Hi all, I feel like it's time to share my opinions and thoughts after letting this subreddit cooldown for sometime. Around February of last year, I began work on a massive passion project developing https://NETRUNNER2077.net after following this title and being a massive fan of CD Projekt Red from the original Witcher title. When they announced Cyberpunk 2077 would be their next IP I was immensely excited as I'm a huge Cyberpunk genre nerd in all forms from art, movies, anime, philosophies, books, cultural significance and relation, aesthetics and more. So having my all time favorite game company work on a huge open world Cyberpunk "RPG" instantly generated immediate interest.
Now where to even begin?
Please note, I've yet to purposely "finish" Cyberpunk 2077 in hopes of CD Projekt Red making a strong come back later on in the future, and hopes that they'll eventually release a REDKit for modders in order to create some incredible work and help flesh the game world out. I have put around close to 200 hours into Cyberpunk 2077 exploring the different Life Paths and their effects on the world. Lots of walking, No fast travel and tons of time lost in an attempt to "Immerse" myself in the experience. I refused to finish Cyberpunk 2077's Main Story for several reasons. The largest being I'm typically against playing titles that are obviously not complete. On top of that, I've invested so much time and effort into researching, designing, learning web design and working towards building an awesome platform in order to properly cover Cyberpunk 2077 with a safe bet of thinking "This couldn't possibly be bad" only to coming around to reality very shortly after and that this title truly needed ATLEAST another year of development time.
There are aspects of Cyberpunk 2077 that are, in my opinion, worthy of putting it in the all time legendary category of games. Then.. other parts that make games from even 20 years ago look superior. It's a very "unbalanced" experience. So much that it takes the top spot for me personally. My experience of Cyberpunk 2077 is that it feels unfinished and some what rushed in many areas, if that isn't obvious enough already. But the thing is, as many of you probably already know, it just isn't bugs. Features, Content, Weapons, Immersive Elements, AI, RPG Elements and Game Design Systems are flat out missing or just straight up broken entirely.
Here are just a few of the elements that I have a problem with personally..

Weapon Balance - Many weapons are straight up overpowered and unbalanced and easy to find early in the game.
Weapon Variety - CD Projekt Red claimed that the game would have a large variety of weapons - this ended up not being the case with a few showcased weapons not implemented in the game itself although they exist in the game files. Also to note most "Iconic" weapons are just a reskin.
Cyberware Balance & Variety - Same thing as above can also account for Cyberware. Outside of Cyber Arm implants, which has its own bulletin
Very Hard Difficulty - Feels like a joke when compared to a lot titles out there. This is coming from someone who chose Style over Substance in all three playthroughs, typically never using a Jacket, Helmet or Mask. I'm no means great at games. This doesn't help with the extremely bugged out AI.
Perk Balance and Design - All around, most perks feel unrewarding and feel vastly unbalanced, once again making it pretty easy to feel overpowered pretty quickly early on, especially if you end up going down the Quickhacking Sub Skill Tree.
Pedestrian, Water and Car Damage Physics / Collision needs a serious second look - Water as of Patch 1.1 is still a pretty much nothing more than a transparent texture.. fire a bullet, a person, hell.. a fucking car and there is not a single pinch of reaction from that what so ever. The collision from bullets, other cars, people and objects is just bad for a 2020 game.
UI - I'm usually not one to complain about an unintuitive UI but it's quite clunky that takes some time to get around and use to.
Artificial Intelligence - It's either extremely bugged or just barely there. It's very bare bones in EVERY NON SCRIPTED aspect of the game. This has already been covered a thousand times so there's no need to go deep into detail with this. Vehicles, Police, Pedestrians, Etc.
Lack of Immersive Elements - One of CD Projekt Red biggest selling points for many fans was making it sound like there would be many ways to Immerse yourself in Cyberpunk 2077. That is not the case outside of World Design, World Building and Story Telling. It's really hard to actually "Immersive yourself and Roleplay" You can't sit at a bar and grab a drink in real time. You can't grab food anytime you like and eat in real time, the few vendors there are in the game completely rip you out of the game world and into a standard UI vendor menu. Installing Cyberware is just a click of a button in a menu after the initially Eye and hand implant, There's bare minimum interactivity with NPC's or the world itself for that matter, Not a single soul uses an umbrella that I've witnessed when it rains in Night City, There's little to no sense in danger outside of the repetitive Gang hotspots... the list could go on and on with this one.
90% of the choices you make during Cyberpunk 2077 feel like they have little to no consequence - While it's true that there are SOME choices you make in this game change certain outcomes (For the most part - the end of the game as reported by many) It feels like a very bare bones system that doesn't seem fleshed out at all. The majority of the time you're only given the "Illusion of Choice" This was very disappointing to witness. Life path decisions feel utterly meaningless later on down the road.
Side Quests are typically very short when compared to Witcher 3 - On top of that, there are a handful of stunning Side quests but it was very disappointing when a large majority of them lasted around 5-10 minutes at most. If you're looking for another Baron equivalent quest line.. It ain't here chief.
The Main Quest is far too short for a game that attempts to coin itself as being "RPG" - Regardless of not finishing, its pretty obvious that you do a small handful of Main Story Quests (Outside of the Optional ones) and you've reached the end.
Life Paths do not largely impact your overall experience and the way the game and story unfolds - Outside of the VERY beginning of the game, which can roughly take around 10 to 20 minutes to do.. and maybe a single quest depending on your lifepath, They ended up being extremely disappointing. You really aren't missing out on doing multiple life paths as you can basically "choose" your ending at the epilogue of the game and just restart from a save and make a different decision to see different outs. AKA making all the decisions you made throughout the game feel meaningless because in the end, its only what you choose during the epilogue that really matters.
A Second Note on Life Paths and Dialogue Impacting Secondary and Third Playthroughs - Very few side main quests can make a small difference by the end and there is no tension build up for your dialogue options that will lead to consequences that make you afraid of your choices later down the story.
What the hell happened to Meredith Stout? - If you went down the route of siding with Meredith Stout during the Maelstrom Mission and have followed Cyberpunk 2077 for some time you were probably completely thrown off as to how cut off that whole "follow up" went down. Very disappointing.
Dynamic Vehicle Chases / Fights are not a thing and were removed from the game - The one Scav chase in the beginning of the game is scripted.. and that's about it, hell.. you can just sit in the vehicle and watch it crash into the wall without doing a single thing. What the hell? Sorry guys, If you choose to mess with gangs.. they're not going to hunt you down, they aren't going to mow you down while you're in your vehicle. It was all bullshit.
Gangs / Corps will ignore the actions you take against their gang / corp and there are no repercussions for your actions against them at any point in the game - This goes with the one above, but I figured I'd expand on it more. Remember when we thought siding with Maelstrom would cause dire consequences in the long run with Meredith and Militech? Guess what? it definitely isn't a thing. You can go about your business in Night City and not have to worry about that for a split second your entire playthrough, no matter who you decide to fuck over.
Side Gigs are typically just filler content - Very little variety and the only way to really extend your playtime if you choose to not walk the streets of a dead feeling night city attempting to immerse yourself in the world. Which is totally okay if there were also other things to do, but for the most part its just generic Ubisoft tier filler content. There are a very SMALL amount of unique ones with actual dialogue.
Netrunner Enemy Types - The worst they do is upload a low quality damage hack and that's it. Half the time they scan your location and nothing happens. No cool shit like having to tap a button repeatedly to stop you from pulling the trigger on yourself after being hacked.
Pacifica is obviously unfinished - Well, it's not hard to tell that Pacifica wasn't complete after the game came out, I fully know the lore behind what happened to Pacifica, but I don't see how it's acceptable that there are literally unfinished areas from game development.
MAX-TAC and Trauma Team were epic during the early Scav Hideout mission, but that's it - Not much else to say here other than they had some really cool "scripted" events during and after that mission.. but other than that you'll see Trauma Team with their ships in the same exact spots you find them and MAX-TAC basically just spawn in as higher tier cops when your wanted level is high enough.
Cyberpsycho Quest line was a missed opportunity - Quite a disappointing quest after tracking down 17 Cyberpsychos regardless if you choose to let them live or kill them. They could of gone deep into some gritty cyberpunk writing and mystery with this but their approach to this was pretty underwhelming and surface level with no depth other than some logs you find, but this can be said about MANY of the quests during the game.
Collecting Cars is just more checkmark optional filler - Hey? Want another vehicle? Let me flood your quest list and phone letting you know you can GPS right to the location and pick it up. Outside of the few hidden vehicles in the game, Collecting cars was pretty disappointing. You literally walk up to location and buy them, no interactivity with NPC's, just click and buy. Might as well of just given a option to have the vehicle self deliver to the non existent garage where all my other cars reside right?
The Garage outside your Megabuilding serves no purpose and doesn't store your vehicles - Can't find your vehicles there now can you? Yeah..
The 6 Month Montage felt like a giant slap in the face, quite possibly cut missions from early game and is the exact SAME no matter what life path you choose - Going down any life path will grant you the exact same Street Kid themed montage. It really feels like these were cut missions that would of fleshed Jackie Welles as a character out so much better.
Cyberpunk 2077 feels more like a decent "Action Adventure" Game rather than a true "RPG" - Not too hard to see this. While it has RPG elements and Dialogue, it's definitely not on the level of Dues Ex, Vampire Bloodlines, Divinity, Elder Scrolls, Fallout (3 & NV). After you exit the prologue it is all downhill after that.
There isn't much to find and see outside of map markers - While there are a handful of secrets, schematics and weapons it doesn't feel very rewarding when finding these things because of how the weapon, items, currency and game design elements were implemented where things are either easily replaced or you're already easily overpowered as it is.
Cyberpunk tries to be too many things and falls short of most of them - With the Ambitious goals, talk and promises.. The one thing I hoped it would be was a truly Ambitious RPG with some really good Immersive elements. I definitely wasn't expecting the world, but it's just sad as to how many elements it falls flat on.
Black Market Cyberware isn't a thing - You see those four options you have for Cyber arms? Yep, That's it. Nothing else, Everything shown through trailers is what you get.
Brain Dance was a MASSIVE missed opportunity - It's pretty obvious that there was at one time far more to brain dance outside of story missions. Hell, it could of found a way to replace the Gwent Mini Game, but alas - In the end it was used for only story missions and not a single side experience on its own.
Night City just feels like a extremely gorgeous backdrop to a Somewhat Linear story - I've already covered several reasons as to why I feel this way.
It feels more like "Johnny's Story" rather than V's Story - While the writing is indeed excellent most of the time. I personally feel like this story is more about Johnny rather than V.
The sense of urgency after the prologue really makes it hard to "Role Play" V correctly. This conflicts with previous statements made by CDPR "Really wanting players to Role Play the character"- The way this was approached was quite confusing, as CDPR offers this massive world yet having a huge urgency that you need to figure out a solution before you die in a few weeks.
The World does not feel "Alive" by any means.. Lack of Dynamic Events - The world itself just feels pretty dead outside of flying vehicles and ads going off every 4-5 seconds. There is VERY little dynamic content like you see in RDR2 where they put a huge emphasis on the world feeling "alive" and never knowing what could happen.
Customization is severely lacking from a world that begs for more of it - Luckily if you're on PC, a lot of these issues have been solved with customizable Cyber arms, More tattoos, Hair Styles, Face and Neck Cyberware and more. If you're on Console though, you're sadly shit out of luck. The lack of visible Cyberware for V was very surprising. No visible Cyber legs, No visible Netrunning gear outside of "Suits", etc.
Jackie Welles was a brilliant character that was quickly thrown away - Let alone the massive spoiler they decided to showcase via the 2019 E3 CG Trailer, It was extremely disheartening to know that saving Jackie was never an option seeing as we were barely given any time with him and a wasted opportunity for possible great plot points. This could of been remedied by actually going through the missions played out in the 6 month montage. For players unfamiliar following Cyberpunk 2077 for so long, I would assume losing Jackie wasn't near as impactful for them.
Cyberware Arm implants are just alternative weapons for the most part - Which pretty much become useless unless you choose to use Gorilla Fists the whole game. No Utility from them, No useful tool elements, Just weapons that become obsolete very fast.
For a Dystopian World that is hyper sexualized, there sure is a lack of sexual content - Not hard to miss this, You have two Joy Toys and two high end JT's later in the game to choose from in the entirety of Night City outside of the selection of Story related characters you come across. Hell, even a lot of characters that dance on poles in the world are fully clothed. Let alone any real Adult themed clubs.
Trains were a missed opportunity - Let's face it, there were obviously systems in place at one point in development to have an actual train system where you could ride around Night City and be able to enjoy the huge vistas that it offers. Now you can just watch one from a distance disappear right through a building.
Verticality? Sort of..? - Take your Home Megabuilding for example and also prime example of cut areas and content. There were suppose to be several areas of verticality to explore in the world and areas and this is just not the case anymore.
"You'll never run into cool areas where you'll want to get in there but can't" - Yeah, that was definitely not the case now was it? There are several areas you would think would be accessible but just aren't or at any point in the game are.
Acid Rain? Yeah.. No. - Remember this? Yeah I haven't witnessed it either. But hey, at least there's acid fog right?

