#i really really hope the devs dont change their plans for her just because people dont like her though | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hungryallday · 7 years

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Is Remnant even worth saving? What Yang have to gain by putting her life on the line again? These are two questions and I have more but there's just so much lacking about the stakes in RWBY that I would have this motherfucker on two pages trying to get it all out how hollow it all feels at the end of the day.

Remnant is hollow

Well i wouldnt say Remnant is beyond redemption or that they shouldnt try to save the world they kinda need it to survive after all. But i have as you wondered why. Or more specifically why should i care? As you have said it all feels hollow, we dont know why stopping the bad guys is neccesary other than Bad Things Will Happen. We dont even know what the bad guys plan to do yet, but armed with the knowledge that the Writers watched Sword art Online its probably going to be something which sounds deep but is really just Manure covered in glitter.

Not to mention that Remnant just kind of seem like a shoddy place to live in overall? We have been shown way more negatives than positives. The police is slow and easy to trick, racism seem to be culturally accepted to the level where the perpetrator feels no social pressure from harassing someone in a public space, half of the populations douches seem to be cultivated from the Atlas people who have influence and power.This is often used in works aimed at a teenage audience, the world is a terrible place and only our protagonists see their societies for what they truly are! The aforementioned societies show no signs of trying to work on their issues themselves and change is only brought by a single person or a small group of persons.Everything is also really really bland, there is no personality to any of the places and people we meet. In Episode 1 of this volume(4) in we are told that the giant golem had caused the villagers distress and that they are relieved that Team Rnjr got rid of it. But we are only allowed to see the after effects. The fight wouldve had a lot more tension if i had seen the villagers situations before hunting down the golem. Just make our heroes arrive in a village, individualize villagers, present the problem, our heroes tries to fix it, catharisis. Instead you just have no idea who these people are, i hope things work out for you random village npcs!!!!This is a contrast to Avatar: The last airbender where i STILL remember not only the conflicts but the people involved in them. They made the world feel alive because they were alive. Most tried to shape a better future with what they had at the moment even with the circumstances surronding them and that made me feel that the world could be saved and was worth saving. Meanwhile when Vale fell i should have felt sad, we spent 3 volumes here it should have left some impact on me,,, but i didnt. I felt nothing. I had nothing and no one to associate with Vale. Its literally just this blob of npcs and a couple of same looking grey buildings. If i dont care about the people living in your world then i will lose interest in the world itself.

Yang

Yang would probably join in order to get Ruby out of danger, but i dont really see what she would gain by joining the Big Fight against Salem and her goons. Maybe meeting up with Raven? But since Raven isnt allied with Salem Yang could technically hunt her down without getting involved in the grand scheme of things. A revenge story to hunt down Adam may work but the writers seem to want to avoid exploring interesting emotions that can give some juicy character development/regression. But she wont really “gain” anything from that other than, again, interesting character dev/regr. What she would gain is psychological satisfaction or / and her sister back.There isnt any other rewards, no one knows salem even exist or what she is going to do so or what affect it would have on the world. Theres alot of I Dont Knows in our lives right now. I probably feel like this because the end goal (defeating Salem i would assume?) dont actually help our main characters accomplish their goals.

Which i dont fault them for, in stories the characters goals usually dont line up perfectly with the end goal. BUT you gather your cast on the journey before shit hits the fan when the conflict looks pretty simple (Beneficial for character). Then you add the doomsday villain, the cast sees the chaos created by it the affects of it usually helpless villages or things that they hold dear (Emotionally invested). Its too late to turn back the character is now a part of the conflict (Survival).Because asking someone to go fight the Ancient Grimm mother who also is in control of a widespread terrorist organization and that you need to hunt down some random ass girls and relics for the sake of the world is absolutley ridicilous.

#rwde #analysis kind of #rwby analysis #yang xiao long #this got way too long cause i also am able to write out 2 essay papers out of this #trying to work out the feels #im no good at analysing yang #i dont think about yang too often cause i get sad about what she is allowed to amount to because of subpar writing #blazingsundragon #i dunno why you came to me im just a rando but thanks!#ask post #my ask post

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2slowgoers · 5 years

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10.31.2019 - a not so spooky update

Hey W,

Long time no talk ;) (lol, JK of course!). I’m glad I get to see you soon. Never been in NYC with you before, I’m glad we get to spend a bit of it together, and explore together again. We don’t get a lot of chances to do that these days. On the topic of Halloween... you dressed up a ton this week! They were creative and solid costumes. IF you became a mom, I think you would have excellent + creative halloween costumes for the family. I never felt the presence fo Halloween as much as I did this year, maybe because I work for a bigger company, and I have established my social media spaces and am familiar with the people I follow, I quite admire the arts and craft that can go into costumes. Okay, that aside -

We did text a bit after your last post, and I feel like we touched on the important parts I wanted to ask about. TBH I just hope this to be a space we can vent and let it all out, no pressure to follow up or give each other advice. But rather a space just to listen to each other, I appreciate that. All I can say from reading a bit about your doubts around yourself and your long term relationship, I am just here by your side, waiting to see how things will or will not change in the next couple of years. This is that time of age where things will grow and change a lot! I called briefly with my friend J (in FL) and they are going through a bit of quarter life crisis, and a lot of the call was me reassuring them that it’s okay and that it’s okay to choose what it is that your heart wants. Like you said about your mom, we have all spent too much of our life following what others expect us to do, or shaping other people’s wants into our own. Since we’re still growing up and maturing, what we even “wanted” in high school and college, may not be what grown up and mature versions of ourselves want. I think this IS the time of our life we start learning to listen to ourselves, our inner voice that is maturing and growing up, and truly understanding what it is that we want. So I say, trust your gut. You know what you need, and you’ll know it when the time comes.

One quick thing before I dive into the topic of today - I have to say work is going better now that I have gone on vacation, and have had the time to get to know the new hires (people joined post-June). Most of them are around my age and we all get along really well. KBBQ last night was quite fun, and for once I found myself being able to be myself, and exhibit my sense of humor (something that not a lot of people get), and the people around me laughed and appreciated me for being who I am. That felt really nice. It’s a feeling I have dearly missed from not being around people who know me well. I liked being able to goof around (because that’s really who I am! It just takes a long time to show that side), and seeing other people goof off. I can say that even if I don’t want to be in tech and the industry can be draining, being around good people is so important, and especially with a lot of them in the same age range and many who are recent transplants, has created a team that is larger than just Berkeley grads lol.

Topic I wanted to discuss today... When I was texting you earlier about my rooming situation and saying my ultimate fear is to be kicked out. Then I realized I have all these, you could say irrational fears, that I will 1) get fired 2) get kicked out 3) lose my job 4) lose all my savings/money 5) my friends hate me and will abandon me and just in general imagine the worst that could happen. I catch myself more often when I think these things and increasingly acknowledge it’s an irrational fear. I guess I wonder where all of this comes from - the fact that I get very “omg end of the world” and catastrophize easily. It’s definitely improved over the years, but I think it’s also from growing up with my mom. I see these traits in myself and in my brother too. We always imagine the worst, get anxious about it, then let the world know our anxious thoughts, and it spirals. I need to remind myself that no I am not going to be kicked out and no I am not going to be fired, my coworkers and team like me a lot and I do my job. I’m better at it now, so that’s cool.

This train of thought led me to something else though... you mentioned that I can take this opportunity to grow THICK SKIN. and you’re SO right. I have caught myself taking things too personally and being too sensitive to a lot of things, that are out of my control and have nothing to do with me. Like if a friend doesn’t reply fast, or they reply with a period at the end of the sentence, to what coworkers do or don’t do - I let it get to me, and when people joke, I respond seriously. Because I’m just so used to taking things seriously on the surface, even though deep down i love to joke, goof off, and not take things seriously.

