Tag: tolkien

So I saw this mentioned in one post you reblogged but I wanted to make sure: when Sansûkh is finished, would you be ok with people finding a way to print out a copy in book format to stick with other Tolkien stuff? As far as I’m concerned, this is canon! But it’s ok if this isn’t cool, I wouldn’t want to do anything against your wishes.

Hey there, Nonnie!

What an amazing compliment omg *fans face* Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Yes, I am absolutely thrilled for people to print out Sansukh in book form, for their own personal use! I know that not everyone can read from a backlit screen for such a long time, and it’s nice to feel the weight of a physical book 🙂

I do have to stress two things, however: 1. it REALLY cannot be done for profit/distribution, it should be done for personal use only. I am (understandably, I think!) quite scared of the labyrinthine US/UK/AUS copyright laws, and I am fairly skint. I don’t want to get myself or others into any trouble! And 2. if you are intending to reproduce work other than my own – such as the Appendices or any artwork, then getting the artists’/author’s permission is the right thing to do. 

I personally ask every artist if I can embed their work, and link back to their original tumblr post, every single time – though there are a couple of artists who have given blanket permission to me, which is super generous of them. Don’t be hesitant to approach them, they’re all lovely A++ people!

If you’re looking for a clean copy of the fic, I will be updating the text-only PDF files, to be found at the top of this page!

Thank you, Nonnie! *hugs* holy heck, you’re so kind ahhhhhhh…!

‘He sounds like a very strange creature, this thief of yours,’ said a young Dwarf called Fili (Thorin’s nephew, as I afterwards learned). ‘What is his name, or the one that he uses?’
‘Hobbits use their real names,’ I said. ‘The only one that he has is Bilbo Baggins.’
‘What a name!’ said Fili, and laughed.

Gandalf’s account of the Quest of Erebor,
Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth

(via woodland-realm-wandering)

‘Poor Thorin! He was a great Dwarf of a great House, whatever his faults; and though he fell at the end of the journey, it was largely due to him that the Kingdom under the Mountain was restored…’

Gandalf’s account of the Quest of Erebor
Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth
(via woodland-realm-wandering)

someone needs to talk to me about how gandalf’s retelling of thorin dying is to say “poor thorin”

(via ledamemangociana)

Resources for Tolkien fans

anthropologyarda:

lonelysailings-archive:

Here are some useful resources I’ve found while I’ve been in the community, so I thought I’d share! PLEASE ADD YOUR OWN IF YOU HAVE ANY! And please reblog and share!

References

askmiddlearth – A great blog where you can send in questions and receive answers regarding just about any aspect of the Legendarium. 

coco.raceme – A collection of quotes, songs, and important passages from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, arranged by book and chapter.

Fish in Middle Earth – Did you ever want to know what kinds of fish there were in Middle Earth? No? You’ll probably end up reading this anyways. The curiosity will get to you.

henneth-annun – The HASA story archive has mostly moved to AO3 now, but this website still contains hundreds of timelines, character bios, quotes, object descriptions, and more.

silmarillionwritersguild – Essays, meta, biographies, and more – all about the plot and characters of the Silmarillion.

Languages

almare – Tumblr user almare has a great collection of Tolkien language resources, including a handy graphic of the relations between Elvish languages.

councilofelrond – A good resource for translations of canon texts, glossaries, conlang discussions, a dictionary, etc. Of particular interest is their Sindarin mutation chart, which is necessary pretty much whenever you’re stringing more than two Sindarin words together.

dwarrowscholar – Contains everything from lessons to a truly massive Khuzdul dictionary. If you have a basic understanding of Neo-Khuzdul, you can also make use of the translation tool.

Hiswelókë’s – A delightfully thorough dictionary available in a variety of arrangements ( English-Sindarin, Sindarin-English, thematic, etc. ). Available in English, French, and German.

midgardsmal – The blog of David Salo, one of the people who worked on the languages in Peter Jackson’s Tolkien films.

realelvish – A handy phrasebook that provides categories for easy searches, dialects, pronunciation, and multiple translations of the same phrase. Includes fun categories, such as ‘in the bedroom’ and ‘on the internet’, as well as many others that are more in keeping with Tolkien’s tone. 

sindarinlessons – A collection of rules, references, and explanations of Sindarin grammar.

your-sindarin-textbook – On this site, a duck teaches you Sindarin. What more could you want? Includes exercises and references.

Books

All the books in PDF – These two posts both contain links to Tolkien’s works and where you can find them online.

HoME reading order – tumblr user lintamande has put together a list of Tolkien’s texts beyond the Silmarillion, in case you were wanting to dip your toes into HoME but didn’t know where to begin. They also have a general Silm resource page that’s worth looking at, as well as all their meta. 

