#my biggest gripe is that haircut

[sebadztian]

Watching the episode now, but no screenshot because CR doesn't allow screenshots.

The P4's obsession with 'tradition' is mental. Even Ciel recognized that. I understand why they killed Arden (guy was annoying af), but the way their reason with it is kinda crazy... For tradition? But then again, they cried because they were allowed to step on the grass, so this school is pretty fucked up... I guess, anything to make them feel better about committing a mass murder...

Sebas' eyes change colour in different shots and it's driving me crazy! My god... This is probably my biggest gripe with his new design.

BUT his teeth are so fine! They're fairly generous with it and he's so fangy & teefy this season! So happy 🥰

In all honesty, I don't quite understand UT's concept for Bizarre Dolls. How did he attach those 'future' to the cinematic record? Like, where did he get those 'future record' from? Does it mean that ambitious people makes the best BDs?

Shoutout to UT's eyes!! Honestly, how did he see through that fringe of his?

And the battle begins...

No, wait... Sebastian, Sebastian... Just kick the guy already! Why are you playing some odd version of arm wresting with him?

Oh, great... Now they're hugging... Damnit, Sebastian!

Why do the BDs sound like Transformer robots?

My god... Harcourt really peed his pants...

Big talk, Seb. You just stood there the whole time... Have you not learned your lesson? When it comes to UT, you can't take your damn sweet time...

Okay, okay... So, I need to digest this...

The imagined fight sequence in Sebas' head is actually cooler than the reality of what happened next. UT even gave him a haircut. Maybe that's why Seb changed course. He didn't want a haircut...

Speaking of change, they changed the text! Instead of "protecting my contractor", they changed it to "protecting my young master" (he did say 'bocchan') 🥹 So domesticated!

And UT's knowing smirk... And his words, "That's our butler"? Sounds like some sort of an approval to me. And he knows that the demon has been domesticated!

The parting booty shake tho!!

Ahhh... The scene that I've been waiting for... It's so intense, even Harcourt fainted from the intensity of it!

This poor boy is the real victim here... First, he found out his crush is actually a butler, then he peed his pants, and then, he had his heart broken all over again because Seb & Ciel are being so gay... He's like the butt of every single joke...

I hate that Sebstian's eyes are not glow-y anymore though... 😭

Edward, you're a good man. Just keep that up, yeah?

So good to see Ciel & Seb in their 'normal' attire & roles. Don't get me wrong, I do love Professor Michaelis, but Sebastian the butler is much better.

Snake 😭😭😭

Well, I'm hoping this is not the last episode. Aren't we getting 12 episodes? Or was it 10? Assuming we do get 12 epsiodes, then the next one should be the shopping trip. So fun! 😄 But then... What would be the 12th episode? 🤔

[eowynstwin]

u know my biggest gripe with reboot mw3?? the fact that both shepherd AND graves came back for literally no reason... the "jokes on you... i was never there to begin with!!!" trope they pulled with graves is already annoying but then he didn't really do anything LMAO (the most he did was create tension between farah and price and they didn't delve into that like at all other than one conversation that lasted all of three minutes if that)

at least shepherd had potential to be an interesting party in this game but then again they goofed up his part in the story too because he isn't integrated into anything worthwhile

just. man. they goofed this story up HARD there was so much potential for the story to be good but then they shoved three games worth of story into a 3 hour campaign

Yeah Graves and Shepherd were dummy grenades at best. Neither of them paid off as secondary antagonists. This game desperately needed to be two separate games, each twice the length, in which first Shepherd and the Shadows could be dealt with and then Makarov and the Ultranationalists.

IF I were rewriting mw3. Which I am not. But IF.

Makarov would show up once or twice as a prison transfer of some sort at most, MAYBE with a flashback mission to demonstrate what he was capable of at the height of his power. He was not alluded to enough in mw2 to present a credible threat—the reboot relies far too much on the original trilogy to foreshadow its plot. Why the fuck should I care about this squirrely frat bro I've never heard of? I know fuck all about the OG Makarov and I am not going to waste more of my precious time on this green earth watching three more games stuffed even more full of anti-Arab prejudice and pro-US imperialist propaganda.

I digress. Makarov's face would be shown in my mw3, but he would not be as active as he is in "canon". Instead, Shadow company, Graves, and Shepherd would take center stage as antagonists—I would utilize their alliance with the ULF to heighten the tension between Price and Farah. Shadow company would be taking advantage of the ULF's need for its support, perhaps, and meanwhile antagonizing Russian outfits on the outskirts of Urzikstan which are meant to serve as either surveillance or reconnaissance for a second invasion.

I imagine, coincidentally, those Russian outfits would be Ultranationalist in nature, because as mw3 suggests, Makarov has been scheming even in the gulag. Graves, of course, is poking the bear because war is good business for him. An Urzikstan at peace does not need a PMC for an ally. Shepherd will have been allowing it because, as has been established in 2 and 3, he's a glory-obsessed war dog whose primary priority is his own military legacy.

Interspersed would be plenty of moments for the characters to comment on what the hell is going on. Farah could reckon with Price's grudge against Graves. Gaz could further develop as Price's right hand man. Soap and Ghost could make out nasty style with tongue. Alex could continue to be the simp we all know he is. (I'd love to shoehorn Alejandro and Rudy into the plot but let's be honest, there's no room for them here. RIP vaqueros, we love you.)

All of this would CULMINATE with Makarov's escape from prison. Probably after Soap finally gets to set Graves on fire for real he would roll up with his hundred dollar haircut, call everyone stupid, and then Urzikstan would go right back to war because that's how this shit works. Russia and the US get into constant pissing matches and the Middle East serves as the convenient battleground.

All of the antagonizing Graves and Shadow Company have done would serve to galvanize a Russian public against the US, positioning Makarov as its very own Churchill and imbuing him with phenomenal cosmic power. Bada bing, bada boom, WWIII. Perfect scene-setting for MW4.

I maintain that if anyone has to die it will be Price. Price is the only one with the charisma to go toe-to-toe with Makarov from a leadership standpoint, so he has to go if we really want the stakes to feel high. In the VERY end, after 4 and whatever games follow it, Gaz would be the only man left standing of the 141. Having finally learned the kind of price that must be paid when the gloves come off.

Again. Blizzard-Activision. Pay me eight billion dollars and I will fix your games.

[agentnico]

Dream Scenario (2023) Review

This film features possibly the best fart joke in the history of the cinema. They should advertise that on the poster!

Plot: Hapless family man Paul Matthews finds his life turned upside down when millions of strangers suddenly start seeing him in their dreams. When his nighttime appearances take a nightmarish turn, Paul is forced to navigate his newfound stardom.

This past decade Nicolas Cage has managed to enjoy a real comeback. Ever since he's paid back all those millions he owed to the IRS, he no longer needs to accept every acting role that's offered to him. He instead actually chooses some exciting and weird projects. Though they don't always pay off, they exhibit his care for the craft and consistent strive to deliver something different to his audience. Simply observing his last few years in the business, he's given us movies like Pig, Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Color Out of Space, Mandy, Into the Spider-Verse, Willy's Wonderland, and Mom & Dad. Heck, even Croods 2 was way better than expected - me and my fiancée laughed our heads off. Again, not all those films are masterpieces, but they certainly are different and provide a visceral viewing experience. So when I heard that Nicolas Cage was teaming up with A24, a studio that too recently stands out as a production company striving to give new filmmakers an exciting voice in the indie medium, it simply felt like a match made in heaven. Thus we have Dream Scenario.

Look, folks who know me know that I adore Nicolas Cage, so I do not want to come off as biased when I say this, but Nicolas Cage is great in this movie. Nope, it's not due to him having yet another weird haircut (what's with that recently by the way??). It's the fact that he manages to act as this very regular Joe, yet still makes him stand out. From his awkward demeanor, an honest naive outlook, and his voice - he was pitch-perfect, managing to be hilarious in his inept old-school perspective on things. It's Nicolas Cage at his best. Also, I have read that originally Adam Sandler was pitched for this role, and though I can see his farcical nature fitting in, it would have been a very different character to that delivered by Cage. Additionally, supporting turns from Julianne Nicholson, Tim Meadows, Dylan Gelula and Michael Cera were all welcome additions to the movie.

