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redbootsindoriath · 1 year

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Hi, Hwestalas from AO3 here! Earlier today, I happened to be thinking of Mablung’s lovely turquoise scale-freckles, and that set off a sudden explosion of curiosity about a half-dozen different details of your CoH Pirate AU. So I just had to ask…How did Túrin breathe while growing up in a mostly-undersea kingdom? Does he have some awesome magic way of breathing underwater, or did he just keep his nose and mouth above water the whole time? (I'll put the other questions in a new ask.)

Is the drawing where Mablung and Túrin seem to be arguing part of the scene from after he accidentally kills Saeros? The sarcastic look on Saeros’ face is so Saeros! And I love how Túrin is wearing an outfit that makes him look almost like a land-form merman! It sounds like the sort of thing he would do in his youth. Evidently he changed clothes later… but was that after he met the pirates, or before? Did they know he had been raised by mermen?

Oh, and if Beleg can get out of work by pretending to be dehydrated (I LOVE that comic!), can mer-people really get dehydrated or did he make up the entire concept? And does it play some role in his medical condition when Túrin finds him in the unfriendly clutches of his pirate crew? Anyway, thanks for all your drawings and fan-theories! I've had so much fun looking at this blog. Hope you're doing well!

Oh dude it's been forever since I had an excuse to think about any of my CoH AUs! This is very exciting. I actually already had the answers to most of those questions written down in a big master document. I'm going to put the answers under a cut here.

"How did Túrin breathe while growing up in a mostly-undersea kingdom? Does he have some awesome magic way of breathing underwater, or did he just keep his nose and mouth above water the whole time?" I cheated and stole the typical kissing-or-being-kissed-by-one-of-the-merfolk-grants-you-temporary-immunity-to-drowning explanation. This is why Túrin banished himself to above the water after the Saeros Incident™. Hard to keep living undersea when you keep having to come up for air every few minutes because you aren't associating with the seafolk anymore. In this AU I've decided that a kiss will grant you somewhere from a couple days to a week of underwater breathing; I haven't set an exact time limit yet. There are also a lot of air pockets within Menegroth, including many of the common areas. This is to allow the rare non-merfolk guest and/or prisoner to move about without having to be kissed every couple of days (since that could be a bit awkward for someone unaccustomed to the culture). And the rare non-merfolk prisoner would be easily contained if they were left without a kiss in air-pocket quarters separated from the surface by a mile of underwater corridors. Also, a kiss from a sea spirit (like Melian) earns you a slightly longer time span. So whenever Túrin is in Menegroth he probably gets his sea kisses from his foster mother rather than from one of the merfolk, but when he's out with the march-wardens he's stuck with having to get his kisses from them.

"Is the drawing where Mablung and Túrin seem to be arguing part of the scene from after he accidentally kills Saeros?" It's from that moment right after he attacked Saeros, so yes and no. "Then Túrin took up a drinking-vessel and cast it in Saeros' face, and he fell backward with great hurt; and Túrin drew his sword and would have run at him, but Mablung restrained him." So Saeros is still alive at this point, but not for long.

"The sarcastic look on Saeros’ face is so Saeros!" Thanks! :-)

"And I love how Túrin is wearing an outfit that makes him look almost like a land-form merman! It sounds like the sort of thing he would do in his youth." Yes, he was given clothes made of scales that would last longer underwater than other kinds of cloth. It has the side benefit of keeping him from standing out so much from the merfolk appearance-wise.

"Evidently he changed clothes later… but was that after he met the pirates, or before? Did they know he had been raised by mermen?" I imagine he changed clothes as soon as he reached land, although that's one section of the AU that I haven't entirely settled on yet. But since in canon the Gaurwaith didn't know where he'd come from, I guess it would be best to leave their pirate counterparts ignorant as well. So the scale cloth will have to go; maybe he raided a clothesline in some human shoreline village before meeting the pirates. All the crew knows is that "Neithan" is an eerily good swimmer, especially when fully underwater, and they're all too afraid of him to ask him why.

"Oh, and if Beleg can get out of work by pretending to be dehydrated (I LOVE that comic!), can mer-people really get dehydrated or did he make up the entire concept?" This is 100% a thing that can happen. Merfolk die if they don't have access to any water for more than a couple of days. Heck, even real-world humans die after three days without access to water. The difference is that merfolk need to be able to get the water on their body in addition to drinking it. The quickest and healthiest solution for a mostly-land-dwelling merman or mermaid is the occasional full-body submersion (or, in a pinch, standing out in the rain for a while) to keep from literally drying out. Prisoners in Angband are given just enough water to keep them barely alive but constantly miserable. There are a lot of warning signs before they die, like the scales getting dull, the merman or mermaid getting progressively weaker and having trouble monitoring their method of breathing, and of course eventually unconsciousness.

