Blue M. Hart

I said that I was sad to say goodbye to Bilbo for the rest of the story (since I know he doesn’t make an in-person appearance again until the very end of The Return of the King, at least that’s assuming that the movie’s plot follows the book in that regard), but I wasn’t expecting Bilbo to still make an appearance in Frodo’s mind, this time showing up in a dream to encourage Frodo in a very Bilbo-like fashion to keep moving forward and not to give up yet. (Which is something that Frodo most definitely needs to hear, because this isn’t just encouragement not to abandon the quest- it’s also encouragement for him to STAY ALIVE, since he’s on the brink of dying in a snowstorm during this scene.) I just love how much of a presence Bilbo has in the narrative despite not always being physically present, because 1. it shows how much Frodo cares about him, and 2. he was, after all, the one who started this in the first place (not necessarily within the book, but I mean, he was the protagonist of The Hobbit which was a sort of prequel to The Lord of the Rings).

I also really love that Boromir keeps calling the hobbits “halflings” and “little folk,” using the terminology from his dream. I doubt he’s ever met a hobbit before, and so I feel like he’s finding himself enamored of them and interested in learning more about them and how they differ from Men. Or am I just seeing what I want to see, because I want Boromir’s eventual betrayal to hurt that much more when it happens? (I can’t wait to see how that part plays out in the book…)



SAM GAMGEE, A HOBBIT AFTER MY OWN HEART, YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE RIGHT IN YOUR LIFE. Listen… I like snow. I do! It’s lovely to look at from your window when you’re all bundled up in bed! And much like in the Shire, it doesn’t snow often where I live, so it’s a special treat when it does! However… my love for it extends only to seeing it fall from the comfort of my home and bed. If I have to go out in it… forget it! I have never sympathized more with a fictional character!



Damn, Gandalf. The snark is STRONG with this one. (Although, again, I think it’s just in his manner to be brusque, because he sees no point in beating around the bush or sugar-coating anything, and if something is outside his abilities, he’s not going to lead anyone on with suggesting that he can give it a try.)

Except… wait…



Oh my god. 🥲 Gandalf just threatened Legolas with a good time and Legolas said “Bet.” (This is another part that made me almost laugh out loud in the break room at work.)



Okay, I’m going to need more Aragorn & Boromir bonding, STAT. I know this isn’t really a “bonding” moment, but it’s so cute and amusing to me that Aragorn, without hesitating, answered Boromir’s proverb with a proverb of his own. I choose to believe that both are common sayings in the part of the world from which Boromir hails, and Aragorn knows it because of his heritage (at least, I think he’s also from Gondor like Boromir- isn’t that where he eventually becomes king? I never fully understood Aragorn’s backstory as presented in the movies so that’s another thing I’m looking forward to hearing more about in the books (assuming it’s elaborated upon and not saved for the appendices)).



First: poor Pippin doubting himself :( But second: Sam is a good friend to the other hobbits, not just to Frodo! It warms my heart to see him reassuring Pippin like this.

I find this paragraph somewhat upsetting, because to me, it’s very reminiscent of what Bilbo said when he was grieving Thorin’s death- not so much in the actual content, but the emotion behind the words. To me, I sense the same resigned pragmatism, the same feeling of “there’s nothing that can be done and regrets can’t reverse this situation, so we’ll have to move on and focus on other things, but my heart is breaking regardless of whether or not that reaction will help the situation.” Even though Bilbo’s time in Rivendell seems heavenly, and he surely is enjoying himself, I can’t help but feel so bad for him, just knowing the weight of the regret he must be carrying at the same time. What would have happened if he hadn’t taken the One Ring with him from Gollum’s lair? I mean… he’d probably have gotten himself killed if he hadn’t, so how can one argue that it was the wrong thing to do?

This has gotten a bit heavy, so let’s throw in some fluff to close out this post… uhhhhhh… Bilbo & Frodo are both asexual because I say so, bye. (I know that them never settling down in with a romantic partner is extremely flimsy justification for this headcanon, but consider this: I don’t care. People have shipped things for less of a reason.)

Recently I got it into my head that I should do a writeup of the events surrounding the breaking-up of the band INXS for the subreddit r/HobbyDrama. Because Reddit in general makes me nervous, I decided to post it here first, and if it goes over well, I'll transfer it to that site.