Then you have this huge dystopic metropolis of a city which looks absolutely phenomenal. I think it'll truly go down in history for its amazing design and the techniques they used to craft this insanely dense city. There's truly nothing like visiting Night City and it surely is a unique experience from a VISUAL and AUDIO design standpoint. The writing is solid most of the time as well. It really just feels like they had a very direct deadline and were forced to wrap systems up after changing the core game several times over and over again which caused loads of bugs in the code. I really hope when I come back to this game in a year it'll be quite different but after what CDPR pulled I find it extremely hard to trust and have faith in them.
I had so much faith and love in this company that I ended up spending countless months building, designing, and launching NETRUNNER 2077 almost single handedly but after playing Cyberpunk 2077 for weeks, I couldn't even bring myself to write a review over it. Honestly, I would've been way too critical and harsh. Especially after having to monitor and dissect everything that was "said" to be in the game and how systems were suppose to "work" and it ended up being nothing like that what so ever. At this point and time I have no motivation or confidence to continue the platform due to the recent events and actions of CDPR's upper management as well as the highly manipulative marketing that made Cyberpunk 2077 only a glass half full of what it was intended to actually be.
I made sure to set my expectations accordingly from what was told from developers to fans via interviews, deep dives and what was reported to sources that was approved by CDPR. With that and the EXTREMELY misleading marketing, it leaves an extremely sour taste in my mouth. I really want to have faith that they can turn this title around, but something feels off. I understand from a legal perspective that they probably cant at the moment. I just hope one day that this game can truly live up to its potential. There is an incredible foundation set, but it's ultimately up to CD Projekt Red if they choose to deliver their originally intended vision.
For other upper management in game development out there possibly reading this- if your game isn't finished, please market it correctly as an "Early Access Game" and not a finished product. That is straight up lying and deceiving fans and consumers out there. It isn't right, and needs to stop.

Fallout: New Calfornia -- A Dev's Post-Mortem

So, hey wastelanders.
It's been a while.
I hope you are all still doing well out there in the Fallout. Been a little extra radioactive of late, and we're all kinda dodging the flames of another project each of us had a lot of hope for.

This isn't meant to be a distraction from the very unfortunate and disappointing situation with The Frontier. We all know what's going on, and it's heartbreaking, infuriating, and sad all around. There were some unconscionably poor leadership choices made that led to the loss of something I think all of us had the highest hopes for. My heart goes out to those coders, voice actors, artists, and friends affected for the loss of dignity and years of hard work, and the betrayal of ethics and trust we placed in those who ultimately turned out to be the antithesis of the standards we should all hold ourselves to, not just as modders or devs, but as people.
Our projects may not have been connected, but I know people who loved us both and feel this tragedy deeply.
To the users, who found themselves burned and bummed out, I can only offer refuge in knowing the community sees the mistakes, and I hope other devs take a long hard look in the mirror at how they treat others and their teams. Years from now, should anyone revisit this post, I hope it's in better days and we don't even remember what this disclaimer is about.

That said, because my feed is blowing up with refugees from the great meme war coming through Vault 18, I'm getting some reminders that New California, released in 2018, has a mixed reputation here and among some Fallout modding communities.
And you know, that hurts me a little. Not in an emotional way, but more just... I hate letting people down.
Obviously a lot of the criticism we received was fair and rational, and I want to respond to that in a positive and constructive way. We have a lot of love and encouragement of course, but this is more a post about addressing some concerns, and hopefully that helps our supporters as much as our detractors too.
I'm not one to just throw in my hat when I make a mistake or fall short of expectations. Usually that puts me into listening and responding mode where I want to figure out what went wrong and how I could fix it.
So back in 2019, after it became abundantly clear FNC just wasn't going to receive the community support we needed to overhaul our oldest and clunkiest dialogue or add side content to build up the anemic wasteland, I sat down for a number of nights over a couple weeks and wrote this post-mortem:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qZGbmXQ1aqZO4RholmyO9dgPxULLJdRYvsTgUPD2jp0/edit
What you'll find in here is first and foremost a breakdown of our successes and failures.
Be forewarned, it is many hundred pages long. That document only serves as a hub linking to this folder of documents: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11pKvUpZDEzaiBOsCigePZ-pGjty5LxHm
I intended this to be essentially a re-write that would be feasible for any modder with the time and dedication to take what is already there in New California, remove the undesired content, and replace it with this content.
We all have a AAA multi million dollar dream game in our heads. This is not that. This is a "what if, knowing what we know now, and having processed all this feedback good and bad, how would we proceed if we could in fixing its shortcomings?"
The Big Points:

There are few Side Quests after Vault 18 of note
The Story after Vault 18 is a tail-spin of too much combat in an empty space
Undesirable bottlenecks where we had to scope control branching paths
Crashes from New Vegas Engine being overwhelmed with actors & effects
Combat alternatives need to be presented as a main option, not a side option
Performance woes
Quest Breaks and Sequence Breaks (rare)
Confusion in direction in large open spaces that feel too linear, branches aren't obviously branches (see Pinehaven and Wilco's Raiders, people don't thin to shoot on sight, and if they do shoot on sight, don't think to roll back and try talking instead)
Balance in Combat and Loot is skewed to the generous early and crunch later
Too Many NPCs overall, especially waves of enemies in spawners
Bullet sponges even after massive nerfs still bother folks depending on settings (Very Hard is often on in a player's menu and they never look again, combat overhaul mods are inconsistent)
Map is Too Big and Too Empty (\Moar Side Quests* *More Urban Ruins*)*
No way to not be captured by Raiders? I hate that! (Alternate path to join willingly)
Shi being Japanese NOT CHINESE (Nobody cares about the explanations why)
Charisma checks “should” be speech checks (really we just needed more speeches up front to sell the reason why we used SPECIALS & Earned Perks, so people don't feel path locked.)
Kieva joining the Legion (\maximum jimmy rustler*)*
The Father believing the player is a clone of the Vault 13 Vault Dweller is poorly written and not refused in dialogue, only a terminal few read
The Father had no lead up and is seen as a twist rather than any kind of culmination of clues
The Father isn't seen as a threat and is just pushed aside at the end (would have been a cool 3rd faction if that was even remotely possible, which it wasn't unfortunately)
The Star Player being the Courier is HATED, since we all like that blank slate staying blank, but they appreciate starting New Vegas afterwards
General disappointment in the Companions falling off a cliff and being inconsistent in personality, and then just vanishing after a while (resource shortage, content cuts)
Wasteland Outside Vault 18 is hideous (True)
Jokes / rumors about incest are taken as if they are actual endorsement of incest
Crude humor in any form, gets 2016+ people very twitchy. Should just expunge all humor around sex jokes or libidinous characters, as if it doesn't exist
If 1 character has a bad audio take, 15,000 lines of good dialogue around it become irrelevant
The Enclave are given real justice, but most fans wish they just stayed dead with Fallout 2 and never show up again, which is a massive shame as they have so much potential as an exploration of nationalism if given even 5 minutes of rational justification for their actions
We didn't set out to invent a better plasma gun gut the new gear is cool, and people seem to want more of that kind of thing from an Enclave playthrough
More opportunities for Enclave players to use power armor and weapons, less lonely play through (ignore that they are the last of their kind on the West Coast after F2, add a new companion for Enclave players)
Nobody likes teen drama. Cut it and age companions by 10 years of maturity and competence, such as giving them vital jobs and real lives outside their bubble
Update characters that are undercooked but have potential (Raider Warlords, Union City Civilians, Super Mutants, and the Trade & Personality ties between them)
The Vault explodes, though it is a beloved landmark (no resources to keep it around in the story without it being a throw away due to lack of volunteers to justify all those voiced survivors)

That's a lot to unpack.
If New California were an Indie game of its own, we'd have a bright red Overwhelmingly Negative at the start, and Mixed after 2 years.
Obviously, in my career going forward, I'd like to never repeat these mistakes that led there. And I'd like to see other projects learn from my mistakes as well.
I was 22-24 when the overwhelming majority of dialogue was written in Vault 18 back in 2012-2013, and the second part was written almost entirely in 2015, with voice acting recorded in October-November 2015. VERY compressed and hurried, compared to that span of several years.
2012-2018, only Rick and I were committed to the project. We couldn't capture and retain talent. We didn't have a robust community of modders we were a part of such as Nexus or Gun, and the other large mods were openly hostile and transactional with us, only interested in what benefited them directly, such as talent poaching, rather than cooperation. When we did have contributors it was brief and glorious, but limited to specific things, such as animating a vault door or throwing a vault ball.
So large scale re-writes, even when we were acutely aware they were needed*,* were an impossibility without sacrificing forward momentum or causing fatal burnout. That led to a "race to the end" mentality with as few revisions and as little backtracking as possible, and flaws being baked in. Which succeeded in finishing and releasing instead of failing to deliver anything, but at a painful cost.
The final writing for the mod was in 2018, when I wrote Hrafnkel, Atl Irepani, and Vayger. This content, and the voice acting for it, is a radial departure from the cringe early writing. Had the mod stood up to that level, it would have been a cleaner experience over all.
A character like Dakota Ferron, who is a mature adult with her own complex motives and goals, and keeps up the drum beat of intimate dialogue with the player across the mod, would have been a huge success. As well as if the wasteland had been smaller, so criss crossing was limited.
The companion overhaul would help tremendously with the criticisms of the writing, but is complex surgery. And packing the empty space is a massive team effort, not belonging to 1 or 2 of us original devs, but the voices of other volunteers who understand the vision and don't just fill it with jokes and bullshit.
Unfortunately, the reality is, the New Vegas modding community doesn't have a talent pool of skilled modders willing to take on this content. Not because we soured our good will or respect, but because of the stratification of mod teams that have no desire to work together, and over many years of deep investment in their own projects as a hobby, do not want to work on a new project.
In the meantime I have a family to raise and a business to run, so I can't be of much help either except to provide financial and directorial support.
So at the core of this is a feasibility study, and the results are just simple: there's no need to shutter the project, but let it stand. If someone is wiling to volunteer, we will help get the ball rolling and provide any support required.
Until that hero arises however, we have a new IP that is funded and doing very well. We're happy with the way Project Morningstar is shaping up, it pays the bills, and things are looking up.
So lets hope at the minimum you all enjoy the writing left in the 1.0 documents, and what we released back in April 2020, which is the last official update from the Project Brazil team for the foreseeable future.
I know it's dark putting a project to bed guys. I know 2020 was a hell of year, and 2021 has been painful in new ways for us all.
But there's hope.
There are lessons to learn from.
There are new opportunities to rise to new challenges.
Your life doesn't end with failures. That's where you show who you really are. Do you fold? Or do you learn?
Best of luck, to all of you. Whether you enjoyed FNC or not, your feedback as shaped me in a positive way and I hope to provide more content for you to enjoy in the future.
--Thain

Lost in translations

The human gazed at the aliens around him and knew, just knew, he was in a LOT of trouble.
They were not much to look at. Small. Furry. Possessing faintly rodent like features. Their powerful hindlegs had them leaping quite large distances. When humans first encountered this species their initial impression was of some kind of hybrid of Kangaroos, harvest mice and Hobbits.
Their gentle and passive nature and their habit of communal sleeping had led humans to call them ‘Dormice’ out of affection.
The human wanted, very much wanted, to go back home and inform his fellow humans that this was a bad idea. A very bad idea.
The Yucani did not appreciate the term. The Yucani did not appreciate a lot of things. Mostly, right now, this group of about 400 of them did not appreciate him.
Their angry chirps and trills grow in intensity as they hopped angrily around him. Younger males would seemingly leap towards him at high speed, before landing close with a furious hissing noise. While the human could speak Yucani, he could barely understand them as they trilled so quickly. He held up his hands in what he hoped was a universal sign of surrender.
The human may not have been an expert on Yucani culture, but he was fairly sure he knew what a lynch mob looked like. The mass of small creatures had cornered him against a wall and continued to gaze at him balefully. Each passing moment they seemed to increase in anger, in their aggression, in their potential for violence.
A stone slammed into the wall besides him.
Three things happened immediately. The human saw the stones arrival seemed to give the Yucani the idea that this was a brilliant innovation.
Oh crap! They are going to stone me!
The largest Yucani in the mob, stood about seven feet away from him, suddenly removed a vicious looking knife, with a long serrated edge.
It’s gonna stab me!
And a roar of a Yucani constabulary patrol ship suddenly was heard, its distinctive sound causing many of the small creatures at the back to turn their heads.
The police! They’re gonna save me!
As the vechicle moved closer, more and more of the mob heard it and the human was very relieved to see that they didn’t start picking up rocks and the one with a knife, his large brown eyes filled with fury and rage, slowly returned the knife back to his clothing.
The craft landed, and six Yucani got out; their green uniforms were armoured, which made them look actually impressive (the human had long ago realised that only the larger members of the race were ever chosen for their constabulary).
They slowly hopped towards the mob, who had now turned and were trilling and squeaking in high pitched tones towards the newly arrived officers.
The human gulped down a breath of air. The sense of relief and gratitude he felt was immense. He was saved. As the officers made their way towards him, the crowd parting, he felt his legs go weak. He wanted to collapse. But he managed to hold it together long enough, to offer a grateful smile as one finally made his way towards him, dividing his fellow Yuanci like the Moses before the Red Sea.
“I am very happy to see you,” says the human, smiling down at the Yucani constabulary officer. It responds by removing a short grey metallic pole and jabbing it into the humans leg.
Pain. SO much pain. A searing, agonising, exploding pain that begins in his leg and races through every single nerve cluster in his body. The human convulses and screams, his bladder empties and he almost instantly drops into unconsciousness from the agony. He falls into a crumpled heap against the wall. The Yucani officer, ignoring the little cheer that had began from his fellow species, gazed down at the human with contempt and spat.
Two months later…
The young human, manacled and bound is thrown into the small conference room the aliens had built for this meeting. His eyes glance up and fall upon the first human face he had seen in many weeks.
“Oh God, thank you. Are you here to save me?”
The other human was in his fifties; his eyes bore the look of a man who had seen many things, perhaps too many. His suit was well made, sensible, if not slightly on the conservative side.
In response to the question he smiles gently and says, “Kid, I’m fairly sure only God can save you. But I am here to try and help with the mess you are in.”
Relief, mixed with wild joy fill the prisoners face. The younger man spots a chair to sit in (the room had the familiar setting of two human shaped chairs and a desk between them), and falls into it in a heap, his manacled hands landing heavily upon the table.
“Oh, thank you! You need to get me off this planet. The conditions I’ve been kept in have been awful. I am totally isolated. A hole in the ground with a large vent in the ceiling. They throw food down to me. The place stinks.”
The older man raises an eyebrow, “That’s good. You getting off lightly.”
“Lightly? The entire thing stinks like a sewer.”
“That’s because it probably IS a sewer,” shrugs the older man, reaching for a briefcase by his side.
“What?”
“Yucani prisons. They don’t incarcerate anyone but worst offenders on their world. The closest they have to prisons are specially made sewers.”
“That’s…”
“Tell me, have random Yucani been coming along and urinating and crapping into your cell as they pass?”
“What? No. That’s horrible.”
As the older man places his briefcase upon the table between them, he smiles a cold, tight smile, “The Yucani word for ‘prisoner’ literally translates into English as ‘Eaters of Our Shit’. I think the fact that they are throwing you human food and not pissing on you qualifies as light treatment.”
The younger man’s jaw just drops. A stunned look of absolute horror crosses his face. The older human uses this as an excuse to open his briefcase, remove a heafty file in a manilla cover out (it lands on the table with a satisfying heavy sound), closes the briefcase and places it on the floor besides him.
“Are you from the Embassy?”
“No. I just arrived in-world an hour ago. Four days at warp. My guts feel mushy.”
“Oh. Are you a lawyer?”
“I afraid not. Formally the excuse the Embassy will give you is there are no humans conversant in the intricacies of Yucani jurisprudence to be able to offer effective advice. Off the record? No lawyer in the entire solar system would touch your case. So, they sent me. I’m a specialist.”
“What in?”
“Apparently being human,” says the older man, who opens the folder and begins scanning the pages underneath. The younger man is too confused to say anything which suits the older one just fine. He glances up into the scared eyes of the prisoner.
“Andrew Montgomery Eversham, born 2118, Britain. British? Should have figured. Father was an engineer on Ares station, mother was… French. Well that explains much.”
“What does my mother have to do with anything?”
The older man gazes him up and down and asks, “Only child huh?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Thought so. Right, Mr Eversham. Do you know what they are charging you with?”
“No one has told me anything at all. I was performing, and the next thing I know I was being chased by a mob of angry Dormice, and then one of their police…”
“Yucani. Not Dormice.”
“What?” Eversham’s eyes widen, and he nods, “Yes, right. I know. I figured that out. But you know its just us here.”
“Saying Dormouse to describe a Yucani is like being home and using the word ‘Kike’. It’s a derogative term. An insult. Maybe not enough to get you punched, but we don’t do that.”
“Alright. Yes. I understand. I will try. Good job you ain’t Jewish eh?”
“Bad news I’m afraid. I am.”
“Oh.”
The older man scans through the documents and frowns.
“You are charged with a multitude of offenses. The first of which is Causing Great Disgust of Public Morals; Crude and Offensive Language; Heresy towards the Gods of the Yucani; Causing a Disturbance of the Peace… what were you doing?”
“I was doing my routine.”
“Routine?”
“I’m a comedian. Stand up.”
There was a raised eyebrow.
“You are comedian?”
“Yes.”
“And you caused this reaction?”
“Apparently.”
“Gonna say Kid, I’d work on your act.”
Eversham blinks and his face contorts with frustration, “Are you here to help me or not?”
The older man however just gazes at the file before him, “As well as the above you are charged with Inciting a Yucani to Wish to Commit Violence- this is a serious offense by itself, but they have charged you with inciting every individual in the crowd who heard you. So that’s 496 separate charges. And given each one carries a possible death sentence…”
“Death sentence? I could die?”
The older man smiles coldly across the table, “And we haven’t even gotten onto the serious allegations yet. So far, its just been the warm up. Now it says here that you perform under a different name.”
“Yeah. Abe Froman.”
“What?”
“Abe Froman. You know from that old movie.”
“What old movie?”
“A 20th century classic. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The character of Abe Froman- the Sausage King of Chicargo? You must have heard of it?”
The older human raises his eyebrows high.
“No ‘Abe’ I haven’t. Neither have the Yucani. Which means they arrested someone called Abe Froman, only then to discover his real name is Andrew Eversham.”
“It’s my stage name.”
“The Yuctani don’t have concepts for ‘stage names’. All they know is a human arrived on planet with one name and then started using another name once here. And THIS is why they have charged you with espionage.”
“ESPIONAGE!!?”
“Yes. Specifically, because of the two names thing. And THEN because they think you are some kind of human agent, but don’t know what exactly you could have been up to, they assume the worst and charged you with everything they think you COULD have been here to do. That’s what the rest of the folder is.”
Andrew gazes at the thick pages with a look of absolute terror. The older humans eyes begin scanning; “So, from the top, ‘Suspected of Wishing to Assassinate the Emperor of the Yucani; Suspected of wishing to Assassinate the Chancellor of the Emperor of the Yucani…”
He moves forward a few pages.
“Suspected of wishing to put poison in the water supply of the cities of Heshis and Jebin…”
“But I…”
The older man lifts up more pages and smiles, “Suspected of seeking to violate the sacred virginity of the High Priestess of Rho- that’s impressive.”
“Are you serious? This is a joke.”
“Deadly serious,” hisses the old man, who closes the file with a loud thump. He fixes Eversham with a fierce stare.
“I gotta tell you ‘Abe’- you are in so much trouble right now that EarthGov is an inch away from washing their hands of you, throwing you to the Yucani and letting them take dumps on your for the rest of your short life. I am, literally, the only hope in hell you have of surviving and if I’m being honest- it aint much of a hope.”
“But it was just a few jokes,” mews Eversham, his eyes welling up with tears.
“Who thought it would be a good idea to travel to another planet and do stand up comedy?”
“My agent.”
“Your agent? What did you do? Sleep with his wife?”
“No,” comes the panicked reply.
“Didn’t you even do some basic research on what the Yucani considered humour?”
“No. I thought it would be more interesting to just turn up and see how they reacted to human jokes… you know… see the raw reaction.”
The older man is briefly speechless. He takes a breath and says quietly, “Gotta admire your chutzpah Kid. Not smart but that’s a LOT of chutzpah…”
“Why would EarthGov throw me under the bus? I don’t understand. I screwed up sure, but…”
He stops as the older man just holds up a hand. He gazes into his eyes as the first human he has seen in months speaks very quietly.
“Here’s the deal. As far as we can tell, a couple of months ago, this young human leaves Earth and flies to Yucani homeworld. He passes customs, checks into a Yucani version of a hotel and asks if they have versions of ‘clubs’. He discovers that, being social creatures, Yucani do indeed have these places where they gather to be entertained. Brilliant says he. The human goes to one of these. This human, he is not entirely ignorant- he’s learned basic Yucani. Not much, but enough to converse conversationally.”
The older mans stare nails the young man to his chair.
“So he goes there and meets the Yucani in charge. Explains that he is a ‘human entertainer’. Asks if he can perform. The Yucani, like the rest of his species? They get on well with us. We share similar traits. We have had good relations since the Treaty of Commerce and Travel was signed fifteen years ago. Sure, he says. He announces this human. Who gets on stage. But does not sing. Doesn’t dance. He talks. He talks to them. He says some pretty damn insulting things about them. He ignores their obvious growls of displeasure.”
“I thought they were laughing!”
“You thought wrong kid. The crowd sat for about twenty minutes getting madder and then decides enough is enough. They chase him out of the club, across two streets and corner him outside of his hotel. Where he is arrested and not lynched because the club owner rang the constabulary. Have I missed anything out?”
“No,” says Eversham quietly.
“So the EarthGov embassy gets informed of all this and do what they do and move to smooth ruffled fur. It’s just a misunderstanding they say. It’s an easy mistake they say. Their records show he is JUST a comedian. But here’s the thing kid. Yucani don’t have comedians. They don’t get it. So the Ambassador tries to explain it to them. Which in turn leads to a discussion about a very unique trait we humans have that Yucani do NOT have. Know what that is?”
“A sense of humour?” Eversham says, literally unable to help himself. He is surprised at the response.
“Well spotted. They have one but it is nothing like our own. They became fascinated at our sense of humour and then in quick measure, horrified at it. They find the very essence of human humour to be offensive, aggressive, cruel and vicious. Their government is considering tearing up the Treaty between our two races. Literally, your little stunt has caused the MOTHER of all diplomatic incidents.”
“I… I had… no idea,” stammers the Englishman.
“That comes as no surprise to me whatsoever,” comes the hissed reply. The older man sighs and rubs his eyes and continues. “Now the GOOD news is, given the severity of the charges you face, the nature of the issue, and the sheer monumental insanity of this whole thing, the Yucani have decided to not bother with all the minor courts, judges, appleant proceadures. You are going to be tried by the top court on the planet. The Ultimate Court. One trial, one hearing, one.”
Eversham just nods.
“The bad news is, it won’t be you alone on trial. It will be the entire human species. And our sense of humour. Somehow, just somehow, we have to convince these creatures that actually our sense of humour isn’t just an awful trait that they find offensive. And that means somehow, just somehow, I’ve got to defend human comedy in front of a species who has no concept of comedy at all.”
The older man sighs.
“And I thought raising my eldest daughter was tough!”
There is a silence. The full weight of the moment clearly hits the young man. He lowers his head and fights back tears. Eventually, without looking up, he says quietly.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sure you are kid.”
“I’ve been a fool.”
“This much EVERYONE can agree upon.”
“I never meant to cause this…”
The older man sighs again, “I know you didn’t kid. Everyone knows you didn’t MEAN it. Doesn’t make it any easier for folks back home.”
Andrew Eversham nods. Displaying the stoicism his nation was famed for, he remains very quiet. Tears drip off his nose but he makes no sound. The older man just looks at him, an iota of sympathy creeping into his sad eyes. Moments pass. Eversham finally speaks.
“It… maybe it would be better if everyone just wrote me off. Said I was insane. Aberrational. Throw me under the bus. Let everyone get on with it?”
A small sad smile crosses the older mans face.
“To be blunt, that is what a LOT wanted to do back in EarthGov. A lot still do. But it’s too late for that. The whole race is in the mix now. Like it or not, we gotta jump on this ride and see it through to the end. And this is why they sent me. Because some fool thinks that if anyone can win this, can somehow get you off, its me.”
“Are you a diplomat?”
“No, no, nothing like that.”
“So why did they send you?”
“Beats me kid. I mean I have a rough idea, but really? I think they sent me because they are desperate.”
“What do you do for a living?”
A smile.
“For my sins? I’m a Rabbi.”
Four Days Later; The Grand Chamber of the Yucani Ultimate Court
Rabbi Johnathan Cohen had to admit- it was impressive. For such a small race, the Yucani could do ‘grand’. As he looked around the chamber of the highest judiciary on their planet, he could imagine it being used for an equally impressive purpose back on Earth. Of course on Earth the décor and colour scheme would be a tad different. More imposing.
Regal even. This?
It reminded him of the garish interior of some Western Bordelo from the 1890’s if he was honest. Still, the gold and purples and reds didn’t distract from the gravitas of the assembly or the importance of the room.
Or the size of the crowd.
EarthGov told him it was going to be a big show. They were not kidding. The five judges (known as a ‘claw’ the standard designation in all Yucani trials apparently) were looking impressive in their yellow robes of office, but they were upstaged by everyone else. The importance of the nature of this trial had demanded that anyone who was anyone would be here.
Rabbi Cohen could see the heir to the Yucani Empire had arrived (representing his father and 83 siblings); the Minister for Relations With The Hairless Ones (the formal designation for the poor Yucani official who dealt with humans) was also there, talking to him in hurried trills.
There were delegations of all the great and the good of this species, including The High Matron of the Sacred Priestesses of Rho, whose arrival caused him to smile inwardly. And it wasn’t just the Yucani who were here.
The unique nature of the diplomatic spat had caused interest from a half dozen other species. He saw the Ambassador of the Tu-Kek sitting within a glass encased sphere; the Emissary of the Golden Hive, which sat unmoving upon a perch, witnessing all that it relayed to the collective hive mind of the crew of the colony/ship that had arrived in orbit a few days before.
There was even a Frosh there, hovering enigmatically in its encounter suit, and the Frosh didn’t seem interested in anything except fractal mathematical equations most of the time. None of the species knew a damn thing about them- highly advanced but utterly abstract.
And there were the other humans. The Ambassador was there looking nervous (he was partly to blame for messing up the aftermath of the event- his job was on the line); the Commodore of Human Forces in the nearest sector was to his right, looking bored (only here because EarthGov was slightly worried this could end in a war). The attractive secretary (who everyone whispered the Ambassdor was sleeping with), sat on the other side of the Commodore, his handsom eyes glancing at the proceedings nervously.
And this ignored the several hundred normal Yucani who had managed to gain attendance to the trial. Rabbi Cohen took a sip of water and muttered to himself, “No pressure then Johnathan…”
“What?”
