XCOM Chimerian Squadron - Episode 3 // HandBraked
2***IMPORTANT NOTE: Roskomnadzor may block Youtube in Russia at any moment, preventing me from uploading videos without VPN (which means "you can't upload anything anymore"), I'll post this note on every video I upload here and Crepar Additional until the censorship situation easens***
==== Began uploading on 2022, March, 20th, 22:56 ====
Hello again.
It's a strange thing - while I do enjoy writing commentary for Siberian Mayhem and can get quite a kick out of doing something for XCOM 2 TSE... or for Crepar Additional even, Chimerian Squadron is just isn't that fun to even render. I honestly want to go full 2020 and just dump raw footage of Chimerian Squadron, write lore stuff from Jared Hill and power through the LP. But I also want to edit the episodes and encode them so that they don't lag...
Oh, yeah, today we're going on another mission. This time I had two options - either getting the contraband, or saving the friendly VIP. Chimerian Squadron VIP missions are almost WoTC's Mann Co Crates-like level of frustrating, so the choice was simple enough.
With that said, now I can finally get to something I enjoy more - writing the continuation of Jared Hill's story.
FLARETEK HDD FILE DIRECTORY
FILE NAME: UNITED HEARTS.wotc
AUTHOR: JARED HILL
DATE: 25-MAY-2036
START FILE
Boy, it sure was a busy day. Well, because I type the information onto HDD, that means that I have something really important to talk about – or just want to express myself.
The second variant is what I’m doing today.
Today I’ve witnessed a marriage between Central and his long-time girlfriend, Leslie Campbell (now Bradford herself, of course).
I did know about Bradford having a romance during the Resistance war – well, he did tell me the stories under the name of “Tactical Legacy”. And I did re-tell them to Weber when I had to get her along with her friends back into XCOM. What I didn’t think is that John wanted to use the opportunity which opened after we ripped apart the Ethereals.
He was quite scared about actually marrying Leslie before the Ethereals were killed, fearing that he might die from a stray UFO plasma cannon shot and leaving her with a broken heart. Good to say that he didn’t, and with the wishes of both, they indeed finally approached each other in this fateful decision.
Finding a good outfit for John was quite difficult – Central wanted this to go quite old-fashioned, but ADVENT replaced what he envisioned in mind years ago. Thankfully, he seemed to obsess over his pre-Resistance XCOM sweater, so with his permission, I’ve obtained the coordinates of XCOM HQ ruins. Getting there was actually much easier – and the dirty, yet kinda intact sweater was found.
With Shen’s help, we restored it to full glory. Nothing else was needed – John was happy with this.
When we finally arrived at the wedding spot, I’ve finally met Leslie. Gray-haired, yet still full of energy John talked about, she wasn’t a top-10 beauty, yet she had lots of character in herself.
This thing I like really, when you can back up yourself not with looks, but with the real persona.
And it was seen - even under the enormous stress of being in the Resistance, with constant ADVENT hunting, with visible scars and premature visual aging... if you don't break, you become even stronger mentally. And Leslie did bring Bradford out of suicidal thought back in 2020s even when it was obvious that she fought an uphill battle - without her intervention I wouldn't meet anyone I know today and still be haunted by the ghosts of my old friends I had to mercifully kill.
You really need to learn that your character matters more than trying to be the twintailed bombshell of the crew, Tina Polyakova, otherwise you’ll break up with Ferguson soon.
John’s friends were also there. Darrell Rutherford especially, “the best friend” by Central’s words – he was spectacularly amazing. In fact, all of them rocked. It really was seen even without words about how much trust and friendship was between them.
I was shocked when I’ve learnt about the existence of John and Leslie’s daughter, Amelia. She was a teenager, with combined looks of both Central and (now) his wife. And yet – she was a much more lovable, infinitely more cheery girl than I’ve imagined from the children of war. In fact, it was a lot of pleasure talking with her. John, please, give your daughter a spot in XCOM when she finally grows up – she will be at home here.
The marriage itself was simple, yet heartwarming. Seeing John and Leslie finally kissing in their evidently eternal bonding brought me to tears. I love seeing friends getting together at the long last. The applauds from John’s old team and XCOM personnel was the icing on a cake.
This gives me hope for a good future of this world.
END FILE