#Tribes 2 online play

[comfortmmorg]

Tribes 2 online play

However, the chances for peace between The Tribes of Man are worse than ever. The Children of the Phoenix are preparing to hold the Seventh Firetruce as they continue to strive for peace and the unification of all tribes. The storyline opens in the middle of 3941, one year after the original Tribes. When traveling across each landscape gamers will not only have to deal with the enemy but weather and ground surfaces as well.Īlthough being a multiplayer game without any in-game story being followed, Tribes 2 does feature a background story involving each of the tribes. However, this time around many of the maps are larger in order to persuade players to work together more often and find more uses for the vehicles. Each armor comes with a jetpack for increased mobility around each map. The three ground vehicles included are the Wildcat-Class Grav Cycle, BeoWulf Assault Vehicle, and Jericho-Class Mobile Point Base.Īlso very much like Starsiege: Tribes, Tribes 2 maps focus on outdoor battles. Another familiar feature will be the air vehicles while something new to all users will be the ground vehicles. Most of the weapons will also be familiar as far as type but many have been modified providing a new result. Those who played the original game will find that the armor sets are the same here with a few slight differences. Tribes 2 features three armor sets - light, medium and heavy - as well as a variety of weapons. Players are expected to work as a team as they attack the enemy while also defending their own base. When going online players simply ping a list of servers and then join a game. Games are again aimed at multiplayer online play but there are now computer-controlled players (bots) that allow users to play offline. Set in the Starsiege universe, Tribes 2 features the same multiplayer team play found in the original with the following modes of play: Capture the Flag, Capture and Hold, Deathmatch, Rabbit, Siege, Bounty, and Flag Hunters. Tribes 2 is the follow up to Starsiege: Tribes, a first-person shooter geared toward online-only play released at the end of 1998.

[nicromancytarot]

DESCRIBING YOUR SOUL TRIBE PART 2

This is a general reading based on a collective of people. Take what resonates and leave what doesn’t. If you don’t feel the pile resonates with you, don’t be scared to try another, if it still doesn’t feel right, that’s ok! Maybe our energies aren’t as connected and my readings are not for you.

I do these strictly for fun and educational purposes. I do not charge for these readings, and I do not fake readings. I would tell you the cards I get for the readings, but I pull like 15-20 cards each reading and that is just slightly a strenuous task to write them all down lmao.

PICK A CARD READING

I asked my spirit guides about your soul tribe (again) and how you will know that you’ve met them, pick a pile and find out what they had to say!

Pile 1 ———> Pile 2 ———> Pile 3

PILE 1

Your soul tribe will come to you during a time when you feel lost and alone, you may be around superficial friends, I’m hearing “financial” so these previous friends could abuse or exploit you financially. You will be having a really hard time before you meet them, I think this will last for around 2-4 weeks, and you will notice a mental shift in your head. One second you appreciate your current friends and are willing to look past the many issues, and the next you’re in need of comfort and feel sick, possibly physically when you’re around them.

You may meet these people through some type of transaction, you may meet them when you’re at work and possibly serving them, or perhaps you’re at the same shop buying something. Even if not, it could be you have to work with them for a school or work project, something where you all gain from. With how random these meeting will be, you may feel picky and almost against making new friends and meeting new people, you could possibly feel as though the universe is giving you another lesson. These people may keep an eye on you when you meet, they may notice something energetically up with you, and feel the need to protect you or as if they have a duty of care. I heard the word “dirty” so heavy on people playing dirty with you.

I see that they will comfort you, and you will be willing to let go of those that don’t matter to you anymore, you could think that old friends do mean something for a little, but they will help you put it into perspective, and eventually walk away from the people who don’t deserve you.

I’m getting these people as only friends, possibly 2-3 people, no romantic soulmates for this pile, only platonic.

PILE 2

I feel as though you guys will meet your soul tribe at at time of heavy isolation, I’m weirdly getting that some of you could be grounded? Lmao. I think you’re going to be making a commitment during this time, I assume to some type of work or job, there’s something that you’re trying to raise money for. For a lot of you, I assume these people will be online friends, I definitely feel as though there will be a distance between you guys, very much physically rather than mentally.

When meeting these people, you’ll need to have a lot of patience with yourself don’t doubt what you deserve, the universe is very much making way for those people to enter. For you guys, I think it’s going to be important to have a mental glow up, you need to focus on what you need mentally, rather than what you want.

There could be a possibility for relocation, some of you may actually end up moving over to the areas in which your soul people live. If you do not move away to another place, then your soul tribe is going to help you cut ties from ex friends, relationships (I heard “husbands” too.) Their main purpose is to help you move on from those who don’t serve you in the place where you are at.

From this, a few of you may end up in relationship, you could either meet someone through these friends, or you could meet them as one of these friends, continue a friendship for a while and then end up together eventually. I feel like it’s important to say that you will not ruin the friendship between anybody if you decide to date this person, this is a very much long term, if not forever relationship.

You’ll know you’ve met these people when you feel as though your life has been completed and you are surrounded only by people who keep you safe and protected. When you are able to fall asleep next to one of these people, or when you feel as though your brain has quieted down, that’s how you’ll know.

PILE 3

I feel as though you guys will meet your soul tribe during a time of change, at a point where you are letting the light guide you, this light may be spirituality for a lot of you, for the rest of you I think it’s your intuition. You’re surrendering to the feeling of trusting the universe and where it will take you. At this point when you let go of control and stress, that’s when these people enter your life.

For you, it will be a mix of either men and women, or masculines and feminines. The time when these people become important to you will be when you begin a new project, for some of you you may open a business, become higher up in your job, and end up hiring people for your business, or getting to know more people at your job. I see you guys working together a lot, particularly building something new - so I’m really feeling that for the majority of you, this is a business that you are running, and hiring individuals to help you out. Your work family will become more than a work family for sure.

These people may even help you out with your identity, the mixture of masculine and feminine energies, whether fully male, female, or a mix of all - will help you find out who you want to be. There may be a couple of people, particularly feminines that you look up to, and you may even lowkey idolise before you come full circle and become friends with them.

As the same with pile 1, you may feel physically sick, tired, confused, mentally exhausted the few weeks before getting up and beginning to become the person who you want to be. Don’t lose hope when you feel like this, this is just a sign of change and a massive switch, it will suck in the moment, however it will be so good in the long run.

I don’t think you guys will find a romantic partner through this group, I feel as though that may be a separate thing that will come along either soon after, or perhaps soon before.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 2, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 03, 2024

Today is the one-hundredth anniversary of the Indian Citizenship Act, which declared that “all non-citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States be, and they are hereby, declared to be citizens of the United States: Provided, That the granting of such citizenship shall not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or other property.”

That declaration had been a long time coming. The Constitution, ratified in 1789, excluded “Indians not taxed” from the population on which officials would calculate representation in the House of Representatives. In the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, the Supreme Court reiterated that Indigenous tribes were independent nations. It called Indigenous peoples equivalent to “the subjects of any other foreign Government.” They could be naturalized, thereby becoming citizens of a state and of the United States. And at that point, they “would be entitled to all the rights and privileges which would belong to an emigrant from any other foreign people.”

The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, established that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” But it continued to exclude “Indians not taxed” from the population used to calculate representation in the House of Representatives.

In 1880, John Elk, a member of the Winnebago tribe, tried to register to vote, saying he had been living off the reservation and had renounced the tribal affiliation under which he was born. In 1884, in Elk v. Wilkins, the Supreme Court affirmed that the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution did not cover Indigenous Americans who were living under the jurisdiction of a tribe when they were born. In 1887 the Dawes Act provided that any Indigenous American who accepted an individual land grant could become a citizen, but those who did not remained noncitizens. 

As Interior Secretary Deb Haaland pointed out today in an article in Native News Online, Elk v. Wilkins meant that when Olympians Louis Tewanima and Jim Thorpe represented the United States in the 1912 Olympic games in Stockholm, Sweden, they were not legally American citizens. A member of the Hopi Tribe, Tewanima won the silver medal for the 10,000 meter run. 

Thorpe was a member of the Sac and Fox Nation, and in 1912 he won two Olympic gold medals, in Classic pentathlon—sprint hurdles, long jump, high jump, shot put, and middle distance run—and in decathlon, which added five more track and field events to the Classic pentathlon. The Associated Press later voted Thorpe “The Greatest Athlete of the First Half of the Century” as he played both professional football and professional baseball, but it was his wins at the 1912 Olympics that made him a legend. Congratulating him on his win, Sweden’s King Gustav V allegedly said, “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world.”  

Still, it was World War I that forced lawmakers to confront the contradiction of noncitizen Indigenous Americans. According to the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History, more than 11,000 American Indians served in World War I: nearly 5,000 enlisted and about 6,500 were drafted, making up a total of about 25% of Indigenous men despite the fact that most Indigenous men were not citizens. 

