This subreddit is dedicated to the BioShock game series.
I’m trying to access the online box office to sort out my season ticket renewal but I am stuck in a loop on the CAPTUR page- I’ve selected endless busses, motorcycles, traffic lights and stairs but it just keeps looping through. Is anyone else having the same issue?
I'm a returning player from I don't remember when but I didn't recognize a lot of the brawlers at first so don't be on my ass if I get something wrong but anyway.
Bling was a really good idea giving people a way to get skins without spending any gems but I just think that the amount we get is horrendous. Here's all the ways to get bling (to my knowledge) and why I think it's bad:
Brawl Pass (4350 bling I think) - Yeah it gives a few thousand bling and other benefit but what if you're poor?(I am)
Power League (250 per rank up)- I wouldn't have a problem with this if the other ways gave more. if you just rank up 4 times you have 1000 bling which is pretty good but it does get harder to rank up every time.
Trophy League - there are 2 ways to get bling from trophies. First is when a brawler reaches rank 10 it gets 10 bling which increases by 10 every 5 ranks you get on that brawler. People will say "Just push brawlers to rank 20" well to you 1. I don't have resources to spend on brawlers to upgrade so that they can survive to rank 20. 2. playing games take time. It'll take at least a few hours to get to rank 20. 3. I'm not terrific at the game so losing will take more time The second way to get bling is the end of Trophy League which everyone already seems to be complaining about so I don't feel the need to really explain. If the league end right now I'll be getting less than 100 bling
Challenges - The bling release challenge was really good. Everyone got a lot of bling and was happy but this last challenge giving 50 was just stupid.
I'd much rather have star points and buying mega boxes than this. I think supercell forgot to add a few 0s at the end of the bling rewards. If there are any other ways to get bling PLEASE tell me. Also if there is a easy way to get bling using the ways above please teach me.
thank you
I’ve not played competitive PvP much (or Glory as it was known back in the day), I started to play quite a bit last season and started off in Silver 1 and then got promoted to Gold, I was just wondering do you get any rewards at the end of the season depending on what rank you finish on? e.g. Legendary Shards, Enchantment Cores, Upgrade Modules and the rewards increase to ascendant shards, ascendant alloy and maybe even exotic ciphers the higher the rank you achieve. I know there’s an emblem you get if you hit ascendant rank but this seems a bit weak considering most people won’t hit this rank
I’ve been playing destiny 2 for a few weeks and I haven’t bought anything yet (because I normally don’t spend money on in game purchases) but I’ve been having a lot of fun doing the quests and missions but I’ve sort of ran out of things to do. Now enough of me rambling, is buying the campaigns/season pass worth it and if so, what do you recommend
Ah, Eurovision season. The time of hype, music, unity – and a shit ton of drama. This year’s winner is maybe one of the most controversial we’ve ever had, and that’s saying something considering we've had broadcasters straight up end a broadcast because they didn't like the winner (don't ask).
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start from the basics:
What is Eurovision?
Eurovision (or ESC) is an annual song contest originating from Europe, organized by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). It’s been held without fail since 1951 aside from 2020, when it was cancelled for truly mysterious reasons. (COVID, guys, it was COVID). Originally incorporating only European countries, the contest has grown in its scope since its early days, nowadays having almost 40 countries participating (including some decisively non-European countries like Israel and Australia) and reaching a viewership of 150+ million, making it measure up to live events the likes of Super Bowl.
The concept of the competition is simple: each country sends one original song to compete. Aside from the biggest sponsors of the contest (UK, Spain, Italy, Germany and France) and the winner of the previous year (Ukraine in ESC 2023) each entry participates in a semi-final, from which 20 countries are selected to advance to the final via voting. The winner of the competition is the act that gets the most votes in the final, who then gets the right to host next year’s contest and enjoy the tourism money. This year, UK took over the hosting duties from Ukraine for reasons (the war, guys, it was the war).
The voting system is important to understand for context: each country gives two sets of points, both equal in value and weight. Points are given to the top 10 entries, 10th getting 1 point, 9th two points and so on. Third place gets 8 points, second place gets 10 points and first place gets 12 points to make the top two positions more valuable. The two sets of votes come from professional juries and the televote. Countries can’t vote for their own entry, naturally.
Juries are 4-5 member teams consisting of music professionals (artists, producers, managers, vocal coaches, music reporters, radio DJs, choreographers etc.) who appraise each entry based on the following criteria:
- Composition and originality of the song
- Performance on stage
- Vocal capacity of artist(s)
- Overall impression of the act
Televotes are collected by having viewers vote via the official Eurovision app, or by calling/texting. A person/device can give a maximum of 20 votes and each vote costs money, the amount depending on each individual country, but it usually hovers somewhere around 1€/vote. Yes, I blew 20€ on the grand final. Yes, I blew another 20€ on the semifinal I was allowed to vote in (there are two semifinals and you can only vote in the semi your country’s in).
This year's Grand Final was held on May 13, but things start happening way before that. Each Eurovision season typically starts with countries selecting their representatives. Some use internal selection (as in, broadcasters decide who goes all by themselves) but most host national finals, competitions where the winner is granted the golden ticket to Eurovision. These national finals are keenly followed by eurofans (passionate fans of Eurovision).
Ready Player One: UMK 2023 and the Launch of the Dark Horse
In January 2023, UMK, the Finnish national final for Eurovision, started revealing its finalists. Seven finalists were announced, and their songs were released one by one on a once-a-day schedule. Finland’s journey in Eurovision
has historically been poor, having only managed to secure one win (granted, there are many who have never won) and often finishing on the back end of the results.
Since 2020, however, UMK went under new management and did what was pretty much a 180: in a few years, it became one of the highest quality national finals around, and because of that, many eyes were on Finland when UMK started. The overall quality of songs in 2023 was very good, but one emerged as a clear frontrunner.
Käärijä, a Finnish rapper who was virtually unknown even in his home country, entered the competition, as the kids say, guns ablaze and mad as hell. His song
Cha Cha Cha, a rap/metal/techno fusion song that does a complete tonal and genre shift halfway through, immediately became the fan favourite to win. When the time came, Käärijä
absolutely landslided the national final, getting more points than the three runners up put together.
Hopeful buzz started amongst the eurofans; would this finally be Finland’s time after seventeen years (Finland’s last and only win was in 2006)? Finland is by means not the most beloved country in Eurovision, but many see it as an underdog that’s finally catching up to speed. Many wanted it to do well. Some were cautiously optimistic.
That was, until Sweden entered the competition, as the kids say, guns ablaze and mad as hell.
Ready Player Two: Melodifestivalen 2023 and the Awakening of the Sleeping Giant
Sweden, by all possible metrics, is one of, if not THE most
successful country in Eurovision history. Before 2023, they’ve raked in a massive six wins (second only to Ireland who has seven), two of which during the last 11 years alone and the last one as recently as 2015. Additionally, on years they don’t win, they place in the top 10 almost without fail. They have only failed to qualify from the semifinals once, and it was largely seen as a national disgrace.
Sweden takes Eurovision VERY seriously, and it shows in their results. Melodifestivalen, Sweden’s national selection, started gathering curious eyes even before it started, because rumours were murmuring of someone very remarkable returning on stage. These rumours turned out to be true.
It’s hard to overstate how iconic Loreen is to the Eurovision community. She won the competition back in 2012,
with a song that’s widely regarded as the best winning song of all time. She’s beloved and for a good reason. Known as a passionate, skilful vocalist and a world-class performer, the moment her participation was confirmed, many considered Melodifestivalen 2023 a done deal.
It must be mentioned that Loreen did attempt to return to Eurovision
once between her win in 2012 and entry in 2023, but failed to win Melodifestivalen. However, this year’s entry was not here to play. She entered with
Tattoo, a pop epic crafted by some of the best songwriters Sweden has to offer, with a staging so impeccable it could pass for a music video.
Critics and audience alike were raving. She was back, more powerful than ever. Expectedly, she won Melodifestivalen and earned her place in the line-up of 2023. In the community, the buzz was immediate, but not all of it was positive.
Sweden and Eurovision: A Turbulent Relationship
I think it’s fair to say that Sweden is, for the lack of a better term, suffering from success. Lately, there has been a somewhat anti-Sweden mentality brewing in the community, stemming from a few key criticisms Sweden regularly gets
- Genre loyalty: Swedish entries generally all fall under the umbrella of “radio friendly pop”. They’re well composed, well produced but seemingly leave the fandom cold. “Generic”, “soulless” and “safe” are terms often thrown at Swedish entries
- Jury bias: For a while now, Sweden has done better with juries than the televote, the difference once notoriously being as massive as 220 points, or 2nd place (jury) vs 22nd (out of a possible 26) (by the public). That being said, it’s disingenuous to say the televote hates Sweden as they regularly rank in the top 10, but it’s hard to deny that their point tally routinely consists of more jury than televote points
- Same songwriters: Melodifestivalen has been quite frequently criticized for having a large chunk of its songs written by the same core group of ten-ish people. In Sweden’s defence, a country of 10 million does not have that many active songwriters, but it’s hard to deny it’s a striking detail. For instance, in this year’s final, Melodifestivalen didn’t have a single entry that didn’t have at least two of these songwriters credited
This has led to things souring between Sweden and eurofans. To sum it up concisely: many eurofans feel like Sweden never takes risks, sends ungenuine lab-crafted jury baits and is always rewarded for it no matter what the viewers do because the juries always have Sweden's back. There's a lot of intricacies that go into this and there's nuance to this criticism, but for the sake of keeping things concise, I won't go into them now, all you need to know is that this is something that's going on.
“I love Loreen, but…”
Because of this sentiment, while Loreen undoubtedly had her fans, a sizeable section of the fandom started being critical of her. People started negging. Her song was called generic and soulless, the fact it was written by a huge group of the “regulars” in Melodifestivalen was brought up. People said it was too similar to her 2012 winning song, a 2.0 or carbon copy if you will.
As soon as Loreen was announced as the Swedish representative, the competition took on a narrative of its own. It was widely seen as a race between Finland and Sweden. While Loreen definitely had her fans, the overall mentality was leaning more towards Käärijä. He was seen as the underdog from the country that has a winning chance once every 20 years, if that, going up against the Eurovision powerhouse Sweden who wins so often the fandom is getting tired of it.
That’s not to say no other entries were ever in the talks:
Spain’s artsy fusion flamenco song was seen as a potential jury darling.
France’s sassy chanson was seen as a potential sleeper hit.
Norway’s TikTok viral Viking techno banger was seen as a potential televote magnet.
Ukraine was still a big unknown given that the previous year, they had received the largest televote tally in the history of the competition and many thought sympathy votes would keep pouring in this year as well. And then there’s whatever the fuck
Croatia was doing (okay, they never had a chance of winning, I just wanted any excuse to subjugate people to this chaos).
But the overall sentiment was heavily leaning towards this being a neighbour war between Finland and Sweden. As the press and pre-parties (fan arranged concerts where artists are invited to perform to get their first interactions with the fandom) started, eyes were undeniably on Loreen and Käärijä.
During his Eurovision journey, Käärijä became somewhat of a crowd darling and went moderately viral on TikTok. A little guy with a bowl cut and a thick accent who had quickly gotten the reputation of being both funny and extremely friendly, coming to the competition with an out of the box and blatantly flamboyant genre fusion banger, walking around in a green bolero with no shirt. It's hard not to feel endeared. (Not that Loreen was unfriendly or anything, she’s perfectly nice by all accounts, but her off-stage personality wasn’t as much of a focal point as it was for Käärijä who became so beloved he was locked in as an icon even before the competition began).
Finns, they, well… Rallied behind Käärijä like crazy. Their government officials sent tweets wishing him good luck. The state owned railway company
dressed its statues as Käärijä. The Helsinki tram
got a Käärijä makeover. Cha Cha Cha topped the Finnish charts for ages (and still does AFAIK). The Finnish press was going gaga, broadcasting how only Loreen stood in the way of Käärijä’s victory.
“Just Ignore Everyone”: The Main Event That Undeniably Shaved a Few Years Off Of Graham Norton’s Life Span
The main event came about at the Liverpool Arena. As expected, both Sweden and Finland qualified for the final (later revealed to have come second and first, respectively). As the grand final came about, what was supposed to be a fun event (ironically carrying the slogan “United by Music”) turned into a rather tense occasion. Sweden performed 9th whereas Finland performed 13th. Both of their performances went largely well.
During
Finland’s performance, the crowd went so crazy some commentators even said the whole building was shaking. People shouted Cha Cha Cha at the top of their lungs. The audience was on his side. Not that
Loreen’s performance was poorly received either, she clearly had a lot of friends at the arena, but Finland got the audience
by the balls.
After all of the 26 acts were done performing, the time for vote announcements came. The structure of vote announcements goes as follows: first, each country gives their jury points one by one, their spokesperson saying out loud the country that got 12 points, the highest one possible. After that, the total televote points given by all countries are given to each act one by one starting from the country currently at the last position.
Very soon, it became obvious that the juries had taken an immense liking to Tattoo.
Loreen got 12 points after 12 points, and the atmosphere at the arena shifted. The audience got more and more agitated with each 12 points Sweden received, and cheered very loudly whenever Käärijä (who was expected to do significantly worse with the juries thanks to non-mainstream genre and his lesser singing abilities due to being a rapper first and foremost) got any points. It got to a point where they responded to Sweden getting 12 points by chanting Cha Cha Cha.
The hosts (Graham Norton and Hannah Waddingham) were getting visibly uncomfortable and
had to calm the crowd more than once. Hannah Waddingham eventually gave the exasperated yet iconic one-liner “just ignore everyone” when the chanting wouldn’t calm down. In the end, Sweden was comfortably in 1st place, having raked in a massive and historic 340 points, almost double that of the runner up Israel (who got 177 jury points). Finland ranked 4th with the juries with a total tally of 150, nearly 200 points behind Loreen.
Once the time for televotes came, everyone’s eyes were on Finland. Käärijä was expected to do well, but no one could quite gauge how well he’d do. Turns out, very well. He raked in a
massive 376 televote points, getting the full marks from 18/37 countries and not placing lower than 5th with any country. To put it in perspective, this is the 2nd highest televote score ever (by percentage of available points), the highest being Ukraine from the year prior, and the circumstances were quite unprecedented.
By then, it was obvious the two-horse race had become true. Loreen would need 189 points (roughly the 3th-4th place in televotes) to secure her win, a tally that wasn’t a walk in the park, but was very doable with her popularity.
The following sequence is still very bizarre to me. Loreen’s points were announced.
She got 243 points, making her the televote runner up. Which in turn meant Käärijä had lost to her by about 50 points despite outdoing her televote score by 133 points. As the winner was announced, Käärijä buried his head in his hands, clearly devastated. Loreen was immediately guided back on stage for her winner’s reprisal.
Footage from backstage shows many contestants beelining for Käärijä to comfort him. They’re seen hugging him,
chanting Cha Cha Cha like he’s the actual winner and trying to cheer him up. All the while, Käärijä himself was obviously heartbroken. The crowd wasn’t happy, to a point where when Loreen accepted the trophy,
she asked if anyone even wants her to perform again.
While Loreen’s fans were ecstatic to see her win and perform again, a portion of the audience reportedly walked out, disappointed. That was the end of the main competition. Sweden had won its 7th Eurovision trophy, catching up to Ireland for most wins ever. Loreen had become the second person (and first woman) in history to win twice.
The fandom, while disappointed, quickly got over themselves and accepted the outcome- yeah no one’s buying this lmfao. The dust was up in the air and wouldn’t settle for a good while.
Let the Shit Slinging Begin: Conspiracy Theories, Petitions and the Media Fight
The outcome received immediate backlash. Loreen’s winning performance and grand final performance were mass downvoted on YouTube. Loreen’s
victory post on
Eurovision currently has 0 upvotes and over 6500 comments.
Social media posts by Eurovision about Loreen were spammed by people proclaiming Käärijä was the real winner. Some contestants (namely Slovenia, Estonia and Serbia) outright said Käärijä was their winner. Finland’s grand final performance views also surpassed that of Sweden’s.
There was a lot of shit slinging. Conspiracies started rearing their heads. Some were
convinced Sweden had rigged the jury in order to host Eurovision on the 50th anniversary of ABBA’s victory (yes, ABBA is Swedish, yes, they won Eurovision with Waterloo, no there’s no proof of this conspiracy). A
petition was started to remove the juries and it reached 60 000 signatures in two days. Loreen was
accused of plagiarizing at least two different songs (not that I personally think the accusations have any merit, the melody line is just incredibly common). The Norwegian delegation
outright said the juries should be overhauled (Norway got screwed over massively by the juries, being placed 17th, only to be pulled to the 5th overall position by the televote).
When detailed televote results came out, it turned out Sweden had not placed 1st in a single country. It also had less 2nd places than Finland, and its average position was 5th (which coincidentally was the lowest score Käärijä got in any country). People were pissed. Some proclaimed spending money on voting is a waste of time if the 2nd highest televote score in history isn’t enough to win because a group of 200 or so people said so.
People started going through the jury credentials, soon discovering that they were overwhelmingly pop professionals (
55% to be exact) while rock pros were nowhere to be seen (they made up 3.8% of the jury to be exact). To be fair, people weren’t only pissed for Finland, they were pissed for other entries that seemingly ticked all the boxes for the juries just to get a minimal result because Sweden vacuumed all the points like it was time for spring cleaning. (I feel like I must mention that a lot of televote magnet entries also flopped hard because Finland suckled up most of the televote points leaving the rest to fight for scraps.)
With the televote results also came a peculiar detail that kicked the drama between Sweden and Finland to a whole new sphere. Turns out, every country gave Sweden televote points, except one. Yep, you guessed it. Finland blanked Sweden, while Sweden’s televote gave Finland the full 12 points. (Finnish and Swedish juries gave each other 12 points.)
This was seen as unsportsmanlike and the Swedish media latched onto it. Think pieces started coming out. One infamous
Swedish Eurovision podcast episode hosted by a Swedish newspaper consisted mostly of ranting about how Finland is a "country of idiots", how it's impossible Finns could genuinely have thought 10 other songs were better than Tattoo and how it was a testament to their lack of taste that they voted for
Germany and not Sweden (Germany came in last, Finland was one of the only countries to give them points. Germany sent a metal entry so I’m not sure why this was a surprise, Finns LOVE metal).
Swedish newspapers also
widely reported that the Finnish Eurovision commentator had told Finns not to vote for Sweden, furthermore adding fuel to the fire. This seems to mostly be lost in translation/a cultural miscommunication, the commentator in question read a joke out loud from the stream chat that essentially said “you’re allowed to vote tactically but not for your own country”, joking about the general elections held in Finland just months prior, where a lot of people voted tactically for the largest left-wing party to prevent the large right-wing party from taking over. It didn’t work but "vote tactically" became a nation wide meme. Said commentator also simultaneously came under fire by Finns for stanning Loreen too much during his commentary. Man just can't win lmao
One Swedish newspaper article evoked strong backlash in Finland by
referring to Finland as “östra rikshalvan” (“Eastern part of the Kingdom”, roughly translated) which was the term used for Finland when it still belonged to Sweden. Many Finns saw it as colonialist and like Sweden was implying they were entitled to their former vassal using their money to give them points. However, it’s difficult to deny this lack of points likely was tactical from Finland, given how they’ve given Sweden points every other year except this one. The Finnish media also did broadcast heavily that Loreen's win depends on the amount of televotes she gets compared to Käärijä, so it's not far-fetched at all that Finns were aware of it and voted for something else.
Finnish press wasn’t silent either. A
widely publicized clip from a gossip radio show hosted by the teen targeted state-owned radio station Yle X3M heavily criticized Loreen’s entry, calling it “shit” and making a tasteless joke implying Loreen was on drugs the whole night thanks to her somewhat ethereal demeanour. One of the hosts also seemed convinced the results were rigged. Newspapers also eagerly reported about the plagiarism allegations against Tattoo, even if they never went as far as suggesting there’s any merit to them.
Perhaps the saddest part of this is the contestants themselves. Loreen and Käärijä both have consistently praised each other. They reportedly get along great and
there are numerous clips of them hugging, laughing and joking around. Despite taking the loss heavily, Käärijä congratulated Loreen and emphasized he loves her and wishes her all the best from
the very first interview he gave after his loss. (He did however say he feels like the jury system might need a reform.) Likewise, Loreen
said in an interview that she wasn’t bothered by the crowd chanting Cha Cha Cha because she thinks Käärijä is awesome and authentic.
They’re still in contact and are planning to meet up for coffee when Loreen’s next in Helsinki. The abuse Loreen herself received reached downright disgusting proportions, crossing from general trashing to misogynistic and even racist territory (because of her Moroccan heritage). It got to a point where Käärijä
had to address it on Finnish morning TV, emphasizing that the results are not her fault and that he feels horrible for her when people insult her because he knows her and knows she’s a lovely person. By all accounts, there’s no bad blood between them (or any contestants for that matter, this year was remarkably cordial).
So, where are we now? People have mostly calmed down (mostly) and accepted the results. Many still push for a jury reform, demanding larger juries with more diversity and knowledge of non-mainstream genres, a shift to a 60/40 voting split in favour of the televote, and many other things too numerous to list here. EBU has not addressed the controversy in any shape or form (and they likely won't), and we’ll likely have to wait until next year to find out if the jury system will be overhauled. Loreen and Käärijä fans are still bickering amongst each other but the general public seems to have moved on.
Here’s to hoping Käärijä’s invited to perform at Eurovision 2024 as an interval act and regardless of jury reform (or lack thereof) people can bury this hatched and Nordic unity can blossom once again
I am experiencing an issue with blocked web pages when using web proxy functionality with web filter profiles. When visiting a page that is categorized as blocked in web filter profile, my browser displays a "Certificate expired" warning. Only by ignoring the warning and selecting "Proceed anyway" can I see the block page from Fortigate fw. The expired certificate displayed is from Fortinet with a date that has passed. I am using version 6.4.1 and have applied a cert inspection profile (not deep inspection) with the default Fortinet CA SSL certificate (expiring in 2029) in web filter profile. Anyone know what is the problem here and why I am seeing expired certificate on block page?
Additionally, could anyone advise on which version is recommended to upgrade to from 6.4.1?
Thanks.