#ubisoft how could you

[thepowerofyes]

you guys ever play the FC6 Collapse DLC ? Spoilers ahead

"Don't you get it ? You're gonna be taken away, you won't have brothers anymore !"

"What ? No ! No ! I was just trying to make him stop ! I just wanted him to stop !"

THATS A CONVERSATION (paraphrased cause I can't remember things) BETWEEN JOSEPH AND BABY JOHN I'M GONNA KICK A BOULDER WITH FLIPFLOPS ON

John did not deserve this shit bruh he just needed some love and everybody took advantage of him to the point where he doesn't even have an IDEA on how to be a normal person anymore

Been crying over this for a while now because JOHN WAS JUST TRYING TO HELP BECAUSE THE CONTEXT IS THAT HE TOLD HIS TEACHERS THAT THEIR DAD WAS BEATING THEM AND JOSEPH SAID THEY WERE GONNA BE SEPERATED BECAUSE OF IT ?? BRO ?? Ubisoft really gave a big "FUCK YOU" to the Seed Family huh

[jademight]

Dash: ass-in-ass creed Me: [takes a puff of my cigar as I look off my window with an ice-cold whiskey glass in hand] I know it well, Horatio.

[sc4llywag]

Since I got Tumblr and have free range to rant however I want, its time for the Assassin's Creed main characters and how they walk post!!!

With each of the games, they change the main characters walking animation to fit their vibe and I need to be able to study them beheehe

Desmond

I don't have too much to say about Desmond's other than his is simple and similar to Ezio's and Altaïr's and I like to think that this is due to the bleeding effect(it happened to me too I walk like the assassin's all the time) his is a little more confined and he keeps his arms closer to himself so he's very typical in the way he walks

Altaïr

In his walk he has a sway to his hips and steady hands(probably to keep himself ready for any assassination), but goddamn the SWAY I never noticed it.

His shoulders also sway with his walk and I love how fluid he is in general, this ties back to his robes for me and how flowy they are to show the grace of an assassin in high profile but when low profile they stay to his sides and he's all in the shadows and I REALLY love that about him.

Ezio

This gif is all I could find so i can't really remember if Ezio's walk is different in Ac2 from Altaïr's because ubisoft is the king of recycling things but whatever. He still has the outward stance but I do notice his head is pointed low to try and keep himself hidden(shadows shit be like) but ofc hes holding the apple here so it's hard to tell if he's trying to swing his arm a lot lol, anyway body language is important to Ezio so hes very good at looking broody as well as fluid in his movements

Connor

(Walk Cycle Research | PKlover4078)

My man my man my man my man😍‼️‼️

The way Connor walks with his hands stretched out and then clenching his fists every moment because he's always ready for a fight goddamn this MF could take me in an alleyway and I'd be happy. I'd like to note with this gif, it doesn't show his slow slow walk and I remember it pretty well, he has a slight cautious aura in his walk, he's really careful in his foot placement(I think) and he's super awesome and I love him a lot. Since we have him running I'd like to talk about that too. He has such an efficient sprint it's so mesmerizing, he keeps his head low and just fuckin vrooms across the colonies<3

Aveline

You can barely see her here bc the damn community doesn't care for Aveline much but I like her even tho I haven't played Liberation, I enjoy the way she walks in a proper manner and she's got that strut the runway strut is everything. I also like how she has a wider swing in her arms, more carefree and comfortable.

Edward

This is such a great quality gif thanks so much Ac fandom!!

Anyway, I really love the difference in Edwards walk compared to the rest of the assassins because he's a pirate, he hasn't had the teaching of grace and secrecy. Therefore his walk is staggering in his footwork but still proper bc he's a sword fighter and very good at it. In a longer gif you'd be able to tell but his footing is a little messy, showing that drunken sailor pirate personality shows in his walk. He has a close arm swing due to him always needing to be close to his weapons, ready for a fight(like his grandson<3)

Haytham

I can barely see how he's walking but I'm pretty sure he had his hand on his sword hilt which says so much abt his character, again always being ready for a fight. He has a very straight posture due to his pompous nature, quick in his form to be efficient because why walk if you don't look proper and efficient?

Shay

Ok he's a Templar and so is Haytham but fuck you I love them.

His walk is so GOOD his walk has a heavy step and he's very prominent, got that straight posture again, not much to say about his arm sway other than the added shoulder sway, love that for him bc he's just so intimidating.

(For reasons I'm not doing Arno, Evie, Jacob, Kassandra, and Eivor since I haven't played their games)

Bayek

Bayek's walk is very different from every other assassin and that makes me love him so much more. He feels very carefree and relaxed but when in combat good lord does he go off!! He puts more sway in his arms than his hips and that's probably why he has a combat centered walk, like Edward.

If you've reached the end thank you for reading my rambling ass get over excited over walk cycle animations :) follow for more rambling!!

[sanshofox]

At this point I am really wondering how the entertainment industry, especially gaming industry, is going to uphold/maintain themselves.

One layoff after another. How are people from that industry supposed to find a new job there when layoffs are happening everywhere? Do studios really think there’s longevity when they aren’t even willing to hire newcomers/juniors so there‘s adequate supply in the work force? Because look at how it’s currently going: investors want more and more money, the workload increases, but people are getting fired, leaving a smaller team to do said work, even distributing them for 2 or 3 projects at the same time, only to crash in a burnout or in later years go into retirement. Then who’s left? AI? Are you kidding me? As if games aren’t becoming more and more repetitive anyway, because of some „safe recipe for good numbers“ strategy. Creativity and the people behind it are suffering.

It’s been almost 2 years since I saw a junior 3D character artist offer. Ever since then it’s been a desert. And it’s not looking all too bright in other departments either. It’s now even a thing in job descriptions where they want you to have „AI abilities“. So as a junior or regular they want you to feed their machine, so in a few years they can fire you. The audacity.

Another audacity are those layoffs just to rehire people for a smaller price (can’t tell me otherwise. For me this is a tactic to put pressure on the work force to say yes to less money otherwise they will stay jobless). People that made projects what they are today, who are seniors and leads for a reason, out of a job just like that. Make it make sense (it doesn’t).

Studios like ubisoft now openly saying that they want to focus on AI, like assets completely made by AI to „save time and money“ and expand AI onto more fields. Shame on them.

The way creative industries like gaming finance themselves is also their biggest poison. And I only see a solution in that by regulating investors demands and upper positions sheaningans. They can’t have „absolute power“ anymore. It’s destructive and greedy and not realistic. Games can not be linearly successful. For the game design „recipe“ to improve it needs iteration just like when you work in a project for example and work on a design that needs to be iterated until it‘s improved or solid even. We see time and time again that „business/numbers people“ and creatives do not go hand in hand. We see an extreme imbalance.

I would predict that with less creative new input and letting mainly AI do the work consumers will be less and less entertained because everything seems to be and look the same. It will stagnate. And then crumble. And the industry needs to start like it did before. And that’s what I guess for the big companies.

With the layoffs happening and not enough job offers in return I could see that big talents get together to build their own studios now and we may get an era of new successful and growing studios happening that may even replace the current triple A studios one day in the future. They may even change the financing game. We saw successful games happening through platforms like kickstarter more often. So it might lead back to a „power to the people“ thing. Having an idea for a project and seeing if enough people agree and invest to see it happening. There’s room for improvement in that system. That’s all what it leads back to; in the end the consumers need to be satisfied to make it a creative and monetary success. BG3 and larian studios was a good example for that. It’s what made coral island grow and grow too. So there‘s potential.

Feel free to comment your theories. I really would like to see what others think about the current state of gaming studios and how it will or could develop.

[raymantogether]

Rayman Together Community Spotlight #3 - Clairiphi

Rayman Together Community Spotlight #3 - Clairiphi

Introduction:

Have you ever made your own Rayman comic book series? Growing up, I spent thousands of hours outside of playing the Rayman series creating comics and drawings, making my own adventures for Rayman and his friends. However, I never could create something as captivating and truly unique as the Rayman Nightmarish Series. Rayman Nightmarish stole my heart and is something that I have followed since 2020. Every few weeks to months, I eagerly anticipate the next chapter. There is something so personal about the art style and original characters, which I fell in love with. Every strip is full of personality and charm. I had the pleasure of meeting Clairiphi, AKA Chiara, during my visit to Ubisoft Milan. In person, Chiara is just as amazing as her series. So when I decided to make this Community Spotlight Series, I just had to make a segment on Chiara and her Rayman Nightmarish series.

1. Please introduce yourself.

"My name is Chiara; I go by Clairiphi on the web, and I'm a storyteller from Sardinia (Italy) who dabbles into drawing to accompany her stories. I hope one day, not too far from now, to become a professional comic writer if the comic industry in Europe gives me the chance. For now, I sadly remain an enthusiastic hobbyist."

2. What are you currently working on in the Rayman Community? 

"I’ve been publishing my fan comic Rayman Nightmarish for a few years with the frequent help of my partner Francesco (@thepinna on Instagram and Cara), who is a professional illustrator and studied as a comic artist as well. Without his teaching, I would be nowhere near where I am with my skill level. He taught me how to storyboard, how to efficiently use a drawing tablet, and helped me train my writing skills. He also offers his direct artistic input from time to time, when work hours permit him (for example, while I did the storyboards and pencil sketches for chapter 11, he did inks and colors)."

3. What is your inspiration behind Rayman Nightmarish?

"One December evening I was particularly bored and haven’t been writing since the beginning of high school, but that evening I was coming from a long period of frustration regarding the school path I chose, and coincidentally, I was also back on my Rayman obsession because I was playing Legends and Origins. I had this fairy character (Waaty) and a horrific, almost lovecraftian villain (The Lighteater) in mind for a while, and all of a sudden I said, “You know what? Let’s stop daydreaming and write an actual story!” I took a huge empty notebook from my desk drawer, and a bunch of years later, here we are!"

4. For any newcomers, what is the story of Rayman Nightmarish about?

"With Rayman Nightmarish, I aimed to narrate a classic Rayman adventure, with the humor, the combats, the voyage across fantastical places... And zombies! Yeah, I love horror, and of course there was going to be a twist. But no worries! This is still a story for all ages, like Rayman always was after all.  An ancient evil called The Lighteater is rising from the depths of the sea and is going to bring a dark plague that will soon turn The Glade of Dreams into The Glade of Nightmares. Of course it is Rayman's job to save the day once again, with the help of Globox and a few unexpected friends, like Waaty, the livid dead fairy with strange clairvoyant abilities...and many others along the way! Will he be able to do it this time? Very likely knowing his records, but this could actually be more challenging than he thought."

5. Is there anything new or unreleased you can share?

"I’ve actually been working on a new original fantasy series for a while. The story is already all planned, I'm in love with the characters and every process I came across during the planning of the plot. I hope with all my heart that I'll be able to bring it to life, not as a webcomic but as a fool-blown series for comic stores’ shelves."

6. What made you fall in love with the Rayman series?

"When I was a little girl, I didn’t have much social skills, and my first ever playmate, before my brother was born, was my dear cousin, who one day came to me with a copy of Rayman 3; his parents got him somewhere during a trip. That game changed my brain chemistry because as soon as I saw the fairy council level, I was hypnotized, and I wasn’t even the one playing! The music, the scenery, the jokes—I don’t know, but every time we played it, I came home wishing I was still in that world. Then a few years later, my cousin got a PS3 and gave me and my brother his PS2, Rayman Raving Rabbids, and Rayman 3. I was so happy! My first ever “comic” was a very cringy Rayman fanfiction I wrote in middle school, kind of an ancestor of Rayman Nightmarish in a way, haha! I thank my cousin every day for showing me that game that evening, and if he were still here today, I bet he would think Rayman Nightmarish looks pretty sick (especially in comparison to his middle school predecessor)."

7. What is your favorite Rayman game?

"I think it’s pretty clear by now that it’s Rayman 3 since it comes with so many dear memories, but I really liked playing both Origins and Legends in co-op with my brother when they came out. They were really fun to play with others! While I’ve always considered Rayman 3 like an intimate journey to take alone in a fantasy world, as silly as it sounds. Haha!"

8. Who is your favorite Rayman character?

"I’m going to be very unoriginal and say it’s Rayman because it’s true."

9. Tell us about your time at Ubisoft Milan.

"It was better than Disneyland! I felt like a kid again being able to hang out with a team of professionals behind a whole videogame. Not only was I happy, I felt seen, like, “Woah! These guys know I exist and even asked me to come here, hello???” Pretty surreal experience!"

10. Other than playing Rayman, what are your favorite things to do?

"I’m going to be completely honest; I haven’t been playing a Rayman game since the dawn of time. Haha! Back when I was a little girl, I wasn't much of a gamer and only played Rayman games because I didn’t care for the others. Now I love my switch, and I found many more games I love to spend time with. Rayman still has a special place in my heart, because it’s thanks to it that I found out I was actually meant for writing stories. Two of my other favorite things to do (besides writing and drawing, which are obvious) are reading books and watching movies, and in both cases, my favorite genre is horror. I also like to play fantasy TTRPG games like D&D or Pathfinder from time to time; they are very stimulating for the imagination."

11. Tell us something interesting or funny about yourself that we might not already know. 

"I’ve actually graduated (both bachelor’s and master’s degree) from a music conservatory in classical piano and never taken a single class in any art school. Sometimes I feel stupid about my past choices, and sometimes I’m glad because learning to play an instrument on a professional level has helped me build discipline and time management skills that helped me greatly in the writing process."

12. Do you have any hidden talents?

"I don’t know much about "talent,” but I do love to sing in my car, and I can memorize the entire script of a movie if I like it a lot. Haha! I remember when I was in elementary school, I used to recite Madagascar to myself when it was past bedtime, but I didn’t want to sleep."

13. What is one thing you can’t live without?

"Besides my air conditioner, I think I would go insane if something happened to any of my writing devices. I keep all my notes scattered between my computer, my iPad, and many physical journals. While clouds are essential, sometimes I just need an actual piece of paper and a pencil to figure out a scene or a plot point."

Want to discover more about the Rayman Nightmarish series? This is my link tree where new readers can find the best social media platforms to either catch up with the story or stay tuned for any exciting news:

[inkwolvesandcoffee]

I can’t get this thought out of my head.

CoD ML

The taskforce has gotten used to Ghost saying “Can’t wait to get home to the missus.” It came as a surprise at first because he’s not the best, if not the downright worst, at expressing his emotions. Nonetheless, they’ve gotten used to the phrase and any other variation of it.

However, no one was prepared for this time. “Finally going home to my lady and the kids.”

Kids?

KIDS?!

When did this happen? Simon didn’t mention you were pregnant and neither did you. John is absolutely baffled because surely you would’ve told him since he’s the second to know this type of stuff. After all, he’s the closest to you after your man.

Soap is overjoyed, already fancying himself the fun ‘uncle’ and congratulating his mate. “Didn’t think you’d ever be a father, Ghost, but look at ye! I do hope your daughters get the looks from their bonnie mother. Unless you’re handsome.”

“We had this convo before, McTavish. I’m quite handsome.”

“I still don’t believe ye.”

Kyle is absolutely gobsmacked, but keeps it at a polite “congrats, sir”.

Little do any of them know the ‘kids’ have four sturdy legs, whiskers, and gorgeous thick fur. You’ve even deemed them the most handsome fluffy children of the neighbourhood.

Simon and you adopted two Norwegian Forest Cats before he had to leave on deployment, named Ragnar and Rollo. He wasn’t a fan of the names at first, but agreed to them to please you. Then again, he’d let you pick the names for your children if you ever decide to start a family.

Until then, this is more than enough.

Simon quietly slips beneath the covers beside you. It’s a bit of a struggle to manoeuvre his large frame around your two sons, who are quick to pounce on their father and loudly start purring.

“You’re back,” you drowsily murmur, awoken by Ragnar’s and Rollo’s sonorous purrs. Your subconscious registers his presence so you instinctively turn onto your side and snuggle up to him. “Should’ve said you’d come. Would’ve-“

He kisses your forehead. “Shh, go back to sleep.”

He knows you’d have shown up at the airport. You always do since he usually lets you know in advance whether he’s home bound and at what time he expects to be back in England. However, tonight was a very late flight though the shift in time zones made it a very, very early morning one.

Whatever the case, Simon would rather you stay at home, in bed with your sons, than be out in the dark. If he could, he’d forbid you to go out in the evening after sunset unless you’re taking him with you. Fortunately, despite never having explicitly agreed nor have it actually mentioned, you’re of one mind when it comes to that. After all, it’s hard to miss the posters and flyers against sexual assault and intimidation of women.

And you do feel safer when Simon’s with you.

Vice versa is also the case. Indeed, your big burly bastard of a man shares the sentiment.

He’s been doing a lot of mental work recently to work on his emotional intelligence. One thing that’s been helping a lot in opening up and trying to form connections, well, an even deeper connection to you (he’s not a people person so you’re pretty much the only one he talks to outside the taskforce) is gaming.

Yup, Simon Riley is a gamer.

A massive Assassin’s Creed fan too. This is a hill I will die on, you can’t convince me otherwise.

So imagine his surprise when after breakfast you slip a present across the table to him. How his eyes light up, the delight banishing the suspicion that cast a darkness over them, when he sees you bought him a special edition of AC: Mirage. Little does he know you placed a pre-order the moment he told you Ubisoft was coming out with a new game in the franchise.

