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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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How The Long Song Spotlights Ignored Black Caribbean History

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This article contains spoilers for The Long Song.

The Long Song is the first miniseries featured in PBS Masterpiece’s 50th Anniversary season, and it’s U.S. arrival nearly three years after airing on BBC One is highlighting themes that some viewers may not be ready to process but that remain incredibly important.

The show is an adaptation of Andrea Levy’s 2010 novel recounting the story of how Jamaican slaves gained their freedom in the 1830’s. Levy worked with white screenwriter Sarah Williams on the script for The Long Song before her death in 2019. Although some may want to criticize Williams’ involvement for removing the Own Voices status from the series, it is important to note she successfully worked with Levy to adapt Small Island into a TV miniseries which aired on Masterpiece in 2009. Critics and the Black British community alike praised the miniseries for featuring the Windrush Generation. Overall, the script of The Long Song maintains Levy’s vision without any evidence of the white gaze or other forms of editorial interference.

Each of the three episodes follows July (Tamara Lawrance), born into slavery, and how she later gains her freedom. She was taken from her mother Kitty (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) who worked cutting sugarcane to serve as the ladies’ maid for Caroline Mortimer (Hayley Atwell from Agent Carter). The Christmas Rebellion in 1831 followed by the subsequent Parliament bill banning slavery in Jamaica two years later and the changes to society that came as a result are told from her point of view. The story is told with a frame tale, as Older July (Doña Croll) narrates the events of her life in order to publish a book.

It is highly likely that, when the series first aired in the UK, decision-makers did not believe a story wholly focused on slavery in the Caribbean would be relevant to US audiences. Vice President Kamala Harris’ family background brings Jamaican history to the forefront. It is entirely feasible to imagine someone like July somewhere in her father’s ancestral line. Black History can’t be confined to just what happened in America when we’re discussing Black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. Although I haven’t been able to trace my own family tree from the nearby former British colony of Trinidad and Tobago, I am reasonably sure my own ancestors have a similar story.

Masterpiece executive producer Susanne Simpson said in an interview that she is working with the UK and international production companies to address concerns that PBS series do not feature enough racial diversity. Some may see The Long Song as a step backward in that regard because it is a slavery-driven story, but this misses two important factors. First of all, The Long Song was not originally intended as a co-production with U.S. networks or streaming services. The primary target was U.K. readers of Levy’s book and Anglophone Caribbean audiences. Secondly, this is the first time a PBS scripted drama has centered slavery as the main plot point. Thirdly, new racially diverse scripted series that avoid and/or address those concerns are still at least a year or two from distribution.

Atwell’s Caroline, along with her relatives and guests, abuse July physically and emotionally. She is threatened with the lash for extremely minor offenses. Caroline calls her “Marguerite” most of the time because she refuses to see her as fully human. There are scenes where slaves are whipped and families separated. As July is the ladies’ maid, she has some power over fellow slaves such as Hannah (Jo Martin from Doctor Who). These aspects are not what makes The Long Song unique in comparison to recent TV series, such as the 2016 Roots miniseries as well as the 1970’s miniseries, The Book of Negroes and Underground. How the series highlights both Jamaican culture and how British colonialism affected society is what sets the show apart.

Since this show is set in the 1830’s, there is strong evidence of Black culture that is separate from the norms imposed by slaveholders. Although the language is at times dated (“pickaninny” also shortened as “pickney” is now an offensive term, for example), you still hear the accent unique to Jamaicans today. Lenny Henry’s voice as Godfrey is not entirely realistic for a slave who never left Jamaica, but this does take some prior knowledge of what a typical accent from the area should sound like. The soundtrack incorporates the musical styles unique to the island and the separate Christmas party the slaves held also brings this culture to life.

The racial caste system in Jamaica plays a huge role in the life of July and those around her. Her father, Tam Dewer (Gordon Brown), was the Scottish overseer of the plantation which gave her a higher status than many of her fellow slaves, despite her darker skin tone. Her friend and first romantic interest Nimrod (Jordan Bulger) is a free man but he ends up losing his status because white people decide he is guilty of a crime. Miss Clara (Madeline Mantock) is described as a quadroon (one-quarter African ancestry) and uses that background to secure a marriage that guarantees a higher status in society. Marriage as a form of social mobility would have been impossible in American slave societies because consensual interracial marriages or relationships were outlawed. July’s decision-making in Episodes 2 and 3 regarding the new head of the plantation, Robert Goodwin (Jack Lowden), is entirely influenced not only by her own desires and past trauma but also by the society around her.

Some may regard these plot developments as enforcing trauma-bonding stereotypes or problematic ideas about love under systems of oppression. July’s narration is tinged with romantic ideals that do not undergo serious scrutiny until later in the story. However, it is important to note that marriage was the only way a woman during this time period could secure financial stability that didn’t depend on agricultural labor. The color-based caste and class system did prevent some individuals from moving up in society, but intermarriages between whites, Africans, various immigrant laborers, and indigenous groups created an entire segment of society whose heritage was mixed. July’s relationship should be seen as an element of historical truth, likely from Levy’s ancestors. The conclusion of that part of the story drives home that many of these relationships between Black women and white male planters (plantation owners) were inherently unequal and exploitative. Any children from these relationships were also the property of the white men.

The last two episodes of the show discuss the fallout from the official end of slavery in Jamaica, a semi-equivalent to the Reconstruction Era after the Civil War. Abolition did not mean the end of the white-dominated rule in Jamaica, as the British Empire ruled the island until 1962. Although Black plantation workers were paid wages to cut the sugarcane, they owed rent to the plantation owners. This was used to force workers to work longer hours for reduced compensation. July’s loyalties are divided between Goodwin and the field workers who she knows are being treated unfairly. Goodwin’s efforts to increase production failed as the workers went on strike. After the strikes, many former plantation workers moved inland to cultivate unclaimed territory, but independent farming led to poverty and illness. July may have had dreams of rising above the sugarcane workers, but economic racism dashed this dream.

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For many viewers, July’s journey is going to be incredibly triggering and emotionally draining but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The ending which reunites her with a piece of her long-forgotten past is incredibly satisfying. Levy’s novels have inspired many Black British writers and it is very possible post-pandemic that there will be more Black screenwriters telling their own stories and forgotten histories on screen.

The post How The Long Song Spotlights Ignored Black Caribbean History appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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bonesandblood-sunandmoon · 4 years ago

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Article from The Atlantic “This Is Not a Normal Mental Health Disaster” (posted July 7th, 2020). Excerpt:

In any case, the full extent of the fallout will not come into focus for some time. Psychological disorders can be slow to develop, and as a result, the Textbook of Disaster Psychiatry, which Morganstein helped write, warns that demand for mental-health care may spike even as a pandemic subsides. “If history is any indicator,” Morganstein says of COVID-19, “we should expect a significant tail of mental-health effects, and those could be extraordinary.” Taylor worries that the virus will cause significant upticks in obsessive-compulsive disorder, agoraphobia, and germaphobia, not to mention possible neuropsychiatric effects, such as chronic fatigue syndrome.

The coronavirus may also change the way we think about mental health more broadly. Perhaps, Schoch-Spana says, the prevalence of pandemic-related psychological conditions will have a destigmatizing effect. Or perhaps it will further ingrain that stigma: We’re all suffering, so can’t we all just get over it? Perhaps the current crisis will prompt a rethinking of the American mental-health-care system. Or perhaps it will simply decimate it.

Shared in entirety under the cut for those who can’t access it:

This Is Not a Normal Mental Health Disaster by Jacob Stern

If SARS is any lesson, the psychological effects of the novel coronavirus will long outlast the pandemic itself.

The SARS pandemic tore through Hong Kong like a summer thunderstorm. It arrived abruptly, hit hard, and then was gone. Just three months separated the first infection, in March 2003, from the last, in June.

But the suffering did not end when the case count hit zero. Over the next four years, scientists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong discovered something worrisome. More than 40 percent of SARS survivors had an active psychiatric illness, most commonly PTSD or depression. Some felt frequent psychosomatic pain. Others were obsessive-compulsive. The findings, the researchers said, were “alarming.”

The novel coronavirus’s devastating hopscotch across the United States has long surpassed the three-month mark, and by all indications, it will not end anytime soon. If SARS is any lesson, the secondary health effects will long outlast the pandemic itself.

Already, a third of Americans are feeling severe anxiety, according to Census Bureau data, and nearly a quarter show signs of depression. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that the pandemic had negatively affected the mental health of 56 percent of adults. In April, texts to a federal emergency mental-health line were up 1,000 percent from the year before. The situation is particularly dire for certain vulnerable groups—health-care workers, COVID-19 patients with severe cases, people who have lost loved ones—who face a significant risk of post-traumatic stress disorder. In overburdened intensive-care units, delirious patients are seeing chilling hallucinations. At least two overwhelmed emergency medical workers have taken their own life.

To some extent, this was to be expected. Depression, anxiety, PTSD, substance abuse, child abuse, and domestic violence almost always surge after natural disasters. And the coronavirus is every bit as much a disaster as any wildfire or flood. But it is also something unlike any wildfire or flood. “The sorts of mental-health challenges associated with COVID-19 are not necessarily the same as, say, generic stress management or the interventions from wildfires,” says Steven Taylor, a psychiatrist at the University of British Columbia and the author of The Psychology of Pandemics (published, fortuitously, in October 2019). “It’s very different in important ways.”

Most people are resilient after disasters, and only a small percentage develop chronic conditions. But in a nation of 328 million, small percentages become large numbers when translated into absolute terms. And in a nation where, even under ordinary circumstances, fewer than half of the millions of adults with a mental illness receive treatment, those large numbers are a serious problem. A wave of psychological stress unique in its nature and proportions is bearing down on an already-ramshackle American mental-health-care system, and at the moment, Taylor told me, “I don’t think we’re very well prepared at all.”

Most disasters affect cities or states, occasionally regions. Even after a catastrophic hurricane, for example, normalcy resumes a few hundred miles away. Not so in a pandemic, says Joe Ruzek, a longtime PTSD researcher at Stanford University and Palo Alto University: “In essence, there are no safe zones any more.”

As a result, Ruzek told me, certain key tenets of disaster response no longer hold up. People cannot congregate at a central location to get help. Psychological first-aid workers cannot seek out strangers on street corners. To be sure, telemedicine has its advantages—it eliminates the logistical and financial burdens of transportation, and some people simply find it more comfortable—but it complicates outreach and can pose problems for older people, who have borne the brunt of the coronavirus.

