Universal Pictures! Here are options for downloading or watching Knock at the Cabin streaming the full movie online for free on 123movies & Reddit, including where to watch the anticipated Thriller movie at home. Knock at the Cabin 2023 available to stream? Is watching Knock at the Cabin on Disney Plus, HBO Max, Netflix or Amazon Prime? Yes, we have found an authentic streaming option/service.
Watch Now>> Knock at the Cabin Online Free
M. Night Shyamalan has a knack for making audiences jump in their seats, and Knock at the Cabin joins the ranks of some of his most jump-worthy movies. Fans have been jumping in theaters with the success of M3GAN, and with a cast that includes Jonathan Groff, Dave Bautista and Rupert Grint, this thriller promises to make you squirm…and make you think.

There’s nothing like a peaceful family vacation to a cabin in the woods. That is until the cabin becomes the target of a group of people who may or may not be trying to kill you. Bautista plays Leonard, a burly man who shows up to the cabin with a dire warning: the family must make a sacrifice or be responsible for thousands of deaths.

It’s an impossible situation, but when your family is on the line you do whatever it takes. Here’s everything we know about the upcoming movie:

When Does Knock at the Cabin Come Out?
Knock at the Cabin releases in US and UK theaters on February 3, 2023. It shares a fairly quiet release weekend with the comedy 80 for Brady.

The movie will debut exclusively in theaters, and it won’t be available to stream until at least 30 to 45 days after its release. As a Universal Pictures movie, it’s expected to land on the Peacock streaming platform.

Is Knock at the Cabin Releasing on Streaming or in Theaters?
In order to see what's in store for M. Night Shyamalan's newest feature and the twists and turns that lie within it, audiences will need to head to the movie theater to see it on the big screen when it premieres. Leonard and his band of would-be doomsday preventers will come knocking on the door of a theater near you starting Friday, February 3, 2023. No plans for a streaming release have been made known just yet, but given that Knock at the Cabin is a Universal Pictures production, it's likely that the film will be available on Peacock if and when the film makes its debut on streaming adding to the streamers already impressive catalog of horror films.

For those who don't have Peacock yet, there are two main subscription plans: Premium and Premium+ (the service is also technically available free with ads but typically newer releases require a paid subscription). Premium costs $4.99 USD per month and offers access to the entire Peacock catalog of movies and shows as well as select live television events with limited ads. Premium+ costs $9.99 USD per month and offers all the benefits of the less expensive tier but with no ads and the ability to download titles to watch offline.

Where to Watch Knock at the Cabin Online Free?
As of now, the only way to watch Knock at the Cabin is to head to a theater when it releases on Friday, Feb. 3. You can find a local showing on Fandango. Otherwise, you’ll just have to wait for it to become available to rent or buy on digital platforms like Vudu, Amazon, Apple and YouTube, or become available to stream on Peacock. Read on for more information.

Watch Now: Knock at the Cabin Online Free

Following its release in theaters, the film will be available to stream on Peacock. Expect the movie to hit the streamer 45 days after its theatrical run, which should be sometime in December.

Knock at the Cabin on Netflix?
Unfortunately, Knock at the Cabin isn’t available to stream on Netflix. The romantic comedy isn’t included in the lineup of Netflix movies, which includes a vast number of rom-coms featuring some of our favorite actors and actresses.

If you want to watch Julia Roberts movies on Netflix, check out Ben Is Back, August: Osage County, Steel Magnolias, and Runaway Bride. Roberts always appeared in Ocean’s Eleven and Ocean’s Twelve with her Knock at the Cabin co-star George Clooney, and both movies are currently streaming on Netflix as of October 2023.

Will Knock at the Cabin Available On Peacock?
While a streaming release date has not yet been announced for Knock at the Cabin, we can estimate when it could head to Peacock based on another Universal Pictures movie.

Ticket to Paradise, which hit theaters on Oct. 21, became available to stream on Peacock on Dec. 9 — a little over 45 days after its theatrical release. If Knock at the Cabin follows the same pattern, it could make its way to the platform by late March. However, other movies like Nope took more than 100 days, so it’s best to take this estimate with a grain of salt.

Will Knock at the Cabin Streaming On HBO Max?
No, Knock at the Cabin will not be on HBO Max since it’s not a Warner Bros. movie. While the company previously released its movies on HBO Max and in theaters on the same day, they have since stopped and have implemented a 45-day window between the theatrical release and streaming release.

Knock at the Cabin cast
Knock at the Cabin features an all-star cast led by Jonathan Groff and Dave Bautista.

Groff (Mindhunter) and Ben Aldridge (Fleabag) are fathers to Wen (Kristen Cui, in her feature film debut).

Bautista (Glass Onion) plays Leonard, a burly and potentially menacing man who shows up with Rupert Grint (Servant), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Avenue 5) and Abby Quinn (Mad About You) bearing news that will rattle this family to the core.

Jonathan Groff as Andrew
Ben Aldrige as Eric
Kristen Cui as Wen
Dave Bautista as Leonard
Rupert Grint as Redmond
Nikki Amuka-Bird as Adriene
Abby Quinn as Sabrina

I'm Amy, an experienced academic writer with extensive research papers knowledge.
Are You stuck on that research project and do not know how to commence, or are you just wholly held up on other activities outside school, that you do not have time to work on it. Do not worry. I can help you with that.
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I just wanted to share this milestone victory to remind everyone that you can totally still have fun at a club without drinking.
I turned big 40 last Friday which was a big deal because it was my second birthday without drinking. For context and background I drank half gallons of cheap whiskey daily. Two years ago, May 18th 2021, I went dry and just white knuckled it without rehab or detox. I had to play it off at work and around people that I was just stressed or tired. On top of that my wife and I are also big into the techno, trance, and EDM Scene.
Since I quit when COVID was still going strong and clubs were closed we didn't really go out to clubs after I stopped drinking. I live in Miami and this year I knew that Miami Music Week was going to be sick! We saw that Resistance was opening a residency in South Beach and nothing was going to stop me from going! Resistance is one of the biggest club residencies in the world. They put on a huge stage at Ultra and during the Summer in Ibiza they do a weekly residency.
I'm at the point where I have no intentions of ever going back to drinking because of all of the progress I've made physically, professionally, and personally. Still, I wasn't sure how a sober night of clubbing was going to go for me. I used to pregame before going out and then at the club I would just order whatever alcohol I was in the mood for. It also gave me energy to stay out late.
Well we got to the club and immediately I parked myself right in front of the stage. First thing I noticed was that I wasn't going to the bar every 30 minutes, losing my place in front of the DJ, and then searching for my wife. The music was absolutely insane! Second thing I noticed was that I was still totally lost in my world by being blown away with the stage set up without alcohol. Third thing that I noticed was that I had MORE energy to party! I wasn't swaying back and fourth, bumping into other people, the DJ booth (yeah Paul Oakenfold was pretty pissed about that one in 2018 when played at Hyde Miami Beach), or completely sweating. I did visit the bar once to buy 2 Red Bulls, a water, and a pineapple juice. The bartender comped me the pineapple juice which he thought was pretty cool that I ordered. FYI, most bartenders I found will comp you juices from mixers for free so tip them well! Fourth thing I noticed was that it was 3AM before I knew it. I used to get bored when the alcohol was wearing off and would have to drink more in order to get that vibe back. The vibe was with me the entire night without alcohol. At 3 we finally left and made our way back home. The fifth and final thing that I noticed was that I was not a complete train wreck disaster the next morning. Wondering what I did the night before, trying to piece everything together, and dealing with my wife because I did something stupid which I didn't notice. It was a completely memorable experience without alcohol and gave me a huge boost of confidence because my biggest fear was missing out on parties and DJ sets because I gave up drinking.
The key take away I want to leave everyone with is that alcohol doesn't define fun at a party, club, or concert. It really doesn't. YOU set your own vibe, not the alcohol. If you're like me and thinking that you won't have fun or do the same social activities anymore because you're giving up alcohol that's not the case. I enjoyed the experience even more and made a memorable experience without alcohol. Oh and I saved about $200 that night as well! Lastly, there were other ravers not drinking. That's something you notice when you stop drinking is that surprisingly there are a TON of people who don't drink at clubs.
Anyways, thank you for reading and best of luck to everyone on your journey here! It's hard at first when life throws little tests of resilience at you but once you get through them in your initial stages you get rewarded beyond belief!

I'm Amy, an experienced academic writer with extensive research papers knowledge.
Are You stuck on that research project and do not know how to commence, or are you just wholly held up on other activities outside school, that you do not have time to work on it. Do not worry. I can help you with that.
Email: [email protected]
Over the years, I have gained progressive experience in analytical research papers, Argumentative /persuasive research papers, cause and effect, and survey research papers.
I handle varying subjects, Business, Law, English Literature Review, History, Social Sciences, psychology, sociology, and Nursing
I prefer long-term work relationships with my clients. Therefore, my rates are from as low as $15 per page of APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard formatting styles.
Quality and plagiarism-free work Guaranteed.
My work is timely and confidential.
NB: Discounted rates on the first few orders.
Thank you for your time!

Brynnhildr is a bruiseassassin with disruptive short ranged skills and the ability to enter battle on her own terms. She starts out as a high impact assassin and transitions into a disruptive bruiser.

Lore

Frodnar stood up, blinking, with much effort. Why was he on the ground? Where were his axe and shield? Why did everything seem so unreal and dreamlike? The sounds of battle seemed distant and the muddy field was steeped in an unearthly glow. As he slowly pondered these questions, still stunned from that mace blow, someone behind him put a hand on his shoulder. "Frodnar, it is time", she spoke.
"They got me, didn't they?"
She nodded silently, waiting for his bearsmead trance to wear off. As the blood left his body, so would the elixir leave his mind. They had made it farther than the enemy must have expected, just the twenty of them with axes and wolfskins going up against the entire legion. The ambush was flawless, but it was not enough. She knew it was never going to be enough.
"Where is the warband? How many of the rooster draggers did I take down with me?"
She shook her head, with not a hint of sadness in her eyes. "Grapeshot."
"But I can't... The village needs me! The women and children...!"
She remained silent.
"You can skewer their whole legion on that god-spear of yours. Do something!"
"The Gods wove the tapestry of fate to be admired, not touched. Your death was prophesised." She handed him his axe and shield back and coolly continued, "Come with me, einherjer. Your time on Runeterra is over, but one final battle awaits," as the earth quietly dropped out from under the pair and the skies faded into a brilliant white glow and gave way to the myriad stars of Nivheim.

Lying on the floor of a hastily dug trench, a young woman looked up at the stars, watching the glare of a falling star streak past overhead. A portent from the heavens; a sign of victory or doom? She did not dare to hope for much more than a bitter victory, and even that would be a miracle. The legion was still advancing on their position and her brothers were probably already dead. Their only hope was that the men had done enough damage to dissuade them from a frontal attack.
"Mom, the falling star, what does it mean?", a boy asked, no older than fifteen.
"It means we will win this, Bjarn. The Gods are with us. Maybe you'll get to kill a war elephant!", she said, gesturing to the makeshift crossbow he was holding in his knuckles.
It sounded very unconvincing, and Bjarn knew it, and so did the falling star descending invisibly on the small group of defenders. Unbeknowst to the mortals in the trenches, the enemy already knew their position and were loading their cannons. Bjarn would never even get to shoot his crossbow, and then she would rush the enemy ranks in a suicidal charge and that would be that. Wrong place, wrong time, as fate ordained.
As she gave her son a hug, the falling star landed silently on the ruins, watching the small group of defenders in the trench that would be their tomb. A single ethereal tear fell and vanished as the cannons flared in the distance.

Behind the thunder of the barrage, a faint ripple in the tapestry drew the messenger's eye, a single thread unwinding far behind enemy lines. The defenders were still alive: one of the cannons had not fired. Through the din of battle, she listened.
I will not shoot at women and children so the high command can add a few more miles to their borders. Fire! Fire, soldier! This is an order! We can just put down our weapons and walk away. We can put an end to this. Hands in the air! Drop the match! Drop it!
She cast one last glance at the stars she would never touch again and landed at Bjarn's side, taking care not to startle the boy.
"Be not afraid, Bjarn. You need to do something. You know how to use that crossbow?" "Yes, I... shot a rat... just yesterday..." "Good. See that star up there, just a bit brighter than the others? Aim straight at it and shoot." "Who are..." "Do not sit here waiting to die. Shoot. Follow my last prophecy. Unravel the tapestry."
And Bjorn did as she asked, and watched the crude dart arc into the distance, carried by a lucky wind.
This is bigger than you, soldier. If you don't fire, someone else will, and if they don't, someone else will. You are nothing!
Suddenly, unexpectedly, but exactly as the messenger had prophesised, a crossbow bolt fell from the sky, knocking the lit match out of the soldier's hand, sending it tumbling through the air and into a nearby barrel.

As the echoes of the bombardment faded, the mother gripped her sword, awaiting the charge. In the distance, the enemy line rushed towards them, then hesitated, stumbled; swept off their horses and knocked to the ground by a scorching wind as the horizon lit up with a brilliant glow. Burning debris and a cloud of gunpowder smoke filled the sky.
"The cannons! Bjarn, the cannons!" She turned to her son and who is that wait is that a--
"Is... is Bjarn dead?" "Not right now. Maybe later," the messenger replied. "Are we going to die?" "I do not know. The tapestry is unwoven, your fate is now in your hands alone. I have broken my oath; the power of prophecy is no longer mine."
The messenger looked around the trench, pointing her spear at the enemy line where the soldiers were clambering around, disoriented, searching for their weapons and horses. "Listen up! The children stay here and watch for ambushes. The adults join me! We strike that wagon over there before they remember which way to point their swords. That's their carrier pigeon cage. We take that out, we cut their communication lines."
"We can actually win this?", the mother asked.
"We have been given a chance. Nothing more, nothing less. The rest is up to us," the valkyrie replied.
And when her warhorn sounded and she took to the air, the villagers rose up from the trenches and the einherjer with them, rushing the enemy line, as flaming debris rained down from the heavens like falling stars.

