Techwright

Your story is more common than you think. People often mash bits and pieces of languages together for communication, especially in melting pot pocket cultures. A dear, 81-year-old friend of mine grew up in a West Virginia coal-mining valley, and the immigrant, semi-isolated culture there communicated in a mishmash of Baltic languages and English. The result was almost it's own language. American English speakers had trouble understanding him. He came to my state for college, and had 4 full years of remedial English. Ironically, he went into a profession that required constant public speaking, and became well known in his circles for short, pithy, clearly-pronounced (almost clipped) speeches, which insiders know come from intense practice to keep his Baltics-English fusion from resurfacing.

I've learned several basic German words for survival needs over the decades such as: bratwurst, wiener schnitzel, spätzle. Bitte und danke. I've even greater linguistical survival skills in Spanish countries. I'm hoping to figure out Canadian some day. (Oh, my sis-in-law is going to kill me...)

Magic 8 Ball says:

So it's a tower defense game? 😉

Tough choice. I have only a few but love them all. I suppose I'll note 1 hero and 1 villain: Hero: Rainforest Revenant, homage to The Phantom. He's a Dual Pistols/Ninjitsu Sentinel. I've changed his costume's dominant color to forest green (makes more sense in the jungle) and have given him goggles instead of the iconic mask . I couldn't do everything I wanted with the costume, but that's probably for the best. Don't want to get too close to the OG. I've also bought the PW2 wolf to follow him around. If you know, you know. He's posted here in the costume thread of the art forum. Villain: The Eggsterminator: homage to Egghead, Vincent Price's character on the 1960s Batman TV show. Thugs/Forcefield Mastermind. I've chosen two different face looks for the character: one like a solid white egg, one like a cracked-shell egg. By necessity to the game he is more violent than the campy Egghead, but I tend to ham it up with the character, trying to use the "egg-" substitute for the "ex-" when typing, just like Price did. I also consider the force field powerset a tie-in to character obsession with everything eggs, since they look a bit ovoid, and I've colored them pale egg colors. I just wish we had thugs with turtleneck sweaters and sewn-on name badges. Eggy's various looks can be found here in the costume thread.

It's the 2023 holiday buying season (at least in the USA), and as a desktop tech, I'm getting asked again as to which brands of laptops and desktop PCs to consider or avoid purchasing. I'm also being asked for details to consider when weighing options. I have my thoughts on this, and have doled them out to some already, but I know a lot of folks in the forums are techs or power users, and I'd like to ask for feedback from you. Maybe you've seen or considered something I have not, and I can both learn something new and add that to recommendations for shopping friends. Also, I know little of non-iPad tablet PCs, they just don't come up in my work, so those with advice in that field are invited to contribute. One last note, those that ask me are usually not seeking a gaming computer, so if you could clarify gaming choices vs. standard use choices, that'd be great!

Why is it that the first thing beneficent, advanced alien races do when contacting lesser races is...

As the MCU did for Agatha Harkness as well. Ya gotta go through young to reach elderly, so I'm willing to see what's involved.

New Mutants, as I recall, got a very, very late start, with numerous delays, even after it was shot, and then was almost pushed out as a "hey, gotta get this old stuff off the shelf" thing. The flaw with it, did not lie with it, but with the logistics people who were supposed to promote and push it out better. (Well, that and Covid screwing everything up at the theaters.)

That's all more about the woes of the actor than the character, isn't it?

I speculate that using lesser known characters is more about increasing their profile and market-ability over just making a blockbuster of a relatively unknown. Yes, GotG is the ultimate version of this rags-to-riches story, but there are other potentials. Sony has one big Marvel property to work with: Spider-Man, and all associated character. By making a Madame Web movie, if it even comes it moderately successful, it will grow their franchise possibilities, having raised recognition of Mme Web from only diehard comic book readers to a more casual, global audience. As to the Ant-Man movie, I'm still baffled...

Going Orange in Hidden Contents for this.

I never had a problem with Statesman the character, and I was pretty distant from the JE stuff so I never made an association between avatar and JE. Actually, I had one problem with Statesman: I couldn't stand that dorky front-to-back half helmet. I'd been hoping they'd give him a costume upgrade at some point. Also noting: I had no problem with Statesman's personality. He could be a bit of a jerk at times, and that made him a more distinct character than just a Superman clone. I was probably relating because I've had bosses before who could be complete jerks one minute, then mindblowingly helpful the next. I have felt for some time that an advancement of the story should be the healing of Hero One and his assumption of Statesman's old position, possibly feeling a little shaky in the confidence because of what he's been through and how it affected others. I'd never heard that, and the potential implications, now lost to us, are crazy good, IMHO. Rather than Incarnate, we could have gotten an ongoing saga of our character joining the Phalanx and gradually working their way up to Statesman's old position, possibly challenging Posi in some tense moment, then once on top, gained the ability to direct the Freedom Phalanx, possibly to victories or defeats. Maybe have the Incarnate stuff running more gradually in parallel. I've actually never played that segment of the storyline (need to get to it). Is it an absolute kill, or is there a potential for the mind-ride? Just wondering if they set it up to reveal at some future point.

Am I correct in assuming that we're not talking of adding stuff to the game, just re-addressing stuff already in the game? Goldside definitely. I've got a character I'm very slowly working the way through Goldside with, but it's a tad dull running solo, for me anyway. YMMV. Perhaps if team members had full access to all the scripting that the team lead has, they could better follow along in the story, rather just being dragged around to "go there, hit that". Now if we're talking the potential for additions to the game, then address the shortage of events and Giant Monsters in Goldside, to make it more equivalent to Blueside. Also the period of time (aka levels) necessary to reach the moment storywise where you can move your character into Redside or Blueside tends to be isolating. I'm not sure how to fix that, but something more likely to let people move freely back and forth between sides, while still running Gold stories might get more helping out. As to Giant Monsters, maybe get a couple of Praetorian Devouring Earth GMs as something of a testing group, probing borders, and showing Praetorian Hamidon's impatience with the treaty? Might be interesting if, like the flagpole event during Halloween, we have 4 GMs randomly appear around the city simultaneously. Use the characters already in game, promote to GM status, enlarge, and perhaps color their skins a bit different. I'd also like to point out that I'd be willing to do the content related to the Shadow Shard, however, I've never felt there was a dedicated team interest for it, and I have to wonder if it is the nature of the floating islands that is cause for that. How to improve that, I cannot say. I do know I'd be much, much more interested in running the Shadow Shard TFs if they were given the Positron TF treatment and broken into 2 or 3 components TFs. I suspect we'd see a notable boost in Dr. Quarterfield TFs in that case.

Has no one at the various space commands seen 2001? Or played Portal? I have a bad feeling about this. It can only be attributable to human error. -HAL 9000 “Science Has Validated Your Birth Mother’s Decision To Abandon You On A Doorstep.” -GLaDOS https://www.space.com/astronauts-artificial-intelligence-companions-deep-space-missions

That's a question I've seen people debating after the trailer was released. I feel that certain elements of the second Miles Morales movie play heavily into the potentials for Madam Web's storyline, but that might undercut the star of the show if Madame Web was introduced to the Miles Morales animation. As to live action, who knows? I'm aware that there's a fan effort to get Andrew Garfield a third solo movie, so perhaps webs cross there? I'm sure it would be based on reception of this film, first, though.

After seeing Sony's animated Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse, and knowing what they revealed in that show, the thought immediately went through my mind "Where's Madame Web in all this?" Now I know, though I don't know if the Miles Morales storyline will tie into this also Sony live action movie:

Yeah, I struggled with trying to determine who it was, but finally realized with a young Pym involved, it was the right time for Peter Quill the child. Add in that he used telekinesis to bring a raccoon prize doll to him, and it makes sense.. Also, and I didn't know this when I wrote the original comment, farther on in the trailer is a very brief glimpse of a young Ego himself, so not only is Peter activating early, but Dad's searched him out himself. It's likely a nod to that scene in the first season when an admittedly older Peter is mopping at the Dairy Queen and is approached by Ego.

Re-read the full thread after watching the video Ulysses posted, and it's fascinating to see how real life played out these past couple of years compared to what was believed or speculated, both by forum members, and by folks all over the globe.

Is that a number taking into account all the other expenditures like advertising, theater cuts, and such? Or will those be above and beyond that number?

They had me at "What... While I assume everyone will watch the trailer if they're hanging out here, I'll still take a moment to point out I'm deep diving, so there will be a lot of spoiler-ish talk (or at least guesses). The Pym-Captain Marvel-Winter Soldier-Black Panther team-up appears to be going after a Peter Quill whose Ego powers unlocked at his mother's death. (Just a guess, I've no info on this season). The Winter Soldier is an interesting twist. I'm wondering if he's still fully Hydra and Alexander Pierce played some particularly good cards to fool Pym into thinking WS was a very special S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Also, there's one additional teammate with them @ 0:24. Male, in what looks to be a Pym suit, but white with blue. This is Goliath, that is, Bill Foster. We've only seen his human face in Ant-Man and the Wasp. At 0:41 we see the new team again, and an older Peggy appears to be in charge of them. A grey haired, mustached gentleman in a suit is also with them. Not sure which one of about 4 characters that come to mind he is, but I'm really hoping it is Mobius. (It's probably General Ross). Looks like Hela is back, appearing in the dark-storm second sequence. I'm not certain, but this may be tied to... 1. The sequence with another version of Wanda working red magic in front of what appear to be Thor, Warriors Three member Fandral, and someone on a horse wielding the Loki staff weapon. It's not really clear to me who that is, though Loki would be the obvious choice. 2. The sequences involving Shang-Chi's dragon, and eventually his father and either his mother or aunt. At one point they appear to square off again Odin while seemingly tossing Asgardians like ragdolls, before Odin returns the favor. I note the color tone of the background appears to be orange. I feel like the "Wacky Racers" episode (I wonder how many know that reference) is going to be this season's playful episode parallel to Thor's party world episode. There's a brief sequence with Infinity War Steve Rogers using his two Wakandan buckler shields to try to undo the Infinity Stones in Thanos' guantlet, specifically the yellow Mind Stone, so presumably this is the moment after Vision is destroyed. Next a brief, confusing sequence that seems to show Ant-Man in partial Medieval garb fighting Fandral (?) in Asgard, followed by a bearded Hulk and a bearded Steve Rogers joining in on the swordplay and mayhem, so maybe this is a continuation of that Thanos moment, and Roger's attack on the guantlet altered reality or time? I note that the background is red. Now that I've gotten to this point, I feel the Wanda sequence may be tied to this, due to the colors and the Asgardian stuff Then everyone seems to want to get into the chaos as we see Gamora in a combat scene with Grandmaster's right-hand being Topaz behind her. Rocket comes into the fray but seems more like a spare-parts being as he sports even more extensive cybernetics, and what appears to be Lila's otter tail. Within the same sequence appear to be Shang-Chi warriors and Dark Elves, then a somewhat sinister looking Doctor Strange portals in. I presume all these bits are part of the same story as the background in each is done in dark aqua colors. Not sure if aqua is intended, or if it is blue or green. I'm noting these background colors because with the sequence of Steve Rogers attacking the guantlet, I'm wondering if whatever happens triggers each of the stones and certain stories play out under the influence of the stones: orange for soul, red for reality, aqua for...well, not sure...maybe a mix of the green time and blue space stones? The trailer ends with what appears to be a Captain Carter wearing partial medieval garb and trying to aid someone in a portal, someone with a Loki staff. The background is green, so, time stone? So I'm getting the feel that possibly half the season, at least, might be an attempt to rectify the damage caused by Steve Roger's attack on Thanos' guantlet, possibly forcing everyone to work their way through the stones' various fields of influence. That said, if I remember correctly, first seasons trailers only showed details from the first half of the season, allowing complete surprise in the second half. Perhaps this season is the same.

"Play?"