#helenvader

[hellofeanor]

Another ginger Mairon flashback in S3.

Ginger Mairon appears in a long and detailed flashback scene. BUT. He has a haircut. Sorry, it's a buzzcut now. Also, the scene dialogue goes out of its way (weirdly out of its way, as if the writers want to prove something) to include a lot of no-homo assurances between Mairon and Adar and also Mairon and Morgoth. Who remains as a disembodied offscreen voice the whole time. We never get to see him.

[queenmeriadoc]

What personal name would you give Celebrimbor?

(The same way Celeborn gave the name Galadriel to Artanis).

(No need for Elvish).

So as you know the process of how I got to this by out conversation on discord, "Sølv" is the most likely of a name for me to give Celebrimbor. For those who do not know "Sølv" is the Norwegian word for "Silver". But pet name would be "Kjære" which means Dear.

NOW, what would he call me? For reference my name means pearl, my "full" name is Merethe. Now what name would he give me?

[helenvader]

I would like to thank @ichabodjane for suggesting this idea for this video to me!

It was created for Week 5 of the ROP Summer Celebration 2024 (Relationships) and I'm sooooo happy I can finally make it public!

[brynnmclean]

🌹♥️☀️✏️🎬

Oh! Thank you for all of these!!!

🌹 Share your most poetic line.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, chapter 3 is my favorite still so far and I love Thórgestr's fate-spirit of a mother. I think there is poetry in this:

“Yes,” she says, voice soft but deepening, suddenly wholly unfamiliar and foreboding, a voice from beyond Midgard.  “Áleifr will wander, empty-handed and ice-hearted.  Fresh snow will be his grave after ravens pick his bones clean and gleaming in the long night.  And you, my son, will learn who you are without him.”

❤️ Share one of your favorite lines.

Ástríðr, who has been deeply wronged by Thórgestr's people, telling Thórgestr exactly what she wants in recompense is v important to me:

“I want the tools to fix our bridges and our buildings.  I want payment back for what your Björg took from my people.  I want food for the winter, sailcloth for our ships—and I want to take the Vestmenn away from this place of cruelty.  Your father is gone.  So is mine.  But I’ll have what I’m owed.  Tell me, Thórgestr,” Ástríðr says, “what is your regret worth?  What of your word?”

☀️ Share a line with figurative language.

I think this counts—Thórgestr is half-asleep here, listening to a conversation other people are having, and unable to wake up fully to respond to any of it. So it isn't literal water or ice.

No.  Thórgestr recoils at the thought, but when he touches the surface of the water he’s under, he finds that it is solid as a sheet of ice.  No…

✏️ Share the first line of any chapter.

This is the very first sentence of chapter two which I am absurdly fond of even though I think the alliteration is deeply self-indulgent:

Lucidity comes when the fever abates, Thórgestr’s will winning the war with his wounds.

🎬 Share the last line you’ve written.

I wrote this last night and it made me laugh:

“Fuck off,” Thórgestr growls, though not with much heat—he supposes it’s good that it makes Fargrímr laugh and clap him on the shoulder before he leaves him in Iseult’s clutches.

Thank you again for these!!!

[WIP Excerpts Ask Game | hertan chapter one post]

[attheexactlyrighttimeandplace]

*hugs you real tight* would you please send this to ten people on your dash? make sure someone gets a hug today!

Clinging right now very tightly to your tight hug. I won't let go for a while.

Thanks so much for being so friendly to me in this hard time.❤️❤️❤️

[verecunda]

A hug for you! 🤍✨ Pass it along to whoever you think needs one today. Let’s make this the longest hug chain ever! 🤗💖💫

Back right atcha, lovely! 🩷

[andthebubbles]

1, 15 and 17 for the 2024 in review ask game. :-)

hiii omg yay an ask!! thank you so much!

for this ask game

How many fics have you worked on since January?

I'm not entirely sure... a/b fic, and I started some simon/anthony fics, i think there were two... i also have fics i work on that i'll never post (just pure wish fulfillment), and i have some a&b fics, maybe about two that i worked on. So like, five maybe?

15. What was the hardest fic to title?

It'll be the one I'm working on now, probably!! (a/b fic.) I've no idea what to call it

17. Share your favourite opening line

I'm gonna give a few lines because I can't find a half decent one by only sharing one sentence... and this isn't that great anyway but it's the best I have

...like this is genuinely the best i have, i'm so sorry

As far back as Anthony can remember, Benedict had always been an artist, through and through. When he was two, it was stick figures of course. Misshapen little scrawny things with dots for eyes and wonky smiles and strange uneven body parts. Anthony at four hadn’t learnt the kindness of half-truths or even outright lies yet; he’d told Benedict that that doesn’t even look like Mama, you have to draw it again, and Benedict had cried. That looks exactly like Papa, though, he’d said in the next instant, and knelt on the nursery floor beside his brother and hugged him tight. Do you want to find him and show him your drawing? I think he will love it.  He’d always been a quick learner. With the sensitive, kind, sweet soul his brother had—which was too often forced against the awful, jagged parts of himself—he had to be.  He would be.

[niennawept]

Questions 7, 8 and 30 for the RoP Ask Game. :-)

Hi there!

7. What minor character would you like to see more of? So - I actually have the same answer as @hellofeanor and it's this lady - Commander of the Southern Armies. I'm obsessed with the "Commander of the [Cardinal Direction] Armies" as a title. And my brain is slowly forming a backstory for her whether I want it to or not.

8. What accessory would you like most to own? (sword, brooch, crown, etc.) I genuinely am not sure? None of the accessories have particularly called to me the way they have in past adaptations. I guess I'll go with Adar's gauntlet? It would be a cool thing to have on a shelf. 30. Choose three characters (not necessarily your favourite ones). Say three positive things about each of them.

Oh, challenge level: impossible, if we're ruling out favorites. But I'll try.

Elendil: I admire his steadfastness, especially as Numenor gets more unstable; they really said "Faithful? yeah, that's this man's whole personality." He seems very gentle, judging by the way he handles horses and the delicacy of some of the instances of him touching other people. He has a nice smile.

Mirdania: She strikes me as incredibly earnest; all of her dialogue is delivered with such sincerity and it's really refreshing to me. She must also be a pretty smart cookie to have joined the ranks of the Smiths of Eregion. In most of the scenes we have for her, she does seem to be reaching out to other people which is a wonderful trait, even if it is ultimately kind of her undoing due to manipulation.

Arondir: He's extremely competent - makes everyone else look bad. He will make the hard decision; very rarely have I seen a show do the "threaten the loved one to get the McGuffin" where the hero doesn't give in - but I think Arondir would not have given in and that's sooo interesting as a character choice. He seems to be very empathetic from his relationship to the Southlanders to his conversations with the Entwife and to a lesser extent with Adar, it seems like he really listens to people and tries to understand them.

Thanks for the ask!

For the game here!

[fukutomichi]

Questions 28 and 30 for the RoP Ask Game. :-)

28. Do you have any headcanons about a character, or the world? What are they?

That Sauron HAD to have had some hand in Morgoth going down. I mean that self promotion party to appoint himself the project lead of the project Lets Heal Middle-earth, him fashioning the crown for himself, SCREAMS some sabotage must have happened and he wanted his former boss out of the picture.

30. Choose three characters (not necessarily your favourite ones). Say three positive things about each of them.

Elrond is gentle, kind, loyal.

Miriel is strong willed, fearless, resolute!

Theo is forgiving, understanding, compassionate.

[kazz-brekker]

Questions 10 and 18 for the RoP Ask Game. :-)

Thanks!

10. Choose three characters. What jobs would they have if they lived in our time?

Arondir–I think he would have a lovely and thriving career as one of those rangers in a national park who knows lots of facts about local trees.

Gil-Galad–already has "deeply tired principal of a very unruly school" energy so that's what I imagine him as in modern day times, haha.

Isildur–would probably want to join the Navy like his dad but I think would have a better time working with horses at a barn that teaches riding lessons or something like that.

18. Which character would you most like to go to the pub with?

I'd have to say Galadriel, I think she deserves a drink after everything she's been through in the last 2 seasons and then I could pick her brain about all of the historical events in Middle-earth that she witnessed firsthand.

[luzriels]

💗 The Rings of Power Ask Game - #12, #13 and #24. :-)

12. Which outfit do you like the most?

While I do love beautiful gowns and lavish robes, my favorite however was Galadriel's armor in Forodwaith! The chainmail, the star embellishments... divine.

13. What is your favorite location from the show?

Those nightscapes in Númenor are definitely where I'd want to be.

24. If you could ask any of the characters a question; what would that question, be?

Hmm... I would really enjoy interrogating Sauron but I don't know, can I ask Arondir on a date?

*original post

[hellofeanor]

Important mission to make your work day better: 9, 17 and 20 for the RoP Ask Game. :-)

9: Which costume would I most like to try on? Oh man, it would have to be one of Míriel's. All of her outfits are just so beautiful. Maybe the blue one from S1, if I have to pick just a single look? But all of her stuff is amazing and I love it.

17: What I think Halbrand said to the warg puppy: knowing how Serious this show likes to be about that kind of dialogue, probably some variation on 'YOU WILL SERVE ME, THE DARK LORD! YOU WILL OBEY MY WILL! I CONTROL YOUR MIND!' Like I am 99% sure it is something along those lines.

20: Three of my favourite scenes or lines?

One: Galadriel interrogates Adar in the barn. This scene is just. So good. We get Galadriel looking like a genocidal maniac, showing the absolute worst side of elves. And Adar so calmly and tiredly answering all her nonsense. But mostly, we get some seriously good LORE out of this scene, about the uruk and Adar's background, which does a huge amount of heavy lifting when it comes to actually making orcs out to be interesting characters instead of simple, one-dimensional villains.

Two: The whole opening prologue narration sequence, from Finrod walking up the hill to reveal Tirion in the background, to the battles and destruction in the First Age, to Sauron's creepily armoured silhouette. That entire sequence is just beautiful.

Three: Halbrand becomes Annatar. Gonna admit, I was verrry skeptical about how the show was going to handle this Celebrimbor-already-knows-Halbrand situation. And while it's not what I would have chosen from the start if I were writing the show (AS I SHOULD BE), it actually made sense within the structure of the already-established narrative and worked for what they were trying to do. But yeah, having Annatar and his echoing voice step out of the fire in a wildly over-the-top way, surrounded by golden clouds and a gentle breeze, was exactly the type of drama this asshole needed. And Celebrimbor just standing there like wtf. Love it. LOVE IT.

Thank you for asking!

[queenmeriadoc]

What is Celebrimbor's favourite food?

*points to self*

anyways

[helenvader]

Since this week the ROP Summer Celebration 2024 prompt is (also) Minor Characters, let me share of my own, even though it's from a fic I wrote last year.

The character couldn't be MORE minor, since he appears on screen for 8 seconds. I was charmed, though.

This is him:

I'm sharing Chapter 4, where he appears for the first time. There are some "spoilers" for the story, but well. Never mind. :-)

---

Chapter 4: Halbrand

The black and white caraes pieces, crudely carved from wood, were distinct: the black ones recognisable as Orcs; the white as Men. 

King Halbrand was given the white pieces. Orting, son of Orting (“just call me Orte, lad, like everyone else”) had insisted on it. The old man could not have known that it was but once that he fought on the side of the light. Twice, he reminded himself. The battle with the volcano had to count, too.

The game required patience, intelligence, and thinking several steps ahead. It was perfect.

He eliminated one of the Orc soldiers from the battlefield.

His opponent, rubbing knotted hands in delight, wore a wrinkled face radiant with the appreciation of finding such a worthy adversary.

“Very clever,” he said. “And you say you have never played before?"

Halbrand confirmed the fact with a silent nod.

"Incredible," the old man murmured, shaking his head. "Aye, truly incredible."

"I might have played… other games involving strategy, in the past," admitted Halbrand.

“I would say those were not played on a board,” the old man regarded him shrewdly.

Halbrand found himself at a loss for words.

“'twasn’t that difficult to put two and two together. That funny business with the mountain? You are no ordinary man, lad. Also, those witches made it no secret of who it was they came looking for.”

Halbrand blinked.

“What witches?”

“No one told you?”

The expression on his face must have been eloquent enough, because Orte embarked on a narrative journey to fill him in.

“Hmmm, where to start… We all thought you were done for, what with the spear in your back and all…"

Ah, yes. The spear. Adar's special parting gift.

“Never in my life have I seen a woman as furious as that Elf, and my wife was as hot-tempered as they come," cackled the old man. "Can swing a sword, that one. The creature’s head landed right next to Ebrenn's little girl. She was screaming like a slaughtered pig, poor thing.”

An Orc hopped across the board, and Halbrand’s army was short of a warrior.

“When your strength gave away, the Elf cradled you in her arms like a babe,” continued Orte. “I could swear she was… glowing.”

Halbrand’s face lit up with an involuntary smile.

He had suspected it, but now he knew. It was her who pulled him back. Why?

To hide his turmoil, he made an effort to stare at the board as if contemplating a strategy.

“I do not blame you, lad, she’s a comely one,” Orte remarked in an amused tone. “The kind that would set any man’s loins on fire.”

That was not a territory Halbrand wanted to tread.

“What about the witches?” he asked.

“Not that kind,” giggled Orte. “I’d stick with the Elf if I were you.”

Great. Even ancient, toothless Southlanders find you amusing.

Orte took mercy on him and resumed his tale.

“They were a scary lot. Especially the pale one with the staff. The shabbily dressed fellow was already there when those three appeared out of nowhere. Ignored everybody, just talked to him, all speaking at once, and loud enough so that all of us could hear.”

He cleared his throat and pronounced in a dramatic fashion:

“Where is Lord Sauron, sister?"

He scratched his head.

"You could see they were not right in the head, but still, why call a man sister?"

“Istar,” said Halbrand. "An Elvish word. It means wizard," he added, realising the Southlander hardly had any knowledge of Quenya.

"Ah. That explains it."

It also explained the unfamiliar voices in his head that day. Some lesser Maiar, searching for him for… obvious reasons.

“The wizard said there was none here bearing such name. Didn’t fool them, though. They’d noticed you already, and no wonder, you were moaning like a beaten pup. That wound must have hurt something awful. So, one of them was yelling that he was trying to kill you, and the pale one pointed her staff at him. It flashed like lightning, and she raised him up in the air like he weighed nothing. Then boom! flung him on the ground like a sack of flour!

“It looked very bad, very bad… ‘twas clear that once she dealt with him, it would be our turn. Scared stiff, all of us, and all we could do was watch, and wait… But then she stumbled. The Harfoot girl crept from behind and stabbed her in the knee. Nimble little thing. Funny creatures, Harfoots. Never heard of them before.”

Neither had Halbrand. Nori Brandyfoot was as much of a novelty to him as his unexpected willingness for self-sacrifice. To learn of the existence of both on the same day was ultimately more remarkable than a bunch of his worshippers tracking him.

“She bought enough time for the wizard to wrestle the staff from the pale witch. It was impossible to see, or hear what followed - wind started howling and blue light exploded all over the place. Once it was gone, the witches were gone, too. So was the staff.”

Now that the story was told in its entirety, Halbrand had to face its implications. A sense of dread squeezed his heart in an iron grip.

“So everybody knows who I truly am?”

“Indeed they do,” Orte chuckled gleefully.

The realisation of his vulnerable position robbed Halbrand of all strategic thinking, and, as a consequence, the white leader found himself in an equally vulnerable place.

Orte raised a brow over his opponent’s uncharacteristic display of ineptness, grabbing one of the black pieces and moving it across the board, beaming like a child.

Halbrand, the very much not prophesied King of the Southlands, fought a sudden urge to run away and hide in some forgotten corner where no one could ever find him. And it was not because he had just been defeated.

[oroniel]

And now it's your turn to talk about your love for languages, if you feel like it. :-)

Ah, thanks for asking! This will also be a long response.

I was a terrible student in school - I know now that that was mostly because I was bored, since I already knew a lot of what we were learning, but at the time I thought it was because I was just too stupid to pay attention or focus on homework. So when we had the option to start learning a foreign language when I was 12, it was something new, therefore it held my attention, and I was REALLY good at it. It was the first time a teacher told me I was good at something in school.

I think I discovered Tolkien's language stuff at about the same time. I'd read the books before, but once I started learning French, I started to understand how you could play with grammar in different ways, and I had a much better understanding of what he'd done. I started to invent languages for my own imaginary world. Unfortunately I have no idea what happened to those notebooks, but I spent many hours inventing verb forms and vocabulary and alphabets when I was supposed to be paying attention in other classes.

