#we’re just slow because recently we’ve been trying to focus on designing characters and working out story stuff

[r4zzberry]

technically im not meant to be showing the folks on tumblr stuff about the hyrules in LOR yet but im really proud of this drawing and i wanted to share it with yall!

LOR isnt being abandoned i promise! me and louie have been working on lore and designs and we’re trying to figure out proper planning for it all. im also working on getting out of highschool and getting into an art school so thats taking up a bunch of my focus lol.

if you havw any ooc questions about LOR my ask box on this account is open! or if you wanna chat hit me up in dms ^^

[kilyra]

Business as Usual

A/N: So, as much fun as I had with the first Huntress fic, I didn’t actually intend to carry on with it. But then this idea popped up and I’m not ready to be done with Birds of Prey in general, so here we are!

Turns out that not only is your boss into some bad stuff, some of the Birds of Prey suspect you’re in on it with him.

Warnings: Bad language, mention of porn, and angst. Sorry, no Harley Quinn. And like with Helena, I use Dinah’s name rather than Canary, but with Renee, I call her Montoya. It’s all I remember anyone calling her in the movie, so hopefully it’s not jarring.

If you want to be on my tag lists, (all or just a character) just let me know!

“So what are you saying?” Helena's icy tone greeted you as you opened the door.

“Just...okay, isn't it a little strange that the person you're dating turns out to be working for the man that everything keeps leading back to?” Immediately you recognized Dinah Lance's voice, strained as it was.

“Whoa, hey, things were...we had...things started well before we realized he was involved.”

“Yeah, before we realized he was involved. But maybe not before he realized we were looking into things.” Renee Montoya.

You weren't expecting anyone to be there, much less the entire team. And were they talking about you?

“Are you serious? Like he sent in a spy?” The disbelief was dripping from Helena's every word.

“I don't know...maybe? We just need to be careful who we trust right now is all...” Dinah hesitantly tried again.

Although your heart was trying to pound through your chest, you had to make yourself known. If they were talking about you, sneaking around would only make it worse. Clearing your throat, you came up the short hallway from the entrance. “Trust who?”

Helena stopped her pacing, spinning to face you as Dinah hopped up from her spot at the table and Montoya did the same, turning your direction.

Spreading your hands apart, you gestured behind you. “Whoa, I knocked okay?”

“And then just let yourself in?”

“Really, Helena, a key already?”

Montoya and Dinah blurted over each other. Helena's eyes narrowed as she shrugged at Dinah. That was all the answer she was going to give.  

The glare softened slightly when she turned to you. “Why are you back here already, I thought you were going in today?”

“I am, I just forgot my laptop,” you said, pointing to the end of the couch in the next room.

Following your gaze, Helena nodded at the laptop bag as an awkward hush fell over the room.

Sighing, you crossed your arms before one hand snaked nervously upward to squeeze the back of your neck. “So, you were talking about me. And what...my boss...?”

Settling back into her seat, Montoya's stare darted between the other two before dropping and staying on the table's surface. Dinah rubbed her arm and also avoided looking your direction.

Despite the smile she plastered on her face, there was heat to Helena's look as she tried to catch the gaze of either partner and was left on her own. Her nostrils flared as she kept the smile. “No, it's fine.”

Your hand dropped from your neck back to your elbow as you hugged yourself tighter. “Don't bullshit me, Hel. Did you seriously turn around and dig up dirt on McGrath?”

The smile dropped. “No, I swear. We were following other leads tha-”

“Hey, whoa!” Dinah spoke over Helena until she stopped.

Shaking her head, Montoya let her hand fall to the table. "Oh, so a key and knowing what we do? Wow.”

Before Helena could defend herself, you jumped in. “But seriously...McGrath? That just...it makes no sense.”

Tilting her head, Dinah watched you carefully. “Why do you say that?”

“Because...he's just...he's an asshole but not exactly some big mastermind.”

Turning toward you, Montoya took over. “And what sort of work do you do?”

A deep scowl immediately spread over Helena's features. “Seriously?”

Sliding into the free chair by Montoya and across from the other two, you waved Helena off. “No, it's fine. I have nothing to hide.”

Helena didn't look comforted in the least as she began shifting her weight between her feet. But she stayed quiet.

Rubbing your eyes, you turned back to the former detective. "We just design apps. I don't understand, so is he involved in some sort of...hacking...thing?"

“Mostly smuggling,” she said, almost dismissively. “Now, when you say apps, you mean...”

“Smuggling? How the hell would mid-range tech firm be involved with that?” Your pulse never really calmed down, but that bizarre fact forced a spike. Even your head throbbed.

But Montoya just watched you, her expression unchanged.

Realizing she wasn't going to answer that, you quickly replied. “M-mostly phone apps. Like for established companies that need to expand their platforms to stay relevant. Um...work out tracking apps to go with a gym membership, that sort of thing.”

Resting weight on her propped elbows, she let her shoulders relax as she leaned forward. It was a subtle shift but somehow you knew you were being interrogated. Period.

“And what do you do there, exactly?”

Helena's hand shot out like she could somehow shove the question back into Montoya's mouth. "Would you stop? You don't have to answer that, Y/n.”

“Hel. Seriously, stop. I'm a coder, that's it. If you guys are even suspecting I'm involved in anything, I want to clear my name. I mean, hell, my laptop is right there, crack it open and go through everything if you want.”

Dinah glanced over her shoulder, letting her gaze settle on the black bag. Without moving for it, she turned back to you. “Why? What's on there that would prove anything?”

“Everything. All the coding for my last few projects. So, proof of what I do, I guess? There’s also all my chat logs with McGrath that you can go through. I’m not in the office much, so that chat is a record of like 90% of anything we’ve ever said. Hell, you could even go through my browser history, look and see if I’ve been doing anything remotely suspicious online I-”

Quickly your mind skipped to all the sites you had recently visited and heat started pricking at your cheeks. But your pause caught everyone's attention. Feeling all the eyes on you, you forced yourself to finish. “You might want to ignore the history from two days ago but otherwise...”

“And why is that?” Montoya's eyes narrowed as she pounced.

Biting your lip, you pressed your knuckles against your mouth as your nerves knotted your stomach. “Porn.”

Montoya's face was unreadable, but Dinah's head bobbed slightly as her nose crinkled in surprise. Helena looked from you to Dinah, catching her reaction as a slow grin grew. Soon, she was beaming with a look of pride and let her gaze drop to the floor. Her soft chuckle made you cautiously smile.

Clearing her throat, Montoya let that go entirely. “Okay...you said you don't go into the office much. Why not?”

Blowing out a long exhale, you melted against the back of your chair, grateful to move on. "Oh, I hate it in there. They're into the open concept crap, so we're all in this big bullpen area. It's impossible to focus, but if I wear my headphones, I can't hear McGrath yelling for me to come into his office. I pretty much only go in when I have to meet with clients and otherwise work from home. Most of the team is the same, we work remotely as much as we can."

Mirroring you, Montoya sat back but never managed to pull off a relaxed look. “Of the times you have been there, do you see McGrath take meetings with other people?”

Dinah's eyebrow arched as Montoya’s gaze darted her direction. Helena's former grin had long since dropped, and her features grew stony with the question. The muscles along her jaw flexed as she watched Dinah pull out her phone.

Not that you understood the shift, but it was uncomfortable. "Uh...sure. The meeting rooms are almost always being used."

Snapping her attention back to you, Montoya's eyebrows creased together. “As in clients or...?”

“Sure, some of them. But sometimes people just want a consultation and don’t come back.”

"Is this one of the clients?" Leaning over the table, Dinah set her phone in front of you. A candid photo of a dark-haired man stared up at you. A man you immediately recognized.  

“Y-yeah, actually. He's come in a few times with some others guys.”

Continuing to scroll, it was obvious the pictures were taken covertly from a distance. And you recognized most of them. Not that you ever worked on their projects...

“You don't find it strange that they've been to your office repeatedly and you haven't done any work for them?” Montoya broke in.

Straightening, Dinah slid her phone back in her pocket and let her gaze trail to Helena. They shared a silent exchange that left Helena's knuckles white as she clenched her hands.

“No. I just...assumed someone else on the team was working on it.” There wasn't much confidence in your answer. You had assumed someone else was working with them, but now that you thought about it, McGrath was the only one to ever meet with them – none of the other techs ever in the meeting room.

But, instead of attacking the obvious moment of doubt, Montoya rapped her knuckles on the table and triumphantly turned to her partners. "Brilliant really. It's a legitimate business that's random enough to stop staff from being suspicious of who's coming and going. And if an employee did question anything, they're all kept so separate with projects and working from home, it's doubtful they'd actually compare notes anyhow. Meanwhile, McGrath is left with a mostly empty office for his cohorts. Hiding in plain sight."

Her switch threw you. “So...you believe me?”

“I do. You're either the liar to end all liars, or this is all news to you. I've got a connection at the station who can go through your laptop and check for spyware, but I've got all I need.”

Nodding, Dinah flipped her long hair over her shoulder as she gripped the back of the chair in front of her. “Okay, so now what?”

