balls

Zee or Balls, 28 | in LOTR/Silm hell | i write, illustrate and shitpost | | timelessutterances on AO3 | 🍜 elrond cummies enthusiast and teleporno connoisseur 🥺

[balrogballs]

📍hi i’m balls

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.

[balrogballs]

MAEDHROS: MERETH ADERTHAD

very cropped and thus safe for eating at work commission WIP, featuring Maedhros and a tripartite piercing situation in a semi-realistic style, where I leave you to guess where the third one is. very much still a WIP but i won’t be posting the final uncropped version of this one so feast while you can on what you can!

anyway, really obsessed with him having very slow growing hair, hence it being in this state at this point in his life, but i know he still sleeps with curlers in. also pattern background creds @peasant-player 😌☝🏻

commission details: ONE slot left before i close for a few months

[riding-with-the-wild-hunt]

"‘But I do not know the counsel of the Lord and his captains. They have many ways of gathering news. And the Lord Denethor is unlike other men: he sees far. Some say that as he sits alone in his high chamber in the Tower at night, and bends his thought this way and that, he can read somewhat of the future; and that he will at times search even the mind of the Enemy, wrestling with him. And so it is that he is old, worn before his time.'" - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, "Minas Tirith" "Denethor looked indeed much more like a great wizard than Gandalf did, more kingly, beautiful, and powerful; and older." - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, "Minas Tirith"

@gondorweek day 2: the line of stewards ❊ DENETHOR II, THE LAST TO RULE

[ID: a moodboard comprised of nine images arranged in a 3x3 grid. They are primarily in shades of white and light grey, with some brown accents. From top left to bottom right:

1: An arched corridor of white stone columns, with hanging lamps overhead / 2: A close-up of the face of a white horse wearing a black bridle. Someone has braided its forelock / 3: An empty silver throne on a dais before a rich curtain / 4: A white tree seen at a distance / 5: A shoulders-up portrait of actor Michael Greyeyes, a middle-aged nehiyawe (plains cree, muskeg lake nation) man with light brown skin, straight black hair falling below his shoulders, and dark eyes. He looks directly at the viewer with a neutral but intent expression / 6: The hilt of a sword, pointing up on a white background / 7: An ornate domed pergola on a white stone building / 8: Pages from a hand-lettered manuscript / 9: A white stone tomb seen at a distance //End ID]

[inziladun]

edain philosophy blog

[balrogballs]

commissioner has requested late first age era maedhros to have nipple piercings and i am at the final stage of the drawing, ie the nipple piercing stage. hence, which should he have dangling from his nubs:

nipple

faux simarils

hair with a golden ribbon

fëanorian stars

other (expand in comments)

Remaining time: 6 hours 50 minutes

[dreamingthroughthenoise]

Title: Bright Kindly Letters

Rating: G

Summary: An unexpected letter during his lonely exile leads Maglor to correspond with his young cousin Celebrian who has many questions for him about their family alongside a secret plan of her own.

Chapter: 4/?

A/N: Written for Silmarillion Epistolary Week 2026

My dear Maglor,

Of course my interest in this is personal, you goose! They are my kin too as you pointed out! Shouldn’t I want to know more about them?

One would think you didn’t trust me, and I know that cannot be the case!

I assure you all your stories and information are very helpful, everything for my project is coming together well because of it. Of course I will tell you what it is, but it is not quite ready to be shared yet. Patience dear cousin!

You can now reassure me that all is well between us by telling me what you know about Finarfin and Earwen’s wedding and assuring me you are eating well. I have included a very small packet of seasonings to help enhance the flavor of your meals since I doubt you think about such things.

Yours,

Celebrian

Read the rest on ao3 here!

[kibutsulove]

Galadriel says happy pride

[papita474]

AHHHHGGGGGGG

Me with this drawing bc I just love it so much

[balrogballs]

see so many of the reblog tags on my commonwealth prize ai scandal post are just people expressing (pleasant) awe at how i, tumblr user balrog balls, wrote all that for the sole purpose of talking about my incredibly niche au fanfic about elves starring a guy called ‘comrade maedhros’ and it’s very much a sort of sweet and nostalgic ‘only on this website/fandom culture’ vibe right.

which is partly true. in fact, probably mostly true. i am pretty much a tumblr baby, having only been here for like a year and a half. i do not know the deep magic. however, a missing element in the equation is the fact that comrade maedhros and i share a very specific personality trait: neither of us have ever in our lives felt a crumb of shame. we were born shameless and we will die shameless. we will yap about our hyperfixations until kingdom come. finnu, in apostle (see i’m doing it again), says “we live in the shadow of shame for so long we mistake its chill for the natural temperature of the earth, that narrow range so crucial to sustaining human life”. comrade maedhros and i say “sucks to be you but we’re built different”.

that post is nothing. i have been shilling this fic here for the last 15 months. i have basically made happy meal toys out of it. i have ensured that multiple people who follow me can never look at a dachshund (a relatively common animal that anyone might encounter often) again without thinking of You Know Who™️. i will continue doing this until i am dragged kicking and screaming from this website. there could be a tsunami tomorrow and i would make it about comrade maedhros. you know how comrade maedhros is about sharks? that’s me about comrade maedhros.

[moredhel]

"In her youth she loved to wander far from the dwellings of the Noldor, either beside the long shores of the Sea or in the hills; and thus she and Fëanor had met and were companions in many journeys"

[balrogballs]

i am so sorry but one time i saw your maedhros fanart while scrolling half asleep and i thought it was dhurandhar fanart

[balrogballs]

pronouns?

he good they good she ungood 🫡

[thecrumbez]

Happy Pride Month to those two women dancing together in the foreground of the boat scene in Godzilla (1954).

I’m sorry your romantic foibles were overshadowed by a big ass atomic lizard thing.

[void-puck]

Elwing based on @androgynouscoffeeruins design! (thenytheowl on both insta and tiktok)

Variations and unedited drawing under the cut

I love elwing so much you guys,

[balrogballs]

Hey I don’t go here but seeing some genuinely great analysis of a literary scandal from a blog named ‘Balrog Balls’ whose owner is apparently named Balls used it to talk about her Silmarilion Elf Bible fanfiction is Tumblr at its best. Really makes me miss the heydays of this site. Keep on keeping on, soldier

i am very glad you enjoyed my post, i swear i didn’t mean for it to get a bunch of notes outside silm fandom or at least not very much and i double swear i’d not have mentioned my fic in it if i assumed it might but most importantly i would like to clarify that my legal name is not ‘Balls’ 😭

[justdrowthings]

Last line tag game

Rule: post the last line you wrote and tag as many people as there are words (or as many as you want.)

Thanks for the tag @gingeragenda

I also dropped co-authored stuff so...

“How do you live with it? Not with them. Not just with them. But… but all of it. Every piece of it. With the weight of all of it crushing you and nothing feeling right?”

Just going by the last sentence sooo

@isilme-among-the-stars @balrogballs @starspray @annarobots @physicsandfandoms @glitterlessgold @thescrapwitch @beatles4ever65 @rebornflameofthenoldor @skatesfullofsunshine @mnimeresponding @feyandferal @oopsbirdficced

[mnimeresponding]

Silmarillion Epistolary Week 2026 Day 5

This is the Fifth piece written for Silmarillion Epistolary Week 2026, @silmarillionepistolary I finally got around to taking a picture for this! (Okay the fonts I did on my device so I can change the titles easily.)

Gil-Galad and Celebrían meeting was posted for Arafinwëan Week earlier this year. I have added this to the notes of Day two, where these letters start. (Day one I dipped into Hobbiton town Complaint Records. Feel free to read it, but it's not part of these letters.) AO3 link for The start of the letters

Today, the letters of Gil-Galad and Celebrían directly continue from yesterday's letters. Date is SA 1701.

Day 5: Love. Creation. Letters This is a continuation of yesterday's letters.

AO3 Link: Day 5: A Shrewd Observation

Dear Celebrían,

Your mother has informed me that you are delayed and staying in Imladris for a time, so I'm risking sending you this letter there.

Do I detect a note of interest in your last letter? Are you by chance interested in the new Lord? Has he won an elf-maiden's heart with a look?

I am teasing obviously. Lord Elrond is kind. He was formally my herald. He was very young when he took that role. Not even of age when he accepted it.

He is the very herald who wrote to you of Númenor. The single letter that you still remind me of. Do ask him of Númenor. His twin brother was Tar-Minyatur. The first king, if you read the histories Elrond sent to you.

As for Elrond’s character, he will be loyal to those he loves. Slightly odd at times, but that can be explained by his maia and mannish blood. (He is a direct descendant of Melian the maia, Eru Thingol and obviously Lúthien.)

His friendship is worth having. Almost as much as yours is.

Love always, Your-cursed to never meet in my home-kin.

Dear Ereinion,

Your letter did reach me in Imladris, thank you.

Lord Elrond is the perfect host, that is all. He is the one who showed me around Imladris. He was gracious enough to tell me of his plans. He even asked about mine.

I have to admit he is pleasing to the eye, especially with that smile as kind as summer. However the same can be said about Thranduil and you know how I feel about him.

I was simply impressed with how gracious he was and wondered if this was true of him always, or if he was simply putting on airs.

You have lifted my heart to know his friendship is worth having.

We have discussed his brother. He seemed quite proud of his achievements. And modest of his own. I'm sure you're aware that he's a healer as well as a lord. As your former herald, I'm sure you know this about him.

I am simply impressed with him as a new lord.

Thank you Your kin

P.S. Please don't tell him. He has enough on his plate without dealing with a doe-eyed Elleth.