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the-final-sif · 2 years

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Why do you sympathise with Dream/ gen

I hope this doesn’t come across as rude, I’m just a little confused.

I mean he literally killed people to prove a point, basically tortured a kid and destroyed a lot of stuff. (As well as other things)

He is one of my favourite characters on the dsmp so I can guess why you like him, but specifically sympathising with him? I genuinely would like to know why!! If that’s ok!!

I'm honestly confused by this ask, but I'll address a few points just to ramble out my thoughts.

As a human being, I find it hard to see someone getting starved, tortured, abused, isolated, and put through some of the worst things a human being can endure, without feeling sympathy / compassion for them. As a hurt/comfort writer, I enjoy seeing these things in fiction, but I still see them as fundamentally wrong.

He did not "torture a kid", he was abusive/toxic towards c!Tommy who was 16-17 and ended up killing him after being locked in intensive isolation + starvation conditions with him for an extended period, and brought him back to life as proof he could.

Of people perma killed (maybe?) by c!Dream, it's really just Vik & Laser and frankly I think that's fair because they're fortnite players and it was very funny.

I'm literally not even going to engage with the idea that "destroyed a lot of stuff" is even remotely important. Talk to me when people stop burning down c!Ponk's poor lemon trees.

Again I would like to point to a nearly year long experience in which we saw c!Dream being ACTUALLY tortured daily, undergoing starvation, extreme isolation, being abused by c!Sam and c!Quackity, having no privacy or agency, etc. If you are unable to see how people would feel sympathy / compassion for someone in that situation, then I cannot help you.

Did c!Dream do some not great stuff? Oh yeah. He's a 20-22 year old whose got some fucked up world views, who didn't handle very stressful situations well, and who got fucked over in a lot of circumstances. He made very harmful choices. Lots of people on the SMP have done fucked up stuff, and literally none of them deserve to be locked up, abused and tortured for any length of time. No human being deserves that.

Besides that, I think the fact that c!Dream designed the prison for himself, speaks volumes about his character and worldview. He genuinely thought that he'd be okay in the circumstances he set up (even though he didn't even get that much). Knowing that he designed the prison for himself, retroactively sheds new light on stuff like Exile.

Like, even the default conditions of the prison as Dream intended them (small room surrounded by lava, isolation conditions with visits controlled by the Warden, minimal potato only diet, no exercise/bed, no comforts beyond books and visits to the courtyard) were objectively significantly worse then the conditions of Tommy's exile (not arguing that Exile wasn't bad, only that the conditions of the prison were worse). And Dream wholeheartedly believed that enduring those conditions was something he'd be fine with, and worth progress towards his goal. No wonder he had no moral issues with what he did during exile, look at what he considered acceptable to do to himself!

It speaks of an incredibly fucked up worldview, of just how much he believes the plan is worth. How much Dream is personally willing to sacrifice and drive himself to, in pursuit of something that is probably impossible. He's fundamentally an extremely tragic and human character, and I hope he gets worse. I hope his treatment reinforces his spiral and we see him lash out and hold tighter to his impossible, self-destructive ideals.

#c!dream #c!tommy #exile arc #prison arc #dreblr #dsmp #dream smp #sif speaks #sif answers #my headcanons #anonymous

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blubberquark · 5 years

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The value and place of “good game design”

Last year, noted game design theorist, developer and podcaster Keith Burgun softened his stance on the theory of strategy games and game design as a discipline. I wrote 90% of this as a response to his podcasts back then, but when I read my own words it felt too negative. I don’t want to dunk on somebody for a commercial failure from the relative safety of not even having tried.

I’m posting it now though, because it ties into my ideas about Jam Games and Short Games, which I want to develop further, as well as my previous post about starting with simple games like Pong, Flappy Bird, and Minesweeper: Starting with simple ideas might not be enough. Top-down game design might be important after all.

Why not Game Design?

Part of Burgun’s change of heart was for what I would call “political” reasons, and I try to avoid politics on this blog. I hate how the conversation around game design grinds to a halt when some troll says “Aha, this looks like a game a Communist would make!“, and then the designer tries to explain himself and his politics and we stop talking about game design or the game itself altogether.

It’s one thing to talk about the politics, the political ideas and implications of a game, and quite another to look at the author and to try to read the authors politics into every game developed by that author. This is especially important when the author is outspoken about politics. People can be politically active and have strong convictions and just plain fail to convey their ideas through their game design.

Another reason for this shift was trying to give people more space for self-expression. Maybe you want to make something new and exploratory, or something short and poignant, or some “experience“ or “virtual installation” that is game-adjacent, but not even meant to be a game. Trying to ground “game design” in lessons learn from existing games, or trying to be precise with your terminology might be counterproductive. There is little overlap between the mechanics, dynamics, aesthetics, or affordances of Smash Bros and Firewatch (unless you count The Quiet Man, an artsy game that manages to combine worst of both worlds into a buggy mess). This difference between Command & Conquer and Bioshock is huge, and you can only find commonalities in the individual disciplines like graphics, UI design, or programming, and in high-level psychological and narrative principles of pacing and world-building.

Lessons in game design implicitly tell you how games should be. General statements about “game design” are bound to alienate some people. Artists who make short interactive pieces that are both experimental and personal at the same time, like Tale of Tales, Robert Yang or Anna Anthropy, are most susceptible to this particularly easy to disparage by accident if you don’t choose your words very carefully.

Lastly, it looks like the long development of Escape The Omnochronom, with many iterations on the game design and player feedback in early access, has informed his new approach to game design - just like Auro was the game that embodied the Clockwork Game Design theories. This quick look back on the development of ETO is interesting and sobering: https://keithburgun.net/escaping-the-omnochronom-and-moonshot-game-design/.

Wasted Design?

From a commercial point of view, it looks like a lot of the game design effort on ETO has been mis-spent: More than about interesting decisions and carefully balanced gameplay, players on Steam seem to want tons of content, random loot, and an epic, tragic backstory.

Most indie developers probably wouldn’t have completely scrapped all four prototypes, but released some of them as stand-alone games or as prototypes - either on itch, on Newgrounds, or a on mobile app store. One iteration of the concept - then called “Push The Lane!” - looked and felt more like a puzzle game, and might have been developed into a somewhat successful puzzle game on a mobile app store.

I might be wrong about this. There are many old, failed prototypes of mine that just didn’t work. True artists hate to see their practice pieces, and I don’t want to polish my all of old failed ideas that didn’t work until I can release them. I know why they don’t work. I’d rather try to make the ones that already work better. I’d rather start from scratch than working on a game idea when I know that it won’t work and why.

If you’re looking at somebody else’s failed prototype, you may think it warrants further exploration, or that it can ba salvaged, when the dev has already tried most of your suggested easy fixes and found that they don’t quite work. Ideas and game mechanics that work well in a short game, interesting based on their novelty alone, often cannot sustain a long-form game on their own - and that’s where game design as a discipline comes in.

If you’re just starting out, I can only urge you to fail faster, within days or weeks rather than years. Get feedback from players and other developers! See what works and cut your losses early! Don’t try to make a failed design work if you can use a better one! Try to start with a small game that works!

But if your goal is to make a long-form game, maybe the jump from a small jam game to a larger one is not just quantitative, but qualitative. You can’t just keep adding more stuff to Flappy Bird and hope it becomes Half-Life somewhere along the way.

Maybe the commercial bottleneck is not game design, but market research. The cool kids are all playing Fortnite now. By the time you finish developing your Fortnite clone, the cool kids will probably have moved on the the Next Big Thing. (I wrote this before the current wave of Auto Chess games. The next big thing only took half a year.)

Who needs Game Design anyway?

So Good Game Design(tm) seems to be only relevant once people have started playing the game. According to conventional game marketing wisdom, iterating on a part of your design can be all for nothing if you realise late in the cycle that the core loop has to be re-worked, and you need to create new content for the new mechanics.

According to conventional game marketing wisdom, a mechanically bland action platformer with good graphics can sell better than a well-designed strategy game with abstract black-and-white graphics.

An accessible multiplayer game can outlast a well-balanced multiplayer strategy game: You need your player base to grow beyond the critical mass to sustain online matchmaking and a competitive scene in the first place.

A game idea that is a great fit for a mobile game, small prototype, demo, or coffee-break browser game cannot always be turned into a long-form game. Many long-form games are impossible to distil down into a five-minute slice.

All that doesn’t mean that there is no market for good game design. There is certainly a market for well-made games, for good design in games, and for carefully designed games. These are not the same as game design though, if you go by the ideas from Burgun’s podcast. Game design is more fundamental, more about mechanics and interactive feedback loops, not about visual design, game feel or intuitive user interfaces.

The bigger your game gets, the more urgent a concern the actual game design becomes. If you’re aiming for a big commerical release, you need to make a long-form game. If you’re making a long-form game, you need better game design than you can get away with in a shorter one. When you start with a small core and add content and features, game design can sneak up on you, and you may end up with No Man’s Sky or Anthem.

My Funnel Model

First Impression: The first thing a player sees of your game is probably a pithy description of the game, and then screenshot, maybe a short video. What gets him interested in installing is a novel, clever premise (like ”puzzle MOBA” or “you play a crazy cat lady”), and your promotional screenshots.

When your potential new player looks for reviews of the game, only opinions, sound-bites and screenshots will reach him, because good game design cannot be easily captured in words and pictures. If the game design is hard to explain or doesn’t translate well to trailers or screenshots, you already have a problem. Labels like “fantasy“, “noir“, “battle royale“ or unique visual aesthetics can give you a way in, or they can turn players off.

Accessibility: This does not mean accessibility to people with disabilities in particular (which is ”Barrierefreiheit” in my native German, the freedom from barriers which exclude certain groups of people), although that kind of accessibility is also important. Accessibility in general means how easy it is to get into the game, in a similar way to how certain books can be very inaccessible by starting off with weird jargon you need to get used to, or fifty pages of dry exposition before the plot gets started.

Tetris gets difficult quickly, but stays accessible, whereas Dear Esther is impossible to fail, but quite dense and inaccessible in its own way. Whenever possible, it makes sense to introduce complexity and difficulty only gradually.

Innovation: Next you have to compete with all the other games in the user’s game library. If the novelty of the elevator pitch doesn’t translate into innovative gameplay, your player might just go back to playing Minecraft, Fortnite, or Hearthstone again. If the game is not accessible and engaging early on, then the player might quit early and not even get to the novel or innovative part. The innovative part must be accessible in itself, without feeling forced or tacked on, and it must feel natural to use it.

Some AAA games try to solve this by early on giving the player “a taste” of what’s to come, for example by giving all the spells in the magic system to the player during a flashback sequence in the first level. Then they take away the innovative game mechanics and proceed with a bunch of boring third-person action adventure RPG shooter things for half the game.

Core Gameplay Loop: This is where the good game design comes in. This is also the part that makes your players recommend the game to their friends.

In addition to good game design, adjacent qualities like responsive control design/game feel, clear visual feedback, legible game state, and quality-of-life features also become relevant when the player goes through the core loop a couple of times. Even when the controls and mechanics of your game are easy to learn, they can still be boring, tedious, or distracting.

Earlier this year, a game with an interesting premise, cool visual aesthetic, and some innovative mechanics on top of the classic JRPG formula was released on the Nintendo Switch. Unfortunately, neither the mechanics of combat nor the NPC dialogue were very engaging, or fun. The game got a lot of attention, but that attention culminated in mixed to bad reviews.

Getting the steps up to here right will give your game more eyeballs, and will get people to try it or even write about it. Getting the core gameplay loop right will make people enjoy and play your game more after that.

Scope: The more content there is - that can be quests, levels, guns, monsters, puzzles - the longer you can keep the core loop going. The amount of meaningfully “new” content you can put into your game is limited by the game design though. Just adding “two billions of guns“ won’t cut it if the gameplay difference between different pieces of content is not meaningful. The value of additional content also depends on the game design. Some games get more value out of their content. Mario Kart 8 for the Nintendo Switch has ten pre-arranged tournaments with for racetracks each. That doesn’t look like a lot of content, but the game gets a large amount of replay value out of them.

Sometimes the scope of a game is limited by the design and the core loop. Some puzzle game mechanics have only a handful of interesting puzzles in them, and are more appropriate for a one-off puzzle set piece in a larger action game than for a dedicated puzzle game.

Some game genres, like point-and-click adventures, are mainly constrained by the scope of the content, and a piece of content can only be used once. Puzzle- and strategy games can often squeeze a lot of value out of content by re-using the same units and mechanics in a new context or a different combination. RPGs are somewhere in-between, by re-using monsters, dungeon architecture, loot, and crafting elements, while quests, NPCs and villages must be uniquely crafted.

“Elegant” game design is not only good for its own sake, it also allows you to add more stuff into your game in a cost-effective way.

There is a flip side to this: Prototypes, jam games, mostly story-driven games, and demos don’t really need good game design at all. One can build a small game prototype based on novelty alone, without a way to expand the scope, maybe even without an engaging core gameplay loop. The core gameplay loops two or three times and then the game just ends.

If you want to make a long-form game, you have to think from the beginning about scope and longevity.

Grand unified theories of game design(tm) become more applicable the larger the scope of your game is. In a small game, individual aspects like game feel, visual design, music, “funny/edgy” dialogue or characters, and novel mechanics outweigh balance, level design, world-building, and well-written characters.

Depth: I am using “depth” somewhat loosely and colloquially: Depth is what keeps players coming back, and talking to each other. That can be endgame content, high-level competitive play, lore, or a modding/mapmaking scene. Depth can be speedrunning, or finding new, clever solutions to puzzles. Depth is finding new meaning in content you already know or played.

After I beat Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, or after Waking Mars, I uninstalled the game and moved on. Nothing is making me come back to Mark of The Ninja, Dear Esther or Thomas Was Alone. I don’t think I will ever want to revisit Torchlight, the first or the sequel. I enjoyed each of these games - or in the case of Dear Esther at least I appreciated it, on a detached, intellectual level. I played Nuclear Throne until I had beaten the game, unlocked every character, seen every gun, and gone to most of the secret stages. Then I quit playing. I have no interest in looping.

I played a lot of StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty. I played custom matches with my friends, I played on the ladder, I looked up strategy tips on TeamLiquid, I watched live streams of competitive games, and then I watched Day[9] analyse competitive games in-depth.

Back when I was a child, I played lots of multi-player games of WarCraft 3 and Worms: Armageddon. It never got stale for me. I played some multiplayer matches of Swords & Soldiers, but there is not a lot of variety, and it got stale rather quickly.

I know this evaluation of games and my concept of “depth” are both rather subjective. In content-heavy games, this kind of “depth“ can be hidden content, endgame content, side quests, and lore. In mechanics-focused games, depth and longevity are facilitated by game design(tm).

The recipe for popularity?

The funnel goes like this: First Impression > Accessibility > Innovation > Core Loop > Scope > Depth. At every stage, you lose some players, or potential players. If a potential player doesn’t hear about your game, that’s it. If a player looks at a let’s play or a review, and doesn’t understand what the game is about, that’s it. If your game is reviewed by a professional site, you can expect that they play through the main content. The longer players stay with your game, the more relevant game design(tm) will become.

Depth is beyond the scope of a review, but it will make people stick with your game for longer, and can make players show or recommend it to friends.

Depth and scope will make people stick with your game for longer, and make your game show up in Steam and Discord friend lists.

An engaging core loop will lead to good reviews and probably also good user scores.

Unfortunately, good game design is usually not the limiting factor, because we live in a word where we are bombarded with new game releases every day, and we have to decide which ones to buy, which free ones to download and play, or even which reviews to read, because there are just so many games that the limiting factor is time and getting attention in the first place, not how good - or “fun”, or “engaging” - the game actually is.

AAA studios already have our attention, or at least the attention of big gaming news sites, so they can compete for making the game with the best shooting or the biggest open world. AAA studios have an easier time getting a consistent player base for online matchmaking. In contrast to this, indies have to compete for attention in the first place.

However, once you have the attention of players and reviewers, you still have to convince them that your game is any good.

#game design #longpost #clockwork game design #game development #indiepocalypse #are games art

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children-of-chaos · 5 years

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((Alright! It’s 11am, I’ve slept for six hours, and it’s time to start yelling about Endgame!

...under a cut so no-one gets unnecessarily spoiled! Click at your own risk.))

I want to put it out there right now that I did NOT enjoy Thor’s characterization in this movie. I don’t mean the ‘showing a hero fallen from grace because of heavily internalized failures and un-confronted traumas’ part but the ‘haha look he’s fat, drunk, and threatens 12 year olds over Fortnite isn’t that funny’ part.

Age-wise, Thor is in his 20s-30s. That’s a tough time in anyone’s life, and by Odin’s beard, has Thor had a rough time of it (mom died, dad died, brother died tHREE TIMES, had to kill his sister and destroy his planet to save his people only for Thanos to murder half of them mere minutes after they all felt safe, etc.). It’s completely natural for him to be upset, and to try and cope with all of that mess in any way he felt would help, be it healthy or not.

But considering that Ragnarok is my personal favorite MCU movie (on both a Thor front and a Loki front) this direction for his character made me uncomfortable.

Like, ‘I-looked-away-from-the-screen-during-the-Fortnite-scene-due-to-overwhelming-second-hand-embarrassment’ uncomfortable.

I absolutely adored the Frigga scenes, tho. I was always pretty salty about her death in Dark World, and the fact that she didn’t fuss about Thor’s abrupt (to her perception) change in health and attitude and just showed him motherly love, support, and wisdom was a really lovely touch. My Frigga theory lives for another day.

The scene in which a tied-up 2012!Loki snaps up the dropped Tesseract and just pops out of existence to the notice of absolutely nobody is pretty funny as is the fact that he got muzzled purely because he was mocking the Avengers with illusions and mimicry mere minutes after getting his ass kicked.

I’m still salty that we didn’t see more of him, tho, and that he didn’t come back in the final battle. He’s not Asgardian and his illusion didn’t fall when he ‘died’ in Infinity War so I refuse to believe he’s actually dead you can fight me on this.

Bruce having found his peace with the Hulk and living with him in harmony were super-nice and a great idea, but I really wish we’d gotten to see some scenes of that bond developing - even just in flashbacks.

Steve kicking and then commenting on his own ass was pretty funny.

I love Scott Lang and I will fight you for his honor.

Nebula being an overly-aggressive paper football player is the best thing ever but someone’s going to die if she plays Mario Kart.

Tony didn’t have to die. A tragic hero’s death is an overly-saturated ending and Tony Stark deserved to survive - injured, but alive - to be happy with Pepper, Morgan, Happy, Peter, May, Harley, Steve, Bruce, Thor, Clint, NatASHA-

I understand that sOMEone had to die on Vormir to take the Soul Stone but I’m STILL high-key angry that it had to be the only female in the original Avengers group.

Steve could have absoLUTEly gotten his dance with Peggy while returning the Infinity Stones and still come back to the future. We have no canon evidence or even canon implications that Steve was Peggy’s husband all along, so him going back in time and staying there pretty much wipes out the entire life and family Peggy created without him.

Also, I refuse to believe that Steve would have KNOWINGLY let Hydra continue to grow in secret within SHIELD’s ranks. That bullshit does not stand with me.

ALSO also, we nEVER GOT TO SEE HOW STEVE REACTED TO SEEING RED SKULL ON VORMIR-

There were absolutely no consequences to fucking up the time-travel?? Like, at all???? Nebula fucking KILLED her past self and absolutely nothing changed you can’t just break your own rules like that.

I had fun at this movie for most parts but the parts that made me angry are the ones that stuck with me leaving the theater. I cried, sure, but when the credits rolled I was more upset about plot holes and bad writing than I was about character deaths and drama.

In short: I will be picking this movie apart like a little kid who only wants the chocolate chips in the pancake, and making up my own canon to fill the holes.

#OOC #avengers endgame spoilers #endgame spoilers #avengers spoilers

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survivemiddleearth · 6 years

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Episode 1: “Hobbits, we gonna slay this all the way to Isengard.” -JG

I’m back and better than ever!

Heylo! Who loves a pre-game confessional oh we do! I cannot wait for this season to be honest. I am finishing a season as we speak being in the final 3 so the adrenaline rush and hype is so real. I am a not a super fan of LOTR but I do love and enjoy the the stories. I read the books when I was in second grade and the saw the movies for the first time in 7th grade. My goal is to be like Frodo in this game, make myself known when it's really important and needed, then disappear when I am not, why make a target on myself when I don't need to. Hopefully the power of the ring won't consume and something wild happens.... eeks here goes nothing, FOR MIDDLE EARTH!

Ahh fuck Johnny is in this game he's gonna betray me I know it fml I just wanna win an org how hard omfg

This is my first org in 5 months and honestly I forget how to play. I'm just gonna do whatever and I do how I do, but I'm not gonna be scared to yeet people out of here.

Part of my strategy is to try and be social to everyone in the beginning. I want to try and have a conversation with everyone on my tribe as soon as possible and try to gain a slight favor so people think I have something to contribute to them if we happen to lose the first immunity challenge and go to tribal

First confession of a new game is always a lot. I haven’t played since…March? Maybe even earlier than that. And if you know me, you know there’s been a lot of drama surrounding me since then, so I’m definitely nervous to be back in the saddle and playing again. Pre-merge queen. Basically, on my tribe, I feel…neutral to nervous. I have Dylan R, who is my ORG child, so I should be able to work with him fairly easily. I’ve also hosted Eric, which could be good if he weren’t friends with so many people who don’t like me. Same boat with Vi. I’m hoping I can kind of work both of them to my side, but it might not be possible and I may just have to rely on Dylan keeping me in the loop. There’s also a newbie, which is usually a good sign. Finally, we have Johnny. I FEEL like Johnny has an issue with me from something, but I’m not 100% sure. I love reaching a point in my life where I can’t remember who hates me and why, but, hey, that’s running and destroying the biggest ORG series since Mains for you. As for the other tribes……..yikes on a bike. Aside from Zach, JG, and Stephen (more of my sons), we’re fairly stacked with people who would cut my throat without a second thought. Drew has seen me play before and we had a, uh, messy relationship in that game. I’m certain Sammy still hates me from Lago and also from The Drama since he’s friends with the core few people who hate me. Nick I don’t know, but he has “skinny” in his bio as a positive which means we probably won’t get along, plus he came from tengaged which can be a yikes. Crow I hosted for like three seconds in Emathia, so maybe he’ll have mercy on me. Dennis I think hates me from the Athena stuff. Bodhi I think hates me, and I’m not wild about him either. Roxy I know hates me but I don’t have any idea why since we’ve never spoken. Probably just more Athena Stuff. Hopefully I make merge with JG. That’s going to be my big hope for this season. Well. Idol hunting is going to be my lifeblood. Wish me luck, unless you hate me like everyone else.

So Drew in this game? Kill me with an axe right now. What the fuck is JG doing here? I'm finished, I was going to play nice but THREE zwooper people are on my tribe. MESS.

Small tribe, which means riskier tribals early on but its easier to get to know everyone. So far Roxy and.. dnn??? I like (I’ll check the cast reveal for what we should be calling dnn). JG and Sammy I know from other games, I feel I can trust JG a little, we’ll see. Sammy I don’t know I like to give people clean slates but almost every game we’ve been in he’s gone straight for me. Bodhi hasnt messaged me back yet :/

Hello ! Welcome to my first confession. Excited to exist. I haven’t met everyone in the tribe yet but I am playing with my old host so that’s funny. I don’t really have any interesting things to say so just. Hello. The first immunity challenge is one that I really didn’t do well in the first time I played so. Yikes. Whatever I’m still excited !!

Well hey! Got a clue on my very first idol hunt? But in a series so aggressively dominated by men, where the hell is "sisterhood" supposed to take me?

Honestly, I did not want to do the first challenge. I know I am good at it, but I didn't want to be the one responsible for losing for the tribe since its a hero challenge. I made up an excuse which is not a lie and is at the same time. Hopefully our tribe does well at the challenge!

This game so far is really stupid, I mean no talking during heats is fine but the fact that my tribe didn't offer any condolences or anything like "you tried" is rude and frankly, tragic.

You ever agree to face an Australian in an endurance challenge at midnight your time, 2pm his time? What a disaster for me

What are half the things mentioned here. Like what's a hobbit. I know its a movie but like, really? There better not be a quiz on LOTR or I am getting last place.

Yas!!! I love getting lucky and being on a winning tribe. First immunity lets go hobbits, we gonna slay this all the way to Isengard. So far I've mingled and stayed for tea with my hobbits and gotten to know them. Of course I'm excited to play with Stephen again, cool to finally meet Roxy and Bodhi. We shall see what will happen I'm anxiously, excitedly nervous. But let's go!

You know the most embarrassing part of losing that comp in 2 seconds? The fact that I almost called in sick to work bc I wanted to free my schedule for the day. Yeah that was a flop. If I get eliminated first that would be simultaneously hilarious and also very depressing. No one other than Eric and Jay have messaged me so I should probably like. Pop in and say hi

watches crow flop

My tribe is so...INACTIVE.

In this immunity challenge, I have no other option but to beat Vi if i dont, I will lose my spot in this game, I swear on it

Im deciding if I should tell Crow Run wants him out. I like Run but I gotta cover myself...

So uh...it’s kinda fuckin wild. We lost and don’t really have an easy vote because everyone’s active and ready to play the damn game. I’m fairly certain there’s a large majority though I don’t think anyone will be absolutely shocked about who goes home.

I'd like to start this seasons confessionals of with saying that I absolutely hate Bodhi. Since he took my Tom Bombadil and then told me, he had forgotten that he was cast for this season... LIKE COME ON ARE YOU SERIOUS, THATS MY AVATAR. After calming down I saw the tribe I was on. Bodhi (AJUSNKDIKWQJNE), Roxy, Sammy, Stephen and JG. I have played loads with Sammy and Roxy before. Stephen seems nice. Bodhi must die and JG is prolly the hardest person to talk to since I was in kindergarten. I mean. It should be that hard to give proper answers to your questions. MAYBE it was because he was busy playing the inferior BR game fortnite, but still come ON. I agree to play the challenge, but didn't need to actually do something in it, since Stephen and Sammy beasted it. The idolsearch first went SUCKY. because I went to bree ignored Aragorn, got durnk and got a 35 % DISADVANTAGE ON MY NEXT CHALLENGE (LIKE WHO THOUGHT OF THAT HIGH NUMBER) then at my next search I find out, that the other option I had, prolly would've given me an Idol... OH MAN PLEASE DONT LET IT BE GONE I WANT THAT.

You know I'm winning when my tribe wins immunity. Time to take the free time to make an alliance of my own. I have to choose who I want to trust for now.

okay so i haven’t made a confessional yet but I’m super excited to see some familiar faces in the game. I’ve played with Dennis before but I know that if I’m a threat to his game he will take me out so it’s a good person to stick with for now but idk if I can trust him in this game. JG is very friendly and chill but I’ve onkg played another game with him where he quit. He had a lot going on so I understood but I’m willing to work with him again if he’s willing. ROXY IS ON MY TRIBE AND SHE IS THE LOVE OF MY LIFE AND I KNOW SHE WILL NEVER VOTE ME OUT. SO I GOT HER AND IM EXCITED. Okay and who else? oh yes Stephen! Stephen is cool and I’m 100% down to work with him despite our past in orgs. I just don’t want him to think of me as an enemy. If we have to boot out someone I’d say bodhi would be the most obvious choice because he hasn’t been active...but bodhi is a fun player to play with I’m just hoping he becomes more active before our tribe decides to give him the boot. I see Crow in this game and he’s super nice and I’m so glad I’m playing with him and also Johnny is playing and I’m hoping he’s gonna want to work with me. Okay okay I’m done for now. Let the games begin.

CRAP i forgot to talk about immunity and idol search...okay sooooo i went heat 2 after Stephen won heat 1 and like i was expecting to be targeted bc if I won, my tribe would get immunity. However Dylan(I’m sorry if i umm spelled that wrong) forgot the period and Crow spoke out of turn or something and I won...I was shocked but glad that it didn’t last as long as the first heat. Oh and I searched for the idol and went to the bar or something and it turns out the item i was gonna get had been snatched before I had a chance....WE GOTTA THIEF IN HERE....I’m just trying to make it to merge so i need any advantage i can get.

Johnny just approached me for an alliance and I told him, "of course johnny! :)" But I am internally screaming like "nooooooo why meeee," because just before this game we were talking about how Johnny likes to betray everyone in orgs so now I'm like, please just let me win one org I got Ryan V casted in Bermuda you owe me.

The nice thing about not going to tribal council is that it really gives you the time to flex that social game and work on building up relationships, which is super important early in the game.

me doing this 4 hours before tribal is a mood but uhm ahem in conclusion, i've heard 8 names this round and let me breakdown how and why begin: i tell nick i think first boot should be someone who didn't compete, and then narrow it down to jayden or zach nick tells me he's been pushing for jayden and that drew is on board and is working on zach jayden comes to me saying he knows he's in trouble and asking me what to do, he reveals that runs ratted out nick about targeting him i tell nick runs ratted him out nick reveals to me that runs has been pushing me to everyone (confirmed by Drew, and later Jayden, as well) i confront rataways subtly and he insinuates that his loyalty is to me and that we're friends and my BS alarm goes flying off the charts rataways thinks he's sly but he's not end: im voting rataways and got confirmation from jayden and drew that they'd do the same....currently working on nick who has supposedly already told zach to vote runs as well if everybody minus rataways isn't a completely shady bitch, this should be an easy 5-1 with rataways thinking he somehow has votes on me and i'll probs get idoled out but w/e. i'm not going to lose my sanity trying to beg rataways not to vote me, idc. oh and i threw the immunity challenge cuz tribal seemed fun (and boi it is!)

Well I wasn’t the first person evicted so I consider this season an accomplishment. I’m trying to attach myself to Ford, since he’s completely new.

Alright hold on a second. 2nd day. 2nd conversation with JG. AND its like day & night. He seems pretty chill :). MAYBE HE WAS JUST BUSY WITH FORTNITE (what I as a gamer understand. I mean.. you gotta set priorities.. right?). Just wanted to clarify, so I don't come over as a dick at the end of the season. In case we end up being best friends *shrugs*

#outwitoutplayoutrunthewitchking

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flauntpage · 6 years

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A Guide for NBA Stars Stuck Playing on Christmas Day

The NBA released its Christmas Day schedule for the upcoming season last night and everyone is very excited about the Milwaukee Bucks big matchup against the New York Knicks. But are their hidden costs here? Sure games on Christmas are good for you, the sports viewer looking to hide somewhere, but they are bad for almost everyone responsible for coaching, playing, refereeing, stadium-staffing, or floor-waxing on the big day.

Waking up on a day that, for most of the western world, is meant to be a day of family, celebration, trees, things of that nature. It’s the holiday EVERY fucking person celebrates to some degree or another, be it as a religious sacrament and celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, an exploration of the bottom of capitalist impulse and an opportunity to teach children how to consume so the economy can stay big and healthy, an excuse to gather the family and eat ham or some other pig product, or, if you’re a real traditionalist, a Pagan Celebration of the birth of the sun, the source of all life and matter in the universe, the only TRUE observable God, a fiery ball of indifference hovering off in the distance, waiting for the ozone layer to collapse so it can burn us all to a crisp.

LeBron James, the floating ball of energy the NBA currently revolves around, has been vociferous in his criticism of the tradition:

“If you ask any player in the league, we’d rather be home with our families,” James said in 2010 before his Miami Heat were set to play the Los Angeles Lakers on the road. “I think the people that even set the games up would rather be home with their family during this day. It’s not just a regular holiday. It’s definitely one of those days that you wish you could wake up in the morning with the kids and open up presents.”

Ahh, the double-edged blessing and pain of the Christmas Day game! Certainly, playing in one implies that you are a member of a certain class of team, a squad who accomplished big things the year before and seems poised to accomplish much more in the year to come. BUT, the price of this fame and success is alienation—from your family, from the the traditions of your youth, and from the celebration of the broader world.

It’s tremendously sad, in its way, but the cost of success is inconvenience. And anyway, not all hope is lost: the human mind and spirit are ingenious, and there is plenty of holiday joy to be found out there on the road, in whatever strange city you may find yourself in. And so, for the convenience and edification of the players who will be stuck away from their families on December 25, we offer some suggestions for how they can cope.

12:00 PM ET: Milwaukee Bucks vs. New York Knicks

This is a big moment for the NBA’s kind, long-limbed, muscular boy, Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Greek Freak. It's an opportunity to absolutely lay waste to a team full of chumps and bums in front of an increasingly irritable crowd who will absolutely be looking for an opportunity to turn on the Knicks somewhere around Giannis’s thirty-seventh or so point. The rush of demolishing your opponent while they slowly lose support from their home is the biggest shot of adrenaline you can possibly feel, it’s basically the thrill of winning a war.

There’s no reason for Giannis to leave this feeling behind once he steps off the hardwood. Instead of shuffling back to the hotel and playing Fortnite or whatever it is youths do in hotel rooms, I implore Giannis to take to the Manhattan streets, steal cars, and declare homes and businesses to be “The Property of the Freak, Now.” He should recruit anyone he sees drifting on those cold Christmas streets to come inside the warm arms of the Freak, to huddle together and create a mass of human beings that will lead a movement to make Giannis the King of New York. Not in some corny-ass sports way but, like, actually the king, owning the fiefdom. He will knight dudes and dole out lands to vassals and arrange marriages to remain powerful and rich. The whole domain of the City is within your reach, Giannis… you just need the followers, sitting there on the streets for the taking.

3:00 PM ET: Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Houston Rockets

After taking a beating at the hands of the vastly superior Houston Rockets, Russell Westbrook is going to go back to his hotel room and carve everything he did in the game into his mattress, so he can more deeply engrain his various minor accomplishments into his mind and soul, as he does after every game.

For everyone else, though, a cleansing will be needed from the pure filth that builds inside the mind and spirit when you play for the Oklahoma City Thunder. They will need to get in a car and drive out to the Texas desert—no water, only a big block of salt and some cold pre-game buffet raviolis for sustenance—sit on the sand and just sweat, sweat until there's nothing left in you, sweat until you've drained out all the hatred and loathing and complicity in lining the pockets of a dude who made his fortune fracking, leaving you an empty vessel. Watch the sun set off into the distance and spend some time just, like, looking at the stars, alone and empty and happy for a split second. Then get back into the car and drive back to civilization, where you will suck in all that evil once again.

5:30 PM ET Philadelphia 76ers vs. Boston Celtics

Woof, Boston. No one wants to be ANYWHERE less, but on Christmas, it really takes it out of you. A rational person would fake an injury, chill at home and read a book, but professional athletes live to compete, so that’s probably out of the picture.

The only MORAL thing you can do, here, is walk out of that stadium and go door to door, barging in on every Christmas celebration you can find, and trying your damnedest to convince everyone you talk to that it’s time for them and their family to move anywhere—ANYWHERE—to get away from Boston. Ben Simmons can talk about Australia, with its Kangaroos and outbacks, neither of which Boston has. Joel Embiid can celebrate the virtues of the great nation of Cameroon, which might not be perfect, but is, at the least, not Boston, Massachusetts. J.J. Redick, unfortunately, will try to convince a poor family that they would be better off in North Carolina, but accidentally be slowly sold on Boston and wake up the next day with a gross haircut and his number retired in the Garden. Tragic, really, but so is LIFE.

8:00 PM ET Los Angeles Lakers vs. Golden State Warriors

The Bay Area: really lovely, if not for all the wind. LeBron James, separated from his family and annoyed at the ritual he gets forced into every year, can find some peace in one of San Francisco’s many municipal parks, where he can take advantage of the winter weather and gently fly a humble kite while wearing a massive, Nike branded pea-coat. As he looks at the kite, getting yanked to and fro by the wind, his mind will naturally drift to his broader life, like that kite up there, staying afloat only by the providence of his tremendous control.

Sooner or later a gust or a dip will hit, and the kite will fall or somehow lose control. In this moment, LeBron will feel the chill of fate, pulling at his soul. Was that wind?, he will think. Will the Lakers make a move that will plunge them into the bottom of the league while he’s still there and make him look like a colossal asshole? Is it the vagaries of injury, which can strike at any second? The bottom falling out of one of his many projects, some shit beyond his control sending him scattering in the wind? Is it his children, disappointing him? His wife or a business partner leaving out of nowhere? Certainly, the kite can’t stay up forever, he will think. I am in control now, but the gusts of life will come, and then what will I do? Can I keep the kite afloat, or raise it in the air once more?

10:30 PM ET Portland Trail Blazers vs. Utah Jazz

Well hey, if you’re gonna be traveling for work on Christmas, there’s no better place to be than Utah. The Mormons are the last practitioners of The Great Christmas Kitsch Arts, and they will fill your mind and your heart with holiday joy as you listen to their choir, devour their unnervingly perfect Christmas cookies, and go caroling in their beautiful neighborhoods, each more immaculately decorated than the last.

And, bonus: since you, as an NBA player, are a millionaire, you can purchase access to the basement of the Mormon Tabernacle, where the yearly orgy designed to establish balance in the broader world will be happening. Butts and dicks and limbs, flying everywhere, getting inserted into everything, holiday themed bread puddings falling into your mouth and onto your privates, ALL FOR THE PURPOSE of exorcising the impurities and sins of the world and burying them deep under the ground and away from the surface. No one does Christmas like Utah, you better believe it.

A Guide for NBA Stars Stuck Playing on Christmas Day published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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