#also hi crash bandicoot mutuals :D

[c0smiccom3t]

Headcanon: Coco would make video blogs tbh..... I might draw that .

[angrylizardjacket]

heard your name in every love song {Ben Hardy} 1

1. when he was looking out for me (i would pretend he was my summer fling)

Summary: When you’re twelve and you have a crush on your babysitter, your parents think it’s puppy love, think it’s cute, and you’ll forget about it soon enough.

A/N: 2266 words. Female!Reader. okay so the sprained ankle in Space Jump is a direct reference to something that happened in my theater class, that being a dude snapped his fucking femur playing Fruit Salad. RIP adam’s femur for the following few months. he’s fine now, that was like 8 years ago. whatever. are all these theater games i mention real? i’ll never tell. here’s part 1. DISCLAIMER: NO CREEPY SHIT I SWEAR TO GOD I WOULDN’T DO THAT; THERE’S A LITTLE BIT OF PINING FROM Y/N BUT THAT’S IT. there’s a few assumptions made abt Y/N’s life; only child, parents (plural, idk how many, doesn’t matter), plays Crash Bandicoot and Mario Kart, takes theater classes outside of school.

the mutant brotherhood: @daisy-lu​ @hervoidparadise​ @nedmjpeter​ @ultrunning​ @d-r-e-a-m-catchme​ @clementimee​ @that-fandom-sucks-tho​ @cjand10​ @rest-is-detail​ @baileymae​ @rosesvioletshardy​ @onceuponadetectivedemigod​ @hazelstyles94​ @bitchylittleredhead​ @bihemian-rhapsody​ @sweatyexpertgardenpanda​ @whereeverythingisbetter​ @dedxbed​ @xxencagedxx​ @glittrixvibe​ @a-girl-with-stress​ @sunflower-ben​ @pxroxide-prinxcesss​ @mrsmazzello​ @cubedtriangle​ @haileymorelikestupid​ @misscharlottelee @nevilles-insinuations @jovialcreatorkidtoad @brianmaysclog @sambuckywarrior @hey-yo-bedussey @bubblyanis @lifesciencesbois @elektraofcrete @diosanaz @bbdoyouloveme @kirstansworld @okilover02 @cardboardbenmazzello @dreashappyworld @juliarose21 @simonedk @greycuby @emmasunshiine @dinotje @qtrogerina @spiketacus @nympha-door-a @local-troubled-writer @emphatic-af @wh0a-thisisheavy @lustgardn @banginashton 

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When you’re twelve, and almost at the end of your first year of high school, you get into a fight with your parents as to whether or not you still need a babysitter. Much to your chagrin, however, they don’t see twelve as ‘practically sixteen, which is practically an adult’ and you sulk for the full three days leading up to the night they were going out. The night of, you’re fully intending on staying in your room, until there’s a knock at the door, and you hear a voice that is absolutely not your usual babysitter.

“Be good,” your parents call to you as they’re leaving, having noticed where you’d cracked the door to your room to see who it was. You make a face at them, but you’re surprised to see a kid from Sixth Form on crutches, who is absolutely not Madeline, standing in the hallway awkwardly. You’re pretty sure you’ve seen him around school, maybe he’s on the soccer team? You’re not sure. 

“You’re not Maddy,” you tell him, opening the door a little wider, and he seems surprised for a moment to see you there. A kind, awkward smile appears on his face as he regards you with gentle amusement.

“Well spotted, I’m Ben, Maddy’s got the flu,” he explained easily, and offered his hand, “you’re Y/N, right?” And he’s trying so hard, but you’re still kind of mad at your parents for insisting on a babysitter in the first place.

“Who else would I be?” You asked flatly, which surprised a laugh from Ben, but you shook his hand anyways; you had to give him props for trying, “why are you using crutches?” You asked outright, since you’re pretty sure he wasn’t using crutches last time you saw him at school. You turned, heading for the living room, deciding to at least give him a chance.

“Sprained my ankle in class the other week,” he explained, hobbling along behind you.

“Sport or just P.E?” You asked, throwing yourself onto the sofa and picking up the TV remote. Ben was quiet for a long moment, and when you look at where he’s sitting gingerly on the edge of the sofa, he’s making a face like he doesn’t quite want to admit the truth.

“Theater sports,” he explained, which piqued your interest, which, of course, you try not to let show on your face, because if your babysitter knows you already think he’s cool, you might die of embarrassment. But also, you suddenly feel incredibly validated for taking those theater classes every Thursday afternoon.

“They’re -” he tries to explain, but you give another eye roll.

“I know what theater sports are,” you tell him, and his smile turns amused. 

“You do?” He asks, and you think he might be a little bit impressed, or perhaps it was just wishful thinking, either way, you nod firmly, “well I was in the middle of Space Jump - you know Space Jump, right? Where you start an activity and then someone else calls ‘Space Jump’ and you have to freeze and they have to make a new scene from your freeze, and then someone else comes in -” he explained, mostly to save you the embarrassment of admitting you didn’t know the game, “well I was up on one leg on a chair, climbing the rigging of a ship, you know how pirates do, and I froze, and -” he gestured how he’d fallen off the chair, with accompanying sound effects.

“Couldn’t you have just put your other foot down and balanced yourself?” You offered, and he shook his head, expression adamant.

“It’s all about the commitment to the bit; I was trying to entertain them, and the best way I can do that is to put myself out there one-hundred percent,” he told you sincerely, “you’ve always gotta follow through.”

“You sprained your ankle,” you pointed out, “isn’t that dangerous advice?” He deflates a little, looking down at his leg.

“Follow through but use your common sense, you’ve got common sense, don’t you?” He asked, giving a wry smile, two which you nodded diligently, “don’t get yourself hurt, then,” he suggests, before changing the subject quickly, “you hungry yet? Your parents said we could order pizza.” You’re easily excited by the thought of pizza, a rare treat your parents allowed you whenever you were babysat. 

It’s a pretty uneventful night, all things considered, you order pizza, and he lets you win at Crash Team Racing, and you’re falling asleep to a comedy movie until Ben gently suggests that you go to bed. You’re too tired to argue and try and weasel your way into staying up later, so you yawn loudly and wish him a good night before shuffling off to bed. The house is quiet, apart from where he’s watching a Top Gear rerun and waiting for your parents to get home.

You don’t think about it much beyond telling your parents ‘yeah, he’s pretty cool’ when they ask. You don’t think about him much beyond that, at least not for almost a full week, until you’re sitting in your geography class just before lunch, having managed to snag a seat by the window looking out onto the back field, and there’s a PE class doing laps on the field. All are running, except the teacher, and a boy with blonde hair, standing with all his weight on one foot, and a pair of crutches tossed to the side, looking like he’s arguing the teacher.

“I heard when you’re in sixth form you get to push in the front of the line at the canteen,” you hear your friend, Merissa, next to you muse, and when you turn, she’s followed your gaze outside to the field. After a moment, you turn again, and watch the blonde attempt to put weight on his obviously injured foot; it looks like he regrets it, and he sits on the grass, sulking. 

“That’s probably Ben,” Merissa tells you matter-of-factly, “he’s on the football team with my brother.” And something about the kind of unwarranted pride in her voice at being in the know makes your face scrunch up. Part of you wants to tell her that you know who Ben is, obviously, but another part of you doesn’t want to admit to still needing a babysitter; it feels childish. So you keep your mouth shut and turn to back to the board.

And the following week, in your weekly theater class, you’re about to take your turn at Bus Stop, wherein your goal is to make the other person on the ‘bus stop’ as uncomfortable as possible until they finally leave, which is when you’ll assume the roll of the innocent bystander, and someone else from the class will come up and try and make you uncomfortable. It’s a lesson on improvisation disguised as a game. 

The voice you’ve been practicing slightly pinches your vocal cords, and you’ve barely got a moment to assume a matching physicality, and you worry for a second that it’s not funny, that you’ll just look like an idiot -

Put yourself out there one hundred percent.

You steel yourself, making strange shapes with your hands as you twist yourself into as much of a creature as possible, within reason, using the strange voice you’d concocted, feeling a thrill as your entrance gets the biggest laugh of the class. Oh.

