moo1982

[moo1982]

The Rings of Power | 2.01

[moo1982]

Charlie Vickers as Kieran Elliot in THE SURVIVORS (2025)

[moo1982]

I am amazed by how many takes of their story we can get!

I love the mode of the reveal in this one. And the sex scenes are quite poetic, especially when singing becomes part of them.

A Man is a God in Ruins

by eye_of_the_cat / @conundrumoftime

—

"You would bribe me.” “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Her hair curls in golden spirals around his fingers. “I like to give you things.” “You deceived me.” He considers this as if the very idea is new to him.   Halbrand leaves Eregion before Galadriel becomes suspicious, and goes back to be King of the Southlands.

—

Read on AO3

find the original artwork by @/blossombythesea in the second picture here

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I was so inspired by this work and I've not been able to stop thinking about it so I made a few mood boards to show my appreciation for the sheer beauty and poetry of this epic fic :')

[moo1982]

A Man is a God in Ruins

by eye_of_the_cat / @conundrumoftime

—

"You would bribe me.” “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Her hair curls in golden spirals around his fingers. “I like to give you things.” “You deceived me.” He considers this as if the very idea is new to him.   Halbrand leaves Eregion before Galadriel becomes suspicious, and goes back to be King of the Southlands.

—

Read on AO3

find the original artwork by @/blossombythesea in the second picture here

—

I was so inspired by this work and I've not been able to stop thinking about it so I made a few mood boards to show my appreciation for the sheer beauty and poetry of this epic fic :')

[moo1982]

haladriel moments: 64/∞

[moo1982]

sometimes i remember amazon made galadriel x sauron a thing. and elrond, kind as summer, blinking through the unholy fire, had to just stand there and say, 'galadriel, PLEASE stop wanting to fuck that fascist." and she didn't. she simply didn't. and something in me felt good and bad and delighted like i was fourteen again and wanting to kiss the devil drawn in the church pamphlets. i remembered haladriel / saurondriel and sat in stunned silence for three working days and then a fourth just to be sure. they really made the near end of middle-earth erotic and gave galadriel a front row seat to the slutty little sauron show. iconic. what a great goddamn show.

[moo1982]

REY-JAKE-THERAPIST’S new chapter for her SAURONDRIEL fic “ONE” is up!! I personally know how hard she’s been working on it and for so long, because she wanted to get the filthiness just right for you guys 🤌✨ So much so that she’s given me a warning because of my low filth tolerance threshold to “be careful while reading it” So suffice to say it’s going to be absolutely fantastic for the fans!😉

✨✨

Read it here :

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62099242/chapters/170806633?view_adult=true

Reblog it if you can,guys! Since she’s not here to promote it and I’m not a big account 😅

[moo1982]

haladriel moments: 63/∞

[moo1982]

Amazing!!! They are so angry and so hurt it captures it perfectly and with great humour 😂🥰

Canon accurate Haladriel dynamic lol, fanart by the amazing Momo aka @rinrin20983156 on X

Support the OG post on X

[moo1982]

*face mashed against the screen* HOW can I have missed this transcendent masterpiece?!

[moo1982]

Yes, my argument exactly! Purely research purposes 🤣

While I love Trials of Mairon, for season 3 level of lust and out of bounds behaviour I think he needs to transition to You were my crown by @willowaus

“Now Sauron's lust and pride increased, until he knew no bounds” (“The Silmarillion”)

“so great was the [One] Ring's power of lust" (Tolkien Letter 131)

One word for Sauron in Season 3: Horny

Jacqueline Coley understood the assignment. Charlie needs Sauron x Galadriel smut for research purposes.

[moo1982]

“Now Sauron's lust and pride increased, until he knew no bounds” (“The Silmarillion”)

“so great was the [One] Ring's power of lust" (Tolkien Letter 131)

One word for Sauron in Season 3: Horny

Jacqueline Coley understood the assignment. Charlie needs Sauron x Galadriel smut for research purposes.

[moo1982]

The phenomenon where characters or individuals who embody evil or negative traits are often perceived as attractive or alluring.

