#balrogballs discourse

[balrogballs]

I think one of the biggest achievements of the LotR costuming department is that no matter how beautiful Viggo Mortensen is, to this day I still get a waft of old ass sweat each time Aragorn appears onscreen 😋🤌

except in the council of elrond bit but that's just because movie elrond probably made him stand outside and hosed him off like a dog before he was allowed inside

[balrogballs]

I also think his actual portrayal of Elrond is fantastic — Weaving generally plays campy franchise villains (or Priscilla Queen of the Desert lmao) and I genuinely maintain that the melodramatic mannerisms carried over from those roles very much enhances his portrayal of Elrond as an intruiging and individual character and not Baby Gandalf, which was what the character could so easily have been!

Man is theatrical as FUCK, makes unhinged faces every five seconds, and aland it very much works — Elrond being a weird little freak (affectionately) is imo an absolutely perfect portrayal: Also, canon Elrond is clearly quite eccentric, just in a different way to Gandalf! Aka Gandalf is the "take your meds, grandpa" brand of eccentric, while Elrond is the "the king of england likes to walk around with a rubber duck on his head but nobody says anything because he's the king of england" kind of eccentric.

And lest everyone forget, he fucking BODIED the Arwen storyline — that narrative could have so easily turned into a cliche "overprotective dad shows his daughter's prom date his gun collection" deal but the total mastery of microexpressions (to the point that to this day idk whether he's meant to be laughing or crying at the coronation) made it such a deeper, richer storyline, because you could see the slow war of attrition against his heart!

Basically, I wouldn't find Elrond as compelling a character as I do had he been played as an archetypal sage, instead of a guy who rightly looks fucking miserable 24/7 because he spent 6000 years saying "I told you so".

Also, I'm not going to contribute to elrond hairline discourse but imo if any elf was to develop male pattern baldness as a result of stress, it would be Elrond "Murphy's Law in action" Peredhel.

I'm so sorry for the essay this truly is my roman empire

People are always hating on Hugo Weaving's Elrond for not being atractive enough or looking too old for an elf but

He pulled off playing a younger, dashing, more physically active version of his character really well in the Hobbit while he was actually like 20 years older LMAO

People can hate on my man Hugo but he was the only one who genuinely looked younger and more handsome somehow, all the others looked visibly older, even Cate who is so beautiful and aged extremely will did look older than in LOTR but he didn't. I need some respect for him

[peasant-player]

Oh I'm so overwhelmed!

I just opened my online Christmas tree letters from you sweet adorable people ❤️

Thank you all for you kind words and I'm so happy that I have this positive impact on you guys!

I battle with depression and anxiety almost my whole life and nothing is better then reading such kind words except for hugs,so you all feel hugged by me!!

I'm glad that I saw once a post that's complained about the lack of people writing comments and interactions. That was my sign to start doing just that. So many times I got no answer or reaction or didn't knew when to stop writing.

It was terrible for my anxiety!

I don't do much online except for here.

But then you guys wrote back! Or wrote me! And didn't stopped writing !

And all the positive feedback I got for my art!! I know that my art is not the best and it varies in quality alot haha. But I get many fun interactions with you guys so totally worth it!!

And remember 3 months! it took me just 3 months to get from knowing no one to knowing the best kindest people in the fandom!!

I stayed on the positive side of the fandom and there is no bashing and no hate here that I sometime forget that such things even exist in the Tolkien fandom. I get jumpscared by hate post so rarely nowadays! And that's what the fandom should be about!

This is the fun loving side and all that are tired or burnt out from weird discourse should just join us here! ❤️

We have elven and man boobs and crack hc and fun oc ! Deep dive into armor and weapons or clothing and beautiful written meta posts! (Special shout out to Erendurs Ardhehel post and balrogballs Celebrians one!) Do not forget the art and fics!Just interact with us when you see something fun all of those blogs listed down will answer

@erendur @starshadeemilyart @starsofarda @tar-thelien @papita474 @zrii-the-orc @overlord-of-fantasy @fictionalmenjusthitdifferent @balrogballs @sadsilmarilsoup

and I know about EVEN more that won't ignore you when you are kind!! Like @outofangband and @curufiin

they must be SO confused to be added here but I adore them BOTH SO MUCH. And will do a shout out as many times as I can >:V ❤️

I have even more !!

