#and LOTR is medieval-esque
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🔮🔮 Gandalf Big Naturals Stimboard 🔮🔮
x x x / x x / x x x
[Image description: a 9 gif stimboard; from left to right.
First line: a gif of someone in Gandalf cosplay sitting on a large tree stump in woodland leaning back on their hands and kicking up their bare legs sensually, a gif of light being played over a replica of Gandalf's branch-like staff with a light up 'crystal' inside, and a gif of someone in Gandalf cosplay standing in woodland facing away from the camera before they bend over and stick out their ass.
Second line: a gif of someone wearing an 18th century shift and stay garment tucking the lace into the top of the stay, a still meme image of Gandalf the Grey (Lord of the Rings) with a photoshopped bust, and a gif of someone lacing up a stay over their 18th century shift.
Third line: a gif of someone in Gandalf cosplay in woodland climbing down from a large tree stump and crawling provocatively across the ground, a gif of light being played over a replica of Gandalf's branch-like staff with a light up 'crystal' inside, and a gif of someone in Gandalf cosplay miming a kiss towards the camera.
End of image description.]
#cursed stimboard#I can't BRAETHE IM SORRY#flashing gif#cosplay#people#crawling#bare legs#clothing#corset lacing#lights#I can feel the ghost of JJR Tolkien behind me shaking his head because he knows that I know that stays are from the 18th century#and LOTR is medieval-esque
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surprise bitch bet you thought you’d seen the last of my WOT recaps! turns out i have two more in me for my thoughts on rewatching s1 after having read the books! this one is episodes 1-4
episode 1
fuck me if the show isn’t still My Main WOT. i read all 14 books, yet as soon as i hit play on 1x01 i was like “ahhh, that was a nice 14-book AU but now we are back to the real versions of the characters and events” jkfjgh curious to see if it will always be this way since the show was my first ever experience of the characters, or if next season when we start to get to characters and events that i experienced in the books first, i’ll switch to the books being my primary version.
moiraine’s much-maligned opening monologue: while it’s telling rather than showing, as a WOT newbie i found it a very helpful quick intro to the lore surrounding rebirth and the dragon reborn and to moiraine’s mission, and i think it was good to lay out the basic facts here and tell us right off the bat what moiraine is trying to accomplish, so that someone unfamiliar with the story and lore can get oriented straightaway, and then these concepts are deepened and expanded upon later in the episode and the season. it also helps to lessen the “eotw is a lotr knockoff” vibes of the beginning of the first book by letting us know some of this unique lore straightaway rather than just starting us off in our little pastoral village with moiraine as the mysterious gandalf whose goals we don’t know. and it makes me laugh that people are mad that she criticizes LTT and doesn’t have the exactly correct version of what happened at the bore. that was 3,000 years ago, there was an apocalypse and a TON of knowledge and records were lost, and this guy caused the apocalypse, so it is no wonder that he doesn’t have the BEST reputation these days (also, it’s book canon that LTT was arrogant so). expecting moiraine to have perfect knowledge of LTT and the breaking would be like expecting us today to have perfect knowledge of something that happened in 1000 BCE!
i will also always defend the much-maligned liandrin chase opening scene. it was an incredibly effective and efficient way of introducing so many important concepts (the red ajah, gentling, madness for men who can channel, the difference between women channeling and men channeling, how terrible it is to be a man who can channel) in only a minute. when i first watched the show, i was hooked after that scene! i saw the guy talking to the other guy and then he vanished and liandrin was like “there’s no one there, the madness has taken him already” and i was like Whoa!
i think it was a good choice not to start with the eotw prologue of LTT and ishamael, for a few reasons. 1) starting with that and then hurtling us 3000 years into the future would’ve been confusing as fuck. it was confusing as fuck to me in the book even though i’d already seen s1 and knew who lews therin was and what his connection to our main characters is! and tv shows do not have as much freedom as books to be confusing as fuck in the opening minutes and potentially turn away audience members, particularly with wheel of time since the show aims to cater to a broad audience whereas the books are not something any but a hardcore fantasy nerd who expects to be and enjoys being confused as fuck would pick up. 2) holding off on showing anything from the AOL until the last episode made it a very fun surprise for non-readers when we find out that 3000 years ago was actually a futuristic society, and getting us settled in this medieval-esque society for 7 episodes and then revealing that pre-breaking was actually super futuristic really hammers home how catastrophic the breaking was and how much devastation the dragon wrought. 3) i’m SURE this scene will make it into the show eventually, whether as a cold open or in-show as maybe rand having an LTT memory or something, and i think that saving it until we know that rand is the dragon reborn and know more about what that means for him will increase the emotional impact on the audience of seeing LTT realizing he killed his whole family and then killing himself. rather than just being like “here is a random guy having a bad time. oh no! anyway” jkfjg
overall i think that among certain readers there’s a tendency to, on the one hand, instantly lambast something different from the books as a bad storytelling choice without stopping to consider how that choice may actually be helpful for people who aren’t yet familiar with anything about WOT or be necessary due to the different constraints of tv versus a book, and then, on the other hand, fret about non-readers not being able to notice or understand something that the show makes fairly clear to somebody with a modicum of critical thinking skills, which show-onlys DO have, despite some readers’ beliefs lmao
the first half of the above point is also why i shake my head at people who said the show would’ve been better if there had been an entire episode in emond’s field and the trolloc attack didn’t happen until episode 2. in a tv show, you CANNOT save your inciting incident until the second episode, it has to be in the first one. it just has to! books have more room for waffling about (even so, i was so bored by how long it took to get to the inciting incident in eotw that i probably would’ve put the book down if i hadn’t already been attached to the characters from the show) but television has to hook the audience quickly. call it consumerism or cookie cutter hollywood if you want, but it’s a simple fact that tv shows are a bajillion times more expensive to make than books are, so they need to earn a bajillion times more, which means getting as many people hooked on it as quickly as possible. and as someone who came to the show without being familiar with WOT already, i’m not sure i would’ve tuned in for episode 2 if the entirety of 1 had just been people waffling about in emond’s field. okay *i* probably would’ve because josha stradowski and zoe robbins are so pretty, but lots of other new viewers wouldn’t have jdkjfg
also, those complaints seem to be borne from people thinking that the ef5 and the Status Quo weren’t established enough in the limited time in episode 1, but i strongly disagree. this introductory portion was short, but very effective. as a show-only first-time viewer, a couple minutes of the boys hanging out together was enough for me to buy their friendship. a couple minutes of mat’s home life was enough to get me attached to him. one shot of rand smiling was enough to make me mark him out as a precious cinnamon roll too good for this world too pure. one shot of nynaeve sending off her lantern alone in the woods and hiding her tears from the village was enough to make me feel for her and get a sense of her Lonely At The Top place in the two rivers. etc! while i certainly would’ve enjoyed rafe’s envisioned 2-hour episode 1 bc i’m always a hoe for more WOT content, i don’t think it was actually necessary and i would imagine that many new and/or casual viewers would’ve been put off by 2 whole hours in emond’s field.
and my next bullet point has a huge book spoiler so i will put the read more here
explain to me why i cried when nynaeve was explaining the braid to egwene! egwene’s death was too fresh, i wasn’t ready to see her again as a little baby!
rand is so HOT god. “how come elayne falls in love with him after 5 minutes and stays in love with him for 14 books despite rarely spending time with him” have you seen him. Have You Seen Him. egwene is so strong for being able to turn him down in favor of her career, i would give up my whole life to be rand’s trophy wife. oh fuck am i min???? jdkfjg oh no
brief randlayne tangent: at the con this weekend ceara said that we first meet elayne at the white tower, so there go my hopes of her getting a meet-cute with rand before arriving at the tower and meeting egwene :( i’m very curious how their eventual meeting will go down because it would be a hugely different vibe if elayne meets him already knowing that he’s her best friend’s ex. i could see maybe elayne runs into him while she’s by herself and instantly vibes with him and thinks he’s cute but doesn’t realize that he’s egwene’s rand because he doesn’t give a name or gives a fake one, and egwene had told her rand had red hair but the cute stranger she just met has no hair djkfgh
i’m also preemptively fretting about how much time they’ll be able to have together in the show, because as we know they’re robbed enough in the books, but the show’s quickened pacing might crunch down their time together even more - what if this season ends with falme and then rand leaves for the waste and elayne for tanchico right away next season? and given the deepening of randgwene, it’d probably feel too soon for rand to already be making out with elayne in like 3x01 before they leave on their trips. maybe they will change the order around so that he and elayne have a Vibe when they first meet but nothing actually happens, and then he and avi hook up in the waste but she rejects him afterwards - this would eliminate the kinda icky feeling of betrayal of elayne on both avi and rand’s parts when they bang in the books, and avi’s very firm and in-character rejection of rand here would provide him a better excuse to go off and fuck other people than elayne’s impulsive ooc plot device letter. but maybe avi knows elayne has a crush on rand although nothing actually happened between them and so she still feels guilty for that reason, allowing her and elayne’s whole relationship arc to still happen. but then rand would have to be able to spend a longer chunk of time with elayne sometime post-waste in order to make their relationship happen. on the one hand, i’m fretting that they wouldn’t be able to do that since both characters are so busy doing hot girl shit in different locations for the whole series, but on the other, i have faith that the show would be able to change things around to allow them to spend more time together in the middle of the series.
basically i’m just terrified they might split the polycule into 2 monogamous pairings, rand/min and elayne/avi, since it WOULD be easier in pretty much all respects, but good GOD i can’t live like that, i’d kill myself if min was rand’s only love interest!! rafe’s comments about polyamory in the show have made me hopeful that this won’t happen though. and i don’t think they would’ve bothered introducing alanna’s polycule if not to pave the way for rand’s.
okay we got way off track, back to episode 1
me on the first watch when lan stepped into the inn, hood up, and stood there silently until every single person in the place stopped talking and looked at him: ooooooh mysterious
me on this watch: absolutely laughed my ass off over what a drama queen he is
i’ve cried over rand like 5 times in the first episode, it’s fine
when he talks about dreaming of his kids running through these woods just like he did 😭😭😭😭😭😭 the last scene in the show better be randlayne’s twins running through some woods while rand watches happily or i’ll riot. anyway, i’m literally in agony over how much rand wants to just stay here and have his peaceful little domestic life and how much he will never be able to do that. A+ writing choice to make rand much more family-oriented and attached to home than he was in the books (and having Plans for his future in emond’s field rather than being like “what does it mean that i get nervous when egwene is around?” lmao), it makes his having to give all that up extra gut-punching. this change, while smaller than laila and mat’s backstory, has the same effect of priming the 3 boys for the major series-long internal struggles they will face in a way that is more obvious and imo more effective than anything the books did.
in nynaeve’s defense, she is minding her business and moiraine suddenly appears and is like “you claim to be a community leader and yet here you are cleaning?” and then proceeds to alternate between being insulting and asking bizarro nosy questions, so I Too would not be the biggest fan of moiraine after that conversation lmao (especially since insecurity about her age and leadership status is one of nynaeve’s biggest pain points, and moiraine just swoops in and starts pushing right on it)
thinking about that post that was like “rand wheeloftime’s gay little jumper in episode 1″ that’s a world heritage post. i’m devastated that rand didn’t get to take his gay little jumper with him on the trip.
lan: we need to leave. now. do you know which one of them it is?
moiraine: no
lan: [silently resigning himself to the fact that he’s about to acquire 4 kids instead of just 1]
the way i was NOT PREPARED when trollocs showed up the first time i watched jdkfjg we’ve spent so long in a world where GOT is the genre-defining fantasy show despite barely having any magic or monsters or fantasy elements that my subconscious was not ready for monsters to show up in this show. when the arrow hit that guy i was like “oh it must be evil people attacking” and then it cut to the trolloc and i was like WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!!!!!
mat charging into the battle to find his sisters is THE perfect way to establish who he is as a person, i can’t get over it
before i was thinking that moiraine might have announced to the whole village that one of the kids was TDR, but now i see she, lan, and the kids were actually talking fairly quietly and no one else was too close to them or seemed to be listening, so i don’t think the villagers know after all (tho they do leave in front of everyone rather than sneaking out like in the books)
“your life isn’t going to be what you thought” 😭😭😭
me on first watch when moiraine said the whole “there are neither beginnings nor endings” line: okay
me on this watch:
to continue my opening ramble, in my personal experience the complaints of the show not doing enough to get the audience attached to the ef5 were crazy false. i remember that the first time i watched, when i went in knowing 0 about these people, i came out of just the first episode frantically signing adoption papers for rand, egwene, mat, and perrin and a marriage license for nynaeve. and all along i was far more invested in them than in moiraine despite the show making her the main character. but i know a lot of show-onlys genuinely did feel the opposite way with caring a lot about moiraine and not much about the ef5 (or 4, most people did seem to care about nynaeve), so maybe i’m just Built Different, who knows!
one thing i will say is that i vividly remember feeling so At Home in this show just after the first few episodes. rather than 16-year-olds saving the world or middle-aged men politicking and scheming, here our main group of characters are people in their 20s trying to figure out what the hell their lives are gonna look like. and the show is more mature than a YA show/book but not as gritty and graphic as other adult fantasy shows/books. and i remember feeling that it just really hit my “i’m too old for YA but too young for/just don’t vibe with adult fantasy, but there’s no middle ground” sweet spot. not to mention the plethora of well-written female characters and lack of sexism, male gaze, etc in the writing and production. i straightaway felt like this show was For Me! even before it was revealed that queer people exist and are considered normal and treated with respect by the writing and other characters!
episode 2
when episode 6 first aired someone said about mat staying behind at the waygate “[perrin watching the ferryman voice] he’s gone” and now i think about that every time i watch or think about either scene. another world heritage post (although i think this was actually a reddit comment, over on r/wotshow which is the only sane and reasonable wot subreddit)
lan and rand staring each other down after the ferry incident jkjfg lan just immediately clocked that rand is about to become The Problem Child
lorne balfe release the version of ta’maral’ailen that plays 10 mins into episode 2 challenge!!!! it’s so pretty and ta’maral’ailen is one of my favorite themes!!! i’ve listened to the soundtrack so much that i instantly recognize when a snippet of music in the show is not included on the soundtrack and get very sad. oh i can’t wait for new Themes in s2 - i’m thinking full version of the seanchan theme, AIEL THEME, elayne/trakand/andor theme, maybe some sort of zany unhinged Mat’s Luck Theme
when rand says moiraine might kill them like the ferryman if they step out of line, to his face egwene disagrees, yet the second moiraine gets her alone that night she’s like “are you gonna kill us like you did that ferryman? 😤” awww! i love them your honor! i totally didn’t remember that egwene WAS suspicious of moiraine at first, and only softens to her when moiraine shows her some honesty in this one-on-one scene.
the introduction of the three oaths was definitely a curveball for me on first watch! i remember immediately trying to think back to every line moiraine had said to see if she really had told the truth every time haha
it will be interesting to see josha get into actual Darth Rand territory because in this season every time rand gets mad i’m just like “awww he needs a snack, he’s cranky” and i want to squish his cheeks. to be fair, my reaction to book rand getting mad was always either exactly that or “daddy? sorry. daddy?” and no middle ground
rand definitely got too much flak from the fandom for the tension with egwene in this episode. even if we set aside the fact that he’s undergone an enormous amount of stress and trauma in the past few days, it’s entirely valid for him to say “you broke up with me, so you can’t now pretend like nothing happened, i need space” and to feel hurt and confused by egwene seeming to change her mind and want him back. it’s also valid for egwene to want the comfort of him and their relationship back now that she’s also undergoing an enormous amount of stress and trauma! also, when she replies to rand’s above statement by saying that everything’s different now and she won’t ever be nynaeve’s apprentice after all, while egwene certainly didn’t mean it this way, i could easily imagine rand interpreting that (and her overall behavior) as her going “you’re my second choice but i’ll take you back now since my first choice fell through” which definitely wouldn’t be a nice feeling, and would feed right into one of his greatest fears that we later hear from machin shin: that egwene will never love him as much as he loves her. she’s always been his first choice, but he knows that he isn’t hers and that hurts! and yet at the end of the season, he chooses for her to have her first choice even though that isn’t him! oh my heart!! but we’re getting ahead of ourselves. i will also note that in episode 1 he was 100% accepting of her breaking off their near-engagement to become nynaeve’s apprentice (to an almost unrealistic degree lmao) and it’s only in this episode when she starts changing her mind and giving him mixed signals (and when he’s undergoing all his stress and trauma) that his little pufferfish spikes come out.
