#Middle-Earth

[fangirl-erdariel]

okay funny thing, part of why I guessed that and linked up the gears in my mind so quickly to Saruman, was that Tampereen Teatteri's LOTR play (which I saw just before christmas) used gears and that kind of mechanical stuff for the Isengard set :D

I think I would've gotten there after a while of thinking anyway, but the set design here definitely made the mechanics stuff stick in my mind in association to Saruman in a much stronger way

(All art used with EXPRESS permission from the artist)

[autistook]

Craig Parker on the set of Fellowship of the Ring

[sahind]

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING (2001) Directed by Peter Jackson

[zawissius]

The tapestry in Lindon depicting the Undying Lands.

Source: RoP.

[n0tamused]

a proud elf fucker has come to disturb ur peace bbygurl smug tiktok emoji

so,,,, humans are more openly affectionate and touchy-touchy compared to the elves right? hand holding, smooching ur friends’ forehead or cheeks for good luck or saying goodbye or when showing u have missed each other or an arm around the other’s waist when comfortably sitting beside each other and chatting.

how would the elves react to this? like a human s/o (before courting) who is just generally so,,,,,,, affectionate (i dunno how many characters you would accept pookie but im mainly thinking of thranduil, legolas, feren and lindir for this)

expect me more in ur inbox pookie😚(a threat)

A/n: Come by my door again and I will throw you out (a warm meal awaits you inside). This is more of a ramble than really my usual headcanons that I do for characters. A reminder again - but I am a bit rusty with writing for these characters, so this is me rambling about them so I can explore them better. Unapologetically longer part for Legolas bc he is my bbg. Didn't do Feren for this one, but I hope to add his part on this prompt in the future. Hope you enjoy pookie!

Contents: Thranduil, Legolas, Lindir x GN!Reader (separate), fluff. not proof-read so expect grammar mistakes (very scary)

Words: 1471

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Thranduil

-Listen- Thranduil is hard to reach, he’s a tough nut to crack as one may say, and he is quite distrustful of strangers, but this is not a scenario where you’re a stranger to him, oh no. 

-While you have caught the interest of the elven king and as his knowledge is ever so deep on both elven customs and that of man, he can’t say he has ever indulged in the human customs quite so much. You sort of make him want to indulge in it all. 

-Thranduil is not the one to hastily discard his public image and reputation for the sake of a fleeting touch of fingers or a graze of your lips across his cheek in a farewell bidding, yet seeing you do so with your company with which you travel with makes him think.

-For a mind that has seen so many centuries and so many faces, you have made him feel as if the memories of friends of old and strangers came before his eyes only in preparation to see you. Quite weird, but it is what his mind makes him think. Were you sent to his path for a reason?

-And where do you get your boldness from, to try and touch him so easily? What makes you think that is proper? When have you become so brazen when just yesterday you seemed to struggle with speaking to him formally? 

-He does request your company alone from time to time, walks through the woods and dinnertime especially, and this opens way for more privacy and attempts at intimacy.

-Here, you’d find him more forgiving at accepting your advances

-He is still getting used to the feel which your hands leave behind after gripping his own hand or his arm, or the tug at his sleeve the poke of your fingers at his side - yet he wouldn’t trade it for anything else. It’s such a small change in his life, but it feels surreal to experience it all the same when he is so used to the generally the same routine and schedule, especially in his relations with others. 

-At the end of the journey of your outing, he’d return the gestures with one of his own, one a bit more subtle than yours, but he makes sure his kisses on your knuckles linger

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Legolas

-Humans are touchy, yes, Legolas has witnessed much of this displayed affection since he departed Mirkwood for his journeys, but what he felt when he saw all of it wasn’t shock or disgust like some of his peers felt when they saw these “crude and hasty customs” - rather he felt some longing instead, a yearning.

