#it's literally a 3d project I could have presented it on teams

[miaowmelodie]

I HATE autobuses.

My bus didn't come so I lost my train.

I had waited 20 minutes under the midday sun for it and got a start of a heatstroke.

After I realized it wouldn't come I had to walk 40 minutes under the sun, which where I live gets even hotter in the afternoon, losing the first train.

I had to wait an hour for the next train, luckily the train station has shade, unluckily I already charged up on heat so I couldn't even stand.

I didn't sleep last night because I was working on the project for my exam of today, this added with the sunstroke made it so that when the second train came I didn't go inside because, even tho it was at the right time on the right track, it "looked weird".

I now have to wait ANOTHER hour for the next train.

[hexihertzgameart]

Also as a few brief notes

1. Nintendo, while owning a substantial share in the series and being the series’ publisher, Pokemon is owned by the Pokemon company and gamefreak. This is partly why the series has a wildly different level of quality right now compared to most other Nintendo properties, and it’s also why Pokemon Uranium was DMCAd (as Nintendo with few exceptions usually only sues if they have a very similar project in the development pipeline or if it’s making any sort of money). As such, when people are angry about Nintendo here, they’re mixing them up with Gamefreak.

2. Pocket Pair specialises in derivative works based on popular games, using them as a base for their own creations. This is literally something they have came forward with. While this is present and healthy in nearly any creation process, the amount Pocket Pair take from their sources can be seen as pretty dubious.

3. AI: Art Imposter is a game which uses generative art as a game mechanic. Of what I can tell, it is mainly used to speed up the gameplay loop, which takes the form of a social deduction game in which all players are given a theme to create an AI painting for, with the “imposter” not informed of this theme. Personally I think this is a more healthy way to use Generative Algorithms in games, but that’s not to say they’re golden.

4. While to my knowledge there is no evidence of Pocket Pair using AI within any of their games besides Art Imposter, they have shown some interest in the technology on that front, with “CEO of Palworld” (???) Takuro Mizobe musing in a tweet chain that the technology could replace humans in the way digital computers replaced human computers to the point where we just call the digital ones computers. This is not evidence of them Using AI art in there games, though given their commitment to trend chasing it isn’t a reasonable assumption that they would use generated assets to speed up the process.

5. Some of Palworld’s most fevourish apologists seem to come from spite towards Gamefreak, so I’ll explain that briefly. Gamefreak never expanded their dev team to account for modern console development, meaning the team needed to create a 3DS game is now working on Triple A major console releases. As such the people making the games are outstretched and overworked, and it has become increasingly obvious within the games, with mainline entries in the second most popular franchise ever being behind in quality compared to even nintendo’s B grade material. This has lead to a feeling of resentment within the Pokemon fandom online which often comes out in the form of entitlement. Because of this, Palworld is only important here because it shows that a relatively unknown team can make something better than their mainline games. (I don’t like Pokemon though so I could be wrong)

has everyone gotten their knee-jerk reactions to palworld out. can i throw my two cents in

[blazehedgehog]

if you could get an interview with anyone in the gaming industry (or beyond), who would you pick and what might you ask?

This is tough for me to answer because historically when I am presented with interview opportunities I freeze up like a kid sitting on Santa's lap.

I mean, some would consider it one of the major mistakes in my life that I panicked and turned down a phone interview with Mike Wallis.

There are also a lot of stipulations that would need to be ironed out for the interview, too. Is this going to just be like, a standard press interview? Are there going to be "handlers" present? Or do I get to ask them literally anything and get a truthful response?

Because, like, I'd love to talk to Shigeru Miyamoto about the reams and reams of stuff we've never been able to see. All the canceled projects. The Gigaleak shined some light on a few of those, with games like Black Out. But there's gotta be more, right?

There's lots of really dumb fandom-y stuff I'd love to ask, like whether or not Super Mario Sunshine and Luigi's Mansion were meant to be paired together in any way. Or what his ideal Star Fox game looks like, since all of them are so different at this point.

And I mean, obviously, I'd love to sit down with literally anyone from Sonic Team, and just talk about about Sonic in retrospect. Preferably people who don't work for Sega anymore. Just kind of walk through the game history. Push them on the negative critical reception the 3D games started to receive. See how much of it was Sega mandates on budget or time that choked them to death, or if the team themselves had a habit of biting off more than they could chew (or both).

Really figure out what went wrong on games like Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes, and obviously Sonic 06. Everyone has theories we've pieced together from scraps, but a chance to get it from the source, from someone that was there in the trenches at the time, without the compromise of fearing corporate reprimand, would be invaluable.

Like, just with Sonic Adventure 2 alone, I'd have so many questions. So many rumors I'd heard back then that I'd want clarified. I know Takashi Iizuka commented on some of it a few years ago, but that felt more like he didn't remember or was still toeing the line of secrecy for Sega.

I'd at least want a second perspective to either corroborate or deny his responses. Things like the branching story system, how far back six playable characters can be dated, whether or not Adventure Fields were ever considered, and how Sonic Adventure 2 Battle impacted the last few months of development on the Dreamcast version.

Similarly, I'd love to get the harsh dirt on what Yuji Naka thinks of NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams. Given he apparently can get pretty opinionated, I imagine an uncompromised discussion of that game could get pretty pointed.

[tryingtimi]

Happy STS!

Amazon or Netflix want to adapt Metalsea. Assuming you have complete creative control what would your requirements be in order to make it a product that is up to your ideal standards?

Aw, happy late STS, Nectar! ❤��� Thank you for your question!

I've never thought about this before, but it's so interesting I was sitting on it for a bit.

It definitely would be an animated series. I am someone who graduated from animation and later 3D modelling which naturally made me lean more into these stuff, so I can only picture Metalsea as animation rather than live action. Onidia is full of things that are not in our real world, which could be better executed and visualized in that kind of media. (The draar for example have literally a humanoid, half-dragon half-something other predator look) Especially because I would never settle with less than what's in the book, visual-wise. An Arcane kind of production would be amazing, but I'm a huge fan of a Castlevania and ATLA kind of 2D work too (or any traditional animation), so as long as it looks nice and the movements of the character’s flow I'm happy with it.

I wouldn’t want it to have a hundred seasons, so probably 2 or 3. More can be whacky, also take away the satisfaction from the ending if it’s too lenghty. I would only do more if the production and writing team is good and can handle it well. But we also should need more episodes then so all the arc can have enough time, so I think I would go with 2 or 3 seasons and 15-20 episodes in each maybe. I also wouldn’t want to have only one season planned beforehand, because that’s the thing a lot of shows fail at. At least one more season should be planned from the beginning because it’s gonna be rushed and a mess if we want to continue but have no actual clue how to.

I would debate whether it should be a straight adaptation of the book or not. There are certain changes that should be always done while adapting since visual media is different for a reason. But, I also consider that maybe another story in the same world would be better, that rather completes the full picture of the book or plays in the rest of the world and shows the full range of it. Explores different places, characters, cultures. Different media sometimes requires a different story. The Metalsea cast would be mentioned, present and/or in it just it just wouldn’t be their story, since that has been already told in the book. (this is something I considered after listening a Brando Sando podcast, it’s a very interesting but considerable thing I think)

My world is divers and I wouldn’t let it be presented otherwise. I wouldn’t want to change the appearance of my characters, neither their gender. In an animated series. However, if it would be a live action for some reason, I would be okay with gender-swapping and having even more POC character in it. As long as the actors grasp the characters’ personality it wouldn’t matter if they wouldn’t look the same as I originally wrote them in the book. New media, new look. Totally fine.

Guillermo Del Toro. I love that man and his work from the bottom of my heart. So, I would definitely attempt to ask him to direct and curate the whole project. He can make the best fantastical, yet haunting stuff.

Accents. I want a bunch of accents to be presented. Also speaking various languages, maybe my imaginery ones too haha.

I would also stay open for new ideas. Always. I’m a huge team player and we can’t make a good movie or series alone. Hell, I even can’t make a good story without others. I need people who question my ideas, tell me if it sounds wrong or illogical, or them to add more to it if some ideas gave them a good push for a concept. So, I would be totally open for any changes and brainstorming as long as they can still convey the visions, messages and vibes we intend to put in it.

A working and cooperating team would be the base requriment of course. This was very interesting to think about tho, so thank you again!❤️

[eirikrjs]

In defense of Soejima's feet

So I do kind of empathize with the idea that it’s a lot fun to mock the feet of Soejima’s Personas, but honestly, I absolutely believe that a lot of Soejima’s design decisions are informed by the technological constraints of the project he is working on. P4 was created within a relatively short timeframe on an aging console, so it makes sense for him to come up with designs that reflect that: Evolved Personas that are basically palette swaps and modeling those feet would take significantly more polygons that simply using the infamous hooves. I won’t deny that a certain aesthetic preference of Soejima’s might also factor in, but I do would like to point out that Soejima’s Persona designs in P5, P5R (Cendrillon+Vanadis, the rest were most likely done by someone else on the art team going by the handwriting on the concept art) and P5S are almost all far more detailed than the Personas from P3 and P4 - I’m sure that it’s no coincendence that the games that regularly feature Personas with lots of flowing elements like capes or dresses with intricate textures are the one on PS3, PS4 and the Switch. A large portion of these designs even has actual feet (Kidd, Goemon, Carmen, Zorro, Robin Hood, etc. …)!

I mean the fact that the lead character artist probably takes the actual modeling into consideration is most likely something that is true for Kaneko and Doi as well. Kaneko’s demon art for example got significantly more angular once the demons were primarily rendered in 3D since that is easier to replicate with fewer polygons.

I’m sorry if i’m overreacting to a silly joke, but sometimes the stuff people are bashing Soejima for feels pretty unfair. This isn’t even going into the Soejima neck joke that is mostly a P3 era thing that can also be found in some of Kaneko’s art from the early 2000s as well. Soejima’s work is certainly not above criticism, but if you want to critique him, then take his newer art into consideration as well.

________________________________________________

I’ll be honest, the Soejima Stubs are a thing I barely paid any attention to until I made the comparison to Doi’s Satan’s own peg legs (far right):

It’s why the feet collage exists in the first place. I’d forgotten how terrible Satan’s are, and, honestly, they’re much worse than the personas because demons are literal and thus more suited to follow naturalistic base forms (so, feet). However, the actual motive wasn’t to make fun but to point out how persona design trends have bled over into demons, and how similar Satan and others like Doi’s Odin are to personas; personas tending be visual metaphors for their host characters devoid of the cultural context that lends significance to the best of demon design.

I have to disagree that P3/4 personas don’t have feet because of technical limitations. Even the chibi PS1 FF7 models had feet. A good example of technical limitations affecting a design is Atavaka (thanks @b-reis):

The PS2 model lacks the elephant head knee decor, various sashes, the spear tassel, and it’s hard to see but the rope carried by the downward pointing right first is also absent. But what did make it through is the distilled essence of Atavaka: his body. The basic anthropomorphic form is the most important element, followed by the symbolic armaments (minus the rope, hence being secondary); the rest is mere adornment.

But unlike Atavaka (who still has feet!), Soejima’s personas were originally designed for the PS2. The team had a lot of experience with PS2 limitations by then and surely, if Soejima wanted to, the personas could have been designed with feet. But that was neither the intent nor the priority. As the original quote from him says… wait, I didn’t actually translate the whole quote, which is really why I was joking about it. So here it is, roughly translated:

コノハナサクヤにかかととつま先がないからのは、常時空中に浮いているからです。宙に浮いているキャラクターは、完全な脚があるよりも、かかととつま先がないほどがビジュアル的に映えるとの理由からです。そしてもうひとつは、この造形が自分の好みだからでもあります。

Konohana Sakuya has no heels or toes because she’s always floating. Simply, floating characters, visually speaking, don’t require them. Another reason is that this modeling is to my liking!

It just seems to be Soejima’s stylistic preference. And sure, I do get that many personas do float (esp. in P4, the context of this quote) and the absence of feet does make them otherworldly. It fits. But apparently Soejima didn’t come to that conclusion until P4 since plenty of P3 personas still have feet (and float!), yes, even comically tiny, vestigial feet:

And yes, as some others have chimed in to say but to whom I have yet neglected to reply, P5 personas have feet! But many aren’t just floating, they are either on the ground or their feet are anchored to something, in the case of Kidd or Wukong.

Being fully aware of the context always helps, but here I don’t think you need to know the new designs before you can comment on his old, as the different games follow different design motifs and presentations:

Persona 3: Lots of feet, lots of stubs/skewers

Persona 4: Mostly stubs/skewers

Persona 5: Mostly feet

Despite all of this, I still think the P4 personas’ lack of feet is kinda funny. It feels like Soejima was grasping for a unifying theme for the personas but shot wide of the mark. Like, Chie’s Tomoe has big ol’ laced-up boots and still floats.

Really, the worst for me is seeing SMT demons like Satan replicating these ideas that usually don’t belong as part of the visual language that separates them from personas. Plus, from my perspective, making fun of Persona counts as “punching up.” It’s fun/cathartic and Persona/Soejima/Meguro/Hashino will come out of it completely unscathed! Total win-win.

[gamingnc]

TOP GAMES ON PS5 IN 2021

TOP PS5 GAMES IN 2020

Dear reader, I took a crazy vow on myself and a task that may be a bit difficult is to search for all the upcoming games for the PS5 platform which are widely dispersed to collect them here in one article for easy access after that, this article includes exclusives, confirmed third-party games For the platform, the online games, the titles that will get a free upgrade for the platform on the PS4, the Indie games and finally the titles that will fall under the Sony rule for the 13th of July, which requires any developer to develop his game on both PS4 and PS5 if it will be released after the 13th date. Therefore, you may find some games in our comprehensive guide for today. They are not officially announced for the next generation but will be released sooner or later.

Note: This article will be updated continuously with all new and any upcoming PS5 titles officially until the next generation release date. So, put that article in your bookmarks and come back to it later. This is the biggest guide you can find for PS5 games. I hope you like it and let's start.

Exclusives:

During the PS5 event that took place on June 11, we got an idea of ​​the upcoming console exclusives and 23 new games.

1- Horizon Forbidden West

In the warmly awaited second part of Alloy's journey, our heroine goes to West America in San Francisco in a Post Apocalyptic world in which machines hover everywhere to save humanity from a new danger. We have seen in the official presentation of a new game of machines, a wonderful environmental diversity that will put speed The PS5 SSD is under test and of course, various villains

Release date: 2021

2- Spiderman Miles Morales

We did not believe at first glance that Insomniac Games had been able to create a new Spiderman game in two years until we learned that it would be a Standalone game like Uncharted The Lost Legacy, this time game puts us in the shoes of Miles Morales, who discovered his supernatural abilities at the end of the events of the last part, and we saw him swinging with movements and forces New, such as being able to hide and use his electric hands, the events of this part will take place a year after the first in New York during the winter, and we expect to see a masterpiece that relies on the power of the PS5 largely in terms of ray tracing and lighting, details and innovatively using the SSD.

Release date: 2020 Holiday Season (could be a launch title for PS5)

3- Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart

A second game from Insomniac Games, where we return in a new adventure with Ratchet and Clank across dimensions where planets and dimensions come together for a mysterious reason and our heroes have to save the world. The unnatural, the lighting, and the use of Ray Tracing are remarkably amazing and finally, we knew that we would be playing the female character of Lombax.

