#rop asks

7: A minor character I'd like to see more of is this lady:

She doesn't even have a name. Just 'Commander of the South'. I want to know more about her and what her deal is. Being Commander of the South, that would logically put her in charge of Arondir's company, so I guess there could potentially be room for her to have a bigger role in the future of his arc?

10: Choose three characters and give them three jobs in the modern world... dang now I have to actually think about this.

Nori and Poppy (I am counting them together) work at a cafe. Poppy is the responsible employee. Nori is always coming up with the worst possible ideas that are one step away from getting them both fired. "What if we made up our own drinks, Pop?" "What if we put fairy lights on all the chairs?" "What if we gave the patrons Sharpies and told them to write happy messages on the bathroom wall?" "What if we ran a promotion where people could pay with songs and flowers instead of money?" "What if we let this strange, mumbling, wizard-looking fellow live in the stock room?"

Kemen is a junior executive sales manager at his dad's company. He does not know what this means. All he knows is that he shows up to work every day, yells at a few underlings, maybe watches a PowerPoint, forwards some racist email jokes, falls for a phishing scam that costs the company two million dollars, and then complains about how nobody wants to work any more when his executive assistant quits. The only part of his job he does well is wearing tight suits with pants that are too short to show off his stylish socks.

Annatar is a Tiktok influencer with millions of followers. He posts upwards of ten videos every day. Every single one of them contains at least three different varieties of dangerous misinformation. His videos are constantly being stitched by knowledgeable professionals (Elendil, Bronwyn) debunking his insane claims, but somehow this only seems to increase his popularity. Galadriel has him blocked but he secretly follows her under multiple other throwaway accounts.

Thanks so much for the questions, @helenvader !

21. Based on the various dinner scenes we have seen so far, to whose table would you most like to be invited as a guest?

Ummmmm I think unequivocally I would have to say Adar's, for OBVIOUS reasons. I mean, the spread, the vibes, the INTENSE EYE-FUCKING you would receive as his dinner guest... yeah, I'll take that.

Although I do have to say that a very close second would be Gil-galad's... because you KNOW the wine selection would be ON POINT. The vibes, however, would be absolutely RANCID. XD

23. If you could give a present to a favourite character, what would it be?

2. Who is your favourite character and why? 

This is such a hard question, but I'm going to say Elrond. I've always loved his gentle wisdom, and in RoP, we're getting to see some of what potentially made him that way. To be honest, most of it has been hard to watch 😔

12. What colour do you associate with your favourite character?

Green for Elrond 💚

18. Which character would you most like to go to a pub with?

Disa! I think she'd be fun, mischievous, and absolutely drink me under the table! 😆

2: Favourite character is Adar. Genuinely THOUGHT it was going to be Gil-galad because he's been my fave for years before the show was even a concept, but then Adar appeared and ruined those plans. Why? Maybe because he's an entirely new creation, so I had zero preconceived notions about him going into the show, and he was able to stand completely on his own. As well, he covers a lot of ground that Tolkien left pretty uncovered in any of his published works, and I'm always here for a good gapfiller fic. Adar made me seriously think about a lot of things I'd never considered before, and I love that for him.

3: If I could spend a day with one character, I'd have to choose Celebrimbor. I love his workshop. I love his velvet grandma nightgown style. I love his calm yet slightly chaotic cool uncle vibe. I want him to show me around the city and tell insider stories of all the stupid things his terrible family did in the First Age, and then go off on an infodump tangent about crafting. I feel like I would be a lot less scared of the concept of soldering if Celebrimbor kindly showed me how to do it properly and I didn't have to rely on youtube videos and vague memories of when I took a stained glass workshop when I was 13.

22: Was I familiar with Tolkien's writing before watching RoP? Kids, I'm going to out myself as Old™ here but I have been in this fandom since 1991. I was there, Gandalf. I was there 3000 years ago, long before the Jackson movies, when we had only the books and the Rankin Bass and Bakshi cartoons and a play adaptation of The Hobbit. I drew terrible fanart of the Fellowship in Balin's tomb that my mom hung up in the kitchen. I drew slightly less terrible fanart of the Ring Verse that my 10th grade English teacher put up in the classroom. I eagerly read about the production of the Jackson movies *in the newspaper*. I cosplayed a book version of Thranduil and a Silmarillion version of Galadriel at a con in 2003. So um. Kind of, yeah.

2,3,4

May valar bless ya with more work elves mellon

2 and 3 already answered here, so I'll replace those in the sequence with 1 and 5, but feel free to send another ask if you'd prefer to choose other questions. :)

1: How I found out about RoP would be from Facebook, years ago, when all we knew was that Amazon had acquired the rights to make *a* Tolkien show, but nobody had any details and the speculation was that it would be about young Aragorn. At that point I asserted my very correct opinion that young Aragorn would be boring and they should focus on the vast and blank canvas of the Second Age instead. Pretty sure the group that was posted in no longer exists, but I do have this comment from February 2019 showing off my prophetic abilities on a post about this blog post dissecting some of the cryptic clues Amazon had started dropping.

And then obviously I followed show updates obsessively from there, like any normal person would.

4: Favourite location in RoP would be Ost-in-Edhil. It bothers me SO MUCH that they can't call it by name and just have to say 'City of the Elven-Smiths' on titles and refer to it as Eregion in dialogue, even though that's the name of the whole area rather than the city. I know it's Ost-in-Edhil, though. My heart knows. And also my brain. Because of reading. Anyway, I love the architecture, I love the mix of wood and stone buildings, I love the whole design, and I want to live there.

5: Favourite song or piece of music. This isn't exactly a single answer, but I go absolutely FERAL when we get a variation on a character's theme to give it a different vibe. The best example would be how Adar's theme is reworked into a different mode when he appears in elven form in 2.8. It's the same melody, but a completely different harmony, which completely recontextualizes things from this creepy, unsettling sound into wistful elvenness. We get the same kind of thing with Sauron's theme as well, when Halbrand is sitting in Celebrimbor's study in 2.2, and when Annatar pleads with Celebrimbor in 2.6 to use the "pure mithril" to finish the Nine. In both of these cases, the menacing Sauron theme is reorchestrated to sound noble and trustworthy. Fucking love that.

@mylovelylittleobsessions thanks for the asks, my dear!!

7. What minor character would you like to see more of?

THE ENTS. Omg there was NOT ENOUGH OF THEM and I hope they come back. WINTERBLOOM ESPECIALLY.

10. Choose three characters. What jobs would they have if they lived in our time?

Hmmm... okay here goes:

Gil-galad: SCHOOL PRINCIPAL. He's the only thing standing between decorum and utter chaos. Constantly breaking up the bickering fights between Elrond and Galadriel in the hallway. Using the FINGER OF AUTHORITY. Chugging wine in the teacher's lounge during breaks.

Disa: Disa would be like, a cut-throat business executive. Like, global hedge-fund, HBIC. She's sharp, intense, diplomatic when she needs to be, but piss her off and won't hesitate to UNLOAD ON YOU at full-voice from across the boardroom table. And also fill your office with mutant bats.

Elrond: 150/10 he's a librarian. A total bookish nerd who doesn't realize how insanely hot he is. The line to check out books is always around the door when he's working. He's also really good if you need a reference check about The Lore.

11. Which social media site would your favourite character use the most?

23: If I could give a present to a character, I would give S1 Adar a full salon and spa treatment. He needs a bath. And hair wash. And manicure. And I'm assuming pedicure as well. He would hate all of this, but he needs it. Look how nice S2 Adar's hair is after he washes it.

26: If I could ask the creative team behind the show one question, it would be: WHEN THE SHIT DOES THIS ALL TAKE PLACE. WHAT IS THE TIMELINE. WHAT IS GOING ONE. WHAT DATES ARE THESE. WHAT TIME OF YEAR IS IT. HOW MUCH TIME HAS PASSED BETWEEN THESE EVENTS. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, JUST GIVE US A SOLD TIMELINE I AM BEGGING YOU.

29: Describe my favourite character using three emojis: 😑☠️⚔️

(and modify 16 to include anyone who has lizard energy - I'm curious)

16: Three characters with dog energy, and three with cat energy: For normal reasons, I am going to say Halbrand has dog energy. This is entirely due to a scene I wrote in my fic last night. Other dog-energy characters are Durin and Isildur. Durin because he's extremely loyal but also stubborn and set in his ways, like an old dog, and Isildur because he has no concept of consequences and 100% WOULD chase his own tail if he had one.

The main Cat Energy character is NOT Annatar, contrary to popular belief, but Elrond. Constantly doing what he wants despite everyone else's instructions? Shows up after 20 years expecting to still be friends? Suspicious of that weird new Ring you brought home? Would rather leap to certain doom than do something he finds objectionable? Hardcore cat energy. Obviously Galadriel is his sister cat for similar reasons. And the third cat is the Stranger. He basically domesticated himself but still sometimes bites and scratches when startled.

Lizard energy: Adar. He just wants to sit in a sunbeam and rest, FFS. Also he probably eats bugs. And Phârazon, for being eerily patient and just sitting there. Sitting. Sitting. Waiting. Before making his move. And finally Gil-galad, for not really moving a lot and being one colour and always looking grumpy.

21: Based on dinner scenes, where would I like to eat? Not with Adar, LMAO. I tried making that dinner. It was basic. I'd much prefer to eat with Gil-galad. He has the nicest dining room and I want some elf wine, damnit.

28: Do I have any headcanons about a character or the world? Yes. Many. :) Most of them are about Adar, but I've shared a lot of those already. So here's a generic one. You know that script they use in Númenor? That isn't tengwar, or cirth, or anything else known to the Tolkien fandom? I HC that this is the script of the elves of Tol Eressëa, who, following all that unpleasantness with Feanor, stopped using tengwar out of spite. They came up with their own script, which they then passed on to Númenor during their many voyages of friendship. Númenor originally used both tengwar and cirth, but as most of their dealings in the early days were with the Eressëan elves, this script quickly became the standard and took over.