He turned to the rather pathetic figure of Andrew Eversham besides him. He wasn’t chained, and he had been issued new clothing, but his eyes were sunken and he looked the very image of a broken man.
“Nothing kid,” he says kindly, “you ready for this?”
“No,” comes the dispondant reply. For some reason Johnathan smiles at this.
“That’s the way. Honesty is always the best policy.”
The beating of a gavel is enough to start the proceedings. Ear pieces to allow fluent translations of all sides words are donned, and Rabbi Cohen takes a deep breath. Yucani trials followed a slightly differing format than humans- but the jist was roughly the same. The ‘prosecution’ he noticed was a grey furred alien, whose somewhat rotund body revealed him to be a corpulent and well fed member of his species. No doubt some great legal mind.
The trial passed quickly enough- the facts were not in dispute and indeed the defence case being as it was (the human in question was ignorant of any harm he could cause and meant no malice) was not even seriously contested by the state. No, in truth the real reckoning lay in the deeper issue of human sense of humour, and how in would colour future Human-Yucani relations.
Eventually, after about an hour, the rotund alien hopped back towards his table and began trilling in low, dark tones. In Cohen’s ear the translation came across clearly.
Which leads us, most supreme claw, to the crux of the issue. The human’s case rests upon a simple defense; he was innocent of any illwill towards our peoples, but sought to ‘entertain’ us with an example of human ‘humour’. This has led to our people investigating this aspect of the aliens personalities, and what we have found is disturbing indeed.
Johnathan watched closely as little creature trilled and squeaked in strong tones, his brown eyes forever gazing around him; while he was no expert on Yucani bodylanguage, Cohen knew showboating when he saw it. The little fat furball was playing to the crowd, playing upon the sensibilities of his race.
We have found humans delight in mockery; in lampooning; in deriding. They claim they do the same to themselves, as if this excuses them, as if it gives them the writ to inflict such things upon the rest of the galaxy. For a human, mockery of their institutions and their leaders is to be expected. But as we all KNOW- such things are anathema to we Yucani; where the familial bonds of love and honour are as natural to us as breathing…
The Rabbi tried hard not to roll his eyes. The prosecution was laying it on thick. Really thick. He watched as the creature hopped and trilled, waving its little arms about, modulating its voice expertly. He could see every Yucani in the room moved by this; their noses twitched, eyes welled up, their tails would go back and forth violently.
Carefully the Rabbi listened as the little creature moved onto the mainstay of his argument.
Is it not said by the Goddess Rho, that ‘all things shall be in its natural place, from star to planet, from ruler to bondman’; does not Rho teach us that there is only joy to be found in ‘careful appreciation of the natural order of all things’? Is it not said within our most sacred texts that ‘The ONLY path towards elevation of a soul, is through acceptance of its time within the body’? These are the foundations of our very society, our very civilisations…
The prosecution begins waxing lyrical about the virtues of the civilisation of the Yucani, but Johnathan was only half listening. There was a religious aspect to this after all?
As he mused on the sacred words of the Rho, part of him wondered if the wiley President of Earth was smarter than he liked to appear. Did the old guy KNOW this was going to be their approach? Is this why he sent him?
His thoughts are broken as the prosecution brings his long and somewhat vaudevillian diatribe to its conclusion…
…which bases itself upon mockery, and lampoon and cruelty towards living things are ideas we Yucani cannot afford to allow infect our civilisation. They gnaw at its roots. They will in time infest our nests. Supreme Claw, I must ask, no implore, no BEG of you, to issue an edict which petitions our Emperor to reconsider allowing these humans access to our world. Lest one night, one terrible night, the scenes we saw, where a single voice defiles the virtues of our culture are repeated… but this time by one of our own children.
Cohen takes a breath and smiles to himself. He glances over at the ambassador who looks back nervously. Besides him the quiet voice of Andrew Eversham says, “I really screwed this all up didn’t I?”
“Yes kid. But look on the bright side?”
“There’s a bright side?”
“It’s not everyday you get to be accused of defiling an entire civilisation. Think about how it will look on your CV?”
Rabbi Cohen stands as his opposing side sits down heavily. He picks up a small card wherein the correct honourifics needed to address the court are clearly printed and runs through the formalities quickly enough. That done he gazes at the five judges for a moment, and shrugs.
“The human sense of humour. Where do I, one of our species, even BEGIN to start describing this complex thing that lies at the heart of who we are, to your most Supreme Claw? There are great minds on Earth who have wondered about this for many centuries and reached no conclusion. And yet it is clear, I must. So let me try and break this down into a way I feel the Yucani can understand and I hope, accept it, for all its imperfections.”
“It is a question often asked by us humans- what makes us laugh? What is the source of our humour? The prosecution would have you believe it is cruelty and mockery. And from the surface it would appear so. But allow me to illustrate that human humour is complicated and made up of many levels.”
He strides out from behind his table, keeping his voice low and his eyes focused on the judges.
“The starting point is incongruity. We humans like you Yucanti had an issue with incongruity. Evolutionary speaking our ancestors, like yours, lived lives fearing predators; both our species in our ancient past? We would gaze, eyes to the horizon, forever searching for danger. We learned well the safety in patterns, the formal, fixed nature of our surroundings. Anything out of place, incongruous, we would be drawn to. It spelt danger, it spelt threat.”
“For my species, long after we had evolved past the need to spot such things, we had this trait inherent still within us. Why do I stress this? When humans spot an incongruity in nature, when it does not threaten us? We laugh. An exclamation of relief. Identical to what Yucani call the ‘musk of fear ending’. For your species it is natural and normal. Same with ours. Yours is scent. Ours is sound. Identical reactions. A thing we have in common yes?”
A few aliens nod at this. A good start.
“However this is not the full basis of our humour. Incongruity cannot be the full extent of our humour. If I was to find a shoe in a dishwasher, or you were to find Gurnix inside a Flubuton, that in itself would not be the cause of humour to us. It would be odd, but not humorous. The key for us humans is that incogurity has to be of a correct kind. For humans it has to involve a shift of perspective. The great human psychologist, Koestler, pointed out that for humans this shift is all important. An example would be…”
He nods to one of the technicians and displayed in the air in both languages are words.
When is a door not a door?
When it is a jar!
“This is an example of that type of humour. Incongruity presenting a perspective shift.”
There is utter silence from the audience and he scans the translation and smiles.
“Of course the joke does not translate at all to your race. The play on contexts and language is entirely lost to you. But notice how my fellow humans did not laugh either. Such things are primitive; plays on words, sudden perspective shifts. Proto-Jokes almost. I raise it to establish the baseline of our humour.”
“We humans have many of these jokes. We call them things like ‘knock-knock jokes’ and ‘lightbulb jokes’. They are not truly appealing to our humour, the highest compliment they can get is to be called clever, for you see they are missing a particular element of humour which the prosecution has done well to highlight.”
“What they miss, is a degree of cruelty.”
The little rotund advocate for the state stands and begins trilling in high pitched tones. Cohen waits for the translation to come through.
So you admit that humans revel in cruelty?
He smiles, “No.”
But you just said that your humour needs cruelty!
“A certain type, yes. But not the type you described.”
Semantics! Your supreme clawness, I urge you end this nonsense…
We will hear the human defence, intones the oldest, long whiskered judge, As we are curious as not how they will justify this.
“I thank the indulgence of the court,” smiles Cohen, and he takes a breath.
“There remains, there always will, an aspect of human behaviour that is mistaken for our humour but is not. This is how we humans use laughter. Laughter is a physical response to things. Mostly to humour yes, but also, and this is where the prosecution made their mistake, it can be a sound of triumph. At such times the sound is indeed dark and unmistakably cruel. Many have observed that for all the love we have of the sound of laughter it is by volume and in ferocity, an aggressive sound. And there exists many examples of our species using laughter when committing acts of cruelty.”
He shrugs, “It was only a few centruies ago that it became unfashionable to visit the places we kept our psychically and mentally disable for the purpose of laughing at them. We thought it good sport to look upon their pain. All of human history contains accounts of how public executions were raucous affairs, we would attend and celebrate the killing of one of our own, often with laughter as the guillotine came down upon them…”
Rabbi Cohen sighs heavily, “When I was younger I once saw a picture. Germany. The 1930’s. A small child, a Jewish boy, was being forced to clean the street on his hands and knees. Around him stood adults and they were laughing. This isn’t human humour, it’s cruelty. There are countless episodes of torturers laughing as they inflict pain. Of laughter being heard from mass shooters, from soldiers in war, at our most darkest moments. These things I do not refute. But point out a similarity of experience between our species.”
“Every species in the galaxy knows Yucani are fastidious in cleaning, how they value healthy and clean fur. No Yucani would ever dose another in urine for example. What then of your treatment of prisoners? Are we to take that as indicative of Yucani finding such things acceptable? Of course not. It is a certain, dark aspect of your society, misunderstood except BY your species. This is the same as using laughter by humans in moments of cruelty. It is separate FROM the debate about humour.”
He takes a breath and a sip of water before continuing.
“No, to say human humour is incognuity mixed with cruelty is too simplistic. It has to be the right type of cruelty…”
What do you mean the right type of cruelty? asks the supreme judge.
Johnathan Cohen thinks for a moment and smiles, “On Earth, a wise man called Mel Brooks once asked the question- what is the difference between tragedy and comedy?”
What was his answer?
“Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall down a manhole cover and die.”
The Ambassadors secretary bursts out laughing, the sound carries across the room, ALL eyes fall upon him. Hurridly he covers his mouth, going red in the process.
“And you see the very nature of it right there. A sudden juxtaposition of incongruity and a certain element of cruelty, producing an involuntary response. Laughter.”
He pauses for a moment and says quietly, “In our distant past, in the year 1991 of our calander, a human writer called David Barry said the following, “The most important humor truth of all is that to really see the humour in a situation, you have to have perspective. ‘Perspective’ is derived from two ancient Greek words: ‘persp’ meaning ‘something bad happens to someone else’ and ‘ective’ meaning ‘ideally someone like Donald Trump’.”
At this all the humans bursts out laughing and Rabbi Cohen holds up his hands, “Again- the involuntary reaction. I won’t bother to explain it your honours, just to say that last statement was a joke designed to highlight something.”
“The core cruelty here is that someone must lose dignity. As we humans say be brought down a peg or two, or be knocked off a pedestal. It can be used by the mob as a weapon, and YES, it does have a subversive power. One of our ancients, a man called Plato, thought humour was destabalsing to the state and should be banned from it, which for us humans? Tell us much about the kind of guy Plato actually was.”
See? This is my allegation Supreme Claw. The human ADMITS what I am saying is true…
“What we do you got right, WHY we do it you got wrong. I heard you speaking about how Rho says we must appreciate the time our souls connect with our bodies correct?”
The prosecution’s whiskers twitch a little, and carefully it says Yes
“Well, the most basic, the most universal, the most raw and successful brand of comedy, the one my clients version was but a verbal variation of, the one that transcends the many human languages, is humour based upon just that. The realisation that there is a split between the soul, the essence of a human, and these dull, mundane frail bodies we exist in. What a psychologist once called the ‘dualism of subtle mind and inert matter’. “
“We call that humour, slapstick.”
He grins to himself.
“The core of all slapstick is the ‘the blow and the fall’. It can be as simple as a human slipping on the skin of recently eaten fruit. Or elaborate and detailed, but at its core is something very important. We understand, totally, the immortality of the soul, what the Goddess Rho holds to essence of being, but we also recognise the limitations of the body. Your species finds solance in holding to the immutable structure of the universe to reconcile this correct? We reconcile it by finding humor when we are reminded that these frail bodies cannot match the perfection of what lies within.”
“All of this is just by way of explaining this…”
An image appears on screen. It is a small human infant, wearing a sundress, maybe aged about 2 or 3 years old. Walking towards them is an image of Rabbi Cohen. He smiles at the child, and walks towards her and then, suddenly, slips and lands on his backside, a look of mock shock on his face. And at that, the court room is filled with the sound of the small child laughing, laughing hard; uncontrollable laughter, a sound that makes every human in the room smile. The image ends.
“Your honours, THAT is the most beloved sound on my home planet. The sound of an innocent child laughing. It transcends cultures and languages, transcends time. It delights us like NO other sound. We can spend hours just trying to get children to make it.”
“Consider then what you just saw? An innocent- capable of no higher functions of thought; an infant. It’s reactions are primal. But what DID you see? An infant is able to identify itself as a being, and me as a separate being. It saw the classic imposition upon my being by this mundane body. I tripped and slipped on my tuchus. A sudden juxtaposition of incongruity. One second I am stood, the next I am not. Mixed with the RIGHT kind of cruelty. Misfortune happening to another. But notice my reaction- my mock smile? My grand daughter realises that it is not hurting me and responds with a spontainious reaction of laughter.”
“THIS is at its base, the core of ALL human comedy and humour; it is based on empathy, and innocence. Not for her convoluted explanations involving cruelty and mockery. Just instinct. As we grow we develop more sophisticated methods to find humour but at its core? That is it. Is that not a demonstration of how our humour is as identical as your veneration of the soul within the body? The acceptance of the duality of body and spirit?”
Rabbi Cohen smiles, gently and turns to the Judges.
“Your honours, I urge you to dismiss this case. And I urge you to do so because let me tell you what will happen to the defendant. He will be released. He will return home. And when he does? He will become the subject of many, many jokes. He bore no ill will in his heart towards your race- but he was a schmuck.”
What is a schmuck?
“It’s a certain type of human. For the Yucani? A schmuck will forever be my client.”
In his chair the stand up comedian opens his mouth and then closes it. Defeated.
“He will return home and we will make stories about what he did. We will laugh at his foolishness, his ignorance, his pride….”
And we so gonna have fun with you little fat gerbil, he thinks but does not say as he eyes the prosecutor.
“And our ambassador will sit down with the Crown Prince and they will add a provision to the Treaty of Trade and friendship that says, based on the psychological underpinnings of our two species, and given we recognise that we share in common a belief of the duality of our existence and indeed of the existence of the soul, that human humour is a natural byproduct of our evolution like musk scenting is part of yours. Neither of our species share these traits, so lets not inflict it upon the other huh?”
“That would seem to me to be a most equitable and fair solution.”
The judges consulte one another, the Yucani remove their translation devices, but Johnathan can see their chirpings are appreciative. He may not have convinced them humans are FUNNY… but he may have convinced them to let this slide. He sits down at his table, gathers up his case note and begins to place them inside his briefcase.
Besides him, the comedian gazes over and sees there, amidst the papers in the briefcase, a hard backed book… ‘On the origins of humor: why Neaderthals can’t take a joke’ by Dr Johnathan Cohen, and a sudden realisation crosses his mind and he whispers, “You wrote that?”
“When not studying the Torah, I dabble in evolutionary psychology. It pays the bills.”
“Thank you.”
“Hey kid, what we gonna do? Let aliens say we bad for liking to laugh? What’s next? We are sinful because we breath?”
As the court recesses, and the judges leave to make their judgement, Rabbi Cohen stands and turns to make his way over to the Ambassadour when he is stopped suddenly. There, before him, stands the representative of the Frosh. It’s towering form, its huge encounter suit, obscuring the being from within. It’s cold black visage, plain glass of some kind, looms balefully over him.
In all the hustle of the Yucani leaving, no one notices this member of the most elusive and obscure of all the alien species, make his way to stand before the human. Johnathan clears his throat and goes, “Hello?”
The alien just stands.
“Can I help you?”
The black screen suddenly flashes brief, fractal images upon it, who flare in and out of existing as quick as a human blink. At the same time a warbling high pitch noise emits from deep in the chest area.
The Rabbi blinks and says, “What?”
The images and the noise is repeated again. Realisation dawning, Rabbi Cohen places down his briefcase and picks up the translator device he was using back on the table.
“Say that again please?”
The images flash and the noise is made and two seconds later words form in the humans ear… a simple message…
Pull my finger.
There is a silence. Around them the Yucani chitter and trill but Johnathan Cohen begins to smile…

Entitled mother doesn’t check that the movie isn’t for kids blames the employees

"I think I've lived long enough to see competitive Counter-Strike as we know it, kill itself." Summary of Richard Lewis' stream (Long)

I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.

Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to.
Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547
I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can.
I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts.
Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T

Intro

"The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
- "I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
"For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
- "We're spread way too thin."
"If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
- Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
- ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
- Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
- Widespread match fixing
- The Pandemic
  - "People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
  - "People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
    - "To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
    - "Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
    - "People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
"It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
- RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
  - He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.

CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association

"Who does this union really fucking serve?"

RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
- He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
  - He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
    - He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
  - Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
  - RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
  - Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
    - "and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
- "We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
- He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
- "They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
- He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
  - He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
- He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
  - RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
- "I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
- "Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
  - "Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
  - "That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
He also says their rankings are a joke
- "Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
"Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"

ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission

"They have been put in an impossible position."

RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
"ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
- "Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
- "Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
  - Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
    - Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
- "They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
  - "They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
- He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
  - Also says more coaches being banned are coming
  - He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
- "I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
- "So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
  - "Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.

Stream Sniping

"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"

RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
- On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
  - "Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
    - He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
      - He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
      - The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
      - "ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
"All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
- He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?

Match Fixing

"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."

RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
- "Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
"Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
- Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
  - They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
    - "I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
      - "Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
"There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
- "It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
"It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
- "I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
"That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
- "All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
"I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."

North America

"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."

RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
- RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
- He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
- He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
  - They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
  - When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
  - "was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
  - He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
- He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
- He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
- Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."

Talent

"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."

RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
- He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."

Valve

"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"

Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
- Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
- A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
- RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
- RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
- They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
- Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
- RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
"It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
- Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
"Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
"People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."

Closing Statements

"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."

RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
"We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
"There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
"How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
"Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
"The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
- He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
- "If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
  - "They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
"Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
"This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
"You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
- "Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
"Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
- "You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
"I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
- "I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
"I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."

Can we be less morally aggressive?

I've taken 566 outfit photos over 4 years (my style from mid-20s to 30)

I just turned 30.
This is not a story of a fashion epiphany, but one of a slow, if self-indulgent and expensive burn (also, of reading my comment history lol).
From November 2016 to January 2021, I have taken 566 outfit photos. These are my fave outfits of each year.
I was 25 when I first posted in FFA - Posted on 6 November 2016, this was my first ever WAYWT post, just a bit over 4 years ago. FFA has changed a lot since then, and so have I. I used to post religiously, however, I’ve been on and off over the last couple of years, which is not unlike my relationship with fashion.
In that time I have moved countries, developed a horrifying shopping habit and then dropped it, had a few different hairstyles (always messy), travelled, gained and lost weight, and now a pandemic with numerous lockdowns (yay, UK). All of this has had an impact on how I dress and how I feel towards fashion.
2016 - 2017 (26 & 27 years old)

Started off with casual, relaxed silhouettes before gravitating towards more structured, feminine silhouettes in 2017
Almost exclusively wore skirts and dress for the better part of a year and didn’t start wearing pants and jeans until second half of 2017
Started off wearing more colour before going more neutral by the end of 2017
Became more exposed to fashion via social media and increasing my consumption

2018 (27 - 28 years old)

Style leaned towards trendy and boho during S/S, no idea what was going on during A/W (I blame this on a shopping addiction, as expanded below)
Actively consuming fashion content daily, paying close attention to trends and was purchasing clothes on an almost weekly basis
Went on 2 holidays that had an impact on how I view my wardrobe later on
Changed my hair colour
Near the end of 2018, tried to curb my excessive shopping habit (failing more than succeeding)

2019 (28 - 29 years old)

Moved to London (as well as moving flats 4 times)
Started re-wearing clothes more (especially during the first 6 months as I was mostly living out of a suitcase)
Started focusing more on functionality of my wardrobe (i.e. sneakers and outerwear)
Decreasing how much fashion content I follow

2020 (29 - 30 years old)

Stable living situation
Covid has actually allowed me to experiment more
Subconsciously lost weight, so now dressing to a different(ish) body
Style now has more retro elements
Buying less, buying smarter and buying second-hand more (a lot of my wardrobe is at least 1 year old, was bought second-hand or as direct replacements for old items, and I can go a couple of months without wanting to buy anything)
Completely stopped following any fashion content
First time I feel like S/S me matches A/W me, whereas I’ve always felt disjointed across seasons in previous years

Some things remained unchanged, such as I’ve always enjoyed both short and midi lengths, I love a cinched in waist, I like playing around with texture, I obviously love a good turtleneck, my hair was almost always messy and I still enjoy Isabel Marant.
4 years doesn’t seem like a lot, but it sure looks like a lot when I see how I used to dress versus now, my mindset related to that and lessons learnt.
(If it wasn’t obvious, this is mostly tongue in cheek, and it’s very much based on myself).

Lesson 1: You’re Very Dumb When You’re Young (But Who Isn’t?)
First of all, this happens to so many people.
I had just started my first full time job that year. Ever since I left high school I’ve always loved clothes (I even had a short-lived blog in the early 2010s), and now suddenly having more disposable income than ever that I could spend on my biggest passion (fashion, if you didn’t already realise after clicking on this post while on this subreddit), my already high consumption went positively exospheric. How much I was wearing was not in line with how much I was spending, aka a fucking excess of clothes.
It started with expanding a work wardrobe, which was innocent enough. Previously, I only went to uni a few times a week where didn’t see the same people all the time, and I worked part-time jobs requiring uniforms. Buying extra clothes was reasonable. Then I discovered how easy online shopping was, and how addictive pressing ‘checkout’ was, which then led me onto re-sell designer sites like The RealReal and Vestiaire, and suddenly previous designers I’d always dreamed of wearing were now attainable…to me?! I’m an adult, who makes money, and now I wear designer.
Looking bad, it’s not like I didn’t look good. I rate a lot of my outfits and for the time and place I consider them stylish. But looking at what I used to wear before 2020, the thing that sticks out most isn’t how nice a colour looked on me, or how well I wore a leather mini skirt. The thing that sticks out the most is how completely unsatisfied I always felt after that moment of that ‘new clothes thrill’ wore off - I always thought I could look better, which, of course, meant I needed to buy something else to make sure I did. I used to think about my next purchase immediately after buying something, like someone looking for the next hit. It sounds unhealthy because it is unhealthy.
There were so many items of clothes that I only wore for 1 season. And then there were the clothes I wore just once or twice. This snowballed for the next almost 2 years, and season after season I was virtually buying a new wardrobe because my old clothes seemed too ‘boring’ and ‘old’. The number of times I posted on the weekly Recent Purchases thread is actually appalling thinking about it. Instead of actually thinking of the versatility or functionality of clothes (can this be worn for numerous occasions/seasons? Does this go with enough of what I already own?) I was instead buying clothes in terms of creating specific looks - and if that meant buying a whole outfit, worth it (it’s not, FYI. Ever.) And the thought of re-wearing an outfit? Not a chance.
The amount I dropped on clothing I barely wore during this time is most likely the equivalent of putting down a sizeable deposit on a flat in a decent area of a major city. And when you come to that realisation years later, it will make your stomach drop.
And as another aside, get rid of this habit before you move out. It will save you a lot of stress. And it can take years to drop this habit.

Lesson 2: Unlike What That Guy Says on Hinge, Don’t Be Spontaneous
There isn’t anything wrong with being spontaneous - Like any healthy habits, in moderation it’s not harmful. The thing is, when spontaneous is all the time there’s another way to phrase that. A Really Bad Addiction.
That’s not to say every purchase has to be thought out meticulously to an analytical degree (seriously, that would be stressful in itself) - I genuinely have had some great impulse buys. But these have either been sentimental or have made me feel so amazing in that moment as if that piece of clothing had been made only for me. A kimono-esque robe I bought on sale in Tokyo, a vintage silk midi dress that paved the way for a style that I wear years later, a leather jacket that feels as great as it looks, a sweater that’s both basic but not really, a dress I joke is my wedding dress (I’m not actually joking).
But these sort of spontaneous purchases can only exist as good buys when you otherwise think practically about what you buy. The impulse items mentioned continue to work for me because the rest of my wardrobe is thought out, versatile and thus, those impulse items can be worn again and again with the rest of my wardrobe.
A spontaneous purchase only because you have a discount code, or you need to meet a minimum order, or because it was on sale or because you feel like you have nothing else to wear or to chase a thrill will usually end up as a regret.
Continually impulse buying is just bad consumption, pure and simple.

Lesson 3: If You Love Fashion, Don’t Work in Corporate Retail
I’m half kidding. However, there is a good chance you’ll become disillusioned with anything related to fashion the longer you work for retail companies (both on the floor and in corporate). Especially for big companies.
It started off positive - I was surrounded by clothes and by people talking about clothes. I found similar-minded people who felt the same way about fashion as I did.
I had people to discuss the things we wanted to buy, the designers and labels we loved, Paris/New York/London/Melbourne fashion shows, the sample sales coming up, outfits to gush over (consisting of new purchases, naturally). It was 9-5 of just fashion.
It was also 9-5 of tiring. Especially when I’m discussing how to make people buy more, to consume more, to waste more. Then the stress involved when deliveries miss deadlines due to awful circumstances and senior management are freaking out (a ship capsized and the crew are MIA, but where is the product?), working for companies that churn out clothes every week, for companies that stock problematic brands, for companies that thrive on shopping tourists.
And then there are those moments, like when someone senior comments that the Paris bombing will be good for the company because no one will want to shop in Paris.
You see the ugliest side to the retail industry and there are times when you truly hate fashion.
(FYI, you absolutely can have a fulfilling career in corporate retail, however, I find the people that do are the people who can separate their personal views on clothing and consumerism from their work. I couldn’t.)

Lesson 4: Instagram is Aspiration, Not Inspiration
You are the product. Emily from London and Olivia from Melbourne might seem like your style twin and you just seem like the exact same things, but the reason they listed every brand on their aspirational outfit photo isn’t to help you out - it’s to help them out.
I was so obsessed with consuming anything fashion related on Instagram. I felt like I had to be aware of every single high street brand that existed, follow every popular British influencer (I just felt like British style was Exactly My Vibe, you know?), look like I myself would be the type of person who could post on Instagram.
Nothing I’ve bought because I saw it on an influencer I have kept. No style I modelled off someone who’s taller, skinnier, boobier, blonder than me I have retained. The only thing I got out of looking on social media for fashion inspiration were mountains of garbage bags of donations, moments of feeling shit because it didn’t look the same on me and a lean bank account (remember, I could have bought a flat by now).
Instagram is an amazing platform to express whatever you want. But don’t ever use it as a tool to copy something or someone because no good can come from that.
I look at what I wore in 2017-2018, which are the years I consider the eruption in my Fiery Spending Volcano, and I know I based my outfits on certain influencers thinking, ‘Yes, this is an outfit [insert whoever] would wear,’ or specific items I bought because I saw it on someone. The thing is, I honestly can’t remember who these people were. I genuinely don’t feel a connection to a lot of those outfits, as if it wasn’t actually me wearing it. Now I look at what I’ve worn end of 2019 to now and I know exactly who my outfits were influenced by. Me…I’m influenced by me.
I no longer have Instagram.
(And Nanny Fine will always be the only acceptable influencer.)

Lesson 5: Labels Should Only Come From a Label Maker
Boho chic.
French girl.
LA vibes.
Timeless.
Off duty model.
It’s meaningless. Don’t box yourself in. That’s all.

Lesson 6: Size Absolutely Does Not Matter (in This Case)
Capsule wardrobes are not for me. I need options
An entire room stuffed with clothing is also not for me. I don’t need that many options.
I used to have the mindset I had to have every kind of variation of an item. Take the white t-shirt for example - I needed a cropped white tee, a longline tee, a v-neck, a crew neck, a scoop neck, a dressy tee. Outerwear also used to be a huge problem for me. I mostly live in Australia…I don’t need that many outerwear options because I legitimately will not be able to wear all of them. Variety is nice until it becomes hoarding.
I credit travelling with helping me realise I can easily survive on a smaller wardrobe. I look at what I wore when I went to the UK/EU in 2018 and still love those outfits. I had so much fun in Japan dressing with the 17 items of clothes I packed (braids certainly helped too). Dressing just became easy and I didn’t often have that ‘I have nothing to wear’ feeling because I had purposely packed both clothing that I loved and were versatile. A smaller wardrobe has actually made me feel more creative when putting outfits together. No amount of buying new clothes will ever match the feeling of discovering a new way to wear an old thing.
Not to mention, the fact that I used to think repeating outfits was the biggest fashion crime is as fucking ridiculous as you’re thinking it sounds. If an outfit made me feel so amazing the first time I wore it, why wouldn’t I want to experience that feeling again?
Nowadays I get a lot of comments on how much I re-wear and re-use my clothes and it’s genuinely a great compliment. How much I can see myself re-wearing something is a major factor in my shopping habits. This doesn’t mean I aim to have a classic, timeless style (I personally believe no clothing is truly timeless) nor do I completely avoid trends, but I aim to have clothes that easily go multiple seasons and years. I’ve learnt to become patient with shopping and now routinely wait at least 3 weeks from the first time I see something to gauge how I really feel about it. More often than not, I don’t follow through with purchasing. This also works well for me, as by waiting I then have a chance of purchasing it second-hand, which has become something I do more and more these days beyond just shopping vintage.
Also, no one actually knows nor cares if you repeat outfits. No one is that special that people remember every outfit that person ever wore. They will probably repeat compliments though (because you definitely repeated a great outfit).

My relationship with fashion has been messy. I’ve been obsessed, I’ve been frustrated, I’ve been ambivalent. Now, I’ve calmed down. I used to let my shopping habit define my style, whereas now I’m at a stage when it’s the reverse - It’s no longer a case of ‘I’ll make this purchase work’, but ‘this purchase needs to work for me’. I now consume less fashion news, have a smaller wardrobe, but am probably the most satisfied with the way I dress than I ever have been.

EDIT: It appears this has resonated with a lot of people, which I'm pretty chuffed with as it's things I've increasingly been thinking about over the last year or so. I'm glad people have learnt similar lessons and that people will come to learn similar lessons. To everyone who's already made the step to being a better consumer, keep going, and to those who want to start doing so, it doesn't happen overnight and that's okay. We may not all become the perfect, cleanest consumer, but there are numerous little steps we can take to be better than we were before.

Hunter or Huntress Chapter 90: A Bad Night

So another round one, chapter 90. Only 10 to go for the big number, this actually also marks 1000 novel size pages of story-making just over 277.000 words thus far O_o For comparison, the lord of the rings is 576.000 so damn near halfway there... Holy fuck that is a lot of writing in just over three months. To mark the occasion this one is a special one. at some point, during today's story, there is going to be a fade to black and a little link (If you are speed machines please have patients it's coming ASAP)
Now in there, you will find nothing but gratuitous pancake, this is so that you have the choice, you may skip the standalone chapter and I promise you are not missing any of the actual story, at least as little as I could manage. for the rest of you Enjoy,
With the semantics out of the way, I say we get on with the story,
ko-fi For having more pretty pictures commissioned.
Sapphire
Wiki Discord
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Chapter 90: A Bad Night
Luke had returned with a gaggle of kids, who all looked rather overwhelmed by what they saw coming out. There were a lot of them, Tom counted twelve in total. All of them rather young; he guessed the oldest one looked about nine.
“Look, dragon!” a young boy shouted, running over to Jarix with a few others on his heels. Some were looking around, clearly searching for people who might not be here anymore. Others stood staring at Tom.
The sight of other kids also caused a fair amount of excitement, Luke ushering the more timid kids towards the ones from Hylsdal.
Tom just stood there putting a hand around Jacky’s waist, looking at the best reason for doing all this. He chuckled as Jarix elevated his head just out of grabbing range as the more excitable of the kids tried to touch his face. He had a smile on though, even if he looked a little unsure of what to do. Zarko was on hand to help though, telling off the kids who tried to climb up the wounded dragon.
It took some coaxing, but in the end, most of the kids had been convinced to start playing with each other, though some were still around sitting either crying or just keeping to themselves. Lothal was doing his best to try and console his friends and doing a remarkably good job of it. Tom couldn't decide if he was proud or sad at seeing an eleven-year-old acting like an adult.
Dinner was nothing special, just some more of the stew from earlier with some rather stale tasting bread. Jacky, Tom, Zarko, and Unkai had sat together with the lady, Luke, Requi and the healer who was sort of conscious for the moment. She was apparently called Quin, at least for short. Unkai too was sitting rather slack-eared, clearly having been put to hard work already.
Jarix was given some cuts of cured meat. The lady had brought out both some decent ale and even some wine, which was passed around the table. Tom had never tried dragonette wine before, so, despite his reservations about mixing alcohol with blood loss, he poured a cup for himself. That was an old student tactic, after all, to donate blood before a night on the town. It made things a bit cheaper.
“We might not be able to put together a feast, but we can do this, a small token of thanks. Luke, if you wouldn’t mind,” The Lady went as she took her seat, Luke standing up raising a glass.
“To the heroes in our hour of need!”
Tom damn near stood up to join Luke, Zarko grabbing him by the shoulder to keep him seated. As the assembled dragonettes of the keep gave a toast. Tom didn’t really know if he felt proud or just uncomfortable at this point. On one hand, he could look around the room to see many faces, most of which appeared happy. On the other hand, many definitely weren’t: a lone wounded father with a sobbing kid; the kids from Hylsdal; the countless wounded, some looking like they might not fly or even walk properly again.
“To the crazy bastard who made it possible,” Jackalope went as she raised her cup looking at Tom, apparently figuring out what was being toasted.
“Hey!” Jarix let out, clearly trying to sound offended. “To the crazy bastards who made it possible,” Zarko corrected, raising her cup.
“To wiping those fuckers off the map,” Tom joined in, feeling a little left out.
“Cheers to that,” The silvered huntress replied without much enthusiasm, slamming her drink down in one go. She was joined by the others. Tom took his time with his wine though. As expected it was rather sweet, definitely not bad though. They hadn’t made a huge thing out of the meal, it was just stew and bread after all, even if their drinks were well above average.
It had been a rather awkward meal though. Jackalope couldn’t partake in the conversation unless Tom or someone else wrote down for her what was going on. They all did their best to avoid the more depressing subject matters, but it was pretty damn hard to avoid them in their current state. Quite a few of the others had taken to drinking rather heavily. Tom could hardly blame them, but he kept it mild for now. Jacky, though, did make a dent in the ale supply. She didn’t get piss drunk, but she was definitely inebriated by now.
“You know, I’ve never been called a hero before,” Jacky went, leaning on Tom after they had finished the meal. “You still got the ace though… You always get the ace… Why are you so damn good at killing?” She questioned hanging on his shoulders.
Tom didn’t really know how to answer her on that one. “You know what,” She went, pulling back and poking him in the chest with a finger. “You get to teach me how. You’re not getting the ace next time,” Tom pondered for a second if that was a smart thing to agree to. It was likely going to happen though, so why not.
“I guess that’s the smart part about being deaf, I can’t hear if you're protesting, so I’m just gonna say you agreed,” Jackalope continued before he managed to nod his reply. She poured a fresh mug for the both of them, snickering. Tom debated getting out the notepad to try and tell her he needed to be a little careful when it came to alcohol right now. She beat him to it though. “You’re not drinking like last time; afraid we might do something stupid?”
Unkai damn near choked at that one. Zarko just shook her head, looking a tad embarrassed. ’Remember the angry smith Tom, Remember the angry smith,’ he repeated to himself. He got out the notepad to write down a response. Tom made well sure no one else saw what he wrote as he showed it to Jacky.
“I’m wounded, also your mother,” she pulled back a bit, looking a little annoyed.
“She is not here nor will she be... Hey Unkai! Can you give him a check? He claims to be wounded; I don’t want him dying on me.” She went, sounding entirely inappropriate.
Even Zarko had to suppress a slight laugh at that, Unkai looking like a deer in the headlights as Jacky’s attention switched to him.
“I mean sure. I’ll just finish this,” the healer replied, gesturing at his cup.
“I can’t hear you,” Jackalope reiterated with a side to side head bob. Unkai looked very embarrassed, just giving her a thumbs up instead.
‘Oh boy,’ Tom thought to himself, shrinking down.
“I think he needs more liquid courage to handle me though. Watch closely Unkai, you might learn how to grow a spine. Even if it’s only for a bit,” Jackalope continued, laughing at her own joke as she poured another drink for herself and refilling Tom’s cup.
“The man who went toe to toe with a small army and he needs help to handle you. What does that tell you?” Zarko let out, looking at Tom, seeming very pleased with herself.
“Don’t let them get to you Tom, you're braver than her,” Jarix added, ensuring that everyone in the entire hall was now invested in the conversation.
Tom just picked up the mug of ale she had poured for him. Jackalope excitedly raised hers as they knocked them together. ‘May the hangover have mercy on my soul,’ Tom thought to himself. He had been saved after a few mugs by the lady declaring that they needed to save enough for a proper feast when they could manage it.
The result was a nice buzz and an even cockier Jackalope as they left the table. Perhaps it was her time for some healing following that whole shit show. He had never seen her as distraught as she was at Hylsdal. Not to mention the expression on her face when Zarko had carried the body of the dead girl away after they landed.
Apparently, alcohol had at the very least helped her think about something else, as she was spouting funny stories and, of course, boasting about how amazing she had been in the battle. That had led to a hasty explanation about how Tom had let her borrow some of his power during the battle. He wasn’t entirely sure if any of the locals bought it, but they were way too polite to question the explanation though. Or possibly scared, or just didn’t care, he wasn’t quite sure.
Unkai had gone over Jackalope first and deemed her as fixed as she could be right now; he didn't dare try to fix her ears, claiming that to be way beyond him. He sounded confident that Nunuk might be able to put them back together again though. Jackalope let out an annoyed sigh at the news, though the part about Nunuk did help.
It was clear Jacky and Tom had received priority when it came to getting fixed up after the battle. Unkai had put in some work on Tom, mainly putting his effort into the stinger wound on his side. Tom had him check his neck wound as thoroughly as he could manage. But Unkai claimed that was as good as it was going to get, though he recommended some resting time.
“Fuck, I took painkillers earlier,” Tom let out as Unkai touched the stinger wound, which didn’t hurt as much as it should have.
“Is that bad?” Unkai had questioned, looking at the wound.
“I drank alcohol too, you're not supposed to mix those.” Unkai looked at Tom as if he was expecting more than that.
“Well don’t look at me, I don’t know how they work,” he finally responded, Jackalope’s face growing worried at the exchange, her gaze breaking as she looked to Unkai.
“He’s fine, right? He’s been stung before. He’s tough on that front even if his skin is soft like a kid’s,” She asked with worry in her voice slurring slightly, Tom taking slight offense at the last part. Unkai turned to her, giving her a thumbs up and a smile before looking back at the wound.
“Anything we can do about it?” the healer questioned, clearly trying to not look worried this time, for Jacky’s sake.
“Don’t think so. I guess I’m just gonna cross my fingers and wait it out,” Tom answered truthfully. He had no clue what the actual effect of that might be. He felt fine though. He was a little weird in the head, but that was honestly to be expected in his current condition.
“Well I don’t think you’re gonna be sleeping alone anyway, but consider it medical advice to have someone look after you,” Unkai replied trying a sly smile, which just looked wrong on him.
“Tom the hot stone reporting for duty,” Tom joked back as Unkai went about reapplying the bandage to the wound. Jacky’s gaze switching back to Tom seemingly excited, the edges of her mouth curling into a slight smile.
The young woman who had washed his clothes earlier had shown them up to the bedrooms after the quick check-up.
“We have a few rooms which weren’t in use before, don’t worry it’s not… someones. I'm sorry if they are dirty, but you can have one each if you want.” She sounded really rather uncomfortable. Tom could get why. He could see the number of rooms and there had to be at least a few that had owners until recently.
“This is very kind of you. Thank you,” Tom replied, the woman giving a curtsy before making her way back down the stairs rather hurriedly. Tom got out the notepad to ask Jacky if she wanted to share a room. Thinking back, that wasn’t at all necessary; he just felt like it was the right thing to at least ask.
Jackalope though didn’t bother to ask him. Taking him by the wrist rather firmly, she led him into the first room the young woman had shown them.

The Pancake Chapter: Pancake!
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Balethon now safely in her grasp, Sapphire circled back the way she came. She almost wanted to tell him to enjoy this since she was likely not gonna be carrying him again, not to mention at night in nothing but her underwear. The dude had already had a remarkably shitty night though, so she refrained.
She spotted the large disorganized group which had been supposed to keep the tavern safe. They had set down in a square and were looking around confused as Sapphire came in to land. She was quickly greeted by a near-hysterical Haiko who looked ready to drop his mace as he nearly trod on Balethon in an attempt to hug her faster.
“You’re okay, right? Nothing wrong?”
“I’m fine, the bastards couldn’t shoot.”
“Oh thank whoever cared,” he let out, squeezing her tightly.
“Where is Dakota?” Sapphire squeaked out from his embrace. He let go of her taking a step back looking around.
“Not here. Neither is that Maiko guy, and he damn near caught up to you before you shot off into the darkness. You haven't gotten any slower, have you now?”
“Not by much, no,” she replied, looking down to her stricken cargo. “Let’s get him to sit up somewhere. Any of you got some water?” she questioned, looking to the other guards. Her eyes landed on someone being bound up. She assumed it was the mercenary who had tried to attack her. “You're a shit fighter, I hope you know that,” She shouted out, glaring at the arsehole, who just stared at her with clear contempt.
Draki had come over with a canteen of water, looking up to Sapphire and looking a bit strained in the face before he turned to Haiko.
“I owe you two silver, don’t I?” the diminutive guy asked, seeming rather annoyed.
“I told you, she’s the fastest woman you ever saw,” Haiko replied with a smile, trying to fold out Balethon, eventually giving up. “Grab on, let’s put him on that bench over there,” he went, grabbing Balethon by the legs, with Sapphire taking the shoulders as they carried him over. He was stiff as a board, though the panicked look in his eyes was at least sort of gone.
“You put a bet on me catching them?” Sapphire questioned as set him down. She wasn’t sure if she should be flattered or angry. Haiko held up his hands defensively, shaking his head.
“No no, Draki just didn’t believe all the stories, so I put two silver on the stories being true. Easiest bet ever.” That was more to Sapphire’s liking, and she gave him a slightly wicked smile. “You know we used to get a slice of the bets back then.”
“Hey, I got you your own personal protection service,” He replied, gesturing to the motley collection of dragonettes mulling about the square.
“That’s a word for it, I guess,” Sapphire replied, not overly impressed. It wasn’t like they had done much good tonight. “Take good care of him, I have some questions,” she went, leaving Haiko and going over to the now thoroughly tied up dragonette who had attacked her, the questioning already underway. Someone let out a suggestive growl as she walked by. The fact that she was wearing nothing but her underpants in the middle of the street dawning on her.
“Do that again and I’ll kill you,” she snarled, not sure who the offending member was, before turning her attention to the mercenary. “So… You thought kidnapping one of my friends was a good idea? How well would you say that went?” She questioned looking down at the piece of shit.
“Fucking brilliantly,” he responded angrily. “I ended up with a nice view if nothing else,” he continued with a shit-eating grin.
“How hard may I punch him?” She demanded, looking around at the guards. Most of them just looked confused at each other.
“As hard as I say so,” Maiko bellowed out, coming down alongside Dakota, who was carrying a very large unconscious female dragonette with an arrow sticking out of her back.
“Not your best shot, but it did the trick,” Dakota let out, unceremoniously dumping the dragonette on the ground before setting down. “Tie her up too, she won’t be out forever.”
After a bit they got the both of them tied up at about the same time as a contingent of city guards arrived, demanding to know what was going on. Sapphire cursed the fact she likely wouldn’t be allowed to beat the shit out of them now, as they began asking some very pointed questions.
“Oh yeah sure, a group of armed what was it... Tavern guards? Out at night with a pair of half-naked women and a dude who claims to be Royal Guard. And why has she been shot?!” the lead city guard questioned, looking around at them.
“Because she kidnapped him after stabbing him with vargulf poison,” Sapphire let out, wide armed. “How the fuck is that hard to understand!?”
“Calm down woman, who shot her?” the man questioned pointing at the female mercenary.
“I did and two other pieces of shit who tried to kill us!”
“Right, you're all coming with us. We need to know what happened here. Manacles,” the City Guard replied, snapping his fingers over his shoulder and receiving the item in question. Sapphire’s heart sank; she had never been arrested before. Closest she had ever gotten was being given a stern talking to for sneaking into the training fields.
Dakota looked ready with a reply, when Maiko beat her to it.
“Listen up you little shit-eating ground rat, see what this is?!” He went, holding up his sword, which true to form bore the royal insignia on the crossguard. “I will make a cape out of your fucking wings if you don’t man up and do your fucking job. These bastards attacked a tavern in the middle of the night, attempted murder, managed a kidnapping, then had a go at murder again during the desperate chase to catch them and your useless ass turns up just in time to insult the Royal Guard and be useless.”
“I’m gonna have to ask you to...” the city guard attempted to protest, though seemingly with a growing sense of apprehension.
“No, you may not. You are outranked! Or do I need to get the colonel to inform her the city guard is aiding an enemy of the crown? That would lead to some serious fucking cleansing of your unit, I can assure you of that!”
“In that case, I say we take you to the stockade and send for this colonel of yours, perhaps letting her know someone stole a blade from the Royal Guard armories.” Sapphire expected Maiko to explode at that insult, though he just pulled back with an evil smile.
“Very good sir, let’s go. Though I would appreciate the opportunity to get my uniform before appearing before my superior. You may escort me to the tavern in question if you wish.”
“That can be arranged, I assume you two wouldn’t mind getting dressed either, though I must insist on you accompanying us. Don’t we have a blanket or something?” he asked, looking back to his unit, eventually procuring a pair of thin woolen blankets.
“Bloody brilliant sir, how exactly do we fly with these?” Dakota questioned sounding very unimpressed.
“Uhm…”
As they were getting ready for takeoff Sapphire heard someone get a smack to the back of the head as she moved to check up on Balethon. Looking back, a slightly ashamed looking tavern guard was rubbing the back of his head, a very unimpressed woman standing next to him. ‘God fucking dammit’ she cursed to herself.
The ones who had woken up in the middle of the night broke off, going back to the tavern to get dressed in preparation for a long night. They wanted the bastards interrogated immediately anyway, even if getting interrogated themselves hadn't really been the plan. If this was the work of the Flaxens they would be doing their best to cover their tracks as soon as they learned of the mission's failure, so speed was of the essence.
“Why can’t we just be left in peace!” Dakota snapped as they were getting dressed. “Please let it just be the Flaxens so we can get them dealt with already.”
“Of course it’s them, who else could it be?” Sapphire dismissed her as she strapped on her greaves. Sapphire had a feeling Colonel Hashaw would not take kindly to this attack so she was bound to be there, therefore she needed to look proper in case they got fine company at the stockade.
Maiko had gone on to the Hashaw Estate to report back on the evening’s activities and hopefully convince Victoria to make an appearance. So Sapphire and Dakota found themselves standing in front of the stockade with a city guard escort.
It was a large, ugly building, looking like a place you wanted to avoid at all costs with its rough grey stone and metal barred cell windows lining the walls. “May they rot in here forever,” Sapphire let out as they were shown inside. She and Dakota were taken to different interrogation rooms. They were civil about it though, not even tying her up like she had feared.
The guy who had ‘caught them’ as he claimed was apparently in charge of this case. He formally introduced himself as Sergeant Lanok and set about asking questions, not many of which were intelligent. Where they were from, what they were doing here, why they had an armed escort in the middle of the night despite not even being properly dressed at the time.
He of course didn't believe most of the answers he was getting. Especially the part about being in the employ of the king at the moment, nor the whole Flaxen situation.
“What? You claim to be the target of a kidnapping attempt by a noble family, one on the council at that?! Give me a break,” Sapphire had to fight really hard not to slap him, but she didn’t want to end up in manacles, so she just stared at him contemptuously. Then there was a deep thunk that shook the building followed by creaking wood from above.
“This should be good,” Sapphire let out, leaning back with a smirk, relishing in the confusion on the guy’s face.
It took a bit longer than Sapphire had anticipated, as she refused to answer further questions, but there was eventually a knock on the door, Sergeant Lanok getting up to answer it. He was confronted by a very pissed looking Colonel Hashaw in formal uniform, Maiko and Yilditz at her back.
“You seem to have attempted to arrest one of my men and two people you really shouldn’t have. Not to mention waking both me and a decidedly grumpy 10 ton black dragon currently on your roof.”
‘So it wasn’t Baron then,’ Sapphire concluded. She doubted very much he could have been roused for this anyway, it also made sense to bring a black, they liked the night anyway. Maiko had been decent at laying out a string of insults, but Hashaw was clearly the source of his talent, as she chewed out not only the sergeant but anyone dumb enough to make an objection or not make themselves as small as they could including the captain of the Stockade much to Sapphire's horror.
It definitely helped that she was flanked by Ylditz, the person who had been tasked with finding out who the mercenaries were, as well as a few other family members. The dragon in question was apparently Tiguan, one of Jarix's training buddies. Sapphire guessed he was here just as much for a bit of experience then.
“Is there anyone dumb or useless enough in here to have anything more to say...? Very good. Where are the two who ‘actually’ need questioning?”
The tavern guards had been allowed to go, though Haiko had stuck around. The Sergeant was now looking very small as he took them to the room where the one who hadn’t been shot was sitting. The woman who had been carrying Balethon currently being treated.
“Do you have even the slightest idea how much you fucked up tonight?” Hashaw asked as she strode in the door, the sergeant holding it open for her.
“Pretty fucking badly I presume, but what the hell are you gonna do, huh? Gonna execute me, perhaps clip my wings? Doesn't matter if you’re Royal Guard or tavern guard the punishment is the same. So you don’t scare me woman or should I say… oh, Colonel, wow I really did fuck up, huh?” Well, Sapphire had to give it to him, he was taking the news that he was likely done for rather well, or perhaps he was just in denial about the whole thing.
“Oh, I can do worse than that I think. Sapphire, you wouldn’t happen to have learned a thing or two from our friend?”
“Might have done,” she admitted, thinking back to what she could remember of Tom’s escapades.
“Sergeant, what is the punishment for his crimes?”
“Well, he failed to kill anyone, hence he is charged with attempted murder and attempted kidnapping. So indentured servitude for quite a while. Unless he could pay for a prison sentence of course.”
“Right then, how about this? Tell me who sent you and I will pay for your prison time,” the colonel then went, looking to the perp. “I know you were hired to do this, so while you may be a piece of shit it’s not you that I want. Alternatively, I could start pulling strings until we get some alone time with you and make your life really fucking unpleasant.”
Sapphire looked slightly nervously to the sergeant, but he was still cowering, so she guessed Hashaw got away with threatening to break the law inside the stockade. It was a generous offer too. If this guy was going away for a long time, paying for it wasn’t gonna be cheap.
“You know my choice is death or slavery here. You can’t be dumb enough to believe they will let me live if I talk.”
“That depends on who sent you, because if it is who I think it is they won't be around to send someone to kill you after this.” Again Sapphire was fairly sure they couldn't condemn the entire Flaxen family for something like this, but hey if it works it works.
“You seriously think we take jobs directly? It’s not the client that will kill me dipshit. My boss would.” Hashaw was very clearly not pleased with that answer, as she turned to the sergeant.
“Would you agree this man is guilty, on the word of both independent tavern guards, the Royal Guard, and our two huntresses of the noble Bizmati Keep? Or do you insist on a mock trial for this piece of shit?”
The sergeant looked a tad bewildered for a second before nodding. “Yes ma’am. I’ll have him sent off to the deepest mine I can find tomorrow.”
“No, I want him handed over to the Royal Guard so we may question him as an enemy combatant.”
“You cannot do that and you know it,” the sergeant replied, finally standing up for himself. Clearly to Hashaw’s great annoyance.
“Then I want you to get me a telepath. Am I correct in assuming his rights on that matter are no longer in place even if I can’t pull his claws out?”
“Yes, but we don’t have one, ma’am. You must understand, a criminal’s mind is not exactly the kindest place to be.”
“Weak-minded cowards,” Hashaw cursed, looking away pondering. “Fine keep him here, you may continue with your excuse for questioning. I’ll be back, luckily not everyone is as weak of spine.”
__________________________________________________________________________________
So then We have prisoners to work with once again. hopefully, they will fare a little better than the last one. then again... Maybe not. As always do let me know what you thought down below be it good bad or just generally hilarious.
until next time, have an awesome day.

ko-fi For having more pretty pictures commissioned.
Sapphire
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Just in case you missed it, the pancake chapter: Pancake!

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15 ADULT JOKES hidden in TOY STORY 😏😂 - YouTube

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150 Funny Adult Jokes - Hilarious Humor for Adults in 2021

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In my 28 years of Gaming Experiences... Cyberpunk 2077 is by far the most unbalanced gaming experience I've had to date.