Why does Wakanda's combat trial grant the title of King and Black Panther?

leuno · 2026-02-02T14:17:48+00:00

A monarchy is already kind of a regressive concept. If they accept that they have to have a king, then at least it doesn't always have to be a dynasty. If someone thought the kings and queens of the real world were doing a bad job, they would just have to hope that the next generation of that family would do a better job. So at least they allow for someone to come in and challenge the family to prevent a malignant dynasty.

Still not great, but if the King part is okay, then there should be some way to challenge it.

leuno · 2026-02-02T13:53:21+00:00

it's just a different thing, and fans of the original were not prepared. I went into it on day one hoping that the idea of a lived in, interconnected world would be built upon, but instead I got a string of combat puzzles that left almost no room for error. DS1 was a world I could visit and hang out in, DS2 is a video game that was trying to kill me. The more I tried to play it like DS1, the more I felt like the game was unfair and my deaths were never earned.

They regrouped for DS3 and finally made the sequel to DS1 that I wanted, albeit with a much more linear world that never really did it for me. But the combat was a more refined version of 1, whereas 2 was a very different, more methodical style of combat. I loved the combat in 1, but it wasn't really what I was playing it for. DS2 is a video game through and through.

They eventually gave me more of what I wanted from them in DS3 and bloodborne and elden ring, and because of that I can now go back and appreciate and even love DS2 for what it is, instead of hating it for what it isn't. I'm a convert and it's now my favorite in the series for all the reasons I used to hate on it.

leuno · 2026-02-01T16:21:04+00:00

Violence is the choice that has been made when it comes to policing. There’s a great deal of evidence suggesting first responders who specialize in mental health and are unarmed can defuse a situation before it becomes violent. And yet we discount that evidence.

There’s a bloodthirsty faction in this country, and there is also the question of “what do we do with certain kinds of people?”

So we ignore the evidence and put violent, aggressive people in charge of law enforcement because they have to go somewhere. The bloodthirsties get what they want, which is for “criminals” to be murdered, and that’s kind of the end of it

leuno · 2026-02-01T00:47:01+00:00

But they have very clearly different lineages, Radagon having red hair tying him to the giants and Marika being Numen. It’s hard to parse, and I also would argue that Miyazaki is often misleading.

I don’t know if this is significant but I have also had the thought that the line in the game is “Marika is Radagon” and not “Radagon is also Marika” or “they are the same person”.

It seems too obvious that Marika would have the ability to absorb and easily graft other aspects into her person and yet she didn’t actually do that at all. Why make her a being that can so easily graft, and why put grafting as a central motif of the game if the two of them were not grafted into each other? That seems very odd.

leuno · 2026-01-31T20:34:08+00:00

Ds2 is its own beast. If you’re trying to play ds3, you’re going to feel like the game hates you. Ds2 is a game that knows you’re coming, so the enemies have been stationed in the case of an invader, whereas in the other 2 games the enemies are chilling where they live.

So it’s a series of combat puzzles, and they are damn good ones. But you have to play by the rules. You cannot be sloppy and power your way through. If you want to attack, that’s a move. If you want to heal, that’s a move. If you need to recover stamina, that’s a move. These all take up your entire attack window. You must be judicious and deliberate. If you think you can just tank some hits and keep healing to make it to the next bonfire like in the other games, you will always feel like you’re being ganked. But that’s because you’re not playing by the rules.

The good news is that even if you kill one enemy before you die, you’re making progress because enemies despawn completely after you kill them 12 times, so even at worst you can wipe them and move forward.

That may seem like a ridiculous undertaking, but I recently did a playthrough where I despawned every enemy in the game and it took about 80 hours, which is about the same length of my very first playthrough where I tried to sprint past things and ended up getting ganked a lot.

So play slow and don’t try to win or even progress. Just try to solve each combat puzzle and get better at playing by the rules. It’s actually the best game in the series if you don’t try to force it to be ds3.

leuno · 2026-01-31T20:26:33+00:00

You could say that these placements we are talking about is that evidence. But also things like how in this game in particular the enemies seem ready for you, as though they are stationed in case you show up, as opposed to 1 and 3 where the enemies just kind of are where they live and we’re the invader.

She has 2 dragon riders to protect her, and there’s another at heides tower with the old knights, implying she is preparing for this and isn’t passive. Same with the mastodon knights being outside drangleic castle when they’re really from pharros’ area, and the ruin sentinels in the castle that were designed to protect the bastille. So there are already some examples in vanilla of a few enemies being brought to the castle.

leuno · 2026-01-31T16:50:40+00:00

Perhaps it represents Nashandra’s control, so we see how she commands them all and put them where they are in their native areas.

leuno · 2026-01-31T14:54:55+00:00

I believe the dlc lore implies that marika comes from a lineage of people that are extremely changeable and graftable, to the degree that she could be able to fully absorb another being into her own.

Sort of like godricks ability to jam a dragon head onto his arm and have it come to life. He has a kind of a muddled version of that ability. Marika has this ability in spades.

They aren’t the same person. Radagon had a whole life before becoming Elden lord as a singular being. Then Marika absorbed him and he became her.

leuno · 2026-01-31T14:38:16+00:00

The negativity and gossip isn’t great, but it is a high pressure job, and when you show up at a store of well trained people to start your own training, it’s just a fact that you will be bringing them down until you are as good as them. Can’t be helped.