"And does it play some role in his medical condition when Túrin finds him in the unfriendly clutches of his pirate crew?" Absolutely yes. It always bothered me that Tolkien told us that elves can go for a very long time without food or water, and then almost killed one of the oldest and strongest elves by tying him to a tree for a couple of days. I'm sure there's an explanation but it still seems inconsistent; so I "fixed" that in this version by having the pirates tie him to the mast and then ignore him. Algund "accidentally" spills a bucket of water on deck next to the mast on the second day, which is the main reason Beleg is able to make a quick and full recovery after Túrin gets back (and also the reason that any of the pirates are still alive five minutes after Túrin gets back).

Thank you so much for asking about this AU! It's still one of my favorites. Here's Túrin rescuing Beleg from the pirates except it's a meme.

#the man the myth the legends #three shinies #everyone deserved better except mîm #canon is great and all but what if #he's a pirate #my trash #sometimes i overthink stuff #don't mind me #yo somebody talked to me #/end classification tags #okay so there are a good number of reasons i've not been very active lately #but one of the dumber ones is i reeeeaaaaaally don't like the changes made to both the app and the browser version of tumblr #like what #all my formatting #i try to be so consistent #and tumblr is MOCKING ME #i don't want merch #i don't want a checkmark #i don't want to do tumblr live #i just want my curly quotes back :-(#anyway there are other reasons i've been so inactive lately but we don't need to get into them right now because this post is about pirates #and none of the reasons are about pirates #and here's the obligatory ''sorry i'm out of practice with art'' tag

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redbootsindoriath · 2 years

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The other day as I was going through the blog’s backup folders, I found some old drawings that I meant to post throughout the past couple of years and either forgot about or just never got around to (I don’t think there are any here that I’ve posted before, but I apologize if there are). And I thought “I should probably post these before I go.” So here they are. I’m going to put them under a cut because there are quite a few of them. Most of them are from Children of Húrin.

This one is labeled “glaurung” in my files but he kind of looks more like a dragon version of Jabba the Hutt. I think it’s because Tolkien mentioned how fat he got while sleeping on the treasure in Nargothrond, so I drew a normal snaky dragon and then tried to imagine how it would look if it gained weight.

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Mablung and Beleg coming back from a rainy hunting trip. If I remember right, it started out as a height comparison drawing and I decided to actually turn it into a full sketch...?

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Beleg, Túrin, and Mablung somewhere in Doriath. I actually remember where I was sitting while I was drawing this...I think it was in February 2020? I’m pretty sure it was the last drawing I did before leaving for the airport to come to the States and then getting stuck there because the virus stopped all overseas travel for so long. In other words, this is the last drawing from when my life was still relatively normal. Just look at how chill all the characters are. I thought I was only going to be gone for a couple of weeks, maybe a month max.

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Those same three characters because I’m predictable.

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Remember how some people and dwarves in Middle Earth think that elves are just so creepy and terrifying? And heck, we know that some of them really were brutal. Heck, even our golden boy Finrod bit a werewolf during a fight once. So I was thinking about how Beleg probably resorted to biting during fights now and again if it was the quickest way out, especially since he’s from that first generation of elves that was figuring out how the world worked on their own and they didn’t have anybody around to say “stop ripping the throats out of your enemies with your teeth, that’s really gross and barbaric.”

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Speaking of Finrod, here he is. This was originally part of a Third Age Finrod comic but the idea got scrapped. I still like this frame though.

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Legolas and Gimli talking to Treebeard in Fangorn Forest. Basically just a little doodle to laugh about how tall Treebeard is even next to characters on horseback. (Also a squirrel.)

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A little set of parallel drawings I did of Beleg and Túrin rescuing each other. My best friend had written a list of friendship prompts and this one was “Physically blocking them from harm” and I couldn’t decide which character I wanted in which role so I opted for both.

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Finrod as a beach boy. In hindsight it would be even funnier if I had put a tropical pattern on his shorts.

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Anyway, thanks for joining me here as I went through my old files in preparation for my hiatus. Turns out I’m less organized than I thought, but hey, as long as you guys still like the drawings then I don’t mind.

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redbootsindoriath · 2 years

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OK I've been meaning to ask this for a while: why 'forest pennies' as a Túrin + Beleg tag? What do pennies have to do with them?

