May I ask a question? I’ve been seeing a lot of Dain hate, in fics, posts on here, or in rps I do sometimes, and although I usually just ‘nope’ right out without saying anything, it’s got me thinking. Do you think that people would be as harsh as they are on him if he was an elf? A hobbit? Or even an Ereborean dwarf? Because Dain sacrifices a lot, suffers a hell of a lot, and it seems like no one cares? It just bugs me, I don’t know why.

Oh Nonnie. *hugs* sorry you’re getting confronted with that selfish crap. 

I think you’re doing the right thing by ‘noping’ out of it.

I’m so tired, myself.

I don’t read new Bagginshield fics anymore because I am so tired. I don’t trust anymore. I no longer follow the Bagginshield tag, either. I’m just so tired of seeing my brave heroic noble loyal fave get twisted into something completely disgusting and totally unrecognisable.

And I’m tired of people not tagging their character-hate.

Yeah, probably. Dain isn’t ‘pretty’ or magical, after all. Bard and Thranduil treat the Dwarves with extreme harshness: actually blackmailing them with a treasure of their people in order to guarantee the behaviour they want. This? Is pretty low behaviour? And Gandalf is the master-manipulator of Thorin’s need for vengeance. He takes advantage of people, ffs – it’s part of his JOB. 

But there are one zillion sympathetic portrayals of Bard, Thranduil (ESPECIALLY) and Gandalf. Not so for Dain.

I know why it bugs me, and yes, it’s because barely anybody cares. It’s virtually nonexistent to see someone who actually tags their character-hate, or even considers that they might be hurting Dain-fans. It bugs me that these folks can’t put themselves in someone else’s shoes even for a second, to think ‘wow, yeah, that would SUCK if it were my favourite character, constantly and universally villainised and distorted by fandom.’ Not even for a second

I’ve been through all the justifications and ‘reasons’ for why it is so common to put one character through such a universal tidal-wave of character bashing/assassination before, and I’m tired of THAT, too.

The Dain-bashing has nearly driven me away from the fandom on several occasions, honestly. I’m so tired. Now if I see Dain-bashing, I block that person. Straight away. I’m done. I am done. 

So, Nonnie, you opened a can of very unhappy worms by sending this ask, sorry about the bitter rant. 

Sorry for the recent silence, lovely people. The Duchess, my ancient kitty, is very much not a well kitty. Her laundry-list of geriatric cat ailments are beginning to swamp her. (seriously, she has arthritis, hyperthyroidism, cataracts, degenerative kidney failure, hearing loss, tooth resorption, feline dementia, urrrrgh okay and the list just keeps going and going…) She wakes up yowling at night, not sure where she is or where we are. Four times last night. It’s just like when the Dwarfling was a newborn all over again!!!

Add a Mr Dets who works away in Sydney for every second week, a small toddler at 300% throttle and absorbing words at breakneck speed, a Dets who now works two jobs, school exam week, and a LOT of recent family visits, and stir: you have achieved a small stressed lady with very impressive dark circles under her eyes (they seem to be becoming PERMANENT)

Send good thoughts to my kitty please, and I will try to be online a little more! *hugs you all*

I no longer have patience for certain things, not because I’ve become arrogant, but simply because I reached a point in my life where I do not want to waste more time with what displeases me or hurts me. I have no patience for cynicism, excessive criticism and demands of any nature. I lost the will to please those who do not like me, to love those who do not love me and to smile at those who do not want to smile at me. I no longer spend a single minute on those who lie or want to manipulate. I decided not to coexist anymore with pretense, hypocrisy, dishonesty and cheap praise. I do not tolerate selective erudition nor academic arrogance. I do not adjust either to popular gossiping. I hate conflict and comparisons. I believe in a world of opposites and that’s why I avoid people with rigid and inflexible personalities. In friendship I dislike the lack of loyalty and betrayal. I do not get along with those who do not know how to give a compliment or a word of encouragement. Exaggerations bore me and I have difficulty accepting those who do not like animals. And on top of everything I have no patience for anyone who does not deserve my patience.

Meryl Streep (via

mishproductions

)

On point.

(via

michaelsonn

)

bobbityhobbity:

Replies were a terribly-designed feature that the tumblr community somehow managed to make functional. The disadvantages of the reply system were myriad:

  • You had to be religiously monitoring your notifications in order to even see them. 
  • You had to fucking screenshot them (or messily copy/paste) in order to reply to your replies.
  • Other people couldn’t really reply to them – it didn’t work as a comments section.
  • They would get buried under likes and reblogs on popular posts, forcing you to scroll through the notes on a post in order to find them (if you even thought to look).
  • The draconian character limit. 

