#but almost never to this extent when it comes to people outside of a faction

[theater-for-jocks]

like. listen. i get that a lot of ppl are bummed that rhea is injured and i get that a lot of people have her as their fave (like, she's my second fave, i'm ALSO bummed) but if your IMMEDIATE response to the spoiler thing is "where's rhea :( those are her boys :(" i am side-eyeing you soooooo hard. like. uuuuuegggggh

it KEEPS happening since even before the injury - shoutout to when they showed damian in the audience at smackdown and someone went "no rhea though :(" - and it bugs me so hard. "why didn't rhea show up during damian's fight against dom :(" because he's already said they have separate divisions to deal with and literally JUST had a PLE fight all about how he's capable of winning on his own. "oh i hope rhea shows up to defend jey against the bloodline" HIS WHOLE SOLO RUN IS ABOUT HOW HE'S HIS OWN PERSON TO THE POINT THAT THEY'RE INCORPORATING IT INTO THE BLOODLINE STORY. oh my god!

like! i get it! you're allowed to have favorites! but continually responding to two "hey i'm perfectly capable on my own" arcs (attached to a pair of non-white wrestlers whose cultural identities are EXTREMELY important to their characters btw) by continually complaining that your (white) fave isn't constantly involved in their storylines and feuds is a really weird look!

in the middle of dnd, i do NOT care, i have to say words

[sukunakayo]

Embracing Gray

> red-tagging? or misplaced rebuttals? IS THIS HOW THIS CONCERN SHOULD BE SEEN? given the situation, it was stated that ms. pricia abella was visited for a "pagpapangaral", which means a casual advice-giving. however, in the eyes of someone outside of internal turmoil concerns, it would seem like a blatant oppression of expressing one's ideals. allow me to give a conceptual analysis of an outsider's perspective: there is nothing wrong with the subject of concern that lead to ms. abella's summons, she is only presenting her ideas as a student running for a position in leadership--she had to be strong given the controversies and issues surrounding the partylist she is in. it is an open ideology, and it is her right to think like so. it is her way to present her iron-clad mindset in order to protect her fellow students and future constituents from being called out by the governmental forces for the alleged retaliation to authority, standing with the fact that it is our right to use our freedom of speech in all forms. now that it is out of the way, let's delve deeper and reconstruct the mindset of those who are inside the authority's business in layman's terms: the group/s that ms. abella is/are in have shady (?) backgrounds. to think that she is a candidate to lead the student masses is alarming, not only due to them being affiliated/allied with groups with objectives beyond common knowledge, but also having students join a movement just because it is "right" or it is for the greater or common good without having their own, unbiased criticisms and decisions. it is the duty of the authority to uphold superficial integrity and honor to an extent, and it is being breached. we ought to impart the intel that we have so that we could prevent more dispute within the authority and the constituents. it is our duty to control, not to command (yet they can't seem to grasp the difference, but that's another story) the people of concern. this is our sworn duty, this is our stand. we are to talk about it in order to negotiate and meet in the middle. however, the stigma of the matters between the authority and the civilians are at play, the principles are always colliding with one another, ideals clashing against ideals. As long as that is not settled, the cycle of the rise and fall of these warring factions will never end—the legitimate government will never snuff out the perfectly distributed triumvirate pawns completely, just as the triumvirate itself will stay out of the legitimate government's grasp due to the blind spots that their archenemy have strategically placed. in the light of settling things, settling is not the right term, but rather a generalization for trashing unnecessary things and coming to an agreement that both parties have now a united thought. i wouldn't say settled because in my understanding, saying that things are "settled" would mean that a certain topic or discussion will be dropped, never to be discussed again. humans have this innate characteristic of uniqueness, no matter how similar they seem. that is how they are referred to as individuals, with the pretense of having individuality. thus, things will never be completely settled due to certain things that will still have connections to the supposedly "settled" matter because each human has their own way of perceiving things. one might be done with the topic and is capable of setting it aside without seeing another matter as a causal result of the past discussion, the other might see it as a remnant of the latter. going back to ms. abella's case, it is a definitive example of that stigma in action. i'm not insinuating that it's not wrong, nor it is right; in my opinion, nothing is ever perfectly right or wrong, only reason—it is more like something that had to be seen in a wider scope. they have their respective reasons, and it really isn't what you think. it goes beyond that—why did she say things that expresses her disagreement with the legitimate government's ideals and principles? why did the legitimate authority approach her for a talk? those questions must be posed in order for these two sides of the same coin to at least meet in the middle. after all, they are humans who can create and present reasons before they came to be in their respective positions in the state. with that being said, it's true enough that it seems to be quite hard to understand when you've got a predetermined set of principles, and that is exactly why a utopian concept of a state will never be attained. as long as these factions stay in the cage of their own principles despite being "open" for negotiations, the cycle of dispute that has been spun for almost half a century will never stop spinning—as long as the scions of these respective factions stay within the binds of their invisible chains, as long as they see meeting in the middle and setting aside morals from politics as a form of betrayal, the notion of attaining utopia must be forgotten. articles coming soon: > csg's miting de avance 2021 > principles of command and control > the philippine "triumvirate"

[gamesception]

So the Outer Worlds port finally came out on the switch a couple weeks ago, which is what I had been waiting for to give it a try.  Beat my first play through yesterday.  And... honestly?  I kind of expected better.  Like, a lot better.

Not getting into the technical side, since I’d have no idea how to separate the stuff that was Obsidian’s fault from stuff that was Virtuous’s fault from stuff that just comes down to the Switch itself.  Also because technical stuff doesn’t affect my own experience overmuch - I can’t easily spot the difference between 30fps and 60fps unless someone points it out to me, and as long as a game is at least on par with, like, the ps2 era graphically then it looks good to me - though I will say the game crashed twice while I was playing it AND I had a random quest breaking companion death bug that by the time I noticed it I only barely had a save far enough back that I was able to fix it, and the game performed badly enough docked that even I gave up on playing it on the tv and just went with handheld....

But again, I’m not overly concerned with the technical end and wouldn’t necessarily blame obsidian for the shortcomings of the switch port anyway.  But where the game was disappointing was in areas that I was sure Obsidian would deliver in - an immersive world with believable and engaging factions and societies, interesting and well written quest lines and npcs, a main story with something compelling to say and a lot of opportunities for subtle role playing.  The stuff that New Vegas did so much better than Fallout 3, or that KotOR 2 did so much better than KotOR 1.  Stuff that the reviews around the time of the game’s release on other platforms all praised the Outer Worlds for.

And that’s.... like...  I mean, Outer Worlds isn’t terrible, I enjoyed my time with it more than I didn’t, but wow I expected more.  The game is short, the explore-able areas are relatively small, and, like, it’s really really dumb in a lot of exactly the same ways that people complain about Bethesda Fallout games - token quests that just have you following a quest marker around mindlessly, never getting to work anything out for yourself.  Settlements that don’t make sense, npcs and villains that feel like goofy dumb jokes rather than communities of people, random respawning groups of the same handful of enemy types with no integration into the world - the game’s raiders have no motivations, outposts, or place in the world like those of New Vegas, they’re just enemy spawns to give you something to shoot.

The world just doesn’t work.  Like, I get it, corporations bad, I even agree in principle, but there’s no depth to it, just a surface level, cartoonish reiteration of the idea.  It doesn’t get at WHY corporations are bad.  In Outer Worlds they’re just bad because they’re dumb and incompetent and pointlessly cruel.  Nothing about systemic lack of accountability or profit motive.  The game even just shoves a couple arbitrary human villains in at the end so that you have a generic bad guy that you can kill to magically fix everything.

And the segregated design of the world - instead of one big wasteland like fallout games there’s a bunch of smaller regions you space ship between like a KotOR or Mass Effect game - means nothing you do in one area or quest line seems to meaningfully impact or even just tie into anything going on anywhere else.  There’s a faction system like New Vegas, but the factions feel pointless and paper thin.

The only ethical/story choices in the game are between factions, and there’s always a pretty obvious “right” answer.  Do you side with the company town full of innocent people, or do you side with the outsiders who just want to be free even if that freedom comes at the cost of an entire town of innocent people?  Or do you want take the obviously best option milquetoast moderate liberal “both sides” option where you easily resolve the differences between the two sides by getting rid of the one individual bad man who is actually to blame for whatever’s going wrong?  That exact situation is repeated twice.  Then do you want to side with the board who are literally killing everyone through wilful incompetence or do you want to side with everyone else because literally nobody actually likes or depends on the corporate board?  The choices presented to you are as cartoonish and reductive as anything you could point to in any of the Bethesda games that Obsidian fans like to complain about.

Some of the companions are ok, Parvati is endearing enough, and there’s a bit of biowaresque banter between them while walking about which I like, but their quest lines, like pretty much all quest lines in the game, are pretty short and largely perfunctory fetch quests, and once they’re done the companions have literally nothing left to say to you.  Just as you get close to them they stop being characters altogether, and are reduced down to ‘attack that enemy’ buttons.

The game play was... like bare minimum passable, and way way too easy.  As with the quest lines, the game play seems to be idiot-proofed at the expense of all challenge.  There’s a neat infiltration mechanic idea, but those segments are all but impossible to fail if you aren’t trying to do so.  Combat likewise was way too easy, at least for the default stealthy long gun character I typically make in these sorts of games.  Enemy AI is pretty bad and rubber banding is super noticeable.  There’s multiple difficulty levels, but hard mode didn’t fix the problem and ‘supernova’ mode comes with a bunch of obnoxious survival busywork, plus the companions can be perma-killed, and since their AI is as bad as the enemies that would lead to me never taking them out of the ship, which would mean missing out on the party banter which is one of the few bits I was enjoying in the game, so I didn’t even bother trying it.

Skill checks are present but almost always too easy to distinguish character build decisions, and even when they are, bypassing checks by other means is always so trivial that it’s not even worth the quick travel jump back to your ship to respec - which you can do at any time.  If there’s a hard lock pick blocking anything important then there’s always an alternative computer hack, or a nearby pass key, or a room with a couple enemies that can be easily stealthed past, or even more easily killed, or some other alternative path never more than a room away.  The only thing that seems to be blocked by actually hard checks are more loot, and this game throws so much loot and ammo and medpacks at you that missing out on some never matters.

None of that would be a huge problem if the game’s story and world had more depth.  The game play coasts by on the bare minimum, but for an rpg of this type that would be absolutely fine, if the story and quests and setting weren’t *also* coasting by on the bare minimum.  That ‘bare minimum’ bit is highlighted by the game’s overall length, which is really pretty short.  I did every side quest I came across naturally, collected all the companions and did their quests, and capped my character level before going to the final mission, but that still capped out at well under 20 hours of play time, and a lot of that was spent backtracking back and forth over the same few areas with the same copy and re-pasted respawning enemy groups.

The whole thing isn’t, like, actively bad, I’m coming across as too negative here.  Again, I mostly enjoyed my time while I was playing it, and the relative lack of these sorts of games on the Switch means I don’t feel like I wasted my money on this one.  I *did* play it all the way through instead of just losing interest a few hours in.  I’ll probably play it through once more at some point in the future, a no companions, supernova difficulty run maybe, and I’ll probably enjoy that well enough.  And I guess maybe that makes Outer Worlds look good compared to recent Bethesda efforts, which I’ve either avoided entirely (76, mobile garbage), or lost interest in and stopped playing a few hours in (4).  Maybe that explains some of the overwhelming praise of the game I remember from when it first came out.  But I wouldn’t say it’s even on par with slightly older Bethesda fare like Fallout 3 or Skyrim.  And to the extent that the game’s world structure and focus on companions calls to mind Bioware games like the original Dragon Age or Mass Effect, Outer Worlds falls notably short there as well.  Most painfully, when it comes to the core elements that made previous Obsidian games like New Vegas or KotOR2 great, Outer Worlds doesn’t even come close.  Hardly even seems to try.  And if you’re comparing Outer Worlds to those games instead of to Fallout 76, I don’t really see how you could see it as anything other than a disappointment.

[electricbluebutterflies]

easier

Prompt: writing // part 1 of become wild.

Pre-relationship post-s2 Kabby flufflet. I know my strengths here. “become wild” ‘verse is off of a prompt list by @to-hell-with-oblivion. PG-ish and also on ao3.

They develop routines without meaning to.

Fact is, neither of them wants to run things. A month after Everything Went Wrong, as Abby has taken to describing a particular set of calamities in the recent past, it feels like there is very little to run. The Ark was well-organized out of necessity, a good mixture of people survived the descent, and everyone with any skillset is doing exactly what they did up in the sky.

There are just… logistics, and territory issues, and wild animals, and for all of that some kind of leadership is at least necessary to the extent it makes things look like a little less of a shitshow. And by technicalities, she's still the figurehead. In reality…

In reality, she's found herself an accomplice in the most unlikely form and the scary part is it works. Now that he doesn't feel like he's got the survival of the entire human species on his shoulders, Marcus is almost tolerable. Much, much less of a dick than the version of him that drove Abby crazy for the past ten years. Has learned that "compromise" is a thing he might occasionally be capable of. Is patient, at times, and kind, much more often.

She needs someone, she justifies. He was close by. And with this current guilt complex he's developed, he'll do whatever the hell she asks. She can work with it.

It helps that they barely have to see each other.

