Nonthaburi gambling den operators get jail sentence ...

In the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was a young teen growing up in far North Austin, it was a popular custom for many boys in the neighborhood to assemble at the local Stop-N-Go after school on a regular basis for some Grand Champion level tournaments in Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat. The collective insistence of our mothers and fathers to get out of the house, get some exercise, and refrain from playing NES or Sega on the television only led us to seek out more video games at the convenience store down the road. Much allowance and lunch money was spent as well as hours that should have been devoted to homework among the 8 or 9 regular boys in attendance, often challenging each other to 'Best of 5' matches. I myself played Dhalsim and SubZero, and not very well, so I rarely ever made it to the 5th match. The store workers frequently kicked us out for the day only to have us return when they weren't working the counter anymore if not the next day.
There is something about that which has been lost in the present day. While people can today download the latest games on Steam or PSN or in the app store on your smartphone, you can't just find arcade games in stores and restaurants like you used to be able to. And so the fun of a spontaneous 8 or 10 person multiplayer video game tournament has been confined to places like bars, pool halls, Pinballz or Dave&Busters.
But in truth it was that ubiquity of arcade video games, how you could find them in any old 7-11 or Laundromat, which is what killed the original arcades of the early 1980s before the Great Crash of 1983 when home video game consoles started to catch up to what you saw in the arcade.
I was born in the mid 1970s so I missed out on Pong. I was kindergarten age when the Golden Age of Arcade Games took place in the early 1980s. There used to be a place called Skateworld on Anderson Mill Road that was primarily for roller skating but had a respectable arcade in its own right. It was there that I honed my skills on the original Tron, Pac Man, Galaga, Pole Position, Defender, and so many others. In the 1980s I remember visiting all the same mall arcades as others in my age group. There was Aladdin's Castle in Barton Creek Mall, The Gold Mine in Highland, and another Gold Mine in Northcross which was eventually renamed Tilt. Westgate Mall also had an arcade but being a north austin kid I never went there until later in the mid 1990s. There were also places like Malibu Grand Prix and Showbiz Pizza and Chuck-E-Cheeze, all of which had fairly large arcades for kids which were the secondary attraction.
If you're of a certain age you will remember Einsteins and LeFun on the Drag. They were there for a few decades going back way before the Slacker era. Lesser known is that the UT Student Union basement used to have an arcade that was comparable to either or both of those places. Back in the pre-9/11 days it was much easier to sneak in if you even vaguely looked like you could be a UT student.
But there was another place I was too young to have experienced called Smitty's up further north on 183 at Lake Creek in the early 1980s. I never got to go there but I always heard about it from older kids at the time. It was supposed to have been two stories of wall to wall games with a small snack bar. I guess at the time it served a mostly older teen crowd from Westwood High School and for that reason younger kids my age weren't having birthday parties there. It wasn't around very long, just a few years during the Golden Age of Arcades.
It is with almost-forgotten early arcades like that in mind that I wanted to share with y'all some examples of places from The Golden Age of the Video Arcade in Austin using some old Statesman articles I've found. Maybe someone of a certain age on here will remember them. I was curious what they were like, having missed out by being slightly too young to have experienced most of them first hand. I also wanted to see the original reaction to them in the press. I had a feeling there was some pushback from school/parent/civic groups on these facilities showing up in neighborhood strip malls or next to schools, and I was right to suspect. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First let's list off some places of interest. Be sure to speak up if you remember going to any of these, even if it was just for some other kid's birthday party. Unfortunately some of the only mentions about a place are reports of a crime being committed there, such as our first few examples.
Forgotten Arcade #1
Fun House/Play Time Arcade - 2820 Guadalupe
June 15, 1975

ARCADE ENTHUSIASM
A gang fight involving 20 30 people erupted early Saturday morning in front of an arcade on Guadalupe Street. The owner of the Fun House Arcade at 282J Guadalupe told police pool cues, lug wrenches, fists and a shotgun were displayed during the flurry. Police are unsure what started the fisticuffs, but one witness at the scene said it pitted Chicanos against Anglos. During the fight the owner of the arcade said a green car stopped at the side of the arcade and witnesses reported the barrel of a shotgun sticking out. The crowd wisely scattered and only a 23-year-old man was left lying on the ground. He told police he doesn't know what happened.

March 3, 1976

ARCADE ROBBED
A former employee of Play Time Arcade, 2820 Guadalupe, was charged Tuesday in connection with the Tuesday afternoon robbery of his former business. Police have issued a warrant for the arrest of Ronnie Magee, 22, of 1009 Aggie Lane, Apt. 306. Arcade attendant Sam Garner said he had played pool with the suspect an hour before the robbery. He told police the man had been fired from the business two weeks earlier. Police said a man walked in the arcade about 2:45 p m. with a blue steel pistol and took $180. Magee is charged with first degree aggravated robbery. Bond was set on the charge at $15,000.

First it was called Fun House and then renamed Play Time a year later. I'm not sure what kind of arcade games beyond Pong and maybe Asteroids they could have had at this place. The peak of the Pinball craze was supposed to be around 1979, so they might have had a few pinball machines as well. A quick search of youtube will show you a few examples of 1976 video games like Death Race. The location is next to Ken's Donuts where PokeBowl is today where the old Baskin Robbins location was for many years.
Forgotten Arcade #2
Green Goth - 1121 Springdale Road
May 15, 1984

A 23-year-old man pleaded guilty Monday to a January 1983 murder in East Austin and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Jim Crowell Jr. of Austin admitted shooting 17-year-old Anthony Rodriguez in the chest with a shotgun after the two argued outside the Green Goth, a games arcade at 1121 Springdale Road, on Jan. 23, 1983. Crowell had argued with Rodriguez and a friend of Rodriguez at the arcade, police said. Crowell then went to his house, got a shotgun and returned to the arcade, witnesses said. When the two friends left the arcade, Rodriguez was shot Several weeks ago Crowell had reached a plea bargain with prosecutors for an eight-year prison term, but District Judge Bob Perkins would not accept the sentence, saying it was shorter than sentences in similar cases. After further plea bargaining, Crowell accepted the 15-year prison sentence.

I can't find anything else on Green Goth except reports about this incident with a murder there. There is at least one other report from 1983 around the time of Crowell's arrest that also refer to it as an arcade but reports the manager said the argument started over a game of pool. It's possible this place might have been more known for pool.
Forgotten Arcades #3 & #4
Games, Etc. - 1302 S. First St
Muther's Arcade - 2532 Guadalupe St
August 23, 1983

Losing the magic touch - Video Arcades have trouble winning the money game
It was going to be so easy for Lawrence Villegas, a video game junkie who thought he could make a fast buck by opening up an arcade where kids could plunk down an endless supply of quarters to play Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Asteroids. Villegas got together with a few friends, purchased about 30 video games and opened Games, Etc. at 1302 S. First St in 1980. .,--.... For a while, things, went great Kids waited in line to spend their money to drive race cars, slay dragons and save the universe.
AT THE BEGINNING of 1982, however, the bottom fell out, and Villegas' revenues fell from $400 a week to $25. Today, Games, Etc. is vacant Villegas, 30, who is now working for his parents at Tony's Tortilla Factory, hasn't decided what he'll do with the building. "I was hooked on Asteroids, and I opened the business to get other people hooked, too," Villegas said. "But people started getting bored, and it wasn't worth keeping the place open. In the end, I sold some machines for so little it made me sick."
VILLEGAS ISNT the only video game operator to experience hard times, video game manufacturers and distributors 'It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100 .
Pac-Man's a lost cause. Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Ronnie Roark says. In the past year, business has dropped 25 percent to 65 percent throughout the country, they say. Most predict business will get even worse before the market stabilizes. Video game manufacturers and operators say there are several reasons for the sharp and rapid decline: Many video games can now be played at home on television, so there's no reason to go to an arcade. The novelty of video games has worn off. It has been more than a decade since the first ones hit the market The decline can be traced directly to oversaturation or the market arcade owners say. The number of games in Austin has quadrupled since 1981, and it's not uncommon to see them in coin-operated laundries, convenience stores and restaurants.
WITH SO MANY games to choose from, local operators say, Austinites be came bored. Arcades still take in thousands of dollars each week, but managers and owners say most of the money is going to a select group of newer games, while dozens of others sit idle.
"After awhile, they all seem the same," said Dan Moyed, 22, as he relaxed at Muther's Arcade at 2532 Guadalupe St "You get to know what the game is going to do before it does. You can play without even thinking about it" Arcade owners say that that, in a nutshell, is why the market is stagnating.
IN THE PAST 18 months, Ronnie Roark, owner of the Back Room at 2015 E. Riverside Drive, said his video business has dropped 65 to 75 percent Roark, . who supplied about 160 video games to several Austin bars and arcades, said the instant success of the games is what led to their demise. "The technology is not keeping up with people's demand for change," said Roark, who bought his first video game in 1972. "The average game is popular for two or three months. We're sending back games that are less than five months old."
Roark said the market began dropping in March 1982 and has been declining steadily ever since. "The drop started before University of Texas students left for the summer in 1982," Roark said. "We expected a 25 percent drop in business, and we got that, and more. It's never really picked up since then. - "It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100. 1 was shocked when I looked over my books and saw how much things had dropped."
TO COMBAT THE slump, Roark said, he and some arcade owners last year cut the price of playing. Even that didn't help, he said. Old favorites, such as Pac-Man, which once took in hundreds of dollars each week, he said, now make less than $3 each. "Pac-Man's a lost cause," he said. "Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Hardest hit by the slump are the owners of the machines, who pay $3,500 to $5,000 for new products and split the proceeds with the businesses that house them.
SALEM JOSEPH, owner of Austin Amusement and Vending Co., said his business is off 40 percent in the past year. Worse yet, some of his customers began returning their machines, and he's having a hard time putting them back in service. "Two years ago, a machine would generate enough money to pay for itself in six months,' said Joseph, who supplies about 250 games to arcades. "Now that same machine takes 18 months to pay for itself." As a result, Joseph said, he'll buy fewer than 15 new machines this year, down from the 30 to 50 he used to buy. And about 50 machines are sitting idle in his warehouse.
"I get calls every day from people who want to sell me their machines," Joseph said. "But I can't buy them. The manufacturers won't buy them from me." ARCADE OWNERS and game manufacturers hope the advent of laser disc video games will buoy the market Don Osborne, vice president of marketing for Atari, one of the largest manufacturers of video games, said he expects laser disc games to bring a 25 percent increase in revenues next year. The new games are programmed to give players choices that may affect the outcome of the game, Os borne said. "Like the record and movie industries, the video game industry is dependent on products that stimulate the imagination," Osborne said "One of the reasons we're in a valley is that we weren't coming up with those kinds of products."
THE FIRST of the laser dis games, Dragonslayer and Star Wan hit the market about two months ago. Noel Kerns, assistant manager of The Gold Mine Arcade in Northcross Mall, says the new games are responsible for a $l,000-a-week increase in revenues. Still, Kerns said, the Gold Mine' total sales are down 20 percent iron last summer. However, he remain optimistic about the future of the video game industry. "Where else can you come out of the rain and drive a Formula One race car or save the universe?" hi asked.
Others aren't so optimistic. Roark predicted the slump will force half of all operators out of business and will last two more years. "Right now, we've got a great sup ply and almost no demand," Roark said. "That's going to have to change before things get- significantly better."

Well there is a lot to take from that long article, among other things, that the author confused "Dragonslayer" with "Dragon's Lair". I lol'd.
Anyone who has been to Emo's East, formerly known as The Back Room, knows they have arcade games and pool, but it's mostly closed when there isn't a show. That shouldn't count as an arcade, even though the former owner Ronnie Roark was apparently one of the top suppliers of cabinet games to the area during the Golden Era. Any pool hall probably had a few arcade games at the time, too, but that's not the same as being an arcade.
We also learn from the same article of two forgotten arcades: Muthers at 2522 Guadalupe where today there is a Mediterranean food restaurant, and another called Games, Etc. at 1302 S.First that today is the site of an El Mercado restaurant. But the article is mostly about showing us how bad the effects were from the crash at the end of the Golden Era. It was very hard for the early arcades to survive with increasing competition from home game consoles and personal computers, and the proliferation of the games into stores and restaurants.
Forgotten Arcades #5 #6 & #7
Computer Madness - 2414 S. Lamar Blvd.
Electronic Encounters - 1701 W Ben White Blvd (Southwood Mall)
The Outer Limits Amusements Center - 1409 W. Oltorf
March 4, 1982

'Quartermania' stalks South Austin
School officials, parents worried about effects of video games
A fear Is haunting the video game business. "We call it 'quartermania.' That's fear of running out of quarters," said Steve Stackable, co-owner of Computer Madness, a video game and foosball arcade at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd. The "quartermania" fear extends to South Austin households and schools, as well. There it's a fear of students running out of lunch money and classes to play the games. Local school officials and Austin police are monitoring the craze. They're concerned that computer hotspots could become undesirable "hangouts" for students, or that truancy could increase because students (high-school age and younger) will skip school to defend their galaxies against The Tempest.
So far police fears have not been substantiated. Department spokesmen say that although more than half the burglaries in the city are committed by juveniles during the daytime, they know of no connection between the break-ins and kids trying to feed their video habit But school and parental worries about misspent time and money continue. The public outcry in September 1980 against proposals to put electronic game arcades near two South Austin schools helped persuade city officials to reject the applications. One proposed location was near Barton Hills Elementary School. The other was South Ridge Plaza at William Cannon Drive and South First Street across from Bedlchek Junior High School.
Bedichek principal B.G. Henry said he spoke against the arcade because "of the potential attraction it had for our kids. I personally feel kids are so drawn to these things, that It might encourage them to leave the school building and play hookey. Those things have so much compulsion, kids are drawn to them like a magnet Kids can get addicted to them and throw away money, maybe their lunch money. I'm not against the video games. They may be beneficial with eye-hand coordination or even with mathematics, but when you mix the video games during school hours and near school buildings, you might be asking for problems you don't need."
A contingent from nearby Pleasant Hill Elementary School joined Bedichek in the fight back in 1980, although principal Kay Beyer said she received her first formal call about the games last Week from a mother complaining that her child was spending lunch money on them. Beyer added that no truancy problems have been related to video game-playing at a nearby 7-11 store. Allen Poehl, amusement game coordinator for Austin's 7-11 stores, said company policy rules out any game-playing by school-age youth during school hours. Fulmore Junior High principal Bill Armentrout said he is working closely with operators of a nearby 7-1 1 store to make sure their policy is enforced.
The convenience store itself, and not necessarily the video games, is a drawing card for older students and drop-outs, Armentrout said. Porter Junior High principal Marjorie Ball said that while video games aren't a big cause of truancy, "the money (spent on the games) is a big factor." Ball said she has made arrangements with nearby businesses to call the school it students are playing the games during school hours. "My concern is that kids are basically unsupervised, especially at the 24-hour grocery stores. That's a late hour for kids to be out. I would like to see them (games) unplugged at 10 p.m.," adds Joslin Elementary principal Wayne Rider.
Several proprietors of video game hot-spots say they sympathize with the concerns of parents and school officials. No one under 18 is admitted without a parent to Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre at 4211 S. Lamar. That rule, says night manager David Dunagan, "keeps it from being a high school hangout. This is a family place." Jerry Zollar, owner of J.J. Subs in West Wood Shopping Center on Bee Cave Road, rewards the A's on the report cards of Eanes school district students with free video games. "It's kind of a community thing we do in a different way. I've heard from both teachers and parents . . . they thought this was a good idea," said Zollar.
Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall last year was renovated into a brightly lit arcade. "We're trying to get away from the dark, barroom-type place. We want this to be a place for family entertainment We won't let kids stay here during school hours without a written note from their parents, and we're pretty strict about that," said manager Kelly Roberts. Joyce Houston, who manages The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf St. along with her husband, said, "I wouldn't let my children go into some of the arcades I've visited. I'm a concerned parent, too. We wanted a place where the whole family could come and enjoy themselves."

