#or rather it's a single contract and the client just happens to have multiple bodies

[gamebunny-advance]

Hm...

I think Neon!GAB is probably Tutti-Frutti scented.

[snackhobi]

pairing: min yoonji x reader / word count: 9.7k / genre: f x f smut, assassin!au

summary: a fic inspired by this post and that’s pretty much it-

warnings: sexually explicit content (NSFW), talk about death/assassination (nothing graphic dw! but they are assassins, so), mild violence, unnecessarily sexually charged lipstick application, face riding, fingering, multiple orgasms, oral (f giving/receiving), use of restraints, overstimulation, squirting, kind of dom!yoonji?

a/n: this is an entirely self-indulgent fic I wrote as a gift to myself for my bday, it’s a lil rushed bc I wanted it done for today! women are so very beautiful and I am so very weak, thank you ladies for all being so amazing ily. this was meant to be a short pwp and now it’s almost 10k but I have no regrets bye

--

la petite mort French literal meaning: ‘the little death’; also an expression used to refer to the brief loss or weakening of consciousness, specifically the sensation of orgasm as likened to death; an orgasm.

--

“It’s just unacceptable.”

The woman in front of you is clearly wealthy. Her dark hair is perfectly styled and her pale nails are perfectly shaped and her subtle makeup is perfectly flattering; she’s starting to get older but rather than shy away from it, she’s leaning into it, and she looks almost imperious in her beauty, eyes sharp and set of her lips severe. Park Dahye was born into wealth and has clearly thrived in the life that she’s been afforded.

“Mmhm.” You try not to yawn. 

“He’s flitting around with some young, silly thing on his arm, with no consideration for the family’s reputation— my reputation,” she continues. Her posture is perfect, from the set of her spine to her crossed legs to her folded hands that rest on her knee, somehow demure and yet highlighting all of her beauty and riches; the jewellery on her wrists and fingers, the expensive heels on her feet, the slit of her haute-couture dress, no doubt tailored for her and her alone. “I’ve already spoken to him about his behaviour, but he’s just ignored my warnings. We may have agreed on the divorce but we’re currently still husband and wife— has he no shame?”

“Awful.” You don’t even try to hide how bored you are, but Dahye is so quietly incensed that she doesn’t even notice as she launches into the next part of her queenly diatribe, and you muffle a sigh.

That’s the problem with rich clients. Sure, they’re willing to fork over stupid amounts of money to you, but they also think that their issues are of paramount significance— like they’re the centre of the universe and their problems are the only important ones in the world. Like you’re interested in what they have to say. Like this is the only job you’ll ever do that holds real weight or meaning.

For them, it’s a life-changing (life-ending) decision. 

For you? It’s another Tuesday.

“Yes, yes, that’s just so terrible, gosh, I don’t know how you manage it,” you say once she pauses to take a breath, using the opportunity to cut her off before she launches into another part of her articulate rant. “Anyway. Would you prefer if his death was embarrassing or quiet?”

For the first time since you’ve met, she seems unsettled. “Pardon?”

Namjoon is much better with people than you, smooth and charming with his boyish dimples. Normally any discussions would go through your handler, but this woman had demanded to meet you personally and had been willing to pay for the privilege: so here you are, with your relative bluntness instead of Joon’s winsome smile.

“You know,” you say, gesturing with your hands. “When they find the body. Do you want him to be caught with his trousers around his ankles—literally or figuratively, that’s up to you— or would you rather it seemed like something natural and unpredictable? Like a sudden heart attack in his sleep, for example.”

When it comes to rich clients, a lot of it is about reputation. When someone’s shuffled off this mortal coil, it’s not just that they’re removed from the equation, it’s also about the ripples that their death leaves in the high society that they’ve lived in. Does she want her (soon-to-be) ex-husband made a mockery of, or does she just want him out of the picture?

She can’t see your face, behind your mask as it is, but you can see hers in perfect clarity. For all that Dahye seems put together and almost impassive, you see the tiny flicker in her eyes. Ah. She’s not just mad because he’s ruining their reputation. She’s hurt.

Man, that sucks. Honestly you bet it’s easier being an assassin than a rich housewife. At least when it comes to backstabbing you can literally involve a knife to sort your problems out. (Well, knives are messy, but you get the picture.)

“I’d prefer something quiet,” she decides. “I’d worry that it could lead back to me, otherwise.”

You’d be offended at the idea that you’d leave any trace that could implicate anyone or that this man’s sudden death was in any way suspicious, but she’s paying you enough that you find that you don’t care. You take pride in your work, but for the amount of zeroes involved in the fee you’re being paid, you think you can take an unintentional insult or two. Or three. Or ten.

You like money, what can you say.

“Sure thing,” you say, giving her a lazy, two fingered salute. You’ve been reclining against the desk of the hotel suite, flicking the complimentary, heavy metal pen between your fingers, twirling it like the world’s most underwhelming baton. You straighten up and let the pen drop back into the pen pot—wait, no, of course it’s a handmade porcelain jar, an alarmingly well-made Joseon porcelain replica. Everything in here stinks of money. “RM will confirm where the money is to be deposited. Half of it now as collateral, and half upon completion of the job,” you say. “If you change your mind between now and then, we’ll be keeping the original 50%, but if for some reason something goes awry, you’ll receive that money back. Sound good?”

She seems surprised at your directness. “I—”

“Fabulous!” You clap your hands together, although the sound is muffled by your gloves. You’re not about to leave your fingerprints everywhere, geez. “Alright, time for me to skidaddle I suppose! I’ve got work to be doing, people to be watching, men to be killing!”

Dahye flinches imperceptibly, but by this point you’ve already slipped out onto the balcony and into the night.

--

Being an assassin is hard work.

Technically, everyone has the capacity to kill another human being. But killing as a job involves a lot more than just caving someone’s head in with a rock—that’s why Cain isn’t referred to as an assassin, what with how he’d just bashed his brother Abel with a convenient stone that happened to be lying nearby. He was just a straight up dick.

No, when you kill professionally you need to be familiar with an array of different techniques, each one far more sophisticated than the last. You need to know how to be stealthy, how to blend in as you watch your target, how to set up the scenes of their death in a way that doesn't arouse suspicion. Or, instead, how to set the scene up in a way that lets any onlookers know that this person had been offed by someone who knew what they were doing, and knew it well. There's a difference between being a killer and being an assassin and you are firmly in the latter category.

So, if your client wants her husband to be shuffled off quietly, then that’s what she’ll get.

They really have pulled out all the stops for this charity gala. Everything is shining, glittering and bright: the surroundings, the food, the people. Especially the people. The rich elite have come together for an extravagant and exquisite night of ostentation and luxury, all in the name of raising money for some needy cause. (You try not to think of the irony and/or hypocrisy behind that.)

It’s almost laughable how easy it is to blend in here. Namjoon had secured (forged) invitations for you both, and so you hang off his arm as you make a slow sweep of the room, trailing unnoticed after your target. You’re not planning to make a move right now but you want to feel out exactly what he’s like: the more information you have about the person you’ve been contracted to assassinate, the better. 

Plus it’s an excuse to dress up nice and eat free food— though that last part is mainly Namjoon.

“God, these canapés are so good,” Namjoon moans quietly to you, hoovering up the flaky pastry crumbs from his fingers with single-minded intent. You dig your fingers subtly into his arm.

“I thought we agreed on not eating tonight, Joon,” you mutter to him, although you say it with a beatific smile in case anyone is watching; the place is heaving with people but you’re always on guard. (Even if Namjoon is right. The hors d’oeuvres that are on offer do look incredibly tempting.)

“You have a glass of champagne,” he points out.

“And you may have noticed that I haven’t drunk any of it.” You titter, as if he’s just told a funny joke, and lightly slap his arm. Again, you’re fairly certain no one is watching, but you can never be too careful. “It’s all about creating a facade, Joonie. It’s what we in the business call a ruse.”

Even throughout your back and forth, you’ve kept your eyes on your man of the night: Park Minjae, a middle-aged businessman who’s been greeting people and getting swept up in conversation, all while a slip of a blonde clings to his arm, stuck to his side like a pretty limpet. She’s cute, sure, but she lacks the poise that Dahye has, so you frankly don’t get it. Then again, not everyone finds strong women as attractive as you do. Weirdos.

You’ve been focused on Minjae but your eyes have also been flitting around the room, drinking in your surroundings, drawing up a detailed map of your environment (of course you’d scoped out the building before tonight, but with all the banquet tables and chairs around the layout is a little different). The people, too, have been subject to your scrutiny, although so far they all seem summarily unimportant and uninteresting, just as you’d suspected. You lift your glass to your lips and pretend to take a tiny, demure sip, glancing up through your eyelashes to scan the room again, and you freeze.

Holy shit.

You take back what you just said about everyone being unimportant and uninteresting. 

The woman who’s just walked in is fucking stunning. Her sleek dark bob is unstyled, but perfectly frames her beautiful face: sharp eyes, soft nose, flushed lips. Her cocktail dress lets you see almost every inch of those perfect legs, the line of her thighs to her calves and— oh, you swear you could shed a tear of joy. She’s already tall and she’s made even taller by the heels she wears, towering above most of the men here, a fucking Amazonian goddess who looks powerful and undeniably elegant at the same time. 

(Thank you for your service, tall women.)

You don’t know who she is, but goddamn, do you want to. She’s scanning the room, and for a brief moment, your eyes touch. A tiny thrill shudders up your spine at the darkness of her keen eyes, that quick and astute gaze. 

It’s only the tiniest of moments that’s over as soon as it’s started. The dark-haired beauty looks away and is already disappearing into the crowd before you realise, and it’s only then you notice that you’re staring, utterly drawn in by her cool poise and presence. You’ve been frozen in place with the rim of your champagne  glass resting against your mouth, and your eyelashes flutter as you blink and glance down.

The imprint of your lower lip has been left on the glass, stark red visible against its edge, and you squeeze Namjoon’s bicep.

“How does my lipstick look?”

He takes one look at you as he swallows down another tiny vol-au-vent. “Like half of it is missing,” he says, and you frown.

“Ugh. I’ll go touch it up in the bathroom. Keep an eye on our guy, I’ll be right back.”

It’s not until you’ve made it to the toilets that you realise that you do not, in fact, have any lipstick in your ridiculously small clutch bag. When it comes to your actual work, you’re meticulous and thorough and well-planned, but for some bizarre reason, a tube of lipstick is never the top of the list when it comes to equipment. Unbelievable. (You knew you should have worn the 24/7 stuff, but it was always such a nightmare to get off.)

You’ve been so busy rummaging through your bag that you’re completely caught off-guard at the sound of a quiet voice from behind you.

“Lost something?”

Oh, fuck. It’s her, your dark haired and dark eyed beauty, meeting your gaze through the mirror when you glance up from where you’re resting your bag against the marble counter  (marble, marble, marble, it’s all marble: the floors, the counters, the sinks; why do rich people always love marble?). She looks altogether too amused at your plight and at how your eyes have widened perceptibly upon seeing her again. But can she blame you? Her presence is so graceful and commanding and she’s so dizzyingly attractive it’s insane. Surely she must get this all the time.

You stare for a little longer than is probably polite, and even behind her fringe you can see how one of her eyebrows rises.

“Sorry for staring,” you say once you notice. “You’re just so beautiful.”

She pauses as she takes in the compliment. You see how her eyes flicker over your face and settle on your mouth; your upper lip, tinted burgundy red, while the lower is faint and smudged.

“Lipstick problems?” She cocks her head at you, still staring at your lips in the mirror. God, she’s so hot.

“Can you tell?” You sound rueful as you glance down at the reflection of your mouth, touching your bottom lip lightly with a fingertip. “I forgot to bring any with me so now I’m stuck.”

She finally looks away from you. You hear a small, metallic click as she unclasps her evening bag— marginally larger than your own— and lifts out a small tube of liquid lipstick. “Would you like to use mine?”

Fuck yes you would. 

“Oh, would that be alright?” You finally turn around, and you have to tilt your head back to look at her, taller than you in her heels. Jesus Christ. She’s going to be the death of you. Why are women so gorgeous? Who gave them the right? “I’m not sure the shade will match, though?”

You watch her beautiful mouth curve up into a small smirk as she pulls out a tiny pack of makeup remover wipes from her bag, and you swear could propose to her there and then. Beautiful and tall and organised? Holy shit. What a woman.

She’s got her bag in one hand, while the lipstick and wipes are clasped in the other; her hand is held up in such a way that you think she means for you to take them from her, but when you reach out she shakes her head.

“I’ll do it for you,” she says. The quiet note of authority in her tone makes you go weak at the knees.

Thank god the toilets you chose aren’t the main ones, because it means there’s no one around to see how she tilts her head at the marble counter in the universal gesture of get on there. It’s entirely unnecessary, but you, of course, immediately comply. You brace your hands against the cold stone before hitching yourself up, careful with the draping folds of your dress; the cold touch of the stone is noticeable through the material of your dress, but it’s instantly forgotten when your enchantress steps closer. 

You spread your knees so she can stand between them. Holy shit, she’s even better up close. Her lashes are wispy but they’re the perfect frame for her gorgeous eyes, which are dark and intent. You suppress a shiver. You hold yourself still as she leans forward and around you so she can put her clutch and lipstick down, trying to ignore how close she is, but there’s no way she can’t realise what she’s doing. Your heart is pounding. You wish you didn’t have a job to do tonight because you would so much rather be getting, ah, acquainted with this woman rather than following some old businessman around.

The only noise in the bathroom is the sound of peeling plastic as she opens the tiny packet of wet wipes before she curls one around her finger, glancing at you through her lashes.

“Open,” she instructs.

Your mouth drops open immediately. She sweeps the wipe over your lips, bottom, then top, touch firm but careful, drawing away the red from your skin; you stare at her as she works, how her eyes are cast down as she stares at your mouth. She’s using her free hand to grip your chin and you feel deliciously powerless in her grasp. 

You purse your lips a little to try and help her, watching the way her eyes flicker as she pulls the wipe back over them— somewhat firmer, this time, with more intent. Lingering. The only barrier between her finger and your mouth is soft and flimsy, the texture of the wipe against your lips like cotton as it drags across them, and it would be so easy to pull it out of her hands.

She flicks the dirtied wipe aside, heedless of how it lands on the unsullied marble, before reaching for her lipstick. She twists the tube in her fingers, motions of her hands precise and deft, and you’ve never been so attracted to how someone’s uncapped something before. 

You watch her hands. (She watches you.)

Your eyes trail over the wand as she pulls it out, dragging the doe foot against the rim to catch the excess before turning it towards you, putting the tube by your thigh, near where your hand is bracing against the marble. She takes hold of your chin once again. You stay quiet as she starts to sweep the lipstick over your lips, painting them the same flushed pink as her own. Once again she’s staring at her work so you’re free to drink her in, almost drunk from her beauty, eyes catching on the tiny moles on her pale skin, the smallest freckles that are only noticeable because you’re this close.

The squelch of the applicator sliding into the tube is almost lewd in the silence of the bathroom, and this time you can’t suppress a shiver when she pulls your chin down to open your mouth so she can go back in again on your lips, drawing a sharp, crisp line. Tracing the edges of your lips, the flushed swell of them, the peak of your cupid’s bow.

She glances up. For a moment you’re both still, staring at each other, tension in the air palpable, but then she smacks her lips and you copy the motion, evening the application of the makeup on your mouth. 

“Perfect,” she murmurs. “One more step.”

A small, confused frown flits over your face. She’s put the lipstick aside but then she lifts a finger and points towards your still parted lips. You take in a small, shuddering breath when she speaks again and you realise what she means.

“You don’t want to get lipstick on your teeth, do you?”

Both of her eyebrows have risen and she’s looking at you like you’re being silly if you disagree with her.

“No,” you say. You’re not about to deny her. “No, I don’t.”

Your eyes remain locked. You lean forwards, taking that perfect, long finger into your mouth, dragging your lips upwards so that any excess lipstick is caught against her pale skin, a ring of deep rose circling her bottom knuckle; you curl your tongue around her, hot and wet, feeling the crease of her knuckles and pad of her fingertip against your taste buds as you slowly, slowly pull away. 

It’s undoubtedly indecent and risqué and you can feel the flush of arousal settling in your lower belly, an almost embarrassing flush of wetness leaking out of you at the taste of her skin. She, however, remains unmoved, although she lets her finger linger just for a moment on your bottom lip, almost rough against their softness— but before you can swallow those fingers back down and ruin her meticulous work, she pulls away, lifting the discarded wipe to sweep it around her finger, catching the lipstick you’d left on her skin.

“Done.”

She steps back and you feel like you can finally breathe, a breath so deep you can feel how your lungs fill, oxygen rushing to your brain so fast you feel lightheaded. You watch as she sweeps everything back into her bag, clicking it shut with a note of finality; the sullied wipe is cast carelessly into a tiny, chrome bin with a flick of a wrist, her every motion regal.

You slide off the counter. You still can’t take your eyes off her and you don’t want to. It feels like whatever heaviness was in the air has dissipated, gone in an instant with a turn of her head— normally you’d let it slide, even if you feel disappointed, but she’s just so magnetic. 

“Thank you,” you say. You can see yourself in the mirror now and to your complete lack of surprise, your lipstick is perfect. The shade is lighter than one you’d have chosen for yourself but it’s beautiful on her, of course.

“You’re welcome.” She’s in the middle of washing her hands, but she glances over her shoulder at you, and the firm set to her face lightens a little as she smiles. It’s a small, sly thing, and you realise with a start that she knows exactly what effect she has on you.

I’m coming back for you, you think to yourself. You have work to do tonight, but—

“What’s your name?”

She pauses. She shuts off the tap with a quick motion, reaching forward for a rolled hand-towel, a neat stack on a metal tray nearby. You wonder if she’s not going to answer but then she speaks, looking at you instead of the soft cotton she’s rubbing over her skin. “Yoonji,” she says. “I’m Min Yoonji.”

Min Yoonji is the most gorgeous fucking woman you’ve ever seen.

“I love your dress, Yoonji,” you say, and it’s true, you really do— but you’d prefer it if it was off. Not that you’re about to say that, of course.

She lets out a breath of laughter. “I know.” Oh, god, you love confident women. “What’s your name, darling?”

You have that same split second of hesitation, similar to Yoonji’s only moments prior. You use a codename when you work, of course, and you have a plethora of fake identities that you use and are intimately familiar with— but the idea of your real name falling off Yoonji’s flushed, petal lips? Woof.

“Y/n L/n,” you say. 

Oh, Joon would be so unimpressed right now, giving some mysterious woman your full, real name just because you think she’s the sexiest thing since sex, but whatever. What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him.

“Well, Y/n,” Yoonji says. You were right, your name sounds so good falling from her mouth, the mouth that’s turned into a small, almost smug smile. “I certainly hope to see you at the charity ball in a few weeks?”

“Of course.” Your schedule has been magically cleared and you’ll definitely be in attendance for whatever ball Yoonji is referring to, even if you have no idea what it is. You only come to these things if you have to for work but for Yoonji you’ll make an exception. You’ll make a hundred thousand exceptions. A hundred thousand quinquagintaquadringentillion exceptions. “I’ll make sure to remember my lipstick next time.”

And there it is, the thing that seals the deal, the final nail in the coffin: Yoonji glancing at you out of the corner of her eyes, a sharp, dark touch that shoots through you as her smile edges into hunger.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’m sure it won’t stay on your lips long enough to matter.”