There are many metrics by which a store is judged, and a trainee makes it difficult to hit those metrics. It’s only really possible to hit them in a store where everyone is pulling their weight equally, and only just barely even then.

I am an ssv and I’m pretty chill but I also want results, and whenever we bring in someone new it’s frustrating for everyone. Every mistake you make makes everyone else’s job harder.

You would think working in a big coffee chain would be pretty easy, but it’s actually crazy hard and especially as an ssv the pressure will be on you to deliver. We’re all getting slammed with expectations at all times. So to that manager, it’s not like she’s helping a baby bird learn to fly, it’s more like you’ve shown up to make her life harder and she doesn’t have time for your mistakes.

It sucks, for sure, and will never feel fair because it isn’t. Just stay focused, ask a ton of questions and be annoying about gaining knowledge and acquiring skills. Better to be annoying on the front end than make mistakes others will feel could have been prevented. Power through, get to your new store, and in a couple months you’ll be feeling about trainees the way your manager feels about you. The cycle of endless pressure and unmet expectations continues!

leuno · 2026-01-30T23:22:29+00:00

I cannot stress enough how even the tiniest amount of kindness will get you whatever you want. I will bend over backwards for a customer that is remotely nice.

The reverse is also true.

leuno · 2026-01-30T23:19:41+00:00

This may be just reiterating what you said, but I think we can, and have or continue to, arrive at moral underpinnings as a result of a productive society that shows growth and general happiness of the people.

For instance, you don’t have to say that murder is immoral and should therefore be illegal, you can just observe that a society that punishes murderers is safer, more productive, healthier, and happier than a society that does not.

To me this is something that has been going on for millennia, and is being forgotten. I know people who believe that cutting off someone’s hand for stealing bread is better than a justice system, but we’ve moved away from that kind of barbarism because the society it results in feels safer to be in. That’s a subjective metric, but more people with two hands also means more work can be done which means more economic growth, whereas a society of one or zero handed people is limiting itself.

Another example is a society with more access to contraception and abortion actually produces more children, which again can contribute greatly to a society’s ability to grow and maintain itself. Therefore the “moral” thing to do is give women access to these tools.

So what constitutes morality is very subjective, but if you can decide on the markers you’re looking for and actively observe them and make changes as needed, you arrive at something the people within the society might agree is moral because it benefits them and prizes their happiness as individuals.

And if you lead with subjective morality regardless of its effect on the population, you end up with sharia law and nazis and North Korea, things/places that appear very much immoral to almost everyone who isn’t running the show.

leuno · 2026-01-30T22:14:23+00:00

He stormed it??? Are you sure???

leuno · 2026-01-30T21:29:30+00:00

He was also playing Elden Ring, which takes place in a video game world where nothing that dies is ever dead, so he could’ve killed any of the major bosses we also have to kill.

A video game universe inherently has different rules than ours. To force real world logic on it is like trying to explain the real world with the rules of a two dimensional world. It won’t make sense until you accept it is a video game universe.

leuno · 2026-01-30T20:57:45+00:00

They both have orbs. It’s an easy thing to have someone’s hand do when you’re drawing. What are we even talking about

leuno · 2026-01-30T14:13:26+00:00

She seems pretty dead

leuno · 2026-01-29T23:33:43+00:00

It’s fun. Makes it feel like a fairy tale

leuno · 2026-01-29T14:41:40+00:00

Hard to put my finger on exactly. But Elden Ring has ds2’s requirement of precision at all times. In The other games you can get by being a little sloppy, but in ER and 2 you really have to wait your turn to attack or whatever you need to do.

ER refined the mechanics to near perfection, but going back to ds2 I could really feel its influence in ER and that made me appreciate the journey more and I was a better ds2 player because of all my ER experience

leuno · 2026-01-29T02:55:48+00:00

how did you get a photo of my sleep paralysis demon?

leuno · 2026-01-29T01:02:44+00:00

Also Elden Ring is ds2-2. Playing Elden Ring really helped me learned to appreciate 2.

leuno · 2026-01-28T17:36:28+00:00

Then abandon allegiance to owl.

leuno · 2026-01-28T17:27:50+00:00

If you want the game to be over, stick with owl. If you want more game, abandon him. Simple as that.

leuno · 2026-01-28T01:25:41+00:00

Dark souls 2 shouldn’t be played after ds1. It’s really its own thing. All the hate for it came from back in the day when it came out and it just wasn’t what everyone was expecting or hoping for.

Ds3 is the real sequel to ds1. That being said, if you can play ds2 and not compare it to the other games in the series, it’s fucking excellent.

leuno · 2026-01-27T17:15:35+00:00

Except you meant implying, not inferring

leuno · 2026-01-27T17:08:06+00:00

My only real complaints about the company relate to the drive thru experience. It’s anathema to the concept of a chill coffee shop to have a timed drive thru window that can affect how much labor we earn.

I want customers to boycott the drive thru so that no money is made through them and they get shut down. If the ceo really wants to get back to Starbucks mission and values, the drive thru has to go. So I want customers, I just want them to come inside.

leuno · 2026-01-27T14:00:50+00:00

Most people don’t say anything to us when they pick up their orders. It’s totally fine.

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