There is a shared office with a door that doesn't lock and a slowly increasing amount of creature comforts. (She did not ask where that blanket came from, but she has some suspicions.) It is rare for them both to be there at the same time. She still has tasks in medical, a beautifully mundane run of sprained limbs and mystery animal bites and none of the quiet tragedies of deprivation she's used to, and he has… honestly, she does not know what he does when he's not in their workspace and she does not ask because she does not care.

Six months ago, she would've. Six months ago… oh, she never had a loose network of sources like he did, never had the hand for spying on people, but she would've worried enough to piece together an explanation on her own. But as things are, Abby is sharply unbothered by what her co-leader might be up to when he's not looking at reports he doesn't understand as much as he claims he does. There was some talk about teaching other factions advanced weaponry, and while she personally thinks that's a terrible idea, she's not about to stop it either. Until or unless someone gets shot. She'd draw that line, march right out to the area the guard has appropriated for target practice and tell them what will happen if they point weapons at anything that isn't either a large animal or actively trying to kill them, but until then…

Circumstances as they are, a month after Everything Went Wrong, she is calm enough to leave her concerns on pieces of paper in places they will be seen. The workspace door doesn't lock and doesn't reliably close all the way, but it has been made perfectly clear that exactly two people are allowed in there no matter how much of an emergency is going on outside. She asked for pretty paper when the cleanout of the mountain began, because she is allowed to want small indulgences in her current role and she couldn't imagine anyone else would make that request, and was rewarded with several packages in a delicate pale blue. Distinctive against the dark couch, distinctive against the eclectic other furniture, and as her as anything she's ever done.

She has to leave echoes somewhere, she thinks.

If the hunting party comes back a day early, tell them to meet me in medical.

A solar panel over the south wing might be sparking. You're more intimidating. Get that dealt with.

I heard a rumor about you taking on overnight guard shifts. You have to sleep SOMETIME. Don't do that.

Some days, three or four pieces of paper get left in different spots. They are always gone whenever she comes back. For the most part, whatever she asks gets done.

She knows, objectively, that she might be taking advantage of him a little bit. The man is having a very visible midlife crisis and for some unholy reason has picked her as a tether, and she should probably be more gentle about that, and yet…

"Do you mind?" she asks on one of the rare afternoons they are both in their space, on wildly separate projects but next to each other on the couch close enough that she could reach for his hand if she wanted.

"Mind what?" he asks, turning to look at her all wide-eyed. He's learned a new expression these past few weeks - worried panic. From what she can piece together, she's been the only person on the receiving end, and she's not sure how she feels about it, and-

"The lists I leave. Things I want you to do."

A much more familiar expression now, amused and just a little done. "We have to communicate somehow, Abby. And you haven't asked anything that isn't…"

"It's easier," she murmurs. "You're a hard person to keep track of now."

"As are you."

"You could… you could do the same. If you wanted."

The next day, he does.

There's much less that needs to be communicated the other direction - Marcus has taken to trying to solve every problem he encounters without any real help, and Abby worries that might get him killed at the rate he's going, good grief he had to pick this point in his life to get reckless - but she starts finding little slips of paper in the space. Scraps torn off other things, neat print handwriting. No emergencies, rarely even projects, just little things he thinks she should know sooner than he'll realistically see her.

The last search party didn't find any trace of her. We'll keep trying.

Do you think we need an official policy about pets? I'm not sure that thing one of the kids wrestled a leash onto is actually a cat.

You need to sleep sometimes too.

They fall together. They make it work.

[iseul2056-blog]

hiii everyone! i’m finally here. this is rosé bringing in my son, byun iseul, who’s also the biggest sponsor to damsu. tl;dr he’s a robin hood-esque slash masked vigilante that happened to have a superstitious father that foresaw a kind of incoming apocalypse, thus training him for survival. if you’d like to plot with him, i’m easily reachable via discord ( rosé.#6236 ) more than tumblr im, although i don’t mind the latter either. just like this plot and i’ll come running to you! without further ado, i’m going to dump information about iseul under the read more!

INTRODUCTION.

birthed in one of the richest families in south korea 5031, his father and mother used to be that quixotic couple with his father leading in a multitude of industries as both a stakeholder and in some, owner. both parents came from long lines of inherited money, legacies that only expanded in his father’s hands.

his father was rather unorthodox, predicting that the world would collapse soon with theories to back him up. survival of the fittest, so he trained iseul in terms of physical and material and mental advances. he was homeschooled until the end of primary school, attending various courses to support and enhance his physical and intellectual capabilities.

his friends as a child came from the same social circles, especially from his mother’s side as she is a socialite. when he started school in a public setting, he went along well with some people while remaining private for the most parts of himself. has a penchant for compartmentalization for sure. dishonest as a person in general, and in result of realizing this himself, has slight trust issues.

when he was twelve, his mother left the family due to not having enough attention from his father mostly — who was always busy with both work and thoughts. his mother remarried two years after the divorce, and her new husband is also within the same social status as them, so iseul did have a period where he would avoid attending galas and the likes.

he loved his father, and always does, but there are significant values that his father held which he couldn’t truly grasp, let alone practice. it enveloped the entire view of having their money for themselves, including preserving any means to survive the collapse. every man for himself was basically how his father drilled him, but he grew a good conscience that led him to feel internally conflicted.

unbeknownst to his father, he often stole from fellow influencers to give the money towards the poor. this was done out of slight malice, in which he believes that every rich person should be contributing to the cause. and when the great divide occurred, there was a huge rift between his father and him for the first time in forever. the difference in principles made him run away for approximately a few months, until his father summoned him during the last dying breath.

in 2054, he inherited his father’s wealth in its unadulterated form, including the bribes, the corruptions, the malpractices. he started understanding to what extent his father was willing to preserve their safety in a world where money rules. it touched him, yet startled him in a sense that he’s certain all the hates would be redirected towards him later on as the face of this extreme affluence.

he made a few changes to the companies his father previously had a power in, and started building and reaching out towards more ecosystemic endeavors. his money is mostly delegated to the greater good, spending so much to support the attempts to make seoul a better place. when he deemed it wasn’t enough anymore, he began to steal small, thanks to his father’s years of harnessing his abilities.

in 2055, he started adopting the alias zero, as both a masked vigilante and also a thief, a robber. he’s been creating a lattice of networks both inside and outside the borders, although it took a while for those in the outskirts to believe in his cause when he barely keeps in contact with them apart from dropping sums of necessities. his presence renders some dysphoria to happen, with some factions getting more fragmented seeing what he’s been doing for the poor.

his façade is definitely polished to perfection, parading accordingly to his status as a really wealthy man. he’s amicable, but he keeps his distance from most people, especially those who appear close to him. his lies are often coherent and cohesive, causing people to think it’s his actual self, when in fact, it’s somewhere far. he’s actually fairly private, constantly wedging a gap with others, although some managed to penetrate the barriers, getting to know him a tad deeper.

as his front in his daily lives, he has a dozen of bodyguards and k9 dogs to protect him. it makes him seem even more unreachable as it is, as it gets under his skin when plenty of people inquire over donation because of his status as damsu’s biggest sponsor. also, has enough servants for his old mansion, marbled with ivory walls.

actually distrustful towards the green party, and sides better with the poor since it’s whom he wants to protect. he has many underground channels as zero, helping him get his gears and technology, as well as other utilities he needs to perform his field thieveries. he’s not completely blank when it comes to hacking either, although he’d prefer allocating the work towards those more experienced than him.

he has a certain flair to his being zero, mixing various martial arts to concoct his own moves. parkour is a forte as well, with good instincts towards danger that he honed during his stay in the outskirts. will never show any fight as iseul seeing that people might be able to connect the dots if they notice his movement patterns.

CONNECTIONS.

the right hands ( 0 / 2 ): one person inside the border, and another in the outskirts to ensure that he can have backups sent to him as soon as he’s injured if necessary. they are the only ones who have discovered zero’s identity, and have been supporting iseul’s plans since he ran away from home. one of them might be a hacker and the other has connections with technological advancements.

rebel informants ( 0 / ? ): the outskirts people that happened to encounter him as zero — ones which exchange information with a sum of money, water, or sometimes with a deed. this is an underground channel that assists him in his endeavors; some of them would know his motives while some are there purely for the symbiosis.

the so-called social circle ( 0 / ? ): those who are of the well-off communities, meeting him as byun iseul. he’s one of the richest in the circle, and he’s always presenting himself well as his father’s successor. some of these connections could span from his childhood to adulthood. he tends to be charismatic, and oftentimes would refuse inebriating himself.

miscellaneous ( 0 / ? ): green party members, those working for the companies he’s sponsoring, also some journalists that make zero into news. also, victims of his stealing — especially stingy wealthy families.

INTERVIEWS.

what are your thoughts on the green party? are they really going to make a change?

❛ this might sound rather feigned to some, if not most, but i do want the best to occur for everyone’s benefits, even when it would cost me quite a fortune, and i urge for everyone else to do the same even when the price of a better world is not cheap. i understand that people will be in the sides they’ve chosen to be in, but we’re fighting for what we see as the better in any ways that we can. any ways that we see as… just. ❜ presses his lips into a thin line, as though he’s deep in thoughts. ❛ but i definitely want to believe that they would make a change, even if it has to come with various hurdles. in that sense, nonetheless, i wish that the next steps taken would bloom into something beneficial. ❜

on a scale from 1-10; how much have you suffered during the great divide and why?

❛ i didn’t deal with it entirely well when it comes to the psychological aspects, ❜ his syllables are almost too indifferent, edged with a distance set between him and the interviewer. ❛ however, compared to how the others outside our walls, physical and metaphorical, have suffered… i’d rate it as naught, almost. my battles were personal as they came, the great divide becoming nothing but an icing on top of it all… but i don’t suppose making this about myself is the right step to execute. suffering is, after all, relative… to rate it as a one, or a ten, they remain an illusionary perspective that i don’t think we can afford right now. material-wise, i did have no suffering to bear, but there were other aspects as well — ones which i don’t wish to disclose. ❜

what are your plans for the next few years? work? love? adopt an animal? any changes in your life?

❛ i’m not entirely sure. there are too many visions to be realized within a short span of this life that we have, with the crisis to be resolved. there are several plans in mind that i’d like to reap myself, of course, but my priorities lie in ensuring that there’s enough sustenance for everyone. ❜ a calm smile is splayed on his lips as he fixates his gaze. ❛ there’s a lot of worries, but as for me myself, i’d like to find more effective ways to maneuver around my line of work, distributing towards the better world than what we have now. as for love, i don’t think we’ll ever know when we’ll find the person that comprehends us best. it’s a matter of circumstances. animals, i don’t think i can divide my attention as of current, so the ones i have around me now have to suffice, even when i don’t take care of them personally. ❜

HEADCANONS.

circa survive, the world was never fractured for a boy that was prepared for when the structure would collapse. appa was a believer of anticlimactic armageddon, foreseeing the future just from the mere understandings in regards to the past and present. the fittest was destined to be a boy that shouldn’t be frail, and therefore, he was trained, groomed to the tallest skyscraper with a spine made of the strongest metal appa could get his hands on. appa lived in the paranoia that eventually killed him. there was no sustenance to a man that could never be sated; his lack of satisfaction led him to be one of the biggest giants in the industry. at home, appa was a figment of violent imagination, turning the only son malleable to seek delight from performing an open heart surgery on a nightly basis. there was knowledge poured into a casket too young, and iseul knew that when given a chance, appa would nail it shut with iseul alive inside. calculative, maladaptive, appa was everything that he was afraid of — the face of his night terrors, personified.

except appa eventually passed during the fall of the apocalypse. appa’s prediction was true, however: the world doesn’t come away with a bang. instead, it withers, slowly but surely. it’s been withering for a while now for a boy that grew into a man with too many teeth, and he’s been sinking all the canines into the core of this bereavement. appa paved a path that was too skewed for his liking, with the great divide erupting into a full-blown verbal argument between appa and him. there was an entire line that should’ve led to the head if he chased after the tail enough, and so, that’s what he did regardless of how appa disapproved. they should’ve utilized, exploited what they had as opposed to distributing it around the society. resources could be limited even when they probably were one of the wealthiest, their culture of affluence divided into too many strata. they fought, and he often walked away with anger. justice should’ve been preserved, but he wasn’t one to say a thing when he wasn’t one on the shorter end of the stick.

appa was his crux, still. the death did not do him well during the great divide, returning home to an open coffin ceremony. and so, for years he became complacent with what he inherited, trying to live off his legacy. when damsu came out unscathed, he was there first, believing that somewhat it was a compromise. and poured more into it until it became a bottomless well. he shouldn’t be the only one responsible when the rich still remained as the rich, the poor likewise. he began to steal, to lie, to cheat. everything that appa prepared him for in a world where there was no survival but through violence thrived in an environment that didn’t support justice. and so, he became the man in the myth, the modern robin hood with a supportive delegation with him as the head. he rebels against appa’s commitment towards selfishness, even if it costs him his sleep — a reminder that even after appa’s death, he still lives under appa’s shadows.

[janethamer]

Smudges on the Horizon

They began as smudges on the horizon; then they grew. People talked about blots on the landscape waved a few banners and considered fracking a viable alternative. Nevertheless the project continued and the blades were gradually put in place; on clear days they looked like extra-terrestrial armies on the move. Depending on the weather conditions they would disappear into the mist or look as though they were moving closer. She watched them grow from her window and marvelled at their simple complexity. They looked like larger versions of the seaside windmills that were clustered in the doorways of every shop along the front and responded to the same breath as the blowing out of birthday candles. The technology however told a different story, a much more powerful development in the research to save the planet. The blades once you were close to them made a fierce noise apparently. She resolved to take the trip once the season started and the boats were running again from the Marina. Three hours it took to the windmill field and back, even though looking across the water it seemed that you could almost swim there in no time at all. 

Living at the seaside, particularly in view of the sea was a strange experience. A seascape whatever the season was so full of poetry and fierce art. The summer season was always something to look forward to even though the visitors came in droves. She could never begrudge anyone the delight of a day by the seaside. However year after year watching the hordes of people, considering their needs and their capacity to consume, she worried for the planet. The debris on the beaches, the fumes from the motorbikes and cars that transported the trippers and sustained the lifestyles of the locals were adding constantly to the problem of pollution. She supported the green lobby and was horrified at the way the prospects of a barren future were being ignored. The debates raged and climate change vacillated up and down the political agenda. The timescale, maybe fifty years, was far too distant for some and much too close for others. The planet was burning its way to extinction but the economic lobby was proving too strong in its wilful blindness. Carbon footprints were necessary to maintain the exploiters and enable those that they were exploiting. Can’t stop flying, driving, laying waste to the forests, the economy would crash. And then came the virus. 

Countries responded to the pandemic with varying degrees of efficiency. Those who grasped the extent of the danger first sent their messages to the rest of the world. 

The world began to close down but the windmills stoically kept on turning. At night when the sky was clear the red warning lights would orchestrate their dance even after there were barely any planes in the sky to read the signals. The seas emptied and the odd vessel in the channel excited her interest as she marched up and down her hallway attempting to maintain some vestige of the fitness that echoed a lost era. The view from the window, of the changing horizon, offered some possibility of a return to a better time. A much better time it would need to be if the destruction of the virus was not going to be followed by the destruction of the planet. As the disease took hold and the vehicles retreated the birdsong was louder the air quality much improved. The world progressed slowly but inexorably through the shutdown. People realised that they could work from home in many capacities, freeing the roads and emptying the trains. There were those who couldn’t maintain their employment in their kitchens or front rooms and they were left vulnerable. Then people long scorned by the neo liberal status quo were suddenly deemed crucial to the running of daily lives. Key workers became the designated label. A little bit of kudos in a name designed to hide the hitherto patronising way in which they had been regarded by the elite. Unskilled, unworthy of a living wage had been the view of those who relied upon them without comprehending their value. All of a sudden immigrants who really should have ‘gone back to where they came from’ were tolerated and even applauded, for the time being at least. They were described as working on the front line in some jingoistic positioning of people previously vilified as ‘not like us.’ Anachronistically a country that had voted to close itself off from the rest of the world to maintain some kind of spurious sovereignty was suddenly forced to rely on ‘the kindness of strangers’ while staunchly not prepared to recognise the irony. The hostile environment created to distance ourselves from the rest of the world would it appeared be diluted as long as cannon fodder was required. The rhetoric suggesting a war footing became more and more sickening. The virus positioned as the enemy by a hapless government provided a smoke screen for the awful reality that they themselves were the enemy. Years of ideological austerity had left the country unprepared for the pandemic and the Dunkirk spirit was really the only flag that the murderers in power could wave. 

Unscrupulous politicians thought in their arrogance that they were not the target of the dreaded disease. They maintained their position. Herd immunity was the initial buzzword. The garden of their glorious country was in need of work; pruning and weeding in order to return it to its former glory whatever that might have been. They saw in it an opportunity to relieve themselves of the burden of their responsibilities particularly to the aged and the poor, those drains on their profits. Culling them would be the kindest thing all round, their lives had no purpose or value after all. One or two of the powers that be had, with the best of care, survived their mild versions of the illness. Positioned of course as near death experiences they imagined that this would bring people on side and help their plan to work. Heavily disguised they put in place supposedly emergency measures which were risible in mitigating the impact of their cavalier attitude. Meanwhile they maintained their plan to lop the branches, get rid of the weeds. Having used examples of their own brethren to bolster their empty rhetoric about all in it together and the virus being no respecter of person they were too blind to see that in destroying the weeds they were destroying the whole garden. 

The smug assumption about herd immunity was soon smashed by a resurgence and reinfection of those who had thought they had come through. Billionaires and big businesses anxious to get the money flowing again were soon confronted by the truth of their platitudes; the virus really was no respecter of person. Near death experiences were now becoming increasingly the final experience for those who had thought themselves above contagion. Once again the lockdown was ramped up and once again it proved far too little far too late. The streets which had momentarily buzzed were again emptied and the supply chains were reduced. As she sat in the window watching the sea she thought of the Neville Shute novel On the Beach with the submarine setting off in an empty world to follow a Morse message across the oceans. Supposedly a sign of life it was in reality the tangled chord of a curtain blind moving in the breeze across an abandoned Morse transmitter. 

As life deteriorated the few outlets that retained limited stocks of food and other supplies became sights of riot and pillage before being wiped out. Supplies finally cut off, the people in their bolt holes became weaker and weaker. Clutching at remaining interactions on facetime and messaging people clung to each other in virtual reality. Then the networks went down. No more interaction no more cries for help just the gradual decline of all but the very wealthy. Squirrelled away in their bunkers where they had been surreptitiously stockpiling they sat down to watch their diminishing rations. They assumed that they would soon be back out to reclaim the world for their own selfishness and greed but the selfishness and greed wasn’t waiting outside it was in their cloistered hearts. Soon the arguments began. Rations squandered and injustices perceived they set about destroying themselves from the inside out. Factional disagreements raged and while they each plundered the stored provisions bewailing unfairness and theft on the part of anyone but themselves they failed to notice the generators stuttering. With no key workers to maintain the machinery their life support like mankind was gradually dying. Wrapped only in their sense of privilege and superiority they suffocated in their protective hives just as they would have done in the clutches of the virus. Outside the planet no longer belonged to them. Nature had come back into its own and life flourished in the pure air and swarmed under the clear oceans. Perhaps one day a creature would emerge to position itself at the top of the hierarchy again but in the meantime, watched only by the hollow eyes of crumbling humanity, the windmills continued to turn and the red lights continued to flash.

[landenhqcf035-blog]

Do you know everything about Grand Theft Auto 3

The GTA series has always been about working the good with the bad. On one supply, the open-ended character of the entertainment next the enormous city environments put together the ready a large thrill to tease. For the problem, the previous incarnations with the game were cursed with reduced mission propose that never really get you feel like you are working toward any type of greater goal. You just got around, causing problems, occasionally doing odd affairs for the area criminal masterminds until you had collected enough funds to continue. Rockstar's latest opening in the collection, GTA 3, reinvents the strings, replaces the idea for the latest initiation of consoles, and manages to keep every one positive view on the two previous activity. Before, to set that a new means, Grand Theft Auto III is one of the most amazing PlayStation 2 ready to be announced this year.

Before we leave any more, there's one thing everyone should know about GTA III before getting it. It is definitely the most "mature" M-rated game available today. More often than not, it is storyline circles around very violent achievement of offense, in case you run from the storyline and go on a crime spree of your personal, the game becomes an utter bloodbath. On top of to, the experience contains adult expression with locations, including drugs, prostitution, and a heaping helping of sex innuendo. If R-rated crime sagas such as Goodfellas or Warm are too much for you, then this isn't the game for you. The game and dialogue have taken place generated specifically with an adult audience, and it definitely isn't for adolescents.

GTA3 happens in a fictional metropolis known as Liberty City. Liberty City is a largely corrupt lay, with numerous warring criminal factions spread throughout the boroughs. You're a small-time crook that receives set up by your girlfriend during a heist. People bring the accident for the crime but manage to escape when a posse of heavy overwhelm the paddy car which you, plus a couple of other prisoners, are vacationing now. This is everywhere a person land ahead with the demolitions expert known as 8-Ball, who uses you to suffer a good friend from the beginning part with the game, that also works as a article of form to help you get adapted to the leadership with the planet. Which buddy is involved with the Mafia, naturally, after that he gives you jobs of growth difficulty. Each mission begin with a cutscene which program up your concern nicely, explaining why it being done to aid "the descendants" also grant the missions--which include such jobs while offering the object, trailing a suspected security leak, and removing shown the organizer of opposing gangs--a real good sense of use. As you progress, you'll meet other people in the business of destroying the law, who will have work for you. This provides options, as you can both make every available mission through every regarding your own contacts or skip about since boss to boss then sort out the mission in what buy you want. As one missions trigger plot points, this entirely potential to overlook some missions throughout the course of the game. As you proceed, other portions from the city may start, offering you access to contemporary missions, automobiles, and terrain.

While the missions in GTAIII are pleasure and a bit wickedly challenging, there's also lots of fun being owned with simply exploring the world all around you. Rockstar and DMA Design have clearly spent a lot of time adding tons of little moves on the game to, while almost completely unnecessary, become the world seem like a living, breathing place. Groupings of small face missions are incorporated, brought about by shooting into a specific vehicle. Lifting a taxi can allowed anyone get traveling and provide them for funds. Jacking a cop car enables you get on on vigilante missions to clean the neighborhood with eliminating specific criminals. Fire pickup and ambulances also have their own particular missions. Other little effects are graphical; the person can change the hen to any car which grows too all around people while crossing a road. If you start in a van with remove immediately, your identity will not have time to close the driver's-side door, keep that flapping open until you understand your finger down the chatter for an extra to offer him time to yank the door shut. Cars dismantle in spectacular ways as they get more and more beat up, spending hoods, trunks, doors, and bumpers as you try. A little vehicles get special features, including sirens on emergency vehicles, working water hoses on fire bus, and operating hydraulics with a given gang's make of lowrider that enabled people hurt switches to make the car step or roll around by three wheels. The game is track of any spectacular stunts you pull off in the van and grades them. Finally, while you can't go into many of the supplies and structures in the area, they have a realistic look that really adds to the tone with the game.

In addition to those touches, overlooking the assignment also gives you time to go on crime sprees of your. This sort of freestyle element isn't exactly rewarded in the game, but it's definitely one of the coolest things about GTA3. As you commit crimes, the police force get your trail. Hitting somebody with a bat while a lift is looking at is a positive way to get them on your own tail; stealing a car with laying this up on the sidewalk to cut down down a corner full of prostitutes is another. The game is track of your reputation with an arrest meter. Small offenses, like as rear-ending a police officer car, can get you lone star next to the six-star meter. While cops will do you if they look at you with this state, you can hide and ultimately the celebrity will disappear. Still live life beyond the law, also you'll find a couple stars, and so on. With each level comes a more severe response in the Work." In three stars you'll have cop cars travel in you away from nowhere. On some, they'll all but give up by trying to destroy a person with rather simply go to gun you down. Helicopters will be reported to ones site, assuring that you won't get away easily. On top blow up, the FBI can respond to the crime place, with with the highest blow up, the forces will get involved. There's really only one way to make your arrest turn happy that high: point cops. Pass over safe and crack up a few cars could get you three or four stars, yet to help truly anger the law, you have to take a few of them losing. The AI for control vehicles is fairly rough--they tend to practically destroy their own cars while chasing people into walls and other impassible obstacles. Outside of the car, the law fares somewhat better, but quite a few cases in which cops get stuck because they can seem to recognize the way to use a voyage of stairs so that an individual then easily encounter a border repeatedly, offering people all the time in the world to get rid of them.

Getting the cops in the end and then trying to run away is insanely fun, with the game gives you a pretty amazing arsenal to make sure that the police officer be busy. The former weapon will be a baseball bat, cool for robbing citizens by defeat them near murder, but it won't hold up in a fight. Eventually you'll get a handgun, which is when the game's lock-on targeting goes into play. Holding R1 can board a neighboring human being, and the L2 and R2 buttons can be used to cycle through another targets. As you outgrow the pistol, you'll gain the Uzi, giving you fully automatic fire while even live light enough allowing you to work. In addition, the Uzi is the only weapon that could be worked coming from within your vehicle. When you're getting, the L2 and R2 buttons let you look either trait of the car, and your Uzi can be fired out the side windows. That drive-by system is incredibly practical for slow-moving pedestrians but doesn't work well at all about cars because while you can see the drivers inside the cars, you can't run them directly. All hits into a car simply do generic damage to it, whenever it makes a certain damage reading, it strikes fire and eventually explodes. Since the Uzi is a relatively low-power weapon, this then to difficult to skyrocket cop cars as they try to push people away the street, forcing one to perform your serious battling on foot. In addition to those systems, you'll also encounter significantly heavier artillery, including assault weapons, a shotgun, grenades, a rocket launcher, along with a flamethrower. The tools are extremely settled, with every retains their place in the game. For instance, the rocket launcher can be used to take down police helicopters, also the sniper rifle contains a moving extent which enables you remove individuals in the relative protection of rooftops or out-of-sight positions for the block.

