Praise Pterry!

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In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Found Some More Catholic Anime!

The last ones seemed to be well received (*insert winking smiley face here*), and I had more pictures to post, so here we go!

Some day, I should really put up a blog roll or something, so the links I use all the time will be permanently on the right side of my blog. That might be handy. I dunno. Anyway. On to the pictures!

There's actually a book by Louis de Wohl based on the life of St. Francis Xavier, who was, of course, one of St. Ignatius of Loyola's first disciples and so one of the first members of the Jesuit Order, the Societas Jesu. All Jesuits have the initials 'S.J.' after their names. Conveniently, the English translation works, too: 'Society of Jesus'. Our present Holy Father, Pope Francis, is a Jesuit.

Anyway, the name of the book is Set All Afire and is based off of this quote. In fact, this quote is said to St. Francis Xavier as he leaves for the Orient.

I loved that book. It was my favorite book of all time for the longest. And then I discovered The Lord of the Rings, and, well...

Louis de Wohl actually wrote many novels about different saints throughout church history. Set All Afire is one of the better ones, since it doesn't have a parallel main character to contend with. In most of his books, Louis de Wohl has two main chracters: the saint, and another fictional character who moves in the secular/political world, acting both as a foil for the saint and in order to explain the world in which the saint lived.

Now, this can be a good thing or a bad thing. I really, really liked the parallel character in The Quiet Light, which is about St. Thomas Aquinas. He was an English knight named Sir Piers Rudde and he was all sorts of awesome. He also shared the story equally with St. Thomas.

However, in The Joyful Beggar and in The Citadel of God, which are about St. Francis of Assisi (whose feast day is tomorrow, yay!) and about St. Benedict, respectively, the parallel characters overshadowed the saints and sort of dominated the story. And neither one of those parallel characters were nearly as likeable or awesome, while the saints were awesome. So those two books were a bit of a letdown in that respect.

The Last Crusader, which is about Don Juan of Austria (no connection to the figure of romantic tales), was a return to awesomeness on the other hand. He was his own parallel character, so the undivided focus of the narration on him greatly improved it. That book should really be read with Lepanto, by G. K. Chesterton. Same story, both retellings wonderful.

This picture cracked me up. It reminds me of the meme in the Fire Emblem fandom: NUNS WITH AXES. (Long story cut short: the cleric units in that series of games are usually helpless. The most recent game gave them the ability to carry axes. Much awesomeness and hilarity ensued.)

I have never seen a nun with such weaponry, however... Spears, swords, daggers, halberds... is that a warhammer in the background? O.o Please give it back to Dwalin, Sister Mary Whatever. And a morningstar... oh, goodness. They really looted the armory, didn't they?
It's probably from some anime where the Catholics fight zombies or vampires. I find it really amusing that the secular world implicitly acknowledges like this that we are the best equipped to deal with spawn of the netherworld. XD

Okay, not anime. It was on Catholic Gag. But I had to share it anyway! Don't worry, I have another Catholic anime coming up. But it's the best one, so I'm saving it for last. XD In the meanwhile, have this:

I had never realized how much meme potential the Popes have until I found these websites. And it's not even the first Pope pic I've found with this caption, although my other one is in Latin (which, actually, makes it kind of funnier).

Oh, and one other before we return to Catholic anime (but it's funny, I promise):

I had honestly never thought of that before. Now I will think of it every time. XD Gee, thanks, Catholic Gag. That's another Gospel reading where I must try not to crack up inappropriately while Father is at the lectern.

I already have problems maintaining a straight face through the part about being cast into Hell, where there shall be "wailing and gnashing of teeth" (it's a bit of a family joke). Also, any time the psalm where the wife is compared to "a fruitful vine in the recesses of your home" and the children are "like olive plants around your table"... yeah... I lose it. It just provides such hilarious mental imagery...

I think this sums up anyone's reaction to the slow pace of a Takahashi romance. Even I (who am not usually in the shipping camp) was like, "Come ON already!"

But I guess it's worth it and all that.

I still cannot pronounce 'Sesshomaru' for the life of me, though. That reminds me, I need to go watch his whole Bakusaiga kablam. Because that is pure awesome. He gets stabbed in the heart. It just makes him angry. XD

And now, time for my favorite of the Catholic anime memes. Drumroll, please!

*rolls on floor laughing hysterically*

Yami Yugi FOR THE WIN! A combination of The Exorcist and Yu-Gi-Oh, combining for a pic that is definitely being saved. Actually, I think Yami is doing his whole 'Mind Crush' thing here, which makes it even funnier - he's shattering Kaiba's soul and removing the darkness from it. (Don't worry, Kaiba gets better... for a certain value of 'better') So, in a sense, he is doing an exorcism, or at least his Ancient Egyptian version of it.

That, or he's just finishing a duel with his standard, "Dark Magician, Dark Magic Attack!" It's really cool when Dark Magician attacks. Everything goes all photonegative and the enemy gets blasted away at the speed of light. XD

I like Dark Magician. He's cool. And kind of cute, but you didn't hear me say that. Actually, I think my last lab notebook somewhere has lots of doodles where I wrote all the permutations of Dark Magician in runes on unused sheets of paper. So that means... yeah... it's been a year and a half since I've discovered Yu-Gi-OH.

Too many fandoms. Too little time. Gah.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

After Reading One Too Many Dust Jacket Blurbs

One of these days, I will write a story. That story will not have a blurb that will say anything along the lines of, "In this world/situation, everything is not as it seems."

That is because, in my story, everything will be as it seems. The hero will truly be a hero, the villain will truly be a villain, good will really be good, and evil will really be evil. Appearances may be deceiving, but the truth will not be deceiving. Evil may lie and cheat, but good will not.

That will be my story.

It will bomb, no one will read it, and the critics will bash it from one end of this country to the other.

But I will have said the truth. And the truth will never change.

The most important question really ought to be: How many of us can content ourselves with merely the true and the good? It's not an easy thing.

And so we start bending the rules a little so the world will like us. Compromising, giving a little here and a little there. But is any amount of compromise good?

...This post also appears to have been written after reading one too many philosophy books...

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

I Have A New Fandom (And Other Book Ramblings)

Declaration: I am now a member of the Artemis Fowl fandom.

Explanation: I read the first book years ago and thought it was okay, no more. I didn't bother to read the rest of the series. "It's just that book about a teenage criminal mastermind and some weird high-tech fairies," I assured myself. "Nothing interesting at all."

Then we went on vacation. The owners of the rental place had good taste in books, in some respects. Granted, they seemed to have every novel James Patterson has ever written, they had three books by Philip Pullman (can't think of the trilogy name, but the one with The Golden Compass, The Amber Spyglass, etc.), they had the first three books of the Inheritance Cycle (Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr), and they had Twilight. Just Twilight, though, and thankfully not the whole saga.

However, they had a Terry Pratchett book, so they couldn't be all bad. And it was the first Discworld book - The Colour of Magic! I have never found it anywhere else. So, yes, practically the first thing I did was sit down and read it. And it was glorious. (The thought of Twoflower being played by Sean Astin - a.k.a., Samwise Gamgee from LOTR - in the movie adaptaion had me alternately giggling and going, "Aww," as I read it.)

Then, as the Wi-Fi refused to work, I randomly decided to give Artemis Fowl a try. (My random decisions often turn out to be very good decisions. Reading LOTR was a random decision. Go figure.)

I had no idea which book in the series came next, and I didn't bother to look in the front to try and find out. (Why can't all books in a series come with numbers??) Fortunately, I remembered all the characters from the first book, one advantage of a pretty good mind for literature.

So I picked up The Time Paradox and blazed through it. MIND. BLOWN.

(Darn. And my 'Mind Blown' gif of Sherlock won't load.)

So then I picked up The Artic Incident, The Eternity Code, The Opal Deception, The Lost Colony, and The Last Guardian. Mysteriously, The Atlantis Complex was not among their book collection. *snaps fingers* Looks like I'll be making a trip to Books-a-Million in the near future...

Confession: I am now an ArtemisxHolly shipper. Oops.

Observation: All girls are shippers at heart. We really are. I shall endeavor to remain a sane shipper, however, and stem the tide.

Announcement: Any ArtemisxMinerva deserves to be Killed With Fire. Not only is she stupid and annoying (redeemably so, however, or she would have been a Mary Sue genderflip of Artemis), their names make it look like some sort of Greco-Roman Les Yay mythological mashup. *shivers*

Statement: There had better be some good fanfiction out there, because I need some to soothe my agitated feels after the ending of The Last Guardian. Like, hello! Eoin Colfer is in league with Rick Riordan. They really are, no joke! I should have known he would be a troll of an author on that account alone! And he is. Masterfully so. My family was probably not surprised to see me march stiffly by to get the next book int he series while muttering, "The author is a troll! He's in league with Rick Riordan - I should have seen this coming!" and disappearing again for the next three hours.

What? I came out for mealtimes and family activities, I assure you. Sleep? No, I don't need sleep. What is this 'sleep' concept of which you speak?

So, yes, now I have a new fandom to eat my brain. Yay. *shakes fist at Eoin Colfer* I was doing just fine with my two dozen other fandoms before you had to do this to meeeeeee! It's all your fault I am sitting here alternately screaming at a book or giggling like a loon over an Irish teenaged criminal mastermind - oh, excuse me, juvenile genius. It's all your fault!

It's kind of interesting, though, watching Artemis go from an entirely cold-hearted boy to a young man who *SPOILERS* lays down his life to protect fairykind and humanity. It happened somewhere in The Lost Colony, I think. Possibly at the moment where Holly gets shot and dies (whimpering, "Artemis... Artemis, help me," which was the WORST part), and Artemis just looks over at her but has to keep on going with what he's doing - though he's crying - and then he takes advantage of the unraveling time spell to fire a bolt into the past and knock out the demon before he could kill HOlly, thus ensuring she never died at all... GAH.

Then tehy get mixed up teleporting back to their time and space from the demon dimension; their eyes are now mismatched: Artemis has one of Holly's hazel ones, and she has one of his blue ones. And then to find out that they've been gone three years and his family has given him up for dead and he has two younger brothers now... GAH.

Then, in The Last Guardian, everything goes wrong and Opal Koboi is about to unleash Armageddon on the earth; Butler's down, and the twins and Juliet have been possessed, and there's nothing left... Artemis has his plan, but he knows he's likely going to die in it, and Holly tries to stop him but he expected that and planned accordingly. And he goes out and fools Opal Koboi - megalomaniac, insanely smart, insanely powerful Opal Koboi - and cancels the apocalypse, and it looks like he's about to escape... And then the fairy eye of Holly's that he still has prevents him from escaping the ring of destruction, since it means he's not fully human, and he dies... and Holly and Butler have to watch it... GAH.

Why was I given emotions?

*sniff*

So, um, yeah, somewhere along there... at the end of The Lost Colony, I stopped thinking of Artemis as a boy and started thinking of him as a man. (Not in that sense. Get your minds out of the gutter.) I don't know... it's hard to explain. He wasn't a child any longer. He had the responsibilities, talents, and duties of an adult, and he was actually trying and doing his best to fulfill them.

A similar moment happened for me with Percy Jackson. (*MORE massive spoilers*) He's his loveably dork self all through PJATO, and then he's missing in The Lost Hero, but we get him back in The Son of Neptune. I was counting down the days till that book came out - kept referring to it on my blog here, too. When I got it and read it, I breathed a sigh of relief. Percy hadn't changed. At least, it didn't look that way at first.

But seeing him through the POV of other characters began it. At sixteen, he was the experienced campaigner, the one they relied on. He was the Team Dad, looking out for Frank and Hazel - a trait only intensified in The Mark of Athena. He literally was the glue holding everyone together.

And don't even get me started on his connection to Annabeth. It's a better love story than Twilight in more ways than words can describe. It's not an infatuation. It's genuine love. She was the only thing that the head goddess of Olympus could not wipe from his mind, since his devotion to Annabeth was that strong. He loves Annabeth, but he still holds to his duty - going to Alaska to save the eagle and defeat Alcyoneus, letting her go on her own to follow the Mark of Athena and face Arachne, whatever he has to do. They have genuine respect and friendship between them - they're equals. They trust each other absolutely.

At the end of PJATO, Percy comments that his relationship with Annabeth is a solid foundation for the future, and it is. Oh, it is. The most heartwarming/heartbreaking moment of them all, the one that really takes the cake, is from The Son of Neptune, when Percy is in New Rome and sees an older demigod couple watching their child chase the pigeons. He starts wondering if he and Annabeth will ever have a family...

Now, if that doesn't make you tear up, I don't know what will. *cries like a baby*

It was probably that scene there that made me no longer think of Percy as a boy, but rather as a man. He has grown up. And now he's fallen into Tartarus with Annabeth rather than let go of her, and we have been waiting almost a yera to find out what happens to them...

*shakes fist* Thanks a lot, Rick Riordan.

Addendum: One fandom I did NOT join this week is that of Fablehaven. The first book of that series was also at the rental place. Having run out of Discworld and Artemis Fowl (I read six books on vacation... yeah, typical me), I picked it up out of boredom. Halfway through the book, I felt like banging my head on the wall. I put the book down - some of the worst censure I can give. The main characters were SO stupid! Kendra had some common sense, but Seth deserved to get eaten alive by the worst critter in the refuge. I mean, he was the very epitome of Too Stupid To Live. He thoughtlessly, stubbornly, and rebelliously breaks every rule their grandfather gives them to keep them safe, and INVITES MALICIOUS FAIRY CRITTERS INTO THE HOUSE!!! Idiot. I was hoping he would die in some horrific manner, but no such luck.

