#seriously how fucking hard is it to be normal about jews. not assuming them to all be genocidal maniacs.

[stolen-stardust]

why do people want a cookie for not harassing random jews living their lives. “the people i racially profiled were nice to me, peace is possible ✊” is a fucking INSANE take

[aguineapigcouldntdothis]

this is so long please read if it interests you and skip if it doesnt i genuinely just couldnt stop thinking of things to add.

i used to wonder why antisemites would constantly make up criticisms about zionism that are either blatantly false or a misunderstanding of facts. especially when jewish antizionists have consistently been able to find real criticisms of zionism and analyze them based on jewish history and personal experience (tbh i dont consider any goyim to be antizionist or zionist but that's not the point). it's definitely not a problem of "valid criticisms of zionism dont exist". even when i dont agree with jewish antizionists i usually understand how they got to their conclusion and i find it fully respectable. also when i say factual/valid criticisms i dont just mean shit i personally agree with. im a zionist with plenty of criticisms about the movement (yeah I know it's ironic). all i mean by that is a criticism of zionism that is backed up by facts.

imo antisemites either explicitly or implicitly know that if they look up factual criticisms of zionism they'll also have to learn about the positive stuff. it's all intertwined. to a lot of jewish people this isnt that big of a deal. we're raised to ask questions and we're taught how to formulate a good argument from a young age. its pretty normal for us to critique things that we generally support or find postives in things we generally critique. however, goyim are much less likely to be raised this way. obviously some are but the dichotomy of good and bad is much more prevalent in goyische culture than jewish. of course we know some shit is good and other shit is bad, we're not fuckin idiots, but nuance is integral to us.

i dont know what it feels like to be raised in a culture with a strong difference between good and bad. it doesnt make sense to me at all. however id assume that that upbringing combined with social media, which favors quick, shocking information, would result in something like goyim constantly glazing over factual critcisms of zionism and just making shit up. the made up shit is simultaneously more gut-wrenching and easier to digest due to its simplicity. it's really fucking hard to accept that zionism is so complex if youve been taught that things are always just good or bad. and even harder if your activism began and ended with social media instead of a medium that favors long-form content.

you cannot research zionism without being whacked in the face with nuance. its the reason i research zionist history more than zionist theory because that shit is so confusing sometimes (said with love). learning about zionism isn't an easy task at all. ive been doing it seriously for around 5 years and casually since i was a small child and i still learn shit every day. if i studied zionism for hours every day id probably still have something to learn when i die.

antisemites do not like being called antisemites, so they try to learn things about jewish history and then fail. they dont actually care about the information they just want to seem like they know something. they are not doing this for the benefit of jewish people. they wont actually spread true jewish history or recommend jewish creators that could share correct information. they'll instead say bare minimum shit that makes themselves feel proud for saying the word "jewish" and their followers are making death threats towards zionists.

ive seen some goyim say some factual things about zionism and stay in their lane while doing so, both things i rlly appreciate. and time and time again they're met with antisemitic conspiracies, death threats, doxxing, etc. not as much as jewish people are but still a lot. most people are not ready and may never be ready to support jews through the good and the bad.

this ties into the idea of the "innocent" victim. the one who is pure and kind, who never said a bad word about anyone and saved baby mice from fires. this idea of the innocent victim exists in war, abuse, crime, literally anywhere where someone's human rights are violated. however even if someone is innocent in a particular situation most people are not 100% good and innocent all the time. there's a few exceptions like babies (although i do know some babies that are fucking assholes) but in general people are a mix of good and bad.

jewish people do not shy away from being both good and bad. we embrace it with open arms and even though we try to improve our bad traits we dont fear them. "the only good jew is a dead jew" is fitting because when someone is dead you can make so much up. you can pretend they were incapable of every doing anything even remotely bad. you can say the poor jew who died was your biggest inspiration even though you scoffed at them every time they opened their mouth.