A pandemic, unlike an earthquake or a fire, is invisible, and that makes it all the more anxiety-inducing. “You can’t see it, you can’t taste it, you just don’t know,” says Charles Benight, a psychology professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs who specializes in post-disaster recovery. “You look outside, and it seems fine.”

From spatial uncertainty comes temporal uncertainty. If we can’t know where we are safe, then we can’t know when we are safe. When a wildfire ends, the flames subside and the smoke clears. “You have an event, and then you have the rebuild process that’s really demarcated,” Benight told me. “It’s not like a hurricane goes on for a year.” But pandemics do not respect neat boundaries: They come in waves, ebbing and flowing, blurring crisis into recovery. One month, New York flares up and Arizona is calm. The next, the opposite.

That ambiguity could make it harder for people to be resilient. “It’s sort of like running down a field to score a goal, and every 10 yards they move the goal,” Benight said. “You don’t know what you’re targeting.” In this sense, Ruzek said, someone struggling with the psychological effects of the pandemic is less like a fire survivor than a domestic-violence victim still living with her abuser, or a traumatized soldier still deployed overseas. Mental-health professionals can’t reassure them that the danger has passed, because the danger has not passed. One can understand why, in a May survey by researchers at the University of Chicago, 42 percent of respondents reported feeling hopeless at least one day in the past week.

A good deal of this uncertainty was inevitable. Pandemics, after all, are confusing. But coordinated, cool-headed, honest messaging from government officials and public-health experts would have gone a long way toward allaying undue anxiety. The World Health Organization, for all the good it has done to contain the virus, has repeatedly bungled the communications side of the crisis. Last month, a WHO official claimed that asymptomatic spread of the virus is “very rare”—only to clarify the next day, after a barrage of criticism from outside public-health experts, that “we don’t actually have that answer yet.” In February, officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Americans to prepare for “disruption to everyday life that may be severe,” then, just days later, said, “The American public needs to go on with their normal lives,” then went mostly dark for the next three months. Health experts are not without blame either: Their early advice about masks was “a case study in how not to communicate with the public,” wrote Zeynep Tufekci, an information-science professor at the University of North Carolina and an Atlantic contributing writer.

The White House, for its part, has repeatedly contradicted the states, the CDC, and itself. The president has used his platform to spread misinformation. In a moment when public health—which is to say, tens of thousands of lives—depends on national unity and clear messaging, the pandemic has become a new front in the partisan culture wars. Monica Schoch-Spana, a medical anthropologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told me that “political and social marginalization can exacerbate the psychological impacts of the pandemic.”

Schoch-Spana has previously written about the 1918 influenza pandemic. Lately, she says, people have been asking her how the coronavirus compares. She is always quick to point out a crucial difference: When the flu emerged in America at the end of a brutal winter, the nation was mobilized for war. Relative unity prevailed, and a spirit of collective self-sacrifice was in the air. At the time, the U.S. was reckoning with its enemies. Now we are reckoning with ourselves.

One thing that is certain about the current pandemic is that we are not doing enough to address its mental-health effects. Usually, says Joshua Morganstein, the chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Committee on the Psychiatric Dimensions of Disaster, the damage a disaster does to mental health ends up costing more than the damage it does to physical health. Yet of the $2 trillion that Congress allocated for pandemic relief through the CARES Act, roughly one-50th of 1 percent—or $425 million—was earmarked for mental health. In April, more than a dozen mental-health organizations called on Congress to apportion $38.5 billion in emergency funding to protect the nation’s existing treatment infrastructure, plus an additional $10 billion for pandemic response.

Without broad, systematic studies to gauge the scope of the problem, though, it will be hard to determine with any precision either the appropriate amount of funding or where that funding is needed. Taylor told me that “governments are throwing money at this problem at the moment without really knowing how big a problem it will be.”

In addition to studies assessing the scope of the problem, which demographics most need help, and what kind of help they need, Ruzek told me researchers should assess how well intervention efforts are working. Even in ordinary times, he said, we don’t do enough of that. Such studies are especially important now because, until recently, disaster mental-health protocols for pandemics were an afterthought. By necessity, researchers are designing and implementing them all at once.

“Disaster mental-health workers have never been trained in anything about this,” Ruzek said. “They don’t know what to say.”

Even so, the basic principles will be the same. Disaster mental-health specialists often talk about the five core elements of intervention—calming, self-efficacy, connectedness, hope, and a sense of safety—and those apply now as much as ever. At an organizational level, the response will depend on extensive screening, which is to the mental-health side of the pandemic roughly what testing is to the physical-health side. In disaster situations—and especially in this one—the people in need of mental-health support vastly outnumber the people who can supply it. So disaster psychologists train armies of volunteers to provide basic support and identify people at greater risk of developing long-term problems.

“There are certain things that we can still put into place for people based on what we’ve learned about what’s helpful for PTSD and for depression and for anxiety, but we have to adjust it a bit,” says Patricia Watson, a psychologist at the National Center for PTSD. “This is a different dance than the dance that we’ve had for other types of disasters.”

Some states have moved quickly to learn the new steps. In Colorado, Benight is helping to train volunteer resilience coaches to support members of their community and, when necessary, refer them to formal crisis-counseling programs. His team has also worked with volunteers in 31 states, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

Colorado’s approach is not the sort of rigorously tested, evidence-based model to which Ruzek said disaster psychologists should aspire. Then again, “we’re sitting here with not a lot of options,” says Matthew Boden, a research scientist in the Veterans Health Administration’s mental-health and suicide-prevention unit. “Something is better than nothing.”

In 2013, reflecting on the tenth anniversary of the SARS pandemic, newspapers in Hong Kong described a city scarred by plague. When COVID-19 arrived there seven years later, they did so again. SARS had traumatized that city, but it had also prepared it. Face masks had become commonplace. People used tissues to press elevator buttons. Public spaces were sanitized and resanitized. In New York City, COVID-19 has killed more than 22,600 people; in Hong Kong, a metropolis of nearly the same size, it has killed seven. The city has learned from its scars.

America, too, will bear the scars of plague. Maybe next time, we will be the ones who have learned.

#coronavirus or covid-19 #mental health

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madzilla84 · 5 years ago

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🎼📺

what’s your favourite song?

This is SO HARD. If I answer it again tomorrow, my answer’d probably change.

I mean, it’s gotta be a Beatles song, obv, but which of those is my favourite changes on a fairly regular basis. At the moment - probably Because. (Yeah, not Blackbird, go figure, lol.) I went to see a tribute concert for the 50th anniversary of Abbey Road in September and the three of them crowded around one mic and sang it together, just like it was originally recorded. Goosebumps. But SO many others that are close seconds and sometimes take the top spot.

https://open.spotify.com/track/4Smnlr2WoaZa4CUs0isAPU?si=kRQRe-6KQ-SocKWWuF5_xQ

(one day i’ll post my Beatles D&P playlist. One day...)

what people or topics do you like watching on youtube, if anything?

huehue ;) but in seriousness, i watched youtube for ages before i found D&P, but I was/am more into Let’s Plays/gaming stuff before them. (I found Phil through the amount of Animal Crossing videos I used to watch; his AC video popped up in my recommendeds)

The main people I watch are:

Many A True Nerd (British Lets Player)

CallMeKevin (Irish Lets Player, very chaotic, his Sims series has to be seen to be believed, start at the beginning if you’re gonna watch it)

Kiwami Japan (dude who makes kitchen knives out of weird stuff; part materials science, part ASMR, part surreal humour)

Buzzfeed Unsolved

Oxhorn (Let’s Player, especially good if you’re into Fallout)

Abroad in Japan (British expat living in Japan who makes great, funny vids about life there)

Shirley Curry aka Grandma Shirley, an epic Skyrim lets player who calls all her subscribers her grandchildren, I nearly died of excitement when I saw her on the show floor at PAX

some dude called AmazingPhil, he’s ok i guess

Jenna Marbles, my Inspiration

Safiya Nygaard

Jacksepticeye, sometimes

Kurzgesagt - a FASCINATING channel with short, beautifully animated videos about all sorts of interesting topics like science, philosophy, the world, etc. they have an entire existential crisis playlist!

And lots of stationery unboxings and pen reviews because I’m a Stationery Ho

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ominousflare · 6 years ago

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It’s Been A While

So I haven’t been using tumblr for a long time (or used it that much to begin with), but since I’ve found myself some fellow Spider-Man fans here converse with, I feel I might as well become more active, or whatever.

Anyway, I might post my future Superior Spider-Man review here in the future once I get my lazy ass to finish it. I know, I know, it’s a five year old story. I’m incredibly late. Anyway, it’s also an incredibly long review, so I don’t know whether if I should post it here or just the link of it.

For now, I guess I’ll just post a past review of mine. Here’s a review of

ASM #698-700: Dying Wish

Well, it's finally happened. Peter Parker is dead. The bad guy wins. Happy 50th anniversary, Spider-fans! Hope you enjoyed watching your favorite hero kick the bucket on his special day!

I'll be honest with you. I've been preparing for the worst. I was really uncomfortable with the idea of this arc just from reading about its details, that Doc Ock was going to swap brains with Spidey and assume his mantle. It sounded very gimmicky and contrived. Ever since "One More Day" happened, the Amazing Spider-Man comic seemed less like a character study of Peter Parker, with each story becoming a product the writers pitched as the next big thing to draw the readers of tomorrow and keep the book afloat for the next 10-20 years. Even Straczynski's run spent more time exploring the kind of person Peter was as a husband, adding new layers and depths to the hero, instead of turning each book into the blockbuster of the month. That being said... it's a good story. Not a great one, but certainly not the horrible nightmare some of us had hyperbolically generalized in a fit of panic. Somewhat disappointing, but not worth writing death threats about. And honestly, after reading an insightful article written by Cody Wilson of the ever-reliable Spiderfan.org, I realized that we were partially to blame for this "new direction" anyway. It's partly on us, the death of Spider-Man. We can gripe and complain about the writers, editors and Marvel's entire company all day long, but when it comes down to it, we have to face the facts: Spider-Man is a product, and business was booming in spite of all the supposedly "terrible" creative decisions they've made. And like any product, we the customers are a key source of how the business will be run. Over the years prior to ASM #700, Marvel had been selling us different ideas by introducing story elements that would later be used again in "Dying Wish," and our feedback to those elements in earlier stories was what ultimately led to the "Superior Spider-Man," the book that would replace "The Amazing Spider-Man" title for better or worse - at least for a year and 33 issues. Through this review, I hope to address these "elements" and analyze which of them worked for me and which merely raised my anxiety levels.

ANYTHING YOU CAN DO, I CAN DO BETTER

This wasn't the first time a supervillain stole Peter Parker's identity. Back in ASM #602, Chameleon seemingly "killed" Peter in an acid pool and subsequently went about the rest of the day being him; even interacting with Peter's acquaintances and friends. Having the eccentric behavior of improving the lives of whomever he had disguised as, Chameleon did a few selfish things, including punching Mary-Jane's stalker (with the butt of a gun), calling Flash Thompson "Puny Flash" the way he called Peter years ago, and moving Harry's homeless butt into Peter's home. These "improvements" Chameleon made in Peter's life were well-received by readers, myself included, thereby providing Marvel the first piece of the puzzle they needed. I have to admit, Peter calling the ex-bully "Puny Flash" was a guilty pleasure on its own, giving payback to the football star after so long. On the other hand, he's a crippled war hero, so it was still a scummy thing to say. And while it could be fun to see someone carry out these naughty deeds in Peter's favor - doing and saying things some of us wish Peter would just have the guts to do - it could also lead to some really creepy scenes. Let's not forget, these were bad people taking over Peter's life, Octavius the sociopathic egomaniac included. In ASM #602, Chameleon made out with Peter's roommate, who wasn't aware who she was really kissing under that mask; this lack of consent was tantamount to an act of rape.

And then in #700, Otto (in Peter's body) was clearly thinking of having sex with MJ, a woman who would be unaware of the real person she's really sleeping with. This would eventually lead to some even more sleazy storyline in the "Superior Spider-Man," which I'll touch on in the future. Playing devil's advocate for a bit, one could argue that crippling a woman and stripping her naked to show how evil a villain is was in poor taste too, yet Killing Joke was held by millions as some gold standard of storytelling. What Dan Slott wrote seemed trivial by comparison.

KILL HIM TWICE, SHAME ON YOU

There's a reason why "Death of Spider-Man" worked in the Ultimate universe: Peter Parker died being known to his world as a hero, giving us a fitting finality. In the 616 universe, on the other hand? He died leaving a villain perving on his ex-girlfriend! What kind of finality was that?! What a way to shit all over our favorite hero! Of all the feedback Marvel took into consideration, this had to be the dumbest. It's like simple math to them: "People loved Ultimate Death of Spider-Man, therefore they must be okay with killing off 616 Peter Parker and replacing him with a murdering sociopath on his 50th birthday." Unfortunately, the best storytelling is anything but simple math. And unlike USM, the moments right before Peter's death here felt rushed. Ultimate Spider-Man had the benefit of "Ultimate Fallout", a mini series dedicated to addressing how everyone reacted to the death of such a great hero. Amazing Spider-Man didn't have that advantage and had to slap together several "closures" to end the book, including MJ finally confessing to Otto-Peter her love for him, Jonah Jameson finally approving of Spidey as a legit hero, and Peter experiencing a dream sequence where everyone he cared about who died came back to greet and thank him - all within a single issue. These "closures" should have been, in my opinion, focused on in an entirely separate issue of their own, not crammed together with the already crowded plot of #700. It ended up reading like a last minute homework assignment written hastily to beat the deadline.

There's also another thing that bothered me about Peter's final moments. Using the last remnant of his energy in Octavius' dying body, Peter was somehow able to channel the memories in his own body and forced Otto to experience all the guilt and pain he ever felt being Spider-Man. Afterwards, he almost seemed content to pass on the mantle to Doc Ock. Why was he so content with letting this potential killer take over his role as Spidey, and why would his dying wish be for Otto to take care of MJ and his loved ones? He's a selfish and self-centered jerk who only ever cared about himself! Why would he trust him?! No matter how sympathetic Otto came across, and no matter how desperate Peter was, it just didn't make sense. I wish there would have been at least a last desperate struggle on Peter's part to resist letting this psycho do whatever he wanted with his powers, not quietly accept his takeover. In fact, it would have made more sense if Peter had gone to the Avengers or the Fantastic Four instead, where he could have made it his last request to have them stop Doc Ock. Not to mention, they would have bought this "mind-swap" story a lot more than Carlie - who shot him multiple times when he tried to tell her the truth - did.

DRACO IN LEATHER PANTS

The third feedback Marvel collected was the sympathetic side of Octavius. There were a number of stories detailing this, depicting him as a frail young boy in the past who had aspired to be scientist (just like Peter Parker). And there's grounds for such sympathy too, for Otto never received the proper grooming Peter had, thereby being an ideal mirror of Spidey (much like the Joker and Batman). This ambiguous side of Octavius' morality was well-received, along with, of course, Spider-Man 2, where he was made into an even more sympathetic antagonist than his comic counterpart. Yet, the decision to place a murderer behind the mask of the webbed hero for a long period of time is strange and definitely inappropriate. Octavius is tied to at least three deaths, two of which were intentional: Bradley Miles in "Peter Parker: Spider-Man" Vol. 2 #40, James Warden in "Spider-Man/Doctor Octopus: Negative Exposure" #4, and the accidental death of George Stacy in ASM #90. Would that be appropriate for the kids reading this? Spidey's been a huge recognizable icon all over the world, and now kids are going to follow in the footsteps of this scum who thinks it's okay to break the other criminals' jaws or just straight up kill them (the latter of which we'll see in "Superior" later on)? With the recent "racial/sexual diversity" movement a more political Marvel was trying to gun for, I'm surprised they would risk such an idea in our SJW climate, not to mention the aforementioned sexual aggression towards MJ.

Again, there is potential for a good story here... if it's a tale of redemption, which would only work if Octavius turns himself in. Unfortunately, a move like that could possibly end the Spider-Man books for good (unless Peter returns), which is the exact opposite of why Marvel shook things up with this brain-swap in the first place (to keep the sales of Spider-Man books from dying). And even if the books continue with Otto being some kind of anti-hero vigilante hunted by the law, there's no way Spider-Man fans (and probably many parents) could approve of a murderer remaining as the new face of the inspiring hero for long. I think Marvel knew that. Marvel's not stupid. And we knew that Marvel's not stupid, so I'm sure lots of people have speculated Peter Parker's return long before he did. What I don't know is why Marvel even bothered to hide it. It's kinda an obvious eventuality. But when all is said and done, I admit that the idea of a Spider-Man who's not so morally clean does intrigue me, somewhat. Over the years, Spidey cutting loose and unleashing all the strength and powers in him can be cathartic. While it was his integrity that made him an amazing character we could look up to, there was also an underlying pleasure in seeing him punish those who deserve it; in seeing him get a little dirty to get things done. So to have "SpOck" (god that's an awful nickname) stay for a while before Peter eventually come back? I'm actually okay with that. I wouldn't mind seeing a "dark and gritty" chapter for Spider-Man. However, a key reason I would like this approach lies in a factor that applies to me: I haven't read the other darker Spider-Man spin-offs, which brings us to our final feedback and problem.

DARKNESS WITHOUT LIGHT BREEDS APATHY

There were two other Spider-Man spin-offs around the time this story arc was released. "Scarlet Spider" (Vol. 2) and Venom (Vol. 2), both of which received very favorable reviews (Venom, in particular), and were darker takes on the Spider-Man theme of power and responsibility (Scarlet Spider, in particular, since he's literally a clone of Peter Parker). If I want a darker story, I would read either of those. The only reason I didn't was because I only have enough time for Spidey alone. No time for the myriad amount of spin-offs out there. And now a third dark Spider-story is introduced, filled with murders and bloodshed - and believe me, there will be blood. I've mentioned before that I love dark stories. I live for them. They can touch on our basest emotions and provide us a form of catharsis the lighter and warmer tales couldn't. But this is another case of businessmen blindly relying on the numbers without considering the context. Too much darkness can ultimately lead to indifference in your audience, not to mention the fact that the "lighter" stories have their place in storytelling too, offering something dark stories couldn't either: hope, and moral inspiration.

Batman is an amazing character. His stories (often through his rogues' gallery) delve into a complex analysis of the human mind; of our darkest and most frightening emotions and personalities. But not everyone likes reading Batman, and even Batman fans probably don't want every superhero to be like Batman either! That would just dilute his unique quality. Besides, would you want all your heroes to be brooding or morally complex? Did you enjoy the dark and morose Superman in Batman v. Superman or even Man of Steel? Sometimes, we just want heroes to be heroes! Not straight up kill criminals without offering redemption like The Punisher and Wolverine! We already have those in the Marvel universe! Sigh. I'm merely playing devil's advocate here. As I've mentioned, 'Spotto Octavius' wasn't going to stay for the long-term, so it's fine. A temporary period of dark Spider-Man stories is fine. For me. But I do have to put my foot down and lay out what a darker Spider-Man means for the world, and why both writers and business executors alike must be careful not to push the scale too far. Balance. There must always be balance in all things. Take it from Thanos.

WAS THIS STORY ANY GOOD?

I talked a lot about the aspects that came to piece together this Frankenstein monster. But was the story entertaining in its own right? The short answer is yes, especially #698. That first part of the story was truly like Doc Ock said, a magic trick. It began with an ordinary day in the life of Spidey. Nothing seemed unusual. But by the end of it, I was left slack-jawed and so utterly impressed by Slott that I had to read the ending twice to see if I had misread something. The second and third issues went a step further. Essentially, the entire story arc could be summed up with "Peter trying to get back into his own body." But after we knew Peter was running out of time, the pacing of the story started to pick up really, really quickly. The readers would be as concerned as Peter, and at that time, nobody knew what was really going to happen because there was an announcement around that time that "The Amazing Spider-Man" book would come to an end. It's a real page-turning thriller in spite of its simple premise. Most gut-wrenching of all, they made Peter plead for his life. On his birthday.

Talk about a punch to the gut. Brings back tearful memories ("I don't want to go, Mr. Octavius"). Humberto Ramos' art really didn't help things. His depiction of Peter trapped in a dying body was a horrifying sight to endure for me. You could see all the horrid details; his skin decaying, his eye-socket popping out, and blood spilling out everywhere. I could only imagine how painful Peter's final moments were. No wonder many fans were outraged. This wasn't an honorable death in the arms of his loved ones like Ultimate Spider-Man; it was pure torture. Does Dan Slott actually hate Peter Parker? Still, I have to give credit where it's due. It's an emotional story (albeit for the wrong reasons at times), and it's a really ballsy one too where the bad guy actually won. And it wasn't just any bad guy either - it was one of Spidey's biggest bads of all. Since Norman Osborn had already became an Avenger villain, it made sense for the next biggest Spider-Man villain in line, Doc Ock, to be the one who would finally do him in. Now onto the other question: do I like the overall story? No. I don't hate it as much as certain stories in the past (marriage and The Devil come to mind), but on principle, I can't accept this story. I know why they made this story. It's almost the same thing as One More Day. I'm guessing the sales for ASM must have been dropping. And even if it wasn't, even if I'm completely wrong about the comparisons to OMD, I still don't like how shoddily his death was treated. I don't mind a Spider-Man death - I LOVED "Death of Ultimate Spider-Man." It respected and really reminded us why Spidey was the hero we loved. This story felt like just another rushed effort by Dan Slott to clean up the book and move onto the thing he seemingly loved more, Spotto Octavius "The Superior Spider-Man," a book that he's written far better than his entire run in ASM. Are we sure Dan is a Spider-Man fan? Or did he just like Otto?

To clarify, I don't begrudge Dan. It's more of the corporate decisions of Marvel executives that I'm so infuriated about. It's always the executives at one point or another whenever we are talking about a creatively-skewed story. And while his work might have been sloppy throughout most of his run, I was reminded recently that it might be due to Marvel pushing him with agendas and deadlines, so again, not his fault. What's done is done. And I've already began reading "Superior", even as I'm writing this. It's not bad, and it's everything I expected: an extremist Spidey willing to cross the line to get things done. I like it, just not how we got there. I mean, give me a break, Peter was my hero. Is it too much that I wanted a death that wasn't as insulting? At the least, I wish that "dream sequence" I mentioned was more than just a dream, and everyone Peter cared about actually came to pat him on the back for doing a good job, that it was time for him to rest. The fact that it was only a dream felt like the final slap to his face. "Good job, hero. Now get the f*** out of here."

Final Rating: Two webs out of five

I was going to give this story three webs initially. I really did. But looking back now at how Peter's death was treated, I feel more infuriated than satisfied, and also annoyed that it was just another corporate decision that never stuck, since he would come back later anyway. It cheapened the already cheapened idea of the comic book death. Now, even one of the most iconic heroes of all time suffered from the tired cliche of meaningless death.

Next time, I shall finally witness the birth of this supposedly "Superior Spider-Man" and see if Otto could truly surpass our lovable Pete as the hero we deserve:

#spider-man #spider-man fans #amazing spider-man #dying wish #dan slott #doc ock #doctor octopus

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thebibliomancer · 3 years ago

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25 Additional Days of Comics! 17/25: HEX #4 (1985)

Today’s draw from the box of semi-mystery brings a book from DC’s 50th anniversary!

According to ye olde farmer’s wikipedia, the traditional gift for a 50th anniversary is gold so it’d be funny if Booster Gold came out in 85 but he came out the next year. Ah well.

Even if it did come out in 85 for the 50th, what are the odds that I’d get an issue of Booster Gold from that year with the 50th anniversary special corner box so that I could make a joke about it?

I’ve wasted two paragraphs of your life.

No, if someone you avoided looking at the header of this post, the comic for today is HEX, presumably Jonah.

Comics have been around for ever so both Marvel and DC have a small handful of cowboy characters from when Westerns were king of the newsstand.

Aside from an episode or two in Justice League where the cowboy characters showed up and a vague awareness that Jonah Hex had a movie, I don’t know much about the guy.

Apparently in this issue, based on the cover, he’s going to fight tentacles. Or maybe worms. The inside cover title says WORMS.

Bloodsucking ones. In a world gone mad.

Immediately my expectations for cowboy Jonah Hex are thrown for a loop because the comic starts with him crashing a spaceship.

And he isn’t in the Old West. He’s in a post-apocalyptic future.

He was apparently kidnapped for a time traveler from 2042. For some reason.

I don’t think his name is said in the comic but he’s Reinhold Borsten. He and a team with the NSA were working on a time machine and when they sent a colleague three years into the future, he came back on the brink of death from radiation poisoning.

Before dying said colleague managed to explain that there’s a nuclear apocalypse in 2045.

Now some would say ‘my god only three years to avert the apocalypse’ but not our mantagonist Reinhold Borsten. He hears nuclear apocalypse as opportunity.

Someone showing up to the post-apocalypse with a bunch of pre-apocalypse technology could rule the world!

So he sent himself into two years past the apocalypse and blew up the lab behind him so nobody could stop him. Only to find out that organized crime survived the apocalypse and already had a stranglehold on society thank you very much.

See what they had was soames which became the money of the post-apocalypse because soames could de-radify contaminated water.

... Is this just Fallout: Jonah Hex?

Anyway, bad guy’s bad plan is to do Something and destroy the soames standard. Not sure why he needs Jonah for that.

Meanwhile, Jonah is rescued from dying wandering around the desert by the Borsten’s daughter Stiletta.

And then they get attacked and robbed by bandits, losing all of their soames and winding up wandering through a desert with no safe drinking water.

Luckily Stiletta remembers there’s a cave around about with clean water. They go there to fill up their canteens and that’s where they get attacked by the giant bloodsucking worms.

My god, this really is just Fallout: Jonah Hex.

They both lose some blood and skin to the worms but they manage to escape the cave just in time for a cliffhanger about someones spotting them from an airship.

It neither rains nor pours in the desert and if it did it would be radioactive.

#25 Additional Days of Comics!#liveblog #HEX #Jonah Hex #DC comics

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paralleljulieverse · 7 years ago

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Star!, the 1968 musical biopic of Gertrude Lawrence celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, signalled a substantial shift for the on-screen persona of Julie Andrews. Although the actress had tackled slightly ‘darker’ roles in some of her previous dramatic films –– notably, The Americanization of Emily (1964), Hawaii (1966) and Torn Curtain (1966) –– her star image in this era was primarily defined by the trio of hit screen musicals –– Mary Poppins (1964), The Sound of Music (1965) and Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). Together these family-friendly blockbusters cemented a popular ‘nice girl’ image humorously described by one commentator of the time as “Miss Sunshine of the Sixties” (Coleman, 118).

The part of Gertrude Lawrence, by contrast, was no sunny musical ingenue. As depicted in Star!, she is an ambitious arriviste driven to theatrical and social success at all costs. A self-absorbed hedonist, Gertie drinks, swears, and leaves a trail of broken romances and –– perhaps, most subversive vis-à-vis the traditional Julie Andrews screen image –– abandoned children in her wake. Much of the film’s commercial underperformance has been attributed to the difficulty audiences of the time had in accepting Julie Andrews in such a radically atypical role (Kennedy, 154; Silverman, 131). Even the Dame herself subscribes to this theory, musing in retrospect that:

“It was a time of enormous change for me and for movies…And people then were not ready to accept me in an unsympathetic role like Gertrude Lawrence in Star!” (Anderson, 27).

Things weren’t possibly helped much by the film’s pre-release publicity campaign. The second of two films that Julie was contracted to make for Twentieth Century-Fox, Star! was initially announced in late 1964, before her first film, The Sound of Music was even in the can (Scheuer, V-15). By the time Star! was ready for production, The Sound of Music had become the highest grossing film of all time and Fox spared no expense in promoting their new big Julie Andrews musical. The studio assigned not one but two Publicity Directors to handle the film, Howard Newman and Mike Kaplan. Together they helmed what was described as “the biggest publicity barrage in Hollywood history” with countless media releases, photographs, interviews, and PR stories (Edwards).

From the outset, Fox was quick to promote Star! as a reunion of the “dream team” behind The Sound of Music: star Julie Andrews, director Robert Wise and producer Saul Chaplin (”Movie Call Sheet,” IV-10). “Julie Andrews…returns to singing and dancing in Star! with the same two movie makers who guided The Sound of Music,” trumpeted a widely syndicated press release to mark the start of shooting in early 1967. “If any picture is likely to match The Sound of Music in public popularity, it will be Star!” (Kaplan, B-10). As a purely attention-grabbing marketing strategy, it made sense to play up The Sound of Music connections, but it arguably served to foster false expectations that Star! was set to be another upbeat family musical.

During the film’s long 18 month production, media articles started to hint that Star! marked a change of pace for Julie. However, the focus was largely on change at the level of visual style with Star! framed as little more than a cosmetic makeover for “our Julie”:

“To play Gertrude Lawrence should give Julie Andrews a much deserved chance to prove what a charmer she is. On the screen Julie has been hidden under nun’s robes and missionary muumuus for the past two years…In Gertrude Lawrence’s chiffon and ostrich she should come alive as a glamorous woman instead of a wholesome girl” (Sheppard, D1).

Or again:

“In ‘Star!’ [Julie is] playing her first glamorous role, a musical comedy star based on the life of Gertrude Lawrence. Donald Brooks designed a $250,000 wardrobe for her, not including the $2,500,000 worth of real jewels supplied by Cartier’s in New York…It’s a chic and elegant Julie you’ll be seeing in ‘Star!’, singing more than two dozen songs by Noel Coward, Kurt Weil, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and other great composers” (Sherman, B-3).

The net effect of these widespread media reports was to present Star! as a variation on the classic Cinderella ‘makeover’ musical which had been central to Julie’s stardom from My Fair Lady to Thoroughly Modern Millie (Cantu 2015). Small point that Julie’s new character was possibly more Wicked Stepmother than Cinderella.

One of the most spectacular examples of the promotional framing of Star! as fairytale makeover is this lavish cover spread from the popular US weekly magazine, Look. Hitting the stands in mid-September 1967 –– nine months before Star!’s UK premiere and a full year before its US release –– the magazine spread is essentially a photographic panegyric to Julie as ‘glammed up’ princess with costume designer Donald Brooks cast in the the role of symbolic Fairy Godmother:

“At this point, Star! is only half-born…However, publicity on the Robert Wise production for 20th Century-Fox starts now, and its uproar will echo immediately through the world of fashion. Julie will wear 124 different costumes in Star! They are all glamorous, a word invented for the likes of Gertie Lawrence and captured now by designer Donald Brooks. For women who do not want to follow the hippie road or slick moon-blast to fashion, here is salvation” (Zill, 63).

In glossy full page shots by famed photographer, Cal Bernstein, Julie is showcased in some of Brook’s most lavish costumes, set against a series of fantasy backdrops courtesy of the Fox prop department: Julie as darling flapper, as ‘swellegant’ society lady, as landed gentry. It’s a stunning preview of "Julie’s Dazzling New Look” but it offers nary a hint about “Julie’s Acidic New Personality”!

On its release, reviews of Star! were sharply mixed. The film garnered more praise than is often remembered, but among the many brickbats, critics were quick to highlight the jarring disjunction between Julie’s received star image and her waspish new role. In a typical example, Renata Adler* of The New York Times wrote:

“Miss Andrews, who plays Gertrude Lawrence, is not at her best in this one. There is some sort of clash between her special niceness and innocence and the attitude that the film, directed by Robert Wise (of ‘The Sound of Music’), has toward the star of ‘Private Lives’ and ‘The King and I’" (Adler, 21).

Could this type of response have been averted with a more careful pre-release framing of the film and its casting of Julie ‘against type’? Possibly, but then Star!’s problems were never limited to the film’s surprise revision of Julie’s ‘girl next door’ persona. Failure may be a proverbial orphan but in the case of Star! it most definitely had ‘multiple fathers.’ Some of the other factors operative in the film’s underperformance will likely be flagged in future posts but the Look magazine cover from 1967 provides a telling insight into one of them. The cover’s uneasy juxtaposition of Julie’s fantasy glamour makeover alongside headline allusions to the war in Vietnam and rising murder rates serves a symbolic snapshot of the rapidly brewing social tumult that would rise to engulf America and bedevil the reception of Star! and other big screen musicals of the era.

Variously dubbed ‘the year that rocked the world’, 'the year of awakening’, ‘the year of revolt’, 1968 was nothing if not a watershed moment of profound social upheaval. As post-war baby boomers came of age and countercultural youth movements reached critical mass, “there occurred a spontaneous combustion of rebellious spirits around the world” united by “a sense of alienation from the established order and a profound distaste for authoritarianism in any form” (Kurlansky, xvii). In such a context, the complexion and tastes of movie audiences were, like the times, a-changin’ fast. Small youth-oriented and iconoclastic social realist films like The Graduate (1967) Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Easy Rider (1969) were the new order of the day and, almost overnight, big budget musicals like Star! were deemed woefully old-fashioned, even irrelevant.

In a remarkably hostile piece that is possibly more cultural symptomatology than actual film review, Robert Kotlowitz, resident critic for Harper’s magazine, took Star! to task for what he saw as the film’s reactionary obliviousness to America’s changing zeitgeist. The filmmakers, he writes, seem to:

“have simply strolled over to Hollywood’s immense fantasy bin –– in which slivers of our national psyche lie buried –– and casually plucked dozens of the gaudiest clichés from the dust and packaged them as a Technicolor extravaganza…[Star!] is less concerned with the biography of Gertrude Lawrence than with using the rags-to-riches, triumphs-and-heartaches outline of her story to define an extinct type of glamor, the ideal of an anti-serious and pre-pop generation…it’s impossible to imagine the John Lennon legend ever receiving this kind of treatment “ (169).

Not sure about John Lennon –– though fifty years after the fact, one would be hard pressed to claim his legend hasn’t been subject to its own forms of clichéd idealisation –– but Kotlowitz’s diatribe certainly gives a sense of the extent to which Star! suffered substantial fallout from the era’s rapidly transforming social climate.

And, pace Kotlowitz’s testy dismissal of the film as “extinct glamor”, Star! possibly offers its own eloquent rejoinder when, in a spirited defence of Gertie’s mercurial eccentricities, Noël Coward grandly declaims:

“I know she’s maddening, infuriating and impossible…but she’s also probably the most beautiful and entrancing creature ever to walk onto a stage. Glamour is a very overworked and quite indefinable word but I think the world could do with a little of her brand of it at the moment” (Fairchild, 142).

Five decades on, some of us are still entranced by the glamour of Star!…warts and all! ___________________________

Notes:

* It was widely reported that Renata Adler left the press screening of Star! early due to illness. The fact that she went ahead to file a negative, and dismissively short, review despite only having seen half the film prompted an outraged letter to the editor from Twentieth Century-Fox head, Daryl F. Zanuck. It was one of several gaffes that marked Adler’s brief but tempestuous tenure as resident film critic at The New York Times (Roberts, 181ff).

Sources:

Adler, Renata. “Screen: ‘Star!’ Arrives: Julie Andrews Featured in Movie at Rivoli.” The New York Times. 23 October 1968: 21.

Anderson, George. “Andrews Garned in New Image.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 23 March 1982: 27, 30.

Cantu, Maya. American Cinderellas on the Broadway Musical Stage: Imagining the Working Girl from Irene to Gypsy. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015.

Coleman, John. “Per Adua ad Julie.” New Statesman. 26 July 1968: 118.

Edwards, T.J. “The Saga of ‘Star!’”. Star! Special Edition LaserDisc. Beverley Hills, CA: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, 1993.

Fairchild, William. Star! Unpublished screenplay. Final version: 26 January 1967.

Kaplan, Mike. “Julie Andrews to Film ‘Star’.” The San Bernadino County Sun. 29 April 1967: B-10.

Kennedy, Matthew. Roadshow!: The Fall of Film Musicals in the 1960s. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Kotlowitz, Robert. “Films: ‘Star!’, ‘Finian’s Rainbow’, ‘Hot Millions’.” Harper’s. Vol. 237. No. 1422, November 1968: 168-171.

Kurlansky, Mark. 1968: The Year that Rocked the World. New York: Random House, 2004.

“Movie Call Sheet.” The Los Angeles Times. 24 May 1965: IV-10.

Roberts, Jerry. The Complete History of American Film Criticism. Santa Monica: Santa Monica Press, 2010.

Scheuer, Philip. “Julie Andrews Just Right for Gertie.” The Los Angeles Times. 2 December 1964: V-15.

Sheppard, Eugenia. “Julie Will Play Gertrude Lawrence Role.” The Honolulu Advertiser. 7 November 1966: D1.

Sherman, Eddie. “’STAR’ Communique.” Honolulu Advertiser. 8 August 1967: B-3.

Silverman, Stephen M. The Fox That Got away: The Last Days of the Zanuck Dynasty at Twentieth Century-Fox. Seacusus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, 1988.

Zill, Jo Ahern. “Julie Plays Gertie.” Look. Vol. 31, no. 19. 19 September 1967: 63-68.

#julie andrews #star!#fiftieth anniversary #star50 #gertrude lawrence #hollywood #musicals #donald brooks #20th century fox #robert wise #1968 #look magazine #cal bernstein #fashion #photography #film criticism

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timemachinegirl · 7 years ago

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This time last year I waited with much anticipation for No Man’s Sky which eventually released August 9, 2016 (NA) on PlayStation 4 and PC. If you haven’t heard of it, and the ensuing backlash in particular, I don’t know if you’re incredibly fortunate or were sleeping under a rock for the year.

Last year on my old blog I wrote about my excitement for No Man’s Sky and how a childhood fantasy was potentially coming true :

As a kid, I read voraciously from Asimov to books about the Milky Way. Once upon a time, I even wanted to be an astronaut or an astrophysicist. My mind took me to wild places after watching Star Wars, Star Trek, and Stargate. I have always possessed an infatuation with space. So now that one of the most ambitious games of more recent years is on the verge of its release, I can’t help but be filled with anticipation.

To briefly sum No Man’s Sky up, it is an open world survival game where players can explore everything they see in a universe created through procedural generation. The premise was great, but the game suffered from extreme, uncontrollable hype and a lack of solid communication and clarification from the game’s developer, Hello Games. For the record, while I eagerly waited for No Man’s Sky and openly have some critique of the game, I do not hate No Man’s Sky, Hello Games, or Sean Murray. Those that got carried away with the hype and did not properly research before making a purchase only have themselves to blame.

Ahem. Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way. I’ve recently had fleeting thoughts about the game, though I’m not sure why since I have been happily occupied by several games lately. If I had to guess, through August into September of 2016, I probably played around 90+ hours at least. I played it a lot and got that platinum trophy despite a few bugs. After that, I maybe loaded up the game once or twice after a few months passed and some updates were released. But I have essentially thought little of No Man’s Sky since.

I don’t think No Man’s Sky is a bad game. It suffers from predictable randomness. For a game who’s major selling point was procedural generation, this is not a good thing. While it is true that every planet is different, every planet is also the same. Landscapes may differ, but players will eventually notice the same nodes, forms, and creatures sharing similar features. Players are also limited in that the actions they can perform never change. You can collect resources, craft, trade, upgrade gear, expand storage, buy bigger ships, fight pirates, and, of course, explore. These actions aren’t functionally bad, they can just get old after the 50th planet.

Some find the game ugly and dull, but I think those that enjoy No Man’s Sky are different from many gamers. For example, I play a wide variety of games including first-person shooters, open-world adventures, RPGs, simulators, and strategy games. I don’t always need a strong narrative to direct my play. In fact, I’ll sometimes create my own narrative and objectives when playing games with stories as I did with Breath of the Wild. I enjoy games like Minecraft and No Man’s Sky because I can sit back and relax, there is no pressure in the form of competitive play, and that feeling of seeing something no one has ever seen or creating something all my own can’t be beat. These games are open enough that I can (practically) do whatever I want at the pace I want.

By the time I got platinum in No Man’s Sky, I was feeling burnt out. I felt like I would never reach the center of the galaxy, I knew what resulted from that path anyway, and I was feeling some disappointment in the Atlas story mission. I felt that, as it was at the time, I had experienced what the game had to offer, and I moved on to something else. But I did not regret the time I spent with No Man’s Sky.

With thoughts of the game back in my head, I decided to revisit No Man’s Sky. Months had separated me from the game and both the Foundation and Path Finder updates were alluring. So I turned on the PS4, downloaded the game, and was soon looking at alien faces, exploring planets, and playing around with the creative mode.

One of the first things I noticed about the game, and that brought me back to my initial hours of play, was the soundtrack. Say what you want about No Man’s Sky, but the soundtrack is amazing. 65daysofstatic did a perfect job of capturing the vibes needed for a space-faring explorer. Damn, I missed that music.

Before trying out base-building or creative mode, I started by getting used to the controls. I left the planet I had stopped on during my last play session and paused on a few worlds long enough to check the landscape and look for resources. I was immediately reminded of the harshness of some environments and the necessity to stock up supplies for fuel.

After messing around for a bit, I tried building a base that ended up looking rather ugly, only because I lack design skills. Oddly enough, the building mechanics remind me of Fallout 4 in that they are similarly clunky and took a bit of getting used to. If you look online, you’ll find some pretty impressive bases from people with a lot more skill. I can see building a base and calling a particular planet home for awhile sapping up a lot of my playtime. I also think that I would get caught up in selecting just the right planet before seriously calling one home.

One of the aspects regarding No Man’s Sky that may be a saving grace for some is the fact that there are four game modes offering varying levels of difficulty and creativity. I’ve only played “Normal” and “Creative” and will probably never have the ambition to play in “Permadeath.” I could see myself trying out “Survival” eventually.

The new vehicles (Nomad, Roamer, and Colossus) from the Path Finder update add an element of fun to the game while improving ease of planetary exploration. Out of the three, the Roamer is my favorite. The addition of these vehicles is long overdue considering how frustrating navigating planets could be with only the use of a ship.

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Just as I didn’t regret my initial time spent with the game in 2016, I also don’t regret revisiting it. No Man’s Sky isn’t every gamer’s game, and that’s okay. I will say that the price ($59.99) is still too steep for most gamers currently. But hey, if you’re curious, I recommend waiting to pick it up during a flash sale or during one of Steam’s sales.

A year later I still got that happy sense of exploration playing No Man’s Sky. There is something incredibly captivating about setting out in a little ship to explore the universe. For being just a game, No Man’s Sky allowed me to discover new creatures and worlds and allowed for some mindless escape at times. I experienced some magic last year because of it.

No Man’s Sky is unique and, if anything else, it’s development and use of procedural generation will hopefully push the boundaries of game development and result in some awesome game projects in the future.

I’ll end with one of my final thoughts from last year’s post:

I feel as though I will lose at least a solid month of my life to NMS, though I am hoping it will become one of my summer-long adventures of 2016.

It has indeed been an adventure.

No Man’s Sky: Nearly a Year Later This time last year I waited with much anticipation for No Man's Sky which eventually released August 9, 2016 (NA) on PlayStation 4 and PC.

#Gaming #Hello Games #No Man&039;s Sky #PS4

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jessicakehoe · 5 years ago

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Here’s All the Culture News You Missed This Week

Camila Cabello issued an apology for past racist comments After a Twitter thread recently emerged showing racist comments made by Cabello in some now-deleted Tumblr posts, the 22-year-old took to Twitter and Instagram to apologize. “When I was younger, I used language that I’m deeply ashamed of and will regret forever,” she wrote. “I was uneducated and ignorant and once I became aware of the history and the weight and the true meaning behind this horrible and hurtful language, I was deeply embarrassed I ever used it.” According to the BBC, her Tumblr account “reportedly shared racist jokes and memes between 2012 and 2013.” Cabello went on to write that those posts don’t represent the person she has grown up to be. “I’m an adult and I’ve grown and learned and am conscious and aware of the history and the pain it carries in a way I wasn’t before. Those mistakes don’t represent the person I am or a person I’ve ever been.”

I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart. pic.twitter.com/iZrnUawUAb

— camila (@Camila_Cabello) December 18, 2019

The Hallmark Channel banned an ad featuring a lesbian wedding The Hallmark Channel recently decided not to air four commercials on its network that featured a lesbian couple kissing at their wedding. The series of ads was made for wedding planning company Zola and led to pressure from conservative group One Million Moms, which called for a boycott of the network. However, soon after that decision Hallmark understandably found itself the target of social media outrage, from the public as well as LGBTQ advocacy groups. The media fallout led them to reverse the decision, reinstating the ads and issuing an apology.

The Hallmark Channel, reversing what it called a “wrong decision,” said it will reinstate commercials featuring same-sex couples that it had pulled following a complaint from a conservative group. https://t.co/MBPyv5M9k3

— PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) December 17, 2019

Taylor Swift announced she will be headlining Glastonbury 2020 “I’m ecstatic to tell you that I’ll be headlining Glastonbury on its 50th anniversary,” Swift posted on her Instagram this past week. She will be the first female headline performer since Adele in 2016 and the sixth solo female headliner in the festival’s 50-year history. As the Sunday night headliner of the festival—which will be held from June 24 to 28, 2020—Swift joins Diana Ross, who will play the “Legends” slot on Sunday afternoon, and Paul McCartney, who will headline on Saturday. The Friday night headliner is still to be announced but Glastonbury co-organizer Emily Eavis did tell The Guardian that it is a male performer who has never appeared at the festival before. Stay tuned.

View this post on Instagram

I’m ecstatic to tell you that I’ll be headlining Glastonbury on its 50th anniversary – See you there! 💋

A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Dec 15, 2019 at 8:58am PST

Hulu announced a Greta Thunberg documentary 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg is TIME’s Person of the Year. She was nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. She’s galvanizing an entire generation of people to care about climate change. So it’s understandable that she’s now also the subject of a documentary. The film, which is currently under the working title Greta, is set to come out in the summer of 2020 on Hulu. According to Glamour UK, “it’s going to cover Greta’s organization of the international climate strike back in 2018 that garnered her global recognition and the team behind the documentary have been following her from the very start.”

https://twitter.com/HYPEBEAST/status/1207848347610034178?s=20

The post Here’s All the Culture News You Missed This Week appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

Here’s All the Culture News You Missed This Week published first on https://borboletabags.tumblr.com/

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thatsnotcanonpodcasts · 5 years ago

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Apollo, E3 2019 & The Division

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – Nerds Amalgamated Go! We are here once again with your irregular dose of fun, news, entertainment and educational synopsis that we like to call a show. We hope everyone is surviving the rigours and tortures of university, college, school, work, life, or whatever else it is you do. This week we have another exciting show for you all filled with space, games, and some viewing material to look forward to. We hope you enjoy and let us know what you think, we do listen.

First up it is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo missions and Buck has brought us links to a number of different stories regarding them. Also, some of the myriad events that are happening around the world involved in the celebration for everyone to enjoy. We also talk about the movies inspired by events and documentaries about the rock stars who ride the bullet into space. What is your favourite Apollo story, movie, mission, or general piece of trivia? Drop us a line or post in the comments on the facebook page.

Next up we look at this year’s less than stellar E3. The major highlight moments were the Keanu Reeves appearance at the launch of Cyberpunk 2077. Where he showed once again that indelible charm that makes everyone love him when people yelled out from the crowd. Why can’t he be the President of America? He would be a darn tooting sight better than almost everyone they have had for a long time. We also take a moment to acknowledge the fabulous Ikumi Nakamura, the director of Ghostwire Tokyo who just had fun. We also take a moment to glance at Devolver Studios and the madcap mayhem that is the ongoing saga of their E3 show. It is still so much more fun then must be legal. The biggest failure was the announcement that Bethesda is making Fallout 76 a battle royale (yayyyy, another one…yawn) in an attempt to save the game from becoming a complete failure (too late).

This week the DJ has the story of Netflix planning a new series based on Tom Clancy’s The Division. The discussion runs through the idea, worrying at the potential failure of yet another game to cinema/television cross over. Further the potential overload of too many post-apocalyptic shows (no, not with zombies either, we discussed that). We do know two of the cast members Jessica Chastain and Jake Gyllenhaal, so it starts with two beautiful people surviving… or do they?

This week’s games are:

Buck is playing Assassins Creed 2 (Not Unity).

Professor is still playing Cataclysm: Dark days ahead (Listen in for how he dies this week).

DJ is once again playing Apex Legends

We have the usual list of shout outs, remembrances, birthdays and special events. Hidden somewhere in the show is Buck telling us about a delightful Pug that doesn’t like being licked in return. Listen out for that, we have the link provided, it is funny. Other than that, we just wish to say thank you once again for listening and supporting us. We do appreciate it. Please remember to take care of yourselves and look out for each other, and drink lots of water to stay hydrated. Peace out.

EPISODE NOTES:

Apollo 50th Anniversary

- http://www.astronomy.com/bonus/apollo_home

- https://www.nasa.gov/specials/apollo50th/events.html

E3 2019 - https://www.theguardian.com/games/2019/jun/10/e3-2019-biggest-news-xbox-bethesda-ubisoft-nintendo-square-enix

The Division now on Netflix - https://variety.com/2019/film/news/jessica-chastain-jake-gyllenhaal-the-division-movie-netflix-1203238700/

Games Currently playing

Buck

– Assassin Creed 2 - https://store.steampowered.com/app/33230/Assassins_Creed_2_Deluxe_Edition/

Professor

– Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead - https://cataclysmdda.org/

– Apex Legends - https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/apex-legends-ps4/

See also:

Two degrees now needed to get higher pay

BBC, 26/04/2019, Sean Coughlan

Cross-party backing for UK post-study work visa amendment

Times Higher Education, 26/04/2019, Chris Havergal

UK stands by hybrid journals in ‘read and publish’ Springer deal

Times Higher Education, 26/04/2019, Rachael Pells

UK universities have extended their “read and publish” deal with Springer Nature, continuing to rely on hybrid journals despite growing opposition to the model.

Brexit and post-18 review create ‘uncertainty in every direction’ for UK HE

Times Higher Education, 25/04/2019, Rachael Pells

Questions on oversight for England’s 30K ‘subcontracted’ students

Times Higher Education, 24/04/2019, Simon Baker

Data from the Office for Students suggest that more than 30,000 undergraduates will be enrolled at a university in 2018-19 but will actually be taught elsewhere for part or all of this year.

The Open University celebrates its 50th anniversary

BBC, 23/04/2019, anon

The UK’s largest academic institution is celebrating its 50th birthday. Founded in 1969, the Open University delivers flexible distance-learning opportunities to about 9,000 people in Wales.

Here two of its alumni share their stories, and explain how the OU transformed their lives for the better.

Elsevier in €9m Norwegian deal to end paywalls for academic papers

Financial Times, 23/04/2019, Patricia Nilsson

Plans to end compulsory records on UK’s non-academic staff ‘shocking’

Times Higher Education, 23/04/2019, Nick Mayo

The Higher Education Statistics Agency, the designated data body in England, is consulting on the services that it offers to higher education providers.

Quality bodies urged to tackle higher education ‘corruption’

Times Higher Education, 19/04/2019, Anna McKie

EU students to get free university tuition in Scotland until 2024 while English pay up to £9,250 a year

Daily Telegraph, 19/04/2019, Simon Johnson

Until now, EU laws have meant the Scottish Government has had to extend its free tuition policy for Scots to students from the Continent at a cost of around £93 million a year.

UK universities pay out £90m on staff ‘gagging orders’ in past two years

The Guardian, 17/04/2019, Simon Murphy

Conference cancelled amid speakers’ fears over fallout with transgender lobby

Daily Telegraph, 13/04/2019, Camilla Turner

An immigration conference has been cancelled amid fears of a backlash from the transgender lobby, it has emerged.

from CDBU http://cdbu.org.uk/news-round-up-women-with-masters-degrees-earn-less-than-men-without-them/ via IFTTT

#advertising company #specialist marketing company #expert marketing services #advertising strategies

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comicsbeat · 6 years ago

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Continuing with our wide-ranging survey of creators from every end of the business on what happened and what’s coming. Some of these precitions for 2019 sound pretty gloomy. What do you think? Are we headed to a new comicsgeddon? You can check out the other parts of the survey here.

Tom Peyer, comicsahoy.com, Editor-In-Chief, AHOY Comics

2019 Projects: I wrote two series that will have season finales in early 2019, The Wrong Earth and High Heaven. So will AHOY titles Captain Ginger and Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Terror. We’ll announce their Wave Two replacements soon (if we haven’t already by the time this goes out).

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? The death of Stan Lee.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? I gave up making predictions on November 9, 2016.

James Romberger, Cartoonist, gallery artist, critic, teacher

2019 Projects: The graphic novel version of Post York, major publisher to be announced soon

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? Probably the death of the most polarizing individual with the most problematic legacy in comics: Stan Lee

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? Doubtless, the further infiltration of comics characters into movies, at the same time that sales of mainstream comics decline, as meanwhile alt/lit comics become more inclusive, while academia continues to incorporate comics in the curriculum

Stuart Moore, Writer/Cat Herder

2019 Projects: X-MEN: THE DARK PHOENIX SAGA (prose novel) – May 2019 BATMAN: NIGHTWALKER gn (adaptation) – DC Ink – summer 2019 And several new creator-owned comics that I can’t talk about yet!

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? The explosion of new imprints and small companies. Creatively, it’s a very exciting time.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? The continuing convergence of comics with other entertainment media. There will be winners, losers, and lots of shades in between.

Taimur Dar, Journalist/Marketing Associate

2019 Projects: Still contributing to the Beat in addition to my continued involvement overseeing the offi cial social media and promotion of the late/great Dwayne McDuffie. Some potentially BIG things related to McDuffie coming in the near future I’m not at liberty to discuss so fans should definitely keep an eye out.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? The rise of and fall of C*micsGate.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? Before the recent glut of new comic publishers I would have said the launch of the new comic publication from Bill Jemas. Yet the involvement of former Marvel EiC Axel Alonso has me curious to see what form the company takes and the status of these new publication by the end of next year.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? Probably Season 2 of TITANS on DC Universe which has me hooked despite my qualms about the dark direction and portrayals of certain characters. On the flip side, I’m excited for Zachary Levi as the titular hero in SHAZAM! which may finally bring much needed levity to the gritty DCEU. Hopefully it doesn’t turn into another GREEN LANTERN, but however the film turns out, it looks like fun!

Who inspired you in 2018? Brian Michael Bendis for his ongoing positivity in the face of his near death experience with his MRSA infection last year. Also the way he promotes the works of others on his various social media and just his general kindness towards fans.

David Harper, Host of Off Panel podcast

2019 Projects: More of Off Panel, more freelance projects, possibly…other things

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? In terms of volume and attention, probably C*micsgate and the endless awfulness that crew brought to the table. In terms of long-term impact, probably a combination of the continued rise of all-ages comics (especially with Gina Gagliano leading the new RHCB graphic novel imprint) and the change in leadership over at DC, which seemingly has resulted in some changes in strategy, most notably the at best neutering and at worst early death of the Black Label imprint.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? Raina Telgemeier has two books coming out, so I’d be shocked if it wasn’t Raina’s return to the top of the kids comics ranks.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? I feel zero guilt for it, but I could not be more excited for Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

Who inspired you in 2018? Zach Lowe. This NBA writer and podcaster for ESPN is my favorite writer and podcaster around. If the comic industry had someone with that approach talking about comics, we’d be all the better for it.

Karen Green, Curator for Comics and Cartoons, Columbia University

2019 Projects: Sadly, I can never talk about what’s coming up until the deeds of gift are signed…

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? Industry pushback to the bullies of C*micsgate

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? With any luck, the complete collapse of C*micsgate and its ilk

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? No pleasure ever makes me feel guilty

Jimmie Robinson, Writer/Artist

2019 Projects: ARTillery: Weapons of art

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? Black Panther movie

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? San Diego Comic Con 50th anniversary

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? Being an Eisner Awards judge

Hart Seely, Publisher AHOY Comics

2019 Projects: I do all the crapola work on AHOY Comics. The editors do the fun stuff. But – plug coming: This spring AHOY will launch a new wave of comics, and we are insanely proud of them.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? Probably the appearance of Batman’s junk, a reflection of the lengths to which a frightened industry will go to get attention.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? Somebody else’s junk, I suppose.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? The Yankees, if they can just find pitching, pitching, PITCHING!

Who inspired you in 2018? My kids, all grown-up, who fight every day to get by in a world that my generation – the Baby Boomers – has totally botched. History will not treat us fondly. But young people – from the Stoneman Douglas students to those who march in social causes everywhere – give me hope. They may prove to be the only thing we did right.

Jim Ottaviani, Writer

2019 Projects: HAWKING will come out in July, with art by Leland Myrick. It’s the biography of a guy who made a number of cameos on The Simpsons and The Big Bang Theory and did some science too.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? I’m sure plenty of stuff happened, but between work and the state of the world, I clearly missed most of it.

Shaenon K. Garrity, writer, editor, cartoonist

2019 Projects: Skin Horse, the online strip I create with my co-writer Jeffrey C. Wells and colorist Pancha Diaz, had its tenth anniversary in 2018. We plan to get Volumes 7 and 8 out in print this year. In non- comics news, I recently finished a sci-fi novel, so this year I’ll be looking for a publisher.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? It continues to be exciting to see the industry branch into new publishing models, both online and in print. Anyone who isn’t following Iron Circus Comics is a dang fool.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? I hope it’ll involve more spectacular work from up-and-coming creators. In 2018 I was blown away by Tillie Walden, Carolyn Nowak, and Aminder Dhaliwal, among many others. More of that, please!

Brandon Easton, Writer

2019 Projects: VAMPIRE HUNTER D: MESSAGE FROM MARS OGN CATALYST PRIME: INCIDENTALS Netflix TV Series (that I cannot mention yet) PBS Children’s TV Series (cannot mention yet)

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? C*micsgate and the subsequent fallout.

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? How Marvel and Fox will merge the ancillary superhero properties and how this will affect the printed versions of the characters.

Ed Catto, Marketing Consultant and Professor of Entrepreneurship

2019 Projects: At Ithaca College – I’ll be teaching the groundbreaking ITHACON course. Ithaca College will be offering a new course for the spring 2019 semester: Creating and Promoting ITHACON. Students enrolled in the course will help organize and promote ITHACON, the second-longest running comic convention in the nation.

Designed for students interested in learning about event planning, celebrity management and pop culture marketing, the course will provide a unique hands-on learning opportunity. Students will take a lead role in planning for Ithacon 44 (the nation’s second longest running comic convention), from assessing material and staffi ng needs, logistical preparation, and managing the weekend-long event, in addition to marketing the convention by preparing press releases, crafting social media campaigns and developing partnerships with local and national businesses, publishers and entertainment properties.

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? C*micsGate

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? The continued dominance of Geek Culture (stretching far beyond traditional superhero movies and TV shows)

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? More AHOY! Comics

Who inspired you in 2018? Chris Ryall – taking the high road, staying positive and ending the year on a high note.

Rob Salkowitz, Author/journalist

2019 Projects: Secret new book on comics and media

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? Streaming wars create windfall for comic creators with ready-for-primetime IP

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? All the “stupid money” in publishing dries up at once, leading to big market implosion and lots of pissed-off creators

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? San Diego Comic Fest

Claire Napier, Editor & cartoonist

2019 Projects: BUN&TEA, a serial comics magazine for adults who like stories; Dash Dearborne & the Unexpected Earthman #2; secret collab projects

What was the biggest story in comics in 2018? Batman’s penis or the Man Booker prize or, probably, Telgemeier again

What will be the biggest story in comics in 2019? Collapse

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2019? Disliking Ghostbusters comics for petty reasons

The Beat's Annual Creator Survey Part 3: Predictions and a Stephen Hawking preview - and more! Continuing with our wide-ranging survey of creators from every end of the business on what happened and what's coming.

#2018 creator survey #2019 plans #Brandon Easton #claire napier #david harper #ed catto #hart seely #james romberger #jim ottaviani #Jimmie Robinson #Karen Green #rob salkowitz #Shaenon K. Garrity #stephen hawking #Stuart Moore #taimur dar #tom peyer

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williamsjoan · 6 years ago

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Red Dead Redemption 2 Leaps Back to Top Position on Weekly UK Sales Chart

With only two weeks remaining in 2018 and no major new game releases on the horizon, it’s going to be interesting to see what games find their way back near the top of the chart in weekly UK sales.

For the 50th week of the year last week, Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2 saw a sales spike to return to the top spot in weekly sales. This is the first time that Red Dead Redemption 2 has found its way back to the top since early November. Last week’s top position holder of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate also fell by three spots this week and ended up in fourth.

As for the rest of this week’s list, the usual suspects continue to dominate in the absence of no new releases. The ever-popular UK staple FIFA 19 followed behind RDR2 this week in second while Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 saw a spike in sales thanks to a variety of discounts which landed it back in the third place position. Rounding out the top 5 this week is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe which almost never seems to leave the top-10 despite having released about 18-months ago.

And as always, the full top-40 list for last week is attached below.