It was during World War I that members of the Choctaw and Cherokee Nations began to transmit messages for the American forces in a code based in their own languages, the inspiration for the Code Talkers of World War II. In 1919, in recognition of “the American Indian as a soldier of our army, fighting on foreign fields for liberty and justice,” as General John Pershing put it, Congress passed a law to grant citizenship to Indigenous American veterans of World War I. 

That citizenship law raised the question of citizenship for those Indigenous Americans who had neither assimilated nor served in the military. The non-Native community was divided on the question; so was the Native community. Some thought citizenship would protect their rights, while others worried that it would strip them of the rights they held under treaties negotiated with them as separate and sovereign nations and was a way to force them to assimilate. 

On June 2, 1924, Congress passed the measure, its supporters largely hoping that Indigenous citizenship would help to clean up the corruption in the Department of Indian Affairs. The new law applied to about 125,000 people out of an Indigenous population of about 300,000.

But in that era, citizenship did not confer civil rights. In 1941, shortly after Elizabeth Peratrovich and her husband, Roy, both members of the Tlingit Nation, moved from Klawok, Alaska, to the city of Juneau, they found a sign on a nearby inn saying, “No Natives Allowed.” This, they felt, contrasted dramatically with the American uniforms Indigenous Americans were wearing overseas, and they said as much in a letter to Alaska’s governor, Ernest H. Gruening. The sign was “an outrage,” they wrote. “The proprietor of Douglas Inn does not seem to realize that our Native boys are just as willing as the white boys to lay down their lives to protect the freedom that he enjoys." 

With the support of the governor, Elizabeth started a campaign to get an antidiscrimination bill through the legislature. It failed in 1943, but passed the House in 1945 as a packed gallery looked on. The measure had the votes to pass in the Senate, but one opponent demanded: "Who are these people, barely out of savagery, who want to associate with us whites with 5,000 years of recorded civilization behind us?"

Elizabeth Peratrovich had been quietly knitting in the gallery, but during the public comment period, she said she would like to be heard. She crossed the chamber to stand by the Senate president. “I would not have expected,” she said, “that I, who am barely out of savagery, would have to remind gentlemen with five thousand years of recorded civilization behind them of our Bill of Rights.” She detailed the ways in which discrimination daily hampered the lives of herself, her husband, and her children. She finished to wild applause, and the Senate passed the nation’s first antidiscrimination act by a vote of 11 to 5. 

Indigenous veterans came home from World War II to discover they still could not vote. In Arizona, Maricopa county recorder Roger G. Laveen refused to register returning veterans of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, including Frank Harrison, to vote. He cited an earlier court decision saying Indigenous Americans were “persons under guardianship.” They sued, and the Arizona Supreme Court agreed that the phrase only applied to judicial guardianship.  

In New Mexico, Miguel Trujillo, a schoolteacher from Isleta Pueblo who had served as a Marine in World War II, sued the county registrar who refused to enroll him as a voter. In 1948, in Trujillo v. Garley, a state court agreed that the clause in the New Mexico constitution prohibiting “Indians not taxed” from voting violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments by placing a unique requirement on Indigenous Americans. It was not until 1957 that Utah removed its restrictions on Indigenous voting, the last of the states to do so.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act protected Native American voting rights along with the voting rights of all Americans, and they, like all Americans, are affected by the Supreme Court’s hollowing out of the law and the wave of voter suppression laws state legislators who have bought into Trump’s Big Lie have passed since 2021. Voter ID laws that require street addresses cut out many people who live on reservations, and lack of access to polling places cuts out others. 

Katie Friel and Emil Mella Pablo of the Brennan Center noted in 2022 that, for example, people who live on Nevada’s Duckwater reservation have to travel 140 miles each way to get to the closest elections office. “As the first and original peoples of this land, we have had only a century of recognized citizenship, and we continue to face systematic barriers when exercising the fundamental and hard-fought-for right to vote,” Democratic National Committee Native Caucus chair Clara Pratte said in a press release from the Democratic Party.

As part of the commemoration of the Indian Citizenship Act, the Democratic National Committee is distributing voter engagement and protection information in Apache, Ho-Chunk, Hopi, Navajo, Paiute, Shoshone, and Zuni.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[eldin-wylde]

WE GOT OUR FIRST HATER LADS!!!

But even if the spirit of this ask is kindaaaaa dogshit it's also something important to talk about, so we're gonna do that.

I'm Native American, specifically from around the Great Lakes region, which is where some of the legends of the spirit originate. And the thing about this particular spirit, is that there is a lot of variation and nuance surrounding it when you look from tribe to tribe. There are different words and spellings depending on where you're from and how traditionally inclined your family is. The most popular spelling online (and the one that gets censored and debated most often) is spelled with an e. The spelling I'm used to from stories shared by my late great grandmother is actually spelled with 2 i's and so that's the one I went with, partly to spread awareness and partly to avoid situations and discourse where people get mad at me for not censoring the word. In some tribes and situations it's regarded as bad luck to even say the name of the spirit... But I believe very firmly that if we were all to do that, we'd lose our history due to eventually no one remembering what this Spirit is and what it originally stood for.

Stories and traditions have to be shared and passed down in order to continue and have meaning. Frankly, I'd love for people to see me and go "what's a Windigo?" and Google it or ask me the question! I want the stories of my tribe to continue LONG after I die! The tragedy of the spirit of the Windigo is a warning that I feel is important and should be passed down. If people think it's problematic to even talk about the Windigo, then how will anyone know how to avoid becoming one, or becoming a victim?

There are dragon Vtubers, ghost Vtubers, kappa Vtubers, angel Vtubers, Qilin Vtubers, God Vtubers, nymph Vtubers, hellhound Vtubers, Naga Vtubers, Harpy Vtubers, demon Vtubers, all kinds of people and creatures from all sorts of cultures and traditions! So... Why not a Windigo? Why can't my traditions be shared and played on, but others' can be?

Instead of being angry about seeing a word that you didn't even know had more than one spelling, I urge you to ask yourself why it's so important that we censor and avoid shedding light on this specific creature. If even talking about it or saying the word is so offensive... How did the legend survive to this generation? People have to talk about it to tell the story.

But also uhmmmmmm you're kind of an asshole so get shadow realm'd bitch. BLOCKED!

[waitmyturtles]

1) CHERRY MAGIC (episode 2) IS SO GOOD, I HAVE TO COVER MY MOUTH AND KEEP MY MEEPS FROM BEING TOO LOUD

2) GOD, TAYNEW! New is SMASHING THIS.

3) The wonderful @so-much-yet-to-learn and I had a discussion a couple months ago about the stylistic and rumored decisions to not have Kurosawa and Adachi (Machida Keita and Akaso Eiji) kiss in the Japanese Cherry Magic adaptation. The rumors (only seen online and not at all confirmed with primary sources) were that Machida's and Adachi's agencies were not supportive of the two having an on-screen smooch. We also considered the public vs. private taboos of public displays of affection in Japanese society and art, which differ from those in other Asian countries (like Thailand).

It's not known if the two actors felt differently about not kissing. At least Machida's agency, Gekidan Exile/Exile Tribe, has provided quite the number of actors in other Japanese BLs who have acted out many more deeds on screen, from Candy Color Paradox to Tokyo in April Is..., and more.

But I think part of the campy gloriousness of the Japanese Cherry Magic adaptation was, in fact, the lack of kissing, and the sensual acting around the indication of that kissing, from Kurosawa's eagerness and his constant struggle to control his emotions, to Adachi's discomfort-to-acceptance-and-happiness journey. There was tremendous communication in their body and verbal language that got them to their happy ending in the series, and to not have the actual kiss was, for me, dramatically satisfying for how that decision was supported through the excellent acting and the painstaking details of the show.

So, for so many of us, as we learned that TayNew would take up this mantle in Thailand last year, we were like -- alright, NOW we are going to get the kisses, right?

And at least for now, we haven't, which makes me wonder a bit. We saw Kurosawa's lips touch Adachi's forehead in Japan,

and Karan's lips were hidden by Achi's fluffy bangs in Thailand.

Does New need some texturizing, or was this on purpose? (I'm CACKLING, poor Tay, look at that hair in his FACE, omg.)

If this was a stylistic nod to Japan? Then... well done, because at least I noticed it, and kinda loved it. We know (WE KNOWWWW, heh heh, thank you, Kiss Me Again and Dark Blue Kiss) what TayNew are capable of, and I just loved this little moment of subtlety here in Cherry Magic, because we don't actually know what we're going to get later this series.

Because I am a fucking simp for all things Cherry Magic, I also noted the slight changes in how Karan approached Achi on the rooftop later that night, as compared to Kurodachi. Honestly, I am SO ENJOYING these different approaches, and only note these simply by way of how I'm loving Machida's acting versus that of Tay.

Kurosawa on the rooftop was a ball of NERVES, man.