A few months later, in the Summer after your first year of high school, you’re finally thirteen, and are allowed to have the house to yourself for the day, but if you’re parents are anticipating staying out later than midnight, you need -

“Please,” you begged, “just don’t say babysitter, I’m not a baby.”

“Fine,” they acquiesce, “you need supervision, just if we’re out very late.” 

Despite your indignation at the situation, Maddy’s got a cello concert, and you’re hoping that that means -

Ben greets you like a friend, wearing a denim jacket with no crutches, and he might be the coolest person you know.

“You still on Crash Team Racing?” He asks with raised eyebrows as he heads into the living room, and you roll your eyes.

“That’s so old school,” you scoff, and he raises his hands in surrender, trying not to look as amused as he feels, watching as you pull out two Wii remotes, “Mario Kart’s much better.” And you hand him one. 

He’s not above letting you win, but it turns out, he doesn’t have to; you’re scarily good at the game, which you credit to playing pretty much nothing else for a solid month, and by the time the pizza arrives, the win ratio is about fifty-fifty, and you’ve bonded considerably over your mutual and unreasonable hatred for Waluigi, the only NPC who seems to consistently beat you both.

“Do you get to push in the front of the line at the canteen?” You asked, holding your pizza in one hand and letting it cool for a moment.

“Huh?” Ben’s burnt the roof of his mouth, and is reaching for his drink when you ask, “whaddya mean?”

“My friend Merissa says Sixth Form gets to push in the front of the line.” 

“I don’t think we’re technically allowed to,” he says after a moment of consideration, and you hear his nonverbal ‘but we still do’ anyways, “it’s not a rule rule, you know?”

“Are the A-levels hard?”

“Haven’t done ‘em yet,” he answers honestly, burping quietly after taking a drink, and you hum, and take a bite of pizza.

“I’m already scared of my GCSEs,” you admit after a moment of chewing, and Ben laughs gently.

“You’ve got nothing to be afraid of,” and he sounds like he means it, so you can’t help but believe it, soothed a little in your premature worrying. To be fair, Ben could say anything about school or life and you’d probably believe it; he was cool and older than you, but he treated you like a friend. 

You mention in passing that you’d gotten the lead for your class’s skit in the end of year showcase your theater company puts on, and mentions that it’s because you’d been committing to the bit in class, and the pride in his voice when he congratulates you is something you end up thinking about for days.

He ends up babysitting you twice more that Summer, not that you were complaining. It meant you got pizza, and to hang out with the coolest person you knew, a fact which you reiterated to your parents, much to their fond amusement, though you made them swear to never tell Ben that. He brought over Super Smash Bros and you guys would play for hours.

The only problem was that Ben was never allowed to know about the crush you had on him, because everyone in the world knew it was weird to have a crush on your babysitter, and you’re pretty sure he has a girlfriend and -

Doesn’t matter. You’re just started to discover the delightful world of crushes and relationships, and Merissa has a boyfriend on Tumblr, and you know that when you get back to school you can have a normal crush on a normal boy in your year, even if all the boys in your year look like thumbs. And Ben...

Is your babysitter. And a decent guy. And your friend, sort of. So you just hope he hasn’t noticed.

After Summer, he’s studying his A-levels, and Maddy’s got a day job so she can babysit at nights again, and it feels like everything’s gone back to normal, like you can breathe again. 

You’ve never really seen him at school; you don’t tend to hang around the back fields, but a few weeks into the first term, you’re having lunch with Merissa and Charlie, one of your other friends, in the library, when you spot him laden down with textbooks, making his way to one of the study rooms at the back. You’re not sure if he’ll even acknowledge you, even though your table is directly along the best route to the back rooms, so you just give him and smile and a nod in greeting.

“Hey, Y/N,” he grins quickly, doesn’t stop, but nods in return, and your heart feels like it’s beating out of your chest. Charlie sinks her nails into your arm the moment he’s gone into the study room, and Merissa quietly screeches your name.

“Chill out,” you’re trying to keep a low profile, but both other thirteen year old girls are demanding to know what just happened, “we’re friends.” You say with a shrug that’s far too casual.

“Friends?!” Merissa demands, and you can feel yourself growing more flustered.

“We hung out a few times during summer,” you open your notebook in front of you, trying to distract yourself.

“You hung out with Ben? Y/N he’s a football guy, he’s so old, he’s like eighteen!”

“We’re friends,” you insist, “don’t be, like, creepy about it,” you snorted, and Charlie let out a pterodactyl-like noise. They drop it at your insistence, and you’re just glad they don’t ask you to elaborate. 

You don’t see Ben much after that anymore, he’s too busy with his A-levels to babysit, and when you’re fourteen, your parents agree that you don’t need a babysitter anymore. You’re more than happy to let your Summer crush fall to the wayside, and let your memories of Ben, like all good Summer memories, fade into blurry obscurity. 

You wouldn’t need to worry about seeing him again anyways, right?

Oh how wrong you were.

[genderbinarysunset]

@oblivioustoast I was like "I'm gonna reread TYA and TMITIM just to answer this question because I always skim Raoul's parts," and got halfway through TYA before my eyes rolled back into my head. So here's the thing... the first half specifically of The Three Musketeers is the funniest thing ever written. It's consistently hilarious, and stuffed full of character moments; it has a fast pace and enough detail so modern readers know what's going on, but it isn't bogged down by it. It's an action adventure story, maybe one of the best ever told. The second half of the book is slower and more serious, but because the setup is so incredibly good you don't really care - you'll power through it because the character interactions remain top notch, and there's a satisfactory ending barring the friends going their separate ways. TTM is a complete story that doesn't necessarily need a sequel.

And that's not Dumas' fault. Like, I'm not gonna be mad that he crafted a masterpiece and the other books didn't live up to the first. And I've talked at length with @inkbee and @attentiondeficitohlookasquirrel about why that might be - Dumas having other projects (TCOMC), Dumas giving most of the work to his assistants and not touching up as much with his own particular wit and charm, Dumas going through a rough patch in his life and being generally depressed. At the end of the day, we don't know. But I've always stood by the fact that the main four Musketeers are what make the stories so damn good. TYA tries to expand the world, and as a historian I appreciate a work of historical fiction, but it goes deep into the political intrigue that was very surface level in TTM, and worse, it commits the cardinal (lol) sin of D&D - it splits the party.

Theoretically, it should be interesting to see a different mixup of characters. You get Aramis, Athos, Rochefort, and sometimes Bazin and Grimaud on one side; and d'Artagnan, Porthos, Planchet, and Mousqueton on the other. When these parties clash, it's kind of engaging! The characters are still good, even if this is where Aramis begins his slide into villain adjacency (which makes sense and is set up, but saddens me as a reader), so the scenes do work. But then we keep getting yanked away to visit Mazarin, whose every chapter is just "and he's not as cool as Richelieu" over and over like yes, we noticed, at this point we don't even need the narration to tell us this, your villain is not as compelling it's true! And that's a huge problem in these stories, because Richelieu was everything in the first book, but oh well, time marches on. When we're not with Mazarin or Beaufort, we're with Raoul. And Raoul...

Raoul... is Bomoko. Not Boruto. Bomoko. The sequel character who's supposed to be the new d'Artagnan but lacks his charm, because d'Artagnan is set up so well, and the energy of the book is so high that he just works, and is beloved. Raoul is in a far slower adventure and... isn't a Gascon. He doesn't have anime protagonist in his blood, he has Sad Boy genes, and God is he a Sad Boy. I'd be sad too if the only person I had to work with for a good while was Olivain! He's like Crash Bandicoot at the end of a bad level, and every box is a new character who we will meet for five minutes and probably never see again, with a few rare exceptions. Raoul just has everything stacked against him to be a painfully boring protagonist. And if you get enjoyment out of him, GOOD. I hope someone likes him! I just do not.

But then, Athos loves Raoul so damn much, and I love Athos, so I cannot stave off warm and soft feelings towards the IDEA of Raoul. I also think he works as a great foil to Mordaunt, and wish they had more interactions than they already do. Character clashes are the bread and butter of Dumas' finest writing and Raoul spends so long alone or with underdeveloped passerby that he doesn't get to shine. The parts where he and Grimaud meet Mordaunt are great though.

As for d'Artagnan's feelings about Raoul, I wish they had had more of a brotherly relationship under their mutual dad Athos, but I'm nevertheless glad that he slots so well into the family. Again, if a character I love loves another character, I must love that character too, so it helps to salvage Raoul for me. I'm sorry Raoul my sweet boy you had such potential and were done so very dirty by whatever Dumas was going through when he wrote this monstrous tome. I'm not gonna talk about TMITIM bc I'll have to think about the lads dying and I'll just die.

[zipgrowth]

Where in the World Is Planet3? An Educational Gaming CEO Seeks His Second Act

When Tim Kelly started Planet3 in 2013, he aimed for the stars. He envisioned a game-based educational platform used by teachers and students to learn about science and the environment.

He had the staff, as many as 35 employees with experience in game and curriculum development. He had the money, at least $13 million raised by July 2016. And he had interest from educators who wanted to try Planet3 in schools that included the Las Vegas area.

But at an all-hands meeting at the company’s Washington, D.C. headquarters in June 2017, Planet3 executives laid off the staff.

Some employees heard the news on a conference call. Others said they found out through email. Some employees hoped the company could turn around and stayed on without pay. “We had lost our way,” one former staff said. “It was pretty disheartening,” said another. The former employees asked not to be named out of concern for their careers.

In nearly two years since the layoffs, Kelly has not abandoned Planet3. He still has the platform, which he claims in an interview is complete. Now, he seeks distribution and strategic partners to help him get product into schools and homes, in the U.S. and internationally. He’s also in search of more capital for his product to realize its full potential.

“We want every student to be engaged as passionate stewards of Earth,” Kelly said. “We’re not giving up.”

Planet3’s Formative Years

Kelly founded Planet3 in 2013 to blend top-tier commercial game designers with instructional experts and create a digital platform to teach middle-school science. He based the content on the Next Generation Science Standards, a multi-state effort at K-12 science education content completed in 2013. Nineteen states and D.C. have adopted the standards while 21 states have standards based on the framework.

Planet3 found its biggest backer in Rob Roy, CEO of Las Vegas-area data center services company Switch, which invested $10 million in the company in 2015. Kelly met him through Planet3 co-founder Albert Yu-Min Lin when Lin received an award sponsored by Switch, Kelly told EdTech Digest at the time.

With vision and funds, Kelly assembled a star-studded cast of experts across the entertainment and education fields. Kelly himself had spent 30 years with the National Geographic Society. He became president in January 2011 and grew the science and education nonprofit beyond its print-based media roots and into TV and films.

His co-founders included Lin, a National Geographic explorer and research scientist at the University of California, San Diego, as well as Vijay Lakshman, publisher of more than 85 commercial games, among them popular titles that include “Crash Bandicoot,” “Spyro the Dragon” and “The Elder Scrolls: Arena.”

On the education side, the company enlisted Kelly McGrath, former head of K-12 science curriculum development at Pearson, who’d become Planet3’s chief operating officer. Esther Wojcicki, the esteemed journalism teacher at Palo Alto High School, joined in 2016 as the company’s chief learning officer.

A Promising Pilot in Nevada

That summer, Planet3 announced a pilot program with six school districts in Nevada, including Clark County School District, home to Las Vegas and the fifth largest school district in the U.S.

In the agreement with Clark County School District, nine middle schools agreed to the Planet3 pilot program from August 2016 to May 2017. Planet3 agreed to earth and life science curriculum with supplemental lesson plans and free 24-hour access to the platform for students, teachers and parents. The district agreed to provide infrastructure, feedback, and pay $15,000 for professional development for up to 40 teachers. If all went well, the district would consider a long-term relationship and delivering Planet3 products to all of the district’s middle and high schools.

In a December 2016 letter by Clark County Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky to Kelly about the pilot program, Skorkowsky noted that students enjoyed lessons about data literacy from the product’s visualizations and about science from real-world case studies. Students also liked the avatar-based 3-D games.

“I am very pleased to see that the Planet3 product has developed into a comprehensive and innovative curriculum,” Skorkowsky wrote. He concluded, “I look forward to observing the increasing excitement for science throughout the testing and research process and beyond.”

