#Is it a coding issue? Is each dialogue line for guy or girl set us individually rather than a function so it’d be a lot of work?

[qtubbo]

You know it’s so odd that Stardew doesn’t have a gender neutral option on the character creation menu considering how queer the audience is.

#Stardew valley #val ramblings #Is it a coding issue? Is each dialogue line for guy or girl set us individually rather than a function so it’d be a lot of work? #Cause like we have so many updates and there is no gender neutral option to be seen

[jazy3]

Free Guy Review

!!!SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

If you haven’t seen the movie Free Guy (2021) stop reading right now! Drop what you’re doing and go get yourself a ticket! You’ll thank me later!

I loved this movie! I saw it this weekend for the second time because it’s that good! I first saw the trailer on YouTube a while back and then when theatres reopened a few weeks ago I saw the trailer again and my interest was piqued. I had high hopes for this movie based on the fun looking trailer, the premise, the cast, and the sense of fun and escapism that the movie seemed to embody and it did not disappoint. It’s always nice when you have high hopes for something and it meets or exceeds your expectations.

Free Guy is just such a fun and joyous movie. Never taking itself too seriously, packed with lots of heart, cool cameos, full of gaming and pop culture references, and it’s fueled by a unique concept that is well executed. There are just so many things I loved about this movie! It was a ton of fun to watch and the actors clearly had a blast making it. During the movie I kept trying to figure out where I knew most of the actors from but couldn’t place them. When I got home, I googled it and I instantly realized why. The roles are just so different and the actors embody their characters so completely you lose yourself in the film and get completely sucked in. I was honestly so surprised when I figured out what I knew most of the actors from because the roles that they’re known for are so different from their characters in the movie. Their appearances, established ages, and even the accents are so different that I literally did a double take, but that’s what makes the movie so good! Because the main actors obviously didn’t need the paycheque they were just there to have fun and it shows. I think if the situation had been different and the actors involved had been desperate for money or took the role for some other reason it wouldn’t have worked. The film would have come off as cheesy, forced, cringeworthy, or just plain bad. Free Guy is none of those things. The film stars Ryan Reynolds as ‘Guy’ a bank teller in a video game called Free City, Jodie Comer whose best known for playing Villanelle in Killing Eve as programmer Millie Rusk and her avatar Molotov Girl, Joe Keery whose best known for playing Steve Harrington in Stranger Things as programmer Walter ‘Keys’ McKey, and Taika Waititi whose best known for playing Viago in What We Do in the Shadows as the Head of Soonami Studios and the film’s main antagonist and villain Antwan. Rounding out the cast are Utkarsh Ambudka as programmer Mouser and Lil Rel Howery as Guy’s best friend and bank security guard Buddy. In a nutshell, Free Guy is about a bank teller named Guy who finds out he’s a non-playable background character (NPC) in an open-world Grand Theft Auto style video game called Free City. Guy becomes the hero of his own story after meeting Millie, the girl of his dreams, and winning fans all over the world by racking up points by being the good guy and helping others. After leveling up and helping Millie escape a dangerous situation in the game, Guy wins her over and she falls for him thinking that he’s another player. But when the world that Guy knows and all of the people in it are threatened, he teams up with Millie to save his friends before it’s too late. In the real world, Millie enlists the help of her former programming partner and best friend Keys in a race against time to stop their code and all of the sentient characters from Free City from being deleted by Antwan the developer who stole their code when the game’s sequel launches. I love that the movie had a unique premise and didn’t overcomplicate things. There are so many movies that I’ve gone to see over the last few years with such excitement only to be disappointed. For example, I loved Wreck It Ralph, but was so disappointed by its sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet. The trailers made it seem like it would take the premise of the first movie and move things into the online gaming world, and I was excited for that. Instead, the sequel left the premise of the first movie behind entirely and way over complicated the plot and the end result was extremely cheesy and disappointing. Free Guy’s strength is that it’s a self-aware movie made by self-aware people who are excellent at what they do. The movie doesn't take itself too seriously, nor should it, and that allows the story to flow and the characters to feel real and genuine. The movie achieves that perfect balance between being entertaining and telling a cohesive and important story because while the movie never takes itself too seriously the people behind it are serious about what they do. This was very clearly a passion project for all involved, especially Ryan Reynolds, and it shows! As he’s spoken about in interviews and on Twitter, Reynolds called on a lot of his friends to be in Free Guy and help him out and the end result was fantastic! I loved all of the cameos! The Chris Evans cameo was by far the funniest and the Alex Trebek cameo got me right in the feels. When I saw the movie in theatres me and everyone else in the theatre gave a collective “awww” when he appeared on screen. Enlisting real YouTubers to show up as fictional versions of themselves to talk about Blue Shirt Guy’s popularity was a nice touch and you’ve also got blink and you miss it voice cameos by John Krasinski, Dwyane The Rock Johnson, Hugh Jackman, and Tina Fey. Channing Tatum appears as the avatar of player Revenjamin Buttons which for the most part was hilarious. One of my few criticisms of the film is that they went a bit overboard the avatar’s antics as Guy and Buddy are attempting to leave and it got bit a cringeworthy. But I know other people found it hilarious so to each their own. I love all of the little details and references in the movie. Just listing them all would be a post in itself. If you’re someone that loves pop culture references and Easter Eggs this is the movie for you. The characters are fun and believable, and you get attached to them quickly. The actors commit completely to their roles which is makes the humour, romance, and heartfelt emotion of the film work. You buy it. 100%. Something that I absolutely loved was that the characters felt realistic and that the dialogue, attire, and settings for each character really felt authentic. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched a movie or TV show and walked away thinking, “The person who wrote that clearly never meet a kid, teenager, or twenty something in their life! That was so unrealistic.” The slang’s all wrong. The dialogue is so eloquent everyone sounds like they did Shakespeare in the Park last summer. You walk away thinking, “What the hell was that? No one talks that way!” What I loved about the characters in Free Guy is that they felt like real people you could actually run into or walk past on the street. I’ve read in interviews that in addition to the written dialogue the cast did a lot of ad-libbing and improvisation and the end result is both hilarious and relatable. The dialogue feels real because it is. The big exception to this of course is Antwan who is altogether off the wall and ridiculous. Antwan is such an outrageous, absurd, vulgar, and cartoonish character. He’s so fun to watch and the actors clearly had a lot of fun with his scenes! I’ve read that a lot of his lines with Keys and Mouser were improvised and I believe it. When he goes all Jack Nicholson on the servers? Lord. He’s such a great villain to watch. The characters that are established to be in their twenties like Millie, Keys, Mouser, and the other employees at Soonami Studios talk, act, and dress like they’re in their twenties. The actors that are in their forties are styled to look like they’re in their thirties and honestly, they’re in such great shape it works! I mean I was honestly shocked to find out Taika Waititi’s real age. I love how the costuming really fits each character and allows you to learn more about them. Keys’ clothing is your typical gamer chic which makes because as we learn from his interview with Millie coding is his life and what gets him up in the morning. From Mouser’s clothing we learn that he’s a sports fan, but also isn’t afraid to take risks like with that blazer ensemble he wears in his final scene at Millie’s apartment.

Millie’s clothing shows the contrast between her and her avatar Molotov Girl, and Antwan’s ridiculous coat enhances the overall wackiness of his character. Guy’s clothing tells us something too. He wears the same thing every day until he meets Millie in the game at which point, he starts deviated from his Free City programming and chooses a different blue shirt. I also really love that they put thought into why Keys needs to wear glasses. Something I noticed on rewatch is that Keys is far sighted which is why he has his glasses on when he’s looking at his laptop or computer and sometimes when’s talking to other people, but not when he goes to see Millie at her apartment or when he goes to get them coffee at the end of the movie. Another interesting aspect of Keys’ character that I noticed on rewatch is self-confidence is really something he struggles with in contrast to Millie and Mouser who are very confident. Millie is a genius programmer and Mouser is excellent at what he does, and they are both very confident in their coding abilities, but Keys isn’t despite being every bit the genius that Millie is. At the beginning of the movie when they first notice the issue with Guy Mouser jokes that Keys needs to be better at his job. In response Keys meekly says he thinks he’s pretty good at his job and trails off at the end. Mouser is just joking around, but because Keys lacks self-confidence comments like that hit him hard. Mouser is moving towards his own desk as he talks so he doesn’t notice how self-deprecating and uneasy Keys’ response is. In the interview from the indie games conference that Millie plays for Keys at his apartment, he brushes off the interviewers comment that he’s a genius and says Millie is the real genius because she created the AI engine and he just wrote the code to make it work. Later on, when Keys helps Millie get into the stash house, she calls him a genius and he tells her that as he’s currently sitting on a toilet stealing user code he doesn’t exactly feel like one. Millie responds offhandedly that he never does, but luckily, she knows better. When Keys realizes that Millie was right, and that Antwan did steal their code and their game worked he tells Millie they need to celebrate because once everyone sees their build she’ll be celebrated and she could win a noble prize. Both Millie and Keys are geniuses in their own right. The game wouldn’t have worked without both of their skills and Guy wouldn’t have come to life without both of them working together. Millie’s AI engine made his sentience possible, but Keys is the one who gave him hopes and dreams so that when he met Millie in the game, he came alive. When done right the settings we see tell the story just as much as the characters do and I love how realistic the settings in Free Guy look. The floor at Soonami Studios where Keys and Mouser work looks like a real office and I love that the desks have clutter and personal effects on them like real cubicles do and that they show Keys taking a box of his stuff with him as he leaves. The lobby with the moving water videos and Antwan’s massive but largely empty office fits perfectly with the obnoxious, zany, and over the top character that he is. I also love the contrast between Keys and Millie’s apartments and how those settings tell us a lot about each character and where they are in their lives when the film starts. When Keys comes home from work to find that Millie has broken in, we see that he lives in a stylish one bedroom apartment with an open concept kitchen full of stainless steel appliances, a large living room centred around an expensive wall mounted TV and entertainment system, with his computer and gaming station set up in the corner. On the walls we see artful clusters of black picture frames, through a partially open door we see a bedroom off to the side, the apartment is full of black and white furniture including a plush couch and nice lamps, and features a textured silver accent wall. All of which makes the fact that Millie managed to break in even more impressive because it is clearly an expensive apartment in a nice building. Keys’ style is minimalist and upper scale and based on what we learn about the events that took place before the start of the movie this indicates that Keys got the apartment and all of the nice stuff in it using the money he received when Antwan bought his and Millie’s game. In contrast, Millie lives in a bachelor apartment and spends her time in coffee shops ordering one single black coffee over four hours. This tells us that she kept her original apartment that she had from before the game was sold and is living off the money she got from the sale while she spends all of her time trying to find the proof she needs to win her lawsuit. When we see Millie’s place, we find that it’s cozy, full of plants, throw rugs, quilts, and comfy furniture. She’s got a bike in the corner, you can see her bed from the centre of the room where she’s got her computer and gaming station set up adjacent to the coffee table and the rest of the living room furniture. Her kitchen is smaller and full of wooden cabinets and her bathroom door has DIY multicoloured square panels on it. Keys and Millie’s apartments are very different and through these settings we see the contrast between where these characters are in their lives, their wealth, and their personal style. The song ‘Fantasy’ by Mariah Carey is featured heavily in the film and is guaranteed to get stuck in your head in the best way! Jodie Comer’s cover of it is amazing! It fits the moment where Guy makes it to the island that is Millie and Keys’ original build and shows it to the world perfectly. This movie made me appreciate Mariah Carey’s music in a whole new way and I can’t be the only way. After watching the movie, I went looking for the song on Apple Music, wound up listening to the Mariah Carey Essentials Playlist, and I’ve become obsessed. I knew some of her hits, but after listening to her music more I get why people love her so much. Her five octave vocal range is amazing, and her music is just so fun to listen to. The film has a really great soundtrack overall and I’ve had many of its song on repeat since I saw it. Something I really loved about this movie and the reveal at the end that Keys is in love with Millie and is desperate for her to notice, but she’s been oblivious the whole time is that they don’t do the supposedly nice nerdy guy whose really a jerk trope. So many movies do this where you have a nerdy male character whose unluckily love, looked over, or his love is unrequited, and we’re supposed to root for him because he’s a quote “nice guy”. But really, he’s not. He’s a jerk who feels slighted because a woman in his life doesn’t love him back or notice him and he feels as if she owes him something. The scene at Millie’s place where Millie tells Keys he looks cute when he brags, and Mouser encourages him to tell Millie how he feels is super frustrating to watch but it’s so important to Keys’ character. He asks Millie out for coffee and when she turns him down to jump back into the game, he doesn’t make a big deal about it even though Mouser wants him to. Instead he gets up and goes and gets her a coffee anyway. She goes to tell him her order, oblivious to the fact that he’s memorized it, he tells her he remembers, and goes to get the coffee anyway much to Mouser’s and the audience’s dismay. This is big because Keys clearly doesn’t want to be walking down the street by himself to get coffee. He wants to be getting coffee with Millie so that he can tell her how he feels to see if she might feel the same way, but when she turns him down he goes and gets the coffee anyway because he truly loves and cares about her and he values their friendship enough to put his own feelings aside and suffer in silence rather than lose her and what they’ve built. So, he takes the opportunity to get some air rather than continue to sit there in disappointment. Which is why he’s so confused when Millie runs after him and calls out to him from across the street. He doesn’t understand what she’s doing there. She turned down his offer to get a coffee and he already knows her order so why is she there? I love that they chose to make that scene non-verbal. I think if Millie had come out and made some big declaration of love it would have felt cheesy and overdone. But her running after him and silently communicating through her smile and body language that she understood and that she felt the same way was perfect. It was subtle and beautiful and perfectly acted. It also felt realistic to the characters because in real life when you’ve known someone a really long time and you’ve spent a lot of time with them you don’t always need words to convey what you mean. What Millie wanted to express in that scene was so big and so all-encompassing she couldn’t find the words to say everything that she wanted to say so she didn’t. She just stood there and smiled knowing that being the genius that he is he would understand. It’s like Keys says in their interview, words will fail you, but code never does. His coding worked and now she understands so rather than try and say it all and fail she just looks at him and smiles to show him that she finally gets it. She finally understands what he’s been trying to say to her all this time. And you can see the exact moment Keys realizes why she’s there. The moment where he goes from being confused as to what she wants to realizing that she saw the video and she knows how he feels and that she wouldn’t be standing there smiling at him like that if she didn’t feel the same way. When I watched the scene the first time around, I was anxiously clutching my nachos the entire time because when Keys ran towards her my immediate thought was, “Oh my god he’s gonna get hit by a car and they’re never gonna get to be together! Oh my god!” But then he didn’t get hit by a car and Millie ran out to meet him and for the first time in their relationship she met him halfway and they kissed and it was beautiful! I think because Free City had so much violence in it that’s where my mind went and I’m very glad they didn’t go that route. One of my only criticisms about the movie is that I wish they had stayed on Millie and Keys just a little bit longer. They kiss and embrace and then very quickly they cut to black. I wish they’d linger on that moment just a little bit longer because I love those characters so much and in the scene that follows where Guy and Buddy are reunited we see them hug and then walk away together to start their new lives and I wish we’d gotten just a bit more time with Millie and Keys. I also really loved the parallel between the different kinds of relationships within the movie and how platonic relationships are just as important as romantic ones. The reveal at the end about Guy being Keys’ creation and a love letter to Millie and her realizing she’s been loving Keys vicariously through Guy and them finally coming together and being on the same page is beautiful because from the very beginning the movie is full of clues, hints, and foreshadowing that all comes together at the end. Meanwhile, we see the friendship between Guy and Buddy and how important that friendship is to him because it’s something that he created on his own. His love for Millie is born out of the programming that Keys gave him, but his friendship with Buddy is something that Guy created all on his own of his own volition. Which is part of what makes Buddy’s death on the bridge so tragic. I cried when Buddy disappeared. Reynolds and Howery play their characters with such sincerity that his death pacts an emotional punch you don’t expect. I love that the security guards at Soonami are so moved by Buddy’s heroism and are so captivated by what’s happening with the live stream that Millie is able to sneak past them into the server room and stop Antwan from destroying what’s left of the game. Something else I noticed on rewatch is that during the final battle after Millie gets booted from the game and Guy has to fight Dude on his own the glasses he’s wearing are very similar to the ones Keys wears in the movie which I thought was a cool nod to Guy being Keys’ creation. This really is a movie in which you find something new every time you watch it. For instance, the second time around I noticed that the foreshadowing that Keys is in love with Millie, but she’s oblivious to it because she’s so focused on the game was really well done. In the video from the indie game conference that Millie plays for Keys at his apartment when asked by the interviewer about their chemistry Millie responds first and says that their friends, their relationship is completely platonic, and laughs off the idea that they have chemistry. In contrast Keys falters and is silent and then eventually says meekly that they’re just friends. Millie is looking ahead at the interviewer and to the side away from Keys as she’s laughing and so she doesn’t see Keys’ reaction. At the end of the apartment scene after Millie breaks in to ask Keys for his help, he tells Millie he cares about her and he almost says something else. It feels like he’s about to say, ‘I love you’ but then he catches himself and instead tells her that she needs to leave. When Keys visits Millie’s apartment to tell her that she was right and they’re sitting on the couch he reaches out and puts his hand on her knee and then snatches it back when he realizes he’s gotten too close. He wants so desperately to be closer to her and in his excitement, he gets closer than he normally would before realizing that putting his hand on her knee in that close proximity is not a platonic gesture. Millie is so caught up in the realization that Guy, the person she’s fallen in love with, is an AI and not a real person that she doesn’t notice. My heart broke for Keys in that scene as he realized that Millie had fallen for Guy and kissed him and was so upset about it and meanwhile, he was right in front of her desperate for her to see how much he cares. It must have just wrecked him to go home that night and realize that Guy was based on the lovelorn character he created and that Millie had fallen in love with his creation while at the same time being so oblivious to his real world affection for her. In the scene at Millie’s apartment after they’ve gotten the server from Antwan and Mouser encourages Keys to say something, I noticed on rewatch just how weak and meager Keys’ attempt to ask Millie out is. He stumbles his way through asking her to get a coffee and trails off at the end so it’s no wonder Millie doesn’t clue in that he’s trying to ask her out. And in Keys’ defence he sent her a whole video confessing his feelings for her and all of the little things he loves about her and then told her to watch it and he has no idea if she did or not. We the audience know that Millie only saw half of it, but Keys has no idea if she saw none of it, part of it, or all of it. He knows she got Guy to remember, but she’s also sending him mixed messages. One minute she’s saying he’s cute when he brags and the next, she’s turning him down for coffee to talk to Guy. From the outside it’s so obvious that Keys is in love with Millie, but she doesn’t see it because she’s always looking the other way, not paying attention, so caught up in the game, and too focused on their work to see what’s right in front of her. On rewatch one of the big things I noticed is that Keys is always on the edge of telling Millie how he really feels but he always stops himself because she brushes him or the idea off and because he’s scared of what will become of their work and their friendship if she doesn’t feel the same way. It’s a huge leap. If Millie doesn’t feel the same way it’s going to make their relationship incredibly awkward and could potentially destroy their partnership so Keys decides it’s better not to say anything or only hint at how he feels rather than run the risk of ruining everything. Something else I noticed on rewatch is that in the interview they give Keys says he thinks of himself as an author and that code is what gets him up in the morning and that he loves the ones and zeros of binary because words can fail you and let you down but code never does. At the end of the movie when Millie goes to talk to Guy in Free Life he tells her that he loves her and while he knows that’s his programming he’s realized that he’s a love letter to her and that somewhere out there in the real world is the author. Such a great callback. All in all, I can definitely say that Free Guy has been my favourite movie so far this year! Definitely my favourite movie of the summer. I went to see it twice in theatres and I’ve never done that for any other movie before. I’ll rewatch them at home sure, but I’ve never actually paid money to see something twice on my own. I’m very excited to see the sequel and my hope is that it will be just as good as the first.  Until next time.

#free guy #free guy movie #free guy spoilers #review #Thoughts #critique #millie rusk #Walter keys Mckey #walter mckey #guy #free guy keys #buddy #antwan #mouser #ryan reynolds #Jodie comer #joe keery #taika waititi #lil rel howery #Utkarsh Ambudka #alex trebek #jeopardy #mariah carey #fantasy #it's so good #go see it

[jibrillenyan]

Eldarya Come-Back

[Disponibile in Italiano qui]

Eldarya EU servers are back up. For people out of the loop, a fire destroyed both the servers and the backups of Eldarya. It's not beemoov's fault.

BR and US servers, stored somewhere else, are perfectly ok.

The FR server accounts were lost, but the story retrieved.

All the others (IT HU PL DE ES RU) have both the accounts and the story wiped out. ANE has been re-translated/Recovered, but origins is currently only playable in english.

Only the first 2 episodes of ANE have been translated so far. Errata corrige: PL, RU, ES haven't released any ANE episodes yet. DE IT and HU have the first 2 available in english. DE and HU appear to be broken.

Level 7 and episode 6 of origins (completed) are needed to access the market.

BUG REPORT: Currently there is a bug where if you change the name of your companion for the first time after evolving it you lose 100gc. please take care.

BUG REPORT: If you already have a companion and you play episode 3 of Origins you won't be able to hatch the companion Kero gives you and you might get stuck right after "Objective: Go to Kero’s room to complete the Companion Questionnaire" 

Accounts must be recreated. You have to create a new account and, if you ever bought maana or gold coins, follow the instructions below.

I REPEAT, ACCOUNTS ARE LOST ON THE EU SERVERS. YOU MUST MAKE A NEW ACCOUNT. (sorry, I get this one a lot)

FAQ of sort under the cut, original here. Italian translation will be here starting tomorrow. warning: it’s long XD

♦ WHAT DO I GET?

Everyone gets 1000 maanas, 100 gold coins and 350.000 ancient coins upon creating an account. You will also get 5 big exp potions, 10 small, 5 big energy potions, 10 small, 1 evolution potion and 3 incubators. You will also get the companion Sogiluv... it's not very good. You can retrieve some (most?) of the currency you bought by contacting the support (see below), you will be credited maana/ancient coins depending on your purchases; once you get the money back the 3 spin-offs will automatically unlock, along with the bank outfits.

The first companion to hatch will require no incubation time.

BR and US Server got 10.000 AC for their troubles too, but no maana or GC or items.

♦ I ENDED UP IN THE WRONG GUARD.

Please check this page. Re-doing the 3rd episode of Origins WON'T help.

♦ DECORATING GUARDIENNE'S ROOM, EP 5-6.

If you want to know how to get the guy you like AND have the room decorated by him, or other questions along these lines check this link

♦ WHAT'S THE BEST COMPANION TO USE?

