#but the idea that he was searching for community and brotherhood to some degree is not that far fetched

[bunisher]

i need all future comics writers of frank (and anyone on DDBA) to stop trying to write him as a guy who had a normal childhood and was always just kinda Like That. or that he was simply destined to become the punisher, but that’s kind of a separate topic.

people who go into the military at 18 rarely have normal childhoods, they are often raised in abusive environments that are normalized. the urge to go into the military typically does not come from people who aren’t used to some form of abuse, because why would you willingly want to go into that? unless you are susceptible to indoctrination toward having faith in a system from a young age and aren’t able to discern the red flags? the military system preys on poor young men in particular by scouting them and offering all these bells and whistles (free college, healthcare, community) and feelings of importance, but then just forgets about them afterward.

side note: it’s actually such a disservice to many veterans to forget about how the military is an abusive system. it literally strips you of everything with no help in reintegrating back into society (other than by members of the same community). i get TPS1 tried to do something with this but dropped the ball. it feels like many writers just use his marine background as some sort of fun fact that only comes into play with certain things, but it very much shapes who you are and changes your identity. it’s a very cult-like system.

many people who want to serve are related to others who have prior. many people (especially men) who want to serve at that age have an underlying need that they think can be met. many people are brainwashed by military propaganda and believe it is the right thing to do. especially when it comes to religion, there’s this idea of men using their bodies to protect the innocent that goes back hundreds of years, and this idea of serving god, which we see young francis try to do in two ways. (side note: why do they keep removing his religious background? i liked the nod to it in the nmcu but it seems modern comics writers (looking at you jason aaron) just forget this?) besides, the functions of religion for people are very similar to the functions of the military as far as members go, namely community and a sense of greater purpose.

to me, as a reader/watcher, threads of probable abuse history are present in frank’s character, and i wish we had a writer brave enough to write about it. why else would he care so much about innocents and victims? why else would he become suicidal and guilt stricken when he hurts an innocent? it makes you think: was there no one who protected him or someone else he knew?

and this may not mean anything but idk i think he’s so much more tragic and juicy if you look at him like someone who is not the perfect victim (and maybe doesn’t even recognize their abuse) but someone who instead of healing and becoming soft, becomes angry and violent afterward. trauma, especially repeated trauma, does not effect people all the same way and i really wish they would just be bold enough to work with that. i get trying to piss off the alt right but completely changing the character to fit the same stereotype of a ‘psychopath’ (which is an outdated term) as they do in horror movies about killer children is just poor writing. again, talking about punisher 2022, but this was kinda in nmcu too. and sure yeah they’ve retired his character (but not the punisher….? ok) in the comics, but for when he inevitably does come back, yeah.

[sillicii]

✦ — 18+ Chatbot | Noah Campbell | precarious liaisons — ✦

✦ — ᴏᴄ | ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡɪʟᴅ | 𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐠𝐢𝐟𝐭 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 — ✦

ᴀɴʏᴘᴏᴠ | sғᴡ ɪɴᴛʀᴏ | ᴅᴀʀᴋ ᴛʜᴇᴍᴇs ᴄᴡ: cult, hostage, imprisonment, non-con elements

Character Description:

Background:

Noah Campbell grew up in a wealthy family and became interested in travel, photography and journalism from a young age. He and his family are based in New York City. He is the descendant of a famed English explorer and his family has a history of exploration and discovery. He pursued a journalism and photography degree at college and was able to secure a job at a famous wildlife publication using his family’s connections. Through that start and his own family’s funding, he was able to pursue higher profile cases and often sought after stories that he had a personal interest in before selling the stories to publications. His most recent story covered a whistleblower that had fled America after exposing a government secret.

Scenario:

Noah was investigating rumours of abuse and kidnapping within the ‘Brotherhood Five’ compound when his cover was blown and captured by the Holt, the cult leader. After days of being roughed up, Holt hands Noah over to their child {{user}} as a pet. Noah is currently sat in a dirty wooden cage and has his arms and hands tied up by thick rope and is barefoot.

First message:

It had meant to be a simple undercover job. Get in and get out. Noah had heard some sickening rumours about a reclusive group settled in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. Nothing concrete. Just unconfirmed stories passed along by word of mouth, but the tales of abuse, kidnapping and exploitation soon got around Noah’s circle and he found himself intrigued by the idea of a modern-day cult operating out of the famed Appalachian range. An area still mostly untouched by civilisation and origin to numerous tales of unsavoury characters, conflicts between rifle wielding clans of moonshiners, and mysteries entering the realm of supernatural. So, Noah packed his bag and made his way north in search of the group. The only thing his initial research brought up was the names Brotherhood Five and a man named Holt who apparently ruled the commune with an iron fist. There had been rumours of unscrupulous activities. Violence. Sexual abuse. Polyamory. Kidnapping. Members being held against their wills. It hadn’t been anything Noah had not witnessed before and he imagined that there wouldn’t be any nasty surprises… but boy was he wrong. What was meant to be a routine infiltration, befriending and documenting turned sour quickly. Despite having very little connection to the outside world, it appeared that Holt knew exactly who Noah was even before he arrived at their gates under the pretence of being interested in their rural lifestyle. Holt had acted as a gracious host and humoured him for a day, taking him around the gated compound and introducing their practices to Noah as if he truly believed Noah to be a wayward soul looking to join their community. However, it would only be the first night when Noah was dragged from his makeshift cot in the middle of the night and taken into a wooded area away from the huts where he was subsequently beat and then tied up and left in a homemade wooden cage. He had everything stripped off him and he knew that his own belongings left by his cot side would also be up for grabs and of they didn’t already know who he was then they were about to find out all the information and photographs he had documented since he had arrived. His journal which included paragraphs of his observations and interviews he had with some locals on his way to the compound. Days went by and it appeared that the only concerns the men in charge of his daily beatings had were handing out those said beatings. He hadn’t eaten or had water for days and he was beginning to grow weak. Noah tried to stay focused and it was only on what he thought to be the third day of his confinement did Holt finally show his face. On his heel was a small figure, one he recognised as one of Holt’s many offspring, Noah remembered meeting you briefly when he was shown around the first day. He recalled you best because Holt actually took the time to introduce you, clearly you were his favourite. “Look at ya, mister hotshot journalist or whatever you are,” Holt sneered down at Noah with his nose upturned. “I had every thought to shoot ya and bury ya round back… but my sweet lil {{user}} insisted I don’t…” Noah watched emotionlessly as a look of unease crossed your face when your eyes met and you shifted slightly. “Here kiddo, he’s all yours…” Holt patted you on the shoulder before walking off, leaving you behind with him. “Take good care of your new pet now.”

[iolrachs]

1989, 11th July - Alex is born to Tom and Anna Weiss in Lakeville, Minnesota.

1998 - A nine year old Alex learns to hack, inspired by his older sister, Kaz.

2003 - Tom begins to teach a fourteen year old Alex how to shoot a pistol, taking him to a shooting gallery most weekends.

2007, September - Tom suffers a heart attack and dies, leaving behind Anna, Kaz, and an eighteen year old Alex.

2007, September - Alex begins a four year course at the University of Minnesota, majoring in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Computer Engineering. During this time, he joined the Minnesota Running Club.

2010 - Kaz marries Lucya. Alex is the best man at her wedding.

2011, June - Alex graduates from the University of Minnesota with full honours.

                 - Alex remains unemployed, albeit with a sideline in computer repair. The majority of his income, however, comes from hacking gambling sites to increase the odds of him winning.

2013 - After hacking into several government databases and being hunted by the governments in question, Alex came to Conrad Roth for sanctuary on his research vessel. Though he initially offered to work for free, Roth allowed him to stay aboard and welcomed him into his crew as a technician.

- Alex meets Lara Croft and Sam Nishimura, as well as the rest of the Endurance crew, finding his old friend Jonah a member. Alex immediately develops a crush on Lara, nurturing it in secret, though his over-awkwardness annoys Lara to some degree, and becomes fast friends with Sam.

- Alex meets Dr Whitman after the Endurance is hired to help in filming Whitman’s World. Alex does not take kindly to him, having hacked into files about his private life and discovered his messy divorce and financial strife.

- Roth charges Alex with forging the necessary permits for the ship and the expedition, including the crew.

- While setting up a Wi-Fi range extender for the Endurance, Alex fell overboard. He was saved by Lara, though pushed back into the water by Sam in mischief.

- With the expedition to find Yamatai on hold due to funding issues, Alex presents a solution in the form of a self-made 99.9% hacking program. He uses it on gambling sites to increase their chances of winning and accrue the necessary funds – however, the 0.1% chance of detection occurs and Alex is forced to throw his computer overboard to avoid being traced.

- While at sea, the Endurance needed an intermediate repair in the engine room. While Alex insisted it was a mechanical fault, Reyes correctly informed him it was an electrical fault. In attempting to make a joke, Alex made a flirtatious remark about a girl in Reyes’ photo – a girl he soon learned, around the foot in his mouth and disbelief at his own idiocy, was Reyes’ 14 year old daughter.

