Astaria Everlasting

Fics & Art about Orcs & Ologs are my jam ❤️

[encounter-in-motion]

can someone clear something up for me regarding núrn(en)

okay so as i understand the region as a whole is called núrn, and the part of núrn featured in shadow of mordor is the mainland and is also just called núrn. However, the sea is called the sea of núrnen, and the island featured in shadow of war is the isle of núrnen, right? Or are núrn and núrnen just interchangeable? It almost seems like nurnen is used to mean 'of nurn' in some cases like the nurnen fishery, but then the sea of nurnen would be called the nurnen sea. Idk i just cant seem to find a clear answer, maybe im overthinking it, but i thought id ask in case someone here has an answer.

[sinick]

Well "nen" means water in Elvish, so I think Núrn is the region, and Núrnen is specifically the Sea of Núrn.

So, yes, "Núrnen Sea" or "Sea of Núrnen" are tautologies, but those are very common in multilingual geographical names. For example, "The La Brea Tar Pits" is a tautology, since "La Brea" is Spanish for "The Tar".

[astariaeverlasting]

Like Torpenhow Hill means Hill Hill Hill Hill!

Tor (Old English/Norse)

Pen (Celtic)

How (Norse)

Hill (Modern English)

[thefaearealwaysamongyou]

Been thinking abt Ratbag the Coward again lately and it's baffling to me that he really is almost 6 feet tall. He looks so tiny in comparison to the other characters that it tricks me, 5'3, into thinking I would be at eye level with him. I would not. This vexes me.

[sinick]

Know what you mean! I'm exactly as much shorter than Ratbag as he's shorter than Talion: 5'2" < 5'10" < 6'6" !

[astariaeverlasting]

Ratbag is almost 6 feet tall?! WHAT? Since when?!

[thefaearealwaysamongyou]

Everyone in Lotr (except specifically short races) is EXTREMELY tall. Elves are, on average, at least 6 and a half feet tall.

[astariaeverlasting]

This terrifies, fascinates, and awakens something inside me 🤣

We're talking about if Ratbag were standing upright, not hunched over the way he normally carries himself right???

[thefaearealwaysamongyou]

Well yeah, his slouching makes him lose a couple inches depending on how low he is on the Ratbag mood indicator (I noticed watching him that he shrinks down when upset or nervous, and stands more upright when confident), but his full height is estimated to be 5'10

[astariaeverlasting]

Oh for sure, he definitely let's his emotions change his stature. But, even then, here I was thinking he was still just a small fellow among his fellow orcs (and I suppose that isn't wrong)😭But DAMN, even HE would tower over me in that case. All those other orcs in the games must be freaking UNITS.

[thefaearealwaysamongyou]

Been thinking abt Ratbag the Coward again lately and it's baffling to me that he really is almost 6 feet tall. He looks so tiny in comparison to the other characters that it tricks me, 5'3, into thinking I would be at eye level with him. I would not. This vexes me.

[sinick]

Know what you mean! I'm exactly as much shorter than Ratbag as he's shorter than Talion: 5'2" < 5'10" < 6'6" !

[astariaeverlasting]

Ratbag is almost 6 feet tall?! WHAT? Since when?!

[thefaearealwaysamongyou]

Everyone in Lotr (except specifically short races) is EXTREMELY tall. Elves are, on average, at least 6 and a half feet tall.

[astariaeverlasting]

This terrifies, fascinates, and awakens something inside me 🤣

We're talking about if Ratbag were standing upright, not hunched over the way he normally carries himself right???

[thefaearealwaysamongyou]

Been thinking abt Ratbag the Coward again lately and it's baffling to me that he really is almost 6 feet tall. He looks so tiny in comparison to the other characters that it tricks me, 5'3, into thinking I would be at eye level with him. I would not. This vexes me.

[sinick]

Know what you mean! I'm exactly as much shorter than Ratbag as he's shorter than Talion: 5'2" < 5'10" < 6'6" !

[astariaeverlasting]

Ratbag is almost 6 feet tall?! WHAT? Since when?!

[moonstonevulture]

Talion had every right to become evil.he went from having the sweetest pupydog brown eyes you’ve ever seen so soulless blue…that elven fuck

[astariaeverlasting]

I loathe that stupid smug elven asshole with a passion.

[gaiushateaccount]

Unintentional ASMR but it's the orcs rowing down the river and whispering

[astariaeverlasting]

Please say this would include growls and snarls 👀

[astariaeverlasting]

I was just musing and commiserating with a mutual about how frustrating the bot/spam comment problem on AO3 is and what might be done about it. I came up with an idea that might at least help a little (won't solve it entirely, but it could be a step in the right direction...)

~~~

Maybe Ao3 could introduce some sort of way to mark a "suspected bot" tag on comments/accounts/IPs so that if someone continuously is commenting bot-like things, it would make it more obvious on to anyone else receiving comments from them. Just make it some sort of threshold thing based on reports over time for the tag to fall off the account or something. And if someone did have that tag, their comment and the email notification sent to the author could come specifically marked with a warning like "Be advised: Other Ao3 users have reported this account for bot-like activity."

Maybe even allow authors to choose what threshold of reports on a user that they are willing to allow to comment on their fic. Like if someone gets reported as a bot 10 times in a week, I may not want them commenting on my fic. But if they only have 2 in the last month, then I could say I'm okay with the risk of them commenting (maybe implement it as a ratio of comments to bot reports as well idk. Like if only 10% of their comments in a week vs 1% over a month).

Also, reports could be limited to one report/per receiving user/per comment (These measures would be to combat mass hate-reporting.)

Not entirely sure how one could implement this for guest comments unless it could be associated with IPs, but I'm not techy enough to know if that is possible.

ANYWAYS. The idea would be instead of trying to play whack-a-mole with the ban-hammer, just make force the bot-behavior into the light, expose it, and let the social consequences handle it.

[allofthefreedoms]

I think we are really leaving untapped the potential that the sea of Nurnen offers as a location.

There is the Kraken, which routinely attacks the Fishery (location available in Shadow of Mordor), just because it gets angry. What makes him angry? Likely the orcs disrespecting the sea, overfishing, razing the seabed and throwing corpses and trash in the waves.

But also. Pirates! I bet there are lots of pirates sailing the sea of Nurnen. They do everything that an orc loves: raiding, fighting, drinking, and they obey only their leader, not Sauron or anybody else.

Maybe there are other creatures, like sea Maiar or spirits... Maybe sirens!

[astariaeverlasting]

Orc-ified Odyssey anyone?

I've always pictured the Sea of Nurnen to be somewhat like Middle Earth's equivalent to the Mediterranean (if a bit smaller) though I personally scale it up in my own head canon/fics.

More below the break...

I also headcanon that it is a blackwater body of water, making it have an eerie, dark, tea-colored appearance with minimal salinity. The high acidity of the excessive tannins in the water would make it inhospitable to shelled mollusks, and any fish there would have evolved to live in low-light conditions and be air-gulping rather than water breathing. But you know what could thrive in such conditions?

Electric eels, giant catfish, and monstrous celphalopods.

I can just imagine horrifyingly large creatures of the deep surfacing on a regular basis to breath and having run-ins with orcs. Imagine sea monsters with amber-shifted bioluminescence lurking under the surface at night, and all you see is swarms of blood-colored lights under the hull of your ship, waiting for some unlucky bastard to be lured to the railing, only to be snatched up by long, eldritch tentacles!

And ship construction? Hope you didn't build with iron nails, because you're likely to be sailing over the abyss when the acidic water finally corrodes through them, and your ship falls apart without warning! The perfect pickings for a giant fish to shoot up from the dark and swallow an unsuspecting victim up in one massive gulp!

[urukbignaturals]

I wanted to make a chibi Ratbag. First time i've ever drawn Ratbag and i think it shows LOL

Anyway, here is Ratbag giving all his fans a nice wink and grin after all the bday wishes.

[dailyratbag]

omg how did i miss these cutie pies!!!

[jkottke]

The Color Game. “Humans can’t reliably recall colors. This is a simple game to see how good (or bad) you are at it. We’ll show you five colors, then you’ll try and recreate them.” I scored 39/50 but got a perfect score on one color.

[pengtheplush]

[astariaeverlasting]

Not too shabby considering the site glitched out for the first 2. It wasn't updating the color on the right of the UI and I was guessing basically blind based on the HSB sliders alone! Haha! My best one was ~9.98! Fun lil challenge!

