#happy reload release!!!!!!!! now if only i could afford it

[ecoplasma]

02.02.

[tactical-mode]

After a rushed release, I took my time re-editing and reshooting and am now happy with the final product. Lesson learned. Perfectionism is the enemy of putting a product out, but I can afford to take the time to be proud of it.

Between where we left Cloud last time and where we find him in this opening shot, I actually filmed multiple scenes using Remake that took us into the station house, through a combat, up the stairs, and back out onto the street. These scenes were cut because they weren’t in the OG, it’s as simple as that. The 76 shots and ~15 minutes of good footage are waiting on the ancillary hard drive to be used in a music video or something.

[Chapter 01] Scene 10:  Meeting AVALANCHE

(see my post from Episode 1 to read about why I enumerate scenes this way)

This is the first major overhaul to a scene from 7R, and I cut a lot, refilmed, and moved shots around much more than folks might notice, and I had to manipulate a lot to make it seem like Biggs is interacting with Cloud, which he doesn’t actually do in the Remake scene.

The character’s mouth animations surprised me by how well they could be interpreted to be saying the PS1 lines, especially:

Jessie: “--s, this, uh, what was his name again?”

Jessie: “SOLDIER? Aren’t they the enemy?”

Biggs: “He’s a professional, unlike the rest of us.”

Biggs: “He quit them, and now he’s one of us.”

For the dialogue in this scene I blended PS1 and EC. Forever shout out to Yinza for preserving the PS1 script.

(remember to turn on closed-captioning for the dialogue!)

Scene 11:  Opening the Gate

There’s some stage blocking here and another instance where I decide to go with Remake and/or EC’s dialogue over OG. In OG, Barret tells them to split up (they don’t), the player is given the option to rename him, he tells Cloud that he doesn’t trust him, and then he tells the player how to use the controller buttons to run. Yeah, that won’t work. We’re going to keep his one line about trust:

“Ex-SOLDIER, huh? Don't trust ya!” (PS1/Beacause)

“You’d better be worth the money, merc. Every last gil.” (7R)

For this, 7R’s line is the most evocative and gives us just a bit more context for the situation at hand. I’m not super thrilled that it extraneously introduces us to the concept of ‘gil’, the fictional currency of FF7’s world, which isn’t relevant to the story right now (in the OG, Aerith introduces it when selling the player a flower). But the line is just so damn cool. Barret is so damn cool.

I cut the extraneous chatter between Cloud and Wedge here. I added a couple of shots around the door opening, such as moving one of Wedge’s face-muggings and a wide shot of Jessie and Biggs being sneaky.

I blended the different movements of the soundtrack here to match the iconic tilt of the camera up at the reactor. I also made sure to keep the entire sequence timed in such a way that Barret’s cold turn back is accented by the tense cellos. They haven’t said which one of Remake’s many composers is responsible for each individual diversion from Uematsu’s original score, but I would put good money on Shotaro Shima for the cinematic variation that plays during this scene. The forevariance of the Main Theme here is a particularly nice touch.

Scene 12: Combat: Cloud vs. 1 MP and 1 Guard Hound

A combat has begun, which means that our major story moments for the episode are behind us. That’s not to say that there won’t be plot in the following few minutes, but there won’t be dialogue. Enjoy the slow-motion feast for the eyes and ears, I really enjoyed making it.

Because Cloud is the only combatant in these, it’s easy to actually choreograph and re-shoot the fights, finaggling the enemies into the same locations as I use the same moves on them. This fight can be repeated after opening a nearby chest, allowing me to quickly restart it without having to reload, with only minor changes to the starting positions. For instance, in the first scenario, the members of AVALANCHE start on the battlefield and spend the first few rounds taking the lift, whereas they’re already at the top at the start of the second fight.

I really loved the naturally moody lighting on the crew in the warehouse, and cutting back and forth allowed me to mask some of the “jumping around” that the enemies and Cloud do – although not all, as eagle-eyed viewers will see. This will become less possible when more characters become involved in fights, but for the opening encounters I thought it would be important to show how this slow-mo thing could give the impression of fights progressing. Here's my favorite from the cutting room floor:

Scenes 13-14: Through the Warehouse

At three separate times, I mask edits to the score. At the end of the combat, Cloud sheathes his sword, allowing me to cut out 14 bars and restore Uematsu’s original score structure. I then put this opening piano on loop, extending it until enemies are on the screen (it’s masked again by the sound of the lift and by Jessie cutting the wires. In Uematsu’s structure, loops of the song don’t include the timpanis and orchestra hits from the beginning, but 7R’s version does include them, which I think is an oversight. However, it had the unintended upside of scoring the arrival of enemies from behind Cloud really well! Also, we can associate the orchestra hits with Cloud once more as they punctuate him whirling around and preparing to fight!

Fun fact: Bombing Mission has a bpm of 136, so when I found editing the music too repetitive I would use placeholders with the same bpm and then fine-tune it later. Highlights from the playlist I made were Rocket Man, Thunderstruck, Go Your Own Way, Jump (For My Love), and, heh, Sandstorm. 

Scene 15: Combat: Cloud vs. 2 MPs, 1 Guard Hound

With this combat, I chose to introduce the viewer to magic - specifically, Cloud’s ability to cast lightning and ice. In OG, the player learns this by taking control of Cloud down on the train platform, but its quite possible in a playthrough for Cloud to never use magic – and indeed, in 7R he begins with different spell abilities altogether!

However, I feel like this short encounter was the way to introduce magic with the maximum hype possible, and I’m proud of the result. Cloud zaps one MP, dispatches the other with a quick sword slice, then fires off an ice spell to nab the pup.

I tried to have the materia in focus while Cloud was casting in order to provide a visual clue as to where this magic comes from, because it won’t be exposited with dialogue for some time yet.

Scene 16: Combat: Cloud vs. 2 MPs

Around 1 minute of combat footage represents about 2-3 hours of shooting, and about 5 hours of editing. This one took a bit longer because I remained in bullet time so that I could get coverage of the crew running out onto the bridge.

For this combat, I cut out a chunk of the score to make room for the section that uses a variation on the Main Theme, accenting a Cloud hero shot.

Scene 17: The Bridge

This was pretty straightforward to shoot except for cutting out a door puzzle that triggers AVALANCHE running into the reactor. Filming around that was a bit tricky. I also dabbled in my first bit of colour-correction here, as jumping from the gap between sectors back into that metal tunnel was hard on the eyes.