i’ve noticed several times now that moiraine says “she or he” “women and men” “a girl or a boy” rather than our society’s unconscious standard of putting the male term first (in english). it’s such a small thing but i love it!
the CAMERAWORK in the manetheren story - focusing on rand while we’re hearing about the king, on perrin while we’re hearing about normal people banding together to protect their home, on mat while we’re hearing about holding back a trolloc army for many days against impossible odds, and of course on egwene while we’re hearing about eldrene feeling her husband dying and then dying herself by using too much of the one power. AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
bad news: this means egwene will definitely still die in the show
good news: it also means we will definitely still get gawene in the show (given that everybody but me hates their romance and thinks it’s pointless and detracts from egwene’s character, i did worry they might cut it haha)
bad news: it also means gawyn will also definitely still die in the show
shoutout to the hilarity of mat going “i’m going to cheer the gang up with a nice song!” and moiraine going “i love that song! [proceeds to tell the depressing as fuck true story it’s based on and put a damper right back on the mood]” she’s the kid on the playground telling everyone that ring around the rosie is about the plague
godddddd randgwene hits SO different after reading the books 😭😭 i think this is definitely the Show Thing that having read the books improved the most for me (aside from the ability to recognize foreshadowing and easter eggs, of course). before reading the books, i was like “okay here’s our bland heterosexual couple who obviously won’t last very long so why are you wasting my time trying to get me invested in their romance” and now i’m like “randgwene sweeties i’m so sorry, i’m so sorry an ugly ass bitch (past me) would say that oh my god.” when they were sitting on the mountain talking about the future and crying and holding each other, i broke. when rand turned to egwene in the middle of an argument and said he could never hate her, i broke. when they were standing in shadar logoth quietly holding hands and looking out at the city together, i broke. that last one especially, MAN the “‘you will never be lovelier than you are now. we will never be here again.’ -homer” -troy (2004) energy of that!!!! weeping on the floor. the development of their relationship in the show is going to be absolutely scrumptious.
maybe it’s also that the Heterosexual Nonsense of rand/min was so bad that it made the Heterosexual Nonsense of rand/egwene look wonderful in comparison dkfjg you never know you’re in the good old days until you’ve already left them.
that time when we all shipped mat and perrin for a hot minute! barney harris committed to the “mat is unrequitedly in love with perrin” angle with all his heart in that one scene, bless him. i remember thinking “oooh is this gonna be my ship?” but then they immediately got separated, rip, and instead cauthor came in to take center stage. i love how many “ships you never would’ve thought of in the books but are fire in the show” it served us (i was so onboard with ef4 polycule after watching s1 and then after reading the books i was like “wow i was crazy for that” but this rewatch is ensnaring me in it again!) and can’t wait to see that continue as we meet more characters. manifesting rand/gawyn finally getting recognized as the Messy Gay Angst goldmine it is.
time to talk about the depiction of male friendship in this show, which is very important to me! this was another one of the major things that struck me immediately when i started watching and contributed to that feeling of feeling At Home in this show. the open affection and tenderness between rand, mat, and perrin is so so wonderful to see!!! no toxic masculinity anywhere! they aren’t bros, they’re boy besties! i remember making a gifset of mat and perrin way back when and ALL the reblog tags were people being like “they felt more like friends in 5 minutes of the show than they ever did in 14 books” and i was like “what! how can that be! they are besties!” and now I Understand lmao. the deepening of relationships all around is one of the absolute standout aspects of the show (both in comparison to the books, and on its own merits - on my first watch, throughout the season the relationships were what kept getting me over and over again), and especially the relationships between the ef5. they all feel like close childhood friends, rather than the book vibe of “rand and mat are homoerotic besties, perrin is a third wheel who never thinks about either of them and vice versa, and egwene and nynaeve can’t be real friends with any of them because they are GIRLS”
moiraine waking up just to roast lan and then passing out again is simply iconic
the real reason mat didn’t get hoisted up is because he is a skinny twink who never would’ve been able to bust the door open from the other side. they needed beefcake rand for that one.
and then the episode ends with nynaeve threatening lan’s life, immediately into mashiara as the credits music, amazing showstopping spectacular
episode 3
i heard some whispering and what sounded to me like a magic-ish sound effect just before nynaeve grabbed the trolloc’s weapon in the pool, so i’m kinda wondering if she may have unknowingly channeled a bit there?
the string rhythm of the dragon reborn theme layered under the aes sedai theme when nynaeve emerges from the pool!!!! and i haven’t heard it in the show yet, but in the soundtrack version of the goldeneyes theme there’s also a portion with the dragon reborn string rhythm underneath! It Was About Them All!!!!!
crossing my fingers that mat will get some sort of Theme next season, and i wonder if the al’naito theme might eventually move from siuan to egwene. that would be neat!
can you tell that i have an obsession with soundtracks
this convo between mat and rand exemplifies beautifully the fact that they have 1 shared braincell, like:
rand: EGWEEEEEEEEEENE!!!!!!!!!!!
mat: [current braincell possessor] stop hollering who knows what’s out there and can hear us. now, we need to find a way home-
rand: [grabbing the braincell] but moiraine said the trollocs will come back if we do. we need to go to the white tower.
mat: [grabbing the braincell back] how are we going to get there? just walk??? to the white tower????
rand: they say all roads lead there.
mat: [wishing with all his heart that they had a second braincell at their disposal] that’s not how roads work.
perrin being frantic to light a fire and apologizing that he’s not doing it fast enough perfectly encapsulates his book vibe of trying to be the leader and feeling responsible for egwene’s safety, but without the weird condescending and patronizing dimension that his book attitude had.
love the visual contrast between strapping young lad rand strolling along with his preppy sheepskin coat and his massive sword (that’s what she said) and his massive bow (that’s also what she said) vs. weaponless coatless scrawny twink mat scrambling to keep up. rand knows he is on An Adventure, but mat just wants to be removed from the story.
“that’s not how roads work” / “the man who once walked while a little chilly” / “we’ll take turns” “if you think she’s up for it” / “if i wanted a man i could do better” it is just back to back to back iconic lines in rand and mat’s plotline this episode!
the closeup of rand during thom’s song about LTT and you can see tears in his eyes 😭😭
i like thom’s grittier silver fox blues singer show vibe. i feel like in eotw he was just a weird old man with weird vibes jkjfg
thom telling rand and mat to go up and perform if they think they could do a better job than him, don’t tease me with the loss of the cauthor gleeman era 😭 one of the things that definitely had to go, seeing as a) not enough time, b) it’s a symptom of eotw’s Sillier vibe that doesn’t fit tonally with the rest of the series, and for that reason i think i would’ve felt weird in the show, but i’ll always love it in the book.
baby rand’s surprised little distressed face when he realizes mat got robbed. he’s like “you really think someone would do that? go into a tavern and steal someone else’s wallet? :O”
dana trying to make mat get to his knees and beg her while rand watches, she was READY for that threesome. mat was also ready for that threesome. rand, get your head in the game!
what a scene. “isn’t she a bit young for you?” mat confirmed milf chaser “i make exceptions” bi mat rights “we’ll take turns” “if you think she’s up for it” mat unironically down for a threesome with rand, it’s just one thing after another!
mat immediately gets Mean because he’s embarrassed to have admitted he wanted to have a threesome with rand when it turns out that wasn’t what rand meant, that’s my interpretation
still blown away by “you don’t need to go there for her. she wouldn’t do it for you.” mat is IN LOVE with rand. the repressed years-long unrequited crush energy is OFF the charts.
mat when dana makes him serve drinks: i’m being forced to do work and i’m being SO brave about it
ahhhh this convo between mat and dana is so soooo good. obviously it sets up dana’s motivation for joining the shadow, but it also is a perfect little peek into/foreshadowing of mat’s character. his wistful expression when she talks about going someplace new where no one knows you to escape the dirt you were born in - his show backstory really deepens and grounds his yearning to get out of the two rivers and travel far away, by anchoring that in wanting to escape a painful home life rather than just thinking that life as a farmer is too boring and too much work, as is his reasoning in the books. but then he brushes the idea aside by saying he’s got people back home who need him - that is mat to a T, he seems like an irresponsible fool who only looks out for himself but when it comes down to it he always puts his loved ones first.
