#me: Mass Effect has had a huge impact on me as a person-

[foibles-fables]

So I've been carving my way through Act 1 of Baldur's Gate 3, and I can't help but consider how a similar romance mechanic would be absolutely perfect for Horizon 3.

Divisive concept, I'm more than well aware. But seeing the way it's already being implemented with fidelity and elegance and depth in the opening of BG3 gives me the perfect image of how it could work in Horizon 3.

To be perfectly clear, I'm talking specifically about the romances. We already know that Guerrilla is not pursuing branching narrative paths for the Horizon series, the way BG3 and Mass Effect do. However, I want to point out that the romances of BG3 don't alter the central narrative the way other choices do. They provide this lovely and emotional character depth and player engagement/agency without affecting the main story or outcomes.

Each is their own kind of side plot, for flavor and flair and to add a sense of romantic connection to the experience, should the player want to pursue that. And that in and of itself is not unprecedented in the Horizon series: the Desert Clan commander quest not only forces a choice, but that choice then affects the side quest that follows.

Imagine it! A more refined Base mechanic, in which Aloy can take a few of her buddies out with her on quests (since the point is that she's Not Alone Anymore), and begins to get closer to whichever potential LI the player wants to pursue. The Base/Camp would be a domestic/cozy reprieve for her, with her LI and her friends. You know she deserves it.

Another thing I want to be clear about: there's always the argument that Aloy isn't a blank slate character, therefore romance choice wouldn't work for her story. And sure, Tav is. However, BG3 also allows you to play as premade origin characters--basically, you can play as Shadowheart, Karlach, Wyll, etc. They maintain their backstories and personal motivations while still being able to romance another party member. (I cannot WAIT to smooch Karlach during my Shadowheart run.) The chosen romance doesn't dilute or change the Player Character's preset characterization or narrative outcomes.

I just. I cannot see how a purposeful romance choice mechanic would be anything but additive to Horizon 3. I cannot see how it would cheapen Aloy's development. Personally, I've had a huge issue with the way the writing in HFW and beyond has very much Told, not Shown. This would remedy that somewhat by adding another level of more active participation than we've seen--and would give the player a chance to engage meaningfully and personally with a small (but emotionally-impactful) part of the overarching story...rather than being told exactly how to feel about certain characters, which is a HUGE pitfall over which the series has stumbled and is still stumbling.

Bottom line: a romance mechanic like BG3's would fit the parameters of Horizon's narrative structure near-perfectly. It'd be an amazing tool to allow the player to feel involved and engaged in another layer of Aloy's story (not, I repeat, the outcomes of the main narrative). To have a hand in shaping that would be an absolute boon for emotional and personal investment in Horizon's themes of hope and connection and growth and belonging.

#maybe i'm ready to take heat for this one #but i'm also not gonna debate so 🤷 #loins girded #i just think it would be SUCH a neat culminating mechanic for the series #and would absolutely not cheapen anything about Aloy's story?? #horizon zero dawn #horizon forbidden west #aloy #post brought to you by the shadowheart smooches that made me cry yesterday #SO many typos fixed I’m sorry

[rhube]

I did it. I wrote my very angry letter to my MP.

Today I had to deal with my lettings agent emailing to say she refuses to wear a mask when she enters my house, even though I'm medically vulnerable, and then an email from Action for ME that triggered me for other reasons.

I decided to use my distress today for good.

I do not expect anything to come of it, but it is the ONLY thing I can do, so I did it.

Please consider writing to your representatives to ask for protections for the disabled and chronically ill in this ongoing mass-disabling event. At the very least in healthcare settings and when people enter our homes we should have the right to ask them to mask.

In the UK, you can use WriteToThem to find your representatives:

I wrote a long letter, but even a short note to say you think medically vulnerable people need more protections in the on-going pandemic, would make a huge difference.

I shared some pretty personal info, so I'm not putting my text up online, but here are a few things you can draw on.

I quoted this article in the Scientific American, which contains a transcript of an interview with Maria Van Kerkhove, interim director of the WHO’s Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention:

Specifically, these bits:

Although the WHO declared an end to the COVID public health emergency in May 2023, the organization has emphasized that the pandemic isn’t over…

If we look at wastewater estimates, the actual circulation [of SARS-CoV-2] is somewhere between two and 20 times higher than what’s actually being reported by countries. The virus is rampant. We’re still in a pandemic. There’s a lot of complacency at the individual level, and more concerning to me is that at the government level… The misinformation and disinformation that’s out there is hampering the ability to mount an effective response…

The COVID pandemic was not normal. This amount of death is not normal. It didn’t have to be this way.

If you can, talk about how it's impacted you (again, not necessary if you don't have spoons/it would be triggering). Amongst other things, I talked about:

my dentist angrily refusing to mask in a situation where I can't mask

my lettings' agent refusing to mask when entering my home

that I am not recovered from COVID 4 years on

that I had to stop working where previously I worked full-time despite my chronic illness

how traumatic it is applying for PIP

how traumatic it was to listen to eugenics daily from colleagues, friends, and family, because of government misinformation (see the WHO article for support on governments being to blame for this)

how I haven't been eligible for vaccines for years, despite having a condition that compromises my immune system

that we're in the middle of a mass-disabling event

I asked for, and recommend that you ask for:

mandatory masking in healthcare settings

mandatory masking for people entering the homes of medically vulnerable people as part of their jobs (where the vulnerable person cannot refuse)*

free vaccines for everyone on the NHS

I don't expect to get these things - Labour won't do anything the Tories won't do, and the Tories will never do this. But we have to ask. And we have to ask for what we want - if we don't get all of it, we may get some. Just the right to ask that medical staff mask would be huge.

*if possible, emphasise that you can be vulnerable without being extremely vulnerable, and this group of people has been wholly unprotected.

#covid #covid-19 #long-covid #mecfs #uk politics #write to them

[felassan]

BioWare Blog post: BioWare Developer Story – Pride Edition

Welcome to a very special entry in our Developer Story series! While previous editions have featured a single subject, in the wake of Pride Month in June, we invited some of our LGBTQIA+ colleagues to talk about what the studio and its games mean to them as queer folks. So please allow us to introduce you to Technical Product manager Lina Anderson, Technical Animator Samantha Wald, Programmer Rachel Hammond, and Cinematic Designer Mikayla Stock, who were all kind enough to share their personal histories with us.

How did you end up at BioWare?

RACHEL: Game development was something I’ve wanted to do my entire life, from when I first played with our family’s Atari and NES and on through all my childhood. By the time I got to college, I’d fallen in love with programming as well, so I joined my campus’ Game Developer Association, where I made friends and contacts who helped me land my first job in the industry a bit over 15 years ago. I worked with a few smaller companies before getting my job with BioWare 11 years ago, and I’ve been here ever since.

SAMANTHA: My path into the industry was a lot less direct! I studied broadcasting in college to get into video editing, but I eventually started rendering graphics in 3D. I was instantly hooked, and I started doing rigging for animated shows and films. But I had always been a huge gamer, and about three years ago, I realized my skills would transfer perfectly to technical animation. BioWare has always been one of my favorite studios, and I was so excited when I got the offer to come work here six months ago!

MIKAYLA: I’m relatively new to the games industry, too; I got my start working on 2D educational kids’ games after graduating with a degree in animation. I‘ve been with BioWare for a little over a year now, working on Star Wars™: The Old Republic.

LINA: BioWare is actually my first experience in the games industry, but I’ve been here for over five and a half years. I had dreamed about working in games since I was a kid and was really surprised to get in on my first attempt!

How have BioWare games impacted you as a queer person?

SAMANTHA: As a trans woman, I spent a large majority of my life being uncomfortable with who I am and how I’m perceived by society. Before I transitioned, games were always an outlet for me to feel comfortable and explore my identity; BioWare games in particular gave me that in a completely supportive, non-judgmental space, and I really don’t think I’d be where I am today without them.

LINA: Agreed. Both Mass Effect and Dragon Age were instrumental in helping me rediscover myself. I’d repressed so much over the years, and building characters that reflected aspects of me that I’d been hiding allowed me to safely explore these thoughts and feelings. I found I was able to talk about things I’d previously kept bottled up, using my characters and companions as proxies—something that I wasn’t yet comfortable enough to do on my own. Nobody batted an eye when I talked about Lady Shepard having a fling with Garrus!

MIKAYLA: I also found BioWare games—specifically the Dragon Age games, for me—at a time when I was still kind of figuring out who I was. I was fortunate enough to be raised in an open-minded household, but it’s always different being told something’s okay versus seeing it on screen in front of you, presented as being completely normal, you know?

RACHEL: Yes! Watching them start pushing for more inclusion years ago, allowing gay and bi romance options, that was a real help for me at the time. But even outside of my direct personal experience, it was so good to see that inclusion spreading through the industry.

Why do you think BioWare games resonate so well with queer players?

SAMANTHA: BioWare games have always been about playing your character however you want, so I think it’s exceptionally easy for players to insert themselves into the main character. And since queer folks have had so little representation in the past, BioWare games are likely to be the first place a lot of folks are able to see themselves reflected in media.

MIKAYLA: Right, they provide a space for players to explore their identities. There are so many well-rounded characters that it’s hard not to find a couple that resonate with you, and watching the story of a character you deeply connect with play out can be incredibly cathartic. And it’s about not being afraid to tell LGBTQIA+ stories!

RACHEL: Yes—games that try to be more open and attentive towards queer identities definitely help us find ourselves in them. But they help other people see us too; the benefit doesn’t stop simply with our firsthand experience. It also helps normalize queer identities for other players, letting others know we’re real, we’re normal, we’re part of the industry.

LINA: And the thing for me is that the games don’t just have a couple queer characters you can run into, and then you’re off shooting aliens again. These are characters that we grow with through the series, form bonds with, and can choose to be close to.

Do you think BioWare games have made an impact on the way the industry approaches LGBTQIA+ topics?

MIKAYLA: I think any exposure to LGBTQIA+ topics in games is a step towards normalizing them in the industry, and BioWare’s decision not to shy away from telling those stories, but to embrace them, was a welcome breath of fresh air.

SAMANTHA: And I think that’s really led the way in de-stigmatizing queer relationships in games. By being this inclusive in games that are both successful and popular, they made it clear that queer representation is not a detriment, but actually a positive and something a lot of players are hungry for.

LINA: Yeah, I remember seeing the original Mass Effect making waves for having a same-sex romance option. It was absolutely the first major game I was aware of where this was a thing at all, and I think that by showing you could have a gay romance between a human and an alien and not have retailers refuse to stock your games, that may have opened some eyes and made it an easier pitch.

RACHEL: That’s exactly it. The way BioWare handled inclusion rippled through the industry, leading to other studios leaning into that content, which meant that even more games were comfortable with it. It helped move everyone forward.

Do you feel like BioWare sees and supports its queer employees?

SAMANTHA: To me, the biggest thing I see BioWare doing to support queer employees has been to empower them! I have never seen so many queer people in senior leadership positions as I have in my time here.

MIKAYLA: Everyone I’ve had the pleasure of working with has been nothing but kind and accepting, and I’ve never felt the need to be anything but myself. That fosters such a great sense of communication and community. I don’t feel like I’m living inside a vacuum while I’m working; the rest of the world still exists and its impact on employees is not taken lightly.