Since you can now get any companion you like if you want to get the "best" one in terms of energy/luck ratio you should consider these:

PLESE NOTE: Hatching an adult companion (Chiromagnus, Blobbiathan) has the advantage of giving you an adult companion AND saving the evolution potion. This could be nice to have, for example, during a map event, you can use all the energy of your companion after midnight, then hatch another egg, use all the energy of the baby, evolve with the potion, use all the energy of the adult. If well played , with a baby companion, it means potentially 400-500 energy to use on the map

"Best" Companion, bought food (36 maana): Blobbiathan Energy 170 (already an adult when hatched) Luck 360 - 400

"Best" Companion, bought food (30 maana or less):

1. Chiromagnus Energy 160 (already an adult when hatched) Luck 340-390

2. Zarali Energy 90-160 Luck 350-380

3. Ocemas Energy 100-150 Luck 310-360

4. Ciralak Energy 110-160 Luck 300-350

4. Rawist Energy 110-160 Luck 300-350

"Best" Companion, farmed food (in exploration):

1. Alfeli: Energy 80-150 Fortuna 320 -370

2. Gallytrot: Energy 110-150 Fortuna 320-370

I consider the Alfeli "better" because its food, elven grapes, comes from a 20energy/30 min area, Mont sizhe, compared to the food for the gallytrot, gallyflore, from the Cave (35 energy/60 min).

♦ WHAT CAN I USE ANCIENT COINS FOR?

There is a special ancient coins shop (Until May 9th) with ALL the items ever released in the game. I do not advise using them for Origins illustrations but I suggest you grab some of the rarest items at least. It's among the boutiques.

BANK ITEMS WILL ONLY APPEAR AFTER RETRIEVING THE PURCHASED CURRENCY (? Im not sure about this, some are there from the beginning and I'm still waiting on the email I sent for the currency)

♦ HOW LONG DOES THE SHOP LAST?

May 9th

♦ HOW DO I GET MY BOUGHT MAANA/GOLD COINS BACK?

Go to "your account" by clicking on your name (top right). There is a button to retrieve the credit, for many payment options there is a simple form to fill.

However, if you paid by credit card or paypal you have to send an email to the support (you can get the adress by clicking on "other"). In the mail you should include:

Credit card:

- Old/New Username (if they aren't the same) - The email address associated to the accounts - The date and the amount in €/$ of a recent transaction (max 12 months old, the most recent, the better). - Last 4 digits of the credit card you used. - I'm not sure what happens if you you used more than a credit card, I'd suggest sending one transaction per credit card and telling them about this issue.

Paypal:

- Old/New Username (if they aren't the same) - The email address associated to the accounts - If it's not the same email address, the email address/username of the paypal account. - The date and the transaction ID* of a recent transaction (max 12 months old, the most recent, the better).

* Transaction ID's can be found in the confirmation email you get when you make a payment or on the paypal website, in the payment history section.

One ID should suffice, they can retrieve them all from there.

♦ WHAT DO YOU ADVISE WE BUY?

On a general note, do not buy things that can be found at all times, like explorations items, other than that, anything you like, but I'd at least consider to buy/play the following:

*** PLEASE NOTE: I've heard rumors that during each event, you will be able to find things in explorations from the previous events of that kind, so easter should have the other easter events' outfits on the map. I'd wait a bit to spend the coins to see if we get any confirmation, the store will be open until May 9th.

HOW CAN I KNOW WHERE (SOMETHING) IS FROM?

Wiki. Or This wonderful site. Or the wikinyan (c'est moi!), I don't mind answering specific messages, I'll update this post with any question I get. If you don't know the french name you can find it out in the French shop.

1. COMPANIONS:

Other than the event companions that you like you should probably consider...

GET:

Minaloo and Draflayel. These only comes from the purro'swap. Once the store closes, if you're unlucky, you'll never see them again.

Calunko and Bunraku. They're 2 of the japan expo rewards and with the merchandise boutique closed, they're incredibly hard to obtain, you need a physical code.

Chiromagnus, while you can get this from explorations, the scroll for it is extremely rare, and 2000 AC is stealing it.

ON THE FENCE:

The Seryphon , Poulpatata (both of them) and the chestok. These can be found on AH but require Gold coins to get in exploration. Personally I won't get them, but it's personal preference.

SKIP:

All the normal explorations companions, no matter how rare. They'll start popping up at the market soon enough

2. CLOTHES:

This is clearly completely at your own discretion, Events and ranking rewards should be considered. However there are some times never released before, like the fireflies so...

GET:

Fireflies. A beta-tester reward item, they were never made available to purchase before.

Steam girl set (Total: 1594 AC). It's the japan expo 2017 reward, 9 pieces

Maana demon and its other 3 colorations is a skin never seen in the game, previously reserved for admins. It could however be added to explorations, like other items of this kind.

Frency French was once an inside joke for ChiNoMiko, has not been made available to the public before, you can buy the skin, the hairstyle (it's a special jackson), Frency French Top, etc it's just a joke, but it's still something you won't see again, if you like it.

ON THE FENCE:

Depending how much you hate alchemy, you can consider some alchemy stuff.

Some rare Skins like Nan'vi, that could be hard to find in explorations

Rainbow and Pearly hair colours, if you like them, they can be rare/offered only in rare circumstances.

Crylasm set (526 AC), top, socks, hat. It was a special Christmas outfit released one piece at a time during Christmas events of 2016, 2017, 2018

Healer support Set (400 AC), made of 7 pieces, it was a special gift given at the beginning of the 2020 pandemic)

Rainbow Spirit (1594 AC), released for the 2020 Pride month (sorta)

Guard ranking rewards, the total il 11.980 AC (thanks Desdhi ♥)

SKIP:

Anything normally on the shop, or from (normal) map explorations.

3.ILLUSTRATIONS:

GET:

Possibly the event ones you like the best, there should be 42 event illustrations for a total of 105.000 ac

SKIP:

If you have the time to farm, the episodes' ones. They're way cheaper with replay, with a few exceptions (see below).

ON THE FENCE:

There are a few episodes where it's cheaper to buy the other illustrations than replay, I'll make a list below.

♦HOW MUCH IS... 

EGGS

As "one time" I mean it's either now or never, so exclusive items or event items, unless they come back with their event.

No Explorations is events + rare +the stuff  that you would pay gc to get the bait for

All the eggs: 222.400,

One-time + rare ones: Chiromagnus, Minaloo Draflayel: 164.500

one-time: 158.000

No explorations (+GC/rare ones): 180.700

BACKGROUNDS:

All: why do you hate yourself? don't. it should be around 5660

Events only: 2460

EPISODES:

Event Illustrations are 2500 each, Episodes' 2000

It's generally cheaper to play the episode to unlock illustrations. Coins won't disappear, so if you can slowly make your way up you will end up saving A LOT of Ancient Coins. During episodes, each dialogue is 2 AC

(cost is rounded up) (!) = Replaying is not worth it, money wise (*) = more expensive than 1 illustration, but still worth it in the grand scheme of things

(how much it costs playing Origins VS how much it costs at the shop)

Episode 1 - Free - 1 Illustration, play once (FREE vs 2000) Episode 2 - Free - 3 Illustrations, play twice (FREE vs 6000) Episode 3 - Free - 1 Illustrations, play once (FREE vs 2000) Episode 4 - Free - 2 Illustrations, play once (FREE vs 4000) Episode 5 - Around 1200 maana - 3 illustrations, play 3 times (3600 vs 6000) Episode 6 - Around 1500 maana - 2 illustrations, play once (1500 vs 4000) Episode 7 - 1200maana ca - 4 Illustrations, play 4 times (4800 vs 8000) Episode 8 - 1700maaana ca - 4 Illustrations, play 3 times (5100 vs 8000) Episode 9 - 2000 maana ca - 1 Illustration, play once (2000 vs 2000) Episode 10 - 1500 maana ca - 3 Illustrations, play 3 times (4500 vs 6000) Episode 11 - 1900 maana ca - 2 illustrations, play once (1900 vs 4000) Episode 12 - 1500 maana ca - 3 illustrations, play 3 times (4500 vs 6000) Episode 13 - 1500 maana ca - 3 illustrations, play 3 times (4500 vs 6000) Episode 14 - 1500 maana ca - 2 illustrations, play once (1500 vs 4000) (!) Episode 15 - 2500 maana ca - 3 illustrations, play 3 times (7500 vs 6000, it's better to buy the other 2!) (!) Episode 16 - 2150 maana ca - 1 illustration, play once (2150 vs 2000 it's still worth to play the episode) (*) Episode 17 - 2450 maana ca - 3 illustrations, play ONCE (2450 vs 6000) Episode 18 - 1900 maana ca - 6 illustrations, play 3 times (5700 vs 12000) Episode 19 - 1700 maana ca - 4 illustrations, play 4 times (6800 vs 8000) Episode 20 - 1800 maana ca - 5 illustrations, play 4 times (7200 vs 10000) Episode 21 - 1800 maana ca - 3 illustrations, play once (1800 vs 6000) Episode 22 - 1700 maana ca - 4 illustrations, play 3 times (6800 vs 8000) (!) Episode 23 - 2100 maana ca - 4 illustrations, play 4 times (8400 vs 8000, it's better to buy the other 3!) Episode 24 - 2000 maana ca - 2 Illustrations, play once (2000 vs 4000) (!) Episode 25 - 2500 maana ca - 3 illustrations, play once (2500 vs 6000) (!) Episode 26 - 2200 maana ca - 4 Illustrations, play three times (6600 vs 8000, it's better to play once for 2 illustrations then buy the other 2!) Episode 27 - 1800 maana ca - 4 Illustrations, play 3 times (5400 vs 8000) Episode 28 - 1700 maana ca - 5 illustrations, play 3 times (5100 vs 10000) (!) Episode 29 - 3250 maana ca - 4 illustrations, play 4 times (13000 vs 8000 it's a huge ac loss to replay) (!) Episode 30 - 2400 maana ca - 4 illustrations, play 4 times. (9600 vs 8000 it's better to play once and buy the other 3)

Grand total so far: 93 Illustrations, 71 playthroughs, 58 suggested.  Extimated maana/Ancient coins: 129.000 replay eveything vs  186.000 buying everything. Optimal:  122.750

IF you play everything once then buy the rest you should spend around 146000

* Optimal means buying the illustrations where needed before May 9th, then play all the episodes at your leisure.  The episodes where you'd have to buy illustrations are: 15, 23, 26, 29, 30.

Please remember that if you buy the illustrations then you decide to play the game you will ended up paying not only 186.000 ac for the illustrations, but also roughly 60.000 to play all the episodes. The only case where my racommendation is to buy the illustrations is if you really don't care about origins or you only want a few illustrations

#eldarya faq of sort #eldarya

[turtle-paced]

A:tLA Re-Watch: Fine-Toothed Comb Edition

I thought I could probably do this for a series I love, too.

They won’t all be as dense (and long) as this recap (’The Great Divide’, anyone?), and no set schedule. But I hope someone enjoys reading this, because I enjoyed writing it.

Also, this isn’t going to be spoiler-free. Analysis assumes familiarity with the entire series.

Book 1, Episode 1 - The Boy in the Iceberg

(0:07) The series starts with an intro. It’s a bloody good intro. First, we go through the four elements and the styles, showing Pakku, Azula, and Aang.