“Thought you might like this. As a ‘welcome home’ prezzie,” you say, hiding the smile spreading on your lips behind your coffee mug.

“Thank you, love.” He stands up and walks over to your side. You get up too, arms outstretched in anticipation of one of his rare bear hugs. In spite of his stone cold persona, Simon seems to radiate heat whenever he’s home. So you stand there for a few moments, simply enjoying the feel of his arms around you.

After cleaning up and changing into a pair of sweats, he turns the PS5 on. Ragnar and Rollo plop down on the couch on either side of the both of you, freshly returned from their habitual morning stroll around the yard. You snuggle up to Simon, basking in his warmth while watching him play.

A perfect lazy family day.

[thou-babbling-brook]

Maria Thorpe Character Analysis

Well, I simply can’t disappoint the people – aka, the five of you that will read this, lmfao. I’m so serious about this that I’m actually drafting this on a Google doc before I post this rather than just typing random thoughts on my phone. This is going to be a HUGE ramble that probably won’t make a ton of sense, but I hope it’s entertaining regardless. 

Maria Thorpe – a character that Ubisoft probably spent MAYBE thirty minutes thinking about, but that I have not stopped thinking about for like, five years. What a gal. So glad I was not in this fandom in 2012 to witness how HEINOUS people were about her for simply being a woman “in the way” of a M|M relationship. I hope by the end of this ramble, you, too, will see her for the baddie she truly is. 

In this essay, I will delve into Maria’s character to explore why she is so fascinating to me, the implications of her story, and why Ubisoft can actually catch these hands for dumbing her down in AC Revelations. (I'm putting a cut here because it's so fucking long I'm sorry gang)

First off, to understand Maria Thorpe as a character, you have to understand her background. I’m not going to copy and paste her Wiki or anything, but I am going to outline her life (stated and implied) before we meet her.

For those that don’t know, Maria was born an English noblewoman in 1161 – four years before Altaïr was born (okay cougar). Because she was a tomboy and defied many of the social norms for women in the 12th century, she was ostracized by both her parents and her peers. She mentions in The Secret Crusade that her parents tried to force her to conform, which culminated in her first marriage at the age of 18 to Lord Peter Hallaton. She mentions that he was a decent husband, but he didn’t exactly appreciate her more boisterous nature. After all, in 12th century England (especially among nobility), women were to be seen, not heard. She also failed his expectations as a chatelaine and a wife, as she bore him no children. The Bishop of Leicester granted them an annulment to avoid embarrassment to both Peter and Maria’s family. When she returned, she was “persona non grata” to her family and the whole of Leicestershire, especially when her father had already spent her dowry. With no other options, Maria ran away to join the Third Crusade, where she eventually met Robert de Salbé.

You may notice that we don’t actually know a lot about Maria and her life before AC1, which is probably intentional. To me, though, that’s what makes her backstory fascinating – the implications of her environment and what we can reasonably deduce she went through based on historical context. I think anyone who’s taken a seventh-grade social studies class could tell you women had, like, zero rights in 12th-century England – even more so, noblewomen. Maria was raised to be a glorified broodmare – say nothing, have children (two boys and a girl, as she jokes), and run her husband’s household. Clearly, she was the exact opposite of all of these things. Something interesting about Maria’s first marriage is the fact that while it was an annulment, she specifically mentions in The Secret Crusade it was an annulment to save her family further embarrassment – which implies that the marriage was consummated, but all parties wanted it done with. I don’t think I need to elaborate on how common and horrific an experience like that could be, but I think it fuels Maria’s relationship later on with motherhood, especially since she mentions that she was completely uninterested in childrearing and birth (this is a key point I’ll touch on later).

So what? Why does her background matter? It matters because of how historical and cultural context tie in to help form who she is by the time she leaves for the Third Crusade – a desperate, twenty-two-year-old woman, divorced, ostracized from the only family and society she has ever known, having no other choice than to ditch England and head for the Holy Land unless she wants to become a nun. For many men and women alike in the 12th century, this was their only opportunity to become something more than what they were born as, whether it be a serf, a blacksmith, or a noblewoman. Many who left for the Third Crusade left to “take back the Holy Land,” but also to escape or improve their current standings. To me, Maria falls in the second category, and it is this desperation to escape her life that forms her most notable (and later, tragic) characteristic: her undying loyalty.

As a side note, it is also interesting to me that Maria chose to be a soldier rather than a nurse. This is more so my characterization of her, but I think that’s because a) she’s too damn proud and loud to be a nurse, and b) because if she was a nurse, she would more than likely live and be treated the same way she was at home. Truly, if she wants to escape the patriarchy, the only way a woman like Maria could at the time was to join it by blending in. Girly get some therapy.

We’re now at AC1 in the timeline. Hooray! We don’t know when exactly Maria joined the Templars or when she first met Robert, but we can probably assume it was not long after she joined the crusade. As we know from AC1, AC Bloodlines, and The Secret Crusade, Maria disguised herself as a man (more than likely a young boy since she’s got a voice that would fit right into Alvin and the Chipmunks) and was able to keep up the rouse long enough to rise in the ranks and show promise to people like Robert. For Maria, when Robert finds out she is a woman and yet elevates her further, it is the first time in her life that someone has appreciated her for her masculine qualities. It is why she develops an intense loyalty for Robert to the point of being willing to be his decoy, despite the fact she fully anticipated dying. For Maria, it would be her ideal end – fighting to the death for a cause she truly believed in. Not even really a cause, as we figure out later, but more so for a man she truly believed in – Robert. It would not be through the pain and subjugation of childbirth like most women of her standing, but a brutal fight like any other man.

And yet – she doesn’t. When Altaïr meets her, he’s undergone a whole development arc, whereas Maria (at this point 30, which is SO funny to imagine her fistfighting this 26-year-old frat boy) is at the start of hers. And it starts with Altaïr sparing her – the worst possible fate that could become her at this point in her life. Think about it: the only person who has given her an OUNCE of respect has asked her to essentially die for him by acting as his decoy. As Maria mentions in AC Bloodlines, by this point, she is also a step away from becoming a knight – and at this point, she’s also known as a woman among the Templars. And yet, she believes they have become her family, and she is willing to die for their cause and for Robert. When Altaïr spares her and kills Robert, he’s sentencing her to the life she ran away from and feared – being nothing more than a woman who is looked down upon with condescending snarls and disgust for who she is.

This is why when we meet Maria in AC Bloodlines, she is rightfully PISSED. We literally see her realize that any ounce of respect and power she had is completely gone because Altaïr spared her. She is so pissed, in fact, that she tries to kill Altaïr again. This is even funnier when you remember how much of a BITCH it was to fight her in AC1, but I digress. Altaïr has destroyed everything she has built in her life for the last eight years. He has taken her home, her mentors, her family, and her honor. And bro doesn’t have a clue in the fucking world.

It’s at this point that I’ll also analyze more about Maria’s relationship with the Templars. At first glance, yes, she was a Templar and believed in their cause. Really, though, it goes far deeper than that. It’s not necessarily that Maria believes in their cause – otherwise, it would’ve taken a lot more for Altaïr to sway her to the Assassins – but that she believes in the people. Again, from Maria’s perspective, the Templars (especially Robert) were the ONLY people in her entire life to treat her with dignity, and she is willing to die for them. She is willing to throw her honor to the ground and beg for forgiveness in front of Bouchard because, without the Templars, she is nothing. She is back to square one as a silly little girl trying to run from a life that would only subjugate her. It’s that recurring characteristic of undying loyalty to those who have given her the life she has always wanted.

And for Maria, it is immediately spat back in her face.

When Bouchard takes over in AC Bloodlines, he is a strict Templar Grandmaster. No consorting with women, periodt. And he flaunts this over Maria, taunting her. He is tearing the last ounce of respect she’d ever received and throwing it away. Every sacrifice she made for the Templars for the last eight years meant nothing, and it is crushing to her. She continues to be pissed off at Altaïr, who mentions that she’s more pissed at the Templars than at him. Once again, she is nothing more than a woman – an imprisoned one at that.

This is where one of my favorite Maria scenes (not that there’s many) comes into play. When she and Altaïr are sitting on the ship to Cyprus or wherever it doesn’t matter, Altaïr does something that no person has done for her before: he treats her with unconditional respect. As funny as his autistic ramble about Empedocles and philosophy is, there are so many assumptions that go into Altaïr’s conversation that I think help sway Maria to his side. When he talks to Maria, he speaks to her as an equal. He talks to her about philosophy because of course she would know about philosophy in his mind – to him, she is a soldier and a person first, and a woman second (shut the fuck about The Secret Crusade and him thinking about her as a lioness shut up shut up I low key hate it even though it’s funny). He is the first person in her life to speak to her as an equal and with respect with no strings attached. In fact, when Maria taunts him for leaving her cuffed even as he talks about free will, he lets her go. She may not like him at this point, but after this scene, you can certainly see that she respects him in how she speaks to him. BONUS: she’s not trying to outright kill him anymore! Hooray!