Before we begin, please note that while I experienced most of these events firsthand, I'm sure that there's a lot of information I'm leaving out because I don't remember it or couldn't track down any sources, so if anyone from the INXS fandom happens to be around to help me get the facts straight, I'd really appreciate you chiming in!

So... who are/were INXS?

INXS was a rock band formed in Australia in 1977, consisting of six members: the three Farriss brothers, Tim, Andrew, and Jon; bassist Garry Gary Beers, saxophonist Kirk Pengilly, and their shining star of a frontman, Michael Hutchence. You've probably heard their biggest hit, "Need You Tonight" (released 1987), at least once in your life. If you haven't, here's a refresher:



INXS' upbeat, danceable sound alongside Michael Hutchence's powerful charisma and sex appeal was a winning combination, and the band enjoyed a fair amount of success throughout the 80's. Sadly, the party came to an end in 1997, when Michael Hutchence took his own life right before an upcoming tour. (The last few years of Michael's life could probably be covered in a post of its own, but I personally don't feel comfortable writing more about it.) This was, as one would imagine, a hard blow to the band, who essentially went on an extended hiatus for several years.

Rock Star: INXS

Throughout the rest of the 90's, INXS did several one-off performances with various guest singers, such as Jimmy Barnes and Terence Trent D'Arby. One such performance, featuring Jon Stevens on lead vocals, even led to an official offer being made for Stevens to join the band. After a brief tour and some preliminary recordings, Stevens left INXS to pursue a solo career in 2003, leaving the band without a singer once again. It was clear by then that the band wanted to continue with a permanent singer, so what were they to do? Why, enter the world of reality TV, of course!

Rock Star: INXS was a televised competitive singing contest a la The Voice and American Idol that debuted in 2005. I'm going to be perfectly honest here- my entire knowledge of Rock Star: INXS (the structure, the contestants) comes from a self-insert fanfic that I read back in the 2010's, which was essentially the writer's fantasy of competing on the show. So I can't speak too personally about it. What I do know is that the winner of the competition was J.D. Fortune, a Canadian singer with a rock and roll sensibility that seemed like a perfect fit for the band. Later in 2005, INXS released Switch, their first (and what was to be their only) album with J.D. on vocals. Switch's lead single, "Pretty Vegas," was unmistakably INXS-like in its sound and feel. Though some fans believed it was tasteless of INXS to "replace" Michael Hutchence via a reality show, it was hard to deny that J.D. had the right spirit, at least. Take a listen here if you don't believe me:



Rough patches

J.D. Fortune went on tour with INXS for the first time in January 2006. I'm not sure how well this tour was received, but it was clearly enough for INXS to continue booking shows AND for them to achieve a new record deal. However, in February 2009, trouble began to arise when J.D. Fortune announced to the press that INXS had fired him. Chris Murphy, the band's manager, put out a statement that did not support this claim... but it didn't refute it, either, stating that "The band have always stated to me that Fortune's services could potentially be contracted again when INXS next tour." Not exactly the kind of statement you'd expect a band to make about their own lead singer, who one would assume is a bit more than a contract worker, but hey... Eventually, J.D. clarified his comments in a statement made a month later, explaining that he had been under the impression after completing the last leg of INXS' tour that there had been two more legs left to complete. However, the next two legs were cancelled, and the band refused to return J.D.'s calls for six months. Naturally, upon receiving the silent treatment, J.D. assumed he was out of the band (not helped by the fact that he was dealing with a drug problem while on tour, which alienated the rest of the band from him). [Note: the article in which J.D. "sets the record straight" is now a 404 Page Not Found. If anyone knows where I can find and read this article, please point me in the right direction!]

A tentative reunion

For the next few years, INXS worked on and off with J.D. Fortune. In 2010, they performed at the Winter Olympics with J.D. on lead vocals, though they claimed the performance was a one-off. Later that year, they embarked on a world tour with J.D. Fortune on vocals. Somehow it took until July of 2010 for anyone in the band to confirm that he had officially returned as the band's lead singer, but at any rate, it was clear by then that they were a package deal. In November of 2010, INXS released their second post-Michael album, Original Sin, which was a tribute to Michael featuring various vocalists (one of whom was J.D. Fortune). To support this album, the band went on tour throughout 2011, which is where I come in. 2011 was the year I discovered INXS, and the year that they played in my hometown. Being both a hormonal teenager captivated by Michael Hutchence's swagger, and the type of teenager who would write "I'm only 15 and I love this music! Today's music SUCKS!" in the comments of 80's songs uploaded to YouTube, I absolutely refused to go see INXS with J.D. Fortune, as I thought it wouldn't be the same. Nowadays, I still kick myself over the fact that I missed that show, especially knowing what was to come later...