(0:19) Then we see a map - and if you know what you’re looking for, you can find a bunch of the landmarks visited or mentioned over the course of the series - while the voiceover starts talking about her own historical knowledge. Before the story properly starts, we get the sense of a character as well as the history. This gives us the setting. Four nations, one Avatar to keep balance between them, but this was “the old days”.

(0:34)  “But that all changed when the Fire Nation attacked.” We pan to a shot of Fire Nation soldiers, who we can already tell are industrialised. More to the point, the animation shows the Fire Nation attacking, and they’re attacking the fourth wall. This helps get across the point; though the show goes into detail that the Fire Nation is made up of ordinary people, and the Fire Nation has suffered from the war as well, the war is nevertheless unambiguously wrong. Before we meet a single Fire Nation citizen, before we get a good non-intro look at the setting, the Fire Nation’s soldiers have already shot fireballs right at the neutral, uninvolved viewer.

(0:46) We’re told that what makes the Avatar different is his ability to use all four elements, and we see Roku doing so. We also see Roku vanish. So we’ve got this big, central tension in the setting established. The world is out of balance from the Fire Nation’s war of conquest, and the means of addressing this imbalance is AWOL.

(0:50) This brings us from the old days to the present of the story, where the Fire Nation are winning. 

(0:59) We get more information on the character speaking. From the shots of ice and ships, a viewer might accurately guess by this stage that we’re listening to someone from the Water Tribes. Her father and the other men of her tribe left two years ago, leaving her and her brother behind. So this gives us some idea of the immediate circumstances we’ll be jumping into. Including a solid indication that the Water Tribes are patriarchal.

(1:12) Then, the most intimate character detail: the speaker, this Water Tribe girl, has not lost hope that the Avatar will return. We pan over an empty rock spire, up to the sky and the title screen.

This is a bloody good intro because in just over a minute, it’s given us an overview of the political state of the setting and the magic system in use. It gave us the narration, but it also showed the difference between the styles, the lines of the map, the Fire Nation attacking, and the Avatar using all four bending styles. On top of that, it gave us varying levels of detail as to the personal character context of Katara (who’s already got inner life), Sokka, and Aang (by implication, as the missing Avatar).

It took them just over a minute to do all that. Over the course of the series, we’ll see that the writers know how to say a lot with a little.

(2:00) The story proper starts with the siblings in the intro in a boat, in some very icy waters, a long way from anywhere. They’re fishing. We get a name for Katara.

(2:19) Katara grimaces and tentatively starts trying to waterbend the fish into the boat. So we see already that while she’s able to bend, she’s not got a whole lot of skill. We also get Sokka’s name at this point.

(2:40) Sokka ignores his sister in favour of concentrating on his own work and complains about Katara’s bending. He’s already the meat and sarcasm guy! More importantly, from his comments, it would appear that he isn’t able to bend. What’s also quickly apparent is that he doesn’t have all that much patience with Katara’s experimentation, and as a non-bender, does not feel this as a means of connection to his own culture (while Katara does).

(2:59) Sokka’s making muscles at his own reflection shows us early one of the biggest character flaws he’s going to have to work on: teenage insecurity.

(3:31) The show doesn’t go into detail here, but with the boat smashed, Katara and Sokka are in a real bad situation. ’The Desert’ levels of bad situation.

(3:42) Sokka is explicitly sexist here. The fact that he’s so openly sexist, to his sister’s face, is another solid indicator that the Water Tribes as a whole are patriarchal. 

(3:49) While this is pretty straightforward ‘Katara gets angry and accidentally waterbends an iceberg into pieces’, look at the movement of the water following the movement of her arms. Specifically, we see waterbending when Katara makes those big dramatic sweeps of her arms, not when she’s making little jabbing motions towards Sokka. Who wants to bet that if Katara were a firebender, the accidental bending would be from the jabs, rather than the arm-waving? The animators put a lot of hard work and thought into the bending and it shows.

(4:29) The fact that Katara’s outburst was a fairly normal sibling disagreement is reinforced by the fact that Sokka immediately puts his arm around Katara to help steady her as they cling to the ice. They might shout at each other, but they’ve also got each other’s backs when things turn more serious.

(4:37) A glowing light appears beneath the water, quickly followed by another huge-ass iceberg. Even aside from the glowing and the vague figures inside it, this is also clearly not a natural iceberg. Far too round.

(5:12) Confronted with a strange glowing figure in a giant ice ball, Katara’s first reaction is “we have to help” and running forward to do so. An establishing character moment that shows her compassion, her courage, and her proactive nature. Sokka, by contrast, is more cautious - he follows Katara, but he emphasises that they don’t know what this is.

(5:37) When Katara breaks the iceberg, a giant beam of light flashes up to the sky, in a giant signal for anyone and everyone in the area, ‘Inciting Incident!’

(5:46) Establishing shot of a metal ship. Despite the hard lines and points marking this out as a Fire Nation ship like in the intro, the ship is all in blue-grey. No black. No Fire Nation colours.

(5:49) Someone else is involved in this inciting incident, too. A young man with red and black armour - so likely to be an antagonist, going by colour-coding - and a nasty scar on his face which can be identified as a burn scar. One shot and we can see that a) this guy is Fire Nation and b) this guy has been seriously hurt by fire. The first thing he says is “finally,” which tells the viewer that a) he’s been looking out for something of this nature and b) he’s been doing this for a while. Two seconds of looking at Zuko, folks. It’s some information-dense storytelling.

(5:54) Our as-yet-unnamed antagonist turns to “uncle” on the deck and asks him whether he knows what this means. Iroh’s first seen playing a game and drinking tea (from a Fire Nation-themed teapot), complaining that he won’t get to finish it.

(6:13) A quick exchange of dialogue and we’ve got Zuko’s name and title. It’s explicitly confirmed that Zuko is searching for a “him” who is incredibly powerful. Iroh, by contrast, is not fully on board with Zuko’s goals and wary of his nephew’s obsession. He’s motivated primarily by concern for Zuko’s wellbeing.

But what I paused here for is this single, throwaway shot, where we get to see Iroh’s game. The Fire Nation is big into fire supremacy, but Iroh’s playing a game where the ‘suits’ of his tiles are represented by all four elements. (The designs are in red, so I’m wondering if this is a colonial game, or whether fire is highest in the suit ranking.) You can see in the corners that there are secondary symbols on each tile representing the previous element in the Avatar cycle, and if you cared to, you could probably work out some of the rules to the game. And as Zuko and Iroh discuss the location of the (air) Avatar, Iroh’s trying to work out where to put his air tile.

This series has so many details like this. It’s nuts. It’s also one of the things that makes rewatching this show really, really cool. And worth it.

(6:25) “I don’t need any calming tea! I need to capture the Avatar!” Zuko shouts. Aside from the joke, this does get to some of the deeper issues here. Zuko’s not calm. He lashes out at people in his anger, which can be provoked by some pretty trivial things. He also considers capturing the Avatar to be a need.

Meanwhile, what’s on the surface the start of a joke about Iroh’s tea obsession is also an introduction to Iroh’s campaign to get Zuko to look after himself. Sit down and enjoy some tea. Sleep. Eat. Get a hobby. Do something that’s not unhealthily brooding about his mission to find the Avatar, and by extension, earning the approval of his abusive dad.

(6:52) Cut to commercial break on Katara and Sokka staring up apprehensively at a glowing, expressionless Aang.

(7:07) Other side of commercial break, Aang collapses down the slope, gets caught by Katara, and poked in the head by Sokka. Tension deflated! Not to mention repositions Aang so that the audience can see his vulnerability.

(7:17) Aang wakes up and stares into Katara’s face. This is a real love at first sight moment. Personally, I never thought the series was going anywhere but Kataang; the question wasn’t so much ‘are they in love?’ but ‘can they deal with their romantic feelings maturely enough to be in a relationship?’ Not until the end of the series, they can’t.

(7:30) Then we get our first idea of Aang’s character as he plays up the ‘tired and wounded’ demeanour, only to grin widely and ask Katara if she wants to go penguin-sailing with him. Mischievous, fun-loving, social. His enthusiasm for animals is also demonstrated.

I also love our first brief look at airbending, which Aang just uses to help him get around on the ice. (The first look we got at waterbending was similarly utilitarian.) Unlike Katara at this point, Aang is clearly a good enough airbender to use his arts almost without thought. Airbending is just something he can do.

(7:43) Meanwhile, Sokka wants to know why Aang isn’t frozen. Speaking of characterisation. Sokka wants to know how this surviving in an iceberg thing worked.

(7:55) We get a name for Appa before we get a good look at Appa. Aang’s rush to Appa and address of his bison as “buddy” establishes that Appa’s not just a pack animal but a friend.

(8:02) And the fact that Appa is not a common animal in the area is first conveyed by Sokka’s spectacular jaw drop.

(8:17) “Flying bison” is our first introduction to the weird and wonderful animals of the Avatar universe. Six legs included.

(8:32) Again, because this show is really good, I just want to highlight Aang’s simple advice to Sokka that the bison snot will wash out as excellent early characterisation. Aang’s not laughing at Sokka, he’s clearly aware of the non-effect of bison snot on clothing (implying that he’s been the one to do laundry before when a bison has sneezed on him), and he focused on a simple thing that can be done about the unpleasant situation of being covered in bison snot.

(8:46) Katara and Sokka disagree about whether Aang’s a spy for the Fire Navy. This tells us a bit about how Katara and Sokka each approach situations. Katara’s looking at the person in front of her. Sokka’s thinking of the broader situation and potential implications. And they’re both right - Katara’s correct that Aang is not a Fire Nation spy, her read on him better than Sokka’s. Sokka’s correct that the giant beam of light could attract Fire Nation attention, because as we’ve already seen, it has.

This is actually one of the things that makes Sokka one of the best depictions of “the smart guy” I’ve seen, and one of the things that makes the cast as a whole so compelling. The resident smart guy doesn’t know everything, doesn’t think of everything, and has personal issues (in this case, his untrusting nature) that get in the way of clear analysis sometimes, so he doesn’t just benefit from alternative points of view but outright needs them to be fully effective. Meanwhile, Sokka’s not monopolising the team brain, and the rest of the cast can and do make regular, intelligent contributions to group planning. Everyone gets to be smart.

Also worth noting for the future, Katara sees the Fire Nation as evil, and Sokka does not disagree.

(9:10) With a mighty sneeze and an undeniable display of airbending, we get Aang’s name.

(9:21) While the subtitle “the Last Airbender” is a bit of a giveaway to the viewer that Aang is the only surviving human airbender we’ll see in the series, Katara and Sokka’s lack of immediate recognition of airbending and Sokka’s “pfffft yeah” reaction are the first in-universe indications that airbending, much like flying bison, is not often seen in the area.

(9:25) Sokka also refers to “midnight sun madness”, and indeed, while more than a day passes in these first two episodes, we don’t see actual nightfall. This is actually a bit of an inconsistency. The constant sunshine at the South Pole indicates that it’s summer there, yet as soon as we hit the Earth Kingdom, even the southern Earth Kingdom, it’s winter. So this is a minor error, something’s real off with the hemispheres of Avatar world, or the South Pole is the only thing in the series we see in the southern hemisphere.

This is also the sort of inconsistency I’m more than prepared to forgive, because it’s been done to keep the show’s timeline comprehensible and balanced. The series starts at the beginning of winter and ends at the end of summer. One season per element - water in winter, earth in spring, fire in summer.