The previous Grand Theft Auto activity were engaged in from a 2D top-down perspective to appeared quite clear, but these were control in the total of realism and stroke they could display. Even though the video camera would focus out showing more on the highway ahead as you picked up speed, more frequently than not anyone rammed head-on into developing because turns simply seemed too rapidly. GTA 3 leads the strings into a polygonal world. That provides game a far more realistic, gritty look, changing the cartoonish, colorful appearance from the other games. DMA has in fact done an excellent career with the graphics in GTA 3. The appeals look great, the automobiles are entirely well formed and split apart extremely nicely, with total, the touch quality is quite nice. You will often see around things from the earth (vehicles and pedestrians, for example) fade in position as you approach, but that hardly noticeable and doesn't touch the gameplay. Also, the construction rate may take some really visible dives, yet this typically occurs not until the partition is packed with angry police, exploding autos, with a lot of other mayhem. By default, the game uses a tracerlike blur effect that gives the entire game a shade, dreamy beginning. That filter can be disabled on the options screen, if desired. Grand Theft Auto III contains a number of different cameras for the two travel with wandering pieces in the game. That defaults to a behind-the-back prospect for both, and you may switch the game distance, https://gtadownload.org/the-history-of-rockstar-games/ opt for a first-person view, go for a cinematic driving cam, or choose for the aged top-down glimpse on the big GTA games, which is a nice touch but isn't really advantageous to performing the game, as there are sometimes streets on top of streets and other level design parts to just do not production from which view. Different perspective problems include not being able to get after you actually while by base. While you can get a back view in pushing R3, this very easy for law with opposing team vehicles to just walk after a person then track people down before you possibly know what's going on.

GTA III sounds terrific. The lanes are populated with chatty pedestrians, and law enforcement include some great, typically macho-sounding lines. Rockstar pulled in some terrific voice talent to the game, and it gives off by making up the game's main characters extremely convincing. Celebrity voices include Frank Vincent (Casino, Cop Land), Joe Pantoliano (The Matrix, Bad Son), Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs, Free Willy), Michael Rapaport (Cop Land, Metro), Debi Mazar (Goodfellas, Space Truckers), Kyle MacLachan (Twin Peaks, Showgirls), and Expert from the rap group Gangstarr. Put to the aural portion in the game is a runs of seven radio stations, any of which can be switched in while you're in the car. The radio concept has been with the Grand Theft Auto series since beginning, but GTAIII really believes the concept to the next level. Each place fills a different type, including pop, classical, hip-hop, with an absolutely hilarious talk radio stop. The composition is licensed and involves courses by Start Shadow Records, tracks licensed on the soundtrack on the movie Scarface, and rap road from Game Records, including artists such as Royce Da 5'9", JoJo Pelligrino, with Black Rob. Finally, everything from the screech of rolls on the firm of a helicopter crashing in the ground sounds good and groups quite a punch.

Rockstar and DMA Design have definitely spent time ensuring that GTA III is a quality product, and that quality program in the lot, from the graphics, to the look, on the area things, for the gameplay itself. Unlike previous sport from the collection, the action is really fun whether you act it the way it happened plan to be performed or avoid the playoffs intended mission constitution and put down by your own to wreak havoc throughout the city. While the violent quality on the game can surely turn some people down with adolescents just shouldn't be allowed anywhere around that, GTA III is, fairly merely, a awesome encounter which shouldn't be lost with someone mature enough to manage that.

[cursedmenagerie]

　　　This started as a small list of headcanons about Aesatel and her connections to some of the factions and major questlines in TES V, but gosh did it snowball out of control once I got started. Not a bad thing though, as I’ve been meaning to do a post just like this since adding her to the blog. This isn’t the be all & end all of how I’ll write Aesatel in threads and what can happen in her threads. It’s just the outline I follow to keep track of what events happen to her and when during her overall story, and these posts aren’t even that in-depth with the when, where, and who with I’ve kept about all the shenanigans she gets up to in a separate document. 

Shortly after discovering her identity as a Dragonborn Aesatel travels north to Winterhold to enroll at the local mage’s college, seeking to expand on her mostly self-taught magical talent. While there she discovers the Eye of Magnus and subsequently the Staff of Magnus, using the latter to keep the Thalmor agent Ancano from utilizing the Eye’s destructive powers.

Her studies focused on spells that would prove useful in battle with a heavy emphasis on Conjuration and Destruction magic. Her Destruction spells include Expert-level fire and lightning spells. Her Conjuration spells include summoning Atronachs, Dremora Lords, and creating various Thralls (including the unique instance of making Thralls of two Dremora Lords, because you can pry the image of Aesatel flanked by two permanent badass daedra from my cold, dead hands).

Aesatel meets Erandur in Dawnstar and the two grow close after helping him rid Nightcaller Temple of Vaermina’s influence. They adventure together for half a year before getting married and move into Proudspire Manor together. (This obviously changes in threads where shipping could occur.)

During their travels she investigates rumors about a young orphan living in Windhelm on a whim. Having lived in Riften for some time in the past she knows of Grelod and the extent of her cruel behavior to the children living in Honorhall Orphanage. So if an unfortunate accident were to befall the old woman the next time she’s in Riften, well there won’t be much sympathy from her.

This leads to her being “contacted” by Astrid later down the line and her joining the Dark Brotherhood, and ultimately to the fall and subsequent revival of the Brotherhood following the assassination of Emperor Titus Mede II. No one outside of the Brotherhood except those closest to her (namely Erandur & Ralyanis) knows of her affiliation with them, which she intends to keep that way.

It isn’t until just after Aesatel joins the Brotherhood that the main questline of the game gets underway, with her meeting Delphine in Riverwood to fetch the horn of Jurgen Windcaller. Aesatel isn’t fond of Delphine. When the time comes to consider whether or not to help the Blades - when it’s demanded of her that she kill Paarthurnax - she refuses. Any further attempts by Delphine or Esbern to bring her to their cause, with or without the requirement of slaying the ancient dragon, fall on deaf ears. 

She does, however, accept that they should be present during the ceasefire of Season Unending. 

They also serve as inspiration for her eventually forming her own personal Dragonguard, who include various close friends she’s made in her travels; Ralyanis Elric the Snow Elf archer, Tomoichi Sato a half-Altmer man who has familial ties to the Blades, her husband Erandur, and Ja’irzu a kind yet imposing Pahmar Khajiit just to name a few.

While looking for the Dragon Elder Scroll Aesatel meets Septimus Signus, and although she doesn’t have to she decides to help him with unlocking the strange Dwemer cube in the ice flows of Winterhold. She would come to regret that mistake as this put her in the sights of Hermaeus Mora, a big tentacled thorn in her side.

By the time she learns the Dragonrend shout and faces off against Alduin Aesatel has spent a year honing her skills. In that time dragons have ravaged the province ruthlessly, she’s had to put up with feuding armies and pesky Daedric Princes, and has had an all around Not Good Time. So she’s understandably pissed when Alduin runs away like a little bitch after getting his ass handed to him. 

She’s less pissed when she traps meets Odahviing and they become buds pretty quickly. Also Odahviing totally has room for a couple more riders so at the very least Ralyanis is able to go to Skuldafn/Sovngarde with her, because I say so.

There’s an actual celebration held when she returns to Whiterun and announces that Alduin has been defeated. 

Not long after defeating Alduin she returns to the Dark Brotherhood - who by now have been culled to include only herself, Nazir, Babette, and Cicero - and the plan to assassinate the Emperor enters its final stages. Commander Maro is slain on the Solitude Docks and Aesatel slips aboard the Katariah like a shadow. But when she comes face to face with the Emperor she is surprised to see a man ready to die. They converse, almost like new friends, and she reveals herself to him as the Dragonborn. And she vows to him that though she will take his life in turn she’ll join the Imperial Legion and do what she can to win the war, to keep the Empire from crumbling.

It’s at this point that she decides to take a break from adventuring. Just for a bit.

Because eventually trouble does come knocking and force her to take action again. While in the Rift visiting her mother news of a vampire attack in a nearby town reaches her, and she meets a member of the Dawnguard when she goes to investigate. She decides to check out their fortress even though she’s a bit hesitant to outright join the vampire hunters, but she does agree to check out Dimhollow Crypt for them, leading her to meet Serana.

She really likes Serana.

While she does side with the Dawnguard in the questline she never really considers herself part of the group, only returning to the fort when absolutely necessary. 

For the majority of her time during the quest Aesatel travels exclusively with Serana where needed, only choosing to invite Ralyanis along when she learns of Auriel’s Bow, a Snow Elven artifact that would of course be very intriguing to a Snow Elven archer.

It’s worth noting that by the time the final showdown with Harkon draws near a small town has been created northeast of Rorikstead called Snow Haven, a refuge for the Snow Elves who were living at the Temple of Syrabane that wanted to live in Skyrim proper once more. While not traveling with Aesatel Ralyanis spends most of her time here with her people.

After defeating Harkon there’s a much bigger break between adventures for Aesatel. At this point she’s considering retirement, or at least saving journeys into the wilds of Skyrim or other Tamrielic provinces for high priority situations. But when mercenaries from Solstheim, an island she barely recognized from old history lessons, decide to ambush her in the name of the “real” Dragonborn well... That’s when she has to defend her honor. 

I’m actually very open about the outcome of the Dragonborn questline. Aesatel feels sympathetic with Miraak after learning a bit about him, even if she won’t excuse some of his more questionable behavior. There’s also the matter of Hermaeus Mora being involved. Who, if you’ve read the note about helping Septimus Signus earlier, you’ll know she really hates. More than Miraak, more than Harkon and Vyrthur, more than Alduin even. So any course of action that culminates in a big middle finger to the Daedric Prince of Knowledge is A-Okay to her.

[argetcross]

Here a Witch, There a Witch

Witchhood, Celica’s Act 5 arc, and Treatment of Women in Echoes (aka several thousand words of musings. Coherency not guaranteed. Spoilers of course.)

I find the narrative choice of turning Celica into a witch who is then saved by the intervention of Mother Mila a really weirdly interesting one? 

First off, I skimmed the Gaiden script and this doesn't happen. This is probably the weakest part of the whole story for me in Echoes, and, in Gaiden, it's even more confusing.

Jedah: Alm's trapped in Dragon Mountain. You must want to save him.           If that's so, then follow after me.           If you offer yourselves as sacrifices to Lord Doma, Alm's path shall           also open up once more!

Witchhood, the soul of a Branded child, Duma needing both Alm and Celica, all of that isn't spoken about, so it's not certain what exactly Jedah is doing all that time. So it's literally a game device to force you onto a linear Alm path. At the very least, turning Celica into a witch makes a bit more sense if you assume that there's some equal power exchange, which Jedah hints at. Celica's soul, her Brand, her magic, all are things valued by Duma, namely strength. Taking both Celica and Alm’s soul would restore Duma to a sanity and power he’s been lacking for ages. Okay, sure.

The idea of sacrificing your humanity for a love one is supposed to foil to Rinea and Berkut (and to a smaller extent, Jedah and his daughters, probably).  The idea of witchhood is so interesting because you get many different 'witches' in the game. You have those that chose the contract of their own accord (Nuibaba) and kind of exists outside of Jedah's faction. You have the witch sisters, which Sonya says it was Jedah's sacrifice to Duma that turned them to witches, but Jedah counters her, saying they offered up their souls willingly. You have Delthea who for all intents and purposes gets witch like powers when controlled by Tartarah. Finally you have Celica who, even after having her soul offered up to Duma unwillingly, is controlled but also is mentally present enough to tell Alm to kill her.

The idea of men sacrificing women for power is one that happens a lot in this game. The villains, Fernand, Berkut, Jedah, all destroy their relationships with women in their lives and women who reject notably megalomaniac men survive (Sonya, Mathilda). The masculine and feminine dichotomy of Duma and Mila is pretty slanted towards the Father who destroys and the Mother who gives life. This is echoed in the paternal relationships in Echoes (Rudolf + Alm, Lima + Celica) all being quite toxic ones while the maternal ones (Liprica + Celica is the most significant, Mother Mila being redeemed is another example) having positive connotations.

(Side Note: Given the eternal sleep of Duma, Sonya, no matter what her ending suggests, could not have become a witch by offering up her soul to Duma. The ending therefore, one could argue, is simply trying to demonstrate the futility of retrieving souls already sold, and Sonya could have easily taken up residence in Nuibaba's manor with ill rumors abound.)

(Second side note: The time when Alm is saved by Celica's pendant, notably that comes from Celica's mother as one of the gifts. Was it meant to protect Celica against the influence of witches? Lady Liprica did not want Celica to stand in front of Mila - did she fear Celica to lose her soul to not a god but a goddess? Was Celica's giving nature what allowed Alm to succeed even when he wasn't prepared for Duma's true might, possibly crippling her own protection in the self-sacrificial nature she had? The last one is almost certainly a yes.)

You also have quite a bit of 'liberation' through the protagonist's part (Delthea, Mathilda, Celica) in contrast to the hordes of witches that you can't save due to their lost souls to Duma. So why can you save who you can save?

Berkut and Rinea are easily understood. Berkut volunteered himself up to Duma, Rinea, being sacrificed but also unwilling to leave Berkut's side, is unable to be redeemed. Simple enough.

Delthea is controlled not by Duma but by Tartarah and notably against her will. Upon killing Tartarah, she's freed - so attempts to create witches can be thwarted through destroying the arcanist controller. Also- the soul didn't actually get to Duma in this case. Nuibaba did not actually sell her soul to Duma. Her contract was with Medusa and she's referred to as an arcanist despite her witch class.

Marla and Hestia - it's hard to tell if you can believe either Sonya or Jedah's story as the total truth. They were almost certainly coerced on some level, but Hestia mentions that she should have lived her life freely like Sonya. Again, a scrap of her own personality and some hint at a decision she made? It's hard to tell, but it's likely we couldn't save them because again, there was something in their process of becoming a witch they couldn't recover from. Did they make that decision out of their own lust for power? It’s likely.

Now to Celica, the strangest of the potential witches, not only does she get her soul returned to her- it's through stabbing her with the Kingsfang/the Falchion. She gets her soul returned to her despite Jedah being convinced her soul is already devoured. How on earth does Mila have Celica’s soul if Duma has taken it?

Well game logic suggests that by killing Celica, Duma loses her soul. You see this with Berkut and Rinea, in death, they are freed from Duma’s control. Suddenly, Hestia’s last words make sense. Duma’s not all-powerful. 

In the same vein, Mila finally gets over her fear of selling out her brother. Of note, Duma never used the Kingsfang on Mila and Mila never took an advantage to kill her brother. They fought bitterly but they also, like overgrown siblings, never wanted to kill each other. They were, in some ways, too proud and far more concerned with their own interests rather than those of humans’. 

So maybe from this viewpoint, it makes sense how Celica’s self-sacrifice spurs Mila into finally releasing her seal on Falchion and entrusting her brother’s fate to someone who was able to do something she could never bring herself to do - trust in her opposite and sacrifice each other for the greater good. 

Of note, in Gaiden, instead of the witch dialogue, you get this:

Cellica:   It won't work. Judah possesses some mysterious power that's           obstructing all our attacks.           Besides, countless Bigles keep coming to entangle us. We can't even           move anymore.           We're probably already done for...           Sorry, Alm.           I wasn't able to do anything for you after all.           I've had a strange premonition...           A feeling that something terrible will happen to you...           That's why I came this far on a quest to rescue Mila...           That's why, until then, I didn't want you to fight.           Because of that... I acted so cold. I'm sorry... The truth is, I've           always...

This is after the crypt. I mean logically, this is because the game wants you to play as Alm as the hero and Celica now steps into a role similar to Zelda in TP - both a maiden to be saved as well as the wise queenly character to aid the hero. What's interesting is Echoes actually plays up Celica's self-sacrificial nature and her inherent importance, because of the part about giving up her soul. Gaiden's Celica actually makes less sense - she has no plan, she is just feeling defeated and like she failed Alm. Even if Echoes Celica makes a bad decision, she's takes action that makes a lot of sense for Celica at this moment - that is, a Celica abandoned by her goddess and used to bearing a lot of survivor guilt about her existence as princess.

For comparison, the Echoes dialogue goes:

Celica: Back on the island, I had a dream. A dream where something terrible happened to you. So I decided to petition Mila for the strength to protect you. Yet for all my travels, you’ve still faced terrible danger. And you were even forced to end your own father’s life. …I’d seen it all. I knew it was coming, but I couldn’t change a thing. I failed to keep you safe, Alm! Alm: That’s not… Celica, none of what’s happened is your fault. You’re not to blame for any of it! Celica: But I won’t lose you… I won’t let any of you die! I don’t want you to fight Duma. I don’t want anyone to be hurt or killed. That’s my only desire in this life.

Why did Celica believe Jedah? A lot of people kind of groaned when she bargained with Jedah, but I think, stepping back for a moment, looking at how Celica views the gods is important. Even if she doesn't agree with Duma, she still reveres him. Her ending dialogue with Duma is pretty much that. She recognizes what he did for Valentia but seeks to free him from his madness. However, at the beginning, she believed if the gods were lost, the land would become barren and humankind would surely die. She's not at Duma tower to kill gods, she's at Duma tower to retrieve a god and restate the natural order of Valentia. Celica, who was looking for Mila in order to circumvent the sufferings and the destruction of humanity, of course would turn herself into the problem. It's not that she trusted Jedah, but I think Celica at this point had been coping with a vast body of knowledge and pressure about the gods and their effect on the world that Alm never really considered. She makes a hard decision in absence of her own faith and confidence, in her eyes, a choice that would protect everyone.

The problem is Rudolf, in moving against the Duma Faithful, has already broken the Accord and set in motion events that means Celica's mission is a failure. The gods HAVE forsaken her. Mila notably doesn't come to her senses until the two branded children are about to kill each other in front of her. (Honestly, I think the Fire Emblem team has a small fetish for stabbing your loved ones, especially under possession. Awakening flashbacks anyone?)

Celica upon seeing Mila in stone, has a crisis of faith essentially stalls her entire arc. Is this weak writing? Yeah, it really is. Celica’s arc lacks its personal climax. Alm has his Rigelian heritage and Berkut on top of this. Celica’s arc gets absorbed into Alm’s. Celica needed something else to restore her faith in herself, especially after her mental surrender. 

Is the answer faith in loved ones? Partially. That part is already in the game though.

Celica: I do. It’s as Mila said… We’ve had the strength to live and fight for our world this whole time. I lost faith in that somewhere along the way… But right now, it seems the most obvious thing in the world. I trust in mankind like I trust in you, Alm. Absolutely, and without hesitation.

The issue I think that would resolve this best would be actually in how they handle Mila. What would have strengthened Celica's final decision would be Mila reaching out to Celica rather than Alm, acknowledging how it was Celica that uncovered the mystery of where she was, came all the way to save her with her own, very human powers. That her journey to Mila gave her a greater wisdom and understanding of the relationships between gods and men that Alm couldn’t have known. 

Isn't that a kind of strength even the gods couldn't predict?

[bigenderbefriender]

The Spark (3/4?)

Crossposted to ao3 under elstarwarslover.  Thank you once again to the wonderful @electricpoolshark for helping me edit this.  You never cease to amaze.

“Lúcio Correia dos Santos: you are one lucky man.”  The woman stood across from the overcrowded cell in which her cousin now sat.  Rio de Janeiro’s prisons were chronically full, the result of an overzealous police force combined with sweeping laws that made just about any aspect of poverty criminal.  Vishkar’s additions to those laws had only served to exacerbate the problem, and with none of their quality-of-life improvements anywhere in sight, no one could seem to figure out exactly why they had been given so much power in the first place.

“Isabella!  Well if you’re here I must be,” Lúcio responded as he stood up, careful to avoid any hands or toes that might be in the way.  “What brings you out here anyway?”

“You, obviously.  How’d you manage to get stuck in here?”

“Out past curfew, same as everyone else here.”

“You and I both know that’s not the full story.  Are you going to tell me now or am I going to have to come back with Avó?”

“All right, all right.  After you and Rosa left last night, some Vishkar goons showed up and started attacking people outside the warehouse.  I managed to get a lot of people out, but not enough.  So I turned myself in, gave everybody else a chance to get out.” Lúcio paused for a second, remembering the events of last night.  He wondered if Vishkar had actually provided any medical care for the people who got injured last night; none of them was in jail with him, but that didn’t really mean anything with the number of police lockups in the city.  Not even to mention that with how dark it had been, he wasn’t sure he could recognize any of them.  “How’s Rosa doing?”

“Okay.  Better every day, but still not great.  She’s fine physically, but I think she blames a lot of this on herself.  Something about not having been nice enough to Vishkar.”

“Any idea what she means by that?”

“Not a clue.  Some woman pulled her out of the fire after Calado’s office exploded.  There’s no way she would remember her though.  She was completely unconscious when the woman handed her to me.  Although she was wearing Vishkar colors.”

“Odd.  Rosa’s smart, though.  She’ll find a way to tell us.”

“That’s all we can hope for.  Anyway, I’m not just here to chat.”

“I figured as much.  What’s up?”

“A bunch of us came together and decided we needed to get you out.  The state will provide you a lawyer, but you’ll have to seek them out.  Which you can only do from the outside this building.”

“What?  No, no I can’t let you do that.  You need that money.  Much more than I do.  Besides, I’ve got good standing in the community, no judge will ignore that”

“It’s a good thing that enough people disagree with you that you’re still getting out of here.  We had to get a bondsman to pay for you; as soon as his check clears, you’re out of here.  Thought I’d come and let you know.”

“I-” Lúcio sighed.  “Thank you.”

“One last thing before I go.  I don’t know if you saw the news today, but it read something to the effect of ‘Fifteen Brave Officers Injured in Battle with Violent Protesters.’”

“Shit, really?  God, okay.  I’ll - I’ll figure something out,” Lúcio responded.

“Good.  I’ll see you around,” Isabella said, turning on her heel to leave.

Hours later, Lúcio had come no closer to deciding what exactly he was going to do.  Of course, he was finally out of that godforsaken cell, which helped his thought process significantly.

There were a few things of which he was certain.  First, that he could no longer afford to bribe the city’s officers.  Such bribes were always crowd-funded to some extent, and with most of the favela’s money having gone to a bondsman, there was just none left.  Second, that he could no longer raise money with street performances.  After all, it was effectively illegal with Vishkar’s influence over the city, regardless of the letter of the law.

That wasn’t to say that protest music would be completely ineffective.  If he somehow managed to get people listening globally, there would be enough pressure on Rio de Janeiro’s government that they would be forced to back down.  At least, that would be the ideal situation.  More likely than not, one of the more powerful countries would place an embargo on Brazil, and all of the country’s internal resources would immediately go to those who were wealthy enough to pay for them in bulk.  Even if there were any left after that, Vishkar would be more than happy to buy up the rest in some sick form of punishment.

The most likely scenario, though, was that he would write and publish whatever music he could, and it would have no effect at all.  After all, he had been writing his whole life, and nothing had come of it to date; why would this time be any different?

Lúcio did not get a chance to answer that question.  Instead, he froze in place as a grating shriek filled the air, replacing the content murmurs of the street.  Unable to move or even think for himself, he listened as an unnatural voice informed the people of the favela that curfew would be an hour early tonight, since violent factions within the city had taken advantage of the mayor’s generosity.  It was a matter of safety, the voice asserted; the mayor would not allow rioters to undo the carefully crafted order that Vishkar had brought.

The voice cut out as suddenly as it had begun, the only evidence of its existence in the stunned silence that suffocated the once vibrant street.  Worse still, Lúcio felt compelled to obey the voice, as though whatever had been affecting his thoughts were still in control.  It would certainly be easier to obey; he wouldn’t have to deal with the cops, the thugs, the stress, any of it.

Still, some part of him screamed out that he had to resist, that this wasn’t normal.

The sound of a small voice humming one of his songs broke Lúcio out of his stupor.  He still felt foggy, but at least his thoughts were – probably – his own now.  He looked around and saw the once lively crowd beginning to thin.  The small voice was gone now, lost to the oppressive silence that refused to go away.  In fact, where Lúcio had come to expect hundreds, even thousands of voices at a time, there were only the slight sounds of feet and shoes scuffing against the pavement and an incessant ringing in his ears.

“Wait, what time is it?” he asked to no one in particular.  He didn’t honestly expect anyone to answer him; there were enough people that each one would expect someone else to check.  He did expect the people around him to acknowledge that he had spoken, to offer him a glance, a touch, anything to show that they had heard him.

He received no such sign, however, and the only evidence that anyone was even aware of his existence was in the subtle way that they flowed around him without so much as a bump.

What’s… happening?

Was Vishkar’s tech really that powerful?  Enough to take complete control of so many people?

It was clear that someone had to do something.  And given that Lúcio was the only one who seemed to be awake right now, it would have to be him.  But what would he do?  He could take it, but then what?  He couldn’t keep it, it was too powerful for anyone to have.  He could destroy it, but Vishkar would just rebuild it.

Would it be right to use it to convince the people to rebel?  Knowing they would have little choice in the matter?  What if he only gave them a little nudge?  A slight push towards what he knew to be the right decision?

Of course, that wasn’t the right answer either.  These people trusted him, and he wouldn’t betray that trust by deciding for them.

However, there was one potential solution that might actually work out: reversing its effects to repel mind control.  Vishkar would almost certainly rebuild its amplifiers, but that didn’t mean they were infallible.  And although there wasn’t any evidence that they did anything other than mess with people’s heads, Lúcio was willing to bet that, given enough time, he could reverse the effects.

Well, I guess I’m about to find out.

[senka-mesecine]

I need a list on why you hate Jason everyone worships his stupid murder lovin jungle ass bless u 🙌🏻

~Him and his friends are immediately attracted to the prospect of Rook Island after Doug tells them it’s a place they can do anything at. Pretty much, knowing Jason and his company, they were up to no actual good from the beginning. By “anything” they certainly weren’t skydiving there with the sole intention of going on a tour of mere natural sightseeing and some harmless sunbathing. Read - the epitome of those annoying, irritating, troublemaker tourists you can’t wait to finally leave your hometown and never come back again after they spent the entire bloody holiday getting drunk, acting cocky and entitled, breaking stuff, being loud and doing drugs just because they pretty much can. Not gonna say they were asking for it - because nobody is asking to get kidnapped and sold into slavery - but, really, guys? Really?

~The definition of a careless, douche, disinterested boyfriend: Whether you like her or not, you have to admit Liza was attentive, patient, loving, overall okay and almost like a doting mother-hen over Jason, his friends and even his brothers when she really didn’t have to be. She was the more mature, responsible significant other that winded up with an overgrown man-child and still remained by his side and waited for him to grow when she could easily dump him for someone far better instead. Why not, after all? She wanted a a dude in his mental prime. She even implied it herself. Instead - he pretty much neglects her - for the first foreign chick he gets taken with and a tribal-vendetta which doesn’t even concern him to begin with. She deserved more then she got.

~Speaking of which - in truth, he’s a random newcomer who gets far too heavily involved with an old dispute between factions he knows nothing about. Citra was just as bad as Vaas. Vaas was just as bad as Citra. The two of them were just as bad as Hoyt. The Pirates. The Privateers. The Rakyat. None of these people was in the right. None of them was genuinely good for the island when you think things through in the long run. But, lets be honest - Jason succumbs to Denis’ over-idealized coaxing because he likes the idea of being a hero, the generalized “white savior” and getting the “exotic, stereotypical prize” in the end, namely Citra - who knows exactly what she’s doing. All of this happened because of the pussy. The pussy got to his head. Vaas warned him, guys. Several times at that.

~I cant believe I’m gonna bring this up. I hate bringing this up. It’s so cliched on this site and all. But, can anyone actually relate to Jason? At all? He’s overly rich, overly entitled, overly bratty, he’s got an amazing life even the actually wealthy would call going too far, all his friends also have amazing lives as well and amazing parents with great careers and he can afford spending time travelling around the world with his friends and pretty much being Mr. Worldwide Dick with not a single care in the world. I used the phrase “world” several times. World! In today’s economy? Nah! Who can genuinely feel bad for Jason’s plight when his existence thus far has been a big, fat vacation? If you’re a petty person like me - you’ll pretty much feel joy over his sudden misfortune because there’s nothing about him that would even remotely tug at your heartstrings. Even Hoyt’s more tragic - and Hoyt’s - well, Hoyt!

~Actually holding a knife to your crying girlfriend’s throat (even if you don’t choose the bad ending or even if you don’t quite like Liza Snow) and contemplating on abandoning your remaining friends and your little brother to some horrible, awful fate after you went through hell and beyond to save them from the clutches of a sadistic, international drug-cartel just because, again, the prospect of heroism and vagina is going to your head is not something I can overall approve of. Especially considering how his character was barely established. I don’t really see a jungle-torn, broken man when he does this. All I see is a dude-bro who can’t quite decide how many chairs he wants to sit on. Also - even if you choose the good ending, Liza should break up with your ass. Knife to the throat? You ACTUALLY thought about killing her for another chick, mate! Hell, no!

~From a very, very realistic point of view, as macabre as it may sound, burning Hoyt’s marijuana fields and semi-destroying his crime circle probably did more harm to the overall economy of Rook Island then actual good considering these people are isolated by an ocean on a piece of land that’s pretty much untouched by civilization outside of random WW2 barracks, huts, shipwrecks, crashed planes outposts and the like. So, now they neither have what to thrive off (in an, again, rather unhealthy sense - but, still.) and they’re governed by a fanatical, rather backwards matriarch who’s men are armed with guns and an over-bloated zeal. Jason Brody killed off one tyrant to create another tyrant, who just happens to have a major goddess-complex as well. Good job. Basically, absolutely nothing changed and everything still sucks if you’re a common guy living on Rook. Thanks, asshole.

~Ironically enough - I don’t mind him being a “murderous prick”. He had to be. Ajay Ghale was too and nearly everyone loved him (Another debate for another time). You can hardly survive a place like Rook without being one or eventually becoming one. He can hardly combat Pirates, Drug-Runners, Savages, Mercenaries and overall madmen through being a Zen-pacifist and defeating foes through polite words alone, right? That was kind of the entire point of the game, especially one of the Far Cry series. And even if he did have some prior training with weapons - lets be real - he’s kind of a Gary Stu. Pure wish fulfillment. A fantasy. I don’t care who you are or what you are. Cleaning out an entire island all by yourself is something not even John Rambo would do. Even Hoyt Volker needed an army of men behind his back when he first inhabited the place. I mean - c'mon!

~He’s incredibly, incredibly selfish. I’m so sorry, but he is. Right to the point where he sends someone else (Oliver, if I remember correctly) to deliver the sad news to his widowed mother that he’s dead and not coming back, thus outright lying and probably breaking her heart twice over in the process due to the fact her other son, Grant, died as well and she pretty much wont even get to see his corpse at this point or give him a proper funeral. You’d think his mother would and heck, even his little brother (and Daisy herself - who also lost a loved one in Grant) need him now more then ever alongside Liza who’s devastated and traumatized. But, nope. He’s staying in the jungle to tap that ass. Priorities. Compared to Ajay Ghale who pretty much climbed the Himalayas to fulfill his mother’s dying wish - yes, that’s very selfish.

~Brody’s journey and arc is not one of self-discovery. We just get the illusion of a deeper meaning with him. The more he progresses, the less we seem to know about him. Hell, we didn’t know that much about him to begin with outside a line-up of negative, childish traits worthy of an 80’s action shooter. And what did he learn in the end? Pretty much nothing outside the fact that he likes killing and that the jungle took over. Something. It took over something. We’d care - except, we weren’t introduced to his personality very in-depth to begin with. You can’t feel anything unless you know the character and end up relating. That’s why most of our sympathy goes to Vaas Montenegro instead - because yes, he’s a psychopath too. But he’s a fleshed-out psychopath.

~Other then that, any character can be made great, underdog or not. But, Jason Brody missed out on that extra mile of plausible development and the lack of a backstory or even a backstory hidden between the lines (See Vaas, Citra, Hoyt - later on, Ajay Ghale, Paul Harmon and even Yuma Lau). He’s simply a skin you slip on to feel cool - much like a fantasy of escapism. Hell, even Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s comedic cameo made for a more likable possible protagonist in the Vaas Montenegro Experience because he’s the insufferable, clumsy, cowardly klutz who doesn’t get any respect but still manages to overcome that in the time of need to an extent and go after his friend (Barry the Cameraman) with a machine gun and loyally stand up to a band of armed pirates despite of being scared out of his wits. It’s all about that. Relating is key. I personally, felt none of that with Jason Brody. If I was meant to care, I didn’t. Not as much as I was supposed to anyhow.

[spiteandalice]

Judas Touch pt. 1

So I lied about posting the other day, obviously. Please know that I’m a lying liar that lies.The second chapter to my Jai fic is almost done and if I don’t pass out in five minutes I’ll do my best to get it the fuck done. Let me start this by saying how I hate y’all even if you don’t know me. I’ve been lurking for a long while, reading all the Divergent and Boomer and whatnot fics quietly because I knew the moment I would set up a blog for this I’d fall into a deep, dark hole. NOW LOOK AT THIS SHIT.

Have an Eric oneshot because my brain hates me so, so much.

Contains smut, language and some violence.

In my few years on this planet I haven’t seen many winters that could compare to this one, the temperatures so low it feels like a punch to the chest every time you walk outside. Having all the moisture in your nose freeze up every time you breathe in is quite something to behold. It doesn’t stop me from hanging off the side of the first armored truck in our convoy, the one that found me on a routine patrol, peering through the blindingly white streets ahead at what I have called home all my life, even if it’s a miserable cavern full of loud idiots. My faction still houses the best kind of idiots because Dauntless are by far the most tolerable of the bunch. The snow actually helps to improve the city, it covers the ruins and manages to let even the usually depressing wastelands look almost pretty.

Not that I care.

There is a commotion up ahead, and I can’t help but smile at the warm welcome as a group of disheveled factionless come shambling out of a street in an attempt to attack us. I guess my reputation has suffered greatly in the past four months, but I guess being presumed dead does that to you.

They are mostly unarmed, a few are swinging pipes and other blunt objects in our direction, meaning to look threatening I guess, and I descend from my spot by the driver’s door, smiling. I take a few steps towards them, still smiling. My height alone is supposedly enough to impress, even if they don’t recognize me. 5′11 is mighty tall for a woman, and everything about my clothes is meant to accentuate that, not that I could really conceal it somehow. My black coat reaches down to my ankles and would be restricting if it wasn’t for the four slits on the sides, front and back, allowing me enough leg room to climb, run and kick. Or slowly stride towards a bunch of bumbling idiots who dare to delay my glorious return to the living. Clearly confused some of them back away, until I’m close enough to make out some of their grubby faces. One in the front bears a tattoo on his head that looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. He stares at my bruised face for a moment before his brain can process whatever info it provides to him.

“Oh shit. It’s her! It’s Mina!”

Ah, a former dauntless. It warms the spot where my heart is supposed to be that he recognizes and instantly fears me. Clever boy.

For a moment they are all silent, some exchange looks, then they start to run. I laugh, wholeheartedly enjoying their reaction, while I pull two guns from their holsters slung across my shoulders and start firing at them. Out of the fifteen only seven make it back to their rat hole. I’m obviously very rusty.

Banging my fist on the hood of the truck is the driver’s signal to continue on, we are moments away from the compound and I would like to get back inside, have a shower and reconnect with old friends.

All three of them.

There is a lot of bustling as we approach, looks like a delivery from Amity is unloaded right now and it has transformed the place into an anthill that I’m usually tempted to light on fire with a huge looking glass, but not today. I’m feeling very generous. A lot of black figures are running around carrying things, only one is standing in the middle, almost motionless. His head is turned towards us but there is not even the slightest sign of any kind of emotion visible in his rigid stance, hands folded behind his back, ever the leader. I smirk and jump off, slowly making my way towards him, limping slightly because my ankle is sprainex. When I am not more than ten feet away he barks at someone to his left, without so much as turning his head that way, and the hapless guy who dared to slow down hastily runs towards the truck to grab another crate.

“Still getting off on intimidating peasants, I see.”

“Still loving a grand entrance, I see.”

We stare at each other for a moment and if I had a heart it would possibly beat faster now and I would experience some form of joy because I am actually home. Alas, a smirk and a raised eyebrow will have to do, and it is returned in kind by my favorite dauntless. Which I would never tell him, his ego is inflated enough already.

“Looks like you just won me a lot of points, Mina.”

For Eric he sounds almost gentle, with only a minimum of sarcasm and a dash of amusement in his voice. I briefly wonder if he was affected by the news of my death at all, but I know him too well. It was probably extra terrible to land on his shit list for a couple of weeks, by breathing wrong or walking by too close.

“I leave you alone for a couple of weeks and you turn into a gambling man? What has this place come to! Are we doing group hug sessions now every Friday?”

For a moment we both go quiet and I am sure that we are supposed to hug now, or smile or break out into a little dance number. But we just stare, I for my part even enjoying it because there aren’t many people who would even dare to hold his gaze, and the same thing can be said about me. Finally he takes a few steps forward, closing the distance between us and leaning his forehead against mine for just a moment. We are both not feeling the need for any form of PDA and anything else along those lines, that is for the mushy idiots, the pussies and emotional people, which is all the same anyway. Mutual respect is the highest form of affection we are capable of and comfortable with, and that is all I need to know. 

“I am looking forward to a hot shower, some food and a few hours of sparring. Not necessarily in that order.”

He lifts an eyebrow at me and smirks. I’m still looking better put together than the majority here and I spent weeks in captivity, fighting my way through a horde of idiots and then crawling across the city before a patrol found me. There is dust in my hair, the left side of my head needs shaving and I would kill for clean underwear. Not that I normally wouldn’t.

“Code’s still the same. You might want to check in and tell everyone else you’re alive.”

With a huff of indignation I step back and glare at him, he has to ruin all my fun. I was planning on roaming the halls for a few weeks, thoroughly scaring the shit out of everyone that knows me, especially those that never liked me. Which, admittedly, are quite a few. Not as many as Eric can boast about, I have never been in a position to be able to make quite as many enemies, but I am close. Was. Am. I am back, I should remember that.

Stifling a grin he pats my shoulder and turns me toward the door behind him. As I turn a guy behind me catches a glimpse at my face, drops something and curses. I turn and start running at him with a loud wail and he, completely shocked and confused, starts running. The look of pure amusement on Eric’s face is almost worth behaving like an idiot and I allow myself a half smile before straightening my coat and heading back towards the door.

“I think I almost missed having you around.”

With a snort I walk past him, clipping him in the shoulder on the way. The only things he missed were my body and the fact that he had someone on his level around that would get his moods and his thought processes, that is all.

“Your dick missed me, I’m sure.”

He doesn’t respond to that, and as I walk through the narrow and dark corridor I can hear him barking orders at the poor saps outside and it just might be one of the sweetest things I have ever heard.

Later that night, after a very exhausting meeting with the leaders and a long and entirely unnecessary retelling of my adventures, I find myself keying in the familiar code to Eric’s place. There is a spot for me in one of the guest rooms because I have never been around for too long, but it is a long standing tradition that I spend most of my nights here. The lights are out and everything is quiet, so I make my way to the bathroom after taking off my boots and coat and placing them by the door, neatly because anything else would make it impossible for me to relax. Always be ready to leave, always have a strategy. The fact that I am willing to even take off my knives and guns around here says a lot about Eric, if there is anyone in this world that I would trust to an extent it would be him.

This is why I decide to not only take a shower, generously applying his soap twice, but also draw a hot bath afterwards because after being dead for four months I am pretty sure I’m entitled to a little smidge of luxury, and it’s his place so I’m not worried about wasting his resources, he can afford it. While the tub slowly fills I make my way around, grateful for the fact that he is such a neat person, because I could find my way to his liquor stash blindfolded. With a bottle of very good whiskey and his backup pack of cigarettes I make my way back to the bathroom, picking up a lighter and an ashtray on my way. I am naked and my hair is leaving a fine trail of water droplets all over his floors, which I’m sure will irritate him to no end. I grin and leave the door open before I submerge myself in what feels like boiling hot water, not even thinking about leaving before I have smoked half of the pack and drank at least a quarter of the bottle.

When the door opens I tense, but I know full well that the number of people who can even access his place is extremely low, yet I only relax after I heard his low grumble that is telling me he is annoyed but also vaguely amused. He must have seen the water trail I left him while he took off his boots. Like the trail of breadcrumbs in that old story, just a lot better.

“One could think you owned this place.”

There he is, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed. I can’t say I’m not enjoying the sight, a few months among factionless and corpses does things to a woman’s standards, but there has only ever been one who came close to not boring me and mostly pissing me off in the good kind of way. He is currently raking his gaze up and down my body, and I’m not sure what he is thinking because I must look terrible. Battered and bruised, what I lost in weight I gained in scars. Not pretty, but we are soldiers, we are not supposed to be beautiful. Supposed to I say, because this little shit had to go against the grain.

“If I owned this place it wouldn’t be such a mess.”

The smile I bestow on him almost reaches my eyes, I can feel it, but it is also meant to provoke him. I need to test the waters, to see how, or if at all, things have changed in these few months. Maybe he found himself a nice little wife he keeps in a different apartment because being around others constantly is too much, or maybe he and Four finally acted on all that pent up tension. My smile turns into a smirk and he raises an eyebrow, his gaze still cold. Our greeting was downright emotional, but now we’re back at the beginning, cautiously staring at each other, neither of us willing to take the first step because that means exposing yourself and could be considered a weakness.

Finally I sigh and get up, letting the water cascade off my body for a moment before reaching for a black towel I put out, carefully stepping over the edge of the tub and beginning to dry myself thoroughly, right in front of him. Cold fingers suddenly dig into my hips, pulling me backwards and against him. We don’t say a single word, don’t even make a sound, but I turn around and launch myself at him so hard that he stumbles backwards and into the wall. His hands are all over my back, my hair, my ass, while I wrap my legs around him like a vise and take great pleasure in destroying his carefully made up hair.  I was the first one to openly laugh at him and survive and it was this haircut that caused my outburst. I like it, sort of, even though I don’t and it’s none of my business anyway.

We don’t kiss, we never have, it is a ferocious attack of lips and tongues and teeth, biting and sucking and licking. Even this turns into a competition, to see who could win the upper hand. Ever since we met, while he was an initiate and I had to wait another damn year, we have been at each other’s throats both literally and figuratively speaking. No matter what competition we ended up in, it was always just too close to call unless one of us decided to play dirty and distract the other in every way possible, which is always. The first time we fucked - and there is no other word to accurately describe it - we were sparring, he had me pinned, I managed to headbutt him, he tried to choke me and I kicked him in the balls - this is our kind of foreplay.

Nobody said any of this is “healthy”.

There is blood on my lips and I’m not sure if it’s his or mine, and it’s really not important either way. We will both be walking around covered in scratches and bruises tomorrow, slightly smug and knowing full well that everyone can see, everyone knows and yet nobody dares to say a thing because we are both known to be very calm and reasonable humans.

That thought makes me chuckle against his throat and he growls, the first noises we made so far.

“Something funny there?”

“Yeah, your face.”

His hand tangles in my black hair and pulls my head back, he is not in the mood for some banter on the intellectual level of five year olds, and that’s okay. This is something that developed over time, we blow off some steam, destroy a piece of furniture or two, then comes the playful part. One time he chased me around the training room for half an hour, a fact that got him into a fight with Four the next day when he was complaining about having to watch that on the surveillance footage. It wasn’t so much the fact that we were naked and clearly having a lot of sex that bothered Eric, but the fact that Four saw him laughing and tickle me into submission. It was a one time lapse of judgement on our parts that never happened again after and we keep that private.

Eric wraps a thick strand of my hair around his hand and pulls, hard, making my scalp burn. With a growl I lash out and manage to leave three welts on his cheek, right under his eye. 

 "I thought you were fucking dead, Mina.“

That growl nearly drives me insane. It’s always a back and forth, a struggle for dominance we both know we won’t win, and I for my part have no interest in that happening in the first place. I’d be bored within minutes. I’m not one of those in our faction that go around screwing everyone in sight, and neither is he, as far as I know. There is no need to be physically close to anyone, just a search for release every now and then. He understands that and that’s what makes this work. That and the fact that he knows where my buttons are, and I know his.

“Excuse me for getting jumped by ten people while your precious soldiers ran away like little babies,” I snarl, biting down on his neck, hard. He has the advantage right now because I was in the tub, he is wearing an obscene amount of fabric that is in my way. With some acrobatics I lean back to reach under me and open his belt with one hand, he does absolutely nothing to help me but watches closely, smirking. I’ll get to wiping that off his face in just a moment. The very practical standard issue tactical pants are open and pushed down within moments and I tug down the elastic of his boxer briefs just enough to free his cock, not willing to waste any more time.

Using my legs I push myself up against his body and let gravity do the rest, dropping down again and slamming down onto him. It brings him back to the living and his smirk turns into a snarl, his fingers digging into my hips again. Eric pushes himself off the wall and starts to walk out of the bathroom while I dig my nails into his shoulders, pushing myself up and letting myself fall, at a slow and intense pace.

When I look at his face I can tell that something is off, that this doesn’t work for him as it usually does. It takes a few moments to sink in, but we’re so much alike that it’s sometimes hard to remember that we don’t share all the same thoughts and whatever little emotions we allow to seep through. Eric needs to be in control at all times, he hates feeling helpless as much as I do. And I, even though I can hardly be blamed for this, made him feel exactly that. I got myself captured and killed, that’s what everyone assumed, and there was nothing he could do. Eric might not care for me in a traditional way, but we have been doing this since my initiation four years ago. In some capacity I became a part of his life and I had the audacity to take that away from him. There will be hell to pay for the factionless, but if I want this to survive he needs to feel like he put things right. So I struggle to free myself from the confinement of his arms and am rewarded with a frown. If he thinks even for a moment that I’m giving him the upper hand he won’t like it. Letting myself fall backwards with my full body weight I loosen his grip and he snarls, trying to grab my wrist but I twist my arm away from him. In a flash I’m on my feet and pretending to walk away from him, but he wraps his arm around my waist and slams me into the sink. The vanity mirror gives me a great view of him and I meet his scowl with a wicked grin. “You fucking crazy bitch.” It takes about two seconds for him to force my legs apart and slam into me, making my hips collide with the cold porcelain. Eric pounds me relentlessly and I moan, even louder when he pulls my hair, twisting my head to the side. His eyes never leave mine in the mirror, his teeth are bared and he is spitting out curses with every thrust, insulting me and cursing my entire damn existence through his teeth. My body is covered in bruises from my restraints, my captors and my escape and Eric is adding more with each snap of his hip, each hard grip. But these new ones I won’t mind. The hand gripping my hip vanishes and comes down on my ass, hard, and my hiss elicits a chuckle. It’s a menacing sound, cold and cruel, but it goes straight to my core and makes my muscles tighten. I look at my own face in the mirror, flushed and blissful under scratches and bruises, and when I look at him again I feel my walls clench down tight. One last smirk from him and I unravel with a high pitched keen that is far beyond any words. Eric stares at me, watches me coming undone before he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Pushing deep into me he stills and I feel him come inside me with a low growl. His eyes fly open and the intensity makes my knees buckle. Panting I try to pull myself up but my muscles seem to fail me after the hot bath and exercise. Eric watches me for a moment, then he picks me up and carries me to his bedroom. “Maybe I missed you a little after all.” The murderous glare he shoots my way hasn’t worked a single time in all these years, but I appreciate the effort. “Shut up and sleep, Mina.” He positively throws me onto the mattress and stalks out of the room, by the time he returns with the first aid kit everyone here has at home I’m almost asleep and pretend not to notice how he starts to treat my wounds in a way that could almost be described as gentle.

PART TWO

[ellahmacdermott]

“Not a Great Precedent”: Commissioner Discusses the SEC’s Latest ETF Decision

When the SEC announced its rejection of the Winklevosses’ latest bitcoin ETF filing, the industry found itself reckoning with a problem on repeat: striving toward the goal of approval, another Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) proposal faced the SEC’s death knell.

At this point in the industry’s development, securing an ETF has become the space’s institutional albatross, the elusivity of which hangs over each successive rejection. The most recent filing was the Winklevosses’ second attempt to list a bitcoin-backed ETF, the first being shot down last year.

Earlier this year, some dozen ETF filings, like those by Van Eck Associates Corp., never even made it to the discussion table after the SEC withdrew the applications from consideration in January. Decisions for another five filings have been delayed until September. Lacking these approvals, the industry’s only institutional market offerings come in the form of the CBOE’s and CME’s futures contracts.

The market’s slow march toward establishing a bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund or Exchange Traded Product (ETP) has become a reminder that the space is still in the midst of growing pangs, and it’s an even more salient reminder that the wheels of regulation spin slowly — and not always in every industry’s favor.

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce thinks these wheels should be turning a bit more quickly. Recently sworn into the commission after an appointment by President Trump, Peirce did not partake in the SEC’s 3-1 vote to strike down the latest proposal, but that hasn’t kept her from expressing her disagreement with the commission’s decision. She took to Twitter on the same day as the announcement, linking to her dissenting public statement.

In the following interview with Commissioner Peirce, Bitcoin Magazine delves further into her dissent, uncovering what the decision means for the future of regulation and what it will take for the SEC to give bitcoin ETFs/ETPs a nod of approval.

Bitcoin Magazine: What were the key factors that made you dissent to the SEC’s ruling and vote “yes” on the ETP?

Hestor Peirce: So, I didn't vote yes originally because I wasn't here — I got here six or seven months ago, and a lot of it happened at the staff level and they can get kicked up to the commission, which is what happened here. What made me vote against what the commission did? There were three things playing into that.

One, I disagree with how they read our statutory mandate. The way I read our mandate, we should have approved this one because we really shouldn’t have been looking to the underlying markets the way that we did in the order that they put out last week.

Second issue, I do think that institutionalization in this space would address some of the concerns they lay out in their order.

And the third thing, I think that, historically, the SEC has not been great on innovation, on welcoming innovation, and for me, this order perpetuated my concerns in this regard. We need to have a willingness to welcome new approaches and I’m worried that if we keep sending the message that we’re not open to hearing from people who have new ways of doing things, then people will say we’re going to take our business to another country.

BM: In your dissent, you talk about the SEC playing gatekeeper to the bitcoin market. Is this decision setting a disconcerting precedent, giving the SEC the power to deem what should and shouldn’t be considered an asset, or have we seen this kind of behavior before?

HP: I actually think that it’s not only happened in this context, but that it’s happened with prior orders as well; however, in those cases, they were approved. But even in the past, we’ve looked to underlying commodities markets, and I think that walks us down a road that we don’t want to go down and we can’t go down.

You know, in this particular case, there’s a lot being said about bitcoin. It is a new type of asset, and I think that that played into the decision that was ultimately made. I’m worried that, by looking through to underlying markets, we’ve opened a can of worms that we don’t want to open up, where we’d have to assess underlying markets for all of these different types of assets.

I do think it’s not a great precedent. It plays into a bit of a thread in securities regulations — at the federal and at the state level — which is that there’s an inclination among regulators to almost step into the shoes of the investor and say whether or not the investor should be making that particular decision, based on our assessment of the actual product — in this case, the actual asset. So yes, that is a disturbing precedent, because I can’t make assessments about those things.

There are lots of people spending lots of time thinking about this new asset class and they should be able to make decisions about it. I can‘t stand in their shoes and say, “I can see the future better than you can see the future, I can assess where this is going better than you can assess where this is going.”

So yes, I’m very worried about the SEC putting itself in the shoes of investors, which is what it was doing here. Because frankly if this product comes to market, investors might decide, “We’re just not interested in it.”

There are lots of things that investors are going to look at when they look at an ETP — there are other products out there and they are different. There are different characteristics, so let’s put it out there. As long as the disclosure is good and as long as the exchange can manage the trading of the product, let’s put it out there and let’s let investors vote up or down based on whether or not they buy it.

BM: To what extent does the SEC decision show a lack of trust in such self-regulatory bodies, at least for this industry?

HP: Well, I mean, I think it does show a bit of a lack of trust for our existing SROs, meaning the exchanges. In my case, I’d say, look, the exchange has thought about the product it wants to list, so if it’s gone through that thought process and addressed our concerns about how the product will trade, then it’s done its job, so we can let it go forward.

In terms of the bitcoin market generally, my concern with the order’s approach is that it says, “Look, these markets aren’t regulated.” To some extent that’s true, but there are some of them that are regulated by governments; the Gemini exchange is regulated at the state level.

But the point that often gets lost in these discussions about regulations is that there’s actually a lot of self-regulation, not in the formal SRO context, but I’ve listened to a lot of discussions between factions in the crypto world and they’re criticizing each other, sometimes very openly and very harshly, and they’re calling each other out for things.

That kind of healthy, transparent, private regulation is relevant to the discussion because, to the extent that someone is going to engage in manipulation in a market, other players in that market — whether its gold or cryptocurrency — other players in that market will care about that because it will affect them. So there is some sort of a natural push to have regulation that grows organically within a marketplace.

I think the order did not give enough attention to the fact that, especially when you bring institutions into a market like this, there’s going to be a pressure to privately monitor each other. It’s not self-regulation so much as you’re watching what your competitors are doing.

BM: Not so much self-regulation as self-preservation, in some ways.

HP: In some ways, right.

BM: It’s a bit of a catch-22, isn’t it? The SEC is essentially saying, “The market isn’t regulated enough, so we can’t start regulating it.”

