Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza

What postcard might you send from the Rivendell post office? What does an Elvish postcard look like? If you can draw one please do, and if possible upload and show it below.

I suppose the ultimate Elvish postcard is a 'wish you were here' sent to us in Middle-earth from Valinor. What would the image on this postcard look like? What postcard options are available to Elves penning postcards mailed over the sea to their mortal friends in the East?

I'm not very good at art, or at knowing how to upload images onto this site. But I like this idea.
I would probably spend ages trying to choose a postcard. I love Rivendell, and would loiter by a postcard which included a few different views of the buildings, waterfalls, and Autumn trees. (I live in a tourist village, you can get postcards showing multiple views).
But then I would look at postcards of mallorn trees and Lothlorien, as I was very taken with them when I reread Lord of the Rings last year.
And then I'd probably hover at a postcard depicting some elvish artist's image of dancing Lúthien.
And then I'd be tempted by another art postcard, this time depicting the Two Trees of Valinor. I haven't got very far into the Silmarillion, but I liked them.
In real life I did once have a poster of Aragorn, so if there happened to be any postcards of him in the Post Office, I'd definitely add one to my growing pile of postcards.

I don't know how to upload an image but I'd also want this Elvish postcard:
"There's a guy works down the chip shop swears he's Elvish."
https://imgur.com/gallery/theres-guy-wo ... sh-xbE1Ruj

What do you imagine such a postcard would look like, dragon? I look forward to seeing what you come up with, and I have some ideas.

First off,@VelvetineZone, I confess that I snorted at the image/title. Second off, @Drifa, I liked your manifesto very much.

On the postcards, my thoughts are a bit unclear. The idea comes out of my book where I have in mind two chapters that focus on the travels of respectively Merry and Pippin and we get to explore Middle-earth from a Hobbit perspective. So I thought in terms of the postcards that the two might send home to the Shire. With Moria or Fangorn or Merry in Rohan I guess that the postcards would basically be like movie screen shots, but then I wondered about Pippin's Stone of Orthanc postcard, which in turn got me to wonder about either of their postcards after their silent interview with Galadriel, Sam's postcard after looking in Galadriel's Mirror, Frodo after Amon Hen, and Sam's after wearing the Ring on the way into Mordor.

In other words, my own thoughts are about Hobbit-Elf hybrid postcards. But I opened up the question in Imladris on specifically Elvish postcards thinking that it might be an idea to start with pure Elf vision and then work down to some Hobbit perspectives...

The above does not really answer your question. Sorry.

Ah I think I was assuming you meant elvish themed postcards.

I like this wider scope. Could imagine Merry and Pippin sending some Entish postcards. If Entish is a word.

VelvetineZone wrote: ↑Sun Mar 02, 2025 7:17 am Ah I think I was assuming you meant elvish themed postcards.

I like this wider scope. Could imagine Merry and Pippin sending some Entish postcards. If Entish is a word.

A Mordor line of Hobbit postcards is to me the obvious place to start. But I seem to recall you not liking my gentle imagination of the Mordor pit worked by retired admin slaves and guarded by slayer-badgers with whips and running off to start some goblin-dwarf hippy commune in the Misty Mountains. How about some postcards that the impoverished members of your mountain commune knock up to sell to respectable Hobbit tourists?

I'm not sure I'd start up a commune. Bit peoply. And definitely not a hippy one, with goblin-dwarves hustling everyone to join in circle-drumming gong-bath lentil-eating activities. No thank you.

My introverted side would be happiest in some kind of Lothlorien / Fangorn crossover forest with a home built into the side of a tree, a pile of books, and the odd elf and ent to hang out with. My extroverted side would want to be in a small Middle Earth city with cocktail bars and bookshops and live music.

So the Lothgorn / Fanlorien Book Loving Elvish Entish Forest Hermits can probably produce you some nice literary and foresty postcards. I'll be a half elf / half ent.

As for small and fairly alternative Middle Earth cities, I'm going to have to establish this with all the quirkiest Middle Earthlings I guess. I suppose it can be in Gondor or Rohan. I'll suppose here I'll be a Human of Ranger descent, with a dash of elvish and entish ancestry. Or maybe we can set it up not too far from the Barrow Downs and the Prancing Pony, I need a map. Blah blah ramble ramble but this is more fun than reality so I'm rambling. Rangerton. I'll think of a better name. We'll produce postcards of dashing male and female rangers riding wild horses through ancient barrowlands, and drinking in inns, and reading in bookshops.

I'm sure Mordor postcards will sell well too though, all those eyes and fires and doom. "Wish you were here."

Now I'm looking up Mordor postcards online. There's some great ones. Much better than my ideas. Totally going to sell really well to Goth Hobbits. Are there Goth Hobbits?

@VelvetineZone, the Mordor pcs out there are excellent. Have been child-minding so not had much chance to investigate. Writing now on another matter - your civic duty! As a plaza member, you can (and should) vote for the new admin team.

PS. I suspect most of the goth-hobbits were members of this site, back in the day.

@Chrysophylax Dives
I've just had a look at the nominees. Oh no, that's too hard, most of them have at least interacted briefly with me, and I'm disposed to like all of the nominees. I can't choose between them.

VelvetineZone wrote: ↑Sun Mar 02, 2025 5:05 pm @Chrysophylax Dives
I've just had a look at the nominees. Oh no, that's too hard, most of them have at least interacted briefly with me, and I'm disposed to like all of the nominees. I can't choose between them.

Next time you and I should stand. Just imagine all that power that we could then abuse! But I bet that you would then get all nice and responsible on me and resist my attempts to turn all of the plaza into a Mordor slave pit! Then we could have a power struggle between admins, war of the roses style, or I Claudius, or what have you.

Just day-dreaming out loud.

mention]Chrysophylax Dives[/mention]

I properly laughed out loud at this.

Yep. You would be turning everything into badger slave pits whilst I ran around planting golden elf trees and trying to spread harmony, only I'd also be talking too much and then randomly losing the plot, and then you'd have to stop pest mode and go into super chilled smooth it all over mode.

Or we could have Wars of the Valar and battle for dominion over Middle-Plaza, only I'd better finish reading The Silmarillion first so I know what I'm talking about. Honestly I thought I'd saunter through it in no time like an uber nerd, but in truth I'm making very very slow progress and keep reading trashy novels instead.

Anyway, looks like whoever wins the elections will be fabulous, which is more than we can say for a lot of Admin out there in Real Life.

@VelvetineZone, well done! You almost mentioned me. Unfortunately the opening square bracket was deleted so it did not work. Luckily, having no life and with these posts on the plaza the only thing that keeps me sane in the endless round of laundry and child-minding, I discovered your post anyway.

Here is a first Elvish postcard. You can tell it is an Elvish postcard because (a) the image is moving (Elvish magic) and (b) the language is not English (whether it is Sindarin or Quenya or some other Elvish dialect I am unfortunately unable to say).

The Elves have made a postcard of the culmination of the future story of when we were elected admins and together ruled the plaza. Most of the people you see are angry plaza members who are regretting voting for you/me and now taking things into their own hands. You and me are the two characters at the end. I go back and forth in my head though as to who is playing which part.

@Chrysophylax Dives with brackets.

I have no life either. I am currently driving around town sleep deprived, with my teen, awaiting an optician appointment, having made him get up for my youngest child's school run to try and reset his very late sleeping patterns. Hence we are both sleep deprived. Otherwise life is mostly laundry and feeding people. Right now I am in a car park beside a belligerent looking seagull who wants food.

Consequently I can't properly watch Caesar but will later.

@Chrysophylax Dives
Watched it.
Actually could rule the plaza like opening arrival seconds of this.
https://youtu.be/vB5Wv8IHVf0?si=HJmtIWwyqMhLvDGy

Bit slow to get back and reply, hectic week! Think comment missing re Cleopatra etc. Anyway, was going to see I'd be happy to be Film Cleopatra for the gold outfit but otherwise not v keen to be a dictator, or keen on dictators, although it would be good to be a dictator who dictated to get rid of dictators and plant lots of forests.
@Chrysophylax Dives

The thing about Elvish postcards is that they combine normal with mythical vision, where the latter (or maybe the combination) is inherently enchanted. Here is the very first expression of the combination within Tolkien's mythology or legendarium. Bombadil has just been telling the ancient history of the Barrow-downs and now steps from ancient legend into even more ancient myth.

When they caught his words again they found that he had now wandered into strange regions beyond their memory and beyond their waking thought, into times when the world was wider, and the seas flowed straight to the western Shore; and still further Tom went singing back before the Sun and before the Moon, out into the old starlight, when only the Elf-sires were awake.

This step from ancient history to more ancient myth takes the listening Hobbits 'beyond their memory and beyond their waking thought'.

An Elvish postcard should be able to do the same thing to the eyes of a Hobbit, which seems to mean that it must have some dream-like quality (for such is one hallmark of enchantment in history at the imagination of myth). What Bombadil does with his words Galadriel does with silent images, so I think Lothlórien is the place to imagine selling a range of Elvish postcards.

I won’t link them all in here as there are multiple variations, but if you google image “Visit Rivendell”, you may view many fine images that are postcard worthy…