March - The crew came to a crossroads midway into their journey. Lara suggested venturing into the Dragon’s Triangle, where Whitman rebuked the idea. Alex hacked into a satellite to show the weather conditions over the triangle – with the storms there and Lara citing Himiko’s apparent myth for controlling the weather, a myth that could have some element of truth, Roth decided to make for the Triangle.

- At 11pm, in the vicinity of Yamatai, a storm strikes the Endurance and cleaves her in two. Alex manages to escape the shipwreck and makes it to the beach with Reyes, Jonah, Grim, Sam, Whitman, and another crew member. Although Alex tried to save him with CPR, the crew member died on the beach.

- The crew reunites with Lara while she is caught in a bear trap, having been searching for the kidnapped Sam and Mathias. The crew free Lara and split up – one to go with Lara and head for Roth, who is communicating via radio and attempting to gather all crew at his location, and the rest to fan out and find Sam. Alex offers to go with Lara, but is denied by Whitman, and joins the party searching for Sam.

- When Lara attempts to use an abandoned radio tower to boost the rescue beacon from the Endurance to call for help, it is Alex who talks her through both finding the control bank and the method of patching the signal manually through the tower’s maintenance box.

- While searching for Sam near Himiko’s palace, Reyes, Alex, and Jonah are taken captive by the Solarii Brotherhood and imprisoned in an old airplane wreck suspended in the underground geothermal caverns. The three are rescued by Lara, though are separated from her again while she returns to the caves to hunt for Sam and Whitman.

- The three manage to escape and reunite with Sam, but are cornered by the Solarii and begin a gun battle to fend them off. With Roth and Lara on a helicopter Roth had called, it seems the four will be left to the islanders, until Lara forces the pilot to land for their friends.

- Roth dies protecting Lara, and Alex attends his funeral pyre burial. He suggests to Lara that they only need to regroup, though he agrees there is something strange about the island. He leaves with Reyes, Jonah, and Sam to go to the old PT boat on the beach, with Reyes believing she can repair it sufficiently to allow them to escape.

- With the boat in bad condition, it becomes apparent Reyes needs her tools from the Endurance to properly repair the boat. Taking inspiration from Lara’s “See what you can do.”, Alex volunteers to fetch the tools from the wreck.

- He manages to successfully evade the Solarii raiding the wreck for scrap, as well as climb and travel over dangerous terrain to reach the wreck. On reaching the engine room, however, Alex was surprised by a Solarii gunman. Their brief gunfight saw Alex come out victorious, however a steel girder and several other pieces of the Endurance’s ceiling were loosened in the battle. They came crashing down on Alex, severely injuring his leg and pinning it beneath the metal beams, trapping him there until Lara came.

- Though she attempted to remove the debris, it caused Alex too much pain. The Solarii, aware of Lara’s presence and previously alerted by the sound of Alex’s gunshots, stormed the engine room, engaging in a brief exchange of bullets. After convincing Lara to leave him and return to Reyes with the tools, Alex shot at the ruptured gas pipe, causing an explosion that rocked the ship and ultimately had Lara presume he was dead. Instead, Alex was severely burned along his left side and right arm, thrown from the debris into a lower room by the blast. He was knocked unconscious and sealed within the room as the Endurance sank, with only a limited supply of air.

- Waking up on the seafloor some unknown period of time later, Alex knew he had to act. If his air supply did not run out, it would be the mounting pressure that killed him, his saving prison already groaning under the weight. Eventually forcing himself to stand, though he could not put his weight on the injured leg, Alex dragged himself to the room door, where he forced it open and attempted to swim to the surface before the pressure killed him through knocking all air for his lungs and drowning him, or by giving him brain damage in the process. Successfully making it to the surface, Alex makes for the remaining half of the Endurance, seeking to raid what medical supplies may be left in order to treat his wounds.

- A tourniquet tied around his leg and what bandages he could find binding his leg in a makeshift splint, Alex retreats to rest for the night, resolving to return to the crew in the morning. By the time he awakens, however, Lara and the crew have already journeyed inland to rescue Sam.

- Alex slowly drags himself to the beach, forced to take frequent breaks and rely almost entirely on a crutch (his leg is useless, he knows this, he knows this, but still he forces himself to go on). It is there he sees the PT boat leaving off in the distance, Lara having rescued Sam from Himiko. Though he tries to hail them, his voice is too hoarse, his body too weak, and so they leave without hearing him.

- Three months pass, and Alex is still on the island. His leg is barely healed, broken and twisted beyond all compare. Though he refuses to look, gangrene has begun to set in to the wound by the second month, despite his attempts to keep the wound clean. He searches for any other possible way off the island, evading the stragglers of the Solarii and killing them where he must.

- By the sixth month, Alex resolves that the only possible way to escape is to hail for rescue from the radio tower as Lara did. It takes him several weeks to cross the island, slowed as he is by injury and his leg, and several days to climb the tower. On his descent from the tower, his leg gives out and he falls from the last ladder, breaking his right arm.

early September: Lara travels to Pripyat at the behest of her hallucinations of Alex. There, she meets his sister, Kaz, and her family-in-law, and defends them from Trinity. Although Viktor and Kirill are killed by Mr Cruz, it is revealed that Lucya is still alive, having faked her death to escape Trinity. Lucya, Kaz, Varvara, and Pavel are all taken into Witness Protection, where Lara gives them burner phones that they may remain in contact with her should they need her.

late October - Alex is rescued by plane and flown to Bokutoh Hospital for emergency treatment. He is treated for sepsis and found to be suffering from septic shock; his arm is set and his leg, too far ravaged by gangrene and infection, is amputated above the knee. He remains in a medically induced comatose state for several weeks, half-dead and kept alive by IV lines and antibiotics.

2014, January - Alex begins to stir. Although still disorientated and incredibly weak, hospital staff manage to get two sentences from him – Lara Croft and Yamatai.

- Although not enough to identify him, as his identification was left in the Endurance, Alex’s repeated murmurs of ‘Lara Croft’ drive hospital staff to find her in the hopes she might know their mystery patient. She is located on account of her publishing her testimony of what happened on Yamatai.

10th February - Lara Croft is contacted. She does not remain convinced the hospital have the right person, until Yamatai is mentioned. She immediately packs and fly for Japan.

11th February - Lara reunites with Alex. At first she does not believe it is him, believing instead that it is a hallucination or a cruel joke. Though Alex manages to convince her, through tears on both parts, he is still not strong enough and falls asleep again.

12th February - Lara contacts Jonah, Reyes, and Sam to inform them of Alex’s survival. They all fly to the hospital to see Alex with their own eyes and reunite with one they thought dead.

15th February - With Alex’s permission, Lara has him transferred to Royal Surrey County Hospital, so that she and Sam may keep watch over him.

17th March - With doctors finally satisfied he is recovered enough to be released, Alex is discharged. He is offered a place to live by Lara, in her London apartment with her and Sam.

1st April - Alex begins the process of being fitted for a prosthetic leg. Although he tries to argue, Lara insists on paying for the whole process, as well as his rehabilitation and learning to walk.

November - Atlas DeMornay forces Lara to attend therapy and prove she is of sound mind before he allows her access to her fortune. It is revealed to Alex and Sam by Atlas that Lara is in fact a Lady.

- Obsessed with proving her legitimacy, Lara begins a search for the Divine Source. Although forbidden to accompany her physically, Alex remains in London as technological backup, ready to hack and find information and funding as Lara needs it.

- Following her return from Syria, Lara returns to Croft Manor, bringing Alex and Sam with her. Though it is Lara who does all the work, Alex still attempts to help her find evidence she is the rightful owner of the estate and her inheritance.

- Lara and Jonah fly out to Siberia to find the lost city of Kitezh. Alex remains in Croft Manor with Sam, helping out in the restoration where he can and waiting for Lara to return.

[campchest7-blog]

Do you know the Illuminati Membership rights Requirements?