(9:42) “The Desert”-style crisis averted via Appa’s presence, even if he’s not flying. Though since he’s got a saddle, the fact that Appa is a means of transportation was already clear.

(10:42) Meanwhile, on the Fire Nation ship, Zuko is out of armour and brooding.

(10:54) Iroh first hints, then openly states, that Zuko should get some sleep. (Sun’s still up!) But yes, again, we’re being shown that Zuko’s pursuit isn’t just an unquiet mind but not healthy, and Iroh’s trying not just to look after him, but to get him to look after himself. This includes outright discouraging Zuko from questing at all.

(11:12) Zuko’s response is a telling one. He’s not this dedicated to the goal out of the simple belief that the Avatar is alive and that capturing him would be good for the Fire Nation. It’s unclear at this point how or why Zuko’s honour could hinge on the capture of the Avatar, but it is clear that it’s a personal obligation to him.

(11:41) Katara knows Aang if he knows what happened to the Avatar. On Katara’s side, we see the importance of the Avatar to her. About all she can do to learn what happened to the Avatar is ask the new guy ‘what happened to the Avatar?’ and this is exactly what she’s done.

On Aang’s side, he still doesn’t know what’s going on - he thinks he’s been in the iceberg for a few days. He doesn’t know that the subtext of Katara’s question is ‘do you know how the war can be stopped, my family returned to me, and my home and culture preserved?’ His most recent experience is that being the Avatar loses him friends and family. So he lies and avoids that particular uncomfortable truth.

Though from the ‘just curious’ we can see that Katara doesn’t have much actual expectation that Aang will be able to give her a useful answer. Plus her non-reaction is used to make Aang’s denial all the more awkward for him.

(12:17) We get a sepia-toned nightmare sequence of Aang ending up in that iceberg. He and Appa were flying along when they got caught in a storm and dragged underneath the waves.

(12:30) Then Aang starts glowing, his demeanour drastically changes, and he waterbends the iceberg. Though it might be obvious from the title Avatar: the Last Airbender, the fact that Aang can use both airbending and waterbending would, per the intro, be a demonstration that he’s the Avatar. The show shows us these things.

(12:46) When Katara wakes Aang up, we get a shot from her perspective emphasising Aang’s tattoos. The meaning and significance of these is not explicitly stated, just highlighted as something outside of Katara’s ordinary.

(12:55) Establishing shot of Katara and Sokka’s village. There’s one decent-sized permanent structure, a low snow wall, and a bunch of tents, many of which aren’t in the best of repair. It’s obviously a barely-subsisting settlement.

(13:02) “Aang, this is the entire village,” Katara says. The entire village is 20 people, according to this shot. Aside from this low, low number of people, the demographics are obviously skewed. No adult men at all. The village is entirely women and children.

(13:08) The village also shies away from Aang when Katara introduces him. Sokka’s wariness of outsiders is the more common reaction.

(13:17) Gran-Gran gives part of it to the audience. Nobody has seen any airbenders for a hundred years. The fact that this coincides with the vanishing of the Avatar a hundred years ago may not be a coincidence. The intro gives this context to the viewers lets them piece things together in part, i.e., the airbenders must have been wiped out very early in the war, and this possibly has something to do with the missing Avatar. Without the intro, Aang doesn’t have that context, and is shocked at hearing that airbenders are apparently extinct.

Being Aang, however, he doesn’t pursue the thought any further. We’ll see Aang avoid things he doesn’t want to deal with again and again throughout the series, but it starts here, when he hears ‘airbenders are extinct’ and doesn’t immediately start asking for more information. 

(13:32) Continuing to establish Sokka’s character and the world he lives in - he assumes Aang is carrying a weapon, because of course kids Aang’s age would need and carry weapons. He doesn’t recognise it, so he wants to know what it is. But his inexperience also shows because he just grabs the damn thing. What if it was a weapon? Very safe.

(13:44) The basic mechanics of Aang’s glider are explained by Aang himself telling a bunch of curious little kids how it works. The information asymmetry works both ways. Most of the other characters know nothing about airbending and the Air Nomads.

(14:00) Aang takes flight to the oohs and aahs of the people of the South Pole. We cut back between Aang’s smile, Katara’s smile, and the villagers to show that Aang doesn’t just enjoy flying, he enjoys making others happy.

(14:12) More good Sokka characterisation: he built a watchtower. As well as personal innovation, we see that Sokka isn’t training himself personally, but putting an emphasis on technology and development.

(14:20) Meanwhile, Katara retains her sense of wonder, and she’s not afraid to show it.

(14:32) At this point, Katara does not really identify herself as a waterbender. This goes back to waterbending as a means for Katara to engage with her culture. She can bend water, but she doesn’t have the knowledge of waterbending passed down by her tribes that would help her claim the title of a waterbender.

This also begs the question: why doesn’t Katara have this knowledge, or access to this knowledge?

(14:44) Katara’s lack of training is made clearer here, as she tells her grandmother that she’s finally got a bender to teach her. So we’ve just learned there are literally no other benders at the South Pole, and probably haven’t been for years.

(15:03) Meanwhile, back on the Fire Nation ship, we see something a bit different. Zuko’s squaring off against some opponents while Iroh watches. Earlier we saw Zuko yelling at his uncle. Now we see Iroh taking charge, acting in his capacity as Zuko’s teacher.

(15:14) Power in firebending comes from the breath, Iroh tells us. We’ll see that concept come up again, and reflected in the depictions of firebending throughout the series.

(15:22) Also note the warmer colour palette for this scene, and how the sun has been clearly placed in the frame.

(15:26) Iroh demonstrates his point with a small blast of fire that peters out in front of Zuko’s face. This shows us a couple of things. One, Iroh’s got a lot of control. He’s comfortable aiming that blast at someone. Two, visibly burned Zuko does not flinch when his uncle demonstrates a move with fire in his direction. Given that we learn later that Zuko’s wound was deliberately inflicted by a family member, this reveals a lot in hindsight about how much Zuko trusts his uncle.

(15:33) Zuko demands to learn more advanced techniques; Iroh refuses.

(15:53) Zuko points out that the Avatar has had a century to master the four elements. Again, for the re-watch - Ozai banished Zuko and told him he could come home if this teenage boy could find someone who’d been missing for a hundred years and capture someone who’d (presumably) had the time to master all four bending arts. Heads, Ozai wins; tails, Zuko loses.

(16:01) Another thing that we’ll see throughout the series is Iroh refusing to let Zuko bully him, without actually getting into an open confrontation. Yes, I’ll teach you the advanced moves, Iroh says - after I finish my roast duck!

Off the top of my head, I can only think of one instance of Iroh yelling at Zuko, in a moment of some frustration for Iroh (frustration born out of fear for Zuko, at that). Otherwise, he stays calm in the face of his severely abused nephew’s anger, yet does not reward Zuko’s poor behaviour.

(16:15) Meanwhile, back at the South Pole, Sokka is telling the ‘men’ that it’s important not to show fear when facing a firebender.

(16:22) The joke being that Sokka’s talking to a bunch of kids who must all be around five years old. There are some deadly serious undertones to this joke. Sokka’s speech might be overblown and inappropriate to the audience he’s addressing, but he is legitimately trying to prepare for an attack on his home. He’s a teenager. Why is this his responsibility? Why are there actual kids getting this lecture?

Note also that nobody’s talking about getting the adult women involved in the defence of the tribe. Not even Katara.

(16:59) Within seconds of Sokka’s very serious warrior talk, Aang’s enlisted Appa and grabbed a spear to make a slide for the Water Tribe kids. Just because he thought it would be fun.

(17:09) “What war?” Aang asks.

The fact that Aang Rip Van Winkle’d his way into the show’s setting means that thought he’s not a stranger to the physical mechanics of bending, most of his information about the social and political aspects of the setting is incredibly out of date. Aang has to ask questions about things that other characters take for granted, which is often a pretty graceful way of expositing for the viewer. Plus it’s a source of conflict and tension for Aang in its own right, but I’ll get into that next episode and the episode after.

(17:15) Just like the incident with the extinct airbenders a few minutes ago, Aang ignores the information that there’s a war on to go chase a penguin. (Which have four wings and whiskers, in this universe.) Right here, we’re setting up the reveal for Aang that he napped his way into what is, from his point of view, a post-apocalyptic dystopian future.

(17:52) Katara attempts to strike a deal with Aang to score some waterbending lessons.

(17:58) Aang’s willing, but notes that he’s not a waterbender. (Technically a lie.) This shows us the extent of Katara’s ignorance of the world beyond the South Pole. She doesn’t know how different waterbending and airbending are. 

Aang’s return question of “isn’t there somewhere here who can teach you?” shows his ignorance in turn. Like I mentioned before, his information about society and politics is so out of date, and his innocent insensitivity here stings Katara with the reminder of how alone she is and how much her culture has suffered in the war.

(18:11) But in a serious good point of his character, Aang just goes “okay, how about the North Pole, then?” looking for a solution for Katara’s problem. 

(18:19) Katara reveals that the Water Tribes are actually cut off from each other, furthering the depiction of the isolation the war causes. As if the distance wasn’t bad enough.

(18:30) Aang is generous enough to offer to give Katara a lift to the other end of the planet. Like Katara just said, it’s not exactly turn right at the second glacier. Aang’s very casual about the distances and logistics involved. Travel isn’t a big deal to him. We’ll come back to this thought. Contrast to Katara’s hesitation.

Meanwhile, from Aang’s perspective, this is also a good way to avoid being the Avatar for a while longer.

(19:23) “I haven’t done this since I was a kid.” / “You still are a kid!” This is an oft-mentioned exchange that gets right to the heart of the differences between the world Aang grew up in and the world Katara grew up in. Aang’s a child and he knows he’s a child. (Again, more on this thought later.) Katara was forced to take on adult responsibilities years ago.

This is one of the most touching things about Aang and Katara’s relationship, though: they have fun together. It’s so simple, but Katara’s life was responsibility after responsibility. Aang’s presence in her life, his insistence on not taking on every single responsibility (at least not right this second), is a healthy way for both of them to make time for themselves and just enjoy life. Including, for Katara, age-appropriate horsing around.

(19:48) Aang and Katara come to a halt in front of something that casts a huge shadow. They stop right at the edge of the darkness the shadow casts, but don’t actually cross the visible line just yet.

(19:50) When we pan out, we see that it’s a Fire Nation ship, run aground on some more unnatural-looking ice. It’s an unmistakeable, unavoidable sign of the war’s presence at the South Pole.

(19:59) Since Aang doesn’t know about the war, he doesn’t have the same wariness Katara does about wandering into an old ship that might be booby-trapped. The dread isn’t ingrained into him like it is for Katara. And with that, they walk into the shadow of the war.

(20:28) We see here that waterbent ice punched right through the metal hull of the Fire Nation ship.

(20:56) Aang looks at the rack of Fire Nation weapons with confusion and dismay, while Katara gives Aang the rundown of how the ship’s been here since her grandmother was young, part of the Fire Nation’s first attacks.

(21:04) This, Aang can’t ignore. There’s a ship with weapons, run aground in not-too-accidental looking circumstances. He starts asking what the hell’s up with all this. In an owww my heart moment, Aang leads off by saying that this can’t be right, he has friends all over the world. 

Remember that from Aang’s perspective, this is only a few days at most after the final flashback in ‘The Storm’, an episode that showed the senior monks are starting to get very worried indeed about a war starting.

(21:10) Katara spots the thread and works out that Aang was in the iceberg for a very, very long time.