nynaeve being like “don’t be so sure i’ll stick around with moiraine if you ride away!” and lan just gives her a look like “uh-huh.” he’s already got her all figured out, he knows she can’t resist either a) healing someone who needs her help or b) doing anything for her kids, and he’s neatly snared her with both things.
re: perrin trying to be the leader and protect egwene, in addition to not feeling condescending like it does in eotw, it’s also explained by what happened to laila. the guilt of that is driving perrin to feel like he has to protect egwene and take risks in her stead, etc. as opposed to the book reason for it basically being “i must be the leader because i am the man here and thus it is my duty to protect the delicate flower accompanying me”
overall, the various backstory changes have been perfect for explaining character behavior/traits that in eotw are mostly just silly goose behavior.
i can’t find the post again for the life of me, but it is time to reference the world heritage post that was like “egwene and perrin’s roadtrip is like ‘do you want to talk about your trauma yet? no? okay’ and rand and mat’s is a bickering divorced couple where one got caught cheating”
haha i love egwene perfectly repeating aram’s whole spiel about the song and then perrin just quietly going “uh we don’t know the song” when it’s his turn, that is THEM
the camera cut to the MASSIVE pile of chopped wood next to rand djfkgj he really had to work out those feelings after mat was Mean to him
rand inviting a woman to drink alone with him in his bedroom at night and then being startled that she tries to kiss him, he’s a baby, please protect him! the eotw rand vibes coming through even though show!rand already fucks.
thom lists “asinine attitude” as a defining characteristic of people from the two rivers, bless
“he was murdered by cowards who feared something they didn’t understand” ahh the backstory of thom’s nephew really underscores why he’s so upset about the aiel here :( and since he’s saying this line to mat, dare i hope that show!mat may have a better initial reaction to learning rand can channel? tho i feel like it’s kinda central to his character arc that he does react badly. i will likely speak more on this when i get to episode 5 and The Promise.
the whole scene with the aiel is peak “feeling incredibly smug that i understand all these references now”
dana’s such a fantastic 1-episode character! great writing, great acting, great chemistry with both rand and mat. on first watch, the twist that she’s evil shook me to my core! super effective way to introduce the concept of darkfriends. whereas iirc our first darkfriends in eotw were people that had obvious shady vibes from the getgo, much more unsettling that dana starts off so friendly and likable and nonthreatening.
lmao i remember seeing someone who was mad that rand couldn’t get the better of dana in a fight when he’s much bigger and stronger than her (and a man, as was abundantly clear they Really meant), but rand is just a wee lad, he’s never had to fight anybody before, he doesn’t even know how to use that sword, it makes perfect sense that he would be scared and helpless in this situation. protect him!
rand’s little “we’re gonna leave now” after dana finishes her Villain Speech cracks me up every time jdkfjg he’s a BABY
episode 4
getting so pleased with myself every time they namedrop a location and i’m like “i know where that is!” djkfgj (so far, tear, caemlyn, and ghealdan - though ghealdan, when i watched the show the second time and they mentioned ghealdan in the 1x01 winespring gossip sesh i was like “i know ghealdan! that’s where logain is from!” and was also very pleased with myself then)
the corrupted weaves are THE SHIT they look soooooo cool!!!
i for one am apprehensive about the fact that they’re making changes to the look of weaves in s2 because i love how they are in s1, but we’ll see what it ends up looking like!
why did people get so up in arms about mistakenly thinking the show was trying to imply that logain saw nynaeve’s weaves when moiraine says IN THIS EPISODE that women can’t see men’s weaves, implying that the show intends to follow book lore and make the opposite true as well
“why did moiraine have a dog when dogs don’t like aes sedai!” is THE stupidest hill to die on jkfjg dogs hating women who can channel and cats hating men who can channel was one of the absolute stupidest and most unnecessary pieces of lore and i’m thrilled the show went out of its way to establish that it’s not the case in this version lmao
show!alanna is so pretty and so likable, aaaaaahhhhhhh
very glad that they’re actually using the battle ajah angle as the main characteristic of greens and the main reason people would choose to join, rather than the “greens love men and sex and sex with men” angle
super interesting that moiraine mentions women AND men have claimed to be false dragons
haha i don’t remember previously catching rand saying “wouldn’t it be easier to just ask?” when thom is making the plan to break into the farmhouse to sleep. rand doesn’t want to do crimes!
rand in the last episode making constant snarky comments about how mat always dips out of work vs. in this episode when mat dips out of work, rand’s just worried because he can tell mat’s unwell 🥺
mat with kids 😭😭 the birgitte doll 😭😭 man i’m so sad that the doll got left behind at the farm, imagine if mat had kept it the whole time, promising himself he would be able to give it to his sisters someday, and then he meets birgitte herself and is like “hey i have a doll of you” and she’s like “what the fuck” jkjfg
rand: mat’s not an idiot
me: wow Romance..........
the full line is him saying that mat would tell him if he could channel because he’s not an idiot, so rand just roasted himself djkfg
rand’s face when thom’s reply to this is that owyn knew all the stories about how men who could channel will go mad “and still he lied to me” 😭😭😭
look at show!perrin being happy to see egwene have a good time dancing with the tuatha’an! book!perrin take notes. he is definitely the character that was most improved by the show so far. remind me to talk about this more in my post on the second half of the series when we get to min.
i tear up during the way of the leaf speech every time. so so well done!!! standout scene!!
egwene saying she’d know if rand was dead and it’s explicitly meant to be romantic, meanwhile in the books rand and mat BOTH say at various points that they would know if the other was dead, even BEFORE they start having their psychic ta’veren connection 👀👀
“the leaf doesn’t fight the wind. sometimes the wind blows away from the tree.” that’s such a perfect line for egwene and the journey she’s going to go on and how she ends up being the one of the ef5 who leaves home furthest behind, aaaaaHHHH
AND WE GET TO “i’m here. you know that, right? no matter what happens, i’m here.” MY CAUTHOR ORIGIN STORY!!! the moment my brain chemistry was altered forever! let us recall one of my earliest tags on a cauthor post (tho now that i’ve sifted through the archives to find it i see that the post was actually from the next episode):
joke’s on me, i never did end up shifting out of cauthor mode!
anyway, rand blows out the candle so that he can have privacy to cuddle with mat, we all know it
also, on my second watch i lost my mind at that shot of rand’s face behind the candle as he’s about to blow it out because!!!! it’s a candle before the raging sun!!!!
ooh mat’s dagger vs. the fade is a good way to set up the concept that the evil of mashadar and the evil of the shadow are enemies (oh and they did show that trollocs are afraid to enter shadar logoth, of course)
backstory change explaining character behavior strikes again: nynaeve losing her parents at a young age and being taken in by emond’s field despite not having been born there is likely why she feels so fiercely attached to her found family, exemplified by how determined she is to get the ef4 back.
love the battle against logain’s army! great choice to show what aes sedai/channelers in general can do in battle right in the first season.
not to harp on about the missing music snippets but dammit there’s a beautiful sad choral version of the aes sedai theme as the battle is going badly, i want it lorne 😭
nynaeve’s power blast is another thing that makes me tear up every time!!!! like a raging sun!!!!! (which, speaking of the soundtrack, is the best track out of the whole thing.) i remember my jaw was on the floor the first time i watched that, as soon as the episode was over i instantly went back to watch the scene again.
update to add: i’m so glad they made nynaeve way more powerful than logain and are seemingly going to do away with the whole “on average men are stronger than women in the power” which is so stupid and creates a needless male-advantage inequality (once saidin is cleansed). i think there’s supposed to be a flipside that women are more........dexterous with their weaves or something? but whatever the flipside is was so irrelevant in the books that i can’t even remember what it is. i hope they also make it so that either men and women can both sense each other channeling or that neither can, as it’s also a needless male-advantage inequality that they can sense women but women can’t sense them. and also that male channelers who are bonded as warders can’t be compelled by the bond, but female channelers can. these things worked to balance it out while saidin was tainted, but once it was cleansed, it tipped the channeling scales over towards favoring men (and contributed to my overall feeling of a progression from an equal society into a patriarchy during the second half of the series, kicked off by the aes sedai being forced to kneel to rand and the asha’man at dumai’s wells and exemplified by an increase in men in positions of power and previously-powerful women having to submit to men’s authority - the aes sedai with rand, the wise ones with perrin, etc.)
