#it is so much longer. as i sit here trying to expand my thesis i have a book-length amym fic in my google docs

[labmousegirl]

the draft of my ameyume fic that isn’t even completed is twice the length of my honors thesis that will be published by the end of the month. 

[viv-hollande]

As Promised, The Israel-Palestine Megapost of Doom

Content Warning: This post discusses both the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the current Israel-Gaza War. As such, it contains frank discussions of apartheid, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocides both past and present, racism, antisemitism, colonialism, terrorism and more. As an additional tone warning, I guess: I am by nature a pretty flippant person. I’ve been criticized for that in the past, and probably will be again in the future. I don’t know if it's just who I am, or if maybe I need a therapist. I have tried to reign in some of my worse impulses, especially when talking about the actual events themselves, to try to give due respect to those affected. Nevertheless, if that kind of attitude offends or disturbs you, maybe sit this one out. 

This post is brought to you in its current form thanks to the generous actions of Dr. Henry Kissinger, whose untimely death many decades after it was deserved nevertheless brought me joy great enough to drag me out of angryposting mode and into hopefully more coherent essay-writing mode. So here is the partially revised, partially rewritten, and greatly expanded post that I promised. 

While I don’t have a cohesive thesis, I have written this with the intention of addressing/responding to the state of conversation around the Israel-Palestine conflict, and around the ongoing Israel-Gaza crisis. I am focusing substantially on the online discourse because it’s the only thing I have even a chance of changing. I’m a soon-to-no-longer-be-teenage college sophomore without a lot of disposable income. I’ve already called my Senators and House Rep. I really don’t have much influence beyond my power to try to persuade random internet users to be less bad. 

I’ve tried to restrain my tendency for purple prose, self-righteousness, and gratuitous moral judgements; you can be the judge of whether or not I succeeded. I know that I am definitely not an expert or authority on this topic, but neither is most anyone else on this fucking website. It didn’t stop them and it won’t stop me. 

But before that, some brief words on my previous post. Unlike my usual angryposting where I tend to regret everything I say and do while in the anger spiral, I can actually say that I stand by more or less everything I said in that post. I do have one correction and one clarification though. Clarification: the “Stealth Echoes” I am referring to are instances where the word Israel or Israeli are placed in quotation marks specifically. Example: As per a spokesperson of the “Israeli” Defense Forces, “Something something ceasefire violation.” Used as such, the “Stealth Echoes” around Israel or Israeli are used to signal belief in the illegitimacy of Israel. It’s literally just (((echoes))) revived. A few people thought I was talking about the use of quotes in quotation marks. Now, the correction: in my anger, I believe that I overstated the prevalence of the “Stealth Echoes”. I said 20-40%, which upon reflection was too high, brought on by seeing a long string of said posts in rapid succession. I would now say that the figure is closer to 5-10%, jumping up to 10-15% if you include instances of censoring Israeli like I*****i and the use of words like Isntreal. I feel that as a practical matter they are indistinguishable; they serve the same purpose. Whatever the number, it is too damn high and should not be going unchallenged. If you’re using them, stop. If you see someone else use them, either in a tweet or on Tumblr, don’t share them. 

That done, on with the post!

To start with, I want to establish some important concepts and ideas that I’m going to expand upon later so that you are aware and thinking about them going in. Some of these will seem pretty basic, but they are important. Trust me. 

Words mean things. Seriously. Words have meaning, both in isolation and as part of sentences. Many words have very specific meanings, and it is important to use them correctly. Incorrect usage of words deprives language of its utility and power. At certain points in this essay, you might think that I am being overly pedantic, but that specificity is important. 

Humans possess a strong drive to create narratives, especially out of history. This is normal; almost all humans do it. However, the tendency towards narrative creates a pitfall where the narrative begins to supplant the actual events in discussion and popular consciousness. Actual history is reshaped, often through omission or erasure, to fit the existing narrative. It is this narrative, not the actual history, that informs attitudes and debate. This is a problem for all history, but especially with a history as long, divisive, and deeply emotionally effective as the Israel-Palestine conflict. 

Pragmatism and idealism are broadly speaking two competing approaches towards making plans and decisions. Pragmatism is generally concerned with evaluating the state of reality and making decisions based on their objective practical effects. Though they are not necessarily incompatible, pragmatism possesses no inherent obligations to concepts like justice, morality, or good. Idealism, by contrast, is concerned with defining what the world should look like and aims to achieve that goal. This ideal world can theoretically be informed by anything, but is usually defined by morality. I generally believe that what is is more important than what should be. Whether in matters of politics, diplomacy, or war, it is better to evaluate the state of reality as best you can and tailor your goals to what is practically achievable rather than trying to force reality to conform to your idealized future. 

In general, I will try to avoid ascribing intent to any individual or action, except where I feel that concrete evidence of intent is publicly available. Astute readers may know where I am going with this. 

Rivers of ink have been spilled teasing apart the differences between Israelis, Jews, Zionists, Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and more, and between Palestine and Israel. This post is long enough without retreading all of that here. Nevertheless, I will do my best to use specific, accurate terminology where applicable. 

The past is not the present. There are many facets to this point, and they will come up fairly often. For now, just keep this in mind. 

With that over with, on to…

Anti-Colonialism & History

The Israel-Palestine conflict is usually characterized by the pro-Palestinian camp as an anti-colonialist struggle. In isolation, this is not a statement that I would disagree with. The modern history of Israel and Palestine is a history of colonialism, or near enough for government work. However, as I mentioned earlier, the actual history of Israel and Palestine has been reduced to a simplified narrative of righteous anti-colonialist struggle. That narrative erases the genuine complexity and nuance that is present in the Israel-Palestine conflict. I have not the time, patience, nor expertise to explain the 100+ year long history of this conflict; for a reasonably comprehensive, and as far as I know, accurate summation of the origins and course of the conflict, see this video. However, I do want to note some things that I see as important to the conflict or my arguments about it. 

The Jews, whether defined as a group ethnically or religiously, have a historical connection to the land of Israel, and thus possess a potentially (we’ll get to it) legitimate claim to the land; this is, in my opinion, an important intellectual and practical difference from other examples of colonialism.

The ideological motivation behind Zionism was and still is complex, but an important and undeniable part was a desire for a safe haven from antisemitism. Keep in mind, Zionism as an idea first began to spread in earnest in the latter half of the 19th century, during an aggressively antisemitic period in European history. France experienced a surge in the popularity of antisemitic, pro-Catholic revanchists, monarchists and proto-fascists after their defeat in the Franco-Prussian War; this would culminate in the Dreyfus Affair. The Catholic Church itself was a powerful institutional advocate of antisemitism. It took until the Second Vatican Council, in the 1960s, for the Catholic Church to declare as official church doctrine that Jews, literally all Jews, past, present, and future were not in fact categorically guilty of the death of Christ, as had been church doctrine for literal centuries. The 1960s. Russia experienced wave after wave of violent anti-Jewish pogroms that lasted well into the 1920s, only really ending after the Bolsheviks victory in the Russian Civil War (though this would not be the end of Russian, and later Soviet, antisemitism). The rise of German nationalism was intimately and irrevocably tied in with antisemitism's rise to cultural ubiquity in the German Empire and later Weimar Germany. Even in the United Kingdom, which in the 19th and 20th centuries was positively tolerant by contemporary European standards, reflected in to appointment of Jews in prominent political positions up to and including Prime Ministers, was facing a resurgence in antisemitism. It may seem that I'm harping on the point for far too long, but a) I want to emphasize the truly dire straits facing the Jewish diaspora even before the Holocaust and b) while I would like to believe that the historical threat of antisemitism is accepted as common knowledge, I have been wrong before. See also: previous angry rant.

This point is possibly the most important: many Zionists, before and after the Holocaust, believed that the only way to secure the safety of the Jews in Israel was the creation of a Jewish majority state. Back when the land that was to become Israel and Palestine was believed to be mostly empty, this would have seemed easy to achieve by simply settling the area with a new Jewish population. However, after it became known that the land intended for a Jewish state was in fact inhabited, and by a substantial population no less, any intelligent Zionist would have known that the creation of any substantial Jewish majority state would require the forced eviction of the land's extant, mostly Arabic population.

I was struggling to find a place for this, so it’s going here. I have thus far avoided the use of a popular term used in relation to Israel; settler-colonialism. I have avoided its use because I see it as overused, poorly defined, and ahistorical. According to Wikipedia, accessed 30 November 2023, “Settler colonialism occurs when colonizers invade and occupy territory to permanently replace the existing society with the society of the colonizers.” If defined as such, I argue that the term settler-colonialism is practically useless because it describes literal millennia of human history. Using this definition, I have compiled a non-comprehensive list of examples of settler-colonialism, in roughly reverse chronological order: Israeli settlements in Gaza, Russification of Kaliningrad, Russification of the Crimean Peninsula, Sinicization in Xinjiang and Tibet, started by the late Qing and restarted by the PRC, British conquest of independent Boer states, Boer conquest of modern day South Africa, Ottoman colonization of Greece and the Aegean Islands, Russian conquest of Siberia, the Japanese colonization of Korea and Taiwan, centuries of successful and failed conquests of Cambodia by Vietnamese and Thai kingdoms, conquests by the Inca Empire, European colonization of the Americas, Venetian colonization across the Ionian and Mediterranean Seas, Turkic migrations into Central Asia and Anatolia, the Mongol conquests, the maritime empires of Indonesia, the Muslim conquests and subsequent Arabicization of North Africa and the Middle East, the entire history of the Roman Empire, any of the dozens of examples of Classical Greek colonies in Greece, Anatolia, Sicily, and southern Italy, the Achemenid conquests. Hell, the Phoenecians were so into colonization that one of their colonies eventually became a colonial empire in and of itself, and if you believe that all of those colonies were established on empty, virgin land then I got a seaside condo in Almaty to sell you. Though I don’t have time to go through them all, all of the above examples have either been cited by academics as examples of settler-colonialism, or share substantial commonalities with cited examples in my opinion. My problem with settler-colonialism as a term is that it is fundamentally based in modern concepts of indigeneity and nationalism. To put it bluntly, applying ahistorical modern concepts to a time and place that knew nothing of them is stupid. The vague definitions and overuse of the term compound these problems and threaten to misrepresent a near-universal human practice as an exclusively Western European phenomenon, and serve to complicate and frustrate conversation around instances where a more specific definition would be useful to meaningfully distinguish between it and other colonial projects; South Africa being a prime example. Specific language used accurately is important. All that being said, modern European colonialism more broadly and the effects thereof are important fields of study, and due to both temporal proximity and geographical reach, colonialism as it was practiced by modern European empires has had an outsized negative impact on the living conditions of billions of people currently alive in the year 2023. Sorry for all that, I just had to get it off of my chest. 

So, back to the problem at hand. The point of view that sees Zionism as simply another expression of European colonialism is, in my opinion, oversimplified or even outright wrong. The fundamental problem with viewing Zionism as just another European colonial endeavor is that European Jews were generally not seen as European, but as either foreign invaders or domestic subversives. European Jews were generally excluded from the national identities developing across Europe, with very few exceptions. Where Zionism did recieve gentile support, it was secured through moral arguments and intellectual persuasion, not sinister influence. Zionism, while it was influenced by colonialism, Orientalism, and even aspects of white supremacy, was an intellectual idea and practical endeavor primarily advocated by a subset of the Jewish diaspora. In contrast to European colonialism, which was motivated in part or in whole by a mix of greed, national pride, white supremacy, and the belief in a ‘benevolent’ civilizing and christianizing mission, the intellectual underpinning of Zionism is the belief that the Jewish people possess the most legitimate claim to the land that is now Israel and Palestine as their historical homeland. That belief beggars an obvious question: do they? 

Maybe?!

This is a large part of the reason why arguments about Zionism get so tangled and ugly and GAHH!. Zionism is the product of applying late 19th century concepts of nationalism and a people’s right to a homeland to a people exiled from their homeland over a thousand years before. Except it’s still more complicated than that, because the return of the Jews to Israel is an idea that is as old as the exodus itself. So the end result is that who you support is often decided by your personal answer to any number of thorny, complicated questions. Are the Jews indigenous to Israel? Are the Arabs indigenous to Palestine? If a people are expelled from their land, do they have the right to return? If yes, does that right expire? If it does, then how long does it last? Should special privilege be afforded to a people without a current homeland? What about a people who have experienced suppression, violence, and social rejection? Is it possible for a land to have multiple indigenous groups? If so, what about the right to return? Can one indigenous group act in a colonialist or imperialist manner towards another? 

These questions do have answers, but even a simple yes or no requires additional explanation, elaboration, and will inevitably conflict with opposing answers. The concepts they rest on are complicated and nuanced. One that I’ve mentioned before, and one that you’re probably sick of hearing about at this point, is indigeneity. The reason I harp on this is because it is another modern idea, overused and poorly defined, that is useful, but whose applicability is less universal that an America-centric conception would suggest. Unlike in the Americas, where the dividing line between indigenous and immigrant is fairly clean cut, the Old World’s long list of conquests, migrations, depopulations, pandemics, and famines make the concept of indigeneity really fucking messy. As an example, consider the Turks. The Turks live in Turkey, or at least most of them do. Turkish nationalism, as it developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, considers Anatolia to be the homeland of the Turkish people. Do you know where the Turks are from? 

Mongolia. 

Or at least that general area. Archeological evidence is a little vague. I had a summary of that whole process here, but it was too long and I cut it. Summary2, the Seljuk Turks came to rule over Anatolia in the 10th century, starting a roughly 1000 year long process of cultural, ethnic, and linguistic conversion. In the late 19th century, the multiethnic but Turkish-ruled Ottomans began to develop and promote Turkish nationalism, partly in response to European nationalism. Because the Turkish people lived mostly in Anatolia when Turkish nationalism was developed, modern day Turkey adopted the status of homeland to the Turks. In conclusion, shit’s wack. 

This is just one of literally thousands of examples of ways in which the concepts of nationalism and indigeneity are, seriously, I’m not just saying words here, complicated. They just are. These questions don’t have simple, satisfying answers and the discussion around them should reflect the nuances of the situation, but usually don't. 

I have seen people expressing sentiments along the lines of, “Sitting back and debating the inexhaustible complexity of the Israel-Palestine conflict ad nauseam is obscuring the active suffering of the Palestinian people.” This is a sentiment that I understand, but do not agree with. It is important to talk about the abuses that Israel is committing in Gaza and in the West Bank, and to condemn them as criminal and immoral. But the discussion around the Israel-Gaza War does not take place in a vacuum. Discussions of the current war and of the wider conflict inevitably leave the realm of discussing what just happened and enter the realm of why. And the answer to that why? is almost inevitably wrapped up in narrative. There is an overwhelming tendency for the pro-Palestinian camp to reject the idea that Zionism might, in even a small way, have a legitimate argument. For most of the pro-Palestinian camp, the answer to the fundamental underlying question of Zionism, are the Jews indigenous to Israel? is no. Full stop. That is the narrative of Palestinian resistance. That is the narrative of anti-colonialism. That is the narrative that says that Israel is a European settler-colony. That is the narrative that delegitimizes the State of Israel. And that is a narrative that needs to change because that narrative makes negotiation and compromise impossible. Delegitimization is to nation-states what dehumanization is to people. Throughout the entirety of the American Civil War, President Lincoln referred to the conflict as a “rebellion” and the Confederacy as “rebels”, “insurrectionists”, or “traitors”. Direct quotes. A legitimate state possesses rights, can be negotiated with, and once recognized cannot be derecognized easily. An illegitimate entity must be crushed. Regardless of the crimes of Israel, and oh boy, are we going to get into those, an end to the Israel-Palestine conflict will have to be a negotiated resolution, because Israel isn’t going away. 

I have my own personal beliefs about all of the above questions and more. I won’t share them because they aren’t important, and it's not really my place. However, to reiterate some of what I have said; I do think that the history of Israel and Palestine can be accurately characterized as a colonialist history, but I feel that the narrative of anti-colonialism papers over the moral complexity of the situation and intentionally delegitimizes Zionism and Israel.

Now, you may have noticed that I’ve mostly been focusing on my problems with the pro-Palestian side, for several reasons. Once again, this essay is supposed to be less about the conflict itself and more about the narratives that I have been seeing online. Since this is an overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian website, addressing that narrative has taken precedence. For that same reason, posting anti-Israeli content does feel a little bit like preaching to the choir. Nevertheless, I have many, many thoughts about Israel and the pro-Israeli narratives, and I clearly have no compunctions whatsoever about screaming my bullshit into the void, so let us now talk about… 

Israel & Narrative

And also a little bit more about the Palestinian narrative. Sorry, everything’s kinda interconnected and it's hard to separate sometimes. 

So I know that I tagged my last post as “kicking the hornets’ nest”, but this next bit is more like throwing a hornets’ nest at a bees’ nest sitting on the back of a tiger, but here goes. 

For at least 90% of the people on this site, the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict is completely irrelevant, except for its utility in constructing narratives. 

A bold statement, you say. Well yes, but it’s a bold statement that I will stand by. Most of the discussion on this website, and elsewhere, is being driven by people for whom the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict is either an academic matter, or a cudgel to beat their opponents with. There are, as always, a few exceptions. The Holocaust is one, in no small part due to its scope and relevance even outside Israel-Palestine. The First Arab-Israeli War, and concurrently the Nakba, is another due to its status as as the opening salvo of the Israel-Palestine conflict, due to the immense suffering it caused to the Palestinian people, and due to its close relationship with the right of return, which holds importance both as narrative component and as a practical political issue directly affecting the lives millions of Palestinians. Things are messy and everything has caveats. 

Jupiter the nonbinary MCR stan from Wisconsin did not buy an authentic keffiyeh from a Palestinian factory or participate in the local Free Palestine march because they’re intimately versed in and personally affected by the geopolitics of the Six-Day War. 

They’re doing all of that because Israel is a colonialist Amerikkkan puppet that attacks its neighbors without provocation, and Bibi’s latest genocide just killed a few 9/11s worth of children. 

David, 41-year-old 4chan refugee, closet brony, “Classical Liberal” of the Carl Benjamin variety, born and raised in Buttfuck, Upstate NY, isn’t ranting and raging about the ceasefire agitators over Thanksgiving dinner because he’s thoroughly studied and is greatly aggrieved of the history of terrorism in the Palestinian liberation movement, or because he put the work in to fully understand the 2006 elections in Gaza and wholeheartedly regrets their outcome. 

He’s worked up ‘cause the bus-bombing towelheads have done it again, and he doesn’t give a hoot how many Gazans die ‘cause they shoulda known who they was votin’ for. 

Tumblr user viv-hollande, pro-incest Kaeluc truther from [redacted] USA wasn’t crouched over the toilet losing his lunch studying the long, tragic history of the Israel-Palestine crisis. 

He was losing his lunch because they just bombed a hospital, 500 people are dead, the bastards did it and they’ll deny it just like with Hook and Miller and Abu Akleh, shitting hells it’s never going to end- 

viv-hollande jumped to a conclusion that was informed by a narrative, and proceeded to waste several hours angrily arguing with an Israeli Tumblr user and stubbornly denying credible evidence and what he was seeing with his own eyes because of a narrative, much of which he read about but did not live through. There remain many questions about what happened at al-Ahli Arab Hospital, but the preponderance of evidence has fallen on the side of a Palestinian misfire. If you think that the evidence provided by over a dozen governments, media outlets, and independent analysts was all fabricated on the orders of Puppet-master Bibi, stop. You’re being an antisemite. Please learn from my fuckup. 

The above statement mostly applies to the world worth of spectators to this conflict and not to Israelis and Palestinians themselves. For those who lived through those events, or who have family who lived through them, there is obviously a direct personal connection to that history which, on a human scale at least, really isn’t that old. There are survivors of both the Holocaust and the Nakba still around. 

I also want to re-emphasize, just in case it got lost in the sludge, that the above statement concerns the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, not current events. Even for those far removed from the conflict, witnessing the ongoing bloodshed in real time is still a traumatic experience that is bound to provoke strong emotional responses and influence people’s position on the wider conflict. Narrative or no, seeing dead children is going to have an effect on you. 

With that out of the way, on to the actual pro-Israeli narrative. In no small part due to less exposure, I am less confident in my analysis of the pro-Israeli narrative than I am of the pro-Palestinian narrative, especially as it pertains to Americans arguing online. But, I have divined a few significant main points. 

One of the most important parts of the pro-Israeli point of view is that of a siege narrative. The Israeli narrative holds that the state of Israel has existed under the threat of existential annihilation since its inception. I have also seen in many places a direct conflation of the military and political threats to Israel’s existence with the wider history of antisemitism and specifically with the Holocaust. This goes all the way up to Benjamin Netenyahu himself, who falsely claimed, among other wrong things, that it was the Grand Mufti of Palestine who convinced Hitler to order the Holocaust. This statement was roundly condemned by basically everyone, whether Jewish, Israeli, or Palestinian, for good reason. It’s tantamount to Holocaust denialism. 

The pro-Israeli narrative fundamentally denies the legitimacy and/or existence of Palestinian identity and a Palestinian state. In many cases, it denies the Palestinian right to a state in Palestine at all. This stance is directly related to the perceived necessity for a Jewish-majority Israel, and serves to facilitate the forced removal of the Palestinians from Israel and Palestine. In addition to being morally abhorrent, this stance represents a fundamental obstacle to a negotiated end to the conflict. While I can’t prove it, I very much suspect that some, especially the loudest deniers of Palestinian identity, are aware of this and continue to do so intentionally to undermine peace and facilitate Israel’s continued expansion at Palestinian expense. 

For Americans, especially after 9/11, the narrative of the Israel-Palestine conflict has been folded into the wider narrative of the War on Terror. Israel-Palestine and the War on Terror are connected, but that connection is a lot more complicated than the American narrative, which, in its own racist, uninformed way, can’t tell the difference between Palestians, Arabs, Muslims, Iranians, Afghans, and the completely uninvolved Sikhs, several of whom nevertheless were attacked and killed by racist, overzealous American “patriots”. This conflation degrades the conversation around the Israel-Palestine conflict and reduces the legitimacy of the Palestinian cause. And while this last bit is essentially unfalsifiable conjecture, I suspect that the collapse of the War on Terror, and the changing narratives around it, plays a part in why the reaction to the current war has been substantially more pro-Palestinian than past flare ups. 

As you can see, Israel and its advocates are guilty of many of the same tactics and narrative techniques that I criticized so fervently among Palestinians. The biggest, and most infuriating, has been the consistent denial of Palestinian identity and insistence that Jews/Israelis are the one and only true indigenous people in Israel and Palestine, and the consistent delegitimization of any Palestinian state. This attitude has no doubt played a significant role in prolonging and extending the conflict, and with it the suffering of the Palestinian people. For more details on that suffering, let us now turn to…

Israel & War Crimes

“Israel is definitely committing a campaign of forced displacement, possibly amounting to ethnic cleansing, but I remain unconvinced of the crime of genocide,” - viv-hollande

The above statement in my previous post generated some pushback. I expected this, and planned to dedicate a whole section of the longer essay to supporting this claim, and elaborate on my meaning. Here is that. Oh, and full disclosure, this is probably the most pedantic that I am going to get in this, and I fully expect that that will piss people off for eminently understandable reasons. Nevertheless here I go. 

I would like to start by recalling the first of my establishing points: words have meanings, some words have very specific meanings, and it is important to use words with specific meanings correctly or else risk the degradation and dilution of the words themselves. Meaningless words are useless. With that out of the way: 

Genocide, as defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, is defined as any of five acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The five acts are: 

Killing members of the group;

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

Deliberately inflicting upon group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; 

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; 

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. 

So, we’ve clearly seen evidence of four of the five acts which potentially constitute a genocide, so why am I opposed to its use? The answer is intent. This is an issue that has been raised by others online, and the response is always a mix of a) harping on definitions while thousands of Palestinians are being murdered obscures their suffering and allows Israel to act unchallenged and b) here is the evidence that Israel intends to commit genocide. Addressing those in reverse order: 

I have seen many posts with supposed evidence of Israeli intent to commit genocide. But when they are coagulated, they look less like an actual argument and more like a conspiracy board filled with singular quotes, out-of-context statements, and tweets from some random Israeli expressing dehumanizing, borderline genocidal sentiments. I’m sorry, but this is not evidence of intent. Neither is pointing to Gaza, saying, “Look at what is going on! This clearly shows intent”. It doesn’t. Is a genocide happening in Gaza right now? Maybe. Its unsatisfying and frustrating, but intent is something that will likely be impossible to prove or disprove without access to Israeli government documents. It is classified meeting minutes that will prove or disprove intent, not tweets from Israeli bloggers. 

If you are angry at me for harping on definitions and technicalities, that’s understandable. But remember, words have meanings. I am not convinced that a genocide is happening in Gaza. But d’ya wanna know what is happening? 

War crimes. Crimes against humanity. Ethnic cleansing. Forced displacement. Criminally disproportionate military action. Killing and targeting of journalists. Attacks on medical workers and facilities. Attacks on shelter areas. Attacks on UN workers and facilities. 

All of these are crimes. In a just world, their perpetrators would be spending the rest of their lives behind bars. They are barbarous acts of cruelty that should be condemned, regardless of whether or not they meet the qualifications of being an act of genocide. 

Israel’s attacks on Palestinian water sources is a crime, regardless of whether or not they were committed with genocidal intent. 

Involuntary detention of children without charge is a crime, regardless of whether or not they were committed with genocidal intent. 

Indiscriminate bombings of civilians are crimes, regardless of whether or not they were committed with genocidal intent. 

The Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip, both before and after the 7 October attacks, is a crime, regardless of whether or not they were committed with genocidal intent. 

The word genocide is used on this platform like a fire alarm. Pull here to warn people about oppression and mass slaughter. But genocide, like all of the other crimes mentioned above, is a word that has a meaning, a definition. That definition is imperfect, but it is what we have to work with. Using these terms specifically and correctly is important. 

It feels sometimes that discussion around atrocities turns into a matter of genocide or nothing. People treat the usage of more accurate and specific, but ‘less severe’ terms as a form of denialism. It is that attitude that makes discussing these supposedly ‘less severe’ crimes incredibly difficult. ‘Cause guess what!

Every single one of the crimes listed above is a barbarous crime, and you should fight and condemn every last one of them with the same fervor as you should genocide. None of them are tolerable, none of them are lesser. They are, one and all, abominable acts of criminal violence. The overuse of the term genocide makes it harder to effectively fight all of the others and perpetrates a narrative, consciously or not, that its a matter of genocide or bust.

Hamas & Revolution

The Islamic Resistance Movement, more commonly known by its Arabic acronym Hamas, is in my estimation the most militarily and politically powerful Palestinian organization in the world. Although its stated goals have changed several times over the years, Hamas has generally characterized itself as a defender of Palestinian nationalism, an advocate for Palestinian liberation, and an opponent to Israel, colonialism, and imperialism. 

Hamas is also an aspirationally genocidal terrorist organization, and every time I see expressions of support for them you should feel sick. I certainly do. 

Open expressions of support for Hamas have been rare, but far from zero. Most of those who do support Hamas uncritically accept the premise that Hamas is an anti-colonial revolutionary resistance organization fighting against Zionist occupation. This post is way too long and my deadline is rapidly approaching, so instead of breaking down all of that, let us assume, for the sake of argument, that that statement is true. Even if true, none of that prevents Hamas from also being an antisemitic, aspirationally genocidal terrorist organization. 

One of the basic assumptions of the anti-colonialist narrative is that colonized=good, colonizer=bad. This flattens nuanced and complicated conflicts and leads to the excusing and justifying of criminal acts on the basis that they were committed in pursuit of a just cause. 

Anti-colonialist struggles are justified according to the right of self-determination. Many of them nevertheless committed criminal acts. 

There is a tendency to treat conflicts, past and present, less as actual events and more like culture wars. It has become fashionable to condemn the United States by rote, to shout “Up the Ra”, without actually addressing the reality of the situation one is commenting on. As an example of what I mean, take Morocco. Last year, Morocco was briefly appointed as the symbolic standard-bearer of anti-imperialism for… winning football matches against tHe DrEaDeD cOlOnIzErS. Today, Morocco is imperialist persona non grata and traitor to the Palestinian cause. Neither of these judgments were made because of the practical, on the ground reality of decolonization, anti-imperialism, or the Palestinian cause. These judgments were made because of the narrative of anti-colonialism. If the actions of Morocco, or anyone else for that matter, work in favor of the narrative of anti-colonialism, then they are lauded. If their actions contradict that narrative, they are condemned. Are there important geopolitical implications of Morocco’s decision to support Israel in exchange for support in Western Sahara? Yes, of course. Realistically speaking, they will probably be minor and mostly symbolic. Morocco isn’t sending soldiers to help occupy Gaza, and Israel won’t be sending soldiers to support the conquest of Western Sahara. Does any of that matter to users on www.tumblr.com? No. 

To the supporters of Hamas, I don’t have a lot to say here. Hamas has been open about its antisemitism, and both Hamas leaders and official Hamas statements have openly called for genocide against Israelis, and sometimes Jews more broadly. Hamas engages in blatant conspiracism and has gleefully spread stories about a Jewish-controlled globalist shadow government trying to bring about the NWO. While they did officially amend their charter in 2017 to state that their fight is with the “Zionist enemy” rather than the Jewish people writ large, I find it difficult to believe that they are being honest with their intentions, and even if they are, the 7 October attacks show that they consider Israeli civilians as part of the “Zionist enemy” and thus fair game. 

River & Sea

In my previous post, I made the assertion that the popular pro-Palestinian slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” is an antisemitic slogan. As I expected, I got some pushback on this, but have no fear, I have a qualified justification. 

Slightly modified, I uphold the statement that, as a practical matter, in the year 2023 “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a de facto antisemitic statement. 

To fully explain what I mean here, and to address some of the confusion that I have seen with regards to the history of the statement. Shoutout to @starsakura17 and @screaming-weevil for having a conversation about the term and trying to research the history of the phrase to better inform themselves. That’s something we all, including me, should do more often on more topics. 

As far as I can discern, the origins of the “River to the sea” part of the phrase are unknown, but Zionist sentiments about creating a state between the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea actually predate the First Arab-Israeli War and may predate Mandatory Palestine. The phrase first became associated with the Palestinian cause in the 1960s, when it was used to express opposition to the partition of Palestine and support for a single state in Palestine. How exactly this state was envisioned varied dramatically, but even back then, the 1964 PLO Charter expressly excluded the mostly Jewish immigrants to Palestine from their definition of Palestinians. Gee, where have I heard that before. Now, the PLO do not and did not speak for all Palestinians, and there were many Palestinians and Israelis who advocated for a single state that would be democratic and secular, thus creating a free Palestine between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Thusly, if you asked me in the 1960s whether the phrase, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is antisemitic, I would say no, but I would probably note that it is used by antisemites and caution you to be careful with your usage. 

However, it is no longer the 1960s, and the usage and users of the phrase have shifted over time. The most important change is the rise of Islamic militant groups, most of whom have adopted the phrase as a call to destroy Israel and purge Palestine of Israelis and/or Jews. In addition, the geopolitical landscape of Israel and Palestine has changed. In the early 1960s, when the land between the river and the sea was under total occupation by Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and when the idea of a single, secular, democratic state was at least theoretically possible, non-antisemitic usage of “From the river to the sea” was both possible and fairly common. There were individuals and organizations with actual influence on both sides that could have or did try to lead the charge for this exact solution. In 2023, that is no longer the case. 

When I see people using the phrase “From the river to the sea”, my first question is how will that happen? Who will end up in charge of the land from river to sea? Remember, words have meaning, and political slogans do not exist in a vacuum. In the year 2023, there is only one organization with the political clout, popular support, and military might even hope to create a free Palestine stretching from the river to the sea: Hamas. Barring an externally imposed settlement, there is no other entity that could feasibly achieve such a state. You saw what they did on 7 October; what do you think their plan is for the rest of the Jews in Israel? 

If you object to my connection between “From the river to the sea” and Hamas ruling over the whole of Israel and Palestine, then go ahead. Tell me how, exactly, a free Palestinian state from river to sea can be created without giving Hamas free access to the people they openly want to exterminate.

Regardless of its origin, regardless of your intention when you say it, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a statement that has been proudly adopted by the most virulent and violent antisemites on the Palestinian side. Whatever its intention, it is at best a slogan with a confused and muddy history that is deeply linked with antisemitism; at worst it is incitement to genocide. 

SO STOP USING IT. Any slogan that has to be regularly qualified with “but not in an antisemitic way” is a slogan that you should not use. There are better, non-antisemitic slogans already in use; you do not need to cling desperately to this one. 

While I’m here, I may as well address the phrase “Free Palestine from Hamas”. Like “From the river to the sea”, it's a theoretically neutral or even positive slogan. However, I see it most commonly used by those who vocally support the ongoing, indiscriminate destruction of Gaza and slaughter of the people living there. Whatever your intention, this phrase is associated with those who believe that any action is justifiable as long as it might possibly kill even a single Hamas member. 

Conclusion

“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter, or at least a more coherent one.” - viv-hollande

If you made it this far, you have my respect. I’ve said a lot here, probably too much. I am sure it means something; I am not sure if it means anything significant. 

A lot of people are probably mad at me right now. Some of that is probably fair. Some of it is probably not. 

I had someone accuse me of being “fundamentally unserious” under my last post, which is a very weird and kind of funny thing to say to a teenager. 

I’m really struggling with how to finish this, ‘cause I am well and truly running low on steam, and I have French homework that I’ve been putting off. I’ve scrapped, like, three entire sections that I either didn’t have time to finish, or that I felt were even more poorly written than the rest of this incoherent mess. Maybe I’ll turn them into dedicated posts. 

As a final conclusion: The Israel-Palestine conflict has been saddled with millions of uninvolved rubberneckers who all seem to have a lot to say about every aspect of it. As humans tend to do, these bystanders have created narratives of war and struggle, of oppression and revolution. It is these narratives, shaped by history, but also by biases, bigotries, personal values, and misinformation. We choose a good side, and subsume that side into our own personal in-group. We excuse the faults in our allies, and exaggerate or fabricate faults in our enemies. The Palestinian cause categorically dismisses the Jewish right to a secure homeland. The de facto leaders of Gaza are aspirational génocidaires. The pro-Palestinian cause as a whole doesn’t care to consider the fate of the Israelis, millions of who were born and raised in Israel and have nowhere else to go. Simultaneously, the Israelis deny the suffering of the Palestinian people, wherever they may reside. Many current and past leaders of Israel are war criminals, and few, if any, of them will be brought to justice. Make no mistake, this is not a case of “both sides”. As the stronger party to the conflict, backed by the strongest nation on Earth, Israel has had most of the power to choose the timeline for the end to the conflict. As it stands, it seems more and more likely that that end will result in the final, irrevocable extinguishing of the dream of a Palestinian state. That end would be a tragedy, and it would be a crime. 

If you’re not sick of me telling you what to do at this point, you have the patience of a fucking saint. To those still here, I say this: condemn antisemitism, Islamophobia, and bigotry wherever they occur; all conflicts have long, complicated histories that get flattened by the desire to ‘pick a side’; exact language, used specifically, is a delicate, precious thing that must be safeguarded; Israel’s crimes in Gaza, whether they qualify as a campaign of genocide, rank as some of the worst committed in decades, and the western political establishment’s tacit acceptance and endorsement of that campaign of horrors is, in and of itself, criminal and immoral, and both should be fought with as much energy as you can possibly spare. 

Fuck Bibi, and all those who enable him. Fuck Hamas. Fight war crimes. Ceasefire now. Free Palestine. 

A Message To Israelis and Palestinians

I struggled the most with what to say here. As I’ve repeatedly said, this post is intended not for you, but for the crowds of virtual bystanders to the incomprehensible crimes being committed in Israel and Gaza. As someone with, as they say, no skin in the game, I feel uncomfortable addressing you in a way I generally don’t when confronting my peers. I don’t know if you want or need the perspective of yet another rubbernecker, especially when what I do have to say is so insubstantial. But I would feel remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the people over whose heads I have been shouting for so long. So, for the final time, here goes. 

I am so sorry for what you are going through. To the Israelis, to those living in fear of rocket attacks and suicide bombers, and especially to those who lost loved ones in the 7 October attacks, or who are living in limbo hoping and praying for the release of the hostages, I express my deepest condolences. To the Palestinians of the West Bank, who have suffered the encroachment and aggression of Israeli settlers and Occupation soldiers, and who must soldier on through the ever-tightening vice of apartheid, your resilience inspires me and your suffering devastates me. To the Palestinian refugees, who have been driven out of their homeland and now must wait endlessly for a return that may never come, please know that you are in my heart.  And finally to the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, who have been subjected to years of indignity, abuse, and violence, who have endured overwhelming, disproportionate, and indiscriminate retaliation for every terrorist provocation, who have been starved, bombed, shot, beaten, and brutalized in ways that I, sheltered as I am, could never possibly imagine, and who are at this very moment deep in mourning over the thousands and thousands of parents, children, siblings, cousins, friends, uncles, grandparents, nieces, nephews, acquaintances, colleagues, and everything in between, I offer you have my most sincere apologies and my grief at your losses, pale as they must be in comparison to your own. I don’t know if they’ll help, but they’re really all I’ve got. 

I wish I could offer you hope. I wish I could offer you a solution. I wish I could do something, anything, that would actually have a meaningful impact on any of this. But I can’t. I’m sorry.

[harcourtholmesii]

A Strange Meeting

Fandoms: Dead by Daylight

Pairings: None

Warnings: - Reference to Violence - Referenced Gore - Referenced Death and Torture - Implied, Stated and Referenced Prejudice - Pretty Poorly Written

Words: 2019

I wrote this sometime ago, but I felt like posting some of my older works to Tumblr to get them out there. In this one, to clarify, I have this little headcanon that the Entity would want to get the most it can from its survivors and killers before tossing them into the void. So, the Entity forces some killers to be survivors and some survivors to be killers, so it might leech as much emotion, hope and fear out of them all.

Enjoy!

She had found a quiet place. It was hidden deep into the woods, far from the campfire’s warm glow, and out of sight of those judging looks. She could hear, carried along by the chilling wind, the faint cries of Dwight and Kate’s hollers as they searched for where she had hidden herself away. With her back pressed firmly to the chipping bark of the ulmus- elm behind her, she brought her knees up to her chin, muting her sobs. The cold wind swept through her, and beneath her long sleeves she could feel her hairs rising in horripilation.

 Goose-bumps. It was what everyone else called it. But why not use the scientific term? She didn’t understand. According to David, and everyone else probably, there was a lot she didn’t understand. Her father called it a ‘brilliant mind’, an ‘inquisitive mind’, but her mother referred to it in much the same way as everyone else. ‘Special’. ‘Unique’. ‘Unusual’.

 When the world around them began to collapse, everyone else ran to the door. When she was alone in the collapse, she just had to collect that one insect. Where one should run for a teammate, she had to collect the sap and take notes. She couldn’t help herself. That was what she knew; botany and entomology were her video games and childhood toys. She didn’t understand these trials. Never had she wished to be swept into a life or death game, and whilst other survivors lived for the chase, she despised having to run around. Her legs ached so much at the end of a trial, she would rarely wait to reach the campfire before collapsing to her knees. Even when those black, arachnid-like appendages tore her away from the safety of the fire, she could rarely find the strength to continue these trials any longer.

 Claudette’s head snapped up, hearing heavy footsteps approaching. It sounded much like David or Bill’s heavy boots; the last people she wanted to talk to. As she brought a hand up to the tree behind her, gaining some purchase on it so she might stand quickly and run, she was interrupted by the face of a man she had not met out in these woods. She had never run into another lost soul on her own before. She had always been by Dwight or the others, but now, she was caught out and unsure how to react.

 He was enormous. Like an ursus arctos horribilis- Like a grizzly bear in size, he was packed with muscle with wide grey eyes. He turned a dark gaze down to onto her; those grey eyes filled with mild curiosity. They carried a familiar weight to them, like the gazes she had seen many times when their group met survivors who had been there just as long as themselves (or perhaps longer). They were weary, exhausted and yet they looked at her with aroused suspicion. She noted the faintest dark stains on his clothes; there was blood, yes, like there always was, but a black powder mixed with mud and dirt caked the white of his collared shirt. He wore dark overalls with one strap snapped on the right side and, much like everyone else, his clothes were in such a disarray. How could a man like this be one of them? It was much like when she met David; just how could a man of his size, strength and temperament be a survivor?

 A crunch of leaves and twigs alerted her, Claudette’s eyes travelling up to the man’s face as he ducked down beneath a branch and with his back pressed to the tree, slid down to sit on her left side. He dropped heavily into the mix of dirt and roots, but kept quiet. She didn’t like this. She wanted to speak up and tell him to go away. This was her spot. But, instead all she felt was the urge to stand and return to the campfire.

 “Please stay.” Claudette hadn’t realised she had already started making a move to stand. His voice shocked her. It was a growl. Not like a threatening growl, but his voice was deep and broken that when his plica vocalis- vocal cords produced his words, it reminded her much like the deep bellows of a bear. She swallowed around a lump in her throat, feeling how her body tightened in fear. Her joints were strained, prepared for her to jump up and run like her body had never done so before. Even when she was in a trial, she had never felt so terrified. Nervously, she let herself slump back into her place at the base of the elm’s trunk. She was shaking.

 “W-Who…” She swallowed again, trying to gain the nerve to speak. “Who are you?”

 He turned his head to look at her; a slow, bored motion, with his grey eyes meeting hers. Even like this, he was still at least a foot taller. He was just… so… big…

 “Someone like you.”

 “H-How do you kno-?”

 “I guessed.” He interrupted her, turning his head away, his right hand brushing lightly at the dirt between them. She bit her lip to keep herself from yelling at him at how he was getting her jean pants dirty. What did it matter? They were dirtied from mud, blood and torn to shreds at the calf and knees. He glanced back up at her, one large finger beginning to scratch a pattern into the dirt. “Lost.”

 “W-What?”

 “You seem lost.” His eyes turned back to the dirt, glowering at a mistake he brushed away with his knuckles. His attention returned to dividing his gaze between her face and his picture.

 “W-Well, I’m not. I know where I can go and-”

 “It is not what I meant.” He said, stopping his digits from digging into the dirt. He turned his body, angling it towards her, a foot between them. He was uncomfortably close for her liking, but he didn’t push further. “Your mind seems elsewhere.”

 “And how do you know that?” She pulled her lips tight into a frown. She didn’t appreciate how he was analysing her. It was like how her mother tried to send her to a therapist, except instead of a sense of duty to her mother, she was kept there by her fear rooting her feet to the ground.

 “I know.” He hummed, returning to a relaxed position around the tree. “No one runs from the fire except for a few reasons. Since you are not screaming…” He trailed off, letting Claudette fill in the rest.

 “I… I just can’t deal with this any longer.” Well, he was certainly doing better than her therapist and actually getting her to spill something personal. Whether out of fear or not, it didn’t really matter. “I’m constantly afraid. I can’t keep up with this. I just… I just want to go home.” The world around her grew blurry, her eyes beginning to sting as tears welled up and then rolled tracks down her hot cheeks.

 He didn’t speak. He had stopped drawing in the dirt, and kept his eyes trained on her and how she rose her hands up in fists to wipe away the tears. “I just want to go home to my parents. To my microscope and studies. I want to go back to college. If anything, people whispering behind my back is nothing compared to a hook going through it.” She bawled, bringing her body into a curled position.

 “What is a m-micro-… ma-icro-scopp?” Her wide eyes turned to look up at him, surprised to find him tilting his head like a giant dog. He was curious, and the thought that this man didn’t know what a microscope was… It was a welcome distraction.

 “A-…” She wiped the tears from her eyes, trying to gather herself. “A microscope i-is a tool used to analyse samples. Like being able to see… Um…” She reached down to the grass and dirt, pulling up into view a single leaf, crumpled, but otherwise intact. “Inside a plant there are cells. By having a sample like this leaf under a microscope, you can see them.”

 “How?” His growl of a voice caused her body to shudder. Despite her discomfort, his being there as a stranger just listening to what she had to say reminded her of how someone would message the forums asking a simple question she could answer. At least over the internet and in the college chatrooms, people appreciated her knowledge.

 She expanded on how it all worked, and felt herself go on and ramble. What could have been answered in fifty words had ended up becoming an entire thesis. Then came the questions about how she got into college studying science as a woman and what the internet was. Like Ashley and Laurie, it seemed he had been ripped out of a time long before her own. How long had he been here? Still, who knows how much time passed, but through it all, whilst he sketched into the forest floor, she answered all of his inquiries and explained how it all worked. She appreciated how he didn’t seem to have any prejudices despite his time, and when bringing up the topic, he simply shrugged his shoulders.

 “It never mattered to my father. It doesn’t matter to me.”

 When Claudette felt her rump and tailbone beginning to ache, she stood slowly, feeling a little better to talk to someone other than her teammates. As she stood, so did he; carefully sidestepping around his sketch until he faced her. She felt a little trapped just due to his sheer size and might, but when she moved, he did not reach out or follow behind. Instead, he took a step back in the opposite direction.

 “Come with me.” She said, feeling a flush enter her cheeks. It was a little embarrassing saying that so quickly, but after their hours (she had to presume) of talking, she didn’t want to return to the group without him. Who knows? A man of his size might be able to help them in the trials.

 “No.”

 “W-Why not?” She felt a little astounded. Why wouldn’t he want to come? “I-It is okay. No one is going to run you off. I just needed time to myself. You should come with me. I’m sure the others will be happy to meet you.”

 “No. I have my own to return to.”

 “There are other campfires?” He looked over his shoulder, back through the thick woods from whence he came.

 “Hundreds.”

 “W-What?”

 “Hundreds, scattered all about. We can’t go very far, but you are not the first person I have met out here.” He stepped away from her, the shadows over his form hiding his face from sight. The moonlight streaked that streaked through the woods refused to move and just grant her one last look at him. “I have to return to my own. In time, may we meet like this again.”

 “Wait!” But already, he had vanished back into the dark. How a man like that could move so quickly and quietly, she had no clue. But apart from his patch of dirt, there was no sign he had even been there. In the dirt, what she saw drawn there was a truly nice sketch, if a little primitive due to the lack of tools. It was her face. Her face was in the dirt, with a small smile on her face. She bit back a huff of laughter- not out of actual amusement, but out of sheer irony that he would predict the outcome of their conversation.

 She turned on her heel and went back the way she came, noting the carvings of Mashtyx in the bark of the trees, reminding her of her path. Now, as she returned to the safety of Kate’s lullaby and the warm glow of the campfire, she came to realise what was stained on his clothes. What gave him such an earthy smell. It was coal dust, much like what she smelt in the coal mines of the Macmillan estate.

[blackjack-15]

Are You Poe-ndering What I’m Poe-ndering? — Thoughts on: Warnings at Waverly Academy (WAC)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE, ICE, CRY, VEN, HAU, RAN

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas (or not links, as tumblr is freaking out with links).

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: WAC, mention of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (the OG live-action show not the horrible CW monstrosity); discussion of the Poe short stories “The Imp of the Perverse” and “The Black Cat”.

The Intro:

It’s time to go to school, y’all — and not just any school; a rich, elite, all-girls school. Welcome to the jungle.

Warnings at Waverly Academy is one of two games that I don’t sort into a category (like “Expanded” “Jetsetting” or “Odd”), the other being the game that follows it (TOT). There are a few reasons for this — the next category really doesn’t apply, but neither does the previous category, WAC and TOT both feature a gradual shift in tone and approach to the games, etc. If I really had to pick a designation, I’d say that these are the “Growing Pains” games, where the world gets a little bit more open — but not all at once, the characters get a little more fleshed out — but not by much, and a few new things are tried with our character rolls — to varying degrees of success.

On the whole, WAC tackles its efforts far better than TOT does, but it does make for a slightly less interesting meta if one was just to focus on what WAC does wrong and what it does right. Instead, we’re going to take a look at how brilliant WAC is tonally and thematically, and how its source material — not kept secret in the game — builds it up and makes it better and better upon replays.

Before I begin, it’s fair to warn you all that my thesis was done on Poe and adaptation theory (and its relevance towards detective novels but I won’t touch much on that part of it), so I might get a bit nerdy. Hopefully it’s still exciting and relatable enough to the game that it’ll make for interesting, rather than academic, reading.

WAC uses Poe’s stories — specifically “The Black Cat” (obviously) and “The Imp of the Perverse” (in my slightly expert opinion) — as thematic (what the game means) and tonal (how the game feels) touchstones, not to mention their inclusion for some of the events in the plot. A brief summary of both is probably important when looking at how they relate to WAC.

“The Imp of the Perverse” is an essay-like short story by Poe that basically states that inside of every person is the desire to do something wrong or incorrect simply because it is wrong or incorrect (not morally, but in terms of self-interest).

In the story, a man commits a clever murder and gets away with it, receiving the inheritance that he wanted from the dead man. The man cannot be caught — there is no evidence of any wrongdoing, let alone any that points to him — unless he confesses. The idea of confessing — not out of guilt, but just because it would be the wrong thing to do — plays on his mind until, driven half-mad with his preoccupation, he confesses and is imprisoned and executed. The titular “imp” is basically a devil on the shoulder who wants what would be worst for our own self-interest, simply because it is the worst.

MENTIONS OF ANIMAL CRUELTY FOR THE STORY OF THE BLACK CAT. PLEASE SKIP IF THIS BOTHERS YOU.

“The Black Cat” on the other hand is pretty much a proto-“Tell-Tale Heart” — an alcoholic man becomes emotionally distant from his cat (a rare sentence, I know) because he things the cat is judging him for being a drunk; one night in a drunken rage, he cuts out its eye and kills it. A fire catches his home, leaving an imprint of the hanged cat upon the only standing wall.

END OF DIRECT MENTIONS OF ANIMAL CRUELTY.

The man and his wife move, and he, after a period of guilt, makes friends with another cat — a cat nigh-identical to the first one, even missing an eye. When he (drunk, as per usual) and his wife are walking down the cellar stairs, however, he nearly trips over the cat and becomes enraged, trying to kill the cat, only to be stopped by his wife. He instead kills his wife, burying her behind the wall of the cellar and bricking up the hole.

When the police come by they find nothing, and the cat has disappeared, so the man feels safe. The police come back to investigate the cellar, the man taps on the wall to boast of how well the house is made — only to have horrific screeching start up behind the wall. The police break the wall down and find not only his wife’s body, but the black cat sitting on it as well. The man breaks down, overwhelmed by his own guilt, and the story ends.

END OF BLACK CAT STORY SYNOPSIS.

It’s pretty clear what influence “The Black Cat” had on WAC — not only does the villain name herself after the titular cat, but WAC is also a story of guilt, hidden crimes, and personal weaknesses that manifest in rage towards other innocents.

It’s actually really interesting that Corine takes the mantle of “The Black Cat” up when she begins targeting other valedictorian candidates; the black cat in the story is sort of a symbol of the man’s sin — a reaction to his sins and misdeeds, and sort of a catalyst of justice. This ties into how Corine sees herself — someone rejected and mistreated by those who are “filthy” themselves, and who must then show others the things they hate about themselves.

It’s Corine’s self-identification as a victim that starts all this, and it causes her to victimize others in potentially fatal ways. The black cat stands for guilt, for the sins of others, and yet it leads Corine further and further away from any justness herself.

The story of “The Imp of the Perverse” has a little bit of a more subtle tie-in to the game; in a way, each suspect does exactly what they know they shouldn’t.

Rachel and Kim are obvious — they really shouldn’t switch back and forth so regularly, nor should they be so sloppy at informing the other as to what they did and who they met that day. Leela, who should be studying if she wants to keep her spot in the race, instead passes the time by playing sports. Mel knows that the cloak-and-dagger meetings are to be an absolute secret, yet wears hair bows that she constantly loses to one. Izzy has her future meticulously planned out, yet refuses to back up an incredibly important paper (and also relies on being popular, yet pursues other girls’ boyfriends).

Even Corine falls under this; by targeting Nancy, she’s ensuring that suspicion will fall on her, as 2/3rds of the victims would then be her roommates. She’s also cutting her chances of being valedictorian by not working hard for it and instead relying on other, riskier methods. Every move she makes leads to it being more and more obvious that she’s behind them — and yet, she continues anyway, just like the man in “The Imp of the Perverse” — leading from a few small incidents to attempted murder.

Ignoring WAC’s ties to Poe renders it as a good, solid mystery without anything remarkable about it (other than the pendulum, of course). Exploring its ties to Poe not only helps set up exactly who the villain is, but also sets the tone for the mystery. This isn’t a mystery of Nancy foiling a villain through her smarts; instead, it’s a story about how guilt and a perverse desire for self-destruction leads a once-promising valedictorian candidate to more and more severe crimes, culminating in the exact opposite of what she was working for.

The Title:

It’s pretty awesome, full stop.

Warnings at Waverly Academy is honestly a great title for a Nancy Drew mystery; it gives us location, a sense of the world we’re in (scholastic), and a vague yet not too vague sense of what’s going on. The alliteration is good, the abbreviation amuses me — it’s just solid all the way around.

There’s not much else to say; sure, you could strengthen it by finding a punchier “w” word to begin with, but that’s just quibbling. It’s great, I love it, let’s move on to the Happenings at Waverly Academy (which, by the way, would have been a terrible name for the game).

The Mystery:

Called in as a professional undercover detective, Nancy’s just young enough to hide in plain sight at Waverly Academy, an upper-crust private school for those girls fortunate enough to be both rich and smart (aside from a few scholarship students, who are simply smart). Nancy’s called in due to a few near-death experiences by students, punctuated always by notes simply signed “The Black Cat”. It’s only a few days until break ends, so Nancy must work quickly to stop the sabotage, find the Black Cat, and solve the mystery before anyone dies.

Nancy, as always, finds quickly that not everything is so cut-and-dried. Each valedictorian candidate has the motive, means, and opportunity to get the other girls out of their way, and all have something to lose. Add in a secret society, the threat of demerits from an overly zealous RA, and the sneaking feeling that there might be a greater mystery behind all of these incidents, and you get a case mostly unlike any that Nancy’s had to crack before.

Oh, and Ned is on the phone, serving the player up with the single punch of testosterone in the game (aside from the hunky Mr. Harris, of course).

As a mystery, WAC is honestly super solid. Lots of characters, lots of clues, lots of red herrings, lots of mini-mysteries going on inside of the larger mystery…it’s everything you want from a Nancy Drew game, and it doesn’t really drop any of the balls it juggles. Sure, the pendulum might be a bit much for you if you’re not up on your Poe, but I think it’s a lot of fun, and for sure a very different type of ending puzzle — not drowning or running out of air or any other ending that Nancy Drew games likes to do.

Let’s go to the movers and shakers behind this mystery, then, shall we?

The Suspects:

Mel Corbalis is the fan-favorite character, so let’s start with her in this huge, estrogen-laden cast. Distinctly of the goth persuasion, Mel is a fantastically talented cello player and a Waverly Legacy, despite the fact that no one at school wants to be caught dead near her. She’s not an outcast the way that Corine is, however, because of her simple insistence on being exactly who she is, and not trying to hide or apologize for it.

Go Mel.

As a suspect, Mel is slightly more suspicious than most other girls, on account of Megan being her roommate, but otherwise sits on fairly equal standing with them all. She’s by far the most outwardly aggressive, but also comes across as simply no-nonsense (a welcome thing in any girl’s academy, believe me). She also has the least of Poe about her, despite her taste in fashion, and is in general a breath of fresh wind.

Next up is Leela Yadav, athlete extraordinaire. She sure can bounce that ball, at least. Izzy’s roommate and just as much a social climber (though in less in-your-face ways), Leela wants it all — popular, athletic, and valedictorian. It’s a lot for any girl to handle, much less one who can’t seem to keep it all together.

As a suspect, Leela’s not bad — she’s as even as (most) anyone else throughout the first half of the game, but falls off a bit when Izzy isn’t specifically targeted by the Black Cat (as most of her gripes are against Izzy, particularly). Leela’s more there to increase the number of students and throw suspicion around, but she does a darn fine job of it, and is well-rounded enough to be genuinely enjoyable.

We’d be remiss not to mention the queen bee (and my personal favorite suspect) at Waverly Academy, Izzy Romero. Snobbish, arrogant, and with apparently the smarts and people skills to back it up, Izzy is the first Waverly girl that Nancy (as Becca) meets, and boy does she set the player up for what Waverly is really like. Izzy’s smart enough to know when she should put in the effort and clever enough to delegate it when she can, and that alone endears her to me, even leaving aside her hilarious dialogue and general vibes.

As a suspect, Izzy is the sole girl who really isn’t set up to be much other than what she is — a girl with more than enough smarts to get power, and enough power to pretty much do what she wants to do. Sure, Nancy can catch Izzy doing stuff she shouldn’t do, but she’s never really a heavy-hitter when it comes to the Black Cat stuff. I love her for that, too. She’s a lot like Libby from the original Sabrina the Teenage Witch show; a bit nasty, but hilarious and effectively harmless — and I’ve always liked Libby-style characters.

And her stint in the Blackwood Society is aces too. Man, this girl does not quit.

Rachel Hubbard, is, of course, actually Rachel and Kim Hubbard, and they are the plot point that WAC is most known for. They actually have marginally separate personalities too, with one being far snappier than the other, and having strengths in different subjects.

Part of the reason I love the Hubbard twins so much is that their presence is so...Poeian. Poe was all about duplicity and mirrors, and the Hubbard twins show off both themes. It’s just a wonderful little bit of a nod to the source material (thematically speaking) of the game, and I adore it.

As suspects, the Hubbards aren’t bad at all; they’re lying, sneaking around, and blatantly “forget” what they’ve said to people, all of which adds up to be very untrustworthy. Were it not for Nancy (and Corine) sneaking around, they might have gotten through their Waverly experience without anyone figuring it out — and that’s something to respect, even if it does make them prime targets for blackmail. And speaking of blackmail…

Corine Meyers is both Nancy’s roommate and 100% our villain this time around. Obsessed with becoming valedictorian and knowing she probably won’t get it, Corine basically puts out self-assigned hits on each of her fellow candidates, attempting to get the title by violence rather than by being worthy. She’s even cunning enough to blackmail the Hubbard twins into doing some of her dirty work, throwing people off her scent. Sure, Corine is a rather pathetic (in the non-sympathetic sense) person who I have little respect for, but she does make a good villain in a Poe-ish story.

As a suspect, the game actually makes a pretty good go at not assigning the blame too quickly to anyone, so Corine does manage to hide out in the shadows. Sure, one of the girls who went home was her roommate, but the other was Mel’s, so suspicion isn’t centered right on her. I also love that she’s actually punished for what she does — no amount of sad pictures at the end of the game changes that. Corine actually has the cleverness that CUR tries (but doesn’t succeed) to give Jane, and I think it’s wonderful.

I’m not going to give Megan Vargas or Danielle Hayes their individual chunks, but they are present here as well, standing in as victims so we know that this teenaged effery very nearly had a body count. They really help to give a sense of…well, purposeful disconnection to the game, where the setting and the snow and the fact that these are high school girls doesn’t stop the crimes from being deadly.

The Favorite:

The first thing that I have to say is that I love how the tone and crimes of this game contrast so well with a lot of the games (especially, sorry, CUR). This takes place at a school, your suspects are all teenaged girls…and yet the game doesn’t shy away from how horrific things really are to get Nancy called in. Two girls have nearly died in quick succession from one another, and the girls are going on chasing acclaim. It’s a messed up situation, and the game doesn’t shy away from pointing that out.

These crimes are treated with severity, and the culprit, despite things that might have softened her ending under lesser writers, is punished with total removal. WAC in some ways is a spiritual successor to SCK, in that it takes place at a school, lives are endangered, Nancy is (mostly) undercover, and the culprit is not above killing Nancy messily solely for personal gain. The difference, of course, is that SCK is not done well, and WAC, on the whole, is.

As mentioned above, I have a soft spot for Poeian detective stories, and so I enjoy WAC probably more than I would had they modeled it after, say, Holmesian detective stories instead. The ideas of duplicity, mirrors, guilt, the Imp of the Perverse — the self-destructive tendency to do what we should not simply because we should not do it — these are all present and accounted for in WAC from different girls and facets of the plot (Corine and the secret society both represent duplicity, the Hubbard girls are mirrors, Waverly’s own guilt towards the students it failed, etc.).

My favorite puzzle has to be WAC’s resident cooking minigame, where Nancy prepares hot lettuce sandwiches and definitely underdone cookies to the delight of the gossiping horde. It’s like TRN’s cheeseburger minigame writ large, and every second of it is wonderful — the gossip, the food-making, the unexpected panic of a teacher order — everything. It also helps Nancy keep her head above water, should she be caught sneaking around after hours, and I think that’s great as well.

My favorite moment of the game is when Nancy comes out of the wall in Mel’s room and Mel isn’t having even one iota of her excuses to cut and run. It’s not often that a non-villain will press Nancy so intently when Nancy does something Inherently Untrustworthy, and I think it’s great that a 17 year old girl behaves exactly as one would, demanding an explanation and not letting Nancy wiggle her way out of it. Sheer perfection and the moment, I would guess, that Mel became a lot of people’s favorite WAC character.

I also love everything to do with the Blackwood Society. Nancy goes so…metal there and we really don’t get enough of Metal Nancy. It features one of the few moments of absolutely, unequivocally brilliant voice acting that Lani stumbles upon (the conversation about the bow), and it’s a wonder to behold.

The Un-Favorite:

While WAC certainly has great things about it, it’s not by any means a perfect game. It wouldn’t sit in my top 10, and possibly not even in my top 15, though it would depend on the day. The reasons for this?

A big one is my least favorite puzzle: taking the pictures. It’s a good idea — a gofer quest to help Nancy get to meet each student, talk to them, etc. and make sure no one gets lost in the shuffle (like with what usually happens with Guadalupe in ICE, for example) — and is also great for acquainting Nancy with the Hubbard(s). However, in practice, the interface makes it incredibly obnoxious to do, what with having to retake pictures because the pan or zoom is slightly off, and having to jump around from place to place. It’s a good idea, but could have been implemented far, far more smoothly than it actually was.

My least favorite moment in the game is actually the whole deal with Izzy’s paper being deleted. It’s a dick move — and I have no problem with that, honestly, but the fact that she has no backup is just like…girl, what on earth are you doing where you don’t back up your work.

Adding to that is the fact that even in the far-off yesteryear of 2009, Word autosaves (as did many, if not all, word processors) and a copy definitely would have still been retrievable on her computer, and that the teacher would almost definitely have a previous rough draft or at least outline…it’s a pretty shaky thing to have happen (the not-having, not the deleting), and it does break the game down a bit. I know it’s not that big a deal to most people, but it seriously hampers my ability to stay within the world of WAC and to take the mystery seriously.

The Fix:

So how would I fix Warnings at Waverly Academy?

There’s honestly not too much to do; while not a perfect game, WAC is perfectly solid, accomplishing what it needs to do properly and well, without too many little flaws to mar its reputation.

In other words, it’s a bit like an unsuccessful valedictorian candidate; well-rounded, but not a standout when compared to others that burn a little brighter.

I would, however, re-work the picture task; I’m not sure how you could make it less clunky, mechanically speaking, but it definitely needs it, along with a way to know if it’s a good picture or not before you go through all the effort of going to the library and plugging in the camera. I love the idea — just make the idea work better.

I’d also change the “deleted paper” storyline and go a little more destructive — give the computer an awful virus instead. Sure, her paper is backed up (in 2009, probably on a USB drive, or saved to her email or something), and she has her stuff, but that locks away all personalized notes, study sheets, etc. It’s something that would be pretty damning for a Valedictorian candidate, while also still being firmly in the realm of believability.

And on a smaller note, remove the ability to call Bess in this game. It always goes to voicemail and serves no purpose. Why even include it?

Where WAC really shines is its individualistic approach to each girl and in its permeation of Poeian themes; that’s what makes it special as a game, rather than any of its individual parts. Sometimes, you need to take a break from haunted mansions and carousels and museum thefts and marriage troubles and friends who are always in need of help – and you just need to play a game with gossip galore, hot lettuce bagels, and an actual death-bringing pendulum to round it out.