Then Kendra, his sister, whom I had approved of so far for her (relative) good sense, told him it wasn't his fault, but rather that of the fairies since they're evil and chose to do that, etc. I was like, "What the blank??!!" I realize she was trying to comfort him, but seriously... it WAS his fault! The fairies could have done nothing to him if he hadn't willfully broken all the rules he had been given. Not only did he endanger himself, he endangered everyone else, too. I half wish a werewolf had chomped him in half or something.

Oh, and their grandfather isn't blameless, either. He says they can't go into the woods at first because of ticks and Lyme's disease (fair enough), a standard enough plot device of lies to keep the kids away from secret mythical critters. THEN he gives Kendra a set of keys and tells her to find what they go to - ultimately, it means they drink magic milk (me: o.O "REALLY? What kind of cows do they come from?") and can then see fairies. So he wants them to figure it out on their own that he lied to them and he's hiding all sorts of mythical critters?? Who knows what they might have done (and did do) unsupervised with that information!

And THEN he has the idiocy to say that he will need successors to run the refuce when he's gone. All well and good... but they're apparently still preteens! Clearly, neither of them are ready for any sort of responsibility, and who knows if they will be ready in half a dozen years in the future? A person's character can change so rapidly as a child and teenager. Did they have to be still children for it to work - the whole 'only children believe in fairies' spiel? If so, that should have been spelled out. As it is, it feels like the plot is another case of, "Oh, these kids are so special they can do everything, and Adults Are Useless and should let the heroes handle it instead of being allowed to intellignetly and competently deal with the problems!"

I hate those plots. Harry Potter was basically that plot. (I hold Dumbledore in especial contempt for allowing three eleven-year-olds to put themselves in mortal danger via most poweful evil wizard of their time because he thought Harry had the 'right' to face Voldemort because ol' Voldie killed his parents. I want to slap Dumbledore repeatedly and go, "HE WAS ONLY ELEVEN!! ELEVEN!!!!" Sheesh, that series has more evidence for Dumbledore being a magical cousin of the Emperor from Star Wars than of being the great force for good he's commonly assumed to be. In fact, I love fanfics that go that route. Not to say that the occasional good!Dumbledore fic is not unappreciated. It's just that... let's just say I find it easier to believe Loki can be redeemed than Dumbledore, okay?)

Speaking of which... I now have a LEGO Loki keychain. Yes, Loki of Asgard is burdened with a glorious purpose... to guard my keyring. Oh, and I had an extra LOTR elf sword, so I gave it to him. Now he has his Glowstick of Destiny. I should take a picture and put it up on my blog...

I don't know. Fablehaven may have answered all my questions in the next chapter. Maybe Seth would have learned his lesson after his latest near grisly demise and learned to FOLLOW THE RULES. Maybe Kendra would have grown a spine and reined him in. Maybe. But I doubt it. So, while I applaud Brandom Muil (I keep wanting to call him Emyn Muil... sigh... too much LOTR) for intelligent villains and (apparently) a working magic system, I must sigh and turn away form his books on account of their extremely slow build - let's just say I wasn't exactly riveted by the opening chapters - and idiot characters. Particularly on account of the idiot characters.

Now, I realize that dumb characters have their places. But when they are willfully and maliciously idiotic... putting themselves and everyone else in harm's way out of curiosity they have repeatedly been warned to curb and out of a stupid, stubborn desire to be always right... headbang. I mean, you'd think after Seth turned (accidentaly, I'll grant him that) a fairy into an evil, hideous imp and got turned into a big pink walrus by the other fairies in retribution, he would learn to follow the rules. Apparently not. Do you see why I was beginning to hope he would experience some sort of horrific death?

However, I am a Genre Savvy Reader (and Viewer, when it comes to movies), and I knew that wasn't going to happen. Not in a kids' book. Maybe he would learn his lesson and save the day that way. More likely (and following in the footsteps of Harry Potter) he would continue to break all the rules and do incredibly stupid things, and still somehow save the day and so get praised and rewarded instead for it. Seriously, Harry's rule-breaking gets rewarded all the time. It gets so egregious that Snape really starts looking logical about the whole matter. Grr.

Okay, rant over. You can come out of hiding now.

Positive Statement: At least I good a good example of 'How Not To Write' out of it. There's always that.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

Why Are All My Fandoms Like This?

| So, how's your fandom doing?

Why is it that so many of my favorite characters go evil and/or die? Honestly.

The only character I liked in the Inheritance Cycle (a set of books I do not much like in general) was Murtagh, and in the second book Christopher Paolini promptly 'killed' him, and then resurrected him near the end of the book as a villain.

I could give more examples...

Theoden. Boromir. Cannot muster much compassion for Denethor, however.

Mitchell. Being Human. Bonus points for having been evil (ish), relapsing, and dying.

Sherlock. 'Dead'. On the side of the angels, not one of them.

Jackman. Jekyll. Hilarious to wach as Hyde (who knew Ridiculously Muderous Bofur had such style?), dies via hundreds of bullets. Mercifully leaves Jackman (the Jekyll to his Hyde) alive.

PERCY JACKSON. Rick Riordan is so evil. Let's see... He killed Beckendorf, Silena, Michael Yew (he appeared for probably all of three chapters and I loved him), Bianca, etc., and bids far to kill more. Also, he mercilessly torments Percy and Annabeth. I expect bad news on that front come October with The House of Hades. I really do.

And then there are the fandoms that are very lonely... I have no one to share them with. That doesn't mean they don't have their share of pain, however.

Why do authors do this to us? I like writing happy stores myself!

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

No, I Haven't Fallen Off the Face of the Earth

...I may have used that as a post title before. Hmm. *shrugs* Well, does it really matter?

So, yes, I don't seem to have blogged in about a week, give or take a day or two. No, I didn't bother to check. And in the meanwhile people I have been following blogged! So I had to comment. I'm that type of person. I like to comment on stuff. I'm the person who would prefer to review every chapter of a story I like on FF.net. Yeeeaaaaah... I'm weird that way.

I did mention that I like to celebrate being free of school by ignoring my phone and the Internet, though, didn't I? Well, it happened. Finals are over, and MASTER GAVE DOBBY A SOCK!!! DOBBY IS FREEEEEEEEE!!!!!

Sorry. I quote that at the end of every semester. It just feels appropriate.

Me being me, I finished up a history final yesterday and to celebrate I... went to Books-a-Million and spent the next three hours standing in an aisle reading a book I had picked up that had a promising cover. It was called something like School of Good and Evil. I don't remember the author. I rarely remember authors unless I have a strong interest in their works, and I forgot to look at the name on the front before I started reading. Once I was reading, the thought never occured to me and stop and look, so...

Yeah. Me.

It was a good read, though. It was about a school where fairy tale characters go to learn to be heroes or villains. Two normal girls have been dragged into it - Sophie, the blond wannabe princess, and Agatha, the dark-haired loner. Much to their consternation, Sophie is dropped off at the ugly School for Evil and Agatha is left with all the nit-brained, beauty-obsessed princesses at the School for Good. They try to switch places. Shenanigans ensue. They decide that they only way they can get home is for Sophie to be given a True Love's Kiss (yes, those are sarcastic caps - though I am sure it's probably a trope) by Prince Tedros. More shenanigans ensue in pursuit of this. Their true colors emerge, as Sophie becomes obsessed with control, power, and getting her own way, while Agatha has to keep rescuing her, occasionally rescuing the prince, rescuing everyone else, etc. Sophie goes insane, becomes a witch and increasingly ugly, and declares Agatha her Nemesis. (Yes, it was capitalized in the book.) Even MORE shenanigans ensue. I knew it wouldn't end up with Sophie getting the prince, and I really didn't want him to end up with Agatha (he didn't deserve her), and I sort of anticipated Agatha saving Sophie and them going home together to a normal life as friends. However, the way it was done... it was dripping with Les Yay, and let's just leave it at that.

If you don't know what that is, well, there is a website called TVTropes.org...

Oops, I suppose I should have said "spoiler alert", shouldn't I?

Haha, that's one of the things I loved about A Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom, another book a randomly picked up a BAM and loved so much I had to buy it. It's hysterical. It takes the Prince Charmings from four different fairy tales (Rapunzel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White) and throws them together. Hilarity Ensues. (Yet another trope. If I've capitalized something randomly, it's probably a trope. As a matter of fact, I have considered becoming a full-fledged troper and making a page for this book.) But at one point the narrator, who is quite snarky, gives away something from 20 chapters away, and then says, "Oops. I guess I should have said spoiler alert." LOL.

Wow, I didn't set out to make this a post about books, but it happened. I see no problem with this.

In other news, I have been trying to work on my own stories lately. Yesterday I had magnificent luck (was it majestic?) and managed a whole chapter. Yay! Go me. I think I've gotten a bit better writing my more difficult characters - some characters are just hard to write, you know? You have to give them meaningful and plausible character development. I like to follow a policy of Show, Don't Tell, which works well from everything to description to personality to dialogue.