A quick clip of the music to ramp up towards the credits, and about a hundred reshoots of that camera so that it passes between the pipes and not through them. And we're done.

Final Thoughts

I can’t believe anyone reads these things, but if you did, hey thanks. Let me know what you think of the series! And dOn’T fOrGeT tO LiKe aNd sUbScRiBe!

[enigmatist17]

Longing (Rhys Strongfork x Vaughn)

I really really love Rhys and Vaughn.

I was really really happy to see them in Borderlands 3.

----------------------------

Vaughn had been having a nice day. The Calypso Twins had been killed a few weeks ago, and the universe seemed to finally be lulling back to its old self. Pandora was only full of Crimson Raiders and the slowly dwindling COV, the lack of bandits almost startling to the planet. He couldn’t remember the last time random packs of bandits were just running around, shouting about blood and skulls. No, Pandora seemed to finally have tipped the change from bloodthirsty bandits, to a potential planet ready to build an actual society. 

The change almost was saddening to see.

Yet again, a life Vaughn had tried to make for himself was slipping from his fingers. He was a lonely bandit in the wastes again, and this time he wasn’t sure if he could change again. Hyperion and that oppressive corporate atmosphere had nearly smothered him, Vaughn wasn’t going to go through that again. No, he was confident in himself and able to tear a person apart for trying to ever imply as such. Paperwork, meetings, and selecting who to tear down just for a step up just made the bandit chief feel ill. He had gone for a walk and now regretted it as an Atlas ship landed nearby. Vaughn could have sworn that Atlas had been some third-rate corporation, not able to afford the armor and spectacular guns those unloading from the transport seemed to have. Then again, his news was seven years out of date, so anything could have happened during his tenure on Pandora he supposed. 

The man stepping out, dressed in a suit and sporting a blood-red cybernetic arm, brought any train of thought Vaughn had at the moment to a rather spectacular crash.

There was no way that was Rhys Strongfork, there is no fucking way. Still crouched behind some rocks, Vaughn watches as Rhys puts his hands on his hips, saying something to a soldier with a grin. The last seven years had been very kind to Rhys, Vaughn feeling suddenly very aware he was only in his underwear and cape. It usually didn’t bother him, but seeing the tailored suit and blood-free face of his former friend just made Vaughn feel subpar. Once again his thoughts were scattered when some skags, previously going about their business, seemed to find the Atlas troops worthy of dinner. At first, he just watched as they easily dispatched the animals with ease, but quickly moved when one snuck up and made an advance at Rhys. The businessman only had a gun partially withdrawn before the skag seemed to just explode, raining misty blood down over him. Glancing over, Rhys forgot about the bodily fluids all over his suit as he took in the man who was reloading his gun. Despite the blood, grime, and bushy beard that could use decent grooming, the man standing feet away was all too familiar to Rhys.

“Vaughn?!” The bandit looks up, locking eyes with Rhys before a huge grin stretches across his face. The CEO is taken up into strong arms a moment later, pressed against a toned body that he only dreamed of late at night. 

“Rhys! You’re alive bro!” Vaughn laughed, squeezing his friend tight before releasing him. Rhys looks as he always has, a bit bewildered and adorably confused, steadying himself by using Vaughn as support. 

“I-I can’t believe it!” Rhys looks absolutely delighted, taking in his oldest and dearest friend. Seven years had seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, and for Vaughn, it had changed him so much. He had seemingly thrived as a bandit chief, no hint of nervousness nor social awkwardness that Vaughn had had their entire friendship. The bandit just grinned away, shifting into a fighting stance when the Atlas soldiers raised their guns.

“No no! No, he’s a friend.” It was strange seeing someone stepping in front of Vaughn, Rhys clearly not thinking much of the protective stance as much as Vaughn did. The guns were lowered without hesitation, and Rhys turned with a cheeky expression. “Say, know any good coffee shops?” Vaughn can’t help but laugh, Rhys letting out a distressed cry to learn that coffee was rare to come by on Pandora. Thankfully, Sanctuary III was able to supply some through Rhys' stay, and Vaughn finds himself hooked back on the liquid by day 2. The two are usually in a booth laughing about something, looking so strange a pair, yet these days hardly anyone batted an eye. Atlas had promised to help rebuild sections of Pandora that had been destroyed by the CoV, and the task that had once been almost monumental to Rhys suddenly felt so easy. Vaughn was able to get people to work at ease, Rhys sometimes watching with a slightly envious look. Despite leading Atlas, he still suffered from his own lack of self-worth and envied how confident Vaughn was. Soon the few months Rhys had come to stay were coming to an end, and both men felt some tension in the air.

Rhys, bless his heart, is the one to ask Vaughn to come with him.

The bandit gives him a disbelieving look, wondering if it was some sort of strange joke. The company life had been left far behind, but it was back and asking him to come into the fold. Rhys waves away concerns when Vaughn asks about investors, pacing back and forth. They were both currently in the remains of his old Sun Smashers camp, Rhys having asked to see it before finally spitting out his question. He sat on the dirty bed, watching as Vaughn switched between disbelief and uncertainty. Seeing Vaughn so unsettled reminded him of their days in college and Hyperion, and for once Rhys decides that maybe he should finally do something. Standing up unnoticed, Rhys waits until he can slip in front of Vaughn, words dying on the bandit's lips when a cool metal hand caresses his face.

“I want you to come with me, I don’t want to leave you again.” He usually isn’t good at this sort of thing, but at this moment he couldn’t have been any more sure of anything in his life. Vaughn doesn’t say anything, just looking into Rhys’ eyes as if searching for deception. He seems to find what he was looking for, and before Rhys can blink, cracked and dry lips are on his own. His brain just seems to short circuit, and as fast as his bravado had swelled, Rhys just felt so lost as Vaughn kissed him soundly. He’s got the sappiest grin on his face when Vaughn takes pity, looking very amused.

“Sure you don’t mind a bandit coming back with you?” He isn’t sure what potential investors would think, but Rhys is nodding before his thought is even out of the gate.

“Of course! You’re my closest and dearest bro, and I know that you can pull your weight if need be.” Rhys flashes a dazzling smile, and Vaughn finds himself accepting the offer. He leaves Pandora with a bandit’s goodbye, pouring some blood from a skull before joining an intrigued Rhys on his private ship. It felt like a lifetime ago since he had been off-planet sans Sanctuary III, and he’s quiet as the planet fades from view. He would feel sad, but hearing an excited Rhys pouring over some sort of blueprint behind him only makes the bandit smile. He spends most of the journey to Promethea sleeping, feeling the nervous energy he used to ooze back in his Hyperion days coiling in his gut. Would he be good enough? He hadn’t done any sort of “work” in over seven years, would he even remember how to?

