MY BABYGIRL IS HERE! PLEASE GIVE HER A WARM WELCOME!
π₯"I like to keep my issues drawn,
It's always darkest before the dawn..."π₯
π§ββοΈFinally, after 22 hours of drawing, countless references and deep research, I am ready to present to you my sweet child, my babygirl, my Silmarillion OC NΓ‘rien!π§ββοΈ
The facts not mentioned in the character sheet:
β NΓ‘rien is the oldest of three siblings, she has a brother and a sister.
β Her mother is a Vanya seamstress and her father is a Noldo craftsman (and they have a grea couple dynamic I canβt wait to tell you all about!
β Her mother-name, CarninairΓ«, means "red sorrow". As a result of her injury and subsequent treatment by the Valar, NΓ‘rien's mother has stronger abilities in terms of predicting her children's future (more on that later, of course).
β Her father-name, NΓ‘rien, means "maiden of fire", and is an attempt to a more hopeful spin on her fate.
β Her epessΓ« is just made out of the word βredβ, because thatβs how nicknames are, I guess.
β She was essentially bullied by Melkor for her hair colour (more on that later, in a comic under a working title "How Melkor created infidelity" π€£).
β She used to babysit most of Maedhros's brothers and cousins alongside him, and is very good around children overall.
β The crest she wears and the one in the middle of the sheet is her father's.
β Many things about her and her story are definitely a self-insert;)
"We know from intelligence and our partners that the Russians have prepared missiles for a new massive strike on Ukraine. Preliminary information: the strike will take place within 48 hours," β Zelensky
lmao! You're so right to call me out, I should be cancelled for this. XD
Basically I find it easiest to get into a flow writing on my phone. I do a lot of roleplay and I have my phone with me the most, so it's convenient. Especially for Tolkien writing I need a lot of special letters like Γ« and Γ‘ pretty frequently. It kept breaking my stride on laptop because I had to copy/paste them in, whereas my phone keyboard has them easily accessible and even autocorrects to them most of the time. (Like it knows that feanor is FΓ«anor)
I tried writing on Ellipsus on my phone, it was okay, I still like it, but I hit a road block pretty quickly when it wouldn't let me copy the text I had written to my keyboard so I could post it on Tumblr or AO3. Google docs is just janky + AI so I don't use that, especially not on my phone.
I started using discord for it because I found that even if my phone restarts mid sentence it has never forgotten where I was at with my writing and it never deleted an unsent text. It's easy for me to copy sections to my phone clipboard too. The only downside is that I have to make sure nobody catches me typing, so I tend to do it in server channels that nobody has used in a long time.
Also I tend to write my fic sections past 11pm at night, so I cannot be bothered to get out my laptop.
It is weird. It is objectively weird. It works though, so... π
Omg I do that too sometimes πππ I thought I was the only one lmao. I also sometimes write on tumblr or ao3. For some reason, when I try to sit down and write fic on a laptop, my brain spits out nothinnnng
Can't write on laptop for the life of me. The most I can do there is edit. Phone, phone, phone all the way. Though I prefer my default notes app, which leaves me to collect everything piece by piece from snippets because of symbol limitations there:')
fΓ«anorian picture day is complete! everyone actually made it. no one thought they would. now they finally have matching portraits they can hang up on the walls and argue whose turned out best.
see speedpaints and extras | support me on kofi!!
some fun extra details:
curufin has the most elaborate armor and hairpiece because he made them all
everything about the twinsβ armor comes in twos!
caranthir only wears silver because haleth told him gold was pretentious (he wonβt admit it)
celegorm didnβt bring his hairpiece or his armor. thatβs just some random twine they found on the floor.
maedhros and maglor have matching hairpieces, but, in like, a classy way not because i didnβt intend this to be a series wdym
The horror of having your superior at work talking about listening to russian music, and you can't even say anything because you really need money π
βοΈ + Rhun in TROP if you watched it because I think youβll have a interesting take on it
send me βοΈ+a topic for my take on it!
Hahaha I have indeed watched it and Iβve actually talked about the Gaudrim from TRoP here before, and yes I do indeed have a Take. Just a general note for the reader, please donβt take this as some sort of anti-show vendetta or wank or whatever, it really isnβt and I donβt even wank about adaptations on here, this is just my thoughts on this specific aspect, I have tagged the appropriate critical tags, and you can absolutely scroll if youβre not keen on reading it.Β
Anyway, the minute these riders came on screen, literally every single bit of pomp about the showβs progressive casting and representation flew right out of the window for me and turned it into unashamed diversity theatre. It was truly the moment that made me sit back and go βah, this is an American production funded by the Amazon corporationβ. Took me right out of the setting and plunged me into post 9/11 USA. Because Iβm sorry just look at these fuckers. Forget Lawrence of Arabia, these are straight up elf-jihadis under the spell of Istari bin Ladenβ¦ π
And one of the most interesting things I learned about these guys β the actors playing were actually a relatively diverse cast and clearly individualisedβ¦ yet for some reason these anonymising masks were added in post-production.
What really got my goat about all this is the fact that it is SUCH a DEEPLY unnecessary portrayal, so clearly reactionary War on Terror propaganda, that the only way I can read it is as a deliberate decision, without even a shred of allowance for ignorance, because once again, the advertising for the show literally uses its own progressivism as a hook. Because there was literally no need to do this shit. Like you have to go out of your way to do something like this. Tolkien is notoriously not-good with race, and the Easterlings were the perfect example of that. The Jackson films arenβt great with race, and the Easterlings were the perfect example of that. TROP is self-admittedly aware that neither Tolkien nor the films are good with race and that the Easterlings are the perfect examples of that, decided to shoehorn them into the narrative as the βGaudrimβ andβ¦ somehow made them worse.Β
I chat at length under the cut re: US exceptionalism, protestant ethnics, war on terror logic, desert-spaces, and why exactly this plotline was so galling to the point I had to rewatch those scenes like β???β and how it frankly just put a bad taste in my mouth for reasons way beyond Tolkien adaptations or loreβ¦ sorry this turned into an essay haha but itβs so you donβt think itβs just me blindly criticising something because I donβt enjoy it or interpret it differently.Β
So firstly imo whatβs crucial here is understanding that the desert riders don't simply represent post-9/11 anxietiesβ¦ their inclusion in that form outright reproduces the securitisation logic of the War on Terror. And this isnβt me forcing a progressive read of an adaptation that never claimed to be righting racial wrongs, because the entire Adar plotline with the orcs (as much as I am a bit iffy about certain aspects there) was proof that the writers are perfectly aware of how fantasy can think about populations constituted as "life to be protected" versus "life disposable to violence."Β
The first problem for me here is how the show constructs the riders as a collective rather than as individuals. Again, a clearly deliberate choice in a piece of media where half the characters are straight up OCs, many of them well fleshed out and elaborated upon. You have an entire plotline about Harfoots and Stoors with a full new cast of characters, and yet you never even see the ridersβ faces, never hear their individual stories, never witness any internal differentiation or dissent within their ranks, only an instance of collective disagreement with their leader. Sure you can say βthis might come laterβ but looking at the narrative trajectory, I simply do not think so and even so, literally every other in-group has been depicted at length already.
And this depiction of racialised populations as a collectively violent mass, this coding through βswarmβ and βhordeβ aesthetics has a very trackable genealogy in colonial discourse about non-Western peoples lacking individuation. Anonymised people of the global south, etc. The riders answer only to Blue bin Laden, are not positioned as a nation-state enemy to be negotiated with or defeated militarily in conventional termsβ¦ Gandalf doesnβt treat with them, he treats with the wizard. The riders are simply a band of terroristic agents in an area very clearly representing βthe Orientβ, who are willing to kill children over a payment dispute with their boss, a kind of illegible viral threat that requires βdivineβ counterinsurgency in the form of Bombadil and Gandalf. The lack of faces under headscarves worn in a style blatantly similar to representations of Arabs + them literally wearing fucking skull masks (edited on them in post!!!) isn't just dehumanisation fyiβ¦ it's the visual articulation of an enemy that cannot be comprehended as human through the liberal USamerican 21st century frameworks of personhood the show deals in. Just look at the very name theyβre given! Gaudrim, ostensibly from the Sindarin gaud (machinery, contrivance, according to TG)!!!
Anyway this is where Lawrence of Arabia / Gandalf of RhΓ»n comes in, the savior figure and an example of a particular technology of power at workβ¦ elven and Maiar magic is benevolent even when violent, operates in service of life (healing, protection, nurture). Meanwhile, the desert riders' power (through their connection to the dark Istar) is necropolitical from the jump, oriented towards pure destruction.Β
This isn't a morally neutral "corruption" narrative or a general black-and-white fantasy portrayal of good and evilβ¦ this takes the Oriental horde tendencies of the Easterlings from the source text and gives it a contemporary, worse, face. In a show where everyone from a random orc extra to literal Sauron is presented as redeemable or at least not ontologically βbadβ, the elf jihadis are given no such humanity. Even their doubts are to do with honour and payment. And the thing is, for a production claiming a racial progressivism that sets it apart from its predecessorsβ¦ this not a unique portrayal! This is the logic of War on Terror American exceptionalism!Β
As in, our violence is regrettable but necessary, protective, ultimately life-giving; their violence is pathological and must be eliminated. The show literally cannot imagine the Gaudrim as having legitimate grievances or complex motivations, their only disagreement with their leader being a basic argument over compensation and the loss of βhonourβ for these former kings. They follow the dark wizard because *checks notes* they're just like that π€ͺπ€ͺπ€ͺ
Vulnerable to extremism and prone to fanaticism. Like, you knowβ¦
Ok moving in to spacial politics, because the desert is doing some heavy lifting lmaoβ¦ and this isnβt much of a difference from book canon, in which thereβs a general lack of information about the Easterlings at large, their general coding and desert setting being enough to fill in the blanks in a, well, Lawrence of Arabia sense. The adaptation takes this and dials it up to 2000, with perfect awareness of how exactly a desert setting functions in post 9/11 visual cultures, ie as an βeverywhere warβ space (Derek Gregory term iirc), where itβs simultaneously nowhere (outside civilisation, beyond the polis) and everywhere (the frontier or boundary requiring vigilance and intervention).Β
Contrast this with how Lindon, NΓΊmenor, Eregion and Khazad-dΓ»m are shown in the adaptation: spaces of architecture, culture, history, law, hallmarks of sovereignty and civilisationβ¦ there was even that bit at the end of the second season where Elrond cries out about the burning of Celebrimborβs books and centuries of research. Not so with the Gaudrim. These guys emerge from this vacantly violent desert space, existing in a state of exception from the other groupsβ¦ the only culture and lifestyle seen in the desert belonging to the Stoors, who ostensibly leave the desert at the end. There's no room for understanding Gaudrim culture as legitimate or any proof of their position in a meaning-making system. Meanwhile, the elves' devotion to the Valar, the dwarves' relationship to AulΓ«, even the Harfoots' folk traditions, are all treated as enriching cultural practices.Β
And Gandalfβs journey was made fun of by critics as faux Lawrence of Arabia for a reason! Because it is! Itβs a narrative of penetration into an ungovernable space, Bombadilβs oasis (donβt get me started oh my fucking god) and Gandalfβs presence the only instances of order/knowledge/βproperβ magic as opposed to chaotic dark arts. This is textbook civilising mission stuff filtered through counterinsurgency logic!!!
Again, this isnβt Tolkienβs Orientalism reproduced uncritically, this is a deployment of those tropes in a specifically USAmerican sense. I think it was Rey Chow who coined the phrase βthe protestant ethnicβ, but it basically describes how liberal multiculturalism insists on cultural and ethnic differences being performed in legible, consumable ways.Β And so it is here! The "good" diversity in the show (Black elves, dwarves of colour etc) operates within palatable Anglo frameworks: they all wear clothes recognisable as βtypical Western fantasyβ costumes with a Byzantine/Southern European influence, they speak RP English, all except the proto-Hobbits have Sindarin as a common tongue, they all participate in courtly politics (dwarves) or engage in traditional militaristic pursuits (Adar), value individual achievement but act in the interests of a legible cause. And the cause might be βevilβ, eg with Sauron, but itβs comprehensible: they all are depicted as people who think of themselves as righteous. Their racial difference is epidermal, their cultural logic is functionally Western.Β
The riders, by contrast, are illegibly Other: their dress, their language, their social organisation all mark them as outside modernity. Thereβs no βfantasy robingβ here, theyβre what ChatGPT would spit out if you asked it to make you a fantasy jihadi, and their motivations are βcompensationβ and βput under a curse of the fleshβ. And crucially, the show never does the work of making them legible as it does for its other populations, makes no effort to translate their difference into something even approaching complex subjectivity.Β
And so what this kind of simplistic racialised portrayal of these anonymised people who blindly βserveβ every evil that comes around does is naturalise βinterventionβ as a permanent necessity in places like RhΓ»n and Haradβ¦ a position that the books carry uncritically into the Fourth Age. The Easterlings arenβt a one-time-threat to be defeated, theyβre a population perpetually susceptible to radicalisation. Such a region doesnβt call for militaristic defeat but for population management, not the winning of a single war but the maintenance of indefinite security operations. The Westerly men and elves cannot just fix the βproblemβ of Harad/RhΓ»n and leave, their presence is permanently necessaryβ¦ from the First Age to the Fourth, world without endβ¦
Sound familiar? π€‘πΊπΈπ¦π«Β
And let's be clear about what gets disappeared in this framework: any possibility of understanding the riders as responding to actual material conditions or histories of domination. Even in Tolkien's texts (and this is saying something!!!), there are at least hints that the Easterlings and Haradrim have been conquered, deceived, or coerced by Sauronβ¦ that their enmity toward the West might have explanations beyond simple evil. The Rings of Power forecloses this entirely. The Gaudrim riders appear racialised and threatening from the outset, with no backstory that might complicate the good guys/bad guys binary aside from a flesh-curse inflicted by a single characterβ¦ just like all the other βsimplisticβ reasons for the Easterlingsβ evil across the legendarium, it is weak on its own and clear as day when viewed as a pattern. And Iβm sorry but imo this is identical to how War on Terror discourse severed terrorism from any connection to US foreign policy / economic imperialism / support for authoritarian regimes.Β
The terrorists hate us for our freedom, not because of anything we did to them. The Haradrim serve darkness because they're vulnerable to evil, not because they have historical grievances.
Finally, there's the question of rehabilitation and redemption: who gets offered the possibility of real internal change? Galadriel can be consumed by vengeance and find her way back. Isildur can be an arrogant dickhead and learn humility. Sauron gets a whole seduction-and-corruption arc that grants him psychological depth. Adar and orc-rights are a major plotline. But the Gaudrim are either threats to be eliminated or victims to be saved, with no middle ground where they might be political actors making strategic decisions within constrained circumstances. This is the fundamental violence of how a βterroristβ is constructed in the post 9/11 imagination, ie not as a political subject with agency, but as either monster or dupe, either evil mastermind or brainwashed footsoldier. Either way, not fully human in the way that grants political legitimacy.
What all this, and the muted reaction to it aside from the people who already talk about race in Tolkien, told me was justβ¦ how deeply the biopolitics of the War on Terror have been naturalised into our reception of a story, the way tons of people who praise the show for its surface level representation and hold themselves as somehow more antiracist than the rest for such a veneration, only acknowledge the Gaudrimβs depiction as a blip in otherwise progressive narrativeβ¦ at best.Β
And this isnβt me saying that people who donβt let this portrayal impact their entire reading of the showβs progressiveness are bad people or arenβt media literate or anything like that. Itβs actually more telling of how the binaries of civilisation versus barbarism / savable versus disposable populations / benevolent intervention versus illegitimate unruly resistance have justβ¦ become the default settings for how we imagine good versus evil. IMO it isnβt that the Gaudrim are a problematic representation in a single showβ¦ itβs that they're purposely symptomatic of an entire apparatus of racialisation that reconfigured how post 2001 USAmerican cultural production imagines difference itself. And slapping some diverse casting on the package doesn't interrupt that apparatus, it just makes it an easier pill to swallow.Β
