Fanfic / At the Edge of Lasg'len

At the Edge of Lasg’len is a Doorstopper Tolkien's Legendarium fic.

In 2016, a disenchanted NYC lawyer with Irish roots moves to rural Ireland, unintentionally entangling herself with the Wood-Elves who never departed Middle-earth. Earlene Sullivan buys (for a suspiciously low price) a cottage in what little is left of the forest of Eryn Galen, beside a tiny village with the curiously un-Irish name of Lasg’len — unaware that the forest is already occupied by Faded Elves who are distinctly unhappy about intruders.

Thranduil shortly realizes that a human could be extremely useful, and begins a seduction that brings him far more than he ever would have bargained for. Desire to make contact with modern humanity leads them to Lorna Donovan, Irish ex-con, and her friends in the black market — and from there into a world far more complicated than Thranduil ever could have imagined. The Elves are forced to re-evaluate the mortals, and the world as humanity has shaped it. Elven society slowly meets Irish, with a few Culture Clash hiccups along the way.

Unfortunately, the Elves are not the only remnants left of the Elder Days, and by sheer accident they come to the notice of the sole fallen Maia to escape the destruction of Angband. The consequences of that ill-fated meeting span decades.

The story encompasses everything from culture, interpersonal relationships, the lasting effects of mental and spiritual trauma, and families of choice to societal collapse, and exploring what it means to be human and Elven.

This fanfic provides examples of:

• 20 Minutes into the Future: The story starts in 2016, but as of the most recent chapters, it’s 2043.
• Abandoned Hospital: A few years after the plague, Thranduil, Lorna, and the crew of the Cruiser Aurora sail around the Irish coast, raiding whatever viable medical supplies can be found in the dead hospitals. They pick up a few survivors along the way.
• Abhorrent Admirer: Aredhel is reeeeally interested in Celegorm. It is definitely not mutual.
• Abusive Parents: Oropher, to the extent that Thranduil inwardly celebrated when he died. Lorna's father was a violent drunk who regularly abused his wife and children. It becomes something of a bonding point between her and Thranduil early on.
• Accidental Marriage: Three times. Thranduil hadn't realized that his wife divorced him before he had sex with Earlene, and thus had no idea he was marrying her in doing so. Avathar had no idea that sex equaled marriage, period. (Avathar had no idea about a lot of things.)
• Accidental Murder: Lorna accidentally killed her father when she was 20 — they got in an argument while he was drunk, she shoved him out the front door, and he fell and cracked his head open on the front walkway. She spent five years in prison for it. Thranduil tells her he wishes he could have done the same.
• The Alcoholic: Legolas. Nienna can come across as one.
• Always Identical Twins: Averted. There are a few sets of twins, but they’re split between identical and fraternal.
• The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People: For the most part. New Lasgalen was already up and running by the time the plague hit, and transitioned reasonably easily. It, Galway, and Iceland form a good trading relationship (of goods and people), and all do their best to make certain nobody goes without the essentials. On the other hand, there’s at least one group of marauders who target small communities, stealing their resources and murdering anyone who protests. They learn the hard way that they should have stayed far, far away from New Lasgalen.
• Apocalypse How: An engineered plague wipes out ninety percent of humanity in 2037. A few small societies survive, due to advanced warning, isolation, or sheer luck, but only Iceland, which is capable of being largely self-sufficient, retains anything close to modernity.
• The Atoner: Oropher, Avathar, and Fëanor, eventually. Ossë has been one since the First Age.
• Bad Liar: Thanadir and Lorna. Thanadir will try to avoid it, even if it creates problems for him. Lorna just sucks at it.
• Been There, Shaped History: Avathar and, to a lesser extent, Sharley. Avathar, among other things, engineered both the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. An amnesiac Sharley spent eighteen thousand years wandering the Americas, inadvertently working her way into the mythologies of dozens of indigenous nations.
• Big Damn Heroes: Ossë turns up just in time to avert what would have been the catastrophic failure of Ross Dam. He also keeps a tsunami from hitting Reykjavík.
• Big Eater: Thanadir, who can put away far more food than his slender frame ought to hold. Several of the Irish wonder if his stomach is secretly some kind of TARDIS. His family was very poor when he was a child, before Oropher came to the forest, and he often went hungry.
• Big Friendly Dog: Basker, Maglor’s dog, is a friendly, intelligent Irish Wolfhound◊.
• Big Prick, Big Problems: Ratiri is 6'6" and has correspondingly large equipment. Lorna is 4'11" and has correspondingly tiny internal plumbing. There's a minor Running Gag of people asking her how they manage in the bedroom, to which she always responds, "Creatively." While they're on their honeymoon at Ashford Castle, a false carbon monoxide alarm sends everyone outside in the rain in the middle of the night. A drunken fellow tourist who'd been ogling him all day makes a grab for his package through his pajama pants, only to get kicked in the snatch by a violently protective Lorna. (In fairness, she was aiming for the woman's stomach, but she was too short to reach.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Oropher. To his people, he was a wise and benevolent king; to his family, he was an abusive nightmare. He was a good father to an older son who died before Thranduil was born; he wanted no more children after that, and took his rage and grief out on Thranduil. Thranduil does not discover this for a very long time.
• Boisterous Bruiser: Tulkas. Comes in handy when he has to wrestle a grizzly bear.
• Boob-Based Gag: Earlene’s chest gains the in-universe nickname of ‘the Hypnoboobies.’ (Earlene herself doesn’t care.)
• Brainy Brunette: Earlene, who was a corporate lawyer before she took very early retirement and moved to Ireland. Thanadir as well.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: Before the plague, the community of New Lasgalen figures out how to ‘gear down’ to using a lot of older, sustainable technology, including actual horse-powered farm machinery that belongs in a museum. Special mention, though, goes to the Russian Cruiser Aurora; by the time of the plague it’s nearly 140 years old, and had been retrofitted with new technology (including a miniature nuclear reactor) as a vanity project of Putin’s in the 2030s. It’s already a living museum, and when the sickness creeps toward St. Petersburg, her crew and their families steal her and head out to sea.
• Broken Ace: Earlene was a hotshot corporate attorney in New York City, but she suffered from largely untreated PTSD and distanced herself from everyone. Thanadir is brilliant and adept at mastering new skills, but he also has an obsession with perfection and ‘seemliness’, and secretly fears being abandoned if he’s anything less than perfect. Elrond has no idea how broken he is until he accidentally kills someone.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: A lot of Maiar are. Vairë’s Weavers are...quirky, but nevertheless adept at their tasks. Ossë is also decidedly odd (among other things, he incorporates things like Frisbees into his attire), but one of Ulmo’s strongest Maiar.
• Chekhov's Skill: Earlene’s former law career comes in very handy when she defends Maglor in his trial before the Valar.
• Climate Change: Becomes an ever-greater problem in the years leading up to the plague.
• Close-Knit Community: Lasg'len, Baile, and Skykomish. It helps that they're all quite small, so everyone knows everyone, and has for years. (The real-life town of Skykomish has a population of 127.)
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Thanadir can come across as this to people who don't know him. Sharley as well. Saoirse just plain is one.
• The Comically Serious: Námo can come across as this, especially in contrast to his wife.
• Cosy Catastrophe: New Lasgalen and Iceland fare well after the plague: New Lasgalen had 20 years advanced warning, and Iceland escapes it whole thanks to a volcanic eruption that averts all incoming air traffic. Galway didn't have as much warning, so it’s knocked back a bit further, but it has New Lasgalen and Iceland to trade with.
• Creepy Child: Ithiliel and especially Chandra have their moments.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The way the plague kills is not pretty: it’s a hemorrhagic fever that leaves the victim dead within two days, usually after they’ve coughed up bits of themselves. Avathar used magic to amplify and fuse two viruses that should not have been able to combine: H1N1 and Marburg.
• Culture Clash: There’s a fair bit of this when what’s left of the Woodland Realm makes contact with humanity, as the communities figure each other out. Thranduil is generally the one bridging the gap for the Elves, unless he’s the one who’s put his foot in it.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Lots of them. Earlene grew up with an abusive brother, and lost all her friends in the 9/11 attacks (even listening to one of them die while on the phone with her). Thranduil and Lorna both had horribly abusive fathers and Useless Bystander Parent mothers. Thanadir grew up in poverty, Ratiri grew up isolated by his intelligence and plain old racism, not realizing until much later that his parents might have been loving, but they were also deeply dysfunctional
• Deadpan Snarker: All over the place. It might be easier to list the number of characters who aren't.
• Death by Childbirth: Earlene’s brother’s wife dies of pre-eclampsia in a home birth gone wrong. Very nearly happens to Earlene herself, even with Thranduil’s Healing Hands.
• Devil in Plain Sight: When Lorna runs into Avathar at a fancy party thrown by one of Earlene’s former co-workers, she’s so intensely creeped out by him that she wonders how on Earth nobody else seems to see it. Innate Weirdness Censor keeps most people from registering how off he is, and he’s always intrigued by the few who see through it...unfortunately for Lorna, who unknowingly gains a Stalker with a Crush.
• Didn't Think This Through: Celegorm hotfoots it to Ennor across the Straight Road, only belatedly realizing he was going to a world about which he knew nothing, full of humans incapable of speaking his language. Maglor is extremely exasperated.
• Distracted by the Sexy: The Elves can have this effect on humans, though their closest friends are immune. Thranduil is pretty enough that even Orla, who’s very gay, finds her brain giving ‘seriously mixed signals’, as she puts it. When Thranduil first meets Earlene, he fully exploits it.
• Don't Go in the Woods: None of the humans in the town of Lasg’len ever go into the forest before the Elves come out to make contact, because people who go in rarely come out again.
• Doorstopper: The fic would be multiple doorstoppers if it were ever printed; it currently sits at over 6 million words. It’s the longest fic on Archive of Our Own, and the longest English narrative fanfiction anywhere. (The longest English fanfiction is in script format.)
• Drives Like Crazy: Lorna and, to a lesser extent, Ratiri. Lorna's comes in handy a few times, though Thranduil's the only one who can endure it without inwardly panicking.
• Eloquent in My Native Tongue: A lot of the Elves who learn English very rapidly run into this, usually to mild degrees — they’re proficient, but some of the finer details are lost on them, and their syntax can be rather odd. (For example, Nerdanel refers to poitín, a very potent alcohol distilled from potatoes, as ‘spicy water’.) Sigyn also has a mild case of this; she’s proficient in English, but not fluent.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Lorna's siblings all call her Fun Size.
• Fanboy: Ratiri is something of a Tolkien nerd right from the start, though he tries to keep it quiet. He comes close to blue-screening when he meets Vairë.
• Fish out of Water: Earlene takes Thranduil, Thanadir, and Lorna to New York City only a few months after the Elves made contact with modern humanity. It becomes a crash-course in human culture and history. (They’re especially stunned by the moon landing.)
• Friend in the Black Market: Lorna has a number of them thanks to her misspent youth — they have legit businesses now, but do everything from fencing stolen goods to computer hacking. This makes life much easier for Earlene and the Elves, since it would be difficult to give the Elves identification through any legal means.
• Friendless Background: Many of them, really. As a prince, Thranduil had no friends; Thanadir grew up in poverty, and Ratiri was a mixed-race kid in 80’s Glasgow, which didn't exactly make him popular. Downplayed with Earlene, who focused heavily on school, and lost all her friends to the 9/11 attacks. This happens to Chandra even while growing up in a house full of people.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Fëanor, once he’s introduced to modern technology.
• Gargle Blaster: Elf wine has this effect on humans; it’s even Lampshaded by Earlene and Lorna.
• Gayngst: Aillil comes from a homophobic family, most of whom cut him off when he finally comes out. (His sister doesn’t, and his mother comes around.)
• Giant Wall of Watery Doom: Galway is hit (and devastated) by a tsunami. Ossë stops another one from hitting Reykjavík (and thoroughly enjoys himself in the process).
• A Good Name for a Rock Band: Lorna thinks that Earlene and the Elves would be a fantastic band name.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: At one point Sharley uses Lorna as a human projectile. Lorna never does let her live it down.
• Half-Human Hybrid: What all of Earlene’s kids are.
• Happily Adopted: Earlene adopts her baby niece, and she and Thranduil raise the girl as their own. Lorna and Ratiri also adopt a daughter through less conventional means.
• Hates Wearing Dresses: Lorna, to the point where it's almost a running gag. She's a mechanic by trade, and her initial mode of transportation is a motorcycle, and she sees dresses as completely impractical outside of formal occasions. She feels quite awkward and uncomfortable on the handful of occasions she does wear a dress.
• Healing Hands: Thranduil has them, though time and frequent use takes such a toll on him that the humans reach a group decision to insist he save it only for dire emergencies. (He finds this annoying, but rolls with it for their sake.)
• Hearing Voices: When Earlene first moves to her cottage, Thranduil is Faded, and thus can only be heard. Sharley has four disembodied voices, who can be heard by telepaths. Just what they are, exactly, is not made clear for a very long time.
• Heel–Face Turn: Avathar has one eventually, after he inadvertently marries a young Icelandic woman who has no idea who or what he is. He resists in at first, but marriage among Elves and the Ainur forms a spiritual bond that affects him whether he likes it or not, and he comes to realize the sheer magnitude of all the awful shit he’s done over the course of his extremely long life, and it leaves him silently all but crippled by guilt. Sauron undergoes one as well, over the course of the millennia; he slowly manages to regain physical form, but, although it’s technically immortal, it’s unable to heal from any damage it takes, and his vastly weakened telepathic ability forces him to hide among the very poor. The other characters are understandably skeptical when he’s discovered, but he voluntarily returns to Valinor to face judgment.
• Height Angst: Lorna is 4’11”, and not happy about it.
• Hereditary Twinhood: Twins run in the Donovan/Sullivan family. Earlene has two sets of twins plus a set of triplets; her hyperovulation is a running joke among the family. Lorna has fraternal twins, as does one niece, while another has a set of identicals.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Pen and Maglor. Also Legolas and Gimli, obviously.
• Hidden Elf Village: What’s left of Eryn Lasgalen, though the humans in the town of Lasg’len do know it’s there — they just avoid it. Thranduil wants to stay hidden from them no longer. There are also two in Iceland: one on the coast, and one in the highlands.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Ratiri and Lorna; he’s a solid foot and a half taller than she is.
• The Immune: The Elves...fortunately for everyone. Ten percent of humanity is also immune to the plague.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: A very common reaction among humans, Elves, and even some of the Ainur.
• Innocent Swearing: Toddler Allanah picks up a few cursewords when she’s first learning to talk, and realizes pretty fast that the adults laugh when she uses them. Her parents try to get her to say ‘apples and bananas’ instead, with mixed success — she’ll say it around them, but gleefully go back to cursing when it’s just her and Lorna. When the pair go to visit Lorna’s brother, her first word upon seeing him is a very cheerful, “Fuck!”
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: Happened to Ratiri while he was growing up; combine it with racism and it’s no wonder he had a Friendless Background.
• Interspecies Romance: Several, over the course of the story — mostly Elf/human, but also Elf/Maia and Maia/human.
• It Amused Me: Avathar’s motivation in stalking and harassing the Elves, Earlene, Lorna, and Ratiri. He’s desperately wicked and desperately bored.
• Lack of Empathy: Earlene’s brother Aidan. His wife died in childbirth, and he has no interest in the baby, who he dumps on Earlene at first opportunity. He freely admits that he’s “a piece of work.” Avathar starts off this way as well.
• Language Barrier: At first, Thranduil is the only Elf who knows any English. Even he isn’t really prepared for Irish English.
• Large and in Charge: Thranduil, naturally; he stands at 6’5”.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Thranduil is capable of this, and has historically done so to the occasional human that wandered into the forest.
• Mad Oracle: Sharley seems like a downplayed example. The truth is much more complicated.
• The Maiden Name Debate: Subverted. Thranduil takes on Earlene’s surname of Sullivan when he gets a human ID, along with the pseudonym of Fionn. Further subverted when Thanadir does as well, because Sullivan is a common surname and many unrelated people share it (though Thranduil and Thanadir present themselves as brothers). Lorna keeps hers as well when she marries Ratiri, though their children have his.
• Malicious Slander: Thranduil finds his portrayal in The Hobbit movies to border on this.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: The Sullivan family winds up with 10 kids (9 biological plus Earlene’s niece Allanah).
• Mayfly–December Romance: A source of angst for Thranduil and Earlene…at first.
• The Medic: Ratiri is a pediatrician who eventually sets up shop in Lasg’len, as it has no town physician.
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Thranduil can’t shut out the thoughts of all the humans around him, which becomes a serious liability to him at times. He’s at first somewhat baffled by how often a lot of humans think about sex.
• Mind Rape: Avathar is fond of doing this. Sharley not only does this to herself, she spent thousands of years unwittingly mind raping the humans around her into believing she was human, as well as accepting and being kind to her. She still doesn’t know about that last bit.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Thanadir has this reaction when he finds out his treatment of Erestor thousands of years ago left the latter permanently emotionally damaged.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Avathar didn't know it, but his plague was part of Eru’s plan — the Valar had to allow it to go forward because humanity had already harmed the Earth almost beyond repair. They also couldn't interfere with Sharley’s interference, because she’d been established on Earth for millennia as something apart from a Maia; Sharley couldn't stop the plague, but she was able to warn people who would not otherwise have survived.
• No Social Skills: Celegorm starts off this way, especially when he first comes to Earth.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: Thranduil has a tendency to enthrall women (and often men) without trying, which is something he initially exploits with Earlene. When Lorna meets him, however, she thinks he's the creepiest person she's ever seen in her life (to her his eyes look like zombie eyes, and she's irrationally annoyed by the fact that his eyebrows don't remotely match his hair).
• "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization: Avathar at first genuinely doesn't believe what he did to Lorna, and to Sharley years before was rape. At the time(s), each thought they were having pleasant, consensual sex; he's genuinely insulted when Earlene calls him on it. Not until his Heel–Face Turn does he understand what he truly did — and what long-term effects it actually had on his victims.
• Odd Friendship: Earlene and Lorna come from almost wholly opposite backgrounds, but wind up regarding each other as family. Thranduil and Lorna look like this from the outside, but they have more in common than most people know. Celegorm and Chandra develop one as well.
• Oh, Crap!: Thranduil’s silent reaction when he spots Avathar at a fancy party in New York City. He, Earlene, Lorna, and Thanadir wisely scarper. Thranduil and Thanadir recognize Avathar immediately for what he is: a fallen Maia.
• Older Than They Look: Earlene starts the story as a very well-maintained 38-year-old who looks younger. Sharley doesn't know how old she is, and isn’t terribly concerned about it thanks to Laser-Guided Amnesia by her own brain. It gradually becomes clear to the others that she’s much older than she looks.
• Omniglot: All Maiar naturally are.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Geezer’s real name is Anthony, not that anyone uses it.
• Open Secret: A number of Icelanders know damn well that a.) their country does indeed have Elves, and b.) pretty much where they are, but the two groups of people leave one another alone and get on with their lives.
• The Other Rainforest: Sharley hails from Washington, and several segments of the story take place there.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Sharley had a daughter who died some years before the events of the fic. The girl’s death just about broke her, and eventually she moves her daughter’s ashes to the Elves’ forest, so that they could watch over her. Sharley doesn’t remember this, but her daughter was actually a Child by Rape who never should have existed in the first place. It’s why the girl was able to die, despite being the offspring of two Ainur. Much later, she and Maglor have a child whose spirit is that of her first daughter — Sharley went through so much shit on behalf of the Valar that Manwë made the unprecedented move of allowing someone to be born twice, rather than re-housed as adults are.
• Parental Abuse: Thranduil and Lorna both suffered a great deal of it, and find it a bonding point. Oropher presented the image of a good and wise king to the outside world, but was secretly violently abusive to his son, who found no help from his mother. Lorna’s father was a violent drunk whose children all, at various points, went to pee on his grave.
• Quirky Town: Lasg’len and Baile, where Lorna comes from. (Not to be confused with the actual town in Ireland called Baile.)
• Rape as Drama: Happens to Lorna, though Avathar doesn’t see it as rape, and is very insulted when the accusation is leveled at him. The first time, he went to her in Ratiri’s form, so she had what she thought was consensual sex with her boyfriend. The second time she was asleep, and he gave her a lot of very pleasant dreams. He’s actually extremely disturbed when he realizes (much later) just what it must have actually done to her mentally, because by then he’s had a Face–Heel Turn.) It also happened to Sharley some years before the events of the story, though she has amnesia about it...for a while.
• Rape Discretion Shot: Avathar's assault of Lorna occurs offscreen, and for a long while she has no memory of it.
• Really 700 Years Old: All the Elves, obviously. And Sharley.
• Reclaimed by Nature: What happens to the world in the years after the plague.
• Sanity Slippage: Maglor has undergone quite a lot of this by the time the story finds him.
• Second Love: Lorna and Ratiri are this for each other. Earlene would be this for Thranduil, except he realizes that he never truly loved his first wife. They married for all the wrong reasons.
• Secretly Wealthy: Ratiri, sort of. His mother was secretly wealthy, and he still has all her (very antique) jewelry that’s worth a few million pounds. He doesn’t consider it his, however; his mother wanted it passed down to whatever wife he might take. Lorna has absolutely no idea what it’s all worth, and he doesn't tell her for fear she wouldn’t dare wear it. Ratiri grew up solidly middle-class.
• Separated by a Common Language: Earlene starts off with no experience with Irish English, and most of the Irish only know American English from movies. It’s part of why Lorna gets hired on as Earlene’s PA.
• Sole Survivor: Earlene’s backstory — all her friends worked in the Twin Towers, and died in the 9/11 hijackings.
• Stalker with a Crush: Avathar only wound up in Ennor because he’d gone chasing after Sharley, who had herself gone chasing after her husband Maglor. That ended well for no one. His harassment of the remnant of the Woodland Realm is mostly for shits and giggles, but he thinks of Lorna as a lovely doll he’d like to keep in a metaphorical cabinet. (She is thoroughly squicked.)
• Strong Family Resemblance: To an uncanny degree with the Donovans, and several of Thranduil and Earlene’s sons wind up dead ringers for him. He and his brother could also pass for twins, and both heavily resemble Oropher.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Sharley has a somewhat complicated version. She had her mind smashed so many times in Angband that it splintered, and one of the splinters became the Stranger, a soul eater who snacked on the spirits of Sauron, Avathar, and even Morgoth, and wiped her memory not only of Angband, but of her entire identity. It’s powerful enough to make her appear entirely human to Elves and even other Ainur. It’s not evil so much as amoral, and self-programmed to keep Sharley safe and hidden at all costs. Several people, including Sharley herself, realize just how fortunate the world is that the Stranger had no interest in amassing power and influence, or it would have been a far greater nightmare than Avathar could have hoped to be.
• Supreme Chef: Earlene and Mairead, to the point where it becomes a Running Gag.
• Surprise Pregnancy: Earlene, Lorna, and Sigyn all wind up with one at various points.
• Synthetic Plague: Avathar made one, to be used as a doomsday weapon if he were ever declared legally dead. It wipes out ninety percent of humanity.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Ratiri, and later his and Lorna’s son, Shane.
• Telepathy: All Elves have it with one another, but some are strong enough to read humans as well...whether they want to or not. Sharley as well, though she’s not aware of it at first. Avathar reads the minds of all and sundry, though most people bore him, and has a habit of mind raping people to do what he wants.
• Third-Person Person: Ossë refers to himself in the third person.
• Time Abyss: All the Ainur, obviously. Including Sharley, who is a very, very broken Maia with some Laser-Guided Amnesia courtesy of her own brain. When she eventually regains her true memories, it’s...not pretty.
• That's What She Said: A favorite phrase of one of Sharley’s voices, that eventually infects most people she knows.
• Thicker Than Water: The Donovan siblings only had each other to count on growing up, and consider family more important than anything else. This extends to Family of Choice.
• The Unintelligible: Lorna’s Dublin accent is so heavy even other Irish people have trouble with it at times. When the group goes to New York City, she’s reduced to writing on a tablet more than once. It gets better over time, though she never does manage the ‘th’ sound.
• There Are No Therapists: Averted for the humans, but initially played straight for the Elves, who slowly learn about the concept of mental illness and PTSD.
• Toilet Humor: Sharley’s voices are extremely fond of it, Kurt especially. They were so obnoxious about it in Angband that Morgoth rarely visited, because every time he did, they followed him and made fart noises.
• The Unfavorite: Thranduil, not that he has any idea until the Woodland Elves go to Valinor. He had an elder brother who died before he was born; Oropher grieved his death so intensely that he never wanted another child. To him, Thranduil was nothing but a reminder of the son he'd lost.
• Useless Bystander Parent: Thranduil’s mother did nothing to protect her son from his father’s abuse.
• Vacation Episode: Several of them, across the course of the story, which prove especially illuminating to Thranduil and Thanadir. Destinations include New York City, Washington State, and Yellowstone.
• The Vietnam Vet: Geezer, with a side order of Shell-Shocked Veteran.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: All the Ainur can do this.
• War Is Hell: Thranduil is deeply disturbed by what he learns/sees about The Vietnam War from Geezer — especially napalm, which burned Geezer's hands so badly that even fifty years later, he still struggled to use them until Thranduil healed them.
• Watch the World Die: What the people of New Lasgalen and Galway are forced to do. The plague can’t be averted; their only choice is to hide until it’s over.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Sharley really, really tries to avert the plague, but it’s ultimately impossible.