#reminds me of that scene in lotr

[sweetlemondream]

lifted through the fiery remains; it has passed, rest now

[memorayy]

aragorn is my favourite lord of the rings character so every-time my best friend says he reminds them of me i lose my mind and want to have a little cry.

[weirdgrrlgerard]

watching over my pup (she got back from the vet) so now is any good excuse to rewatch fellowship of the ring (extended version of course)

[nezierf]

arcane spoilers (s2ep09) incoming

so ive seen people talk about this scene, particularly about how jayce accepts viktors touch even when he knows its coming and could potentially dodge it/counter it with the hammer

from what ive read mostly people talk about how much affection (ha) and trust jayce puts in viktor, and personally i also think its because he saw the future and knows its the only way to reach him

if he wants to save him, save piltover he must strip away all the walls viktor has built around himself and his emotions, and thus jayce needs to be let into the hive mind where he can talk to actual viktor and not herald (also parallels to that scene when he shoots him, someone said he didnt let viktor utter a word because he knew he would convince him THEY ARE SO WEAK FOR EACH OTHER MY GOD)

but thats not what i wanted to talk about!! going back to the beginning of that scene on the rooftop

doesnt this seem awfully similar to the medieval coronation ceremony?

jayce is kneeling surrounded by followers/past inhabitants of zaun/piltover, during medieval coronation ceremonies it was a priest who would bestow the crown upon the future king. moreover, coronation was often considered a religious rite because of how rulers and deities were closely tied (different cultures would believe in different versions of this, that their ruler was chosen by gods or perhaps their descendant/vessel).

we already joke how viktor became god/jesus/deity/eldritch cosmic being etc, we also know despite everything he still holds strong feelings towards jayce (damn hypocrite) and views him differently than the others

so it would make sense he would wish to personally "introduce" jayce to his hive mind cult

notice how when jayce got to the roof NONE of the marionettes/machines tried to get to him asap unlike they do with others

no, this is a ceremony performed by their god who is choosing the one closest to him, demonstrating to the world how he wishes jayce to be the ruler of his glorious evolution

viktor places his fingers on him gently and carefully, while when they were fighting in the councils room he was ready to force his touch when jayce initially rejected his proposal (always trying to make jayce understand his perspective)

and jayce accepts it with so much serenity and solemnity that in that moment reminded me strongly of aragorn in lotr

a true king in the eyes of the one coronating them

also his unique fingerprints make me think of a crown/circlet every single time i see them and thats why i wrote all of this

i love all things related to medieval knighthood/royalty so this whole interaction has been boiling in my head until it spilled over, you are welcome

[sweetshire]

[ID: The great hall was conceived from the first almost exactly as the description of it stands in RK (p. 26): the great images between the pillars, reminding Pippin of 'the kings of Argonath', the empty throne, the old man in the stone chair gazing at his lap. Only the carved capitals of the pillars are not mentioned; on the other hand the floor of the hall is described: 'But the floor was of shining stone, white-gleaming, figured with mosaics of many colours' (see p. 288). The name of Denethor's father, Ecthelion, entered here, with only momentary hesitation (earlier in the draft the White Tower is called the Tower of Denethor, not as in RK the Tower of Ecthelion; p. 278). /End ID]

I've thought for a while that the Gondorians would love mosaics given the Roman inspiration, so it's great to have that confirmed by Tolkien!

[arboretics]

aragorn thoughts

working my way through the lotr books always reminds me that, while i adore the character of aragorn in every condition and i think tolkien's own writing and narrative weaving is basically unmatched, i do think that viggo's portrayal of aragorn is even more compelling than the book version. like, an aragorn who resists his fate, who doesn't know what he wants, who he wants to be, even when it becomes clear to him what he can and actually is going to be, is so intruiging. everything aragorn is destined to be is uncertain in him.

i think it also nails the feeling of profound tragedy that comes with the victory in the war of the ring, which we see primarily in frodo, who cannot return, who has lost himself and fought brutally with his own mirror in gollum, and is therefore unable to settle again in the shire no matter what. on the other hand, aragorn fulfills the prophecy and reunites the kingdoms, bringing the age of man to fruition, but has lost fundamentally a part of himself which feels almost more natural and personal. he sacrifices something great to become elessar: strider, of course, but also estel, for his coming means the end of the age of the elves, his own people in many practical ways. and what a tragedy that is, to, in growing and in dawning a new era, bring on your own apocalypse. the coronation scene in the rotk film always felt very mournful to me, which goes so greatly with the narrative. of course, book aragorn is fantastically interesting as well, but that spin from viggo's portrayal will always ring to me.

because isn't the most intriguing thing about lotr that, while for us it is (primarily) our first venture into the world and the world opens up before us, in the narrative they are facing the end of all they know? and aragorn, unbelievably human, struggles deeply with that knowledge.

[ai-katsuu]

i await the day someone draws hera, bilbo, and frodo together as the protagonists <3

some criticism that i don't quite agree with is that Helm should've been the protagonist. i disagree. i believe that it is because he is SO amazing and badass that it was the right decision to put him in the same role as thorin and aragorn, the legends in their respective stories. if helm was the protagonist, i doubt there would be much love and warmth that the hobbit and lotr gave. let me explain! the thing with the hobbit and lotr is that frodo and bilbo were just like hera in the sense that they supported the legend of their story in their own ways SIDE BY SIDE, bilbo with smaug/arkenstone, frodo making the trek to destroy the ring, and finally hera leading her people, saving her father, and strategizing the call for aid in the final battle to fight for her people

what i love about hera being the protagonist that i relate with bilbo and frodo is that the heroes of stories are usually a strong heroic man, but tolkein wanted to prove that it is the deeds of ordinary people, in this case: two hobbits, and a daughter; those who are kind and courageous, who can be heroes as well <3

it reminds me of a scene in an unexpected journey where galadriel asks why gandalf chose bilbo baggins:

“Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives me courage." 

[warrioreowynofrohan]

LOTR Newsletter - October 11

The hobbits and Aragorn are walking in the direction of the Bridge of Mitheithel across the Hoarwell River:

Four days passed, without the ground or scene changing much, except that behind them Weathertop slowly sank, and before them the distant mountains loomed a little nearer. Yet since that far cry they had seen and heard no sign that the enemy had marked their flight or followed them. They dreaded the dark hours, and kept watch in pairs by night, expecting at any time to see black shapes stalking in the grey light, dimly lit by the cloud-veiled moon; but they say nothing, and heard no sound but the sigh of withered leaves and grass. Not once did they feel the sense of present evil that had assailed them before the attack in the dell. It seemed too much to hope that the Riders had lost their trail again. Perhaps they were waiting to make some ambush in a narrow place? At the end of the fifth day the ground began once more to rise slowly out of the wide shallow valley into which they had descended.

In fact their worries have been accurate: there have been three Ringwraiths lying in wait on the Bridge of Mitheithel, as it is a choke point: there is no other way to cross the river nearby.

However, today is also when Glorfindel drives those Ringwraiths off the Bridge of Mitheithel, which is what enables the Fellowship to cross the bridge safely in a couple days. From Glorfindel's account to the hobbits and Aragorn when he meets them:

“It was my lot to take the Road, and I came to the Bridge of Mitheithel and left a token there, nigh on seven days ago. Three of the servants of Sauron were upon the Bridge, but they withdrew and I pursued them westward. I also came upon two others, but they turned away southward.”

This is an example of a kind of occurrence that I see several times in The Lord of the Rings, and not very much in other fantasy literature. It's the literal opposite of the trope of "characters think everything will be fine, but then it goes horribly wrong". Instead, this one is "the characters are dreading something bad ahead of them, see all the signs that something bad is ahead of them...and instead, everything is fine." Actually fine, not a fake-out! The biggest one in LOTR is when Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli and the Rohirrim are on the way to Isengard - they see the Isen dried up, they see steam/smoke/fog rising from Isengard, they expect that Saruman's got something dangerous up his sleeve, and then it turns out that, surprise! he's already been defeated. It's not quite eucatastrophe to me, because to me eucatastrophe is when things have already gone bad and seem hopeless, and then a miraculous salvation appears. This is more a case of "that thing that you thought was a problem you'd have to face? it's not actually a problem, I fixed it for you".

Most epic fantasy authors don't seem to go in for it, because a climax is more exciting than an anticlimax, and having all the major crises faced simultaneously (I'm looking at you, Brandon Sanderlanche 😂) is more dramatic than the heroes showing up to find that one of the crises has already been resolved for them.

