Fizzzzle

Here's one: the Cuban missile crisis. Considering it's the closest we ever came (so far) to nuclear apocalypse, and considering JFK secretly recorded every meeting and those recordings were fairly recently declassified, it's a truly fascinating subject. However, I'm not here to talk about JFK (though he is a hero in his own right. Most of his military advisors wanted to launch a land invasion of Cuba, but they had no idea that the Soviet Union had secretly sent tens of thousands of troops to Cuba over the previous months and any US troops on Cuban soil would have walked into a trap that would have led to us not being able to talk about this today), I'm talking about Vasili Arkhipov. So, a compromise to the land invasion of Cuba (again, shout out JFK), the US decided to blockade the island. A few Soviet nuclear subs evaded the blockade. I think there were 9, but check me on that. These subs could not surface for oxygen for days. These men were starved, tired, oxygen-robbed, delirious, and armed with nukes. On one such submarine, there were three officers - the captain, a political commissar, and the lieutenant commander Vasili Arkhipov. They hadn't surfaced in days. They could barely breathe. It was like 110 degrees inside the craft. They had had no contact with Moscow. For all they knew, nuclear war had already begun. The captain and the commissar wanted to launch a nuke at... I don't know, Miami or wherever they happened to be. To launch the nuclear missile, they needed all three officers to agree to launch it. Vasili Arkhipov is the only one who said "no." This man is the reason we are breathing. This man saved the entire world. He died of cancer in 1998, probably due to his exposure on nuclear subs, but also potentially due to his massive balls, it's impossible to say. So yeah... Cuban missile crisis. It really was a countdown to Armageddon and people didn't know how close it really came to being so. It came down to one man, and his name was Vasili Arkhipov. Really, the whole thing once JFK's recordings were declassified is a fascinating rabbit hole to go down. @Commissar SFLUFAN it's right up your alley

I think I might be on the train now

So now we have an irrational fear! Thank you for sharing, it takes courage.

*Posts a witty response*

All rational. I suppose claustrophobia is an irrational fear. Like, the odds of a tunnel collapsing on you is really low. I suppose I'm not afraid of a lot of the things I should be, but I think that has to do with the fact that I'm not afraid to do die. I'm just afraid of gum.

Like, a fear of spiders is a rational fear. A fear of heights is a rational fear. This came up because I recently did a job where I was cleaning stained glass windows on a 3 story building and I was the only one who isn't afraid of heights, so I was the one who went up the ladders. Then I mentioned I'm afraid of gum. Or I guess "afraid" isn't the word, but basically I have dreams every night where my jaws get stuck with chewing gum and I get kind of uneasy when I see people chewing gum. And I definitely never want it anywhere near my mouth. I actually have a physical response when I see someone chewing gum. I get all clammy and my jaw tenses up. Do you have anything that is an irrational fear or makes you anxious for a stupid reason?

I've been trying to keep my ear to the ground about anything involving season 3 of Warrior. It only began production a couple months ago. I hope it didn't get axed, but the hope is tepid. The show wasn't exactly cheap.

Just because it needs to be repeated every now and again - the people of Puerto Rico are US citizens.

That's one thing I LOVE about the show, so far. Orcs are fucking scary. Maybe not to people like Gil Galad, or Elves in general, but they've done a great job at making them look menacing as fuck, which is something the Peter Jackson movies missed a little bit at times

I thought it was fine, but I also agree it was a little bit of a mess. Also put some respect in Chris Hemsworth's name. The way he can play both a character and a caricature at the same time and switch between both of them in one scene while still seeming entirely genuine is incredible

Also, the ring doesn't turn you "invisible," per se. It transports you to the spirit realm. Sauron isn't invisible when he wears it, as gandalf or Saruman wouldn't be, either. Or any Elf from Valinor, such as Galadriel or Glorfindel. And those people would still be able to see someone with the Ring on. It's only regular folk for whom the invisibility trait works . I think Tom's appearance doesn't change when he wears the Ring, because there's nothing TO change. Tom is Tom.

So we agree, then! That's what I'm saying. They're similar spirit beings as the Maiar who just kind of ignored the music of Eru and did their own thing, only not in the same way Melkor did. They became single-minded entities that found their "thing" and settled on it.

I don't think it's necessarily because Tom is more powerful, it's just that he has no desires. Sauron (and by extension the Ring) manipulate you by appealing to your desires, and Tom has none. He's basically a nature spirit. That's why his appearance doesn't change when he puts the Ring on - his Fëa and his Hröa are the same. Tom is... Tom. I think that's also why Hobbits tend to be less corruptable than others - most of them just want good food and a warm fire, there isn't a whole lot of desire for the Ring to play with.

I just have a problem with every battle in a game taking like 20 minutes. The only tactics rpgs I've finished are like... Valkyria Chronicles? And I feel like that barely counts. I never even finished Jeanne d'Arc. I guess I did finish Devil Survivor, so there's that

The Constantine show got really good by the end. Unfortunately we live in an age in which a TV show cannot stumble out of the gate.

I think I read that the name "armenelos" (the capitol of Numenor) only ever appears in the Silmarillion, and yet they said it in the episode. Same with calling Aule by name in the second episode. So just because something is only in the Silmarillion doesn't make something off limits entirely, apparently.

Whoops, sorry, I meant to put my sauron stuff in spoilers, not a quote. Too late now. Stupid mobile posting.

Tbh my favorite memory of IV is sailing around and taking advantage of the market system. V tried to make the system deeper by making you able to flood markets, which was great, but there were like two characters you could only recruit my manipulating prices a certain way and you don't find out if you did it right until they join you or not. that rubbed me the wrong way.

I mean, Maiar can be incredibly powerful. I get your point, but I don't think it's enough to just say definitively that they're not. I do think they are cut from the same cloth, like the Nameless Things. Speaking of which, after watching the current episode...

You know what tore my shoulder? I was sweeping a carpeted floor. It's like, you know how you never throw your back out while doing something actually strenuous? You throw your back out when you're taking the trash out. It was like that. I was just sweeping a floor and got this sharp pain in my right shoulder that lasted for like a week.

My tears weep for the tech bros. ... do your tears weep, or do your eyes weep?

I think the people who played Tierkreis liked it, it was just that it seemed like no one played it. I remember it felt like they barely hyped up the game at all, then they just quietly dropped it (in the west, at least), and then were like "well I guess Suikoden isn't really popular, we won't do Suikoden games anymore." Like... unless you were a hardcore JRPG enthusiast at the time, you wouldn't have known it existed. But hey, Konami is gonna Konami. Tactics is the only one I haven't played. I heard it's pretty bad. I have a hard time with even universally acclaimed tactics RPGs, so I didn't even want to try it. Have you played it?

Unpopular opinion: I think Tierkreis is better than both of them, even though it's not a traditional Suikoden game. I think 4 is better than most people think, 5 is worse than most people think, and Tierkreis is just one that nobody played because it was on the DS and doesn't take place in the same world, but it's better than both of them. None of them touch the first 3, though. Those games were awesome. The music, especially. The scores of Suikoden 1-3 are honestly some of the best in any video game I've ever heard, and totally unique.

The first 3 Suikoden games are all fucking great. The rest of them are kind of hit or miss. I'm one of the few who doesn't really like Suikoden V. They're all worth playing, though.

I do backbreaking labor all the time and one of my shoulders is completely fucked. I tore a rotator cuff like 10 years ago and couldn't afford surgery. It gets reinjured all the time. By this point, there's probably so much scar tissue that I'm not sure surgery would even do much.