The building they land on is huge, the dazzling city almost too much for Vaughn. The neon glow and varying robots carrying out repairs stretch into the distance, and he is shaken from his observation by an arm slipping around his waist. Rhys is smiling down at him, that sweet and goofy smile that just makes any of Vaughn’s worries fade away. The gigantic building they enter doesn’t feel cold and stifling, instead, it’s inviting, workers waving to Rhys all with smiles. Of course, there are strange looks at the man wearing nothing but boots, underwear, and a tattered cape, but they never linger for long. Rhys’ office makes Vaughn laugh, seeing the aquarium reaching up to the ceiling like they had discussed over last night studying long ago.

“What?” Rhys tilts his head slightly, and Vaughn just gives him a grin.

“You remembered the aquarium, of course, you did.” Rhys just grins, and Vaughn flops down onto the couch. It was so strange to be inside an intact building that was well maintained, unable to smell anything less than what appeared to be coffee and whatever Rhys liked in the air. Was it vanilla? Vaughn couldn’t remember what vanilla even smelled like, watching from the corner of his eye as Rhys caught up with some emails. The way the CEO sticks his tongue out slightly while scanning through dozens upon dozens of threads just reminds Vaughn of their happier days at Hyperion. There weren’t many of them, but the late nights crafting their plan back then, usually spent in their cramped office laughing over takeout never failed to make Vaughn smile. Zer0 comes in to find the bandit passed out on the couch an hour later, Rhys having moved to be by the other. The man is sitting on the floor, legs crossed as he leans back against the couch. His cybernetic arm is displaying some sort of hologram, and his normal hand is enclosed in Vaughn’s closest hand. Rhys has a content smile on his face, the assassin noting this was the first time he had ever seen Rhys so at ease. Zer0 takes the hint and slips out of the room as silently as he had arrived, and locks the door behind him just in case.

[guigz1-coldwar]

'Awakening' : an new chapter for "Redemption of a Bell" is out !

"Awakening"

Chapter Summary : After an few days since the experiment Dutch did, the woman now know as 'Bell' awake in camp.....

To read it on AO3, click here !

Taglist : @snowgoldwaylon , @clxudtea , @efingart

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I didn't know what was happening to me but I wasn't able to open my eyes for days, only hearing some voices around me while it was impossible for me to do something, to move or to open my eyes like if I was powerless and an uncomfortable pain was getting felt on my torso at 3 precises places of it, not even knowing what did happen to me but it was sure hurting me an lot.....but I wanted to know....where the fuck I am ?

Suddenly, I was now able to open my eyes but it was very slowly and painful to do like if someone was forcing me to keep my eyes shut for good but that wasn't the case at all, seeing that I was alone near I was maybe sleeping for an long, long time. As I can see while my eyes were getting fully opened, it seems that I was sleeping inside an sort of wagon, not even having something on the floor for my back, already feeling an back pain.

"Where I am ?" I muttered, my voice very low after all these days spent to maybe sleep as I was holding my head with my right hand, an damn headache, slowly getting up before I tried to check what was causing me the pain in my torso. "Aw shit." I whispered when I saw bandages all over my chest, small part of blood of where it was hurting me : near my right kidney, my left lung and my right shoulder. It was sure that someone did shot me but I was here and alive, still wondering how I managed to survive those supposed gunshots. I was just wearing an shirt and man pants and all around me, it was the complete silence.

I tried to look around me to see if there were something belonging to me and the only thing I could see was an light brow hat on an small box and to me, I could recognize it as it was mine, prompting me to take the hat and to put it on in slow moves as each movements were either hurting me because of these wounds I had with me on my chest but I could still move for the moment. When I opened the wagon cover, I realized that I was in the middle of an camp that I couldn't.....

"Aw shit !" I started to curse when I, unfortunately caused myself to lose my balance in the wagon bed and to fall out of the wagon to land on the ground....very badly on my chest, now finding myself with dirt on my face.... "Fucking hell." I insulted myself to be this stupid to fall from an wagon like that before going back up on my feets. "Hello, is there anyone ?" I demanded, seeing no one coming to see who was this woman who almost yelled but it was looking n the early morning, the sun rising up over the place.

As there were no one to come, I needed to know where I was actually and if someone in that camp was awake to give me more informations about the whole bloody situation. The wagon I was were located right next to two other one and as I continue to walk, I could see that it was just near the place there were multiples horses, maybe belonging to those people here but when I arrived at what I suppose to be where people could eat at an table, I saw an little kid, looking at between 2 tents.

"Hey, kid." I waved at this little boy whose expression were between scared & unsure to what to do with me, he was wearing an short and an blue vest and he was looking good so, I wanted to see him from up close but....

"Mommy !" The kid said scared before he start to run into an direction that I couldn't see, causing me to stop to move towards him, not wanting to scare further that little boy.

"Damnit, should clean myself up." I exclaimed, thinking that my state wasn't so presentable with an part of my face with dirt on it, along with my upper clothes too an by luck at an few meters of me, there were an opened barrel with water on it, useful to clean up my face in particular.

I walked to get to that barrel and I arrived, removing my hat aside for the moment as I wasn't going to only clean my face. To start, I put some water on my face to remove the dirt on its left part before I literally decided to pull my head inside the whole barrel, to clean up my mind and to try to feel better without that headache in me and when I pull out my entire head from the barrel, I was feeling on my smile, seemingly happy to have some water....until I heard the click of an revolver right behind my head.

"You came here to rob us ?" I slowly put my hands up as I heard the voice of an man behind me, impossible to tell who it was because I didn't know where I am and how I landed here. "Come on, answer me !" The man ordered in an clear voice, feeling the cold cannon of his revolver touching the back of my neck.

"Why would I ?" I asked back to the man, risking my own life to turn around to face the man, discovering someone wearing an dark brown coat, an blue & white plaid shirt, an big beard on his face and of course, pointing an revolver at my face now.

"I asked you....an question....la-la...lady !" The man demanded again, finding out that this man was like....drunk ? I can afford an sane man pointing an gun at me but an drunk man ? It's not the best thing to see and witness at all....how did I end up in this situation. "Say to me my answer." He spoke up before removing for an second the gun off my forehead.