RACHEL: I’ve been with BioWare for more than a decade at this point, and I’ve only seen the support for our LGBTQIA+ staff grow. There have been some missteps along the way, sure, but the most important thing I’ve seen is that people are eager to listen, learn, and do better. I’ve seen a great amount of work put in to ensure that happens in every circumstance. When I started here, I was not out to anyone about being trans. I had transitioned years ago but I was afraid to tell anyone. But in my time here I was given the confidence I needed to come out again, on my terms. So many other workplaces I’ve been at pushed me back into the closet, but BioWare helped me actually feel free to express my whole self.

LINA: Oh, absolutely. If I wasn’t in a place like BioWare, I probably still wouldn’t be out. Coming out as trans was terrifying in general, but knowing my manager and leadership were there for me as I announced who I really was made all the difference.

Thanks to Mikayla, Rachel, Samantha, and Lina for sharing their stories. At BioWare, we’re dedicated to a diverse, inclusive culture, and try to show that through our people and our games. Of course, we know there will always be more to learn in order to best support our teams. But we look forward to that continued growth—because while it may no longer be Pride Month, BioWare is always proud of all our colleagues.

[source]

#dragon age #bioware #mass effect #mass effect: andromeda #video games #lgbtq #vetra nyx #spikywife #jaal ama darav #long post #longpost #sw:tor #garrus vakarian #best boy

[pixelpoppers]

Star Ocean and Non-Person Characters

For me, the most important thing an RPG can do is make its setting feel like a real world inhabited by real people. Having recently played Star Ocean: The Divine Force and Star Ocean: The Second Story R back to back has provided me with a couple nicely illustrative examples to share. Minor/vague spoilers follow for both games.

Divine Force does something weird with its townsfolk NPCs: it doesn't let you talk to them. Some of them do have chatter, but you can't read any of it (unless you turn on an obscure option buried in a menu somewhere that I went the entire game without finding). It's voiced but barely audible, and even if you stand still in the right place long enough to hear it there's a good chance your party members will start talking over it to remind you where the next plot trigger is (which is completely unnecessary as there's always a map marker for that as well). It quickly becomes clear that it's just not worth the bother.

I can't wrap my head around this. Why in the world would a game do this? It feels like a decision by committee where the result is far more expensive and far less effective than just having text bubbles. And because you don't talk to the townspeople, the world feels empty apart from the major characters.

The most frustrating instance of this is a part where you are visiting a town to meet someone who lives there. Their home is all the way in the back, so you need to walk through the entire town past many NPCs to reach it. Once you get there, the cutscene dialog implies you've learned a lot about the person you're meeting by talking to the townsfolk about the things this person has done for the town. This had not happened for me even a little. Again, it feels like design by committee: in most RPGs, putting the character's house at the back of the town would absolutely have had this result and it would have been a great way to introduce this character, but here the effect was ruined by how Divine Force handles NPC dialog.

Contrast this with a couple scenes in Second Story, which has the traditional talk-to-any-NPC-for-text-bubble-dialog approach. When you reach the game's second town, the tavern is full of miners. If you talk to them, you learn that work in the local mine has been stopped. As you advance the plot, you eventually solve the issue that required closing the mine. If you return to the bar after this, it's empty and the barkeep laments that all the miners have gone back to work so his business has slowed to a crawl.

I love this little touch. It makes the world feel real, like your actions are actually making a difference to real people.

Sometimes an RPG will do something so bizarre that it destroys its illusion in one fell swoop (see my reaction to Lost Sphear). It can be harder to see the more spread-out impact of having or not having NPCs to react realistically to a story's events (see Shamus Young writing about this in the first two Mass Effect games), but it can make a huge cumulative difference in how satisfying a game's world is to inhabit. It's definitely part of why I still consider Second Story to be the best Star Ocean.

#star ocean: the second story r #star ocean: the divine force

[jedimastre-archive]

Laura's personal review of Jedi Survivor; spoilers ahead !

The game overall has a few bugs but since playing it on release that isn't too surprising. There are some game breaking mechanics though, like your alternative Force powers just stop working sometimes and you need to go back to the title screen in order to fix them. If you are playing on PC, the FSR ( AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 2 ) makes the game visually fuzzy and there is nothing you can do about it. Hopefully they will implement DLSS. The fuzziness is worse around Cal's character model. This doesn't effect the frame rate at all either so its just visually something you'd have to get used to a bit.

The fighting mechanics start out simple but get a bit more complicated later in the game. You can learn additional moves through the skill tree that can add to the arsenal but I think that is a bit overwhelming. At least for me. Lightsaber combat feels nice, you get quite a bit more selection on stances.

Story wise I think its very well written with a few things here and there that might need some clearing up later. Like how Cal is aware that the Republic was thwarted by a Sith Lord, was this something Cere just knew or found out from someone and then just told Cal or is this just something Cal just knows? I love the utilization of The Path as a story point, building a hope of something more like with the rebuilding of the Jedi Archives. Or at least the attempt at it.

The fight with Vader was both expected and unexpected, I say this because we faced Vader in the last game and I am aware of him being around but didn't really think I'd see him again.

I know a lot of people are going to thump me for this but Cere's fight against Vader was actually really unique and cool. The very fact that she can hold up for as long as she did for that fight is amazing in itself. It is a contrast to her last altercation with him where she got yeeted into an abyss almost immediately. I say I am going to be thumped because Vader is often portrayed to the masses as a very very powerful and unyielding force to deal with. 99% of the people who go up against him are dead on the spot. But I like believing that all though he is this powerful being that has so much power, that resistance isn't entirely impossible. Vader isn't perfect and he is far from the warrior he used to be. Giving Cere this piece was really a nice touch to her story and made her death all the more impactful.

Cal's fight with the dark side is a common one but done in a way he had to deal with due to circumstances. The fact that Jedi are defined really by being touched by darkness and depending on how they react to it is what makes them who they are. The fact that Cal is doing this without a Master's guidance, without other Jedi peers is both devastating and painful to watch. But you see that his training and experiences have shaped him into a very good person and a very good Jedi. He learns to lean on his friends and those who care about him and that is so important.

Facing darkness you learn that it is something he still contends with even at the end of the game. It is a nice touch and something that adds incredible substance to his character.

Dealing with Bode's betrayal was hard for me as it was for the characters involved. You grew to love him, to look forward to his interactions only to be stabbed in the back and feeling almost empty. I liked that they interacted with his daughter like an adult -- they told her they wanted to ask her father to give back something he stole. And his daughter seeing how her father has become was the right way to handle the situation rather than Cal going in and murdering her father out of hatred.

This game all in all has a 8.5/10 from me, if they would fix the bugs and the visual effects it would be higher. The world is incredibly huge and there is still so much to do after the fact. I look forward to playing more later.

#jedi survivor spoilers. #* out of character.

[ale-detrinidad]

the environmental effects of coffee production

How many times have you heard someone say “don’t talk to me until I’ve had my coffee” or “i can’t survive without coffee”? Coffee has become part of many people’s everyday life all around the world, and is being produced in mass quantities to be exported all over the world. The United States has Starbucks, Europe has Blue Bottle Coffee, and even McDonald’s opened their own individual coffee chain in Australia called McCafé. But with all of this in mind have you ever really thought about how the coffee gets to all these places, or even how or where it’s cultivated? In this blog post, I’ll be talking about the environmental effects of coffee as a person who lives in a country where coffee is one of the main things we export.

Why does this matter:

Protecting natural resources: the production of coffee can have a huge impact on natural resources (soil health, deforestation, etc…). By understanding the environmental impacts of the current way people farm coffee in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Honduras for example, people can start to implement sustainable farming practices to protect natural resources.

Engaging consumers: consumers in todays day and age are becoming really interested in buying sustainably produced products. By educating consumers, this can encourage the people or even the countries who produce coffee to implement more sustainable methods of production.

promoting sustainable practices: understanding the environmental impacts of coffee production can encourage people to engage in more sustainable methods of farming, therefore reducing their carbon footprint.

When it comes to problems like this people have to use design thinking and cross disciplinary methods to solve these problems. People, especially nowadays, should be well educated in ecology, policy, sociology, and economics since they’re so prevalent in todays world, and by being empathetic and using systems thinking so that people can see the bigger picture when coming up for solutions to the problem at hand. These all have helped me in particular acquire a deeper understanding of the problem while doing a research project with the global problem solving institute because it allowed me to understand the experiences and perspectives of both coffee producers, consumers and other stakeholders, while also designing solutions that encourage stakeholder to consider the coffee production system as a whole, especially the factors that impact the environment.

Conclusion:

This topic is especially important, especially to me, because its such an under looked problem that actually affects so much of todays world in so many ways. And as a person who lives in a country where so much coffee is exported, i feel that its important to know the risks as well as the benefits that it poses to our society. As agricultural engineer for one of the most successful coffee farms in Nicaragua , Jose Angel Buitrago, said, “The sustainability of coffee is a vital operational work. Concerning the economic aspects of coffee, it is essential as the economic operations depend on the good behavior of the plantation and the results of the farming operations.” By using this blog post, i hope to provide real information on problems such as these, that affect the world so much, yet aren’t talked about enough since it would mean changing aspects of a system that provides comfort and luxury to the people of the world, but not the world itself.

[captainmdhridoyhossain-blog]

[ad_1] A workforce of astronomers the use of the Eu Southern Observatory's Very Huge Telescope (ESO's VLT) in Chile have discovered proof of any other planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the nearest big name to our Sun Device. This candidate planet is the 3rd detected within the machine and the lightest but came upon orbiting this big name. At only a quarter of Earth's mass, the planet may be some of the lightest exoplanets ever discovered. "The invention displays that our closest stellar neighbour appears to be full of attention-grabbing new worlds, inside of succeed in of additional learn about and long term exploration," explains João Faria, a researcher on the Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, Portugal and lead writer of the learn about printed as of late in Astronomy & Astrophysics. Proxima Centauri is the nearest big name to the Solar, mendacity simply over 4 light-years away. The newly came upon planet, named Proxima d, orbits Proxima Centauri at a distance of about 4 million kilometres, not up to a 10th of Mercury's distance from the Solar. It orbits between the big name and the liveable zone -- the realm round a celeb the place liquid water can exist on the floor of a planet -- and takes simply 5 days to finish one orbit round Proxima Centauri. The big name is already identified to host two different planets: Proxima b, a planet with a mass related to that of Earth that orbits the big name each and every 11 days and is inside the liveable zone, and candidate Proxima c, which is on an extended five-year orbit across the big name. Proxima b was once came upon a couple of years in the past the use of the HARPS tool on ESO's 3.6-metre telescope. The invention was once showed in 2020 when scientists noticed the Proxima machine with a brand new tool on ESO's VLT that had higher precision, the Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Strong Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO). It was once all over those newer VLT observations that astronomers noticed the primary hints of a sign comparable to an object with a five-day orbit. Because the sign was once so vulnerable, the workforce needed to habits follow-up observations with ESPRESSO to verify that it was once because of a planet, and now not merely a results of adjustments within the big name itself. "After acquiring new observations, we have been in a position to verify this sign as a brand new planet candidate," Faria says. "I used to be interested by the problem of detecting this kind of small sign and, by means of doing so, finding an exoplanet so with reference to Earth." At only a quarter of the mass of Earth, Proxima d is the lightest exoplanet ever measured the use of the radial pace method, surpassing a planet not too long ago came upon within the L 98-59 planetary machine. The method works by means of selecting up tiny wobbles within the movement of a celeb created by means of an orbiting planet's gravitational pull. The impact of Proxima d's gravity is so small that it most effective reasons Proxima Centauri to transport backward and forward at round 40 centimetres in line with 2nd (1.44 kilometres in line with hour). "This success is terribly necessary," says Pedro Figueira, ESPRESSO tool scientist at ESO in Chile. "It displays that the radial pace method has the possible to unveil a inhabitants of sunshine planets, like our personal, which can be anticipated to be essentially the most ample in our galaxy and that may probably host lifestyles as we comprehend it." "This end result obviously displays what ESPRESSO is able to and makes me surprise about what it'll be capable to to find one day," Faria provides. ESPRESSO's seek for different worlds will likely be complemented by means of ESO's Extraordinarily Huge Telescope (ELT), recently beneath development within the Atacama Barren region, which will likely be the most important to finding and learning many extra planets round within sight stars. Tale Supply: Materials supplied by means of ESO. Observe: Content material could also be edited for taste and duration.

[ad_2] #planet #detected #Proxima #Centauri #closest #big name #sun #machine #ScienceDaily

[noctomania]

Parasocial relationships.

I wanna talk about them.

What are they? Wikipedia says: "Parasocial interaction (PSI) refers to a kind of psychological relationship experienced by an audience in their mediated encounters with performers in the mass media, particularly on television and on online platforms."

While this did exist technically for decades it's really only recently become more of a mainstream term and that's primarily bc of social media platforms that continue to push the boundaries of what is personal and what is public.

With technology being where it is we are finding so many issues that are side effects of these advancements. People filming others in public spaces wasn't seen nearly as big an issue in the past as it has become now partially bc of how technology has advanced so you aren't carrying around a tape recording video camera like they did when video cameras were stil relatively newly publicly accessible tools (as opposed to tools of an industry). It is also impact by how we interact online. And this stems back to the dawn of the internet.

When the internet was first being birthed into people's homes it came with a lot of freedom. It also had a lot of holes. Internet safety became a huge topic in the 90s that for some reason faded almost entirely. Back when i was growing up you were told not to talk to strangers online on the same level as don't get in a car with a stranger. It was for good reason too, the internet was a much easier way for those who wished to do harm to find a way to do so. It's only gotten worse.

Nowadays there is two factor and secure passwords and encryption that can help protect people but that's bc the threats have gotten to a point where it's a danger to governments. No amount of passwords or authentication is going to eradicate the human error. And the human error is what people count on when they are trying to do something they shouldn't.

All that said i think it's clear how there are a lot of different factors that play into this: safety/security, technology, boundaries, etc. Parasocial relationships have grown with technology. Back when Hollywood was the end all be all, back before the internet, famous people could have more of a buffer. This isn't to say those parasocial relationships weren't happening. They were very different though.

Imagine if your favorite YouTuber or tiktoker or internet personality did nothing but movies and the occasional late night show interview that if you didn't have the tv on at the right time you missed it forever. That sort of division between creator and audience gives the audience room the breathe and recalibrate back to reality. Social media platforms thrive on interaction even if it isn't positive or good.

I think creators are going to need to incorporate some different techniques in order to communicate better with their audience. "Why not the audience just change their behavior?" Idk have you tried getting hundreds or thousands or millions of people on the same page as one another? Yeh it's a little cumbersome. Artists have had to adapt before and it's literally part of being an artist. Communication needs to be clearer.

This isn't just about people who don't log off. It's being aware of how many different people there are and how everyone is going to see something different at different lights of the day you know what i mean? Like even ONE person can view a video at one point of the day feel one way about it then view it again later with a completely different perspective on it.

Now if you as an artist want fo leave it open to interpretation (🙄) fine, but you then give up your right to dismiss complain or judge any of the interpretation.

However, if you communicate clearly what you are doing and why it will serve you in the end bc you will always be able to go back to that and say see this is what I'm doing what I've been doing this is my intention and you cannot take that from me.

Creators have got to really think about their intentions and the impact of those intentions on others. Your intentions can be harmless, but the side effects you didn't consider could be harmful to you or someone else.

On the other we do need to do work on the audience side OBVIOUSLY. We need to really start investing in educating YOUTH on psychology. I'm not saying like cognitive development theories or anything extreme. But having conversations about relating to one another is something long overdue in our public schools.

We also need to rethink what socializing means today. Let's not conflate internet friendship with parasocial relationships. Lots of kids cannot connect with others in their life and being able to connect with anyone even if they live half way across the globe can literally save their life. Let's nurture that while keeping in mind that though there are risks we can do what we can to lessen the risks without destroying the ecosystem that is being built. We can teach kids that a relationship is a two way street and that just because someone says that they love you doesn't mean they know you.

I think the region it may get really muddy is live streaming. Because there is typically a central figure, the streamer, and then the audience. While streamer may interact with the audience individually directly in ways we haven't seen in media typically before, it's still not the same as bonding with someone in real life. All it really is is a quieter live show like you would see on stage, except everyone in the audience has blinders and a gag on and can only applaud by spelling it out one letter at a time.

However, there are friendships and bonds made between streamers and some audience members. I haven't seen it cause issues necessarily, but i wouldn't be surprised if it does.

This is mostly a brain dump. Im nearing the end of my shift so I'm ending this also my mind is scattered so idk what else i had to say. I just need to go to bed ASAP

[owltypical]

it’s funny, when i was a kid i was a massive star wars fan, like i was one of those kids whose bedroom was just covered top to bottom in sw toys and memorabilia, i had an illustrated encyclopedia of the extended universe and everything

but now well into adulthood i think i’m decidedly a star trek person instead

there’s an absolute ton of star trek i haven’t actually seen yet, but what i have seen, and read up on online, combined with the absolutely over-saturated bloated fucked-up nihilistic mess that star wars turned into over the years, has led me into a very decided fandom mindset

especially since it’s st that had the biggest inspiration on stuff like mass effect, works that have had a huge and important impact on me

i’m big on hopeful speculative science fiction that’s all about exploration and diplomacy and learning about alien cultures and people just Vibing In Space and oh, right, that’s star trek isn’t it

#star trekkin #star wurs

[shadowphoenixrider]

*Doing the Comment Dense podcast with my friends*

Ebak: Speaking of remakes/remasters - Shadow, you wanted to talk about Mass Effect?

Me: *manical laughter*

You

FOOLS

#SPR rambles #so I mounted that soapbox and they couldn't shut me up XD #me: Mass Effect has had a huge impact on me as a person- #Ebak: OH REALLY?! I hAdN't NoTiCeD #all in good jest tho #I love when he goes on re: his rpgs or star trek stuff

[chazukekani]

Previous // Next

Summary for Code:04 is here!

Please notice that this is just a summary so not every single detail is included!

Stormbringer Summary 5

Code 04: Grantors of disgrace, you need not wake me again

Recap: N and Verlaine escaped from the laboratory.

The chapter begins with an excerpt of Rimbaud's diary. He wrote that there was once an anti-government movement 'May Revolution', and the leaders were called 'The Fauns'. They created a secret weapon which was named 'No.12 of Darkness' that can control gravity freely. Once Rimbaud acquired this weapon, he was ordered to educate him and trained this weapon to become a spy, and its name was Paul Verlaine.

-  Unbelievable. The Secret of the Gentle Forest was decoded. Here it lies the most fierce beast, and Verlaine...

Rimbaud wrote in his diary.

-

Verlaine and N were at the top of a tower crane. Verlaine had N here because he wanted to know why N knew the Secret. However, N claimed that the last 6 pages of the Secret was erased by Rimbaud himself so he couldn't tell much. Verlaine couldn't believe that's actually Rimbaud who altered the information.

He was strong, Verlaine referred to Rimbaud. He is the only one who was capable of battling with Verlaine in his organisation, and they were partners. Not only this, Rimbaud also called Verlaine his friend, but Verlaine just felt like he couldn't like Rimbaud.

Verlaine left N on the tower crane alone and left.

-

It was a night with a clear sky, a train was moving on the railway and Mori was sleeping inside. At once, a human showed up on the railway, and stopped the train. The train was derailed as a result of mass shock.  Verlaine went inside the train and searched for something, and he believed no one inside the train was able to survive after the shock.

Verlaine found the body of Mori, and he approached to confirm the breath. But that wasn't Mori. It was a man who wore the outfit of his, but was not Mori himself. Turns out it was Mori's double, Hirotsu. A tiny person also appeared afterwards, and that's Dazai.

Suddenly, there was light in the dark, and that was flame. By the mountain near the railway, there were 50 and more sniper bullets aimed and shotted Verlaine, and the target was in utter pain.

'Don't think these little rocks could kill me...' Verlaine was trying to use the woods beside him to attack the snipers who were hiding in the mountain, but he stopped

'Hoho- You really look like my subordinate when I take a closer look' said an elegant lady, Kouyou. She summoned Golden Demon and launched offense towards Verlaine.

'You can't beat me alone,' Verlaine said.

'Who said I am alone?' Verlaine then felt his whole body sinking down to the ground, and turned into multiple snakes that were about to swallow him. That was the Lieutenant's ability (reference to Dead Apple manga, former Port Mafia executive), that could manipulate the state of objects.

'Ability organisations are stronger than ability users,' Dazai observed and smiled. Various ability users from the Port Mafia were launching all kinds of attacks towards him, such as the ability of slowing the time and freezing. In fact, Dazai sent 420 Mafia members which included 28 ability users to the scene to defeat Verlaine.

'I will mourn you,' Dazai said to Verlaine, and took out Rimbaud's diary from his pocket.

The next moment, a black wave inflated and spreaded to the whole field.

'-- You hatreds, your dumb torpors, your weaknessses,

And your brutalisation suffered long ago,

You give back, O Night, like an excess,

Un-malevolent, of blood, each month or so, (extract from The Sisters of Charity, by Arthur Rimbaud)' Verlaine said the spell.

The wind calmed, the buzz on the ground vanished as if escaping from something. The invisible waves were flooded in the atmosphere.

'The door was opened,' Dazai observed. A black object appeared far far away in the forest. Right after, where Verlaine were, ejected a form of dark energy. The car that was hit by this energy was completely deformed with half of it vanished and the remains were just like a wrapped paper.

On the mountain, there was a monster who controlled a dark sphere. When people touched the sphere, they died.

No.3 Forces, annihilated; No.5 forces, all dead, No.8 forces, no response, as reported from Dazai's walkie talkie. The mountained was eliminated, and the ground was distorted. All the mafia members were screaming and suffering.

'It's all in the plan, we will win if the next attack succeeds,' said Dazai.

-

Up in the sky of Yokohama, Chuuya and Adam were inside a helicopter and they jumped off from it due to the attack from the monster. Adam was able to fly in the sky because his body allowed him to transform himself into a flying machine.

Similar to Chuuya, Verlaine was also intolerant to poison despite having ample physical strength, so actually it was their plan to approach Verlaine closely, so that they can inject poison into Verlaine's body. It was notable that Adam mixed this poison pill.

It was very difficult to get closer to Verlaine because he had activated his corruption, which he lost his consciousness and attacked the surroundings without rationality.

Nonetheless, Chuuya did put a toxic pill into Verlaine's mouth, which he has his conscious back. Yet Verlaine splitted out the pills right after.

'You always surprise me, Chuuya,' Verlaine spoke. He told Chuuya that once he said the spell, he would have his human personality unlocked and become a mad beast that generated ability singularity. However, that is Rimbaud who thought about adding a spell on Verlaine, which enabled him to get back to a rational form after using his corruption.

'He always thinks about what he could do for me,' said Verlaine.

'But you betrayed him,' Chuuya replied

'Because I wanted to save you,' Verlaine answered.

Suddenly, a finger touched Verlaine's face.

'What an unexpected offense. I bet no one could foresee this. What a joke,' said Chuuya

Verlaine turned back, and realised that was Adam's finger.

'Do you wanna hear an android joke?' Adam's finger was installed with a tiny syringe, and this enabled poison to be injected into Verlaine's body.

'Seems like a child's trick can defeat the king of assassins. Thanks for listening to my android joke.'

-

It returns to another section of Rimbaud's diary. Rimbaud was thinking about what presents he should give to Verlaine on his birthday. He came up to a conclusion: a black hat. That was not an ordinary hat. The materials used inside the hat consists of 10% platinum, 10% titanium and the rest were made with rainbow-coloured ability metal which was installed with the ability of the Fauns inside. By wearing this hat, it enabled Verlaine to act on his own will and less interfered by external instructions and interruption. In other words, Verlaine was a step closer to a man with free will by having this hat.

Rimbaud gave the hat to Verlaine on his birthday, and he did not look surprised or happy either way.

'Just take it,' Rimbaud told Verlaine, and there was no response. They drank some wine that night and said goodnight to each other.

-

The battle was so called ended, but the field was left with gravity waves and the forest was completely destroyed. Verlained passed out, but still alive. Dazai told Adam and Chuuya that N was rescued from the tower crane, but disappeared during transportation.

-

'I can't die here...' said N. The car that he was taking bumped into a utility pole because he injected some form of medicine to the driver. He took out an old style flare gun and shooted.

'Is this some mistake made by the offense team?' Chuuya noticed the shot far away.

'Shit...' Dazai's eyes were in despair.

The shot that shooted from N's flare gun was exploded with colourful metal pieces floating in the air like snow, and even accompanied with some music. Verlaine suddenly yelled painfully. His eyes were filled with blood and the blood stream was clear on his face and grabbed his chest hardly.

'That was not the effect of my pill!' Adam shouted, 'The gravitational field was unusual here!'

The space was deformed, and Verlaine was flooded inside his own gravity wave.

'The world ends here...' Verlained whispered just like an old man who's dying 'Run, Chuuya.' Verlaine smiled sorrowfully.

The sky was divided, the thunder was coming and the atmosphere was expanding. N saw the ability form of Verlaine. It was a black beast, the opposite of god, and original demon -- Guivre the Beast. The monster annihilated all the aircrafts incoming and was about to proceed to the city center.

'See that Verlaine! That's your end!' N laughed, almost screamed. 'An unique being like you will die because of such a boring creature like me! HAHAHAHA DIE VERLAINE!'

-

Here comes a flashback during the night of Rimbaud and Verlaine's mission of stealing Arahabaki.

'Don't give this kid to the French,' Verlaine was holding the young Chuuya on his arm.

'What?' Rimbaud was confused.

'Don't hand him over to anyone, and don't let him go back to the lab. Grow this kid in a farm and just never let him know about his truth.'

'What are you talking about?' Rimbaud asked once again.

'Think about it Rimbaud,' Verlaine's voice was tense and hostile at the same time, 'If someone tells you you're not a human, how impactful it will be. You are not born with god's blessing but just a programme, how hurtful it is. You cannot see the moon and live in darkness forever without any hope, and no one will come save you. Even such a feeling of despair is designed by someone else!'

'We have this conversation countless times, Paul,' Rimbaud stepped forward, 'You are a human, everyone sees that. Instead of thinking how you were made, isn't it better to think what you should be as a being?'

'Paul...' 'Don't get close.'

'I am sorry. Anyways, should we go back and have a chat?' Rimbaud stepped forward again.

'No, it's too late.'

A huge fight between the spies broke out.

-

Adam had an idea to stop the destruction of Guivre. Almost at the end of the Great War, Britain had developed something that was currently the energy source of Adam's machines. However, the initial usage of Adam's energy source was a mass destruction weapon. Adam smiled and continued. If they used Adam's weapon inside him, they could burn and melt the Guivre.

So they put this in practise. Adam asked Chuuya to tie Adam's own arm to an electric cable. However, Adam pushed Chuuya away when he was about to trigger the weapon. He explained to Chuuya that the weapon inside him was called the Shell (55 minutes reference). It can burn down the surroundings of 22 yard radius, and the internal temperature could reach 6000 degree celsius, and that is almost the temperature of the sun surface. This was sufficient to destroy the Guivre.

'Don't do this!' Chuuya cried

'Don't you have your dream! To build an investigation organisation purely ran by machines right!'

Adam silenced for two seconds.

'My dream is to protect humans,' Adam replied, 'and my dream comes true now.'

'Wait!'

A gigantic fireball. It burned the woods, and boiled the land, and altogether evaporated. The Guivre moaned miserably and decomposed in the air. Adam sacrificed himself and the monster was destroyed.

However, the tail of the beast in front of Chuuya and Dazai was forming into something. That piece of tail suddenly grew a face out of it, something like a reptile. It then turned into a huge form of creature. Its head was pretty much the head of the former Guivre, but the number of eyes were different, and it had red eyes.

'Don't look at it, Chuuya,' Dazai warned, 'He was sensitive to emotion, so don't let him see you.'

'I know how to defeat this ability singularity,' said Chuuya, 'I recalled from my memory.'

'Let's brief me that,' Dazai smiled.

-

They figured out how to open Chuuya's door. In order to activate Chuuya's corruption, he needs to say the spell 'Grantors of disgrace, you need not wake me again'. Together with the hat gifted by Rimbaud, Chuuya could control the door with his own consciousness. However, there's a problem. Once Chuuya said the spell, the log inside his programme will altogether be erased, which means Chuuya could no longer find out whether he was human or not via the programme.

Chuuya was flying in the sky. He grabbed his hat tightly and recalled his friend's word

-- I am satisfied that I can protect you.

And he said 'Grantors of disgrace, you need not wake me again.'

The battle between the gigantic beast and a tiny Arakami (God of Arahabaki) began. Dazai was directing the forces to launch offense towards the beast. Meanwhile Chuuya's physical body could no longer tolerate the power inside his body. He was bleeding severely. Finally, Chuuya created an enormous fireball that was as if the second sun in the night. Finally, the beast disappeared and Dazai nullified corruption.

Code:04 End

#bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #bsd #bungo stray dogs storm bringer #bungou stray dogs storm bringer #bsd storm bringer #bsd nakahara chuuya #bsd paul verlaine #bsd adam frankenstein #bsd dazai osamu #bsd ozaki kouyou #nakahara chuuya #paul verlaine #adam frankenstein #dazai osamu #ozaki kouyou #hirotsu ryuurou #bsd hirotsu ryuuro

[seancekitsch]

I was Never Young: A Klaus x Reader fic

Anyways uhhh heres my fic based on the Klaus spin off series!! I made sure not to really spoil anything in the series if u guys haven't finished it yet but it does take place after the series events. there's no smut which is weird for me bc i usually write just smut but like yolo this is where it went.

Klaus had been through the ringer. Los Angeles seems to just be more of the same, so why even leave home? Right, he’d been kicked out and cut off. Well, at least one of those problems has disappeared, he thinks as he pats the ugly little satchel full of money at the side of his hip.

He meanders down the street, no real direction or motive as he shuffles down. The diazepine is starting to wear off, and he’s going to need something to dull the corners of his mind in about an hour. A neon green sign draws his eyes, looks as sick as he’s about to be.

‘Cobra’s’ the sign says, and this one is probably as good as any.

The bar has exactly six people inside of it, he realizes as he pushes the door open. It’s hazy, full of the stale and welcoming scent of menthol tobacco. Perfect, Klaus thinks.

The bartender is a stern looking man, like he used to be a wrestler. Maybe this is what Luther or Diego will look like in thirty years if they don’t eat their wheaties.

There are two other men sitting in a booth by the corner, deep in conversation with one another. They’re boring suits, no one that Klaus could have for company. He’s just looking for someone alive to have a conversation with while he numbs himself. Someone alive, he clarifies to himself. His last friend left for heaven’s greener pastures, which he’s happy for him, but maybe the guy could have stuck around on this plane of existence for a weekend longer.

There’s a couple at the end of the bar that looks like they're on a date. In the middle of the day? Wonder if their spouses know they aren't at work. Klaus laughs out loud, poor bastards.

And then there's you, with your mixed drink, absentmindedly swirling it with your little stirrer. You seem like a safe bet, so his feet drag him over to sit down at the middle of the bar near you. He more or less throws himself into the chair, his feet immediately feeling the relief. He’s still clammy and feverish in the come down, his stomach hurts, but that’s nothing a little booze and sugar can’t help.

You notice the guy as soon as he walks in. Of course you do. After a few years, you start to recognize people even if you don’t know them. You don’t recognize him. He looks paranoid, fresh off a set and worried about what a job will do, for and to him. Poor thing. Probably one of those River Phoenix types. Young, pretty, and overwhelmed.  In teen mags one day, in the obituaries the next. All preventable, hundreds of people that could step in if money meant more than the people around you.

“Hey,” the guy next to you greets you, his voice uneven, watery and cautious. His hands shake a little as he pulls a stack of cash out of his threadbare satchel, pulling a few bills from the rubberband holding it together and flattening them out against the bar.

“Hey, yourself. You new here?” He looks surprised as the words leave your lips, but is interrupted by the bartender approaching.

“Yeah, whatever that special is for today, that’ll do,” he orders like he doesn't really know what to do at the bar. He turns back to you, looking ever so boyish and lost with his big green eyes.

“How did you-?”

“How did I know you're new here?” You throw the rest of your drink back, carelessly placing it at the far end of the bar from you, “Because you don't look absolutely beaten down. I mean, you look a little twitchy, but you look fresh.”

Fresh? That’s not at all how Klaus would describe his look, having not slept in days and having been using an extreme amount of controlled substances, even for his standards.

The bartender slides a glass towards him, and he scrambles to catch it. There’s a total of two umbrellas, a flamingo stirrer, and two straws in it. In all, garish and hard to look at. The bartender takes the money, and they nod at each other.

“You look kinda young to be here,” with that remark, Klaus takes a long sip of the fruity cocktail he ordered, a sickening blue color so intense you bet it could substitute as hair dye.

“You do too,” you quip. You’d been working in this town for a few years now, on and off movie sets and bartending clubs with live acts. This boy? He looked fresh. Like he’s just been taken for his first ride. He looked rough and unused to it.

“How old are you?” he asks,  he can’t place your age or accent. You look just as young as him, if not younger. You sound southern- Boston- Chicago- western and somewhere European he can’t place. Is that what Hollywood does to people's speech patterns? Is that gonna happen to him? But you seem to be as much an anomaly here as he does.

“How old are you?” you mimic back.

Klaus stares in awe as you rest your elbow against the bar, making sure he sees that as you snap your fingers, a cigarette materializes between them. You quickly shift the rolled tobacco to rest between your index and middle finger, ready to place it against your lips.

“Listen, I’m old enough.” That's all you have to say about that.

“Yeah,” he agrees, “Sometimes I think I was never young.”

You exhale sharply through your nose, the hint of a laugh.

“Yeah, alright.” You fish around in your jacket pocket for the lighter and ask, “Do you wanna get out of here? Only smoking bar in town, but it ain’t got hotdogs.”

Hotdogs, Klaus thinks, He remembers having sausage back home, but he’s never had a hotdog.

“Why are you lookin’ at me like that? You never been to a baseball game or something?”

He shook his head, no. Klaus hadn’t ever seen a baseball game. He knew the history of it, the impact it had on American society. All from a very clinical and academic standpoint. Sports weren’t really his thing.

“Nah, I always preferred activities with a bit more... uh, substance.” He laughs at his own joke, whether you get it or not really doesn’t matter.

“Right, right. So River, what’s your real name?” You talk with the cigarette but between your teeth, lighting it quickly, before the lighter in your hand vanishes from sight.

“It’s….. uh, It’s Klaus.”

You give him your name, and he repeats it, tests the name out on his tongue.

You take a deep inhale, blowing the smoke out of the corner of your mouth.

“So Klaus, wanna buy us some hotdogs?”

You leave as soon as he finishes his drink, and he talks in a way that he thinks might be too much. But you listen. You’re the first living person that’s actually listened to what he had to say since he got here. He asks about you, your story, but he doesn’t get as much as he wants. You like your smoking, you’re a special effects designer, you dropped out of high school to come out here, and you fucking love Alonzo’s hotdogs.

“Hey ‘Lonzo!” you shout, interrupting Klaus mis sentence, raising both arms above your head, the baggy sleeves of your jacket falling closer to your elbows.

“How’s my kid doin?” The man shouts back. A tall man, with heavy brows and a mustache. “And who’s this?”

“My friend Klaus here just directed a movie! With Vivian Clarke, and the kid’s never had a hotdog! Can you believe it!” Your footfalls come quicker, starting to jog as you clear the end of the block, Klaus starts to shuffle quicker to catch up. When he gets to see the man up close. clear chocolate brown eyes greet him. He looks pretty trustworthy, Klaus thinks, Like Santa Claus, or John Stamos. Basically, like anyone but Dad or Viv.

Alonzo asks all about Klaus’ recent accomplishment, not exactly something he wants to talk about, but he likes that Alonzo is genuinely curious and polite. The only thing you say is “extra relish, on both. Big shot director pays.” during the conversation, focusing more on finishing your cigarette and stubbing it out with the toe of your boot. Klaus looks down and the cigarette butt leaves no trace on the concrete.

“So back there,” he says as you wait for your dogs to be handed over, “That cigarette business, are you a magician?”

“Nah,” you say, not fully meeting his gaze, “I’m a Libra.”

You nod at the guy as he finally pulls the dogs over the edge of the cart he operates. Extra relish, just like you asked. When he places the hotdog in Klaus’ hands, the redhead’s eyes go wide. Guess he wasn’t kidding about never having relish, you think.

“Huh,” he starts, dumbfounded by the hunk of grease and meat and relish in his hands, “I’m a Libra too, actually.”

“Guess that’s something about balance or something,” you say, effectively ending the conversation again by opening your mouth as wide as you can to accommodate the sheer mass of one of Alonzo’s hotdogs.

He looks at the meal, his first and probably only for today, and then takes your lead, opening his mouth as wide as he can before finally chomping down on a huge bite of it. The bite is… heavenly. Pickled vegetables and chutneys exploding on his tastebuds, the coolness of it contrasting with the fresh off the grill meat. No offense to mom or Pogo, but none of their cooking could ever hold a candle to this street hotdog.

“Good, yeah?” Your voice, distorted by a mouth full of food, breaks his almost nirvana like trance.

“So good,” he tries to say, mouth just as full as yours. He finishes chewing, swallows with a huge gulp.

“You got any more food spots to show me?”

#my work #klaus hargreeves x reader

[felassan]

Highlights and insights from the MELE launch cast & crew reunion panel

[rewatch link] [highlights & insights from the N7 Day 2020 reunion]

In case a text format is better for anyone (in terms of accessibility for example). Cut for length.

Some paraphrasing.

If anyone’s interested in just the line-reading session, it starts at timestamp ~1:04:45.

In addition to the cast and crew from the N7 Day reunion, at this reunion also in attendance were: 

Mac Walters (Project Director for MELE, Lead Writer of the og MET)

Melanie Faulknor (Lead Producer for MELE)

Crystal McCord (Producer for MELE)

Fred Tatasciore (Saren)

Seth Green (Joker)

Kimberly Brooks (Ash)

Ash Sroka (Tali)

This was the biggest reunion / meetup of the cast so far, and some of the cast and crew were meeting for the first time here.

It’s been so long since the og MET that PW & KW are getting to watch their kids experience playing it for the first time

JHale doesn’t play but since MELE she’s been sneaking around Twitch jumping into peoples’ MELE livestreams to lurk, watch and comment a bit

What drew Seth to the character of Joker? The whole concept of the game. He likes games and MET’s mechanics (different trees of adventure, stacking reputation, choices carrying between games) at the time were the most sophisticated that he’d ever heard pitched. He thought this was new and exciting and wanted to be a part of it. For the character they cast him based on his personality traits (i.e. he sounds quite similar to Joker personality-wise)

Would Seth ever want to play Joker again if the opportunity presented itself? Sure, he loves the character, and if the writers ever had more things to explore/expand with Joker he’d be down for it. 

Seth said that it’s a different kind of fan that approach him about this project. The fans have spent many many hours in an intimate exchange with “him” that he hasn’t been a part of, but they experienced it nonetheless. “I’ve hugged a lot of strangers, you know what I’m saying? It’s great, you get an interaction with fans that you never get as a performer in any other experience”

Seth has been a space guy since he was little, it inspires him

With the state of the world the way it is now [covid, masks etc], does Ash think Tali’s story will be more impactful now than it was before? Ash hopes so, and that anything they do here will have a positive impact on a bigger level. Ultimately that’s why most of them do what they do, they want to reach people in deep ways. She hopes Tali is an inspiration in courage, bravery, standing up for what’s right and thinking about the greater good

The [MELE I think] dev team had a last team meeting with Greg Zeschuk, one of the founders of BioWare, who they had invited to it. He was regaling them with stories of the inception of Mass Effect. “You would imagine this sort of well-laid out, drawing boards everywhere... [but] it was basically just a napkin sketch in a Greek taverna with him and Casey going ‘We wanna do a space opera’, and then it took off”

The process of creating lore through development is very organic. A lot of it comes from character and story development. It builds up over the course of the game’s development. They did the codex entries at the end, the idea being that if they saved them for as late as they could, then they could pull from the story, characters and meaningful moments, and build them from there

PW wrote a bunch of the codex entries, elevator banter & lots of little bits of lore. They describe their time on the og MET as being a “baby writer”. They originally came in after Mac had back surgery and a junior writer was needed to fill in. “It was really fun, it was us sitting in a room together going ‘What do you think a hanar or a krogan thinks about this or that’?” For a first project for them this was an amazing experience - the world building itself creatively with all these awesome people

They tried to add multiplayer in every game but only got it to work in ME3

They had a lot of plots laid out in ME1 that they called “global plots”. These were outside the core critical path and would take players from planet to planet, and were sprawling stories. They pulled out a lot of really interesting concepts and ideas from these that did make it into the game, but all of the global plots ended up getting cut due to time. Mac still has old diagrams and spreadsheets which detailed how all of these would have come together

Q. If you all had to take a long-distance road-trip with two squadmates, who would you take and why? PW: “Jack and Mordin. Mordin because the drive would never lack for things to talk about at length quickly, Jack because you know you wouldn’t pay for the room. You wouldn’t know how you’d get the room, but you wouldn’t be paying for it.” Courtenay: “I’d take Mordin because there’d be singing, and FemShep just to have this thing - happen. In the room that I get for free.” JHale at this point fistpumped while saying “Yeess” [then I think what she said was “steaming hot”]

Seeing as asari are long-lived, how open is Ali to one day reprising her role as Liara? “She’s a character very close to my heart, it was such a great opportunity. In some games that we work on the character has already been created or voiced by someone else, but this was really a group effort. When I first went into the booth, the only thing I’d seen of her was a sort of like, rendering, and we slowly kind of came to her voice and presence. I would love to bring Liara back any time... hey, she can live a really long time guys. :D”

Caroline and people who do what she does (Creative Performance Director) are so critical to the quality of games. Caroline: “This group of people are extraordinary. We were lucky to have such an extraordinary cast. Every [recording] session was new and challenging. It was a labor of love. I’m tearing up right now thinking about it. I’m remembering my last session with Jen, she was the last session, just sobbing and sobbing”. When JHale was trying to say the lines of Shepard’s goodbye with Garrus, a line hit her like a tonne of bricks and she was in tears and was like “Shepard does not cry”. “It took me a second, I got it out and took another run at it, it was in there but stuffed down as it should have been, and I finished the line [and there was silence in the booth when usually Caroline would have been talking to give direction or instruction] Did we lose her? Did Skype crash?” and it transpired that what had happened was that Caroline was in floods of tears

ME was the first time Keythe had ever come across branching dialogue. “Normally when we work on a script and it’s from page 1 to 100. In this it was get to page 5, then go back to page 2 and play it a little differently. The skill and the fun and joy of it was to be able to go back and play a scene in a different way, with different writing, with different outcomes. This was not only a challenge but a real treat. So to all the writers who dreamed up how this build-your-own-adventure plays out, you have my undying respect. It was a real pleasure”

VEDA is a proprietary system that BW use to record the dialogue, which is the closest way of having it feel like having people in the booth together (it’s all digital and VAs get to hear the line someone else has done in that scene). Caroline really pushed for this because of the amount of time etc that was wasted due to lack of this sort of thing on ME1. William: “It was a god send for me, thank you, getting to hear a cue from Jen or Mark.” Ali: “Us being able to bounce off each other helps make it more real. This for me was the most real acting experience on a game I had ever had - the writing being so good, Caroline helping us through, being able to hear each other.” JHale was always early coming in to record relative to the others so only got to use VEDA a few times - a bit of Liara content and the scene with Anderson towards the end. “Those two times, oh my god it was amazing”. VEDA being a thing also helps from a scheduling standpoint

Seth and Tricia Helfer (EDI) only got to be in the booth actually together 1 time, to record/shoot a piece of promotional video. “We actually got to record a scene together and we were like ‘oh my god this is the best thing ever’. It was great, even though I had to stand on a stool. She’s the best”

Seth: “As an actor, the kind of opportunity to do this kind of material in games just didn’t exist.” Fred: “Oh, never! I had never had a villain part that was complicated like that. In a game? Never before, it was really interesting”

Raphael always goes back to the fact that ME brought more women into gaming than any other game before it. “The writing and the complexity of the relationships gave us so much ballast”. “This set this apart from running, shooting, gunning, looting”

JHale: “What I noticed in the times before when I got to be around fans, there was a huge hunger among women in the gaming world for something they could really jump into. They were starving for something which fed them what they deserved and needed”

Mac: “[praising Caroline] Caroline would often come to us as writers and challenge us and say, as an example, ‘Do we really need another male character to do this? Why are we writing another male character for this?’ She pushed that very early and to the betterment of everything we created”

PW: “Karin and Cookie and all of the editors across the trilogy, [were critical in] making sure that Shepard sounded consistent - [especially since] we had a large writing team, writers came and went, Mac is the only one with a significant writing contribution on each of the games”

PW: “[on game dev] It’s a process of getting hundreds of people pointed in the same direction, all believing that this is something worth doing”

Ash: “Having all the different possibilities and avenues, going back to play them all out in the different ways [really helped to round the character of Tali out and make her feel like a natural person]”.

VAs only get paid for the original recording sessions, not again (as in they don’t any royalties or anything from something like the remaster)

In MELE, they left all the original credits at the end of each game in

Fred: “It’s creating in five dimensions [because of all the outcomes and relationships etc]”. Seth: “The cool thing is that the audience feels that. They’re immediately struck by how dense, thought-out, prepared and planned the entire universe is”

How was it for the new MELE devs coming onto this? Crystal: “I knew it [the series and fans’ love for it] was big, but I didn’t know it was BIG! Working on MELE there was this infectious excitement. Being part of it was so exciting.” Melanie: “I came on at ME3, I had a 3 or 4 year honeymoon period with BioWare. Coming onto MELE, I’m getting really emotional. One of my first meetings originally was going into a cinematic review for an epic Tali scene in ME3”. Crystal: “On MELE, we had an hour or 2 every day where the team came together to play the game. In those reviews, a lot of the devs who worked on the original would tell all these stories. It was really fun to hear all the inside stories on ME’s creation and be a part of that”

DC: “Should this unit get vaccinated?” Ash: “Of course”

How do they think ME will be viewed in the next 10-20 years, what do they think its legacy will be? A piece of history, ground-breaking. It broke down some barriers and opened doors for people. It’s a powerful, powerful community. It’ll continue to age quite well and be enjoyed by a new generation, it’s original and evergreen and there’s a lot in it that people go back to. There’s a lot of universal things in it (personal experiences, like there will always be love, people fighting to belong, trying to make sense of their pasts etc)

JHale and Alix did the “I love you Shepard, now go save the world again” Shep-Sam exchange and both got teary. It was then Seth’s turn to line-read: “Jesus Christ, now that I’m good and choked up, fucking mess”. Ali was also actually crying from it

Seth: “It can’t be overstated, this community is so large and global, it is one of the most powerful fandoms that I’ve ever been greeted with. Thank you”. Ash: “It’s the most amazing group of fans ever. We’re all so grateful”

Some funny anecdotes/stories:

PW didn’t realize that Alix could do different accents. They remember a time when they were listening in the booth and an Alliance soldier was complaining about the gear had been given. They said “Wow that’s really good, who is that?” and the VO producer said “That’s Alix, Patrick”, “because she wasn’t doing her [normal British accent but was doing a Californian accent instead]. Alix roasted me later for not recognizing her voice and never let me heard the end of it”

Alix: “[on Sam’s toothbrush] Caroline’s like, ‘So then she pulls her toothbrush’ and I’m like ‘What? Sorry? A toothbrush?’ and obviously it’s funny now as everyone knows that Sam’s thing is her toothbrush. Caroline’s like ‘Yeah, you’ve gotta like, flirt, over the toothbrush’ and I’m like ‘Who wrote this - a frickin toothbrush, are you kidding me? Really guys?’ ANYWAY. I was wrong and it worked. :D”

Fred: “I remember a 12 year old kid coming up to me and being like [flat tone] ‘Oh yeah. I killed you’.”

Keythe: “The other assasin I play is Kellogg in Fallout 4. People come up to me like ‘Omg. I love you so much. And then I fucking KILLED you!’”

Courtenay once went out to dinner in NZ with a few prominent people from the Game of Thrones cast. “Everyone around was making a big deal out of it like ‘Omg, it’s so-and-so from GoT’. I was feeling a bit like ‘Hi, I’m here, just nobody’. And I looked around in the restaurant and there's one guy in the corner and he’s got an N7 shirt on and he’s just looking at me like [knowing look, does a peace sign]. And I’m like ‘I got one! I love you guys!’”

PW: “I have a question for the cast members, because I don’t know if JHale has done this to all of you or if she just does it to the devs. Show of hands if Jen has ever made you do push-ups.” JHale: “It’s just you guys”

Karin: “One of my favorite editing files that I ever had was a ME file. It was before Seth was coming in for a session. I opened it up and it was just 20, 25 lines with the word ‘Shit’, over and over again, and I was like, ‘This file is perfect, I don’t need to do anything to it, have fun!’”

Seth: “Didn’t we do a track that’s like 60 seconds of laughing? Escalating laughing? I don’t know about other actors but for me getting into a laughing fit is kind of like trying to get into a crying fit, it takes the same level of commitment, you start to follow a path until like you’re hysterically uncontrollably laughing. I remember looking through the glass, and I’m deep in it at this point, and I make eye contact, and I can see from the other side of the booth and they’re like [making ‘okay you can stop’ now gestures] - ‘Like that’s plenty, we got it’ and I was like ‘okay, okay [dying]’”

JHale: “The craziest thing Mark and I had to deal with was how many times we had to say ‘I should go’”. Mark: “We also, Caroline and I tended to use that as short hand when I needed to go to the bathroom”

The panel host: “The first time I interviewed Ali was a decade ago. She did the ‘I’ll flay you alive with my mind’ line halfway through, it was my first interview and I literally fell out of my seat [from being star-struck]”

Ash line-read Tali’s drunk omni-tattoo scene and in response DC said “I totally get why people wanna romanticize all these characters :D”. Karin: “We’ve had more than one person come up to us and show us actual tattoos that looked like that”

[source]

#bioware #mass effect #video games #covid mention #long post #longpost #garrus vakarian #best boy #feels #lul

[missmentelle]

COVID-19, Inequality, and You

This pandemic has been a bad time in a lot of ways, but one of the most devastating impacts we’re going to see besides the death toll is the economic impact - the economic impact on real, working people, not on stock index numbers. Unemployment rates are skyrocketing, and people are being thrown into financial chaos as a result. 

But for all the talk we’ve heard during this pandemic of “we’re all in this together”, and “we’re all in the same boat”, it’s important to remember that, financially, we’re really, really not. Job losses, evictions and health crises are not equally distributed; if anything, this pandemic has been a stark reminder of inequality as the wealth gap grows wider and wider. 

My own life has been a weird cross-section of the ways that the pandemic has economically affected different people in very different ways - my mother has completely lost her job at a seasonal tourist restaurant that will likely go out of business, my brother’s hours at his campus security job have been cut as the school moves online, my boyfriend is seeing his savings rise as he goes out less but makes exactly the same salary at his financial tech job, and I’ve fielded multiple job offers through this pandemic as government grants for social services boom in my region in anticipation of a coming homelessness crisis.  

The news has been reporting on unemployment numbers and shuttered businesses, but there hasn’t been a lot of in-depth coverage about the ways that this is really going to affect people’s lives. There will be a lot of unexpected consequences to this pandemic if governments don’t step in to provide relief, including:

‘Eviction freezes’ are throwing tenants into debt without protecting their housing. Many places have put moratoriums on evictions during the pandemic, which is great. You don’t want a sudden surge in mass homelessness during a pandemic. But “no evictions” does not mean “no rent” - people who are currently being protected from eviction are still being charged rent, and their arrears are growing every month. As soon as eviction protections expire - which is set to happen very soon in many places - landlords can move forward with evicting tenants, going after their back rent, sending their debt to collection agencies and destroying their credit scores. 

A lot of people are about to lose most of their possessions. If you get evicted, your parents or friend might have room for you to move in with them for a while. They probably do not have room for your couch, dresser, bed, table, desk, bookshelves, TV and an entire apartment full of stuff. Putting your things in storage is an option, but you need to be able to pack and transport all of your things to the storage unit and pay for the unit every month. You could try selling the stuff you can’t take with you, but it may be difficult with so many other people also struggling financially, and you may have to leave on short notice. A lot of people who get evicted will end up abandoning a lot of their stuff, which they’ll have to re-purchase all over again to get back on their feet. 

People with low wages are disproportionately likely to lose their jobs. If you work as a software engineer, you’re probably still employed. If you work as a hotel maid, there’s a good chance you’ve lost your job or had your hours cut to nearly nothing. The jobs that are most impacted by shutdowns are jobs in the service and hospitality industry, and they tend to be low-wage, hourly jobs that cannot be done from home - bartenders, servers, hotel clerks, and dishwashers are way more likely to have lost their jobs than lawyers, accountants, engineers and college professors. In many ways, the people who are getting kicked the hardest right now are the ones who could least afford it. 

Not every university will survive this pandemic. With a lot of universities and colleges scrambling to figure out whether to have in-person fall semesters, the future of a lot of post-secondary institutions looks bleak. Many students are choosing to take a year off or defer their admission rather than deal with online courses that have been haphazardly thrown together. On top of that, it’s not clear if international students will be able to attend university abroad this year, or if they even want to take the risk. This adds up to a whole lot of lost tuition money, leaving some universities with no way to keep operating - at least one American university has already permanently closed its doors because of the pandemic. The big players - Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia - will probably pull through, but smaller colleges are at serious risk of going under, leaving their students in limbo and at risk of not finishing their disrupted degrees. 

A lot of people are about to go from “poor” to “disabled”. The people most likely to contract coronavirus are the workers who have to interact with the public every day - not only nurses and doctors, but grocery store workers, delivery people, ride-sharing and taxi drivers, transit workers and janitorial staff. Those who survive are at risk of life-long complications of coronavirus, including permanently reduced lung capacity - that’s not great when you need to work a physically demanding job. A lot of people are about to find themselves in a situation where they are no longer able to do their jobs due to a virus that they contracted because of their jobs. 

Many women’s careers may never recover from this. Daycares and schools are closed, and women are bearing the brunt of it. In a world where women still tend to earn less than male partners, it’s women’s careers that have taken a backseat when things get rough. Even when both partners are working from home, women are the ones overwhelmingly taking on most of the domestic and child-rearing chores, which hurts their work performance and leaves them more vulnerable to layoffs. And that’s a relatively privileged position to be in - without childcare services available, many working moms and single moms have had to quit their jobs, whether they could afford it or not, because they have no other options for their children. This kind of career disruption is something that these women may never totally recover from, especially as they try to re-enter an increasingly hostile job market. 

Black and brown people are the most affected by rising unemployment. People of colour - especially immigrants and women of colour - are facing higher rates of unemployment than other groups. Hispanic and Latina women are in particularly dire circumstances, which is alarming, as they are also the most likely to be dealing with an uncertain immigration status. People of colour - particularly women - are disproportionately likely to work in industries that have been impacted by the pandemic, like the hospitality, food service, retail, child care, beauty and personal care industries, and they face systemic racism that makes it difficult for them to advocate for safe working conditions or access adequate medical care. 

College and tourist towns are at risk of complete economic meltdown. A lot of towns or small cities depend on their local university or annual tourism to survive. A huge crowd of strangers flocks to their town for a few months per year and gives local businesses the money they need to pay for necessities year-round. My hometown is one of these places - most businesses are only open from May - September, and they make enough money during that time for everyone to scrape by for the rest of the year. Those tourists aren’t coming this year, which is something that locals have only learned as they begin to run out of last year’s money. You don’t need to work for a university or a hotel to be impacted by school and tourism shutdowns - the ripple effects will be felt by entire communities. 

Escaping domestic violence will be difficult even after lockdown ends. It’s not exactly a secret that domestic violence has skyrocketed since the global pandemic began, a fact that many experts attribute to the fact that everyone is trapped indoors together and under a lot of stress. But even as lockdown regulations start to lift in areas that handled the pandemic responsibly, victims of domestic violence will face higher-than-usual barriers to escape - many victims may have lost their jobs and burned through their savings, and may have difficulty finding a new job that can finance their escape. Victims with health issues may also be wary about going to shelters for fear they will be further exposed to the virus. 

Poor children will fall even further behind their upper-middle-class peers. I come from a part of rural eastern Canada where reliable internet access is simply not available. So for young children in the region, school effectively ended in March - they do not have the resources needed to connect to online learning. And children from rural areas aren’t the only ones missing out - more than half of all students in the United States aren’t accessing their online classes regularly, and marginalized kids are especially likely to be absent. Poor kids are staring down the barrel of an enormous education gap; they are less likely to have a stable internet connection and a device for their online learning, they are less likely to have books at home, and their parents are more likely to be essential workers who still have to go to work right now and don’t have time to teach them. Middle-class and wealthy families can afford laptops, educational software, tutors, books and time at home to educate their children - when schools are eventually back in session, the gaps between children from different socioeconomic backgrounds will probably be the widest they’ve ever been. 

Don’t get me wrong - I am not arguing that we should end lockdowns prematurely to ease the economic impact. Public health measures exist for good reason, and I don’t think any of us want to even imagine, much less live through, the personal, physical and economic devastation of letting a pandemic rage out of control and melt down our healthcare systems. Despite what many people seem to believe, managing a global pandemic is not about “health vs. economy” - letting the virus rage out of control and kill millions would devastate every economic and social system we have. The preservation of human life has to come first.

What we need instead is comprehensive action to recognize and address the issues that come with long-term quarantines and economic shutdown - we need rent relief, social safety nets and basic assured income programs to get our most vulnerable friends and neighbors through this pandemic. The world will probably never return to the “normal” that we knew before the pandemic struck, and it shouldn’t - it’s time for a new, better normal that doesn’t leave our most marginalized people behind. 

#missmentelle #askmissmentelle #coronavirus #COVID-19 #pandemic #social justice #social work

[popculturebuffet]

Final Space Reviewcaps: The Hidden Light or Beelzbub’s Dad and Death Himself

Welcome back all you happy people! My regular coverage of final space continues as our Team Squad continues to be split up. Team Gary heads to the ruins of France and while HUE lives the dream, Gary finds the architect of his misery might also be the archtetcht of hope when he meets KVN’s creator.  Meanwhile Team Avacato find some friends of some friends... and an old enemy horrifically reborn and just as pants crappingly terrifying as before. Find out whose back, whose just been introduced, and whose resting under the cut!

So once again i’ts time for roll call, as our Team Squad has been split into three groups so Team Gary: Gary, Quinn, KVN, HUE Team Avacato: Avacato, Little Cato, Ash, Fox, Sheryl.  Team Bollo: Bollo, Mooncake

Same as last time and if your wondering why some names are missing from Avacato’s team, we will get to that. And since our three plots are entirely seperated from the start this time...

Team Gary: The Father of Beelzbub is A Moderaltey Tolerable Guy Picking up where we left off, Gary and Quinn gaze at earth though we do find out, naturally, the other half of the team is okay when Avacato buzzes in, confirming he’s alive at least. So with half the team stranded in the depths of final space, Gary’s next idea is naturally to plummet to earth and pick up a ship to pick them up. HUE has some flaws in the plan, i.e. the earth’s gravity field but KVN proves useful for once and helps carry them down to earth, our heroes ending up in Paris. 

We get a fun subplot of HUE thoroughly enjoying his dream of visiting Paris in a body.. even though Paris itself is pretty fucking horrific, littered with floating corpses and with a smokey, unnerving atmosphere. But the contrast works.. what dosen’t is the ships our heroes fine, which are junked, likely due to months of having no mainteince coupled with the destruction brought on by the titans. 

Gary does find something.. his worst nightmare.. a bunker FULL of KVN’s “I always thought i’d die like this”. They thankfully don’t want to kill him, and he finds a dwarf ventrixian whose a fan of his as are the KVN’s. As it turns out they somehow watched all his video logs to Quinn, and the little guy saying Quinn is even more beautful than he imagined lets him live when Quinn shows up. Gary is naturally puzzled why someone would create his worst nightmare, an army of kvns who know his personal details... until we find out who created the bunker: Kevin, the genius scientest who created the KVN’s. 

Naturally Gary has as mature, sensible and calm reaction as you’d expect and he goes to see Kevin’s dad without innocent....

Had you there for zero seconds. No he has a fairly fluid and incredibly well voiced freakout ending in him wanting to burn the place to the ground in cleansing fire. It’s.. actually a very good thing Quinn’s the one who went with him as everyone on the other team except MAYBE Avacato would’ve gone with operation BURN THEM, BURN ALLL OF THEM. 

So while Gary can’t burn them he does go to shoot Kevin’s creator in the head after finding out he’s alive and still in the bunker. And.. he actually is alive. It’s a nice change of pace as in most sci fi stories where we find the robot first the creator is long dead. But no Kevin.. is alive. It takes a bit for him to accept this is really happening due to a combination of Gary’s transmissions..and Nightfall having contacted him to make a ship. I’ts only when he tries throwing something at Quinn does he realize that nope these are real peoples and gladly welcome them for some rest so theyc an go find the ship he made for Nightfall. Relately the one major flaw I have with this episode.. is that it takes Gary and Quinn an embarassingly long time to put two and two together. Gary I get, he’s kind of distracted being caught in a waking nightmare and finding out he needs to rely on the man who ruined 5 years of his life. He’s also Gary. It’s okay. Quinn though, even with months of trauma stuck in a hell dimension.. is still the resonable one and still should’ve figured “Hey maybe the alternate future verison of me who was around back then did this”. The reveal is well done towards the end when it happens.. it’s just very weird it didn’t happen sooner. 

So the couple are FINALLY alone.. for about 5 seconds because Kevin gets into bed with them. And while part of his loopiness is probably the horrifying isolation for the last few months, after all Gary wasn’t exactly the most coherent after his stint in prison, I do feel that at least part of it is just him. It just makes the most sense: the infinity guard massed produced the guys and Kevin was one of their top scientests. He likely didn’t half ass a project of this size or importance.. so it’d make sense that instead the KVN’s suck at their job because the person who made them really dosen’t get humans, or personal space and the KVN’s are simply degraded copies of him. 

We do get a sweet moment with Quinn and Gary before Kevin decides they’ve rested enough time to go. They use the KVN’s to head to belgium, where the ship is, but have to fight Landfish, horrifying monsters that feast on the remains of dead worlds. So we get a fun and tense action sequence as our heroes sorta zipline through the monsters and KVN suprisingly turns out ot be useful twice in one episode. Our heroes make it to the ship, though HUE is down two arms and his self esteem, with Kevin asking why an AI would WANT to put themselves in a garbage bot. HUE admits he just wanted to experince life but it comes at a cost.. which granted the loss of arms seems rushed.. but it’s not like pre-AVA most of his life as a robot was that happy or fufilling so it dosen’t come out of nowhere and the person who MADE it better... is now dead and gone. He has no real reason to stay in the body anymore: He’s tasted life, he’s loved, and he’s lost. 

So naturally he goes back to being the AI on their new ship, which Quinn Dubs the Galaxy 2 because naturally Gary’s name tries too hard and Kevin’s is nonsensical.. though really Galaxy 2 itself just.. isn’t a great name. Seriously call it the purple rain or something. Still it’s a cool looking ship and while i’ll BADLY miss the crimson light as Olan designed a really fucking cool ship there, the Galaxy 2 is none too shabby. So our heroes have there ship, HUE has his old Job back, and we get a sobering scene as Quinn and Gary finallyg et the nightfall thing, and Kevin leaves to go get the portal up and running and he’ll call them.. they don’t have his number but he’ll be in england where the project is so it’s not like they can’t find the crazy man when the time comes. So we end with Team Gary heading off to a huge energy signture to hopefully find someone. Who it is, if it’s even one of our groups, is unknown.. but given the stinger it’s probably Bollo and Mooncake.. but we’llg et to that. First

Team Avacato: FUCK

So on their astroid Sheryl wonders if the plan is to just stand around and wait for Gary. Tribore however.. wants to leave again. Despite being in an edltrich space nightmare, he decides to take some paternety leave and cuts off part of the asteroid to go bond with his son leaving us with five heroes who all quickly get abducted by teleportation. 

Their abductors.. are Arachnitects, the last ones left in final space who intially confuse them as part of of Invictus unholy horde before Little Cato brings up Jeremy, and thus they free them and explain what’s up: as said their the last ones left in final space, the only ones who weren’t slaughtered or escape and try to offer our heroes hope and shelter.. before brutally being slaughtered by telekensisis... and it’s with that... HE has returned. While the trailers made no attempt to hide it and it was blatant from the start of last season he woudl return.. it dosent’ make his return any less chilling or impactful or David Tennant’s performance any less terrifying after being gone for a bit: Lord Commander HAS RETURNED

And make no mistake, hopefully, this is OUR Lord Commander, as he comments on the new additions.. and is GLEEFUL to have new toys to play with. Avacato is naturally horrifed he’s back and tries to just shoot him but that’s as effective as it’s always been, and he simply force lifts all of them, and naturally, being a sadsitic bastard, brings LIttle Cato forward as he wants to know where Mooncake is, though Little Cato makes a valid point: he dosen’t know where Mooncake is and even if he DID he wouldn’t tell him. And.. that’s where this part of the plot ends till next week. I”m fucking terrified. Nice to have David back though. Especially with Ducktales over. And as a side note... it’s notable Ash doesn’t try triggering her powers. Either she can’t and Lord Commander’s even stronger than her, or she just hasn’t yet. Or third horrifying option i’m going with thier powers come from the same source. 

Team Bollo:The Forge

So with Gary hopefully coming to the rescue and the rest of our heroes trapped by a sadistic bastard who will likely gleefully kill at least one of them.. we find out where Bolo went after getting his ass kicked. He surivived.. but clearly needs a leg up.. so naturally for a charcter voiced by Keith David he goes about it in the most badass way imaginable: he has mooncake do the thing on a dwarf star so he can FORGE IT INTO A FUCKING BADASS SPACE SWORD TO SLAY THE TITANS WITH. My.. my body is ready for next week. 

Final Thoughts:

This episode was excellent. The premire while not BAD had some issues with pacing and tone, where as this one found the perfect places to inject the series humor.. while keeping the stakes incredibly high and having the chilling return of it’s most terrifying antagonist. and yes tha’t swith the people posseing murder face out there. This episode returned Season 3 to the right track. It also continues to be seralized like season 1.. but I feel at least so far they’ve learned their lesson from Seasons 1 and 2 and combined the two better, having basically one big story, but having the pacing be more on par with Season 2 where things move along at a nice clip and we get more character stuff peppered in. It’s a nice combo. if it’ll hold out I do not know, especaillly with a longer runtime but we’ll see as we go won’t we. For now.. this episode was fucking awesome. 

If you liked this review join my patreon, my current stretch goal is for a darkwing duck episode a month and i’ll be putting up a patreon exclusive review soon for 5 dollar or more patreons so check that out, follow me for more and if there’s any episodes of the show from seasons 1 or 2 you’d like me to cover we can discuss that in my ask box and dm,s only 5 bucks an episode. See you at the next rainbow. 

#final space #the hidden light #gary goodspeed #quinn airgone #avacato #little cato #ash grayven #fox #KVN #sheryl goodspeed #the lord commander #bolo #mooncake #kevin van horn #Biskit #reviews #adult swim

[hotdadslade]

DC’s Failed Shared Continuity

This is a subject that I see touched on a lot but not really addressed, so I wanted to break it down.

DC’s core comics (That is, Batman, Superman, Justice League, etc, and not the elseworld style books like DCeased or White Knight) are generally understood to be happening in a shared continuity. That is, what happens in one book reflects in the other. The series cross over, because they take place in the same universe.

Only that isn’t true anymore.

There are a lot of plot holes that don’t really make sense, but that isn’t what I want to talk about. Instead, I want to talk about the fact that DC has absolutely no timeline, the absolute glut of events happening in and out of main books, and the fact that each DC comic is effectively its own universe, rather than shared between it.

I’m going to address the following examples, just to give people an idea of what’s going on and exactly what I mean when I talk about a shared continuity:

The fact that Alfred Pennyworth’s funeral happened before he died.

The fact that Bruce Wayne was in at least three places at once at the start of Perpetua’s invasion.

DC’s insane event schedule through 2019.

The lack of impact events are having with the readers, such as the fact that fact that the entire of South America went to war, China engaged in mass orgies, and the entire of Britain stared at the sky for days on end and almost no reader has heard about it.

City of Bane’s complete lack of impact in the larger DC universe

And last but not least: Why does this matter, and where does DC go from here?

Alfred’s Funeral is before his Death:

Alfred Pennyworth dies during City of Bane. We see his funeral in Pennyworth: R.I.P., where we see the family come together and share stories before immediately getting into a slap fight over it.

This unquestionably happens after City of Bane, because City of Bane is when Alfred died. Despite this, Ric is still around:

That little note in the bottom left makes it clear that this happens before Nightwing Annual #2.

The majority of Annual #2 is a flashback, but it specifically ends with the Court of Owls telling Cobb (that is, Talon) that Dick will soon be his, and telling him to move in. This happens in Nightwing 63, when Cobb shows up (aided by Apex Lex’s gift), and starts screwing with Dick’s life. I’ll skip over the most of it: what matters is that Talon brainwashing Dick Grayson appears the same night Perpetua’s symbol appears over the city (in Nightwing 66 and a number of other issues), Dick attacks the Nightwings, fights Condor Red, and then is freed from the mind control all in one night.

Which is great. Except this can’t happen after Alfred’s death, because the symbol of Perpetua (which appears everywhere at once) appears over Gotham during City of Bane (in Batman 81):

So we have one event happening simultaneously in Nightwing and Batman, only one happens before/during Alfred’s death, and the other supposedly happens well after.

Which leads us into...

Batman apparently can be everywhere at once

So up above we have Batman 81. Bruce is, at this point, in the city rushing to beat Bane when the symbol pops up.

Here’s the symbol popping up in Detective Comics (1014) while fighting the Freezes (the city, I’ll note, is normal Gotham at this point, not controlled by Bane):

Bruce is in Paris (in theory, after his coma) in Outsiders #6, and then arrives back in Gotham just in time for the symbol to appear in the sky in issue 7:

Even just while researching this, I realized that it happened in other issues too. The symbol appears in the sky in Batman/Superman issue 3 while Bruce is being attacked by the infected:

It also happens in Justice League, but I can’t be bothered to get pages.

This is all taking place in a shared universe, so the fact that there’s three or four different Bruce’s in three or four different books who are all doing completely different things in different areas is... baffling. DC has always played a bit fast and lose with Detective Comics and Batman, rarely defining which is happening first or what their exact order of events is, but this takes it a step beyond that.

It also leads into...

DC has how many events? and What happened to the infected?

2019 was a year. Specifically, it was the year of the Villain, but it really should have been year of the event, because DC had so many events happening almost concurrently that it was impossible to figure out what was going on when.

You had Heroes in Crisis running from late September 2018 to May 2019 (acknowledged in Batman, Flash, Green Arrow, Red Hood, and Titans, but largely inconsequential and rarely referenced again).

Year of the Villain itself spanned the whole year, with two dedicated series (YoTV and YoTV: Hell Arisen), a huge Justice League arc (14 issues!), literally dozens of tie in issues in main books, and 8 oneshots focusing on specific villains and their upgrades. 

This also tied into The Infected storline, where the Batman who Laughs infected six heroes and sent them out into the universe to torment people. This, too, got a number of oneshots and tie-in issues.

You had Event Leviathan, a six issue series which then got a spinoff and soon a sequel through the second half of 2019, which promised to ‘stretch across the DC universe and touch every character’, which has been, outside of Action Comics (which spun it off), a complete non-entity.

You also had Doomsday Clock, which launched all the way back in 2017 and only finished in late 2019. This was intended to ‘impact the entire DC universe’, with the idea that when the series ended, the rest of the continuity would catch up to it and you’d see the repercussions. It’s effectively been rendered non-canon, taking place outside the universe in a single line in Justice League.

So many things were happening, and they were all stressed as extremely important, but when the chips were down...

Most of them weren’t.

Half the Villain upgrades went away with the blink of an eye (Black Mask hasn’t shown up since his oneshot, and Riddler threw his retirement out in favor of being cRaZy in Batman). Heroes in Crisis had almost no affect. Event Leviathan is waiting on its sequel, having meant almost nothing despite the fact that an entire country was taken over. Doomsday Clock is now effectively out of canon.

Many of these (mostly YOTV itself) lead into the Death Metal event happening now, but that’s the thing: they only lead into that. There’s minimal acknowledgement of those events happening in other books. Even when huge things that should be impossible to ignore happen, they have minimal to no effect on the wider continuity. When is Death Metal happening, in continuity? No idea. What about the infected arc? What about Justice League?

Who knows? DC doesn’t seem to.

Which leads into the finale, the great big ‘are you kidding me’ moment:

Remember that time hundreds of thousands of people died, the whole of South America went to war, and China descended into mass orgies?

No?

Neither does anyone else.

In Wonder Woman issue 50 (and some issues around it), a series of dark gods emerge from (you guessed it) the dark multiverse. Each takes control over a single country, enacting their dark bidding. 

(Brief Suicide CW in the description below)

The goddess of war causes the entire of South America to literally go to war, invading and murdering each other. The mob god causes the whole of Britain to walk outside and stare up at the sky, not eating or drinking until they started to drop dead. A god of indulgence causes the entire of China to engage in bacchanalia, which is effectively a frenzied orgy of celebration and dancing. The nameless god has taken over Saint Petersburg, causing those within to commit mass-suicide impulsively.

And of course this has been happening world wide. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands are dead. We see shots of other places - mass murder in the streets of Hong Kong, for example.

We actually see other heroes in this. The whole arc actually starts with Supergirl fighting Diana, and then while she's briefly out of commission, the Justice League (Bruce, Arthur, Barry, J’onn, Victor, and Kendra) show up to help only to get absorbed by the big bad. That’s when the above panel happens, and then even more heroes get thrown at the problem.

In the end, Diana ‘wins’ - by sacrificing her brother Jason to the Dark Gods. The gods return the Justice League, and undo the damage they’ve caused on Earth. Those dead aren’t actually dead, for example. Time gets rewound... partially. We see the Justice League who only partially remember what happened, but the damage around the area is still there.

This should be, by any metric, a huge fucking deal. Literal gods appeared from the multiverse and fucked over huge chunks of the planet. Hundreds of thousands died and then were, in theory, un-killed. The heroes are aware of this, and have at least partial memories.

And yet it’s never acknowledged. 

This is supposed to be a huge event. The stakes literally could not be higher, and yet I’ve never seen this arc even acknowledged in any other book. This isn’t even a unique thing, either: all of New York (and most of the world) flooded in Doctor Fate and no one noticed outside that book.

So what about City of Bane?

But by far the most significant example of this is City of Bane itself. City of Bane was a huge event. Some of the top selling issues of 2019 were the City of Bane issues. It received numerous ads in other books, as well as major attention. It was the culmination of Tom King’s entire run, and lasted for more than half a year. It involved Gotham taken over by the titular Bane, ruling it with an iron fist and using mind-controlled villains as his own personal police force. It was a huge, game-changing event.

And outside of the pages of Batman (and Gotham City Monsters), it might as well not have happened. Any time it is acknowledged, it’s in the most awkward and confusing manner possible.

Batman and the Outsiders, Issue 6, Bruce is in Paris, Alfred gets a callout from Ra’s, and calls Bruce home: 

Bruce immediately gets on a plane and flies home, landing at the end of issue 7 when the Perpetua symbol goes up.

In issue eight, taking place immediately after, we are lead to believe that the entire City of Bane arc happened in between Bruce flying home from Paris and arriving in time to help:

This is far from the only example. City of Bane tends to be acknowledged exclusively in terms of ‘this issue takes place before City of Bane’ editor notes. The only real thing that gets acknowledged is Alfred’s absence: Detective Comics skips over City of Bane entirely (The YOTV issues taking place before, and then going straight to ‘after), Red Hood and the Outlaws ignores it, and Batgirls acknowledgement is effectively skipping City of Bane itself to go right back to talking about ‘cleaning up the city’ with a one line mention of ‘what Bane did to Gotham’. Plenty of other books either don’t mention it at all, or the mention is so minor I completely missed it.

So why does this matter?

Early on in my time in this fandom, I noted that the more a fan is into DC comics (not the fandom, but specifically the comics), the more they’d hate the comics themselves. This extends beyond what most people on tumblr would consider the ‘fandom space’ - I’m talking reddit, league of comic geeks, comic review sites, etc. The fact is that DC has created a scenario where the more you read their work, the worse it gets. Any individual comic from the examples above reads just fine on its own, but when you read multiple comics you start getting confused about why nothing makes sense. There’s no order to things, no continuity. Things are said in one issue and ignored in the next. Major events are trumpeted as changing the status quo but don’t change a thing. DC is actively pushing away their most dedicated readers, the ones who are going out and buying 5+ issues a week.

So what comes next?

The original reason this all came up was the news that DC’s upper editorial staff had been hit with major layoffs. While nothing yet has been confirmed (this happened only three days ago), the general rumors is that DC is going to be majorly cutting back the number of titles. With Death Metal almost certainly heralding a continuity reboot ala Flashpoint, now is the perfect time for DC to figure out what it’s doing with its continuity, and realistically, they have two options.

Option One: Forsake Shared Continuity.

I’m sure a lot of people would hate this idea, because shared continuity is such an intrinsic part of DC’s history, but looking realistically at sales numbers, there’s some major appeal. There’s far less work to it (important with the loss of their editors), and this isn’t to say all the books will be separate, just that they won’t all be inherently linked. Maybe they keep TEC and JL in the same canon. Maybe Nightwing, Batman, and Batgirl share too. The point is, though, that the fact that Gotham is burning to the ground will no longer reflect on Clark, who is apparently just out of earshot with his thumb up his ass doing nothing.

There’s precedent for this as well. Injustice, DCeased, Criminal Sanity, and White Knight are all stories in their own world that are selling (or have sold) extremely well. DC’s top fifteen issues sold for January to March of this year include seven issues of Batman, one issue of Wonder Woman, one issue of Flash, and then two issues of Unkillables, the Robin 80th oneshot, Strange Adventures (its own continuity), and an issue of Batman: Curse of the White Knight. If you go farther down, it’s more of the same - you have to go through every issue of Curse of the White Knight released, as well as Criminal Sanity, to get to Batman/Superman, Detective Comics, Justice League, and Superman.

I’m not sure this is the best choice, but I can’t imagine it’s not an appealing choice just the same.

Option Two: Fix Shared Continuity.

Without question, DC’s going to be (at least temporarily) paring down the number of books they have, and there’s never been a better time for figuring out what’s going on with their continuity. Less books means less to organize. A reboot and one very determined editor could help establish a baseline to work from, but that would require DC to focus on it as a priority.

I’m sure this is the choice most people will lean for, but it’s definitely the more intensive option, and we can only hope DC decides it’s worth it.

#analysis #dc critical