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 Post subject: The rape van (article)
PostPosted: Sat Sep 28, 2013 6:03 pm 
ULK
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Joined: Mon Sep 09, 2013 6:13 am
Posts: 642
Remember when you were a kid and you used to ask:
"where does everything come from?!!!1"

Well, while sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, this time a banner in not just a banner.

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PostPosted: Sat Sep 28, 2013 6:03 pm 
ULK
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Joined: Mon Sep 09, 2013 6:13 am
Posts: 642
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This old banner was really more meant as homage.

First off the layers themselves I got from HeAD in 2009 where everything was just ULK every night. He worked at a store that painted cars and would bring art home we could use. He'd be at work, looking at graphics and thinking about ULK.
So that's one level of deeper meaning it has, just looking at the layers brings back a lot of mermories, conversations and what we built.


In the middle is actually Vinny and SGB fighting with swords which is of course stealth homage to how much Vinny loves the katana outside the obvious metaphor of ULK going toe to toe in combat, standing inside the sun giving life to everything and being in the limelight.


Maybe most profound to me is the van in the picture, albeit in the banner toned down a lot, the real version looks like this:

Image

The rape van.
If you take a look at it, notice the custom license plate, the tainted windows, text on the rear door and the handcuffs on the side.
I asked for custom plates and manual carlights in all GTA and car games since 2003. From what I hear they finally came up with it for GTA V...

It's pure intratextuality leading back to the first days of mta where we had a standing joke about ULK showing up in a rape van and that we had fluffy handcuffs in the back.
Prontera had found a glitch he named "bitch packing" where if any number of people got into a car at the same time, you could exceed the number of total passengers. (Don't remember the record, sorry). "R4p3" is naturally a reflection of our performance in combat.

Finally if you look at the front grill of the car, I added a horizontal bar, so the grill actually forms a cross. Just a lowkey way of putting my name up there as the one who made it. Aiming for very few people ever noticing it.

And of course it's not random people I chose for the image either.

HeAD, here playing with the TLK tag, as a statement, that whatever level he was on, he was always looking to improve and only at his peak level would he feel worthy of the tag. Something you see me copying to this day. Having a part of HeAD with me everytime I fight.

Along with HeAD, who could forget SGB, the silent maniac killer, who knows what you are planning before you come up with it. His slick fighting and calm professionalism never typing much he is always very hard to read.
Between the 2 I learned everything about fighting, just like most other people in mta and vcmp.
For example after HeAD and SGB showed me how the m4/m60 hitbox was misplaced, skewed out into thin air, not on the actual character, I later trained a whole gang explaining aiming to them. Going from playing with a joypad to being pro in 15 minutes.

Today that gang is one of the larger and still active gangs in mta:sa. No doubt they would never have gone anywhere without HeAD and SGB.
Just like I am sure Hazz and Boro have similar stories having off-spring gangs themselves.

I never felt I got even close to their level, even if I got a few kills one night it would be using their techniques, moves and style.
And even if I pioneered something brand new it would still only be possible using what they taught me and I would still only be third, fourth or no. 1500 on the moon.
I am just another shadow duplicate of the real killers we have, which isn't limited to HeAD and SGB, but as good as those people are that's often been more than enough.

Because we never had any real competition. Often times we struggle just to get people to fight us at all because they know what the tag represents and who those people are.

And that's what the r4p3 van represents. 10 years of not just winning wars and not just setting the tone for everyone everywhere, pioneering the whole game and dominating everything and everyone but being the first in history to do it and the only ones to do it.

We don't just hold all records, we hold the record for most records ever recorded.

Truth is we never had a single fight in 10 years with a top lineup with everyone in shape simply because we never had to, no one ever pushed us that far.
Sometimes the right people couldn't make the timezone, hadn't been playing and we had recruits to take care of.

You can take out any single one ULK in top shape and I'd have serious concerns fighting the team he is on.
As an old rival gang leader put it, should ULK give out some of its members to other gangs they would become power houses.
That was 9 years ago.

Now you are not just fighting pioneers and expert killers but 10 year war veterans.

We wiped everyone out without coming close to reaching our full potential all the while people trying to pretend we don't even exist, it's just classic ULK 101, "the white elephant in the room" and that's what I see when I look at the r4p3 van and that old banner.

In between all that loyality and respect for eachother's abilities and even friendship, (albeit yes we are online, can you have friends you never met?) kept us together.

Respect in knowing that if someone wore your tag, you might not like him for being german but you bet your ass you could count on him to stand up in a fight.

Loyalty in not being selfish or pityful and protecting the tag, not for you but for what the tag represents.

If there is such a thing as honor and personal integrity the people of ULK capture it.
And that's something I also learned from Vinny.

Sort of the mother of us all albeit not very feminine. What is it about the guy that just instantly makes you like him I don't know. I never been able to define it. Maybe the honesty and straightforwardness, super intelligent, always helpful or always making me laugh. Or the down to earth way, that special Vinny moment, when he shows up on irc and tells everyone to suck dick as a friendly greeting just saying good morning, and you can't help but to laugh.

Vinny personally taught me just about everything I know about PCs - not his fault that isn't a lot, my attention span wanders.
He actually took the time to explain photoshop to me from the buttom that I later used for these here banners and signatures and what not.
Just like the program I use for video editing is one Vinny taught me to use.

I think that's the misunderstood arrogance of ULK right there. That being in a crew with these here people, it's about you but it's not about you.

You will be lifted to a whole other level in so many ways and you are automatically associated with greatness, magic even, to a point we have another replica gang, albeit inside vcmp itself is new. But, ULK is not 3 letters or the last war we won.

Knowing what ULK continously gives me, just recently learned a new move from D, here 10 years in, i pity other gangs not for what they are but for not being us.

It's the contrast of being humble personally but super ambitious externally, for the team, vs the prestige of our tag and our accomplishments.

I might seem like I have a high opinion of myself and what I can do, but what that really is, is playing for ULK is over the top, sylvester stallone cobra special.

It's not about people's superficial perception of personality, internet prestige, but profound interception of reality.

We don't try to manipulate people's idea of reality, we are reality. We don't need to pretend.

And that's the reason we had a TLK. We tried to make people understand the difference between promoting yourself and fighting for a team, that's really all it was.

Can your ego handle wearing our tag ?

That ULK more than just the fighting itself, which doesn't take long to learn, is also an idealistic code for life itself.
Way I see it, if you came to us and earned the respect and friendship of members you'd be set for life, if not, you'd be in trouble.

Oddly enough, some people could never learn it and flip that switch in their head, like they were color blind to life itself.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

We always had people hating us, with a passion, dreaming of the day we'd stop.
Over the 10 years we had whole communites making hating us their only gameplay and in many a hilarious but fucked up situations, people tried leeching off ULK for social identity. The guy who killed a ULK, the team who beat ULK in a war. The guy who brought the whole ULK gang down. We had so many fans who based their lives on getting up in the morning for love of hating ULK.

Weekly, from 2003, till today, we've been announced dead, over the hill, inactive, cheaters, laggers and all the other things I can't think of right now.

We had people steal information from our forum, reading over our battleplan (think about how crucial enemy position is in a real war), hackers playing us in wars to have a fighting chance, and hell, even the game itself, the mod, eventually failed us. Several in fact.

The only problem we actually did have, was getting a fight from the people so busy trash talking about ULK they forgot playing the game.

As I am writing this we are close to 10 years old and we still sitting here with a tight crew of the best killers in the world ready to go, on a moment's notice. So what's up.

I see new members tearing up the servers, old inactives returning to form, new projects on the horizon, new interesting recruits joining and a deep passion traced in everyone.

ULK isn't old or worn out, ULK isn't rusty. We are not hurting, on the retreat, backing down, surrendering, stopping, quitting or laying down to anyone. Not by an inch.

ULK is born again hard and we are ready to go.
She is an ice sculpture of Famke Janssen on a november night with the snow slowly failing.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.

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