#unity clusterfuck

[regallibellbright]

It’s telling, in a “oh you REALLY didn’t think this one through did you” way, that one of Unity’s walkbacks/clarifications was “Oh no, DEVELOPERS won’t be on the hook for Gamepass/Playstation Plus installations, those fees will go to the distributors!”

Meaning, Microsoft and Sony.

For fees that will be applying retroactively.

If you throw a rock at Gamepass’s biggest indie titles you will probably hit one made in Unity.

And the point at which they go into effect - $200,000 in revenue, 200,000 installs - is COMICALLY low compared to Gamepass numbers.

Like, this is going to easily be in the realm of tens of millions of dollars for Microsoft, minimum. It’s fairly likely to be enough money they actually give a shit.

For fees that will be applying retroactively.

I wish them fucking luck is what I’m getting at they’re gonna fucking need it.

[paluwu-joko]

Hi there, game dev student here!

Thought I'd share how much of a clusterfuck this is from our perspective and what the unity debacle will mean for us in the long run.

My classmates and I are about to enter our final year at uni, and we now have years of experience using the weewee capitalism engine. Now I should probably mention that we are SOUTH AFRICAN and most of us were planning on leaving the very second we could after graduation. This is now going to be......... way harder!!!!!

Not only is it going to be nearly impossible to switch engines in our final year, but now we are going to have a big red pimple on our CVs that specifically says UNITY once we're done.

Is it impossible to be hired due to this? Of course not, plenty of studios use their own engines that require training anyway. However, ITS STILL GONNA SUCK MEGA DICK.

Unity has just made the lives of a bunch of nerds who just want to immigrate significantly harder, and I for one am absolutely dreading what this will mean for the future.

[compacflt]

if you're open to angsty prompts - tgm mission goes bad and Ice gets to accept Bradley and Mav's flags at their funerals? (but only if you're feeling angsty. if not, feel free to ignore!)

San Diego, California. November 2016.

It should not be surprising that the complicated politics of a funeral like Mitchell’s supersede even the national grief of losing him, but of course it is. The Defense Department and the new administration (loudly Tweeting out of their asses because the President-Elect hasn’t yet been sworn in) want to hold it in Arlington. Do it in D.C., show American unity, show how proud we are of our fallen aviator, who sacrificed himself for America’s national interests, bury him in Virginian soil next to Kennedy’s eternal flame… It’s not a terrible idea, geopolitically speaking. But the Republican leadership of the state of Texas wants a piece of him, too. Why not bury him in the National Cemetery in Dallas? That’s where he’s from. Lay him to rest in the soil of his forefathers, as all good men should be. But the entire Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy, it is argued by people who aren’t Kazansky, also has a stake in this. Bury him at sea. He gave his life for the Navy. This is how it ought to be. Bury both Mitchell and Bradshaw at sea the way we buried other American Navy heroes like John Paul Jones. (When he hears this argument, Kazansky also remembers that we buried Osama bin Laden at sea, too.)

The whole political clusterfuck is put to rest at last in mid-November, when someone bothers to ask Kazansky what he thinks, and Kazansky says, “I’ll remind you that there’s absolutely nothing left of him to bury. But Mitchell lived in California for the last thirty years of his life. He told me he’d want to be buried in San Diego. I don’t really care where you put him. But that’s what he said he wanted.” And after Pacific Command leadership hears this and communicates it to the White House, everyone all of a sudden bends over backwards to organize a joint funeral in San Diego, where Bradshaw’s parents are buried, anyway. Maybe it really is fitting. Okay.

It’s a funny thing, ritual. The military’s full of it. A funeral: that’s a ritual. So, too, is promotion, retirement, commissioning in the first place. So, too, is the everyday ritual of getting dressed, donning battle gear, which today is dress blues, the way it was the day Mitchell died. Medals instead of ribbons. The President posthumously gave Bradshaw and Mitchell Medals of Honor. Their bodies would be wearing them, if there were bodies to bury. The President prehumously gave Kazansky and Seresin Medals of Honor as well. Kazansky’s is sitting around his throat like a noose. He feels like nothing but a body himself, no soul, already passed-on. They’ll lower Mitchell’s empty casket into the ground this afternoon and Kazansky’s already thinking about climbing inside it before they do. He’s not so un-self-aware that he can’t see the absurdity in that thought. But he’s also not so self-aware that he isn’t having that thought.

It’s the highest-profile funeral Kazansky’s attended in a few years. The Secretary of State is here. The Secretary of Defense is here. The Secretary of the Navy is here. The Vice President is here. He, too, has only recently lost a son; he, too, has already lost someone he thought he’d spend the rest of his life with. They don’t talk, but when they shake hands, it feels like stronger solidarity than all the Sorry for your losses Kazansky’s received over the past couple weeks. Everyone here knows about him and Mitchell, in a way that had once been Kazansky’s worst nightmare; now, his actual worst nightmare having been realized, he can’t bring himself to care, and no one’s making a big deal out of it. When they say, Sorry for your loss, they don’t mean in the “loss of two highly strategic assets for the U.S. Pacific Fleet” sense, they mean in the “loss of the only two people you cared about more than your career” sense. Sorry for your loss. It’s not so bad. And because everyone knows, in a way that had once been Kazansky’s worst nightmare, no one bats an eye when Kazansky realizes his actual worst nightmare and accepts Mitchell’s folded flag. No, they weren’t legal family. But everyone knows they were close enough.

He tacks his own Naval aviator wings onto Mitchell’s empty casket. Twenty-one guns fire. He salutes. They lower two empty caskets into the ground and he’s still standing. It doesn’t really mean anything. It’s not really a goodbye, because neither Mitchell nor Bradshaw are actually inside. He watches Seresin struggle not to cry. He stands before a few hundred people and makes a short boring speech about service and sacrifice that he did not write. This is all political. This is all just for show. Most ritual usually is. So who gives a fuck.

He disappears before anyone can pin him down to apologize again and again, but finds that his intended hideout location has already been claimed: by the time he makes it to Goose’s grave, Seresin’s already standing there alone, his hands in his blues pockets, his cap tucked under his arm.

“I just,” says Seresin stupidly. His eyes are red-rimmed and his face is sallow. They’ve never really spoken, the two of them, but Kazansky’s heard the rumors about him and Bradshaw. And he’s sure Seresin’s heard the rumors about him and Mitchell. They’re in the same leaking boat, here. “Bradley talked about him all the time.” Gestures down to the grave. “And about you. And about Maverick.”

Kazansky says, “Would you want to have lunch with me? I’m not very hungry. But maybe we can talk.” He’s trying. Too little too late, but he’s trying.

He exchanges his jingling blues coat for a regular suit jacket in the armored Suburban. Takes the Medal of Honor off as he does. Seresin, still only a lieutenant, doesn’t have the luxury of a general staff who will carry around a wardrobe change on his behalf. He’s gonna have to make do with his dress blues. He’s nervously fingering the Medal of Honor around his neck, and will continue to do so long after they’ve taken their seats in a restaurant downtown where Kazansky used to take Mitchell out for dinner, not so long ago. He can hear his chief flag aide kindly whispering to their waiter: Somewhere in the back. Where they won’t be bothered. Everyone’s being so kind.

“I could kill him,” Seresin says after a few minutes.

“Who?” says Kazansky incuriously. He’s been running his fingers over the condensation on his water glass. Now his fingertips are wet. Actions and consequences.

“Cyclone. He’s the one who refused to send me. And he didn’t launch search-and-rescue, either.”

Kazansky blinks, then looks down at his menu. “No, son, that was me.”

Seresin’s Then I could kill you goes unsaid. It’s quiet for a long time, long enough that Kazansky’s read through the menu—every word—twice. Then Seresin says, “Why?”

“You would’ve searched for the rest of your life and rescued nothing, and blamed yourself.”

“I blame myself for not going anyway. For not disobeying orders. —Maverick would’ve gone.”

Yeah, he probably would have. Kazansky remembers, in a split second, a story Mitchell had only told him a few years ago, lying next to him in the dark, a little tipsy after dinner and touchy-feely as he always was lying next to Kazansky in the dark: I don’t think I ever told you the story of how I saved Cougar’s life. His warm hands, gentle and unhurried, sliding up and down Kazansky’s abdomen: it’s so funny the details you choose to overlook at the time, and only remember when you lose them. / Well, I never wanted to ask. You hate telling those stories, I thought, Kazansky had said. Because it was true. At any party, Mitchell could tell the stories of how he saved Cougar’s life and how he ejected out of a flat spin at TOPGUN and how he shot down three MiGs not two weeks later—but he’d always have nightmares about all of it the night after. He hated telling those stories. He’d only do it if people asked, so Kazansky never asked. / You’re here in bed next to me, Mitchell said, so I’ll sleep just fine. Let me be a hero for you for once. —It was the day I saw that first Soviet MiG up close. Remember that? Negative four-G inverted dive? That was real, baby. Scared the shit outta Cougar. Messed him up bad. I mean, he thought we were all cooked. He wasn’t gonna land, I mean. Or if he tried, he was gonna plow right into the side of the boat. Couldn’t see straight. You ever been so scared you couldn’t see straight? He was dipping his wings, power too low, basically drunk-driving his Tomcat, I mean, it was freaky. So I touch-and-goed my F-14. / Against orders, surely, Kazansky’d said. / Oh, of course. You’ve met me, haven’t you? Of course, against orders. We were both outta gas. But I took off again and circled around to find him, and guided him in, you know, level off, call the ball, there you go, Coug, you got it, you got it. Don’t know if he ever told you this—he probably did ten million dollars of damage to that plane. Fucked up the landing gear and snapped off his tailhook and ground up into the fuselage. / But he lived. / But he lived, Mitchell said, and that’s how I got sent to TOPGUN. And that’s—with a soft sweet kiss—how I met you. / My hero, Kazansky’d said.

“Yeah,” he says noncommittally. “Maverick would’ve gone. —But he’d have searched for the rest of his life and rescued nothing, and blamed himself.”

Seresin says, “Is that what happened with him and Bradley’s dad? Is that what happened with Goose?”

“Yeah.”

They sit in silence for another while. The waiter comes by to take their orders. Kazansky’s not hungry and orders a beer. Seresin’s starving and orders a burger and a side of onion rings and a glass of wine.

“Can I ask you a question?” Seresin says after another few minutes. “Are you, like, a coward, or something? —That speech you gave was pretty neutered, sir. You loved him and you can’t even say it at his funeral?”

It’s a stupid, immature question. The Navy doesn’t deserve to hear that out loud. Nor does Mitchell’s empty casket. Only Mitchell did, and too late now. Kazansky shrugs. “If I were a brave man,” he says, “do you think I would have let him go?”

“I’d like to think I’m a brave man,” says Seresin. “I let Bradley go because I trusted him to come back. —Honestly, I’m kind of fucking pissed about it, to be honest. Sorry for the language. But it’s the truth. The night after he died, I mean, I went apeshit. Tore up our photos, punched the wall, cried myself fucking dry, that kind of stupid shit. I was so mad. I trusted him to come back, and he didn’t. Thought he was a good pilot. —Sorry. Is that sacrilegious to say? We aren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead, are we? I don’t care. I’m still mad about it. I know I shouldn’t be. But it’s the only thing I know how to be, is angry. Does that make sense?”

“It makes sense.”

“Are you angry?”

“Yes, but not at Mitchell. You know that saying, we have old pilots and bold pilots, but never old, bold pilots? Maverick was an old, bold pilot. We both knew he was living on borrowed time. That’s how he lived.”

“Pretty fucking defeatist.”

Kazansky shrugs again. He is a man defeated.

Seresin says, “Are you gonna be okay?” Then, in the resulting silence, he says, “Sorry, stupid question. Sorry. It’s just—“ He hesitates. It’s only now that Kazansky sees the dark circles under his eyes, the tremor in his hands, the desperation in the stiffness of his shoulders. “Look, it’s just that I don’t think I’m going to be okay, and you’re a lot older than me, and I keep thinking you have, like, the answer. Some wisdom, you know what I mean? How am I gonna be okay? You’re the Commander of the Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy. Aren’t you supposed to know what to do? Aren’t you supposed to give me orders? What do I do?”

“If I were a wise man,” Kazansky says, “do you think I would have let him go?”

Seresin is quiet. His food comes. He immediately launches into it, eats ravenously and silently for a few minutes.

Then he says, around a bite of his burger, “You know, I was gonna ask him to marry me.”

“Bradshaw?”

“Who else?”

Kazansky blinks. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Yeah,” says Seresin. “You know, fucking everyone is.”

“Lunch is on me,” Kazansky says.

Home, afterwards, is silent and lonely. Of course it is: Mitchell’s not here. Of course. Kazansky’s settling into it. Life so rarely gives you a choice, when assigning you ritual, routine. There’s still legal paperwork to fill out. That he can do. And there are still letters of condolences to respond to: Thank you for your kind words. Maverick was… figuring out how to end that sentence will give Kazansky a way to occupy his time for a while. And there are flowers to throw out—no one wants flowers after someone they care about has died. They stink up the house and permeate everything with their reminder of grief and mourning, and you’ll find the dried petals even months later and grieve and mourn all over again. Kazansky throws them all out before they can start shedding. There are friends to call and thank for coming. “I don’t know what to say,” Slider says over the phone. / “Yeah, neither do I,” says Kazansky, so they sit in silence on the line together for a while, and that’s pretty nice. / “He was the best of us,” says Sundown, and Kazansky thinks about what Seresin had said a few hours ago: Thought he was a good pilot. It’s a cruel thought, but sometimes the only thing you can be is angry: if Maverick really was the best of us, he should’ve come home. / “You know, I’m still in his debt,” says Cougar. “He saved my life thirty years ago. It’s so fucking stupid, you know what I mean, this idea that I should’ve saved his in return? Feels like it’s my fault that he died. Maybe I’m too superstitious. I’m indebted to a fucking dead man. I’ll never be able to pay him back. —Sorry, Ice. Sorry. I don’t mean to make it all about me. I can’t even imagine what you’re going through right now. I’m so sorry.”

“That’s okay,” says Kazansky. “Don’t, um—look, I’m just curious. How did he save your life? Would you mind telling me?”

“I don’t remember too much of it, to be honest,” says Cougar. “That’s why I quit, isn’t it? Something wrong with me. I was so scared I couldn’t see straight. You ever been so scared you couldn’t see straight? I wouldn’t have landed if it weren’t for Maverick. Or, if I had tried, I think I would’ve plowed into the side of the boat. Dipping my wings, power too low, basically drunk-driving my Tomcat. There was something wrong with me. You know, they could’ve kicked him out for that stunt, touch-and-going his F-14 like that. We were both outta gas. It could’ve killed him, too. But he guided me in. Saved my life. —I don’t think I ever told you this. I probably did about ten million dollars of damage to that plane. Fucked up my landing gear, snapped off my tailhook, ground up into the fuselage.”

“But you lived.”

“But I lived,” says Cougar. “And I came home to my family. Only ‘cause of him.”

“He was a hero.”

“He was a fucking hero,” says Cougar. “To the very fucking last. Sorry you had to go and fall in love with him. They advise against that, don’t they?”

“What, falling in love with heroes?”

“Yeah. —Sorry. Not funny.”

“A little funny. In a cosmic sense. Means it’s my own fault.”

Cougar pauses. “It wasn’t your fault, Ice.”

There’s still a Fleet to be run. Still work to be done. Kazansky can do that. People will laud him for the rest of his life for his professionalism under duress. He works when he should be grieving. Work is a ritual, too. Take some time off, sir, one of the Chief of Naval Operations’ aides had begged him. You need time. But he can’t. Only thing to do is keep working until all the work is done. The geopolitical situation after the mission, which was still classified as a success, is quite bad. They knew it would be. A bombing mission on Russian territory right near the American general election? Yeah, that’s bad. Russia’s Foreign Ministry has openly stated that if they find any remains of Mitchell and Bradshaw’s bodies, they will not extradite them home to the United States. I’m sorry you had to hear that, the President e-mailed him personally. But it’s fine. Kazansky likes the chaos. Means there’s work to do. He works.

When he can’t work anymore, because he’s done all the work that needs to be done, he takes care of another ritual. Life assigned him this one without giving him a choice, too. It’s past 2200. He turns no light on. He’s not sleeping in their bed, which is pretty cliché, and maybe he should be stronger than that, but you do have to make some concessions to your own grief when something like this happens. But he’s strong enough to sit on the side of it that had been his and open his phone and dial the number of his only favorited contact and hold the phone to his ear. It gives the dial tone five times, as is routine, and then Mitchell picks up the phone, as is routine. Hi! Captain Pete Mitchell here! Unfortunately I’m not able to come to the phone right now. Leave a message, or if it’s Navy business, you can shoot me an e-mail at C. A. P. T. dot P. dot Mitchell at navy dot mil. Thanks! Bye. Maybe Mitchell’s just busy. Maybe Mitchell’s somewhere without cell service. Maybe Mitchell’s just out flying.

