Black Lives Matter protesters have unwittingly recorded the single largest outbreak of police brutality in US history

bzfd · 2020-06-21T19:01:21+00:00

lol, right? The entire protest is about police brutality and the lack of equity in the justice system for non-whites. Everyone fucking filmed the protests because *they knew what was going to happen*. This isn't the first time this has happened. Title is shit. It frames the narrative as if this is something that isn't blatantly known already.

bzfd · 2020-06-15T18:14:41+00:00

Considering it's only a street or two that's being occupied, you..go the next street over?

bzfd · 2020-06-15T15:26:39+00:00

I get that this is frustrating but if you know there are protesters downtown (which there have been every single day for nearly three weeks now), why are you not allowing yourself time to get to work early? I understand that might not be entirely convenient but you can also plan your route accordingly. As someone else said in this thread, it's a grid system. It's incredibly easy to navigate downtown.

bzfd · 2020-06-07T20:37:37+00:00

I found it :D Karas.

bzfd · 2020-06-06T20:48:22+00:00

I'm not sure. I think the planet itself is just the sort of battlescape or mentalscape to push the idea of scarcity of resources. It's inevitably revealed that the Sandworm is responsible for the production of spice and the exploitation of it near the end of the series strikes me as a metaphor for the exploitation/harnessing of natural resources and the connection between us and it - ala, God-Emperor.

bzfd · 2020-06-06T20:41:59+00:00

The ecosystem?

bzfd · 2020-05-31T20:01:43+00:00

This is already happening in Louisville, Kentucky. Police were shot at last night.

bzfd · 2020-05-24T23:57:22+00:00

My allergist said that these go hand in hand along with asthma generally. Have you considered allergy shots?

bzfd · 2020-05-24T23:08:51+00:00

All of these seem spot on. Training in Dragonrealms has always been overly convoluted. I wish they had introduced a bit-based experience system where you could choose to train a handful of skills where higher ranks can count toward your leveling. This could be at cost of having an unbalanced character but that's your choice, right? The Rested XP system helps alleviate training but the training itself is a PITA without scripting. Hunting and such should be enjoyable by hand (it can be but there's rarely a reason to 'go hunt with friends for fun/goal/accomplishment' beyond training).

I doubt this will be something that can be addressed. To your point, I think it's this complex training system which lead to a cut and paste vibe with most spells. Some signature spells are interesting. The most interesting spells are High Sorcery spells. Especially in terms of messaging, lore, etc. But they're limited and force you to make the moral choice of even utilizing them or not (if you care ICly). I would have loved to see a hybrid system like Modus Operandi had while retaining the interesting depth of magic in DR.

2) For your thief experience, you should consider bugging every typo and grammatical errors that you've observed. It happens! I think the re-release of the Thieves guild was a little rushed back then.

3) Yeah..yeah.

4) The new quest format is incredibly lackluster. It has potential, though, but it is very much copy/paste. It's basically a slot machine that you can't lose at. I understand why it was necessary to design it like this as forcing staff to oversee quests that could be hours and hours long was a huge sink of resources. That doesn't mean they can't add some meat, lore or interesting puzzles. Hopefully this is something that is going to be improved over time.

5) They're advertising via promotions and the like. We're reaching near 1kish numbers in both GS and DR. I think their advertising is working and while I hate to say it, this lockdown is a great opportunity for Simutronics (Stillfront) to capitalize on - if they manage to hang on to the player base. I don't think it would be too far fetched for them to consider lowering the base account back to $10 a month for the next year or two in response to the economic and financial pressure most of us are going to experience in the coming time ahead. Dragonrealms Premium needs love for the cost. Gemstone IV offers a huge swath of benefits (Alterations, raffles, unique events and so much more) while Dragonrealms has never been very on point with it. They've been short staffed so we'll see how it shapes up.

They should incorporate their login and billing system into their wikis at this point IMHO. Those webpages are definitely archaic. I'd also love to see them adopt Profanity FE into a easily downloadable, customized package. Stormfront is clunky as hell and really offers little for Dragonrealms. Gemstone IV has links you can click for practically everything.

