#pj critical

[anghraine]

I feel like the lighting of the beacons scene is kind of a microcosm of my issues with the LOTR films as a whole, in that:

Cinematically, it's absolutely gorgeous and stirring

The visuals are lifted even further by the score

It's a reference to a thing that is actually in the book, just highly re-contextualized (the beacons exist in the book and have already been lit, but serve a different function; it is the Red Arrow that is used to ask for Théoden's aid, with the specific remark that Denethor is asking for aid and not demanding it; the messenger who brought the arrow is caught and decapitated on his way back to Minas Tirith and so Denethor can't know if the message got out without using the palantír)

The lighting of the beacons in the films is tied into the story they're telling, in which basically all the NPCs other characters are much more self-doubting and self-sabotaging and it's up to Our Heroes to get them to do the right thing or the heroes just do it themselves (see Treebeard, see Théoden, see Faramir...)

Specifically, the necessity of lighting the beacons in the films is a direct byproduct of making film Denethor malicious and incredibly incompetent

The quiet, almost incidental tragedy of the messenger's death in war—not in a big battle, not in any glorious way at all, just this random guy being casually chased down and killed—is lost in favor of something dramatic and show-stopping and cool.

It is dramatic and show-stopping and cool! But sacrifices were definitely made in order to work it into the story at all and I think those sacrifices were very representative of the films' adaptational approach.

[starhoodies]

kingdom shopping carts i dunno man

[mythsandheather]

If the chewing gum you got stuck under your shoe and a tablespoon of semi-softened butter gained sentience and had nothing but racist things to say.

[randommotogpstuff]

Pecco's wedding outfit ratings

Enea 8/10

he got 2 points added to his total just because i love those glasses. kinda on the safe side but with how everyone else was dressed it was probably a good idea. the design on his shirt is nice. tan suit at a summer wedding pretty fair

Celestino 3/10

easy little improvements such as proper sizing and wearing a jacket on top would've really fixed his ranking. i like the little hat he has it's cute.

Marco 0/10

one of your best friends is getting married don't show up looking like a mime that's running a gondolas down in venice. so awful but it doesn't even circle back to being good it just stay awful. not even going talk about the polka dots on the back of the vest. was going to give him one point because i don't mind the whole brown look but nope the more i look at it the more angry i get

Luca 7/10

i was expecting better from you. whoever gave any of this guys access to hair gel for this event should not have. grateful the shirt wasn't polka dot like i originally thought. could've worn a plastic garbage bag and i still would've given a 5

Franco 6/10

if the shirt had been tucked in i wouldn't have minded the outfit. appreciate that he wore a jacket and didn't shave off his hair. every pic i've seen of him i've been distracted by his girlfriend's dress so 1 bonus points for that

Andrea 5/10

Very much giving kentucky derby vibes. i think it's the hat that causing that. really don't hate it but don't really love it either. it's average. he almost lost a point cause it was hard to find a pic of him.

Valentino wedding look 9/10

i was as surprised as everyone that he was appropriately dressed for once no converses, no paisley print shirts. are we sure it was not a body double? lost a point for the hair. guessing they were all sharing a tub of hair gel because all of them went overboard with the hair gel.

Valentino reception look 7/10

like i really want to like this outfit i do but its very much giving my drunk uncle at our last family vacation vibes. why did he have to an outfit change? the side angle pic he has with the back of the outfit is doing some really hard work cause i found it very hot.

Uccio 9/10

don't judge me i know i have a problem in judgement when it comes to uccio. he was dressed in a semi properly fitted suit. the hair gel wasn't as bad as it was on some other. and every pic his wife has posted they looked they were having a blast. did lose 1 point cause i think he changed into a white t-shirt at the reception

[caterpillarinacave]

Constantly thinking about how it would create a shitstorm of epic proportions if anyone ever opened up Ahkmenrah’s tomb during the day and found that he didn’t have his wrappings on like he did in the beginning of NATM1, which leads me to the conclusion that he just puts them back on before the sun rises.

