Very nice! Never heard of them, but with a name like Turtle Skull I knew I would like them! Thanks for sharing!

We got that one in Germany as well

Who would intentionally put their time and effort into a movie, risk hurting their careers and risk losing the studios money? And all that to upset fans of the characters?

That movie could have easily went the way of Batgirl and be shelved for a tax cut.

Not attempting stand-up, too

Okay, a bunch of thoughts come to mind.

I love Diablo. However, I think a big part of it is the atmosphere and also me being young and never having seen anything like it. That’s pretty hard to recreate. I heard the game Halls of Torment nailed the Diablo atmosphere, but as a Vampire Survivors-like. Basically it’s focused on the grind and progression. Maybe, that’s something for you? Personally, I haven’t found anything that is as fun as Diablo, so every now and then I play Diablo 1 with a new mod, like the new The Hell 3 Mod. It brings back the wonder of the unknown, because there is lots of new stuff in there. I also loved Book of Demons, which is basically a streamlined version of Diablo 1 with a dark comedic twist.

I think you underestimate the satisfaction that comes from clearing levels in Diablo. Yes, it could be a different theme and still work, but isn’t that proof of how potent it is? So the question is, why does it feel like a grind to you? I wager it’s because the magic Diablo had for you got lost over time. You know how they work now, you’ve seen behind the curtain and thus don’t feel the danger, the intrigue like you used to. Maybe you will find it in games like Elden Ring that you don’t see through right away?

About the stats progression: I think a very big part of the fun of progressing your character comes from doing it the way you want. It’s a form of expression. You want to be a Necromancer that only uses Golems or a Mage focused on ice. I think what a lot of Diablo-likes miss is finding a good way to allow lots of expression in character development. Too often I feel boxed in by the class and it doesn’t feel like it’s my Tinkerer, but the Tinkerer instead. A good Diablo-like has abilities that define the character instead of just simple stat increases and cooldown reductions and all that.

Lastly, if you haven’t seen it there is a great Diablo 4 Critique on YouTube that might give some more food for thought!

They did admit that Nadu was a mistake, though.

Woah… not sure what to think about that. I really liked that the format was not controlled by wotc. Although, I guess since they started printing Commander cards and started selling Commander decks and others products for the format, they already had some sort of control over it. Maybe it’s better when this weird setup is finally consolidated? I don’t know. Feels weird.

I’m sorry, but these protests are going to far! That was a perfectly fine soup!

Yeah, I can see our difference in how we defined what’s shoe-horned in. And I get that you’re not saying diversity in media is bad. However, respectfully, I don’t think your definition of shoe-horned makes a lot of sense if you think it through. Is the music shoe-horned in, because it’s not critical to the plot? You said yourself that adding information that isn’t critical to the plot is necessary or the movie will be bland. If it’s necessary to the movie, wouldn’t you agree that it is critical? It may not be for the plot, but it is for the movie. Movies aren’t just plot. A lot of great movies (Nomadland, Patterson, Dazed and Confused, Coffee and Cigarettes, The Straight Story, …) don’t have a lot of plot or tell a great story. Instead they focus on the characters and the mood.

I think your example with the “blond, blue eyed, straight white men” betrays your perspective. This isn’t describing the default human being. Most people on earth aren’t like that. But it is the de facto default in western media. Why is it that? Because for a long time it was white men who made the decisions. Now that it has become a norm, everything that deviates needs a justification. And that’s kinda fucked up, isn’t it?

So, I think the question isn’t, why don’t “normal” character traits get the same hate as “alternate” traits? The question is, who defines what is normal?

That’s kind of a weird argument. I always took “shoe-horned” to imply that it is pressed into something by force where it doesn’t quite fit. So, in my mind just because something is intentional doesn’t mean it is shoe-horned.

Creative works always come from the authors lived experiences. The reason why we often find representation of minorities missing in media, is because these minorities don’t get to work on them. If there would be more diverse teams working on something we would naturally see more of their diverse experiences represented.

However, for this to be the case a lot would have to change in our society. It is way easier to just keep things more or less as they were and let people without minority experiences write and add minority characters. These, in turn, feel off, feel shoe-horned in, because they aren’t based off of lived experiences. They are just there to check a box.

Conversely, the reason why it feels like we used to have better (though less) diverse representations in media is because these actually came from people who had these experiences.

I don’t think that’s how it goes, either. I mean sure, for Pride Month all the corpos glam on to it to market their stuff “to the gays” and there is the odd product line designed for them as well. But I’m pretty sure nobody is adding gay characters to video games, shows or movies, because the market research shows that it’s popular now. It’s still quite the opposite.