#wot#wot book spoilers#the bottom line is that even now that i've read all the books#since the show was my first version i'll always think that every change it made was better than the book version lmao#at least for this first season! who knows how i will feel when we get to s2 and my beloved elayne and randlayne
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Basics: Hi there! I am a 26 year old female looking for a 21+ fandomless medieval high fantasy rp! Basically I have a fantasy world I created with some different oc and I would love to expand on the world with others! I have a plethora of different plot ideas that range from your standard dnd/lotr esque adventure to just some fun cozy fantasy! I am also up to any other plot ideas that you many have!
Warnings: primarily the potential for some dnd/medieval fantasy esque violence
Shipping: I’m open for any pairing! I have ocs all across the gender spectrum! MxM, MxNB, MxF, NBxM, NBxNB, NBxF, FxM, NBxM, FxF! I am also good with purely platonic relationships as well!
Requirements: I am 26 years old so I request that you are 21+ if you wish to rp with me! I also prefer to write at least a paragraph but typically aim for about 3, though I typically match my partner! I also am not a stickler on daily responses due to my own hectic work schedule! I’m fine with a minimum of about once a week, though if life gets in the way just reach out and let me know! Life always comes first and I am super flexible so just take your time! I’m always around 😊
Please like this post if your interested and I’ll reach out with my discord!
give a like and anon will get back to you
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Basics: Hi there! I am a 26 year old female looking for a 21+ fandomless medieval high fantasy rp! Basically I have a fantasy world I created with some different oc and I would love to expand on the world with others! I have a plethora of different plot ideas that range from your standard dnd/lotr esque adventure to just some fun cozy fantasy! I am also up to any other plot ideas that you many have!
Warnings: primarily the potential for some dnd/medieval fantasy esque violence
Shipping: I’m open for any pairing! I have ocs all across the gender spectrum! MxM, MxNB, MxF, NBxM, NBxNB, NBxF, FxM, NBxM, FxF! I am also good with purely platonic relationships as well!
Requirements: I am 26 years old so I request that you are 21+ if you wish to rp with me! I also prefer to write at least a paragraph but typically aim for about 3, though I typically match my partner! I also am not a stickler on daily responses due to my own hectic work schedule! I’m fine with a minimum of about once a week, though if life gets in the way just reach out and let me know! Life always comes first and I am super flexible so just take your time! I’m always around 😊
Please like this post if your interested and I’ll reach out with my discord!
-
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Basics: Hi there! I am a 26 year old female looking for a 21+ fandomless medieval high fantasy rp! Basically I have a fantasy world I created with some different oc and I would love to expand on the world with others! I have a plethora of different plot ideas that range from your standard dnd/lotr esque adventure to just some fun cozy fantasy! I am also up to any other plot ideas that you many have!
Warnings: primarily the potential for some dnd/medieval fantasy esque violence
Shipping: I’m open for any pairing! I have ocs all across the gender spectrum! MxM, MxNB, MxF, NBxM, NBxNB, NBxF, FxM, NBxM, FxF! I am also good with purely platonic relationships as well!
Requirements: I am 26 years old so I request that you are 21+ if you wish to rp with me! I also prefer to write at least a paragraph but typically aim for about 3, though I typically match my partner! I also am not a stickler on daily responses due to my own hectic work schedule! I’m fine with a minimum of about once a week, though if life gets in the way just reach out and let me know! Life always comes first and I am super flexible so just take your time! I’m always around 😊
Please like this post if your interested and I’ll reach out with my discord!
.
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Choose violence 8, 10, 24 for Tolkien? :)
<3 when i saw you had sent me an ask, i blushed so hard i'm pretty sure i gave myself a mild fever. omg hi <3
also, so sorry but i def employed some tolkien-esque verbose-ness in answering these lol. especially the last one, whew. like, im embarrassed.
8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about
what’s funny with the tolkien fandom is that the movie fans and the book fans have whole different spheres of bugaboos and Annoying Habits so it’s easy to vacillate between either camp when you keep encountering the Nonsense.
that being said, i one hundred percent consider myself a “book fan” and think movie fans are more annoying than all of us literates. like, they can’t help it—the movies are the source of most their ills— but as a rule movie fans are wrong about like all of the characters. as in, legolas isn’t mister stoic badass, sam isn’t More Heroic, aragorn isn’t pathetically reluctant, elrond is much prettier than hugo weaving, and denethor is not nutso (to name a few).
i would say, though, that book fans are generally really bad at figuring out what parts of the movies to pick on. like for years i’ve been so baffled by people still being angry over glorfindel’s exclusion in the fellowship movie and no offense to people who have read the silmarillion and the fellowship…but that was not only the best adaptational change but it also improves on the book. in that, sending arwen to guide them to rivendell and to physically hold frodo to her as she defended the last homely house with water horses, is an genuine story improvement—not just because lotr is a sausage fest and that Sucks but because it foreshadows arwen giving frodo her passage west, via a flight east, it lets arwen actually parallel luthien riding across middle earth on huan, which in turn gives arwen an equal sort of challenge in living up to a legacy, something that can thematically help aragorn live up to his, doing that thing tolkien does best and telling the same story over and over until the song finally scans and the rhyme resolves and the Big Story ends.
of course, the movies left out the arwen-giving-frodo-the-evenstar-gem thing so in terms of Sexism both media are equivalent.
i think book fans in general are wayyyyy too like faithful monk readers of the bible. and not even like medieval monk readers, where there’s a clear delineation between various interpretive approaches, going from the literal to the poetic in degree. no, tolkien fans i think have mistaken a rich creative world for something near perfection, to the point where they don’t really know how to explain why the amazon series is bad beyond “amazon is bad” and what makes tolkien’s fantasy unique. tolkien fans, in terms of pedantry, are worse than dune fans.
but yeah. everyone is wrong about glorfindel in fellowship. he is Not as interesting as arwen as a character and does Not really fit in the story.
10. worst part of fanon
definitely the freaks who treat genuine baddies as misunderstood kittens. like, i don’t feel very sorry for maedhros? also, why is the elrond-considers-maedhros-and-maglor-as-dads caucus in the tolkien fandom so loud??? look, there’s no arguing these are tragic and pathetic blorbos, and i personally love stories in which they seek atonement, but elrond had a dad. if i were elrond or elros, i wouldn’t even be considering letting someone else slot into that position. especially not with my dad constantly being in the sky, like a particularly unfair reminder. maedhros can be complicated and alluring, but i hate the fanon of him or maglor genuinely adopting the baby half-elves out of untainted goodwill. it softens them in a way that makes me like them less.
also, the fanon of people being like “tolkien wasn’t sexist. look at melian.” does that count as fanon? if so, i hate that too.