In other words, they are his pajamas.

[j-esbian]

WAIT SCANLAN’S MAGNIFICENT MANSION IS HERE

ARE WE GOING TO GET THE SODIUM CANNONBALL. PLEASE

[tashas-cauldron-of-magic-soup]

Kaz in his Kaz-uals (yes I am very clever)

Inspired by @mistercrowbar and @for-tymora encouraging that we all draw our Tavs in their jammies so they can all have a slumber party.

Also, his socks were knitted by Rosina, in case anyone asks.

[zazikels]

what if i'm delusional and rh ae na can't claim sheepstealer bc he's w/ nettles already

[soullessjack]

if I think too much about all of Jacks characterization and development and trauma that got rug swept by people focusing on literally anything else except jack even in his own centric episodes I start turning into Mr. Hyde.

[samuelyaboyy]

My collection of FOX dads in hula hoops part 1

[popculturebuffet]

Since we've tackled one big adult animation network, let's try the other and more prominent one with the FOX adult animation shows. For the first (and arguably most iconic) batch, favorite character from the 1989-2005 era with: The Simpsons, The Critic, King of the Hill, Family Guy, Futurama (which was on several networks between Fox, direct to video, Comedy Central, and Hulu), The PJs, and American Dad (which also got spread between two networks between Fox and TBS)? I know especially in the cases of The Simpsons and Family Guy, the favorite character will vary considering both shows have gone through various rough patches and declines in their long runs so if you wanna have more than one favorite depending on the era of the shows, that's fine.

Fair enough and this is something i'm happy about especialy because, as tends to be the trend, most of these are shows i've watched at least a little and it seems to be consitant for most of fox's shockingly small program pool. The good news is i've tried most of it at one point or another, so there's no gaps this time up to and including the most recent show universal basic guys. So with that let's rip.

The Simpsons: Faviorite character is hard not due to the series sheer length, but to it's sheer cast size. So while it was a hard choice my faviorite is probably grandpa. Which is weird: he has two spotlight episodes I geninely love off the top of my head, yet he earns this spot by just having so many damn good jokes, which is common for any simpsons character but abe just cranks em out from his pants dropping, to "a little of collumn a a little of collumn b" , "I used to be with it", the onion monologue, and so much more. The guy may be on the edge of the show and an awkward fit for spotlight eps at times, but my god does he deliver. And of course he's responsible for my favorite simpsons joke

It's funny enough in it's first scene but that sudden call back. Runner up is easily hans moleman, who is just inherently funny and like Grandpa is funny just by showing up, up to the most recent episode at the time of this ask where he just randomly shows up for homer to make a pun mid song, or the premire of this season where he sees himself on the listings of funerals for the series faux finale and sighs. Third is Chief Wiggum and i'll stop it there but he gets here for a lot of reasons, from sky police to... well everything he does in I Love Lisa. not an exageration. "Have they set a date", "I keep my pants on in this version", the boot on ms hoover's car.

Anyways I could list why simpsons characters are great all day but tha'ts not what this is. Anyone whose seen at least one post on this blog knows how much I love the simpsons

While Frinkiac, an image making website that has a database of the first 17 seasons makes this easy, there's a lot of jokes I just couldn't do if not for them, I'd still be making every refrence i could: The show at it's peak is a non stop barrage of clever jokes, well done character work, and more clever jokes.

The show does have a reputation for decline.. and it's not unwarranted. While I still think at least season 9 is pretty good, the Scully era slowly took the show into mean spirited attempts to match the other shows at the time. There's a reason the term Jerkass Homer came from here.

That said I will combat the narrative that "simpsons just got bad and stayed bad". That it became oops all mike scully. It didn't and that era of edgelord nonsense was fairly short even if it leaked a bit into the Al Jean Era.