Model

Brynnhildr is a valkyrie who has broken her oath and is doomed to remain in Runeterra. She has gray feathered wings with hints of iridescent starlight and wears elegant gray starmetal armor, a deep blue feather cloak and a circlet decorated with starmetal wings over long blonde hair streaming behind her.
She uses her wings to hover just above the ground, but walks when slowed.
Her weapon of choice is a long starmetal spear. She usually holds it one-handed, but grips it in two hands during [Q] Star of Hope.
When she dies, her corpse burns away with starlight flames, leaving no body.

Easter egg: On her left hand she wears an enchanted ring, forged by Ornn out of stolen Runegold.

Skins

Death-Fate Brynnhildr: Raven feathers and a black hooded cloak; one of the Greek Keres.
Merciful Brynnhildr: Old soldiers may fade, but HEROES NEVER DIE.
Biblically Accurate Brynnhildr: Be not afraid. (Legendary skin; three lion heads and flaming wheels rotating like helicopter blades.)

Abilities

[Passive] Taker of the Slain

"I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the Gods have taken an interest in you."
Doom-Sight: Brynnhildr has vision of all allied champion corpses on the map.
Guide the Einherjer: Brynnhildr can right click an allied champion corpse within range to fly to its location and carry off its spirit. For each spirit chosen this way, she gains bonus damage and defence until that champion respawns. This can only be performed once per corpse.

Stat	Value
Guide the Fallen: Range	400
Guide the Fallen: Buff: Bonus attack damage	5 (+level/2) (=5-14 to 20-56 total)
Guide the Fallen: Buff: Bonus armoMR	3 (+level/3) (=3-9 to 12-36 total)
Guide the Fallen: Mana cost	30

[Passive] Gray Swan

hums 'Ride of the Valkyries'
Brynnhildr can fly at a higher altitude, assuming a more streamlined pose and gaining bonus movement speed, ghosting and increased vision range.

To activate, Brynnhildr must move in the same direction for a certain distance to attain enough lift, after which she automatically flaps her wings to climb.
The ability ends when Brynnhildr attacks, casts an ability or takes damage.

Stat	Value
Movement speed	+30% (+2/level) (=32-66%)
Vision range	+150
Activates when moving in the same direction for a distance of	1250

[Q] Star of Hope

"Remember the dead, but fight for the living."
Brynnhildr performs a short dash with her spear, damaging the first enemy unit in her path. On impact, she flaps her starlight infused wings, dealing area effect damage to enemy units next to the target in a line perpendicular to its travel path. The dash can collide with terrain obstacles.
If Brynnhildr is in [Passive] Gray Swan mode, she performs a much longer ranged point-and-click "Swan Dive", swooping down with a shrieking cry and crashing into the target with a spear attack followed by a wing spin that deals area effect damage in a radius around the target. This version of the ability can travel over terrain obstacles.
The "Swan Dive" can also target allied champion corpses at an even longer distance, immediately applying [Passive] Taker of the Slain to the corpse.

Stat	Value
Range (Regular)	450
Range (Swan Dive)	900 (1350 if corpse targetted)
Wing strike (Regular): Width	250
Wing strike (Swan Dive): Radius	300
Wing strike: Physical damage	40/70/100/130/160 (+1.15 total AD)
Cooldown	12/11/10/9/8 seconds
Mana cost	70/75/80/85/90

[W] Between Worlds

"It is not yet your time. Return whence you came."
Brynnhildr grabs an enemy unit in melee range and carries them into the sky, making both herself and the target untargettable for a short time before dive bombing the target back down for major damage and a slow. If this is the last enemy unit and the damage kills it, she then immediately goes into [Passive] Gray Swan mode.
If Brynnhildr activates this ability during [Q] Star of Hope, it immediately casts on impact instead of waiting for the animation to finish. This deletes the wing strike and its area effect damage, dealing the damage only to the direct target, but prevents the target from escaping after the dash lands.

Stat	Value
Duration	Up to 1.25 seconds (impact occurs 0.25 seconds before the end)
Impact: Physical damage	30/50/70/90/110 (+1.0 total AD)
Impact: Slow	50% fading over 1.1/1.2/1.3/1.4/1.5 seconds
Cooldown	18/16/14/12/10 seconds
Mana cost	80/85/90/95/100

[E] Valravn

"Your fall was preordained. Come with me."
Passive: The enchantment on her Ring of Runegold increases Brynnhildr's attack speed against enemy champions and applies a stacking "Doomed" mark to the target, up to 3 stacks.
Active: Must be cast at a target in melee range with 3 "Doomed" stacks on it. Brynnhildr grabs the target and leaps backwards with a flap of her wings, taking the target with her. If she jumps over a terrain obstacle this way, the target is pulled into the obstacle and stunned, allowing her to escape.

Stat	Value
Passive: Bonus attack speed	20/25/30/35/40%
Passive: Mark duration	2 seconds (refreshed on attack)
Active: Backwards leap distance	350
Active: Terrain collision stun to target	1.5 seconds
Active: Cooldown	12/11/10/9/8 seconds
Active: Mana cost	60/65/70/75/80

[R] Götterdämmerung

"Fight. Go. Take back this world from the Gods."
Brynnhildr sends the einherjer, the immortal spirits of her chosen champions, to attack her opponents.
The einherjer are invulnerable and intangible flying warrior spirits with swords and axes (canonically they are the champions she has chosen with [Passive] Taker of the Slain). They appear behind Brynnhildr, seek out an enemy champion with "Doomed" stacks from [E] Valravn and fly into the target while swinging their weapon for damage. They pass through their target several times, turning around with wide arcs to attack again before dissipating when their attack limit is reached.

If more than one enemy champion has stacks, the attacks are split between them depending on their relative number of stacks (if one has 3 stacks and one has 1 stack, the damage is split 75-25%).
The stacks on the target(s) do not fall off while the spirits are attacking them.
If the target dies, the spirits will find other targets with stacks to exhaust their remaining attacks.
The spirits will pursue targets indefinitely, but have a maximum duration and will dissipate when it runs out regardless of how many attacks remain.
This ability cannot be cast if there are no enemy champions with stacks within its detection radius.

The number of spirits increases based on the number of champions she has chosen with [Passive] Taker of the Slain.

Stat	Value
Detection radius	800
Number of Einherjer	3 + Number of champions currently chosen with [Passive] Taker of the Slain
Einherjer: Movement speed	600
Einherjer: Attack limit	3 (destroyed after 5 seconds)
Einherjer: Physical damage	15/25/35 (+0.1 bonus AD) (=45/75/105 (+0.3 bonus AD) per spirit) (=135/225/315 (+0.9 bonus AD) to 315/525/735 (+2.1 bonus AD) total)
Cooldown	180/140/100 seconds

Gameplay

Brynnhildr goes top or jungle, starting with [Q] Star of Hope in top lane and [E] Valravn in the jungle.
In either role, her lack of sustain hampers her ability to passively farm and she should hunt for early kills instead. Engaging with [Q] Star of Hope into [W] Between Worlds results in decent damage and delays their escape, potentially leading to a pull from [E] Valravn to stall them further while she auto attacks them.
In the jungle, she is very mobile thanks to [Passive] Gray Swan. It does need a runway to activate and turns off when she gets hit, making it much harder to use in top lane and mitigating the potentially abusive scenario of being able to hard engage from outside the opponent's range.
At level 6, the ultimate comes online. It only deals damage, and not a lot of it at first, but the spirits continue to pursue the target until their duration or attack limit runs out. It is primarily useful for counterganking and dragon fights because the damage scales up if her allies die first and [Q] Star of Hope has a very long range when aimed at an allied corpse.
Her weakest point is the mid game. Her AD scaling is not the greatest and she lacks defensive buffs and therefore needs [W] Between Worlds as an aggro dump, using it like Playful/Trickster instead of as part of her combo. This is a transitional phase and she should build hard defence at this point.
In the end game, her role shifts into a disruptive bruiser tank of sorts. Damage falls off, but her attack speed gets fast enough to chain [E] Valravn after [W] Between Worlds, trapping the target in a CC combo if they don't manage to escape the slow. Furthermore, she now benefits from staying longer in the fight due to [Passive] Taker of the Slain and the power of [R] Götterdämmerung to turn a losing teamfight around if she waits until the last moment (but no longer) to cast it.

Champion Creation Contest

Late: I thought it said "Fate" until I read the following paragraph, but I like my version better.
Ability with multiple distinct uses: [Q] Star of Hope can be a tactical dash with damage perpendicular to its path, or a point and click long ranged dash with splash damage.

My friends and I are thinking of trying out Oathbreaker, so I put together a Saheeli deck using Thoughtcast as the signature spell. The decklist is located here:
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/pRvXPTJfREaT1sqBwkXXpg
The deck's plan is to power out Saheeli on turns 1 or 2, then draw through the deck with [[Thoughtcast]] in order to look for the combo pieces necessary to win the game. Thoughtcast needs either two artifacts to be created with each cast or a way to generate at least one mana per cast to overcome the signature spell tax. If you can both create 2 artifacts and generate a mana, you go infinite. There are some key cards that let us achieve this:
[[Third Path Iconoclast]]
[[Urza, Lord High Artificer]]
[[Birgi, God of Storytelling]]
[[Mass Hysteria]] plus [[Sorcerer Class]] at level 1
Then we win by leveling Sorcerer Class to level 2 or by casting [[Aetherflux Reservoir]] and storming off. The deck also runs the classic Dramatic Scepter combo to generate infinite mana and win by drawing through our library to find our main two wincons.
Third Path Iconoclast is the key card printed recently that makes generating the necessary artifacts an easy process. Saheeli can even make a copy of this card to let us create 3 1/1s with each Thoughtcast. The sheer number of creatures we create makes [[Battle Hymn]] a game-winning ritual, capable of making 20+ mana in one go. We can filter this mana to U by moving Paradise Mantle around on our non-summoning sick creatures to dig even deeper.
We run all the cheap red rituals to power out Saheeli ASAP and then it's off to the races. [[Wheel of Fortune]] is used on the winning turn to be a more efficient Thoughtcast that doesn't use blue mana, the thing we'll be gated by the most.
I'm mainly looking for ideas on powerful cards I may have missed.

I'm from EU,so GAMES SHOULD work pretty much anywhere
NOT BUYING GAMES,ONLY TRADES - games for games or selling for paypal
No interest in TF2 keys
BUYER covers the FEES (if outside EU,EU F&F only)
My Steam account so you don't offer me something I own
My Wishlist
My SGSRep
My IGSRep

Only looking for Steam games - so don't offer origin,uplay,rockstar,bnet or ANY other launcher
100% of my games keys are bought by me from official stores & I expect the same in return,so don't offer me keyshop games or game keys you got in a trade as I will decline
I retain the right to ask for proof of ownership for ANY game I want - just like you have the right to ask me the same
Don't offer me VR games as I don't own a VR headset

List of games I have:
Also have the Earthquake Relief bundle,but reddit wont let me write all the games cause my topic would be too big - just ask
7 Billion Humans
8Doors Arum's Afterlife Adventure
10 Second Ninja X
60 Seconds!
112 Operator
140
198X
911 Operator
A Case Of Distrust
A Year Of Rain
Absolver
Aeolis Tournament
Age Of Wonders III
Ageless
Airport CEO
AI War 2
Alien Spidy
Aliens Vs Predator Collection
All You Can Eat
Almost There The Platformer
American Fugitive
Amnesia A Machine For Pigs + The Dark Descent (1 key for both games)
Amnesia Fortnight 2012
Amnesia Fortnight 2014
Amnesia Fortnight 2017
Amnesia Rebirth (X2)
Among Us (X2)
Ancestors The Humankind Odyssey (EU & Africa lock)
Aragami (X2)
Archamon
Armello
Army Men RTS
Attack Of The Earthlings
Automobilista
Aven Colony
Avernum 3 Ruined World
Azkend 2 The World Beneath
Back 4 Blood (EU region lock)
Backbone
Band Of Defenders
Banished
Baseball Riot
Batora Lost Haven NEW
Battlestar Galactica Deadlock
Beholder 2
Bendy And The Dark Revival
Bendy And The Ink Machine
Betrayer (delisted)
Between The Stars (X2)
Beyond Eyes
Beyond The Wire
Biomutant NEW
Bionic Commando
Bird Of Light
Black Paradox
Blade Assault
Blasphemous
Bohemian Killing
Book Of Demons
Bomber Crew Deluxe
Borderlands 3 + Director's Cut (EMEA region lock)
Boreal Blade
Broken Age (X2)
Brothers A Tale Of Two Sons (X2)
Butcher
Call Of Juarez
Call Of The Sea (X2)
Call To Arms Basic Edition
Call To Arms Gates Of Hell Ostfront
Car Mechanic Simulator 2018
Chenso Club
Chernobylite Enhanced Edition (X2)
Cities In Motion 2
CivCity Rome
Clone Drone In The Danger Zone
Clouds & Sheep 2
Coffin Dodgers
Cook Serve Delicious 3
Command & Conquer Remastered Collection (Origin key)
Company Of Heroes Complete Edition
Control Ultimate Edition NEW
Corridor Z
Cosmic Osmo And The World Beyond The Mackerel
Crash Drive 3
Creatures Inc
Crookz The Big Heist
Crossbow Bloodnight
Crusader Kings Complete
Crying Suns
Dagon The Eldritch Box
Danger Scavenger
Day Of Infamy
Dead Age
Dead By Daylight
Dead In Vinland
Deadly Premonition Director's Cut
Deadbeat Heroes (X2)
Dear Ester Landmark Edition
Death Squared
Deep Dungeons Of Doom
Deep Sky Derelicts
Demon Turf NEW
Deployment
Desert Child
Diaries Of A Spaceport Janitor
Dicey Dungeons (X2)
Dimension Drifter
Distraint 2 + Soundtrack
Divekick
Dog Sled Saga
Double Fine Adventures Complete Series Deluxe
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Final part in the series about the mirroring act between the three Aen Elle elves & their Continental counterparts. Previous works: Black Knights: Parallels Between Eredin & Cahir Love(less) Sorcerers: Parallels Between Avallac'h & Vilgefortz

“Emperors rule their empires, but two things they cannot rule: their hearts and their time. Those two things belong to the empire.”
“The end justifies the means.”
Leaders of the highest order for their people, both rulers pursue the greater good at the expense of decency and their own humanity. A greater good to be achieved through similar means – by begetting the child who is prophesised.