(21:36) Aang reels at the news that he’s a hundred years out of time and there’s a huge war going on. At this point, I don’t think he’s got a real appreciation of what that means (because that’s something for episode three), but it knocks him on his ass anyway.

(21:44) Likewise, I don’t think Katara’s got a solid understanding of what this means for Aang, but she tries to comfort him anyway. Fittingly for a character whose inner life was illustrated by saying I still have hope, she tries to get Aang to focus on something positive. Aang, who’s also an optimist, says that at least he got to meet Katara.

(21:59) Unfortunately, before they can head back to the village, Aang sets off a booby trap. And why would Aang be looking for booby traps? He grew up in a world where he didn’t have to worry about this sort of thing.

(22:10) The result is to send up a signal flare.

(22:24) And someone is watching. From Zuko’s perspective, he can’t tell how old Aang is, but he can definitely see airbending being used.

(22:45) The pan over to the village, along with Zuko’s line that he’s found the Avatar’s hiding place, emphasises that Zuko poses a threat to the village as well as just to Aang.

(22:50) We get a lot of close-ups of halves of Zuko’s face over the course of the series, and it’s always worth noting which side of his face is being used to convey what, because he’s definitely got a duality thing going on. This time, we cut to the “to be continued” on Zuko’s unscarred eye, i.e., the side of his face where his resemblance to his father is revealed to be unmistakeable.

Given that he’s apparently gearing up to attack an already war-scarred village doing nothing but just trying to get by…fair enough.

#a:tla #fine toothed comb edition

[polandspringz]

Voltron Legendary Defender Season 2 Review (SPOILERS)

I would like to begin by saying that I was FLOORED by the final battle of the season. THAT WAS A FINAL BATTLE. Although I was worried a lot throughout the fight they were going to end it on some cliffhanger(which they sort of did), it was nothing as intense as last season, but that does not mean the stakes are not high, if not higher than they were at the end of season one. 

First off, I would like to note some of the improvements this season made before transitioning into its flaws. I thought the comedy this time around was spot on. Last season, the show was experimenting with its audience, and while it was enjoyable to older members, it still had a younger, less mature sense of comedy and style. Additionally, season one had a more “edgy” shaky feel to it at certain times, and for first time watchers its fine. However, over a couple of months reflecting on it, and especially in comparison to the new episodes, the previous season does look a bit unstable. Season two managed to fix most of that, the comedic style was varied, with most of the jokes being made by Hunk having the punchline of being overly explained for younger audiences who can appreciate those jokes in succession while the other characters strayed from wisecracks and made genuine jokes that worked within their characterization. The one that made me completely lose it was Pidge’s “Spores Code”, particularly for its delivery. It was made with no eye movement or anything to signify her thinking of it beforehand, and the way she followed its use by a delayed “HAH!” before the scene cut just worked with how the audience processed it, as they would be catching up with the dialogue right alongside Pidge’s realization. (And forewarning, I will be referring to Pidge as “she” throughout the review, but I will get to that later, so I hope that won’t deter you too much).

Secondly, the action scenes in themselves were very well done. The way the art shifted to have those lines across the images during intense scenes (not entirely sure how to categorize them) were seen in season one as well, but they were much more prominent this time. They were used gradually throughout the show, with the monochrome beige and red background and line art being utilized in the most drastic moments helped stress the emotion. Especially in the final fight, I felt like I was watching something from Gainax or Trigger. Also, this is where I talk about the show being less “edgy”. This season’s battles were very high stake, everything was on the line, but the show’s balance of comedy and action drama was so perfect that it let things flow better. I think this is also do to the way the world felt more fleshed out overall. I remember seeing in either an interview transcript or an interview on youtube the creators talking about how in season one, they really enjoyed the Altean language and cultural jokes the show pushed, and that really stuck out in this season. The creators had a whole segment on Pidge studying the Altean language to later on come back to haunt the other paladins when she began to use idioms and jokes unfamiliar to them and there was also the whole way the plot of the “Slipperies” fit into Coran’s small character development. Most of all, the foundations set to give all the new aliens and groups unique comedic personalities stuck out, with the viewer even being given multiple scenes showing Zarkon’s desperation and Haggar’s disapproval. I keep using the same transitional phrases, but overall, I truly do believe that this is what made this season such a treat to watch. The creators stopped keeping the villains to just villains and the aliens to just aliens and made the leap to do simple things like have characters like Slav act quirky and anxious or the security guard who dreamed of being like Zarkon. It just helped world build and immerse the viewer much better than the first season which had this wall of mystique and edge that kept it feeling a bit empty and kid oriented.

Now, onto some of the flaws.

Episode 1, 5, and 13 were my top three episodes from this season, with Space Mall fitting somewhere in between them. Episode one was a good transition between the seasons, it jumped between the different scenes well, had good comedic timing, and built up suspense about Shiro without overshadowing or contradicting too much of the mood of the other scenes. Space Mall had a bit of problems balancing this, because I liked all the subplots in the episode separately, but Shiro and his Black Lion’s arc just did not flow well with the rest of the scenes. Standing alone, it’s amazing,for I had the suspicion from the beginning that they never actually left the castle and the way Zarkon and Shiro had to fight one another with their minds was well done. Yet, the jump into the “mindscape”, as I’ll call it, was very sudden and confusing with Zarkon saying how if they died here they would die for real. (Leaving me to shout at my phone, “IF YOU DIE IN THE GAME YOU DIE IN REAL LIFE”) Generally, my main issue was how we would go from very jocular, joke-riddled and driven scene to one so dramatic that I felt Shiro’s arc should have been placed in another episode. 

Also, this was the season of Shiro. Keith did get a lot of growth with most of the fandom’s theories being confirmed about him, the way the knife tied into it all and such, but from the way the final episode ended, anyone could tell this season was about Shiro. (And the next will probably be Keith’s). One of my favorite things I liked about Shiro’s growth in the show was that he stepped out of the “Dad” parameters set up around him and seemed like another young guy, not quite on the same level as the other paladins, but he became flawed. After he kept repeating to Keith about patience and keeping calm, I was so excited when Slav appeared because it was so clever to have Shiro develop backwards, in a sense. Rather than having him overcome any flaws for growth, the writers gave him a setting in which he could develop flaws. We can see Shiro get seriously angry when given the right circumstances, and the irony in his statements to Keith help bring this to life even more so. On a side note, I would like the bring up something that might upset the Sheith fans a bit. I feel like this season really established that Keith sees Shiro in a fatherly view, as not only did the animators have the “hologram” Shiro transform into Keith’s dad, but we also saw how similar they designed their eyes and other features (Scar on nose vs. scar on forehead). I was a little worried going into this season because about a week before I had heard some news about one of the creators liking a “Sheith” photo on twitter and everyone blew up about it. I really do not want to see any romance happen in this show, not only for personal reasons but also because I feel like it would not only destroy the fanbase but ruin a lot of the integrity and style the show has just now started to build correctly. To be fair on both sides, the elevator scene with Keith and Lance did make me chuckle (”GIRLS DON’T WANT A VOLTRON SEASON 2 GIRLS WANT A VOLTRON BEACH EPISODE” and I also yelled, “TWO BROS CHILLIN’ IN A HOT TUB, FIVE FEET AWAY...”) but I felt like Keith and Lance’s dynamic wasn’t well established this scene. For me personally, Lance almost came close to be destroyed as a character for me. The elevator scene felt like a bone was thrown to the Klance shippers, and I felt like it contradicted anything we had witness between the two before. Sure, they had a mild spat back and forth, and we got another clip where Lance tells Keith to back off his Lion in a bathrobe and face mask, but then we also got a scene where they “had each other’s backs” and it felt like the writers were just constantly fluctuating their opinions on one another depending on the scene and the tempo of the other characters or for plot advancement purposes without taking time to really delve into how these two characters actually feel about one another as paladins.

Lance’s character problems for me also tie into Pidge’s for this season, as it felt very repetitive in episode two and four for me. I could accept Lance and Hunk’s adventure, but once we got the mermaids in the picture I felt like I was watching Hunk and Shay except with Lance and mermaids. Of course they had different purposes in the story, but when we suddenly got Pidge going to a planet about technology, I immediately felt like the writers were trying to check boxes off character arcs as quickly as possible. Back to Lance though, the one thing I could sort of accept and by pass was the scene with him and Laika (the yupper) where Lance suddenly starts to question his worth on the team. This was a bit random, but I also understand how someone could easily start to overthink things about what others think about them when left pretty much alone, so it worked, especially when Lance proved his abilities later. This was not done for Pidge. Pidge’s planet arc really bothered me only at the end of the episode when she learned her Lion’s true potential. When she first got to the planet, she made a statement about her brother Matt. Later on, when she’s about to activate the Lion’s power, we see her struggling to connect with her Lion and hearing the voice’s of her friends saying how they need her and that helps her focus. This worked with Lance, because Lance had self-doubt before Shiro fixed it by saying “That’s why we bring our sharpshooter.” With Pidge, it was like we had the development with nothing to develop from. If before they had landed on the planet, we had had a moment where Pidge talks about her technology or something or had done something and was mildly brushed off by the other characters, the same effect in Lance’s case would have occurred. We, as the audience, would not have had to been given a whole episode of the paladins being disappointed in Pidge but rather we would just have needed a little nudge about something with how they react to her, like how they react to her using technological or Altean terms. If we had been given a set up in the beginning of the episode to show her being somewhat annoyed, the moment where she hears her friends voices would have been more meaningful as we would have made the connections ourselves. Pidge’s line later at the end of the episode talking about how technology has always been important to her felt empty to. Considering the mention of Matt at the start of the episode, it seemed like they could have used this line to have her elaborate or at least have the audience be shown a flashback or something with Matt that would make her love of technology in the present that much more important or valuable rather than just a quirky aspect of her personality.

Now, I’m almost done, but I haven’t addressed the last part of Pidge’s character.

The bathroom scene.

I’m not here to call this a flaw despite it succeeding my list of flaws with this season. I thought the bathroom scene was well executed for something done for a kid’s show. It really wasn’t concrete clear and offered two interpretations so people could take from it what they will before the writers decide to clarify anything. We are given a scene displaying two bathrooms, both with unfamiliar symbols, but one colored pink, the other blue. Pidge glances between them, and we see a non-identifiable alien emerge, and Pidge says she will “hold it”. I know the majority of the fanbase is jumping on this to show that the writers are saying Pidge is non-binary or genderfluid or trans or such. I personally do not see Pidge as transgender. The reasons behind her posing as a boy at the Garrison are still unclear, as girls are obviously allowed to enroll, and she only raises more suspicion around the people who knew her brother by looking more like them. In my opinion, I saw Pidge dressing like her brother as a coping mechanism for the loss. Looking like him would be a constant reminder to her of what was either lost so she doesn’t forget her mission or it was just a way of making her feel like he was still with her. But, back to bathrooms. I had seen this gif online as a spoiler at first when I took a break between episodes. I was worried they were laying down any definite statements about these characters without fleshing them out, but the bathroom scene also provides two interpretations. If you look at the first half, with the two symbols alone, it makes sense that people can use this to support the Pidge’s gender argument as although the symbols are vague, the colors should be enough to tell her which one is for men or women. Hell, the later scene when Keith walks out of the blue one shows that at least one other Paladin “knows” which one to go in. (I personally could just see Keith saying screw it and taking a chance) However, the thing afterwards, where we see an non-identifiable alien emerge from the “ladies” room, the show also could be saying that Pidge is still confused on which bathroom is which and not which one she feels she should go in. It is easy to also interpret the scene that the colors aren’t enough for her to distinguish, which I think works well for children who are watching the show and wouldn’t fully pick up on all the little things yet. (It’s like that scene in Spongebob where they are in the trench city or whatever?) Regardless of what you view Pidge as, the way the writers portrayed this scene allowing a double meaning was a good choice, as it gave the fans what they wanted while also easing the children and those who are less likely to agree with the gender debate something they could stomach. And hey, if you think that kids should be fully exposed to this early on, consider this scene something they can watch when older and realize the full connotations of if they so choose.