Pushing yourself to your feet, you glanced at the clock. “Well, if I'm in the clear, then I still have a meeting to get to this afternoon, I guess?”

“The hell you do,” Helena spat through grit teeth as she rounded the end of the table to block your exit.

Montoya had kept such a professional air about the chat, you didn't realize just how rattled she was. No one jumped in to smooth things over.

Trying to fight your suddenly dry mouth, you swallowed heavily. “I...I can't just not show up. I still have a job to do.”

“After everything we just laid out, you think I'm going to let you go back into that?” Her dark eyes bore into yours and you could see how deep her passion ran.

“This isn’t good, no. But...I mean it's just smuggling ri-”

“Sure, just smuggling if you don't count the trail of dead bodies left behind.” Helena openly glared at Montoya, daring her to argue. Or maybe angry that detail was left out.

Adrenaline coursed through you, leaving your hands shaking. Crossing your arms, you held your hands tight against your sides, trying to hide the rush of panic. Your voice was thin. “So what am I supposed to do? The job is real and at the end of the day, I still have a reputation to maintain in the field.”

Not attempting to get closer, Dinah's hand tightened around the back of the chair as she sighed. "Well, truth is, we could use someone on the inside."

“No.” Helena's dangerous glare shifted to Dinah.

Getting to her feet, Montoya moved next to Dinah and gathered her shoulders in a defeated shrug. “She's right, though. We won't let her do anything dangerous – just business as usual. But even a text when one of those men are in for a meeting would help.”

If you could, you would have turned back the clock and remembered your laptop in the morning just to avoid all of this. But you couldn't. You also couldn't unlearn what they told you about your boss. And you definitely couldn't turn a blind eye.

This new truth weaved through you, pushing you towards Helena as your hands dropped to your sides. As you drew closer to her, the faint scent of lavender and leather wrapped around your senses. “You hate it, I get that. I'm not thrilled either, but I'm in this now. If I bail, McGrath will be suspicious, and if he does have any spyware on my machine, I could be in serious trouble. But if I carry on like normal, then I won’t even be on his radar.”

Her face was a hardened statue as she stared you down. But you saw a flicker of desperation deep in her eyes. “No. I've got safe houses around the city – I can protect you.”

“And in the meantime, you guys keep hitting the same dead ends you're hitting now because I'm not in there to help.”

“But I can't protect you in there.”

For all her bluster, it was her fear at the core. The realization stabbed at you because you knew you were about to make it worse.

Reaching out, you grabbed her hands. They were cold. Firmly, you rubbed your thumbs along her chilled skin as you let out a steadying breath. “But...it's not your decision. It's mine. And I'm going in.”

Helena's face fell, giving you a final stab before she quickly smoothed her expression over. Jerking her hands away, she turned to the other two who had wisely stayed quiet. “Fuck you both. If anything happens-”

Her words caught in her throat. Turning on her heel, she stormed from the room, leaving a stunned silence in her place. Blinking rapidly, you tried to get rid of the stinging tears that threatened to form at the edge of your eyes.

Dinah lightly scratched her fingers across her forehead before blowing out a long exhale. In a few smooth steps, she retrieved your laptop and came over to you. Setting her hand on your shoulder, she gave you a quiet, concerned look. The same one Montoya gave from where she still stood.

Squeezing your shoulder, Dinah finally offered a quiet smile as she pushed the bag into your hands. “It's going to be okay. I promise.”

You didn't know which situation she meant, but either way, you weren't sure you believed her.  

Numbly nodding, you let your heavy feet lead you from the apartment. There was still a client meeting to deal with.

Business as usual, after all.

Taglist:  @foreverfaeries  @flower-two  @getlostinyourparadise​   @selfishkiddo @angelicshinigami  @parkersbabey  @kurreapormaranet  @hobiiwan  @emofairygay

[tlbodine]

1980s Science Horror, Body Horror

One might be forgiven for thinking the 1980s was a time of wall-to-wall terrible horror movies. I’ve certainly inflicted plenty of them on @comicreliefmorlock since we started this decade in our film series! The fact is that the 80s were a really unique time, when demand outpaced supply thanks to the eruption of new publishing platforms (direct-to-consumer video sales, multi-screen cineplexes). Much as self-publishing today has created a deluge of questionable ebooks, the film industry of the 1980s was at times a no-mans land of low-budget amateur attempts with, uh, mixed results. 

Of course, perhaps the greatest of these was Evil Dead, which I review here. Sam Raimi’s low-budget, high-gore, balls-to-the-wall ridiculous film laid a template for many films to follow, with...mixed success. 

Because that’s another thing you see happening with great vigor in the 1980s: When one movie is very successful, you start to see dozens more cropping up to capitalize on the formula, often lacking the heart or soul of what made the original good to begin with. For every Gremlins, there were a dozen inferior Critters, Ghoulies, Beasties, Trolls, Munchies, and so forth. 

Of course, this isn’t the only time in history we’ve seen this -- we saw it in the 1930s (when studios were cranking out films by handing titles at random to filmmakers, a-la-Cat People) and in the 1960s (when Hammer was exploiting every well-known property it could think of, and some random unknowns besides). But, perhaps due to their relative modernity, the really terrible shlock of the 1980s seems especially egregious. 

All of which is to lay down the framework for this week’s films: One, a terrible direct-to-video B-movie. The other, a genuinely magnificent and effective piece of horror history. 

Nightbeast (1982) is a low-budget indie film created by pulp director Don Dohler and released by Troma Entertainment, a film company that gained notoriety in the 70s and 80s for releasing gory, over-the-top, ridiculously cheesy B-movies. Troma was like the sleazy American cousin of Hammer, fulfilling the same niche. 

Nightbeast is extremely simple: An alien spacecraft crash-lands on Earth, the alien goes on a killing spree, and a small-town sheriff has to try to stop it as the body count rises. 

It’s a remarkably silly film. The effects are, at best, similar to what you might find in a haunted house built from Spirit Halloween props. At worst, there’s clumsily animated laser beams disintegrating people into pixelated sparkle-dust. Heavy-handed dialogue, awkwardly blocked fight scenes, and acting on the level of soft-core porn come together to create....uh...something. 

Of note: This was the first film that J.J. Abrams worked on. At 16, he provided the film’s score, after writing to Dohler about an article in a magazine. The creative world was smaller in those days, I think. 

Anyway. Nightbeast is absurd, and good MST3K fodder, as we’ve said of many of our recent films. If you like bad movies, this one’s pretty silly. (personally, I liked the decapitation with the obvious mannequin head the best) 

The Fly (1986) is one of David Cronenberg’s masterpieces. You’ll remember him, surely, from when we watched The Brood.  The grand-daddy of body horror, he truly outdid himself with The Fly, which is one of his most expensive and commercial films. 

The thing with Cronenberg is that he has a very specific style and thematic hang-ups, so you’ll see a lot of the same issues resonate from one film to the next -- science gone awry, unhealthy interpersonal relationships, transformation, horrifyingly gooey body fluids. (We’re not quite done with Cronenberg, so watch this space for more of his films in the future). 

Anyway: The Fly is about a scientist who invents a teleportation machine that disintegrates an object and rebuilds it on the other side. A drunken, emotionally distraught decision sees him testing it on himself, only to experience disastrous consequences when a fly is caught in the teleporter with him. 

The story is a very loose adaptation of a short story of the same name written by George Langelaan in 1957. That short story was later adapted into a film starring Vincent Price in 1958. But where that first adaptation was quite close to the source material, Cronenberg’s vision leads in some....more horrible directions. 

There are basically two things that make The Fly an excellent film that stands up today: 

- Jeff Goldblum’s performance. We’ve established that Goldblum plays essentially the same character in all of his movies, and it’s fine because he’s very good at it (and the character type is quite compelling, if you’re into that sort of thing). The kooky, self-effacing-yet-arrogant charismatic scientist trope is catnip for a certain type of nerdling (hi, that’s me, I’m that nerdling), and his acting in this film is just so, so good, especially the work he puts into expressions and physical acting once the transformation prosthesis start building. 

- The effects. Practical effects really did peak in the late 80s/early 90s, and movie magic has never looked better. The CGI that took over by the 2000s has more polish, but animatronics and makeup look real because they are real in a way that computer animation can never hope to emulate. That lack of polish is exactly what makes them so effective. The slow, horrifying transformation into a fly-inspired monster is gooey and spectacular. I suspect Cronenberg may have been somewhat inspired by Lynch’s adaptation of The Elephant Man a few years earlier -- there are some similarities in design -- but the devil is in the details. Teeth and nails coming loose, collections of discarded body parts in a medicine cabinet, ragged bristles of hair emerging from pus-laden wounds -- this is true, exquisite body horror and it’s fucking gross as hell. 

But for all its focus on body horror -- and honestly, the horror of transformation is the main drive of the film -- the movie doesn’t lose the humanity at its heart. It strives to keep its central characters complex, flawed, and deeply human, and that grounding elevates it past the B-movie schlock. 

I can earnestly and enthusiastically recommend this movie, if you have a strong enough stomach to take it. 

