strawberry ★ guardian

Dangers of working on a set.

he would spend multiple days walking overland to locations in full pack, sword, & armour when everyone else was travelling in trucks

refused to use any prop swords that weren’t actual steel

basically lived in the forest in-costume, sleeping rough under the sky, even fishing & foraging for his food when possible

often spent hours in the barn just bonding with the horses. He adopted the horse he rode, Uranus, after filming ended

repaired all his own gear by hand, which was often since he never took it off

had a tooth knocked out during filming but had the crew simply glue it back in place so they could keep filming

the instructor who taught everyone swordplay said Viggo was the best swordsman he had ever trained

carried his sword literally everywhere & practiced non-stop, resulting in the cops being called when locals reported “a wild man swinging a sword around his head" outside a gym in Wellington

an orc actor fucked up & accidentally threw a dagger directly into Viggo’s face, but Viggo just deflected it with his sword. They kept that shot

infamously broke 3 toes kicking that helmet but stayed in-character & sold his very real scream as part of the scene. They also kept that shot

Viggo insists on doing his own stunts; in The Two Towers where Aragorn is unconscious & floating down the river, the strong current pulled him underwater for so long that a rescue team had to go in to save him. Viggo survived by grabbing a boulder on the riverbed and pulling himself to the surface

cat love as in I am small and scared and all of my instincts and my experience and your vast power say you're a threat but I am choosing to trust in your kindness despite my fear. you could kill me with one hand but I know you won't.

cat love as in I can tell you are upset and I don't understand why so I will sit stiffly beside you and awkwardly provide the only reassurance I know how to give. I am uncomfortable with every single moment of this but it is what you would do for me.

cat love as in I am small and powerless but I will curl up back to back with you and stand guard while you sleep and I will mean it with every fiber of my being.

my cat Nepenthe was a former stray behavior case at risk of euthanasia because she kept mauling potential adopters. on her second week in my apartment--having already attacked me multiple times without provocation, I will add, I wasn't special, she needed genuine help--she slinked out of the bedroom yowling at me. when I went to check on her she kept walking back and forth until I followed her, where she insistently paced between my feet and her hidey-hole in the back of my dresser, increasingly distressed. about three seconds after she gave up and hid, an absolutely torrential rain front hit. she didn't understand yet that we couldn't get wet inside. she'd been trying to warn me.

she didn't know me yet, but she knew I hadn't yelled at her when she hurt me. she knew I hadn't tried to hurt her back. she didn't understand why she was attacking me; those episodes probably scared her more than me. she knew I "shared" food with her, and that I asked before touching her. and she went out of her way to bring me into her safe space, to protect her friend.

He had the awkward tenderness of someone who has never been loved and is forced to improvise.

Have you guys seen that clip

dark/gothic judaica: an aesthetic that could be an artistic goldmine

Of course, Victor really has no intention of saving him. It’s all a flimsy excuse that seeks to justify destroying him. He issues this challenge fully anticipating the Creature will fall short of the mark. Only, the Creature doesn’t.

Yet, the moment the Creature utters “Elizabeth”, his fate is sealed. Victor's jealousy and resentment towards the Creature allows him to dismiss this evidence of intelligence by confirming, in his mind, that the Creature is only capable of parroting words he hears without understanding.

Still, Victor pauses and there is this powerful moment where the two look at each other with varying degrees of frustration and resentment.

There is something in the Creature’s eyes. Something different. Victor considers this revelation only for brief a moment but he does consider it. Yet, it’s not enough to halt him in his course. He is determined to destroy the Creature if only to soothe his wounded ego as a jilted lover and eradicate all evidence of the “failed experiment” he considers little more than a stain upon his perfect record.

Yet, as Victor walks away from the burning lab, the Creature calls to him by name again and again. Victor. Only Victor. Never Elizabeth. If the Creature truly had only been parroting the only two words he knew, surely, he would have called out “Elizabeth” at some point, too. He didn’t. He called out solely to Victor in his urgency and fear, and you can pinpoint the exact moment that Victor realizes that he was wrong. The Creature understands the meaning and difference between the two words. He understands the danger he is in. He is calling out for Victor's help by name.

For a brief moment, the Creature is once again his triumph, the miraculous being that he brought to life and is, by all means, his son. Once again, the Creature is that miracle bathed in sunlight which he just abandoned to flames. For that one brief moment, in Victor’s eyes, the Creature is a man. One capable of thought and emotion and understanding. One that needed him. Suddenly, what Victor has done is no longer disposing of “faulty equipment”, it’s coldblooded murder.

Victor had been lamenting the fact that the Creature only ever uttered his name again and again without any real comprehension or significance, only to realize that the Creature did in fact understand its significance and had been calling out to him by name because Victor truly was the centre of his world. There was only one other who had spoken his name in such a way.

Who else, but his mother?

“Victor!” Once spoken with that same unconditional reverence and affection was now being cried out in desperation and fear, just like his mother in her last moments.

Suddenly, Victor is once again that helpless child, separated from his screaming mother by a door, beyond which death is quickly closing in. Horrified, Victor does what he could not do for his mother when he was a child, he runs back. In that moment, I feel that he was trying to save his mother just as much as he was the Creature. Yet as even as he tears open the doors, by then it’s already (presumably) too late.

Not only did the Creature's screams remind him of his dying mother calling out his name, but they proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was no longer disposing of evidence, he was killing his child.