Release date: unknown

4- Gran Turismo 7

Polyphony Digital Studio returns with one of the most amazing realistic car racing series through the seventh part of Gran Turismo, almost the game developed to show the power of ray-tracing technology and the most dazzling reflections on cars, the game promises us the return of the story phase with more modification and customization methods than before... The game will fully exploit all the features of the PS5 from ray tracing, 3D audio, SSD, and Dualsense to give you a different feeling in driving, but its developer aspires to deliver its frame rate to 240 frames per second and more than that too.

Release date: unknown

5- Demon's Souls Remake

One of the most highly requested remakes from players, Sony, and Bluepoint Games have already fulfilled their promise by showing them to Demon's Souls Remake, which was first released on PS3 and paved the way for the emergence of Souls games in the current form that we see. Generally, the game will contain an unknown Fractioned phase with its purpose and two methods. To play, either focus on the frames without graphic quality or vice versa and you are free to choose.

Release date: unknown

6- Destruction All-Stars

A game similar to Twisted Metal with some of the flavors of Rocket League, where different heroes compete with their cars to destroy others' cars inside arenas. Unfortunately, we did not know other details about it, but from what we saw, we think that you can jump out of your car and play with the same character in all that chaos

Release date: unknown

7- Returnal

This is Housemarque's new IP, of the action and Rogue-Like genre, that game takes you to an alien planet controlled by an astronaut, the problem is that the planet changes automatically with each time you die to always witness different events that are repeated with time and quickly change After your death, you are inside a repetitive cocoon, our heroine tries to break it and save herself from madness. Generally, the game is based on action, fighting with weapons using the 3D Audio features of the PS5 while using the Dualsense features!

Release date: unknown

8- Astro’s Playroom

Astro returns in an adventure of its own that will use all the features of the PS5, but you will feel the fluctuation of the atmosphere and the rain already through the sensors of Dualsense, the game will be available for free with the purchase of the PS5.

Release date: 2020 holiday season

9- Sackboy A Big Adventure

Sackboy returns on his own adventure alone this time when he'll have to navigate obstacles beautifully.

Release date: unknown

10- Quantum Error

A horror, excitement, and suspense game developed by Teamkill Media, in which you play a fireman as he tries to rescue his colleagues from a building that burned in mysterious and very terrifying circumstances that will put the horror games in a realistic framework for the first time in terms of the survival factor, the game will benefit from all the capabilities of PS5 even the Dualsense to sense danger With ray tracing to give additional realism, the game will work on a 4K display resolution at 60 frames per second according to the developer, the game will also release to PS4, more details you can find in bulk about this news during the developer team's interview with Playstation UK magazine

Release date: 2021

Read: Did Sony fail when it made the Japanese media review the PlayStation 5, or is there a secret battle you want to win ?!

Second and third party games (some of them are for PS5 and PC only, so these titles are not purely exclusive)

These titles are not purely exclusive for PS5 because they are developed by second or third party studios. Generally speaking, I have used Playstation UK magazine, which leaked 38 games for PS5 by third-party developers.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla

The next Assassin's Creed segment from Ubisoft Montreal, which will take us to the era of Vikings, has been confirmed for the next generation of platforms, including the Xbox Series X as well, which will be the game optimized on it than the PS5 to run at a resolution of 4K and 60 frames per second, in general, the game talks about our hero Eivor, who He wants to move his clan from the Vikings to England to start a new life, only for King Alfred the Great to stand in his face, and of course, Eivor will use all he has and this includes the Hidden Blade and being the Assassin to win that battle, in general, you can know literally everything about the game through the link that we collected for you in it All about the game or read our comprehensive guide to it below, and we await the announcement of its gameplay at the upcoming Ubisoft Forward show.

Release date: 2020 Holiday Season with leaks to release in October as a PS5 launch title

Watchdogs Legion

Watchdogs Legion has been confirmed for PS5, our game takes place in England or London to be exact, as Deadsec tries to eliminate the ruined hands that manipulate the country politically, the amazing thing about the game is that you can control literally any NPC and each of them has amazing hacking capabilities and thus gameplay Completely different from one personality to another.

Release date: unknown after several delays

Rainbow Six Quarantine

One of Ubisoft's games is sure to come to the next generation, but we do not know much information about it except that it will be a co-op game, with a deadly virus and this is all. In general, as I mentioned Ubisoft exhibition is coming, and we will definitely see it there. Of course, the article will be modified constantly as I mentioned.

Release date: unknown

Gods and Monsters

A game that will take you to the world of Greece to fight the well-known gods of Greece (God forbid) in deep antiquity. We do not know much about it except that it comes to the next generation as well.

Release date: unknown

FarCry 6

I know that Ubisoft has not officially announced the game, but this is what will happen at its next exhibition, and FarCry 6 will definitely come to the next generation platforms, especially as it may be released in 2021, and according to the latest leaks, the game will take you in a world outside of America finally and rumors talk about a tropical atmosphere such as Narcos. There is nothing for sure.

Release date: unknown

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War

I also know that all the leaks confirm that Activision is preparing for a live event inside the COD Warzone game to announce Black Ops Cold War, but this has not happened but, it is obvious that Activision's next title in a series like Call of Duty is coming for the next generation, whether the PS5 or Xbox Series X.

Release date: unknown

Project Athia

A new project from Square Enix and Luminous Productions announced during the PS5 event, and it seems that our heroine will be a female and will have special abilities, including distant jumping and speed with fighting dragons and strange-shaped monsters, generally, we will know more soon, this game will be exclusive for PS5 home platforms to be issued to the PC also at a later time.

Release date: unknown

Outriders

From the publication of Square Enix and the development of People Can Fly, Outriders are among the first games that we have known of their official arrival for the next generation, whether PS5 or Xbox Series X, in the Destiny-like Action RPG and Co-op, Outriders give us a great fighting mix between Gears of War and Bulletstorm.

There are sections for the characters, each with special abilities, whether fiery, defensive and so on. We watched the game on the ground at the end of May during the first live broadcast of Outriders Broadcast in which we saw the capabilities of The Trickster along with the fighting style, designing the planet Enoch world to which human groups go Outriders for his exploration of whether or not he is habitable after Earth in Single Player or Co-op story will be breathtaking.

Release date: 2020 holiday season

Resident Evil Village

Capcom announced the Resident Evil Part VIII bomb, the title we had been very expecting due to the leaks. Generally, the eighth part would have a completely different horror direction based on fear of the unknown, magic and sorcery that we had seen in Outlast before as well as the presence of Zombies with shields, wolves, vampires. And an evil character called Alan who founded a group called The Connections occupying the village in which the game takes place, our hero is Ethan, who returns again after his marriage to Mia to live in that infested village until Chris Redfield reaches them and kills Mia with petrified and cold blood..the game uses the features of PS5, especially the acoustics Three-dimensional to enhance the horror feeling more fully.

Release date: 2021 also coming for PC and Xbox Series X

Pragmata

A new game from Capcom, you showed us during the PS5 event. The truth is we did not understand much of it, but it seems that it will be kind of science fiction games, virtual worlds, and the difference between them and reality.

Release date: 2022

Godfall

From Gearbox and Counterplay, Godfall offers us a new concept of RPG and looter games named by its developer Looter Slasher, simply the world of Godfall is a world of fantasy where the five elements of life, whether fire, water, land, and otherwise form forbidden kingdoms within a world called Aperion in which there are warriors They call the Valorian Knights. We do not know their goal, but within the game’s objectives is to obtain the best shields in this world, which are called Valorplates. Generally, you will be able to choose one of three types of warriors. You have to look for stronger shields in the framework of the RPG with combat full of Hack and Slash a little bit.

Release date: 2020 holiday season for PS5 and PC

Deathloop

From the Arkane Lyon team from Bethesda, Deathloop introduces a little new idea where you have to play a character called Colt and you have to accomplish some goals and kill eight people before the day ends and if you fail, the game will repeat your day from the beginning with differences in the design of the stages through each time you lose The challenge becomes different, it is a bit like Returnal, but the difference will be in the presence of a hostile character who will try to stop you in various ways.

Release date: 2020 holiday season for PS5 and PC at a later time

GhostWire Tokyo

This game will take you to a time when humans have ended and the city of Tokyo has become an abyss devoid of any life except for some souls that swirl around which you have to confront, there are different types of souls, each with its own characteristics, abilities, and you will also have supernatural abilities to defend yourself, the game seems very mysterious And it's worth a try.

Release date: 2021 for PS5 and PC

Starfield

The mysterious Bethesda project about space, we do not know anything about it, but it seems that its announcement is soon, the game is released for the PS5 and this is known, but when? this is the question.

Release date: unknown

Elder Scrolls VI

Another awaited game from Bethesda's side is generally coming to the next generation but according to news, don't expect it anytime soon.

Release date: Unknown. May be 2022

Hitman III

The third part of the Hitman World of Assassination series has been announced, this part will be the last and will be the darkest of them. Its events take place in Dubai in some missions, but you can expect the return of all the beloved elements from the past parts such as disguise, stealth, and innovative ways that you can reach your goals.

Release date: January 2021 for PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC

Battlefield VI

EA did not announce it for a moment, even after the end of the EA Play exhibition, but the company stated that its game will be released for the next generation only with the PC. According to a leak, its events may take place in the modern era for the first time since Battlefield 4, and we hope so.

Release date: unknown

Dragon Age 4

We did not get a new announcement for Dragon Age 4 for a moment except for some hints, in general, it was confirmed that it is already a next-generation game.

Release date: unknown

Next Need For Speed ​​segment

We learned from this news that Criterion Games is currently working on the next part of Need For Speed, and it will be the largest and widest game in the series, and of course, we can assure that it will be a next-generation game and so far, it has not been announced.

Release date: unknown

The Sims 5

We only learned that Sims 5 is coming to the next generation including PS5 through Playstation UK magazine, but EA didn't mention anything about it for a moment.

Release date: unknown

Dying Light 2

After postponing, again and again, we can say that Techland still has a lot to do before refining the game Dying Light 2 optimally, and therefore, it may be released in a large proportion for the next generation. Until now we do not have any other information about the survival game that has a world full of Zombies and has a Parkour system. Outstanding.

Release date: 2020

Sniper Elite 5

Believe it or not, dear reader, there is a new part of Sniper Elite, and also the developer has not announced anything about it for a moment, we learned about its coming to the next generation through the report of Playstation UK magazine.

Release date: unknown

Observer System Redux

A game of the type of mystery, investigation with the side of suspense and excitement, puts you in the shoes of a detective who analyzes crimes with very modern technical means and then traces the perpetrator to the end, the events of the game take place in a future world similar to the world of Cyberpunk 2077, and the truth is that the game was a masterpiece when its developer showed us An extended section of the gameplay, as the game is beautifully decorated with ray tracing technology.

Release date: 2020 holiday season for all next-generation platforms.

Elden Ring

We do not know anything about the Elden Ring game developed by From Software in cooperation with writer George RRMartin, but as long as the game is with him, we will wait forever, it is assumed that this will be the expected new Souls game, but its news has been cut short for a while and it is expected that we will not hear about it until 2021.

Release date: unknown

Lords of The Ring Gollum

A new game for the Lord of The Rings puts you in the Gollum shoe, one of the most prominent monsters or characters in this world. We do not have many details, but the game is coming to the next generation.

Release date: unknown

WRC 9

As far as we know, it has joined the WRC 9 series, which is one of the most prominent racing games for Codemasters, the team that develops the Dirt series, but in general, there is a new part waiting for us from WRC 9 for the next generation and so far has not been officially revealed.

Release date: unknown

Star Wars Squadrons

Up to this point, EA has not officially announced that its next satellite game will come for the next generation, but its release date is in October and therefore I think that an improved version is waiting for us soon. More about the game, its story, stages, Cross-Play, and Multiplayer, here is the link.

Release date: October 2 for the current generation and PC

Dirt 5

The most famous realistic racing game ever is officially coming to the next generation, and it seems that Codemasters has literally excelled in that game as it introduces a heavily modified Career mode for the first time that will feature both Troy Baker and Nolan North with a very large list of races, circuits across the tracks of the world and inside the atmosphere Very dynamic, the multiplayer is here, everything is here and the graphics look fabulous, the game will support 4K display resolution with a frame rate of up to 120 frames on Xbox Series X and it is also highly optimized for it, all the details announced for the game you can find here.

Release date: October 2020 for PS5, Xbox Series X, PC, the current generation, and Stadia

The awaited Batman game

I don’t know how long I’ll be waiting for this game from Warner Bros Montreal, but it seems that it could happen at the DC fandom event on August 22nd, where we might see the first show of the upcoming Batman game, which is sure to come to the next generation.

Release date: unknown

Harry Potter RPG game

At least, we know some details about that game from Avalanche's side, it will be an RPG, an open world where the Hogwarts school is explorable. It is assumed that you will play with a normal wizard and learn magic arts until you reach higher levels.

Release date: 2021 or so it should be

NBA 2K 21

During the PS5 event, we saw NBA 2K 21 for the first time ever and it looks like it will be stunning in terms of graphics, from sweaty to realism of the moves themselves.

Release date: 2020

Metal Hellsinger

This game is a mix between Doom and Beat Saber in terms of music, where you will kill monsters in the form of a fast shooter like Doom with the same brutality, but with musical rhythms such as Beat Saber, the idea is different, it looks promising and officially confirmed its coming to the next generation.

Release date: 2021, for the next and current generation, and for PC

Chivalry II

A game of the type of planning, wars, and strategy, which looks very good, especially in the aspect of war and fighting.

Release date: unknown, for current, next-generation, and PC

Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines II

This game introduces you to the world of vampires, and the most wonderful thing is that you will play with one of them from a list that includes different types of them and each has his own personality, abilities, etc.

Release date: 2020 for the current and next-generation as well.

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One

Studio Frogwares is now working on a new game for Sherlock Holmes Strana that we control in his early days and in the early days of his career as a detective before he became famous in this way, the events of this part take place on an island in the Mediterranean where he tracks Sherlock who killed his mother, gets to know Watson and then they travel To London - The methods of investigation and linking conclusions with each other will return again. You will also be able to disguise themselves for the first time only to speak to certain people, and so on.

Release date: 2021 for the next generation PS5 and Xbox Series X, the current generation, and PC

Control

Remedy announced a while ago that its game Control will be among the titles that support the next generation, whether Xbox Series X or PS5.

Release date: unknown.

Scarlet Nexus

A fighting game based on anime by Bandai Namco, coming for PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC

Release date: unknown

Read: GTA5 enhanced version may be exclusive to Playstation 5

Other third-party games:

- Chorus, coming in 2021 for the current, next-generation, for PC and Stadia

- In Sound Mind is coming for PS5 in 2021

- Dustborn is similar to Walking Dead in 2021

- Cris Tales game on November 17th for the current and next-generation as well.

Games to get a free PS4 upgrade to PS5:

I talked to you about the idea of ​​Cross Gen games that are issued between two generations and the idea of ​​a free upgrade, which is simply followed by Xbox through the principle of Smart Delivery. As for Sony, it leaves the issue of the current generation games on specially developed copies for the next generation in the form and free upgrade in the hands of the developers, more information about each You can find this dilemma here:

Playstation has announced some games for PS4 that are free for PS5 if you buy them on the current generation, and they are:

GTA V

For the third time, GTA V is released for the new generation after its release on PS3, PS4, and now for PS5, and this announcement occurred during the platform unveiling event that Rockstar Games started with its slogan that almost whacked us to follow with a provocative announcement about GTA V coming for free for PS5 if I owned it as a player on The PS4, of course, in an improved image befitting the features of PS5 and the next generation in general, the improved version will be available with the launch of the PS5 and in addition to PS4 players getting it for free, they will get a million in-game currency every month until the official release of the platform.