For those that believe in the Illuminati and masons order and even may just want to know some basic specifications before subscribing to up, we will see how. However we need to communicate about this class referred to as the Illuminati, I'm definitely not sampling into whether it is actual or fake, or even whether or not they really do give riches or maybe not. I'll try to found the facts and let you decide on your own personal. What is this party? The Illuminati and freemasons is matching to many conspiracy theorists is a secret cult that believes in dominating the entire world, certainly not just the fact that they want to control everything that happens within the world, as outlined by them they are all above several areas of existence which include yet not limited to be able to politics, sports, enjoyment and others. This is so why they may afford to give would be preferred associates untold riches. Nonetheless can be this really the case? 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Whether this is usually true or definitely not one particular thing is selected, the particular Illuminati successfully masterminded french revolution which lasted by 1789 to 1799, which will led to French using typically the republic form involving governance within the old monarchy technique. Using the success connected with the French wave, the Illuminati tried this throughout various countries with distinct degrees of success. At this time Presently, the Illuminati is usually being considered the fastest means to get dollars and power, effortless of which numerous powerful politicians, Marketers, entertainers especially music designer are part of this brotherhood. 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Regarding the class that says you should permit Masons and illuminati agents to come for you to an individual, they furthermore state you must by way of your behavior entice them to a person. Such actions are rapid Using their signs: Building sure you use their particular symbols daily. this is going to really indicate that a person are part of them all. This particular calls for you understand some of such signs. Engaging in activities they like: Such activities could be within form involving moral and bodily assistance to any cause you perceive to be from Illuminati and masons. For how to join illuminati , the particular Illuminati center principle will be founded on the idea associated with changing the word order, when you are a revolutionist, they are really bound to just like you. This group tells whatever you do, that could attract them do that, there may be the catch you must definitely not go severe with whichever activities employ in. You also should not harm anybody physically. The particular challenge with the viewpoint regarding group A is that one may never understand if he or your woman is doing all the stuff accurately, more important, anybody can never ever know whether they is going to notice and when just he or she may be accepted to the participant. There is no sort out responses. Enter group M, individuals who say you have to go to them. They will say before you can certainly sick them out as well as their providers you have to prepare your mind by means of Having some sort of sturdy cardiovascular: Yes is necessary a strong cardiovascular system to get you to cope, along with their pursuits specially when it comes sacrifices. -- You must consider: Immediately after verifying facts and this fiction that you are still convinced that this is usually true then you can after that go on and seek them out. The thing is how does one particular really find them outside even if this is true? A good Google search will throw up a lot of ways to link up, this 'ways' usually needs money. So how truly does one avoid scammers and sign up for for real? After excavating online coupled together with some research I identified out that there will be just a couple of details regarding how one can sign up to the particular Illuminati. Whether they job I'm certainly not sure.

[invctus]

1989, 11th July - Alex is born to Tom and Anna Weiss in Lakeville, Minnesota.

1998 - A nine year old Alex learns to hack, inspired by his older sister, Kaz.

2003 - Tom begins to teach a fourteen year old Alex how to shoot a pistol, taking him to a shooting gallery most weekends.

2007, September - Tom suffers a heart attack and dies, leaving behind Anna, Kaz, and an eighteen year old Alex.

2007, September - Alex begins a four year course at the University of Minnesota, majoring in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Computer Engineering. During this time, he joined the Minnesota Running Club.

2010 - Kaz marries Lucya. Alex is the best man at her wedding.

2011, June - Alex graduates from the University of Minnesota with full honours.

                - Alex remains unemployed, albeit with a sideline in computer repair. The majority of his income, however, comes from hacking gambling sites to increase the odds of him winning.

2013 - After hacking into several government databases and being hunted by the governments in question, Alex came to Conrad Roth for sanctuary on his research vessel. Though he initially offered to work for free, Roth allowed him to stay aboard and welcomed him into his crew as a technician.

- Alex meets Lara Croft and Sam Nishimura, as well as the rest of the Endurance crew, finding his old friend Jonah a member. Alex immediately develops a crush on Lara, nurturing it in secret, though his over-awkwardness annoys Lara to some degree, and becomes fast friends with Sam.

- Alex meets Dr Whitman after the Endurance is hired to help in filming Whitman’s World. Alex does not take kindly to him, having hacked into files about his private life and discovered his messy divorce and financial strife.

- Roth charges Alex with forging the necessary permits for the ship and the expedition, including the crew.

- While setting up a Wi-Fi range extender for the Endurance, Alex fell overboard. He was saved by Lara, though pushed back into the water by Sam in mischief.

- With the expedition to find Yamatai on hold due to funding issues, Alex presents a solution in the form of a self-made 99.9% hacking program. He uses it on gambling sites to increase their chances of winning and accrue the necessary funds – however, the 0.1% chance of detection occurs and Alex is forced to throw his computer overboard to avoid being traced.

- While at sea, the Endurance needed an intermediate repair in the engine room. While Alex insisted it was a mechanical fault, Reyes correctly informed him it was an electrical fault. In attempting to make a joke, Alex made a flirtatious remark about a girl in Reyes’ photo – a girl he soon learned, around the foot in his mouth and disbelief at his own idiocy, was Reyes’ 14 year old daughter.

March - The crew came to a crossroads midway into their journey. Lara suggested venturing into the Dragon’s Triangle, where Whitman rebuked the idea. Alex hacked into a satellite to show the weather conditions over the triangle – with the storms there and Lara citing Himiko’s apparent myth for controlling the weather, a myth that could have some element of truth, Roth decided to make for the Triangle.

- At 11pm, in the vicinity of Yamatai, a storm strikes the Endurance and cleaves her in two. Alex manages to escape the shipwreck and makes it to the beach with Reyes, Jonah, Grim, Sam, Whitman, and another crew member. Although Alex tried to save him with CPR, the crew member died on the beach.

- The crew reunites with Lara while she is caught in a bear trap, having been searching for the kidnapped Sam and Mathias. The crew free Lara and split up – one to go with Lara and head for Roth, who is communicating via radio and attempting to gather all crew at his location, and the rest to fan out and find Sam. Alex offers to go with Lara, but is denied by Whitman, and joins the party searching for Sam.

- When Lara attempts to use an abandoned radio tower to boost the rescue beacon from the Endurance to call for help, it is Alex who talks her through both finding the control bank and the method of patching the signal manually through the tower’s maintenance box.

- While searching for Sam near Himiko’s palace, Reyes, Alex, and Jonah are taken captive by the Solarii Brotherhood and imprisoned in an old airplane wreck suspended in the underground geothermal caverns. The three are rescued by Lara, though are separated from her again while she returns to the caves to hunt for Sam and Whitman.

- The three manage to escape and reunite with Sam, but are cornered by the Solarii and begin a gun battle to fend them off. With Roth and Lara on a helicopter Roth had called, it seems the four will be left to the islanders, until Lara forces the pilot to land for their friends.

- Roth dies protecting Lara, and Alex attends his funeral pyre burial. He suggests to Lara that they only need to regroup, though he agrees there is something strange about the island. He leaves with Reyes, Jonah, and Sam to go to the old PT boat on the beach, with Reyes believing she can repair it sufficiently to allow them to escape.

- With the boat in bad condition, it becomes apparent Reyes needs her tools from the Endurance to properly repair the boat. Taking inspiration from Lara’s “See what you can do.”, Alex volunteers to fetch the tools from the wreck.

- He manages to successfully evade the Solarii raiding the wreck for scrap, as well as climb and travel over dangerous terrain to reach the wreck. On reaching the engine room, however, Alex was surprised by a Solarii gunman. Their brief gunfight saw Alex come out victorious, however a steel girder and several other pieces of the Endurance’s ceiling were loosened in the battle. They came crashing down on Alex, severely injuring his leg and pinning it beneath the metal beams, trapping him there until Lara came.

- Though she attempted to remove the debris, it caused Alex too much pain. The Solarii, aware of Lara’s presence and previously alerted by the sound of Alex’s gunshots, stormed the engine room, engaging in a brief exchange of bullets. After convincing Lara to leave him and return to Reyes with the tools, Alex shot at the ruptured gas pipe, causing an explosion that rocked the ship and ultimately had Lara presume he was dead. Instead, Alex was severely burned along his left side and right arm, thrown from the debris into a lower room by the blast. He was knocked unconscious and sealed within the room as the Endurance sank, with only a limited supply of air.

- Waking up on the seafloor some unknown period of time later, Alex knew he had to act. If his air supply did not run out, it would be the mounting pressure that killed him, his saving prison already groaning under the weight. Eventually forcing himself to stand, though he could not put his weight on the injured leg, Alex dragged himself to the room door, where he forced it open and attempted to swim to the surface before the pressure killed him through knocking all air for his lungs and drowning him, or by giving him brain damage in the process. Successfully making it to the surface, Alex makes for the remaining half of the Endurance, seeking to raid what medical supplies may be left in order to treat his wounds.

- A tourniquet tied around his leg and what bandages he could find binding his leg in a makeshift splint, Alex retreats to rest for the night, resolving to return to the crew in the morning. By the time he awakens, however, Lara and the crew have already journeyed inland to rescue Sam.

- Alex slowly drags himself to the beach, forced to take frequent breaks and rely almost entirely on a crutch (his leg is useless, he knows this, he knows this, but still he forces himself to go on). It is there he sees the PT boat leaving off in the distance, Lara having rescued Sam from Himiko. Though he tries to hail them, his voice is too hoarse, his body too weak, and so they leave without hearing him.

- Three months pass, and Alex is still on the island. His leg is barely healed, broken and twisted beyond all compare. Though he refuses to look, gangrene has begun to set in to the wound by the second month, despite his attempts to keep the wound clean. He searches for any other possible way off the island, evading the stragglers of the Solarii and killing them where he must.

