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cairistionaThere's a nip in the air this morning! It's not that dry, cold and crisp variety that poets wax, um, poetic about, but more of the chilly and damp variety. But still. This weather makes me want to fill the house with all the Aromas of Autumn, which include pot roast slow-cooked with potatoes and carrots, and apple pie. Oh, apple pie, how I love thy aroma! After debating a bit over whether to cook the roast today or tomorrow (which will also be Chilly and Autumnal), in the end, I had to have it now. So the pot roast is now cooking in the crockpot, with apple pie aroma to come this afternoon. Ahhhh. Breathe deep, folks. *waves hands to let aromas waft your way*
In fanficcy news: Because I am a visual learner/thinker (when I bother to actually think), I like to have a photo or artwork of my OCs, if I can find them (is it any wonder I squee and flail when RS9 comes up with her lovely illustrations!). As I've yet to really find the perfect Denlad, last night I set myself to the challenge of trying to find that perfect someone who most matches how I imagine Denlad. Oh what an onerous chore it was, having to google "Rugged Blonde Actors" and sift through ALL those photos! You've no idea.
But as arduous as it was, the labor paid off: I have found, at long last, photos of an actor that fits as close as anyone ever has to my own inner vision of Denlad: Charlie Hunnam. Admittedly, I had never heard of his actor nor seen any of his work, so I could only hope he wasn't a complete jerk or worked solely in the porn industry! Thankfully, a quick check of IMDB assured me that he's none of that. He's played roles in everything from Nicholas Nickleby to Cold Mountain to his current gig in Sons of Anarchy. To my delight, he's been acting since he was a teen, so I found pics that work for each stage of Denlad's life, from insecure 19-year-old to seasoned warrior. And as I look at his photos, I wonder how on earth he's escaped my radar, but there you go... there's a lot of really pretty men out there and it's possible to miss one or two along the way.
Young Denlad:
Happy Young Denlad:
and finally, older, seasoned Denlad as he would look in At Hope's Edge or The Ranger and the Hobbit and No Better Name:
Of course, this is in no way critical or dismissive of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rs9's stunningly drawn interpretation of Denlad as more Brad Pitt-ish. Far from it, for I see him that way, too, and in fact, there's a resemblance between this actor and Brad Pitt that she managed to snag in her interpretation as well, which is kind of freakishly amazing to me. I think I like Hunnam a bit more for the very simple reason that he has larger eyes than Brad Pitt's and I've always imagined Denlad as having very large and expressive blue eyes.
That's the fun thing about fanfic (or any fiction, really), all the different interpretations a character can have in the minds of readers. That's one reason I don't spend a lot of time in my fics describing physical characteristics. For Denlad, the blonde hair and blue eyes are important because they're a visual symbol of his unknown paternal lineage and mark him as being 'different' than the rest of the Dunedain, which makes for an important theme in his story arc. But how his nose, chin (okay, I think I mention he has a steadfast cut to his chin, but that's mostly because I don't like weak chins! LOL), smile, whether he has dimples or is baby-faced or lean, etc etc etc I leave up to the reader, and it's always great fun to hear (or in RS9's case, see) what readers think he looks like. So... you may look at Charlie Hunnam and think, "What?? That's not Denlad!" and that's fine. But if you wonder who I think Denlad might resemble... there you go. :)
Other fanficcy news: No Better Name is nearing being posted in its entirety... I think after today's chapter, there are 2 more to go. So does that mean I have the third story in the Rushlight Trilogy finished? Um. No. I've got the prologue and 1st chapter roughed out, and a lot of notes about the rest. Soooo.... gonna be quite a while before the Trilogy is finished, I fear, but hopefully not a matter of the, what was it, three years or something that Patrick Rothfuss took between the first two books of his Kingkiller Chronicles??
I've also decided, in light of the subtle way characterizations have shifted over the years of my writing, that it's time to give the venerable At Hope's Edge a bit of a tweaking. I'm not really in favor of going back and making wholesale changes, but the fact of the matter is that I've grown as a writer since penning that tome. I have a fuller understanding of Tolkien, for one, but also a better understanding, I hope, of word choice and phrasing and all that sort of geeky writing knowledge that comes through experience and practice. So... I don't know if I'll go back and replace the versions at SoA and NaN, but when I do eventually have it all polished to my liking, I'll post the revised version at ff.net. I might repost it at SoA and leave the NaN version as the original version, perhaps. I'm still debating, and I have a very long time in which to debate with myself as this is something I'll do in bits and pieces, and I don't intend to post ATE at ff.net until I finish the Rushlight trilogy and also re-post chronologically the other stories I've written (and may write in the future).