(Curiously enough, The Fly not only spawned a sequel -- quite good in its own right -- but a 2008 stage musical produced by Howard Shore. We live in strange creative times, friends.) 

[swiftwidget]

I want to get into My Hero Academia but (from what I’ve heard) the way the female characters are treated leaves a sour taste in my mouth. How do you ignore the pedophilia vibes from it? Like one of the girl’s costumes is super revealing?

Honestly, I love My Hero Academia and I’d say go for it. It’s sort of the one major thing I nerd out about (hence the 226k+ word count fan fiction of it I’ve been working on with my gf for over 2 years). 

The story is great. Horikoshi’s dealing with foreshadowing and tone is incredible. There’s so many characters that develop over the course of the series, which includes great points about supportive adults and taking care of mental health. Horikoshi takes a lot of tropes and turns them on their head and that’s super refreshing. 

The side characters get moments of their own development and the girl characters are really fun and they’re getting more development as time goes on. I mean, the main class is made up of 20 characters. 5 are girls and all of them are delightful. If it takes a while to get more focus on them, I can understand that but it is clear we’re working around to it more. It’s hard developing all your characters while trying to keep the main plot going, but Horikoshi I think has a decent balance of it. And it’s clear he wants to show more development for them. He’s already been developing Uraraka (the main girl) over the course of the series (slowly but surely) and Jirou (another side character girl) got her own mini-arc to flesh her out a lot more. 

Do I think some of the designs can be too much? Yeah. Is it the worst I’ve seen from this genre? Not at all. 

So main complaints that I’ve seen: 1) Mineta is a gross, perv character and shouldn’t exist. 2) The costume designs for the girls are not appropriate and sexist. 3) The girls aren’t being developed as characters enough. 

1) Mineta 

So I have mixed feelings about Mineta. Yes, he is a perv character played out for humor. Do I think that’s necessary? Not really, I’m not a fan of that kind of joke and think it’s gross. BUT. I think it’s important to note that the punchline isn’t “haha it’s funny to be a perv” - Each time Mineta acts poorly, his fellow classmates (guys and girls) either ignore him comically or punish him in some way. The joke is “haha he thought he could get away with being a perv. Nope! Not on his classmates’ watch.” 

Now I’ve heard people saying that “Well no! This should be taken more seriously!” And while I agree it is a serious root issue, the humor is actually helpful. 

Consider the genre and a good number of the audience. The marketed audience is probably more so for younger teen boys. I share the series with my youngest brother who is now 14. Now because I’m responsible for sharing it, I make a point to use the humor as a way to help go over a serious issue. He doesn’t want a lecture from me or his entertainment, but he understands the lesson the humor gives - that Mineta’s behavior is gross and deserving of ridicule from his classmates. And the lesson stuck. We’ve had conversations about things he’s seen at school and he could spot inappropriate behavior and not follow along. He’s super respectful and supportive of his girl classmates. 

Also, no lie. Given Horikoshi’s history of taking character tropes and developing the characters out of the tropes, I actually have hope for Mineta. I think he could grow out of his behavior given the opportunity. And I’m pretty sure it’s been a while since his last nonsense. 

2) The costume designs. 

So I can see the influence of American comic book hero costumes in all the designs, for guys and girls. Which is neat for some buuuut yeah American comic books aren’t great about women’s costumes either historically. 

Of the girls, Jirou’s costume is fine - just sort of casual rocker pants, loose shirt, and jacket. The other girls have more form fitting wear with a mix of additions for style or their power. The worst of the girls’ costumes and likely the one you heard about is Momo’s which, yeah, it’s ridiculous and honestly I’d love to see a redesign for her. Which could happen since the costumes change for time to time, but as of now it’s not great. Fortunately, she’s not wearing the hero costume all the time and the school and causal wear is fine. 

Needs improvement? Yes. Ruins the whole series? No, because the series has a lot of good that outweighs the bad. And honestly, again, it’s not remotely the worst I’ve seen in the genre. 

Taking it back to my younger brother, I go over the topic with him and ask him for ideas that would improve the design. Teaching him that he can enjoy something, but still be critical of aspects of it. Enjoy the story and Momo as a character, but understand where there could be improvement. 

3) The girl characters aren’t getting fleshed out enough

So this is the one I’m not as worried about because of the number of cast characters there are. As a writer with a lot of OCs developing in the story, some ideas fall through the cracks and sometimes there isn’t time to do a focus on a character like the way you want. So you have to do a shorter version of development. 

Of the 20 characters of the main class, Izuku gets the most constant focus because he is the main character. 

Of the secondary characters, Iida and Todoroki both had major arcs in the second season. Bakugou (rival character) has had slow but sure development in the background of the whole series and has broken tropes for the “bully/rival” character. Uraraka has had slow but sure background development and recently got another past flashback. Kirishima had his own arc in what will be the fourth season. Tsuyu is pretty established and she has had small focuses throughout. Jirou had her mini-arc recently. Aoyama had a mini-arc deal. Momo and her female rival from another class had a great match recently that showed their growth.  

We see that the class as a whole is growing. We get snapshots of them that flesh them out as time goes on. We’re also getting more development from people outside the main class who are fan favorites. 

Overall, all of the characters have a very solid feel to them and they each are distinct from the other which I don’t see often enough in other large cast media. 

I feel like this complaint is mainly just a “I haven’t seen enough of my favorite” kind of complaint. To which you can really only shrug and trust Horikoshi will get to them because he honestly does to a good job balancing the development of the class as a whole while focusing on the main plot line. 

To Summarize: Go read/watch it! It’s really good! Is it a perfect piece of media? No, it has it’s issues - but so does every other piece of media. The problems aren’t nearly the worst I’ve seen in the genre. You can definitely enjoy the hell out of the series while still being critical of the few main issues it has. 

[voroxpete]

Here is a completely unprompted rant about the ending of RWBY Volume 6

So, I wanted to take a moment to talk about how much I loved this season finale and why, and most importantly what kind of lessons it offers to writers.

In general, RWBY has always suffered from a tendency to let procedural plotting ("what is the immediate, physical problem in front of the characters and how do they overcome it?") drive the action while dramatic plotting tends to get slotted in around it. The ending of the first two seasons are both good examples, leading up to really badass fight scenes that ultimately do very little to express or advance the characters and their personal journeys.

In more recent volumes we saw attempts to rectify this, but the writers approached the problem by simply taking the action that resulted from their procedural plotting and awkwardly shoving dramatic resolution into it. The end of season 5 is a great example of this. The fight in Haven is a fucking mess. Everyone just sort of awkwardly pairs off in ways that don't make any logical sense, it's just done to create opportunities for ham-fisted character moments. It's so bad that in a couple of shots you can actually see Ren and Nora standing around very obviously doing nothing because the desperate need to force character moments into the fight means that its not their turn to get involved yet.

The ending of season 6 on the other hand... Oh my God, this was fantastic. What's key to how well this ending works is the multitude of ways in which the action and the themes directly support each other. We start with the action splitting in two, leading to the mech fight and the Adam fight... But notice how these scenes aren't actually disconnected. Everything about Cordovin - a character really only introduced for this moment - is designed to reflect and echo the elements of Adam that we're being asked to focus on. Cordovin is an abusive person. Not in the sense of abusive relationships specifically, but she uses her power to bully people. She's a narcissist, and even her physical design is meant to emphasise this dichotomy. She's a tiny person who loves to look down on others.

In this context, her misuse of the battlemech makes complete sense. Sure, she could have sent her airforce, and that would have made more sense, but it wouldn't have satisfied her personal need to be the bully, to be (literally) big and powerful and in control.

And all of this reflects perfectly in Adam. Just like Cordovin, he's ultimately small, and weak, and desperate to be powerful and in control. Even the damage that he's suffered plays into this. He's been hurt, and now he hurts other people to regain the control that he lost.

This plays out in his fight with Blake and Yang through some especially on point dialogue choices. The line "I wouldn't have to be doing this if you would just behave" left zero doubt where they were going with all of this, and was a bold choice that really raised the stakes for the scene. The decision to really lean into "Adam is an abusive ex" took a fight that was already excellent on a technical level and turned it into something really powerful. It's also kind of neat that both sequences lead up to a moment where the heroes give the villain a chance to stand down, and both fights conclude with the villain being astonished when the hero literally disarms them. Again, all of these parallels are reinforcing the central themes. The story being told through these two action sequences is very explicitly one of the characters (notably, women) standing up to powerful abusers. That shot of Ruby alone in front of Cordovin's mech, and the follow up where her eyes narrow in disappointment is seriously fucking powerful, and her smallness in the face of her bully perfectly reflects the way Yang and Blake feel facing Adam. Reflections on reflections on reflections. It's brilliant.

This is how you craft an action sequence that is also a character moment. Not by shoehorning character moments into a fight, but by writing action that parallels and enhances your dramatic themes.

It's not perfect of course. The arrival of Grimmzilla feels a little sudden and a touch forced, but it creates an excellent moment, allowing the writers to kind of recap and summarize everything that's just happened. We've seen, through the Cordovin fight, how Ruby has outgrown her uncle (a theme that's been playing out throughout this season), and giving her this moment to really emphasise what the character has become is a really nice way to allow those themes to breathe. It allows us to see the team reunited (something we've been desperately needing ever since the end of season 3), and really foregrounds the counterpoint to this theme of standing up to abusers, which is that you can't easily do it alone. One of the most dangerous behaviours of abusers is that they isolate people. While Ruby may be the only one with the special plot power that can slow down the Grimm attack, everyone is a part of helping her do it. There's even a great little moment where we see Blake, lacking any ability to physically assist, is still involved, acting as an emotional support for her friends, giving them whatever strength she can (it's also fun to note how "giving others strength" is literally Jaune's semblance, and it's cool to see the ways that got used throughout these scenes; there's a really interesting thematic tension between Jaune and Qrow specifically as opposing models of masculinity, and both the fight with Cordovin and the Grimmzilla scene clearly foreground the ways in which Qrow's model of trying to be the powerful patriarch figure who puts everything on his own shoulders is anything but helpful, whereas Jaune's masculinity - supportive, loving, kind - is the one that makes a difference, as Qrow discovers when he stops trying to carry everyone and starts, as Calvera puts it, catching them when they fall).

Again, thematically, this is more than just action, and that's why it resonates. From a purely mechanical point of view it's easy to see the Grimmzilla fight as disappointing, but that completely neglects the obvious purpose of that moment. We've already had two giant action sequences, the story didn't need another big blowout fight. What it needed was a coda, and Grimmzilla did that job beautifully.

All in all season 6 has made me excited about this show again, but more importantly I think that it offers a lot of great lessons to writers. People often criticise the writing in RWBY in very glib surface level ways; complaining that a certain line was cheesy, a certain moment was predictable. They're not wrong; the Blake and Yang fight definitely had a few moments where the dialogue choices felt painfully obvious or perhaps a little awkward. But writing is so much more than just plotting and a few lines of dialogue, and in so many of the ways that count the writing in this finale was superb and well worth studying.

[aion-rsa]

Dr. DisRespect’s Studio Seems Like the Last Thing Gaming Needs Right Now

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

An otherwise slow period for gaming (or at least new video game releases) was recently interrupted by reports that controversial streamer Dr. DisRespect may be helping to start a new video game studio that will focus on influencer-driven/supported projects.

Much of what we know about this story at the moment comes from this job posting on Dr. DisRespect’s website that reveals the streamer is looking for a “Gaming Studio Head.” Described as a “life-changing opportunity,” the job listing says that “Dr. DisRespect in partnership with BoomTV” is looking for someone to lead a studio that “plans to forge a partnership with a select list of mega influencers and then work closely with them to launch their dream gaming title.” The listing claims those titles will “either be incubated and developed OR partner/co-develop with existing indie game developers and launched as mega titles.”

The responsibilities/experience sections of the listing are about what you’d expect for such a position, but it certainly feels noteworthy that this listing emphasizes working with influencers in a way that similar job listings typically do not. For instance, one of the job’s responsibilities involves working “with the marketing team to have a go-to market strategy including influencer marketing.” The most noteworthy line, though, might be this note that the studio head will be asked to “work within a fast-paced environment spearheading design, art, core gaming loops, meta, viral and retention loops and iterate monetization, go to market, integrated esports and influencer marketing.”

The truth of the matter is that there is a lot we don’t know about this studio at the moment. For that matter, it’s entirely possible that nothing will come of this and “that time Dr. DisRespect thought about starting a video game studio” will just be a piece of trivia shared by the streamer’s fans. You also can’t overlook the obvious possibility that this studio could eventually release games that are worth playing. Stranger things have happened.

However, based on what we know about this studio’s mission and how the core components of this concept fit into the state of the modern video game development industry, it certainly seems like this has the potential to be a very bad idea.

First off, it must be said that Dr. DisRespect (real name Herschel “Guy” Beahm) has experience in the video game industry. Along with obviously being an incredibly popular video game streamer who rose to fame by developing an almost “pro wrestling-like” persona, Beahm previously worked for Call of Duty developer Sledgehammer Games and even helped design many of the multiplayer maps for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. More recently, he helped design a map for the competitive third-person shooter, Rogue Company. Furthermore, Beahm has previously shared video game concepts he’s thought of in the past, including one for a kind of vertical battle royale title that’s partially based on his considerable experience streaming games from that genre.

However, you may better know Dr. DisRespect for the various controversies he’s been involved in over the years that include accusations of racism and using his platform to spread Covid-19 conspiracy theories. While it’s still not clear why Dr. DisRespect was permanently banned from Twitch last year, he was previously suspended from the platform for live streaming from a men’s restroom at E3 2019.

It is impossible to ignore the ways that Dr. DisRespect’s toxically masculine character and “Un-pc” attitude/actions feel like a kind of unintentional parody of the personas and attitudes that contributed to the dangerous cultures of harassment and abuse that have impacted employees at major studios like Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, and Riot Games. At a time when a recent Bloomberg report suggests that some of Activision Blizzard’s biggest culture problems can be attributed to high-ranking members adopting rock star personalities and using their positions to fuel their egos at the expense of people just trying to do their jobs, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to use gaming’s embodiment of that very personality as the mascot for a studio. If it does make sense to those involved, then that may tell you quite a bit about what the studio is hoping to achieve and who they’re hoping to appeal to.

Even if you believe that Dr. DisRespect’s persona is an “act” (which is always shaky ground to stand on given how committed to the bit some “performers” seem to be), then there’s still the matter of whether or not Dr. DisRespect is in this position because of some unique vision and incredible structural ideas or whether it’s because he’s able to use his fame, wealth, and “brand” to justify such an endeavor.

We’re currently watching Amazon and Google struggle to make an impact in the game development industry largely because they too seemed to believe they could use their wealth and power to fill studios with industry veterans and hungry upstarts who would also focus on those same kinds of games built around monetization, gameplay loops, and influencers. There are reasons to be cynical about the greed of modern Triple-A studios, but as these major companies are learning, it’s harder to be greedy if you don’t at least have a solid idea made by the right team to charge people for in the first place.

The bluntness of this hypothetical studio’s influencer plans is also fascinating to see. Like it or not, there’s no denying that streamers and influencers play a major role in the video game industry at this time. From helping to shift the balance of power in the MMORPG genre to playing games that are at least partially designed to appeal to their unique positions and massive audiences, it’s pretty clear at this point that there’s no way to suddenly stop the industry’s focus on streamers, content creators, and influencers. That being the case, it’s only a matter of time until we see studios start to work more with streamers during even the earliest stages of the game development process.

Putting aside the quality of the average product designed around a celebrity (with due respect to the George Foreman Grill), it’s strange to think that you’d practically build a studio around the hypothetical input of influencers. Even if Dr. DisRespect has this great idea for a game that’s more than an elaborate version of the “we should buy a bar” conversation we’ve all had at one point, it’s hard to imagine that there’s a significant number of influencers out there that have put that much thought into their ideal video game projects. The more likely explanation is that influencers will be used as part of the branding/promotion for a game, which is, at best, putting the cart before the horse and, at worst, another example of exploiting celebrity obsession and cult of personality.

The video game industry is always in need of new voices, new studios, new ideas, and, now more than ever at a time when some truly incredible circumstances have led to multiple delays, new game releases. However, it’s clear that what the human beings in the video game industry need most right now are studios created to break the industry’s worst cultural habits and not embrace them in the way that this studio is seemingly interested in doing. What may have once been a curious case of the growth of gaming celebrities now feels like a reminder that the road towards a healthier video game industry is a long one indeed.

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from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3jPILjI

[enterinit]

Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18894 released

Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18894 released. File Explorer improvements New File Explorer search experience – now powered by Windows Search. This change will help integrate your OneDrive content online with the traditional indexed results. This rollout will start with a small percent, and then we’ll increase the rollout to more Insiders as we validate the quality of the experience. What does that mean for you? Once you have the new experience, as you type in File Explorer’s search box, you’ll now see a dropdown populated with suggested files at your fingertips that you can pick from. These improved results can be launched directly by clicking the entry in the new suggestions box, or if you want to open the file location, just right-click the entry and there’ll be an option to do so. If you need to use commands or dig deeper into non-indexed locations, you can still press enter and populate the view with the traditional search results. We’ve also updated the design, so now as soon as you click the search box in File Explorer (or press CTRL+E to set focus to it), you’ll see the dropdown list with your search history. If you encounter any issues, or have any feedback, file them under “Files, Folders, and Online Storage” > “File Explorer” in the Feedback Hub. NOTES: You may notice in the screenshot, we’ve made the File Explorer search box wider so the suggestions dropdown has a bit more room to show results – that’s not a new option, but we figured you might want to know how to do it: just move your mouse to the starting border of the search box, and your mouse should turn into a resizing double arrow cursor. Just click down and drag the search box to be a bit wider. Accessibility improvements Narrator table reading improvements: Narrator is now more efficient when reading tables. Only the deltas are read when navigating. Entering and exiting tables is also less verbose. Narrator web page summary: There’s a new command in Narrator to give a webpage summary! (Narrator + S). Currently this command will give information about hyperlinks, landmarks and headings. Magnifier text cursor setting: Windows Magnifier has a new ability to keep the text cursor in the center of the screen making it easier and smoother to type. Centered on the screen is on by default and can be changed in the Magnifier settings. General changes, improvements, and fixes We fixed an issue resulting in scrolling with the mouse wheel or touchpad not working reliably across the system in the last few flights. We fixed an issue where opening the Memory Integrity page in Windows Security would crash the app. We fixed an issue where the Windows Update icon in taskbar system tray is not high DPI optimized. We fixed a recent issue where the “Add someone else to this PC” window would crash if an MSA-attached user would try to add a local user to the PC. We fixed a typo in the WIN+(period) kaomoji section category names. We fixed a race condition that could result in users getting stuck with an outdated version of the search relevancy logic, impacting subsequent search results. We fixed an issue where Start menu wasn’t launching if the “continue experiences on this device” group policy was “disabled”. We fixed an issue where navigating using Narrator + R command got stuck in PowerPoint Edit View. Narrator no longer reads “null” after each command listed in the Narrator + F2 list. We fixed a problem where Narrator was at low volume and could not be increased. Known Issues Due to an OS bug, the Your Phone app will not work on this build (20H1 Build 18894). This issue does not impact the Your Phone app if you are in the Slow and Release Preview rings. We expect to have this issue resolved in the next flight to the Fast ring. Appreciate your patience. There has been an issue with older versions of anti-cheat software used with games where after updating to the latest 19H1 Insider Preview builds may cause PCs to experience crashes. We are working with partners on getting their software updated with a fix, and most games have released patches to prevent PCs from experiencing this issue. To minimize the chance of running into this issue, please make sure you are running the latest version of your games before attempting to update the operating system. We are also working with anti-cheat and game developers to resolve similar issues that may arise with the 20H1 Insider Preview builds and will work to minimize the likelihood of these issues in the future. Some Realtek SD card readers are not functioning properly. We are investigating the issue. If you use remote desktop to connect to an enhanced session VM, taskbar search results will not be visible (just a dark area) until you restart searchui.exe. We’re investigating reports that on certain devices if fast startup is enabled, night light doesn’t turn on until after a restart. (Note: The problem will occur on a “cold” reboot or power off / power on. To work around if night light doesn’t turn on, use Start > Power > Restart.) There’s a noticeable lag when dragging the emoji and dictation panels. Tamper Protection may be turned off in Windows Security after updating to this build. You can turn it back on. Some features on Start Menu and in All apps are not localized in languages such as FR-FR, RU-RU, and ZH-CN. In the Ease of Access settings, selecting a color filter may not take effect right away unless color filters option is turned off and back on again. The IME candidate window for East Asian IMEs (Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and the Japanese IME) may not open sometimes. We are investigating the issue. In the meantime, going to Task Manager and ending the “WindowsInternal.ComposableShell.Experiences.TextInput.InputApp.exe” task from the from the Details tab should unblock you if you experience this issue. We are aware of an issue with the Bopomofo IME where the character width is suddenly changed to Full width from Half width and are investigating. Known issues for Developers If you install builds from the Fast ring and switch to either the Slow ring or the Release Preview ring, optional content such as enabling developer mode will fail. You will have to remain in the Fast ring to add/install/enable optional content. This is because optional content will only install on builds approved for specific rings. Read the full article

[theonyxpath]

Yes, we stumbled back to a fully attended Monday Meeting today – the first one where we were all there in quite some time with GenCon and vacations and all. A good and informational meeting nevertheless.

They’re not all that way, though. We have 50ish of them a year, and sometimes the energy level all around is low. Sometimes the upset level is really high, like if we’re all under stress or if a social media flame-war is flaring around us. Sometimes I’m the crabby one, and so I set us off in the wrong direction. Feelings get hurt when you have a lot of intensely dedicated and creative folks trying to wrestle our schedules together and make them work.

But. Not today.

A lot of that, no doubt is because we’re seeing movement on projects that, for a variety of reasons, had been bogged down for a long time. Not everything that is lagging but most of the real long-term ones, so if we can catch up on the latest and keep getting tighter on the newer projects: we’ll be rockin’.

That’s the result of the very hard work our crew put forth in the first half of the year. Not just their personal work of writing, developing, editing, but their efforts at working together and helping our freelance talent focus and push their work forward. Helping others create is, it turns out, really difficult!

(Just as examples, I’m looking at WoD: Ghost Hunters, M20 Book of the Fallen, and Signs of Sorcery for Mage: The Awakening as the most egregious examples. Even Wraith20 has gone to press and the Scion core books are working together they way we have tried so long to make happen).

    Dystopia Rising: Evolution Mutant art by Aaron Riley

    Our Dystopia Rising: Evolution Kickstarter is also lurching forward right now into the wastelands of a Kickstarter’s time-frame – that very slow pledge time before things pick up close to the end. If you pledged; thanks so much and please tell your friends. If you haven’t, here are some reasons why we think this is a very cool game to play and might inspire you to check out the KS here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/dystopia-rising-evolution-tabletop-rpg

1- Characters don’t necessarily die forever when they are killed. The path to a shambling zombie starts with your first resurrection at the behest of an entity known as the Gravemind. This means, gameplay-wise, that you can play Dystopia Rising: Evolution with a sense of lurking doom ala The Walking Dead, or as a contrast, you can play balls-to-the-wall like the Mad Max universe because you can blow up real good and still come back!

Could the Gravemind be pulled from DR:E and used in any of our other games? Well, just as an example I thought of this afternoon as I thought about this blog, I’m wondering if the Gravemind could arise as a rival to the God-Machine in a Chronicles of Darkness chronicle. It is clearly messing with the order set down by the G-M…or is it?

2- As I think I mentioned last week, Eddy adapted the Storypath System to create a simple but strong system for finding, retrieving, and pulling useful items from scrap. If your thing is using your real world knowledge in a post-apocalyptic setting, this here’s a built-in framework in the game to really enable you to use that info. With physical items also being degraded by the Gravemind, being able to fabricate the things needed for survival is one of the best and integrated uses for a “crafting” system in a game I’ve ever heard of.

3- While Dystopia Rising: Evolution is definitely a grim and scary post-apocalyptic world, it is also a world where settlements are surviving and growing. There is a sense of hope and community that can serve as a counterpoint and a backdrop to the hard tales of hard survivors making hard decisions. Included are rules for those settlements and how they can work (or not).

4- You don’t have to take my word for it. As we’ve done with almost all of our recent Kickstarters, we are releasing a section of the book each week and before the end of the KS backers will be able to download the complete edited text and dig in for their favorite sections!

      Changeling 20th Players Guide art by Drew Tucker

    As if you have not heard enough about this damn Dystopia Rising: Evolution game, I do strongly suggest that if you want to know about the thinking behind the game – and this is some really fascinating, in-depth, discussions of both the reasons for the game design and the thinking behind the last ten years of the game world’s creation and growth – that you download and listen to last Friday’s Onyx Pathcast.

Eddy interviews the very people that started Dystopia Rising as a LARP over a decade ago, Michael Pucci and Ashley Zdeb, and then created a tabletop RPG version that Dystopia Rising: Evolution is the new edition of. Some of the highlights of what they discuss are:

Eddy admits to an error in the Kickstarter

The history of Dystopia Rising

How Eddy and Onyx Path came into the picture

Faithful licensing vs “throw it all away if you want”

Disability as post-apocalypse trope

The struggles of introducing inclusivity over the past decade

The push and pull of abstracted social tension vs community building

The switch from 20+ Strains to 8 Lineages

Here the link to our Onyx Pathcast page on PodBean, although you can find it at your favorite podcast venue too: https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

This Friday, the Terribly Terrific Trio will be back together and taking an in-depth deep dive into Vampire: The Masquerade, which makes sense considering our long history with it and the advent of V5, so it should be a good…no wait, dare I say it? A GREAT podcast this week! Yes!

    Changeling: The Lost 2e art by Mark Kelly

      Finally, although I added some info about this in our On Sale section below, just a word that sometime this week DTRPG.com will be running a week-long sale for 75% off of Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and Mage: The Ascension PDFs. Not just the 20th Anniversary ones we have created, but all of them back through time.

We’re thrilled to be able to work together with White Wolf to offer you folks this chance to catch up on anything you are looking for, particularly with all the discussion featuring WoD, by new fans and long-time ones as well, due to the V5 interest and publicity.

And we’ll have another, different, combined sale running the week after this one!

There you go, so much is going on you need a scorecard to keep track of our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

  BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

    The Dystopia Rising: Evolution Kickstarter funded in less than a day, and two sections of the Threat Guide companion PDF Stretch Goal have been added, which is a first-person guide with mechanics to the various threats facing survivors in the DR:E world, and we are shambling forward to open up a Community Content site for the game!

Dystopia Rising: Evolution will be powered by Onyx Path’s Storypath system, and includes all the rules you need to play as a survivor in the post-apocalypse, including rules for creating characters for up to 24 different Strains, variations on humanity that survived the Fall. It also has details on the powers of faith and psionics, along with advice on running action-adventure stories, webs of personal intrigue, or procedural investigations. And, finally, dozens of antagonists, including a variety of zombies and raiders to use in your series.

