#I'm still so pissed at Microsoft

[mspoodle1]

This is with everything back installed. The preset isn't exactly how I had it. Going to tweak it more later. Important thing is that the game isn't crashing now.

[dollsonmain]

:|

Every year the school district tries to get us to sign up for a new handful of services.

They used to use Live Grades then switched to Canvas. Canvas has messaging built into the platform. Students, Teachers, and Parents can all message each other.

The school district also has an app and keep trying to get us to sign up for the app both to monitor our students' assignments and for P2P messaging (both of which are available via Canvas, which they ARE still using this year), but I don't trust that it's actually secure AND have a really old phone which can't handle most recent apps. Not all students/parents have smart phones, either.

They're ALSO trying to push everyone to sign up for a Microsoft Rooms account, both on desktop and on the phone and I'm just like....

On top of that they automatically added everyone's phone numbers to a group texting service (Apptegy) without consent.

You have Canvas, my email address, and my phone number. I cannot and am not installing a bunch of apps, too. This is getting ridiculous. Pick A platform and stick to it.

Anyway I keep getting texted over and over on my too-old phone being told to claim my ROOMS account, finally told them to stop sending those texts and remove me from Apptegy, and they immediately emailed it. Again.

I do not want these accounts, thank you.

Already pissed off that so many of the places I've applied to work ALSO make me sign up for an account like........ I don't need an account if I'm not an employee.

ffs

[arkus-rhapsode]

Sony wants to buy Kadokawa, what does this mean?

So this is a post I didn't think I'd ever have to make, but I guess I will because it concerns two things I'm invested in: anime and video games. And it concerns how we may potentially be seeing those industries get even more consolidated.

Yesterday on November 19th Reuters reported that Sony was in talks to acquire the massive Japanese media conglomerate Kadokawa. As of November 20th, we see that Sony has indeed sent a letter of intent for an acquisition.

Now look, I know we all tend to see Sony as a video game and technology company first and foremost, and I think that has led to a tendency for reports on this story to frame this story as "Sony wants to buy the parent company of FromSoft, what does this mean for Armor Core and Souls games going forward?" Now I don't necessarily blame gamers from focusing on the game aspect of this purchase, but its massively underselling that Sony is a multimedia entertainment company with plans outside of video games and Kadokawa's holding on other forms of media. For just a taste, here is just what Wikipedia lists as some of the subsidiaries of the Kadokawa Corporation.

As you can see, numerous light novel and manga magazine publishers, anime studios, and even news sites like Anime News Network fall under the umbrella of Kadokawa owned operations. And Sony themselves have been no slouches in the anime industry either. Having bought Aniplex, Funimation, Crunchyroll, RightStuff and more Sony has had a foothold on the distribution of anime outside Japan for quite a while. If this acquisition goes through there is no doubt that this will make their grip even tighter on the anime industry. Basically now controlling all the means of taking a work from the page to the screen to overseas to the merch to follow.

Obviously, I don't necessarily blame video game journalists and personalities for not going this deep into it, video games and anime fans may have overlap, but it's pretty clear there's a level of separation between the two in the same space. However, this focus on FromSoft honestly reminds me of the Microsoft-Bethesda purchase where most people talked about it like Microsoft only bought Bethesda. No, they bought Bethesda's parent company, Zenimax Media, which owns Bethesda and also numerous other studios like Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, Obsidian, Roundhouse Studios, and Alpha Dog Games. Note that all those studios except Obsidian saw a closer this year. When dealing with a massive merger/acquisition like this its important to keep in mind the full scope of it.

Kadokawa and its video game sector which includes FromSoft, Spike Chunsoft and recent acquisition of Acquire being purchased by Sony would be pretty rough. Particularly Spike who have made a reputation for themselves as one of the still AA studios that are into developing and publishing niche games like Ai The Somnium Files, Master Detective Raincode, and Mystery Dungeon. So having Sony, who have spent basically the last decade and a half moving towards huge blockbuster AAA games and who have just incurred a massive loss and shuttered a studio like Firewalk after one disastrous game, makes me fear for a lot of the safety of any new company being brought on.

And of course, there's the very real possibility that one acquired Sony will make many of these games these studios make exclusive to their Playstation platform. Or at the very least require a PSN account to access these titles on things like the PC. I know there's a lot of people who like to turn stories of Sony and Microsoft acquiring companies into pissing matches for whoever's team is "winning" by buying up more, but setting aside the console wars nonsense, the adverse effects of the major third party publishers on the industry would be bad for all platform users.

However, even more worrisome is what will happen on the print entertainment side of things. Kadokawa isn't a small time publisher of works. When it comes to their Light Novel prints they include series like Sword Art Online, Haruhi Suzumiya, Irregular at Magic High School, Classroom of the Elite, Re:Zero, No Game No Life, and even Slayers

There's also Enterbrain, a much smaller publisher known for its cult fanbase and publishing of niche series like Delicious in Dungeon!

Now, all of these series in Japan are typically protected by much stronger creators rights laws in Japan. With the series creators owning their work and not the publishers. But it doesn't change that now Sony will essentially have ownership of their publishing outlets and a seat at everyone of their production committees I regards to adaptations of their work. And then we get into how those products might leave Japan. Yen Press and Book Walker aren't small outlets, they are a big deal in making several of these series legally accessible to non-Japanese readers. Yen Press has even taken it upon themselves to bring over series from other magazines like Oshi no Ko, which Viz Media had failed to bring over for years.

And speaking of Oshi no Ko, this acquisition would mean Sony would now own the studio that makes it, Doga Kobo. Along with Cinema Citrus, the studio behind Made in Abyss, Rise of the Shield Hero, and as I was writing this, just was announced for Star Wars Visions Vol 3. Now lets add onto the fact Sony currently owns Crunchyroll which is one of the three main players in the North American anime streaming and distribution game along with Netflix and Hi-Dive. Sony could in theory now cut out the need to bid for airing certain anime overseas and instead just have a pipeline that leads directly from Kinema Citrus all the way to Crunchyroll's servers.

