Lighthearted doodles

Boromir dies to save Merry and Pippin.

The hobbits are later freed from the orcs because Eomer attacked

Pippin goes on to save Faramir’s life

And Merry to save Eowyn’s.

Faramir and Eowyn then fall in love

Thanks to Eomer and Boromir saving the hobbits, their siblings survived and ended up married.

…

Now you may go weep.

The Company of the Ring shall be Nine;

Rules: Tag nine people you want to get to know better

Thank you @its-high-time-that-i-dropped-in & @revedebeatrice & @shimyereh for the tag today! <3

Favorite color: Reds, pinks, oranges, any combination of these

Currently reading: I have NOT been reading lately but I’m going to start The Age of Innocence soon! I haven’t read any Wharton before 

Last song: “Being Alive” from Company

Last movie: The Philadelphia Story! 

Last series: I’ve been rewatching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia lately as an escape and it’s the rare comedy that’s still mostly funny 10+ years later 

Sweet, savory or spicy: savory

Craving: time to read! Then I’ll be able to say I’ve read Wharton 

Tea or coffee: TEA 

Currently working on: some work I’ve left to finish late on a Thursday for a client that needs it Friday morning… I am nothing if not a fool 

Favorite color: hmm, nothing in particular, though royal blues are nice

Currently reading: Robin LaFevers’ Igniting Darkness in physical book and Leigh Bardugo’s King of Scars on ebook.

Last song: Paul Dukas’ Sorcerer’s Apprentice, over the radio earlier this evening

Last movie: oh dear. It was the Cruella movie. That’s what happens when you agree to see a movie without knowing the title. It’s not nearly as bad as everyone says, though.

Last series: Shadow and Bone

Sweet, savory or spicy: hmm, either sweet or savory depending on the time of day. Definitely not spicy.

Craving: sleeeeeep… I don’t think I’ve slept properly for a week.

Tea or coffee: neither

Currently working on: nothing! I am freeeee! just finished up with final exams this afternoon. 

Favorite color: forest green

Currently reading: Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges; Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler

Last song: “Tears” by Boy Harsher

Last movie: The Woman In The Window lol i wish i had those 2 hours back

Last series: Mare Of Easttown

Sweet, savory, or spicy: savory

Craving: change of scenery; i really want to go on a hike/bike/camping trip

Tea or coffe: tea

Currently working on: moving in a few weeks; making a quilt as a birthday gift

Favorite Color: moss green

Currently reading: The Transformation of Batholomew Fortuno by Ellen Bryson, Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon and Unfinished Tales Pt. 2 by J.R.R. Tolkien

Last song: Castles In the Sand by Jeremiah Llyod Harrison and Worms by Aliceband

Last movie: Return of the King (the 1980 Rankin Bass version)

Last series: Over the Garden Wall

Sweet, savory or spicy: Spicy!

Craving: Sunlight! This week has been too overcast. More specifically a day to lay out and sunsoak. 😌

Tea or coffee: Coffee

Currently working on: an embroidery project, two samfro oneshots, two other lotr adjacant fics, an animation project, two edits/fancams, planning a dnd campaign, homework, a nervous breakdown…

Favourite Colour(s): red & black

Currently reading: The Dune Trilogy by Frank Herbert, and the Overlord light novel series

Last song: Necrosis by Narrow Head

Last movie: Arrietty

Last series: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

Sweet, savoury or spicy: spicy food my beloved <3

Craving: passionfruit yoghurt (I ran out and haven’t bought more yet 😔 ) 

Tea or coffee: tea 100%. I love a good mocha every now and again but tea is just the perfect drink

Currently working on: the last of my uni assignments for the semester (so much life drawing….) and various pieces of lotr fanart :D

No-pressure tags: @brandywineriver

@jinglebellss

@utter-ash​

@rohirra​

@virdarr​

@bisamwiseual

And I wanna say Over the Garden Wall has fascinating visuals (plus Elijah Wood's voice acting is amazing too!) Curious to hear what you think of when you've seen it.

Favorite colour(s): Blue, Black, Ivory

Currently reading : The Silmarillion (...at extremely slow pace)

Last song: Moonshot by N.Flying

Last movie: Return of the King

Last series: BBC Merlin

Sweet, savoury or spicy: Can't live without spicy

Craving: Dumplings, been wanting em since last week but forgets to buy them every time I get the chance

Tea or coffee: Tea!

Currently working on: Today's lunch and a samfro wip which I might post today

No pressure tags:

and my personal favorite:

I also appreciate the ones that really change the tone and suggest that the characters openly loathe each other…

and this one, which gently encourages self-care:

And the greatest of all:

Sam follows Frodo into Mordor. Arwen chooses to follow Aragorn’s fate instead of the one she was born to. Amroth will not leave Middle-earth when Nimrodel cannot follow. Sam, Merry, and Pippin will not let Frodo leave the Shire alone. Beren and Lúthien follow each other into the darkest places in the world, or rather Beren goes, alone, repeatedly, and Lúthien pursues him with the same fervor that he once used to pursue her.

Tom Bombadil follows the river to find Goldberry and once he finds her he’s always following the path home to her; the only paths in the Old Forest that are dependable and constant are the ones that lead to his home and to Goldberry’s pool. “I have my house to mind, and Goldberry is waiting,” for him to follow her home at last.

Gimli follows Legolas and Galadriel into the West, and bears a love so powerful that he is the one exception to the rule; he bore no ring and yet is welcomed for the sake of his love for them. Sam swears to return to where he thinks Frodo died after the duty is done, but in that moment, the hardest thing is not the weight of the Ring or the fear of Sauron, but the burden of leaving him. Éowyn and Faramir stand together on the walls of Minas Tirith as they wait for the end. The Three Hunters push themselves to near impossible feats of endurance pursuing their friends when they are in danger. The ents constantly followed the entwives to their gardens, even though they didn’t care for them much, and the story goes that one day they will follow them and find “a land where both our hearts may rest”, a place where they can both be happy.

They go only because they would not be parted from thee – because they love thee, Éowyn whispers.

You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin – to the bitter end…. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word, Merry scolds.

And. It’s the thing. It’s the thing that makes me cry. It’s the thing that kills me all the time in all places- that no one is trash, that no one is garbage, that no one is irredeemable. Smeagol isn’t redeemed and his choices are terrible and they are fully his but he still matters! His existence isn’t nothing and it isn’t even something only in relation to the story as a whole and the part he (unintentionally) plays in saving Middle Earth. It’s that- he matters. He is somebody. There is something to love in Gollum, there is worth in his whole being and existence even if he betrays it (and he does betray it). 

And I was and am still so struck and shaken by Tolkien’s compassion for those tattered flickers of goodness and feeling still left in Smeagol and, not exactly his love for all creatures in the way we think of it, but his love for them in terms of understanding their true worth- and that he gives you this moment where we see the capacity for love, tenderness, regret, feeling even in a character who ultimately, and literally, falls to his doom.

Most composers spend just 10-12ish weeks working on a film’s music. John Williams spent around 14 weeks on each Star Wars movie, 40ish weeks total for the whole OT……but composing the LOTR trilogy’s soundtrack took four years

The vocals you hear in the soundtrack are usually in one of Tolkien’s languages (esp. Elvish). The English translations of the lyrics are all poems, or quotes from the book, or occasionally even quotes from other parts of the films that are relevant to the scene

When there were no finished scenes for him to score, Howard Shore would develop musical themes inspired by the scripts or passages from the book. That’s how he got all Middle-Earth locations have their own unique sound: he was able to compose drafts of “what Gondor would sound like” and “what Lorien would sound like” long before any scenes in those places were filmed

Shore has said his favorite parts to score were always the little heartfelt moments between Frodo and Sam

Shore wrote over 100 unique leitmotifs/musical themes to represent specific people, places, and things in Middle Earth (over 160 if you count The Hobbit)

The ones we all talk about are the Fellowship theme, the main Shire Theme, and the themes for places like Gondor, Mordor, Rohan, and Rivendell…but a lot of the more subtle ones get overlooked and underappreciated

Like Aragorn’s theme. It’s a lot less “obvious” than the others because, like Aragorn himself, it adapts to take on the color of whatever place Aragorn is in: it’s played on dramatic broody stringed instruments in Bree, on horns in  battle scenes, softly on the flute with Arwen in Rivendell….

Eowyn has not just one but three different leitmotifs to represent her

Gollum and Smeagol both have their own leitmotifs! Whose theme music is playing in the scene can often tell you whether the Gollum or Smeagol side is “winning” at the moment

The melody for Gollum’s Song in the end credits of the The Two Towers is the Smeagol and Gollum themes smushed together (it’s Symbolic)

And then there’s the really obscure ones. Like there’s a melody that plays at Boromir’s death that shows up again in ROTK in scenes that foreshadow a major death or loss

Wikipedia actually has a list of these leitmotifs, click this link and scroll down to check it out if you’re bored

Shore wanted the theme music to grow alongside the characters– so that as the characters changed, their theme music would change with them.  

You can hear that most clearly in the Shire theme. Like the hobbits, it goes through A Lot 

Like compare the childish lil penny whistle theme you hear in Concerning Hobbits/the beginning of FOTR with (throws a dart at random Beautiful Tragic Hobbit Character Development scene because there WAY TOO MANY to choose from) the scene when Pippin finds Merry on the battlefield, where you hear a kind of shattered and broken but more mature version of that same theme in the background 

I could write you a book on how much I love the way the Shire theme grows across the course of these films 

Unlike the hero’s themes, which constantly change and grow, the villain’s themes (The One Ring theme, the Isengard theme, etc) remain basically the same from the very beginning of FOTR to the end of ROTK. Shore said this was an intentional choice: to emphasize that evil is static, while good is capable of change