-He craves a close connection too, but he is hopeless in seeking it out in the world of mortals and he is a bit without a clue on how to develop such a closeness with someone. He wasn’t raised in a place where emotions are foreign, but as established before - human and elven customs do differ, and they both perceive emotions and displays of it differently. You can say Legolas fits a bit more into whatever human ways are of expressing emotions. Firm hand holds and tight hugs instead of brush of fingers and longing looks during long periods of courting. Man, Legolas just craves a strong friendship, let alone a relationship

-I think it would be safe to say Legolas is touch-starved in his own right, simply put

-So when you come along, and you both click as companions? He is quite happy to put it lightly. I don’t think there is an adequate term that can summarize his elven giddiness when he simply sees you being openly affectionate with your friends, he feels a sense of belonging since you are not a stranger he observed, but someone he has come to understand too. He knows your name, your story, what you do and don’t like

-Yet this doesn’t prepare him for when you show the same affection to him as well. Suddenly all lectures and elven courting rules and traditions come pouring in his head all within a blink of an eye and it is the first time you have seen him look so taken aback. 

-He doesn’t reject your advances however, he’s much more accepting of them than his father, and it is just you and your shared small company, sometimes not even them, that get to see this exchange. He is.. giddy, quite happy.

-It feels fulfilling sharing in the affections, although he is much more reserved than you by quite a lot - he tries though. He’d still absolutely love it if you accepted his proposal of courting, so he can court you properly and as you deserve. Please let him he is on the edge of his seat, he is about to fall off waiting

-Despite what he feels and how human his smiles and expressions have become since you began to pay him this attention, he is patient, he moves at a slower pace than you and he is your grounding rock when you become too hasty

-It is not a rare sight to see him draping his cloak around you, or - at your request - see him sitting next to you huddled under the same cloak or a blanket by the fire. Coziest he has ever been tbh…

-In some summary - your hands are held gently, your brows are kissed tenderly and you are well taken care of with him around

-(Please send me more Legolas thoughts or requests I love my bbg sm)

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Lindir

-Now this one is a little more dense. Denser than the Elven King? I hear you ask, and I say to you - possibly.

-Now, correct me if I am wrong, but he isn’t exactly too old, by elvish standards of course. He is relatively young by their norms, and has spent a lot of his time in Rivendell, serving Lord Elrond

-A very personal headcanon, take it or leave it, but he is even younger than Legolas.

-Anyhow, Lindir is quite dutiful in his work and doesn’t accept it comfortably when new energies are introduced to his environment. He can get quite skittish and tense when things aren’t going according to some mental plan he has set out in his mind, or even worse - if the events aren’t following a plan shared by him and the others. He is very keen on sticking to this familiarity of routine and stagnancy, in some way.

-So, note his surprise when you stick around and worm your way into his daily schedule.

-For a long while he swore to himself up and down how he will never get used to you, perhaps if you grew as old as he then he might, but your life was a flicker in comparison to his own

-He is even more surprised and confused when he sees himself looking for too long at you sharing hugs with your friends, bidding them goodbye and safe travels by kissing them hard on the forehead and trying to..wrestle them? What an odd thing to do to your friends..

-He is more baffled when you attempt to do the same to him. How could you?!

-He is an elf, an elf with standards!

-An elf with standards which you break through anyway since you’re so..infectious. Lindir had the funny thought, although it was a bit unsettling to him at the moment, that he was sick or fading/dying.

-In the days and months following, it took much effort to finally see the fruit of your labor. Lindir was finally, although still slowly, opening up to just spending more time with you instead of going by his strict routine that he played on repeat.

-He doesn’t sit three feet away from you anymore, but rather two and a half.. Not literally, of course, but the distance between you seems like it is miles with the way he sometimes acted in the beginning of these outings with you.

-The distance surely shrinks until he is actually next to you, his fingers brushing against your skin as he traces a small scar there which you claim you earned in your childhood. By elvish standards, humans are nowhere near perfection, but his thoughts have begun to change, and he no longer sees perfection in the standards he was raised with, but rather he sees it in you. Each little thing that separates you from another, and little by little he begins to sow you into his memory.

-He isn’t the best at remembering mortal souls, they all pass by quickly, but you linger and linger and he doesn’t want you to not linger. Linger with him by the fountain, will you? Let him ask you questions to distract himself from the fact your hand embraced his?

