Legolas pretty quickly gets in the habit of venting about his travelling companions in Elvish, so long as Gandalf & Aragorn aren’t in earshot they’ll never know right?
Then about a week into their journey like
Legolas: *in Elvish, for approximately the 20th time* ugh fucking hobbits, so annoying
Frodo: *also in Elvish, deadpan* yeah we’re the worst
Legolas:
~*~earlier~*~
Legolas: ugh fucking hobbits
Merry: Frodo what’d he say
Frodo: I’m not sure he speaks a weird dialect but I think he’s insulting us. I should tell him I can understand Elvish
i mean, honestly it’s amazing the Elves had as many languages and dialects as they did, considering Galadriel (for example) is over seven thousand years old.
english would probably have changed less since Chaucer’s time, if a lot of our cultural leaders from the thirteenth century were still alive and running things.
they’ve had like. seven generations since the sun happened, max.
frodo’s books are old to him, but outside any very old poetry copied down exactly, the dialect represented in them isn’t likely to be older than the Second Age, wherein Aragorn’s foster-father Elrond started out as a very young adult and grew into himself, and Legolas’ father was born.
so like, three to six thousand years old, maybe, which is probably a drop in the bucket of Elvish history judging by all the ethnic differentiation that had time to develop before Ungoliant came along, even if we can’t really tell because there weren’t years to count, before the Trees were destroyed.
plus a lot of Bilbo’s materials were probably directly from Elrond, whose library dates largely from the Third Age, probably, because he didn’t establish Imladris until after the Last Alliance. and Elrond isn’t the type to intentionally help Bilbo learn the wrong dialect and sound sillier than can be helped, even if everyone was humoring him more than a little.
so Frodo might sound hilariously formal for conversational use (though considering how most Elves use Westron he’s probably safe there) and kind of old-fashioned, but he’s not in any danger of being incomprehensible, because elves live on such a ridiculous timescale.
to over-analyse this awesome and hilarious post even more, legolas’ grandfather
was from linguistically stubborn Doriath and their family is actually from a
somewhat different, higher-status ethnic background than their subjects.
so depending on how much of a role Thranduil took in his
upbringing (and Oropher in his), Legolas may have some weird stilted old-fashioned speaking tics in his
Sindarin that reflect a more purely Doriathrin dialect rather than the Doriathrin-influenced Western Sindarin that became the most widely spoken Sindarin long before he was born, or he might have a School Voice
from having been taught how to Speak Proper and then lapse into really
obscure colloquial Avari dialect when he’s being casual. or both!
considering legolas’ moderately complicated political position, i expect he can code-switch.
…it’s
also fairly likely considering the linguistic politics involved that Legolas is reasonably articulate in Sindarin, though
with some level of accent, but knows approximately zero Quenya outside of loanwords into Sindarin, and even those he mostly didn’t learn as a kid.
which would be extra hilarious when he and gimli fetch up in Valinor in his little homemade skiff, if the first elves he meets have never been to Middle Earth and they’re just standing there on the beach reduced to miming about what is the short beard person, and who are you, and why.
this is elvish dialects and tolkien, okay. there’s a lot of canon material! he actually initially developed the history of middle-earth specifically to ground the linguistic development of the various Elvish languages!
Legolas: Alas, verily would I have dispatched thine enemy posthaste, but y’all’d’ve pitched a feckin’ fit.
Aragorn: *eyelid twitching*
Frodo: *frantically scribbling* Hang on which language are you even speaking right now
Pippin, confused: Is he not speaking Elvish?
Frodo, sarcastically: I dunno, are you speaking Hobbit?
Boromir, who has been lowkey pissed-off at the Hobbits’ weird dialect this whole time: That’s what it sounds like to me.
Merry, who actually knows some shit about Hobbit background: We are actually speaking multiple variants of the Shire dialect of Westron, you ignorant fuck.
Sam, a mere working-class country boy: Honestly y'all could be talkin Dwarvish half the time for all I know.
Pippin, entering Gondor and speaking to the castle steward: hey yo my man
Boromir, from beyond the grave: j e s u s
Tolkien would be SO PROUD of this post
It got better
there may come a day when i do not reblog this post, but it is NOT THIS DAY
Elképzeltem Legolast londoni akcentussal, derülök. :D
It’s been a long ten years and I finally get to talk publicly about what happened behind closed doors.
Please take the time to read this letter linked above and please avoid working with these people. You are more valuable than an opportunity for people like them to use you as cash cow for your work.
Three years ago, I was approached by many artists at Hiveworks asking if their mistreatment was normal. That their feelings of horrible self worth within the company was really just a ‘them’ problem. Turns out, it was unfortunately normal in that we ALL felt that way.
Stolen funds, reworked projects without permission, favouritism, opportunity sabotage- These were the common occruances over at Hive. Artists felt used, ignored, and walked all over to pay Hives bills and ego. People didn’t know what to do. I helped co-found the guild in response to so many artists feeling this way, and we slowly gathered together to make a better Hive. Yeah, that’s right- we thought we could help change and save the company if we all colaborated, hurt set aside and transparency deeply needed. Unfortunately, that wasn’t in the cards. We spent 3 years going back and forth with staff to understand the debt, the mistreatment, the empty promises only to realise that the staff who was left to deal with the mess (because the CEO and COO went hands off or left) couldn’t fix what was destroyed.
Hiveworks was supposed to be a beacon for webcomickers. It was supposed to be an indie opportunity to flourish in the small ways we can. But it became yet another example of a greedy publisher who saw an opportunity to take and take and take. It was also a vanity project for Isa and Xel too. They wanted the prestige of working in 'publishing’ but didn’t care a lick about the artists who brought readers in. If you were someone she thought was an artistic threat, Isa would go out of her way to humble you and put you in your place. That happened Many MANY times to me and my fellow creators. Not only was Hive using our work, it also would remind us how worthless we were in the same breath. Everything felt like some sort of competition, and Isa and Xel made sure artists didn’t talk to ecahother about it too. So many instances of the two of them going around gossiping in public about 'the real story’ when it came to their mismanagment and inability to handle their job. They would use someone else as a scape goat and pretend they did all they could. It was highschool stuff.
As for my particular case, I was the bane of their existance apparently. I was rumoured to be out for Isas job because artists would go to me for support and she hated that. I was apparently trying to ruin things because I saw those cracks. Squeaky wheel and all that. I took the risks I did, i didn’t care about being 'everyone’s friend’ or missed out on 'the connections’ because I didn’t want to play that game. Artists were feeling used, stolen from, and neglected. I spoke up, and many others started to feel safe to do so too. The more we shared stories (and man, there are HORROR stories) the more we realised that the inner workings of Hive were more tangled than we thought. Our years of organising lead us to approach the cartoonist co-op for extra help. We tried our best to do what we could for Hive to survive.
After we were hit with the 'actually we’re in a quarter of a million in debt’ and they wanted us to help financially (while owing artists and staff money) it was the curtain call for Hive as a company. Isa left the sinking ship previously to avoid responsibility, and Xel ghosted the rest of us. All of this is to say that these kinds of people who promise the world with your work and take advantage are such a common and frustrating thing in not only comics, but all creative avenues. And speaking up and against them is the only way to make these cycles stop.
Please support the artists who were affected by this. Please spread the word and speak up against people who use artists like this. Hiveworks is an example in a sea of greedy people who want our work to inflate their ego. Don’t let them forget we can bite back, and without us, THEY are nothing.
For anyone who is curious why I bailed out of Hiveworks, please read this.
My particular experience is pretty mild comparatively, but it mattered very much to me, and I hold grudges. I’ll put this under a cut because it’s long.
Ilyenkor rettenetesen öregnek érzem magam. :( Ugyanitt, megmagyarázódott hogy mi történt pl a Daughter of Lillies képregénnyel. T ^T Is. Rettentő sok másik mellett. Hogy képes egy egész iparág ennyire ergya lenni..?
casual reminder that this museum has their entire collection digitized and available free for public use: https://art.thewalters.org/ and they have armor/weapons there
13 01 26
ALT
