everyone on letterboxd is out here complaining that frodo left to valinor cause sam turned het at the end of return of the king and to that i say yeah i guess...! but imo frodo KNEW that if he stayed in bag end and the shire for the rest of his life sam-- who had so devotedly followed him to the end of the world and back sacrificing and risking everything for him-- would never be able to extricate himself from a relationship that would only get more codependent and maybe even toxic over time cause frodo's been irreversibly changed by his experience, and can't be the kind of person who lives happily ever after in the same place he came from! it's been there from the beginning of the trilogy! and yea sam would of course leave everything and follow him again and again and again! but what im getting at here is that perhaps frodo knew all along that the greatest sacrifice he could make for sam was letting him come into his own, not as the hobbit Samwise the Brave, a chief character in Frodo Baggins's story The Lord of the Rings, but rather as samwise gamgee-- loving husband, father and hobbit of his own making... and so he finally went to the one place sam couldn't follow, because he really fucking loves sam.......!!!!!!!!! bashing my own head in with a rock im crying my eyes out
Through A Glass, Darkly by fizzingwhizbee (rated T)
it's an Over The Garden Wall AU!!!!!! and it's soooo good
RE: RE: RE: Your Secret Mysterious Poet Identity by gallantrejoinder (rated G)
Sam is a gardener by day and an anonymous poet by night. Frodo is a college student who's writing his master thesis about said anonymous poet.
incredibly fun and well written, i love this one so much!
A Second Cup Of Coffee by mangostrawberry (rated T)
coffee shop AU and just about as cozy as it gets :)
(the first of many mangostrawberry's recs because they're genuinely my favorite fanfic author of all time)
Down On The Slopes by fizzingwhizbee (rated T)
Frodo goes to the mountains to find some peace and quiet so he can finish his book (- cit) - ends up meeting a handsome ski instructor and his friends instead :)
PRE-QUEST:
Divarications by Lobelia Sackville-Baggins (rated M)
heartbreaking and incredibly well written, i think about this fic a lot
Oddity & Honesty by mangostrawberry (rated G)
Young Sam and Frodo pine for each other, Bilbo teases them.
feels like if jane austen wrote YA novels, very sweet :)
MID-QUEST:
Ten Thousand Starlight Nights by lunar_laurel (rated T)
Frodo gets stuck in a time loop at the Crossroads
Heavy by Jamfro9 (rated T)
Frodo manages to take a break from carrying the Ring - the Ring tries to tempt Sam (again)
POST-QUEST (Frodo leaves):
starting off strong with the samfro fanfics of all time, i think:
All That I Had by Elenya54 (rated E)
i've read this twice and i am still in awe at the amount of effort that must have gone in writing something like this, truly amazing work but also oh my god so so so painful </3
both the prequel and sequel to this are also incredibly good and i usually read them along with the main fic :)
In All The Ways There Were by mollyknox (rated T)
i mean, of course this one had to be in the list - one of the best introductory fics in my opinion, especially for those who have only seen the movies
technically both mid-quest and post-quest
also, directly related to this fic are two one-shots:
Habits & What If We Tried To Have Everything (i have a soft spot for Frodo with little Elanor, so i really love this one)
and a prequel :)
Call Off Thoughts Awhile Elsewhere by Anonymous (rated G)
Sam and Frodo find that readjusting to life in the Shire is harder than they thought, so someone decides to help them.
i am so in love with this one, truly one of my favorites ever.
Chae ar' I'ear (Earth And Sea) by Rakshi (rated G)
Sam is preparing to leave the Shire, but there is someone who doesn't want him to go.
this fic changed me, i think. i love everything about it: the idea, the writing, the creativity - it's so moving and romantic and sweet and and sad and hopeful and-
Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang by Teasel (rated E)
beyond heartbreaking, only 2k words but it felt like a punch in the stomach
Endurance Beyond Hope by Frayach (rated M)
Sam visits Merry at Brandy Hall fourteen years after Frodo's departure.
i think about this fic all. the. time. so it's kind of canon to me at this point
POST-QUEST (Frodo stays):
(this section is mostly mangostrawberry's post-quest fics because i love them too much!!!)
Haypennies by mangostrawberry (rated T)
Frodo has to decide who will inherit his fortune.
so. sweet!!!
Ghosts That We Knew by objectlesson (rated M)
one of the first fics i've ever read and one of my favorites since then, also the author said in the intro notes that "growing things and cooking things and farm life and gay love are the only true healing forces in the world" and i think that sums up samfro perfectly :)
Apply Compression Gently by mangostrawberry (rated T)
Frodo struggles while recovering in Minas Tirith. His friends help him come to terms with things.
i cried a couple of times while reading this one, it's so special to me <3 the frodo fanfic of all time!!
Love Again Soon by mangostrawberry (rated T)
again, one of the first samfro fics i've ever read and i think this one really set the tone for all other fanfics for me, especially for the post-quest ones. no notes, just perfect and incredibly sweet
Twilight by swagonit4today (rated M)
to be fair, it's not specified here if frodo ends up staying, and given the tone of the fic i wouldn't be surprised if he didn't. probably the angstiest (?) fic in this list, very bittersweet
Impressions Of A Morning Glory by mangostrawberry (rated T)
saving the best for last. my favorite of all time, period.
it has everything: it's the perfect length, the writing (as always) is flawless, the characterization is exactly right, it's sweet and it's painful and it's comforting, it has magic and family and love.
Another absolutely beautiful thing about samfro as a queer pairing is that they're an incredibly important part of the queer history. There will be and there was already stories that are way more transparent about their queer readings, with waxing poetics and official statements and multiple love confessions. And yet Sam and Frodo are genually so, so important, not only because of such a bit part of their beauty comes from their subtlety, love shown less through words and more through actions, but also because they were one or the first.
They paved a path for devotion in media, referenced in thousands and thousands of works of modern fantasy and romance. They were there before Star Trek and before BBC Sherlock.
Sir Ian personally asked to keep the hand-holding in the Rivendell scene because he knew that queer people such as himself see themselves in this little book passage. Their queer readings is bucked up as a possibility by multiple works and Tolkien scholars, they're analysed by media proffesors and PhD authors. To this day they've stories of queer people of the time that were able to relate and find themselves in the story. I think there was even a separate letter sent to the movie headquarters about the importance of queer subtext in the text by a fan, although I'd have to fact check for that.
They're publicly supported by both of the actors playing them in the adaptation, but even without them, samfro was there before that.
They were there before the movies. They were there since the publishing of the Fellowship in the 1950s and they are there after the adaptation of Return of the King in 2003, and they, just as every other aspect of the book, revolutionised the way modern authors, just like authors from 2000s and 1990s, write devotion, write friendship, write love.
And that's another part of why I love them so much. There might be stories published after them that are more queer-coded or more open or with more poetic passages about love but Sam and Frodo are important part of why that is possible. Being, by modern standards, subtle doesn't make them worse, it doesn't make them less interesting and it definitely doesn't make them less significant.
Sam and Frodo are a critical part in history of queer reading of fantasy literature and this might be the most beautiful thing in the world perhaps ever.
for part 2 i'd like to add 'it aint me babe' by joan baez
this reminds me of the way frodo told sam, before he went to valinor, that he needed to move on fully, that he should stay and that he would have be one and whole for many years </3
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