#and then there's star wars books and lotr movies

[oneoflokischildren]

*A & B watching C*

Character A: Maybe they're in denial?

Character B: Considering how deep apparently they're in denial I'm surprised they haven't drowned yet!

Character C: You know I can hear you, right?!

[velvet4510]

Beren/Lúthien 🤝 Cassian/Jyn

Guy who was hunted for years by the Enemy + Gal who escaped imprisonment = Battle Couple who rescue each other constantly, infiltrate the Enemy’s fortress undercover, and, via masterful teamwork, steal a priceless item that changes the entire course of the future, before sharing the same fate by accepting mortality together.

[tathrin]

The Extremely Serious and Scientific Legolas Fandom Hair Colour Poll:

What colour hair do you picture in your head for your personal mental image of Legolas of the Woodland Realm? (Not necessarily which one you think is more or less "canonical"; rather just what you see in your head when you're reading something.)

Ideally, you can also share when and how you were first exposed to Lord of the Rings in the tags or reblogs, and what you think most influenced your mental image.

No I'm not procrastinating from writing stuff, go away.

[fangirlforeversthings]

Why do the characters who did their whole life nothing else than giving, giving others love, support, appreciation, friendship, etc. only get the worst pain and suffer known to mankind back in return.

IN WHICH WAY IS THIS FAIR??!

EVEN ALLOWED?!?!?!

[mysticmayhem1337]

Dear Supporter,

I hope this message finds you and your family in good health. My name is Eman Zaqout from Gaza. I am reaching you out to seek your urgent help in spreading the word about our fundraiser. I lost both my home and my job due to the ongoing genocide in Gaza and we are facing catastrophic living conditions. 💔

I kindly ask you to visit my campaign. Your support, whether through donating or sharing, will help us reach more people who can make a difference. Thank you for your continued support for the Palestinian cause. Your dedication brings us closer to freedom. 🙏🕊

Note: Verified by several people as 90-ghost and aces-and-angels. ☑

I don't know how far my reach goes, but as my mother says, 1% is better than 0%.

This woman from Gaza is a scientist. She also has a husband and two kids, a 12-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter. She seems like a brilliant woman to me, having already done life-saving work inside and outside of Gaza. With help, I hope she will do even more.

TV, film, books and video games have taught me many things, but the one lesson that always stands out to me is that we must look after our fellow person. My blog may be primarily film reviews, but films are political, they contain morals and they reflect the time in which they are made.

I personally, am not in a position to donate to these causes. I understand if you can't either. I ask that if you come across this post, you consider interacting in any way so that you can boost its reach. It just might find someone who can donate.

Because of recent world events, tough times are ahead. As difficult as it may seem, we have to hold onto hope. We are always stronger than we think and braver than we realise.

[a-url-that-exists]

hot take Deadpool and Wolverine wasn't that good it was sort of just Ryan jacking off about how much money Disney was giving him, fanservice, and comic book/tv show references that only the most hardcore nerds would get.

[cookiesroxos]

hii♡

☆* ani | ela/dela-she/her | pt/en

obj: ter um espaço para compartilhar as coisas que eu gosto e fazer amizades :)

like: psych; the office (sitcoms); criminal minds; livros; animações; filmes; dc; star wars; lotr; httyd; taylor swift e etc.

[theology101]

damn i’ve never had an unimportant opinio i’ve been more pissed about

A STORY ABOUT THE FALL OF DEMOCRACY AND RISE OF FASCISM ISNT AT ALL EQUIVALENT TO AN AUTOCRAT BECOMING A RELIGIOUS AUTOCRAT! THE VIEW OF POLITICS AND SOCIALITY AND COMMUNITY ARE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT! THE FORCE AS A MORAL AND MAGIC SYSTEM IS INCOMPARABLE TO ANYTHING IN DUNE!

