Subject: [Wroop! Wroop!] Middle-earth alert!
Author:
Posted on: 2019-02-15 23:37:00 UTC
Amazon have started a Twitter account for their Middle-earth series.
Wroop, wroop, this is not a drill.
The first tweet is an unlabelled map of Middle-earth. Mostly so far so canon, but - paging DOGA - it features what looks like a sunken island in the Sea of Rhun (that might be pilfered from the old RP game), as well as a brand new eastern forest and mountain range.
hS
(Disclaimer: Not actually Valentine's Edition, except when it is.)
Fandom News
IO9
This has literally just dropped onto my newsfeed, and it utterly drives out the release of Civilisation VI: Gathering Storm to take top spot in the news: Lego are making a Jurassic World prequel mini-series, and releasing (obviously) tie-in toys. One of which is a T. rex mecha, complete with Rexy to fight it.
But I guess you can talk about computer games instead, if you're boring.
Old News
Wikipedia, National Geographic
102 years ago on Wednesday, Mata Hari, AKA Margaretha MacLeod-Zelle, was executed by France as a German spy. An exotic dancer and famous courtesan, it's pretty clear that the only spying she actually did was on behalf of France, and that her arrest was the result of a frame by the Germans.
In what's either a hilariously blatant loophole, or massive cultural appropriation, she apparently got away with breaking obscenity laws (Wikipedia has a picture of her in just a bra, for instance) by claiming that all her dances were based on Far Eastern temple rituals.
New News
NASA
Also on Wednesday, NASA finally announced the end of Mars rover Opportunity's mission. 15 years ago, it landed with an expected lifespan of 90 days; contact was lost in June 2018 during a dust storm, and never restored.
The last message received from Opportunity, on June 10th last year, can be summed up as 'My battery is low and it's getting dark'.
The last message sent to it was a series of recovery commands, accompanied by Billie Holiday's version of I'll Be Seeing You:
I'll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I'll be looking at the moon
But I'll be seeing you
PPC News
This week, HQ has been rocked by the quest to find the Official PPC Couple for the Year of the Incontrovertible Skunk. The Multiverse Monitor's campain, What If We Just Make It Christianne And Eledhwen Again?, got off to a strong start, but has foundered after PPC Radio ran a What If We Don't counter-campaign. Radio Nutmeg's efforts to organise a holographic deathmatch for candidates grabbed the enthusiasm of former agent Dafydd Illian, but he dropped out in a sulk after being told that, as a retired agent, he didn't qualify. The REAL Multiverse Monitor's planned event, Naked Mud Wrestling Valentine, has been shelved until further notice.
Clerical News
DeviantArt
INT: Roll to geek out.
CHA: Roll for persuasion.
DEX: Roll to sneak past.
WIS: Roll to find a better route.
CON: Roll to just keep rollin'.
Six comics in, and we have our first actual dungeon! The goblins here owe a lot to classic gremlins, but I think we can all agree that Magic Geek Goblin Kid needs a spinoff of his own. ^_^
hS
Uff. I was not planning to spend all day rehosting the 2008 Mary Sue Invasion RP, but guess what? That's what happened! {= D
I'mma go do normal people things like food now.
~Neshomeh
Since I wasn't able to get to my sketchbook this week, instead of an art update, y'all who are interested get a bit of trivia!
All the Knights' names are intentionally selected so that they match names I liked at the time they each represent. This means that all but one are borrowed from persona-type OCs I created during those times.
- Cass Kingside is my planned Newgrounds pseudonym.
- Update, I'm changing Myla's name to Luna, because I'd been thinking of naming her that originally, but at the time, the OC "Luna" was still active, and I don't like having multiple characters with the same name. I threw away the story recently, and so the option to do this was opened.
- (Who was Luna? Luna was me, Sue-ified. You'll learn more about her in another post.)
- (And as for the name "Myla", it's an alternate spelling of a shortened version of "Ludmila", the female lead in a very odd opera I learned to love at the time.)
- Sakura was a character I made for a role-playing group I briefly had with my school friends. She went by the nickname Mountaineer because of her earth powers, but her real name was Sakura, because I overused Japanese names a lot. She later became the basis for one of my agents-to-be, Amber Callahan.
- Jacqueline was one of my first OCs, and definitely a Mary Sue. She was a Viking from Berk and fought alongside Samurai Jack. *Snrk*
- Elinya was one of the many characters I briefly invented for a single session of dress-up. Her name was "Elina" (the character Barbie plays in "Barbie: Fairytopia") plus a y.
- The name "Aldegund" was never actually used for any characters I had, as it sounded a bit unwieldy, but I know I eyed it. It's an ancient Germanic name meaning "old war".
- Scarlet was my character in a recurring RP I did with Moon Moon, called "Path Wars". Because it was Pathfinder (the D&D offshoot), plus Star Wars... plus Minecraft? With our hypothetical mods? Anyway, she was definitely a servant of the Emperor, and used Nether Star amulets (my creation) to augment her power.
- Teyori was a medieval-ized name for me, Twistey. The name was used in a fanfic I planned to write involving a friend and I being stuck in Stephen King's book The Eyes of the Dragon and having to find the portal out of the continuum. Interestingly enough, that fanfic yielded a concept I created for a multiverse like the PPC's... except worse. Yeah.
Alright, that's it for Knights trivia!
-Twistey
As of... Monday, I think it was, we have officially moved to https://ppc.fandom.com. Please update your links accordingly (she said hypocritically, having not yet done so herself).
Also, I have now updated a whole bunch of hS-related links that have moved from Webs to Neocities or Gdocs. I'm happy to do the rest of them as soon as they're moved, too, especially since it looks like ppchistory is down at the moment. Bloody Webs.
~Neshomeh
Amazon have started a Twitter account for their Middle-earth series.
Wroop, wroop, this is not a drill.
The first tweet is an unlabelled map of Middle-earth. Mostly so far so canon, but - paging DOGA - it features what looks like a sunken island in the Sea of Rhun (that might be pilfered from the old RP game), as well as a brand new eastern forest and mountain range.
hS
It's too late at night for me to have coherent thoughts about this, but here's the trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Girzu81oS8Q
Bwuh?
~Neshomeh
I'm not usually one for biopics, but this, this I might go for.
hS
PS: For full effect, we need to get Hoult and Collins to do a Lay of Leithian film immediately after. ^_^
Well, maybe not half. The rest is Phobos, other friends, public radio, clips of late night comedy news shows, and articles linked from SPLC newsletters.
Anyway... the idea of this still just confuses me more than anything else, but I think you're right that there's a romance angle, and personally, I hope they get into Tolkien's ideas about the importance of "fairy-stories" for adults. The man is not the father of a genre for no good reason.
Also trees. We can still use more love for trees.
~Neshomeh
Guess we'll be checking out some "lands to the East," then? Are we going to be learning something about the Blue Wizards, perhaps?
As for the Sea of Rhûn, the John Howe map of Middle-earth hanging on the wall over my desk DOES have an island in that location, but it does not appear to be a sunken one. Curious. And, is it just me, or is there a bit of the "sunken island" ring outline that looks like it might represent a gate, such as a ring-shaped lake town might have? Curioser and curiouser.
~Neshomeh
"Seven for the Dwarf Lords, in their halls of stone...
(Explorable map)
Calenardhon. Lindon. Forodwaith.
-Calenardhon is Rohan before the Rohirrim, placing it at least 500 years before the War of the Ring.
-Lindon is technically a valid name down to LotR, but it's mostly used of the region before the elves all left. I would say Lindon died with Gil-Galad, but you could make a case for its use in the early Third Age.
-Forodwaith is probably just used from the map, but it's notable that the people by that name died out during the Second and early Third ages. The Lossoth, who helped the last king of Arnor, were their descendents.
Calenardhon is a HUGE curveball, setting the timeframe of the map back halfway to the days of the Kings. I tremble to think what might show up on the third iteration of the map ("Nine...")
hS
... that we're going back to the time the Rings were first made? Annatar, Lord of Gifts, getting in cozy with the smiths of Eregion and handing out shinies?
Perhaps the War of the Elves and Sauron?
THAT could be fun. Even if it means we're not getting the Adventures of Young Indiana Estel yet.
~Neshomeh
It would explain the use of the Ring poem, and the presence of Lindon. It would also explain why they've left a conspicuous space to the east of the 'Eriador' label - they can't stick Arthedain in there easily (it would need to share space with said label), but Eregion would fit nicely.
The two big problems are:
-Calenardhon is a Sindarin name, but the population at that time were Men of Darkness. Sindarin wasn't used by the Numenoreans who poked their noses in, only by the later Gondorians.
-The East Bight appears in Mirkwood, which was probably cut in the mid-Third Age. But... y'know, Amazon.
Both of those are surmountable, though.
If they've got the rights to it, seeing the First War of the Rings would be incredible. You've got recognisable characters to play with (Galadriel and Elrond both take part), Numenorean superfleets on the horizon, elven magic on a scale never seen before or since, Annatar-a-la-Lucifer... there's a lot to play with, and not a lot of canon details to mess things up.
Plus, if they're looking to pilfer the Game of Thrones market: the Numenoreans were already into the slavery business by then, and Celebrimbor is not only the grandson of the biggest hothead of them all - he's working in Forbidden Arts. 2/3 of your 'Good' nations are morally suspect (and Lindon has a bit of the 'build a wall, keep 'em all out' thing going on, too).
... and it would actually fit the title. The Lord of the Rings, indeed - both of them, at each other's throats.
... meany-pants. Now you've got me all excited. -_-
hS
Okay, they got hitched in 2018, but they're still cute. {= )
Other contenders may include Derik and Gall, but that's just terrifying.
... Ix, we should figure out if Ilraen and Farilan are still a thing. Like, I assume yes? Probably?
And let's not even get into the fluffy love polygons of HQ's resident polyamorous pansexuals...
~Neshomeh
Though last we saw them, Ilraen had just given her that disastrous Monster Book of Monsters present, I believe. We should really rectify that sometime. :P
D & G = S.S. Sturm und Drang? {= P
~Neshomeh might be uncool for naming her own characters' 'ship, but oh well.