As for the film itself, it's also great. I love this idea of a random dude suddenly appearing in people's dreams for absolutely no reason. It's so rare to have a new original conception in a film in our day and age. Though this film could have so easily fallen into the trap of being an elongated one-joke, the creative team behind this seems to know what they are doing. Talk about getting everything out of a concept. The movie starts and you think, okay this is a lot of fun, but where are they going to go from here? Have no fear, they have plenty of tricks up their sleeves and the wild ride continues throughout. The film is hilarious. It contained some of the biggest theatre laughs I've heard in a long time. But it's more than that too. It actually gets quite touching and sad and has some really thought-provoking stuff going on. I do think it gets a tad lost in the cancel culture message, but only slightly.

The fact that this film started out as a project of Ari Aster is no surprise, as it has much in common with Beau is Afraid - notably the hapless and powerless central character and some surreal and blackly comic moments. In fact, what I really enjoyed was when the film leaned into that element of horror and the grotesque. Some of the nightmarish dream sequences really had that unsettling shock factor. I wish the movie was willing to go further into that, as even though I really like that the film went the more melodramatic route, in my mind I also wanted something even darker. That's not a gripe, but more so an observation of how a different vision for this film could have played out.

As for the aforementioned fart scene. Not spoiling anything, but this gag had the audience members in the screening howling with silent breathy cackling. It is one of the most well-calibrated comedic moments I've ever witnessed. The build-up to the timing and the actual punch line was simply sublime. Also, for a fart gag, it never felt crude, which is impressive in itself.

Overall Dream Scenario is a real treat. It has a very limited theatrical release here in the UK so had to travel to a different city to see it, but I'm so glad I did as one can never get enough of the man, the myth, the legend that is Nicolas Cage.

Overall score: 8/10

[chaosgodray]

So, it's time to talk about my biggest gripe wit Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. And I want to say this is a minor gripe and I'm not surprised it exists, I'm just disappointed.

So, I'm genderfluid. And when it was revealed that none of the haircuts in ScVi were gender-locked, I was really excited. "Finally," I thought, "I can transition back and forth in my escapist video game when I can't in real life!" So I started the game feeling fairly neutral gender-wise, picked the mullet, named myself something gender-neutral, and played through the game fairly normally.

The game then proceeded to decide I was a guy based on choosing the mullet at character creation. So every NPC used He/Him for me. No big deal, it's to be expected. Then one day, I'm feeling very much like a girl. I decide to change my look in game to reflect this. I get a girl haircut, and then I'm looking around for clothes to buy when I realize *clothes are still gender locked*.

And now all of my professors are misgendering me in the game.

I'm not like, actually upset about this, I just had foolish optimism. oh well.

Hey if any of my non-porn bot followers know of any games where you can go back and forth between genders without getting misgendered lmk.

[pjunicornart]

More of my own PJ's Daycare reboot. This time with more of a focus on the kids.

Yes. They have hair. Why? Because look at how fucking adorable they are. You'll also notice that I decided to make them different ages instead of all of them being around the same age. To create more variety.

Ink is eccentric and lively. He enjoys going outside to find leaves so he can glue them to paper. It's an art form his mom showed him and he's obsessed with it right now. He also likes drawing and finger painting. He hates wearing shoes, because - in his words - "it feels squished".

Cross loves to run around, play, and get dirty! Much to the dismay of his parents and the caregivers. He's long overdo for a haircut, and the only reason he hasn't gone yet is because his parents are constantly working. If you ask him about his scar, he'll say that the doctors had to fix his "strabizamuss".

Nightmare and Dream are twins. Nightmare is naturally more shy and timid compared to his brother. Give both of them sugar, and they'll be bouncing off the walls. Dream often hangs out with the kids on the orphanage side. Because they have all the fun board games and toys. Since he's been hanging around Ink, Nightmare's been trying to draw. He likes to draw a character he made up called "Dark Knight".

Fresh... is a strange child. For starters, he never wants to play with the other kids. He prefers to sit in the corner of the playroom playing a board game all by himself. Or taking random broken pieces of toys and making up his own game. A lot of the kids notice that he never takes off the sunglasses. None of them ask why, but they think he's weird for it. Other kids just don't like talking to him, because he comes across as rude. Even if Fresh doesn't understand that it sounded rude to them.

You know, my biggest gripe with the original PJ's Daycare was that the kids... didn't act like kids most times. And it was very off putting. Again, I'm gonna sound like a broken record. But it was wasted potential! Because kids do silly things all the time and there are so many little details about the Sanses that could translate to a kid's odd quirk or stupid actions.

So anyways should I do more rebooted PJ's Daycare Sanses?

[kens-puku]

Not gonna lie, I do miss Kentin's anime haircut. lol

I hope he's still gonna be a pisces.

[twopoppies]

Gina, this will be a massive unpopular opinion I think but I have to get it off my chest lol - I wish L had a different style in the new FITF era, at least on occasion. I'm dying to see him in a different hairdo (hello quiff) & even different clothing styles atleast for events/TV shows/formal outings (anything non polo & black jeans). Just that he's such a dreamboat & I'd love for his stylist to play around with different formal clothing & slick grooming options going fwd. In any case, he's HOT

Hi honey. He’s stunning. So, so handsome. To be very honest, I don’t love the clothes Helen puts him in. But I very much think that’s what he wants to wear. He doesn’t seem the type to let someone dictate his look to him. I thought he had some amazing looks when he was a judge on XF that still very much felt like him. So I know she’s able to mix it up. I really just think his tour wardrobe is what he felt comfortable in and want he wanted. And I think with the genre of music he’s moving into, being overly concerned with fashion maybe isn’t what he wants to project. We’ll see what happens during promo.

Personally, I love the new haircut. I think it’s super flattering and looks modern. But I know people miss the quiff.

For me, my biggest gripe is the clothes he gets styled in for magazine shoots. I still have nightmares about that Cosmo shoot from years ago 😬

[ilikelookingatthings]

My thoughts on He-Man and the show Masters of the universe Part 1

First.....I have to thank this show. I got curious about He-Man after seeing a trailer of this and the most recent She-ra and I kind of really adore the funimation he-man and am watching some of the 2002 He-man.

Funimation HE-MAN is weird but so dang charming and just fun. Its simple but can feel smart in a weird way. XD

I watched the first few episodes before i watched some of the source material and after.

So my view is its got great ideas and fun animation.

That said....some of the exicution might be where the problem is?

Specifically the dialogue....the dualogue isn't very good and i can't tell if it wants to own the puns ir make fun if them...which us kindif unfair when the origibal puns were fun and clever and everyone did so.

I think condidering i had no idea who Adam was before this...he is so CHARMING. He has very little screentime but he stole the SHOW. He feels so secure and this guy saved the universe. That line aboyt the boy holding the universe innhis hands? SO GOOD XD

My favorite part was when he popped the cringer bubble saying he has the power. XD

And him looking vmback and teela before he vaporized knowing that was the first time she knows? YES.

Now for those who have gripes with Teela....i can see it....HOWEVER she is beautiful even if her edgelord apocolipse haircut taps the 'is she a lesbian?' steriotype cut.

Idea wise she is actually pretty incharacter to me. Before i found out more of her character her logic made sense...but after i got to see different versions of her... she is 100 percent incharacter. She is stubborn, has a bit more of a temper...i felt the echos of the episide she lost a flight competition and she was a bad sport saying it wasn't fair and not believing her queen when the Queen said she knew a manuver until Teela witnessed ace pilot Queen in action.

That 100 percent lines up with Teela avoiding her fruends and family and trying to stay mad so she wo 't ve sad. She has a strong pride.

Logic wise it makes sense. She was his bodyguard...he was her bestfriend and someone she admired twice over and she thought Adam was safe. Just to have him die infront of her as Adam and He-man.

She had to find out like that instead of being told... and it turned out his mom, her dad, irko and cringer all knew. The only one who understood the shock and loss similar to her was KING RANDOR.

The king and queen was established to treat her like family.

So her biggest issue was when the king ordered her to banish her father from the kingdom when Adam has been approved to be their champion as he-man. Even if the king had kniwn it wouldn't have changed Adam would have been out there to try to help save the day and without adam specifically, everyone would have winked out of existance.

I LOVE Randor getting so upset at man at arms. Rander is a king and a warrior so he should be used to death. Its a FACT he-man has been a great nessacary champion and without him they would have been worst off. But thats his SON. His baby and future leader of the kingdom. He TRUSTED this nan that his son woukd ve safe withhim yet he LIED to the king's face abs let35 him believe his son was safe while encouraging Adam to be in danger.

He learned his son was vaporized...doesnt even have a body to mourn. His own wife and best friend knew and said nothing. So i actually LOVE Randor taking it out on Man at arms...not even wanting to look at him.

Its something that is unfair but also understandable as the grief of a parent isn't always fair. Something kind of unfair considering all he has done for them...but i think Man at arms understoid because he is ALSO a dad and it is literally part of his job to protect the royals.(if we take she-ra into account no wonder Randor blew up at him).

But what was even crueler is Randor...the one who might understand how Teela feels the most...who cared about her like family and knows that teela lost her best friend....ordered her to banish her FATHER.

And when she trued calling him out on that her father told HER off. Which they so read her ire. Teela has a atring sense if justice and takes things personally. Her dad knkws this is ubdqur fir her to ve ordered to do...but he put the grueving king's feelings above hers....hence why she started lashing out at everyone about the secerts.

And grief can make you angry and irrational...so Teela choosing to leave makes sense. Adam's death and him choosing to keep his identity from the king is what triggered RANDOR into blaming her father...so Teela choosing to be angry at Adam seems like a coping mechanism.

And in theroy all the building blocks supporting this viewing is there....but honestly the voice acting wasn't really doing it for me? It didn't ruin anything for. Alot of them are fun....I could see what they were TRYING to go for and i appreciated it...but I also completely get why some people get irritated at Teela.

They start off the series with Teela apparently replacing her father as man at arms. We are told she is competant at tactica and knows everything aside from Adam's secert.

The big villian Skeletor is gone, her kingdom lost its prince and heir ti the throne. Her king and queen lost their son and now they are losing man at arms. Yet she leaves....considering she just dedicated hersekf to the job and the people and the he-man lie didn't really change much......i can see why it looks like Teela is being childish, reckless and selfish.

Teela is dedicated to her job and duty in the original as well but the scene didn't do a good job at showing the audience WHY she was upset enough to leave. And considering she calls Adam a liar when he just saved her and the world and he praises her all that much before. It cones acriss as childish when she knows Randor and the Queen just lost their son. Considering she was literally Adam's bodyguard originally it did feel a bit weird she didn't blame herself more.

Also not going to lie....i was kindof pissed at her dad. He threw the DEAD Adam under the bus by saying that Adam ordered him not to tell the king...they jept putting it on Adam. Which i one hand...he is dead and ge is delivering that news to tgw father of Adam...i can relate to wanting to shift some blame....on the other.....no one really adresses that it was the sorceress that told Adam he couldn't share the secert?

The sorceress is mysterious and powerful and old...why not say the sorceress made Adam keep quiet? Orthat she ordered man at arms to keep quiet? Or everyone aside from the queen?

Considering Teela decided to hate on magic after Adam died to it, it would give some extra oomoh you know?

I think Teela looks cool...but i admittedly did assume for a second she and her new technological friend were a item for a second. I was qlso confused because theybysed the cliche 'i'm the brain she's the brawn' which felt weird since Teela is pretty smart and has led people into battle.

Lucky i'm a idiot so i honestly didn't notice the reveal twist of eviline. XD ,When i showed it to my sisters they guessed right away, So I definitely enjoy cringer the most when he appeared. I feel like the sorceress turning old was a good affect.

I can see why people might find Teela kibdif petty going on about turning her back on magic when it was literally explained that everything runs on it and they will all wither and die if they don't get this spark to meld the swords.

I LOVE the idea of the swords. It got more charming after I found out the original toy had two swords. XD

I like seeing Teela go to find her dad because she trusts in his abilities. I love her dad ckearly cares for her and the royal family still as well as orko. The robot bro is fun...though admittedly i think one of the issues is i don't know enough about him? So i think this show is wrong about being a gate way for new people...but it also doesn't have enough details were it fully fes like its continuing the 80's show?

Its still fun. I really like the dad wanting to naje it up to her. He loves her and he hurt her and i enjoy a petty Teela.

Some of the main issues is the dialogue feels both too simple and cliche?

The most enthusastic character is Teela's friend but i know next to nothing about her.

It think i enjoy the flashbacks the most. Teela's interesting... But honestly the heart feels like its Adam and i can see why they made a entire show around the guy.

I don't think i'm a fan of eviline being implied to like skeletor romantically? It felt kindof forced...the skeletor in the closet line was worth it though. XD

I think the mist intreging part was in the land ofbthe dead. I thought he was skeletor fir a moment but he is cool. I am confused about that episide though. Beastman, teela's friend and robobro were stuck together facing monsters and zhombies that coukd sense fear...it didn't really tell me much about them compared to irko and eviline geing wtuck together and teela being alone.

I was kind o annoyed because teela made a deal to face her fears where scareglow said he gets her feeling scared and if she moves past it she gets the sword. They had a proper deal were he would also release her friends. So Teela saying its hers and he can't have it like it was a triumph felt weird when they already made a deal.

How they handled her fears felt odd? Like she had been beating glow adam still while he was acting like he had the upper hand. We at least got to see some fears and regrets come out. I like there being a linger complex for her due to being adopted and not knowing her parents. But it did feel a little to much like they were telling rather than showing...and should scareglow let his illusions handle it?

Also i think her maybe having a gut feeling about her special destiny makes sense as i know she has learned about her mom and forgotten about it in the show from one of the episides i have scene...but i feel like naybe mire talk about having abandoned her duty to protect the people where deep down she felt she made the wrong choice leaving would have helped me sympathize a bit more.

It felt kindof easy for her to get past her fears or accepting them justvfrom what we've seen in the show here.

Orko had the best death. Eviline felt like they were trting fir nagic wimsy a little too hard. Orko's fear is the best.

I forgot to nention thd technocult is very fun. Love tgar while sequence.

I feel weirdly uncomfortable with all the death for some reason even if they were evil.

I really enjoy Adam appearing like that when Teela was going to go after eviline as a way to vent her grief about Orko.

I like the design for everyone in this paradise. Them bonding over the 2002 hover boards is cute.

I actually really enjoy a kind of petty Teela. Adam sensing something must be going on.

Though admittedly it does feel kindif unfair i guess? I like petty teela not wanting to let for of her angry that js keeping her grief at bay...but i think the one issue is she isn't called out on it enough?

Like..its portrayed as its for her that Adam leaves paradise...but no one acknowkedges Adam is a kid...or a teen...barely a young adult...he didn't want to die. Yes ge saves the world...but he wanted to go home to his parents, spend timeveith his friends, family, grow up.

As terrible the affect the lack of magic and loss of adam had....no one acknowkedges the tradgedy that adam didn't want to die and died young. Or that he must miss everyone. Ir that he didn't want to upset his loves ones....ir tgat ge coukd blane hinself when it was him acting in anger abd actyally atabbing skeletor that caused this mess.

The highlight of part one was when cringer and adam seeing eachother for the first time embrassed. My heart melted and i bebet Teela feels sone envy. and Adam making jokes about death to man at arms XD

We all know hiw robobro went..qnd while i want him fixed it was kindif sweet hus line about feeling fear and it meand they are real emotions.

I'm a bit confused hkw no one noticed skeletor forming behing adam.

My sister thoight he died but utcwas clear he was only going to be injured. We got to actually feel her care for him in her franticness. I mean...i could be wrong and he was always like this....but i feel like he wasn't and it kindof makes eviline feel like just a love interest you know?

I don't like our fun villian being made into a incel creep type in answering why he is like this and saying no one wants him as a man. I enjoy that type being called out but its weirdly uncomfortable that he's included...but that might just be my american sensabilities were i'm weirdly mire condirtable with violence over anything sexual.

I love mark hamel...but admittedly i don't think his skeletor voice is very good? Its fun but i keep hearing the joker. That cliff hanger is ths best in part one.

I like teela being the main focus...but my issue is it feels too narrow? We don't get enough of everyone else or how their arcs or reactions give more depth to her reactions.

There also wasn't enough adam/he-man and the affect he had on everyone and everything. I like it being teela focused...but they made adam that charming and he is the one who was the main character in the old show...it felt kind of a disservice to the impact he had on them i guess.

No one else has cried from missing him outside of Orko and Cringer. And it felt like Teela missed her window to some degree.

It also nakes mb e curious is due to the lack of magic adora is unable to come home?

Greyskull is the coolest looking character ..kindif wish we learned more about the one sorcerious among them.

Over all part one had some Issues but it was over all fun. Biggest ussue it didn't do enough to kead my thought process so it took sone effirt for me to sympathize and understand where Teela was coming from. I feel like others insulting Teela about that is a bit much.

[killscreencinema]

The Outer Worlds (PS4)

Even in space you can’t escape the claws of corporate greed and rampant capitalism gone amuck! 

Such is the case in The Outer Worlds, developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Take-Two Interactive in 2019, where you play as a mysterious “stranger”, thawed out of cryogenic stasis on a lost colony ship by a mad scientist named Phineas Wells, who barely introduces himself before dispatching you to an exotic world named Terra 2.  Here you begin your quest either to help Dr. Welles shake off the chains of corporate tyranny that has run down the colony of the Halcyon star system or you can choose to assist “The Board” in catching the fugitive scientist and reestablishing its authority. 

The Outer Worlds is kind of a mash-up of several sci-fi fantasy properties, most notably Joss Whedon’s Firefly, with a cup of Star Wars, a tablespoon of Mass Effect, with a big ol’ heaping of BioShock folded in for good measure.  That’s not to say it’s a ripoff of those things so much as a loving homage that manages to use those influences to create its own universe. 

Okay, well, your socially awkward engineer, Parvarti, who speaks in politely educated, old west vernacular is straight up Kaylee from Firefly but still not a ripoff!

Okay, well, there’s the preacher on your ship, Vicar Max, who may or may not have been an expertly trained assassin and secret agent in a former life, just like Shepard Book in Firefly, but still not a ripoff!

Anyway, I do enjoy the art direction and aesthetics of The Outer Worlds, which has the “steam punky” yet futuristic vibe of BioShock, mixed with the obnoxious inundation of advertising by all the corporate factions vying for your attention and you hard earned “bits”.  Say what you will about advertising, but that’s when you know humanity has reached the final frontier - when the well-lit billboards and signs start going up all over space.  That kind of stuff does make these sci-fi universes feel “lived in”.  It’s one of many reasons I love the show Cowboy Bebop - the future it depicts seems realistic and believable because it’s not really that far removed from our present, to point of including commercials, tacky eye sore ads everywhere, etc. 

I digress - The Outer Worlds is a first-person shooter, with RPG elements similar to the Fallout games.  The game also has that really annoying RPG element of having to constantly clean out your inventory from the constant crap that you loot from vanquished foes, shipping containers, and random safes that you can crack if your lockpicking skills are high enough.  This shit in particular really reminds me of the first Mass Effect, which often felt like I spent more time in the menu equipping new weapons and armor than actually playing the game.  Thankfully, becoming over-encumbered is rarely an issue as the game gives you a pretty generous weight threshold, but you will still have to eventually halt everything to offload all the useless crap that has accumulated in your inventory.

The combat is twitchy, FPS style fighting but your character has the ability to slow down time in order to fire precise shots at vulnerable enemy spots.  I found this “Tactical Time Dilation”, or TTD, to be a useless waste of a mechanic as your character slows down along with the enemy, making it rather pointless and annoying.  There are “perks” your character can earn to make you slightly move faster while using TTD, but not enough to make it worth using a lot in my opinion. 

The majority of the story plays out via dialogue trees, and this is where I derived a lot of fun from The Outer Worlds, as you can opt to give your character low intelligence, which opens up “Dumb” dialogue options.  I can’t recommend this option enough, as the way characters react to your dumb responses is hilarious, and ultimately leads to an optional secret ending for the game.  Using the dumb dialogue options made me feel like I was playing the game as an “Ash Williams” type hero - tough, effective, and cunning in his own way, but ultimately kind of an idiot who bumbles into victory.  It really made the game all the more compelling for me, because I happen to love characters like that.

While overall I enjoyed The Outer Worlds, I was also disappointed by how the universe of the game didn’t feel very expansive.  You only travel to a handful of worlds, and even then, you’re relegated to a small patch of the planet.  A game like this should feel more epic, kind of like No Man’s Sky, but still a functional game (yeah, I know, the update makes it supposedly better but you get my point).  There are worlds on your map you NEVER get to visit, except via DLC, but even then you travel to a space station in orbit above that world that looks like every OTHER space station.  So in summary, for a game called The Outer Worlds, I found the lack of variety in said worlds to be deflating.  This isn’t helped by how often the same character models, with the same exact haircuts, and odd smirks, is recycled throughout the game.  Do all of these characters go to the same barber or what?

Ultimately, these are all minor gripes compared to my biggest complaint of all - the loading times.  Jesus and Mary, the loading times are the worst.  When I signed up to be a console gamer in the great “Console vs PC Wars”, I knew I was going to have to deal with loading screens, but The Outer Worlds is ridiculous.  I actually dreaded going into my ship, or transitioning to another map, because I knew I’d have to sit through a nearly 1-minute long loading screen every goddamn time.  It’s unacceptable even by console standards and I understand it’s not much better on PC. 

If you can get over obnoxious loading times, though, The Outer Worlds is worth a playthrough, especially if you’re a fan of the sci-fi genre.

[snailanimations]

Hello time for another Danganronpa design! I’m doing them in my personal idea of height order pfft so Sakura is next because she is Tol!

My change explanations under a cut!

So I really really like Sakura she is such a good character, lemme tell ya. She’s that strong silent type but she’s also sweet and probably in love with Asahina. She’s so loyal and genuinely just such a good person oh my god. But there were a couple things that I wanted to change.

My biggest gripe is that she has such a tiny waist for her size?? She’s so muscular and cares about being ripped and toned, but she has??? a barbie waist??? Help her. So I went more with Square shapes for her, since she’s so dependable and solid and really just a rock for everyone but especially Hina.

I also thought her kinda Wild hair was an odd choice. She doesn’t really seem like the type to let it just go all over the place? Sure she also doesn’t seem like the type to care about it that much, but still. I also like the idea that she’s lowkey never had a haircut. So I kinda lengthened her hair a little, but I also put it in a low ponytail so that it would be out of her face more.

I obviously took her out of her school uniform because I chose to do that for Everyone. So I put her in a kinda....bastardization of a karate uniform. Something a little more casual and loose but I didn’t wanna take away the bandages that she has. I also went for a more cool palette since I thought it would make her seem older/wiser and more calming, because she really Is all of that.

I did change her skin color a little because she’s a little...red? in the anime? I don’t know what they chose that for, it didn’t look awful or anything, but I just prefer to stay in the more in-between of red and orange. So I edited that a little. Then I took her hair away from pure white so that her bandages would stand out more.

I gave her another set of scars on her leg because I thought it might be a good bit of continuity to make the eye go all the way down. Then the bandages I made asymmetrical just to add a little visual interest and all that. And then she’s done! Woo!

[dumbfinntales]

Some Trials of Mana Remake first thoughts. Oh yeah, this is a remake of an older game. Looking back at the original title this new one is surprisingly faithful.

Okay so, the game is kind of a mixed bag so far but I enjoy it. My biggest gripe is that I’m about 3 hours into the game and it still feels like it hasn’t fully started. I guess I can only blame myself because I wanted to see the flashbacks of my companion characters. The first boss I fought shows some promise that later on the combat is gonna get a lot more fun, at least that’s what I hope. New classes and abilities should help.

Graphically the game looks gorgeous. I’m not the biggest fan of the general “anime” art style, but here it looks pretty neat. Both realistic and cartoony. The environments look really good and everything is so lively and colorful. The character designs so far have been on point, nothing looks atrociously bad. Except maybe some characters hair, like Kevin or Duran with his pawnshop SSJ3 Goku haircut.

For my characters I chose Kevin as the main guy, and Charlotte and Duran as my companions. I mean I knew I had to pick Kevin when he uses fists as his main weapon. Kevin is pretty alright and he’s got a simple motive, all the characters actually have pretty simple motives to go on their journeys. He speaks in a very weird choppy way and I guess it’s supposed to emulate how he’s not used to talking to others, but something about it feels off. Charlotte is just, uhhh, more annoying than anything. The way she speaks is fucking awful, but you do get used to it. Duran feels like a shonen protagonist. Yeah, that’s it.

One thing I gotta mention as well is just how bad everyone looks in the cut-scenes. The character movements are so stiff or over exaggerated at times. There’s this one bit where Duran points at this fortune teller and looks aggressive in his gestures, but his speaking voice is very calm. Something must’ve gotten lost in the translation there. But there are many examples where everything looks just unnatural and goofy. The more “emotional” parts of the stories are hard to take seriously. The entire story is a bit hard to take seriously, really. This is a remake of a SNES game, but still. They could’ve put a little more effort into making the cut-scenes look more natural. But I guess no one plays these old JRPG’s for the story, but the gameplay which does seem to hold up.

[themonkeycabal]

I am trying to get back into the writing thing and today I was watching baseball and moved to write. So, yay! 

I mean, it’s nothing much, but it is something. So, have some quick, fluffy Darcy/Bucky, sort of baseball related fic. 

Thanks for being patient with me during this dreadful writing dry spell. I really appreciate it. 