[dragonfire42]

I've been a fanfic writer on AO3 for two years, have 50+ stories and over 350k in words, lots of fun reader engagement and stay active on Tumblr to promote my stories and fan creations.

Last night I got an angry message on my Tumblr from a user asking why I was flaming their story on AO3.

I never leave negative comments (and I've left over 500 positive ones!). I looked into it, and the hatebots on AO3 used my username with (Guest) at the end to send one of the most vile messages I've ever read to a user in a completely different fandom from me.

I straightened it out with that user and explained about the hatebots. But their initial message to me was angry, they'd found me off AO3 on Tumblr and called out personal details from my page because they thought I was bullying them.

I still can't really fathom why these hatebots do what they do, but I'm also a little scared that a misunderstanding like that could lead to someone getting doxxed. And I'm also extremely sad that this bot is posing as me and threatening other users. I encouraged the one reaching out to me to report and block and made a note on my page explaining that (Guest) comments are not from me in case anyone else had that experience.

I still love AO3 for the ability to write and share and connect over our stories and fandoms, but this is really discouraging and scary, in addition to the almost daily art bot scams I get on AO3 too.

And my heart breaks for the user who thought even for a moment that a complete stranger would say such awful things to them using my name.

And it's devastating to think of so many writers waiting for feedback on a story they worked so hard on who are getting hateful comments like these. Or to think someone could internalize those hateful comments without knowing it's a bot.

My heart breaks especially for newer writers on AO3, it's definitely a different landscape from when I joined two years ago.

As a kid who grew up watching Terminator - I'm not sure I envisioned the robot wars looking quite like this!!

Here's the form to report abuse if you have a comment from a bot: https://archiveofourown.org/abuse_reports/new

Here's a link with additional information on the different types of bots on AO3: AO3 Comment Bots - Fanlore https://share.google/m9IhE4NEGMNgHjtWq

Here's a way to fight the bots by leaving positive comments, join the AO3 comment fest bingo: https://ao3org-tumblr-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/ao3org.tumblr.com/post/808198255312781312/welcome-to-feedback-fest-2026/

And anyone who sees my name or any of my pseuds with (Guest) please know it didn't come from me, and don't let a random hate bot discourage you from continuing to write!

[joyandotherstories]

Eesh. If anyone ever gets a negative comment from me, you can know immediately that it was a bot! I would never!!

[sinick]

Ditto. Any negative comments from guest accounts are bots. Please ignore, report and delete them.

[astariaeverlasting]

I know it would be tough to catch every impersonator, but it would help eliminate a lot of them if Ao3 made it so guests couldn't enter names that match registered users.

[moonstonevulture]

Brûz is a girl dad.i can’t explain this

[pengtheplush]

Brûz is a girl dad who probably thinks he’s a boy dad.

Consider this: he’s lived his entire life surrounded by Mordor-typical toxic masculinity which has molded him into an Olog who loves almost nothing more than being the biggest, baddest, ‘macho man’ in the room. If men like Talion boss him around, that translates to Brûz as being overtaken by the competition. However, women attempting the same thing are an entirely different vector: challenging, yet non-threatening —AKA, Brûz’s definition of play.

Put Brûz in a room full of women he’s not inclined to hurt for long enough and he’ll feel… more emotionally disarmed and validated than he wants to admit. In that space, he becomes unapologetically cocky, but also more indulgent towards women, often obeying their whims simply to see how they react. Naturally, he frames this all as a calculated power play, but really? He just likes being a merciless, instigating tease that can make the ladies blush without getting a knife in the back for it.

TLDR: He consciously understands boys, but he subconsciously likes who he is around girls more.

[astariaeverlasting]

Don't try to dominate Bruz. Bruz doesn't like being controlled through brute, imposing means. HE is the only one who is allowed to be a domineering brute. Well... we all know how that went for the last guy who tried.

Gentle, non-hostile or even friendly/playful manipulation however? He knows it when he sees it, and if he likes you? He loves that shit. The teasing, pretending, indulging. It's games for him. In the best and worst way possible. He's like the worst, most obnoxious, most unserious dude-bro you know, but also the kind you can't subdue your cheesy grin at because of his ridiculousness.

But if the manipulation is coming from a daughter-figure, giving him puppy eyes and a pouty lip?

He's a goner.

Turned to PUDDING in her hands.

[urukbignaturals]

Finally finished Bruz's quest line again. Im glad to be reminded that Ratbag is so fucking cute and endearing, i bet he is supposed to be annoying but i just think he is the cutest. Az-Harto is kinda sweet? like, at times i think ratbags affection is one sided but he seems to do a little bit more than just tolerate him. Just a little. Also- Az-Harto speaking in english at the end is hilarious to me. You mean you could have communicated in a language your buddy and Talion could have understood, but you chose not to? Never change, Az-Harto.

[chainsxwsmile-personal]

He was biting

[astariaeverlasting]

I'm SUPER rusty, haven't drawn in a very long time… (most of my previous uploads were from a year+ ago) BUT I wanted to try drawing Alaesia as she would appear early on in my fic "You Reap What You Sow" (under the spoiler line because she's pretty beat up, no gore or blood, just lots of scars and bruises).

She's not having a great time.

I'm not the biggest fan of how this doodle turned out, but practice is practice🤷‍♀️ I'm trying to not be too precious about it. I think I'll leave it as is and keep trying to improve on other pieces. I'd love to push her design to be less generic in shape, but shape language is not my strong suit. Hmmm… That is a tough one.

I also don't remember how I used to draw things, so relearning the software is a challenge. There's weird artifacting on the edges of some of the color layers and I don't know how to get rid of it. For now... let's just call it a stylistic choice 🙃

[astariaeverlasting]

Elvish Devilry

The theory that orcs are descendants of ancient elves corrupted by Morgoth leaves so many fascinating implications and consequences to be explored. And I love forcing my orc character Zathra to deal with that.

Art by me!

Yes Zathra is actually an orc, created in the third age in Mordor, despite his appearance. He shows far more "elvish" features than orcs normally should, seemingly like some sort of weird genetic throwback. For his appearance, he is considered a freak, even among orcs. The fact that he can wield magic doesn't exactly help Zathra's case either; magic is regarded with extreme suspicion by most orcs. Understandably, given how magic-wielders are often some of the most sadistic, cruel officers who use the replaceable soldiers as guinea pigs in their twisted and psychotic experimentation. If not for the fact that his appearance was mutilated by an explosion and that he hides his abilities, other orcs would make Zathra a prime target. The problem now is his magic has been changing and it's getting harder and harder to hide.

[astariaeverlasting]

>>> "I wonder if he ever received training so he can use his magic with some knowledge or if he wings it."

Oh he totally wings it. His magic was nonexistent at first, so he kind of slipped under the radar for being recruited as a sorcerer, instead getting sent off to be a grunt doing menial labor. His magic didn't really start manifesting for a good couple decades after that (other than being unnaturally good at talking himself out of trouble). It was only after the explosion that his magic kicked into gear, purely by instinct to save his own life from being burned to death. Since then it's just gotten more and more powerful and out of control, and best of all? He has no idea why!

>>> "ironic (and horrible) that a sorcerer's experiments are worse than being involved in an explosion"

"Ugly as a two-faced goat's arse? You fit right in. You have magic? GET AWAY WITH THAT ELVISH SHIT, YOU FREAK!" - orcs probably.

[astariaeverlasting]

Elvish Devilry

The theory that orcs are descendants of ancient elves corrupted by Morgoth leaves so many fascinating implications and consequences to be explored. And I love forcing my orc character Zathra to deal with that.

Art by me!

Yes Zathra is actually an orc, created in the third age in Mordor, despite his appearance. He shows far more "elvish" features than orcs normally should, seemingly like some sort of weird genetic throwback. For his appearance, he is considered a freak, even among orcs. The fact that he can wield magic doesn't exactly help Zathra's case either; magic is regarded with extreme suspicion by most orcs. Understandably, given how magic-wielders are often some of the most sadistic, cruel officers who use the replaceable soldiers as guinea pigs in their twisted and psychotic experimentation. If not for the fact that his appearance was mutilated by an explosion and that he hides his abilities, other orcs would make Zathra a prime target. The problem now is his magic has been changing and it's getting harder and harder to hide.