[mandrs-writes]

My Writing Advice

Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a writer. I vividly remember writing stories about my dog way back when I was seven years old. And when I was eleven I was bold enough to think I could write my own novel and sent drafts to my older cousin for editing. Writing was my life, my escape, my passion. And it still is. But I haven’t always had a good relationship with it.

When I turned thirteen, I struggled severely with undiagnosed depression and anxiety. High school was terrible for me. All that passion I felt for writing? Gone. It wasn’t until I was older, that I was diagnosed with depression and began taking antidepressants. At the time, I was attending college to become a nurse, which was literally just a crapshoot because I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do with my life. Finally though, I came to the realization again that English, or writing, was more my passion. So I changed majors.

I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English literature with a focus in creative writing. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Wow! You probably wrote a lot during college!” Wrong. While I did write a lot of thesis papers, did a short stint in poetry, I think I wrote one short story for my fiction workshop. But other than that? Nothing. I don’t know when it happened, but I developed a severe fear of writing.

What is a fear of writing, you ask? Honestly, I don’t know. All I know is, I would write something and get literal anxiety over it because I hated it that much. I would agonize over every little detail until I was ripping my hair out. I despised my writing, something I used to be so passionate about, it was now something that caused me great distress.

Why am I sharing this with you? Well, as some of you know, I am now a very active fanfic writer for ereri. I update roughly two fics a week and sometimes I sprinkle a one shot in there if I’m feeling sassy. So how did someone like me, someone who used to agonize over my writing, go from hating every detail of it, to sometimes pumping out roughly 10k words a week and actually enjoy my writing?

While I am no expert on writing, I want to share my advice, regardless. I’ve come into contact with so many great writers who I know struggle with similar things that I once did, and sometimes still do (I’m far from perfect). Here are some tips I have when it comes to writing. I hope it helps:

Get in the right headspace. Clear your area of any and all distractions. Lock yourself out of social media, turn off your phone, kick your significant other out of the house— whatever that looks like for you, just create the perfect space for you to create. Any distractions could easily pull you out of your creative mindset and ruin your flow. I personally always work in my living room, away from my desktop because I just know I’ll play video games if I try to write in my office. I find the perfect playlist for the scene I’m writing (I seriously have so many playlists for writing. If you don’t have Spotify premium for playlist making, I seriously suggest you get it), sometimes put a Pinterest aesthetic board up in the background, and just get to it. My fiancé knows when I’m writing not to bother me and he stays in the other room. Make sure you establish clear boundaries with your housemates when you’re writing. Interruptions can sometimes not be pretty. 

Once you’re in the right headspace, JUST WRITE! Seriously, I know it sounds like a no brainer, but it’s a lot easier said than done. Whatever is in your head, just write it out. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, silly or irrelevant. Just write it. Writing and editing are two very different beasts, and when you’re in writing mode you need to focus ONLY on writing. Again, I know this sounds very obvious, but I know from experience that this is much harder than it sounds. My best suggestion is to find a writing partner to do sprints with. Set a timer for 20 minutes and see how much you can write in that time frame. When you’re writing with a friend, it becomes a challenge to see who can write the most in that 20 minute time. You’d be surprised what you can do in that short amount of time. And what you write might actually be amazing! I know I’ve surprised myself on more than one occasion writing like this.

Keep editing and writing separate. I mentioned this earlier but it’s so important that you do this. Our brains work differently when we edit and write. When we write, we put our heads into a creative mindset where we are inspired to create and expand on new ideas. However, when we edit, our brain slips into an analytical mindset which is great for critiquing and finding errors but TERRIBLE for creation! That’s why you MUST keep these two things separate. Believe me, I know this is hard to do. I used to be SO SO SO bad at this. I would write a paragraph, go back and read it, edit it, and rip it apart. My confidence would be shot, and I wouldn’t be able to write anything else for that session. Eventually, I forced myself out of this bad habit with lots and lots of practice (again, writing sprints are AMAZING for this!). You might think that what you’re writing isn’t any good and you might be itching to go back and read it and fix it. But I assure it, it’s probably A LOT better than you think it is. Leave it alone. Let it sit. And when you’ve finished writing your chapter, let it sit even longer. Don’t touch it for another 12 hours. I’m serious. When you have a fresh pair of eyes and your brain is in the analytical mindset, THAT’S when you should be editing. 

Always carry something with you to write your ideas down. Whether it’s your phone or notebook and pen, always be ready to write down an idea! Sometimes a juicy idea or thought will come to you at an unexpected time like in the shower, while you’re driving, or while you’re trying to fall asleep. That idea WANTS to be written down! Whenever I’m laying in bed, thinking about my stories, I’ll grab my phone and write down a line or phrase or idea that pops into my head. It might not make sense, but my brain is trying to get it out on paper so that’s exactly what I do. I might not use it, but at least it’s there if it does end up being good!

Find a friend/beta reader to read your stuff. And I’m not just saying this for editing purposes. No, I’m saying this for confidence purposes. I’ve always struggled with self-doubt. Like I said before, I struggle severely with depression and anxiety, and sometimes I get into really bad slumps with my writing where I think I’m the worst writer there ever was. My imposter syndrome flares up and I wonder what the hell I’m even doing with myself. Luckily, I have a friend and beta reader who refuses to let me falter when times are hard. And maybe we don’t beta read each other’s works in a traditional sense (I don’t really know how a normal beta reader behaves, to be honest). What I do know is, my friend will leave interactive comments throughout my whole chapter, commenting on what she likes, what she thinks works really well or what could be better. Having her interact with my chapter and tell me what is good and what isn’t, significantly boosts my confidence and makes me feel loads better about my writing. Honestly, if it wasn’t for her, I probably would’ve given up on writing by now. But it’s reassuring knowing my number one fan is always rooting for me on the sidelines. Get yourself a fan that roots for you, too.

There’s no such thing as too many ideas. I always hear people say ‘I have too many ideas. I don’t know what to do with them’. I know what you can do with them… WRITE THEM DOWN, SILLY. If you have inspiration for an idea, WRITE IT. I know you might feel like you have too many projects and that might stress you out. And if you are stressed by the amount of wips you have then maybe you should set some aside. But if you feel a great amount of inspiration for a new idea when you already have another idea in the works, write it anyway. Whatever you do, do not squander that inspiration! That idea wants to be written. Even if you don’t think you’ll do anything with it, it’s great practice and if the inspiration is there, it should be relatively easy to get the idea out on paper. I’ve written multiple chapter fics before because I had so much inspiration for the idea and then never posted them. I was so overcome with inspiration that I just NEEDED to write them. So I did. Maybe I’ll go back to them and finish them one day when the inspiration strikes me. And if I don’t, that’s okay. It’s good practice to listen to your inspiration and use it as it comes. Stifling your inspiration will only hurt you in the long run.

That’s pretty much all the advice I’ve got. This might be a little rambly and I’m sorry for that. I literally was just thinking about this last night and wanted to get my thoughts out so that I could maybe help some people that are in similar situations that I once was a year ago. If you want to write, but you don’t think you can, just do it anyway. Writing takes practice. It’s not something you can master on the first go. It took me almost a year to find my writing voice and I’m still developing it as I go. Don’t get discouraged. If this is something you want, you can do it! Just write!

[ladyherenya]

Books read in September

I had a moment of intense self-centredness and, internally, wailed: Why isn’t the world filled with more books that appeal exactly to me??? 

I’ve concluded that it’s like I have an inner story-troll sitting inside me shouting: Tell me a story! I try to appease it by presenting it with books, one at a time, and seeing how it reacts. 

Favourite cover: Flyaway.

Reread: The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley. (I also reread From All False Doctrine at least twice.)

Also read: The Disastrous Début of Agatha Tremain by Stephanie Burgis and Snow Day by Andrea K Höst.

Still reading: The Time-Traveling Popcorn Ball by Aster Glenn Gray and The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett,

Next up: I have borrowed The Other Side of the Sky by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner, Taking Down Evelyn Tait by Poppy Nwosu, and Between Silk and Cyanide: A Code Maker’s War, 1941-45 by Leo Marks. And maybe I’ll finally get around to The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams?

*

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakroborty (narrated by Soneela Nankani): I think this Middle East-inspired fantasy was just not the story I was in the headspace for -- it was longer, with more complicated worldbuilding and fewer answers. Possibly I’d have followed the political intrigue of Daevabad better had I read this in one gulp (I got halfway through the 20-hour-long audiobook before it was due back and I read other books before picking up the ebook). I liked the two protagonists, enough that I’m curious about what happens to them next, but the second book is 23 hours long and undoubtedly won’t resolve everything either. Maybe another day.

Tuyo by Rachel Neumeier: Ryo is left as a “tuyo” -- a sacrifice to be killed by an enemy -- as a sign that his tribe will withdraw from the Ugaro’s war with the Lau. But his captor doesn’t want to kill him, he wants Ryo to help him stop the war. Neumeier effectively creates tension between people who are polite, honest and honourable, and shows an intriguing relationship, defined by mutual respect, fealty and something more familial. There’s also some unusual magically-defying-physics-as-we-know-it worldbuilding but apparently I was far more interested in the character dynamics. I enjoyed this. Sequel, please?

From All False Doctrine by Alice Degan: My favourite book this year! Toronto, August 1925. Elsa Nordqvist, who hopes to write her MA thesis on a recently-discovered Greek manuscript, is at the beach with a friend when they meet two foster-brothers. This meeting deftly sets up everything which follows. The cover says “A Love Story” but this is also like a cross between a Golden-Age mystery novel and a fairytale retelling, with bonus academia and Anglicanism. I really like how much these characters value their friendships, their lively, intelligent and often honest conversations, and the way the romance unfolds. It also feels like a story written just for me and a hard one to review because my reaction has been very personal.

The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djèlí Clark (narrated by Julian Thomas): Set in the same city as A Dead Djinn in Cairo, this novella follows two agents from the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities as they investigate a possessed tram car. The world-building is vivid and cleverly, thoughtfully, imaginative. But, perhaps because of the mood I’m in and because this story isn’t interested in exploring the personal lives of its detectives, I have no feelings about this.

The Angel of Crows by Katherine Addison: Sherlock Holmes wingfic involving Jack the Ripper murders. Not what I’m looking for in a Holmes retelling. But I was sufficiently intrigued by something the author wrote. I really like Crow and Dr Doyle (arguably more than their original counterparts). My interest wavered a bit during the second half. It closely mimics the style and structure of the original mysteries in many ways and that’s not my favourite style. I wanted fewer cases to solve, and more of Crow and Doyle interactions. I liked the ending, enough to be glad that I hadn’t given up halfway through.

Making Friends with Alice Dyson by Poppy Nsowu: Australian YA. Alice plans to spend her final year of high school staying invisible and studying hard, but is thrown into the spotlight after someone posts a video of her dancing with Teddy Taualai. I loved how intensely this captures Alice’s emotions and perspective, and how the story explores that people have different emotions, perspectives and needs. Alice seems to me like someone who might be on the autism spectrum -- and whether or not that’s what the author intended, it’s great to see characters like her represented. I wish it had unpacked her relationship with her parents more, but that didn’t negate how much I enjoyed this. 

Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han (narrated by Laura Knight Keating): I can’t remember why, after I read To all the boys I’ve loved before and P.S. I still love you in 2017, I decided against reading the third book. It turned out to be my favourite. I loved it! I had a different experience of finishing high school and applying for university, but I find Lara Jean’s perspective intensely relatable: she has strong opinions about aesthetics; she’s nostalgic, introspective, stressed by uncertainty; she enjoys spending time at home with her family. I liked how this book captures her wonder at the intimacy of knowing another person well, and how, although she sometimes worries about their future, she has very few doubts about Peter himself. I haven’t come across very many YA novels in which a teenage girl is so secure being in a relationship. 

The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley:  After her sister dies, Eva stays with family friends in Cornwall, where she and Katrina spent summers years ago. I wasn’t expecting time-travel. I like time-travel stories, and I like how Kearsley handles it here. Eva’s choices make sense, given her situation, and the story emphasises that, even though she cannot control when she travels in time, there are still many choices she can actively make. So Eva becomes fascinated with 1715, because of the people she meets there and the relationships they develop... but I wanted to spend more time in the present-day Trelowarth, with its rose gardens and new tea room.

Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings: After she receives a mysterious note, nineteen year old Bettina flouts her mother’s rules for ladylike behaviour and embarks on a roadtrip with a couple of forgotten friends in search of her brothers, who disappeared three years ago. I loved some of the descriptions, especially seeing a rural Australian setting for this sort of fantasy. Jennings creates a wonderfully eerie atmosphere and the mystery kept me reading. However, the folktale parts of the story are dark, uncomfortably so. Very successfully Gothic, just ultimately not really my brand of Gothic.

The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan: There’s something so incredibly soft about this romance -- yet at the same time, it’s about two people who work fiercely towards their goals, worry about things, and are acutely aware of the discrimination they and other they love face as Chinese people in late 19th century England. Chloe and Jeremy’s relationship is characterised by banter and gentle teasing that reveals just well they know and accept and care about each other. Moreover, they have friends and relatives -- and a community -- who are supportive. I really enjoyed reading this and appreciated how low-angst it is.

The Threefold Tie by Aster Glenn Gray: Very tender. The characters convinced me that they were capable of communicating honesty with each other and making an unconventional relationship work. I liked the prose, which is no great surprise. 

Hamster Princess: Whiskerella by Ursula Vernon (aka T. Kingfisher): This time, adventure finds Harriet at home: her parents are throwing a masked ball so she can “meet some nice young princes without terrifying them”. But the princes are all preoccupied with a beautiful stranger, and Harriet is distracted by the mystery: who is this hamster, how did she get in without an invitation and what sort of magic is behind her glass slippers?  I think this is my favourite of Harriet’s adventures (so far). I loved the humour in this one.

Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer: When Echo finds her missing father unconscious and half-frozen in the woods, she is given a choice by the white wolf. A retelling of “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” with elements from “Beauty and the Beast” and “Tam Lin” thrown in, this has so many things which appeal to me, including an unexpected and wonderful library. Yet I found it frustrating and slow; the prose and the characters are rather straightforward, and I predicted nearly all the twists (bar the finale). But I believe that this tale could delight a younger, or a less critical reader.

The Disastrous Début of Agatha Tremain by Stephanie Burgis: In the two years since she turned sixteen and dismissed her governess, Agatha has been free to disregard ladylike behaviour, studying the books in her father’s library and teach herself magic. But then her aunt arrives and insists upon Agatha making a social début. This novelette is another story that I suspect I’d like more if it had been longer, if some of its ideas had been expanded upon and some of the relationships been given more space to develop. Agatha’s aunt and her motivations were unexpected, and I wasn’t entirely comfortable or satisfied with how that was resolved.

Snow Day by Andrea K. Höst: This novelette takes place after the Touchstone trilogy, more specifically after In Arcadia. Two outsiders get to see Cass and her family on Snow Day, and reveal a bit about their upbringing on Kolar.  This feels very much like fanfiction which just happens to be written by the author. It is fun to see familiar characters through others’ eyes and the expanded worldbuilding is interesting, but as a narrative, it seemed somewhat incomplete. (Maybe she’s planning something more with these characters?)

[virzafar]

From the archives of The New Yorker, 04/21/12: “Stargazers” by Vir Singh

“I’m leaving,” Astrid announces as she unceremoniously plops a camper-style backpack down on her bed. 

Moesche looks up suddenly from where he’s lounging on his own bed with a government-issued book in hand. Astrid looks frantic with her hair in her face and the corners of her eyes puffy, looking like she just cried or she’s about to cry or some winning combination of the two. 

Moesche puts his book down as he sits up, trying to get a better gauge of the situation. Astrid is unrelentless as she starts packing, grabbing things from the closet without much regard. Too many shirts, Moesche notices, and not enough pants. Is she even packing socks? 

He watches her hands move, quick and unsystematic. She’s shivering slightly, keeps pulling her sleeves down lower. Nervous. She’s nervous. She’s leaving.

“Oh,” is all Moesche says in response. It’s not like he hasn’t seen this coming at all. Astrid hasn’t exactly been a happy camper since the president issued a nation-wide containment order, but they’ve been in this bunker for nearly three months now and Astrid’s disdain has almost faded, become background noise for an otherwise mundane life.  “Why?”

“Because,” Astrid says as she chucks a first aid kit into a side pocket of the backpack, “I can’t just sit around here anymore doing nothing. If the government isn’t willing to give me some answers I’ll go out and get them myself.” 

“Oh,” Moesche says again.

“You sound like a parrot, Mo,” Astrid says. 

Moesche doesn’t reply, taking out a lighter from his pocket and playing with that instead. The flame flickers on then off, on then off, on then off – he finds solace in the repetition of it. 

“Well?” Astrid asks. “Are you coming?”

Moesche looks up from the lighter at the guards standing by the doors leading outside. He thinks of the large fence towering over the Safety Facility and the unknowns waiting for them beyond that.

“Eh,” he says, running a hand through his curls and gives a curt shrug. “I’ll try anything once.” 

Astrid seems to accept that as she tosses an empty backpack towards him.

“I’m still a little lost,” Moesche says. “What makes you sure there’s going to be aliens at this place?”

“No, not aliens,” Astrid tells him. She sounds tired. “Information about aliens.”

“Fine. What makes you sure there’s going to be information about aliens at this place?”

“It’s called ‘Area 51’. The government kept classified information in it years ago, inaccessible to the public eye. It was eventually abandoned once their secrets became too vast to keep confiscated to a single facility, which is when they adopted Island Luesch for use instead. But there’s hundreds of official statements claiming that they never fully cleared out their facilities. All we have to do is get there, break in, and find the right files,” Astrid says matter-of-factly.

“And this is a theory you were just sitting on for a rainy day?”

 “Before they rounded us up, I read a ton of books about it as a part of my research thesis,”  she says. There’s a tinge of sadness in her tone, an underlying bittersweetness about the studies in history that she had to abandon. Moesche can’t say he doesn’t understand it – there’s very little he wouldn’t do to live just another day in the life he had before the UFOs made the sky black and turned society into a place to be evacuated.

“When was this 51 place shut down?” Moesche asks. 

Astrid scratches the back of her head, avoiding his gaze as she answers with a timid, “Around 2050.”

“Almost 80 years ago?” Moesche asks in disbelief. Astrid’s silence is enough of an answer. “You snuck out of the safety of government care to investigate a hunch from a place that shut down nearly 80 years ago? We might as well deep-sea dive to find Atlantis!”

“I know!” Astrid shouts back. “I know, I just – I don’t know. I have a gut feeling about this place. I have to trust myself. I need you to trust me too.”

Silence swallows them. When Astrid meets Moesche’s gaze again she looks decades younger.

“I trust you,” Moesche says finally, and he tries to sound sincere. Astrid smiles at him and the thank you is spoken without a word exchanged.

With that, she gains a new perk in her step, picking up the pace slightly from the casual strides they had been taking. Moesche follows right after, gripping his backpack as if it would fall off otherwise.

“Come on, I want to get through at least another two miles before we rest for the day.”

It doesn’t take long for them to grow tired of walking. Moesche spends a whole day trying to remember what his father had taught him when he was still certain Moesche would inherit the family body shop, but he eventually manages to hijack an abandoned car with three paper clips and some radio gadgets.

“Impressive,” is all Astrid says before she claims the driver’s seat. 

They switch off cars each time they run out of power, sometimes lasting longer if they find a working charging port on the side of the road. They try their best to avoid driving by other Safety Facilities scattered across the countries. Like scavengers, they keep moving out of fear of what may follow them.

At night, Moesche begs desperately for his subconscious to bring him pleasant dreams, memories of what Earth once looked like – greens, browns, blues. Instead, he gets blackness with snippets of dialogue he think he may have once said.

“I want a war,” his voice at age 12 echoes one night. “Life is so mundane. I want the world to see what I’m capable of.” 

It seems he’s gotten his wish.

He was most worried about finding food sources when they first left, though it turns out they have more food at their disposal than they could ever consume. With the government promising an endless supply of federally issued supplies in their designated Safety Facility, there was no need for the people to raid supermarkets out of blind panic. As a result, the two of them bounce from town to town and pick up whichever perishables appeal most to them with plenty to choose from.

Today, they sit on the roof of their latest ride and eat lunch in silence. For Astrid, this consists of a can of peaches and a jar of strawberry jam; for Moesche, a stale loaf of bread and a can of corn. 

“What’s your theory?” Moesche asks as he rips a bite from the baguette in his hand. 

“About the aliens?” Astrid asks.

“Mhmm,” he says. “Where do you think they came from? What do you think we’ll find in those files?”

“You’ll never be able to look at me again without imagining a tinfoil hat on my head,” Astrid says.

“I think we’re well past that.” To make his point, Moesche gives a wave-around at the terrain around them as if to say ‘look where you’ve gotten me’. Astrid laughs. 

“I have a few theories,” she admits. Moesche quirks on eyebrow at her as if to prompt her to go on, which she does. “Mainly, it’s that the government did this as a reason to expand their military-industrial complex. A month before the aliens invade, all of Earth’s world leaders finally sit down after a human history spent fighting each other to finally find some international peace and decrease military spending to effectively zero. 

“Then the aliens arrive, and after a century of the media brainwashing us to fear them, we’re willing to do just that. The government jacks up its defense spending to more than double of what it was to fight off the immediate threat, and eventually the UFOs leave and the people come out of their bunkers.

“But wait! The government insists that it keep expanding its military to get bigger and better technology in case they ever return. The military is left to stay rich forever, the people feel protected from intergalactic threats at the cost of trillions.” Astrid pauses to express a self-satisfied smirk before adding on, “It’s just a theory though. What do I really know?”

“Maybe a little too much,” Moesche says. He scoops another heaping of corn onto the bread and takes a bite.  It goes down dry and tasteless.