--

The thing you’ve discovered about Minjae is that, with his divorce due to be finalised soon, he’s apparently lost any sense of routine and is revelling in his new found freedom, which is kind of irritating when you’re trying to tail the guy. Sure, you’re still going to take him out, but you prefer it when targets have some sort of schedule that they adhere to— makes it easier to set up a kill.

“You’re certain that he’s going to be here tonight?” You’d been sceptical considering how the guy’s apparently thrown his schedule out of the window, but Namjoon had been certain.

“Positive.” He’d said. “He’s there every Tuesday night. You’ll have plenty of time.”

The house appears to be deserted. The driveway is empty and all the windows and doors are locked tight. It’s just one of the properties that the Parks own in the city, and for all its size and lushness it appears as though this one is rarely frequented; you imagine that the cleaners and gardeners spend more time here than the owners themselves.

It doesn’t take you long to evade the watchful eyes of security cameras to pick a lock and slip inside. You're grateful for the dying evening light that helps cover your tracks from any onlookers from the street, although you imagine the high walls do good work at preventing people from seeing into the grounds anyway.

There’s still enough light to navigate through the house, the golden tinged sunset casting warm shadows across the spotless furniture and fixtures; you take a moment to let your eyes slide across a huge canvas hanging on a wall that spans two storeys, some impressionist piece that’s surprisingly ugly for all the talent that’s obvious in its brushstrokes. Maybe that’s why the Parks are never here? You’d certainly try to avoid seeing this thing if you could. Eurgh.

Even though the building is empty, you’re careful as you start to make your way forwards. You always place your toes down first whenever you take a step, soundless as you start to map the house out in your mind; there are so many rooms you can hide in, but you’d prefer to be close to wherever Minjae ends up. Saves faffing around later. 

You’ll overpower him, inject the toxin into his blood and wait for him to die before setting him up on the toilet— it’s surprisingly common for people to die while on the shitter, the strain leading to an untimely heart attack, especially in older people. The poison you’re using tonight will mimic the symptoms of a heart attack in the case the coroner decides a post-mortem needs to be undertaken.

(Being found on the bog might not be a particularly graceful way to die but when you’re dead it’s kind of hard to be embarrassed.)

You’ve eased the door open into a large bedroom, and you’re just inspecting if it looks like this room sees more use than the others when you pause. It’s deathly silent in this building, the air still minus where you glide through it as you move, but there’s a feeling in your gut, some instinct that makes all the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. You freeze, ears straining to catch any noise to let you know if there’s someone else here, when—

There. In the reflection of a burnished pot, the tiniest shifting movement.

You react almost faster than the eye can see. You spin to parry a hit that was aimed for your head, and the strength behind it shudders through your arms. You only have a second to take in the details of your assailant— dressed in dark clothing, masquerade style mask in place, a professional just like you— before you’re deflecting another flurry of blows, flipping backwards out of reach before spinning into a kick, hooking that burnished pot with your foot and sending it flying towards the other assassin.

They dodge it. You both ignore the sound of clattering metal as you lunge forwards, trying to catch them off guard after their sidestep— your fist makes contact with their palm instead of their face, your hand engulfed in theirs, and you startle at their speed. You might not be the strongest but you’re damn fast. 

There’s a pause, and you can only see a slither of their eyes through the sockets of their mask, but you can tell that they’re impressed. And honestly? So are you. 

The moment shatters when they use the hand they're holding to twist you, locking an arm around your neck and putting you into a chokehold; they’re strong, stronger than you, cutting off your airflow. You need to get out of this before you fall unconscious, but if they’re trained as well as you then they’ll know how to combat the usual ways you’d use to get out of this.

So, in a demonstration of your flexibility you kick a leg up, using the strength of your thighs and calves to slam it into the arm that’s around your neck. Your assailant lets out a noise of surprise and pain as you slip out of their hold and cartwheel across the room before spinning to face them.

There’s a beat. The air is tense. You get another chance to take in the details of whoever’s just tried to choke you out; you stare at her as she stares at you, the two of you poised and ready to strike, watching and waiting. 

Knives might be messy but of course you’re not unarmed. You have multiple sheathed weapons in your clothes, though you don’t make a move to draw any of them. Yet. “I suppose you wouldn’t tell me who your employer is, would you?”

Your opponent tilts her head. “You don’t know?” She sounds amused, even through her mask. “Minjae took out a contract on the assassin who has a contract on him.”

Your lip curls back from your teeth. The only way Minjae would have heard about your contract is if Dahye had told him. Presumably to try and shock him out of his behaviour, or something, who knows. “This is the last time I’m accepting a job from these rich old farts,” you mutter. 

“That’s for certain,” she says. 

She starts to move and you catch her arm just as she goes to unsheathe a wicked looking blade, knocking it aside before she overpowers you and you start to wrestle. It’s messy and graceless but sometimes you just have to fight dirty. 

Whoever this woman is, she still has the upper hand because she was expecting you and you weren’t expecting her; she knocks you onto the bed and pins you down, swooping the knife up from where it had been thrown onto the mattress. You go utterly still as she holds it against your throat, towering over your from where she’s straddling your waist and kneeling on your arms. Any sudden movement from you now could lead to your untimely demise— and, unsurprisingly, you absolutely want to avoid that at all costs.

Namjoon would never let you live it down if you were killed on the job.

You hum. “It seems like we’ve reached an impasse.”

She doesn’t respond. The knife doesn’t dip any lower, though; you’re undoubtedly at her mercy but you notice she’s careful to keep the knife still, hovering above the skin of your neck, but not making contact.

“Well,” you continue. “At least I’m going out the way I’d always hoped to.”

Even in the dying light and with how her face is covered, you notice her face shifting behind her mask— a silent, questioning raise of an eyebrow. You give her a cheeky smile that crinkles your eyes.

“In bed with a beautiful woman, of course.”

At this she huffs out a laugh. “Do you flirt with every person who tries to kill you?”

You’re trying to look as non-threatening as possible to keep that knife away from your jugular. The longer you talk, the longer you live, even if you can’t see a way to get out of this situation right now. “Only the pretty ones.”

The small laugh she lets out this time seems more like a scoff. “You don’t even know what I look like.”

“Please.” You roll your eyes. “Any woman who can fight like you and knows how to handle a knife? Automatically hot. I don’t need to see your face to know that.”

The knife still hasn’t moved. She continues to stare you down and you go tense when her free hand moves. She tugs the cloth of your mask down to reveal your face, the air of the room almost cold against the suddenly bared skin, your breaths free to curl out unhindered.

“Usually I like to be taken out to dinner at least once before we get this intimate, but for you I suppose I’ll make an exception.” You’re still grinning cheekily at her, but your mind continues to race as you try to think of a way to get out of this, especially now that she’s seen what you look like—but you suddenly notice that she’s gone very, very still.

“Y/n?”

The grin freezes on your face. Oh, you’re so boned. You’re so very boned. Like, yeah, you’ve been seconds away from death for the past, hmm, five minutes, but this is somehow worse. How the fuck does she know your name?

You’re given the answer almost immediately. She withdraws the hand from your chin and reaches for her own mask. Your eyes widen and your breath stutters in your throat once you see who it is.

“Holy shit,” you breathe.

Yoonji is staring down at you. She’s every inch as imperious and stunning as the last time you’d seen her— hell, even moreso now that you’ve seen what she’s capable of. No wonder you hadn’t been able to find out anything about her after you’d met at that garish charity gala. Because she’s untraceable, just like you.

“Well.” You stare back at her, not even attempting to keep the surprise off your face. “If anyone has to kill me at least I can die satisfied in the knowledge that it was you. Can I make a request? I’d be eternally grateful if you smothered me to death with your thighs. Just a suggestion, feel free to ignore it if you want.”

Yoonji cocks her head. Her bob is tied back, but there’s a loose lock of hair curled by the side of her face that shifts at the motion. Your fingers twitch. If she wasn’t kneeling on your arms you know you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from tucking it behind her ear. Any excuse to touch her. “Do you always talk so much?”

“Hey, if it means I get to feel your legs around my face before I die, I’ll give a full fledged TED talk,” you say. “I have to admit, though. When I pictured us in bed together I didn’t think it would be like this.”

The knife still hasn’t moved from your throat. She continues to stare, as if considering what to do next, though her face remains impassive. “What did you think it would be like?”

“Well, you know. Less knives and clothes involved and a lot more making out,” you answer. “You, telling me what to do. Me, entirely at your command. Anything the lady wants, she gets.”

The human body is a fickle and strange beast. Ever since you discovered who’s straddling you, you’ve been growing wetter and wetter, even if you’re trying not to let on that you’re steadily growing more aroused— you’re still distinctly aware of the knife that’s only centimetres away from your skin, but somehow your body is more focused of the fact that the woman you’ve been daydreaming about is finally in front of you again. 

(Well, less in front of you and more on top of you, which is an admittedly preferable option, sans the knife involvement.)

You see how Yoonji’s eyes are darting over your face. No doubt taking in how your pupils are dilated, how your breaths are a little shallower, quicker— signs of fear and signs of arousal are surprisingly similar. You wonder if she can identify which it is. Probably. You’re not exactly very subtle in your attraction to her.

“I forgot my lipstick again,” you add, and Yoonji’s passive mask finally breaks when she rolls her eyes.

“Didn’t I say you wouldn’t need it?”

Even the way she throws the knife aside is gorgeous. The sharp undulation of her wrist as she sends the blade skittering across the polished wood floor is careless and fluid. Her hands cup your face as she bends down, and you send up a mental thanks to any god or higher being who might be listening before Yoonji presses her lips to your and your brain goes blank.

Apparently Yoonji likes it messy. One of her hands is grasping your chin in a mockery of the last time you’d met and she’d painted your lips— your mouth is open and she licks past your lips as you shudder beneath her. She’s still got her knees pressed into your arms, pinning you down, but you desperately crane your head towards her, chasing that kiss; you tilt your head to deepen it, and the whine that leaves you when she pulls away is almost embarrassing.

The sun has finally dipped below the horizon and the room is dark, painted in shades of grey and deep blue. You wish you could see Yoonji properly and you can’t help but wriggle a little underneath her, but then you watch her raise her hands and clap three times in rapid succession before the room floods with dim light. Sound activated lights? Damn.

Yoonji’s mouth shines, covered in a sheen of your mixed saliva, her pretty lips flushed rose pink; even without makeup they’re beautiful and their colour is deep, the blooming petals of a flower. Your eyes trail over her face, down her neck, over the fall of her chest and stomach— you’re both far too covered up in these stupid ensembles of yours and you want to strip the clothes off her. You want to see every inch of her beautiful, majestic body, bared for your lips and hands.

Fuck, she’s so gorgeous.

“Not to, um, ruin the moment, but my hands are going numb.” The weight of Yoonji’s body being pressed into your arms has pretty much cut off the blood flow to your fingers and you can feel the telltale sensation of pins and needles spreading through your skin. “Can I have those back, please?”

Yoonji lifts her knees just enough for you to slide your arms out from underneath them. You immediately shed your gloves and go to grab her ass but she gives you a sharp look and you freeze, slowly settling them on her thighs instead, which she allows with only the slightest raise of her eyebrows.

“Watch,” she commands, and who are you to disobey?

She reaches for the tie in her hair, tugging it out and letting her dark locks fall to frame her lovely, beautiful face. You hungrily swallow down each sight that she feeds to you, the skin that’s revealed as she shrugs off her layers of clothing. She unbuckles the weapons hidden underneath her clothes as she sheds them; she’s a veritable arsenal of firearms and knives, all cast carelessly aside until her upper body is finally, blessedly naked. You’ve been staring at her the whole time, the graceful column of her throat, the delicate lines of her collarbones, and your gaze falls to her breasts, small and perfect, nipples dusty pink and hard. You want to put your mouth on them.

“Holy shit, you’re perfect,” you say.

She smirks. You watch as she rolls her body, lifting up from her knees and standing up, towering above you on the bed—your hands fall to the mattress as she pulls her trousers down, tight material dragging against her skin as she slides it over the curve of her hips and down her long legs. There’s a dagger strapped to her thigh, which she unbuckles and lets fall to one side, but god, if she used it to kill you right now, you would die a happy woman. The image of Min Yoonji towering above you in nothing more than some flimsy underwear is one you want to take to the grave.

You can see how the material around her entrance is darkened with her arousal, and you feel your own body react to the sight, pussy throbbing, your own lower lips slick underneath all your layers of clothing. Yoonji hooks her thumbs into her panties and pushes them down, and you’re enraptured as you watch how the wetness clings to them, before that last bit of clothing is cast aside too. 

You moan, unable to stop the sound bubbling up in your throat. From how she’s standing above you, legs spread from how her feet are either side of your hips, you can see everything—how her cunt is flushed, how wet she is, her folds shining. You bet she tastes so fucking good.

You let your mouth fall open, tongue lolling out in a way that’s obscene. You see Yoonji’s eyes flicker as she traces the motion, the way she takes in your expression: wide, hungry eyes, parted lips, wet tongue. Your hands skim up the back of her calves as she shifts forwards and returns to her knees, her naked core so, so close to your mouth, and you dig your fingers into her skin.

“Bon appé-fucking-tit,” you murmur, and then you pull her onto your face.

Yoonji gasps. 

(You were right. She tastes so, so fucking good.)

You’re utterly shameless as you slurp up her juices, the wetness that continues to leak out of her as you bury your face into her cunt, tongue lapping over her entrance as your nose brushes her clit. Your hands have moved to the flesh of her ass and you encourage her to grind against you, rolling her hips towards your greedy mouth; you’re staring up at her, drinking down her reactions, the way her face twists with pleasure and the shuddering breaths she takes in, perfect little breasts jumping at the motion. There’s a flush spreading down her neck and chest, pale skin blushing pink, and it’s the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen.

You purse your lips against her clit, circling it with your tongue before dipping back down between her folds. Each time you breathe in all you can smell is her scent, heavy and dark, all your senses filled with Yoonji, Yoonji, Yoonji. When you hum against her, Yoonji arches her spine and throws her head back, so when you press your tongue into her you hum again, letting the vibrations shiver through her.

“Yes,” she gasps, rutting against your face. “Yes, yes—”

Her thighs tighten around your head. You redouble your efforts, watching her face as you continue to swipe your tongue up her slit and through her folds; you wish you could swallow each of the noises that are falling from her lips as she reaches the crest of her pleasure, the little gasps and moans each time you move your tongue in a particularly wicked way.

“There,” she says. “There, there, just like that—”

Your jaw aches but you don’t even register it, too intent on keeping your mouth open and hot and wet against her. It only takes a few more swipes and flicks of your tongue before she shudders violently, canting her hips towards your mouth as her legs go tense and she cums. She continues to straddle your face as she rides out the waves of pleasure, and you swallow down the wetness that flushes out of her rippling cunt, ignoring the throbbing between your own legs.

You can’t talk, muffled by her as you are, but your mind is singing. Look at you, you think. Look at how gorgeous you are. God, I could eat you out all day. (What a blessed life that would be.)

You can tell when Yoonji’s edged into oversensitivity, jolting when your tongue sweeps over her swollen clit; she settles back, knees spread as she rests against your heaving chest, legs tensing each time an aftershock shivers through her. Your mouth is open as you pant in air, but she watches as you swipe your tongue over your lips, catching the lingering taste of her on you, your chin opalescent with her arousal.

“Okay,” you say, breathless. “I’ve done everything that’s worth doing. I’ve peaked. Everything is downhill from here. You can kill me now.”

You’re only half joking, but your thighs instinctively go tight to rub against each other when you see how Yoonji’s eyes darken.

“I’m not done with you yet,” she purrs.

Yoonji might be naked while you’re still clothed, and so still armed, but she’s undoubtedly the one who’s in control right now. You are so, so okay with that. You watch with wide eyes as she shifts back, her hands grabbing the material of your jacket to tug you upwards, but before she can strip off your clothes you capture her lips with your own.

The taste of her is still heady and deep in your mouth and you nip at her bottom lip before pressing your tongue forwards. The kiss is already slick from Yoonji’s wetness and when you pull away, there’s a thin string of saliva that connects you for a moment before it breaks, which Yoonji wipes away from your chin with the pad of her thumb.

“Dirty girl,” she says, and you bite back a moan at the unabashed lust in her voice. Her grip on your chin is firm. “Did I say you could kiss me?”

“No,” you answer. “I couldn’t help myself.”

She tuts, as if disappointed, and every one of your nerve endings feels electrified, ready and anticipating whatever Yoonji is going to do next. “Such a shame,” she says. “You just can’t keep your hands or mouth to yourself, can you?”

“Can you blame me?”

Yoonji huffs out a laugh through her nose. She strips your jacket off in one sharp motion and then your shirt is similarly pulled off with single-minded intent, along with every other piece of equipment cinched to your arms and body. When you reach for her, though, she captures your wrists, her face stern.

“If you keep moving without permission, I’m going to take that privilege away from you.”

You don’t have to see your own eyes to know how your pupils will have dilated from that statement, blood thrumming through your veins, and you can tell Yoonji has noticed when her expression shifts.

“Oh.” A small, triumphant smirk appears on her face. “I see.”

You lift your arms up so she can pull your sports bra off (of course if you had known you’d been running into Yoonji again you would have worn something nicer). Rather than touch your heaving chest, however, she pushes you down onto the mattress, a hand around your wrists so they’re held above your head.

“Keep still,” she says.

She reaches for the holster that you’d had around your upper arm, lazily casting the knife aside before looping it around your wrists and pulling it secure.

Yoonji’s fingers ease under the nylon as she checks the fit. It’s tight, but not so much so that it’s painful or dangerous, and there’s a hushed moment when the realisation hits you— Yoonji and yourself are both skilled enough to know that you could easily free yourself if you wanted to. It would only take a little motion of your wrists and hands and you could slip them out of the makeshift cuffs in an instant.

You melt into the mattress. Yoonji’s eyes shift away from your wrists as she takes in the way you’ve gone utterly relaxed and limp below her, staring back at her. You see an expression flit across her face faster than you can see, before she slides down your body so she can push your legs apart.

You lift your hips to help her strip your trousers off. Her hand lingers on the concealed holster around your thigh, eyeing the small pistol nestled inside it, before that too is stripped off and cast aside. Her hands trail over the soft skin of your hips and stomach, eyes skimming over the bared length of your body before settling between your legs, the slickness of your inner thighs.

“You got this wet just from eating me out?” Her pretty mouth is curled into an expression that’s almost mocking, and your legs jolt as she runs her fingers lightly over your lower lips before rubbing her fingertips together to feel the wetness she’s gathered. “I haven’t even touched you yet.”

Your nails dig into your palms as your hands twist against each other and you shift your legs further apart. “Please, Yoonji,” you plead, shameless from desperation and arousal.

She laughs at your obvious hunger. “I suppose I should return the favour, shouldn’t I?”

You watch breathlessly as she lifts her fingers to her lips, swallowing them into her mouth to get them slick and wet. The motions of her tongue are languid as she licks across her fingers. You’re like a livewire, thrumming with electricity, and the sensation of her finally sinking one of those fingers into you sends sparks throughout your body.

Yoonji’s maddeningly slow. Your body takes her readily, her long finger gliding easily in and out of you, but she makes no move to speed up; you let out a small noise and she moves upwards to kiss you, as if indulging you, and you’ve just relaxed against her mouth when she plunges a second finger in.

