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seere-mela · 4 years ago

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Everything Right, And Everything Wrong, With TLOU2

Alternatively titled: i missed The Last Of Us Day because i didn’t know it was a thing so here have my belated 4k+ word contribution

and yes i know it’s not everything that just made a catchy title

Anyway. tl;dwr (too long; don’t wanna read):

Everything Right: The gameplay kill count (barring Everything Wrong item 1, see below) is exclusively fascists, religious maniacs, slavers, and zombies who aren’t even people anymore. They didn’t take the easy or predictable route with the story. As someone who grew up with a distinct lack of autonomy, I appreciate story telling that imparts a sense of helplessness to people who haven’t experienced that particular flavor of it and may not know it’s a real thing. I really fucking like that the only people shown to be anti LGBTQ+ are the religious cult and people born before Outbreak Day. Also, as far as I can tell, capitalism is dead. Hooray for that.

Everything Wrong: There are attack dogs. It’s directed by men. Conceptualized by men. Written by men. Designed by men. There are two — 2! — women listed on the top-of-the-page credits on the Wikipedia page. 11 names. 2 are women. This is a story about women. And there are two huge moments that are glaringly, jarringly out of character. These moments are driven by a male perspective of how characters “should” act under certain circumstances and certain storylines.

This is a story about two women and it’s obviously not written by or for women.

Full-length review under the cut.

Warning: It’s more stream of consciousness style than organized essay. Readable, with punctuation and shit, but not exactly linear. Also, lots of swearing. Spoilers too.

First of all, if you’ve spent much time in TLOU2 tags, you’ve probably run into the post that dives into how the point of the game isn’t just “vIoLeNCe iS bAD” and how it’s very much about loss and how choosing obsessive revenge wreaks havoc in someone’s life. If you haven’t read it, GO FUCKING READ IT. Worth every second you’ll spend on it. Mostly, I’m mentioning it here because I agree with every word and I won’t be touching on that point since they did such an amazing fucking job of covering it already. If you have read it, add it under my list of things the game did right.

The other reason I mention that post is because so many people like to criticize this game for “preaching violence is bad and revenge is bad while including a massive kill count and horrifically violent gameplay” and they don’t look any further. Personally, I think if that’s what you’re focusing on, you kinda missed the point. Let’s break down exactly who makes up that kill count, shall we?

WLF. Known fascists. Known torturers. We know they’re both of these things as early as right after Ellie and Dina escape from the school, from notes and first-hand dialogue overheard in the gas station. They shoot “trespassers” on site as if they fucking own everything in the entire city. The entire mission of the WLF has been an us vs them mentality. They are perpetually striving to “eradicate the enemy” — which is, conveniently, never the infected. They are known to hunt down deserters and cull members who don’t fully agree with Isaac’s methods and beliefs.

Seraphites. Religious cult. Highly intolerant. Highly restrictive culture/society. Also known torturers, since yes eviscerating people alive counts. Hanging people in a way that ensures slow asphyxiation also counts. They literally preach the message “if you don’t believe in our prophet EXACTLY the way we do and show that belief EXACTLY the way we do then you’re fucking dead and you’ll burn in hell for eternity and you’re not really a person to us”. hey look they’re Christians. Speaking as someone who grew up queer and nonbinary in a heavily conservative Christian household, I didn’t mind killing the Seraphites one bit. It also really doesn’t surprise me that they are the ONLY people who misgender and deadname Lev.

Rattlers. THEY ARE SLAVERS. Enough said.

Infected. Fucking zombies, yo. Not human anymore. And, seriously, if there’s even a scrap of awareness left in the infected, killing them is a fucking mercy.

That whole list, except the zombies which obviously aren’t actually real, is comprised of the types of people I have wanted to kill in the real world — but I know murder is wrong and my conscience would never let me actually do it. I don’t have a single fucking problem with the kill count in this game. Fuck, dude, it’s 2020 and slaughtering fascists and overly religious maniacs is most of what makes this game fun.

Except.

The dogs. The attack dogs and Nora are literally the only kills that require my participation that bother me. I fucking hate killing the dogs. I will never forgive Naughty Dog for putting them in the game. The only thing that makes it even semi ok is my hatred of people who create attack dogs in the first place. Training a dog to kill people defeats the whole fucking purpose of having a domesticated dog in the first place, and secondly how fucking dare anyone do that to a dog?? It’s fucking cruel. Dogs just want to love us and be loved in return. And SOME FUCKING PEOPLE teach them that the only way for them to be loved is if they attack other people. That’s fucking sick. I hate that attack dogs exist, both in real world and in game. I will always research Naughty Dog games before buying them in the future to make sure I don’t encounter this again.

About Nora...

Joel, Jesse, Manny, Yara — NONE of these deaths required player participation. The only one is Nora. And, well, Jordan, but he’s a dick and it was quick. So. Nora. I dread Nora’s death every playthrough because Ellie drags it out — it’s heavily implied (outright stated, even) that what the player takes part in is only the beginning. I don’t like torture. Fucking hate it, actually. I don’t like actively taking part in torture, even if it’s not a real person. Nora’s death hits hard every time and it’s not fucking deserved. The ONLY thing that makes that scene even remotely acceptable in my mind — note that I said “remotely” there and that it’s still not actually acceptable to me — is that Nora made the comment about Joel getting what he deserved. She’s a medic. A fucking medic. And she’s saying Joel deserved his slow death. Fuck her for that. Even if she was just saying to get Ellie to flinch. Fuck her for that. No one — and louder for the ones in the back, NO ONE DESERVES TO DIE LIKE THAT.

Moving on from the violence to other things the game did right.

I love that they took the not-safe, not-predicable route with the story. As someone who only knows the first game from online synopses, I was expecting a certain kind of sequel, you know? My SO bought the game (and hasn’t even played it lol just watched me play) and I hadn’t even heard about either game at that point. I did my research, because I’m that kind of person. I was expecting a continuation of the Joel and Ellie thing, like playing as Ellie and choosing how she fights, choosing your own dialogue options, choosing how your Ellie grew up, seeing Joel come to terms with his little girl not being a little girl anymore, that kind of thing. You know, typical video game plot. Typical role play pick your own hero shit.

I am so. fucking. glad. they didn’t go with that.

There’s enough of that shit available already. We have a metric shit ton of video games that allow us to pick our hero’s personality and morality and how they look (within limits, of course, it is one more fucking white dominated industry after all) and what we choose determines how the story ends. People buying video games have come to expect a certain level of autonomy. It’s part of what makes a game such effective (and often beneficial) escapism. I’m not dissing on those games. I play them and love them.

But I’m glad that there’s at least one that went, “nah, fuck that.”

Because for me, it’s only been the last few years of real life that I realized I can pick my own story, so to speak, that I could do what I wanted (while still being a responsible adult, chill) instead of always doing what I thought I had to do. Have you ever experienced that lack of autonomy, outside of TLOU2? Were any of you forced to go to church every week for years on end, despite hating every minute of it, despite knowing that if you showed your true face to these people they would hate you and spit on you and call you a demon? But guess what, it’s Sunday morning and you’re still living under “my house, my rules” bullshit and you’re pulling up to the parking lot and there’s only one available option: You’re going to walk through that door. You don’t want to. You know what’s waiting on the other side. But you’re going to walk through that fucking door because you don’t have a choice.

If you’ve never felt that particular brand of helplessness, you’re fucking lucky. And let’s be honest you’re privileged as fuck too.

There are those lucky and privileged few who grew up in accepting households. They grew up having their choices and their true selves respected and accepted. They never personally encountered a lack of autonomy.

And then along came TLOU2.

I love how the lack of autonomy is used in the game because it makes both Ellie and Abby a little bit more relatable to me, for different reasons. On Ellie’s end, I’ve been in her shoes most of my life. Knowing deep in my bones that what I’m about to do isn’t actually going to help in any way but I have to do it anyway. Can’t explain why and I’ll fucking snap at anyone who questions it or tells me not to. I just have to do the thing. Abby in the prologue has the same feel. And, then, the vibe changes when Abby is back in Seattle — specifically, it changes when she goes back for Yara and Lev. It’s more of a “I don’t really know what the fuck I’m doing, I just know I have to fucking do this because I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t” mindset. Ellie, on the other hand, is still in the “this is the door in front of me and therefore it must be the only option and I have to go through it and I’ll fucking worry about how to live with myself later” mindset.

Someone, in a much better organized post, made the point that these two women are always on the same character arc, they just occupy different points on it. I agree 100%. I love that Ellie and Abby are essentially the same character but it’s not bad writing that made them that way — it’s actually really fucking good writing. They’re both badass women with snarky mouths hiding big hearts, they’re both capable of and willing to do horrific things — because they both grew up in this world where they had to do those things in order to survive. Even Dina — fucking Dina! sweet, tender hearted Dina! — tells Ellie that her first non-infected kill was at ten. FUCKING TEN YEARS OLD. Because some dude was coming at her mom. Yikes.

All right, while I have the brutality of the world and Ellie and Abby and Dina all together in my mind (and yours!), I suppose I’ll address this point: People are bitching about how the “lesbian couple got ripped apart” and how “oF CoURsE ThEY CoULdN’t HaVe A hApPY EnDInG” ... like, dude, really? Look at the fucking representation of Ellie and Dina compared to the straight relationship:

(Brief aside first: I always refer to Ellie and Dina’s relationship as sapphic because it’s never directly stated that Dina is a lesbian. Yes, it’s a common thing for gay men and women to date opposite sex partners until they figure themselves out or to pass as straight because it’s not safe and that a lot of them have kids so it’s entirely plausible that Dina is a lesbian — I’m just saying it’s never explicitly stated that Dina is NOT bi or pan, and therefore the relationship is sapphic in my mind)

Anyway. Comparison:

Ellie/Dina/Jesse. There’s no jealousy here. At all. Ok, fine, there’s that brief moment of insecurity on Ellie’s part when Dina is patching up Jesse’s leg in Seattle — but, the thing is, this is Ellie’s second relationship ever. And that one look is all the jealousy we ever see from any of these three. Jesse gets it — he had his time with Dina, it’s done, and she’s with Ellie now and he is completely chill with it. I fucking love Jesse for how gracefully he handles it. There’s no hard feelings to be had with this dude. I love how Dina is 100% for Ellie, no eyes for anyone else. I fucking love so much that there’s absolutely no conflicting-feelings-love-triangle-shit going on. Dina is now Jesse’s friend and she will always care about him, but she’s never going to fuck him again and it shows. And other than Ellie’s brief moment, she trusts Dina 100% and that fucking shows too!! Otherwise she wouldn’t have fucking left them alone. She never demands to know what happened while she was away or any of that shit. Ellie simply trusts Dina.

Abby/Owen/Mel. Uh, yeah. Yikes. Straight relationships are toxic af lol. There’s all the overdone tropes here: jealousy, cheating, woman vs woman, a guy who thinks he’s funny when he’s really just an asshole, there’s a cringe-inducing sex scene that borders on rape (it feels rape-y to me, idk it might just be that I really don’t fucking like Owen). Straight people better get their shit together and realize they don’t have to do this shit and we’re fucking tired of seeing it all the time.

One of these things is waaay healthier than the other. I fucking love the respect and care that went into how they portrayed Ellie and Dina’s relationship. I am here for this kind of representation. It follows the traditional first rule of storytelling: Show, Don’t Tell.

And as for the way Ellie and Dina ended? There’s a full-on rant about out of character moments coming up, and this does not make the list. I don’t have a problem with how Ellie/Dina ended. Would I have preferred something else? Yes, absolutely. But hey, it’s not like one of them got eaten by zombies. It’s not like societal pressure/condemnation wore them down until they cracked. It’s not like their families forced them apart or some shit. The relationship ended because Ellie left.

Tommy brought the info about Abby because he fucking knew Ellie wouldn’t be able to let it go. Ellie doesn’t yet viscerally understand that revenge does not equate to closure. She’s still in “I think this is what I have to do” mode. Tommy’s taking advantage. And Ellie is the one who chose to leave. Her relationship with Dina ends because she chooses to not let Abby go. That choice is perfectly in character and perfectly believable for her. Dina breaks my heart every fucking time when she says, “We have a family. She doesn’t get to be more important than that.” Honestly what comes to mind is the worn-out trope of the soldier going back to the war zone for “one last tour.” They don’t actually have to go, they can choose to stay with their family, but they’ve been brainwashed conditioned to think less of themselves if they don’t go. And of course there’s the wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend/child/dog who the fuck ever begging them not to go because “those people you think you have to kill don’t get to be more important than us. Please tell me that this right here, your family, is more important to you than going back to hell.” Dina made the right call when she chose to not be there when Ellie got back. She made the right call for her. Because Ellie told her, in not so many words but loud and fucking clear when she walked away, that Dina and JJ were in fact not more important than killing Abby. There’s no fucking reason for Dina to passively accept that shit and still be there when IF Ellie ever comes back.

Ellie had every fucking opportunity to choose her happy ending — at least as happy on an ending as anyone in that world could have. She’s the one who chose otherwise. And yes that choice was 100% in character for her.

The deeply flawed characters are one of the best things about this game. I don’t agree with all the choices Ellie and Abby make, but most — MOST — of them are completely understandable. There’s a lot of brilliant and perfect writing in this game — and not even just for the main characters! All the characters are deeply human, fully fleshed out people, and it fucking shows. There’s multiple layers in every single interaction and it’s all complex and I fucking revel in that shit.

BUT.

There are a couple times when I’m just sitting there watching and... it... feels very wrong, you know? You ever have one of those moments when you see a character do something and it feels like watching someone drag their fingers down piano strings? That feeling of complete and utter wrongness? There’s a couple of those moments in the game for me, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on exactly where it came from until recently.