And speaking of Crunchyroll, we haven't even talked about how Sony has been acting in regards to this one streaming platform. Initially, Sony had acquired Funimation and infamously we had a neck and neck streaming war with Crunchy and Funi, but eventually Crunchyroll would be sold off to Sony where they proceeded to fold Funimation into Crunchyroll's brand. Erasing years of Funimation's own identity and most egregious of all, shuttering the Funimation website which deleted loads of digital content. Especially annoying when one of the perks of purchasing a Funimation Blu-Ray was offering a free digital copy that could be used on their website. So all those purchases? Gone. Hope you saved the physical media.

Crunchyroll themselves have also been no shortage of controversies lately, from the implementations of AI subtitles that are not only inaccurate, but also a pretty transparent attempt to eventually phase out subtitle writers. Then there's the allegations by actors as recently as a few weeks ago that Crunchyroll Studios has acted unprofessionally and illegally with their treatment of staff. But I think the most controversial of all was what happened to RightStuf. RIghtStuf was an anime merchandise outlet that would be shut down after purchase by Sony and then redirected users to go to the Crunchyroll merch store. If that doesn't sound like an attempt to monopolize a hobby, I don't what does.

I know this post has been very alarmist sounding, I legit was shaken when I heard the news, but there is some small silver lining to this dark cloud. Kadokawa hasn't made any decision either which way to go with this intention to acquire. They are capable of doing they're due diligence and seeing if this acquisition is opportune for them or not. Do I think they are going to reject it? I don't know. I'd prefer to not have this go through, but its out of my hands.

Once again, we must unfortunately watch more consolidation in the animanga and video game spaces. Which in the year 2024, we've seen full display of what has happened with the shrinking AA space of developers and publishers as they've been eaten up by guys like Tencent, Embracer Group, Microsoft, and Sony. We've had so many lay-offs and shut downs in this year alone its disheartening. Combine that with how this will effect how many people outside of Japan's accessibility to the pass time that they are passionate about and how this will inch us closer to only a few big players making all the choices for the anime industry is also disheartening.

There's a very tangible future where corporations like Sony own so much of our art and entertainment.

[bluehairmisfit]

Look okay yall are allowed, expected, even encouraged to ignore everything below the upcoming readmore. I'm only posting this here because I need to rant somewhere that isn't a brick wall, and I don't feel like dumping this in a vent channel for a school club.

(cw friendships and endings, anger, irritation, the things that come along with being autistic around people, etc. Abuse/trauma mentions. Talk of being a shitty friend/shitty person. All that good stuff. Lots of self-deprecation.)

I'm pissed off. I'm not showing it externally because there's just no fucking point to that but I want to do SOMETHING about it at this point and journaling it isn't enough anymore okay. I'm fucking irritated.

Like lemme start off with my high school crush. I have a friend who rants about his high school crush and I'm happy to listen, don't get me wrong, but I so badly want to rant back about mine because I thought we were friends and this person just kinda faded out of my life. And I'm irritated because I reached out and I tried to ask what I did wrong because I'm still very sure it was something I did. I have no clue what. The message containing the plea for information got no response, so I still don't know what I did, but it warranted whispering and pointing and I know that realistically I don't want to be friends or partners with someone like that but it still hurts in my chest when I think about it too hard, so I just have to try really fucking hard not to think of that person, as if I get a fucking choice in it.

And then there's my up-til-recently best friend. Like. There was a lot of shit that went wrong there on both fucking sides. I know this. Painfully-fucking-aware of the role I played. Because admittedly, I did something pretty similar to what my ex-crush did. We had an argument, and neither of us reached out. The thing is that we were both fucking HORRIBLE for each other and I could not do the things this friend wanted me to do without changing a lot of who I am as a person and how I naturally relate to people. I thought for the past two years that I was just an overall bad friend, and in hindsight, I was a bad friend to this specific person. But I have different friends that really like how I perform friendship.

So why the fuck would I sit there breaking someone else and being broken when I could just accept that things would not work out? It's not like I fully withdrew; I didn't break the DM silence, no, but I still liked and shared posts that this friend posted. I still tried in my own way because I was holding out hope that maybe we'd shift to acquaintances for a while and be able to try again later once we both had grown.

IT IS FULLY ON ME FOR NOT COMMUNICATING THIS DESIRE. I'm not saying it's not. But I talked about it in therapy, and I built the skills I would need to have this conversation, and every time I thought I was ready, I saw, vividly, intrusively, how it was likely to end.

And it's definitively, exceptionally selfish of me to say this.

But I decided I'd rather take advantage of the moot point we were at and just let shit happen, for better or worse.

Than to have to speak how I was feeling. And have it out in the open. And hear for the thousandth time what a terrible, shitty friend and person I am.

BUT MORE THAN THAT, the fucking CORE of why I'm pissed off has less to do with either of them (FUCK MICROSOFT FOR JUST GIVING ME A POPUP ABOUT PICTURES SAVED THAT SHOW ME AND MY HIGH SCHOOL CRUSH BTW. FUCK YOU).

The core of why I'm pissed off goes back to my fucking abuser, as everything seems to. Because that's the bitch that got me masking so hard in the first place for the sake of safety and survival and I'm pissed off that I ever fucking had to do that at all. Bullying contributed, yes, but she played such a major role in taking what was already stress-fracturing and just smashed it in finally.

Like I've changed so much about myself over the years, to the point that for a good chuck of late-middle to early-high school, I was a shell of a person. At some point I felt like I was waking up and seeing the people around me in a completely different way. I interacted with my siblings and learned about them as if I'd been away for years and just came back to fully-fledged tweens and teens.

I suppressed and changed and fucking. Ignored the idea of boundaries. To the point that honestly, now-ex-bestie was screwed over by all of this. Because when we became friends I was still so much more broken than I am today and he helped a lot but when shit went wrong it went SO wrong. And I never got the hang of boundaries or communication with him and I don't know why exactly I didn't feel safe but I didn't and I don't think that's entirely his fault.

But like. She fucked me up. I don't know a better way to say it.

And what actually pisses me off, the core thought that led to this entire, rambling, pain-in-the-ass blog post is the idea that I've changed myself so many times and I tried so hard to be what I thought people wanted me to be and I can't do that. I can't continue to do that because I'm fucking miserable, and aside from my partner and the remaining QPP that I haven't pushed away yet somehow, I have maybe three other friends who see me being myself, even as terrified as I was when that started, and embraced that person.

I'm rediscovering things about myself that I hadn't seen or remembered in years, and I'm becoming closer to my core self over time, and I value that greatly, but it should not have taken this much pain and suffering, whether that I've given or received, to get to this point. And I hate it and I regret the shit I've done but I just want to grow from this and move on and my stupid fucking brain sees tiny things and overreacts to them.

So I should be doing homework but instead I'm sitting on Tumblr, writing some fucking blog post trying to excuse everything I've done, to myself and others, to get to this point as if the ends could ever justify the means.

And I said I didn't really want people to read it but that's a lie. I'm just scared that people will finally tell me how terrible of a person I've been for the past 24 years. And confirm every bad thought I've ever had about myself. Because for every part of me that believes I've never deserved it, there's at least one part that believes I earned every single scar that exists on my body and mind.

[dragonmarquise]

Everyone keeps talking Abt all the crews and stuff, but like, I never see any content for futurism! Sure there wasn't a lot of stuff for them since they were like, a really small part of the plot, but it would still be awesome to see content for them!!!! So I come bearing a question, do you have hcs for futurism?

Ooo, I have a few for FUTURISM! Not as extensive as my stuff for Devil Theory and DOT EXE, but still. :>

(I know some people kinda debate writing it as FUTURISM vs. Futurism, I'm gonna personally keep all caps but I also understand most people probably don't care either way lol)

Also feel free to send in asks about the other crews/characters too! I might not have a lot for each character though. I also have a general list of LGBT+ headcanons for all the BRC characters, if that interests you! Granted, it's probably not as extensive as some other people's lists.

Anyways, gonna put this under a Read More, it won't get nearly as long as the other two headcanon sets, but it'll be long enough that I'll feel bad about posting this without one. ^^;

I like giving all the crew members themed names, and for FUTURISM I went with computer-related terms! Some of them more obscure than others. So for the members (besides DJ Cyber of course):

Jazz (Related to the Chorus/Jazz version of JavaOS)

Quantum (i.e. quantum computing)

Veronica (an old search engine)

Nyx (The name of a prototype Amiga chipset, though also Greek personification of the night!)

I have a personal idea that after the events of the game, one member from each of the major crews end up joining BRC, basically representing the unlockable characters in the post game. In this case, Nyx is the one who joins BRC (and in my mind she's the default Spring palette in the game), so let's start with her!

Bi, currently dating one of the Eclipse ladies (inspired by this very good fan art btw :D )

All of the FUTURISM gals have amazing skills both with computers and as writers. Nyx ends up being one of two Designated IT Person for BRC, the other being Cueball.

Her and Cueball get into little prank wars, mostly instigated by Cueball for the hell of it. Her opinion of him ranges from genuine respect for his own computer skills to Chump Lord Supreme. Depends on her mood (and how much Cueball has recently pissed her off before asking her about it, lol)

As for the rest of BRC: "Well, they're still kinda chumps, but I guess they're my chumps now, y'know?"

Not afraid to be snarky, even to authority figures (DJ Cyber included)

Now for Jazz (Summer palette):

Is actually a guy who crossdresses! Does drag shows on the weekends too. :D

She is personally not very picky about pronouns, but most people default to referring to Jazz with she/her while in her writer outfit or as her drag persona (she goes by Jazz for both anyways), and he/him when he's not dressed up. But again, not very picky either way.

"I'm just saying, when the cops try to chase me down, they're gonna be looking for a blonde woman, not a guy with dark hair and stubble. Literally, one time I ran around a corner and managed to take off my wig and mask, then just covered up my top with a hoodie I had. Same pants and shoes, but they didn't even notice!"

Truthfully the crossdressing thing was genuinely just for fun, not to mention pretty comfortable while going around doing writer stuff. It wasn't until a while later that she realized it would make for a great disguise as a writer. :P

Nyx and Jazz are basically Besties and will be more than happy to smacktalk about their respective crews behind everyone's backs, lol

Now Quantum (Winter palette):

Runs an underground (kinda literally) server farm for local web hosting, chat sites, and forums. Anyone remember forums? Man, the good ol' days...

Has a hand in a lot of open source freeware projects. Hates companies like Adobe, Apple, Google, and Microsoft with a passion. Big Linux nerd btw, she will talk you ear off about the pros and cons of different distros if you let her.

Actually on that note, if you're not talking to her while she's out and about as a writer, or otherwise talking to her about computer stuff, she's fairly introverted! Especially if you try to talk to her in person instead of via text/chat/email/etc, she's basically more talkative online.

Also very good at sneaking around. Though not really as like spying or anything like that, she just prefers to not get in people's way or annoy them. Unfortunately she has scared DJ Cyber more than once by sneaking up on him by accident, lol

Wears contacts as a writer, but otherwise wears glasses normally. Has been considering getting prescription heavy-duty goggles for her writer activities, so that she doesn't have to bother with the contacts anymore.

And finally Veronica (Autumn palette):

She is genuinely a jerk. Nyx can be snarky sometimes, but not in an overly mean way. Veronica will be more than happy to be nasty to someone if she thinks they deserve it, even if they really don't.

Always looks down on pretty much any other writer outside of FUTURISM. She's still convinced Felix cheated to get his reputation, especially the whole "did it with no boostpack" thing.

Most people would probably consider her a stereotypical Karen ngl :u

So yeah, she's basically That One Teammate Nobody Likes. Veronica is only still in the crew because her skills are second only to DJ Cyber himself. Hell, he really doesn't like her attitude, but can't find a replacement for her in terms of skills. (He's begged Vinyl to formally join FUTURISM in the past, but she always declined, preferring to keep being a freelance writer. And now that she's part of BRC, she's definitely not an option for replacing Veronica, lmao)

She had a crush on Faux, but these days refuses to admit it was ever a thing.

That's about all I got I think! Hope you enjoy these. :>

Small bonus, specific track from the game that I associate with FUTURISM the most: Funk Express!

[r3d-m3dic]

tw: cartoonish blood and an itty bit of bone

Zombie Aiden mcsm. Is it weird that I use a rust brush for blood rather then an actual blood brush? meh. works better me 👍

anyways it's for my version of season 3 lore reasons which takes place in 2024! So 7 years after season two. Gotta give the guys some sort of break lol.