"Tiny Summer"

As far as I can tell from the Setlist Wiki, INXS' last gig with J.D. Fortune as their frontman took place on August 14th, 2011. This was the final show of the Original Sin tour, after which the band went quiet... but not for long! In September 2011 (I wish I knew the exact date- going off memory and a glance at the 2011 calendar, it must have been either the 12th, 13th, or 14th), INXS announced on their official site that they had something to share with their fans later in the week. What they had to share became apparent on the 15th, when a new track was uploaded to their site. This song was called "Tiny Summer," and it sounded a little something like this:



So, uh. Remember those two songs I embedded above? Yeah... this does NOT sound like THOSE. INXS were no strangers to ballads (see "Never Tear Us Apart," arguably their second biggest hit), but this is not the sound that they're typically known for. To say nothing of the rough, demo-like quality of this recording. As well as one glaringly obvious observation... that's not J.D. Fortune singing.

Fortunately, a statement was posted alongside this song, but unfortunately, it did little to shed light on the matter of who the singer was and what had happened to J.D. The statement seems to have been scrubbed from INXS' site, because it returns a 404 message (if anyone preserved the full statement, please send it to me!), but I managed to find part of it quoted elsewhere. From Andrew Farriss, INXS' keyboardist and main songwriter:

"Without a doubt, amazing song magic happened when Michael and I were a creative writing team. Recently at a party, I met a fellow songwriter by accident, an Irish bloke, and we sat around playing songs on acoustic guitars. Despite his funny accent, we then spent a few days songwriting and singing together... song magic was in the room again."

Why Andrew didn't just name the singer right away, I have no idea. Because the thing is, the vocals on this song are reminiscent of a certain other Irish songwriter... Bono, the lead singer of U2. To hear what I mean, take a listen to one of U2's own ballads, from their most-recent-at-the-time album, 2009's No Line on the Horizon:



Within a day, speculation began to fly in both the U2 fandom and the INXS fandom. On Interference, a U2 fan forum, a thread entitled "New INXS Demo... Featuring Bono?" was posted on the 15th, where fans shared their impressions of the unknown vocalist:

"It sounds like Bono to me."

"It's definetly him! he's singing in a very new way!"

"I think if it wasn't Bono... Andrew wouldn't have gone out of his way to cheekily avoid naming the singer other than calling him Irish."

"It's Bono and I love it!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3 And you can def hear Edge [U2's guitarist/backing vocalist] in the chorus."

Meanwhile, the INXS fans were equally confused. Since I can't find the original post from INXS' social media sharing "Tiny Summer," I have to rely on comments that fans left on the official announcement of the singer's identity. Regardless of when these comments were made, it's clear that they heard the same thing the U2 fans did:

"Reminds me of Bono a bit."

"Yeah ......sounds like U2."

"sounds like u2 to me! weird but its a decent song!"

"omg..he does sound like bono...thats okay i love bono...n bono was good friends w micheal..."

I chimed in on the conversation on Interference, stating that "I seriously doubt it's Bono. But on the other hand, I am hoping like crazy it is. Then my mind would explode from the awesomeness." This is what having U2 and INXS as your two favorite bands when you're a teenager will do to you.

Sadly (or perhaps thankfully), my mind did not explode from the awesomeness. It took a week and four days (an unusual length of time in my opinion) for INXS to finally put out a statement revealing the identity of their singer, but at last, on September 26th, they did. The conclusion?

It wasn't Bono

INXS announced that the singer of "Tiny Summer" was in fact an Irish singer-songwriter named Ciaran Gribbin, and that the recording was in fact a demo they had made together. They also revealed that he would, from that point in time, serve as the band's lead singer, with J.D. Fortune having left the band in "a mutual and amicable decision." Although J.D. validated this statement on his website, claiming that he and the band had agreed before the start of the 2011 summer tour that he would be stepping down from the band's duties after their last show on August 14th, he later- in June 2012- presented an entirely different story, claiming that INXS hadn't let him know he was fired until the end of the tour. And they hadn't spoken to him about it, either:

"I had no idea I had left INXS the second time, to be honest with you. I woke up August 18 and I had to find out from their web site, which, to this day, I still find bizarre.”