And I love it because it's a reminder that the story isn't all hanging on one person; that the characters don't have to do everything, they only have to do their part; that you've got other people in your corner. It's the epic fantasy equivalent of a day when I went into work dreading having to spend a few weeks figuring out some very complicated coding, only to find that a colleague (who is much better at coding than me) had already done it all, and I could get started on the stuff I was good at.

[buffyfan145]

As promised here's my comparison post about how similar the Haladriel (Sauron/Galadriel) and Hèra/Wulf ships are from the LOTR projects "The Rings of Power" and "The War of the Rohirrim". 😀 I loved the movie and totally rec it and am a fan of ROP, and now ship both of these ships. I figured they would be alike, but it was even more than I thought. Putting most of this behind a cut for spoilers for both and length but will say again like I did in my review post that Hèra & Wulf both by themselves and their relationship felt like how we've written a lot of 1st Age fics about Galadriel & Sauron back when they were Artanis & Mairon and during The War of Wrath.

To start with the characters themselves, Hèra is very similar to how Galadriel was in the 1st Age and the beginning of ROP as she was a princess named Artanis and the only daughter of one of the Nolder elves.

Also with their costumes she wears mostly green, white, and gold, while he wears dark colors. They also look somewhat like the actors on ROP, especially Wulf with Sauron's Halbrand form.

Like Galadriel, she also has 2 older brothers: Haleth, the heir to the throne and a warrior like their father, and Hama, a musician. Galadriel's oldest brother Finrod was actually similar to both of Hèra's brothers.

Hèra's father Helm Hammerhand is the King of Rohan, similar to how Galadriel's father is one of the elvish kings in Valinor. Helm also notices how his daughter is very head strong and more like her brothers, and grows to respect that. One of Galadriel's older names Nerwen means "man maiden" and she was described as being the same, athletic (both projects have them climbing icy mountains), and excellent with horses.

The people of Rohan are descended from the Númenóreans which this movie seems to suggest they've inherited things from Elros, Elrond's twin brother who were part man, elf, and Maiar. Helm and Haleth seem to have superstrength, Hama is not only a skilled musician but archer, and Hèra's own character, warrior like nature, and personality came across more elvish to me too and she ends up being able to get help from the eagles.

Now with Wulf he's from the wild men that lived on Middle Earth before the Númenóreans came, or the Southlanders as they called them in ROP. He, as well as Haleth and a few other characters have the same accent Halbrand has, or Northern English.

Because of this Wulf and his people are made to feel less than, which is why Wulf's father Freca partly wanted to marry Wulf and Hèra to unite their peoples (but Freca also wanted to take over).

This difference is also pointed out because Helm was going to marry off Hèra to a prince from Gondor, which not only angered Wulf and his father, but Hèra herself as she had no idea of it. Reminded me of how Galadriel's husband Celeborn is a prince from Doraith.

Wulf's also influenced first by his father and then General Targ to seek vengeance, which twists him similar to Sauron when he was Mairon and turning his back on the Valar to follow Morgoth.

Unlike Sauron though Wulf actually tells Hèra that he loves her multiple times. He's been in love with her since they were kids, so it started from a natural and good place but sadly it turns toxic as he gets eviler.

Like the elves too Hèra comes across as being asexual, likely demisexual, which a lot of the elves, Maiar, and Valar seem to fit that. They usually only fall in love once or twice, and some even decide to never marry. I feel Hèra fits into this as I feel she did care for Wulf, especially how he used to be and with her trying to find him when he disappeared. I do feel if what happened between their fathers never happened, which started Wulf's downward spiral and the war, that their childhood friendship would've turned into love. He already loves her, and I feel with time she would've realized she loves him too. Sadly, it just never happened.

At one point Wulf kidnaps Hèra and proposes to her a 2nd time, similar to how we thought a scene with Haladriel was going to happen. She pretends to accept at first (similar to Galadriel in the season 2 finale with Nenya) but then Wulf realizes she's lying and cuts her on the face with his sword. She actually accidentally cut him on the face when they were kids and he claimed it marked him for her, so he left a mark on her too. This also happened with the crown wound in the season 2 finale with Haladriel.

After the cut and fight Hèra jumps out of the building similar to Galadriel jumping off the cliff. Wulf lets her go for now knowing they'll battle again soon.

Sadly, like Galadriel both of her brothers are killed by Wulf and his men. Galadriel's brothers all died during The War of Wrath by Sauron and his forces. Unlike Wulf, Sauron actually apologized for it in season 1.

Then the final fight at the renamed Helm's deep Hèra saves the people of Rohan by going out to face Wulf alone knowing he'll only be focused on her. Galadriel also helped the people of Eregion escape before facing Sauron in the s2 finale.

During this fight (which is pictured above) she wears an old wedding dress which angers Wulf as he mentions it was supposed to be them marrying instead of fighting. Reminded me of how in the show ROP we see Nenya as being the engagement ring Sauron (with Celebrimbor's help) made for Galadriel and she keeps it. Wulf is also wearing her father's crown, like how Sauron had Morgoth's crown in the show.

Then the line she says when Wulf asks her who she's marrying then if it's not him and she replies "Death". LOL Obviously Galadriel still ends up with Celeborn but that line was fantastic as I could see her saying it too to Sauron.

There's a moment in the fight too where it looks like Wulf is going to surrender and become prisoner. You can tell this is the ending Hèra wants as she still cares for him and hopes he can repent and redeem himself. Sadly, he tricks her and it's clear he's gotten rid of his goodness and only death can stop him.

After he dies you can see her sadness at losing him too along with almost all her family. Now for Sauron we know there was a chance he could still be redeemed after everything with him and Galadriel being immortal and that Tolkien was going to write Morgoth coming back in Dagor Dagorwrath. They all were supposed to unite to defeat Morgoth for the final time. So, there's always a hope that Sauron will be redeemed and that there's still a chance there for him and Galadriel, unlike here where both characters will die human deaths with unknown afterlife fates.

The ending too had a slight similarity as Gandalf contacts Hèra, now a shieldmaiden in her cousin's kingdom, to help assist him as she saw two orcs looking for rings for Sauron. So, it was a nice connection there and I love that Hèra is involved in the War of the Ring somewhat, which leaves it open a bit that she could be included in future projects for either anime or the live-action movies, and what we're seeing the show play out too.

[b0tster]

I just watched the Shadows of Yharnam fight and for one thing AAA! You did such a wonderful job! It also reminded me of a question that I had been meaning to ask for a while now but haven’t because I keep forgetting asks exist: why did you decide to go with the lever action shotgun rather than the blunderbuss? I still haven’t payed Bloodborne PSX unfortunately so I’m wondering if it’s something from that game or if it’s a Terminator reference or maybe just think lever action shotguns are cool (which is super valid) or maybe all three? So sorry for the wordy ask and you’re doing great work!

you were spot on with the terminator reference hehe

but also i didn't want to use the blunderbuss because that weapon isnt really associated with damage so i wanted to use the double barrel shotgun found in bloodborne PSX, but power ups in BBKart are primarily only right arm only (as the other hand needs to be steering) so i needed a cool shotgun that could be reloaded with one arm, so the lever action shotgun seemed like a natural fit.

(and yes im aware that arny almost broke his hand in this scene no need to pull a lotr style fun fact dump in the comments lol)

[jonsaeverafter]

Have any of you seen these cut out scenes of Sauron from the LOTR return of the king movie ? He appears for the battle and just before he is in the black armor we can see his human form , it’s really beautiful , reminds me a lot of Annatar in TROP . I took some stills of the video which I linked below .

[spenjelly]

The scene in lotr where pippin sneaks the palantir at night always kinda cracks me up bc:

-pippin’s wiggle of discomfort reminds me of cat videos

-Aragorn bursts in the door and just goes “rAAGh,” takes it from pip, and instantly goes noodle

-Gandalf throwing a blanket at the Evil Orb

[novelmonger]

Continuing to watch through the Writer/Director commentary of LotR (with Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens, and Fran Walsh) and jotting down any new-to-me information I come across. Here's what I gleaned from TTT:

When they got the New Line logo to put on the movies, it was very old and scratched, so PJ gave it to Weta to touch it up. They joked about how they should bill New Line for it XD

Originally, the studio wanted TTT to start off with a prologue too, with Cate Blanchett narrating what sounds like it was basically going to be a "Previously on..." spiel, even though they didn't like the idea of the prologue in the first one. Thankfully, these three ignored the studio's advice both times XD

The Uruk who says "Manflesh" is also the guy in Sauron's armor in the prologue!