[moo1982]

Charlie Vickers as Halbrand

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haladriel moments: 62/∞

[moo1982]

@fatcatlittlebox I love how in your metas you bring out such subtle meanings and possibilities. Focussing on what others may have paid little attention to.

Neither Adar's original message or Sauron's translation of it would have made sense to anyone other than Sauron himself so it is very fitting to see it as an internal conversion. Adar's provocation functions as a prompt for Sauron to question himself about what Galadriel means to him, about who he was inspired to be while he was with her and where that part of him is now gone. He is missing both desperately at this moment, feeling the emptiness inside. Maybe he hopes he hasn't completely lost Halbrand, his chance for light and redemption that Galadriel represents for him.

Very clever linking of the scenes in the forge, the point of nearly killing Adar on Tirharad and the moment when he translates the message.

I had an ask about Adar's message that he carved on the body and it turned into another meandering meta so I figured I'd just get into it in a separate post. The question was what do I think the message actually means. And I think the answer is both -- there's Sauron's message and Adar's message. Yeah. Like so many themes in TROP, there are different dialogues happening.

I think the real literal translation is from Black Speech, as I've analyzed before in previous metas, a gauntlet or missive from Adar about taking Galadriel hostage. I'll get into that in another long ass post, but what I found interesting is what Annatar claims it says: "Where is he?" It's also the title of the episode. This question is important. We can start by asking ourself, who is the "he" here? Annatar is talking about himself. No surprise there, but I think he is literally referring to a different self -- Sauron or Halbrand. He's dissociating. He did this notably, when he stood over Adar and is about to execute him saying "You don't know what he did!" Halbrand here is referring to Sauron. Another version of him. Past, present, or alternate persona.

One of the reasons I love this shot so much is it conveys so much. On either side, Halbrand is flanked by Galadriel and a horse. A calm horse. A non-galloping horse. This time she's urging Halbrand to stop and think. Galadriel is the mentor in this moment. And with Galadriel in the foreground she seems to overpower Halbrand here -- she is his master. But the context of this shot is super interesting for the purposes of this discussion. This scene is mostly intercut with closeups of every player's face and this is the only line that Halbrand utters that is not a close up. "You don't now what he did." Compare it to the shot below. The shot with him and Adar is quite a distance away from the action and that's symbolic of Halbrand dissociating from Sauron and the deeds he is referring to. These are separate personas. "He" did evil. "He" is abhorred. And in Halbrand killing Adar, he would be purging himself in effigy.

But before that, in the forge scene with Galadriel, Halbrand says, “You don’t know what I did.”

This switching between third person and first person is fluid with Sauron and Halbrand because I think he is splitting into different people. Here Sauron speaks for himself and his actions. You know that he is Sauron (perhaps even Mairon) in this moment because whenever he stares into the fire, this repentant Sauron emerges. He is taking ownership and he means it. And it tracks because he is contrite. He tells Galadriel, "I'm sorry." For her brother, for her pain. Furthermore, there are instances in this scene where his voice is a different register: deep, guttural and almost ancient.

And I believe there's a reason why Charlie has mentioned this analysis of his character more than once: to paraphrase, Sauron is a successful deceiver because he actually believes he is the persona he has created. Which begs the question, does this mean just psychological dissociating or actual splitting and compartmentalizing pieces of himself? We already know in the lore that Sauron poured "his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life" into the ring. If he can do that with the darkness in his soul, it stands to question -- can he do it with his goodness? He’s also not the only Tolkien character to do this. Later Smeagol does this as Gollum. I think the question "Where is he?" is a clue as to why Annatar seems so disconnected and empty in comparison to how Sauron was as "Halbrand." There's something missing in him, something absent. Where is he? Halbrand is lost- but not gone. Let's go back to the opening line of the show again, "Nothing is evil in the beginning." Interestingly, it leaves out the second part of the quote which is in the book -- "Even Sauron was not so." That is a glaring, purposeful omission. One that I think that the show is aiming to explore by showing his fractured evolution.

[moo1982]

Mirdania: "My lord is occupied. But he wishes you good fortune on your journey."

Halbrand: "Are you asking me to leave?"

Bonus: