I haven’t seen The Umbrella Academy but it looks really weird.
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I agree completely about TV, and a lot of streaming services.
I stopped watching GoT during Season 6, but the major decline started in Season 5. I kept tabs on what was happening and there were a few gems (eg; one of Dany’s dragons becoming undead), but they were vanishingly rare.
Obi-Wan was so-so in my opinion. Some parts were good, some made me facepalm.
I have very bad news about Rings of Power; the people making it have little to no respect for the source material or Tolkien. So far I intend to avoid this series, and this is speaking as a big Tolkien fan myself (who regrets that I never got the chance to meet Sir Christopher Lee - the one person involved in the Peter Jackson films to actually meet Tolkien himself, and was also a major fan).
Shortly after Christopher Tolkien’s death - the one person in the Tolkien estate who was still protective of his father’s work, Amazon fired their resident Tolkien consultant Tom Shippey, (a British medievalist who has written six books and several academic papers on Tolkien’s work), and replaced him with a woke ideologue with little to no knowledge of Tolkien and contempt for a lot of what he valued.
What is the result? For one, we see Galadriel wearing armor with Fëanor’s symbol even though she HATED Fëanor from her youth (seeing he was full of rage and greed, and he later showed a borderline incestuous obsession with her). Previously established characters are barely recognizable, brand new characters have been invented whole cloth that look out of place, major plot details have been completely changed (ie. Tar-Miriel is now the ruler of Numenor instead of Ar-Pharazon), they’re including the Two Trees of Light which were destroyed BEFORE THE SECOND AGE…
They need to make some major overhauls and focus on Tolkien’s vision over identity politics.
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I have not been keeping up to date on the specifics. It does indeed seem like the show will likely be a mess… but still, I am looking forward to some Tolkien stuff set in that franchise’s past. After reading the Silmarillian and some of the Unfinished Tales, the stories they contain are much more interesting to me than even LotR and The Hobbit.
Yeah, I am OK with the “wokeism”, and the multiethnic Elves, and new characters and new stories. That is just about par for the course, when older fiction gets adapted for modern audiences. But these other issues you bring up do concern me.
Galadriel famously would not give Feanor a lock of her hair, but she did give it to Gimli. She had misgivings about Feanor early on. She was not exactly a fangirl of him. Maybe she is wearing the armor because any armor is better than no armor?
Ar Pharazon was a pretty big deal. He has to be a thing at some point in that show.
As far as the trees, yeah, they get wrecked by Ungoliant very early on in the history. I am not sure what that is even about.
I would love to see the fight between Ungoliant and Morgoth, though.
I would play a worgen if they didn’t make female worgen look “cutesy” compared to the male snarl face. Blizzard, let me look mean you cowards.
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Racelifting elves and Hobbits I can go either way about, though beardless Dwarf women irks me.
iirc Amazon doesn’t have the rights to The Silmarillion or the Unfinished Tales (the primary source material for the Second Age), instead having to depend on the Appendices from Return of the King and whatever they could pull from the original books. I could be wrong about this.
If not, that would look good, though I think it was before the Second Age. The fight between Fëanor and Gothmog (the Balrog captain) would be awesome and maybe closer in the timeline.
Or if Dark Fantasy is desired, they should adapt The Children of Hurin. That book is dark enough to make Game of Thrones look almost cheery.
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Yeah, the neotenous sexual dimorphism in Worgen is probably the most pronounced of all of the races. I like to play a lot of different kinds of characters from time to time, but the female worgen looks more like furry fandom art or a Disney character than a werewolf. I guess a lot of players like it though.
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So… are the Dragon Isles Gnolls all hostile ? Sounds like a bit of a missed opportunity. The decay magic-wielding ones look absolutely stunning. I did notice a few friendly, seemingly uncorrupted Furbolgs in the alpha content I watched though.
Also, any news regarding “Primordial Trolls” ?
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I mean more to say on a global level, your point about every country ditching English. English and Spanish wouldn’t be the two remainders.
Also, strictly speaking, Latin is still in Europe, as it’s the official language of Vatican City.
The current worgen female model is my favorite. But that’s me 
I’m a native French speaker, decently fluent in English I’d say, I think I’m doing okay in Spanish, and I speak Gascon, which is a minority language that’s loosely related to Catalan if that rings any bells. I have zero interest in learning languages because of how useful they are in terms of job prospects, and I do hope that people will eventually set their focus back on their local languages. Ironically enough France has an absurdly high number of regional languages, some of which are extremely ancient and unique, but most of them are dying out due to a culture of centralization and linguistic standardization.
Also I can tell you that most people you meet in France WON’T be able to say but a few very basic words in English. Don’t take it personally, we’re just very, very bad at it. I heard the situation is vastly different in most of the other European countries though
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English is my first language, Quebec French is my mother’s first language. I am bilingual but my French is not perfect. I wasn’t encouraged to speak it at home because my dad doesn’t understand it so my mom would talk to me in French and I was expected to reply in English, this serverely stunted my confidence in speaking French.
Quebec french is like hillbilly French. My local dialect is very distinct, it’s comparable to Haitian French or Creole in how it’s still technically french but it’s developed it’s own style/slang. I def. have an accent. I get told I have an accent a lot.
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One of the main reasons I say German is useless is because literally every German I’ve communicated with speaks perfect English. I will say though they’re all also delighted to meet other German speakers.
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To be fair, we all have accents, we just don’t notice it ourselves
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That’s pretty neat. Does your dialect have a specific name ? We do need to be paying some extra attention but we definitely understand Quebec French, as well as Cajun French from Louisiana, though it’s a bit harder to grasp. French and French-based creoles, however, are not mutually intelligible for the most part
Everyone around me has a mon oncle that sounds like this.
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God I loved it, that’s amazing. Could understand the journalist just fine but the other guy sounds mostly alien to me. Think I could grasp about, idk, maybe 20% of what he was saying
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That’s kinda par for the course. I think my favorite description of Horde sexual dimorphism was;
“The men are hunched monstrosities and the women are hotties with bad dentistry”.
I kinda see why though. That Conan MMO for awhile back tried a more realistic approach to how bodies would look in s medieval setting and that went over like a lead balloon. People like nice butts and boobs, and ya give the people what they want.
Well I am back sooner than expected. Passed my college classes now have a bit of time off
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Congrats Zarno! Welcome back.
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OMGASH ITS REN I MISSED YA
/10char
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