But I feel like I'm a desperate door to door salesman so I stop xD haha

[balrogballs]

god's strongest soldiers are lotr fans who live near the british coastline because every single time the books or films romanticise the 🥹❤️✨ cry of the gulls ✨❤️🥹 i assume you're meant to picture something like

while personally I get war flashbacks of

[balrogballs]

A person beside me at London MCM once said Tolkien "would turn in his grave if he could see the fandom perverting his works", referring to someone's cosplay, and it had me hysterically laughing how he made it sound like making Tolkien turn in his grave was a cardinal sin as if the sight of idk, Airpods, wouldn't set the guy spinning away six feet under like a malfunctioning power drill 😭

are these guys okay 😭

[balrogballs]

In the literary fiction scene there can sometimes be this irritating opinion that creating fanworks isn’t bad, per se, and many of them even enjoy reading it — but that it could never reach the emotional depth of published literary fiction/creative non fiction. It’s just an extension of the litfic patronisation, the “ah yes, we are Better than genre fiction” nonsense (as if there hasn’t ever been dogshit litfic), I didn’t do an MFA but it tends to be more prevalent in the MFA crowd, etc. Also could be because I hang around with academics a lot.

Anyway I saw someone express said take just today and frankly it completely boiled my blood lmao because I’ve published a novel that went to auction and is litfic by even the strictest definition of the term, received funding to write said book, as well as landed a handful of nonfic in global litmags…

…but absolutely nothing I have ever written has been as cathartic as working on this personal essay about the process of trying to find a Tolkien character who’s mentioned in a couple of footnotes in the rest of the text so like… crawl into my asshole and die if you think fanworks can’t ever reach the emotional calibre of published work 🤪✨

ok balls rant over have a nice evening 😇✨

[balrogballs]

Just thanking you for drawing Elrond as Lúthien-lookalike and not receding hairline Elrond because I’m so tired of people drawing him like the movies

congratulations on sending me this annoying ass message and thus becoming the reason why I will only ever draw Elrond with a receding hairline and steep widow’s peak from this day forwards 👍🏽

i genuinely do not understand why people have spent almost 25 years being so fucking deranged over this specific thing like what is going on in your life that some random actor’s hair loss trajectory is something you devote any brain space to! there was literally a fucking viral reddit post about elrond hairline discourse this year! why do people care so much! the films are nearly 25 years old!

also i’m sorry but literally every character in the films wore a wig, they would have sorted out his hairline in 2 seconds if they had wanted to (and they clearly lowered it for the Hobbit films when he’s meant to be younger + HW has worn hairpieces in most of his roles so is clearly fine with augmentation) so it was evidently a deliberate choice to keep it like that — and imo it’s a really good one! It’s interesting! He’s still hot! The catholic schoolgirl braids are fun! It’s eldritch! Elrond is old as fuck! He’s a card carrying old coot! Cirdan canonically has a Gandalf beard! Elrond is meant to be half human so ageing isn’t unrealistic anyway! If you had that kind of life you’d lose your damn hair too!

(tldr the guy is fit regardless of hair, i hate that i spent 10 minutes typing this response out re: the most pointless topic known to mankind and fyi the hairline doesn’t even negate the luthien thing, luthien was a woman so obviously she wasn’t going to suffer from male pattern baldness??? 😭)

[balrogballs]

If there are balrog balls do you think there are also balrog ennuchs? Scheming little castrated maiar serving morgoth in the deep underground palaces of angband and utumno

100%. All kinds of balls and no balls alike. The average balrog suffers from testicular torsion at least once in its lifetime.