For example, last night we were playing this game called “image game” where someone says image game and “who’s most likely to...” and then they count down and everyone in the group must point to the person they think are most likely to... and i don’t know exactly when but someone has to drink. Well, G (girl I sit next to work who I like a lot!) said “who’s most likely to quit their job and travel the world” - the people who know my plans pointed at me, but otherwise, the rest of the table was pointing at everyone else. Including G, who is someone i feel closer to now, pointed to someone else. G pointed to this other girl, and said “you because you moved to the bay area for absolutely no reason but just to come here”. deep down, i was like “but that’s me too! that’s me!” And for some reason, I took this whole thing so personally, and I was mildly bothered and thinking about it for the rest of the night. Why did not everyone point at me? How can this dream of mine that I’ve been thinking about since I was 20 years old, not be obvious? How can the world not know?! I do everything I do to follow this dream WHY DONT PEOPLE KNOW! <-- the question and capitalization is for dramatic effect, I wasn’t actually freaking out. But obviously I was thinking, like duh people won’t know what my dreams are because i NEVER talk about it. And duh, people probably think i’m super responsible and love my job because of the way i act at work and expect i am there to stay. SO, these thoughts just continued to stick around til this morning.

I decided to ask G to go to a room and talk personally because I wanted to follow up on this question. I provided context and asked her my main curiousity is “how do you perceive me?” “this is my lifelong dream and i am just curious how i come off as, that it wasn’t assumed to me” - she’s very nice and open and told me how she thought i was responsible, loved this job, and was here to stay. she just saw me as this super responsible type and not the kind to just leave like that. I also framed it in a way to be like “Ah yeah I want to blend in, I don’t want people to think I am on my way out” and she agrees that i am doing that fine, and she never expected that. Anyways... the GOOD part of this conversation was.. I told her “I’m literally here just to make money, pay off loans and save”. Then I asked “do you have any dreams you’d like to achieve?” And she was like “well I never told anyone at work this...” and then I quickly learned that she is here for the same reason I am, with a different goal in mind. she wants to go to nursing school - and she is here to save $ to pay off loans and save up to go. Even her bf, who is a dev, is also working a job and negotiated to anticipate to pay for her schooling. Then we were able to bond about how we both don’t want to be in tech in the long term, and how we don’t want to be in this job for the long term either, and we both kinda have to hold it in and cannot talk about what it is that we truly want to do. we could relate about our interview experiences and not being able to answer honestly the question to “where do you see yourself in 5 years”. And wow, that was a really nice conversation to have. To know that i am not alone in wanting to do something so badly, and to have to do something else in the interim, and we are desk neighbors! It’s funny actually, she’s by far been the best performing new hire IMO and i see a lot of similarities in myself and her. we do our jobs super well, and yet this is not where we want to be.

So that again, brings me to appreciate people who do work in the corporate world, at whatever point they need to for however long they need to. people are so much deeper than their work self. I especially appreciate the non-workaholics/people who don’t work all the time, because I see the life and dreams they get to live outside of work, and that’s just like a wholesome realization lol.

Alrighty, that’s me for today - see you soon!

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symbianosgames · 7 years

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Without the Affordable Care Act, developer Alex Preston would never have made Hyper Light Drifter. Not because he would have been financially crippled from the cost of paying for health care out-of-pocket while making the game—though that certainly would have been the case. But because, in his words, he “would probably be dead.”

For some developers, getting coverage under the ACA gave them the confidence and security to leave their corporate jobs (and, with it, traditional benefits packages) behind to start or join small independently-owned studios. For others, it supported life-saving care that they otherwise could not have afforded.

Now that the Trump administration prepares to deliver on promises to “repeal and replace” the current system, the many indie devs among the 20 million individuals who gained healthcare coverage under the ACA are scrambling to figure out their options. Complicating this is the uncertainty of what such a replacement might look like—if there is one at all.

Last week, the International Game Developers Association issued a release urging those who rely on the ACA to call their local representatives and voice their concerns. Their involvement in the national conversation makes sense: A 2015 IGDA survey of nearly 3,000 freelance developers found that 32% relied on government plans.

