Bilbo Baggins - Blog Posts
Biwbee my baby baby baby boy
I need to actually learn how to draw both him and thorin correctly so when I draw then as little goobers they still look right. I fee intimidated but I think I’m doing okay
Fallen in the River
Word Count: 1,101
AN: This is the first story I’ve ever posted for others to read, so if anyone reads it please give me some feedback. Good and bad, I would like to get a get some opinions on my current writing skills. And if there is demand for a part two I would like to know. Enjoy the story.
Pairing: Company x GN Reader (platonic)
Summary: (y/n), a human from another world, finds themself within the famous children's story The Hobbit becoming a member of the Company of Thorin Oakensheild. One night after a long ride the Company set up camp in a cave to shield themselves from the never ending rain. (y/n) follows after the two princes and the hobbit to speak with them when they are all given a good scare.
Warnings: Injured reader
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Honestly, (y/n) wasn't sure how exactly they ended up in their current predicament. Sitting on the bank of an angry river in the middle of nowhere, during a harsh downpour. They sat in the mud, completely soaked and shivering; they hugged themself close, and hissed when they felt the growing burning pain in their forearms. While they were still in the water the current brought a dead log right into their path. In order to keep themself conscious, they had to bring their arms up above their head to take the brunt of the hit before they went under. Their right foot was missing it’s boot, which made them considerably colder than they already were. Plus, they were crestfallen over the loss of such loved footwear. (y/n) really loved those boots.
After sitting there for an unknown amount of time, (y/n) hauled themself up and began limping back towards the camp. They didn't give any thought to an explanation to give the company upon her return; Their mind was too scattered. (y/n) couldn't think straight as they tried to recall what had happened. When they fell into the river, the ground had crumbled beneath their feet, and they tumbled into their near-watery demise. Fili and Kili had been there, along with Bilbo, who had let out quite a scream at their fall. They must be worried sick. (y/n) found themself becoming increasingly more exhausted the longer they walked. How far had the river carried them? Soon their thoughts weren’t more than just incoherent blurs in their head.
When they arrived at the mouth of the cave, their teeth chattered loudly, and they rubbed their hands up and down the sides of their arms. When (y/n) came into view, several figures stood and quickly came to their aid, not that they were really willing to accept it. They brushed past them, heading straight for their bag on a mission to get out of their wet clothes and into relatively dry ones. They didn't even notice that several members of the company were missing. Pulling out a set of new clothes, someone approached them and placed a warm hand on their shoulder.
“(Lass/Lad), you alright?” It was Bofur, his voice was soft and full of concern.
“Tell everyone to turn around.” They avoided his question. ‘Please.”
“What?”
“Tell everyone to turn around. I’m gonna change.” They didn't even give him time before they started pulling their shirt off over their head.
Bofur sputtered and spun on his heel with his hands slapped over his eyes. The others soon followed, and (y/n) heard several surprised mutters in Khuzdul, but paid them no mind. They continued on, their pants following their shirt to the ground; they stripped down to nothing. The chill air blew over their naked skin, making a violent shiver run down their spine, and they quickly pulled on the second set of clothes. After they were fully clothed they walked past a few turned heads and sat themself as close to the fire as they could with her blanket slung over their shoulders.
“You can open your eyes now.” (y/n) teased.
“(Lass/Lad),” This time it was Balin who addressed them, and they hummed in response as they warmed her hands over the fire. “Are you alright?”
(y/n) was quick to answer, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m good.”
“Are you sure? How about you let Oin l give you a good once over?” His voice was firm.
“Bilbo came running in nearly twenty minutes ago, screaming about how you’d fallen in the river.” Dwalin spoke up to reinforce his brother's suggestion. “Thorin and them are still out there look’n for ya.”
After he mentioned it (y/n) looked around and noticed that he was right. Thorin, Fili, Kili, and Bilbo were all missing from the cave. They chewed on their lip unconsciously, thinking about how worried they must be, how worried they all had been before their unforeseen reappearance. Where were they now? How far had they gone? They thought about getting up to go get them themself but ultimately decided against it due to their freezing and battered state. (y/n) pursed their lips then looked up to Dwalin.
“Shouldn't someone go find them? It’s still raining.”
“Aye, I’ll go tell them your back alive.” And with that Dwalin nodded towards Balin, and made his way out of the mouth of the cave.
(y/n) watched him leave when another violent shiver racked their body. A large warm hand placed itself gently onto their cheek almost making them sigh, but they didn't resist slightly leaning into the touch. Bifur had moved to their side with a very concerned crease in his brow. He spoke something to Balin and removed his hand - much to their dislike - to make a few hand signals. The older dwarf nodded and took a few steps closer.
“I do believe it would be in your best interest to allow Oin to look you over, Bifur says your freezing.” He paused, thinking, “You took a hard fall, (lass/lad). It also wouldn't be wrong to assume you may be injured.”
“I guess there's no harm in it.” (y/n) gave in.
Balin waved Oin, who grabbed his medical bag, grunting as he pulled himself to his feet. (y/n) had to turn their back to the fire to face Oin as he sat before them, feeling their skin with his bare hand. They showed him their arms to which he shook his head and muttered something under his breath, before bandaging them up. The bandages went from just below their elbow to just before their wrists. It felt odd to have their arms wrapped up the way they were but never once did they say anything opting to allow Oin to do his thing.
At one point their foot was in his grasp where he found a gash about four or five inches long on the back of their calf where a rock had caught their leg and stolen their boot. It was slightly deep so he had to stitch it close before wrapping a bandage around it too.
By the time he finished, Dwalin returned with the last members of the company hot on his heels.
this is so fucking cursed I love this so much
Follow up to this
(Also shoutout to my buddy @khazdmazerb for suggesting dwobbit Frodo to me <3)
Y'all
Imagine if Bilbo lost his lil acorn once Smaug was dead.
Throin sees Bilbo looking around all panicked, digging through some pile of gold or gems, and asks about it, and this is where he learns about the acorn.
So of course he offers to help look, while they're looking for the Arkenstone, and eventually they've got the whole company looking for both. Thorin's head seems a little more clear suddenly, so everyone's more looking for the acorn than the arkenstone, because yeah they're looking for the arkenstone, but they'll know it when they see it, they have to CONCENTRAIT to find a lil acorn, and it's important they find IT soon or it'll get crushed, or die or rot. The arkenstone has lasted this long. It'll last a little longer.
And because they've all got he mindset if "yeah thats a bit of gold, but it's not an acorn. Sure sure some pretty gems but it's not an acorn!" In there heads, they stave of the gold sickness.
When Fili shouts, "I found it!" They're all rather disappointing when they realise he means the Arkestone. Thorin pockets it, but they return to their search for the acorn right away.
Then, one day, Thranduil shows up demanding the white gems and Thorin's standing up on the barracks like "Sure, if we come across them."
And Thranduil's like "what do you mean if you come across them?"
"There was a dragon in the mountain for over a century! He wasn't exactly cleaning and we're a bit preoccupied with our own search at the moment! I'll send them your way once we find them! If takes a day or a year, you'll live!" And then he disappears from Thranduil's sight.
Only to reappear after a moment, looking slightly irritated. The hobbit is by his side looking, perhaps hopeful? With a roll of his eyes, Thorin says, bitting out the words like they physically hurt to say "If you would like, perhaps you could send a select few of your most trusted guard, and if they might help us in our search, they can also look for your gems as well?"
Thranduil has never been more caught of guard in his life. Did a dwarf, one whom he'd had imprissoned in his dungeon less than a month ago, just invite his people into his most recently reclaimed treasurey?
"I'm sorry. What?" He blinks up at the dwarf- most elegantly, he assures you.
"Elves have very keen eyes, do you not?" Asks the little hobbit. "We're looking for my acorn, you see, that I got from Beorn the skin changer, I seem to have lost it in the dragon's chase, and we fear it'll be crushed. Throin says your box would likely be in the front of the treasurey, and we haven't searched there yet, though Smaug did follow us through there, so it's a fine place for your people to start. It would be greetly appreciated."
And really. The argument could go on, Thranduil's really not sure he believes there IS an acorn, but if it gets him those damned white gems, fine. He sends Tauriel and her guard, and Legolas volunteers himself.
