Silver Wanderlust

- J.R.R Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

‘I do not know what you mean by that,’ answered the leader of the Elves. ‘They are fair garments, and the web is good, for it was made in this land. They are Elvish robes certainly, if that is what you mean. Leaf and branch, water and stone: they have the hue and beauty of all these things under the twilight of Lorien that we love; for we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make.”

- Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 8: Farewell to Lorien

This is how I think of Jackson’s movies. Yes, there are serious flaws - Gandalf’s de-powering, Gimli as comic relief, and Faramir, namely - but come on.

Remember when the guys making their chain mail invented a new method for quickly producing large amounts of it by hand? Remember Miranda Otto walking down the street, practicing sword positions? The guys who forged all of the swords - for leads and for extras? The men and women riders who volunteered to be riders of Rohan? The costume designers who designed the inside of Theoden’s armor (which no one would ever see) so beautifully that Bernard Hill said he felt like a king? The friendships between the cast, and their size doubles, and the stuntmen?

“The film’s art director and Kaynemaile’s founder Kayne Horsham worked with his team to construct each garment from plastic plumbing tubes, coating them in pure silver. Once filming wrapped, Horsham dedicated himself to creating a change to the liquid state assembly process to mass produce the polycarbonate chainmail for architectural applications — products that were light, but strong enough to protect the interior or exterior of a building. Now an industry-leading manufacturer, Kaynemaile produces mesh for everything from small interior screens to large scale exterior façades. Their mesh is easy to install and can be custom created for specialized applications.”

https://architizer.com/blog/practice/materials/kaynemaile-mesh-facade-systems/

every scene you see in the 11+ hours of glory that is the LOTR masterpiece is most like ridiculously elaborate or expensive–from model towers to the all-new motion capture technology used for gollum to the costumes and sets to the aerial on location shots of mother-fracking new zealand and the big impressive battle scenes and horse charges.

but then the story and the screenplay too–there is just SO much lore that is there in the background lurking if you want to look for it, yet it still remains simplified for the average viewer. Crazy impressive feat.

And the acting is heartfelt and real and makes you love the characters.

Servant: …My wife, my lord, is dead.

Macbeth: Well, what about my wife?

Servant: Oh yeah. She’s dead too.

Macbeth: 

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE! SHE DOIBLES DOWN!

“Jesus actually survived the crucifixion” is legitimately one of the most terrifyingly viable heretical traditions you could start. It fulfills the exact ramifications for a popular and overwhelming heresy: It supports and glorifies Christ’s strength (so powerful he could not die in a meaningful way), encouraging different theological philosophies and understandings of the source material, and is COMPLETELY RUINOUS about the WHOLE POINT of Jesus as the Lamb of God. He is destined to die to take on the sins of all humanity forever so we can br forgiven. The death and the resurrection of Christ after his journey into Hell for three days is cosmologically as important as the Trinity. It is one of the pivotal foundations of the entirety of the religion.

If Jesus didn’t die, he didn’t die for us. That changes a LOT of things. But it is at its root a heresy which is not anti-Christian and is instead just a completely irreconcilable veneration.

Like, Jesus said “I am the resurrection and the life, except the resurrection bit is metaphorical, because I’m too swole to actually die.”

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, but not really, for he made his only begotten son super fucking butch. Like, obviously way too butch to actually succumb to a little crucifying.”

“Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. The centurion said to him, ‘Jesus is too shredded to kill, he’s like the Terminator, nothing can take him out.’ Pilate sent Joseph away with nothing, for Jesus was indestructible.”

“The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified but absolutely did not die. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he was just taking a little nap. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He never died, you all really jumped the gun this time.’”

zuko, who has never heard a swearword before: ????

The answer is no. No it cannot. It has been sold to a liquidator just like JoAnns was.

So if there is ANYTHING you want I suggest you get it now. simplicity.com is currently having a pattern sale and I snatched up some that might be useful for cosplay purposes.

Shirts that unsnap at the collar and arm for port access

Walker bags

Wheelchair bags

Imitation button-downs that actually fasten up the back with hook and eye closure, for people with limited mobility who still want to look nice

Fidget page. I know quilters often enjoy making these!