At this moment and despite the pain of my own torso, I decided to make this man put his gun down. As he was removing his gun from me for an little second and that he wasn't looking at me, I managed to move my hand above his revolver but an bullet was fired in the air at the second after I moved my hand on it and with my other hand, throw an punch on his drunken face, causing him to release his own revolver off his hand and to fall back on his ass, now having his revolver in my right hand.

But instead of aiming him back, I decided to unload the 5 remaining bullets from the revolver on the ground before throwing the revolver back to him, knowing that he couldn't reload his gun properly and then, I moved back to the barrel to clean up the dirt that was still on my face despite having my head inside the water for an few seconds...looking though to remove, it's sure that I was completely forgetting the man that I just punched, now hearing the numerous clicks of his revolver, got lucky to have remove the bullets.....

"Mister Williamson !" I heard an voice yelled towards where I was, causing the clicks to stop and when I look at where it was, I could see an man dressed elegantly with people that I've maybe been awaked by the gunshot of his revolver, part of the looks were on this 'Mister Williamson' and another part also on me.

"Hey, Dutch." Williamson said, still sounding drunk as he look, waving at him as the man that yelled was coming to us with an man wearing an green jacket.

"What happened, Mister Williamson ?" The man asked curious, seeing perfectly that Williamson was an drunken man, trying to get up back on his feets. "You really drink this much last night, we didn't have an party as I remember !" The man clarified.

"I know but that woman....." Williamson exclaimed after he got up, pointing at me with his now dirty fingers. "She came here to rob us !" He shouted, using the same voice as before as the elegant man and the one with the green jacket were looking at me.

"Are you accusing one of us....Bell....to rob us ?" The elegant man questioned him before he shook his head in disapproval, not believing the words of this man. "Hosea, try to make mister Williamson forget about drinking." He ordered, causing this 'Hosea' to move and grab Williamson by the left ear, like an kid.

"Come on, you drunk, let's make you drink water instead !" Hosea scoffed, holding Williamson by the ear before he dive his head inside the barrel I used to have clean up my face, moving away as the elegant man was staying near me.

"Are you alright, Bell ?" He asked, worried, putting his hand on the only shoulder that wasn't wounded of me.

"Yeah....uhm...I'm alright." I replied with an smile despite been curious about everything around me, including this man, causing me to have an questioning face on me.

"Did you forget your old Dutch Van Der Linde ?" He demanded and I shook my head, now remembering who was the elegant man....I was really feeling not still awakened to not have remembered him. "It's okay to forget, you've faced an lot."

"An lot ?" I repeated before realizing he was mentioning the gunshot wounds that I have on my chest, making me understanding that I 'faced an lot' but not how I got this.

"I can tell you more about what happened in private, come with me." He suggested, starting to walk into an direction and gesturing to follow him at me.

If I wanted to know, I needed to follow Dutch so I complied, not forgetting to take my light brown hat back near Hosea & Williamson where the latter were still having his head inside the barrel, making this situation an funny one for me like if this Hosea was acting like an father, grounding his kids. It was making me smile to see before I moved to join Dutch but there were something intriguing once I was getting away.

It was looking like everyone were having their eyes on me on the way to join Dutch, like if they were seeing an ghost in here and of course, I found that little kid again, his supposed mother & father with him as I was passing by, covering my face an bit of shame before I could join Dutch near an cliffside he was awaiting for me, almost at hidden sight of the rest of the camp...it was looking an beautiful spot to be honest.

"Where are we ?" I asked the first question to him once I was near him, my eyes looking at the landscape.

"Welcome to Horseshoe Overlook, Bell !" Dutch responded, spreading his arms like if he wanted to greet freedom in them, smiling at see him like that. "I know you must have an lot of questions about what happened and I'm willing to answer all." He added, putting his hands on his wait before pointing at me an small rock. "Sit, you will be better." He stated, knowing well of my state and I complied to his orders. "Before you start, what is the last thing you remember ?" He demanded from me once I was sit.

"Uhm..." I chuckled, starting to think inside my head about the last thing I could remember. "Well...that heist in Blackwater, I believe." I answered as it was the only thing I was thinking about....the only thing. "I remember an slaughter but then....it's an blackout."

"It's good, Bell." Dutch nodded before he got sit on an small rock near by mine. "I never thought that you will have to face all of this but here we are." He told me, joining his hands together as I was wondering what he was talking, he wasn't mentioning my wounds here. "It's been almost more than one week ago that we left Blackwater." He revealed to me, making me eyes go wide.

"More than an week ?" I muttered, looking at my hands trembling.

"We thought to have lost you to the O'Driscolls after the job when they captured you during the heist." He explained, getting my attention on him as he was giving my answers to me. "We got luck because you were hold in the same region up north in the mountains as we were fleeing the authorities." He added, his head pointing at the mountains that we could see from far away. "We saved you but those O'Driscolls put three bullets in you as we got you back."

"So, it was because I was out for more than an week, Dutch ?" He nodded to my question sadly....sleeping for an long period of time isn't the best thing to hear...."Shit...fuck." I cursed, thinking about it.

"It's okay to be like that, Bell." He admitted, understanding my pain of learning about it.

"And...the others, how did they feel about it ?" I asked, still wondering why everyone was looking at me like if I was an ghost. "It seems that I don't know them at all."

"That's normal." He affirmed in an normal & recomforting voice. "In here, you only know me, Hosea and Arthur." He continued, turning his head around behind him as I do the same, seeing the camp going alive while an few were still looking at us. "You were never into staying with the gang, always been discreet and wandering alone but sometimes, helping us in the shadows." He claimed, giving me the reason of why I wasn't able to remember those faces....I simply don't know them. "I think you will be used to ask everyone about their names and it's normal." He repeated the same words as before, adding the fact that I will have to know everyone here now.

"I guess that in my state, I can't really leave the place...." I guessed and he nodded to me, raising his shoulders.

"With the Pinkertons at our back, I can't let you wandering alone, you must stay here because it's the only way for you." He proclaimed and he was right, I couldn't left like that because where I would go exactly....where ?...."It isn't your type but you will have to get along with it."

"Seems that an little change isn't going to hurt me." I scoffed with an smile, reciprocated on his face as I was trying to see the positivity of the situation, I wasn't longer alone.

