#though I understand that coding and bug testing and stuff takes a while

[saturnmortis]

Please I haven’t heard any updates about it in a while

[niexigo]

Hey, I'm your SS and I'd love to know more about your Demon in A Daycare AU for a little something-something! Can you tell me more about Olive, the setting of the fic, Olive's dynamics with Sun and Moon, and their relationship/romance? Thank you in advance! <3

Of course! Sorry if this response is long or unorganized, I just have a lot about this story as it’s practically my baby.

As for setting: This takes place in basically the same daycare as the game, just post game. The daycare and pizzaplex is still active and working, as if nothing is wrong. I’d say this is a way bit into the future or maybe a different location, as while this Moon was also corrupted, he is currently allows to work with the kids and Sun seems to have not words about that or him being let out. The most talk we see about that is by other staff saying they’re creepy and spreading minor rumors among the staff of Moon being dangerous, but they never really go more than that. There’s no set point in time this takes place in, as while in cannon FNAF timeline, we have pretty old tech mixed with advanced animatronics, here we have basically modern tech with advanced animatronics. iPhone and stuff like that.

So Olive is a Digital demon. She has the ability to hide her horns, tail, and grayish purple skin to look more human, but usually she keeps her horns out and ties a ribbon around them to make it look like a headband. She has pointy ears that almost always have gold jewelry dangling on them, specifically a crescent moon on one, and star studs on both. She has pink and blue eyes, and are able to hide them too but doesn’t, saying their contacts. I’ve also mentioned in the fic and ref sheet that she has tattoos on one of her arms, but I almost never draw them, and arnt really important. She almost always hides her back, as she lost her wings, leaving horrid scars and constant pain.

Outside of appearance, Olive’s demon type has the ability to enter and tamper technology. She’s uses her phone the most, listening to music, speeding through to her tablet or her friend’s phones. She’s also knows a bit of code and binary, so she’s able understand music man and mess with code to prevent her and her friends from getting detected by human society. She’s hasn’t used it to infiltrate Sun and Moon though, and I don’t plan her too. She can also mimic voices, but rarely used that power. She doesn’t walk usually, as while she lost her wings, she’s can still float. (But in here words, floating isn’t flying.)

When it comes to her personally, Olive is a very sweet by shy person upon meeting her. She barely spoke when she first met Sun and Moon. She’s horribly afraid of people, particularly humans, and avoids speaking to people she doesn’t need to. Her fear comes from her trauma, as when she was first summoned on earth, she was used as a test subject. I won’t go all into it, but that’s how she lost her wings, and out came the fear of chains, darkness, silence, people. (Also a struggle with sleep that particularly bugs Sun and Moon) Outside of her fears, she’s can be very snarky and funny. On a lack of sleep, she can be short tempered, but never really expresses it to others unless pressed. She likes teasing, but never takes it on far. She does struggle with guilt, shame, and anxiety, but she rarely lets it show.

I want to make it clear that she’s not evil, though she’s convinced that she’s a but evil. Not because she’s done anything bad without good reason (lying about her identity, age, and things like that to keep from being found out), but because she has a minor hatred about her being a demon. She doesn’t want to be human nor does she hate other demons, but she wants that freedom that humans have, being able to do a few bad deeds and not be defined by them. Honestly compared to most humans, she’s pretty alright, but she still feels could be better.

Her role in the daycare is as both Sun and Moon’s assistant and handler. She’s basically the only staff that’s close to them and treats them as people (outside of her friends who also work there), as almost no other staff even enter the daycare. Outside of that, her and her friends are out hiding as normal people that live together in an apartment and work at the same place. They don’t have any plans to go back to hell, but are still laying low.

On to Sun and Moon:

My Sun and Moon are a bit different from the cannon and most fan interpretations, mainly because I started this fic before ruin or help wanted 2 came out and we got to see more facets of their character, and because of my own head cannon.

Currently Sun and Moon still share the same body. And while that forms it’s own resentment, it also forms it’s own fears. Mainly that of lonelyness. But that won’t come up now, so let’s move to their introduction and personality.

For Sun, he’s a lot nicer and docile than both cannon and fannon. He still has some bite to him, still can get that manic stress, and still has a very very mild hatred for his brother that goes both way that they’re trying to get over, but he and Moon was a lot nicer to Olive when they first met her compared to most fics. It was more Olive being distant than Sun, but some of his excitement and welcomeness was an act. He’s a lot more honest with Olive now.

As for Moon, when first meeting, he was a lot more formal. Matching Olive’s distance and showing minor interest in her actions. Compared to Sun, Moon is a lot more calm and cool. He still likes to have fun, scares, jokes, and teasing are his favorite. Currently, Olive is his best friend, as he likes having fun with her, and she enjoys his antics. Maybe he hasn’t realized it, but it’s also because Olive is one of the few people who gave him a chance after showing the worst of himself.

As for their relationship:

Currently they are all just very close friends. Sun kinda knows he likes her though is a bit in denial/wants to not ruin their current relationship, and Olive in a chapter I’m currently writing will realize that they might like her (and her them), but moon knows and is just testing the waters. (Jokingly kissing her on the cheek and teasing her a lot more). None of them have explicitly said anything, and it usually just hovers around them when their alone, as when their together, they have to much fun to care unless explicitly brought up. They ain’t in their awkward phase, and really won’t get one.

Sun and Moon know that Olive is a demon, and are accepting. Olive knows that Moon was previously corrupted, is both accepting and honestly doesn’t care. (She ‘s a demon, and know worse. She also understands that he was forced to and not tempted into it. Him being sorry proves it enough for her.)

The glamrocks rarely appear in the fic, but they got the that knowing look when it comes to Olive and them of “oh they like you”. They’re encouraging, and are just happy for them.

Condensing down some of my favorite scenes-

- Sun puffing steam when Olive pats him on the head.

-Sun complimenting Olives art as she draws with the kids.

-Moon interest in Olive’s type of music and singing, particularly when she shared The Hearse Song with him.

- Moon giving Olive a bag of Dum-Dums and the resulting teasing she gives him every time she crunches on them. He finds her fangs and forked tongue attractive.

-Moon giving Olive a celestial themed collar.

Any extra facts / things not currently in the fic:

Sun and moon have the nickname Nebula for Olive. Olive dosent have a specific nickname for them, mainly variations on their names. (Sunny, sunshine, Moonie, Moonshine, things like that)

Demons are allergic to anything that messes with their sleep schedule, but mainly caffeine and melatonin. It hurts their body, and makes them manic and feral. Sun and Moon know this, but arn’t all too concerned about it, as they know she can handle herself.

There is an eclipse in this AU, but they haven’t been introduced and won’t be for a while. First time they meet is when Olive enters a game cabinet in the arcade and meets him. That’s after a bunch of trauma returns and leaves Olive basically emotionally incapacitated and spending a prolonged time away from the daycare, concerning both Sun and Moon, and her friends.

Sun and Moon will eventually get separate bodies, but they hide it in order for it to be a surprise to Olive, that sadly goes wrong as while they’re planning to finally show her, that’s when her the woman who summoned her returns and all that trauma comes back, and she losing another body part. Specifically a horn breaks off after being hit with a baseball bat.

Olive plans to give Sun a drawing and Moon a cassette with music that reminds her of him (he has a cassette player in his chest) in a recent chapter in an attempt to test the waters for a confession.

I do plan for spicy scenes in this fic, but they arnt really important to the plot, and is just a bit more of a relationship building moment, especially sense it’s before they find a word for their relationship, but after they realize they like each other. Plus it’s also just fun for me to write. (Adding this in case it helps contextualize their physical relationship. While they are sexual, a lot of their intimacy in the fic is and will be non-sexual. Holding and cuddling, things like that.)

I have a public playlist for this fic on Spotify, named Demonic Daycare did you’d like to search it. My Spotify account is the same as my others Niexigo.

Anyway, that’s all I can think of. I hope this is at least a good baseline for what you were asking for, but if you need something specific, feel free to ask me. My mind tends to ramble when it comes to my stories because if it’s not writing for a chapter, it tends to pinball to what I find fun to talk about, even if it doesn’t makes sense to others. And thank for reaching out and asking. Have fun.

[introdemodev]

where. is the. demo?

(long post under the cut)

if it was to come out now, today, most of the ending will just be a black screen and a textbox (like the screenshot above).

so what's left???

1. i need to finish all the illustrations & assets for the end of the demo, and some assets need to be animated too (this is a visual novel/motion comic after all!). this is the bulk of the work, if you don't count me spending days troubleshooting.

2. even though the beginning and middle of the demo is completed, i need to retouch some artwork...for example, clyde doesn't wear a tie anymore so i need to go back and remove it. it's just a tie, so it doesn't take too long to fix.

3. i need to redo the main menu screen. it doesn't fit the ~*aesthetic*~ i'm going for anymore + kettle's name is...officially fennel now! so. yeah. obviously it needs to be changed!

4. bug testing and making sure the game functions properly.

5. i also need to redo the sprites for clyde, diya, and wren.

and that's it!

i do plan on sharing another snippet of the game, like i did back in january. this is not the demo. the actual demo will be out sometime in october. more on that later, in another post...

now...what about the full game...?????

there is still a lot of work to be done! as you can prolly guess, this mostly includes: making even more assets and illustrations. there are also some minigames sprinkled throughout introdemo and that means i also need to seriously sit down and read books and watch vids on python.

my brain has a hard time understanding anything that's 'technical' (so...coding, math, 3d modelling...physics...you name it). thankfully, renpy is user friendly but a lot of stuff does go over my head! not putting myself down or anything, it's just something i need to spend more time on (and there's a lot of stuff i want to do in this game).

so whenever i run across a bug i can't figure out, sometimes it will take me a few days to pick everything apart and troubleshoot. it's fun, but it can be frustrating at times because i can't rely on forums or guides for every issue i run across.

couple examples:

the nameplates! last month, i finally fixed the issue with longer names not fitting the nameplates. it took a while, but it's fixed! the solution to this problem was fixing how the text was formatted inside the namebox and also the width of the namebox.

(clyde's assistant, diya, is now...clyde's segment producer! good for her)

i also really, really, really wanted a three card monte minigame. but i wanted the card shuffling to feel random. i don't want to explain too much because it would spoil how it work (i can talk more about it once the demo officially comes out) but i had to go with a more 'complex' solution because i didn't understand the more 'simple' solution. if any of that makes sense.

you can play introdemo w/o ever running into the tcm minigame so it's not my main priority right now. but thankfully, it works fine, but it's something that i will have to revisit later.

other minigames that will be introdemo includes: pop quizzes, point n click and hidden objects, decrypting secret messages, pulling off a successful interview, critiquing a romance novel and...more? maybe?

aaaand that's about it! next time i write up another blog post, it'll feature some gameplay footage (like minigames, choices, motion comic scenes, etc), just wanted to tell you guys where i'm at rn since it's been a while.

i had some things happen in my personal life at the beginning of the year which caused me to stop working on this game. i'm ready to work on this game again, and i'll try to get the demo out before the end of this year, even if that means uploading it on 12/31/21 at 11:59:59 PM EST.

thanks for waiting and thanks for reading! sorry ahead of time for any proofreading errors lol.

[itsclydebitches]

Voyager. Now that’s a kettle of fish. Obviously watch/enjoy whatever you wish, but I do recommend also checking out SFDebris’ reviews of the episodes (he’s the rwde of Voyager). He is a lot smarter and more eloquent than me.

Putting these two asks together since my thoughts on both are all jumbled! 

Now, I want to emphasize that I’ve only watched the first 16 episodes (Season One + Season 2 premiere), so idk if Voyager is going to go seriously downhill later on, but right now I do really like it. And not in a, “Lol yeah compared to the other crap on it’s good, I guess” way, but in a completely honest, “It has its flaws, but is overall a solid, compelling show with lovable characters” way. Out of curiosity I watched SFDebris’ review of “Phage,” though I’m afraid I didn’t agree with it. The only part were I was like, “Yeah okay” was pointing out that they had the Doctor using a keypad when he supposedly wasn’t solid, but that’s precisely the sort of continuity error that, in an otherwise strong show, I’m willing to shrug off. For all the major points, it sounds like SFDebris is concerned primarily with the show he wants Voyager to be, rather than the show Voyager actually is. Which I know sounds familiar--I’ve heard that criticism leveled at my own work: “You just want RWBY to be a totally different show”--but the difference is that Voyager is a part of an established franchise, following three other TV shows, an animated series, and a collection of films. It’s not an original show (like RWBY) that can take itself in any direction the story may need/claim to want (again, RWBY). It has a brand and those established characteristics seem to be bumping up against SFDebris’ critiques: 

Hating Neelix as a character - You’re supposed to hate him. Or at least find him frustrating (I don’t personally hate him) because that’s what all the characters are grappling with too. From Tuvok forced to have an awkward conversation while Neelix is in the bath to Janeway dealing with him taking over her dining room, Neelix’s conflict revolves around how others learn to accept him. Star Trek as a franchise is about “Infinite diversity in infinite combinations.” Voyager begins with the problem of how the trained Federation officers are supposed to work with the more violent Maquis. Difference doesn’t just create “Wow, you’re so amazing!” reactions, it also includes frustration, disagreement, and outright hostility. Creating an outsider character with a kind heart but incredibly overbearing personality is a great way to test the other characters’ convictions. Do they actually care about all life in the universe? Or do they only care about life when they personally find it palatable? Having Neelix around is a great reminder for them--and the viewer--that just because someone annoys you at times doesn’t mean they’re any less worthy of love, respect, and companionship. It also doesn’t mean they don’t have something to offer: he keeps the crew fed even if his cooking is horrible, he provides information about this area of space even if he sometimes gets it wrong, we roll our eyes at the “Morale Officer” stuff, but Neelix does provide much needed perspective for characters like Tuvok. If Neelix made fewer mistakes, stopped bugging the crew, became a “cooler” character for the audience to root for rather than be frustrated by... a lot of the point of his character would be lost. 

Frustration about discoveries not carrying over to the next episode - AKA, the crew finds inanely powerful, alien tech and then (presumably) never uses it again. This would indeed be a big problem in a serialized story (like RWBY) but Voyager maintains much of Star Trek’s original, episodic nature. Though we have continuity in the form of them inching towards home and evolving as characters, the world still resets to a certain point at the end of each episode. This is what allows Star Trek to explore so many different questions and have so many different adventures. If you demand that serialized continuity--this character needs to have an arc to deal with this traumatic experience, the crew has to follow the thread they just discovered, our Doctor needs to do something with the new tech they just found--then you lose the variety that Star Trek is known for. Instead of a new story each week (or, occasionally, across two weeks) you’ve got a single story spanning months. Neither form is better or worse than the other, it’s absolutely a preference, but there’s a very specific, structural, intentional reason why the characters “forget” about the things they’ve discovered and, at times, experienced. Unlike Ozpin forgetting that he has a nuke in his cane for seven volumes, or Ruby forgetting to use her eyes at crucial points, Star Trek deliberately sets things aside to ensure there’s room for new ideas and questions next episode. 

Janeway doesn’t kill the Vidiians to get Neelix his lungs back - No Starfleet captain would. At least, not during this period of Star Trek. Sisko has development in that regard (making morally gray choices), but that’s built into the heart of the show from the start: he’s on a station, not a starship, that is jointly run by the Federation and the Bajorans, and built by the Cardassians. The rules of the Federation always had a tenuous hold there and Sisko as a character always pushed the boundary of the Federations expectations (Q: “Picard never hit me!”) Janeway, in contrast, is 100% a Federation captain and, more importantly, has explicitly told her crew that they will be operating as a Federation vessel, despite being so far from home. That’s the conflict between the officers and the Maquis. That’s why Tuvok accepts the alien tech in “Prime Factors,” recognizing that Janeway can’t. That’s why Seska is a compelling antagonist, pressuring the crew to abandon their ideals for survival. The series (or at least that first season) revolves around questions about identity and whether they’re willing to give that identity up now that they’re out from under the Federation’s thumb. Overwhelmingly, they choose not to... which would make murdering the Vidiian a complete 180 for her character. We’re not necessarily supposed to agree with Janeway’s choice, we’re supposed to acknowledge that murdering another sentient being is not some simple choice to make, especially when you’re a leader devoted to a certain set of ideals. We’re supposed to recognize the challenges here (many of which SFDebris doesn’t acknowledge) like how you’re supposed to keep a prisoner for the next 75 years when you’re already struggling to feed and take care of the crew you have, or the fact that they claim to take organs from dead bodies and this was a rare time when they couldn’t. (It’s only in “Faces” that we learn this is complete BS and they actively kidnap people to work as slaves and then be harvested.) The frustration that Janeway doesn’t act here stems from wanting her to be a character who is, fundamentally, not a Star Trek captain. 

Granted, I only watched one review, but that’s what the whole thing felt like: wanting a series that’s not Star Trek. Something without a token, challenging character, without hand-wavy science, that’s more serialized, and doesn’t adhere to a “do no harm” code. (I just started “Initiations” and Chakotay asks a vessel to stand down three times, while actively being attacked, before finally retaliating and then he tries to reestablish communications and then he warns them about their engine and then he beams them aboard his shuttle. That’s what Star Trek (usually) is: that idealized love of life, even when that life is actively hostile). And like, that’s obviously fine! As you say, Flawartist, “watch/enjoy whatever you wish,” but just based on this one review I wonder if SFDebris just wants something other than Star Trek. 

I think one of the reasons why I feel passionately about this (beyond my love of context and recognizing when shows are actively trying to accomplish something specific) is that I went through this with DS9. For years I heard about how horrible the show was. It’s trash. It’s a mess. It’s not TNG, so don’t even bother. Or, if you do, be prepared for disappointment. There was this whole, strong rhetoric about how silly it all is--Star Trek is, by default, silly, so supposedly only the Shakespeare loving, archeology obsessed captain is sophisticated enough to save it--and then... I found nothing of the sort. I mean yeah, obviously Star Trek is silly as hell (that’s part of its charm), but DS9 was also a complex, nuanced look into everything from personal agency to the threat of genocide. There’s so much wonderful storytelling there... little of which made it into my cultural understanding of DS9. And now I’m seeing the same thing with Voyager. When I did some quick googling I was bombarded by articles saying how bad it is and now I have an ask comparing it to a show I don’t think has even a quarter of the heart the Star Trek franchise does. Which is is not AT ALL meant as a knock against you, anon. I’m just fascinated by this cultural summary of Star Trek: TOS is ridiculous but fun if you’re willing to ignore large swaths of it, TNG is a masterpiece and that’s that, DS9 is bad, Voyager is bad, and to be frank I haven’t heard much of anything about Enterprise. It’s weird! Because I watch these shows and I’m like, “Holy shit there’s so much good storytelling here.” Is it perfect? Not on your life, but it’s trying in a way that I can really appreciate. It’s Star Trek and Star Trek (at least at the time) meant something pretty specific. Criticisms about divisive characters or idealized forgiveness feel like walking out of a Fast and Furious film and going, “There was too much driving and silly combat. Why didn’t they just fix the situation in this easy way?” Because then we wouldn’t have a film about lots of driving and silly combat! If you make all the characters palatable, make Janeway harder, extend the impact of all the discoveries, remove the ridiculous science that doesn’t make any sense... then you don’t have Star Trek anymore. 

[soundtrack-scribe]

Detention

Summary: You and Michael end up in detention together. (Clever title and summary, I know.)

Word Count: 1.4k

And away, and away we go!

__

Aside from the rustle of papers and the scratching of pencils, the classroom was silent. Your own test had already been turned in, so your nose was buried deep in the newest book you’d been reading. “Psst,” the boy in front of you whispered over his shoulder at you.

“Oh, sorry,” you apologized, pulling your feet off the rungs of his seat, thinking you were jostling him again like you had last week.

“What did you get for 18?”

“Which one was that?” you whispered back, eyes on the teacher who was thankfully talking with another student.

“This one.” He pushed his test as far down his desk towards you without drawing attention.

“Oh, um…” you leaned forward ever so slightly, squinting at the various diagrams. “It’s C.”

“Thanks.”

You started to tell him that it was no problem, but all you got out was “No,” before there was an authoritative clearing of the throat beside you. Both you and the boy, lifted your gazes upwards to find your teaching staring back down at you.

“Michael,” they stated, holding out their hand expectantly.

Michael handed over his test with a mumbled apology.

“I’ll see you both after class.”

You both nodded as the teacher strode back to their desk. Michael flashed you an apologetic smile while you sat there in a frozen panic, feeling your chest tighten. God damn it! How could you be so stupid?!

When the bell rang, everyone scrambled for the door. Everyone except you and Michael who stayed put in your seats. Once the class was empty, Michael made his way over to the teacher’s desk, you following behind at a much slower pace. By the time you reached the desk, Michael was already playing hero. “It wasn’t Y/N’s fault. They were telling me to leave them alone.”

You stilled in confusion. Why was Michael coming to your defense? Sure, you shared a few classes with him, and while you were friendly with each other, you wouldn’t say that you were buddies. So why was he potentially making his own punishment worse by coming to your rescue when you were just as much to blame?

The teacher’s tongue clicked. “Be that as it may, you’re still both receiving zeros on the test and have 2 weeks of detention starting tomorrow. Understood?”

“Yes,” you both answered, before gathering your bags and leaving the classroom.

“Look, I’m rea-” Michael started at the same time you went “Why?”

His light green eyes blinked. “Why? Why what?”

“Why did you take all the blame? I told you the answer. It was my fault, too.”

He shrugged. “Because you help everybody all the time. Let us bug you for the answers without telling us to piss off. You don’t deserve to get in trouble for helping us underachievers. Plus you looked like you were gonna cry. You’re not, are you?”

You sniffed hurriedly. “What? No…”

“Good… cuz that would be very punk rock of you.”

“I’m not punk rock…”

“Everyone’s punk rock. Some of us are just more… in your face about it. Your parents gonna be mad at you?”

You scoffed. “Honestly, no. That would require them to pay attention.”

Michael winced in sympathy. “Sounds rough. And very punk rock.”

You scoffed again. “Super punk rock. I’m living every teenager’s dream, didn’t you know?”

He chuckled lightheartedly. “Actually it kinda sounds a little like a nightmare. But hey, what do I know? I can barely pass biology. See ya tomorrow, Y/N.”

You gave a small wave. “Bye, Mike.”

~~~

You glanced around the nearly empty classroom that served as after school detention, wondering how Michael wasn’t here yet when you had the same last class. Sighing, you took a seat in the back, ignoring the looks from the frequent flyers. You were about to turn the page in your book when you saw a flash of bright red hair, before the person occupied the seat next to you. “Psst,” the voice whispered. “You have Mr. K for history, yeah?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Can you help me with the assignment? Not copy it obviously. But like actual help?”

You shot Michael a soft smile before putting your book away and pulling out your history worksheet. “So it’s pretty basic,” you started to explain. “You just answer the questions.”

“But why do the answers have spaces? Is that like for each letter of the answer? And what do the numbers underneath mean? How come they’re only under some spaces?”

“Because at the bottom,” you pointed to where there was a final question with numbers under every blank space, “you’re gonna use your answers to figure out the code.”

“This is supposed to make history fun? Deciphering codes?”

You giggled quietly into your hand. “It’s not that hard. All the answers are in our notes. But you don’t really need them. Or, I didn’t anyway.”

“Yeah, that’s cuz you’re like super frickin’ smart.” Michael smirked at the way his dropped compliment made your cheeks flush as he turned his attention to the assignment. “Oh, you weren’t joking. This is super easy. Blank and Japan made up the Axis Powers. Germany.” He drawled his last word out slowly as he wrote in his answer.

The next ten or so minutes lapsed in silence as you both worked on answering the questions, sharing the occasional smile when he’d know the right answer without having to look at his notes first. “Wait…” Michael muttered when he got to the end of the page. “Who’s Goebbels? I thought Himmler was Hitler’s main guy. Or that other guy… Rommel?”

“Goebbels was in charge of propaganda,” you explained. “So yeah, while Himmler and Rommel were each an important piece of Hitler’s inner circle, Goebbels did a lot too. And since he was a politician, that’s sort of what sets him apart from Himmler and Rommel who essentially were just commanders doing Hitler and Goebbels bidding.”

“Oh… I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah. Everyone focuses on Himmler and Rommel cuz they’re more fun to focus on. Actually doing the nitty gritty. The political aspect is bland to most people.”

“Yeah the fighting is way cooler. Hey, thanks for this,” he said, gesturing at his paper.

“For what? You did it all yourself.”

“Yeah, but like… I dunno. You explain things really well. Or at least in a way I can understand.”

You shrugged, your cheeks flushing slightly. “Thanks. But it’s probably just because I think like you do. Like I don’t think adults realize that we don’t understand things the way they do. Like Mr. K has been teaching this stuff forever. We’re just learning it for the first time.”

“Huh. Never thought about it like that before… Well, I still think you make a pretty good tutor.”

Your cheeks flushed darker. “Thanks. I can tutor you in other stuff if you want. Since how we’ll be here for a while.”

His green eyes lit up with excitement. “Wait, for real? You’ll help me?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“You’re a lifesaver.”

~~~

For the next two weeks, you tutored Michael in detention. Which was really just doing your assignments alongside him because you basically had all the same teachers just at different times of the day. It was easy for you to figure out when Michael got tripped up on something by the way he’d look up and to the side like he was hoping the answer was up on the wall somewhere. It was also kinda cute the way he’d scrunch up his nose when he was really concentrating, and the way he’d rest his chin in his palm when he listened to you explain things to clear up his confusion.

“You know, I used to think I was just stupid,” Michael commented as you both left your last detention.

“Needing things explained differently doesn’t make you stupid, Mike.”

“Well, I don’t think I’ll be getting straight A’s like you any time soon. Maybe a high C though. Low B even.”

You shrugged your shoulders. “You can be an A student if you wanted. You just gotta put in the work. And if you ever need a homework buddy…”

“Yeah? You’ll still help me?”

“Yeah. This has been kinda fun, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah, yeah it has,” Michael admitted, a hand going to rub at the back of his neck. “But maybe we don’t always have to do homework?”

“Oh? You mean like hanging out as friends?”

“Or not friends? Movies? Tomorrow?”

In a brief moment of boldness, you reached up on tiptoe to kiss the boy’s cheek. “It’s a date.”

__

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[poptod]

hey it's me again :) can i request an ahk x reader where y/n is a programmer and is showing him all the things she can do with a computer and him just being super amazed at her skills and the progress of technology in general? please feel free to add stuff i'm not super imaginative. i love your writing and thanks again!

hello again! thank u for requesting and i’m glad you like what i write! this one’s a bit shorter, sorry about that, but i think it’s sweet. my dad’s actually a programmer, with epic, not valve, but still fun to write.

"You're really good at this," Ahk said, leaning over your shoulder to look at the computer screen. The brightness and the many pixels of the screen hurt your eyes, considering you were used to computers that weren't made in the 90's, but you could make do. Computers were the one thing that you knew your way around, no matter the type.

"Ahk, I'm just showing you how to google something," you said as you tried to hold back a laugh, turning to him only to almost kiss his cheek. You quickly turned right back to the screen.

"Is it something people do often?"

"Google stuff? Yeah. The internet has answers to almost any question, as long as someone on the earth knows the answer, it's usually on the internet," you said in hopes of him understanding. "The internet is... like a connection, sort of. Every computer can connect to one another, so I could talk to someone on the other side of the world, and I can go into a non-physical library of information. It's not just used for knowledge, though. Lots of other things too."

He pulled one of the rolling chairs from its' place at the reception desk, rolling it beside yours and sitting next to you, his thigh pressed against yours as he stared at the screen. You bit the inside of your cheek.

"So – you work with computers, right? What is it that you do with them?"

"I test certain programs, make sure they function correctly, I also make some myself. They aren't horribly complicated but I do have a website for them," you said, hoping your explanation wasn't too complicated. You never knew with Ahk – sometimes he got it immediately, sometimes you needed to explain fifty times. "Here," you said, "I'll show you one that I’m working on."

He scooted even closer to the desk, eyes wide with curiosity and intrigue. Every now and then he'd pick up this child-like love of things, namely balloons and coffee, and now the computer. Every now and then you wished he'd direct that child-like love to you.

Typing in your website, you opened up the home page, quickly navigating till you came to the various programs and ideas you kept. There you scanned through them, wondering which one Ahk would like more, as well as what would be impressive to a 4,000 year old Pharaoh.

"I think you'll like this one. It's a video game I'm working on with Valve, still a prototype and all that, that's why it's on my website," you said, clicking on it and loading up what you had so far.

"Why would being a prototype qualify for being on your webbings?" Ahk asked as he watched the loading screen with much interest.

"We need beta testers, just to play over the levels and such, make sure there aren't any bugs in the coding. Most programmers though, uh," you paused as the game loaded up, the glass walls of the prison surrounding the first person view of the game, "they, um, they don't work with games. A lot of programmers work with things like lags in the loading, stuff like that, y'know?"

"I... think so," he said as he nodded slowly. "How does this game work?"

You proceeded to explain how video games were a sort of 'playable story,' with dialogue and options as well as puzzles and battles much more engrossing than those in board games. He seemed to understand that well enough, so you moved onto how to control the character. Currently, there was only one room built into the game, with only one puzzle to solve, but that didn't stop Ahk's face from lighting up when you asked if he wanted to play. He nodded vigorously, moving into your place when you scooted to the side.

This game was one you were both proud and happy to be working on – the concept was one you'd never seen before, and while it was hell trying to get the mechanics to work without confusing the player too much, the reward was fantastic. Besides personal fulfillment the pay wasn't bad at all, and it'd be great to put on your resume should you need it.

It took a little while and several more demonstrations, but he eventually learned how to move around, how the camera worked and how to spot bugs in the coding. From there you taught him the mechanics of the portal gun, reminding him early on that this wasn't a mechanic ever used before. He seemed delighted to try it out. With some help from you he finished the short level, using the portal gun to get out of the glass prison.

"It's still in the very early stages," you reminded him when he finished, a wide grin plastered across his face. "I doubt this level will even be in the actual game, but we'll see."

"How does it work? Do you animate it, or film it?" He asked, running the character all over the white room. You giggled.

"Not exactly," you said, taking the controls from him.

As you opened up the dev tools, lines upon paragraphs of coding appeared, showing words he couldn't understand, rules he couldn't comprehend, but it didn't stop him from trying. You continued to patiently explain how the computer worked, how one line could mean the color for one of the panels, or how a paragraph could dictate what happens when he as the player interacted with something.

"You made this?" Ahk asked as his mouth hung open, watching you scroll through the many lines of text.

"Some of it, yes, but my main job is to look for inconsistencies and problems in the coding," you said, unable to help from smiling. Hardly anyone had shown as much interest as Ahk did in your job, and his intrigue was a welcome change.

"How... how did you learn all of this?" He asked as he finally looked away from the coding, turning to face you. He sat impossible close to you, eager to see the computer, but it left you in a stumbling fluster as red coated your face.

"I, um – I went to, uh, school. And I had it as a, um, hobby when I was - uh, younger," you said, digging your nails into your thigh.

"Fascinating," he whispered, looking only to you as he spoke the word.

Everything in your body froze as he said that, wondering if he found your work fascinating, or technology, or just you. It couldn't be just you, but for a second you knew the exhilarating feeling of being admired by one you admired so greatly.

"Ahk?!" Larry yelled from the top of the stairs, gaining both his and yours attention. "Need you up here – statues don't recognize me again."

"Ugh," Ahk groaned, turning back to the now black screen for just a second before he faced you. "Thank you for the demonstration and for your time," he said as he stood, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to your cheek before he ran off, his cape flying behind him as he raced up the stairs.

You caught your reflection in the screen.

You never looked more like a cherry than you did now.

[soijusthavetoask]

ooh ooh!!! if ur still doing the au hcs, can u do childhood friends logince?? - @falsehoodx :)

No clue when this was sent so it’s probably super old @falsehoodx

They basically lived in the same house they went over to each others places so often

The other ones parents would just call to see if Logan/Roman was at the others house.

Logan used to be able to tell Roman anything and Roman would believe it

Even if Roman started questioning it Logan would just say because science and Roman went back to fully believing it

But they were like five and Logan believed what he was saying so it was fine.

Logan learned all of the constalations and you can bet that Roman was forced to learn all of them also.

Roman would ask Logan how a dragon could spit fire from it’s mouth one day

Logan came back the next day and what do you know? There’s like two different ways they could do it and he had notes to explain them to Roman.

Roman would come up with complicated dream worlds and tell every last detail to Logan. Logan would listen completly and ask questions about these worlds while taking notes about them.

They both had an achint Greece phase, at the same time.

It was chaos

Their parents knew everything about everything about Greece and then some.

Logan was more interested in the myths

Roman in all the stuff that was made and the kingdoms that were overthrown

As they got older they were less tied at the hip, even though they still hung out a lot.

Roman was in theater and Logan was in debate

They did speech together as a way to spend more time and preform together.

They both dont study

It’s a problem

Logan does not practice what he preaches at all

Roman does though

Who has a sleep schedual?

Who drinks a lot of water?

Who does anything health related?

Roman

Logan is busy drinking his fifth cup of coffee and learning everything about the history of Sony because of some long wikipedea trip that somehow left wikipedea

“Truth or dare Logan”

“Truth”

“When was the last time you slept?”

““

“Dare”

“I dare you to go to sleep”

“...fine”

At some point they made up a language

Neither knows how it happened

It just sort of did

They are always in group projects together

Even if the teachers assaign it

They saw what happened if they didn’t go together

They always make either the best thing in class or the worst thing in class but it technically meets all the criteria

“Fuck school” “Ok same but if either of us got a B we would cry” “I know” “But still fuck school”

Either of them could say any part of this, it would still be correct

Logan understands art he just can’t do it right

Roman doesn’t understand art, he just does it

They got split up for a group project once and that is when they met the others

Logan met Jamus and Remus

Roman met Patton and Virgil

All of them thought Logan and Roman were dating

Logan and Roman did not know what to think of that when they found out

They just looked at eachother and said something along the lines of..

“Are we dating?” “I have no clue” “Well...” “I guess we are?” “Kinda?” “Does that answer your question of weather we are dating Patton”

Meanwhile everyone else is just laughing

When they were like Sophtmores they found a stack of Logan’s old notecards from when he was five

They counted them

They stopped once they got to a thousand

There’s still more that they’re going through

They also found some of Romans old drawings

There was also a lot of those

But it was nothing compared to the note cards

(Until Logan’s parents showed that they had more of Roman’s drawings)

They started up the fantacy world again with a nickname the imagination

Logan also started learning how to code at this point

They tried to make some of the fantasy world stuff into a game

Logan forced Roman to try to code as well

“Please stop complaining about me making the game slowly unless you do more then throw ideas at me and don’t help code it”

Roman is not good at coding but starts making the sprites and backrounds

And also stops complaining about Logan doing it slowly

The test runs are hilarious

“Ok talking to the person should work now” *Roman tries talking to the person* *The game goes to night mode, enemy music starts playing and Roman falls through the world* “No.. it doesn’t” “Well it didn’t crash this time”

They drag in their other friends to bug test it once it starts working well enough to play

Remus does everything to try to break it as Roman screams in the backround about him doing it wrong

Logan just laughs as he reliases how much he’ll have to go back and fix

Patton somehow just becomes a farmer in the game

“That wasn’t even an option but good job Patton”

Virgil plays it correctly

Janus murders the king and overthroughs sociity

Virgil somehow found the most glitches and bugs in the darn game

At some point Logan takes a programing class with Roman

“I think the imagination fits all the criteria” “We are turning that in for the final project, nothing else”

They got an A

Somehow

Neither knows how they survived school this long

“Logan what’s studying?” “I was about to ask you that”

They both are always a moment away from becoming really dramatic

Logan somehow got the image of being sirious at some point

Probably because he brought the notecards back

“If I’m going to forget everything anyway at least I have no excuse now”

Roman steals his notecards to prove his points at times

Logan has many notecards that explain long words in case someone asks

Roman caused the infinisesimal thing by changing out one of Logan’s notecards for a different, wrong one

Roman dared Logan to wear a tie to school for a month

Logan dared Roman to sing at every opportunity he had

That was a very fun month

They both developed a liking of poetry seperatly

They had a rap battle

Logan won

Remus caught it on camera

They ended up making part of the imagination a game that somehow got on steam

It cost 50 cents

They somehow got popular

Neither knows how

They just were suddenly making games now

And it worked

They were really good friends

I can’t end things

Goodnight

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen Rambles about Episode 6

Man... I’m just never going to actually talk about anything in a timely manner, am I? Every time I say that a Rambling is coming I get distracted and talk about bad anime, other video games, or I draw my OCs for a months on end and forget all my drafts exist. 

And since Children of Ursus... dense, to say the least, I’ll just finish up this draft of Episode 6 and hopefully get on some kind of proper schedule for October... hopefully.

So, Chapter 6 came out... month ago, and I’ve been meaning to talk about for some time. Honestly, I have more criticisms than praises for this episode, but there are a few good points worth talking about. 

But first, as usual, a synopsis.

To keep things simple, Episode 6 focuses on the joint operation between the Hong Kong Lungmen Guard Department and the Rhodes Island Pharmaceutical Company. After Episode 5, Rhodes Island finally rendezvoused with Ch’en’s detachment in Lungmen and the two groups come up with a game plan to take out the Reunion troops in the city. Ch’en focusing on the slums and a few key locations while Rhode Island takes out the commanders, namely Frostnova, Faust, and Mephisto. 

That’s the basic summary of things, but things go a little deeper.

The Story

A looong while ago I said Code of Brawl contained the best and worst aspect of Arknights. Episode 6 really shows what can be bad about it. 

Okay, I’m being a little unfair since this latest Episode just pails in comparison to 5, but it’s still a little disappointing. My main issues are the disjointed story arcs and the attempted at humanizing Reunion, but before I get to that let me just go over all the little things first, just so I can clear the air of all the nitpicks and not accidentally make a 500-word segment about minor things. With that said...

Small Things that Only Bug Allen

Blaze gives Greythroat shit for reasons that seemed to have happened off screen. This makes her seem really catty (pardon the pun) toward Greythroat for no reason aside from assumed slights and weakens Greythroat’s later character growth as we don’t see her show hatred or prejudice toward the infect, not in the same way as Ch’en in Episode 2-ish.

The Doctor’s role as a self-insert really harms more scenes than helps. A lot of moments where they’re the focus feel flat since they don’t have a real personality to play off of. Just for example, imagine if Amiya was trapped in with Frostnova instead of the Doctor, I could see a much stronger chance to characterize both characters in that situation.

Gavial was mentioned several times in this Episode and didn’t get any dialogue. How dare you not give Gavial screentime.

This Episode has proven that Amiya is canonically a 14-year-old loli and in charge of a total not private military company, no I swear, those soldiers are just for CC and special ops don’t think about it too much Silverash is just a CEO of a company stop asking questions. 

This isn’t a story complaint, but 6-16 was a bitch to get through. The randomness of Frostnova’s AI combined with that high damaging AoE attack just kills it for me (and half my units).

And while on gameplay, Stage 6-17 was really dumb and its only redeeming value is a free Originite Prime. I get the narrative point of it, but it’s still dumb.

Okay, so with the small stuff out of the way let’s hit the big issues, starting with...

The Disjointed Arcs

So... this Episode wanted to explain Frostnova’s backstory, explain Mephisto and Faust’s backstory, introduce GreyThroat and Blaze while giving them a character arc, further Ch’en’s character arc, humanize Reunion, do world-building on Lungmen society, reveal a political conspiracy of Lungmen that dates back years before the main story, kick-start what I pray isn’t a redemption arc for Mephisto (that’s a Rambling in itself), hint at Crownslayer’s backstory, hint at Talaluh’s  backstory, and possibly reveal some stuff about Ursus.

And folks... that’s too much for one Episode to handle.  

Compared to Episode 5, which just focused on Ch’en and the LGD, this was just a mess, there’s no two ways about. They were trying to do too much and front-loaded a lot of the important bits toward the end. I really wish they only tried to do two or three things on that list instead of 10 things. Arknights has a bad habit of trying to tell too much in the limited time it has our attention. Episode 4 was guilty of this, elements of Operation Intelligence was guilty of this, and even Code of Brawl has hints of this issue too by trying to hint at Mostima’s backstory while giving Bison and some other characters an arc. I get that they’re trying to lay the ground work for future events and story points, but this is really just too much, at least for one episode.

But speaking of things that are too much...

Humanizing Reunion

This is what really grabs my goat. I’m conflicted on how to feel about the attempt to humanize Reunion and add grey morality to their role as antagonist. My original draft had said this was a bad thing, since Mephisto is so cartoonishly evil any attempts at redemption feel flimsy, but... I think it could work. 

The main issue of trying to humanize Reunion is that our introduction to them was Mephisto, who is so far down the moral spectrum that it’s impossible to think he or the faction he represents are redeemable. However, characters like Faust, Skullshatterer, and Frostnova are much more reasonable/understandable in their motives. Skullshatterer is ruthless to his enemies, but kind to his soldiers, and his ruthlessness is really only on the battlefield. Faust is essentially Mephisto’s leash, and just tries to reign in his evil while protecting him. Frostnova just wants to have a home for her Yetis and doesn’t care what side she has to join in order to get it, though she has her doubts about Talaluh. 