If you end your Star Wars understanding with the movies sure I guess, by the Revenge of the Sith Novelization is one of the most poetic and tragic political-love story I’ve ever read. Comparing Feyd to Maul because they’re… angry and bald? Im struggling to get how one of the most eloquent Sith we meet correlates to this fuck.

Plagueis is a political novel on the same scale as Dune, with a far more rich, compelx and well developed universe. Dune is soft Sci-Fi and while a lot of it is really well developed, you can FEEL its gaps in a way you can’t with star wars

[olderthannetfic]

Ok. Dumb question incoming, but I'd much have a 'conversation' than try to read fanlore or watch video essays or something because I want to hear individual people's contributions.

Why Star Trek?

Don't get me wrong - I like the franchise! I'm not super duper familiar with it, but I do enjoy the bits and pieces that I do know. But I am wondering why that in particular is hailed as the grandmother of all fandoms? Obviously people were fannish before Trek, but I don't think anyone can deny the impact that OG Trekkies had on fic, zines, and eventually on the internet.

I know that it's always been popular and well-liked, but it's not as if there was NO SUCH THING as popular culture/fan culture before that (I mean, come on, the term "parasocial" predates the first Star Trek episode by 10 years!) . Was it just a perfect mix of timing + popularity + etc? Is there something in particular about ST that "hit different" than other series at the time? Or is the fandom really really just that mighty and it's almost "luck" in a way? I guess I'm wondering what particular dominoes cascaded in a line in order for Star Trek to have the impact on fandom that it does today.

or am I wrong? were there just-as-big fandoms before and I simply overhype Trekkie power in my head / happen to see more talk of that than I do of other fandoms? It could definitely be a social circle bias thing.

Ugh. Asking OTNF why Star Trek is so important to fandom history feels very much like asking a Russian History major why War & Peace is so important to literature - hence why I warned you that it'd be a dumb question! But I am just so damn curious what sort of crack was in early ST fandom that made it SO widespread and SO strong.

Like, I guess the TLDR is: what was particularly 'different' about Star Trek, either as a fandom or as a franchise or both, that made it Theeeeee OG fandom, rather than something, like, i dunno, LOTR or the earliest versions of Marvel/DC comics or General Hospital or something else like that?

--

I await the hordes of angry Man from U.N.C.L.E. fans eager to prove that they were first.

And, no, it wasn't that popular. Hence the aggressive Save Our Show campaign and explosion of fan culture when it ended after three seasons.

Part of the answer to your question is that there were like three things on TV at the time. What big fandoms? 'Parasocial' was about non-subculture people feeling warmly towards news anchors or hosts of variety shows or something, wasn't it?

LOTR got rediscovered in the 60s or 70s from what I hear, but science fiction and fantasy books were for fringe weirdoes. SFF was not mainstream for the most part. There are a bunch of History of Book SF Fandom things on Youtube, and you should consult them on the complex role of LOTR in that space. LOTR wasn't a mainstream thing until there were live action movies a billion years later.

The key about Star Trek is that it was a hit with the pre-existing book SF crowd. They were an organized subculture. Some of their favorite writers wrote episodes. Other shit on TV was for people who did not form subcultures in that way. Other shit for SF fans had an audience 1/10,00th the size.

MFU was insanely popular. Illya Kuryakin was the heartthrob of a certain era of girl and inspired many a Russian major. (Seriously, there are soooo many Russia-boos of a certain age who probably still have a poster of him somewhere.) The actor set a record for fanmail. The show may have more influence on fandom history than we think now, but it also didn't rerun the way Trek did, at least in some eras, and it didn't have sequel series in a franchise. I'm always finding 2015 movie fans shocked that there's a still extant and semi-active fandom—or even shocked that the movie is based on something.

Starsky & Hutch was also hugely important and is the moment slash fandom and "Media Fandom" really split from book SF fandom. As Trek fans moved on to buddy cops, they were into a completely mainstream show but in a non-mainstream way. Trek was an awkward bedfellow at SF cons, but S&H just didn't fit at all.