24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse
i feel like this goes for all fandoms, but by far any sort of accusation of racism in the work or in fan works is the most grenade-like kind of accusation one can lob.
with tolkien, i see a lot of people often focused on tolkien’s own opinions on “allegory,” and to be quite honest, anyone who uses that to say tolkien isn’t as racist as you might assume, is dumb as a rock.
tolkien’s frustration with "allegory" is the concept of 1 to 1 relationships. he didn't like when people were like "rohan is anglo saxon england" or "aragorn is [insert historical figure]" or any sort of reductive comparisons of lotr to real life figures and struggles in world war ii. (interestingly, however, he has said that dwarves were very inspired by jewish people. like, to the point that saying tolkien's dwarves are jewish is as accurate as saying shylock in merchant of venice is jewish--in that, they are characters in a story written by a christian who didn't really understand a whole heckuva lot about judaism. but that's a whole other topic.) and while that might tempt you to think that he therefore was not trying to represent any person or civilization from the real world in his books, unfortunately the core tenet of analytical reading is to assume deliberation over every single detail. you do in fact have to choose an idea before you write it down. and tolkien wrote the word "swarthy" one too many times for any of us to assume good-faith.
of course, there's also the claim of lotr not being as racist as the man (tolkien) likely was because art and the artist are not the same thing. and yeah. but again. "swarthy."
there is no easy answer to the whole death-of-the-author debate and questions over how much biography should be allowed in critical readings--at least no easy answer that doesn't just boil down to the simple demand to "think critically" (which isn't all that simple, in the end)--so i'm definitely not going to try to arrive at one now. but when it comes to tolkien's little made-up world, there are certain tropes in the fan interaction with it that make me somewhat queasy? like tolkien was so demonstrably inspired by real-world mythos and folklore that it is so easy to fit some of his characters and stories into real-world folk art and aesthetic. and to me there's a sliding scale of acceptable inspiration to maybe-we-shouldn't(?) inspiration. like when i see fan art that is labeled "indigenous tolkien," with no tribe or even geographic region specified, i find that weird.
and the reason i find that weird is the fundamental reason that i think discourse in fan circles over racial biases can get so rancid (unlike the discourse in non fan circles! just kidding, fandom discourse has nothing on a medievalist conference with a panel on white supremacy in the field, lol), and that reason is: tolkien's made-up world is not as made-up as the immersiveness of his world suggests. it is very rooted, and deliberately so, in the histories and folklore of western-european people (in particular) and thus the stories, the characters, the aesthetics, the ethics, and the themes are all off-shoots of these traditions. there is a missing element of material recognition in the interpretations of tolkien as really one thing or the other. material culture plays a much bigger role in the whole of all his arda-tales than is immediately obvious.
people want to give fantasy a pass when it comes to certain biases and they use that annoying allegory quote to do it with tolkien's work. because they are enlightened and do not project white supremacy and other legacies of colonialism onto a "made-up world." but tolkien would probably be the first to say that his work was built off fairy-stories, as a contribution to the genre.
he even goes on this relevant tangent at the beginning of "on fairy stories":
It is perhaps not unnatural that in England, the land where the love of the delicate and fine has often reappeared in art, fancy should in this matter turn towards the dainty and diminutive, as in France it went to court and put on powder and diamonds.
whether or not he's right about this distinction between english fairies and french fairies, this still shows that he considers the fantastical an expression of real and observable culture. therefore, despite the fact that it is bad-faith to read anything in tolkien as 1 to 1, he was trying to represent our world with his because he doesn't see the fairy/monstrous/supernatural as entirely separate from the physical/metaphysical or the human imagination. he was just trying to tell the same story that has always been told, from creation and onward.
so yeah. it is entirely valid to call aragorn's Specialness as a Special Sort of Human kind of fascist.
(and just as the rooted-ness of tolkien's fantasy world means that his work cannot escape accusations of bias, the rooted-ness also opens the way for a specific kind of progressive reading that is less about plugging one's ears to the bias but leaning into it. the real-world is more complex than one man can imagine it and when that one man is trying his hardest to represent the world, as any good writer would do regardless of genre, things will slip in to the story that the man chose but may not have understood. eowyn's speech about staying in the burning house is feminist thought even if tolkien would probably never have claimed it as such. the love between legolas and gimli is canonically transgressive and metaphysically-challenging--aspects of a love that tolkien probably would have assumed of gay love, in his time. if that makes sense. his biases don't define the art, even if they are present. especially since he was a very good writer and reader.)
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Hello, just came in to ask if you have any tips or things to keep in mind when writing LOTR or The Hobbit characters? I'm fairly new to the fandom, and I get distracted during movies easily so I miss things a lot 😅 hope you've had a good day so far!
Hi there Anon! I'm so sorry I didn't get to you sooner, I've been online quite sporadically (and inconsistently) since my last fic was posted.
I think the best advice I can offer is to try to picture the characters saying or doing the things you're writing them saying and doing. Sometimes I'll write a pretty generic set of dialogue in a rough draft and can't figure out what's wrong with it, and it usually ends up being out of character. In some cases, it might definitely be something they would believe or say, but just not written in their voice (simply not worded the way they would say it).
Thus comes reworking the verbiage, adding the time-period or societal effect of the speech (for instance, Frodo Baggins will not talk the same way Harry Potter will due to their being from different realms AND different time periods; medieval-esque characters won't speak like modern characters; and in the same vein, elves (i.e. Thranduil, Legolas, Elrond, and so on) will tend to have a more eloquent and graceful speech with bigger, fancier words than men/dwarves/hobbits (Aragorn, Eowyn, Samwise, etc.) who will speak with simpler words and language as they do in the films). Now, in the books, the old english language is always very intelligent and intricate, as was TOlkien's style, but the films are easier to replicate.
Sometimes I just look up specific scenes online to get a refreshment on their tone/speech/quirks so I don't have to wait and comb through the films entirely.
The best advice I can give you is to not be hard on yourself by trying to capture everyone perfectly. Even the most straight-forward and rigid character can do something unexpected! As a simple (and silly) example, Aragorn might like the taste of cotton candy and have a sweet tooth that rivals the hobbits, despite seeming like the stew-and-mead kind of fellow. Frodo might be terrible at cooking, despite being a hobbit, because perhaps his best friend Samwise always cooks for him anyway. Gimli might love cats despite them having a similar disposition as elves (they're furry and they purr! even Gimli can't resist).
Those little details are so inconsequential (although adorable) that it can fit all their known traits while also not being expressed by Tolkien himself. As long as you're adding something that doesn't directly go against the basics of that character and their foundational motives, beliefs, and morals, you will write and express them very well.
I hope this helped and made sense! A lot of my characterization comes from having watched the films quite obsessively since I was twelve and it just kind of happens naturally the more you work (and obsess) with the characters. They tend to tell you what to say or write after a while.
I fully believe in you and your skill, and hope for the best!
Xx Lillian <3
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25+f looking for some high fantasy, medieval, period, royals-esque type of themes to roleplay. Something like HOTD/ASOIAF, the crown and the flame, or the witcher/lotr vibes. political intrigue, romance, all that good stuff. I'd like to play Kenna Rhys or a female OC, but I'd love this to evolve into multiple charas.
bonus if you like all the headcanons, pinterest boards, playlists, etc.
i'd also love if we click ooc. it's important to me my partners are also virtual friends. i don't expect someone to be constantly interacting with me as life is busy ofc. but just someone who also just enjoys chatting or venting or things like that.
like this if you're interested and i'll reach out!!
.
#twenty-five and over#high fantasy#high fantasy roleplay#high fantasy rp#medieval#medieval roleplay#medieval rp#historical#historical roleplay#historical rp#hotd#asoiaf#the crown and the flame#the witcher#lotr#oc
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Rotating a few more ideas in my head like a rotisserie chicken:
Thinking fondly of Shang-Chi again so that time Kyle teaches Astrea hand-to-hand combat. Feral but affectionate (maybe).
“I’ll love him so much it’ll change the narrative” Astrea vs Zellard vs the end of the world.
“I’ll tell the whole world our story.” Yeah, ok… that’s nice and all, but Kyle’s a terrible storyteller.
“My niece thinks I just bum around the beach!” Kyle groans, entirely too dramatic. Astrea, the world’s worst best friend, just throws back her head and laughs.
The idiots, camping through the ages. That’s it that’s the fic.
Something something Sunbreak-themed, probably gonna strike Kyle down with a serious case of the Affliction and this is when you learn that Razewing has immunity.
Recently watched LOTR so idk… something medieval war-esque??? Let the raths lead a bomber platoon. Also I just want the monsties in their own suits of armor is that too much to ask for.
Little Mermaid AU for shits and giggles except it’s hate at first sight when Astrea makes the horrible mistake of letting Juice drag the idiot out of the ocean.
Kyle’s getting married, apparently? Yeah, that’s news to him too.
