So There Was A Post A While Back About Ben Solo Always Being Told "don't Do (x), That's How Uncle Luke

Can i share something that happened to me last year

I'm minding my own business and this guy who I kind of know but wouldn't really consider myself friends with (trauma bonded on a school trip last year and haven't spoken since) comes up to me like hey, what are you doing? And I say: world-building the ancient history of Lord of the Rings. And then I proceed to tell him all about the various genocides of the first age, with a side note on Maedhros' Quenya name, which literally means 'the hot redhead who's third in line for the throne', with his mother name meaning 'hot damn', his father name meaning 'third of the king's name' and his nickname meaning 'redhead'. Then I explain that loads of elves get nicknames, like Gil-Galad and other people who I can't remember.

And he goes cool, can I have an elvish nickname? And I say sure, what do you want it to mean?

And he goes: big daddy

and I don't know what's more embarrassing: a) he thought that, b) he asked that, or c) I could translate that off the top of my head.

Elizabethan Husband: Belovéd wife? Elizabethan Wife: What tis't, my husband? Elizabethan Husband: Where lies my Raiment of Power? Elizabethan Wife: Pray speak again? Elizabethan Husband: Where. Doth. My. Raiment. Lie? Elizabethan Wife: 'Tis, uhhh, stowéd. Elizabethan Husband: Whence dids't thou stow it? Elizabethan Wife: Wherefore doth thy heart cry out to know? Elizabethan Husband: More dearly than life do I need it! Elizabethan Wife: Nay, faithless rogue, conscious thou no swift flight to battle - marry, for two months hath this feast been contrivéd! Elizabethan Husband: Peril and doom lies over the sweet Christendom! Elizabethan Wife: Peril and doom lies over this sweet evening! Elizabethan Husband: Balk not but tell me where my Raiment lies, tyrannous wretch! Of the greatest duties of honour and goodness do we speak! Elizabethan Wife: O, "the greatest duties" - spew not such dotage, for I am thy wife! I am greatest of thy duties of goodness!

Elizabethan Peasant 1: Look yonder! Someone has writ upon that ceiling that thou art most easily gulled!

Elizabethan Peasant 2: More fool they, for I cannot read.

Elizabethan Peasant 1: *sighing, lowers his visage unto his palm*

Literally nobody asked but i feel the need to explain.

There are 6 named Avari peoples, much like the Noldor, Vanyar and Sindar. The one that lives the furthest north are the Hwenti. Before it's destruction at the end of the first age, the Hwenti have a duty to guard Middle Earth against the things that crawl out of ruined Utumno.

Erestor was not born into the Hwenti people but is absolutely considered one of them once he takes up this duty. He's part of the branch that defends the Western Arctic of First Age Middle Earth... right near the Helcaraxë.

One fine... well the sun hasn't risen yet so it's not a day... anyway, he leaves the camp to keep watch for wargs and catch some fish.

He returns completely baffled with 2,000 starving doomed Noldor and absolutely no idea who they are or what they're doing here, except that they maybe escaped the Far God's Land?? But don't seem to know how to make functional coats or navigate the ice floes??

His unflappable CO, bless her heart and patience, goes "well, they aren't fish, that's for damn sure" and it catches on!

Fingolfin's Noldor are hitherto jokingly referred to as the Fish People - a gag which grows in infamy as the Noldor proceed to set fire to Beleriand - and with the joke goes the story of the poor Hwenti fuck who went out to get fish and came back with the Tyrants of the West. Poor guy. Poor, stupid guy. What a legend.

It becomes a general catch-all phrase for stupid shenanigans and stupid people: like kitchen maid no. 1 goes "hey, did you hear that the Empress' second son is secretly engaged to the rebel leader trying to depose her??? It's scandalous!!" and kitchen maid no. 2 goes "wow! and do you also believe that the Noldor are fish?? because that's absolute bullshit!" - and general 1. says to general 2. "we could attempt that defensive manoeuvre, if we felt like catching Noldor instead of fish and causing a massacre instead of covering our retreat" - tailor unimpressed by assistant acquiring 100 bolts of pomegranate satin when he specifically requested carmine silk; assistant defends herself by saying "well at least it's not 100 Noldor - we can still make this work!" - Silvan soldier at the Last Alliance, with a grand gesture towards the Noldorin Armies, lisps "look at all those fishes!"

Anyways, Legolas meets Erestor and sure it's cool and all that he's Lord Elrond's Chief Councellor but uh. The Silvan are a cultural fusion of Sindar and Penni (another Avari group) so of course he's heard the Noldor are Fish Gag, and of course he knows all about the Hwenti guy who went out for fish and came back with the Doomed Hosts of the Noldor. It's like if you met the 'What The Fuck Richard' guy and he's somehow the Vice President of Switzerland sending you on a top secret mission to destroy Russia's nuke codes?? Like ok sure this is important but consider: I Know What You Are

Elrond: And this is my Chief Councellor, Erestor. He is 8000 years old, and very wise and venerable. I trust him with my life. Legolas, Silvan, knows all the shit that his guy did: Oh, the Fish Guy! Hey! ヾ(＾ ∇ ＾) Erestor, the Fish Guy: ... hello

@casualfoxwitch mind if i spread the word

No

501st as bizarre t shirts

tag yourself im little miss fully developed frontal lobe

So my friend reaches over, takes my bottle an pops it open with her ring in the sINGLE SEXIEST SMOOTHEST MOST AWESOME MOVE I HAVE EVER FUCKING SEEN. THAT SHIT IS MY BI AWAKENING MY ROMAN EMPIRE THE HOMO TO MY SEXUAL -

I am very normal about my friend

yeah same here

Elrond: And this is my Chief Councellor, Erestor. He is 8000 years old, and very wise and venerable. I trust him with my life. Legolas, Silvan, knows all the shit that his guy did: Oh, the Fish Guy! Hey! ヾ(＾ ∇ ＾) Erestor, the Fish Guy: ... hello

In fics, people often use the Quenya for adult male/female: 'the nér did this' or 'the nís said that' which is... fine, I guess? Tolkein did use them in some of his translations to mean man/woman in a non-species-specific kind of way... and this is completely irrational but to me it still sometimes comes across as directly calling someone a 'male' or a 'female'... like, technically, yes? But also wtf?

Anyway. Sindarin doesn't have a clear equivalent that I can see...

(Also nís is sometimes níssë - still singular, means exactly the same thing, idfk why)

Can 2025 maybe be the year we as a fandom finally stop using the term 'she-elf', which was invented for the Jackson movies and comes across as intentionally derogatory?

Tolkien himself referred to female elves as 'women' or 'elven-women' or similar.

welp im too broke not to give it a go...