Okay so one time in a conversation I called Túrin a "forest puppy" because Beleg finding him in the woods and bringing him to one of the marchwarden lodges reminded me of someone finding a stray dog and bringing it home so they can decide whether they’re going to keep it or not. This led to me calling both of them forest puppies for a few months. But then one day my friend sent me a variation of that “finally I can keep these pennies to myself” meme, commenting that I’m the voiceover, Beleg and Túrin are the pennies, and the “I smell pennies” cryptid is the ship-happy people in the fandom. So “forest puppies” and “I smell pennies” got merged together into “forest pennies”. Thanks for asking about it, actually...I was wondering if anyone was confused by that tag and now I’ve had an excuse to explain it. Here are some forest pennies getting patched up after a rough day of orc-hunting.

(By the way, for those who might not know why I personally don’t subscribe to the general lax view of fandom shipping, there’s another paragraph under the cut so that those who want to read it can and those who don’t want to read it don’t have to see it.)

The reason I don’t ship non-canon ships (or even think about the canon ones very often) is that since I don’t experience sexual attraction myself. As a result, Tolkien’s platonic friendships are especially meaningful to me (one might even say they’re...precious...ba-dum-tss) and it bums me out to see that so few others appreciate the value--or even acknowledge the existence--of hecka strong platonic love. I’m only alive today because someone loved me enough, non-sexually, to keep me that way. Of course I’m not “out to get” the people who choose to ship the platonic relationships for fun or for whatever other purpose, of course I’m not. You all can do whatever you want. But I would be lying if I said it doesn’t hurt a little bit to have the highest form of love I can experience dropped by the wayside in favor of “they only care about each other because they want to bang”, especially when the version that speaks to me is the canon one which people are deliberately revising.

And now that I’ve filled my quota of vulnerability for the day, here’s another drawing to lighten the mood.

Darn elves and their physics-defying plot armor. (^Túrin, probably)

#beleg #túrin #the man the myth the legends #three shinies #everyone deserved better except mîm #don't mind me #yo somebody talked to me #heck yeah bromance #forest pennies #/end classification tags #one of the other conveniences of using ''pennies'' is that it is something that i use ONLY for these two characters #but it can be modified for many of my aus #sea pennies #space pennies #western pennies #but if i used puppies then we might wonder if i was referring to some other characters #since that's a more common word #anyway yeah #i sat down to do these drawings yesterday so i could put this reply into the queue and i was like #''oh it's beleg and túrin this is going to be so quick''#it was not quick #the first drawing took more than an hour beginning to end #rip me #at least the second one didn't take that long #(to be fair though there IS some difference in the amount of detail between the two)#and i'm at least 50% happy with how they turned out so that's cool

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redbootsindoriath · 2 years

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begging you to elaborate on autistic beleg and autistic túrin!!

Bro thanks so much for asking because I’ve been sitting on these thoughts for years. And now I have to dig up the list. I’m just glad I wrote it down, and thankfully @frodo-with-glasses is also visiting and could help me remember what I forgot to include. Brace yourself because this post is going to get long. Seriously. I even left out any headcanons and just stuck with what evidence I have from the source material.

We’re going to start out with the obvious: Túrin. And I say obvious because I have seen one other post talking about how he comes across as autistic, and his traits are more obvious (especially in the more well-known Silmarillion as opposed to other versions of the story).

Clearly he’s quite bright, especially as a strategist (it’s mainly the CurseTM that turns his plans into a bad thing whenever it’s least convenient), but a significant number of fans describe him, sometimes affectionately and sometimes not, as stupid. This is probably because he’s completely blind to many social cues. One of our first examples is him never noticing how interested Nellas was in him (whether romantically or platonically I’ve never been able to figure out).

Coming suddenly out of thought [Túrin] looked at Beleg, and said: 'The elf-maiden that you named, though I forget how: I owe her well for her timely witness; yet I cannot recall her. Why did she watch my ways?' Then Beleg looked strangely at him. 'Why indeed?' he said. 'Túrin, have you lived always with your heart and half your mind far away? As a boy you used to walk with Nellas in the woods.' The Children of Húrin, chapter VI

Another example is how he completely missed the fact that Finduilas loved him and he continued shipping Gwinduilas. (Also note the uncomfortable miscommunication between an autistic character and allistic character in this section. Both of them assume the other is just being difficult for some reason.)

