At this point, I don't think I really need an excuse to have random appreciation posts for TH:AUJ characters or actors. Anyone who reads this blog will surely know by now that I am obsessed with it, and that if you do not like it the back button is to the top left of your web browser.
So, without further ado:
You don't?
That's a mime, Richard...
Poor guy. I hope he never gets on Twitter or Tumblr. The Majestic Thorin meme, the I Have Never Been So Wrong In All My Life meme, and the whole general Bagginshield movement are just too much... gah. Especially the latter. There are a lot of creeps out there.
One of these days I shall have to produce my Guide to Sane Shipper. And one of the primary rules of it is: ALWAYS LEAVE THE ACTORS OUT OF IT.
Even LotrConfessions.tumblr has taken that policy, mercifully. Not that I look at that often, since a lot of the 'confessions' are rather silly or still sort of stalky-creepy (is it possible to stalk fictional characters?).
Then there is this:
Humorously, I found this to go with it:
So it's in real life, too! *gigglesnort* Okay, that has made my day.
...I really need to go find something productive to do...
That is pretty much me. And then I have to show it to my family and post it on my blog. I'm such a good big sister that way.
Benedicamus Domino means 'Bless the Lord', for your information. Hilaire Belloc wrote a lot of good books (he was good friends with G. K. Chesterton), but unfortunately his books, while excellently written, extensively researched, and highly informative, can be a little dry. GKC has much more interesting prose. They're kind of like Tolkien and Lewis in that regard - Tolkien being the spiritual successor of GKC and C. S. Lewis the Anglican spiritual successor of Belloc.
You would have had so much more fun with us, C. S. Lewis...
You tell them, Pope Francis. Oh, and it's just Pope Francis. It won't be Pope Francis I until there is a Pope Francis II. *headbang*
'The Philosopher' was how St. Thomas Aquinas typically referred to Aristotle, sort of how we Ringers refer to J. R. R. Tolkien simply as 'the Professor'. It's a term of affection and respect.
Aw, I used to love that game! However, once you got older than the average age of the kids playing, they didn't want you to come over anymore... They knew you'd break through! So instead you got stuck fending off the little tykes.
Swiss Guards versus the cardinalate... I wouldn't take bets on this one.
Or, in other words, I am amusing myself with stupid Internet shenanigans again.
Firstly, here is the trailer. Let's hope it loads.
Oh, look at the funny image it stopped on! Pausing at random moments can truly yield some truly hilarous sights. I mean, Jane here is just like, "Whoa, Thor, what are you doing?" And Thor is just like: *dramatically staring skywards*.
Puny god.
Anyway, so here is my critique. Or, rather, my random commetary, with the number of seconds provided.
0:00 The standard green screen for "Preview Approved for All Audiences". Nothing to see here, move along.
0:02 A scene of a city on a river. Based on the river and the ferris wheel I see in the background to the left, I am guessing London. (I have obviously been infected with Sherlock fever... Thanks, Amy.)
0:04 Some random birds flying out of some random building, possibly an empty random building. A minor detail to set the mood of desolation and darkness.
0:10 The truck is levitating. Why is it levitating? The boy isn't screaming and running away at the sight. The possibility that a sort of Weirdness Censor/Unusually Uninteresting Sight is going on is negated by the fact that he does seem to be aware that it is, in fact, levitating. So either he (a) is used to this sort of thing (b) is causing it to levitate or (c) is still in shock, and the running and screaming will occur presently.
0:12 Who is the little girl? A random person - an innocent bystander, thrown in for added emotional appeal and/or manipulation? Or will she be of nominal or more than nominal importance to the plot? After all, trailers are supposed to show important stuff. Then again, Trailers Always Lie.
0:18 Oh, look, Jane Foster is back. Leaves are swirling dramatically around her. Obviously, some evil thing or person is creeping up on her. Don't look back, Jane! That's when they always attack. Instead, just RUN.
0:20 I'm assuming Odin is doing the voiceover again, as he did for the beginning of Thor. What is with the random, floating, upside-down black iceberg of magical stone doing carving a chunk through what I am still assuming is London? Why do the aliens/evil elves always want to attack Earth? Seriously, what is in it for them? Some science fiction writer should have addressed this by now...