Throughout this Kickstarter campaign, we will be posting complete previews of the Dystopia Rising: Evolution manuscript as backer-only updates.

  ELECTRONIC GAMING:

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking!

Here are the links for the Apple and Android versions:

http://theappstore.site/app/1296692067/onyx-dice

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onyxpathpublishing.onyxdice&hl=en

Three different screenshots, above.

  ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue you bought it from. Reviews really, really help us with getting folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Endless Ages Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage II (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Ascension: Truth Beyond Paradox (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: The God-Machine Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Curse of the Blue Nile (Kindle, Nook)

Beast: The Primordial: The Primordial Feast Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Masquerade: Of Predators and Prey: The Hunters Hunted II Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The Poison Tree (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Songs of the Sun and Moon: Tales of the Changing Breeds (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: The Strix Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Forsaken: The Idigam Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Awakening: The Fallen World Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Beast Within Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: W20 Cookbook (Kindle, Nook)

Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Tales of the Dark Eras (Kindle, Nook)

Promethean: The Created: The Firestorm Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Demon: The Descent: Demon: Interface (Kindle, Nook)

Scarred Lands: Death in the Walled Warren (Kindle, Nook)

V20 Dark Ages: Cainite Conspiracies (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Strangeness in the Proportion (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: Silent Knife (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Dawn of Heresies (Kindle, Nook)

  OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there!

https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

    Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://theonyxpath.com/press-release-onyx-path-limited-editions-now-available-through-indie-press-revolution/

And you can now order Pugmire: the book, the screen, and the dice! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296

    DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

Starting later this week, DTRPG together with White Wolf and Onyx Path are having a one week massive 75% off sale on all Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and Mage: The Ascension PDFs!

  This Wednesday the original Scarred Lands Trilogy: Forsaken, Forsworn, and Forbidden by Richard Lee Byers, will now be available in PDF/ePub and physical trade paperback format PoDs on DriveThruRPG.com!

    CONVENTIONS!

From Fast Eddy Webb, we have these:

Eddy will be speaking at Broadleaf Writers Conference (September 22-23) in Decatur, GA. He’ll be there to talk about writing for interactive fiction, and hanging out with other writers who have far more illustrious careers. http://broadleafwriters.com/3rd-annual-broadleaf-writers-conference/3rd-annual-broadleaf-writers-conference-speakers/

Eddy will also be a featured guest at Save Against Fear (October 12-14) in Harrisburg, PA. He’ll be running some Pugmire games, be available for autographs, and will sometimes accept free drinks. http://www.thebodhanagroup.org/about-the-convention

Monica Valentinelli will be a professional guest at Great Falls Gaming Convention in Montana the first week of October. http://gfgr.org/guests-of-honor/

Dixie Cochran will be at High Level Games Con in Atlantic City October 12-14, running a Women in Game Design panel, Eddy’s RPG Developer Bootcamp, and possibly making a surprise appearance at another event!

  And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM FAST EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Tales of Excellent Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Witch-Queen of the Shadowed Citadel (Cavaliers of Mars)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Scion Ready Made Characters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion Jumpstart (Scion 2nd Edition)

  Redlines

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

  Second Draft

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

C20 Players’ Guide (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Wr20 Book of Oblivion (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

CofD Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)

V5 Chicago By Night (Vampire: The Masquerade)

  Development

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

Fetch Quest (Pugmire)

CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Dystopia Rising: Evolution (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Night Horrors: Shunned by the Moon (Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd Edition)

Adventures for Curious Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

In Media Res (Trinity Continuum: Core)

Aeon Aexpansion (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

  Manuscript Approval:

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

  Editing:

They Came From Beneath the Sea! Rulebook (TCFBtS!)

Dog and Cat Ready Made Characters (Monarchies of Mau) (With Eddy)

Changeling: The Lost 2nd Jumpstart (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

  Post-Editing Development:

Scion: Hero (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

  Indexing:

Changeling: The Lost 2e

    ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

  In Art Direction

Dystopia Rising: Evolution – KS is going.

M20: Gods and Monsters – AD’d and Contracted.

Geist 2e

The Realm

Trinity Continuum (Aeon and Core)

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Ex3 Dragon Blooded – Finals coming in.

Chicago By Night – KS art contracted.

  Marketing Stuff

  In Layout

Fetch Quest – Finishing package design

  Proofing

Scion Hero – Putting in Neal’s changes

PTC: Night Horrors: The Tormented

Scion Origin – Doing Neall’s errata changes, and swapping out the font.

VtR: Guide to the Night

Lost 2e Screen – At WW for approval

Requiem Journals – At WW for approval

  At Press

Monarchies of Mau – Printing. Dice and buttons printing.

Cavaliers of Mars – At Studio2.

Wraith 20th – Prepping the interior Deluxe files, cover design sent to printer.

Monarchies of Mau Screen – At Studio2.

Cavaliers of Mars Screen – At Studio2.

Wraith 20 Screen – Printing.

Scion Dice – At fulfillment shipper.

Cav Talent cards – PoD proof coming.

SL Trilogy Pt 1,2,3 – On sale this Wednesday!

  TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: Like every year for this week, it is worth it to celebrate the sacrifice made by all the special responders, fire-fighters, police, and other heroes who gave their lives trying to help during 911. We celebrate that they had that spark which exists in humanity that flares up in times of crisis and enables regular people to put the lives of terrified strangers before their own.

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Upcoming Power Rangers Comics Will “Unite Future Seasons”

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Warning, this article spoils the end of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Issue #50

After the shocking twist ending of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #50, fans were left with a lot of questions. Who was that person that showed up at the command center? Why is here? Will we see the Omega Rangers again? What’s next for the Rangers on Earth? What about that cover that was previewed that had the new Dark Rangers made up of Rita and her minions?

We sat down with Ryan Parrott to get some answers and teases to these questions. We talk about trying to free the comics from being in lockstep with the TV series, the new Dark Rangers, and his hints of what we’ll see more of going forward including more references to things that were only hinted at in the TV series!

Note: This is part two of our interview with Parrott about issue #50. Check out the first part where we delve more into the issue itself.

DEN OF GEEK: In an interview that you did with Games Radar just before Go Go 32 came out, you mentioned that the events of Necessary Evil would set up a new status quo. One where infinite stories in the MMPR universe could be told and that was freeing you up from my running in lockstep with the TV series. Can you talk more about what that means?

RYAN PARROTT: Yeah. I mean, this is going to sound negative, and I don’t mean it to be, one of the hardest things about writing Go Go Power Rangers from issue 21 to 32… When you open Mighty Morphin 40, with the arrival of the White Ranger and the Stone Canyon trio and Zedd’s already there, it felt like that’s a big jump. For people who watch the show, they all know what happened, but for everyone else, it just felt like, “Wow, did we miss this? Did all this happen exactly the way we thought? How did they get here?” We just felt that with Go Go, we owed it to fans to not jump over so many major pillars of the Power Rangers universe and so that’s what that story became.

But I will be honest, it was really, really, really hard to write a series that was half of an ongoing event tied to a television show from 25 years ago and write a narrative that somehow floated through all of that. And it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever written and I just know that I don’t ever want to try and do that again. It’s frustrating for the fans because they’re seeing things that they already kno  and you’re trying to give them new context, but if you change it too much, is it even the thing that you love? It was just a really complicated process. I knew that I wanted to go back to a status quo that was similar to the way that we did Go Go and the way that Kyle (Higgins) actually did his beginning run of Mighty Morphin, which was that we’re going to basically step into a period of time after this where everything slows down immensely and we can just do stories that don’t tie into episodes of the show.

In the same way that Kyle’s run was like, “These are all the stories that happened right after Tommy joined the team. Do they happen between episodes 17 and 18? Sure.” Because you can look at all of his run and say they all happen between those two episodes, and I think we’re going to do something similar now to try and create a universe that can stand on its own. This will allow us to, because we have the Omega Rangers and those Omega Rangers do exist outside in space, maybe be able to see elements of the Power Ranger universe that we’ve only hinted at in seasons of the show, but see them through the Mighty Morphin lens. The best example I can give is The Mandalorian, how they’ve used that show to basically tap into the entire Star Wars universe. We’re going to try and do something similar in the sense of trying to unite all of those future seasons but doing them in a way that feels organic to where we are in the timeline.

So will we be ping ponging from the Rangers on earth and the Omega Rangers out in space? I know the cover for issue 54 came out recently that had the Omega Rangers on it.

Yeah. I don’t think it’s a spoiler. We’re going to follow both teams and we’re going to see how they’re both interacting out in the world. And what I like about it, even if you look at those covers, I’m not going to break the book up the way that I broke up A Necessary Evil, this will be more a trade off. You’ll understand.

Much of Kyle Higgins work was set right after Tommy joined the team in mid season one and Necessary Evil was the middle of season two. Will the comic going forward cover the later part of season two and everything that was generally happening there?