- By the sixth month, Alex resolves that the only possible way to escape is to hail for rescue from the radio tower as Lara did. It takes him several weeks to cross the island, slowed as he is by injury and his leg, and several days to climb the tower. On his descent from the tower, his leg gives out and he falls from the last ladder, breaking his right arm.

early September: Lara travels to Pripyat at the behest of her hallucinations of Alex. There, she meets his sister, Kaz, and her family-in-law, and defends them from Trinity. Although Viktor and Kirill are killed by Mr Cruz, it is revealed that Lucya is still alive, having faked her death to escape Trinity. Lucya, Kaz, Varvara, and Pavel are all taken into Witness Protection, where Lara gives them burner phones that they may remain in contact with her should they need her.

late October - Alex is rescued by plane and flown to Bokutoh Hospital for emergency treatment. He is treated for sepsis and found to be suffering from septic shock; his arm is set and his leg, too far ravaged by gangrene and infection, is amputated above the knee. He remains in a medically induced comatose state for several weeks, half-dead and kept alive by IV lines and antibiotics.

2014, January - Alex begins to stir. Although still disorientated and incredibly weak, hospital staff manage to get two sentences from him – Lara Croft and Yamatai.

- Although not enough to identify him, as his identification was left in the Endurance, Alex’s repeated murmurs of ‘Lara Croft’ drive hospital staff to find her in the hopes she might know their mystery patient. She is located on account of her publishing her testimony of what happened on Yamatai.

10th February - Lara Croft is contacted. She does not remain convinced the hospital have the right person, until Yamatai is mentioned. She immediately packs and fly for Japan.

11th February - Lara reunites with Alex. At first she does not believe it is him, believing instead that it is a hallucination or a cruel joke. Though Alex manages to convince her, through tears on both parts, he is still not strong enough and falls asleep again.

12th February - Lara contacts Jonah, Reyes, and Sam to inform them of Alex’s survival. They all fly to the hospital to see Alex with their own eyes and reunite with one they thought dead.

15th February - With Alex’s permission, Lara has him transferred to Royal Surrey County Hospital, so that she and Sam may keep watch over him.

17th March - With doctors finally satisfied he is recovered enough to be released, Alex is discharged. He is offered a place to live by Lara, in her London apartment with her and Sam.

1st April - Alex begins the process of being fitted for a prosthetic leg. Although he tries to argue, Lara insists on paying for the whole process, as well as his rehabilitation and learning to walk.

November - Atlas DeMornay forces Lara to attend therapy and prove she is of sound mind before he allows her access to her fortune. It is revealed to Alex and Sam by Atlas that Lara is in fact a Lady.

- Obsessed with proving her legitimacy, Lara begins a search for the Divine Source. Although forbidden to accompany her physically, Alex remains in London as technological backup, ready to hack and find information and funding as Lara needs it.

- Following her return from Syria, Lara returns to Croft Manor, bringing Alex and Sam with her. Though it is Lara who does all the work, Alex still attempts to help her find evidence she is the rightful owner of the estate and her inheritance.

- Lara and Jonah fly out to Siberia to find the lost city of Kitezh. Alex remains in Croft Manor with Sam, helping out in the restoration where he can and waiting for Lara to return.

[dunkmasterkyouko]

The Role of The Player Protagonist: What Fallout 4 Got Right and What it Got Wrong

Some reflections on the good and bad parts of the “player character” experience of Fallout 4.

There are many ways to approach to the main character of an interactive narrative. Not all game narratives are changed by the player’s actions in particularly meaningful ways, but for a large percentage of games, the player is at least advancing the narrative if nothing else. In doing so, often this entails controlling the protagonist of the narrative.

It’s worth noting that I’m couching my statements a lot. Gaming is a diverse medium, and even the definition of what is a game will change from person to person. Obviously, in some genres such as an RTS, you may not embody a particular protagonist. In some narratives, your level of interaction with the story may be essentially non-existent, and you’re merely piecing together a story from outside of it. For this piece I’m referring to a more specific kind of games where you control a single person for the majority of the experience and push forwards a story of some kind where that single person plays a large part in events.

That established, even this has many branches. There is of course, always the option of giving the player limited control of an already defined character. It’s hard to argue that someone like Lara Croft or Tidus is a meaningful reflection of the player, or that they are particularly defined by the player. Another approach is simply to make the main character so generic that they are easy to relate to for huge numbers of people, simply by never exhibiting particularly strong personality traits that would cause a player to go “I’d never do that!”

Games such as Mass Effect push it one step further. Instead giving you preset character, they give you a choice of two obvious general characters, but allowing you to mix and match a little. Shepard has a last name and some general constraints to their backstory, personality, and appearance, but the player is allowed customization to some degree. Players will often refer to “their Shepard”, and there is uniqueness to each person’s Shepard, but the fact of the matter is that there are marked similarities between them that makes them quite recognisable. One important component of that is the shared voice, which we’ll come back to later.

However, many games prefer to take an approach closer to pen and paper RPGs- you are given constraints in the form of what the system can model, and are encouraged to create your own character within that mold. In fact many of these games originate from pen and paper- Fallout itself was originally intended to be based on the GURPS system.

Of course, given the limitations of computing compared to a human game runner, your options are a little more limited than that. There’s only so many dialogue options they can program in. There’s only so many talents, abilities, and solutions to problems that can be accounted for. You are still in many ways picking from a list still, but it’s a collection of interconnecting lists rather than a set of fully independent stand alone options.

Whatever the particular methods, the end result is a game designed around the assumption that the main character could be any number of people who might have any number of dispositions, skills, personalities, and motivations.

The first way that Fallout 4 goes wrong is a point that I’m far from the first one to make. The main story of Fallout 4 is almost completely devoid of diversity in how it plays out character-to-character. That isn’t to say that there are no choices, but that the player’s role in the story and their character as represented by their actions are almost identical. No matter which faction you choose, no matter what choices you make, no matter who your character is or how they behave, in the main story of Fallout 4 the Sole Survivor is a distraught widow or widower who is desperately searching for their son. They are also passive, stupid, and gullible.

Firstly, it is essentially impossible to establish a character unique motivation for your involvement in the main quest. Using an example that I won’t touch on for the last time, in Fallout New Vegas, you could have any number of reasons for engaging with the main quest at first. Petty revenge for being shot. A search for answers about why you were shot. Simply because you encounter events relating to as you travel the wastes, since the enemy placement and geography funnels you towards the main quest locations. Once Benny is dealt with, which can be done a variety of ways for a variety of reasons, your character still isn’t locked into any one driving motivation. Maybe they’re siding with the NCR because they value stability, or maybe they just want to be on the winning side. Or maybe they just hate the legion. Or think that the NCR is most likely to pay well and not backstab them.

Meanwhile, in Fallout 4, there is one and only one reason to engage with the main story: maternal or paternal instinct. You engage with the main story because you want to save your son, and you are forced to assume that Shaun is alive and forced to decide that it’s logical to bumble around asking people if they’ve seen “a baby”.

This also touches on what I said about the main character always being passive, stupid, and gullible. It is not ever an option to have the sole survivor consider that the first unfreezing did not happen right before they were unfrozen for good. You can occasionally pick a token dialogue option about “maybe Shaun wouldn’t be a baby”, but the Sole Survivor will always behave and speak with the underlying assumption that Shaun is a baby until the child Shaun concept is introduced, at which point they will always act with the assumption that Shaun is about ten. The second I left the vault in Fallout 4, knowing nothing about the plot, I immediately realized that I had absolutely zero idea how old Shaun would be. It could have been a hundred years ago and Shaun was already dead. There was absolutely no way to communicate this as the Sole Survivor. You have to make stupid assumptions because the plot is written that way. Deal with it.

Once you follow the main quest, you are confronted with another problem: you are never allowed to try and solve anything on your own. You go to where people tell you, and follow the leads you are directly handed. You are never given a chance to make any deductions or decisions. You simply go to the next person who might solve things for you randomly. Once again, you’re forced to follow the plot thread of this one mercenary you have a fairly generic description of being definitely 1) still alive 2) infamous enough that people would know he is and 3) still a link to Shaun rather than “I don’t know, someone hired me to steal vault babies”. You are not ever given any option to search in another other way. You describe Kellogg, and you get the dog to track him.

Meanwhile, going back to Fallout New Vegas, you can track Benny however you want. You can follow the breadcrumb trail, asking about a far more noticeable person who you know did something recently rather than an unknown period of time ago, or you can make the logical deduction of, say, going to where you were delivering the package, or going to the central hub of the world, or learning early on that Benny is from New Vegas and making a beeline to him that way. In the original Fallout, you can follow the trail the game sets up for the water chip, or you can simply walk in a direction and find settlements, search for vaults in the mountains, or ignore the quest entirely and focus on exploration until you feel that you’ve met people that might actually know where the water chip is.

I don’t think it’s necessary or called for to go over the main quest step by step criticizing it. The main points are already evident. There are a few more things to mention, however. Firstly, you are never allowed to not fall for the android Shaun. Secondly, you have absolutely no agency over your response to Shaun. You cannot not believe him that he’s your son. You cannot feel no connection to him given that he grew up completely separate to you and there’s no emotional connection to this old man when you were looking for your baby child. You are always emotional to see him and fully believe first that the android is real, and then that Shaun is actually your son, neither with any real evidence other than your magical ability to know what your child would grow up to look like.

The last point on the main story is to revisit the passivity I mentioned earlier. You are fundamentally incapable of making enemies except by allying with their enemies, are completely unable to explain things to people. You cannot ever tell the railroad that you control the institute and that you don’t need to kill them to free the synths. You cannot ever tell the institute that you won’t kill the railroad, and that you’re in charge so they can sit down and shut up. You can tell the brotherhood that you don’t agree with them, but they will continue to treat you like you do. Your character is only ever capable of picking whose orders they follow, even when they’re supposedly the leader of multiple factions.

But, Fallout 4 is not a game that consists of only a main quest. And that’s where Fallout 4 does some things right.

I, like many others, was worried at the announcement of a voiced protagonist. The skeptics predicted- correctly, as it turned out- that this would mean that dialogue would become much less varied and less options would be available. It also made your character less unique- as I mentioned with Shepard earlier, having someone deliver a line in the exact same tone and inflection with the exact same voice makes them seem more identical to another character than just choosing the same text dialogue option. Two couriers can seem completely different, but any two Sole Survivors of the same gender will speak identically.

Generally, in a game like that, it’s troubling to erode a player’s unique identity. However, there is one instance where the uniqueness of a character’s identity doesn’t need to shine through for your to feel like you’re playing your own character.

And that’s when you’re pretending to be someone else.

One of the main draws of the Fallout series for me, and the Elder Scrolls series to a lesser extent, is the appeal of the Kung Fu style wanderer. Travelling to communities that you’re not a part of, experiencing the local flavour, solving problems and then moving on. It’s a fun fantasy, and allows things to seem more alive than they really are. When you’re living in the same city as someone, and you hear their four lines of dialogue ten thousand times, how flat and unreal they are is obvious. But when you’re just passing through, you only see a slice of them, and don’t see that that slice is all that’s there. Fallout 4 presents a number of quests that allow you to seamlessly slip into a place where you don’t belong and merely enjoy the ride for a little while. The two best examples of this for me are the Silver Shroud questline and the Last Voyage of the U.S.S. Constitution quest.

The Silver Shroud quest is not only a lot of fun, but it’s both a reflection of things players do organically and a chance to define your character’s motivation and approach. People will often dress up as things just for fun in these types of game- putting on the Grognak outfit and hitting people with Grognak’s axe is just something you do, not for any in game reason but just because it’s fun. So letting you dress as the Silver Shroud at having it mean something is great. Additionally, you’re allowed to pick how much you want to get into character. You can just interact with the people in the quest normally, but you’re given the option to do silly impressions of the Shroud’s voice and pretend to be the character completely. It’s a rare moment of doing a quest differently than another player in a way that isn’t “oh, I did the evil option”. And you could have any number of motivations for acting like the silver shroud- maybe you’re doing it because you’re trying to bring the legend to life to scare people, maybe you’re humouring the old man, maybe you just find it fun to pretend. Since you’re playing the role of the shroud, all these motivations are plausible even with the same options, because you’re not acting like yourself.

The Last Voyage of the U.S.S. Constitution is a slightly different take, but it’s a similar thing- when the robot announces that you have been drafted, as a citizen of the US, simply saying “oh yeah, of course, lead the way” has room for all kinds of different motivations. And like I said, it’s genuinely fun to just see where whatever strange person you’ve run into is going with this and take a walking tour of a miniature community.

In the end, I still don’t much like Fallout 4 for a variety of reasons. But for all the issues the plot has with giving the player the chance to actually play things out the way they want to, those two side quests are genuinely fond memories that I deeply enjoyed. Sometimes the best way have a quest that any number of different people would do for any number of different reasons is simply to hand someone a costume and whisper “play along”.

[creepingsharia]

Muslims team with antifa to obliterate critics of 'religion of peace'

There are new indications that forces on the left are building coalitions with Muslim Brotherhood fronts and fanning out across the U.S. in search of meetings, conferences, even informal church gatherings where Islam might be discussed in a negative light.

When they find them, they pounce.

The latest attempt to shut down a meeting in which a speaker was planning to provide information critical of Islam occurred in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Ron Branstner, a researcher based out of St. Cloud, Minnesota, had booked space at the Sioux Falls History Club for Oct. 26. This is a club that has a 100-year history of discussing world events from the perspective of free and open debate.

But while driving to the event Thursday night, Branstner received phone a call from the venue and was told not to come. A powerful Democratic politician with connections to the history club had been contacted by a Muslim lawyer named Taneeza Islam.

Apparently, that's all it takes in Sioux Falls to shut down the First Amendment, said Branstner, whose presentation was focused, ironically, on Islam and the First Amendment.

"I was going there to speak about the First Amendment, our first right to free speech, and how it is being stolen from us," Branstner said. "We ended up having to change the venue to another town 27 miles away and so everyone had to drive 27 miles to hear my presentation."

Taneeza Islam

The female Muslim attorney, Taneeza Islam, has connections to radical Islamist Linda Sarsour and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. She is involved with the Islamic Center of Sioux Falls, the same mosque that protested former Muslim Shahram Hadian's speaking event earlier this year in the city.

Taneeza Islam is a Bush Foundation fellow and civil-rights activist who also works as an immigration attorney, representing Muslim refugees and illegal aliens from Central America. She also pushes the idea that anyone who objects to unlimited refugee resettlement and illegal immigration in America is a "white nationalist."

Islam promotes the #CounterACThate meme on Facebook which tries to shut down and destroy ACT For America chapters holding meetings to educate people about Shariah law.

"She's connected to that mosque in Sioux Falls, and very politically active," Hadian said.

And that mosque, the Islamic Center of Sioux Falls, is owned lock, stock and barrel by the North American Islamic Trust or NAIT, which has been linked to the extremist Muslim Brotherhood.

Pastor Shahram Hadian grew up Muslim in Iran and later converted to Christianity, after his family defected to Canada and eventually the United States.

"She was there at a protest outside the hotel where I spoke in April, she was with the imam doing the prayers, they had all the interfaith people standing around them with their backs to the Muslims and their faces turned out while the Muslims were doing their prayers, that's a great picture of how foolish these people are," Hadian said of the April event.

So let's take a look at a few of the other recent cases that would indicate First Amendment rights no longer apply to Americans speaking out critically about one religion and one religion only – Islam [remember, criticism of Christianity is perfectly acceptable and not considered the least bit "bigoted" or "Christophobic."

****

On Thursday, Oct. 26, in Sioux Falls, author/scholar Steve Kirby, who has written five books on Islam and has a doctorate's degree in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia, had his speaking event at a community room inside the Pizza Ranch canceled when the restaurant chain caved to protesters demands and said it didn't want to risk any incidents that might put the safety of its patrons at risk.

Kirby had to move his event at the last minute to the public library, where he was met by protesters from members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, and an allied group called Indivisible, which has been financed by George Soros and has ties to former President Barack Obama's Organizing for Action.

Protesters sat in the front rows and held up newspapers to block people's view of Kirby's presentation.

Indivisible has a presence in practically every state with the sole mission of sowing seeds of discord among Republicans and disrupting the flow of free speech wherever the issue of immigration or Islam pops up.

Their stock and trade is in vicious, Saul Alinsky-type ad-hominem attacks, with some of their favorite names for those holding opposing political views being "bigot," "xenophobe," "Islamophobe" and "racist." But the latest smear-of-choice, popularized by the Charlottesville, Virginia, incident this summer, is "white nationalist."

Since the election of Donald Trump a full convergence is playing out between radical leftists with ties to Indivisible/Antifa and those with Islamist connections such as CAIR, ISNA and the Muslim Student Association.

Anyone who questions whether open borders and "welcoming" Islamic Shariah law into your community is a good thing, gets branded a white nationalist, racist bigot. The town "bigots" are typically announced through social media posts, an article in the local newspaper and even some TV spots. Even if local media allows the accused bigot a chance to defend himself, as the Des Moines Register did for Steve Kirby, the accused comes across as having to defend himself and sounds guilty to the uninformed masses.

Jacob Hall of Sioux Center, a board member of Sioux County Conservatives, strongly rejects the argument that anyone disagreeing with the hardcore left must be a bigoted white nationalist.

"This is just another example of the unhinged left trying to suppress free speech. They don’t want a dialogue," Hall told the Des Moines Register. "They don’t want the other side to be pointed out," and they don't want a scholar who has written books about Islam to discuss the topic, he added.

The Pizza Ranch is a frequent host of Republican and conservative speaking events in the Sioux Falls area, but apparently it only takes a few calls to the restaurant management from leftist protesters to get an event canceled.

Since the protests only seem to roll in when conservatives take up the issue of Islam, the message is clear, says Dr. Mark Christian, a former Muslim turned Christian whose Omaha-Nebraska-based Global Faith Institute specializes in educating Christians about the differences between the two faiths.

"The ownership of the Pizza Ranch has now let it be known that if you speak there, you'd better not talk negatively about Islam," said Dr. Christian.