My SO bought me the book, The Art of The Last of Us Part II. It has brief commentary on the plot and storylines and shit. One such comment mentions how when Jesse and Ellie head out from the theater to fetch Tommy, that Ellie is “ready to leave Seattle now.” And.. um.. no. No, she really wasn’t. She wasn’t going to the aquarium to find Tommy, she was going to find Abby. Ellie is the one who insists that “the best way to help Tommy is to go after Abby.” Ellie is the one who points out to Tommy later that Abby gets to live and it’s visibly bothering her. Ellie is most certainly NOT ready to leave Seattle — she’s leaving because she knows Dina needs to get back to Jackson. She’s leaving because she thinks she has to and some little piece of her is probably resenting Dina for that.

I don’t like being the person who says a creator doesn’t know their own characters. But, uh, yeah, here I am.

There are a couple moments in which these creators obviously don’t know their characters.

Most storytellers worth their salt who are any good at all at what they do allow the characters to drive the story. Many, many people have spoken to their characters surprising them. It’s really fucking easy to tell when someone makes a plot or decides how a particular scene is going to go down and then forces their characters to play along.

DECISION NUMBER ONE: The way Joel died.

At this point in time, Abby has spent four years with the WLF. Four years of trespassers shot on sight mentality. Four years of seeing the same fucking mentality from the Seraphites. And then she goes to Jackson and runs into the horde and Tommy and Joel just... save her. No thank you needed, no payback expected other than helping them survive, and then they offer to escort everyone to Jackson to resupply. Well, Tommy does, at least. He is the more trusting of the two.

There’s a moment, when Abby first recognizes Joel, and she has this look on her face like, “what the utter fuck is happening right now.” I don’t think Abby would have drawn out his death after an introduction like that. I really fucking don’t. It just doesn’t vibe. I get that she’s been focused on killing this man for four fucking years, I get that it’s been her driving force for four fucking years — but after escaping a horde together, honestly, I think that would’ve earned Joel a simple bullet to the head in Abby’s mind.

Abby and other characters make comments that let the player know she’s worked in the torture rooms of the FOB. She’s one of Isaac’s favorites and that doesn’t happen without doing some nasty shit. But torturing someone right after they saved your ass?? That is whole ‘nother ball game. And it just doesn’t vibe. Not convinced? Consider: When else did we see someone save Abby’s ass? That’s right, Yara and Lev. Seraphites. The WLF’s sworn enemies — Abby’s sworn enemies. And look how she treats them afterward.

Obviously, yes, there’s a difference between two kids Abby didn’t know and the man she’s hated most for four years. BUT I fucking guarantee that the Seraphites/WLFs have left each other to the infected before. It’s probably a fucking strategy for both groups. And, again, Joel and Tommy saved her ass without hesitation.

I’m convinced Joel’s death scene was created purely for shock factor. There needed to be a “believable reason” or whatever for Ellie to hunt them down — BUT GUESS WHAT! If the ex-Firefly gang had knocked Tommy out and shot Joel and just left him there, nothing about the plot would have changed. Tommy would have seen the WLF patches that led them to Seattle. He would have had descriptions. Tommy and Ellie absolutely still would have gone to hunt them down. The torture was not. fucking. required.

IN CONCLUSION: It wasn’t Abby who tortured Joel. It was whoever made the decision for that scene to be the way it is.

DECISION NUMBER TWO: The final fight on the beach.

If you pay attention to the tension in Ellie’s hand when she finds Abby on the pillars, during that pause when she’s holding her knife and deciding whether or not to cut Abby down — there’s a moment when the tension leaves her hand and the knife point drops away from Abby.

IMPORTANT SHIT — here’s what we know in this moment. Ellie has been through and is still going through hell. She has severe PTSD. She has flashbacks. AND she’s been living with Dina and her Little Potato for a year. An entire relatively peaceful year. She’s just had a no good, horrible, long ass day. And there’s Abby right in front of her — emaciated, damn near unrecognizable Abby. And Abby still has Lev. Ellie looks at Abby and obviously wants to stab her right then and there — but then she fucking thinks about it. The knife drops.

Ellie cuts her down. That right there is the moment that Ellie got her fucking closure. That was the moment it clicked in Ellie’s head that revenge wouldn’t make anything better. That was the moment she fucking got it and was ready to let go.

That whole fight on the beach? Unnecessary. Extraneous. Useless. Fucking Bad Writing.

The entire confrontation at the end was the product of someone thinking “well we HaVe tO hAvE a DraMAtiC fIgHT aT tHe END otherwise it’s not a good story!!!” which is such. bullshit.

I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason Emaciated Abby is even a thing — it’s because some fucking man made the decision that there had to be an “even” fight between Abby and Ellie at the end because “this kind of story requires one” or whatever and no it really fucking doesn’t.

Every time I see Ellie hold a knife to Lev’s throat, I’m just sitting there shaking my head because I firmly believe Ellie would NOT fucking do that at this point in her arc. Not after living with a kid of her own for a year. Not after cutting Abby down. Not after slaughtering her way through the Rattler compound. Not after getting slapped in the face with how absolutely horrific Abby’s last couple months must have been.

I really wish, maybe even just in a playthrough+, that they would have given players the option to skip that last fight. But, I suppose, in order to do that they would’ve had to admit that it was a bad ending.

Both of those decisions, to me, have one thing in common: They are driven by a traditional male perspective. The actions taken in-game are actions that male characters traditionally take in stories like this. These decisions are made by people accustomed to writing male characters and male stories and male narratives.

I, for one, am sick of men insisting on creating women characters as if there’s no difference.

A cis person cannot speak for a trans person’s experience.

A hetero person cannot speak for anyone’s experience on the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

A neurotypical cannot speak for a neurodivergent experience.

Men, it has been proven time and time again, CANNOT speak for women.

When men create stories like this about women — and they refuse to let their characters drive the plot and insist on telling it the same way they would tell the same story about two men — it. fucking. shows.

A few more things I liked, to end on a positive note:

I love, really fucking love, that in this brutally violent, ultra-realistic horror game the closest they get to showing rape was that horrible sex scene with Abby and Owen. It’s mentioned that the Seraphite elders have a “tradition” of getting to pick child brides. But we are not forced to watch a full on rape scene. I am so fucking grateful that for once someone drew the fucking line.

Again, to reiterate this because I love it that much: I LOVE that the fucking religious cultists are the only ones who disrespect Lev. Everyone — even Asshole Owen! — everyone else is completely supportive of who he is. I also LOVE that Seth in Jackson (born before Outbreak Day) is the only other bigot in the entire game who casually hurls verbal hate crimes at people — and he’s the only one who gets kicked out of the party!! Everyone else who left afterward did so because it got fucking awkward. That’s actually kind of huge that Seth was the only one told to leave.

Overall, I love this game. I love the complexity, I love overgrown Seattle, I love that there’s bunnies and frogs and deer and bugs everywhere. I love listening to the storm that hits Seattle Day Three and I love that I get to listen to it twice — was very nice, since I got the game during summer.

One final thing to get off my chest: the theater confrontation.

By far the BEST thing about this confrontation is the timing of it. If Abby hadn’t just come out of a literal fucking war zone to find her friends and their dog slaughtered, it would not have gone down the way it did. See this, this fight was entirely in character for both women. Because one, yeah Ellie is a tough motherfucker to kill (Ellie has killed me more than any other boss in the game lol I hate her so fucking much in that part), and two, Abby goes absolutely feral on their asses. Because, again, she just came out of a fucking war zone to find her only remaining friends dead.

But then there’s Lev. He steps in when it matters — when Abby’s about to do something she won’t be able to fucking live with and he wants to know that she wouldn’t actually knowingly kill a pregnant woman. And I fucking love that Lev is already Abby’s reason to remember and hold on to her humanity. He steps in, and Abby remembers she isn’t really alone. Abby looks at him and she decides to walk away.

That decision that she makes — these are the people who killed all her friends and they’re right here and she’s already fucking won the fight but hey wait she still has family and he’s asking her to stop. So Abby stops. She walks away. She decides that her family is more important. It’s framed differently from Ellie’s choice, but it’s the same fucking options presented: Kill the person you’re dead set on killing and lose your family, or let it go and keep your family.

Abby lets it go.

And that is why if I had to fucking choose — I love both these women so much, I love both characters, I’ve always been a sucker for deeply flawed characters on redemption arcs — if I had to fucking choose between Ellie and Abby, I’d pick Abby. Just because she chose her family when it mattered.

whew.

Hey, congrats, you made it to the end. Go treat yourself to some cake or pie or something. You earned that shit.

#the last of us part two #tlou 2 #tlou ellie #tlou dina #tlou jesse #tlou abby #tlou lev #tlou yara #tlou joel #long post #my review

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Thursday, April 22, 2021

Arizona third-grader holds food drives to help in pandemic (AP) Neighbors walked by during their morning stroll, passing families waved from their bikes and drivers slowed down long enough to read the hand-drawn sign—“Dylan’s Food Drive.” The poster was taped to two PVC pipes that were stuck inside construction cones for support. It was a typical scene for 8-year-old Dylan Pfeifer, who has been staging food drives from his home in metro Phoenix in response to the pandemic. Each drive is the culmination of hours of work that involves drawing posters, going door-to-door to hand out flyers and working with his mother to post information on Facebook. Dylan has hosted three drives from his home in Chandler, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast of Phoenix. He said he is planning his next one in June, when summer vacation begins. Dylan says he has collected more than 1,000 cans and boxes of nonperishable food and more than $900 in donations. On its website, St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix says it can convert $1 into seven meals, meaning Dylan has been able to provide more than 6,500 meals on just monetary donations. “It’s rare that you see kids at Dylan’s age who have a handle on what the problem is in their community, the people around them who are affected by it, and have the courage to do something about it,” said Jerry Brown, director of media relations at St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance. Erin Pfeifer said the best part for her, as his mother, has been watching Dylan grow.

Verdict heard around the world: Global reactions to the George Floyd case (Washington Post) The conviction of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the killing of George Floyd resonated globally, with foreign dignitaries and community leaders reacting to a verdict that revived calls for an international reckoning on racial inequality in justice systems around the world. Chauvin, who is White, was found guilty Tuesday of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in the death of Floyd, a Black man he pinned down outside a Minneapolis grocery store last year. Foreign media outlets ran live coverage, showing how the trial resonated far beyond its national context, and highlighting the outsized role the U.S. racial justice conversation plays internationally, as the rest of the world is forced to grapple with its own race relations. Floyd’s killing in May proved to be a moment of reckoning not only in the United States but also across the world, as protesters took to the streets calling for justice in his case and pointing to what they saw as parallels in their communities. In Japan, crowds last year gathered in Osaka holding signs that read “Black lives matter,” while in Germany, protesters took to the streets of Berlin holding placards that said “White silence is violence” and “I can’t breathe.” In Britain last year, they chanted for Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old who was shot by police during his attempted arrest in 2011. In France, they said the name Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old who died in police custody in 2016. In Australia, where Floyd’s death last year spurred a resurgence in activism over Indigenous people’s deaths in police custody, the guilty verdict led to fresh calls for authorities to scrutinize more than 400 Aboriginal deaths in custody.

Surveillance Nation (BuzzFeed News) A controversial facial recognition tool designed for policing has been quietly deployed across the country with little to no public oversight. According to reporting and data reviewed by BuzzFeed News, more than 7,000 individuals from nearly 2,000 public agencies nationwide have used Clearview AI to search through millions of Americans’ faces, looking for people, including Black Lives Matter protesters, Capitol insurrectionists, petty criminals, and their own friends and family members. BuzzFeed News has developed a searchable table of 1,803 publicly funded agencies whose employees are listed in the data as having used or tested the controversial policing tool before February 2020. These include local and state police, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Air Force, state healthcare organizations, offices of state attorneys general, and even public schools. In many cases, leaders at these agencies were unaware that employees were using the tool. Such widespread use of Clearview means that facial recognition may have been used in your hometown with very few people knowing about it. The New York City–based startup claims to have amassed one of the largest-known repositories of pictures of people’s faces—a database of more than 3 billion images scraped without permission from places such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. If you’ve posted images online, your social media profile picture, vacation snapshots, or family photos may well be part of a facial recognition dragnet that’s been tested or used by law enforcement agencies across the country.

Violence erupts as Mexico’s deadly gangs aim to cement power in largest ever elections (The Guardian) Violent clashes between rival Mexican criminal groups—and their alleged allies in the security forces—are escalating ahead of mid-term elections in June, triggering a string of political assassinations and the forced displacement of thousands. With more than 21,000 posts in local, state and national government up for election—including 15 state governorships—the 6 June polls are the largest in Mexico’s history, and criminal groups see the elections as an opportunity to further their interests. Much of the recent fighting has focused on the western state of Michoacán, where the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (Jalisco New Generation cartel) has stepped up its conflict with an alliance of local groups calling themselves the United Cartels. The violence has forced more than a thousand people to flee the area, feeding the flow of migrants heading to the US to seek asylum. “They are leaving because they get caught in the crossfire, because their homes have been destroyed, [and] because the main roads into [the area] have been carved up to stop the advance of the Jaliscos,” said Gregorio López, a Catholic priest who has sheltered refuges in the nearby city of Apatzingán. The Jalisco cartel, Mexico’s fastest-expanding criminal network, considers Michoacán, rich in international trafficking routes and extortion markets, a key building block in its bid for national criminal hegemony. But its decade-long attempt to take over the region has so far been frustrated by the local opponents’ deep political and social roots. With neither side able to impose its designs on the other or willing to back down, more than 15,500 homicides have been recorded here from January 2011 to February this year.

