Sparkel

 Dickens originally set out to write a Very Serious Pamphlet About the Plight of the Poor in Modern Times, with numbers, and statistics, and gruesome details about the state of debtors prisons. And he realized that it would probably not change a single thing, in the end.

So he changed it to fiction, and made it emotional, and focused on the lives in one specific family.  And he also self-published it, because he realized that a for-profit publishing house wouldn’t want to touch it.  And gave it to friends.

Not only did it help change people’s attitudes toward charity organizations and help reform labor laws, it also (pretty much) revived the whole custom of celebrating Christmas at all.

The pamphlet was going to be called ‘An Appeal to the People of England, on behalf of the Poor Man’s Child’

He decided to write the story because he realised that soap-boxing factory workers and their employers on the importance of educational reform wasn’t going to work on a society-wide scale.

Then I rolled up.  Dressed as Thrust because buttwings, damnit.

“Oh, we’ll go easy on you,” the dude said in the most condescending, smarmy tone.  “Name one of the dinobots.”

I rattled all five off in alphabetical order, and demanded that they tell me all six Constructicons.

There were several guys at the table.  They managed five.

“You forgot Bonecrusher,” I said sweetly and walked off.  I didn’t want the prize I’d rightfully earned.  Their spluttering was all I wanted.

You don’t have to love something in a ridiculously obsessive way that knows every tiny fucking detail for your love of it to bring you joy. If that’s how they get joy, cool, nice for them. But you don’t have to.

You can casually love a thing, cosplay as a thing, go to cons for a thing, without dissecting it into little pieces.

But if you thought they were the only ones, let me draw your attention to this man:

Viggo Mortensen, aka Aragorn son of Arathorn, aka Sexiest Ranger in Middle Earth

would hike, often for more than a day, to remote filming locations, in costume, for the sake of authenticity

was the best swordsman Bob Anderson (swordsmaster/instructor for LotR, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc) says he has ever trained

occasionally writes poetry (more book!canon than film!canon but um hello)

does all his own stunts

lived all over and speaks about 23940209384 languages

you know that scene at the end of Fellowship when he’s fighting the Uruk-hai? And one throws a dagger at him and he hits it away with his sword? Yeah, the guy who threw it was supposed to miss, but accidentally threw it directly at Viggo. Who just casually Aragorned and hit it away. 

Would randomly give chocolates to the hobbits

According to John Rhys-Davis (aka Gimli), whenever you have a large cast, one or two actors will naturally become the leaders. Guess who ended up in that role.

Single-handedly convinced cast and crew to camp out to shoot a scene in the sunrise

Once hit a wild rabbit with his car by accident. Promptly stopped his car and went to see if the rabbit was dead, needed a vet or if the only merciful thing to do was to finish killing him. The rabbit was dead. Viggo realized he was hungry. So he took the rabbit, made a fire by the roadside and ate it.

According to cast and crew, sometimes you’d just see him disappear in the middle of the night and suddenly he’d come back with fish he’d caught

Had his sword with him at all times. Slept with once.

The best horse rider of the cast, hands down. Rides better than lots of pros, according to a horse trainer. Couldn’t bear to part with his horse at the end of the shooting, so he bough him. The next movie of his also involved horses, and he bought his horse in that one, too.

Knows how to survive in the wild. I’m not kidding.

Hand-stitched a few things in his costume for an authentic “I live away from civilization” Ranger feel. Also told the weapons department to make him a small bow because “Aragorn lives in the wild, he needs a hunting bow, or he’ll starve to death” - literally nobody else had thought about that. Also requested a small stone to sharpen his sword. Suggested that Aragorn would take Boromir’s arm guards after his death. 

Speaking of hand-stitching, once he was touring Japan with a reporter for an article. Walked into a store, took a tshirt, bought it, cut off the print and hand-stitched it into the hat he was wearing. The reporter was going “?????????” the entire time.

Once nearly got arrested because he was walking down the street after rehearsal practicing sword moves and someone called the cops on him

Broke his toe during filming and the result is onscreen because he just rolled with it 

Spent the whole running montage at the beginning of TTT running with a broken toe

Also broke a tooth off while filming Helm’s Deep and legit tried to just stick it back into his mouth and keep going but the crew dragged him to a dentist over lunch break. in costume. 

liked to take photographs and put them around his mirror in his trailer, by the end of the shoot there was no mirror left

insisted on filming the scene with Aragorn floating down the river in TTT himself, almost drowned doing it

also, IIRC, bought a horse for another person (I think it was Liv Tyler’s riding double?) after filming because she got super attached to it too