"Of course but you need to know that I can't let you leave the camp alone and for the moment, you have to take some rest." He suggested, maybe thinking that I could pass out in the middle of nowhere if I had the idea to leave the camp for something. "Talk with the others and soon, you will be back on the work with us." He added with an smile before he got up from the rock he was sit on. "Keep your faith up, I have an plan."

"Like you always do, Dutch." I grinned at him before slowly getting up too, not wanting to hurt myself.

"And Bell, don't forget something....." He started as he stopped himself to look at me an few seconds after he start to walk away off me, to maybe remind me of something instead of keeping the faith up like he always say.....

"We have an job to do !"

[ciathyzareposts]

Game 367: Taskmaker (1989)

This is a pretty morbid way to organize your “to do” items.

         TaskMaker

United States

Storm Impact (developer); XOR (publisher)

Released 1989 for the Macintosh Remade and re-released as shareware in 1993

Date Started: 15 May 2020

          TaskMaker is a slick little game, probably the best I’ve played so far on the Macintosh. It uses the platform’s strengths in graphic detail and sound but offers a fuller RPG experience than most Mac games of the era. While it has that inescapable “cutesy” look of most Mac games, it’s relatively long and hard, and it has enough good, new ideas to break out of the “Ultima clone” status that you might otherwise assign it at first glance.

           It’s typical of a Mac game to offer menu options for movement. At least this isn’t the only way to move.

        We owe reader LanHawk yet another appreciation pin for tracking this down, in this case writing to the original developer for the files. Because almost everything written about the game is about the 1993 version, being able to cover the original is a nice coup. I’ll have more on the development and the two versions on a subsequent entry; I’ll probably take a run through the 1993 version while I’m covering the game rather than saving it for 1993.

      The backstory is relatively short: The land was once at peace, under the direction of a wise king. When the king died, the “governing body split into three confrontational factions.” The main character is an adventurer who remembers the way things used to be. He decides to restore order by becoming Master of the Land, but lacking experience and guidance, he seeks out the TaskMaker, an advisor of the former king.

            The TaskMaker introduces himself.

       Character creation is a process of selecting a name, then selecting five personal attributes from a list of 20. Your selections calibrate your maximum totals for seven attributes: food, health, spirit, strength, agility, intellect, and stamina. Current totals for these attributes are represented with a bar, and they deplete as you walk around the kingdom and fight. You find various potions and objects to restore lost attributes. Most important are those that restore health, because it depletes fastest in combat, and food, because everything else can be restored with rest.

           Creating a character. I imagined this one something of a bard.

         The game world is a relatively small 100 x 100, dotted with castles, dungeons, towns, and caves. The TaskMaker lives in a castle to the center-east of the land, and the basic setup is that you go to him, he gives you a quest, you go out into the world to find and complete the quest, and you return to the TaskMaker for a reward and the next quest. Quests take place in towns or dungeons. The game doesn’t make a lot of distinction between dangerous areas and safe ones, as dangerous monsters can appear in towns or castles, including the TaskMaker’s, and NPCs can appear in dungeons. 

            The game opening has you sailing to the TaskMaker’s shores. Too bad you don’t get to keep the boat.

         The equipment system is pretty advanced, offering slots for helmets, armor, cloaks, amulets, belts, gauntlets, bracers, boots, rings on both hands, and an item in each hand–either a weapon and shield, a two-handed weapon, or dual-wielding two weapons (I found the latter to be much better). No matter how much money you make, the shops (which only show you items you can afford) always seem to have a better item available. 

            Buying items in the shop.

Choosing between two helms.

           Monsters are a mix of traditional (goblins, orcs, kobolds) and somewhat original, although most of the original ones are also kind of silly, like happy faces and evil computers. I haven’t met any so far with much in the way of special attacks or defenses. None of them seem capable of magic or attacks at range, for instance. They’re simply differentiated by how many hit points they can whack away in a single combat round.

            The “Evil Mac” is a goofy enemy.

            Combat is of the early Ultima type, where you hit (F)ight and hit the creature in front of you, although it has a little more complexity with spells and usable items. Combats are quite tough, even well into the game. For the first few hours, I had to repeatedly use what we might call “exit-scumming,” by which I would lead an enemy to the exit of an area, fight as long as possible, retreat to the outer area, rest, and re-enter to continue fighting. This is made possible partly by your one advantage: you can carry a huge amount of equipment–more than 60 items. That’s enough food, potions, or whatever to outlast any enemy. But I occasionally found myself in impossible situations where enemies would appear both outside and inside at the same time.

            Battling some goblins on a bridge.

        This is where we get into another of the oddities of the game: when you die, you don’t die permanently; you go to Hell. You can escape Hell by fighting your way through demons and solving a maze (if you die in Hell, you just reappear in Hell), but you then have to go find your non-equipped equipment back on the surface. You also lose your gold in the process.

              Wandering through Hell’s maze.

         This system unfortunately introduces a weird way to cheat. The game tracks the world state independently from the character state. This theoretically allows you to have multiple characters active at once, although I don’t know how this works with the TaskMaker. Thus, if you die and reload instead of escaping from Hell, you’ll still find a pile of equipment where your character last “died.” You could use this to infinitely replicate useful objects like potions or expensive objects that you can sell at the store. I didn’t deliberately cheat this way, but it’s annoying and hard to get out of Hell, and there were times that I reloaded and then picked up some of my old, duplicated items if I happened to come across them. To avoid temptation, I’ve been trying to reload before I die in times when death seems inevitable.

The separation of character from world means that you can also take advantage of commands to reset a particular map or the entire game world, keeping your character as-is. It’s a good option if you want to clear the same dungeon twice, finding double the treasure and experience. 

           Little piles of stuff mark the location of previous deaths.

          The controls are quite good, offering keyboard backups to all of the menu commands. Spells are cast with SHIFT and the first letter of the spell. There’s an “Invoke” spell that lets you type in your own spells that you might find during the game, but it apparently also a way for the developer to introduce cheat codes and interface changes. I’ve been slow to explore spells; the one I’ve used the most is the “Strike” spell which casts a bolt at enemies. I tend to use it on fleeing enemies so I don’t have to chase them.

Sound is also quite well-done. Much of it uses spoken voice recordings. (In fact, one voice they used, a deep bass, sounds eerily like my own.) When you first start the game, the voice says, “TaskMaker.” A different one says, “What is it?” when you use the (I)dentify commands. There are screams for deaths on both sides and solid attack and spellcasting effects.

