#disabled tolkien characters

[echo-bleu]

Eärendil the Mariner

Who deserves a pirate outfit more than Eärendil?

The background is largely inspired by one of Philip Sue's paintings. It was fun to draw a flat earth!

In other news, I love drawing ships but that was the worst angle possible to figure out. In my head, the Silmaril is at the prow in some kind of glass/mirror lantern that amplifies its light.

I wanted him to look soft, and little wry maybe, rather than fierce. I'm sure he's fierce aplenty but I mostly headcanon him as tired. His fate breaks my heart. Also, it doesn't really show here but my Eärendil is blind from overexposure to the Silmaril (and half-human fragile eyes).

I always waver between giving him locs or a shorter Mannish haircut, but his hair is really too kinky for the shoulder-length, Aragorn-style cut, so locs it is!

IDs in alt text.

#silmarillion #tolkien #fanart #earendil #the silmarillion #silm #lotr #echo's drawings #disabled tolkien characters #not sure if he should be part of the tag since he doesn't have a visible disability here #but on the other hand he's still disabled to me #vingilot #vingilote #ardamire #earendil the mariner #silm art #tolkien fanart

[hamletphase]

i can't find the post now but i saw something about miriel being disabled pre giving birth and was inspired <3

#silmart #miriel #house of finwe #the silmarillion #miriel therinde #tolkien #my art #this is the one that matches that idril that i think i mentioned #rubs my queer disabled hands all over your favorite characters #anyway i love her a whole lot

[camille-lachenille]

Was thinking about just how much characters in the Silm and LOTR deal with pain an injuries on a daily basis. It’s not always said plainly but they exist in the story, they live, they are important, and I wonder how much of them are inspired by Tolkien’s own experience of war injuries/illness. How many of his fellow soldiers came back home disfigured and disabled and were faced with disgust or contempt?

Sure, there’s the whole fairy-tale/mythic aspect of loosing a limb in your heroic quest to get the Magic Object, but what about Gwindor, who was captured by Morgoth and, when he finally managed to escape, was so changed by his sufferings that his beloved rejected him? Gwindor’s not a hero, he’s a simple soldier who suffered through war and captivity and became disabled because of that. How much pain did he live with daily even if it’s never said on the page?

And, still in the CoH, there’s Brandir the Lame. He was born disabled, couldn’t be a warrior, yet held a position of power until his people wanted action and scorned him. Brandir is a healer, a man of wisdom and lore; how much of it is because he tried to cure himself? To ease his pain but also try to "fix" himself in the eyes of his people and be the worthy leader he thought they wanted.

There is Sador ‘Labadal’ too, who chopped his foot off in an accident and is looked down for that by several character (not the least of them being Morwen).

These three characters are all disabled and looked upon with pity, contempt or outright disgust. They did not become disabled in the doing of great deeds, their stories aren’t heroic, and so their disability makes them worthless in the eyes of many.

If you take Maedhros, on the other hand (pun fully intended), he is seen as made greater by his disability. He suffered unthinkable torments and was freed at the price of his right hand, and did many great and terrible things after that. It is similar for Beren, who also lost his hand (arm chopping is not a love language!) but it always portrayed as a good and heroic character, because his disability is the direct result of him taking part in the great designs of the world rather than a banal accident.

And that’s only for the Silm characters, because we don’t want to forget about Frodo of the Nine Fingers, who bore the One Ring to the very fires of Mt Doom. Frodo who returned home sickly and traumatised, plagued with chronic pain, nightmares and a poor health and was only looked at down by the hobbits who did not take part in the quest if the ring. Frodo may be a hero for Men and Elves but he has little to no recognition in his homeland.

Another character I nearly forgot (shame on me!) is Celebrían, She was captured and tortured and despite her physical wounds healing she was never the same again, to the point she had to leave her family to seek healing elsewhere. I see this as a form of mental illness, probably depression and PTSD. And Celebrían is not thought as lesser because of her disability. She is seen as a tragic story, yes, but it’s better than most of the other disabled characters in the Silm.

Anyway, I don’t really know what my point is here, just that I noticed a pattern in the representation of disabled characters in Tolkien’s works, first of all that they exist at all, and second that how they are treated certainly reflects the views of society on disabled people during Tolkien’s lifetime. The way he writes disabled characters isn’t perfect, far from it, but they are here, and I, as a disabled reader, am immensely glad for their existence and I play in the gigantic sandbox of the Legendarium with these characters and others whom I imagine as disabled in any way.