In Putin’s Standoff With Navalny, Many Russians Put Faith in President (WSJ) Thousands of demonstrators are expected to take to the streets in many Russian cities Wednesday in support of Alexei Navalny, the jailed opposition leader who has galvanized popular discontent with the long rule of President Vladimir Putin. But even as the opposition leader stirs dissent, Mr. Putin can count on the support of many Russians who either trust in his leadership, fear the uncertainties of political change or disapprove of Mr. Navalny and his protest movement. “If it were up to me, Putin would stay another 20 years in power,” said fashion designer Irina Larkina from her home in a drab apartment block in this Russian city on the Baltic sea. “He’s the one who has boosted our living standards and given us respect for ourselves again.” Even amid falling living standards and Western sanctions, Mr. Putin continues to enjoy enviable approval ratings. Sociologists say while few may feel deep support for Mr. Putin, the Kremlin can continue to count on approval ratings of around 60%. “There’s a point at which popularity won’t fall any further,” said Lev Gudkov, head of independent polling organization Levada Center. “The country has fallen into two camps, but the Kremlin knows there is a wealth of support it can still draw from within the population, even though it’s fallen in recent years,” he added.

Indian hospitals buckle amid virus surge (AP) Seema Gandotra, sick with the coronavirus, gasped for breath in an ambulance for 10 hours as it tried unsuccessfully to find an open bed at six hospitals in India’s sprawling capital. By the time she was admitted, it was too late, and the 51-year-old died hours later. Rajiv Tiwari, whose oxygen levels began falling after he tested positive for the virus, has the opposite problem: He identified an open bed, but the resident of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh can’t get to it. “There is no ambulance to take me to the hospital,” he said. These tragedies are now everyday occurrences in the vast country, which is seeing its largest surge of the pandemic so far and watching its chronically underfunded health system crumble. Tests are delayed. Medical oxygen is scarce. Hospitals are understaffed and overflowing. Intensive care units are full. Nearly all ventilators are in use, and the dead are piling up at crematoriums and graveyards. India recorded over 250,000 new infections and over 1,700 deaths in the past 24 hours alone, and the U.K. announced a travel ban on most visitors from the country this week. Overall, India has reported more than 15 million cases and some 180,000 deaths—and experts say these numbers are likely undercounted. “The surge in infections has come like a storm and a big battle lies ahead,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in an address to the nation Tuesday night.

Further evidence in case against Indian activists accused of terrorism was planted, new report says (Washington Post) An unknown hacker planted more than 30 documents that investigators deemed incriminating on a laptop belonging to an Indian activist accused of terrorism, a new forensic analysis finds, indicating a more extensive use of malicious software than previously revealed. The report will heighten concerns about the controversial prosecution of a group of government critics under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Known as the Bhima Koregaon case, the prosecution is considered a bellwether for the rule of law in India. Human rights groups and legal experts view the case as an effort by the government to clamp down on critics. The space for dissent has diminished in Modi’s India, where journalists, activists and members of nongovernmental organizations have faced arrest and harassment. The activists accused in the case deny the charges against them. They include a prominent academic, a labor lawyer, a leftist poet, a Jesuit priest and two singers. All are advocates for the rights of the country’s most disadvantaged communities and vocal opponents of the ruling party. Many of them have been jailed for nearly three years as they await trial.

Community pantries offer reprieve from covid-19 hardships in the Philippines (Washington Post) They were of different ages, genders, and walks of life. Some had been there since sunrise. A number carried umbrellas and canvas bags. Hundreds stood in a line that stretched three blocks on Wednesday, all waiting for their turn to stock up on donated food. The community pantry, as it is known, bore a sign: Give what you can, take what you need. A week after the initiative began as a humble cart with free vegetables and canned goods, over 300 similar donation-driven efforts have popped up across the Philippines. The grass-roots action underlines the economic pain Filipinos are experiencing as they battle one of Southeast Asia’s worst coronavirus outbreaks and a harsh lockdown. The idea began when a small-business owner teamed up with local vegetable vendors and farmers who offered their produce to those in need. Within days, it grew into a multi-sector effort encompassing a variety of food and essential items—bread, eggs, fruit, rice, water, noodles—donated by rich and poor alike.

Iran Rattled as Israel Repeatedly Strikes Key Targets (NYT) In less than nine months, an assassin on a motorbike fatally shot an Al Qaeda commander given refuge in Tehran, Iran’s chief nuclear scientist was machine-gunned on a country road, and two separate, mysterious explosions rocked a key Iranian nuclear facility in the desert, striking the heart of the country’s efforts to enrich uranium. The steady drumbeat of attacks, which intelligence officials said were carried out by Israel, highlighted the seeming ease with which Israeli intelligence was able to reach deep inside Iran’s borders and repeatedly strike its most heavily guarded targets, often with the help of turncoat Iranians. The attacks, the latest wave in more than two decades of sabotage and assassinations, have exposed embarrassing security lapses. Most alarming for Iran, Iranian officials and analysts said, was that the attacks revealed that Israel had an effective network of collaborators inside Iran and that Iran’s intelligence services had failed to find them. “That the Israelis are effectively able to hit Iran inside in such a brazen way is hugely embarrassing and demonstrates a weakness that I think plays poorly inside Iran,” said Sanam Vakil, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House.

With most adults now vaccinated, Israelis are busting loose (Washington Post) Israel is partying like it’s 2019. With most adults now vaccinated against the coronavirus and restrictions falling away—including the lifting this week of outdoor mask requirements—Israelis are joyously resuming routines that were disrupted more than a year ago and providing a glimpse of what the future could hold for other countries. Restaurants are booming outside and in. Concerts, bars and hotels are open to those who can flash their vaccine certificates. Classrooms are back to pre-covid capacity. The rate of new infections has plummeted—from a peak of almost 10,000 a day to about 140—and the number of serious coronavirus cases in many hospitals is down to single digits. The emergency covid-19 ward at Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv resumed duty as a parking garage, and waiting rooms are suddenly flooded with non-covid patients coming for long-deferred treatments.

Rebels threaten to march on capital as Chad reels from president’s battlefield death (Reuters) Rebel forces set their sights on Chad’s capital N’Djamena on Wednesday following the battlefield death of President Idriss Deby, threatening to bring more disruption to a country vital to international efforts to combat Islamist militants in Africa. Schools and some businesses were open in N’Djamena on Wednesday but many people had opted to stay home and the streets were quiet, a Reuters witness said.

#headlines #news

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shinylitwick94 · 4 years ago

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Best/Worst Reads of 2020

My life got turned upside down in 2020 and not just for the same reasons as everyone else, so it’s been an odd year and my reading(or lack thereof) kind of reflects that.

As usual, there’s a mix of SFF titles and some good old classics, with some random stuff thrown in.

I tried to read a lot of Big Name Fantasy Authors this year, to keep up with the times a bit. Some I liked, some I didn’t, but overall it proved to be a fun exercise.

Going back over previous comments/reviews I’d made on specific books really made it stand out to me that feminism was kind of a theme this year. Both because I ran into a lot of bizarrely sexist sixties stuff and because I tried reading a couple of more explicitly feminist essays/books at a friend’s recommendation. It was ok, I suppose, but I don’t think it’s my thing.

The best/worst thing is, of course, completely based on my personal enjoyment of these books and nothing else.

Worst

5.Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier

This wasn’t so much a bad book as a complete mismatch for my reading tastes. I ended up DNFing it fairly early on because I realised I was going to hate it.

4.Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

I had high expectations for this book and it lived up to almost none of them. Yes, burning books bad, we get it. Very flat characters, a prose that drove me up the walls and a premise that was interesting enough for about 5 minutes.

3.Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey

Another colossal disappointment. This one hurts especially because I’d looked forward to it for so long. The story seemed interesting enough at surface level, but I couldn’t stand the characters or the writing. DNF’d

2.The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

LOTR for kids too young or too dumb to read LOTR, I guess. Or LOTR with all the interesting bits taken out and all the great characters replaced by whiny 12 year olds. The only reason I finished this at all was because it was so short. Wanted to strangle those stupid kids.

1.The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

I hated this thing so much. I wrote a pretty detailed rant as to why when I decided to DNF it, but in a nutshell I detest the way it’s written. To quote myself:

“It’s just a jumbled mess of unnecessary metaphors and similes and puttogetherwords and Unnecessary Capitalization and (parenthesis) that drove me completely up the wall.”

It just stinks of r/iamverysmart and I couldn’t stand it. Doesn’t help that the prose was so annoying I could barely make out the characters and the plot through it.

Best

I’m doing 8 of these, because I can.

8.The Satyricon by Petronius

I had so much fun reading this. It’s ridiculous, it’s insane, it’s debauched, it makes me want to cook decadent roman food, and I had a great time.

7.The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula le Guin

Very different from the previous Earthsea book, but I loved the atmosphere in this, its characters and the fairly simple story.

6.Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart

Another one that was just fun to read. It’s a sort of fairytale adventure that has us running through ancient China. It’s sometimes silly, sometimes touching, and I quite liked how it ended.

5.Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

I read this at one of my lowest points in the year, and thank goodness I did. It’s quiet, relaxing, the story and characters are easy to follow and their kindness and compassion was just something I needed at that time.

4.The Shadow of the Wind/La sombra del viento by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Another great fun read. Not usually my genre, but I got completely sucked into the story and its characters. Reading it in the original was also definitely worth the effort.

3.O Gato Malhado e a Andorinha Sinhá by Jorge Amado

I’m embarrassed that it took me this long to read this. @ my fifth grade portuguese teacher: fine, you win, it’s really good

Mind you, I probably wouldn’t have appreciated it nearly as much back then, but I’m glad I’ve read it now. Jorge Amado’s writing is just too pretty.

2.Anna Karenina by Lev Tolstoy

I’d been meaning to read this for a while, but let’s face it, it was peer pressure that finally did it (thanks @frederick-the-great).

And of course I loved it. I do think I still prefer W&P, but there’s something about the way Tolstoy writes his characters that resonates SO MUCH with me and I’m left in awe every single time.

1.Novos Contos da Montanha by Miguel Torga

I didn’t expect this to be my favorite book of the year, but thinking on it, yeah, it definitely is. It’s a collection of short stories set in rural Portugal. Most of them are fairly dark, but in a way that feels meaningful, and not grimdark, if that makes sense. Some are also quite beautiful and uplifting. I remembered reading Torga when I was younger and liking his writing, but looking at it now, I definitely need more Torga in my life.

#shinylitwick reads books #my resolution for next year is just to read whatever i want #i felt too much pressure over not getting to my classics this year #which is ridiculous because it's self-inflicted

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lenjaminmacbuttons · 5 years ago

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Hope you’re doing okay, I know there’s been a lot going on the past couple weeks. 🌈🌈💛💛

FOOF YOU CAN SAY THAT AGAIN

thank you for the good vibes anon, i love you and it means a lot to me. however unfortunately now im gonna use this to vent dump exactly how much has been going on the past couple weeks off the top of my head. this is actually pretty far from Everything thats happen but im so tired and dont want to think about any of it anymore

my grandma passed away last week. we were prepared for it and we know she’s at peace in a better place et cetera et cetera, her body was all full of restraints & impediments that she doesnt have to deal with anymore and the next time she’s in a body it’ll be all New And Improved and awesome. i missed so much work in anticipation of this that now i can’t get work off on the day of the funeral, so i can still go to it but i’ll have to go immediately to work right from it and have to pretend everythings fine and dandy and nothings going on.

everyone at work Does know there’s something going on however and the two coworkers i have who are actually like i consider them friends mostly they’re all like Hey Im Here For You Talk About Your Feelings Honestly with me and i. dont. want. to talk about my feelings at work. thats not what work is for and i dont like talking about my feelings anyway and i dont want them to ask anymore

the changes to the handbook and the honor code have completely sunk my heart. i had so much hope up until those hideous ridiculous unfathomably transphobic things they wrote and now i don’t feel like i can trust or have hope in ANYTHING the institution does anymore. ive been up all night going back and forth over whether i want to go to church today. or ever again. it’s not bringing me joy. it’s making me feel anxious and depressed and frustrated and alone. i keep seeing people just on the street or on facebook who are so happy and content with the church and whatever it does and i just…i get struck every single time with this thought of “they don’t care about me. they don’t care about any of these problems. they’re not affected personally by it and so they don’t care.”

and then that makes me feel like such a hypocrite because!!! ive been them too for so long!! what makes this moment so different!!!!! why is this the straw that breaks the camel’s back when the camel should have thrown off the whole burden and run to join its friends at the first strike of the owner’s whip!!!!!!

plus it’s making me feel gross about my mormon memes blogs. idk if i can keep running those anymore.

im failing this semester anyway and i keep getting emails about it. i was planning to take a break from school After this semester but ive missed so much class that i just really can’t go back to any of them so i guess im just dropping out right now. as much as i’d love to participate in all the incredible amazing protests going on right now i really really cant be on campus at all without feeling literally physically ill. and my Hope was to do really well this last semester and then submit mission papers and that way i’d know exactly what next to do with my life until i decide what After, and id be able to Get Out somewhere and travel someplace while still feeling like my life has some semblance of structure and direction. however! HOWEVER!!!!!!!!

i’ve been feeling so, so horrible and so worn down and i dont even know where or what my testimony is anymore. but that’s probably a lot lower on the list of Why I Can’t Serve A Mission, because a. i still don’t trust my Local Bishop enough to talk to him about things The Handbook says to b. i am finding it harder and harder and harder to be perceived as female. i never really have dysphoria about my body or my presentation or anything but like, when people say Sister and Ma’am and Miss and Daughter and Hey Pretty Lady It’s Me Your Relief Society President it’s like��that’s not me. that feels gross. and i wear suits and ties to church, have done so for a while and never get any flak for it, and im gradually working up the nerve to maybe start introducing myself as lev or levi instead of lillie buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut. socially transitioning apparently is not allowed.

not to mention my temple recommend expired ages ago anyway. anxiety about bishops prevented me from ever going in for an interview to renew it. i haven’t visited the temple once since before graduating high school. but every time i see it or think about it i long for it so badly and it hurts so much.

and also like, i get that same kinda horrible regretful longing feeling whenever i hear violin music? because i played violin for a few years and then stopped but i still have the instrument because it was given to me by my grandmother. who played it herself until sickness wouldn’t let her anymore and she entrusted it to me and i Stopped Playing but then i hoped to pick it up enough to at least learn how to play her favorite song and aw wouldn’t that be so nice to play that for her on her violin except i never actually got around to printing out the sheet music or practicing At All. and now she’s gone.