[balrogballs]

I don’t know how much of the lore you’re familiar with and I remember you said you read the books a long time ago. Anyway, I’m coming from your Fingon x Maedhros fic and I love your style, but I wanted to inform you if you didn’t know that both characters are cousins, first cousins, so their relationship is actually incestuos. I know some don’t mind incest (I hate incest but powered through because I like your writing) but in case you do, here’s the facts as I didn’t think you’re aware of it.

LMAOOO don’t worry, I know they’re cousins, it’s not exactly an obscure bit of trivia — they’re also royals so cousin-fucking is less taboo practice and more career perk.

The other, and possibly more relevant fact of the matter is that I don’t actually give a fuck 👍🏽

[balrogballs]

the silm fandom:

zara “balrog” balls:

"Maedhros has nothing to say, less to give. He looks Elwing in the eye, stares right into the face of a catastrophe of his own making. There’s no forgiving or forgetting, but it is only the two of them on that island. Both their lives, collapsed into this yawning whole. Their very existence is now an exercise in the capacity for empathy and identification. On the island, there is only one thing that binds them: she threw herself into the sea, and he threw himself into the earth. The two of them had spat in the face of divinely-gifted eternity, and would have to learn their lesson before Valar and Eldar, flopping fish on a hot-dry-pan."

Maedhros Fëanorian is re-embodied onto a desert island in Aman, inhabited solely by Elwing of Doriath, and separated from the mainland by a body of uncrossable water. This, it turns out, is the Valar's judgement - though neither Elwing nor Maedhros take very kindly to being judged.

Rating: M+/E | 18+ 👿

Relationships: Elwing/Maedhros, Maedhros/Fingon, Elwing/Eärendil, yes they both still love their respective partners.

Tags: Magical Realism | Castaways-with-Benefits to Kind-of-Friends-with-Benefits | Oral Sex | Mutual Masturbation | Developing Friendships | Guilt | is there a tag that says 'they start fucking to spite the powers-that-be?' | Environmentalism | Natural Disasters | Femdom | Recovered Memories | Religious Conflict | Explicit Sexual Content | Infidelity | Rebellion | Homecoming | Nature Magic | Adventure | Orgasm Edging | Worldbuilding

Part 1 of The Archipelago

Read on Ao3

[balrogballs]

Dear soon-to-be Mrs Queen Balls, I was perusing my dashboard casually when I came across a certain post about Elrond’s hairline. I did not look at the OP but dived into the discourse with all the enthusiasm of a wanna-be-but-can’t-be-bothered Tolkien scholar. I read, I nodded in agreement, I hummed in ascent, and finally reached the bottom of the post below the low-opacity representation of our Lord Elrond. Upon reaching the word ‘pussy’ I thought to myself, this has to be an essay penned by none other than Balrogballs. I promptly scrolled to the beginning of the text, and lo! I was not dissatisfied nor disappointed. I was indeed correct and over joyed at this realisation. Yours truly, a Balls Enjoyer.

Pussy. I love being so recognisable for the poetry I put on this website. Unfortunately, pussy is the final word. I will try harder next time and begin all my posts with the word “pussy”.

[balrogballs]

I can't wait to see what you add to the discourse when you watch ROP in December (I love you)! /gen

I’m very sorry but just saying in advance I go by balrogballs and not balrogbrains so I’m afraid you won’t get any actual interesting discourse from me besides regular lists of unspeakable things I would enjoy High King Ereinion Gil-galad and the show’s band of merry DILFs doing to me…

(edit: i do genuinely love tho, and obv this is a pre watch opinion but, as someone in a mixed race relationship who has lived in multiple places where that Was Not The Norm and have Suffered For It, i love how the show very explicitly normalises it in that most of the explicitly defined romantic relationships are multi ethnic - even beyond the ‘more poc in fantasy’ aspect, i think it’s really cool that they went beyond “one main couple being mixed race” and just… most of the couples are! I love it! I’ve been seeing some takes on the show being not ‘progressive enough’ and whilst I have no comment on the content itself, having not watched it yet, I think with regards to this specific aspect they blow most fantasy shows I’ve seen out of the water)