let’s stop seeing sex as the biggest thing you can do to show someone you love them
everyone knows that the real way to show someone you love them is to find them a really cool rock. not a diamond. just a neat rock that you think they will enjoy
Not a rock THE ARKENSTONE
Why just one rock Why not three Why not the silmarils
Sean Bean hiking up to the Lord of the Rings sets bc he’s afraid of helicopters is even funnier when you hear that Viggo Mortensen did the exact same thing, except Viggo’s reason for hiking to the sets was bc he wanted to be authentically travel-worn
Like literally you have Boromir doing this pretty cool thing bc he’s scared to death of the alternative while Aragorn just does it for The Aesthetic™
it will never cease to delight me that in the trilogy, gimli is shown to be charming, with all the polish and grace of a trained diplomat—he trades wits with elrond and speaks so graciously to galadriel that she gives him a gift denied feanor; his extemporaneous description of the glittering caves is what convinces legolas to travel there with him after the war, he sings the song of durin so well that sam begs to learn it.
whereas legolas is this big cheerful lug of a hunter-tracker, incidentally a prince, only unwittingly beautiful and graceful—his speech is decidedly stiff and formal, even when he’s trying to be gentle, but then turns around and starts singing without realizing he’s forgotten half the song. He has strange moments of seriousness, when the ancientness of him shines through, but then—
I do wonder what their first conversations were, gimli dignified but a little chilly; legolas stiff even as he attempted humor, but a way forward nonetheless.
Honestly if the fellowship had cellphones the #1 change would be Aragorn constantly complaining on the phone with arwen in the two towers like “they’re flirting again. Yes again. Literally I don’t even want to tell u what I walked in on yesterday but it involved gimli cleaning his axe in an inappropriate manner. And the worst bit is they still pretend like they hate each other my god. I’m gonna lose it I swear” while arwen is like “mhmm that’s nice dear”
This is the best argument for Aragorn’s kingly training I’ve ever heard
Aragorn rapidly develops a reputation for being the most level-headed diplomat around. He can take insults straight to his face, have a sword pointed at him, have his country threatened with war, you name it, he doesn’t even blink. He does all the treating with the Southrons personally because he doesn’t bat an eye at anything they throw at him. (Of course Arwen also earns a reputation as a sparklingly brilliant diplomatic tactician, but everyone is less surprised when the three-thousand-odd-year-old ex-elf is generally unimpressed by everything, because she’s had a long time to get there. Aragorn, on the other hand…well, he might have been raised by elves and he might be Numenorean, but he was a scruffy wandering Ranger for decades and everyone expected that to be what they got as a king.)
Every once in a while a courtier brings this up, flatters the king to within an inch of his life over it, and finishes with “Sire, where did you learn such diplomatic skill?”
And Aragorn stares off into the middle distance and says “You don’t want to know” while Arwen goes off in a very unqueenly fit of hysterical laughter.