Now, I can't speak to the veracity of this because I don't know what statement J.D. is referring to, or how to find it. As I recall (and I was there and active in the INXS fandom when all of this went down), no one knew that J.D. had left the band until "Tiny Summer" was released, which is at odds with J.D.'s claim that the band made a public statement on their site, through which he found out he had been fired. But, I'd be happy to be proven wrong about this, and again I ask that if anyone has information about this, please share it with me. Bottom line is, if J.D. is telling the truth, then this wasn't the first time that INXS apparently fired their lead singer without talking to him first. And unfortunately, it wouldn't be the last.

The End of INXS

With Ciaran Gribbin, INXS went on to tour throughout the end of 2011 and much of 2012. I didn't hear much about how that tour went, either because there wasn't to say about it or because I refused to accept Ciaran as the band's singer, but you can hear for yourself what the band sounded like with Ciaran:



I mean. It's not BAD. Here's what they sounded like with J.D. singing this song, for comparison:



For all I know, things seemed to be going fairly well for INXS. I mean, they were still touring the world. But then November 2012 rolled around, and with it came a bombshell. During INXS' concert in Perth, Australia, on November 11th, Jon Farriss took the microphone from Ciaran just before their third-to-last song and announced that this was the band's last gig and they would henceforth be retiring from touring. This wasn't just a surprise to the audience, and to fans worldwide- it was a surprise to Ciaran as well. It wasn't until August 2013 that he opened up to the press, but when he did, it was a familiar story:

"I'd got wind of the INXS thing and knew the guys wanted a break but I didn't think it would come as abruptly as that... There'd been no word of the band splitting up. Then on the last night at the Perth Arena, I was talking about it being the 25th anniversary of the band's album Kick and introducing the guys. Jon walked on stage, took the mic and said 'It's wonderful to be here,' before going on to say that INXS would not be touring anymore."

Ciaran went on to emphasize that the band hadn't ever said they were splitting up, that they were only retiring from touring, that they had nothing to prove to anyone anymore, that he still respects the members of INXS and considers them to be his friends... But, well, it's 2024, and INXS hasn't released any new music since "Tiny Summer." Nor has Ciaran Gribbin done any work with them, as far as I know. Which sort of implies to me that the band has broken up.

So where are they now?

After Ciaran's last show, each band member went their separate ways. Andrew Farriss embarked on a solo career. The others seem to be happy spending time with their families and indulging in various hobbies. Ciaran Gribbin has released some solo stuff and gotten into the songwriting business. And J.D. Fortune started a new band and went on tour with them.

Regardless of the way things ended, I still believe that INXS has left behind a beautiful legacy. They were very influential on me as a teenager and I'm so glad I discovered them. May Michael Hutchence rest in peace. <3

Aaaand that's my story (and I'm sticking to it). If anyone can help clarify, elaborate, and/or fact-check some of the parts I was iffy on/wasn't around for, your help would be MUCH appreciated (and I will credit you should I end up actually posting this on Reddit). I'm also not sure if I should just stick with writing about "Tiny Summer" and the Bono/Ciaran confusion, or if I should keep it broadly focused on INXS' overall end the way I did in this post... Thoughts?

So... I was going to keep making posts as I went along with reading The Hobbit, with each post covering about two or three chapters. But reading it turned out to be more fun than writing about it, and before I knew it, I had finished the book, so... Here's a final post summarizing all my thoughts (or at least, all the ones I can string together coherently)!

-First of all: This book is so well-written! I sometimes struggle with reading anything that's description-heavy because I can find it hard to visualize or focus on what's being described, and there were quite a few paragraphs in The Hobbit that I had to re-read a few times in order to let the image form in my head, but I was mostly really impressed with the sheer vividness of the descriptions of the landscape and settings as these characters went on their journey. The world came to feel so real to me. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of the Mirkwood Forest, and of Smaug's lair. The former was absolutely nightmarish, and the latter left me as awe-struck as Bilbo and the dwarves from simply picturing it.

