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Sometimes, I get so roped up in fanfictions and fanart that i genuinely forget that thorin is canonically dead

June 26: Soulmates/Soulmate Marks AU

Your mark shows how old will your soulmate be when you fall in love with them. (Meaning both romantically and sexually)

For an event by @bagginshieldweek24

More headcanons after the cut. Seriously, there’s a lot, as I developed a whole idea but had no time to write a fic because of exams.

— Dwarfs come of age in around 80 y.o., having a soulmate from another race is a very rare occurrence; throughout the history of Middle-earth, there have been at most a dozen such cases, so most dwarves are unaware of this possibility. Having a mark with a number younger than the age of majority is a lifelong shame, essentially an admission of pedophilia. Unfortunately, this happens more often than having a soulmate from another race.

— Thorin spent his entire adult life, from the moment the mark appeared, wearing an extra layer of bandages under his bracers to prevent anyone from seeing the number. Fortunately, among dwarves, it is not considered inappropriate to hide the marks, as many value their privacy.

— The mark and thoughts about it were the reason why Thorin often appeared especially gloomy when the topic of romance came up.

— He truly tried to compensate for his "defectiveness" with his virtues.

— Of course, Thorin is a virgin.

— Bilbo, on the other hand, didn't think much about this; hobbits don't see anything wrong with living without their soulmate or seeing their soulmate as a friend. They are generally a loving people and don't worry about the concept of "the one and only."

— Although the topic of soulmates is considered highly romantic in hobbit literature, Bilbo was somewhat disappointed when he realized he would likely never meet his soulmate. (Hobbits are also unaware of inter-racial soulmates.)

— I tried to make young Bilbo look more like Frodo, so here he has smaller curls and a different style of shirt.

— Thorin and Bilbo both hid their marks, so when they felt an attraction to each other, especially after the Carrock, both were initially upset, thinking they weren't soulmates. Thorin, of course, was much more upset.

— During the two weeks they stayed with Beorn (yes, I'm mixing the movie and the book, what are you going to do about it? Slow burn needs time to be slow), they managed to reach the point of kissing near the river or something like that. But when Bilbo tried to unlace Thorin's tunic, Thorin stopped him and said that, unlike hobbits, for dwarves, sexual interaction is a very serious step in emotional attachment. It wouldn't be fair not to tell Bilbo what kind of monster he was getting involved with, because after seeing what Thorin had to show him, Bilbo might not even want to look him in the eye. Bilbo was honestly frustrated. (It is implied that Thorin used some term characteristic of a pedo... ahem)

— With a terrifyingly serious face, Thorin unwrapped the bandages on his wrist, and Bilbo, with a sinking heart, prepared to see a number like 5 or 12. Instead, there was a very respectable and completely normal age. Thorin turned away, not wanting to see the disappointment in the hobbit's eyes. Bilbo spent a few seconds calculating how long dwarves live and how old Thorin actually was.

— Thorin thought Bilbo wanted to shame him for having the audacity to enter into a relationship at such an age, knowing his soulmate's extremely young age. With closed eyes, he forced out that he was 195 and knew how disgusting he was because of it.

— Instead of a slap or something worse, which Thorin wouldn't have opposed, thinking any normal person had the right to treat him like that after seeing it, Bilbo reached for his own wrist and, with suspicious enthusiasm, pulled off the leather bracelet he had worn since the Shire. On the pale skin was clearly marked Thorin's age, written in dark ink with characteristic dwarvish notches.

— Some time passed in silence as they both realized that such a coincidence simply couldn't be.

— They were in for a very pleasant evening away from the company🌚🌝

— Later, when the entire company gathered by the fire, Bilbo and Thorin would come to them, holding hands, the hobbit nearly glowing with happiness in front, and a red-to-the-tips-of-his-ears Thorin slightly behind. This would be the first time anyone in the company saw Thorin without bandages, and if not for the matching age on Bilbo's wrist, now also not hidden by a bracelet, they wouldn't have believed Thorin could be normal with such a number on his skin.

— And the dwarves would realize how young Bilbo was by their standards.

— Truly, the ways of the Valar are mysterious.

— At the very end of the night, Fili would nudge Kili with his elbow and hint that since their uncle had an inter-racial mark, he might not be so angry and yell when he finds out that his brother has a four-digit number on his wrist.

Conifer tufts

I adore the "Merlin doesn't realize Arthur's counting him because he doesn't understand nobles" fics however I would love to see a reverse on this.

Arthur is so used to courtship being about expensive gifts and grand gestures amongst the nobles that he has no idea Merlin's been courting him in the more simple way people do in Ealdor. Things like cooking for your intended, handmade gifts, helping them with tasks around the village, and using a split coin as a proposal instead of a ring. By the time Arthur realises anything Merlin already considers them married

interested in sex the same way you can be a sports fan without ever playing a single sport

*reading absolute filth and humming thoughtfully* fascinating.

had a dream that there was this new tiktok trend called "scrubbing" where people would take images of fictional characters and put them in images of bathtubs and drag around transparent pngs of soap and brushes with their tiktok art tablets and like liquify tool their hair down to mimic giving them a shower. and people would get into flamewars in the comments of every single video over the types of soap they picked and if the images had decently removed backgrounds and if they got soap in their eyes. and it got onto the news because it turned out everyone doing the trend was doing it compulsively like they physically couldn't stop and each video was a solid few minutes long because they were just collectively obsessively recording themselves fake-showering these fictional characters and arguing about it online

PLEASE CYBERBROS DRIVE YOUR TRUCK INTO THE NEAREST LAKE. DONT WORRY ITS A FEATURE

They look like an old married couple judgingly watching their neighbors

thorin but make him a polish nobleman

you can get a print here: inprnt!