For example, I think it's better to say: "The girl yelled at her brother, "Hurry up!"' rather than, "The girl told her brother to hurry up." Meh... bad example maybe, but I prefer direct quotations rather that indirect quotations most of the time. I think it conveys personality better. Then again, that may be just a personal preference of mine.

I also like describing the appearances of characters. This perhaps stems from a minor frustration with J. R. R. Tolkien, who, in the words of one bewildered fangirl, said, "Thank you, J. R. R. Tolkien, for describing every inch of the landscape of Middle-earth. However, you failed to mention that Kili is a hottie."

LOL, but it's sort of true. Very few people get described in The Lord of the Rings. Amusingly and/or annoyingly, those who are play more minor roles in comparison to the Hobbits. *headbang* For instance, Tolkien never said if Frodo, Bilbo, etc., are blond or brunette. It just mentions that Frodo is tall for a Hobbit and that's about it. Now, it does say that Sam has brown eyes (mentioned when he almost drowns in the Anduin and Frodo pulls him up) and I think it mentions that Merry has brown hair in The Houses of Healing - so Merry and Pippin are switched in the movie. I don't mind that change, though, as I always pictured them the other way around, anyway.

Boromir and Faramir, though... gah. It explicitly said they both had raven hair. It took me quite a while to get over the fact that they are blond in the movie. It doesn't bother me so much now, but at one time it was one of those things that just bugged me. I was once much more of a purist than I am now - which likely has allowed me to enjoy The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey more than I would have otherwise.

I'm glad.

Anyway, so my frustration with most of the characters in Middle-earth not being described as well as my very visual approach to stories (Tolkien's stories were born out of words, mine are born out of images I dream up) - I also spend a lot of time describing color in my stories - has led me to trying to describe almost all of my characters. The exceptions are truly minor characters who just get a mention or two, maybe say one line, and are never heard of again. And even then I might have drawn them at some point or other, if they are related to a more important character.

Anyway, so I finished a chapter yesterday. Go me. I tried working on it again today, but couldn't get much done, not because I was stuck or uninspired but because duty called. Dinner, doing dishes, doctoring a pony (he has thrush. We think. No, it's not my horse in the picture on this blog's sidebar), etc... I haven't been able to get back to it. Sad face. And I was just getting to a couple of characters that I like!

...Well. It seems I have broken the promise I made to myself that I wouldn't bore everyone to death with talking about my stories on my blog. Sorry!

I know. I should just shut up and post Hobbit-y things. *nods wisely* I shall go do this.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

I've Been On Pinterest Again...

So, you know what that means... MORE PICTURES!!!

Granted... I only read Eragon and Eldest and mostly I just now like sporking the Alagaesia Cycle/whatever it's officially called, because Paolini made it way too easy. And Harry Potter isn't my most favorite series of all time, I've never read the Hunger Games, and LOTR is superior to Narnia in every way.

But you get the point.

Actually, Narnia may be the only series where I will admit that the movies are, on the whole, better than the books. Like Tolkien, I find Lewis's mishmash of mythologies and critters in Narnia a bit puzzling (*whistles innocently, as my own fantasy universe contains centaurs, elves, dwarves, nixes, kobolds, dragons, oaves, and aliens who look like chickens and drive spaceships*). I also find Lewis's writing really dry and frankly boring in places; Perelandra is a philosophical masterpiece, however, and Out of the Silent Planet contains the only genuinely funny moment in any of his writing.

I really think that stories can be geared to children while remaining readable by adults, which I have found is very much the case with The Hobbit. (And, yes, I consider TH:AUJ better than the book in some respects, but I think that if Tolkien had completed his re-write of The Hobbit I might not be saying this.) However, to me The Chronicles of Narnia never seemed like they could draw in adults as well as children. Hmm.

My favorite of the books might actually be The Magician's Nephew. I've always loved the part where the animals think Uncle Andew is a tree and plant him, and where the plants keep growing at a prodigious rate. (The gold and silver saplings were just amazing.) However, the end of The Last Battle genuinely made me tear up, so, yeah... Well-done death scenes tend to do that to me.

What was it we were reading for literature the other day... something by Flaubert, I think. "The Faithful Heart"? Anyway, it was about a French serving-woman named Felicite who is (probably) happy despite her miserable existence and who is devoted to her parrot. After it dies she starts thinking how the Holy Spirit could be more appropriately depicted as a parrot, since parrots are more intelligent than doves and so forth. When she dies, she sees something like a parrot descending out of the clouds to her.