In general, I did not like the company's milking policy for GTA online in particular, so I wrote that article:

FIFA 21

Believe it first, believe, we learned about FIFA 21 coming for free for PS5 for PS4 owners through the Blog. He mentioned that point between the lines on the official EA website and not during the EA Play Gallery itself. What was shown in the EA Play event was how titles like Madden 21 and FIFA were used. 21 for next-generation capabilities graphically, details of that can be found here.

But we soon talked to us until we discovered in the official FIFA 21 Blog that the game will get a free upgrade for the PS5 and this applies to the physical and digital versions of the game, generally more details about the pre-order bonuses you can find here

Release date: October 9th on current, next-generation, and PC platforms.

Marvel’s Avengers

One of the most anticipated games from Crystal Dynamics, which taught us new details and information in bulk from here:

The game will take us on a storyline journey in which we control our beloved superheroes as they try to confront the villain MODOK, we have a fun fighting style full of moves and superhero abilities, we have a very deep mod system, story, and co-op missions, RPG style, side missions and a lot more and above all, you will get Marvel's Avengers is getting a free upgrade to the PS5 if you own it on the PS4 and it will use all the features of the PS5 in terms of ray tracing, Dualsense, 3D audio, SSD and more.

Release date: September 4 for the current generation and PC, for the next generation.

Cyberpunk 2077

It was CD Projekt Red who detonated the Cyberpunk 2077 delay bomb until November 19, but it followed this news with a positive thing, which is that the game gets a free upgrade for the PS5 if you bought it as a PS4 player, and this will happen through an initial update of the game using the Backward Compatibility feature for both platforms, followed by an update. Huge to add next-generation benefits and generally ended since the days of the Night City Wire event, which showed us important information about Cyberpunk 2077, and we analyzed journalists' impressions of it after four hours of play.

Release date: November 19 for current, next-generation, PC, and Stadia at a later time.

Madden 21

EA announced that Madden 21 will get a free upgrade for PS5 as well.

Release date: August 25 for the current generation and PC, next-generation at a later time.

Read: The SSD in the PlayStation 5 may limit the lifespan of the device.

Other games to mention:

Operation Tango 2021

Remothered Broken Porcelain 8/25

Ghostrunner 2020

Twin Mirror 2020

Haven 2020

Rogue Lords 2021

Everspace 2 2021

Torchlight III 2020

System Shock Redux

Empire of Sin 2020

Samurai Jack Battle Through Time 2020

Destory All Humans 28/7

XIII Remake 11/10

Star Renegades 2020

Prodeus 2020

Gothic Remake

Moonray 2021

Path of Exile 2

Cygni All Guns Blazing

Paradise Lost

So to recap, here is the exact list of PS5 release games:

Godfall

Spiderman Miles Morales

Astro’s Playroom

Dirt 5

Outriders

Observer System Redux

Deathloop

Madden 21

FIFA 21

GTA V

Cyberpunk 2077

Marvel’s Avengers

NBA 2K 21

Assassin's Creed Valhalla

Destiny 2

Jett The Far Shore

Buggsnax

Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines 2

Those were all the details that you wanted to know as a player about all PS5 games, I hope you have reached this stage of the article already and hope you share your opinion and do not worry, a list exactly like the Xbox Series X games awaits you soon.

from Gaming News Center https://ift.tt/34YfJsk

[ofwizardsandmen]

Inside Mark Yang and Tara Lee's  elegantly artistic London Townhouse

If the names of Mark Yang  and Tara Lee ring more than just artistic bells for you, there’s a reason. As part of one of the —quite literally— biggest boy bands in the world, Yang has experienced his fair share of touring, traveling and, well, being a pop star. Meanwhile, his ‘fiancée’, —Mark pronounces the word with a massive grin on his face— has quickly become one of the most awarded authors of her generation with stories that are as far out on the cutting edge as they can get. Well known for their work in the art and music industry; from Mark’s impeccably produced songs and raw lyrics to Tara’s best selling books and endearing illustrations, it is little surprise that their London townhouse embodies what one would define as an ode to creativity.

A lot has been said and written about the quirks of the English already. Known for a certain kind of charming eccentricity, it’s a trait that often carries through to their humor, manner of dress –and yes, even their homes. It’s something that comes to mind when looking at the three-story, 680-square-meter Anglo-Italianate townhouse the famed pair calls home. The record-breaking British couple, who met 20 years ago in a kindergarten only a few blocks away from their current residence, moved back to Kensington earlier this year. After losing out on a bid to purchase Mark’s old apartment and after Tara spent few months in a rental home in Oxford, the couple sought to plant firm roots in the city by purchasing this Anglo-Italianate-style house. “I have a bit of philosophy: dream in Paris, have fun in New York, work in Seoul, but live in London. London is home.” says Yang as he slides next to Tara onto the velvet mohair sofa in her personal study room.

After a carefully planned purchase, the couple recently completed the renewal of its first two floors that boast British design influences that seem to fit their heritage and faved aesthetics. Of course, there is the background check Tara did on both the house, built in 1852 by a Chelsea-based merchant; and the surrounding neighborhood (she can easily quote statistics about the college education level, racial diversity, linguistic skills, and single-sex parentage of the demographic). There are also the four months it took for the couple to move into their new home, during which time Tara —an English Language and Literature Oxford graduate—, would regularly invoke Waiting for Godot. And then there are the 3D mockups, sample boards, and interiors presentations that Tara and her team of decorators assembled for her future husband’s sign-off while he was touring across the globe. “Mark is an emotional person;  he’s always had this fantasy about family life and making his living space feel special, so I had to make sure he liked what was being done,” says Tara of her fiancé.

“The day we moved in was very special,” adds Mark. “At the time the guys and I had finished the Asian leg of our world tour, so I felt very fortunate to return and have a new place to call home. Of course, I didn’t get to witness the renovation process in person, so I was pleasantly surprised with the result”.

Working together isn’t always plain sailing, though. “We barely made any advances the first month” Tara recalls. “It took a while to figure out what we wanted to do and the style we’d go for”. The final result though, shows a flawlessly combined aesthetic that is very much natural as it is deeply but subtly narrative. The couple’s artistic sensibilities are evident throughout. A darkly dramatic entry plays up the house’s Victorian heritage with a red Louis de Poortere stair runner and an antique Thonet side table. The couple confesses that they themselves picked most of the pieces decorating their home carefully “T and I went on a two-week-long buying trip around Europe and purchased almost everything in this house.” Says Tara’s fiancé with a wide smile. The singer further explains “We started in a couple of auctions in London, then went to the flea markets and the Left Bank in Paris, took the train to Belgium and then traveled to Italy.” Yang says proudly

On the second floor, Tara and Mark privileged a more serene setting. There, the space they call the White Room boasts 16-foot ceilings and is furnished with icy-hued vintage armchairs and curving sofas, offsetting the original antique chandelier and windows overlooking Kensington Gardens. “It’s where T and I will go to sit and chill. It’s very clean and calming” notes Mark, who’s also set up his home studio on the third floor and calls it his personal project on the works.

The third floor also acts as Tara’s studio space where she has built a stunning home office that uses color and print to give a classic, traditional space the perfect pop of wow. From the animal-print rug to the bold green bookcases, this interior is designed to match the fictional world of Tara’s books. The blush and gold tones add a feminine touch to the massive bookcases, making this space the ultimate in sleek and sophisticated design. This might even be amazing enough to make just about anyone want to pull up a chair and join her in her workday. Something, that Beauté+ CEO, Minah Delacroix, a close friend of the couple, agrees on “They are just so innately artistic, their life is almost an artwork“ she says when asked about their home decoration “I would call them both Renaissance people because they pretty much do anything and know so much about everything. Sometimes I would visit and get totally immersed in their world that I could basically spend the whole day there”

For Mark and Tara, the joy of coming home each day has only cemented their decision to make this place their home after their wedding that’s set to take place early next year. “Everyone says when you walk into the house, it kind of wraps its arms around you and it has amazing energy. It’s such a warm, eclectic home. We’re certainly planning to make it our forever home and it’s most likely to evolve with us over the years.”

…

[krinsbez]

GI Joe: Remixed, Viper Leaders 1

More OCs by Night_stalker, in this case, the bosses of various Viper cadres

(It was very fun trying to make it fit when we found out one of the Viper-types already HAS a boss)

TELE-VIPER LEADER:

Name: Kyu-Hwang, along with many usernames online. Codename: Gwisin DoB: Unknown Former Affiliation: Bureau 121 Orientation: Het Bio: Little is known about Kyu's past, but given his past affiliation, one can make some guesses. The fact that he also has a fondness for snapping to attention whenever a superiro comes by, and is a bit rickety makes one suspect North Korea was involved in some way. That said, he's not your sterotypical nerd. Suave, charismatic, ruthless, bit paranoid.... Kyu is one part hacker, one part cat manager, as having to run a department of IT personnel in a terrorist organization does tend to turn off the actually qualified people from turning up in person. Hobbies: Movie pirating, Coffee roasting, Cooking, and Tai Chi.

LASER-VIPER LEADER:

Name: Adrian Townes Codename: Rytov DoB: April 28th, 1965 Former Affiliation: US Army Corps of Engineers ERADC Orientation- Homosexual Bio: Born into a family that had lasers in their blood, Townes was fascinated by them. In fact, he could say he was all but in love with them. Getting appointed to the Army Corps of Engineers was his dream, where he started looking at the applications of lasers on a smaller scale then his comrades. While they tinkered with making lasers able to shoot down Ivan's ICBMs, he looked at fitting them inside tanks, if not smaller. However, finding funding for laser armed tanks and such, even in the 80s was difficult, to say the least.  Matters were not helped considering that while he was incredibly gifted when it came to developing lasers, he was less then skilled at interacting with others, or with what he termed "Petty minded bureaucrats seeking only to further their own power". When the 90s came around, he found himself out of a job, the laser projects all being put into cold storage. Faced with the prospect of his life's work being left to rot in some musty filing cabinet, Adrian started making the rounds of the Pentagon's higher ups, as well as the GAO. His arguments, while very technically impressive and certainly promising quite a lot of things, well, were considerably out of touch with fiscal reality, as well as the political realities. Left fuming in a dead end post, mostly being spent watching over the laser projects in cold storage, Townes heard of Cobra's announcements, and decided this was the means to affect revenge, while also finally vindicating himself. The fact that, as an added bonus, he could likely turn his weapons against his hated rivals in the Pentagon was, in his mind, icing on the cake. Hobbies: DiY Electronics, 3D Printing, Caligraphy, and Kombucha brewing.

RANGE-VIPER LEADER:

Name: Venus Callahan Codename: Ishtar DoB: Asking a Lady her age isn't polite. Much less a ex SF Lady with more guns then employees. Former Affiliation: Canadian Airborne Regiment Orientation: Hetero Bio: Venus had a relatively normal life in Canada. Growing up in the frozen wilderness, Venus learned how to clean a rabbit before she could walk, and viewed icy temperatures as "Bit nippy". Shockingly to literally nobody, she signed up to be a officer in the Canadian Army, where she rose up the ranks due to her jocular personality, as well as being able to set a personal example for many of the men to live up to. That said, she was given one of the tougher assignments in the army, namely, the famous, or depending on who you asked, infamous, Canadian Airborne Regiment. Unfortunately for her, she was assigned to it barely before the infamous Somali Affair occurred, which meant that when the resulting inquriy occured, she was one of the victims. Naturally, being the most junior officer present who could be held accountable, she was thrown under the bus as much as possible. Being "suggested" that she resign in order to avoid a lengthy court martial that would probably lead to a lot of unsavory details being outed, well, it doesn't inspire loyalty in one towards their government. Holding a grudge against the government and establishment that had tossed her aside so easily, Venus signed up with Sandline International. When that was shut down in the early 2000s, she signed up with MARS Industries, but didn't quite fit in. Her once jocular personality had turned acidic over the years, and while her skills hadn't degraded any, well..... There were certain topics one didn't bring up around her. Or in earshot. Or someplace gossip might reach her about it. So when Cobra started headhunting, HR for MARS pitched her over so fast it was a miracle she even realized what was happening. That said, she seemed to fit in like she'd been born for the role. Her skills, combined with a refusal to take shit from literally anyone, and backing up that stance with the threat of stranding them in the middle of the Arctic, buck naked, well, it got results. Hobbies: Archery, Stamp Collecting, Gardening, Latin Dancing, Trainspotting, and Hunting. 

SNOW SERPENT LEADER

Name: Otto Koskinen Codename: Wendigo DoB: November 11, 1975 Former Affiliation: UTJR Orientation: Bisexual Bio: Formerly a Finnish sniping instructor, Otto ended up leaving the army under circumstances he's refused to reveal. That said, people suspect it's tied to his fondness for eating almost anything, and a shrink's diagnosis of him basically being a sociopath with some severe mental hangups. Shockingly, he seems to get along well with the Snow Serpents, which has helped make him the leader of those frosty psychopaths. Hobbies: Skiing, Trail Skating, Ballroom Dancing, Model Trains (N Scale), and Sewing.

EEL LEADER:

Name: Ro Yun-Soo Codename: Selkie DoB: November 18th, 1984 Former Affiliation: Republic of Korea Navy Special Warfare Flotilla Orientation: Asexual, formerly heterosexual Bio: Ro grew up in a small fishing village on Baengnyeongdo Island, the only child of a fisherman and his wife. A few years into her young life, her mother died from a North Korean artillery barrage, leading her father to bring her along on his fishing vessel to keep her safe. There, she grew to love the ocean, and hate North Korea with a passion. These passions led her to join the Navy, where she excelled in diving and swimming, leading to her transfer to the Special Warfare Flotilla. She had a promising career ahead of her, even had a fiance who was an RoK Marine assigned to the Flotilla as a liason. Then it all fell apart in a manner of weeks. Her fiance was struck and killed by a drunk driver, at first. Then she was discharged from the Navy due to what she has described only as "office politics". The final straw was her father dying in yet another North Korean artillery barrage, just a week after her discharge from the Navy. Furious at the world, and the Norks most of all, she joined Cobra, where her talents had her assigned to the Hydro-Viper program. Hobbies: Rowing, Wrestling, Chess, Starcraft, and Fishkeeping.