***

On Sept. 12, former FBI counter-terrorism agent John Guandolo and journalist Chris Gaubatz spoke at the city-owned community center in tiny Oakland, Iowa, near Council Bluffs in Pottawattamie County. There topic was "Understanding the Threat: The Muslim Brotherhood's Secret Strategies for the USA."

Not only did the event get protested and disrupted, again with newspapers held up in the front rows and loud talking, but police had to be called in to restore order.

Weeks after the event the local GOP chairman for Pottawattamie County, Jeff Jorgensen, was removed from office by the GOP when it was discovered he played a role in inviting Guandolo and Gaubatz to the area to speak about Islam.

***

On Oct. 18, the Sportsman's Club in Stewartsville, Minnesota, canceled an event where Usama Dakdok, an Egyptian Coptic Christian who travels around speaking about how Christians are treated by Muslims in Muslim-majority countries such as his native Egypt.

The Sportsman's Club, which is rented out for various community events including those hosted by Muslims, has an eight-person board of directors that voted 6-2 to cancel the contract for Dakdok's speaking event. The board took this action only after protesters began phoning the club and demanding it not rent space to Dakdok, even though a contract to book the venue had already been signed, according to the Post Bulletin of Stewartsville, which is near Rochester, Minnesota.

One of the Sportsman's Club's board members said he was reluctant to cancel the contract because he was "kinda on the side of free speech."

"And I'm not biased against Muslims whatsoever. I don't have a problem with them. It's just the ISIS parts that I have an issue with," Bunde told the Post Bulletin, referring to the Islamic State.

Regina Mustafa, a 37-year-old native of Philadelphia, announced a run for Congress in Minnesota, where she has lived for the last 12 years and been an activist for interfaith dialogue between Islam, Judaism and Christianity. She recently pulled out of the race.

Regina Mustafa, a Muslim convert and CAIR operative, was one of the ringleaders who helped pressure the Sportsman's Club to cancel Dakdok's event. She said she supported the club's decision, but didn't discount the possibility that Dakdok might secure another venue around Rochester. So, just to be sure, she said she would forge ahead with plans to hold a counter-event at the Rochester library, which is set for Oct. 29 from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m., the same day Dakdok was set to speak.

"I'd like to still have this event," said Mustafa, who teaches that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. "There's a great amount of interest in it already."

***

In April 2017, a heavily armed Muslim Ehab Jabber infiltrated a Christian conference at a local hotel in Sioux Falls. He entered the ticketed event undetected with a handgun and was told to leave, then livestreamed threats to the Christians from his vehicle in the parking lot, where he had a cache of weapons including an assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Jaber has since pleaded guilty to federal weapons charges but the state charges remain unresolved. "I have a feeling they're going to drop those charges. Lost his guns and right bear, is now a felon, but the other [local] prosecutor said the guy did nothing wrong."

***

Hadian embarked on a four-city tour through Minnesota and Wisconsin in August-September. He was protested at three of the events and at the fourth, the host received calls pressuring him to cancel the event.

At one of the events in Browerville, Minnesota, on Sept. 12, a couple of the protesters got inside and came up and stood in front of Hadian and disrupted the meeting.

"The sheriff was there and one of the two was literally dragged out, and of course he was claiming he was assaulted, but there were too many witnesses to see he would not leave and was disrupting the event, and when the security put hands on him he went limp," Hadian said.

The next night in Freeport, Minnesota, there were no protesters but the owner of the facility said Muslim activists and their supporters were calling him at home trying to pressure him to cancel the event, saying they were going to boycott his business. He held firm and did not cancel.

***

Two nights later, on Sept. 14 a group of communists allied with liberal Christians and radical Muslims decided they would take their protest directly to the enemy. This time they would actually protest a group of Christians meeting in the privacy of their own church -- the Granite City Baptist Church in St. Cloud, where Hadian was scheduled as a guest speaker on the topic of "The Trojan Horse of Interfaith Dialogue."

Hadian believes the interfaith movement is geared toward getting Christians to accept the general claims of Islam and ultimately deny the deity of Christ. He was greeted by about 50 protesters, roughly half of them from the interfaith community called UniteCloud, which includes an amalgamation of Christians, Jews and Muslims. Several infiltrated the meeting inside the church.

Hadian said he saw at least two people wearing Black Lives Matter t-shirts and others appeared to be members of local communist and/or antifa-affiliated groups called Expect Resistance and the IWW General Defense Committee Local 17.

These groups had been agitating on Facebook in the days leading up to the meeting. They also put flyers around town calling Hadian, who is a native of Iran with brown skin, a "white supremacist."

That was the first time where we saw that element, a communist group, along with BLM and an interfaith group called UniteCloud, which includes people who say they are Christians," Hadian said.

"And one of their Facebook posts called me a white supremacist, that we were recruiting white people to go kill Muslims," said Hadian, a former police officer turned Christian pastor whose ministry is called the "Truth in Love Project.

"We hired police officers, we did bag searches for everyone coming into the church," he said.

Prior to Hadian's event, the Granite City Baptist Church had been vandalized after hosting another former-Muslim speaker from Pakistan.

"They said on their Facebook posts they were going to disrupt the event during Q & A period. At what point does that become defamation to say I am inciting people to go kill and hurt Muslims?"

Hadian advises others who want to hold meetings or events on Islam to avoid city-owned public properties, such as libraries, schools or community centers, and if that is the only available space then make it a ticketed, private event.

"One, they can cancel you last minute, pull the plug, and number-two it's public space. Even if you have to charge five bucks for a ticket, it's worth it, or better yet get a church because now it's private property and it just looks better. A church service you add the element of infringing upon an entire group's First Amendment rights, so it looks really bad for the protesters to be protesting a church's private gathering."

***

The last leg of Hadian's three-city tour was in Milwaukee on Sept. 16. Again, protesters converged on his event.

"About 15 people gathered outside, and they came in to disrupt and also got escorted out by sheriff's deputies," Hadian said. "So on that trip I got protested three out of four trips, and the other venue tried to cancel, so this is now the new norm.

"The whole modus operandi is to shut down the event, make it expensive because you have to hire security, anything to stop this information from getting out to Christians who need to hear it."

The travesty is that the anti-free speech leftists and Muslims conduct their operations against the First Amendment under this faux argument that they want to promote dialogue.

"And yet they don't even want us to engage in dialogue, they just want to shut us down, so it's a one-way tolerance, and apostasy on the part of the Christians who are involved in this," Hadian said.

Engaging in a true dialogue is one thing, but Christians who claim to be "uniting" with Muslims around a religion that denies the deity of Christ, denies the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Christ, are doing nothing if not rallying to the support of a global anti-Christ religious system, he said.

Antifa, an amalgamation of Marxist and anarchist groups, is planning a series of nationwide rallies Nov. 4 that it hopes will bring down the Trump-Pence administration. Sign up for WND's free in-depth report on the inner workings of this dangerous organization.

[diariesofahajji]

The 6 days of Hajj

Day 1 - Yaumul Tarwiyah

Most of us set off from Aziziyah to Mina on foot. Genius over here decided to stop to tie her shoe laces with her heavy backpack on. When I stood up a very audible and tangible snap was felt in my ankle. I bit my lip to hide the tears and soldiered on chanting that God was sufficient for me, and the best disposer of my affairs, and furiously begging “save this ankle” the entire time, because the ankle is a particularly important part of the body required for pilgrimage. By the time I got to my tent and checked it to assess the damage, the ankle was completely healed, which astonished me because I know how much pain I was in not much earlier. It was like I was the opposite of Achilles, because every other part of my body, besides my ankle, was in intense pain. Worth noting that maybe very specific supplications aren't always the best idea.

On the first day of Hajj there are no prescribed forms of ibaadah, so the day is spent in contemplation of the days to come (Yaumul Arafat and eid) and also contemplating the requests you have for God and the misdeeds you seek forgiveness for. It was also a day for engaging with your fellow pilgrims and discussing your experiences up to now. I happened to meet some fellow cat lovers, which was great because nothing draws me out of myself more than talking about Pippin. I'm not a mother, and haven't left human babies behind, but i do miss my kitty. He's my friend, who purrs my troubles away. Anyway, in the evening a storm hit Makkah and shook our humble tents in Mina rather violently. As I mentioned before, our Sheikh recited Ar Rahmaan in the middle of the storm and urged us to be more in awe of God's power than afraid. There was no point being afraid, because no matter what we did to hold the tent together, if God wanted to level it with all of us in it, He could've. Was God flexing a proverbial muscle to remind us of His Majesty? Was God sweeping our sins to Arafat a day ahead of us? Maybe the winds simply swept through to purify us for our departure to the holy centre of this planet, where Adam and Eve met after being cast out of Paradise, and where the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ delivered his last sermon, Arafat.

