Agree completely about the missing book details. For me, the film version of The Two Towers actually tightened up the middle of the story in a good way. Giving Arwen a bigger role at that point connected the romance better, and the pacing felt more urgent than some long stretches in the book. It made the emotional hits land harder.

Read a car magazine interview once where a designer said panel gaps are the first thing your eyes check, even if your brain doesn't know it. That tiny space is where the whole feeling of quality lives or dies. Your story totally proves that point, moving from something looking handmade to looking precision-made. It's all in the numbers, not just the eye.

Man, that's so true. Used to think you just pointed the thing and went, but body position changes everything. Had the same lightbulb moment with sidehilling, was always scared to lean up the hill until someone showed me. Now it feels glued to the slope instead of washing out.