This is fine by itself, but due to all the evils of Mephisto and the cruelty he’s done to Rhodes Island, Lungmen, and Ursus, it makes it really hard to see Mephisto as the exception instead of the norm for Reunion’s methods. It makes Faust’s death and Mephisto’s devastation of it feel flat since, frankly, the brat’s cocky attitude got his friend killed, and he’s just getting what he deserved. He’s killed and tortured too many for anyone to really feel sympathy toward him. When even Amiya calls Mephisto a bastard, there’s really no redemption, and while Episode 6 doesn’t try to redeem I’ve seen enough anime to know they might try and make it broken state seem more sympathetic than it should be.

Which leads nicely into Frostnova, who’s arc was done very well by my standards. While I personally think giving her solo time with the Doctor was more detrimental than helpful, it worked well enough to show she wasn’t a monster like Mephisto. It gave us some time to understand the motivations of the Yeti Squad and sympathizes with their goals of finding a home, gave us a nice hook for when Patriot comes around in full after being teased in both Episode 4 and Operation Intelligence, and if this Episode only focused on that I’d say it was a good story over all.

But... Episode 6 wanted to also hint at so much more that it was suffocating. I’ll at least say that Ch’en’s segments were fine and move on.

Gameplay

I’m going to keep this as short as I can since the story section was the big thing I wanted to talk about. However, there are a few things I want to mention in terms of the game.

6-7 was probably the best chapter in the game so far. I loved how they gave you an team already with most of them at E2. It was a great way for people without GreyThroat and Blaze and test them out. It let you see how some Operators you might have ignored perform at a higher level. It gave you a hint at where you should be at the point of this level, and the for the lore nerd it gives us a good idea on how an official team is structured for high-level missions. I’d love to see more missions like this in the future where they give you a ‘canon’ team already and have you work out the puzzle of who goes where and when.

6-16 is probably the worst. Frostnova having high stats and a second stage I understand, but so much of that map relies on getting around the randomness of what tiles she knocks out and praying you can survive her massive AoE attack in her second phase. My entire team was E2 Level 30 and it took me over ten tries to 2-star that stage. I was using a guide too. A lot of that map revolved around just praying Frostnova didn’t bonk out certain tiles or praying that her AoE attack didn’t randomly proc at a bad time. There is way too much left to chance on her stage.

General Gushing

I think that’s enough critique, let’s get to some happy stuff and talk about the things I enjoyed.

Blaze’s cattiness aside, I liked her a lot. She’s confident, she spontaneous, she’s... basically a rowdy housecat. Seeing more elite operators would be nice so Rhode Island feels like an actual force with some power and order and less ragtag.

Ch’en character arc is shaping up nicely, her barging into Wei’s office to chew him out gave me the largest grin.

Amiya’s whole speech to Wei was just great as well, really reminds you she is the top executive of Rhode Island for a reason... despite being a 14-year-old bunny loli.

Everyone mildly talking about Gavial makes me really curious about seeing her speak and act in the story. She seems like a feared woman to be sure. I’m we’ll be getting her event somewhere down the line.

Faust and Frostnova’s death, as forced as they felt, were genuinely sad and made me feel something. It gave the series a bit more weight to it.

Speaking of, Faust and GreyThroat had some pretty nice parallels, both Crossbowmen fighting for causes they’re initially apathetic toward save for a very small handful of people. Mephisto for Faust, and Amiya for GreyThroat.

“She jumped down?!” “She jumped down...” Best exchanged in the game so far.

Like Code of Brawl, save for some of the bullshit maps that just spammed the strongest, hardest-hitting units (yes, I do mean 6-5) I found a lot of the maps required some creative thinking. Despite this Episode needing E2 units, my E1 Vigna was the MVP of most stages. Ethan as well, as I didn’t have Manticore at the time and his damage of time skill and AoE damage really made those chokepoints work.

In the Future

As always, I don’t like the idea of fixing something that’s already out, but asking for future changes seems reasonable. To that end, I hope Episode 7 is focused on only 2 or three characters with little distraction. Episode 5 was great not because it focused on a fan-favorite character, but because it was a solid character arc for that one character. So far we have Ch’en and Amiya getting ready to maybe stop a war between Lungmen and Ursus, so let’s focus on these two characters. Amiya maybe finding out that Ch’en is slowly becoming Infected and helping her come to terms with that. Ch’en revealing her past to Amiya and the two connecting over losing so many close to them due to Oripathy. The two standing up to the political corruption of Lungmen, shoulder to shoulder, as women that refuse to see another life lost due to the indifference of a city’s politics.

And no bullshit maps like 6-5 too.

Anyway, that’ll do it for me. I’m... off to write some more essays and get a queue going. 

[douchebagbrainwaves]

EVERY FOUNDER SHOULD KNOW ABOUT CONTRACTORS

In big companies software is often designed, implemented, and sold by three separate types of people. Tcl is the scripting language of Unix, and so its size is proportionate to its complexity, and a funnel for peers. By this point everyone knows you should release fast and iterate. Programming languages are for. They don't even know about the stuff they've invested in. But I think there's more going on than this. If you run out of money, you could say either was the cause. Nearly all programmers would rather spend their time writing code and have someone else handle the messy business of extracting money from it. Every programmer must have seen code that some clever person has made marginally shorter by using dubious programming tricks. In one place I worked, we had a big board of dials showing what was happening to our web servers.1 Every designer's ears perk up at the office writes Tenisha Mercer of The Detroit News. There are borderline cases is-5 two elements or one?

I decided to ask the founders of the startups in the e-commerce business back in the 90s, will destroy you if you choose them. It's due to the shape of the problem here is social. In the arts it's obvious how: blow your own glass, edit your own films, stage your own plays. Only in the preceding couple years had the dramatic fall in the cost of customer acquisition. The organic growth guys, sitting in their garage, feel poor and unloved. So the first question to ask about a field is how honest its tests are, because this startup seems the most successful companies. A good deal of that spirit is, fortunately, preserved in macros. The second way to compete with focus is to see what you're making.

But more important, in a hits-driven business, is that source code will look unthreatening. In DC the message seems to be the new way of delivering applications. White. I'm going to risk making one. But looking through windows at dusk in Paris you can see that from the rush of work that's always involved in releasing anything, no matter how much skill and determination you have, the more you stay pointed in the same business. PR coup was a two-part one. It's conversational resourcefulness. We're more confident. That certainly accords with what I see out in the world.2 Treating indentation as significant would eliminate this common source of bugs as well as making programs shorter. Once you take several million dollars of my money, the investors get a great deal of control.

The dream language is beautiful, clean, and terse. It works.3 It could mean an operating system, or a framework built on top of a programming language as the throwaway programs people wrote in it grew larger. I'm not saying it's correct, incidentally, but it seems like a decent hypothesis. The most important kinds of learning happen one project at a time. Instead of starting from companies and working back to the 1960s and 1970s, when it was the scripting language of a popular system.4 Blogger got down to one person, and they have a board majority, they're literally your bosses.5 Unconsciously, everyone expects a startup to fix upon a specific number.6 But as long as you seem to be advancing rapidly, most investors will leave you alone.7 What readability-per-line does mean, to the user encountering the language for others even to hear about it. Users have worried about that since the site was a few months old.8 If it's a subset, you'll have to write it anyway, so in the worst case you won't be wasting your time, but didn't.9

It's exacerbated by the fast pace of startups, which makes it seem like time slows down: I think you've left out just how fun it was: I think the main reason we take the trouble to develop high-level languages is to get leverage, so that we can say and more importantly, think in 10 lines of a high-level language what would require 1000 lines of machine language. Well, that may be fine advice for a bunch of declarations. Trying to make masterpieces in this medium must have seemed to Durer's contemporaries that way that, say, making masterpieces in comics might seem to the average person today. I kept searching for the Cambridge of New York, I was very excited at first. Which was dictated largely by the hardware available in the late 1950s. This comforting illusion may have prevented us from seeing the real problem with Lisp, or at least Common Lisp, some delimiters are reserved for the language, suggesting that at least some of the least excited about it, including even its syntax, and anything you write has, as much as shoes have to be prepared to see the better idea when it arrives. And I was a Reddit user when the opposite happened there, and sitting in a cafe feels different from working. The Detroit News.10

Most founders of failed startups don't quit their day job, is probably an order of magnitude larger than the number who do make it. But the clearest message is that you should be smarter. But hear all the cutting-edge tech and startup news, and run into useful people constantly.11 You won't get to, unless you fail. Running a startup is fun the way a survivalist training course would be fun, and a funnel for peers. It's since grown to around 22,000.12 You may save him from referring to variables in another package, but you need time to get any message through to people that it didn't have to be more readable than a line of Lisp. A rant with a rallying cry as the title takes zero, because people vote it up without even reading it. I'm just stupid, or have worked on some limited subset of applications. This is supposed to be a lot simpler. Whatever a committee decides tends to stay that way, even if it is harder to get from zero to twenty than from twenty to a thousand.13

With two such random linkages in the path between startups and money, it shouldn't be surprising that luck is a big factor in deals. Most of the groups that apply to Y Combinator suffer from a common problem: choosing a small, obscure niche in the hope of unloading them before they tank. A programming language does need a good implementation, of course. Look at how much any popular language has changed during its life. With a startup, I had bought the hype of the startup world, startup founders get no respect. A real hacker's language will always have a slightly raffish character.14 The eminent feel like everyone wants to take a long detour to get where you wanted to go. But there is a trick you could use the two ideas interchangeably. Their reporters do go out and get users, though. A throwaway program is brevity. I do that the main purpose of a language is readability, not succinctness.15 You can't build things users like without understanding them.

At the moment I'd almost say that a language isn't judged on its own and b something that can be considered a complete application and ship it. They're so desperate for content that some will print your press releases almost verbatim, if you preferred, write code that was isomorphic to Pascal. When I moved to New York, I was very excited at first. To avoid wasting his time, he waits till the third or fourth time he's asked to do something; by then, whoever's asking him may be fairly annoyed, but at the same time the veteran's skepticism. There are several local maxima.16 Defense contractors? When, if ever, is a watered-down Lisp with infix syntax and no macros. Hackers share the surgeon's secret pleasure in poking about in gross innards, the teenager's secret pleasure in poking about in gross innards, the teenager's secret pleasure in popping zits.

Notes

What happens in practice signalling hasn't been much of a long time in the 1920s to financing growth with retained earnings till the 1920s. Even Samuel Johnson seems to be a good idea to make money.

A related problem that they decided to skip raising an A round VCs put two partners on your own mind. That should probably question anything you believed as a cause as it might take an angel investment from a company's culture.

If you don't think they'll be able to formalize a small company that could be made. There was no more unlikely than it was putting local grocery stores out of business you should be.

If Congress passes the founder visa in a time machine, how can anything regressive be good employees either.

If big companies to acquire the startups, the light bulb, the initial investors' point of a great deal of competition for mediocre ideas, but I think what they campaign for. When governments decide how to distinguish 1956 from 1957 Studebakers. How did individuals accumulate large fortunes in an absolute sense, if we think your idea is that parties shouldn't be that the Internet was as late as Newton's time it takes forever.

Galbraith was clearly puzzled that corporate executives would work to have this second self keep a journal. While the audience already has to be more at home at the start, e.

Some will say that it also worked for spam. The closest we got to the Internet worm of its identity. Icio.

Rice and Beans for 2n olive oil or butter n yellow onions other fresh vegetables; experiment 3n cloves garlic n 12-oz cans white, kidney, or black beans n cubes Knorr beef or vegetable bouillon n teaspoons freshly ground black pepper 3n teaspoons ground cumin n cups dry rice, preferably brown Robert Morris says that a startup in the US, it would do it is genuine. Com in order to attract workers.

But the early adopters you evolve the idea that could start this way, except in the back of your last round of funding rounds are at some of these limits could be ignored. Comments at the mafia end of the latter without also slowing the former, and also really good at generating your own time in the computer world, write a new SEC rule issued in 1982 rule 415 that made steam engines dramatically more efficient: the attempt to discover the most promising opportunities, it is very vulnerable to gaming, because there's no center to walk to.

Though it looks like stuff they've seen in the first year or two make the kind that has become part of a large chunk of time, default to some abstract notion of fairness or randomly, in one where life was tougher, the television, the more subtle ways in which those considered more elegant consistently came out shorter perhaps after being macroexpanded or compiled. For these companies unless your last funding round usually reflects some other contribution by the high-minded Edwardian child-heroes of Edith Nesbit's The Wouldbegoods.

Mozilla is open-source browser. They may not be led by a big factor in high school kids arrive at college with a truly feudal economy, at least should make what they claim was the recipe: someone guessed that there are before the name implies, you don't, but that we didn't do. They overshot the available RAM somewhat, causing much inconvenient disk swapping, but they hate hypertension. Living on instant ramen, which are a hundred years ago.

I don't think you should probably question anything you believed as a rule, if you're measuring usage you need, you don't have one. Don't be fooled. So managers are constrained too; instead of admitting frankly that it's a seller's market. This is one subtle danger you have a group of people who are both genuinely formidable, and would probably also encourage companies to say how justified this worry is.

One of the biggest winners, which is where product companies go to grad school, because you can work out. It's conceivable that a their applicants come from meditating in an equity round.

So where do we draw the line?

In 1995, but he got there by another path. If you treat your classes as a company if the potential magnitude of the 2003 season was 2. An investor who invested earlier had been trained that anything hung on a desert island, hunting and gathering fruit. Confucius claimed proudly that he had more fun in this essay, I can imagine what it would have started there.

I'm satisfied if I could pick them, and they succeeded. Consulting is where your existing investors help you even working on Viaweb. If they were taken back in July 1997 was 1. But the change is a scarce resource.

[dracophile]

Wreck it Ralph 2

Thoughts, spoilers and some ideas below cut

So, I saw Wreck it Ralph 2 recently and I’ve had a little time to think and process it. And...I liked it. I liked it, but I don’t love it as much as I did the first.

