What's up, everybody? I'm the hook and I'm the blade and I'm the elegant design. Welcome to the Black Pod flag show about all things Assassin's Creed for Black Flag. I'm your host, Lawson, joined as always by Tim. And we have a guest host this week, the legendary White Wolf whispers, Moderator S extraordinaire. She is a part of the moderator team over on the Assassin's Creed subreddit. She's also a huge help on the marathon team, where she's pretty much single handedly made our playthrough of Odyssey possible. And she's part of the moderator team with our friends at the AC Sisterhood Discord server. Of course, I'm also the moderator of the Assassin's Creed subreddit Discord server. That is true. I can't leave that out. You cannot. That's important. It's a big discord.  It's a lot of fun. I have a lot of fun, pretty much anything I'm doing with Assassin's Creed. So I wish I could say that were true for me. We both just went for that same joke. We got Tim going. Hey, this early on, that's a good sign. It is, it is. In this episode, we are setting sail on the high seas in search of piracy and plunder to talk about Assassin's Creed for Black Flag. Now, I feel like the public should know, Wolf, is it true on the record that Black Flag is your favorite Assassin's Creed game? That's a pretty safe bet to say that. Yeah, yeah, I would definitely say that. And like, why is it your favorite AC game? Like, what is it that makes it so important to you personally? First and foremost is the story. I'm a huge fan of the story in in any game that I play anyway. I feel that Black Flag has the best story in in all of the Assassin's Creed games.   I do like the gameplay of that particular part or time frame, like the whole Kenway saga. I do like the gameplay.  So the combat in like Origins and Odyssey doesn't thrill me all that much. Right. Combat in Black Flag is easy. I'll be honest. Oh, yeah. So it's like an all in one package for me. And Tim, why is Black Flag your favorite Assassin's Creed game ever? There you go. We have no dissenting opinions on this podcast. Everyone agrees all the time. It's rule number one. Well, so as anyone that watched like our listing video, I believe mine ranked in at five, right? Yeah, number five. I know just no saving him. I can say that with this replay, it did change on my list. Oh, did it go up or down? It went down and then it went up to three. Oh, nice. OK. So it's in my top three now. There we go.  I guess it just would have jumped over AC one. And Brotherhood. OK, I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. But I was just curious. No, well, because my relationship with Black Flag is always interesting, because I've never, ever had an issue with it in terms of enjoyment. I always just had a problem with it from a perspective of like, does it scratch that Assassin's Creed itch that the other games do? And I had some different opinions this time around. And I'm interested in talking about. But yeah, it definitely feels like it's worth reevaluating its assassin-ness in the context of the last two Assassin's Creed games and potentially the next one, right, not being very assassinate at all. I feel like it changed it like it shifts the window a little bit that a lot of the people were like, yeah, Black Flag isn't an Assassin's Creed game like, well, it has assassins in it. So it's kind of kind of sets it apart now. Yeah, you want to trigger me, say that Assassin's Creed Black Flag is not an Assassin's Creed game and or just say it's just a pirate game. It's a good pirate game, but not a good Assassin's Creed game. You know, my hot take Assassin's Creed 4, good pirate game. Not a great assassin game. I don't know if anyone's ever said that before. Yeah, no, that there's a lot of Assassin's Creed elements in Black Flag. There are. And there are some that I think I actually forgot about, but there are also some elements that do exist that I remembered that didn't really change so much. Like there are some things that I still don't love. Sure. But there are some things I did change my mind on. So yeah, I mean, I totally get a lot of people who don't like part of the gameplay part of it, like if they don't like the naval combat, naval combat is a huge part of Black Flag. And I totally respect that. I totally get that. But yeah, again, to say that there's no elements of Assassin's Creed in it. Yeah, that's that just doesn't work for me. I agree with that. One of the things I always felt like before we started this podcast, this is the case, I used to kind of be like, oh, AC4 and AC2 are tied. But I can't really say that anymore. And I definitely have chosen that AC4, in my opinion, is all around the better game. That's because you have good taste. I feel like that it has more to say about the ideological conflict, you know, assassins versus Templars. It has more perspective on that element than a lot of the games that people do consider to be more assassinate, a lot of them. Some of the most assassiny games, like barely hold a candle to this in terms of actually presenting their conflict in a thoughtful way. I think a lot of that has to do, certainly, with the writing of the story. You know, Edward is not an assassin at the beginning. He doesn't even know assassins and Templars, and he's just an outsider. And as the game progresses and we see him become more and more involved with this whole assassins and Templars. And I think it's just presented in a really well done way. And Darby wrote an amazing story. Yeah, we're going to have to get like a Darby counter installed somewhere on like every time we say Darby. Because we cannot go an episode without smooching Darby on the cheek. We just can't do it. There certainly is something to be said about how off top my head, like I think it's like the sixth or seventh game. Yeah, it's the sixth. And yet it still feels like the presentation of the assassins in the creed in the beginning of it in the beginning sequence of the game. It still is like a new take that we haven't seen before, which I was pleasantly surprised about on this go of it because the way that it's presented through interactions with characters and whatnot to me is pretty impactful.  Let me join the assassins now. Yeah, exactly. Like it gets you firmly out of the world of like a cheap origin story or having to like suffer a great personal loss. Like all these tropes that assassins create seemingly like can't get itself out from under and and they're like nowhere to be seen here, which is so cool. I agree.  Interestingly enough, how many games are we in now? What is this, 13 or 14? Valhalla. Yeah, it's around there. Valhalla will be 12, I believe. And it's still Black Flag is the only game that really fits that description. Yeah, that's a good point. It just feels like having all the knowledge that we do about the assassins mythos and whatnot going in still, it really do a good job of putting you in Edward's shoes as in making you feel like it's your first time discovering this stuff. Yeah. And that sense of discovery is really lost in a lot of these games. Yeah, for sure. And I don't know. I can't put my finger on what it is. I think it could be like the time period and the characters. And it's just you I never expected an assassin template conflict to be this well realized in like a piracy conflict. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, because it's not the first thing you'd expect when you when someone tells you to picture an assassin's Creed game about pirates. Right. Yeah.  Oh, yeah, absolutely.  Right. All right, exactly. We did it. Everyone go home. I think too, with the with the pirates in Nassau, with their whole set up of of freedom and, you know, they were just looking to be on their own. I'm really glad that they didn't make the all the pirates on Nassau to be assassins because it just, yeah, I agree. It wouldn't have felt fresh. It wouldn't have felt true or real to, you know, to to what the assassins were where we're doing and, you know, kind of what they stood for. Edward really had to grow away from the pirates. He had to kind of give up his pirating ways in order to be common assassin. I'm really glad that they didn't, you know, make all the pirates be assassins. Right. Then he wouldn't have had to change his ways at all. Exactly. It would have been the story of brotherhood. Yeah, exactly. He would have always been on where he needs to be in the conflict, and that's it. But the way that we got, there's actual growth and change. And another thing that I'm just thinking about right now is, is I think a part of why it does feel fresh is, well, one, we have the introduction of the sage and that presents a whole different dynamic for the, you know, MacGuffin. And you have the sanctuary, the blood vials. You have like with the introduction of these new things, because if you look back at the Assassin's Creed games prior, they all deal with like the same like first sieve characters, Apple of Eden, you know, like the Apple of Eden is present. And it's present in all the games except for AC3. And yet there's, you know, there is a little crystal ball, but whatever. Yeah, this is the first time the MacGuffin was something actually interesting. And also the last time the MacGuffin was something actually interesting. I think there's something to be said, though, that like there is mythology added, you know, like, like sages didn't exist in the lore before this time. I do think just thinking about it at the moment, a part of its freshness is due to the fact that there is some like new elements, because while we know what the Assassin Templars are, but we are discovering these new elements too with Edward. And that helps us put, that helps put us in the seat, find these things out with Edward, because we don't know what a sage is. This is one of few Assassin's Creed games with like a genuine mystery in the story, because the whole game, Edward and the player are trying to figure out what is the observatory? You know, what does it do? What makes it so valuable? I said sanctuary, I'm sorry. We knew what you meant. Yeah, the observatory, not the sanctuary. I'll go over to the part where you said it and I'll just awkwardly paste in you saying observatory. Or you should put in your saying of observatory. Well, fix it in post, God damn it. We'll do it live. And no one will notice the difference in the way that the word sounds. They won't know who's saying what. Because we just have the same voice, apparently. Yes.  