Okay so I’ve finally solidified my opinion on The Rings of Power and given that it is my opinion it is therefore very important and I’m sure everyone is dying to hear it (this is sarcasm)
I’ll start by saying I’m not a critical person when it comes to things. I consume media to enjoy myself, not to pick apart its literary or thematic flaws. It’s fine if you do, but that’s just not me.
I will also say I’ve never read the Fall of Númenor as its own story, so any Tolkien primary sources I’m vaguely alluding to (this isn’t a research paper been there done that got the high school diploma I bake cookies for a living I ain’t citing shit thanks <3) are the Silmarillion, LoTR, and The Hobbit.
I didn’t like TROP for the first season, but after catching up on S2, I’ve come to enjoy it.
S1 is the full of world building, setting up the political stage and the relationships between the characters that lead to the creation of the rings and all the other bad hullabaloo that ends in the Last Alliance.
Safe to say, I spent the whole time going ‘what? why is he/she/them saying/believing/acting like this? why is it/this portrayed like this???’ and felt very irked by the whole thing.
S2, the rings are being created, familiar events start happening, the puzzle pieces from S1 that were so unfamiliar and bothersome to me then come together to create a picture that I knew.
Once I got to thinking I realized I actually know a whole lot less about the fall of numenor and the creation of the rings than I thought I did.
When Tolkien writes about those events, he gives the broad strokes in a very history-book way. Celebrimbor creates the rings because he is deceived by Sauron. Tar-Míriel is overthrown by Ar-Pharazôn and marries him against his will. Elrond is with Gil-Galad as his herald.
These are the things, amongst others, that we know. Unlike in the Hobbit or LoTR, we aren’t given any glimpses into the heads or relationships of the characters in anything other than what amounts to almost a timeline of events.
This, of course, leaves a lot of room for Tolkien fans to ask questions. Questions that can be answered through imagination. Imagination becomes ideas, ideas become discussions, discussions become a collective understanding of what happened (fanon*. I’m talking fanon. please read the note at the end because I think fanon is awesome and deserves to be defended)
For example. We know Celebrimbor and Narvi built the Doors of Durin together and added possibly the most ridiculous riddle password possible.
When the Doors are first introduced in LoTR, it is also in the middle of Gimli and Legolas’ semi feuding, and before both of them have some serious moments regarding their histories and cultures (Khazad-Dûm and Lothlórien respectively).
All of this to conclude that at some point between Gigolas’s inter-species feuding and the password to the damn doors being ‘mellon’, as Tolkien fans, we came to the conclusion that Celebrimbor and Narvi were close friends.
Celebrimbor and Narvi are not really much more than acquaintances in TROP. And that isn’t inaccurate. The source material doesn’t have an opinion on it really.
Fanon says Celebrimbor and Narvi were pals. TROP says they weren’t. Canon doesn’t care either way.
I mention this example to explain why TROP felt so wrong especially at the beginning. Essentially we, or at least I, had this idea of how things should be, and when TROP diverged from that I felt lost and annoyed.
Now, I find watching TROP to be honestly kind of fascinating, like watching someone else painting using a model and comparing it to the painting I had already created of that same model.
It’s kind of fun. And every Elrond deserves all of us cheering him on.
*about Fanon:
I love fanon it’s awesome and great and it’s fucking collective story telling in a way that hasn’t really existed in modern times. Thousands of people from all over the world create and agree and discuss and add on to stories. The marauders fandom is almost completely fanon and that’s wonderful. Every single one of you who share your ideas about characters or settings or clothes or even (especially) who create the elleths who exist in the Silmarillion but don’t at the same time, you are awesome.
You’ve created a story and world together. Without being paid. You’ve agreed and created simply for the love of creation. And that’s so amazing.
Fanon is awesome and I don’t care for anyone who calls it cringe.
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Hello I’m thinking on making a comic based on Jujutsu kaisen what tips do you have on making a comic and planning for it?
HOOOOOO BOY HERE WE GO
*INHALLLEEEEEE*
First and most important part of creating ANYTHING is self care
You can’t create a comic when you’re burnt out, completely busy, and emotionally exhausted.
Find a list of things that help you care for yourself.
I will beat this into the ground it may seem unrelated but if you don’t take care of yourself the comic will NEVER come to fruition.
Second, only have an update schedule if you can maintain the update schedule
Do not say you’ll put out a new update every week if you have to sacrifice an arm and a leg to do it
You’ll be suprised how kind your readers are when you tell them you’ll need more time, or need a break for a little while.
Third, know your story
You have to know the plot points of your story BEFORE you start drawing. I keep a rough script to look at, you can add little things as you go, but if you have no idea where the story’s going, it gets REALLY stressful really fast
Fourth, I like to sketch the whole update
then once that’s done I can add speech bubbles, lineart and color etc, because it’d be awful if you wanted to change something but the panel before was already done and the effort to change it would be just so much more difficult.
And lastly but not least, keep a color pallete that’s easily importable, saves so much time, this can also be a reference page, but it prevents the colors changing over time because of lighting and such
Ex:
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this is kind of obscure but like. Now that I have comics out in the world and people are starting to see my storywriting, I feel like I have a little more confidence in myself and the sensitive-but-serious stories that I want to tell.
And it just bothers me sometimes that the same people who enjoy my storytelling-- and tell me that i'm very conscientious and aware and delicate with the subjects i'm breeching-- also turn around and tell me i'm too critical of other media. Like… lmao. Why do you think my stories come across so thoughtful? Have you considered that you enjoy them because I'm fucking aware and careful? And I think a lot about the media climate that we live in? That I write stories because I want to see something different?
Like don't just take in my content without a second thought of all the shit i think about behind the scenes to make my storylines as careful and sympathetic as possible
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wouldn't it be so cool if when the pve for ow2 comes out the story and writing of it all is so horrendously bad that it has a reaction effect within the fandom that kickstarts people making their own versions of the game's story and soon there's fan comics that are 20x better than anything bl*zzard could dream of
I know this is somewhat a joke question, and yes- on the face of it, it would be
But in reality, that would not be the reaction to canon content being bad. Spite can only support you for so long - and more importantly, people are already doing just that; creating. If PvE comes out and is horrendously bad, people will be disappointed, they’ll be angry, they’ll post about how they feared this but had dared to hope, I’ll make a very big and funny and time consuming post writing a fake job application to the blizzard writers or some dumb shit like that. And then some of us will leave and some will stick around and make the same shit posts and drawings and what have you not
It’s all already there, you don’t have to punish yourself waiting around for something you don’t want
So sorry for being overly sincere, but if you want fandom to thrive, you shouldn’t sit around and wait for canon to write itself off for good, you should go out and look for the amazing stuff people are already putting out. Hell, you should make your own! Community and enthusiasm and love will always make better stuff than bitterness
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