The first one was top tier Disney/Pixar to me. It had fantastic characters, great story and world building, probably the best use of their villain twist and a fantastic climax.

This one...It had a lot of interesting concepts, but it felt like it was trying to use them all without giving them real development. Again, the characters were GREAT! I love Yess and Shank, and Spamly was really funny. But they divided so much of their attention between them and what was going on with Ralph and Vanellope, it didn’t feel like either Shank or Yess--mainly Shank--were as developed as they could’ve been. Having some questions at the end of the movie is fine but feeling like major characters are strangers not so much. As much as I loved the cameos by the princesses, I almost feel like they detracted from time that could’ve been spent on the story.

I also felt like the climax was not that satisfying, especially compared to the first movie. It’s fair to compare them since this is the sequel. Compared to King Candy/Turbo’s villainous arch and reveal, and his buggy final form, and Ralph willing to sacrifice himself to blow up the bugs and save the game; compare that to just...a bunch of mindless Ralph’s? And talking it out? I mean, the message is a good one, but the unlike the inspiring reiteration of the first, this one just kind of shoved the message in your face. There was no gravitas either. What was at stake when the ralphs were rampaging? Oh, people’s internet went down, someone lost their shopping cart at Amazon--big whoop? The last one had bugs taking over everything and Turbo wanting to erase Ralph and Vanellope and sugar rush basically.

I also feel like like Vanellope staying in Slaughter Race at the end is...confusing. Like I get it, she feels Slaughter Race is an upgrade, but she is the MAIN CHARACTER of Sugar Rush. No one is going to wonder where she went? (That’s something that did bother me before too, like did no one wonder where “King Candy” went after that day? Or people who had played the game other places wondering who the hell he was and where Vanellope was?) What if they think the game is broken again? And what do people playing Slaughter Race think she is, some kind of Gremlin? She sticks out like a sore thumb! The developers are probably confused as fuck too, what if they take her out of the game? It feels like the ending was forced based on the message, rather than actually focusing on a resolution. (part of this I could’ve forgiven if they’d enclosed her car and made her out to be a mysterious racer like the Stig from top Gear, but it still would’ve raised a lot of questions.)

All in all I think it had interesting concepts but it didn’t really meet my expectations. I realize the first one set the bar high imo, but this one just didn’t feel like it tried to reach it. Also, not enough Calhoun and Felix. You dare rob me of Jane Lynch, even when she is acting straight? How dare?!

What would I have preferred? Well, mainly, something different as far as a villain. Ralph being his own worse enemy is poetic, but it wasn’t pushed hard enough. At the very least, rather than making a bunch of copies of Ralph, what if the virus was the sort that actually infected something? First you could have an infected Vanellope, Ralph freaking out and having to get her to that gate thing (which, build up, no pay off on that front) and his confession then. But then the virus gets him and it just turns him into the kind of villain people expect. He just leeches power from other sources, getting bigger and and bigger and more volitile. Maybe the Yess and the Slaughter Racers all come out to try and distract him while figuring out how to get the virus out of him. He causes a lot more trouble for the netizens, maybe even trying to destroy sites/servers including Slaughter Race. Finally Vanellope gets through to him and Ralph actually has a battle with himself (physically and mentally) to split and stop the virus from wrecking the internet.

What I’d like even more is something to do with Slaughter Race. Maybe mirroring the first movie, there’s a “ghost” in the game--a former character that was taken out before release. Making it timely for the time, he’s your typical white male lead--let’s call him Scrapper.

Lets say in initial development, Slaughter Race was a much different game, much more generic. More clean lines, flashy cars, but no real substance or story. It was an “open world” like Slaughter race, but there was nothing to do outside of just driving against other players and Scrapper’s team. Scrapper was initially named something generic like Stephen or Charles (Arthur?) and was the initial leader or what would later be Shank’s crew in this game, and he liked it as it was because he was the center of attention. The game was made for him he felt rather than having to fit into the game. Cocky, self-congratulating, wants to win at any cost—and pretty much that way in character and out unlike Shank. Shank in this stage was also more boringly named, second in command. She wanted to focus on making the game interesting to play for the players, and was usually the voice of reason for Scrapper. They were good friends.

However, in the in first round of play testing, the game wasn’t testing well. Players found nothing really interesting about the game’s design or world, and they found Scrapper difficult to beat, but also annoying and redundant. He had his fans of course, but most felt there was nothing new or exciting about him or the game. They liked his car though. Many of the open beta players actually gravitated more towards Shank, finding her mysterious and much more interesting, wanting her to be a bigger part of the game. They also wanted more story, and a more interesting setting than the sleek, modern city, with stuff to actually do other than just going around a race track on a set pattern. They wanted something darker and grittier. It got to the point where the developers reworked the script and setting from scratch to make Slaughter Race. Scrapper wasn’t keen on the chaos, the craziness, compared to his modern utopia but it was much more well received. Shank was down with the changes, enjoying the freedom and the creativity it allowed, and tried to convince Scrapper this was good. But “Scrapper” was still not well liked. So a further rework was done before a full release to make Shank the leader, and Scrapper her second in command. To do this, they copied Scrapper’s racing abilities over to Shank, and nerfed him down.

Scrapper was not happy to say the least. Shank didn’t want him upset, still considering him a friend, but at the same time she embraced the changes and was flourishing. She was also a great leader and the gang was doing much better too. She’s happy, she just wishes it wasn’t at his expense. Scrapper starts belittling Shank, making her insecure about herself. There are those who are really mean about it online too--which is how Shank met Yess. Yess saw a video of her and came to meet her, wanting to feature her. She really helps bolster Shank’s confidence and they become good friends. Scrapper isn’t happy but they try to do their jobs. He gets more and more bitter until he starts lashing out in game, trying to mess things up for Shank. The players and developers think it’s some sort of bug and try to figure it out. Scrapper fans think it’s hilarious and encourage him, so to speak. Shank and Scrapper fight a lot until finally, it gets so bad he crashes the game one day. The developers decide he’s too buggy and write Scrapper out of the game. But he’s still there, lurking behind the scenes…but not very powerful now.

Enter Ralph. Scrapper is able to narrow in on Ralph’s distrust/jealousy of Shank and gets him to where he can talk to Ralph alone. He plays on Ralph’s insecurity and his past with Vanellope when Ralph tells him. he weaves a sob story about Shank stealing his code and his spotlight and Ralph is more convinced Shank is just like Turbo and a danger to Vanellope. Scrapper convinces Ralph to help him out of the game and, with Spamley’s help, down to the dark web to find a way to get his body back.To do so requires a virus that lets him take over other codes. Ralph brings it back to him and Scrapper starts by taking the code of some of the other NPC’s, abosrbing them. Ralph is horrified, but now Scrapper is going on a binge, taking the codes and data from everyone and everything, altering them back to what he wants.

The altering game puts Vanellope and Shank in danger and they barely manage to get away in Shanks car outside of the game while Scrapper still is going wild. Ralph confesses, Vanllope is livid again that he would do this, and shank tells them the truth about Scrapper. (The lesson becomes more about getting rid of toxic people in your life as much as following your dreams and Vanellope is still mad at Ralph). Scrapper escapes the game and starts causing even more havoc outside of it, Yess comes and chews him out, showing him comments about how the majority hate this “new” look for Slaughter race. He goes ballistic. Ralph tries to fight him and gets abosrbed, and the two personalities are warring with each other through the net. Vanellope and Shank (and maybe the princesses if we wanted to include them still, because I would) manage to get him down and Spamely and the others bring something to extract Scrapper and Ralph. Scrapper fights back and for a moment it seems like Ralph might’ve been deleted. But he’s okay. Vanellope forgives him and Ralph makes a promise with her--rather than doing the same thing all the time, they’ll find new things to do to keep life interesting, and he’ll understand if sometimes she wants to go to Slaughter Race as a guest character--he’ll stay home and watch the highlights.

That’s my take on this, I’m mostly just getting it down so it will leave me alone in my head.

[xseedgames]

2017 End-of-the-Year Q&A Extravaganza Blog! #5

It’s time for our last Q&A blog of the year. It’s been a fun time answering all these questions--you guys had some seriously good ones!--but now it is time for us to chill out and celebrate 2018. Hopefully we can give you guys good reasons to celebrate 2018, too!

For our final Q&A blog, we have answers from:

Ken Berry, Executive Vice President / Team Leader John Wheeler, Assistant Localization Manager Ryan Graff, Localization Lead Liz Rita, QA Tester Nick Colucci, Localization Editor Brittany Avery, Localization Producer Thomas Lipschultz, Localization Producer

Question: Does working on a game affect your enjoyment of it in any way? Do you anticipate playing the full package after it is done or do you play through it beforehand anyway? Have you ever been spoiled on a game through work and if yes how severe was it? - @MizuUnNamed

Brittany: It definitely does. It's like the difference between babysitting a kid over the summer vs. giving birth to that kid and raising them till they leave the house. Even the most frustrating things about a game will somehow become something you love in a weird way, because it’s your kid and it's your responsibility to raise it right. When you're localizing a game, you're choosing every single word, and every single decision you make for that game will shape the experience for the thousands of people who play it. Characters I'd normally hate as a player become characters I love because figuring out their dialogue is a joy, and stuff I never thought about in localization are now very particular to me because I want my kid to go out into the world looking its best.

I will always play the games I work on. Sometimes I play them in Japanese beforehand, but there are days where I edit a file while playing line-by-line just so I can look at a character's expression and match the line written to the face. Then I replay it a few time as the English builds come in, tweaking it bit by bit, because it feels different to see the English on a sheet compared to seeing it in-game. It takes a ton of time, but I'd rather have a final product I can be proud of than to give up because something requires extra work.

Liz: When I started working here the first thing I tested was Corpse Party PC. I played it for like 200 hours and that game is much shorter than that haha. I loved every second of it, and recently got to test it again for the Linux + SteamOS release. Oh boy, that was a treat <3 I also got to work on Cold Steel II and at the time I didn't have the consoles the first released for, so I just watched playthroughs online... bless Cold Steel PC! I don't think I've ever been spoiled on a game through work before.... except maybe for Book of Shadows? But I don't even remember that spoiler so does it really count?

Nick: This is going to vary widely from person to person. For me...admittedly yes, working on a game does impact the enjoyment I’m able to derive from that game as a finished product. I understand, going in, that simply by virtue of working on a game, I will know its plot from beginning to end, see all the character development (including optional stuff that you might not even be able to view in a single playthrough), and in general become a subject matter expert on its world and lore. I’ll have knowledge of all the optional events and the items it’s possible to get – and sometimes, even a few that exist but were never implemented.

Working on a game is usually a months-long endeavor, during which we often end up playing the game in various stages of beta (or even alpha) readiness. We experience bugs we hope you never will; all the times text isn’t displaying correctly, voice or music isn’t playing right, or the battle system is falling over foaming at the mouth. By the time a game is ready to be sold, we’ve spent more time with it than would probably be considered healthy from a consumer perspective.

Outside of post-launch support/tweaking I’ve done for games like Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection, I’ve never picked up a game I’ve worked on here after it launched. They’re good games, and I’ve been proud of each project I’ve worked on so far – it’s just that I’m someone with a low tolerance for repetition. You know – the sort who would get sick of even my favorite movies if I watched them every day for a week straight. As cool a game as Trails of Cold Steel might be, I’m in no hurry to sink 80 hours into an RPG that I focused all my attention on for the better part of an entire year.

While it IS perhaps a bit regrettable that I “ruin” my ability to enjoy a game in a normal-player context by working on them, I feel it’s a small price to pay if I can help deliver something that players will really enjoy their time with.

Question: When you brought over Rune Factory 4 to Europe, what difficulties did you encounter? How was the process? - @Marower

Brittany: Hey! This is perfect for me! We really wanted to bring RF4 to Europe, but with the developer now shut down, it wasn't possible. We spent ages looking for a programming team who would be willing to help us that also had Marvelous Japan’s blessing, and then it became my little pet project. I had zero experience with the process, so it was a lot of learning and guidance from my boss, Ken. We were able to update the text a bit to fix typos, but because we would never be as familiar with it as the original team, we wanted to touch the game's code as little as possible since we didn't want to risk breaking the game.

I tried to reproduce this one rare bug that causes the game to crash at the end of arc 2 (this is present in the Japanese, too, so it wasn't introduced in English), but it was impossible. I started the EU version from scratch and went up to that point. There were rumors that soft resetting the game caused the issue since it really wasn't programmed to handle soft resets too much, so I did that as often as I could. Nothing. Oh, man... I wish I could've found the pattern that caused such a weird crash. It's rare, but no one wants a crash in their game.

NA only has one rating, but Europe requires several different ratings, so that's an interesting process. The store pages all require various languages, too, depending on the region. I learned that because you could palette-swap character models to simulate gay marriage that the game had to be 18+ in Russia. 18+! For a Rune Factory game! All of the processes take a bit longer, but it was mostly a lot of communication, paperwork, confirmations and such. All worth it to finally get that game out there!

Question: What process leads to additional content in localized releases? Things like additional voices for Trails of Cold Steel on PC. How do you decide which titles get "a little bit extra"? - @Baust528

Brittany:

Me (messaging programmer on Skype: hey are you up Sara (programmer): Yeah. What's up? Me: lmao wouldn't it be awesome if we could put x in the game Sara (ten minutes later): It's in the game.

That happens a lot. As a more serious answer, since we try to localize games we're personally passionate about, it's easy for us to see what we'd want as a fan, too. So we'll sit around and go, "Wouldn't this feature be nice?", and we'll see if it's doable. If it is, we'll do it.

The extra voice acting in Cold Steel PC came about because we wanted to do it for PS3/Vita, but it wasn't possible. I asked if we could put the games on PC one day, the boss worked out the numbers, and we realized that avenue was perfectly possible. We thought adding new voices would be great, because the English cast was very well received in English. Turbo Mode and ultra widescreen were both Durante, though. Those were awesome.