and this is why antisemites hate zionism so much and love making up false critcisms. because it throws concepts like black and white morality, the desire to consume information quickly, and the innocent victim into the fucking mud. then it punches it and steps on it and kicks it. anything and anyone that favors simple information over complicated information, not matter how incorrect, is going to have a hard time discussing zionism. people want to know things, yet sometimes they dont wanna actually put in the work to learn the correct information from good sources because that's hard work and antisemites do not want to put in hard work regarding jewish history.

if you believe im gonna solve antisemitism singlehandedly then who the fuck do you think i am. this isnt going away anytime soon. however you can do shit to help. study zionism on your own time and develop your own opinions on it. i highly recommend focusing on 1-3 specific topics trust me it's really confusing otherwise. teach others about it when you feel safe to do so. share resources with them and encourage them to do their own research. maybe point them to a specific aspect that relates to an interest they already have, and if you're mentally able to handle it call out antisemitic misinformation. a lot of people will not listen but there will always be at least one person who just needs a little bit of help starting.

anyway i may do actual research on this in the future because observations and i might turn it into a proper essay. I'll write one version where i say fuck and another where I don't.

[evilelitest2]

100 Days of Trump, Day 38: Why Are You So Angry?

Welcome back to 100 Days of Trump, where I try to recommend 100 works to help us understand WTF happened in 2016, and it should be increasingly obvious that I don’t actually plan these things out in advance because today’s recommendation is actually a little bit behind all things considered.  I was hoping to move past the psychological state and into the “The system itself which makes all of this possible” state, but I remembered this video series and I want to talk about it, so Innuendo Studios.  Its a video game channel that mostly talks about Indie Games and while all of that stuff is very cool and I recommend you check it out, I want to focus on his six part series on Gamergate called “Why are you so angry?”  

    Now I’ve said it before and I will say it again, to understand Trump you need to understand Gamergate and if it wasn’t for Gamergate, I honestly don’t think Trump would have gotten elected, within this bubble of internet gaming insanity we see the core of both Trump’s popularity, and the way he was able to win.  And there is a lot to say about Gamergate, and a lot of it was covered in my earlier series talking about Assassins, or Taxi Driver, or The Wall, or Breaking Bad, or Pan’s Labyrinth, or, Protagonist, or Rope, and above all the Social Network, all talking about the misdirected rage and optimistic nihilism that characterizes the Gamergate and by extension Trumpkin crowd (and really they are the same people).    So what does Innuendo Studios have to say which the earlier works don’t already say?  Well, in his Why Are You So Angry series focuses on a specific sub set of the reactionary hate mob, not the guys who lead it, but the guys who serve as support for those who do, which he coins “Angry Jack”

   Now I think it is important to understand that this video series isn’t actually summing up the whole movement, and the Angry Jack is just one small part of a larger WTF puzzle, so don’t take this video series as rite and go “OH well, I understands Gamergate/Trump Perfectly” not all of his supporters are Angry Jacks and Angry Jack are just one part of a larger system.  But when it comes to this particular subject, he is unto something.  The Ian Danskin posits that a core point of these movements is less malice than a form of ethical laziness, that sloth is the core sin of a lot of these reactionaries.  People like things to be simple and things to be self serving, its human, and when outside information challenges stuff, it is easier to double down than think critically.  To use a non political example, people who don’t drink at parties, I don’t drink by choice and a friend of mine doesn’t drink because it makes her head hurt, and a third friend doesn’t drink hard Liquor.  When ever we are at a party, despite having very different reasons for not drinking (and one of us actually liking alcohol) a lot of strangers will react really hostilely to any of use refusing a drink equally, and the ones who drink the most react the strongest.  Because they are assuming judgement to what is actually just personal preference.  I don’t drink because I dislike drinking, I don’t subscribe a moral value to it, but people who meet me seem to preemptively make me into some sort of prohibition era strawman, and it is doubly absurd for my friends whose choice comes from a place of ‘I don’t want head aches” and “I like this alcohol but not that alcohol”.  Because the people who get so pissy are terrified of judging themselves, so they try to create environments where nobody might do so.