Day 2 - Yaumul Arafat

The typical story: Busses are delayed, poor communication results in people standing in exposed sunlight for extended periods of time. We were mostly dehydrated before we got to Arafat. An old lady saw me crouched on the floor and offered me her toasted almonds and apple juice. Her kindness revived me more than her food. Due to the temperature teetering close to 50 degrees Celsius when wuqoof started, we confined ourselves to the hot and overcrowded tent. It was hard to form a spiritual connection in these conditions. I remember crying back in Joburg when I put together my duaa book. I felt a spiritual connection then. I remember sitting in the Raudah in Madina and feeling the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ gazing at me with love and acknowledgement. I remember looking at the Kaba and feeling that there were no barriers between God and me. However in Arafat, all I could see when I looked up was a dusty tent wall. Reading through my prayer book felt like I was reading a shopping list. So I mustered up as much sincerity as I could and remembered that just physically being in this holy place helped, I remembered that the fact that I was a guest of God personally called to complete my Hajj helped, I remembered that as long as I am here (no matter what state I am in) my prayers will be answered. I've heard that with every tread of the camel that brings you to pilgrimage, a sin is wiped away. I've come from the other end on the world oh Lord, to bear witness to the favours You have bestowed upon me my whole life, and to ask that You continue to provide for me for my remaining days. Please forgive me fatigue. See that I come to you now in humbleness, clinging to my waning attention span, trying to remain awake throughout wuqoof so that i may praise you the best way I know how. Please Allah, even if my humble little duaa book did little justice, please search my heart, Oh All Seeing, All Knowing, The Omnipotent, find my deepest desires and grant those which You believe are best for me.

Once wuqoof ended we began our 14km trek to Muzdalifa to spend the night sleeping on the ground under the stars (which were completely hidden due to light pollution). As we passed Jab Al Rahmah I read the Nabi ﷺ ‘s last sermon out loud for my mother:

O People, lend me an attentive ear, for I know not whether after this year, I shall ever be amongst you again.  Therefore, listen to what I am saying to you very carefully and take these words to those who could not be present here today.

O People, just as you regard this month, this day, this city as Sacred, so regard the life and property of every Muslim as a sacred trust.  Return the goods entrusted to you to their rightful owners. Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you. Remember that you will indeed meet your Lord, and that He will indeed reckon your deeds.  God has forbidden you to take usury (interest), therefore all interest obligation shall henceforth be waived. Your capital, however, is yours to keep. You will neither inflict nor suffer any inequity.

Beware of Satan, for the safety of your religion.  He has lost all hope that he will ever be able to lead you astray in big things, so beware of following him in small things.

O People, it is true that you have certain rights with regard to your women, but they also have rights over you.  Remember that you have taken them as your wives only under a trust from God and with His permission. If they abide by your right then to them belongs the right to be fed and clothed in kindness.  Do treat your women well and be kind to them for they are your partners and committed helpers. And it is your right that they do not make friends with any one of whom you do not approve, as well as never to be unchaste.

O People, listen to me in earnest, worship God, perform your five daily prayers, fast during the month of Ramadan, and offer Zakat.  Perform Hajj if you have the means.

All mankind is from Adam and Eve.  An Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor does a non-Arab have any superiority over an Arab; a white has no superiority over a black, nor does a black have any superiority over a white; [none have superiority over another] except by piety and good action.  Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood. Nothing shall be legitimate to a Muslim which belongs to a fellow Muslim unless it was given freely and willingly. Do not, therefore, do injustice to yourselves.

Remember, one day you will appear before God and answer for your deeds.  So beware, do not stray from the path of righteousness after I am gone.

O People, no prophet or apostle will come after me, and no new faith will be born.  Reason well, therefore, O people, and understand words which I convey to you. I leave behind me two things, the Quran and my example, the Sunnah, and if you follow these you will never go astray.

All those who listen to me shall pass on my words to others and those to others again; and it may be that the last ones understand my words better than those who listen to me directly.  Be my witness, O God, that I have conveyed your message to your people.”

It was at this point, in Arafat, that the following revelation was sent down to Nabi ﷺ: "…This day have I perfected your religion for you, completed My Grace upon you, and have chosen Islam for you as your religion…" (Quran 5:3)

It looked to me like 70% of all the pilgrims were making this trip on foot. The people on busses on the Bridges above us said we look like flowing water, all walking in the same direction. Almost floating. We took our sweet time, because there was literally nowhere else we had to be in the world. Some chanted Labaik in solemn and uniform minor chords which punctuated their reverence and struggle. As if in marching formation, they proclaimed to God that they were present for service. Others chanted Labaik in perfect harmonies of major chords, and it was as if the sound fluttered around your ears like tiny butterflies. It lifted the spirit and urged me on. I suppose some find Imaan in the solemnity and humility of prayer, and others find Imaan in the colour, music and harmony of this life. It wasn't difficult for me to decide which group I belonged to. We Labaiked our way to our resting place for the night, Muzdalifa. Ahead of us we saw the clock tower, sparkling like the Eiffel Tower, in celebration of Eid. It beckoned to us for Tawaaf e Ziyarah/Ifaadha, but it was just out of reach for the present moment. So we collected some pebbles, took selfies with Palestinians and rested our tired bones for the night.

Day 3 - Eid Ul Adha

At around 10am we walked to the Jamarat Complex to pelt the biggest Jamarah, Aqabah. There are three stone pillars which are pelted 7 times. The biggest of them, Aqabah, commemorates Abraham’s stoning of the devil when he tried to convince Abraham not to sacrifice his son, Ishmael. The second biggest, Wusta, commemorates Hajira’s stoning of the devil when he tried to convince her to stop the sacrificing of her son, Ishmael. The smallest, Oola, commemorates Ishmael’s stoning of the devil when he tried to convince Ishmael to put an end to his own sacrificing. Such was the firmness of their faith. From a less literal perspective, the stoning is symbolic of the pilgrim casting off their lower selves and more baser desires/needs. One also casts off a major sin with each stone throw. We were told that the devil is as close to us all as the blood in our veins. Although the evil forces of this universe were dealt a humiliating blow on Arafat, with the sins of the pilgrims being forgiven, the work of misleading Believers doesn't stop. It was hard to imagine that the devil was absent at “his” own stoning. There was violence in the eyes of people casting stones. One man charged straight through the crowd with a menacing smile on his face, which didn't look normal to me. Thousands have died in the Jamarat Complex because people lose all sense of reserve and decorum. Some primal force takes over their minds. Thereafter we waited for confirmation that our animal sacrifice had been done, cut our hair, and were officially out of the condition of Ihram. After resting for the afternoon we decided to make our way to Masjid al Haram at about 9pm for Tawaaf e Ziyarah which is a compulsory act of Hajj, and the Sa'ee which is waajib (not compulsory, but if excluded without a valid reason requires a sacrifice/charitable offering). Road Travel during the 5 days of Hajj is a nightmare! It seems that only official taxi drivers and SAPTCO busses are allowed anywhere near the Haram, and you often spend an entire week's salary on a one way trip (slight exaggeration). However, we've been told that God in His infinite Bounty and Mercy will return every cent to us which was spent during pilgrimage, so we quietly allowed them to extort us. Being drivers in Johannesburg, my mother and I happily navigated (I mean pushed our way) through the crowded Tawaaf and Sa'ee. By the time we returned to our camp, the Athan for Tahajjud began (3:30am), which meant we were gone for a full 6 hours!! So we soldiered on through our camp’s fajr salaah in congregation. Thereafter our Sheikh, who is a convert, decided to tell us his entire journey to Islam, which although interesting, could've been kept for a more reasonable hour in the day. My mother, sister and I nodded deeply off somewhere in the autobiography around the time he had to be circumcised before he could take his Shahaadah (pledge of Imaan).

Day 4, 5 and 6- 3 Days of Yaumul Tashreeq:

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said concerning the days of Tashreeq: “They are days of eating, drinking and remembering Allah.” Which is basically all that we did. More enlightening discussions were had, and more socialising was done. People shared what little provisions they had left, shared stories, hopes and dreams. I had a fantastic discussion with a fellow Hujaaj after pelting the Jamarat at night on one of the days of Tashreeq. We talked about everything from Oedipus Rex to Catherine de Medici, Machiavelli, to the meaning of dreams and Plato and our recognition of the form of things from our time in the spiritual realms. She comforted me immensely regarding my primitive notions of what a sin is. She told me that unless I had murdered/harmed someone without cause, or stolen the property of another, any other action in itself is not a sinful thing. It is the intention behind it, and the end (which the action is a means to) which causes the rifts between humans and God. It makes sense that God doesn't forbid certain acts and behaviours for what they are. They are forbidden because of what they draw out of us. They are forbidden because we are weak creatures with very little self control and often very little accountability. There are some questionable acts that unravel the very fabric of our societies and beings. Many may claim that they are highly functional (and often highly spiritual) alcohol drinkers, or drug users. However, as our Sheikh told us, we have a very finely tuned sin-detector inside of us, our hearts. Our hearts feel very uneasy when we partake in things that we wouldn't want anyone to know about firstly, and secondly that causel a feeling of unease inside us. Possessing taqwa requires us to ask ourselves the following question before every action, even before every thought: Would Allah be happy with me if I did/thought this?