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Ⓒ n0tamused. Do not repost, translate, edit, and/or copy any of my works. Likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated.

[fangirl-erdariel]

It's actually fairly possible that Théoden's mother was still alive during the main events of LOTR. She has no year of death given in the appendices (also technically no year of birth, but that can at least be counted from the age difference between her and Thengel), or anywhere else that I would know of. Nor is there any direct reference to her being dead, or text worded in a way that would be impossible if she were still alive during LOTR that I know of. The firmest piece of evidence there is for her being dead is only her absence from the story.

Now, yes, it seems likely to me that Tolkien intended for Morwen of Lossarnach to be dead by the time of LOTR. But Tolkien can roll in his grave all he wants if it's important to him, I am going to discuss the possibility of her being alive nonetheless because I find it interesting.

The appendices mention that Morwen was 17 years younger than Thengel, which would mean she was born in 2922. If my math holds up, that would make her 97 in 3019 when most of the major battles of War of the Ring are fought, if she lives that long. Possibly 96 if she was born late in the year, since those battles happen in spring of that year.

She is Gondorian nobility, mentioned to be descended from the Princes of Dol Amroth, though I do not think the details of her relation to them are specified beyond that. And if we look at the two Gondorian noble families where we have any kind of data for their lifespans, that being the Stewards and the Princes of Dol Amroth - the last four Stewards of Gondor before Denethor each lived 98-100 years. The last four Princes before Imrahil live to be 93, 111, 105, and 114, respectfully, and Imrahil lives to 100 years old. As for the next generation or two after that, Faramir lived to 120 years old. Prince Imrahil's son Elphir was 101 when he died, and his son Alphros was 99. Éomer, grandchild of Morwen Steelsheen, lived to 93 years old, despite his other three grandparents being presumably Rohirrim, whose lifespan (at a quick glance through the list of the Kings of Rohan) usually seems to range between 70 and a few years past 80.

So if Morwen falls roughly into the same range with the Gondorian nobility whose lifespans are known, then, yeah, sure, maybe she's dead by the time the main events of LOTR happen. But it's just as possible that she'd still be alive and even have a couple more years left in her.

And I just find myself fascinated by that possibility.

On one hand, there's the tragedy of her outliving at least two of her children, and at least one of her grandchildren. But on the other hand, when you consider all the women, all the wives and mothers, who fall ill and die, or waste away from grief or the horror and weight of the shadow in the last three or so decades before War of the Ring (Finduilas of Dol Amroth, Théodwyn, Gilraen, though at least Gilraen didn't die as young as the other two; and while her death has nothing to do with grief or influence of the shadow, Elfhild the wife of Théoden dies in childbirth during that timespan), I also see a certain triumph in the idea of Morwen enduring it and living to see a time after Sauron, if only briefly.

But if she is still alive, where is she? I see three possible options. The first is that she is still in Edoras. The second is that she lives somewhere else in Rohan, either in some other house belonging to the royal family, or with one of her unnamed daughters and her family. The third is that at some point after Thengel's death, she returned to Gondor and her family there.

The still in Edoras option seems unlikely from a logical standpoint, since there's no mention of her as there really should have been if she were there. There's something narratively pretty delicious, at least to me, though, in the idea that she might have been there to witness firsthand her son's decline and yet been for whatever reason unable to intervene

Living somewhere in Rohan, probably with another of her children (she had two daughters after Théoden before Théodwyn, and one who's even at oldest still under five years older than Théoden, so any of them could pretty plausibly still be alive), would make some sense, if she had wanted to retire from court life but still remained within relatively easy distance of her children and grandchildren. It would also kind of still allow for her being very aware of what's going on in Meduseld, while offering a more easy excuse for why she's unable to intervene and also not mentioned at any points in the books.

