#u know when the dev replied to someone who was asking them how to write a story and they just said ‘glue your fav tropes together until it

[simcardiac-arrested]

no actually I’d like to hear your thoughts on the isat ending

Like i said it felt really tropey and by that i meant that it’s just Everything Good Happens forever and…..that’s it ? like idk we were building up to this huge catharsis sort of thing and then we got to it and it was so sudden and not a good payoff and just kind of nothingburger of an ending . the fact that everyone just forgives siffrin bothers me, or at least the fact that they don’t confront them about the shit they’ve said and done. call me a mental illness villainizer but i think if you’re a fucking asshole and doing the most insensitive things to the people you care about then hey, i think those ppl have a right to fucking tell you off for it. likeeee idk being at your lowest point …… not an excuse …. not feeling it chief ……. like sure the message is to move past your mistakes or whatever but ? that doesn’t mean just getting away with it ??? and i just really don’t understand Why everyone forgives him. honestly at the end of the day the ending is just one problem, the root of which are the characters. everyone feels like trope cardboard cutouts. oh, this is the smart one. this is the smol bean. this is the himbo. and they all care for each other btw. Did u hear that? they all care for each other. we’re not really going to explain to you why these people are so close or what they went through together but just trust me man they’re sooo found famy. like …. okay. i’ve played 30 hours of this game and not once did i buy that any of the characters really cared about each other. like??? why???? You’re telling me everyone super cares about siffrin even though they barely know them?? you’re telling me siffrin cares about everyone sooo much even though he never even bothered to find out their problems before ? Wat ? and this just breaks the ending more because literally whyyy do these people care about him so bad. and then it’s just whyyy does siffrin Have to tell them anything he doesn’t even seem to know them that well. everyone feels like colleagues and Just Friends at best. and so the ending just seems really forced. like it was written by that type of tumblr user who’s always talking about aww why does the found family have to break up after the end of the journey :( which is like fiiiiine. i guess. but u guys know that u have to build up to it right?? you can’t just tell me they’re Family Members(tm) 102829 times and that they super care about each other source: trust. you can’t just do that and then expect me to believe it ….. It feels unearned. the ending feels unearned and i don’ttttt understand what i’m supposed to take away from it . that it’s ok to fuck people up because you’re traumatized and insecure?? that you have to talk about your deepest problems with people you barely know??? i just dont know. Like i said if im being honest the problems with this game’s writing are more than just the ending, it just stands out so much because there’s a lot of build up and then just …… That

[audreycritter]

“Gah,” Jason Todd exclaims, slamming one hand against the steering wheel. Dev, to his credit, does not jump but looks up briefly from the article he is reading on his phone.

“Problem?” Dev asks, glancing ahead at the road from the passenger seat.

“I’m so fricking hungry,” Jason growls, twisting in his seat to look out the rear window. “Tim’s right there. Why the frick did we decide to wait until after her recital to eat?”

“Because it’s barely five in the evening, mate,” Dev answers, sounding vaguely amused. They left the Arts Hall after going to Cassandra’s afternoon ballet recital en masse, and managed to talk Alfred into take-out burgers instead of the older man skipping the recital to prepare food for afterward.

“It’s a stupid time to eat lunch,” Jason snaps. “And why did Tim pick it all up, anyway.”

Dev pockets his phone and gives Jason a level look as the car crawls forward in traffic.

“Mate.”

“What?!” Jason exclaims, throwing his head back. “AUGH.”

“We’re having dinner. Did you not eat lunch?”

“What the hell,” Jason throws an arm in the air and slams the gas to close the gap that’s suddenly opened ahead of them. A second later, he pounds the brake just as hard at a red light. “Alfred told me not to eat!”

“He didn’t mean all day, mate,” Dev says, a little startled now. “You could’ve had lunch.”

“Hold on,” Jason snaps. “Fuck it.”

The younger man throws the gear shift into park and before Dev can even yell in protest, Jason flings the car door open and tumbles out of the car, shaking off his seatbelt.

