#balrogballs

The first of my two claims for Lord of the Rings Secret Santa @lotr-sesa this year - @balrogballs asked for "something set on a beach, involving one or more of Celebrían, Elrond, Maglor, Maedhros, and Arwen".

I pounced on that prompt, and enjoyed myself a lot drawing this! Discovering Ms Balls' wonderful Celrond work in the progress was an unforeseen joy and inspiration 💜

good afternoon mike.

☕️ + shashi tharoor please

🌝🌝🌝

good afternoon mx. balls thank you for this great question.

look, even if i put aside the fact that this man is basically only held back from deepthroating hindu fascist boot by circumstance (i.e. kerala being one of the last holdouts against the bjp), that he fucking went on the operation sindoor hindu fascist propaganda tour, that he probably (???) murdered his ex-wife after almost certainly abusing her, that he is a power hungry opportunist who isn't even that good at concealing the power hungry opportunism (compared, say, to mahua moitra), that he clearly is desperate to get into the literati intelligentsia circles, that he has written some of the most dreary little novels encapsulating the worst of anglophone indian lit, that he has the general aura of an extremely oily and unpleasant person in a way that personally makes me feel dog baring its teeth emotions, that he is a showboater.... EVEN IF I PUT ALL OF THIS ASIDE.

STOP TELLING ME HIS ENGLISH IS ASTOUNDING AND EXTRAORDINARILY CEREBRAL. HIS VOCABULARY IS PERFECTLY ORDINARY AND WITHIN THE RANGE OF BASICALLY ANY HIGHLY WESTERNISED UPPER MIDDLE CLASS INDIAN WHO HAS GROWN UP READING BRIT LIT. HE ISN'T ALL THAT CLEVER. HIS QUIPS ARE DESPERATE AND THE VOCABULARY SHOWBOATING IS THE SORT OF SHOWBOATING OF A DEEPLY INSECURE PERSON OH MY GOD. HE IS NOT GEORGE BERNARD SHAW OR OSCAR WILDE DISHING OUT PITHY BITCHY LITTLE QUIPS THAT SCALP THE LISTENER AND CUTS THEM DOWN TO SIZE. HE IS A PATHETIC WORM OF A MAN WHO IS CLEARLY FLAUNTING HIS EDUCATION BUT HAS NEVER HAD A SINGLE ORIGINAL THOUGHT OR FORMED A SINGLE ORIGINAL SENTENCE IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE. HE CANNOT DO PITHY OR BITCHY BECAUSE TO DO THAT, YOU HAVE TO HAVE SHARP INSIGHT AND AN EXTREMELY CLEAR-EYED VIEW OF THE UGLY LITTLE TRUTHS OF THE WORLD, ESP. OF THE FOIBLES OF THE RICH AND POWERFUL, AND HIS ENTIRE CAREER IS BASED ON EITHER DODGING THESE TRUTHS, WHITEWASHING THEM, STICKING HIS HEAD IN THE SAND ABOUT IT OR STRAIGHT UP KISSING ITS ASS. everything he "writes" or says is, in the words of the extremely proverbial tumblr post, boring! banal! predictable! cliche! and worst of all... profoundly unchic!

@ fellow anglophone upper middle class indians: grow a spine, read better books and actually listen to what this fool is saying before you tell me he's so witty and clever in his hashtag sick pwns. go straight to jail, do not cross go, do not collect 200 dollars and sit in there with a copy of saki and wilde before you look me in the eye and tell me he's wickedly clever. stop mistaking form for content, STOP TRYING TO TELL ME UGLY AND LIMP FORM IS ACTUALLY BRILLIANT GENIUS FORM.

ok good talk everyone.

i write and illustrate, but my true commitment is to pure shitposting. if you come across a seemingly well-sourced quote attributed to jrr tolkien, usually of the scatological nature (eg: elves don’t shit but they probably should) but not always, linked to my username, please note the following: jrr tolkien did not say that. i did. it was born from my ass.

about me: i'm 28, mostly based in the UK. i write litfic irl and work in humanitarian advocacy. you can call me z, ziz, balls or whatever combination of the three.

writing: i’m timelessutterances on ao3 — i’m currently posting prayers to broken stone, my silmarillion au set in postcolonial india. i have a meta tag for this fic with art, theory, character notes etc. you can find my other writing on ao3 or on my writing tag.

i don’t use any other social media, but feel free to ask for my Discord.

(jk i voted for him before i saw your reblog but still 🤪)

local some guy has the worst day of his life

(fic writer asks)

ok so technically this should be silmarillion x hp, but well. i refuse to talk about hp anymore for the obvious reasons 🥲🥲

WHICH IS GOOD FOR US because I HAVE spent many hours daydreaming about a Silmarillion x Star Wars AU which @essayofthoughts had asked about months ago and I Forgor:

Feanor is the oldest son of the King of the Noldor, one of three clans of the ancient, legendary and allegedly immortal peoples of the Eldar, on the hidden Deep Core world of Tirion.

In the year 10,500 BBY, Feanor invented the special artificial substance, Silima, drawn from the difficult to collect swirling antimatter and other substances surrounding the Galactic Centre. In the Deep Core world of Ezellohar (later known only as the Wellspring of Life*), he molded the substance of life itself into the Silima, along with the light of the Deep Core's ~4 billion stars, to make the Silmarils.

These jewels were stolen during the Sith Wars by a mysterious Dark Side entity, setting off a bloody quest for vengeance spanning across the galaxy and into the Unknown Regions. While the protracted war eventually led to the reestablishment of the Galactic Republic (and Feanor's death), and the death of the mysterious Dark Entity at the hands of Prince Finarfin, the location of the Silmarils remained unknown.

One of the benefits of this civil war and bloody revenge quest is that the Feanorians now have an empire of business interests ranging from the arms trade and war, to straight up racketeering and the spice** trade.

Many thousands of years later, the Republic has fallen, the first Death Star has been destroyed and Rebel spies have learned that the Emperor Palpatine has found a secret and ancient artifact that could power the heart of a new weapon that could prove to be even more destructive than the Death Star.

The Rebels are pretty sure this has to be the missing Silmarils, thanks to intelligence provided by Fingolfin, Senator for the Valinor sector in the Galactic Senate, and some time lover of Mon Mothma

Maedhros, head of one of the largest and oldest business criminal empires in the galaxy, on a scale to rival Black Sun, who made mint selling weapons to both sides of the last war, is faced with an ethical quandary that actually troubles his conscience: to side with the Rebel Alliance, or bait them into recovering the Silmarils and then wiping them out and taking them back for himself?

This is somewhat complicated further by the fact that his brother Curufin is a senior officer in the ISB, and Celegorm is a hotshot Admiral in the Imperial fleet, on track to ascend to Moffdom*** over the unruly but wealthy Mid Rim Beleriand Sector.

Maglor, on the other hand, is experiencing a different crisis of conscience, because while he's been enjoying a stint as the galaxy's most popular sparkle-bop**** star, he's starting to realise that every time he appears on Top of the Bops on the Galactic Broadcasting Corporation, he's laundering the Emperor's reputation for him. Should he quit? But if he does, how can he continue to afford the Coruscant penthouse and elegant, ancient artifacts pilfered from across the galaxy and sold to private collectors by charming men like Luthen Rael (albeit before his mysterious death and disappearance)*****?

The Silmarils are traced to the obscure Outer Rim world of Sirion. Elwing, the daughter of a Jedi******, killed during the purges of Order 66, suddenly finds herself the centre of far too much attention.

IDK anything else but I know:

Maglor and Elwing have sex. Ideally on his fancy yacht on Canto Bight.

Han Solo annoys the shit out of Maedhros. Between Lando & him, they nearly persuade Maedhros into being "good" by being annoying enough that Maedhros concedes just to get them out of his hair

Celegorm is outwitted by the rebels and gets the sack for it. Curufin is betrayed by his son Celebrimbor and is forced to defect to save his ass. He hates every moment of it.

Finrod is the annoying force-sensitive cousin who can read everyone's minds and does it frequently without permission because unlike Tolkien, in Star Wars, everyone does whatever they want forever

Fingolfin has a threesome with Mon Mothma and Garm Bel Iblis, Senator of Corellia,,,

In fact, Fingolfin was recruited to the Rebel Alliance by Mon Mothma fucking him & pinning him down by the throat (h/t @deweydecibelsystem for this one)

Galadriel, trained in the ancient Jedi arts, teaches Leia how to use the Force.

*real and canon place in Star Wars canon **spice in Star Wars variously the equivalent of weed, heroin or cocaine depending on the whims of the writer *** a real and factual title in Star Wars ****from the wookieepedia description, roughly power pop for the space age *****unbeknownst to Maglor, spymaster of the Rebellion and definitely was spying on Maglor without his realising ****** yes the Jedi weren't allowed to marry, however special dispensation was occasionally given to species on the verge of extinction and the Eldar very much fell under that category

aside but this sparked a very passionate debate in the group chat about whether the species name for the High Elves in GFFA should be "lef" for "dungalef" or "fel" before @essayofthoughts pointed out Tolkien had done half the language work here.

lol you and visitor both asked for the same scene & i wrote up a more serious answer breaking it down over here. HOWEVER I WANT TO TALK ABOUT ELF CLUBS AND DRUGS. this is the sort of thing i think about basically all the time and also did #research on okay (yes i did download a whole ass book on the history of drugs and culture rather than read quincey's confessions of an opium eater lmao)

ELF CLUBS IN VALINOR & BELERIAND

okay look so, i think there are shades of elf clubs. some secret jokes i threw in here -

Allmother’s... temples -> okay so seriously i spent an inordinate amount of time trying to chase down sources about sacred sex and various roman religions/rites. i didn't come any closer to any meaningful answers abt what it entails, so you have to imagine that maedhros' wild ass wet dream is a) not far off from the truth and b) in practice, you need to be imagining the scene where caligula meets caesonia in caligula (1979, ideally the uh uncut version)

Someone’s new beach house - so I think I actually named one of these in rules of betrayal once and it was... a riff on brighton and fire island 😔 rather more meanly, this is the closest that valinor elves will ever get to having circuit parties. elves don't have techno (YET!!!!), but if they did, this would be the soundtrack. slightly less mean version: its where the bright young things go after their clubs have been shut down for the night, to continue the party to the next mingling.

Bath houses - while i modelled the architecture on the roman bath house, you have to imagine the general atmosphere of a sauna ft. cruising. unfortunately elves don't have television, or they'd be playing nonstop hardcore gay porn there, you feel me?

Mother Houses - based on the Georgian molly house, but a syncretic elvish mix ft. the guys dressing up as priestesses of the Allmother too, so imagine above but with approx 100% more drag & transsexuality. the soundtrack is the guy above just being pounded into the bed by another guy, sorry.

illicit pleasure houses - these are 100% are the places where the dirtiest fun takes place. there are ranges of these "gay clubs", i think, from seedy dive bars to things more akin to berlin nightclubs. valinor has more of the latter, beleriand trades much more in the former, usually at trading outposts. mithrim has a thriving underground scene as a result, because of the sheer confluence of peoples + the relative anonymity it affords. valinor's are literally just moving targets across tirion, sometimes even in the woods. you have to know someone to get in. now, the elves do not have techno, but it would get invented at one of these clubs and this would be the soundtrack.

NOT IN THE FIC BUT I WAS THINKING ABOUT IT

masquerades - by GOD i will lean into the georgians of it all. but you know those valinor elves had their own version of covent gardens where there were public masquerades that all the old people of tirion were shocked!!!! shocked!!!! about ft. crossdressing, public sex etc.

the underground rites of leithandis - even more seedy and illicit than the rites of the allmother, because the entire thing is based around ritualised sexual libertinism. invite only private parties, but odds are if you know maglor, you could wrangle an invite if your vibe is cool enough. you need to be imagining the roman decadence aesthetics & orgy in relax, don't do it. ANOTHER CRUCIAL CONTENDER for site where elf!techno is invented just because maglor is there*. i think about this mouth harp video basically all the time in that context.

ELF DRUGS

so i stuck with just snow buckthorn in this fic - snow ofc being one of many slang terms for coke (or it might have been speed and i made speedcoke), buckthorn i think being the overall subgroup of plants to which coca belongs or something (its been ages since i looked both of these up). however, the plant is purely elvish and i think is far more potent than uh human coke for obvious reasons.

however, on the whole, i don't think elves are doing much by the way of the stimulants (except for the feanorians who are all, to a man, either coke or speedheads, barring maglor who is an opium-eater) and on the whole tend to have extremely strong psychedelics instead (think: salvia divinorum). MUCH of this comes from various species grown in lorien under irmo, but i know there are enterprising elves in beleriand who are mixing this together with beleriand standards like poppies, nightshades and what have you to derive a) elf!molly and elf!ket and b) the weirdest designer drugs known to man. amon ereb is singlehandedly churning out the weirdest and most poisonous shit known to elf during the long peace, with almost no consistency in standards. the gap was the other site churning out this stuff, but at consistently potent quality that most elves stayed away from it, unless they had very strong constitutions. Men cannot touch this stuff, because it either instantly blinds them, or sends them off on three day highs, or you know, kills them.

at the time maedhros is going to the club in a variety of morbid symptoms though... enterprising minds have not yet got to work mixing cocktails, so he is simply getting coked up at the club like a basic bitch.

*for many and various reasons i am really invested in maglor as a dj okay