HP: Yes. You know, to one degree, there is a bit of logic to that. I had that same reaction as you had. The counterpoint I would offer is that we’ve got futures markets, so those markets are still relatively new, so as those markets develop, you’ll see more institutionalization and more regulation.

So there are different avenues through which you can arrive at regulation, but that’s part of what I was trying to get at with the institutionalization qualm of my dissent: If you really want this market to be more orderly, then you’ve got to let some of these forces in that are going to bring order to it.

[Here’s] another interesting point: I think some of the people in the Bitcoin community would not welcome an ETP because that’s precisely the point of why they wanted this decentralized financial system, [one] that did not involve traditional players in the financial market.

BM: The SEC has, understandably, been leading efforts to regulate the crypto industry. Are there other federal departments and agencies that you believe could be picking up some slack to give the industry some clarity regarding legislation?

HP: The problem is that we each have our own regulatory jurisdiction, and so for something like an ETP, we’re the only game in town. You know, that’s not totally true because you could go to a different country as some folks have done. But if you’re talking about in the U.S., outside of the ETPs, people are thinking about ICOs. [ICOs are] something we have to address, whether or not something’s a security.

So I think we really do have a role to play, but on the positive side — you know, I’ve been fairly negative about where the SEC has been on some of this stuff — but on the positive side, we do have Valerie Szczepanik who is focusing on cryptocurrency issues in the division of corporation finance. She is someone who is quite knowledgeable. From people I’ve talked to outside of the agency who work in the crypto space, they’re quite comfortable with her as the top staff regulator in this space because she is quite knowledgeable. I do think that there is a positive trend going on here, as well.

That said, I think your point is a good one, as there are other regulators that are looking at this space more generally. There’s the CFTC, there’s the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s sandbox. There are different ways, and I think part of what we’re going to have to do is work with our fellow regulators because part of the problem is that it’s not clear which regulatory box things fit in. I think there needs to be more cross agency work so that we can encourage each other through that process.

Look, some of these technologies are here to stay and we’re going to have to figure out how to build a regulatory framework or build on our existing regulatory framework to make sure that these products and the people designing them and the people who are thinking about possible use cases can come and get guidance on how they can operate within legal parameters.

BM: In your dissent, you write that “the order analyzes the ETPs through a legal and regulatory framework derived from prior approval orders for commodities with very different characteristics.” In your opinion, does bitcoin and the wider crypto market that it’s spawned deserve their own regulatory guidelines? Do we need to write a new playbook for a new market?

HP: Is it an asset class that we need to design a new regulatory framework for? Maybe, but maybe that’s not the best approach. To the extent that something is being offered and is actually a security then we should probably regulate it as such.

The questions that people have now are “How long is it a security?” and “How do we trade these in a way that is in line with securities laws?” I tend to think — and I’m open to being convinced otherwise — but I tend to think that the right approach is to work with our existing securities law framework. To the extent that something is a commodity, work with our commodities law framework and to see whether there are areas where we need to provide guidance or update our rules to accommodate any difference.

BM: It’s something that a lot of us in the space juggle around with because we get frustrated when we see what appear to be antiquated guidelines imposing rules on something that is completely new. And there are certain areas where it is a little more cut and dried with securities.

HP: To that point, to the extent that there are specific guidelines that you all are running up against that are proving problematic to engaging in legitimate activity, I’d like to hear about those. Because it’s often talked about in these broad strokes.

I’d like to know: What are the particular issues you’re running up against that are giving concern to you? That’s really helpful because we can think about areas where we may need to update our rules or issue guidance to make it work.

BM: In the dissent, you write “when we do finally approve an ETP on bitcoin...” You didn’t say if. Do you believe this is inevitable?

HP: [Laughing] I’m a bit optimistic.

BM: Perhaps not inevitable but probable?

HP: Well, the reason that I anticipate that it’s probable is because there’s a lot of investor demand. And I think at some point that that will help push the agency. When that point will come, I can’t speculate on.

BM: Do you think that surveillance-sharing agreements are going to be a large part of this?

HP: Well, the order did focus on surveillance-sharing agreements as something that it was looking at, though I don’t know if the order’s authors would say that that’s the only approach for approval.

We consider each of these on the facts and circumstances, and that is how it should be. So I’m not speculating on any particular product, but I do think that there is interest in this area and I’m hopeful that, ultimately, we’ll be able to get there with an approval.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

from InvestmentOpportunityInCryptocurrencies via Ella Macdermott on Inoreader https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/not-great-precedent-hester-peirce-discusses-secs-latest-etf-decision/

[doctorwhonews]

Torchwood: Believe (Big Finish)

Latest Review: Writer: Guy Adams Director: Scott Handcock Featuring:John Barrowman, Gareth David-Lloyd, Eve Myles, Naoko Mori, Burn Gorman, Arthur Darvill Big Finish Release (United Kingdom) Running Time: 3 hours Released by Big Finish Productions - April 2018 Order from Amazon UK "We're responsible for everything we do, Val. Every book you've written for money that tells people what to think, every DVD you've produced for money that tells people what to change about their lives. Every speech, every assembly, every word - you don't get to do that and shrug away the responsibility." Upon learning of Big Finish’s successful acquisition of the Torchwood licence back in 2015, fans the world over – this reviewer included – immediately began drafting their personal wish-lists for the franchise’s impending audio continuation. What happened next after Miracle Day? Could Owen and / or Tosh return to the fold despite their demises in 2008’s “Exit Wounds”? Was it time to learn the fabled secrets of Torchwood Two? And no, seriously, when were we moving on from Miracle Day so as to get that failed US soft reboot’s sour taste out of our palettes? Perhaps the most pressing point on the agenda, however, was just how swiftly the studio could reunite Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones, Toshiko Sato and Owen Harper for any lost missions beyond those we witnessed on-screen in Seasons One and Two. Well, we’ve waited three years – the Owen-less 10th anniversary celebration The Torchwood Archive notwithstanding – to discover the answer, but it comes in the form of perhaps the range’s most satisfying boxset to date, Torchwood: Believe. Isolating his latest scripts from both the sinister activities of the Committee in Big Finish’s monthly releases and Cardiff’s present apocalyptic state in Aliens Among Us proves a genuine masterstroke on Guy Adams’ part. Rather than forcing newcomers enticed by the return of all five Torchwood Three members to hit pause and purchase past releases in order to decipher what’s occurring here, the regular range contributor delivers a totally standalone affair, albeit one which still packs no shortage of emotional punches thanks to further exploring many thematic and character strands first established in the original show. Part of what makes this approach so successful from the outset is how comfortably familiar Believe’s opening moments will seem to those fans who’ve followed the show in all its forms since Day One (episodic pun fully intended). At first, we’re presented with a run-of-the-mill debrief led by Owen into the ongoing exploits of the Church of the Outsiders, a seemingly innocuous religious cult whose efforts to hasten humanity’s ascent to meet – and interbreeding with – alien species include stealing classified UNIT data, dabbling in illegal cyber augmentation as well as setting up their own TV channel, community centres and full-fledged indoctrinatory academy. It’s a quintessential sequence that feels ripped straight out of the TV show, with each cast member helping to remind us of the lead ensemble’s witty rapport: Owen (Gorman) righteously assured of his every move’s necessity, Toshiko (Mori)’s reserved tendency to serve as the voice of reason, Ianto (David-Lloyd)’s still-growing confidence within the team dynamic, Gwen (Myles)’s often gung-ho attitude tempered by the personal grounding that she brings to the agency and Jack (Barrowman) as enigmatic as he is charismatic. So far so Torchwood, then? Clearly, we’re in for three hours’ worth of Avengers: Infinity War-style crossover banter, right? Not exactly. As Adams and producer James Goss accurately highlighted in the midst of Believe’s pre-release marketing campaign, the show – in its on-screen incarnation – would often split up the team to achieve different goals within the context of the wider mission, thereby allowing time to explore how each character’s individual passions and flaws affected their outlook on increasingly hostile situations. Indeed, the same rings true here as Ianto pairs himself with one of the Church’s devoted disciples to further investigate their goals, Tosh pursues the sect’s resident accountant Frank Layton (brought to life with self-titled and loathsomely complacent aplomb by ex-Doctor Who companion Arthur Darvill) and Gwen meets Church leader Val’s introverted daughter Andromeda, all while Owen oversees operations from the Hub and Jack heads off to pastures unknown. Yet to simply describe Believe as but a scattershot collection of plot threads which eventually converge would severely undermine the scale of Adams’ achievement, not least in challenging each member of the team with dilemmas the likes of which they’ve arguably never faced before. The Church’s interstellar ambitions resonate in extremely different ways for each of our protagonists, with Jack for instance earnestly admitting his yearning to travel the stars as he once did with the Doctor, Ianto – as with The Last Beacon in April – once again forced to consider whether his ties with Torchwood Three threaten to rob him of any soul, hope or life meaning, and most notably the show’s beloved unrequited romance between Owen and Tosh taking the most disturbing detour imaginable. For make no mistake, the scribe who showed us Suzie’s darkest inhibitions in Moving Target and took Gwen on a high-octane car chase with her local counsellor in More Than This has no qualms about taking further bold risks this time around either. Much as Gorman and Mori looked overjoyed to reunite their wayward almost-lovers when posting about their recording experiences on Twitter, the pair – both as actors and characters – are put through the dramatic ringer and then some here, Tosh’s efforts to extract any key intel possible from Layton about his supposedly selfless church-turned-charity soon developing into Children of Earth-level territory which could uproot her budding romantic tension with Mr. Harper forever. Think of a fall from grace on the scale of a Greek tragedy and you'll only just scratch the surface what's in store, as one of the pair colossally oversteps their reach to devastating effect. Thank goodness, then, that both stars knock the ball out of the metaphorical park with captivating, psychologically intricate and often downright heartbreaking performances. We’ll avoid spoilers here for the sake of preserving your listening experience, save for that the Tosh-Layton storyline builds to an extremely unsettling crescendo, to a place where this reviewer isn’t entirely sure even the TV show would’ve dared to tread on BBC One / Two / Three. Heck, Big Finish themselves rarely tend to stray into territory as macabre as this, barring some of their early Doctor Who Main Release excursions like Colditz or the Doctor Who: Unbound range, but when the results are so painstakingly powerful and haunting as this, one almost wishes that they’d take the leap of faith more often. Such narrative ambition on Adams’ part doesn’t end there – it pervades Believe on a conceptual level as well. Ever since juggling verbose duck companions with religious satire in The Holy Terror, Big Finish have shown their complete willingness to interrogate faith, its cathartic and chaos-inducing consequences for its followers / opponents, as well as whether anyone has the right to brazenly dispel theistic beliefs. Believe takes this contemplation to another level altogether, as Jack’s met with the profound existential dilemma of knowing that the Church’s desire to have humanity mingle with aliens will eventually come to pass, while Owen considers whether he’s fuelling the mission out of mere ego or indignation at religious groups’ naivety surrounding the afterlife, and Ianto undergoes an epiphany surrounding that aforementioned intervention by Torchwood into the beliefs of others without any consideration for the victims left behind come the mission’s denouement. Rhian Blundell's superb work as Ianto's endearingly sincere and passionate guide Erin helps immeasurably in the latter regard, with her and David-Lloyd's characters striking up a quaint college romance of sorts that won't fail to take even the biggest Jones-Harkness shippers off guard. Two questions might justifiably have occurred to readers of this review by now: why didn’t Torchwood Season Two’s final episodes make mention of these character moments if they’re so pivotal, and where does the inevitable alien antagonist factor into processes? Let’s tackle those in linear order – unlike Believe’s refreshingly non-linear structure, with Episode 1 in particular zipping cleverly between Owen’s initial debrief and each teammate’s consequent mission. Considering that Adams’ exemplary three-part tale situates itself explicitly between the events of “A Day in the Death” and “Fragments”, that it’s so intent on progressing arguably unresolved threads from the show such as the extents of Tosh’s loyalty, Ianto’s increasingly challenged worldview and Jack’s tendency to withhold the truth even from his comrades might stretch the credibility of its status as a ‘canonical’ in-between-quel for some. Nevertheless, just as some of Big Finish’s finest Who productions took slight liberties with continuity in the name of ambitious storytelling, so too does Believe admirably follow that route so as to truly test our perceptions of these evolving characters in fascinating, often remarkably unsettling ways. That also brings us onto its aforementioned extraterrestrial presence – again, staying clear of spoilers, Torchwood’s finest hours frequently arose from dealing with the worst of humanity rather than alien foes, which affords Adams the creative licence here to pit the team against fallible but equally rational members of their species whose sympathetic motivations only further the personal stakes for both factions. So in spite of bringing together the Famous Five as well as temporarily restoring classic elements from the show such as the fully-operational Hub and – of course – the SUV, Torchwood: Believe fast cements itself as anything but your average all-guns-blazing detective drama. There’s no denying that its audacious character arcs, unspeakably heartrending performances from Gorman and Mori, and realistic shades of moral greyness will result in a challenging listening experience for long-term fans, but those elements also set the boxset apart as an awards-worthy tour de force in truly provocative science-fiction. Between the masterful Beacon and the game-changing Believe, 2018 could be the year where everything changes for Big Finish’s Torchwood range; if that’s the case, then one thing’s for sure – Guy Adams and his entire lead cast are ready. http://reviews.doctorwhonews.net/2018/05/torchwood_believe_big_finish.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr