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Fates and Choices

in their blood😭not my art but my commission. After communicating with the artist板儿爷 for a long time, these pictures were completed.

Maybe he had re-learn how to write and get used to writing with both hands just in case.

Or maybe he gets incredibly annoyed at a singular aspect of tea time because he can't grasp the cattle as he used to.

And he has to always think at which part of any process requires better grip to choose which item take in which hand.

Maybe his hand coordination overall gets worse and even the hand that wasn't injured turned to be something he had to work on.

He struggles with buttons, and he struggles with them a lot, despite technically having enough ability to push the button into the little cuts on his vest. It doesn't help that all of his best vests are buttoned.

He has to change his algorithm of tying any knot, and sometimes has more success with tying his fingers than tying ropes.

He can't properly grasp at doorknobs and has to remind himself multiple times that there's only one hand with which he can properly open the door, up until he learns to do it with both.

He has to be cautious everytime he goes for a handshake and he managed to confuse multiple hobbits by giving them "the wrong hand" to take.

He has to tailor all his gloves in one way or another because the place for his missing finger on the glove keeps bending and wobbling while he walks, which he finds rather irritable.

Doomed By the Narrative

Silmarillion

Luthien: 1 (Beren)

Nienor: 1 (Turin)

Hobbit

No kissies :/

LotR

Aragorn: 5 = 2 (Eowyn) + Arwen (1) + 1 (Boromir) + 1 (Merry)

Sam: 4.5 =  4.5 (Frodo - counting 0.5 because it says he “did not kiss” his hand, which feels weird to ignore or to count, so half a point it is)

Faramir: 4 = 2 (Eowyn) + 1 (Frodo) + 1 (Sam)

Merry: 4 = 2 (Theoden) + 1 (Aragorn) + 1 (Eowyn)

Frodo: 3 = 1 (Merry) + 1 (Pippin) + 1 (Sam) << these all happen in the same scene

Beregond: 1 (Aragorn)

So we have a total of 23.5 kisses, only 5 of which happen between people who are romantically involved, so you can totally go ahead and assume platonic kisses are very much a thing in Arda

Also another fun breakdown:

Hand: 9.5 (Sam → Frodo x2.5, Merry → Theoden x2, Merry → Aragorn, Merry → Eowyn, Aragorn → Eowyn, Aragorn → Arwen, Beregond → Aragorn)

Brow/forehead: 8 (Sam → Frodo x2, Aragorn → Boromir, Aragorn → Eowyn, Aragorn → Merry, Faramir → Eowyn, Faramir → Frodo, Faramir → Sam)

In the sources Tolkien was using, kissing is hilariously common. Medieval people were like constantly kissing hands, cheeks, rings (you forgot Pippin kissing Denethor’s ring btw), etc. Even lip kissing seems to have been a lot less associated with romance, and more with fealty. Indeed, most medieval romance stories don’t have any kissing at all: but tales of adventure and chivalry usually do (even when they weren’t intentionally homoerotic: which some of them absolutely were). And then there’s whatever is going on in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which was weird even by the standards of it’s own time, and rather famously one of Tolkien’s favorites.

So yeah, platonic kissing is absolutely a thing. Specifically, kissing as a sign of fealty is absolutely a thing in Arda. Merry, Pippin and Beregond all seal oaths of fealty with a kiss (and likely this is true of other moments where characters swear fealty, but we aren’t told this directly). It also seems to be associated with prayer and blessing (most of the forehead kisses seem to be this kind).

Some of these kisses don’t even happen between people who know each other particularly well, or like each other that much. Faramir has known Sam and Frodo for like a week tops when he gives them his goodbye kisses: accompanied by prayers to the Valar. Pippin detests Denethor. Merry is less excited by Théoden personally as by Rohan generally, and they literally just met. Aragorn kisses Éowyn when she is unconscious, while he’s healing her.

DO YOU GUYS GET IT? THE RING IS A BURDEN, BUT FRODO ISN'T. FRODO DOESN'T WEIGH ANYTHING TO SAM. SAM CAN LIFT HIM EASILY!!!! HE'S NOT A BURDEN AT ALL I —