Well you can see which way the tone of all these articles is going. There were some crimes committed at some arcades but all of them tended to have a negative reputation for various reasons. Parents and teachers were very skeptical of the arcades being in the neighborhoods to the point of petitioning the City Government to restrict them. Three arcades are mentioned besides Chuck-E-Cheese. Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall, The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf, and Computer Madness, a "video game and foosball arcade" at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd.
Forgotten Arcade #8
Smitty's Galaxy of Games - Lake Creek Parkway
February 25, 1982

Arcades fighting negative image
Video games have swept across America, and Williamson and Travis counties have not been immune. In a two-part series, Neighbor examines the effects the coin-operated machines have had on suburban and small-town life.
Cities have outlawed them, religious leaders have denounced them and distraught mothers have lost countless children to their voracious appetites. And still they march on, stronger and more numerous than before. A new disease? Maybe. A wave of invading aliens from outer space? On occasion. A new type of addiction? Certainly. The culprit? Video games. Although the electronic game explosion has been mushrooming throughout the nation's urban areas for the past few years, its rippling effects have just recently been felt in the suburban fringes of North Austin and Williamson County.
In the past year, at least seven arcades armed with dozens of neon quarter-snatchers have sprung up to lure teens with thundering noises and thousands of flashing seek-and-destroy commands. Critics say arcades are dens of iniquity where children fall prey to the evils of gambling. But arcade owners say something entirely different. "Everybody fights them (arcades), they think they are a haven for drug addicts. It's just not true," said Larry Grant of Austin, who opened Eagle's Nest Fun and Games on North Austin Avenue in Georgetown last September. "These kids are great" Grant said the gameroom "gives teenagers a place to come. Some only play the games and some only talk.
In Georgetown, if you're from the high school, this is it." He said he's had very few disturbances, and asks "undesirables" to leave. "We've had a couple of rowdies. That's why I don't have any pool tables they tend to attract that type of crowd," Grant said.
Providing a place for teens to congregate was also the reason behind Ron and Carol Smith's decision to open Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway at the entrance to Anderson Mill. "We have three teenage sons, and as soon as the oldest could drive, it became immediately apparent that there was no place to go around here," said Ron, an IBM employee who lives in Spicewood at Balcones. "This prompted us to want to open something." The business, which opened in August, has been a huge success with both parents and youngsters. "Hundreds of parents have come to check out our establishment before allowing their children to come, and what they see is a clean, safe environment managed by adults and parents," Ron said. "We've developed an outstanding rapport with the community." Video arcades "have a reputation that we have to fight," said Carol.
Kathy McCoy of Georgetown, who last October opened Krazy Korner on Willis Street in Leander, agrees. "We've got a real good group of kids," she said. "There's no violence, no nothing. Parents can always find their kids at Krazy Korner."
While all the arcade owners contacted reported that business is healthy, if not necessarily lucrative, it's not as easy for video entrepreneurs to turn a profit as one might imagine. A sizeable investment is required. Ron Smith paid between $2,800 and $5,000 for each of the 30 electronic diversions at his gameroom.
Grant said his average video game grosses about $50 a week, and his "absolute worst" game, Armor Attack, only $20 a week. The top machines (Defender and Pac-Man) can suck in an easy $125 a week. That's a lot of quarters, 500 to be exact but the Eagle's Nest and Krazy Korner pass half of them on to Neelley Vending Company of Austin which rents them their machines. "At 25 cents a shot, it takes an awful lot of people to pay the bills," said Tom Hatfield, district manager for Neelley.
He added that an owner's personality and the arcade's location can make or break the venture. The game parlor must be run "by an understanding person, someone with patience," Hatfield said. "They cannot be too demanding on the kids, yet they can't let them run all over them." And they must be located in a spot "with lots of foot traffic," such as a shopping center or near a good restaurant, he said. "And being close to a school really helps." "Video games are going to be here permanently, but we're going to see some operations not going because of the competition," which includes machines in virtually every convenience store and supermarket, Hatfield said.

This article talks about three arcades. One in Georgetown called Eagles Nest, another in Leander called Krazy Korner, and a third called Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway "on the fringes of North Austin". This is the one I remember the older kids talking about when I was a little kid. There was once a movie theater across the street from the Westwood High School football stadium and behind that was Smitty's. Today I think the building was bulldozed long ago and the space is part of the expanded onramp to 183 today. Eventually another unrelated arcade was built next to the theater that became Alamo Lakeline. It was another site of some unrecorded epic Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat tournaments in the 90s.
But the article written before the end of the Golden Era tell us much about the pushback I was talking about earlier. Early arcades were seen as "dirty" places in some circles, and the owners of the arcades in Williamson County had to stress how "clean" their establishments were. This other article from a couple of weeks later tells of how area school officials weren't worried about video games and tells us more arcades in Round Rock and Cedar Park. Apparently the end of the golden age lasted a bit longer than usual in this area.
At some point in the next few years the bubble burst, and places like Smitty's were gone by the late 80s. But the distributors quoted earlier were right that arcade games weren't going completely away. In the mid 1980s LeFun opened up next in the Scientology building at 2200 Guadalupe on the drag. Down a few doors past what used be a coffee shop and a CVS was Einsteins Arcade. Both of those survived into the 21st century. I remember the last time I was at Einsteins I got my ass beat in Tekken by a kid half my age. heheh
That's all for today. There were no Bonus Pics in the UT archive of arcades (other than the classical architectural definition). I wanted to pass on some Bonus newspaper articles (remember to click and zoom in with the buttons on the right to read) about Austin arcades anyway but first a small story.
I mentioned earlier the secret of the UT Student Union. I have no idea what it looks like now but in the 90s there was a sizable arcade in with the bowling alley in the basement. Back in 1994 when I used to sneak in, they featured this bizarre early attempt at virtual reality games. I found an old Michael Barnes Statesman article about it dated February 11, 1994. Some highlights:

Hundreds of students and curiosity-seekers lined up at the University of Texas Union to play three to five minutes of Dactyl Nightmare, Flying Aces or V-Tol, three-dimensional games from Kramer Entertainment. Nasty weather delayed the unloading of four huge trunks containing the machines, which resemble low pulpits. Still, players waited intently for a chance to shoot down a fighter jet, operate a tilt-wing Harrier or tangle with a pterodactyl. Today, tickets will go on sale in the Texas Union lobby at 11:30 a.m. for playing slots between noon and 6 p.m.
Players, fitted with full helmets, throttles and power packs, stood on shiny gray and yellow platforms surrounded by a circular guard rail. Seen behind the helmet's goggles were computer simulated landscapes, not unlike the most sophisticated video games, with controls and enemies viewed in deep space. "You're on a platform waiting to fight a human figure," said Jeff Vaughn, 19, of Dactyl Nightmare. "A pterodactyl swoops down and tries to pick you up. You have to fight it off. You are in the space and can see your own body and all around you. But if you try to walk, you have to use that joy stick to get around."
"I let the pterodactyl carry me away so I could look down and scan the board," said Tom Bowen of the same game. "That was the way I found out where the other player was." "Yeah, it's cool just to stand there and not do anything," Vaughn said. The mostly young, mostly male crowd included the usual gaming fanatics, looking haggard and tense behind glasses and beards. A smattering of women and children also pressed forward in a line that snaked past the lobby and into the Union's retail shops.
"I don't know why more women don't play. Maybe because the games are so violent," said Jennifer Webb, 24, a psychology major whose poor eyesight kept her from becoming a fighter pilot in real life. "If the Air Force won't take me, virtual reality will." "They use stereo optics moving at something like 60 frames a second," said computer science major Alex Aquila, 19. "The images are still pretty blocky. But once you play it, you'll want to play it again and again." With such demand for virtual reality, some gamesters wondered why an Austin video arcade has not invested in at least one machine.

The gameplay looked like this.
Bonus Article #1 - "Video fans play for own reasons" (Malibu Grand Prix) - March 11, 1982
Bonus Article #2 - "Pac-Man Cartridge Piques Interest" - April 13, 1982
Bonus Article #3 - "Video Games Fail Consumer" - January 29, 1984
Bonus Article #4 - "Nintendoholics/Modems Unite" - January 25, 1989
Bonus Article #5 and pt 2 "Two girls missing for a night found at arcade" (truly dedicated young gamers) - August 7, 2003

Your 14-minute Thursday report in 3497 words. Part 1.

anti-corruption: Defense Ministry official busted with bribery & tampering with draft during war

NSS report says: a Colonel, who had oversight over subdivisions, received a ֏975K bribe from a conscript to transfer him to another location on Sep-13-2020. Part of the bribe was transferred to his online gambling account.
When the war began, a draft was declared and recruits began training at a location in Armenia. The Colonel took a ֏1.2M bribe from a soldier in exchange for not sending him to the front lines.
During the winter draft, the Colonel took a ֏5.2M bribe from another conscript and used his connections to send him to the desired service location. A similar ֏1M bribe was requested on January 6th from another recruit.
The Colonel took another ֏1.4M bribe to help promote a conscript and allow him to work at a hospital instead of regular service.
On October 22nd, during the war, the Colonel decided to help a friend move from bordering Khndzoresk (Syunik) hospital back to Yerevan. As a result, the clinic became understaffed and couldn't fulfill its duties. Moreover, the Colonel then helped the same friend not to be deployed on Syunik borders as a soldier and instead to handle tasks in the rear, on October 26th, in exchange for a ֏300K bribe.
On October 13th, during the war, the Colonel and his accomplices wanted to help a soldier to leave Artsakh. When they learned that the latter was already on the "deserted" list, they took steps to remove him from the list.
Then, he learned that his friends' sons received a draft notice, and use his connections to remove them from the draft list.
After the war, on Dec-13, a friend asked the Colonel to make sure that his son, who was serving in Lusakert, wasn't sent to the front lines. The Colonel contacted the Lusakert facility but learned that the soldier was not among those who were supposed to be sent to the front lines. Nonetheless, the Colonel decided to defraud his friend by claiming that "he took care of it", and received a ֏200K bribe.
The colonel and over a dozen others were arrested. Illegal weapons were found under their possession. The investigation continues to expose other possible suspects.
https://youtu.be/ifo13WJLpsU
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042334.html

bill: harsher punishment for treason, spying, espionage

BHK MPs drafted a bill to increase punishment for traitors, spies, passing of state secrets. They want to raise the maximum punishment from 15 years to 20-life. The authors explained the move by citing many media reports about alleged "treason" incidents.
The bill was discussed at a relevant Parliamentary committee. The chairman QP MP Vladimir said he supports life imprisonment as the minimum punishment. However, during the discussion, they agreed to settle on 15-20 years plus property confiscation, or a life sentence.
The committee found the espionage punishment too harsh and asked the bill author to reduce it from 15 to 12 years. The BHK author agreed.
The bill was approved unanimously and will be debated/voted on the Parliament floor later.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042354.html

Jalal is back with another position

The wounded ex-Artsakh army commander Jalal Harutyunyan will serve as the Republic of Armenia's Defense Ministry's Head of the Military Control Service. He will replace General Movses Mosi Hakobyan who quit on November 18th.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042353.html

Russian-Turkish ceasefire monitoring group begins operations

Russian troops are using ORLAN-10 and FORPOST drones to monitor Am-AZ troop locations and movements.
https://youtu.be/ToSLqUDj6OE
https://factor.am/335089.html

ECHR received Armenia's complaint against Azerbaijan regarding 228 POWs / Azeris counter-claim for 13 POWs

Armenian families submitted a petition to ECHR to require Azerbaijan to provide information regarding 228 individuals. Azeris want to know data about 13 people.
(From the language it is unclear to me whether the petition is for confirmed POWs, or it also includes families of missing soldiers who want to know whether their relatives are POWs. Likely the former.)
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042406.html

Red Cross visited 4 Armenian POWs in Azerbaijan

They were able to establish contact with families.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042428.html

Russia expects UNESCO to soon visit Armenian monuments that went under Azeri control

https://factor.am/335437.html

Russia removed tomato import ban on 13 Armenian firms

Russian regulator will allow 13 Armenian sellers to export tomato and pepper to Russia again after earlier finding a food virus in them. A similar ban was implemented against Azeri tomatoes.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042433.html

US Congressman demands an explanation from the US ambassador to Azerbaijan over "congratulatory" statement

Rep. Bred Sherman wants to know why the US ambassador to Azerbaijan Lee Litzenberger congratulated Azerbaijan's Economy Minister with "de-occupying territories and US's willingness to aid Azerbaijan with rebuilding those territories". He reminded the US officials that the US is a member of the Minsk Group and should take steps to ensure Artsakh's safety and prevention of a new war.
Bred Sherman praised Biden's appointee Anthony Blinken for stating that the US will review its military assistance to Azerbaijan after the latest war in Artsakh.
Artsakh MFA yesterday released a statement urging countries, officials, and organizations to refrain from such "congratulatory" statements.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042370.html

de-occupy Hadrut NGO

... aims to help 13,500 Hadrut residents who lost their homes during the war. It was founded during the war by activists who held protests in front of various embassies. In the early days, they received aid from President Sarkissian's office. The latter gave shelter to 25 families.
Today the NGO aims to help refugees with employment, while simultaneously lobbying for Minsk Group to de-occupy Hadrut so residents can return. "I hope that one day our NGO will shut down because Hadrut is no longer occupied," said co-founder Meri Davtyan.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042286.html

govt session: financial aid for Syunik border villagers

The government approved a new aid package for residents of Syunik's Shurnukh and Vorotan villagers. Those who lost their homes will qualify for the same aid package as Artsakh refugees: one-time ֏300K payment plus monthly ֏65K payments for 6 months. There is another pending aid package to build new houses for them.
Context: Two dozen houses in Vorotan and Shurnukh went under Azeri control because they were built on the Azeri side of the internationally-recognized borders.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042362.html

bill: disability ranking to be replaced with degrees of functionality impairment

The government approved a bill, yet to be approved by Parliament, to reform the disability system. The disability assessment process will analyze the person's level of functional impairment while taking into account surrounding conditions.
"Today, the system is run under a 1993 law that does not do a comprehensive assessment of the surrounding environment, person's ability to function in public life," says the govt.
The draft bill will repeal the 1-3 Categories and Disabled Child category. A person's functionality impairment degrees will be light, medium, heavy, or deep. Disability will no longer be considered a permanent health problem. The assessment will be based not only on the factor of health problems but also on the environmental factors of the person's activity and participation in public life.
Healthcare and Social Ministries, NGOs, the UN, and the EU worked together to create and test an assessment methodology.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042365.html
Tags: #DisabilityLaw #disabled

bill: require unknown Telegram/Facebook media channel owners identified before "linking" by mass media

QP MPs want to require social media channel operators identified before a "mainstream media" can link to them. It doesn't restrict citing "anonymous sources", however. It also requires outlets to disclose sources of revenues for transparency. Read yesterday's news for context and arguments in favor or against it.. The debate continued today.
QP MP Arthur: For example, a legitimate news organization with an editorial staff of 30 people generates information, holds interviews, etc., while a Telegram channel that we do not know where it is managed from and by whom, begins to disseminate sensationalized information and over time becomes more "legitimate" than real media outlets because media outlets "advertised" them.
This is also a national security risk because it is very possible that such sources are being operated by an adversary country to spread instability and an atmosphere of fear in the country. //
The co-author criticized the critics who "claimed that the bill intends to ban anonymous sources. That's not true. This also won't affect the protection of journalists' source secrecy."
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042357.html
If you're interested in more debates:
https://youtu.be/MTHwRa4YjgY , https://youtu.be/ThDNVwZYEp8 , https://youtu.be/S6C_NocS9N0 , https://youtu.be/3_-i2Z23ubI , https://youtu.be/wiPnmfeLNJ8
Tags: #MediaLaw #TelegramLaw #FreeSpeech

rumors and rebuttals: Artsakh army isn't being dissolved

Serj's won-in-law Mishik earlier circulated rumors that were denied by state officials. Today, Kocharyan-ally Vitali Balasanyan, who serves as Artsakh's Security Council chief, confirmed that the army isn't "disintegrating." After the restructuring process, there will be subdivisions with professional contractors, he said.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042344.html

rumors and rebuttals: Azeri flag won't fly over Artsakh govt buildings

Vitalik Balasanyan also denied rumors about Azeri flags being installed on Artsakh govt buildings in Stepanakert.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042344.html

rumors and rebuttals: Azeri families won't resettle in Stenapakert / none are shopping in market

Vitalik Balasanyan said there are false rumors about two districts in Stepanakert being populated by Azeris, and Azeris allegedly freely shopping in Stepanakert market.
"Dear citizens of Artsakh, on behalf of the authorities of the Artsakh Republic, I assure you that despite the irreparable losses inflicted on us as a result of the war, the state is always committed to fulfilling its responsibilities to ensure the security and normal life of the population. Accordingly, I urge you not to pay attention to the false news. Everything is being done to create and expand the necessary conditions for a dignified life of the people of Artsakh."
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042344.html

rumors and rebuttals: Artsakh envoy won't stop operating in Russia

The Permanent Representation of the Artsakh Republic in Russia will not be terminated, said the Artsakh govt in response to rumors.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042367.html

rumors and rebuttals: no single currency in EAEU trade bloc

EAEU would like to inform you that you've been misled about alleged plans to establish a single currency among member-states.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042427.html

location "Hollywood, Yerevan, Armenia"

There is a district called Hollywood in Yerevan, Armenia. Gamblers were caught running an underground casino in there. This is the second such bust in the past few months. The police say ֏5.5B in damages was done to the state.
https://youtu.be/sp0Sb--e_ms?t=60
https://factor.am/335320.html

anti-corruption: prosecutors charge education officials with ֏1.2B auction shenanigans

Prosecutors said: State Oversight Committee (SOC) audited the "National Center for Educational Technology" government-affiliated agency's finances between 2013-2020. Every year, the agency submitted a report on the work done by them towards servicing the education system. The bill was ֏700M annually.
It was revealed that between 2012-2015, they granted an auction-based contract to the same company. It received a combined ֏2.8B in funding. The law requires the auction-holding officials to examine the market and take other steps before the auction. They failed to do so.
Later, during 2017-2019, the same company was selected to do the job, but this time it was only paid ֏300-400M annually, far lower than during the previous years.
֏1.2B in damages was done to the state. A felony case is launched.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042389.html

re: Armenia's $750M eurobond sale / lowest % in history / $3B demand by investors / economy news

Read yesterday's news for context.
Pashinyan: The issuance of $750M eurobonds is a strong positive signal for the start of the economic year. The issuance was done under the most favorable conditions in the history of our republic, with the lowest 3.8% percentage rate. Our previous record was in 2019 at 4.2%. The demand was for $3B but we decided to issue only $0.750B.
First, it provides a guarantee of macroeconomic stability. Second, this is the first serious signal of overcoming the post-war economic shock, which shows that international investors have confidence in the economic future of Armenia and the policy pursued by the government. //
Economy Minister Janjughazyan: this was part of our long-term plan and we had planned to do it while drafting the 2021 budget. We planned to issue fewer bonds but decided to add $250M because of favorable terms. We plan to use that extra cash towards the stabilization deposit, as a safety pad, to be used throughout the year if necessary.
As long as our budget has a deficit we will have to borrow. But this is only part of the story; the country's overall debt burden is calculated based on various indicators. So far Armenia has been rated as a country with a lower debt burden.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042351.html, https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042352.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042363.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042393.html

how many people did leave and arrive after reopening air traffic with Russia?

The governments of Armenia and Russian worked on an "app" to allow mutual travel after taking a test. By February 15th, there will be 4-route flights in 2 directions. There were several flights in the past few days.
3900 left and 3400 arrived. 1423 Armenian citizens left and 1263 Armenian citizens arrived. "More people were willing to leave in December than today," noted Diaspora Committee chief Sinanyan.
"Some people flew to Russia but had to return due to a problem. This wasn't due to the COVID app implemented by us. Preliminary data shows that they went to Russia with a paper QP code which raised the suspicion of Russian authorities. We will work with them to resolve this," said Deputy PM Mher. (say what??)
"We need to better inform the public about the existence of this app. Restoring routine flights will help the tourism industry," said PM Pashinyan.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042358.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042383.html

Pashinyan about the suspended Amulsar gold mining project

He repeated his earlier position that "Decisions must be made that take into account Armenia's best interests."
"The mining industry plays a very important role in the development of Armenia's economy, including in the security context."
"We must make decisions to make investment programs acceptable for the Armenian public while taking into account interests of Republic of Armenia."
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042368.html

COVID stats

1829 tested. 147 infected. 352 healed. 11 deaths. 4637 active.
"We're negotiating for vaccines via COVAX global initiative. Separately, we're negotiating with Russia for Sputnik-V. Vaccines should be available in March. It will be targeted at specific groups. It won't be mandatory," said Healthcare Minister Avanesyan.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042341.html , https://youtu.be/vXz3pHx1BlM?t=92

the consumer market price increase in the past 12 months

Armenia's consumer market inflation was +4.5% from January to January. Food +6.4%. Alcohol & tobacco +10.8%. Clothing +2.6%. Utilities +0.6%. Appliances +5.8%. Healthcare +5.6%. Transport +5.7%. Telecom +0.5%. Leisure & culture -0.8%. Education +2%. Dining +1.6%. Misc +3.5%.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042323.html

Parliament MP stops a citizen's suicide attempt

Someone tried to jump from Kievyan bridge. QP MP Gor Gevorgyan was nearby and stopped the attempt. The police took the distressed person to a station.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042329.html

psychological support will be provided to war participants and the public

Emergency Ministry says 15-30% of people have PTSD after the war. Today the government approved a plan to provide psychological aid to war participants and others. The target group includes families of missing people, POWs and their families, those who received disabilities, families of those who died, those who fought in the war, IDPs, civilians who were affected in any way. The program will work in Armenia and Artsakh.
The government will purchase services from experienced mental health service agencies.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042403.html

Armenia will grow industrial marijuana on mass industrial scale / incentive to boost land utilization

Hemp is a type of weed that contains less of the substance that makes you feel high. The government wants to grow industrial hemp on a mass scale to boost mood land utilization and revenues.
Pashinyan: this is going to open room for many speculations. It's important to present the project in detail so the public will have a full understanding of what is being done. Unfortunately, "hemp" is interpreted as something else, while in reality, it is a very important industrial raw material. The growing process has risks but there are oversight mechanisms that have been tested in many countries.
Deputy PM Avinyan: the US, Russia, and China have a great experience with industrial hemp production. The practice was examined by the Economy Ministry. We're talking about industrial production only. It will significantly activate agricultural land utilization. Today, 40% of lands are gone unused. This is part of our plan to boost the production of high-value agricultural products.
https://youtu.be/ssZgr2DR3DM?t=7
https://www.healthline.com/health/hemp-vs-marijuana#marijuana
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042372.html

Education Minister says the "controversial" parts of Church/History merger were "resolved"

Education Ministry wants to merge the school subjects "Armenian Church History" and "Armenian History". Critics said it will shrink the church-related materials too much, others called it treason, while others supported the decision, stating that it's all part of our history and having a separate class is inefficient.
Education Minister Dumanyan says he met colleagues at the National Academy of Sciences and they resolved the conflicts "that caused a noise earlier." He will reveal details soon.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042379.html , https://youtu.be/V0sC3dx-gzU

Major education reforms: "education alone will not solve all problems, but there is no problem that can be solved without an education"

... said PM Pashinyan during a govt session while discussing education reforms. Kids in 1-5 grades will no longer receive grades; tt will be pass or no pass (still needs Parliamentary approval). "There will be a criticism. How can you not grade? But this is a comprehensive program that emphasizes the student's needs and preferences," said Pashinyan.
"We need to pay attention to how the time is spent in schools and what skills are being taught in school hours. It will reflect in our society 15-20 years later. It will define whether we have a technological product or not.
What we were doing in 12 years (school length) can be done within 9 years, but a 9-year school isn't the solution. Instead of shortening the school, we're trying to fill the gap in a way to have a 50% higher efficiency by the end of the 12th year.
In developed countries, education starts not from school but from preschool. The lower the education entry age the more developed the countries are," said Pashinyan. (the govt has a plan to make sure 70% of kids attend preschools by 2023)
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042394.html

cancer stats in Armenia / annual rate / drops among children / fewer abandon treatment

world
9.6 million people die from cancer annually. 1/3rd is possible to prevent. Another part can be cured with the help of early detection.
Armenia
Cancer was the 2nd leading cause of death in 2020. It has increased in the past 10 years but at a small rate. Lung cancer is more common among men, and breast cancer among women.
First time diagnosis by year: 2018 - 8762, 2019 - 7908, 2020 - 7050.
Deaths by year: 2018 - 5199, 2019 - 5434. 2020 - unavailable. (55% men, 45% women)
The cancer rate went up by 1.5x compared to 1990. However, it declined by 2x among children under 14yo.
Fewer people abandon treatment. 3 years ago 53% of lung patients did so, today it's 40%. Breast cancer treatment abandonment went from 47% to 22%. (I translated the word բարձիթողության as "abandonment". Correct me if it refers to something else.)
Artsakh
The number of cancer cases has decreased in Artsakh: from 345 to 260 YoY.
prevention
Oncologist Safaryan says the early detection helps to avoid complications and save lives, even if it's the type of cancer that is known to reappear. There are many patients who defeat cancer. "Smokers should get a lung x-ray twice a year. Those working in chemical plants should get a frequent screening. Do not ignore symptoms and չգցել ականջի հետև. You can defeat it more easily when it's at 1-2 stages. It's a lot harder when it advances to 4."
Preventing cancer isn't easy. The causes of this disease are many. Genetics, bad habits, obesity, surrounding environment. A genetic test can reveal the likelihood of suffering from illness. Some women choose to undergo a mastectomy to prevent possible breast cancer in the future.
"I decided that if 1-in-100 is destined to be cured, I will be that one," said Ashkhen, a woman who recently defeated cancer.
More: https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042291.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042364.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042405.html

cancer diagnosis, surgery, and radiotherapy are free

The treatment was made free recently. The Oncology Center urges the public to get screened as part of an early-detection initiative. The pilot program began in Vanadzor; 307 women were screened.
Cancer diagnosis, surgery, and radiotherapy are free, while the medication has a co-payment.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042423.html

today in history

2004: Mike Zuckerberg founded Facebook to steal your SSN
1949: Sri Lanka declares indpendence
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042309.html

president meets donor

Artsakh president Arayik met donor Alec Baghdasaryan and thanked him. "Only with the joint efforts of the Armenian people is it possible to quickly overcome the difficulties and to plan development programs." Alec plans more charity programs relating to education.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1042326.html

donations to Artsakh & recovering soldiers

www.1000plus.am (recovering soldiers & their families)
www.HimnaDram.org (for Artsakh & Armenia)
www.ArmeniaFund.org (U.S. tax-deductible)

archive of older news

http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/Daily_Anti-Corruption_Reports

disclaimer

All the accused are considered innocent unless proven guilty in the court of law, even if they "sound" or "appear" guilty.

The results are in for Match 7.
Espiritu was not okay. It had gone dark, and he was no longer certain what was going on around him. It was hard to stand, and he was hot and hurting, and the crowd and the calls of the content creator after every play were noise to him, in the Necropolis he had tried to make. He knew there were seconds left, now, and did not even know what was to happen.
So, into the void, he began to call out with his Stand.
“This is a waste of time!”
Hurt.
“You have been rash, and done no good, and you care even less than I do!”
He trembled, barely able to stand.
“You say you are preparing me, but you have done nothing but hurt! Nothing but take! You have manipulated some child to play with lives! You, foolish… You don’t even mean to give her what you promised in the end, do you? Only another liar, who thinks I need another problem, and has become one.”
Bang said nothing, wherever he was. Espiritu had hoped he was far away. The young man had been fighting relentlessly and calling it a lesson. If it was a joke, it only made the jaguar want to cry.
“Manipulated..? Is… Is this me?” Nebula spoke from her screens, whatever she saw clearly giving her pause, then.
“This is your stage. Your egoism. Your lie to harm and call it kindness.” The Stand’s voice was faltering, flickering.
Then, Nebula’s pep returned with a snap. “Oh, hey, look at that, folks and five-year-olds, it’s TIME!”
Airhorns blared, then, and Espiritu recoiled once more.
“Of course, you probably have working eyes if you’re watching this, so I don’t need to tell you who has the key! What a show, am I right?” Nebula said, some forcedness to her cheer.
I don’t care… I don’t care who won. This… This was a waste. Let it be someone else’s. Someone who is not doomed to fail… I… I simply wish to live. Is that too much to ask?
Espiritu gave a final anguished roar before, finally, the pain he had sustained had become too much. His legs gave out, and he collapsed on the steps of City Hall.
The winner is Espiritu del Alocatlal, with a score of 72 to Bang “Boogie” Bronson’s 71!

Category	Winner	Point Totals	Comments
Popularity	Masters of Funky Action	13-17	A last-minute vote turned a tied-up match into a 5-4, and even under the circumstances, judges saw no reason to discount it. A disclaimer, though: we can only count votes if we see them, so sometimes it is possible for automod to give us hell. Let judges know in the future if you’re uncertain whether or not your vote was noticed and counted!
Quality	Black Hill Estate	25-20	Reasoning
JoJolity	Tie	24-24	Reasoning
Conduct	Tie	10-10	In the future, there will be very harsh penalties on anybody going over judges’ heads to privately press people to delete or change the outcome of their votes. Wasn’t anywhere else that felt like the right spot to mention that.

“Well, chat, sorry to say,” Evelyn pointed out, “but the audience favorite laser-artist couldn’t quite cut it! Laser collection is way too 2000s, especially without a good way to take back the key! And where oh where did Espiritu send that file?” She revealed her empty hands. “I don’t even have the folder anymore! It’s wherever he had it go!”
“S-so… In the end, my gamble didn’t pay off, huh?” Bang muttered to himself, walking closer to Espiritu as the floating triangle over his head faded entirely. He crouched over him, waving a hand before his eyes and realizing, quickly, that they were registering nothing. He had blinded the jaguar.
“Well… I don’t know that yet.” Bang stood, then, looking down over him, the artist himself sore and nicked up, but in much better condition physically. “You… Y-you might not know it yet, but ‘conflict’ like this… It is necessary, you know. It’s… I-it’s the only way any of us will see the end of this, by pushing one another through. I won’t be the last to scar you.”
Espiritu whimpered at that, and before Bang could monologue more, Wrenn Aflight’s singsongy voice piped in, “hey, Lou ran off to do something, but she wanted me to pass a message along, and like a good boyfriend, I agreed~!”
“Hm?” Bang turned his head slowly. “Wh-what could that-”
WHAP!
Wrenn’s Stand drove a rocky hand across Bang’s face, sending him hurtling into the pavement with some force and releasing a good bit of glitter. Tilting his head, he said, “‘and maybe don’t torture animals on a livestream!’ That was part of it too.”
Bang was caught off-guard, already worn and out of it, sneering the way of the others present and how the eyes and cheers of the crowd had turned on him from their peak. He needed to make a getaway.
“And Espiritu, if you’re listening… She’s sorry she didn’t stop this right away. She wants to talk later.” Wrenn gave a cutesy curtsy to the big monitors, then, adding, “hey, Nebula! Wanna collab sometime? We could play Fivetnite or Shoal Calibur Zero instead of all this!”
In her dimly-lit room, Evelyn Ensanar watched the strike with a snicker, then stroked her chin quizzically. “Whoa, pog! I make a face reveal and immediately get invited to collab with you… Well, better look out! By the end of it, I’m totally gonna be more popular than you!” That forced grin was becoming easier, as she motioned a neck-slitting. “So there! I’ll take you down on your own channel like a bitter rival, Aflight!”
“Heheh, you don’t stand a chance~!” Wrenn gave a cutesy wave, then, before the stream of city hall was cut off, and Nebula’s feed instead showed some console’s startup screen with the revealed user’s head in the corner.
Before Evelyn could continue, however, they heard revving outside, putting her headset down. “Just a minute, guys. Gotta check on something… I swear, if I got swatted…”
She looked past the curtain in front of the open window, then, seeing that pink-haired girl get off a motorcycle, Councillor Ray stretching his legs close behind. They’d clearly come alone.
I guess… Espiritu wanted me to have this? Ray pondered, looking over the folder. Lou had said that she’d realized where that stream was taking place… Somehow, and then led him there quick as she could, insisting to take the lead. My coworkers’ secrets are my responsibility… Why did that Slums cult have this, and how did Bang get it?
“Evelyn Ensanar!” ‘Lou’ Reed called out through cupped hands on the lawn, seeing the younger girl peeking through the broken window. “Come out, please! You don’t need to wallow like this!”
“…” Evelyn couldn’t help but snicker at that. This girl didn’t look too much older than her, and who the hell was she kidding? Of course Evelyn was happy, living within these four walls, in this home downtown. She’d just had her biggest event ever, and she was being downtalked by someone who walked out of it because a poor widdle kitty got hurt trying to fight someone.
“You don’t think you can trust anyone, is that it? Even now, after an older boy led you along, only to hurt people when you thought you wanted the same thing, some part of you is calling out, ‘this isn’t right,’ right? I understand… I’ve been through that! I’ve pushed people away because I needed them most! But… Don’t indulge the void, please. Don’t feed that worst instinct… I swear, if you come out, greet the world, it won’t tear you apart. You’re bright, you’re good… You can be you so much better, I promise you.”
Evelyn stayed silent through that, peering with one eye past the curtain. No… That totally didn’t hit the nail on the head. It was just a passing impulse, a joke on herself, the momentary urge to truly step out as requested. Who did this idiotic ‘Angel’ think she was?
Evelyn knew, in that moment, she would be happy like this forever.
She pulled away from the curtain, then, pressing a button, and shutters completely overtook every entrance to the house, gating her off from the attempt to reach in.
With a sigh and a shake of their head, Nebula laughed, putting her headset on and returning to her seat.
“Sorry about this, pals! Typical ‘cringeler’ behavior over that last big show, you know? But no more interruptions, yeah?” That smile grew even wider, even more comfortable, as the outside’s natural lighting dimmed to what faint flickers made it past the metal.
“Let’s game the night away.”
Nothing was gained from this event. No lessons were learned. Only hurt, and hope that maybe, the future might not be so cruel. More live-streamed intrigue waits in the wings of a televised fencing battle for the continuation of an entire team. There’s only a few hours left to vote in that as of when this post goes up, so get to it!
Scenario:
Midnight Sun College Town - The Streets Somewhere or Whatever. Late Morning
A light snowfall had dusted the ground all across the College Town, covering everything in a faint layer of white about an inch thick. People were selling hot drinks in the streets, kids were running around in it, tossing snowballs, and adults were shivering as they made it through their day roughly as normal.
One youth in particular walked aimlessly along a snowy sidewalk, shivering and shoving his hands into his pockets, feeling on edge as he watched his breath fog visibly in the cold air. At least he had layers at all, though it could have been leagues better.
It wasn’t something you would go for a long walk in the snow in, but William Eyelash wasn’t exactly prepared for his daylong errant errand to take him into snowy weather.
After all, it wasn’t snowing at all in the Slums, or basically anywhere else West of the Wormwood River. By all he could gather, it was just the College Town, and nobody in this city had even seen fit to remark on the odd sort of localization.
He had begun to make peace with Ocean Eyes not as some malevolent entity he needed to control, but as a part of him, an extension of himself, and it had indeed legitimately calmed the beast down somewhat, at least in recent days made the ferociousness of it all his own. He had thought that plenty, then, to live his life, only to learn the nature of what had last month defeated a coworker of his; a woman whose Stand, and whatever of her it represented, had become so misaligned from the user that it had actively fought against her wishes.
The thought of that happening to Ocean Eyes, of having even less control over this part of himself, brought a chill up William’s spine worse than any blizzard, so he thought that he might find something of worth to his desires there… Though he didn’t really have any particular plan, beyond ambling about, seeing what the most Stand-centric district of the Stand-centric city could offer, perhaps having a fated run-in with somebody who could give him answers.
“Snow looks… Nice, at least,” he remarked through a shiver, loving the way the settled white coated everything…
And then tensing up as, out of an alley, red stains of crimson passionate cutting spilled out abruptly over it.
Not so long ago, William would have turned away in abject terror from a sight like that, or if pursued, his Stand would have come out and made it hell for those who set him off. But he’d gotten some life-changing advice from one of the city’s worst serial killers, seen a self-styled aggressive villain literally set best-laid malicious plans alight. Even if there was danger here…
Maybe there was value in seeking it out.
He tensed, slightly, then, when he saw a man in an officer’s uniform, slumped behind a diner, hands hacked off, stumps bleeding, with cut after cut after cut in his body, eyes rolled back and bleeding from the tongueless mouth.
Grisly… William shivered even more, then, before realizing that there was a presence behind him, turning his head slowly with his nerves on high alert.
Standing behind him, smiling, with a strange-looking knife in hand, was a boy only a year or two his junior. He wore a green sweater with a yellow stripe across its center, which was stained red like his hands, and a pair of bright, cheerful eyes poked past his brown bangs, perfectly matching the smile on his face.
William could’ve sworn he’d seen him somewhere before. “Y-you… Did. Did you kill this man?”
“Yep!” The youth answered, twirling the knife around, pointing to the corpse and stepping on his fingers buried in the snow. “He was telling horrible, horrible lies about me, see… Said that I cut his hands off, that it was his fault that he died. Now, I know some people came back, but this is a man I’ve never seen in my life! He pointed a gun at my head here, said he wouldn’t miss when he fired so close, so I didn’t let him. Then, that lie about his hands, his death… I just made it true!”
William was confused, his heart rate skyrocketing at the casual way in which this boy paced around as he spoke, twirling his knife. But… He was threatened, by the sound of it, and there was a certain purity, honesty, in the way that he spoke. This mutilated officer had it coming.
“W-well… That sounds nerve-wracking. I’m, uh… Sorry you had to go through that.”
“Oh, don’t worry for me!” The youth reassured, “sixteen years in this city and counting, you get quite used to seemingly-fine people revealing their true, rotten colors, attacking you when they seem to play the part of something upstanding.” He tilted his head, shaking it. “I can’t stand it at all, but… It makes it all the sweeter to put an end to it, you know?”
“I… You’re talking about killing people, you know that, right?” William asked. “That’s… That’s something you can never take back. To put it so lightly…”
“Do you have a problem with that?” Very quickly, then, the youth was leaning up close to him, putting the knife near his flesh, and William tensed up, not wanting to hurt this kid as he teased him.
“L-look… If any part of me wanted to impede you, or stop you,” William answered, “you would’ve been dead before you could bring that thing close to me. I’m… Still trying to control an ‘ability’ of my own.”
“I see, I see… So you’re another Stand User!” The youth pulled back, then, clearly pleased with the nerve William had had to stand still through that attempt to terrify him, to shock him into action.
“What do you say we be friends?” The knife vanished, then, and he held out his hand. “My name is Jacob Brown, but you may call me a nickname if you’d like.”
William nodded, cautiously accepting and shaking his hand. “Jacob Brown, huh..?” He swore he’d heard that name around before. “Then, uh… I dunno. If you really want a nickname that bad… I dunno. Jack, maybe?”
“‘Jack…’ It has a nice ring to it!” The boy agreed, shaking his hand fervently. “And you?”
“Call me William Eyelash… Or, uh, any abbreviation, I guess, though nobody really does.”
Elsewhere in the College Town, at exactly the same time…
Jacob Brown was laying in a snowy park, looking up at the cool sky in the imprint of his own little snow angel, which he’d even made time to give little knife-shaped embeddings through holding ‘Megalo Strike Back’ at just the right angle.
His life had continued to go well, as it had been since that fateful day so many months ago, where he’d toned back his killing urges, had still not once taken a life since, so not to disappoint the promise he and his friends had shared with that long-dead artist, having since befriended others and learned more about the mysteries of this place.
Los Fortuna was nice… Nice as it was fleeting, and strange. Earlier that morning he’d literally danced between the border of the College Town and the Agricultural District, one foot in an inch of snow, the other on dry grass, then posed triumphantly for Richard Stone to sketch, flexing alongside that new Bert blob which Casey and he-whose-name-ruins-Jacob’s-mood had nursed back to health.
Just as he’d started to fondly recall that fine early-morning moment, a pile of snow blinked with a single black dot of an eye, then emerged from a snowbank just meters away from Jack, looking as though it had found something urgent.
“Oh? What’s that now?” Jacob sat up, adjusting his jacket, and walked towards the bank in question, clearing away its topmost layer with a single expert swipe of ‘Megalo Strike Back.’
A couple’s mangled, half-melted corpses spilled out in a goopy pile, then, reaching his feet in a grotesque entanglement which Jacob regarded with little more than a sigh, shaking his head. “Sloppy sloppy… Though, I feel like I’ve seen dead bodies like this on the local news…” He turned towards his team’s new cute mascot character, waving him off. “It’s been fun, little one, but I think it may be a bit spicy for you. Go back home and fix yourself some Oops! All Berries and cigarette ash in dishwater… With a little Neapolitan on top of course!” The white blob’s favorite… Though it only ever seemed to eat the vanilla and strawberry. More chocolate ice cream for Jacob, anyway.
With that, then, the odd proto-Bert slinked away through the snow, blending in effortlessly as Jacob, in turn, took on the part of a sleuth, imagining a cool hat and pipe and miming them idly as he prepared to look into-
Ah. There were footprints in the snow clearly moving away from the bank, deeper into the park. Jacob would start there!
A not-so-long trek later, then, Jacob found a tree, whereby the footprints had seemed to end, but he heard shivering, and then somebody dropping down not far behind him in a panic, trying to tepidly back away. Whoever it was, though, froze when Jacob turned his head and gave a smiling grin.
Standing behind him, absolutely terrified, was a boy only a year or two his junior. He wore a black bomber jacket with three blue dots going down the left arm and a singular orange dot over the right bosom, blue-dotted pants, and a t-shirt clearly stained either with sweat, melted snow, or both. His demeanor was a timid, terrified one, a pair of eyes like a cornered beast poking past his mess of black hair, perfectly matching the look of mortification on his face.
“Uh… I’m… Uh.”
“Pardon the intrusion!” Jacob said, cheerfully, “but do you mind if we talk a little bit?”
“…” The boy looked like he wanted to die a little bit, stepping backwards again.
“My name is Jacob Brown, and I couldn’t help but notice that pair of melted bodies a little ways back. Quite the conversation piece, don’t you think?”
“I… I-I.”
“Come on now, I won’t get you in trouble and leave you to hang! I don’t do that!” Jacob assured. “All I ask from people is ‘honesty.’ It’s very easy to tell the truth, I think, if people just did it. So… Let’s start with an easy question, to show I don’t mean harm. What’s your name?”
“Uh… Ell- I mean, Wil- uh…” The boy paused, as if not used to the answer he was about to give himself. “Eyelash… W-William Eyelash.”
“William…” Someone trying on a new name didn’t need to be a lie, Jacob understood. Just a new truth to get used to. “I’ll just call you ‘Billy,’ okay? Okay!” Jacob smiled, and before Billy could comment, continued, “how long have you been in the city? Quite the sight, such localized snow…”
“Uh… M-my whole life, basically… Look, please, just. Just leave me alone. Please, don’t keep pressing, I-”
“Billy, I’m telling you, I’m trying to help you out here! I know, not everybody can get used to their powers as easy as I did, and when you’re so alone all you can do is run out into a tree, clearly you don’t have anyone helping you through it! So I’ll help you.”
“H-help… You. You mean to say-”
“Yep!” Jacob admitted, head tilting and tilting and tilting. “Not so long ago, I killed people all the time.”
That was Billy’s breaking point, and he immediately turned tail and absolutely booked it away. Even a trained FBI ace probably couldn’t keep up with that.
But Jacob Brown was pretty good at running.
He skidded to a halt in front of Billy, putting a calming hand on his shoulder. “Hey, c’mon… Bodies aren’t that way. You’ll get caught if you run without cleaning up your mess, or be so focused on running you could trip and fall down an elevator shaft!”
That seemed to scare Billy into a sort of forced calm, just as a truly monstrous-looking Stand almost lashed out. There was an odd sort of soothingness to Jacob Brown’s confidence, it seemed.
“Let me show you how, now, alright? It’s easy when you know the trick! Then we can take a walk.”
Snowman Symmetrical Park (No relation to the park from the last scene)
Jacob led Billy by the arm through a particularly artsy snow-covered park, one with several mural walls, ponds, and most notably of all, an almost slavish dedication to every single corner of the place, already in the center of the College town and the Metropolitan area as a whole, being completely symmetrical in its structures.
“Nice place, isn’t it?” He asked, letting him go and catch his breath. “Professor York, I remember, talked about it once with Chef CaraMel, I’m sure you’ve had her stuff before… They were saying that there’s a sort of ‘meditative’ quality to this place, a nice place to stand in even spots and just admire the scenery. But also that people get really mad if you mess the symmetry up.”
“Y… Yeah…” Billy panted, looking around. “I know about this place, but I’ve never taken time to…” He looked around, then, standing and breathing through his nose. “You know, Jacob… You’re right. This, uh… This place isn’t so bad. And, uh… Y-you’re kinda sorta really scary, but. Thanks, for the help, and, uh. Not judging me for what I can’t control…”
“Oh, don’t worry about it!” He reassured with a smile, “you’ll figure it out in time, Billy my friend! Why, even just a year ago, I could still be quite sloppy when I-” He noticed, then, that Billy’s look had immediately become, rather than one of cautious relaxation, one that was more confused, more terrified than ever before, murmuring and muttering incoherently. “Hm? Something the matter, pal-o?”
“Me… M… M… Why is… No… Nonononononono what the hell what the HELL?!”
William had been leading Jack to much the same place, saying to him when asked, “I dunno why I thought to come here… I guess, uh, this Lou girl who I’ve met a couple times, she came by this restaurant I work at with this friend of hers I forget her name, and… I dunno. She said it was meditative, and I’ve got things on my mind too.”
“I see, I see… Heheh,” Jack chuckled, teasing, “I’ve been treating you like this cool older figure, but you’re still figuring everything out for yourself, aren’t you? Though I guess that’s true whether you’re seventeen or forty-seven, right?”
“Yeah…” William nodded, hands in London’s perma-borrowed jacket pockets. “Th-that is life… Isn’t it? You never really… Stop learning, or growing, and, uh, some parts of you you’ll be contending with for-” He stopped himself from rambling philosophically, then, seeing that Jack had careened his head to something in the slight distance, where the pair had been walking towards and William hadn’t been looking. “Uh… Something wrong, Jack?”
“…something is, William, yes,” the younger knife-boy answered, brandishing his Stand. “Something is… Sus.”
Jacob and “Jack” Brown stepped towards the center of the park, staring one another down in perfect sync, looking one another over quizzically, the latter and younger much more tense about it than the other.
“Your face… Is mine. But I’m not a twin, or a triplet, or even a funny sextuplet. I would certainly remember that.” Jacob remarked, leaning back.
“I understand now what that pulled pork sandwich I cut up earlier was on about, I think… Yes, it doesn’t take a Rick, or even a Morty to figure this out,” Jack retorted, brandishing his knife again. “He mistook and attacked me for something you did, after stealing my face!”
“I’ve done no such thing,” Jacob answered in turn, “I was born with this…” He produced his own Stand, then, a knife identical to his own. “And this is the ability of ‘Jacob Brown’ to prove it.”
“Y-y-you… You…” Billy, cautiously, chattered as he addressed William, looking him over after seeing the identical Stands. “Do you… Have ‘that’ as well? Haunting you… B-burdening your every-” He couldn’t even bear to say it.
William, on his own, might have handled this differently, but with Jack so close, he knew that lying would cause even more of a scary situation than telling the truth. Clearly afraid in his own right, then, he shuddered, nodding. “Y-yes… I have ‘Ocean Eyes’ as well. If… I-if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Nngnhghhghghhhh..!” Billy had already begun to clutch his fingers in his head. “G-getting worse, then… Getting worse getting worse gettingworsegettingworse… Even if I control it I’ll never control it. I’m… I’m doomeddoomeddoomeddoomed!”
“H-hey,” William raised his voice, “you don’t have to be, I promise! I… I-I have no idea what the hell is going on either, but trust me, you can-”
But William knew himself, and knew that Billy would not listen to reason. With a bestial cry, another ‘Ocean Eyes’ appeared, lashing out immediately at ‘Jack’ and attempting to spray William. He, in turn, panickedly yet deliberately summoned his own, instinctively thinking to nullify the highly acidic spray with a thick, viscous, protective material, and both ate one another, and nobody was harmed.
“My my, what troublesome friends we’ve made…” Jacob remarked, then, hurriedly grabbing William and attempting to pull him away behind cover. “But hey, I’m ride or die! If Billy is your enemy, then I’ll be too! Maybe we can sort this out if we live, ‘kay?”
Then, the pair booked it away, leaving William confused, and Jack turning tail as well.
“I won’t believe a word of that lying liar’s plan… That impostor has one of you too, William! C’mon now! Fall back so we can cut them to bits before they melt us! You don’t want to fall to an imitation of your own Stand, right?”
Imitation… Impostor… Is. *Is** that what’s going on here?* William pondered, falling back nonetheless to a safer spot, well aware that out in the open was the worst place to be when he’d earned Ocean Eyes’ ire. Looks like even the guy who looks like an older Jack is gonna fight, just… J-just because.
He shuddered, then, leaning into the back of a wall. It… I-it’s unavoidable again. Then… He shut his eyes. I see.
“True or not, the uncontrolled rage of ‘Ocean Eyes’… I can tell you here and now, Jack. That was me. So maybe… M-maybe this was fate too. To finally truly tame that savage urge… Y-yes. Ocean Eyes is my own.”
“Think, Billy! That power of yours is so, so strong,” Jacob pep-talked his new friend from behind the cover of one of the structures within the symmetrical park, “and like how my ‘Megalo Strike Back’ speaks to all that I will cut through, anywhere and everywhere… What does Ocean Eyes say about you?”
“Say about… A-about me?”
“Yes!” Jacob encouraged. “Make a statement to the world! Cry out in your voice! It can be anything, not just a blind anger that forces you to live deceiving yourself! I’ve killed many times, and I’m good at it, and not a sentence of that will ever stop me from doing good by this city, just as I promised! Follow my lead, and see for yourself what all we can do!”
OPEN THE GAME!
(credit to magistelles for the match art, here you can see the uncensored version of the art(CW: trypophobia)!)
Location: Snowman Symmetrical Park. A public park in the center of Midnight Sun’s College Town, and the Los Fortuna Metropolitan Area as a whole. Realized by Andrew Tiffany and his orange nephew, the place has an avid string of volunteers from around the district dedicated to keeping the architecture and nature of the place in perfect symmetry at all times, down to the last blade of grass and every inch of snow covering it.
It has snowed recently, but only in the college district, amounting to about 3 centimeters of snow covering the ground evenly.
Right now, however, it’s perfectly empty, aside from the four of you.
The area here is 30 by 30 meters with each tile being 3 by three meters.
The light blue shapes are 3 meter tall structures that serve as mural art walls. Each wall has some symmetric design. The darker blue hexagon is a man made lake/fountain that is half a meter deep. The green circles are 5m tall trees, their tops are lightly covered in snow and there are decorative ornaments hung on the branches.
MFA start at the bottom of the map, as represented by the two brown circles and GYS start at the top of the map as represented by the two white circles.
Goal: RETIRE your opponents!
Additional Information:
For this match you will be controlling two characters, both your own and a parallel version of your opponent. In order to win this deathmatch, you have to beat both people on the other team.
Players instinctively know who their partners are and anybody that tries to lie or deceive somebody on who they actually are will immediately be retired by both Jacob and his parallel self. This will be a loss for whichever side tries to pull that.
For character writing purposes, note that “Jack” and “Billy” are both exactly one year younger than Jacob and William, and recall being born and raised entirely within Los Fortuna. Despite this fact, the most important moments of their lives, with the exception of all that has happened since the latter two arrived here, met their allies, and began participating in the tournament, have more or less been the same.
Being younger and less experienced, Jack and Billy respectively have quickly formed a sort of trust in William and Jacob, and will follow their tactical leads and trust their judgment so long as it isn’t grossly out of character. Their appearances differ slightly, as described in the writeup, but statistically, they are completely identical to their counterparts.

Team	Combatant	JoJolity
Masters of Funky Action	Jacob Brown and “Billy” Eyelash	“Say, Jotaro. Do that special trick of yours.” This new friend of yours has a future, whether he realizes it or not, and you wish to see him grow by your side. Take inspiration from strategies and elements of previous matches featuring William Eyelash! (first) (second)
The Graveyard Shift	William Eyelash and “Jack” Brown	“People can do anything when their lives are at stake!” While you mean to overcome your own past, you care about more than your own personal growth here; you’ve also found some worth in the checkered history of this strange youth. Take inspiration from strategies and elements of previous matches featuring Jacob Brown! (first) (second)

Link to the Official Player Spreadsheet
Link to Match Schedule
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Greetings reddit. I finally managed a the first game of our new season which was a breath of fresh air. Granted it was only the very beginning of the season so far and single game at that, but it was excellent to try the new rules. This is actually a draft for a write up for our league page and after I get the stats and player names in hand I will plug them in and add more small details here and there, but you should get the drift. It was a terribly exciting match and had us sweating bullets for much of it.
Match Report: Comets at Ichor Coughers
It was a beautiful day for the opening game of the second season of TOLL blood bowl. And the weather was perfect. The two teams: The Altdorf Twintail Comets (Human, CTV 995 KGP) versus the Tollheim Ichor Coughers (Vampire, 1000 KGP). DA COMMISH' looked on in pride a single tear rolling down his cheek.
This was also the first game to be played (Officially) on the brand new astrogranite pitch, although judging by the detritus and refuse, it certainly appeared that there had been a few pick up games or at least a small scale brawl before the actual kickoff proper.
Lady VonZasswhippen and Magnus the Magus, coaches of the vampires and humans respectively, look on over the proceedings leading up to the coin toss.
As league tradition dictates, Vampires (IRL Coach: DA COMMISH') may not successfully call any coin toss and the tradition starts strong in season two as the Comets elect to receive the ball at the start of the first half. The ball is kicked deep, and the cheering fans being spurred on strongly by the single cheerleader for the Twintail Comets which was enough to awaken an inner energy in a blessed statue of Nuffle which granted (HUMAN CATCHER PLAYER) confidence and ability beyond what he is used to temporarily gaining the PRO skill for the match. Immediately Doom and Gloom begins to spread around the Vampire bench fearing that Nuffle is against them so soon. But Nuffle giveth and Nuffle taketh away we all know.
Early turns in the half see the Comets grabbing the ball and making quick progress up the pitch almost taking it into the endzone. This "fresh" Vampire team, having not stepped gilded boot onto the pitch in decades or perhaps even centuries(?) spent much of their time raging at the sun when it dared to peek from behind the clouds and their thrall minions as well. Their sheer ferocity left one or two thralls eating dirt and more than a few openings for the quick moving humans who practiced often in the off season, to make progress forward. Luckily their fangs weren't so strong as to do any permanent harm to their semi-willing minions.
The comets do as their name suggests and they speed in taking the biscuit as close to the basket as possible but the vampires, Lord Chesterfield the Emboldened (Vampire Blitzer #1) in particular, mount a last minute defensive assault stopping the rush and even managing to take out the Nuffle-blessed (HUMAN CATCHER) knocking them out cold and loosing the ball in the process. And thus began the scrum to get the ball back.
Humans, despite losing their blessed catcher, press forward and manage to get ahold of the ball in an absolute rush to get to the endzone trips up over his own feet dropping the ball on the line as if each one was a glaring eye of Nuffle themself looking down on the match.
Vampires again recover the ball and begin to sweep back and lay a few key blocks, but the humans continued to fight back. Humans get the ball again, and again in their eagerness to reach the end zone as soon as possible going for it with all their vigor slip up and drop the ball again. Both the Vampires and Nuffle's will playing serious defense and barely keeping up against the relentless assault by the humans.
The Ichor Coughers decide that enough is enough and by now more of the other vampires and thralls have come in to support the assault in the end zone and they begin to push back using the last of their resolves and team training as the game becomes an all out wild show.
Vampires hold on but struggle to gain ground and Altdorf's finest fight back but skulls prevent the way on a key block giving the vampires the desperate chance they need to prevent the touchdown with almost certainty and Nuffle willing, score one of their own!
Lord Chesterfield the emboldened looses an absolute smiting beam of a pass which is almost caught if not for the interference of a human lineman causing a turnover as the final seconds ticked down. But the ball was out of the red zone in either case as the half slowly reaches its conclusion. Humans fight back laying down blocks leaving the vamps only enough wiggle room to throw a single vanity pass for a completion giving (VAMPIRE) the first SPP of the game.
The half closes at a standstill, zero to zero.
Second half opens with a human blitz no doubt feeling like the pressure is on as the ball is kicked to the vampires. They kick it shallow and move in lightning quick managing to recover the ball even before the first turn of the second half. Needless to say the Vampires were stunned as again Nuffle seemed to be showing favor to the humans. But not stunned enough to prevent the will to fight back! The action and excitement of the humans trying to get the ball ended up leaving the ball carrier out in the open. The Vamps didn't waste any time capitalizing on the situation putting the lonesome human down, recovering the ball quickly and getting into an early position.
Humans lay down heavy blocks as thralls are KO'd left and right filling the dugout with unconscious bodies putting immense number pressure on the vampire team, but they still held the ball. For now. Eventually humans come in hot with the blitz and the vampire ball carrier is toppled near the sideline just within the human half of the pitch sending the ball flying as a melee begins to ensue around the ball with vampires, thralls, humans, and an ogre vying for control. Hard pressure from both sides as players pile into the mass of violence.
Vamps being slower to join the fray in support of the previous ball carrier began to slowly push humans towards the sidelines. And (INJURED HUMAN) even ended up in the crowd, no doubt those cheering for the Tollheim Team, dealing grievous injuries which will see (HUMAN) missing the next game. The melee around the ball continued to heat up. Eventually humans break free with a smart pass to an (OPEN HUMAN PLAYER)open player and easily outrun the one or two Thralls outside of the melee and score a quick touchdown. +1 SPP to (PLAYER) and +3 SPP to (PLAYER) for their efforts.
1 to 0, Comets in the lead kicking once again back to the Vampires on their turn 6.
Vamps receive the ball safely and press forward towards the halfway line not wasting any time as the clock is working against them. Despite terrible pressure due to a great number of their knocked out thralls still out cold, they begin to run the ball forward for a final last chance to score before the game ends.
Humans see what is coming and spread their defence out into a wide pattern covering any and all players who could potentially make it into the end zone and receive a pass as the Vampire ball carrier was poised to deliver. The final desperate play for the touchdown involved one Vamp blitzing through his blocker and getting into position to receive the ball. Then the Thrower (VAMP WHO THREW) needed to manage a dodge away from pressure, and maneuvered into throwing position sending another beamer of a miracle pass just between two defenders into the waiting arms of (VAMP WHO SCORED TD) and tie the game on their turn 8. This still left a single turn left for the Comets to do something when the time out whistle was blown during the last kickoff as the ball was a touchback. The match ends in violence despite of it, but nothing came of the senseless(?) violence and the first match is a one one tie. An exciting and wild affair that saw both sides fighting and struggling each turn until the bitter end.
Post Match Reflection: (Epic Ramble warning. TLDR at the end.)
So you can see that it was quite the barn burner. I was playing the vamps and my first turn was a whole lot of failed animal savagery rolls, but I managed to keep it under control and hold off the initial score. Getting blitzed on the second kick off and then subsequently losing like 4 thralls in a row (On my 11 player team!) was absolutely horrendous, but again, I fought through it and Nuffle did me plenty of favors dropping ones and skulls with tremendous timing when my buddy got a little overzealous with his GFI rolls or on super crucial blocks against my ball carrier on one or two occasions.
I remembered why I love the vamps still despite having lots of trepidation with the amount of fuss people were kicking up online. I felt the pain granted, and none of my animal Savagery rolls ended up being fatal so I was certainly lucky in that respect, but more often than not I had one or two vamps standing there without tackle zones when I was getting into crunch time and just needed vamps to go places for the potential gaze. Gaze was crucial, but a gamble all the same. Most enemy players avoided my vamps, even without tackle zones since they are really tough and resource heavy to get 2D blocks on with ST3 people despite being fairly vulnerable. So if a Vamp wasn't really in a strategic spot to intercept blockers, then I would just roll the dice and see if they could squeeze out a gaze, sometimes even after marking two or three other players just to get them in there for the basically free blocks.
AS4+ vs. 2+ is a huge consideration. I am willing to risk the 2+ so once I got vamps deeper within a scrum or group of people I didn't really need to 'babysit' them as much since a 2+ is fairly reliable (Nuffle willing) and usually had one or two team rerolls if I didn't feel like failing and NEEDED that vamp to throw the block. Obviously ST 4 and AG2+ is excellent and they are just so reliable with anything it feels like when they are actually allowed to do things haha.
Managed two accurate passes and caught one of them although I was only 1 off of catching the first attempt which might have swayed the game in my favor honestly. But rerolls got cooked off hella fast. I have 4 RR on this 4 Vamp team and I used them all up by like turn 5 or 6. The multi-RR in a single turn factor is actually quite nice and really lets you make plays when you need them to be made. My friend cooked through his real quick in the first half and he became quite vulnerable to skulls and snakes which ended up biting him a bit. We both learned our lesson a bit and tried to take it easy, but re rolls got used and it was just how it had to be. I was initially very surprised and actually somewhat opposed to the multi-RR per turn change in the rules, but I quite like it now. Also, the humans tossed one 'wildly inaccurate' pass and it ended up deviating only a single square, but if it had been worse would have really changed things. I want to see more of those (From my opponents of course).
Final thoughts:
Vamps rolling a 4+/2+ or knocking down a thrall is what it is. I got lucky and only stunned my thralls, but when the time comes for me to pay the piper no doubt I will have a different opinion on it. Only using them to move/pass/gaze is a part of the game, but that just means you need vamps in good positions from the get go. I ended up putting them on the ends of my LOS so they got those blocks in with a thrall diagonally outside if needed. They put in work on the front line and when bolstered by even one or two other thralls makes for a nice and easy domino effect putting down the opponents whole LOS with reliable two dice blocks.
Vamps failing AS without a thrall is brutal, but not the end of the world. Just gotta know and be willing to take a risk. I did it the first turn to see how bad it really was and had a human catcher moving some obscene amount of squares and pretty much a full cage right past literally my only linebacker because he was mad about blood and sunlight. That sucked, but I bounced back and that same vamp came in for a deadly blitz. Not activating key vamps is still important strategy. I plan on trying to put vamps in position to intercept incoming players like little fly traps and then getting off 'free' blocks since the 2+ isn't as big a risk as the 4+. Honestly, almost treating them like Khemri Tomb Guardians or tree men blocking off the pitch and funneling play into the part of the pitch you want them to go to. Then they blitz/block the ball loose and begin the process of scoring via elf bullshit. (This previous sentence may have just given me my ultimate battle plan going forward and in all honesty is going to become a team mantra. Damn.)
Thralls are done for. But they can throw blocks and should. I need a bench, but made enough cash off the first game so that is easily doable. Thralls that haven't acted yet, but get knocked down, can still get back up! I forgot this until halfway through the game. Take care which way you lay down your 'unactivated, but freshly knocked down' thralls so you don't forget that. It is one of the huge advantages of the new AS knock down style if you don't break armor.
Gaze is still excellent. Use it often if you can spare moving some vamps and have a few thralls at the ready which won't break down your lines of defense/offense. Mentally prepare yourself to just fail the roll everytime and expect thralls to die and then if/when they don't it is just that much better. Then as they break free and go and have fun, thralls race to try and keep up with them. Instead of thralls preceding vampire actions going where they want to be after taking actions, now thralls are playing catch up chasing down vamps after they do their action giving a little more leeway in placement. Thralls that were chasing a "run & gaze" vamp who finally finds some blocking chances can now help out another Vamp who has found themselves left behind or stuck without a tacklezone offering their precious bodies to get them back in.
Thoughts about BB20 in general: Love the multi rerolls. Love the smooth pre and post game phases. Winnings and skilling up awesome. Made tons of cash off of a draw and a single TD each. Enough to buy a new thrall and potentially a cheerleader. Or maybe just get an Apo. Scored a single TD, and two Completions, that with the MVP ended up allowing two of my players to roll a random primary skill up. Buying a another player and skilling up two players after a single game? That is unheard of in the games I play in. This edition is already packing my treasury (As if I would allow it!) and skilling my players up adding great flavor to them, although I am not happy about a 'sure feet' vampire, a thrall with 'kick' will no doubt allow me loads more control going forward. And for ONLY a 10K bump each. When we get a few more games in the inducements are going to be wild. Prayers to nuffle came up in a kickoff result giving pro to his catcher for the game, but I KO'd him right away and that was pretty much that for the game. Still a thrill to see. I am very impressed and pleased with the new edition so far, especially with league play and the post game sequence and what that implied for games going forward. I used to lament silently that it felt like forever to gain even enough SPP to do anything as even getting MVP meant I needed at least one more SPP to skill up before, whereas now my dumb thrall gets MVP (Random is legit imo) and I can roll a random primary skill for them. (As if I would go out of the way to pay more spp/wait/bloat my team for a dumb thrall. The thrall was born to die!) Can't beat that man. Making me care about thralls (At least one of them) is a feat in itself.
Best tie game I have played since the conclusion of the previous season! And offers a lot of promise into the matches going forward for the league. If you managed to read all this by all means comment or ask a question since I am clearly happy to discuss at length about it!
TLDR; Treat vamps like Khemri Tomb Guardians or Fling tree men blocking off portions of the pitch (Or catching fools in their tackle zones) and funneling play into the part of the pitch you want them to go to. Then they blitz/block the ball loose and begin the process of scoring via elf bullshit. Anticipate thralls eating it and treat them not as a gift of nuffle. Rolling AS2+ is riskable without a thrall, while AS4+ is more risky. Don't forget to activate knocked down thralls who only didn't get their armor broken!

A quick bio: I graduated with a degree in Mathematics from MIT in 1999, making me a Gen-Xer. I was on the MIT blackjack team, and went on to a career as a financial programmer, before eventually transitioning to a full time trader. I have a lot of informed opinions about gambling, investing, poker, and HFT, if you are curious about those to aid your research.
In my late 30s, I experienced a manic episode. This is rather old for a first-timer but not unheard of. During this episode, my ability to think logically fundamentally broke down. I struggled to find anything that I could KNOW was true. I struggled to find any REAL divisions between things. My mind ran in circles. I thought aliens were talking to me via white noise on a broken TV. I believed the doctor chasing me with a needle was an evil spirit intent on killing me. I thought if I accepted my fate I could somehow save the world, and sat down to receive my death sentence. I did a bizarre dance to place my signature on my 4D path through space-time. Let's just say, things got weird.
My mental recovery began when I grasped onto a single, immutable truth... a core axiom, an assumption, which I could use to re-derive truths about the world. I had the perception that I reorganized my thinking into a tree of truth, rather than a jumbled mess of facts. I suspect I was helped by my incredibly limited long-term memory, which has always forced me to try to store the smallest amount of information possible, the classic absent-minded professor. Most of my beliefs didn't change, but a few core ideas were altered radically with powerful effects.
In the years that followed, I've come to believe in the power of thinking from first principles. Truth has predictive power, and building ideas from the ground up has made me very successful, both financially and spiritually. I play chess at an expert level, and carry a 4 handicap in golf, AMA if you like these as well. I don't say this to brag, but to convince you that this way of thinking can be useful for producing results efficiently. My friends know me as an unusually calm, content person.
What follows is the foundation of my spiritual success, built up from first principles, by challenging some of my deepest-held assumptions. I believe that anyone can learn these skills to become a happier, more content person, no matter their lot in life. I've given this "speech" a few times now to my closest friends, and now share it publicly for the first time. It's a work in progress.
​
Meet Bob. What is that core assumption you might ask? For me, it was... I am good. We already have to pause to define these terms... who am I? "I" am the animating life force, the decision maker, the thing making my body move. What is "good"? Well, it's the thing that the animating force feels will improve the state of the world in which it finds itself. Since pronouns are hard, let's replace "I" with "Bob"...
​
One of my core beliefs is that Bob animates everyone. We are all Bob. Everyone has an animating force, and that force moves through the world trying to make things better in some way. Some have described this as a bunch of mirrors in a smoky room, who don't recognize their sameness due to the smoke between them. Me, you, Ghandi, and Bin Laden, all Bob.
​
Sometimes Bob gets confused. For example, as a baby, Bob will immediately draw the mistaken conclusion that they are different from the rest of the world, unique. Bob starts by assuming that "good" means self-preservation. And how could he not? Natural selection powerfully weeds out any Bob's that don't associate "good" this way.
​
Bob then faces a series of formative events. The Bobs in close proximity start saying and doing things that cause Bob to react and build more truths, many of which are deeply flawed. Worse, those deeply held beliefs are almost impossible to change later in life. The misunderstandings continue.
​
One of the most fundamental misunderstandings is that there is intrinsic merit in one Bob's definition of "good' vs another's. Virtually every Bob on Earth makes this mistake. Bob sees clear value in all kinds of things. More money = good. Protecting my family = good. Wiping Jews off the Earth = good. Well ok that last one isn't so widely held any more, but for a large group in the 1930s, their thinking derailed in this way and they couldn't understand how anyone could think differently.
​
The reason for this mass error in judgment, which is the root cause of all pain in society, is the core belief that some moments are better than others. If I scratch off a winning lottery ticket, that moment is better than scratching off a loser. If I save my kid from drowning, that's better than letting them die. These beliefs are so fundamental that even proposing we reconsider this assumption takes a huge leap of faith. Many Bob's lack the capacity to reform fundamental assumptions like these. Those with the ability to do so will have to work at it. Those willing to try are the intended audience of this writing.
​
Objective vs subjective truth. Before we get to the grand finale, there is an important truth to accept about Bob. Bob is constantly assessing the differences of things in the world around him. He's constantly devising plans to further his view of "good", and assessing which results are better than others.
​
Take a particular moment in Bob's life. Bob is actually terrible at assessing an objective "goodness" of this moment. He excels, instead, at comparing that moment to another one. This is driven by natural selection... that's not a bush, it's a tiger! Bob doesn't realize this is what he's doing, but consider the facts. It has been shown that lottery winners, after a brief stint of happiness, are generally LESS happy than the general population as little as six months later. If you've ever made money, lost it, and felt the pain of returning to a place where you were happy before, you can start to see this in yourself first hand.
​
To sum up succinctly... Bob's mental state is highly path dependent. Give a homeless man a dollar and they will smile. Leave a rich man with only a dollar and they will be distraught. There is no objective assessment of the moment, only a comparison to the one that came before.
​
Visualizing the sphere of moments. This begs the question... does a proper, objective ordering of moments exist? Consider all the possible moments that could ever be. Now consider all the dimensions we could assign to these moments... we rate each one on a scale from 1 to 10. In the financial health dimension, a 10 might mean I'm a billionaire, and a 1 perhaps I'm homeless. In the marriage dimension, a 10 means my wife loves me, a 1 means she just chopped off my penis and I'm on the national news.
​
This is it. This is the end. This is where every Bob makes their fundamental mistake in judgment, a mistake practically required by natural selection for Bob to exist at all.
​
Bob assumes that in every dimension, you can lay out all the moments in a straight line from 1 to 10. I can look at the moments, see how much money I have, and the more money, the higher the number. If I'm assessing friendships, I can count my friends, more = good.
​
For Bob, 10 = heaven, and 1 = hell. Those whose value judgments align with his are allies. They are the good. Those whose value judgments push towards 1 are evil. They are the enemy. Destroy them.
​
But what if Bob is wrong? What if the very assignment of 1 and 10 are arbitrary? What if, in fact, you could construct a reasonable, self-consistent view that denominated any given moment as heaven, or any given moment as hell? In my manic search to prove my worldview was right, the only truth I could find was that there is no proof I was right. This idea is what brought me back.
​
Imagine we placed every moment that could ever be, condensed on to the surface of the Earth. The moments that are close together in our objective value assessment, we place close together on the surface. We look at the spot where we stand, and assign values... I'm a 7 financially, an 8 with friends, a 6 at chess, a 9 in my marriage... we keep our lists of how things are going. Next, we try to walk on the surface to a moment with slightly better numbers... sometimes we succeed, and the numbers go up. We are happy! Sometimes we fail and are sad. Sometimes we walk in one direction for a long time, only to change our view of the number system and discover we've taken a massive wrong turn. We're all walking in different directions. We all have different destinations. Some destinations are closer than others.
​
As we walk, we see the flatness of the Earth. We see the numbers around us going up and down. Just like our ancestors who lacked the perspective to see the Earth was round, similarly, we believe if we walk in the right direction forever, we will reach a point on the flat Earth where it ends. The point where we assign 10s in all dimensions. Heaven.
​
In fact, if you walk long enough, you just wind up where you started, because they moments are laid out in a circle, not in a line! Heaven and hell touch. The Budda taught that you can reach nirvana in two directions, and to me, this is what he meant.
​
Bullshit. Prove it. And also, what tangible effect does this view have in the real world? To prove that the numbering system is arbitrary, you just need to see that your assessment of the numbers is highly path dependent. If you've ever been upset about something, and then said, well, I guess it could be worse, you're performing this exercise and have felt its power to improve your mental state.
​
The real challenge is to show that heaven and hell touch. To do this, you need to construct a mental state in which you have reached ultimate happiness in your own personal hell. For me, I felt it very personally in my manic episode, as I sat down content in my own immediate hell (death), knowing that needle was going to end my life but save the world. I felt joy sweep through my body as I was killed, which you might imagine, had a powerful impact on me.
​
You can also have the view that since change is the only constant, if I'm in hell, than the only step forward is a step up. Isn't there ultimate happiness, isn't there HEAVEN, in the knowledge that nothing could ever get worse from here? You can also say, hey, only one person fits here in this moment, and I'm happy to be the one to do it for my brothers, because I can take it. You all enjoy being in "not hell", and compare yourselves to me to find joy. I'll just find joy in your happiness.
​
It takes time and it takes practice. I used the physical feeling in my body we all know, that tension that comes from anger and frustration, as a cue to practice reorienting my thoughts. I check in... wait... How could I reach this exact same point and be ecstatic? Practice this enough, and find some thoughts that would work even in hell, and pretty soon it becomes very easy to return to a place of contentedness. You start to recognize the arbitrary nature it all, and calm down. It's not that I don't feel anger or hate, it's just much more fleeting for me than for most. When I encounter someone with a different heaven from mine, I try to understand them rather than hate them, for they are me. We are Bob.
​
This is very long so I'll leave it at that for now. This is just the beginning, AMA.

Cover || First
Previously
O-O-O
Author's Note: I guess it's a blue moon because here's your second chapter this week! This chapter and the next are both dedicated to my late grandma, who’s favorite time of year was Christmas. She loved spending time with her family and I hope to capture some of that spirit in my writing. Enjoy!
O-O-O
1510, 18 December 2252, Clarke Hotel, Von Braun, Luna
“You did WHAT?!” Sam’s eyes narrowed with anger as she looked at the three of them.
“I-I c-can e-expla-in,” Lian stuttered while trying to appear as small as possible..
Sean held up his hand in front of the trembling programmer. “I’ve got it.” Sean took a deep breath and began to explain, “Lian found some juicy intel about the PFS goons we faced in some hackable Gold Horizon comms. We wanted to blow the whole thing open so we went where there would be more details about this.”
Sam ran her hands through her hair and asked, “What if you’d gotten caught?!”
Ana replied from the corner of the common room, “Nothing good.”
“I know!” Sam’s voice was undercut with an angry growl.
Matt raised his hands “Look, don’t you want to know what we found?”
“It better be fucking worth it.”
Lian looked up and said with a wavering voice, “Y-yeah, s-so...the whole thing with Gold Horizon selling mech d-designs...that’s just the b-beginning. T-there’s comms logs with encrypted c-contents that went to the PFS.”
It felt like the room dropped below freezing as Ana asked, “Why would Gold Horizon be communicating with terrorists?”
“They happened a few days before e-each attack. I t-think...they’re working t-together or s-something. They d-didn’t even obscure the a-address.”
“No...that can’t be....”
Lian swallowed and continued. “I a-assume it gets even worse if you can see the m-messages, but I haven’t d-decrypted anything yet.”
“Fuck.”
“Th-that still isn’t the worst p-part. Around the s-same time, Gold Horizon was also r-receiving messages from...somewhere e-else, hidden. I d-don’t know who it is or what they said, b-but they look a b-bit like o-orders.”
Matt collapsed into a chair as the strength left his body entirely. “Who would even be able to order them around?”
Sam walked to Lian and loomed over the cowering snow leopard. She asked, “How well did you cover your tracks?” as her voice wavered with fear.
“E-E-Extremely. They won’t know what hit them...or even that t-they got h-h-hit.”
Ana growled as she clenched her fists. “We need to go public with this.” Her tail lashed like a whip behind her. “They can’t get away with this.”
Matt shivered and replied, “Ana, we can’t do that!”
“Why not? Blow the fucking top off this whole fucking thing.” She gritted and then bared her teeth as she growled.
Matt shot back, “Because then they know their game is up! And we might not have perfectly covered our tracks!”
“I c-couldn’t completely erase our presence there....”
Ana sneered at Lian, “Well then that’s y—” Sam grabbed Ana’s shoulder and pushed her into a seat.
“Ana, cool off please. One at a time.” She let go of the irate snow leopard. “Lian, what’s the next step?”
“D-Decrypting the data I have. I found the k-key generation program and grabbed th-that first.”
“Once you’ve done that?”
“We act o-on whatever is in the files?”
“Okay.” Sam took a deep breath. “Ana, it would be very unwise to make any of this public. It can be linked to us if they really try, and if we blow the lid off...they’re gonna try.”
Her claws dug into the chair. “Fine.”
Sam shook her head. “I cannot stress this enough. This didn’t happen. Don’t mention this to anyone that isn’t in this room right now.”
Sean lounged over the back of a chair. “Spy shit is a lot more fun when it’s fake.”
Sam exhaled and sat down. “Lian, is there some way we can secure our comms?”
Lian chuckled nervously. “I thought you’d n-never ask.”
“Do that. As soon as possible.” Sam sighed as she leaned back.
Matt sighed. “So, was this worth it Sam?”
“I haven’t decided. In the future, stupid...shit like this should be a unanimous decision. I’m disappointed you did it behind my and Ana’s back.”
Lian’s gaze sunk to the floor as Matt nodded. “That’s understandable.”
“I’m glad we know now, but we need to be careful. They can make us disappear...and that’s just Gold Horizon. Whoever is giving orders...I don’t want to know what they can do.”
O-O-O
0930, 19 December 2252, Ana’s Room, Clarke Hotel, Von Braun, Luna
Ana blinked awake with a shudder. The world had been upended entirely and she felt sick. She dragged herself out of bed and began the arduous process of making her hair and fur presentable.
She began to brush her teeth and cringed at the strong mint taste. She spat the foam into the sink and looked in the mirror. Her sullen eyes stared back at her. Something was missing. She shook her head and got dressed. At least her sleep had been peaceful last night.
Ana looked at her terminal. The conversation she had with Sam weighed heavily on her mind, possibly even heavier than the revelation that the entire conflict with the PFS was a sham. With shaking hands she snatched the terminal and began typing a message to Matt. She deleted the message a few times and retyped it.
Can you come to my room? I’ve got something I’d like to talk to you about.
A few minutes later Matt knocked at her door. “I’m uh...here.” She walked to the door and opened it, seeing her copilot standing there in exercise pants and a tee shirt.
Ana sighed. “Come in.”
“What’s up?” Ana shut the door behind him and tried to calm her storming emotions.
Ana ran her hands through her hair and shook her head. She sank to the bed with a sigh. “You’re too kind to me. I really don’t deserve it.”
Matt tilted his head slightly. “We have to support each other, or else we’d get shot down.”
Ana groaned as she looked down at her paws. “There you go again.”
Ana felt the mattress sink slightly as Matt sat down a respectful distance away. “I forgive you. I’ve got a pretty good idea why you were so...prickly back then. It can’t have been easy....” Losing your sister, she filled in the unspoken conclusion to the sentence.
Her spotted tail whipped behind her, one of the only indicators of her raging emotions. “It wasn’t.” Ana stood up and paced around the room. “You’re really okay with how I treated you?”
“I mean...it sucked. I almost quit, but I decided I wasn’t letting my chance go, and now I know what you went through. It won’t heal the scars, but it does make them hurt a bit less.”
Ana’s face flushed with shame as she sucked in a breath through her teeth. “Scars...shit. Did I scar your shoulders?”
“A little bit, yeah. You can barely see it unless you know where to look.”
Ana sighed again. “S...sorry.”
Matt nodded and stood up. “Have you had breakfast yet?”
“No.”
“Let’s fix that.”
O-O-O
Matt walked out of Ana’s room and into the common area. Ana grabbed a protein bar from the counter before sitting down on a couch and tearing into it. Matt’s stomach rumbled as he grabbed a breakfast pocket from the fridge. He stuck it in the reheater and sat down at the table. His model of the ROMEO stood complete, with cockpit hatches opened. Barely visible inside were miniscule figures of himself and Ana. The thought still brought a slight smile to his face in spite of the circumstances. Sean yawned as he walked out of his room into the common area, the sound of a flushing toilet echoing before the door slid shut.
Ana asked, “Has anyone seen Sam?”
Sean nodded. “Yeah, she went out to get some decorations. Said we were going to spice up the place.”
Matt took his breakfast out of the reheater and said, “Well bringing the Solstice spirit inside would help the mood.”
Ana replied sullenly, “Maybe.” Matt finished eating in silence then stared into the table. His terminal buzzed with a message. He pulled out his glasses and powered on the overlay. It was from Sam.
Could you guys come to the lobby? I could use some help getting some decorations upstairs.
Matt typed a quick reply and said, “Sam’s got the decorations in the lobby, she wants help to get them up here.”
Ana grunted as she stood up. “Fine by me.” Matt walked to the elevator at the end of the hallway and pushed the call button. Motors hummed above them as the elevator doors opened with a chime. The car descended slowly before the doors slid open again.
Matt’s eyes went wide as he stepped out of the elevator car. There was a colossal amount of stuff in the lobby. “Sam, where’s all this from?”
The lynx smiled weakly next to a container almost as long as she was tall. “I used to live here. All this was in a storage unit in case I came back.”
Sean whistled. “Damn, you must have had a big house.”
She nodded wistfully. “I did. Let’s get this stuff put up.” Sam waved them over and began directing them to carry the boxes into the elevator.
O-O-O
Matt looked at the decorated common room with a smile. It had taken the better part of a day, with a break for lunch, but the room oozed vaguely Christmas-y spirit. The entire room smelt faintly of pine, while a tall dark green tree stood in the corner, wrapped with multicolor lights. Holiday music rich in brass horns played from a speaker in the corner as Sam put the finishing touches on the table. A red tablecloth covered the cheap plastic table and electric candles flickered pleasantly.
Sam grinned, though something seemed off with her expression. “Good job guys. This really feels like home now.”
“Glad to have helped.”
Lian stepped into the common room and murmured, “Wow,” as his head spun around.
Matt gestured to the room and said, “Happy holidays, Lian.”
Lian grinned and replied, “You t-too.” After a moment, he coughed and said, “I’ve not been able to crack it yet. T-There has to be some vulnerability, s-somewhere.”
Matt patted the shorter snow leopard on the shoulder “You’ll get it eventually.”
“I have to.”
Sam walked over to them and said, “Lian, try and relax, this is supposed to be a break.”
Lian exasperatedly raised his hands and exclaimed, “B-But it’s an interesting problem!”
Sam sighed. “How much do you actually need to be by your computer for it to decode?”
“That’s...not important.” Sam motioned ‘go on’ as Lian sighed, “I don’t need to be there once it starts.”
Sam tilted her head and asked, “So why don’t you spend some time with us?”
Lian sighed again. “Fine.”
O-O-O
1650, 20 December 2252, Clarke Hotel, Von Braun, Luna
Matt grinned as his parents resolved onscreen. He had the time after helping Sam remove the storage boxes of decorations to touch base with them. His dad asked, “How’s it going, son?”
He thought for a moment and then replied, “It’s been okay, dad. My mech is in for repairs. We had to eject in our last fight.”
A few seconds passed while the data crossed the hundreds of thousands of kilometers before his mom leaned in and asked, “How bad was it darling? We couldn’t find any clear videos.”
Matt blew air out and chuckled. “You probably don’t want to know. The mech is in one piece...now...mostly.”
His mother’s piercing gaze still was effective from several light-seconds away. She asked, “But you weren’t hurt, right?”
“No. Nothing major, just some bruises from getting a bit knocked around.”
His mother frowned and shook her head. “This is why I was worried. Didn’t I say that Simon?” She tapped his father on the shoulder as she sighed.
“Yes you did dear, but we’re supporting him now, right?”
She nodded and asked, “Is your Ranger okay?”
Matt remembered her limp form curled in his arms after they ejected. “She...had a bit of a bad reaction, but I calmed her down. She’s actually...kinda nice when you get past her prickly exterior.”
His mother’s expression softened. “Well that’s good to hear.”
His dad sighed and asked, “You’re sure that you can’t make it home for Christmas?”
“Yeah, they’ve got us locked down because of the...recent PFS activity. That was who we fought last Thursday by the way.”
His dad nodded. “It was on the newsfeeds. We could barely see what happened.”
Matt remembered the nauseating spin that their mech had been left in before they ejected. He nodded. “Probably for the best.” Matt opened his mouth to mention the opposition he had fought and then thought better of it. “We pretty much...lost.”
“I’m sure you’ll do better next time.”
Matt solemnly nodded and said, “Hopefully yeah.”
Deftly changing the conversation, his dad said, “So you said you’re staying at Von Braun? I’ve got some friends there in the CLLSS department of dome...12? I don’t remember.”
Matt chuckled. “I don’t think your life support nerd friends are really gonna be the people I want to talk with here.”
His dad shook his head and tried to keep his grin from being too obvious. “I’m hurt, really.”
A message popped up on his screen. “Wait a second.” He opened it and quickly read it. “Sorry, I need to head out to get some groceries for the team dinner.”
“Good luck!”
“Thanks. I love you guys.”
“We love you too! Bye.” Matt smiled as he hung up the call. He took a moment to grab his backpack and a hat to hopefully disguise himself enough to avoid recognition. Walking into the common area, he passed Ana and Sam preparing something that smelled delicious. Lian waved awkwardly from the couch at Matt.
Sean announced his presence with an exaggerated, “Let’s go do some shopping!”
O-O-O
Sam sprinkled seasoning into the pot of broth. Ana had volunteered to help with the pot roast for tonight’s dinner. It was the perfect opportunity; just send the three men to get groceries and Sam and Ana had privacy again. The snow leopard was to her left and was chopping potatoes. Sam turned to Ana and said, “You should really talk with your family again, Ana. They probably miss you.”
The snow leopard quietly responded, “I don’t know if I can,” as she dumped a mat full of diced potatoes into a bowl.
Sam chuckled as she looked at the recipe in front of her. “You’re one of the strongest people I know. You fly something in hard vac expecting it to get shot full of holes. You can do this.”
The knife thudded as it sliced a few millimeters into the cutting mat. “That’s different and you know it.”
Sam asked, “Do you want your parents to lose both of their daughters instead of just one?” Ana gritted her teeth and softly hissed as her frown grew, baring her fangs.
With a wavering voice Ana said, “Stop. Just...stop. Please.” She put down the knife on the counter and stood in stagnant silence. Sam looked back to the pressure cooker. Ana walked away from the counter. Her voice was tinged with pain as she said. “I’ll do it. Just...stop.” Sam didn't turn around as Ana exited the room. She hoped that pushing that point would be worth it.
O-O-O
Ana wished the door to her room could slam. The lynx was right. Of course Sam was fucking right. She sank to the bed and grabbed a pillow to scream into. The soft pillow muffled her scream to a barely audible whine.
Ana picked up her tablet. Her hands shivered as she navigated to her chat application and opened the chat with her mother.
Mom, I know it’s been a wh—
Ana shook her head as she deleted the message. That wouldn’t do. She tried again.
Hello again mother, how have—
“No.” Her finger pressed against the delete key. She began to type again, her fingers flying over her tablet.
Can we talk, mom? I know it’s been a while. Just us.
Ana looked over the message. That would work. Now all she needed to do was hit send. Her finger hovered over the button, trembling. Ana sat there, frozen in place. With a grunt of frustration, she flipped over, driving her face into the bed and blindly stabbed at the button.
Her shoulders shook as she raised her head slightly to gaze at the tablet. A few minutes passed before the screen flared to life with a message.
Of course Kisa. Does now work?
Her mother was still calling her kitten. That was probably a good sign? She didn’t seem mad, but she could seem calm even when she was boiling with emotion. Ana’s stomach roiled with nervous energy as she walked to the bathroom. She needed to look a bit more composed. She ran a brush through her hair and combed her facial hair into some semblance of order. Ana walked back to the bed, and grabbed her tablet, propping it up on the small desk before sinking into the chair.
Ana took a deep breath before hitting the ‘Video Call’ button. It began ringing, then a few seconds later, the call connected. Ana recognized the room immediately. It was her mother’s reading room, on the second floor of her home. The dark faux panels provided a high contrast for her nearly white hair.
Irina’s muzzle warped a bit as she smiled. “It’s been a long time since we’ve talked, Kisa.”
Ana flinched. “Don’t call me that. I’m not a cub anymore.”
There was a noticeable time delay before she responded. “You’ll always be my cub dear.” She shook her head and laughed. “I won’t talk about work with you. Why did you choose now to call me, dear?”
Ana lowered her eyes to the desk and coughed. “I wanted to apologize.” She took a deep breath and steeled her emotions. “I failed to protect her.” Ana choked back a sob and whispered, “Sorry.”
Ana heard her mother gasp before she sternly said, “No. Absolutely not. We both know it was bad luck. Don’t blame yourself for chance.”
Ana shook her head as her eyes watered. “That random chance wouldn’t have happened if I was a better Ranger.”
As Ana looked back up she saw her mother’s expression soften. “Kisa...Ana. Don’t think like that.” She sighed, reaching towards the screen, as if to caress her daughter. “Thinking that way only leads to insanity and madness. You can change the past as much as you can breath vacuum.”
Ana didn’t say anything in response but weakly nodded. Her stomach twisted into knots as she asked, “Who hates me now?” As the round trip timer ticked down, she braced herself.
Irina’s eyes widened in surprise. “Hm? None of them do, Ana. They miss you.”
Ana went limp and flatly asked, “What?” It felt like there was a fight in her body and all the sides were losing.
“You’ve not sent messages or called since March. I don’t know how my daughter is doing.”
“Poorly.” Ana reached up with a shaky hand and said, “I’ve got to go,” before jabbing at the red button.
Ana saw her mother reach towards the screen with an open hand as she frantically said, “No, wait. You can’t leave yet.”
With a shiver Ana let a slight whine escape her mouth. “I...mom, I feel like I need to be sick.”
Irina reached towards the screen again before stopping herself with a slight sigh. “Nerves, Kisa. They will pass.”
Ana looked down, averting her gaze. “I’ve felt like this since Matt and I got shot down and...we had to bail out. I don’t think it’s passing.” She looked back up into her mother’s pale icy irises.
Her mother nodded sympathetically. “That makes sense. Would you like to know what helped me with feeling like that?”
Ana felt her eyes water. She had missed this. “Please. Anything that could help me.”
Her mother thought for a moment past the communication delay. “Find an anchor.”
“What?”
“Find someone or something that you can lean on. You need to weather the storm of your feelings, and it’s difficult to do that alone. Everyone’s anchor is different, and people can have more than one. Yours was Annika and you were hers. Now you need to find another.”
“Alright...I can do that.” Ana took shuddering breaths to calm herself. “How’s it been back home?”
“Oh it’s been pretty good all things considered. Your father blew up an engine test stand last month....”
O-O-O
1845, 20 December 2252, Clarke Hotel, Von Braun, Luna
Sam dumped the vegetables into the pressure cooker and pushed the lid down, locking it in place with a metallic click. Her tufted ears twitched as a door slid open behind her. That could be only one person. She began cleaning the kitchen’s surfaces, pretending she didn’t hear Ana’s soft footsteps coming back to the kitchen.
Ana said “Thank you,” so quietly that Sam almost didn’t hear it over the running sink.
Sam turned around and gently asked, “It went well?” Ana nodded. “I could use some help with the cutting mats. They’re a bit dirty, and I don’t want to stain them.”
Ana nodded slightly and said, “Sounds good.” Sam sighed in relief. The snow leopard seemed to be doing better. Her gamble had paid off. She didn’t like seeing Ana’s raw pain and hopefully, this was a step towards healing for the hurting Ranger.
O-O-O
Matt walked into the lobby of the hotel and asked, “Why did Sam send all of us out? It’s not like this is too much for two people to carry.” His single bag clinked with two bottles of red wine. “If I was careful, I could carry this all myself.”
“Many hands make light work. It’s what my grandpa used to say.” Sean was carrying a loaf of bread and gingerly held a whole watermelon under his left arm. Lian nodded in agreement. He was carrying a bag with a large package of chips and an imitation cheese dip.
Matt pressed the elevator call button and stepped in as the doors slid open. The elevator moved smoothly up. The doors slid open as the wonderful smell of Sam’s cooking hit Matt like a delicious wall. The aromatic scent washed over him in layers. As they stepped into the common area, Matt noticed something had changed with Ana. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but there was definitely something different with the snow leopard. Maybe it was her stance or something about how she held her tail, but he could tell, even when her back was to him and she was washing dishes.
“Ah perfect!” Sam held out her hands to Sean. “You were able to find a watermelon!” The redheaded man gently handed the round green fruit over.
“I almost dropped it when we were leaving the store.”
“I’m glad that you didn’t.” Sam laughed. “That would have been a bad loss.” Sam sat the watermelon on the counter next to a large dish and began to cut into the sweet fruit with careful motions. She said, “The roast is done, I’ll get it out once I’ve cut the watermelon. Feel free to seat yourselves.”
Matt sat down across from Sean and narrowed his eyes slightly as Ana sat next to him. It had only been a few months since they were constantly at each other’s throats. He much preferred this.
“Dinner is served.” Sam reached in and sat a large pot on a hot pad in the middle of the table. “If there’s no objections, I’d like to have dinner by candlelight.” A chorus of affirmative murmuring answered her as she dimmed the lights. Sean stood up to pour everyone a glass of wine as Sam moved the other dishes to the table.
The serving dish made its way around the table, each team member serving themselves a generous helping of the main dish. Matt stabbed a chunk of synth beef and a potato cube and placed them in his mouth. It tasted even better than it smelled. Rich, multi-layered flavor from all the components in the roast exploded onto his tongue.
Matt chewed the roast, savoring it, then swallowed. “That’s good. You’ve outdone yourself.” Sam smiled at the group’s appreciation. Matt tried to eat slowly, but in what seemed like no time at all, the food in front of him was almost gone, only a broth left. He served himself a piece of toasted bread to soak up the juices.
Sean laughed as he told a story to Sam. The contrast to the first time Matt had eaten dinner with these people was remarkable. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed even Ana had a grin on her face.
Sam looked around the table, and seeing that everyone was done with the main course, proclaimed, “Time for dessert!” She stood up and grabbed a stack of small bowls along with the bowl of pale red fruit. “Now don’t eat this quickly please. You’re going to want to savor it.”
Matt bit into a cube and tasted sweet juice spill out of the fruit. No wonder this is so expensive. “As far as first impressions go this is probably one of the best I think I’ve had.” In a few minutes, everyone had finished their deserts. Matt leaned forward to see if there was any watermelon left in the bowl. He leaned back with a disappointed sigh. Matt felt gas bubbling up from his stomach as he raised his hand to his mouth. After a quiet belch he said, “Great food Sam.” Sean and Lian echoed their own compliments, while Ana sat in contemplative silence. Matt noticed the flickering candlelight in her wide pupils before looking away.
O-O-O
Ana leaned back in the chair as she stretched. “That food was very well made.”
Sam beamed at the compliments. “You’re welcome.”
“Shall we have a toast?” Sean held up a piece of toasted bread in his left hand before chuckling and holding out his wine glass. The electric candles flickered, reflecting off the glass as Ana sat back up and raised her glass. Sean said, “To getting to the bottom of things.” Ana echoed the sentiment vigorously
Sean vaguely gestured to his left. Sam raised her glass and proclaimed with little time for thought, “To family.”
The table echoed Sam. “To family.” Sam looked in Lian’s direction. Lian waved his free hand at Matt frantically.
The human raised his glass, and said, “To friendship.” A connection formed in Ana’s brain with a flash. Matt was her anchor. He had brought her back from the brink. It had to be him.
Sean nudged her arm causing Ana to jump. She repeated the toast a few moments after the rest of the table. Matt looked in her direction, the flickering light reflecting off his brown face. Ana raised her glass and said, “To victory.”
Ana watched Matt nod as he said, “To victory.”
They all said in unison, “Cheers,” before beginning to sip their drinks.
Sam finished the last of her glass and asked, “Would anyone like to watch the Von Braun University Orchestra’s solstice show? It’ll be live broadcast in....” Sam checked her watch, “Seven minutes.”
Matt replied, “Sounds fun.”
Sean stood up and stretched. “I’ve gotta take a leak, I’ll be back in a sec.”
Ana blinked slowly and sarcastically said, “Thank you for the extremely important information.”
“I can get the d-dishes.”
Matt sank into the couch and looked at the vidscreen. Sam sat on the other end of the couch and began fiddling with the remote. In a few moments, a standby image with snowflakes drifting down occupied the screen. Matt watched Ana sit on a recliner a few feet from him and put the footrest out. Sean and Lian ended up on the two-seat couch a few moments before the broadcast started.
The camera focused on the back of a brown-furred canine man wearing a white suit and holding a baton. He raised his arms as the dozens of people in the pit readied their instruments. They launched into a slow tempo beautiful song.
O-O-O
2055, 20 December 2252, Clarke Hotel, Von Braun, Luna
As the final note of the final song decrescendoed into nothing, Matt yawned. “I think I’m going to bed.” He stood up and stretched, feeling his back pop. “Thanks again for dinner, Sam.”
“It was my pleasure.”
Matt turned on his heel and said, “Good night guys. Sleep well.” He opened the door to his room and slowly changed into his sleepwear. He sat on his bed for a few minutes, pondering the information Lian had found. The motive didn’t make sense. The PFS was violently anti-corporate, so why would they be listening to Gold Horizon? And for that matter, why would Gold Horizon communicate with a group that opposed their existence? Unfortunately, the programmer still hadn’t made any progress on cracking the encrypted data. Shaking his head, he got up and ambled into the bathroom. Matt began brushing his teeth before he heard someone knock at his door. He spat out the minty foam and walked to the door. With a press of a button, it slid open, revealing Ana in black sweatpants and light grey tank top.
“Hey, Matt.”
Matt furrowed his brow and replied, “Uh...hi Ana.”
“May I come in?”
Matt wondered what she was doing here. He stepped aside and said, “Sure.” Ana fell into his desk chair and rested her head in her hands. Matt shut the door and walked towards her. “Is something wrong?”
She raised her hand to stop him from getting closer. “I don’t know...I don’t think so.”
Looking at her slightly trembling form, he said, “It sure seems like something is wrong.”
She blew air out of her nose and took a deep breath back in. “I talked with my mother earlier today.”
Matt smiled slightly and asked, “How did that go?”
Ana shivered. “She misses me, and so does the rest of my family...but that’s not why I’m here.”
Matt swallowed and asked. “Why are you here then?”
“I used to lean on Ani when I was feeling lost. I...can’t do that anymore.” Ana took a few rapid breaths and continued. “She was my anchor. I think you’re....” Her volume fell off rapidly and she practically mouthed the last words.
Matt strained to hear the end of her thought in vain. “I’m what?”
Ana looked up and took a deep breath. “I think you’re my new one.” She sighed. “My new anchor.”
Matt tilted his head quizzically. “What does that mean?”
She closed her eyes for a while before opening them and answering, “You brought me back from the edge when we...after we had to eject.”
A vision of Ana’s suited body in the fetal position formed in his mind’s eye. “I remember.”
“You brought me from panic to...well...less panicked.”
“I’m glad to have been able to help.”
“I’m still...fuck, look at me. I’m shaking like a leaf.” Ana raised her hand and looked at it as it shook. “I’m still feeling...freaked out. With everything that’s happened I...I just feel so...scared.”
“I do too. These are frightening times.” Matt sat down on the edge of the bed. “Can I do anything to help you feel less scared?” Ana mumbled something with the word ‘hold’ in it, but he wasn’t able to make out much else. “What?”
“When....” her ears twitched profusely, “when you...held me. After. It made me feel safe for the first time since...then.” Matt’s face flushed with heat as he looked at the similarly embarrassed snow leopard.
“You...want me to hold you?”
“If that’s okay.” She quickly added, “If you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”
“I’d be okay with trying that.” Matt coughed and added. “To make you feel safe again, of course.”
“Of course.” Ana stood up and looked around the room, her ears twitching every few seconds. “How would we...do that? There’s a bit too much gravity for me to float.”
“I can probably lift you pretty easily....you can’t weigh more than a fifteen-kilo weight in one gee right now.”
“Oh right.” Ana shuffled towards him and narrowed her eyes. “If I...hm.” She rubbed her chin. “Catch me.”
“What?” Ana jumped slightly into the air and curled into a ball before she started to descend. “Oh.” Matt stuck out his arms, wrapping them around Ana’s shoulders and waist respectively. He felt Ana relax in his arms as tension leaked out of her body.
A low rumble built in her chest as she said, “Mmmmm...this is nice.”
Matt’s hand began slipping up her body. “Uhhh...you’re not as easy to hold on to as a fifteen-kilo weight.”
Ana murmured quietly, “You could hold me on the bed....”
Matt’s face flushed again as he swallowed. Suddenly his mouth was very dry. “Alright.” He gently sat the curled snow leopard on the large bed and laid down beside her. “Where would you like me to—oh.” Ana pulled his arms around her abdomen as her tail rested along his leg.
Matt could feel her heart racing through his hands as she asked nervously, “Is this okay?” He felt the tip of her tail tap him on the foot as she tensed the muscles in it. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that it had a mind of its own.
Matt spat a few strands of her hair out of his mouth “Now it is.”
Ana turned her head and asked, “Room, could you dim the lights to ten percent?” The lights dimmed to near darkness as Ana shuffled back. She whispered, “I feel safer already.”
O-O-O
Next (Coming Soon)