-Aside from the descriptive sections, I was also very impressed with the character writing. Bilbo Baggins has got to be one of the greatest protagonists of all time- not just because he was a likable character, but the way his arc was written was SO good. He transformed a lot over the course of his journey, going from being disregarded and overlooked by the entirety of the Company (I guess that's what I'll call the group from now on), to earning their respect and being seen as a valuable asset, to practically leading them at the end. Yet while he did become more confident and daring over the course of the journey, enough to assume leadership roles, he still retained his core traits of gentleness and a preference for the peaceful life. It felt like such a realistic character arc and it had me rooting HARD for him. I also love that he was allowed to make mistakes, too, such as how he handled the situation with the Arkenstone (though it did feel sort of against his character for him to have picked out the Arkenstone as his share of the treasure when he knew Thorin wanted it, before Thorin had really begun to show his greed regarding the treasure, but from the way that scene was written, it felt almost as if the Arkenstone was exerting some sort of power over Bilbo, like how the One Ring will eventually be shown to warp the minds of those who possess it, so I can maybe accept that it was a rare display of uncharacteristic gold-lust).

-Other characters I liked included Beorn, who was an absolute badass and a creative concept for a character, and Smaug himself, who I was almost sorry to see meet his end. I had started reading his confrontation with Bilbo during my lunch break at work and it hurt so much to have to put the book away in the middle of that chapter- I just wanted to read more about the evil dragon! If I had to say one thing that disappointed me about the book, it was that Smaug's death was such an anticlimax. As I mentioned in my previous post, I couldn't remember from the animated movie how Smaug was defeated, and I had just assumed that Bilbo and the dwarves killed him together. It was jarring to realize that that honor instead went to a random solider from the Lake Town who hadn't even been introduced until that moment. And after all of Smaug's prideful boasting, I would have liked to see him put up a bit more of a fight before they managed to find his weak spot and target it. Still, he did get to massacre a town in a fit of rage, so I guess that's enough evil dragon behavior for me to be content with.

-The only other thing I had remembered from the animated Hobbit movie, aside from the opening with the dwarves gathering at Bilbo's house, was the Battle of Five Armies, or at least the fact that there were five armies involved in a battle (though what they were fighting over had escaped my memory). From my memory of the animated film, it had seemed sort of... comical? Which is why I was always confused seeing trailers for the Battle of Five Armies movie when it came out, and I thought "that looks way too intense and epic for the scene that I remember." Now that I've read the book, it seems to me that the Battle of Five Armies movie might have actually been more accurate to the book, though of course I can't say anything for sure because I haven't seen that movie. Nothing about it is treated humorously. It just sounds awful and terrifying, as one would imagine a battle that large would feel. Especially the moment when the goblin army shows up and the battle stops being about the elves & humans vs. the dwarves, trying to stake their claim on the treasure, and instead becomes elves, humans, and dwarves teaming up to fight this horrible menace. I feel like there's a point to be made there about greed and the corrupting influence of wealth/riches, how people can be so quick to fight a war over what they believe they deserve to possess that they fail to truly protect their own from real dangers. Or, alternatively, it's a statement on how insignificant wealth is in the grand scheme of things. I guess the former point was already made with how Thorin's character arc ended up (although I will say, my only other gripe with the book is that I never really felt the stakes of Thorin deciding to keep all the treasure for himself, because initially it seemed perfectly reasonable to me. It had seemed to me throughout the entirety of the book that the dwarves were owed that treasure and deserved to keep it all and do whatever they liked with it. HOWEVER, I think the deciding factor would have been whether Thorin would have helped the people of Lake Town and shared the wealth with them AFTER being allowed to claim it. I believe it was only fair for them to expect recompense after the arrival of the dwarves on the mountain had stirred up Smaug and sent him on a rampage through Lake Town. The fact that Thorin didn't want to help them after he had laid claim to the treasure was what pushed his decision from "just" to "selfish," in my opinion. But I do feel like that could have been framed a LITTLE better, since at first it seemed to me like the people of Lake Town had wanted to possess the treasure themselves). Speaking of Thorin...

-Remember when I said that no one told me this book was so funny? Well, NO ONE TOLD ME THIS BOOK WAS SO SAD, EITHER. What do you mean, all that cutesy fanart I saw on Tumblr of Thorin & Bilbo being a couple after the veents of the movie was an AU?? (I mean, it would have been an AU anyway because they were never a couple in canon- although now I'm REALLY curious about how their relationship is portrayed in the movies, because I didn't really see any romantic chemistry between them in the books.) The only break I took when reading the last four chapters in bed the other night was after Thorin's death, because I needed time to recover. His speech to Bilbo on his deathbed was heartbreaking in itself, particularly when he called Bilbo a "child of the kindly West" and said that "if more of us valued food and wisdom, blended in measure, it would be a merrier world," but for me, the worse/more emotional part was what Bilbo said when reflecting afterwards:

"A mercy it is that I woke up when I did. I wish Thorin were living, but I am glad that we parted in kindness. You are a fool, Bilbo Baggins, and you made a great mess of that business with the stone; and there was a battle, in spite of all your efforts to buy peace and quiet, but I suppose you can hardly be blamed for that."

I think this got me so much because it feels so... I don't know. It feels like Bilbo is resigned to be pragmatic about the outcome of the heist and the battle, because merely wishing that Thorin was still alive and wishing that he hadn't bungled the deal with the Arkenstone can't change what happened, but at the same time... Thorin ISN'T alive, and Bilbo DID make a tactical error, and the fact that he can't change what happened is what's upsetting him. And it's upsetting me, too. He did what he thought was best, which was all he could do. RIP, Thorin Oakenshield. :(

-I have to wrap this post up quickly, so there are just two more things I'd like to mention. First, I think the battle with the spiders was my favorite scene in the book, and I've had "Attercop! Attercop!" stuck in my head ever since I read that part, haha :'D I couldn't resist making up a melody for that one, just as I did with the "Misty Mountains" song. Lastly, the first chapter from The Fellowship of the Ring is included at the end of this copy of The Hobbit as a teaser, and I need to get this book now and start reading it. The first chapter left me wanting so much more. Already I have a significant thought regarding it...

So Bilbo's magic ring is the One Ring, which corrupts the minds of anyone who possess it and makes them value it above all else in the world (much like an addictive substance). Although this had not been established when The Hobbit was first written, I knew about that going into The Hobbit, which made the seemingly-innocuous discovery of the ring in Gollum's caves seem very ominous to me. In the first chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring, the ring's power is shown when Bilbo seems uncharacteristically reluctant to give it up, even calling it his "Precious" the way Gollum did. Which seems a little much for a magic ring, even if it did get him out of trouble and save his life throughout the course of The Hobbit. Obviously this can be chalked up to the power of the ring itself. However... I also can't help but wonder if the ring plays up people's already-existing tendencies towards it. Knowing what I knew about the ring, I made careful not of all the times Bilbo wears it in The Hobbit, and while most of those were situations where turning invisible came in handy (especially when he escapes Gollum and when he's trying to free the Company from their imprisonment at the Elvenking's palace), I felt like towards the end of the book, it became a bit more like a comfort thing for Bilbo. He put it on during the Battle of Five Armies, although he didn't really need to be invisible during that battle, probably because he was trying to get away from the situation and turning invisible helped him literally disappear from it. Then at the end, it mentions that he uses the ring to become invisible when people he doesn't want to see come to visit him at home, fooling them into thinking that he's not in. It gave me the impression that the trauma of the battle made Bilbo feel reliant on the ring and led him to resort to using it to escape any uncomfortable situation. And the ring could sense this and built upon those feelings so that when Gandalf tried to talk Bilbo into leaving it behind, Bilbo's reaction was like: why are you trying to take this thing that keeps me safe and brings me comfort away from me?? Maybe I'm off-base here, but that thought just struck me while I was reading the first chapter.

Remember how I asked myself in my last post, which had to do with a LOTR marathon, if I dared to undertake a read-through of the books? Well, I decided that I did want to do that, but before I did, I wanted to read The Hobbit so I can get the full story since, believe it or not, I’ve never read The Hobbit, either. I’ve read two chapters of it so far and here are my thoughts:

-No one told me how funny this book would be, oh my god :’D Not even three pages in, our protagonist is getting press-ganged into joining what turns out to be a heist. And then the whole heist team invades his home before he’s even said yes. I remember this scene from the two adaptations of The Hobbit that I’ve watched- the animated film and the first of the live action trilogy- but I forgot that Bilbo’s attitude towards the dwarves is less that he’s outright angry about them showing up for tea uninvited, and more of a struggle to remain respectful and abide by the rules of being a good host, while being utterly bewildered as to what’s going on. It was hysterical how he finally asserted himself and stated that he’d like to know what they need him for and what their plan is, and the head dwarf was like “Were you not listening… we’ve been talking about it all night… we even sang a whole song about it…” Speaking of which, the reveal that the dwarves, aside from having been assembled to steal their treasure back from a dragon, are also a BAND?! (Well, sort of. They all play instruments, anyway.) That was HILARIOUS. The second chapter had fewer humorous moments, but I particularly liked the part with Gandalf being a troll to the trolls. And the fact that the trolls realized Bilbo was there because the purse he tried to steal called out to them… like, WHAT? The narration kept emphasizing that picking a troll’s pockets is an easy thing to do, and of course the moment Bilbo tries it, he’s found out by the most unlikely thing that could have happened. 😂

-Tangentially related to the above point: the only Tolkien book that I’ve ever read before The Hobbit is Mr. Bliss, a VERY whimsical, even zany children’s picture book, and the humor in The Hobbit is reminding me a lot of the humor in that book. (I LOVE that book. It’s one of my favorite stories I've ever read!)

-Bilbo Baggins reminds me a lot of Arthur Dent. Two humble everyman types who just want to stay at home and have tea, and are unfortunately forced into going on an Adventure. 😆 That being said, I feel like Bilbo secretly DID want to go on an adventure, or at least was curious enough to attempt it, because of the comments he made to Gandalf after realizing who he was, and the way the dwarves' song stirred the spirit of adventure in him. I think he's just afraid to go on an adventure because he knows it could be dangerous, which is reasonable, and he also feels that he has to uphold a certain standard that his family has historically upheld, which is less reasonable but understandable. Arthur, meanwhile, probably would have been content to live quietly for the rest of his life... shame the Vogons had to ruin everything... [EDIT: I literally just remembered after posting this that Martin Freeman played both Bilbo Baggins and Arthur Dent in their respective film adaptations. Guess the casting director for The Hobbit saw the resemblance just like I did!]

-I know that there are at least two canonical melodies for the "Misty Mountains" song that the dwarves sing, thanks to those adaptations I mentioned above that I've seen. And yet... I Don't Care. I've already composed a melody for the lyrics in the book and I 100% plan on recording it at some point. Too bad my voice doesn't sound like a dwarf's voice, though...

Dumping this here instead of Tumblr because it's spoilers for the Concept Album Multiverse:

This has always been a Haushinka & Jack song to me. (Except replace "piano" with "guitar," and take some creative liberties when it comes to "when he up and left me" and "when I buried you in the ground.)



Anyway, in unrealted news, someone please stop me from signing up for Yuletide. I already have too many fics to juggle (I'm trying to finish SF: ALS and then need to complete Beboptober, since I started it and I still want to write as many of the prompts as I can...)

Hello, good morning, I’m thinking about Cowboy Bebop again because I’m writing a fic and I have to say, d’you ever think about how Faye had to essentially relearn everything she liked and disliked after being revived from cryo-sleep? D’you ever think that she might have already gone through the process of, say, discovering and accepting/embracing a queer or maybe neurodivergent identity, and then she had to start all over again after being revived because she had forgotten even that much about herself? D’you ever think that she might end up collecting a bunch of random items in her various exploits over the three years before she joined the Bebop crew, because they were mementos, no matter how small/seemingly insignificant, and she wants to remember everything in her current life as much as she possibly can? D’you ever just get REALLY EMOTIONAL ABOUT FAYE VALENTINE???

Hello everyone, long time no see, let's get right to the point: over the weekend, I watched Cowboy Bebop and that ending really shook me up, so I wrote some meta about it. Dumping this here now that it's done.

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I finished the post-Marineford arc in One Piece today, which means I made it to the timeskip, which means I made it to what I had decided years ago would be my official stopping point in the anime. It feels so surreal, considering 1. the fact that I only achieved this by binging the hell out of it in four days (my brain can hardly process everything, I think I'm going to need a long time to come to terms with all the episodes I just watched), and 2. that I first started watching the show nine years ago.

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I had to call out of work today for being sick, and I want to lie down and do as little as possible, so naturally that means I've continued watching the Marineford arc in One Piece. And THAT means that it's time for some thoughts on it! First, however, let's touch on Impel Down a bit, because I realized I'm probably not going to be able to write a whole post about it, but there ARE some things I just have to talk about because I love it so much.

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