0:25 Was that Darcy? Yay for Darcy! Let's hope she gets to run over an evil elf with the van. Who's the dude standing next to her - another random guy, or a new character? *fingers crossed that a random guy will not be introduced to set up a love triangle with Jane and Thor*
...On second thoughts, my fingers are crossed so that a random guy will not be introduced to set up a love triangle with Darcy and Loki...
0:26 My biggest gripe with action hero movies: THE GLASS ALWAYS BREAKS FAR TOO EASILY, AND IT NEVER, EVER HURTS ANYONE. Seriously. Soft Glass is a trope on TVTropes for this very reason. I mean... broken glass is not to be trifled with! Can you say nasty cuts and splinters getting wedged under your skin?
0:27 Ooh, the flipping comic book effect. I always like this.
0:31 So Thor makes his dramatic appearance. Apparently, he doesn't go in for the three-point landing (landing on both feet and one hand) like Iron Man does all the time. Hmm. His costume (Thor's, that is) appears to have undergone some modifications. What are the little flap-things dangling from his belt? It looks like the metal skirt worn by Roman legionnaries. Not the connotation I would be going for in the case of a dude based off of Norse mythology. Just sayin'.
0:38 Thor is like a foot taller than Jane. Also, I would have expected her to start screaming and run towards him and squeeze him with joy or something. Maybe she's just in shock that he's suddenly appeared. Or maybe she really is mad at him for being too busy on his last trip to Earth fending off aliens and dragging his naughty little brother home to swing by and visit her. Dunno.
0:45 The Bifrost made cool marks on the pavement there. Hmm. Hard for the government to explain THAT one away. It's not like it was out in the desert where the wind will soon erase it. Poor Darcy. She looks so lost. She probably wanted to go, too. If she had, the Loki/Darcy shippers would probably be dancing with glee.
That being said, I think a reformed!Loki/Darcy pairing could have some merit. Then again, I think reformed!Loki has a lot of merit, anyway.
0:50 Big doors opening. Asgard?
0:51 Is that Sif? It's so annoying when her hair isn't gold, as it was in the mythology. It would definitely help her stand out in a crowd. And I thought Hollywood was all for differentiating between the lead characters and the minor peeps. Huh. Anyway, moving along. (This will be a long critique.)
0:53 Thor's ditched the sleeves again. Is that Jane he's helping along? It looks like Loki has been forced to go with them, if the cut of his clothes, the green sleeves, and dark hair are anything to go by.
0:56 Ominous black floating island again, with bonus evilly glowing red eyes this time.
0:99 What is Thor wearing??? What's with the cloak thing over his armor? My first thought was that he has been depowered again, but surely they wouldn't try that. It looks like what Qui-Gon Jinn wears on Tatooine in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Sorry, Thor, but I don't think that will help you blend in with the locals very well. You're still huge and blond. Don't think the evil elves look like that.
1:09 It looks like Frigga will have an epic moment, if the nice clothes and pointy blade she has here are any indication. Yay for cool moms.
1:10 Has Sif's hair somehow become curlier? I recall it being quite straight.
1:11 On the subject of hair, Thor's appears to be held back. Huh. With it getting longer and longer each movie, I guess he has to find some way to keep it out of his face.
1:15 Oh, no, the evil deformed elf sorcerer has got Jane. Oh, noes. Well, I wouldn't worry too much. (Unless another Phil Coulson gets pulled on us, which I doubt.) They'll have to kill off this guy to make room for Thanos in Avengers 2, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier already has a villain. So I'd say it's safe that this guy is going down, unless they want to keep him around as they did with Loki. Loki, however, at least has an interesting emotional arc and the fans drool over him (I am not a Hiddlestoner, thank you very much), so I can see keeping him around. But not the evil elf. Sorry, he's going to get defeated one way or another, that's for sure.
1:16 Is Jane wearing some sort of armor? Well, I guess it's for her own good. Just as long as she doesn't go from a justifiably competent intellectual to a suddenly hyper-competent action girl as she did between The Phantom Menace and The Attack of the Clones. Because, really, Padme should have been hurt at lot more than she was in Attack of the Clones. She had her back clawed by a nexu (yes, I still remember the names of the beasts in the arean: the nexu, the reek, and the acklay), she fell off a transport ship, she had to have been choking on dust and sand, not to mention stress and falling off various other things... and we can't even plead the excuse of her having been trained and accustomed to this sort of thing, as we could with the Jedi.
Reasonable action girls, please, Hollywood.
1:20 Ah, the obligatory scream of, "Nooooooo!"
1:29 WHY are they keeping Loki in a glass box? Didn't The Avengers prove that that was a bad idea??
1:31 Thor looks vaguely like Eomer from The Lord of the Rings. This is rather disturbing.
1:33 Thor is calmly threatening death to Loki. Hmm, seems their brotherly relationship has deteriorated further than I thought.
1:34 At this point, all the Hiddlestoners watching this began screaming. Me, on the other hand... I took a look at his shirt and thought three things: (1) What is he wearing? Earth clothes? Why? (2) He certainly seems to like green. (3) He looks almost normal, except for the long hair.
I don't drool too often over real people...
Also, Loki looks almost defeated. He still seems amused, so let's see if he can make a break for it or not... He seemed to be stumbling in the scene with Thor and Jane earlier. Of course, it could all be a facade.
Conclusion: Hmm, looks interesting. Better than Iron Man 3, as it seems to have more emotion and plot than explosions (I love explosions, but I love a coherent plot and coherent characterization more). Don't know if I would like to see it in theaters or not. Maybe if someone dragged me. Then I'd have an excuse. When is it coming out?
I can tell you the precise date when The Desolation of Smaug comes out, but obviously Thor is not my priority at the moment...
Therefore, my solution is cookies and Hobbit pictures. What? I find nothing wrong with that solution. Cookies have lots of sugar and I find my creativity and productivity is shockingly but directly correlated with sugar a lot of the times. Also, I believe strongly in humor as a tool of communication (an amused audience is an audience that feels more benignly towards the speaker and is more likely to listen), so it stands to reason that humor is also very useful in other parts of one's life.
I think it has been scientifically proven that happy people live longer. If not, it should be. (I always love how people say, "Science has proven that..." when they themselves never understand the 'science' involved in 'proving' whatever theory of theirs they wish was proven.)
So, without further ado:
Someone obviously had far too much fun photoshopping that. However they are, I applaud them. My photoshopping skills are about nil. It's all I can do to crop, paste, and edit things in Paint. And Paint is a fiendish program. I don't know if it has layers like Photoshop, but it won't let me click back on something I've clicked off of, which is particularly evil.
Oh, I am happy. I fully know and understand the value of education. However... I have two Cal 3 tests in one week. This week. My brain is already weeping. Hence, the need for a pick-me-up, and what better way to do it than this.
And music. TH:AUJ soundtrack, currently, but I have also subsisted upon the first Narnia soundtrack and Celtic Woman over the weekend. Sometime I should do a Celtic Woman tribute post, because they are amazing, seriously amazing. I've even been to two of their concerts.
The return of Smiguel!
Ahaha. In that case, I know Elvish, because this makes perfect sense to me. It's just elementary calculus, my dear Watson. I wonder... is it Sindarin or Quenya, because Tolkien had two different Elvish languages, you know? Actually, the thing is, the letters on the Ring are Elvish letters (the Elvish alphabet, you might say, called the Tengwar), but the language is the Black Speech of Mordor.
It reads, incidentally: Ash nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatuluk, agh burzum ishi krimpatul.
Yes, that was from memory.
Most people just don't understand that an alphabet and a language aren't the same thing. For instance, I am using the English language at the moment, but the letters I am using are from what is called the Roman alphabet. It is also used by most European languages, with a few differences here and there (a-umlaut, o-umlaut, u-umlaut, and the ess-tset in German, for instance).
Anyway.
Poor Kili. I have cookies, if you want one, although it's not the same...
(2) Using blinkers far too late to be of any use to other drivers.
(3) Driving down the road, with the blinker left on.
(4) Not turning on the car's lights when it is raining. Problematic, since your visibility is lowered in rainy conditions and turning on your lights alleviates that.
(5) Talking on the cellphone. This is not just annoying, it's dangerous.
(6) Texting while driving. Even more dangerous.
(7) Not pulling over when an ambulance is trying to get through, lights flashing and sirens blaring.
(8) Also not pulling over when a funeral procession is going by, particularly if police are leading it with lights flashing and everything.
(9) Drivers who complain about people who actually drive the speed limit (e.g., me).
Have I ever said that I love a good pun? I must admit that I usually prefer more intellectual humor, although I am not above giggling like an idiot during The Hobbit when the troll scratches his butt and Bilbo looks away like, "I did not just see that. I did not just see that."
I did that today. In the rain. Actually, I've been known to do it on a lot of occasions. Then again, I absolutely do not care one way or another about looking cool, so I don't have much of a problem with this.
I probably tend to scare away more people with my nerdiness. I wouldn't know cool if it dropped an anvil on my head.
Yay! People like pictures! People like Sherlock pictures! (Okay, my sister doesn't usually get them, but I post other things that she likes, so all is well... hopefully...)
I don't know why, but I thought these two were absolutely hysterical:
And then here we have holiday!Balin, dressed up like Santa Claus... Honestly, I've already started referring to him as 'the Santa Claus Dwarf', for the benefit of those people who didn't memorize all the Dwarves' names long ago.
Thinking of which, in cal 3 today (my favorite class - we have such fun and such interesting discussions. I'm not even being sarcastic!) somehow we started talking about reading and one guy said that The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are okay, but that, "There are better science fiction writers out there."
My response? The only proper response:
Take that!
This one, however, is a bit nicer:
Yes, I do pity them, Dumbledore. They have no idea what they are missing - what great characters they could be rooting for, what great villains they would wish to see toppled, what great happy fandoms they could be rejoicing with... what great tears they could be sobbing, also, for it is part of a fangirl's lot in life to shed a few tears now and then. Sad things happen in just about every fandom.
Now this is either priceless or downright scary. Or both:
Bahahahahahaha! I can't look at it without cracking up. Basically, you can take anything and add Smeagol/Gollum and it instantly becomes 200% funnier. Someone has probably scientifically proven that. If not, they should. Put science to a worthy cause and all that.
This is NOT my art, once again; it belongs to papermachette on Tumblr (which is mysteriously not letting my lurk on it, grr).
The funny thing is, if you watch The Hobbit with subtitles you can catch a lot of what the other Dwarves are saying in the background. As Bilbo walks away from the campfire to give the bowls of stew to Fili and Kili just before the troll scene, you can hear Gloin saying something like: "That was very good stew, Bombur!" Then Nori chimes in with: "Yeah, maybe even Dori could have made it!"
Dori's reaction: "Hilarious."
Also, when Bilbo is running to catch up with the Dwarves, you can hear Dori talking about how going to meet Bilbo was useless since he would be too timid to come along with them anyway. Gloin agrees with him. Bilbo, of course, shows up at that moment.
(Humorously, you can see Gloin having a hard time with his pony at this point. Interviews with the actors also revealed that Graham McTavish, a.k.a. Dwalin, had a hard time with ponies in general. Since another movie he's in, a western, is coming out soon, the other actors were heckling him by asking him how he dealt with the horses in it. He said, deadpan, "I shot them.")
I also find it funny that the three who bet that Bilbo would show up were: Gandalf (who had the idea to bring Bilbo along in the first place), Oin (who is deaf and therefore still believes Bilbo is an expert), and Kili. Awww, that was awfully sweet of you, Kili, trusting that Bilbo would come along. Kili does seem to take a shine to Bilbo - notice he attacks the troll before any other Dwarf, and is very concerned for him when the trolls threaten to rip his arms off.
Oh, and my response to the Bilbo Adventure Time thing is this:
Done by lissinator on Tumblr. She does wonderful art (including a lot of genderbending Dwarves, which I don't mind near so much as slash - in fact, it can be pretty funny and/or awesome under the right circumstances), so go check it out. Yes, I'm too lazy to put in a link at the moment.
I've always said that, based on the number of times they repeat, "We are the fighting Uruk-hai!" in the book, they should have some sort of song and dance routine to go along with it...
If you do not understand the thing about Cookie Monster Dwalin, please visit this link. It will explain the next few pictures:
Not my art.
In other news, I have been developing a greater like for Dwalin recently. I know he is a fearsome warrior and has a frankly intimidating appearance (he wouldn't be that far off from eye-level to me in real life!), but I love his dedication to Thorin, his gladness to see his brother, his avuncular relationship to Fili and Kili. ("You great galumphing git!" to Fili as he walks across the table. Subtitles. The awesomest thing ever.)
So I finally finished a project for human geography. It was most annoying. It involved an online map-making program, for which I had to create three different 30-day trial accounts before it actually worked. After that, it wasn't so bad. Even so, I am very happy that it is over with and I shall celebrate with funny things.
Really, Theoden? (Facepalming is, indeed, the only appropriate reaction to this realization.) Even if his original name was Grima, son of Galmod, the fact that every single other person in Rohan is calling the guy Wormtongue is not a good sign. Fun fact: in the book, Wormtongue also steals things from other people. He had even stolen Theoden's sword, Herugrim, and locked it away in his trunk. This leads to a beautiful moment in the book when Eomer offers his own sword to Theoden in its place.
*sigh* Eomer is so awesome in the book.
Moving along...
This one is for you, Amy. :)
Oh, no! Ezio Auditore de Firenze is taking the hobbits to Isengard! Well, at least someone's doing it... XD I can't remember if I've posted this before or not, but it's so funny I'm doing it again anyways. These are very nice cosplay outfits here, too.
Yay for The Princess Bride crossover! I am soooooo thankful to Marcela for recommending that book to me (yes, there is a book). "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
Also: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." Observe what Catholic Memes has done with that:
And, most of the time, it does not mean what Protestants think it means. Hey, if you're going to bash us, at least bash us for something in which we actually believe. Hint: infallibility does not mean impeccability.
Back to the fun stuff!
The wall always had it coming. It totally deserved it. The smiley face also deserved it.
I also like the flag of the skull or whatever it is in the other corner.
Note to self: Always have better gun safety than Sherlock Holmes. That is, however, an easy thing to accomplish, as he has no gun safety whatsoever.
I must admit, Sherlock has some of the best, both brutally and funny, put-downs I have ever seen. And we are among friends; we all know that Twilight deserves it.
I also just noticed the weird way Edward's hair is spiked up in the front. Huh. It just goes straight up. And then the sides go straight out. Did he stick his finger in a socket or something? You'd think that after being alive for a century or so he would learn not to do such things, or that Esme would play the good mother and teach him not to. Then again, this is Edward, Mr. I'll-Commit-Suicide-By-Volturi-Because-I-Think-The-Girlfriend-I-Dumped-Committed-Suicide. He's not known for his brains, is he?
Programming my computer to say that would be a lot of fun... Except for the fact that mine operates mostly on a fingerprint recognition system and everyone in my family knows it, so they wouldn't bother to try, anyway. Unless they wanted to knock me unconscious and swipe my limp finger across the sensor...
They wouldn't want to do that, would they? There's nothing interesting on my computer...
*glances in a paranoid way over the shoulder*
That is genuinely scary.
A Minas Tirith sandcastle. Your argument is invalid.
We do, after all, have a good sense of humor. To prove this point, I shall share with you a few more selections from one of my favorite websites, Catholic Memes.
First off, because I know my sister likes watching cooking shows, I shall start with these two. (I don't know what show they are from; she might be able to tell me. I, obviously, do not watch cooking shows. I also don't cook much. However, I do most of the washing up afterwards. Considering reality TV, sooner or later there will be a show about washing dishes.)
Although there is the tricky question of how you are able to eat soup when you are yourself a pillar of salt... but the point remains.
The pencil or whatever it is behind the guy's ear is a nice touch, as I do that sometimes myself. (I have also been known to forget that my pencil was there and start looking for it. I have a bad habit of losing my pencil and then searching everywhere frantically for it. Usually I find it, but not always...)
And then there is this one. I am not a huge fan of live chickens, as they are incredibly stupid and vicious creatures, as I know from experience. (Their heads are simply too small for any significant brain processes to occur. It doesn't help that most of their heads are occupied by their big alien eyes. And anyone who has been around chickens knows that there is a definite 'pecking order' and that chickens will happily kill any member of their flock who is doing poorly.)
I am, however, a huge fan of chickens as food.
This one was so funny, I had to save it. I wonder if the chicken actually strolled by the KFC (in which case, this has got to be a small town or at least somewhere with yards for people to keep backyard chickens), or if it was photoshopped. Even if it was photoshopped, it's still funny.