Now this video series isn’t perfect, I do think his understanding of Christianity is ironically quite muddled and his belief of where this all stems from is frankly....dumb and juvenile, but look past that stuff and focus on his larger point, and you see why this is useful, a lot of this reactionary stuff is coming out of a sort of defense of one’s internal state of ignorance, that these people think they have found the loophole to living a morally good life without doing any work for it.  Just don’t notice whenever bad things happens, look away and pretend the problem doesn’t exist.  And the progressive movement is challenging that, it is effectively acknowledging problems that everybody knows exist.  And in order to make everybody more comfortable with the situation, they lash out to create an environment where people don’t have to think about these complicated issues.  Again, most people are lazy, cowardly, and stupid, and prefer it that way, anything that would make them not want to behave like that is legitimately scary if your goal in life is to be selfish and never have to be judged for it.  Even for the less debased, there is the question of difficulty, and people want simple solutions to problems even if those don’t exist.  I wish I lived in a world where parents didn’t sexually assault children, or if it happened it was done by creepy immediately evil people who I could call the police to instantly handle without any difficulties.  But I don’t live in that world, I live in a world where it is extremely common and there aren’t obvious solutions.  A lot of people prefer a fantasy of the first than the reality of the second. And this is why so many (but not all) reactionaries are weirdly positive towards the Civil Rights movements and the early feminist movements, because in their mind that was “When the bad thing ended”.  

   Small note, I don’t like how Ian uses the term sociopath, and I think it is very silly, but move on, focus on the larger point.

    And this is why we need to understand the relationship between Angry Jack and the more open and direct reactionaries, because if you have encountered these people online, you notice that unlike the most dire hard Alt Rightists, they don’t openly say the white nationalist/MRA/homophobic rhetoric, they insist it isn’t there.  They tune Trump out when he says some things, and tune in for others, and when they interact with Neo Nazis, they pretend they can’t see the obvious racist elements because they don’t want to confront the reality that they are allied with them.  A lot of these vocal harassers online are internally terrified of confronting who they are or what they have become, and if they were ever in a circumstance where they could calm the fuck down, would be horrified by the people they call their allies.  But they don’t want to face that, so they ignore it.  This is what Fox News and other groups like that do for these people, they give them an out.  Remember after that refugee child drowned and everybody briefly pretended they gave a shit about refugees and the Right’s hypocrisy on the subject of human rights was coming to the forefront?  And then Fox turned it into a Refugee vs. Vet, when both groups are fucked over by their very policies?  It isn’t suppose to make any sense, its suppose to be a life raft for the people who don’t want to think hard about the fact they are abandoning children to die.  Or how about when Milo got caught advocating for the sexual abuse of children, and the Right’s response was to bring up Roman Polanski as a “left wing child rapist”, nvm the fact that the left has been attacking Polanski for decades now particularly feminist circles.  Its a way to not think about the type of people they are allied with, for the average supporter think about this as an “US vs. THEM” argument rather than “Holy fuck, the guy I listened to thinks children should be raped...maybe all of the other things people said of him might be equally true....maybe this whole being cruel for the sake of humor thing is bullshit maybe the other side has a legitimate....oh wait, if I condemn Milo then THEY WIN and fuck THOSE PEOPLE (jews)”   So they march behind actual nazis, and as Hannah Arendt noted, once this all blows over, they will be out there saying they had nothing to do with it and that the Nazis tricked/forced them into participating in these crimes.  

For the record, I would divide Gamergate into more than two groups, rather Nine see here for my thoughts.  