and one of the last things she said to me was that she would love to hear my book since her eyesight was too gone to read it so i said i’d record it as soon as i got the right software/hardware to do that and then i never did that either. also i promised alla yalls that book would be Published Published coming up on four months ago now and i still haven’t done that

i took a pair of safety scissors to my forearms as mentioned in a previous post and surprise surprise, the lines have not healed still, it’s getting warmer outside and thus harder to wear long sleeves, and guess what! a while ago on a separate occasion i complained that i kinda wished my self harm scars looked more like the classic cutter lines and Now They Do!! And I Hate It!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and a couple nights ago my little sister saw them and so i told her i got attacked by a spider-pawed bear and fortunately my brother Understands and backed me up like “dang what do they teach in schools these days i cant believe youve never heard of the spider-pawed bears that live in the mountains and are totally normal and real”

and steven universe is ending. that’s a thing.

and like….okay. not everything in my emotions right now is bad. some of it is just complicated. one coworker friend i have recently confessed that she’s had a crush on me for several months now. fortunately when she said this i was able to be honest and say that im not super eager for a relationship right now, im not ready in the slightest to settle down or anything, im still hung up on my high school crush and also dealing with issues from my last relationship, and she replied that’s all perfectly fine and she doesn’t have any expectations and she’s great being friends and we can take things at whatever pace is good

except i also now have a date with said high school crush loosely planned for tomorrow and i told this coworker friend about it and she admitted it’s making her a little jealous and then she said jealous is an ugly word and amended it to Insecure and i feel bad about that

but i also like. am really excited for this date. like it’s not really a for sure romantic capital-d Date and that’s fine, but i haven’t seen this friend irl for so long and ive been missing her so much over this past little while that we’ve been internet chatting and that ive been i guess officially falling back in love with her but i also like, i dont know what her deal is romantically right now i don’t want to presume anything but i really really really am itching to see her

work is stressful. it’s only gonna get more so as weather gets warmer. but we’re getting two new managers with loads of experience and glowing reviews next week. i have hope that they’ll makes things a little lighter.

and there’s also. good things. peridot took off her visor for the first time ever in canon and i saved like 50 different gifs of it to my computer cus it rocked my world. sonic has she-ra toys for the kids meals and i managed to snag a tiny inflatable version of the sword. i’m making cosplays of the tres horny boys from the adventure zone and they’re all very exciting and making things makes me very very happy. i’m finding joy in all the fanfictions i’m writing right now and in talking about dungeons & dragons with my brothers and friends. ducknerva is a very beautiful Good Ending version of marahope which makes me happy and taako is a super effective projection outlet. i bought cupcakes today and they were delicious. and when i think about those good things, when i think about any good thing no matter how small, everything else disappears.

whatever happens happens i guess.

she who lives will see.

#talkyllama #hey if anyone needs tags on posts like these please please let me know asap #i always forget that actual people see the things i post #i dont usually trigger tag cus i dont usually think i need to but if i do i will

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olivieblake · 5 years ago

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YES, HELLO. IT'S ME AGAIN. after carving out the little pockets of time i could-- between work commutes and waiting for water to boil and standing in line at costco-- in order to lap up every last bit of One for My Enemy, i have finished reading and honestly want to keysmash because i'm feeling /everything/ and think that capitals and random letters would be the best depiction of my feelings??? BUT i will try with words (not as easily lost in translation, i've heard).

so i’d known that i wanted to read your novels (sans fairytale collections and Alpha) in chronological order of publication; i also remembered you mentioning something about OFME being the crowd favourite. so because Masters of Death held that title of favourite in my heart, i was maybe just a little wary about dethroning it when I finally got to OFME, but! i was knocked off of my feet! with how OFME kept throwing all of the curveballs!!! and the different relationships and the dynamics there!!! and the always-plausible, always-seamless blend of magic in our world (your specialty, your brand, i have officially declared)! i got to page 99 or so and remember thinking “HMM let me message olivie saying how much masha x dima and sasha x lev kill me in very different ways; i adore both!!!” but before i messaged, that thing happened around page 100 and i audibly gasped and knew, with the many twists i’d read already, i couldn’t message you /just/ yet with my opinions and thoughts. not until i’d finished in whole.

anyway, all of this to say that i am always, always, always appreciative of your ability to make each character multi-dimensional in your story and not just a passerby needed to fill a one-time role. also very appreciative of the way your magical, otherworldly characters—with all of their very human and seemingly normal flaws and problems—have the lasting, relevant impact they do on your readers. the sasha/lev scenes, i adored for their comedy and sense of urgency. the masha/dima scenes, i adored and angsted over for their preserved, long-suffering bittersweetness. characters like ivan and galinka and (whispers) even eric??, i truly enjoyed and felt for. ughhh (the good kind). urban fantasy (would you consider that the main genre for your works?) is my new fave genre, and i honestly cannot wait to read your next novel (Alpha, technically, for me, but even the ones not yet releaaased). AS ALWAYS, THANK YOU FOR SHARING!! ❤❤❤

oh!! also will have to mull over which one i favour more-- Masters of Death or One for My Enemy-- but... i will let you know if i ever come to a concrete decision. as of now, though, for sheer special-place-in-my-heart factor (being the first of your novels i read) and for the different species?? varieties?? of characters, Masters of Death edges out by just a teeeeeny bit. might fluctuate, though, so... who knows for sure, really!!

damn girl, you are on a tear, this is so exciting! I’ll go backwards and say that One For My Enemy has a slightly more universal appeal; rooting it in the familiar tropes of crime families seeking vengeance/star-crossed forbidden love is right up a lot of people’s alleys, including mine. It’s fast, plot-driven, full of motion, in a sense. Masters of Death, on the other hand, is an extremely weird book that trips and turns and isn’t for everyone. In a lot of ways I can see how, looking back, that was a questionable choice for a first book, since it does require a slightly more... thoughtfulness while reading? It isn’t a straightforward story at all, and it takes a certain personality to fall in love with the nooks and crannies of those characters. Which is to say, you don’t need to have a favorite, because I certainly don’t! But I do appreciate it when people have a fondness for Masters of Death, because that’s how I feel about it, too.

re: urban fantasy, I would definitely say OFME counts: it’s gritty, set in NYC, revolving around crime... all the hallmarks of the subgenre are there. Masters of Death and Lovely Tangled Vices I would call either paranormal or contemporary fantasy, just because urban fantasy has a certain specific flavor to it that isn’t necessarily present with those. but I’m with you, I love fantasy that takes place in the real world!! I think there’s a certain revelry for me in normalizing the fantastic, and I really appreciate that you like that about the characters. I’m also so amped you brought up Ivan! Ivan was initially supposed to be a character who never spoke and then obviously you know what happened. anyway I love this, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with me!! It is really such an honor to be able to talk to people about my work and I’m just so grateful for your support. thank you, thank you, thank you

( & thank you for reviewing! )

#one for my enemy #original work #masters of death #lovely tangled vices #deifiliaa

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cutelilbow · 3 years ago

Text

SHUT THE FUCK UP BRAND

YOUR BALL SHAVERS SUCK AND CUT PEOPLE

I CAST PENIS EXPLOSION!

Shadow the Hedgehog[a] is a 2005 platform game developed by Sega Studios USA, the former United States division of Sonic Team, and published by Sega. The game follows Shadow the Hedgehog, a creation of Doctor Eggman's grandfather, Prof. Gerald Robotnik, as he attempts to learn about his past while suffering from amnesia. Shadow the Hedgehog introduces third-person shooter elements and nonlinear gameplay to the Sonic franchise. To defeat enemies, Shadow can use various weapons and special attacks, and most levels have three possible missions that the player may choose to complete. The missions completed determine the game's plot and subsequently playable levels.

Shadow the Hedgehog

The game's cover art. An anthropomorphic black and red hedgehog with spiky hair holds a handgun and other weapons, striking an attacking pose with an unhappy expression on his face. A stylized explosion is visible in the background. The words "Shadow the Hedgehog" adorn the top of the screen, as does a red logo that resembles the hedgehog's head.

North American box art

Developer(s)

Sega Studios USA

Publisher(s)

Sega

Director(s)

Takashi Iizuka

Producer(s)

Yuji Naka

Designer(s)

Takashi Iizuka

Programmer(s)

Takeshi Sakakibara

Artist(s)

Kazuyuki Hoshino

Writer(s)

Takashi Iizuka

Composer(s)

Jun Senoue

Yutaka Minobe

Tomoya Ohtani

Mariko Nanba

Series

Sonic the Hedgehog

Engine

RenderWare

Platform(s)

GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox

Release

November 14, 2005[3]

NA: November 14, 2005 [1]

PAL: November 18, 2005

JP: December 15, 2005 [2]

Genre(s)

Platformer, action-adventure, third-person shooter

Mode(s)

Single-player, multiplayer, co-op

The development team wanted to make a game featuring Shadow to capitalize on the character's popularity and resolve plot mysteries that began with his introduction in Sonic Adventure 2. It was written and directed by Takashi Iizuka, produced by Yuji Naka, and scored by Jun Senoue. Iizuka, who targeted a younger audience with previous Sonic games, strove to attract an older audience with Shadow the Hedgehog; Shadow's character also allowed the team to use elements otherwise inappropriate for the series.

The game was revealed at the March 2005 Walk of Game event, and it was released for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox in North America and in Europe in November 2005 and in Japan the following month. Receiving generally unfavorable reviews from critics, it was criticized its controls, mature themes, level design, and addition of guns and other weapons to traditional Sonic gameplay. However, some praised its replay value. Despite this, the game was commercially successful, selling 2.06 million copies by March 2007.

It is the first game in the series to utilize the voice actors from the 4Kids dub of Sonic X. It is also the first Sonic game to receive a E10+ rating from the ESRB, due to its mild use of profanity and fantasy action violence.

Gameplay

Edit

Shadow the Hedgehog is a platform game that incorporates elements of action-adventure gameplay. Like previous games in the Sonic series, basic gameplay involves running quickly, collecting rings, and destroying enemies.[4][5] Shadow collects rings as a form of health; when he is attacked by an enemy, ten of his rings bounce away from him in all directions. If he is hit by an enemy while not having any rings, he loses a life.[6] Each level is completed by undertaking a mission, and each mission is labeled "Hero," "Dark," or "Normal".[7] The "Hero" missions involve completing tasks for the Sonic series' heroic characters, or Doctor Eggman on one occasion,[8] and the "Dark" missions involve completing tasks for the Black Arms or Doctor Eggman. The "Normal" missions involve reaching the Chaos Emerald or goal at the end of the level.[7] Examples of non-neutral mission objectives include killing all enemies in the levels, destroying an aircraft flying to the end of the level, or activating or destroying objects in the level.[9] All enemies attack Shadow regardless of the mission chosen.[5][6] The mission types selected affect the plot, the levels played, and the ending received out of ten possibilities.[7][10] Each level features cutscenes that advance the story, and several levels also feature boss battles.[11] There are 326 possible paths to take in Shadow the Hedgehog, and each pathway is individually named.[12]

The hedgehog from the cover shoots a single bullet from a machine gun-like firearm at a human soldier who attempts to do the same. The setting is a disheveled city street at night with tall buildings surrounding the area and an elevated highway overhead.

Shadow uses a submachine gun to shoot a G.U.N. soldier. The game's mature themes and addition of guns were two major areas of criticism.

New gameplay features distinguish Shadow the Hedgehog from previous Sonic games. For example, Shadow can use guns to combat enemies, adding an element of third-person shooter gameplay.[6] Parts of the scenery, such as traffic signs, can also be used as weapons.[7] Another new feature is the ability to drive vehicles, such as motorcycles and alien aircraft.[4][6] Although Shadow can outrun the game's vehicles, the latter have unique capabilities, such as crushing enemies and traversing otherwise impassable acid-covered areas.[11]

As in most Sonic series games, the Chaos Emeralds play a major role; they help Shadow remember his past[13] and allow him to perform Chaos Control and Chaos Blast. Chaos Control allows Shadow to move more quickly in levels and slows time in boss battles, and Chaos Blast creates an explosion that destroys or severely damages all nearby enemies. Shadow can perform Chaos Control after the player fills the Hero Gauge by defeating Black Arms soldiers, and he can perform Chaos Blast after filling the Dark Gauge by defeating G.U.N. soldiers.[4]

The game includes a two-player mode[14] that retains the single-player mechanics but is set in one of three specially designed stages and uses a vertically split screen to separate each player's view. Each player chooses one of the available characters—Shadow, two metallic versions of him, and palette-swapped variants of each. The combatants attack each other and steal each other's rings until all but one are eliminated. Additionally, in single-player mode, a second player may take control of Shadow's sidekick character in some stages.[11]

Synopsis

Edit

Characters

Edit

Further information: List of Sonic the Hedgehog characters

Shadow the Hedgehog, the game's titular protagonist, was created 50 years before the game's events by Prof. Gerald Robotnik in an orbital military research space colony known as the ARK. Robotnik was trying to unlock the secrets of eternal life on the government's orders and create the "Ultimate Life Form." To that end, Robotnik designed Shadow to harness the powers of the Chaos Emeralds. He saw G.U.N raid the ARK and shoot Robotnik’s granddaughter Maria Robotnik, killing her. At the end of Sonic Adventure 2, his first in-game appearance,[15] Shadow was presumed dead, but he returned in Sonic Heroes and suffers amnesia.[6][10]

The Guardian Units of Nations (G.U.N.) is the military of Earth's government, the United Federation, and it is directed by the G.U.N. Commander, who has a hatred of Shadow. When completing "Hero" missions, Shadow usually helps G.U.N. and heroic characters from the Sonic series, including Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Rouge, Omega, Vector,[8] Charmy, and Espio.[16] Their aim is to protect Earth from both Doctor Eggman and the Black Arms, an army of various related alien species that invade Earth from the Black Comet. Black Doom, the leader of the Black Arms, sends an extension of himself called "Doom's Eye" to watch Shadow and help him complete missions. When completing "Dark" missions, Shadow helps either Black Doom or Doctor Eggman, each of whom wants the Chaos Emeralds for himself. In one "Hero" mission of Sky Troops, Shadow assists Doctor Eggman in battling the Black Arms.