Companies would still rather have nothing that could be seen as “controversial” in their products, with the odd exception that wants to be controversial. Games, shows, movies are made by creative people and among them are and have always been queer people. They have always been pushing for representation. Over time this pushing of the envelop as well as social movements lead from characters that can be read as queer (mostly villains, though), to clearly queer coded (still mostly villains) to finally openly queer characters (only villains and side characters). Only in the last decade it has become acceptable to have openly queer main characters in media. Not because marketing pushed for it, or because it’s trendy, but because queer people exist and they also work in media and they write their experiences and it has now become socially acceptable enough for them to get a little representation in mainstream media as well.

In my opinion the reason why “queer” seems “trendy” and everything seems “woke” and “political” is because we are still so used to the conservative, status quo, straight white guy/girl media that anything outside of that sticks out like a sore thumb. And, as they say, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.

He does, too

I’ll start:

I like infinite combos. They just need to be more than 2 card combos. The more convoluted the better!

A couple of games ago I accidentally played an Unmarked Grave, which let’s you tutor a non-legendary creature and put it in your graveyard, as if it was Persist, which let’s you reanimate a non-legendary. Noticed it a few turns later, but kept it to myself, because it would have been a huge hassle for everyone.

Sometimes, when I read a new card, I get so excited of the possibilities, that I skip words and miss that they have additional conditions. Then I wonder why nobody else is talking about the card and why it’s so cheap. Often I’ll have already ordered a couple of copies and play them in my decks before somebody points out mid game that the card doesn’t quite work the way I thought…

Not sure if it’s underrated, but Sunshine (2007) is really great!

That looks cool!

Found a Colorized Version on Internet Archive as well as the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack!

…because they know how to swear in Russian?

Better late then never, thanks!

I think there is enough precedence to come to the belief that remakes are bad in and of itself. Big movie companies do like to put their money in already established or at least known franchises or names. This leads to them forcing a movie they think should make money rather than letting the creatives follow their passion, which may or may not lead to better movies. And then there is also the typical knee-jerk online reaction in play here. People like to be dismissive and jaded about things. I think it’s partly because we have a lot of reasons to be jaded, but it’s also because it’s easy and it makes you feel smarter. I believe in most cases people aren’t actually informed enough to form a real opinion, they just like to shit on things online to make themselves feel better.

In my late teens and early twenties I had a phase where I basically disliked every new movie. I thought old movies where perfect and new movies where all just cash grabs with the exception of indie movies. After a bit of growing and working in a creative industry myself, I now know that this is bullshit. There are lots of reasons why movies turn out bad, but in most cases the people working on them are trying their best and genuinely want to make something great. With that in mind I’ve become much more open and appreciative. It’s so easy to shit on things online. It is very, very hard to make a movie, even a bad one.

Sure, sometimes the movie turns out bad and yes the chances of a reboot, remake, sequel or prequel to be bad is higher. But it might also turn out to be a great movie in it’s own right! To be honest lots of old movies did not age well and could use a remake. If you don’t like it, the original movie is still there for you to watch instead.

I doubt enough people realized this for this effect. I’m not a huge Star Wars fan myself and this went completely over my head. I don’t doubt that dedicated Star Wars fans picked up on it immediately, but most probably only heard of it from these. I see that a lot online. People decide to hate a piece of media even before it airs and then collect reasons for it after the fact.

But that’s just my guess, anyway. I haven’t watched The Acolyte farther than episode 4 or 5, but not because of anything specific. Just didn’t grab me to keep watching. I thought I’ll come back to it eventually, but now that I know it’s canceled I probably won’t.

I just realized I didn’t respond to your hearing issues: I generally don’t think that these would be a problem for learning martial arts. Of course it depends on your teachers teaching style, but generally they show you what to do and that is the most important part. They might have a metaphor or say for how long the next training sections go, but if you can read lips, you should be fine. The essential stuff you can only learn by watching and doing it yourself.

At first it’s hard to follow what’s being demonstrated, but you will get better at that fast. The beginning is always hard and you will feel like you’re slow and clumsy and stupid, because everybody else doesn’t seem to have trouble. That is completely normal and everybody there knows it, so don’t worry! As soon as you’ve had more practical experience your mirror-neurons will help you translate what you see into what you need to make your body do.

Also if you let your teachers and training partners know you’re hard of hearing, I’m sure they will be happy to accommodate. Everybody is there to improve and help others to improve as well. If they aren’t, that’s a huge red flag. Go find a better gym.