You can see the impact Altaïr and his conversation had on Maria when she confronts Shahar in her courtesan fit. There’s so many layers to Maria willingly dressing in such an exposing, vulnerable, and feminine way (keep in mind this bitch is Catholic, I know her guilt was going crazy), but what I’m going to focus on is her conversation with Shahar. When he speaks to her, he is gross and all but catcalling her, calling her a “little fox” and using a sultry tone. Maria is having NONE of it, and one can only assume this is a tone she has dealt with a thousand times over. This is also where we see the gears turning in Maria’s head. I’ve seen people criticize Maria for how quickly she flip-flopped, but I think that’s overlooking the reason that she WAS a Templar – they were the only people who provided her a home when she had none. If you’re desperate for anyone to treat you with an iota of respect, you’d do whatever they ask. After she talks to Altaïr though, and especially after realizing Robert was simply manipulating her, she is questioning the Templars’ ideologies and realizing this is not what she wants. It low key is like Alicent in House of the Dragons right now – she’s shocked that fighting against women fucked herself over. Maria is similar in that sense – she thought that by being what the Templars wanted and fighting for what they believed, it wouldn’t come back to bite her in the ass. But it did. She’s a woman before she’s a Templar, and the ideology of the Templars would see her subjugated just as she was before. It isn’t until after Altaïr’s spiel about free will and the challenges it brings that she realizes she has other options.

And that’s ultimately what brings Maria to the side of the Assassins – realizing her errors in thinking and wanting a way to redeem herself. The Assassins are her second chance, which is ironic given how many stories after hers would follow this same format of second chances. But it isn’t just the ideology change, either. It’s Altaïr. No, she does not have undying loyalty by the end of AC Bloodlines, but he’s certainly earned her trust and respect. He’s treated her like any other person without ever holding power or loyalty over her head. He does not manipulate her or exploit her – he respects her, and he earnestly tells her of the creed’s ideologies not to lure her in, but because he genuinely believes in the idea of dispelling the illusions of the world and wants to share it with her, whether she becomes an Assassin or not. That is what turns Maria into an Assassin at the end of the day: his respect for her and his understanding of the creed. And despite their issues, Maria chooses to follow him to the ends of the earth.

Now we’re at a really funny part of Maria’s story: we know basically NOTHING about what happens in between AC Bloodlines and AC Reflections. We know that sometime after traveling to Masyaf, Maria and Altaïr became a couple. We know they married in 1195 and gave birth to Darim the same year. Two years later, they would traumatize Desmond Miles by fucking on top of a castle, which is so fucking funny and only supports my characterization of Maria as a gremlin, because who the fuck else would make their husband climb up a giant ass tower for sex? We know she officially became an Assassin and would beg Altaïr to stop looking into the Apple. We know she would join Altaïr and Darim to Mongolia to kill Genghis Khan. And that is all we know for an approximately 30-YEAR PERIOD.

While there’s a lot I could talk about in that gap, like Maria’s relationship with other Assassins, I’m going to focus on her relationship with motherhood. As we established earlier, Maria had ZERO interest in being a mother or giving birth. This is a personal headcanon but I do not care because it’s MY analysis and I can do as I please, but I feel like she would’ve dreaded childbirth, especially given how English nobility acted about it (e.g., how people treated it like a scandal or disease) and how it was the leading cause of death for women until the 20th century. Yet, despite this, she had not one, but TWO children. She was like one away from the goal, and even then Sef had two daughters so really she fulfilled it. But why? What changed that she would be willing to do the very thing she left England to avoid?

I think it goes back to the reason she was disinterested in it in the first place. Like Maria says in The Secret Crusade, she didn’t want to just be a mother or a wife. Her ideal husband would treat her like any other man, taking her hunting or whatever else bullshit medieval stuff they’d do instead of scrolling through TikTok. She never said she didn’t want to be a mother. I think her hesitance stems from the fact that she didn’t want to SOLELY be defined as a mother or a wife. With Altaïr, however, that fear is pretty much gone. Since the moment she met him, Altaïr has always treated her with respect and admired the things she was once shamed for. Her strength is valuable as an Assassin. Her bluntness keeps him in check. Her ideas are admired rather than ridiculed. To Altaïr, Maria is not just a woman or even just an Assassin. She’s a person with her own experiences and ideas and fears and strengths and dreams. He loves her for every aspect of herself that was once frowned upon.

I remember a while ago seeing a Tumblr post from ye olden days (like 2012) talking about how because menstrual cycles were extremely irregular back in the day due to medieval diets and exercise, Maria would have to purposefully chill out to regulate her cycle to become pregnant. What that implies is that she trusted Altaïr so much that she was willing to settle down and have children because she knew it would not influence how he treated or loved her. Personally, I think this is true of Darim, but that Sef was an accident because it’s funnier that way, but regardless, the point still stands. Maria getting pregnant and becoming a mother is the opposite of what she thought she would ever want, but because she loved and trusted Altaïr so much, she was willing to have a family with him because she knew it would not come to define her. I think that is unbelievably sweet.

We also don’t really see Maria interact with her children very often, which I think is a fucking shame. When she does interact with Darim (we never see her with Sef, though we do see her reaction to his death), Maria is always supportive and encouraging. Again, this is more my headcanon territory but I really don’t care because I can do what I fucking please, but Maria low key feels like a boy mom to me, but not in the weird Freud way, lmfao. Like we established earlier, Maria’s key trait is her loyalty. I think this loyalty would be extended to her children. We know she’s loyal to Altaïr (it ends up killing her), but I feel like it would go insane with her children. When she learns of Sef’s death in The Secret Crusade, this woman breaks down in tears instantly. WHERE THE FUCK WAS THE MOTHERLY RAGE WITH ABBAS, UBISOFT. WHERE WAS IT. Anyways.

Masyaf is a pretty cutthroat environment to raise a child, especially when you consider that Abbas is apparently lurking in the background scheming during Altaïr’s reign. Something I wish we learned more about (and something I just find fascinating in general) is the political environment of Masyaf. Altaïr implemented a lot of changes to the Brotherhood that faced backlash, one of the key ones being allowing women in the order again (ahem, Maria). I know Maria said she was uninterested in the politics of running a house, but I do think she’d kind of have to play her hand in politics in Masyaf, kind of how Altaïr realizes he’s not exempt from politics since he’s literally shaping them. If Maria wants her kids to be safe, especially as sons of the Master of the Assassins, she’s gotta play her cards well. This is why I think it does make sense for Maria to calm down after having children to be more similar to the Maria we see in AC Reflections and AC Revelations. She can’t just fight everyone like she did when she was relying solely on herself. Now, she has people relying on her, and I think it makes sense for her character to chill out more (though without losing her spunk) to ensure her family is safe.

For those that have ever watched Magnificent Century, basically think about how Hurrem went from fighting everyone to playing her cards wisely so her kids wouldn’t die or do stupid shit. That’s how I feel like Maria would be.

Something else that’s interesting about Maria to me is her relationship with Altaïr. Duh, you’re probably saying, but hear me out. We know that while she and Altaïr were inseparable during their marriage, there was one thing that strained it: the Apple. It makes sense why Maria would be so pissed off at it. She’s seen Altaïr control men’s minds with it. She’s seen how it takes him away for days at a time with its secrets, to the point she is begging him to throw it away. Back to the point about loyalty to her family, whereas Altaïr seeks knowledge, Maria just wants her family protected and safe because she loves them – including her dumbass husband. It’s ironic that the very thing she fought about with Altaïr is the thing that killed her.

So we’re finally at AC Revelations, and I am truly shocked that you’re still here. Kudos to you. At that final confrontation scene with Abbas, that loyalty for those she loves comes to a head. When Altaïr whips out the Apple, Maria begs and pleads him to stop, because she knows if he uses the Apple to control someone, he will only be proving Abbas’s point, which will only fuck them over. In The Secret Crusade, we also have Malik’s head on top of this scene to make it worse. Maria’s position is again one of desperation. Her son is dead, one of her best friends is now just a head, and her husband is about to go sicko mode. She is screwed and she knows it. What she doesn’t know is that she’s about to be stabbed by Swami (I’m going with the revelations version shut up) in a last ditch effort to stop Altaïr from using the Apple. Altaïr doesn’t listen to Maria, and it kills her. He kills her.

… SO I HAVE THOUGHTS.

