Its December Third And I Just Gotta Ask All Of You One Question

its december third and i just gotta ask all of you one question

catherine’s memories-thoughts

spoilers below the cut for catherine’s memories

so i was both happy and a little underwhelmed by the ending. I did like that justin came along for the last memory, because it added a nice touch into the narrative. i’m probably going to make a full length post soon elaborating, but I thought the conclusion of this story was beautiful, with some story elements a touch out of left field.

however, I do have an issue with one thing. i didn’t like the whole “everyone’s special and can conduct Aideen” angle they went for. The message is great out of game, but game-wise, it seems odd. @writingonjorvik made a good point, in that this reveal takes away the mc’s uniqueness amongst NPCs. there isn’t really a reason why we are the mc, since NPC’s can also accomplish what we can. like, i think this angle would work in a medium(movie, TV) that wasn’t so interactive, but i digress.

i do think that catherine has a limited understanding of Aideen, however. in the southern harvest counties memory, we see Evergray perform magic to draw out Aideen. this doesn’t work, and we see Catherine’s horse Nemo disappear into the light of Aideen, breaking their bond. It seems to be implied that Catherine also went too close, as she disappeared briefly. since Aideen had the bond between horse and rider, and Catherine lost that, I think her understanding of Aideen shattered. Since she got too close to both light and darkness, she only sees the parts of Aideen, not herself as Aideen. this is also sort of based on @writingonjorvik‘s post about Aideen’s gift, as I liked Amelia’s thoughts on catherine’s incomplete understanding of Aideen. I highly recommend you read the post, which I will link at the end.

overall, I thought the ending was great. I did like the implication at the end that the previous incarnations of Aideen are all in the light of Aideen, along with catherine. I still have some questions, but overall, I thought the ending fit.

WOJ’s post: https://writingonjorvik.tumblr.com/post/617462048371179520/can-we-discuss-aideens-gift

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spoilers star stable sso star stable spoilers star stable thoughts thoughts by astrid catherine's memories

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sso-astridwestborn

6 years ago

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sso-astridwestborn

4 years ago

Right. I came across these on Facebook in a response to somebody (crossing their name out to be safe). I’ll translate first:

Hi [name]! Thank you for expressing your worry for the well-being of those of us working at Star Stable. We are aware that some players have recently discovered Glassdoor, which is a website where current and previous employees anonymously review companies. While we take all feedback about our company seriously, the anonymous reviews on Glassdoor are just one source of information among many. We are already working hard to solve some of the challenges that have arisen around the engineering (?) and will continue to do so in the future. We have a strong and happy friendship culture at Star Stable, which is also reflected in the same reviews. We appreciate your worry for us, but we promise that we are very happy to be part of building the fantastic world of Star Stable - and naturally that includes more quests and even bigger future surprises!

Now… I’m glad they do appear to actually be aware that people have found the reviews online. That’s a good start.

But I’m sceptical about some of this. I’d understand wanting to really ensure that people know they’re fine, but some of this comes across like, “They told me to say this” or something?

I realise it’s important to highlight that there’s both good and bad in reviews about SSE as a workplace, but saying “We have a strong and happy friendship culture” does come off a little “we’re a family here,” I suppose. As does “we promise that we are very happy to be part of…” actually. The very last part of the sentence talking about more quests and surprises in the future feels especially out of place for a response to a comment worrying about the well-being of employees. Sort of “Here, we’ll promise you highly requested content in vague terms, that should settle you, right?”

Look, maybe I’m reading too much into this response to a Facebook comment. Maybe I’m not. I don’t really want to project my own personal worries and versions of reality onto something that might be totally different from my perception of it. But my main takeaway from this is, I do think management needs to 1) Make a proper statement and not just social media comments (though, the more of these are made, the more it’ll have to push them to actually make a proper statement) and 2) Not just say things, but put words into action and fix whatever is wrong with working for them.

Promising that the staff are fine would absolutely calm some people down, why would you want to believe they’re lying about that, but it’s not enough here. They need to rethink how they respond to these types of situations, and I do think that to some extent - even if I don’t know to what extent - they are trying to diffuse the situation a tad with this. At least it comes off that way.

(My brain isn’t at 100% right now so feel free to add on or highlight something I might’ve missed or elaborate on what I’ve already said)