MORAY LEADER:

Name: Secondina Vespa Codename: Lemure DoB: December 12th, 1982 Former Affiliation: COMSUBIN Operational Raider Group Orientation: Bisexual Bio: Growing up in Sicily, Vespa learned to take crap from nobody, and that above all else, family came first. Unfortunately for her, this proved to be a dangerous combo when, years into her naval career, her brother was revealed to be a member of the infamous Motsi Mafia Clan. This naturally sank her career faster then a crash diving submarine, but thanks to her brother's career, some doors were opened up for her. Turns out the Mafia saw some benefit in a diver who was combat trained and would have no qualms helping to smuggle cargo or loot shipwrecks. Though after awhile, her brother vanished. Well, to be fair, depending on who you asked, he said he was going off to the cafe with some friends, and would be right back, or said something like "I gotta get out of town, they're after me man". Shockingly, without a brother who was a Capo, people who are openly bisexual don't tend to last long in the Mafia. That said, she wasn't stupid enough to be unprepared this time around, and on her way to the local airport, swung by the local Carabinieri ROS office to drop off a thick file of evidence for their perusal. Her bridges by now more then thoroughly torched, she fled to the Florida Keys, doing mercenary diving work for local OC. This came to the attention of a Cobra headhunter, who also saw that she had no quarrels with body alteration, or at least didn't totally read that employment contract well enough, and she was slated for the Moray program in no time at all. Hobbies: Wine tasting, Audiophile, Magnet Fishing, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

HYDRO-VIPER Leader:

Name: Brad Thor Codename: Leviathan DoB: August 21, 1969 Former Affiliation: USMC Force Recon Orientation: Het, married to a Nitro-Viper. Bio: Once a Marine Force Recon captain, Thor ran into hard financial times. Desperate to earn money to pay off some debts, he made a deal with Destro. Unfortunately, Destro didn't show, but rather a NCIS team, who arrested him. While enroute to his new prison, he reached out to Cobra, and requested a job. This was granted, and before long, he was assigned into the Hydro-Viper program. Of course, he requested it on the grounds of it being the one he was least likely to interact with Destro with, and also suited his talents the best. As luck would have it, he even met his future wife while in the basic Viper program's bootcamp. Of course, she was a Nitro-Viper, so it turned out great for all involved. His loyalty was cemented, and she got a loving husband to help get her over the last husband's untimely demise at the hands of faulty Destro merchandise. Hobbies: Fantasy Basketball, Glass Sculpting, Poetry, and Drama.

[superman86to99]

Superman #82 (October 1993)

REIGN OF THE SUPERMEN! The climax of this 19-part storyline, the entire "Death and Return of Superman" saga, and seven years of long-ass plotlines. And it only took this blog a mere six years and six months to get here! PREVIOUSLY: After Superman’s death, five different Supermen popped up to reclaim the mantle, some more convincingly than others. The front-runner, the Cyborg Superman, kinda ruled himself out of the competition when he nuked out a whole city and replaced it with a giant engine. Now the other would-be Supermen converge in that place...

The Last Son of Krypton/Eradicator finally arrives on Engine City, having set off from the Fortress of Solitude two weeks ago. We noted back then that he suddenly looked like an old man, but he's back to Superman's age now. If this storyline had gone on any longer, he would ended up Benjamin Buttoning himself into a grumpy, ultra-violent baby.

Superboy also flies in from Metropolis. It's the fourth time he makes the Metropolis-Coast City trip in a few days (not counting the time he got a ride on a missile), so he's gotta be pretty bored of it by now.

Steel, last seen getting crushed by some giant cogs, emerges from the bowels of Engine City with his armor in tatters but his body intact. Dude’s a tough nut to crack.

Supergirl and the powerless Man in Black continue making their way through Engine City. Supergirl's like "Wanna step out and let those of us with powers handle this one, chief?" but the Man in Black ain't having it. Wow, that's pretty heroic. Maybe... maybe he's actually the real Superman?! Nah, that's crazy.

And Green Lantern Hal Jordan is also there, because this whole issue takes place on top of the ashes of his old city and childhood memories and all. We see the end of his fight with Mongul from Green Lantern #46.

The Cyborg watches as the Super-People invade his fortress from his control room, but he's a glass half full kind of guy, so he's choosing to focus on the fact that he (apparently) gets to kill Superman again.

After the Eradicator joins the party and the Cyborg reveals his true identity, the Man in Black finds himself in the awkward position of having to team up with one of Superman’s worst villains (the one who wanted to turn Earth into Krypton) to fight a good guy driven crazy by space travel (and who once looked like Johnny-5). It's only after the Eradicator goes on a two-page exposition dump about how he brought Superman back to life that the Man in Black goes "alright, guess you're cool".

The Man in Black and the Eradicator follow the Cyborg to the center of Engine City, where a giant chunk of kryptonite powers the entire fortress. The combined powers of the Eradicator's Eradicator-ness and the Man in Black's punching (OK, mostly the first thing) seem to be winning -- but then, in a desperate move, the Cyborg shoots a blast of concentrated kryptonite at the Man in Black. The Eradicator, however, heroically jumps in front of the blast...

...which has the unexpected side effect of restoring the Man in Black's Superman powers, allowing him to dispatch the Cyborg with a swift "broosh". What's a "broosh"? You know, a "broosh":

After Supergirl uses her convenient clothes-shifting powers on the Man in Black's costume, it only takes one second of him in the classic red and blue tights to convince everyone that HOLY CRAP HE'S THE REAL SUPERMAN AND HE'S BACK FROM THE DEAD! (Side note: I like how Green Lantern goes "We'll mop up here! Not like I have anything better to do, what with all my friends being dead and stuff. Haha. I-I’m okay, seriously.")

It's him! It really is him. I knew it all along. Never doubted it.

Character-Watch:

The Eradicator is this issue's real MVP. His whole arc has been about slowly turning him from an emotionless robot into a sentient being through his interactions with people (Lois, Steel, even Loose Cannon and Guy Gardner), and it pays off when he jumps in front of that kryptonite blast yelling "I WON'T LET YOU DIE [AGAIN]!".

Also, when he tells Superman "We have always been linked, you and I", that's true. While their psychic connection influenced Superman negatively for a while (the Day of the Krypton Man saga), it looks like it also worked in the other direction and some of Superman's goodness rubbed off on him. By the way, it might be a stretch but the climactic shot of the kryptonite blast always reminded me of the Day of the Krypton Man's climactic shot, with Superman finally overcoming the Eradicator’s influence with Pa Kent's help.

Anyway, sorry, Superboy and Steel. The Eradicator had the best sacrifice scene in this storyline, hands down. Of course, they eventually brought him back again and turned him into a lapdog for the Cyborg and then Zod, but let's enjoy his dignified retirement while it lasts.

Plotline-Watch:

I'm not kidding when I say that this issue represents the convergence of seven freaking years of storylines. Let's recap (strap on, this is gonna be long):

John Byrne's Man of Steel #1 (1986) introduced Superman's birth matrix, the flying artificial womb that took him from Krypton to Earth. When young Clark sees the matrix for the first time he feels weak, because there's some kryptonite lodged into it. In Superman #1, a few months later, we find out that a crazy scientist stole the matrix and used it to build Metallo, so Superman decides to leave it suspended in orbit to prevent it from being used against him again. Three years later, the distraught mind of a disembodied astronaut called Hank Henshaw jumped into the matrix, and he made himself a tiny little spaceship from its technology, then sped off into deep space. Eventually, he went mad, hooked up with Mongul, and used the DNA information he got from the birth matrix to make himself a half-Kryptonian body. Hence: the Cyborg Superman. (As for that kryptonite rock, it ended up in Lex Luthor's hands... soon to be "hand".)

Also during Byrne's run, Superman briefly visited a "pocket" universe inhabited by a Silver Age-type Superboy, who died by the end of that storyline. Months later, the pocket Earth had turned into a hellhole thanks to three Kryptonian criminals. They too died by the end of that storyline... by Superman's hand. Feeling guilty over killing those killers, Superman exiled himself in space, was captured by Mongul's Warworld, and found an ancient egg-shaped relic created by his ancestors: the Eradicator. Superman brought the Eradicator back to Earth and it built him a nice Fortress of Solitude, but it also took over his mind and turned him into the emotionless Krypton Man -- who became an entity of its own after Superman overcame it. After Superman's death, the Fortress' robots rebooted the Eradicator so he could follow his “preserve Kryptonian life” directive and restore Superman back to life, but he got a little confused and thought HE was Superman. Hence: the Last Son of Krypton.

Another concept introduced by Byrne was the idea that Kryptonian DNA is too complex to be duplicated by Earth scientists, which led to the creation of Bizarro. Byrne's World of Krypton miniseries also established that Kryptonians used clones as spare parts to extend their lifetimes, and the conflict over clone rights literally tore the planet apart. So when Superman learned of a cloning facility near Metropolis called Project Cadmus, he immediately felt uneasy about it. After his death, Cadmus got hold of his body so they could create a replacement, but, again, you can't clone a Kryptonian... so they simply created an approximation of Superman's powers and features using human DNA. Hence: Superboy.

As for Steel, he's just Steel. Hence: Steel. Incidentally, if you’re wondering why his armor has been reduced to just some metal shorts by the end of the issue, here’s the answer. Pretty self-explanatory.

The only major plotline left dangling after this issue (aside from Dr. Stratos, of course) is Lex's own death/return/cloning misadventure, but the Super-Squad will deal with that in a big way pretty soon. Oh, and then there's the mess they left for Green Lantern, but that's another creative team's problem. (SHAMELESS PLUG: Follow my new Green Lantern '94 to '04 blog to see how that mess turned out.)

Believe it or not, there's even MORE stuff to talk about in this issue, so don’t miss the great Don Sparrow's section after the jump:

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

In the first place I have to say that this issue is an all-time favourite of mine, probably in my top three of this era of comics we’ve been so dutifully covering.  The excitement at my local comic shop for this issue was incredible, and already being the Superman fan that I was, I felt like I was on the ground floor. [Max: I also remember the excitement when I first saw this issue in my cousin’s hands after he showed it to me the day he bought it... then didn’t let me touch it, so I read it years later.]

We start with the cover, and I got the deluxe edition, with the chromium cover.  Back when this issue came out, I had a love/hate relationship with Image comics.  I wasn’t interested in the dark & gritty characters like Spawn and the like, and generally thought the Image books favoured flash over substance and storytelling.  BUT, man, did the colouring and paper they used at Image ever look cool!  So I was a bit torn about DC using a “gimmicky” feature like this—it looked amazing, but I also felt it was leaning a little far in the direction of sizzle over steak.  But I didn’t mind that much, since this had been such a great story to this point.  Aside from the metallic 3D look of the cover, the drawing is great, too.  It was the first look at the returned Superman in the full suit, and also with the long hair present.  DC must have thought that the long hair was a gamble on some level (even though we’d seen it for months in the actual issues) because they hid it from the covers for so long. [Max: This was also the cover they used in both the Spanish and Mexican editions I have, so that’s what I went with for the top of this post. The “normal” cover looks like a historic oddity to me.]

Inside the issue, we jump in with another splash page—there are a lot of these, and it really calls back Superman #75, as most of the pages have one main image, with a few small panels laid overtop.   This one features another interpretation of the Eradicator, with short, non-spiky hair—it’s interesting to see these characters reinterpreted week to week.  This opening page also commits the unpardonable sin of demanding that we stop reading the issue until AFTER we read Green Lantern #46.  Being a naïve 13 year old when I read this issue, I of course complied with the demands of DC editorial, and read Green Lantern first, not realizing it has a near identical plot (albeit from a different point of view), right down to the “broosh” at the end, very much spoiling what is about to come in Superman #82.  I remember being pretty steamed that my first glimpse of a returned Superman didn’t come in a Superman book.  While I appreciate the coordination, I do find the caption misleading.

Also similar to Superman #75—it’s very hard for me not to talk about every panel or page, because this whole book is just gorgeous.  The badassery from the last issue continues into this one, as Superman with his tough-guy attitude and giant gun is pretty cool.  One quibble I have with this team is that when they bury Superman’s eye’s in shadow, it can have a sinister or tired look, which I don’t think is the intention.  Some panels it’s more prominent than others, but in one panel on page 6 where it makes Superman look pretty rough, and a lot less handsome.  We get more big gun Superman later when he starts taking it to Engine City in general, knowing it is connected to the Cyborg.

The Cyborg taking different shapes is done pretty effectively here, particularly when he forms himself out of what must be a lead-like metal to accuse Superman of a bunch of nutty stuff. The reveal of the Kryptonite heart of engine city is very well done, in part because of Eradicator’s bulging red eyes.  It is a bit weird to imagine a lipless robot saying “mmm, hmm” though.

We get another great full-page splash as the Eradicator goes all-out in his effort to defeat the Cyborg.  The captions here always confused me though, where it says “(The Eradicator)  was built to kill…the other (the rocket that brought Superman to Earth, which the Cyborg used to create his new body) to bear new life.  The victor would be obvious.”  But to me, it’s not obvious.  I would think that in a Superman comic, a vessel of LIFE would be the big winner over ancient weaponry, but I think the caption intends the inverse. I guess it’s saying a gun would beat a baby crib? It’s one of those passages that sounds cool, until you think about it.  Or think about it excessively, as I clearly have. [Max: To be fair, a gun WOULD beat a baby crib. It would kick that baby crib’s ass.]

Superman’s haymaker knocking off the Cyborg’s jaw is an incredible visual, and there’s a subtle set-up for the great cape visual call-back that comes later.

The entire sequence of the Eradicator taking the blast of Kryptonite is well done, in particular the panel when we see Superman through the vanishing Eradicator.  I’m a bit confused as to just how the Kryptonite suction thing works here—the Kryptonite meteor is shrinking and shrinking, but nothing is attached to it except for that one hose.  

Jurgens and Breeding do a great job of showing the physical cost of Green Lantern going toe to toe with Mongul.  It also sets up for my all-time favourite Superboy quote, one I think might be seen on this site from time to time in meme form, “Check it out! The Lantern looks so totaled it makes me want to hurl!”.  This entire saga has been worth it, to get to that line.  Just magnificent. [Max: I think Hal went evil because of that one comment.]

The glimpse of the burnt-out husk of the Eradicator is also incredibly well drawn—and painful looking—but even by the end of this story he seems a lot more recovered.

The scene of the returned-to-full-power Superman decking the Cyborg is a stand-up-and-cheer moment, and I love the detail that Superman is holding the cape for this whole scene. It’s interesting that as the Cyborg starts to get damaged in the fight, we see how little organic material there is. Metal seems to poke through the skin on his face, as if only a thin sheet were laid over the metal.  and when Superman punches right through him, there’s really no blood or anything, just a dry, cracked crater.  I had thought, up until this issue that the cybernetic parts were beside real skin and bones (as if to replace the damaged parts of Superman’s body from his fight with Doomsday), but this issue seems to posit that he’s all robot, with only a veneer of Kryptonian flesh overtop.  

The normally merciful Superman is pretty blood-thirsty here, vibrating his arm fully in the knowledge it might kill Henshaw (who helpfully reminds us, he’s survived before).  [Max: That moment kind of rubbed me the wrong way, and I think Jurgens himself felt uneasy with it too. One of the highlights of his recent “Rebirth” run was that Superman deliberately decides to jail Hank instead of killing him to at least give him a chance to be rehabilitated, which would be cool to see happen one day.] I love the little glimpse we get of the restored, and re-costumed Superman before the full reveal, and as a character moment, I love that he would think to show gratitude for the heroes who filled in when Superman was dead.

The next few pages are pure joy, as it’s such a treat to see our Superman soaring around in the sunshine, even with the new Tarzan haircut.  It’s such a show of restraint that they didn’t pack a reunion with Lois into this issue, instead allowing a different superteam to tell that story, which very much deserves its own issue.  Overall, though, I just remember feeling such a sense of joy, and relief that Superman was back, and back to full power. [Max: SPOILERS: And then some...]

