simply92-me

[simply92-me]

This is nice.

[simply92-me]

Guys do you think she’s excited

[simply92-me]

“It must be nearly noontide. One used to hear the kingfishers, flying to the river. It is a pity how you have silenced them.”

— Celebrimbor, The Rings of Power, Season 2 Episode 8: Shadow and Flame

[simply92-me]

I love getting to read insights like this, makes me appreciate the show and the Fandom all over again.

i'm very interested in the númenórians' costuming and their use of colours. shades of blue and teal like the sea guard's uniforms tend to represent characters aligned with the way of the faithful while warmer tones like red represent loyalty to pharazôn.

Ar-Pharazôn vs Tar-Míriel

in s1, whenever pharazôn appears beside míriel, he wears only blue in a seemingly performative show of solidarity. míriel wears a dusty red sash in the one (1) scene where she heeds his advice to send galadriel away, then returns back to her normal colour palette when she changes her mind.

as soon as he's away from míriel, pharazôn incorporates a lot more reds into his robes—namely in scenes where he is off furthering his own political standing. this then culminates in his full red outfit when he usurps míriel's coronation.

Eärien

in s1, eärien wears mostly blue, except for a few notable exceptions. her introduction scene has her approaching a swarm of blue-clad cadets where her own gown poses a sharp contrast, possibly foreshadowing her turn to pharazôn while the sea guard side with míriel.

later in the episode is the dinner scene. elendil wears blue and isildur singles himself out in that fuckass brown tunic, but more on that later!

it's clearly a vulnerable moment for her and it neatly introduces the viewers to her tense familial relationships—she anxiously mediates elendil and isildur, she butts into the conversation in a genuine attempt to help but gets yelled at by her dad, and then the news that she was accepted into the builder's guild after isildur encouraged her to re-apply is overshadowed by elendil's preoccupation with his son.

eärien and isildur seemingly have an unspoken alliance and back each other up throughout the conversation. elendil seems to think his daughter is the more competent & put-together of the two so he focuses all his attention on his Problem Child's issues. to his credit, elendil is trying his best here—but eärien's struggles just aren't disruptive enough for him to flag them as an issue the way isildur's are.

it's a very apt reflection of their arcs in s2. what happens when you remove isildur from this equation? eärien loses her only support system, elendil is blind to this and copes by devoting time and aid to someone else (míriel), falling into old patterns of assuming eärien is coping well enough on her own since that's what she's always done.

meanwhile, eärien is fed up of being ignored, so she finally wracks up the courage to start being more disruptive and "inconvenient" in her grief, almost like a cry for attention.

it's in these vulnerable instances that pharazôn's influence finds an entry point.

in this scene she is sketching out tar-palantir's likeness as he lies on his sickbed (being faced with mortality is a big angst point for the king's men, though not necessarily eärien), and finds the seeing stone, which she obviously chews over a lot in the gap between s1 and s2. this is when she starts to distrust míriel and opens her up to an allegiance shift, hence the reappearance of the orange.

interestingly, in s2 when she starts hanging around the king's men, she primarily wears blue. it could be an indication that it doesn't really matter who she surrounds herself with or who she allies herself to, because she will never truly belong to or feel "seen" by any of them (ignored among her family vs used uncaringly as a pawn among pharazôn's court)

well, except for......

yeah, that's right. matching #daddy issues, matching #child neglect, matching #outfits. that's just how we roll!

Kemen

in s1 kemen wears mostly cream robes with a red sash, like his loyalty to his father is superficial and tentative. in this scene, he and eärien watch pharazôn effortlessly control the will of an angry mob to his benefit. eärien thinks it's impressive; kemen is disdainful. given that we know pharazôn uses similar tactics to manipulate kemen using his dead mother's memory, the sentiment is understandable.

in s2, he desperately grasps at opportunities to "impress" his father (albeit unsuccessfully) and acts like a spoiled brat for 90% of his screentime, so his new wardrobe consisting of posh golden robes and jewellery is a suitable decision, but i find these two particular outfits interesting:

remember the aforementioned "be a good boy and i'll tell u how your mummy prophesied you would meet ill ends" scene? this is what he's wearing:

his sleeves are, bafflingly, bright blue. i'm not going to say that kemen has a pure heart and was mournfully led astray due to having Actual Satan for a father but i don't actually believe kemen wants to be the person he is. i wouldn't go as far as to say he's got a polished moral compass but ultimately every bad decision he's made was a misguided attempt to get his dad's attention/earn his respect, similar to eärien.

when kemen is sent to pelargir, far away from pharazôn's reach, he completely rids himself of his former colour palette in favour of blues and greens. the latter is an interesting choice because it's rarely worn in númenor—as far as i can remember, the only other person we've seen wear it is míriel, notably in her last scene when she is pharazôn's prisoner.

