I think we're all aware by now of the conspiracy that's building in the background of 2077. Most of us know about the mysterious Blue Eyes who appears in The Sun ending to the game. He operates as The Stinger of sorts for (that) ending of the game; He and V discuss a job vaguely alluded to through out the ending sequence and then the ending cuts to V in space charging off towards The Crystal Palace. Cue DLC Hook and credits.
But, let's go back here. This is only the tail end of the conspiracy and where it actually intersects with V's story. Blue Eyes (and some connections to him) crop up multiple times through out the game and, when pieced together, start building a larger picture that runs deeper into Night City than the pockets of most corporats.
I've finished my second playthrough of the game and I've been drafting this post as I play and find more clues. I doubt I'll find everything or might completely dismiss some, but I want to be on the front lines of uncovering this mystery, especially if this will be our Gaunter O'Dim for Cyberpunk 2077. I apologize for the length of this post ahead of time, but I need to summarize a bunch of lore and at least 4 major side-quests; "I Fought The Law", "Dream On", "Full Disclosure", and "The Prophet's Song".
Here's a long essay incoming, but I hope you chooms enjoy and I hope you read through to the end because, oh boy, I uncovered some cool shit!
So, who is Blue Eyes? Who are his contacts? What is his role in the ecosystem of this city?
"I FOUGHT THE LAW"
Let's start with where he most appears in the game; Jefferson and Elizabeth Peralez, political family in the running for Night City's first family. Which I kinda have to summarize their questlines, including the first one which Blue Eyes never appears in. But I'd prefer to go in chronological order and not jump around, so stick with me.
Elizabeth first contacts you for the job "I Fought The Law". It's fairly basic, but the quest tells us she convinced her husband to hire V to look into the recent death of Mayor Rhyne. We get a BD of a cyberpsycho attack by Peter Horvath on Mayor Rhyne. Weldon Holt leaves the room before the attack and then the security gate crashes right before Peter walks in with billions of eddies worth of chrome. The attack is unsuccessful and stopped by Detective River Ward, who was only there because Peter went missing internally at the NCPD and he knew where Peter would go.
When investigating Peter Horvath, his previous boss describes him as paranoid that "probably thought Mayor Rhyne talked to him through the TV" and that the world was out to fuck him. She then mentions that someone "finally saw what he was worth" which cues into how Peter was thrown into this attack in the first place; he had a patron who funded his chrome and the attempt on Rhyne's life. Tellingly, River than goes into a little talk about how clues rarely make sense until put into the larger context, much like we're doing right now.
V goes to the club Rhyne died in; The Red Queen's Race. V sneaks through, takes out some Animals, and can investigate what actually happened to Rhyne. If we read the emails on the office terminal, we know that Weldon Holt arranged for Rhyne to be there. He initially mentioned this to Rhyne during the first BD; Rhyne asked Holt directly to arrange his usual room at the club. So, this doesn't inherently look too suspicious on it's own, but Holt knew where Rhyne would be. We also find out via the Animals Boss there that Weldon Holt is the one who hired them to smash up the club and they're currently waiting around for payment. Further, you can go to the room Rhyne died in, find the BD headset, and put it on... which INSTANTLY knocks V out and they need to be rescued by River (who, btw, takes out any Animals on the property you didn't get to! Ty bro!). They surmise that Rhyne was killed by a virus in the headset. Lastly, we find footage of Detective Han (River's partner) covering up the death of Rhyne. They confront Han, V goes off to the Peralezs, and quest ends.
Of note, finding the BD set is a hidden dialogue option with the Peralezes suggesting, yes, that's the correct deduction to make. You don't get that option otherwise. And V never actually comes to any real conclusion to what happened to Rhyne.
So, let's summarize what we know about the death of our Mayor. Peter Horvath was hired by an unknown Patron who spent a ton of money to turn him into a suicide bomb against Rhyne. They have connections internally to the corrupt NCPD which allowed Horvath to get access to Rhyne, both from escaping NCPD custody and for the security to give him access to Rhyne's conference room. That fails so our mastermind instead assassinates Rhyne at his usual sex club, one that we know for sure Holt knew about. Rhyne is assassinated via malware in a BD porno headset, NCPD comes in an Detective Han cleans it up. Later, Holt hires the Animals to take claim to the club and fuck it up.
Holt is looking suspicious AF rn, but we also don't have any direct evidence and V says as much if you accuse him. Personally, I think it's a little too clumsy if it's him. Holt leaves the room just as an assassination attempt goes down, sets up a sex club appointment for the Mayor where he's successfully assassinated, NCPD covers it up... and then he hires a gang to cover it up more? Something doesn't fit here.
My theory is Holt is innocent. He's a scum bag, but not the culprit here. Why would you EVER give your identity to the Animals you hired to cover up an assassination? The big dumb brutes of the underworld? A name they give up with almost no fight? No, I think someone hired them under Holt's name. And I think they hired them because they KNEW the BD Headset was left behind; Han dismissed it entirely as Rhyne dying of a heart attack brought on during sex. They needed that destroyed to cover the final footprints. It's the only piece of evidence that doesn't have Holt or NCPD's name on it and doesn't fit the narrative that both are pushing. If they're covering NCPD or Holt's tracks, why not delete the emails or footage of Han? And if Holt or Han were trying to push this false narrative, why leave the headset right there the first time?
And, while I have no evidence of this assertion, the Animals are only still there because they're waiting for payment to come in... I think our employer never intended to pay them and left them in the path of V, who is likely to shoot them and tie up the loose end for our mysterious entity. Animals destroy the BD set, V shoots the animals, no trace. And, even if he doesn't, Animals will point V to the wrong person.
No, we've got a third party here. But let's continue so we can finally let our lead actor take center stage.
"DREAM ON"
"Dream On" starts when Jefferson calls V and asks them to help in another case. Long and Short; Jefferson woke up in the night and found a man in a mask (or an implant) standing over him. Jefferson shot the man, only for his head to fry and knock him out. Coming to, he's back in bed with no evidence it ever happened. SSI, their private security, insists that there was nothing on the cameras, no evidence, and nothing happened. Elizabeth claims she slept through the whole thing event.
V investigates the apartment, with Elizabeth giving the tour, and finds a lot of evidence. Elizabeth is kinda dismissive at first thinking V won't find much. First small stuff leading into larger reveals. Let's start small and work our way up.
First room Liz takes us to is the campaign room. She talks about running the campaign entirely out of pocket and having to keep most of their supplies at the Penthouse; "It's cheaper that way". You find a picture of their daughter on the wall and Liz explains that she's off at university in Europe while Jefferson is running for office; "It's easier that way" she says. That phrasing again.
EDIT: A redditor in the comments pointed out that the Peralez are being controlled via drugs in their food as part of the tech. They mention they've been eating fast food lately, explaining why Jefferson was lucid enough to catch the agent and shoot him.
V can look at Jefferson's emails (which Liz slightly discourages them, saying there's nothing there) which reveals a bit more about their campaign. There's a video of the iconic commercial and poster of Jefferson pulling out a gun and shooting a bunch of paperwork. In the email, Jefferson HATES this commercial, but his assistant, Lea Patel, insists on it as it will air in television time slots with action-drama series and catch the attention of voters. Further emails have Eric Boucher, Jefferson's Campaign Partner (Manager?), saying Jefferson has been acting unpredictably lately; presumably referencing one of the next emails. Boucher is confused because they fired Lea Patel together, only for her to continue working and sent him a new ad for approval. When emailed, Jefferson is confused about Lea being fired at all and doesn't remember the event ever happening, even telling Boucher to be honest if he has some issue with her. A final email is from SSI Chief of Security, Wallace, discussing Jefferson's intent to hire a merc to look into Rhyne's death ("Dream On") and they suggest Jefferson drop it or have NCPD or themselves look into it. Private Security just... offering to investigate the former mayor's death? Huh... sounds more like they want to squash the issue to me.
We should now talk about the Peralez's campaign. As you explore the apartment, Liz explains that they're running on a corp free campaign; they want to get Night City out of the control of the corps and do so without ever owing any favors to them. She specifically cites "Night Corp, Militech, and Petrochem" as ones they've denied. Militech and Petrochem come up a few times in other quests but Night Corp is relatively obscure. And they choose that corp to be the first one she mentions? Stands out to me. It also isn't lost on me that we're talking about running a campaign out of pocket and refusing corp assistance... while walking on the fancy ass balcony of a penthouse in Charter Hill- North Oak.
Next room, we find Jefferson's office. Elizabeth and Jefferson both graduated with law degrees from Asukaga University in Berkley. V points out it would be extremely expensive for them both, but Elizabeth says that both got full ride scholarships from the Richard Night Foundation, run by Night Corp. To further fucking cement this moment, there's a Richard Night biography shard on the desk. But we'll drop this for now because I want to get to Night Corp a bit later.
The computer on the office desk has some emails on it sent by Elizabeth. One is between her and Judy where she's asking Judy for help on the original "I Fought The Law" quest and Judy is the one who gave her your contact in the first place. Another is from their daughter kinda asserting the same thing earlier; safer for her in Europe so she's not a target on the campaign trail. And here's the interesting one; Boucher emailed Elizabeth asking why Jefferson changed his mind on Lea Patel. Elizabth says Jefferson explained it to her that it "slipped his mind" and "circumstances changed in Lea's favor" and she asks him to drop the whole thing. She's dismissive and gives extremely vague details.
Next room, Bedroom. Elziabeth's gun is on the table. It's the one Jefferson claimed he fired and scanning it tells us that it has been fired recently. We also find the wedding photo of Jefferson and Elizabeth where she fondly talks about having blue roses because she loves them so much... except the photo's roses are red and V says as much. Elizabeth quietly corrects herself that they only had red roses instead and moves on.
In the hall, we find the blood trail and gun shots in the wall; both covered up hastily. Following the trail, we enter a tv room. The Smart Glass isn't working and Elizabeth says it stopped working recently; not like they use it much anyway. Passing a Tech Check lets us try and fix it... only to be quickly blacked out by it so hard Johnny felt it too. V asks Elizabeth about it but she doesn't know what V is talking about despite having been standing right there. We also find a hidden door in the wall. Unlike earlier, Liz is actually confused by the door but demands V try and open it.
Downstairs we have the security room. Liz says that it used to be her place but "Security had to set up somewhere" and that she had to make sacrifices for this campaign; "it wasn't the first nor will it be the last". One computer has a Welcome email from SSI to new recruits. It details that they have access to all areas except Section Zero, which is reserved for Blue or Black agents and that, should the encounter a Blue or Black Agent (SPECIFICALLY "in the night"), do not interact or acknowledge them. The next email from Wallace mentions an accident where there was a "behavioral anomaly" and "ALPHA" injured a Blue Agent (BLUE-66M) who is in critical and the SSI head is requesting access to Sector Zero to give medical aid. SSI gives Wallace the code to Sector Zero and sends a team to aid. SSI knew about the accident and lied. You go to the second computer, unlock it, and can unlock the upstairs door. On that terminal is a bunch of deleted files (presumably the security footage from that night) and emails discussing "normal maintenance procedure" and further informing security that ALPHA (Jefferson) hired a merc (V) and, should security encounter them, do not interact with them.
Small thing I found interesting, a shard called "You Are What You Slot" is found down here too. It details a fictional assassin who kills and then steals the identity of her victims. Small and doesn't mean much on it's own, but the shards are hinting at the story here; one of false identities and manipulation.
Now, let's get to the main event; the secret room. Inside is a control center. Elizabeth is horrified and feels violated. She shouts that she's not letting SSI anywhere near them, only for her head to start hurting and she tells V to do what he needs to do. She leaves him. Inside the control room is a box of bloody medical supplies. The computer discusses "behavioral norms" for ALPHA (Jefferson) and suggests amplifying "neural dampening". It discusses things similar to Wallace's terminal, but from the other side; ALPHA is displaying odd behavior by hiring a merc, the SSI teams avoided meeting the merc, and then the actual accident that occurred injuring BLUE-66M during regular 'maintenance'. The other side of the room also has another data shard, "Rewriting Synaptic Pathways", basically talking about using tech to rewire the brain a bit.
Following some wires from the control room to the roof, we find a signal dish. Johnny (replacing Elizabeth for conversation now that she's gone), joins in that the tech looks prehistoric but functional and that Militech used it in the war; it requires line of sight to transmit data but otherwise can't be intercepted. We can see the tower and go to investigate. V tells Liz the whole deal; V can suggest that the Van near the tower could be SSIs or that it might not be due to unconventional tech. Liz then itterates twice that it's a stressful campaign time for Jefferson and V should talk to her, NOT him. "Sure, whatever" V and the player dismiss.
(I SWEAR WE'RE ALMOST DONE WITH THE SUMMARIZING FOR DREAM ON, I'M SO SORRY.)
We drive after the van, Johnny is suddenly excited for smashing a corpo conspiracy and iterates that citizens do not choose their representatives, instead they're chosen by "key players" who watch the Peralezes for weaknesses or blackmail material. We arrive at the facility patrolled by Maelstrom and the occupants of our van park, get out, and climb ladders to the roof where they get into an AV that is cloaked to be near invisible (as shown in a couple of vids on YouTube and this subreddit).
At the place, Maelstom is explained; "UNKNOWN USER" contacted them while driving the van for protection to take care of V and then destroy the van. Van's data makes it pretty clear; the Peralezs' minds are being manipulated, new neural pathways are being created, and their memories are being created, changed, or erased. There are also a couple of other names of other test subjects. The data is then erased. We do see an almost flower like symbol before the data is destroyed.
The agents on the cloaked AV CAN be killed and do drop a shard, thought it doesn’t have many more details, merely that they’re contacting HQ to arrange extraction and that the Van’s data should be destroyed and echoing the arrangement with Maelstrom mentioned earlier in their shards.
V calls Liz, Liz wants to meet in person instead of over holo and send him to a Japantown Raman shop (same one that used to be Rainbow Cadenza, coincidentally). Odd choice for an upstanding congresswoman. She says her nerves are shot, the ramen shop is a quieter place to meet than the apartment, and she needs a moment to gather herself since she last saw V, with V even asking if something has happened since they last saw each other. Of note, Liz is stress smoking the entire scene, something she hasn't done until now. She then explains, no, it's been over a longer period of time. She's been watching her husband change and act differently for awhile; he stopped reading, his taste changed, and he even insisted he was an only child and never had a bother when Liz asks about visiting the grave. Of note, yes, Antonio Peralez has a Columbarium Vault, which proves Liz is correct on this. She confesses that she herself has been told by others she's been acting strangely. V says she knew what V would find and she asserts that she doesn't know the who, how, or why, but "they're changing us". Jefferson apparently went on in great detail about a trip she swears they never went on, but she doesn't know if the vacation is a fake memory or if she's the one that doesn't remember.
She saw a stranger in their apartment tinkering with a monitor, only for him to be missing when it was reported to SSI and they looked at the feeds. The next day, she got a phone call from a stranger (whom she refers to by "he") saying that she's walking on thin ice and Jefferson could have an accident. They later erased all data that the phone call had happened. Elizabeth claims she's terrified for herself and her husband's safety and doesn't want V to reveal the truth. V points out "they" could be telling her to say that but it doesn't really change how she feels since she just wants Jefferson to be safe. She tells V to tell Jefferson it was SSI spying for Holt. She asserts she wants SSI out of her roof if they're spying on their sleep. She will take responsibility for firing SSI, but wants Jefferson to be safe and out of that fight. She adds a meeting with Jefferson to his calendar at Reconciliation Park. But, ultimately it's V's choice (especially since she has no idea if she'll remember the conversation) and leaves. Johnny jumps and and talks and mentions that there were talks like this back in his day and worrying about the damage a puppet mayor could do.
V heads to Reconciliation Park to meet with Jefferson. Entering, V is called by an Unknown Number which blacks out V's optics. They claim to know who V is, *what* V is, and what V wants. It doesn't matter what V tells Jefferson, but "don't dare cross that line" and "you're playing with fire". Its a garbled male robo voice, so safe to say it's irrelevant to the owner.
Enter Stage Right, our missing lead; Mr. Blue Eyes. He is standing on a balcony watching the place where we meet Jefferson. In the Scanner, he is labeled "Mr. Blue Eyes", has no known affiliation, is wanted for "SC 370", and is wanted for "Classified". His eyes are electronically glowing blue you can even see from several yards away. You cannot injure him as grenades do nothing and you can't aim at him. Of small note, and I don't know if this ACTUALLY means anything, but his hair style asset is referred to as Morgan Blackhand in the files, but could mean nothing if this hair is actually used by other NPCs. MOST LIKELY THIS IS NOTHING UNLESS SOMEONE HAS FURTHER INFO.
(Plot twist: It meant something. But we'll get there.)
V sits with Jefferson and can reveal the truth; "SSI is on the take from an unknown group to control your lives". V can even point out the absurdity of Peralez being as successful of a politician as he is without any corp sponsors. "They want you to be *their* mayor. Molding you like clay". You can tell Jefferson how to proceed and additional details, but it doesn't matter. Later, Jefferson will send a text and delete your number and so will Elizabeth, who will call you out for telling Jeff. In the end credits voicemails, Jefferson has decended into paranoia about some vitamins Liz gave him which he didn't trust so he sent them to the lab, only to then not trust the lab results saying they're fine. Jefferson Peralez is confirmed the new mayor during Late Act 2 and the major difference is his state of mind at the end game; either hiring V to be on his security staff or descending into absolute paranoia over everything in his life.
Lastly, Johnny appears and cryptically talks about back in his day when they'd talk about rogue AIs. Personally... I kinda completely dismiss this? It comes out of nowhere, Johnny cites NOTHING for why he'd bring this up in relation to the case, and I can't fathom a motive. I’d also point out that this isn’t the only time Johnny is outright wrong. In fact, he’s wrong A LOT in the game. For example, he criticizes V for listening to the Netwatch Agent and that he’s bullshitting you. Except, the agent is 100% correct that VDB did spike V as a suicide virus and Johnny is actually wrong. He also claims he doesn’t know what happened with Thompson after Never Fade Away, but this is a lie because Thompson is flying the AV Johnny takes to Arasaka in 2023. The only connection I can find is "Who is controlling Blue-Eyes" which might make Johnny correct, if just not in the way 'Rogue AIs' initially implies.
So, what actually has happened?
The Peralez family has been molded for a very long time into being the perfect political couple. They got scholarships from the Night Foundation for two fancy law degrees, have successful political careers, and Jefferson is running for Mayor on an anti-corp platform, an insanity for Night City. And he's actually successful at it. During a maintenance service at night on the Peralez's apartment, Jefferson woke up and shot an SSI/Unknown agent making repairs. The Control Booth knocked Jefferson out and they pulled the agent out of the apartment into the secret room. SSI put the Peralezes back into bed and hastily cleaned up everything, but the damage was done and Peralez hired V who uncovered mostly everything.
Elizabeth seems to be initially very upset by the discovery, but wants V off the trail when we meet her next. However, she's not in on it as she's equally a victim to the brainwashing/gaslighting and that's for certain. I think she's a pawn who is either too scared or too programmed to break the rules of movement on this chessboard. It's worth noting that, while the unknown entity threatens Jefferson's life and V's well being, they do not make due on either of these threats. I call their bluff. They have put too much work into Jefferson to abandon or kill him.
But, where else have we heard of this gaslighting brainwash process before?
"FULL DISCLOSURE"
Ok, we're on the shorter end so I don't have to actually explain this quest in full. Sandra Dorsett is a netrunner and a very skilled on at that, actually collecting data from Night Corp. She was kidnapped by the savs we rescued her from at the beginning of the game shortly AFTER she stole this data, suggesting Night Corp was behind it. This data is on the shard she asks you to collect during the aforementioned quest. V has full ability to NOT read it, but let's look at it; "Operation Carpe Noctem" ("Seize The Night" in Latin)
Described in it is an experiment on Night Corp's own employees where they are quietly brainwashing them and getting them to do whatever they want. They specifically cite an empathetic and calm employee who they got to fight a co-worker and then jump from a 16th floor window. The shard ends on mentioning that they're ready to install CN-07 on "our actual target".
I think multiple quests discussing brainwashing and gaslighting is too coincidental to be utterly unrelated to each other. I think Night Corp's actual target mentioned here is Peralez.
So, what is Night Corp?
Night Corp is the most mysterious of the corps in Night City. It currently operates to better Night City via philanthropic ventures, fundraising, community support, and city infrastructure. Basically, while Militech and Arasaka and the others operate in the city, Night Corp basically RUNS the actual city. They're also noteworthy for the level of security they have that even the best netrunners can't get much from them and, since they keep to themselves and seemingly just do city infrastructure stuff, no one really super bothers them. It has been run by Miriam Night, wife of late-Richard Night, until recently and we currently don’t actually know who runs NightCorp.
Originally, they were the Night Foundation, but that requires explaining Richard Night... oh boy, Lore Drop. I'll make it quick as possible.
Richard Night is the founder of Night City. He started as a partner of a firm, but his ambitions grew beyond that to founding "Night International" to build his dream; a city that would be so grand it would make all other cities pale by comparison, Coronado City. A capitalist mecha of opportunity, Night City would be run by corporations and have next to no anti-business policies on the books. Arasaka, EMB, and Petrochem were his first backers and he came into claim of land on the central-California coast; Del Coronado Bay and Morro Bay would be the location of his dream city.
(BTW, irl, Morro Bay, California is a real place. Been there, have family there, go there regularly, kinda cool!).
Despite being a capitalist mecca city and run by corps, Richard Night also dreamed it to be "A sprawling metropolis, free of crime, of poverty, of debt. A place where people could live safely, peacefully, without having to worry about the dire situations that were growing around the world at the time".
However, due to the design plans, Night didn't employ local contractors and instead got expensive architects and builders from all over the world. Local builders didn't like that, they had mob connections, bloodshed started. And soon Richard Night was murdered by an unknown assassin, presumably a mob hitman. The city was renamed Night City in his honor and his dream utopia became to embody everything that was destroying the world. Mob took control and corps didn't give a fuck since it didn't hurt them any until they eventually had to take out the mob gangs, but not in any favor to Night’s dream either.
Miriam Night, Richard's Widow, founded the Night Foundation (later Night Corp) to stick to Richard's Ideal dreams of what he wanted the city to be. They invest heavily in ecological research, alt power sources, civic infrastructure, public works, and charities and scholarships for Night City youth. "They've even managed to stay out of the normal corporate power struggles which tend to plague every other corporation, both inside the city and out. Even the shadowy corporate rumors about them, like having underwater bases in the bay or access to orbital satellites, remain unsubstantiated despite extensive investigation."
So, where does this put us now? We have ONE last quest...
"THE PROPHET'S SONG"
Garry The Prophet is our local crazy man. He spouts off insanities to anyone who will listen near Misty's Esoterica in Kabuki. However, some of his ideas aren't quite as much off the mark as one might think. There ain't no technonecromancers from Alpha Centuri (or Spanish Inquisition) nor is Saburo Arasaka an immortal vampire, but he was correct that Saburo wasn't dead and in fact immortal; via Mikoshi and The Relic.
He send you on a quest to investigate a meeting; he says that his ripper mistuned some cyberware in his head and he can hear their communications. You show up to a meeting between corps and Maelstrom. They say some nonsense phrases and transfer a data shard. Reading it ("Destroy After Reading") it seems like nonsense. But does include the line "The cages of men melt as night descends". You can decode it via a Null Cipher; first letter of every line: “Project Oracle Command Execute Plans”.
We don’t know what Project Oracle is. In real life, secret project or operation names actually tend to be chosen at random and are unrelated to the actual project (you can google funny stories about names that ended up awkward to the actual project), so this could mean nothing. But, narratives tend to give meaning to everything. Oracles are mythical in references and could predict the future or see the unseen. Perhaps perfect prediction via behind the scenes manipulations? Not sure we’ll get answers on this one for now.
Going back to Garry, he's been kidnapped. His protoge is screaming he's been kidnapped "Black suits came by - blue eyes and all". Blue Eyes huh? Further, she claims that they threw him into an invisible AV... Huh, like the one we saw back during "Dream On"? "Night's comin... The eternal night"
So, it’s time to jump us to the final step in our Fool’s Journey: The Sun.
“THE SUN”
The Sun ending has V wake up in their new penthouse apartment (with their love interest if they have one). Checking the computer, we see emails from our dear Mr. Blue Eyes. He wants an answer from V as to the job to the Crystal Palace he has planned and that they’re on a tight schedule for “obvious reasons”. We meet with him at the Afterlife and he talks about the job; Casino security is going into maintenance and V mentions giving him the casino client list. V also asks him to “hold up your end of the bargain”. They never discuss eddies or payment. It’s all in such vague terms. “Your end” or “Obvious reasons”. Smaller point but an email from Vik on the space shuttle also tells us that he’s asked around about Blue Eyes and has nothing; either he works with people WAY above Vik’s paygrade or he’s shady as hell… or both.
I think Blue Eyes knows V is dying (the obvious reasons) and I think the unspecified payment is V’s survival. V always says that they want to come back to their love interest so it’s not a mindless suicide run and I don’t think V would risk it all for nothing but eddies; especially not after Reaper (both versions) paint suicide runs as a horrible terrible thing. To then glorify it in another ending… no, the game is smarter than that.
Your love interest doesn’t seem to be too upset about the situation either. Panam and Judy leave V in The Sun due to their lives taking different directions, but it seems mostly amicable and understanding. They even express desire to see V again because they know V needs to do this job. Kerry, who stays with V in The Sun and expresses worry and also a desire to settle down with V, also seems mostly understanding that V needs to go on this quest. I don’t think they’d be so calm and loving and understanding if this were a suicide run. They know more than the player does.
Further, I think Blue Eyes isn’t after the casino aspect of the Crystal Palace at all. While that’s the major commercial aspect of the station as marketed to the citizen world, the station also has embassies from every nation on earth, facilities from all the major corporations, and is pretty much THE place where all the dark corporate espionage goes down. There’s so much more to this location than ‘casino resort’. *EVERY* corp has space stations and hideaways in space because the Crystal Palace offers it’s own legalities and opportunities that are not allowed within Earth’s terms and conditions. If they want to do some research that would be frowned upon elsewhere and get up to some Top Secret shit, it’ll be in outer space. Night City is controlled by corps and has lax laws, but outer space’s are even more so.
I think the cure V wants is not only on the station, I think it’s what Blue Eyes himself is after, but I’ll get there when it’s time to theory craft about the future.
I think it’s worth noting; Blue Eyes IS IN THE TRAILER FOR THE GAME. Yeah, anyone remember that shot on a shuttle with a guy being burned out from the inside? Yeah, he’s there. In the foreground. *Smirking*. The shuttle also seems like they’re in space.
These events leading to the Crystal Palace and the conspiracy with Blue Eyes are blatant DLC Hooks for the future and suggest a post-game DLC. This isn’t the first CDPR has done so either; Blood and Wine takes place after the story of Witcher 3 and is explicitly incompatible with the worst endings of that game. I think, conceivably, other endings where V is still alive could be roped into this adventure; Blue Eyes merely needs to hire them with the same offer of survival. While The Star takes V to Arizona and away from Night City, I think that choice of location is appropriate as, to even get to space for The Crystal Palace, citizens go from LAX to Arizona for a space port to launch them off Earth’s surface. They could have chosen anywhere else to send Panam and V, but they choose Arizona, huh. I do think Reaper, Temperance, and Devil will be locked out of this future, however, as all make any point of Blue Eyes hiring V irrelevant; there’s no V left to hire/save. MAYBE a rejected Devil ending, but I wouldn’t blame them for not continuing that conclusion either as Devil is one of the bad endings.
So, it’s finally time to really compile a lot of this information into where I think this is going in the next comment below