#tolkien #the silmarillion #the lord of the rings #gwindor #brandir #sador #frodo baggins #celebrían #disabled characters #tolkien legendarium #half baked ramblings by a sleep deprived tolkien fan #tolkien meta

[brighter-arda]

Galadriel in aroace colours for Day 1 @aspecardaweek 🧡💛🤍💙🔵

Part 15 of toi's indigenous tolkien series

[Image description: edit in yellow/blue/white/orange

1: Nontobeko Mbuyazi sitting with one arm on her knee. She is a albino Zulu woman. Photo is orange, background is blue, text = Galadriel, Lady of Light

2: art (The Trees of Valinor by Aronja-Art, link to original)

3: white messy fabric

4: Nontobeko Mbuyazi in front of window. Photo has blueish greenish tones and background is yellow. Same text as before

5: Nontobeko Mbuyazi in front of a pale sky. Picture is white and background is yellow. Same text as before

6: a glass beach (beach covered in many-coloured sea glass worn down to pebbles)

7: a blue forest

8: Nontobeko Mbuyazi with orange eye make-up. Photo is orange and background is white.]

#galadriel #silmarillion #lotr #the third age #tolkien women of colour #black tolkien #southern african tolkien #disabled character #moodboards and edits #toi's creations #toi's indigenous tolkien series #aspecardaweek #mepoc #contains image description #for prompt: asexual

[ofmiceandwomen]

Leryamo of the Vanyar, colour sketch.

Leryamo was originally meant to be a character from the Steampunk!Silm AU, but I decided to paint him in elven clothes. He lost his right eye and eventually, he lost sight in the remaining eye. He navigates the word by sound and intuition.

He also possesses the unique ability to foresee glimpses of the future, helping his colleagues in their fights.

Leryo is a kind soul, loves literature and poetry. Also, he loves Aeglos.

#silmarillion #tolkien #my art #the silm fandom #vanyar #silm art #silm oc #tolkien elf #tolkien oc #disabled characters #the silmarillion

[shrewstew]

Dancing headcannons for South Park characters, they’re at a school dance or something

Stan: Does the little cowboy shuffle his dad taught him in “You got served” and he is stiff with it. Otherwise I don’t see him as a big dancer.

Kyle: No rhythm, TikTok dances, anything that involves footwork is nearly impossible for him (I want to clarify that this isn’t me trying to stereotype him, I’m getting this from the rainforest episode)

Cartman: The aggressive kick/punch move that Mac does in Its Always Sunny (see: gif). He would be a fucking menace in a mosh pit. That or he talks a massive game but is too embarrassed to actually dance.

Kenny: Does whatever the fuck he wants, lots of jumping and spinning. He’s not good at it, but his energy diminishes any second-hand embarrassment

Butters: Took dancing lessons, probably doing a dance routine he had to practice, and werk🕺. SHOE FLIES OFF AND KILLS EVERYONE OH GOD THE HORROR

Tweek: Dancing is too much pressure, he prefers to stand scared.

Craig: Keeps Tweek company. Dancing is lame anyway.

Clyde: If dancing is cringe, than he does not want to be based. He tries to get Tweek and Craig to join him by doing a dorky lasso movement.

Tolkien: TikTok dances, ofc. But he has no problem doing some fancy footwork.

Jimmy: Not a lot of dancing going on. However South Park loves the gag of the disabled characters doing things that are physically impossible for them. So idk, maybe he does breakdancing, somehow. He would, don’t lie. He spends most of the dance with Timmy and the other disabled kids.

Timmy: Aggressive head banging, no matter the genre, he is a metal head at heart

Goth Kids: School dances are for conformists, but you know they would fuck up the dance floor with their shuffle-step

The Girls: YOU KNOOOOOWWWW they went as a big ol’ group, they look gorgeous. Unfortunately there WILL be some devastating drama by the end of the night, but it’ll be fine

#south park #stan marsh #kenny mccormick #butters stotch #kyle broflovski #craig tucker #eric cartman #tweek tweak #clyde donovan #tolkien black #jimmy valmer #timmy burch #headcanon #cringe #wendy testaburger #bebe stevens #heidi turner #henrietta biggle

[swanmaids]

Idril Silverfoot having literal prosthetic silver feet is best fanon

fits well with Tolkien’s motif of characters having to lose a part of themselves after a difficult journey (in this case crossing the Helcaraxe)

means the most beautiful woman in Gondolin and one of the most unambiguously heroic characters in the Silm is a physically disabled woman

you don’t have to worry about her feet getting dirty from walking around barefoot all the time.

#allow it into your heart! #my post #idril #the silm #tfog

[johannestevans]

Woe, Boypussy Be Upon Ye: Transing Characters in Fanfic & Fanart

What’s the deal with envisioning your blorbos as transgender?

Originally published in Prism & Pen. Also on my Patreon.

It’s a meme, I made it. Here it is.

It’s been unbelievably positive for me as a trans dude, the change in approach to trans characters in fandom and subsequently in media in general, and I just wanted to write a bit about my experiences with the cultural shift and how positive it’s been for me personally.

What’s weird about people in fandom confidently, nay casually, writing characters as transgender and just having them be a regular dude with a pussy or a regular girl with a dick is that like… I remember when it wasn’t a thing.

Back in 2009, for example, which was a big time for fandom — Superwholock was running rampant, Star Trek (2009) had just gotten a new generation of fans into Trek — or even in 2012, when Les Misérables (2012) had dropped and gotten new people into Les Mis, or when the Hobbit had revamped a lot of interest in Tolkien’s books and the original Lord of the Rings films, not to mention The Hobbit itself, none of this even getting into the Marvel movies, like…

It just. It wasn’t a thing.

Sure, there were transgender characters around, characters that people wrote as trans, but I remember it so strongly as being very niche. It was deep, emotional work where people had to work to “justify” the emotional work they were doing, and even then, they couldn’t just say a character was trans and be chill about it. In order to justify a character being transgender, one had to put in mountains of evidence, or admit the trans perspective was a genderbend of sorts.

For me, I’m pretty sure the moment when things started to change was when I was reading and writing a lot of Loki-centred fanfiction, roundabout 2014–2017 — and the more permissive culture was very much borne of Loki being seen as an exception.

Loki, of the Marvel film and comics, is an alien secretly kidnapped and adopted into the Odinson family, and is known to change his body and appearance frequently, including changing his apparent gender or expression.

He was, in the comic canon (not to mention the original Norse mythologies) quite genderfluid, after all, so even if you didn’t refer to him as explicitly transgender, you could explore him as being some variety of genderfluid, nonbinary, or intersex — as an alien, as a Jötnar as opposed to being AEsir like Thor or Odin, as a god.

But then things changed a bit more.

Welcome to Night Vale, a weird narrative horror podcast, started in 2012, and one thing you could rely on from a lot of fanfics is that people might have weird or alien or otherwise not-not cisgender but not entirely cisgender genitals either. The Magnus Archives, also a narrative horror podcast, started in 2016, and when I got into the fandom in roundabout 2019, which is also when the new Good Omens TV show was due to release and there was a resurgence of interest in the book as well, I remember experiencing a sort of newfound thing where like…

I’d had a mental block around writing many trans characters, before — I could create my own characters who were trans, but a big part of me still felt like I wasn’t allowed to just make a canon character trans if they’d never been mentioned as being trans before or made explicitly trans.

What was it that stopped me?

My own dysphoria? Perhaps a little. Maybe some lacking self-confidence.

Most of all, it just felt as though I couldn’t justify it. I couldn’t justify seeing a cis man written by cis people in a cis show and saying, “Hey, no, he’s like me, actually” — even though I could easily do it about the same character being gay or Jewish or even chronically ill or disabled.

It was like there was a mental block inside me I just couldn’t get past.

I still had a lot of the old online cultural expectations stamped onto me, I think, even being an out trans man who knew many many other trans and intersex and nonbinary people of every gender imaginable in fandom.

I think for Welcome to Night Vale and then especially for The Magnus Archives, part of what made it so easy for people to write and envisage different characters as trans, the fact that there was such limited physical description of characters, the fact that you were attached to them by their voices alone, allowed people to envisage them in whatever way they liked.

In The Magnus Archives, most of the main characters are envisaged as trans in one way or another — Daisy Tonner particularly is explored with all flavours of butch dykey complexity, trans in whichever ways or directions are juiciest and most interesting. But for so many of the characters — from Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood to Sasha James and Tim Stoker to Elias Bouchard to Peter Lukas to any of the other Entities — there is no end to the characters people will explore or envisage as trans or nonbinary or just straight-up outside of gender or gender-weird.

