Hard NOC Life 281: Fantasy Sleepers

With Britney away, Keith and Dominic are left to recap the latest She-Hulk: Attorney at Law before they reveal why high fantasy shows like the prequels for Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones currently streaming are in their pop culture blind spots.

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Animated ‘The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim’ Film is Coming in 2024

Sound the horns of Rohan and Gondor! And gather your personal Fellowship! Because between the upcoming Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series debuting its teaser trailer during the Super Bowl yesterday, and this announcement here, fans of The Rings are surely eating!

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‘By the Power of Fandom’ with Tiffany Smith

Shelf Conscious returns with a special episode! With Masters of the Universe: Revelation just around the corner, Keith is joined by an Eternian Royal Guard — and literal fandom princessTiffany Smith!

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Wayne Che Yip Joins ‘The Lord of the Rings’ to Direct Four Episodes

British Chinese director Wayne Che Yip has joined the creative team of its Amazon Original The Lord of the Rings television series as a director and co-executive producer, per Amazon studios.

Yip joins the international ensemble cast, currently filming in New Zealand, to direct four episodes. He continues the work of Spanish filmmaker J.A. Bayona, who directed the first two episodes of the series.

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Hard NOC Life 202: Wakanda Vision

Shawn, Dominic, Keith, and Jamal return for an all-new episode of Hard NOC Life. This week, the fellas discuss the latest episode of WandaVision, news of a Wakanda series for Disney+, and what the latest DC Comics event reboot means for The Rock.

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The Middle Geeks Episode 9: ‘For Sama’ and the Human Cost of War

This month on The Middle Geeks, we discuss Waad Al-Kateab’s stunning documentary For Sama, which provides visceral insight into the Syrian Civil War and the experiences of citizens under siege. The film has been nominated for numerous accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. In much lighter topics, we discuss the upcoming return of Zari (Tala Ashe) on Legends of Tomorrow, and the news that Iranian and other people of color will be leads in Middle Earth on Amazon Prime’s Lord of the Rings series!

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D&D and Me

When you’re into comics, science fiction, role-playing games and the rest, people will make assumptions about you. These assumptions are that you’re a nerd (not in the liberating sense that we use here), a geek, a wimp — somehow different or less than the folks who consume and participate in mainstream popular culture. And this applies to white people. When you add race to this, you get doubly othered quite a bit of the time. You like “white shit” and you’re soft. In many cases, you become an ass-whooping magnet. We won’t get into how all of this stuff is now mainstream or how fantasy sports leagues are about as Dungeons and Dragons as you can get, just minus the swords, gold, and magic.

And it is D&D that I want to talk about here. I’ve played for over thirty years. While I am not participating in an active campaign, I would in a heartbeat if I found one that interested me.

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NOCs (Nerds of Color)

The following is the original column by Bao that inspired this website.

Originally posted at The Star Tribune on January 20, 2010

I’ve told this story a million times: when I was young, my father kept me off the streets and saved much needed money buying me the toys I wanted by getting me a library card and teaching me to walk to the Franklin Avenue library, and there began my love of books and stories.

What I’ve written less about is the books I gravitated towards: books about mythological monsters, Greek gods and heroes, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Lord of the Rings, my older sister’s Elfquest collection and X-Men comic books. And the secret of many a nerd of color from the ‘hood: my lifelong devotion with role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons, and Vampire: the Masquerade (making vampire fixations embarrassing long before Stephanie Meyer).

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