Whereas it almost seemed like Tay's Karan was silently joyful, with smiles playing at the edges of his lips, to be so close to Achi and having this conversation about the dinner game.

These are NOT the greatest screenshots, but if I could gif, I would try to capture how the corner's of Tay's mouth in that last screenshot just uplifted slightly. This wasn't a moment of shock and nerves; this was a moment of OMG OMG OMG EEEEEE THIS IS MY TIMEEEEE.

(EDITING TO ADD: I’m such a dunce! I should have known the gif makers were already on this — and the gorgeous deity @liyazaki captured Tay’s mouf perfectly. That giddiness in the last gif!)

And in their acting? I love BOTH APPROACHES so much. Because both approaches are well within the emotional range of the moment that we're experiencing with them.

We're departing from the Japanese dorama next week in content, and I cannot wait to see where we go. GMMTV gave us some holiday gifts in Last Twilight and Cherry Magic airing on Fridays and Saturdays, no?

[liyawritesss]

summertime crushin’

Characters: MCU!Shuri Udaku x Black!Fem!Reader

Type: Fic

Word Count: 1.7k

Synopsis: In Shuri’s attempts to follow in her brother's footsteps and continue his work with the Wakandan International Outpost Facilities, she finally takes up Riri’s offer to visit Chicago. However, she isn’t sure if it's the intense summertime heat that has her face burning or the incredibly talented dance choreographer Riri is friends with.

Warnings: cursing

A/N: For the two dances mentioned: the first is “Killing Me Softly” by Lauryn Hill, choreography by Evan Miller (0:08-2:10), and the second is “BMO” by Ari Lennox, choreography by YeoJin (0:00-1:15), of which (Y/N) is the middle dancer with coloured hair. I’ve had this idea since FOREVER and finally had enough of it swimming in my head, so I finally wrote it down. Hope you all enjoy!

Tags: @inmyheadimobsessed @babyboiboyega @badass-dora-milaje @6-noir @playhousedistee @shuririsdefenseattorney @shuriszn @zayswriting @wrendermedone @writingintheshadowsforever @mbakuetshurisprincess @verachii @shurisbigtoe

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“So the arts are a prominent aspect of the city’s identity?”

“We don’t got our own Broadway title for nothin’, Shuri.”

Shuri could admit to herself that she never thought much of the US outside of the horrible government leadership and the plethora of pathetic white supremacists who hid behind a thin veil of patriotism. She admired her brother’s work, though, with wanting to provide more than adequate resources to black communities all over the US, and as her new title required her to take up the work in question, it only made sense that she’d cut her vacation in Haiti short to get acclimated to the work her brother and mother maintained.

Shuri could also admit that the immense creativity and artistry from members of the Lost Tribe gave her a culture shock she didn’t know she needed to prepare herself for. Even in her mid-twenties, the queen-presumptive had so much to learn about the people who had been stripped of their lineage and ripped from the motherland. No amount of reading or digesting news reports could amount to actually witnessing it in person.

Which is exactly why Riri, Shuri’s self appointed guide to all things Chicago, was escorting the scientist around all the most notable establishments pertaining to all this visual and performance art. From the Chicago Art Museum to watching bands play on corners of sidewalks, Shuri never found herself bored or tired of the activities. And next on the list of places to visit was a storefront  dance studio belonging to a friend of the young engineer, of which Riri was rather ecstatic about, as she hadn’t seen this friend since their highschool days.

Shuri didn’t know what to expect when she entered into the storefront dance studio, following Riri in close pursuit so as to not get lost amongst the other bodies leaving the space. Her only exposure to black American dance was from short clips online she had searched up as a child. Though in an ever changing society, the dark skinned woman was sure that what she had been exposed to prior would surely not be the same as what she would be walking into now.

Shuri is pulled into a room that’s blasting music from the speakers, a song from a voice the queen-presumptive remembers belongs to that of the infamous Lauryn Hill. The robust deepness of the rapper’s voice rises goosebumps along Shuri’s skin, bare and showing her deeply melanated tone. She’s in a forest green tank top that emphasizes her shoulders, her golden necklace housing her panther suit rested neatly around her neck. Black shorts clothed her legs, stopping just above her knees, and on her feet for a pair of strapped slides similar to ones her brother wore long ago. Of course, one could not forget the black shade which hid her eyes, and the majority of her identity, from everyone around her.

Compared to Riri, who wears a white cropped tank, black jogging pants and white AF1’s, the engineer looks much more prepared for a dance class than Shuri is, but she was quickly assured that they wouldn’t be dancing, but rather, watching a few of the dances done by the students within the class. It eased Shuri for a moment, until she walked into the dance space with the loud music reverberating through the walls of the studio. With the melody and bass over taking her body, Shuri couldn’t help but feel overwhelmed.

“This is one of the best dance studios in the city,” Riri says over the music as the two make their way to the front of the crowd of students, “they do everything from Hip-Hop to R&B, and everything in between.”

Shuri nods along as she takes note of the three men standing in the middle of the crowd. They seem to be hyping themselves up up as the first part of the Lauryn Hill song plays, preparing for their routine.

“You about to get a taste of what real art looks like.” Riri muses, as the aforementioned men take their places as the first chorus of the song ends, and the second verse, and ultimately, their routine, begins.

Firstly, Shuri hadn’t expected for the male dancers to have such languid movements. The smoothness of their steps and transitions between each move seemed flawless, and she soon found herself entranced by the dance routine paired with the music playing. Much more, she notes just how happy they are at the moment. The popping and locking is precise, each one garnering a roar from their audience, in turn spreading smiles across the dancers faces. It feels their energy, keeping the precision consistent with the execution of each move. Even as one dancer falls off at what seems to be the end of the official routine, two of them stay on the main floor. They feed off of each other’s energies, dancing around each other in a near touch that shows the trust in each other and the intuition of each dancer. They move as if they’re reading each others mind, circling and molding around each other in a way Shuri had never seen before. And by the end of the performance, the queen-presumptive finds herself yearning for more.

“Bast”, Shuri gasps in shock, “I’ve never seen anything like this. Not even back home!”

Riri encourages Shuri’s amazement, engaging with her in reveling about the choreography they had just witnessed. Her attention is taken when she feels a tap on her shoulder, and when Riri turns around, she releases a shriek of happiness as she embraces the person who’d come up to her.

Shuri is able to get a good look at the person when Riri pulls away. A woman of melanated skin, sun-kissed and glossed over undoubtedly by perspiration, sporting a gray jogging suit set with the hoodie bunched up and hiked over on one shoulder, revealing a black sports bra underneath.

“You made it, Ri!” You exclaim in your embrace of the engineer, hugging her tight as a long lost friend should. “Fuck, I’m so glad youre here; it’s been years!”

“I heard you were back in town, I knew exactly where yo’ ass was gon’ be.” Riri replies, gesturing for you to step forward to be introduced to Shuri.

“This is the friend I told you I was bringing.” Riri reminds, earning a gentle smile from you to Shuri. “Shuri, this is (Y/N). (Y/N), Shuri.”

You held your hand out for a handshake, but Shuri is too distracted by how pretty you are. “It’s nice to meet you,” you greet, “I’ve never met a queen before. Hope it’s not awkward…?”

“No, no,” Shuri quickly reassures, raising her hand to finally take yours in your greeting, “not awkward at all. And the pleasure is mine.”

Shuri isn’t sure what caught her attention first - the fact that you’re half exposed with your hoodie only properly being on half way, exposing your toned stomach from what Shuri suspects is years of dance, or the way your eyes glisten with excitement, or the way your skin is glowing. She just knows that you’re very pretty and it’s making her look like a fool in front of someone she just met. And she doesn’t do well when that happens.

“My piece is up next,” you say, which brings Shuri out of her head and causes her ears to burn slightly, as she was so stuck in her thoughts, she hadn’t realized that her hand still held yours in a firm grip. She quickly pulls it away, muttering a quiet apology in return, but you reassure her that she was alright, “you guys sticking around after?”

“Hell yeah we are,” Riri hurriedly answers, “you owe me lunch, cuz you got some explaining to do about how you just dipped and ain’t say shit.”

“Fine, fine,” You relent, “lunch on me. We’ll figure it out when I’m done, cool?”

Though you don’t give them much time to respond, as you’re already backing away as you hear your song being played over the speakers, and your dance partners already in place. Riri throws you a quick thumbs up, granting you the relief you need for jogging out onto the dance floor.

Shuri’s eyes follow you intently as you meet up with the two other dancers located on the floor. She, however, feels a pair of eyes on her, and turns to meet Riri, who has a look on her face that Shuri can only akin to smugness.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Shuri questions slowly, eyebrows furrowing together.

“Hm,” Riri humans, “nun’.”

“Don’t do that!” Shuri groans.

“Do what?” Riri asks. “I ain’t do nun’...I just peep shit and keep it movin’.”

“Exactly,” Shuri responds, “and what exactly did you ‘peep’-?”

“Shhhh,” Riri shushes Shuri as the melody for the verse comes in, “they’re starting!”

It doesn’t take much effort for Shuri’s attention to shift directly onto you, and she’s actually glad she has these shades on, because she has an idea of what Riri says she ‘peeped’, and the intensity of her stare would have given Riri all the proof she needed to confirm her suspicions.

From the very start of the music, your body moves fluidly, as if you were a deity of water, at home in your element. There’s a certain aura you carry - one of power and respect that you’re sure has earned you your place in this studio. Each and every one of your moves garners a roar of encouragement from the audience, and it spurs you on more and more, feeding off of the crowd's energy. The suave and swag that oozes from your persona has everyone on the edge of their seat. It becomes clear to Shuri that you weren’t just a dancer for entertainment. This was your very lifestyle, and you’ve made it your identity in every way imaginable. She watched as life was breathed into you on the dance floor, spurred on by the crowd’s hype, feeding into your ego. 

And by the time your set has finished, Shuri finds herself falling in love with Chicago a little bit more, and experiencing her first summertime crush.

If you enjoyed, please leave a like, comment, and reblog for others to see! And don’t be shy to send in a request!

[quickcharlie]

Denis Villeneuve discussing Dune Part 2 in an interview with the New York Times today, including whether he will be reading any FeydPaul fan fiction lol

He explains why Lady Jessica’s face is so heavily tattooed, whether Paul considers himself the Messiah and what he thinks of those Javier Bardem memes.

This weekend, “Dune: Part Two” muscles back into IMAX theaters with the verve of Timothée Chalamet rodeo- riding a giant sandworm. After nearly two months in theaters, the film is the current champion of this year’s box office race, with a total take of more than $680 million. (It’s also available to rent or buy on some streaming platforms.) The film’s success is thanks in part to audiences that have returned over and over to get lost in the rocky warrens and spiritual reckonings of the planet Arrakis. One admirer reports he’s seen the movie 25 times to date.

That there’s so much to explore in “Dune: Part Two” is a credit to its writer and director, Denis Villeneuve, who boldly reshaped Frank Herbert’s complex and cerebral 1965 novel “Dune.” Villeneuve split the book and its themes into two films: “Dune: Part One,” released in 2021, focused on the political struggles between two families, the Atreides and the Harkonnens. “Part Two” delves into religious fervor as the two surviving Atreides, young Paul (Chalamet) and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), ingratiate themselves with Arrakis’s Indigenous desert tribe, the Fremen, by allowing the locals to believe that Paul is their Messiah — a prophecy that, if it comes to pass, will mean the slaughter of billions of victims across the galaxy.

Villeneuve has yearned to tell this story since he was a in . His devotion is palpable; every frame feels steeped in monkish contemplation. Yet, he’s also a visual dramatist who doesn’t want audiences to get tripped up by too much exposition. His scripts give only passing mention to core concepts like spice, a psychedelic dust that powers everything from space travel to Paul’s clairvoyant hallucinations.

Though Villeneuve doesn’t want to overexplain, he was willing to provide some answers in an interview via video where every question about the film — even silly questions! — was on the table.

Does Chalamet’s Paul Atreides actually believe he’s the Messiah? What’s the meaning of Jessica’s face tattoos? Villeneuve also got into the erotic lives of his desert dwellers and the extra narrative weight he threw behind Paul’s Fremen love interest, Chani, played by Zendaya. As Villeneuve said with a grin, “Chani is my secret weapon.”

Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.

The last time we spoke, you weren’t sure what to make of the sandworm-shaped “Dune” popcorn bucket. It went on to be so popular that it sold out in cities before opening day and is being resold online for around $175. What do you think of it now?

I thought that the bucket was an insane marketing idea. I laughed so much. It is so out there. I don’t know who designed it, but they’re a bit of a genius. I’m at peace with the bucket.

In this film, Javier Bardem’s character Stilgar is reduced to a guileless follower of Paul Atreides, who Stilgar believes is the new Messiah. His conversion is tragic. But also, Bardem’s awe-face has become a funny meme, and the second time I saw the movie, people laughed at almost every line he spoke. Did that reaction surprise you?

No. I am very happy when you say that he is a tragic figure. For me, he is the most tragic figure of all. The idea to bring humor to Stilgar was to make him lovable, to feel the humanity in that character. He’s not an austere figure, he has a big heart. But his beliefs, his faith, his reactions bring humor — and that is something I love about making a sci-fi film, because I can talk about that without offending people because it’s a fake religion. I designed all the prayers myself, so I know it’s fake. I find Stilgar very funny. And when people laugh, I’m happy because that was the intention.

Someone makes a dig that Stilgar has found a savior again. This is not even his first time? All his life he has been raised with that dream. So I suggest that every time a guy comes from outside with a lot of charisma, he hopes he’s found him. Like in the Bible, we have tons of prophets before Jesus came.

The arc of “Dune: Part Two” is Paul accepting that he must become the Messiah — and get billions of people killed. Does he truly believe that he is the Messiah? Or does he just decide to let the Fremen believe that he is? I don’t think he believes that he is the Messiah. I think he feels the burden of the heritage that the Bene Gesserit [the mystical sisterhood that Jessica belongs to] have laid among the Fremen, and he sees the potential to use that religious power to survive. Paul is warned that no man can survive drinking the spiritual water of life. But as that’s part of the lore of a planet seeded with manipulative propaganda by his own mother, I have to ask: Have other men actually been drinking the water and dying? Have they been scared off from trying? Is the warning just a setup for a magic trick?

There are people that have tried it in the past and died. In Frank Herbert’s world, femininity is a power. I think Herbert was fascinated by motherhood, by the power of creation. I love this idea that the power is held by women. It’s something that was ahead of his time when he wrote it and I tried to put the focus on it. You say so much with Jessica’s costuming. In the first film, her look is immaculate and baroque. This film begins with her in rags, but she finds another path to being dressed and treated like royalty. And she gets a lot of tattoos on her face. Why did she get so many more face tattoos than the outgoing reverend mother?

She’s trying to play on the symbolism that was put in the prophecy. She’s supposed to be the mother of the Messiah, so I wanted to bring the idea that she was like the pope of the reverend mothers on Arrakis. There’s some kind of madness in writing elements of the prophecies on her face. Frankly, I think when you drink the worm poison, it affects your sanity — and the same with Paul. I like the idea that we feel she’s going too far. Jessica is already pregnant when the first movie ends, and she’s still pregnant at the end of this film. Which means you had to condense this massive story into less than nine months because her body is a time clock. The idea was to compress the book so that Paul will feel the pressure to get the Fremens’ trust, to start gearing up — but not to succeed, not to have the time to create a real war. Time is against him.

Because in the book, this takes years. Long enough for Jessica to give birth to a very unnerving daughter, Alia. We glimpse Alia as an adult — she’s played by Anya Taylor-Joy — but you skipped over seeing her murder people as a toddler. Was it hard to decide no “murder toddler”?

I think pregnant women look tremendously powerful. To use that power was very exciting. And usually when you see a pregnant woman onscreen, she’s always giving birth. To avoid that moment, to stay in the state of being pregnant, I thought was very Frank Herbert-like. I was going away from the killer toddler, but I thought that was more fresh and original. Honestly, it’s one of the things that I’m proudest of in the adaptation. Speaking of female power, let’s talk about Chani.

Chani is my secret weapon. Frank Herbert was sad to realize that people saw the book as a celebration of Paul Atreides. He wanted to do a cautionary tale against messianic figures, a warning against blending religion and politics. I wrote the second movie trying to be more faithful to Frank Herbert’s intentions than to the book. In the book, Chani is just a follower. I came up with the idea of her being reluctant. She gives us the critical distance and perspective on Paul’s journey. I wanted to make sure the audience will understand that Paul becomes a dark figure, that his choices are exactly what Chani was afraid of. He becomes the colonizers the Fremen were fighting against. And then the movie becomes the cautionary tale Frank Herbert was wishing for.

Paul makes a choice at the end that will go on to kill billions of people. That’s so large and theoretical that it’s hard to grasp. But you structure your climax so that in that moment of betrayal, he’s also betraying the love of his life — a betrayal we understand.

He betrayed her in many ways. But the big thing for Chani is that it’s not about love. It’s about the fact that he becomes the figure that will keep the Fremen in their mental jail. A leader that is not there to free the Fremen, but to control them. That’s the tragedy of all tragedies. Like the Michael Corleone of sci-fi, he becomes what he wanted to avoid. And he will try to find a way to save his soul in the third part.

But “Dune Messiah,” the book your third film is based on, picks up 12 years later with a reunited Paul and Chani. How far did you feel you could push her anger? Because at some point, she’s going to have to forgive him. That anger is tremendous. I don’t want to reveal what I’m going to do with the third movie. I know exactly what to do. I’m writing it right now. But there’s a lot of firepower there and I’m very excited about that decision. In the spirit of no dumb questions, Chani says that Paul sand-walks like a drunk lizard. Which means Arrakis has booze?

Actually, there is spice beer. In the book, there are Fremen parties, even some orgies involving spice. I didn’t bring that into the movies because it’s PG-13.

Body fluids have significance to the Fremen. Spitting is the giving of water, a sign of respect. But tears and vomit are a waste. So what is kissing?

As long as you don’t lose your humidity, you can kiss. It’s an exchange of fluids — an act of love, when you think about it. Fremens love to kiss.

What about the, um, other romantic fluids? You cannot have sex outside, for sure. But they are very sexual. I suspect that all sexual intercourse happens in environments that are protected from losing moisture. When they are in their sietches [or caves] underground, those are sealed. You don’t need to wear stillsuits inside them. We can deduce from that there is no problem to have sex in a sietch.

By the way, who decided that Fremen was pronounced Freh-men and not Free-men? All the pronunciations, I took them from recordings of Frank Herbert’s voice. Frank Herbert used “Freh-men,” which I love. It makes it less on-the-nose.

You kept two major characters out of the first movie and only introduced them now: the princess Irulan, played by Florence Pugh, and the Baron Harkonnen’s nephew Feyd-Rautha, played by Austin Butler. The princess is the first voice in the books, the first face onscreen in David Lynch’s “Dune” [1984]. What made you sure holding them back was the right move, despite three years of fans asking, “Hey, where are they?” When people ask me what was the biggest challenge in making those movies, it’s writing them. In order to make this adaptation, we have to make big, bold decisions. One was that the first movie should be seen from Paul’s perspective. I wasn’t able to do that entirely because I had to go to the Harkonnens’ side to introduce them so that the story will be clear, but I tried to find an elegant simplicity in the story structure. And I wanted, frankly, to keep some firepower for the second movie.

Why is Feyd-Rautha’s gladiator scene in black and white? And what are the splats in the sky above the dome?

Frank Herbert explores the impact of ecosystems on cultures, on humans. How it influences the way we evolve — our biology, culture, technology, mythology, religion. The psychology of a tribe is linked with their environment. If you want to know things about the Fremen, you observe the desert. I wanted to have the same approach to the Harkonnens. They killed nature. It’s a plastic planet. One thing left was sunlight, but instead of a sun that reveals color, it kills colors. When you are outside, it’s all black and white. It gives us ideas about how these people perceive reality, politics, violence in a binary world — it brings the idea of fascism. It also gave me the opportunity to bring images that remind us in our memories of World War II and the Nazi regime. So it’s an idea that I had as I was writing. Then I had the idea to have strange fireworks in the sky that will look like Rorschach drawings. It’s a nightmarish celebration. The perception of a dome is not accurate. It’s just that the fireworks reach a certain altitude and then they explode. But it’s true that it looks like a liquid that falls from the sky.

Forgive me if I am not being fair to sadistic, psychopathic Feyd-Rautha. But all of the gladiators were supposed to be drugged for his happy birthday massacre. The one who secretly isn’t puts up a worthy battle. So I assumed that Feyd-Rautha isn’t that great of a fighter. But at the end, he’s the only warrior who is Paul’s equal?

It’s a show. You see that the Harkonnens are very cruel and their society is very paranoiac. His opponent is known in the books as one of the great fighters, Lieutenant Lanville. I tried to show that Feyd is excited to have a real opponent. He has a code of honor, he respects the effort, and he has fun with it. That’s the idea I tried to convey — he’s not a coward.

Audiences might remember that the Bene Gesserit wanted Jessica’s child to be a girl, that Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides was supposed to be female. And they specifically bred Feyd-Rautha to be a male. Were they hoping these youngsters would mate?

Yeah. They are trying to increase the potential of humanity by breeding the best specimen of each tribe or family. A baby between Feyd-Rautha and an Atreides daughter would have brought peace between Harkonnens and the Atreides, and created an über being.

Will you read any of the internet fan fiction spawned by the idea of Timothée and Austin hooking up?

[Laughs] But you know, we approached their fight at the end like some kind of symbolic union. The way their bodies get close to one another, there’s something animalistic, an intimacy, I was looking for.

I rewatched the first film again recently. It opens with a quote in another language: “Dreams are messages from deep.” I love that quote. It feels like how a film resonates, too. But it wasn’t until I had subtitles on at home that I realized who said it. Of all the important characters and cultures to establish, you gave that major moment — the very beginning of your franchise — to an anonymous Sardaukar from the murderous imperial army that we’re cheering to see get killed. Why?

I love your question. The Sardaukar are the dark side of the Fremen. I thought it would be interesting to have a tiny bit of insight that they are not just tremendous warriors, but they have spirituality, philosophical thought. They have substance. Also, their sound was designed by Hans Zimmer. I absolutely loved how it feels like it’s coming from the deep, from the ancient world. Frank Herbert said beginnings are very delicate times. By starting with a Sardaukar priest, I was indicating to the fans that I was taking absolute freedom with this adaptation, that I was hijacking the book. But you also deeply love the book. So when you make these bold changes, do you feel like asking Frank Herbert for forgiveness?

Yes. There’s so many darlings that you kill. An adaptation is an act of violence.

“There’s so many darlings that you kill,” Denis Villeneuve said of filming “Dune,” a book he loved. “An adaptation is an act of violence.”

[neb-art-zeke]

hiiiiii! Please tell us more about Relonoth if you don't mind 👀

How old is he?

What is his DnD alignment?

What's his tent in the camp like?

Does he have a partner(s)?

Hey @razrogue! Thanks for your interest in my TAV!

So fore warning, I'm not as knowledgeable about the larger DnD/Forgotten Realms lore and I've never played the previous Baldur's Gates so a lot of my knowledge comes from just playing Baldur's Gate 3. Also like many of my OCs, he goes through constant change as my knowledge of the lore expands and new ideas in my mind surface. With that being said:

Background: Relonoth is the son of a Seldarine Drow father and a Human Druid Mother. Relonoth lived with his mother and father in his mother's tribe for the first 12 years of his life where he learned the basics of living in the wild before she was killed fighting alongside his father during an attempt of his father’s life by Lolth's Drow. Not wanting to endanger the tribe further, Relonoth's father would take him far away from the tribe where they traveled aimlessly for several months. One day, they managed to stumble upon some helpful monks who were on their way back to their monastery. Sensing the torment inside both Relonoth and his father, the monks invited the two to journey with them back to the monastery to find inner peace. Relonoth and his father spent 7 years learning the ways of the monks and spent one more year traveling with each other after before deciding to continue on separate journeys. Before departing, they promised each other they would reunite for a single week at the place they left every 7 years to share with each other their monastic journeys. BG3 takes place 2 years before another reunion. Some of Relonoth’s experiences and adventures include finding his mother's old tribe, fighting in an underground martial arts tournament, mentoring other young monks, learning the way of the four elements from ancient beings, and putting stops to deadly conspiracies, but his greatest adventure takes place during BG3.

Name Origin: I found a Drow etymology naming convention sheet online and the name roughly translates to "Wind's Path" which I thought sounded cool. The in-lore reason I developed after was that his father named him that name because he wanted his son to have the freedom to become anyone he wanted in his life (Free like the Wind).

Age: 67 (as of BG3 - looks about 33 because of half elf aging)

DnD Aligment: Neutral Good (as a nomadic monk, he'll find himself helping the less fortunate and oppressed and generally respects the rules of the lands he comes across but still has his principles of freedom and choice which sometimes clash with more strict rules of some kingdoms. His nature of helping people and quickly disappearing in a gust of wind after earned him the title of The Wind Walker.)

Tent: His tent is very simple. Being nomadic, he likes to carry light but he's known to collect a few things from his travels and keeps them in his tent space (i.e. small gifts from his friends, rocks and feathers of birds from the different lands he visits and small things he thinks his father would like to see during their next reunion)

Romance: Karlach (I like to imagine that after finding a solution to her infernal engine problem, the two escape Avernus and continue traveling the world with Karlach wanting to experience the grander world after spending years in Avernus and Relonoth wanting to continue his monastic journey with one he loves. She even gets to meet Relonoth's father during the reunion. Really want to get a comic commission of this lol.

[xf-cases-solved]

S1E19: Shapes

Case: In what will unfortunately become a recurring theme of the X-Files writers creating plotlines that make sweeping generalizations about Native American cultures and traditions, Shapes takes us to -quickly looks it up- Montana, where a Native American man—I am reasonably sure they don't actually ever say what tribe he's from, bc again, sweeping generalizations—has been killed, ostensibly by his white neighbor over a land dispute. But! Said neighbor swears he was shooting a monstrous beast and not a man. Mulder, as is his wont, is inclined to believe the more paranormal edge to the story, this time citing the Very First X-File that tells of a similar monstrous beast attack that has a very werewolfy vibe to it. The Natives fucking hate the FBI and want them off their land (that part, at least, was believable and understandable); Mulder believes in lycanthropy; Scully does not believe in lycanthropy; and I only partially watch the episode bc I'm too busy cringing and reluctantly picking my battles to pay attention. [Edited to add after having already written this, but I did actually go back and fact check myself, and they DID specify a tribe. The problem is... the tribe does not exist. Nor does the legend they reference lmfao.]