#maybe if I slap down bare-bone pitches I will write them one day#what do you mean I have to write the fic to show off the fic#monster hunter stories 2#monster hunter kyle#monster rider Astrea
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hey girl
1. tell me abt ur bbygirls
and 2. pls just look at my pinterest it has cool images i wanna show you i swear its not fandom cringe
https://pin.it/1tBfdgW
1 🩵 Okay so my favourite thing in the world to do in the DC side of things is read their weird fucking Elseworlds comics (and they get really fucking strange)
I wanna talk about Riddle of the Beast cause no one fucking discusses it and yknow make sense shit is strange, TLDR: its like if DC was in this weird ass LOTR-esque medieval Fantasy setting
but!!! this comic really sticks out to me for making Eddie an insect creature thingie
which is the main reason as to why I even read it- like "Oh if they made Eddie into a fucking insect the others gotta look weird as shit too" AND BOY DID IT NOT DISAPPOINT---- LOOK AT THEM
although it's definitely one of the better Elseworlds comics I read, but the competition contains "Superman: At Earth's End" and "JLA: Act of God" so the hurdle is really fucking low
2 🩵 my Pinterest has horny ass homoerotic stuff so you're good Nemu lmfao (all my boards are privated so y'all will never see)
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originally i wanted to make a nice lotr-esque costume for the medieval faire but unfortunately i’m a medievalist & early modernist and i’m just autistic enough that i’m completely obsessed with my costume being period accurate so. instead of a cute lotr elf costume i’m doing a an early 16th century/reformation era costume. anyway RIP my bank account
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I just had a realization about my family… So I’m from a family of nerds and, as such, I grew up watching Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, X-Files, Stargate, etc. Stuff like Harry Potter and The Witcher was also watched, but not as much as stuff like the previously mentioned “star” shows and other stuff like Chernobyl (HBO) or FRIENDS.
I liked this stuff growing up and I still like these shows to this day, but recently I’ve realized I had absolutely NO interest in whatever show my mom has been watching lately or the audiobooks she’s listening to. Like I’m helping her make dinner with her show on and ever fiber of me wants to ask her to turn her space show off so we can talk; I want to ask her if we can not listen to her zombie apocalypse audiobook and listen to music instead bc I get super frustrated just listening to the story that I have no interest in. She watches a lot of space themed stuff or biological apocalypse shows/movies (things like Patient 0, WWZ, that kinda stuff).
I couldn’t figure out why I disliked watching this kinda stuff anymore until I realized it had to do with something she’d said earlier. We never watched LotR growing up, and when I asked, she said we didn’t watch is as a family bc she didn’t like fantasy. And that’s when it hit me; she didn’t like fantasy, but I loved fantasy. Very rarely did we watch anything that had to do with magic or medieval esque settings, almost always watching stuff that was either a dystopian society or advanced technology. I, meanwhile, tend to write all of my stories with a fantasy setting, with magic, and the paranormal. I love stuff like Castlevania, Indiana Jones, The Magicians, Tintin, Princess Bride, the list goes on. I watched stuff like this almost exclusively while at college, so coming back to all sci-fi and zombies made me realize just how little I actually care for it.
I spent most of my life in a Sci-fi only household when, in reality, I had fallen in love with the mystical and magical and just didn’t feel like I could say anything about it, like I felt like it was taboo to ask to watch something like the Blair Witch Project. I guess what I’m getting at here is that there are all types of nerdiness, and not all nerds are built alike, despite what you were raised with or what you were told. You can be a nerd that doesn’t like Star Wars, a geek that doesn’t like LotR, or a general fan that doesn’t like zombie movies.
Take whatever you want away from my ramblings, this is just an interesting realizing I had about my household vs me. Anyway happy pride and whatever stuff you’re into, enjoy it for all of us!
#sci fi#fantasy#nature vs nurture#star trek#battlestar galactica#lord of the rings#princess bride#paranormal#independence#household#family#opinions#nerd stuff
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I posted 6,049 times in 2021
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#medieval thangs - 159 posts
#music - 73 posts
#food - 72 posts
#lotr - 58 posts
#classics thangs - 58 posts
Longest Tag: 138 characters
#getting up for any reason and realizing you’ve been in this fugue state for…so much longer and have delved so much deeper than you planned
My Top Posts in 2021
#5
borrowing my housemate’s cat for social media clout 2k21
19 notes • Posted 2021-03-20 01:33:13 GMT
#4
hamlet: i have of late, but wherefore i know not, lost all my chill
19 notes • Posted 2021-05-24 05:52:24 GMT
#3
aug 28, 2021 // can’t you see the sunset setting fast? and just like they say, nothing good ever lasts
24 notes • Posted 2021-08-27 23:19:57 GMT
#2
in lieu of a commonplace book is a phd candidate
4:30 pm, sunday, may 23, 2021
achievement UNLOCKED, exam passed, thank you thank you thank you to @pandolfo-malatesta and @girlfriendsofthegalaxy and everyone else who was kind and supportive, which is a bunch of you. i passed on thursday and then sort of gave up on having a physical form/passed out in the backyard for the next few days, ahahaha.
...what happens now... dissertation...proposal...(⊙_⊙;)
reading on the recommendation of Lady Wot I am Seeing (we talked and it’s official, i asked her and she said ‘yes’, hereafter ‘C’) i started Watership Down by richard adams this weekend. i had a whole little entry already written about it here, but i closed the page through some clumsy keyboarding and lost it, so i’ll just...i’m so here for the tolkien-esque dedication to the rabbits language and mythology. i got to the lines about the Prince of a Thousand Enemies and "first they much catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning,” and the rhythm here...just slaps, i can’t get over it.
listening i spent the last few days in the spotify pentatonix playlist, don’t @ meeee. their cover of ‘cheerleader’ has been stuck in my head, it’s so. happy? yeah. sorry the official video has such glee energy, i didn’t expect that and it’s making me very 🤦♀️
youtube
watching i may not have done much on friday and i absolutely overdid it with an ambitious bike ride on saturday, but i *did* manage to watch the first 8 episodes of heaven official’s blessing / tgcf and y’all. this show is gorgeous. i’m extremely into how they’re animating xie lian, his eyeliner is divine. i like his gentleness, too, the combination of kindheartedness and the hints of badassery; i like the shape the animators give to his eyebrows when thoughtful, concerned, etc. smarter people than i, i’m sure, have analyzed some of the strengths and weaknesses in the first few episodes, esp. the xuan ji / pei ming plot and how much attention is paid to xie lian in the bride’s clothes, but. my boy looked beautiful. also the palate for this show is incredible? screenshot from the credits to show you what i mean:
like, zoom in on this shit and tell me it’s not breathtaking.
playing dnd postponed this week, but we had player meetings with our incoming interim dm! one thing about this group, which i think i like, is that there has been a lot of sharing of dm-power, so various players have been able to take over for a campaign and the group as a whole has gotten to experience each other’s styles and also learn how to play in different roles. will i take a turn? that’s extremely t b d.
making i cooked dinner a few times, i uhhhhh need to repot this marigold seedling, i am not making anything consistently rn, i need to catch up on the many balls i dropped finalizing my fields prep. i will probably make some (dubious) music this weekend, recording final choir videos. those will never see the light of day (except to be sent to the sound-mixing wizards and buried among everyone else’s) but i mention them bc it’s a creative outlet, or w/e.
working on i’ve got to actually sign and submit the paperwork side of things to be ‘done’ with fields, but! i’m done with fields! i’m going to burn through some RA hours this week before the month ends, and then slap together a book history proposal in time to spend the summer on that. 16th century welsh book history / palaeography, my beloved? we’ll see.
25 notes • Posted 2021-05-23 21:22:40 GMT
#1
welcum iwys!
welcome to my personal blog, where it’s just always gawain and the green knight hours and we reblog aesthetic, fandom, and memelord shit on main like it’s still 2012.
stuff about grad school, life as a phd student, what i’m reading, etc. is part of the fabric of what we do here, and will be tagged #academia! (used to tag things either genuinely about life as an academic, and/or some degree of satirical/frustrated/amused about life as an academic) and #the grad tag (things to do specifically with my life as a grad student), but this isn’t meant to be a studyblr.
okay, it’s... not not a studyblr.
mostly, it’s a miscellany (hah) of things that have made me laugh, or think, not necessarily at the same time. reblogs are not necessarily endorsements, though, if i’ve seen a post several times, i’ll try to pass on the version whose comments i vibe with most.
blog url explanation here! weekly round-up posts now happening on weekends! and will be tagged ‘#in lieu of a commonplace book’; other tags to know here and include:
#medieval thangs: runs the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous, but if it feels related to the Middle Ages, chances are I’ll use this.
#postry: started as a typo, but I embraced it. posts about poetry.
#amateur ling nerd alert: my interest in language and linguistics is sincere and largely untutored
#language: when something is relevant to the study or concept of language but not dorky enough to fall into the above tag
i reblog or queue posts on mobile a lot, which often translates to them not being tagged immediately-- i go back and add tags to keep things organized for myself, mostly; though if you need something in particular tagged so you can block it, i’m happy to oblige!
34 notes • Posted 2021-03-23 22:57:24 GMT
Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →
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Who would you say are like the elite blogs right now in the community? Or blogs you think are pretty popular
This is a super hard question. I’m fully unqualified to talk about who’s “elite” or “popular.” Mostly because I don’t really feel as plugged into the AC community as I want to be, and partly because my preferences are very whimsical, foresty, woodsy, cottagecore, basically make me feel cozy and I’ll love u forever. of course, everyone has different and valid aesthetic preferences
so instead of actually answering your question i’m gonna give u a long, long, long list (seriously omg this got so long) of some of my favorite AC bloggers. Really, this is just some. There are so many talented AC bloggers on Tumblr and boy oh boy they’re all angels
@caterpillow – this village actually feels like a town where people live and exist, which is so hard to achieve and caterpillow has nailed it
@colin-crossing – funny, unique, incredible artist, island is so sweet and i want to live there and for it to rain 24/7 always
@electracnh – looking for an island where u might get hexed by a witch? ok well u found it. forest forest forest beauty
@iltacatact – an incredible creator with a breezy village. truly talented at decorating interiors
@leifstump – i luv skyrim, and leifstump is working on a cottagecore/skyrim-esque island which is so fun to follow
@mayorbrewster – u want wood? u want stone? u want perfect cozy forest/orchard vibes? u got it
@mirkwoodmoth – literally NAILSSSS the LOTR/Mirkwood/forest aesthetic. Everything they do is *chef’s kiss*
@mjcrossing – when i become a wildflower/honey bee farmer, this island is what i want my 1,000-acre farm to look like
@mochi-moss – beach decorating PERFECTION. like... no competition
@mochmint – art is adorable, town is adorable, is probably adorable. They post a lot of villager interactions and I love.
@moonbell-cottage – some people are pretty good with the designer tool. moonbell-cottage is an expert and will make u want triple the number of design slots. and that’s before mentioning their gorg island
@nettleisland – a super colorful island that uses lots of cliffs to create amazing horizons. also IS NOT GETTING ENOUGH ATTENTION FOLKS
@oakins – if u love towns with more overgrown/foresty vibes rather than lived-in town vibes, here’s ur spot. So lovely and utilizes weeds in my favorite way ever, so deliciously weedy. plus the way they edit their pictures… so good
@pasteliapeaches – posts 100% fire content 100% of the time. so amazing at decorating indoors and outdoors. like 1/3 of this island is dedicated to a rainbow flower field and that’s not even the most impressive part. 10/10
@pigeoncoffee – i love this island sfm. it looks like an old town that’s been lived in and loved for generations and gives me lots of nostalgic feels
@pigeoncreamer – medieval witchy cozy goodness. amazing. i want to spend the rest of my days in this island as the resident old weirdo lady that drinks tea and has 25 cats and wants for nothing. plus posts regular YouTube updates and it takes everything in me not to copy everything!!!!
@poppyhilldreams – i don’t know how to use flowers that aren’t white or black. poppyhilldreams does not have this problem. whimsical af
@poppypier – an incredible artist whose island is perfectly moody and broody with lots of really well-utilized unique paths!
@puretopia – this village is where i want to sit and read a book and listen to the nature sounds and no one bothers me because it’s BEAUTIFUL and so calm
@setlettie – there’s a real calmness and coziness about their island and their home. and an EXPERT terraformer. friggin inspiring
@skwivr – witchcore/cottagecore deliciousness. also her talent with the design tool is unreal. i designed my entire picnic area around her blanket design
@sproids – uses trees so beautifully to separate spaces and create unique landscapes!
@venvs-comb – everything u want. a witchy and skillfully terraformed town, an expertly curated blog, yes siree
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whats the life span of the races in the mpd au? :D
sort of playing fast and lose between lotr and dnd here + i have to factor in how theyd be different in modern times vs the medieval-esque settings of those two (both because of infant mortality and the prevalence of dying in battle)
so this is only my second attempt to pin these down - take it with a grain of salt as more of a guideline, because i can By No Means do math alkjalskj
Lifespans of the Different Species in Metaphysical Determinism
Humans - same as modern humans. considered adults around 18-25 depending on culture, live generally in the 70s range - getting to 100 is considered impressively old but not unheard of.
Hobbits - a little longer than humans. theyre considered children or “faunts” from birth-20, and then their twenties are similar to human teens (called “tweens.” They come of age at 33 in most hobbit cultures but anywhere from 30-35 normally. its not quite an 18=33 situation, more 21=33. they can live to 100 easily, and upward of 120-130
Elves - mature physically to adulthood about half the rate of humans (so reaching adulthood around 40-50), but an elf is generally not considered an adult by other elves until theyre at least a century old. can live anywhere from 500-750 years
Dwarves - come of age in their 60s or early 70s, and live to around 250-300, up to as much as 350
Orcs - average life expectancy of around 60, 75 would be like a humans 100. generally reach physical adulthood earlier than humans (around 15) but are born significantly more developed (think around the age of 18month to 2) so the rate of growth is honestly pretty close to the same.
Fey/archfey (logans grandfather) - functionally immortal but can be killed.
some additional notes:
mixed orc-human-hobbit social groups are the most common among people with children, because theyre the the three species who’s kids mature at the most similar rate. these three are also sometimes referred to (rather impolitely) as “mortals” by other species, though it doesnt always include hobbits, sometimes only orcs and humans
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stuff victoria said about her new series on today’s live:
It’s an adventure/quest fantasy book, very lotr-esque, with all the tropes people love about the genre while also poking fun at the ridiculous things about it.
She said she wrote it as like, what would she have liked in a fantasy book when she was a teen? She said that while she was a lotr Stan, she never really saw herself in the story, so this is just a bunch of stuff she likes to see in books.
The world is kind of medieval, around 1300s (it’s not set in that year but it’s like that time period)
The mc, corayne, is a mf pirate. That’s so cool I—
She also deals more with like the technical side of piracy, not the more physical/fight side.
She said corayne was different from mare in the sense that corayne never felt like she had a home and is sort of seeking that, while mare wanted to defend the home and family she already had
On a similar line, this story has a found family trope!! Kind of like. soc meets lotr I guess
The crew includes corayne, an immortal dude named dom, and an assassin, maybe some more.
This is a multiple POV book, she said there were 5 or 6 but some of them were not very frequent
It’s also written in third person which she said was what she was used to, she used to write fanfic in third person and had never written in first until rq, and now she’s gone back to it
There’s also multiple villains!! And twists like “ope thought this person was good but they’re not yikes”
There’s multiple love interests but not love triangles, and the romance is more slow burn (I’m thinking like.... a soc kinda thing where there’s couples within the crew lol)
She said the thing binding the crew together was “well SOMEONE has to save the world guess it’s us smh”.
She didn’t give many details on the plot but mentioned a sword was very very important, it’s sort of what the crew is chasing
She also said the crew was very culturally diverse, and she did a lot of research in world cultures in order to get their stories right
She talked a lot about this dom guy who is an immortal, said it was interesting to write him because he had to learn to deal with grief and loss, something he’s never had to face before
This time she was way more careful with the names because they say a lot abt the characters’ stories and cultures, like for Dom for example she took a lot of inspo in Celtic and Gaelic cultures (and he has a super difficult name I did not catch but ppl just call him dom)
On terms of houses, Corayne is a ravenclaw, Dom is a gryff, the assassin is definitely a slyth, and there’s a hufflepuff character too.
There’s A Lot of action scenes
It comes out in 2021
Cover reveal is “sooner than we might except” and it’s a seccsi seccsi cover according to her
Overall this sounds like a pretty spicy book
pls add to this if I missed anything, got anything wrong!!
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