She swallows your gasp as her fingers speed up, before she starts to kiss across your jaw, your neck, between the valley of your breasts and then closing her mouth over one of your nipples— she times the flick of her tongue with the thrust of her fingers, and then you feel how she takes her thumb to press your clit at the same time and you’re gone, falling over the edge faster than you’d expected. Your orgasm is fast but deep, your walls clenching tight around the fingers that continue to curl in and out of you, but she doesn’t stop.

“Yoonji,” you gasp. “It’s too— oh—”

Those two fingers continue to rub your sweet spot as you edge into oversensitivity but Yoonji doesn’t let up. She continues to lick and bite at the skin of your chest, putting her mouth to your other breast and circling the hardened bud of your nipple with her tongue before kissing down your stomach, your pubic bone, and then pressing her lips to your swollen clit.

You whimper. Her pace of her fingers has quickened, and she curls them each time she almost pulls them out, the squelch of their motions obscene as they slide through the cum of your first orgasm. She stares up at you, lapping at your clit with her tongue, and you can feel the saliva that’s dripping from her mouth and over your flushed core, every inch of you oversensitive but screaming with pleasure.

It’s almost painful, but you can feel an orgasm creeping through that ache; you wring your hands together and sob as Yoonji continues to finger fuck you without mercy, her pace almost bruising, the thrust of her knuckles against you each time she bottoms out just one more layer on top of that overwhelming pleasure.

“Yoonji,” you gasp. “I’m g-gonna cum again.”

She hums against you, and you make an incoherent noise at the feeling of that sound against your clit, almost too much— and then she presses one more finger into you, and that’s it, that slight burn and stretch sending you hurtling over that edge again. When you cum, your hips buck and you gasp, air rushing into your lungs before it escapes you in a moan of ecstasy; the only sensations registering in your mind right now are the ripples of pleasure spreading through your cunt as Yoonji pulls her fingers out of you, pressing down on your clit in a way that’s almost cruel, and you sob as your legs instinctively try to tighten but are prevented from doing so by Yoonji’s unyielding presence.

She’s staring down at you as you start to go lax, and you think she’s finished with you, but you watch with widening eyes as she takes her ring and middle finger to run them through your sodden folds. You sob again when those fingers plunge back into you, palm pressing against your clit each time she curls her fingers, and you squirm underneath her.

“Yoonji, it’s too much,” you cry.

“One more.” Yoonji’s leaning back and staring at you, taking in the sweat that’s beading across your skin, the tears that are gathering in your eyes and threatening to spill down your face and into your hair. “You’re doing so well, darling, you can give me one more, can’t you?”

Your reply is incoherent, a small noise that shudders out of the back of your throat. You’ve never been thrown so thoroughly into pleasure like this, overstimulated and aching, but there’s that flicker of pleasure still between your legs, growing each time Yoonji beckons with her fingers, curling over your abused sweet spot again and again and again.

“Just say the word and I’ll stop,” Yoonji says, the wet plunge of her fingers into your abused pussy so messy and loud but not enough to drown her out. “One word and I’ll stop.”

You don’t say anything. You just let your eyes roll back into your head as you cant your hips towards her, trying to latch onto that thread of pleasure that’s thrumming through you below all your screaming nerves, and the noise Yoonji makes is pleased.

“There we go,” she praises. “Look at you, so good for me. Pretty darling.”

You can feel how your pussy clenches around Yoonji’s fingers, how the coil in you is squeezing tighter and tighter, how another orgasm is somehow creeping up on you— you tilt your hips towards that feeling, towards Yoonji’s hand, and then she’s pulling her fingers out of you in an almost rough motion and you’re cumming harder than you ever have before.

“Oh, fuck!” You sob. 

It’s indescribable. The sensation rips through you as your back arches off the bed and you’re cumming and squirting and gasping and you can feel the wetness that slicks out of you, your toes curling as your brain goes blank from the staggering pleasure and static consumes every one of your senses. Your entire body feels like nothing more than a vessel for the ecstasy that’s shooting through your veins, spreading out from your core and to every corner of your insides and limbs.

It takes you a while to come back around, aftershocks wracking through your body. You feel sluggish and slow as your mind slowly clears, focusing on the sensation of warm hands stroking over the skin of your stomach and hips and thighs; your eyes flutter open and when you glance down you can see the shine to Yoonji’s skin, evidence of your pleasure painting her in a thin sheen of liquid.

“Oh my god,” you moan. “Holy shit.”

She smiles. “You were so, so good for me,” she says. She leans down to press a light kiss to collarbones and you shiver. “So beautiful. How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve died and gone to heaven before coming back again,” you reply. “Oh, that was so good, Yoonji. I’ve never squirted before. I didn’t realise I could. God.”

Yoonji laughs lightly. You can’t help but watch the way it transforms her face, the way her chest jumps at the motion, every inch of her gorgeous and majestic and cute and pretty. “You did so, so well,” she praises, before she kisses you, her mouth so soft; you barely notice the sudden easing of pressure around your wrists as she releases you, more intent on the sensation of her soft petal lips against your own.

You stare up at her as she pulls away. Powerful, amazing Min Yoonji, kneeling between your legs, naked but not helpless. Definitely less vulnerable than you right now. And yet she’s still making no moves to grab one of the many weapons littered around the bed so she can finally finish her contract by completing the kill. It would be so easy for her.

The silence of the room is suddenly broken by a tiny buzzing noise. You both glance over at the sound, one that Yoonji doesn’t recognise but you do— the communicator in one of your wristbands, the one you use to keep in contact with Namjoon.

You watch the twisting of Yoonji’s body as she leans over the bed to hook the band with a finger before proffering it to you. You pause, but then grasp her wrist and lightly pull so she ends up pressed against you, softness of her breasts against your own, and you hold the communicator between your faces as you accept the call.

“Thank god you answered.” Namjoon’s voice is obviously frantic even through the tinniness of the small speaker. “Dahye cancelled the contract because Minjae wants to reconcile with her, but apparently he’s already put a hit out on you— tonight was a ruse, Minjae isn’t going to be there, you have to get out of there—”

“Bit too late for that,” you interrupt. Yoonji’s hair is tickling your cheek. “Don’t worry. I have it in hand. Send some flowers to Minjae for me, will you?”

“Flowers?” Namjoon sounds understandably confused. “Why?”

“As a thank you for taking out a contract on me,” you say. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m a little busy.”

“With what?”

“With me,” Yoonji says, and you hear Namjoon’s surprised intake of breath before you cut the line.

You end up laughing to yourself. “Oh, he’s going to hate me for that,” you giggle. Yoonji’s hand trails up your stomach and you continue to giggle at the ticklish sensation. Her skin is still slick against yours, and you suddenly realise how cold it is in the room, the air touching the cooling liquid that’s rubbed off against your skin, and you shiver. “Mm. I think it’s time to clean up. Want me to scrub your back in the shower? I give very good massages.”

Yoonji’s eyes are dark and warm before she presses her nose to your neck, lips soft as they touch the delicate skin of your throat. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

[things2mustdo]

Last year I gave up my Krav Maga self-defense training when I was in the middle of changing jobs. I never picked it back up.

While I stay quite busy splitting my time between my three main sources of income, last month I began to feel like something was missing. I was getting too comfortable with my daily routine– bored, too.

So I decided to start training in martial arts again, this time signing up for a Muay Thai gym. It’s already reinvigorated my sense of drive across other areas of my life. Here are the top 5 reasons you should start a new hobby today.

1. It breaks up your current routine

As humans we search for a sense of regularity. We often find it in our daily activities.

For example, my days typically consist of working from home in the morning, primarily on my computer, lifting weights, and then training a few clients in the late afternoon and evening. I enjoy this routine, but flying on autopilot has its dangers.

You aren’t as sharp. Everything is too calculated and expected. By training  in Muay Thai every other day I have something new to look forward to. It also has changed my lifting routine, to accommodate for the added exercise and fatigue.

2. It pushes you outside of your comfort zone

When I stepped into the Muay Thai gym for the first time I didn’t know what to expect. It was a lot different than the place I used to train Krav Maga at– more serious, less friendly even.

The seasoned fighters looked at me with a sense of superiority. And they were superior. But rather than backing down, being nervous, and quitting after one day– I took this as a challenge.

I was far from comfortable training that day. I wasn’t able to execute crisp Thai kicks or jump rope like a boss.  But being too comfortable can be a bad thing. You’ll cease to explore new opportunities and your growth with falter across the board.

By throwing yourself at something new, that you’re inexperienced at, you’ll be pushed outside of your comfort zone. This is a good thing. You must stay accustomed to living at the edge of your comfort zone to ensure steady growth and progress.

3. You’ll learn new skills

This point is obvious. By taking Muay Thai, I’ll learn a host of new fighting skills.

4. It gives you a new area to set goals for

The habit of setting and achieving goals is the most important habit a man can build. By entering into a new hobby, you now have a whole new area of your life that where you can practice setting and accomplishing goals.

For my Muay Thai experience I’ll start small. My first goal is to be able to execute a Thai kick with my left and have it feel as natural as with my right. I’ll work my way up to bigger goals as I improve.

This is the beauty of starting at something from scratch. At first you’ll set one small goal after another. This cycle will build momentum, and before you know it, you’ll no longer be a novice. More importantly, this momentum will carry over to other areas of your life and give you the confidence to crush more and bigger goals.

5. You’ll meet new people

Another obvious point. When you try something new, you’re bound to meet new people. Whether these turn out to be man friends or cute girls depends on the hobby you choose, but either way meeting new people is always a positive thing.

Potential Hobbies

I’ll leave you with a short list of potential hobbies for you to try today:

1. Martial arts/self-defense: Muay Thai, Brazilian Ju-Jitsu, Krav Maga 2. Cooking 3. Salsa Dancing 4. Lifting weights (you should already be doing this) 5. Yoga 6. Writing 7. Mountain Biking

Check out my new #1 Amazon Bestseller, The Book of Alpha. It’s full of direct, actionable advice for the man who wants to better himself.

Read Next: 5 Reasons To Learn Krav Maga

Krav Maga is a self-defense system created based upon the street fighting skills of Hungarian-Israeli martial artist Imi Lichtenfeld. He used it to defend the Jewish quarter where he lived against fascist groups in the 1930s. Later, in the 40s he moved to Israel and began to offer combat training lessons to what later became the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). The IDF has used, and continued to develop the system to this day.

The basic principle of Krav Maga is inflicting maximum damage to the opponent(s) in order to end the fight as quickly as possible. Brutal counter-attacks using your most effective tool (knees, elbows, weapons, etc.) to target your opponent’s weakest area (neck, throat, eyes, knees, ribs, solar plexus, groin, etc.) are the focus. For this reason, it is not a competitive martial arts, like Brazilian Ju-Jitsu or Muay Thai, because people would die.

When I heard that Jason Bourne uses Krav Maga (which I later found out was, in fact, not true) and that it teach gun defenses (i.e. the most alpha technique ever), I immediately signed up. I just finished 6 months of training. It is indeed awesome. Here are the top 5 reasons you should sign up for classes today:

1. You will become a badass.

Nothing boosts confidence and testosterone levels like knowing you are legitimately prepared for whatever. Very few people have any formal self-defense or fight training. As a result, in tense situations where most people lose it, you will keep your cool. If something ever does go down, you’re ready.

2. It is practical and intuitive.

Most martial arts are strongly based in ritual, and as a result often incorporate different forms or strange techniques. Krav is different. Brutal efficiency is the only concern. For this reason, many of the strikes and defenses utilize the same basic motion (e.g. the straight punch and many of the defenses against punches and knives). Moreover, all of the techniques are built upon the body’s natural instincts (e.g. bringing your hands to your neck during a choke defense).

3. It is great exercise.

Between the drills themselves and the conditioning, you are guaranteed a hell of a workout. Three minutes of throwing punches or knee strikes is exhausting. So is three minutes of burpees. Side note: The level 1 Krav test was the single most intense physical event of my life. Seriously. Three hours straight of punches, kicks, choke defenses, and groundwork is no joke. I consider myself to be is great shape and I almost vomited on multiple occasions.

4. It relieves stress.

Sure, so do most workouts, but pounding a kicking shield, or throwing your partner to the floor is a whole different ball game.

5. It is the perfect hobby.

I came to my first class with no idea how to throw a proper punch. After a couple weeks I thought I was Jason Bourne. After a couple months I realized that I wasn’t. After 6 months I look back and I am amazed at the progress I made. Experiencing this progress is extremely satisfying.

Clearly taking up Krav Maga has many benefits. One word of caution – make sure you train somewhere with certified, experienced instructors. I have seen locations that turn it into a strictly cardio exercise experience, with little focus on technique – not good. So go take advantage of that free first class, now.

Check out my new #1 Amazon Bestseller, The Book of Alpha. It’s full of direct, actionable advice for the man who wants to better himself.

Read More: The Only 2 Things A Man Can Depend On

I was born alone and I will die alone. I’ve got to do what’s right for me and not live my life the way anybody else wants it.

– Curtis Jackson

If life were a board game, you’d be the game piece.

In reality, life isn’t much different from a game. There isn’t a defined end goal, however. You get to choose it. It could be power and respect. It could simply be happiness. Or it could be more specific: money or women, for example. Whatever it is, you choose.

In a board game there are strict limitations. In life, we’re encouraged to follow laws and social norms, but for the most part we’re free to do as we choose. There are infinite paths that will take you to any goal imaginable.

Along the way you’ll deal with many people. Some will help you, others won’t. You can grow to depend on the ones that help you, but that always incurs a risk. A family member can die. A close friend can betray you. Your girl can leave you. How will you react when one of these things happens?

Playing with others is a necessary part of the game. But never depend on them. Doing so will ultimately lead to failure and disappointment.

Accept that the only two things you can ever count on are your body and your mind– your game piece. You must tend to these things like a gardener tends to his plants. Focus on improving them and facilitating their health and growth and you’ll always put yourself in the best position to win.

If some tragedy befalls a dependent man, he may sink into depression. He might feel like he’s lost all hope of accomplishing his mission in life. He might give up.

A truly independant man, however, will not. He’s prepared, on some level, for each of these tragedies. He doesn’t have a specific game plan for when his best friend betrays him, per se. But he’s put himself in a good position, both physically and mentally, that he can weather the storm. Not only can he weather the storm, but he can keep his cool and make the fine adjustments needed to get the ship back on course.

Below I’ll offer the basic tasks one must do to protect his game piece, and see it thrive.

1. Your Body

If you take care of your body, it will be strong and healthy. It will also help foster a potent mind. Yes, there’s always the rare risk of contracting some form of cancer or another deadly disease, but if you follow the steps below, you all but rule these things out.

1. Eat good food

I won’t go into specifics, because everyone’s diet will, and should, be different.

But if you focus your diet around meat, fruits, and vegetables your body will flourish. Meat provides the protein and amino acids your body needs to grow. The fruits and vegetables provide the fiber and vitamins you need to function over the long run. A man with a solid diet will respond better to stress, and therefore be more self reliant.

2. Lift weights

In short, lifting weights develops a strong nervous, muscular, and skeletal system. These are the three main systems that run your body. An efficient body is like a strong ship– it will weather the storm better and be far more dependable in your journey.

The most brutally simple and effective lifting program is StrongLifts 5×5. It focuses on building strength across the five most basic movements humans are meant to do (squat, deadlift,  bench press, row, and overhead press).

2. Your Mind

You must also foster a capable mind. One that can stand on it’s own two feet. The strongest body won’t accomplish anything without an equally impressive mind.

1. Read books

Reading a book is like absorbing another man’s lifelong wisdom. The more books you read, the more you’ll know and the wiser you’ll be. Blogs are okay, but the average quality of a blog post is decidedly lower than what you find in a book. People simply put more time, effort, and value into books.

The knowledge you acquire in books also contributes to your self reliance. It offers quality wisdom and advice– that can’t be taken away from you.

2. Meditate

Meditation is the act of being comfortable being alone. When you meditate, you remove all of the outside noise. All of the thoughts, gossip, music, news, women, men, business, sex– everything. You are left with only yourself.

Many men can’t stand meditation because they’ve grown dependant on all of this external stimulation. They aren’t comfortable in their own skin. And thus they’ve lost their edge, their self reliance.

[suechoiart]

SU19 Internship_ Week 4

Today I want to talk about client relations and office productivity. 

Firma started business in 2015 and it is a relatively young firm. It has been interesting to see where Scott has adopted practices from Olin (where he had worked for over a decade) and where he is trying to cultivate new standards and a “knowledgebase” for his own firm. I love the energy of the firm and their attention to office improvement- it really feels like they are in for Firma to be a good firm, and not just one that exists. 

I attempted very, very briefly to do freelancing as an artist and I like to entertain the idea of having my own practice in the distant future. My (marriage) partner has been running his own business for nearly five years. Entrepreneurship and small business are both dreams and reality to our lives. So, another benefit to working at Firma is: this is a chance to absorb a lot of small business skills. 

_ project management (Asana) 

Firma is a small office. There’s enough breathing room for two regular employees, one intern, and an extra desk for a second intern (or new employee?!). Anyways point is, we are always in earshot of each other when we’re in the office together. It is still very important to touch base and keep track of project/office tasks and progress! 

Firma uses a service called Asana to track to-do lists. I think I’ve heard Asana be advertised on a podcast, so it must be popular in the tech field (just a guess)... Few notable things are: each task has its own section to take notes and create subtasks; tasks can be assigned to specific people and put a deadline on it, so you can open your profile and see what tasks have bee assigned to you.

My task page under “intern tasks” - some are actually assigned to my profile, some are floating tasks that have been filed in this category. I don’t have access to any ‘pro’ features, so this could be substituted with any document sharing platform in my world... The important thing is probably to actually use it and update it regularly. 

This has been a helpful tool for us to get together at the beginning of each week and assess priorities. Yesterday (Monday/Week5) was the first time in my internship we looked through all active projects and checked through any outstanding tasks. (With summer vacation days, it’s been a quick 4 weeks!) During that process, Scott and Sarah added new tasks to projects, archived projects that are no longer active (e.g. the rest of the work was not part of the scope anymore.) It was good to listen to that conversation to get a sense of when projects finish, when limbos happen, etc...

_ scope 

Scott shared with me a copy of a new “Proposal for Landscape Architectural Services” that he had written for a new client. (The client has accepted the proposal and we have started working on this project!) 

The scope is essentially the contract of work between the LA and the client. Along with fees, this proposal lists a range of services that will be provided organized by phases (e.g. 1-Schematic Design, ...) over a schedule, a estimated time frame for services to be completed. In addition to what Firma will do, there is a section called “Assumptions/Exclusions” that list, well, exactly assumptions and exclusions stated by the designer for the client to review. 

For instance, if the scope outlines production of CAD drawings but not other renderings - any task for Firma to produce visual renderings for municipality reviews would be an additional service, because it was not included in the initial scope. 

This document also includes the fascinating world of fees! Firma typically charges in lump sum (e.g. $100,000 for all work rather than $200/hr), and Scott shared that price reflects his experience with similar types of work and how many hours he typically spent on similar jobs. He also keeps in mind market standards for landscape architect work. For instance, firms with more ‘boutique’ reputation (”market power”) could, in addition to assumed hours spent, charge a little more and still attract clients! 

So it is within this scope that Scott and Sarah create tasks on Asana; and based on those tasks we work and keep track of our time spent... 

_ time tracking (Harvest) 

I think this has been one of the best things I’m going to gain this summer- the very habit of time tracking. Firma uses a service called Harvest to keep track of time spent for different projects. I’ve had multiple conversations with different design students about how much work design students do, and how little there is to show for it.... If not good design, I have now developed the habit of showing how much time I’ve been doing stuff--! 

What I’ve done on June 14. This was a day with various tasks- some days I’ve spent more than 7 hours on one single project; and it has been cool to be able to see all of that! 

There isn’t too much to share from my window, but I can speak to the strength of Harvest over just pencil scribbles. Through this platform, you can create a list of sub-tasks per projects and even categorize them - e.g. into “billable” and “non-billable” hours. In a previous office I worked, we tracked by hand (or recited by memory?) how many hours were spent on a project, and it was to be tallied by the person creating the invoice... But this interface prompts you to log descriptions, categories for projects, etc.... And you can get a quick glance at what you’ve done in a week! 

This was the week I spent mostly researching and creating a presentation for outdoor furnishings-- more than half of the week was spent on it! 

Obviously I won’t have billable hours doing my school homework, but this in itself is a brilliant thought to just track what I am doing when. It would be good to find a free or personal version of this software to use on my own. 

Anyways, Scott uses this to tally up the hours spent on jobs- I think he uses his professional discretion before writing the invoice, but he has a solid body of documentation to back up ‘work done’ when he is talking to clients. I think that is so cool! 

_ reflection 

I ended up just geeking out over what we do in the office, but I really am impressed that Firma incorporates smart ‘apps’ that exist out in the wild. I guess I’ve just never worked in an environment like that and hadn’t thought of those workflows that make lives easier! Of course, this increases office productivity (less time spent mulling over “what did I do?” and more “do!”) and keeps everyone very accountable, which I believe leads to a happy work environment. 

I do want to share one story about scope -- Scott shared that clients typically reduce scope first by dropping site visits. He attributed this to how site visits occur typically in the later part of the project when clients realize how MUCH money they’re paying (which is what they agreed to pay!). So I’ve learned that there are scopes where the site visit is not included at all, and some that have a lot less site visits than designers would like. 

I got to follow along to one site visit, where it turned out the landscaping contractors had been operating on a old planting plan. When we got there, they had already ordered based on the old planting plan and started planting as such, and the plants that arrive were different too, because it’s based on wholesale availability... Thankfully the new planting plan was not a big departure from the old one, but Scott had to make a lot of new decisions on site that he wasn’t planning on. He mentioned that this particular project did not include as many site visits as he’d like, so the other times he’s visited, there was always something slightly different than what they had proposed... 

_ closing

This (last) week I’ve learned that landscape/landscaping is a particularly difficult career to ‘see through,’ since there are so many variables along the way. The nursery might not have the right plants, whoever is installing or maintaining it might introduce a new problem, or the weather just might say no.... There is always something to be cautious about, and it requires a whole lot of optimism and patience to tend to these issues! 

Oh, I didn’t get a chance to address client-designer relationships at all! 

Next week I want to talk about company structure, hierarchy, and employee management. !! Fun stuff 

[berserker-official]

For Honor Update

A new patch went out today (4/6/2017)! I missed when it first dropped because I’m sick so forgive me if you already read the patch notes, but I’m going to place them all here. I’ll toss them under a line so you don’t have to scroll through everything after you read them or don’t care (apologies for mobile users that have to suffer)

Superior Block feedback

Warden’s Top Light opener Superior Block visual effect applied on sword.

Kensei’s Dodge Forward, Left, Right Superior Block visual effect applied on sword.

Developer comments: Superior Block visual feedback used to be inconsistent across characters. In general we make the weapon or shield flash for the duration of the Superior Block. Some characters like the Warden for instance had their entire body flash, because we were afraid it wouldn’t be visible enough on the sword only for the Top Light opener. However, the full body flash was often mistaken for the Uninterruptible Stance visual effect which is also full body. So we’ve updated the Warden’s feedback to be only on the sword. We did the same for the Kensei’s Dodge.

Valkyrie Moveset

Removed Guardbreak Cancel from Shield Tackle Cancel Moveset description.

Developer comments: we’ve removed the ability to cancel Shield Tackle into Guardbreak in a past update. Unfortunately at the time, we couldn’t update the Valkyrie’s Moveset page. It’s done now.

Tutorial

Updated Guardbreak Tutorial text for more clarity on Counter Guardbreak.

Developer comments: The Guard Break Interrupt tutorial had a hint saying “Interrupt enemy Guard Breaks by pressing [input] when they start”. The “when they start portion” was confusing people. In order to be more accurate, that text will now change to “when the enemy connects”.

Guardbreak

[Bug Fix] Counter Guardbreak ability is no longer affected by the Debuff Gear Stat.

Developer comments: Guard Break can be countered if you press Guard Break within 200ms. The way we’ve handled this mechanic so far caused that time window to shrink if you were using Gear with Debuff Duration Stat. It wasn’t intended, so we’ve updated how this works to guarantee the 200ms Guardbreak Interrupt window regardless of Gear. Guard Break cannot be interrupted if done on a target that is in a Recovery, Dodge or Attack.

Assassins

[Bug Fix] Assassins not falling Unbalance when thrown out of stamina is resolved.

Developer comments: Another issue the community picked up on. In some cases, Assassins were able to prevent Unbalance from happening when thrown while out of stamina. It happened because of their specific Guard Switch. When buffered just at the moment they got guard broken, it would bypass the Unbalance. This issue is now resolved.

Revenge

[Bug Fix] Revenge activation no longer interruptible by Emotes.

Barracks

[Bug Fix] Fixed inverted Kensei Emotes “Wipe Blade” and “Arm and Armed”.

Developer comments: "Wipe Blade" & "Arm and Armed" emote videos and descriptions were inverted. This change will not swap emotes for users but rather fix the menu displaying the wrong info.

FIGHTERS

Nobushi

[Bug Fix] Hidden Stance input improvement

Developer comments: There was an issue with the Nobushi’s Hidden Stance input causing the downward angle detection on the right stick not to work consistently with the other Full Block Stances. It’s resolved now, the Hidden Stance input works the same as Full Block Stances.

[Bug Fix] Nobushi's bleed can no longer be applied without hitting target

Developer comments: A bug in the Nobushi's bleed mechanic caused the bleed to be reapplied without actually hitting the target if you used a specific timing.

Lawbringer

[Bug Fix] Using Shove on an enemy about to fall used to change their fall reaction

(enemy would land on their feet instead of falling on their back).

Warlord

[Bug Fix] Blocking External Attacks while in Full Block Stance now costs stamina

Berserker

Heavy Finishers hit areas updated

Developer comments: This addresses the “phantom hit” issue. We’re changing the data of the Heavy Finishers hit areas so that the animation and hit area look more in sync. However, the issue at stake here is more complex. Fixing the hit areas will help with the issue, but we have a more robust fix coming for this in the future that has to do with our targeting rules. Stay tuned for more details in the future.

FEATS

Regenerate

Health regeneration only works from Idle

Health regeneration set to 12HP per tick (from 10HP)

Developer comments: Regenerate could be exploited by fighting enemies Out of Guard Mode. The Warlord could just release lock, take hits, and the Feat would regenerate his HP without much of a challenge. This is not a behavior we want to encourage. By enabling the HP regeneration only in Idle, Regenerate now is efficient in safe scenarios only, which is more aligned with its intended purpose. We’re also increasing its regeneration rate in order to compensate for the loss of regeneration on hits.

Shield Basher

[Bug Fix] Shield Basher functionality will no longer be partially deactivated on death.

GAME MODES

Elimination

Boosts are no longer available for pick-up at round start, they now appear 20 seconds after each round starts.

The time to pick up a Boost has been increased from 1 second to 2 seconds.

Skirmish

The following changes have been made to help shorten the average match length:

The Hero Kill reward has been increased from 27 to 35 points

The Streak kill bonus awarded per subsequent kill is now 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 points instead of 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25.

The “Savior” reward (assisting a friendly in a duel) has been increased from 10 to 15 points

Introduced the “Avenger” renown bonus that rewards 15 points (Killing an enemy who has recently killed a team mate within a 10 second timeframe)

Changed the “Honor” bonus of 1 vs 1/2/ 3/4 to 15, 20, 25 and 30 points from 10, 15, 20, and 25 points

Base respawn time has been reduced from 12 to 10 seconds

Custom Match

The Hero Single pick option has been added to custom matches, accessed on the rules page.

GEAR STATS

Fixes

Attack and Defense stats no longer apply when in Revenge mode. Only the Revenge Attack and Revenge Defense stats apply when in Revenge.

Debuff Resistance will no longer reduce the Guardbreak Counter window of opportunity.

Revenge gain by Defense is now applied only when you block or parry a hit.

Revenge gain by Injury is now only applied when you get revenge from taking damage.

Rebalancing

Revenge mode Defense (found on Weapon slot 2, usually hilt)

maximum bonus decreased from 48.2% down to 32.1%

maximum penalty decreased from -16.1% to -10.6%

Revenge gain by Defense (found on Weapon slot 2, usually hilt)

maximum bonus decreased from 36.2% down to 24.1%

maximum penalty decreased from -12.1% to -8.0%

Revenge mode attack (found on Weapon part 3, usually guard)

maximum bonus decreased from 48.2% down to 24.1%

maximum penalty decreased from -16.1% to -8.0%

Revenge mode duration (found on Helm part)

maximum bonus decreased from 54.0% down to 25.0%%

maximum penalty decreased from -18.0% to -8.3%

Sprint Speed (found on Chest part)

The maximum bonus decreased from 18% down to 9%

The maximum penalty decreased from -6.0% to -3.0%

ORDERS

All Daily Orders and Contract Orders can now be done in PvP and PvAI without distinction.

Added Daily Orders that can be done regardless of the game mode you play.

VARIOUS

Team icons disappear from the chat window once the chat has timed out.

Players will no longer be paired on the same team when paying in 1v1 Duel after re-inviting a player who has quit

PC SPECIFIC

General

FIXED: Some players with newer Mobile Graphics Cards are unable to switch the game to exclusive full screen mode

FIXED: Game sometimes gets stuck for 15-20 seconds on the “Exit to World map” pop-up after completing a match

FIXED: Game freeze on the World Map for some players

FIXED: Game gets stuck on processing message after confirming outfit purchase pop up when social page is in the background

FIXED: Uplay achievement title and description are inversed for "Complete the Samurai Chapter"

FIXED: Payment window does not disappear when closing the Uplay overlay with the mouse

UI

FIXED: Scrolling in the Moveset screen affecting both lists at the same time (Hero Specific & Moves)

FIXED: Players are unable to apply background or Symbols for a second time after opening and closing the Uplay overlay

FIXED: Game gets stuck on processing/need more steel screen on confirming the feat purchase pop up while hero preview is in background

FIXED: In-game error messages not supporting 21:9 resolution

FIXED: Selection area of Feats in story mission loadout is too big

FIXED: Multiple broken mapped icons

FIXED: Keyboard layout screen is missing when a steam controller is connected

FIXED: Placeholder button prompt are displayed after disconnecting and reconnecting a steam controller

FIXED: Item thumbnail doesn't get refreshed properly if the player clicks an item while dismantling another in the scavenge reward screen

FIXED: Mouse click for the client does not work on the warning pop-up, after the host leaves any PvAI session

FIXED: "Scroll Up" and "Scroll Down" buttons on Credits page are not clickable

FIXED: Tips on Controls page contain old button prompts when a player makes changes in Key mappings and then performs Reset to Default

FIXED: Mouse wheel scrolling through parameters of Custom Match on Map Overview is not functional

FIXED: Input is not disabled if game is minimized or an overlay (UPlay, Steam) is visible

Controls

FIXED: Nobushi hidden stance having a smaller input cone than other "down" stances

FIXED: Nobushi hidden stance is not working with Steam Controller native controls

FIXED: Steam Controller not switching to menu binding when opening the Menu while in Guard mode

FIXED: in-game menu is not invoked when a PS4 controller is disconnected

Chat

“ALL Chat” is now the default scope for text chat in the Duel Game mode

FIXED: Players are unable to use text chat in the lobby on re-match

Windows

FIXED: Windows key is now working in borderless and exclusive fullscreen when in the menus

FIXED: Win+Shift+Arrow key behavior in borderless and fullscreen:

FIXED: When minimizing after using the shortcut, the game went to the wrong monitor

It was possible to move the window outside the viewable space

It was not following the microsoft standard "wraparound" o It was not working with Arrow UP/DOWN

PATCH NOTES V1.05.1

HEROES

Peacekeeper

Zone Attack

Zone Attack first strike is now set up as a light attack to trigger an interrupt reaction on block.

Cancelling a blocked Zone attack while in Revenge will now force an exit of 600ms preventing you from attacking again.

[Bug Fix] Zone Attack UI indicator will now correctly start at the beginning of the animation instead of 100ms later.

Developer comments: In its current state, Peacekeeper’s Zone Attack has very low risk and very high reward even on block. Revenge also makes the Peacekeeper nearly unstoppable with the ability to repeat the Zone Attack cancel without Stamina penalty. With these changes the move is still a very good opener but will no longer give you a frame advantage on block. Fixing the UI stance indicator’s timing will also make the Zone Attack feel more consistent with its actual timing of 400ms. It will remain one of the fastest moves in the game but the fact that it is always coming from the same stance makes it manageable.

Sidestep Strike and Riposting Stab

Sidestep Strike recovery on Interrupt Block increased to 800ms (from 700ms).

Sidestep Strike damage decreased to 15 (from 20).

Riposting Stab damage increased to 30 (from 25). Bleed effect remains unchanged.

Developer comments: Blocking Sidestep Strike provides initiative only on a few match ups, so we’re increasing the Regular Block recovery on this attack in order to increase these match ups. Sidestep Strike damage is currently too good compared to Riposting Stab, making Deflect feel too much of a risk compared to basic Dodge. By reducing the damage on Sidestep Strike and increasing the damage on Riposting Stab we hope to restore a more balanced risk / reward between Dodge and Deflect. One last thing about the Peacekeeper, we’re aware of the issues expressed by the community over her Light > Light Spam. Even though we’re not addressing it in this update, we’re currently looking into it so expect changes in the near future.

Warlord

Headbutt

Stamina cost increased to 15 (from 12).

Dodge window increased by 200ms.

Miss Recovery reduced to 700ms (from 800ms).

Miss Recovery branching into Attack delayed by 200ms.

Developer comments: Dodging the Headbutt can be quite frustrating so we’re increasing its Dodge window of opportunity to make Dodge more consistent while maintaining its great initiation potential. Increasing the Miss recovery and delaying the branching into Attack will make the Headbutt more punishable depending on how early you Dodge and which punish move you have out of Dodge. We also increased the Headbutt’s Stamina cost a little to punish people who spam it too much.

Full Block Stance

Bug Fix] Stamina cost could be doubled in some cases. We’ve fixed it.

Can no longer be chained into Headbutt unless an attack has been blocked.

Developer comments: A bug caused the Stamina cost of the Full Block Stance to be applied twice, it’s now fixed. We’ve also removed the option to Headbutt from Full Block Stance idle in order to reduce the amount of options you have to counter from Full Block Stance which is currently very strong. You can still Headbutt out of Full Block Stance after a block. But by removing it from Full Block Stance idle, we want to reduce the Warlord’s ability to interrupt any attempt at attacking him or baiting him while in his Full Block Stance.

Kensei

Helm Splitter

Helm Splitter can now chains directly into the Chain Finisher (rather than the 2nd hit in the chain).

Swift Strike

Swift Strike can now chains directly into the Chain Finisher (rather than the 2nd hit in the chain).

Developer comments: Kensei’s mix-up from the Unblockable Top Heavy is where Kensei can play mindgames, but the third hit in a chain is very difficult to reach in competitive play. By making it reachable immediately after a Dodge attack, Kensei should be able to apply more pressure.

Side Light attacks

Side Light Attack opener startup decreased from 700ms to 600ms.

Developer comments: Kensei’s initiation is currently based around the Top Heavy Feint into Top Light. By speeding up Kensei’s Side Light openers we want to provide more initiation options from idle.

Light Finishers

Top Light Finisher recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 900ms).

Side Light Finishers recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 1100ms).

Light Finishers Out of Guard Mode

Top Light Finisher recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 900ms).

Side Light Finishers recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 1100ms).

Designer comments: These attacks just had to be blocked, and they gave up a free Guardbreak (which led to big damage). We want players to feel they are able to attack more often – and making these safe on block is one step towards that goal.

Berserker

Super Armor

Super Armor is now applied on all 2nd and later attacks in chains (used to be applied after 4th).

Berserker no longer requires the preceding attack to hit or be blocked to count towards applying Super Armor.

Berserker no longer gets the Stamina cost reduction when Super Armor kicks in.

Note: Moveset page is not updated in this version.

Developer comments: Berserker’s identity is based on relentless attacking, but the requirement to land 4+ hits is too much in current competitive play. Putting the Super Armor buff on all of the 2nd attacks in the chains means that now Berserkers can access this reliably, and could be used to trade against reacting Shugokis and Warlords with their Super Armor. We’ve removed the Stamina cost reduction to prevent the Berserker from using infinite chains for too long now that we’ve moved the Super Armor buff to 2 hits. We’ll keep an eye on that for further balancing.

Deflect

Deflect transitions into Guardbreak after 500ms (reduced from 700ms).

Developer comments: Speeding up the Deflect is meant to help against Peacekeeper and Valkyrie. This will now let Berserker Deflect their Light > Light chains without being stopped by the 2nd Light.

Light Attacks (Out of Guard Mode)

Right Light Attacks recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 700ms (from 900ms)

Designer comments: To prevent free Guardbreak on block. Change is applied on all chained Light Attacks out of Guard Mode to be consistent with their Guard Mode counterpart.

Conqueror

Full Block Stance

Hit and Bump recoveries can no longer chain directly into Full Block Stance.

Developer comments: Conqueror’s ability to flow to Full Block Stance from hit/bump reactions made it extremely hard to open even after a successful hit. For instance, Warden’s Shield Bash couldn’t confirm into Light > Light combo. By removing these transitions, we want to remove the Conqueror’s ability to use Full Block Stance as a panic button.

Shield Bash

[Bug Fix] Conqueror cannot counter Guardbreak from Shield Bash Hit and Miss Recoveries.

Shield Bash Riposte

Shield Bash Riposte startup no longer has Block on Top Guard.

Shield Bash Riposte Miss recovery no longer has the ability to Block.

[Bug Fix] Conqueror cannot counter Guardbreak from Shield Bash Riposte Hit and Miss Recoveries.

Shield Bash Mix Up

Shield Bash Mix Up startup no longer has Block on Top Guard.

Shield Bash Mix Up Miss recovery no longer has the ability to Block.

[Bug Fix] Conqueror cannot counter Guardbreak from Shield Bash Mix Up Hit and Miss Recoveries.

Developer Comments: Shield Bash Riposte and Mix Up are extremely hard to punish even if you Dodge because they have defense on Start-Ups, Hit and Miss Recoveries. Removing the ability to defend on these moves should make Conqueror more punishable. We’ve also fixed a bug on Shield Bash, Riposte and Mix Up that allowed Conqueror to counter Guardbreak from these moves’ recoveries; which was an exception from our generic rule that Guardbreak cannot be countered from Recovery.

Heavy Attacks

Heavy Attack openers damage increased to 25 (from 23).

[Bug Fix] Out of Guard Mode Heavy Attack openers now have the same damage and hit areas as their Guard Mode counterpart.

Developer Comments: Heavy Attack openers are buffed to 25 damage, because players regen health to 25. In duels, the Conqueror had a difficult time hitting the killing blow when it was only 23 damage, because the opponent wanted to run-away and regen out of killing range. We know Conqueror is a strong character right now - this minor buff is purely to make the end-of-match faster and more exciting, not to strengthen the Conqueror.

Light Attacks (Out of Guard Mode)

Right Light Attacks Recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 700ms (from 900ms).

Designer comments: To prevent free Guardbreak on block. Change is applied on Light Attack opener and finisher out of Guard Mode to be consistent with their Guard Mode counterpart.

Lawbringer

The Long Arm

The Long Arm now guarantees a Side Heavy Attack (but not Top Heavy).

Developer comments: The Long Arm is an iconic move of the Lawbringer, but before it only connected to a guaranteed light. Now it connects to a guaranteed heavy, which should make the risk of launching this move more worthwhile. This heavy can start the Swift Justice chain, which now also features a faster light after that heavy.

Parry

Parry now guarantees an Impaling Riposte.

Parry now guarantees a Make Way.

Light Riposte

Light Riposte applies Stun on Hit.

Hit and Regular Block recovery branchings into Chain increased to 200ms (from 100ms)

Note: Moveset page is not updated in this version.

Make Way

Make Way has Super Armor.

Make Way damage increased to 25 (from 20).

Note: Moveset page is not updated in this version.

Developer comments: Part of Lawbringer’s identity is to be a Counter Attacker. Before, only the Light Riposte was guaranteed. Now, Impaling Riposte and Make Way are also guaranteed. Lawbringer players can choose the best option for the current situation: Light Riposte’s new Stun property is meant to help you enter your chain, Impaling Riposte can run the opponent to a wall, and Make Way’s new Super Armor can be useful when you’re outnumbered. We’re also increasing the input branching to go from Light Riposte recovery to Chain in order to make it less challenging input-wise.

Swift Justice (HLH)

Light Attack startup decreased to 500ms (from 700ms).

Top Light Attack damage increased to 15 (from 10).

Side Light Attack damage increased to 15 (from 8).

Book, Chapter and verse (LHL)

Top Heavy Attack startup decreased to 1000ms (from 1100ms).

Side Heavy Attack startups decreased to 900ms (from 1000ms).

Top Heavy attack damage increased to 35 (from 20).

Side Heavy attack damage increased to 30 (from 20).

Top Light Finisher attack damage increased to 15 (from 10).

Side Light Finisher attack damage increased to 15 (from 8).

Judge, Jury and Executioner (LHH)

1st Top Heavy Attack startup decreased to 1000ms (from 1100ms).

1st Side Heavy Attack startups decreased to 900ms (from 1000ms).

Heavy Finisher Unblockable attack damage increased to 45 (from 30).

Developer comments: General damage buffs should make the Lawbringer more able to kill the opponent through combat. Some of the chains’ attacks are now faster as well, which we hope will allow the Lawbringer to successfully land hits a bit more frequently. This should help the Lawbringer in Duels but not make him too much stronger in 4v4 game modes where he is already dangerous.

Shove

[Bug Fix] Removed Super Armor from Hit and Miss Recoveries.

Developer comments: Shove’s Uninterruptible Stance property was active throughout the build-up and recoveries. It’s now going to be only on the build-up.

Nobushi

Light Finishers

Top Light Finisher recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 900ms)

Side Light Finishers recoveries on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 1000ms)

Light Finisher Out of Guard Mode

Right Light Finisher recovery on Interrupt Block increased to 800ms (from 700ms)

Designer comments: To prevent free Guardbreak on block. Change is applied on Light Attack finisher out of Guard Mode to be consistent with its Guard Mode counterpart.

Shugoki

Light Attacks

Light Attacks recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 900ms)

Light Finisher (Out of Guard Mode)

Right Light opener recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 900ms)

Designer comments: To prevent free Guardbreak on block. Change is applied on Light Attack opener out of Guard Mode to be consistent with its Guard Mode counterpart.

Valkyrie

Light Finishers

Light Finishers recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 1000ms)

Light Finisher (Out of Guard Mode)

Right Light Finisher recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 1000ms)

Designer comments: To prevent free Guardbreak on block. Change is applied on Light Attack finisher out of Guard Mode to be consistent with its Guard Mode counterpart.

[cryptobitmonkey]

Bitcoin In the Scramble to Fix Digital Identity, uPort Is a Project to Watch Daily News

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Talk to any three blockchain entrepreneurs, and at least one of them will pitch a way for internet users to own their own data.

Recent privacy debacles at Yahoo, Equifax and Facebook have driven home the realization that anyone with a smartphone is walking, talking, searching, eating, posting, browsing fodder for advertisers, machine learning algorithms and thieves. And users neither control this data nor receive any compensation for giving it up.

Yet, blockchain fever – entering the mainstream at the same time as this data sobriety – appears to provide an antidote, and a rash of decentralized applications has appeared to help users monetize their data.

Using cryptographic technology such as public-private key pairs, such projects aim to let users of digital services control the data they produce, many times offering a marketplace where users can do things like selling their Yelp bookmarks to an advertiser for a few bucks’ worth of cryptocurrency.

But the team at uPort, an ethereum-based identity protocol, is going after a bigger prize.

Rather than ask, “How can I get paid for my data?” uPort aims to answer, “Who am I in the digital age?”

For Reuven Heck, co-founder and project lead at uPort, this isn’t the kind of problem that can be answered with just another app. Because the internet wasn’t built with an identity layer embedded, Heck said, tweaking the top of the internet – the application layer – just isn’t cutting it.

Rather, the internet needs to be rebuilt at a deeper level, and according to Heck, uPort aims to do just that:

“We believe we now have technology that allows us to build this as a horizontal layer across the internet … without being owned and controlled from an individual company.”

That ambition has led uPort – among the oldest projects under the umbrella of ethereum startup and incubator ConsenSys – to be regarded as one of the most exciting blockchain-based approaches to rationalizing users’ scattered, insecure digital identities.

The internet of identity

It’s notable that uPort has managed to attract a significant amount of interest despite not being focused on the end users.

According to Danny Zuckerman, uPort’s head of strategy and operations, the project emerged from persistent calls across the ethereum developer community for an identity system – preferably a decentralized one, given ethereum’s fundamental mission.

With that background, uPort decided the best approach was to give developers with a way to delegate the task of storing user-specific data on the blockchain by, Heck said, “integrating a few lines of code into your application.”

And yet, it’s not necessarily safe to assume that uPort will only be buried in decentralized applications’ innards, hidden from end users.

“There will be a lot of different ways that users interact,” said Zuckerman, because “it’s really this identity layer for the internet, and there’s not one way you interact with the internet.”

To explain what was meant by an identity layer for the internet, Zuckerman began with the “top-down mechanism” of the analog world, in which the government defines an individual’s identity in a limited number of ways: a passport number, a national identification number, a Social Security number, a driver’s license number. The specifics depend on the jurisdiction, but most people have one or two primary, officially sanctioned identifiers.

The web, by contrast, is a free-for-all.

“With the internet there started to be all kinds of other identity systems, typical username and password – basically anything where you identify who you are and create an account – and so there was this proliferation of many, many identities,” Zuckerman said. “And that started having user data captured in lots of different places, not under their control.”

And for many blockchain enthusiasts, that just doesn’t make sense. On the one hand, these multiple identities are challenging for everyone to juggle (without being subject to security slip-ups). On the other hand, allowing a single, centralized party take over digital identity is not ideal either.

Rather, uPort’s idea is to put users in charge of holding and, if they choose, sharing the data associated with their identity, using the same cryptographic protocols that allow them to control cryptocurrency without the need for a third party. And this goal is frequently called “self-sovereign identity.”

A crowded space

UPort is far from the only project working towards the goal of self-sovereign identity using blockchain technology.

The Sovrin Foundation is one of the most prominent examples of uPort’s competition.

The foundation is behind Project Indy, a set of identity tools launched last year by the Hyperledger consortium. In contrast to public, permissionless uPort, Indy is a hybrid: anyone can view the ledger, but writing to it requires permission. Also in contrast to uPort, Project Indy is planning an ICO.

Civic, which plans to fully roll out its identity platform later this year on RSK, a layer-two bitcoin smart contracts platform, recently raised $30 million in an ICO.

Microsoft and Accenture have unveiled an identity prototype that uses a private, permissioned version of ethereum.

Meanwhile, developers on the public ethereum network are working on a standard for tokenized identity. Called ERC-725, the standard is being spearheaded by Fabian Vogelsteller, the creator of the ERC-20 standard that powered a boom in the crowdsale of crypto tokens.

Finally, the team at Digital Bazaar – which has been working with the World Wide Web Consortium, a standards body – has launched an experimental “testnet” version of a blockchain-based identity solution called Veres One. Like uPort, it is public, permissionless and lacks a token of its own. Unlike ethereum-based uPort, however, it is a freestanding blockchain.

The risk of having all of these divergent, competing standards for blockchain-based identity is that they will recreate the current system: fragmented and siloed.

But most of these projects’ teams, including uPort’s, are aware of the risk and working with different standards bodies to try and build an interoperable system. UPort, for instance, joined the Decentralized Identity Foundation – which includes big names like Microsoft and Accenture, among others –  in order to develop a standard for everyone.

Heck underscored the importance of interoperability by citing the examples of WeChat, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. As impressive as these messaging apps’ userbases are, he said, “nothing really has replaced email.”

The reason, he continued, is that:

“Email’s the only universal thing which works across the world. You can send emails from anywhere to anyone. Everybody has something that’s compatible.”

Trying to go it alone is just bad business, he added, saying, “No solution that thinks they are winning now because they were earlier will win if they’re not on a joint standard.”

Momentum and roadblocks

And while all these solutions have made significant progress over the past year, uPort has a whole group of potential partners and clients in the various other “spokes” of ConsenSys. One of these spokes, Viant, is currently integrating uPort, while others – including OpenLaw, Meridio and Civil – are planning to do so.

Tyler Mulvihill, the co-founder of Viant, which plans to go live with its ethereum-based supply chain platform this year, told CoinDesk that using uPort as its identity solution was “a really easy decision,” not only because of the ConsenSys connection, but because “they’re leading the space in self-sovereign identity.”

Gnosis, a prediction market that was spun out of ConsenSys, used uPort to verify that each user was only submitting one entry to its Olympia tournament.

Outside of ConsenSys, Melonport, a decentralized asset manager based in Zug, Switzerland, is using uPort to perform know-your-customer and anti-money laundering (KYC/AML) checks.

But uPort’s most notable partnership is with the government of Zug itself, which is conducting a pilot program to register citizens’ IDs on ethereum. The first registry was completed in November, and the total is now over 200. The city government then announced a voting pilot using uPort last week.

Another pilot, in which uPort and Microsoft partnered with Brazil’s Ministry of Planning to verify notarized documents, began in June 2017. According to Heck, more such partnerships could follow.

“We are talking to other cities and governments at the moment – none of them we can talk about at this point,” he told CoinDesk.

In many respects, though, uPort has a long way to go.

The same questions that nag the ethereum ecosystem as a whole can make the way forward uncertain for uPort. How to scale the network to enable faster and cheaper transactions is a major hurdle.

Also important – arguably more so, given uPort’s focus on identity – is the question of how to protect users’ privacy when using a blockchain like ethereum, which is visible to anyone.

“Transparency in blockchain is obviously a feature,” said Zukerman, “but when it comes to personal data and identity data it’s a liability.”

Finally, there’s the question of what happens to a user who loses their private key, and with it, presumably, control over their digital lives. UPort has explored different solutions to this problem, starting with designating friends who can collectively vouch for a person and transfer the lost ID’s data over to a new public key. That was an ethereum-specific solution, though; the team is now working on a blockchain-agnostic one.

But still, even with these roadblocks, uPort has had no problem with its main goal, convincing developers to use its platform in their applications. Heck concluded:

“People come to us.”

Mirrors image via Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: Women-Only Spaces Are Part of a Coworking Craze. Some Might Also Be Violating the Law

On a rainy morning in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco, women are filing through the arched doors of a old Greek church carrying bike helmets and laptops. Instead of a tithe, the price for their admission to this sanctuary is $250 per month. There won’t be sermons inside, but there is $3 kombucha and restorative yoga and a pumping room proudly decorated with drawings of breasts. There are also tenets that bind members typing away in the chic “female-forward” space upstairs. It’s not a “traditional” coworking space, says Molly Goodson, founder of a new women-only club called The Assembly. “Really it’s all built around women and self-care.”

The Assembly is one of many spaces popping up across the country that cater to particular types of workers, whether it’s women or LGBTQ individuals or so-called ganjapreneurs. As the coworking industry has matured, “niche” locations that don’t intend to be for everyone have flourished. And, in an era when relying on digital connections can make us feel isolated, workers who might not even join a traditional coworking hub are flocking to them, not only for practical reasons, but also to feel less alone.

“It’s incredibly empowering to be in a space where you know everybody here is hustling through their own thing, as women,” says Myisha Battle, a sex coach who is among the Assembly’s roughly 200 members. “Women are often isolated on teams and you’re made to feel like you’re vying for similar positions,” Battle adds, “whereas this feels like leveling the playing field a little bit.” It’s a sentiment with currency among the couple hundred more women who are waiting to get in.

In the last decade, coworking has morphed from a trend into an international industry, with venture capitalists pouring billions into the sector and dominant players like WeWork hoovering up real estate around the world. By 2022, five million people will be working out of more than 30,000 coworking spaces – one million of them in the U.S. – according to estimates from Emergent Research. While these places must offer the bare necessities (Internet, desk, outlet), what really defines them is that they blend work and social life in ways that can’t happen when workers and companies are walled off from one another. That social aspect might take the form of meetups, guest lectures or trainings. Coworking spaces might offer cooking classes or childcare. And the more tailored the membership, the more specific that programming can be.

Founders are heralding the new crop of specialized spaces as a means of fighting the a loneliness epidemic in the U.S. But some membership restrictions are also raising legal questions, suggesting that the end result could also be making our siloed existences even worse. The New York Human Rights Commission recently launched an inquiry into a women-only club called The Wing after media reports highlighted the fact that men were excluded, a practice that could be in violation of a local sex discrimination law. Even if it’s understandable that women would want rooms of their own, these clubs are “bumping up against laws” meant to protect them, says ACLU Senior Staff Attorney Galen Sherwin. Though the coworking context is new, she says, “historically there have been challenges to these types of spaces.”

Margaret Austin PhotoHand lettering adorns the walls of the Assembly, a women-only club in San Francisco.

There is a simple, powerful reason the coworking movement has such momentum: money. Steve King, a partner at Emergent Research, describes the consumer appeal in waves. The first was demand from freelancers who didn’t want to do all their business from home or a coffee shop filled with distractions. The second was startups who would rather rent space by the desk than commit to an expensive lease. The third, he says, is large enterprises like GE and Microsoft becoming tenants in coworking towers, sending their employees to hubs that are more flexible than a dedicated office and, often, more fun for individual workers. (Such clients are also stable renters for the coworking businesses, relative to startups that might quickly grow out of coworking or cease to exist entirely.)

The mass appeal has created an incentive for new coworking spaces to get specific, even within the startup world. Nick Jiang, co-founder of a new San Francisco-based coworking company called Birdnest, argues that the sense of camaraderie at the more established chains has become fractured and “cookie cutter.” For early-stage companies, the appeal has been not just free beer or ping-pong tables, but a sense of shared struggle, he says. Jiang believes being surrounded by established companies makes that struggle feel more acute instead of less. In a sign of just how ubiquitous the trend is getting, Birdnest’s model is convincing restaurants that are only open for dinner to rent out their tables to coworkers during the day. Jiang hopes their price point — $74 versus a typical $350 per month or more — will appeal to very early-stage entrepreneurs for whom “every single cent counts.”

Economic hardship can be bonding, as can the perils of working in a certain industry or coming from a certain demographic. When asked why he is planning to open a coworking space called Serif for LGBTQ professionals in New York City (following a scrapped plan to open up one called Yass in San Francisco), Brian Tran recalls the pains of growing up as a young gay man in Texas. “What media and society showed me were bars and clubs,” he says of places where queer people congregate. He believes a coworking space will allow people to build more “substantial connections” and plans to host events like legal workshops where lawyers help transgender people change their identification documents. “It’s really just creating a space where people can give back to their younger selves,” Tran says.

Tran also describes apps as one of the insufficient means for LGBTQ people to connect. While the Internet has been a game-changer for LGBTQ people seeking answers and empathy, interfaces still aren’t a replacement for physical proximity. King, the research firm partner, has argued that the coworking boom is as much about humans’ social nature as it is about flexibility or cost-savings. The efforts to gather and be productive take countless forms these days: workspaces at rock climbing gyms, shared biolabs, people offering up their living rooms.

Nick Devane runs a company called Pilotworks, which rents out shared commercial kitchens in multiple U.S. cities where aspirational bakers and food-delivery startups can commune. There’s an financial need: setting up your own commercial kitchen as a budding entrepreneur is expensive and risky. But while people may come for the infrastructure, Devane says they stay for the solidarity. “People are striving and growing and contracting, and the support those companies provide to one another is tremendous,” he says. “It’s what keeps our members from failing.” He cites the example of two bakers, who should be competitors, opting to share flour. “There’s a natural clustering effect,” Devane says, “just a desire to transfer ideas.”

Some have even posited that coworking spots are like America’s new churches, giving young people a regular spot to gather as places of worship have in the past. After all, religion is often about shared struggle too, and efforts that coworking spaces are making to help members with pursuits like “self-actualization” are in line with the millennial ethos. “These days being a good human means being productive and contributing,” Devane says, “and living your life’s work.” A job is supposed to be meaningful, whatever it might pay.

Angie Thurston, a ministry innovation fellow at Harvard Divinity School, has researched the modern manifestations of our tribal needs, in a time when people are “less and less affiliated.” She was recently invited to a coworking conference to speak about these very parallels. “There’s such an acute need for community, for a sense of purpose,” she says. “A coworking space becomes something much more than a place to sit and work and not be alone.”

Take The Coven, a new coworking space in Minneapolis that limits membership to women and non-binary individuals (those who may not identify as a man or a woman). After raising about $315,000 through crowdfunding, they had 230 members join in the first four weeks. For $200 a month, The Coven provides the basics, plus things ranging from a prayer room for Muslim members to bathrooms with “an overflow of free pads and tampons,” says cofounder Bethany Iverson. Key among the offerings are events, which revolve around monthly themes like empowerment and body positivity. “There’s not one thing that we’re hammering home,” says cofounder Erinn Farrell, other than “being your whole self.” It may not be religion, but it is a shared vision of how one should live.

Iverson and Farrell come from advertising and say they got frustrated while working to make the local industry more inclusive. “What if instead of trying to create change within our agencies,” Iverson recalls them thinking, “we just went and built a totally new world?” The team makes no apologies about their decision to exclude men from this utopia. Nearly every other space “is a male-first space,” Iverson says. They know that some “men’s rights” advocates are up in arms about the proliferation of women-focused efforts, be it a club or a movie screening, but they say such a response only goes to show their “fear of scarcity and losing power.”

Margaret Austin PhotoAn arched doorway leads members into the Assembly, a women-only club in San Francisco.

While most coworking niches cause little ruckus, some are questioning whether these women-only spaces are being fair. With revelations about workplace harassment still ringing in America’s ears, it makes sense that some women view these spaces as working to remedy discrimination. The hard part is that, while private clubs are legally able to reject applicants who don’t fit certain criteria, exclusion gets dicey when organizations appear public-facing. “Everyone is grappling with the questions raised by the fact that there’s this need these spaces are filling,” says the ACLU’s Sherwin, who works on the organization’s women’s rights project.

The founders of The Coven say they have been legally advised that they fit the definition of a private club. But that doesn’t mean every women-only club will pass the same test. In past cases, courts have found that clubs that thought or said they were private – as The Wing has – were in fact public, thus subjecting them to the same laws that forbid businesses from discriminating based on characteristics like race, sex or religion. That distinction can turn on factors like the number of members, whether the business is trying to make a profit, and whether non-members have access to the site.

Defenders of The Wing have rallied behind the notion that women deserve to isolate themselves if they want to, given the treatment they endure. Others have argued that excluding people based on their sex is a bad practice, however justified it might feel. The ACLU has suggested The Wing “may not be in compliance” with New York’s local discrimination law, which also bans many private clubs from discriminating based on gender. But Sherwin notes that these new quasi-offices also raise “untested legal questions.” It’s possible that the debate will eventually have to play out in court.

In the meantime, women at places like The Assembly will be reveling in their haven, decorated with cacti and stained-glass windows, like some desert oasis in the middle of the city. There is a sense among some members that the very existence of the place is evening a score. “I’m a feminist, so what appealed most to me was working in a space alongside women who were interested in networking in a way that we think of as typically masculine, this clubhouse idea,” says Battle, the sex coach, as she sits on a bench inside The Assembly’s lofty main room. “Historically,” she adds, “women have been on the outside of that.”

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

[metawitches]

Original Kovacs after a devastating loss in battle.

Kovacs voiceover:

“Peace is an illusion. No matter how tranquil the world seems, peace doesn’t last long. Peace is a struggle against our very nature. A skin we stretch over the bone, muscle and sinew of our own innate savagery. The instinct of violence curls inside us like a parasite, waiting for a chance to feed on our rage and multiply until it bursts out of us. War is the only thing we really understand.”

So, there’s a slightly different tone between Quell’s inspirational voiceovers and Kovacs’ nihilistic calls toward violence and conflict. Having given in to the Quell that lives in his mind at the end of episode 1, stayed awake, and taken the case, Kovacs is left to navigate the world without her, other than as echoes from a long ago defeat. He begins his investigation in earnest, and considers who he can trust to become part of his team. The complexity of the case begins to reveal itself, as hallucination Quell predicted. Meanwhile, Ortega has secrets of her own. She spends much of the episode working on a separate, but possibly related, case.

The episode begins with Kovacs’ voiceover as we see a very pretty view of the Bay City skyline across the bay at dawn. A father and young son are fishing in a small boat in the bay in the foreground. I’m surprised there is still something to fish for. A body drops from the sky into the bay, literally out of the blue. I’m going to call it another obscure Monty Python reference.

The boat and the body end up next to each other. It’s shockingly the body of a scantily clad blonde young woman who’s been murdered. Her breasts float higher than the rest of her, to get the required female nudity in, since most of the female regulars must have nudity clauses in their contracts.

The child starts to pull the woman into the boat, but his father tells him to stop. She’s not their problem, and they could get arrested. Touching. She floats away, the lengths of gauzy white fabric that make up her sheer dress flowing away from her, the perfect image of a helpless, victimized woman. She’s lit beautifully, and the camera shoots her lovingly from above and below. The live women don’t get this treatment from the cinematography, especially the fully clothed ones.

The underwater image of the helpless dead woman, shot from below so we’re looking up into the silhouette of her private parts, making her even more vulnerable in death, is an image that will be returned to over and over again this episode. In case you didn’t get the message, women are exploited and victimized in this world, and it’s so normalized that the father didn’t even try to shield his young son’s eyes from seeing a nude woman, a dead body, or a brutalized woman. Instead he told his son that they couldn’t help her, and to turn away from evidence of suffering.

I would believe that this was being shown as a cautionary tale of what we could become, if the camera didn’t linger so long, and the shots weren’t so pretty, turning this into porn and even sick art. If the women’s injuries and bodies were shot the way the men’s are, it wouldn’t be too bad, but they aren’t, despite the amount of time that Joel Kinnaman spends naked. And if, in this instance, it wasn’t specifically males right there getting a good look before they turned away, tacitly giving the viewer permission to enjoy the view as well.

We move on to the aftermath of a terrible battle that ended in slaughter. Original Kovacs stands in a clearing, surrounded by burning woods, and weeps. One of his wounded comrades yells “Long live Quellcrist Falconer!” as he lies dying. Protectorate soldiers move amongst the fallen. What looked like it snow on the ground in episode 1 is now clearly a thick layer of ash that continues to fall. Is this the Battle of Stronghold?

Kovacs wakes up from the nightmare that was his memory of the battle and its aftermath. Or he thinks he does. At first, it’s as if the battle still surrounds his senses. Then he actually wakes up. This entire sequence was also beautifully done.

But now it’s time for round 1 of naked Tak!

Poe and Oumou Pescott, an attorney who works exclusively for Bancroft, are waiting in the hotel room for Kovacs to wake up. He wakes up and, fully nude, walks over to tell them to get out of his room. Kovacs thinks that Prescott is the hooker he was expecting. Oops. She does fit the description Poe gave him, so we’ll let it go this time.

Poe hands Kovacs an upgraded set of clothes that are better suited to someone who hangs out with a Meth, while Kovacs tells him, again, to take the lawyer downstairs and stay out. Prescott points out that Kovacs isn’t Bancroft’s buddy, he’s an employee, because no one is jumping the line to get ahead of her in the race to go from employee to friend of the Meth.

Ortega, who doesn’t sleep nude, wakes up to the soothing tones of her police tracker asking her if she wants an update on Kovacs position. From there, she trains with Aboud, who one has to feel sorry for. That beating can’t have been good for his shoulders. He tries to convince her of the benefits of having a personal life. She’d rather be hardcore and angry, because she has an axe to grind, a score to settle, a Meth to… well, let’s face it, the odds are slim to none that she’s going to affect the Meth on her own.

Ortega sleeps with a very interesting file on her bed. Who was Kovacs’ sleeve? Multiple people have given him a double take, and more will by the end of this episode. Is it a perp file or a staff file?

There’s a beeping sound in the gym, which Aboud declares he’s going to ignore, because it’s the sound of a police tracker, which they aren’t currently authorized to have. If he heard it, he’d have to turn Ortega in. He leaves, with the suggestion that the tracker disappear before she gets to the station.

Prescott takes Kovacs to the Psychasec, Mission branch building where they meet with Director Nyman.  While they wait, Kovacs tells Prescott that he’ll need to interview all of Bancroft’s closest business and social associates. Prescott replies that those people are much too important to be bothered with that kind of thing. They have a little fight for dominance, then Nyman arrives. Nobody likes an uppity terrorist. Go figure.

Nyman gives them a tour of the facility, of which he’s very proud, especially the designer clones.

Nyman: Our primary business is in clones. No doubt you know that a single clone costs more than most people make in a single lifetime. (Kovacs: So Meths only.) Our clients are the most discerning, wealthiest people in the Protectorate. They don’t do anything as pedestrian as dying…This is the Bancroft family vault. We keep 24/7 tech personnel in the vault. Gus was here the night Mr Bancroft needlecast back from Osaka.

Kovacs, looking at a clone of Laurens: They aren’t aware, right?

Gus, the tech on duty: No, clones’ brains are blanked. Stacks are empty. The bodies are electrically stimulated periodically so they don’t lose muscle tone.

Kovacs: Gonna need to see any footage you have of Bancroft’s arrival. Back when I went down, you resleeve too many times, eventually you go nuts.

Gus: Personality frag. It’s a bitch. But it only happens if you bounce around between lots of different sleeves. So, turns out, if you resleeve into your own clone, you can do it as many times as you want.

Kovacs: And live forever, if you’ve got the cash.

Gus: It’s great, huh?

Kovacs: What does everyone else do?

Gus: Folks resleeve in whatever they can find, if they can afford it.

Kovacs: So your clients, they needlecast directly into the clones here in the building?

Nyman: Our lower levels house a fully secure satellite-to-download DHF facility.

Kovacs: It can’t be that secure, if someone tried to hack Bancroft’s backup the night he was shot.

Prescott: Police think it was Dippers. They steal snippets of Meth memory during uplink. Moments from a king’s childhood, a socialite losing her virginity. (Kovacs: Is that common?) Oh, it happens all the time. Black market value is huge for a slice of those memories.

They are brought the video file of Bancroft’s needlecast back from Osaka on the day he was murdered. It’s only a few seconds long, showing him opening his eyes, then Miriam kissing him. He’s very blank faced. Kovacs is surprised it’s so short.

Nyman: We only record the moment of reacclimation for quality control. Anything more than that would infringe on our clients privacy.

Miriam and Laurens enter, with Laurens agreeing that he values his privacy, even though he’s stark naked. He tells Kovacs that he wanted to watch Kovacs at work on the investigation. When Kovacs asks about the video, Miriam tells him that she likes to greet her husband when he wakes up after traveling for business.

Kovacs asks when the footage was recorded. Prescott replies that it was six hours before Laurens was murdered.

Laurens: I know I’m watching myself, but it feels as if I’m watching a stranger.

Wow, my clue alarm is pinging. Was that someone else in one of his clones? The facial expression just didn’t look like him.

Kovacs: What were you doing in Osaka before you came back?

Prescott: Mr Bancroft closed a 400 billion credit trade deal.

Laurens: Which I also have no memory of.

Kovacs: And your associates there were questioned?

Prescott: They saw nothing amiss with Mr Bancroft. On the contrary. They remarked on his focus and skill.

Laurens: Yes, I still have no idea how I managed to pull that together quite so quickly.

After he needlecast back to Bay City, Miriam went home, but Laurens went out. Security cameras showed him coming home in the morning. Prescott has continued to answer the questions instead of Laurens, and Kovacs remarks on it. Laurens loses his temper. He doesn’t see the point of this line of questioning.

Laurens: The one person who is not a suspect in all of this… is me.

But what if his stack was sitting in the vault at Psychasec while someone else who was double-sleeved used his clone for 48 hours, then made the clone shoot itself in the head?

Kovacs: You wants answers, they come with questions attached.

Laurens: Let’s take a walk, Mr Kovacs. (He’s now fully dressed. They walk down the designer clone display model hall.) Just to be clear, if I die, you go back on ice. If you don’t solve this quickly enough, you go back on ice.

We’re down to the fine print conversation regarding their contract. Kovacs lays his side on the table.

Kovacs: I’m going to need access that you don’t want to give and I’m going to find answers that you may only think you want. You wanted me to work for you, I’m working for you. You want my respect? That’s a little harder to come by. If you don’t like it, just put me back on ice right now.

Laurens: I admire a man who can look over the edge without flinching. Might make a Meth of you yet.

In other words, he likes a guy who doesn’t back down, and who has the goods to go with his nerve, so he’ll accept Kovacs’ terms.

As they leave Psychatec, Prescott informs Kovacs that surveillance footage and suspect/witness interviews have been sent to his hotel. They run into Ortega on the way out. She confronts Kovacs about taking the job, but he doesn’t respond directly. Instead, he asks about the investigation into who tried to have him killed the night before. She hasn’t made much progress yet, since the assailants are all dead.

Poe meets with the other AI businesses in town. The rest have moved on from being hotels into more lucrative ventures. One, Maddy, has been enslaved by someone. He only speaks in sign language. Poe owes the rest money, and will be able to pay them back now that he has a guest.

Because she checked up on Kovacs, Ortega is late for work and missed the morning briefing. Her boss, Captain Tanaka, tells her to handle the mother of a murdered woman who’s there to complain again. Ortega balks that it’s not her case, but the Captain reminds her that she missed the morning meeting, so this one’s hers.

Ortega doesn’t want to talk to Mrs Henchy because the department has lost her daughter’s body. She’s waiting impatiently for the body to be released, so she can bury her daughter, but the police keep stalling and giving her excuses. They haven’t told her that they’ve somehow lost the body.

This is the body of the young woman who fell from the sky into the bay in the opening sequence. The police have been holding her body for 2 months. Mrs Henchy hadn’t seen her daughter for 3 years before she died, and was told that her daughter converted to Neo-Catholicism, so she can’t be resleeved. The body is all she has left.

Ortega pauses and thinks for a moment when Mrs Henchy says that her daughter converted. The mother works herself up into a crying jag. Aboud starts to come into the room to take over, but Ortega goes to her and holds her.

Kovacs sits in the hotel and goes through the recordings sent to him by Prescott. Poe suggests he use his ONI, a high tech multi purpose wrist device, rather than the ancient hotel viewer. The ONI is fast and state of the art. He’s able to quickly sift through videos to remove the unlikely candidates.

Quell: Rage at injustice is universal. The ability to strike back is not. And at its heart, violence is almost always, in one way or another, personal.

Kovacs settles on one death threat, from a man with a disguised voice but holding an easily identified weapon, with a visible serial number. He says he’s going to kill Bancroft for his girl, his Lizzie.

He goes to visit the man he identifies as the gun owner, Vernon Elliot, proprietor of Elliot’s data brokerage. On the way there, Kovacs walks past a museum advertising an exhibit about Quell. That’s probably why Tak breaks down Vernon’s door when he doesn’t answer it immediately. Tak has some unresolved anger issues to work out. 😉 It’ll take a century or two of therapy.

Vernon comes to the main room of his dwelling and complains about the broken door. He didn’t answer because he’s closed for business. Kovacs explains the situation using his usual sarcastic tone. Vernon pulls a gun and politely explains that he had nothing to do with Bancroft getting murdered, now Kovacs should get the f*ck out.

Kovacs questions Vernon as they go along, discovering that Vernon was a tac marine and medic. Lizzie is his daughter. They fight, of course, and Kovacs wins, of course. He ties Vernon up. Kovacs looks around and figures out that Vernon’s wife is gone. Vernon says she was sentenced to 30 years for dipping (hacking).

Kovacs notices virtual reality scars on Vernon’s temples, and looks for the interface. He puts it on, though Vernon desperately tries to stop him. Kovacs enters a crude cityscape and walks toward a young woman who’s lying on the ground, crying. She’s lying on her side, clutching a porcelain baby doll to her stomach. When Tak tells her his name and asks what happened to her, she screams and nightmare images flash through her memory. There’s a pink neon sign above her that says “Jack”.

When Kovacs comes out of virtual reality, he’s angry at Vernon.

Kovacs: What the h*ll’s wrong with you? Can’t you tell she’s suffering? She’s caught in a trauma loop! Why do you have her spun up in VR?

Vernon: Because it’s the only way I can see her. Her body was beaten to death, but her stack was untouched. It damaged her mind. She hasn’t said a word since that night.

Kovacs: Why do you think Bancroft did it?

Vernon: Cause she told me she was seeing him! She said he needed her. That he was going to take care of her. And then she ended up dead.

Vernon breaks loose from his bondage, and they fight again. It’s bloodier this time. Tak duct tapes Vernon to the couch and has a bowl of cereal, though he accuses Vernon of having spoiled milk. He’s decided that although Vernon is smart enough and skilled enough to have killed Bancroft, he wouldn’t have done something that would have risked Lizzie’s safety like that. He pays Vernon for the cereal and the broken door, and leaves.

Tak gets a new black sidekick, just like all of the other superheroes.

After Tak leaves Vernon’s place, he goes back to the museum to see the Quell exhibit, against his better judgement. As he walks into the museum, a recording says, “Welcome to the Battle of Stronghold. Experience the brutality of Envoy terrorists murdering countless women and children. Witness the Protectorate courage and triumph.”

People dressed like Protectorate soldiers, which means in head to toe black with black helmets and masks with red lights around their faces and where their eyes should be, stalk toward him, as they do with everyone who comes through the door. He looks like he’s trying to sink into the floor without being obvious about it.

Tak voiceover: “I knew I shouldn’t go, ’cause when the victors rewrite history, it’s just another kind of war, waged after the battlefield killing is done, to murder the memory of the defeated. But it was a chance to see her again. Not as a dream or a hallucination. I thought it would give me a moment of peace. I should have known better.”

Tak leans against a glass case filled with ruined stacks. A little girl sees him playing with a Songspire bud, and comes over to him to tell him he shouldn’t have it. They strike up a conversation. She explains that she doesn’t want to rejoin her class because the new girl, Emmeline, is there, and she’s stolen this girl’s best friend. The girl and another girl named Monica had been best friends since they were little kids, until Emmeline came along.

The little girl says that her mother told her, “Grudges are stupid. You have to let them go or they’ll kill your soul.” She asks Tak what he thinks. He says that her mom, “Doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Friends are overrated. Eventually, someone will come along and shoot them in the stack. So you’re better off alone.”

Kristin Ortega comes home to find her mother, Alazne Ortega, waiting for her. Alazne is concerned that Kristin isn’t eating enough and will be too skinny to be an effective cop. She’s making enchiladas for the both of them for dinner. Since Alazne’s husband was the chief of police and died in the line of duty, she likely finds excuses to make dinner for her children as often as possible.

Alazne also complains that Kristin hasn’t unpacked and settled into her home. Alazne says that Kristin is waiting for someone in particular, someone who’s not her mother. Kristin, like any adult child, refuses to talk about it. Her mother wants Kristin to move out of this home that isn’t really her own and live in one of the new places going up in the Tenderloin District. Kristin refuses. Is this just Alazne trying to get Kristin to move past an old boyfriend, or is there more here?

They discuss the Neo-Catholic belief in having religious coding attached to their stacks to ensure that they aren’t resleeved after death. Kristin’s father/ Alazne’s husband died and wasn’t brought back, even though he might have been able to identify his murderer. Kristin has had her religious coding removed for this reason, among others. Alazne worries for Kristin’s soul and doesn’t know what to say about the rest. They discuss it a while, but neither is able to make progress with the other.

As they are finishing dinner, Kristen’s police tracker goes off again, telling her that Kovacs is in Licktown, the busy, decadent part of town that he keeps ending up in. She takes off to follow Kovacs, while Alazne is concerned that Kristen isn’t supposed to have a tracker at home with her.

Kovacs is wandering through Licktown searching for answers to Lizzie’s traumatic memories. He finds the spot she was lying in front of, a brothel called Jack It Off. There are rats on the ground around the storefront, where Lizzie was in her trauma loop. Maddy the AI asked Poe if rats had eaten the corpses in the hotel after the shoot out. Are the rats in front of Jack It Off cleaning up blood and human remains?

Kovacs enters Jack It Off, is told by the bouncer that he needs to leave his gun up front, then assigned to Cabin 102 for his personalized experience. He enters the booth and sits down. A mostly naked woman dances behind a frosted glass wall, encouraging her viewer to put credits in the slot so that she can come out into the room, and then so that he can touch her. Kovacs pays up so that he can interview her face to face.

He begins to question the woman, who says she’s named Anemone, about Lizzie Elliot, but she assumes he’s from the police and threatens to scream. He changes tactics and tells her that he’s Lizzie’s mother Ava, cross-sleeved in a man’s body for a particular job. Anemone knows that Ava’s in prison, so Kovacs explains that someone took “Ava” off ice and gave her a job doing “wetwork” (assassination). If she does it, she’ll get a new sleeve for herself and for Lizzie, but someone’s blocking Lizzie’s resleeving. That’s why she’s trying to figure out who killed Lizzie.

Anemone is taken aback. Her own mother would never do anything like that for her. Ava/Tak says, “I’d do anything for my little girl.” He asks if Lizzie had any regulars, especially any who were freaks. She gently tells Lizzie’s mother that everyone there is a freak. Lizzie had one regular, a Meth. She was his favorite, but he took care of his girls. Anemone touches her neck, which is covered by a heavy choker necklace. Kovacs questions what she means and carefully takes the necklace off. Her neck is covered with bruises from being strangled.

Anemone insists that Lizzie’s regular didn’t give her these bruises. And anyway, he’s one of the good ones. If he accidentally kills a girl, he buys her a new, upgraded sleeve. One time he bought a girl a sleeve that was ten years younger with great breasts.

Of course, since he’s a fabulously wealthy Meth and he’s compensating them for murder, he could set them up with better lifestyles, in whatever version of middle class exists in that world. Instead he makes it easier for them to find success as hookers. Great guy.

Oh yeah, we’re also having another conversation with a fully clothed man and a nearly naked woman.

Anemone tells Kovacs that she didn’t know Lizzie well, but promises to ask around about her. He should come back tomorrow to see if she finds out anything else. As she’s leaving, Kovacs tells her, “Doesn’t matter what anyone pays you. You shouldn’t let anyone hurt you. You’re worth more than that.” She hugs him and confesses that her name’s not Anemone, it’s Alice. They leave the booth separately.

When Tak leaves the building, Vernon’s waiting for him, angry that Tak is still investigating his daughter. Before they can talk much, two thugs join the party. One, with a cyborg apparatus on his spine, tells Kovacs that he shouldn’t have come back, then jumps him. So, the sleeve was probably a local guy, is what I’m getting here.

Alley fight ensues. Tak beats cyborg guy when he knocks out the guy’s power pack, which is attached to his belt. I think Vernon’s opponent took off when the flying Bay City Police car showed up, but I couldn’t tell. Kovacs tells Vernon to take off, too, so that he doesn’t get arrested. Obviously it’s Kovacs police stalker, Ortega, who’s in the police car. She tells him he’s under arrest for organic damage and puts him in a cell at the station, but later admits she can’t charge him with anything.

Ortega: Tell me something, Kovacs. You’re getting to know Bancroft. Why are you still willing to work for that pice of sh*t?

Kovacs: Before I was an Envoy, I worked for the Protectorate. For a long time.

Ortega: I didn’t know that.

Kovacs: No one does. It’s not the kind of work that gets logged into any system anywhere. And I was good at it. You want to know why? Because I’m capable of almost anything.

Ortega: You don’t think it’s possible to go so far you can’t come back?

Kovacs: Maybe. When I get there, I’ll let you know.

Ortega: When you get there, I’ll be right next to you, and I’ll stop you.

Kovacs: Somehow Ortega, I get the feeling you can’t even stop yourself.

By the end of this intense flirtation, their faces are very close, with just a pane of safety glass between them.

Ortega and Kovacs are interrupted by Prescott bailing Kovacs out. Prescott tells Ortega that she’s gone too far, this time.

Ortega thinks about the murdered woman’s missing body. She waits until no one is in the morgue, then opens up a supposedly empty drawer, Cold Chamber #7. Inside is the missing corpse. She looks at the body and says, “You should know, your mother loves you.”

Kovacs returns to the Raven, where Poe greets him wearing a fedora. He tells Kovacs that he’s been watching old detective movies and now feels that’s he’s educated himself enough to become Kovacs’ sidekick. He notes that the sidekick usually ends up dead, though that seems unlikely since he’s an AI (his words).

Uhoh. Foreshadowing alert. I love Poe and the Raven. I want Kovacs to live there forever. Well, if there’s one thing that can, and should, definitely be backed up, it’s a computer program. Also, they’re portable. He can needlecast himself anywhere Kovacs goes.

Poe gives Kovacs the bad news that there’s someone in his room again, because of course there is. Poe legitimately couldn’t stop this one though, because it’s our resident femme fatale, Miriam Bancroft. She’s placed herself all artfully on the balcony, then moves to the balcony door.

Look at the layers and shadows, the grids and bars, falling between our hero and the femme fatale. She’s meant to look like she’s outside, in the open and with nothing to hide, but she’s carefully controlled the view and this meeting to expose only what she’s allowing to be seen, and to put the hero in her thrall. 

Kovacs: Why are you here?

Miriam: I want to know what progress you’ve made. I’m worried about my husband.

Kovacs: Your husband who pays to beat up whores in Licktown.

Miriam: It’s a complicated thing, being with someone over a century. I’ve given Laurens 21 children. He’s never had a child with anyone but me. Sometimes complexity can be exhausting… You fascinate me. You come from a time of real bravery, real risk. You’re everything this world has lost.

Kovacs: You twirl your fingers when you’re nervous, you know that?

Miriam: Why would I be nervous?

Kovacs: Could be fear.

Miriam: If I were afraid, would you save me Mr Kovacs?

Kovacs: I’m not sure you need saving.

Miriam puts down her glass and moves closer to him. She asks if he’s been with anyone since he’s been decanted as she takes his Matrix coat off. He tells her that’s enough. She tells him that she’s a Meth, the word “enough��� doesn’t apply, as she continues to undress him, slowly. Then she asks if he’s heard of Empathin, or Merge9 on the street, when you can get it. “It puts bodies in touch with one another. This sleeve is state-of-the-art biochemtech from Nakamura Labs. I secrete Merge9 when I’m aroused.”

Suffice it to say that the Merge9 mixes with her bodily fluids, wherever bodily fluids are made. The Meths must change their sleeves like other people change their clothes, if she has a dedicated sex sleeve.

They’re both naked by now, and she’s been breathing her sex pollen all over him as she’s been talking in his face. Next she kisses him and rubs it in. She’s not a nice girl or a hooker that he’d feel bad about using or exploiting, she’s real and not virtual, and she’s there offering. He’s in a desperate sleeve. He gives in to the inevitable and spends the night having sex with her all over the room.

Ortega goes to confession, which acts partially as a voiceover for the sex: “Forgive me father, for I have sinned. I’ve had lustful thoughts,. I’ve done terrible things. Violent things, unforgivable things. I’ve abused my authority for selfish reasons. Caused pain and heartbreak when I had no right. Please forgive me.”

As she confesses, we also see Laurens contemplating his bloody wall; a morgue attendant finding the missing body, lying on the table in the middle of the room, wearing a toe tag we can now see says Mary Lou Henchy; the place in Mary Lou’s neck where her missing stack should be, and the stack in Ortega’s hand as she leaves the confessional booth.

Kovacs: “The moments of peace that we find sometimes, they aren’t anything more than warfare, thinly disguised. And sometimes surrender can be as savage as any attack.”

There is a bug in Kovacs’ room, a small drone disguised as a literal bug. It’s watching everything they do. This man ↓, who’s been lurking in the shadows throughout the episode, watches the camera feed.

  Why on earth was Ortega hiding that body? Was she suspicious that there’s a new serial killer and trying to keep the victims bodies for as long as possible, in case new similarities were noticed that she wanted to check for?

So many mother-daughter references this episode, and so few father-son references. I hardly know what to do with that. It’s always, always meaningful to have the mother-daughter bond explored, whether it’s in a throwaway line or an entire series.

Of course most of the mothers weren’t physically there, and only one mother-daughter pair were physically together. Kristin’s mother was there, but they have a difficult relationship. Mrs Henchy was there, but she hadn’t seen her daughter in years, and now she’s dead. Miriam was, but we’ve only met one of her 21 children, and she didn’t get along with Isaac. Ava was in a photo and being faked by Tak. Alice referred to her mother. The little girl in the museum also told us about her mother, but we didn’t see her.

The message is that once you absorb your mother’s wisdom, it’s better if she’s not physically present. Two women will either become competition for each other for the attentions of the same man, or one will try to dominate and control the other.

I’ve been laughing inside for hours that they made Miriam able to literally cast a spell over the poor men she seduces. Except, she’s a Meth, so they have no recourse for justice and revenge after she rapes or sorta rapes them by using her bodily fluids as roofies. It’s not “real rape” right?

She will undoubtedly be one of the villains, since Lizzie was sleeping with her husband and going around saying Laurens needed her. Mary Lou Henchy is for sure going to be connected to Jack It Off and Laurens as well. Wonder if Miriam kills anybody Laurens gets too attached to. She was awfully proud of the fact that she’d given him 21 children and no one else had given him any.

The hilarious thing about Poe constantly invading Kovacs’ room is that Poe is just the avatar for the AI that is the entire hotel. He can always watch Kovacs in his room, always. Can AI’s be gay? Does he have a thing for the sleeve or is he attracted to Kovacs’ mind? I guess this is the stalker behavior everyone warned Kovacs about.

When Tak goes through Psychasec security, it appears that they pull up face shots of all of his previously registered sleeves. He had five in between the two we’ve seen already, including one female.

It sounds like Laurens did act significantly different during the last day before he was murdered. He feels like he’s looking at a stranger, the Osaka deal doesn’t seem like something he could have accomplished, his business associates said that he acted differently (Prescott tried to pass that off, but a positive difference is still a difference), then he most likely shot himself when it’s something he’d normally never consider. No one was willing to say how typical it was for him to stay out all night, especially after an overseas trip. If someone else wasn’t borrowing one of his clones, he could have been drugged or in a manic phase.

Also important: “And at its heart, violence is almost always, in one way or another, personal.” Lizzie, Miss Henchy, and Laurens will all have been killed for very personal, specific reasons. Possibly to get to someone else, but it will be personal in some way.

I have a feeling that the voice of Quell might always be right. She was probably annoying and perfect like that. 😍 She’s now the voice of Tak’s Envoy Intuition.

Hiro Kanagawa, who plays Captain Tanaka, is another actor who gets around. Unlike Dichen Lachman and Tahmoh Penikett, who can go either way, things always go badly when he shows up. His presence tends to foretell doom and destruction. 😱

The little girl’s story of betrayal and possessiveness is foreshadowing. Between the Henchy murder, the Lizzie organic damage, and the Bancroft shooting, at least one of them will come back to territorialism and betrayal.

The little girl’s mom’s advice was probably what Quell would say, but Tak isn’t in a place where he wants to hear her words right now. He’s reliving her loss all over again, and needs to find his own philosophy to live by, even if it’s dark and destructive for a while.

I’ve been wondering about something: Just who was Tak’s partner in crime before they were killed the last time? She didn’t seem to know him well, but temporary amnesia is a potential side effect of resleeving. That means it could have been Rei or Quell, or anyone, really, since we’ve seen cross-sleeving now (in Tak’s Psychasec security ID panel). He reacted too strongly for her to have been a recent acquaintance. Part of his self-loathing is his failure to protect that person, whoever it was.

We saw Jaeger shoot Tak’s partner in the neck/head area, but we didn’t see precisely where, or a destroyed stack. We saw the woman cleaning bone fragments out of viable stacks in the same sequence. So, stacks can survive even when severe damage is done close by within the body, as long as the weapon or injury is precise and the stack itself isn’t damaged. If Jaeger made that shot into her brain or spine, just above or below the stack, from Tak’s angle it would look like a direct hit, but the stack would survive to be interrogated, tortured, imprisoned, sold, whatever.

And, of course, she could have been backed up, possibly without her knowledge, since we don’t know how that works yet. Any sleeve can also have back up clones, also with or without the current user’s knowledge, since presumably all that’s needed is a bit of DNA. Like the DNA trace that Kovacs gave his very thorough, very possessive hotel. But imagine what Quell’s memories would be worth on the Black Market, or her clones. Or those of the last Envoy, for that matter.

Jaeger’s shot at Tak’s partner is carefully filmed. During the shower scene ↓ we see a close up of her insertion scar about a third of the way up from the bony knob at the base of her neck.

Jaeger moves very quickly when he decides to shoot her ↓, and the camera angles don’t show us the whole picture of what’s happening. It’s hard to tell the angle he’s aiming at when we see so little of her. This is still just a threat, anyway.

Now Jaeger is actually about to fire ↓, but the camera has switched focus. Now we see the woman’s head, but only the tip of the gun. It’s not enough to judge angle, and her hair is place such that it’s hard to tell where the gun is placed on her lower skull/neck. But if you look carefully, you can see that the end of the gun is even with her ear, and above the curve of the base of her skull where it becomes her neck. It’s probably a minimum of 4 and more like 6 inches away from the stack.

You can see even better in this screencap ↓ that the gun is pointing along a line that goes through her ear and nose, well above her neck. It’s angled slightly so that the energy blast will come out under her chin and look like it went through the back of her neck to someone watching from the front/side and below.

Oops, I got so excited that I managed to pause at the exact right microsecond that I screencapped too quickly! 😜

A couple more museum shots.

Some other looks at Tak’s previous sleeves:

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Altered Carbon Season 1 Episode 2: Fallen Angel Recap Kovacs voiceover: "Peace is an illusion. No matter how tranquil the world seems, peace doesn't last long.

[theo-westenberger]

Cracks and Crevices: Writing through Trauma

Contributed by Jordan Alam, 2017

In the labor and delivery room, the birthing person gives a particular type of cry when their contractions get more intense. When contractions layer up on one another, they give the person little pause as their body takes over and moves the baby further and further into this world of air and light. I try to sleep when the parent sleeps and wake when I hear them cry out. I put pressure on their sacrum until the moaning stops and they settle. In the dim light, with the blinds drawn, the room becomes cut off from time – hours turn into minutes and single contractions feel as if they can go on forever. This is where I am when I am not writing.

It takes total focus to enter that room, as it does when I am staffing the shelter floor. There, children are always running through the kitchens and the bathrooms are never properly cleaned. I arrive in the afternoon and I stay till late at night, answering phone calls and attending to the residents’ needs, which can span from mediating conflicts over laundry to calling an emergency vehicle. I listen to countless, countless stories of trauma. I support my clients as they make endless appointments with social workers and daycare providers and housing authorities and managers. Those in the most desperate situations are also burdened with the extra work of proving themselves worthy of care. I shut the door sometimes just to catch my breath; the need is never-ending.

What does that mean for a writer? For me, it means it is harder to contain my jobs within the bounds of the workday. For many months of this year, my words had dried up as I took on the stories of others. I would chew over what had happened that day, about my role, about the structural issues which had brought us to that moment. Journaling used to be a release valve, but during that time it just reminded me of everything I could not fix.

I see the need in classrooms and hear it over the phone. In my various part-time jobs, I connect people to resources and problem-solve around lack. All that time, I am filling up my cup. This is the image I tend to use when thinking about what it means to hold onto weighty emotions: a cup with a steady stream flowing into it, always at risk of overflowing. As Laura van Dernoot Lipsky so cogently presents in Trauma Stewardship, we need to take seriously the experience of vicarious trauma by those who work in social services and other caregiving roles. Though the emotions themselves may be positive or negative, when you are practicing empathy in caregiving you take on the material of that person’s lived experience.

I walk through the world inhabiting multiple identities, many of which are currently targeted ones. I am queer and Muslim, femme and South Asian, all of which are very pivotal identities that show up in the characters I write. It comes as no surprise that the books I am most interested in push characters to contend with high stakes, internal and external. To honor the truth of their stories, I have to talk about the racism that each of us experiences; I have to write about the challenge of violence enacted upon us as communities and individuals. Most recently, I have written about two Muslim teenagers exploring their relationship to one another after one has run away from home. In the draft of my forthcoming novel, I write about domestic violence and the victim-blaming that follows that puts my character in an ever more precarious position until she has to make a major life shift. Some writers contend with the tragedies of our current world by writing utopia, but I am not among them.

Proximity to major life transitions is indispensable to my writing. I am not a parent, but I have had the opportunity to witness people become parents for the first time. I have watched fifth graders write skits about current political issues. I have supported adults through some of their most vulnerable moments, and in the process understood something valuable about resilience. But often that proximity can also overwhelm. Emptying my cup of these stories is not a perfect process. I once thought that making art itself was the cathartic part of the journey, but am now recognizing that this is another part of emotional labor.

How to address this saturation point? Part of the challenge is structural: if we as a society do not fully acknowledge caregiving as work and do not support its workers, then we are perpetually asking people to take on the challenge and then find spare time to heal from it. On a practical level, when I find myself avoiding work or approaching it with a pessimistic attitude, it doesn’t benefit me or my clients. It helps, on an individual level, to be realistic about limits. Care providers I know tend to be overachievers. They get into it because they have been affected by the circumstances or have loved ones who have and they want to make a dent in the suffering they see around them. I also apply this logic to my writing – I want to make a meaningful dent, and put extra stress on myself to do that even after a full day in emotionally draining settings.

I am currently going back over writing advice that has helped me reconceive my projects. The Art of Slow Writing speaks to the idea that strong writing is a long process and gives practical suggestions on how to use one’s time wisely. Writing Alone and with Others directly addresses the idea of writing with and through trauma. Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird encourages us to take it one step at a time. And Lynda Barry’s books: What It Is, Picture This, and Syllabus are colorful imaginative pieces that push me to go back to when writing was a form of play.

When I am not writing, I am also doing dishes and folding up laundry. I’m attending game nights and roller derby practices. Errands end up taking too long; there’s not enough food in the fridge. Time that I have planned to write gets eaten up by other obligations. I feel a deep urgency to address social issues in my community and in my art, especially in the current political climate. But that urgency must also be met with my capacity. To echo Dean Spade in Normal Life, I want my activism (and my art-making) to be a decades-long practice rather than one that leaves me burnt out in a couple of years. There will always be more to come, and I am curious about how we get there.

Jordan Alam is a writer, editor, doula, and social change educator based out of south Seattle. Her short stories and articles have appeared in The Atlantic, CultureStrike Magazine, The Rumpus, and AAWW’s The Margins; she has spoken at events including the Aspen Ideas Festival and the Eyes on Bangladesh exhibition. She is also the founder of the Asian American social justice publication, Project As[I]Am. Find more info about all of her projects at her website.

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For Honor ontvangt patch 1.05

For Honor mept er al een tijdje lekker op los, nu is er dan een flinke patch uitgebracht. Wij brengen je alle details over patch 1.05. Wees voorbereid want het is echt een mega lijst, er zijn aanzienlijke veranderingen voor de helden. De volledige lijst, inclusief commentaar van de ontwikkelaars vindt je hieronder.

FIGHT

Superior Block feedback

Warden’s Top Light opener Superior Block visual effect applied on sword.

Kensei’s Dodge Forward, Left, Right Superior Block visual effect applied on sword.

Developer comments: Superior Block visual feedback used to be inconsistent across characters. In general we make the weapon or shield flash for the duration of the Superior Block. Some characters like the Warden for instance had their entire body flash, because we were afraid it wouldn’t be visible enough on the sword only for the Top Light opener. However, the full body flash was often mistaken for the Uninterruptible Stance visual effect which is also full body. So we’ve updated the Warden’s feedback to be only on the sword. We did the same for the Kensei’s Dodge.

Valkyrie Moveset

Removed Guardbreak Cancel from Shield Tackle Cancel Moveset description.

Developer comments: we’ve removed the ability to cancel Shield Tackle into Guardbreak in a past update. Unfortunately at the time, we couldn’t update the Valkyrie’s Moveset page. It’s done now. 

Tutorial

Updated Guardbreak Tutorial text for more clarity on Counter Guardbreak.

Developer comments: The Guard Break Interrupt tutorial had a hint saying “Interrupt enemy Guard Breaks by pressing [input] when they start”. The “when they start portion” was confusing people. In order to be more accurate, that text will now change to “when the enemy connects”. 

Guardbreak

[Bug Fix] Counter Guardbreak ability is no longer affected by the Debuff Gear Stat.

Developer comments: Guard Break can be countered if you press Guard Break within 200ms. The way we’ve handled this mechanic so far caused that time window to shrink if you were using Gear with Debuff Duration Stat. It wasn’t intended, so we’ve updated how this works to guarantee the 200ms Guardbreak Interrupt window regardless of Gear. Guard Break cannot be interrupted if done on a target that is in a Recovery, Dodge or Attack.

Assassins

[Bug Fix] Assassins not falling Unbalance when thrown out of stamina is resolved.

Developer comments: Another issue the community picked up on. In some cases, Assassins were able to prevent Unbalance from happening when thrown while out of stamina. It happened because of their specific Guard Switch. When buffered just at the moment they got guard broken, it would bypass the Unbalance. This issue is now resolved.

Revenge

[Bug Fix] Revenge activation no longer interruptible by Emotes.

Barracks

[Bug Fix] Fixed inverted Kensei Emotes “Wipe Blade” and “Arm and Armed”.

Developer comments: “Wipe Blade” & “Arm and Armed” emote videos and descriptions were inverted. This change will not swap emotes for users but rather fix the menu displaying the wrong info.

FIGHTERS

Nobushi

[Bug Fix] Hidden Stance input improvement

Developer comments: There was an issue with the Nobushi’s Hidden Stance input causing the downward angle detection on the right stick not to work consistently with the other Full Block Stances. It’s resolved now, the Hidden Stance input works the same as Full Block Stances.

[Bug Fix] Nobushi’s bleed can no longer be applied without hitting target

Developer comments: A bug in the Nobushi’s bleed mechanic caused the bleed to be reapplied without actually hitting the target if you used a specific timing. We’ve managed to fix this and we’ve also looked at all other attacks applying bleed or stun to make sure it didn’t happen on other characters.

Lawbringer

[Bug Fix] Using Shove on an enemy about to fall used to change their fall reaction

(enemy would land on their feet instead of falling on their back).

Warlord

[Bug Fix] Blocking External Attacks while in Full Block Stance now costs stamina

Berserker

Heavy Finishers hit areas updated

Developer comments: This addresses the “phantom hit” issue. We’re changing the data of the Heavy Finishers hit areas so that the animation and hit area look more in sync. However, the issue at stake here is more complex. Fixing the hit areas will help with the issue, but we have a more robust fix coming for this in the future that has to do with our targeting rules. Stay tuned for more details in the future.

FEATS

Regenerate

Health regeneration only works from Idle

Health regeneration set to 12HP per tick (from 10HP)

Developer comments: Regenerate could be exploited by fighting enemies Out of Guard Mode. The Warlord could just release lock, take hits, and the Feat would regenerate his HP without much of a challenge. This is not a behavior we want to encourage. By enabling the HP regeneration only in Idle, Regenerate now is efficient in safe scenarios only, which is more aligned with its intended purpose. We’re also increasing its regeneration rate in order to compensate for the loss of regeneration on hits.

Shield Basher

[Bug Fix] Shield Basher functionality will no longer be partially deactivated on death.

GAME MODES

Elimination

Boosts are no longer available for pick-up at round start, they now appear 20 seconds after each round starts.

The time to pick up a Boost has been increased from 1 second to 2 seconds.

Skirmish

The following changes have been made to help shorten the average match length:

The Hero Kill reward has been increased from 27 to 35 points

The Streak kill bonus awarded per subsequent kill is now 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 points instead of 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25.

The “Savior” reward (assisting a friendly in a duel) has been increased from 10 to 15 points

Introduced the “Avenger” renown bonus that rewards 15 points (Killing an enemy who has recently killed a team mate within a 10 second timeframe)

Changed the “Honor” bonus of 1 vs 1/2/ 3/4 to 15, 20, 25 and 30 points from 10, 15, 20, and 25 points

Base respawn time has been reduced from 12 to 10 seconds

Custom Match

The Hero Single pick option has been added to custom matches, accessed on the rules page.

GEAR STATS

Fixes

Attack and Defense stats no longer apply when in Revenge mode. Only the Revenge Attack and Revenge Defense stats apply when in Revenge.

Debuff Resistance will no longer reduce the Guardbreak Counter window of opportunity.

Revenge gain by Defense is now applied only when you block or parry a hit.

Revenge gain by Injury is now only applied when you get revenge from taking damage.

Rebalancing

Revenge mode Defense (found on Weapon slot 2, usually hilt)

maximum bonus decreased from 48.2% down to 32.1%

maximum penalty decreased from -16.1% to -10.6%

Revenge gain by Defense (found on Weapon slot 2, usually hilt)

maximum bonus decreased from 36.2% down to 24.1%

maximum penalty decreased from -12.1% to -8.0%

Revenge mode attack (found on Weapon part 3, usually guard)

maximum bonus decreased from 48.2% down to 24.1%

maximum penalty decreased from -16.1% to -8.0%

Revenge mode duration (found on Helm part)

maximum bonus decreased from 54.0% down to 25.0%%

maximum penalty decreased from -18.0% to -8.3%

Sprint Speed (found on Chest part)

The maximum bonus decreased from 18% down to 9%

The maximum penalty decreased from -6.0% to -3.0%

ORDERS

All Daily Orders and Contract Orders can now be done in PvP and PvAI without distinction.

Added Daily Orders that can be done regardless of the game mode you play.

VARIOUS

Team icons disappear from the chat window once the chat has timed out.

Players will no longer be paired on the same team when paying in 1v1 Duel after re-inviting a player who has quit

PC SPECIFIC

General

FIXED: Some players with newer Mobile Graphics Cards are unable to switch the game to exclusive full screen mode

FIXED: Game sometimes gets stuck for 15-20 seconds on the “Exit to World map” pop-up after completing a match

FIXED: Game freeze on the World Map for some players

FIXED: Game gets stuck on processing message after confirming outfit purchase pop up when social page is in the background

FIXED: Uplay achievement title and description are inversed for “Complete the Samurai Chapter”

FIXED: Payment window does not disappear when closing the Uplay overlay with the mouse

UI

FIXED: Scrolling in the Moveset screen affecting both lists at the same time (Hero Specific & Moves)

FIXED: Players are unable to apply background or Symbols for a second time after opening and closing the Uplay overlay

FIXED: Game gets stuck on processing/need more steel screen on confirming the feat purchase pop up while hero preview is in background

FIXED: In-game error messages not supporting 21:9 resolution

FIXED: Selection area of Feats in story mission loadout is too big

FIXED: Multiple broken mapped icons

FIXED: Keyboard layout screen is missing when a steam controller is connected

FIXED: Placeholder button prompt are displayed after disconnecting and reconnecting a steam controller

FIXED: Item thumbnail doesn’t get refreshed properly if the player clicks an item while dismantling another in the scavenge reward screen

FIXED: Mouse click for the client does not work on the warning pop-up, after the host leaves any PvAI session

FIXED: “Scroll Up” and “Scroll Down” buttons on Credits page are not clickable

FIXED: Tips on Controls page contain old button prompts when a player makes changes in Key mappings and then performs Reset to Default

FIXED: Mouse wheel scrolling through parameters of Custom Match on Map Overview is not functional

FIXED: Input is not disabled if game is minimized or an overlay (UPlay, Steam) is visible

Controls

FIXED: Nobushi hidden stance having a smaller input cone than other “down” stances

FIXED: Nobushi hidden stance is not working with Steam Controller native controls

FIXED: Steam Controller not switching to menu binding when opening the Menu while in Guard mode

FIXED: in-game menu is not invoked when a PS4 controller is disconnected

Chat

“ALL Chat” is now the default scope for text chat in the Duel Game mode

FIXED: Players are unable to use text chat in the lobby on re-match

Windows

FIXED: Windows key is now working in borderless and exclusive fullscreen when in the menus

FIXED: Win+Shift+Arrow key behavior in borderless and fullscreen:

It was possible to move the window outside the viewable space

It was not following the microsoft standard “wraparound” o It was not working with Arrow UP/DOWN

FIXED: When minimizing after using the shortcut, the game went to the wrong monitor

As for the 1.05.1 patch notes:

HEROES

Peacekeeper

Zone Attack

Zone Attack first strike is now set up as a light attack to trigger an interrupt reaction on block.

Cancelling a blocked Zone attack while in Revenge will now force an exit of 600ms preventing you from attacking again.

[Bug Fix] Zone Attack UI indicator will now correctly start at the beginning of the animation instead of 100ms later.

Developer comments: In its current state, Peacekeeper’s Zone Attack has very low risk and very high reward even on block. Revenge also makes the Peacekeeper nearly unstoppable with the ability to repeat the Zone Attack cancel without Stamina penalty. With these changes the move is still a very good opener but will no longer give you a frame advantage on block. Fixing the UI stance indicator’s timing will also make the Zone Attack feel more consistent with its actual timing of 400ms. It will remain one of the fastest moves in the game but the fact that it is always coming from the same stance makes it manageable.

Sidestep Strike and Riposting Stab

Sidestep Strike recovery on Interrupt Block increased to 800ms (from 700ms).

Sidestep Strike damage decreased to 15 (from 20).

Riposting Stab damage increased to 30 (from 25). Bleed effect remains unchanged.

Developer comments: Blocking Sidestep Strike provides initiative only on a few match ups, so we’re increasing the Regular Block recovery on this attack in order to increase these match ups. Sidestep Strike damage is currently too good compared to Riposting Stab, making Deflect feel too much of a risk compared to basic Dodge. By reducing the damage on Sidestep Strike and increasing the damage on Riposting Stab we hope to restore a more balanced risk / reward between Dodge and Deflect. One last thing about the Peacekeeper, we’re aware of the issues expressed by the community over her Light > Light Spam. Even though we’re not addressing it in this update, we’re currently looking into it so expect changes in the near future.

Warlord

Headbutt

Stamina cost increased to 15 (from 12).

Dodge window increased by 200ms.

Miss Recovery reduced to 700ms (from 800ms).

Miss Recovery branching into Attack delayed by 200ms.

Developer comments: Dodging the Headbutt can be quite frustrating so we’re increasing its Dodge window of opportunity to make Dodge more consistent while maintaining its great initiation potential. Increasing the Miss recovery and delaying the branching into Attack will make the Headbutt more punishable depending on how early you Dodge and which punish move you have out of Dodge. We also increased the Headbutt’s Stamina cost a little to punish people who spam it too much.

Full Block Stance

Bug Fix] Stamina cost could be doubled in some cases. We’ve fixed it.

Can no longer be chained into Headbutt unless an attack has been blocked.

Developer comments: A bug caused the Stamina cost of the Full Block Stance to be applied twice, it’s now fixed. We’ve also removed the option to Headbutt from Full Block Stance idle in order to reduce the amount of options you have to counter from Full Block Stance which is currently very strong. You can still Headbutt out of Full Block Stance after a block. But by removing it from Full Block Stance idle, we want to reduce the Warlord’s ability to interrupt any attempt at attacking him or baiting him while in his Full Block Stance.

Kensei

Helm Splitter

Helm Splitter can now chains directly into the Chain Finisher (rather than the 2nd hit in the chain).

Swift Strike

Swift Strike can now chains directly into the Chain Finisher (rather than the 2nd hit in the chain).

Developer comments: Kensei’s mix-up from the Unblockable Top Heavy is where Kensei can play mindgames, but the third hit in a chain is very difficult to reach in competitive play. By making it reachable immediately after a Dodge attack, Kensei should be able to apply more pressure. 

Side Light attacks

Side Light Attack opener startup decreased from 700ms to 600ms.

Developer comments: Kensei’s initiation is currently based around the Top Heavy Feint into Top Light. By speeding up Kensei’s Side Light openers we want to provide more initiation options from idle. 

Light Finishers

Top Light Finisher recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 900ms).

Side Light Finishers recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 1100ms).

Light Finishers Out of Guard Mode

Top Light Finisher recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 900ms).

Side Light Finishers recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 1100ms).

Designer comments: These attacks just had to be blocked, and they gave up a free Guardbreak (which led to big damage). We want players to feel they are able to attack more often – and making these safe on block is one step towards that goal.

Berserker

Super Armor

Super Armor is now applied on all 2nd and later attacks in chains (used to be applied after 4th).

Note: Moveset page is not updated in this version.

Berserker no longer requires the preceding attack to hit or be blocked to count towards applying Super Armor.

Berserker no longer gets the Stamina cost reduction when Super Armor kicks in.

Developer comments: Berserker’s identity is based on relentless attacking, but the requirement to land 4+ hits is too much in current competitive play. Putting the Super Armor buff on all of the 2nd attacks in the chains means that now Berserkers can access this reliably, and could be used to trade against reacting Shugokis and Warlords with their Super Armor. We’ve removed the Stamina cost reduction to prevent the Berserker from using infinite chains for too long now that we’ve moved the Super Armor buff to 2 hits. We’ll keep an eye on that for further balancing. 

Deflect

Deflect transitions into Guardbreak after 500ms (reduced from 700ms).

Developer comments: Speeding up the Deflect is meant to help against Peacekeeper and Valkyrie. This will now let Berserker Deflect their Light > Light chains without being stopped by the 2nd Light.

Light Attacks (Out of Guard Mode)

Right Light Attacks recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 700ms (from 900ms)

Designer comments: To prevent free Guardbreak on block. Change is applied on all chained Light Attacks out of Guard Mode to be consistent with their Guard Mode counterpart.

Conqueror

Full Block Stance

Hit and Bump recoveries can no longer chain directly into Full Block Stance.

Developer comments: Conqueror’s ability to flow to Full Block Stance from hit/bump reactions made it extremely hard to open even after a successful hit. For instance, Warden’s Shield Bash couldn’t confirm into Light > Light combo. By removing these transitions, we want to remove the Conqueror’s ability to use Full Block Stance as a panic button.

Shield Bash

[Bug Fix] Conqueror cannot counter Guardbreak from Shield Bash Hit and Miss Recoveries.

Shield Bash Riposte

Shield Bash Riposte startup no longer has Block on Top Guard.

Shield Bash Riposte Miss recovery no longer has the ability to Block.

[Bug Fix] Conqueror cannot counter Guardbreak from Shield Bash Riposte Hit and Miss Recoveries.

Shield Bash Mix Up

Shield Bash Mix Up startup no longer has Block on Top Guard.

Shield Bash Mix Up Miss recovery no longer has the ability to Block.

[Bug Fix] Conqueror cannot counter Guardbreak from Shield Bash Mix Up Hit and Miss Recoveries.

Developer Comments: Shield Bash Riposte and Mix Up are extremely hard to punish even if you Dodge because they have defense on Start-Ups, Hit and Miss Recoveries. Removing the ability to defend on these moves should make Conqueror more punishable. We’ve also fixed a bug on Shield Bash, Riposte and Mix Up that allowed Conqueror to counter Guardbreak from these moves’ recoveries; which was an exception from our generic rule that Guardbreak cannot be countered from Recovery.

Heavy Attacks

Heavy Attack openers damage increased to 25 (from 23).

[Bug Fix] Out of Guard Mode Heavy Attack openers now have the same damage and hit areas as their Guard Mode counterpart.

Developer Comments: Heavy Attack openers are buffed to 25 damage, because players regen health to 25. In duels, the Conqueror had a difficult time hitting the killing blow when it was only 23 damage, because the opponent wanted to run-away and regen out of killing range. We know Conqueror is a strong character right now – this minor buff is purely to make the end-of-match faster and more exciting, not to strengthen the Conqueror. 

Light Attacks (Out of Guard Mode)

Right Light Attacks Recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 700ms (from 900ms).

Designer comments: To prevent free Guardbreak on block. Change is applied on Light Attack opener and finisher out of Guard Mode to be consistent with their Guard Mode counterpart.

Lawbringer

The Long Arm

The Long Arm now guarantees a Side Heavy Attack (but not Top Heavy).

Developer comments: The Long Arm is an iconic move of the Lawbringer, but before it only connected to a guaranteed light. Now it connects to a guaranteed heavy, which should make the risk of launching this move more worthwhile. This heavy can start the Swift Justice chain, which now also features a faster light after that heavy. 

Parry

Parry now guarantees an Impaling Riposte.

Parry now guarantees a Make Way.

Light Riposte

Light Riposte applies Stun on Hit.

Note: Moveset page is not updated in this version.

Hit and Regular Block recovery branchings into Chain increased to 200ms (from 100ms)

Make Way

Make Way has Super Armor.

Note: Moveset page is not updated in this version.

Make Way damage increased to 25 (from 20).

Developer comments: Part of Lawbringer’s identity is to be a Counter Attacker. Before, only the Light Riposte was guaranteed. Now, Impaling Riposte and Make Way are also guaranteed. Lawbringer players can choose the best option for the current situation: Light Riposte’s new Stun property is meant to help you enter your chain, Impaling Riposte can run the opponent to a wall, and Make Way’s new Super Armor can be useful when you’re outnumbered. We’re also increasing the input branching to go from Light Riposte recovery to Chain in order to make it less challenging input-wise. 

Swift Justice (HLH)

Light Attack startup decreased to 500ms (from 700ms).

Top Light Attack damage increased to 15 (from 10).

Side Light Attack damage increased to 15 (from 8).

Book, Chapter and verse (LHL)

Top Heavy Attack startup decreased to 1000ms (from 1100ms).

Side Heavy Attack startups decreased to 900ms (from 1000ms).

Top Heavy attack damage increased to 35 (from 20).

Side Heavy attack damage increased to 30 (from 20).

Top Light Finisher attack damage increased to 15 (from 10).

Side Light Finisher attack damage increased to 15 (from 8).

Judge, Jury and Executioner (LHH)

1st Top Heavy Attack startup decreased to 1000ms (from 1100ms).

1st Side Heavy Attack startups decreased to 900ms (from 1000ms).

Heavy Finisher Unblockable attack damage increased to 45 (from 30).

Developer comments: General damage buffs should make the Lawbringer more able to kill the opponent through combat. Some of the chains’ attacks are now faster as well, which we hope will allow the Lawbringer to successfully land hits a bit more frequently. This should help the Lawbringer in Duels but not make him too much stronger in 4v4 game modes where he is already dangerous. 

Shove

[Bug Fix] Removed Super Armor from Hit and Miss Recoveries.

Developer comments: Shove’s Uninterruptible Stance property was active throughout the build-up and recoveries. It’s now going to be only on the build-up.

Nobushi

Light Finishers

Top Light Finisher recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 900ms)

Side Light Finishers recoveries on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 1000ms)

Light Finisher Out of Guard Mode

Right Light Finisher recovery on Interrupt Block increased to 800ms (from 700ms)

Designer comments: To prevent free Guardbreak on block. Change is applied on Light Attack finisher out of Guard Mode to be consistent with its Guard Mode counterpart.

Shugoki

Light Attacks

Light Attacks recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 900ms)

Light Finisher (Out of Guard Mode)

Right Light opener recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 900ms)

Designer comments: To prevent free Guardbreak on block. Change is applied on Light Attack opener out of Guard Mode to be consistent with its Guard Mode counterpart. 

Valkyrie

Light Finishers

Light Finishers recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 1000ms)

Light Finisher (Out of Guard Mode)

Right Light Finisher recovery on Interrupt Block reduced to 800ms (from 1000ms)

Designer comments: To prevent free Guardbreak on block. Change is applied on Light Attack finisher out of Guard Mode to be consistent with its Guard Mode counterpart.