When Bard shows up asking for aid for the town Thorin throws his hands up. "Your just as bad as the elves! We just got our montain back! Fah! At least you asked for nothing so specific!" And practically chucks a chest full of randomly scooped up gold and gems over at the man. "But if there is an acorn in there, you are to return it immediately!"
There isn't an acorn.
"Why would there be an acorn?" He asks Thranduil that evening as he takes tea with the Elven king who's made camp outside the Lonely Mountain as a statement to the dwarven king he doesn't mean to leave without what's rightfully his, regardless of their compliance.
"His husband appears to be rather attached to it." Thranduil shrugs. "I don't pretent to understand the ways of haflings, but if the hobbit has half so strong a love for that which grows from the earth, as the dwarves do that which is mined from it, and I was a king who'd dragged my consort half way across Middle Earth to risk his life battling a dragon for its hoard, I'd think it wise to have the Mountain turned upside down for one measly acorn as well."
Dain shows up and is about ready to storm the peacefully-aiding-the-humans-at-this-point-because-we're-here-what-else-do-we-have-to-do elves on principle, but Thorin puts a stop to it quick.
It takes Dain a day and a half to realised that Thorin did infact say "they were all looking for an Acorn," yesterday, and several minutes to understand that he was saying "no, we found the Arkenstone days ago," today.
And of course, the orcs and goblins show up and are defeated by the forced of them all, united under Acorn Peace Treaty of 2942
Sadly, weeks go by, and they do not find the acorn. They do eventually find the Gems, and Legolas and the majority of the elves return to Mirkwood, Legolas having made good friends with the Company, especially Gloin (this is a suprise tool that will help him later) but Tauriel remains, and if Thorin wasn't smitten with the hobbit, he might comment on just how close Kili is growing to her. At least she's respectful. Might just teach that boy a think or two. The opposite is, of course, true, and Tauriel becomes just as much a menace as the princes.
As the weeks go by and proper cataloging of the treasury commences, every dwarf who comes to help is shows a picture of the acorn every single morning, and promised a just reward for its discovery.
Eventually, Bilbo has to concede they aren't going to find it, but, well, by then he's not exactly planning to return to the Shire for long enough to care for a sprouting tree.
He does return long enough to stop all his things being auctioned off, no he's not a ghost, thank you very much, and have Bag End transfered to his cousin Drogo and his wife, before setting back out for Erebor with the things he intends to keep.
It's years before anyone thinks of the poor lost little acorn again, decades, infact.
One day, in the early morning of the 21st Durin's day after the reclaiming of Erebor, a dwarf comes rushing from the treasurey to find the Royals preparing for the celebration.
"Is it one of these, your highne- uh, Bilbo, your lost acorn?" He asks, stuttering over the title he knows the hobbit dislikes. "I can't really.... tell them apart."
And Bilbo just blinks, because in the cupped palms of the dwarf's are perhaps 15 or 20 little acorns...
"Where did you find these?" He asks.
"They were in the back."
"The back?" Thorin repeats, then catches himself and shoos the dwarf back the way he came "Show us."
They all- Bilbo and Thorin, the princeses, and a handful of the company who'd been present- follow the dwarf down into the treasurey, and then through the treasurey, past all the neat piles of gold and the many chests of organized gems and stones and all manner of other treasures, until they're presented with a very familiar back door.
Or rather, a hidden passage, tucked away in an alcove, where another handful of acorns' the few the Dwarf who'd brought them the first had likely missed- are scattered about.
"You did... just have the one, right Uncle Bilbo?" Fili asks.
"Or course I just had the one!" Bilbo retorts. "I couldn't have possibly carried that many with me all the way from Beorn's!"
With a resigned sort of sigh, as he begins to piece together the answer to a decades old mystery, Thorin steps forward and follows the tunnel up, up, up, and out of Erebor, the others- save the dwarf who brought them, dismissed by Bilbo with a smile, a thanks, and an oh, no, you may keep those- right behind.
As they walk, the acorns start to increase. Though there's never so many as to begin piling up in the tunnel, by the time they reach the end, the majority of the ground is covered in a solid layer if the little things, and the crunch underfoot as they all emerge onto the ledge which they had all once stood, with batted breath in the moon light as they realised they were at last, truly home.