"Do I go bankrupt and go into the hospital or do I sit here and hope I stay alive?"

“We believe that affordable healthcare is not only about ensuring the personal well-being of individual developers, but also that is a matter of the creative health of our industry," says Kate Edwards, executive director of IGDA.

“If affordable healthcare options are unavailable," she adds. "we may likely see a significant drop in developers pursuing independent game development, which equates to a net loss of innovation and creative content for our industry.”

Before implementation of the ACA, Preston couldn’t get coverage of any kind. His health began seriously declining in his 20s. Though he briefly worked for a company that offered benefits, he couldn’t hold down full-time employment because of his health issues.. He was covered under COBRA for 18 months but, because of his congenital heart disorder and other pre-existing conditions, insurance companies turned him down when he tried to buy his own policy. As a result, he paid out of pocket for years.

“It often becomes a question of: Do I go bankrupt and go into the hospital or do I sit here and hope I stay alive?” he said. “Hope isn’t going to do it for millions of people with critical conditions that can’t live without their medication and can’t live without an emergency room to go to.”

Without coverage, Preston’s medical bills were massive. At one point, Preston had to organize a GoFundMe fundraiser for a $25,000 hospital stay.

"Did you smoke in your twenties? Doctor spotted a cancerous mole? Pregnant? Companies had myriad reasons for denying coverage."

His experience was common. Bekah Saltsman, who runs Finji (Night in the Woods, Overland, Feist) with her husband, Adam Saltsman, said that friends “would straight up send money” to fellow devs in need. Like Preston, most of the devs they knew when they were living in Austin, Texas couldn’t get covered.

“They didn’t have health insurance,” Bekah Saltsman says. “None. Not because they didn’t want it, but because they couldn’t buy a plan on the individual market because a doctor had coded something wrong or because of pre-existing conditions.” Did you smoke in your twenties? Doctor spotted a cancerous mole? Pregnant? Companies had myriad reasons for denying coverage and, thus, mitigating their potential losses.

“This was pre-Kickstarter and pre-Twitter, and we’d send a message around that someone is really sick and can everyone please send a check,” Bekah Saltsman says. “If you were well connected enough, you might know people who could send $500 or $1,000 to make sure you don’t die from whatever you had and that, if you don’t die, you could make it through possible bankruptcy.”

She opted to stick with a formal job for the health benefits until 2008. After that, when both of the Saltsmans had gone independent, they had to be strategic: Insurance companies tried to deny coverage because Adam has a lethal peanut allergy and carries an inhaler due to childhood asthma. Even so, they were able to get coverage as a group of two, leapfrogging to different plans once they had children.

Still, within a five-year span, Bekah Saltsman’s rates tripled from $560 a month to $1,500. “When I saw the ACA plans I was like, hallelujah.” Even though the Saltsmans didn’t qualify for subsidies, they were back to paying $585 to $600 per month during that first year.

When Steve Gaynor left 2K Marin to co-found Fullbright (Gone Home and, upcoming, Tacoma), he didn’t have any health insurance. He was pinching pennies and, as he says, “It was on that list of things that we felt we could live without.” It wasn’t until Gone Home was released in August 2013—just before the first open enrollment period under the ACA—that he got coverage.

"The ACA gave us the confidence to quit our jobs. The reason I stayed in a job I didn’t love for so long was because we needed health insurance."

Today, Fullbright provides stipends for team members to cover their insurance through the ACA Marketplace. “And we have confidence that insurance for the people we employ will be accessible,” Gaynor added. “When you’re running a studio like ours where everyone’s productivity and level of engagement is crucial, we want don’t want employees worrying about where their healthcare is coming from or how they’re going to pay for bills and appointments.”

Since then, Fullbright's coverage has come in handy: Gaynor and his wife were involved in a serious car accident and his co-founder Karla Zimonja had unexpected surgery.