Intent

In the Witcher, both Auberon and Emhyr are embroiled in a plot of siring the child of prophecy with Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon – their blood relative. Genetically, the incest is a matter of degree: Emhyr is Ciri’s biological father, Auberon Ciri’s ancestor 8 generations past. Symbolically, however, the degree collapses with Auberon because a few human generations are meaningless to elves. They call Ciri Lara’s daughter, effectively deeming Ciri Auberon’s granddaughter. But the reader – not unlike Ciri herself – won’t know about this until the very end of the tale.
Notionally, both rulers bind their actions with Ithlinne’s prophecy. The problem with prophecies is they decouple arguments from verification, lending themselves to the rationalization of all and any action. At least insofar as knowing the future accurately is impossible. This is the case for humanity, it is not the case for elves. Elven prophecies were made by the elves and for the elves in the first place. Consequently, the degree to which each ruler knows the prophecy to be true and believes in it differs. For Emhyr, mystical secret knowledge of the universe is irrelevant in comparison to political expedience: reason of state is what the tomorrow will bring. The Nilfgaardian Emperor is neither a mystic nor a fatalist. Contrary to the Alder King – a Sage, a ruler, and an elder – who has witnessed and likely verified some of what the Seers have prophesised. Elves conceive of the nature of time as cyclical in which the fate of things is tied up in the endless repetition of endings giving birth to new beginnings, the dance of attraction between life and death, two sides of the same coin which form the singular eternal truth of existence – change is only an eternal reoccurrence and re-arrangement of all. Auberon, you see, is a bit of a mystic. And even without Seers privy to secret knowledge, an extraordinary life span reduces the elves’ proclivity to black swan fallacy, or at least pushes the error probabilities. But at the end of the day, mysticism takes the cake.
The idea that either ruler must be the progenitor, however, comes at the instigation of an outside force.
Shortly after Ciri’s birth Emhyr is visited by a sorcerer. Emhyr has a strong aversion to mages; he was cursed by one. Even so, Vilgefortz proves himself capable of helping him regain the Nilfgaardian throne and is straightforward about what he wishes in exchange – gratitude, favours, privileges, power. Vilgefortz tells Emhyr about Ithlinne’s prophecy – a version about the fate of the world; a human interpretation. Then he plants the seed as to what Emhyr should do to steer the fate of this world. Naturally, he has his own agenda. It is not a huge leap of imagination to conceive of Auberon having been similarly persuaded by Avallac’h (an elven Knowing One who thematically parallels the human Vilgefortz). Not only are Avallac’h and Auberon tied by broken familial bonds, they are each a participant of the Elder Blood programme; and each, a Sage. Avallac’h serves nearly as a double for Auberon, his own fate also tied with Ciri’s. And Auberon is a “willing unwilling” in his arrangement with Ciri; implied so in his rage when he reveals Ciri ought to be grateful to him for lowering himself to the endeavour at all. There is an alternative.
Neither the Emperor nor the Alder King is pursuing the incestuous course of action out of lust. But both have the option to waive being the sire. Ithlinne’s prophecy is not explicit about the father of the Swallow’s child. For elves the match is backed by science. For humanity – pragmatism.
Emhyr has ordered to wipe out the Usurper’s name from the annals of history and is cementing his earthly power, conquering and ensuring the succession laws play out in his favour. Not only is he legitimatizing his rule over Cintra – the gateway to the North – by marrying its last monarch’s granddaughter, by keeping it in the family, he is also consolidating his rule among the Nilfgaardian aristocracy. The Emperor’s concern lies with the dynastic struggle for power: it is his blood that should rule the world and because history is bending its arc according to Nilfgaard’s dictation that means surmounting the Nilfgaardian succession laws. From such perspective, not fathering Ciri’s child would create numerous problems. Ciri as Emhyr’s heir would remain behind any other male offspring he might have (with any Nilfgaardian aristocrat). Ciri might not be acknowledged as a legitimate successor in Nilfgaard in the first place as she is a foreigner, born in Cintra at a time when her father was not yet an emperor; a bastard, effectively, and a girl besides. Ciri’s husband, moreover, may have designs on power himself and his remaining under Emhyr’s control, or Ciri’s control, is not a guarantee. It is difficult to be the correctly-shaped chess piece in a game of interests of the state. That a widely recited prophecy about the fate of the world can lend an aura of destiny to the brutal political machinations undertaken to seek retribution and pursue earthly power is convenient; a descendant who will be the ruler of the world – a bonus. But to get there sacrifices must be made.

‘Cirilla,’ continued the emperor, ‘will be happy, like most of the queens I was talking about. It will come with time. Cirilla will transfer the love that I do not demand at all onto the son I will beget with her. An archduke, and later an emperor. An emperor who will beget a son. A son, who will be the ruler of the world and will save the world from destruction. Thus speaks the prophecy whose exact contents only I know.’ ’What I am doing, I am doing for posterity. To save the world.’ - Lady of the Lake

Notably, the manner in which the Emperor claims to understand Ithlinne’s prophecy does not make guarantees that a father’s incest with his daughter will ensure his progeny will one day save the world. The saviour is a few generations away and the causal arrow between now and then is not direct: the son could die, could father a child with a genetically non-fitting partner, could be sterile, or could turn out to be a daughter altogether. Not to even begin with what the world needs saving from in the first place; again, elven prophecies were written by the elves and for the elves. Emhyr var Emreis is neither an elf, a geneticist, an idealist nor a mystic. He is an autocrat.
Elder Blood is the creation of elves and it is elves who understand how their genetic abilities play into handling what was foretold by Ithlinne. Emhyr’s daughter, the Lady of Time and Space, is the descendant of an Alder King who has utilized Hen Ichaer in the past and whose ambitions lie in an altogether different ball park than that of an Emperor of one single world. Appropriately to the Saga’s love for subversion, it is ironic that human understanding of elven prophecies remains on the level of poetry, while elves – the irritatingly poetic, mystical species – can read the science elevating the prophetic jargon into something more. Which regardless does not invalidate the problem with prophecies: they lend themselves to the rationalization of action, frequently covering up the real horses the powerful might have in the race. Legitimatization of the ruler’s right to remain the leader of their people is relevant in Auberon’s life too. More on that when we return to the Fisher King parable and the nature of curses upon the two rulers.

Role & Relationships

Let’s take a look at the characters’ personalities.
Appearance: a play of contrasts
A very tall, slender elf with long fingers and ashen hair shot with snow-white streaks. An elf with the most extraordinary eyes – as on all Elder Blood carriers – reminiscent of molten lead. A man with black, shiny, wavy hair bordering an angular, masculine face that is dominated by a prominent nose (hooked, presumably, or Roman if you like). The Emperor of Nilfgaard does not resemble an androgynous elf by any means. But this does not mean nothing remains in him of the elven gene pool. Not only does Emhyr’s etymological origin link with the Romano-Celtic world underpinning all things elven in the Witcher. Nilfgaardians are effectively the Romano-Brytons. The human population in the South of the Continent mixed with elves heavily, retaining a lot of elven law, customs, language, and DNA. As Avallac’h says about heritability, “the father matters,” and Emhyr was one half of the equation for getting Ciri.
Rex Regum - King of Kings
The readers are probably more familiar with the imperial system and how that features in the depiction of Nilfgaard. Auberon Muircetach’s position as the Supreme Leader of the Aen Elle – as opposed to merely a “king” – is instead much more reminiscent of the station of a High King.
Ancient and early kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland boast many High Kings (e.g. Ard Rí Érenn Brian Boru, Ard Rí Alban Macbeth, Vortigern, King of the Britons, etc). The High King was usually elected and set above lesser rulers and warlords as an overlord in a land that shared a high degree of cultural unity. Emperors usually ruled over culturally different lands (regularly obtained through recent or ongoing conquests). In character such high kingship was sacred: the duties of the ruler were largely ceremonial and somewhat restricted, unless war, natural disaster or any other realm-wide occasion created a need for a unified command structure. The Irish High King, for example, was quite straightforwardly a ruler who laid claim to all of the land of the Emerald Isle. Noteworthy, because the ruler is frequently seen as the embodiment of the land, associated with the health and well-being of the realm that the land sustains. In quasi-religious terms, High Kings gained their power through a marriage to, or sexual relationship with, a sovereignty goddess; frequently, a mother goddess who was associated with the life-giving land. As one of the most frequently studied elements of the Celtic cosmology, this feature is instantly recognisable in the outlook of the elves in the Witcher and factors heavily into Auberon’s relationship with Ciri. Ciri who is the avatar of the Triple Goddess – the Virgin, the Pregnant Mother, and the Old Woman Death. As Sapkowski notes in Swiat króla Artura. Maladie:

“…no Wiccan mystery in honour of the Great Triple, cannot be performed, [without] the goblet and the sword. Grail and Excalibur. The rest is silence.”

Through the Triple Goddess’ interaction with her God-counterpart (a ruler who briefly assumes the role of the god) is showcased the eternal cycle of life – one which cannot be realised without the interaction of the cup (feminine) & the sword (male). Excalibur is the symbol of rightful sovereignty and its wielders are frequently powerful men, but Ciri is a woman and a woman is the Grail, bringing salvation and new life. To possess the Grail is to legitimize oneself as the ruler, as the leader, protector, and father figure of the realm. Thus a King of Kings must do exactly that. A protector, a father figure, and a druid (wise man) merge into a symbolic whole in the Supreme Leader of the elves.
(But Ciri is also the witcher girl and owns a sword, unyielding before the matter of her gender. And though many a men might take her for the Lady of the Lake, she is not about to part with her sword.)
The realm is all
From early age, Emhyr’s father instilled an understanding in his heir that nothing counts more than the interest of the state. The blood of the Emreis family must be on the throne. Fergus never abdicated, not after torture, not even after his son was turned into a mutant hedgehog in front of his eyes. Love for his child did not sway Fergus from having his son suffer in the interests of power and the realm. This is how the shard of ice in Emhyr’s heart forms. Auberon, equally, “thinks of England” when attempting to regain his daughter’s legacy and restore their people’s power. The circumstances of Lara’s demise, however, beg the question about the Alder King’s role in facilitating or enabling the conditions that let things spiral out of control and break beyond repair. The stakes were infinitely higher for Auberon than they are for Emreis’ dynastic struggle. But what would an answer to this question change? In their cold hearts these characters see themselves each as duty-bound.
Ambitious and gloried, they nevertheless occupy different stages in their lives.
Emhyr’s ambition burns bright and fresh. Auberon’s has dwindled into a shadow of the past; buried under having witnessed and lived through the sacrifices that a ruler makes in the name of power. Emhyr chooses to seek retribution and power beyond what would befall him should he accept his life as Duny (the cursed, pitiful Duny), the prince consort of Cintra. Never losing sight of his goal, love and human happiness become temporary phases and means to an end, and Emhyr returns to Cintra only in the form of flames and death to pursue his daughter in insane ambition. The White Flame retains an active disposition; a lust for life. Neither Emhyr nor Auberon gallop at the head of their armies though, leading instead from the rear. They have lackeys for carrying out their will remotely (e.g. Cahir and Eredin). Emhyr, however, is said to be otherwise highly involved in the ruling of his empire, even if many revolutionaries who had helped him on the throne had hoped he would remain but a banner of the revolution. In contrast, the Alder King has more or less withdrawn from life and active service. In presence of Avallac’h and Eredin, Auberon appears much more like the standard Emhyr had refused to become. Of course, many decisions the equivalent of which Auberon has already made are still ahead of Emhyr, including as concerns the freedom of his daughter.
A ruler’s heart
Did Emhyr believe that he would be able to see Pavetta in Ciri and thus push through with the incest? Did Auberon hope to glance the memory of his wife in the eyes of Lara’s “daughter” and manage in this way? As already noted, neither ruler is pursuing their plans out of lust, but as lust must be induced for the act to bear fruit I cannot help but wonder what these characters must do to themselves to follow through with their plans. Because the love that is called for between a woman and a man in order for new life and hope to be born is in this instance abnormal. Yet it is undoubtedly love that plays a huge role in determining both Emhyr’s and Auberon’s eventual fate.
Until the emergence of false-Ciri, Emhyr var Emreis is said to have had numerous ladies in the imperial court. Little is known about Auberon’s disposition, but by the time Ciri starts frequenting his bed chamber it has become evident the image of a dowager king fits the elf like a glove; disaffected with romantic dalliance, he is still aware of the courtly intrigue and expectations surrounding it.

The next evening, for the first time, the Alder King betrayed his impatience. She found him hunched over the table where a looking glass framed in amber was lying. White powder had been sprinkled on it. It’s beginning, she thought. … At one moment Ciri was certain it was about to happen. But it didn’t. At least not all the way. And once again he became impatient. He stood up and threw a sable fur over his shoulders. He stood like that, turned away, staring at the window and the moon. - Lady of the Lake

Emhyr’s marriage to Pavetta, Ciri’s mother, was an unhappy one. In his own words, he did not love “the melancholy wench with her permanently lowered eyes,” and eventually would have had the vigilant Pavetta killed. Inadvertently, Emhyr caused Pavetta’s death anyway.

‘I wonder how a man feels after murdering his wife,’ the Witcher said coldly. ‘Lousy,’ replied Emhyr without delay. ‘I felt and I feel lousy and bloody shabby. Even the fact that I never loved her doesn’t change that. The end justifies the means, yet I sincerely do regret her death. I didn’t want it or plan it. Pavetta died by accident.’ ‘You’re lying,’ Geralt said dryly, ‘and that doesn’t befit an emperor. Pavetta could not live. She had unmasked you. And would never have let you do what you wanted to do to Ciri.’ ‘She would have lived,’ Emhyr retorted. ‘Somewhere … far away. There are enough castles … Darn Rowan, for instance. I couldn’t have killed her.’ ‘Even for an end that was justified by the means?’ ‘One can always find a less drastic means.’ The emperor wiped his face. ‘There are always plenty of them.’ ‘Not always,’ said the Witcher, looking him in the eyes. Emhyr avoided his gaze. ‘That’s exactly what I thought,’ Geralt said, nodding. - Lady of the Lake

After Pavetta’s demise Emhyr hounds his own daughter to the ends of the earth, killing her grandmother, burning down her home, and driving Ciri into an exile from which she never fully recovers. An exile which kills the innocence in her; the snow-white streaks in Ciri’s hair are from the trauma. In contrast, Auberon does not seem to even know what became of Shiadhal – his partner and the mother of their daughter together. On the verge of death he confuses Ciri for Shiadhal and says, “I am glad you are here. You know, they told me you had died.” The Alder King recalls Shiadhal affectionately, in the same loving breath as he recalls their daughter Lara. Lara whose exile – voluntary or not – killed her.
When Ciri was six years old, Emhyr took a lock of hair from her and held onto it; out of sentiment and for his court sorcerers to use. One of Auberon’s last lines to Ciri involves tying a loose ribbon back into Lara’s hair.
In regard to their brides-to-be, both rulers are saddled with fakes. A fake Ciri-Pavetta and a fake Shiadhal-Lara. But Emhyr’s and Auberon’s attitude toward the fake is diametrically opposite. Emhyr sees false-Cirilla as “a diamond in the rough.” Auberon calls Ciri “a pearl in pig shit, a diamond on the finger of a rotting corpse.” For Emhyr, a diamond is the essence of his poor peasant girl. While a pearl in pig shit, for Auberon, remains the essence of Ciri. Neither ruler can entirely ignore the social vigilance extended toward the ruler’s bedchamber either. The idea of a “foreign bride” is frowned upon among the Nilfgaardian aristocracy; it decreases their ability to influence the Emperor. Ciri’s social status at Tir ná Lia is never explicitly addressed, but the presence of human servants – all of whom that the reader sees are female – and casual xenophobia from Auberon himself does not make it hard to venture a guess.

‘If I were … the real Cirilla … the emperor would look more favourably on me. But I’m only a counterfeit. A poor imitation. A double, not worthy of anything. Nothing …’ - False-Cirilla Lady of the Lake
‘It’s all my fault,’ she mumbled. ‘That scar blights me, I know. I know what you see when you look at me. There’s not much elf left in me. A gold nugget in a pile of compost—’ - Ciri Lady of the Lake

The Alder King is unable to bring himself to love Ciri. The Emperor relents, caring for his daughter at last as a father should at the very end, in the one moment where it matters. Moreover, Emhyr ends up eventually marrying his own reason of state and comes to love the false-Cirilla. The contrasts do not end here. Real Ciri threatens to tear Emhyr’s throat out for what he is planning to do to her (unknowing that he is her father), yet with Auberon Ciri turns submissive and grows attached. She weeps over Auberon’s corpse and vows vengeance on Eredin for killing the Alder King. Ironic as Auberon never intended to let Ciri go, while Emhyr does let his daughter walk free. The shard in Auberon’s heart never melts. It shifts in Emhyr’s.
In their last meeting with the girl, both rulers implicitly reveal their blood relation to Ciri.

Cursed Rulers of the World

Emhyr’s tale begins and is framed with a curse. Likewise Auberon’s. And for both it is love in its different manifestations that will shift the curse just enough to offer closure. For healing largely entails obtaining closure.

‘They were silent for a long time. The scent of spring suddenly made them feel light-headed. Both of them. ‘In spite of appearances,’ Emhyr finally said dully, ‘being empress is not an easy job. I don’t know if I’ll be able to love you.’ She nodded to show she also knew. He saw a tear on her cheek. Just like in Stygga Castle, he felt the tiny shard of cold glass lodged in his heart shift.’ - Lady of the Lake

The reference to H. C. Andersen’s fairy tale of the Snow Queen is self-evident. Emhyr var Emreis is an Emperor whose heart has been pierced by a shard of ice. In the Saga the legend is elven and refers to the Winter Queen who conducts a Wild Hunt as she travels the land, casting hard, sharp, tiny shards of ice around her. Whose eye or heart is pierced by one of them is lost; they will abandon everything and will set off after the Queen, the one who wounded them so gravely as to become the sole aim and end of their life.
There are two ways in which to interpret the way Sapkowski applies the legend of the Snow Queen in the Saga. First, as a complement to the author’s stance that in life - where most things are shit - the Holy Grail is a woman, because it is the love of a woman and the hope a woman instils that often makes men act in inconceivable ways; love is the great motivator and the great balancer of scales. Almost as powerful as death. Or more so?

‘I would not like to put forward the theory that hunting for the wild pig was the primordial example of the search for the Grail. I don’t want to be so trivial. I will - after Parnicki and Dante - identify the Grail with the real goal of the great effort of mythical heroes. I prefer to identify the Grail with Olwen, from under whose feet, as she walked, white clovers grew. I prefer to identify the Grail with Lydia, who was loved by Parry. I like New York in June… How about you? Because I think the Grail is a woman. It is worth investing a lot of time and effort in order to find it and gain it, to understand it. And that’s the moral.’ - A. Sapkowski Swiat króla Artura. Maladie

In this reading, we find the framing to the stories of Geralt and Yennefer, Lara and Cregennan, Avallac’h and Lara, and many others. Including the story of Ciri herself – for Ciri is ultimately the author’s Grail in more ways than one. More than one party goes to great lengths to solicit her favour in a guise that includes elements of a love relationship but not the heart of it.
Secondly, we can interpret the legend in universal terms: the shard of ice is the definitive experience of our lives which distorts reality and makes the rest of our lives spin around it in one way or another. For Emhyr, such an experience could have been the trauma experienced in his youth. Fergus’ uncompromising death conditioned the boy early on to sacrifice personal feelings to the cause and let the only true feeling in his heart remain forever locked behind the ends a ruler must go to unthinkable lengths to achieve. Fergus did not deem his son above suffering for a cause and the son learned the lesson. Until…
In Andersen’s Snow Queen, Gerda manages to find her brother Kai in the Snow Queen’s castle, but despite her calls his heart remains cold as ice. Only when Gerda cries in despair do her tears finally melt the ice and remove the piece of glass from Kai’s eyes and heart. In the Witcher, the shard in Emhyr’s heart moves first upon witnessing his true daughter’s angry tears. For the second time – in thanks to the bogus princess of Cintra; his poor raison d’etat.
It brings us to the defining contrast in Emhyr’s and Auberon’s stories, and it concerns alleviating the suffering of those are bound to you by blood or love.
Recalling another case of incest that resulted in Adda the strigga, we may remember that the Temerian king recognises that his daughter is suffering and insists on disenchanting her instead of killing her. Realising that your own blood – who has been thrown into this world of suffering thanks to you – is suffering and consequently choosing to do something to alleviate this suffering fortifies the Saga’s faith in enduring human decency. Geralt himself is thoroughly vexed by the prospect of letting the same evil happen to Ciri that happened to himself and does everything within his power to prevent it (failing, trying anyway). Here lives the redemption of man, and in redemption his rebirth.

‘They passed a pond, empty and melancholy. The ancient carp released by Emperor Torres had died two days earlier. “I’ll release a new, young, strong, beautiful specimen,” thought Emhyr var Emreis, “I’ll order a medal with my likeness and the date to be attached to it. Vaesse deireadh aep eigean. Something has ended, something is beginning. It’s a new era. New times. A new life. So let there be a new carp too, dammit.”’ - Lady of the Lake

As Emhyr and false-Cirilla take a stroll in the gardens after Stygga, they pass a sculpture of a pelican pecking open its own breast to feed its young on its blood. An allegory of noble sacrifice and also of great love – as False-Ciri tells us.

‘Do you think—’ he turned her to face him and pursed his lips ‘—that a torn-open breast hurts less because of that?’ ‘I don’t know …’ she stammered. ‘Your Imperial Majesty … I …’ He took hold of her hand. He felt her shudder; the shudder ran along his hand, arm and shoulder. ‘My father,’ he said, ‘was a great ruler, but never had a head for legends or myths, never had time for them. And always mixed them up. Whenever he brought me here, to the park, I remember it like yesterday, he always said that the sculpture shows a pelican rising from its ashes.’ - Lady of the Lake

It is difficult to set aside our trauma and not pass it on to our children. Letting our children be free to choose and not sacrificing them on the altar of our fate is to rip open ourselves, calcified and bound to our path, and to feel all of it as we grope in the dark to feel for them. Emhyr’s father might not have gotten it entirely wrong, though his mind at the time was set on making his child an extension of himself. The cycle of death and rebirth begins and ends within that to which we give birth. Giving our children a chance before it is too late, we also give a chance to ourselves. By finding it in his heart to extend to his daughter the courtesy his father Fergus never extended to him - by letting Ciri free - Emhyr lets the part of himself that has defined his entire life die. His end stops justifying the means. He breaks the cycle on the edge of the precipice to which he has brought them and thus allows for the possibility of new beginnings for himself and for Ciri.
In a sense, False-Cirilla and Emhyr get the ending Ciri and Auberon might have gotten if –
If.
The story of Auberon Muircetach achieves a fundamentally different resolution.

‘What does the spear with the bloody blade mean? Why does the King with the lanced thigh suffer and what does it mean? What is the meaning of the maiden in white carrying a grail, a silver bowl—?’ - Galahad Lady of the Lake

Galahad asks the questions that the innocent Perceval in his Story of the Grail failed to ask, thus losing his chance at freeing the Fisher King from his curse. And the Fisher King is the guardian of mysteries, among them the Holy Grail. But it is not because of gain that a chivalric knight with a shining sword should seek to free the Fisher King from his curse, but rather because it is a human thing to do. Sapkowski claims to be partial to Wolfram von Eschenbach’s rendition of the Grail myth in Parsifal. Wolfram’s message, according to Sapkowski, is the following:

‘Let’s not wait for the revelation and the command that comes from above, let’s not wait for any Deus vult. Let’s look for the grail in ourselves. Because the Grail is nobility, it is the love of a neighbor, it is an ability for compassion. Real chivalric ideals, towards which it is worth looking for the right path, cutting through the wild forest, where, as they quote, “there is no road, no path”. Everyone has to find their path on their own. But it is not true that there is only one path. There are many of them. Infinitely many. … Being human is important. Heart.’ ‘I prefer the humanism of Wolfram von Eschenbach and Terry Gilliam from the idiosyncrasies of bitter Cistercian scribes and Bernard of Clairvaux…’ - A. Sapkowski Swiat króla Artura: Maladie

The unimaginable sadness in Auberon’s eyes belies the suffering of the Alder King who is the avatar of the Fisher King. In the Witcher’s story between elves and humans, it is the elven males who all share aspects of the Fisher King’s fate, because they are the keepers of their Grail – the protectors of elven women. Auberon’s wound is wrought by time: by surviving his wife and daughter, by the witnessing of the fading of his ambitions and the results of pursuing them without success. He has lost his line. The Fisher King’s injury represents the inability to produce an heir. A ruler who is the protector and physical embodiment of his land, yet remains barren, sterile, or without a true-born successor, bodes ill for the realm. The Alder King’s injury consists in having lost control of the source of his people’s power, leaving the elves imprisoned and scattered across two worlds. Auberon’s personal tragedy, however, subsists in the lost power having been functionally manifest in a daughter.

‘Lara.’ The Alder King moved his head, and touched his neck as though his royal torc’h was garrotting him. ‘Caemm a me, luned. Come to me, daughter. Caemm a me, elaine.’ Ciri sensed death in his breath. - Lady of the Lake

Elder Blood is indeed an accursed blood because it enslaves its carriers to its purpose. Emhyr has a theoretical chance to walk away from the pursuit of earthly power; the construct is social. Elder Blood, however, has a particular and real, magical function, and in virtue of being a genetic mutation it is embedded in the gene-carrying individuals. Functionally, Elder Blood allows to shape fate with degrees of freedom unimaginable for an ordinary individual. It’s a difference comparable to the one between a character in a story and the story’s author. Therefore the Aen Saevherne – the carriers of the gene – are bound to the thing they carry within their DNA that allows them to a greater and lesser degree shape the fate of reality. However dearly Auberon, or Lara, might have ever wished to untie themselves from their own essence, it seems impossible. The loss of control over power then is quite simply so pivotal as to necessitate a moment of original sin.
As already witnessed by way of the legend of the Winter Queen, the original “myths” of the Witcher world usually originate among elves; humans, the interlopers, push themselves into those myths only later. This creates an interesting conundrum. In Parsifal, the Fisher King is injured as punishment for taking a wife who is not meant for him. A Grail keeper is to marry the woman the Grail determines for him, which – if we equate woman with the Grail – is what the woman determines. Unfortunately, we know nothing about Shiadhal, so we cannot verify if this part of the legend dovetails. But generally, in a wholly elven world which may have matriarchal tendencies, in lieu of worshipping the mother Goddess, such cosmology is relatively unproblematic. Except suddenly there are humans too. And Auberon – the highest leader of elves and the father of the new scion of Elder Blood – is indirectly injured because a human sorcerer – Cregennan – turns himself into a Grail keeper (in place of another, special elf) by taking a woman not meant for him.

‘Witcher,’ she whispered, kissing his cheek, ‘there’s no romance in you. And I… I like elven legends, they are so captivating. What a pity humans don’t have any legends like that. Perhaps one day they will? Perhaps they’ll create some? But what would human legends deal with? All around, wherever one looks, there’s greyness and dullness. Even things which begin beautifully lead swiftly to boredom and dreariness, to that human ritual, that wearisome rhythm called life.’ - Yennefer Sword of Destiny

Cregennan’s injury is to die. But what about the original Fisher King figure? What is Auberon’s original sin in this?
I see two possibilities. It could be that Auberon in his ambition hastened his daughter’s way into exile and, in a display of his displeasure, never made any effort to ease his daughter in to the personal sacrifices they, as Aen Saevherne, must make; walking without blinking to the end of the path Emhyr turned away from. It could equally be that Auberon, instead of locking Lara up in a tower to protect her from the folly of youth, let her go to Cregennan. It could be an amalgam of both, and the misjudgement of a father who allows freedom, who feels for his child, and is rewarded with an irreversible injury is probably the greater tragedy.
Because, regardless of the origin of the curse upon Auberon, one thing does not change – the icy eternity in the Alder King’s heart never fractures.

‘‘Zireael,’ he said. ‘Loc’hlaith. You are indeed destiny, O Lady of the Lake. Mine too, as it transpires.’ - Auberon Lady of the Lake

Ciri passes through the shadow world of the Alders; a manifestation of fate. Her footsteps sowing discord and movement and change into the immutable, time-locked amber of the elven utopia. Her presence providing the trigger that will unshackle the past from future in a world where for a long time nothing has changed, died, or been reborn. She is destined and destiny, annihilation and rebirth, the grain of sand in the gears of the great mechanism; a strange girl. The child of hope and the Goddess who ought to be Three. Lara, the true daughter of the Alder King, is dead. Emhyr’s daughter still lives. There is nothing Auberon can do for Lara anymore and thus the ice in Auberon’s heart has crystallised. Emhyr still has a chance; he is where Auberon once was. And yet, there is one thing Ciri, the witcher girl with a sword of her own, can still do for the Alder King.

‘Va’esse deireadh aep eigean… But,’ he finished with a sigh, ‘it’s good that something is beginning.’ They heard a long-drawn-out peal of thunder outside the window. The storm was still far away. But it was approaching fast. ‘In spite of everything,’ he said, ‘I very much don’t want to die, Zireael. And I’m so sorry that I must. Who’d have thought it? I thought I wouldn’t regret it. I’ve lived long, I’ve experienced everything. I’ve become bored with everything … but nonetheless I feel regret. And do you know what else? Come closer. I’ll tell you in confidence. Let it be our secret.’ She bent forward. ‘I’m afraid,’ he whispered. ‘I know.’ ‘Are you with me?’ ‘Yes, I am.’ - Auberon Lady of the Lake

The only way Ciri the Grail knight will be able to find her true self – the Grail – is to cure the suffering Alder King from his curse. Ciri’s presence in the world of the Alders is after all also part of her coming of age story. Through becoming Auberon’s destiny, Ciri must close the circle for him and bring closure. He would never let her go because the shard in Auberon’s heart is no longer able to melt. Auberon does not follow the motif of alleviating the suffering of one’s blood and/or love; and he dies. The roles are reversed, in fact. It is Ciri who realises Auberon is suffering. So Ciri must do what only she can do, because remaining human is important. Heart is important. The sacrifice a ruler makes on the altar of power includes his own heart, which is why there should never be only one, but always two; always.

‘Time is like the ancient Ouroboros. Time is fleeting moments, grains of sand passing through an hourglass. Time is the moments and events we so readily try to measure. But the ancient Ouroboros reminds us that in every moment, in every instant, in every event, is hidden the past, the present and the future. Eternity is hidden in every moment. Every departure is at once a return, every farewell is a greeting, every return is a parting. Everything is simultaneously a beginning and an end. ‘And you too,’ he said, not looking at her at all, ‘are at once the beginning and the end. And because we are discussing destiny, know that it is precisely your destiny. To be the beginning and the end. Do you understand?’ She hesitated for a moment. But his glowing eyes forced her to answer. ‘I do.’ - Lady of the Lake

Death Crone to Auberon Muircetach, Ciri never becomes the Mother Goddess in the Saga. It is a choice she must make for herself and the choice still lies ahead of her. The predicate to making such a choice at least for now, however, she achieves; she goes her own way. In a sense then, both rulers are father figures, who through their choices “beget” the child who is destined. Perhaps this too the Knowing Ones knew, and for this reason Auberon never could have budged, never could have changed his mind in regard to his purpose in the long and winding story of his life. Something is ending, but something is also beginning. A good ruler is responsible for the flourishing of their realm, for providing hope. It is Ciri’s role to be the beginning and the end, and though there might be ways in which to nudge the hand of Fate, whatever is destined must happen. Destiny, however accursed, must run its course.
That is the hope and the release.

See this a lot on this sub and wanted to give my thoughts so people'd ask less, i guess?

My time to shine for once. *Cracks knuckles*

1.) The first single being Young and Menace was...I don't wanna say a stupid decision but not the smartest one. Its the most different song on the album and for your first taste of it to be something so radically different than normal was not a good thing. Its why even more experimental albums from bands/musicians usually have the first single from them be something closer to what the fans are used to and expect.
2.) They changed and didn't evolve. Evolution is when you take a core and keep it the same, but add new spices and sauces to it. Change is just...change. Its the difference between changing your burger recipe by adding new ingredients and making burgers but then suddenly switching to sushi. Look at Waterparks. They're still pop punk at their core, they still have the same feel and vibe, but they added elements from electronica and hip hop in order to feel different while staying the same heart. Same with Sum 41, they still have their snotty pop punk vibe and feel, but they added metal elements and more serious themes to evolve. Both are valid, but both are different. It felt more like change than evolution, which a lot of people hate, especially when people call it evolution.
3.) It was changing in a way that felt...and I HATE using this word....Sellout/cash grabby. In a lot of cases, a band like...lets say Waterparks...changing sounds comes across as "Oh we wanted to add something to our core sound to make something new". Mania felt more like 'Whats popular rn? Trappy stuff? kk got it. Oh Centuries did well, let's make Champion as Centuries 2.0" instead of thinking those changes would benefit your sound.
4.) Timing, honestly. 2017-2018 was a bad era for rock music. Every band in the same sphere as Fall Out Boy made their least rock aligned album at the time. Panic at the Disco dropped rock entirely after DOAB for PFTW, Sleeping with Sirens went from screamo metal to slightly rock tinged pop, All Time Low made a poppy record, Linkin Park made a poppy record. It felt like yet ANOTHER band that got rid of the guitars and just went pop to make money and be more popular. Not saying they DID that or that this is inherantly a bad thing, but it felt like it.

Just for the folks that didnt follow it live..
Information gleaned from Julian Cannon and Sarabeth Pollock.

Zeljko Ivanek will be playing the "big bad" - according to Eli Jorné it's a level of lunacy thats rare even for the shows standard.
Gaius Charles will be playing "Perlie Armstrong" - a former Marshall whose personal traumas makes him cling to law and order as a coping mechanism. He's after Negan for what he did during his Saviour days - the details are unknown. The character is associated with what is known as "Babylon"
Lauren Cohan describes the show as "cold and treacherous" - and Maggie will have to "share a level of intimacy with the worst person"
Buzzwords for the shows overall arcs is "grief", "loss", "trauma" and "reconciliation"
JDM thinks this show contains the best work that LC has ever done.
There are several new awesome characters that we havent actually seen or heard about before.
The show will incorporate New York in many different ways.. it's a colder landscape than the one we're all used to. And since it was a thriving metropolis.. in some ways the clothing worn by the walkers will also be an indication of what the people were doing when the world went to shit. Opera, restaurants, etc.
There will be a level of verticality to the overall world that hasnt really been explored in the show(s) before. You no longer just have to watch your front and your ass.. you might have to watch your feet and your head as well.
There will be new ways of travel coming: ziplines, boats, and perhaps even more.

Here is how Pokémon games could have differed in an alternate timeline in another universe:

November 2016: Pokémon Sun and Moon
• Pokémon Sun and Moon and USUM release as one game. To make it possible, the game scales back on gimmicks from USUM like Mantine Surfing, but we get Ultra Worlds, the Ultra Necrozma story, Team Rainbow Rocket and a bonus Zygarde story.
• Zygarde no longer appears in X/Y (MewTwo takes Zygarde's place in the cave).
• The climax of the game would merge USUM's with SM's story. After defeating a Lusamine merged with Nihilego, Necrozma appears appears and captures Solgaleo/Lunala, fusing with it. After being battled, it steals Alola's light and disappears into an Ultra Wormhole. The Ultra Recon Squad appear and you travel through Ultra Space to Ultra Megalopolis and face Necrozma.
• In the postgame, you face off against Team Rainbow Rocket, and unlock the ability to travel to Ultra Worlds freely.
• As for the Zygarde storyline, you will be given a cute Zygarde cell by a now older Dexio, who says he found it in Kalos (it still appears in anime) and believes it grows by absorbing either sun light (Pokémon Sun) or moon light (Pokémon Moon).
• While you can't battle with it, you can interact with and pat the Zygarde cell in Pokémon-Amie.
• In order to have it grow, you need to stand in spots around the region where the sun or moon light shine particularly bright. These aren't too hard to spot. Once you've absorbed enough light, the cell will grow into 10% forme. You need to absorb even more light for Zygarde 10% forme to be battle-ready.
• As Zygarde grows, Dexio will meet with you and monitor it. He notices it can regrow some dead plants in his lab. will also notice the growing bond between you and Zygarde. This mirrors the bond Lillie has with Cosmog.
• Once Zygarde reaches 50% forme (only possible in postgame) it will disappear to chase some Ultra Beasts that are disrupting the ecosystem. (These certain Ultra Beasts are only accessible via this storyline) You will fight with the aid of Zygarde, which will use the ecosystem around it to drain the Ultra Beast's powerful auras.
• Once you've defeated all the beasts, Zygarde can turn into its 100% forme. In its ultimate form, it will restore all the damage made to the ecosystem of Alola.
Other notes: To tie a loose end, an NPC mentions the unused train station in Couriway Town (Pokémon X and Y) is a remnant of a Kalos's old regional train network. It is there as a town landmark.

November 2017: Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu/Eeevee
• Instead of another Sun and Moon game, which repeats a lot of the same story, Pokémon LGPE launches on Switch. It launches just a month after Mario Odyssey releases.

Apr 2018: Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee Expansion Pass
Pokémon LGPE release a Johto expansion pass in Apr 2018. (Preorders begin in early January)
Depending on your game version, you can purchase either the Gold or Silver Pass.
You can access Johto via the Route 22 gate, even if you've just started LGPE.
• From the Route 22 gate, a driver takes you via car through a new path being constructed to Johto. You go the remainder of the way, through the cave gateway, until you reach New Bark Town.
• Lyra or Ethan will greet you. They have just moved into the previous main player's house. They want to introduce you to the professor. Prof. Elm asks you to deliver a Pokémon Egg to Mr. Pokémon. You discover the egg is rare, foreshadowing it will hatch into one of the Johto starters. (It will be the opposite type to your chosen Kanto starter)
• The other 2 Johto starters can be obtained in the Safari Zone later on.
• In the next city over, Cherrygrove City, rather than meeting a tour guide, Lyra/Ethan will touch base with you and hint the path to Mr. Pokémon's house.
• After meeting Mr. Pokémon, Lyra/Ethan appear and tell you heard Prof. Elm has been robbed, and they will escort you back to the lab. You will encounter rival Silver on the way, who will send Lyra/Ethan spinning away. You battle them, then go to the lab to name your rival and receive the egg from Prof. Elm. The storyline carries on quite similarly to HG/SS from this point forward.
• The Battle Frontier is replaced by the Master Tower, where you can request a battle with Master Trainers, all in one place.
• The Game Corner is replaced by a Style Shop in Goldenrod City, where you can buy a range of outfits. You are also gifted several new outfits with the Expansion Pass.
• A slight alteration, Giovanni's disappearance is more recent.
• You also encounter Red at Mt Silver instead of Indigo Plateau.
• The Safari Zone is now a place where a mix of Pokémon from Kanto and Johto can be battled. It is promoted as an ideal place to train Pokémon if you are taking on the Master Tower.
• You can catch either Ho-Oh or Lugia depending on your game pass.
• As there is no time jump, you can battle the new Elite Four members from HGSS - Will and and Karen - in the Master Tower.
• Once you've obtained the final badge, you can battle Lance in the Dragon's Den. You can also return to team up with Silver to battle Lance and Clair.
• Like in HGSS, Suicine is ultimately caught in Kanto. Suicine's location will appear on the map. You will encounter Euisine when you find it.

Nov 2018: Pokémon Sword and Shield
Pokémon Sword and Shield are announced in late February, a month after preorders of Pokémon LGPE begin. When the game is released, Game Freak clearly state that more Pokémon will become available in future updates.
• The graphics are similar, though use lighter, more smoothed out surfaces like in Scarlet/Violet.
• The Wild Area is more enjoyable to traverse. You can now slide down slopes, and explore a couple new caves.
• The Galarian Star Tournament is included in the base game, and unlocked after becoming the champion.
• In the postgame story, there will be a few cutscene showing the large Dynamax'd Pokémon rampaging around. You will be able to see the huge Pokémon in the distance as you approach the gym.
• Following Pokémon are not implemented in the Sword/Shield Expansion passes.

Nov 2019: Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl
• A more complete game preview is presented in February, including the Grand Underground, Secret Base Decorations, and a mission with Looker.
• The graphical style falls somewhere between LGPE and this timeline's BDSP. It is still faithful to the original world, while not being overly married to it (like repeating the same blocky trees). The visuals are built upon to make the world feel richer.
• The game bases its designs and storyline on D/P, rather than Platinum. e.g. the Galactic building is not so ostentatious like in Platinum, but low-key. Rather than trying to remake Platinum, it enhances D/P well enough that a Platinum remake isn't necessary.
• That being said, there is a new postgame quest involving Looker and Charon, who don't appear in the main story, and a more cinematic cutscene at Spear Pillar.
Spear Pillar Cutscene
where you see Cyrus's new world forming and the Lake Trio get into a skirmish with Dialga/ Palkia. They dodge Dialga/Palkia's mighty attacks, as we see people from around the region look up at the lightshow atop Mt. Coronet. (This fits in with the opening credits which shows lightning atop Mt. Coronet)
• Barry also stays by your side rather than running away.
• The cutscene furthermore builds up tension by having Dialga/Palkia about to strike you, when Mespirit launches a sneak attack, crumbling the Red Chain to ashes. Continuing the cinematic cutscene, Cyrus unleashes his rage and immediately begins the battle. As you battle him, the mighty Dialga/Palkia and you friends (including Dawn and Rowan) are seen watching in the background. Cyrus has more dialogue cut-ins during the battle, enraged that you are protecting a world that only lets people down.
Post - game Looker story
• Looker greets you at your house in the postgame, and tells you about remnants of Team Galactic hiding underground. You can either go to Snowpoint City to board the ferry or begin the Looker mission. You will help Looker track down a variety of Team Galactic bases hidden underground, which appear to be run by an evil scientist.
• Team Galactic are setting up machinery to monitor Mysterious Shards (which can be used to find legendary Pokémon at Ramanas Park), and are disturbing the wild Pokémon, as well as even kicking people out of their secret bases. You will also meet Mars and Jupiter underground, who agree to side with you to help thwart Charon's evil plans.
• A throwback to Platinum, Looker will disguise himself to corner and capture Charon.
Mars and Jupiter will move on, and Team Galactic will be done.
New Features
• Decorations appear in Secret Bases, replacing Statues.
• Certain kinds of Decorations can affect the kinds of Pokémon that appear in hide-aways.
Catching Giratina
• It's easier to obtain Origin Form Giratina - simply capture or defeat Giratina in Turnback Cave, and a Distortion Slate will drop.
• Take it to Ramanas Park, and enter the Distortion Room. The Distortion Room is now expanded into a passageway. The passageway shows off some cool visuals, as you make your way to Shadow Giratina and the orb.
Super Contests
• Pokémon now use their Moves during the contest. You can choose to perform to boost your points. As you hit the dance notes, your Pokémon moves in response, making Super Contests feel much more interactive.
• Fans will also gather in the hall after you win contests, including familiar faces.
Pokétch
• You can navigate up and down through apps.
Platinum teams
• All trainer teams, wild Pokémon and the Pokédex reflect the appearances in Pokémon Platinum. You can now battle Fantina as the third gym leader, or choose to skip past her to the next gym.
Battle Tower
• You can instantly battle familiar trainers from all around the region, including gym leaders and Stat trainers, by asking the attendant to request them. You don't need to build up a streak of 49 battles just to battle certain trainers (like Stat Trainers).
Following Pokémon
• All following Pokémon follow you closely, and larger Pokémon appear somewhat larger to reflect a large appearance.

Ace was stunned. She almost felt disassociated from her own scaled hide; mentally she was still processing, even as, somehow, she found herself smoothly walking down the ramp to the navigation console, relieving the human who was at it.
She recovered quickly as she found herself reviewing the controls. They were all laid out, smooth and reasonably intuitively so. It wasn't even that she was entirely unfamiliar with taking command of a capital starship; she had, from time to time, taken the captain's post of the Arcadian Endeavour, to say nothing of the helm, but still, she was gobsmacked that Najia trusted her so readily as to just ask her to take the helm.
She looked the controls over again. The ship seemed ready to sail. "The helm is operative," she said. She was, however, unfamiliar with the ship class; fortunately, her station included a comprehensive overview. As Large vessels went, it was on the small size; the Arcadian Endeavour would handily outgun it; two Large Pulse Turrets, eight Medium Bolt turrets, and, on her stick, 2 'Medium Meson Streams'. She was vaguely familiar with Meson Streams as being the Protectorate's special signature weapon, but she thought that M weapons might be a bit lightweight to be the 'main armament' on an L vessel. "All systems seem to be reporting operational."
Ace looked uncertainly at the human woman standing the gunnery console next to her. She, too, had a slightly uncertain look, but, after a moment's double-checking, nodded firmly. "Gunnery confirms, all stations reporting green, C-Captain," she said, looking back up at Najia, who nodded firmly. "Ace, take us out. Let's track down Boso Ta's mysterious interloper."
Ace nodded firmly, and throttled the Destroyer-class vessel in reverse. The ship accelerated with surprising speed; nothing at all like the ponderous heft of the Empyrean Curs' home. The mammoth headquarters station receded into the distance, and she made a slight hiss to clear her throat. "We are away, Najia. We should begin scanning for this interloper if you wish to locate them." "Right. That's... Actually on this console," Najia recalled after a moment, her hands flying over the console. She'd done this before, a few times, but she still felt like such an imposter standing on the bridge of a ship this large and giving orders, even though she could - and did - order fleets of such ships around. Still, the long-range sensors came up, and in moments a ping found itself. She pushed it to Ace's station. "Let's go see who, or what, is creating such a fuss around here," she said. She felt vaguely self-conscious, running down what was probably some Teladi smugglers with a high-powered transmitter rig in some M freighter with a fast escort frigate.
Ace, meanwhile, was quite enjoying herself. The ship she was testing was spritely, responsive, without having the ponderous over-steer problem the Baku-class M Freighters had. Even the mighty Terran engines couldn't push a ship this large into T-drive immediately, but in regular drive it accelerated and decelrated rapidly. She quickly brought the ship to the appropriate course to intercept the sensor return, and, swooping past the headquarters station on course, activated her Travel drive. As with any large vessel, there was a considerable charge-up period while the ship's engines built power. However, it was rather less considerable than that of most ships in its class. She had time for a glance at the shipyard slips, and noted that a very large ship was under construction, and quite rapidly too - from its lines, it could only be one of old Professor Nakagawa's Nagoya-class Battleships. Ace found that amusing; Najia's people certainly worked fast.
The ship took off with suddenness that surprised her, the pitch of the T-Drive warmup reaching its crescendo. All attention back to the fore, Ace sucked in a sharp breath as they accelerated, rapidly intercepting the interloping signal. It wasn't hiding very well, Ace thought; if indeed it intended to hide at all. She targeted it as soon as it was within range; to the bridge the computer announced "Okinawa: Research Vessel."
Najia groaned audibly, glancing down; there was a transponder with a name. Oberth. "Dick Feynman," she muttered to herself, suddenly feeling a welling-up of outrage. What, she wanted to know, was Dr. Feynman doing in her system, lurking around her anomalies, without so much as dropping by to say hello? Woah girl, Najia thought to herself, taking a half-step back and a deep breath, wondering where that outburst had come from. Then she thought back to all the tiny little microaggressions Professor Feynman had bestowed upon all of his students; to say nothing of his research assistants. She snorted, loudly, as Ace pulled the Koshirae up alongside the Oberth, and she commed it. The skipper's face appeared on-screen.
"Yes; this is the research vessel Oberth. Can we help you?" Najia nodded to him. "Please put me in contact with the commander of your expedition," she said, firmly but politely. "Very well, one moment." The captain passed her through without further comment; he was clearly annoyed with the professor, since he didn't seem to recognize her, but he was still passing a random passer-by - in a destroyer admittedly - straight to the Professor.
Moments later, the professor himself appeared in the comms window, also on the bridge; just as she recalled him from before. "I am Dr. Rick Feynman, Chief Scientist of the Oberth and in charge of Project Genesis," he said, annoyedly and hurriedly. Najia waited for the other shoe to drop. It did so in a few moments, and he gawped openly at her. "Wait, Najia Takio?! Is it really you?" Najia smirked. "In the flesh, Professor." Unsaid, was that he hadn't even tried to contact her. He was either as oblivious as the Maestro of the Empyrean Curs, or he hadn't wanted to contact her. She was actually betting on the former. "Well, I'm glad you made it," he said. "We didn't expect biological matter to have survived this transition."
Najia blinked, and felt disassociated for a moment; she could just about feel the weightlessness of being cast adrift in her suit again. He had expected the transition, and hadn't warned her, or any of the others he had sent out in suits - whose fates she still didn't know? She was on the verge of exploding at him, quite possibly more literally than figuratively, but he continued on speaking blithely. "As I was saying, we are looking into how this station got here. Our research vessel is currently observing anomalies and gravimetric shears in this region."
That's it? That's... It? Najia felt stunned, and she shook her head. She felt on the verge of a schoolgirl explosion of anger, but looked to her side. Marta looked just as furious as she did, but she was maintaining. Selaia, the shipyard temporary master, was standing ramrod-straight, disciplined. Composed, with military bearing. Najia filed that away to ask her about later, but she looked back to the comms panel, and willed herself to the composture that Captain Kevlin had adopted. Be like her, she told herself. The Commander.
"Professor Feynman, I think it's time you told me exactly what Project Genesis is; after all, I almost died for it." There was a blink. He had, at least, the good graces to look somewhat embarrassed. "I'm sorry to inform you that you currently lack the required clearance to access that information, Najia."
Najia had very minimal military training; just the three-week Segaris reserve militia training course that every Pioneer university student got. Between that and the example of Captain Kevlin standing to her side with her feet braced proudly, her face schooled and her arms crossed behind her back as an example, however, Najia managed not to erupt in fury. Below, she saw Ace's tail lash in agitation, but Ace, too, was remaining face-forward, eyes on her controls.
"Is there anything else, Ms. Takio?" Najia considered laying down all the reasons she felt she should be granted clearance to access that information, ranging from the fact that her ships and her production facillities were providing the majority of the Pioneers' construction supplies and she had fantastic trading relations with them, to - again - the fact that she'd almost died for the project - to the fact that, within five minutes, she could have a fleet - a literal fleet of warships training their guns on Oberth.
That last one was, she thought, an argument most compelling. Part of her - a part of her she quickly pushed down - was inclined to simply order the boarding ships in-system to seize the research vessel Oberth by force and have Dr. Feynman dragged before her in irons. That was a sentiment every university student who'd ever had to deal with an insufferable professor would certainly sympathize with. She very much doubted that anyone she knew would even object, but she simply took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.
"In that case, Professor, what are you doing here; what do you need?" She somehow managed to maintain the composure she was projecting, she thought; though if she could involuntarily kill with her eyes over a comm screen, she was sure he'd fall dead with his head vaporized to a stump. Obliviously, or else with such a remarkable degree of awareness that he pretended to be oblivious, Dr. Feynman brightened and said, "we are currently lacking antimatter cells we need to complete our observations. If you can organize a delivery to this vessel, we'll be able to greatly advance our timetable."
Najia nodded, curtly, and cut the comm channel. She let out the seething huff she wasn't aware she had been holding in, and took a step back. "Captain, you have the Conn," she said, quietly. "I have the Conn," Captain Kevlin said, taking the center console as Najia walked to the aft railing of the 'smoke pit,' taking it in her hands and squeezing for a long few moments. "There's a conference room aboard, ma'am, if you need long-range communications capability," the captain said to her, with a glance over her shoulder. "Also, your two personal S-class craft were loaded onto our pads before you arrived. Should you require them." Najia recognized what the Captain was saying to her; she was semi-subtly suggeting that Najia take her anger somewhere the crew couldn't see it. Najia half-seethed at that, but she recognized the wisdom - and nodded. "Thank you, Captain. I do need the comms, in fact. Ace, Marta, with me please."
"I could kill him," Najia said, the moment the door closed behind her. Marta, ahead of her, sat on the edge of the conference table and snorted. The room was essentially a copy of their ships' standardized mess halls, but without the kitchen. "You and me both. Sanctimonious little..." "Why do you not, then," Ace asked, turning a chair around and sitting in it, drawing her feet up to the edge of it, curling her tail around her legs. "He has clearly given you cause for outrage; not mere ire or annoyance, but clear outrage. He is also utterly oblivious to the fact that, whatever you were relative to him when last you met, you are, now, the master of a vast organization and due far more respect - and information - than he provided. The Maestro would likely order his ship siezed, that he himself be seized, respect beaten into him, and then have brought before him in chains to answer the questions he refused to answer before."
Najia paused for a moment, and leaned back on the wall of the conference room, taking a deep breath, huffing and letting it out slowly, hugging herself self-consciously. Less the 'ordering a beating to a prisoner' part, she had considered that very course of action. "Is that what you want me to do, Ace?" Ace let out a soft, hissing trill, and shook her head. "No. That would be... Very out-of-character for you, I think." She blinked at that, unsure why she didn't want to see Najia order that course of action, when it was what her piratical upbringing was telling her that Najia should do - would be within every right to do.
"Yeah, well... I considered it," Najia said, "less the beating part, anyway." "He's keepin' secrets from you. Spook stuff," Marta pointed out. "Considering how you almost died in the name of this Project Genesis, you damn well deserve some answers. Frankly, I wouldn't blame you in the slightest if you did order the ship seized and searched for those answers. And if we took Doc Dick prisoner in the process, well... I mean, I wouldn't, you know, condone it if you happened to say that they shouldn't be too concerned with being gentle when they grabbed him, I don't think I'd raise a fuss about it, either."
Najia broke into a laugh, and then face-palmed, sighing heavily, and grinning. "No. As cathartic as it might be..." She sighed, heavily. "As deeply, deeply cathartic as it might be..." She trailed off, then shook her head vehemently. "No. He is a prick, though." Marta snorted. "No arguments from me there. I can't tell you how many times I daydreamed about force-feeding him his own lectern in class." She smirked at Najia. "And I know you felt the same way."
"Mmmhmm. So, fie." She pushed off from the wall, sat in the chair next to Ace, and pulled up the comms, back to the station, intending to explain the matter to Boso Ta. The Boron's head appeared in hologram above the table. "Ah, Assistant! It appears that they are researching the same anomaly which brought the station over here," Boso Ta said, preempting her. He continued on, quickly, "Most of the gravimetric charge dispersed during that event, but they brought quite an array of equipment to examine the traces. Let us hope that this satisfies their curiosity and leads to their departure." Najia snorted at that. "Don't bet on it. I know this asshole, he's... Well, he's up to something. I'll arrange to deliver him the stuff he wants and get this moving, but, don't get your hopes up." She sighed, and decided to be nicer to Boso Ta, if only because she had been reminded of just how not-nice Dr. Feynman had been to her. "Is there anything else you need, Boso Ta, that we can act on at present?"
"Ah, yes," Boso Ta said, brightly. "We are prepared for teleportation trials to begin. Well, we have already tested them," he admitted, "with nonsapient life forms; your Professor Nakagawa is quite the researcher. He and Station Manager Peterson have quite ably assisted my research here whilst you were off endeavoring in Avarice. We've been waiting to offer you the opportunity to be the first sapient teleportation subject of our revived teleport project."
Najia blinked. "Well..." She paused, and huffed, and the table's comm system chirr-upped. It was Peterson, and Najia added her to the conference call. "Tsukiko, what's this about me being a guinea pig?" Tsukiko let out a huff, interrupted in the middle of something she was about to say; her shoulders slumped, and she grinned, wryly. "Okay, not really a guinea pig," she said. "We've tested it in-system with mice, and dogs. We sedated them first," she said, "and then sent them through un-sedated, too. No ill effects we could find. I hate to say it, but Boso Ta is... Kind of a genius."
Najia held back a snort at that, and Tsukiko smirked at her. "So, it's safe, as near as anyone can tell?" "Oh yes. There's no evidence of any sort of atomic or molecular irregularities in scans of the animals taken on either side of the teleport, and a veterinary specialist who examined the animals before and afterwards indicated there was no sign of any lasting trauma from the experience," Boso Ta interrupted. "I felt that being the first sapient to go through the system would be your due, for the work you've put in to bringing us to the point where it is possible. Najia Takio; first human to use a teleport intentionally... Developed by us, anyway."
Najia snorted at that, and smirked. "I'll think about it. Do we need to retrofit anything?" "Oh, no," Tsukiko said. "Or, rather - and this is actually kind of mind-blowing - the actual teleport hardware itself is... Frankly miniscule. There is a refit needed, but it's already been done; we just started fitting them into the lifts of larger ships and the airlocks of Small-classes."
Najia blinked at that. She hadn't even known about it? "As a standard...?" "Indeed, as a standard option! This would, needless to say, greatly simplify personnel transfer logistics."
Najia laughed at that, and looked at Ace. Ace was stroking her crest, and looked... Thoughtful. Marta looked fascinated. "Shit, Ninja Taco, if you ain't gonna go for it, I will. But what'd you want, Professor Peterson?" Tsukiko laughed, blushing slightly. "Please, Marta, how many times do I have to tell you to just call me Tsukiko? You're harder to break of that habit than Najia was. Anyway, I called because the Golden Flea and the ship Ninja Taco are getting coded comms signals from the Empyrean Curs."
Ace let out a high-pitched trill at that. "Please, you must tunnel the comm from the Flea here with all haste." Tsukiko punched a button on her desk, out of view, and a holographic comms-panel came up in front of Ace. Ace studied it - it looked to Najia like gibberish - for a moment. "This is the recall signal. Maestro wants us back on the Arcadian Endeavour immediately, unless we are presently under surveillance by the authorities." Ace looked back to her. "It looks like the Maestro has his plans aligned and is ready to do something adventuresome."
Najia took in a deep breath, and nodded. "Alright." She squeezed her hand in a fist, and stood up. "We - or, I at least - are going to teleport back to the station. Boso Ta will get his test - and Boso Ta... Good work. Please proceed with teleportation research as far as you can take it." Boso Ta did a somersault in his tank, gleefully, at that request. "Oh, with pleasure, Assistant!" Najia looked at Ace. "Shall we try this teleport thing?" "Yes, let's!" Ace stood, and had a positively gleeful look. "This sounds... Fun."
Najia could only smile at that, and nod. "Right. Have the Flea and 'Chipmunk's' ships brought to the pads," she directed. "Actually, no; send all of my Chipmunk ships ahead; have them dock on the defense platform at the 18B gate, the Endeavor tends to hang out there anyway." She stood. "So... Just... The lift?" "Just the lift," Boso Ta confirmed. "Though, in the very near future, we suspect we'll be able to initiate the teleport from arbitrary locations."
Najia nodded. "Alright. A quick stop before we go." She smiled, heading for the lift.
A scant few minutes later, Najia was in the as-yet-impersonal-and-unfinished ready room, with Captain Kevlin. The two of them eyed one another warily, for a long few moments, and Najia pointed two fingers at her, starting the conversation. "You're not just some shipyard-working spacer," she said. "You stand like you're professional military." "And you stand like you're a free-wheeling, over-inflated sorority sister who lucked out and won the lottery," Kevlin shot back at her, smirking.
Najia blinked. She blinked again. Then she laughed, hard, curling her arm around her belly, the other hand reaching out to rest on the hull next to the window. When she looked up, she grinned. "Okay, now I know you're not a spy. No spy with a brain in their head would say something that's as likely to get them fired as anything else." Selaia smirked at her. "Unless I'm a very good spy who's compiled a massive psych profile on you."
"Which I strongly doubt," Najia shot back. "But you're also not afraid of being fired." Selaia shrugged. "No, I'm not. Working in your shipyard is nice, yes; probably the second-best job I've ever had, but I'm not going to kiss your ass and be a yes-woman. I won't do that for anyone."
Najia straightened up, and peered into Selaia's eyes. They were, not hostile, but hard with resolve. She smirked slightly, and nodded. "Good. I don't like yes-women, they fuck things up. So, you think I'm, what -" "An irresponsible, idealistic child who managed to, through luck and probably some skill, wind up controlling a growing paramilitary business empire," Selaia shot back, walking around her, eyeing her up. Najia snorted at that. "Child? Seriously?"
"You're not a veteran. You're not a politician. You're not a businesswoman. You might be doing a credible job pretending to be those latter two, but you're a university student who got lucky, and is good at putting on faces." Najia bristled, but shoved it down; the Argon-born starship operator was abrasively blunt... But she was airing doubts Najia herself had. "Harsh," Najia said. "But... Not entirely untrue. So, why are you still here, if you don't like me?" There was a long, quiet moment. "I didn't say I didn't like you," Selaia said, softly. "But you are all of those things." She smirked.
"And you like that, then?" Najia smirked back. "What got you discharged, presumably dishonorably, from the Argon navy? Your big mouth that can't seem to shut up? Called a superior out on some bullshit that you couldn't stand to let stand?" "You'd think that, but no; fraternization." Selaia met her gaze, levelly. "Though I was on the thinnest of ice before that for, as you say, speaking my mind." She walked around Najia, appraising her. "Are you planning to sack me? Should I grab my go bag and begone?" Laughing, Najia shook her head. "No! I was actually going to ask if you wanted the ship for real, not just for the trials."
That, at least, took Kevlin aback for a moment. She walked away, paused, turned. Looked Najia up and down again, slowly. Najia felt self-conscious about it, raising her eyebrow, as the other woman crossed her arms over her chest. "Do I have to get on my knees for the job?" Najia blinked at that. It struck her out of left field, and she rocked back on her heels. "I - I'm sorry... What?" "Do you expect me to put out - sexually - for the position," Selaia repeated, slowly, her voice... Almost unnervingly neutral; uncannily, composedly so. Najia gawped at her for a long few moments, her mouth hanging open. Closed. Open. Closed. She reached up and rubbed her face with her hands for a few moments. "I... I'm sorry, I - what kind of - where did you - what gave you..." She took a deep breath. "No. Emphatically no. What on or off Earth gave you that idea?"
A few moments that seemed like almost an eternity passed, then Selaia shrugged, and seemed to shrink in a bit, relaxing. "Frankly? You have a reputation as a party girl that goes back to Segaris and has followed you here what with all the Segaris Pioneers you're hiring away, preferentially beginning with your old circle of school pals - with whom you're pretty obviously in a, what did the Segaris call it, 'polycule' with. Your politics can only be described as 'liberal to an extreme,' given the way you run your stations domestically, and I overheard a snippet of one of your small craft pilots describing, very bluntly, you going down on her in the cockpit, after offering her the job. She was discussing this with the captain of Fenrir, who compared notes with her. I took that to infer that you liked to be sexual with those captains you personally offered a job to."
Najia flushed red, her jaw dropping, and looked out the window again, at the gas giant hanging in the distance. She groaned-and-laughed at the same time. "Fatimah and Xiaowen... I am going to scold them for gossiping somewhere public," she said, laughing so hard it brought tears to her eyes, and rubbed them out of her eyes. Then she heaved a heavy sigh. "And that didn't chase you away?" "I didn't expect I'd ever run into you personally," the shipyard expert said, "and frankly, given the dizzying breadth of corruption a kid with suddenly-unlimited power could get up to, being a little skeevy with grown adults is on the low end." Najia face-palmed again, harder. "Alright, look," she said, turning around. "Fatimah, Xiaowen and I are old friends from Segaris University. Yes, we're a thing, a big, messy, multi-tentacular thing that we're not ashamed of, but you've rather taken the wrong end of the stick there. It was roleplay, what they were discussing, pure and simple. A few moments of kink snatched from the jaws of some really messy, pressy schedules, between attempts to make the galaxy an overall better place and setbacks. Yes, I pretended to abuse my position and money to make them, for want of another word, perform to keep their jobs. And later, Fatimah turned that exact position around on me, while Xiaowen tied me up and -"
"Enough," Selaia said, laughing; finally her composure had broken, and she'd flushed, chuckling and holding her hand up. "Okay, I get it... I apologize, miss Takio. Clearly, I was badly mistaken." "... Najia, please," Najia said, blushing and grinning. "Since you already know me so well anyway."
Selaia snorted at her, and smiled, wryly, nodding. Najia met her eyes, for a long few moments. "So, that fraternization that got you kicked out of the Argon military..." "When you're a military intelligence lieutenant and a famous, well-liked starship captain insinuates that your career might stall out by standing on your feet but might go places on your knees, you weigh your options," Selaia said, bluntly. She pushed off the desk, and pushed past Najia, staring out the window herself. "So I started delivering reports from under his desk instead of in front of it. I hated myself a little, at first... Then he started telling me to sit up on his desk after. That was a little..." She huffed. "I dunno. Then his wife found out."
Najia winced. "Oh, damn. And monogamy is a big thing in Argon space, I take it?" "Well, yes, but she didn't blow up quite like you're expecting. She blew up at him all right - for not telling her and sharing me with her immediately. I got caught by my immediate superior - the one who didn't like my mouth - going to her home, who tried to use the thing to bring me, the captain and his wife - a defense industrial contractor - down. They had political connections, and when all was said and done, I basically took the fall for everything. The Lt.C who found out I was basically being half-bribed, half-blackmailed into being a kinky, connected couple's toy got to quietly resign, the captain got promoted to commodore, and I got the option to take an administrative discharge with my commission revoked for conduct unbecoming, or get totally shafted at a court martial and take the fall for everything, doing prison time."
Najia blinked at that, and winced. "That's... That's..." "If you give me a pity look, I swear I will punch you in the loins and tell you to take your offer and shove it." Proper fire glared in the skipper's eyes as she turned to look at Najia. Najia stepped back, her jaw half-dropping, and then she shook her head, laughing. "No - no! I was saying, 'that's a shit sandwich.'"
Selaia snorted roughly at her, and turned back to look out the window. "Yeah... Yeah, it was. Anyway, that was then, then I wound up here. I signed on a freighter to forget my past, made port here, decided to take a job in the shipyard because it paid better than the freighter, was work I could do, and the habs here are wonderful. Then I found myself in front of you, and, well... Sorry, for thinking you might be kind of a hump."
Najia snorted. "But not so much of a hump that it was an automatic deal-breaker, huh?" She scratched her head, craning to look up at the Oberth hanging 'above' them. "Yes... No... Maybe? I don't honestly know what I was going to say if you said yes," the Argon woman admitted. "At first, when I first... When I found the whole 'prostitution is legal and regulated' here thing, I was skeeved out. I tried to leave, but, there weren't actually any ships that would take me that day. Then I wound up actually finding out that one of my coworkers - someone I was kind of chummy with - was turning tricks on the side, and... Well, we had a chat about it. He was from Segaris, and thought it was no big deal. And, well... I... Kind of... Had whored myself. I didn't feel good about it then. I still don't, but... I was... Well, willing, I suppose, to at least see if the offer you made, the way you made it, made me feel greasy about it like it did back then, or if it was... I don't know; open? Honest?"
"Well, I'm glad to have pleasantly surprised you - though I am totally going to kill Fatimah and Xiaowen for gossiping in public," Najia muttered without sincere heat, continuing "and no... I'm really not going to demand that someone put out for a job. You just... Impressed me with what I saw, in the admittedly very brief time that I've known you, but hey, I'm the kind of impulsive idiot who takes a leap of faith based on her gut instinct."
"Then, in that case..." Selaia turned to her, and smirked. "I'll skipper this ship for you for now, but I want something bigger when it's available. And not assigned to a reaction force or routine escort or defense duty or something." Najia snorted again, and laughed. She took a step back, and looked Selaia up and down again, smirking and grinning. The formerly-Argon military intelligence woman didn't look particularly extraordinary, but she shifted to stand at 'parade rest,' arms folding behind her back, eyes piercing and patient. "Setting terms, huh?" Najia smirked. She looked like she was considering it, but Selaia had impressed her - and she was also the first hire she'd had who had a formal military background outside the Segaris Pioneers. That perspective could be useful. She crossed her arms. "It just so happens I'm planning to build more ships," she said. "Some of them will be quite large." She extended her hand to Selaia, who took and shook it, firmly. "You wouldn't happen to be planning to construct a Centaur II Battleship, would you?" Selaia asked, grinning at her. Najia laughed. "That depends; if you have the full plans for a Centaur II* in your back pocket, I'll make sure you get the first one out of the yard."
Laughing now, the other woman reached back with her free hand, and dramatically patted one of her rear pockets. "Damn, I appear to have left those plans in my other trousers." She let go, grinning and shaking her head, sighing. "Sorry, again, for... You know." Najia shook her head. "Jeeze, are you ever gonna stop beating yourself up for it?" She shook her head, laughing exasperatedly. "I don't know," the Captain answered bluntly, laughing and wryly face-palming. "I thought for sure that you were either going to say yes, or you'd fire me on the spot for even asking. And now I'm asking myself, do I even deserve the post?"
"For, what? Being willing to entertain the idea?" Najia shook her head, and, taking a bit of a risk, reached out and laid her hand heavily on Captain Kevlin's shoulder, squeezing it. "It's not like I'm running a state military with rules against fraternization or anything. What I care about is; can you do it, and are you someone whose general... Mmmmmh... It's not exactly right to say 'someone whose morals I like,' so much as..." Najia trailed off for a moment; Ace's morals were certainly questionable, even by her standards - in some cases especially by her standards - but she had bonded with her, trusted her. "Someone I feel I can trust to continue to be someone whose actions I like. If you wanna be woo-woo about it, someone whose spirit I like. And you? I have a good feeling about you; I've been wrong before, but... Not often."
Selaia snorted at her, looking at her, then looking back to the window. "And you'd trust someone who was willing to go down on you to get the post?" "As its own qualification, no. But it doesn't make me distrust you," Najia said. "Especially with how you were prepared to evaluate how a 'yes' answer made you feel and then tell me to take that offer and shove it. So, we good? You want to skipper a ship for me?" "Just that simply? No... Strings attached?"
Najia laughed, and turned, leaning against the windowsill and looking at the other woman's head in profile, smirking. "Do you want strings attached?" Selaia started at the question, turning to look at her. She worked her mouth a few times, but couldn't seem to find words; she did, however, flush warmly, looking somewhat guilty, and swallowed. "Okay, look; you're conflicted, obviously." Najia took the professional spacer's hand, squeezing it carefully. "Like I said, the job is yours if you say yes, no strings attached. Completely separately from that, if you are interested in, you know, the idea of getting to know me more thoroughly, that's, you know, a matter we can bring up later. And if you're not, then I'm not going to mention it again."
Flushing, Selaia turned away from her, but kept her hands in hers; squeezing Najia's hand, tightly. "This is so fucking unprofessional of me to even be considering," she huffed. "Sure it is. And you impressed me by being able to put on and take off the 'Professional Selaia' almost instantly. I bet you could summon 'Captain Kevlin' back in a moment."
Selaia blinked at her, turning her head to look at her. She drew her hand back, took a deep breath, and faced the window again. Folded her arms behind her back, and executed a crisp right-face, her face schooled into stern impassivity. Her eyes were mirthful, but the rest was the very picture of the woman Najia had seen standing by at attention while she indulged herself in helming the ship personally. "Just like that," Najia said, grinning brightly. Her grin softened Selaia's demeanor, and she smiled in turn. "You're a deep well of passion who can put on 'military bearing' in a moment. And you're not a yes-woman. That's what I need."
Working her jaw slightly, Selaia relaxed, chuckling and sighing; she flushed again, and sighed. "Thank you," she said. "For the opportunity; for not getting pissed at me, for... Well, for being understanding, and tolerating me being an aggro neurotic about it when things didn't go the ways I'd seen them going." "It's fine," Najia assured her, holding her hands up, placatingly, and to her surprise, Selaia took them, squeezing. "I, um... I..." Flushing and looking away, Selaia swallowed. "Is that offer going to be on the table if I need to sleep on it?"
Najia laughed, grinning and shaking her head. "Oh, you're amazing. Yes, absolutely; sleep on it. Hell, I have to get going; places to go, pirate clans to infiltrate. Fun stuff! Speaking of which, please make the ship combat-ready and take it to the Windfall/Eighteen B hardpoint to dock. I'm not saying I expect anything to go down, but..."
"Understood." Selaia looked back up; she remained flushed, but smiled. "That, I can do." She squeezed Najia's hands, and Najia squeezed back, then let go. She pivoted on her heel, slipping out of the Ready Room and headed for the lift; Ace and Marta had disembarked said left and were standing to the side of the corridor, with Marta telling Ace an anecdote from when they were still young class-taking students at Segaris U. "Well that took longer than expected," Marta said. "Everything good?" "Everything's good," Najia said. "And we have a new captain. I figured she should keep Koshirae for now. So, how does this lift-teleporter work?"
"Like this," Ace said, stepping into the lift. She pressed a button, and Najia felt a strange, yet familiar sensation start to take hold; like the feeling she got just before the headquarters had transported itself. Like falling in all directions at once; then, with a bright flash, she found herself in another lift. Blinking, Najia felt herself up for a few moments, then strode out; they were on one of the landing pads at the headquarters, and standing above them was the Golden Flea. Her jaw dropped. "That... That... Was both incredible, and..." "Somehow underwhelming," Ace concluded with her. "It was not wholly without fanfare, yet somehow, I anticipated... More."
Najia nodded. "Right. So, how should we do this?" She looked to Ace, who smiled at her. "We stagger the arrival of Chipmunk's ships and mine in the vicinity of the Arcadian Endeavour, as though we had scattered, lain low, and were returning from somewhat different places." Najia nodded. "Right. And, I wonder... Would it be possible to fit the Flea with a teleporter?"
"Indeed it would," Ace agreed. "I asked Boso Ta if this was possible and he said it was very simple. He delivered the equipment to the Flea before I had finished asking, in fact, though I do not think I will be able to install it and fly home simultaneously." Najia grinned at Ace, and Ace grinned back at her, adding, "but, if you wished to fly back with me, one of us could tinker, while the other flies."
Najia grinned at Ace, and looked back to Marta. "That sounds good to me. Would you please take the Jackdaw and -" "Head on ahead while the two of you fiddle with Ace's ship and snuggle up naked while the ship is on autopilot?" Marta asked back, smirking. Najia flushed, glancing around; there was nobody within earshot. "Mmmm-hmmmm. You ain't foolin' noone, sister." Marta grasped Najia, pulled her close, and kissed her. Najia felt herself melt into the grasp, kissing back instinctually, embracing her oldest friend and turning her head to meet the kiss. Then it ended, Marta pulled back, and stepped back, looking down at Ace with her hands on her hips.
Ace blinked, peering up at the far-taller, stronger human. For a moment, she was concerned she would be threatened again, then she sucked in a sharp breath as Marta reached under her arms, grasped her chest, and simply lifted her to eye-level, then hugged her tightly. Ace let the breath out slowly, tentatively returning the embrace, and asked, "I... thought you distrusted me," she commented. "I did," Marta said, bluntly. "But Najia, apparently, took a chance on you, and figures you're alright. She's been right about that kind of thing a lot more often than I have." Marta squeezed her, and Ace sucked in a breath in alarm; the human could probably squeeze her so strongly that she passed out, yet she didn't squeeze so hard she hurt. It rather felt like being in Najia's arms, in fact. "So, I'm guessing you're one of us now. That ain't gonna be a problem with, you know, the whole pirate clan, is it?"
There it was; the proverbial shoe. Najia swallowed, glad that Ace couldn't see. She had been studiously not raising that point. "It will not be, provided... Provided I am not asked to betray the Curs. Membership in a pirate clan is... Voluntary, for the most part," Ace said. "I will not betray them." She looked back at Najia. "And, I think, neither will you." "But you are willing to leave them... For us?"
"For you," Ace said, reaching out with her tail, wrapping it around Najia's arm. "And, perhaps, the rest of you, in time," she added, looking at Marta, trilling softly. "But I will have to see the Maestro's big scheme through." "Family. I get that," Marta opined, setting Ace down. "Y'all fly safe. We'll filter in like a disorganized rabble."
Ace nodded, and turned to board the Flea. "What took you so long, anyway?" "Oh geeze." Najia followed the Teladi pilot. "It's a long story."

I am 16, living in Germany and i already am working a Job. I dont really know much about the law and stuff, so will i get in Trouble when i have a second source of Money,and what should i do in order to keep it legal? And how can i keep my Profit Tax free, if that is possiple.

People seem to have been scamming since the human race began. At least since modern, recorded civilisation. With every new find and technology, there seems to have been an influx of scams. Crypto has been no exception. The advent of cryptocurrency brought about the realisation of how easy it was to copy legitimate projects’ open source code and come up with new cryptocurrencies. Some of these were and are good.
98% of ICOs – the thousands of new cryptocurrencies launched by initial coin offerings in the 2016-2018 crypto bubble – have since been found to have been either scams or else just colossal failures.
Either way, 98% of the thousands of crypto projects of those days lost their investors’ money. And yet, for all of these scams, some stand out that have scammed hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars from their victims around the world.
Here are the 10 biggest scams:
1. Onecoin – made famous by the BBC’s Missing Cryptoqueen podcast series, Onecoin is now thought to be the biggest crypto scam of all time. It is believed that the Onecoin scam – now known to be a giant Ponzi scheme – made off with an estimated $25 billion. Despite the scam being shut down by authorities in 2017, it’s leaders arrested and its founder disappeared – on the run or dead – the scam is, astonishingly, still going. Most bizarre of all, Onecoin never even had a cryptocurrency, the tech was a hoax from the start.
2. Bitconnect – another of the most brazen and famous crypto scams of all time. Bitconnect scammed an estimated $4 billion in a multi-level marketing-led Ponzi scheme, luring investors in through claims of having an unbeatable trading algorithm, which, perhaps obviously, never existed. Remarkably, they weren’t happy to just scam their victims once, launching a second scam ICO, BitconnectX, just as their first project was crashing to zero.
3. Bitclub Network – the biggest known crypto-mining scam. As with Onecoin and Bitconnect, this was a Ponzi scheme that successfully used good marketing and salesmen to bring in $722 million. BCN promised its investors that it had bitcoin mining equipment and would send them guaranteed profits. Unfortunately, the videos it used of mining equipment belonged to another mining farm, and it seems to have just been a Ponzi scheme from start to finish.

Quadriga – the crypto exchange, whose founder is infamously believed to have faked his own death, was initially Canada’s leading and trusted crypto exchange. But later it was found to have been run fraudulently from the start and its founders were experienced at running other scams.

The founder was the only one with access to the private keys holding C$250 million of its users’ crypto when he suspiciously died, except that most don’t believe he died, and some are still calling for his body to be exhumed to have some proof.

Pincoin and iFan – the Vietnamese projects that jointly scammed $660 million from their investors using persuasive sales events and clever marketing. Much of this crypto is still missing.
Plexcoin – an ICO that, incredibly, promised its investors returns of 1,354% before being shut down by the SEC and ordered to repay $20 million it had stolen.
Savedroid – not a scam per se, but it’s founders shut down their office and social media, before tactlessly posing in an airport and beach making out to have exit scammed before coming back to say it wasn’t a scam. Either way, the project’s tokens crashed in value losing its investors over $50 million as a result of the hoax.
Bitcoin Doublers – not one of the biggest scams on its own in terms of stolen value, but cumulatively these are bad. The sites claim to double the bitcoin of anyone who sends in their crypto. The offer sounds good, but it would be a shock if they did anything other than steal the crypto sent to them.
Twitter and social media offers – as with Bitcoin Doublers, this is not one individual scam so much as scammers either taking over or imitating celebrities’ social media accounts so well that people fall for them. They promise to send back double the crypto – or whatever offer is made – to whoever sends them their money. The celebrities used are not aware of these scams going on in their names.
Thodex – back into the billions of dollars, the founder of this Turkish crypto exchange lured investors to put $2.2 billion of their crypto onto his exchange with offers of free memecoin Doge before exit scamming with the lot. It’s still not known where he is.

Reference : Irish tech news.

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The idea that successful artists and designers were already rich to begin with and the democratisation of these mediums levels the playing field is false.
Democratisation cannot exist in a capitalist economy.
All democratisation does is devalue design and art, we live in an economic system where you're subject to homelessness if you're aren't able to make money or don't already have access to money. So people who choose careers as artists are unable to pursue art purely as a means of creation and expression, and instead get it tangled up with the requirement to make money in order to survive.
If you took away that requirement, suddenly there's no more "AI art is stealing our jobs" rhetoric, and it could be seen as the amazing tool for expression that it is. Other concerns would remain, but this particular avenue of backlash totally depends on the exploitative economic system that we're all subject to.
Everyone on Instagram has a pirated copy of Adobe suite and is now a designer, imagine if we treated law, finance and any other professional field the same.
And I GET that art is different to law, finance etc but until UBI is a thing, then yeah - I'm gonna gatekeep what I do for a career with what you do "just for fun".
What democratisation actually does is change the prerequisites for success, to make it as a successful artist or designer you almost need a platform w a larger following, you need to be insta famous - and this is the result of democratisation. If everyone can do it, now those who gain success will be due to other factors

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Law and Order: Special Victims Unit