"Was that here last time?" Kili asked, studying the impressive Oaktree shading the entire ledge that sat in front of the secret entrance to Erebor.
The trunk of the tree was wide and solid, sitting right up against the mountain side, and rather winning the battle of wills against the carved stone architecture of the dwarves. Its limbs grow twisted and wild, up and out in all directions. It's easily 250 or 300 feet tall. There is all sorts of life flittering about in its florishing branches, all covered in brilliant green leaves, and fresh green little acorns.
The growned all around them is covered in acorns as well, so many more than the tunnel.
"No." Thorin says, watching a squirrel dash down from the trunk of the tree, shove several acorns into its cheeks, and dash back up the trunk. "No it was not." He turns to Bilbo, and raises an eyebrow. "Lost it after the dragons chase, you said?"
Beet red and look quite flustered, all Bilbo can manage out is a squicky little "oops."
"'Oops' indeed." Thorin returns, smiling fondly.
Sometimes sharing isn’t caring
shoutout to this youtube comment for making me want to punch a wall and sob
bagginshield moments in the hobbit trilogy:
an unexpected journey:
- bilbo was a simp for thorin the second he knocked on his door
- bilbo hearing gandalf and elrond talk about thorin in rivendell and thorin letting him hear
- thorin fully risking his life to save bilbo even tho he thinks he’s a “burden”
- bilbo being so personally hurt by thorin saying what he said, that he decides to leave (dramatic gay™️)
- thorin realizing he actually hurt bilbo and regretting having said anything (guilty gay™️)
- “why did you come back”
- bilbo saying he came back bc he wants to help thorin find a home
- bilbo being the one to intervene in thorin’s fight w azog despite never fighting before and having every excuse to stay on the tree
- he fully jumps an orc???? like twice the size of him???? to save his boyfriend????
- faces AZOG head on bc thorin wasn’t moving
- thorins first question upon waking being about whether bilbo is okay
- trying so hard to be angry at bilbo
- bilbo becoming a burden on thorins HEART rather than his mind
- “i have never been so wrong in all my life. i am sorry i doubted you.”
- the look™️ after the hug
the desolation of smaug:
- thorin and bilbo having the most willpower out of everyone in the group
- constantly joining at each other’s sides
- the look on thorins face when he realizes bilbo isn’t with them anymore
- thorin being the only one to think that bilbo would come for them
- thorin RUNNING to the cell door when bilbo appears
- bilbo looking to thorin when he asks them to trust him
- thorin being the only one who trusts bilbos judgement w the barrels
- “well done, master baggins”
- bilbo vouching for thorins character
- thorin giving him the Look™️ as bilbo speaks on his behalf
- “you have keen eyes, master baggins”
- “thorin, you can’t give up now.”
- thorin coming back as soon as bilbo calls for them
- thorin trying to dehumanize bilbo as much as possible so he “won’t care” as much about his life, being fully incapable of doing so
- bilbos FACE when thorin turns his sword on him
- thorin being able to really easily read bilbo’s expressions, even when he’s blind by greed
- thorin suggesting they all split up and taking bilbo with him
- bilbo not wanting to go with balin, and calling for thorin as he’s pulled away
- bilbo always immediately responding to thorins commands, not hesitating or doubting him for a second
- “keep going bilbo!”
battle of the five armies
- “i’ve tried talking to him, but he won’t listen.”
- the fact that bilbo took to stone because he knew what it would do to thorin, not caring if thorin found out and hated him after because he knew he was helping him
- the way thorin LOOKS at him when he shows him the acorn
- literally the Look™️
- the way bilbo relaxes under That Specific Gaze from thorin
- bilbo being the only one who cares enough to try and reason with thorin
- “you should never underestimate dwarves” ft. the Look™️
- thorin intentionally gives him one of the strongest pieces of armor they have
- “i look absurd,” “it is a gift, a token of our friendship. true friends are hard to come by.”
