#I still kinda want to do two more Miriel designs

[san-sews-seams]

Did a quick and uninspired Celebrimbor design, and finally went back and finished the Miriel design I had started.

[sindar-princeling]

ep 5 thoughts!

I love the dwarven ring that looks like a building by a small bridge, what a cool design

I like that Celebrimbor is a mix of meaning well but also proud and almost- hubristic? feels like he's going to be like I Didn't Think Sauron The Deceiver Could Deceive Me when it all goes to shit

not sure I like that Sauron is present for everything now, because his presence has implications in this world. are rop creators implying that the Doors of Durin are also influenced by him, like the Rings he helped make? or are they just ignoring the fact that Sauron's power is present in his creations? or did they not think about it at all? this world has rules, and it weakens the story to just drop some of them whenever it's convenient

(like I know he may not have even touched them, but just the fact that he's here makes you ask questions)

"to credit your contributions" okay nvm you heard it here first - the doors of durin were made by sauron too I guess (i am. pretty sure they want to imply that but it's so ridiculous that it's hard to actually believe)

Celebrimbor and Sauron are the most interesting plotline I swear

Celebrimbor is growing on me, I didn't like him much in season 1 but he gets more depth here, there's more to work with for him in terms of plot

a nice little detail of Celebrimbor patting Sauron on the arm and Sauron standing there for a few seconds like. did that lowly thing just fucking touch me

it tickles me a bit that Sauron mentioned Earendil to, of all people, Feanor's grandson. "that guy whose sons were kinda-sorta orphaned because of your uncles..... he was a truly great man wasn't he?" like what do you say to that ajsjsjdjdjdjd

"perfection of the three, thrice perfected" WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT THE SEVEN THEN. STOP JUST WRITING THINGS BECAUSE YOU THINK THEY SOUND COOL

I really liked Ar-Pharazon's speech, yeah king lead that island to ruin through the power of your hubris. it's in moments like this that you wish the whole show was like this

I'm still not sure why the eagle's coming meant Pharazon should be king, though

Elendil and Miriel have such a nice dynamic. I loved her telling him to be the calm at the eye of the storm

Earien annoys me so much why is she here again. why did they have to invent an entire daughter for Elendil, she should have been a new character

WHY did gil-galad's vision look so out of place compared to literally all other scenes. it was filmed like bits of a documentary

I love Disa's insights into the whole situation

"two hundred for a bloody rock?" would you believe a dwarf said that line. would you fucking believe it

did the balrog finally wake up from its 5-episode-long nap? also that tunnel didn't even seem that long. it's kinda hard to believe the dwarves have that little of the mountain mapped

I think it's a really smart choice to have the dwarves' greed be mostly the rings' fault, takes a bit away from the antisemitic stereotype present in the books. it's presented less like their inherent trait and more like a side effect of the rings - they affect everyone equally after all

Celebrimbor's anvil-shaped paperweight ansnsnsnsajsksmnd

this show has a tendency to assign causation to the wrong things I think - they made Mordor be created instead of just be a land that's slowly filled with evil and killed by the shadow: they make men's rings be inherently different instead of acknowledging that the rings reflect their owners. the nazgul are not wraiths because they wear rings with specific properties - they are just corrupted by the rings' evil, and the wraithness is an effect of the corruption, not a property assigned to men's rings specifically. I don't know if I'm explaining this well but it's kind of a "correlation is not causation" thing

Sauron looking like a mini-eye as he watches from a tower was such a nice touch

the Numenorean seashell candles are cute. I also love the wall ornaments looking like seashells

ohh Valandil being nearly drowned was brutal, it was a good scene. same for that annoying Whatshisname washing the sword in the shrine's water

I really would have liked the forging to be more gradual, though, it's going so fast you don't have time to sit in any sort of dread or worry for what's coming

well we all know how well swearing things goes for people in middle-earth :)

I like that they show Sauron quickly reacting to obstacles and constantly twisting the truth - not all of his moves make sense to me lore-wise, but it's accurate characterisation for him

really nice performance from Charles Edwards this episode

rop season 2 episode 1 thoughts

at this point you gotta admire the creators' dedication to absolutely bizarre choices when it comes to sauron. 15 minutes in I'm already going what the hell and fuck. like what was that supposed to be. genuinely

Charlie Vickers has grown on me; he still doesn't have much to work with in terms of the script or the plot though

this whole introductory sequence was there....... I'm not sure why? we could already extrapolate all that, and I mean All That, from the previous season

it still pisses me off that Galadriel is The Main Idiot and Everything Is Her Fault

also, I am reminded by all the plot and worldbuilding choices that annoyed me before. why is mithril important for the elves' survival again?