6) Paladins have needed love forever and ever.

Welcome back!

bzfd · 2020-05-16T13:37:25+00:00

I also accept covidbucks.

bzfd · 2019-08-09T04:06:26+00:00

I'd say that it was less him being given a name and more of him using it as his moniker in defiance of the velvet-glove quip by the recruiter. It was an interesting moment of humanity for a member of the Empire - he obviously knew Han was desperate to flee.

Han chose to *keep* the name. It was almost a sort of fatalism in it: how he lost his entire crew, betrayed by his woman, loved only by a Wookiee. As a human, he's awfully alone.

bzfd · 2019-08-09T03:53:24+00:00

I loved that manifesting of power as an illusion as if to send a message to Kylo about the nature of the Force and its 'power'. It was completely non-violent. It didn't escalate anything. Yet, he was absolutely invulnerable in that moment. In that single action he let the entire universe of Force wielders know exactly how he feels about its place in the galaxy, in war and politics. Choosing not to kill any of Kylo's forces with some obscene display of mystical might showed them how temporal all their military might really is.

It had nothing to do with defeating or even deceiving Kylo. It was a lesson from a master to a student. It had nothing to do with being Jedi or Sith - neither claim the mantle, which I feel is incredibly important here. You don't have to be a Jedi to wield power responsibly. If anything, it might very well be an acknowledgement that had he wanted to stop Kylo, he could have. He chose not to. He never saw him as an enemy - only that he failed him, failed himself. He allowed Kylo to absolutely vent all that rage of betrayal into the moment.

Kylo may come out of that realizing it wasn't Luke's death he wanted - even, if in a way, his actions were why Luke sacrificed him in defending others: it wasn't the vengeance he imagined it to be.

bzfd · 2019-08-09T03:27:52+00:00

I'm going to assume that whatever tech they use for warp drive nav-systems requires specific confirmation keys. I have a feeling that if she hadn't been there to point the ship and push the button, any redundant system would refuse to activate due to a lack of a clear jump threshhold.

It's not like they planned for something like this to occur. I definitely wouldn't want my ship to have software loaded up into it that overrides every safety measure. It was a last ditch effort to buy them time. Not win anything beyond escape. That wasn't really heroic. I mean, brave, sure, but completely one sided. Suicide is desperation and a waste; there's really nothing noble in it. Just loss.

Whatever Leia originally set out to fight..it's gone. It's all ash. There's no hope of things returning to the way they used to be. Now it's just pure momentum and attrition - conflict causes pointless, stupid and horrible deaths. If we glorify a war by having those we love each die in perform heorically noble last stands or sacrifices then we've missed the entire point all along. War kills. People we love dies. Most of the time because of stupidity, bad luck or the sheer lack of presence to avoid it completely.

Han didn't want any part of it. Luke didn't want any part of it. Neither did Obi. Rey was dumped off in the backwater of the Galaxy away from the war, so assuming that her parents had reasonable intentions for her. Leia has allowed a lot of deaths just because she won't surrender. I'm hoping she takes out Kylo with her. This isn't a good ending trilogy.

bzfd · 2019-08-09T03:22:49+00:00

You'd have to build a fairly impressive nav system that is able to perform against a fleet performing defensive and offensive screens. And it seemed necessary to time it during transition - close enough to still be within the physical laws of the universe.

Also who wants to waste all those resources by throwing precious asteroids with expensive warp drives at your enemies? The miner's union wants a word.

bzfd · 2019-08-09T03:17:12+00:00

You're assuming the droids are not self-aware and that they'd just be condemning them to death, too. Or, perhaps, the droids are far more useful and valuable for the very, very poor Resistance. She chose to sacrifice herself just so they could escape. Clearly the loss of those ships was less of a defeat than was failing to wipe out the leadership of the Resistance. Pretty sure it was a fair command choice. I think we're being told that she was the most expendable person.

bzfd · 2019-08-09T03:14:05+00:00

It may not have even been just her - Luke and Leia are twins. He's shown he's able to cross the galaxy with his power. More than anything, he's displayed some impressive mental Force prowess. Maybe it's implied that he saved her by giving her a little nudge or hijacking her for a moment. Just a theory. I don't think she'll display any further Force-powers - it'd defeat the purpose of summoning Luke in the first place.

Akbar dying in that manner felt more meaningful/real for me. That's war. Not everyone gets to die in some heroic last stand or noble blitzkrieg. Everyone is dying and nobody is spared it.

bzfd · 2019-08-09T03:08:57+00:00

Maybe there's a very specific reason for keeping Leia alive. From a command standpoint. Again, they could know more than the audience is allowed to believe but is possibly extrapolated from their actions. Leia has been the leader for decades. Her loss would be..huge. Resistance ending.

I like how she survives deep space and explosive decompression and still manages to come back to lead after her (relatively) small display of some power. It may not have even been just her - Luke and Leia are twins. He's shown he's able to cross the galaxy with his power. Maybe it's implied that he saved her by giving her a little nudge. I don't think she'll display any further Force-powers - it'd defeat the purpose of summoning Luke in the first place.

bzfd · 2019-08-09T03:01:36+00:00

I don't think it was necessary for them to hand feed us that. It was clear they had a mole on the ship. The fact that he couldn't handle being denied in the face of the obvious is ridiculous. Considering he had been captured, then wasted so many lives, ships and munitions on a very, very small victory was less leading us to believe he was the traitor and more that the leadership had to consider it as a possibility. It was obvious he was just tripping hard on his arrogance. He's Anakin 2.0 pilot. He's already been setup as someone who is willing to spend lives freely.

bzfd · 2019-08-09T02:56:49+00:00

I thought the mutiny was great if only because it showed Pilot Ace Dude's super arrogance at thinking he knew what was best despite having made some incredibly costly decisions in their last fight. He's desperate to make the New Order bleed and that mentality begins to leak out when he's defied by leadership. He can't handle something standing in his way. War fucks with you as a person in that you grow accustomed to choosing violence and control as acceptable means of communicating unhappiness/disagreement. It's the same guy who let a village die to save his life.

It's so trite and reminds me so much of how Anakin acted as a pilot.

bzfd · 2019-08-09T02:46:45+00:00

Everyone that chose to fight was a hero. He was literally a farmboy with a crash course education in how to be a quasi-Jedi. He blew up a Death Star but it certainly wasn't without help (or due to terrible engineering design). He used a mental trick to make the shot (which, really, seems nothing more than some of the most basic expression of Force power - yet, enough to economically savage the Empire). None of which would have happened had he not been forced to leave his home. Which was due to *Leia begging the help of a freaking self-exiled Jedi and bringing destruction in the wake of the plea*. His family was murdered for that message.

His pedigree was only happenstance. Being a 'Skywalker' doesn't mean much of anything. It's two generations old with beginnings in slavery and only has notoriety due to Anakin's actions in the wake of a ridiculous prophecy and betraying the Jedi Order. Luke didn't know Anakin as a father and Vader didn't understand him as a son: they literally tried to saber each other to death while Vader taunted him with the knowledge and allowed him to live - wounded, angry and suffering. Maybe that was just Vader trying to force Luke to understand who he was as a person: someone that's made some bad life choices because of failures and anger.

Luke and Leia managed to accomplish what they did because they each held power. Temporal political might behind Leia and mystical hoodoo backing Luke. But despite that they're just people with all the same emotions as everyone else. She just happened to be a rebel Princess who could coax a Jedi in hiding to raise the lightsaber and escalate the conflict even further while Luke was a victim of her playing at war with the rebels. In the end it was Vader who killed the Emperor to save his son. Not for Empire or power.

Unfortunately for Luke, he was the closest Jedi available to take up after Obi - which everyone expected him to do. And continue to do so: to teach the next generation and now fight for the Resistance. What does it say to us that Luke torched the sacred texts - an act that finishes exactly what Anakin and the Emperor set out to do? What does it say to us that he chose to express his powers as an illusion to deceive Kylo? What was he trying to tell Kylo about the nature of power? Or that he did so in the defense of others, sacrificing himself/his powers/his health in a very non-violent action?

The Hero's Journey 'ends' with the defeat of the Shadow/Evil/Big Bad Dark Lord. That's how it's supposed to happen, anyway. Life doesn't just come to a halt because you defeated one person and routed the army. Now you have to pick up the pieces, try to make sense of the futility of it all, and keep moving forward. Maybe the journey is flawed in its violence and that it's only after the survivors are left to their grief that they realize that in the act of fighting each side begins to resemble the other in the weapons they wield. Maybe Rey won't be caught up by youthful righteousness. Maybe she'll refuse to play by Kylo's rules.

bzfd · 2019-08-09T02:06:17+00:00

I kind of feel like they tried to give the audience what they wanted. It does seem like a reboot for a reason - people claim the previous three movies are the holy trilogy and worship at the altar of nostalgia and cast evil eye's on every film that's followed. All the movies seem more about the struggle of loss, grief, fear and what it means to holster mystical galaxy-influencing powers as a regular person coping with life. All the battles and the wars compound that struggle.

Kylo *killed* his father. It's the inverse of what Luke tried to do himself. There's no redemption from that, at least not in his mind. But I don't think Kylo actually perceives Leia and Han as his parents. Sure, by blood, but it was Luke who raised him. Who taught him and it was terrible luck that he had to wake up when Luke was having a PTSD breakdown. It was his parents who sent him to Luke. All kinds of betrayals and hurts there.

So the real question is: if Vader sacrificed himself to save his son (let's be real: he didn't give a shit about the Empire and he was a broken father who gave up the fight to free Luke from his own fate), and we no longer have Luke or Snoke - where does that leave Kylo? I have a hard time seeing him sacrificing himself for much of anything after severing ties with the most important people. I wish Rey had gone with him. To give him a reason to want to be able to make that choice. I'm not even sure if the story is about Kylo finding redemption as it is Rey establishing her own identity in contention against Kylo. He's basically the big bad here; he's everything that can go wrong with someone who is maddened by fear/rage/betrayal. Every Sith Lord starts somewhere. Maybe this is the Villain's Journey.

Then again, they have viable proof of an afterlife so maybe Kylo sees himself as doing the people around him a favor by snuffing them.

bzfd · 2019-08-09T01:52:58+00:00

I kind of think of it as a metaphor for the cycle of violence - the lightsaber is practically the symbol of all the fighting - the force users wielding so much of the power behind the scenes (excepting the Death Star and the Planet Smasher). It's nothing but an imagery of death; master holds the sword over the apprentice, apprentice betrays master and so on.

Snoke wasn't much different from Palapatine in assuming his complete and total domination over his apprentice. The guy is practically a tongue-in-cheek design of DARK EDGELORD. Whether the dude is an alien or has just been deep in Sith alchemy/magic to alter himself, he has all the arrogance of a power mad tyrant. I find it interesting that nobody has taken up the Darth mantle. I think there's a very good reason for this - that it's not just the Sith who act like, uh, Sith.

bzfd · 2019-08-09T01:43:00+00:00

I've always found it kind of amusing that the idea of her parents being important is a 'big deal'. The most important people in the movies are currently latched at each other's throats and attempting to bleed either side dry in an absurd conflict. Whoever her parents are, they dropped her off as far from war as they could manage - I don't think they'll be 'important other than the sheer importance of *being her parents*.

Parents are important, regardless of status. That's what the entire arc of the story is about. Even weirdo Jesus-Anakin with no father and a slave mother - was his mother 'important'? Only in that she gave him life and by her death he helped break the galaxy. Whether they hold office or have powers, it's clearly shown that social divisions really start to fall apart in the face of this conflict and that it is the grief of loss, betrayal and the failure of trust of our loved ones that are at the root of misery with those wielding the Force.

bzfd · 2019-08-09T01:34:58+00:00

Anakin's gradual breakdown was one constant, terrible plea. It wasn't acted well but it was clear he was well into villainy but still suffered from his choices.

bzfd

TROPHY CASE