“Jay!” Dev says, pointlessly, craning to see.

Jason jogs ten feet back and bends down at the window of Tim’s car. Dev can make out Tim’s confused expression through the glass, but a moment later a brown paper bag of food and a drink are extended through the open window.

Jason snatches them and sprints back to his car, sliding into the seat amidst the car’s angry beeping at being left on while the door is open. He buckles again just as the light changes to green and the engine makes an awful revving noise when he presses the gas.

“Drive,” Dev says and Jason whips the gear shift around and they’re moving forward again.

Somehow in those few seconds of running or buckling, Jason has already gotten a cheeseburger out of the bag and is chewing a mouthful.

“I slept in,” he mumbles around a large bite. “Didn’t have time. Goodness gracious, this is heaven.”

“It’s only Park Avenue,” Dev jokes, peering into the bag Jason had thrown onto his lap.

“Listen,” Jason insists, “I love this cheeseburger more than I’ve loved anything or anyone ever. With all my heart. See if there’s another one.”

“The sack’s full of them,” Dev answers, sorting through the wrappers. “No chips, though.”

“Tim said there’s another bag of those,” Jason says, wadding the paper and foil wrapper. He reaches over and grabs another burger. “Alfred will understand.”

“We’ll say I gave you mine if anyone’s miffed,” Dev says, folding the top of the bag shut.

“Well, now I feel bad,” Jason protests, taking another bite anyway.

“I just want chips, mate. I ate lunch like a sane person,” Dev says with a grin.

“Har har,” Jason answers with his mouth full. “Gimme Dick’s next.”

Dev’s hand tightens on the bag and he edges it away from Jason’s reach.

“I’m not gonna eat it,” Jason says, putting a hand up in a gesture of assurance. “I’m just gonna lick it and put it back. I’ll tell him later.”

Dev raises an eyebrow and moves the bag further away.

“You are zero fun, Dr. Frankenstein,” Jason grumbles, turning off the main road stretch they’d been on. “It’s like you’ve been spending too much time with Bruce.”

“Don’t act surprised,” Dev says. “If you get him ill, guess who has to take care of it?”

“Alfred?” Jason asks. “Okay, yeah. That’s a deterrent.”

“I meant me, you plonker,” Dev says, his tone offended. “I’d not leave him to Alfie alone.”

“Oh, in that case, hand it over anyway.” Jason shrugs and slurps soda from the cup and then makes a face. “This is fucking gross. Why is this orange.”

“Your da’s, and I’ve tried to talk him out of it,” Dev says, pressing his shoulder against the door to brace himself. “Bloody hell, Jay, slow for the turns or we’ll both end up zombies.”

“You aren’t a Wayne,” Jason scoffs. “What makes you think you’d come back?”

“Steph’s not a Wayne and she came back,” Dev retorts, taking the cup out of Jason’s hand. “If you don’t care about us, at least have mercy on your sodding suspension.”

“It’s Bruce’s car. I don’t care,” Jason says, speeding through a yellow light. He glances in the rearview mirror. “And Steph didn’t actually die. Good. We lost Tim.”

“Were we trying to lose Timothy?” Dev asks, turning his head to look out the back.

“We’re racing,” Jason answers. A second later, he cuts the wheel hard and they slam around a corner into an alleyway. “Fish-fucking-sticks, I forgot about that new bridge. I bet Tim took it.”

“I did not agree to racing,” Dev says firmly. “Not in the middle of Gotham.”

“We have to get you away from Bruce. He’s rubbing off on you and it’s awful.” Jason doesn’t slow down coming out of the alley and takes a u-turn almost immediately on the road he joins.

“Have you ever been in a car with Bruce, mate,” Dev says. “Bloody hell, at this point, I’m not even going to want chips. Your da drives like a bat out–” He stops abruptly.

Jason turns to him with a wicked grin.

“Finish it,” he orders, blowing through a yellow light.

“I’m just going to stop talking,” Dev says instead. “I’m going to close my eyes and whinge to Alfie when we get back and never get in a car I’m not driving, ever again.”

