lord of the rings is a fun place to fandom because there's so many options to obsess over no matter what your interests are, but because of that it's also a humbling reminder that different people like different things and that's ok.
like, for me the heart and soul of lotr is the hobbits, and it always bemuses me to see how underrated they can be in fics or fandom like?? you have these funky little fuckers who are really brave and kind and loyal but also have oddball forms of government and eat and party a lot and get into scrapes and have all these hobbit pals and there's all sorts of shipping options and they have interesting nuanced social politics and second breakfast and pipeweed and they give presents on their birthday instead of the other way around so they're always getting presents and they're hilariously weird about their family trees and they led full-scale guerrilla warfare against these bastards who invaded their homeland but also all they want to do is chill and have nice gardens and probably judge vegetable growing competitions and have pretty dances
and instead people are getting super invested in basic-bad-boy-bitch sauron? huh. fair enough. the world is indeed a rich tapestry.
oh god this is how gandalf speaks to saruman isn't it