Kazansky considers leaving a message, as is routine; realizes he doesn’t know what to say, as is routine; and hangs up, as is routine.

He takes all his medals off the rack of his double-breasted blues coat, packs them back into their clear-plastic-velvet boxes. He considers, momentarily, throwing out the Medal of Honor with the flowers. But he’s too self-aware to do that. He hangs up his coat on its felt-lined hanger, steams it straight, does the same to his slacks, slips the ensemble back into its garment bag, hangs it up next to Mitchell’s in their closet. This is a ritual, too. He takes a shower. He eats something. He answers a couple e-mails. He climbs into a bed that is not his own. He holds one of Mitchell’s college sweatshirts over his face and breathes in. He takes stock. His fuel gauge is reading pretty low. He knows his wings are dipping. If he really thought about it, he’d say he’s so scared he can’t see straight. And the truth is—he’s not so un-self-aware that he can’t recognize this, however numbly—Maverick’s not coming home to guide him in to land. Maverick’s never coming home again. Thought you were a good pilot. He closes his eyes. He tries to sleep.

[rychlostthespacewizard]

No matter where I look, the one most common tips i see in the worldbuilding community I see is:

THEMES AND PRINCIPLES

and it seems to be very important for the entire process so you dont end up with a clusterfuck (although i already made sure that my world is one by adding anything i think is cool into it)

So i decided to show you all the ones that help me make Aeloria:

Never One Without the Other

A grand tapestry woven from opposing and inseparable forces: life and death, light and dark, self and other. Life finds meaning in death; light defines dark; individuality exists because of the collective; one cannot have a coin with only one side. Every element is essential and interconnected, forming the true magic of the world. Your existence is inextricably essential to the greater whole.

Everything stays, but it still changes

There's a constant cycle of change and continuity in the world. Remnants of the past stay, but they transform slightly with time. History repeats itself, but never in the same way. Sudden events, seem to come out of nowhere, but they are always rooted in the past. People, instituitions and figures take roles that have been played before, as if they were reincarnations of the past. Ruins dont disappear, they become faded and overgrown, but they are still there, waiting to be discovered until they become the landscape itself.

Elements

Magic, reality, energies and matter are all made up of elements. These elements are the building blocks of the world, and they can be combined in different ways to create different things. The elements are not just physical, but also spiritual and emotional. They are the essence of everything, and they are what connects everything in the world. Each element has its own unique properties and characteristics, and they each represent many different things, they can appear in different ways in our words, like fire can be passion, or anger, or warmth, it can represent the desires and heart of a person and many other things. Some elements are more common and manageable, while others are rare and dangerous. The elements are the foundation of the world, and they are what make everything possible.

The First is More Powerful but The Last is More Refined

The first of a kind embodies raw, untamed power, while the last represents refined, distilled wisdom. The first holds primal strength but lacks control; the last offers stability and knowledge but lacks raw potential. This rule applies to all things, from the first dragons against the new ones, and the first spells agains the recently created ones. The cycle of creation and destruction is a constant in the world, and it is what keeps it in balance.

Many Pasts, Many Proofs

Multiple pasts exist, each with its own truths and stories. The past is a complex, multifaceted entity defined by collective and personal beliefs, revealing different aspects through exploration and interpretation. When one discovers evidence of the previous world, the narrative created by them reveals more about those that created it than the past itself. No one is safe from their own biases, not even the gods, as they are also part of the world.

The Rule of Twos and The In-Between (This is not really a principle but I think it fits here)

All things come in twos or exist in the in-between. The world is shaped by duality and the spaces bridging opposites. Represented by twin deities Aena and Kryela, it highlights balance and unity in duality. The In-Between signifies the spectrum between extremes, blending black and white into shades of gray. This motif guides adventurers and scholars in understanding Aeloria's complex reality, emphasizing that existence is not just black and white but a continuum of possibilities.

[mayasaura]

I think I've found a way out of the political situation in The Locked Tomb. One that doesn't lead to massive loss of life, and still dismantles the empire of the Nine Houses.

John didn't create anything with the intention of it surviving him. He seems to have gone out of his way to do the reverse, and only build things that would catastrophically self-destruct without him. Empires are already powder kegs, and based on the information in As Yet Unsent, John rigged this one to go up like the sun. Here's an excerpt of Judith reporting what she understands of BOE's arguments:

Their other line of attack is the business contracts. They claim that the services asked of them by the Emperor were set down in lifetime contracts by previous generations, who assumed the contracts would be terminated upon the Emperor's death.

If this is true, and we have no reason to assume it isn't, John has either intentionally or accidentally made himself into a latter-day Alexander; building an empire that will immediately crumble at his sudden death. This looks like it provides an easy solution: Kill the Emperor, terminate the contract, freedom for the peoples of the greater universe! Glory to the resistance!

Problem is, even assuming this doesn't amount to the fiery genocide of the Nine Houses—which I'm assuming is not the direction this series is going—there is no external state or government-in-exile prepared to take over where the Nine Houses left off. BOE is a militia group made up of isolated and conflicting factions, and the Houses have been incredibly successful at destroying political and cultural unity in their colonies. The sudden cessation of the empire would leave a huge power vacuum, New Rho writ large across the face of the universe.