They're a lot more interesting to me than like, here's a sparkly sword, here's a ball with lines on it. Here's a blanket question mark, like all of those things. It also gives like autonomy to like the thing that the two sides are fighting over. Like, yeah, him being his own force, his own like entity among the fight. It's not like they're just passing around an apple of Eden. Like it's an actual person who is kind of a wild card and you don't know if you could trust him or not. And I think that also provides an extra layer of I don't want to say fresh too much, but it provides an extra layer of freshness because we're not used to like the assassin Templars fighting over a person. And something I want to highlight, too, that I feel like doesn't really get mentioned a lot is that not only is it cool that the quote unquote MacGuffin, so to speak, of the story is a human being who can make their own choices. But the the concepts behind the sage itself is an interesting story that gets fleshed out through all the like letters you can pick up in the open world of this idea that like you are a person who has the memories of a first civilization being and this unknowable, intangible desire to get to a place and to be with a woman. And all of these memories that are swirling around in your head and you have sort of no way of making sense of them for most of the sages that will ever exist. They'll pretty much just be practically schizophrenic with no other, you know, means of achieving that central goal to their their person, to their being. And there's something like really interestingly tragic about that and exploring that it's it's a very it's a very sci-fi like idea. It's a very I was just getting ready to say it's very sci-fi exactly. Yeah. And I I love when Assassin's Creed gets clever with it. Sci-fi like moments like having, you know, the the issue addressed Desmond directly through someone's past. Like when you get the sense in in watching one of these stories play out that that this this idea could only exist in the world of Assassin's Creed. That's just that's what makes it memorable. That's that's how you make it. That's how you make an Assassin's Creed game, baby. That's what you got to do.  Yeah. And we see that reflected in the God awful modern day in this game.  It's so bad. Oh, yeah. It's let's talk about the modern day, shall we? It is it is shockingly bad. It is so terrible. I don't hate it as much as you do. I don't. Yeah, I don't hate it as much either. It is such a slap in the face, but I do recognize that it is it is often very cringe inducing and the level of meta that they go for where we're supposed to be playing. It's good. It's basically Ubisoft without the sexual assault. Oh, no, you didn't just say that. I mean, it is. It's so it's so it's so pretentious. It's so self-aggrandizing, right? It's so like, well, especially with all of the books laying around the office. There's like Assassin's Creed three books like you're in the office and far cry books. Shoot me in the head. Liberation was a real game in this universe.    You don't like playing Frogger to the computers.  Dude, you know what you know, I found out, though, you can ride on a single beam of like data past the screen. Like, yeah, you can. If you ride to the bottom, it could you come out at the top again, unless unless it specifically has red bars. I didn't know that. I couldn't say myself so much so much anger because I would get impatient and keep moving along. I didn't know that I could just stop and and think. Oh, man, look, the frog, all the other ones.  Yeah, the green line. I think the only one I like is the one where you have to like hit the target number, the numbers, yeah, that one's kind of kind of a genuine puzzle and not just a frustrating bullshit minigame.  I think a lot of that was really. Yeah, you felt like, oh, I'm finding something really cool. I've never gone through and hacked all the computers, but I want to do that. I have not a surprise.  So I just hacked all the computers in rogue for a year or whatever. But I did not do it in Black Flag. Was it worth it? I liked it. I I liked the feeling of like actually having to explore the environment to find the places that I could hack and to find little goodies and Easter eggs. Like if it weren't for the cringy self-referential nature of it, I don't think I would have that much of an issue with the the gameplay format of the modern day where your first person and you're not a character and you're just exploring an area.  I do think the other problem that comes in, you know, we've talked about this a lot. A lot of the allure of the first game is the kind of psychological horror element that you're going to be strapped down into a into a table when I'm going to be forced to relive an ancestor's memories. A lot of that fear and anxiety based around that idea is completely gone.  Yeah, but I feel like that stuff was gone after the first game anyway. Like there was not really that sense when you're playing, say, AC3, that it's ever going to be on your mind that Desmond has to go through this weirdly psychologically traumatic experience. Right. But if they're going to introduce a new character, you know, I don't want to say protagonist, but like if they're going to introduce a new modern day character, they should have played with that stuff. I've never cared for the whole like of Sturgo has made a video games subsidiary and that's how they're going to collect genetic data. It's just it just seems like it's pretty forced. Well, it's very on the nose, of course. Also, just being a voiceless and faceless person also doesn't help things for me. It doesn't help with immersion. That's for sure. You don't feel that character. Absolutely. Yeah.   And they're like, they're like, yeah, we've got our best guy working on this.  We've got the employee of the week. He's on it. Or why the IT guys like I'm going to give you all the credentials and all the security like why me, dude, I just got here. How long have you worked as an IT guy that you're just starting to figure out how to do this? I just started. I just locked the door. And now you've got me in this weird conspiracy and you're like, I'm going to ruin your life. If you tell anybody it's it's it's it's all it's all pretty awkward. I'm not trying to say that like, oh, A.C. Brotherhood has a psychological horror element that no other like it doesn't. No, I know. But there is a certain aspect to like it's still it still is a taxing thing. Like an A.C. Three Desmond can go into the animus for two weeks and no one cares. Also, like it just seems like bleeding effect completely gone. It's all ironed out within this whole process now. And so there's no risk. There's no risk reward for the animus time. It's just get in there and get the information. It's not like there risk anything except for a little overtime hours. I have to say this. I feel like this really sums up. I think what a lot of people feel about it is I was playing. I was like booting up A.C. Four recently for the first time on my PS4. And my dad was like just sort of in the general vicinity. And he's kind of like watching me do the whole tutorial pirate thing and like learning them and you know, he's like, Oh, that's cool.   No, no, go back to the pirate game. I was like, I'm still in the pirate game. Why are you in an office building? I was like, look, it's complicated, dad, but dad, it's orientation. Look, Desmond Miles saves the world. Okay. And then yeah, it's just also really bizarre to go from a like full on skyscraper, you know, running around as Desmond on a skyscraper in Brazil during an MMA fight to first person like to revelations modern day gameplay. Ask just walking around the tablet in your face. It's it's really jarring. It's it's pretty weird. Anyway, I didn't mean to take us in that direction necessarily. I just it's fine. It's like the one thing I can really complain about in AC four. And yeah, it's fun to complain about things. I did like seeing Sean and Bex in the down in the lobby. But why do they use their full names? They use their real names. I know. What is he accomplishing as a coffee vendor? They're in the belly of the beast and they're like not even Hi, Rebecca. They're in the belly of the subsidiary of the beast. They're going to learn some hot details about the video game being developed and pretty much nothing else by pretending to be a coffee barista.  What is he going to learn? Haha. It's such a good point. What is he? He's there seven days a week. He's going to get some hot scoops about Pirates of Nightmares. Yeah, he's literally just. Oh my gosh, they make it a point that they can get in touch with the hacker like remotely. Why do they have to be in the building like she's a data courier, which is a job that doesn't exist like just email it. John, what are you doing? What does Rebecca have to do here anyway? So the actual game, right?  I just I feel like the whole concept of the ship and of traversal. I just I always feel so immersed in the loop of setting my destination on the map going to an island or a new town and just, you know, collecting the things that they're there to collect and, you know, exploring and doing whatever side missions and enjoying the area. And then all right, next next thing get back on the ship, go somewhere else, sing a shanty by pulling me into the the the pirate fantasy of it all.  