CritterKeeper

I watched it. I did not specify books vs movies, but we were comparing to a movie, and the LotR movies do not get into any of that. Whether there was a plan to double-cross him ("steal the Death Star") afterwards or not, he was involved in bringing Sauron back to power (rebuilding the Death Star) and it's still a perfectly good analogy. And many fantasies introduce the ancient weapon early on, and don't get into its history until later. Never understood the fuss about hearing explosions in space. The camera is omniscient, it's picking up audio from *on* both your ship and the exploding enemy ship. And you can definitely hear the explosion from on/in the thing that's exploding. The Site That Will Destroy Your Life defines Science Fantasy as a subgenre of Speculative Fiction, just like Alternate History, Steampunk, and other variations and combinations, and Science-Fiction and Fantasy themselves.

Christopher Robin was slain on the altar, Where shadows of Innsmouth run deep. Pooh didn’t hesitate, Pooh didn’t falter, His master’s in Rl’yeh asleep. And I'm only a kid, I don't know what he’s doin’, Let alone why the Great Old Ones want a stuffed bruin.

I love this! I've always liked thinking-outside-the-box solutions to problems; the happy look on the Block's face makes it even better! There's a song with a line about how "Life's like an hourglass glued to the table," and it always makes me want to tell the singer, "So turn the table on its side!"

Crocheting lace with thread

The second Death Star is equivalent to the Lord of the Rings series. Sauron had been powerful in the past, and was defeated; now Sarumon is trying to bring him back, but he isn't quite there yet when the good guys destroy him. I was always taught that the difference between fantasy and science-fiction is that in fantasy, dragons can hover, and in science fiction, they can't. Just so happens I've been reading and watching Game of Thrones, in which there is a powerful sword with a detailed and bloody creation story. The technique for reforging Valeryan steel into a new sword is a closely guarded trade secret, but it can be taught and passed on to another. I doubt many would argue that GoT is science fiction. Even your Star Wars example doesn't hold up; Luke's father built the lightsaber Obi Wan gives him, and as part of his training he learns the techniques and constructs a new one.

Crystal Gayle fan?

MST3K

Um, did you miss the part about it being my personal headcanon? I'm not enough of a Star Wars geek to have memorized planet histories and atmospheres, or technical schematics of ships, etc. It's an idea I came up with at least a couple of decades ago. That said, we could probably go back and forth, with you coming up with little details that contradict the latest iteration and me coming up with ways to incorporate them, forever. Such as, maybe they don't have to capture the target, just catch up to it, or maybe it's small enough to collect through the hatch they used to retrieve Luke when he dropped from the city in the clouds. I don't really want to keep going with this, especially not take over the thread with it. :-)

(Actually, people are getting smarter, not dumber. They have to keep re-norming the IQ tests because they're supposed to give an IQ of 100 as the average score, and it keeps moving upward. It's called the Flynn Effect.) Back to Firefly again with the Serenity always needing to be fixed!

Exactly how role players felt when Magic: the Gathering came out of nowhere to take over GenCon's dealers' room, and from there, the whole dang planet.

Okay, so maybe Kessel is where the run starts, where the whatever it is gets released from. :-)

Maybe it's evolving to be more and more athletic? Start out with a relatively single-purpose form, then become a much more flexible, multi-purpose athlete who works in the same environment? (Anyone who doubts the athleticism of cheerleaders needs to watch what cheerleaders can do these days!) (ETA: Huh. I never thought of myself as having the body of a cheerleader, but I bet I could have made a pretty good "base" on one of these all-girls teams....)

Yeah, I've seen seveeral different fanon explanations for that line. My personal one is that the Kessel is something the ship is chasing, and the goal is to catch it as quickly as possible. The Kessel didn't even get twelve parsecs before he'd caught it. :-)

There's a bar downtown which has been holding Game of Thrones viewing parties, hosted by a local cosplay group, and somehow have managed to escape HBO's notice and the dreaded cease-and-desist orders they were so aggressive with last year. Yesterday, not only did I have a fun time watching with an enthusiastic crowd, but I found a parking space on the street less than a block away, meaning I got to pay a little over $2 instead of the $15 I've sometimes ended up needing to pay at a garage. Last week I got third place in the pre-show trivia contest, and this week I felt I did pretty well even though I didn't place officially. The only damper on my enjoyment is the knowledge that there are now only three more episodes left in the season, and I'll likely miss number 9 in two weeks because I'll be out of town visiting my folks.

My favorite Game of Thrones podcast!

the Menace

Well, I seem to recall the Dixie Chicks sacrificing a huge segment of their market, income, and exposure because they refused to change or be silent about their politics....

And to view you collection of stamps (all unperforated)?

At first I read that as the tea being added to the Cream of Mushroom soup when making the rice....

I thought they were just doing pictures with at least a little clothing on the models, not dropping interesting photos altogether? Also make sure that the nice green clearing you're filming a Doctor Who fan film in doesn't have tiny little plants just starting to leaf out mixed in with the grass, and especially that they aren't sprouts of poison ivy. I was playing Peri, wearing sandals and shorts.... Hemp rope is awfully rough. Unless the one(s) being tied up are into rope burns, best avoided. And cotton rope comes in such pretty colors!

*grabs the ball and runs back to the sidewalk* *turns around and sticks tongue out at mlooney*

I gathered from context it refers to some sort of game that refers to leveling up with increased experience as evolving. That seems to be all you need to get the joke, although I'm sure there could be more subtleties that add to the humor.

They don't have to be alone together to show their relationship. Keep an eye out for scenes where they're together with other people too!

That's the whole point of trigger warnings, really -- to allow people to discuss sensitive subjects, yet provide a layer of protection for people who might be harmed by those discussions. The alternatives would either be total censorship, not allowing discussion of those topics at all, or having discussions come up without any warning, potentially causing severe harm to people who have already been severely traumatized. They're the opposite of saying you shouldn't bring up a subject! There's an old and cynical saying, "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity." The version that would apply here is, perhaps, "Never attribute to malice what could be adequately explained by people genuinely needing protection." Give people the benefit of the doubt. You'll find you're living in a better world when you see it from that perspective.