And the Cohort would still be there. The neat crumbling of John's empire relies on the Cohort respecting the terms of these ancient contracts. Every admiral and general jockeying for power in the void left by the death of the emperor has to agree that yeah, the empire thing has been great, loved the military conquest, but now that we don't have an emperor anymore let's pack it all in and go home. That isn't what happened to Alexander's empire, and it's not what I see happening here. Alexander's empire dissolved into 40 years of civil war, eventually leading to the creation of four successor states still under Macedonian or Greek rule. Most likely something similar would happen in the empire of the Houses: the universe would dissolve into open war as the dominant military powers duked it out. The Cohort vs the Cohort vs BOE, with thousands of smaller powers allying with one side or another. Who knows what this would do for the politics back home—how factions would develop in relation to House loyalties, what Houses would survive the fallout, and so on—but for the larger empire it would be a bloodbath. We got a little taste of that in Canaan House, when Judith and Marta tried to impose military rule.

This isn't an argument for the status quo, though I do see how the people most likely to die in the ensuing chaos would disagree. Then again, some wouldn't. The deadly blast of an empire imploding is still better than endless death and exploitation under colonial rule, right? But we're still looking at catastrophic loss of life, and we can only hope that when the dust eventually settles, whatever comes next will be better, and not just successor states under Cohort control.

Which brings me back to the ray of hope I see in this clusterfuck of a situation: Kiriona Gaia. Heir to the Emperor Divine.

Six months ago, John had something else in common with Alexander the Great: no clear line of succession. Now he has a publicly declared and recognized heir, and that gives the Nine Houses an off-ramp into peaceful dissolution. It wouldn't be too difficult for her to step into the role, especially if Ianthe and Sarpedon back her. No one is anticipating that the Emperor will ever die, so the leaders would want a figurehead to gather around for stability.

Once Kiriona's in power, she can start a controlled demolition eventually ending in her abdication. She can formally honor the contracts set to terminate upon her father's death, and negotiate to release occupied planets from imperial rule. This feels like naively wishful thinking, wanting to have my cake and eat it too, but I think the pieces are in place for it to actually work.

Kiriona is in the unique position of being set to inherit the empire without having been thoroughly indoctrinated into its power structure. She went straight from being on the bottom rung of the meanest most isolated portion of the interior to being the crown prince in the space of a year, and she hates it. We know her. She has no personal stake in preserving the empire, she has no respect for authority derived via power structures, and she places a high value on respect earned between individuals. All she's ever wanted is to have a positive, or at least affirming, connection with other people. She has a protective inclination, and she's been on the front lines to see the cost in human sacrifice maintaining an empire demands. So taking that all together, there's a good chance that, given the opportunity, she would want to dismantle the empire.

She wouldn't have to do it by herself. As emperor, Kiriona would have support from Paul and the Sixth House, and possibly the Third with one or both of its princesses. Ianthe and Corona have been planning for this, or something like it, for a long time. She's also Wake's daughter, with connections in BOE. If We Suffer can spin her succession as the result of a plot set into motion by Commander Wake, other wings of BOE might be convinced to parlay with the Houses.

It would also bring Gideon satisfyingly full circle, back to the first chapter of Gideon the Ninth. The series opens in media res, introducing Gideon in the final stages of executing a scheme utilizing loopholes, blackmail, technicalities, and straight up forging paperwork to corner her evil overlord into granting her independence. It would have worked, too. If Harrow's attention hadn't been more valuable to Gideon than her freedom, her 87th escape attempt would have been successful. She's good at this, and she understands what it's like to be desperately trying to escape exploitation. So it would be a hell of a thing, for her to end up in a position to use those skills she honed trying to escape the Ninth in unraveling the whole power structure that's been exploiting her since she was a baby.

Of course this series being what it is, anything like this would all have to happen by implication off-page while we aren't looking. The real story is in the people, not the politics.

[creepy-things-are-cool]

My contribution to the unity clusterfuck

[knackeredforever]

Game development rant below:

I’m kind of at a really bad point with my game development right now as the project I’m currently working on that I have spend a lot of time working on the mechanics for is not working because trying to get the many mechanics I have made actually working in a level is not working the problem is any further development working on the game depends getting this feature working .

The most frustrating part is it is seemingly a really simple issue to fix but all of the “simple” fixes I’ve found online don’t seem to work.

Honestly I genuinely was really passionate for this project when I started out several months ago and that’s when I worked on all of the mechanics that all worked originally but now won’t work in the actual game map.

I guess I got in over my head and now I’m paying the consequences.

I do want to work on another simpler project instead to build my skill but I physically can’t because my current project is for my computer science A level so I need to continue with it.

This is the second game I’ve made the first one I made at the start of the year which was a simple top down shooter. I really want to make another simple game to build my confidence again but as I previously mentioned I can’t.

I can’t fully dedicate myself to my coursework either because I have all my A level revision to do as well so I can only occasionally work on my project but I get nothing done in that time because I seemingly can get nothing to work.

I’ve put dozens of hours into this project so I don’t want to abandon it but I don’t think I have the skill for what I’m trying to accomplish, and working on it just makes me feel worse about myself.

It especially sucks Because the game I’m trying to make is in the same genre as my dream game project so it just makes my dream game ideas feel like there slipping away.

I’m going to do game design for uni so hopefully that will improve the situation I’m in but I just feel really trapped as a game developer right now and I physically can’t improve my skill despite wanting to because of my situation.

That doesn’t even take into account the recent unity clusterfuck (the game engine I’ve made my games in) which makes me want to switch engines as soon as possible but once again I can’t do that until my coursework and A levels are finished.

I’ll probably switch to godot or game maker studio (although I also really want to buy one of the good versions of rpgmaker and try to make something with that because it requires less technical skill in coding although I’ve heard you need at least some background coding knowledge which I already do have so it could be a good engine for me)

On the plus side I’ve gotten pretty decent at pixel art over the last few months(I’ve posted all of it on my blog) so that will be helpful but I want to get good at traditional art too which I could try doing over the summer.

Anyways sorry for the rant I’ve just been feeling really shit about this recently because game development is my passion.

[rlyehtaxidermist]

the unity per-end user-download fee is vile and genuinely sucks for a lot of indie game developers. but for all the people in the Tutorial Industry who helped cause how much of a clusterfuck this is by downplaying the importance of learning how to code as a skill in of itself instead of learning a few specific libraries to do everything,

[mew-cake]

Attack on Titan is such an interesting case study. So many aspects joined together to make it an absolute clusterfuck. It was one of the most popular anime of 2013. The fandom was annoying as hell. Characters were written with nuance and subtlety. The fandom flanderized every single one. The production of the anime was top notch. The original author is a xenophobe and Japanese imperialist. The text is strictly about unity of people and drawing bullshit lines to divide others into categories will only lead to everyone suffering. The main character decides the solution is genocide.

Like. What the fuck.

[sudriantraveler]

The Development of the NWR

So first of all, Happy New Year everyone! I actually want to start this year by poking everyone’s brains for a bit of a RWS discussion.

What is the Transition Period of the NWR? As in, what time period or series of events do you consider to be the most significant/impactful in the the NWR’s development from chaotic dysfunctional clusterfuck holding on by a bootlace and a prayer and shambling around in the rough approximation of a railway, to still very quirky and chaotic but it is actually a functional railway?

My answer, or at least my current answer is below:

Honestly, the NWR’s development might be a bit too gradual to point to a specific time period as being the most significant, but if I had to pick I would say the late 30s and early 40s.

I remember seeing a post by @mean-scarlet-deceiver, I believe it was this one, which briefly mentions how in the mid to late 20’s there was some notable factionalism between the engines of the NWR’s fleet: you had the “big engine trio” of Gordon, Henry and James, the “old guard” of Edward and Thomas plus new recruit Percy, and the “bully club” of 98462 and 87546, as well as several other engines, including the remaining pre-NWR holdovers, who would all probably have been somewhat divided into various groups and factions.

It would have probably been during the Second World War that these dividing lines would have either blurred or in some cases disappeared completely, with the much more fully encompassing identity of being North Western Engines taking their place. War is above all horrible and destructive, but as a side effect it can also be a hell of a force for unifying and strengthening national and cultural identities.

During the war, there would have been a lot more work with much less down-time and even less regular maintenance. Engines would have been coming and going much like when the NWR was being constructed back during the First World War. Not to mention there would probably have been several War Department engines arriving on the Island who, while they would have been a significant help to the NWR’s overworked locomotive fleet, their constant attitude of “for King and Country” and “doing your part for the Crown” might have come into conflict with Sodor’s independent streak. Sudrians fought hard and made plenty of sacrifices during the war, but they don't take kindly to outsiders telling them what to do. All of this instability would have led the NWR’s engines to circle around each other, and from this would have emerged the idea that “Yes, while we all come from different places and backgrounds, we’re all Sudrians now! The NWR is our railway and home, and we’re all one big found family!” The engines would develop a much stronger sense of unity during this time, and this would serve them well in the post war years, especially during nationalization.

This was probably also a very important time period for the individual development of many of the engines. As a few examples: Henry around this time probably really embraced his new-found strength and confidence following his rebuild, with he and Gordon pulling some of the heaviest and most important trains on the railway; Edward probably pushed himself far beyond his mechanical limits, trying to avoid being left in the shed again, which is probably what led to the worn out state he’s in by the time the events of his book roll around; and I image Thomas would have further developed his deep rooted sense of responsibility and loyalty to his branchline and the people who live along it around this time (as an aside I wonder if this is when Thomas first became friends with Mrs. Kindley).

As for 98462 and 87546, if you believe them to still be on Sodor at this point, there’s a lot of different directions you could go with them. Maybe their bad behavior finally catches up to them and they’re relegated to lesser duties on more out of the way parts of the Island. Maybe the hardships of the time period prove to be the slap in the face they needed to begin to reform. Maybe they split off from each other, one reforming and trying to become a better engine while the other doubles down on their bad behavior. Or maybe they both leave Sodor entirely. In any case, probably the biggest source of toxicity within the NWR’s fleet is either greatly reduced in strength or removed from the equation entirely. Which would again be a big step in the railway’s development into a far more functional and healthy social environment.

To keep this from getting too much longer that’s where I’m going to end. Again, I want to try to spark some discussion with this post, so please reply or reblog with your thoughts and opinions on what time periods and events were the most significant in how the NWR developed overtime. I’m very excited to read them!

[wiertuff]

If there is one thing I could never let go or make peace and work around with in Attack on Titan, it is that Jaegerists used the Survey Corps motto: "Dedicate your hearts".

It might seem dumb and realistically we have seen close to none of how the old Survey Corps worked before their annihilation, but I've always had a soft spot for them, for their tenacity and hunger for more, for resolution to go outside again and again and again. I've always associated this motto with desire for freedom, for lack restrains. I believed to be a call for unity and bravery in hard times.

And Jaegerists spat on all of this.

The words that symbolized freedom and bravery and open minds have been used for furthering their fascist ideas, their actions staining the motto.

And suspect Eren Jaeger had something to do with this choice. He was there during the time when Survey Corps went from a waste of resources to something useful to all the clusterfuck when he was serving in the regiment. He knows the meaning of the motto, and what those words mean for outsiders.

And yeah, it's pretty irrational, but this makes me so angry. I know the words weren't meant so in the beginning, I know what they carry from the start, but the actions commited to those words, what has conducted under this motto by Jaegerists - it makes me sick in the stomach and so, so pissed about Eren, I would punch him.

Anyway, some people want to punch their protagonists for big mistakes, for wrong decisions, for setting the wrong mindset and trend.

Imma punch Eren Jaeger because his decision took away a comfort phrase and motivator from me. Ya'll's got big problems, Imma get personal with this little bitch boy.

[love-fireflysong]

God, so I've been playing the Assassin's Creed Rogue remaster recently (mostly cause I haven't played it since I beat to original back in like 2016 lol) and I keep getting constantly reminded that while this one and Black Flag are nowhere near my fav AC games, they certainly did shine in one particular aspect for me: the modern day conflict that constantly runs in the background.

I know it's such a controversial opinion, but honestly one of my fav parts of the series has always been the modern day war between the Templar and Assassin orders. Like I love it so much you have no idea. I always get so excited in the older games when you got shunted out of the animus and got to wander around and talk to your companions and read emails or found little voice files that hint towards all the other shit that's taking place while you have your little adventure in the past. I'm obsessed with it frankly. It's why I love the comics so much but have read so little of the novelizations: the latter spends absolutely no time delving into that clusterfuck. (The game novelizations that is, the novels based in the AC world are another thing entirely and I've enjoyed each of them immensely).

Like I need you to understand, I was fucking *devastated* when they removed it almost entirely from Unity and Syndicate, it was only the fact that I still got *some* hints from the databases and whatever video footage they showed that placated me. And yeah I know they made an extremely minor return in Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla, but only being able to explore like two or three time with basically no new information honestly means that I wonder why they were even included sometimes. That coupled with the fact that they removed the database entries *entirely* was pretty much a kick in the teeth for me. Sure they have the discovery tours now but that's really not the same thing. The history nerd in me loved loved LOVED anytime I went somewhere new and I got that ping of a new entry to read.

But I digress.

And I get it. I really do. Some people absolutely *hated* the modern day story line while the select few like me adore every scrap of information we can get for it. Hell, fucking Ubisoft's even come out and said that it's literally impossible for them to please everyone. One side will complain about being outside of the animus for a even a single moment while my camp will complain about there not being nearly enough of it. There is legitimately no middle ground to reach for our two camps. And I get that. That's why they made the choice that they're starting to move all of the modern conflict to online so those of us who do love it can seek it out on our own time, while the other can ignore it entirely.

It just sucks for me that while the newer games have a much more polished gameplay and are admittedly funner to play, it's the older ones that have, in my opinion, the best overarching story lines and beats.

[miasfoxxden]

I tried to quit when you went to shit, when you proved to the world that you only cared about yourselves and not the people who needed you most. But here I am coming back for more like a god damn junkie. I kinda hate this, not gonna lie, but there's really nothing else like VRchat.

VRchat is a weird and amazing thing when you're queer. The aging 2019 Unity Engine LTS build it uses, although held together by duct tape and super glue, provides near infinite capabilities for self expression to those who have the time and patience to understand how to use it's SDK toolkit alongside other community tools like various Blender Plugins. It goes without saying, for those such as myself who have struggled with their own identity for a long time, this shit will crack eggs. And it shattered what remained of mine in the beginning of 2020. This is why this badly written and mismanaged clusterfuck of a Unity game holds a special place in my heart.

To make a very fucking long story short, I've been on VRchat since basically the beginning. My earliest memories of VRC were in late 2017, early 2018 where everything was far more raw, simple, and experimental. VRchat itself was a blank canvas, and on that canvas was a tight knit community that spawned an iconic culture all to its own. And yes, before anyone asks I do know de wae. But for those early years, mainly because of my lack of budget and stable income, I was tied down to just keyboard and mouse controls from a desktop PC. It's a sub ideal way to play VRC but you make do with what you have in that kind of situation and make the best of it. So when I had the means to get my own headset in the beginning of 2020, an Oculus Rift S, you can bet your ass the first thing I loaded into was VRchat.

Before we continue, I need to introduce the concept of phantom touch or phantom sense. Phantom touch is a term that was originally for amputees who could feel their missing limbs when given certain stimuli, typically some form of mirror therapy or sometimes via ones prosthetics. Phantom senses in VR are along the same lines. For all intents and purposes, your avatar in VR is the same as your body to your brain. Now, not everyone gets this, and those who do get it in varying amounts in just different ways. I'm admittedly on the more extreme end of this, as far as my brain gives a shit my avatar is my body and that ends up causing some interesting sensations. Most importantly, it pretty much drives my own choice of avatar since a lot of options out there just don't feel right. Yeah an avatar may be super cute or super funny but with that level of immersion for someone like myself it becomes very apparent that a lot of things will give full on dysphoria. This isn't really limited to anything either, I've noped off of cute looking avatars for a variety of reasons, sometimes even just small things like clothing, hair style, body proportions, height, etc. On the flip side of that, the right avatar can relieve a lot of dysphoria for someone like me who does experience gender dysphoria regularly in their day to day lives. So what were my options then?

Wade through a lot of public avatars until you find something anywhere between just right to perfect. The world of public avatars available is almost limitless, as games driven by user generated content tend to be so there's plenty of options.

Make your own avatar, either from scratch or a prefab base. This is again where the limitlessness of the engine comes into play, where the only limitation is your own technical abilities with Unity SDK, and tools like Blender or Maya.

I got lucky and took option one. I found one that felt just right, a Tda based red haired fox girl in a cute hoodie, crop top, and jeans, and only needed a few minor tweaks. While there was a bit of a language barrier, the creator of this avatar and I got something worked out and the image above is the result. This is me. This was when what remained of my egg, so to speak, was completely fucking shattered into oblivion. This was where I realized that "Nah yeah I'm not fucking cis," after years of going back and forth and being on the fence about my own sense of self. Ultimately, VRchat ended up a coping mechanism for my dysphoria. I was free. I was me. I ended up parting ways with the guy who made the model posted above for reasons I won't get into. I was never given the source files to update the model to SDK3 so where it is now is where it will be forever until SDK2 gets dropped entirely. So, in mid 2021 when I found a prefab base that was relatively well support and easy to work with on booth.pm called Imeris, I jumped on that. I re-made me.

Maybe to a bit of an extreme, but whatever. Bouncy squishy boobs on my chest makes girly gender euphoria go brrrr in a way I can't get over. But this is how I stayed for about a year without any major changes save for some new outfits every now and then.

In August, 2022, VRchat implemented EasyAntiCheat into the game. The reasoning for it is all over the place and while I have some insider information as to why it's not been stated publicly and I don't feel like getting sued into oblivion. But regardless of their reasoning, no matter how much public backlash they got, no matter how many members of the community who relied on third party client mods for accessibility for various disabilities and basic usability and quality of life functions not present in the base game, they pushed the patch out live anyways. They pushed out a patch knowing it broke compatibility with some Oculus headsets and software, this even was noted in the patch notes. They didn't care about us. That much was clear.

I swore off VRchat then and there, but the reality is the other options all sucked. NeosVR had NFT integration which is something I despise on principle. ChilloutVR, while promising, still lacks a lot of the functionality for their dev tools that makes a lot of my shit work. It was on par with early VRchat SDK1 and SDK2 tools, which compared to SDK3 with Udon were beyond archaic. I tried to give that some love, but it's so far from ready to take the place of VRchat that I couldn't switch over. Maybe some day, though, CVR will be in a position where it's a suitable place to call my home in the metaverse.

So after dealing with VRC being broken for months on my machine, I finally figured out a workaround. Turns out my main issue where VRchat was crashing to desktop was because of some sandboxing options I had enabled way back when I was still running Windows 10. Disabling these settings fixed the crashing to desktop, but Oculus overlay still crashes any time the virtual desktops are used. This, however and unfortunately, is a documented issue because of how EAC works, and there's no real fix for it. In any case though, I can be me again. And while unfortunately a lot of my friends have left VRC entirely post EAC update, there's still enough to justify sticking around.

At the time of writing this, I'm a month out from hopefully receiving hormone replacement treatment and beginning my transition proper. It's a bit overdue, admittedly, but I know some day soon I'll feel comfortable in my own shell. For now, this will continue to be my escapism from the dysphoria that's plagued me for years.

Stay floofy~ 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈❤️

[lovphobic]

Oh nice! I'm a huge history buff so the series has always appealed to me tbh.

But there's SO MANY of them that I can't like commit to playing them all ya know? And valhalla disappointed me so like I'm not even looking forward to whatever the clusterfuck game they have coming up lmao

NOOO DONT SAY THAT !! i think theyre kinda returning to the roots w mirage! idk tho, im not so into it that i keep up with Every Little Thing. but i do like to at least try the new games! and so far only valhalla has been a miss for me (new games wise)

but a good place to start... it really depends! like where do you want to go in history. what period.

of what ive played (that you havent) : ac2 iiiiis... 1400s? i think? let me check (this will appear like nothing for you. put in a jump cut mentally) yes 1476-1511 renaissance italy (slash istanbul but thats just acr) and that spans over... three games. so its a character/story commitment and unity is set during the french revolution, its One (1) game and it follows One (1) character, so no real investment. and its a REALLY FUN GAME. the only drawback is. well its an extreme one LMFAO. im not sure if they've recently released patches to fix it or whatever, but back when i played in 2018 the game still held up to the 2014 infamy of BUGS. GLITCH HELL. due to time crunching to release it on a deadline. but if you can get through that (and ew france) its Definitely worth it

so sorry i cannot give u intel on the other games.... i shrimply havent played them.

[obnoxiouslypresent]

> A TECHNOLOGiCAL PARADiSE !

> i'm ringo (he/vaem) and this is my blog on the tumblered! i'm a clusterfuck of a person, and i reblog gifs! often pertaining to old web graphics, with an emphasis on blinkies because i just cannot get enough XD, the occasional stim gifset, and whatever i feel like! > (this blog may not be the most accessible, sorry! i try and make sure to get flashing/eyestrain tagged but... that's most of the blog xP if you're photosensitive, this might not be the place 4 you) > that's all! always remember peace, love, unity, respect and you'll be golden! (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ

[wyrd66]

@wkjonesnet said:  What about those in Unity? Are they still considered under Commune rule? 

In response to this. Great question! Unity is a colony that is occupied by both citizens of Earth and citizens of the Commune.

While Unity is an Earth colony, and Earth rules take precedence, it still isn’t a fully integrated colony. There’s still some tension between the species. There is a human hospital that treats humans, and there is a paski hospital that treats paski.

When Geet’s son Banjaree was born with a cleft lip, he couldn’t take Banjaree to a paski hospital because they straight up would not treat him. That’s normal in the Commune. Instead Geet had to take a huge risk and go to a human hospital and basically pray that a human doctor would be willing to take a crash course in xenobiology and operate on an infant alien. It worked out, but it was nerve wracking at the time.

Same with Bill when his sister was unable to communicate because she was deaf and dyslexic and the Commune just does not have the resources to deal with that. In desperation, Bill turned to his human friends and they were able to get him and Ana help.

But there isn’t any kind of actual system set up. It was just some paski who cared enough about the children in their care that they took a leap of faith that their alien neighbors would be less cruel than their own people.

Things do get better! Unity is a much friendlier and more relaxed place than it was when Bill was born thirty years ago. The Commune itself is already a different entity than it was when Bill was born thirty years ago. Things will continue to get better.

And Bill and Geet are setting up a support system for disabled paski (specifically those with white spotting, but all are welcome) on Unity. In a couple decade’s time Unity will be the place that is developing cutting edge paski accessibility devices while the paski homeworld Duniyaa lags behind (but still changes for the better).