valve just straight up copying nintendo’s homework now
i feel like the history of nintendo is coming up with a unique and cool way to play video games until somebody copies them and does it better and then nintendo just has to rely on their exclusives until they come up with another thing. they deserve to get one-upped by valve because of how insane they are with copyright enforcement though
lads, a glorious new age of emulation is upon us
Okay, so.
In the film adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo gets stabbed by a troll’s spear, and there’s this big dramatic scene where he reveals that he’s been wearing Bilbo’s old mithril corslet under his shirt the whole time.
In the book, Frodo doesn’t tell anyone about the mithril corslet until much later, as the Fellowship is busy running for their lives at the time, and the orcs aren’t kind enough to pause their assault for long enough for the Fellowship to have a mid-battle bonding moment:
Aragorn picked up Frodo where he lay by the wall and made for the stair, pushing Merry and Pippin in front of him. The others followed; but Gimli had to be dragged away by Legolas: in spite of the peril he lingered by Balin’s tomb with his head bowed. Boromir hauled the eastern door to, grinding upon its hinges: it had great iron rings on either side, but could not be fastened.
“I am all right,” gasped Frodo. “I can walk. Put me down!”
Aragorn nearly dropped him in amazement. “I thought you were dead!” he cried.
“Not yet!” said Gandalf. “But there is no time to wonder.”
Meaning that in the book version, for most of the span between the battle at Balin’s tomb and reaching Lothlórien, apart from Gandalf – who obviously figures it out straight away – the Fellowship have no idea how Frodo survived a troll-spear to the guts with nothing but bruised ribs to show for it. What did they think was going on?
You think you’re joking, but after the stabbing incident and before the mithril corslet is revealed, this exchange happens:
“Well,” said Aragorn, “I can only say that hobbits are made of a stuff so tough that I have never met the like of it. Had I known, I would have spoken softer in the Inn at Bree! That spear-thrust would have skewered a wild boar!”
“Well, it did not skewer me, I am glad to say,” said Frodo.
So, I mean.
“Are hobbits indestructible?” asks Aragorn. “Sure, why not,” Frodo replies.
I feel like I need to tell everyone how brilliantly the Globe incorporated a deaf Gildenstern into the 2018 Hamlet and then force all of you to watch it
ok, so Gildenstern is played by a deaf actor, Nadia Nadarajah. he* signs all his lines, and either Rosencratz interprets for him, or the person he’s talking to says something that makes it obvious what he just said, depending. how each character reacts to Gildenstern is completely in-character and often hilarious
it’s all brilliant and adds another layer of humor and pathos and you should all watch it
*casting at the Globe right now is gender neutral so I’m just going to use the character’s pronouns
guys I know I’m wittering on about this but the thing I want to emphasize is that there is no tokenism here. they didn’t just shove a deaf actor into a speaking role so they could pat themselves on the back about how progressive they are. they went to the effort of fully integrating Nadarajah’s deafness into the story so that it not only fit organically within the narrative but actually enhanced it. watching Hamlet’s signing disintegrate as his trust in R&G disintegrates adds a depth to that storyline I’ve never seen before. Claudius has exactly the awkwardness of someone who thinks of himself as a good person and therefore thinks he’s being kind and generous with his accommodations for disability, but has never even once actually asked a disabled person what they need, which is so on-point for his character it hurts.
I know Michelle Terry gets a lot of hate mail for her policy of race-, gender-, and disability-blind casting, but fuck all those people. long may that policy continue.
the glenda jackson production of king lear on broadway did something similar with the Duke of Cornwall, and it was actually the best part of the play, imo. because when Cornwall was speaking to Lear or to the Court, he had a sign language interpreter to speak the actual literal words aloud, but when he was talking to and conspiring with Regan, his wife, they were just signing back and forth with no translation for the audience, and it emphasized the intimacy between the two even as they turn against literally everyone else in the play, which was fantastic.
and the best part of it was, by the second half of the play, you were so used to it, that you didn’t even blink anymore when watching him and listening to the spoken words come from the interpreter - you just watched the actor playing Cornwall and let the words come from the other guy, but the guy kind of fades into the background. it didn’t hurt that the actor for Cornwall was one of the tallest on stage, and had bright red hair - it was easy to watch him, instead of his interpreter.
which is why it was so shocking and so perfect when the interpreter is the one who kills him.
See, they folded the character of the servant who kills Cornwall into the person of this character who had been such a non-entity that you almost forgot he was on stage - until you realize, no, this is another person, and he’s been here, watching all this the whole time, and he finally gets to the breaking point where he can’t stand by and translate anymore, he has to do something to stop the cruelty he’s seeing, and it’s not just a random guy who comes in for the scene and sees them blinding Gloucester, it’s the man whose been by his side for the entire play, the man who was his voice who finally has a line of his own. who finally speaks on his own behalf to say “no.”
and then, of course, he gets killed, but Cornwall dies in the same scene so it’s not like they need to get a new translator or anything. but it was the most fucking brilliant choice i’ve ever seen re: casting in a Shakespearean production, and the rest of the play pales in my memory in comparison.
Europe is currently being burned alive and people still think climate change is a joke. It’s warmer in North Europe than in the middle eastern deserts.
Nearly all northern countries broke their decades old heat records this week.
Its only in the low hundreds in farenheit??? In America we get that for like a month or two straight every year??? Y'all need to deal is it really normally so cold over there that yall can live with a little heat???
If you’re gonna have an ignorant American attitude then please only stay on American posts. No one in North Europe has an AC in their houses. Stores, animal shelters, elderly houses, no one has AC. the houses are designed to keep the heat in. The people are not accustomed to the heat. A sudden climate shift like this is extremely dangerous to older people and babies specifically.
There are programs being run to inform elderly people what to do to not die in this heat. There was a heatwave in the Netherlands in 2010 in which approximately 500 more elderly people passed away than normally.
One thing people don’t often appreciate is that the southern US states are along the same latitude as the Middle Eastern deserts, rather than northern Europe. We’re not competing with Texas, we’re competing with northern Canada. If Saskatoon can’t handle Mexican weather, London can’t handle Middle-Eastern weather. It’s not built for it at all.
very helpful and informative graphic
Please read this!
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Sometimes, what we percieve as problematic truly is necessary for a better understanding of others.