Of course, while Trek is the grandma of AO3 type fandom, don't forget that a shitton of modern fans who are doing "research" just look at the same few sources. Enterprising Women is great and all, but even other fans of the same stuff are like "Oh, that was just X's friends. Where's [thing] and [thing] and [thing]?" Ditto Textual Poachers and the other scant early sources that people think have academic weight.

While Trek would still be central, the picture of what was going on in the late 60s-early 80s would look a bit different if you just found a bunch of 70-something nerds and asked them than if you regurgitate other people's research, you know?

If you want an idea of what else was going on in SF fandom back in the day, check out Galactic Journey, where they roleplay that it's 55 years ago and review SF things "as they come out".

If you want to understand MFU, here's a vid of Illya:

--

What say you, readers?

What have acafandom and fandom history and meta left out?

[anghraine]

I don't know if it's become more common lately or just grates more after years in academia, but I genuinely dislike the whole "this wildly popular and enormously influential work is fun and it's fine to enjoy it, but there's no need to fool yourself into thinking it's genuinely good and actual Art."

Thanks for the permission, perfect stranger, but I don't get all that invested in things I don't think are good, no matter how conscious I am of their flaws.

I really do think Lord of the Rings is, by and large, a beautifully-written and well-constructed novel. The idea of respecting its trailblazing qualities but insisting that Tolkien is objectively a poor novelist or weak prose stylist is not actually my perspective on it at all. I have criticisms, some more serious than others, but do I still think it's a great work of art? Yes. I think Tolkien is actually incredibly skilled stylistically and shifts between registers and styles in a way that I find really impressive. The obvious point of contrast for me is the Narnia books, which famously he disliked, but which I enjoyed well enough as a kid—Aravis was one of my favorite characters growing up (and she still rules!). But the shifts between registers of style in the Narnia books feel so forced and artificial to me next to Tolkien's far more elegant and controlled handling of shifting registers in The Hobbit and esp LOTR.

I actually feel pretty similarly about the Star Wars original trilogy (blasphemy to some, lol). I think The Empire Strikes Back is, despite occasional misfires, really truly brilliant artistic cinema. I recently watched Flash Gordon, which has similarities of genre and inspiration and came out the exact same year as ESB, and as enjoyable as it is in, uh, realizing its own artistic vision, there's no comparison to ESB. I've seen reviews that can't resist the urge to get in digs at Star Wars even while calling for re-evaluations of Flash Gordon and other 80s schlock (even Starcrash!) and it just seems an absurd degree of snobbery to me, all the more in the context of cheesy movies that owed their existence to Star Wars taking tropes and genres seen as fun but essentially unserious and making beautiful films out of them.

I've even experienced this "it's enjoyable and influential but not great art" snobbery with works that are generally well-regarded. In grad school, other students were genuinely taken aback that I thought Pride and Prejudice is truly one of the greatest novels written in the eighteenth century and one of Austen's best novels. I'd encountered and been annoyed by the whole "oh, a truly discerning, sophisticated taste will prefer Persuasion or Emma" thing, but it didn't even occur to me that it would be at all controversial for me to think P&P is a spectacularly brilliant novel, all the more in the context of its time. But I've encountered quite a bit of discomfort with the idea that P&P is actually great art and not just enjoyable wish-fulfillment in an accessible style. And meanwhile, I'm like ... no, I really do think it is superior in characterization, structure, pacing, style, and cohesion than most English-language novels of its era, including several by Austen herself.

[swankpalanquin]

results are very interesting! thank you voters!

rules: list your five all time favorite films and have people vote on which one matches your vibe

(i was tagged by @finitevariety !)

i tag @casadegatos @watchfuldeer and @yunabot and anyone else who sees this and wants to do it!

[sillylotrpolls]

Today's poll inspired by this post by @taleasoldastime-andspace, who was watching knife-making competition show Forged in Fire and asked the obvious lotr-related question, and @fistfuloflightning.

In the book, Narsil is broken into two shards (or possibly, only two large shards were recovered). In the movie, Narsil is shown in about five or six pieces. You can headcanon however many shards you like for your answer.

From Tolkien Gateway:

Elendil carried Narsil in the Battle of Dagorlad where it shone with the light of the Sun and Moon, and then in the Siege of Barad-dûr; but Sauron killed him and the sword broke into two pieces under him as he fell, and its light was extinguished. Elendil's son Isildur took up the sword and used its shard to cut the One Ring from the hand of Sauron. Isildur took the shards home with him. Shortly before Isildur was killed in the second year of the Third Age in the Disaster of the Gladden Fields, the shards were rescued by Ohtar, esquire of Isildur. He took them to Rivendell, where Isildur's youngest son Valandil was fostered, but Elrond foretold that it wouldn't be reforged until the One Ring was found again and Sauron returned.

From The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: Part 2: Chapter 3: The Ring Goes South:

The Sword of Elendil was forged anew by Elvish smiths, and on its blade was traced a device of seven stars set between the crescent Moon and the rayed Sun, and about them was written many runes; for Aragorn son of Arathorn was going to war upon the marches of Mordor. Very bright was that sword when it was made whole again; the light of the sun shone redly in it, and the light of the moon shone cold, and its edge was hard and keen. And Aragorn gave it a new name and called it Andúril, Flame of the West.

[tanadrin]

Every single licensed piece of LOTR media after the original Peter Jackson trilogy has been absolute dogshit, and I am rather glad about that—it means that as the years go by, the odds of having to endure a remake are pretty low, and the original cultural place of the books will never quite be displaced. I think it also keeps the churn of Extruded Lord of the Rings Product down—unlike Star Wars, where everybody is hoping to make the next Andor or Rogue One, hopefully nobody has any illusions their LOTR project doesn’t fucking suck. And it’s only 20 years until LOTR enters the public domain, and people can do whatever they want with it.

Also helps that the bar is quite high—not only were the Jackson films pretty darn good, the books are genuinely terrific. Star Wars, Star Trek, Game of Thrones, and a lot of other stabs at the Next Big IP are fundamentally medium-to-bad in a way that establishes the bar for a “good” entry in the series pretty low. I like the original Star Trek a lot, for instance, but it’s not exactly one of the all time best written and produced TV shows! Whereas the LOTR books are well written enough there’s a noticeable disjunction in quality even just between bits of the movies that quote them or adapt them closely and bits Jackson made up—and that gulf becomes titanic in the hands of writers and directors who are even worse at Tolkien pastiche than 2000s Jackson (like, say, 2010s Jackson).

[boxofbonesfic]

𝐵𝑜𝓍𝑜𝒻𝒷𝑜𝓃𝑒𝓈 𝒫𝓇𝑒𝓈𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓈:

𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒯𝓇𝒶𝓃𝓈𝒻𝑜𝓇𝓂𝒶𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓁𝓁𝑒𝓃𝑔𝑒

divider by @firefly-graphics

Maybe it’s you. 

Maybe you’re the problem, you know? It’s like you don’t feel at home in your clothes, like they grate and itch against your prickling skin. Possibly it’s your skin itself, that it doesn’t fit quite right anymore. Could be there’s someone—or something—in there with you, whispering, watching, yearning. Perhaps you are that slithering darkness waiting deep, deep inside to blossom into something new and terrible. 

And I want you to tell me about it. 

For my spooky season challenge this year, I’d like my participants to write about Transformation. Spiritual, emotional, physical, psychological—go crazy, and hopefully your characters will too. Have they been bitten and infected? Or did they trust the wrong stranger, invite the wrong “friend” into their home? Have they fallen to the curses of the werewolf, or vampire? It doesn’t matter how we get there, but by the end of your story, your character must be utterly transformed—whether that is physically, psychologically, or spiritually, your characters must end in a completely new place from where they began. They must transform. 

As people, or perhaps…as monsters. 

 You can, of course pick your own poison, but if you need assistance, I have  categories below to choose from. But first, the rules. The fundamentals are this: 

This is a HORROR challenge. I will not be accepting any out of genre submissions. No exceptions. If that isn’t your speed, I have other non-spooky challenges coming up, so feel free to join one of those! Any horror sub-genre is acceptable—sci-fi, physiological horror, eco-horror, supernatural, comedy horror, body horror, cosmic horror etc, etc. If you aren’t sure, just shoot me a message. It will be running and active from Friday, October 11th to Midnight, February 1st 2025.

Because of the themes, and my own blog’s content, this challenge is obviously 18+ only. No exceptions. Smut is obviously fine (if not encouraged LOL). I do encourage thorough tagging, but it is not a strict requirement. Darkfics accepted and actively encouraged. 

For this challenge I am accepting both fandom specific and original work. Fandoms I am accepting submissions for the following: Marvel/MCU, LOTR/The Hobbit, Star Wars, Chris Evans Characters, Sebastian Stan Characters, Henry Cavill Characters, Pedro Pascal Characters, Oscar Isaac Characters, Chris, Hemsworth Characters. If it’s not on here, just ask!

You may not submit any previously written work for this challenge—that’s why it’s a challenge. If you’re new to writing horror, I encourage you to check out my Horror Recommendations list for a genre-specific (and growing) list of movies, books and graphic novels! If you’re an old hat at horror, pick a sub-genre you don’t normally explore and see what sparks your fancy! If you are inspired by something, remember to give credit where it’s due!

You may submit a maximum of three entries for this challenge, capped at 10k words per submission. Please put your work under a cut if it is longer than 500 words. You may tag me in every submission, feel free to shoot me a message if I don’t see it. 

Submissions I will not be accepting: DDLG, Toilet Play, Minors in sexual situations, RPF, Bestiality

Have fun! That’s the most important and key part of this challenge. Have lots, and lots of fun. 

And get scared. 

If anyone needs prompts, I am more than happy to come up with a few personalized ones. ❤���

Horror Genre/Sub-genre example list below the cut. It is by no means exhaustive, but it should give you a general idea of what story beats to aim for if you’re unfamiliar. Happy writing, friends!

Supernatural Horror

-Horror that includes ghosts, demons, werewolves, vampires, and all other creatures of myth or folklore. 

Psychological Horror

-Horror with a heavy focus on the mental, emotional and psychological states of the subjects, often uses mystery elements and unreliable narrators. 

Sci-Fi Horror

-Horror that generally involves impossible or unethical experimentation, alien abduction or invasion, and the horrific applications of science to the natural order. 

Slasher Horror

-Horror that is characterized by a killer who violently dispatches a cast of varied characters, whittling them down to a surviving character—usually deemed the Final Girl—goes head to head with the killer and either walks away or not at all. 

Body Horror

-Horror that involves the disfigurement or corruption of the physical body, whether due to science, supernatural causes, or disease. Often crosses into psychological horror territory.

Monster Horror

-Usually a cross between either supernatural or sci-fi horror, monster horror denotes the presence of some kind of non-human creature that generally antagonizes the main cast through violent or supernatural means. 

Cosmic Horror

-Lovecraftian inspired work that emphasizes the horror of cosmic dread, the dichotomy of genius and madness, as well as concepts of forbidden knowledge and the dangers of discovery. 

Folk-Horror

-Folk-Horror often uses rural settings and themes of superstition, cults/folk-religion and sacrifice. They usually juxtapose the modern and the traditional, pitting the in-group against naive outsiders.

Fantasy-Horror

-A sub-genre that contains key elements of both larger genres: fantastical elements and settings with the darker, often more violent and disturbing themes of horror. 

Comedy-Horror

-Horror with a comedic twist. Often the best comedy horror successfully combines the funny punchlines with real, meaningful scares.