The real issue i've noticed visiting the ocasional episode that sounded intresting over the years, and especially after watching youtuber the real jims is that al jeans LONG tenure (As in it only ended with season 34 and he's still apparently in charge of the half assed disney + specials) is kinda bland. There's some good stuff like ned and ednas sadly brief due to real life tragedy marriage, the weird as hell episode where Selma Marries grandpa while Lisa and Bart engage in a lord of the rings style war with UPS over boxes that even includes a dragon and nelson. But a lot just feels bland. It dosen't have to be as good as the golden age, no show can stay that good forever and youtuber and simpsons expert the real jims is what got me out of the "only classic era and season 9 good" mindset I was in. There is good.. it's just a coasting era and I could entirely agree with the arguments simpsons could end.

Emphasis on "Could" as what i've seen of the most recent seasons is fun. Now granted like many I came into what I watched of season 34, the first show ran primarily by longtime writer matt selman but using a unique format where a diffrent writer shoruns each episode and where this new age began, expecting a new golden age. The thing is while it's not that.. it is still solid and the writers are putting in more effort. I still bob and weave out of watching it weekly as some episodes just don't interest me. But the series is far more willing to shake things up or experiment while still keeping the status quo: Bart gets a new teacher woh matches him while being far more resonable and compasionate than any other teacher at the school like Edna was, but without her clear case of burnout, longtime background extra larry died and Moe got engaged.. then the show forgot about it.

More importantly as RealJims pointed out recently in a video, the show is experimenting a lot more each season: you'll get an episode where tow hackers modled after prominent simpssons youtube Lydia from Simpsons Theory and her husband air clips of episodes that never existed poking fun at fans, an episode spoofing primal, a schoolhouse rock parody, and just in this current season alone a faux finale exploring what a simpsons finale shoudlnt' look like, another shorts episode focused entirely on the women of springfield and a second anthology ep focused entirely on ray bradbury. The show may not break status quo, and I wish it would just a tad, but it does break format often and is geninely trying to play with things among more standard episodes. I mean we got the masterpiece that is "A Mid Childhood's Dream' about marge dealing with Bart growing up out of this. Selman and Co really have brought life into the show enough for me to check it out and even the mid episodes are at least intresting. The show may of been in a decades long slump, but it's more than justifying it's existance and likely will keep going till one of the main cast sadly passes on and I for one welcome our new simpsons overlords.

The Critic: Budududdudududud, do do do doot doo ... god that theme song is catchy. Anyways Franklin. I said it in my election special and i'll say it again: Gerrit Grahm owns every scene franlkin sherman is in. Franklin is a living meme in the best way possible and thank god we got him. Duke's a close second for largely the same reasons.

The show itself is excellent. I did keep distance for a bit as it's star, John Lovitz, turned out to be an asshat now sulking around fox news with other comics who wnat the kids to get off their damn lawn. But even if Lovitz Sucks, like Rosanne, a show isn't automatically bad because it's star is a jerk and the critic is a great sister show to the simpsons having the same rapid fire energy. Parts of it haven't aged well as Al Jean and Mike Reiss leaned HEAVILY into refrence humor and while some stands on it's own, others have aged terribly if you weren't there or refrence films I hadn't heard of. Their movie parodies are a coin flip.

Despite this the show powers through the dated bits by nto only being a sharp satire at times, but simply having a stacked cast of characters and voice cast: Every character is memorable in some way, and the bulk have great gags to their name. Lovitz for as much as I resent him now, was at the top of his game as jay and gave the punching bag a sense of energy, with just enough smugness to understand why people might not like him.

The show only got better in season 2: Season 1 still has classics, paticuarlly it's finale (MAKE HIM SQUEAL!), and the debutante ball episode, but season 2 eases up on jay a bit, still dumping on him but giving him a great foil in his girlfriend alice, who he has great chemistry with an der.. also wedging her daughter in there. It keeps what worked but ups the pacing resulting in a lot of the series best. The Critic is free on tubi and it's a stone cold classic of comedy well worth watching.

King of the HIll: Doot doot doo doo doo. It's Dale. Easily. God bless Johnny Hardwick for his monumental performance, the show would not have been the same and i'm greatful he'll be present for some of the revivial.... just.. please don't be into Qanon dale. But Dale is just funny while also having a lot of depth: He loves his wife, is a good father (he still once tries to help his son kill a panda to seem cool, but given dale's many terrible life choices, it's remarkable THAT'S the worst it gets), and while a coward, a good friend when it counts most.. to Hank and Boomhauer. Bill can go stand in the corner. Dale is hilarious fun to watch and memorable every time he does a thing. I mean who else could make chlroforming himself this funny. Or of course this which really sums up the character

The show itself is excellent. Like most fox shows it slid a bit as it went, with the later seasons being meh most of the time, but at it's peak it's a solid down to earth show with great characters, comedic timing and growth. I like some eps more than others even at it's best, but I can't help but adore this show: I watched season 3 a LOT in high school via some dvds I got cheap at walmart, and the show is part of me as a result and even fi it wasn't.. it'd still be dang good, a nice nuanced portrait of a man despreatly struggling with the time he' sin and his own trauma. It also has washington hitler

It's all in the delivery. It's not without faults: I'm not a huge fan of not giving bobby a romantic arc after Connie, Peggy got more insufferable with each season, and as I said the show got blander as it went. But at it's peak this show was great and I can't wait for the sequel.

Family Guy: You know the words. Faviorite character is hard as the bulk have just.. degraded with time, but i'll go with peter as he's the one whose degraded the least.. I mean he's become a bigger asshole but he's not that diffrent.

The show itself was good in it's prime, around the first 5 seasons. There is some edgelord bullshit in there: Transphobic jokes, about half of quagmires joke, and more i'm probably not thinking of but we've got a lot of shows to cover in this ask and the bulk are fairly intensive to talk about as they've been on since the dawn of time.

But my god the show had so many good jokes. I admit I have nosalgia bias: I watched the show a ton on adult swim, was giddy when ti came back and watched it weekly up to road to the north pole when my patience ran out. And seeing Brian vomit for a minute and a half realizing he slept with a trans woman wasn't exactly af ond invitation to go back. When the show was at it's peak, it was hilarious nonsense, having some good character stuff (ToonrifiqTariq in paticular has pointed out the series suprisingly well threaded theme of Peter learning way too much of how he acts from tv and movies), while also just being hilarious. The cutaway gags get shit.. but in thei roriginal form as quick bursts of nonsense and not filler to kill time, they were fucking great. Their a way to pepper up boring expositoin. I mean Meg could just make a quip about Peter being left to his own devices when lois gets a job.. or we could see just what she means by "turned the house into a giant puppet"

It just had a fun nonsense vibe where weird shit like Donny Most rising from some haze happened. It was a solid weird show and I still remember many a cutaway and gag for just being that good. I do wish the show would stop at this point, and I know, given my defense ofr the simpsons to continue that's weird, but it needs to either find something new to do with itself or gracefully end. I tried it again with the halloween specail but it seems.. really not that much diffrent than it was post it's darkest and most stupid period, which unlike simspons seems to have lasted a lot longer and been even more vile. I mean it's where we got "Quagmire's Father", the worst piece of television i've ever seen or reviewed. But the show like simpsons could stand from a bolt of fresh creativity.

Futurama: DUN DUN, DO DO, DUN DUN DO DO DO DO. IT's the show that CANNOT die. It has come back THREE times now, over direct to video movies, a cable revivial and now streaming. And I love it

Faviorite character first: Bender is great, bender bender bender is great. John DiMaggio broke out with this role for good reasons, a hilarious jack of all trades that thanks to Tariuq and his good friend Johnny2Cellos i've also embraced just how easily upset and thin skinned he can be. I hope john gets to play him as long as the role exists and Bender's suprising depth combined with his endless factory for jokes is great. Nixon, as you could probably guess from the electoin specail, is a close second.

The show itself is excellent, a nice blend of simpsons rapid fire pacing at it's peak with some high concept sci fi stuff. It's also aged shockingly well with only Amazon Women in the Mood and Bend Her sticking out as having premises that didn't age well (And in the case of Bend Her it was bad even before it's tranphobia aged like bad milk left in a parking lot). The original run is funny, incredibely well paced and often deeper than it has any reason to be.

Like simpsons Futurama has distinctive eras though rather than be chunked up by showrunners it's chunked up by what network they were on. The films were solid though the premise of beast with a billion backs has aged horribly and was already a tad creepy to start with, while benders game is just.. meh.

The Comedy Central run started and ended strong.. but isn't a lot to write home about. There are fantastic episodes that make me more than happy we got the first revival: Lethal Inspection, The Late Phillip J Fry, The Prisoner of Benda, Law and Oracle, The Bots and the Bee's, Zapp Dingbat, The Six Million Dollar Mon, Stench and Stenchabhility and Meanwhile.. but the bulk are mediocre. You have episodes with outdated and grossly sexist premises (Nutopia and the Butterjunk effect), just plain stupid ones (Fun on a Bun) or episods that are instantly dated (Attack of the Killer App and Decision 3012). The revivial has just enough good and decent to justify existing, but isn't anywhere near where they were and given the gap between there isn't as much excuse for this decline as say the simpsons middle years where 20 some years under the same guy is naturally going to cause some malaise to set in. You had PLENTY of time between seasons, even with everything else going on to come back with something fresher.

Thankfully what i've seen of the Hulu Revivial (The first eason of it and an episode) more than makes up for it. There's still a few clunkers, sure, but the team really found their grove, helped by , unlike a lot of these shows NOT sticking rigidly to the status quo. There are changes that while not changing the series formula, do help create fresh stories; Kif and Amy's kids emerge from the bog (albeit widdled down a bit thanks to the curetly of nature and the bottomless appittie of john zoidberg) and are now active characters, Leela moves into fry and benders place (And Bender takes it exactly as maturely as you'd expect). Their small changes, sure, the show's mostly same as it ever was, but it's a sign of a show willing to try new stuff. There's still some cruft left over from the comedy central era, we REALLY don't need these anthology episodes, but on the whole it feels like what the first revivail shoudl've been: A mixture of fresh talent and the old guard coming in or coming back energized. It honestly reminds me of the current run of simpsons: We didn't NEED more, but it's good there's more good episodes there.

The PJ's: No faviorites here as i'm not really a fan of this one for it's thin characters and mean spirits, though I do respect it a bit more nowadays. If only a little. And I DO like it's stop motion art, something vastly different from most other fox animated shows. I also appricate having less to say as i've had to answer this one over a few sitdowns as most of the shows here had a decades long run, with the PJ's and the Critic being the only two to be short runners. While Fox has a reputation for one or two seasons shows, it's far more spread out than you'd think. So yeah this one isn't for me but I respect people liking it as it was one of the first adult animated cartoons created by black creators and with a nearly all black cast.

American Dad: OH BOY IT'S SWELL TO SAY, GOOD MORNING USA! It's a hard choice between two great side characters, so i'll let them BOTH have the honors. Avery Bullock entirely for being voiced by sir patrick stewart saying the most insane shit the writers can come up with and Principal Avery, who as the show went became the breakout we all deserved

American Dad is a solid show but not one i'm really all that invested in like the last three. I watched it every week for the first season or so then on and off on adult swim, I liked it and I think it's far more solid than it has a right to be. I haven't really touched the TBS era and here it's a pretty sharp decline with few bright spots, which tracks. It did give us Rogu, Roger's Homonculus though so good on it for that blessing to our world. But the show was pretty good I just don't have a ton to say about it either: it has some really good eps, it has patrick stewart singing oingo boingo and it has this joke

Sometimes tha'ts really all you need. Not my faviorite, but not a bad show.

[anghraine]

thatinsufferableb-st-rd said:

@anghraine so i have read the books multiple times and am an avid fan of the movies. I enjoy both for what they are. I think the main difference is that Peter Jackson was very open about what they chose to cut and why from anything I've ever seen. They even have Sam give a nod to the book readers by saying "by rights we shouldn't even be here". No I'm not happy about what they did with Faramir and Glorfindel got jipped, and I would have lover to have seen Elronds sons but at the end of the day there were acknowledgments of what and why. Rings of Power to me has always come off as hiding from any criticism by using the shield of "well if you don't like it it's because you don't like POCs in it". To which I genuinely could not give a fuck less, like there are so many branches of elves that went different ways so that could make sense within what Tolkein established. But don't hide behind that when your writing is just "Sauron is evil. We know. And we know she knows. But we have to make it seem like she's the only one who Has A Clue so we must all try to shoo her off to make a plotline"

@lesbiansforboromir has already correctly and politely pointed out that you are doing the very thing we were criticizing in that post—intruding on ROP fan discussion to unfavorably contrast the show to the Peter Jackson films, while also applying a degree of scrutiny to ROP that the Jackson films are rarely subject to in a remotely comparable way and could not bear. Frankly, @lesbiansforboromir is nicer and more restrained than I am about this, but you chose to tag me as well, so I'll also respond.

We (lesbiansforboromir and I) were talking about being excited about costuming in S2 of ROP and disliking the fandom meltdowns over ROP's costuming looking (somewhat) different from the films' aesthetic. Since it had already come up in their discussion, I added that I'm not convinced by the anti-ROP contingent framing their seething hatred of the costuming and design as just caring so much about fidelity to Tolkien's vision. I pointed out that Tolkien fandom broadly cares far more about their preferred, film-influenced aesthetics than Tolkien's actual descriptions and gave some specific examples of this.

There's been a lot of talk, for instance, about how the universally long, flowing hair for Elves preferred by the fandom and used in the films is actually totally canon according to Tolkien even if it's rarely mentioned in LOTR proper. This is inaccurate. Galadriel's brother Aegnor is typically depicted in the fandom/film-preferred style rather than per Tolkien's description of his hair as "strong and stiff, rising upon his head like flames" (indeed, in general neither Aegnor nor anyone else is ever depicted this way, and this description rarely shows up in the lists of "no it's about ethics in adaptation" Tolkien hair quotes).

Tolkien repeatedly describes Elvish, peredhel, and Dúnadan women as wearing their hair bound up in braided coiffures with jeweled hair pieces/nets rather than loose and flowing à la the films and the fandom. Nobody cares, any more than they care about Tolkien's description of Arwen's clothing as soft, grey, and noticeably devoid of ornamentation apart from a belt and netted cap (i.e. the opposite of her highly elaborate film costuming and typically loose, unbound, uncovered hair in the films and most illustrations).

Meanwhile, my fave Faramir's hair is nowhere near long enough in the films or most art to mingle with Éowyn's as Tolkien describes. It's usually also depicted as blond, reddish, or brown rather than black as in the book; in Tolkien's LOTR, all described Gondorians have dark or black hair, with the only difference in coloring being that some Gondorians are dark-skinned and some are pale. Again, almost nobody in the fandom cares about this when they're going on about costume design and casting to reflect Tolkien's vision, and male Gondorians are overwhelmingly depicted with short or shoulder-length hair in the films and in Tolkien illustrations.

Popular depictions of Gondor, including the Gondor of the films, very rarely reflect Tolkien's description of Gondor's aesthetic as similar to ancient Egypt, the Byzantine Empire, and the Roman Empire. Film Gondor has, at most, extremely vague allusions to Byzantine architecture amidst the general and deliberate westernization of Gondor's design—as just one example among many, Tolkien's explicitly Egyptian-based design for the royal crown of Gondor is converted to a generically western European-style crown in the films and overwhelmingly in the fandom.

I then pointed out that it's been very noticeable that ROP haters tend to have a powerful double standard wrt fidelity when it comes to the Jackson films. For over 20 years, most film fans have been constitutionally incapable of tolerating even slight criticism of the films without jumping in to defend their greatness and condescendingly explain the most basic elements of adaptation. (Yes, we know film is not the same medium as text, we know changes are part of adaptation to another medium, we all know that, we all know that a word-for-word adaptation would suck and never be made, this is not new information and does not make the PJ films' every choice a good one.) Yet most film LOTR fans who vocally despise ROP display none of the charity towards ROP that they demand for the films (demand even from someone like Christopher Tolkien, a dead man the entire fandom is deeply indebted to, whose dislike of the films still leads to regular attacks on his character from Jackson film stans).

This hypercritical yet hyperdefensive tendency in the fandom is neatly illustrated by the fact that you responded to a conversation about the double standards in evaluations of ROP's costuming vs the films' to go on about how ROP is objectively bad for reasons entirely unrelated to costuming, how you're totally not racist (something nobody was talking about), and to quote you directly, "Like the show was just Bad." Truly, an incisive critique. Meanwhile, your concessions with regard to the Jackson films are mainly about extremely minor and defensible omissions like removing Glorfindel and the sons of Elrond rather than the serious and fundamental problems that lesbiansforboromir and I have with them, or even the ways they do pretty much the exact same things you're lambasting ROP for.

I mean, if we're going to talk about action hero Elves in ROP vs the Jackson films, what about the action hero-ification of Legolas in the films? He was described by Tolkien himself as the Fellowship member who accomplished the least, so super badass battle-skateboarding Legolas hardly represents fidelity to Tolkien's vision. Why should that get a pass while film-stanning ROP haters seethe about ROP!Galadriel being too special, even though Tolkien described her as one of the most special Elves to ever live and specifically as remarkably athletic and insightful?

Meanwhile, film Gimli is reduced to comic relief, the only dwarves taken seriously are conventionally hot ones in The Hobbit films, and Frodo's expressions of strength and fortitude are consistently removed to glorify other characters. Film Gondorians were deliberately designed to seem like useless tin soldiers (which they are in the films, as well as whiter and blonder than Tolkien wrote them) rather than the physically imposing and highly effective fighting force of the book. ROP imagining Elvish rituals upon approaching Valinor that aren't based in Tolkien canon but don't directly conflict with it is absolutely trivial compared to the films' handling of Denethor and Faramir.

The point is not that you, personally, are not allowed to like the films or dislike ROP despite all this. Many people do love the films, including most of my followers. They do have their strengths, though they are extremely racist and few film fans will acknowledge this without soft-pedaling it in some way (esp, since you brought it up, given the context of the truly unhinged degree of racism that has accompanied much of the broader discourse around ROP).

The point is that film fans who hate ROP are constantly showing up in our conversations to be "well actually ROP is just objectively bad, unlike the films, because the show has failings that are also in the films but it's totally different there because of the contents of Peter Jackson's soul" or whatever. The point is the absolutely glaring and obnoxiously hypocritical double standard of defensiveness about the films and obsessive nitpicking of ROP that leads to ROP haters continually going on rants to ROP fans that are unwelcome, uninvited, and usually (as in this case) irrelevant to what was even being discussed.

[bumble-b-goode]

(this is tame enough for the hellsite right?)

when ur smart wizard s.o. knows exactly when your trances end without needing to look at a clock

[whitehartlane]

i rly do dislike the modern debate of ‘who is the goat’ in just about every facet of the game … idk it’s a team sport. to me there is no need to debate who the goat is and there is no need to reach a consensus. each player’s talents and weaknesses are strengthened or exacerbated based on the team around them and the tactics that are employed.

[domithekingoffools]

I drew a little sleepover! :D

[ceaselessbasher]

Gathered the courage to keep watching the PJ show. Got angry in the first minute of ep 7. Whoops.