So There’s That Version In Which Miriel Leaves For Lorien And Dies A Bit Later… Consider; Preteen

Do you ever think about how staggeringly in bad taste it is that Gandalf brought a firework that turns into Smaug to Bilbo’s birthday party

Like how were you hoping that would go

You're laughing. The royal necromancer just lost their job, and you're laughing

today i’ve seen a lot about disney ‘copyrighting’ loki. the whole thing seemed rather ridiculous to me, so i decided to do some research; it’s still a sketchy situation all around but as someone who is close with people who are practicing norse pagans, i felt like it was important to share.

firstly: the mouse did not, actually, do anything here in regards to the redbubble artist. it was actually redbubble that sent the email and took the work down, because the artist was copying a shirt from the comics. as in, it’s literally on the cover of a comic book, same text, color, and all.

the email alert to the artist was likely auto-generated. the email states: “…in most cases, this means that the rights holder did not specifically identify your work for removal.” so redbubble is being overly cautious here.

is it silly? yes. we won’t argue that point. it’s two words on a t-shirt.

secondly: that article is poorly researched and written. their “source” for their claim that disney might trademark mythological depictions of loki is the artist who was copying the shirt. according to the article: “Even art specifically of the Norse deity, which predates the MCU character by a handful of centuries, could be claimed, according to an artist who posted a takedown notice of their Loki art from Redbubble.”

‘could be claimed,’ says the artist. so what i’ve just read is that disney isn’t actually claiming anything. the artist is upset that their copied work was removed from redbubble by redbubble and is making baseless claims.

then i got to thinking about “the rights holder,” being the mouse. where does that leave us? do they hold the rights to loki? can they even do that?

the answer is no — sort of.

from what i can tell (and again, i’m an internet random, so i may be wrong!) it appears that the mouse is not copyrighting the norse gods, they’re trademarking their particular versions of loki — so comic depictions, movie depictions, etc. “marvel’s loki,” vs norse loki, basically, or “loki as depicted by tom hiddleston.” meaning any unauthorized art that could be linked to disney’s trademarked version of loki is within the company’s rights to have removed. but again, in this situation that started the whole kerfluffle, it was redbubble that removed it.

then i got to thinking a little more: what’s the difference between trademark and copyright?

as it turns out, copyright and trademark are two very different things. here’s an article that details it fairly clearly, but this snippet below is a pretty good summary.

“Overall, copyright protects literary and artistic materials and works, such as books and videos, and is automatically generated upon creation of the work. A trademark, on the other hand, protects items that help define a company brand, such as a business logo or slogan, and require more extensive registration through the government for the greatest legal protections.”

so disney has trademarked their particular version of loki. trademark is also limited to a particular context. the mouse trademarking loki in the context of a superhero/comic book world means that he cannot be made into a comic book hero or villain by anyone but marvel.

tl;dr — don’t panic if you are someone who counts loki or anyone else in the norse pantheon among your deities. a very overzealous redbubble, not disney, was the one who took down the shirt and sent the email, and they state in that email that “in most cases, the rights holder did not identify your work for removal.” the article that claims that disney is trademarking loki is poorly researched, written, and designed to freak you out.

Speaking of linguistics fics, an idea I’ve played with but never put into practice is using maximal Latin-rooted words when characters are speaking Quenya and Germanic-rooted words when they’re speaking Sindarin.

The effect being to make the language shift more meaningful than just a dialogue tag, (maybe even to the point where I don’t always have to say it outright) and it would work by playing on associations of Latinate words as more highbrow and polysyllabic and Germanic words as more common. (Think regal/kingly, dine/eat, or educate/teach.)

It might backfire, it might be impossible (sometimes the connotations run the other way!) but I think it’d be fun to try.

Whenever I read LotR and reach the battle between Eowyn and the Witch-king, I get the impression that the reason why the prophecy loophole works isn’t that the Witch-king is unkillable except for some illogical weakness nobody had thought about yet for misogynistic reasons, but that the Witch-king himself derives so much of his power from the fear he instills in others and from his own belief that he is unkillable. Eowyn doesn’t fear him, because she doesn’t fear death. When she twists his words right back at him, she’s not trying to exploit a prophecy loophole, she’s just making a play on the double meaning of the word «man» with fairly standard battlefield bravado.

But, crucially, it gets the Witch-king wondering if there might be an actual loophole in the prophecy. He starts doubting his own invincibility. There’s no logical reason why a woman might be able to kill him if a man cannot, but prophecies are tricky things. What if …

And this is what undoes him, in the end. This last minute doubt. The Witch-king, deep down, believes that Eowyn can kill him, thus making it possible for her to do so.

my therapist: ancient greek man-faced crab drachma isn't real, it can't hurt you

ancient greek man-faced crab drachma:

an unstoppable force (hobbit curiosity) meets and immovable object (Gandalf not explaining)

You know those edits that are like "(fandom) + Greek words for love" usually being Eros, Ludus, Storge, Mania, Pragma, Philia and Agape?

Why oh why has no one done an edit that is like "Sons of Feanor + completely fucked up ideas about love"? I feel like this could be done

I've got it, I've figured out how to tie in every Gil-galad parentage into one, even the "descendent of Feanor" one.

There's some random hunting trip during the Long Peace where Fingon, Orodreth, Finrod and Maedhros all just happen to be together, find some cute random orphaned ellon, and decided to jointly adopt him and just share custody. How's that for "Scion of Kings"?

Too much praying directly to the Valar and not enough praying to their Maiar for their intercession