The TaskMaker’s first task was to retrieve a package he left in Skysail Village. It was in an area of the village amidst a horde of monsters and required me to figure out a switch puzzle. The game is fond of puzzles involving doorways blocked by electric forcefields for which you have to find a switch to deactivate. When I returned the package, he rewarded me with five “Instant Vacation” scrolls, invaluable items that replenish all of your meters.

     His second task was to retrieve a chessboard in his own castle. It was in an area north of the bar. Getting it involved fighting a few monsters, but it was otherwise pretty easy. He gave me a double-bladed sword.

         My reward for the second quest.

       For Task 3, he wanted me to travel to some silver mines, where he owns a share, and kill some conspirators who had taken over the mines, bringing him back a golden chalice as proof. This was a tough mission; the mines were full of numerous tough monsters, but also some nice treasure rewards. By the time it was done, I had mostly magic gear and a magic sword in each hand. The TaskMaker’s reward was a suit of platemail, a huge armor upgrade from the leather I was wearing before.

          Battling a “war wizard” in the silver mine.

         I’m still working on Task 4, which is to find an unknown magic item in the “sands of Porta.” He indicated he doesn’t know where the item is buried, so I might be “in for a lot of digging.”

           The TaskMaker gives the fourth mission.

        As you quest, you amass experience and gain levels (I’m on Level 7 now) and your attributes increase. I guess they must increase proportionally to the skills you actually use because my spirit and intellect (which governs magic) have barely gone up but my strength, agility, and stamina are almost at maximum. Health and maximum food didn’t budge for a while but increased a bit during the last few hours.

      Other features of the game: 

       The game tracks your karma based on how many good, neutral, and evil creatures you’ve slain and other acts like stealing from shops and houses in town.

            Checking out my personal statistics. I’m “basically good.”

         There’s also a score. It increases every time you solve a quest or kill a creature and slowly decreases as you move around in between those moments. High scores are tracked on a scoreboard.

There’s an “identify” command that will tell you what’s in front of you. An “action” command will use it if it’s usable.

A “get info” command tells you a bit about the history of whatever area you’re in.

         The TaskMaker’s castle.

          The game has its own “runic alphabet” used for shop and city signs. It’s not translated in the game manual, so I suppose you have to figure it out by noting the runes in places where you can guess what they’re saying. I haven’t been bothering with them, but I wonder if I’m missing hints and clues because of it.

         As I’m in Skysail, I’m guessing those runes say “SKYSAIL.”

           NPCs aren’t terribly valuable in this game unless you bribe them by giving them things. Even then, they rarely tell you anything you need to know.

              The game pokes fun at Lord British. I didn’t realize his adoption of a more executive role was well known in 1989.

          If you drink alcohol, you start to go the wrong direction when moving. I think Ultima introduced this, but I don’t remember what edition. IV, probably.

There’s a fun system where you can find valuable objects like gold bars and necklaces and “cash them in” at ATMs. It feels like ATMs were pretty new in 1989. I think my Maine hometown may have only gotten one that year. 

             Finding an ATM in a dungeon. This dungeon happens to be full of treasure, so it was a relief to find it.

          There’s a set of miscellaneous game options I’ve never seen in any other place. I feel like every game could benefit from these. I don’t know what “wandering monsters” does, though. Un-checking it doesn’t seem to stop them from appearing.

            Setting various game preferences.

          A shop in the castle offers an invisibility cloak. If you put it on, the shop will no longer transact with you because you’re invisible.

          Come on! You’re the one who sold it to me!

            I rather enjoy this basic approach: offer an open game world with a variety of small missions. You don’t have to follow the TaskMaker’s quests exclusively; nothing stops you from simply exploring the towns and dungeons in a random order, or even from solving some of the quests before the TaskMaker even gives them to you. We’ve seen this approach before, going all the way back to Akalabeth, but this is perhaps the first game to use it with such a variety of lengths, difficulties, and objectives.

         But while I’m having fun, it’s tempered by an inability to ever feel like I’m getting more powerful no matter how much my statistics and inventory increase. Every time I think I’m doing well, some new enemy suddenly pops up in a familiar location and kicks my butt. Frankly, if it hadn’t been for the extra Instant Vacations I’ve been able to loot from locations where I’ve died, I’m not sure I would have been able to make it this far. I think eventually a cycle of starvation and poverty would have put me in a permanent downward spiral. I’ve watched videos of the remake, and it looks like the developers took the edge off the difficulty level between the two, although the remake still seems challenging.

     The number of entries will be determined by the number of tasks, I guess. Ten would be just about perfect. I suspect the TaskMaker is going to turn out to be evil based on the things he’s having me do and how he reacts if I happen to pop by with a task unfinished.

      Time so far: 6 hours.

                source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/game-367-taskmaker-1989/

[ges-sa]

New Post has been published on https://ges-sa.com/adata-xpg-sx8200-ssd-review/

Adata XPG SX8200 SSD Review

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I had the great opportunity to review the Adata XPG SX8200 NVMe SSD drive, it is not the first NVMe drive that Adata has brought out and it will not be the last but it is the first one to really compete with other leading brands.

The SX8200 uses 64L 3D TLC NAND Flash which makes performance a lot better than it’s predecessors like the SX8000 which used 32L 3D MLC. This new use of better technology now makes the Adata XPG NVMe drives a lot more competitive against other makes, and with great price offerings.

Below are some specs of the different drive sizes you get in the SX8200 range:

Specs XPG SX8200 Capacities 240–960GB Controller Silicon Motion SM2262 NAND Flash Micron 64L 3D TLC Form-Factor double-sided M.2-2280, PCIe 3.0 x4 Protocol NVMe 1.3 Sequential Read 3150–3200 MB/s Sequential Write 1100–1700 MB/s Random Read 200k–310k IOPS Random Write 240k–280k IOPS Warranty 5 years Write Endurance 0.37 DWPD Announced March 2018

  Now SSDs and NVMe drives are not new and it has become a great option for everyone to own and not only enterprise or businesses. Gamer’s first adopted to use SSDs in their gaming mahcines and it has now spread to the general public. With NVMe drives becoming more affordable it not only gives the consumer a better performance offering but the size factor also opens the door for other opportunities like adding more space to smaller devices, adding more quantity drives to units and so forth.

I swapped out my factory installed NVMe SSD drive with the XPG SX8200 and could see a great performance increase from the get go, the transfer speed made big differences to my daily work. In a laptop heat is key, and I was very pleased to not see any heat increase on my laptop swapping out the drives. My old drive was 250GB in size, so it was also great to increase capacity as I tested the 480GB version of the SX8200.