Isildur

i want to circle back to the dinner scene above (god how i love the dinner scene) because it truly does encapsulate the bones of our favourite dysfunctional familial unit.

if eärien's dresses constantly single her out among her peers then isildur's courageous commitment to wearing one (1) poo coloured potato sack must signify a similar sense of other-ness. isildur suffered a traumatic event when he was younger where his mother drowned while saving him and since then he's felt pressured to do something monumental with his life to feel worthy of her sacrifice. he can't commit to a blue or red or white like the rest of the islanders just like he can't commit to becoming an officer of the sea guard, or the queen's guard, or becoming an apprentice—he is completely directionless in life and his wardrobe reflects this.

the men of númenor's bright colour scheme is a far cry from the southlanders', who are mostly clad in dull, grey-ish, roughspun clothing that's seen better days. isildur feels a calling to middle-earth so it's fitting that his garb looks like theirs long before he settles there.

[simply92-me]

Full agreement, you worded it better than I could have!

haladriel moments: 67/∞

[simply92-me]

can we PLEASE talk about the amazing soundtrack of The Rings of Power??!?!! Not only is it fire but it's also full of emotion and passion. Sauron's theme music is also just astonishing, the power and fear that the deep baritones and basses evoke is truly amazing. GREAT WORK 10/10

[simply92-me]

Mucha inspired Eowyn illustration

[simply92-me]

just a heads up to my fellow writers out there that AO3 is currently fighting off bots commenting on people’s works to tell them that AO3 will delete their fics “due to the works being deprecated”, and the deletion will affect their accounts unless the authors delete the fics themselves first. IT IS A SCAM. AO3 will NOT delete your works. please do NOT fall for these bots!

I’ve been told the reason why these bots are doing this is due to copyright infringement issue where they’re trying to steal your works (possibly to train AI but this is just a guess) ‼️‼️‼️and once you deleted your fics, it will be either very difficult or impossible for you to claim ownership of your own fics when they were already deleted.‼️‼️‼️

a reminder that AO3 will never contact you through your comments section (in case they claim to be one of the moderators). AO3 will only contact you through your email address which you use to register your account, and it will be from AO3’s official handle. not some sketchy ass @

so if you get a comment telling you you should “delete your works to protect your account because AO3 is doing blah blah blah” report that comment. don’t delete your works.

PLEASE DO NOT FALL FOR THESE SCAM.

AO3 IS NOT DELETING WORKS.

DO NOT DELETE YOUR WORKS JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE CLAIMS THEY KNOW SOMETHING.

[simply92-me]

Before the computing era, ILM was the master of oil matte painting, making audiences believe that some of the sets in the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogy were real when they weren’t. They were the work of geniuses like Chris Evans, Michael Pangrazio, Frank Ordaz, Harrison Ellenshaw and Ralph McQuarrie ! Forever thank you, to their handmade art and the work of their colleagues, that made us dream of impossible worlds and fantastic places across Earth and the Universe.

There are more background paintings on this article, featuring comments by the masters/artists themselves ! 

Some of the following pieces were made by other artists 2:

[simply92-me]

My other TROP memes

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gandalf getting ready to send the dwarves over to bag end

[simply92-me]

Costume Details + Rings Of Power

[simply92-me]

ROP Underdogs Day 7 (Part 2) @the-southlands

[simply92-me]

ROP Underdogs Day 6: Light/Dark @the-southlands

[simply92-me]

Rings of Power memes part 25!

My other TROP memes

[simply92-me]

Rings of Power memes part 28!

My other TROP memes

[simply92-me]

Rings of Power memes part 29! Mostly Kemen for some reason?

My other TROP memes