It's like it just makes it more interesting to me when I have to get out of the I have to get off the boat and do some do some assassin stuff and hide in a bush and tail some motherfuckers like it just feels more satisfying. I don't know how to explain it. I definitely could feel on this replay the effects of my now deep nostalgia and appreciation for this game because where I'd say replay it for the marathon and go, oh, here are these missions that annoy the shit out of me and oh, this game gameplay is actually kind of inconsistent and there are some parts that don't really work. Now I kind of I play it and I just love the whole thing. I'm just like so glad to be playing a good Assassin's Creed game, the best Assassin's Creed game that I'm pretty much at this point willing to overlook all all flaws. Someone says, yeah, but there are a lot of tailing missions. I kind of even though I recognize that that's completely true. I'm like, yeah, but they're they're kind of fun though. I just love everything about it now. It's like what I hope marriage is like where you just start loving the thing. Well, okay. This is a weird metaphor. I'm not going to commit to it. 30 years in you realize it's not so bad after all. Yeah, but there's a lot of tailing. Oh Lord. There sure are. Oh my God. The yeah, the there definitely are a lot of tailing in the game, but I don't mind them so much. One of my all time favorite tailing missions of any Assassin's Creed game is actually in Black Flag the one at the end when you have to tail the Italian diplomat. I don't like that one. The I call him the NCO. The city has no plan.   I wish he would just keep talking. It is fun to hear Roger Craig Smith and he came back for some of the modern day stuff. Right. Yeah, the market analysis. Easy oh auditory or whatever it is he says. Matana Tenkin. Yes. And Altair Altair Altair. I don't remember I didn't do him this time and it's like you all can get him back for this and not for AC Chronicles China.  Yeah, but if you're going to if it's Ubisoft, you're going to find it in your accounting to pay the like hourly fee for Roger Craig Smith to say 12 things and you'll do it for for no reason in Black Flag, but you won't have him reapprises iconic character. I'm sure he would have done it. Oh, he said he would have done it. They just probably think it not being Roger Craig Smith validates that game less, which is good because it sucks fair point. But now you'll be able to read the story of the game in book form, but only if you speak French. True fact, speaking of of tailing missions though. The ship tailing. Well, those suck. Yes, they do. That wasn't what I was going with it, but they are terrible. I was going to say in a more general sense that this game has the best stealth in the series. Yeah, I do like sneaking through the plantations. I always thought that was fun. It is.  Yeah. And to do things however, like you particularly want to do them and strategize and like actually use your brain, which is cool. But yeah, I was going to say about ship tailing and ship stealth in general is that what I really hate about it is that if you want to not be looking at your mini map, you're stupid. You cannot. It is mini map stuff. Yes, you cannot play this game and not look at the mini map when you are ship tailing. And it's it really makes you feel like you're playing a little mobile mini game in the corner of your screen. What what is the need for all of the rest of the visual information on the screen? If it literally does not add anything to the fact that I have to just be like eyeballing the mini map for the entire duration of that mission. It's not fun. No, I agree. But the stealth on foot is quite good and I just I don't know why not to like go way off topic. I just don't know why if all the systems are pretty much the same why there aren't things like that in really AC three. I mean, I guess they're like six forts or whatever, but I don't want to talk about that game. Yeah, let's not. We don't have to talk about AC three. I never want to talk about it again for as long as I live. No, I mean, I'm just being shady. It is worth mentioning though that like it's terrible in AC three and it almost perfectly it pretty much perfectly works in black flag like black flag is so satisfying when you pull off like a set of maneuvers and you're going in like you're running in between bushes and taking out guards and it is so satisfying and it certainly like it's not going to punish you without a reason like it gives you plenty of stocking zones and they work properly even if even if an enemy is looking at you, you can still go into stocking zones, which wasn't an ace was what which wasn't an AC three. I will have to we'll have to see what jacers has to say about this, but I'm pretty sure that you move faster in this game than any other game like you move so quickly as Edward that's possible. Edward does move pretty well. That man can clear cross a field in no time and it's so satisfying because if I I know if I just be line it to the other set of bushes, I can make it. You can outrun the detection, which is cool. Exactly. And it's so much fun to do that. If you get if you get spotted and you have a little combat encounter, you're not going to be forced to fight everyone in the fort because the radius that spreads aggression to other like you'll have a little skirmish, but you'll feel like after that skirmish is over, you can then resume stealth and be stealthy for the rest of the mission if you succeed. Right.  There certainly is like something that's more enjoyable enjoyable about stealth games that or games with stealth systems that are robust that when you mess up, it doesn't feel like now your plan is out the window. If the game can help you feel like you are still in control of the situation and sometimes that means just killing off two guards really quickly and going back into stealth. And I think it's all the better in that scenario. Absolutely. And you know, this isn't a classic example of as we all know combat in Assassin's Creed for a black flag is piss easy. There's like if you upgrade your swords or health at all, you're kind of well, you know what? I'm not going to I'm not going to judge anybody. All I'm saying is it's piss. It's piss easy. And therefore the only thing preventing you from running into an encounter and killing everyone because it's the easiest path to whatever it is you're trying to achieve is that stealth is fun. That's the only reason not to and props to them for making stealth so fun that you do genuinely feel like it's worth trying to be stealthy even when it's technically not the easiest route to getting what you want. I certainly think that like the bells and in the radius of aggression like you're talking about it was a step in the direction that I wanted stealth to start going was less about like, oh, you're detected and now the entire level is aware of you or you're or you're desynchronized or whatever. I mean, I got detected more times and salvaged it than I have in any other game. Like I mentioned, I feel like Metal Gear Solid does this pretty well.  And it's a shame that how stealth is so enjoyable in this game. It didn't really translate over to Unity very well, I think because it's not as fun in Unity. And AC4 gives you a lot of things you can do with corpses, which I've learned recently is important to Wolf. Yes. Body piles are a whole lot of fun to make. Throwing them overboard into the water is always fun to do watching them float along for a while. Throwing them down wells. Although I'm not sure that there's too many wells in Black Flag, but it's always fun to throw them somewhere having fun with with corpses. It's it's morbid, but it's something that I do like doing. Wolf on record likes to have fun with corpses. There you go. It's it's it's out now. Okay, so I'm going to see where you two line up because even as recently as when I was with you Lawson, you were we're just putzing around AC4 just for a moment.  And on my replay, I realized I actually quite like it. Really? What was it before that you didn't like? Okay, so I don't like there being an automatic sprint. I've always enjoyed the RT and a at least an Xbox controllers. I never had a problem with that distinction. And so and so revelation is still being my favorite. I actually quite liked how they implemented it in AC4 and it's it goes back to what you were saying about how stealth is doesn't work at all in AC3 and yet in AC4 somehow the the free running system, which is exactly the same pretty much is so much more enjoyable. And there certainly were times where I would get hung up on things and climb things I didn't want to, but most of the time it worked in my favor and tree climbing and usually climbing on the boats and just most of it in general always worked well for me. I never I didn't have much of a problem. I always felt like when it did assume what I was trying to do it often assumed correctly. So that was surprising for me because I was expecting to hate it. Like there's some problems with it for sure. Like the idea that when you're running, you can accidentally like end up climbing something by accident like maybe a hundred times. I feel like interestingly enough in the context of what you're saying like, you know, you were at my house or kind of switching between all of the games and just running around in them and talking about our thoughts on the like game feel and the parkour and stuff. I feel like AC4 and the Kenway movement system in general feels really weird when you compare it directly against pretty much any other game. But when you get used to it, it really shines. Like when you are actually sitting down to play a game for 20 hours and you are having to do that movement system and like get accustomed to it, it can feel pretty great. I think. Wolf, what are your thoughts parkour was? Yeah, where do you line up on that? What do you think? I've never really had a issue with the parkour side of it. I do tend to hold that right trigger button pretty heavily. So I've just kind of gotten used to, you know, Edwards climbing up a building and then all of a sudden I've got him flying off the building because I'm still holding on to that right trigger button. But I do feel that he usually moves fairly well fairly easily. I don't usually have problems with the controls. Like I don't feel like I'm fighting the controls to get Edward to do what I want. Speaking of the controls, you were telling me beforehand that you were playing this on the