And this was a freakishly long post, sorry about that. But cold days apparently make me chatty!
Happy Tuesday, all!
In fanficcy news: Because I am a visual learner/thinker (when I bother to actually think), I like to have a photo or artwork of my OCs, if I can find them (is it any wonder I squee and flail when RS9 comes up with her lovely illustrations!). As I've yet to really find the perfect Denlad, last night I set myself to the challenge of trying to find that perfect someone who most matches how I imagine Denlad. Oh what an onerous chore it was, having to google "Rugged Blonde Actors" and sift through ALL those photos! You've no idea.
But as arduous as it was, the labor paid off: I have found, at long last, photos of an actor that fits as close as anyone ever has to my own inner vision of Denlad: Charlie Hunnam. Admittedly, I had never heard of his actor nor seen any of his work, so I could only hope he wasn't a complete jerk or worked solely in the porn industry! Thankfully, a quick check of IMDB assured me that he's none of that. He's played roles in everything from Nicholas Nickleby to Cold Mountain to his current gig in Sons of Anarchy. To my delight, he's been acting since he was a teen, so I found pics that work for each stage of Denlad's life, from insecure 19-year-old to seasoned warrior. And as I look at his photos, I wonder how on earth he's escaped my radar, but there you go... there's a lot of really pretty men out there and it's possible to miss one or two along the way.
Young Denlad:
Happy Young Denlad:
and finally, older, seasoned Denlad as he would look in At Hope's Edge or The Ranger and the Hobbit and No Better Name:
Of course, this is in no way critical or dismissive of
rs9's stunningly drawn interpretation of Denlad as more Brad Pitt-ish. Far from it, for I see him that way, too, and in fact, there's a resemblance between this actor and Brad Pitt that she managed to snag in her interpretation as well, which is kind of freakishly amazing to me. I think I like Hunnam a bit more for the very simple reason that he has larger eyes than Brad Pitt's and I've always imagined Denlad as having very large and expressive blue eyes.That's the fun thing about fanfic (or any fiction, really), all the different interpretations a character can have in the minds of readers. That's one reason I don't spend a lot of time in my fics describing physical characteristics. For Denlad, the blonde hair and blue eyes are important because they're a visual symbol of his unknown paternal lineage and mark him as being 'different' than the rest of the Dunedain, which makes for an important theme in his story arc. But how his nose, chin (okay, I think I mention he has a steadfast cut to his chin, but that's mostly because I don't like weak chins! LOL), smile, whether he has dimples or is baby-faced or lean, etc etc etc I leave up to the reader, and it's always great fun to hear (or in RS9's case, see) what readers think he looks like. So... you may look at Charlie Hunnam and think, "What?? That's not Denlad!" and that's fine. But if you wonder who I think Denlad might resemble... there you go. :)
Other fanficcy news: No Better Name is nearing being posted in its entirety... I think after today's chapter, there are 2 more to go. So does that mean I have the third story in the Rushlight Trilogy finished? Um. No. I've got the prologue and 1st chapter roughed out, and a lot of notes about the rest. Soooo.... gonna be quite a while before the Trilogy is finished, I fear, but hopefully not a matter of the, what was it, three years or something that Patrick Rothfuss took between the first two books of his Kingkiller Chronicles??
I've also decided, in light of the subtle way characterizations have shifted over the years of my writing, that it's time to give the venerable At Hope's Edge a bit of a tweaking. I'm not really in favor of going back and making wholesale changes, but the fact of the matter is that I've grown as a writer since penning that tome. I have a fuller understanding of Tolkien, for one, but also a better understanding, I hope, of word choice and phrasing and all that sort of geeky writing knowledge that comes through experience and practice. So... I don't know if I'll go back and replace the versions at SoA and NaN, but when I do eventually have it all polished to my liking, I'll post the revised version at ff.net. I might repost it at SoA and leave the NaN version as the original version, perhaps. I'm still debating, and I have a very long time in which to debate with myself as this is something I'll do in bits and pieces, and I don't intend to post ATE at ff.net until I finish the Rushlight trilogy and also re-post chronologically the other stories I've written (and may write in the future).
And this was a freakishly long post, sorry about that. But cold days apparently make me chatty!
Happy Tuesday, all!