Yeah. We spent 80 something issues, if you count all of it, building this universe. We had the Solar Rangers and The Coinless and the Omega Rangers and the Power Rangers and Drakkon and Zedd and Dayne and all of these characters. We’ve built this universe, let’s not rush through it. Let’s use it and try and tell stories in it that can bring in stuff from the other shows. I want to, I really desperately do. I have ideas that I’m very excited about doing, but we have this superhero universe, let’s use it. Let’s not just tell a story that gets us to the moments in the show that we already know is coming. Let’s spend some time and mine this area and maybe take some chances and do some stuff that you wouldn’t expect, which you’ll see. We should talk again in about a month.

Well you’re already adding new things like the new Dark Rangers made up of Rita and her henchmen. Are these different from the Dark Rangers in the show or are they simply “this is my version of the Dark Rangers”?

Oh, I’ll be honest. I remember that episode, and I hated those guys. I was like, “They just stand there. They don’t even fight. And they look like they made those out of nothing.” And now I said, “Oh, we got to redo them.” I think that was my first pitch. “Can we bring in the Dark Rangers again? Can I do a new version of the Dark Rangers?” And they were like, “Sure, sure. Sometime.” And so, finally, after all this time, I said, “Yeah, Zedd’s got that power. Let’s use it. Let’s have him use it and let’s do it in a way that they couldn’t do it on the show because they didn’t have the time and the money.” And so that was the first thing I said. “Let’s do that.”

And then I thought, “Well, we could take the time to build out a whole new group of angsty teens that just happen to reflect the exact same group.” But I was like, “It would be really more fun to try and use the minions that we’ve created. What if you gave the minions a little bit of power? What if they actually had some actual ability? In the same way that the Power Rangers are better when they have Morphin energy, what are the minions like when they have Dark Ranger energy in them? And how does that change them? How do they function? If they fight together, how do they fight?”

I just thought it was a really fun, quick way. And also, when we got the designs in, Dan Mora helped on the designs, and the minute that I got them, I went, “I love them so much.” Maybe some people call that fan service  but I always look at writing that stuff as in, take an idea that wasn’t able to fully form itself and then try and do it in a way that would excite you as a kid. So, maybe that’s fan service, but I’ve always been writing the book for me anyways so I’m a fan.

Is there anything else you can tell us about what’s happening next with the comic? You have that big cliffhanger at the end of issue 50. What sort of things can fans look forward to for this next, I assume, big arc for the comic?

Drakkon coming back is going to be fun to see people react to. We talked a long time about when we wanted to bring him back and if this was the right moment. And I said, “He’s a very popular character. There’s no denying that.” And I said, “I’m very excited about bringing him back, but if we’re going to do it, I want to do it in a different way. I don’t want him to come back and being the same Drakkon.” So, for me, this character is, if you can just see from the last panel, has gone through some stuff and is a very different, a very broken, and damaged character and doesn’t have the powers that he had and the army behind him and the massive plans. I wanted to bring him in and try and use that. If we’re going to do that, then we can tell different stories with him.

I think he drives a lot of interesting emotional stories but also he’s bringing some plot with him. That’s what I got excited about. If you like Drakkon, it’ll be fun to bring him back, and I thought there was a lot of potential in just changing who he was because of what he’s seen. That’s the best way I can describe that.

When it comes to plot stuff, now that the Omega Rangers have defeated the Empowered and are out there, what is their goal? What is their task? What are they doing now? And they also don’t have a mentor anymore. The Blue Emissary’s gone, so now you’re on your own. And so if you looked at the Omega Rangers as bring in college? This is you just got out of college and now the world’s your oyster, and where do you go and what do you do? I think that’s one of the fun things about playing with them is seeing where in the Power Ranger universe they’re going to go, who they’re going to run into, and how that’s going to change their focus and their perspective.

The post Upcoming Power Rangers Comics Will “Unite Future Seasons” appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Comics – Den of Geek https://ift.tt/31gCQwI

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Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18234 released for Skeap Ahead

Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18234 released for Skeap Ahead. Microsoft To-Do gets ink support! Capture and complete your tasks naturally with Ink! We’ve added support for handwritten input to allow you to capture your tasks seamlessly in Microsoft To-Do (Version 1.39.1808.31001 and higher). Sticky Notes 3.0 Last week, we rolled out a major update to Sticky Notes for Windows Insiders who have opted into Skip Ahead. Snip & Sketch gets better! We recently flighted version 10.1807.2286.0 of Snip & Sketch to Skip Ahead, which included the highly requested delay snip feature. There was a bug in Build 18219 blocking the New button from working, so please try it out today once you upgrade! Just click the chevron next to the New button in the app and you’ll now find options to “Snip now”, “Snip in 3 seconds”, and “Snip in 10 seconds”. If you have the app open or pinned to your taskbar, you can also just right click the icon in the taskbar to get these options, since we’ve added them to the jump list. General changes, improvements, and fixes The dark theme File Explorer payload mentioned here is included in this build! We fixed the issue where logging out of your user profile or shutting down your PC would cause the PC to bugcheck (GSOD). Thanks everyone for your feedback about the XAML shadows we added recently. We’re taking them offline for the moment while we work on addressing some of the things you shared with us. You will also notice that the acrylic has been removed from some popup controls. They will be back in a future flight. We fixed an issue resulting in the taskbar flyouts (network, volume, etc) no longer having an acrylic background. We fixed an issue resulting in hangs when using WSL in the previous flight. We’ve updated the Emoji Panel to now support search and tooltips for the Emoji 11 emoji that were added recently. These keywords will also populate text predictions when typing with the touch keyboard. We fixed an issue where explorer.exe would crash if you were in Tablet Mode and opened Task View while in portrait orientation. We fixed an issue where the app icons in Task View might appear slightly blurry on high DPI devices. We fixed an issue where on narrow devices activities in Timeline might slightly overlap the scrollbar. We fixed an issue where you might unexpectedly get an error saying no supported app is installed, after clicking certain activities in Timeline, even though a supported app was installed. We fixed issue where Taskbar background could become transparent when changing graphics device. We fixed an issue resulting in pinning to app icons to the taskbar taking longer than usual recently. We fixed an issue where after setting a pin and removing it, the option to setup a pin from the lock screen could get stuck as the default login method, rather than the login screen remembering your preferred login method. We’ve made some adjustments to improve the amount of CPU that cdpusersvc uses. We fixed an issue resulting in New button in Snip & Sketch not working. We fixed an issue resulting in Notepad’s “Search with Bing” feature searching for “10 10” instead of “10 + 10” if that was the search query. We also fixed an issue where accented characters would end up as question marks in the resulting search. We fixed an issue where Ctrl + 0 to reset the zoom level in Notepad wouldn’t work if the 0 was typed from a keypad. We fixed a recent issue resulting in an increase in the amount of time taken to open large files in Notepad when word wrap was enabled. Thanks for everyone that’s shared feedback about naming the tabs you’ve set aside in Microsoft Edge. We’re evaluating the right approach for this feature and in the meantime it has been removed. We fixed an issue where downloading a big file in Microsoft Edge would stop at the 4gb mark. We fixed an issue where clicking the “more” button in Microsoft Edge’s inline definition pop up when reading in recent flights would open a blank pane. We fixed an issue where items in Microsoft Edge’s Settings and More menu would become truncated when the option to increase text size was enabled in Settings. We fixed an issue where using Find on page in Microsoft Edge didn’t highlight/select the current instance of the result. We fixed an issue where after resetting Microsoft Edge saved favorites would get stuck showing a star next to the favorite name rather than populating the website’s favicon (if available). We fixed an issue where text copied from certain websites in Microsoft Edge couldn’t be pasted into other UWP apps. We fixed an issue that could result in the contents of the Microsoft Edge window becoming offset from its window frame. We fixed an issue resulting in the spellchecking menu appearing in the wrong place when you right-clicked on a misspelled word in Microsoft Edge. We fixed an issue for Insiders using Windows 10 in S Mode recently resulting opening Word from a Word Online document not working. We fixed an issue impacting Teams resulting all unsent typed text disappearing following the completion of an emoji composition (for example being turned into a smiley). We fixed an issue where nearby sharing would become blocked on the sender device after canceling share to three different devices. We fixed an issue resulting in the nearby sharing section of the Share UI not being visible for some users despite being enabled. We fixed an issue in recent flights where components of a notification with a progress bar (like the one when using nearby sharing) might flash every time the progress bar updated. We fixed an issue from recent builds resulting in share target windows (aka the app you select when prompted from the Share UI) not closing when you pressed Alt+F4 or the X. We fixed an issue resulting in a decrease in Start reliability over the last few flights. We fixed an impactful race condition in recent flights resulting in Cortana crashing when launching tips and doing web searches. We fixed an issue where right-clicking the desktop and expanding the New subsection of the context menu took longer than usual recently. We fixed the issue causing Office in the Store to fail to launch with an error about a .dll not being designed to run on Windows on PCs running in S Mode. We fixed an issue where, when installing a font for a single user (rather than installing as admin “for all users”), the install would fail with an unexpected error saying that the file was not a valid font file. We fixed an issue where non-admin local users would get an error saying that updating the security questions for their account required admin permissions. We fixed a recent issue where color and wallpaper settings weren’t correctly applied after a system upgrade when migration was done in offline mode. We fixed an issue resulting in the amount of time it took to launch Settings having noticeably increased recently. We fixed an issue where if Settings was open to “Bluetooth & Other Devices” and then minimized to the taskbar, when you tried to resume the app Settings would crash. We fixed an issue from recent builds where the first time you manually selected the date in Date & Time Settings, it would revert to Jan 1st. We’re updating the image size limit for clipboard history (WIN + V) from 1MB to 4MB to accommodate the potential size of full screen screenshots taken on a high-DPI devices. We fixed an issue where when using the Chinese (Simplified) IME it would leak memory on focus switch, adding up over time. We fixed an issue resulting in text prediction and shapewriting not working when typing in Russian using the touch keyboard. We fixed a recent issue that could result in some flakey network connectivity (including networks stuck “identifying”, and stale network flyout connectivity state). Note, there are a variety of factors that may impact your networking experience, so if you continue to experience flakiness after upgrading to this build, please log feedback. Thanks everyone who tried out and shared feedback about the performance visualizations we added to the game bar with Build 17692. We’re taking them offline for now to re-evaluate the best possible approach going forward and work on giving you a great gaming experience on your PC. We fixed an issue in Narrator so when toggling a checkbox with a braille display and Narrator, the displayed state is now updated and the control information is maintained on the display. Known issues When you use the Ease of Access Make Text bigger setting, you might see text clipping issues, or find that text is not increasing in size everywhere. When using Narrator Scan mode Shift + Selection commands in Edge, the text does not get selected properly. Narrator sometimes does not read in the Settings app when you navigate using Tab and arrow keys. Try switching to Narrator Scan mode temporarily. And when you turn Scan mode off again, Narrator will now read when you navigate using Tab and arrows key. Alternatively, you can restart Narrator to work around this issue. This build fixes a general issue resulting in links that launched one app from another app not working in the last flights for some Insiders, however there’s one specific variant of this that will still not work in today’s build: Clicking on web links in PWAs such as Twitter doesn’t open the browser. We’re working on a fix. You may notice the background of notifications and the Action Center lose color and become transparent (with an acrylic effect). We’re aware that for notifications this can make them difficult to read and appreciate your patience as we work on a fix. Known issues for Developers If you install any of the recent builds from the Fast ring and switch to the Slow ring – optional content such as enabling developer mode will fail. You will have to remain in the Fast ring to add/install/enable optional content. This is because optional content will only install on builds approved for specific rings. Read the full article

