cosmology as discussed above), that does not discount all the "surface" level changes a person can undergo. Take Maedhros one of my favorite characters for example, even if he had an unchanging immortal soul or whatever Catholics are calling it these days, his behavior changed. Maedhros had all the set up of a classical hero (eldest son of a storied and prestigious lineage, skilled at both pen and sword, a diplomat, a leader, loyal, determined), and his story is about him failing to become that hero and just becoming worse over time to where by the end he's killing innocents and people fighting against the great Evil, and he commits the ultimate sin of killing himself (also suicide being a sin is very Catholic).

Other's have discussed the problems with depictions of women in the Legendarium but to cover a couple major points, the Legendarium just lacks women there are barely any female characters, and of the women present it's like they are only allowed to act within the bounds of traditional European femininity. Take for example Luthien who is probably the single most powerful non-Maia in the series (well she is half but she's counted among the elves), and yet her power in the story manifests solely through traditionally feminine domains like weaving. This on its own would not be a problem, women are allowed to like feminine things and Luthien has a lot of agency within her story, the problem is that there are so few women in the Legendarium and they are all like this, what powers they have always coming from the feminine sphere.

And of course because the Legendarium is a Catholic work the concept of purity is tied to morality and applied to women. Through reading many different drafts and letters Galadrieal can likely be suspected of being one of Tolkien's favorites. Her role in the Swearing of the Oath and First Kinslaying at Alqualondë vary drastically between drafts. In earlier drafts she sided with Feanor and the Noldor and though she did not swear the Oath of Feanor and thus doom herself, in these earlier drafts she is counted among the leaders of the Noldor revolt and like them is exiled from Aman. In other drafts she alternately does not participate in the attack on Alqualondë or even fights with her mother's brethren the Teleri against Feanor's forces, in some she crosses the Ice with Fingolfin's forces and in a particular draft she has nothing to do with the Exile of the Noldor and comes to Middle Earth by her own boat for her own means the timing just so happens to coincidentally line up. Generally in later drafts Tolkien bends over backwards to make exceptions for Galadrial so that she commits less sins and remains pure, he removes her rebellion against the divine and associations with the Exiled Noldor and thus retcons the most interesting aspect of her character in order to keep her unstained. This is one of two time where I have a strong preference for earlier drafts of the Legendarium (the other is draft epilogue where The Lord of the Rings ends with Sam looking back before closing the door as he hears the whisper of Aman on the wind). Those later drafts do a massive disservice to her character. Galadriel's whole character arc is that she starts off a headstrong, prideful, rebellious princess who want a kingdom of her own because she wants the power to rule over other people and through the devastation of the First and Second Ages she mellows out to become one of the wisest people in Middle Earth who would look power in the face and say no, who rules to serve and protect the people in her kingdom. Galadriel is so much more if Tolkien allows her to make mistakes when she was younger, to carry the guilt of what she enabled and allowed or perhaps participated in and have that weight shape her for the better. Then her actions in Middle Earth become not about how she was always good and pure, they become about redemption and taking the marred and the ugly and making something worthwhile out of it.

Éowyn the one character who noticeably steps beyond the boundaries for women, gets shoved back into traditional femininity at the end of her story, choosing to leave the battlefield to tend hearth and home. Now this likely was not intentional on Professor Tolkien's part. What he intended was a continuation of his anti-war stance seen throughout his works. World War I was brutal and massive shock to the world, recent innovations in technology made killing easier and faster, so while not the bloodiest conflict in history it was an abrupt wake up to the traditional modes of war. Soldiers went out and were slaughtered, most of Tolkien's tight-knit friend-group died in that war. On the battlefield Tolkien found no glory or honor, all he saw were the horrors of war, the human cost and the purposeless suffering inflicted. His anti-war stance can been seen most clearly outside the Legendarium in The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son which is a dialectic between an veteran soldier and a new soldier. Within The Lord of the Rings we see this is how Sam in the true hero of this story, in how hobbits value peace and good food over war or politics, in how the best men like Aragorn and Faramir are peaceful and would rather choose the pen over the sword. We see this most strongly in "The Scouring of the Shire" which arguably is the most thematically poignant part of The Lord of the Rings, because the a person's story does not end with the battle, sometimes war never ends for some people, and yet there are things worth fighting for in this world. War is terrible, but sometimes we have to fight to protect the simple good things in the world and it is not some destined hero that will save us but ordinary people rising to the occasion together. However it is incredibly conspicuous that the only major female character shown on the battlefield was the one forced to carry this narrative of putting down her sword to take care of a household. There are dozens of men in this story that fight in the War of the Ring and we do not see any of them retiring from fighting and choosing domesticity. It would have been so powerful if Tolkien chosen her brother the war chief Eomer to carry this message, imagine if it were him who came from a warrior culture and becomes warrior-king who chose to put down his sword and forswear fighting. So yes I would have rewritten Eowyn's ending, let malewife Faramir have his kickass girlboss wife. Let Eowyn's arc be her fielding herself out of despair and a desire to prove herself, and her character development learning that she is more powerful than she thought and that she will continue to wield the sword in service of Rohan, her people, and in service of peace.

Now I have typed some 3000 words about what I would change and why so let me end on some of the things I would keep the same for I love the Legendarium dearly and I would preserve far more than I would change. I would keep the hope and love that is written into these stories. I would keep that there is beauty in this world, there is good in friends and family. I would keep the awe and wonder for the natural world, that mountains and forests and streams can be their own characters. I would keep the sense of magic, not in the sense of spellcasting and sword and sorcery style magic, but that wonder and joy for the world that makes everything magical. I would keep that life is a journey and all you have to do is take the first step out your front door. I would keep the believably that this is just an untold forgotten history and like it there are still many mysteries in the world. I would keep the wide scale of continents and forces beyond us moving to their own stories. Tolkien crafted the Legendarium out of love, from that first poem about the woman he was in love with, to his love of philology stories and creation, Arda was made with love. In the Legendarium is deep love of the world, the natural world and the people that inhabit it, in here is hope too that no matter what evils plague the world there is still good there too in the hearts of the most ordinary person.

#tolkien #silmarillion #tolkien legendarium #lotr #lord of the rings #the hobbit #eowyn #i love the catholic elves i hate the catholic elves im using the catholic elves as a chew toy #just to be clear since tradwife tumblr of all groups has found this post #christianity is the religion of western imperialism bigotry and hate #also terfs can fuck off

[stardustasincocaine]

#ring of power #ring of power spoilers #rop spoilers #look I’m NOT WRONG it THE WARG LOOKS LIKE THIS #Honestly the ONLY thing I am pissed about in this show is that apparently a stiff breeze could kill elves #Erû Iluvitar sitting with his creation notes on his hand in smudged sharpie #yeah i love all my creations equally- men and eeeeeeh? #as the elves fucking get a bad papercut and die #but it’s also endlessly funny #BUT LOOK I LOVE THIS SHOW

[tathrin]

📽 action!: rank all six of the films (or three if you're a hater)

Answers for this LotR ask-game.

Ahh okay so at this point I have to confess something terrible: I still have not seen the third Hobbit movie. I'm sorry! I just couldn't do it. The fuckery of it all, especially in the second movie with Mirkwood and Thranduil and Legolas ("a lowly Silvan elf" what the FUCK what the fuck PJ WHAT THE FUCK), was just too much for me. Character-assassination is one thing, and I thought after Denethor I knew what I was going to be getting with Thranduil but NOPE! It was literal world building assassination and I just CANNOT.

Don't get me wrong, Lee Pace did an amazing job and actually seeing Mirkwood was amazing and it was genuinely delightful to see Orlando put those ears on again; but the OuTrAgE that filled my heart at the yeet-ing of what minimal canon we even have for the Mirkwood elves was just intolerable, and while I did mean to go see it, really I did, I just...couldn't actually get the motivation to go before it was out of theatres. I've heard the EE are better (less studio fuckery) so I'll watch them someday! Honest! I just...haven't. yet.

And as to the Lord of the Rings trilogy...man, I don't even know how to do this. In terms of which is the best film, or in terms of which one I enjoy watching most, or in terms of which on hits me in the heart hardest or...? I don't know if I can objectively rank my feelings about these movies even in my own brain because RotK ends with Into the West and I have FeelingsTM about the Undying Lands and Sea Longing okay. So the last scene of RotK at the Grey Havens is a fucking spear through the heart every time and I can't even describe the knot of feelings it engenders, and I think overall TTT may be my favorite but also it has Plot Issues that piss me off even more than the Plot Issues in RotK I think,...yeah, we're going to do this in terms of Film Crafting rather than personal favorites because I'm having too many feelings lmao. So! In order of most-well-done-movie to least:

Fellowship of the Ring

The Two Towers

Return Of The King

The Desolation of Smaug

An Unexpected Journey

#look there are some REALLY LOVELY MOMENTS in the hobbit movies #(all three of them; i've seen enough stuff floating around the internet to know that even about the one i haven't actually seen lmao) #but the ratio of beautiful moments to what-the-fuckery is just so skewed to the latter #and the cartoonish unreality of most of the effects do NOT help #it's like somebody watched the mumakil bit from rotk and went ''more of that but dial it up to eleventy-one!'' and i just... #do y'all know how FUCKING EXCITED i was to see the White Council??? #to see GALADRIEL? #to see sauron thrown out of dol guldur? TO SEE THE WHITE COUNCIL!??? #because as soon as i heard ''three movies'' i knew I KNEW (i hoped) that they had to be adding that it #because how the fuck else were they going to pad-out that tiny little book into three whole movies? OBVIOUSLY with the white council!!! #and then...we got a chase scene in the mines that made the podracing look like it deserved an oscar #and the most cringe-inducingly-artificial cgi armies at war that i think i've ever seen even IN video games #it was like watching galactic battlegrounds middle-earth edition wtf #did y'all literally just make one elf and one dwarf and copy-past them a million times into the scene wtffffff #but i still need to make it clear that i DO love the good bits that's what makes the bad parts hurt so much! #like: does the fact that the elves coming to helm's deep make no sense and also VANISH from the plot as soon as it's over irritate me? YES! #but the battle itself is filmed with so much HEART that i don't care I DON'T CARE #i still cheer at ''no orc horn'' i still weep at haldir's death (GODS that MUSIC!) i still watch the whole thing RAPT and ENTHRALLED #but 80% of the hobbit's actions scenes don't DO anything they're just empty pixels with less purpose than the droid factory on geonosis #and there should be SO MUCH HEART because that's WHAT TOLKIEN IS auuuughhhhhh #and the fact that they missed the entire fucking EVERYTHING about MIRKWOOD of all fucking places...! UGH #DO YOU KNOW HOW AMAZING THESE ACTORS WOULD HAVE BEEN IN THESE ROLES IF THEY'D ACTUALLY BEEN FILMING THIS STORY??? PJ WHY! #lotr movies #hobbit movies #middle earth asks