Code Geass went and said “most of these character hail from Future Sort-of-Britain, including our main character, who will be named Lelouch just like every single British person isn’t.” Then they decided to distract you from this by naming his love interest Shirley, cornering the market of 80+ year old grandmothers clutching their 3 bowls of strawberry sucker candy in delight. Code Geass didn’t even call it a day here they had one more trick up their sleeve and it was to name the third character in the group Rivalz, a name and a character which appeal to exactly no one.

Tiger and Bunny said “What should our western young-20′s heartthrob successful pretty-boy deuteragonist be named? What screams ‘young’ and ‘trendy’ and ‘brilliant’ and ‘sexy’? Barnaby. Barnaby Brooks. This is our Sex Symbol Barnaby.” I bet a bunch of ghosts from the 17th century were stoked about that one. I bet Barnaby walks into gift shops asking if they have any of the travel keychains in his name and he gets laughed out of the store. I bet Barnaby’s parents didn’t die, they just faked their deaths to get away from him seeing as they hated him enough to name him Barnaby.

BACCANO HAS A CHARACTER NAMED JACUZZI SPLOT

Code Geass fans saying “that’s fair”

HxH/Death Note/Fate/JoJo fans informing me of terrible horrible names that perfectly prove my point and also deal psychic damage with every new addition

WH–

the ship has already been bombed twice during previous attempts at approaching gaza.

my only hope is that if we make enough noise this time, israel won't dare bomb it with such prominent international figures on board, from fear of making them martyrs and turning the rest of the world against them.

so talk about it, post about it, and expect, demand their mission to succeed and their safe return 🙏

That's

That's Roy Mustang

Just the opposite.

Roy "I grew up with 10 sisters so I know how to disguise covert information reconnaissance as flirting" Mustang.

"I grew up with 10 sisters so I know how to weaponize my sexual charm to disarm others and win favor."

Roy led every higher-up to believe he was just a fuckboy and a manwhore in this for his own ego and that they shouldn't view him as any kind of violent revolutionary like "no sir I'm just a slut."

He asked somebody to raise their hand and ask him when we would use calculus in our everyday life. So one student rose their hand and asked, “When are we going to use this in our everyday life?”

“NEVER!!” the teacher exclaimed. “You will never use calculus in your normal, everyday life. In fact, very few of you will use it in your professional careers either.” Then he paused. “So would you like to know why should care?”

Several us nodded.

He picked out one of the varsity football players in the class. “You practice football a lot during the week, right Tim?” asked the teacher.

“Yeah,” replied Tim. “Almost every day.”

“Do you and your teammates ever lift weights during practice?”

“Yeah. Tuesdays and Thursdays we spend a lot of practice in the weight room.”

“But why?” asked the teacher. “Is there ever going to be a play your coach tells you use during a game that requires you to bench press the other team?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then why lift weights?”

“Because it makes us stronger,” said Tim.

“Bingo!!” said the teacher. “It’s the same thing with calculus. You’re not here because you’re going to use calculus in your everyday life. You’re here because calculus is weightlifting for your brain.”

When it’s taught right, learning math teaches you logic and how to organize your brain, how to take a problem one step at a time and make sure every step can bear weight before you move to the next one.  Most adults don’t need to know integrals, but goddamn if I don’t wish everyone making arguments on the internet understood geometric proofs.

Scientific concepts broaden our understanding of how the world is put together, which does not mean that most adults ever really understand how light is refracted through a lens or why spinning copper wire creates electricity–and they don’t need to.  But science classes in general are meant to teach the scientific method: how to make observations and use them to draw conclusions, how to test those conclusions, how to be wrong and grow stronger from it.

History isn’t about dates and names of battles, it’s about people, patterns, things we’ve tried before and ought to learn from.  It’s about how everything is linked, how changing one circumstance can lead to changes in fifty others, cascading infinitely.  Literature is about critical thinking, pattern recognition, learning to listen to what somebody is saying and decide what it means to you, how you feel about it, and what you want to do with it.

Some facts matter: every adult should know how to read a graph, how global warming works, some of the basic themes and symbols that crop up in every piece of fiction.  But ultimately, content is less important later in life than context.