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Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17728 released

Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 17728 released. You love your phone. So does your PC. Coming soon, we’re bringing the first set of features to Your Phone app for Windows Insiders with an Android device. Snap a pic on your Android, see it on your PC. You can finally stop emailing yourself photos. With Your Phone app, your Android’s most recent photos sync to your PC automatically. Need to add a photo to your presentation? Want to spruce up that selfie with some Windows Ink action? Just drag and drop. And rolling out in the coming weeks, Android users might also start to notice a desktop pin taking you directly to Your Phone app – for quicker access to your phone’s content. To light up this experience, open Your Phone app. You will receive an app from Microsoft which you must download to your mobile phone and follow the setup prompts. Android 7.0 and above are compatible with Your Phone app. For PCs tied to the China region, Your Phone app services will be enabled in the future. For iPhone users, Your Phone app helps you to link your phone to your PC. Surf the web on your phone, then send the webpage instantly to your computer to pick up where you left off to continue what you’re doing–read, watch, or browse with all the benefits of a bigger screen. With a linked phone, continuing on your PC is one share away. Narrator Improvements We have made the following changes and improvements: Reliability: We have made improvements in Narrator reliability. Scan Mode: Reading and navigating while in Scan Mode has been improved. Selecting text in Scan Mode has also been improved. Selecting forward in Edge has some known issues that we are actively investigating. QuickStart: The link in settings to relaunch the QuickStart should now reliably be working and will launch from the very first Welcome page. The QuickStart should also more reliably take focus when Narrator is launched, which means Narrator should start reading it automatically. Providing Feedback: The keystroke to provide feedback has changed. The new keystroke is Narrator + Alt + F. This will work both in the Standard and Legacy layouts. Note: The Legacy layout also allows you to use Narrator + E to send us feedback. Move Next, Move Previous, and Change View: When changing Narrator’s view to either characters, words, lines or paragraphs the Read Current Item command will read the text of that specific view type more reliably. Keyboard command changes: The keystroke to Move to beginning of text has changed to Narrator + B (was Narrator + Control + B), Move to end of text has changed to Narrator + E (was Narrator + Control + E). Braille: Improved usage of Braille commanding when using the Narrator key from the braille display. General changes, improvements, and fixes We fixed the issue resulting in the Clock & Calendar flyout sometimes not appearing until you clicked Start or the Action Center. This same issue impacted both notifications and the taskbar jump lists appearing. Thank you to all the Windows Insiders who gave feedback on this issue. We fixed an issue resulting minimized apps having squished thumbnails in Task View. We fixed an issue where when open Task View would crash if you pressed Alt+F4 and Timeline was enabled. We fixed an issue where Timeline’s scrollbar didn’t work with touch. We fixed an issue where the top border of UWP apps would still be accent colored even if having an accent colored border was disabled in Settings. We fixed an issue resulting in the tops of apps in tablet mode being clipped (i.e. missing pixels). We fixed an issue where the taskbar would stay on top of full-screened apps if you had previously hovered over any grouped taskbar icon to bring up the extended list of previews, but then clicked elsewhere to dismiss it. As some keen eye’d Insiders noticed, we’ve been working on our scaling logic and you should find apps resize better now after monitor DPI changes. As always, we appreciate feedback in this space, so let us know if you have any issues. We fixed an issue where Find on Page in Microsoft Edge would stop working for open PDFs once the PDF had been refreshed. We fixed an issue where Ctrl-based keyboard shortcuts (like Ctrl+C, Ctrl+A) didn’t work in editable fields for PDFs opened in Microsoft Edge. We fixed an issue where the icons in the Microsoft Edge extension pane were drawing unexpectedly close to the toggles. We fixed an issue where the enabled/disabled state of Fast Startup would be reset to default after upgrading. After upgrading off of this build your preferred state will persist. We fixed an issue where the Windows Security icon in the taskbar notification area (systray) would become a little bit blurrier every time there was a resolution change. We fixed an issue where the USERNAME environment variable was returning SYSTEM when queried from an un-elevated Command Prompt in recent builds. We fixed the issue where if the Narrator key is set to just Insert, sending a Narrator command from a braille display should now function as designed regardless if the Caps Lock key is a part of the Narrator key mapping. We fixed the issue in Narrator’s automatic dialog reading where the title of the dialog is being spoken more than once. We fixed the issue where Narrator won’t read combo boxes until Alt + down arrow is pressed. Known issues We’re progressing in our work on adding dark theme in File Explorer and the Common File Dialog – you’ll notice improvements in this build, although we still have a few things left to do. You may see some unexpectedly light colors in these surfaces when in dark mode and/or dark on dark text. There is an issue impacting WDAG, Remote Desktop and Hyper-V. Remote Desktop Client (mstsc.exe) users will see a misleading error dialog complaining about low virtual memory when a connection is being established. As a workaround, they can ignore that error dialog by just leaving it there. If they dismiss the error dialog, the connection will be severed. And users won’t be able to use enhanced session in Virtual Machine Connection (vmconnect.exe). As a workaround, they can stick with the non-enhanced session. When you upgrade to this build you’ll find that the taskbar flyouts (network, volume, etc) no longer have an acrylic background. When you use the Ease of Access Make Text bigger setting, you might see text clipping issues, or find that text is not increasing in size everywhere. When you set up Microsoft Edge as your kiosk app and configure the start/new tab page URL from assigned access Settings, Microsoft Edge may not get launched with the configured URL. The fix for this issue should be included in the next flight. On Build 17723 (but not Build 18204), you may see the notification count icon overlapping with the extension icon in the Microsoft Edge toolbar when an extension has unread notifications. On Windows 10 in S Mode, launching Office from the Store may fail to launch with an error about a .dll not being designed to run on Windows. The error message is that a .dll “is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program again…” Some people have been able to work around this by uninstalling and reinstalling Office from the Store. When using Narrator Scan mode you may experience multiple stops for a single control. An example of this is if you have an image that is also a link. This is something we are actively working on. When using Narrator Scan mode Shift + Selection commands in Edge, the text does not get selected properly. We’re investigating a potential increase in Start reliability and performance issues in this build. After setting up a Windows Mixed Reality headset for the first time on this build with motion controllers, the controllers may need to be re-paired a second time before appearing in the headset. When using a Windows Mixed Reality immersive app, saying “Flashlight on,” may fail to activate the flashlight feature even though the status appears as active on the Start menu. Known issues for Developers If you install any of the recent builds from the Fast ring and switch to the Slow ring – optional content such as enabling developer mode will fail. You will have to remain in the Fast ring to add/install/enable optional content. This is because optional content will only install on builds approved for specific rings. Read the full article