Fizzzzle

It's definitely not clear, that's just my own headcanon

They're just going to do a shot-for-shot remake of Cars, only stop-motion with actual cars that can't express emotion.

I don't think he's a balrog. I do think there's something to his dark magic, though. I don't think he's a "good guy," and I certainly don't think he's Gandalf. Also, I think Tom Bombadil is a Maya, just one that heard the music of Iluvatar and was like ".... nah, I'm just going to do my own thing, you guys have fun." Same with Ungoliant. Iluvatar gave all of his creations free will, it makes sense that not all of them followed Manwe or Morgoth. Some would have just said "fuck all you guys, I just want to eat some honey/light trees" Very little in Tolkien's world is inherently evil. It follows his personal beliefs, which is why he changed the origins of Orcs so much throughout the years. He seems to have settled on Orcs having a soul, which would mean they are not irreparably evil. He even said this about the War of the Last Alliance: Now, that could just be an omission, but it would seem to me that that would mean there were at least a few Orcs who fought AGAINST Sauron in the War of the Last Alliance. I want to see that story.

Yeah, it's pretty easy to see. They basically aren't asking for more money, they're asking fo the companies to, like... hire more people so that they don't have to work or be on call literally all the time. That's a common thread with teachers and nurses, for the most part. They're not asking for more money, they're asking to be treated like human beings.

This is my biggest problem with Galadriel's storyline so far, and why it's so boring. On the one hand, she is (as the show tells it): Princess of the Noldor, of the house of Fingolfin, from Valinor, Hero of the First Age in the wars against Morgoth, General of the Northern Armies, able to slay a Troll with one hand, a leader amongst Elves, a renowned hero. On the other hand, EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER TALKS DOWN TO HER, LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY. And she, in return, acts like a petulant teenager. Even Gil-Galad, and I remind you that she is far, far older than Gil-Galad. Homeboy has never even seen Valinor. Nor has Elrond. I get that she needs to have a character arc, but her whole character just feels so forced and stupid. My favorite characters so far are honestly the made up ones.

I used to, but I haven't really dove into any since Mortal Kombat X or something else thereabouts. I just kind of got turned off by fighting games turning gradually into more service-based approaches to monetization. I understand that there are certain games where that model applies to, and fighting games are certainly one of them. Take the Sims, for example (just making a comparison). The games as a service model kind of works for it because I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of people who play the Sims don't really play all that much else besides The Sims, so paying $100/year or whatever it ends up being to buy the stuff/game/expansion packs is not really a big deal to those players. I think players of games like Tekken and Soulcalibur probably tend to fit a similar mould. They might dabble in other games here or there, but they'll keep coming back to their favorite fighting game. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I, a VERY casual player of fighting games who will probably just play one for a couple weeks before getting bored and moving on to something else, kind of feel like those games just aren't for me anymore. They want to lure you in by putting the base game on sale for $10 all the time in the hopes that you'll get hooked and spend $700 on all of the DLC characters/outfits/etc

Nope. They're basically like Middle-earth angels, just like Sauron.

what is this new devilry?

For some reason, that's the one word that seems demeaning as fuck to me. I'm not your fucking bud, pal.

I cook mostly Asian food, so we don't really do mirepoix. I don't cook often, but when I do, I go all out on that shit. I make an event out if it.

.. Did that happen, or are you just trolling? That is something I need to see.

I'll also say LeBron James. It's almost like he was built specifically to play basketball. Same with Michael Phelps and swimming. Or alex Honnold and rock climbing.

Freddy Mercury. I almost want to say Layne Staley, but I wonder how much we would love him if he wasn't paired with Jerry Cantrell. Like he's a great singer, but it's hard to imagine him without Jerry.

Yeah, I was down for it in Black Flag, since it was it was, y'know... a pirate game and still pretty fresh, but ever since then it's just felt like a chore

I think there is something to be said for weekly releases keeping things in the cultural consciousness for longer. Shows like Squid Game and the Witcher, while fantastic, kind of just burn bright and fade away. Not to mention, probably more importantly, it keeps subscriptions. The reason I keep Disney Plus is because there's never a whole month that goes by without something I want to watch

I'm down for whatever. Not for nothing, AC Odyssey is easily one of my top 10 games of the last decade. I don't really care that they completely abandoned stealth gameplay and just made a straight up souls-clone/Mass Effect mashup. It's fine by me.

No, and if I'm doing something like dancing while I clean, I actually do a full body pause when they say it. I kind of make a game out of it.

Yes

I have to say, the best parts of the show so far are the plotlines with made up characters. Galadriel and Elendil bore me to tears.

In one interpretation, Glorfindel actually comes to middle earth with the blue Wizards. I doubt the show will when include him (I'm already apprehensive about the fact that they just omitted Celeborn entirely), but he was a dude that was so bodacious that the Valar were like "yo, I know you slew a Balrog in single combat, but you can't retire just yet" Apparently Tolkien initially planned on having Glorfindel be a part of the Fellowship, but later reconsidered as Glorfindel would have been way too OP (For those who aren't familiar with the books, it's Glorfindel who takes Frodo across the Bruinen to Rivendell and kind of causes the flood that washes away the Nazgul. Glorfindel is basically Elf mega-chad)

There have been a few "we don't celebrate people's deaths" bans on Reddit today

.... oh.

I feel like the showrunners took inspiration from The New Shadow. Like, we're in this world where almost everyone believes evil is vanquished and Orcs don't exist anymore outside of fairy tales. From some of the details I've seen about the next episode, it seems like they might actually be using some of it. If the Stranger is a blue wizard who may be good or may be evil? stay tuned. Tolkien himself changed his mind on the blue wizards. At one point he said, of all the wizards, only Gandalf remained true to the cause. Even Radagast, while not turning evil, kind of forgot his purpose in the end. At another point, he said the Blue Wizards stayed true and were playing saboteurs in the east the whole time.

Supposedly they only have the rights to The Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, and the appendices of those books. However, there seems to be a LOT of grey area. Like, they've already mentioned Aulë (the Vala who created the Dwarves) and the Silmarils, which I didn't think they could reference by name, so... who knows!

That's the beauty of it. Tolkien never says where the Nazgul come from, other than that they're lords of Men. The Mouth of Sauron, at the very least, is a Numenorean. I'm excited to see that fleshed out.