“If you don’t want your fries, can I have those, too?” Jason asks, slowing suddenly. They crawl down the street at five miles under the speed limit and Dev watches out the window as they pass a squad car tucked back into an alley with a radar gun. “Do you know if they jokerized them?”

“If they what?” Dev replies, his stomach turning. As soon as they’re around a corner, the car picks up speed again.

“The fries. Did they jokerize them. The seasoning?” Jason says, as if this is obvious. “They’re crap without it but sometimes Tim skips it because Bruce gets weird about it.”

“How dare your da get weird about remembering you died,” Dev says dryly. “The sodding audacity.”

“Hey,” Jason says, coughing. He picks up the soda and drinks some. The younger man makes a face at the taste and then sips it again anyway. “You’re doing better. You didn’t pause all funny before you said it this time.”

“Audacity?” Dev says with a grin. “I’m shite at writing, but I can manage some big words.”

“You know what the frick I mean,” Jason laughs. “I’m pretty sure we lost, by the way. Check Tim’s location.”

“I’m not ringing him, mate. If he’s still driving, he’ll answer anyway. The lot of you have no self-preservation skills whatsoever,” Dev refuses as they drive over the bridge toward the more secluded Manor.

“You’re so old,” Jason complains. “Just open your texts and go to his contact info. It should be right there. Dick made him share his location with everyone after that insomnia thing.”

Dev slides his phone out of his pocket with his free hand and taps on the screen.

“Huh,” he says. “This is bloody convenient. He’s half a mile from the Manor and not moving. I hope Dames is okay.”

“Why wouldn’t Damian be okay?” Jason asks, looking over sharply.

“He was in the back, yeah? And if Tim was driving anything like you were…” Dev trails off as if this is enough information.

“You lost me,” Jason says. “Damian’s an idiot but he wouldn’t try to take over.”

“He gets carsick in the backseat, mate,” Dev says, typing a text while he talks. “Did you not know?”

“How do you know that?” Jason demands. “Gah, it’s like you’re turning into Alfred.”

“He was sick all over my car on the way to Lake Vernon last summer. He was too sodding stubborn to ask me to stop.”

“I don’t even know why you stick around,” Jason exclaims, braking to a stop. Tim’s car is on the shoulder of the road but the car is empty.

“Mostly for tea,” Dev says, opening his door. “I’ll look about.” He sets the bag of cheeseburgers on the seat when he stands, then he stoops over and gives Jason a skeptical glance and takes the bag with him.

Jason flicks the hazard lights on and climbs out. He squints, looking down the road.

“They’re up there, walking,” he says.

“The petrol tank says it’s empty,” Dev adds, looking through the driver’s side window of Tim’s car.

“Get back in,” Jason says quickly. “Hurry. He saw us.”

Dev obeys and barely is buckled again before the car speeds forward.

“What the bloody hell,” he yelps as the speedometer tips toward 60 miles per hour. They rush past Stephanie and Cassandra, who are holding bags of food and trays of drinks. A second later, they speed past Tim and Damian, who are both sprinting.

“We can still win,” Jason says. “And loser has to tell Bruce that we broke the T-Rex’s head before the recital.”

“You what,” Dev exclaims. “Does this mean we’re free? We can burn it in the yard?”

“He’s going to fix it. He fixed it last time.”

“Then what’s the bloody point?” Dev demands, sounding defeated. “How did you break it, anyway?”

“Um,” Jason says reluctantly. “We shot it. But it was an accident. And we won!”

The car skids to a stop on the drive in front of the Manor with a whining screech.

“You accidentally shot…the head of…the massive dinosaur…” Dev summarizes faintly.

“Mhmm. With a crossbow,” Jason says. “We didn’t think it’d just fucking shatter like that, but I guess it’s gotten brittle. And now Tim gets to tell Bruce and I swear to god someone will die if they didn’t season those fries.” He’s already out of the car and he bangs on the roof. “You coming?”

