MechaKrelboyne, on the book's trip through Mordor, in RotK:
Just so. 'It's cold. We don't have much Lembas left. My shoulder hurts. This ring is heavy.' When I read it the first time I would keep stopping to wonder if Tolkien was doing it deliberately to try and make reading about it as mind numbingly horrible as doing something about it. Now, I'm just. 'Yeah, suck it up and march, Shire Boy. Let's get to the good stuff.'
In the Firefly thread:
Kate P.: Re: languages in the Firefly 'verse, IIRC Joss or someone says in one of the commentaries that even the poorest/least-educated/lowest-class folks of all races can speak fluent Chinese (are we assuming Mandarin? I don't remember if it's ever mentioned). Am I overstating the case?
MechaKrelboyne: Nope. It was a very clear statement of 'everyone speaks chinese'. I think I recall hearing trailer trash referred to (which takes my mind to very cool COPS of the future place where the Feds are yelling "YOU ARE BOUND BY LAW!" While some scrawny guy tries to pull his gun while trying to get his stolen car out of the ditch, all the while yelling "Gao yang jong duh goo yang".)
Daniel C. Jensen, in Bitches:
You can tell it's Monday because the ball gags come out.
Beloved Hecubus in Firefly:
I assumed the Alliance was in place for a long time in the core planets, and that all those wild and wooly outlier planets were independent and wanted to stay that way, since they were probably trying to get away from civilization in the first place. So they were like the West at the time of the civil war. And, to carry that analogy, the Union said "Okay, you're part of our country now and these are the new rules and pay your taxes." Which didn't go over well with the Space Mormons in New Utah Prime.
(gasp)
Would you believe? My first COMM that wasn't a straight line setup for someone else's joke?