Some things I think that brands can look at to increase added value in their NVMe offerings is a USB external connector cable to transfer data or some cloning software to assist with replacing existing drives. External casings for these drives are still quite expensive starting form about R400 locally. I managed to import one for just over R200 with Gearbest which worked perfectly to transfer my data but still had to do a reload instead of a clone. Some times it is better to do a fresh install and transfer data instead of a cloning but some people who are not very technical could struggle and get very frustrated doing a fresh install.

I’m very pleased with the performance of the Adata XPG SX8200 NVMe SSD drive and very happy that Adata has brought out a great competitor in the range. This is a cool option to look at for your next upgrade and something that will make a big difference in your performance.[/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”32075,32076,32077,32078,32079″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

Pricing

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Estimated RRP: R1302 (Starting at this price) Buy Online: Raru, Loot.co.za or ComX Release Date: 2018[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_column_text]

Likes

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Looks great

Competitive to other leading brands

Good Price

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Dislikes

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Need some extras in box

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[environmental-ideas]

14 reasons why the page H&M has on sustainability is bullcrap

Page under inspection: H&M - Our approach

1) There is a big difference between doing and wanting to do something, and currently despite all of their claims on sustainability - they’re pretty much doing the opposite of what they claim to be doing.

2) The very core of H&M’s business idea is to produce massive amounts of low-quality buy-cheap-wear-once-&-throw-away fast-fashion exploiting workers in low-cost countries to add profit. Producing just 1 pound of textiles produces 7 pounds of CO2-emissions and thus the fashion industry is the 3rd most polluting industry in the world whereas Hennes&Mauritz is the second largest brand in the industry. The negative environmental effects are massive, though you won’t find any information about it on their website.

In short: the very business idea of H&M is very unsustainable, which is the main reason why I find all the talk H&M has of sustainability so amusing.

3) As for the affordability of their clothing for as many people as possible, it clearly doesn’t include the people that make their clothes in e.g. Bangladesh, Cambodia and Myanmar. A Cambodian worker (I won’t mention the name) told that it would take a whole years wage to buy just one coat from a H&M store and a month’s to buy a T-shirt. So the people who work their lives making these clothes endangering their health and all too often their lives, could actually never even dream of wearing them themselves.

4) As for the corporation “respecting planetary boundaries”, here is a direct quote from Huffington Post:

“On what planet can you continue to produce 600 million garments per year and not exceed ecological boundaries?”

Yes, the amount of natural resources the company wastes is far from respectful or sustainable. With the amount of clothing they produce per year, even if every garment was made 100% from recycled organic cotton, it would still be madness to claim that the operating of the supply chain is anything but destructive to the environment. The true amount of organic cotton used in H&M products however is only 13,7% and as little as 1% is made using recycled fabric.

5) All of the secrecy in the supply chain, factory walls that remind you of a prison, the threats & the pressure used to keep the workers in silence and the prepping (= when the customers visit, the child employees are told to lie of their age or not come work that day, and all of the employees have to say that they are very happy) makes you wonder what are they hiding. Precisely because of their failure to take responsibility and admit their actions, instead threatening people to secrecy and creating expensive add campaigns to cover it, we can’t know the full extent of the human rights violations H&M commits.

However, what we do know - despite H&M denying all of them and either claiming that A) they did not know, the suppliers are independent B) they’re in the process of changing the questionable policy C) it doesn’t happen or D) no comment - is that the policies they practice are not the one’s blasted on their website and add campaigns. First - they claim to not use child labour anymore, but only as recently as February 2017 the company was found to have children as young as 14 working for them in Myanmar for only half of the minimum wage (the Guardian). Again, H&M also has a page called “Clear stand against child labour”, but yet again - the facts simply don’t check out.

The second thing Hennes&Mauritz refuses to own up to is the conditions of their workers in Southeast-Asia. The pay varies from being 25% to 50% of the already low legal minimum wage that has to cover everything: rent, clothes, food, water and electricity (which few have), medication and other health expenses and even providing all of these for your children. Imagine having to do all that with just $3 a day. People who work for fast-fashion-chains in Cambodia protest for getting enough wage to live on - called the living wage - which is 116€ or 141£ or $177 a month, whereas the profit H&M made last year was 24,699 billion dollars.

Joining a trade union, speaking to reporters or suppliers, or joining protests for better treatment is likely to lead to the termination of the often short-term work-contract contrary to the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the International Labour Organization’s rights. Most of the sweatshop-workers are women (91% in Cambodia) and getting pregnant will also mean losing your job, as if living wasn’t already hard enough.

The third and the most worrying part of these human rights violations, is that people die making these garments for companies like H&M. The workers are transported to the factories on the backs of trucks like cattle and already a 1000 lives are lost in a year due to the accidents that happen in transporting the people to their workplace. The sweatshop-workers work from 8 to 15 hours a day with no compensation for overtime, 6 or seven days a week, with no choice to quit because they have to have enough money to eat on. Although the labour is monotonous, it’s physically and mentally exhausting under the pressure with no time to reload or rest and is often combined with hunger and not enough sleep. Some factories are reported to not allow bathroom breaks.

Just breathing in a sweatshop can not only make you gravely ill but become lethal because of the glass-fibers in the air making their way in to the lungs of the workers with little or no concern for the safety of the people. Other hazardous chemicals can and will also lead to fires spreading out. And with the doors locked - there is no way for the workers, that are locked in, to get out. Another threat for the safety of the employees is that some of the buildings with multiple floors are not suitable to be used as factories, which leads to the factories collapsing leaving hundred or even thousands injured or dead.

H&M was named work place of the year, but many of the awards the company has received on sustainability and making ethical decisions are clearly not informed what the company actually does.

The irony in H&M’s statement that  they want to “take responsibility for how our company affects the world around us” is that they in fact so persistently refuse to do just that. They take the smallest thing they do that isn’t completely horrible for people or the natural world, emphasize it everywhere as if it’s all that they do, while shrouding their true actions behind secrecy based on threatening and cruelly exploiting people. H&M launches expensive campaigns about “conscious consuming” using celebrities, ambiguous terms that make it seem as if the company is doing good things for the world, imagery with beautiful landscapes and water, and fill their website and policies with lies about everything that they do. The marketing tactic is known as greenwashing.

This is why I find the title of their page on sustainability so macabre. H&M, you can’t simultaneously plaid ignorance on the child labour, serious human rights violations and pollution etc. which is discovered each year, news after news, while glorifying yourself for the “pride you have to be conscious in all of your actions”. It’s kind of a paradox, and besides it worries me how you take pride in doing everything, that we know you’re doing, consciously.

6) How is clean water a key challenge for H&M? It doesn’t want to leave any unpolluted in the manufacturing process? But there are no worries in H&M’s concern for battling clean water, the policies they’re practicing now are surely contaminating enough with chemicals.

7) Textile waste, global warming, working overtime and the wages of the workers in their supplier factories are of course all important, but very little is being effectively done about these “key challenges” for H&M. Hennes & Mauritz is capable of releasing 52 collections a year, one per week, and to produce 600 million clothes annually, but yet, seems to be incapable of doing something as simple as improving the working conditions for the people who make those garments.

A key challenge in the very core of the industry and that really deserves to be acknowledged are the thousands of casualties lost to the fashion industry each year. The safety of H&M’s workers should be a priority bigger than money to H&M, yet their actions prove otherwise as blood continues to flow into the production of fast-fashion. I see no mention of any of this coming from H&M.

8) I think it has already been established that those challenges are not something “we at the H&M Group work to improve everyday” but the inhumane practices continue to be upheld by the company the same as before - but I believe pressure, disapproval and questions coming from consumers can change that.

The company’s lethargy to actually do something about the problematic aspects of it’s operating is worrisome, especially when compared to it’s eagerness to portray an ideal image of itself as a philanthropist for people in poor countries and the savior of the environment. The unwillingness to make those necessary and inevitable changes is caused by their goal to make as much as profit as they can while pressuring their suppliers to cut the manufacturing costs as much as possible. Damage to the brand’s image might become an obstacle in that plan, so such campaigns as “conscious exclusive” and “no-waste” are launched to divert attention from the humane and environmental crimes behind the company.

These campaigns are often launched at the same time as campaigns for actual conscious consuming, such as the Fashion Revolution and Recycling Week, or when another piece of news that might damage the company’s image is published.

9) Another false statement made by H&M’s sustainability page is that “garment production is often the first step on the way out of poverty in many of these countries”. Going back to reason 5, the wage that the employees get doesn’t even cover their living expenses and they’re stuck in a cycle of exhaustion from endless work but because of poverty and industry policies they can’t stop or demand for better treatment, because it would cost them their jobs.

What companies like H&M are doing in low-cost countries isn’t known as helping, it’s called exploitation. H&M is not helping the countries to step out of poverty, but up-keeping the cycle of poverty abusing human rights and the suffering of the people who work at sweatshops continues. Some would comment “well at least they have a job”, and if you are one of them, I suggest that you take a look at this documentary.

10) “While sustainability is an integrated part of our busi-”… Sigh, please re-read reason two, if necessary, to avoid repetition.

11) H&M also claims to“ – work directly [or, not to take things out of context, to have teams that work directly] with our suppliers to make the supply chain more sustainable” which contradicts all the effort H&M takes to highlight that they don’t know about anything that happens in the sweatshops and that their suppliers are independent. Paying notice to the grammar, it still doesn’t say that the company aims to make the supply chain sustainable, only more sustainable, which it isn’t in the first place. Another usual sign of corporate greenwashing is that the sentence has no real meaning. What concrete does “more sustainable” tell you?

12)  “ Together with our customers, business partners, peers, innovators, scientists and other interest groups, we have the opportunity to bring about serious change”

Strangely this part is something that I agree with the H&M Group… so why don’t you use that opportunity? The grammar again is not clearly saying what the company is actually doing, simply misleading the consumer to create a positive, green, image of the company with no actual meaning. But there could be meaning, there are millions of consumers that are waking up to wonder the question “who made my clothes” and become more universally aware of the world around us, and in time also starting to voice those opinions. To speak up for people who are denied their voice over their own lives - we have the opportunity to speak for them and it’s important that we make it clear we are willing to take up that opportunity to bring about real change.

Sometimes I wonder if it would actually cost H&M less to actually make things better for the people who work for them in Southeast-Asia instead of creating one glossy add campaign and public facade after another to hide everything that is wrong about the things they do.

13)  The page on H&M’s sustainability also mentions the opportunity for “– improving the live­lihood of a cotton farmer –”, but as I don’t want to write much more about the exploitation of people (although this time in Near-East), we’ll only have a few words about Uzbekistan. The initial scandal rose in 2013 about using forced child labour in collaboration with the Uzbekistan government to harvest the cotton fields. Children as young as 8 years were taken to the fields to work for weeks. International monitors were denied from observing the harvest and the schoolchildren were beaten by public authorities if they failed to meet their quota. The only two ways for the children’s parents to stop their children being taken to the fields was to either pay $110 or withdraw the child’s high school-application.

It seems that the forced child labour has now been replaced with forced adult labour, as over a million people employed by the public sector (teachers, nurses, doctors etc.) are forced to the fields for harvest each autumn to work for weeks in hazardous conditions. People harvesting cotton are exposed to chemicals that threaten their health, have to walk for long distances and have no water on the fields. Extreme heat and accidents have even lead to deaths.

If you want to know more about the human rights problems with cotton farming in Uzbekistan, I suggest that you read these articles from the Guardian and a human rights organization known as Anti-Slavery.

14) Going back to H&M saying that it has the opportunity to make a change in “– impacts from washing and drying our clothes –”, which again comes out as typical greenwashing as it provides no concrete methods for doing so, it’s only to gloss the image we have of H&M in our heads. But it’s up to us if we accept the image the companies try to portray of themselves, or do we dare to search deeper and question the things most places try to make us believe for corporate gain. And when we know, become aware of everything that is wrong with their actions, do we plaid ignorance like H&M or unlike them - do we own up to our mistakes and thus enabling that those mistakes are one step further from continuing to become the future.

Conclusion of the reliability of the page: If it was possible to give pages negative grades, this would drop far below zero in reliability. The fact that I just wrote almost a 2500-word-article about the contradictions in a text of only 219 words without even being considerably through-out, tells you already how trust-worthy the page H&M has on sustainability is. And unfortunately, how reliable all the fuss and campaigns Hennes&Mauritz makes about being all in for sustainable development, really is.

Most of it is lies. I can’t begin to rationalize it otherwise.

I agree with what Karl-Johan Perssons says on companies that take responsibility for people and the environment. But it just makes me wonder… what does that tell of your company, Mr. Persson?