CIRDAN HIII CIRDAN <33333

I'm so glad they kept his beard

believe me, I AM trying to find things to like about this show, but the plot choices feel like so much unnecessary drama. Galadriel and Elrond fighting feels.... tiring. I feel like all Galadriel does is fight with people

oh are we getting Rhun?? 👀 Nice

this is a personal opinion but the elven women have wayyy too strong and modern-looking make-up

it's a shame galadriel gets the ring because she's power-hungry and reckless, not because she's one of the mightiest elves in middle-earth. she SHOULD be power-hungry, don't get me wrong, it's one of her best traits, but this way you don't put any sort of accent of how very important and mighty she is

sauron having a Badass Walk into mordor at the end of s1, which was a really cool shot to end a season on, only to then get himself in chains and then turn away and come back to Celebrimbor has got to be the most '???' moments of this show. they really have no idea what to do with him

overall I'd say my main gripe, apart from the plot solutions, is that this show doesn't have much to say. it's showy, it's lore-heavy (even if I don't like the lore they came up with), but so far it still has little heart and thought behind it. to me at least it doesn't feel like it really wants to tell you something

[julystorms]

That emblem thats on fire

This is a whole series of games with like fifty characters a game... How can I pick just one?

FE6: Narshen is a fuckin’ scumbag. Like and here we all thought Erik was bad? No, Narshen is worse. I hate the sunnuvabitch. (FE6 actually has a lot of characters to hate now that I think about it.)

FE7: Sonia. FUCK YOU. I think what fucked me up the most about Sonia was that she’s an abusive pile of shit garbage. And then in the end you find out she’s actually kind of an interesting character, too. Dammit.

FE8: Lyon. Fuck that woobie prince. Fuck ‘im. To be fair, my favorite thing about him is that we just never know how much of him was being controlled by ~eeevil~ and how much of him was naturally just a manipulative abusive jackass. Like, cool (sad, actually) motive, but ya still a pile of steamin’ shit. Again, to be fair, as a writer the conflict here is delicious.

FE9/10: Oliver is too obvious a choice because who the fuck does not hate Oliver? So...Lyre, maybe. Who designed these cat people? Why do they have bells?? Are they trying to be seen as housecats?? Do housecats eXIST IN THESE GAMES????? Anyway, Lyre was annoying, uninspired, and when she died in a map I let her stay dead. I never do that. Kyza annoys me too but I can’t think of why. Both characters felt extremely tacked on and pointless, which is amusing since I actually like Vika. (Homegirl is like one of my favorites.)

FE13: Look, I hate Yarne. I cannot deny this. And yet I find him a more inspired and intriguing character (if I’m forced to think about laguz or whatever they are in FE13 as like, races that can go extinct) than Inigo, who is just an offensive bubble-pushing version of the flirty!trope which we already had in this game (we seriously do not need two and we dEFINITELY don’t need a character whose entirely personality is “flirt”). I don’t like Miriel or Nowi. I hate Nah. Noire is like so fucking offensive I can’t stand it. And I never, ever asked for Libra. WHY. Wow, it’s almost like the later the games the more characters I hate...

FE14: oH MY GOD where do I EVEN START.

Corrin (could have been good but wasn’t)

Azura (uninspired and didn’t make sense for all routes if she’s not an antagonist on at least one route)

Jakob (jackassssssss creep)

Hayato (YAWWWWWWWWN not this trope again it sucked with Ricken and it sucks here)

Reina (BLOOD HEEHEE was never a good trope please reconsider this)

Elise (okAY Hayato 2.0 but slightly more likable, if you’re not a child maybe STOP ACTING LIKE ONE!!!! She could have been incredible but they overplayed her role as the baby sister yawn)

Laslow (GO AWAY YOU DON’T BELONG HERE and honestly he didn’t help the story AT ALL; it was a pathetic attempt to bring in more interested gamers and it didn’t work)

Peri (I FUCKING HATE THIS TROPE!!!!! I HATE HER MORE THAN I CAN SAY!!!)

Selena (again, you don’t belong here...go away.)

Odin (GO AWAY!!!!!!!!! I liked you just fine in Awakening but now I want to kick you in the shin)

Niles (okay yeah I guess let’s make a character who is traumatized and just kinda ignore that fact consistently like dude don’t get me wrong he’s a fascinating character but FE is not a series that can do a character like that justice--or maybe more like, they won’t...)

Arthur (he was kinda fun but too goofy and I can’t stand it. are we supposed to take this game seriously IN ANY CAPACITY?)

Nyx (I’m offended by her entire character)

Charlotte (could have been AMAZING!!!!! I can’t get past her outfit though. I love some of the redesigns I saw and I think overall she’s an intriguing character...but that outfit.)

Izana (why are you even in the game... Useless.)

ALL SECOND GEN CHARACTERS EXCEPT SoPHIE, SELKIE, AND SHIGURE HERE. Useless. Waste of time. Waste of energy. Boring. Uninspired. I’m bored. I guess Siegbert and Shiro are okay, too. 

And I can’t forget Mikoto. gOD do I hate her.

Obviously there’s a bit of a pattern here. You’d think with more supports I’d find more things to like about characters, but that’s not at all the case! The more supports that we’re given the more characters start contradicting themselves and/or start overplaying that one annoying aspect of their personality that makes them look like a giant caricature. No thanks. If less supports means more rounded conversations with which to gauge characterization, I think I prefer it. :)))))

[least favorite character meme]