Afterwards Túrin sought out Gwindor, and said to him: 'Gwindor, dear friend, you are falling back into sadness; do not so! For your healing will come in the houses of your kin, and in the light of Finduilas.' Then Gwindor stared at Túrin, but he said nothing, and his face was clouded. 'Why do you look upon me so?' said Túrin. 'Often your eyes have gazed at me strangely of late. How have I grieved you? I have opposed your counsels; but a man must speak as he sees, nor hide the truth that he believes, for any private cause. I would that we were one in mind; for to you I owe a great debt, and I shall not forget it.' 'Will you not?' said Gwindor. 'Nonetheless your deeds and your counsels have changed my home and my kin. Your shadow lies upon them. Why should I be glad, who have lost all to you?' Túrin did not understand these words, and did but guess that Gwindor begrudged him his place in the heart and counsels of the King. The Children of Húrin, chapter X

There’s more of this in larger amounts in how he dealt with Mîm and Saeros. He was friends with Mîm until Beleg came back and then he practically ignored Mîm, albeit unintentionally, and somehow didn’t see how betrayed the dwarf felt as a result of that. Túrin ignored Saeros’s bullying until he couldn’t take it anymore and then he lashed out in a spectacularly disastrous and emotional manner that somehow nobody (except Mablung) saw coming. I should point out that time that he missed the fact that he’d accidentally taken Saeros’s seat at that one banquet, and immediately afterward completely missed the fact that Saeros was trying to make a snide remark about it:

'Seldom does the march-warden favour us with his company,' [Saeros] said; 'and I gladly yield my accustomed seat for the chance of speech with him.' But Túrin, who was in converse with Mablung the Hunter, did not rise, and said only a curt 'I thank you'. The Children of Húrin, chapter V

On a somewhat similar note to his social awkwardness, he forms very few deep friendships. When they are deep they're very deep, but most of the rest of the people in his life seem to be just casual acquaintances. He likes them, but he doesn’t have a deep bond of trust and love with them. He has his categories of “people I like”, “people I don’t like”, and “heckin frickin friends that I love with all my heart and soul and I will tell my secrets to”.

His moral system is very black and white. He may draw the line in weird places, but he has a definite line that cannot be crossed. We actually get an example of him moving this very clear line:

'At least my hands shall not again be raised against Elves or Men,' said Túrin. 'Angband has servants enough. If others will not take this vow with me, I will walk alone.' Children of Húrin, chapter VI

Notice there’s no “I’ll kill bad humans and bad elves” here. It’s “nope, no more humans or elves”. Black and white.

He’s not much good with understanding figurative or flowery language. Again, quite early on in Children of Húrin there are multiple examples of him going to his friend Labadal and asking him to explain something that Húrin or Morwen had said. He’s a very intelligent child, but figures of speech are not his strong suit. Of course, as he grows up he tries to overcorrect this by employing some probably-artificially-learned circumlocution, with varying degrees of success.

He has extremely obvious hyperfixations, and he excels in those skills he does have. If he doesn’t like doing something, he doesn’t bother with it. But if he does like doing it, he completely dominates at it.

One only was mightier in arms among the march-wardens of Thingol at that time than Túrin... Children of Húrin, chapter V Led by signs that [Beleg] could read, or by the rumour of the passing of Men among the wild things with whom he could speak, he came often near, but always their lair was deserted when he came to it; for they kept a watch about them by day and night, and at any rumour of approach they were swiftly up and away. 'Alas!' he cried. 'Too well did I teach this child of Men craft in wood and field! An Elvish band almost one might think this to be.' Children of Húrin, chapter VI

A human--and a young one at that--doing better than elves at the things elves are supposed to be best at? It smacks of the savant stereotype, except with tragedy to balance it.

Some other things--his lax habits about hygiene, his stubbornness, his obsession over single tasks or ideas--don’t really need explaining, I think. They’re in the Silmarillion so most people are familiar with them. There are, however, three more specific things that I’m rather undecided on but I’m going to mention them anyway. First, he’s clumsy when it comes to very fine motor control. You could attribute some of this to the curse, but it could also just be him being, well, clumsy.

...in crafts of making he had less skill, for he was slow to learn his own strength, and often marred what he made with some sudden stroke. Children of Húrin, chapter V

He has some minor selective mutism. There are a few times it’s mentioned, but it’s right off the bat in Children of Húrin, literally in the first chapter.

...he was not merry, and spoke little, though he learned to speak early and ever seemed older than his years. Children of Húrin, chapter I

You’ll excuse my pointing out that this hints at Asperger’s specifically: no speech delay. I know it’s not a commonly accepted subcategory anymore, but it’s a very specific detail and I like those. Also I feel obligated to include this bit as well:

But courage and strength were renewed in the Elf of Nargothrond, and departing from Taur-nu-Fuin he led Túrin far away. Never once as they wandered together on long and grievous paths did Túrin speak... Children of Húrin, chapter IX

That’s months of silence. I know it’s because of trauma, but still. I had to include it.

And finally, he’s extremely sensitive. I almost didn’t include this one in my list because it isn’t in itself a guaranteed sign of autism, but it’s pretty common as a comorbid symptom. There are many examples of his emotional sensitivity and quick temper throughout all the versions of the story, so I’m just picking one:

...but [the outlaws] feared him, because of his sudden angers, which they seldom understood. Children of Húrin, chapter VI

Note again the difficulty in communication. All in all, I think Tolkien wrote Túrin this way on purpose. He may not have had a word to describe it, but he made a character with too many autistic traits for me to ignore.