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

I do love this era of comics before swearing (or even censored swearing) was a thing, because they have the weirdest phrases. John Byrne would always have characters saying “blast” instead of “damn” to an absolutely ridiculous degree.  In this issue, I don’t know for sure if “crud” is a stand-in for another word, but it does strike me as downright odd for Green Lantern to use it as a noun against Mongul.  The concept of “a crud” just amuses me, though I suppose it could be meant in the same vein as “scum” or something.

Is it me, or does Jeb look like Ricardo Montalbon here? [Max: Oh crud, I forgot Jeb was in this issue! Jeb was in this issue, everyone.]

I love they don’t even give the Cyborg a moment to be cool.  Just as he’s about to reveal his true identity in a villainous speech he gets clocked by Superboy, in one of my favourite moments with the character (but not my very favourite, as we’ve seen.)  I also like the low-level burn that Henshaw assumes that Superman must already know who he is, but Superman’s like, nope.

I do like that this issue goes to great lengths to explain that Superman can’t just keep returning from the dead, even going so far as to say it would never work again.  My pet theory is that the Eradicator’s Resurrection Matrix only worked because Pa Kent’s spiritual journey in Adventures of Superman #500 really did happen. [Max: I might be misremembering, but I think the upcoming issue of Action pretty much confirms that.]

I’m glad to see him recovered, but I kinda think Eradicator spoiled the moment a little with his observation about Green Lantern.

[Max: Blast it, Sparrow! You’ve done it again!]

[strictnoodle]

Sanjivani 2

Now that the show has reached the 30th Episode mark; my overall impression about the characters and everything else. (wonder how much has changed and how much has stayed the same from my first post?)

**warning: long post + spoilers ahead!**

The Seniors:

Dr. Shashank Gupta An amazing father/mentor. He's too good at heart to the point he believes a hospital can run on goodwill alone bless his heart, no wonder Sanjivani is drowning in debt The way he seems so understanding to everyone else except his own daughter baffles me. I did not like it when he slapped her. Yeah she was a tad out of line, but he could’ve just opened his mouth and cleared the misunderstanding. With the way he was trying to shut her up, I'm pretty sure that was not the first time Anjali said that to his face; why not clear the misunderstanding? I refuse to believe he actually has romantic feelings for Juhi. Honestly, ousting Juhi from Sanjivani just because Rahul asked him to is the most redicules reason they could come up with.

Dr. Juhi Singh Still the badass COS that she is, deserves the position no questions asked. I love it every time she takes charge. Whether it’s handling Vardhan, Anjali or the junior residents, she’s doing an amazing job. I was hoping she doesn’t interfere with the father-daughter relationship, but then again I understand her desperation to clear things up. And boy, did she get more than what she bargained for. Seems Rahul and her are no longer together but reasons are still unclear. I’m not a fan of the ego clashes she’s having with Dr. Shashank. I get the emotional shock she’s in, but why can’t these characters just talk to each other?

Dr. Anjali Gupta ice baby, ice. Very ambitious. Would do anything to prove her self to her father even if it meant stabbing him in the back that luxury ward meeting? yikes. For her Juhi is an obstacle that’s always been between them, which is understandable as i’ve explained here. She firmly believes her dad is in love with Dr. Juhi and he has done absolutely nothing to clear it up. She craves her dad’s recognition so much she seems to be projecting it towards Vardhan? Anjali baby, no. She holds a soft spot for Dr. Sid and I really wish they’d explore more of this. I still want to see more layers of Anjali other than “the insecure daughter”.

Mr. Vardhan Makhija Still a douche. He’s the only character that speaks sense when it comes to how to run the hospital business wise. He’s been obsessed about the Luxury ward since the first episode I expected something other than a... beauty spa? who goes to a spa in the house of death and deceases? Psychopaths that’s who  Seems like he’s using it as a cover to run some questionable/shady business Rahul is probably involved too. Can’t tell if he really has a thing for Anjali or he’s just manipulating her for his own means or both. I was honestly surprised he was worried about Sid seeing as he had no issues wishing death to Shashank? I can't with him.

The Juniors:

Dr. Siddhant Mathur A huge soft teddy bear. Very kind. Just when I started wondering why would they give him a playboy image, they shove a scene to remind me of his ways ugh, men are the worst! I love how he’s following Shashank’s footsteps with the mentoring. Very patient and understanding when dealing with people, especially with Ishani. Carries the weight of being an illegitimate over his head and he hides the pain really well. Still not a fan of his ways and can’t say I'm not glad they toned it down. I mean really punching that guy and taking his blood without consent? I’m pretty sure that falls under organ harvesting. Can't tell if he likes Ishani romantically or it’s because he’s just caring by nature, but he’s definitely attracted to her. I find it cute how bothered he is that she likes nothing about him. (Why did they change the actress who played his mom? And why was she hiding from Dr. Shashank? He better not be that idiot long lost father so help me god.)

Dr. Ishani Arora An Alien. An Alien from outer space who’s learning how to be human. jk, lol. or am I?. Socially awkward, doesn’t know proper human behavior and a diagnostic machine and thank god they toned that down. An emotional mess. Her germophobia stems from her background which she uses as a shield to keep people at a distance. Craves family and motherly love so much it honestly breaks my heart. Fiercely protective of those she calls her own slapping a guy twice her size for Asha? Absolutely fearless. An idiot, but fearless. Emotionally unstable; hence, the up and down behavior. Has been deprived of affection most of her life to the point she gets attached to anyone who shows her any form of affection. Can be self aware, as in did not hesitate to admit her mistake and apologize. A none believer and has issues with god. Life made her Cynical.

Sid/Ishani pairing I like the softness. I like how Sid respects her boundaries and tries not to touch her without permission. I liked the pace of their relationship but then the last two episodes happened and the level went from a soft 10 to a 100 in record speed, add the ‘L word’ they used for the promo and label me freaked tf out. I was very relieved when Ishani said “dost” in the episode even that was a bit of a stretch but i’ll take it. I’m hoping it’s just a developing of a crush thing and nothing else.

Dr Rishab Vaidya Such a horrible horrible person. If anyone deserves a slap from their parent, it’s this one. Watching his ass get handed to him by Ishani was the highlight of the week for me.

Dr. Asha Kanwar This girl grew on me so much. Very competitive and has a valid reason to be. She’s in a race against time and her family. Always has her friends’ back, be it Ishani or Neil or anyone. I’m hoping her competitive nature doesn’t land her in trouble one day. Desperate people almost always end up doing something foolish.

Dr. Aman Gehlot This guy is too laid back for a first year resident. Seems he went to Sanjivani to follow Asha. Very protective of her.

Dr. Rahil Shekhar My absolute favorite out of everyone! I love him so damn much. Such a sweet soft guy, would do anything for his friend. I love how he took charge being the Second Year Resident and guided the rest in the ‘rescue Sid emergency procedure’. The second son of the Mathur household. I would literally watch 20 full minutes of him just doing laundry Give me more of him!

Dr. Neil Lama Lau I still cannot wrap my head around how he managed to enter medical school when he faints at the sight of blood? Probably became a doctor for his dad.

Performance:

I didn't write anything much the first time because I wanted to give the actors a fair chance to settle into their character, and I supposed 30 episodes is more than enough time, no? I honestly have no complain from the senior cast. Rohit’s 3D glasses need to go tho, asap.

My main issue is/was with the junior cast, specifically Namit and Surbhi. Since we don’t see much of the others I'm not really bothered about them, Now:

Namit As much as he’s nailing the laidback carefree attitude, he’s really really bad in emotional/intense scenes. I swear that phone conversation with his mom on the bench gave me secondhand embarrassment and I hate secondhand embarrassment. Every time Sid cries, I'm reminded of that face babies make when they’re fed something sour you know, all crunched up and stuff?. What was that death bed scene? And what is the Director doing? Your actor does subtlety really well, use it. And writers work around your actor’s weaknesses and utilize his strength fgs.

Surbhi: Some scenes she’s a pro and the other scenes i’m watching an amateur leaving me a whiplashed. Ishqbaaaz was the first show I've seen her in never seen Qubool Hai and I’ve noticed then Surbhi is a director’s actor(?). This actor-director team need to set tf down so they can get their shit together and agree once and for all how they want to present this character. Volume wise, personally I don't fault her much because Surbhi’s voice tone is naturally loud. Having a loud family myself a best friend too, these people really don’t realize how loud they’re being unless someone points it out to them, in this case the Director. I’m just glad it toned down considerably from the first couple of weeks.

Anyways, both are getting a pass from me so far since I'm just watching the show for fun; hence i’m not that bothered. But acting wise, both really have a lot of work to do like, a lot a lot. The directors need to up their game as well, half the issues would probably be solved if there was proper guidance and a clear vision between Namit/Surbhi and the Direction team.

Editing & everything else:

Still all over the place. One minute the doctors are wearing gloves, the next it magically disappeared? There’s no consistency with the scenes most of the time. Thankfully they worked on the lighting. It is much better than the first couple of weeks where we could barely see anything.

Finally...

The overall plot started okay-ish toned down considerably from the melodrama of the first weeks but then it was Cliche City the last two episodes. I'm hoping they go back to their previous pace because I liked the overall mellowness of the show. I don’t like how they’ve cut down on the medical cases. I mean it is a medical show? Where the main set is a hospital? And all main characters are doctors? smh. I personally prefer one medical case running for the entire week. That way there will be no super speed diagnostic and no miracle one minute cure happening. 

I still catch up with the show on the weekends as i’m not yet heavily invested in the show I could sign off any minute. What I do like most is the grey shades of the characters, They’re not easy to like and makes picking them apart quite fun.

[purplemoonfox]

Watch the damn video. The title is upsetting but the video is good.

IMHO, yes and no to the tinfoily possibility of why this film flopped as presented by the video’s maker. I’ll explain why. Basically I agree wholeheartedly, but I don’t go in for conspiracy theories as such. One of these days I’ll write down my thoughts on Star Wars, fandom,society, and the early 2000′s. It’s part of my continuing if unwritten theory on All Else Aside, Why Advertising Should Be Heavily Regulated, closely related to Corporations Are Not People, Fuck Off Don’t @ Me. Also closely related to Ethics: The Class No One Likes In Business School Which Is Hilariously Ironic For A Lot Of Reasons. Little under grad me was sitting in a business school once and my friend walked over laughing. Apparently he’d overheard some business kids whining about how boring and useless ethics class was.

I’m a bit of a misanthropic shit with a bone to pick if you can’t tell.

Anyway--

If you asked me whether Disney had some grand, literally planned out conspiracy in torpedoing this movie, just so they could welch on a deal made with one of the previous execs, I’d say you’re reaching. Frankly, as they say, Disney is a business. Regardless of whatever face it puts on, Disney is a business. If they wanted it to flop they didn’t want a $70 million plus deficit. That’s why it freaked the fuck out after Solo flopped, which isn’t fair to Solo since poor Solo, which grew on me massively since I was somewhat bewildered by it at first (if anyone’s curious I’ll talk about that later) was in a somewhat similar situation when it went up at a weird time of year against DP2, the marketing was absolute shit because they’d practically given up after the backlash against a young Han Solo full stop, and they used a filthy casual generalist’s character (Han Solo) to showcase some very specialist in fandom’s details like (SPOILER?) Maul being alive again. But I do like the point the video maker made about the DVD release and winter movies, and the release environment. 

So let’s re-establish some points that the video maker made.

1. This was a personal passion project from the beginning, not a studio or company thing.

The directors struggled since 1987 to get this thing into motion and it was on an agreement made with an exec that it was ever put in motion.

2. This film spared no expense. 

The visual animation in this film is very well done. But it’s basically Disney animation tossing out all the stops. Which, honestly, was what they generally do when innovating, but...this is an animator’s and director’s movie. In a sense it’s an art film done by masters of their craft, but marketed by someone who is more interested in what sells. You want to know when we’ll get less Star Wars and MCU? Stop buying quite so much of it all. I say, as I’m going to run out and get me some sweet Dooku comics. Shut up. It’s not hypocrisy if I know what I’m enabling...LOL.

But here’s another thing that the video maker lauds, but forgets that studios can be really fucking finicky about this kind of off the wall risk-taking---

3. It’s anomalous in a lot of ways. 

That’s going to scare people in the industry because it’s not the tried and true that often wins the Benjis the easiest for the least effort. There’s a reason we now see so many franchises with long-running film series and remakes and sequels and so on--they have established characters in established universes that makes marketing have an easier time of establishing rapport with an audience and attracting attention. They don’t have to make anything new; new doesn’t even make as much money. Treasure Planet came out in 2002 for reference, POTC: Curse of the Black Pearl came out in 2003, so it was in that time period when movies didn’t necessarily have interconnected franchises and were instead relatively more separate iterations unto themselves, kind of like Rocky or Rambo, so it was a little before the era of massively planned out story arcs. I don’t think Marvel ever really had a plan to make the MCU as we know it today, I don’t think George Lucas knew what the fuck he was kicking off when he released TPM in 1999, which is to say the resurgence of Star Wars in concurrence with the rise of modern fandoms starting with the release of Pokemon in 1996 and continuing to play a big part in the lives of Millennials nostalgia is one of the few marketing techniques that work on us...and yes I can show studies. But studios chased that profit relentlessly and it eventually coalesced into something like a plan oh god I’ll move on or I’ll go into Star Wars and we’re not here for that.

I think people rely too much on the assumption that there must be some kind of dedicated conspiracy to bring outcomes like these, like they’re never the product of an unhappy outcome of multiple issues going on independently and congruently. Sometimes that involves personal issues on the part of the people making the decisions that affect something. Roads to hell and all that.

Okay.

The company wasn’t excited about it, it was something those newer CEOs couldn’t pull the plug on once they inherited it. And the company may not have wanted to make the second? Yes, all possible. Even likely. I’m also strongly reminded of Erich von Stroheim’s Foolish Wives, which got him banned from directing for life and established the supremacy of studios over directors forevermore.

Risks too many risks are anathema to a moneymaking entity in the black. These directors may have dragged Disney out of the shitter but now they were sitting comfortably on a pile of cash, and risk is a lot less costly--when you want to take it. When.

I’ve read some, not much, about social economic status and behavior. Rich people have less to lose when taking risks, so they can say cute things like “well just go off and do it and see what you get!” and possibly just face a setback, when for someone in a lower income status the possible outcome of risk is actual destitution. The former sees only potential benefit, the latter only danger.

Moneymaking institutions, on the other hand, tend to resist risk and change when the possible outcome is less money. If anything, they want just enough innovation to draw interest, but not enough to surprise or put people off. Side note: if Disney ever teamed up with Wal-Mart I’m going to call it Shin-Ra and no one can stop me. Disney in the shitter? Fuck yes, take risks--what we’ve got isn’t working and we desperately need to make money somehow. Disney not in the shitter? Fuck no, don’t take risks--what we’ve got is working and you’re possibly going to do something people won’t like so we won’t make money. Who cares if the two people at the head of the project are the reason you’re sitting on a mountain of cash right fucking now? A board without the risk of default only sees dangers, they’re not seeing potential benefits.

If anything there was a level of resignation and “fuck it, let’s let them do this because we kind of have to and see how it goes, this was their project, not ours” and a lot of “see, told you so! Now get back to work!” that went on. But it’s a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy that they won’t own up to, in that lack of an advertisement campaign in the run up to the release. They set the movie up to fail not because of a planned conspiracy but because of a risk-minimization impulse and...then make less than astute assumptions about what it was about the movie that caused it to fail--then plan off of all that.