(The only saving grace here is that this is the episode that has one of my favorite interactions (that I'm sure most of y'all have seen in gif form a million times) which is, "Charlie, do you believe in shapeshifting?" "This is a funeral."

So that's something at least.)

Does someone die in the cold open: Yes

Does Mulder present a slideshow: No, which is surprising given that Mulder has that first X-File to reference, but I guess he didn't have any good visuals. 

Does the evidence survive the investigation: Not really

Whodunit: A werewolf thing with a fun, vaguely racist flair 

Convictions: None

Did they solve it: Maybe. Mulder is pretty certain it was the werewolf thing, while Scully has gaslit herself into thinking it was a mountain lion or something, and it's ambiguous about whether or not they actually stopped the crime. 

[how do i determine if a case is solved? check the scale here: x]

THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY: Cringing and reluctantly picking your battles. From the makers of "anxiously clenching your butthole while crossing your fingers and praying that your faves don't say anything TOO problematic" comes this new and exciting way to deal with your 90s show doing an episode that involves literally anything having to do with minorities. While clenching your butthole and praying is great, sometimes we know in our hearts that things are probably gonna get... lightly to moderately racist, and when those incidents happen, it's good to have cringing and reluctantly picking your battles on hand. * *Cringing and reluctantly picking your battles is a multi-use product, and can be employed in many situations, including, but not limited to -- Seeing your great-aunt's conspiracy theory Facebook post, hearing a white person with dreads describe themselves as a "g*psy" at your local co-op grocery store, or during almost any online discourse argument.

***

General Total Stats:

(green means stat has changed since last ep; red means new stat added to list)

Total Cases *Definitively* Solved So Far: 9 (streak ended whomp)

Total Number of "Mulder/Scully, It's Me" Phone Calls: 1

Total Number of Times Scully Has Conveniently Not Seen Something Crucial: 5

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Been in Mortal Danger: 5

Total Number of Times Scully Has Been in Mortal Danger: 7

Total Number of Sexually Charged, Uncomfortably Intimate, and/or Flirty Moments Between Friendly Coworkers: 10

Total Number of Autopsies Scully Has Performed On Screen: 2

Total Number of Times Scully Plays Doctor: 2

Total Number of Times Mulder Talks to an Informant: 10 

Total Number of Times People Making Out in a Car Are Hurt or Killed: 2

Total Number of Nosebleeds: 4

Total Number of Times Mulder Has Tasted/Sniffed/Touched Something Questionable Without Following Proper Safety Procedures: 2 

Total Number of Times Someone Says "Trust No One": 1 

Total Number of Times Someone Says "I Want to Believe": 3

Total Number of Times Someone Says "The Truth is Out There": 1

Total Number of Cigarettes Cigarette Smoking Man Has Smoked: 2

Total Number of Maggie Scully Sightings: 1

Total Number of Lone Gunmen Sightings: 1

Total Number of Alex Krycek Sightings: 0 :(

Total Number of Times I Had to Look Up What State the Episode Takes Place in Even Though I Literally Just Watched It: 7½ (in my defense, i wasn't paying attention)

Total Number of Times I Had to Look at an Episode's Wikipedia Page to Fill This Out Because It Was Fucking Confusing and/or Too Boring for Me to Pay Attention: 5 (had to look up some clarifying details bc i was. not paying attention, lol)

[moralanxietystudio]

Roadwarden - In Search of Urgency Through Limitations

(This is a repost of my Twitter thread that got quite a dose of love yesterday, so I figured you may be interested in it as well.

1/ Hi! I was invited to post a thread for #MAMG23 on a unique feature of my fantasy game, Roadwarden. I’d like to tell you about its most controversial design choice - the time limit. The expectation that you’ll finish the game without seeing some parts of what it has to offer.

2/ In RW, you play as a single character patrolling the roads of a distant peninsula, aiding or harming its tribes. This land has grown detached from any strong, governmental body, and you start the game as an outsider, an agent, a spy sent here by the city.

3/ You’re encouraged to travel, make friends, learn more, but instead of being The Chosen One, you’re just a rider, a traveling sheriff. And you’re meant to get back to the city soon - usually, in 40 days, after which you are held accountable for your actions and their outcomes.

4/ You start with a personal goal you can select from a short list, and a few other quests to guide you, but none of them are obligatory. You may shape the fate of various people, or even whole settlements, but that’s just a small dent in the grand scheme of things.

5/ I think the reason why it works is that RW tries to make you feel attached to its NPCs and villages. Most people are guarded at first, but open up as you prove your worth to them - or manipulate them. You get options to spend time with them, to share meals and ale.

6/ You see NPCs’ perspectives as you exchange news and rumors. You get familiar with the way people get by, with their routines, and their plans for the future. My NPCs may not have the most depth, but in many ways, you get to learn about their vulnerabilities.

7/ At the start of the game, you’re also vulnerable system-wise, and you won’t increase your stats much. Instead, you rely on others to help you get out of the loop of hindrances. You grow closer with people - by quests, trading, hanging out - and open access to convenient tools.

8/ You unlock new shelters, free supplies, free care, free advice, lower prices, even direct help during tasks. You collect favors. It’s no wonder you may grow attached to NPCs and their problems, and actually care about what’s going to happen to them.

9/ (It’s a very different approach to many older video game plots, where your character would get dropped into mid-apocalypse, saving the world they know nothing about, or trying to save their sibling/village after a brief introduction, relying on our real-life contexts.)

10/ Your character is weak, and travels between the “points of light” (villages, inns) and the threatening wilderness, seeking ways to optimize your journeys, avoiding threats until prepared to face them, sticking to the main roads at first, then exploring the more obscure paths.

11/ But the game needed tension to make this work, to let you game the systems while pushing you into taking an occasional leap of faith. Balancing between risk and preparations is where the challenge comes from. Hence - the time limit.

12/ In the core game mode, the character has 40 in-game days to explore the peninsula. They can complete the game before that, but once the time runs out, they are forced to return to the city - very often begrudgingly. Not many people get to finish all of the quests. 

13/ Without save-scumming (reloading the game in hopes to get better results) or looking up a guide / seeking advice online, the player will struggle. I didn’t intend for them to see everything during their first playthrough. They’re meant to taste failure.

14/ RW is most rewarding when the player accepts their character’s shortcomings. When they decide that they need to leave a village to itself since they lack the time to help it. That they can’t rescue a traveler, or a place, because they’ve got to move on.

15/ Judging by RW’s reception, it’s an unintuitive, and not exactly welcome, design. Most people, myself included, expect to have the option to 100% the game from the get go. Despite my best efforts, it seems like I didn’t succeed at setting the game’s promises correctly.

16/ The tutorial section of the game tries to set the expectations straight. It promises that the peninsula is overgrowing, wild, filled with monsters, that the locals are *pagans*, that the time limit is pressing. But many players don’t treat these threats seriously.

17/ Oftentimes, they see these promises as the set up for a story of success, something to overcome with enough grind and wit. It seems like the game failed at making it clear that it tries to embrace human limitations, that it’s a part of the core experience.

18/ The game didn’t make it clear that by deciding what matters to you the most, whom you want to help, whom you leave behind, which mysteries you unravel, which conflicts you solve, and when you put your needs above others - you get to make meaningful choices.

19/ My ideas did resonate with some, and I saw people playing the game once on the “standard” mode, then again, on the “casual” mode - with no time limit - to experience the rest of the story threads. I think it’s even better to take a longer break between playthroughs.

20/ This way, you focus on your character, and encounter the realm beyond your grasp. You get to embrace your mistakes and choices. If you return to the game after a year or two, it will feel different, as you are also not going to be the same being.

21/ It may not be a reasonable expectation on my part. But to justify myself, I’d like to make it clear that the time limit is not just a gimmick, but rather a system I play with in many ways. You can’t travel during nighttime. You need to restore stats every day.

22/ Some quests disappear or show up on specific days. Some actions are available only at specific hours. Days get shorter. You can care for the roads to ride faster. In many ways, time is a resource, and various tasks can be solved by spending it.

23/ Take the wooden lantern, as an example. You can buy it from a merchant, or hang out with a friendly carpenter to make your own, chatting with his neighbors. What do you need more right now? Money? Coins? Friendship? Without the time limit, you’d get limitless resources.