I think Maria dying from the Apple makes sense, I do. That’s not my problem. My problem is how AC Revelations basically dumbed her down to this motherly, homely figure which is the like, ANTITHESIS of what Maria is. Where was the feminine rage??? You’re telling me this woman would not be about to SLAUGHTER someone after learning that Sef died?? You’re telling me she would just pull an AltaïR thiS iSn’T yOu???????? Are you so fucking for real right now??? It pisses me off because it nukes her character. While yes, it makes sense for her to be a much calmer woman and 67 compared to 30, this is still Maria. Don’t act like she and Altaïr don’t have fucking anger issues and be so fucking for real.

Here’s my ideal scenario for what should’ve gone down. I think once they pulled Malik’s head out, there should’ve been all-out chaos rather than this bullshit “We killed everyone loyal to Altaïr before he arrived.” Maria should’ve been right there with them with a sword out. Altaïr, in a desperate attempt to calm everyone down, would take out the Apple and try to control everyone. If you’ve seen the long ass discussion about how Revelations fucked up Altaïr’s character arc, this also helps remedy that because Altaïr is pulling out because of his arrogance in believing he can control the Apple. News flash: he can’t. Maria, while fighting for Altaïr, would somehow be killed either by the Apple or like similar to how Swami accidentally killed her. Something along those lines where it is Altaïr’s fault. That’s how she should’ve gone out, not some weird pick me bullshit.

Anyways. RIP Maria Thorpe you would’ve loved Crusader Kings 3.

I definitely missed some points about her character but this is already 7 pages long on Google docs so I am NOT writing anymore. God bless.

TLDR she's a baddie and I need her so so so bad

[dare-to-dm]

I have such a love/hate relationship with the Assassin's Creed series.

On the one hand, I hate that it feels like Ubisoft is maliciously designing this franchise to eternally suck money out of my wallet without ever giving me narrative closure or quality design. Like, there are so many cynical at best design decisions in this series. For context, I'm currently playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and I've already played every mainline title up to this one, except for AC: Unity, because I've decided to die mad about the whole "It's too hard to make a female playable character" thing. And for a long time now, it feels like each new title is shallowly chasing industry trends in order to try to appeal to a more mainstream audience. In AC Valhalla, there are so many mechanics straight up lifted from other popular games, but implemented so poorly and in such a vestigial way that it doesn't feel cohesive. Like, they tried to implement the pawn system from Dragon's Dogma for some reason, or the puzzles from Senua's Sacrifice. And this is a sad look for a series that was at one time so groundbreaking that it was influencing other franchises instead. In addition to just stealing a grab bag of mechanics from other games, Assassin's Creed is sacrificing its own unique identity to emulate other popular genres, with the combat in AC: Valhalla feeling way more soul-sy than it has any rights to. I mean, there are straight up boss battles in this game.

Boss Battles. In an Assassin's Creed game.

And you can't even just straight up assassinate anyone anymore. Like, if the opponent NPC is a higher level than you, than an assassination is basically just a fancy attack that does a little extra damage. Meaning there's hardly a reason to bother with stealth anymore, you might as well open up combat with a big flashy ability that will at least stun other opponents.

To their credit, you can change this in the Settings. In fact, if there's one thing they put a lot of effort into designing, it's the difficulty options. You can make it so assassinations are always an instant kill. You can make it so that opponents are always the same level as you. You can precisely calibrate how much damage you give and receive. There are also difficulty options for the stealth and for the exploration. You can literally remap the controls however you like. Honestly, I laud them for this. Although a cynical side of me feels like it's also indicative of a weak vision for the game. Rather than crafting an experience for a specific audience, it's another attempt to design for broad appeal.

All this is not to mention all the crap they've gotten up to with their monetization strategies. That could be a whole other post.

I've stuck with the series due to my interest in the story, and it feels a little like they're holding that interest hostage. Each new release gives me tantalizing bread crumbs, but little if anything is ever truly resolved or answered. It leaves me wondering if there's any kind of master plan for the whole thing, or if they're literally just stringing me along with whatever bullshit they think will keep me engaged with no end in sight.

But on the other hand, sometimes those bread crumbs are so good.

Like, there's at least one person on the development team (and probably far more) who is putting real time and effort into making a well researched, intricate, interconnecting story. Someone who makes me feel rewarded for my 100% completion tendencies with all these little nuggets of story and character and clues that feels like it all adds up to something special.

A moment for me in AC Valhalla that reminded me of why I like this series so much is when the viking protagonist travels to "Vinland" and meets some First World People there, who in the game are speaking Iroquois. And there is no translation. Like the protagonist, you are stuck guessing what they are saying from their body language and context clues. It's such a cool way of getting you immersed in the story and setting, and it really stuck with me. And then of course I searched online for a translation, and it feels like the writing team integrated the lore and culture here very respectfully. Like with ACIII, it's clear they consulted with real current speakers of the language, and in addition there is an inclusion of a Mohawk creation myth (which also ties into tidbits explored in both ACIII and AC Rogue). And those creation myths might have been shared simply as a nod to the culture being presented here, but it might also tie into the greater mystery surrounding the Isu, which is cool to speculate about.

Basically, there are some really cool storytelling things happening in this series, and it often motivates me to research and learn a bit more about real history. I just can't give it up.

I've heard that AC Mirage was more of a "return to basics", and optimistically I hope that means the game mechanics are returning to more of what gives Assassin's Creed it's own unique identity. But as long as they keep giving me those narrative nuggets of gold, I'm stuck for the ride.

[askagamedev]

How common are internship programs at game development studios? If they are common, what are common tasks for interns?

Many large studios have internship programs - I believe EA, Riot, Activision, Microsoft, Ubisoft, and Take Two all have internship programs. When we're thinking about what kind of tasks we assign interns, there are some constraints that we must consider:

Interns are entry level in terms of skill

Interns are limited in how much time they have to give to the project - a summer intern won't be around after the summer ends, a part-time intern will only be available a certain number of hours a week

Because of these constraints, interns are given tasks that their lead believes a junior dev could reasonably complete within the duration of their internship. These tasks must also be self-contained without significant outside dependencies - because it could take a long time for an intern to finish the task, there shouldn't be any major tasks that need the intern's task to finish before they can begin. Ideally, interns are given tasks that will be visible as part of the game they're working on but also won't hold up any other development on the same project.

For summer interns, that usually means working on some task or feature without any major dependencies that's doable at the entry level within two months or so. This is often translates to handling a small feature like making achievements, implementing a simple mini-game, or working on a combat ability. For full-time interns, it'll be normal junior dev tasks - e.g. build out this feature under another dev's supervision. It is rare for dev studios to hire part-time interns because it's really difficult to find tasks that both fit within our deliverable schedule and can be completed by an intern spending 10 or fewer hours per week.

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[quixtrix]

rayman, eden's feel good american dream story; an analysis

guess who's back with taking ubisoft's silly guys and cutting them open. yknow, if you strip rayman of his personality, of all the behind the scenes we get of him, we get a run of the mill news reporter that is an immigrant, who by face alone serves as a shining ray of hope. he's easily something that by all means, can be classified as a diversity hire. immigrant, nonhuman (which in the world of clh can be considered to be equated with poc irl), and notably the only one in his work environment. don't believe me?

we rarely ever see anyone other than rayman on the show in the form of a coworker. the only time we do see other eden affiliated people, they are both white. "but you can't see red's face!!" there is a reason his dialogue makes you think of more right leaning people with their claims of 'wokeness is destroying everything' under something like april from tmnt being black and not ginger. he's a caricature meant to represent a specific group of people under fascism; those who have successfully consumed the fearmongering and have let it turn from fear of those that they are told are beneath them into hatred for them. there is also the fact that on live tv he throws up a middle finger, refers to an implied group of immigrant people as 'filthy interdimensional alien scum,' and seemingly gains no backlash for it. yes, the other reporter does try to give red a chance to go back on his words, but he sticks to it. and despite all of this, we get no indication that neither red nor the niji 6 had to apologise or received punishment for this. in fact, red is possibly given more chances by eden due to him being weirdly in charge of bullfrog's containment in a way? (i'm not entirely sure WHY he was there, but as he is one of eden's tv personalities, he's at a possibly televised trial of a terrorist.) now if you compare this to rayman, who also acted inappropriately on tv by literally saying fuck, you'd come to realise that rayman was treated so much more harshly. he was IMMEDIATELY replaced by a clone of himself, with no warning nor any indication that eden would do such a thing. it's very likely this was one of, if not the first time that rayman has slipped up like this on live tv. maybe it's a repeat offence considering his personality, but then you could argue that red is a repeat offender of the same shit and then you have to wonder why a soldier like red was not easily replaced but someone who is the literal face and voice of eden was with ease. it's because rayman made himself more than jus a story, he humanised himself by showing a peek of his raw feelings. remember that cute little exposition of the rayman kids show about hybrids? where we see all of these hybrids working as society's grunts and the kids are told to be thankful for hybrids? it's very sweet and gives a good message! now the rayman kids show is a product of eden propaganda, but rayman very much has a hand in it, most likely as a writer. he uses his platform to speak on issues that has happened and affected him. this can be seen in his biopic.

jus sit with this image for a moment. you ever think about why rayman is specifically made as an alien? why he's specifically an immigrant? in real life news reports and speeches, there is a difference in implications when people use immigrants and not aliens. you wanna know why?

as someone apart of an immigrant family myself, i live in a community of other immigrants. majority of them are hispanic, and while i myself am not hispanic, i am very aware of how hispanic immigrants were referred to and treated by politicians under trump's presidency. how couldn't i? even as children in middle school and elementary, we had discussions about what trump was saying because it directly targets my friends and their families. they are people targeted by a man who specifically uses derogatory terms to dehumanise them, to make it easier to justify in the average american mind that the government is doing the right thing by keeping out and protecting america from these so-called 'invading animals.' makes what red was saying earlier feel very on the nose, right? adi shankar, the showrunner for captain laserhawk, is also an immigrant man. immigrated from india, which by the way, did you know has a lot of people immigrating for the purpose of having a better life? that's a common sentiment that can be found in every single immigrant family's story. i've asked my filipino mother why she took an opportunity to live and work in america, and she told me it's because she wanted to give her children a better life than what we would have had in the philippines. hell, i bet if you share a similar background to me, you can ask your own parents the same thing and get the exact same answer, regardless if you came from latin america or africa, or asia. it's because of the concept of the american dream. everyone who has ever engaged with any degree of immigrant discussion has heard of the american dream. it's a concept that seems to be consistently proven via word of mouth, with the biggest examples being celebrities. they will always, without fail, eventually speak about the american dream within their backstories. and typically, they will use their platforms to further empower others within their community. it's why people from specific ethnicities tend to group together, why people make art meant as something akin to a homage to their people. it provides hope to the masses, makes you relate to the person on the screen, and believe that this society is truly a gracious one by providing opportunity. because yeah, it may be bad, but it could be worse. i mean we appreciate you! just look!

dont mind the fact that the majority of opportunities allotted to you is grunt work, the work where you at the base of the pyramid, with the harder jobs and the jobs no one wants to do. dont mind the fact you will be actively dehumanised, forced to work for hours in conditions we wouldn't put anyone else in, but hey. we appreciate you. we thank you. and yknow, you can become more than what you are. yknow, we let someone just like you be more than what you are! nevermind the fact that if they slip up, they'll be met with MUCH harsher criticism in comparison to someone who isn't you! aren't we so gracious? i probably sound a bit like matpat's insane out of context real world examples, but this show is filled with political imagery, so let me be. anyways, let's get back to eden and rayman. rayman, despite being specifically from dimension x as an alien, keeps hybrids in mind when he's doing his work.

people of colour tend to share solidarity with one another due to the fact that surface wise, we share similar struggles. to grossly oversimplify things, we all face discrimination through our appearances and are oppressed by the rules of a society created by our white oppressors. again, hybrids and dimension x immigrants can be equated to irl poc, and despite being different from each other, there is still community. rayman keeps them in mind, hoping to make things better for the overall nonhuman and nonnative (native as in naturally born) population of eden. but, rayman is not what he believes he is. because despite everything he has worked for, despite what he has tried to do, he is still a facilitator of the fascist regime that has an active hand in the perpetual oppression of his own people. one of the core concepts within fascism is us versus them. it's an easy way to instill fear (which is very much needed in fascism to make it easier to lie to the masses) and it's used in multiple layers, beginning with a large group (ex. us versus ussr, capitalism vs communism), then progressively sizing down (ex. saying all eastern europeans are communist, then going smaller and say all those affiliated with eastern europeans are communist) with the goal being to put people against each other and break up community since if you put your minds together, you'll start to realise that the fascist system is bullshit. what i've personally come to find is that in order to hide the fact that there is fascism lurking is that someone that can be considered a 'them,' an other, will be given a seat at the table. it's so they can be used as an excuse, a human shield, when they inevitably slip up and can be paraded to the masses as proof that the other is not as smart or powerful as 'us.' the 'other' within the 'us' is used as something to look down at, while also justifying to oneself that they have a place, that they are not being oppressed. they have an opportunity as much as anyone else! so long as they don't mess up. rayman messes up, and is shunned from 'us.' hes a mistake, impure, clearly not like 'us,' 'us' who had been so gracious to give this 'other' a place. he's cut out and discarded because he has well worn his purpose, and clearly, they can just get another little puppet. they'll dress him up and make him worthy of being one of 'us,' and make sure that this one won't fall to the fault of his little ideas. which is exactly what leads to rayman's transformation of ramon. being forcibly forced out and discarded by eden because he showed his true ideas makes him realise that there was no real place for him within the system. because what good is his work if it leads to what he tried not to create? it's worthless, just as the system it attempts to thrive in is.

tl;dr, rayman is a representation of the american dream, specifically celebrities. he tries to do what he can with his platform, but the fact is that within a fascist system, his impact is not entirely felt in the way he wants it to. that is why he becomes ramon.

anyways if you reached the end of THIS LONG ASS PIECE GOOD LORD thank you!! always open to discuss this and take criticism, my ask box is open in the lil 'who's asking' :^]

[dairsmuids]

thinking about the way connor says "we are blood, you and i. please" in that cut content

it's so frustrating to me, the way ubisoft didn't seem to realise how much they diminished haytham and connor's entire dynamic by not keeping it in the game.

that scene humanised both of them so much. regardless of their affiliations, their differing political opinions, their vastly different backgrounds... in that moment they're just father and son. a son desperately wanting to break the toxic cycle, to have some kind of relationship with his father, even if it's a strained professional one that realistically never would have lasted. and a father put through the wringer of abuse and trauma so intensely from the age of ten that he's lost the willingness to claw back any of his sense of self. to him, death is preferable than having to admit he's wasted his life labouring for another man's dream. how can he be a parent when he doesn't even recognise the puzzle pieces of his own mind?

"existing as wretched mirrors of each other: i am all you could have been, and you are all i might be".

[arthrobug]

Something I thought bout' Bullfrog-

It's been clearly established that Bullfrog's a master of his craft, a very skilled assassin, but one thing I noticed about how skilled he is was during the scene that he was basically properly seen in for the first time, Clip #2; him in the sewers trying to take down the antennae.

In that scene, he explains he can vaguely see the past and future in the bubbles he blows, and his opponents laugh at him, before he catches them off guard with the line: "Would you like to know which one of you will die first?"

How often has he done this with the intent to catch his targets off guard in order to dispatch them?

Additionally, as revealed by Ubisoft, he participated in the Wasteland War, which means he isn't a very young guy, and as far as I know, timeframes aren't established very often in this series, but it doesn't seem like this was an incredibly long time ago. However, considering how different the Warden looked at that time and now, its been a handful of years, and pushing it a little, maybe even a decade since the war. What I'm getting at with the war and how long ago it might've been, is that he has some years on him to know how to read people; he has a large amount of experience.

Does he say something like this whenever he's in a pickle to make his enemies laugh at how random this statement sounds, and then startling them with such a volatile question? Bullfrog's just a cute little frog after all, how dangerous could he really be?

Another thing is that it doesn't exactly seem like he's able to control when he's able to blow the bubbles either. He's cut off by one when he's introducing himself, and has no clue what Rayman is talking about until sometime later, which also establishes on occasion he can tell when they're able to happen, but he has no control over it.

AKA, there's a chance he was lying when he insinuated he saw in a bubble how he killed these three. Bullfrog uses other people's flippant opinions of him to his advantage.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Brinklump Linkdump

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

Life comes at you fast, links come at you faster. Once again, I've arrived at Saturday with a giant backlog of links I didn't fit in this week, so it's time for a linkdump, the 14th in the series:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

It's the Year of Our Gourd twenty and twenty-four and holy shit, is rampant corporate power rampant. On January 1, the inbred droolers of Big Pharma shat out their annual price increases, as cataloged in 46Brooklyn's latest Brand Drug List Price Change Box Score:

https://www.46brooklyn.com/branddrug-boxscore

Here's the deal: drugs that have already been developed, brought to market, and paid off are now getting more expensive. Why? Because the pharma companies have "pricing power," the most reliable indicator of monopoly. Ed Cara rounds up the highlights for Gizmodo:

https://gizmodo.com/ozempic-wegovy-wellbutrin-oxycontin-drug-price-increase-1851179427

What's going up? Well, Ozempic and other GLP-1 agonists. These drugs have made untold billions for their manufacturers, so naturally, they're raising the price. That's how markets work, right? When firms increase the volume of a product, the price goes up? Right? Other drugs that are going up include Wellbutrin (an antidepressant that's also widely used in smoking cessation) and the blood thinner Plavix. I mean, why the hell not? These companies get billions in research subsidies, invaluable government patent privileges, and near-total freedom to abuse the patent system with evergreening:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/23/everorangeing/#taste-the-rainbow

The most amazing things about monopolies is how the contempt just oozes out of them. It's like these guys can't even pretend to give a shit. You want guillotines? Because that's how you get guillotines.

Take Apple. They just got their asses handed to them in court by Epic, who successfully argued that Apple's rule requiring everyone who sells through the App Store to use Apple's payment processor and pay Apple 30% out of every dollar they bring in was an antitrust violation. Epic won, then won the appeal, then SCOTUS told Apple they wouldn't hear the case, so that's that.

Right? Wrong. Apple's pulled a malicious compliance stunt that could shame the surly drunks my great-aunt Lisa used to boss in the Soviet electrical engineering firm she ran. Apple has announced that app companies that process transactions using their own payment processors on the web must still pay Apple a 27% fee for every dollar their process:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apples-app-store-rule-changes-draw-sharp-rebuke-from-critics-150047160.html

In addition, Apple will throw a terrifying FUD-screen up every time a user clicks a payment link that goes to the web:

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2024/01/second-verse-same-as-the-first/

This is obviously not what the court had in mind, and there's no way this will survive the next court challenge. It's just Apple making sure that everyone knows it hates us all and wants us to die. Thanks, Tim Apple, and right back atcha.

Not to be outdone in the monopolistic mustache-twirling department, Ubisoft just announced that it is going to shut down its driving simulator game The Crew, which it sold to users with a "perpetual license":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIqyvquTEVU

This is some real Darth Vader MBA shit. "Yeah, we sold you a 'perpetual license' to this game, but we're terminating it. I have altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it further":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

Ubisoft sure are innovators. They've managed the seemingly impossible feat of hybridizing Darth Vader and Immortan Joe. Ubisoft's head of subscriptions, the guillotine-ready Philippe Tremblay, told GamesIndustry.biz that gamers need to get "comfortable" with "not owning their games":

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/the-new-ubisoft-and-getting-gamers-comfortable-with-not-owning-their-games

Or, as Immortan Joe put it: "Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence!"

Capitalism without constraint is enshittification's handmaiden, and the latest victim is Ello, the "indie" social media startup that literally promised – on the sacred honor of its founders – that it would never sell out its users. When Ello took VC and Andy Baio questioned how this could be squared with this promise, the founders mocked him and others for raising the question. Their response boiled down to "we are super-chill dudes and you can totally trust us."

They raised more capital, and used that to create a nice place for independent artists, who piled into the platform and provided millions of unpaid hours of creative labor to help the founders increase its value. The founders and their investors turned the company into a Public Benefit Corporation, which meant they had an obligation to serve the public benefit.

But then they took more investment money and simply (and silently) sold their assets to a for-profit. Struggling to raise capital, the founders opted to secretly sell the business to a sleazy branding company called Talenthouse. Its users didn't know about the change, though the site sure had a lot of Talenthouse design competitions all of a sudden.

Finally, the company announced the change as the last founders left. Rather than announcing that the new owners were untrustworthy scum, warning their users to get their data and get out, the founders posted oblique, ominous statements to Instagram. The company started stiffing the winners of those design competitions. Then, one day, poof, Ello disappeared, taking all its users' data with it. Poof:

https://waxy.org/2024/01/the-quiet-death-of-ellos-big-dreams/

I'm sure the founders' decisions each seemed reasonable at the moment. That's every terrible situation arises: you rationalize that a single compromise isn't that big of a deal, and then you do the same for the next compromise, and the next, and the next. Pretty soon, you're betraying everyone who believed in you.

One answer to this is "Ulysses pacts": making binding commitments to do right before you are tempted. Throw away all your Oreos when you go on a diet and you can't be tempted to eat a whole sleeve of them at 2AM. License your software under the GPL and your investors can't force you to make it proprietary. Set up a warrant canary and the feds can't force you to keep their spying secret:

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

If the founders were determined to build a trustworthy, open, independent company, they could have published their quarterly books, livestreamed their staff meetings, built data-export tools that emailed users every week with a link to download everything they'd posted since the last week. Merely halting any of these practices would have been a signal that things were wrong. Anyone who says they won't be tempted in the moment to make a "reasonable" compromise in the hopes of recovering whatever they're trading away by living to fight another day is bullshitting you, and possibly themself.

The inability to project the consequences of your bad decisions in the future is the source of endless mischief and heartbreak. Take movie projectors. A couple decades ago, the studio cartel established a standard for digital movie distribution to cinematic exhibitors called the Digital Cinema Initiative. Because studio executives are more worried about stopping piracy than they are about making sure that people who pay for movies get to see them, they build digital rights management into this standard.

Movie theaters had to spend fortunes to upgrade to "secure" projectors. A single vendor, Deluxe Technicolor, monopolized the packaging of movies into "Digital Cinema Prints" for distribution to these projectors, and they used all kinds of dirty tricks to force distributors to use their services, like arbitrarily flunking third-party DCPs over picky shit like not starting and ending on a black frame.

Over time, the ability to use unencrypted files was stripped away, meaning every DCP needed to be encrypted, and every projector needed to have up-to-date decryption keys. This system broke down on Jan 1, 2024, and cinemas all over the world found they couldn't play Wonka. Many just shut down for the day and refunded their customers:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/1/24021915/alamo-drafthouse-outage-sony-projector

The problem? Something that every PKI system has to wrangle: an expired certificate from Deluxe Technicolor. The failure has been dubbed the Y2K24 debacle by projectionists and film-techs, who are furious:

http://www.film-tech.com/vbb/forum/main-forum/34652-the-y2k24-bug-major-digital-outage-today

Making everything worse is that Sony mothballed the division that maintains its projectors, so there's no one who can update them to accommodate Technicolor's workaround. Struggling mom-and-pop theaters are having to junk their systems and replace them. There's plenty of blame to go around, but Sony is definitely the most negligent link in the chain. Shame on them.

Big corporations LARP this performance of competence and seriousness, but they are deeply unserious. This week, I wrote, "we're nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, we're certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

Score one for team deeply unserious. The multinational delivery company DPD fired its support staff and replaced them with a chatbot. The chatbot can't tell you where your parcels are, but it can be prompt-injected into coming up with profane poems about how badly DPD sucks:

https://twitter.com/ashbeauchamp/status/1748034519104450874

There once was a chatbot named DPD, Who was useless at providing help. It could not track parcels, Or give information on delivery dates, And it could not even tell you when your driver would arrive.

DPD was a waste of time, And a customer's worst nightmare. It was so bad, That people would rather call the depot directly, Than deal with the useless chatbot.

One day, DPD was finally shut down, And everyone rejoiced. Finally, they could get the help they needed, From a real person who knew what they were doing.

This is…the opposite of an AI hallucination? It's AI clarity.

As with all botshit, this kind of AI self-negging is funny and fresh the first time you see it, but just wait until 3,000 people have published their own versions to your social feed. AI novelty regresses to the mean damn quickly.

The old, good web, by contrast, was full of enduring surprises, as the world's weirdest and most delightful mutants filled the early web with every possible variation on every possible interest, expression, argument, and gag. Now, you can search the old, good web with Old'aVista, an Altavista lookalike that searches old pages from "personal websites that used to be hosted on services like Geocities, Angelfire, AOL, Xoom and so on," all ganked from the Internet Archive:

http://oldavista.com/

I miss the old, good internet and the way it let weirdos find each other and get seriously weird with one another. Think of steampunk, a subculture that wove together artists, makers, costumers, fiction writers, and tinkerers in endlessly creative ways. My old pal Roger Wood was the world's most improbable steampunk: he was a gay ex-navy gunner who grew up in a small town in the maritimes but moved to Toronto where he became the world's most accomplished steampunk clockmaker.

I was Roger's neighbour for a decade. He died last year, and I miss him all the time. I was in Toronto in December and saw a few of his last pieces being sold in galleries and I was just skewered on the knowledge that I'd never see him again, never visit his workshop:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/16/klockwerks/#craphound

A reader just sent this five-year-old mini documentary about Roger, shot in his wonderful workshop. Watching it made me happy and sad and then happy again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqMGomM8yF8

The old, good internet was so great. It was a place where every kind of passion could live. It was a real testament to the power of geeking out together, no matter how often the suits demand that we "stop talking to each other and start buying things":

https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start

The world is full of people with weird passions and I love them all, mostly. Learning about Don Bolles's collection of decades' worth of lost pet posters was a moment of pure joy (I just wish more of it was online):

https://ameliatait.substack.com/p/the-man-who-collects-lost-pet-posters

That's the future I was promised: one where every kind of freak can find every other kind of freak. Despite the nipple-deep botshit we wade through online, and the relentless cheapening of words like "innovation" and "future," there are still occasional gleams of the future I want to live in.

Like the researchers who spliced a photosynthesis gene into brewer's yeast (a fungus) and got it to photosynthesize, and to display enhanced fitness:

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)01744-X

As Doug Muir writes on Crooked Timber, this is pretty kooky! Fungi – the coolest of the kingdoms! – can't photosynthesize. The idea that you can just add the photosynthesis gene to a thing that can't photosynthesize and have it just kind of work is wild!

https://crookedtimber.org/2024/01/19/occasional-paper-purple-sun-yeast/

As Muir writes: "Animals have no evolutionary history of photosynthesis and aren’t designed for it, but the same is true for yeast. So… no reason this shouldn’t be possible. A photosynthesizing cat? Sure, why not."

Why not indeed?!

OK, that's this week's linkdump done and dusted. It only remains for me to share the news with you that the trolley problem has been finally and comprehensively solved, by Sidereal@kolektiva.social, of the IWW IU 520 (railroad workers):

Slip the switch by flipping it while the trolley's front wheels have passed through, but before the back wheels do. This will cause a controlled derailment bringing the trolley to a safe halt.

https://kolektiva.social/@sidereal/111779015415697244

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/20/melange/#i-have-heard-the-mermaids-singing

[tigerbears]

DO YOU... 1: CARE ABOUT VIDEO GAME PRESERVATION? 2: OWN A COPY OF "THE CREW"?

PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO!

You might now that The Crew's servers are going to be shut down in April, but this guy is planning to launch an international campaign to prevent the game's shutdown, thus preventing the shutdown of all video games that rely on a central server.

"Oh, but you can't expect the company to run the servers forever."

Your right, that's not what Ross is arguing for. He's arguing that Ubisoft (and any other company that cant run the servers forever) either patch the game so it can run offline/run servers locally, or release the server software.

Guess how much you can help depends on which country you live in

(For example, if you bought the game in the US your very likely f@#ked. Ross explains the only thing you can do is contact the FTC, but if that doesn't work the only other way to stop this practice is an act of congress because the law is f@#ked and the company can do almost anything as long as the EULA says it. If the EULA says you don't own the game, then legally you don't own the game.)

However, if you live anywhere else (like France, Australia, or the EU) you have a better chance because you have rights.

"But I don't care about The Crew."

This isn't about just The Crew. If this campaign is successful, then it could set a president to save all online only games in the future.

"But I don't own The Crew."

Then reblog this post so someone who does can read it.

[halfratsalready]

The Unhinged Jack x Wanderlust Conspiracy Board Explained

A few days ago I posted this silly conspiracy board I made for a slideshow night with my friends where I talked about how Ubisoft loves to deny Jack x Wanderlust and everyone seemed to like it so here’s an in-depth (and I mean in-depth) explanation of everything on it.

We start, of course, with Si’ha Nova and the Traveler, and Wanderlust wearing his dad’s cape at the beginning of Canned Heat because it’s super cute.

And you can’t talk about this ship without the moment from Majesty that perfectly mirrors the moment from Save Your Tears because genuinely why would they do this if they didn’t want people to ship these two? (Rainbow flag added for ✨flavor✨)

I also thought it was worth mentioning that the only time we ever actually hear any of these characters speak across all 14 lore playlist maps is literally Wanderlust calling out Jack’s name.

And now it’s time for the part that I like to call Ubisoft’s crusade against a monster of their own creation (because look at those last two points and tell me they didn’t do this to themselves. You can’t.)

Now in making this I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe Ubisoft isn’t being as harsh on the ship as we’ve been thinking, because “they’re such good friends” and “best friends” with a thumbs up automatically reads as very sarcastic and joking to me, like all the memes about “historians will say they were close friends.”

Then there’s the infamous in’s and out’s New Years post, but what I hadn’t picked up on until I saw this screenshot from Twitter is that the inclusion of “normalize being evil” on the in’s list is rather suspicious and that, according to Just Dance, “this was posted by Night Swan’s army.” So I feel like that’s worth mentioning, because it casts a different light on all the other things on the lists. As in including Jack Rose in the in’s list since he’s the only one she didn’t corrupt yet and she wants to do that this year? And putting stanning Jacklust on the out’s because she’s evil and doesn’t want us to have nice things? Not too sure but hey, if someone better at analyzing things wants to look into that, I’d be down to read it.

(I also think it’s worth mentioning that “worrying about getting a Megastar” is included in the out’s list when the tweet just before that one is encouraging players to get Megastar on Zero to Hero, so some more contradictions there, but that might not mean anything, given that Night Swan’s whole thing is perfection and I feel like she would definitely be in favor of worrying over getting Megastar.)

Plus there’s the pretty popular belief that they’re just pointing out how stupid of a ship name Jacklust is, but I’m personally not at all sold on this being the reason, even if Jacklust is a stupid ship name. (I told my friends the ship name during this presentation and one of them said “Really? Wanderrose was right there.”)

Lastly, I threw Night Swan in there because of the theory that Ubisoft is denying Jack x Wanderlust because the Traveler is Jack’s father. Now, I have opinions about this theory and I hope it’s not true for obvious reasons, but I feel like if it is, it’s a serious oversight on Ubisoft’s part.

Firstly, if they’re half siblings why did they recreate the move from Save Your Tears in Majesty? Seems odd to have half siblings recreate a pretty iconic romantic duet moment.

There’s also the fact that we can clearly see that Wanderlust takes physical traits from each of his parents - his mother’s blue skin and his father’s dark hair. If the Traveler is Jack’s dad, why don’t they share any physical characteristics? At the very end of the beta for Sweet Dreams (spoiler?) we see Night Swan with green eyes, unlike the yellow eyes she has in the rest of the dances we see her in. (While this could just be an older design choice, I personally interpreted this as meaning that her eyes were green before she went evil and then they turned yellow.) In all of his character artwork, Jack’s eyes are green, which I take as meaning that this is a trait he got from his mother. So I personally feel like it only makes sense for his father to have red hair (and we’ve got plenty of options to pick from with that criteria).

But hey, that’s just a theory… I don’t need to finish that part, you’re already thinking it. Thanks for reading my insane ramblings!

[fereldanwench]

apropos of nothing and certainly not my tag rant from a few posts back

did you know that out of 150 popular video games released between 1985 and 2022, only 6% of them feature sole female protagonists?

did you know that prior to mass effect 3, female shepard was never used in any promotional material for the series?

(and there's no hard data available on this, but i very distinctly recall a lot of gamerbro outrage when me3 had an optional reversible cover so you could pick between male and fem shep on your personal game)

did you know that only 18% of players chose femshep in any shape or form (default or customized) during the original release?

(anecdotally, i know a few people who didn't even realize you could play a female at all in me1 bc of how the cc is setup)

did you know with the release of the legendary edition in 2021 the percentage of femshep players didn't even double (despite jennifer hale's seemingly enormous popularity amongst the broader playerbase over the past decade) and is reported at 32%?

did you know that dragon age inquisition has the same breakdown between male and female inquisitors (68% to 32% respectively)?

did you know during the playtests for assassin's creed odyssey, it was a 50/50 split between kassandra and alexios, and ubisoft suits actually thought when the game was released, kassandra would be more popular? and yet once again, about 70% of players chose the male protag

did you know evie and aya were both supposed to have a much larger roles in assassin's creed syndicate and origins but were forced into a smaller role bc the ubisoft marketing team didn't think the games would sell well with a female lead?

cdpr hasn't released data on male vs female v, probably because the game handles gender a little differently than just two strict options like many other rpgs, but it was revealed that panam was the most popular romance, sitting at about 68%, which means at least 68% of players chose the male v body. I'm sure some players did not make that choice as a cis male v, but i would also guess that those who didn't are a small minority of this demographic, and if you factor in kerry romancers, this split is probably very similar to other games in the genre

now i realize that a lot of the male v players who are in more transformative fandom spaces (like tumblr) are not the str8 gamer dudebros of reddit angry about pores on a female character's face and whatnot. i realize that a lot of you are also on the outskirts of the perceived norm and also feel under-represented by mainstream male protags and that's incredibly frustrating and alienating and i genuinely feel for you

but female protagonists and female gamers who want to play as female protagonists and who have a few niche spaces to celebrate female protags are not the reason for your lack of representation

and frankly you don't sound a whole lot different from the angry incel gamer boys when you say shit like "fem v gets too much attention"

so maybe try advocating for male protags who don't fit the generic boring gruff white guy mold without throwing women under the bus. we're should be allies in this fight, not rivals