Now! On to Beleg.

The traits that make me suspect Beleg as autistic are much more subtle, but if you’re looking for them you start seeing them everywhere. Also many of them are in the Lay of the Children of Húrin, which probably explains why not many people noticed them because that thing can be difficult to unravel compared to the other versions of the story.

Right off the bat, we know that Beleg does whatever the heck he wants and nobody can stop him. I’ve seen a quote floating around on almost every Wiki article about Beleg that says that he followed no man and could not be restrained. (If anyone can tell me the source for that, I will draw Beleg for you, because it certainly matches what we know about him but I like the precision of knowing the source material in case anyone challenges it.) While this isn’t exclusively an autistic trait, it is common enough that I thought it deserved to be included. Beleg also lives in the woods and only comes around Menegroth when he’s good and ready. Again, not exclusively autistic, but this casually asocial attitude was one of the first things that roused my suspicions about him. Heck, according to the Lay he’s especially unsocial.

It was Beleg the hunter, who farthest fared of his folk abroad ahunting by hill and hollow valley, who cared not for concourse and commerce of men. The Lay of the Children of Húrin, I: Túrin’s Fostering

In the Lay, “Men” is capitalized if it’s meant to be translated as “humans”. Note that it’s not capitalized in that passage. I’m also going to address this next line before moving on because I know someone is going to point it out if I don’t:

Then Beleg departed from Menegroth and went back to the north-marches, where he had his lodges, and many friends... Children of Húrin, chapter VI

He may have “many friends” among the march-wardens, but he doesn’t spend all of his time with them. In fact, most of the times we meet him he’s alone. You can have a decently sized friend group without being around them all the time, especially if you’re immortal.

Now, on to his skill set: elves are supposed to be either healers or hunters/warriors. Beleg really went “watch me do it anyway” because:

And the Eldar deemed that the dealing of death, even when lawful or under necessity, diminished the power of healing.... On the other hand many elven-men were great healers and skilled in the lore of living bodies, though such men abstained from hunting, and went not to war until the last need. Of the Laws and Customs Among the Eldar

Only one was there in war greater, higher in honour in the hearts of Elves, than Túrin son of Húrin untamed in war -- even the huntsman Beleg of the Hidden People, the son of the wilderness who wist no sire (to bend whose bow of the black yew-tree had none of the might), unmatched in knowledge of the wood's secrets and the weary hills. The Lay of the Children of Húrin, I: Túrin’s Fostering

Now was it that it came into the heart of Beleg the hunter of the Elves to seek after Túrin so soon as his own hurts were healed. This being done in no great number of days, for he had a skill of healing... Book of Lost Tales part II, Turambar and the Foaloke

Now Beleg was sorely wounded, but he was mighty among the Elves of Middle-earth, and he was moreover a master of healing. Therefore he did not die, and slowly his strength returned. The Silmarillion, Of Túrin Turambar

Talk all you want about older notes being cancelled out by newer notes, I’m still taking this as another subtle hint at Beleg being autistic.

Hyperfixation. Extreme hyperfixation. When he’s bent on something, there’s nothing anyone can do to distract him. This is a focus that’s been honed by all the practice an older-than-the-sun-and-the-moon lifespan can afford.

Many messengers had been sent out by Thingol to seek Túrin within Doriath and in the lands near its borders; but in the year of his flight they searched for him in vain, for none knew or could guess that he was with the outlaws and enemies of Men. When winter came on they returned to the King, save Beleg only. After all others had departed still he went on alone. Children of Húrin, chapter VI

Beleg also thinks in black and white, even more so than Túrin at times.

'Fare free,' said Túrin. 'That wish Mablung gave me at our parting. The grace of Thingol will not stretch to receive these companions of my fall, I think; but I will not part with them now, if they do not wish to part with me. I love them in my way, even the worst a little. They are of my own kind, and there is some good in each that might grow. I think that they will stand by me.' 'You see with other eyes than mine,' said Beleg. 'If you try to wean them from evil, they will fail you. I doubt them, and one most of all.' 'How shall an Elf judge of Men?' said Túrin. 'As he judges of all deeds, by whomsoever done,' answered Beleg... Children of Húrin, chapter VI

His conversational skills are a bit lacking, although less obviously so than Túrin’s. He swings back and forth between being overly blunt and being overly cryptic. As with Túrin, he might be trying to adjust for a natural lack of subtlety and accidentally overshooting it. He also seems to have a habit of dominating--or at least trying to dominate--any conversation he’s in. The most obvious example I can think of was when he showed up late to Túrin’s trial and literally pressures Elu Thingol himself into accepting Nellas as a witness.

Then there was silence in the hall, and Thingol lifted up his hand to pronounce his doom. But at that moment Beleg entered in haste, and cried: 'Lord, may I yet speak?' 'You come late,' said Thingol. 'Were you not bidden with the others?' 'Truly, lord,' answered Beleg, 'but I was delayed; I sought for one whom I knew. Now I bring at last a witness who should be heard, ere your doom falls.' 'All were summoned who had aught to tell,' said the King. 'What can he tell now of more weight than those to whom I have listened?' 'You shall judge when you have heard,' said Beleg. 'Grant this to me, if I have ever deserved your grace.' 'To you I grant it,' said Thingol. Children of Húrin, chapter V

Bear with me because we’re getting close to the end of the list, but I saved the clues that I found most interesting for last. Beleg is at any given moment either the most calm and collected character you can imagine, or wildly excitable, and there is no in-between. Anyone who’s read the Silmarillion knows how stable Beleg can be sometimes, but here:

Then up sprang Beleg: 'That our vaunt and our vows be not vain for ever, evern such as they swore, those seven chieftains, an oath let us swear that is unchanging as Tain-Gwethil's towering mountain!' Their blades were bared, as blood shining in the flame of the fires while they flashed and touched. As with one man's voice the words were spoken, and the oath uttered that must unrecalled abide for ever, a bond of truth and friendship in arms, and faith in peril. The Lay of the Children of Húrin, II: Beleg

He really suggested the Gaurwaith swear an oath of loyalty like the Fëanorians. That’s a special breed of chaos. Not to mention the whole manic monologue he went off with to Flinding (Gwindor) later on in that chapter of the Lay. All it takes is a single suggestion to send him from 0 to 100000, as long as it’s something he’s interested in.

Now this leads me to my favorite piece of evidence for an autistic Beleg: a surprising inability, especially for an elf, to gauge the volume of his own voice in a moment of excitement.

In eager anger then up sprang Beleg, crying and calling, careless of Flinding: 'O Túrin, Túrin, my troth-brother, to the brazen bonds shall I abandon thee, and the darkling doors of the Deeps of Hell?' 'Thou wilt join his journey to the jaws of sorrow, O bowman crazéd, if thy bellowing cry to the Orcs should come...' The Lay of the Children of Húrin, II: Beleg

(This is only a small side note, and really doesn’t hold up on its own, but Beleg has dogs. Animals are a common enough autistic special interest that I thought I might as well mention it, especially when we remember that he can communicate with some animals.)

Now enough of the individual traits. When we look at the two characters together, we can of course contrast the old-autistic and young-autistic differences. Beleg literally does whatever he wants and people have just learned not to bother trying to change his mind. He doesn’t bother trying to fit into everyone else’s world but rather runs along perfectly content in his own parallel reality. Túrin, on the other hand, is stressed, frustrated, and confused both by himself and by everyone else, and he spends most of his life trying to figure out where and how he’s meant to fit in. But I’d also like to mention that of Túrin’s friends in the whole story, Beleg is the one who has the least miscommunication (although when there is miscommunication it’s spectacularly bad, insert obligatory dark humor here, yada yada). They may talk in rather dated syntax, but they are able to communicate what is needed when it’s needed. They’re both blunt and they trust each other enough to take a verbal blow without grudging it afterwards.

'I would lead my own men, and make war in my own way,' Túrin answered. 'But in this at least my heart is changed: I repent every stroke save those dealt against the Enemy of Men and Elves. And above all else I would have you beside me. Stay with me!' 'If I stayed beside you, love would lead me, not wisdom,' said Beleg. 'My heart warns me that we should return to Doriath. Elsewhere a shadow lies before us.' 'Nonetheless, I will not go there,' said Túrin. 'Alas!' said Beleg. 'But as a fond father who grants his son's desire against his own foresight, I yield to your will. At your asking, I will stay.' 'That is well indeed!' said Túrin. Children of Húrin, chapter VI

For being in a book packed with flowery dialogue, their conversations tend to be rather to-the-point. There’s no small talk, everything that they discuss is pertinent to the current situation. And Túrin, who is not particularly well-known for listening to anyone’s advice at any time for any reason, seems to respect and appreciate Beleg’s bluntness even to the point of saying this immediately after Beleg called him out on a particularly stupid comment:

Túrin's eyes glinted, but as he looked in Beleg's face the fire in them died, and they went grey, and he said in a voice hardly to be heard: 'I wonder, friend, that you deign to come back to such a churl. From you I will take whatever you give, even rebuke. Henceforward you shall counsel me in all ways, save the road to Doriath only.' Children of Húrin, chapter VII

They’re both stubborn and they’ve found a way to work around it because they know that there are no subtle background messages to what the other is saying.

And, of course, to close, I’d like to point out that autistics tend to find each other because they feel understood in a world that is as foreign as a different world. Perhaps Túrin, coming to a kingdom of people who aren’t even of the same race as his own, found solace in someone who understood the way his mind worked without having to explain anything, and that someone was Beleg. Never before had he known anyone who so instinctively understood the way his mind worked; and Beleg, thousands of years old, alone even in a realm filled with his own people, found in a human child a sense of purpose and validation that he’d not even known he was missing his whole life, and chose a mortal as his closest friend.

TLDR, there is no TLDR. I’ve way overthought this and as a result I’m not sure how to summarize it.

If I think of anything I missed in my essay here, I’ll add it later in the comments or a reblog or something.

#beleg #túrin #the man the myth the legends #three shinies #everyone deserved better except mîm #sometimes i overthink stuff #don't mind me #yo somebody talked to me #heck yeah bromance #forest pennies #/end classification tags #in which i COMPLETELY GO OFF #i am like 93% sure that i've left out at least one point but of course i can't think of what it is #it is heck o'clock in the morning and i've been writing this for hours now #it's my own fault for deciding to include source material and whatnot but still #i apologize for any typos #also if anyone wants to hear any headcanons i can make a separate post on those but i figured this is enough for tonight

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redbootsindoriath · 2 years

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I will miss you a lot come September! You have some of my very favorite Children of Húrin content

-@outofangband

Wow, I can't tell you how valued this made me feel. I hope I'll be back eventually because getting feedback on my art and comics and character designs has been so rewarding and I love making things that other people love because then everybody wins.

Since I didn’t alreadyhave a drawing ready to post today and I only had a few hours to come up with something, I decided to redraw a photo I had from last week. It’s been a while since I did any digital art, so a slightly modified photo study seemed like a good way to get back into practice.

#beleg #túrin #the man the myth the legends #three shinies #everyone deserved better except mîm #my trash #yo somebody talked to me #heck yeah bromance #forest pennies #/end classification tags #wow look a signed drawing and everything!#i've gotten very lazy about that this past year or so #now i only do it with the digital art haha #also bro my shadow contrast is SO much better on photo studies #gotta do them more (i say for the zillionth time)

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redbootsindoriath · 2 years

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After I answered that ask about my thoughts on autistic Beleg and Túrin, a couple of people took the bait and asked about my headcanons (as opposed to just the reasons I interpret them as autistic). And of course I am always delighted to share headcanons. Be aware that a few of them here and there will overlap with things I mentioned in the other post, so I’m apologizing in advance for any redundancy; but aside from those, please bear in mind that most of the things on this list are just my own original ideas with absolutely no direct supporting evidence from canon. If you want canon stuff instead, you’d be happier reading the other post. But for those who don’t mind me taking a bit of artistic license with the characters, the headcanons are under the cut.

Stims: • Túrin slams doors when he’s anxious, angry, or bored, or even if he just thinks things are too quiet. Later in life he develops a stim where if he has a sword at his side he frequently grips the hilt, brushes his fingers across the pommel, or otherwise is touching/handling it. It gets even more frequent the more nervous he is. He is unaware that this makes him look angry and/or dangerous. He also draws his eyebrows together to “reset” his facial features if he’s overstimulated, which of course doesn’t help him look any less threatening. • Beleg brushes or taps the fingertips of one hand against each other whenever he is concentrating and his hands aren’t busy. If he’s stressed and silence isn’t necessary, he’ll snap his fingers to reset his focus. He is also obsessed with interesting textures: if there’s something that looks like it might feel interesting to touch, he will absolutely go and brush his hands across it. If he is sitting down while happy, excited, or nervous, he will bounce one or both of his legs like a dog wagging its tail, but he always stops once he notices he’s doing it. He also has a neutral stim where he twists his forelock around his forefinger. • Both of them tend to pace: Túrin does it to relieve stress when he’s nervous, Beleg does it to let off energy when he’s bored or impatient.

Sensory things: • Túrin has trouble with certain textures, especially clothing textures. This is easy enough to manage while he lived in Dor-lómin and in Menegroth, but after his self-banishment it became more difficult for him to find the very specific fabrics that he was comfortable wearing. He has difficulty picking out a single conversation out when there are overlapping voices, but that doesn’t stop him from trying. Around the people he trusts, he is very physical. Hugs, headbutts, wrestling, brushing fingertips, he loves it all, and the deeper the pressure the better, but only with the people he trusts. When he was young, he had many food aversions, but after moving to Doriath he trained himself to handle more variety. This became especially useful during his time on the marches and with the outlaws, where it was more a question of whether or not you’d be eating at all than what you would be eating. • Beleg, being an elf, has keener hearing than Túrin, and this has been heightened even more by sensory processing disorder. This ridiculously sensitive hearing is part of what makes him such a brilliant tracker, but it also means he dislikes crowded places. He, like Túrin, finds it unusually hard to carry a conversation when there are others talking around him. There are also many sounds that he is extremely averse to. (Despite all of this sound sensitivity, however, he still cannot judge the volume of his own voice when he gets excited. This confuses people who don’t know him well.) Overall, he has a lot of sensory processing problems and is very prone to sensory overload of all kinds. This includes touch: while he likes deep pressure and shows physical affection almost aggressively at times (wrestling, punching in the arm, etc.), he doesn’t like to be touched unexpectedly, too lightly, or for too long.

Social: • Túrin has a terrible time with the concept of personal space. Naturally he often stands very close to other people, which of course makes them uncomfortable, but later in life, once he’s got an unhealthy case of post-traumatic stress disorder, he becomes very uncomfortable whenever someone else stands too close to him. He still automatically stands too close to others, though, which is a terrible combination. He is also stubborn (as we all know), doesn’t respond well to correction, and has a hard time understanding subtle methods of communication, but he doesn’t know how to communicate any of this and as a result he usually just comes across as sullen while really he just doesn’t know how to tell anyone that he doesn’t understand them or know how to deal with his own very complex inner thoughts in response to them. He also gets nervous in crowds but doesn’t actually let himself leave until he’s exhausted all his other options. He is absolutely awful with reading social cues and although he learns to read them through practice, the harder he tries to get better the more humiliated and frustrated he becomes when he still fails now and then. • Beleg can socialize in moderate sized groups for a little while, but once he’s had enough he can and will leave without any warning at all. If given the choice, he would rather hang out alone or with only one person at a time. Sometimes his friends will find him sitting up somewhere high, watching everyone else socialize, because to Beleg this counts as socializing. He’s not very clever with social cues, but no one knows if it’s because he’s completely missing them or because he’s willfully ignoring them. He entirely avoids eye contact unless he’s trying to get a point across very clearly, trying to intimidate someone, or trying to read someone’s expressions (the last of which does not come naturally but he has gotten pretty good at it over millennia of practice). • Both of them might seem somewhat antisocial, or at least asocial, to the casual observer, but this is just because they have their Very Specific People that they love to hang out with. Put them with their favorite people and they’ll talk enough to satisfy pretty much anybody’s social standards. Since both of them had to learn non-literal figures of speech through observing the ways others interacted and then experimenting with it themselves, their attempts are a bit hit-or-miss. This means that they fluctuate between being overly literal and overly cryptic, usually at the wrong time for both. Combine this with their stubbornness and intensity when it comes to the things that matter most to them, it’s probably just as well that neither of them really seek out too much social interaction.

Other habits: • Beleg is extra susceptible to hyperfocus and hyperfixations, to the point that it has become a joke among his friends to bring one up in front of him and see how quickly he drops whatever he was doing before. His two settings are utter chill and utter chaos and he can switch between the two in the blink of an eye.

How this all affects their interactions with each other: • Since Túrin loves physical touch and Beleg can only handle certain types of it, they’ve figured out how to come to a balance. Beleg will give Túrin bear hugs, and Túrin alerts Beleg (either verbally or with hand/posture gestures) before making casual physical contact (even if he’s just going to be sitting right next to him). • Neither of them are naturally skilled at picking up on subtle hints, so they both know to be very clear about when they’re upset with the other. They know that as long as they can get the problem into the open and don’t get offended by each other’s bluntness, they’re quite good at settling their differences in a way that’s perfectly satisfactory to both of them. • Beleg has had much more experience with being autistic in a mostly allistic world, so early on when he recognized some of the difficulties Túrin’s was trying to deal with, he started to suggest coping methods that he had found useful. Túrin soon began asking Beleg about whether he had problems with this or that, and whenever Beleg came back after being gone for a considerable length of time Túrin would meet him at the front gate of Menegroth with a list of questions he had written down during his time away.

#beleg #túrin #the man the myth the legends #three shinies #everyone deserved better except mîm #sometimes i overthink stuff #don't mind me #heck yeah bromance #forest pennies #just go read the book #/end classification tags #not me copying all of beleg's traits straight off myself #oh but guys about the communication thing in the last section #can society please start doing this as a whole #i'm speaking from experience when i say it works like a dream

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