What separates the Angry Jack from the Nihilist MRA people we see in Assassins and Breaking Bad is that Angry Jack really needs to see itself as morally correct and most importantly, normal.  They might use rebel rhetoric but they don’t see themselves that way, they identify themselves as just a dude, and really want to believe that feminism is nothing more than a few thousand rich college students or that the only white people who think racism is a problem are a couple dozen people who have been white guilt-ed into being puppets for the Black Panthers, they want to be the default, and are upset by the notion of having to accept a larger world.  This is why the fact Clinton won the popular vote is so upsetting to these people, because they really want to believe that they are most of the country, that they are normal and are driving abnormal out of their larger political community, the alternative scares the shit out of them.  And so much of this comes from my old enemy, simplistic easy morality, something which the left sadly has trouble with as well.  Because the way we depict morality in so much of our fiction makes this mindset more powerful, it encourages the thought process that is so useful to the right.  Because if our villains in works are nothing more than evil for its own sake, then we don’t have to think complexly about them, we don’t have to assume that their evil comes from a place and there are simple solutions to complicated problems.  And the left should avoid this mentality as well. 

Also how much of this battle is a fight for vindication, that these reactionaries are furious that society at large doesn’t respect them and doesn’t take their opinions seriously, and so they are screaming loud and more intensely out of the hope they will finally be recognized and respected for who they are...except that they aren’t because they are crazy. This is why Trump supporters are so angry at the media, because they won, they managed to get the most powerful job in the world, and yet people are still calling Trump and by extension them horrible people....because they are.  And that is why they want to get ride of the Media, because they hope that they can create a reality where nobody criticizes their ideals, which ironically always makes it worse.  

   Finally since Tumblr only allows 5 videos per post, here is part 6, where Ian talks about how to deal with these problems   This comes off as a tad naive today but it still applies, and this is why it is so important to try to keep people around you from buying into simplistic narrative, particularly because seemingly innocuous  nonsense always gets co-opted by bigots and turn into a recruiting tool for the Alt Right.  That is why these guys are so horrified by the notion of progressive politics making people happy, they find the notion that bioware games have gay relationships terrifying because the moment they acknowledge that is good, they start to validate the progressive arguments and they don’t want to go down that road.  Hey, has anybody had something they need to do but they keep putting it off, and you can kinda live with that until a friend says “Hey weren’t you suppose to turn into those papers?” and you find yourself getting suddenly mad at them?  Its that, because they don’t want to face the shitty part of the world, and if left alone, they will concoct a little alternate reality where they don’t have too, but they can’t do it if people keep poking the bubble.    Remember, so much of this reactionary bullshit is coming from an emotional place of insecurity and is kinda pitiable if it wasn't for how many people they are hurting, and even as the left condemns and opposes them, we need to understand them, because otherwise we won’t be able to defeat them. And for all of their talk of how tough they are, they are remarkably thin skinned.  But this is the most important thing, keep up the fight and keep attacking their arguments and proving them wrong, because while it doesn’t seem like you get any results, every time you do that, particularly when you conduct yourself in a more civil, mature, and above all intellectually honest way than your opponent, you keep a pupil form of an Angry Jack from joining up.  They don’t say anything, they don’t comment and say “Thanks dude, your take down of that MRA made me reconsider my life choices’ instead they take that comment and it sticks with them later in life, and it makes it that much harder for them to make a pact with Neo-Nazis.  And this is important, Gamergate and Trump seem inevitable now, but this is what matters,it took a lot of work for these movements to get started, /POL/ had been trying to get a Gamergate Going for at least three years before this one took off, and the Alt Right have been trying to get a trump going since the 1930s, it takes tremendous amount of effort to craft the sort of narrative to make this double think possible, and it took decades of work for them to make it this far.  And if the left hadn’t gone with Hillary Clinton, it wouldn’t have worked, by choosing somebody as bad as Clinton, it provided them with the psychological tools they needed to rationalize supporting Trump, which wont’ be true if we go with somebody with less of a dark past.  “They go high, we go low” actually does work, its just that Clinton didn’t go high, she stayed in the middle.  And the more pressure we keep up on them, the more their movement frays.  They seem powerful now, but this current state of affairs is on a very weak wedge, and it can come crashing down on them in an instant.  The only way they can keep this up is if we either give up, or support morally debased responses to them.  

[wishingfornever]

11/21/17 – No Contact:  Impatience

I’m impatient, I think.  I can’t stand watching youtube videos under 2x speed.  And even then, I mindless click away.  I have no patience, hence impatient.  Maybe I’m restless.

I went out to apply for some jobs.  Not much now.  Applied for the HEB. I’ll apply at other locations soon.  Again, I can manage for another two weeks if need be.

Hrm… NationStates.  It’s a riot.  A few days ago, I decided to comment in a thread asking if your nation (YN) would be able to defeat the above nation (AN) militarily.  I use stats to determine my nation.  That’s obvious. However, I also avoid certain stats in lieu of my own.  Instead of having 2.022 BILLION citizens as of writing this and have the population of China and India, I choose to limit myself to 10 million people.  The reason for this is simple: 10 million is an easy number to remember.  Cuba has a population of 11-12 million and my country is supposed to be smaller than Cuba.  I figured the population gap would decrease with my massive technological increases and healthy citizens.  May be wrong, but whatever.  The Dominican Republic has my population and is about the same size as my theoretical nation.  Probably smaller.

Ah, just checked.  By my own lore, it’d appear my nation is smaller…

Anyways, population of 10 million.  Military might is in the top 4% in the world, almost top 3%.  Scientific Advancement is top 3%, unsure how close it is to 2%.  We’re top 3% in health, intelligence, and healthcare.  Top 4% in information technology, pacifism (shut up), and top 22% in Arms Manufacturing. My nation’s military uses conscription.  I’ve meticulously written out the inventory, taking into account military spending, what I can and can’t do with said spending, and based the inventory off other REAL world nations with equal power. A lot of thought and planning. This guy…  Dis muthafucka.  He says he can take on ALL that “In a longshot” so it wouldn’t even be close.  Upon further inspection, his population in game is 45 million.  That sounds impressive, but if we really did population stats I would win without end based on that alone.  But I don’t because population is too damn high.

His arms manufacturing is top 14%, information technology is at 20%, military is at 21%, has a death rate of 21% (top 21% in the world, mind you and not only 79% survives to adulthood), scientific advancement is at 28%, and everything beyond that is just… crap. Now, clearly by stats alone he’d get DESTROYED.  Even if he had 42 million to my own lore’s 10 million.

Here’s the thing. This muthafucka… his active personnel is 12 billion out of 19 trillion.  This is HIS OWN LORE.  Reserve of 10 billion, 2 million WMD’s, 1 million nuclear, 100 million chemical, and has all this other scifi sounding crap like “antimatter” or “black hole bombs.”  I mean… really?

He has ONE billion active ships with ONE billion active sailors.  These are all in space, I assume but I’m not sure.  Makes you wonder how many people are required to run something that’s called a “Ship” of course, but whatever.  And, of course, there has to be more people running logistics on the planet and won’t actually be on ships.

Then there is Air and Space with more ridiculous numbers and he uses a screenshot for a Helghast from Killzone and says, “Super secret supersoldier project.”

I mean… seriously? What’s stopping me from retconning my lore and just saying, “Yeah, well we have 50 trillion people and 12 trillion are military and I have another trillion ships with only 50 pilots who are so advanced they can fly all trillion ships WITH THEIR FUCKING MINDS!!!” I’m not trying to crap on him for using Future Tech (or FT).  My Nation (from now on will be referred to as MN for simplification’s sake; should have done this sooner but whatever) is certainly bordering on Future Tech, thanks to the HUGE advancements in science.  Not the top, but definitely near there. Walter and I wanted to device a bit of a cold war and to demonstrate some games for settling disputes.  It would have began with Wargame:  Red Dragon, had Kerbal Space Program, a few others, and ended with Supreme Commander.  That certainly would have been future tech. I designed MN to basically be… flexible.  I’ve prepared not just military histories but also political ideologies.  Mostly for conflict purposes, but these conflicts aren’t EXCLUSIVELY violent.  In fact, my own nation’s lore has been that MN has never beaten an enemy in ANY combat until 2017.  Really, my history is just supposed to be funny but also balanced. I REALLY want to get a thing started with other nations where terrorists happen and try to blow up things and use a game like CS:GO or Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes to simulate successes of counter-terrorist and law enforcement or their defeats.  I thought it’d be very clever.

