#Naturalization requirements

[usadvlottery]

Upon entry into the United States, individuals must comply with the terms of their visa, such as maintaining lawful status, abiding by visa expiration dates, and adhering to any restrictions on employment or study. Depending on the type of visa, individuals may also have the option to apply for permanent residency, known as a green card, which grants them the right to live and work in the U.S. indefinitely. This process typically involves meeting additional eligibility criteria, such as sponsorship by a family member or employer, and navigating a separate application process with USCIS. Ultimately, for those aiming to become U.S. citizens, obtaining a green card is often a crucial step towards eligibility for naturalization, which requires meeting residency, language, and civics requirements, among others. Throughout each stage of the immigration process, applicants must carefully follow instructions, provide accurate information, and adhere to deadlines to maximize their chances of success.

[inkskinned]

"don't make it political!" .... what proportion of death and suffering must occur before politics are involved. if this isn't political, what is even the point of any politics, ever. of democracy. the words are "by the people for the people." if i am going to be left alone by my elected representatives to "figure it out" - to undergo damage, hardship, fear. what the fuck did i elect them for. what was their job. the entire point is that they handle this shit. this is why we were supposed to be electing leaders.

poverty is political. misogyny is political. gun control is political. climate change is political. how much aid a community gets is political. what the fuck are you talking about. it's been political this whole fucking time.

[permafrown]

alright it's time. send me a 🔒 and I'll tell you a character who I WOULD f/o if I locked the fuck in (to their source) and why!

edit: okay well since this breached containment PROSHIP DNI ! You're not welcome here !

[haveihitanerve]

No okay but you guys don’t understand- the way SFTH bois are always always whether on purpose or not, in sync is everything I’ve ever wanted in life its so fucking cute-

Like when they’re doing expert, obviously the three are trying their best to be together, or mimic the same thing the previous person has gesticulated

But also- when they’re casually sitting in the wings, on opposite sides, watching the main stage, they’ll lean together in sync

They’ll cross their legs at the same time

Sam and Luke push back their hair together

AJ and Luke lean in the same direction when they laugh

Tom and Sam dip their heads to hide a laugh or disappointed at the same time

They follow hand movements, step backwards together, blend and flow around each other with such perfect synchronization you think its scripted

[serpentface]

Ephenni man participating in a variant of the kagnoma wantouki folk dance. He has come prepared, wearing bell bracelets and belled and pheasant-feathered dancing shoes, and neglecting a tunic and cloak, allowing for the percussive slaps to his chest and stomach to be louder.

"Kagnoma wantouki" groups together a variety of closely related folk dances that occur across the Imperial Wardi cultural sphere, and beyond (the west + south rivers Hill Tribes, Cholemdinae, and Loberan North Wardi groups have also adopted and developed variants, and one western variant has spread to parts of Bur). The dance is performed differently from province to province (sometimes even from village to village) and goes by several more specific names, but it is distinguished as a collective from other folk dances by the commonalities of:

the dancers use their own bodies as a form of percussion, via clapping their hands, slapping their chests, upper arms, stomachs, thighs, and/or shins, and stomping their feet. The name of the dance itself refers to this.

the dance is otherwise dominated by rapid footwork (often emphasized with bells) and is accompanied by up-tempo music.

the dance can technically be performed strictly solo, with opportunities for partnering.

dancers provide some vocalization.

As a folk dance, it serves no direct religious function and is mostly performed by people with no formal training at social gatherings (this is a mainstay of weddings in particular, but occurs at everything from religious festivals to funerary feasts).

Drumming is the only strictly necessary form of musical accompaniment, but many variants/performances make use of tambourines and rattles. Use of a two-stringed bow instrument is common in the west and south. Chanting by the dancers and singing by a musical accompaniment and/or onlookers is a near-necessity, with a specific call and response form of song developing in tandem with this dance.

Costuming (if used at all) varies by region, but belled shoes decorated with feathers are common (for this and many other dances), and men who come prepared for the occasion usually go with a skirt and a nude upper body (baring more skin to make the slaps more percussive). It’s very common to see men fasten their cloaks around their hips and slip the upper half of the tunic off their arms and down to the belt when joining in opportunistically. Costuming for women requires less specificity and usually lacks the feathered shoes.

The dance can technically be considered unisex, but most variants show slight differentiation of choreography for men and women (in large part aligning to typical dress standards). The feminine variant involves active use of the skirt and less slapping, usually limiting it to claps of the hands, slapping the hand of a partner, and a specialized move during rapid percussive sessions in which the hem of the skirt is lifted by the non-dominant hand while the opposite leg is repeatedly kicked up and slapped on the shin in time to the music.

When dancing with a partner (which often occurs opportunistically among a group), both will face each other and attempt to move in time and punctuate the high-tempo sections with slaps of each other's hands. This dance has no particular connotations of courtship (while some other folk dances are at least Rooted in this and require man-woman dance partnerships with very strongly differentiated choreography). If anything, it's slightly more typical for people to partner up with a dancer of the same gender.

It's very common to see 'dance fights' develop between men in particular, especially when two higher-skilled dancers match up and attempt to outdo each other. This is a semi-formalized aspect of the dance, where the competitors will alternate between 'leading' for each section (punctuated by shifts in tempo and shouts) while the other attempts to match their movements as closely as possible, 'losing' the match if they can't keep up. A good quality fight in action will be deferred to by other dancers, who will circle around them and clap in time (while particularly canny accompanying musicians will improvise more complex rhythms, and singers call attention to it). These 'dance-fights' are almost always friendly in nature and often considered to be the highlight of a kagnoma wantouki, either as a showcase of the highest skilled dancers in a group or as a very, very entertaining spectacle when one or both are drunk.

[utilitycaster]

feel free to ignore if you feel like it's too theoretical/parasocial/etc. but: I see how the campaign as a whole is off because of how lack of prep influenced the cast to create somewhat unfit characters, but as someone who got immensely annoyed by this episode, I'm wondering why has that throughline carried out for so long. why haven't the cast decided to start playing their characters in a way that leads to a more cohesive and satisfying story? is the hesitation and bizzare opinions on gods a very dedicated RP choice or do you think the players themselves are also at a loss? I'm honestly very confused about that, given how driven and decisive they played VM and M9 during their oneshots. I don't want to feel like I'm singling anyone out to hate but e.g. the way taliesin plays caduceus vs ashton is particularly puzzling to me.

Hey anon,

This is all highly speculative (as, to be fair, was the original idea the cast was given very little information, and that turned out to be right) but I think it's the far-reaching consequences of that initial lack of prep combined with the fact that it's been a very central-plot focused campaign that failed to allow the characters to develop into more decisive people. It also, I think, centers the Ruidusborn such that I suspect a lot of the rest of the table is taking their lead.

The Mighty Nein, we know, involved a lot of prep with Matt specifically offering feedback and vetoing certain aspects. Every character came in with pretty clear goals, and because it was a character-driven campaign we got to see those goals change as they learned more: Caleb and Fjord notably abandon their original goals in favor of new ones. Veth and Caduceus achieve theirs; Jester as well, and she develops new ones as she becomes less sheltered. Beau and Yasha's exact goals were much more nebulous, but they have the opportunity to confront their pasts at length and find new purpose and peace throughout the narrative. I don't think it's productive to rehash everything every time but: lack of pre-existing long-term relationships and more work on the short-term friendships that existed, the fact that Beau and usually Molly due to Yasha's absences (and later Caduceus) were free agents who didn't know anyone prior to their meeting, and the fact that the party had like 2 gold to their name and had to double up in odd configurations plus their willingness to engage in conflicts led to a fairly quick and deep bond, which also influenced their goals and dynamics.

Vox Machina were initially very generally sketched out characters, but after they began doing more there was a similar effort put into to backstories, and I think going back after they'd already played a bit meant they knew more about who they wanted these characters to be. The pre-stream plot, as we can tell from the origins comics, was also heavily backstory focused; the Briarwoods arc is when most people feel the streamed campaign really takes off.

We have seen the backstories of the characters of Bells Hells, but a lot of them are deeply tied into a long-running main plot that doesn't really allow for the same development over time. Like, Percy, for example, actually does his "plot" about quarter of the way into the campaign; but this kickstarts his development. Fjord is rather similar; he learns the source of his powers quite early on, but grapples with them until the halfway point and then the rest of the campaign is him embracing something new. To compare, I suspect Laura envisoned Imogen's story as being not dissimilar in the sense of "learn what my powers come from, find a way to better control or perhaps get rid of them" and so upon finding out this is the lynchpin of the entire plot, Imogen never has that post-resolution time to cook, essentially. Even for those who had slightly more rewarding plot beats they kind of felt like "let's address this problem so we can get back to the moon stuff" (Chetney, Laudna) and in some cases, I think it felt to the players, rightly or wrongly, like those plots were actively rushed to the point that they couldn't explore them (I suspect this happened for Ashton during the solstice split). There's been a hurry-up-and-wait sense of urgency over the whole campaign because it's a plot that was introduced very early and has never let up. There's been no "what do we do" type breaks and I'd be shocked if there are. We've sort of run out of plot because we've speed run everything that would have been a plot in a different campaign.

So I think the players don't know how to evolve their characters because there's been no in-world impetus to evolve, really. Now, as someone who prefers to play people who are already decisive, the fact that most of the cast went for kind of indecisive/impulsive types isn't my bag, but that is valid; but it means no one's really had the chance to organically move from that.

I also think that the fact that there's one big plot that really centers the ruidusborn is another factor. Even if Orym, for example, were the type to shut down the party, what is one person who can't reasonably stop two spellcasters from going into the Hallowed Cage going to do? I think this post makes a good point; I think putting the pressure very heavily on two players who (very understandably! for a number of reasons!) are among the most averse to making a hard and potentially alienating or unpopular choice has sort of prevented anyone else from taking a wild swing. The other campaigns had a much more even distribution of who could make decisions within the party, and I think that reflects that. I also think this is uniquely an issue for longform campaigns; I haven't seen this hesitancy from Laura nor Ashley in Candela, Downfall, nor in the various Daggerheart one-shots and miniseries, since you have to swing big there.

I do want to cover one point specifically, which is that I actually find Ashton to be one of the better played characters. I disagree with them, to be sure, but like, Caduceus is a character who can be arrogant in his fairly limited worldview, but who is also consistently very empathetic and kind. Ashton has that arrogance, but without those priorities. Caduceus isn't really invested in hurting those who hurt him; he's interested in stopping those who would hurt his home, family, or friends, and if that requires hurting them he's okay with that. Ashton really does want to beat up those they deem responsible for their own pain, justified or not. I think taking the shard was a great move and stand by that [though, admittedly, it and the bit about Predathos needing a vessel just now have me like. the consequences have been conveyed in a crystal clear manner to ME and somehow the cast is not getting Matt flat-out saying in game THIS IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN, so idk what's up with THAT.] and my issues stem specifically from his decision to claim to speak for the weak and then immediately accept the titans saying that a remade world in which only the strong survive is fine. Like, I don't think there is a problem in how Caduceus is played vs. Ashton, in that I think they are both internally consistent as characters; I think it's just. Caduceus is someone who tries to make decisions that minimize broad harm to that which he deems good, and Ashton is often, by their own admission (episode 78), selfish and conceited. Like, Taliesin is just. Playing someone who is often not a great person this time. And that's a valid choice. But I think it's in a narrative that didn't really permit enough time and space for characters to change meaningfully so Ashton is a bit stuck there whereas, while Caduceus didn't have nearly as much of a gap between who he already was and the hero he needed to be, he had far, far more room to grow.

[canisalbus]

Imagine if Machete was Muslim instead of Catholic. His name would be something like Saif سيف, and Vasco would probably be something like Dhahabi ذَهَبِيّ

.

[sallllltywater]

Skaven assassin-thing commission for fellow on blue bird site

[bunnymothmartyr]

"dont put shit on the floor" does the rent we pay every month not include the floor too, mother? When god sings with his creations, will the floor not be a part of the choir?

[404sketches]

Wow how random that I happened to end up drawing Garak and Bashir at the same time. What a coincidence!

[commsroom]

making hera manage a space station is inhumane. she's supposed to be creating unmarketable art. post-canon hera makes like fifteen dollars a month off niche experimental multimedia poetry zines, eiffel is begging people to listen to his music on bandcamp (between an assortment of jobs that would be perfectly fine, if he could hold any of them for longer than two months), and they are both so, so lucky minkowski cares about them so much.

[artsideblogofsorts]

it crossed my mind and it wouldn't leave: Markus' freckles remind me of Barriss Offee's cheek marks. Fight me if you disagree, Markus is a jedi now lol

[spliqi]

as much as it pains me to see atsushi suffering every single chapter. it means a lot that his want to save everyone is coming from how much he cares about the agency rather than his desperation to prove he’s a worthy human being

[neodiekido]

something really interesting about tsumugi constantly talking about how "plain" and "boring" she is is that she's likely the only character who hasn't undergone the same backstory fake memory personality things everyone else did. she's the only "real" one there

[unityrain24]

man if i were a vampire i'd be so unhealthy about ghost pipes

[lazycranberrydoodles]

I really like the way you explore different body types and features in your art. I don't see it as often as I'd like, and I think it's very cool.

thank you!

i'm formally trained in figure drawing and i'm fascinated by how bodies work and look. it's a practice that's both very forgiving (everyone has a different body) and very unforgiving (bad anatomy is very easy to spot because everybody has a body). i love integrating that practice into my fanart. i can't remember exactly where it's from, but i also really agree with that post about learning to draw your bus driver and your neighbors before you start doing fantasy elves.

also, fat people are sexy as hell.