my (30m) fiance (30f) has been texting her coworker very sexually for months now. i have been feeling a strong emotional and physical disconnect from her for months as well. ive brought it up many times but its always her "hormones" or "stress" which i 100% agree. we both have very stressful high pace jobs and also two young boys (5,6). i decided i'll check her phone just to see, ive never felt a disconnect like this between us and she always use to be all over me and over the top lovey and touched so this is far out of character for her. low and behold i see messages going back to february to her 47yo male MARRIED coworker. it wont let me attach images so ill just try to highlight the main concerning texts which is nearly all of them. it started off because she's into smut books if you will, and he apparently writes smut short stories she read him and excerpt from one of her book: he felt the need to text her one of his short super dirty stories. she replies to this saying it's "hot and he's a good ass writer" couple messages go by and he's making obviously but subtle sexual comments to her saying "how did they get a camera in my room to write those books" there's too much to repeat all the messages but to highlight he keeps making comments sexual in nature, she replies to one about a sex dungeon saying "if you had a room like this one in the hook i'll he over" to which he says "not anymore i'm married" she says something then he says "i didn't say i was happily married" more conversation then he says he has "bad knees but that doesn't mean he still doesn't get his heartrate up" she says "i have a bad back we would do great together" he says "i would get a swing to swoop you off your feet", insinuating a sex swing, she says "talking about swings in have one at home collecting dust as we speak " (sex swing) a lot of innaproraite conversations happen for months. a few more key things is they have a quiet room at work, it's like a single person small room with one couch for employees to go relax and unwind at, totally isolated and hidden from plain view, ther lot of messages about meeting together in the quiet room. he says "i would never knock on that door unless i knew who was in there" she says "if it's "our" break time you know it's me " he says " it's super cute she called it "our" break time. and that he "needs written permission to enter the room while she's in there" she replies a :) and says that he can come in the room anytime he wants if she's in there. fast forward to next shift all she sends is a time "1730? :)" and he savs "as always" then she says "good boy, that was your written invitation" I've also met this dude once at her coworkers party. he sat right next to my fiance, i sat across the table and i noticed with 5 min of meeting this guy that something was suspicious. he was openly being flirt right in front of me so much so that i texted my friend and said i don't like this guy that sitting next to my fiance he's scheming.i sent that message as this was going on in front of me. this happened after the messages were sent about going to his private sex dungeon and gun sweeping her off her feet with a sex swing. but the event took place months ago before i knew these messages existed. my fiance claims nothing has ever happened physically between them, the messages are leading me to highly suspect otherwise. she has no excuse other than she doesn't know what happened and what she was thinking. she's extremely apologetic and has him blocked now. i reached out to this guys wife and his wife has no idea about this whole situation and says that this guy has cheated be prior to this our relationship has been extremely healthy and she's my, or was, my dream come true. i never expected this.
what would you do? would you call off the wedding? i feel like this is cheating and i know i will never be able to get over this and trust her again 100%. she's apologetic beyond belief, has blocked him and said anything i need she will do. she still works with this guy and always will. i'll always have doubt about her now and am worried she will do it again. if i wouldn't have caught it this time around it would have continued for god knows how long and probably went even further the way things were escalating. is this cheating?
TLDR; my (30m) fiance (30f) has been sexually texting and meeting privately with her (47m) married (previously cheated) coworker. she denies anything happened physically which is very hard to believe with the nature of the messages and private meeting.

SORRY FOR LONG POST I DESPERATELY NEED ADVICE PLEASE HELP.
I’m not married, im engaged and we’ve been together 7 years. if not allowed please disregard and remove post, i need advice bad and don’t know where to turn.
my (30m) fiance (30f) has been texting her coworker very sexually for months now. i have been feeling a strong emotional and physical disconnect from her for months as well. ive brought it up many times but its always her “hormones” or “stress” which i 100% agree. we both have very stressful high pace jobs and also two young boys (5,6). i decided i’ll check her phone just to see, ive never felt a disconnect like this between us and she always use to be all over me and over the top lovey and touched so this is far out of character for her. low and behold i see messages going back to february to her 47yo male MARRIED coworker. it wont let me attach images so ill just try to highlight the main concerning texts which is nearly all of them.
it started off because she’s into smut books if you will, and he apparently writes smut short stories. she read him and excerpt from one of her books and he felt the need to text her one of his short super dirty stories. she replies to this saying it’s “hot and he’s a good ass writer” couple messages go by and he’s making obviously but subtle sexual comments to her saying “how did they get a camera in my room to write those books” there’s too much to repeat all the messages but to highlight he keeps making comments sexual in nature, she replies to one about a sex dungeon saying “if you had a room like this one in the book, i’ll be over” to which he says “not anymore i’m married” she says something then he says “i didn’t say i was happily married” more conversation then he says he has “bad knees but that doesn’t mean he still doesn’t get his heartrate up” she says “i have a bad back we would do great together” he says “i would get a swing to swoop you off your feet”, insinuating a sex swing, she says “talking about swings in have one at home collecting dust as we speak 😈 ” (sex swing) a lot of innaproraite conversations happen for months. a few more key things is they have a quiet room at work, it’s like a single person small room with one couch for employees to go relax and unwind at, totally isolated and hidden from plain view, there is a lot of messages about meeting together in the quiet room. he says “i would never knock on that door unless i knew who was in there” she says “if it’s “our” break time you know it’s me “ he says “ it’s super cute she called it “our” break time. and that he “needs written permission to enter the room while she’s in there” she replies a :) and says that he can come in the room anytime he wants if she’s in there. fast forward to next shift all she sends is a time “1730? :)” and he says “as always” then she says “good boy, that was your written invitation”
I’ve also met this dude once at her coworkers party. he sat right next to my fiance, i sat across the table and i noticed with 5 min of meeting this guy that something was suspicious. he was openly being flirt right in front of me so much so that i texted my friend and said i don’t like this guy that sitting next to my fiance he’s scheming.i sent that message as this was going on in front of me. this happened after the messages were sent about going to his private sex dungeon and gun sweeping her off her feet with a sex swing. but the event took place months ago before i knew these messages existed.
my fiance claims nothing has ever happened physically between them, the messages are leading me to highly suspect otherwise. she has no excuse other than she doesn’t know what happened and what she was thinking. she’s extremely apologetic and has him blocked now. i reached out to this guys wife and his wife has no idea about this whole situation and says that this guy has cheated before. prior to this our relationship has been extremely healthy and she’s my, or was, my dream come true. i never expected this.
what would you do? would you call off the wedding? i feel like this is cheating and i know i will never be able to get over this and trust her again 100%. she’s apologetic beyond belief, has blocked him and said anything i need she will do. she still works with this guy and always will. i’ll always have doubt about her now and am worried she will do it again. if i wouldn’t have caught it this time around it would have continued for god knows how long and probably went even further the way things were escalating.
TLDR; my(30m) fiance (30f) has been sexually texting and meeting privately with her (47m) married (previously cheated) coworker. she denies anything happened physically which is very hard to believe with the nature of the messages and private meeting.

Hey everyone, I could really use some advice on something that's been bothering me. Ideally, I'd talk this over with my therapist, but my next appointment is a while away and I'm currently talking to a guy, and I don't want to mess this up. I'm (F23) sure many of you can relate to this: I have a tendency to jump the gun too early in relationships. I've seen plenty of funny TikToks about it, so I know I'm not alone. Thanks to therapy, I understand my attachment style and the underlying issues, but I struggle to change my behavior and approach relationships in a healthier way. Every time I have a flirty or cute conversation with someone, I end up thinking about them all day and even fantasizing about our future together (marriage, kids etc. lmao this is so embarrassing to even type). While harmless in theory, this intense emotional investment leads to a lot of hurt if they reject me or ghost me, even though the relationship was never serious to begin with. The common advice I see is to not put all my eggs in one basket and date multiple people initially to ease the pressure. However, that's not something I'm comfortable with or even know how to do.: A. I find it mentally impossible to focus on other people when I’m interested in someone. B. Dating apps are frustrating; people barely reply to my messages. I also don’t want to play the detachment game of not replying to texts immediately and pretending to be disinterested. If I like someone, I want them to know. I just wish I could handle things in a healthier way. Ultimately, if things don’t work out, I want to avoid hating myself and be kinder to myself about it. I never got any romantic attention until recently ("glowed up" in college), so I can't handle it and I guess I get attached to any guy who is kind and shows me attention, but as soon as they reject me I spiral. Any advice on how to navigate this would be greatly appreciated!
PS. If there are any therapist on this subreddit, I am a fearful-avoidant if that helps lol

So this is going to be a lot so if you want to read be prepared for a long story lol.
So my dad and I had a big falling out recently. It started a couple months ago in November when my parents were separating. My mom had moved out a month or two prior and still had some of her stuff at the house. My dad (unprompted) had texted her telling her to get all of her shit out of the house or else he was going to burn it and he had thrown some of her stuff in the front yard. (He just had surgery and was on medication that could have affected his judgment but this was still not out of character for him) So my mom, myself, and my husband went to the house to help her get her stuff. We were getting some of her things from the yard and he had come outside and he and I began arguing. He thought that my mom was trying to turn me against him but truthfully, she has always treated me better than him and he wasn’t the best to me growing up so I was always closer to my mom. I told him he was being a childish asshole and he was a shitty father. He told us we all need to leave and went inside to get a rifle probably to “defend his property” or whatever around the time we were arguing my sister (who has a different dad) and her husband pulled into the driveway to help pack. They had their month old infant in the car with them because he was too young to be separated from his mother and they didn’t expect things to blow up so much. My dad ended up pointing the gun at pretty much everyone. He pointed the gun at the car with my sister and her family and right at my husband’s head. I don’t think realistically he could have pulled the trigger easily because he just had surgery on his dominant shoulder and he was using his other hand to hold the gun up. But the fact remains that he pointed a gun directly at my husbands face and at the car where my sister and her family were. If anyone knows anything about guns one of the most important rules is you don’t ever point a gun at anyone unless you intend to shoot (like in self defense situations). He taught me how to shoot so he definitely knows this and should know better. I figured the situation may blow up so I had my pepper spray in my pocket and ended up having to use it on my dad when he first pointed the gun at my sisters car. After that we left and my mom was in the u-haul the whole time on the phone with the police. We went to a nearby gas station and the police met us there and got our stories and my dad ended up getting arrested. He texted me the next day saying he’ll have nothing to do with me or my family from that point forward.
Flash forward a couple months later, my dad and I have been no contact. A family friend had called my sister and I because she was concerned about the well-being of my mother. She said that my parents admitted to doing meth the night before my sisters wedding and it started as an occasional thing then became an everyday thing for them. She was doing what she could to help but they live 4 hours away so there’s only so much they could do. The reason she called to tell us was she was concerned now that they were separated she would fall back into it and the last time she saw my mom a few weeks prior she seemed to be tweaking. We didn’t confront my mom immediately because we wanted to think about what to say and we didn’t want to put the family friend for telling on my mom because that would ruin their 20+ year long friendship. A few days later my dad happened to text and say he was concerned about her and wouldn’t say why. My mom, probably doing damage control, texted saying he’s texting everyone bc he thinks she’s on meth. I used my dad texting about it as an excuse to try to get more information. He ended up telling me a lot about their past drug use and my sister and I confronted my mom about it a few days later. She basically denied everything and was hurt we believed my dad. Which we would have never believed him if it wasn’t for the family friend telling us but we couldn’t tell her about that so we just let it be basically. We don’t think she’s on it currently because she doesn’t seem tweaky and has gained some weight since the separation.
Apparently then my dad and I had thought we had made up since we’ve been talking recently. My husband was going to the town my dad lives to fish and he saw my dad coming to our town so he immediately turned around and sped back to our house and called me to let me know. My husband had me text my dad and tell him not to come to our house and he said he was going to the meat market in our town and sent the picture of the sign to show me where he was. He was offended that I told him not to come by so he drove past our house. We were expecting him because we knew us telling him was in innovation in his mind to come by and when he drove past my husband flipped him off and my dad slammed on the breaks and got out of the car. My husband pulled his gun out since he saw him as a threat and told him to leave immediately and they got into an argument. Nothing happened other than my husband punched his truck and he agreed not to press charges as long as he pays for the damages so we ended up doing that so my husband doesn’t have anything on his record.
So for a bit of background, my dad had a kid, who ended up not being his kid, with someone before my mom and him got together who is 5 years older than me. I think he in his heart knew the child wasn’t his, and he treated the child horribly. I was so young while he lived with us so I didn’t realize how bad it was but just for perspective, some of his “punishments” were to run laps for god knows how long and whenever he was grounded he would have to just sit in his room on his bed and do nothing. He was kept in his room basically his whole childhood. He had issues with lying as I was told and “nothing worked” so they resorted to extremely harsh punishments. If you could even call it punishments. One of them was he was only allowed to eat break and milk for however long. I was just a kid so I would just think “oh he’s in trouble again bc he’s bad it’s fine” but as an adult I would NEVER treat any child like that no matter how “bad” the kid is. It disgusts me to think about. For a bit during the drama in between the two incidents my dad was alluding to the fact that he may commit suicide. I know this is terrible to say but honestly now I hope he goes through with it. The fact he’s my dad and I still have love for him makes me feel terrible for hating him but I know if he was anyone else and I knew how he was I would hate the fact he exists on the same earth as everyone else. I’ve always seen my mom as a victim but I’m coming to terms I guess with the fact that she was an adult who allowed her children and the child she was caring for to be abused and/or mistreated over a man. And participated in some instances. She tried to defend sometimes but not nearly enough. She’s pretty old fashioned so she believes in putting her husband first and while that’s not the worst thing in the world, you can’t put a terrible man over your innocent children. my husband and I told have children but we have nieces and nephews and if I saw him treating them the way my mom allowed my dad to treat us, I’d be a widow bc there’s no way I’d allow that type of behavior.
I know this was a lot but I guess what I’m asking for is any advice? There’s a lot more nuances that I could add but it’d make for an even longer post lol. What are y’all’s thoughts?

My husband and I have been together for four years. We have four children between the two of us and they are all special needs. It’s tough. We both work and even though it’s tight, we are doing alright. We could definitely be making more, but for the most part we are doing the best with what we have.
When I met him, he did drink a fair bit. He’s a beer drinker. But over the last year or so, it seems like it has ramped up to an extreme. At one point he was drinking 15 or more beers a night.
A few months back I sat him down and told him that we needed to work together to get a handle on it. At first he laughed it off and told me he didn’t have a problem. When I started sobbing he stopped and really listened. He admitted that he had been drinking between 3-6 THIRTY PACKS a week for a while. So, he promised to work on it.
And for a while he did. He was drinking maybe 2 or 4 beers a night and sometimes none at all.
About two weeks ago we got into a heated argument about something completely unrelated and the drinking came up again. He told me, “I love you and our kids and our life together, but I don’t give a damn about living. I’m just waiting to go, and I’m biding my time.” I obviously got super upset about that and he went on, “it’s not like I have a gun in my mouth or anything. I’m not trying to die, I just don’t care about it either way.”
I called him a selfish monster and told him that by not caring about any of this he was making sure that I will get to be a widow taking care of the needs of four special needs humans alone for the rest of my life. I told him he fails to realize that his mentality wounds the entire family. I was distraught. I asked him why he even brought me into his life, like a captive to bide his time, if he didn’t care about being here long enough for it to matter.
The next day he broke down and told me he was sorry and he knew it was screwed up and that he wants to do whatever he can to fix it. The last two weeks have been REALLY good. Lots of talking, love, and it felt “normal” again.
And this morning, while getting my coffee around I realized he has already drank 15 out of the 30 pack he bought on Friday.
I feel like he is love bombing me (he literally texted me a sweet message as I’ve been writing this) so I’m blinded to his drinking ramping up again. I’m so incredibly sad.
I love this man to such an extreme. He is a hard worker. He’s a damned good dad. He’s funny and he’s kind and he loves hard. He makes me feel safe and I know he loves me and the kids.
But — he doesn’t believe in therapy. He has some pretty legit PTSD from childhood and he learned some insane argument techniques from his first marriage.
I know the thing he needs most is probably a good amount of therapy and rehab. I cannot force him to do either of those things. How do I talk to him in a way that makes him want to do the right thing here?