On Fairy Stories – One of Tolkien’s most-referenced essays.

Tolkien’s letters – A collection of many of Tolkien’s transcribed letters, useful for all those really obscure facts you need to check and to impress your friends.

Non-Tolkien

A shameless plug – I do my best to collect useful references, notes, and masterposts on writing, Tolkien, and more in my ‘references’ tag.

howtofightwrite – This blog contains discussions on weapons and how they’re used, as well as some particularly useful weapon primers that will give you the basics on the weapons your character uses. 

Medieval references – A collection of a few useful references for medieval-type jobs, terms, and more. 

Mood music – Themed music playlists for just about anything you could ever want to write.

Traveling – The methods of traveling in the Middle Ages, and the time it would require.

Adding links for the Lord of the Rings Family Project, which has the best set of genealogies hands down and I constantly reference it.

Ardalambion is a high quality language resource and has extensive wordlists. Good for obscure languages like Nandorin and Taliska. It’s more in-depth than a dictionary and has notes on in-universe and out-universe history for the languages.

Textual Ghosts Project, a list of unnamed and missing female characters from Tolkien’s works.

Notes: some of the book links don’t work any more.

The working link for OP’s resources tag is now here.

This is really useful! Thanks to OP for collecting these! (I totally looked at the fish essay.)

Also adding the LOTR Project –  it has a helpful interactive map and timeline of events, and I’ve found it amazingly useful.

(thank you so so much for these!)

alannotturing:

the-woman-of-belgravia:

poutineisdelicious:

xekstrin:

majere636:

arachnofiend:

marapetsrules:

bobfoxsky:

“You fool. No man can kill me.”

How many times am I allowed to reblog this before it gets weird?

image

Fun facts: Tolkien constructed this scene because he came out of Macbeth thinking that Shakespeare had missed a golden opportunity with the ”Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn the power of man, for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth” prophecy

Being letdown by Macbeth is apparently a significant factor in Tolkien’s writing because the Ent/Huorn attack on Isengard was the result of his disappointment that the whole “til Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane” thing was just some dudes holding sticks and not actual ambulatory trees.

so he basically took his favorite shakespeare headcanons and put them into his AU fic

This revelation just knocked me over.

i don’t know whether to laugh or slam my head against my computer to learn that lord of the rings is just one giant AU fanfic of machbeth

@determamfidd

As a guide I had only my own feelings for what is appealing or moving, and for many the guide was inevitably often as fault. Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer.

J R R Tolkien in the Foreword to the Second Edition of The Lord of the Rings

Just a little reminder that even those considered “Greats” now had only their own feelings to guide them when writing and also suffered criticism and misunderstanding. You aren’t alone.

(via the-books-we-travel)

any thoughts on elf sexuality?

one-go-alone:

cptsdcarlosdevil:

ONLY ALL OF THEM

The interested reader should consult What Tolkien Officially Said About Elf Sex, the most extensive guide to elf sexuality I’m aware of. Also, be aware that I haven’t read Silm and anything in here contradicted by Silm is a result of ignorance.

The bits I find interesting are that (1) elf marriage is defined as being sex— the party is considered a good idea, but strictly optional, (2) elves don’t commit adultery and (3) elves can apparently tell from the way someone moves whether they’re wed or unwed. Now, this may just be that elves are Good Catholics, but are you kidding, there is an opportunity for my favorite tropes. I propose: elf hypermonogamy!

(I actually totally thought elf hypermonogamy was canon until I was researching my answer for this ask. GODDAMMIT TOLKIEN.)

Elves are universally demisexual: they literally do not experience sexual attraction to people they aren’t in romantic love with. Elves are only capable of being in love with one person at once. It takes them a long time to get over love; it’s quite common for a rejected elf to never fall in love again, and most of those who do go centuries before they do.

So, how does that affect my favorite ships?

I feel like Legolas/Gimli is super-more-awesome if Legolas was literally never sexually attracted to anyone before Gimli and has no idea what this emotion is. So he is all like OH GOD THIS DWARF IS SO ANNOYING 😡 😡 😡 I JUST WANT TO THINK ABOUT HIM ALL THE TIME. BECAUSE HE’S ANNOYING. I WONDER WHAT HIS HAIR FEELS LIKE. And eventually this gets to the point where even Mr. They’re Taking The Hobbits To Isengard starts wondering if something’s up.

and then at Lothlorien he seeks the advice of Galadriel and Galadriel is like “Legolas, you’re in love” and Legolas is like “???!???!!!!!!”

and Galadriel thinks to herself “JESUS CHRIST, Legolas, Luthien and Arwen are one thing, human boys are sort of cute, but DID YOU REALLY JUST FALL FOR, OF ALL PEOPLE, A FUCKING DWARF”

(and then Gimli does the hair thing and she’s like “well, at least he has good taste”)

and then Legolas ends up having sex with Gimli. Now, dwarves totally have a culture of warrior homosexuality. (Also: everything homosexuality????) So Gimli is all like “ah, yes, manly men blowing off some steam in a manly way after battle, this surely does not mean Feelings” and Legolas is like “:( 😦 😦 I will go stare at a river and write love poetry in Quenya more beautiful than the hearts of Men can bear” but he totally doesn’t let Gimli know because he doesn’t want to Pressure Gimli Into A Relationship and also because he will Take What He Can Get

and then at some point Aragorn is sadly singing to himself about Luthien as is his third-favorite hobby (behind beard growth and still not being king) and Gimli is like “why the hell would she give up her immortality anyway, dude, it’s fucking immortality? why can’t she marry an elf instead” and with one thing and another Aragorn ended up telling him about the Elvish Facts of Life

and then Gimli storms up to Legolas and is like YOU KNOW USUALLY I LIKE TO BE INFORMED WHEN I’M MARRIED TO PEOPLE

and Legolas is like “…I’m… married to you but you’re not married to me?”

and Gimli is like I DON’T KNOW WHAT NANCY SHIT YOU PONCY MOTHERFUCKERS GET UP TO BUT AMONG DWARVES MARRIAGE IS USUALLY CONSIDERED A TRANSITIVE PROPERTY

and Legolas was like “I am sorry, I understand if you will never speak to me again” and he is mentally drafting, like, the world’s saddest poem, like, it will win the Saddest Poem contest Elrond holds every year

and Gimli is like YOU FUCKING MORON OF COURSE I WANT TO BE MARRIED TO YOU HOW ELSE CAN I GET TO SHOW YOU ALL THE PRETTY CAVES

and Legolas is like “oh. Oh!”

and then he ends up smuggling his boyfriend into Valinor, I assume by just sort of shoving him into the luggage. “Dwarf? What dwarf? I don’t have a dwarf. What, no, my bag isn’t wriggling, you’re seeing things. Gosh, there are weird sounds on the sea, that one sounded almost like the word ‘fuck’.”

also I feel like this whole thing makes Elrond and Arwen infinitely more amusing

Elrond: NO YOU ARE NOT GOING TO MARRY ARAGORN
Arwen: GRANDMA DID
Elrond: AND LOOK WHERE THAT GOT HER
Arwen: I DON’T CARE I LOVE HIM
Elrond: THERE ARE LOTS OF NICE BOYS IN VALINOR, I’M SURE YOU’LL FIND SOMEONE ELSE
Arwen: NO I WON’T
Elrond: …fuck. You’re right.
Arwen: (looks smug)
Elrond: you know Elros really had the right idea, immortality is awesome but at least HUMANS HAVE THE CONCEPT OF SERIAL MONOGAMY

This is full of win and awesome, and I would also like to point out that if this appeals to you and you aren’t reading @determamfidd‘s Sansûkh, then do yourself a favor and go read it. Right now. Seriously. Drop everything else.

*blushy blushy* ahhh thank you so very much! You are super kind!

IS YOUR URL A ‘THE DARK IS RISING’ REFERENCE BC HOLY SHIT I LOVED THOSE BOOKS

6) Tolkien’s hero was average, and needed help, and failed.

This is the place where most fantasy authors, who love to simultaneously call themselves Tolkien’s heirs and blame him for a lot of what’s wrong with modern fantasy, err the worst. It’s hard to look at Frodo and see him as someone extra-special. The hints in the books that a higher power did choose him are so quiet as to be unnoticeable. And he wouldn’t have made it as far as he did without his companions. And he doesn’t keep from falling into temptation.

A lot of modern fantasy heroes are completely opposite from this. They start out extraordinary, and they stay that way. Other characters are there to train them, or be shallow antagonists and love interests and worshippers, not actually help them. And they don’t fail. (Damn it, I want to see more corrupted fantasy heroes.) It’s not fair to blame Tolkien for the disease that fantasy writers have inflicted on themselves. […]

Fantasy could use more ordinary people who are afraid and don’t know what the hell they’re doing, but volunteer for the Quest anyway.

It’s misinterpretation of Tolkien that’s the problem, not Tolkien himself.

“Tolkien Cliches,” Limyaael

(via mithtransdir)

This whole piece is worth a read.

(via janeymac-ie)