Plot

Edit

A diagram shows twenty-four boxes, representing levels, arranged to show the possible progressions through the game.

Completing "Normal," "Dark," or "Hero" missions determines which levels are subsequently playable. Each box represents a level, and each red or blue box represents a boss mission at the end of the game. The colored lines that connect levels show how the completion of certain missions affects the storyline.

Shadow suffers from amnesia at the beginning of the game; Other than the events since Sonic Heroes that took place prior, Shadow remembers only two things: his name and his attempt to escape the Space Colony ARK with his creator's granddaughter Maria, who was killed by G.U.N. soldiers.[17] Having walked through a room filled with androids that look like him during the events of Sonic Heroes, Shadow wonders if he, too, is an android.[15] The game starts with Shadow reminiscing outside the city of Westopolis when the alien race Black Arms drops out of the sky and invades the city. Black Doom, the Black Arms' leader, contacts Shadow and tells Shadow of an old agreement Shadow made to bring the Chaos Emeralds to him.[18] Stunned that Black Doom knows his name, Shadow searches for the Chaos Emeralds to learn about his past.[19]

The game progresses through the Westopolis level and five more levels from the different paths Shadow may take. As missions are completed, Shadow learns more about his past and regains memories.[4][15] He can choose to help Doctor Eggman or the Black Arms, to help G.U.N. and the series' heroic characters, or to help neither and keep the Chaos Emeralds for himself.[13] The missions completed determine which one of ten possible endings will be seen after Shadow collects all the Chaos Emeralds and defeats one of the game's final bosses.[20] The possible ending events range from planning to defeat the Black Arms to planning to destroy the planet.[21][22]

Completing all ten endings unlocks the game's true ending in which Black Doom uses Chaos Control, enhanced by the power of all seven Chaos Emeralds, to bring the Black Comet to the Earth's surface. Black Doom explains that the Black Arms intend to use humans as an energy source,[23] and the Black Comet begins to release a nerve gas into the Earth's atmosphere that causes total paralysis in those who inhale it.[24][25] Shadow confronts Black Doom after the "Last Way" level, where he discovers that Professor Gerald Robotnik created the ARK's Eclipse Cannon weapon to destroy the Black Comet.[26] During their confrontation, Black Doom reveals that Shadow was created using his blood,[27] and he attempts to use mind control on Shadow, but fails.[28] Black Doom then transforms into a giant beast form called Devil Doom;[29] in response, Shadow uses the Chaos Emeralds to transform into Super Shadow and confronts Devil Doom. During the battle, Doctor Eggman confirms to Shadow that he is the original and not an android.[30] Shadow defeats Devil Doom[31] and uses Chaos Control to teleport the Black Comet back into Earth's orbit, where he obliterates it using the Eclipse Cannon.[32] His friends are elated,[33] as are people at G.U.N. headquarters.[34] Shadow is then shown in the ARK's observation deck holding up a photograph of Maria and Gerald. Recalling Maria's last words to him, "Goodbye forever... Shadow the Hedgehog", Shadow discards the photograph and walks away.[35]

Development

Edit

"Shadow the Hedgehog has a much darker personality than Sonic the Hedgehog. In Sonic the Hedgehog, your typical mission was to go out and beat the bad guys, it gives the players a choice to either take the side of the good hero guys or to take the side of the bad buys [sic], giving the player the option to choose in the game."

—Sonic Team's Takashi Iizuka[36]

Shadow the Hedgehog was developed by Sega Studios USA, the now-defunct United States division of Sega's Sonic Team, and published by Sega.[10] Sega first revealed the game and its tagline ("Hero or villain? You decide.") at the March 8, 2005 inauguration of Sonic the Hedgehog into the Walk of Game.[37] Sega formally announced development of the game for the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox video game consoles on March 23, 2005.[15] The same year, Sega released the game in North America on November 14, 2005,[1] in Europe on November 18, 2005, and Japan on December 15, 2005.[2][3]

Sonic Team's Takashi Iizuka and series co-creator Yuji Naka led the game’s development, with Iizuka serving as writer and director and Naka as producer. Iizuka, who had worked on the Sonic the Hedgehog series since 1993, targeted a younger audience with previous Sonic games and wanted to attract an older audience with Shadow the Hedgehog.[36] The game's development team wanted to make a game featuring Shadow to resolve plot mysteries that began with the character's introduction in Sonic Adventure 2.[15] The team felt that Shadow's design—inspired by films such as Underworld, Constantine, and the Terminator series—would make the story darker and allow for elements, such as vehicles and weapons, otherwise considered inappropriate for a Sonic game.[7] Naka stated in an interview with GameSpy that he wanted to use Shadow as the game's main character due to his popularity among fans and being the best fit for a "gun action" game.[38]

The game features several CG-animated cutscenes produced by Blur Studio.[39] The music of Shadow the Hedgehog was composed by Jun Senoue, with additional work by Yutaka Minobe, Tomoya Ohtani, and Mariko Nanba. Lost and Found: Shadow the Hedgehog Vocal Trax is a video game soundtrack album released on CD on February 22, 2006. The album contains seven vocal songs from the game, one of which is a remix rather than the original.[40] Another soundtrack, Shadow the Hedgehog: Original Soundtrax, was also released on February 22, 2006. It contains both vocal and instrumental tracks from the game.[41]

In Japan, Shadow the Hedgehog was promoted through a collaboration with Japanese hip hop group M-flo, whose song "Tripod Baby" was remixed and featured in the commercial under the title "Tripod Baby (Shadow the Hedgehog Mix)". In addition to this, an alternate music video for "Tripod Baby" featuring the remix included new scenes with Shadow.[42][43]

Uniquely, the game contains profanities, particularly the frequent use of the words "damn" and "hell" spoken by Shadow[22][44][45][46] and other characters such as Espio,[16] the G.U.N. Commander,[47] Knuckles,[48] and Sonic.[49] The decision to include profanity and firearms was made early in development as it focused on a more mature tone. The ESRB ultimately assigned the game an E10+ rating for "fantasy violence" and "mild language".[4]

The game was also the first in the Sonic series to use the 4Kids cast from Sonic X following the death of Doctor Eggman's previous voice actor, Deem Bristow. This cast continued to be used until late 2010 when all cast members except for Mike Pollock were replaced before the release of Sonic Free Riders.[50][51]

Reception

Edit

Reception

Aggregate score

Aggregator Score

Metacritic (GC) 51/100[52]

(Xbox) 49/100[53]

(PS2) 45/100[54]

Review scores

Publication Score

1Up.com (PS2) D-[5]

(GC & Xbox) C+[55]

AllGame [10]

Eurogamer 5/10[56]

Game Informer 4/10, 2/10[57]

GameSpot (GC & Xbox) 4.8/10[11]

(PS2) 4.7/10[4]

GameSpy [58]

GameTrailers 8.3/10[6]

IGN (GC & Xbox) 4.9/10[59]

(PS2) 4.7/10[60]

Nintendo Power 8/10[61]

OXM (UK) 7/10[62]

X-Play [63]

Herald Sun [17]

The Times [64]

Shadow the Hedgehog received generally unfavorable reviews from critics, many of which were highly critical of its gameplay mechanics and differences from other Sonic games.[52][53][54][65] However, it was voted the best game of 2005 in the Official Jetix Magazine Reader Awards and named the "Best Platformer" of 2005 by Nintendo Power readers (receiving more votes than the staff's choice, Sonic Rush).[66][67] Shadow the Hedgehog was also a commercial success: Sega reported 1.59 million units sold from its release to March 2006[68] and 470,000 units sold in the U.S. from March 2006 to March 2007,[69] for total sales of at least 2.06 million. The game was later released as a part of three budget lines: Greatest Hits and Platinum Range for the PlayStation 2 (representing sales of at least 400,000 in North America and Europe, respectively)[70] and Player's Choice for the GameCube (250,000 in North America).[3]

Many critics derided the game's sense of maturity for a Sonic game, especially the addition of guns and other weapons.[61] Game Informer staff writer Matt Helgeson said, "not only is this new 'adult' interpretation of Sonic painfully dumb, it’s also ill-advised and almost feels like a betrayal to longtime fans."[57] Eurogamer staff writer Tom Bramwell felt that "the game's other selling point – its darker edge – [is] not really meant for us."[56] G4's X-Play and GameSpy staff writer Patrick Klepek thought similarly.[58][63] In contrast, Nintendo Power staff writer Steve Thomason rated the game 8.0 out of 10, stating, "this darker take on the Sonic universe succeeds for the most part, giving the series a bit of an edge without going overboard on violence."[61] In addition, Official Xbox Magazine reassured readers, "Don't worry, Shadow the Hedgehog isn't half as 'urban' or quite as 'gangsta' as it first seems."[62] Helgeson panned the game's "laughable" plot, saying it "makes no sense," and that various Sonic conventions undermined its attempts to be "mature" or "edgy".[57]

Reviewers also criticized the game's controls, especially Shadow's homing attack causing unexpected character deaths. Game Informer's Matt Helgeson complained that the attack "frequently sends you careening off into nothingness, resulting in cheap death after cheap death."[57] Nintendo Power, X-Play, Eurogamer, Official Xbox Magazine, and GameSpy agreed.[56][58][61][62][63] Other complaints focused on the mechanics of weapons and vehicles. Greg Mueller of GameSpot felt that the guns were nearly useless because of a lack of a target lock or manual aim, combined with an ineffective auto-aim.[11] IGN staff writer Matt Casamassina, 1UP.com staff writer Greg Sewart, Game Informer, X-Play, GameSpy, and London's The Times also criticized the mechanics of Shadow's weapons, vehicles, and other aspects of the game's controls.[5][57][58][59][63][64] However, Thomason said that "blasting Shadow's foes with the wide variety of weapons at his disposal is just plain fun."[61]

The level design received mixed comments. Mueller called some levels "extremely frustrating".[11] Helgeson stated that the fast-paced "levels are poorly designed", and Andrew Reiner, who wrote a second-opinion review for Game Informer, called the level design "disastrous".[57] Official Xbox Magazine was more mixed, balancing the possibility of getting lost in the large levels with the likely appeal of these stages to 3D Sonic gamers, particularly those who had enjoyed Sonic Heroes.[62] GameTrailers found that "the levels are either dark and urban, or bright and psychedelic. Either way, they fit in well to the Sonic universe. They are loaded with speed ramps, loops and an assortment of other boosts that rocket Shadow like a pinball."[6] Bettenhausen included "the classic run-like-hell roller coaster design philosophy" of some stages in his limited praise.[55] Casamassina disliked the "stupid level design", saying that "[j]ust because they dazzled players six years ago does not mean that Sonic Team can copy and paste exactly the same loops and spins into each new franchise iteration and expect everyone to be happy with the outcome."[59] GameSpy observed that "the areas are much less open than in previous Sonic games, but the level designers haven't taken advantage of the constraints."[58] Nintendo Power singled out the difficulty of the missions that require the player to locate objects.[61]

Critics praised the game's replay value, applauding the many possible paths that a player may take through the game. GameTrailers stated, "this choose-your-own-adventure style gives the game replay value that many platformers lack."[6] The Australian publication Herald Sun, Nintendo Power, and Official Xbox Magazine thought similarly.[17][61][62] GameSpot praised the variety of alternate endings, but concluded that "the gameplay isn't fun enough to warrant playing the game through multiple times."[11] Bettenhausen thought that the morality system felt artificial, but said that it extended the game's replay value.[55]

Notes

Edit

^ Japanese: シャドウ・ザ・ヘッジホッグ, Hepburn: Shadō za Hejjihoggu

References

Edit

^ a b "Shadow the Hedgehog Burrows into Stores". IGN. Archived from the original on December 9, 2010. Retrieved May 5, 2009.

^ a b "Now Playing in Japan". IGN. 19 December 2005. Archived from the original on July 12, 2021. Retrieved July 12, 2021.

^ a b c "Shadow the Hedgehog for GameCube – Shadow the Hedgehog GameCube Game – Shadow the Hedgehog Game". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 19 June 2009. Retrieved February 8, 2009.

^ a b c d e f "Shadow the Hedgehog for PS2 Review". GameSpot. November 21, 2005. Archived from the original on 2 February 2009. Retrieved January 26, 2009.

^ a b c d Sewart, Greg (January 12, 2006). "Reviews: Shadow the Hedgehog for PS2". 1UP.com. Archived from the original on 15 November 2014. Retrieved January 26, 2009.

^ a b c d e f g h "Shadow the Hedgehog – Review". GameTrailers. February 27, 2016 [November 16, 2005, later uploaded to YouTube]. Archived from the original on May 7, 2019. Retrieved May 18, 2018.

^ a b c d e Castro, Juan (25 August 2005). "Shadow the Interview". IGN. Archived from the original on 6 April 2012. Retrieved 28 January 2009.

^ a b "Sonic the Hedgehog Character Profiles". GameSpot. October 14, 2005. Archived from the original on June 19, 2009. Retrieved January 31, 2009.

^ Guess, Gerald (1 November 2005). Shadow the Hedgehog: Prima Official Game Guide. Prima Games. ISBN 9780761551959. Retrieved 15 March 2019 – via Google Books.

^ a b c d Deci, TJ. "Shadow the Hedgehog for GameCube Overview". Allgame. Archived from the original on 15 November 2014. Retrieved January 26, 2009.

^ a b c d e f g Mueller, Greg (November 21, 2005). "Shadow the Hedgehog for GameCube review". GameSpot. Archived from the original on January 5, 2014. Retrieved June 25, 2014.

^ Guess, Gerald (1 November 2005). Shadow the Hedgehog: Prima Official Game Guide. Prima Games. ISBN 9780761551959. Retrieved 1 March 2019 – via Google Books.

^ a b Castaneda, Karl (September 7, 2005). "Nintendo World Report – GC Preview: Shadow the Hedgehog". Nintendo World Report. Archived from the original on June 19, 2009. Retrieved February 4, 2009.

^ "IGN: Shadow the Hedgehog". IGN. Archived from the original on December 9, 2010. Retrieved May 5, 2009.

^ a b c d e Pallesen, Lasse (March 23, 2004). "News Article: Sega Confirms Shadow the Hedgehog". Nintendo World Report. Archived from the original on April 17, 2009. Retrieved January 28, 2009.

^ a b Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Espio: Damn! We've been detected!

^ a b c "Game of the week; Shadow the Hedgehog; GameCube/PS2/Xbox (rrp $79.95) Rating: 3.5/5". Herald Sun (1): F02. February 26, 2006.

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Black Doom: Shadow... As you can see, the day of reckoning will soon be here. Find the seven Chaos Emeralds and bring them to me as promised.

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow: If he says he knows the truth about who I am... then like it or not, I have to believe him. The only way I'm going to get the secrets to my past is to get those Chaos Emeralds!

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow: Finally... I've got ALL the Chaos Emeralds!

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow: With the power of these Emeralds, Black Doom and his army are finished!

^ a b Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow: With the power of these Emeralds, I'm going to destroy this damn planet!

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Black Doom: Humans are a great energy source for us... they will be well-kept.

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Black Doom: A special weapon... this gas, once released, is quickly absorbed into your bloodstream. In a moment, total paralysis will hit your nervous system.

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Black Doom: The end is near, now. Before long, the gas from this Comet will have spread over the entire planet.

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Gerald: Shadow...it's up to YOU and only YOU can stop them! I developed the Eclipse Cannon...it's the only weapon that can destroy that Black Comet. Shadow, you are the only hope... to save mankind as we know it. The future of this planet depends on...YOU!

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Black Doom: Don't you know? You were created from MY blood.

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Black Doom: Well, well, well...seems like you're immune to my mind control.

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Black Doom: Have it your way, Shadow. So be it...be prepared to meet your maker! Your past, present, and future ends here...TODAY! Prepare to die! Say goodbye Shadow as you witness my true wrath!

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Eggman: Shadow... can you hear me? This might be the last chance I have to speak to you so... what I said about having created you... it was all a lie... everyone thought you died during that horrible incident... but I rescued you with one of my robots... you lost your memory that's all... you really are the ultimate lifeform my grandfather created!

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Black Doom: Im...impossible! I am the supreme being that rules this universe! I am the immortal life form! I am the ultimate power! Gaaaah! / Shadow: This is the end of you, and the end to my cursed past.

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow: Only one thing left to do... To put the past behind me! Chaos ... Control!

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Tails: YEAH...he did it! The Black Comet is destroyed! / Sonic: Shadow...that was SWEET! / Rouge: I hope he's OK. / Amy: I'm sure he's fine, Rouge. After all, he is Shadow! / Eggman: How about giving me back those Chaos Emeralds now? / Knuckles: Hey, get back here you creep!

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. President: How ironic... After the way we all treated him, he saved us all in the end. We were all wrong about the professor. ... Let us pay homage to Professor Gerald! Let's work to ensure peace and prosperity for a brighter future! What do you say, Commander? / Commander: Excellent idea, Mr. President.

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow: Goodbye forever... Shadow the Hedgehog.

^ a b Klepek, Patrick (May 24, 2005). "Shadow the Hedgehog Preview from 1UP.com". 1UP.com. Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on November 8, 2012. Retrieved February 9, 2009.

^ Leone, Matt (8 March 2005). "Sega Reveals Sonic Adventure 3". 1UP.com. Archived from the original on 26 April 2006. Retrieved 28 January 2009.

^ Kemps, Heidi (September 30, 2005). "Sega's Yuji Naka Talks!". GameSpy. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016. Retrieved December 30, 2009.

^ "Sonic the Hedgehog". Di-O-Matic.com. Archived from the original on 8 April 2016.

^ ""セガモバ"で『シャドウ・ザ・ヘッジホッグ』のサントラCDがプレゼント！". Famitsu (in Japanese). Archived from the original on June 19, 2009. Retrieved May 5, 2009.

^ "Amazon.com – Shadow the Hedgehog: The Official Soundtrack". Amazon. Archived from the original on December 3, 2013. Retrieved April 28, 2013.

^ Funatsu, Minoru (2005-10-11). "セガ、m-floと「シャドウ・ザ・ヘッジホッグ」がコラボ m-flo「『ソニック』はゲームに革新を起こした! コラボができて感激」". Game Watch (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 2020-06-09. Retrieved 2020-06-09.

^ "m-floとシャドウがコラボ――「m-flo LOVES SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG」". ITMedia (in Japanese). 2005-10-11. Archived from the original on 2020-06-09. Retrieved 2020-06-09.

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow: Where's that damn fourth Chaos Emerald?

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow: Damn, not here...

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Shadow: Yes, doctor, you will regret ever having created me. You're going straight to hell!

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. G.U.N. Commander: The black creatures will feel their own bloody hell!

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Knuckles: Damn! A dead end!

^ Sega Studio USA. Shadow the Hedgehog. Sonic: Damn, they got away! Leave it to me, I'll chase them down!

^ Joscelyne, Svend (September 12, 2005). "Sonic Voiceover Cast Replaced". The Sonic Stadium. Archived from the original on November 21, 2015. Retrieved November 17, 2014.

^ Madden, Orla (13 March 2013). "Ninterview: Meet Roger Craig Smith – Voice Actor for Sonic the Hedgehog / Chris Redfield". Nintendo Life. Gamer Network. Archived from the original on September 23, 2017. Retrieved March 19, 2019.

^ a b "Shadow the Hedgehog for GameCube Reviews, Ratings, Credits, and More at Metacritic". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 2012-04-06. Retrieved 2012-11-18.

^ a b "Shadow the Hedgehog for Xbox Reviews, Ratings, Credits, and More at Metacritic". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 2012-04-06. Retrieved 2012-11-18.

^ a b "Shadow the Hedgehog for PlayStation 2 Reviews, Ratings, Credits, and More at Metacritic". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 2012-04-06. Retrieved 2012-11-18.

^ a b c Bettenhausen, Shane (November 23, 2005). "Reviews: Shadow the Hedgehog for GameCube". 1UP.com. Archived from the original on 15 November 2014. Retrieved January 26, 2009.

^ a b c Bramwell, Tom (November 15, 2005). "Shadow the Hedgehog Review". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on April 6, 2012. Retrieved March 27, 2009.

^ a b c d e f Helgeson, Matt (January 2006). "Shadow the Hedgehog for GameCube Review". Game Informer. Archived from the original on 26 May 2006. Retrieved March 27, 2009.

^ a b c d e Klepek, Patrick (November 16, 2005). "GameSpy: Shadow the Hedgehog Review". GameSpy. Archived from the original on April 6, 2012. Retrieved March 27, 2009.

^ a b c Casamassina, Matt (November 17, 2005). "IGN: Shadow the Hedgehog Review for GameCube". IGN. Archived from the original on April 6, 2012. Retrieved January 28, 2009.

^ Casamassina, Matt (November 17, 2005). "Shadow the Hedgehog Review for PS2". IGN. Archived from the original on April 6, 2012. Retrieved January 26, 2009.

^ a b c d e f g Thomason, Steve (January 2006). "Shadow the Hedgehog Review". Nintendo Power. No. 199. p. 111. In Nintendo Power's final issue in December 2012, Thomason recanted his 8.0 score, stating, "I was young, stupid, and had an inexplicable weakness for any game starring hedgehogs. I apologize profusely to anyone who bought that abomination on account of my misguided praise." See Thomason, Steve (December 2012). "Power Players: Nintendo Power editors past and present recall their favorite memories of the magazine". Nintendo Power. No. 285. p. 11. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2014-07-01.

^ a b c d e "Xbox Review: Shadow the Hedgehog". Official Xbox Magazine. December 6, 2005. Archived from the original on June 20, 2009. Retrieved March 27, 2009.

^ a b c d "Reviews: Shadow the Hedgehog". X-Play. Archived from the original on April 3, 2007. Retrieved March 27, 2009.

^ a b "Shadow The Hedgehog". The Times. January 7, 2006. p. 14.

^ "Shadow the Hedgehog (Xbox) reviews at". GameRankings. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved 2012-11-18.

^ "Jetix Magazine Reader Awards 2006". Official Jetix Magazine. No. 26. Future plc. August 4, 2006.

^ "2005 Nintendo Power Awards". Nintendo Power. Vol. 19, no. 203. May 2006. p. 56.

^ "Sega Sammy Holdings Annual Report 2006" (PDF). July 2006. p. 47. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-03-30. Retrieved 2017-11-27.

^ "Fiscal Year Ended March 2007 Full Year Results" (PDF). 2007-05-14. p. 15. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2016-07-29. Retrieved 2017-11-27.

^ "Shadow the Hedgehog for PlayStation 2 – Shadow the Hedgehog PlayStation 2 Game – Shadow the Hedgehog Game". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 11 September 2011. Retrieved September 17, 2010.

External links

Edit

Official website (in Japanese)

Official PlayStation website

Announcement trailer, shown at the Walk of Game awards in 2005

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Debt, Conflict and Vacancy Imperil Another Kushner Property https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-kushner-times-square-property-development/?ll_push_args={%22utm_source%22:%22push%22,%22utm_medium%22:%22notification%22}

Debt, Conflict and Vacancy Imperil Kushners’ Times Square Dream

By Caleb Melby and David Kocieniewski

Published June 25, 2019 | Bloomberg | Posted June 25, 2019 |

Jared Kushner’s family averted disaster last year when a Canadian asset manager swooped in to buy their skyscraper in midtown Manhattan, which had been hemorrhaging millions of dollars. Now they’re facing a similar crisis a few blocks away.

At the former New York Times building on West 43rd Street, a graying property in Times Square, the pattern is uncannily similar: Buy at a steep price, pile on too much debt, run up big losses, fight with tenants and flirt with default.

It’s the latest example of overreach for a family that built a fortune on suburban rental properties, only to have its urban ambitions stymied. Kushner Cos. bought the first six floors of the Times building for $296 million in 2015, envisioning a multifloor amusement park in the heart of Times Square. Four years later, a toxic brew of debt, conflict and vacancies has put their investment in jeopardy.

Think of the building as a vertical mall with three-story neon signs beckoning tourists. There are tenants the Kushners inherited: a sprawling sushi restaurant, a below-ground Guitar Center store and a two-story bowling alley with thumping music. And ones they brought in—in the basement, National Geographic Encounter, an exhibit about oceans with humpback whales and sea lions cavorting on digital screens; on the second floor, Gulliver’s Gate, featuring detailed miniatures of the Colossus of Rhodes, the Empire State Building, Jerusalem’s Western Wall and other famous sites, complete with miniature trains and glowing skyscrapers.

The Kushners’ new tenants have a few things in common, including ticket prices exceeding $30, underwhelming crowds and financial trouble. The National Geographic exhibit has paid only partial rent since August, and the Kushners are looking for a new tenant. Gulliver’s Gate paid irregularly, prompting a legal battle that resulted in its rent being cut by almost half this year. Take a walk around the back of the building, and there’s a dusty unfinished space meant for a champagne bar. It never opened. Kushner Cos. has traded lawsuits with the proprietor, an operator of airport restaurants that is alleging fraud, claims the Kushners have denied.

A spokeswoman for the National Geographic exhibit confirmed that the attraction wasn’t paying full rent, but she declined to provide details. Gulliver’s Gate founder Michael Langer said he was “happy we were able to work together for an amicable agreement.” A spokesman for OHM Concession Group, which leased space for the champagne bar, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The missteps have added up. Kushner Cos. assumed that all these tenants would be paying rent when it piled $370 million of loans onto the building in an October 2016 refinancing, most of it from Deutsche Bank AG. In March, the company defaulted on one high-interest chunk of its debt to other lenders, and the property has often run at a loss after accounting for loan payments, according to data compiled from disclosures to investors. While there’s always room for improvement, spaces for so-called experiential retailers require custom designs and can take years to fill.

The story of how the Kushner family purchased a Times Square building only to see it founder during an economic boom is one of zealous overconfidence and a passion for trophy properties, according to more than a dozen people interviewed by Bloomberg News. It’s also a tale of how the real estate market encourages excessive risk-taking, rewarding those who use steep leverage on speculative properties even as they pass potential losses to others. Most of the debt on the Times building has been transferred to investors – it’s their problem now. Meanwhile, Kushner Cos. allocated some of the loan to pay itself $59 million, according to public filings.

Wells Fargo & Co., which manages the loan, has placed it on a watchlist for troubled debt and taken control of the property’s accounts. At one point, the building also drew the attention of federal prosecutors. The U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York subpoenaed records about the refinancing in 2017. What investigators were looking for, whether the Kushners were a subject and if the matter is ongoing is unclear. Spokesmen for Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo declined to comment, as did Jared Kushner’s attorney, Abbe Lowell. Representatives for Kushner Cos. didn’t respond to numerous requests for comment.

The former Times building and Kushner Cos. were both struggling when they came together in 2015. The 18-story landmark with a mansard roof had been the newspaper’s headquarters for almost a century, until the company moved a few blocks away in 2007. That same year, Africa Israel Investments Ltd. bought the building at 229 West 43rd St. for $525 million and began searching for a way to repurpose it, exploring everything from luxury condos to a Disney-themed hotel. When those plans fizzled, the company, led by Russian-Israeli diamond merchant Lev Leviev, decided to sell part of the site as a retail complex.

