ladyshivs

[ladyshivs]

another one!! bastion for @beebundt

[ladyshivs]

[ladyshivs]

Sneak peek of a little project I've been working on lately 👀

[ladyshivs]

anyone remember this vine

[ladyshivs]

cats are really good at looking at things. very useful

[ladyshivs]

Victims of Other Entities: And so I watched the creature that used to be my wife sprint towards me on all fours with its neck bent at a full 180 degree angle. I only got away because it tripped and fell into the lit fireplace and turned to ash immediately. I don’t sleep anymore and I honestly wish God just would kill me already.

Victims of The Buried: God I ffucnking LOVE Dirt. OOh Boy that Shit is GOOD. No Thing on this God Forsaken planet brings me more EUPHORIA than Digging a B I G Hole. I crawl on all fours and c l a w at the e a r th as I pine for its tender Embrace. It torments my VERY SOUL that I cannot simply i n h a l e it Straight Into My Bloodstream. I’ve decided that eating fistfuls of potting soil is the next best thing.

[ladyshivs]

Etagere

George Croome (Boston, Massachusetts, United States)

1861-1865

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Accession Number: 1977.753)

[ladyshivs]

[ladyshivs]

i am far from qualified to give writing advice, but i'm always kind of surprised at how little i see people talk about the benefit of thinking about writing when you're not actually writing

i don't mean in the sense of daydreaming about your characters or trying to map out plot points (although that is obviously great too), and i definitely don't mean beating yourself up for how you should be writing more instead of whatever you are doing. i mean that when i'm out living life, even for something as mundane as going to buy groceries, just thinking about what sensations stick out to me in that moment, and what words and phrases could translate that

we'll go to the grocery example for the sake of it. when i went to the supermarket this morning, i just mentally noted things that stuck out to me: the way the handle on the shopping basket is cracked, so the jagged plastic is stabbing into my hand more and more as my basket gets heavier. rows of perfectly symmetrical shelves. the beeps of people scanning barcodes. the rustling of people unfolding their reusable bags. the faint scent of artificial lemon from the floor cleaner they used before opening. easy-listening radio. the oddly satisfying bumpy texture of an avocado. the shiver of disgust that goes through me when i pick up a punnet of strawberries and spot the tell-tale white fuzz of mould. the chill of the freezer aisle.

you get the idea. most things i think of probably won't be that interesting or well-worded. if anything does feel particularly unique or i stumble on some kind of phrasing i really like, i jot it down on my phone. otherwise, i just let the thoughts pass through

it's a fun exercise in itself that makes me feel more present in my daily life, but also doing all of that thinking in the moment means next time i am actually writing, it's a lot easier to avoid cliches and write something that actually makes the reader FEEL the scene. that doesn't mean next time i write a character in a supermarket i have to use every single description i thought of, but rather that i can pick and choose from my growing bank of sensory references to get across whatever effect i'm trying to get in the scene in a way that feels evocative and authentic

the more of a bank you build up, the more flexibility you have for different scenarios and characters as well. a character who's stressed is going to pick up more on the negatives like the broken plastic or mouldy food, someone who's more positive might enjoy the scents of the bakery section or the bright colours of new products on the shelves, someone on autopilot might barely register the noise of the registers and radio until someone tries to speak to them and suddenly all of the sounds rush back into clarity, etc etc.

anyway. this became a lot longer than i intended. but that's my top writing tip no one asked for. a more granular take on 'write what you know' i suppose

[ladyshivs]

Also I've said this before but advertising is an industry that should be considered as pointless and harmful as fossil fuels.

[ladyshivs]

young old person tip for you all. go get some photos printed (pauses so someone can say bogos binted) and fill out a physical album

[ladyshivs]

I’m obsessed with the bit in the Hobbit films where Thranduil tells Legolas to go find Aragorn— because if you care enough to dive through the layers of obscure knowledge it takes to understand the timeline, then you’re also the exact kind of LOTR Film Nerd who knows why the moment actually doesn’t make sense.

Tiny brain: “oh cool Legolas will find Aragorn”

Small brain: “ummm actually in the first Hobbit film it says that The Hobbit take place 60 years before Bilbo’s 111th birthday in lord of the rings? So wouldn’t Aragorn be a baby?”

Medium brain: “ummm actually if you watched the extended cut of The Two Towers, it’s made clear that Aragorn is a descendant of Numenor who has an abnormally long lifespan. He is 87 at the time of Lord of the Rings; 60 years earlier, he was 27, a very reasonable age for him to have made a name for himself as a ranger.”

Large Brain: “Ummmm actually in the book it’s confirmed that there’s a twenty-year gap between Bilbo’s 111th birthday party disappearance to Frodo leaving the Shire with the Ring. The Hobbit quest happened 60 years before Bilbo’s famous birthday party. 87-60-20=7 years old. Aragorn would be a lil guy. He would not yet be Strider, the timeline makes no sense.”

Giant brain: “ummm actually the screenwriters have confirmed that the 20 year gap is not canon in the film’s universe. First, it’s really not portrayed as a 20-year-gap in the films— it’s written and shot as if it were a couple months. The screenwriters were also aware of the implications of removing it. For example, in a behind the scenes commentary they discussed how their portrayal of Frodo is much younger than the version in the book —because they removed the 20-year gap. Film!Frodo is an innocent youth going out on his own for the first time, in contrast to the book’s more mature adult— and that deeply affects his characterization throughout the trilogy.

We can consider Legolas’s journey to meet Strider an official canon confirmation that the 20-year gap did not happen in the film’s universe. So the timeline makes sense!”

Galaxy brain: “okay, but even if the timeline works with the LOTR films, this new backstory doesn’t work with the LOTR films’ portrayal of Legolas’s character.

In the Hobbit films, it’s retconned that Legolas went to find Aragorn because he was so overwhelmed by all the death he witnessed in the Battle of the Five Armies. It’s retconned that he has a mother who died when he was young, and a grief-stricken father, and that he’s constantly Angsting over both. it’s also retconned that Legolas was in unrequited love with a grieving woman who loved a dwarf tragically killed in battle. Legolas feels he can no longer stay in the Woodland Realm because of all this loss, which is why he decides to find a new purpose with Aragorn.

But in the Lord of the Rings films, part of Legolas’s character arc is that he’s witnessing death and mortality up close *for the first time in his immortal life.* He’s a fae magical immortal who’s not used to death affecting him personally. This character arc is unique to the films. (it is not reallllllly in the books, and doesn’t jive with the way Tolkien writes elves in general— but it is the way the films chose to rewrite Legolas’s storyline. )

film!Legolas reacts to Gandalf’s death with bewilderment, acting lost, as if he’s experiencing emotions that are entirely new to him. This acting decision is discussed explicitly in behind the scenes materials. Legolas has rarely encountered this kind of death, not in a way so close to him personally, so it’s hard for him to even comprehend. Legolas’s unfamiliarity with mortal death continues through Boromir’s death and into the Two Towers, where he gradually grows more worried over the lives of Aragorn/ the people of Rohan. He reacts with bewildered anger when told to leave Aragorn for dead, and then lashes out at Aragorn when he thinks that everyone at Helm’s deep will die (only to receive the response: “then I shall die as one of them.”)

This character arc ends in Return of the King, with a famous bit of dialogue that does not appear in the books. Gimli says he “never thought he’d die side by side with an elf,” and Legolas cheerfully responds “what about side by side with a friend?” Mortal death goes from something Legolas finds distant/unfamiliar, to something he accepts as a natural part of living among mortals.

This is similar to the changes the films make to Arwen’s character, vs the original book. In the films, both of the “young” elves have arcs about encountering death up close, and yet continuing to love the mortal world. The films contrast them with the “older” wearier elves like Elrond and Galadriel. Obviously this theme is more of a focal point in Arwen’s plotline, but it’s also relevant to Legolas. (And! In early drafts of the Two Towers, Arwen joined Aragorn at Helm’s Deep— I have a theory that the scenes where Legolas worries over Aragorn’s death were originally written for Arwen.)

So!

if you care enough about the Lord of the Rings films to understand that “there is no twenty year gap,” that Frodo is a young ingenue instead of middle-aged adult, that the films have their own storyline/characters/timeline separate from the books, and that therefore the timeline of Legolas meeting Strider can make sense …

….then you also probably care that Legolas had a specific character in the LoTR films, and this new backstory contradicts it.

Giving Legolas a new core motivation where “he’s overwhelmed by angst/grief from encountering too much death” undercuts his entire characterization in LOTR, which was meant to be about encountering mortal death up close for the first time. It also cheapens really impactful moments from LOTR— like Orlando Bloom’s performance after the death of Gandalf, where he really captures the idea that this fae immortal is struggling to comprehend the ordinary human emotion of grief.

And that’s why so many critics get that moment in The Hobbit wrong XD. People always try to critique it from a timeline/continuity perspective, when in reality, the timeline continuity makes perfect sense!!! The actual problem is the way it poorly attempts to retcon Legolas’s entire characterization. And IMHO that’s a much more serious flaw than a continuity error. It’s not “making a math mistake,” it’s undercutting the meaning of Legolas’s story in LOTR.

Super Mega Galaxy Brain: “nothing in the hobbit films is canon except the pieces I like”

[ladyshivs]

[ladyshivs]

[ladyshivs]

my dear friend just looked up from the hat she's crocheting for a very large spherical rock we found in the river and said, in a slightly haunted tone that revealed this was the first time she was having this thought, "i should make something for my cousin's real human baby"

[ladyshivs]

all the other horny characters in bg3 are like mm you're sexy i wanna taste you i'm into you and your body and doing sex things with you

except the nerdass wizard who for his own cute little freak reasons is like hhh your sweat smells good is anyone else turned on by all this violence do you wanna have sex but like while astral projecting MY ILLUSORY DOUBLE WILL TAKE CUCK NOTES ON THE ORGY I'LL READ LATER

[ladyshivs]

I wish people treated queerness as breaking the rules of the dominant cis-hetero patriarchy so you can authentically be yourself. Instead of adhering to a new slightly less restrictive set of rules which you will deride other people for not following (basically whatever label discourse is now flaring up)