Also my season 3 is a lot darker then Microsoft or Telltale would probably allow 💀

Also obviously this isn't fleshed out, it's quickly summarized, so it reads as happening in a much shorter timeframe then it actually does 👍

(God that sounds edgy 😭 I'm sorry)

So y'all know the cave dweller mod thingy for Minecraft?

This thing.

It's not the main Villain, but it seems like it for the first bit. It's also a little bit more human, and can say some words, but mostly growls. Also it's more like a zombie and can infect people.

The actual main villain is PAMA, but from a different universe where Jesse spared them, since that was one of the choices. (didn't it kill you if you picked it or something?) Lukas was the one mind controlled in the final fight, and ends up dying due to Jesse sparing PAMA. Jesse is still alive in that universe though.

So that PAMA managed to get an Android body, that can basically change into any form. They began experiments on the people in their world. Make them better. Useful.

And Jesse was the first one.

He's the thing. The cave zombie thing? I'll think of a name later.

And somehow he escaped his world, and got into my version of MCSM :3

Also by now OG The Ocelots are reformed (kinda), but obviously there's slight tension. Lukas is really there to make sure Aiden doesn't get too out of line again.

And the thing goes after The Ocelots.

And a lot happens. They are on the run, constantly. Can't even sleep, it's like The Thing is specifically going after them. Aiden gets bit on the ankle, and arm. He doesn't think much of it, none of them do. It's not like the thing is a zombie like thing and can infect people. (Totally not forshadowing.)

So yeah they get chased around a bunch, eventually finding something important to Aiden and Lukas.

My OCs come in at this point :3

Lex and Erik! Lex is 15, Erik is 19. Erik is like an older brother to him.

Erik is Lukas's younger brother, and Lex is Jesse's younger brother. (not Jesse as in the thing jesse who got experimented on by PAMA. My timeline's Jesse!)

So the Ocelots find those two in a bunker they built below a treehouse that Lukas and Aiden had built when they were around 15?

All their weapons had broken, or left somewhere due to having to quickly leave. And Ths Thing shows up again. A final showdown. And that's when Erik and Lex emerge from a grass covered trapdoor in the ground.

Fight fight blah blah blah.

Anyways Erik points out the bite on Aiden's arm, so he has Lex check it out.

They have to cut it off 💀

Boom arm gone (It's not good at all, it looks ripped off.)

And they don't notice the bite on his ankle.

And the infection comes swiftly, but Lex stops it halfway. And boy is he in severe pain. So no more fights for him.

Jk.

Gill is staying with him in the bunker, whilst Lukas, Erik, Lex, and Maya go up.

And there's PAMA. Holding the body of the thing.

And they are pissed.

The 4 of them quickly cartoonishly hide behind the tree, PAMA not noticing them. PAMA walks off in search of the killers.

and that's it for now :3

(I made this shit up as I went)

this is ass

[reallyexists]

It turns out there's a fork of the Xenia emulator that can run Kameo: Elements of Power (2005) in a playable state, so I finally played one of the big fixations-from-afar of my childhood. Initially pitched for the N64, then moved to the GameCube, and finally coming out as a launch title for the Xbox 360 after Microsoft bought Rare, it bears the scars of a troubled development. It's a game pulled in many different directions. It sucks a little bit.

Obviously the big draw of the game to me as a kid was all the different weird guys in it, and as an adult that is... still the case! Here's a tier list! Details under the cut:

1: Pummelweed. This is one of the flagship guys. A horrible little venus flytrap-themed boxer who lets out adorable grunts and giggles as they do the single punch combo that they have. I just think they're neat! Deserving of the sole S-tier placement because they have an extremely good design, a fun (evil) personality & are fun to play as, despite being kind of one-note and dropping off in usefulness a bit as the game goes on.

Bonus: Baby Pummelweed! You can get elemental warriors either through saving them from shadow trolls or getting them from family members; the ones you save start out as little baby versions called elemental sprites. Pummelweed's is definitely one of the better ones. Also comes with a sick transformation sequence where the little baby hulks out and its eyes go bloodshot as it prepares to do punching, as afflicts all those who must punch.

2: Deep Blue. Fucking excellent design. The vastly superior option between the two water-element warriors, both because Deep Blue is actually pretty fast on land (even though they're the ONLY warrior that can go underwater) and for cheesing utility. I thought Deep Blue would become completely useless after the Contractually-Obligated Water Temple in which you are forced into using them 90% of the time, but their non-damaging water jets (fired from the stumpy sucker-arms) are really useful for knocking enemies off of high ledges for the rest of the game, saving you the trouble of actually having to fight them. Knowing Rare, this is probably less of an exploit and more the expected/required strategy in some parts.

Bonus: Baby Deep Blue! Also a good one because it's just a cuter version of Regular Deep Blue. 10/10

3: Rubble. I just love Rubble's design and animations! The head bobbles atop the pile of rocks as they all roll in unison. Very unique & cute. Unfortunately loses points for falling hard out of relevancy about 1/4 through the game; a lot of low-tier guys are languishing down there because they get used for exactly one area and then forgotten about, and Rubble kind of has that problem. You just get them early enough that they still make a lasting impression.

Bonus: Baby Rubble! This one is a little bit weirder, as it becomes increasingly clear that they had exactly one rig for the elemental sprites, so all the baby versions need to conform to the same body plan. Rubble isn't that bad, looks kinda like the baby from Dinosaurs. Cute ponytail!

4: Major Ruin. Look at this fuckin' guy. Fucking A-tier guy right here. Like a little sorta elephant-armadillo thingy, Major Ruin's gimmick is rolling around in a ball and being used for a ton of physics-based puzzles and platforming. Over-reliance on physics puzzles is kind of a problem in this game, but I'm not gonna take it out on Major Ruin. Even though it's literally the only thing Major Ruin is good for. Major Ruin is a really cool name. Major Ruin.

Bonus: Baby Major Ruin! Really good, looks fucking... pissed off to be here. Me too, Major.

5: 40 Below. You might think that a buff abominable snowman rolling around on a snow trackball would be pretty awesome, and you would almost be right! For some reason 40 Below's gormless attitude failed to endear him to me. He has a gimmick where switching to him makes ice ramps appear in the snow area (approx. 3 ice ramps), but he mainly makes B tier because his spiked snowball spin move has an enormous hitbox that collides with enemy hitboxes and makes him functionally invulnerable until his energy runs out. This is how I cheesed what would otherwise have been a long and annoying final boss battle. Thanks, 40 Below!

Bonus: Baby 40 Below! Resembles any number of cute cartoon snowpersons, with the important addition of the bassist chin tuft. Keep rockin' out little man.

6: Snare. Snare is this high up because she looks like Audrey II. That's obvious. That's most of what she has going for her. BUT, I also found her gimmick of picking stuff up in her giant maw and trebuchet-tossing it out, which is used 2 times in the last 2 hours of the game, to be not-terrible. Snare is the last of the 3 elemental warriors you get for free from Kameo's rescued family members, and that sucks, why did you back-load her, she cannot take this pressure. Is it just because you didn't want to make her baby? Shameful.

7: Ash. Ash is the very first warrior you get for free from the first family member you save, and consequently I feel little emotional attachment to Ash. There's a weird gimmick where they spew fireballs that climb up walls (because they can only shoot them straight ahead). The continuous fire breath attack is pretty strong in some circumstances? I don't know, it's getting a bit thin back here. The other thing I'll say for Ash is that they look like the model that changed the least between the GameCube build and final release.

8: Thermite. Thermite is the very last elemental warrior you unlock, and the strongest in combat because their big lava urn thing shoots bombs in third-person-shooter style. The idea of an elemental warrior that's a tiny little guy with a big artillery piece is very cool, but unfortunately in execution it means you are just looking at a big urn 100% of the time and you can barely see the little guy if you try really hard to angle the camera down. The gameplay is sorta there, Thermite feels suitably powerful for the endgame, just not my favorite to play as.

Bonus: Baby Thermite! This one is pretty fucked up. Why does it have the little dingly dongle in back and also antennae? Would it really have been that fuckin' hard to make it, like... the same color? I dunno man, this one is pretty lazy. Another casualty of Too Many Guys.

9: Chilla. I'm so sorry, Chilla. I'm putting the #1 flagship weird guy next-to-last. The design is solid, Chilla gets a lot of playtime, but unfortunately Chilla just sucks. Gimmicks include climbing ice walls using an ugly set of animations (present in two locations: the ice zone and the final boss' castle, which is IN A VOLCANO), chucking ice spears (hard to aim because the camera snaps to where Chilla is facing instead of where you're looking, they don't do a lot of damage and he gets like 10 of them before he gets tired [THIS IS HIS MAIN ATTACK]), and sticking trolls to his back and then pulling them off to throw/use as a club (fucking atrocious range and damage and it takes so much effort, just use someone else jesus christ).

Chilla would have been a very cute baby but unfortunately he comes free with a purchase of $15 or more at the Water Temple, so you'll just have to imagine it.

10: Flex. I feel bad for Flex. It's an alright design, but the execution lets it down. Flex's single foot is procedurally animated and the body is subtly constrained to a fixed radius around it as it moves, but the body glides completely smoothly like it's hovering a fixed distance above the ground. It feels unnatural and looks bad. On top of this, flex's gimmick of grabbing onto distant grapple points (read: weird blue piranha plant tongues) is used in exactly one area, and Flex has little general combat utility so you're not likely to use them elsewhere. The definition of a bottom-tier weird guy. Sucks to play as, but fortunately you only have to for one part and then you can forget they exist. Oh, and there's one more contributing factor:

Malus: Baby Flex?! What the fuck, man.

In conclusion, 10 is too many weird guys. Make fewer weird guys that are better, probably. Like Scaler (2004).

Also some of these characters suck because the energy meter sucks! The foresight to integrate the character design with the combat focus by giving every character an attack that can be done without expending energy was absent from the design, among other things. If they were just allowed to be awesome and kick ass nonstop (like they're supposed to be able to do in-universe) they'd be a lot somewhat better. Not you, Flex. Sorry.

[chronomaza]

You guys aren't going to believe the fucking night I had last night.

So I was up late editing my document into the ungodly hours of the night because I've lost all control of my sleep schedule, right? Everything was normal until I went to save, where it gave me the message;

"Since the document has been opened others have made changes in it, all changes made by others will be overwritten if you save, do you wish to continue?"

So, as someone who values their draft for their 392 page fantasy novel more than they do some people in their life, and who has definitely NOT shared it's current, non PDF version with anyone, I reasonably pissed my pants and began to panic.

I began frantically google searching things, and find out Open Libre has a "collaboration feature." This makes me panic even more. Holy fuck! I think to myself, I must've accidentally shared this somehow, and now that ex friend I gave the PDF to and I just had to break contact with is vandalizing my document in an act of revenge!

I search to see if there is ANY conceivable way I could've done this, but it doesn't seem like anyone else has ever had this issue, so maybe it's unintentional and I've just experienced a bug? I check for that, but the only thing even remotely similar happened in the app's predecessor; Open Apache, to some poor soul who was getting this message every time they went to save their document- which was utterly heartbreaking, but not at all relevant to my situation- yet.

So now I REALLY begin to panic, did I just experience some sort of major data breach? Did Open Libre have some massive security flaw I didn't know about? I search everywhere, find out that, unsurprisingly, opening a virus script in an open source program will immediately hack your computer. But not once do I find anything like the issue I'm having.

Puzzled, I turn to a review of the program made recently to see if they bring up anything like this. They said; "One major con of Open Libre is how it still doesn't have online collaboration features in 2023."

Uh oh.

So now I was just very confused, what the fuck could've caused this? The collaboration feature is for multiple users using the same PC, and the only other account on here is my Microsoft account I don't use anymore because local accounts don't open Microsoft edge every time I try to change my username. Baffled, I check to see if there's any way I could track changes done in the program, maybe it's mistaken me for a different user somehow?

I track changes, and I show up as "unknown author" in the program. Ok, this must be the issue, right? Go to save again, no issues, no popup. If that wasn't the problem, what was?

I think back to the person using Open Apache, and their issue.

Someone in the thread said it was a "bizarre timestamp issue."

Suddenly, what happened to me finally clicks.

Daylight savings didn't just confuse the fuck out of me when it suddenly turned from 1 in the morning to 3,

It confused the fuck out of Open Libre too. (And I can confirm this is why this happened, as my dad had a similar issue too when he went to save a spreadsheet he forgot to save overnight in the morning.)

By having an utterly atrocious sleep schedule, I was able to encounter probably the MOST obscure glitch I've ever encountered in any program, and I'm still not 100% sure why it even happened. (If any smart tech person can tell me what exactly caused this in particular to happen with the time change, I'd love to hear it!)

So yeah, I got to sleep around 5 AM.

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

y'know im about to go feral on how EVERYTHING is under subscriptions. want this viddy game to run better??? get *insert viddy company name here or or viddy game title here* plus or extra or up your plan to get access to EXTRAS!!

bc the other day, i was making a list of all the different games i might download on my xbox in the future. fallout 76, which has fallout 1st.... which is a $22.99 per a month or $179 a year subscription, just to get better skins etc in the game. i want to download trivial pursuit for me and my dad. but xbox and ubisoft keep recommending "get ubisoft+" which is ANOTHER subscription service through ubisoft. another like $25 a month. like given it could be worth it for me if i got into assassins creed on a bigger level than casual. get EA play to get exclusive sims content!! for ANOTHER $6.99 a month. get xbox games pass (which i have) for $18.95 a month!!! and to be fair, i get EA play for free through xbox game pass. but still.

for example, the other day i updated my nintendo online sub account to the extras pack or whatever.... all bc i wanted to look at the gameboy advance online thing...... but instead of letting me look at it and play super mario world 2 on it on my NORMAL SUBSCRIPTION (which i already had access to on nintendo online snes/game cube or whatever.... and plus i though the GBA platform would have more games than it did (like 10 games but i thought it'd have like 50 or something) i had to change my subscription to the nintendo online plus extras pack for GBA online. but that subscription, was $41.95 this year bc i bought it on sale,... however, next year it'll be $60. like at least its $60 a year and not a month. but i'm still pissed off. i should've been able to get access to this for the $30 a year i was already paying!!! and for a measly 10 games not the like 50 games on the game cube/snes online game offerings.

just. im so sick and tired of EVERY company demanding customers to pay a monthly or yearly subscription for access or extras or for something to run better. who the fuck is made of enough money to afford fallout 1st??? ubisoft+??? like dgmw, i get it if you're SUPER into any of these games. like it's worth $22.99 a month to access extras across the library of ubisoft+ if you're a hella fan of assassin's creed or their other games (ie trivial pursuit). or $6.99 for EA play for the love of sims or every single sports game ever.

just i guess it's burn out maybe that EVERYONE wants your money. a section of your wallet continuously until you cancel. i have to subscribe to my area's local newspaper for $179 a year. i subscribed to an app by the adf (australian defence force) to do job aptitude tests (im ignoring it tbh lol). i subscribe to the NYTs games app for $2.99 a month. i WAS paying $15 a month (but now it's closer to $20) for scribd, which is now everand, for audiobooks. for better use of my xbox, i subscribe to xbox games pass, as i said earlier, for $18.95 a month. and from next year, i'll pay $60 a year for nintendo online (unless i drop down back to the cheaper option to get rid of GBA online). i subscribe for $100 a year to microsoft for the essential apps of microsoft word/powerpoint etc. i pay $100 a year for norton antivirus on my windows laptop that i barely use now.

there's adhd apps that I keep getting recommended on fb that are like $150 a year or something. astrology app subscriptions (that i'll NEVER buy) that are like $15 a month.... as examples of apps that i won't use, but I get suggested all the time on social media. once i get a job, i'll be constantly asked about what tv streaming apps im subbed to as well (none). WHY does EVERYONE want my fucking money???? i am so sick to death of subscriptions.

[markcarloasuncion]

“HOW DOES MOBILE APPS BECOME PART OF MY DAILY LIFE?”

Given that we currently live in the modern era. Anyone has access to the internet through their smartphones, which are truly important to people's everyday tasks nowadays. It can be used for a wide range of purposes, including education, online businesses, and many other things, where it can be applied as fundamental information to many facets of life.

I can't deny that I still have many things to learn about the course I have been chosen for, even if I decided to pursue a degree in information and communications technology and become a teacher soon. Although it may be difficult to evolve, I hope to see an exciting future, five years or ten years from now on. My aim is to provide important information to my incoming students regarding the significance of using mobile apps and the possible advantages as well as disadvantages that may occur for them.

And now for the very interesting part. I created this blog because I was interested to discuss some of mobile apps that I use the most and provide honest feedback based on my experience dealing those apps carefully and using them in the right manner. Let us start and see! 😁👀

Here's the list of my TOP 10 MOBILE APPS THAT I AM USING IN MY EVERYDAY LIFE:

1. Facebook

2. Google

3. Messenger

4. YouTube

5. Spotify

6. Microsoft Office

7. Canva

8. Google Chrome

9. MVLE Mobile

10. Google Classroom

Facebook is the leading app I am using everyday. Why? Because, I discovered that I could socialize with people using this app in many ways other than face-to-face interactions, such as reacting and commenting to their posts, sharing memes that I saw on newsfeeds and could apply to my real-life status, joining various group pages to share my knowledge, selling things that can generate a profit and starting a business, and a ton of other freely made things.

Google comes in second. This app is already available on all cellphones that you could purchase. However, when it comes to complete my schoolwork and other assignments on time, that's when it becomes resourcefulness for me. I should not really 100% trusted this app, because, there are some things aren't true to know or can be lead into “misinformation” like in the website of Wikipedia. That's why, sometimes, I love to do my self-tasks alone.

The Messenger, the third one. It was an app that linked to Facebook, making it simpler to send messages to people you knew. I have been using this to connect with my teacher and classmates ever since the pandemic. It can't be access whenever I'm offline but, there's another variant of this app which is called, “Messenger Lite” that even basic mode can still access. Unlike the regular version, I guess.

The next one is YouTube. Through this app, I can watch the daily news that I couldn't watch on TV, to gather an additional information about the lessons in school I think it's hard to be understood, have a good time to watch those missed music videos that came from my favorite artists and so much more things to do.