Autumn was starting to creep into the city. The weather was still mostly warm and green, but there'd been a couple of blustery, rainy days, and a new little chill in the air in the mornings. Darcy wasn't sure she'd ever quite get used to Fall starting in September, but, it wasn't the worst thing in the world. Because, for real, east coast summers were the worst.

Bucky's apartment was not the best place to spend a summer. There was no cross breeze, it got stuffy as hell, and had no central air or anything. A couple fans by the windows, and mostly they just pushed around the sticky, grimy air from the outside.

Today was one of those slightly blustery days, though, and there was a hint of cool and damp and a definite breeze that rattled his blinds. And the apartment was quiet, nobody constantly demanding her attention for this thing or that. She could maybe get some things done. Maybe. Truthfully, it was just nice to hang out quietly with him.

"I think the bar oughta be a Dodgers bar," Bucky said decisively from his spot on the couch.

On the other side of the couch, curled up, her back to the arm rest, feet braced on his thigh, Darcy was spending her Saturday afternoon reluctantly reading reports from Phil. She didn't even bother glare. "Over my dead body."

"It's my bar."

"That I'm paying for." Darcy glanced up from her work and considered the screen. "How about the Mets? I have no strong feelings, they're local, and they're not the Yankees."

"I don't know," he grumbled. "What the hell's a Met?"

"Metropolitans." She rolled her eyes and nudged his knee with her foot. "Oh my God, don't be like that."

His lips lifted into a little smile and he shrugged. "I'll consider it."

Darcy braced her elbow on the back of the couch and set her chin in her hand, watching the game for a minute. "I know a guy on the Mets."

"Yeah?"

"Well, know." She shrugged. "His mom's my lawyer, and his grandpa was my lawyer before that. We sort of knew each other as kids. Kind of. Like, Memorial Day cookouts at his grandpa's house kind of thing."

Bucky jerked his chin at the tv. "He playing?"

She squinted at the field and counted the numbers. "I don't see him. I think he's mostly a bench guy this year. Second base, some shortstop. Good defense, quick on his feet. So-so hitter. Though, he had a good year in triple-A last year. Rick Carmine."

"I'll look out for him," Bucky said and turned his attention back to the game. "Miami Marlins. Sounds like a double-A team," he grumbled and fell silent for a long moment. "That guy needs a haircut. His hair's longer than yours."

"Says you, Mr. Lucious Locks down to your manly shoulders," Darcy laughed, with a roll of her eyes, turning her own attention back to her tablet. So, okay, it wasn't entirely quiet at Bucky's, especially when he was in a 'kids these days' mood. Hilarious as that usually was. "Besides, baseball — it's a long season, what else are they going to do other than grow weirdass beards and bad mullets? Not that there's a good mullet."

He let out a long breath through his nose. "I don't like the long pants, either."

Darcy stared at him for a second, looked at the screen, then back at him. "Are they playing baseball?"

"More or less."

Exasperated, she waved a hand at him, the tv, the universe. "Then, just, whatever, okay?"

He snorted and slumped down on the couch, kicking up his feet onto his coffee table. "Okay, so if some guys have their pants long, and other guys have their socks high, I'll pretend I don't mind. But, if the socks are high, shouldn't they all be the same? It's a uniform. How come that guy's got stripes on his socks, and that guy's are just black? They're on the same team, it oughta look the same."

Darcy rubbed at her forehead and tried to pretend she was focusing on blackmarket weapon sales in Ukraine, and not her partner's old man griping. "Let me get you the commissioner's email. You can send him a letter."

"Yeah, I'll send him a letter," he said, his tone dark with menace.

Darcy nudged his leg again. "Why are you all grumpy cat? You've been watching games all season."

"Yeah, but by myself mostly." He gave her a sad little look, like she'd abandoned him through the baseball season. "A couple times with Barton."

"But you don't bitch to Barton." Aww, he wanted to save his bitching for when she could hear it. That was both annoying and sweet.

"I don't know. I guess not." Bucky watched the game and then slapped his hand on his thigh. "Where the hell was that pitch, ump? Geez. That was right across the letters. Ball, what a crock."

Darcy laughed at his outrage. It was so normal, and those moments where he was just a regular guy were always such delight. "I'm pretty sure the proper nickname for every baseball umpire is 'bum'. So, like, that was a lousy call, you bum."

"I agree. And he is a bum. Look at that strike zone. Or don't, because I can't tell where the hell it is." He pointed at the TV. "I like the strike zone box they put up on the screen. Bet the umps don't."

"Some people want robo-umps," she informed him. "I'm on the fence. I don't entirely hate that, you know, each ump can have his own sort of unique strike zone, but that's only okay so long as they're consistent, you know."

"Robo-ump?"

"Basically that strike zone box. A computer would call balls and strikes. I don't know. I still like the human element. And you get to yell at the bums, which is part of the fun. Some people, though…"

He kept his face pointed at the TV, but his eyes slid over to her. "Yeah, well some people like the DH."

Darcy scowled at him. "I am not arguing about the DH with you. Again."

"Ruining the game," he said, his voice rising.

"Oh my God, shut up about the DH."

Bucky slapped his metal fist in his palm and glowered at the world. "Glad I was on the ice when it was instituted or I woulda burned the league down."

"For real, stop."

"What a waste of the bench," he barked, his voice heating and he was waving his hands at the TV. "So, you carry an extra guy who's only job is to—" Darcy lurched up and lunged at him, clapping her hand across his mouth.

"No," she said, begging, demanding, insisting, pleading. "You're a National League guy, it's fine, I accept it. I like you for who you are, this critical personality flaw included. But, please, no more."

They stared each other down for a long moment before he finally nodded and she let him go. She sat back cautiously, watching him warily like he might start in again.

There'd been a very, very long flight from Argentina where he talked about the designated hitter rule the whole time. She'd been tempted to jump out of the quinjet, except her suit's arc reactor was offline and she was having a hard time getting it back. Even then, though, she was still tempted to jump. She worked great under pressure, and nothing beat the pressure of gravity and a quickly approaching planet.

He turned his attention back to the game. "Mets are okay, I guess. For the bar, I mean."

"Good, great," she told him, relieved to have escaped that dangerous, dangerous DH moment.

"But, I don't want a bunch of tvs in the bar," he said, pointing a finger at her. "Most places, they've always got 'em up too loud. I'm not going to the bar to have some sports jock shout at me while I'm trying to drink a beer."

"A couple, just for games, turn them off the rest of the time."

"'Kay."

They were silent for a moment and then she laughed. "You're like a million years old."

"I like what I like," he grumped. "I don't like the DH, though, because it takes away from strategy—"

"NO!" She dropped her tablet listlessly onto her lap, threw her head back, and let her body go limp in utter and complete defeat. "Call Steve. You guys can go do your old fogey thing about it. Rarr, kids these days and their designated hitter. God. Leave me in peace," she groaned, so much pain, so much anguish. Minor anguish, but still, shut up Bucky.

The room fell quiet after her cri de coeur, except for the quiet rumble of traffic, the voice of the play by play man, and Bucky's laughter. The big asshole.

"Jerk," she muttered and petulantly shoved at his leg with her foot.

"I love riling you up."

"Biggest jerk."

He let out an amused sigh and grabbed her foot before she could kick him again. "Okay, so the Dodgers are in LA. The Athletics are in Oakland. The Giants are in San Francisco. Weird."

"The east coast needs to stop hoarding all the teams," she shot back, her tone sour, still annoyed.

"I guess, or California will steal them all." He gave her a look and then returned his attention to the game. "Oh, and the Braves are in Atlanta. And I don't know what happened to the Senators except now they're the Nationals?"

"I think they're the Twins now, and the Nationals moved from Montreal."

His brows drew down in a confused frown. "Montreal. Canada?"

Darcy shrugged and picked up her tablet again. Work was not really getting done, but she could try to pretend. "Toronto Blue Jays."

"I can't keep up with all this."

"Don't try to see the then, live with the now," she advised.

"What?"

"Half the league are teams after your day. Just, you know, embrace the league as it is now."

"Except the DH."

"Mother fu—" Darcy thumped her forehead with the palm of her hand. "I walked into that one."

"Yeah, you did," he told her, sounding almost gleeful.

"See if I let you use the company seats at the ballpark of your choice. Ever," she told him, glaring darkly.

"You've got seats at all the parks?"

"Ok, well, no, not really. The places we have major offices. For, you know, schmoozing clients, or rewarding employees, and like that. I'd have to check where all. But I'm pretty sure I  could get really awesome tickets anywhere. Not that I will for you. So, know what you're missing and suffer. Nosebleed seats for you, buddy."

Bucky snickered and rubbed a hand down her shin, squeezing her ankle lightly. "Yeah, 'cause I can't buy my own tickets."

"Boo to you," she whined and huddled over her tablet. "Ruin every scrap of fun I have."

He drew a meep of surprise from her when he pulled on her leg, drawing her down the couch. Flailing a little at the sudden move, she found herself flat on her back under a looming and impressive assassin. He had one hand braced on the back of the couch, and the other on the arm above her head. It was … a breathtaking view.

"Yep," he said, smirking. "Ruining your fun, that's me."

Letting out a long breath, she poked at his chest; not hard, only just enough to appreciate the closeness and solidness of his pecs. He wasn't the biggest guy she knew, but wow, he really knew how to work the upper body. And, she was free to grope at will. In a not creepy way. Hooray dating.

"You are in an interesting mood today," she murmured, still examining his chest. The gray henley was really well fitting. And probably brought out the blue in his eyes, but she was focused elsewhere.

"Nobody's shooting at us," he said, leaning down to press a kiss to the corner of her mouth. "Nobody is torturing us." Another kiss on the other side of her mouth. "Nobody is trying to blow us up." His lips landed solidly on hers, but before she could make it a real kiss he drew back with a smile. "Nobody is—"

Her phone rang and he turned his head towards the device with a growl. A real, deep, animal growl. Darcy couldn't help it, she laughed.

"Of course." Grabbing his chin, she turned his face back to her and captured his lips with hers. She was getting her kiss, interruptions be damned. But, the phone kept ringing and it was Phil's ringtone and there was only so long they could ignore the Director.

"I hate Coulson," Bucky grumbled against her cheek. "I hate him a lot."

"But, he's such a big fan of yours." She shoved at his chest, but regretfully this time it was less about feeling him up and more about moving him out of the way.

He didn't move far, just slid to the side, squeezing between her and the back of the couch. Shoving his bristly chin against the side of her neck, he grumbled darkly, swearing in Russian, while she fumbled for the phone.

"This better be a planet-wide emergency, Phil," Darcy greeted with a groan.

"I need you to go to Japan," he greeted. "I'm sending you the file."

"Bucky wants you to know that he hates you."

"That's too bad," Phil said, his voice bland and unbothered by the fact that one of his childhood heroes hated him. "I'd like to do a video brief in half an hour."

"You're interrupting his baseball day," Darcy pressed.

"Baseball lasts for a half the year. Did you know I played second in little league?"

"No."

"Read the file, briefing in thirty." Phil hung up and Darcy dropped her phone on the floor and patted the side of Bucky's head.

"I hate him," Bucky muttered.

"Me, too. Briefing in thirty." She squirmed away from her partner and rubbed a hand over her eyes, trying to shake off the haze of 'attractive man and his kissing and attractiveness and such'. "I think we need to sweep your apartment for cameras."

"Why?" Bucky shoved himself up and flopped back over to his side of the couch.

"His timing is too … suspicious." She glared up at a likely corner of the room. "I bet he's colluding with my dad."

"I think you're paranoid."

"Is it paranoid when we work for a spy agency? And my dad is a big nosy, nudnik?"

"Probably," he said with a dry chuckle. "So, briefing? Where are we going?"

Darcy glared sourly and pulled her tablet out from where it got stuck between the couch cushions. "Japan."

"Sounds fun. I like Japan."

Darcy closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. "And now you've cursed it."

So much for a quiet Saturday. Boo.

[writetoremainsilent]

12/30/18 not doing what I should be

You know what I’m head over heels in love with?

Griping.

It might be my biggest pastime. Game design sure isn’t.

I woke up this morning and thought to myself: I’m gonna learn so much freakin’ game design stuff thingies today.

I did not do that.

I played a lot of Ultimate with my brother, though. We’re doing an iron man challenge (look it up from Mang0, it’s where you like go in order of chars and you can only progress by winning with the char and the first one to get to the end of the list wins...okay I guess don’t look it up I’ve explained it), and I’m getting my butt kicked. It makes me sad, but I think my Pokemon Let’s Go phase is coming to an end.

I drew today, quite a bit. Which was nice. Kind of productive. I finished a Cloud drawing and I started a Lightning drawing, because I’m a Final Fantasy nerd. 

BUT I need to focus on Gamemaker. 

It’s almost the new year. My parents are prepping for a New Year’s eve party. I did my part by walking the doggo. 

My brother also started watching Designated Survivor with us. 

Tomorrow: haircut, game thingy, draw some more, work out, and New Year’s party. WOOOOO

[kim26chiu]

Brain Drain as Economic Development, Akron Edition

Akron, Ohio. Photo credit: Sleepydre, Public Domain

If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’ll know that I don’t believe brain drain is the problem it’s been made out as. Often talent export can actually itself be a form of economic development.

A recent New Yorker profile of the Silicon Valley firm Glassdoor, which allows employees to post reviews of their employer, made this point implicitly in passing. Robert Hohman, the CEO of Glassdoor, is from Akron.

One day last fall, I met with Robert Hohman, Glassdoor’s C.E.O., at the company’s Chicago office. He had just hosted a ted-like conference (tagline: “Winning with informed candidates”) where C.E.O.s and talent recruiters took notes on how to operate in the new era of corporate transparency. Hohman, who grew up in Akron, Ohio, resembles the actor Jeff Daniels; friendly and rumpled, he wore jeans, and his blond hair was slicked back. According to Glassdoor, ninety-one per cent of employees approve of Hohman’s performance. The other nine per cent include a former sales director, who recently griped about a “culture of blame” at the company’s Mill Valley, California, headquarters and advised Hohman to “stop standing up in meetings dropping F-Bombs like a 6th grader with a head injury.”

When he needed up with his startup, he looked to friends and family back home:

In 2008, shortly before Glassdoor’s launch, Hohman called his sister, Melissa Fernandez, in Akron. She had just given birth to her first child and wanted to work from home. He enlisted her to read every review that was submitted to the site, scanning them for violations of the Community Guidelines. When the workload got to be too much, Fernandez recruited Cara Barry, another stay-at-home mom, who recruited a third mom, her neighbor. Eventually, this group—the content-moderation team—grew to include twenty-six people, several of them men, although for years employees at Glassdoor’s headquarters referred to them as “the wahms,” for “work-at-home moms.” During the past decade, Glassdoor has built machine-learning algorithms to screen for fraud and profanity, and the members of Fernandez’s team read anything that users have flagged; these days, they also read half of all reviews submitted to the site regardless—a step that Yelp and TripAdvisor don’t take, Hohman said.

This turned into a Glassdoor office in suburban Akron, complete with Silicon Valley style perks.

From Chicago, Hohman returned to San Francisco. Dawn Lyon and I went to visit the content-moderation team, which works in an office park in Green, Ohio, five miles from the Akron airport. Melissa Fernandez met us at the door. She has a “Rachel” haircut, wire-rimmed glasses, and an even-keeled demeanor. She introduced her team of moderators—twenty-one other women and four men, working at adjustable-height desks. According to Glassdoor’s Glassdoor page, the Ohio office is the happiest of the company’s six locations, beating London and San Francisco, with a 5.0 rating—a perfect score. Fernandez explained that this is in part because the team has a great culture, and also because its San Francisco-style startup perks—yoga classes, dogs in the office, flexibility to work from home—are virtually unheard of in Akron, where the biggest employers are factories and call centers. Laura Beth Mercina, the team’s head of community care, previously worked at Arby’s. She said, “I tell people about my job at Glassdoor, and they’re, like, ‘Is this place real?’ ”

It’s not clear how many people Glassdoor employs in Akron. It sounds like a very small number. But any amount is more than they would have been employing if Hohman hadn’t left Akron to ultimately end up starting the company. Brain drain turned out to be gain for the folks who are now working for Glassdoor in Akron.

from Aaron M. Renn http://www.urbanophile.com/2018/03/14/brain-drain-as-economic-development-akron-edition/

[topicprinter]

Hi everyone! My name is Rich Clominson and I have just published a new interview on Failory with Julia Enthoven in which we reflect about the mistakes she made in her failed startup, Hot Barber. I hope you are able to learn at least something and if you have any questions, I will happily answer them below. Hot Barber was a website that let hair stylists set up profiles and customers browse portfolios, but the founders couldn't find a way to monetize it!Hello Julia! What's your background, and what are you currently working on?Hi! I’m Julia, a 24-year-old web developer living in San Francisco. My co-founder, Eric, and I are working on an online video editor called Kapwing. We built and launched Kapwing about a month ago and are now growing it and developing new features. What was Hot Barber about? Why did you build it?We started Hot Barber to help people get cheaper, higher-value haircuts. I felt like I was overpaying for my salon in San Francisco, but I was also too afraid to risk going somewhere cheaper. Plus, it was hard for me to connect with a stylist who knew my hair type. Hot Barber was a website designed to connect customers with stylists without the salon middleman. We wanted to simplify the process of finding a great hairstylist with more visuals, more personalization, and an emphasis on affordability and showcase the awesome talent of up-and-coming stylists. How did you build Hot Barber? How did you grow it?Hot Barber is a simple website that lets hair stylists set up profiles and customers browse portfolios for the stylists they need. Since we were focused on affordability, we started by partnering with local cosmetology schools (with cold calls and emails) to built the initial supply. Our hypothesis was that, for some services, senior beauty school students could provide high-quality service for a fraction of a price of an elite salon. This turned out to be only partly true - students definitely need experience before they’re as capable as a professional stylist, but some students have experience before they start cosmo school.We designed and developed an MVP ourselves and spent time at our cosmo school getting students onboard. Our plan was to launch a pilot with one beauty school and Facebook ADS to generate some demand, then move towards a beta with hundreds of students from all the schools in San Francisco. Why did Hot Barber fail?We didn’t have a short-term monetization strategy. At first, we thought that we could make Hot Barber a transactional site where customers reserved and paid for haircuts online. But, through interviews with domain experts, we realized that scheduling and payment processing are complex, decentralized problems and that the margins would be low since hairstylists have a personal relationship with their clients and many existing alternatives. We also had trouble getting enough stylists onto the platform.So, we pivoted Hot Barber towards discovery - “Houzz for hair” - and planned to aggregate all existing data on the web about stylists to help people find a personalized match. But, like a blog, a discovery website doesn’t make money unless it attracts a lot of traffic, and we were worried that our runway would run out before we were able to make money on ads. So we paused the project and moved on to something new. We’re planning to shut down the Hot Barber website soon. What were your biggest mistakes and disadvantages?Our MVP wasn’t focused enough on a pressing user problem. From weeks of user interviews, it seemed that nearly everyone we talked to had a gripe about their hair experience, but the complaints were related to different issues: expense, booking, opaque pricing, quality, etc. We grouped all of these user needs together under the umbrella of “finding a good hair stylist,” but we should have been more focused on delivering a product that addressed one need very well instead of many needs halfway.Also, we are first-time entrepreneurs, which makes it riskier (and scarier) to work on a project that won’t make money for a long time. I think that Hot Barber is doable if the founders raised venture capital at the onset or built and grew the website on the side while working a full-time job, but it wasn’t a good fit for us. If you had to start over, what would you do differently?I would have focused my efforts - user interviews, launch strategy, and product development - on the problem of discovering a local hair stylist rather than the whole experience of finding and getting an affordable haircut. What did you learn?I learned that my first startup needs to be something with a shorter term monetization strategy so that I can gain confidence in my own development and growth skills before risking several years and a lot of money. I also learned that marketplaces are hard and that I should focus on building something great for customers before trying to get suppliers on board. What's your advice for someone who is just starting?It’s easier to build a solution for a problem that is really pressing, something that people are already spending money on and/or searching for on Google. It’s also easier if you build a product either for people like you or for a domain you have expertise in. These are obvious pieces of advice, but Hot Barber failure definitely reinforce them for me. Which business book would you recommend?I really enjoyed The Lean Product Playbook and The Design of Everyday Things, although reading articles online tends to be more practical when you have specific questions. ConclusionHot Barber failure was caused by one big cause: monetizing issues. Before starting your business, it is always important to write down on a business plan how will you monetize your business. Original interview posted at https://failory.com/interview/hot-barber

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Funny To A Point – Heeding The Call In Destiny 2

After years of listening to gamers gripe about how the original Destiny ruined their lives in every conceivable way (even as they logged in hundreds of hours), Destiny 2 is finally here. Does the shiny new sequel provide Bungie with the redemption it doesn’t really need and has never asked for? Seeing as how all the early criticism has focused on the way shaders are used to paint your guardian pretty colors, it seems like the answer is yes. But we all know that the real verdict won’t be rendered until the professional critics weigh in – and we all know that the only professional critic that really matters is ME. Well, fear not, dear readers: Like my hideous Smurfette of a guardian, I am up to the task and ready to save the day!

Full disclosure: I never actually managed to finish the original Destiny. I played for about a week or so when the game first came out, but lost interest when that weird emo prince showed up in the incomprehensible-yet-paradoxically-simple story. My experience with Destiny since then has been downloading every new expansion and then feeling progressively more guilty for not actually playing them.

So what imbues me with the expertise needed to weigh in on Destiny 2, you ask? Well, for starters I was one of the first critics to identify and outline some of the major problems of the first Destiny – I was so early, in fact, that I received a massive amount of hate from the same super fans who would become Destiny’s super haters once they realized I knew what the hell I was talking about. I also cracked Destiny’s biggest secret, which has still eluded everyone else, so I think that makes me the King of Destiny? I dunno. Anywho, let’s get on with it, shall we?

Note: You can click on any of the pictures for a better look at whatever misadventures are being documented.

Destiny 2’s opening cinematic lays out the series’ plot like it’s reading a picture book to a child, and it’s a decision that I wholly appreciate. At this point, all I really remember about the first game is that a giant ping-pong ball gave my zombie soldier some sweet superpowers, which I used to kill a bunch of angry aliens as I searched for shiny balls engrams to score more loot. The intro doesn’t contain any huge revelations (“a mysterious good force is fighting a mysterious evil force!”), but I no longer felt the need to look up a plot synopsis on a Destiny fan wiki after watching it, and for that I’m eternally grateful.

Actually, Destiny 2’s intro did contain one particularly rude revelation: Because I didn’t max out my Destiny 1 guardian (I’m going to go ahead and blame Prince Creep for that), I can’t import her into the sequel. So as far as I can tell, from a lore perspective my original guardian gets blasted to smithereens during the cabal attack that kicks off Destiny 2. Not being able to carry over my character isn’t a huge loss, but it does undermine the fantasy a bit:

The Speaker: “You are the chosen Guardian, who will rise from the dead and save humanity from the galaxy’s greatest thr–“

*BLAMMO!!!* [Guardian’s head explodes into a fine mist.]

The Speaker: [Shuffling over to the next corpse] “Ahem…You are the chosen guardian…”

Anyway, with my old guardian now super-forever dead, I resign myself to creating a new character from scratch. I go with the Hunter class, because like me they are crafty and roguish and it’s my fantasy world so I’ll believe whatever I want! I also opt for a female Awoken, because humans are boring and robots are probably going to kill us all one day and I don’t need to be reminded of it every time I pull the trigger. At this point I realize I’ve remade all the same class choices I did in the first game, so I decide to just remake my character entirely. Think you’re getting rid of my guardian that easy? Think again!

Creating a character in a game usually turns into an all-night affair for me, as I obsessively shift every slider back and forth to its extremes before settling on the default position. Not so in Destiny 2! You get to create the exact hero of your dreams – by choosing from 7 stock faces and a handful of the ugliest hairstyles imaginable, because apparently the barbers were the first ones to be killed off in the apocalypse. Normally my wife weighs in on every minute detail during the character creation process, but the only feedback she offers me about Destiny 2’s limited options is that one hairstyle in particular makes my character “look like a heathen.” I’m not even sure what that means.

This just looks like Conan The Barbarian’s haircut to me, though come to think of it he probably was a heathen, so I guess she was right after all.

I opt for a crazy space mohawk instead, then move on to the face tattoos, which are always being as pointless and ill-advised in character creators as they are in real-life. Even so, Destiny 2 sets a new low bar for the extraneous category. Once again, I imagine an intern – possibly the same one who made Andromeda’s preset faces for BioWare – whipped them up in a matter of minutes.

Intern: “Hey, here are some face dots.”

Bungie Employee: “…You mean freckles?”

Intern: “Nah man, just face dots.”

Bungie Employee: “Alrighty then. Next!”

Somehow my guardian ends up looking vaguely like Margaery Tyrell, if she was thrown into the Mad Max universe and also purple for some reason. As totally rad as that sounds, I immediately regret every decision I made as soon as she pops up in the first actual cutscene – the gaming equivalent of getting dressed in the dark and then realizing you’re wearing your wife’s shirt as soon as you step out into the sunlight.* My wife also didn’t seem impressed, simply stating, “she looks quite striking,” which I assume is a polite euphemism for fugly. But whatever – at least it’s time to finally start playing!

Destiny 2 wastes no time getting into the action; after a brief cutscene starring the three characters from the first game that actually had faces, players are thrust into battle against a new faction of turtle-looking enemies called the Cabal. The Cabal are hellbent on destroying The Last City, which would normally be the name of a piece of armor or some robot butler in a Bungie game, but in this case it’s an actual city. Come to think of it, the Cabal is also a perfectly adequate name for an enemy faction…has Bungie lost its edge?!

What the heck are the space moles from Mass Effect doing in Destiny? And why are they so mean?!

The gameplay opens with your guardian returning to The Last City after some kind of patrol (or a sandwich run for we all know), and landing on the outskirts of the siege. I spend a few minutes of getting reacquainted with the controls, which includes immediately throwing a grenade at my feet and blasting away half my health. From there it’s on to the first battle, though things don’t go quite how I expect.

Even after all these years, I still remember my first open-ended skirmish in Halo; how dynamic the battle felt, and how the A.I. enemies seemed to be thinking and reacting for themselves. In contrast, much of the opening level in Destiny 2 feels more like Disney’s It’s A Small World ride than an FPS, as you’re guided from one small murder diorama to the next. Even for a self-grenading chump like myself, the initial enemies you face are about as threatening as the paper silhouettes at a shooting range, taking a step or two and then waiting politely for you to shoot their heads into some kind of ghost vapor. On the positive side, the controls feel as silky smooth as ever, and the first two guns I picked up were called Origin Story and The Last Dance, so at least Bungie’s still got it!

After a few more underwhelming encounters, the game’s seamless co-op kicks in – another guardian is just over the ridge and is in need of reviving! I’m not sure how he managed to die during this dog and pony show, but by the time I get over to him, a third player has him back up on his feet. It’s the thought that counts though, right?

Our improvised trio rallies around the bald dude who despite being a blue alien is always going to be Captain Daniels to me and anyone else who has seen The Wire (to my wife he’s the captain from Fringe, which is basically the same role only with parallel universes thrown into the mix). Daniels tells me that I should stay behind his shield, but I get annihilated by an incoming missile before it’s even deployed. So that’s how my co-op buddy died…

The Night King shows up in Destiny 2, but apparently he’s a good guy now.

One of my anonymous pals revives me and we hunker down and fight off a few waves of enemies together. It’s a cool, ships-passing-in-the-night kind of moment that reminds me of Journey, albeit with more guns and grenades and slaughtering aliens as they mindlessly funnel into my murder canal.** Once the assault ends, I turn to wave to my teammates, only to see that they have disappeared without so much as a goodbye –apparently manners were also a casualty of the apocalypse.

I move onto the next area and run into another NPC who I should probably know from the first game, but she promptly tells me that she’s going to “kick the Cabal where it hurts,” and then jumps onto the nose of a spaceship and disappears. I assume she’s talking about their space nards, though that’s an assumption in and of itself – how does she know the Cabal are males? Way to assume their gender, only human lady left on whatever planet this is. Seriously, is this Earth? Whatever. On to the next fight!

The next encounter actually gives me a run for my money, thanks to one enemy in particular: Pashk, The Searing Will. I know that’s his name because I actually took extra damage just to grab a screen of it.

No wonder he’s fighting so hard – people have probably made fun of his name for his whole life!

Unfortunately for him, Pashk is no match for Ode To An Unbroken Heart, which is the name I just gave my melee knife because two can play that game, Bungie!

With Pashk’s searing will extinguished, I head onto the next area, only to trigger a cutscene that introduces Destiny 2’s villain: a massive Cabal warrior named Ghaul. Well, mostly massive – his tiny bald head makes him look like a dude in a mascot suit who took his head off for a breather. Also, what is with villains wearing masks that distort their voices? Have we learned nothing from Bane?

I’m sorry, a world without what? Work on your enunciation, Ghaul! Also, why yo head so tiny?

Regardless, Ghaul gives a little speech about how puny guardians are, then drives the point home by planting his foot in my face and kicking me off of the magic tower we were trying to defend. As if that’s not bad enough, he also puts some kind of massive chastity belt on the ping-pong ball Traveler, which sucks away all the guardians’ superpowers. Talk about rude!

Despite just being a regular alien lady again, my guardian somehow survives the stories-high fall off the magic tower – though I guess that’s probably because it wouldn’t be much of a game otherwise (“And so the final guardian perished, and the might Cabal took over the galaxy. Thanks for playing!”). I limp out of the burning city with only a pistol, shooting some strange spikey dog creatures that also barf up their souls when they die (seriously, what kind of bullets are you shooting in this game?). Eventually a woman with a hawk shows up and invites me back to her village, which serves as the game’s first social hub. By that point in the evening my narcolepsy starts kicking in, and I repeatedly fall asleep while kicking around a giant soccer ball, only to wake up a few minutes later to sight of my character being nuked for wandering out of bounds – always a good time to call it quits.

You thought I was joking about falling asleep, didn’t you? Think again!

While Destiny 2’s opening doesn’t leave the strongest impression (even by tutorial-level standards), it contains at least a few sparks of Bungie’s patented dynamic combat, and does a much better job setting up a story and villain than the first game. And while I wasn’t particularly blown away by anything in my first night (well, except for the out-of-bounds limit), my subsequent play sessions have been more emblematic of what Destiny 2 strives for: tense and challenging fire fights against formidable enemies; an addictive loot loop that has me switching up my arsenal at a satisfying pace; and fun public events that you can jump into during the final few seconds and still nab the rewards. There’s also the PvP that I’m sure I’ll get obliterated in, and co-op strikes and raids if I can ever get Jeff Cork to put down Path of Exile and play with me (oh how the tables have turned).

Oftentimes in my column I tend to either gush endless praise for a game or take a big dump on it, but so far Destiny 2 hasn’t elicited anything quite so extreme from me. I’m enjoying the combat and the sense of progression, despite the fact that my character feels more like a mute marionette puppet than a super hero (seriously, a silent protagonist? In 2017?). And while I’m enjoying the game more and more every night, I don’t know that I’ll be one of those crazy people who plays it obsessively for years on end.

Anyway, I continued writing down more impressions and anecdotes in the subsequent play sessions, but rather than weaving them all into a(n even) long(er) and (more) boring narrative, I’ll just throw them in with some pictures and videos, and use the extra time to play more of the game. If that’s not a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what is!

Few games take the term “monster closet” more literally than Destiny 2. It’s seriously just a door with mysterious black smoke!

The European Dead Zone is like a taxi zone at the airport – ships are constantly coming in and dropping aliens off on the same street. You’d think they’d have a better invasion plan.

All joking aside, Bungie serves up some awesome sci-fi environments every now and then.

The hawk lady seems pretty cool. Even if she fell for the face dots.

Titan looks like an awesome neon-blue planet when you view it on the map, but it turns out it’s just Mother Base. Also, what’s with all these potato-chip bags?!

Sometimes Destiny 2’s combat suffers from the level design, with enemies funneling into murder canals because it’s the only path through the environment. Then again, sometimes it’s also fun to rack up a billion headshots in a row.

I ran across these two little frog aliens, which I’m assuming are Destiny’s equivalent of Statler and Waldorf. I’m hoping they play a big role in the story later on.

Not to get too deep into spoiler territory, but Cayde’s torrid love affair with this chicken is as emotionally touching as it is sexually graphic.

There are a lot of big balls in Destiny 2. Just saying.

Seriously, they’re all over the place.

Bungie says the EDZ is the biggest zone they’ve ever created, but I don’t know how that’s possible when every rig on Titan contains an endless sprawl of identical rooms and corridors. One time when I was hopelessly looking for an exit, I ran into a big knight-looking dude and received a Lost Sector banner when I defeated him. In my case the “Lost” was quite literal. Also, does anyone else find it weird that Titan is a class in Destiny 2 and also a planet? Too many Titans, Bungie!

I don’t even want to know what that is.

Breaking news: The totally useless spaceships return in Destiny 2! They’re not fooling anyone, but they do make for a pretty snazzy-looking loading screen.

Everyone spawns into the same location on The Farm, making you look like some horrific, multi-headed mutant. The extra arms would probably come in handy during battle, though.

I was super excited when I got sword from a treasure chest. A sword! Then I found out it’s some kind of weird magic sword that needs ammo. How the hell is that better than a rocket launcher?!

And finally, it’s not a sci-fi game if you don’t have floating rocks – and also point out said floating rocks to the player via NPC dialogue. In this case, ghost speculates that they’re caused by some kind of Hive magic. How’s that for science fiction!***

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Funny To A Point – Heeding The Call In Destiny 2 was originally published on Tech News Center The Digital Generation