Nintendo Switch. Interesting. How is that? The Switch in general, it's a very good port. It looks very good. And you know, when you think about how the game looks with textures and graphics, it looks pretty good for a ported game onto the Switch. At least for me, there is a little bit of issues with the controls. And I think that's just because I'm not used to the buttons on the Switch. Like X is not where X is on the Xbox and Y is not where Y is on the Xbox. So when it tells me to hit Y to do this, I'm not hitting Y. So that, you know, I think that's probably more of my just playing it on the console so much. You know, I'm used to the console controller. Interesting. So that sometimes is a little bit of an issue also to just the, I don't usually play the Switch with a controller. I just, you know, I hold the Switch. I have a Switch Lite. Oh, so you're playing Switch Lite. Okay. Yes. Yeah. I don't play on the full Switch where, you know, you can dock and have it on the TV with a controller or whatever. So sometimes the, my hands are in a different position. Again, it's all muscle memory. So my hands are in a different position holding the Switch than it would be holding a controller. Sometimes I have to reach a little bit more to to get a button, like to get the matte button. You have to reach up over the thumb stick controller or the thumb stick to push that matte button. And it's, it's, it's a little awkward. Interesting. There are some differences in the Switch. The, for example, in the, I'll just call it the original version, which is whether it's console or PC, but on the original version and the Abstergo challenges, you have 100. On the Switch, you have 96. And basically they have taken out all of the social, the social chest, the social, the royal convoys and the white whales. That sounds awesome. Yeah. Great. They also took out the, there's one challenge where you have to harpoon all of the sea animals. Again, because they took out all the, they took out the white whales. You don't. The white whale whispers. I was about to do it. So they, they took out those four challenges. So, you know, it's not significant number, but it is, it is notable. There's no, yeah, there's no community, there's no community events, but that's also pretty nice because the original versions, like nowadays you can no longer get the rewards that you get for, for doing the community events because there's no more community events going on. In the Switch version, they gave you all of those rewards default. So there's like skins for your ship and there's an outfit like you get the Haifam outfit now. Those are all now in the Switch version that are not available any longer on the, on the original version. Right.  The first time I played Black Flag when I was 13. Look, it's a pirate game. Can you blame me? I, I pirated it on my computer and you plundered it. I plundered it from the sea. I, and Ubisoft deserved it, which I didn't know at the time, but they didn't get my money for that one at that time. They got it this time. I gave in, but yeah, when you play pirated and you're not connecting to the internet at all, you don't get all those annoying pop-ups that are like, we shared the location of this chest with your friends. Yeah.  Your number 890,436 on the pirate leaderboards.  Yeah, there's no more leaderboards on the, on the Switch. Sounds lovely. Also too, because there's no more white whales can't, there's the whaler outfit and I don't know why they didn't just give you the outfit, but they still require you to craft the whaler outfit with, you have to go buy the three white whale skins. I almost said white wolf skins. It's so funny. You have to go buy the three white whale skins from the store. Why they didn't just give you the outfit. I'm not really sure.  In sex, all those outfits look terrible too. Yeah. I don't think there's a single good looking outfit. I usually, I use the politician one because it's the only one without shoulder plates. I like the, the red one. It's the governor's outfit or the that's the, that's the captain's outfit, I believe. Yeah, I'm not. Yeah, whatever the red one is, Edward Rocks. But the Mayan outfit is the best looking thing. What? It's only missing a hood. Otherwise it looks incredible. The Mayan armor that's bulletproof. Yes. Yeah. No, I don't care for that. What do you mean? It's so sleek looking. It's got robes at the bottom of it. It just needs a hood.  I think it looks like like Edward's a robot and I'm just not into that robot Edward look.  Oh, yeah, that's dope. Robot Edward. No, you would let you like that. Okay. Yeah. It looks awesome.  Like, I like the syndicate one where Evie gets to sparkle. Her Aegis outfit? Yeah, that one. So I wanted to mention something. I think the thing that I changed my mind about the most on this game before I get off of this topic. I didn't want to like, you know, abruptly end anything that you guys wanted to say left about like any of that stuff. Well, let me say one thing. I would like to hear by retract the statement I made that the politician outfit is the only one without shoulder pads. Not because I have learned that it isn't, but because I'm sure it might not be. And I just don't want Treviso to leave a comment telling me about another outfit that doesn't have shoulder pads. You know he will correct you.  Not many things in life are that dependable, but Treviso commenting to correct you sure is.  Yeah, I mean, I don't mean to like make a big deal about it. I just I want you to make a big deal about it. Originally, my whole my whole thing about AC four was like great game, but it doesn't scratch the Assassin's Creed itch. There's a lot of naval stuff. And and while I enjoy the naval stuff, there's a lot of naval stuff. Are you saying it's a better pirate game than an assassin game? Don't go there, Tim. Don't go there. That's the thing is I originally was of that opinion, but I've come around to accepting it as, you know, a completely serviceable and and like serviceable. But what I mean is it's allowed to like it's it's able to stand with Tim.  It's able to stand with like the classic AC games. Just let me just let me finish. So originally, I was of that opinion where it's like, all right, I don't really care about the naval stuff, you know, like there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff you can explore on the map, but like, does it really matter? And so on this replay, I realized and this is something that I've been thinking about a lot recently is is how gimmicky AC can become. And I think what separates a gimmick from like a fully fledged system is something like the rope launcher compared to the hookblade. So in this game, I don't feel like there's any gimmicks. The naval combat feels fully realized and the navigation feels fully realized the way that you traverse through the jungles and the way that you explore the world feels very Assassin's Creed like.  But there's a lot of like really in depth jungles that you can explore. And, you know, I want my AC games to be divisive and not in the sense of like I want it to upset players, but like I want them to take these kind of leaps. Leaps of faith, if you will. Yes. And kind of what you were saying earlier, like compared to origins or Odyssey, like this is nothing. Like I said, I was thinking a lot recently about like gimmicks versus fully realized systems. And I think AC shines the most when it is working off these fully realized systems. And I'm kind of fooling myself if I just expect it to stay the same all the time. I feel like AC4 shakes it up, changes things. But in a way, I still very satisfying in an Assassin's Creed way.  Yeah. It's very empowering because, you know, that's the best word I can I can describe. It's very empowering to hop on my jackdaw and just drive to wherever I need to go.  And so I guess to kind of summarize what I'm saying here is while I originally wasn't too big on the naval exploration, I thought a lot of the jungles and stuff were cool, but I like more of the city environments. It's not a problem for me anymore. I do like when an AC game kind of takes a chance like this and it works out really well. And the thing is, too, is if you're thinking about it from like each assassin brings his own unique flavor to the to the series, you know? And so I found myself just going through, you know, these jungles and whatnot and I just wasn't skipping a beat. I was having a lot of fun with it. I don't know. It just feels like enough time was devoted and enough attention was devoted to it to make it interesting. So compared to how much care and attention was put into some of these areas, I can't say that like, oh, well, Brotherhood's Rome is better because it's more urban. This has much more inventive navigation and parkour implemented into it. And I hope I'm making sense about all of this. No, I think you are. I think you are. I think, too, yeah, I mean, Black Flag does Assassin's Creed very well, but it also does the world very well when you're in the jungles and then when you're on the sea, no matter which one you're doing, it's a lot of fun. The one mission where celebrating Blackbeard's retirement and at first, Edward has to kind of run through the jungle and then he has to race through the ships that are on fire to get to his ship. I actually, I think it's Blackbeard's ship or somebody's ship. It just feels good, but there's no, it's just continuous. You're running through the jungles and running through the fires and you're jumping on the ship and you're sailing and yeah, seamless. There we go. Lawson beat me to it. I was Lawson, I said it first. I do, yeah, I really do enjoy the, I certainly enjoy all the stuff on land, but yeah, Black Flag, the sailing in this game, it feels so good.  