No one has to justify a period character being trans with no problems. Loads of people write Izzy Hands or Stede Bonnet or Edward Teach, as being trans in Our Flag Means Death alongside the canonic nonbinary character Jim Jimenez. Any and all characters, trans or otherwise, are invited to participate in ye olde top surgery performed by Roach, the ship’s surgeon, or somehow get hold of ye olde hormones in whatever handwavy way necessary, and it’s cool and fine.

And what’s wonderful for me is the way I see the current approach to trans characters gleefully and delightedly applied to fandoms that are years if not decades old.

I see people write House MD fanfic now where they just go, right from the beginning, yeah this or that character is trans, and they’ve always been trans, and it’s chill. What if James Wilson was trans? It’d rock, that’s what. What if Greg House was trans? Yeah, he’d probably do his own T-shots under the table.

People write Spock as trans now, or guys from M*A*S*H, or Jean Valjean.

What if in the X-Files Dana Scully and Fox Mulder were T4T? Makes complete sense, and also, the idea fucks absolutely. They’re already so lesbian vibes for each other, it fits perfectly.

I wrote a silly little Tumblr post a few weeks ago envisioning Morticia and Gomez Addams as T4T, and it blew up immediately — I think about how if I’d made that most a decade ago it would have been met with crickets, if not a bit of scorn, and not just from transphobes, but just people who like me at that time hadn’t been able to relax and have fun with it.

That’s the real crux of the matter, the impact a lot of fandom has made on me and the way that trans characterisation is approached, the hunger I have for trans characterisation now — it’s the idea of being trans as joyful and delightful, as inherently fun and sexy, but also just as being something every day and normal. A detail you can include as casually in your interpretation of a canon character as any other headcanon.

There’s a beautiful freedom in it, and I’m so grateful to have been able to learn from and grow because of other trans people paving the way with their confident headcanons and delving into trans ideas in their fic.

It’s done wonders for me everywhere — not just in my fanfic, but most of all in the original works I pen now, each one of them featuring trans character after trans character.

#musings #fandom #fandom culture

[tolkienocweek]

Tolkien OC Week

A fandom event for OCs and underdeveloped characters in Tolkien's world!

This event celebrates both characters of Tolkien's world and our own characters that need more love, by creating and reblogging all kind of fanworks, like fanfiction, fanart, fanvideos, fancrafts, headcanons, playlists, edits, moodboards etc.

The event is modded by @yellow-faerie, @elamarth-calmagol and @stormxpadme and will take place between 21st August - 27th August 2023 for the third year running.

NSFW text entries are allowed and we’ll tag them accordingly when we reblog them, but please put them behind a “read more”.

We'll also be tracking the tag #tolkienocweek during this week!

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Event schedule for 2023:

Day 1 (21st August): Family members

Tolkien often neglects to mention the family members of major characters: for example, leaving both Celebrimbor and Fili and Kili with only one named parent. In others cases, such as Bilbo's family tree, he gives a name and nothing else. Share a character who fills in a gap in a family tree, or create a speculative family member, such as siblings for Legolas.

Day 2 (22nd August): The Bad Guys

Share an OC who belongs to the wrong side of the story, whether they're knowingly evil, misguided, or just doing their job. Maybe they're an orc or a balrog, an unrepentant kinslayer, a Southron or Easterling soldier, or one of the hobbits who worked with Saruman in the Shire. Explore their life and point of view and why they went down the path they did.

Day 3 (23rd August): Diversity

Share an OC who adds diversity to Tolkien’s world, whether it is their race, gender, disability, neurodiversity, sexual orientation, or another characteristic.

Day 4 (24th August): Forgotten Characters

As Tolkien created his stories, he abandoned some characters, such as Eriol the Mariner, and changed major characteristics of others, such as the idea that Erestor was a half-elven relative of Elrond. Other characters, such as the Dunedain chieftains fostered by Elrond before Aragorn, are forgotten by the fandom. Create a fanwork focusing on one of these forgotten characters or characterizations.

Day 5 (25th August): Shipping

Share an OC that you ship with a canon character. It could be a marriage, queerplatonic relationship, or one-night stand, canon compliant or AU, or any other sort of ship you want!

Day 6 (26th August): Alternate Universes

Share an OC who couldn’t be part of the canonical story, such as Boromir's child in an "everyone lives" scenario, a roommate or professor in a college AU, or a dimension-hopping "tenth walker".

Day 7 (27th August): Freeform

Did you have someone who doesn’t fit any prompts, or too many characters for one of them? Today, share any OC that you want.

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Since we want to celebrate creations about neglected characters all year long, the mods will occasionally reblog posts and fancreations about OCs and underdeveloped characters. If you would like to see your post on our blog, you're very welcome to tag tolkienocweek. Since tumblr's tagging system is often being faulty, don't hesitate to message us, too!

We are looking forward to see and share all the awesome work you come up with!

#lotr #lord of the rings #the hobbit #hobbit #lotr films #hobbit films #silm #the silm #silmarillion #tolkien #oc #original characters #tolkienocweek

[disabled-characters-showdown]

Disabled Characters Showdown Round 3

Propaganda/Who is this:

Maedhros- Propaganda by @annoyinglandmagazine here and also under the cut.

Check out the other polls in this round here.

Maedhros should win this poll and in this post I will explain why. Maedhros was a king of the Noldor, a race of elves, until he was taken captive by the enemy. He suffered intense trauma at their hands and was then chained to a cliff for a time until he was rescued but in order for this to happen his right hand needed to be amputated. During his recovery he retrains himself to fight with his left hand due to the loss of his dominant hand and manages to become an even better warrior than he was before through pure determination. He’s just a badass like that. He is the most fearsome swordsman in all of Middle Earth and takes back management of all his armies and diplomacy with other factions very quickly. He continues to expertly negotiate treaties and unions and sets up and holds a fortress on the front lines of the war for many years. But as well as being an amputee his capture has other consequences. He canonically suffers from PTSD and this seriously impacts him throughout the rest of his life and becomes more and more obvious in the time leading up to his eventual suicide years later.

It also feels important to note that Tolkien himself was a soldier in World War 1 and this has a not insignificant impact on his works. A lot of the events and characters he describes seem to draw from his experiences and Maedhros certainly seems to be one of them. Someone coming back ‘as one returned from the dead’ yet not quite the same? Even if Tolkien himself didn’t suffer from PTSD (and it’s widely suspected he may have) he certainly would have known people who did and though they wouldn’t have called it that or may not have recognised it he would have been familiar with its affects. That’s just part of what makes Maedhros an incredible character and particularly a great representation of a disabled character and he really deserves to win this!

#polls #disability #poll #fandom polls #disabled characters #how to train your dragon #httyd #httyd toothless #maedhros #the silmarillion #silmarillion

[runawaymun]

Do you have any disability headcanons for any Tolkien Legendarium characters?

bestieeee i have so many

Amrod & Amras are deaf & they invented their own sign language, which Fëanor was over the moon about. Everybody in the family (and most of the extended family) knows sign.

Elrond has chronic migraines & loads of sensory issues. Some of this is due to the foresight & some is due to his dumpster fire genetics & some is due to Vilya messing with those dumpster fire genetics.

ADHD Elros! ADHD & dyslexic Elros!!!!!!

Idril with prosthetic silver feet!!!!

Maedhros deals with chronic pain. Currently v obsessed with ambulatory wheelchair user Mae via @eldritchteletubbie like why thank you that will make a fine addition to my collection

Caranthir's autistic and nobody is going to change my mind on that thanks

Those are my main ones that come to mind right away that I think about like, all the time 🌻🌻🌻

#disability pride month #(belated) #tolkien & disability #idk i need a tag for that #<3 <3 <3 #elrond #amrod #amras #elros #maedhros #idril #caranthir

[echo-bleu]

More concept sketches for Maedhros post-Angband needing skeletal support/correction. I focused more on the spine/neck braces this time, I'll draw some more slings and shoulder braces ideas at some point.

Disabled characters series

Closer look + notes/rambling under the cut

The first sketch is really just a preparatory one for the second. It's based pretty directly on an existing scoliosis brace called the Milwaukee brace, which used to be the most common and is still used sometimes for, I believe, high curvatures, which would be the case for Maedhros after being pulled by the arm for so long. The second sketch is a try at a more ornamented design, as Curufin and whichever other Noldor creating it would strive to make it beautiful.

The brace opens at the back and requires some flexibility to put on, so it wouldn't be a very early brace for Maedhros (that and the healers/smiths would need some time to attain a good design). It's geared toward correction and not immobilization, he can still somewhat turn his head but it's supported enough to lessen the pain. Leather pads can be added in various places to help with correction, so I gave him a shoulder pad, but he'd still wear some kind of sling or brace for his arm with it, I think.

The bottom sketch is a more ornamented brace meant for formal occasions, not everyday wear. It's aimed at support only, not correction, I think Maedhros could/would only wear it on a day where he's going to be sitting around and not really moving, like the Mereth Aderthad (he's in no shape or mood for dancing). And only later on, once his spine is more stable. This one also opens in the back with laces and various clasps and it's a lot lighter both visually and literally. I think brass would be a cool metal for this one to go with the leather (would it be solid enough? I have no idea).

There is a transcription of my little notes in alt, but I've basically said it all in the text.

Help I put too much research into this 😭

#maedhros #silmarillion #the silmarillion #silm #silm art #feanorians #tolkien #tolkien fanart #echo's drawings #fanart #digital art #disabled tolkien characters

[hamletphase]

silver-foot

#tumblr please don't kill the quality please please please #silmart #idril #the silmarillion #idril celebrindal #tolkien #my art #i also drew miriel using crutches bc i wanted to so a little series of disabled characters but My Hand Hurt

[on-wednesdays-we-eat-the-rich]

So I'm having thoughts about LOTR. Specifically the ending. And the fanfiction that rewrites the ending. Bear with me.

So we all know that LOTR ends with Frodo leaving Middle Earth and going to the Undying Lands, right. And we all know that he does this because all the events of the story have had such an impact on him that they've left him quite traumatised and not really able to live life the way he used to. And we can probably all guess that this is a reflection of how Tolkien may have thought about his trauma after fighting in the First World War.

The ending makes sense considering the time the book was written, because in the 1940's and 50's, people didn't know as much about mental health and disability as they do now, and there weren't as many ways to help people manage disabilities other than institutionalising them or like. Giving them cocaine or something idk. So it's reasonable to assume that because Tolkien didn't see many ways that people could live with disabilities and be happy, he couldn't write them into LOTR and instead basically just put Frodo in Middle Earth's equivalent of Heaven and said "there you go, you're all better now".

I like this as a sort of tragic ending. I mean, you can't deny that someone being so drastically changed by an experience means they can't enjoy the things they grew up with is pretty tragic. The ending does make sense. But I kind of hate it.

I don't think it was written badly or anything, and I'm not trying to dismiss Tolkien's experiences that influenced this ending. My issue with it is that, when you look at it through a modern lens, it has vaguely ableist connotations. Specifically the idea that disabled people (Frodo) can't live full lives and be happy in the real world (Middle Earth) and can therefore only be happy when they're "cured" or when they die and go to Heaven (the Undying Lands).

Now obviously LOTR is an old book and it's important to consider the time it was created when analysing it, as you would do with any other piece of classic literature. A lot of old books have some outdated language and concepts in them, simply because that was normal back then. And until very recently, we probably wouldn't have thought the ending of LOTR was in any way problematic. And it might not have been, because it's not really the fact that Tolkien wrote that ending that's an issue; it's the fact that the way the world worked back then made it near impossible to even think about any other ending.

Since the book was written, though, there have been a lot of advancements in science and research into disabilities, and there are now much more effective ways to treat and manage them. There's medication and therapy for physical and mental issues, and there are lots of accommodations that we can and should put in place to make life easier for everyone. Back in the 1940's, Tolkien wouldn't have had these things, and therefore didn't consider them to be options when writing about what happens to Frodo at the end of the story. But now, we do have them, and it's this progress that has discredited the idea that disabled people can't be happy in the real world, and subsequently made LOTR's ending seem outdated by today's standards.

Now this is where the fanfiction comes in.

LOTR readers these days, who are aware of the progress we've made as a society and the new ways people view and treat minorities, often write fanfiction that puts things into Tolkien's universe that wouldn't have otherwise been there because of when the books were written, from openly queer characters to characters living good, happy lives with disabilities. And I think this is a good thing and it's really nice to see, especially in regards to Frodo's disability. I like seeing people work out how he might accommodate himself in the world of Middle Earth, and how the other characters would help him with that. I like that sometimes people have to get creative when figuring out how he would cope with trauma and chronic pain, because obviously Middle Earth doesn't have a lot of the things we have in the real world.

I like that we can finally give Frodo a chance to recover in a more realistic way than just sending him to the afterlife. I like that we can finally allow him to live.

A lot of Tolkien purists complain about new adaptations and fanfiction because "it's not what Tolkien wrote so he wouldn't like it". First of all, why do we still care about the opinions of a man who's been dead for over fifty years? What are you going to do, summon his ghost to haunt all the fanfic writers? Hold a seance to find out exactly what he thinks? Good luck with that.

Second of all, I honestly believe this is something he would approve of. He went on living after the First World War, but he didn't get to live with the disability accommodations we have today. And because he didn't, neither did Frodo. We can't give Tolkien the life many disabled people have now, but we can give it to his tragic hero. We can make his story a little less tragic. And if Tolkien was here now, of all the tropes we're using in LOTR fanfiction, it wouldn't surprise me if "Frodo stays in the Shire" is one he could get behind.

#lord of the rings #lotr #frodo baggins #tolkien #disability #disability in media #disability in fiction #fanfiction #i'm back on my essay-writing bullshit #this just came to me like five minutes ago and i wrote this instead of doing what i should be doing which is showering #so that's fun #just articulating my thoughts over here don't mind me

[brighter-arda]

Day 6 @tolkienofcolourweek Galadriel

[image description

1: Aaron philips (a black antiguan-american model) (they/she) in a wheelchair covered in flowers

2: gold spots, white rectangle, text = Galadriel most beautiful of all the house of finwe

3: gold spots, white rectangle, text = her hair was lit with gold as though it had caught in a mesh the radiance of Laurelin

4: same person but wearing purple dress.]

#galadriel #lotr #silmarillion #the third age #tolkien women of colour #black tolkien #latam + caribbean tolkien #disabled character #transgender character #moodboards and edits #toi's creations #contains image description #tocweek2023

[sourtoasterstrudel]

Welcome to notes and shit I’ve been writing on this strange little au. Essentially playpen park is a kids show made by Gerald Broflovski heavily based off of his son and his friends, even being named after them.

The kids show follows kyle, the intelligent and sort of socially ignorant leader of his friend group, alongside his best friend stan, the kind sporty kid, and Kenny, the shy loser kid. The ‘antagonist’ is of course cartman, who is sort of a ‘frenemy’ of the group, causing a lot of problems but still being stuck with them.

Cartman isn’t nearly as terrible as he is in real South Park of course, he’s toned down to just be a little rude and obnoxious. Butters and ike are reoccurring characters, ike being the little brother who gets into trouble after watching his brother doing bad things, meanwhile butters is sort of like cartman’s little sidekick, though he really doesn’t mean to be.

There are a few other little characters like wendy when they touch on topics of romance and love, jimmy when they talk about disability, Tolkien when they talk about racism, stuff like that. Basic kids show stuff. Of course the twist is that one day things change, they’re given one of their normal episode issues, but while finding the solution, they realize that things in their town aren’t right. Small things. Things like words on official documents just being scribbled, like something you’d see in a show to emphasize that it’s far away. Then they realize how they don’t know what their parents faces look like. They don’t know how old they are despite how many birthdays they’ve had.

They gain more and more of these little problems which leads them to find out how fake their world is. A problem leads them to the edge of town, which is where they find out that you cannot leave town. After that they have to deal with the very obvious trauma of not being real. As they become more aware of their situation, they gain more awareness of the people they were based off of, including their memories.

They begin to swear and act like their real life counterparts (focusing more on cartman there for that part. He becomes absolutely fucked in the head after he gains access to some of his real memories), but of course since their world wasn’t made for this, it begins to break; the more they find out, the more they act like real people, the more their world breaks. It tries to sensor their cursing, even sensor the kids themselves. So now it’s up to the kids to stop their world from collapsing in on itself as they deal with the new issues of their updated personalities, more complex emotions, and possibly even the real world, trying to take their little show off the air.

if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. I have no idea what I’ll be doing with this concept, probably just drawing some more overly cartoony versions of the main kids

#South Park #soursart #sp #south park au #if anyone else wants to do something more with this concept feel free to i just have too many ideas #need to expel them somewhere #playpen park is such a goofy name but i feel like Gerald would choose something goofy like that #playpen park