- never assuming for a SECOND that bilbo would be the one to betray him
- the SYMBOLISM of thorin backing away and them being separated by the other dwarves
- “i’m not afraid of thorin”
- thorins face when he realizes bilbo was the one to betray him
- bilbos voice being the only one thorin hears clearly in his head, the only voice that brings him to sense
- bilbos FACE as he says “thorin” when they finally come to fight
- thorins face when bilbo comes to warn him of the fifth army
- the Look™️
- they exchange one look and bilbo knows that he’s meant to go with thorin
- “i’m glad you’re here”
- “you’re going to live, thorin.”
- bilbo holding his hand
- “plant your tree, watch it grow”
- bilbo begging him to stay alive, whispering to him about the sky and the eagles, desperately saying his name as he dies
- cradling his body
- sobbing next to him
- standing alone at his body during the funeral, unmoving
- trying desperately not to cry, being unable to look at his body
- “i know that’s how you must honor him, but to me he was never that. he was... he was...”
- just nodding, balin knowing exactly what he wants to say but can’t bring himself to
- “who is this person you pledged your loyalty to? thorin oakenshield?”
- the Look™️
- “he... he was my friend.”
- bilbo baggins kept that map, thorins map, the for the rest of his life, for it was all he had left of a lost love
Somebody NEEDS to do a Hobbit animatic of 'Téir Abhaile Riú' by Celtic Women where:
The girl who wants to go with the sailors is Bilbo
The people that are telling the girl to stay are the other hobbits in the shire with their judgy mf faces
The sailors are the dwarfs
Galway is Erebor
The spoons - 'pick up your spoons, He's waiting to hear you play them' - are conkers coz Bilbo can play conkers
Bonus points if it's Bagginshield
Please I need this
I have never had a normal thought since I realised Aragorn/Estel would have been around 10 years old — more like 7/8 considering his heritage — when Thorin's Company passes through Rivendell, so here are some brainrot headcanons (continued under the cut):
Estel is obsessed with Thorin. Just completely obsessed. Follows him around everywhere like a cat, begs him to play with him, offers to run errands for him. Literally every elf in Rivendell is completely stunned at the behaviour because Estel is, normally, a card-carrying ankle-biter.
The Dwarves, on the other hand, are shocked by the fact that by a few days into the visit, Thorin seems to like Estel too. Gloin would have sworn that he expected Thorin to throw the child off the banisters the minute he made him hold his pet python. Thorin didn't just hold said snake, but played with him, let him do little odd jobs, even letting him sit up with him at the dining halls. On two evenings, he even takes Estel out with a wooden sword, to show him how to "fight like a Dwarf lord". All the Dwarves are just as shook as the elves, minus Kili and Fili, who knew Thorin as Uncle Thorin and are completely unsurprised that he is so wonderful with little Estel.
Lindir and Elrond find a content python snoozing in Elrond's study. Lindir and Elrond are both utterly and irrationally terrified of snakes. After much screaming and climbing on sofas, every member of staff swears Estel had been in his mother's quarters all day. Nobody thinks to mention that they saw Bilbo and Thorin hanging about outside the study, because what relevance could that possibly have?
When the company left Rivendell, Estel was understandably quite unhappy because he'd miss them, also they were going to see a dragon, and he begged to go with them. Thorin does what most parents do before going on a trip, and promises to bring him a present from the dragon's lair when they returned.
Bilbo returns without Thorin, but with the promised present for Estel. He visits the boy in his quarters and they hold each other and share their grief. Bilbo then shows him the present. He explains how Thorin wanted to give him something more substantial than a golden cup scraped off the floor of a dragon's lair — he had told Bilbo, the night before the battle, to give the boy Thorin's own solid gold wristband.
On the same return trip, Elrond expressed his condolences over Thorin's death, and enquired if there were other casualties. When he finds out that Kili and Fili had also died in the battle, a strange, terrible expression twisted across his face and he said, almost reflexively, both? both together? good. that's good. The remaining Dwarves and Bilbo were all stunned, thinking it was Elvish apathy at best, and deliberate disrespect at worst. After all, they had no reason to know that Elrond, like his immortal brethren, found it somewhat difficult to gauge the ages of mortal beings — and had thought the two late brothers were twins.
