#when youre always nearly 5 seconds away from mental shutdown but you cant tell anyone so you take it out on a playground game for children

[impinged]

It's always "why does Paper beat Rock?" You just kind of choose to accept it as fact. If you have three items and each one is weak against one and strong against another, you'll likely end up with a combo that doesn't really make sense.

Except it does make sense. You think. Like, this is the basis of your whole world. Of battle. Of creation. Of life. It makes sense. You are not in denial. IT MAKES SENSE!! It has to. Why would the world itself depend on it if there wasn't a good reason. And there's a perfectly good reason.

You boil these concepts down into their rawest form. Simple things, to make it easy to understand. For anyone to easily and quickly grasp. You get it. You struggle too sometimes (how many times have you gone through the tutorial again?) But when you say rock, paper, scissors, you don't really mean rock, paper, scissors.

Protecting, Creative, Piercing.

These are proper concepts. But you can go further, you think. Or rather, you know it does. You've only scoured every book how many times now? You have a sieve for a brain and you still swear to the stars you can see the letters in your mind when you close your eye.

Rock. A sturdy, unyielding object. Crushing. Shattering.

Paper. Pliable, adaptable material. Enveloping. Shielding.

Scissors. A sharp object. Cutting. Striking. Slicing.

Paper beats rock because of its ability to envelop and neutralize Rock’s crushing potential. It encases it. Renders it harmless, incapable of causing damage. All while remaining intact.

Rock loses because it lacks countermeasures. It is rigid, inflexible. It cannot envelop or cut through. So it is bested. That is what you've learned. What you've read. What you believe. You could quote the book directly, citation and all, you think! Odile would be so proud. Haha.

So... yeah! The next time (and there will be a next time!!!!!) someone says, "Paper beats Rock just because!" you can say...

"Yeah, it never really made sense, did it?"