The one, single, sole advantage of the reply system was that it was a form of interaction somewhere in between a reblog and a private message. But the only reason it became that was because users were willing to put up with the stupid hassle of screenshotting their fucking notes in order to turn replies into a conversation. 

Replies are one of the most interesting examples for me of a user-base rising up to argue that a feature that was completely broken from the very beginning is in fact an indispensable part of their user experience that they simply cannot live without, when in fact the only thing that made that feature even remotely functional is the ridiculous work-arounds that the users themselves came up with. What’s more, the balance that replies struck between public and private is a nuance that pretty much only someone who is using this blogging platform to socialize could possibly understand. We developed a culture and set of social norms around a feature that, from a software developer standpoint, is objectively stupid, dysfunctional, and disposable.

It reminds me a little bit of when gamers will rise up to defend the most boring, grind-y aspects of their games whenever they are altered to make them more fun. There are issues of gamer elitism and gatekeeperism involved there, of course, but I think there’s still a worthwhile analogy to be found in that replies were a feature that were accessible as a form of social interaction only to heavily devoted users of this website who understood how to work around their terrible-ness. What’s more, their highest value has always been for popular blogs who want to give their followers a way to talk back to them without the pressure of responding to asks. 

To anyone outside of tumblr (or any new user coming in), replies probably looked useless and terrible, because in an objective sense, as designed, they fucking were

But dammit, I want them back. 

Ugh! That moment when you’re really far into a good fanfic and they suddenly decide to make Dain an evil Dwarf allying with Azog and planning to assassinate the line of Durin. It makes me so mad! :( Sorry, I just had to vent my frustration to someone and I know you’re a fellow Dain fan! :) Have a good day! And on another completely different note, I loooove your fic!

*hugs* Ahhhh, sorry. That is the absolute fucking worst – and it’s never tagged, never, so you can’t avoid it. I feel your pain. 

But Nonnie, you and I BOTH know – that character isn’t Dain Ironfoot. It’s not. It’s nothing even remotely like him. It’s just an evil OC who has stolen his name. So let it go, leave the fic, and here:

The Dain Ironfoot is Awesome Reclist.

Here’s who he really is.

swamp-spirit:

thatscorpionbitch:

Like, 90% of infomercial style products were designed by/for disabled people, but you wouldn’t know that, because there is no viable market for them. THey have to be marketted and sold to abled people just so that any money can be made of off them and so the people who actually need them will have access.

I think snuggies are the one example almost everyone knows. They were invented for wheelchair users (Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a coat on and off of someone in a wheelchair? Cause it’s PRETTY FUCKIN HARD.) But now everyone just acts like they’re some ~quirky, white people thing~ and not A PRODUCT DESIGNED TO MAKE PEOPLES DAY TO DAY LIVES 10000X EASIER.

But if at any point you were to take your head out of your own ass and go “Hey, who would a product like this benefit,” that would be really cool.

This makes informational make so much sense now.

Like… of course there’s no reason for that guy to knock over that bowl of chips. However, the person it was actually designed for has constant hand tremors that would make this pretty rad, but since we don’t want to show that in a commercial, here’s an able bodied guy who can’t remember how gravity works.

Shit. Those commercials suddenly get a lot less funny when you realize it’s pretty much just people ineptly trying to mimic disability.

heroesofhellskitchen:

joequesada:

It has never ceased to amaze me how some people, in defense of their favorite fictional characters or stories, treat creators and each other, flesh and blood people living actual lives with actual feelings and families, with such disrespect and cruelty as though they were two-dimensional, fictional villains who merely exist on a page or the imagination.

😦

Just out of curiosity and because I’ve been reading so much fic. When Sansûkh Thorin allows himself to dream of a everybody lives AU, what does he imagine? Shire! AU or Erebor! AU? Or is he too sure that the ring would have twisted things either separating them or -worse- tempting him?

givemeadecentusername:

determamfidd:

For the longest time, Sansûkh’s Thorin knew nothing of the Ring. It was just a thing Bilbo used now and then to avoid unpleasant visitors, nothing more. 

So when he visited Bilbo through Gimlin-zaram, he would have seen the life Bilbo led in Hobbiton. He diligently applied himself to learning everything there is to know about it, and Bilbo. He was there a lot.

I think that when he dreamed of an everybody lives AU, Thorin would have placed himself into the scenes that he could see before his eyes. I don’t think he would mean to. But the thoughts would rise unbidden, sweet and painful, and he would entertain them for a second or two before banishing them. 

I think he would have wistfully imagined that Bilbo, humming as he mulched diligently around his tomatoes, was fully aware of his presence sitting on the garden bench. That Bilbo might turn around at one point, push his gardening hat back on his head, and say, grinning, “well, if you’re going to be a great lazy layabout, can’t you make yourself useful and bring me something cool to drink?”  And he would a-grumbling go and bring Bilbo his drink, a glass of that light Hobbitish small-beer, and demand a kiss as payment for his errand. And Bilbo would taste of summer and sunshine and sweat.

He could dream that there was a plate in front of the other, empty space at the kitchen table each night at dinner, where he sat. That it was his turn to do the washing up, and so Bilbo might rest tonight. That he really ought to get around to mending that broken leg on the cast-iron stove.

That the crooked squashy red chair opposite Bilbo’s armchair was, in fact, Thorin’s.

That it was a nightly ritual to sit there with book and pipe at the end of the day, quiet and comfortable together in each other’s company, their feet stretched towards the fire. 

And he would sit on that garden bench, and sit at that kitchen table, and sit in that crooked red chair, and know that it looked exactly as it ought to – if only he were alive. 

While this is awesome, I think that people forget that Bilbo’s grandfather is the thain of the Shire. Thus, Bilbo may have been seen culturally by Thorin as a prince amongst hobbits. Other hobbits see BIlbo as very upper class. I think that this may have very well surprised the snot out of Thorin because Bilbo didn’t bring up his rank at all when Thorin was being a total git. 

I can picture Thorin watching over BIlbo while he is going over contracts, approving building and maintenance projects, arranging for the healthcare and what not of those he employs to work his lands etc. I can see Thorin wishing he could sit with Bilbo to give advice when Bilbo was reviewing contracts, helping BIlbo solve disputes and what not. Thorin talks to BIlbo to be sure, but he wishes he didn’t have the limitations that he does because he has so much experience that would be helpful to Bilbo and the folks under his care.

Mind you, Bilbo shows extraordinary good sense, and Thorin may be a little in awe of hobbit good sense (and Bilbo, of course). Thorin has even more respect for Bilbo than he had before he passed because Bilbo never once brought up what Thorin perceives as Bilbo’s rank. I can imagine him totally freaking out. Why didn’t Bilbo ever tell Thorin his grandfather was the great hobbit leader etc. Bilbo certainly had mentioned the thain, just not the fact that the thain was his mother’s father. I don’t think Bilbo spoke of his parent’s much, because he still mourned them. I am sure the dwarves knew that Bilbo was a Took thanks to Gandalf, but not much more than that. To other hobbits, the fact that Bilbo’s grandfather is the thain is no big deal. I do think Thorin would have been even more ashamed of himself for how he first treated Bilbo because he didn’t treat Bilbo as nobility, nor did Bilbo speak of it. The fact that Bilbo never tried to make his rank known or to rub Thorin’s nose in it for his behavior has humbled Thorin and I think caused Thorin to fall a little bit more in love with Bilbo if that’s at all possible.

In Thorin’s experience, many would make a big stink about their rank or try to use it to their advantage, and Bilbo never even mentioned or hinted at it.  Bilbo and the other hobbits don’t view Bilbo as nobility. They do view BIlbo as upper class, which he is as he has property and steady employees.

Thorin gets frustrated by certain other hobbits (especially Lobelia) who badmouth BIlbo when he isn’t around to hear their nasty comments. I’m sure he wishes he could be there to set Lobelia and others straight about how wonderful Bilbo truly is. He may have even talked to her sleeping mind which leaves her a bit guilty when she is being her usual gossipy nasty self. I think that has kind of pushed her into being more of a snot nozzle because she feels guilty that she is being so nasty. 

Anyways, I could go on, but I think your eyeballs are falling out about now, and I have to hop on homework (I DON”T WANNA!)

Nope, haven’t forgotten about it – it’s just not relevant. Don’t mean to stamp on any headcanons here, but really – I haven’t forgotten. 

There is a Mayor of the Shire (Sam Gamgee eventually becomes this). The offices are held in Michel Delving (where the Mathom-house is).

There is a CURRENT Thain of the Shire, the head of the Took Family, Bilbo’s uncle Isengrim. It is passed through that family until it is held by Pippin’s father Paladin. Check out this family tree to see where Bilbo is.

image

Bilbo would not be making decisions for other Hobbits. Following his adventure, he is an eccentric loner. 

He also holds no lands. Bilbo owns Bag End, a very fine Smial, and ‘tunnels stuffed with treasure’ according to local lore – but there is absolutely NO mention of him owning lands. He hires Sam Gamgee as a gardener, but that is the only mention of an employee.