Decades later on the night before the Fellowship were set to depart, the elderly Bilbo Baggins found it hard to sleep from worry, and wandered onto the balcony, and saw a lone man practicing sword moves in the courtyard. He realises both man and combat style seem faintly familiar, like the heavy striding and swinging and slashing are the steps to an old dance he once used to know, which now lives in a deep, forgotten place within him, under layers of unravelling memories. He can't quite put his finger on it. But there is a strange comfort in the sight, so soothing Bilbo's eyes start to close, falling asleep curled up right there on the balcony. He slips off into a wonderful old dream, lulled by the rhythm of fallen leaves crunching in the courtyard — where Aragorn "fights like a dwarf", solid gold wristband twinkling under the light of the stars.
rewatching lotr, and rewatched the hobbit trilogy like 2 weeks ago, and i must say. i love this franchise for all its “i knew a guy who knew a guy” relations. like to give just one example, gimli presumes for a second, like the whole fellowship, that frodo got injured by the cave troll in moria. but he’s actually just fine! because frodo just happens to be gimli’s dad’s boss’s situationship’s nephew, and therefore has the mithril shirt that gimli’s dad’s boss gave to his situationship right before gimli’s dad’s boss led the company to battle against, among others, legolas’s dad. legolas’s old situationship from like last year (60 years ago) was also there and chose, get this, gimli’s dad’s boss’s nephew over him. i love yall
Happy 10th anniversary to my favourite part of The Hobbit trilogy!
AUJ anniversary art, support me with commission
imagine: you are chilling in front you your house getting high. along comes an old family friend who you last saw when you were six, you are now in your 50s. after a brief convo where he is kind of a dick to you, he’s like damn you’ve changed :/. and your like yeah bestie it’s been five decades why the fuck are you here. he leaves. later that night a shit ton of people show up and trash your house. just throw and absolute rager. halfway through the family friend from earlier shows up. he announces in full earshot of everyone that he wants you to come with him to rob a bank. you of course say wtf??? one of the people who broke into your house calls you a pussy. another person shoves you a contract which declares if you get shot robbing the bank they will not pay for your funeral. you pass out. when you wake up you find the contract on your table and your house almost completely back to normal. you stare at the contract for a moment and decide, fuck it this is just as a good a midlife crisis than anything.
this is what happened to bilbo baggins
Bagginshield + Frodo out shopping on Black Friday 🛒💨(Lobelia’s nightmare)
Day 3 of bagginshieldtober: Barrels 🌊
Getting our dear burglar comfortable is always the priority!
Day 2 of bagginshield-tober: garden 🪴
i think they might have gotten a little distracted…
Uh oh, Bilbo is about to break his husband.
🌱 mushy bagginshield hour!!! share with me any headcanons you have on bilbo and thorin being together. I wanna read your soft headcanons, silliness and fluff encouraged! (heck, throw in some angst while we're at it shhdjdd) 🌱
Day 1 of bagginshield-tober: breakfast 🥞
Is Thorin’s turn making breakfast today, but i fear that he can’t concentrate because someone won’t stop staring at him…
Frodo is too sleepy to notice that his uncles are being (as everyone else says) "so in love it hurts" in front of him.
i finished painting them! i'm actually quite proud of how Bilbo turned out ^^
Bilbo and thorin sketches!
Might paint them later today me thinks (´ᵕ `ก)
Bilbo and thorin sketches!
Might paint them later today me thinks (´ᵕ `ก)
Hobbit ✨ everybody lives au ✨ where Bilbo stays to help rebuild Erebor but he and Thorin are still dancing around each other and their feelings and the company is tired of it so one day Fili and Kili tell Bilbo he really should braid his hair, to be more respectful of dwarven customs of course, and Bilbo may not exactly be a respectable hobbit anymore but he still has manners thank you, so after a bit of practice and failed attempts he does just that. The next day he greets Thorin with a bright smile, proud to show his interest in the company’s culture, but Thorin freezes and looks practically murderous and Fili and Kili are laughing to themselves of course but definitely hiding, and everyone around takes at least two steps back from Thorin who feels as though he has just had a mountain dropped on him because WHO IN MAHAL’S NAME BRAIDED BILBO’S HAIR WHO HAS BEEN COURTING HIS HOBBIT WITHOUT HIS KNOWLEDGE
“They’re so cute.”
