So, I’m very aware that, unfortunately, this might catch me some heat. I can’t stay quiet about it anymore, especially as a fan who’s a queer person of color. I want to make it abundantly clear that the issue with Amazon’s Rings of Power series is the company itself. 

You think that Jirt would like a company that’s probably going to outlive the actual rainforest it’s named after? 

What about all of the environmental damage that Amazon’s caused?

What about the company’s mistreatment of the poor, and the authoritarianism it has over its workers? 

You think Jirt would like something that embodies some of the worst aspects of industrialization? Have you all forgotten how this man portrayed greedy rich people? 

Amazon stands against everything that Tolkien was trying to tell us. With all that being said, I’m pretty sure the story’s going to be soulless and surface level as a result. The story is NOT going to be ruined by the inclusion of LGBTQ people, disabled people, or people of color. For Christ sakes, guys, all those people were already in Tolkien’s works! They’re not the issue. Hell, I’d argue that even if we got the original cast from PJ’s trilogy, the series would still suck. Why? Cause Amazon stands against everything that Middle Earth is about. It’s not in their favor to portray Tolkien’s works accurately. 

To me, the people who believe that inclusion is to blame for the series sucking, are right up there with Amazon. And I mean right up there with them, you’re doing EXACTLY what Amazon wants. So good job being their bigoted little puppets. I’m sure they love the free advertising, and clout. 

Author Interview

I was tagged by @sleepswithvillains . I’ve never been tagged much before so this is kind of new for me, but I love it! Tag me all the time! Also you did it again, where I got the Tumblr notification like right as I went to bed, but my sleep schedule is so wack right now.

Tagging: @guardianofrivendell @moriamithril @sunflower1000 and really whoever wants to do it. Drop me a tag if you decide to do it because I definitely want to see what you have to say!

I have a lot of unfinished fics and not a lot of published works in comparison. 

1. Name: The Merriweather Mage (Tumblr)/ RinzlersGhost (AO3)

2. Fandoms: LOTR/The Hobbit, The Witcher (TV), SWTOR/Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Twilight, Underworld (though I’m not active in most of them unless I’m hyper-fixating)

3. Where you post: AO3, Tumblr, and I have an inactive FF.NET account

4. Most popular oneshot: People seem to have a real affinity for Meleth-nin/My Love. I actually hated writing it, because I was in such a bad place after receiving news that my childhood dog had died, but I don’t hate the fic itself.

5. Most popular multichapter: Every Kitten Has Claws which is a Geralt X Druid Fem!Reader. 25 Kudos, 3 bookmarks, 517 hits. Followed by Turuhalme in the Greenwood which is Thranduil X Fem!Reader. 9 Kudos, 1 bookmark, 270 hits. Both contain 18+ Content.

6. Actual worst part of writing: I legitimately hate writing fight scenes. I’m horrible at them and most of my fics contain some sort of fight scene obnoxiously enough. Although the best advice I ever saw on here was to keep your fight scenes short because not very many people are interested in a long drawn out detailed fight scene. 

7. Favorite story you wrote: Bards & Beans Coffee Co. Elrond X Fem!Reader. Was the first time I’d ever written anything in the second person. I based it off of a dream I had about meeting Elrond in a coffee shop. I planned it, wrote it, and posted it in the span of four days. It’s basically as if Middle Earth exists on the other side of meridian locks, and it’s set during the War of the Ring but with some of the characters from the Hobbit so the timelines are pretty pushed together. Your side of the meridian locks has a Earth that is basically a continuous strip of land that varies from high-tech futuristic ports all the way down to medieval ports. Basically the farther North you go, the more high tech and futuristic the land becomes. Quite a shock for those who would have never been to the other side of the locks. 18+ Content.

8. Story you were nervous to post: Most likely all of them. Any of my Twilight work though, I always hesitate about publishing. Sometimes it’s because the stories are close to my heart, but I also know that the fandom can be rabid. Most of the interactions I’ve ever had with Twilight blogs are fine, but there’s a lot of discourse about Twilight right now, and while I appreciate that most people are in the right (the issue with the Quileute tribe, the Cullen’s as villains, Jasper and the Confederacy, the actual legitimacy of the Volturi as a ruling body, etc), this is actually one of the reasons I left the fandom from a writing/following POV. (There are many, many things that are wrong with Twilight and not from a literature point of view. For example, Meyers took a real life Native American tribe and treated them highly unfairly in the books, to the point of calling them dogs which isn’t very fair at all, and they have received no compensation for being used and they are risk in the place they live in now. If you have some time and money, I would recommend checking out the Quileute Move to Higher Ground project.)

9. How you choose your titles: For story titles, I like to choose the main theme or a main phrase that is used. For chapter titles, I either don’t title or I will chose something that is a main part of the chapter.

10. Complete works: Out of the 21 works I have on AO3, 18 of them are completed, although one is an open ended and may be reopened after I get some of the larger works out of my way. As for fics in general that I haven’t published or have published on other platforms, there is 2 of 5 complete works on FF.NET. Some of those stories I will be pulling and deleting. The two complete works will be migrating to AO3.

11. Incomplete works: Actively: Sadril-nin/My Loyal One, A Hunter’s Circlet, and Beauty in Brokenness (unpublished for now). I have a few other inactive LOTR/The Hobbit based fics that I might try to finish after the main two are finished. Inactive: Literally too many to count. I mean, when I wrote my goodbye to the Twilight fandom, I said that I had been writing for the fandom for nearly nine years. I have so many unfinished Twilight fics, well over 100.

12. Do you outline: Not usually. I’m at the point with Sadril-nin right now where I’m literally following a map of Middle Earth and cataloguing the journey across the map, so I guess that could be considered an outline. Mostly if I’m writing for LOTR/The Hobbit, I want to follow the timeline of progression for the story that’s already been written. I do have a little bit of leeway in that gap between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings though.

13. Coming soon ideas, maybe? I’ve been giving you a taste of Beauty in Brokenness. I do intend to publish it, but it’s a constant struggle to rework it. I have ideas that I want to cement in the story that don’t always come out the way I want them to, so I am consistently reworking parts of it all the time. I will also be rewriting (eventually) Crown of Thorns, which is Pirates of the Caribbean fanfic, Lord Beckett X Siren!OFC. I also appreciate the idea of Nestadion X Centaur Fem!Reader, but instead of being a centaur all the time, you’re actually a shifter who can turn into a centaur. Really confuses a warrior elf to see what amounts to a small human carrying this massive two handed sword around and calling him “princess” all the time.

14. Ask me anything: Is there anything you miss in fanfic? In comparison to the actual book/movie? Not really. I appreciate the original works, but I recognize that they can be flawed and so can their authors/writers. Which is why fanfic is so appealing-- everyone has a different spin on the original; everyone has a different take on the characters, everyone writes differently, and that’s the fascinating part to me. The only downside, of course with any fanfic, is the fandom and it can be hit or miss with people. It is what it is, and the liberty of fanfic is that not everyone is going to like or enjoy your works, and the same goes for your tastes. Are there right or wrong opinions? I don’t know; I’ve both read and written some morally ambiguous fics, and some I would like to forget that I very much haven’t.

15. Best writing traits: Same as the worst writing traits. I’m a sucker for detail. I love it. I want my readers to see it like I do. When I read books or play D&D or play video games, I see it like I’m in a movie. When I write, I want you to see it like you’re on set and the cameras are rolling and you are perfectly prepared. I want you to feel like you are in the story, which is why my oneshots turn into series, and my multi-chapter fics turn into novel length stories. I find it obnoxious at times, because I feel like I can’t ever turn it off, but by the feedback I get, some of y’all really enjoy it, so let’s get this show on the road.

16. Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write: Uhhhh, let me go browse my WIP folder. I’ve put quite a bit of research into rewriting Crown of Thorns and making it slightly more historically accurate. I know that there will be a Part 2 to Sadril-nin, because I’m not going to time skip a seventy/eighty year gap between the timelines of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. And I really don’t want to submit y’all to this absolutely massive story all jam-packed into one fic. Other than that, I’m also sitting on Through Hellfire and High Waters, which is another Elrond X Reader fic that follows the premise of a modern/medieval world all smashed into one. The Queen of Eryn Galen also needs a proper ending and to be published, a Thranduil X OFC fic; this one will also have a Part 2.

17. Spicy Tangential Opinion: I don’t care if my writing makes the characters out of character. I try to tag that if I can, but let’s be real here. Either I’m writing a character that originally has a limited backstory and a very real chance at an open-ended future, or I didn’t like the canon character and I’m rejecting that reality and replacing it with my own. Does it mean that I don’t or am refusing to recognize character flaws? No, and that’s the beauty of fanfic. You can do whatever you want. You might get hate for it or you might not. For example, I am a fan of Severus Snape (RIP Alan Rickman). Does his character have flaws? Yes. Do I like the way he was canonically written? No. Are his actions justifiable? Hell no. Is that going to stop me from being a fan? Again, no. He is arguably one of the most disagreed upon character of that series. I don’t see a need to defend why I write him the way I do. I don’t see a need to defend him in discourse, and I’m certainly not going to be hateful about it. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion about it. Yes, there was probably some underlying intent when the character was written. I’m not here (unless you’re specifically asking my opinion on it) I’m not here to read in between the lines with characters like Snape. I do not care enough to lose friends over opinions like that.