I've read through GitC obsessively several times. On a possibly unrelated note, I have chronic insomnia. During one particularly bad night I wrote the text below. After having a bit more sleep I said, 'why not', polished it up a little, and am posting it here. Seemed a shame to just leave it on my drive.

Regular readers will know that I'm fascinated by the grey area between BDs and XBDs. The liminal space where the acts becomes more and more criminal, the scenes more visceral, the experience more raw, and yet they still retain some vestige of civilisation. There's no denying that getting hold of a four-hour black site interrogation XBD is almost as easy as getting a hold of celebrity shopping BD these days, but both those extremes have their problems. The shopping BD is so curated, focus-group-tested, and fake that it'll make you long for a single stubbed toe. The torture porn is just as bad in the other direction - there's no artistry, no nuance, no depth. But in the middle ground? In between the corporate scop and the Scav gangoon's masturbatory fantasy there are some truly groundbreaking things happening. For the next few episodes I want to explore this area, and show you what kind of preem shit is waiting for you out there.

I'm going to start by putting the spotlight on a new BD artist who freely explorers the entire twilight land between BD and XBD, whose work varies from a softcore BD music show to one of the most vicious hardcore murder XBDs that the city has seen in _months_. The artist has a broad focus, but there is a common theme -

The Lived Experience of Being The Ghost.

Welcome to episode, uh, who-the-fuck-knows-point-three of Three-Eye's XBD Review.

'Ghost' showed up on the scene a few months ago as fresh talent with the Mox. Touted as the first BDs showing what it really felt like to be an Edgerunner, she barely made any noise but showed a lot of promise. She's grown since then. Let's go through what she's got so far.

Quick aside: I need you play along at home with this one chooms. Go to the site 'K&M Enterprises', select the 'Complete Ghost Collection', and pay your eddies. About half an hour after placing your order a sullen urchin with a jumped-up attitude and a rusty Lexington will throw a bag of BDs wrapped in condoms at your front door; truly, we live in the age of convenience. I shouldn't have to say this, but don't open your door until you're absolutely sure that the gangoon is gone - that street thug wasn't being played by an actor. That's one of the things I love about XBDs - the authenticity.

We're doing this in chronological order, so play the first three, one after the other. 'Shard', 'Laptop', 'Statue'. Basically, our 'Edgerunner' is klepping scop. And not even well protected scop. In 'Shard' she walks into some gonk's apartment, takes the shard, walks out. In 'Laptop' she laboriously hacks a laptop before stealing it. 'Statue' at least has a mildly amusing section where Ghost has to wait in a closet while the world's worst lover does his business. Judging from the irritation, either it was unscripted, or Ghost is one hell of an actor. Either way, why are we looking at this scop? Because these boring BDs allow us to see why Ghost has what it takes to be a mainstream BD star. Their physicality is a delight to experience, their inner cool feels unassailable. Ghost is always in control, always balanced, always self-assured until... Well, we'll get to that later. The point is: the crime is incidental - the BD would be fine without it.

The next BD came out at the same time as the other three, and it shows the other half of Ghost. The reason why mainstream couldn't contain her. You see, as 'Maelstrom Ambush' shows us, Ghost has a calling: killing gonks. And she is beyond good at it. Here she's removed from the action, looking at the fight through a sniper scope, but her unflinching, joyful, lethality shines through. The point is: the content isn't the killing - it's being Ghost while she kills.

You don't buy that black ops interrogation or whatever because you're a fan of the streamer. You buy it for the content. You don't buy the mainstream BDs for their content, you do it because of what the streamer brings to the table. With Ghost, you get both. Both the feeling of being someone awesome along with the raw, brutal feelings that the corpo-owned world has made numb. Don't think we're at 'brutal' yet? Just you wait.

If you haven't spotted it yet, this is why I'm fascinated by Ghost. The first three BDs are baby's first XBDs, mild and free from any bodily fluids. The ambush is almost a true XBD - you're killing gonks with a sniper rifle, but it's clinical, removed. In both cases, the 'eXtreme'ness of the BD is seasoning, not the main course. How comfortable is Ghost at both ends of the spectrum? Is she trying to find her happy space, or does she contain a duality - both a diva and a killer? Does each side support the other? I have no clue my chooms, but I'm obsessed with finding out.

One thing that you'll have noticed already that all these BDs are smooth as fuck, thanks to the mastery of the Mox's star BD editor, Judy Álvarez. You wish your true XBDs went down this easy; Gottfrid and Fredrik spend too much time trying to find 'art' in the trash they sell to really give their BDs that near-corporate level of polish that Álvarez delivers. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the softcore BD market has a lot to teach those two hacks.

Now, did you finish those four BDs and find yourself hungry for more? Wanting to get closer to the action? Well, my chooms, you are in luck. The next two BDs, back to back, are 'Raffen Assault' and 'Scav Den'. Play 'em. I'll wait. If you only have time for one, go with 'Scav Den' for the twist ending that will leave you terrified of visiting- well, someone you should probably visit more regularly. I'm not going to spoil the surprise. The two BDs showing the same thing: how Ghost earned her nom de guerre. She sneaks into the scopsuckers lairs when they think that they're safe, and kills them all without any of the gonks noticing that their chooms are dead. If you want a power fantasy, these are for you. Make no mistake - Ghost is the real deal. Ghost is powerful.

Here also we can see Ghost's biggest weakness as a BD star: she's too quick. She scans email faster than you can read, hacks computers faster than you can track, and reacts to things before you've noticed them. She needs to slow down, but that's fine: it's a teachable skill, and I'm sure that some gonk will talk to her about it once they've worked up the guts. That'll probably be sometime in the next decade or so; if there's one thing her BDs show, it's that Ghost is one scary fuck.

Her next BD swings back to the softer side of things: 'Boat Heist'. Yeah, two gonks die, but fuck it, they deserved it, and they're executions, not a fight. Everything else is a smooth, polished, and almost scripted heist that would not look out of place in a action blockbuster line up. It's Ghost's first classic, and marks the point when she caught the attention of the mainstream audience. She shows a flair for the dramatic, a masterful control of pacing even with uncooperative players, and makes full use of her physicality to lift the BD into greatness. Awesome stuff, and you could show this one to your kids with nary a worry.

'Boat Heist' is swiftly followed by 'The Only Thing They Fear Is You'. As pure a hardcore XBD as Ghost has done, 'The Only Thing...' made big waves in the XBD scene for its magnificent violence. Here we see what happens when Ghost gives up her self-control, stops being removed from what she sees, and becomes part of the action. It's not perfect, but there aren't many BDs that include the experience of being hammered to within an inch of one's life by a borged-up Scav that I'll play on repeat. This is visceral. This is raw. This is XBD.

Almost. Because despite the ultraviolence and murder, this is still more than just death and destruction. Ghost is playing with a handicap. She's slaughtering scavs to a preem music track that she composed. Most true XBDs would have less artifice. All that said, this BD has some classic moments; when she is one Sandy-sped borg-punch away from death, she keeps her cool. She just politely waits until the borg is done, draws a big fucking hand canon, blows off his head, huffs down a MaxDoc, and gets back to work. Now that's style.

Her next work shows another pivot, 'Inner Universe'. From an eXtreme BD to a softcore again. Is this oscillation Ghost being uncomfortable with herself, or is she using her art to balance out all the murder in her life? It's hard to say, but 'Inner Universe' is a sublime mix of music and action, provided you can handle the heart-stopping parkour. A unique experience that Ghost delivers with panache, the slightest hint of effort making the whole thing more real. If you're scared of heights, this one is for you: after playing this one a few times a simple drop from the top of a skyscraper will mean nothing to you. The music is surprisingly good too.

The pendulum that is Ghost's interests swings back to violence for her next outing: 'Scav Den: Teamwork'. Here is a departure from her normal MO, as she has brought her chooms, and a spare Militech Minotaur she happened to have lying around, along for the ride. (These BDs must be selling like Glitter if she can afford to hire a Minotaur - good for her, if so). Ghost is finding her balance here - not as visceral as 'The Only Thing...', not as remote as her early work, here she is closest to her original premise - an Edgerunner doing a job. She still has her trademark insane leaps and the sheer joy of killing Scavs, but she's coordinating two fire-teams while she does it. You will think yourself invincible and a leader of badasses after watching this one, so maybe avoid your boss for a few hours after, just in case you get a flashback and tell him what you really think.

And that brings us to her latest work, 'Red Dirt'. A twenty minute rock show, with music composed by Ghost, played at a small club out in Arroyo. The music is preem ('The Pretender' rocks, no notes) and Ghost is an engaging singer who over the course of the BD learns to enjoy the gig. As a side note, I'm amused that this is the first time in the last three hours of death-defying stunts and bloody fights where Ghost has actually allowed herself to be nervous.

This is a BD. Polished, fun, bitesize, and suitable for children, pets, and any AI friends you might have. Quite a contrast for some of her other work.

So who is Ghost? The singer? The killer? The thief? The ball of hatred one small step away from cyberpsychosis? None of the above? Who the fuck knows, but I'll tell you this: trying to answer that question is a hell of a lot better reason to watch her BDs than wanting to know what it feels like to be an Edgerunner. Edgerunners wish they were this preem.

Are there any bootlegs or hidden Ghost BDs out there? One that I'm aware of. I don't know the details, but it's not available from the Mox, and it wasn't edited by Álvarez (and it shows). You can only get it from either 6th Street (ask for 'Yuto') or the TC (they call it 'Sushi'), but they're not for sale - only ask if you have the right connections. It's the assassination of a TC gonk while he was on 6th Street territory. It's quick, exhilarating, and shows that Ghost can pause to savour the moment when she wants to, but the editing (if there was any) is atrocious and nauseating. Not worth the hassle of getting unless you have a small body or want real evidence why raw virtus aren't 'better'.

What have we learned from all this? Firstly, no matter how visceral Ghost gets, it's never the reason you want to play the BD. It's the experience of being Ghost that sells, not the skill and slaughter, or the jumps and the music. You don't buy a Ghost BD for the experience of wiping out a Scav den, you do it for the experience of being Ghost wiping out a Scav den.

Pro tip: buy the BDs while they're there - someday soon Ghost is going to realise that she can make far more money as a legit BD star, at which point she will dump the whole merc thing and delete her back catalogue to whitewash her murky past and make the transition easier. At that point your collection of condom wrappers is going to be worth a fortune.

Well, that's as much as I've been paid to write this week. Join me next week when I discuss two more inhabitants of the foggy zone between BD and XBD - one star who tried to transition from BD to XBD, and one XBD legend who tried to go mainstream. Their stories may surprise you. Tune in next time, chooms, and remember: keep it real!