Signs looked good at this point. The company planned to incorporate the feedback to build a more complete product, slated to formally launch in all of the district’s middle and high schools in time for the fall 2017 school year.

Fundraisers Sidelined

There was just one problem—the company needed more money. At first, this didn’t seem like an issue. That year, the company received a $150,000 grant Small Business Innovation Research grant from the federal government to prototype its product in two classrooms. The same year, Switch gave Planet3 another $3 million in the form of a convertible note. Kelly had hoped the note would be part of a Series B round that totaled as much as $15 million.

“They wholeheartedly believed they were going to raise the money,” one former employee said. “There was never a doubt.”

But they were wrong. The rest of the funds never came, in part due to personal tragedies. In October 2016, Lin lost his right leg below the knee in an off-road vehicle accident. A few months later, Kelly sustained a brain aneurysm. Both Kelly and Lin had been public faces for the company and two primary fundraisers, now sidelined.

Lin has talked publicly about his accident, about how he stays positive and has adapted to his prosthetic. Kelly said he’s since made a full recovery.

The company’s primary backer also had a change of heart. In December 2016, Switch ended further financial support for Planet3, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. With Planet3’s operating losses and “the release of a beta product that did not generate the projected sales activity,” Switch calculated a total write-down of $7.7 million for its Planet3 investment.

Switch did not respond to requests for comment. In June 2017, Planet3 laid off its staff.

A Most Difficult Game

The struggles of Planet3 are not unique to the educational game industry. Plenty of promising efforts have sputtered. Among those who tried include Osman Rashid, the co-founder of Chegg and Kno, who launched Galxyz in 2014 to build a science video games for grades three to 12.

Magnates from the gaming industry have attempted as well. Atari founder Nolan Bushnell started BrainRush in 2012. Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins raised $9.3 million by February 2014 for a game to teach kids social-emotional learning. Both efforts have largely gone dark.

The difficulty involved to build educational video games stems first from development costs, which many aspiring developers tend to underestimate, according to Dan White, CEO of Filament Games, which has created more than 160 learning games in its 14-year history. From White’s experience, it can cost well over six figures to build an educational game with the design and polish of mainstream commercial titles.

A further challenge awaits those who try to sell into schools. White says developers often wrestle with building a product that’s fun and engaging or a product that’s more direct in addressing a district’s academic standards. The struggle for developers is the right balance.

“Are we building a comprehensive curriculum, or are we building games?” he said. “Those two things by their nature can be mutually exclusive.”

Lessons Learned

Former employees said the company lacked a shared vision on the product it wanted to make. At times, employees thought they were building a comprehensive experience with a single narrative and storyline. At others, they were building a platform with multiple mini-games. To some of the former employees, the ideas resembled digital textbook with different chapters.

Kelly acknowledged back-and-forth about what the platform should look like but said the goal stayed the same. “When you design a product that breaks new ground, that involves some passionate debate,” he said. “Everyone had the absolute best intentions, and we ended up with a product that was well received by students and teachers."

What the product looked like, whether it was finished and how many teachers and students piloted it depends on who you ask. Former employees say what they had built resembled piecemeal appetizers of a grander product: seven modules, each that covered a lesson for science topics like plants and volcanoes. Kelly frames it differently, saying that a beta version of the platform had been completed by spring 2017.

The employees no longer with Planet3 said they learned a lot from the experience—especially the importance of having a tested product before raising capital.

For now, Tim Kelly is the last man on Planet3. After letting go of its staff, he has sought out partnerships and investors for the company. As Planet3, he has done some work overseas, including an augmented reality exhibits in Singapore. The rolodex of education and gaming experts that were once executives now act more as advisers. When there is product development work, that is handled through contractors.

Some former employees believe Kelly keeps the company alive as a matter of pride or financial obligation. Others believe he’s still driven by that original vision. If you ask Kelly, he’ll tell you he still believes in Planet3’s potential. “This could change the way students engage with science,” he said. “That’s a pretty important thing.”

Where in the World Is Planet3? An Educational Gaming CEO Seeks His Second Act published first on https://medium.com/@GetNewDLBusiness