And then when you're finally, you know, you've got your jacked all leveled up enough and you start taking on the man of wars, you feel so good. You feel like, oh yeah, I can bring that ship on. I'm going to take that one down. I'm going to add that to my fleet. Welcome to the fleet. Yes, welcome to the Kenways fleet. One of the, I don't like the Kenway fleet, but we don't have to talk much about that. I think you're spot on, Tim, about how well realized and fully integrated all of the different evolutions of gameplay are in this game. Like, I think about it a lot when there's the whole debate where, you know, a lot of people who are fans of the modern Assassin's Creed games, they like to bring up the point that like, the games can't stay the same forever, man. They have to change over time. I think even though I'm sure people would disagree with me, Black Flag is a great example of how it can change in a way that still respects the core pillars and the core fantasy because 100%, I wouldn't have agreed with you before. I know the existence of the naval gameplay never invalidates the assassin stuff. It's just augmented. It's just a new way of engaging with those pillars. I completely agree with you. Putting you in combat situations, letting you parkour above the rigging of the ship while you're boarding. There's just a lot of ways that it fits naturally. Going into Odyssey and having stealth be as gimped as it is, someone might who loves of the game say that that's a change that they just had to do because they have to change to be good and not play the same game over and over again.  Like, it's shooting every year and people still buy it. Things like adding in new stuff, mechanics, or changing the combat system every game, or adding in a new parkour system. All of those things very much still promote or better the three pillars, as you were saying. Exactly. I think we as players are more okay with like, okay, there's a crouch button now. There being a crouch button doesn't make stealth. It doesn't invalidate it, but it also doesn't make, it doesn't like discourage you from using the system.   There are things, examples of that, that do infringe on those things like completely lobotomizing parkour all together. And stealth. The reason why I now agree with you is because I think I realize about Black Flag, that navigation, the biggest shakeup of this game, I'd say, is the way it handles navigation, and it's still very respected. And it is put through the prism of Assassin's Creed. It's not like, hey, we've got a really cool pirate idea, and that's those assassins in it. I do now think it's the other way around. I was really excited about when they were reintroducing open world naval in Odyssey, because I've always felt like the idea of the system, that there's so much potential. Something I thought about, I had so much fun in the mission where you pilot the Mana War, and that was such a great experience. I would love a naval game that kind of gives you different modes of gameplay and different ships to use based on where you are and what ship you choose. That'd be great somewhere down the line. But let me go Mana War style in all of the different, make it work. But Odyssey, and I know Tim, you don't know this because you haven't played it. Odyssey is so, like, it's so extraneous. It's not tied to the fantasy or the role playing of the game in any way. It's just there. It's something you can do.  It's not thoughtfully integrated in the same way. Yeah, I see the Jackdaw as a character in Black Flag. I see the Jackdaw as something that Edward really can't live without. And you care about it as a player. When it's under attack, you're like, oh, fuck, not my Jackdaw. Don't, yeah, don't beat up my ship too much. But I just put it in, like, in Odyssey, not to, you know, not to talk down on Odyssey. You can't. It's okay. It's allowed. We do that for most of our episodes. But I never felt like that the ship was that important.   It also helps that all the customization feels natural. Yeah. And so not once was I like, hey, you know, I don't like being able to put these sales on my Jackdaw. It all, it all felt natural to me. And I have my gripes with certain levels of customization.  I think Black Flag does it pretty well. I do want to bring up like, you know, it's, it's not perfect that, you know, the, the naval focus and whatnot. Like for instance, I didn't feel like there was a lot of instances where I was being brought to the cities. Obviously there are main missions that take place in the cities, but I wish the cities were either more numerous or bigger. And this kind of comes into my, my main gripe with the game is I feel like Edward's switch to assassin comes way too late in the game. I disagree. It comes in, in like the last couple sequences. The whole time I was like, I can't wait for Edward to become an assassin because then I can actually like fully a hundred percent be in the fantasy of I'm Edward Kenway the assassin. Yeah. Like I couldn't wait for it, but you do assassinate things. You, the Italian diplom, a politician thing, like we were talking about it stealing his disguise and infiltrating the party. It's so subtle, but it's completely assassin's treat. And it felt so right in this game. And so the other side of the coin, one, I'm praising all of these things that the game did. It doesn't do enough of the assassin stuff that was so great towards the end there. Like some of the best assassination mission stuff is in this game, but it's at like the last bit of the game. I hear you. I think I respect that this game is like an assassin origin story more than an assassin game. It even does a better job of turning someone into an assassin than the one that's called origins. But I mean, I get that if that's what you're looking for, you may not get it, but there's enough assassinating, so to speak, that I never really felt like it's not like you're playing like the first half of AC three where you're not an assassin yet and you just, oh my God, can I hit the fast forward button so I can be an assassin finally because I feel so gimped without those abilities and weapons and costumes and stuff. I think at one point it's touched upon a little bit as to why Edward has or can do these assassinate things when he and James Kidd slash Mary Reed are running through the caves or through the, I don't even remember what they're running through. There's a stopping point where she asks him about his sense and why he can do this. And he's basically like, I've always been able to do it. And I appreciate that they put that in there so much earlier in the game because it does kind of add to why is Edward an assassin? Why can he do all these things? It's also one of the only games to handle the eagle sense in such a way. It's one of the only games that carries it all about making it make sense. Right, because it's not just like, oh, I can see through walls. It's like a full on like, it allows me to be more in tune with my surroundings, et cetera. It's also just kind of like not to be crude, but it's certainly like blue balls you when Edward's like, I have a long way to do I'm an actual assassin.  You know, it's like, I get it. Okay. So the game starts off and it's like, oh, wow. And you know, the assassins is pretty dope. And then it just disappears for a while. So you're dealing with Templar is pretty much the whole game, but you're not dealing with a whole lot of assassins and the assassins are almost nonexistent in this game for the middle portion of it. Ah, to buy. I think I'm saying it right. He's hardly a character. Okay. Yeah, that's fair. You bet you get most of your assassin perspective from from James slash Mary, who's a great character. Just having one, one assassin liaison. That's at least out of Wally later in the game. He's like, join the assassins, brother. No, and I do think that's cool.  He's disguising himself and killing people and he's following the creed. They also don't mention the tenants whatsoever in this game. That's not true even a little bit. What are you talking about? They don't, they don't mention the tenants at all. There are two deep conversations about the tenants that show Edwards progression. No, about nothing is true. Everything is permitted. Not about the tenants. That is one of the tenants. That's not, no, that's the maximum. That's not the tenant. It is one of the tenants. Yeah. The tenants are the flesh of the innocent. Hide in plain sight. Never compromise. Hide in plain sight. Never. Yeah. Okay, you're right. They never talk about those. You're right. I'm wrong. I'm sorry.   I'm going to put in some, I'm going to put in some Travis Scott ad libs under this section. No, but I want to give them some credit.   It's the idea that he's going to, he's going to say there and he's going to say, look, I know I have a long road ahead of me before I earn your trust and this responsibility, but I'm going to do it anyway because it's the right thing to do. I feel like that would be cheap and slightly if in the end, he got the cool shit already and there was nothing to work up towards. Like if, if we show him being initiated at the end, I mean that could have been, that could have been fine. It could have been good. It just, I like better the idea that, that it's not that simple and that Edward still has a lot of work to do because I think that makes the commitment stronger. I don't want him to like be knighted in, you know, at the end. I like that he is having a long road to climb, but I still think though that like, like for instance him putting the assassin insignia on a ship, like there's a lot of things that are assassin adjacent and I get that he's not like a fully fledged like an assassin, you know, but I ought to buy makes plenty of exceptions throughout the game of like giving him hidden blades and giving him his robes back and stuff. Like I know you guys are going to disagree with me on this, but I feel like just Mary Reed passing just terrible. I that being the catalyst for him to join the assassins. I needed more. It's not the cat. It's not just the catalyst for him joining the assassins. He that that's his whole reason. He's like, I need to do right by her. He gets screwed over and betrayed, but I think that's one reason, but I think that the bigger thing is that he has now realized that the lifestyle of piracy, it's it's untenable and that his commitment to greedy pursuits has cost him everyone who's ever been important to him. It's not just Mary. His whole group of homies is now dead, right? Like yeah, just because he says I want to do right by her doesn't mean that's the only reason he's joining them. I agree with you that that's what the reason is, but it didn't really do do it for me.  That was amazing. Like it's just one instance though. It's like it's like night and day. Bam. Now now I need to go join the assassins. It's like there's well, yeah, there's probably a little difference between losing everything and losing most things. I think the the the assassination of Ben Harnagold is also a really big point for Edward. He really looked up to Ben Harnagold and, you know, Ben showed him the ropes showed him how to do all this pirate stuff. And then when Ben basically betrays them and, you know, turns Templar and whatever, it's really hard for Edward. It's really hard on he takes that betrayal. She speaks the truth, Timothy. I I'm not disagreeing that these things happened. They just don't they just didn't like stick the landing for me.  Because normally I respect your opinions, but this is an opinion I have no respect for. I like I like it. It's good, but it just doesn't like it doesn't stick the landing. It doesn't get there 100% for me. Like Edward's like, OK, well now that now that she died, I guess I'll join you guys. Like fuck, you know, it's just like they're there may not be a single worst take in any previous episode of Hookblade than what I'm currently hearing right now. Oh, no. Wolf, you've witnessed history. The worst take. Tim is capable. Hi, I'm I'm right here. I'm hearing it. I'm hearing it. Do you completely disagree with me? Do you see at all what I'm saying? I I I don't agree that Mary's death was the sole reason why he finally decided to to join the assassins. No, there was a lot of things leading up to that.  We see him go from being this rather selfish person and it's not so much that he was selfish that he wanted to keep all the gold for himself, but he did want to be rich so he could, you know, he kept saying so he could have a better life. So, you know, he could take care of of his wife. That's it starts out as I need to make enough money for me and my family, but then later she left him already. He's not doing it for his family. He's doing it for himself. That's the point. He is doing it for himself. Right. Yeah, I'm just saying like he already starts out as kind of a deplorable person. Sure. He's not like well intentioned. He does. Yeah, he does. He's selfish at the beginning, which is fine. I'm not saying that's the problem. I'm just saying it's not like he's like he's not thinking about his making money for his family when he's running off. I do think though it's important to note that like he wants he wants riches and glory for everyone around him, not just himself. Like he's committed to the idea of Nassau as this as this experiment and as this opportunity for for these people that he's not he's not the kind of guy right who would like screw over Blackbeard or screw over Ben or anyone else. Yeah, yeah. That's I think that was more what maybe Wolf was saying about like it's not just for himself, but it is the ego driven not to speak for you Wolf if I'm misinterpreting. No, no, it's fine. But it is not to Wolf's plan. It's just it's a what's the word? It's a personal thing.  I mean, we get that from the beginning with Carolyn Caroline Caroline telling him repeatedly.   I digress for me anyway. The beauty of the story is watching this man just just his the growth throughout the whole story.  I want it all if everything's ready. I just you know give it. I'm going to take it. I'm going to take everything I can get. But then by the end you know towards the end of the game he realizes you know he even says to to add a wall a you know there's there's nobody left there's you know I'm I'm all alone here basically and he's he's realized that his life is so much better and I think that's reason why I like Mary Reid so much because she saw the potential in him. She saw the good in him when he didn't see that in himself. Yeah, you know I said at the very beginning of this it's the it's the story of Black Flag that that I that I love the most. I agree that that's the intention.  Come on. You're going to say that they did not execute that goal perfectly flawlessly beautifully. Yes, that's yeah. Yes, yes, yes. So your your heart doesn't break when you hear the parting glass or all the money. Not even a letter. You have a stone.   Oh, who cares? Guys, this podcast has been fun. We're not coming back next week. Tim and I have some irreconcilable differences creative direction. It's just it's not going to work. I completely appreciate like you're using the story. I just the entire time I'm like, this is great. I love this is excellent. You know, like my favorite line in the game is you made a soldier out of a scoundrel. I'm a I'm in a world without here in a world without gold. We might have been heroes in a world without heroes. We may have been gold in a world without heroes. We might have been Assassin's Creed gold available now on audible originals. It's just nice segue. It just didn't do it for me. It didn't it didn't set the landing. I want to see so much hate mail in the comments directed specifically at Tim. You guys have no idea. It would make my day bump up to it. Look, it's better than Brotherhood story.  It's better than Brotherhood story. Am I being too mean or are you okay? I don't want to hurt your feelings, Tim. I'll be leaving a comment. It's look. It's just the whole like parting glass thing. It's like half of those people aren't even my friends. Why are you showing me them and this flash and this vision? Like I did. I did laugh a little at Jack Rackham looking wistfully into the camera because like he betrayed me. He left me for dead.  Did you forget that he let he left you to die? He always made you laugh. Oh, when you almost died because of him. Oh man, I can't argue with that. I mean, putting him on a direct collision course with all of the people like there are there is a pretty high number of his friends that he directly does kill like Ben Hornigold, Charles Vane. Charles Vane doesn't die. He doesn't. He lets him live. He lets him live and then you see him later in the prison. Oh, you know that I always forgot to do where you also see Jack Rackham in the same prison. Every time it says on the optional objective like go see two of your friends, I always think wait, it wants me to talk to Mary and Anne and then I get to that part and then I see that I've filled that objective and I'm like, I didn't know I had any other friends in this prison. When you're walking around the prison, you can actually hear Charles Vane singing. He's singing the down among the dead song. We've we've established many times on on this podcast that I'm not a smart man and this is just one of those things that the truth. Maybe not smart, but maybe not observant. I wouldn't say smart. You are smart. I'm like flattered and also not because you just made my own self-burn more specific. So it's slightly realer now, but at the same time, you know, I can still be smart. Yeah, it's like, it's like if she was like, yeah, you are, you know, you are smart. You're just like, which would also be true. Um, but we don't have to talk about that. Oh, that's why it's not a video podcast. You almost beat Greg in the sexiest man of a, yeah, maybe in 2015, brother. Greg's Greg's our friend blue, by the way. You should check out our episode with him. You haven't the dear listeners. So we've learned a lot on this podcast. We learned what White Wolf Whisper's voice sounds like. We've learned how deeply wrong Tim can be about a thing. And but like with Edward and his merry band of pirate friends, not everything good can last. And so unfortunately we must part in glass or something. I don't know. As always, guys, there are a number of ways you can support the show if you enjoy listening to it. If you're listening on YouTube, we appreciate it quite a bit if you subscribe, like, comment and click the bell so you can be notified of new episodes. If you're not listening on YouTube, you're dead to us. Just kidding. We love you. You can reach us on Twitter at hookblade with any questions, concerns, hate mail or praise mail. Wolfie, you can find on the Assassin's Creed subreddit as White Wolf whispers on the Assassin's Creed subreddit discord as White Wolf whispers and on the Assassin's Creed sisterhood discord as White Wolf whispers. And she is the queen of all of those domains. Before we go, I just really want to tell you guys, thank you so much for letting me do this. Ah, thank you for joining us. It's been great. Your comments keep us going every single week. Anytime we have doubt about do we really want to keep doing this? We go, but Wolfie would be so sad if we didn't keep. I would be so sad. Oh, no. Also, before we go, I just want to tell both of you guys. Congratulations. I know it's on last week's podcast. You're over 400 subscribers now. You guys are doing well. We did not tell her to say that. It has been so much fun. Wolf, thank you for joining us. Thank you. We had a great time. Thank you so much. I've been the blade. I've been the hook. And I'm the elegant design. And we will see you next week. What's the word? It doesn't, um, what's the word? Damn it. It doesn't, um, shoot. What's the goddamn word? It doesn't, um, come and get your tenants.


We came to Kadakancheri to see Raghulji. We were very happy to see Raghulji. We asked him a lot of questions. How much is she getting paid? Rs. 6000. How much work does she do? She doesn't have any incentive. We asked her a lot of questions. She has a lot of difficulties. She has to go to every house in the morning. She has a lot of vaccinations. Why does she do it for Rs. 6000? No other option. No other job. What is the problem she does? She told me earlier that she is looking after the pregnant women and her newborn babies. Why is that difficult? Because they have to bring them to the hospital also. For their vaccination. Will you come to America? Yes, I will come. I will come. Yes, you can come. I will come. We don't have any pain in any way. So, we have to deal with all our problems. We have to deal with all our problems. So, we have to deal with all our problems.


community leaders here. So we got tech lady and women who call girls in tech and the young women. I know sometimes this name confuses people with coding girls as well. So yeah let's go with what you do, who are you, what organization, what the program is. So hello my name is Eli Shen. I'm the founder of Tech Ladies. So Tech Ladies is a community for women to connect, grow and learn as programmers in the tech industry.  I guess like one of the most famous program that we do is this Tech Ladies Bootcamp. It's a 12-week part-time bootcamp where we take women or with a near zero technical background and put them through a bootcamp to eventually become programmers. So since launch last year we have trained about 23 women and seven of them actually got internship or junior software engineers now, really really proud of these ladies. So for Tech Ladies that's my passion project. During the day I work at Facebook as the developer programs regionally for Asia-Pacific. Hi, okay people can you hear me? I'm Purnima Kamit. I'm a director for Women Who Code in Singapore. Women Who Code is a global nonprofit and we launched in Singapore in January this year. Our aim is to inspire more women in tech careers and in order to do that we also host events, tech related events for a women only audience, speaker sessions, coding sessions, workshops and such. So I mean our main belief is to actually build a strong network which helps learn and develop new skill sets in order to realize opportunities, you know tech career related opportunities in Singapore. And my motivation, we always talk about a lack of women in senior management on boards as founders. So I think we could start by learning new things, creating new things and that's how we fix the pipeline. Hi everyone, I'm Wan Ting. I lead the Singapore chapter for Girls in Tech. So Girls in Tech is actually a global organization. We are 10 years old now. We have over 60 chapters around the world and the mission of Girls in Tech is to empower, engage and educate girls and women who are passionate in technology to have a voice in the industry. And here in Singapore our mandate is we have three main chapters, three main pillars that we are focusing on. The first part is definitely on pipeline. We see that there is a pipeline issue that needs to be addressed. How do we encourage more girls to step into STEM industries and not be afraid because now it's more male dominated but it should change in the near future. And the second part is on building out confidence and leadership skills and goals and letting them take up leadership positions like what you mentioned. So that's the second part and the third part is really on skills and technical skill sets like teaching them on coding skills and having design thinking book camps and things like that. I'm Mini and I work for UN Women which is the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and we work on a lot of issues around ending rounds against women, economic empowerment, women in leadership but one of the cool things that we launched four years ago is initiative called Girls to Pioneers which works on exactly that, the pipeline, creating the next generation pipeline of female workforce in STEM. So we work with young students on getting them to understand STEM, giving them access to STEM opportunities, just giving them an overview of what it looks like to work in and all the amazing women on the panels before this are role models for them. We also work with parents and teachers on integrating STEM into early learning especially for young girls and with employers on hiring and retention of female STEM talent. Cool, so I have a full-off question for Mini. You are coming from UN Women so you have been working since 2010 so it's been like seven years. So during all your career what is the biggest achievement through your career? That's a difficult question for me. I'm a bit of a glasses half-empty person so I'm going to say because we haven't achieved gender equality, we haven't achieved anything. For me I think Girls to Pioneers has been that success because when we first started it I wasn't sure how it would go or whether we would have any progress in inspiring young girls but in a very short time 17,000 girls have now just indicated that they're entrusted in understanding more about STEM. They've been a part of our programs, they're going forward in doing this and the first lot of them have just gone or are just going to university this year so we're going to see how many of them are actually pursuing STEM careers. So I'll get back to you after I check that. So we are all with female folks group and through all the the program we are trying to running, trying to promoting women to present me to tech fields. So what do you think is the most effective way to to increase the gender ratio in tech fields? Yeah like well what's your ideas? Probably I can go. So to me I think it's a lot on community building and also about celebrating female role models so to encourage in any situation it's really difficult to be a minority and feel like you're alone. That's why Girls in Tech and I'm sure like the other community leaders would feel the same that to have a strong community of support and say that everyone is here for you and don't be afraid. There are people who have been there and done that and you can just go ahead and just do it. I also think that network plays a big role I mean right now I feel we also have we don't have many women role models like you said it's our responsibility to build that as well for future generations and you know also doing more creating more and then learning keep keep challenging yourself. I think that's raising your hand whenever there's an opportunity available that helps. So like how I see it is really to see everything in in on a big picture right like what are the I see us working together not necessarily collaborating but rather let's not duplicate each other's work. So if you're targeting girls I don't need to do girls I can focus on women if you're running workshops I don't need to do more workshops I can focus on bootcamp. So in so in the grand scheme of things you can see that we are very clearly serving girls and women females in general in a very nice a very neat sort of like collaborative cohesive kind of a structure. So that's how I see how we can help in in getting more women girls interested participating in the industry. I want to take a step back actually and start with mindset change at a younger age but also for the community that influences these young girls because we interact with a lot of teachers who tell us but girls just don't get it like why do you even bother girls don't get it or why do you want to inspire girls to go into tech and engineering because engineers are so androgynous and we want our girls to be ladies and these are female teachers who had signs for some of the most prestigious schools and so for us we want to take step back and change that mindset because that is already going to limit girls at a very young age from accessing these careers. Even for myself I started in 7th year but during my study I didn't go so I just assume okay coding is not my thing but after I self know okay it's not so difficult as I imagine so I think the perception need to change definitely it's it's very very big problem yeah so I have another question so as organizer do you have any time that you are frustrated while we are doing because like the problem while trying to solve is so huge and how do you have any time think oh this is cannot work and what was the first for stretching it is just share with the audience and see how we can help. So I can go first confession I didn't think that the bootcamp will work the model of a technical bootcamp will work so so the the model is we take senior engineers to train women how to code and this woman learn how to code by creating products for nonprofits so there's three different distinct groups of people which yeah like how can it work right sounds like a very difficult task so my my train of thoughts was that you know just just try that like what was the worst thing that can happen right if you fail then let's pretend it never happened I was just going to move on with my life so so it really isn't it doesn't have to be that difficult to start so so if you have an idea you have a passion just just start and the worst thing can do is that it fails then you can pretend never happen move on with your life okay so in terms of like continuing doing stuff like this of course it's definitely challenging just just look at the scale of today's event I think you've done an amazing job you should give them a let's give her a round of applause thank you so so as an organizer it's definitely a lot of things to do a lot of things that you need little things I need to take care of and it's even more difficult when you have a full-time job because I think that's a question for that so I'll talk more about it later so again a voice back to why are you doing this what's your passion and that passion that passion led me to start something and the results of my work motivates me to continue doing it so so that's how it's it works for me thank you so I think I mean we've been just six months old in Singapore so I won't label it as a frustration yet so I mean when we host events I mean there's a lot of planning that goes in I mean you as you would have done for this one and it's it's a really really about participation I mean we expect around like 70 people and it's 25 turn up and then so I think we really need more participation from audience because we are willing to go a step ahead and do more and it's just would be great to see more people come so I think these two problems are really very real problems so one it's on participation and one is on getting volunteers and like help to do things right so participation it's for example we just had a mother daughter coding workshop I think it's an excellent initiative you know to try and change mindsets on like mom they should learn how to code and bring their daughter alone to learn that but initially the reaction was really really slow so the frustration is more like disappointment and also why is it that people are not getting this like how do we reach out to more people so that they can feel this that they need to do something about this and yeah with passion and actually really turned out really well we had a full house event on that day and and really is just pushing through and doing whatever you can to spread the word and getting everyone who is passionate about it to do the same and that's how I think for me my frustration goes back to the mindset change things when we meet people who say no girls can't do this or they just not it's not possible it's not in their makeup it's it's just not in their genes and like who decides that that's really very frustrating but at the same time I mean is the same the first year we ran it there was this teacher told me well you know my principal wants you to do this I'm gonna let you do it with our students but I can tell you there's going to be no impact and now four years down the line she's still calling us back every year saying you know your program does so much for our girls and we're so excited and the first year we had a hundred students participating this year we have thousand students from the school participating in the program so yeah I guess it's just how you can turn that experience to something positive for myself so most of the time already went up free so when you post the free events people just created to sign up but they and then they never show up which as organizer have to say it's kind of disappointing because our speakers my guest and I have this full crowd in the house and our speaker can sharing their knowledge and have more impact to the bigger group so what keep myself motivated is when the event and maybe one or two audience come to you and say wow and I love this event so that's how I keep myself motivated and I think maybe still because of the problem we're trying to save is already there like 20 years 13 years so we have to be pension about heads so what we want although there's some disappointment frustration but it's better than not doing it if we don't do it who else will be so eventually I think we still can change the world and there's a lot of organization notes that we can share like for forgetting people to show up what I do is usually a week and all day before the event I beg people to cancel their tickets so I'll be I'll send an email saying please please please cancel if you're not coming so I can have a better gauge of who's coming what I've also have an email list so that that work because response from that is higher than people randomly seeing the Facebook also whatnot and I also use Facebook ads that's very good for outreach so yeah so yeah for Elijah and the partner you both have your full-time job and how you balance your full-time job and then your community activities it used to be overwhelming to begin with to be very honest with you because the network related stuff is always so exciting then you're boring day job right so but then you learn to prioritize then you also have a good support system at home and you try to convince your manager that you don't you cannot attend the late night meetings but yeah you do make it work because it is a purpose and a movement that you truly believe in and you really want to work towards so yeah I guess you make it happen so how I balance my full-time job and my passion project on the answer is badly so it sounds very sad but it's not very depressing but it's pretty rewarding so I'll stay about one or two hours after work every day just to work on tech ladies and I eat almost three meals at my desk so this I'm just trying to find at pockets of time where I can work on tech ladies and I I know that this is not sustainable so right now my focus is to create like an onboarding dog so that so that volunteers can can take over it I know sounds very depressing but at the same time right when you look at the results that that come out from your work it's very rewarding and I do think that there's also it helps it I didn't do it for my career but what I realized is that doing tech ladies actually helped with my career because so my in my current role my the manager who hired me wanted to hire me because like whatever I'm doing for tech ladies is the skill set that I'm doing now for Facebook so that's something that's it works right so so so I guess like what I'm trying to tell you is that the journey is going to suck but the rewards are going to be awesome I must say tech ladies is doing a really good job I joined I'm in their group and the effort that you take to welcome all your members and to share their stories every time and to you know share success stories I think it's it's very good job maybe we should have other workshop for the organizer how to marketing your organization and the Elisha can be the coach for this yeah so another question is like as Elisha just said okay actually we are we have a same focus but actually the program we run it's kind of like differentiate from each other so how we can work together what how we can you know mix the huge impact by working together actually before before the working together but this is one particular bit that we do within women who court it's it's this program call us applaud her so what what applaud her basically does is so we have networks in 67 cities across the world and each network has its own like the directors and the network leads and so we have an opportunity to applaud about our network members so let's say if somebody is has got a new job has completed a new project has contributed to open source so we can submit applaud her submissions and basically the whole network raves about them we go on to Facebook we go on to Twitter we go on LinkedIn and just talking about start talking about that individual so we essentially make that person famous for like a month so I think one of the ways that we can all work together is actually encourage and applaud more women within Singapore I think that will actually also serve as a good yeah it does encourage when some people could talk good about you right so I think I would like to work to get that across the board how we can work together yeah so I'm thinking I had been in talks with another female founders network with about they are trying to run a hackathon in school and we were thinking of how we can work together with that and I think some of the things that came out is like sharing context like I have some contacts with schools and they are having troubles reaching out to schools and getting buy-in from principals and I think that's where we can help they have a very strong bootcamp that they want to put in place just lacking the context and I think that's where we can always come together and say we can share resources and can share things like that to work together I think ultimately we're all working towards the same goal right so it's just about pooling our resources coming together figuring out our individual strengths and then leveraging it to make sure that everybody's impact is sort of amplified that's all I just want to add on to that like my my audacious goal is to I think what would be nice if we can sit down and plan like our yearly schedule together so that for the community there's always something every every month rather than like all of our events happening in one month we get a strong momentum and it's not sustained I think that's not good for the community that we're trying to serve here but having said that I say it's audacious because like at least for me you know when I plan my event out for a year I plan it around my work schedule so that you know I can be there so I'm wondering like how how well we can actually put together at our different schedules but I think that would be great. Ghosts of Panias is my work schedule so I can pull it in the gaps. Good good, due to the time constriction one last question so if there's one thing you help the audience can do for your initiatives why it will be? She almost said Ghosts of Panias needs volunteers so if you want to come and volunteer we run camps through the year and like I mentioned we have one coming up for thousand kids and there's grand total of two staff who work on this so we can't run that many camps we desperately need volunteers please come. There's so many amazing women here and you know mentors and role models play such an important part in changing mindsets and in helping the youth understand what is out there for them so please do if you have the time if you have the interest please to contact us and I guess that's that's a major start for us. I think for us I would really appreciate if you could reach out and share with us your voice we need help we need to know how we can help you as well so if you have something you can let us can help us with and something that we can help you back in return I think it will it will keep the momentum going and that's how it strengthens the community. Yeah definitely I mean spread the word yeah I mean spread the word create more and applaud more. So yeah I think it's pretty similar I guess like for me is to participate participate as in contribute your skills participate as in join the events and whatnot because we're here to we're here to help you or like if you realize that everyone has been helped then we can I can retire a little bit. Yeah cool so yeah I think what we're doing is really leads the community is working together so I hope the audience here can nature come to us and offer your help and we we also can help you back. Okay thanks. Thank you so much Pernima, Wanting and Marlene and Alicia for also inspiring us some of you it's your full-time job some of you do it on the side out of passion to make a difference and now it's great to know we have so many different support groups that we can go to and get different kinds of resources and different kinds of support if we are ever interested in venturing into the entrepreneurship or technical field.