Last Week This Week Title Age Rating Publisher 2 1 RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 PEGI 18+ ROCKSTAR 3 2 FIFA 19 PEGI 3+ EA SPORTS 7 3 CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS 4 PEGI 18+ ACTIVISION 1 4 SUPER SMASH BROS. ULTIMATE PEGI 12+ NINTENDO 5 5 MARIO KART 8 DELUXE PEGI 3+ NINTENDO 8 6 SPYRO REIGNITED TRILOGY PEGI 7+ ACTIVISION 4 7 BATTLEFIELD V PEGI 16+ EA GAMES 17 8 FORZA HORIZON 4 PEGI 3+ MICROSOFT 11 9 MARVEL’S SPIDER-MAN PEGI 16+ SONY COMPUTER ENT. 12 10 CRASH BANDICOOT N.SANE TRILOGY PEGI 7+ ACTIVISION 9 11 POKEMON: LET’S GO, PIKACHU! PEGI 7+ NINTENDO 10 12 FORTNITE: DEEP FREEZE BUNDLE PEGI 12+ WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE 6 13 JUST CAUSE 4 PEGI 18+ SQUARE ENIX 19 14 FALLOUT 76 PEGI 18+ BETHESDA SOFTWORKS 16 15 ASSASSIN’S CREED ODYSSEY PEGI 18+ UBISOFT 14 16 JUST DANCE 2019 PEGI 3+ UBISOFT 13 17 SUPER MARIO PARTY PEGI 3+ NINTENDO 29 18 HITMAN 2 PEGI 18+ WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE 18 19 SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY PEGI 7+ NINTENDO 15 20 WWE 2K19 PEGI 16+ 2K 21 21 GRAND THEFT AUTO V PEGI 18+ ROCKSTAR 23 22 SHADOW OF THE TOMB RAIDER PEGI 18+ SQUARE ENIX 20 23 POKEMON: LET’S GO, EEVEE! PEGI 7+ NINTENDO 28 24 THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD PEGI 12+ NINTENDO 22 25 PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS PEGI 16+ SONY COMPUTER ENT. 24 26 PLAYSTATION VR WORLDS PEGI 16+ SONY COMPUTER ENT. 25 27 LEGO DC SUPER-VILLAINS PEGI 7+ WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE 27 28 ASTRO BOT RESCUE MISSION PEGI 7+ SONY COMPUTER ENT. 31 29 ROCKET LEAGUE: COLLECTORS EDITION PEGI 3+ WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE 30 30 NBA 2K19 PEGI 3+ 2K 36 31 LEGO MARVEL SUPER HEROES 2 PEGI 7+ WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE 32 SPLATOON 2 PEGI 7+ NINTENDO 26 33 LEGO THE INCREDIBLES PEGI 7+ WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE 34 THE ELDER SCROLLS V: SKYRIM VR PEGI 18+ BETHESDA SOFTWORKS 35 WIPEOUT: OMEGA COLLECTION PEGI 7+ SONY COMPUTER ENT. 36 DOOM VFR PEGI 18+ BETHESDA SOFTWORKS 39 37 SONIC MANIA PLUS PEGI 3+ SEGA 34 38 HELLO NEIGHBOR PEGI 7+ GEARBOX PUBLISHING 39 GOD OF WAR PEGI 18+ SONY COMPUTER ENT. 32 40 LEGO HARRY POTTER COLLECTION PEGI 7+ WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE

The post Red Dead Redemption 2 Leaps Back to Top Position on Weekly UK Sales Chart by Logan Moore appeared first on DualShockers.

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theliberaltony · 6 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to our Election Update for Wednesday, Oct. 3!

As of 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, the Classic version of our forecast model gave Democrats a 7 in 9 chance (77 percent) of winning the House and Republicans a 5 in 7 chance (72 percent) of holding the Senate. Those are some of the best numbers Republicans have gotten in weeks. The forecast has been a bit more volatile lately, but don’t read too much into it — there was a drought of generic-ballot polls last week, so the model was extra sensitive to the new generic-ballot polls added this week.

One race whose outlook changed significantly, though, didn’t change because of generic-ballot polling, but because of scandal: the California 39th Congressional District. Democrat Gil Cisneros pulled into a virtual dead heat with Republican Young Kim after Melissa Fazli recanted her accusation of sexual harassment against Cisneros, which prompted us to remove the scandal penalty our model had been applying to Cisneros’s chances. The scandal variable is new in our forecasts this year, and we’ve fielded a handful of reader questions about how it’s applied, so we figured we’d bring some transparency to the matter in an Election Update.

It can be surprisingly difficult to agree on what is and is not a scandal. But we wanted to take as much personal judgment as possible out of the equation, so we settled on the following definition: A scandal is a credible accusation of wrongdoing according to some legal or ethical standard. In other words, we’re talking about breaking the law or committing a widely agreed-upon moral transgression. (We know that’s a bit ambiguous, but not every scandalous misdeed is against the law — adultery, for example.) What’s more, under our scandal definition, a candidate doesn’t need to be charged with or convicted of a crime; an allegation is enough to affect public opinion. In fairness, it’s possible for a candidate to be exonerated and shed the scandal tag completely — but the bar for that is high. If the allegations can’t be proved because there’s insufficient evidence, that’s not enough to clear a candidate of the scandal tag; the allegations must be demonstrated to be false or be rescinded. (Think of the difference between a prosecutor dropping charges versus a defendant being found not guilty.)1 Of course, even if a scandal has been dismissed, the lingering fallout can continue to drag a candidate down in ways that show up in other areas of our forecast, such as polling or fundraising numbers.

In races where a candidate is involved in a scandal, we apply a scandal penalty as part of our “fundamentals” calculation. For new scandals — by which we mean scandals that became public knowledge since the seat was last contested — the penalty typically averages around 8 percentage points, based on our research into the effects of scandals on past congressional elections.2 Our research has also found, however, that the effects of scandals fade quickly and that they have only a marginal effect on a candidate’s chances if the candidate has won an election in the time since news of the scandal broke. Thus, for scandals that became public knowledge prior to the current election cycle, the scandal penalty is discounted. Specifically, it’s discounted by a factor of 1/(n+1) where n is the number of years since the scandal became public knowledge. For example, a scandal that was disclosed in 2010, eight years ago, will receive only 1/9th of the penalty3 that a new scandal would get.

Note that not every scandal that has been in the public eye for some time is an “old” scandal — it can still be considered “new” if the seat has not been contested in that time. For instance, the corruption scandal surrounding New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, which first became public knowledge in 2013, is considered “new” because his Senate seat was last contested in 2012. By contrast, even though Montana Rep. Greg Gianforte body-slammed a reporter just last year, that is not considered a new scandal because a special election was held after the incident. (Gianforte won.) A few candidates have more than one scandal, in which case the scandal penalty is dated from whenever the most recent scandal broke. More rarely, as a scandal develops, it brings out news of a substantially more serious charge than the one that was made in the original allegation (to take a hypothetical example, a candidate who was originally accused of verbal sexual harassment might later be accused of sexual assault). But it takes a lot for the clock to be reset; additional reporting or the revelation of new facts about the scandal does not a new scandal make.

Also to be clear, the scandal tag applies to our “fundamentals” calculation only and does not apply a penalty to the candidate’s polling numbers. In races where there are a lot of polls, our models eventually default to being almost entirely polling-driven. If the scandal has considerably more or considerably less impact than the typical scandal, the polls (and eventually, of course, the election results) are the best way to judge that.

Here’s a complete4 list of every candidate on the 2018 ballot to whom the scandal penalty applies.

The 35 candidates our forecasts penalize for a scandal

Candidates in 2018 races for the U.S. House, U.S. Senate and governorships who have been involved in scandals, by year the scandal developed and whether it happened in the current election cycle

Candidate Race Year new? Rod Blum Iowa 1st 2018 ✓ Brandon Brown South Carolina 4th 2018 ✓ Randy Bryce Wisconsin 1st 2018 ✓ Tony Cárdenas California 29th 2018 ✓ Steve Foster Georgia 14th 2018 ✓ Jim Jordan Ohio 4th 2018 ✓ Kris Kobach Kansas (Gov.) 2018 ✓ Adam Laxalt Nevada (Gov.) 2018 ✓ Marty Nothstein Pennsylvania 7th 2018 ✓ Archie Parnell South Carolina 5th 2018 ✓ Bill Schuette Michigan (Gov.) 2018 ✓ Scott Taylor Virginia 2nd 2018 ✓ Steve Von Loor North Carolina 4th 2018 ✓ Chris Collins New York 27th 2017 ✓ Greg Gianforte Montana at large 2017* Duncan Hunter California 50th 2017 ✓ Omar Navarro California 43rd 2017 ✓ Dana Rohrabacher California 48th 2017 ✓ Antonio Sabato California 26th 2017 ✓ David Schweikert Arizona 6th 2017 ✓ Bobby Scott Virginia 3rd 2017 ✓ James Comer Kentucky 1st 2015 Henry McMaster South Carolina (Gov.) 2015 ✓ Mark Meadows North Carolina 11th 2015 Allan Fung Rhode Island (Gov.) 2014 Bob Menendez New Jersey (Sen.) 2013 ✓ Scott DesJarlais Tennessee 4th 2012 Alcee Hastings Florida 20th 2011 Gavin Newsom California (Gov.) 2007 David Scott Georgia 13th 2007 Don Young Alaska at large 2007 Beto O’Rourke Texas (Senate) 2005 Ken Calvert California 42nd 1994 Sherrod Brown Ohio (Senate) 1989 Tom Carper Delaware (Senate) 1982

* Although Gianforte’s scandal developed in 2017, which is normally part of the 2018 election cycle, it happened before the last election for his seat — a special election held on May 25, 2017.

Source: News reports

It’s important to note that we limited the scandal ruling to instances where a candidate was accused of crossing a clear line, like breaking a law or breaking his or her marriage vows. That leaves out a number of things I would call “controversies,” like committing a gaffe or saying something offensive. That means it’s also not a scandal when a candidate has an extreme ideology, even if that ideology is widely reviled, like Nazism or white supremacism — ideology remains a matter of opinion, and we can’t be in the business of deciding where to draw the line between what’s extreme and what’s mainstream. Nor is it a scandal when a candidate deviates from social norms on things like bagels and Bigfoot erotica; a candidate’s personal tastes are just that — personal. And it’s not a scandal when a politician does something that’s legal but has bad optics. For example, Rep. Tom Marino lost out on the job of drug czar because he pushed a bill championed by pharmaceutical companies that made it harder for the Drug Enforcement Administration to stop shipments of drugs the agency believed were destined for illegal street sales — but even if the bill, as opponents charged, exacerbated the opioid crisis, it doesn’t meet our definition of scandal because he didn’t break any rules. By the same token, it’s also not a scandal when a candidate has been close to some sketchy activities but he or she hasn’t explicitly been implicated in any wrongdoing. For example, that’s why Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, the Democratic candidate for Florida governor, won’t carry the scandal variable in our gubernatorial model. The FBI is reportedly investigating actions that Tallahassee’s community redevelopment agency took during Gillum’s time in office, but there is no indication — at least so far — that Gillum himself did anything wrong or even knew about any wrongdoing.

So now that you’ve got the ground rules, do you know of any scandals that aren’t incorporated into our model? Get in touch.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Nathaniel Rakich and Nate Silver

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