Regardless, most of the history is very… historical.  MN began as an uncontacted tribe who was a sister tribe of the Aztec but failed in mostly everything, Spanish Settlers come in and settle on their way to Mexico, MN was mostly ignored as a colony and accidentally was granted independence, had a republic with a presidency, was often confused as Mexico or Cuba depending on the time period and nation, was slow to adapt new ideas, had a monarchy that later became a republic again, and during the previous century because a Fascist dictatorship who hated jews.  Mind you, there were only two jews on the island and they were retirees from Brooklyn.  They were never harmed but quietly respected, meaning when Fascists were running around yelling, “Kill the Jews!” they would quietly bow their heads in the presence of the Jewish couple and say “...except the Rosenblatts.”  Pacifism!  :D

Anyways, that fascist dictatorship was toppled by Communists.  That basically leads into today.

Almost Cuba.  More a mixture of Cuba and Mexico’s history, depending on how you see it.  So, depending on the game I should be fine.  For example, say… there is a multiplayer game based on city building for the wild west.  I’d basically be using Mexican assets if it were the wild west.  Or if it were based in the Caribbean during the cold war, I’d obviously play as the Cuban option.  And if there were a game in the early 1800’s or earlier, I’d play as either Spain or a Native Population like the Aztecs.

Well, what if it’s based in the Ancient World? I’ve settled this too.  Apart from the Aztecs (because they’re not always available), Spain and the kingdoms that made Spain would be the choice in this scenario (Castile, Leon, Asturias, etc) but in a world where the kingdoms of Spain haven’t been formed yet? The Spiritual Successor of MN is Syracuse.  An aircraft carrier has been named “Siracusa” which is the name in Spanish.  So, I’d basically be using a greek template.  If in between Spain and Greeks, I’d be using Goths (Visigoths to be specific).  I try to avoid using Rome because they tend to get associated to Fascists (thanks to Mussolini) and they’re always overpowered.  Keep in mind, most historical games tend to be either historically inaccurate or extremely warlike. Usually both. Don’t get me wrong, I like war games. Real time strategy, real time tactics, shooters and what ever else there is.  All great fun.

However, I wish there were more… peaceful games like Kerbal Space Program. Just something where I don’t need to try to destroy the other person but try to manage myself.  Tropico is a fine example, but eh. Multiplayer games tend to require conflict.  I guess I’m saying I wish there were more peaceful multiplayer games.

Of course, in the same breath, I also wish more of the violent games had a unique shtick.  For example, I think one such game that’d be fun would be a TURN OF THE CENTURY Counter-Strike.  Here me out: In Counter-Strike, you set up bombs and release hostages.  Well in the late 19th century and early 20th century, there were these political extremists known as… Anarchists!  Maybe you’ve heard of them. Here’s the thing.  They were FAR more extreme than Anarchists today.  Trust me, I used to roll with Anarchists today.  These guys would constantly explode shit, sabotage shit, even assassinate people.  They assassinated Tsars, Kings, even US presidents (as well as Non-American Presidents).  Like, the French dedicated a newspaper article dedicated to them called “The Dynamite” but in French for some reason. Now, in CS you just plant bombs or rescue hostages.  In this hypothetical scenario, the game modes should be planting bombs and maybe also hostage rescue… but also assassinations!  A nameless, NPC king or Archduke has to be protected from the Anarchists.  Maybe have NPC civilians who loiter or whatever.  Guards against Anarchists. How the game is done is really irrelevant.  It’s more a concept to expand on CS.  NPC’s of course need programming… but if done, you can run around with a hidden pistol and just shoot the nobility up close.  Have an animation where a guard pushes the nobility down and protects them with his own body.  Have an Anarchist set up a sniper position in an apartment complex and have a team of guards clear out the houses for suspected Anarchist activity. Ah… a beautiful dream, no? Programming, however, is hard.  NPC’s are just a pain in the ass to work with.  Not many games actually have decent pathfinding. However, that could be good. Anarchists should be dressed as normal civilians.  Would add to the affect, right?  Hard to spot.  The guards actually have to watch out for suspicious behavior.  Of course…  NPC’s are dumb.  So, they’ll shoot a civilian or whatever.  And you’d need them to want to NOT shoot civilians. And there could always be game mods without Civilians.  Planting bombs or whatever so it’s basically CS before WWI.  I think it’d be fun, but then again… what do I know?  :3 Anyways… yeah.  I think my original point was why do people insist on their own stats?  Like, I WORKED to get my military that high.  Pacifism just came to me.  I can understand if someone wants to do FT instead of MT (Modern Tech) but come on.  Be a little reasonable.  Like, I won’t ever imply my nation will do something if I don’t have the stats for it.  If I do have the stats for it but I don’t like the stats, then I’ll work to change it. In that regard, why don’t I just say we’re backwards and uncivilized until I reach the correct stats again?  I bitched about that a lot. The thing is, I worked for those stats.  Even if I wasn’t trying for them, I got them.  The population is one thing, but those stats… yeah.  I think they’re more influential because there is about a million nations in NationStates and MN happens to be one of them.  If those Nations were reduced to only 100 nations and all of them were placed on a ladder with the lowest percentages at the bottom and the highest on the top, I’d be the top on most the ladders.  For my military, only three other nations would be above me.  And that’s not even my highest stat. That is crazy. Of course, a lot of nations have been destroyed so I doubt there are 1 million active nations.  Really, just a lot of defunct nations with only a few thousand actually active. A lot of nations don’t use the NS Stats.  They impose their own…  Honestly, I can be fine with that.  However, when your nation becomes the Grand Duchy of Maryland-Sueberg, then you have a problem.  Overly powerful nations… they annoy me. So much so, the first war in NationStates I’ve participated in with MN was against a Constitutional Monarchy of the Puerto Rican Empire.  They were pretty Mary Suish, but they had to be replaced due to inactivity.  Thus I fought against someone else representing them. They had a 10 million man military, and my population then was far less than theirs.  Their lore was that Puerto Rico got independence and some how managed to annex some islands… then they were attacked by Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic because they were “Jealous” and thus formed a coalition and declared war… Casus Belli:  Your hat is shinier than our three hats. Dumb.  It was pretty dumb. An issue happened between PR (Puerto Rico) and MN where they basically were liberating the Bourgeoisie of MN who fled my nation as if it were the Mariana Boatlift. Um… okay?  It’s not an event I got, they declared that they sent their navy there to rescue an oppressed people. Thing is, I’m fairly certain he thought the Bourgeoisie was a race rather than a class.  Because he said people identified as being Bourgeoisie…  Sure thing.  MN is Marxist-Leninist and had a classless society, but you know what?  I rolled with it.  This was perfect. I used this intervention as a VALID Casus Belli (reason for war) and announced my intention to declare war.  We were in the same regional alliance at the time so I had to get it approved.  It was. PR… I wish they were still around.  They were top 1% in religion and had Fox News.  They were ultra right wing when I was super left wing (top 3% in Secularism due to Marxism).  We couldn’t have been more opposite.  He had unrealistic views of his nation and I had realistic goals.  However, I had this little thing that I written up earlier this year specifically for warring nations in the same regional alliance. Basically, it was what I used to declare war. Such a brilliant document outlining and trying to have a fair 1v1 tournament that used population to determine the battles required to win in game.  Normally, the defending party would choose the game but it was the first time this document was being used so… yeah. This was a practice run, basically.  They had a larger population than me so I needed more victories to beat them.  Of course, they went inactive so another nation in the region took their place and represented them. I won several and lost one.  The war was placed on hold because the prelude to this Esther mess and… well, it hasn’t really ended.  I took stats and meticulously recorded the casualties and used a random percentage to calculate the fatalities as opposed to wounded. Basically, I would have won the war so it never really mattered.

I regret it not being the REAL PR but whatever.  His replacement was fine enough.  It was more to settle a point.  If you think your nation is hot shit and your leader is this fantastic general, your arrogance will betray you.

Looking now… there was this gentleman who I had the misfortune of playing with (in Wargame: Red Dragon, same game I used in the PR War) to just test it out.  Was supposed to lead to a grand war, regional even with three vs three. Thing is, this guy was far more advanced than me in the game.  I don’t remember his stats because he seemed friendly. I was deceived.  I managed to beat him and he couldn’t be more upset. He claimed I helo rushed him when in reality, I had two helicopters in the middle of the match.  They went around the flanks and hit his spawn at the same time.  It was a coordinated effort to give my forces a break because he pushed HARD.  I was only slowing him.  By the time he realized what had happened, he sent forces back to destroy my helicopters but not much was accomplished.  I won after destroying basically everything. Thing is, he had anti-air.  But he claimed I helo rushed and I would be GLOBALLY REJECTED BY THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY IF I KEPT DOING IT!!! Yeah, well I knew what a helo rush was but I wasn’t going to confront him about it.  I asked a pretty well known player about it and he said, “Nah, not a helo rush.”  So, I’m not crazy.  He certainly was though.  Haven’t spoken to him since, seems his nation is now defunct.

Whatever.

I’m not well.  I don’t feel well.  Something in my stomach.  I feel like I should be worried.  Strange.  Today, however, shall be important.  Regardless of how I feel.  The future is mine to take. I’m going to begin Rosetta Stone today.

Everyone messaged me in the middle.  I’ve been ignored all day but the moment I get into something, everyone comes out of the woodwork. Typical.

Anyways, the previous segment was written BEFORE I took Max out on a walk.  I just came back.  A little tired. Honestly, haven’t been eating much but that shouldn’t a surprise. What is surprising is how well I’m doing on Rosetta Stone!  :D I blasted through the first three lessons on level 1 for disc 1.  The final lesson will complete the level.  So, assuming they’re divided like this in all the other lessons/levels/whatever it should take me about 3 hours per level with 4 levels per disc and they’re 6 discs… should take me a solid 3 days to go through EVERYTHING.  That’s a rough estimate, of course. Honestly, I think I sped ran it.  I was doing very well.  Of course, it was a beginning course and I did restart when the damn program couldn’t hear me.  I was sitting there yelling “WHITE!!!” as loud as I could and eventually it went through.  I mean… it’s “Blanco” but basically yelling white because blanco is white in Spanish.

Ariel is under the impression that I can speak Spanish.  I told her I couldn’t before but she’s forgotten.  I’ve allowed her to believe this for a few years now.  Doesn’t really come up.  If Spanish ever comes up, it’s so basic it’s not even worth looking up. Oof… this girl I’m talking to.  Not Ariel, another one who I’ve not mentioned.  I referenced her, but never stated her name.  I discovered she has a purity ring.  She’s a few years younger than me AND VERY attractive.  And…  I think I know why she has a purity ring.  Victim of sexual assault.  She’s had trauma she hasn’t told me about, so I know something happened. I’ll be gentle with her.  Same thing happened to Esther and Ariel.  :/ Of course, that’s something most people don’t like to reveal.  And… well, I’ve revealed it for Esther and Ariel multiple times.  I want to go back and change it, but… I can’t.  I told myself I wouldn’t in the interest of upholding the truth.  What I believe in.

Of course, you may think I’m crazy.  I’m not.  I don’t think I am, at least.  I don’t care if I’m viewed in a negative or positive light.  What does it matter?

Eh… it’s getting late.  I’m pretty tired.  It’s only 6.  I want to go to bed.  Well, if I do go to bed I’ll go to bed early… and I can wake up early.  Get started on everything.  This… may be my break.  I can finally do what I planned on doing.  Took me long enough.