Thorin just making Bilbo his wife before they even leave on the quest 😳
Retelling The Hobbit Chapter 15: Unattached First chapter / Previous / Next (coming November 13th 2023, tentatively) Webtoon/A03 /Instagram/Tumblr Sideblog
Thank you for reading! The next chapter of this comic adaptation of The Hobbit will be titled (drumroll)....The Song of the Lonely Mountain!
Check under the cut for notes on the callbacks to previous chapters of this comic, and to Tolkien stories like the Unfinished Tales! —-
—-
One of my guiding ideas for this comic is that the story is being written/drawn by Bilbo Baggins, an “unreliable narrator,” who has a biased way of recounting events. As the comic goes on, parts of the story get retold through new perspectives (or through the eyes of other characters), and you realize the initial version you read was incomplete.
A lot of you probably noticed that this chapter features a ton of callbacks to the earliest chapters of this comic! We saw child Bilbo and Gandalf's friendship told from Bilbo's POV in Chapter 3.....but in this chapter we see it retold from Gandalf's POV. However, Belladonna Took is our biggest instance of that! Not to overexplain my own writing, but Chapter 1 is an older Bilbo painting an idealized happily-ever-after fairytale picture of Belladonna, while Chapter 15 features a younger Bilbo telling a far less optimistic version of her life. While there's truth to both of them, neither of them is the full truth.
In the Fellowship of the Ring, Bilbo tells Frodo that ‘books need to have good endings,' like endings where everyone "lives happily ever after." If I were to continue this comic to the end of the novel, Bilbo’s habit of “rewriting things to be happier" would become a whole Thing.
Second: Much of this chapter is taken directly from “The Unfinished Tales: The Quest For Erebor.” That story was Tolkien’s attempt to unite the tone of The Hobbit with LOTR, by having Gandalf explain what The Hobbit looked like from *his* perspective. The gay line about Bilbo feeling incapable of settling down into a Traditional Marriage with a Wife And Kids is taken almost directly from the Unfinished Tales. So are all the lines where Gandalf reflects on what Bilbo was like as a child, and the moment where Bilbo reflects that all of his desire for adventure has dwindled to a private dream.
Third: Obviously, the other big influence on this chapter (outside the original novel) was a similar scene in the PJ film. The little bit where Gandalf reveals the lore behind Bullroarer took monologue is the only dialogue I’ve directly lifted from that scene. ;3
Fourth: some of you may have caught that I used a quote describing Frodo’s wanderlust in the Fellowship of the Ring to describe Bilbo. The bit describing "the maps that only show white spaces beyond their borders" is also why I emphasized Bilbo’s canonical nerdiness around maps in earlier chapters (chapter 5 especially, but also in Chapter 6, Chapter 7, and a blink-and-you-miss-it moment in chapter 14.)
Fifth: one of my favorite things in the original book are all the scenes where Gandalf does fun Whimsical things with smoke/smoke rings. In the book he usually makes them change color or race around; in my comic he usually makes them turn into butterflies (he also does this in chapters 3 and 11.) you may have noticed that Butterfly Symbolism is a big thing in this comic. But yeah, in another callback: Gandalf finally had time to blow smoke-rings with Bilbo, which he said he 'had no time for' in Chapter 2!
Thanks again for reading! I tentatively plan for the next chapter to arrive on November 13th.
things bagginshield fic writers put in their fics that never fail to have me giggling, kicking my feet in absolute giddy and delight:
"confusticate" and "confound"
Dwarves. (in bilbo's POV)
bed snuggles (especially them tangling their legs together - i am a simple woman)
balin being the president of the bagginshield club
food being an integral part of either the story or their relationship or both
consort!bilbo
BAMF!bilbo
horny!thorin
them being ridiculous
gandalf in a corner with a pipe doing absolutely nothing but reacting to them being ridiculous
either of them logicking their way out of admitting they're in love. or jealous.
"speak plainly"
I've been reading a lot of "thorin is ugly by drawf standars" fics and i always love them so much because i can feel Bilbo's confusion and frustation in every single one of them.
Wich is funny, because i totally get him, too.
Like, if someone looked at me and told me, dead serious, that Thorin Oakenshiel is of all things, ugly, i too would be confused.