In the scene where the Rohirrim find Theodred, it's not actually raining! They used rain towers for the close-ups, but any wide shots just have CG rain. I would never have guessed!

Andy Serkis did the voices for the Uruk-Hai who says the "maggoty bread" line, and the orc who says, "Yeah, why can't we have some meat?" (The actor in the suit for the latter is, of course, Jed Brophy, who went on to play Nori in the Hobbit movies.)

Somehow it never registered for me that Orlando Bloom has brown eyes, and so he had to wear blue contacts when he played Legolas ^^' But sometimes he wasn't able to wear the contacts (or forgot), so there are some scenes where they had to fix it in post.

PJ called the Treebeard from the animated Bakshi movie "a walking carrot" XD He also said that Treebeard is his favorite character!

The scene with Smeagol killing Deagol was originally going to be a flashback right after Frodo says his name, and then the Nazgul shriek would pull the audience out of the flashback. They decided not to do that for pacing reasons and because we haven't spent much time with Gollum yet, so that's why they put it at the beginning of RotK instead.

Bernard Hill had his son with him on the shoot and would play with him in his downtime on the Edoras set. Puts things into perspective when you hear that he was the one who came up with the line "No parent should have to bury their child."

They were originally looking at Bernard Hill for Gandalf! (I feel like I've probably heard this before, but anyway.)

They filmed a flashback to Aragorn and Arwen's first meeting?! Viggo shaved to make himself look younger, and it was a scene of the two of them "frolicking about the forest." It was originally going to be put in the Lothlorien sequence, but they cut it out in favor of that scene between Aragorn and Boromir, because they decided it was more important to earn Boromir's death scene than to remind the audience of the romance. I agree with that decision, but it would be cool to see that footage! (I say as someone who prefers to skip the TTT Aragorn/Arwen scene entirely XD)

Originally, the warg battle was going to happen at Edoras itself. It was going to be at night, everything was going to be on fire, and ultimately that was going to be the reason everyone evacuated and went to Helm's Deep. Also, a warg was going to be set on fire and end up dragging Aragorn through the streets, and that was going to be how Aragorn would be left for dead. Ultimately, the reason they did it the way they did was because the studio wasn't sure Weta could do a flaming warg (something all three of them laughed about, considering everything Weta did manage to do with flying colors), and because it would have been a nightmare to light the Edoras set at night, because that location was so remote and so windy. Which is why every scene in Edoras takes place in the daytime!

In the scene where Faramir talks about his dream where he saw Boromir in the boat, you can see a sort of pinkish color in the water around Boromir's body. That's because the dye from his shirt (surcoat? idk) was leaking out into the water! XD

When Andy Serkis did ADR for the Forbidden Pool scene, he couldn't manage to sing the song off-key, so they had to use the audio from the motion capture footage XD

They shot some additional footage of Aragorn unconscious on Brego's back, riding past an orc encampment, that they never ended up using.

Theoden was originally going to give a speech to the soldiers in the armory, but Bernard Hill's performance was so inspiring that it defused most of the tension they were trying to build up before the battle, so they took it out. Would love to see that footage!

So the boy Aragorn encourages before the battle ("There is always hope.") was Philippa Boyens' son, who was 13 when they filmed the scene. But by the time they went to do ADR, his voice had broken, so they had to get a different child actor to say his lines.

Aww, the extra who was missing an eye said he always felt self-conscious about his missing eye, so he always wore an eyepatch. But then after they gave him a close-up and the guy saw the movie, he said he felt much better about his appearance! :')

Treebeard's line "I always like going south; it feels like going downhill" was ad-libbed!

When Saruman turns and reacts to all the water pouring in and washing his machinery away, that shot was actually a reaction shot to Wormtongue on top of the tower from the RotK movie that they repurposed for this scene instead, since they hadn't shot any reactions to the flood.

At least at the time of the recording of this audio commentary, the final shot of Gollum, where he's arguing with himself and ultimately decides to lead Frodo and Sam to Shelob, was the longest CG shot in any movie. (I tried to google what the current record is, but couldn't find anything, so if anyone knows, I'd love to hear about it!)

Fran Walsh: "All cinema storytelling, to a degree, is shallow. That's the nature of the medium. You've got two or three hours to present a world and a dense story with a hundred themes and a ton of backstory, in this instance, and 22 characters...so you can only really have the veneer of depth. You really can't have anything that comes close to the depth of the books, or the experience of the books. So I think what we attempted to do was to use the language of the books where we could and to certainly invoke them, the iconic images, where we could, but to keep the storytelling very much...to modernize it, if you like, in terms of cinema language. So we didn't, for example, use the style of storytelling that was in the books between these different after-the-fact storytelling, of Sam and Frodo and then a chunk of the Aragorn story. We completely undercut it. That was a far more immediate and engaging way to connect it to the audience. You can't really hope to satisfy people who adore this book, with the movie. You can only ever give them the sense of what might have been. That's all a film can do. I think, in that sense, films...I mean, they're entertainments. They're just not going to give you the pleasure that a book can give you."

[tathrin]

Tagged by @roselightfairy, thank you! I never remember to check my stats on this stuff, so it's always interesting to see when somebody reminds me that that's a feature that exists lol.

How many works do you have on AO3? Ninety-six, which is nearly everything I've ever written, although there are a few very-very-very-old-and-abandoned fics that never made it off FFnet (and do not need to shhhh!).

What's your total AO3 word count? 2,010,650 (we're not going to talk about how I discovered a little while ago that there's a character-limit for individual google doc; thank goodness for Ellipsus!)

Your Top 5 Stories by Kudos:

Green-Eyed Snake - an old HP fic from back before the TERF-in-Chief made even thinking about that fandom unendurably vile, and it's funny to me that this one has accrued the most kudos because it's a canon-compliant take on Slytherin!Harry which means it makes a lot of readers very very angry even to this day, since I refused to write this bewildered ten-year-old as a suave and sexy machiavellian mastermind lmao.

The Filth of Saruman - a gap-filler Gimleaf story which I am delighted to see take the second-top spot, because it's one that I'm quite fond of myself. It features the obligatory post-Helm's-Deep-bathing-together-scene, in which Gimli is Having A Lot Of Feelings That He Is Not Interested In Articulating To Himself Yet, Thank You! which has definitely become a common feature of my stories.

A Slip Of The Tongue - another Legolas and Gimli post-Helm's Deep one, albeit set in Movie!Continuity which is a rarity for me, in which there is a little more articulating, if only by accident. Also featuring Third Wheel Aragorn, which is my favorite flavor of Aragorn. This one is short and cute and I like it a lot for what it is, so I'm pleased to see it's a popular one too!

Green-Eyed Snake II: Heir Of Slytherin - book two of the aforementioned series. Alas, I only made it through book four before her vileness became too prominent to make writing this stuff palatable, which means we never got to the stage of their adolescence in which we would have gotten into all the queerness and gender-fuckery that would have really pissed her off.

A Broken Bridge In Erebor - Oh I think this is my first romantically-inclined Gimleaf fic, actually? So it's lovely to see that this one is well-liked too. Not that they get to the point of articulating/figuring out any actual romantic feelings here either, so it could just as easily have been tagged with the & as the / — but one of the joys of gimleaf as a ship to me is that there's no real notable difference in how their relationship is written on either side of the romantic/platonic divide. They're together, whether they're kissing or not, and that's what really matters.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Oh, yes! Yes yes a thousandfold. The whole point, to me, of sharing fanfic is having people share their thoughts back. Otherwise you might as well just leave them sitting on your hard drive, right? Fandom is supposed to be a shared space, where we can all squeal and gush and flail and talk to one another about the stuff we like, so I absolutely answer back when people are generous enough to share their thoughts or feelings with me!

Do you write crossovers?

Nope. Although I do have an old Star Wars/LotR cross-over from way back in college that never made it past the opening chapters that I might dig-out for the briliant @goodintentionswipfest next year, now that I remember it exists!

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do, as of pretty recently. I'm not sure how to define "what kind" because I'm not really sure what kinds there are, uh...cross-cultural/cross-species stuff that is heavily centered in world building, I guess? I'm not sure if that's what the question is asking exactly, but that's an accurate way to describe what I write at least lol.

I started mainly because I wanted to get my fantasy-biology-headcanons down in more coherent form than just random unwritten musings, and I admit that's still what I find most fascinating about the concept, most of the time. But the more of it I write, the more I enjoy the characterization and emotional moments you can get into those scenes, so that's fun.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not so far as I know. Although I did have some of my fics kicked off FFnet before.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Somebody once asked to do one but I don't think they ever did, or at least, I don't have a link to it if they did; but I suppose since I wouldn't be able to read it in any other language because I suck, it doesn't really matter (except that I'd love to have linked to it from the story). I think it's incredibly cool that there are people who both can and want to do that stuff, though!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have not, although I've done a lot of shared-world-building with @babybat98 for Green/Mirkwood which is sort of fic-co-writing adjacent I guess (and is also loads of fun).

What's your all time favorite ship?

About that... yeah. It's funny, really, because I spent my early years of LotR fandom virulently opposed to the very idea of them being a ship (thanks to personal issues with romance-vs-friendship at the time, due to being terrified that someday I would fall prey to icky-romance-grossness myself eww) and now, I am clearly not only very invested in them (shh) but in fact, I would say that I literally "learned how to ship" from them lmao.

So, yeah. I loved them together even before I was willing to accept that they were "together," tbh. (Adolescence is complicated when you don't even know your sexuality exists, okay?) Now that I have, I'm quite happily besotted.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but probably never will?

Ugghh definitely Shadows Creeping. It's a mess of a fic that would take SO much effort to fix, and thus all but impossible to even think about finishing, but it's sooooo close to the end of the story, and I feel bad forever that I let it languish like that.

What are your writing strengths?

Descriptions and world building for sure. (A little too much so sometimes lol.) I'm also pretty good at chameleon-ing—adapting tone/style to match or at least mesh with somebody else's (see: the Celebrimbor Fellowship AU, my Animorphs AU Series, or even the aforementioned HP crap, in all of which I've tried to ape the original author's writing style, sometimes to the point of even sliding excerpts from the original text right into the story, hopefully seamlessly). Oh, and fight scenes! I'm told those are a real struggle for a lot of people, but I find they generally come pretty easy to me, and are fun to do.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Too much description and world building. I get lots in the exposition-weeds way too easily. I struggle to find the balance between telling enough and telling way way way more than anyone wants to actually read. And tend to err very much on the side of the latter. Oops.

What's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet, but want to?

I haven't actually written Celebrimbor/Anntar/Narvi together on the page yet, although I've come close. Honestly if I had all the time in the world, I would love to sit down and work on putting together that Huge Epic Rise And Fall Of Ost-in-Edhil Fic that feels like has been lurking in the back of my brain pretty much since the first time I read the Silm, if not longer.

What's your favorite fic that you've written?

Ohhhh I have such a hard time picking favorites for anything, really, because "favorite" always depends on "of what sort" to me...but if I have to, I'll probably go with this one, because it's the story I'm currently fixated on. For completed stories, probably this one. And for best thing I've ever written, it's hands-down this one. (Once I have the remaining two parts of that trilogy written, I think I want to get them all printed so I can put them on my bookshelf, that's how happy I am with it!)

Thank you so much for tagging me for this @roselightfairy, it was loads of fun to look at and think about stuff I don't often spend time/though on. And I shall in turn tag: @babybat98 @sallysavestheday @thescrapwitch @mossy-thing

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There were moments during the first season when I really wondered where they were taking Galadriel's character -- I mean we already know her history, obviously, we know where she ends up and it's in a very good place -- but the journey from first season Galadriel to the Lady of Lorien seemed like it might be a bit too OOC. But this season and with moments like the scene with Arondir (and her heartbreaking scene with Celebrimbor!) I see it, her journey makes more sense, and I'm liking it very much.

The scene (in ep. 7) when Galadriel stopped Arondir from throwing his life away was so sweet and tender, and both actors were outstanding.

Every so often we see glimpses of far future Galadriel (the Lady of Lothlórien) because she emits this sort of gentle gravitas that reminds me of (book) LOTR Galadriel.

In that scene with Arondir it's like we can see what's coming for her character, like this prequel series is showing us (as prequels do!) what formed her into the wise and ageless queen who could speak with such gentleness to Frodo and sit on the White Council to keep watch over Middle-earth and repel Sauron and/or keep him from returning.

The way Arondir just crumpled for a moment when she put her hand on his cheek, like she saw and acknowledged his grief and then took the time to make sure he understood that his life was valuable, it really got to me. They were surrounded by orcs but she stopped and really saw him.

She gave him the will to fight, and to try to live through the fight, and I don't think he had that before. Which is why I think Arondir's going to be OK; he won't lose to Adar or give in to hopelessness.

My hope for Arondir is that he survives and rises in the ranks, so to speak, and that we'll see him planning and fighting Sauron alongside Galadriel and Elrond next season. He's grieving, and he's naturally reserved, but Galadriel sees him, his talent and his drive, so I doubt she will let him languish on the sidelines.

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Andy Serkis, of course, as *the* expert in motion-capture acting ever since he first played Gollum 20+ years ago, is a shapeshifter in ways beyond even most character actors to achieve.

He's also a high-level shapeshifter by normal character actor methods -- when I saw him in Black Panther (I think possibly the only place I've seen him wearing his own face, me not being a great moviegoer at the best of times), there was only one brief moment where an expression that reminded me of Gollum flickered through.

Recently, it turned out that a free trial of Amazon Prime which I happened to have running could be converted into a second free book credit on Audible if I should take a free trial there. I've been curious for some time about the 2021 audiobook of LOTR performed by Andy Serkis, and while trying to get my sleep schedule right way up for job-hunting purposes, I've been working on listening to his Fellowship of the Ring. (I've just reached Moria.)

It's a straight-up audiobook, not a play, by the technical definition: one performer, no music or added special effects. But *damn*, you want to talk about shapeshifting? Serkis does startlingly accurate impressions of every actor in the Peter Jackson movies, plus unique voices for characters with no movie casting, and he sings the songs that are described as having tunes.

(I don't have the ear to tell whether he's using new compositions or some kind of traditional tunes, except that I can say for certain he doesn't use Tolkien's rendition of "A fox went out on a winter's night" for Sam's "Troll Song". If anyone with a better ear than mine happens to investigate, I'd be delighted to know what's discovered.)

His narratorial voice isn't 100% Jirt, which is a Choice, but one I honestly support. The Professor had a thick Old English accent which would probably be a chore to listen to or perform for 60+ hours of total audiobook length. Serkis seems to be using something close to his natural Middlesex accent for the narration, as far as I can tell, but there are enough of the familiar Tolkienian twists (like using the "o" sound from the word "tossed" in "shone" and "wroth") that I'm favorably impressed so far.

His Elvish pronunciation isn't perfect, but it's solidly movie-quality (positive); you'd likely have to be me, with a quarter-century and counting of Sindarin as a second language, to snag on the tiny things I'm snagging on, stuff like the Finnish-style double-length "m" in Remmirath or the "eth" sound represented by the "dh" in Caradhras. (There is properly no D sound in Caradhras; the middle consonant sound should be that of the "th" in "these clothes", but I've never actually heard anyone besides myself say it that way.) He gets a lot of the tricky sounds correct, better than I do when I'm being sloppy, like the long-i-adjacent diphthong in Edain or the broad second A in Gandalf.

Also, the unique voices and the vocal effects he brings in for certain scenes are just... I don't even have words. The Barrow-Wight is as terrifying as it was when I was ten. Tom Bombadil sings about 95% of his dialogue, which I've never imagined any performance acknowledging unless it were the hypothetical LOTR opera I suggest every so often, but goddamn if he doesn't somehow make it work. For the movie-cast voices, he flips so smoothly between the mishmash of accents that I keep forgetting I'm not actually listening to a full-cast play with Billy Boyd's chirpy Glaswegian, Sean Bean's gruff Yorkshire, and Sean Astin's earnest put-on West Country all complete.

As for the lowest bar, the reason I refuse to recommend Rob Inglis's older unabridged audiobooks as an entry point -- Inglis regularly inserts contractions that aren't in the original text, turning the formal tone of scenes where "cannot" and "will not" are important signifiers into something incongruously conversational. I do not forgive that kind of alteration in a text where the formality level, and the changes between levels, are such an incredibly fundamental part of what's being conveyed. Serkis has already successfully cleared one dialogue point where it would have been easy to change "can not" to "can't" (Pippin talking nearly as fast as hobbitly possible), and I'm very optimistic that he'll continue to hit those marks.

Wow, that got longer than I expected, but I'm *really* enjoying this rendition. Unless it majorly blows up in my face somehow, I fully expect to have a new go-to recommendation for How To Experience LOTR for people who can't get through it by reading the text. (And even for people who can. I've said on many occasions, that book is written to be read aloud.)