All in all, I’d give Voltron Legendary Defender an 8/10 with the first season at a 7/10.

#how does one even rate things #on a scale of 1 to 10 #its hard #voltron legendary defender #vld #vld season 2 #voltron legendary defender season 2 #poland reviews

[tsgcincinnati]

TSG SPOTLIGHT: The English Contractor

We had a lot of fun recently talking with Craig Russell, the Owner and “Bulldog” leader of The English Contractor & Remodeling Services in Cincinnati. Craig is tenacious, strong and a passionate business leader and has extraordinarily high standards for workmanship and detail throughout all of his projects. He leads a team of 36 professionals and does so with humor and an eye for perfection, every step of the way! Here is some great advice from Craig and we hope you can “hear” his personality and passion in his answers!  

McKenna: When and how did you get into this line of work?

Craig: “I was always the kid who drove his mother crazy by constantly taking things apart. I had an insatiable curiosity, a ton of energy and wanted to know how everything worked.  Through a girl I was dating at the time, I became an apprentice to a plasterer, working on high end homes in London and suburban towns. That relationship didn’t last, but my interest in building did. Following my apprenticeship, my learning continued as I was exposed to different trades and built up a business as a residential builder and contractor.

I followed my wife, a physician who grew up in Ohio, here to Cincinnati. Building here is different than in the UK, from codes to materials to nomenclature to, in some cases, techniques. I took my time learning how things are done stateside and started my business as a handyman. I made some great relationships early on and joined up with other talented tradespeople, expanding the scope and capabilities of my business. Those guys are still with me today, nearly a decade later, as The English Contactor is now nearly 40 people strong.

What do you think makes you and the people you hire different (and better)?

“Our name is The English Contractor, but truthfully, we are builders. All of the trades needed to build a home, remodel a kitchen, or construct a home addition are represented under our brand. At times a specialty subcontractor is needed for some of the more unique details we might add to a home. Our clients know that anyone working in their home is part of our crew, with the same standards and commitment that I set forth. I’m a stickler for detail and my team knows it. 

I’m known for having good instinct for people and have used it to build my team. My foremen have been with me since I started my business. We’re all big believers in teaching. We don’t hire “laborers.” We hire apprentices. We build our crew by bringing on board people with the motivation and desire to learn about the trades. We’ve grown our team that way. It’s not just my commitment to my own company, but my commitment to the trades as a whole. Tradespeople in the UK are revered for their skill and expertise. It should be the same here. It takes a ton of skill and know-how to build a house. We want the best-of-the-best to join us as we build all over Cincinnati. 

What advice do you give to all homeowners looking to renovate their homes?

Craig: “Have a master plan. A partnership with an architect, or in some cases, an interior designer, can help you make sure you have all the pieces in place. Call in a contractor early for a reality check on costs. I always say that anything is possible in construction. But some projects cost more than others. Sometimes it’s helpful to have done your own homework ahead of time to have an idea of how costs can add up. A drawer pull, for example, can cost $1 or it can cost $100 (or more). If you have champagne taste, but a beer budget, this exercise will make sure you have an educated idea about costs. 

Another piece of advice is to keep the lines of communication open with your entire team--builder or contractor, architect and/or designer. Each person on the team is going to have responsibilities, including the homeowner. It’s a balance between feeling comfortable with the project and making decisions. When the team works together to make decisions and selections on time, the project is going to go that much more smoothly. 

Why does it take so long to get on a contractors’ schedule and/or to get work done? 

“It all depends on the size of the project and the general timing. We tend to have several big projects going on at once, but depending on the size and scope of the project, we can generally fit in a new project with about a 6-8 week lead time. A larger project, like a new custom home or a major whole home renovation will require a larger lead time. It may seem like it’s a lot of waiting on the homeowners part, but our team has a lot of work to do before we ever start swinging a hammer. A lot of times, the timing depends on where the homeowner is in the process. Like, “Do you have a good idea of what you want?”  “Do you have your selections made--from cabinetry style or tile to appliances?” Sometimes, lead times can delay a project. Then it’s all about balance. We want to make sure all of the pieces are in place before we start the work. We’d hate to go in, demo a kitchen, and then have the project come to a halt because the cabinetry will take 12 weeks to construct.

Do you partner with subs or have everyone on your staff? Why? 

Craig: “I’m proud to have all of the trades represented on my staff. From time to time, for a specialty project, we may have to call in a subcontractor. But for the most part, the person working at your house will be part of The English Contractor team. That helps with timing. No waiting around for the plumber to fit you in the schedule. Our on-staff plumber is fully integrated into our work load. Same goes for our electrician. They know about your project and the standards that I expect.”

What is your favorite type of project to work on? 

“I am a detail person, so I love a project that really integrates bespoke elements. I also love it when a client comes to me with a challenge. I pride myself in being a problem solver. Nothing makes me happier than to help a customer fix an issue that they had with their home with something newly built just for them.”

If this dialogue inspires you like it does us, you can have Craig and team come look at your project by contacting them here. Be sure to tell them Scout sent you! 

All photos by RVP Photography. 

#theenglishcontractor #contractor #renovation #contractorincincinnati #cincinnatirenovation #renovationincincinnati #englishcontractor #rvpphoto

[honestlysteadyfest-blog]

Click fraud: Wikis

Encyclopedia

From Wikipedia, the free of charge encyclopedia

Click fraud is actually a type of Net crime that happens in pay out per click on-line promoting whenever a particular person, automatic script or laptop software imitates a respectable user of an internet browser clicking on an advert, for your goal of producing a cost for each simply click without having possessing true fascination within the concentrate on of the ad's website link. Click fraud will be the topic of some controversy and increasing litigation as a result of the advertising and marketing networks getting a key beneficiary in the fraud.

Usage of a PC to dedicate this kind of Internet fraud is really a felony in several jurisdictions, for example, as lined by Penal code 502 in California, United states. It is illegal in the Uk beneath the Laptop Misuse Act 1990. There have already been arrests regarding simply click fraud with regard to destructive clicking as a way to deplete a competitor's marketing budget.

Pay for every click advertising and marketing

Pay for each simply click advertising or, PPC marketing, is undoubtedly an arrangement during which website owners (operators of Net sites), performing as publishers, show clickable hyperlinks from advertisers in trade for the cost for each simply click. As this sector progressed, several advertising and marketing networks designed, which acted as middlemen amongst both of these teams (publishers and advertisers). Every time a (thought to be) valid World wide web consumer clicks on an advertisement, the advertiser pays the advertising network, who consequently pays the publisher a share of this funds. This revenue-sharing method is noticed being an incentive for click fraud.

The most important from the advertising networks, Google's AdWords/AdSense and Yahoo! Lookup Advertising, act inside a twin function, because they are also publishers themselves (on their own search engines). In line with critics, this sophisticated connection may possibly produce a conflict of curiosity. For example, Google loses money to undetected click fraud when it pays out for the publisher, nonetheless it helps make more money when it collects charges from your advertiser. Due to the distribute in between what Google collects and what Google pays out, click on fraud straight and invisibly earnings Google. Some have even speculated that Google's barring end users from the Google Analytics program from tracing IP addresses of visitors is immediately related to click on fraud about the Google AdWords community plus a need to keep the real extent of click on fraud from currently being disclosed.

Non-contracting functions

A secondary useful resource of just simply click fraud is non-contracting get-togethers, who're not a part of any pay-per-click settlement.

This kind of fraud is even tougher to legislation enforcement, owing on the truth perpetrators generally can not be sued for breach of offer or billed criminally with fraud.

Samples of non-contracting functions are: Rivals of advertisers: These get-togethers might want to harm a competitor who advertises even though inside the similar market by clicking on their own personal adverts.

The perpetrators never cash flow straight but force the advertiser to pay for for irrelevant clicks, hence weakening or eliminating a source of competitors.

Opponents of publishers: These folks may well desire to body a publisher.

It truly is designed to search such as the publisher is clicking by itself advertisements.

The advertising and marketing and advertising and marketing community could then terminate the connection.

A great deal of publishers count completely on earnings from advertising and will be set far from company by this type of the assault.

Other harmful intent: The same as vandalism, there is certainly an selection of motives for wishing to steer to harm to both an advertiser or maybe a publisher, even by men and women who could don't have anything to attain economically. Motives include political and private vendettas. These situations are frequently the toughest to control, due to the fact it really is challenging to trace down the offender, and when located, there exists slight lawful motion which could be taken from them.

Close friends within the publisher: Sometimes on finding out a publisher income from adverts getting to be clicked, a supporter through the publisher (much like a supporter, household member, or personalized pal) will click on the adverts to help. This may be viewed as patronage. Nonetheless, this may backfire when the publisher (not the buddy) is accused of click on on fraud.

Marketing networks may possibly make an energy to give up fraud by all get-togethers but usually don't know which clicks are genuine. Not like fraud fully commited with all the publisher, it genuinely is difficult to understand who need to pay out out when previous basically click on fraud is found. Publishers resent getting to pay for refunds for one thing that is not their fault. Nonetheless, advertisers are adamant they mustn't ought to shell out for phony clicks.

Company

Simply click fraud is usually as easy as one particular person commencing somewhat Web web page, becoming a publisher of advertisements, and clicking on men and women ads to provide earnings. Typically the amount of clicks in addition to their value is modest which the fraud goes undetected. Publishers could declare that modest portions of the sort of clicking is unquestionably a collision, that's generally the situation.

Considerably larger-scale fraud likewise happens. These engaged in large-scale fraud will often work scripts which simulate a human clicking on commercials in World wide web webpages. Nonetheless, massive figures of clicks showing to return again from only one, or possibly a tiny amount of computer systems, or perhaps a solitary geographic spot, appear massively suspicious about the advertising and marketing and advertising group and advertisers. Clicks coming from your laptop acknowledged to acquire that in the publisher also look for suspicious to individuals seeking ahead to click on fraud. Somebody making an attempt large-scale fraud, by yourself inside of their residence, stands a terrific probability of currently being caught.

One form of fraud that outsmarts detection based on IP designs utilizes present person specific site visitors, turning this into clicks or impressions. This sort of an assault could be disguised from consumers by utilizing 0-size iframes to display screen adverts which could be programmatically recoverd utilizing JavaScript. Additionally it is disguised from advertisers and portals by making sure that is known as "reverse spiders" are supplied making use of a good site web page, whilst human web site website visitors are introduced using a internet site web page that commits click fraud. The utilization of 0-size iframes as well as other strategies involving human guests could even be mixed with all the usage of hyping web site website visitors, exactly where buyers of "Paid to Read" websites are paid out out small portions of cash (normally a portion on the cent) to go to an online internet site and/or click on keywords and phrases and seem for results, typically hundreds or a huge selection of situations each and every functioning working day. Some residence house owners of PTR web sites are associates of PPC engines and will supply a lot of email correspondence advertisements to end users who do lookup, although sending small advertisements to those that don't. They may be carrying out this largely since the expense for each and every click lookup final results is usually the only real genuine income around the web site. This truly is named pressured hunting, a workout that is criticized within the Gets a fee To company.