24/ The world of Roadwarden is rotting, collapsing, fading away, reaching a new form. With no time limit, it’s a playground, a place to be tamed according to your will. And the time limit was meant to turn it into a mystery, an interactive adventure. #MAMG23

[yourbestpalpercy]

Fuck it

Have some pure Operator and Tartar trivia because I randomly thought of a whole lot of trivia. + Some bonus Everest trivia because she’s my favorite.

To start this off, how about some Tartar trivia!

* When all of humanity went extinct, Tartar retreated into the professor’s lab and set up base before it went out and started collecting up every game, book, movie, every kind of media it possibly could find. He even pirate- bought every online game, book, and movie he could. They did avoid online and multiplayer only games for obvious reasons. And before anyone can ask the haha, funny, unhinged question; yes, Tartar did in fact break into houses and other living quarters to make sure it got everything it possibly could get to keep itself entertained for the isolation it had already predicted it would go through. When Tartar ran out of things to do (which took forever), he started making sequels and giving endings to things that were left on cliffhangers. No, this did not stop Tartar from going crazy in isolation, it only helped them ignore it.

* When Tartar did all of that, it started replaying them and fully completing them. Eventually, when there was nothing else to do, he started watching the world change around him.

* So basically, the Resurgence AU Tartar is a gamer.

*Seriously, they will ramble about the things they did during that isolation period if you ask about them.

* I think Tartar liked the Halo games, the Bioshock games, and a few others but it doesn’t like the lore of Bioshock 1 and 2 (It reminds Tartar of Alterna and the professor) but it adores Bioshock Infinite, the lore that it knows doesn’t remind it of its isolation.

* Off page, Everest did once come across the room that Tartar stayed in and got curious. She started going through everything and collected up the things she found interesting (Wings of Fire, Warriors, mostly just books really). One day, Tartar passed by her room and found her reading Wings of Fire (I like to believe that Everest is a huge fan of the series. She loves dragons! Notably though, her least favorite tribe is SeaWings) and had a jolt of shock go through him before asking her where she got the book. Everest admitted and Tartar explained before leaving her alone, absolutely ecstatic that Everest discovered one of the many things he had from the time of the old humans.

Operator time!

* After Tartar’s reset, while yes, Operator did keep a lot of information about humanity and also (albeit now hazy) memories about its isolation, a lot of the older information about humans was erased thanks to the reset.

* He remembers a lot of the games he played during that isolation and after the reset, Everest found herself back in that room when she discovered Bioshock. Operator remembers the game’s contents and refuses to let Everest play because it’s graphic. Everest came up with a plan and dug out a different game, pretending to have interest in it. Operator was skeptical but eventually helped Everest fix and get the console working. Everest played the game she claimed to be interested in for just an hour (Operator was watching her) before putting in Bioshock Infinite the second Operator stopped watching her. Eventually, Everest got to the point where everything goes downhill and she pauses the game immediately after the scene. Operator reenters the room to find Everest crying, curled up on the ground. It’s immediately clear to him that Everest is having a traumatic flashback to her times in the cult. Operator looked at the game (Bioshock Infinite) which gave him a huge clue on what was going on because he remembered the contents of Bioshock Infinite. Operator begins to comfort Everest and soon puts in a different game. Once Everest is snapped back to reality, Operator gets her to start playing a game they would both enjoy and it’s honestly just a sweet scene of Operator comforting Everest.

[sublimepizzastarfish]

Pirate Software's "rearchitecture" for Stop Killing Games

There's been a lot of fascinating drama around Stop Killing Games. Go read the initiative here:

It is a good initiative, and anyone who is a consumer that can, should absolutely go support it.

Jason "Thor" Hall, CEO of Pirate Software, recently had a few, let's say, "takes" on the matter (I'm trying and failing to remain neutral), which began on a stream. The stream's VOD has since deleted on his YouTube channel.

Louis Rossmann, who you might know as the largest Right to Repair activist in the US, made a response to a section of the releevant stream here:

Thor, CEO of Pirate Software, made two videos to clarify his points:

There is an argument in the video at the 2:08 mark that I will reference later.

(I recommend watching all these videos on 2x speed. You will get the same info out of them all, because especially video 2 is a lot of repetition)

Now, as mentioned above, there is one particular technical argument that bugs me about what Thor, CEO of Pirate Software, is making. Here is the full quote:

How would you keep League of Legends in a functional, playable state? You'd have to rearchitect the entire game. The game is what is called "client-server". So, in client-server models, there's a server, there's a client, and all of the math, all of the game, everything happens on the server. The client just displays it. And the reason we want to do it that way is so that you can't teleport around and do a billion damage. You don't trust the client. You trust the server. The client just displays what it's told. Right? So, if we wanted to rearchitect this, we would have to take all of that server logic, push it back out into the client, and somehow make that playable in a multiplayer-only video game. That doesn't make sense to me. So this doesn't work for all games. Why is [the initiative] calling out all games?

So, first off, yes, most games do client-server architecture for multiplayer logic, because you do trust the servers. It is an important step to curbing an entire class of cheats. It doesn't necessarily mean the client isn't malicious (for example, there are cheats for League of Legends that show a growing circle when an enemy leaves the fog of war in the minimap). However, it does mean the client doesn't know 100% of the game at any time when information is selectively fed to each client based on something like the fog of war. That's awesome.

Some games, like PlanetSide (rest in peace) and Overwatch (2) use what's called client-side hit detection. Some games, like Halo 1, employ more selective hit detection models, where only certain weapons use client-side hit detection (see https://c20.reclaimers.net/h1/engine/netcode/). Client-side versus server-side hit detection can change the overall feel of a game, and it's one of the things game developers decide on in multiplayer-only games that require it. In the case of an massively multiplayer online first person shooter (MMOFPS) like PlanetSide (2), the server simply can't calculate thousands of people's math in a reasonable amount of time, because otherwise the hit detection would otherwise feel very crappy to play, and so the math is offloaded to the client and the client says "hit" when they hit.

However, there are a few counterexamples to the specific technical argument that keeping the game playable after end-of-lifing it requires rearchitecting:

Games with dedicated servers exist - Command & Conquer: Renegade, Starsiege: TRIBES

Games where one client also hosts the multiplayer server exist - Half Life 2, Warhammer 40k: Space Marine

Private server hosting exists - World of Warcraft

Some of these games, particularly the examples with dedicated servers that can be run on user hardware, can also run as the second example.

To say keeping a multiplayer-only online game requires rearchitecting a game like League of Legends means a lack of imagination. More relevantly, it means a lack of systems thinking.

To me, it is very strange for someone such as Thor, CEO of Pirate Software, who is self-described as being a 20 year veteran of the games industry to say. I won't say skill issue, because I think there is an ulterior motive at play.

Just to hammer the point home, I drew up some crappy diagrams in Inkscape because this extremely wrong technical argument bugged me so, so much.

Here is what a client-server model looks like:

Here, you have 10 clients, each being a player of the game. Then, you have the server, run by Riot, the developer and maintainer of League of Legends.

Here is the imagination of Thor, CEO of Pirate Software, had to say on the matter on the required way rearchitect it:

Those who know their network models would understand this looks very much like a mesh network, or a peer-to-peer model. And, to be fair, some games might attempt it.

However, this isn't *usually* how games described using a peer-to-peer (P2P) model work. Most peer-to-peer models, like the architecture used in Space Marines, are often used for matchmaking. Once you are in a game, one of the clients also serves as the host (selecting by some algorithm, like randomly or whoever has the best hardware).

P2P is nice, because the company doesn't have to run servers for matchmaking at all during their lifespan (and sometimes a matchmaking server might be spun up to serve as a relay to help with network issues or help other clients find clients quickly). As we'll get into later, a client machine will also serve as the host machine. It is a perfectly fair and valid, although it comes with it's frustrations (mainly in the realm of network address translation (NAT) traversal, because your computer behind a router is not usually exposed to the wider Internet, though sometimes routers have universal plug-and-play (UPnP) set up, which makes NAT traversal much easier here).

If you've ever seen a message in the game "migrating host" because the host left, they likely use P2P matchmaking, but still use a client-server model. They can just migrate the game data to a new host using the data on the other clients as a seed for the data.

This is likely their setup for actual gameplay:

One of the clients now has a server on the same machine. Sometimes, this could be the game itself that would serve in singleplayer. However, most often, this is just a server that's lightweight enough for the client to connect to and they play that way (it's also really nice to develop and QA this way, because many server bugs will also be seen by the client).

Now, one of the disadvantages here is: Can all remote clients connect to the host that the server (and one of the clients) is running on? Again, NAT traversal issues usually play a role here. In the first few days of any game that uses this, and only this, there will likely be a lot of issues with connectivity.

Another disadvantage: The host won't have latency issues. This is why in the case of, for example, Among Us, the client host can see certain things happening (like someone is dead the moment they hit a button or reported a body), but remote player hosts might not.