Your 14-minute Tuesday report in 3589 words.

Pashinyan about pre-war negotiations and "avoiding" the war:

The idea that a flexible foreign policy could have avoided this war is being constantly circulated. Those [former officials] who believe in this thesis must answer at least one question: as a result of their "flexible" policy, why was it not possible to avoid the war of 2016, which was preceded by the unprecedented escalation of 2015 and 2014?
The "flexible" policy adopted by Armenia for many years led to the introduction of Russian proposals in January 2016, which proposed the return of 7 territories (5 + 2) without any legal status for Nagorno-Karabakh.
Why did Russia make such an offer? For one simple reason, as a result of Armenia's "flexible" policy, the Madrid process had come to a standstill because Artsakh could receive a Status outside Azerbaijan only with the consent of Azerbaijan.
It was obvious to Russia and everyone else that Azerbaijan would not agree to this, so it was necessary to find ways to break the deadlock.
And, by the way, if certain people claim that Armenia's foreign policy after 2018 was not sufficiently pro-Russian and this was the reason for the war, then why in the conditions of the "sufficiently pro-Russian" policy of 2016 were Russian proposals born and why did the April war take place?
There was only one way to prevent this war: return the regions and forget about Artsakh's legal status. Now, after the war is over and we know the outcome, the number of supporters of [giveaway of 7 regions] is growing. What they forget is that if we gave away the lands to avoid the war, we would have the same situation in Syunik borders. They used to accuse us of "selling lands" [he means the contradictory statements like Nikol sold the lands, and why didn't Nikol sell the lands earlier to avoid the war].
The biggest failure by the supporters of the "flexible policies" is that they spent years trying to avoid a war instead of preparing for it. Our biggest failure is that we weren't able to recover enough embezzled public property in the past 2.5 years to help us better prepare for the war.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039231.html

businesses owned by opposition leaders

What are the known businesses owned by some of the famous people you might have seen in the public square lately?

Vazgen Manukyan

20% share in Lorva Amrots Ltd which plans to operate two hydro-power plants on Dzoraget river. Manukyan purchased the shares in 2011 after being appointed by Serj as the head of the Public Council.
In 2015-2016, he owned 30% shares in Vanavka Group. In 2015-2017 he had 30% shares in Jermakunq Group. These companies extracted and bottled water. At the time, the director of these companies was charged with illegal bottling and causing ֏55 million in damages to the state. The corruption case was sent to the IRS, which terminated the investigation after "not finding a crime". The companies export the products mostly to Russia.
 

Arthur Vanetsyan

Vanetsyan is a poor boy, according to the public declarations database. But if you have time, take a look at the investigative report I covered in Ap29/2020 news, according to which Vanetsyan's family allegedly used offshore firms and owns mining shares. More on that here. Here is a Hetq investigative report.
Vanetsyan's father owns AV Group flower importing business. About a year ago, the police investigated several flower sellers near a stadium. An opposition outlet claimed that the sellers were "beaten and forced" to testify that Vanetsyan's father was running an underground business. This was never properly proven and the opposition's claim that Vanetsyan was about to be charged did not happen. The police confirmed that there was an investigation against several flower sellers. These flower sellers ended up hiring Vanetsyan's co-party-creator Arsen Babayan as a lawyer.
Vanetsyan's father owns 50% shares of A B Export oil import company that began operating in 2017. It was a minor player that quit the market in 2019. Vanetsyan's father also owns 60% of A B Trans transportation company.
In Nov/2019, CivilNet wrote about Arthur Vanetsyan's cousins' possible involvement with Zangezur Copper factory (massive business). The same offshore firm in Cyprus, which purchased Zangezur shares, was tied to Vanetsyan's cousins' another business in the same offshore.
Vanetsyan's cousins also own a Switzerland-based Exoil wholesale cooking oil and shipping company. In 2019 it had a revenue of $148 million (11 billion Rubles). The cousins don't do this business in Armenia.
Per 2019 registration, Arthur Vanetsyan himself owns one apartment, $10,000, and ֏1 million.
Media reported in May/2020 that Vanetsyan's cousin purchased a ֏300 million mansion in Yerevan, which was donated to then-new political party "Hayreniq", co-founded by Arthur Vanetsyan and Arsen Babayan (the guy who is accused of helping HHK to fabricate documents in 2018 to hijack the Constitutional Court by appointing HHK MP Hrayr Tovmasyan as a judge).
Arthur Vanetsyan's mother served as the chief of the personnel-management department in Serj and Pashinyan administrations, before quitting and working as Serj's aide.
Vanetsyan's wife owns Villa Montessori preschool in Yerevan. She also runs the Young Education Center Ltd.
 

ARF Ishkhan Saghatelyan

Pashinyan appointed Saghatelyan as Gegharquniq governor for a brief period after the 2018 revolution, when Pashinyan created a unity-government, represented by all political parties. The honeymoon soon ended and each party went their way.
Saghatelyan owns shares in i-mega Service Ltd. It's a tourism agency founded in 2006. It operates in Armenia, Artsakh, and Georgia.
Saghatelyan founded Navasar company and serves as director. It's owned by his father.
Saghatelyan family owns the Tsovasar hotel complex on Lake Sevan shores. It's 10,000 m² (a hectare?).
As of 2018, Saghatelyan declared ownership of 8 pieces of land, 2 apartments, ֏18.5 million, $45,000, and €15,000.
Saghatelyan's father is the mayor of Gegharquniq's Geghamavan settlement. This municipality had recently sent a letter demanding Pashinyan's resignation.
Saghatelyan used to be a shareholder of Shiman Ltd which is no longer active.
 

BHK leader Gagik "dodi gago" Tsarukyan

BUCKLE UP, KIDS! Overall, Tsarukyan runs 54 companies. Студент, комсомолец, спортсмен, u наконец, он просто красавиц.
His business empire was covered in details here. Textile, gas stations, malls, Multi Group empire, Shangri-La Casino, Ararat Cognac & Wine Factory, BMW official office Euromotors (also Hyundai, Gazel, Niva), Multi Motors, Magas Invest, Multi Wellness, Olimpavan sports complex, Kotayk beer factory, TechnAlyumin door & window factory, Multi Rest House hotel chain, Paravon luxury restaurant, Onira Club, Zvartnot's airport's upper-level service company Avia Service, Farm Adama, Multi Pharm pharmacy, Multi Leon gas stations, Multi Solar solar panels.
He owns shares in Frank Mueller Yerevan watch company, Fortsa, Multi Gold, Multi Diamond jewelry firms, several fish-breeding businesses.
He also runs businesses in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Czechia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Latvia.
Per official declaration, he owns $168 million, €29 million, ֏675 million, 14 pieces of land, 6 houses, 2 public buildings, 1 apartment.
 
Details for BHK MP Mikael Melkumyan and HHK Vahram Baghdasaryan in the link below.
 
https://fip.am/14388
https://hetq.am/hy/article/88755
https://www.reddit.com/armenia/comments/gagkyp/apr292020_wednesday_news_armenia_being_sued_fo?
www.civilnet.am/news/2019/11/01/Զանգեզուրի-պղնձամոլիբդենային-Մաքսիմ-Հակոբյանի-ու-նրա-որդու-փոխարեն-նոր-բաժնետերեր-Ժնևից-և-Աջափնյակից/369792
www.1lurer.am/hy/2020/01/29/Բենզինի-շուկա-Արթուր-Վանեցյանի-հայրը-դուրս-է-եկել-ոլորտից-Միքայել-Մինասյանի-մերձավորը՝-խոշորների-մա/182670

opposition continues the demonstrations

The street demonstrations, organized by the former regime and its allies, continue. They demand Pashinyan's resignation and the appointment of their candidate Vazgen Manukyan as the Prime Minister for the duration of a year, after which they agree to hold new elections.
ARF leader Artsvik Minasyan said they don't plan to discuss snap elections with Pashinyan. "Right now, our only demand is Pashinyan's resignation. We demand SIS to immediately hold every criminal accountable". The demonstrators gathered in front of the SIS building to present the demands.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039316.html

Pashinyan meets leaders of several opposition parties

QP leader Lilith: there is a possibility there will be a meeting between Pashinyan and the three Parliamentary political parties. They could discuss snap elections. The impression is that politicians who demand Pashinyan's resignation do not want snap elections in an attempt to bypass the citizen's right to form a government. Our political team reaffirms the position that none of us is clinging on seats. //
LHK MP Gorgisyan: we cannot hold snap elections now, under this chaotic situation. We will discuss snap elections if Pashinyan discusses his resignation and transfer of power. (LHK wants its leader Marukyan to be elected as Prime Minister by a Parliamentary vote) //
Pashinyan met BHK leader Tsarukyan. The latter is against holding snap elections unless Pashinyan resigns now, and presumably, he wants Vazgen Manukyan appointed as PM.
LHK leader Marukyan also wants Pashinyan to resign now so a new Prime Minister can form a new government cabinet "consisted of experts".
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039261.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039268.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039299.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039322.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039323.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039327.html

felony case: ex-HHK MP charged with armed attack on ex-IRS official

In August of this year, Russia extradited a former HHK MP Alraghatsi Lyovik to Armenia. He was wanted for allegedly burglarizing and shooting at a senior IRS official a decade ago. At the time, his case was "frozen". It was relaunched in 2018. (magic wand)
NSS says: suspect Lyovik, with the help of citizens AK and AN, organized an armed burglary against IRS Chief (?) Avetisyan in 2008.
AK was in the United States. In 2004, he stole $150,000 from jewelry shops in Los Angeles. He got caught but managed to flee to Armenia.
Once in Armenia, AK colluded with policeman AN to organize a similar criminal ring in Armenia.
[MP] Lyovik personally knew AK, and learned about their burglaries. Since Lyovik had bad relations with the IRS chief (victim), he decided to punish the victim by urging AK to burglarize his house. Lyovik revealed the plot to his brother-in-law, who happened to be the victim's personal aide. The latter gave all the personal habits and details about the victim to the burglars.
[read the article for the full story, or wait for a Hollywood movie in theaters near you]
The burglars and organizers are charged with felonies.
https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/203835 , https://youtu.be/brdozVbwQ6A , https://factor.am/274836.html , https://armtimes.com/hy/article/183522 , https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/203835 ,

Russian Orthodox chapel will be built

... in the Armenian settlement near Nakhijevan where Azerbaijan had earlier shut down a Russian helicopter, which killed and wounded Russian pilots. It'll be on a hill in Yeraskh. Construction starts on January 6th.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039259.html

Russian peacekeepers conducted training

... to stay in shape. A report by WarGonzo's Semyon Pegovn who returned to Artsakh to meet the New Year there.
https://youtu.be/-c1BSTkC-a8

Russia and Turkey comment

Russian MFA: The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh should not be used for the infiltration of foreign mercenaries into the region. Here we have exactly the same position as our Turkish partners.
Turkish MFA: we see that a ceasefire has been established. We hope to establish the joint RU-TR monitoring center soon.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039281.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039282.html

Vitalik Balasanyan will return the lands, kicks junkies, and restrict Facebook

Artsakh President Arayik earlier announced that he will allow his opponents to take jobs in the new coalition government. Kocharyan-ally Vitali Balasanyan became the Security Council chief.
Vitalik: we will return Hadrut and Askeran region with the help of Russian and Armenian military-political efforts. We are in a better situation now to solve territorial issues.
We will soon create border guard forces. It will report to MoD, which will report to the Security Council (his office).
Drugs have no place in Artsakh. Drug users must quit or leave Artsakh now.
We need to return to traditional values of giving women as wives after asking if the man had served in the army.
No public official will be allowed to use Facebook during work.
More: https://youtu.be/DceHyi4AB5g
https://www.panarmenian.net/arm/news/289056/

search operations are paused / the "welcome to Azerbaijan" sign

Azerbaijan received criticism for refusing to allow search teams to enter the Hadrut region yesterday. They also prevented UNESCO from checking the status of several Armenian cultural sights, after complaining that UNESCO was "biased" against Azerbaijan during the war.
HR Ombudsman: Any untrue information can not be a reason to disrupt the humanitarian process [referring to unconfirmed rumors on social media that Armenians opened fire at Azeris in Hadrut. An unofficial Iranian social media channel claims 3 Azeris were killed but due to an internal fight.]
The Human Rights Ombudsman also criticized the Azeri troops for installing a provocative "welcome to Azerbaijan" sign on part of a road that went under Azeri control near Syunik borders. The Ombudsman says it's meant to intimidate the locals.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039233.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039237.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039244.html , https://factor.am/325511.html

Parliament votes: BHK MP Naira Zohrabyan's chairmanship

Context: BHK MP Naira Zohrabyan referred to the majority of Armenian voters as human trash *(or as she says: impure), and called for the establishment of forced re-education camps so people won't vote for a "wrong party" again. The ruling QP party launched a process to terminate her chairmanship in Parliamentary Human Rights Committee. Read yesterday's thread for more details.*
QP MP Arthur: the law states that the Parliament can appoint and terminate the chairman. The termination of this seat does not require the same procedures as in the case of MPs and Judges. Armenian Constitution states that in Armenia, human beings are of the highest value, and inalienable human dignity is the inseparable basis of their rights and freedoms. MP Zohrabyan's public conduct is against it. //
The law gives the second-largest political party the mandate to appoint the chairman of this particular Committee. BHK, being the second-largest party, said they wouldn't appoint a replacement if Zohrabyan is voted out.
QP MP Arthur: per rules, if BHK refuses to appoint a new candidate, the largest (QP) party will receive the mandate. //
Parliament voted 78-4 to terminate Zohrabyan's chairmanship. BHK and LHK did not vote.
BHK MP Zohrabyan: this termination was a Constitutional crime.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039245.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039264.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039304.html , https://factor.am/325132.html

Parliament votes: registering parties becomes easier / ideology instead of person / financial transparency

The goal of this reform is to have political parties that are more about ideology and less about an individual. The reform will boost internal democracy within parties; it will expand the powers of the Party Assembly.
Parties will be required to add more anonymous voting mechanisms.
The law also requires more financial transparency.
The required membership to register a party is lowered from 800 to 300.
Some of the public funding given to political parties will depend on the % of female members in the administrative boards.
Parliament voted 99-1 to approve it.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039270.html , https://youtu.be/bPuZViCCCxo

Parliament votes: monthly fees towards soldiers' recovery are raised

Most workers pay a monthly 1000 Dram towards the Soldiers' Fund, which takes care of wounded soldiers and families of those who died. The govt found it necessary to raise the fee to cover thousands of new recipients. Here are the new fees and salary brackets:
֏1,500 for < ֏100k/month
֏3,000 for < ֏200k
֏5,500 for < ֏500k
֏8,500 for < ֏1 million
֏15,000 for > ֏1 million
Parliament voted 89-0 to approve it.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039296.html

Parliament votes: ban on public smoking is delayed until 2022

The govt had adopted a law to ban smoking in public cafes and the public display of cigarettes in grocery shops. The ruling party wanted to delay parts of the bill that were set to go into effect in January, citing possible financial issues for businesses caused by the pandemic.
QP MP: the cigarette industry pays $383 million to state coffers.
Healthcare Ministry: it will be a mistake if you delay this bill for the sake of $10 million in tax revenues.
Parliament voted 86-0 to delay the anti-smoking bill until 2022.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039295.html

Parliament votes: no tax on goods donated to Armenia

QP MP: When you donate a charitable product to the Republic of Armenia, you are exempt from customs duties and other tax payments, except for one payment, which we are trying to exempt with this bill as well. //
Parliament voted 80-0 to approve it.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039297.html

how is the Judicial Branch doing?

The Supreme Court protects or punishes judges. It also handles complaints. It's separate from the Constitutional Court.
bad boys
19 complaints against judges were heard, 14 of which were petitioned by Justice Ministry and 4 by Judicial Ethics Board. 10 judges ended up receiving disciplinary penalties, 3 received a warning, 3 were reprimanded, 2 were terminated, 4 were cleared.
the system is overloaded
61 judges are handling 6470 felony cases.
86 judges handle 175,940 civil cases.
24 judges handle 17,390 administrative cases.
The number of Arbitration cases rose from 3100 to 9900.
finances
This year, Supremes appointed 20 new judges. Supreme's budget remained the same this year. They returned ֏607 million in savings back to state coffers.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039249.html , https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039284.html

anti-corruption: SIS busts an IRS agent

SIS says: IRS border inspector took a bribe from a citizen to help him avoid paying Millions of ֏ in import taxes by splitting a large load into smaller pieces, so each piece would fall below the taxable threshold.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039293.html

IRS wants you to file less paperwork

IRS says the latest reforms will help the exporters and simplify the process in which Armenia is used as a transit country for trade. Some tasks can be done online.
More: https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039247.html

update: electricity prices

...won't go up for low-income families or those using less than 400 kWh. That's 90% of consumers. The rest will pay 3 Drams more. The rates are presented (6-10¢):
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039285.html

police to guard Lake Sevan against poachers

Police and Nature Ministry have set up additional checkpoints as part of measures against whitefish poaching in Sevan. 24/7 monitoring on all alleys leading to the lake. They will also travel across markets to catch contraband whitefish.
Why? It's the egg-laying season. Fishing is banned for now. The legally-allowed fishing tools were temporarily removed from the lake.
https://youtu.be/8ZyRGpEazMQ
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039339.html

rare Caucasus Leopard is spotted by cameras again

https://youtu.be/2nidC5QJaIg

"only 10% of villagers should do agriculture"

...the rest should have access to other jobs. There is an opportunity now because many businesses operate remotely. Call Center workers don't have to visit an office. Businesses would rather pay less to hire a rural remote worker than more to hire someone in a Yerevan office.
The High Tech Ministry has an ongoing program to teach IT to 5,000 citizens. We must help workers to expand their skillset. We're working on a program to allow a worker to quit the job, not worry about the food on the table, and have enough time for education and learning new skills.
The villagers should ideally lease their smaller lands to large agricultural producers," said Economy Minister Qerobyan.
Full interview: https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039319.html

State regulators bust another price-fixing ring: fruit mafia

Yesterday, the Economic Competition Committee busted the egg industry's alleged price-fixing and anti-competitive practices. Today they say a similar collision was observed in the orange, mandarin, kiwi, lemon industry.
The companies Best Fruits, Art-Fruits, and Promout were slapped with a ֏39 million in penalties for colluding to raise the prices for the products that had an increased demand during the pandemic period.
http://www.competition.am/.../resources/Vo370_17_12_2020.pdf
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039269.html

Lenovo slapped for "anti-competitive practice"

The Economic Competition Committee heard a petition filed by Oazis Computer company against Lenovo. The latter was issued a warning for anti-competitive behavior.
Public Regulator: "Lenovo" company had the ability to influence the process of importing Lenovo computers to Armenia from non-EAEU trade bloc countries. "Lenovo" took steps to reduce the import of Lenovo computers from non-EAEU states, by discriminating against Oazis Computer importer. Lenovo is given a month to correct the issue and fix the requirement and standards related paperwork.
(Facebook next?)
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039333.html

Artsakh will also increase childbirth benefits

First child: ֏300k instead of ֏100k
Second child: ֏300k instead of ֏200k
(or ֏500k if one parent is disabled)
As for monthly child care subsidy payments, it goes from ֏15k to ֏27k until the child turns 2.
https://factor.am/325487.html

year wrap-up: births in capital Yerevan

girls 2019: 10173
girls 2020: 10489
boys 2019: 11251
boys 2020: 11430
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039278.html

year wrap-up: tax revenues

2018: ֏1.257 trillion
2019: ֏1.458 trillion
2020: ֏1.379 trillion
https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/203846

COVID stats

+2483 tested. +348 infected. +22 deaths. +1267 healed. 13881 active.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039240.html

chess news

Levon Aronyan has advanced to the Airthings Masters quarter-finals where he will play against Hikaru Nakamura. He is 1pt behind the leaders. The winner receives a $60,000 prize.
https://www.chess.com/news/view/airthings-masters-chess-day-4
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039228.html

French city of Valence to name a street

... after Artsakh capital Stenapakert. It already had Ijevan Park, Armenia Street, and Yerevan Street. Stepanakert Street will be located in a newly built district. There will be Toros Street as well.
https://youtu.be/EuQV5bt4Ytc
https://www.armtimes.com/hy/article/203833

Italian city of di Lovere has officially recognized the Artsakh Republic

https://www.facebook.com/HayastaniDespanutyun/posts/3499573803472410
https://factor.am/325379.html

Kapan Medical Center has a new CT scanner

... thanks to generous diasporan donors like you. The first one was installed during the war in Goris city.
https://factor.am/325090.html

Artsakh children receive New Years' gifts

Focus on Children Now charity organization distributed gifts to hundreds of Artsakh kids residing in Gegharquniq province. Backpacks, clothing, items of basic necessity, money, and postcards written by kids living in the United States.
https://www.focusonchildrennow.org/
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039302.html

Himnadram donates to refugee families

700 Artsakh families continue to live in 40 settlements of Gegharquniq province. The All Armenia Fund (HimnaDram.org) has provided food and household items to 241 families ahead of New Year.
https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1039313.html

daily life in Syunik bordering villages Shurnukh and Vorotan

https://youtu.be/E1UJd4NtLLs
https://www.civilnet.am/news/2020/12/29/Շուռնուխ-Որոտան․-կյանքը-անկոչ-հարևանների-հետ/414772

donations for Artsakh & recovering soldiers

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

archive of older posts

Armeniapedia's archive of my daily news threads:
http://www.armeniapedia.org/wiki/Daily_Anti-Corruption_Reports

disclaimer

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

After I tried to stop this series and start a new series (which failed), I am back in the driver's seat for King's Survivor's final phase, since it would probably have lasted longer if Adobe didn't cancel Flash (thanks for rushing my series, mate!). This season, I tried to do what u/swoldow did before and make a season called Saints Vs Sinners, where 10 people who embody the term "Saint" will face off against the people who embody the term "Sinner", but unfortunately, it seemed like a lot of the people who signed up misunderstood the definition of saints and sinners. For the love of god, someone who is slightly villainous is not a "sinner", and average people are not "saints". Oh well. I guess it's the best I'm gonna get. Here is the cast:
Kahramanca (Saints) Tribe:
Ardet Prifti, 31, Rhythm Guitarist, u/Twig7665
Ardet lived a difficult life. Born in Albania with a family that was associated with the mafia meant that Ardet was never safe, and one day, he came back home to find his whole family had been murdered by the Albanian mafia. He spent years on the street, struggling to survive, before he discovered his musical talent. He played a guitar (which he had to steal), which enabled him to earn money. After a few years of doing that, he moved to the United States, where he did his best to get into the largest music college in that country, and actually succeeded. He met some people that became his bandmates, and soon they were pretty popular in the underground scene. When their fame exploded, Ardet's bandmates grew either egotistical or paranoid, but Ardet saw fame as a way to spread awareness for mental illness. He has now become a strong supporter of mental health charities around the country, and he signed up for Survivor to raise money for one of the charities he supports.
Ava Chrisly, 23, Kindergarten Teacher, u/Gemini_B
Ava was born deaf. After her father died when she was 3, her birthmother struggled to care for her and her 3 siblings. Ava was especially tough since she needed special treatment and one night her birthmother left her on the doorstep of a rich widow with a note explaining how Ava got there. The Widow, not wanting to deal with a deaf child, left her outside where she spent a cold night alone and scared. She came across Marissa, a young girl who ran away from home. Marissa took pity on her and the two banded together.
They spent years together on the street with Ava learning to read lips and Marissa learning sign language. Marissa quickly saw that Ava had a gift with children and encouraged her to find a job with kids. Ava didn’t want Marissa to leave, but then Marissa surprised her by revealing she had a scholarship to a teachers college. Ava went off to the collage and became a kindergarten teacher, but when she returned she learned that Ava had gone to jail for stealing from a rich old woman and using the money to bribe a college administrator. Ava promised she’d help bail Marissa out, and learned about survivor. She’s hoping she can win the million to help free Marissa and get their lives on track.
Chelsea Rutherford, 22, Lifeguard, u/IAmWolfNinja
Chelsea was the heiress to the throne of a foreign country with a corrupt government. The wealth that came with such a status meant nothing to her, since she was utterly disgusted with the actions of her family. Knowing her resentment for their governmental policies, Chelsea's family gradually became verbally abusive towards her. Unable to take any more, she escaped as a teen to pursue her own path. When she arrived in America, Chelsea wanted to do everything she could to erase her dark past and the actions of her family, so she got a job as a lifeguard, where she has saved countless lives. She's occasionally recognized as an heiress, but when it's brought up, she tends to have nervous breakdowns.
Chester "Cap'n" Richardson, 67, Retired Naval Officer, u/swoldow
Some may see him as just the average old man, but Cap’n has seen and done things most people couldn't fathom. Cap’n joined the navy at a ripe young age about 5 years before the Cold War began, and learned everything from afar, slowly working up the ranks. When things got bad in Vietnam, he was given the chance to take charge of a ship during the war, and he immediately said yes. He ran the ship strictly, but he got both respect from everyone, as well as being genuinely liked as a person by his crew. He led them to many naval victories but unfortunately that didn't last, when his ship was shot with a torpedo, which blew the whole thing up and killed everyone on it, except for Cap’n. With the emotional baggage of watching people he has gotten to know kick the bucket, he immediately resigned from the navy after. As a result of the shipwreck, his mindset has changed, as he’s now super overprotective of his family, and still can't let the explosion go after years and years of retirement. He hopes Survivor can help him learn more about himself, and be the thing he needs to live the rest of his life in peace.
Cornelius Von Helton, 52, CEO, u/Gemini_B
Cornelius was raised by a family that had fallen from riches and was in tough times. He never expected to get to go to university but got lucky by getting a scholarship for his creative greeting cards. While at university, he enrolled in a business course and after collage started a greeting card business with some friends. All of his friends quickly gave up on the business, but Cornelius stuck through it. When he made a greeting card that was delivered to Eddie Murphy, the comedian was impressed and hired him to do his greeting cards to his friends, family, and invitations to parties. Quickly other celebrities started to hire his business and many fans wanted to get into the trend. His business rapidly expanded and he soon found himself with a company that covered parties, greeting cards, published books and even dabbled in a touch of Realestate. While in his thirties though, Cornelius was mugged while on a walk in the park and got stabbed. He was quickly rushed to the hospital and while there, he was nursed back to health by his soon to be wife. He claims that she saved his life and proceeded to date her after leaving the hospital. She was reluctant at first, but he quickly charmed her and the two have been married for 15 years now. He has two children, a son aged 10 and a daughter aged 8. He's continued to run his business, but leaves most of the work to his higher-ups as he wants to be able to spend as much time with his family and employees as possible. He views his employees as his family and does his best to remember all their names and make the workspace as nice for them as possible. He's come to survivor because his wife loves the show and wanted to compete, but due to growing health issues can't. She's trained him to win, and he wants to do this and win for her.
Dana Vasquez, 43, Stay At Home Mom, (filler character)
Greg Zimmer, 40, High School Teacher, u/AngolanDesert
Greg is one of the nicest people you will ever meet. He is very trusting and kind and will do anything for the people he loves. Since he grew up in Texas, hard work has always been his priority. He knows that if he wants to win this game, he has to work hard at everything he does. Greg decided to be a high school teacher so he could teach his students the importance of hard work. He has been a fan of survivor for a while, so when he saw that applications for survivor were going out, he knew he had to join in. Hopefully, he won’t disappoint his students.
Gwendolyn "Gwen" Wallerby, 52, Baker, u/ghetra
Gwen works at a bakery where she gets to do what she loves every day: make many different kinds of pies. She is a very warm, loving person and has a reputation for helping out whoever needs it, usually by baking for them. Baking takes a lot of patience and strength, and she is stronger than she looks. She naturally has a very loud voice that sometimes irks people, but once they get to know her it quickly becomes endearing. Now that her children are out of the house, she has started reading much more and taking classes on different subjects that interest her. The world is her oyster.
Kirk Smolarek, 62, History Teacher, u/Twig7665
Kirk never had a normal childhood. His mom walked out on his family not long after he was born, and his father was a former Polish soldier with PTSD and a severe drug addiction, leading to Kirk experiencing abuse from him for as long as Kirk can remember. Wanting to escape his miserable life, he smuggled himself on a boat bound for Australia when he was 16. Lo and behold, the ship got caught in a windstorm and ended up sinking, and Kirk and a few other survivors ended up stranded on an island. After spending more than a month there, he was taken back to his homeland after being found there. He ended up being the only survivor of the whole ordeal. He was returned to his deranged father, where the next time his father tried to abuse him, he fought back, causing his father to end up in the hospital. Deemed not guilty because he defended himself, Kirk did not spend time in prison for this. His father on the other hand did spend time there for drug-related charges and child abuse, but was killed by another inmate before he could be released. Kirk then went to college, where he studied history there, and decided to become a history teacher. He then kept that job title for over 40 years now, and despite being in his 60s, he is still an enjoyable presence for his students, as he incorporates unusual teaching methods to make his students interested in what he's teaching. Despite being financially stable, he wants to win the money so he can be well off when he retires in a few years.
Maralyn Sander, 32, Tour Guide, u/Void_Drone
Maralyn gives tours of New York, driving around in her bus, answering questions, watching broadway shows. And she spends most of her money on her family, except for the money she spent on her pink pearl necklace. She enjoys the tours for the most part, but when she's alone she vents about how annoying the tours can be.
Kotu Adam (Sinners) Tribe:
Alexa Station, 20, YouTuber, u/IAmWolfNinja
A 3AM YouTuber who arrived late to the trend, Alexa has a tendency to flex her belongings when no one really cares. She was recently involved in a scandal where she faked her boyfriend's death, causing endless amounts of controversy, and a near arrest. Her sub count is dropping significantly every day, so she joined to help gain her popularity (relevancy) back.
Carter Witworth, 23, College Student, u/JTsidol
Witworth, he was born to a extremely rich family, but his parents didn’t have time for him, but spoiled him rotten, when he got into school, he was known for being a bully, however no one confronted him, and everytime he’d get in trouble or fail a test, his parents would pay his way out, last year, he got a slap in the face, when his parents yet again had to bribe the college board to accept him, they cut off his allowance, he’s playing just for the money, nothing else.
Irvin Eamers, 32, Olympic Sprinter, u/asiansurvivorfan
A born athlete, Irvin loved competing in all sports but wasn’t known to play fair as he was never a team player and would often torment others to win. He started training for the Olympics at the age of 17 and eventually got the opportunity to compete in multiple Olympics where he took home many gold medals. However, they were striped from him when he was caught doping and using steroids to give him an edge in races. After the controversy, Irvin’s current wife left him and he was banned from competing in any future competitions. He came on Survivor for one reason and that is that is the money as he’s currently being sued by the Olympic committee.
Jessica Abrefa, 25, Poker Player, u/Twig7665
Jessica wasn't the most well off growing up, she lived in Alabama, where racism was rampant. As such, she was bullied for her race, until one day, she decided that they will all be wrong about her not being able to do anything because of her skin colour. She publicly humiliated the whole football team at her high school, and that stunt got her expelled in her senior year. She didn't care, and then she decided to run away to Las Vegas, which she did. While there, she started modeling, but found it boring. She then picked up the hobby of gambling, and played her first poker match when she was 21. She proved herself to be a formidable foe by beating one of the top poker players at the time, a dude named Brett Herman. Impressed by her skills, he tried to form a bond with her, but she turned him down due to him being a very paranoid man. Now, Jessica dates and cheats on men almost daily, and is considered one of the top female poker players, despite only playing for a few years. An avid Survivor fan, she wants to be as flirty and manipulative as she is in her real life. The only problem would be meeting another poker player, but she finds it unlikely that she will.
Joey "Wildcard" Caruso, 24, Poker Player, u/wordonthestreet2
Joey did not grow up with the best moral compass as his father notoriously had ties to the mafia. He used the money his father made through illegitimate businesses to gamble throughout his teenage years. When his father learned about his poker abilities and how easy it was for him to manipulate his opponents they began using his poker career as a way to launder mafia money through various casinos. He is known for his excellent poker face and unpredictable style of play which earned him the nickname Wildcard.
Maize Nguyen, 28, Heiress, u/Vicctoryy
From the outside looking in, the Nguyen Family Dynasty of San Francisco looks like a well supported and strong business, but from the inside, things are crumbling apart. The matriarch and patriarch are always at each other's necks over the company, leaving their children to clean up their messes. Maize, being the oldest, has taken it upon herself to lead the company, and she leads with an iron will and even harder iron fist. While she seems like a worthy replacement for her faulty parents, she has never been afraid to leave with force. Anyone at the receiving end of a verbal lashing from Maize is likely to not return to work the next day, or ever again. She is arrogant, rude, demeaning, and yet she gets things done. Saving the company from absolute bankruptcy caused a lot of backlash, but Maize couldn't care less. Success should be accomplished by stepping on the necks of those who aren't ready for the power, and Maize has done that exact thing. Any person in Maize's way has been an obstacle she has to conquer, and with a flip of her finger, that obstacle is no longer a problem. She has never been afraid to crack a few eggs to make an omelette, and unfortunately, those eggs have just been working class people struggling to make minimum wage and put dinner on their table. Too bad for them according to Maize. Maize has come to Survivor to prove that the Nguyen Dynasty is far from over, and their business monopoly will run on for years with Maize at the front of it. She is the iceberg, everyone else is a ship with no idea of what's in their way. Those too bold to step in her way are trampled, quite literally. Maize has no problem with controversy, controversy brings attention, attention brings money, and money brings power.
Molly-Anne Benson, 26, Marketing Assistant, u/ghetra
Molly-Anne is a social butterfly. She loves chatting with people about pretty much anything and loves meeting and getting to know new people. She has a natural charm about her that draws people in, but sometimes people are bothered by how chatty she is. She also loves to gossip and is not above spreading rumors. However, she is rather sensitive and can be set off by just about anything. She frequently will push people's buttons if they offend her and will hold a grudge until the end of time.
Nikki Lopez, 29, Stripper, u/Void_Drone
Randall Martin, 49, Real Estate Agent, u/TDSwaggyBoy
Being a self proclaimed sleazeball, which is a very weird thing to be proud of, Randall's life was never too good. He didn't grow up with a lot of close friends. Sure, people liked him at first, but when they really got to know him they didn't appreciate him nor his antics very much. Randall had to make a name for himself. He quickly found a career in the world of real estate. Not even his co-workers enjoyed his company, but they appreciated his skills. Being a fast and smooth talker really pays off in his industry. And now, Randall wants to put his skills to use in SURVIVOR. How well will that pan out?
Vito Luco, 49, Used Car Salesman, u/swoldow
Vito is the last person you'd want to trust with anything. A true con-artist at heart, he now has a job selling used cars, but his past jobs would make you run away from him in fear. When he was younger, he was a part of a major drug-trafficking operation run by the mafia, and he later got a job selling illegal fireworks, both of which got him to do jail time for a decade. Newly released, he seems to be back to his old ways, as he scams people out of their money daily with his faulty cars. He was born constantly overshadowed by his perfect younger brother, who is a popular politician, while he just swindles from people. As a result, he hates people who play loyally, and wants to prove that evil is the best way to play. He isn't afraid to play hard, as that's what he did all his life, and he'll either win, or go out swinging.
Link to Season
Episode 1: The 20 new contestants are welcomed into Turkey, where their first task is to compete in a challenge for reward. The Sinners tribe win this reward due to having more young and fit members than the Saints tribe. As a result, the Saints are already demoralized as they arrive at camp. Cap'n starts to feel good vibes from Ardet and Maralyn, and takes them under his wing to form an alliance. Ava, on the other hand, reveals that she is deaf to Chelsea and Gwen, and the three form another alliance due to being close to one another already. Cap'n sees this and scrambles to find an idol, and does so. Over at the Sinners tribe, Witworth and Jessica see their opportunity to look for an idol, and they find it, giving them more security, while back at camp, Maize and Nikki get into a fight over thinking that the other has an idol, which neither of them do. Vito becomes the moderator of this fight, saying that the three of them plus Irvin and Molly need to stick together in the long run. Randall sees this alliance form and tries to get Alexa, Jessica, Witworth, and Wildcard on board, which they all agree to at first, but then Wildcard sees this as his opportunity to cause conflict within his tribe, so he becomes content with being a swing vote. The Sinners win immunity, and on the Saints tribe it quickly becomes a race to see who can scrape up the swing votes the fastest between Cap'n's alliance and Ava's alliance. Dana becomes the target for Ava's alliance because of her weakness in challenges and her blind loyalty, while Greg is targeted by Ardet and Cap'n due to his shiftiness. They are able to get Kirk and Dana on board to blindside Greg, and they try to talk to Gwen, but she does not flip. Instead, at tribal council, we end up with a 5-5 split, followed by a 4-4 vote split due to no one flipping. Then a rock draw occurs on the first vote of the season. Ardet becomes the victim of the rocks, sending him out of the game despite never receiving a single vote.
Episode 2: After an explosive first vote, Cap'n tries to figure out who flipped on the six and sent Ardet home. No one tells him who did it, so he assumes it was Ardet. Ava tries to flip Maralyn from Cap'n's alliance, but is unsuccessful at doing so. At the Sinners camp, Jessica and Witworth, despite being closely aligned, argue over who gets to keep the idol, and Witworth ends up keeping it in the end. The Saints pull out a surprise victory over the fractured Sinners, and back at camp, Wildcard decides to snake the alliance he was pretending to work with, and joins Vito's alliance. Their first target is none other than Alexa, who saw this game as nothing other than a tool to get more relevancy back, and it particularly irked Vito, who wanted to play against people who played hard. So together, with his alliance and Wildcard, they vote for Alexa. Meanwhile, the four person alliance realizes that Wildcard snaked them, so they vote for him, and Alexa becomes the second person voted off in a 6-4 vote.
Episode 3: After Alexa's vote off, Irvin tries to bond with Vito, wanting to be his right hand man, and they become closer due to both being sleazy people. Wildcard begins to feel like he's in control, and it starts to annoy people on his tribe. At the Saints camp, Cap'n starts to rub people the wrong way because of his cockiness due to having an idol, but no one catches on to him having an idol, which is good news for him, because he plans on holding onto the idol until the merge. The Sinners win immunity for the third time, and they grow cocky because of this. Cap'n and Kirk, being the two oldest men on the tribe, join forces with Dana and Maralyn to take out their biggest threat in the opposing alliance, Greg. However, the other side has majority, and they decide that Dana has been blindly loyal to the other three, and hasn't been pulling her weight in challenges, so she becomes the third person voted out in a 5-4 vote.
Episode 4: After a somewhat boring vote, Greg starts to get paranoid, since he's already gotten 9 votes and it's only episode 4. He then tries to get the minority alliance to pin their votes onto Gwen, but Gwen gets angry at him for doing so, and they have an argument. At Sinners camp, Jessica tries to talk to Irvin, trying to get his alliance to help hers take out Wildcard, and Irvin tells Vito about the plan, and Vito starts to see Wildcard as not being of use anymore. After losing the reward challenge, the Saints come back harder and beat the Sinners at the next challenge. Wildcard lets Vito know that he is going to vote Maize, since he wants to make a big move early on. This becomes the final nail in Wildcard's coffin, as Vito was quite close to Maize. At tribal council, Wildcard becomes the first unanimous boot of the season, going out in a 8-1 vote.
Episode 5: Vito starts to think that Irvin has been playing way too loyally, and he gets into a discussion with him that slowly devolves into a full-blown fight between them, but Vito, realizing that Irvin would make a bad enemy, tries to make it up to him, and it works. The Sinners win both reward and immunity, and they feel elated about it. Cornelius goes to Cap'n and proposes an alliance to him, allowing them to control things from behind the scenes with Maralyn. He also reveals that he has grown a disdain for Greg, and that they need to flip the numbers on him. They get Gwen and Kirk on board, or so they think, but Gwen blabs to Greg and their alliance, leading to Kirk to flip as well. They decide to vote Cornelius out due to him being the biggest gamer on the tribe, and he goes in a 5-3 vote.
Episode 6: The tribes pack up their things, anticipating a swap, but then the host announces that they will be competing for individual immunity on their tribe, and whoever wins will be safe from the double tribal council taking place that night. Maralyn wins for the Saints, and Vito wins for the Sinners. The Sinners also win reward, earning food to enjoy while they watch the other tribe go to tribal council. Witworth, Jessica, and Randall decide it was now or never to get rid of Maize, who had a fight with Randall earlier that day, but Vito, hearing about this, decides that Randall is the biggest sleaze on his tribe, and he needed to go as soon as possible. In his voting confessional, he states there can be only one sleazy guy on the tribe, and that was himself, so Randall had to go, and Randall becomes the sixth person voted out in a 5-3 vote, and he is bitter as all hell about it. At the Saints tribe, Cap'n becomes angry over the fact he cannot vote in the majority, and it makes the majority annoyed with him, so they decide to vote him off. Luckily for Cap'n, he still has an idol, so he and Maralyn vote for the most threatening player in their minds, Chelsea, and Cap'n plays his idol, sending Chelsea out of the game in a 2-0 vote.
Episode 7: After Chelsea's idol out, Cap'n officially became public enemy number one on his tribe, and he tries to find his rehidden idol, but Kirk finds it instead. Maralyn and Greg have a fight due to the food on their tribe running low, and morale being even lower. At the Sinners tribe, Nikki begins to be seen as an easy goat due to her one-sided loyalty to Vito. Morale at the Saints tribe dips even lower when they lose both reward and immunity. Not wanting to lose again,the majority decide to vote off their oldest member, Cap'n, as a last ditch attempt to prevent them from going on a losing streak. Cap'n and Maralyn vote for Greg, and Cap'n becomes the eighth person voted out in a 5-3 vote, missing out on the jury by one placement.
Episode 8: After Cap'n's vote out, there are only five members on the Saints tribe, compared to the Sinners having seven. The Sinners increase their winning streak by two by winning both reward and immunity. At the Sinners camp, Jessica and Witworth have another fight over the idol, with Jessica insisting that she keep it. This causes the rest of the tribe to be alerted to the fact that Jessica and Witworth have an idol, and Witworth becomes a target because of this. At the Saints tribe, the women form a tight three, and Kirk and Greg are forced to band together to survive. At tribal council, the three women stay strong, and Greg is voted out 3-2 and becomes the first member of the jury, leaving only four Saints left in the game.
Episode 9: With his back up against the wall, Kirk knows that he's probably gone next if he didn't have the idol, which ensured his survival until merge. The Saints finally win a challenge, a reward challenge, but lose immunity once again to the inflated egos of the Sinners. Not much else happens this episode, but Kirk tries to get Maralyn to flip and vote out Ava, but she disagrees to do so, and she votes for Gwen instead, making Kirk not trust her, and he decides to vote for her, while also playing his idol. This causes a 1-1-0 tie between Gwen and Maralyn, and Ava, misunderstanding what would happen if she forced a tie, votes for Gwen while Kirk votes for Maralyn, and Ava becomes the second person in King's Survivor history to be eliminated by default, due to there being no other options, and she becomes the second member of the jury
Episode 10: At long last, the tribes merge into the purple Ucurum tribe, meaning balance in Turkish. Left in the game is Witworth, Gwen, Irvin, Jessica, Kirk, Maize, Maralyn, Molly, Nikki, and Vito. At first, it seems like it would be Saint Vs Sinner, but Jessica and Witworth come to the three Saints left in the game, and they convince them to vote with them come tribal council. Vito wins his second immunity challenge of the season, and his target was Witworth for being the strongest male not in his alliance, and also for lying about not having an idol, which he believed was given to Jessica. At tribal council, the lines cause a 5-5 divide between Irvin and Witworth, and on the revote, Maralyn randomly decides to flip to avoid a tie, and Carter Witworth becomes the third member of the jury, and also another person to go out with an idol in their pocket. He is understandably pretty pissed about this ordeal, but wishes his tribe well.
Episode 11: The day after Witworth's blindside, the nine remaining contestants compete in a reward challenge, which the team containing Irvin, Maralyn, and Vito win. At the reward, Irvin and Vito realize how dangerous Maralyn could be after she starts trying to talk game with them. Soon afterwards, Maralyn finds the idol, and Jessica calls out Molly for following Vito almost blindly. Nikki wins the second post merge immunity challenge, and Vito tries to recruit Jessica for the vote, which succeeds. They then choose to target Maralyn, since she was the most threatening out of the three Saints, and the six remaining Sinners pin votes onto her. Unfortunately for them, Maralyn pulls out an idol, and the Saints vote for Irvin, a potential immunity threat, making him the fourth member of the jury in a 3-0 vote.
Episode 12: After Irvin's blindside, only two men are still in the game, compared to the six women. Nikki is able to find an idol, after thinking that she hasn't been playing hard enough, while Molly gets into a fight with Maralyn over the latter pulling out an idol, which she hadn't wanted her to do. Molly wins immunity, and it becomes a battle of the Saints Vs the Sinners, just like the theme of the season. The Saints go after Maize, wanting to weaken Vito further before going after him, but they are unable to swing anyone over and Vito, fueled by vengeance, gets his alliance to vote for Maralyn. In a 5-3 vote, Maralyn becomes the fifth member of the jury. Back at camp, the final seven become annoyed at Nikki's arrogance after being safe from being voted out, so she becomes a target for the two remaining Saints left. Kirk also becomes a target for being a perceived leader for Gwen, causing him to be target numero uno. After Kirk wins immunity, the target shifts from him to Gwen, due to her being perceived as not wanting to play the game, and rather would be along for the ride, which Vito found unpalatable. Kirk and Gwen then try to vote out Molly for her strength in challenges, and in the end, Gwen gets the boot in a 5-2 vote, making her the sixth juror.
Episode 13: With only six people left in the game, the final reward challenge takes place. Maize wins it, and she shares it with Vito, her closest ally, and Jessica, who her and Vito wanted to bring closer. Soon, they realize what a threat she could be, especially because she's a poker player, she becomes the biggest target instead of Kirk. Luckily for her, she wins immunity. Kirk tries to bond with Maize as a way to get Vito to not vote him out, but it backfires, and he becomes the biggest target yet again. At tribal council, he votes for Molly, but everyone else votes for him, making him the seventh juror in a 5-1 vote and completely eliminating the Saints from the game.
Finale: Jessica, Maize, Molly, Nikki, and Vito remain. Five players who had remarkably different playing styles, but all came from the same tribe. They compete in the second-to-last immunity challenge, which Maize wins, and the biggest target becomes Jessica again, who has proven herself to be the only player not following Vito, and only voting with him just to get further in the game. Vito does not feel the same way about keeping Jessica around, so he and his alliance with Nikki, Molly, and Maize vote for her, and Nikki plays her idol in case someone flipped on her, and Jessica becomes the eighth juror in a 4-0 vote. Back at camp, Vito feels incredibly cocky, and he tries to influence a fight, and he does so between Nikki and Maize. He then goes on to win final immunity, and Nikki tanks her own game with her fight with Maize, and everyone votes her out, causing her to become the ninth juror in a 3-1 vote. The final three consists of Maize, Molly, and Vito. Molly gets criticism for her lack of strategy, only using her social game to get far, and her challenge capabilities. Maize is seen as following too closely to Vito, but the jury is willing to vote for her if Vito tanks his jury speech. He does not, and explains his game in great detail, saying he started out forming a five person alliance on the first night, he commenced the Wildcard blindside, the Witworth blindside, the Jessica blindside, etc. He did it all, but the bonds he formed in the game were genuine, and he didn't intend his villainous backstabbing to be taken personal. In the end, he gets all the jury votes, even from two people he never met, Greg and Ava. Maralyn wins the Fan Favorite for standing up to Vito and her idol play.
Winner: Vito Luco, u/swoldow
Fan Favorite: Maralyn Sander, u/Void_Drone
Potential Returnees (yeah, I haven't done this in a while): Vito, Jessica, Kirk, Maralyn, WItworth, Ava, Cap'n, maybe Ardet, if I do a first boot season
Next season, will be the final season before season 35, I won't spoil the theme for 35, but trust me, it won't be a season to miss. Season 34 however, with the release of the new Island Of The Idols sim, it will feature two King's Survivor Idols, who will be revealed with the sign ups. Next season will be King's Survivor Venezuela: Island Of The Idols!

Pre Market Brief for Wednesday August 19th 2020

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Stock Futures:

• Pre-Market Trading
• Stock futures open flat after S&P 500's record close
• Asia Pacific stocks mixed; Japan’s exports in July slide on-year
• European markets set to open slightly higher after record highs on Wall Street

Tuesday 08/18/2020 News and Markets Recap:

• Your Pre Market Brief for 08/18/2020
• Market Recap

Wednesday August 19th 2020 Economic Calendar (All times are Eastern)

• 07:00 AM MBA 30-Year Mortgage Rate 14/AUG
• 07:00 AM MBA Mortgage Applications 14/AUG
• 10:30 AM EIA Crude Oil Stocks Change 14/AUG
• 10:30 AM EIA Gasoline Stocks Change 14/AUG
• 10:30 AM EIA Distillate Stocks Change 14/AUG
• 10:30 AM EIA Cushing Crude Oil Stocks Change 14/AUG
• 10:30 AM EIA Refinery Crude Runs Change 14/AUG
• 10:30 AM EIA Heating Oil Stocks Change 14/AUG
• 10:30 AM EIA Distillate Fuel Production Change 14/AUG
• 10:30 AM EIA Gasoline Production Change 14/AUG
• 10:30 AM EIA Crude Oil Imports Change 14/AUG
• 01:00 PM 20-Year Bond Auction
• 02:00 PM FOMC Minutes

News Heading into Wednesday August 19th 2020
NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT YOLO THE VARIOUS TICKERS WITHOUT DOING RESEARCH. THE TIME STAMPS ON THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES MAY BE LATER THAN OTHERS ON THE WEB. THE CREATOR OF THIS THREAD COMPILED THE FOLLOWING IN A QUICK MANNER AND DOES NOT ATTEST TO THE VERACITY OF THE INFORMATION BELOW. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR VETTING YOUR OWN SOURCES AND DOING YOUR OWN DD.

• GNCA Genocea -1.8% as holders file to offer 21.39M shares
• VRNA Verona Pharma Initiates Multiple Dose Part of Phase 2 Clinical Trial with pMDI Formulation of Ensifentrine in COPD (Overnight News).
• AXDX Accelerate Diagnostics up 13% on FDA emergency use nod for COVID-19 test (Overnight News).
• CYDY CytoDyn requests “Fast Track Approval” in U.K for COVID-19 trial (Overnight News).
• CNTG CENTOGENE Opens Walk-In COVID-19 Testing Facility at Hamburg Airport (Overnight News).
• HUD Dufry to buy rest of Hudson in $311 million deal (Overnight News).
• BTG B2Gold Continues to Operate Unimpeded at its Fekola Mine in Mali (Overnight News).
• REGN Regeneron teams with Roche to triple supply of its COVID-19 drug (Overnight News).
• MTP Midatech Pharma Announces Exercise of Warrants and Issue of Equity (Overnight News).
• ON ON Semiconductor Announces Upsize and Pricing of Private Offering of $700 Million of 3.875% Senior Notes (Overnight News).
• RXT Rackspace Technology Announces Results of Global Cloud Budget Survey, Uncovers the Hidden Complexities of IT Spend Management (Overnight News).
• GS Booking app Omio raises $100 million in travel recovery bet (Overnight News).
• CHGG Chegg Prices Offering of $900.0 Million of 0% Convertible Senior Notes Due 2026 (Overnight News).
• FUTU Futu Announces Pricing of Offering of 9,500,000 American Depositary Shares (Overnight News).
• BCOV Streamed Video Content Dominates Media and Entertainment Consumption According to the Brightcove Q2 2020 Global Video Index (Overnight News).
• ORCL Trump Expresses Support for Oracle to Buy TikTok (Overnight News).
• BX Takeda preparing to sell Japan consumer health unit to Blackstone: Kyodo (Overnight News).
• NOVA GAF Energy and Sunnova Launch Strategic Partnership to Expand Roof-Integrated Solar Options for Homeowners (Overnight News).
• EQNR Equinor’s share saving plan allocates shares (Overnight News).
• AAPL Apple Revamps Music Radio Service With A Rebranded Beats 1, And Two New Stations (Overnight News).
• World’s largest shipping firm says demand will ‘significantly decline’ this year(Overnight News).
• NI NiSource Inc. Announces Pricing and Preliminary Results of its Any and All Tender Offer
• WU Western Union Now Available at CARD Bank (Overnight News).
• INBX Form S-1MEF (registration adding securities to prior form s-1 registration [rule 462(b)]) filed with the SEC
• GILD Gilead comes up empty with U.S. application for filgotinib for rheumatoid arthritis
• MIDD The Middleby Prices Upsized Offering of $650 Million Convertible Senior Notes Due 2025
• U.S., China to expand airline flights between them to eight per week. (UAL, DAL, CEA, ZNH)
• JUUL MO Juul E-Cigarette Getting FDA Review to Stay on the U.S. Market
• HRMY Form S-1MEF (registration adding securities to prior form s-1 registration [rule 462(b)]) filed with the SEC
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Hello my name is Sofia I'm 16 years old and I'm from Russia and I have 2 years to survive before my end.
A while ago I made one post in subreddit about immigration, but everything I got is a lot of downvotes and mainly got ignored. Like I got ignored by everything my whole life.
First of all, I gonna say why I have a time limit, there a lot of reasons for that. I don't sure what I should begin, but in short my current status:

• I have big problems with my family. Begining with no right to at least have a hair cut ending with dad that can get drunk, go back home and destroy everything, and beat my mom. Every day when both parents are home there are endless scandals and constant words about divorce.
• My mother always telling me about her problems since I was a little child. And keep talking like I was born to help her and at the same time, she can say why did I give birth to you. I sometimes respond with "I didn't ask you to give birth to me"
• Even my little brother hates me, make fun of me, call me a girl, that I look like a girl (don't sure how I should react, because I'm transgender), can punch me... I mean will punch me.
• Also, I eating instant noodles and the cheapest food, because we don't earn very much, a few times we don't even have enough money to pay for rent.
• I crying for almost every day. And it's doesn't even matter when my parents saw it, like if it was ok to always cry.
• I have problems at my school. Not only school bullies have hated me, but also some teachers. Bullies can beat me with a big crowd and even if I going lye down they gonna kick me.
• I can't be myself. I can't have my own opinion, every opinion is done by my mother, I can't say It's bad, but sometimes I don't want to be a robot that does whatever they say with no rights to say "I want" or simply say "no"
• I have no friends because they weren't my actual friends. I always used to be their doll with they can play. They betrayed me, they make fun of me.
• I have nightmares, my past is haunting me. It's made even one scar on my hand.
• If I don't escape this country I will be doomed. When I will be 18 there will be forced conscription that has a problem with "Dedovshchina". People like I don't survive there, in the Russian army, it's not for weak people.
• I tried to suicide, but I never go too far.
• No one even cares about me, most of the people that I know hate me, no one can help me, even I...
• I scared of everything, I can't even write to people online, I just scared of them.
• A lot of transphobes make fun of me almost every day.
• Every day I keep thinking about self-harm. And sometimes I do this.
• Every time I want to do something to help myself there is something that trying to stop me and if I try to avoid that everything will be even worse than before.
• I lost belief in humanity. I don't even sure if it even exists.
• My dysphoria is killing me, but with depression, it feels so bad. I can't look at the mirror.
• My country took last rights from trans people so I can't live here anymore
• I'm useless I can't do anything. I can't draw, I can't even complete even an easy target. I'm so stupid...
• I'm broken and I have no sense to live on. Should I continue?......

So this is a small portion of everything that happened to me. I going to tell you some stories and going to open some of these themes that I listed above. I'll begin with my parents.
When I was 10 years old or less my dad always lost all money in casino on a slot machine. He worked as a guard in the same casino where he lost all money. Once he almost gave away our apartment like that.
Now we running out of money because of coronavirus. He was working at the hotel as a guard. The hotel went bankrupt and we didn't receive payment for 3 months. And he was working not legal there so we were totally dead.
Basically, we trying to survive (4 people) on around $544/month but as I said he loves to lose money so it's looking more like $408/month for 4 people but mainly even less. We need to use them to pay for two apartments that look like very bad, having two bad looking apartments in a bad city doesn't mean we rich. And also we need to pay for an extra apartment where we all live. Sometimes we are being sued for not paying at the right time.
Also, there was a stupid situation so we almost got homeless. My dad's father had our apartment, and so he cheated on my grandmother, who was not even close to me, I never saw her until I was 14 years old and eventually, a child was born, later my dad's father died and their family claimed inheritance, including our apartment, they were also rich and this angered me the most, like why they need our apartment in with we live, but also my mom telling about these problems to me. I was around 10.
The baby is one year old. His Parents: WE NEEAD AN APARTAMENT FOR HIM Because HE iS a bik Boi
We don't even have wallpapers before. Just empty walls actually that place still don't have wallpapers everywhere. Mainly, this was because my dad is lazy he doesn't do anything, he was doing only: Farting on the couch, playing video games on smartphone, annoys everyone, etc. Every hard work was done by my mother and with some of our help (kids)
My dad. He doesn't give a fuck about us. And he always will. He living only for himself and only for himself.
The due first month of quarantine in Russia I was eating only one time per day.
When we had no money, father was god knows where, we can't even live in our house at this moment we lived in grandma house and grandma can't even give money or support us somehow, so mainly we were hungry,
So I hate my dad, but not my mom, she just trying to save us from our dad.
My mom trying to control my life, watching my every step, it continues to my 14 years old, then and for today she just annoys me with asking what I was doing today or who do I write to, etc.
Also, my mom sometimes trying to make suicide, and it's so hard to stop her, she just going to our medkit and start eating every drug. It's terrible.
My mom and my brother love to make fun of me. Trying to annoy me and made me cry. Telling jokes about me, and if I don't act like I don't care, they gonna make fun of me even more.
My mother almost every time very sick. She just sneezed and broken spine or something, she felt so bad, so she crying of pain I asked her for calling to a hospital, but she declines. Every time she looks like she gonna die right now she doesn't want to call for help to the hospital.
Yesterday (6th August) my mom almost set the whole house on fire, by putting a wooden circle on a gas stove and then a big bowl of bad soup, and then after a while, it ignited, and a great column of fire rose and a lot of smoke came out.
My dad drunk at least one time per week. He often loses his items such a phone because he literally can sleep under the fence of some house. He destroyed a lot of things in our house. The fridge still has traces of his punches. Rarely, but he can punch me. He doesn't love me at all, he loves only his second son.
Endless scandals. I don't even know what to say about it. I can't protect anyone anymore when dad is angry.
And things that always with me. Whatever someone does something bad, they told me that it was I. In a time of school it makes me wanna die because the whole class told the teacher that I PUNCH myself, poor bullies, how dare me!
While I was in my classroom due to math lessons, there was break time and I sat in my class since I don't have friends and reasons to go out. And then my classmate ran in class with words that I stole sled of some little kid, then class appears and say that's it's true and we saw you, then the school principal and homeroom teacher appeared and they saying that they got me and me in big trouble but God was on my side in this day and teacher start to debate with them how I can steal something while I'm in school sitting in this classroom! Thankfully she able to approve that they wrong. Actually, this is the first time and last time that someone saved me from hell. But all school already thinks that I stole a sled of little kid.
Also, they love to stalk me to my home and scream that I'm "gay" and "pussy" and other words. When I go downstairs they very often trip me up and then I fall very badly. They also love to hide my clothes so I stay in school for many hours to find my cloth.
I was in school bullies start to say that I miserable, doesn't deserve a feature and many things, but when I can't take it anymore and say something in their side they start to kick me with a crowd, I was laying down, and 4 people just keep kicking me, whole class watch this everyone was happy they said punch harder, kick harder! I think it just like forever.
But at some point it's ended, I can't feel anything, I don't even stand up, I just cried. Then the teacher walks in class and saw me. I think she was thinking "oh no he* is crying again!". Then she said stand up and said go with me, I thought she will finally help me, but I was so wrong. She went with me to high school (I never was in there at this moment), to the headmaster of this school. I sat in her cabinet and she starts to scream at me that everyone got tired of you and you should die we will kick you from school because of your behaviors. I just crying and can't even listen to all the things that she said, I thought I just disappointed my mom. After 1 hour and more of scream at me she said stand up, we gotta go, I asked what do you mean? but don't get a response back. We walked outside with a fire exit door, there was a black tuned car and it has a lot of people inside. At this time I thought I'll die and I start to say sorry for everyone, but mainly for my mother. I thought we gonna ride in the forest because I never saw these places before, the whole road I just praying. No one is speaking. Finally, I saw my house, and parked at the entrance to the entrance (It looks like English doesn't have this word), she said to go out but gives me some document. I slowly walked upstairs, every step I felt worse and worse, and finally, when I was on the 5th floor I ring to door, my mom opened the door I gave her this document and when she asked me "What happened?" I started to cry again and fall on my bed. The document contains something about my expulsion from school. It was my worst day. You can say me, why you can't change school but in a place where I live before, there was only one school.
Is I'm a bad person? I'm always tried to help people and animals if I can.
I stop at least three people and my mother of suicide in real life.. don't sure if this counts...
I destroyed a lot of "columbine" community everywhere I can and trying to help people, change their minds. So I stop many people of suicide and killing everyone in schools.
There was a thing as 'The Groups of Death' most popular was "Blue whale". It was a game in real life where you do some tasks, but then it quickly flows into tasks like "cut your wrist" and so on. The ending of this game is to kill yourself, doesn't matter with way, but mainly it's just jumping from a rooftop. I was horrified about this, so I had an idea to create an anti-group of death called "Pink Flamingo". Everything was fine, I helped a lot of people, make therapy for them, give advice, and at the end of the game you should be alright and happy, there was no real end. But in one day my group was banned from Vkontakte as I remember for this reason: I created a group of death. Bravo, they even block my own page almost permanent, it was hard to restore it, it was a special ban.
I really remember that I made a lot of happy birthday congratulations on things in windows movie maker to everyone... I was 8 years old or less... I always helped grandmothers, carrying their products, or moving them across the road.
Some bullies wanted to kick poor cat to death, I don't let them do that, so they kicked me... BUT hey! I saved a cat!
When I had internet "friends" we had a community, I called it "TeaTown community", we were like a big family, I helped to everyone there, they need something I give it to them and a lot of other things, yes they kinda don't like me because I always want to help everyone and it annoys them. And in one day we built a big city with a 10+ player population and I started this community brick by brick with a new friend (everyone knew them even before I appear there) and in one day after a month of friendship he just asks me to add his friend to private since I don't know him and I was scared of security and for everyone, I said no! They start to scream on me and call me a pussy and such and I add him under this pressure and then they immediately kill me and destroyed my house and storehouse of the city I was broken they even used cheats so I can't fight with them. But it's not all, they told something to all of my friends, and everyone started to hate me and they start to don't trust me. I managed to get a little bit of their trust and I became a part of this community again. I build a church and live in there. I still helped to everyone. But in one day someone busted me, he gives access to church to those two who grief me before and then they destroyed my church, no items survived. I actually have a few footages where they were cheating and griefing. Actually, I showed it to admins. And guess what? I got permanently banned. They bought the admins. The main conflict is very stupid, to solve it I need to apologize for not letting them grief me and don't add them immediately to private. Also one of them always saying something I'm a god and you're nothing.
When I finally realized that I'm transgender, I made a coming out and every friend that I have, even my best friend start to hate me even gay one and it made me feel very bad. A was lone for a month and since I can't find new friends I tried to go back to them. They made a lot of transphobic things like burning the trans flag, mis-pronouns me and everything, but in one day they reach something above of normal, when I died I teleported in a strange place, they made a test lab that I need to pass, they gave me adventure mode, some of them was in spectator mode, my "best friend" was behind glass, they said hello and then look in the chest I saw a pufferfish that named "Trans have no right" they say eat it. I eat it, don't sure why. The next thing was a potion, that I need to drink to be female, but unfortunately, It doesn't work and I got aids, then they give me a wooden pickaxe and said to dig obsidian... 4 blocks of obsidian with a wooden pickaxe, sick bastards! Then there was another room with insane hard parkour. After a while, I passed it and I got into another room where I should choose one of three answers, in fact, some of them were not transphobic like there was a question about Kazahstan with dates. At the end of the quiz, they hide the right answer behind me, so it should make me confused, once it solved I went to the final room. I saw to "dicks" and my best friend said choice dick, sit and die, there was a big black one with racism on a sign that gonna destroy all my organs because it's a big and sticky white one with gonna pull out my guts and made me die. I don't remember what I chose, but it was horrible we was a friend for many years and then they do this? How sad, even my "best friend"
Since that, I don't really have friends anymore.
All my classmates around me in school used drugs and they were very bad and none of them want to be my friend. This why I never had a friend in real life. Everyone in real life was very bad, many of them were in police stations already. Even girls were bad, they drunk too much and engaged in prostitution.
All the people I knew had a boyfriend/girlfriend/whatever at some point, but I never had, so they very shooked when they knew this fact, but I don't think I need that, I don't think I need something, maybe I just don't deserve life. In fact, I don't even sure with sexual orientation is I or do I even want to have someone.
I hate to remember the place where I lived before because of school, memories, and thing like:
I just going to home from school and then from nowhere on a large speed a big van is riding on the sidewalk not even giving any sign. I jumped out at the last moment. It still gives me nightmares.
Or like when someone kicked me in school when I was going downstairs and then when I was going home someone walking far away and scream that I'm "faggot" and other words but then I saw two small dogs. Nothing special, but then huge dogs start to appear from nowhere and I start thinking about going back and find another way to go home, but when I turn my head I realized I already surrounded by huge evil dogs that barked and growled at me and then ran sharply at me. A big crowd of dogs surrounded me and chased me all over the city and I was running for my life, most of these dogs were huge, and I ran from almost 20 dogs. Honestly, I don't know why they can't catch me and where most of them gone when I was pretty close to my home, but it's doesn't matter. Yes and I cried and scream the whole road to home.
Just a typical day of my life. Mainly when I home I'll be saved. But every time I outside. Something bad is going to happen.
Also, teachers called me rude words and lower my grades. Imagine being a kid and the teacher call you a bag of shit that can't do anything.
I was in this place a week ago and I was praying to my mother to not go there, but she starts to say I never coming outside and I should ride or else I can say bye to my laptop. We stuck there for three days we just should be there for one day. We don't even have pillows or blankets. And I meet old school bullies that start to make fun of me one of them even punches me. He called me "faggot" again like in past. It was a nightmare. Everyone hates me there. My little brother hates me because I want to leave this nightmare as fast as I can, but he wants to be there for a longer time. I actually made a wrong thing later.
I wanted to escape and my reason for that was If stay there even more I will kill myself because so many horrifying memories' was there. I just walked to a train station, so basically I escaped from a mom and my little brother. And a bully from school walked to me, I didn't saw him and he said "Fuck you" and then he punches me in a face. Well then since I have no money with me right now (and always), so I have a "perfect" Idea to walk to my city on foot (48KM to the final station and also a long way to the city), but I just walked just one station is about 4km from there and I got already tired, but also at this moment I realize that I don't have keys for the apartment and also I need to go another 10+ stations + another more things I don't think of, so I went back.
The second reason I do so is that my mom and my brother start to make jokes about me and I just can't stand it.
I returned to a nightmare place and we got stuck here. I still feel very bad.
Actually, this isn't a serious escape because in one-day whole class the whole day made fun of me by calling me with bad words, they tripped me, they spat paper at me, and do much more. And the teacher remarked not to them but ME. I wonder why??? Then everything like in a fog. It was the end of the lesson and someone made my cry, I run out of class and saw fire exit, with tears, I very fast open this door and ran out of school, they tried to stop me, they even grab my backpack, but I ran away. So next I was thinking about getting drown or just die in the forest, maybe even of starving to death, but temporarily I hide somewhere and lay down there. It was a very cold autumn. I don't even wear a jacket and I was alone, thinking about suicide and the end of me, I was laying on trash, I even thought about live like a hobo, Because I can't live like that anymore. My mom can't do anything to help me she can't do it to end. So bullies can't get punished because of that. I always was in bruises. Even more, bullies have come up with an offensive nickname for me because of which I want to change my last name. The worst part that this thing also works in English and almost in every country, because this word sounds almost the same even though it writes very differently.
My poor relatives made me feel very sad and bad, but not every one of them. Looking at an old, lonely grandfather it's so heartbreaking, it's so awful to see a poor uncle stricken with a stroke and other can laugh on the situation, it's so wrong... also recently grandfather killed a cat... he put it somewhere and close it... he doesn't even feed it... a week passed... and then he opened a place where he put cat... but it's already almost died... on next day cat just died.....
Well, I don't do anything bad. I always tried to help people. But everything I received from them it just hates and other sad things. Nothing good. Yes, I made bad stuff and I apologize for that. I apologize that I was born. Wow, it hurt so much. I upset my parents. And I will upset them even more.
Teachers say there is no way I saying the truth because I can't always be "White and fluffy". I mean no one even trusts me for some reason. My friends busted me.
I always, every day, for many years keep talking to my parents that I'm going to make suicide, but they say that I don't saw a real-life, I don't live enough, and what kind of troubles you can even have in this age?
My family and other people keep told that my life is not the worst and I can agree. They can say the other one lives is worse than me, you at least have food, water, and a roof overhead, people from Africa are very poor, do you think about them? Yes, often think about poor people and that they need more help than me in fact I'm living very well in their background.
When I was a child I was thinking about writing a book about my life and write it when I will grow up, but now I don't find this idea very good. In fact, it's very stupid. I always feel stupid. Everyone thinks I'm stupid, retarded, or something. And I can kinda agree with them.
And I can't help myself because something will stop me and made feel me even worse and no one can help me. Every time I want to make animation, website, or whatever my programs got crashed, light turn off for the whole house, I lost internet connection, I got lost files or even worse corrupted because it most painful and any possible way to stop me from working that you can imagine.
I know odd people that sometimes can come from nowhere and write something odd. Something about eggs, something about fursuits while why do I in the world even want to know the cost of this? I don't hear you for months and you come back and say interesting how much fursuit is a cost or even "docking", various sort of things. There were only people that I talked with for like 5 months. I feel so terrible. For some things, I feel like I was raped and I don't even kidding.
First of all, I gonna say why I have a time limit, there a lot of reasons for that. I don't sure about what I should begin, but the current status that I'm suffering from Bullies, of my Family, of my Government, and what is going on in my country.
I tried to find transgender friends in Russia, but then I realized that it's an almost impossible challenge since most of them not just dressing and do other staff. Even when I saw an infinite number of almost always gross people I find the right thing, but even there I find bad people. One of them was younger than me he was 15 years old and then after a long conversation he said that he gives jobs to his boyfriend and do such things and send me some images, I try to change his mind, but he doesn't want to listen to me, he just enjoy that. And other transgenders I found were good people, but they weren't sure if they were transgender, but it still better than nothing. They never called me a friend in fact when I asked, they answer that we, not friends. And it broke my heart... I realized that I never had friends.
I scared to start to speak with anyone. When I don't speak everything usually better. So I can't say even a single word.
Almost every night I have a nightmare about someone is trying to catch me and I trying to escape. It could be everything and mainly I ran in deserted places even if there should be a lot of people in them. The alternative ending is the screamer version so I can't even run for a while before screamer, I instantly got caught. Also there another type of dream where I walking on familiar but very changed places, most scary that before it had many people, but since every dream there less and fewer people, and everything got weirder and weirder, so everything change, even more, some building is destroying random big holes that always in random place start appear, world start to less looking to real and more have strange odd colors. I walking alone in an odd and scary world and getting die every time. The third type of dream is when I can't help someone, someone died and everything, recently I have only this type of dream.
I need to notice that I'm MtF transgender. I notice it that late because I still scared. I want to escape from this endless nightmare, start a new life from a blank page, and finally be myself. But looking at others' lives gives me a thing. I can't complain about this. A lot of people living even worse than me.
I never talk to a psychotherapist because I was always scared to know to door or just make an appointment. But it has almost no sense, I'll just break my life forever by visiting a psychotherapist because there's almost no way to apply for a job because no one gonna takes a person who visited a psychotherapist. And most of them transphobes, so they gonna hurt me. The other one can't help me since the government looking for rights from transgenders.
I stuck in a circle of self-harm and writing a suicide note. I don't even strong enough to write this post, it was a nightmare for me. And I need to escape this country as fast as I can, because I can't take it any longer, people like me gonna die there.
I say almost nothing about I got bullied on the internet every day or how my government is worst in the world, I tired and you should know that I don't fully talk even about parents, friendship themes.
I feel like a bug without limbs that can't move and do something. Everyone else can draw, programming, make music, and basically anything else. I can't do anything everything that I made is just awful. My poems, lyrics for songs, my site...
I hate the way I look. I can't look in the mirror. I think I'm fat, I hate my voice, I hate how tall I am, I hate my haircut, I hate that I can't control my life, My face and whole body, The way I talk, The way I write. I want to have HRT and control my life so much.
I can't stand for myself and no one can. I can't help myself and no one can.
Everything I can do is repeatedly dying every day. And trying to not kill me. I didn't do anything to deserve all of this. I didn't do anything wrong.
I forgot to notice that my mom is a transphobe. She said that these people should be in a mental hospital, or better on an island where no one can see them, or even better burn them all!...
I need your help I ask you to find a way to help me! I can't live here anymore, I need to get out.
I don't know what I should do...
Please, help me survive...

Kennedy and Heidi: Vicarious Patricide as Tony’s Decompensation

At the risk of needless redundancy, I think it’s helpful to summarize Tony’s state of mind going into the episode Kennedy and Heidi. His consciousness is teeming with ancient but recently-agitated memories showcasing his father’s violence and toxic influence, like Johnny shooting a hole through Livia’s hairdo and baptizing him in the act of murder. He’s unable to shake stories of parental neglect leading to tragic outcomes for children. He’s painfully aware of Christopher’s hatred of him and desire for murderous revenge, feelings ultimately rooted in the fact that Tony guided him into the same corrupt existence into which he himself had been led by Johnny, Junior, and company, suggesting a reciprocal, if unconscious, rage by Tony towards those men. His subconscious mind is under constant assault from hats and movie posters and coffee mugs bearing the image of a bloody meat cleaver, an emblem of his own lost childhood innocence and inculcation by his father into his brutal, ugly vocation. He is racked with acute but intense guilt over the role he thinks his life’s example has played in shaping his son’s values and poor sense of self-worth. And he is still repressing a mountain of hurt over the fact that his uncle and second father tried not once but twice to kill him, a repression Melfi warned would someday result in a total collapse of his defense mechanisms, that is, a collapse of his paternal hero-worship and related quest for the macho validation that has prevented him from critically examining his father, uncle, and the men upon whom he modeled his life.
Now consider the circumstances immediately before the crash. Tony and Chris are on a routine drive back from business in Christopher’s new black Cadillac SUV (the first Cadillac Chris has ever owned, incidentally.) The conversation turns to life priorities. Chris, conspicuously clad in a Cleaver hat, specifically mentions how Kaitlyn has changed his priorities, and Tony mentions the “shit with Junior”. So the context is immediately pregnant with the fact that Junior shot and nearly killed Tony within the past year and with the fact that Chris is in a new place of responsibility, a position where he is, for the first time, truly the custodian and trustee for another life.
In a perfectly-timed illustration of just how ill-equipped Chris is to live up to those responsibilities, he nervously and repeatedly fiddles with the car stereo, fidgets, and widens his eyes, telegraphing to Tony that he is high as a kite on drugs. “Comfortably Numb” swells on the sound system as Tony stares at him, the lyrics underscoring that, in that moment, he does not see Chris as a youngster, as the “adorable kid” he once road around in the basket of his bicycle, but as a grown man:
When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse Out of the corner of my eye I turned to look but it was gone I cannot put my finger on it now The child is grown, the dream is gone
Chris swerves, and the crash happens seconds later.

Tony as the Child in the Carseat

It’s critical to note that Tony initially manifests every intention of helping Chris, even as he’s fighting his own injuries. “I’m comin’,” he says as Chris asks for help. His expression and demeanor only change when he realizes what Chris means by “help”. “I’ll never pass a drug test,” Chris moans. “What?” Tony asks incredulously as Chris is inhaling his own blood. Almost simultaneously, Tony turns towards the back and sees that a tree limb has penetrated the passenger compartment, lodging in Kaitlyn’s car seat like a spear. While Tony would somewhat exaggerate the size of the branch in later narrations of the event, there’s no question that it was large enough to have impaled or seriously injured an infant.
Even after this warning shot over the bow, Tony apparently intends to help Chris, coming over to the driver’s side and breaking the window when he couldn’t get the door open. He draws his cell phone to call for help but stops when Chris again mentions being doped up, which suggests that Chris is more concerned about the legal consequences of his intoxication than about the fact that he is drowning in his own blood, completely belying his claim to a life newly ordered around the lofty priority of fatherhood.
That’s the moment when Tony forms a genuine murderous intent, an intent that has little to do with Christopher’s animosity towards him or the danger that he might flip. Those are conscious, background motives that help Tony rationalize and make sense of his actions later. But the factor impelling him to end Christopher’s life is his own, fundamental identification with the child who might just as easily have been killed or seriously harmed in that carseat.
To objectify this point, there is a slow pan of the limb sticking through the seat as Tony performs the suffocation, clearly not a shot representing Tony’s vision or gaze at that moment but objectively corroborating the earlier angle when Tony glances back and we see the seat from his point of view. The juxtaposition of these shots – subjective and objective – tells me the carseat is not just a convenient excuse for Tony. This is what he’s really feeling. In this moment, he is the phantom child in that carseat, a child whose safety and well-being come second to his father’s corrupt values and reckless self-indulgence, a child whose soul and humanity are metaphorically impaled by riding in and being taught to drive his father’s black Cadillac.
The exclamation point on the symbolism is provided by Christopher’s hat. Incredibly, it remains on his head throughout the crash and suffocation, its bloody cleaver logo pointing towards Tony when the car comes to rest. As Tony acts consciously on behalf of an innocent child, the symbol of his own lost childhood innocence is directly before him. And, for good measure, the cap and logo stare back at him in the hospital from the gurney laden with Christopher’s bloody clothing and the black bag containing his dead body. (The logo antagonizes Tony a final time from his coffee mug the next morning before he angrily tosses the mug into his backyard woods.)
Several points about the suffocation itself are remarkable. First was the look of absolute depravity on Tony’s face as he watched Christopher struggle to breathe. This look was unlike any ever seen on Tony’s face at any other moment in the series. Even when committing other personal and deadly acts of violence, his face and demeanor had always betrayed a commensurate level of animus, an active, passionate intent. In contrast, he reached through the window and pinched Christopher’s nose – and maintained that hold – with remarkable calm. His face and eyes throughout the suffocation were paradoxically both incredibly intense and completely devoid of human emotion, a look far more disturbing than any look of mere rage he’d ever worn before.
Second, although this act was, in my judgment, clearly about the release of Tony’s pent up rage towards his father figures, the method of killing evokes Livia. Besides her conspiracy with Junior to kill Tony (which she rationalized was for his own good) and general obsession with stories of child deaths, she had once threatened to “smother [her children] with a pillow” to save them from a fate she deemed even worse. Tony grabbed a pillow intending to smother her in the season one finale before nursing home personnel intervened. In Members Only, Tony spoke of being smothered with a pillow as a suitable form of euthanasia. Its functional equivalent at the scene of the crash had a definite vibe of putting Chris out of his own – and everyone’s – misery. So, in killing his “father”, Tony was also paradoxically suffocating his “son”, thereby channeling Livia’s filicidal urges and concept of mercy killing.
The most spine-tingling resonance with the scene comes from two season four episodes where Tony’s deep identification with “innocents” – be they children or animals – once again comes to the fore, as does his appreciation for the consequences of Chris continuing to use drugs. In Whoever Did This, Tony warns Christopher that he “can’t be high on heroine and raise kids.” And in The Strong, Silent Type, after learning that a doped-up Chris accidentally smothered and suffocated Adriana’s dog, Tony ominously snaps, “You suffocated little Cossette? I oughta suffocate you, you prick!” It’s such perfect foreshadowing that the earlier episodes seem to have been written with the outcome of Kennedy and Heidi in mind.

Righteous Retribution as the Explanation for Tony’s Lack of Sorrow

As previously noted, the most troubling aspect of the episode from the standpoint of character consistency and plausibility was not the fact that Tony murdered Chris. It was his vacuous expression during the killing and the fact that he never betrayed a moment’s genuine sorrow or regret afterwards. He remained, in fact, defiantly happy and unconflicted about it, especially to Melfi, and was sincerely troubled that neither she nor anyone else could see how Christopher’s death rescued Kaitlyn from a lifetime of risks and harm that she would naturally suffer as the daughter of a drug addict (and mob captain).
In his therapy scenes with Melfi, real and dream, Tony even makes the very contrast I raise, noting that he’s never felt this way after murdering any other person close to him. He alludes to his sorrow over Pussy and specifically allows that murdering Tony B left him “prostate [sic] with grief.” In effect, Tony himself is revealing that this killing feels righteous and justified to him on an instinctive level and is therefore not one about which he can feel guilt or sorrow.
That sentiment makes no sense if his dominant motives were those he talked about in therapy: Christopher’s animosity and resentment towards him after the Adriana hit and his drug-use and consequent risk to flip. Whatever weight those factors carry in justifying murder in the corrupt “ethics” of the mob (which, in any case, is less than the weight of the transgressions by Pussy and Tony B), they carry absolutely no legitimate moral weight outside it and could not sustain in Tony the sense of just triumph that he felt in response to Christopher’s death. What could inspire that sense of triumph is the perceived liberation of a child from a dangerous and toxic father, experienced subconsciously as vicarious retribution for the abuse and harm he himself suffered at the hands of his own father and uncle.

Significance of the Names “Kennedy” and “Heidi”

“Kennedy” and “Heidi” are the names of the young passenger and driver, respectively, in the car that sideswipes Christopher’s SUV before the fateful crash. The girls are barely onscreen a few seconds, just long enough to (somewhat artificially) learn their names in the following exchange:
Kennedy: Maybe we should go back, Heidi! Heidi: Kennedy, I’m on my learner’s permit after dark!
Much forum debate after the first airing of the episode centered around the significance, if any, of these names. I propose a related but even more basic question: why are the girls present in the scene at all?
Tony’s windfall opportunity to murder Chris and pass it off as death from accidental injury was entirely dependent upon being unobserved by others after the crash. Given Christopher’s intoxicated state and inattention to the curvy road while he fiddled with radio controls, a mere swerve and over-correction or swerve to avoid an animal (Tony’s crash with Adriana, anyone?) would have easily sufficed to trigger the accident but without the problematic involvement of another car, the driver of which would have to be made to flee the scene illegally and in contravention of the ethics and instincts of at least 95% of the motorists on the road. So the very fact that another car is involved, complicating both the story and the filming, suggests some symbolic or subtextual design to the involvement related specifically to the momentous event occurring right after the crash.
One aspect of that design is revealed and amplified when a grieving Kelly shows up at Christopher’s wake with dark hair framing her face and large, dark sunglasses covering her eyes. A member of the crew remarks, “Look at her. Like a movie star.” An odd look immediately crosses Tony’s face as he spontaneously responds, “Jackie Kennedy”, noting Kelly’s resemblance to the widow of John F. Kennedy.
In my mind, this striking moment in the episode can have only one purpose, and that’s to evoke Johnny Boy in relation to Christopher via a kind of symbolic math. If Kelly = Jackie Kennedy, then Chris = JFK = Johnny Boy since JFK was the explicit parallel figure for Johnny in In Camelot, the first episode of the series depicting cracks in the foundation of Tony’s paternal hero worship. When that foundation completely crumbles inside Tony’s subconscious a season and a half later, it’s entirely fitting that the JFK/Johnny parallel is renewed.
As for the name “Heidi”, most folks around these parts felt it was meant to evoke the idea of “orphan” because of the famous Swiss orphan tale of the same name and because Kaitlyn (and Paulie) both lost parents in the episode. That’s an entirely plausible analysis that requires no expansion, although I’m inclined to think there’s more to it than that, starting with the analogy of Tony himself to “Heidi”. No, Tony was never technically orphaned, though he arguably suffered more as the son of Johnny and Livia than if he had been. He was certainly deprived of real parental love and guidance, on both sides, and that roughly equates to the definition of “orphan”.
Before discussing this episode for the first time, I never knew that Heidi was the story of an orphan, only that it was some kind of tale for children. And I knew that only because of the epic 1968 football game between Joe Namath’s Jets and the Oakland Raiders, the climactic ending of which (an improbable comeback by the Raiders) was cut off abruptly for television viewers at the end of its scheduled broadcast slot so that a movie version of Heidi could begin airing on time. I was only four at the time of this debacle but recall my parents talking about it – and the considerable chaos it caused at NBC and at telephone switchboards around the country – for years afterwards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Game
It wouldn’t become clear until the end of Made In America, but there’s an obvious parallel to the Heidi phenomenon in the wind-up of The Sopranos. Consider that, like the Heidi Game broadcast, Made in America featured an abrupt, unexpected termination of excruciatingly tense action at a penultimate moment, pre-empting audience experience of what appeared to be an imminent and momentous climax. The Sopranos ending may not have disabled an entire telephone network, but it certainly generated an enormous amount of controversy that, for better or worse, persists to this day.
Beyond that, there were enough other football references in the final Sopranos episodes, and especially Jets references, to warrant further consideration of this football connotation for “Heidi”. In Remember When, Tony’s betting losses on Jets football games prompt his call to Hesh for a bridge loan. Later that same episode, Paulie annoys Tony and company with yet another old tale, this one relating how, after witnessing Joe Namath stagger drunk into a bar the night before a game, he bet a load of cash the following day on the Jets’ opponent. In Chasing It, Tony gets inside information on a Jets football game and is irate when Carmela refuses to bet money on it. The episode features a closeup of a large newspaper headline, “Jets Bomb Chargers”.
In Blue Comet, then-current coach of the Jets, Eric Mangini, makes a cameo appearance in Vesuvio, with Artie informing a suitably-impressed Tony so the two can go over and shake hands. News articles at the time clarified that the cameo wasn’t Mangini’s idea but the idea of Sopranos producers, who contacted him months in advance and made accommodations in the shooting schedule around his availability. So this seemed more than a casual desire to have some generic celebrity show up.
That especially seems true considering Mangini was given no dialog and that his meeting with Tony and Artie was only depicted in the silent background of a conversation between Charmaine and Carmela. Mangini’s only purpose on set was apparently to show his face briefly and to have the fact of his identity (Tony has to tell a bewildered Carm that Mangini is the head coach of the Jets) permeate the minds of the audience and the subtext of the scene, which is ultimately about chickens coming home to roost on Tony and Carmela because of the lives they chose.
As alter egos for Tony and Carmela throughout the series, folks who took the proverbial “other path” in life, Artie and (especially) Charmaine engage in subtle gloating in the scene. Football coaching was firmly established as Tony’s “road not taken” in Test Dream, so having an actual football coach present in the episode where the unsavory and downright deadly consequences of his chosen vocation are crashing in all around him provides dramatic ballast. All the better to have the coach in the scene be the coach of the team involved in the Heidi game in view of the ending planned for the following episode.
And speaking again of that ending, the wall behind Tony in Holsten’s is consumed with four large murals specifically brought in by the production crew for the shoot. The largest and most centered depicts a huge, light-colored building with lots of windows, somewhat reminiscent of the Inn at the Oaks in Tony’s coma dream. It’s apparently a high school, however, as it is flanked on either side by images of football players in full uniform with what appear to be names and year of graduation engraved at the bottom. To the side and extreme left is a mural of a tiger and the caption “Class of 1973” at the bottom. The tiger is presumably the mascot for the team and school represented in the other murals. So there is a strong symbolic presence of “football” in the last scene of the series, particularly of high school football from roughly the era when Tony would have entered high school.
Finally, though it may be completely insignificant, when Tony tells Carm about the accident from his hospital stretcher in Kennedy and Heidi, he mentions that he re-injured his knee, “the one from high school.” That certainly sounds like a reference to an old high school football injury.
If these loose strands from multiple episodes are indeed intended to connote football in relation to the name “Heidi”, what does that actually mean in the context of the episode Kennedy and Heidi? What does football have to do with Tony killing Chris or, more precisely, with him killing his father in the guise of Chris?
The linchpin in that symbolism, it seems to me, is Tony’s old high school football coach, the guy who would have been his coach when he originally injured his knee, the guy Tony dreamt repeatedly of trying to silence or kill, the guy whose puzzling duality in Test Dream suddenly makes sense when he’s viewed as a classic, Freudian composite of opposites, specifically a composite of Tony’s opposing father figures with Johnny dressed in the physiognomy of Coach Molinaro by Tony’s subconscious in order to render acceptable imagery of his latent, patricidal feelings.
If you further allow, as I do, that the Johnny look-alike shooting at Tony with a scoped rifle (ala Oswald/”Kennedy”) in that same dream is yet another Freudian “reversal into the opposite” by Tony’s subconscious to disguise his repressed paternal rage, then the Kennedy/Heidi connection is pretty clear. The names are presented proximate to the crash to connote that, in killing Chris, Tony has finally acted out the Test Dream imagery that haunted him for years: he has (symbolically) killed his father, the “Kennedy” and “Heidi” of his dream.

“He’s Dead”

In my judgment, this explains Tony’s otherwise puzzling, peyote-induced insight when he proclaims, “He’s dead,” after winning at roulette on 3 successive spins, prompting him to fall to the floor in spectacular and uncontrollable laughter. What other, real death could have inspired such a euphoric and epiphanic reaction? What real death could Tony only have appreciated while in a drug-induced, altered state of consciousness?
Many felt the line referred to Christopher because he’d just died, obviously, and because Tony’s gambling luck suddenly changed afterward. That analysis never made sense to me.
First, Tony plays roulette at the casino while sober when he first arrives in Vegas and loses every round. Chris was already dead at that time, as Tony well knew and accepted. Indeed, Tony was never in any state of denial about Christopher’s death (or about having killed him.) He embraced it, both consciously and in his dream therapy session with Melfi after the crash.
The “he’s dead” insight occurs only after Tony takes peyote and notices a sudden and complete about-face in gambling luck. Why would he need psychedelic drugs to suddenly realize what he already knew and accepted about Chris? And why would Christopher’s death be tied in his mind to his own gambling luck anyway? No prior connection between those two things had ever been suggested.
On the other hand, Tony’s sudden escalation in gambling, which coincided with the agitation and intensification of his latent rage towards his father(s), could easily be seen as a subconscious rebellion against the stern, anti-gambling lecture Johnny imparted the night Tony witnessed the cleaver incident. To the extent that the rebellion results in huge financial losses and self destruction, it obviously fails. His father retains ultimate power and authority. To the extent the rebellion results in huge winnings, it succeeds, and Tony vanquishes his father.
That conquest was the ineffable and elusive “high” that Tony was subconsciously pursuing in Chasing It but which he could not articulate to Melfi. Thus the sudden change in gambling fortune on his Vegas trip is easily tied in Tony’s drug-altered psyche to a euphoric realization that he has conquered or symbolically killed his father, none of which Tony could appreciate without a vastly altered state of consciousness.
And that leads to why he went to Vegas in the first place. He asks that question out loud to the Vegas prostitute, Sonia, immediately before admitting that Christopher once mentioned taking peyote with her. Tony then confesses to having always wanted to try the drug.
Clearly, then, he didn’t just happen to pick Vegas and didn’t just happen to make contact with this girl. His subconscious was pushing him to that venue because he craved the enlightenment of a peyote experience. So while Tony’s real motives for the murder, and for his otherwise inexplicable jubilance afterward, were completely closed off to his conscious mind, somehow he sensed their existence and yearned to unlock and understand them. However his peyote revelations didn’t stop with simply understanding why he killed Chris.

“I Get It. I Get It!”

Tony’s desert epiphany is a bookend to his near-death coma experience and, I believe, can only be fully understood in relation to it. Yet exploring that relationship is a journey all unto itself, calling not only for consideration of the coma episodes and Kennedy and Heidi but the meaning of the cut to black that ends the series. While exploring the religious and spiritual underpinnings of those episodes is of even more weight and interest to me personally than the issue of Tony’s motives in killing Christopher, it deserves and demands its own, dedicated discussion. For now, I’d simply like to posit what I strongly believe Tony’s epiphany to have been with only minimal argumentation as to why I hold that belief.
The epiphany is presaged when Tony enters the casino on his peyote trip and notes that the roulette wheel is built on the same principle as the solar system. The ball spins round and round the center or “sun” of the wheel because of two delicately-balanced but largely opposing phenomena: the momentum of the ball (which, without the wheel, would carry the ball away in a straight line) and the centripetal force of the wheel (applied by the rim, which continuously pulls the ball towards the center even as the ball’s momentum continuously pulls it on a path perpendicular to the centripetal force.) The antagonism (or cooperation, if you prefer) of the forces gives rise to a unified system: an orbit.
If this sounds a bit like the Bell Labs scientist’s explanation of how two tornadoes are in fact just facets of one, unified system of wind, it’s likely no mere coincidence. As Hal Holbrook’s character argued, separateness is a mirage. The universe, and everything in it, is one big soup of molecules interacting in cause/effect fashion according to laws, making it one whole, not a bunch of discrete parts. “Everything is everything,” as the black rapper reduced it.
That was the philosophy that really made an impression on Tony in the days and weeks following his coma. The principles of quantum physics articulated by Holbrook’s character are likely as close as you can get to a scientific codification of Bhuddism and therefore reinforced much of what the Bhuddist monks conveyed to Tony in his coma. The monks laughed when Tony claimed he wasn’t Finnerty and explained that there really is no “you” and “me, that death would bring an obliteration of individuality. Separate consciousness – and the consciousness of separateness – is an illusion of the living.
So all this laid the philosophical groundwork for Tony’s Las Vegas trip. In that trip, Tony seeks out a girl with whom Chris had slept, then sleeps with her himself. He mentions having refrained from a longstanding desire to try peyote because he always felt the weight of his responsibilities, an implied contrast to Christopher, who always indulged in drugs despite his responsibilities. The idea that Tony was seeking to almost live life in Christopher’s skin in the Las Vegas portion of the episode was something several posters mentioned in first discussions after Kennedy and Heidi aired. Even the girl, Sonia, remarks how similar Tony and Chris are, a somewhat dubious observation that somehow offends Tony but which also helps define his impending epiphany.
That epiphany is spurred when the rising sun flares at him over the desert mountain vista. This recalls Tony’s earlier comparison of the roulette wheel to the solar system. It also resonates completely with the fact that Kevin Finnerty was a solar heating salesman from Kingman, Arizona, a town which, not coincidentally, lies 95 miles southeast of Las Vegas and shares the same desert landscape. Also not coincidental, IMO, is the fact that in the prior episode, Christopher spoke of the perks of joining witness protection and of “living large” in Arizona.
So I believe that, in that desert sunrise on the cusp of Arizona, in fulfillment of his identity as Kevin Finnerty, solar heating salesman, Tony saw his “son” – Christopher – “rise” and realized that, in murdering him days before, he (Tony) was really “rising” as a “son” against Johnny Boy. And in that linkage, he suddenly realized that “everything is [indeed] everything.” He is both Chris and Johnny Boy, both abused and misguided son and abusing, misguiding father. He is murdering uncle and would-be murdered nephew. He is both the mother that sees suffocation as mercy killing and the son who is suffocated. Christopher is both his son and his father. Johnny Boy is Coach Molinaro. “Kennedy” is “Heidi”. Opposites are really two sides of the same coin. In that fleeting moment of insight, Tony was truly feeling “one” with the universe.

The Second Coming

The episode following Kennedy and Heidi is titled The Second Coming after the Yeats poem that grips AJ in the English lit class he’s auditing. While the poem speaks to the bleakness of his depression and outlook on life at that particular time, there’s little doubt that – like everything of substantial weight in the Sopranos universe – it ultimately relates, first and foremost, to Tony. First referenced in the Cold Cuts therapy session dealing with pent-up rage where Tony’s deep shame from the cleaver incident is finally revealed, the poem seems the veritable inspiration for the storyline (as interpreted in this article) that culminates in Christopher’s murder:
The Second Coming By William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight; somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The widening gyre, the orbit that breaks down when the center can no longer hold, is clearly a parallel to the decompensation of which Melfi warned, the point at which Tony’s defenses after Junior’s second murder attempt could no longer hold and the underlying pathological rage at his fathers would take over. True to the poem, a “blood-dimmed tide was loosed”, inspired by a perverse compassion for the “innocent”. While “the best” all mourned Christopher and thought his death a tragedy, Tony, “the worst”, was full of passionate intensity and could not understand why no one else saw the greater good in Christopher’s death.
The “revelation” occurs in a “waste of desert sand”, imagery easily compatible with Tony’s “I get it” moment in the Nevada/Arizona desert. The uniquely depraved look on his face as he suffocated Christopher is evoked by the line describing a “gaze as blank and pitiless as the sun”. “Twenty years of stony sleep” refers to the decades of denial Tony maintained, the defense mechanisms that kept him all his life from confronting and admitting that, in some very real ways, he hated his father. It’s a figurative sleep that was suggested literally in the noted fact that so many episodes in season 6B started with Tony in a deep sleep. Somnolence was suggested even in the choice of the song “Comfortably Numb” as soundtrack in the moments immediately preceding the crash, the moments right before the hour of the “rough beast” finally arrived. Even the incidentals are perfect allusions, as with the image of “stony sleep” being turned into a nightmare by a “rocking cradle”, or, in this case, by a car seat with a branch sticking through it.
I’m intrigued by the line describing the emerging beast as having “lion body”. It may mean absolutely nothing. But among the story points worth considering in relation to it are the tiger on the wall in Holsten’s and the enigmatic cat in Made In America.
More obscure is the fact that in Remember When, the single episode most explicitly dealing with the violent release of stifled paternal rage, Carter Chong described his grandfather as a “lion” and noted that his father owned “Grumman” stock. (Grumman manufactured a number of high-profile fighter military aircraft, most of them named for some kind of cat, e.g., Panther, Jaguar, Tomcat, Tigercat.) Carter was reviewing these facts to himself in the scene immediately preceding his vicious attack on Junior, suggesting that, in acting out on his stifled paternal hatred, he was adopting the predatory, aggressive characteristics of a wild cat. Notably, when Junior, the paternal surrogate who modeled this kind of aggressive behavior to Carter, was seen at the end of that episode bruised and literally defanged, his sunken mouth void of false teeth, he was stroking a harmless little housecat on his lap. Once a lion, the former mob boss was a lion no more.

Asbestos Dumping as a Metaphor for Tony’s Toxic Spill of Rage

Kennedy and Heidi opens with a controversy between Tony and Phil Leotardo over asbestos disposal. One of Tony’s contractors was removing asbestos from old buildings, while following none of the strict (and expensive) asbestos-handling laws regulating worker and public safety, and was seeking to dump completely uncontained truck-fulls at waste stations controlled by Phil. Phil’s guys were denying the trucks the right to dump. As a consequence, huge, openly-smoking asbestos mounds were building up at job sites.
After Christopher’s death, Tony was doing little to find a solution, skipping town to gamble, get laid, and get high and leaving the contractor high and dry. Finally, near the very end of the episode, the contractor dumps heaps of asbestos at dawn in an open marsh area resembling the New Jersey Meadowlands.
Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral that gained widespread use in the 19th and 20th centuries as an ingredient in various building industry materials – including wall compounds, insulation, and roofing materials – primarily because of its extreme insulative properties and resistance to heat and fire. In the last 40 years, it’s become better-known for its cancer-causing and toxic effects on those mining and working with it in manufacturing, demolition/remodeling, or other “raw” environments.
Both the heat resistance and toxicity of asbestos make the shoddy removal/dumping storyline a compelling metaphor for Tony’s equally shoddy “dumping” in Kennedy and Heidi. The smoldering heat and flames from his hatred towards his father and uncle were contained beneath his consciousness by an insulating firewall of denial and repression. In essence, this denial and repression was Tony’s psychological asbestos, and it (more or less) contained the heat and fire within him for 47 years.
But it finally broke down, allowing the flames to rage and do damage and necessitating a messy disposal. Unfortunately the breakdown didn’t happen where it should have, in his therapist’s office as the result of honest introspection and dialog about little things like his uncle trying to kill him twice and his father indoctrinating him to murder at 22. That would have been the equivalent of careful, legally-compliant asbestos removal. Instead the breakdown occurred in a roadside ravine and the resulting “waste [in the] desert sand” was every bit as toxic as the smoking piles illegally dumped in the Meadowlands immediately before the desert epiphany and which we saw reprised in the very first shot of the following episode.
Think about that for a moment. Tony’s “I get it” moment was literally sandwiched between shots of noxious mounds of asbestos blowing in the New Jersey wind, a significant clue that some other kind of perversely cathartic disposal was in the middle of that sandwich.

The Orbit of the ‘Blue Comet’: Long Journey to Nowhere

It’s fair to ask: if the broad strokes of my interpretation are valid, what impact did the epiphany have on Tony going forward? After the drugs wore off, did he actually retain any specific understanding of his subconscious motives for killing Chris? Was he left only with the impression that he had enjoyed a very brief moment of enlightenment but without intellectual distillation of the enlightenment itself?
Because the insight was founded upon the secret that he had murdered Chris, even if Tony had retained it, he couldn’t overtly share it with anyone. Still, I lean toward the interpretation that the specifics (at least the ones I proffered) were lost to him when the altered state of consciousness ceased. When he tried to describe the magic of what he experienced in the desert to his crew, he could only come up with the most mundane, inadequate words: “The sun . . . came up.” They all looked at him like he was half retarded.
He was slightly more specific with Melfi, offering that he saw “for pretty certain” that this reality is not all there is. He couldn’t define the alternative but was still convinced there was “something else”.
He did speak in therapy of appreciating a balance and unity in opposites that he hadn’t appreciated before, a “ying” [sic] and “yang”. And he offered that “mothers are like buses . . . the vehicle that gets us here,” but that, once here, we are all on our own, individual journeys (mothers included.) So, to the extent his epiphany comported with what he revealed in therapy, it seems to have had little to do with fathers and with Christopher’s murder and more to do with letting go (finally) of some of his issues with his mother.
But perhaps the best clue to his residual state of understanding came when he indicated that some of what he thought he had grasped in the desert now eluded him. “You think you know, you think you learn something . . . like when I got shot,” he begins. Then, speaking specifically about the peyote experience, he reports that the insight gained is “kinda hard to describe. . . . You know, you have these thoughts, and you almost grab it . . . and then . . . ftt.” He flicks his fingers away from his chin as if to indicate “nothing”. So, to paraphrase Edna St. Vincent Millay, a fragment of what he knew remains, but, apparently, the best is lost.
It wouldn’t take long for all of it to be lost. By the time Tony sits with AJ’s female therapist in Made In America, “going about in pity” for himself because of who his mother was, he has come full circle, essentially back to where he was to start the series. Like a “blue comet”, his orbit was highly elliptical, if not erratic, and carried with it the potential of veering off into deep space or crashing into the sun. But despite killing his own nephew, having a near-death experience himself, and saving his son from an act of suicide, the orbit held. The sober breakthrough never came. The repudiation of his father and of his way of life never took hold in his consciousness. And so, by series’ end, we, like Tony, were exhausted from a long journey that ultimately took us nowhere.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5