Arranged prison offense can handle this by possessing a great deal of private computer systems with their really very own Web connections in many geographic places. Generally, scripts are unsuccessful to mimic proper human conduct, so organized prison offense networks use Trojan code to point out the standard person's devices into zombie pcs and use sporadic redirects or DNS cache poisoning to show the oblivious user's steps into measures generating earnings for that scammer. It may be hard for advertisers, marketing networks, and authorities to go right after conditions towards networks of guys and girls distribute near to several nations across the entire world.

Affect fraud is when falsely developed advert impressions have an effect on an advertiser's account. Whilst inside the circumstance of click-through payment dependent auction sorts, the advertiser could be penalized for acquiring an unacceptably lowered click-through for the presented essential phrase. This involves making a number of queries for the look for expression without having clicking inside the advert. These types of commercials are disabled instantly, roping into a competitor's lower-bid advert on the exact same important phrase to hold on, even though quite a few higher bidders (regarding the quite initial site website page inside the lookup advantages) have already been taken out.

Options

Proving just click fraud might be really difficult, provided that it really is difficult to comprehend who's powering a non-public personal computer and what their intentions are. Generally the very best an promoting and advertising and promoting and marketing community can execute will probably be to establish which clicks are almost unquestionably fraudulent and in no way price the account inside the advertiser. Even an amazing provide a whole lot a lot much more advanced signifies of detection are employed, but none is foolproof.

The Tuzhilin Report made as element from your just just just simply click fraud lawsuit settlement, features a substantial and total dialogue of people issues. Specifically, it defines "the Straightforward Difficulty of invalid (fraudulent) clicks":

"There isn't any definition of invalid clicks which might be operationalized."

"An operational definition can't be completely disclosed in your regular fundamental basic community simply because inside of the considerations that unethical consumers will ponder reward of it, which could guidebook to an infinite click fraud. Nevertheless, whether or not or not it is not disclosed, advertisers can't validate or even dispute why they've been billed for specific clicks."

The pay-per-click enterprise is lobbying for tighter legal guidelines with the whole circumstance. A whole lot of hope to possess legal guidelines which might encompass these not specific by contracts.

Several companies are making beneficial choices for merely simply click fraud identification and so are making middleman interactions with promoting and marketing and advertising networks. This type of selections drop into two classes:

Forensic examination of advertisers' net server log specifics.

This analysis inside the advertiser's internet server information specifications an in-depth appear inside the provide and carry out inside the visitors. As sector regular log paperwork are accustomed to your analysis, the information is verifiable by advertising networks. The issue using this certain certain approach could be the reality that it's dependent inside of the honesty throughout the middlemen in figuring out fraud.

Third-party corroboration.

3rd capabilities supply web-based options that might entail placement of single-pixel pictures or Javascript inside the advertiser's web internet sites and very best tagging in the adverts. The consumer could be outfitted producing usage of a cookie. Consumer details is then gathered within a third-party information retailer and developed obtainable for get. The higher choices ensure it really is very simple to stress suspicious clicks, furthermore they display screen the explanations for this kind inside the summary. Nonetheless, the issue using these options is this kind of choices see only part in the web page web site guests out of your total local people. Consequently, they might be substantially significantly much less nearly definitely to discover styles that span several advertisers. Furthermore, for this reason of constrained phase of buddies they get in distinction to middlemen, they could be really or significantly considerably much less intense when judging web page pals for becoming fraud.

Click fraud in academia

The reality is the fact that the various search engines maintain the higher hand in the operational definition of invalid clicks will likely be the target within the route in the conflict of fascination amid advertisers in addition to the middlemen, as explained greater than. This can be guilted inside the Tuzhilin Report as outlined previously mentioned. Relatively, it gave a high-level photograph absent out of your fraud-detection technique and argued which the operational definition away from your seem for motor beneath investigations is "reasonable". Only one intention inside of the report was to safeguard the privateness inside the fraud-detection method of keep the possibility to deal with its general overall performance. This prompted some experts to hold out basic frequent neighborhood examine on how the middlemen can struggle simply merely click on fraud.

#clickfraud #wikipedia #entrepreneur

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Story Bible

Premise and Purpose:

A story about a young college student who grew up in an environment where his parents are physically and emotionally distant with each other. He believes the reason why his parents are not divorced is because of him- to keep the family as a whole. Apart from family problems, he has to deal with his own problem; at a young age, he realised that he is sexually attracted to the men. As he grew older, it became more of a struggle for him to hide his sexuality from his parents. He constantly worries and thinks about how his parents might react if he confesses, but at the same time he wants to share his thoughts with his parents. When he does come clean to his parents about his sexuality, his parents have something to confess as well- a secret that was concealed from him ever since he was born.

Medium, Platform, and Genre:

The interactive medium that we are using is called Twine. Twine is an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories. It features a fairly simple to use interface and does not require any coding experience. It is organized using a nonlinear mapping system that tracks and visualizes all the different scenarios and choices. The strengths of Twine is that it has the capabilities of extending and building stories using images, conditional logic, CSS, and Javascript; also it can be published directly to HTML. The limitations for Twine is that it is structured around games in the text-adventure niche genre. Twine fits in with our project because it is heavily text focused as its genre is interactive fiction.

Intended Audience and Market:

The intended audience are young adults who are interested in homosexuality and are curious as to what issues and pressures homosexuals have to face in a city where homosexuality is taboo and not accepted. This interactive story would be interesting for our target audience because they are able to view the outcomes and how the protagonist will react to different scenarios that the reader chooses.

User’s role and point of view:

Nathan(user): The user plays in the perspective of Nathan and will have to go through multiple problems and scenarios based on conflicts with the other characters and with the Nathan’s inner thoughts. The user will have to make a decision based on a number of choices, and each choice would shape the story and narrative towards a different ending. The level of agency is quite high as each unique choice will shape a different outcome at multiple levels.

Character obstacles:

Alec: Stops Nathan from coming out to his parents as Alec’s experience of coming out to his respective parents was awful and is now forced to hide his sexuality from the public as an order from his parents. Alec does not want Nathan to come out as he does not want Nathan to go through the horrible experience of being shamed and talked down by his parents. He controls Nathan in their relationship, being the one that always decides where and when they should meet up.

Ladonna: Tries to be a good mother and shows full responsibility to Nathan. Although she notice that Nathan has the same homesexual issue as her, she chooses to pretend that she doesn’t know and hoping Nathan can tell her the truth by himself.

Raul: A bothersome person to Nathan. Always tries to bring up mundane issues and escalates it to large fights. Lets out his anger and frustration from work onto Nathan. Causes Nathan to rely on others for emotional support.

Storyworld and sub-settings:

Home: Set in a two-story middle income house in the small town of Barnesville, Georgia, the home is where we understand the relationship between the characters: Nathan (the son), Ladonna (the mother), and Raul (the father). In a household of three people, rarely are all three of them in the house together as a family. There are no family dinners, and the household is quiet most of the time to the point where neighbors wonder if anyone lives in the home. There is little interaction and conversation between everyone, and often the only conversations that do happen involves arguments. For this family, the house is only a place for shelter, somewhere to sleep at night and seldom to build a stronger bond with each other.

University: Nathan goes to Georgia State University; the setting where we see a brighter side of his character. This is where we get to know Nathan’s friends and classmates and see him develop a rather contrasting relationship with his friends in comparison with his family. It is here where we see Nathan’s extroverted mask: he becomes social and outgoing in this environment. At university, he enjoys joking with his friends, gossiping, flirting with girls and skipping class; but even so, Nathan still finds it somewhat difficult to openly express his sexuality to his friends or anyone, except with a friend and classmate named Alec; the person he falls in love with. It is here where we go into the inner thoughts of Nathan and how and why he became attracted to Alec.

Gay Nightclub: This is the place where Nathan releases all of his stress and inner feelings revolved around his university, family problems and disagreements with Alec regarding wanting to come out to his own parents. He goes alone as he doesn’t want to accidentally meet someone he knows and reveal his inner feelings and identity. He gets quite involved at the nightclub getting drunk and having fun with multiple guys and often takes the centre stage whenever the opportunity arises.

Character Design:

Nathan (Son): Nathan is a 21 year old university student that was raised in a family where he scarcely felt real love from his parents. He is naturally a quiet person but acts extroverted around his community. He discovered that he was homosexual at the age of 6 and has been hiding it from everyone ever since. He is easily emotional but internalizes it from his parents and to most of his friends. He detests staying at home and often goes outside with his university friends or at the nightclub to escape the vicinity of his so called home. He often questions the relationship his parents have with each other and wonders if other families function the same way as well. Nathan often thinks about coming out to his parents but is always stopped by his boyfriend Alec.

Ladonna (Mother): Ladonna is a flower shop owner who tries to provide as much as she can for her son by buying him anything he wants and by giving him a lot of freedom with his life choices. The mother shows a charming character in public but doesn’t show this character within her family. She grew up in a strict and conservative family and often had little say to express her opinions and feelings. At the age of 6, she discovered that she was homosexual and internalized it in every way possible, including convincing herself that she wasn’t gay. She ended up marrying a fairly successful businessman named Raul, though she never truly felt happy in the relationship. She is also fairly controlling towards her husband.

Raul (Father): Raul is a successful businessman who is always out from dawn to dusk and spends little time at home. He has a short temper and often lets his anger out towards his son; they often fight over anything. He also enjoys many activities such as shopping and spending money on luxurious goods. Like his wife Ladonna, he grew in a strict family and also discovered that he was homosexual at the age of 6. Both him and his wife discovered that they were both homosexual later on in their relationship and came to terms and agreements with each other for the sake of their own families.

Alec (University friend and antagonist): Alec is in the same university program as Nathan and has several classes with him. He has a quiet nature and is seldom sociable and approachable. He often leaves immediately after class and heads home after his classes are over as he prefers to isolate himself from others. He grew up in a rather normal family with his parents, older brother, and younger sister. He has excellent observational skills and has a knack for understanding others emotions, though he rarely socializes so people often do not know that about him. Ever since the age of 5 Alec was more interested in playing along with girls; he realized later on that he is gay and had his first boyfriend in highschool. He revealed himself to his parents, but they denied Alec’s sexual orientation and moved states to start a new life, where Alec has to keep his identity hidden.

Narrative/ Gaming Elements:

Story line:

• Build relationships with Alec.

• Having a fight with his father (user can choose the dialogue to response the fight with Nathan’s father).

• Feeling sad and stressful and don’t know where to go (when Nathan doesn’t know where to go or release his emotions, user can either make him go home to rest or go to the gay nightclub to help him get away from the reality).

• Having a fight and conversation with Alex (since Alex is the antagonist, he tries to stop Nathan to come out to Nathan’s parents. At this time, Alec and Nathan will have a fight and the user has to choose either to listen to Alec or try to make Alec to agree with him).

• Tell the truth and come out to Nathan’s parents (As Nathan successfully come out to his parents, user is able to choose to come out to everyone else (such as the university) or stay at the current stage).

Interaction Design/ Interface:

For the interactions, user are able to select a choice for the situations and continue the story with the following results. There are different kind of selection types for user to interact with. User can select dialogue, action, and location for Nathan to deal with the problems.