My first reaction, I will admit without a shade of reluctance, was to tear up. I thought it was quite beautiful. It was once I got to class and sat down and heard the rest discussing it that I realized how ridiculous it actually was (my mom laughed outright when I told her about it), and so now I'm ambivalent about it. I think it's a sort of A Form You Are Comfortable With, but it veers into Narm territory. (The proper literary term for Narm would probably be bathos.) Narm Charm for me, however, at least at first.

How did I get onto parrots? o.O I had better just post my next picture...

I have this problem. I totally have this problem. I'm double stacking books again and all my Rick Riordan books (Percy Jackson, Kane Chronicles, Heroes of Olympus) are lined up on top of another.

Problem is, I don't know where I'd put another bookshelf...

I've tended to call this "new book syndrome", but, yeah, "book hangover" works too and I have totally experienced it... on numerous occasions... Symptoms include: headache from staying up to 1:00 AM in order to finish said book, as well as from lying under the covers awake for the next hour giggling to oneself and rehearsing all of one's favorite parts in one's mind. Also: decreased productivity throughout the next day as one is still mentally rehashing the book.

Nerd problems.

True. Except I don't know that I've ever passed out of the "young enough for fairly tales" stage. I'd rather read fantasy than pretty much any other genre (other than historical fiction, I suppose), hands down.

I'm with G. K. Chesterton. If a man can't be free to believe in fairies, what's left for him...

I would totally do this. I might even actually throw a dictionary. For good measure, I might toss a thesaurus after it. (Yes, I have a thesaurus. It is ancient. It also has words in it that aren't even IN MY DICTIONARY, for goodness's sakes. - And I mean the good dictionary downstairs, not just the pathetic one I keep in my room that doesn't even have "psychosomatic" in it. - Yes, I actually know what that word means.)

I mean, I'm so bad that I can be reading the paper and when I randomly call out, "Grammatical error," or, "Spelling error," no one in my family even blinks. I'm so bad that IN ONE OF MY STORIES a character is a total Grammar Nazi and does the same thing that I do. XD I have really found that bits of myself lodge themselves in my various characters and well Sierel just seems to have taken the Grammar Nazi part of me to heart.

Weird. I used to also hate that character and now I love him.

But I have promised not to ramble about my stories on this blog, so on we go to the next picture!

HAHAHAHAHAHA... The  funny thing is that the last one is so totally true! I will become the Master of Solitaire!

I also love Nerts.

(Nerts is basically multiplayer solitaire. Yes, a contradiction in terms, I know. Several members of my family came over yesterday for Easter and we had a nice game of Nerts on the kitchen table. It got very fierce at times, since we are a competitive bunch. We had to turn the ceiling fan on because it was getting hot in the room. I did pretty well though... I never scored below twenty, so, yeah... I will become the Master of Nerts!)

Because I'm just nerdy this way... Hahahahaha...

Oh, and I'd like to share this one also, because I think we can all find it very relevant when we are on our computers and intend to get useful, constructive things done and somehow find ourselves not doing useful constructive things... and instead looking up silly pictures on Pinterest, for instance...

 

And so, while we're on the subject of Gollum, and since I have some troll tendencies in my personality (I need to find a picture with the caption, "TROOOOOOOLL! TROLL IN THE DUNGEON!" quite desperately), I have something to share with you all, something which, if it gives you your new nightmare, I shall feel that it has done its job:

Oh, and bonus points if you also automatically get that song stuck in your head. XD *smiles evilly* I am such a troll.

In Pace Christi,

Elyse

IT'S HEEEEEERE!

So, guess what comes out today and what I am going to go buy as soon as my last class is over?

Yeah... My original plan was to wait until the extended editions come out in October or November, but it should be little surprise that my patience cannot tolerate that long of a wait. I think my laptop can play a Blu-Ray (I have never had it explained to me how a Blu-Ray is different in its operating system than a DVD, especially as they are outwardly similar), but I'm not going to bother chancing it just in case. So we'll save that for the EE and just get the DVD for now. Plus, it's cheaper.

I did consider the special Target version, which comes with a LEGO minifigure of Bilbo. Then I figured that it's not worth the extra $5 just to get a mini of Bilbo when he doesn't even actually wear a blue jacket with a red waistcoat as far as I can remember. However, stills from the set indicate that he may get a blue coat in Laketown. That will, of course, send the Bagginshield shippers wild as up till now blue has been pretty much a Durin color (Thorin and Kili, in other words).

Gah.

Someday I need to post my thoughts on Why Fanatical Shipping Is Evil. Now, I recognize that deep down in her heart every fangirl is a shipper, but I prefer to ship Canon and Sanity. (This becomes hard with fandoms like Fire Emblem, where in many cases there is no official pairing. And so it degenerates into squabbles over which character is a better tactical unit and which support is best.)

The only fandom I can think right off the bat in which I do not ship Canon is Avatar: The Last Airbender. And that is because I ship Sanity before Canon. I'm sorry, but Kataang scares me. Aang is 12 and not mature enough.

YES, I'M A ZUTARAN AND I'M NOT EVEN SORRY, LALALALALA...

Anyway. Now that we have composed ourselves like gentlemen (or gentleladies... is that actually a word? Huh... I don't guess it is. But I don't care! It should be!)

Of course, I am still a tad upset that UNA did not show The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey for its movie night. (Even if I think Brave is better than most of Disney's latest offerings.) However, since this has forced me to get the movie in order to sate my cravings for Majestic!Thorin and Wannabe Majestic!Kili and the bravest little hobbit of them all, Bilbo. So I suppose I should be thankful.

I really think that all the initial negative media reception for The Hobbit is reponsible for the lack of interest. On the other hand, however much the critics complained about Radagast (personally, I believe he is the epitome of Crazy Awesome), 48 frames per second (I would love to see this), and 3D (which was sort of a let-down for me- I think 48 fps would remedy that- but which I see no need to complain about if you can view it in both 2D and 3D anyway), Azog, and various other issues, the fans seem to love it.

If I can escape being bashed with a one-volume edition of LOTR (and that's over 1000 pages, mind you), I would actually venture to say that TH: AUJ was better than the LOTR films in some respects. I actually appreciate the lighter tone. (Leaving aside my whole beef that The Hobbit as a book suffers in some respects by being insistently marketed as a children's book. Sure, children can love it, but I appreciate it more now than I ever did when I first read it five or so years ago.) The 13 Dwarves are infinitely more entertaining and loveable than the Fellowship was. (Don't get me wrong. I was a huge fan of Aragorn and Legolas. I'm gaining a new appreciation for hobbits and for Gimli. I am starting to admire Gandalf. And the movie changed me from someone who didn't care about Boromir to someone who considers his death probably the most moving scene in the trilogy.)

But the thing is- I really don't mind so much what they do to the plot was what they do to the characters!

Books, I think, should have plots that grow naturally out of the characters' personalities and decisions rather than plots that just happen via random circumstances, to which the characters take a back seat. So I don't mind so much that Faramir took Frodo, Sam, and Gollum to Osgiliath in TTT as I do the fact that Frodo and Sam lie to Faramir ("There was no other."). I don't mind the fact that the people of the Riddermark take refuge at Helm's Deep rather than Dunharrow as much as the fact that Theoden went on a spiel about how Rohan shouldn't help Gondor because Gondor didn't help them. I want to scream at the screen every time: "HELLO! Your ancestors swore ON THE PAINS OF HELL to aid Gondor in its hour of need! And the Steward of Gondor swore BY GOD to do the same for you! You had better get your butt and 6,000 Riders to Anorien pronto!"

So, yeah. I don't mind the plot changes so much because I know that some things have to be sacrificed for simplification in a cinematic adapation. What I do mind is when the characters' personalities get mangled. Then I'm up in arms.

Sad to say, the LOTR films mangled several personalities. Elrond was grumpy, not "as kind as summer" and seemed to dislike Aragorn (remedied somewhat in the EE's) instead of considering him as another son. Aragorn is more doubtful. Eomer is neglected. (As I am a proud member of Team Eomer - Since When Did Jacob or Edward Ever Bring Down An Oliphaunt Single-Handedly?, this really rankles with me.) Etc., etc.

TH:AUJ didn't do that. In fact, since pretty much only Gandalf, Thorin, and Bilbo had personalities in the book, there was little they could do wrong. It was, as (I think) John Callen, who plays Oin, said: "We could look at it in either of two ways: 'Egads, we've got nothing to work with!' or 'Egads, we've got carte blanche!'"  And so they created 13 Dwarves that we have all fallen in love with and actually care about.

Who cares about whether or not Azog should be alive or whether Radagast should have a bunny sled or not when Elrond is nice and Gandalf is perfect and Bilbo is amazing and Thorin... and gah, with Thorin stealing the show?!

So, as a conclusion, I'd like to share this thing I found on Deviantart by ~yourparodies:

 

Okay, it's too tiny to read. So click on it instead, and it will lead you to the person's Deviantart page. Once you're there, click on the picture again and it will expand big enough for you to read. Enjoy!

 

In Pace Christi,

 

Elyse