Now. Going to change gears a little and go on a bit of a tangent, because it relates to that very last point--the part about moving forward.

Remember when this happened. The early 2000′s. What was emerging right around the early 2000′s? That’s right. CGI animation. Did Disney scrap their whole animation studios and pare it down to projection work after that spate of less-than-stellar performances before the Disney Renaissance? Did they blame animation itself for its faults? No they did not, but it would become a convenient whipping boy.

I got into a pretty unpleasant argument a few months ago when, having been asked what unpopular opinion one has on a thread, I said that I wished Disney hadn’t closed their 2D animation. I love 2D. I really do. Most of the people who replied were like “you do realize that isn’t an unpopular opinion kthx” and I was like “ok fair enough.”

But then this mouth-breathing chucklefuck that apparently can’t read labels thought it was cute to try and tell me why I’m wrong for me to have my own fucking opinion what a cute notion. He was a fucking twit, but I got a few salient points out of it to roll over in my head anyway. I strongly suspect he had something to do with the industry itself because of the points he made. He didn’t change my mind, but some points are worth thinking about.

1. Disney is for kids. Okay. Not if they don’t want to tap into more than just parents strapped for cashs’ pockets, but the movies are still made to be accessible and engaging for younger people, so I rolled my eyes and moved on.

2. Related to the first point, kids don’t like 2D animation anymore because they’re used to 3D because that’s what all their other entertainment is is. Why?

3. INNOVATION. EVERYONE WANTS INNOVATION AND GETS BORED WITHOUT 100% FULL THROTTLE VISUAL INNOVATION. YOU’RE JUST BEING A BITTER OLD NOSTALGIA HOUNDING HAG. 

Medium aside, the rest to a movie is really just window dressing; Moana had fantastic and original music as well as otherwise being visually stunning too, granted, because in no way am I hating on 3D itself; the point is it’s not an opera singer standing in for the voice actress, much as I love Beauty and the Beast’s animated soundtrack, but music can be played regardless of animation medium. And you’re damn right we could’ve had a Polynesian Princess before now.

Of the two I found the second point more interesting and less inane. The third was just...charming.

Now. Just to go back to Star Wars real quick to make a point; the OT is filmed in a way consistent with the time period it was made in. I’ve known people who tell me that they prefer the sequels and that ANH, ep 4 the one with the Death Star for anyone wandering in, not the one with Ewoks or Hoth, is boring. Why? Because it’s filmed like a movie from 1978, which means its pacing is different and so are the camera angles and so on. Because, uh, it’s a movie from 1978. What an original fucking concept. If you need a comparison for what was otherwise more or less the standard of SFX in the day, pop in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 1979 I’m not hating on Trekkies, I love you guys. Star Wars is phenomenally ahead of its time. For an older version, guys, I may loathe Citizen Kane with every fiber of my salty little being, but I will give it full credit for the innovations it made in camera angles and scene setting. 

All of this is not to forget The Princess and The Frog in 2009, which was great, but it didn’t smash through the roof like this was the end of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

So. We had Treasure Planet, whose release was a wretched cluster of fuck. We had Winnie the Pooh, which isn’t...well, guys, it’s not an original story, and then we had Home on the Range, which I’ve never seen. I enjoyed Brother Bear, but I swear the being a bear for most of the movie kind of killed the ability of a lot of people to put themselves in their shoes. Because let’s face it--if we’re going for blaming thematic issues, romance is still a part of the Disney theory, even if we’ve finally reached the point of questioning some of its normal tenets--not marrying someone you just met and why is everyone dancing come to mind oh Flynn Rider you fucking gem you. But none of that is made impossible by the medium of 3D. And why the fuck is everyone ignoring Mulan and Esmeralda in all this anyway. Well, poor Esmeralda always gets the short end of the stick. I swear though that woman did convince me that I could be fucking badass in a skirt though.

Meanwhile we see the rise of Pixar. In 1995, we had Toy Story my mother dragged us to see that movie seven times in theaters. Now that I think about it I shouldn’t be surprised that the woman was fascinated with the concept of a secret world anonymously devoted to the person that plays with them in a way that makes them literally dolls on shelves, since...reasons. Monsters, Inc., in 2001, Finding Nemo in 2003, The Incredibles in 2004, and Wall-E and Up in 2008 and 2009, respectively--after the acquisition by Disney in 2006. They haven’t done quite so well recently, their stock has taken on more sequels decently good sequels, granted, not the shitty made for video stuff that Disney put out, and some others. I’ll be annoyed if they make a sequel for Wall-E; I don’t know what that would look like. Maybe rediscovering the concept of competition over resources and nostalgia for the good old days of space. Nah. That just sounds like why Tolkien never wrote a sequel to LOTR.

I brought that bit about Treasure Planet (2002), Brother Bear (2003), Home on the Range (2004), and The Princess and The Frog (2009) up to mainly make the point that after Treasure Planet’s lackluster response until The Princess and The Frog, Disney gave it anything but relatively normal big-name projects...and then topped it off with Winnie the Pooh in 2011, which was never going to be a blowout hit. I like Winnie the Pooh itself enough to not disdain it, but I don’t like it enough to spend money on a fucking movie ticket. Mostly just tolerated it in Kingdom Hearts if not ignored it when I could. 

Now, you might think that the immediately previous statement basically made my point entirely invalid, but I also brought up that bit about the highly successful Pixar, which they bought in 2006. They pretty much lost interest and moved on to the shiny new thing; The Princess and The Frog really only got made because John Lasseter and Ed Catmull wanted to make it; Disney had meant to shut 2D animation down. Then it had some controversy, though to my knowledge the film did its best to resolve the issues. Furthermore, despite the fact that we were supposed to get more animated films because it did well, The Princess and The Frog, despite its success, we got the rug pulled out from under us when they didn’t get enough money.

Look. Every thirty years or so, somebody swears that they just invented 3D screens. While not on a television, they’ve had “how to make visual representation look 3D” since 1838. No, not 1938. 1838. It’s a stupid gimmick, and it will be a stupid gimmick the next time they bring it up, too. They have tried to sell 3D tv screens in the past, and it failed then, too. The point I’m trying to make is that sometimes it’s not the medium that’s at fault, although some people in the industry itself seem to blame it for not being “new” enough, as if it’s not their failure to innovate effectively and then do their due diligence that’s to blame. Disney basically shot themselves in the foot over Treasure Planet and hand-drawn animation in general, and threw up their hands, affected to forget that any of that ever happened, and blamed the gun that they suddenly found sitting at their feet--not because Treasure Planet was fated to be a failure from inception, or that 2D animation is intrinsically inferior to 3D and/or is less interesting to small children because it’s just older if that were the case and frankly, that point about kids and 3D and preference...well, Paw Patrol isn’t every kid’s show in existence, there are 2D animated kid’s shows, and Pixar would never have bothered researching Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin for wordless language while making Wall-E.

[aion-rsa]

Jupiter’s Legacy: From Page to Screen

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How do you bring a comic book to life? It’s a question that studios have been struggling with since they first began making live-action superhero serials in the 1940s. Netflix’s newest comic book series adapts Image Comics’ metatext on the medium, Jupiter’s Legacy. Created by Mark Millar and Frank Quitely, the story centers on two generations of heroes. In its quest to bring this story to life, Netflix has enlisted costume designer Lizz Wolf. Though she’s new to the superhero genre, she has plenty of experience with massive actioners—including Rambo, The Expendables, and Pacific Rim: Uprising–and she dived in head-first to create a unique and vibrant visual landscape which respected the comics while bringing the texture and depth needed to translate the archetypal heroes to the small screen. 

In an unusual series of events, Wolf was brought on very early in the production in order to allow her to build the sartorial universe of Jupiter’s Legacy from the ground up. It was a rare chance for the costume designer to truly create something immersive and all-encompassing. “This project was an opportunity that very few costume designers get,” Wolf says. “In order to conquer the Herculean task of bringing the vast universe that Mark Millar and Frank Quitely had created to life, I had to strap myself in for the ride of a lifetime.” 

Seeing that world come to life has been nothing short of a joy for artist and Jupiter’s Legacy co-creator Quitely. While the show does bring plenty of new layers to the costuming and characters, he was blown away by how much inspiration they took from the comics. Even when things were changed he feels it was for the better. 

“Where they have embellished things, it’s not so much that they’ve done their own thing,” Quitely says, “it’s that they’ve taken what we had in the comic, and they’ve added to it and translated it in a way that’s going to work better for television. It’s a very interesting process for me to see.”

So how did Wolf get started on translating such an epic series through the lens of costuming? 

���As this universe is literally littered with superheroes and villains with varying degrees of power, I created a doctrine based on the character depictions in the comic book,” she says. “A platform of their capabilities and back stories. This was the connective tissue to then assemble a visual language and start the design process. This design language was a culmination of the extensive research we did for each of the superheroes and their subgroups. I relied heavily on science and nature to guide me. I was inspired by everything from the natural world, architecture, black line tattoos, ancient symbols, alchemy, microbial photography, atomic ordering, complex life forms, and parametric equations.”

When it came to directly adapting the costumes from the comics, for Wolf it was a balance of respect and inspiration. 

“In the beginning, I focused on the story to inform the design,” she says. “In order to achieve a cinematic feel, we had to extrapolate what was intrinsic to telling the story through an emotional color palette, composition, function, and the capabilities of each member of the Union from the source material. Then, of course, we had to pump them into three-dimensional characters.” 

When Quitely visited the set, he got to explore those three-dimensional reimaginings of his art, something that he calls a privilege. While he visited each and every part of the production, and enjoyed it all, the costume department was something of a highlight for the creator. 

“They were very faithful to all the main costumes,” Quitely explains. “But because there are so many supporting characters, they had basically come up with a lot of costumes that were just inspired by what they’d already found in the comic. That was really great to see.”

Discovering the creators were fans of her designs early on was an unforgettable moment for Wolf. She was keen to talk about their impact on her, and what she called a seminal vision of superheroes. So when Millar, Quitely, and the showrunners came back with good things to say, it was “the catalyst of confidence” for her. “It was truly a professional high point to hear that Mark [Millar] had liked the designs and the direction we were going in.” Wolf says. “That acknowledgment was everything!”

Paying homage to the silhouettes and color schemes of the comics costumes was key to Wolf. But she wanted to amp up the technology and detail. With suits that have to exist over decades, it was vital to make sure that they had durability and that classic Golden Age vibe. “These suits had to travel the expanse of 100-plus years and hold up, as well as remain relevant and be able to inspire generations to come,” she says. “That was a challenge!” 

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Wolf battled through those challenges and found unexpected inspiration in the works of industrial 3D knitters. Diving deep into this new creative process gave Wolf a new insight, and what she called “single thread technology” led to the basis of what she describes as the show’s “suit mythology,” which also shaped the designs of the next generation’s suits. 

Taking inspiration from anatomical artists like George Bridgman and Andrew Loomis, Wolf crafted a musculature for the super suits that was exaggerated yet natural. And she even built the origin of their powers, imbued following an “event,” into the suits. “This muscular structure was a molecular reaction of this event integrated into the suit itself,” she says. 

That level of detail was something that immediately stuck out to Quitely. He was particularly excited by the intricate detailing that Wolf and her team added. Though the costumes might look the same from a distance, up close Quitely found an impressive array of subtle details, including emblems and alien patterns built into the material itself. “They’ve put so much thought and love and enthusiasm into the way they’ve gone about recreating this world, making it bigger and fuller in a way that will work for television,” Quitely says. “It’s been fantastic.”

Wolf was equally as enamoured with the process, describing it as a highlight of her storied career. “Designing the superheroes was an incredible thrill! I’ve experienced nothing like it. I’d have to say overall that Jupiter’s Legacy is my favorite project that I have ever done!” 

Sacred Geometry

Lizz Wolf added a unique costume detail which created its own visual language, much of which was inspired by the concept of “Sacred Geometry.” The term references the idea of ascribing meaning and symbolism to certain geometric shapes and proportions. While usually used in religious buildings and art, Wolf strived to craft a superheroic Sacred Geometry for each of the six Union members using symbolic emblems and totems which were later integrated into their suits. “These were extractions or reflections of each character’s individual journey.” Wolf explains. 

While researching the look of Jupiter’s Legacy, the team discovered amateur micro photography of frozen ice crystals. This naturally occurring phenomenon developed into the overall language of the costumes. “We created a series of these lichen-like formations that represented expressions or glyphs based on an alphabet of sorts,” Wolf says. “It was used on each of the Union’s super suits as an adornment or to create declarations.”

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The Utopian signified a particular challenge as his plain white suit was simple yet iconic. But Wolf built on his archetypal comic book silhouette that she felt represented the mythology of the character. While she didn’t feel like he was particularly formidable at first, once they built in Sheldon’s own Sacred Geometry which was built from “extractions from conjured celestial maps that could have guided Sheldon in his calling” the costume designer reveals, “he emerged to be very intimidating.” 

Dressing Two Generations of Superheroes

Jupiter’s Legacy is a story about family, two generations of distinctly different heroes. The older and more archetypal group known as the Union are shaped by idealistic dreams and Golden Age comics. Then there’s the children of the Union, whose lives have been molded by their parents’ fame, privilege, and celebrity endorsement campaigns. When it comes to costuming, the differences are clear. The Union wear classic superhero suits, making them icons of hope and heroics. But their children rock civilian outfits, still just as recognizable but a clear rejection of the traditions of their family. 

The Utopian 

When it came to designing The Utopian, Quitely looked towards Superman and other classic Golden Age stories. But for costume designer Lizz Wolf, it was all about building only on what already existed in the comics. Keeping his white silhouette was key and Wolf “built on the mythology of the character,” giving him what she calls an “almost archaic, statuesque feel.” She adds that building that texture was key. “This is where the musculature was profound in exhibiting his mortal strength,” she explains. “This brought majesty to his suit, and then Josh Duhamel brought his god-like presence!” 

Skyfox 

One of the most significantly different costumes is that of Skyfox. Gone are his leotard/undies from the comics. Instead, Wolf crafted something with “a rugged sexiness.” The team retained his “iconic color scheme that is certainly a nod to royalty and his social status as George Hutchence.” But rather than drawing directly from the comics, they shifted tactics.

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“His inspiration was part gunslinger, part playboy, 100% badass,” Wolf says. “His equipment is intentionally worn low on hips to provoke that rock star, cowboy vibe. He also has what amounts to the ‘Rosetta Stone’ of the Union embedded in his suit. The crowning element is his fractal-like Fox emblem. It’s like a talisman inspired by his fox-themed heirloom jewelry pieces from the 1920s.”

Brainwave 

Another slight shift was Brainwave. In the comics, his suit evolves in the modern age. But Wolf decided to keep his iconic early look for the entire series. “This allowed us to really make his suit beam and keep his natural swagger evident. I love his suit and his veining motif. He just lights up in it and it appears to be actively circulating.”

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Wolf reveals that a strange mistake ended up playing a vital part. “That fabrication was one of those divine accidents. During our R&D period, a run of printed fabric went in an unintentional direction. That material mysteriously became more radiant when stretched over his muscular structure. That mistake became the end result.”

The Union

For artist Frank Quitely and writer Mark Millar, the Union’s costumes were key, as were their influences.

“We went right back to Superman and Batman. The early Marvel and DC heroes. The heroes from the mid 1930s through the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s,” Quitely says. The older generation wear traditional suits making them easily identifiable as heroes. “We were looking at everything that had gone before. We were wanting things that were recognizable and reminiscent of classic superheroes, even for people that weren’t immersed in comic book culture. Most people have got a rough idea of what Superman and Spider-Man are about. We wanted to deal with archetypes and representations of superheroes that would still strike some kind of chord with people that only had a passing interest.”

The Next Generation 

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Growing up in Scotland shaped Quitely’s choice to make the younger generation’s uniforms their everyday outfits. “I read a lot of comics when I was younger. Desperate Dan, Dennis the Menace, The Broons. The characters tend to wear the same clothes,” he explains. “It’s the same with your Saturday morning cartoons like Scooby-Doo. Their costumes are part of the aesthetic of each character. They wear the same clothes and colors all the time because it makes them more recognizable. To some extent we did that with the characters in Jupiter’s Legacy that didn’t have a superhero costume. Even if the clothes change, they have a recognizable style. And it’s important to try to stick with that because it helps build the character and it helps make the visual storytelling easy to follow.”

Jupiter’s Legacy premieres on Netflix on May 7. Read more about the series in our special edition magazine!

The post Jupiter’s Legacy: From Page to Screen appeared first on Den of Geek.

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In Philadelphia, a Scandal Erupts Over Vaccination Startup Led by 22-Year-Old

It started as a group of college friends who wanted to help during the pandemic. They had tech skills, so they used 3D printers to make face shields. Then they organized as a nonprofit, Philly Fighting Covid, and opened a testing site in a Philadelphia neighborhood that didn’t have one yet.

This story is part of a reporting partnership that includes NPR, WHYY and KHN. It can be republished for free.

The organization’s leader, Andrei Doroshin, had bigger ambitions. Even before the first coronavirus vaccine was authorized, the 22-year-old graduate student at Drexel University planned to get involved, even though he has no background in health care.

On the evening of Oct. 7, Doroshin gathered 15 of the nonprofit’s staff members and volunteers for a meeting on a Philadelphia rooftop to show them a fancy PowerPoint. More people joined via livestream to watch him unveil his plan to vaccinate the city of Philadelphia.

In slide after slide, he laid out his vision with colorful graphics and maps, covering all aspects of a vaccination system, from scheduling to staffing to safety protocols.

The marketing plan hinged on inoculating local celebrities like rapper Meek Mill, a Philadelphia native, to attract his fan base.

“This is a wholly Elon Musk, shooting-for-the-heavens type of thing,” Doroshin said. “We’re gonna have a preemptive strike on vaccines and basically beat everybody in Philadelphia to it.”

Doroshin described scaling up until they were managing five mass vaccination sites and 20 smaller sites scattered throughout the city. He claimed they could vaccinate between 500,000 and 1.5 million people. And they would make a lot of money doing it.

“This is the juicy slide,” said Doroshin, clicking over to the financing plan. “How are we gonna get paid?” He explained that the vaccine doses were free, provided by the federal government. But Philly Fighting Covid could bill insurance companies $24 a dose for administering it.

“I just told you how many vaccines we want to do — you can do the math in your head,” he said.

A month later, Doroshin made a similar presentation, complete with colorful maps and a $2.7 million projected budget, to the Philadelphia City Council. He said his team at Philly Fighting Covid had begun submitting plans for building out five high-capacity sites that could each take up to 10,000 patients a day.

Philly Fighting Covid’s promise of efficiently vaccinating the population was an alluring one as city leaders were desperate to pull out of the pandemic. Doroshin told NBC’s “Today” show that his company didn’t think like a traditional medical institution. “We’re engineers, we’re scientists, computer scientists, we’re cybersecurity nerds. We think a little differently than people in health care do.”

“We took the entire model and just threw it out the window,” Doroshin added. “We said to hell with all of that. We’re going to completely build on a new model that is based on a factory.”

By Jan. 9, Doroshin had a deal with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration. The city never signed a formal contract with Philly Fighting Covid or gave the organization any money, but it did provide its unofficial sanction and publicity.

Most important, the city turned over part of its vaccine allotment to the group and helped it find recipients by sharing lists of residents who were newly eligible for the vaccine, based on the city’s own prioritization scheme. The city relied on Philly Fighting Covid’s registration as a vaccine provider with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On Jan. 8, Doroshin and Kenney stood side by side at a press conference to kick off the first mass vaccination clinic at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. It was targeted at health care workers not affiliated with major hospitals, such as home health aides or doctors, nurses or therapists in private practice.

“What you see here is the problem that we’ve been solving for six months,” Doroshin told reporters. “This is the problem of vaccinating an entire population of people on a scale that has never been seen before in the history of our species.”

Kenney was also hopeful that the arrangement would help diversify the racial breakdown of vaccine recipients. At that point, only 12% of vaccinated Philadelphians were Black — in a city where 44% of residents are Black.

“Equitable distribution of this vaccine is extremely important to our entire administration,” said Kenney at the Jan. 8 kickoff event.

But in an early sign of trouble, Philly Fighting Covid failed to verify its progress on the equity goal. After that first vaccine event, at which 2,500 doses were administered, City Council President Darrell Clarke requested the demographic breakdown of the recipients.

The health department told him that Philly Fighting Covid had somehow lost all the racial and ethnic data for the patients. The group was blaming “a glitch” in the Amazon cloud. Still, the city continued to turn over thousands of vaccine doses to Philly Fighting Covid.

As the startup continued to hold clinics, WHYY began investigating the organization and its founder.

Reporters uncovered other serious problems, and it soon became clear that the group’s logistical strengths and self-promotional flair, which had once made the startup seem so compelling, weren’t working. The investigation revealed that in December, just before Philly Fighting Covid began its vaccination work, it reorganized and became a for-profit company called Vax Populi.

Philly Fighting Covid had spent months organizing city-funded testing events — at which residents reported good experiences. But in January, it abruptly shuttered those operations, leaving partner organizations in the lurch. The group posted this decision on social media, just a few days after the convention center kickoff, at which Doroshin had promised to open two new testing sites and to start offering free rapid testing.

Several groups that had been partnering with Philly Fighting Covid on testing events claim they received little or no notice, jeopardizing plans for testing in communities of color.

“They completely ghosted us,” said Cean James, pastor of Salt & Light church in Southwest Philadelphia, which had been planning a series of pop-up testing events with Philly Fighting Covid.

Michael Brown had been working with the group to organize a testing event on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He said Doroshin told his group that testing wasn’t important anymore.

“The statement he made was very clear: ‘I don’t believe that testing is relevant anymore. People don’t follow the instructions, people don’t do what they’re supposed to do, and all it does is … cause panic,'” Brown said later.

There were signs that Doroshin wasn’t that concerned about standard clinical protocols. Employees with more clinical experience than he had said he brushed off technical questions as bothersome and approached the vaccination effort as if he were a tech mogul focused on disrupting norms.

“Stop using best practices,” Doroshin said during a recent interview with HealthDay. “I think the old best practices in health care, in terms of intramuscular injections, were written for a hospital visit that would take 30 minutes, that you needed to do a bill for as a provider visit. Those best practices can mostly go out the window.”

The city soon began to back away from the group. At the initial launch, the city promoted Philly Fighting Covid’s pre-registration website and encouraged everyone to sign up. Just a week later, officials changed course and claimed the city had nothing to do with the website. The conflicting messages caused confusion among the 60,000 Philadelphians who had signed up thinking it was an official city site. Many were left worried about what would happen to their personal information. The city then launched its own pre-registration site.

The process Philly Fighting Covid used to schedule appointments was also flawed. Anyone who received a hyperlink could sign up for a time slot, which prompted many who received it to assume they were automatically eligible, even though at that time the clinic was technically only for health care workers and the elderly.

Some who received the link in error went through with their appointments. Others backed out when they learned it wasn’t their turn. Still more had their doses canceled by Philly Fighting Covid upon arrival.

When Jillian Horn came to get a shot, she said she saw seniors waiting in line get turned away because of booking errors.

“There was literally 85-year-olds, 95-year-old people standing there, with printed appointment confirmations saying, ‘I don’t understand why I can’t get vaccinated,’ ” Horn recalled.

On Jan. 23, volunteer nurse Katrina Lipinsky was helping at one of Philly Fighting Covid’s vaccination events. She said that about half an hour before the event’s scheduled end, staffers started telling volunteers and other workers to call anyone they knew to come in for a shot because there were going to be extras.

Then she saw Doroshin grab a handful of vaccines and stuff them in his bag, along with the corresponding CDC vaccination record cards.

“The idea of somebody who’s not a licensed health care professional vaccinating their own friend, with or without observation, period, that certainly was not the right thing to do,” Lipinsky told WHYY.

Doroshin initially denied Lipinsky’s account but eventually admitted he took doses home during a Jan. 28 interview on NBC’s “Today” show. The following day at a press conference, he said he had vaccinated his girlfriend, but no one else. He did not explain how Philly Fighting Covid ended up with extra doses after it turned away people, including seniors, who were in line waiting for the vaccine that same day.

The city cut ties with Philly Fighting Covid on Jan. 25, citing the company’s abandonment of its testing work and the company’s new privacy policy, which would have allowed it to sell patient data.

Health commissioner Dr. Tom Farley has been asked to explain what happened. Doroshin approached with a vaccine plan, he said, that met the city’s health standards.

“I hope people can understand why on the surface this looked like a good thing,” Farley said. “In retrospect, we should have been more careful with this organization.”

The city had other options for a mass vaccination partner. Philadelphia is home to four major health systems, including the University of Pennsylvania medical system, which said it was prepared to ramp up community vaccination efforts as far back as November, well before the city started working with Philly Fighting Covid.

Kenney called for an investigation Friday, and several state lawmakers called for Farley’s resignation.

In a press conference at his apartment building Friday, Doroshin called the city’s decision to dissolve the partnership “dirty power politics” and alleged it was part of a political conspiracy. He said that if given the chance, he wouldn’t have done anything differently.

This story is part of a partnership that includes WHYY, NPR and KHN.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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This story can be republished for free (details).

In Philadelphia, a Scandal Erupts Over Vaccination Startup Led by 22-Year-Old published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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In Philadelphia, a Scandal Erupts Over Vaccination Startup Led by 22-Year-Old

It started as a group of college friends who wanted to help during the pandemic. They had tech skills, so they used 3D printers to make face shields. Then they organized as a nonprofit, Philly Fighting Covid, and opened a testing site in a Philadelphia neighborhood that didn’t have one yet.

This story is part of a reporting partnership that includes NPR, WHYY and KHN. It can be republished for free.

The organization’s leader, Andrei Doroshin, had bigger ambitions. Even before the first coronavirus vaccine was authorized, the 22-year-old graduate student at Drexel University planned to get involved, although he has no background in health care.

On the evening of Oct. 7, Doroshin gathered 15 of the nonprofit’s staff members and volunteers for a meeting on a Philadelphia rooftop to show them a fancy PowerPoint. More people joined via livestream to watch him unveil his plan to vaccinate the city of Philadelphia.

In slide after slide, he laid out his vision with colorful graphics and maps, covering all aspects of a vaccination system, from scheduling to staffing to safety protocols.

The marketing plan hinged on inoculating local celebrities like rapper Meek Mill, a Philadelphia native, to attract his fan base.

“This is a wholly Elon Musk, shooting-for-the-heavens type of thing,” Doroshin said. “We’re gonna have a preemptive strike on vaccines and basically beat everybody in Philadelphia to it.”

Doroshin described scaling up until they were managing five mass vaccination sites and 20 smaller sites scattered throughout the city. He claimed they could vaccinate between 500,000 and 1.5 million people. And they would make a lot of money doing it.

“This is the juicy slide,” said Doroshin, clicking over to the financing plan. “How are we gonna get paid?” He explained that the vaccine doses were free, provided by the federal government. But Philly Fighting Covid could bill insurance companies $24 a dose for administering it.

“I just told you how many vaccines we want to do — you can do the math in your head,” he said.

A month later, Doroshin made a similar presentation, complete with colorful maps and a $2.7 million projected budget, to the Philadelphia City Council. He said his team at Philly Fighting Covid had begun submitting plans for building out five high-capacity sites that could each take up to 10,000 patients a day.

Philly Fighting Covid’s promise of efficiently vaccinating the population was an alluring one as city leaders were desperate to pull out of the pandemic. Doroshin told NBC’s “Today” show that his company didn’t think like a traditional medical institution. “We’re engineers, we’re scientists, computer scientists, we’re cybersecurity nerds. We think a little differently than people in health care do.”

“We took the entire model and just threw it out the window,” Doroshin added. “We said to hell with all of that. We’re going to completely build on a new model that is based on a factory.”

By Jan. 9, Doroshin had a deal with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration. The city never signed a formal contract with Philly Fighting Covid or gave the organization any money, but it did provide its unofficial sanction and publicity.

Most important, the city turned over part of its vaccine allotment to the group and helped it find recipients by sharing lists of residents who were newly eligible for the vaccine, based on the city’s own prioritization scheme. The city relied on Philly Fighting Covid’s registration as a vaccine provider with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On Jan. 8, Doroshin and Kenney stood side by side at a press conference to kick off the first mass vaccination clinic at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. It was targeted at health care workers not affiliated with major hospitals, such as home health aides or doctors, nurses or therapists in private practice.

“What you see here is the problem that we’ve been solving for six months,” Doroshin told reporters. “This is the problem of vaccinating an entire population of people on a scale that has never been seen before in the history of our species.”

Kenney was also hopeful that the arrangement would help diversify the racial breakdown of vaccine recipients. At that point, only 12% of vaccinated Philadelphians were Black — in a city where 44% of residents are Black.

“Equitable distribution of this vaccine is extremely important to our entire administration,” said Kenney at the Jan. 8 kickoff event.

But in an early sign of trouble, Philly Fighting Covid failed to verify its progress on the equity goal. After that first vaccine event, at which 2,500 doses were administered, City Council President Darrell Clarke requested the demographic breakdown of the recipients.

The health department told him that Philly Fighting Covid had somehow lost all the racial and ethnic data for the patients. The group was blaming “a glitch” in the Amazon cloud. Still, the city continued to turn over thousands of vaccine doses to Philly Fighting Covid.

As the startup continued to hold clinics, WHYY began investigating the organization and its founder.

Reporters uncovered other serious problems, and it soon became clear that the group’s logistical strengths and self-promotional flair, which had once made the startup seem so compelling, weren’t working. The investigation revealed that in December, just before Philly Fighting Covid began its vaccination work, it reorganized and became a for-profit company called Vax Populi.

Philly Fighting Covid had spent months organizing city-funded testing events — at which residents reported good experiences. But in January, it abruptly shuttered those operations, leaving partner organizations in the lurch. The group posted this decision on social media, just a few days after the convention center kickoff, at which Doroshin had promised to open two new testing sites and to start offering free rapid testing.

Several groups that had been partnering with Philly Fighting Covid on testing events claim they received little or no notice, jeopardizing plans for testing in communities of color.

“They completely ghosted us,” said Cean James, pastor of Salt & Light church in Southwest Philadelphia, which had been planning a series of pop-up testing events with Philly Fighting Covid.

Michael Brown had been working with the group to organize a testing event on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He said Doroshin told his group that testing wasn’t important anymore.

“The statement he made was very clear: ‘I don’t believe that testing is relevant anymore. People don’t follow the instructions, people don’t do what they’re supposed to do, and all it does is … cause panic,'” Brown said later.

There were signs that Doroshin wasn’t that concerned about standard clinical protocols. Employees with more clinical experience than he had said he brushed off technical questions as bothersome and approached the vaccination effort as if he were a tech mogul focused on disrupting norms.

“Stop using best practices,” Doroshin said during a recent interview with HealthDay. “I think the old best practices in health care, in terms of intramuscular injections, were written for a hospital visit that would take 30 minutes, that you needed to do a bill for as a provider visit. Those best practices can mostly go out the window.”

The city soon began to back away from the group. At the initial launch, the city promoted Philly Fighting Covid’s pre-registration website and encouraged everyone to sign up. Just a week later, officials changed course and claimed the city had nothing to do with the website. The conflicting messages caused confusion among the 60,000 Philadelphians who had signed up thinking it was an official city site. Many were left worried about what would happen to their personal information. The city then launched its own pre-registration site.

The process Philly Fighting Covid used to schedule appointments was also flawed. Anyone who received a hyperlink could sign up for a time slot, which prompted many who received it to assume they were automatically eligible, even though at that time the clinic was technically only for health care workers and the elderly.

Some who received the link in error went through with their appointments. Others backed out when they learned it wasn’t their turn. Still more had their doses canceled by Philly Fighting Covid upon arrival.

When Jillian Horn came to get a shot, she said she saw seniors waiting in line get turned away because of booking errors.

“There was literally 85-year-olds, 95-year-old people standing there, with printed appointment confirmations saying, ‘I don’t understand why I can’t get vaccinated,’ ” Horn recalled.

On Jan. 23, volunteer nurse Katrina Lipinsky was helping at one of Philly Fighting Covid’s vaccination events. She said that about half an hour before the event’s scheduled end, staffers started telling volunteers and other workers to call anyone they knew to come in for a shot because there were going to be extras.

Then she saw Doroshin grab a handful of vaccines and stuff them in his bag, along with the corresponding CDC vaccination record cards.

“The idea of somebody who’s not a licensed health care professional vaccinating their own friend, with or without observation, period, that certainly was not the right thing to do,” Lipinsky told WHYY.

Doroshin initially denied Lipinsky’s account but eventually admitted he took doses home during a Jan. 28 interview on NBC’s “Today” show. The following day at a press conference, he said he had vaccinated his girlfriend, but no one else. He did not explain how Philly Fighting Covid ended up with extra doses after it turned away people, including seniors, who were in line waiting for the vaccine that same day.

The city cut ties with Philly Fighting Covid on Jan. 25, citing the company’s abandonment of its testing work and the company’s new privacy policy, which would have allowed it to sell patient data.

Health commissioner Dr. Tom Farley has been asked to explain what happened. Doroshin approached with a vaccine plan, he said, that met the city’s health standards.

“I hope people can understand why on the surface this looked like a good thing,” Farley said. “In retrospect, we should have been more careful with this organization.”

The city had other options for a mass vaccination partner. Philadelphia is home to four major health systems, including the University of Pennsylvania medical system, which said it was prepared to ramp up community vaccination efforts as far back as November, well before the city started working with Philly Fighting Covid.

Kenney called for an investigation Friday, and several state lawmakers called for Farley’s resignation.

In a press conference at his apartment building Friday, Doroshin called the city’s decision to dissolve the partnership “dirty power politics” and alleged it was part of a political conspiracy. He said that if given the chance, he wouldn’t have done anything differently.

This story is part of a partnership that includes WHYY, NPR and KHN.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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In Philadelphia, a Scandal Erupts Over Vaccination Startup Led by 22-Year-Old published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[millennialmoderator]

Top 20 Startups of 2020

2020 has been nothing short of a challenge, yet some businesses have found stable footing in the value that they provide to customers..

Aleksey (Aleks) Weyman

List created and published on millennialmoderator.com

As American-British investor John Templeton once famously stated- the best opportunities come in times of maximum pessimism. Calming idea but difficult to embrace when the pessimism is at your front door. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic that has ravaged our world, halted entire industries and resulted in millions of deaths (literally and economically), much of the business world has become skeptical and; in reaction, withdrawn certain risk behaviors like innovating and investing.

However, despite the trend, there exist companies that have taken grasp of this uncertain time, buckled down on their operation and found a way to endure, if not grow even more. It’s these companies (both startups and established) that I want to highlight today. If they can do this well today, imagine what they’ll be doing tomorrow. Here’s our top 20 startups of 2020!

1. Phonic

First up on our top companies of 2020 is next-level survey software Phonic. With their revolutionary voice and video survey features (among others), they are radically redesigning the way that online surveys are conducted. They’ve had PR on Techcrunch and are already integrated with top educational institutions around the United States like Stanford and Cornell. You can learn more about Phonic as well as how to level up your own survey strategy, in this article.

2. The Closing Docs

Identifying a problem and providing a solution is the core of every great company’s value proposition, which is exactly what The Closing Docs is doing for landlords and property owners. With their software, landlords can easily verify tenant income without having to spend a copious amount of time managing multiple reports. Their platform is very user friendly and trustworthy- a key factor when handling finances. It’s a tenant application software that I personally will be using when I rent out my condo next year!

3. Iowa Solar

No list of forward-thinking companies would be complete without alternative energy sources, which is exactly where Iowa Solar shines bright. Servicing the Iowa/Illinois area, they have designed an extremely cost-effective solar panel solution for homeowners and businesses. They also provide installation and maintenance, truly bringing the cost-to-value ratio of solar energy down to consumer level. Not to mention, there are tax benefits associated with solar energy that both homeowners and businesses should take advantage of.

4. CornerNook

Work from home is seemingly the new norm around the world, with many organizations allowing for full time WFH accommodations for the foreseeable future, even after the global pandemic. CornerNook saw the value in this change of work-life, and began offering equipment and furniture that every home office needs to be functional and comfortable. From ergonomic chairs to electrical components, you can bet that they have all the home office equipment you need.

5. Cover Video

Our 5th startup to highlight has a unique backstory- founder and developer Nicholas Treybig had spent copious amounts of time applying for various jobs at companies like Amazon and Google, going so far as to create custom cover letter-videos to enhance his applications. He realized the struggle with creating multiple videos and thus, created a simple solution for applicants and employers alike. Covervideo.com is a key-protected cover video sharing web service that helps companies interview and hire candidates more readily and safely than ever before.

6. See Inside Media

2020 has been an eye opener to many industries of the possibilities that come with virtual reality and 3D user experiences, and founder David Schanen has been well aware of these possibilities since 2018, when he formed See Inside Media. This company provides virtual, 3D tour technology and has an existing market foothold in the real estate and music industries, with virtually every market an option in the foreseeable future. They are currently exploring volumetric video productions, which will allow for virtual reality live-stream experiences. A business to surely keep an eye on!

7. All About PDF

If there was one business that cares about your digital documents more than anyone else, it’s All About PDF. Founder Steven Amani has designed a suite of features that allow anyone to become a master of the portable document format. From PDF expiration dates, online file conversion options (in browser as well as downloadable software), PDF merging, not to mention a relatively new feature- DRM (digital rights management) to protect the monetary value of your documents, Amani and team are looking out for your digital documents in ways most don’t even think about.

8. BrandLume

It’s no surprise that there is an abundance of digital marketing solutions available on the web, so how can someone possibly explore them all? BrandLume has the answer- They provide expert-level services for every area of your business. Think of them as a one-stop-shop for all your digital marketing, branding and website services. They have been helping build businesses from the ground up since 2011! BrandLume offers wholesale prices and no-contract-needed consultations (among other features) for all digital marketing needs under the sun.

9. Emi

Being stuck at home for days on end has been a testing ground for relationships around the world, which is exactly where the Emi App has stepped up to the plate. They offer a simple yet valuable set of relationship exercises that are designed to rekindle and strengthen relationships with your significant other. The best part- it’s intuitive and easy to set up, with the premise being that you won’t have to take time out of your busy day to focus on relationship tips- Emi will do all the reminding for you!

10. Pry

Budgeting can be a sensitive subject for bootstrapped startups (or any company for that matter) but that doesn’t mean there isn’t value in planning ahead. Pry Financials makes it simple for companies to manage their budget, hiring plan, financial models, and cash runway. Their cloud-based platform allows for live, team collaboration and encourages a positive mindset with its clean and intuitive finance planning dashboards.

11. Finally

Unlike business finance, personal finance is a much more intimate topic to digest, with the majority of decisions based on personal goals and current economic conditions. Finally is (finally) providing a solution for the individual, by creating educational material about which financial options are available, and then automating financial portfolios based on the individuals goals’ and desires. Not to mention, they offer financial advising for a fraction of the cost.

12. NITL

So much of our news media today is fluffy and misleading, which fuels and perpetuates the concept of fake news around the world. NITL (News In Three Lines) is solving this problem by objectively scraping the facts out of current news articles and presenting them to readers in just three lines. From there, the viewer can decide whether they want to read the full article or not- an important decision that is often swayed by how clickbaity the title is, but no more!

13. Intervue

In our exceedingly technological world, software developers are becoming the builders of tomorrow, but it can be difficult to properly assess the skill that a developer has, especially in remote working conditions. Intervue has arisen to this challenge by offering an immersive, live coding environment for employers and applicants to assess technical capabilities in real time, with video chat, multiple compilers, loggable interview notes, and more. Hiring quality developers is now much easier!

14. Palabra.io

Email automations are the bread and butter of a hands-free digital business or service. The Palabra.io team has created a platform that allows for complete landing page optimization, allowing users to define how customer contacts are collected, when to engage with them (down to the minute) and write copy in advance. All that’s left is to connect Palabra to your site and your email automation workflow is live!

15. Flip Booklets

Digital presentation is vital in todays world- portfolios, landing pages, all seeking to educate the user in the most innovative way possible. Flip Booklets allows users to upload any PDF document and turn it into an interactive, digital flip book (like the ones you’d find in stores). These books are a great digital marketing tool for 2021 and beyond!

16. Wiza

Linkedin poses a lot of opportunities for customer leads, but it can be tricky to navigate their UI and pull meaningful (email) contact infos. The Linkedin Sales Navigator tool can help with this, but even it has limitations; specifically, the amount of time it takes to scrape contacts. Wiza is a tool that allows you to quickly export Linkedin contacts and even vets the users for quality. Getting leads on Linkedin doesn’t have to be a painful process!

17. Twisted Road

Despite the stay-at-home protocols enforced by many governments in 2020, travel enthusiasts are still finding time to get out of their homes and hit the roads. Twisted Road is essentially Uber for motorcycles specifically, and it allows users to list their bikes or rent from others. Vehicle renting apps are a hot commodity, plus we won’t be in lockdown forever!

18. Earned Value App

Tracking a projects budget involves more than just a projection and some receipts, especially if the project has many moving pieces (as most organizations do). The Earned Value App leans on the earned value mathmatic formula, which helps identify potential financial issues that could lead to overspending, before you get there. Budget tracking apps are critical to monitoring a projects financial success.

19. Video Jaguar

Like mentioned before, video content will likely see an upswing in 2021, so businesses need to get ahead of the curve and adapt. Video Jaguar is a video template tool that has simplified video creation to the point where all users need to do is choose a format, upload text, and the platform will do the rest. Video content marketing in 2021 could be the difference between a positive and negative impacting campaign!

20. Lionshare Digital

Digital marketing is a diverse beast, with various potential avenues to explore. However as most business owners know, time is never on their side. Lionshare Digital is a full stack digital marketing agency that creates everything from websites to brand bibles, and has a long track record of serving professionals in the creative (among others) field. Building an effective website could be the start of something great!

21. EXTRA: GMASS

Last on our list is the GMASS service, a plugin for Google that helps automate email workflows right from within Gmail. This plugin is versatile and constantly updated with new features. In fact, it’s one of the several tools that our team at Millennial Moderator relies on! Check out our Tools page for more information.

Conclusion

As we wrap up a rather tumultuous year, we reflect on the companies that have given us value in times of uncertainty. This list is surely not collectively exhaustive, but it does highlight some startups that we believe will be paving the way for businesses in 2021. Have a great rest of 2020 and we’ll see you in the new year!

If you enjoyed this Mod, please sign up for our exclusive newsletter, where we share the latest Mods, tips, and more! Please share this Mod using the social links below. Any questions or comments? Let us know on Twitter!

List created and published on millennialmoderator.com

[mandl27]

On Pokémon, 2D Sprites, 3D Models, and the Expressivism Within

I already posted this on Twitter, but I'll say it here too.

As cited by Dr. Lava, Masuda objected to the series transitioning to 3D because he felt having multiple (2D) sprite artists allowed for far greater individuality and expressivism than any 3D models could produce. After seeing that, I realized I should put my feelings on this whole "2D vs 3D" debate on virtual paper instead of scatter-shot across multiple Discord servers.

Filed under "Masuda has no idea what the fuck he's doing".

The argument of personality with 2D sprites hinges on the idea that sprites change regularly. As a handy counterargument, a number of Pokémon recycled their sprites from DPP/HGSS through B2W2.

A few people in replies to OP noted that Stadium/Colo/PBR models (also all recycled, though PBR retextured most of them) were more expressive than the relatively bland animations XY models have. That's true, and this is where I dive a bit into personal opinion.

To me, Stadium's exaggerated animations, and to a greater extent BW's exaggerated sprite tweens, come off as stilted and unnatural. I'm a firm believer in the notion that idle loops /should/ be simple and bland. Floatzel and Misdreavus are two BW sprites that come to mind.

In BW's defense, it doesn't have unique attack animations like the 3D games do, so it was all or nothing there. And you definitely won't find me defending the Sky Battle-mandated "flying T pose" idles, like Xatu and Swellow. Charizard et al are on thin ice.

Returning to objectivity here, 3D is a far more versatile space than 2D. Long-standing RPG concepts like a free camera only entered Pokémon as Game Freak let go of their death grip on a 2D presentation. This grip can still be felt in things like XY/SM's infamous outlines.

Bottom line, wanting personality and expression in your graphics is a noble goal. But claiming that multiple artists is the cause of that shows a dangerous lack of understanding game art. It's this kind of mentality that's made GF appear incompetent in today's game world.

That's an argument by itself, but when discussing it with others I remembered a personal project of mine. I'd been wanting to recolor mainline sprites to use Home palettes, primarily to liven up some of the duller palettes (see: most Hoenn mon in gen 5) but also as an exercise in learning how Pokémon sprite palettes work. I then added the following:

Addendum I just thought about: Pokémon as a franchise really has two sets of palettes now. One palette is used in mainline and Sugimori's concept art. The other is used literally everywhere else (anime, all spinoffs since gen 4, most gen 4-5 sprites).

That second palette is much more vivid than the first, which contributes a lot to the lifeless feel of XY models. Even the game's color palette is conspiring against them. Compare Sugimori's art of Lucario and Charizard to their Home renders. They're even in the same poses.

And ultimately, these models being near-identical in geometry to XY+'s shoots Masuda's entire argument in the foot. Models /can/ be expressive. Models /can/ be colorful. It just requires a capable 3D team, which I have reason to feel Game Freak lacks.

(Thread source)