The rapid growth of internet shopping made many real estate investors skeptical. But Charles Kushner, founder of the company that bears his name and father of now-presidential adviser Jared Kushner, was still bullish on retail when Leviev’s brokers pitched him. He had reason for his optimism. In 2011, as Kushner Cos. was straining under a mountain of debt at its 666 Fifth Ave. skyscraper, selling the building’s stores for $1 billion helped pay off some of it and buy time.

Four years later, 666 Fifth Ave. was again operating at a loss. The Kushners were supposed to have improved the property and raised rents. Instead, they had been shopping a plan to knock it down and build a glittering high-rise twice as tall with a five-story shopping center at its base.

The Kushners needed an infusion of cash, and the bottom six floors of the Times building offered a tantalizing opportunity. Tens of thousands of people walk by daily. The building was about half leased, but if the family could fill it quickly and bolster its rent rolls, Kushner Cos. could refinance at a higher valuation, taking any gains as profit.

Charles Kushner’s view wasn’t widely shared, and financing the deal was a struggle. The company considered selling a Chicago office building it owned and sheltering the gains from the sale in the Times Square property, a common tax-planning strategy known as a 1031 exchange, according to a person familiar with the matter. But the Chicago sale never materialized, so the Kushners turned to well-capitalized firms they’d done business with in the past. None accepted the invitation to join them as an equity partner, the person said.

In the end, they relied almost exclusively on loans – all but $1 million of the $296 million purchase price was covered by debt from a division of Brookfield Asset Management Inc., the Canadian real estate company that would later rescue the Kushners by taking out a 99-year lease on 666 Fifth Ave. for $1.3 billion.

Theoretically, anything goes in Times Square, where Madame Tussauds’ lifelike wax sculptures and Mars Corp.’s shrine to M&M’s have co-existed for more than a decade. But it’s also possible to miscalculate. Leviev had made a go of it with the horror-themed Jekyll & Hyde Club. It closed amid terrible reviews months before the Kushners bought the property.

The building’s spaces in the basement and upper floors were slower to lease than anticipated, and by time the Kushners took control in 2015, the property remained about half leased. At Kushner Cos. headquarters in 666 Fifth Ave., Charles Kushner was frustrated that the building was still losing money, according to one person who heard him complain. Jared Kushner, the company’s chief executive officer at the time, told staff that they needed more cash flow, the person recalled, and that they needed it quickly.

The Kushners found it. The first big tenant to sign was Gulliver’s Gate, which had been in talks with Leviev. Plans for an aquarium were scuttled after other tenants complained about potential water damage and fishy aromas. Then came SPE Partners, an entertainment development company with a license from National Geographic, which would take about 60,000 square feet for a waterless and odor-free exhibit. A tiny storefront was leased to Los Tacos No. 1, a popular Mexican taqueria. Airport restaurant operator OHM signed on for a champagne bar, meaning the building was fully leased by August 2016.

The safest buildings to lend to have longtime tenants with proven ability to pay the rent. But the Kushners filled the Times Square property with one-of-a-kind tourist attractions, most of them untested businesses posing unique risks.

“We’re not Gap or Apple, not one of those companies that is known to the market,” Eiran Gazit, a co-founder of Gulliver’s Gate, explained in a November phone interview. “We are a private company and small. There were some landowners who turned us down and are still empty. The Kushners were willing to accept us.” Gazit, who left the company last year and doesn’t speak for the business, said he had met with 17 property owners before signing with the Kushners.

Still, it was a booming market, and Deutsche Bank’s commercial-mortgage unit, which issued a total of $11 billion of New York real estate loans in 2015, was eager to help.

How much was the building worth? That hinged on how much it would make. Total rent of $16 million in 2014, when much of the property was empty, was too conservative. Now that it was fully leased, the Kushners expected $24 million annually, according to a prospectus prepared in connection with the refinancing. Bankers were also optimistic about the Kushners’ ability to slash expenses to $3.9 million a year, about $1.5 million less than 2014, the prospectus said. With an enlarged rent roll and an austere cost structure, net operating income would almost double to $21.5 million, enough to cover about $18 million in interest payments.

Accepting those lofty numbers required no small amount of faith. Only two of the new tenants had moved in, and none was yet paying rent. Nonetheless, the net income figure was used to appraise the property at $470 million, according to the loan documents. By that math, the Kushners had increased its value more than 50% in one year.

The Kushners’ looming income crash

Revenue and expenses by year for 229 West 43rd St.

At that valuation, the $370 million of loans they received in the refinancing looked sober. Most of that amount was used to pay off the existing Brookfield mortgage, with another $26 million placed into reserves. But $59 million went as a payout to Kushner Cos., an astounding return on its original $1 million investment.

“In less than a year, we’ve repositioned the property and transformed it into a top-flight entertainment destination,” Kushner Cos. President Laurent Morali told the Commercial Observer, the trade publication owned by the Kushner family, which broke the news.

The Kushners inauspiciously held their 2016 holiday party at the site of their financial coup: Guy’s American Kitchen & Bar on the West 44th Street side of the Times Square building. The restaurant—named for spiky-haired restaurateur and TV personality Guy Fieri—was the subject of a scathing New York Times review that described a watermelon margarita that tastes like “radiator fluid and formaldehyde.” It would close a year later.

But the Kushners were just at Guy’s for the cavernous space: They brought in a kosher caterer. They had plenty to celebrate. Jared’s father-in-law was going to the White House, the Times Square refinancing was complete, and the family was closing in on a deal with a Chinese insurer to save the overleveraged 666 Fifth Ave.

It was a bittersweet occasion, according to two people who attended. As Charles Kushner hobnobbed with other New York real estate barons, Jared, who would soon be leaving for Washington and stepping away from day-to-day operations, said his goodbyes.

The euphoria didn’t last. In March 2017, Anbang Insurance Group Inc., the Chinese insurer, pulled out of the deal, and Jared’s interactions with the CEO of a Russian state-owned bank came under scrutiny. That led to journalists asking questions about the involvement of Deutsche Bank and Leviev, who’s friendly with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

At the Times building, the first signs of strain emerged that September. Passersby could peek through windows where the champagne bar was scheduled to open months earlier. The space was empty and unimproved. No work was being done. Wells Fargo, which became manager of the loan after the refinancing, put the property on its watchlist, citing lower-than-expected income to cover debt payments. It was an ignominious designation. And then things got worse.

If there’s one common complaint the Kushners’ Times Square tenants have about their landlord, it’s that the company promised more than it delivered.

For OHM, the dispute was about a hallway. The company said in a lawsuit filed in New York Supreme Court that it was promised the space for its champagne bar, but it turned out it was needed for shared use. The hallway covered about 2,000 square feet, or one-sixth of the leased space, according to the suit, which accused Kushner Cos. of fraud and breach of contract. The company denied the claims as “salacious and false” and evicted OHM for failing to open on time. The litigation is ongoing.

Gulliver’s Gate alleged in a lawsuit that Kushner Cos. billed it for 5,700 square feet more than it actually had. The company, which disputed the allegation in court papers, sued the attraction for nonpayment of rent.

The attraction had its own share of troubles as business got off to a rocky start. It missed payments to Kushner Cos. and other vendors. But Gulliver’s Gate had one advantage: A space like the one it occupied on the second floor could take years to fill and would require more cash from the Kushners in the form of tenant improvements and a free-rent period after a new tenant moved in. In April, after a months-long legal battle, Charles Kushner capitulated and agreed to cut the rent by almost half starting early next year.

The battle over the National Geographic exhibit hasn’t spilled into court. But it has been costly. SPE Partners stopped paying full rent in August amid a dispute over shared expenses and racked up more than $3 million in unpaid bills by late last year, according to Wells Fargo. Lenders have approved the lease termination, and the space is now being marketed. Still, lenders won’t let the Kushners evict the exhibit, fearing a hole too big to fill, according to a person familiar with the matter. In April, Kushner Cos. told lenders it expects the digital dolphins to remain in place “for a few more months,” Wells Fargo told investors.

One of the National Geographic exhibit’s biggest backers, Fairfax, Virginia-based real estate firm Peterson Companies, sold its stake late last year. A person familiar with the deal said the company didn’t want to continue pouring money into a venture that had lost millions. Angela Sweeney, chief marketing officer for Peterson, said the separation was amicable and declined to comment on the terms.

As the hits came, Kushner Cos. missed a March payment on an $85 million mezzanine portion of its loan, which was promptly restructured on terms that haven’t been disclosed. Last year’s expenses, about $9 million, were more than twice estimates, according to Wells Fargo data. OHM’s absence and Gulliver’s reduced rent have chopped about $5 million off the revenue estimates, and a National Geographic exit could more than double that figure. If that situation doesn’t change, the building won’t be able to cover debt payments.

If the worst happens and the Times Square building goes belly-up, Kushner Cos. and Deutsche Bank won’t bear the brunt of it. That’s because the Kushners put so little money down and took out so much, and because Deutsche Bank sold most of the debt soon after it was issued.

Losses would instead be borne by a broad base of investors, most of whom probably don’t even know they’re exposed. The debtholders are now a series of trusts that also hold other commercial mortgage loans. Those trusts were sliced up and sold to investors as commercial mortgage-backed securities, similar in structure to vehicles that hold home loans.

The Times Square loan has an extra wrinkle that makes things even riskier for its new owners. Kushner Cos. pays only interest until the loan comes due in 2026. The company had a similar deal at 666 Fifth Ave. In the wake of the financial crisis, the issuance of such interest-only loans diminished. But as the economy recovered and more money was chasing deals, lenders loosened underwriting parameters, according to mortgage-securities data provider Trepp. Now more than half of all new commercial loans are interest-only, according to an April report by Trepp. They’re riskier because borrowers don’t pay down principal over time, increasing lender exposure in the event of a downturn.

Whether the Kushners can salvage their Times Square dreams depends on filling the property with reliable tenants. Or finding another savior to swoop in with a sweetheart offer.

#donald trump #u.s. news #politics #trump administration #president donald trump #trump #white house #politics and government #jaredkushner #just jared #Jared Kushner

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tumsozluk · 2 years ago

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Professor Baruch Lev's book, "The End of Accounting," is highlighted

Professor Baruch Lev’s book, “The End of Accounting,” is highlighted

Excerpt from the Harvard Business Review — “In the 2016 book The End of Accounting, NYU Stern Professor Baruch Lev claimed that over the last 100 years or so, financial reports have become less useful in capital market decisions. Recent research lets us make an even bolder claim: accounting earnings are practically irrelevant for digital companies. Our current financial accounting model cannot…

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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High-speed trading firm linked to Robinhood is going to war with the SEC The timing of Citadel’s 77-page court filing Tuesday was unrelated to the recent market turbulence. Citadel Securities filed its intention to sue in October and the two sides agreed last fall to a February 2 deadline for a brief. Known as D-Limit, IEX says the order type is designed to help protect investors from predatory trading strategies. Short for discretionary limit, IEX says D-Limit acts like a regular limit order except when the exchange’s algorithms predict a price is about to change. A limit order is an order to buy or sell a stock at a determined price or better. However, Citadel Securities is arguing D-Limit does the opposite of protecting investors. In 77 pages of court documents filed Tuesday, Citadel Securities accused the SEC of having “ignored” evidence that retail investors would be “harmed” by the D-Limit order. The firm cited its own analysis that found more than half of its trading activity on IEX was on behalf of retail investors, not for its own profit. Citadel Securities, a major source of revenue for Robinhood is owned by billionaire Ken Griffin. To make its case about how retail investors can be harmed by D-Limit, Citadel Securities compared it to shopping at a store. “Imagine a grocery store that has deliberately installed extra-long conveyor belts on its checkout lines,” the company argues in the filing. In theory, the store could use that extra time to determine if any items have sold out at rivals’ stores. “If so, the store’s computers quickly raise its own price before your item reaches the cashier,” the filing says. The SEC did not respond to a request for comment. IEX said it looks forward to responding to the Citadel Securities filing and pointed to public trading data that it says shows D-Limit delivers better trading results and pricing to investors. ‘Predatory’ trading strategies The claims by Citadel Securities come despite the fact that last year Republicans and Democrats at the SEC unanimously approved the rule, which was also backed by large pension funds and asset managers like T. Rowe Price. D-Limit was even blessed by Better Markets, the tough-on-Wall-Street nonprofit run by Dennis Kelleher, who was on President Joe Biden’s transition agency review team. IEX’s D-Limit, along with the exchange’s other technology, can “protect investors against predatory” trading strategies, Lev Bagramian, senior securities policy advisor at Better Markets, told CNN Business in an email. Kelleher said D-Limit would shield investors specifically from Citadel Securities — and by extension hurt the firm’s booming revenue. “Presumably that’s why Citadel vehemently opposed IEX’s D-Limit order type,” Kelleher said. IEX was founded in March 2012 by former Wall Street executive Brad Katsuyama, a central character in Flash Boys, which made the case that high-speed traders are preying on mom-and-pop investors. IEX was approved as an exchange in August 2016. “Despite the current environment,” Katsuyama told CNN Business in a statement, “Citadel has followed through on their attempt to reverse the SEC’s approval of an innovation that is designed to protect all investors from predatory trading strategies.” A Citadel Securities spokesperson pointed to an October statement in which the firm said the SEC “failed to properly consider the costs and burdens imposed by this proposal that will undermine the reliability of our markets and harm tens of millions of retail investors.” Although D-Limit won unanimous support from the SEC, some companies warned the agency in comment letters not to approve the rule. Nasdaq, a rival exchange to IEX, slammed D-Limit as “nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt by IEX to bolster its dismal market quality for displayed orders.” Elizabeth Warren raises questions about Robinhood, Citadel The lawsuit comes as scrutiny intensifies on Citadel Securities in the wake of the Reddit-driven market volatility and Robinhood’s controversial decision to temporarily suspend purchases of GameStop (GME), AMC (AMC) and other stocks backed by WallStreetBets. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen summoned federal regulators to look into the market turbulence this week and lawmakers have called for an investigation. Robinhood, which championed the free-trading business model that is now common in the industry, has repeatedly said that its trading restrictions on GameStop were driven by soaring financial requirements during the market volatility, not at the behest of Wall Street firms hurt by the GameStop rally. But Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said Robinhood’s trading limits on small investors “raises troubling concerns about its relationship with large financial institutions that execute its trades.” Specifically, Warren pointed to Robinhood’s ties to Citadel Securities. ‘You’re the product’ Like other brokerages, Robinhood gets paid to route orders to market makers, a controversial practice known as payment for orderflow. In December alone, Robinhood generated about $12.4 million by routing orders to Citadel Securities, according to disclosure forms. Critics say it is only free to trade on Robinhood because the app sends orders to market makers, enabling them to trade ahead of those retail flows. “With anything that’s free, you’re the product,” Mark Yusko, CEO of hedge fund Morgan Creek Capital Management, told CNN Business earlier this week. Another entity owned by Griffin, the hedge fund Citadel, provided a $2 billion bailout to GameStop short-seller Melvin Capital Management after its bets blew up. Both Citadel Securities and Citadel the hedge fund denied any role in Robinhood’s decision to stop purchases of GameStop. In a statement, Citadel Securities said it has not “instructed or otherwise caused any brokerage firm to stop, suspend or limit trading or otherwise refuse to do business.” The SEC clash isn’t the only time Citadel has been in the headlines recently with a regulator. Last year FINRA, Wall Street’s self-regulator, fined Citadel Securities $700,000 for trading ahead of customer orders. FINRA said that over a two-year period Citadel Securities delayed certain equity orders from clients — while continuing to trade those same stocks in its own account. Without admitting or denying the findings, Citadel accepted and consented to the FINRA action. Source link Orbem News #firm #highspeed #investing #Linked #Robinhood #SEC #trading #WallStreetfirmlinkedtoRobinhoodisgoingtowarwiththeSECtoderailFlashBoysexchangeIEX-CNN #war