“Yes,” Dev says in a detached voice. “But only because Alfie’s inside and I can find some semblance of sanity there, otherwise I’d just spend the night right here, thanks.”

“Can I still have your fries?” Jason asks, turning to give Tim and Damian the finger as they stagger onto the front lawn from the road. Tim gives it back and sits down on the grass and Damian runs faster. Jason yells and bolts up the stairs. “Answer me inside! If I’m still alive!”

Dev waves to Tim who waves limply before falling onto his back on the lawn.

“I’m so hungry!” the faint yell carries to the car. “Can you throw me a cheeseburger?”

“What, did none of you eat before?” Dev shouts back, his grip tightening on the bag.

“I slept in!” Tim replies. “And then the burgers were stolen.”

Dev sighs and turns toward the Manor.

“Drag your sorry arse inside,” he calls over his shoulder. He stops and takes a cheeseburger out and sets it on the steps. “Here. I’m luring you.”

When he glances back, Tim raises a hand in a thumbs-up gesture.

“This sodding family,” Dev mutters. Alfred appears just inside the doorway and doesn’t flinch or blink at the sound of crashing behind him.

“In one piece?” the older man asks calmly.

“Just barely,” Dev replies. “I thought ballet was supposed to be calm and civilized.”

“Not for the Waynes,” Alfred says with a slight smile, stepping aside. “But I hardly think this should be news to you.”

Jason steps around Alfred and back out onto the top step with a struggling, protesting Damian thrown over his shoulder.

“Did you jokerize the fries?” he roars down toward the lawn where Tim is still lying. Tim sits up and cups his hands around his mouth to shout back.

“Of course I did. They’re gross plain.”

“Eat them outside!” Bruce’s voice carries out of the house from somewhere down a hallway. “Or I throw them away!”

Jason drops Damian, who just barely manages to land on his feet, and he tips his head back and growls.

“You’re repressing everyone!” he complains loudly.

“I’ll clean the patio table,” Alfred says, disappearing inside.

“My house, my rules!” Bruce answers and Jason turns and slams the door shut.

The girls are at the edge of the lawn now, still carrying food. Cassandra is slurping slushie through a fat straw. A window above the steps opens and Dick leans out.

“Did Jason lick my cheeseburger again?” he demands of the crowd in general. “Jay. Jason.”

“Frick yes I did,” Jason says.

“He didn’t,” Dev answers, holding the bag aloft. The window shuts.

“You have no sense of fun,” Jason moans, snatching Damian up again. The boy is as tall as Tim now, so it’s less like watching a child being picked up and more like watching someone be abducted. “Come on, Demonbird. We’re going to jump in the pool just like this.”

Tim has dragged himself to his feet and joins Dev on the steps. He leans over and picks up the cheeseburger sitting on the ground and unwraps it.

“I have to tell Bruce about the T-Rex,” he mutters. “Wanna come?”

“Why not,” Dev answers with a shrug. “It’s safer than being by the pool.”

[topicprinter]