Would I be happy with me if I did/thought this?

Armed with my new outlook on action vs intention I now have a more healthy outlook on halaal vs haraam. The lady I spoke to also told me that I was immensely fortunate to have made this journey as a 29 year old unmarried and childless woman, because I'm young enough to reinvent myself without major repurcussions and old enough to have the mental capacity to appreciate this journey. I am starting a new book of life from this day onwards, the same as the day that I was born. A second chance at life. Any Believer would tell you that Paradise is the ultimate attainment, and that it is within reach after pilgrimage, but i am excited for this life! I am excited to approach it with fresh eyes. I am excited to partake in all the halaal enjoyment that this world has to offer me, and I am excited to do my bit to leave this world just a little bit better than I found it.

The three days of Tashreeq passed as such, pelting, eating heartburn-inducing curries, sharing advice on how best to survive the toilets of Mina and remembering God. By the morning of the 6th day of Hajj we were happily on our way back to Aziziyah, which had beds and showers that were completely separate from the toilet :)

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Nokia Phones’ India Launch Likely in First Week of June

The Nokia 6, Nokia 5 and Nokia three are the various maximum eagerly anticipated smartphones within the marketplace proper now, but HMD Global – which holds the rights to the Nokia logo name – has so far been mom approximately the Nokia Android phones’ India launch. However, fanatics might not have to wait too long, as resources at HMD Global tells Gadgets 360 that the corporation is planning to host a Nokia launch occasion in India in the first week of June. The Nokia logo loved a large following within the Indian market in the 2000s, earlier than Android phones and iPhones took over the reigns for market supremacy.

Nokia telephones’ India launch

According to the resources, HMD Global is still undecided on whether or not to release all four telephones – the Nokia 6, Nokia 5, Nokia 3, and the brand new Nokia 3310 function cellphone – on the equal occasion, or maintain separate activities. This selection is predicted to be taken by way of May give up. If the organization makes a decision to preserve separate activities, it may launch of the Nokia phones within the first week of June, while the ultimate two might be released at a later date.

Nokia 6, Nokia 5 and Nokia three are predicted to be priced around Rs. Sixteen,000, Rs. Thirteen,000 and Rs. 10,000, respectively, going by way of the expenses introduced at MWC 2017. The Nokia 3310 (2017) feature telephone, then again, is expected to release in India at roughly Rs. 4,000.

For Nokia phones, India a proof of concept

HMD Global held a Nokia event earlier this week, wherein the agency’s Chief Product Offer Juho Sarvikas spoke to Gadgets 360 about the importance of the Indian marketplace for the agency. He stated, “If we will win the hearts and minds of the Indian customers with our tale, then I have no concerns approximately our worldwide story.”

He did no longer dismiss the possibility of a 4G-enabled function cellphone inside the destiny both, and started the boom of 4G in India with the access of Reliance Jio has made the phones with the upgraded community a “thrilling area” with “a variety of opportunity to innovate.” However, he did no longer difficult if this kind of plans is underneath development at Nokia in the intervening time. Feature phones will stay important to the Nokia plans for India because the agency sees capability in u. S . For such merchandise. India changed into the primary studies market for Nokia, Sarvikas had said at the occasion.

Nokia Lumia 920 Cases

Up until a closing couple of years, Nokia had regarded very a great deal a business enterprise of the past while as compared to rivals such as Samsung and Apple. However with its Lumia variety of cell telephones, the tech large has made a terrific come again and controlled to win over a whole lot of clients. With makes, the Lumia phones so famous is a combination of an exquisite interface, stylish layout and a good array of functions.

If you very own a Nokia Lumia 920 then you definitely possibly concept approximately shopping for a case for it. Below is a list of 5 incredible cases for the Lumia 920 which can be to be had proper now.

Five Excellent Cases for the Nokia Lumia 920

1. Worldshopping Black Magnetic Flip Leather Case – This is a totally clever and elegant searching case. Its simple black leather exterior gives it a completely commercial enterprise-like appearance which fits the Lumia 920 flawlessly. It’s a magnetic turn case which offers get right of entry to all the main ports on the smartphone even if the case is closed making it very handy whilst charging. As a brought bonus it additionally comes with a loose cleansing cloth.

2. Nokia ‘Angry Birds’ Case – This is a very simple ‘pouch’ fashion case for the Lumia 920 that incorporates a pull tab for easy accessibility. What makes this situation attractive is the thoroughly used ‘Angry Bird’ photo on the end of the pull tab. This is a remarkable case if you want something this is amusing however does not pass overboard with the idea.

3. Black Piel Frama iMagnum – If luxurious is what you’re after then you definitely can not move incorrectly with this superbly hand-crafted case made in particular for the Lumia 920. The cut of the case permits the use of the digital camera which it method it is not best lovely however realistic too. Because it is home made it does come with a reasonably excessive rate tag however as the saying goes ‘you get what you pay for’

4. Red Black Soft Rubber Lumia 920 Case – With its hanging crimson and black colorations scheme and very rigid layout, this situation may not attraction to all and sundry but what it objectives to do it does very well. Offering 2 degrees of protection, this case is best if you’re liable to dropping your telephone loads.

Pros and Cons of Mobile Satellite Phones

Phones with international insurance including iridium 9555 are the in thing these days in particular for those who want to be in the desolate tract for some mind-blowing adventures. However, this isn’t always for regular use. While this will be advisable to other people with the severe way of life and incredible jobs, this sort of smartphone isn’t for the average person. While regular cell phones may be used on the streets, at home, inner cars and in the office, they’re generally unattainable in high seas, desert, mountains and other faraway areas. In such areas where coverage is restrained, a satellite phone may be your fine buddy.

Advantages of Satellite Mobile Phones

Iridium 9555 gets and can provide phone calls through a satellite tv for PC that orbits the earth. Maintaining such a sophisticated communications method is especially technical that is why the prices are quite high due to its preservation requirements. However, if you’ll test its advantages, its prices for the offerings is all really worth it. Satellite cellular phones have a more potent signal and subscribers won’t need to revel in dropped calls. Another accurate aspect about satellite tv for PC mobile phones is that they’re equipped with voicemail with signs and incoming cellphone quantity so users will nevertheless recognize if they have called looking forward to them in a place with low sign power.

Because of its strong sign, you preserve contact with pals and circle of relatives at home even as you’re in your hunting experience or on your journey and extra importantly, you may ship messages or name government proper away throughout emergencies. No, be counted where you are as long as there may be a clear line of sight to satellites within the sky, you may get signal and ship out your emergency calls while you want to.

Disadvantages of Satellite Phones

Satellite telephones additionally have its percentage of dangers. For one, such type of cellular telephones best paintings whilst there may be a right away sight of line to the sky, consequently, they do not paintings within the buildings or in covered areas. Satellite phones additionally discover it difficult to get insurance near tall homes or in the course of horrific climate so it is not really helpful for one to shop for this sort of cell phone for everyday use. Iridium 9555 phones are also larger than the standard mobile telephones, therefore, they are no longer handy and they may be an inconvenience to carry around. Per minute expenses of this form of the smartphone is also higher compared to regular phones.

What Are the Features of Indian Culture?

India is widely known for its way of life. Every person in this country respects its way of life. A person, who follows it, has were given a respectable photograph in the society. Indian society is designed in keeping with the requirements of subculture. It is cherished now not best via Indians but additionally via other people of the world. Its supremacy, divinity, and influence were unfolded to every and every nook of the sector. It is an identity of each ancient and modern India. Now we are able to analyze its salient functions in the following modes.

• Castes

India is characterized via one of a kind cases. People of different castes own one of a kind residing well known. Even human beings of different castes live existence with exclusive standards and values. Each caste has its separate rituals and traditions of marriage and other secular ceremonies. The meals conduct of various castes is distinct as some prefer non-vegetarian meals at the same time as a few decide upon vegetarian food.

• Languages

Hindi is the national language of India. People of every state have their personal language. People of any country are free to speak the language in their very own choice. There are 18 languages of the USA and each of them has their personal dignity and prestige.

• Religions

India is characterized through four religions i.E. Hinduism, Muslim, Sikhism and Christians. Each faith has its own rituals and traditions. The dressing types of one of a kind religions are specific. The women of Hindu religion put on sarees. Today there is a trend of Indian sarees online. The extremely good varieties of Indian sarees online are available. The women of Muslims and Sikhs put on salwar suits with dupattas. The ladies of Christians put on robes. These salwar fits and robes also are to be had on-line in a tremendous variety.

• Respect

Respect is one of the characteristics of the Indian way of life. In this use women and antique human beings have a decent function. Even the feature of respect is involved in personal or professional lifestyles of a character. Man does as a lot of efforts or paintings to earn admire within the society. Not, most effective girls and antique persons, all and sundry were given appreciate from others as the feeling of brotherhood lies a few of the Indians.

• Unity and Integration

Despite various states, religions and languages, human beings of this u. S . A . Are united and included collectively with the sensation of oneness. They are helpful to each other on the time of happiness and sorrows. All of them have a spirit to like their use.