One Of The Ballsiest Things Tolkien Ever Did Was Write 473k Words About Some Hobbits Called Frodo, Sam,

Half of reading silmarillion fanfiction is getting annoyed that your favourite elf is being characterised wrong, and then realising said elf is only mentioned by name 9 times in the entire silmarillion and the version of them you've created in their head is not in fact their actual character

No offense to people who function properly but I’m different

[ID: a four panel comic featuring Katara and Aang.

First panel: Katara looks offscreen, presumably at Zuko, and asks, “Is it just me or is Zuko kind of... attractive?” Aang, who is standing farther back, whips around and gasps.

Second panel: Aang, looking as though he is about to go into full lecture/gossip mode, says, “I’m so glad you brought this up.”

Third panel: “Because I’ve been waiting to talk about this,” he continues,

Fourth panel: “for a HOT minute.” Yes, that is a pun. He produces a list on a piece of paper taller than him that is entitled “Every Attractive Thing Zuko’s Ever Done.” Its entries include “be born, save me, save me in mask, look at me, join our group, ask me to stop using fire nation slang, laugh at my joke.” There are at least 7,898 items on the list, but it is obvious that there are many more.

The caption states, “The list is miles long.”

End ID.]

The list is miles long

This is my belated @officialtolkiensecretsanta gift for @arlenianchronicles. Both my laptop and my phone up and died on me (in December... I've got conspiracy theories if anyone wants to hear them), so this was rewritten and posted on a computer loaned to me by a very generous and patient family member. Merry Christmas, y'all!

by Penelope_S

In the midst of a desert, a wanderer comes across a journeyer whose face is hauntingly familiar, though they have never met.

Words: 2320, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen

Characters: Daeron (Tolkien), Aragorn | Estel, OC inhabitants of southeastern Middle Earth

Additional Tags: Daeron’s been mourning Lúthien’s disappearance for ages, I decided that he needs to do something more constructive with his life, Storytelling, deus ex machina-ed culture in an unspecified part of southeastern ME

ATLA Gen Fic Recs!

this took a while but here it is! this is just going to be the fics that i've been reading recently, because otherwise this list would go on forever. if you want the full atla list of fics i read, check out my ao3 bookmarks.

How to Disappear Completely by aeoleus @ta1k-less : zuko unexpectedly gains custody of both kiyi and azula after his mom dies in a car crash. i love this one... zuko loves both of his sisters so much and he would do anything for them T_T

The [insert title here] and the Fire Lord by azenki: this one is technically gen but literally everyone thinks zuko is dating around. this is just such a silly and hilarious fic, really made my day after reading it.

Kintsugi by @discordiansamba : this is a series where zuko is just dumped in the earth kingdom after his agni kai and somehow becomes toph's bodyguard. i love the bonding between zuko and toph, and i abosolutely adore the oc's in this fic

Dragon Moon by Satirrian: technically so far this is gen but the author did mention there might be shipping later. THIS FIC!! It literally has so many different things going on but it works. Dragon!Zuko. that should already be enough to get you reading. June teaches Zuko how to be a bounty hunter and their bickering is hilarious. Zuko is such a sassy little shit in this one. Katara has a Mulan moment and it’s absolutely badass.

There Is No Fire Lord by OccasionalStorytelling: this one is inspired by Towards the Sun by @muffinlance. So zuko gets caught while escaping during the eclipse, he gets thrown in prison, and then when ozai is defeated zuko technically becomes fire lord but stays in prison. also his leg gets broken like 3 times lol

A Hundred Golden Suns by aeoleus (@ta1k-less): zuko dies at the agni kai but agni says fuck that and he is basically resurrected in the southern water tribe, where hakoda adopts him. this fic will hurt your heart but in a good way

In The Garden Light At Dawn by Rosemary_and_Geraniums: this one is Very Angsty and has a major character death so warning on that. I just had to include it because it's soooo good and i love angst fics, but if that's not your thing then skip this. This is a soulmate au, but not in a good way lol. zuko never got away after confronting his father during the eclipse. again this is Very Sad so skip if you get upset with unhappy endings

Consider Chaos series by @awesomeavocadolove : ChaosAvatar!zuko. How can you say no to that???

Pride Is Not The Word by @sword-and-stars : iroh gets a call from his long-lost nephew asking him to pick him up. then he discovers that his nephew has been homeless for a year after ozai kicked him out. iroh is having none of that and takes zuko in while quietly think of the best way to murder an abusive piece of shit

The Heat That Drives The Light (the fire it ignites) by isamagicdragon and thegracious: im obsessed with this one. azulon asks ozai to kill azula instead of zuko, who both say "fuck that" and run away to the earth kingdom. years later they hear about the avatar, who was captured by admiral zhao and kept prisoner in pohai stronghold. they decide to break him out

The Family You Choose by TunaFishChris: another soulmate one because i am a slut for them. some people are born with soulmarks. zuko's were burned off by azulon when he was born, because they make you weak.

Doe-eyed by anonymous: a gift fic for @muffinlance. azula is the firstborn, and she is eleven when zuko is born. bigsister!azula is everything you didn't know you needed

East and West by @d-naggeluide : zuko, toph, and earth king kuei go on a field trip together. sarcastic toph, resigned zuko, and kuei who had no idea what he had gotten himself into

At a certain point, it’s just Feanor and Eol remaining unrepentant in Mandos.

Feanor nods along as Eol goes off about: the Valar; people usurping what is his; a disloyal wife who betrayed him by trying to separate him from his son; how, if he did any wrong, it was because his hand was forced by people stealing from him, and that is what caused his family’s deaths!

Immediately after this, Feanor goes to Namo and is like. “Okay. I see it now. I was a prick, my bad.”

Namo is so shocked that his watch on the doors of night falters and that’s why Feanor’s return heralds the end of the world. Not with a bang, but with Feanor apologizing.

It puzzles me when people cite LOTR as the standard of “simple” or “predictable” or “black and white” fantasy. Because in my copy, the hero fails. Frodo chooses the Ring, and it’s only Gollum’s own desperation for it that inadvertently saves the day. The fate of the world, this whole blood-soaked war, all the millennia-old machinations of elves and gods, comes down to two addicts squabbling over their Precious, and that is precisely and powerfully Tolkien’s point. 

And then the hero goes home, and finds home a smoking desolation, his neighbors turned on one another, that secondary villain no one finished off having destroyed Frodo’s last oasis not even out of evil so much as spite, and then that villain dies pointlessly, and then his killer dies pointlessly. The hero is left not with a cathartic homecoming, the story come full circle in another party; he is left to pick up the pieces of what was and what shall never be again. 

And it’s not enough. The hero cannot heal, and so departs for the fabled western shores in what remains a blunt and bracing metaphor for death (especially given his aged companions). When Sam tells his family, “Well, I’m back” at the very end, it is an earned triumph, but the very fact that someone making it back qualifies as a triumph tells you what kind of story this is: one that is too honest to allow its characters to claim a clean victory over entropy, let alone evil. 

“I can’t recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass. I’m naked in the dark. There’s nothing–no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him with my waking eyes.”

So where’s this silly shallow hippie fever-dream I’ve heard so much about? It sounds like a much lesser story than the one that actually exists.

If you think puns are harmless remember that puns got Mercutio killed and as a result 5 other people

I like to imagine that if people from a fantasy world came to our world, they would lose their shit over how TINY our spiders are.

Like. Imagine going to a fantasy world where lions are the size of a bottle cap and occasionally a pride appears on your living room carpet. It would be like that.

Just thinking about the absolute gut-punch that Elrond and Elros must represent to Maedhros.

The text is pretty clear that they take after Elwing’s line in looks, not Eärendil’s. There’s not another dark-haired, grey-eyed ancestor in the twins’ paternal line since Turgon. But Turgon also looks like his brother Fingon, and I think Maedhros would have seen that resemblance easily.

And what’s more, Elrond fully grown is supposed to look like his daughter, who looks like Lúthien. The first of many generations of her descendants who the sons of Fëanor destroyed. Dior, Eluréd, Elurín, Nimloth, Elwing.

And, of course, we cannot forget they are twins.

I can’t imagine what it must be like for Maedhros, seeing that. A neat summary of his sins; reminders of his most badly wronged victims all bundled up into one. And there isn’t a damn thing about it that he doesn’t see as his fault.