And returning to Gondor at some point after Thengel had died and Théoden had settled into the position of the king and all her children were adults likewise makes sense. She and Thengel lived in Gondor for ten years before moving to Rohan when Thengel inherited the throne, so it seems likely she'd have retained strong ties to her family in Gondor, rather than all those being cut off by her marriage, and considering all we know of Lossarnach, as someone on the SWG discord pointed out when i mentioned these thoughts the other day, Lossarnach seems like a nice enough place to retire to. It would put her pretty solidly away from all the drama going on in Rohan, though, but maybe if you're into fluff, Éowyn and Faramir could make a visit to her in Lossarnach sometime after the war

Anyway. I just wanted to say. Maybe Morwen of Lossarnach isn't dead yet, when LOTR happens. Maybe she gets to see what she probably never thought would happen in her lifetime, or ever at all, Sauron being defeated, Gondor having a king again. She'd have to face horrible loss, yeah. But she'd also see a new sunrise, triumph and joy like no one dared to hope for. So. Maybe. Maybe she's still alive, long enough to see that

[oldschoolfrp]

Saruman the White ponders his palantír. "You are the trusted apprentice to one of the greatest Wizards in all Middle-earth" in A Spy in Isengard (Angus McBride cover art for Middle-earth Quest gamebook #1 by Terry K Amthor, Iron Crown Enterprises, 1988). McBride has been memed more than once.

[lotrlorien]

"They can keep their heaven. When I die, I'd sooner go to Middle-Earth.” ― George R.R. Martin

[artist-issues]

I also would like people to give more appreciation to the great thematic unity in all of The Lord of the Rings. The idea is “do what good you can with what you are given.” Usually your abilities and your chances seem horribly small, even though your responsibility is so enormous. The minutes, the little decisions, the days, the small towns, the small characters, matter the most. The fate of the whole big world of good and evil and languages and races and heroes and villains all hangs on what’s done by a little scholar and his gardener.

[princessfantaghiro]

About Sauron from episode 1 season 2:

Sauron was almost a god, but became nothing. Absolutely and literally nothing.

His spirit was reduced to a pool of blood. Nothing more.

It must be remembered that Sauron is conscious all the time. He also retained his memory. (As Halbrand, he remembers perfectly well and knows who is responsible for his suffering - Adar and the orcs.) It was emphasized several times that Sauron never sleeps. He is always awake. So he cannot rest, not even for a moment.

Dear ones, try to imagine this...

Everything goes dark. You see nothing. You hear nothing. You cannot move. (Your spirit is too weak.) You cannot touch anything. There is no one and nothing around.

And so for several thousand years.

(Notice how much the stalagmites in the cave grew before Sauron managed to move at all - in the form of liquid goo.)

And yet you remain conscious. All you can do is exist. Wait. Watch.

And since you are conscious, you still have a mind (even though without a body), your memory is preserved, so you can also think. Probably feel emotions.

What thoughts can you have, what emotions can you feel in such conditions?

What? Not joy or peace.

It must be unimaginable fear, lack of hope. A sense of injustice. Anger at the whole world and everything that exists. You are aware that no one will ever find you here. No one will help. And because your spirit, your consciousness is eternal... You can remain like this, in this form; until the end of Arda's existence.

I am certain that for these 3 thousand years Sauron begged Eru, his father, for death. An infinite number of times. Death did not come.

And Adar wanted to scare him with suffering, "that he would beg for death?" Man, please...

Galadriel, who was panting for him in the forge about suffering? Does she want to bid for it? With HIM? After what he went through? 'What do you know about darkness?'

That old man on the ship who wants to be nice and asks, "Oh my, do you have nightmares"?

Grandpa, you've lived for about 70 years, and you don't have even a shadow of an idea of ​​the nightmare, that befell the creature you're asking that question. It touches wounds deeper than the abyss.

Of course, he doesn't know it, but...well.

How could someone like Sauron cope so easily, so easily turn to the light, when all he's experienced for 3,000 years is impenetrable darkness, in every possible sense? Impossible.

[who-canceled-roger-rabbit]

When is the Tolkien estate gonna give us a spinoff about the Blue Wizards aiding revolutions against Sauron in Harad and Rhûn

[autistook]

[marahsfandomloves]

Richard is such a sweetheart! King Under the Mountain!

[90s-kid-sad-adult]

foreshadowing