Fortunately my bad behavior in school didn't have a long term detrimental effect - I got to university and could finally study what I was interested in, and became an honors student. I took linguistics as part of my anthropology degree, continued to pursue French, studied Kiswahili and Hindi, reinforced the latter two with study programs in Kenya and India, started to learn some Tibetan, then also ended up learning Mongolian and Khmer while working in Mongolia and Cambodia. (Though I was never literate in Khmer - I learned it only through conversation). I also have a smattering of Bosniak from time working on human rights issues in Bosnia.

My Mongolian and French are pretty fluent; the others more dormant. I can usually understand written Spanish and Italian, and was studying Russian in anticipation of doing some work there, but I stopped when the Ukraine war started because it was clear I wouldn't be able to travel there, let alone do research. I can read Hangul, but only enough to get around on the bus and subway system in South Korea. I'd love to learn that language but don't have the brainspace at the moment. My next formal language of study may be Kyrgyz - I might be heading over there for a year to work.

Like you I'm constantly listening for patterns when watching foreign media and can usually pick up some basics. This has proven true for Korean and Danish. I'm weirdly resistant to German though - much to my father's chagrin, as he learned it from his German grandmother and really wanted me to speak it.

And lest I seem annoyingly arrogant about all these languages, I want to add that there are many, many things at which I'm terrible or mediocre. Languages just happen to be my own little gift, I think. I'm sure Annatar would approve.

Thanks for asking! It's been fun to talk about languages. I'm still up for trying to decipher Halbrand's remarks to the warg, too.

[attheexactlyrighttimeandplace]

You are back! The Foundation fandom will have to share with us. They can't have you all for themselves and only them!

I love a good ritual! Doing something every Friday to keep up the pace, after the big week, seems like a good idea. Like a meeting at the tea room to discuss our ideas, while waiting for official news from season 2!

And I've been cursing myself lately for not being able to put together a basic playlist for Elendil or Arondir, because I'm so behind on popular songs! This would be a fantastic addition to the different mediums we can explore the show in!

I really loved your work for the Sauron Appreciation Society, I wish I could participate but Sauron is so evil and I'm so weak for the good guys! Also my heart is too small: Arondir and Elendil, but also Miriel and Disa have taken all the places.

I can't wait to see everyone's creations!

Hi I hope that you're well! I read your tags recently and I feel that you are certainly not the only one who misses Rings of Power, even if the activity in the fandom is low. Which leads me to think that maybe to revitalize it we could organize something like a ROP week in the same spirit as the Tolkien Week, with each day a theme that can be declined in the form of gifsets, fanart or fanfic, poetry, handmade creations (embroidery, cooking, cosplay).

You've hosted some good concepts (positive thoughts and your plan to show the cast that we support them) to keep the fandom collectively together, so I thought you could host this idea as well. It wouldn't be too much I hope: just make to some fanart to announce the event, the date, the rules; and I could gather a long list of people who have at some point created something for the show and we could them tag in the main ad.

I think it would be interesting to expand the daily themes beyond season 1 and the usual ones (best scenery, favorite races, favorite subplot, best costumes, best musical theme, favorite female character, favorite character played by a poc actor, best casting, favorite relationships or any other idea that you have), and save a day for the story arc people are most excited to see in season 2.

I'm sorry if I'm rambling, but the idea is taking shape as I write to you. Of course, there is no pressure to do it at all, or to do it immediately. It's just that fall seems like the right time, since the series just turned one year old.

Just let me know if there is any interest on your side, even if it's only long term.

Thanks for reading.

Hello lovely! 🌼Thank you I'm doing okay hope you are too! You actually read my mind with this because I was thinking about doing a creative challenge event like this (I really like your idea to include a S2 prompt too!) I still wanna do the cast positivity one in my pinned post but that can be a longer lasting one and maybe it can be completed in the build up to season 2 (since I'm sure the cast would appreciate some love sent their way) So for anyone interested in that I haven't forgotten about it :)

Onto a special Ring of Power week✨ I certainly love this idea and I have some time off at the end of October which could be a provisional date to put this event (week before Halloween) because yeah we're all missing our show badly 😭and I always love the fandom events in my other fandoms :) Thank you for your lovely message and I wanted to publish it as a heads up and also to see if you guys would like something like this. I love your suggestions and you've always been very supportive of my blog and it would be cool to have you and your ideas etc on board :)

So yeah my lovelies keep your eyes peeled on my blog as I was thinking about doing something anyway so this ask came at the perfect time 🥰 Have a lovely day!