myrdschaem

I have been a mess and am still one, but I am digging a bit through it. My recs backlog is four months, I am honestly tempted to just wipe it clean, even if many fics will fall of the table... I will have to think. In the meantime, I got something for the Tolkien fans.

I got extremely lucky scrolling on tumblr to see the original invite link to what was a fan-production in Russian of the Lay of Luthien. As advertised a bit of a rock musical and really enjoyable. The costumes are amazing and full of love, though not all were finished-finished. I fucking adore their Sauron and Melkor, which are extremely shipable, but also Finrod/Sauron, which has never happened to me??? Honestly everyone in the production is very attractive, down to a fire Mandos. GUH. Even without understanding what is said, the music was good and some songs are just showstoppers. There are dancers with fucking choreography.

The stream was in Russian, but of course someone translated it and put subtitles to it.

You can read the thing on AO3, made by TinyParrot and some of the songs are also on YouTube, if you want to check it out. Here's two:
Finrod vs Sauron magician battle through song
Beren and Luthien meeting for the first time

There are a lot of things in there for the hardcore Tolkien peeps/Silmarillion lovers. So great news, there will be more watchalongs next weekend. The details can be found on tumblr here, the Ley of Leithian production and another recording of a Finrod-centric different production. There is also a small discord server forming for talking where this happens with other links, like where to throw some money at the amazing fans who made all of this. I can only highly recommend this if you have any Tolkien interest!
As ~~threatened~~ promised, I watched the movie over the winter holidays! The movie is full on going into symbolism/artsy cinema with a dream-like feeling at points. Costume nerds have told me the costuming is so-so in that it looks fine for the lay person like me and makes actual historical fashion enjoyers groan because it will be great and then come at you with chiffon suddenly. Colours and shots were gorgeous. Dev Patel gets put in bondage, kissed and looks generally like a needy sub in this, as I was advertised. The ending is open to interpretation and some passages are hard to pin down in meaning, making the whole thing very personal.

Some downsides: the adaption was a bit looser, not following the central themes of the poem, like knightly virtues or the christian confession, instead using the story as a spring board for sensibilities that are easier to communicate to a modern audience like bodily autonomity. So I am very glad to have experienced the poem as well, since it's great as well, just differently. While this can't be used to get the gist for a class, it was overall enjoyable and I recommend it.

I also have read some filthy fics in this fandom and if I do the whole rec backlog, they should turn up eventually...