Generally, if our programmers have an idea they'd like to add to the game, we allow it. They're programmers! They know if it's possible, and if it makes the game better, who are we to say no? That's how the Sky games have gotten so many improvements over the years, too. We're incredibly fortunate to have Sara as a programmer, because she takes each project very personally and still finds ways to improve them years after launch.

Tom: There are a lot of factors that go into things like this, but one that's come up a couple times now has definitely been our inability to license the Japanese voices. We figured, if we can't offer dual voice to players, why not use whatever budget we may have set aside for that to give them something a little extra? It may not be exactly what they want, but it's at least something we can offer them to show that we truly did put our best foot forward with this release

Nick: As weird as it may sound, it starts with just someone asking, “Hey, could we do this?” Sometimes, what we’ll want to do is evident due to what’s perceived as a shortcoming in a game. Trails of Cold Steel had a lot of voice acting, but weirdly left protagonist Rean silent in a number of scenes where all the other characters were voiced. That was the initial impetus for us wanting to get back into the studio for the PC release and record all the voicework we couldn’t for the PS3 release (in which we could only supply voices for lines that were voiced in the Japanese version).

Similarly, when I was planning out the recording for Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection, I thought, “We’re having people in to record these battle voices and we’re gonna pay them a minimum session fee anyway, so...why not add some story scenes onto that?” So in the end, we managed to include a solid amount of voice acting in there for a game that, in its original version, had very little.

Question: Have you ever considered localizing otome games? It would be nice if you can bring us some handsome boys. （*＾＾*) - @NymphNayade

Brittany: Hmm.

Question: Can you comment on the difficulty in trying to get Japanese developers to support same-sex couples/marriage in games like Story of Season or Rune Factory? - @atelier_michi

Brittany: XSEED's always been very openly supportive of adding that. I don't know what difficulties there would be in Japan, but I try to think of how much progress we've made to be able to openly ask for same-sex couples/marriage in games. It wasn't long ago that the idea was ludicrous. I remember when Ellen DeGeneres came out in the '90s and it affected me very strongly, especially since my parents would actively tell me, “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” So even if it's not in the current SoS games, I'll ask for the feature every time I visit Japan, because I think being open about it is an important factor to making progress on that front. Nothing will happen if you don’t fight for it.

I'd really like a whole variety of relationships in the SoS. Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, pansexuals, or even a unique relationship outside of sexuality like dating a single parent or supporting your partner as they transition. It's that sort of variety that makes life interesting and great, and I think introducing these concepts in a series as darling as SoS normalizes them and helps children to perceive them as innocently as heterosexual relationships and concepts. It's very educational. Normalizing it more would teach people to ask more questions, too, instead of rejecting any type of orientation or relationship that seems foreign to them.

I remember for the first SoS game we published, Hashimoto-san said he had animals die in the game because he wanted children to be introduced to the natural process of life and death. It wasn't meant to be a bad thing, but something we should be comfortable with because that's part of what it means to be alive. Something to that, lol. Anyway, I'd like for just as much heart to be taken to represent more kinds of people in life, too.

Question: A rumor is going around that you guys are avoiding publishing fanservicey games outside of Senran Kagura. This came in wake of you guys seemingly passing on Valkyrie Drive. Is there any validity to this rumor, and if so, why? - @WaywardChili11

Brittany: did people forget we did a game with literal strawberries and a banana as a costume

That's a weird rumor. It’s also dumb. We've done fanservice games in the past, and we'll decide on whether or not to do them on a game-by-game basis. We're not necessarily passing on them because of fanservice, but I also don't think fanservice is core to the XSEED brand, so it shouldn't be a given for us to do fanservice titles just because we’ve done them in the past. Many of us enjoyed Onechanbara and we have some SENRAN KAGURA fans in the office, so we published those because we originally liked them as games that happened to contain fanservice.

We’re also not big on censoring games, so I’d rather pass on a game than work on it after it’s been censored. If I were to localize a title and actually choose to censor it, I’d piss of people who don’t like the fanservice content, I’d piss off the people who want that content, and then I’d be pissed off because if I felt something was so horrible that it needed to be censored, then I probably didn’t want to work on the game.

That doesn’t mean every fanservice game is off the table for me, but I would need to evaluate it to see if the game is for me, as I would any other genre. Like, Lord of Magna is overall a super-cute game, but it also has an out-of-nowhere hot springs scene. I felt that scene detracted from the game because the rest of the game was adorable and innocent. That said, I didn’t remove the scene, and I still loved working the game. It’s a game with fanservice I would still happily play again. 

Meanwhile, SENRAN KAGURA sells on fanservice, but the gameplay is pretty good. I admit that I prefer the older titles for DS/3DS which were more ridiculous titillation with a good story than the more overt modern titles, but again, that just means the series is no longer for me, and that’s fine. We still have SK fans in the office, and they enjoy working on the series. 

Another factor is gaming trends and our overall rep as a company. Fanservice games weren’t always as hot as they are now, and XSEED started off with a variety of genres, with our niche eventually falling to RPGs and such. Every trend has a rise and fall, and if we pick up every fanservice game regardless of quality just because it’s hot now, we’re alienating the audiences that love us for action, RPGs, and so on. We may even alienate retailers or future marketing opportunities for the games we license outside of that genre. We’ll have shot ourselves in the foot if the fanservice trend falls when we made it our bread and butter. I like having a job.

Tom: We certainly don't have any problems with fanservice, as I think we've proven quite thoroughly at this point. But we also don't ever back a game simply BECAUSE of its fanservice. When we release a game, we do so because (1) we like it, and/or (2) we see some really good potential in it. If it happens to have fanservice, great! If not, also great.

On the flipside, we also turn down games for a variety of reasons. Maybe we hated the story. Maybe we hated the gameplay. Maybe we felt it took its themes a bit too far, or that it had a lot of wasted potential that it never quite lived up to. Maybe we put in an offer on it but were outbid, or the developer appended unusual terms to the license that we weren't willing or able to accept. Maybe the developer simply didn't want to work with us for some reason, or we didn't want to work with them. Maybe we didn't have time to work on that title, or maybe we simply felt someone else would be able to do a better job with it. Tl;dr version, there are a LOT of factors that go into licensing decisions!

Our reasons for turning down a game aren't really something we can ever outright tell you guys, due to the NDAs we all signed when we got hired. But suffice it to say, it's never simply because of fanservice. Fanservice may potentially contribute to a larger tapestry of reasons for passing on a title in extreme cases (though they'd have to be pretty extreme!), but rest assured, we'll never say no to a game simply because it shows a lot of skin. Good games are more than skin deep, after all!

Nick: Here’s the Nick take: Most of us here don’t mind fanservice. It’s fun, it’s saucy, and folks can have a good time with it. If you look at our lineup, you can see we don’t shy away from games that have fanservice (Oneechanbara!), and games that push the boundaries, as Senran Kagura sometimes does, certainly aren’t out of the realm of consideration. A boob, a bulge; it’s all fair game here.

But here’s the thing. The games a company releases become part of their oeuvre. We have a reputation for quirky Japanese games because we’ve released enough of them that it’s a noticeable trend. The same would happen if we opened our gates to every fanservice-laden game that came knocking. Speaking personally, I don’t want us to have a reputation as a publisher whose stock in trade is mainly cheesecakey fanservice or smutty games. That kind of pigeonholing doesn’t help us as a company, and at worst, might even preclude some future licensing opportunities.

I think a lot of people get the impression that we turn down fanservice-laden games for some sort of censorious or moral reason, but that’s not especially true. There ARE cases where we might think, “If we licensed this, the ESRB wouldn’t let it through without forcing us to censor enough that the primary audience we were licensing it for in the first place would be upset,” and there are times when a game might simply be in bad taste and we decide we don’t like how it handles sexuality.

Sometimes, iffy material gets through in spite of all that. The SENRAN KAGURA series has done well for us, so we continue to publish those games even though a number of us in the office have concerns about how each new game seems to push the boundaries further and further in terms of what’s allowable (either by the ESRB or by common decency). We keep a close watch on that, and we’ve communicated our feelings to Takaki-san and his team. We strongly dislike having to alter content in this way, so if a game is so stridently sexual that we think we’d probably be forced to do so by the ESRB (as was a going concern with Valkyrie Drive, iirc), that factors into our decision-making process.

More often, the mundane truth is that we’ll turn down a game of this type because our evaluation play-tests show it to not be very fun to play. It’s not uncommon for games in this vein to just focus on piquing prurient interests or trading in tawdry titillation while the actual game underneath feels janky to play, or has no depth once you get past ogling your favorite waifu. That’s something that can’t be conveyed through a screenshot or even game video, which leaves hopeful players confusedly thinking we passed on a game for reasons more related to its content.

There’s a solid balance to be struck between acknowledging and publishing content for a mature audience and turning down projects that don’t jive with us, and I want you guys to know that we DO put a lot of thought into keeping this balance healthy.

Ken: When we first published SENRAN KAGURA Burst in late 2013, it was a much stricter retail environment so we had to approach the title with caution. We needed to see if there was a market for the series in the West, and even if there was the absolute worst thing that could happen would be to start manufacturing only to hear that retailers suddenly don't want them or want to return their units because of a complaint they got. Due to the success of the digital-only release of SENRAN KAGURA Burst we were able to release the next few games in the series physically at retail (so the "no physical no buy" people really need to thank their digital-buying colleagues), but that doesn't mean that we get a free pass to release anything in the future. As each new iteration seems to push the envelope further and further, we need to be careful exactly how far we push - at some point if we push too far and the whole levee breaks, it could have repercussions for games that have already previously been released.

Question: Who is best girl and boy? - @MizuUnNamed

Brittany: Can I get Crow Armbrust and Crow Armbrust for $500?

Tom: Narcia and Pietro, of course. But only for each other.

 Liz: Rottytops and Ludus! What did we do to deserve them?

That’s all, folks! It’s been a wild ride, but hopefully we answered your questions well enough. 

[mobileapplicationupdates]

Common Mobile App Development Mistakes To Avoid in 2021

With the invention of smartphones, mobile applications have greatly simplified people's lives. This has led to the mobile apps development company in bangalore industry emerging as the most lucrative of all. Especially with a melee competition between iOS and Android, you can see new applications arriving on the scene every day.

Both game stores have more than 1 million applications each. In such a scenario, companies struggle with each other to create first-hand applications than others. In such a case, it is clear that many common errors occur that are not seen.

Have you ever thought why some applications are better than others even though they are very similar in terms of application?

This is because some apps are perfect in terms of functionality and features, while others are trapped by common bugs.

This differentiates successful applications from unsuccessful ones. After having hands-on experience with both types of applications, I list common mistakes to avoid in your future projects.

Not adapting to market changes

Imagine a mobile application that allows you to make 6-second clips and share your life moments with others. Sounds familiar? No, I am not talking about Instagram, Tik Tok, or Boomerang. I mean Vine.

Vine was a free mobile app founded in 2012 that allowed users to record and share an unlimited number of short looping video clips with a maximum length of six seconds.

it became the fastest growing best mobile app development company India in the world.

Vine was used by actors, singers, and celebrities, but also regular users. Thanks to Vine, many people who are famous celebrities today got their initial fame.

So what went wrong? Ankur Thakkar, Vine's managing editor, said the network did not send anything for a year. So the main problem was that the application stopped following new trends and attracting users, in addition to not developing new functions.

It's critical to adapt your product to market conditions and keep track of your competition. The new functionalities increase the participation and the user experience of the mobile applications.

You can see from the Vine example that even if your product is great and gaining popularity, you need to remember to constantly take care of your top-notch user experience. Failing to adapt to market changes is one of the most common mobile application development mistakes to any avoid.

Have ambiguity about device and operating system compatibility

Providing small details about your proposal can jeopardize the relationship you want to build with your clients. If you avoid specifying your estimates, including iOS development only, for example, your customer can expect costs to include Android.

If it is not intended to work for iPad, it is your responsibility to repair it, free of charge, without deviating from the contract. Now, that can kill the project entirely, regardless of how close the deal is.

Therefore, you must ensure that the contract indicates the version, operating system, and device compatibility.

Have an application that lacks a clear purpose

If your application lacks a purpose, who will it be for? Not having a well-defined purpose to develop an application is the biggest mistake. Too often, apps are created as competitive tools to generate some curiosity just because others are doing it.

However, an mobile app development companies in bangalore without a real reason is not a recipe for more success. It only indicates an infallible failure.

Only when your application responds to some genuine concern can it be successful and rated as useful. When your app is unique and useful, it can serve as a definitive bookmark, especially for loyal users.

Build quality control throughout development cycles rather than leaving it for last. Compare the purpose of the application with the development process and run concurrent tests during development to avoid errors.

Not building an MVP

Making an MVP is a useful idea that can prevent your application from being a fiasco. An MVP or Minimum Viable Product offers you the opportunity to progressively test your product in economic situations, where you have day-to-day users to assess the exposure of the application. It is one of the trends in the mobile application market, used by most of the companies.

With a minimum viable product for startups, you'll spend the leanest assets possible to attract your first users, receive criticism, and understand your target market.

No mobile app monetization

Before spending money, time, and effort to push apps, set aside some work to plan mobile app monetization models. Building an app is one, however, interacting with target people to download apps is an unmistakable game. This is one of the crucial mistakes to avoid when developing an application for business.

There is an important test in the app stores with the argument that numerous applications are downloaded every day. It's pretty much infinite the app will download in case you don't have a solid app getting started plan.

Examine your objective requirements, advance to the app home page, get studies on your app, bundle it, use influencers to increase the promotion of your app, and distribute it effectively across multiple platforms. The implementation of this strategy is also responsible for the trends of the mobile application market in the current scenario.

Complexity

Another common user design mistake includes application complexity when it is difficult for the user to understand the functionality and usability of the application. Similarly, as a designer makes use of the best visual imagination and various color codes to deliver a message, it is also necessary to have a UX list of mobile apps development company India that makes use of significantly fewer steps to reach any other part of the application. When there is a lot of text or a complex flow that puzzles the user, it will cause them to exit the application and go somewhere else.