For the fifth place, Spotify is always there at my phone to save me every time. When I listen to songs out there, it makes me heal from everything I pissed off. But, unfortunately, data or Wi-Fi is needed for this app. That's why sometimes, I listen to my download songs playlist. Whenever I don't have an internet to be used it. This kind of music streams is the best app that I had in my whole life and also, you can subscribe for its premium version (just optional only, if you want to remove ads while having a sound trip alone or with your family everywhere, especially, at home).

The two apps next to Spotify are named, “Microsoft Office 365” and “Canva.” Both are eligible to be used and finished on time, the tasks you want to overcome in everyday life. It makes me assist like an instructor that you can learn a lot from these two apps. That's why, I'm thankful that they created a superior & perfect app for every person who have a struggling problems that unable to solve when it comes to work that include time management.

The eighth one is “Google Chrome” that designed to be that's fastest web browser. With one click, it loads web pages, multiple tabs, and applications with lightning speed. Whenever I'm using this app, there will be always ads popping up. So, as a result, I easily annoyed sometimes but, we can't deny the fact that ads is everywhere, even for those online gamers can relate. As what I said, it allows me to set up tabs as many as I can, just in case I needed those pages.

While, the two left apps on my list are called, “MVLE Mobile” and “Google Classroom.” These two educational purpose apps makes me help to fulfill the tasks that I should be finished on time. Aside from that, they're lessons can pin and students can able to download it then, having a takes notes. So, just in case, our instructors may ask some questions about the lessons we read about the learning materials s/he has given through online access.

As I end of my discussion about my experience that I shared here to those TOP 10 mobile apps that I am usually using everyday. I gained a lot of knowledge to them and since everything we use nowadays are related to technology. We can't force ourselves to be able silence but, to inform other people these apps are having an advantages and disadvantages at the same time. But, I would like to say that, “Be a responsible mobile apps user, especially when you're in social media. Think hard first before you click anything, not everything you may see are true. Just be careful with yourself and others that may affect, if ever you do wrongdoings that's not acceptable in our society.”

That's all, I hope you read my blog until the end. Thank you for the time you spend, have a great day ahead!

For more further details about the “Advantages of Disadvantages of Mobile Apps.” Here's the provided link for you:

#individualblog #mobileapps #tumblrapp #livingintheinformationandtechnologyworld

[remzarci]

What...is it about Elon that people Believe in so much?

There's quite a bit of proof that the guy...Almost has no idea what he's doing and yet alot of his fans believe in him.

"He's gonna make [Insert Coin Here] fly to the MOOOON"

"He's gonna revolutionize [insert tech field here]"

"HE'S GONNA SEND US TO MARS!!! WOOOOOO!!!!!"

I feel like alot of people have fallen back into a mind set of "Wealth Means Know-How" as in "Hey he's financially successful no dummy could do that!" except most of that money wasn't made by him, he's from a rich family that own emerald mines. He didn't MAKE most of that money, he just has it and honestly that should probably piss more people off then find him endearing.

That not to say he doesn't make a bit of money. I mean the guy co founded Pay-Pal! Well, co founded a thing called X[dot]com which was this online bank, of which he was ousted from because the investors regarded him as inexperienced and put Intuit CEO Bill Harris at the helm. Which later X[dot]com would merge with a different online bank, Confinity, to avoid competition, mainly because the PayPal service was far more popular and then Elon would return as CEO, cause a rift in the company due to his preference to Microsoft over UNIX. which would then make Confinity's founder, Peter Thiel, to resign. And the company suffered technological issues and the lack of a cohesive business model. So the board ousted Elon and replaced him with Thiel again. who then renamed the company PayPal and then said company was bought by e-bay later. Elon would still be a shareholder and in 2017 would receive $175.8 million in stocks and then would buy the X[dot]com domain from paypal so that he can make "X the everything app".

But he's the co-founder of Tesla!

...nnnnnnnooooooo...

Testla was founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in 2003 as Tesla Motors, Inc. where was Elon during this? In February 2004, the company raised $7.5 million in series A funding, with Elon paying $6.5 million. Which was probably from the $100 Million he got from selling his interest from PayPal two year ealier. So he became a Chairman of the board of Directors and largest shareholder of the company. in 2009 in a lawsuit agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla would sign on himself, Tarpenning, Wright, Straubel and Elon as Co-Founder of Tesla.

Elon would then lead the board to ask Eberhard to step down in august of 2007. he took the title "President of Technology". Tarpenning would later leave in january of 2008 amd then Ze'ev Drori became CEO and President which he'd be succeeded by Elon in October 2008.

So I wouldn't call him a founder, more of a head investor.

what I'm saying is the guys knows how to spend money.

...

He founded Space X

...

pretty sure you know what happened recently I don't HAVE to go too much into detail about that...

...

Speaking of Space he wants to go to Mars. he wants to go there, colonize it and terraform it.

lemme...lemme break down WHY this is super unnecessary.

First off: Mars is far, FAR Away with very few windows to actually get there and if something goes wrong it'll take Months into a YEAR for assistance. meaning the people going there or even are there would be FUCKED!

There's also the fact that Mars is an Irradiated dust ball. because the planet no longer has a magnetic barrier to protect it from being blasted by gamma radiation! so anybody there would run the risk of radiation inducted cancer!

It's also fucking cold!

also blasting it with nukes wouldn't warm it up. rather it would introduce more radiation and bloat out the sun more! more than the duststorms even! so less sun would mean Nuclear Winter! And isn't the goal to make Mars habitable? blasting it with Nukes certainaly won't do that!

And even without nuking Mars. and not taking the present radiation issue into account do you how isolated it would be? Like people would be depressed, drunk and would probably more akin to zombies.

add to the fact that the windows to send supplies to mars are few and far between. those people would probably be dead long LOOOONG before help would arrive meaning Elon probably wouldn't see his Mars City in his life time!

Ontop of all of that is one major thing wrong with this.

There is no real reason to go to mars and terraform it, no really there is NOTHING of real interest to anyone on Mars! No Mars Ore, No Mars Oil. it's just a radiation blasted dust ball orbiting our sun!

But he still WANTS to go there and people want him to take them there too!

crypto?

Yeah the guy most likely understands Pump and Dump and uses his fame to Pump up a coin, dump it and then shift the blame while he nets a cozy sum for himself.

soooo I'd have to say that Elon talks the talk but when it walkin' the walk he stumbles and stumbles baaaad!

just look at his most recent acquisition, twitter, and how THAT thing is falling apart. And rather then having it be a functioning site he'd rather have it be a cesspit! And roleplay on a burner account where he's a baby.

...

No I'm serious twitter is burning down and and he's there roleplaying as a baby version of himself!

...

if you want to take solace in something know that he has lost ALOT of money recently and is no longer the richest man. Instead that title belongs to Bernard Arnault of LVMH.

But he still has his fans and he's still pretty rich. buuuut, he might lose it all if he keeps faking it where he can't make it.

So! look forward to that!

[smol-feralgremlin]

I was pretty pleased getting my new laptop because I hadn't had a new laptop since I was in highschool. All the others i got were second hand and all that. So I did my normal shit with moving stuff over to this new laptop and then I got a fucking "you've run out of space" message.

And I was so confused because, first of all, this machine is brand new and there's now way windows 11 takes up that much space.

Took me 30 minutes to figure out what had happened. Everything was getting put into onedrive. I've never disabled anything so fast before And to this day I'm still pissed about it.

every so often I'll get the "hey you should use onedrive!" and then I snuff that fucker out so fast because fuck you microsoft. Fuck you for not letting my machine be mine. You're lucky I haven't had the energy to shift everything back over to the old laptop and installing linux onto this one yet.

getting new technology feels more infuriating every year. got a new computer for the first time in 8 years and everything about windows 11 and how it handles onedrive is driving me up the wall

[rosebarry16]

Hi guys, I'm sorry I'm not online cause I still feel so depressed on what I have witnessed on Microsoft's scam and I honestly feel burned whenever I hear black ops 6 cause that day I remember it like it was yesterday.

I wanna make sure that I stay away from spoilers and the game itself so I don't feel pissed and jealous over it

:(

[crescentaindahauz3]

Daily Journal: Self Reflection (Saturday, August 31, 2024)

I was so sad and pissed off yesterday because my laptop charger stopped working perhaps the one I bought from the orange app is giving very local and fake, and I can't finish what I'm doing for our philosopher matrix in Understanding the Self subject, although we have a desktop computer, but I'm not comfortable using it and I don't have a choice to use it. However, I've still completed all of my school activities. It was fine, and I calmed down after watching some humorous videos on social media and talking some funny stuff on our friend's group chat.

Today, we had a Tertiary Student Orientation at STI via Microsoft Teams, which our classmates and friends attended.

[unhingedwomandiaries]

Had one of those proper mindfuck dreams last night. You know the type - starts off innocent enough but then reality decides to go on holiday and everything gets weird as shit.

So I'm on this bus because apparently my lizard brain thought public transport would be more efficient than my usual commute. Bus driver's giving it the big one about dropping me right at my door, no worries love, piece of piss. Should've known better, shouldn't I? Public transport is about as reliable as x's promises to stop microwaving fish in the office kitchen.

Some of my colleagues are on board, having a full-blown Microsoft Teams meltdown about bloody pimple patches of all things. Like, even my subconscious can't escape workplace drama. Tragic.

Then time does that sneaky dream thing where it just fucks off without warning. Phone's telling me ninety minutes have gone missing, vanished into the void like x's dignity at last year's Christmas party. Never a good sign when time starts playing hide and seek in your dreams, is it?

Next thing I know, we're pulling into what looks like a Soviet-era bomb shelter. Proper concrete monstrosity, the type of place you'd expect to find either nuclear warheads or really shit vending machines. I'm sat there thinking this definitely isn't my stop unless my house has suddenly relocated to a military installation.

Pull up Google Maps like a proper muppet (because dream-me still believes in technology apparently), and it's having an existential crisis trying to load. When it finally gets its shit together, turns out we're in fucking Somerset. Somerset! I live nowhere near Somerset. I'm not some countryside dweller who has debates with sheep and gets excited about cheese rolling competitions.

Started proper crying then, having flashbacks to that time I actually ended up in Wales by accident. (Real life me would like to formally apologize to Wales for that incident. Still don't know how that happened.)

Thank fuck I woke up before the bus driver could announce we were taking a quick detour to Scotland.

[darkfighterofblackshadowdeath]

Lately I've been wondering if I'm antisocial. I find the office culture at my job so strange. Most people seem to love being at the office. I was never a fan of commuting, so spending 1-1.5 hours every day to get to the office is not an ideal way to spend my time tbh. I wonder if I hated going to the office less if it was just 5 minutes away.

But then there's also this open door culture. I hate leaving my door open. It's noisy, it's distracting when people pass by and rooms never really warm up because all the warmth is going to the hallway.

People also have such little understanding for everyone who prefers to work from home. They complain a lot that allegedly not enough information is being passed around because they don't see each other that often. But we have ways to communicate. Just shoot someone a message. It's not that hard.

But what I find especially strange are boundaries or lack thereof. I'm not saying being friendly or even finding friends at your job is a bad thing by any means. But bringing your newborn child to the office while being on maternal leave is fucking weird. Are you just raising the next generation of workers? Am I the only one who thinks that's weird? You're on maternal leave. Stay the fuck away from work.

Also so many people are complaining they can no longer see their emails on their private phone. Calendar I can understand, but emails? I was pissed I had to use my private phone for 2FA. Fortunately I could just use free OTP which was already on my phone instead of downloading the Microsoft authenticator. I don't want to be reminded of work in my free time. So wtf would anyone want their work emails on their private phone? Stop working in your free time.

To my surprise I like company events even when they're outside of working hours. Like Christmas parties or a company BBQ. That's a type of bonding I can live with. But somehow it's considered rude not to be there even when you're on vacation??? I was asked why I wasn't at the Christmas party - apparently other people who were on vacation were there. I'm sorry??? I have better things to do when I'm on vacation. It's been two weeks since the party. How is this still on your mind?

It's like people are married to their jobs. It makes want to get to know them less. It's great that people don't hate their job, but imo they're taking it too far. I've talked with family about it and aside from my husband people disagree with me. I don't get it. Am I supposed to choose my job over my free time? It feels like sacrificing myself, so my colleagues like me more. But I don't really value my colleagues' opinion of me that much. I don't hate them. I just don't want to be surrounded by work when I don't have to be.