Hey everyone, this is Alex again, hope you are not annoyed already by me posting every day. I promised to write some tips about hiring a developer, and since you /u/RoreyCathcart asked about it, that’s exactly what I’m going to do now. I will focus on hiring a remote developer because that’s something I would do as a non-technical founder of a startup without a ton of cash who is just starting out. Let me know if you’re interested in knowing how to hire someone to work for you in the office full-time.​There are certain decisions you need to make before even starting to look for a developer, for example, her seniority level, her stack (backend / frontend / full-stack) and actual technology you want to use. I would highly recommend showing your high-level project requirements to an experienced consultant with a track record to help you choose the technology, and he will also advise you on the seniority level and stack.​Typically you would want middle-level dev with a full-stack skillset. That will allow you to save some money and get something done that won’t be a complete waste of time and budget. I wouldn’t recommend starting a project with junior devs — they typically are poor problem solvers and need guidance from more experienced colleagues.​A consultant might sound like something unnecessary, but he can save you a lot of headaches by setting your product development on the right track and keeping an eye on the process from time to time. He will also be a third-party who cares about reputation so you can expect only reliable guidance.​Unfortunately, you won’t know if the person you are going to hire is a good fit or not before you start working and get first deliverables so be prepared to spend some time and money on paid test tasks. I wouldn’t recommend asking devs to do something complex, maybe a simple but visible feature for your app that you can build on in the future, your consultant can help you with that too. Usually, after a week, you will see if the developer is capable of delivering, if he is persistent and communicates well.​Here are three must-have skills you would typically want your first remote developer to have, it all boils down to just being professional:​Skill #1: CommunicationThat is something you will get a feeling of early on even before starting to work with your new hire. Pay attention to how fast she replies to your messages and request. Does it take days to get a list of past projects? Probably your project is not that interesting to this person, or there’s something more important happening, feel free to move on. Does she disappear for a day without letting you know at all? That’s a good sign of a person not being able to communicate well. Even in rural India when lights go out, people have mobile internet to send short text explaining the situation. Shit happens sometimes, but you should expect even simplest notification.That also applies to the work itself. Your developer should let you know when part of their work is done and ready for testing, not just upload it elsewhere and tick the checkbox in the project management tool. A good developer should chase you with questions about missing info or assets, not just silently sit there for you to discover nothing had been done for last X hours. It may sound like basic 101 but sometimes even people that others recommend you will act this way for personal reasons. I don’t know honestly why. I was working with a guy once who was always asking stupid questions just to keep himself idle. Given that I couldn’t reply immediately he usually was idle 50% of the time.​Skill #2: Being able to deliverBy that I mean not only writing code but showing you something that you can review, that works and passes common sense and sanity check. In an example of a login form, I used before you should be able to log in and see an error message if something went wrong. That is something junior developers often have a problem with. They tell you that feature is done, but when you are on to review it, you make some shocking discoveries. For example, form submit button is above the form fields. Or, you can’t log in because your email contains @ sign and it does not pass validation. Or something else that makes you sure that person who created this page never used the internet before or just haven’t ever seen what he created. It's important because you don’t want to be a nanny and write tons of messages to fix common sense errors. You also don’t want your project manager to do that because it will quickly drive them crazy.​Skill #3: Presence and persistenceThere are a lot of professional remote workers out there. They typically have a work schedule like ordinary office workers and try to stick to it. Don’t hesitate to ask about it and make sure it fits your own schedule. Define a time when you both will be online and available so that questions and issues can be worked out. Define time for an hour-long weekly call. If your dev refuses to work on a schedule that’s a red flag. A developer can’t be productive working in random chunks, and there are always questions and issues that will take forever if you don't have an expected overlap in work time.By persistence, I mean being able to work for long periods of time without getting distracted. When working remotely you typically have a lot of opportunities to spend your time — you might want to travel or work for a month or two and then take some time off for your personal project. Then work part-time because the weather is so good. You don’t want your startup future to depend on a person like that because it will make your project planning a nightmare. You need to set clear expectations from the very beginning that you would need at least six months working 40 hours per week. I’d recommend agreeing on a bonus if this expectation is met, let’s say you pay 10% premium. I wouldn’t recommend promising a premium based on your ‘happiness level’ because you will always feel that more could be done and that something was underdelivered. And if dev won’t get his bonus, he will lose faith in you.​Skill #4: ExpertiseAfter you decided on the technology, you want to use you have to look for someone specializing in it. It doesn’t mean that it should be the only thing a person has been working throughout his life, probably that is suspicious too because developers are naturally curious. Just pay attention to the skillset your potential hire has. If you see ten programming languages and five frameworks don’t think that you are lucky enough to find a genius. Most likely you stumbled on a generalist who knows a little about everything but isn’t an expert in something specific. It's an excellent way to weed out low-quality developers early on.​​I hope this write-up will be helpful. Of course, there’s a lot of details, and it’s impossible to describe everything in a single post by I tried to cover basics. Let me know what I should write about next, I’m thinking about covering the differences between backend, frontend and full-stack and how they work together.