I’m worried because the hospital I’m interviewing with is already a headache. I honestly only really applied to them because it was close by.
My issues so far with them are:
They didn’t specify the exact hours they are looking to hire for like the other hospitals I saw who are a little farther than I would like.
When I called them for a follow up on my application status they told me they don’t do phone calls for application updates because there’s so many people applying for the same position usually. So I asked them how long should I expect to get a response from them by email or text? They said they were unsure maybe a week or two.
They emailed me over the weekend to ask to set up an interview. Again instead of telling what days and time THEY are available they told me to tell them when I’m available within the next two weeks.
I choose a date and time but then they said their leader isn’t available during that time because they have a full schedule so I need to choose another date and that I needed to give them 2 whole weeks of times where I am available to do an interview.
I’m wondering if they have a disorganized management or maybe a high turnover rate. Both my mother and brother told me it’s a low quality hospital with a lot of crime and someone even brought a gun in recently.
I’m really turned off by the poor communication but I really want a job soon. I got bills to pay.
Do you have any advice? Should I try other hospitals?

So I’ve made a separate acct to post this bc I’m worried abt the consequences if anyone ik somehow found out abt this.(21NB) grew up in a toxic household, I’m audhd, I’m pretty sure my step dad is as well bc he’s heavily dyslexic and adhd but I’m also pretty sure he’s a narcissist, my mother is also most likely autistic for various reasons but more importantly I believe she’s a narc by proxy.
I was horrible with school, infact I ended up dropping out. I always finished a school year with at least 2 failing classes, and was a straight c student (when I wasn’t failing). Throughout my life I was gaslit and manipulated consistently into thinking I wasn’t trying hard enough and they were “convinced” I was lazy, entitled, and overall selfish, I was even called a “little narcissist” a couple times, even tho my whole life they implied it. Any time I’d give a reason relating to my autism as to why I wasn’t “pulling my weight” it’d by labeled as an excuse every single time without fail, this would frequently lead to us fighting and meltdowns on both of our parts bc of my stimulation issues and the fact they’re yellers. I was never able to get my struggles heard anywhere near how much I needed if at all bc they’d either use my social difficulties against me mid “debate” or “argument”; any time I took to long to respond I was thinking of a lie, if I had to look up to stim I was rolling my eyes, if I wasn’t making eye contact enough or accidentally “embarrassed” them somehow I wasn’t trying hard enough to socialize, etc etc.
All the accumulated manipulation, betrayal, and overall abuse led to, ocd, ocpd, osdd 2, and cptsd. I can’t even hear or read the word “narcissist” bc it’s heavily triggering, I have an obsessive hatred for anything that could be conceived as selfish, social skills got worse, etc. in 2021 I met a guy and we started dating, low and behold, he ended up being a narcissist too, how do I know this? Well, I moved out with this man a little over a year later not really noticing any truly alarming and it stayed like that until I told him whilst I was a work that I wanted to kms (still do lol), he then texted my mother and I had a talk with her about it after work. When I got home, I immediately noticed he looked upset and annoyed. I looked at him said “what” and fell face first on to my bed. Silence… he then asks “did you say that bc of me?”. I then said “what” again In which case he dismissed it said “nvm” and if I remember correctly he MIGHT have apologized I don’t necessarily remember, but he didn’t show much remorse at all after. This was all fall of 2022.
Fast forward January 2023 he “breaks up with me” for the first time, I then beg, and he accepts the beg, this was bc he “didn’t know if he could do it” (he found me embarrassing around his friends and I have trouble keeping up around the house but its NEVER a pigsty). He does this a few more times over the span of a few months and eventually it actually happens and I’m convinced it’s all me fault, I was a big and glorious break up with a couple days full of screaming crying and negotiating for the next attempt, that never came to be. A couple weeks after the breakup I find out about npd for the first time, this was the same day my ocd skyrocketed until further notice (notice still hasn’t been given) and I found out right then and there my ex, and my parents were like this.
While we were together we signed a lease on the house him, I, and 2 of his friends live today. And a few months into us living here he ends up having a full blown psychosis, that consisted of a week straight of him yelling “don’t worry you’re just like Steve Jobs” “its ok you’re just like Steve Jobs” for like 5 minutes at least every hour, barely feeding his cats, forcing his friends to re-write a Taylor swift song to fit him and his new bf, singing said Taylor swift song at the top of his lungs every chance he got, talking very loud, etc (also he got a 2nd cat that he couldn’t either financially or mentally take care of close to a month b4 this incident). A couple months later his brother dies and he goes to Louisiana for the wake and funeral (LLKCW🙏) and I haven’t seen him since a couple weeks after the psychosis incident (3 months).
So now here I am living in the house where I was promised a happy life, my roommates don’t give a fuck about anything that happened between us, I don’t wanna live with them in a couple months, I don’t wanna move back in with my parents, I don’t have a job, any money, serotonin, I cant b homeless (obviously), I’m worried about my mom, I’m worried my step dad is gonna snap one day bc I’m not there for him to take out his little antisocial tendencies and idk if my mother would allow him too take them out on her however my step dad is built like a wall and they own guns, I want my parents to fully realize the sheer damage they caused me but I don’t wanna see the looks on their faces, I’m scared they’ll hurt themselves or other people or each other, and I wanna leave this big fat fucking lie of a life I was promised behind and never look back.
W T F DO I DO

Something that I will give this subreddit praise for is that it has taught me acceptable standards - and how to back off when things go wrong. Here I am returning the favor for newbies to not do what I did. Even if they’re good pets and sweet people, stick to your guns. People like us tend to see how far our boundaries can go because we care about others and can be go-getting high-achievers with this line of work - but BOUNDARIES ARE BOUNDARIES, no matter what.
I started working with this family when I was just starting out and let a lot of things brush off as a result. First visit, I saw a teenager come into their backyard. The owner apologized but otherwise told me not to worry about him - he’s just the neighbor kid. I haven’t seen this kid since - so, maybe the family told him to leave me alone. But people have come to their house following this, which I spoke to them about. “Oh, they’re just so-and-so dropping off this thing…” “Oh, sorry.” “Oh, etc.” I’ve let things like a cleaning lady who was still at a drop-in client’s house slip (because it was communicated to me), but something to remember: other people should NEVER be over while you’re at a house-sit. Even if they seem nice, even if you don’t ever speak to them, even if it’s for a short time - it’s a liability. Again, you are a sitter, not the client's friend. People stopped going to their house going forward, but remember this yourselves.
Then I really let things slip by. A few house-sits in, they ask me to board the dogs at my house instead of house-sit. I spoke with them - boarding is not something I offer as a service - but their house would be indisposed. Clearly an extenuating circumstance. I let it slip - boundary push. After the boarding: in addition to their tip, they gave me a little gift - okay, so they’re acknowledging that this was not my usual thing and that I helped them out above-and-beyond. Thank you. It was very nice of them.
But a FOLLOWING visit, they ask me if I could watch the dogs…via text, not Rover. A habit of theirs to ask before booking on the app. Anyway, something I miss initially is that they want to board again (WITHOUT expressed extenuating circumstances), which again, I have expressed is something I don’t do. But I agree to help them out before seeing this and set the booking up as a HOUSE-SIT on Rover. They confirm. The date comes, they want me to pick the dogs up. Whole miscommunication exchange. I take the dogs - it’s too late to refuse. But see: LIABILITY. It's a boarding when a house sit is expressed/booked on the app. This particular boarding instance also caused a very drawn-out supplies inconvenience for me too, something that had I offered boarding would have led me to take better initiative to handle. But better communication and stronger boundary-setting would have minimized a lot of issues.
Still, there were apologies for the miscommunication, and they haven’t asked me to board since. I’ll give them that.
After this, I kept working with them - and always clarified that I would house-sit. I even essentially grandfathered them into my new parameters, as I’ve changed my radius to be smaller. A boundary that I let push because I thought, “Well, I hardly see them anyway and they’re good people and good dogs and, and, and…”
But incidents that are much smaller can continue, because they establish the message that “I allow anything to happen” to clients. For example, the last visit: on the last day, the family enters the house unannounced well before they were expected to be home. Took me by surprise, to say the least: I’m never home when clients come back. Their response: “Oh, sorry, I guess we should have told you.” Thank you. That would have been nice. I would have been out by now. Yes, little. But it adds up.
Remember that it’s a two-way street - just like it’s second nature to honor the family’s boundaries, they should honor yours. NO boundary is too small.

https://www.halowaypoint.com/news/quadrant2024
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Next weekend, Halo esports is taking over London!
Team Quadrant will be hosting the first-ever Halo Infinite EU Major at the Twickenham Stadium from May 31st to June 2nd. Join us as the world's best teams throw down for their share of $250,000 and a paid trip to the HCS Atlanta Major this summer!
The action kicks off Friday May 31st at 7a ET / 12p BST - Watch live on Twitch and YouTube!

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Key Info

Date: May 31 - June 2 Location: London UK Venue: Twickenham Stadium	Tickets: Available Now! Team Pass: Available Now! Watch: Twitch + YouTube	4v4 Prize Pool: $250,000 FFA Prize Pool: $5,000 Side Events: $5,000

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Team passes are available now - Assemble your squad and throw down live in London!
Buy Team Pass
If you plan on competing at any HCS events, be sure to check out the links below!

- 2024 HCS Major Event Rules - 2024 HCS Player HandBook - 2024 HCS Code of Conduct

Tournament Format

HCS Major tournament structure for 2024 will be similar to the tried-and-true format we used in Year 2.

- 64-Team Open Bracket - 16-Team Pool Play - 12-Team Champ Bracket

Open Bracket

It wouldn't be a proper HCS Major without a bustling passion pit.

- Open Bracket will start and end on Friday May 31st - Top 4 teams will advance to Pool Play

Congratulations to the following teams on earning Travel Coverage to compete through the London Major Open Bracket!

NA Native Gaming - aPG - Barcode - Gilkey - Mikwen	EU Mamma Mia - i7948 - Mqse - Phlux - Shad	MX SWAT Esports - Acid - Drift - Noblc - Tapping Buttons	ANZ MindFreak - Plasma - Scoobmeistr - Swayz - Wryce

Pool Play

Pool Play at the London Major will feature 12 Auto-Qualified teams and 4 teams from the Open Bracket.

- 4 Pools of 4 - Single Round Robin - 1st/2nd in Pools go to Winners Round 1 - 3rd in Pools go to Lower Round 1 - 4th in Pools is eliminated

Pool Play Qualified Teams
HCS London Major - Pool Play Teams ^[Imgur]

CHAMPIONSHIP BRACKET

The Championship Bracket is where the best of the best will clash for their share of $250,000 and a paid trip to the HCS Atlanta Major!

- 12-Team Double Elimination - Top 6 teams will lock in those seeds at the HCS Atlanta Major

$250K 4V4 PRIZE BREAKDOWN

1st: $100,000 2nd: $60,000 3rd: $30,000 4th: $17,500 5-6: $8,000 7-8: $5,000 9-12: $2,500 13-16: $1,625

Team Quadrant celebrating with a fist bump on the H C S mainstage ^[Imgur]

$5,000 FFA Tournament

As with every Major, HCS London will feature a $5,000 FFA tournament open to all event attendees!
Registration will take place on site!
FFA PRIZE BREAKDOWN

1st: $2,000 2nd: $1,200 3rd: $800 4th: $425 5th: $200 6th: $150 7th: $125 8th: $100

HCS Side Events

Attendees will have the chance to compete in side tournaments featuring various Halo titles! Registration will take place on site and will be first come, first served - see the schedule below!
HCS London Major - Side Events ^[Imgur]

FRIDAY, MAY 31 MCC Halo 3 2v2 - Prize: 1st. $600 / 2nd. $250 - Capacity: 16 Teams - Sign-ups: 3:45p BST - Start: 5:15p BST Halo 5 2v2 - Prize: 1st. $600 / 2nd. $250 - Capacity: 16 Teams - Sign-ups: 4:45p BST - Start: 6:15p BST	SATURDAY, JUNE 1 Halo Infinite 2v2 - Prize: 1st. $1,200 / 2nd. $500 - Capacity: 64 Teams - Sign-ups: 12:00p BST - Start: 2:15p BST MCC Halo 3 4v4 - Prize: 1st. $1,200 / 2nd. $400 - Capacity: 16 Teams - Sign-ups: 4:30p BST - Start: 5:45p BST

Spartan Cosplayer enjoying Halo Infinite matches in the crowd at an HCS event ^[Imgur]

Where To Watch

Catch all the action live May 31 - June 2.

A Stream: ** Twitch.tv/Halo *B Stream: * Twitch.tv/HCS **C Stream: Twitch.tv/HCS_Red D Stream: Twitch.tv/HCS_Blue All Streams: YouTube.com/@HCS Co-Streamers: Halo Infinite Live Streams

Twitch Drops

Tune into the HCS London Major all weekend and you will unlock exclusive Twitch Drops!
Stay tuned to @HCS on socials for more info on which Drops will be available!

Travel

Airport: London Heathrow (LHR) Ground Transportation : Uber Hotels: Click here for a list of nearby hotels.

Image ^[Imgur]

FAQ

Event FAQ

When will the HCS Major London 2024 take place?	The HCS Major London 2024 will take place May 31-June 2, 2024.
Where is the event taking place?	The HCS Major London 2024 will take place at the Twickenham Stadium. Twickenham Stadium, 200 Whitton Rd, Twickenham TW2 7BA, United Kingdom
Where can I purchase tickets?	You can purchase Spectator passes here.
I am with the press and would like to cover the event. Who should I reach out to for information?	Please contact events@quadrant.gg and xboxpress@assemblyinc.com.
I can't attend the event, but want to watch online. Where can I tune in?	You can tune into these links to watch the action: Twitch A stream - twitch.tv/halo B stream - twitch.tv/hcs C stream - twitch.tv/hcs_red D stream - twitch.tv/hcs_blue YouTube All Streams - YouTube.com/@HCS
Is there an age limit?	All 4v4 and FFA Players must be 13 years of age or older to compete at HCS Major London. Players 13 years of age or older require a signed parental consent form if under the age of 18. Spectators 13 years of age or older require a signed parental consent form if under the age of 18. Spectators under 13 years of age will need to be accompanied by guardian. Children ages 3 and under will not require a ticket, but will require a completed parental consent form and be accompanied by a guardian at all times. Download the Parental Consent Form. Please bring the completed form to the event and have ready to hand in at the ticketing desk.
What if I am under the age limit at the time of qualification but meet the age requirements by the event date? Can I still participate?	Players will need to be of age by May 22, 2024 to compete.
What time do the doors open?	Doors open at 10:00 AM BST
Where should I park and is parking free?	Please refer to the Twickenham Website for Parking Info. https://www.twickenhamstadium.com/getting-here
Do you have appropriate seating and parking for individuals with medical conditions?	The event is ADA compliant and accessible.
Are pets allowed?	Only service animals are allowed at the event.
What is your bag policy?	Spectators: All Bags must be clear and under 12in x 12in x 6in to be allowed in the venue, and are subject to wanding and searches as needed. Wallets and wristlets no larger than 5in x 8in x 1in are permitted - Anything larger must follow the clear bag guidelines.
Are there any prohibited items?	Halo Championship Series Prohibited Items ACCEPTABLE: - Cosplay and other costumes determined to be safe by security - Prop/Replica weapons as part of cosplay or other costumes: Must be submitted to security for review. Cannot contain a functioning bolt mechanism or fire a projectile of any kind. Any bow-type weapons must be unstrung or strung with a low-tensile thread. All prop arrows must have soft, non-metal, blunted tips made out of foam or cardboard only. Cannot be pointed at any individual in such a way to cause fear of harm or distress. Cosplay firearms must have brightly colored safety tips. Must be visibly tagged and visually identified as “safe” or “peace bonded”. - Cell Phones - Action cameras, such as GoPro’s - Prescription medication (you must have the prescription/label in your name with you) PROHIBITED ITEMS* (below list is a guide, not all inclusive): - Illegal or illicit substances, drugs, or drug paraphernalia - Weapons of any kind including, but not limited to, guns, ammo, pocket knives, sharp-edge blades, self-defense sprays, or any item deemed as unsafe by security staff. - Flammable items or liquids including aerosols and fireworks - Bags lager than 12″ x 12″ x 6″ max - Coolers, sleeping bags, tents, and chairs: An exception will be made for medically necessary items after thorough inspection. - Outside alcohol - Outside food and beverage - Bicycles, skateboards, hover-boards, scooters, or personal motorized vehicles - Drones or unmanned aerial vehicles - Animals except for service animals assisting an individual with a disability. “Comfort,” “therapy” or “emotional support” animals do not meet the ADA definition of a service animal. Security may permit working dogs or other animals as required. - Laser pens, laser pointers, or similar focused light devices - Noisemakers such as megaphones, air horns, sirens, whistles, or other devices which may interfere with others’ experience - Any item that is not lawfully permitted to be carried in the locality or City of Seattle - Additional items may be prohibited at the discretion of Microsoft staff or security *Note: Prohibited items and items determined to not be appropriate for entry into Halo Championship Series will be the responsibility of the attendee and cannot be accepted, stored, or checked by Microsoft or Convention Center.
What are the closest hotels to the event venue?	Please use this link to find nearby hotels options and rates.
I have other questions – where’s the best place to ask them?	For London specific questions, email us at events@quadrant.gg For HCS program and eligibility questions, email us at HCS@ee.gg

Player FAQ

Where can I find the Event Rules?	Click Here: HCS London Major 2024 Rules
Where can I find the Handbook & Code of Conduct?	Click Below: - HCS Handbook **** - Code of Conduct
Will there be a Free-For-All (FFA) competition at this event?	Yes! The event will feature a free-to-enter Halo Infinite FFA tournament, which will be open for up to 512 players and spectators. Best of luck to those competing for their share of $5,000! Must have a Spectator ticket to participate. Registration will take place on site!
I don't live in the UK. Can I still compete in this tournament?	To check your specific country’s eligibility, please see the list of eligible countries as listed in the Handbook here.
Is there a limit to the number of teams eligible to compete in this tournament?	Yes. The 4v4 tournament open bracket has a max capacity of 48 teams.
When do rosters lock?	For Pool Play and Travel Coverage teams: 6:00 PM EST on Monday, May 13th. If teams earned travel coverage via the Major #2 Online Qualifier they must retain that same roster. For all other teams, roster lock is Monday, May 27th at 10:00a EST / 3:00p BST.
What equipment should I bring if I'm competing?	All players competing must bring: - Your preferred wired peripheral (Xbox wired Controller or Mouse and Keyboard) - USB cord required for your preferred peripheral - Headset with no power outlet and a 3.5 mm plug - Wired Earbuds (needed for Feature Station and Main Stage play) - If you plan on competing with Keyboard & Mouse, you must submit your model number for each device to hcs@ee.gg ahead of the event. Mixamps will be provided. Bringing backup equipment is recommended.
Which monitors will be used for the tournament?	All tournament and warmup monitors will be the Zowie XL2540K model.
How do I earn travel coverage?	Lodging and travel coverage will be offered to 12 pool play teams based on previous Major placement, placement in the Major #2 Qualifier, and HCS Points. Additionally, 1 NA team& 1 EU team will be granted travel coverage based on aggregate points after the Major #2 Qualifier. 1 ANZ team & 1 MX team will be granted travel coverage based on placing 1st in their respective Open Championships. NA Players may qualify through: Top two (2) placement in the Major #2 Online Qualifier. Top two (2) in HCS points after the Major #2 Online Qualifier EU Players may qualify through: 1st place in the Major #2 Online Qualifier. Highest team aggregate HCS points after the Major #2 Online Qualifier MX Players may qualify through: 1st place in the Major #1 Open Championship. ANZ Players may qualify through: 1st place in the Major #1 Open Championship. For further information including complete tournament format and seeding , please review the Event Rules. Note: Teams who earn travel coverage for the HCS London Major 2024 via the Major #2 Online Qualifier must compete with the same roster.
How does travel coverage work?	More information on how to use earned travel coverage will be delivered to qualified teams after the completion of the Major #2 Online Qualifier.
What is the Prizing Breakdown?	HCS Major 4v4 - $250,000 prize pool 1st: $100,000 2nd: $60,000 3rd: $30,000 4th: $17,500 5th/6th: $8,000 7th/8th: $5,000 9th - 12th: $2,500 13th - 16th: $1,625 HCS Major Free-For-All - $5,000 prize pool 1st: $2,000 2nd: $1,200 3rd: $800 4th: $425 5th: $200 6th: $150 7th: $125 8th: $100
What is the Pro Point Breakdown?	Pro Points Breakdown - HCS Major 4v4 (Team Total) 1st - 25,000 2nd - 15,000 3rd - 11,000 4th - 9,000 5th - 6th 8,000 7th - 8th 7,000 9th - 12th 5,500 13th - 16th 4,500 17th - 20th 3,000 21st - 24th 2,000 25th - 32nd 1,800 33rd - 40th 1,600 41st - 56th 1,400 57th - 72nd 1,000 Pro Points Breakdown - HCS Major Free-For-All 1st: 15,000 2nd: 13,500 3rd: 12,750 4th: 12,000 5th: 11,250 6th: 10,500 7th: 9,750 8th: 9,000 9th - 10th: 6,000 11th - 12th: 5,250 13th - 14th: 4,500 15th - 16th: 3,750 17th - 20th: 2,800 21st - 24th: 2,450 25th - 28th: 2,000 29th - 32nd: 1,650 33rd - 40th: 1,300 41st - 48th: 1,125 49th - 56th: 950 57th - 64th: 750 65th - 128th: 375
I have other questions – where’s the best place to ask them?	For London specific questions, email us at events@quadrant.gg For HCS program and eligibility questions, email us at HCS@ee.gg

Ticket FAQ

What types of payment do you accept? Online and onsite?	All major credit cards are accepted. Cash payments will not be accepted at the event.
How will I get my tickets if I buy them online?	You will receive a confirmation email from Eventbrite with a QR code and printable tickets. Digital or print tickets will be accepted and scanned at the door at the event.
What if my tickets are lost or stolen?	Please contact events@quadrant.gg for more info.
Do you offer refunds?	We offer refunds up till 7 days before the event. Note: Eventbrite's fee is nonrefundable.
What if the event is cancelled?	If the event is cancelled all tickets purchased will be refunded in full.
Can I show my tickets on my phone at the door or do I need to have the physical tickets with me?	Digital or print tickets will be accepted and QR codes scanned upon entry. You must have all members of the parties accounted for with multiple tickets present to check in at the same time. Tickets are only scanned once. Fans will receive a wristband that corresponds with their ticket type.
Do you offer military or senior citizen discounts?	If you are purchasing a ticket online - please use the code MILITARY or SENIOR to receive 10% off your ticket. For the Military discount, please be prepared to present your Military ID. For a senior discount, you must be 55+ years of age. Any questions about codes or eligibility please email HCSeventsNA@ee.gg.
What does general admission mean?	General Admission (GA) refers to seating or standing areas that are not assigned or reserved.
Will my seats be together?	Seating or standing areas are occupied on a first-come, first-served basis.
What should I do if I don't receive my tickets?	Please contact events@quadrant.gg for more info.
Is my multi-day ticket good for either or both days?	3 Day GA tickets are acceptable for all days of the event. You will receive a wristband or credentials that you must keep with you for all of the days to re-enter.
The name on the ticket doesn't match the attendee’s name. Is that okay?	This is allowed, however you must have all members of the parties accounted for with multiple tickets present to check in at the same time. Tickets are only scanned once.

This post was made by a script written and maintained by the Halo mod team to automatically post blogs from Halo Waypoint. If you notice any issues with the text output or think this was posted by mistake, please message the mods.

I was prompted to share this here by my friend Earthscorpion after I wrote it in response to something someone said in my fanfic thread. It's my thoughts on the Brockton Wards and how they tick and how their trauma influences them and my read on what their Trigger Events might've been from their powers (for the ones that never got specified, at least).
This is all my own read, to be clear. I love Worm a lot, I think about it a lot, but I'm not super up-to-date on Word of Gods or fandom discourse or any of that. Worm is a story that saved my life, but this is all me drawing from the text and a handful of stuff I remember from IRC conversations years ago, but mostly the raw text of Worm and also Ward in places, and my own interpretation of it, specifically. A friend told me others might find it interesting, is all <3
​
"You can get better" is a theme of Worm a lot of people miss, for how visceral the original is about how trauma, especially prolonged, repeated trauma, fucks people up. Worm sometimes feels to people like it says that no one can get better, but Worm and Ward both are very consistent that it's the opposite. It's not that people can't get better, it's that getting better is hard, and society is often cruel to the people who most need help, and when you're given the power to not have to depend on cruel people who hurt you...why would you depend on them? If they raise a hand, assume it's to hit you can burn it off at the wrist. Go be your best, strongest, safest self!
The cynicism of the PRT is often suggested in the original to do more harm than good. Piggot is a good military squad leader and decent administrator, but the way she sees capes, the way she handles them, the way her organization works and the decisions she made in the name of tactical effectiveness damage her ability to recruit new heroes.
Which leads me to this! The Brockton hero team has two Cauldron capes on it (Triumph in Protectorate, Gallant in Wards), and the other heroes were the like, some of the best possible cases of a parahuman trigger (Sophia aside).
EDIT: 3 Cauldron Capes, I forgot Battery, thank you Estro <3
Dennis: Needs control of his situation because he spent his late childhood and early teen years watching his dad die a horrible, miserable death that got worse and worse, spending so much time in waiting rooms and finally time ran out and he got the power to put people in stasis, to put himself in stasis, to buy time to think and prepare. The joking I think is a lot of how he decides to handle that sense of "anyone can die and there'll be nothing we can do to stop it, you see people hurt and you can do nothing". Put a smile on everyone's faces. No more sitting in waiting rooms while everyone cries or stares hollowly and miserably waiting for bad news. No more serious doctors delivering grim news. He's not going to be serious, and you can't make him. He's gonna make people laugh, and then he's gonna save them.
Kid Win: Dyscalculia, ADD, probably some other stuff, too, you tend to get a lot of issues at once from that stuff, but even the two alone are enough. A tinker trigger whose resulting power was "one thing does a bunch of different functions at once". My read of his trigger event is that he triggered realizing there was no place in society for someone with his disabilities. He was gonna fail out of high school. College is impossible. He lives in Brockton Bay, his best chance is manual labor and there's not enough of that to go around, or drug dealing. He's gonna be the paranoid ranting addict you see on the streets, the people who couldn't hack it, the people who can't make anything of themselves, who can't focus, who can't even do basic math.
Trigger.
His power is designed to be good for ADD, at least to my read, but his mentor was Armsmaster, an extremely rigid man with a rigid idea of how to do things. Chris was never supposed to sit down and try to make a laser gun. He was supposed to start on a laser gun, then make it a rechargeable battery station, then hook it up to his jetpack so they feed into each other, then make his jetpack part of a suit of armor, then make the armor absorb damage to charge batteries, then-
ect ect (don't read too hard into the specific tech examples, they were just off the top of my head). But he was trying to do things the "right" way, and so a power designed to be easy on ADHD wasn't working for him.
Missy was the child of two incredibly dysfunctional parents using her as a weapon against each other, never giving her space because she's just an object to them. So, she got all the space she needed, the power to violently enforce boundaries, and the situation still kind of screwed her over because nothing her parents ever did was illegal, for all that it was emotionally abusive.
Gallant bought his superpower, so he's just a sweet rich boy trying to help these super fucked up friends (and failing because turns out seeing people's emotions doesn't make you great at knowing how to fix their problems, and the only emotional change he can do is a blunt hammer, sort of like how the only way he could be a hero is his dad spending millions of dollars).
Browbeat...there's not enough of him for me to dig into his power like I do for the others and work out something compelling, though I could give him an OC brushup if I really wanted to feature him. I just can't draw as hard from canon for him. Possibly there's a ton of WoG on him I don't know about though!
Sophia's power is escaping being touched, escaping locked rooms, escaping unwanted visual perception, escaping physical pursuit. She's got a Breaker element to her power, which suggests the shard didn't 100% get how to handle what she was dealing with, so it's not just overt physical issues. And her trigger event and the power logic was explained in the Weaverdice Stranger document and I've never stopped being sad it didn't come up in the story itself, even though you can put it together. Stepparent getting off on controlling her, denying her privacy, creating an atmosphere of repressive terror without ever actually doing anything, and always making Sophia the unreasonable one, "I just want to spend time and get to know my stepkid!" "I was just checking on her to make sure she was doing her homework!" "I was just making sure she'd be awake in time for dinner!" "I have to have a key to her room for safety reasons, what if there's a fire?"
Aegis, I honestly assume he got in just, the worst car wreck imaginable. Organs pulped, lungs shredded by his ribs. Blinded, deafened, limbs broken, but still alive. Not bleeding out, trapped in the burning wreck in agony, unable to die, unable to perceive. It seems like the sort of power you get from just overwhelming physical damage that you shouldn't have survived, but had the misfortune to live through.
Of these, Missy and Sophia are the most problematic Wards. They have the trust issues, the denial of authority to really have the right to control their behavior, the desire to be going out doing stuff, anything, and willing to get hurt or hurt others doing it.
Chris is depressed his power sucks (it doesn't, it's perfect for him, but Armsmaster is a bad teacher and so is every teacher Chris ever, ever had, because no one wants to actually help an ADD kid with dyscalculia when you can just tell them to apply themselves or they're gonna grow up to be a homeless drug addict).
Dennis is kinda rebellious, but he doesn't really do the "I'm gonna put myself in danger on purpose because fuck you, I don't care if someone gets hurt" thing, by my read, he just refuses to play the PR game or censor himself much if it'd be funny and make people laugh to do otherwise, he generally treats actually serious situations appropriately, he just will also be making jokes and trying to keep things light whereever he can.
Aegis is responsible and dedicated, ultimately a tragedy happened to him and now he's trying to make the best of things, as near as I can tell, ideal parahuman for heroing, the sort of person who decides to be a hero on their own because it just makes sense. He probably distrusts normal cops, because he's a Hispanic kid in Brockton Bay: Neonazi Capital of North America, but the Protectorate doesn't really have the same issues.
Gallant is just a normal teenager whose family bought him powers, so his problem is that he's rich and likely to enable the others at times.
Essentially, Worm wasn't ABOUT the Brockton Wards, it was about Taylor and the Undersiders, but just like we get a glimpse at New Wave, enough to know how abusive that family was to its kids and how awful the adults really were, we also get a glimpse of the Brockton Wards, and if you sit down with them and think about them and how you'd write a story using their issues and their traumas and their personalities and powers, you can work out what drives them and why and what (for the ones Wildbow didn't give WoGs (that I've seen) or text elaboration for) their triggers were and how they were influenced by them.

Setting the stage
The date is March 19, 2020. In the news, the US Senate announces a $1 trillion stimulus package to aid the American public through the Covid pandemic, the Department of Education issues guidelines for online learning, and the number of Covid-19 deaths in Italy surpasses those in China. Of less note at the time, Gig Harbor, Washington resident Erik Hasselquist posts on social media that his wife Gwendolyn has tested positive for the coronavirus. The next day, Gwen's body would be found floating in the Puget Sound. In the months and years to come, the case would receive little to no public interest. To those who knew Gwen, it would change their lives. Why does her obituary imply the virus as her cause of death, when the coroner's report rules it a suicide? How did she drive herself 15 miles (24 km) to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge shortly after taking 60 pills of benzodiazepine? Who was the man a witness claims was in the vehicle with her? Why did Erik, just months later, re-marry and move to his new wife's home country in Africa, leaving his and Gwen's two children in the US?
Before we go further, I'd like to take a moment to speak to my sources. This is not a well-known case, in fact I have found exactly zero news articles about this. If you google Gwen's name, you'll find her obituary, a single account each on Instagram and Flickr, and the websites of two true crime podcasts. Luminol has a write-up about her, but in trying to listen to the episode, I experienced a 404 error. Lastly, the Locations Unknown podcast, which has released four episodes totaling 8 hours. Each episode features a guest, Andy. An attorney by trade, Andy is not professionally associated with the case, but rather has a personal connection to the case. He is a friend of a friend to the hosts of the podcast. Locations Unknown is my go-to source for most information here, cross-referencing all other sources as needed. Locations Unknown also submitted FOIA requests to several agencies, and received the police reports from the Pierce County Sheriff's Department, which the podcast has made available on their website. Episode 50 lays the groundwork through Andy's own account of the events. Episode 53 follows up with the police reports, and episodes 66 and 68 each feature extensive interviews with Gwen's loved ones. I first listened to the podcast on Pandora, but it's also available on YouTube with some very helpful visuals. Links to all materials will be provided at the end. That out of the way, back to Gwen's story.
Gwen's disappearance
Our story takes place in Washington State. The Hasselquists live outside the town of Gig Harbor. Located at the north end of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Gig Harbor is a small community of about 12,000. The Hasselquist home is located roughly a 15 mile (24 km) drive northwest of the bridge, in the rural, wooded community of Glencove.
On March 19, 2020, Erik posts on social media announcing Gwen's coronavirus diagnosis to friends and family. At 5:46 the next morning, Erik posts a video on Facebook from their home's Ring doorbell, announcing Gwen's disappearance and asking for help finding her. Gwen is seen exiting the home, alone. She closes the door behind her, then fumbles for nearly a minute to lock the door. She appears inebriated, lacking the dexterity to lock the door, and stands motionless for a long moment, as if dazed and confused. The video, since deleted, was described by Andy as "really creepy to watch." Later that same morning, at 7:30 AM, Erik posts on social media again: "Today I've watched the sunrise knowing my love likely didn't get to see it." Six hours after that post, around 3:20 that afternoon, police respond to a kayaker who called in reporting a body floating in the water about 6 miles (10 km) south of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. She has multiple cuts on her left hand and wrist, not believed to be self-inflicted. The police report states of the Ring video, "Gwendolyn may have had the observed injury to the back of her left hand prior to leaving the residence."
August 25, 2020, another police report is filed, stating that the police had received and reviewed the medical examiner's report. The cause of death is found to be "multiple traumatic injuries due to fall," the manner of death ruled suicide. "Additionally, benzodiazepine was detected in the decedent's blood," however the dosage and other details are not mentioned.
Gwen's car and the witness
Around midnight the previous night --that's the evening of March 19 into the early morning hours of the 20th-- a minivan had been found near the middle of the bridge by a state trooper dispatched to investigate the report of the abandoned vehicle. Upon arriving at the car, the state trooper found the van and a witness. The van appeared to have been in a crash, with every passenger-side window broken out. The witness was seen reaching into the van as the trooper arrived. Witness's behavior was described as erratic, and Trooper suspected issues of "both alcohol and mental health." Witness claims to have been offered a ride by a female driver, and that there was a passenger in the back of the van. The female stopped the car, got out, and gifted Witness the car. Officers checked the car's registration, and visited Erik's home at 12:53 that night to inform him that his vehicle had been found. Erik stated his wife was home with him, and the officer noted in the police report that Erik seemed "noticeably unphased" by his vehicle being found stolen. Because Gwen was thought to have Covid, the officers did not enter the home or verify she was there that night.
Because it was presumed to be an unreported stolen vehicle, the witness was taken into custody, at which point he amended his story. He states that he told the woman not to park on the bridge, but she seemed unresponsive. He then left the woman, but returned a short while later. As Witness was walking back towards the van, he says he saw a "dark figure" over the guard rail before the figure disappeared, but could not say it was the woman nor that the figure jumped. Witness ID'd the woman he'd talked to as Gwen based on a photo, but could not identify Erik's photo. Witness was then released from custody.
On August 31, 2020, a final, brief supplemental police report is filed. It begins, "Please note for consideration that during the course of this investigation, a number of family/friends/citizens familiar with Gwendolyn came forward with concerns that her death was not an act of suicide." It discusses her childhood abuse and recent steps to process that in therapy. She is said to be doing well, "reforging old familial bonds, expressed a positive and optimistic outlook on life, and was making plans for the future. It was discussed that she would never abandon her children intentionally." It goes on to note Erik's "concerning history" and strange behavior following Gwen's death. He is an alcoholic, has a history of domestic abuse towards Gwen, and suicidal ideation. Erik insisted that Gwen was despondent over her recent Covid diagnosis, and was therefore driven to suicide. Days later, "a family pet died and Erik was quick to explain on social media that the pet was also taken by COVID19. Erik began isolating the children from Gwen's family and friends." It continues to address the strange circumstances surrounding his hastiness to remarry. The report concludes: "Though unusual, these documented circumstances do not readily identify any overt malicious intent behind Gwen's passing; however they do present cause for consideration. Those with opinions about the welfare Gwen's surviving children were encouraged to report their concerns to local CPS."
So with that, let's get into Erik's actions in the months and years following Gwen's death.
Erik remarries
April 16th, less than a month after Gwen's death. Erik posts on Instagram that both of his kids --roughly 8 and 11 years old-- encouraged him to start dating again. "This house needs more female leadership... No one will ever replace Gwen, but we want this family to be whole again." On May 31, he once again posts expressing his hope to "find a woman." Thursday, June 11, he gets his wish, announcing that he got married the previous Sunday. March 25, 2021, Erik posts on Instagram a photo of him and his wife on a plane. "Today I leave this shithole country to be with my wife. Fuck the US. Not coming back anytime soon." Three comments ask something to the effect of, "who are your kids staying with while you're gone?" to which there are no responses.
Interviews
The previous information entirely originated from the first two episodes of the Locations Unknown podcast, police reports, and Andy's knowledge of the case. At this point, we're going to start diving into the follow-up podcasts. Episode 66 of Locations Unknown is an interview with Gwen's best friend Dawn, and episode 68 is another interview with Gwen's sister Dora. The two interviews total another three hours in length, but this post is getting long enough as is. So I'll bullet point "a few" key take-aways from each interview.
Dawn

• Gwen's friendship with Dawn goes all the way back to high school. The two are very close, and so Gwen confided in Dawn about Erik's violent, alcoholic behavior, his repeated waving a gun around screaming about killing himself. Dawn had, on at least one occasion prior to Gwen's death, told her husband she thought Erik would someday kill Gwen.
• When Dawn visited Gwen and Erik in 2016, she described him as being weirdly obsessed with running, abruptly leaving social engagements when it was time for his 17 mile run. The abandoned car was found 15 miles from the Hasselquist home, which Dawn believes was a distance Erik would be capable of running in the time that elapsed between Gwen's death and the next time his location could be verified by others. Dora would later corroborate this.
• On Gwen's birthday two weeks before her death, she told Dawn "this is gonna be my best year yet." Of course nobody ever thinks a loved one will kill themself before it happens, but a friend who Gwen had often turned to during her darkest times? Why would Gwen have lied to Dawn? Gwen was also known to be an incredibly attentive and loving mother who would never leave her children.
• Dawn was not close with Erik, but he personally told her the news of Gwen's passing four days later. Dawn described him as being incredibly blunt in delivering this news.
• Dawn described the detective as expressing that he was overwhelmed with other cases at the time of Gwen's death.
• Shortly after the death, Dawn reached out to Dora, who only briefly met once as kids, and both quickly agreed that something felt off, they were convinced Erik was involved in her death.

Dora
This was a long interview, and a bit all over the place, and my notes may reflect that. I'll organize them as best I can, but some points may be a bit jumbled due to Dora kind of jumping around the timeline.

• Gwen's step-sister, though they grew up together and thought of each other as sisters. They were estranged for 20-some years, but reconnected seven weeks before Gwen's death. In that time, Dora and her family had gone to visit Gwen and Erik. Her impression was that all was well in the Hasselquist home, until she woke up to a midnight text from Erik asking if she'd heard from Gwen.
• Lives about a three hour's drive from Gwen, and described the home as immediately feeling weird when she arrived the morning of March 20. Erik did not want Dora to come to his home that morning, but she insisted.
• That morning, Dora's daughter --whose age is unclear but was at the time in a Master's program for mental health studies-- quickly took to caring for Gwen's children. On their way home March 21, Dora's daughter said that one of Gwen's children told her, "there was a bloody knife and tissues on the counter, but Dada cleaned them up."
• After Dawn expressed suspicion of Erik, a third unnamed friend of Gwen --who also had previously not known Dawn or Dora-- expressed the same concern. Gwen at one point sent her children to this friend who lived in Gig Harbor, following one of Erik's outbursts that left her fearing for the kids' safety.
• Dora believes that Erik's second wife, Miriam, had no role in Gwen's death, nor was Erik having an affair. Most likely a transactional marriage to get her green card. Her father then passed away, she returned to Kenya for the funeral, and was not allowed to return to the US afterwards. It is speculated this is what led to Erik's "fuck the US" posts.
• Dora was cut out of Erik's life around June or July after Gwen's death, even after she would drop everything and drive three hours to go help him with anything, including Miriam's call regarding one of Erik's drunken outbursts. She believes that Erik was intimidated by her concern and proximity.
• Gwen's children described to Dora burning their mom's clothes "so Mom could take them to heaven."
• The car had been described as looking as if it side-swiped a bridge guard rail, yet months later, the responding state trooper told Dora "that was a weird night," and that there were wood fragments in the car. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge is made of metal and concrete.
• Shortly after Gwen's death, Erik mentioned to Dora that he had to go to multiple different banks to close Gwen's accounts. Loved ones believe Gwen may have been spreading her money around among different banks to hide it from Erik, as if she was planning to run away from him.
• Within weeks, Gwen's kids were calling Miriam "Mom" and referring to Gwen by name.

Rehoming the kids
Sticking with Dora's interview on the podcast, I think this part deserves a long-form section.
During one of Erik's suicidal outbursts, Erik's kid called his grandparents in Wisconsin, who contacted Dora asking her to take the kids for a few days. Social Services reached out to begin the process of re-homing the kids with Dora long-term. However, by the time she arrived in Gig Harbor after the three hour drive from her home, the local police informed Dora that the kids had already been placed with CPS in Tacoma. On the way, she was in communication with CPS to begin background checks and other steps for her to permanently take in the kids. When she arrived in Tacoma, Dora was told that due to her living across state lines in Oregon, the children could not be placed with her, and instead would end up with other family --distant family the kids only met once-- in Seattle. Dora was able to see the children in their new home, and felt that they were in good enough hands, however this family was an older lady. Her home was described as the type where "everything has a place, not a place where kids would be wanted bouncing off the walls." Dora, on the other hand, already had kids at home, has been with Gwen's kids through the whole ordeal, and was just generally a better fit, CPS bureaucracy aside.
Shortly after the kids were relocated to be with their paternal grandparents in Wisconsin pending custody disputes, Dora made plans to go see them for a week. She had made arrangements for a hotel with a pool, the kids would spend a night with Dora, a rental car large enough for the kids, and so on. Three weeks before the trip, Erik caught word of it, and tightly restricted how much Dora could see the kids. Ultimately, she decided to cancel the trip to avoid causing drama. The kids ultimately were permanently rehomed with their grandparents in Wisconsin, to the best of my knowledge.
Closing thoughts
Anyone still with me through all that? Wow. You're awesome! You've almost made it!
Honestly, I'm not unbiased on this. One host of the podcast in particular is very set in his interpretation of this case. I've listened to it all twice, that's 16+ hours of his bias, and that skews my interpretation of the facts. I tried to set that aside as best as possible and just present the facts and the opinions not of myself and the podcast, but of those who knew and loved Gwen. That said, a few closing thoughts.
The police work in this case, I think, is lacking, to put it lightly. I don't believe it to be malicious in nature, but rather simply a result of the times. It was the very, very early days of the pandemic. Police officers are humans just like anyone else, and were scared. Gwen was going through hard times personally during hard times worldwide, she took a bunch of pills, and jumped off a bridge. On the surface, it looks like a suicide. But there are so many questions. The bloody knife. The man that may have been seen in the car on the bridge. The Tacoma Narrows is a toll bridge. Why were toll booth attendants not interviewed? Were there cameras anywhere on the bridge, and if so, why do the police reports not mention pulling video?
At this point, I'll say it: I think Erik killed her. I understand that we all process grief differently, and if Erik was genuinely ready to remarry so quickly, then all the best to the newly wed couple. But there are so many bits and pieces that just add up to cause concern. If this case is re-opened, given a serious investigation without the effects of Covid fog, and they still rule it suicide, fine. I'll edit this post to put an apology to Erik right at the top in bold. But it needs a second look.
The hosts of Locations Unknown have said that more family and friends than just Dawn and Dora have reached out, but wish to stay off the record. Both Dawn and Dora were closest to Gwen. But the podcast has said that even some people who were friends of Erik before he met Gwen believe Erik killed her. At the time of the most recent episode of Locations Unknown being published (8/10/2022) 10 more interviews were lined up, including with those friends of Erik. In the most recent episode, they said it "certainly would not" be the last. And yet in a recent collaboration with another podcast, they said they've hit a dead end. I'll be following closely to see if they break through it, and I sure hope other people do as well.
So, thoughts? How do you think Gwen died? What did I miss in my presentation and interpretation of this, what other theories do you all have?
Sources
Locations Unknown 50 --Overview of the case
Locations Unknown 53 -- Reviewing police reports
Locations Unknown 66 --Interviewing Dawn
Locations Unknown 68 --Interviewing Dora
Police Reports
Luminol podcast article
Gwen's obituary

"Chicago Residents: If the offender was not arrested and you want the case reviewed for criminal charges: Chicago residents can take their police report to the Domestic Violence Courthouse located at 555 W. Harrison St., Chicago, IL 60607 to have the case reviewed for criminal charges. The State's Attorney's office reviews cases during business days Monday-Friday 8:30-1:30 pm." 

"The Chicago Police Department extends our condolences to Maria Roque's family as they grieve her tragic loss. Domestic violence is a serious crime, and our members work with professionalism to support the victims and all those affected by the trauma of domestic violence. We are also working with our City of Chicago and Cook County partners to strengthen our coordination and the resources available to those experiencing domestic violence." 

Monday, May 13 - Sunday, May 19, 2024

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7	9 comments	[Question] [3 YOE] Should school go before employer if school is significantly more well-known?
7	11 comments	[Question] What do I put on my resume bullet points and how to quantify them if I had a bad internship?
7	11 comments	[Question] [0 YoE] Currently at a small business, what job title should I use for my current position?
5	2 comments	[Success Story!] [9 YOE] Mid-Career Environmental Consultant's Resume - I've gone 10/10 for interviews this past year.
5	7 comments	[Question] [Student] How would you communicate your desired availability on your resume?

 

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2	29 comments	[Aerospace] [0 YOE] Recent grad looking for Aerospace Engineering position! Resume help?
1	24 comments	[Question] [0 YoE] Could I get some help with writing my bullet points? Specifically using XYZ/STACAR methods.
2	13 comments	[Software] [6 YoE] New to Silicon Valley w/ 6 Years of Frontend, Looking for Resume Feedback in US Culture
1	10 comments	[Software] [Student] Looking for a job/internship in software or web development, please help and belittle my resume
4	10 comments	[Question] What are y'all's thoughts on putting "unrelated" campus clubs and organizations on your resume?
1	9 comments	[Software] [0 YoE] New grad looking for software engineering positions, struggling to get responses
3	9 comments	[Software] [2 YOE] Seeking Resume Critique and Career Advice for SWE Roles, Backend/Full Stack

 

Top Comments

score	comment
14	kevj333 said "detailed experience available on request" is one of the most wild things I've ever seen on a resume. Why do I have to be the one to ask for more information? Your resume should clearly and concisely ...
11	KateN1996 said Even if you didn't do any work, you should have seen the tech stack that others worked with. I would put something regarding that (making sure that study up on the languages) and see if you ca...
9	secretlyyourgrandma said if there's space, it can add interest. I've bonded over music when job interviewing in multiple fields.
8	introversion23 said I wouldn't even know where to start. You don't have bullet points, just some text about what you did and what is there certainly doesnt follow the star, xyz, or car formats. Why would you put your hig...
7	jonkl91 said If you are active in it, you can put it. These are additional things that add to your profile. They don't matter much if you don't have your bases covered.
7	Oracle5of7 said Thanks for doing this. Only skimmed it but it seems you covered everything pretty nice. One thing. What I noticed the most on resumes from students is that their point of view for the resume is inco...
6	casualPlayerThink said Hi, Fellow engineer here, I have some note for you that might help: * Please do not use dots at the end of your bullet points * Consider to check out the wiki for template and for order of your...
6	Mexicant_123 said If you haven’t captured someone’s attention by the 4th or 6th bullet point you certainly wont get it on the 15th. A part of engineering is being able to take complex topics and condense them down into...
5	Mexicant_123 said Not reading this. Read the wiki and repost.
5	PhenomEng said Congrats! It's great to hear feedback and know that in some way, we were able to help!
5	WritesGarbage said This resume isn't great, it's going to take a decent amount of work to fix, if the market wasn't so terrible you would've found something by now. ##### First Thoughts - There's a lot of whitespace bet...
5	trentdm99 said I'd rewrite your Summary at the top. More on that in a minute... Experience ... I would like to personally thank you for not saying "Collaborated with cross functional teams" anywhere in your resume...
5	DL_Outcast said Hey u/Alarmed_Airport_2897, I'm a recent EE graduate and despite my specialization, I secured an entry-level FPGA position. Two key takeaways I noticed: entry-level roles often focus on validation rat...
4	dusty545 said I like to start with the following format. Sure it can be rearranged, but starting with the task (what you were told to do/what you intended to do) helps by placing the strongest [ action...
4	Oracle5of7 said Please read the wiki and follow its advice. You do seem to have good stuff here, it’s just presented terribly.
4	PhenomEng said 1. You've been out of school for a year. You need to broaden your search to all industries and locations. The longer you wait, the harder it's going to be. 2. You had an internship...after gradua...
4	eggjacket said I would change your first job title to “technology analyst” and then drop the last two bulletpoints. Makes it clear that this is relevant work If you’re a current student or new grad, then the first...
4	not_a_gun said I wouldn’t say you started as a technician in your current role. That’s starting the reviewer with the idea that you didn’t do engineering there. You also need more bullets under your current role of ...
4	dusty545 said Simply listing them doesnt do anything for me. Writing a STAR bullet about what you achieved while supporting that club is valuable. If you have the white space, use it. If you run out of room, re...
4	JadedTiger120 said Well done!
3	Oracle5of7 said You bullet points are all terrible. Every single one of them is a task. What exactly did you implement from the wiki?
3	Oracle5of7 said You already have good comment derailing the second bullet. Let me help you with the rest. The biggest problem us that you’re not adjusting your point of view. You are still presenting yourself as a ...
3	Oracle5of7 said This has been a rough one. I know everyone is asking you to read the wiki and it is frustrating because you read it and as far as you are concerned you following it the best you could and you wanted t...
3	PhenomEng said >'Reduced the amount of parts being sent back with issues by 25% and ensured quality standards by using various inspection methods and tools such as calipers, thermometers, pyrometers, and multimeters...
3	KiwiExtra8002 said Can you include like numbers or any impact you had on the business? Like how did you actually increase revenue? Some sentences can be split into multiple bullet points, I feel. You have 6YOE, you don'...
3	Tavrock said Congratulations!
3	Anonymous_299912 said Congratulations! Damn 3 bachelors, each one known to be quite difficult, with work experience?! You're that guy lol.
3	PhenomEng said Just about all your bullets are meaningless. Please read the wiki and resubmit.
3	AutoModerator said Hi u/wagababababobo! If you haven't already, review these and edit your resume accordingly: * [Wiki](https://old.reddit.com/EngineeringResumes/wiki/) * [Recommended Templates&#...
3	jonkl91 said Personally unless you are a fresh grad or career transitioner, put experience first.

 

The Art of the Dive: how to succeed as a team

This little blurb is intended for the new to mid-level player. This isn’t a guide on specific weapons or loadouts, but on mindsets and an overall fun gaming experience for you and your team. These tips, tricks, and observations are in no particular order except for the first three.
Important Stuff:

1. Have Fun! This is a game, HAVE FUN FIRST. If you’re not having fun, you’re not spreading democracy optimally.
   
2. Don’t get hung up on gear! Use the weapons and stratagems that look, feel or sound good to you. Just because a big-name YTuber did a tier list and called something hot garbage does NOT mean it can’t be fun or effective for YOU.
   
3. Don’t get hung up on difficulty levels. Don’t let your pride ruin the game for you. If you’re in a mission and find yourself saying (or yelling) “That’s bugs#!t!” or “How the liberty am I supposed to kill THAT!” frequently, dial it back. Every bit of democracy helps, even if you’re “just” running Level 1 missions watching flags slowly raise.
   

Important stuff done. The key takeaway is that this is a game that you’re supposed to have fun playing. If you’re idea of fun is getting your bug-hole pushed in by 5 chargers and a bile titan on level 9 Helldive, get on with your bad self. If you’re fine having a laid-back walk in the park doing a melee-only runs on Trivial, rock on!
Team Stuff:
First of all, Helldivers are people. Actual living people with agency and lives. This means that no matter what, you’ll eventually come across jerks. The Helldivers 2 community is one of the LEAST toxic gaming communities I’ve come across, sitting up there with KSP and DRG in terms of support. This does not mean there will be NO problems, just that I personally haven’t come across very many myself. To prevent becoming one of the rare problem people, here are some things to consider:
- You’re on a team (usually). Stick with them to support each other! I can’t count the number of times I had my freedom-bacon saved by a random squamate shooting a bot or bug off me right before I got my free trip to the Wall of Martyrs.
- Don’t be a supply pig. If you’re on a full team of 4, each diver gets 1 supply box. If you’re really low, just ask in chat if you can double-dip – most of the time you’ll get positive feedback.
- Call out big stratagems. If you’re dropping an orbital bombardment or a danger-close eagle strike, give a heads up to your team if you can. If you’re planning on bringing mines to the party, make sure you ping where they land so others can avoid them.
- Call out targets. Ping large targets (hulks, titans, chargers, tanks, etc.) with “Q”. You can also ping patrols. This makes it MUCH easier to avoid or coordinate fire. Plus: pinging a large enemy makes it SO MUCH easier to land on them with a hellpod.

• Don’t shoot every moving thing. As undemocratic as it may sound, you don’t actually need to delete every single bot or bug on a map. If you see a patrol wandering in the distance, leave them alone and don’t pull aggro unless they’re on a mission objective. In my headcannon, bots and bugs that you run across on low level missions are just the survivors of higher-level missions. The Helldive players killed all the big stuff on the map, but they need help getting democracy into every little nook and cranny – which is where the lower levels come in and finish up.

- Get those samples! The most important currency in the game is samples – you use them to level your ship modules up. If you die, those samples are dropped and will need to be recovered. If you don’t extract at the end of the mission, you get NOTHING… so try to make it back, Helldiver.
- Understand you you’re expendable. Helldivers are basically living ordinance that’s fired (literally) at Large Problems in “Warhammer 40K” numbers until the Large Problems are not Problems anymore. It’s ENTIRELY possible to win a match with a squad wipe. If all primary objectives are complete, you STILL WIN. Extracting is a bonus, not a requirement.
Gear Stuff:
- Your gear is YOUR gear. Every weapon and loadout can be made to work…. Some can be made to work better than others. If your loadout isn’t meta-chasing, so what? As long as you can pull your weight and send liberty downrange, you’re fine.
- Use themes, if you want. Do you like lasers and hate using ammo? Go with an all-laser build. Want to be a stealth sniper? Get your AT&T guns and “reach out and touch someone”.
- Don’t think all high-level gear is better than the starter gear. Honestly, the starter liberator and grenades can do a TON of heavy lifting even at the highest difficulty levels. The AMR, EAT-17, Autocannon, Eagle Airstrike and other low-level stratagems are extremely powerful when used correctly. Yes, there are some very useful high-level toys, but you don’t NEED them to do Democracy’s Will. (Though it might will be more fun!)
- Try to synergize with your team. This will take some time to do well. When you’re picking your gear, keep an eye on what your team is bringing. If you see that you’re light on heavy firepower, consider some AT items. Conversely, think about using trash-clearing gear if you see everyone else pulling rocket launchers and 500KG eagles.
- Pick your boosters! Pick a booster – any booster. They don’t automatically select themselves during each mission (despite there being a “booster” section in the character menu). If other divers have picked all the boosters you have access to, just ask if someone can swap to give your team a full set of 4.
- Early boosters are strong. Just like weapons, early level boosters can be VERY helpful. The first booster you can pick is by far one of the MOST useful boosters available – giving all Helldivers (including replacements) a full load of ammo, stims and grenades every drop.

Well, that’s my wall of text for now. If others add tips of their own, I’ll gladly edit and update.

Dive on, Helldivers!

So first I should preface this with my bias; I've been a Homeworld fan since the 1999 release when I was 10 years old. Now I'm 35 and have started my own family - so it's been a crazy journey. Homeworld was instrumental in my career, passions, everything. The reason I'm a dev now is because I learned to mod because of Homeworld. So to say I'm biased towards liking the series is probably an understatement.
Another bias I have is that I strongly prefer Homeworld 1 over Homeworld 2, for many reasons. When I played Homeworld 3 I was dimly aware that there was some negative sentiment that it removed features from Homeworld 2 that players enjoyed. I have not read any of the online discourse since getting the game: I wanted to go in completely fresh-eyed.
With that out of the way I'll also save everyone some time: I absolutely loved Homeworld 3. It was what we were hoping for with Homeworld 2: Dust Wars and I am here for it. For newer fans of the series, or fans that might not know, Dust Wars was demoed in 2008...ish? It introduced the megaliths and the concept of fighting within giant space structures. Then it was scrapped because of tech limitations at the time and that's why Homeworld 2 had to restart it's development halfway through.
So Homeworld 3 is basically what Homeworld 2 was supposed to be and IMO it nails it. Here are my thoughts. For all of them I'm going to start with the areas I could see improving and then talk about the areas I thought it did well because in my opinion it did so much well that I just want to get the could-be-improved stuff out of the way first.
Story:
Could be improved:

1. The cutscene where Karan and Imogen foreshadowed the lullaby cypher felt a bit stilted. When Karan says "I know goodbyes are hard. Let me sing our lullaby", it just felt forced.
2. There was a pretty big logical leap right after we met Karan. I thought the reunion between the two was heartwarming and well-voice acted. Karan says: "The queen is coming for the sajuuk's progenitor cores...she will be able to harness the energy from the entire gate network. Nearly infinite power" and then Imogen replies with "in that moment her systems would be open...and we could override...if we were very close to her temple." it's a huge unprompted logical jump. I have no idea why she would say that other than to move the story along.
3. At the end of the final mission I felt like it wasn't really communicated that we would also be stuck there. What does it mean that our cores were overloaded? Are they permanently damaged? I also don't feel like it was well communicated as to why Karan had to join the Queen. I assumed it's because her cores were used. Regardless of the reasons I really liked this part of the story, see below.
4. Karan/Imogen's line "To be Hiigaran is to never be alone" is a little cheesy but hey it's spaceships and laser guns, I didn't mind. :)
5. EDIT: This post (https://www.reddit.com/homeworld/comments/1cwidye/comment/l4wg6vz/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=mweb3x&utm\_name=mweb3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button) really made me rethink the ending from a different perspective; the forgiveness of the queen was really underserved at the end of the game. By that point I had forgotten about the billions of people she murdered and now that this poster brings it up it cheapens the stakes and is honestly very out of character for Karan, so I've adjusted my rating on this one. the story, IMO is still a lot of fun and if you replace her killing billions with maybe, IDK, conquering planets or something or holding hyperspace hostage, the story would still be good IMO. But this hole is just so large it knocks the whole thing down. It was enjoyable and it hasn't been lessened for me but yea, objectively it's a major flaw.

Now that that's out of the way - The Awesome:

1. The story was really character driven, much more so than in any other games in the series and I thought it was done really ll. Powerful female leads working with an immensely intelligent male lead. Everyone's motivations made sense and they reacted logically to lots of situations. I really loved the villain but we'll talk about her in a bit.
2. I felt like the transhumanist themes were really interesting and this game dove deep into what it might be like in the Homeworld universe to essentially become a living starship, capable of hyperspace flight. We really looked at what it would mean for a human consciousness to grow to the size of a living starship. It also ties in well with the Queen's arc; how she had been elevated to godhood and found herself all alone, abandoned by her people. What would it be like to have the power of a god but only have yourself to talk to about it?
3. The Queen and Karan literally ascending into hyperspace was also a very cool thought. Literally moving to the next plane of existence by existing in another reality. What gods could we become?
4. Fleet Intelligence was well acted and worked really well with Fleet Command. It was refreshing to see two professionals working together for a common goal, which you don't usually see in contemporary media anymore.
5. I think the Queen was a solid villain. Her motivations were simple but easily understandable and extended from the trauma of being used and abandoned by her people. Her and Karan's arc remind me a bit of a Terry Pratchett book called "Small Gods". In it, the villain is a monstrous head of the church, torturing etc. The hero of the book, Brother, ends up killing him and restoring the church to a more peaceful path, becoming a prophet of their god Ohm. When he dies 100 years later, he finds his former enemy lost in the sands of eternity and rather than ascending to heaven himself, takes pity on him and walks with him. I felt like regardless of why Karan had to join her, I feel like her doing so was a really complex character moment and humanized an enemy that would have otherwise been a very simplistic villain. I appreciated it.

Art/Technical Design:
Could be improved:

1. I felt like Imogen was pretty oversexualized. She was basically naked, down to showing individual toes. She could have at least had maybe more average features?
2. Not a huge fan of the unit designs. I like the idea of the Hiigaran ship being designed to a top-down profile and the Incaranate to a side profile. However I feel like the Hiigaran ships lacked interesting silhouettes and the Incarnate were very overwright with way too many lines. I think the two factions adhered too strictly to horizontal/vertical profiles and should have mixed it up more. Witnes the original Taiidan ships, which IMO are the pinnacle of Homeworld ship design but I know that's subjective.
3. Unit pathfinding is pretty dumb.

The Awesome:

1. Cutscene characters were great and it's awesome to see the evolution from hand-drawn black and white, to hand drawn color, to color CGI mimicking hand drawn to full CGI standing on it's own, with still a little bit of that limited movement from a hand drawn animatic.
2. Some really amazing shots, the one where the mothership broke free of the ice was beautiful and really sticks out in my mind. The build up of cosmic "sand" in the bowels of the great megaliths, or the perspective of seeing massive capital ships dwarfed by gigantic planar objects they move across. The environments really told a story and were so well crafted to the mood of the levels.
3. The blend of technical and artistic design is so beautiful and uniquely Homeworld. The vast windswept frozen planes, the deep clouds and volumetric shadows, the bright flares as explosions rip apart massive warships; technically speaking from every aspect the game is gorgeous.
4. The megaliths are just really inspirational and I absolutely love them.

UX:
Could be improved:

1. If you don't turn on unit health bars it is really hard to see what ships you have selected.
2. Sometimes I would auto-select multiple units of a single type and that was frustrating.
3. The concept of formation or group leads was never really explained, would be nice to see.

The Awesome:

1. Love the flexibility in the camera and gameplay systems.
2. The ship selection system combines the best elements of Homeworld 2 (picture icons) and Homeworld 1 (grouping similar ship types instead of showing an icon for each one). Personally I still prefer the text list of Homeworld 1 but ya gotta change with the times.
3. I really enjoyed the menus and how they plus the in-game interface felt very advanced and technically competent.

Gameplay:
I'll just generally talk about this one. I really enjoyed it - the megaliths offer an exciting new challenge and I like how the idea of terrain close maneuvering is expanded on in the manual lore. It gives you a lot more tactical freedom and flexibility compared to old school deep space slugfests. The fact that ballistics simulations seem to be back is amazing. I think the pairing down of features from Homeworld 2 was great; upgrades are simple and attached to the ship they're applied to, they don't have a lot of variations, etc. I know some people miss subsystem targeting but tbh I never used it and I don't care that it's gone. I love that we have real individual units back and real formations. The gameplay is much more 3D, like the original Homeworld. Homeworld 2 felt super flat. Now we even have directional damage.
I can't comment on game balance because I've only played the campaign and it was on Medium so I absolutely plowed through it. In the final level the Titan vessel could only launch two or three frigates before being dropped to 50% health and having to retreat. So any comments I have on balance wouldn't really be relevant to the overall game.
Overall I just really, really like this game. It feels like they took all the stuff they added in Homeworld 2 that to me made it less Homeworld and removed or refined them. Then they went back to Homeworld 1 and Homeworld 2: Dust Wars and just took all of that into the modern day. It's a great experience and I'd highly recommend it. My personal Homeworld series rankings would be:

• Homeworld 1 or 3
• Homeworld Cataclysm or Deserts of Kharak
• Homeworld 2

I would give Homeworld 3:
Story (EDITED): 6.5/10
Art: 9/10
UX: 9.5/10
Gameplay: 10/10

New Missions
Bugs: Search and Destroy: Regicide
A Bug queen has surfaced for {Insert Reason Here} and our Helldivers need to eliminate her.
During the mission she will move from point A to point B, escorted by a larger force. She will make no attempt to engage the players, completely focused on getting to her objective. Players must eliminate her while she calls in more reinforcements before the timer runs out.
Bots: Search and Destroy: Siege
There is an Automaton base in the shape of a large “X” that is packed with foundries and enemies that needs to be eliminated.
Players cannot land inside the base so they must land outside and plan their attack. At each point on the base there is a randomly generated secondary objective structure(Detection Tower, AA defense, Mortar Battery, Stratgem Jammer, Gunship Factory, etc.).
In the center of the base is the primary objective, a tower that must be shutdown using two separate consoles that will require an SSDD inserted to blow it up like the air tower.
Universal: Escort: Precious Cargo
Players must escort a large mule carrying precious cargo to its extraction point. Players will be attacked by periodic enemy waves while it moves to its location.
Enemy Suggestions:
New - Impaler - The classic from Helldivers 1 i think would be a good addition to change up the bug games in place of chargers all the time.
New - Spawn Host + Thermites - Large charger sized enemy that spawns exploding scavengers colored red. Think like a living siege engine for bugs.
New - Hulk Ravager - Has a shield and a hammer. The shield is an energy shield that can block for enemies behind it while still allowing them to attack while the hammer can be used to slam the ground and cause tremors.
New - Handler + Maulers - One large Hulk sized bot with two claw arms and a basket with human bodies in it on its back. It travels with 3-5 “Dogs” called Maulers that hunt enemies for it. When the Maulers are destroyed it opens its mouth and spawns 3-5 more, also allowing players to hurl grenades inside them to deal damage and kill them.
Change - Stalkers should instead skirt the edges of a fight and pull a player towards them with their tongue attack, instead of pushing them away during an attack combo. This way they can isolate players from their teams.
Change - Standard Devastators occasionally throw grenades. Adds something subtle but unique addition to Standard Devastators.
Change - Heavy Devastators are less accurate. Heavy Devastators are far too accurate at longer ranges with their weapons making maps with long line of sight very difficult to contend with, even at long range.
Change - Nursing Bile Spewers need to be different in some way to Bile Spewers outside just “I’m you but weaker” how about they deal less damage but apply an area of slowness when they vomit and explode for a time?
All Bugs Slowing effects need to be reworked on a Bug to Bug basis. Spitters should not cause a strong of a slow as they do as in their numbers they can perma-slow a player when running away from a larger enemy(Also they don’t even need a direct hit to cause the slow apparently). Hunters also apply far too strong of a slow, meanwhile I would argue Bile Titans should have a much more intense slow.
All Bots need to account for vision blocking terrain. Too many times has a player been mapped by a rocket fired from a location unseen and too often do players round a corner to get hit by shots fired before they even turned the corner.
Bugs and Bots occasionally call for reinforcements, even after they have died but before they could finish the calling animation.
All enemies should have a pool of active enemies and they should be assigned to a slot to better balance games out. For example:Factory Walkers&Bile Titans are Super Heavy Enemies, Chargers/Brood Commanders&Hulks are heavy enemies, Devastators/Scout Walkers&Warriors/Hive Guards/Bile Spewers are Medium enemies, etc. This way the AI can be programmed to limit and add enemies as the game unfolds but not overwhelm players. I have had games where on a defense mission 6 Bile Titans were summoned at once which was literally impossible for us to stop from destroying the generators but the next mission was so easy it felt like a level 4 on a helldive.
JTFM:
Two teams of helldivers will perform a joint task force mission(JTFM) where they raid a heavily populated enemy objective. Perhaps they are attacking a Bug Hive Mind or crippling a Bot mothership.
These JTFM will be difficult and will require a wide array of stratagems and even some that are not allowed as part of the mission parameters to really challenge players. Perhaps one where players can only use weapons, minefields, turrets and backpacks as they are underground and these stratagems will be deployed via drill pods that dig through the planet to arrive at points like in Deep Rock Galactic.
This could be a great challenge for players who want extremely difficult linear missions requiring teamwork beyond normal missions.
Existing Missions:
Eradication, Extract Valuable Assets and Evacuation missions should have the map layout shown to players when deciding what stratagems to play. This is especially important in the High Value Asset missions as one mission layout is hard to use eagles due to the high peaks between the lane while the other supports such perfectly.
It would also be nice to see the Extract Valuable Assets mission better balanced towards bugs as Chargers and Titans just demolish doors easily and virtually any bug can call for a bug breach anywhere in the lane often forcing players into situations where winning is all but impossible very early into these missions.
New Factions:
Mutant Faction - Horrific mutants created by Super Earth in experiments that have escaped and gone rogue. Focuses on Cosmic horror, inhuman shaped enemies, unearthly enemies and so on. I recommend using games like GTFO, R6: Siege’s Outbreak event and its “Successor” R6: Extraction, Hunt: Showdown, and Back 4 Blood and movies like The Thing for visual examples of enemies.
Dissident Faction - Humans who have denounced Super Earth.
Stratagems:
NEW - Gunship Support - Calls a Pelican outfitted with two additional guns to hover above the location firing at enemies.
Buff - Machine gun Turret - Becomes a Heavy Machine gun as in all aspects it is outclassed by the chaingun turret. With a medium armour pen it can be better used against bots.
Buff - Missile Turret - Add Heat seeking to missiles to help them better track larger but faster enemies(Scother Hulks, Brood Commanders, Stalkers, etc.) and makes them decent at shooting down gunships.
Buff - Orbital Gatling Barrage - Upgraded to Medium Armour Pen to make it more appealing vs Bots and increase its duration slightly.
Change - Guard Dog - Add “Bulldog” to name and give unlimited ammo. Nobody uses it due to the fact it needs ammo from supplies. Instead just make it need to reload every so often.
NEW - Guard Dog “Hellhound” - Incendiary round Guard Dog. lower RPM but deals fire damage.
Change - Land Mines - Reduced cooldown. When a player calls in the stratagem, all previously placed landmines of that type placed by that player are destroyed.
Change - 380mm Barrage - Altered to NOT hit the center of the beacon so it acts like an artillery shield for allies inside it, increase the barrage count and it should see more play.
NEW - Deliverance Walker - The HD1 Lumberer walker but instead of the flamethrower it has the machine gun from the machine gun turret.
NEW - Redeemer Walker - Uses a Flamethrower and a melee weapon that sweeps the area in front of it like a hammer for example. (Flavor text is that it is used by Helldivers who wish to make amends for their fallen comrades' failures in battle.)
NEW - Razorwire Barrier - Slows small enemies and damages them, only slows medium enemies and heavy enemies can destroy it entirely.
Change - Orbital Smoke+SEAF Smoke Rounds - Smoke cloud needs to be at least double the size to really be worth using.
NEW - UAV Drone - Bring back the Humble Bee. When called the area around the controlling player will highlight enemies, even through walls as well as automatically identify secondary objectives and points of interest.
NEW - Flamethrower Turret - Very Self Explanatory
Change - Machinegun & Heavy Machinegun - Reload time needs to be reduced. The weapons are not useful enough to warrant requiring a whole cutscene to finish a reload. All machine guns, including the Stalwart, should be able to move and reload, with their balancing factor being reload speed and recoil. I loved using the Heavy Machine gun for a while until it required so much ammunition to keep loaded and being forced to stand still to reload for a weapon not nearly impactful enough to warrant using it over a primary weapon and running any anti-tank weapon.
Planetary Biomes and Hazards:
Dense Forest + Carnivorous Plants - Planet is one giant forest, very few open spaces to work with. The map is also littered with hostile plants for both sides including an instant kill venus fly trap style plant.
Gravity Fluctuations - Map fluctuates between high and low gravity. High Gravity reduces the range of weapons and movement speed for ally and enemy and Low Gravity does the vise-versa.
High Tide/Low Tide - Very water based map where the water level changes making shallow beaches into deep waters where players can drown. All objectives and interactable points of interest are on high ground but other more “Interesting” points of interest may be in these areas only exposed during low tide.
A Note on Weather Effects: Weather Effects should be applied simultaneously to both players and enemies. This would both make things feel less like weather is purely a downside and opens up potential for stratagems and weapons not normally chosen right now. For example what if on Intense Heat planets enemies are more vulnerable to fire. What if on cold planets enemies also have reduced rate of fire and movement speed. What if Ion Storms also prevent enemies from reinforcing(Bug Breach/Bot Drop).
Warbond Ideas:
Flames of Liberty - Fire weapon focused warbond. Fire bomb launcher, Flame Slugger shotgun, Incendiary Liberator, etc. Dragons breath shotgun pistols.
Desolation Complex - Chemical weapons warbond focusing on Chemical, Radiological and Biological weaponry. Chemical Launcher, Contagion Grenade, Irradiated Diligence, etc.
Armour Passives:
Skirmisher - Regenerates health over time. Stims no longer heal instantly, instead double the health regen and grant a speed boost for the duration of the stim..
Sentinel - Buffs nearby turrets(Buffs will need to be on a case-by-case basis) and by marking enemies the player can direct the turrets fire.

• Machine gun & Chain gun- Damage buff
• Autocannon & Missile Launcher - RoF buff
• Mortar & EMS Mortar - Blast radius buff

Gunner - 30% reduced recoil and 25% faster reload of heavy weapon
Trench Fighter - 50% increased damage from fire sources and increased melee knockback.
Weapons:
Liberator Penetrator - Match the damage of the standard Liberator. The penetrator already has a smaller mag size and more recoil. Reducing the damage is just the nail in the coffin for using it over other weapons with Medium armour pen.
Peacekeeper, Verdict and any future pistols - Add a gun sight. It's awkward to use when the weapon has only iron sights.
Slugger - I agreed the Slugger needed a nerf but I think you nerfed it too much. The weapon was heavily used more because at the time we only had it, The Liberator Penetrator listed above and the Dominator which isn't very good at shorter ranges. Return its stagger power and it should do fine.
Breaker Spray n’ Prey - 50rd mag size, 1.5x the pellet load over the Breaker and increase its RoF to 400. Lower its stagger to need a near constant stream of shots to stumble the enemy.
Show stats for all support weapon's please
Miscellaneous:
Helldiver teams expanded to 5 - There has been discussion on increasing the number of players on a Helldiver team. Most team games have 5 man squads and I think this may be the best balance to the game.
Turret Damage Resistance - Recently a stratagem upgrade gave turrets explosive resistance and yet they still die VERY quickly to enemy fire and even in the case of Bugs i still find it annoying that Chargers just run into them to kill them. It makes turrets too difficult to bother with when they die quickly and have such a long cooldown.Turrets need to be able to at least get off 25% of their shots before they outright die in most situations, otherwise what is the point?
Armour Balancing - Heavy armor needs staggeknockdown resistance. What good is being slower and tougher if you still get staggered and knocked down with every hit from a bigger enemy.
Grenades destroying bug holes, factories, etc. - Any grenade thrown into the opening should close the hole, otherwise players are incentivized to avoid non-explosive grenades or grenades that cannot destroy them.
Bot Gunships and Bug Shriekers nerf - Both of these enemies do not allow players to be stealthy, they force them to go in with heavy weapons blazing because they autodetect the player and never stop chasing them until either they or the player has been killed. It forces players into picking items they may not otherwise want to bring and removes some of the players ability to experiment with other equipment.
Community decisions on planet liberation - Recently as of the making of this document, players were given a choice of unlocking an Air burst launcher or anti-tank mines. However neither planet was unlocked when the order went live. Players had to dig up information to find out how that was not part of the game. Furthermore the planet linked to the Air burst was a cold planet and the AT-mines was a hot planet. Hot planets are significantly harder than cold planets and most missions on that hot planet had only three stratagems allowed. The choice was basically set up to fail before it was ever made. Players should have had both options unlocked and available immediately as right now most of the players i played with since wanted the Mines but either didn’t understand why the planet wasn’t unlocked or realized both planets linked to it were extremely hard to fight on and didn’t enjoy the grind.

Most of you already know about this, BUT: So, no matter how old you are and how much you know, you never stop learning. You can even forget things you used to know, imagine that xD
In case you are not aware: It is illegal in germany to purchase, import, or own a flashlight (or laser) which is specifically designed to be mounted to a firearm. Example in this case: The Sofirn PL09. Even if you do not own any gun, not even an airsoft gun, it is illegal for you to import or own this light. Even if you just wanted this to mount it to a workbench.
I have checked back with my local police and my lawyer today and they confirmed this.
Below are the two original law texts in german. They basically describe the function and form of the illegal item. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/waffg_2002/anlage_1.htmlSee section 4.1 https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/waffg_2002/anlage_2.htmlSee section 1.2.4. There is another one that ties all this together, but I cant find it...and it doesnt matter.
I actually knew about this from a long time ago, but I forgot. So let this be a reminder or a general PSA for everyone in germany....and all other countries for that matter. Check your local laws if you want to buy something like this. Excuse my poor english, its 4 AM, its been a very long day and Im tired xD

This post is very long. edit -- I added a short summary here, https://www.reddit.com/PSVcomments/1cw1rfa/comment/l4uu4xu/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
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TOO-LONG-SUMMARY
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So, I was very much looking forward to Legendary Tales for a while now after hearing so many great things.
I bought it on sale a couple days ago and played the first hour or so, completing the tutorial and entering the main hub. Then I uninstalled and refunded it.
This is not a 'hate post' and I hope that this post will not only help people understand some of the issues of this game, and what this game is NOT, but also help people understand what this game is and why you might love it. I talked about my criticisms with others who love the game to help me approach this and hopefully deliver some useful thoughts. It's worth noting that I got lots of agreement about my criticisms from the people I talked to - who still love the game.
In short,
People love this game for the combat development in the context of a 40+ hour adventure. All the depth to the skill trees, which of course in my hour I didn't touch. The creativity of building the mechanics of a character RPG style - except you get to physically battle in VR. The reward of unlocking that cool skill you've been excited to try out, or finding a legendary that's a blast to use. Even in my short time with the game I could feel the beginnings of this with the parry system. I did have fun fighting skeletons with a simple sword and no skills, and felt the challenge as I had to aim my sword deflections well and time my counterstrikes. There is an effective mechanic preventing waggle-fest and I can begin to imagine all the room to develop your combat mechanics in a way that is, fun and rewarding, and uniquely VR.
Sounds great right? To some it truly is.
But to me, not so much. Why? Because everything else is lacking to a degree I did not expect.
I've been playing a lot of The Light Brigade lately. And although these two games are totally different, it's a useful game to bring up because The Light Brigade excels in all the ways that Legendary Tales significantly falls short.
Atmosphere - music and sound, lighting and colours, art design, character and enemy models
Interfacing - Onboarding and intuitive learning, UI design and fluidity, control mapping, options, grabbing/interacting with objects, general polish
Storytelling - Plot, lore, world building, characters, character and enemy expressiveness, writing
For many people who play games, combat is at the forefront of their interests. For me, it always takes a backseat priority - if its present at all - to the above three aspects. The combat in Bloodborne is great, but it is because it excels in those 3 aspects that it's one of my favourite games. I also love lengthy games like Pentiment, Disco Elysium, Planescape Torment, and Pathologic 2, which have minimal or no combat and lots of reading!
Legendary Tales is simply mediocre in those three bolded aspects and for me that's a hard pass. If these aspects were serviceable to me - done well enough to facilitate the combat - I might have kept going. But I don't use the world 'mediocre' lightly. This is the appropriate word to me, and because of that, I did not want to spend 40+ hours in this world.
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DETAILS
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For those interested, or for the developers, I will continue with a breakdown of these aspects I am criticizing, trying to go through everything I felt about them in the first hour or so of playing.
Main menu was my favourite part. I liked the scene + music together. Nice. I was looking forward to playing and this had me feeling fuzzy and ready to enjoy the game. Unfortunately, it was not to be.
The very first issue I noticed was that the game felt washed out. Even in that main menu I liked, I was feeling like it was a bit washed out. So I tried adjusting brightness down... then the darker areas felt better, but the light areas felt off. The more I played and tried to adjust to find the right equilibrium, the more I realized the lighting and contrast is just not good and adjusting brightness can't save that.
The second issue I noticed was the menu cursor to select things. It felt like an early VR game that hadn't quite figured out VR menus yet. It's useable but not fluid and pleasing.
The third issue I noticed was the unintuitive controls. I thought that this was the kind of game, kind of like a Souls game, where you aren't taught everything but learn things as you go in an organic manner. Maybe some of that exists in this game, but mostly it's simply bad control design and a bad tutorial. It's the difference between having barriers that have purpose, purposeful friction, and feel good when discovered vs barriers that feel pointless and just build frustration without purpose. The controls feel like a mess and while it's apparent that people can get used to them as they play more, it's not in a justified sense.
Along with this are interfacing issues. For example, grabbing items feels very awkward. The motions are clunky, for example the way a weapon will slowly glide into place in your hands. There's so many interfacing issues. The interface to see weapon/item stats on weapons that are laying about is clunky, the interface to switch weapons is clunky, the magic interface is clunky, dialogue boxes feel clunky,... all of these things feel clunky both in terms of feel and also aesthetic.
A very straightforward and obvious example is dialogue. Character dialogue is presented in a large bland text on a page. To progress through the dialogue, there's no obvious place to click or button to push. In fact, you have to click a particular area of the page, which feels totally arbitrary and unintuitive. Sure, once you learn, you can do it fine, but it's just bad interface design.
To go back to The Light Brigade, think about the difference in both feel and aesthetic to opening a chest or breaking a pot. Grabbing a gun and how it arrives to your hand. The attractive dialogue boxes. Watching a reward pop out of a chest, picking a tarot card. Putting objects into your waist pouch or taking them out. These interactions are all comfortable, beautiful, fluid, and intuitive.
The next thing on my mind was sound.
As I played the tutorial, the soundscape was barren. There was a wind loop, which didn't loop correctly leaving a solid second of space between the end and beginning. Sounds didn't feel like they were placed quite right in 3D space. Point-based sounds (like the crackling of a campfire, that comes from a specific point in space) had too small of a zone (the sound should be heard from further away). In general the soundscape was very barebones. And when I encountered the first character, not only did the character look totally goofy and out of place, but they made no sounds when 'speaking', not even grunts or gibberish sound.
To skip ahead for a moment, I also felt the music did not match the environments enough. The music was quite pretty - that's not the problem. It just didn't feel like the environments were quite synergized with the music.
Again for both music and sound, think of the gun sounds, the ability sounds, the sound of the enemies as they spot you, the sound of the environment, the footsteps and dash, the grunts of characters when the speak, the music... not only does it all sound great, but it all feels like expressions of the unique world of The Light Brigade. This is excellent sound and music design, that truly bring the world to life.
Although a minor complaint, I also noticed lots of grammar and spelling errors. Although I understand the team is in South Korea, and I appreciate the challenges of translation, just like with everything else I was just expecting... more polish. I thought it would feel like a full package, at indie scale. But it feels very much like a partial package.
And that segues into the writing...
There are games with simple and/or unmemorable story, where the story is still servicing and facilitating the gameplay.
And then there is just plain bad writing.
This is very much the latter.
Maybe a bit of this goes back to translation but I am doubtful that it fares much better in original Korean in essence.
The writing is goofy, juvenile, poorly structured, and generic.
I was also seriously turned off by a couple lines in particular, that I'm sure affect me more than most but I will mention anyways. One was something like "valuable gem missing. And a hot girl". Like... There's nothing inherent about calling a woman (or a man) hot that I don't like. Yes gamers, you are allowed to find women attractive, relax. But it's the way its written,... I'm not going to turn this into an essay about male gaze but the way its written simply services a particular male audience that casually objectifies women.
Even worse was the final line I read, a quest line. Paraphrasing, but the primary descriptive words are all exact: "Go kill 10 kill peasants in a refugee camp". I don't think I need to elaborate, people who are on a similar page to me will understand why this was just an incredibly gross line.
I know the above two dialogue criticisms will not be shared by everyone and not affect everyone the same way. I am expressing them as part of what I felt, my personal criticisms and experience, just like the rest of what I'm sharing.
Again to compare to The Light Brigade... every line feels thoughtful and builds character and develops the lore. Whether its the forlorn lines of NPC members of The Light Brigade, or the scenes that appear between runs, and other bits and pieces you get. The Light Brigade develops so much world with few words, it's quite impressive and again a beacon that Urban Wolf Games can learn from.
The final issue I'll discuss was something that struck me earlier on. That is, player character model and lack of customization.
First of all - again an issue that the majority here probably won't be affected by - I could not pick my character model until after completing the tutorial. Specifically, I was forced to do calibration as a male character model, and then had to play the tutorial as this character. Minor complaint but again just another polish issue.
Both male and female models are just... boring designs, and the female model is again very juvenile, obviously serving a primarily male audience, whether intentionally or not.
But more importantly, there's no character customization. Not even the tiniest bit. Even the ability to change just skin colour and hair only would go a long way. Especially in a lengthy adventure like this, I need to be able to identify with my character. Especially with multiplayer it seems essential to me, but even if it were single player, and as someone who plays primarily in single player, character customization is hugely impactful to me.
This does not really have a contrast in The Light Brigade - there's no character customization in The Light Brigade either, although the kind of game it is, it's not as relevant. That said, I do think it would be a nice touch if there WAS some minor character customization in The Light Brigade, and especially if you could play as a woman instead of man if you so choose. Although maybe lore-wise it is intended that all members are male except for 'Mother'. This hasn't been established with any good reason though. So on this point I would lightly criticize The Light Brigade as well.
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ENDING THOUGHTS
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Ultimately, Legendary Tales is quite simply a very indie game that probably had a very small team and limited funds. I don't know for sure, but probably there *wasn't* a dedicated writer, a dedicated UI and interface designer, etc.
However, these things are still failings of the game and its design. The greatest indie games to me are ones that successfully recognize their scope limitations and develop something complete within that scope. Whether it's the roguelike world of The Light Brigade, or the very short and stylish Tiger Blade, or Jeff Minter's trippy games like Akka Arrh and Polybius, or the retro Silent Hill aesthetic of Organ Quarter, or the suspenseful hotel of Propagation Paradise Hotel... all these games are made by small teams but successfully navigate their limited funds to deliver a full package within an appropriately limited scope.
On the one hand, I really value and support BJ's push for indie games to be respected and for that respect to reflect in the price consumers are prepared to pay. But after being totally on board with the price of Legendary Tales based on what I read from BJ and reviewers and many regular players too, I have to disagree with this game's pricing. This game is not polished enough, and is not a full package. That the game sucked out so much funds is an error of scope.
Maybe I will be in the minority, and Legendary Tales has been a success so it seems that I am, and so good on them for knowing the value of their game to the demographic they targeted I guess. And regardless, even if the pricing and attempted scope of the game are an error on the dev's part, I'm glad for the dev to earn back as much as they can, or even turn a profit hopefully.
But to me, reflecting back to the question the devs put forward: "Do you want to see deep combat development like this in VR for a 40+ hour adventure from indie devs?" The answer is no, I don't. I do consider the scope of this game an error on the part of the developers. It sounds like they did not even turn a profit enough to allow them to expand their team (but maybe I'm misunderstanding). I hope that they do continue with VR development, but instead focus on a much smaller scope game. Deliver a polished, complete package within a smaller scope, implementing a much tighter budget that will allow for potential turning of profit with an appropriately lighter sale price (maybe targeting a $30 game?).
If that is successful, do it again, and again, until they can expand and eventually work toward their dream adventure RPG, hiring actual writers and UI designers and sound designers etc. For me personally, this is simply not the kind of game you can half-bake. It should be attempted again when, and only when, they feel they have budget to do this in a truly full and polished manner.
I had the pleasure of meeting BJ briefly at PAX East. He struck me as friendly, kind, totally genuine, and incredibly passionate as a game developer and a VR game developer in particular.
I do wish this team good luck and despite my own harsh criticism I am glad so many ARE enjoying this game, and also feel the price point is justified. I want devs to earn money, including Urban Wolf Games. And I hope that they will continue to develop and bring more VR to the world.
I hope that my criticism is constructive and useful toward these same goals.

EXT. CAMELOT - CASTLE DAY
(The castle of Camelot stands over grassy hills and crystal clear rolling rivers and seas. Gray clouds cover the sky and hundreds of soldiers and knights can be seen riding toward the castle. Text appears on the screen reading “CAMELOT” and then “CENTURIES AGO”.)
INT. CASTLE - THRONE ROOM - DAY
(MORGANA LE FAY (Centuries-Old), a beautiful middle aged appearing woman with sharp features and long flowing black hair, sits on the throne and holds Excalibur, the Crown of Camelot sits upon her head. Knights and soldiers march in linear motions through the hall. DEWIN (30s), a scruffily charming magician, enters in handcuffs, with guards behind him. Dewin marches up and presents himself to Morgana. Everyone in the room halts.)
MORGANA: State your name.
DEWIN: You know my name, Morgana.
MORGANA: State your name.
DEWIN: Dewinson of Merlin.
MORGANA: You are being tried with treason and conspiracy against the crown. Do you plead guilty to these crimes?
DEWIN: That depends.
MORGANA: On what?
DEWIN: Who you consider the crown to be.
(Dewin slips his handcuffs off and as he does three Blue Jays come flying out of his sleeve and begin to fly around the room.)
MORGANA: Enough foolishness. I find you guilty of the accusations placed upon you.
DEWIN: Then kill me.
MORGANA: Hm?
DEWIN: Let’s skip past the chatter and get my head on a platter. You see what I did there? Chatter platter.
MORGANA: Silence! Death is far too good for you.
DEWIN: Do your worst, no matter what Camelot will fall.
MORGANA: Is that a threat?
DEWIN: A threat would be something I plan on doing to you myself, the fall of Camelot, well that will be purely your doing.
(Morgana gets off the throne and draws a glowing circle around Dewin with Excalibur, as she does so Dewin lets out a small laugh.)
DEWIN: Binding me? My imprisonment shall not halter the winds of time.
MORGANA: I banish you.
DEWIN: What?
MORGANA: From this plane of time and place I banish you.
DEWIN: Not even you have the power to do that. Banishment spells have been hidden away for ages.
MORGANA: Hidden away in scrolls buried in this very castle. Dilflannu o’r awyren hon.
DEWIN: No.
MORGANA: Dilflannu o’r amser hwn.
DEWIN: No, no, stop.
MORGANA: Dilflannu o’r meddwl. Rwy’n eich gwahardd!
(Morgana’s eyes turn purple and electricity sparks all around Dewin and seems to be sucking the energy out of him.)
EXT. LONDON - FOREST - DAY
(A plain and put together autumnal forest. Text appears over the screen reading “LONDON” and then “EIGHTEEN EIGHTY FIVE”. Electricity sparks and Dewin appears in the forest dazed and confused. He is covered in scars and almost immediately passes out face forward into the ground.)
EXT. LONDON - FOREST - DAY
(As night begins to dawn Dewin is still incapacitated. A carriage led by a horse named, Sally, comes through the forest and halts at Dewin. ALDEN SMITH (Early 40s), a plump and posh man with a defining bushy mustache, cautiously hops out of the carriage. Alden looks around for a moment before spotting Dewin. Alden approaches Dewin and checks his pulse through his arm. Alden’s eyes linger on Dewin for a moment before looking up.)
ALDEN: Hello!? Is anybody there!?
(Alden waits for a moment before looking back down at Dewin. Alden sighs and then lifts Dewin up and into the carriage before hopping in himself. Alden pulls on the horse’s reins and it begins to march forward.)
EXT. LONDON - WICING DRIVE - NIGHT
(Alden drives his carriage down Wicing Drive and parks in front of a townhome, Twenty Six Wicing Drive. Alden gets out of the carriage, carrying Dewin, and walks up the steps. MINERVA SMITH (Early 40s), a stern yet radiant woman, opens the door in shock.)
ALDEN: It’s a long story.
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT
(A stereotypical Victorian living room made primarily of oak and illuminated by two small oil lamps and a burning fireplace. Dewin is still incapacitated and lies on the table covered in bandages, Alden and Minerva hover over him. Bottles of ointment sit next to Dewin.)
MINERVA: What were you doing in the woods?
ALDEN: It’s the fastest cut home.
MINERVA: And you just-
(Minerva is interrupted by Dewin’s sighing as he wakes up.)
DEWIN: Ah! Where am I? Who are you?
MINERVA: My name is Minnie, and this is my husband, Alden.
DEWIN: What’s happening?
ALDEN: I found you all bruised in the middle of the forest. Do you know what happened to you?
DEWIN: Morgana le Fay banished me.
(Alden and Minerva glance at each other.)
MINERVA: Oh lord, I think you're a bit confused.
DEWIN: I am not confused. I am Dewin, son of Merlin. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask if you could take me to a sage or healer?
MINERVA: Of course, Alden can take you tomorrow morning, but for the night you can stay here.
DEWIN: Why, thank you.
ALDEN: Minnie, may I speak to you in the other room?
MINERVA: Of course.
(Alden and Minerva step into the kitchen.)
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - KITCHEN - NIGHT
ALDEN: We can not keep this man in our home. He is mentally insane.
MINERVA: Which means we must watch over him.
ALDEN: I am looking out for our safety.
MINERVA: And where would we take him?
ALDEN: I don’t know. He is as mad as the Doeth man!
MINERVA: Then that’s where we’ll take him.
ALDEN: Stick to nuts together?
MINERVA: The man has some common sense and he’s very compassionate.
ALDEN: Perfect.
EXT. LONDON - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva Dewin sit in their carriage with Dewin outside of a small house that is slightly separated from the other homes on the street.)
DEWIN: So this is the home of a healer?
ALDEN: According to him. I will go to the door alone, I do not want to scare him.
(Alden gets out of the carriage and starts heading towards the home.)
MINERVA: So you really do believe that you are the son of Merlin.
DEWIN: I know who my father was. Why is this such a puzzle for you and your husband to wrap your heads around?
MINERVA: Why I’ve only heard stories of Camelot, myths of ancient pasts.
DEWIN: So Morgana not only shifted my place but also the time.
(Alden knocks on the home's door and is greeted by ALDRICH DOETH (Hundreds Of Years Old), an older looking man with crystals strapped around his neck.)
ALDRICH: Doctor Smith, have they finally sent someone to take me away to a nuthouse?
ALDEN: On the exact contrary, I’ve found a wounded man who claims to have been sent here by Morgana le Fay.
ALDRICH: That’s what the shift was!
ALDEN: What? You know what it doesn’t matter, as long as you’re willing to take this man.
ALDRICH: Yes, yes, bring him to me.
ALDEN: Minerva, send him up!
(Dewin comes up to the door.)
DEWIN: Hello.
ALDRICH: My goodness, the energy pulsates off of you.
DEWIN (TO ALDEN): This is the healer?
ALDEN: Yes. Now if you two don’t mind I think I will be headed back on my way.
ALDRICH: Are you sure, Doctor? It’s getting rather late, you and your wife are welcome to stay here.
ALDEN: Thank you, but there’s no need.
(Rain starts pouring out of the sky out of nowhere and thunder and lighting begin.)
ALDRICH: What about now, Doctor?
ALDEN: Minnie! We’re staying here tonight!
INT. ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - DAY
(A cluttered mess of books, candles, and potions. Aldrich, Alden, Minerva, and Dewin sit on Aldrich’s circular array of couches and chairs.)
ALDRICH: Before we dive in I suggest you go wash off, Dewin. The washroom is that small one to your left.
DEWIN: Thank you, Aldrich.
(Dewin gets up and goes into the washroom.)
ALDRICH: I know what you two think of me, the neighborhood’s resident crazy.
MINERVA: Not at all, Mister Doeth.
ALDRICH: Don’t lie, Minerva, our actions all come back to bite us.
ALDEN: So we think you're mental, what of it?
ALDRICH: There are dark forces amongst us, Mister and Misses Smith. I believe that Dewin is here to save us.
ALDEN: I appreciate you letting us stay here, but I think it’s time we leave.
ALDRICH: I will change this storm into an earthquake to keep you here if I must.
ALDEN: Come on, Minnie.
(Alden and Minerva get up and go to leave when the whole room begins to shake.)
ALDEN: What’s happening!?
ALDRICH: I warned you.
(Aldrich makes silencing symbols with his hands and the storm and the shaking stops.)
ALDRICH: Now will you listen to me?
(Alden and Minerva both sit back down.)
ALDEN: What are you?
AlDRICH: A magician, a clairvoyant, a healer, I am all of those things and more.
ALDEN: Why do you want us here so badly?
ALDRICH: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you are the one who found Dewin, Doctor Smith. He needs a guide in this vast new world. Prophecy states that when the second coming of the Camelot war comes, the savior will have a protector.
ALDEN: And why me?
ALDRICH: There are questions that only we can answer ourselves.
(Dewin comes out of the washroom and sits back down.)
ALDRICH: Dewin, please tell me exactly how you arrived here.
DEWIN: Morgana le Fay used an ancient banishing spell on me.
ALDRICH: The fall of Camelot.
(Suddenly a wind sweeps through the room that blows out all the candles.)
MINERVA: Mister Doeth, are you doing this?
ALDRICH: No.
(A match is lit in the center of the room to reveal GWENWYN LIGHTWOOD (Centuries-Old), a green draconic humanoid woman in black robes and a hood.)
GWENWYN: Aldrich.
ALDRICH: Lady Lightwood.
GWENWYN: I’ve tracked a shift in magic to your home.
ALDRICH: It is this boy, he was banished here from Camelot.
(Gwenwyn goes up to Dewin and takes her hood off to reveal her scaly appearance. Alden gasps in disbelief. Gwenwyn runs her finger down Dewin’s cheek.)
GWENWYN (TO ALDRICH): Hm. I presume you wish to let him roam freely?
ALDRICH: With guidance, yes.
GWENWYN: If one thing goes wrong you will be punished.
ALDRICH: I know.
DEWIN (TO GWENWYN): Who are you?
GWENWYN: The last of the dragons. Just as Aldrich is the last descendent of the Family Merlin.
DEWIN (TO ALDRICH): You're a descendant of my father?
ALDRICH: Of his sister, I have many of her poems and spell tombs still intact here.
GWENWYN: Magic is rare these days, endangered, most people don’t even know it exists. So are we under agreement on the boy, Aldrich?
ALDRICH: Yes, but something is still troubling. If you and I both felt Dewin’s presence then-
GWENWYN: Benjamin did too.
DEWIN: Who is Benjamin?
ALDRICH: A descendant of Morgana who wishes to rule the earth under her ideals.
GWENWYN: A very very dangerous man who will certainly kill me if he finds me here.
(Gwenwyn’s match extinguishes and after a moment the candles all reignite but Gwenwyn is gone.)
ALDEN: By Jove!
ALDRICH: So do you all accept this challenge?
DEWIN: What challenge?
ALDRICH: Defeating Benjamin Fayle.
DEWIN: Of course!
ALDEN: Absolutely not.
ALDRICH: Are you that repulsed by compassion?
ALDEN: I can’t risk Minerva of I’s life on what could all be me hallucinating.
ALDRICH: You're risking the world for a craven excuse.
ALDEN: Goodbye.
(Alden gets up.)
ALDEN: Let’s leave, Minnie.
MINERVA: Thank you for your hospitality, Mister Doeth, and good luck.
(Alden leaves, followed by Minerva.)
EXT. LONDON - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva ride through the street in their carriage.)
MINERVA: We were definitely drugged.
ALDEN: Absolutely.
EXT. LONDON - WICING DRIVE - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva hop out of their carriage.)
ALDEN: I’m going to bring Sally back to the stables.
MINERVA: Goodnight, love you.
ALDEN: I love you most.
(Minerva goes up and enters Twenty Six Wicing Drive as Alden detaches Sally from the carriage and begins to guide her down the cobbled sidewalk with one of his hands on her reins.)
EXT. LONDON - FOREST - NIGHT
(Alden guides Sally through the forest to a set of stables. Sally suddenly rears up and neighs in terror.)
ALDEN: What is it Sally?
(Sally suddenly breaks off her reins and runs towards the stables. A figure in a dark purple hood and robe sweeps past Alden and their eyes glow purple. Alden screams.)
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - BEDROOM- DAY
(Alden and Minerva lay next to each other asleep in bed. Alden wakes up screaming which awakens Minerva.)
MINERVA: What’s the matter?
ALDEN: Just a night terror.
MINERVA: We did the right thing with Dewin, he’s with someone like him now.
ALDEN: Is that really a good thing? I think I’m going to go to the pub.
MINERVA: This early in the morning?
ALDEN: I need to clear my head after yesterday.
INT. GRIFFIN’S TAIL PUB - DAY
(A traditional Victorian pub. Dewin sits at the bar and is served by BRYNN CROWING (Early 30s), a charming bartender.)
BRYNN: What can I get you, Mate?
DEWIN: Just a pint of mead, please.
(Brynn goes and pours Dewin a pint of mead that she brings back to him and he begins drinking.)
BRYNN: I like your outfit, it’s very medieval.
DEWIN: It was made by the tailor of Sir Gawain.
(Brynn gives a light chuckle.)
BRYNN: What’s your name?
DEWIN: Dewin, and yours?
BRYNN: Brynn.
(Alden enters and sees Dewin. Alden leaves, but as he does he spots another person in a dark purple robe and hood with glowing purple eyes.)
DEWIN: You're very beautiful.
BRYNN: Why, thank you.
DEWIN: Would you like to go for a stroll?
BRYNN: My shift here doesn’t end till six.
DEWIN: Then I’ll see you then.
BRYNN: I guess you will.
(Dewin finishes his mead and drops two silver coins with dragons etched into them on the bar before swiftly leaving. Brynn picks up the coins and looks at them with confusion and yearning.)
EXT. LONDON - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - DAY
(Alden knocks on the door and Aldrich opens it.)
ALDRICH: I’ve been expecting you, come in.
(Alden follows Aldrich into the home.)
INT. - ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - DAY
(Alden and Aldrich sit across from each other.)
ALDRICH: Can I offer you some tea?
ALDEN: No thank you, I want to be in the clearest state of mind possible here.
ALDRICH: So what ignited your appearance here?
ALDEN: I’ve been seeing these people.
ALDRICH: Who are “these people”?
ALDEN: They wear these dark robes and their eyes glow purple.
ALDRICH: Faley’s society.
ALDEN: What?
ALDRICH: Benjamin Faley, the evil man I mentioned last night. Is this what caused you to believe?
ALDEN: What are you saying?
ALDRICH: That you believe in magic.
ALDEN: You're mad.
ALDRICH: Exactly, so the fact that you came to me shows that there’s at least one lingering thought in your mind that magic is reality and reality is magic.
(There’s a moment of silence between Alden and Aldrich.)
ALDRICH: Where have you been seeing the people you mentioned?
ALDEN: Everywhere that Dewin has been.
ALDRICH: Oh no, oh no, no, no.
ALDEN: What is it?
ALDRICH: Dewin is going out with a woman tonight.
ALDEN: Already? He’s only been here for a day.
ALDRICH: He's charming but also so foolish. You must watch them, in case Faley strikes or even worse this woman is working for him.
ALDEN: What could I even do to stop that?
ALDRICH: You are destined to protect Dewin, and at this point your logic for denying all of this is purely irrational. You're not hesitating because you think it’s not real, you're hesitating because you know it is. He is meeting her at six outside of the “Griffin’s Tail”.
ALDEN: I’m not going.
ALDRICH: We both know that you will.
ALDEN: Farewell, Mister Doeth.
ALDRICH: May the spirit of Merlin be with you, Doctor Smith.
(Alden gets up and leaves.)
EXT. LONDON - GRIFFIN’S TAIL PUB - NIGHT
(Dewin stands outside of the pub when Brynn comes out of the side door and walks towards him.)
BRYNN: I wasn’t expecting you to show.
DEWIN: Why wouldn’t I?
BRYNN: Most men flirt and then leave, half of them are married.
DEWIN: They are not true gentlemen then.
BRYNN: I suppose not.
DEWIN: Shall we begin walking?
BRYNN: Sure.
EXT. LONDON - STREETS - NIGHT
(Dewin and Brynn stroll down the streets of London. Alden follows them from a distance.)
DEWIN: This world is so beautiful.
BRYNN: Compared to all the other worlds you’ve been to?
DEWIN: Well Camelot obviously has a better scenic view.
BRYNN: Camelot?
DEWIN: My home land.
BRYNN: You're full of jokes.
DEWIN: I’m not joking.
BRYNN: What?
(Suddenly someone grabs Brynn into an alleyway and she screams. Dewin quickly turns to see no one beside him and runs after her, followed by Alden.)
EXT. LONDON - ROOFTOP - NIGHT
(The clear skies suddenly turn gray and ominous as Dewin arrives on the roof of a building to see three people with glowing purple eyes in the dark purple robes and hoods with one standing in the center holding Brynn with a dagger to her neck. Alden arrives on the rooftop.)
ALDEN: Bloody hell!
DEWIN: Let go of her!
(The three people take off their hoods and their eyes go to normal shades. The person holding Brynn is revealed to be DABRIA (30s), a menacing looking woman.)
DABRIA: Dim mynd i mewn dim dianc.
(A purple hazy force field appears around the edges of the rooftop.)
DABRIA: So you are the one sent to stop us.
DEWIN: What do you connote?
DABRIA: We are the Citadel of le Fay.
DEWIN: Oh no.
DABRIA: Who are you?
DEWIN: My name is Dewin, I am the son of Merlin, and I demand that you let Brynn go.
DABRIA: Why? Is she your protector?
BRYNN: Dewin, what are they talking about!?
(Dewin starts to move his hands around and a wispy blue energy begins to come out of them.)
DABRIA: Get him!
(The two other people with Dabria rush towards Dewin to attack him, but he uses the energy he created to push them around and drop them both to the ground. Dabria drops Brynn and her dagger and Alden rushes to pick up the dagger and succeeds.)
DABRIA: You are foolish, Dewin.
(Dabria pulls a gun out of her robes and shoots it at Dewin but he turns the bullet into a flower. Dabria shoots more but each time Dewin does the same thing until Dabria is out of bullets. Alden sneaks up behind Dabria and stabs her in the back. Dabria shrieks in pain and then disappears in a cloud of black smoke. Brynn gets up off of the ground.)
BRYNN: What the hell just happened?
DEWIN: Are you okay?
BRYNN: Not mentally. What in the world is going on here? How did you turn bullets into flowers!?
DEWIN: I told you I’m from Camelot.
(Alden drops the dagger.)
ALDEN: Did I just kill that woman?
DEWIN: Most likely not, you didn’t stab deep enough to hit any organs.
BRYNN: What do we do now?
DEWIN: Go home and call it a night.
BRYNN: I can’t forget about this.
DEWIN: I’m not asking you to.
ALDEN: If any of us speak of this people think we’re insane.
DEWIN: Then don’t speak of it.
BRYNN: Will I see you again, Dewin?
DEWIN: Did you enjoy tonight?
BRYNN: I was almost killed.
DEWIN: That doesn’t answer my question.
BRYNN: Meet at the pub on Friday after my shift.
INT. TWENTY SIX WICING DRIVE - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT
(Alden and Minerva lay next to each other.)
MINERVA: Do you think the Citadel will return?
ALDEN: Unequivocally.
MINERVA: What have we gotten into?
INT. BENJAMIN’S LAIR - NIGHT
(A cavern full of crystals and magical runes. BENJAMIN FALEY (30s or 40s), an attractive but uptight looking man, sits on his throne. Dabria enters and walks to face the throne, she bows and then gets back up.)
BENJAMIN: Did you find him?
DABRIA: Yes, Master Faley.
BENJAMIN: And did you find his protector?
DABRIA: Yes, but it’s not the girl.
BENJAMIN: Then who?
DABRIA: A Doctor Alden Smith.
BENJAMIN: Did you kill the doctor?
DABRIA: He deeply wounded me.
BENJAMIN: Then the battle goes on.
DABRIA: For Morgana.
BENJAMIN: For Morgana.
INT. ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - NIGHT
(Aldrich and Dewin sit across from each other drinking tea.)
ALDRICH: There are many things in this world, Dewin…
INT. GWENWYN’S CAVE - NIGHT
(Gwenwyn stands in the middle of a circle of candles. She stretches out her hands and forms magic blue charts and graphs with a picture of Dewin.)
ALDRICH (VOICE OVER): Forces we can’t explain…
EXT. LONDON - ALLEYWAY- NIGHT
(Brynn wears only her undergarments and takes a few coins from a man.)
ALDRICH (VOICE OVER): Secrets we hide…
INT. BENJAMIN’S LAIR - NIGHT
(Benjamin sits on his throne.)
ALDRICH (VOICE OVER): And villains we must defeat.
INT. ALDRICH’S HOUSE - LIVING SPACE - NIGHT
ALDRICH: You are the key to this all, Dewin, you are the son of Merlin.