Gaynor says Fullbright plans to continue to offer their employees stipends, no matter what happens with the ACA. But, as those expenses become unreliable, it will be harder for them to budget the cost—a big unknown for a small business. “That security was really valuable,” he says. “We know ACA has reliable options, and that makes us more able to employ people and make our studio run smoothly.”

Since getting covered under the ACA, Alex Preston has had several life-saving procedures, including having a valve replaced in his heart in 2015. In 2013, he started Heart Machine, a studio named, in part, to honor of the open-heart surgery he underwent as a child and the later installation of his pacemaker. Now, due in part to the success of Hyper Light Drifter, Preston can afford insurance outside of the ACA Marketplace for his employees.

“I count myself lucky,” he says. But he worries about what might happen if he and his business are in a position where they can’t take on that cost anymore—and what might happen to his own health coverage if his business were to fail. “I worry about that future now, and I didn’t just a year before.”

If the ACA is repealed and not replaced with something tenable, Preston says some devs he knows plan to go back to work for larger studios and AAA companies. One dev even half-joked about moving to a different country to secure coverage..

"After all the talk about small business and creating jobs, anything that makes it scarier to strike out on your own and start a new business that didn’t exist before is a loss to our entire economy."

“The ACA gave us the confidence to quit our jobs,” Bekah Saltsman says. “The reason I stayed in a job I didn’t love for so long was because we needed health insurance.” Bekah and Adam Saltsman aren’t sure precisely what they’re going to do—so much is uncertain. But they have multiple plans and back-up plans, from going through Michigan to buy their insurance to hiring another person so they can get a company plan (which would mean changing the entire structure of Finji) to Bekah returning to a corporate day job and working on Finji projects at night.

Bekah Saltsman says some indie devs are thinking about getting a non-game related day job with benefits, even if it means working the minimum number of hours required at a place like Starbucks—provided that it even still offers insurance under the new healthcare systems.

Another option is going through IGDA, which currently partners with HUB International insurance to provide some health, plus business and liability, insurance for its members. Right now, IGDA offerings are limited by the ACA, meaning that their options are no different from what is nationally available. “However, should the ACA be repealed and no alternative is readily available, we will quickly pursue the generation of a coverage option for our membership,” Edwards wrote. “In consultation with our insurance partner, it’s clear that it’s too early to tell how this will play out.” She recommends that people considering their options tune into HUB International’s webinar on February 7 called “Repeal, Replace or Remodel? What Lies Ahead for ACA and Your Health Plan.”

Though the president has suggested he will keep guaranteed coverage for pre-existing conditions and allow children to stay on parental plans until they’re 26, it’s unclear what will actually happen. Devs looking to protect themselves should consider finding a mentor in the industry with advice about how to navigate the healthcare system, come up with back-up plans, learn as much as possible about how freelancers got coverage before and after the implementation of the ACA, and stay apprised of how the Administration moves forward with a repeal.

But, no matter where things land with the reformation, it’s likely that the indie game scene will see a big shake-up in the coming months.

“Anything that gives people more reasons to not try to do something in an independent setting is a real loss for our industry and the economy,” Gaynor says. “After all the talk about small business and creating jobs, anything that makes it scarier and less accessible to strike out on your own and start a new business that didn’t exist before is a loss to our entire economy.”

#IFTTT #Blogger

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symbianosgames · 7 years

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"Do I go bankrupt and go into the hospital or do I sit here and hope I stay alive?"

Without coverage, Preston’s medical bills were massive. At one point, Preston had to organize a GoFundMe fundraiser for a $25,000 hospital stay.

"Did you smoke in your twenties? Doctor spotted a cancerous mole? Pregnant? Companies had myriad reasons for denying coverage."

"The ACA gave us the confidence to quit our jobs. The reason I stayed in a job I didn’t love for so long was because we needed health insurance."

Since then, Fullbright's coverage has come in handy: Gaynor and his wife were involved in a serious car accident and his co-founder Karla Zimonja had unexpected surgery.

But, no matter where things land with the reformation, it’s likely that the indie game scene will see a big shake-up in the coming months.

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes