Hobbit Birthday!

[dodger_sister]

Happy Birthday to the lovely shirebound!!! Hope it was a wonderful day full of wonderful things, darling!




Since shirebound is a friend I made through my sister's Lord of the Rings fandom days, I thought I would now share a story about me, The Lord of the Rings and my sister. Knowing my sister the way you do, shirebound, I think this will amuse you.


When I was very little (maybe like seven) my mother let me watch those terrible cartoon movies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I had awful reoccurring nightmares about both Gollum in the pool-cave and The Black Riders (with the menacing music that accompanied The Black Rider's approach in the cartoons). My mother apparently believed that because they were animated, they were appropriate for children - (The Secret of Nimh gave me nightmare too, as well as Watership Down - both animated, both scary as hell. Oh, the days before Adult Swim when parents thought all cartoons were kid-friendly).

Anyways, when I was about eleven, I tried reading The Hobbit for the first time. My sister had been bugging me for a couple of years to read it, so I picked it up. I got to the part with Gollum and the nightmares started up again and I couldn't finish it. Then when I was like twenty, I thought I would give it another try. I had some bad dreams, but I was determined to finish it and find out what happened to Bilbo Baggins.

The next year or so, I was at a theater waiting for Harry Potter to start (that's a whole nother story about how I randomly ended up seeing that movie because someone promised me popcorn) and at the beginning of the movie was a preview for Lord of the Rings. My cousin was all, "OMG, Lord of the Rings!!!!" and I was all, "Hey, look - Elijah Wood!" When I told my sister about it and how I thought it looked like a good movie, she said, "Listen, I forbid you to see the movie before you read the books. I know the Black Riders freak you out, but soldier through. If you read the books before the movies come out, I will buy you a DVD player."

Now I really wanted a DVD player, so I read the books. And I am so grateful she made me do it. The movies wouldn't have meant the same thing to me if she hadn't. My sister wasn't living in Michigan at the time and yet, the weekend Fellowship opened, I awoke on Saturday morning to my sister's face right in mine and her poking me and going, "It's time to go to The Shire!" She was headed to a friend's wedding that weekend and she took a lay-over in Michigan so she could take me to the movie.

See, older siblings boss you around a lot and always take the last brownie based on some rule I am sure they made up called 'seniority' - but then they do awesome things like this and it's all good.

Comments

[vikingprincess]

What a completely awesome story!

The LoTR movies were a family thing for us - three Christmases in a row, we forced My Awesome Husband's (TM) ENTIRE FAMILY to come with us for each movie - and they loved them (I may have told you this before).

His Mom even said, at the end of the first one (and you KNOW how long they are!) "What, that's it? Where's the rest? What happens next?" It was so cute! So we promised to take them all again the following year, and a tradition was born.

I wonder if the new Hobbit comes out at Christmas? We could do it all over again!

[dodger-sister.livejournal.com]

I didn't know about your family tradition to see the LotR movies, but I highly approve!

What, that's it? Where's the rest? What happens next?" It was so cute!

Omg, that's adorable! There was this dude in the theater at the end of Fellowship and he had to have been early 20s but apparently had never read the book. At the end, he just yells out, "What?! How is that the end?!" and his girlfriend was all, "I told you ahead of time it was going to end on a cliffhanger," and the guy goes, "But you didn't tell me it would end like that! Orcs have Merry and Pippin! And..and...The fellowship is broken!" It was hysterical.

The Hobbit does come out in December (just double-checked with The BFF) so YAY for restoring old family traditons.

[vikingprincess]

Awesome. We're goin' to Rochester next Xmas just for that! (I really hate Xmas travel. HAAAAATE. So you know this is a big deal!)

[shirebound]

Thank you, my friend! I had a very nice birthday.

"If you read the books before the movies come out, I will buy you a DVD player."

Wow, what an inducement! I'm glad you got through all the books. And your sister must have been so pleased to share her love of LOTR with you.

[dodger-sister.livejournal.com]

I am glad you had a good birthday! <3

Wow, what an inducement!

After 20 years, my sister finally learned the way to get me to do things wasn't intimidation, but bribery! lol

Actually the best LotR story involving my sister was how I discovered fanfic and was telling her all about how people on the internet write stories about hobbits and omg, I was going to write stories about hobbits and wow! And then one day, she broke down and showed me her website and I was like, "Wait. You wrote The Care and Feeding of Hobbits? I LOVE THAT FIC!" I just hadn't realized I was related to the author. :)

[shirebound]

I think your sister would be amazed at how many of us were inspired by that story, and still read it and many of her other wonderful tales.

(My icon was also a gift from her.)

[dodger-sister.livejournal.com]

I remember when she made that icon! I didn't know you then, so I didn't know it was for you. How sweet.

[ceitfianna]

I love that story. Some of those animated movies really were freaky. Secret of Nimh was the rainy day movie at my elementary school and it scared me.

Making you read all the books beforehand is wonderful. I hadn't fully finished them all when the movies started to come out so reread and finished. I'd been reading The Two Towers at summer camp and lost my copy about halfway through. Someday we need to do a LotR marathon with baked goods or shireish food.

Also I just filled one of your porn prompts though its not fully porny, I hope you like it.

[dodger-sister.livejournal.com]

All of those 80s animated movies were put out my people who had done too much acid in the 70s. The Secret of Nimh was so inappropriate for elementary school kids - clearly your teacher was under the same belief as my mom, that 'animated' meant 'for children'. It particularly gave me bad dreams because 'lab rats being used for medical testing'. I still can't watch ET just for that one scene where they strap Eliot and ET down to the medical lab table at the army base - I sure as hell can't handle the Secret of Nimh.

Someday we need to do a LotR marathon with baked goods or shireish food.

We usually do a marathon on Thanksgiving weeked, but you usually go home for Thanksgiving weekend - we will haveto do a 'springtime' viewing, at least of Fellowship - it feels very like a springtime movie to me. We could make Lembas! My sister and I made it once and it was pretty good.

YAY PORN! /runs off to check that out/

[ceitfianna]

Yes, it was so weird. Did you ever have that thing where when it rained, you watched a movie for recess or other odd times? That was when we saw it, which was bizarre. I don't think I've actually seen Nimh all the way through.

Well, I don't know where I'll be come November but Spring movies are always good.

Yes, its the eye prompt, yesterday I just suddenly had an idea for Hank/Raven and wrote it. I'm considering expanding it.

[dodger-sister.livejournal.com]

Did you ever have that thing where when it rained, you watched a movie for recess or other odd times?

Yeah and I hated that because you never got to finish a whole movie. We also had this thing when it rained where we had 'recess inside' and we all sat on top of our desks and we had this red ball (like you would use for dodge ball) and we would just yell out a person's name and then throw it at their head and they had to catch it and if they missed, they had to sit back down in their chair. I hated it because people were just always trying to knock you off your desk.

Anyways, it looks like I am having a light week this week, if you wanted to come down for an afternoon and hang. Let me know what your schedule looks like.

[ceitfianna]

Oh yes, elementary school had some weird traditions.

That would be nice. So far my week's a little busy but if I can get cover letters and some job stuff done then maybe I can. Also I had to buy a too big thing of milk so I'm considering doing some baking with it.

[dodger-sister.livejournal.com]

Cool. Tomorow is my day of resting up from The Nephew's visit, but after that I don't have anything on the schedule until Sunday. I may try to get into therapy this week, but they have a short week due to the holiday weekend, so maybe not even a therapy appointment this week.

Let me know in a few days, when you see how your schedule looks. :)

[wolfrider89.livejournal.com]

This story made me smile. Now I got the whole thing about the DVD player and you reading the books! Yay!

Also, as an older sibling, I must tell you that seniority is a sacred rule passed down from generation to generation and not to be trifled with. ;)

[dodger-sister.livejournal.com]

<3 After I told you this story on your LJ, I thought, "I should go post about it in detail over on my own LJ. It is really quite a nice little story about my sister." I am really glad my sister is so good at getting me to do things because I would have regretted not reading the books first.

Also, as an older sibling, I must tell you that seniority is a sacred rule passed down from generation to generation and not to be trifled with

ahahahahah It sounds like Wesley read about it in some book he borrowed from Giles!

Well, I disagree when it is used against me...but you better believe I envoked 'the right of seniority' against my little brother all the time!

[wolfrider89.livejournal.com]

A DVD player is an awesome motivation. Maybe if someone had offered me one things would have turned out differently. As it is, I tried to read them in English when I was still pretty new to the whole "books in English" thing, so I can't say that I enjoyed them all that much. *ducks lightning strikes from above at the blasphemy*

It sounds like Wesley read about it in some book he borrowed from Giles!
Hahahaha, awesome. Oh Wesley.

It's a highly subjective tradition, yes. :P