I don't think I'll ever be able to explain the effect the soundtracks to the LotR movies have on me.

I was saying to Aspen the other day - you know how, as a fan, there are certain things you can't hear without experiencing a physical sensation? A deep-seated wriggle of sheer, inexpressible, flappy-handed glee, a swelling and tightness in your chest like your heart is trying to crawl out your throat with how much you love something, the crystal clear sense-memory of waiting outside the cinema with your tickets in hand and feeling so excited that you think you might throw up? The tiptoeing promise of 'Hedwig's Theme', the follow me fiddles that preclude the main theme for PotC, the big gay violins from the big gay boat movie that give you a big stupid grin. Howard Shore's music is like that, for me.

They make me cry - all I have to do is sit back and really listen, and the tears come, like clockwork - but not solely from the sheer gutpunch-beauty of the music, and not solely from association with the films in and of themselves, though both of these are part of it, and both these, too, in and of themselves elicit visceral reactions from me, leave me short of breath and exhilerated and... uplifted.

It's because - and I don't even consider myself A LotR Fan, as these things go. It's because I can still feel the bite of winter air and the taste of it on the roof of my mouth and in the back of my sinuses, and still remember knowing that all over the world, hundreds of thousands of people were just as ready to pee themselves with anticipation as I was. It's being that excited about something, and saying FUCK CLASS and going to the opening and knowing your English teacher not only wasn't judging you, but was wishing he was there. Remembering that for these films, everyone was a geek - and that it still doesn't take away the special geeky importance of these films to you, personally.

It's - oh my god, it's everything you read about, right there for you, on the screen. Real. It's... breathing in and not being able to breathe out the first time you saw the sun rise and the Rohirrim coming over the crest of that hill. It's hearing the strains of 'Minas Tirith', and knowing that the sight of Gandalf and Pippin flying across the plains on Shadowfax, towards those gleaming white spires, like nothing you'd ever seen, will last - or seems like it could last - forever.

It's hearing 'Into The West' and knowing that millions of people, who weren't even LotR Fans, just like you weren't, sobbed their eyes out in the theatre, just like you did - and probably can't listen to the damn track without getting snuffly, just like you do.

But it's not even that.

It's... it's fuckin' Lord of the Rings, man.

That was a fuckin' era.

And I still don't think I'll ever explain it properly.

Friendslist - what does this to you?

In non-sleep-deprived-philosophising!news, a summary of the past few days:

Have mainlined all but last three eps (come on, little torrent that could!) of Avatar S1. Boxchat's fault. Animation & design = surpasses many eastern-made serialized anime; there goes my uneducated disdain for fanime¹. Characters = idk, my bff Sokka? ♥!!!

¹Faux anime? Fake anime? Fanboy anime? I just made it up, I dunno. Perhaps it should be wanime for wannabe/Western anime. Anyway. NEW & PENITENT RESPECT.

Have not yet gotten my timetable for the academic year that starts in fourteen hours. Fuck you too, whoever is in charge of updating Trinity ISS timetables, this means I have to get up early to go in and check actual physical notice-boards. I better not turn out to have Actual Class tomorrow, since I will need to go home and watch more Avatar collapse from the shock of it all.

In conclusion, bring me your Sokka and/or Appa and/or Iroh icon resources. They will comfort me in the long, dark... morning... of renewed academia.