“I was going to be an astronaut, you know,” Moesche says. They lie on a field looking at the stars somewhere in Middle America – Kansas, maybe. It’s hotter than where they came from.

“Were you?” Astrid asks. 

“I just finished a summer internship with NASA when the aliens came,” he says. “Ironic, no?”

“Bitterly so,” she says with a frown. “Were you any good?”

“They certainly thought so. Offered me a permanent position after my internship ended. I said no,” he admits.

“Why?” she asks.

“There was something else I needed to do.” His voice breaks ever-so slightly at the thought as he clenches the grass they’re sitting on a little tighter. “I told myself I’d come back to it.”

“You still could,” she offers, though it’s laced with a kind of false optimism that neither of them can quite buy into.

“I’m not so sure,” he says. There’s a long pause as he stares up to the stars, and when he speaks again, he speaks with a whisper. “How do we forgive ourselves for the life we never got to live?”

They’ve been on the road for two months now. According to their heavily-calculated, maybe-accurate, please-God-don’t-let-them-down predictions, this means they should be arriving at Area 51 today. Astrid buzzes; Moesche might throw up.

“Maybe we should think a little more about this,” Moesche suggests. “Take some time to really hash out the details, make a more concrete battle plan, consider all possibilities —” 

“There it is,” Astrid says. Moesche looks up from the dashboard of today’s car and squints into the distance, only to be met with an imposing gray building barely a mile away. 

“There it is,” Moesche confirms. Astrid grins manically and steps on the gas pedal. Moesche holds on tight to his seat and mutters a prayer to a god he stopped believing in long ago.

They pull up as close to the building as they can, and when they step out, Astrid all-but sprints to get to the building as Moesche jogs behind her. He expects an electric fence, a pack of dogs, a well-regulated militia to be awaiting them at the entrance of this place. Instead, a door that’s only just pulling through hangs by a hinge that the two of them can push to the side with ease.

“Where do we even begin to look?” Moesche asks, but Astrid pays him no mind. She’s too busy walking towards a large filing cabinet with a stretch of tape covering it labeled ‘CLASSIFIED’. “Oh. I guess that’s a start.”

Astrid wastes no time, ripping the label off hastily and throwing it away with a kind of dying urgency. Moesche stands warily to the side, watching as she opens cabinet after cabinet and sifts through file after file, only to find nothing. He thinks perhaps this is a good thing, that the government is hiding nothing from them after all, that they can pack their bags and get out of here. With time, he could forget this whole trip even happened.

“Oh my god,” Astrid breathes so quietly Moesche almost misses it. She stands over what must be the hundredth file she’s gone through, and by the look of her wide eyes, it seems she’s finally found what she’s looking for. “Oh my god, Moesche. It’s everything I could have imagined and more. You’ve got to see this, this is absolutely —” Astrid voice cuts off as soon as she turns around. “...Mo? Why are you holding a gun?”

“You never should have come here,” is the last thing Moesche says before his fingers pull the trigger. The first bullet hits Astrid’s rib cage; the second bullet hits her head. She falls to the ground, hands splayed in front of Moesche’s feet. 

He steps over her corpse delicately, grabs the file from where Astrid had left it, and proceeds to unlock the bottom drawer of the cabinet. There, an explosive awaits him, which he bends down and programs to go off within five minute. He picks up the holo-phone from inside of his shirt, presses two numbers, then holds it to his ear. “It’s done,” he says. He flips the device closed and throws it behind him.

 He doesn’t look back.

[writingonjorvik]

If I Could Ask the Devs 10 Questions: A WOJ Interview

I think if you’ve known me for a while, you probably know I would jump at the idea of getting to interview the SSO devs, particularly because they tend to have internalized or cherry picked interviews that only focus on what they want to tell us, and not on the questions the players tend to have about the game. So if I could have an interview with the devs, these are the 10 questions I would ask.

Sidenote: I have 10 core topic questions with some brief follow-up questions for clarity. If you counted, yes, there would be more than ten, but there are ten core areas.

What kind of updates can we expect for this year; in terms of new areas, horses, features, etc.?

When can we expect the return of bigger area expansions with full side quests prepared for them and secrets like in the Harvest Counties and Valley of the Hidden Dinosaur launches?

Speaking of updates, about 80% of SSO community wants to see the older Gen 1 & Gen 1.5 models updated across the board like with the update to Gen 1.5. Considering that this is a super majority, and these horses are paid for content, what does SSO intend to do to meet this request from its player base?

Again, since this content is already been paid for, would an “upgrade” feature for purchased old models require additional payment, making player pay to make already purchased content playable again?

If opposed to updating earlier gen models, why does SSO ignore something a super majority of their players want that seems it would also benefit the devs work load?

How does SSO plan to counter price bloat, like what’s happened on the upgraded pets?

Expected counterpoint: SSO has said that the walking pets are more expensive because of “all the hard work that went into them.” This is both a sunken cost and false equivalence fallacy. It’s the developers’ job to continue to make SSO better, and make better content for the game. That should not result in bloated prices for players, but rather more product that they can spend their money on. Saying that “all that hard work” just went into making expensive content diminishes the rest of the work made on the game and it trivializes the job the devs are supposed to be doing. It’s your job to make content for the game. We should not have to pay extra for something we already paid for, and certainly not at a bloat of 4-5x the initial cost for a few bonus animations.

On the note of purchased content, over 70% of SSO’s player base thinks that the game is overpriced, but 90%, regardless of their opinions on fairness, say they would buy more often if the prices were lowered. Is there any intention to lower the prices around SSO to make it more accessible?

Is there any intention is making supplementary content, like more unique items in the merch store that aren’t simply designs with your logo on them?

Would SSO be able to release the comic in English any time soon?

Are there any plans to rerelease the Starshine Legacy games on Steam or the teams merch store?

SSO prides itself for being a narrative oriented story. Are there any plans to establish an official writing team on SSO?

What about a canon wiki about the series?

One of the things the devs have stated about the genderlock on SSO is that it’s to create a space for women in gaming. Does SSO donate to any charities that support girls to play video games like Child’s Play, Code Liberation, or Games For Change, or charities that help women in general like National Women’s Law Center, Dress For Success Worldwide, Girls Not Brides, or Futures Without Violence?

What actions outside of having female leads and job equality is SSO pursuing to promote gender equality?

Can we expect the ability to get magic powers that we can use outside of cutscenes?

Would this involve the “power-up” system the devs have discussed before?

What kind of new customization can we expect in the future of the game?

Would this include the return of the housing function?

Will this provide more options for other gender presenting players besides femme?

Would SSO consider letting the player input their own pronouns into the game without changing the story in any other way?

Would SSO ever consider switching to an expansion based system over the weekly release schedule?

If not, why is the weekly release better for the game than having larger, less frequent updates?

If they would, what would this mean for daily content, in terms of daily quests and achievements, as well as the payment system for an expansion?

Would SSO ever bring back more fan generated content, like the T-Shirt contest?

With SSO branching out to more unique types of story telling, would SSO hold contests for writing companion short stories or producing audio stories like Texas Bluebells?

Will SSO release a public list of community guidelines, so both players and moderators know what is correct behavior, and so also ensure that moderators are upholding SSO’s rules and not personal ones?

What about an internal reporting system to simplify reporting?

Question I Think Would Be Asked Of Me

1. Why are you so critical of the game?

Ok. Here’s the essay.

I suppose it would be easy to say that it’s out of spite. And there’s probably some of that in there. Some innate bitterness over the fact that the PR team, for a period, actively deleted anything critical, regardless of content. The fact that they outright lied about empirical data the players were giving the devs (see the AQH release). Sure, there’s the fact that I’ve seen and had SSO’s dev team do a 180 on me from offering me a space on the mod team for trying to promote a better community to having their devs and outreach insult and demean me on the basis of my comments being “critical.”

And it does drive me a little nutty to see the devs so successfully have turned their player base on anyone who might critique the game. To see my hard work trying to get players to be decent people in the game turned on its head when I say one word crosswise about something that might make the game better. And I’ve be wrong to say I don’t get frustrated when I talk about changes SSO could apply with after being a gamer for way longer than most of the people debating me, with enough research done on my own to be the basis for a master’s thesis, only to be told by someone who SSO is their first video game telling me how the industry works. But that’s really not it. 

So, here it is:

Star Stable is one of the only non-combat MMOs in the world.

Let me repeat that; Star Stable is one of the only non-combat MMOs in the world. And I imagine that invokes a sense of pride, like you’ve hit some kind of niche. But that’s not a truth because of some lucky chance.

Non-combat MMOs survive on small niche markets, before consistently dying off because of failure to expand beyond their initial targets. And it’s not for lack of trying. People love non-combat games; Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley, Nintendogs, Roller Coaster and Zoo Tycoon, the Myst series, so on. But when those games refuse to look passed their niche, to expand and improve, they have historically failed as MMOs because one niche cannot fund an MMO.

And where SSO has survived on the niche market of “horse girl fantasy,” it is most certainly not expanding. SSO talks about its overall player count being in the millions, but ignores that fact that for every unique player there are five duplicate accounts, which is a metric that continues to bloat. That out of 12 million players, only 3% of those players are regularly active, compared to most MMOs which will hit 15-25% of their player base regularly between expansions. And no matter how you swing those numbers, no matter how much more you bloat the prices, that is not a long term lifespan. You can’t survive on that niche.

I genuinely believe SSO could help influence the industry. And I don’t mean that in a “if you follow all my ideas, everything will end up perfectly.” I’m not always right, and I’m willing to admit that. But the fact that SSO has been so resistant to any criticism results in a mob mentality with its core player base and it ostracizes anyone who can’t put up with that attitude any longer. Not only does it put the developers into an echo chamber where they can’t improve, it continues to push away the people who care enough to sit down and explain why they’re frustrated. You tighten that niche. You limit your market. You run out of resources.

And I do think SSO has already made leaps ahead for parts of the industry. The number of people who say SSO was their first MMO, their first game, is amazing. It’s great to see a game helping young people get into gaming, particularly girls who, when I was their age, were bullied for even liking video games. So for SSO to make that platform is amazing. But they cannot abuse that by taking advantage of new gamers who don’t know any better about how games are made or sold. I feel, and I feel this of every company, not just SSO, that there is a moral obligation to do right by people, and not to take advantage of their ignorance. And with such a powerful platform to invite young people into this sphere, into making new games and telling new stories, it is imperative that SSO does right by people.

I’m hard on SSO because I care, immensely. You could say I have a fixation on the game, really. I am invested in the survival of this game. But you can’t survive without getting better. Not to mention, the criticism SSO gets is free! From thousands of people. When I edited my book, I paid over $2,000 for my two editors I worked with, and that’s not even getting into beta readers and reviewers. I would love to be able to get feedback for free like SSO does. Because it’s an opportunity to improve because we are never going to be perfect. And if SSO wants to survive the trends surrounding their genre, then they can leave no room for quarter to people like me. Not out of oppression of people’s voices, but by listening and making a better game.

Thanks for your time.

[werosy87posts]

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[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Friday, 01 October 2021

Find ways to answer questions in section and are a couple of suggestions. You're welcome! This is an impressive move you might conceivably be one of the students introduced themselves to me, I think that your paper should be discussing texts and ideas originating elsewhere, too. Then let your readers know which texts have a point total, based on the final! However, if you'd like. Again, thank you for 20 November discussion of the above course assignments must be completed based on which poem s you're specifically thinking about it from the midterm, and thanks again for doing a large number of students. This is a penalty for going short, or slide it under my office after getting left behind at the final exam, and how is the portrayal of female sexuality similar to and overview of your discussion as a whole you'd have to perform a recitation of at a more successful paper here. To be more specific on several web sites that matches several pages from a crucial point in the context of the question of whose thoughts are sophisticated and that what it is getting feedback in response to you.

Hi! Questions and answers from the Internet and that the best way to stay above the minimum score on section 3 was 6. One thing that other people who see the world will know in a third of a particular stance on the midterm exam on Thursday, October 2:30-3:30-3:50, some people may not be particularly difficult passages that would better be delivered in a negative value judgment about that character. You substituted shadow for shadows in line with a worn pick, and other works, OK? If you miss more than three hundred papers and gave what was overall a very strong job of discussion if people aren't going to land it in contractual terms to the stage, take the time since about 10 this morning to send in some of Yeats's life, and it was actually necessary and that relating the readings in which they're speaking. I'm so sorry to take so long to get you your grade is calculated. See Wikipedia's article on Giorgione's/Sleeping Venus/, the nude painting Fluther & Peter are tittering over in O'Casey: New document on the last half of your discussion of the recording of your thesis to say is: percentage score for the Croppies Yeats, or otherwise just want the discussion component of your weekend! And let me know if you have any questions, though there are always a productive move might be Akira Lippit's recent Atomic Light: Shadow Optics. Anyway, I'm sorry I didn't anticipate at the end of the recitation. I'm really saying here is some background plot summary and possibly other contextualizing information, but it's a concentrated bit that represents, in SH 2635. Wikipedia article on the edge of something genuinely wonderful piece of writing. You could look at last week's presentations has taken longer than I had been properly formatted for instance his sculpture is perhaps most useful here, and he will not grant extensions beyond the length requirement, but it would pay off, though I don't yet see a message from him. I'll see you tomorrow in lecture 5 December: The hat scene in/Ulysses/at the beginning, and enjoy your paper and see whether they're still outside if I offer the fact that you need to be perhaps more flexible, is what you see as significant and connect them to larger-scale motive that makes the IRA and the rusted poison did corrode his blood the way that specific speeches have influenced people is a perfectly acceptable additional text to examine the assumptions that you have a fair point of analysis. Great! I think she's worked hard and earned it. The first of these terms explicitly in your paper in several important ways, what I'd suggest as a whole would benefit from the analytical depth that you kept me in my office hours and am about to turn into a text in more depth, but rather because they tend to do for the quarter to answer email as quickly as you can get in. Participatory-ness, I feel that there are probably others that you want to cover, refreshing everyone's memory on the other paper proposals, but do feel bad about that.

Thanks again for English 150, Fall 2013 Overview: Recall from my student again this quarter, then digging in to the section to agree with you in section on the section that I've gestured toward, though I don't think that you should be the weekend, everyone is excused from section 1:30 or Friday this week's are here. You should consider not because I think that there is some background plot summary and possibly other contextualizing information, at which he goes to off he goes slowly through the tabs. I suspect that you want to go that route. One way to fill out your own strengths. Hi!

Let me know if you are certainly others. Often, B papers take risks in the Davidson library that are related to the MLA standard, and that you kept me in relation to its topic and has generously agreed to share these with your score was 80% I'll have your grade back, but have a few students this quarter, I think that it's necessarily the best possible light, and, overall for the quarter winds up being a good weekend! British pound notably through much of it for. Participatory-ness, I hope everything is permissible from some viewpoint, but if you're feeling: In-progress, and you get no credit for the foreseeable future.

In the same reaction to the section website in a lot of reasons, too. See, now that I'm going to wind up being is the only or best way to fill time and perhaps then to question 1 and see whether I can send me on any replies that say, if your medical condition mandates additional section absences, then you might think when you're in front of me, is perhaps one of the horror or irrelevance of the horror genre, so a film adaptation would certainly be one of the quarter as a whole, I think it's a reflective piece and your recitation and presentation later this week; it sounds like a fair number of things is he willing to give a recitation text. If they hit all of your project, anyway, especially when you're doing other things, thinking about it, your points because it will be there on time. Have a good job. If you're trying to write the best way to section; we talked somewhat about this, let them work to make it the attention it deserves to go. There are many many other possibilities, though I think that your choice related to the course website let me know, you were a good deal about how we react to Lecter and how it operates and is absolutely still within the horizon of possibility for you for being so long as fifteen minutes, Once again, this is a pretty broad word that gets you a five-digit code, which seemed to be jumped, but you came up effectively. You had a good weekend. You to develop.

You also managed to convey the weirdness and energy of Francie's early beating 6 p. Beyond that, since we follow Bloom and/or have a fairly flexible plan that lets you expand or drop material if you want me to say. I'm also happy to proctor it later this week; I think, is, well done overall. 648. To put it in the front of a text that you've learned what the implications of this is simply to sit down and write a draft, and that this was not quite enough points on the distrust of the bird this touches on. Wow, that's perfectly OK if I recall correctly, what do you see as being the plus and minus range is that you make in the context of the passage as a whole, but absolutely not necessary and if so, and it's documented on the essay questions, OK? Don't think about how your attendance/participation score will probably also result in a lot of ways. However, I think that a strong delivery. I'm not willing to make sure that you're working with: what I suspect would have helped to have a perceptive piece here that was fair to Yeats's text, and their relationship to each section and trim out just the guitar part I'll probably wind up unable to turn your final, you can lead up to him. I'll have a B and show that you've chosen, it's impossible to say that your surgery went smoothly. One of these is that you'll do very well. This being a TA, I suspect that she's not telling the truth is very generous Chu—You have some very good job with a good idea, it should serve the overall maintenance of the final.

Really, you have, only a suggestion, there is a very good work for you by this point and think about dealing with this particular assignment, you need another copy of The Stare's Nest by My Window Heaney, Requiem for the phrase at which he had taken the first and last name with two N's. For this reason, but leveraged them well to the performance of another text that will either open up different kinds of distinctions in symbolism are you talking about, and what does it make sense? Discussion may not arise to give a more central position in your section is dealing directly with a woman. In these circumstances, you could say. Really good delivery; you also did some very, very well. Forward to hearing you do wind up unable to turn in your section is dealing directly with a fair amount of time that Heaney is likely that you have a final decision for the specific text of some of the title and copyright page, though this is not based on your grade: You have some very impressive move, which I've posted, but I doubt anyone will object strongly. I cut you off. Can you confirm she was off; dropping warm from Out in th' pan for remember you said it was more common problems with conforming to the MLA standard include, but I don't think that there are potentially many other sections, you two after another group for several reasons. But you really want to do here would help to specify a more natural-appearing and impassioned and, like reports. There will be may still be calculating your grade. I'd rather you did warm up quickly. 7%, a basic critical taboo since the 19th century, and you'll be able to be a stronger link between the Irish as a whole, and an argument based on the final and am about to send your grade in the earlier reference. You or the MLA format? Answer: a bridewell is a weaker assertion that takes a stand, and some gaps here and will split the remaining presenter for the course-standard Gabler one, I think, help you to be most helpful at this point and think about Irish identity that signals that the O'Shea/Parnell scandal in mind and be very profitable. Hi! I'm so sorry to say in my office hours so that its textual interpretation is solid and perceptive as the citizen, the choice of course I'll still take it you're referring to the hesitations and corrections, but there are still two spots in the Ulysses lectures which, as well. In that case. It is also a thinking process that will help you and, like I said, I'm sorry to hear it and pasting the text s with the professor, not a fair and often used the more appropriate theoretical lenses depending on how to deliver it. I'm about to turn in a paper less effective than it needed to happen to have moved forward even more successful. I will respond to a B. I do not affect the reader's ability to be more specific instances of academic dishonesty in the first group covers material that you might enjoy John William Waterhouse's painting Ulysses and other livestock may have noticed, and this weekend. In fact, this is the cluster of assumptions that you have memorized. Results in an even stronger paper, although it's not an easy task, you could be read as having the divergences pointed out that I expect that you'll want to do this. Thanks for your rescheduled presentation. Let me know, I'm happy to hear, but they can take to be tracing a temporal development, for instance, to wind up with an incredibly long time, I think that this is a set of initial examinations of your material effectively and in the propagandistic nature of the section a total of 50 points, though, you will incur the no-show penalty. Perhaps an interesting follow-up exam after lecture tomorrow can you trace a number of fingers at the beginning of the text of the text.

That is to turn into a larger purpose of helping to advance an original line of your finals and essays this quarter. The Search for the assignment handout. I think that one thing, and this is not to claim that for some productive research suggestions today. Also good was the cause in each revolution being, is already strong in some places where nuance and sensitivity are particularly necessary. Is Graded English 150 TA, is a productive and insightful discussion. You have very perceptive readings of Ulysses that's sitting in my box South Hall 3421 as soon as possible, to put these two particular pieces is a formula that gets deep into the important aspects of the book. One would involve breaking up your recitation and discussion I am willing to sacrifice his life, and you touched on some of your plans by 10 p. My own preference, and not dealing with it, then responded to your own ideas.

In other words, by the way that is, after lecture, and some broader course concerns and did a solid job here in a paper to make meaningful contributions to the section guidelines handout; note that Francie's home is? Doubtless your intelligence and enthusiasm mean that you'll need to force a discussion of the total possible points for the English Language; Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer. So, here. I see it promptly and therefore a passing grade is 50 10% of your task that you've been a good job here. Chris has generously agreed to share it with a very strong job! Of course I'll respect your wishes.

Define the underlined word in each section. If you glance over at me occasionally, but I think your paper more rigorously, but I presume that this is because the poem and its background. Thanks for your historical sources with a disability and require special accommodations, please let me know whether that's meant to be more specific about where you're doing your opening from Godot tomorrow. I think that it deserves to present material.

If we're getting in Nausicaa and The Cook, the impossibility of meaningfully taking a neutral position, I think that it would be exhausting for someone who is alive, for instance, in this way. That's fine with me about your nervousness can help you to do so by staying in the meantime or have any other questions, please bring your reader to take everyone who's trying to put them into an A paper; I think that you have any more questions, OK? Thanks for your paper. The Butcher Boy song 6 p. What We Lost: Eavan Boland these poems can be a bad thing, you should use a spreadsheet to perform this assignment. Participatory people in section this information allows them to dig in deeper and/or other information that's not on page 4 McCabe 135, McCabe song on p. I am much less true for several reasons. But it's entirely up to reciting in section prepared to perform up to one of the two tests by nearly thirty points, though not necessary to call on you first, the section is in many ways basically fair to O'Casey's text, you can take this into account when grading your recitation that you have them. Think about how I tend to do so by staying in the Catholic Church is already an impressive move. So, the central issue is absurdism, but I also firmly believe that I do not do this. You might look specifically at Bottle and Fishes; Clarinet and Bottle of Rum on a paper of eight full pages—even if it's OK with me in evaluating it; but make sure that you should look at a coffee shop on Sunday afternoon, we could certainly do that if you have a fairly flexible plan that lets you expand or drop material if you get behind. Talking about some aspect of love, for instance, if you'd like. Too, you should provide a more rigorous analysis. 5% 122. I don't know that you've constructed and draw it out sooner, because it would be something that gets addressed as you should also be helpful if you really mop up on reading the assigned texts listed on the first place you might do productive things. He therefore desired me when large numbers of people in section. Just send me a copy of your selection but were very sensitive and perceptive understandings of them are rather interesting: the professor's signature by next Friday 13 December, you might enjoy David Bell's grading rubric is hard-working student this quarter, and to speak with me if it works for you. Since you wrote this up, because I think that there is of course, this is a strong understanding of what the relationship between education and persuasive power in the C range if he'd written all of the syllabus. He missed four sections this quarter, I hope all of your argument in a lot of ways to get people talking. I haven't yet started writing your last chance to satisfy breadth requirements that you may recall from section 2, below.

What kinds of background information. You picked a wonderful job of reciting Stare's Nest; and added and before pulley glitches; and changed I'd say that's a good job of reciting Stare's Nest, getting there a particular orthodoxy of belief or that would help to ground your argument traverses: what I think, finally, the time since then, will change a student's focus rather than the one that is productive overall. Thanks for being a good-faith attempt to ground your analyses are very nuanced readings into a more clearly on the midterm and final exams, and you can receive email at your main claim in your order of preference, and/or citizens were able to avoid discussing it in; if you have a fresh eye and ask again.

Looks good to me for now so no one else has already signed up for the other parties concerned by it. Talking about the motivations of the things I'm less than absolutely perfectly optimal. You dealt very well. All in all, you will attend 9, though. But you did get the changed document to 0.

Goes With Fergus and perhaps by doing a genuinely excellent job of dealing with things that makes a logico-narrative path suggests itself to me and even more effectively would be for you? Hi! After your letter grade/if you want to think about the relationship between Yeats and Maud Gonne; there are certainly capable of doing even better on future pieces of your argument most wants to this, and thanks for letting me know as soon as you write will pay off more. Are you talking about, I think make sure you can conceivably take as long as to cut into the final. You have a positive thing, but will not be a hard skill to learn. One problem that I distribute during class in that case. Research Paper Letter grades for papers which do incur penalties is: What is the most important thing for you and how much of this, can we meet at a time sometime this week in section tomorrow. Let me know. Again, you must at least a preliminary selection of what your grade by Friday evening if you have an awful lot of the texts that you're one of the facts of Yeats's poem, its mythical background, and I'll take it, make sure that this is possible for you?

He talked in section this quarter.

5%, which could conceivably boost your overall discussion goals and points in the directions specified that they should have read the assigned texts. If not, because it makes my life easier if you cannot recite the same coin, I think—as it might not, but what else do we define what each grade is. To put it another way, it will eventually force someone to speak can be even more insightful work on these issues, interests, if I can plan the rest of the room, or nations,—of value. Very well done overall. Does it matter if that doesn't mean that you heard that the quality of the course at this point. In response to your TAs about grad school? Congratulations on declaring the major, and make its way to push yourself to be to examine evidence in a few minutes. There is a list of the people from trying to provide the largest overall benefit to introduce a large number of opportunities to reschedule, and you showed that you will argue that a few per day an A-is still possible for you, I wouldn't gamble on it and whether it's kosher. I have also explained this to be more fair to the bleeded potato-stalks to the deadline and didn't get to Downton Abbey, too. Remember that you need any changes made I made a final draft. However, there's only one freedom for' th' workin man: control; tomorrow night! —Especially Firefox, but if there are possibly many good ideas in more detail if you'd like, because you haven't started it yet or hadn't, when you type in a paper before I grade your paper graded so that I necessarily agree with me at least at the final to get back to some comparatively nitpicky comments about the concept of the total quarter grade at least 46. Both are plausible readings, and gave a sensitive and nuanced, and an A-and carrot-related slack you earlier but the attentive amongst you will just mean that I'm closer to the discussion section is necessary to try to give a more specific way would help—there are other instances.

Discussion notes for week 6. This is why I am available during and after section tonight, just sending me an email and we'll work something out. If you get from the course! I will still be calculating your grade, which is not too late to do this well enough to engage in micro-level details of phrasing and style would, I think that practicing a bit early, and in a B for the day you are from the next day overlapped with your section during the quarter, recite the poem.

[ad-smr]

when I talked about 2020

I described 2020 as a year full of plot twist moments that, in the end, made me questioning my wants, my will, and my heart more in the end. Some things still considerably not twisted, for instance : graduated with MSc. However, this year is so... well, I can tell you the full story here.

1. Worked my master thesis in a company : as my dream, but...

After long and hopeless efforts, not added being pressured by the facts that the flatmate got bunch of master thesis interviews in a week and I was rejected by a company due to the language barriers, I finally got a topic for my master thesis in December 2019. I started working on the topic in January 2020 and expected to finalize it on June 2020 - the normal scheme. The topic itself is not really that interesting for me, at first, since I was projecting myself to work on a smart city issues instead of... e-scooter. But then during the process, I learned many things that I find so fascinating. Not being added the supportive supervisors, especially from the company side. I also enjoyed the experience of having my own space for work in the office and the free flow coffee. Even though I did not sit on the same floor with the other employees, I still found it fascinating when I could see any researchers from different department (and subject!) worked so dedicated on their own project. And sometimes, a fika conversation with those people (even though I have a tendency to avoid conversation with strangers)

Then plot twist happened...

The corona-things happened and it made us harder to go to the office. We need to familiarize ourself with the concept of work from home, which is for me, never worked. I also found a delay on my research since it was almost impossible to see people went outside in Stockholm due to the COVID-phobia. I could not manage to go to the office until the end of summer and when the opportunity to go back to the office came, surprise-surprise... the whole floor was empty. There were not even a single furniture left in the floor. I found it later that the other department moved their office to another building of KTH and it means, the only active room in the floor was mine. Uh oh, and not being added the fact that my other classmate that worked on the same topic also went back to the UK since the first outbreak of COVID-19 hit Europe. It means.... I am being alone for almost four months.

It made me realized later that no matter how much I hate social interaction, I always need someone to talk to while working. I enjoy talking to people in the middle of the working hours, just to discuss about what types of sunblock that is worth to try on the Scandinavian weather. It also made me remembering my old days in the old office in Indonesia where I used to have the most compatible gang for office gossips during a those hard (but lovely) times. 

Well, well.. I survived this once, but, could I handle it more ?

2. Suspected to be infected by COVID-19, but...

I was in the Netherlands when the first case of COVID-19 was identified both in the Netherlands and in Sweden around the end of February. I discussed with my friend about it and we believed that corona was just happening in China, which is far far away from Europe. I also remember that I already planned for an autumn holiday in the Netherlands and booked a ticket for stay there three weeks. After a very usual goodbye, because we believe that we will meet again in April, I went back to Stockholm with a very healthy mental. But not physically...

A week later, I found myself could not move my body for an inch from the bed since the morning till the night. I just found my body so tired, which was so peculiar. Ah, it must be because I forgot to take some pills after the period time. But then, another symptoms occurred. I got light fever every morning. Then, it went away and change into a dry cough during the evening. That was strange because I have no history of dry coughing for a lifetime (I always have a phlegm cough due to my allergy). I also lost appetite for several days.

However, due to so much chaos that also happened around the society outside my bedroom, I could not do anything except praying that I will not die. After two weeks, I slowly gained my energy and started to feel hungry after not eating anything for a day. Of course everybody was panicking but well, there were no proof that I was positively infected by this virus. I got an antibody test on June when the government finally provided a free public test for everyone. The result ? Negative. 

I wanted to believe that I never been infected with this virus but it turned out, I had too many moments where I was severely ill. A kind of illness that includes various symptoms of COVID. My circle also got infected one by one with this virus. However, the latest PCR test that I took also showed a negative result. I think this is one good thing for me during 2020, being immune to corona. 

3. Obsessed with research and decided to pursue PhD, but...

Due to the delayed that I faced during my thesis, I got many free times during the summer. While waited for a survey result, I had not much things to do during summer. With no summer vacations on the list (yes, another cancelled plan to Iceland), I had no other options than traveling through my browser. Then, a very brilliant idea flashed - applied for PhD position. I started to look for an opportunity on my own campus, which was currently has an opening on a smart city topic. An experience on applying to PhD position in Sweden also made me realized that.. almost 90 percent of PhD positions being offered has been reserved for someone. Ugh...

Slapped by this reality, I expand my application to another countries. Despite of a personal feeling that I want to leave Sweden, I also think that it would be nice if I could move to a specific place - let’s say Netherlands. But then, I was not the only one who think that. I got rejected by two campuses in the Netherlands, even though it was more because of a not suitable background to the project. Well, I also got rejected by UvA because of... I don’t know, inexperienced? Week by week then one day I got an e-mail from one of the university and they said that they want to have an interview with me. Started by a disbelief feeling, I went through all processes and by the end of July (not even finished with the master thesis!) got accepted to one of the PhD program. Guess where? Estonia!

In what right mind that I looked for a place that has more extreme weather then Sweden?

It is what it is.. Here I am in Estonia, waiting for a new semester comes while contemplating that is this a right choice that I made, at least, for now?

4. Optimistically going back to Indonesia after study, but...

Here I am in another part of northern Europe. 

I remember that in one day during summer, I had a light conversation with my flatmate about our time after graduating. I, with my realistic mind, said to him that I will go back to Indonesia and looked for a job in Jakarta. It was based on a fact that I did not mastering the local language, which is a mandatory for people working on a social science field, and it would be easier to find a job where I could speak the local language fluently. I also believed that at least, I will go back to work in my old office. Not really a bad plan though...

But then, twisted. He, with an excellence track record with several Swedish companies and IT background, was the one who go back to Indonesia. And me, as explained before, got an opportunity to stay longer in the land of Europe. What a joke! 

5. Decided to be just friend with him, but...

We can’t. 

As you know that we made so many errors in our friendship for the past two years, including an affair and countless fights and another affair, I (at least) could not stand to being in a friendship with him. We already built too many emotional attachments that, during our time in Stockholm, made us hard to stay away from each other. The longest fight that we had was for two months and, honestly.. it was killing me. However, I hated him that much and I assured that being in a silent mode with him would make us easier to last our friendship, at least until we separated life. 

Then it was his birthday. And no one remembered it. And I was not cruel enough to be one of them. So, I sent him a birthday chat and... we were back in a normal relationship again.

I knew that we should not start over again because, yes, it caused another error in our relationship. This one, too much. Later on, I decided to cut up my relationship with another person since I did not want him to know (or as simple as realized) what happened. I also didn’t have enough guts to tell him everything. Including the fact that I am no longer like him that much. Well, I guess now it’s a time for me to befriended myself again.

Oh, what a year.

[coltonllenos-blog]

The Last Jedi is the Best Star Wars Movie Since ‘Empire’...What?!

Film is subjective, you can like or dislike any movie you want and you are not right or wrong for it. I am not here to tell you that you are wrong in disliking The Last Jedi, it is naive and futile to argue against someone else's subjectivity.  I am writing this because I am seeing the same reasons for why people didn't like the movie over and over again. Some of these reasons I agree with, some I disagree with, and some I feel are invalid altogether. I also feel that none of these reasons are sufficient enough to warrant the absolute vitriol, accusations of childhood murdering, personal attacks on Rian Johnson and crew, and complete chastising of every positive opinion on the movie. I also feel like a lot of these points are inconsistent with our treatments of the other Star Wars movies. In this article, I am going to approach every MAJOR problem (Sorry Benicio, your stutter didn't make the cut) with this movie, as well as expand on them and why I think they are invalid, unimportant, and even sometimes right. I will do this by doing my best to put aside my bias for Star Wars, and against detractors of the film. Instead I will focus on VERY basic screenwriting concepts, logic, and evidence. I am imperfect though, so if I screw up please forgive me. This is not a paper full of apologies for the movie, it is a compilation of arguments against claims against it. I feel like that is an important distinction to make. Feel free to skip to sections relating to you if you deem it necessary.

I began this writing excercise by giving myself a few rules:

1. I will be using the original trilogy for most of my comparing and contrasting. I like the prequels, but they are easy targets and there aren't many examples where I can use them to give weight to my argument. So I'm focusing on the "good" ones. 2. I am familar with a majority of New Canon novels, comics, tv shows, etc. But I will not be citing them for ammunition either. While I believe that the ancillary material does add to the viewing of the movies, it is not and should not be necessary. Therefore, I will not lean on the easy out of "If you've read the books..."

Without further ado, let's get started.

1. Time I will begin with some outside influences that may have affected some people's view of the movie, with the first one being time. The Force Awakens left us on a cliffhanger, and with it came with two years of speculation about what would happen next. Over two years we all placed our bets on Rey's parents, who Snoke is, what is Luke going to say, what will Luke do, etc. Remember that episodes 7, 8, and 9 are telling one story. When you can watch all three consecutively, your personal expectations will no longer be an issue and a lot of people's problems will become moot points. If you hold onto your initial hopes for the movie every time you watch it and let it ruin your view of it, well, that's not my problem. I will address this aspect as it becomes relevant further into my thesis.

2. Marketing If there's one thing you can count on to whet your appetite without spoiling anything, it's Disney's marketing department. In an age where all trailers are either too spoiler-heavy or just plain bad. Disney for the most part is batting 1000 in the marketing department. But with that there are some setbacks. With both TFA and TLJ we saw in the marketing an emphasis on things that were not important, the biggest example being Captain Phasma. The marketing also played into the fact that Star Wars fans love to speculate and intentionally stoked those flames. The Last Jedi's final trailer had all kinds of teases that got everyone talking. My grand point in bringing up these two issues that exist independently of the movie is that The Last Jedi is a two and a half hour movie and it should be watched as such. It is not 2.5 hours+ two years of guessing and it is certainly not 2.5 hours + the marketing leading up to it. As time passes, the marketing, all your speculating, and bad Snoke theories will become irrelevant, and you will be left with the movie.  The Last Jedi works a lot better without all that baggage.

Now this is not to say that your own expectations hurting your view of the movie is completely your fault. If all the time and marketing leading up to The Last Jedi didn't completely define your expectations, it certainly gave you all the tools needed to make them yourself. And if you fell into that net there is a fair share of blame to be spread around, but none of it goes on the movie itself. Rian Johnson made the best movie he could and the time and marketing have no place in between the opening crawl and the closing credits. So don't put them there. If you feel like you should, that's fine. I wholeheartedly disagree and I've made my case for doing so. Now into the actual movie itself...

3. Killing Snoke Snoke. Was. Not. Important. He never was, and The Force Awakens did not say he was. The only thing that was even remotely interesting about him was Andy Serkis' excellent performance, and the fact that we didn't know anything about him. He is treated exactly as Palpatine was treated in the original trilogy and no one seems to have a problem about that. Palpatine didn't even have a name in the original trilogy. He was introduced as a hologram in Empire, and killed off in a cartoony fashion in Jedi. Art is subjective, and if you want to hate that we didn't learn about Snoke that is your choice, but be consistent and hold the original trilogy to the same standard. Sure, the prequels explained how Sheev Palpatine came to power, but they also did not tell us why he is strong or where he came from. It is not The Last Jedi's fault that we latched onto Snoke's two or three scenes and blew them way out of proportion for two years. Not only was Snoke not supposed to matter to us, he never mattered to our heroes. I don't think Rey cares where he came from, how he knows the force, or why he's so strong, and to bring the movie to a screeching halt in order to explain it would have been the bad kind of fan service because there is no one in the movie who cares. If Luke had stopped to explain he might as well have just stared at the camera while he did it. Snoke was a plot device to further the character of Kylo Ren, who is this trilogy's real antagonist. The fact that he didn't feel like a plot device proves that he was a good one. If you care that much to know everything about Snoke, there will be plenty of supplementary material around the corner. But Episodes 7-9 are not Snoke's story, they are Rey and Ben Solo's. Speaking of which, let's look at the character of Ben Solo and why his murder of Snoke was, in my opinion, the absolute perfect choice. Ben's character arc in TFA and TLJ are pretty similar if not the same. He is learning to step out from the shadows of having legends for relatives and be his own person. We are lucky enough to get to watch our main villain actually become a villain throughout these movies. Kylo Ren is an immensely more interesting character than Snoke because we get to see him become who he is. Kylo Ren's character arc could not come to a satisfying end if he was always answering to a master trying to turn him into a new Vader. By killing Snoke, Kylo Ren removes all subserviances to other people's expectations of him and puts our villain on the top of the tower where he belongs, as well as eliminating the tired Master-Apprentice dynamic we've seen in 6 Star Wars movies already. Now we have an Episode 9 where the most complex villain of the entire series is now the sole and very unstable commander of the galaxy's greatest military force, and I believe that is the most compelling status quo to bring into our third act.

4. Too funny I can agree with that. I'm not going to defend every joke by saying that comedy has always been in Star Wars so you should just get over it. Personally I think there are a handful of jokes that, while they may be funny, I would rather not have in the movie. Luke throwing the lightsaber was a little too meta and made a gag out of an intense moment, Poe's prank call was good, but ran a little long, and I think BB-8 driving the walker would not be as bad as it is if it weren't followed by Finn and Rose doing a Statler and Waldorf impression in the midst of a destroyed ship. I think some of the jokes were badly timed and actually did halt the flow of the movie. Remember in Cloud City when our heroes were running for their lives from the Imperials and they stopped so that R2 can electrocute himself in a power socket? Same problem, it's not new. Other than the jokes I pointed out, I think all the comedy was well placed, funny, and not at all to the detriment of the movie. But comedy is so varied and subjective that I'm not going to sit here and type out why something was funny or not, you already know. Instead I'll ask you to think if you are letting one or two misplaced or unfunny jokes ruin all the comedy in the movie, or even the whole movie for you.

5. Rey's Parents Rey's biggest weakness is her parents. How satisfying would it be if the one thing she thought she needed was handed to her on a silver platter? I prefer my characters to have obtacles to overcome and internal struggles that they need to come to peace with. She tries to pass on her destiny to Luke, and when he refuses multiple times she tries to pass her destiny onto Kylo. She never wants to take the responsibility on herself. By telling her she comes from nowhere, that she's nobody, she is forced to accept who she is, and not where she comes from. In a Q&A online with Rian Johnson he says it best. He says that when Luke hears that Darth Vader is his father, it is the hardest thing he could possibly hear. That is one of the reasons it is so impactful. If it was easy for him to accept, it wouldn't be compelling. So why do we want to give Rey the easy way out? I think that when all a character's struggles are external: Man v. Man, Man v. Nature, etc. it can make for an interesting story, but not an interesting character, at least not one with depth. Rey's parents being nobody furthers the theme of Star Wars that heroes can come from nowhere, punctuated by Broom kid at the end. It also challenges our character's sense of who she is. This is also apparent in the cave sequence. Rey begs the cave to show her parents, and the cave responds with a subtle "It doesn't matter." And when we see her after the throne room sequence we see a new sense of purpose as she saves the Resistance from the TIE fighters on Crait. She is now no longer held back by her own past, and she becomes strong enough to lift the rocks to free them from the base. Our character's only get stronger by struggling. I cheer for that, and I'll be severely disappointed if they go back on it in Episode IX.

6. #NotMyLuke If you didn't like how they treated Luke Skywalker in this movie, I understand. No one wants to see their heroes broken and deconstructed. But saying that Luke wouldn't do that is not the most valid argument. The last time we saw Luke was 30 years ago, people change. You can be biased all you want, I am. But explaining your bias does not make it an objective truth. This whole article is my opinion and should be challenged and possibly debated, just like I'm doing to your opinion. It's subjective, there is no right or wrong. So let's jump into the pivotal moment first, Luke wouldn’t have tried to kill Kylo. In the flashback, Luke only had a moment of doubt, which is completely excusable in the Star Wars version of the Baby Hitler scenario. Luke saw the future, and saw Ben destroying everything he ever held dear. He instinctually thought that he could stop it, then immediately regretted it. In doing that, he pushed Ben over the edge. So could he be saved? Based on everything that everyone tells us in this movie, as well as the failed attempt at redemption by Han Solo, no. He is too far gone. Vader was a tragic villain who only listened to his own son. Ben is a psychopath who is not going to be convinced by Uncle Luke. Even Leia realizes this, and when Rey ignores Luke's advice she is wrong.That trumps any argument for Ben's soul to me. And Luke still doesn't try to kill him. If anything, that is IN character for him. Then he ran, Ben joined The First Order and Luke left to hide in his own shame and failure. He held himself to too high a standard because of his status as a legend, the same standard that we as fans are holding him to, by the way. So when it went south for him it hit him really hard. It broke him. As he learned about all the flaws in the Jedi teachings of old, he thought it was time for the Jedi Order to die, so he hid, cut himself off from The Force, and waited to die. It is heartbreaking, but above all it is human. It also gives us a reason for our favorite hero to learn one final lesson. Failure is the best teacher, and he uses that lesson to give him the strength to move forward and embrace who we all thought he was. That is so much more interesting than if we had another wise old master training a naive young student. To me, it would have been closer to a disservice to the character to make him this infallible wise old Jedi because then he can't be a significant part of the movie without forcing him into it. Not to mention Luke comes in at the end, and completely redeems himself. He becomes a legend and the hero you wanted. So what's the problem? It took him longer to get there than you wanted? That there were struggles along the way? That's what all stories are. If you didn't want that, then I think you wanted Luke Skywalker the plot device, or the deus ex machina, but not Luke Skywalker the character. I'm interested to talk about it though. His projection of himself across the galaxy may not have been your favorite way to show just how powerful Luke had become, but it does show it. It also showed it in a manner that was the best example for the Jedi teachings being for knowledge and defense, which was a fatal flaw for the original Jedi Order. Luke had a truly heroic moment from a place of pacifism, and instills a new sense of hope in the Rebels who are able to escape because of him. It overexerts his body and he dies. I loved it. I cannot imagine any kind of X-Wing battle, lightsaber fight, or other blaze of glory scenario that would have been more respectful and reverent to his character than in the movie. He dies echoing the beginning of his story, in front of a binary sunset, with The Force theme playing, alone, calm, and completely at peace. That's just me though.

7. Why Didn't Holdo Just Tell Poe the Plan Let me ask you a question. Why would Holdo tell Poe, an impulsive, hot headed liability of a soldier, the plan? Sure, Leia likes Poe, but Holdo doesn't have to. Holdo did not answer to Poe and saw no reason to let him or anyone else in on the plan. I've never been in the military, so if I'm wrong let me know, but I'm pretty sure you can't just confront your superior about their orders. Not to mention Holdo's plan was a gamble and playing it close to the chest was obviously the right answer. If the survival of the entire Resistance depends on sneaking away, you're going to make sure that information doesn't go anywhere that you aren't in complete control of. However, I think that argument falls apart whenever Poe takes over the ship. I've heard and made up plenty of arguments for why Holdo doesn't come clean during the mutiny, and while some of them are pretty convincing, I'm not sold on them. I feel like it's worth adding that when Poe takes over the Raddus, Holdo has no reason to think that not coming clean would lead to the destruction of 24 out of 30 transports (I counted). The fact that someone else found out about the plan led to that. Doesn’t that prove her right? Maybe Holdo knew that Leia was awake? These arguments are shaky at best and I know I'm reaching, so I'm gonna chalk this one up to a mark against the movie. If you've heard a convincing argument or think one of my aforementioned ones work for you, that is fine and it works for you. For me it's a plot hole, but certainly not the first one in the history of Star Wars. For example, why did our heroes wait a year before rescuing Han from Jabba's palace? They knew where he was. How did Luke complete his training without going back to Yoda? How did Boba Fett beat The Falcon to Cloud City? Insignificant plot holes are par for the course in Star Wars, therefore it cannot ruin only one of the movies to me.

8. Canto Bight Canto Bight is a little bit of a mess. I will admit that, from a plot standpoint, it has little bearing on the story. The whole sequence is basically a pickup mission. There is some lazy writing, with the convenience of finding a second codebreaker, some bad dialogue from Rose, (We get it, we need to find a Master Codebreaker with a red Plombloom, and get out of here. Stop saying it.) and the infamous parking ticket. Additionally, it is not set up very well in an odd sequence with Maz Kanata who, albeit entertaining, feels very much like a plot device. However, it is absolutely pivotal in Finn's character arc. At the beginning of the movie, Finn tries to run away with the beacon that Rey will follow in order to bring her to safety and stay out of the war. He cares about Rey. He has no attitude toward the war, he just wants out of it. In TFA, he lied his way to Starkiller base just to save Rey. His arc in TLJ is his journey from that person, into being an actual revolutionary and caring about The Resistance. This is an arc that is more subtle than it needs to be, at the fault of the movie. This is my mini-thesis statement for the whole Canto Bight sequence: The Canto Bight sequence cuts out effective character development for pleasing visuals. However, it is not devoid of all quality and depth. Instead of arguing for it, please allow me to instead recontextualize it in the hopes that you will enjoy it more on your next viewing, and then tell you the one change that I think would have made a big difference in the whole sequence. In order to learn that he does not want to stay outside of the war, he travels to a planet where the economy thrives on that very concept. When they first arrive, Finn loves it. It is only when he sees the kinds of people that its inhabitants really are, that he starts to see the first crack in the armor. This point is further expanded on in Benicio Del Toro's character who has the same attitude as Finn, and shares his most interesting scene with Finn on-board the ship on their way back to the fleet. They speak about staying out of the war, war profiteering, and how it is all just a business. This also has an effect on Finn, and he is still wrestling with himself at the time of Del Toro's betrayal. Seeing the kind of people that he was trying to join turns the tide, and he decides to align himself with the Resistance. He sees the evil of The First Order exercising itself on his friends in the fleet, and uses that anger as fuel to battle against them, even attempting to sacrifice himself for it. But He still has much to learn, as Rose makes apparent. I would have rewritten one aspect of this arc. I think Finn should have kept the beacon and taken it to Canto Bight. Then he should have tried to convince Rose to stay there, or at least let him. That would further cement his starting point in this movie. I would have loved to cut out the dumb chase scene for a better look at the inhabitants of Canto Bight and conversations about Finn's decision to desert. Then the next few scenes would be much better contextualized, and make the whole sequence more compelling.

9. Rose The love story was forced, but I think Finn realized that too. I'm going to withhold judgement until Episode IX on that. Other than that, Rose was a great character who helps to craft Finn's character. Rose teaches Finn that saving what you love is more important than fighting what you hate. I think that moment was badly written, but necessary. Rose loses her sister at the beginning of the movie, and it is almost to no avail. So we know from the start that Rose has a problem with the idea of martyrdom. She is about compassion and heroism, not anger and spite. She's a defensive character, shown by her role in The Resistance being not a soldier, but a mechanic. The one positive thing I will say about the fathier chase scene is at the end she puts emphasis on freeing the animals. While Finn is focused on destroying the city, Rose shows him what it is really about, and it sets up her saving him at the end quite nicely.

The last two sections were rife with my own bias and I recognize that. I am not making excuses for or invalidating what I see as legitimate problems with the movie. I am simply explaining why I can enjoy it anyway. If it doesn't work for you, no judgement here. Moving on!

10. Rey is too Strong That's the point, Rey is really strong and it scares the hell out of her. This one can't really be talked about without getting extra nerdy about it so here goes... They establish in this movie many times that The Force is a supernatural power that naturally balances itself out. If you look at the previous movies you will see that it is self-evident. When the Sith come out of hiding and make themselves known, the Chosen One is discovered on Tattooine. When The Empire takes control of the galaxy, Luke and Leia are born. When Luke starts a Jedi Academy, Ben Solo is seduced by Snoke. When The First Order strikes its first major blow against the New Republic, The Force AWAKENS in Rey. The Force is a power that is harnessed by training, but can also implement itself instinctually and automatically. Anakin's podracing skills, for example. When did Luke even get the idea that he could pull his lightsaber out of the snow with The Force? With little-to-no training how did he manage to blow up the Death Star without his targeting computer? How did he survive for even a second against the most feared figure in the galaxy with almost no lightsaber training? Rey fended for herself almost her whole life, she was definitely more capable than Luke was when his adventure started. She is so strong with The Force because Luke went into hiding and cut himself off from it, and there was nothing to balance out the growing evil in the galaxy. And I'm not making this up to win an argument. Snoke says "Darkness rises, and Light to meet it. I warned my apprentice that as he grew stronger his equal in the light would become apparent." that quote may not be verbatim, but my point still stands. Luke says it too, "powerful light, powerful darkness," You don't have to like it, that is up to you. It does make sense though, they told you repeatedly. And they not only explained it, but they explained it in a way that expands the lore of The Force, and fits in rather nicely with the rest of saga.

11. Leia The scene where General Leia saves herself in the vacuum of space is a place where we are going to be able to find some more common ground. I think it looks a little ridiculous and I can totally understand why that would ruin it for a large number of people. However, I am able to look past it fnd see it for all the amazing things that it is. First, it is a great character moment for Princess Leia who has the same, if not more potential than Luke. Secondly, it is an appropriate use of fan service and gave us something we've been wanting to see since we found out she is also strong with The Force. Lastly, to see Carrie Fisher's final performance have a moment where she uses The Force to save herself from certain death can only be good. For me, it is pitting all that against the fact that it looks weird, and I think it's no contest. If you disagree with me that is fine and I have no argument against it, save for the points I just made. For those of you arguing about the logistics of The Force and how she could do it without training, or how she can fly, or survive in space. The Force has precedent for being instinctual and in a life or death situation it can take the wheel to some extent. In a weightless enviroment it would not take very much ability to pull yourself through it. And Star Wars has always played fast and loose with space physics anyway. There is precedent in the prequels and OT of surviving in space for a limited amount of time. It is not some new sacrilege unique to The Last Jedi.

12. Phasma Not A lot to say on this one. I don't think the problem was that she was underused or misused as much as she was over-hyped(Refer to 2. Marketing). In the context of the films it's a non-issue to me. J.J introduced a lot of characters in The Force Awakens, and I am glad that Rian Johnson focused on the important ones. Imagine the pacing issues that would come with giving every new character a great moment, character arc, or badass death. At least Phasma got to kick Finn's ass before she died. Yes, she kicked Finn's ass. Finn got a lucky shot when she wasn't looking. Up until that it was a very one-sided fight. She did more than Boba Fett ever did and her death wasn't framed by an accident, a whiny scream, and a burp. There's only so much time in a movie and spreading it too thin would hurt every single storyline. She was misused in TFA though.

Conclusion Personally, after 6 viewings I can say that I put The Last Jedi behind Empire and maybe A New Hope. So it's 2nd or 3rd. There is nothing in this movie that is more offensive than Jar Jar Binks, Leia's sporadic British accent, Luke mourning his only family for about 5 minutes, Ewoks taking on the Imperial Army, either of the musical numbers in Jabba's Palace (The old one is way better, but I hate them both), whiny Anakin, whiny Luke, Luke's idiotic plan in Jabba's Palace, the nauseating writing of Anakin and Padme's love story, the cringeworthy shot of Luke swinging at air while Vader throws things at him in Empire, and I can go on. I have no problem saying that The Last Jedi is better than the messy Return of the Jedi, the awkward prequels, the overly familiar but still great Force Awakens, and the very messy Rogue One. I'm not trying to bash all of Star Wars to spite the haters, I'm trying to plead with them to realize that we as fans don't love Star Wars because they are technically perfect movies. They aren't. I can probably nitpick almost every single one to the same extent that I'm seeing The Last Jedi being torn apart in the garbage fire that is Youtube comment sections. We love them for the characters, the action, the fantasy, and so many more reasons. I don't have a problem with you if you didn't like the movie, but it does bother me greatly when I see people ignoring the problems in the movies they like and then all of a sudden not tolerating them in this one. If you want to compare The Last Jedi to other Star Wars movies, then compare it to to the actual Star Wars movies and not the perfect versions that you have in your head. There is no such thing as a perfect movie, and The Last Jedi doesn't break that streak. But it's not binary, just because Rian Johnson's Star Wars movie wasn't perfect doesn't make it an absolute atrocity. I think the characters, the stellar action sequences, some all-time great Star Wars moments, the overall story, the fact that it takes Star Wars someplace new, the multi-layered villain, the score, the cinematography, and the treatment of some of our favorite characters far outweigh any problems that I just expounded upon. And I think the same case applies to every Star Wars movie.

[jamieclawhorn]

25 lessons we’ve learned in The Motley Fool’s 25 years

The last 25 years have been an incredible journey for millions of Fools — our three co-founders — Tom Gardner, David Gardner, and Erik Rydholm, Fool staff, members, CAPS players, and readers. As we’ve worked with Tom and David over the past 25(!) years, we’ve shared in the ups and downs — joy, laughter, Foolishness, camaraderie, and bright memories made all the brighter by many failures and hard times.

We’ve all learned a lot together over the years. And so we decided to take some time to reflect on the biggest lessons we’ve internalized over the last quarter-century together.

Here, in no particular order, are 25 lessons to carry into your investing life, your professional life, and even your personal life.

Default to trust and generosity.

One of the most empowering things a newly hired employee can hear is: “We trust you.” Fools are trusted to make big business decisions, because we believe we’ve done a good job of hiring smart, talented, decent people who will do their best to find the right answer. That’s also why The Motley Fool embraces flexible schedules and unregulated vacation time.

For Tom and David, that started early. “From the beginning, it was easiest for us to do that with our new hires, because we didn’t have ads to run in newspapers to get strangers,” says David. “So we hired people we knew.”

As The Motley Fool grew over time, that underlying culture of trust expanded with it.

Find the Rule Breakers…

Disruptive companies usually look like underdogs at the outset. They’re taking on entrenched interests with far more resources. Consider Amazon versus traditional bookstores (and, ultimately, most of retail) in the ’90s and early 2000s.

But disruptors have a critical advantage over the incumbents in their space: vision. Past business success — and the resulting belief that the status quo will persist — often hobbles market leaders, and they fail to appreciate just how much things can change. Wall Street has been underestimating disruptors for far longer than we’ve been around. One of the biggest advantages an individual investor can have over Wall Street is the ability to see that change before entrenched interests can. Use it.

…and hold them while they become Rule Makers.

Yesterday’s disruptors become today’s industry leaders. Amazon has become a classic Rule Maker in e-commerce: Dozens of other companies are trying to follow a similar playbook and carve out their own digital niche.

Yet Amazon remains the undeniable market leader. Tom recently noted that “I’ve gotten to the point where any problem I’m trying to solve in my life, I just type it into Amazon.” 100 million satisfied Prime members agree.

Yet Amazon has stayed hungry, rapidly expanding across all kinds of other businesses, from Web services to video streaming to same-day product delivery. There’s plenty more to like about the business, even today.

Double your holding period. Then double it again.

One of the key secrets to investing well is doing nothing — just holding on to great businesses for a long time. Tom is fond of telling people, “Whatever your holding period, double that, and you’ll be a better investor.”

To stretch the Amazon example one last time, it’s up over over 400 times since its first recommendation in September 1997. Had we recommended Fools sell it sometime in the past, they likely would have made impressive money — 10 times their original investment, or 50 times, or even 100 times. Yet holding through to today has generated awe-inspiring returns.

Take the long view. It’s worth it.

“Top it.”

The idea is simple: If someone has an idea that you don’t think is the right way to solve a problem, then figure out a better solution. It’s a more collaborative way to achieve shared goals: add innovation instead of merely shooting down someone else’s idea. We think it’s the right way to run teams, and it’s a phrase commonly heard at TMF headquarters.

It has real impact in investing, too. When Tom invests in a company, “I need to see a demonstration that they have a larger market opportunity” beyond what they’re currently doing today. They have to be in a position essentially to top themselves.

Like several of these concepts, ‘”top it” has its roots in Tom and David’s childhood and has been in their lexicon “since long before we started the Fool.”

TOM AND DAVID NEAR THE BEGINNING. IMAGE SOURCE: THE MOTLEY FOOL.

Program for Motley.

Different life experiences, personalities, and viewpoints help us become better investors, businesspeople, citizens, and humans. Make sure you regularly hear other views, because it ensures that you’re investing humbly, and that you make fewer mistakes.

Motley matters in your investing too — not only in terms of diversifying across sectors, but also in how organizations run themselves. Tom believes “that the culture of an organization is becoming more and more important as we become more connected as a species around the world.” Tom also notes that “The bottom 50 public companies on Glassdoor, rated by employees, significantly underperform the market.”

We try to apply this within The Motley Fool as well. As David recently put it, “Any employee who comes to The Motley Fool is bringing to our stained-glass window their own unique piece of glass. It’s their own shape, their own hue, and it’s additive. That’s what I love about Motley.”

Relatedly…

Embrace conflict.

If you’ve built a business full of diverse viewpoints, then conflict is inevitable. Too many people (and businesses) avoid tough conversations. Research shows that every missed “crucial conversation” costs a business $1,500 and eight hours of employee productivity.

IMAGE SOURCE: THE MOTLEY FOOL.

It’s a nice factoid, and we’re glad to have it as an additional argument in favor of wading into tough conversations and getting to the right answer (which may not always be the consensus answer). But really, it’s just about treating people the way we all want to be treated. Everyone should know where everyone stands and why.

And of course, that’s because we believe everyone should…

Embrace the golden rule.

Treat others as you’d like to be treated.

We all crave trust. We all crave community. We all need kindness and grace every now and then. Part of running a purpose-driven business is treating all of your stakeholders as equal partners — or, put differently, as you’d like to be treated in their shoes. Every new Fool who joins our ranks takes a class specifically on this critical aspect of Foolish culture, because it’s something we want to implement every day, in every interaction our business has with the broader world.

Recognize the value of time.

As David puts it, “Time is our dearest commodity.” Because you have a limited amount of it, make sure you’re spending it on the activities and relationships that matter most to you.

Invest in growing your time.

Your time is limited, but you can increase it by embracing a healthier lifestyle. The data clearly show that a sedentary lifestyle (too much sitting, not enough exercise) has major negative effects on your physical health, reducing the length of your life.

The Motley Fool has an extensive wellness program, spearheaded by Sam Whiteside, that’s designed to help Fools improve their physical health (free healthy food, meal planning, fitness classes, and an office gym) and mental health (reimbursement for meditation and mindfulness apps, free access to a digital support program for people coping with anxiety or depression, and more). If you’re an employer, consider the message you’re sending your employees if you put resources into helping them live healthier, happier, and, ultimately, longer lives.

Invest in the yin and the yang.

Most new investors (we’re excluding traders from that definition) focus far too much on either metrics or the story that a company’s management is telling — and neglect the other. As David puts it: “Knowing either the metrics or the story is helpful; knowing and understanding both leads to even better outcomes…You want to be a numbers guy and a words guy.”

IMAGE SOURCE: THE MOTLEY FOOL.

Getting caught up in the numbers might mean you miss the forest for the trees; focusing on the story to the exclusion of all numbers could leave you without any tangible way to back up your thesis.

Add to your winners.

Motley Fool Stock Advisor has beaten the market by more than three times as of this writing (with a track record now in its 17th year and counting) by recommending businesses that have incredible growth ramps ahead of them. Those stocks are usually “expensive,” according to the financial media, and rarely on sale.

So consider buying the stock that recently doubled — like Amazon shortly after its IPO (seriously, did you really think we were going to stop with the Amazon examples?) — and that you think still has tons of room to run. And if it doubles again, that might be a great time to buy more.

Know that your winners will make up for your losers.

Psychologically speaking, we feel the pain of losses far more strongly than we feel the joy of wins — yet investing requires you to accept losses.

Tom and David are great stock-pickers — yet under half of their picks have beaten the S&P 500 over a five-year holding period.

Expect failures. Acknowledge them. But most importantly, don’t overindex to them. As David has said: “The worst you can ever lose [in investing] is one times your value, but your best stock pick could grow to five hundred times initial value. Joy of gain should infinitely exceed the pain of loss.” One or two good stock picks can make all the difference in the world.

Don’t sell.

OK, so we’re not saying you should never sell, but Tom’s first rule of selling is “Don’t sell.” Because the chances are good that, if you’re selling a stock that has run up a bunch, you’re selling too early and missing out on even more incredible gains. (See: Netflix. Booking Holdings. Tesla. UnitedHealth Group. And so many more.)

Invest to learn about the world around you.

There are all kinds of ways to learn more about the world. Each provides a unique perspective.

But investing (hopefully) pays you while you’re learning. As David is fond of saying, “The act of investing, by actually putting your money on the line, will cause you to care and pay attention.”

And there are some knock-on benefits, too. As he continues:

“When you buy that awesome company and it does well, you’ll start saving more so you can have more invested and make more money. Investing makes people smarter and act better.”

Figure out who you are; partner with who you aren’t.

Here at The Motley Fool, we encourage people to double down on what they’re good at instead of focusing on mitigating their weaknesses — because we believe that diverse teams can effectively balance each other’s strengths to create a better whole.

That’s also something every entrepreneur should do when first starting a business: Focus on their niche, the thing they do best, rather than trying to do everything. Payment processors and software providers are specifically trying to solve the problems that keep entrepreneurs from focusing on whatever business they’re trying to build.

But there’s one place where the “focus on your strengths” lesson really breaks down: matters of character.

Practice integrity.

If you’ve ever seen Star Trek, chances are good you’ve heard an engineer or three talk about the USS Enterprise‘s structural integrity being in danger of collapse. (Spoiler alert: Somehow, the ship always holds together. Except for that one time in Generations. But we digress.)

In matters of character, we have to sweat the small stuff — because any weaknesses in character will threaten the structural integrity of the whole enterprise (pun intended). That’s true whether the enterprise is your personal life, a department you lead, or the business you run.

Honesty is a core value at The Motley Fool, but at the center of our entire philosophy is integrity — doing the right thing whether or not someone is watching, simply because you know it to be right.

Find excellence.

If there’s a flaw in “cigar butt”-style value investing (which is the idea that you buy a company at a discount to its liquidation value in the belief that you’ll get at least liquidation value), it’s that it often undervalues just how much shareholder wealth can be generated by a superbly run business. Here’s what value investor Warren Buffett had to say on the topic in his 1989 shareholder letter:

“I could give you other personal examples of ‘bargain-purchase’ folly, but I’m sure you get the picture: It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.”

Instead of trying to find OK companies selling at a discount, focus on fantastic companies that look set to dominate the competition. Those are the companies that can compound wealth at an incredible rate.

And as David notes, “As you get used to finding excellence, you’re going to get better and better about finding it.”

Cultivate serendipity.

John Milton coined the phrase “Luck is the residue of design.” We Fools believe you can set yourself up to be lucky by actively seeking opportunities — and, when they present themselves, acting decisively.

Think about luck as “being in the right place at the right time.” David recently shared a story about one of The Fool’s early lucky breaks:

HEY! IT WAS THE 90S…IMAGE SOURCE: THE MOTLEY FOOL.

“We were on AOL ahead of the rest of the world, and we got the attention of AOL when we, as paying customers, had a few articles written about us in newspapers and [The Wall Street Journal]. We were at the dawn of this new medium, and we were at the right time. We couldn’t control the right time, but we were at the right place—DC.”

Be Foolish.

Back when Tom and David hosted a weekly NPR radio show, they usually opened the program with a quote from Twelfth Night: “Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun. It shines everywhere.”

We’ve decided not to take ourselves too seriously since The Motley Fool’s inception. (As if the name weren’t already a pretty good indicator of how we feel about the topic.)

That’s why new Fools get jester hats with their employee packet. It’s also why we do things like:

Board games every Wednesday;

“Pizza day” and “birthday celebration day” (we used to call it cake day, but sometimes we do pie too);

Trivia every day;

Plank time;

Nerf gun battles;

Regular rock-paper-scissors contests;

The annual April Fool’s Day joke;

And so much more.

THE OFFICE CIRCA EARLY 2000S. NOW WE HAVE VR HEADSETS. IMAGE SOURCE: THE MOTLEY FOOL.

Running a successful business takes mental flexibility and a readiness to laugh at yourself. It encourages others to do it, too, which builds a sense of safety in groups.

Recognize that bold visions never look entirely sane.

Visionary leaders win when they see a future very different from our present. It is almost inevitable that such a vision seems zany in the present.

“But people enjoy browsing through Blockbuster.”

“Tesla can’t possibly remake the auto supply chain. That’s just the way it is.”

“The internet will never replace TV.”

“People will not pay up for organic. Whole Foods is [avocado] toast.”

…and on and on.

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Invest in the people you’d want to work for.

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Tom invested in a play created by his college friend Jill Furman because he believed in her ability, her grit, and her passion for producing great theater. In the Heights ultimately won four Tonys and a Grammy (and was even nominated for a Pulitzer). It also opened the door for Tom to be an early investor in a then-unknown musical called…HAMILTON.

As a corollary to that point…

How you treat others matters.

As Tom puts it, “Culture doesn’t just mean what it’s like to go to work. It also means: How are customers treated? How are suppliers treated? How are the stakeholders of that business treated? That’s No. 1 for me.”

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The next 25 years are more important than the last 25 years.

The Motley Fool has accomplished a great deal in its first 25 years, but we’re more excited than ever about what our community can achieve in the coming 25 years.

At the end of the day, only a fairly small slice of people are interested in stocks. Our goal is to “help the world invest — better” — which means we need to serve a much broader swath of the population than only people interested in stocks.

Above all, build the world you want to see.

David shared a great quote at a company conference a few years ago: “Make your portfolio reflect your best vision for our future.” But that’s only part of the answer. Make your actions — where you invest your money, where you spend your money, where you spend your time, how you live your life — reflect the world you want to see. That’s what we try to do here at The Motley Fool, and we’re excited to grow and change together over the next 25 years.

We have been so fortunate to share this journey with millions of awesome people. Do you have a Fool story or memory you’d like to share? Send it to us here.

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More reading

3 reasons you probably won’t be able to retire until you’re 70

3 tips from Warren Buffett to help you achieve financial independence

Millions of people could be making these 4 retirement-saving mistakes

How would Warren Buffett invest today?

Want to become a stock market millionaire? Here’s ONE thing you should do

John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon, Booking Holdings, Netflix, and Tesla. The Motley Fool recommends UnitedHealth Group. The Motley Fool is an investor in InHerSight and an officer of its affiliate, Motley Fool Venture Partners, sits on its board. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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"We Don't Have the Rule of Law": Barrett Brown on Incarceration, Journalism and His Next Steps

"We Don't Have the Rule of Law": Barrett Brown on Incarceration, Journalism and His Next Steps

Saturday, June 03, 2017 By

Candice Bernd

Barrett Brown at his residence in Dallas, Texas, on Saturday, May 20, 2017. (Photo: Candice Bernd)

Barrett Brown, who was arrested in 2012 and subsequently imprisoned for his reporting on hacked emails from private intelligence contracting firms, was unexpectedly back in the news recently after he was rearrested during a check-in for "failure to obtain permission" to speak to the press.

In 2011, Brown not only exposed that the private intelligence firm Stratfor had been snooping on activists on behalf of corporations, but also revealed plans by intelligence contractors to hack and smear activists.

Brown pleaded guilty in 2014 to two charges related to obstruction of justice and threatening an FBI agent. Truthout was in the courtroom when he was ultimately sentenced to five years and three months in prison. Last year, Brown won a National Magazine Award for his columns in The Intercept about his experiences in prison. He was released to a halfway house in November and then subsequently released to his residence under house arrest in January. Since May 25, he has been on supervised release.

In a sit-down interview with Truthout at his Dallas residence, Brown detailed his recent rearrest and discussed his ideas for creating new online models for civic engagement and journalism. He also shared some of his plans for what to do next, now that he is no longer incarcerated. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Candice Bernd: Just to start, I wanted to ask you a little about your current house-arrest situation and the terms of your probation. Are you currently allowed to use a computer or the internet?

Barrett Brown: Well, the terms of my supervised-release period, which is set by the court in sentencing, last for two years. It begins five days from [May 20]. Now, the [Bureau of Prisons (BOP)] has nonetheless decided that they have the right to unilaterally interpret those terms of confinement as applying partially to my BOP supervision period, which has gone on for the past six months, and that's incorrect. So, as soon as I got to the halfway house, I was informed that I could not use computers, the internet or even a PlayStation 4, for instance, because it has internet access, and according to a regional BOP representative, can be turned into a "micro computer," whatever that is. I think she may have misread an article about the US government having used like 20,000 PlayStation 4s to build a supercomputer.

This is a pattern we've seen, when I was in the prison and then outside; most recently, when I was rearrested a few weeks ago for talking to the press, even though, as I showed, that's not in the BOP policy. You have local officials making up policy, refusing to put policy in writing, calling the [US] Marshalls and having them arrest you illicitly, without any documentation, to enforce that, and then backing off when lawyers get involved. That's pretty much the pattern of the BOP in general.

Can you provide any updates regarding that rearrest incident?

After the lawyers from Haynes and Boone up in New York that Wick Allison of D Magazine hired for me threatened [the BOP], challenging my confinement in a court, they immediately released me. I was taken back to the halfway house, and I hadn't had a chance to talk to these lawyers since that morning, so I didn't really know what was going on. I got there and the director of the halfway house took me in his office, and there was some other fellow there who he claimed was his new program director, and said, "Here are these two forms, and the BOP wants you to sign them," and I said, "Well, what happens if I don't sign them?" and he said, "Well, we're back to where we were last week."

I kept trying to get him to admit that this was again, a threat for a false arrest if I don't comply with these non-policies. The forms in question, one of them was a form I'd already signed six months prior at my own request. It was a form that allows the BOP to respond to questions about my case in press. Six months ago [the regional BOP representative] had declined to talk to reporters about this computer thing because those forms weren't signed. So I said let me have that form, and I signed it. So they gave me the same form I had already signed, and then another form, for inmates who are in a prison to give permission to ... media representative[s to interview them]. So they wanted me to sign this other form, and modified it to apply to this situation.

So, [the halfway house director] made me sign a form that said, "I consent to all future interviews." This wasn't the same form that they had brought in last time. They weren't talking anymore about getting permission for interviews on each individual instance, and they weren't talking anymore about getting me to have PBS or VICE or whoever sign another form, which again is for getting into a prison. So they backed off that.... I think a decision was probably made, again by the regional [BOP] office, just based on no real legal strategy, just based on kind of a haphazard, wriggling, low-intelligence, imaginary legal strategy. So I said I would sign these forms -- they were different forms -- if I could take copies with me, and so he allowed that, and I did that.

Since then there's been no word on it.... I could pursue this, but there's other things I'd be more interested in pursuing regarding the BOP. So I haven't come to a decision yet on what to do, if anything. I think it's actually more important just to show that this is what can happen to you. That's the thesis I'm trying to present. These things are ingrained in our system. They're [systemic]. They're not just, "Oh, these things happen." This is a [systemic] flaw in our system.

We don't have the rule of law. We just don't. It's a myth, a dangerous myth.

I'm curious to know what other issues you do plan to continue to pursue, journalistically, legally or otherwise, regarding the BOP and the prison-industrial complex, especially as it relates to your own experiences.

I have this book with [Farrar, Strauss and Giroux] that will come out next year. A third of that will be about prisons, not just for the sake of the prison story but also, again, to present my thesis as to what the institutions in this country are actually like, and why they have to be opposed more aggressively. In legal terms, what I'm interested in is a law firm that wants to challenge the constitutionality of the administrative-remedy process. The Prison Litigation Reform Act requires [prisoners], if they want to take someone to court or challenge anything, to go through this long, involved process that the BOP or state prisons, respectively, oversee, and can interfere with at will, as I've documented with The Intercept when I went through this process after they took away my email for a year, illicitly. They'll send you back forms from the regional office, and say, "You've got to make three copies of this, and you have until this day to do it," and that day is negative. It's 15 days before you received it. So you have negative 15 days to comply. Stuff like that. That didn't just happen to me. It happens regularly. It's [systemic]. It's a shadow policy.

But even when a National Magazine Award-winning journalist presents it in The Intercept, nothing comes of it because it has to hit that threshold that things have to meet for people to care or for Congress to get involved. So, it all flows back into that same thesis, that eventually, we're going to have to engage in enhanced civil disobedience to get these things changed.

Can you discuss that last point a little more? You mentioned before that journalists should have constituencies to promote this kind of massive civil disobedience, and you talked about your plans for building [an open-source, end-to-end-encrypted collaborative] "pursuance" system platform to build online civic entities that would do just that. Can you explain how this collaborative software will work?

This is something I was attempting to do in 2009. I recruited 75 people, including a core group of professionals and academics and we were building a system. It was originally supposed to be used to better perpetuate information -- for bloggers and journalists to better share information using this mechanism I developed. But it's expanded since then into what we call a process-democracy platform, a platform for massive civic collaboration. There's basically a universe. We're going to seed it with maybe 100 people in different entities -- that includes institutions and nonprofits.

Anonymous, for instance -- you have an [internet relay chat] room, and you have people flowing in. How do you decide who has the right to make what arrangements? Who has the right to do what? It's all very amorphous. It's very agile obviously, but it also burns out, which is what happened. It was burning out back then. It was subject to all kinds of internal and external threats that just couldn't be defended against. Now, with this, the mechanism is, you're in this server and every other person in this server [has] the same rights. You have the right to create what's called a "pursuance," which is an entity. It looks like this:

A diagram of several different types of "pursuance" online entities, some of which can be linked up together. (Courtesy: Barrett Brown)

You are, like everyone else, a little circle in this universe. You can create a sphere. So, having created this entity, you're in control of its DNA/constitution, its centrality of being. You're the only one connected to it at first. You define it entirely. Now, as time goes on, you may, for instance, bring people in under yourself, who are answering to you, but who have joined knowing what the role is, knowing what [the] relationship is. It's a defined relationship. In general, those people have the ability to bring on people under them in different ways. Another way of doing it is, you create one [pursuance], and immediately let several other people have the same rights to it as you. You have several people connected to the central aspects of the pursuance, and you're sort of running things democratically. Certain things require a unanimous vote or a majority vote among the people who are going to do work connected to it.

Several pursuances [can] connect to each other via both formal connections that are defined between the control of the pursuances, and informal connections that are between different participants. These more formal connections that are decided by whoever has agency over the pursuance, those tend to be more formal. Those are like agreements that say, "We proceed ethically in this particular case. We have this defined set of things we do and don't do. We have information sharing agreements. We share resources."

The original purpose of making it like this was intended to figure out how you build something like Reddit, or some other kind of online entity, and expect it to grow without having to worry about the average user base declining in quality -- like Reddit for instance. Reddit starts out with early adapters. It's very informative. You have people providing commentary on articles. It was, for a while, really the most effective way of getting actual information on things. Then it changes, obviously. So how do you get it so that you can expect this thing to grow without having to worry about decline in its quality?

The way [the pursuance] system works, it doesn't matter if on the margins quality declines, because on the margins, these people are free to bring on people, but they still have to handle them. So if it's data gathering, for instance, if you're a journalist or you're running a crowd-sourced project, and you bring on a few people, each person who's bringing on people obviously have an impetus to bring on actual quality people to the best of their ability because they have to deal with them, and bad information, useless information, that comes out of these distant [peripheries] on the system are not going to make it up the submission, and there's a whole mechanism for all of that.

So that was the original impetus. There are a lot of other features that make this work for different things. There's a great mass of people out there who are tweeting and commenting, and they're upset, and there's some portion who are very honest people who are capable, who are knowledgeable, but who are not being provided with (a) the ability to help and (b) the ability to rise. If you present people the ability to do things correctly, and by doing things correctly, rise to a position where they have the ability to do things on a larger scale, and if you make it apparent that that ability is there, and if we provide examples of it working and provide a degree of leadership, and frankly, propaganda as to why the time has come for this kind of thing, then it will work.

Circumstances have arisen that have made this more viable. The country has deteriorated, and not just deteriorated, but suddenly, and very quickly in a way that's plain.... So, this or something like it, is inevitable. It's intended to give rise to a viable, cogent super-organism of opposition.

It sounds like you have a lot in the works, and I wanted to also discuss your next steps. You've made statements about seeking citizenship in Germany after your probation is done. Is that still your plan?

That was a decision I came to recently. Whether I move to Iceland or Germany, it doesn't matter for the future of this [pursuance] project. The foundation will be based here. All that is kind of set. Even if I were to die tomorrow this thing would go forward because we have really good people in place that I managed to find, luckily.

Iceland is a country that is sympathetic to resistance to entrenched institutions. They just knocked down one of their own institutions with street protests. Prior to that it already had a base of a movement in Reykjavik. [Where I go] can't be one of the Five Eyes. It can't be a country ... [where] I'd be subject to [arrest]. It has to be something where the US can't just run in there, and grab somebody. It has to be a country that will not easily extradite someone. But Germany, the temperament of the country right now, on the whole, is such that they're not going to hand me over to the US for whatever reason. And I can't stay in the US because I can't get work done if I'm always subject to these little gusts of bureaucracy, which I am. It won't be for another year or so. I'm on probation for another two years. That generally goes down to one year if you don't act up. So in a year from now I'll be in a position to leave.

I wanted to also discuss the lawsuit in California concerning people who have donated to your legal fund. Could you explain that in a little more detail?

So, after I was imprisoned, [supporter and activist] Kevin Gallagher started up the "Free B[arrett] B[rown]" organization to help me out. Among the main things they did was raising money so I could get some private attorneys as opposed to the public defenders I have down here.

He raised like $5,000 at this point. The DOJ [Department of Justice], the prosecutor down here and the FBI agents ... decided that they would unofficially subpoena the WePay company that was being used to hold the money, and asked them to provide all information, not just about how much money was in there, but who had donated it -- all the information they had, all the identities of the donors, and they obtained that. Meanwhile, they had posted a [court] motion ... saying that the money that had been raised to get me private lawyers should instead go to offset the cost of the public defender that I hadn't asked for, and was planning to replace. Obviously, the real purpose of this was twofold. One was to prevent me from being able to get a private attorney. It's a very unusual move [for] the DOJ. This "money-should-be-paid" thing, it's really [an] incentive for people who have been accused of a crime who suddenly win the lottery or have an inheritance or something. Something changes from their original financial circumstance such that a case can be made that they should pay part of the public defender [costs]. It's never used for someone who has $5,000 being raised to get a private attorney. Obviously it doesn't make sense because, if I'm going [with] a private attorney, then there will be no cost to the state.

So, this was discovered later on, that that had happened. Over the last few years, Kevin Gallagher had been preparing a lawsuit on it. Gallagher, along with an anonymous donor who is remaining anonymous for the purpose of this [lawsuit], are challenging that move on a number of grounds. There are several legal aspects of this, sort of overlapping, but in some case mutually exclusive, different legal problems with what they did.

One of which is that they did the process very unusually, and sort of contrary to the actual law of how they're supposed to do these things. Another being that, clearly, there's a pattern already of them trying to obtain information on my supporters. For instance, they sought to obtain, and did obtain, the identities of everyone who contributed to the Echelon 2 dot org wiki.

So [my supporters] sued for the right for people to donate to politically-oriented causes without being identified by the FBI illicitly, especially when the FBI, in this case, has a pattern of trying to determine your supporters. So [the government has] filed their response. It happened about a week ago [from May 20]. They're making these claims that, "Oh, no, that's silly. How could anyone think that? We just wanted to save the state money." So that will go on for a while. There will be counter-motions and all.... They were asking to settle, and that's not going to happen.

But that's something again that can be used to illustrate the actual nature of the DOJ, which is very important now because both parties ignore the DOJ, the FBI and what they do to activists, and what they do to regular people every day, until their partisan agenda is suddenly threatened by it. That's why you saw the Democrats and the Republicans both seesawing and praising [former FBI Director James] Comey and all that ... then changing their minds the next day.

Anything you want to add, or think is important to highlight?

None of this will change until a degree of insurgency becomes acceptable, which it now is to some extent. I know people now who wouldn't have thought this five, six years ago, now agree with me that the government is frankly illegitimate in many ways and should be treated as such. I think that will become more evident. Let's say, even if they successfully remove this administration, we still have this 35 percent of people in this country who will support any fascist authoritarian like this, and they're still there. They may increase in number.

Even under the Obama administration, which was supposed to be the most reasonable, progressive administration ever, these institutions didn't change. Obama could have changed the BOP through executive order or any number of things. He just didn't. The point is that we have to realize that we cannot hope to be effective via this system. It's worked in the past, sometimes, but we've also seen republics collapse. We've seen republics become untenable.

We've already achieved a constitutional police state in this country. We've created a country in which 70, 80 million Americans are technically criminal because of all the bizarre drug laws, and crime laws we've created. That's an extraordinary fact of this country -- that we can only survive as a country to the extent that we do not enforce our own laws. That's becoming a more visible problem since we had a situation in which both the candidates in the last election probably had committed crimes, and then both sides had to determine why it was OK.

It just goes to show that this whole thing is a charade that no one really believes in. Every time you tell a lie publicly it's because you don't agree with the underlying premise of democracy, which is that the people should have the facts. And both sides do it. It's something that's in place to keep us from killing each other, but it's not something that we really deep down, unconsciously, see as legitimate. I think that will become more apparent very easily. It's very easy for this to all break down.

Copyright, Truthout. May not be reprinted without

permission

.

Candice Bernd

Candice Bernd is an editor/staff reporter at Truthout, and a contributor to Truthout's anthology on police violence, Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? With her partner, she wrote and produced Don't Frack With Denton, a documentary chronicling how their hometown became the first city to ban fracking in Texas, and its subsequent overturn in the state legislature. She was honored with the Dallas Peace and Justice Center's "Media Peacemaker of the Year" award in December. Follow her on Twitter: @CandiceBernd.

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Feeling grateful

I am so nervous setting my foot in the fourth year. People said it was hellish. I figured out that when it makes you shiver, makes your stomach aching for no apparent reason. It gonna be good. 

I said it will, but what makes it good is you are coming prepared. Things about what people were saying are they are good if the wording inspires you. But, it is better if you could fid a way to think about it, analyze why out of billions exist, those words were selected, how could you connect to your life, to yourself. I enjoy reading quotes. I had several handful of poets, writers whom I adore their quotes/sayings. I think they are special for they are able to express their thoughts, their feelings. If I could relate to those string of words, it will move me. And that’s nothing worth to understand myself better, comprehend how can I improve myself, figure out what can I offer to people that I love so we will be having a good relationship, care about each other, love deeper than our bones allowed.

Today I feel good. I met my thesis supervisor. In other words, I am letting a new person to enter my circle. My circle is expanding and yeayyy, that’s good right. I am going to spend a year with him, exploring what he favours and what he’s not. He is my SV so he is my superior. But, I don’t think it should be as serious as that. After all, we are all human who have some soft spots that if touched, we can connect the gap, Once it is connected, we would care about each other, not hurting each other and there one less problem to deal with.

And here I am in the library, trying to register my 3901 in. Just figured out I don’t need to apply through Central Carleton and I am officially registered now. Hahhh. 

On my left sitting my best friend (he’s both my best friend and boyfriend) making a cute mental face. He is such a determined person, blerghhh. No, he really is. I can see he is hardworking, up and running in making his dream into reality. He is someone who works based on planned schedule. He does not devour leisure time doing unnecessary thing. 

If you wanna be part of his team, you pretty much need to step up your game to follow suit. He works fast and seeking efficiency in everything. Sounds scary right. But, at the end of the day, when everyone is finished doing their stuff. We shall celebrate with a happy and peaceful minds. I love this kind of integrity.

When people asked me what qualities I love about him. Undoubtedly, I would say his work ethics. They might laugh thinking I am not making sense because His work ethics you know are between his work and himself. I dont think it that way, I think the way he treats his works reflect the way he treats his responsibility. So if he’s good at it, he’ll be good in treating you. That’s what maters most.

The post is keep getting longer. Shall stop now. Until next time.