Okay, so, maybe it's not possible to rearchitect something like League of Legends like this. It could reasonably be a lot of work. Here is another solution:

Looks very similar to the first architecture, doesn't it? It is! The difference is that the text "Riot" was changed to "not Riot".

This is how World of Warcraft and Pokemon Go private servers work.

The vast majority of games that would not run without private servers simply do not require rearchitecting to keep in a reasonably playable state when the servers shut down.

[khiphop-discussions]

I was watching the atypical family and the main lead reminded me of woo won jae of his acting

Yeah, he is Woo wonjae coded. I didn't watch the show (no Netflix sub cause I never watch) but I saw some clips. Funnily enough, Jang Kiyong CAN rap pretty well! Idk if you ever saw the show but it was called "Tribe of Hip-Hop 2" and it was basically SMTM for non-rapper celebrities (well some were technically idols rappers but it wasn't their main role in the group). I wonder if him and Woo ever met?

I was able to find some short clips of him covering Woo's "We Are" online cause I went looking to see if they've ever been pictured together or something.

Maybe he used Woo as inspiration when deciding how he was gonna play that character!

[multitrackdrifting]

"How many f2p online games have you played as a kid?" you might ask, well

Flyff DOMO Dragon's Nest Maple Story BOTS MU Gunbound RO Private Servers Combat Arms Vindictus Grand Chase Rappelz Asda Story Rose Online Dragonica Runescape Adventure Quest Cabal Silkroad Trickster Mabinogi Tibia Perfect World Fiesta GunZ The Duel Lunia Tera Dofus (later following it was Wakfu) S4 League Atlantica Rohan Florensia Audition Cross Fire Rakion Kart Rider Conquer Crazy Tao Martial Heroes Twelve Sky 2 Jade Dynasty Sudden Attack Blacklight Retribution Alliance of Valiant Arms (AVA) The Legend of Mir 3 Dungeon Fighter Online Grand Fantasia Forsaken World Allods Project Torque MicroVolts Legend of Edda Sherwood (most ppl played this at school) Wurm SD Gundam Capsule Fighter Online Tribes Ascend Continent of the Ninth (C9) Super Monday Night Combat Planetside 2 Furcadia Habbo Eudemons Fallen Sword Scions of Fate Metin 2 Rumble Fighter Luminary Lunaria LaTale NosTale FusionFall Ether Saga

[chaoshaven]

Chaotic Card 15- Maxxor

Here he is, the leader of the Overworld tribe, Maxxor! this art done by Khary Randolph, Etienne St.Laurent, Maxxor inherited the role from his father, who we haven’t seen in the show. Hopefully retired, but considering Maxxor is a punch first and ask questions later, they probably died in a war. His advisors are the hero Intress, muge Najarin, and the Danian ambassador Raznus. Possibly others too, but these are the confirmed ones in the tv show card lore.

Stat Spread:

Courage: 90-110

Power:55-75

Wisdom: 70-90

Speed: 40-60

Energy: 55-65

Mugic Counters: 2

Elements:

Fire

Air

Earth

Water

Ability:

Maxxor is able to use his Mugic Counter to heal himself or an ally, just like Donmar. This is very useful, but similar to what I talked about in Laarina’s post, you need to make a decision; Make a team with 8 Mugic Counters, to use this ability? Or pick 2 cards to not use, or ignore this ability? It’s something to consider.

Playstyle:

Maxxor is good, in any deck, Wisdom with Bodal, or a courage based one with Frafdo. You might even have all three front liners in an Earth based deck, with him, Crawsectus, and Maglax. Maybe you even put him in the middle for the support as a healer or to cast Mugic. He is good in many decks...but not great. He has no ability that gives him a damage buff, but a Battlegear could fix that. He’s a jack of all trades, but master of none, and as the series went on, we got better healers who can increase the maximum energy of a creature instead of just healing damage., and better offensive Creatures with high Disciplines and damage buffs like Crawsectus. If you have him, and are playing any of the first 3 sets, he can fill in any space in just about any deck. I’d recommend him over Donmar due to the higher stats, but there is also other Creatures I’d reccomend over Maxxor.

Biography:

Okay, so there’s a lot to go over here! We learn more as the tv show goes on, but Maxxor is the Leader of the Overworld, and willingly goes on one man missions for recon or to re route enemy armies. Preferring to settle things with his fists than his words, he needs his advisors to help him see reason. In the TV show, also called Chaotic, MajorTom is the protagonist of the show, and in his friend group, the one who mainly uses Overworlders. He idolizes Maxxor, and does everything he can to help the Overworld tribe. 

Chaotic only lasted 2.5 seasons, due to a lawsuit that 4Kidz created. They claimed that, they weren’t making enough money for the work they made in creating the tv show. That TC Digital Games, the card producing side owned by Bryan Gannon, (also it was a subsidiary/child company of 4Kidz) was getting too much of a profit. Notably because it was about money, all the cards in production had to be stopped. A lot of store even took cards off the shelves. The online tcg website was down and the show pulled from air. All of this was done because it was about money, so they needed to stop all incoming profit streams before discussing how the profit was split up. Also interestingly, this lawsuit came after 4Kidz lost a lawsuit against Konami, for breaking contract and making dubs in languages other than English.

With Chaotic, 4Kidz did not lose their case; instead, they went bankrupt and bought out, twice. for 10 years. Because of this, the case was closed, with all rights going towards TC Digital and Bryan Gannon, now the sole owner of Chaotic. Most of the episodes (one is gone, and another is only half there) is on a youtube channel called Chaotic and I implore you to watch it.

The show focuses on Tom Majors, getting a code that his friend Kaz tells him to connect to his Chaotic account. It will let you play Chaotic, “for real.” Eventually he does so and finds a VR world called Chaotic, where you can challenge people to drome matches. 7 dromes, which act as simulation rooms; because when your Creature fights the enemy’s, you become those Creatures and duke it out to decide the victory.

On top of all of this, you’re able to travel from the online world to Perim, the land where all the creatures actually live. You can scan Creatures with a Scanner, what is essentially an advanced phone circa 2008, or Battlegear, Mugic, Locations, to then use in future drome matches.

[thegaydm]

as a homebrew rp aimmed dm this is my first post☆

as I dm I made the whole world everything and such- but it's mainly rpg like where we are in a discord server where otherwise the players couldn't play like players that can barely get online or players that burn out quickly- but of course it's inposed by dnd fantasy monsters we roll only for combat due to the fact I get more enjoyment from having my players realize the hints on their own as well as talk to characters on their own ☆ so my stories won't make sense unless you know my playstyle custom spieces and it's more of a open world thing

☆

-my players☆-

☆

(a) who has multiple characters as it works more like a rpg

princess- a half angel (in game) she's married to once of the princes of the world and goes to the college school that all the characters go to expect the adult characters

angel-hes a archangel (the father of princess) (in the game) and works right underneath the king of the angels

forbidden- a witch that(in game) got killed by death himself and was reborn as a dragon after making a deal with a goddesses wife of angel and mother of princess

ghostie- first of their characters to die WHO DIED KILLING A NPC(not Mad just got caps locked and I don't wanna rewrite ) now is a ghost connected to a nercomecer pc also used to go to the school

and the 4 birds- who work underneath angel

bird 1- he's a sunkeeper and the youngest goes to the school

bird 2- a starkeeper and a nercomencer and goes to the school

bird 3- a bodyguard to princess in her new castle

bird 4- a Detective whose the most curious trying to figure out things

<and yes this player plays one character at a time depends on what they can do and sometimes send their characters off to do things like read books and gain knowledge by themselves and just learn- this player is still trying to get used to the play and how to use their characters but their determinationied and trying to get more used to it>

(yes I have all their forums- and they all have limition)

♡

<------->

♡

[now the rest of the players as the first player is the most active and most trying to get to the world around]

{~~~}

ducks!☆-

a demon a nercomecer to ghostie trying to study elementals and much more he's still getting used to the game and his character doesn't get out and has social problems of course it makes it a bit harder to make storylines for them but their character is interesting their in the school

|~~~|

snake-

a demon who in the future is a king but the past version of him is in the future and is now stuck in a town a good rper I know just have to get them used to the weird system I use ,he's going to be invited to his old school soon but first he's getting used to the town

○\\\○||||○////○

panda-

a daughter of a tribe of rangers( or what would be like rangers) and a pirate she can turn into a red panda she hasn't started but she's very excited to learn about her parents more and get more used to her story she's first going to go threw a tribe welcoming of her rangerness before she gets a letter to the school

---

---

all the characters have special roles sometimes assigned to them depending on their personality and actions they do like a reward ☆

☆

because of things and find it interesting to see the players remeber and think out their own way they have diaries a.k.a channels areas where they can speak out more of their lore and just note down things they remeber☆

well Imma post more of the lore but this is just a side off rant☆

I always look for new players ngl☆ BUT I always try to look for players that seem they would work with my other players☆