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dipulb3 · 4 years ago

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High-speed trading firm linked to Robinhood is going to war with the SEC

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/high-speed-trading-firm-linked-to-robinhood-is-going-to-war-with-the-sec/

High-speed trading firm linked to Robinhood is going to war with the SEC

The timing of Citadel’s 77-page court filing Tuesday was unrelated to the recent market turbulence. Citadel Securities filed its intention to sue in October and the two sides agreed last fall to a February 2 deadline for a brief.

Known as D-Limit, IEX says the order type is designed to help protect investors from predatory trading strategies. Short for discretionary limit, IEX says D-Limit acts like a regular limit order except when the exchange’s algorithms predict a price is about to change. A limit order is an order to buy or sell a stock at a determined price or better.

However, Citadel Securities is arguing D-Limit does the opposite of protecting investors. In 77 pages of court documents filed Tuesday, Citadel Securities accused the SEC of having “ignored” evidence that retail investors would be “harmed” by the D-Limit order. The firm cited its own analysis that found more than half of its trading activity on IEX was on behalf of retail investors, not for its own profit.

Citadel Securities, a major source of revenue for Robinhood is owned by billionaire Ken Griffin.

To make its case about how retail investors can be harmed by D-Limit, Citadel Securities compared it to shopping at a store.

“Imagine a grocery store that has deliberately installed extra-long conveyor belts on its checkout lines,” the company argues in the filing. In theory, the store could use that extra time to determine if any items have sold out at rivals’ stores.

“If so, the store’s computers quickly raise its own price before your item reaches the cashier,” the filing says.

The SEC did not respond to a request for comment. IEX said it looks forward to responding to the Citadel Securities filing and pointed to public trading data that it says shows D-Limit delivers better trading results and pricing to investors.

‘Predatory’ trading strategies

The claims by Citadel Securities come despite the fact that last year Republicans and Democrats at the SEC unanimously approved the rule, which was also backed by large pension funds and asset managers like T. Rowe Price.

D-Limit was even blessed by Better Markets, the tough-on-Wall-Street nonprofit run by Dennis Kelleher, who was on President Joe Biden’s transition agency review team.

IEX’s D-Limit, along with the exchange’s other technology, can “protect investors against predatory” trading strategies, Lev Bagramian, senior securities policy advisor at Better Markets, told Appradab Business in an email.

Kelleher said D-Limit would shield investors specifically from Citadel Securities — and by extension hurt the firm’s booming revenue.

“Presumably that’s why Citadel vehemently opposed IEX’s D-Limit order type,” Kelleher said.

IEX was founded in March 2012 by former Wall Street executive Brad Katsuyama, a central character in Flash Boys, which made the case that high-speed traders are preying on mom-and-pop investors. IEX was approved as an exchange in August 2016.

“Despite the current environment,” Katsuyama told Appradab Business in a statement, “Citadel has followed through on their attempt to reverse the SEC’s approval of an innovation that is designed to protect all investors from predatory trading strategies.”

A Citadel Securities spokesperson pointed to an October statement in which the firm said the SEC “failed to properly consider the costs and burdens imposed by this proposal that will undermine the reliability of our markets and harm tens of millions of retail investors.”

Although D-Limit won unanimous support from the SEC, some companies warned the agency in comment letters not to approve the rule.

Nasdaq, a rival exchange to IEX, slammed D-Limit as “nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt by IEX to bolster its dismal market quality for displayed orders.”

Elizabeth Warren raises questions about Robinhood, Citadel

The lawsuit comes as scrutiny intensifies on Citadel Securities in the wake of the Reddit-driven market volatility and Robinhood’s controversial decision to temporarily suspend purchases of GameStop (GME), AMC (AMC) and other stocks backed by WallStreetBets.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen summoned federal regulators to look into the market turbulence this week and lawmakers have called for an investigation.

Robinhood, which championed the free-trading business model that is now common in the industry, has repeatedly said that its trading restrictions on GameStop were driven by soaring financial requirements during the market volatility, not at the behest of Wall Street firms hurt by the GameStop rally.

But Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said Robinhood’s trading limits on small investors “raises troubling concerns about its relationship with large financial institutions that execute its trades.”

Specifically, Warren pointed to Robinhood’s ties to Citadel Securities.

‘You’re the product’

Like other brokerages, Robinhood gets paid to route orders to market makers, a controversial practice known as payment for orderflow. In December alone, Robinhood generated about $12.4 million by routing orders to Citadel Securities, according to disclosure forms.

Critics say it is only free to trade on Robinhood because the app sends orders to market makers, enabling them to trade ahead of those retail flows.

“With anything that’s free, you’re the product,” Mark Yusko, CEO of hedge fund Morgan Creek Capital Management, told Appradab Business earlier this week.

Another entity owned by Griffin, the hedge fund Citadel, provided a $2 billion bailout to GameStop short-seller Melvin Capital Management after its bets blew up.

Both Citadel Securities and Citadel the hedge fund denied any role in Robinhood’s decision to stop purchases of GameStop.

In a statement, Citadel Securities said it has not “instructed or otherwise caused any brokerage firm to stop, suspend or limit trading or otherwise refuse to do business.”

The SEC clash isn’t the only time Citadel has been in the headlines recently with a regulator. Last year FINRA, Wall Street’s self-regulator, fined Citadel Securities $700,000 for trading ahead of customer orders. FINRA said that over a two-year period Citadel Securities delayed certain equity orders from clients — while continuing to trade those same stocks in its own account. Without admitting or denying the findings, Citadel accepted and consented to the FINRA action.

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olko71 · 4 years ago

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New Post has been published on All about business online

New Post has been published on http://yaroreviews.info/2021/01/some-ceos-fire-rioters-call-for-president-trumps-removal-from-office

Some CEOs Fire Rioters, Call for President Trump's Removal From Office

Trump supporters rioting at the Capitol on Wednesday.

Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Chip Cutter

and

Emily Glazer

Jan. 7, 2021 8:46 pm ET

In the wake of the riot at the Capitol, companies moved to cut ties with President Trump and his supporters and fired workers who participated.

Facebook Inc. banned Mr. Trump indefinitely and Canada-based Shopify Inc. closed online stores associated with Mr. Trump’s campaign and businesses. Publisher Simon & Schuster said it would drop a coming book by Sen. Josh Hawley, a key backer of Mr. Trump’s election claims. Dozens more executives and trade groups denounced the takeover of the Capitol and called for the removal of the president.

A number of companies said they fired employees who participated in the riot at the Capitol after seeing employees in photos and videos posted to social media.

A congressional exercise in the peaceful transfer of power devolved into deadly chaos when a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol. Hours after the riots, Congress reconvened and certified President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. Photo: Lev Radin/Pacific Press/Zuma Press

Goosehead Insurance said Thursday that Paul Davis, an associate general counsel, was no longer employed by the company. In an email to employees Thursday, Goosehead CEO Mark Jones said the company was “surprised and dismayed to learn that one of our employees, without our knowledge or support, participated in a violent demonstration at our nation’s capital yesterday.” A spokesman for Goosehead, a publicly traded company based in Westlake, Texas, said Mr. Davis had been hired in mid-2020.

On an Instagram account, a user identified as Paul M. Davis wrote that he was “peacefully demonstrating” Wednesday. The account, public earlier Thursday, is now private; Mr. Davis didn’t return a request for comment.

Managers at Navistar Direct Marketing, a printing company in Frederick, Md., saw on Twitter that a man wearing a company badge was among rioters inside the U.S. Capitol. After reviewing photos, the company said the employee had been “terminated for cause.”

Dave Petratis, CEO of Allegion PLC, seen in 2013, said he supported a statement from the National Association of Manufacturers that suggested Vice President Mike Pence consider invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office.

Photo: Richard Drew/Associated Press

“While we support all employees’ right to peaceful, lawful exercise of free speech, any employee demonstrating dangerous conduct that endangers the health and safety of others will no longer have an employment opportunity with Navistar Direct Marketing,” the company said. A spokesman for the company declined to name the employee.

In most states, employers have wide latitude to terminate employees, even for conduct outside the workplace.

Ron Shaich, former CEO of Panera Bread Co. and an investor in several other chains who’s involved in No Labels, a political group that supports centrist lawmakers, said executives have the right to fire workers believed to have engaged in illegal activities.

“There’s not unlimited freedom,” he said, adding that if one of his employees had illegally entered the U.S. Capitol, he would fire them. “I’m not going to tell you you shouldn’t go to a Trump demonstration and you shouldn’t be in our company if you vote for Trump, but that’s not the same,” he said. “We as a society have got to repudiate this. This is not OK.”

Dave Petratis, CEO of Allegion PLC, a security products manufacturer with U.S. headquarters in the Indianapolis area, said he supported a statement from the National Association of Manufacturers that suggested Vice President Mike Pence consider invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office.

“The middle, the saner part of America and the world’s got to step up and say: Enough,” he said, adding that this week’s events make him want to speak out more forcefully. “It just primes and motivates me for action.”

Ron Shaich, former CEO of Panera Bread Co., said executives have the right to fire workers believed to have engaged in illegal activities.

Photo: Panera Bread/Associated Press

Companies might also face a backlash. The Lincoln Project, a group of anti-Trump Republicans and former Republicans, said it’s planning “a brutal corporate pressure campaign” targeting companies, trade associations, CEOs and others that “serve as the financiers of the Authoritarian movement that attacked the US Capitol,” Steve Schmidt, a political strategist and a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, said in a tweet.

In an interview Thursday evening, Mr. Schmidt said he wasn’t ready to list specific companies that will be in the crosshairs, but said the Lincoln Project thinks there are plenty worth scrutinizing.

“It’s a time for choosing: it’s America, or autocracy,” he said. “There’s going to be a public discussion around it.”

Rich Lesser, CEO of Boston Consulting Group, said the business community must be clear-eyed about President Trump’s behavior, as well as those members of Congress who acted as enablers. “If we look past these actions and treat them as an isolated event by engaging and supporting these individuals, then we also risk being complicit in encouraging future actions that destabilize our country,” he said. Mr. Lesser didn’t suggest specific actions businesses should take, but said companies have an important role to play.

More calls for removing the president came from groups as varied as National Nurses United, which represents 170,000 nurses in the U.S., and law firm Crowell & Moring LLP, which has about 1,100 employees. The Washington, D.C.-based law firm urged other firm leaders and lawyers to add their support to the firm’s letter. “The president has proven himself unfit for office, and a reckless and wanton threat to the Constitution that he pledged to preserve, protect, and defend,” the firm said.

Crowell & Moring Chairman Phil Inglima, a Democrat, said that since the firm shared the letter, he’s heard from several leaders of law firms of different sizes who want to participate. He said the firm, which has support from Republicans and Democrats internally, plans to send the letter to Mr. Pence this week.

One CEO who has been a major Trump donor said that he was frustrated by the violence and wished the president more forcefully disavowed the rioters’ actions, though he also said Mr. Trump had been maligned by opponents and the media throughout his term. The CEO said he no longer plans to financially support Mr. Trump’s future political ambitions.

Some other business leaders continue to stand with Mr. Trump and the Republican senators. John Lodge III, CEO of Lodge Lumber Co. in Houston, said he remains a supporter, personally and financially, of Mr. Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz, who objected Wednesday night to ratifying Mr. Biden’s electoral college votes in Arizona.

Mr. Lodge said he thinks the violence was staged to make Trump supporters look bad.

“I support everyone who supports the president and Ted Cruz,” he said, adding that he has a list of people who don’t support the president and they won’t get money from him in the next election, whether Republican or Democrat.

—Khadeeja Safdar, Sharon Terlep and Kathryn Dill contributed to this article.

The Storming of the Capitol

Write to Chip Cutter at [email protected] and Emily Glazer at [email protected]

Appeared in the January 8, 2021, print edition as ‘CEOs Fire Rioters, Condemn Violence.’

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