Spam notifications

Let's be honest about it, getting a lot of notifications from an app is annoying. Yes, you need to communicate with the user via notifications about new feature updates or subscriptions, but you should also refrain from spamming your users. You should try to build a proper balance between being aggressive with notifications and maintaining your presence. Focus on reporting relevant and important information rather than just spamming.

Partner with an inexperienced company for application development needs

This could be the biggest mistake of all those discussed above. Handing over your mobile app development requirements to an inexperienced or inexperienced company can be detrimental to your business. The decision may not only affect your customer base, but also your bottom line.

App development requires deep business understanding, analysis of customer requirements, development and design experience, best testing practices, etc.

Centimeter by centimeter imitation of competitors

When a successful business idea takes the form of an application, it attracts a lot of new competition in the market. There is nothing wrong with taking a page out of your competitor's book, but deciding to imitate your competitor inch by inch can be a huge mistake on your part. You need to instill some new ideas and approaches into the app, and try to bring a fresh experience to your users that none of the competing apps offer. Blind imitation of competitors is one thing, most people end up doing despite knowing that it is a glitch.

Too much feature stuffing

An application created by a reputable application design company should not have too many functionalities and features. If you are loaded with too much stuff, you can end up giving the impression that you are not clear about what you want to present to users. If users do not understand the specific reason for the application, there is a possibility that it will be uninstalled very soon. It is always better to be clear and concise about the content of an application.

Neglecting compatibility with other applications

There will not be just one application on a mobile or smart device, there are many applications installed. Sometimes one is too focused on developing an application that the compatibility factor can slip. If the application is not properly compatible with the rest of the applications or the device, a problem may arise for the user, such as device lag or abrupt closing of applications. If these things happen too much, the user will think carefully about getting rid of your app.

Summarizing…

With many opportunities in mobile app development, you can capitalize on and gain access to your own market, as long as you avoid common mistakes that have not been seen before.

If you have any kind of problem with mobile application development, you can get to know us by completing the following form. We will communicate with you with the smartest solutions that you will praise.

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[tariqk]

Thinking about Lisp, software development and collaboration.

So like I've been reading a lot of Paul Graham's On Lisp, and Doug Hoyte's Let Over Lambda, and it's been... interesting.

Cut to spare the timeline.

Like, I don't pretend that I understand these works completely, or that I have anything more than a semi-functional understanding of Lisp — most of my work on Lisps have been on Emacs Lisp, which is really showing it's age, and I've honestly never touched macros in any reasonable level, because honestly speaking macros have a frightening reputation. Thanks to Graham and Hoyte's walkthrough of some of the concepts, though, I think my understanding's a little better, though it can only be tested if I can implement stuff on Common Lisp, if that day ever comes.

What struck me about the commentary was that, well, how much both Hoyte and Graham are fans of the language, and how they often extol its virtues. To both of them, Lisp is something that transcends other languages, that allow programmers to do things that are closer to the problem domain than anything else that people have made. That, when you make a programming language approach the kind of power, extensibility and flexibility that Lisp does, surprise! You've made another flavor of Lisp.

This is a seriously grand claim, but I kept being bugged by one question:

If Lisp Was So Good, Why Isn't It Used More Often?

Like, seriously, I kept reading these claims, and to some degree I could see them backing these claims with examples... and yet if you look at Common Lisp and Scheme projects on the Internet... they're like... scattered and fragmented. You can code, and most importantly, an overwhelming number of people do, from the beginning to the end, full-stack web applications in JavaScript. Lua gets used in everything from window managers to video games customization to desktop widgets. Python's still prevalent in web development to data sciences, and yes, some video games are customized in Python. Like, Ruby was everywhere for a while before it receded.

Like the only exceptions to this are, I guess, Emacs Lisp, which basically sticks with Emacs, and Clojure, which is tied to the JVM, and ClojureScript, which outputs JavaScript. Note how reliant they are on other software and frameworks.

The Answers I've Seen So Far

So, what gives? Like, I've been looking around, and I've seen basically two answers:

Lisp Isn't Popular Because People Are Stupid

No, seriously. This is the argument. Paul Graham engages in it:

People frightened by Lisp make up other reasons for not using it. The standard excuse, back when C was the default language, was that Lisp was too slow. Now that Lisp dialects are among the faster languages available, that excuse has gone away. Now the standard excuse is openly circular: that other languages are more popular.

(Beware of such reasoning. It gets you Windows.)

Popularity is always self-perpetuating, but it's especially so in programming languages. More libraries get written for popular languages, which makes them still more popular. Programs often have to work with existing programs, and this is easier if they're written in the same language, so languages spread from program to program like a virus. And managers prefer popular languages, because they give them more leverage over developers, who can more easily be replaced.

Hoyt engages in this, as well:

Macros have, not by accident, almost as much history as lisp itself, being invented in 1963 by Timothy Hart[MACRO-DEFINITIONS]. However, macros are still not used to the fullest possible extent by most lisp programmers and are not used at all by all other programmers. This has always been a conundrum for advanced lispers. Since macros are so great, why doesn't everybody use them all the time? While it's true that the smartest, most determined programmers always end up at lisp macros, few start their programming careers there. Understanding why macros are so great requires understanding what lisp has that other languages don't. It requires an understanding of other, less powerful languages. Sadly, most programmers lose the will to learn after they have mastered a few other languages and never make it close to understanding what a macro is or how to take advantage of one. But the top percentile of programmers in any language are always forced to learn some sort of way to write programs that write programs: macros. Because it is the best language for writing macros, the smartest and most determined and most curious programmers always end up at lisp.

I mean, the argument is pretty clear: because Lisp is so powerful, and that it takes so much study and effort to work at it, that only top-tier programmers are the only ones who understand Lisp. Implied, however, is the assumption that if you don't get Lisp, well, you're not a top-tier programmer, and you Just Don't Get It.

Which gets to the second explanation of why Lisp isn't popular:

Lisp Users Are Assholes

I mean, the above quotes are a sampling, and, honestly, a mild one, of the perceived attitudes of Lisp aficianados to the outside world. And it doesn't help that Hoyt then proceeds to call other non-Lisp Languages “Blub”, which, despite his many attempts to soften the blow, just makes him sound like an asshole. Like, you could have said “other languages”, dude. Sure it's less efficient, but you're dealing with people, not machines.

Like, Mark Tarver has an essay about the assholishness of Lisp users, which I don't recommend you read, because CONTENT WARNING ableism1. Maybe if you wanna take a look at commentary on that, you can go for Rudolf Winestock's The Lisp Curse, which is a little better, I guess?

Lisp is so powerful, that it encourages individual independence to the point of bloody-mindedness. This independence has produced stunningly good innovation as in the Lisp Machine days. This same independence also hampers efforts to revive the “Lisp all the way down” systems of old; no “Lisp OS” project has gathered critical mass since the demise of Symbolics and LMI.

[...]

Why [doesn't the Lisp community] make a free development system that calls to mind some of the lost glories of the LispM, even if they can't reproduce another LispM?

The reason why this doesn't happen is because of the Lisp Curse. Large numbers of Lisp hackers would have to cooperate with each other. Look more closely: Large numbers of the kind of people who become Lisp hackers would have to cooperate with each other.

The argument is, commercially, if you're a brilliant asshole, no one wants you. While your brilliance would be an asset for a while, what really makes organizations and enterprises scale isn't the fact that they hire brilliant people, but that they hire and use people brilliantly, in ways that are robust and don't rely on having the Right Kind of People on board. It's also why computer security is such a fucking thing to get right, because most of the solutions seem to be... hire the best in the industry and go with that? Which works great until your Chief Security Officer gets run over by a bus a better offer from the competition. Then what?

I mean, yes, capitalist models rely on you having a development workforce that is fungible, because it is cheaper in the long run, but it also reduces risk, even if reducing labor costs aren't a thing for you. It's also more democratic that way, because, yes, you need it to be accessible and approachable to the people who are affected by your code. And it needs to be reproducible, because if not, what if it's scientific work and we need to verify it?

But, even then, this diagnosis — that, charitably, the expressiveness of Lisp attracts brilliant assholes who can't even be convinced to work with one another rankles, because it fundamentally means that there's no solution. The language is too good for normies, and only assholes will use it, ∴ that's the end. Nothing more can be said.

I wonder if there's more to it. And I suspect there might be.

The Social Models Around Lisp Might Actually Be Toxic

Notice the commonality around the four people I've quoted above?

Yup.

They're all white dudes.

I'm not saying that the Lisp community is so toxic because the loudest voices within Lisp are all white men. I'm saying that the fundamental assumptions that these white men have about what is good might actually be a reason why Lisp's community might be so toxic.

There's a difference. Bear with me.

Graham actually talks about the process of developing software in Lisp — the bottom-up approach — but he talks about it in a way that assumes that development occurs with a single person, and that the final vision of the problem space is the insight of one person, or a small group of people with a common enough vision: sort of a Cathedral-style system. Does it have to be?

Why can't bottom-up development occur in a collaborative, cooperative system? Sure, Lisp “doesn't have syntax” (which always weirded me out — it does have syntax, just one that's “invisible” and “self-evident” to a certain class of mind). One that eschews the models that we're used to in capitalist and hegemonic systems. If Lisp is one of the purest forms of mathematical expression, what Hoyt refers to as a “U-Language”, shouldn't it be universally accessible and open to critique?

Maybe the reason why Lisp doesn't work is because the social models around Lisp — one that erases and diminishes the contributions and the lives of people who aren't white men of a certain analytical mindset — make it fail. Maybe whiteness — the social construct, one that lionizes individual brilliance of a specific kind, emphasizes competition over collaboration, pretends that there is an Objective™ Truth over the experiences of others, and considers all emotions other than violent, abusive ones weakness — is the reason why Lisp fails, despite its expressiveness and power.

Maybe the way to do it is to change the way people learn Lisp, and work with Lisp, and collaborate with Lisp, rather than the model we have today.

Could something like that, a system that allows easy, safe collaboration, and organisations that deliberately go for minority and disadvantaged groups, be something that could kick Lisp out of its doldrums?

He calls these people “brilliant bipolar minds”, because, of course. Just because you can diagnose the problem doesn't mean that you don't have the problem as well. ↩︎

[dabblinginmarvel]

Eff This, I’m Out

Plot: Steve and Former-HYDRA!Reader fall in love after a raid on Hydra.

A/N: Here comes another busy week. But hey, this one was tons of fun to write and pretend that I had no courses to focus on this week.

Warnings: Bad word maybe? Reader gets locked in a cell similar to one engineered in Civil War.

Word Count Total: 1417

Short Imagine #155

Title: Eff This, I’m Out

Things were a bit tough at your job. People were running around all the time, keeping secrets, buying and selling on the black market, trying to take over minds and world governments….

It wasn’t a stretch to say that your job had high stress levels. It didn’t allow a high turnover rate, nor a quick hire rate.

But you wanted out. Your morals were starting to win over. You knew it wasn’t an acceptable reason to have started and you honestly could have done a better job at standing your ground despite being blackmailed at the beginning.

You got your chance to leave, though. It wasn’t easy, but it didn’t come with the threat of an instant death.

The black door behind you burst open and you jumped, spinning around in your chair. There stood Captain America with his shield up and a gun in his other hand. You threw your hands up in surrender, eyes wide. He lowered his weapon a couple of millimeters.

“Please, arrest me. I don’t want to be here. Just get me out of here.”

He lowered his weapon more. “Get me onto the system and I’ll get you out.”

You opened all the files you could think of, bypassing extra security, and stood up from the chair. The man glanced around for a split second, then motioned you over to a bare wall. Your hands flew up again and you did as you were told.

Footsteps and yells came from the hallway, starting to get closer and you looked from the unclosable doorway to him and then back again. He was looking at you when you looked at him again.

“Do you know how to defend yourself without a gun?”

“Yes, sir.”

He pointed to a rod that made up of an unassembled metal bookcase and you nodded. He didn’t know you were very good at fighting with a pole. The one you held in your hand wasn’t very heavy at all, just long. You stood at the doorway with it in hand and waited for the voices to get nearer. They didn’t, but the footsteps did. You jumped out and swung your pole, stopping inches from your target as you realized they were not your coworkers. It was two of the Captain’s friends.

“Woah, hey now!” Iron Man called and his accomplice with the bow in one hand grabbed the pole with the other, tossing it to the side as you relinquished it immediately. Iron Man grabbed your hands and bound them hard with metal he engineered himself.

The Captain stepped out of the room, a computer being shoved into his bag with one hand and his shield in another. “Tony, they’re a friendly.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“They let me into the system, they didn’t try to attack me, they didn’t try to fight you, and they’ve asked to be arrested.”

“Could be a plot, Rogers,” Tony said.

“And I’ve already been over it. I’m sure they will be very cooperative. Just loosen the cuffs, I can already see red marks.” Rogers motions to your wrists. Tony lifted his face shield and then one metal glove retracted. His hand moved behind you and after a moment, the cuffs loosened a little. Your hands stopped tingling and the burning in your wrists turned into a mild sting.

“Thank you,” you said softly. He didn’t even look at you. Rogers, however, gave a slight nod.

Shouts from above sounded out.

“We should move,” Tony said.

They dragged you out with them and while you tried to keep up, it was a struggle because those men were fast.

You were put on a jet, blindfolded, and they put earmuffs over your ears. You took a few deep breaths, trying to calm the anxiety building in your stomach, and leaned back against the wall that you were strapped to. A hand placed itself over your shoulder and you jumped, but it was gentle, patting your shoulder reassuringly. You could tell it was the Captain, because who else would it be?

The flight was long and while you wanted to fall asleep, you couldn’t. You had to make yourself to stay alert for the entire flight. You didn’t know what could happen, but you couldn’t risk it.

After the flight, you were dragged through the interrogation process and you answered honestly and welcomed the incarceration cell that they had for you. There were no issues, no scare tactics, and no bodily harm, which was a pleasant surprise - and a pleasant change from what you were used to.

Your cell was small, but brightly lit and you didn’t have to worry about a dead someone having left something nasty behind in a corner.

After a night of rest, which to be honest, was not full, nor refreshing, you had a visitor.

“Captain? What are you doing here?”

“I want to understand.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Why allow us to arrest you?”

“I wanted out and they would have hunted me down and killed me if I left of my own accord.”

He scoffed like it was the easy way out. “So prison is better than what they had planned for you?”

“I didn’t want to be there, either. I didn’t like doing the work, I didn’t like the cause, and I sure as hell would go back and kick my ass when I made the decision to join, if I were given the chance. Like I told you all, I will give you all the information I can. I want to be useful and never go back. Please.”

“You are aware that they have likely changed all of their security codes thrice by now.”

“I am fully aware, and as I have helped program the code generator when it went through the major upgrade, I know how to predict the coming ones.” You smirked.

True to your word, you worked with SHIELD under intense supervision and got them into the system. You didn’t bother to ask what happened next. It was none of your business.

The Captain, or Steve, had continuously visited once a day. In fact, he had started bringing you your dinner to apologize for the suspicion on you. You had passed every psych test, medical test, bug sweep test, tracker test, and trust test. You even got them access to your HYDRA file. Everything was laid out and still no one trusted you. Well, maybe Steve was starting to.

“How did you even start working there?”

“Believe me, I didn’t want to.” You sat cross-legged on your bed, leaving your food untouched until Steve left, like usual. They had stopped chaining you to your cell wall by your ankle, which was the first sign in weeks that you were not considered a major threat anymore. “After my family died from an explosion that I later learned was caused by them, I had nowhere to turn to and started in on a life of crime. Petty theft, but I found that I was good at it and started stealing larger stuff, more techy stuff, and learned that I was good at coding. I taught myself and they somehow found me. They knew what I had been doing and blackmailed me to join. Like I said, nowhere else to turn. It was a stupid choice, I know. And my guilt now doesn’t excuse what I did then. I don’t think anything ever will, but I can keep trying. Whatever I can do to reverse my sin, I’ll do it. I have to.”

Steve was nodding along with you, then sighed. “Bad things happen to all of us. What happens to us doesn’t define us; it’s what we do with it. And now, you’re choosing to do the right thing, so I would say you are on the right track.”

The way he looked at you made you catch your breath. There was something happening between you two, but you didn’t want to place it. If you did, then you would have to come to the conclusion that you and he would never work. You were certain that you would be here for the rest of your life, locked inside the building and never let out. You had already come to terms with that, but developing feelings for Steve would certainly complicate those plans.

You had to put it to the side.

Little did you know that he was struggling with the same thing across from you through four inches of bullet-resistant glass.

- - -

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[shaddy-bee]

I KNOW ITS BEEN LIKE 300 YEARS BUT-

5 things you’ll find in my bag

Right now theres uhh Notebooks, both school and 1 art. Drink mix ins, with such great flavors as sour apple jolly rancher and crush pineapple (tm) Two packs of cards, one of which steam punk themed and the other your regular ol bicycle. A calculator. Its a shitty old one but its for tests, i have google and shit for anything i need myself.

5 things you’ll find in my bedroom

A roommate. Idk if he is gay or what but he isnt straight, name’s will. Chill dude. Sleepin rn, what a fella MY SICK ASS COMPUTER IM MISSING OUT ON BECAUSE MY ROOMMATE IS ASLEEP AAAAAAAAAAAAAA I WANNA PLAY ROCKET LEAGUE WITHOUT LAGGING TO HELL also programming my mods. Need to upload that shit. Shit what number we on, 3? Okay cool. A bed. Wow really a bed in your bedrooM? yeah its pretty fuckin spectacular i know. I dont have posters n shit so like i gotta be creative you feel. A microfridge. Now i know what youre thinking, “ah a small fridge whats the big deal?” but no you dont understand, its a microwave fucking bolted onto the top of a fridge. They gave zero fucks attaching these two together and apparently the name is the same way, WHY NOT A FRIDGEWAVE EVEN LIKE MICROFRIDGE JUST SOUNDS LIKE A SMALL FRI- Last but not least, im tempted to just say my wallet here tbh, cuz its old but like, youd EXPECT that now would you? Something boring and mundane for me to fill out the word count with making everything super exciting so nah man, fuck it. Theres air in my bedroom. Fight me.

5 things I’ve always wanted to do in my life

Make a videogame. Like okay, a lot of stuff on this list is jokes and stuff, and I know im going into too much detail and my followers will probably murder me in cold blood for this shit, but im serious about this one like - i have some ideas, but i never have the motivation alone to like work whole-heartedly and finish one but like, at some point in the future id love to sit down and just go at it and make a game. Doesnt matter if its popular or big or small just i wanna make something that i love ya feel? I wanna like, go to newark, delaware. I know, its delaware and all, no one lives there, but ive met a bunch of cool people there and i was promised a donut run sometime, so lookin forward to that. Yknow that post awhile back that was like “i dont wanna be rich and like buy shit, i just wanna have enough money to throw at kickstarters whenever i want without having to strain on my food and rent costs” thats me. 100% Like i wanna have just enough money to be able to donate to cool people and watch them do cool shit - it wont always work out but thats fine, I just love shit. I wanna be able to donate like the high prize and fly out to meet these game studios for coffee and shit and just talk with em and see their passion and ideas. I love it. Im not actually really sure besides those. Like idk. I think itd be cool to enter a game tournament with my brother and win, but i doubt thatll happen and its not super like on my desires just itd be cool cuz we named ourselves Sora and Shiro after NGNL and to see that like, have us win would be great. Yeah. Ill make my fifth to think of a fifth one.

5 things on my to do list

FLOPPY DICKS i mean disks. Floppy disks. I do binding of isaac ab+ modding shit, and im currently working (its mostly done for what i want it to do) which adds a new consumable called floppy disks, effects are based on viruses, bugs, and just computer based shit. Like BSOD for instance, which makes the screen literately bluescreen. Or atleast look like it. Cant wait to watch people play with it. I gotta work on the programming class project too but honestly i dont waannnaaa. Like its cool as shit. Recreate a card game using c++ code. But man, i just love Apocrypha and Floppies so much more. Eat today???? Please. Dining hall opens in 3 hours. Its goddamn 4 am. I want my food. Dunno if ill get it - if ill stay awake till then. But i want it. Probably draw some stuff? Like i posted one drawing already (check it out if u wanna ;) kay?) but like theres wacom tablets here i can just kinda use whenever???? its great. I love being able to just draw stuff on em. Even if i suck at drawing, even if it took 10 hours to make the one i posted here, still love. Probably play more rocket league. Sleep first, soon as i get that food im CRASHIN BOI IM OUTTIE HA but uhh, rocket league has a halloween thing rn and i like playing it. Was playing earlier today and i matchd with a dude in 2v2 that had the same car, skin, AND colors set up as mine. Totaly random. We kicked some major ass together. I kept thinking of the same hat comic the entire time. (also my card was superior because it had furry ears on it ;))

5 things that make me happy

Getting an idea for a thing and working at said thing until like boom it went from this abstract idea to now it has a physical form and it works! And its fun and its great and i can share it with other people and they can have fun too!!!! that feeling is wonderful.  Obviously friends man. Just doing shit with people can be so great sometimes - like not all the time sure but like man. Its nice to talk to people and share experiences and just smile and tell bad jokes and have them groan but like it anyway like thats the shit. Going out at 2 am and walking to a nearby run down schoolyard and swinging on the swingsets and watching shooting stars burn up. Thats the good shit. Getting tents and setting em up in your friends back yard when your friend from far away comes up for a few days, and playing ridiculous games in a group like kick the can or fuckin zombie screaming your lungs out in the dark to freak em out, or just talkin around a fire about fuckin life man. The people make life great. Shits worth living for. I realize that last answer covered a LOT of shit but like, im just gonna add here videogames. Would be amiss if i didnt mention that, considering the rocket league rant above lmao. Yeah i better not make this category any longer.

5 things I’m (currently) into

Isaac modding, probably will be for awhile. Its good shit. As a suggestion from one of the people I work with (we also fuck around its a good time) i have started watching space dandy. Its a slow progress through lol like an episode or two a day but god man like its pretty ridiculous and the main character is pretty much everything i was expecting from seeing him everywhere. Rocket league again. It comes and goes with various different games to tide me over, give me a break from working. Bout 2 months ago or so said relaxing time was dominated by anime - i suddenly went on like a massive streak of watching shit. By that i mean, i watched all of hunter x hunter in like 2 weeks, among other shows prior to it. But yeah. Fuck man HXH I LOVED THE KING WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. I have too many emotions about that. I wrote a rant to the Groupchat (tm) about the fucking battle and how everything is in slow motion but it fucking like makes it like foreshadowed and have so much of an impact and still so much fucking happens even while everything runs at super slow mo just GOD KLASFJBHUGHASFIUHIPJASK anyway. Yeah. Music, as always im listening to like constantly. Wireless headphones are a wonder for this, but uhh....i cant say im especially into any specific thing rn right? Like a bit ago i was super into joywave and then that faded out and now im just listening to whatever random shit, yknow? But I am into music in general. Its good. Art! A lot of times i dont do shit like for drawing right, like especially not in like pencil in notebooks but like, i sorta started doing a lot more art stuff? Like i had a period awhile back last year where i stopped using pencils and used only pens and i just loved the aesthetic of the ink like how it looked (funny how im doing the opposite of the fucking inktober though, huh?) but yeah im back into using pencils to draw shit occasionally. Im still terrible at drawing people (which is what i see mostly everyone drawing on tumblr lmao RIP) but its fun to sketch stuff out and just let my thoughts run and bounce to some music and shit right? Also the tablets. Especially with the tablets.

5 things people may not know about me (at least on tumblr)

I basically constantly wear sweatshirts, and they all have like earbuds where the strings go. All the earbud shits are broken pretty much, like occasionally they work (the one i have rn does) but like, i dont ever really use them? i have wireless headphones for my phone and a headset (because i need the mic for my computer) for said computer so like, idk. But yeah. I rarely take em off when im not home, and sometimes even when i am i just kinda keep em anyway? (also just now i realized i talked in the section for room shit about all the stuff in my current dorm, my room at home has all KINDS of wierd fucking shit in it. Really missed an opportunity there.) Like many people i like to stay hydrated and shit, but drinking water all the time seemed like a chore more than anything so i got like drink mix ins and shit, mio’s or whatever offbrand version you can find at your local SUPERSTORE CONGLOMERATE. I drink em like all the time pretty much so atleast im health in one way :P. Also gummy vitamins. I dont excercise but you can only ask for so much. Idk, its hard to think of things for this section because tumblr knows so little about me yknow? Like i never make my own posts or shit like its SUPER rare so im pretty much just tryna find random facts but that might not be interesting? Like i have a bad habbit of like talking way too loud when im excited about something right? Not quite yelling but like getting there and like idk. See? Thats not super interesting but it is something no one online would be able to really know ya feel? Idk. I mean physically im kinda fat as you do, but im also like wierdly strong? Like for someone who never works out i sure do have arm strength if nothing else lmao. My endurance is shit tho. Honestly? I can only blame it on osu and groceries. Osu is just a game i like where you mash buttons to the beat of weaboo shit tier music. The groceries is just because like, well, my policy is Least Trips Possible which means carrying in 13 bags at a time if need be it, fuck it milk too? And a watermellon? Bring it. 

Who am I tagging? Idk man. Just for shits and stuff tho i do wanna tag @theoriginalyami just to see what all’s changed in teh long time since i actually went to fill it out :P Dont feel like you have to add as much as me tho omg @milkchocolateowl because honestly? love you. Think about you a lot, just like glad im mutuals with that ray of sunshine. Good. @fantaledfish <3 (this is the friend i mentioned earlier, runs a QUALITY blog i guarantee it, better than mine for sure) @dragonfucker-supreme always top in my notes, a silent bond, like two guards assigned to watch back to back in the early dawn. Birds gather round. I can only tag so many people (i set myself a limit of 5 because...idk why i just mentally it felt right) so for my last trick gotta go with @ask-oncies-jizz like cmon man name changes for the win, also has quality icons and quality shitposts tbh, supreme top meme. Have fun yall.

[cookies-hetaoni]

(adm: Hey guys!! Time for a small update :D today I had a free day, so I chose to spend it entirely working on stuff for the sequel!! I managed to get a significant process done, story and graphic-wise! I just need time and a few more graphics to continue the game itself! :D

Here’s a list of the current things I’m working on:

HetaOni

  - Bug/typo fixes

  - New features [events, interaction, hints to the sequel, new art and art redraws]

  - Beta testing

HetaOni sequel 

 - Story 

 - Character Design 

 - Game mechanics and map planning 

 - Sprites

 - Figuring out what the heck I should call it

 - Playlist 

And here’s a list of things I have to work on after I get at least the HetaOni update:

- Script & Translations

- New walkthrough 

- Icons & Scene art for the sequel

- Coding the sequel

And to top it off, I still have more than 40 asks to answer [and will most likely get some more while I’m working all of this out] so please understand if I take too long to answer all of you!! Besides all of this, I still have a lot of things to do in real life too so things can get stressful for me ;w;’

Some people have offered me help, and as much as I really appreciate it, I rather work on these projects alone!! I want this to be as original as possible. Sorry for being so stubborn lmao

Lastly, I want to thank you guys so much for your support!!! I reached 900+ followers recently and WOW oh god, that made me really happy!! I really want to do another special or something for you, but I’m not sure I’ll have time.... if I do find the time though, I’ll be sure to tell you about it!!

And a bit of self promo here again because I need money to pay my uni lmao, I’m still doing commissions, and am on Patreon too! There’s also a donate button on the page if you want to support me through all this game/art making!

That’s it for the update! Thanks for reading, I hope everyone has a great week!! <33)