As a long time contributor, member, and an investor in the Donut ecosystem, I believe I have the right to express my opinion, regarding the proposed comment2vote program. Please note that it is not my intention to manipulate the public opinion, nor to incentive brigading parties against the concept. This is just a (very much necessary) con-argument, as it seems everyone's just jumping on board without considering all the variables.
I believe we are focusing on the wrong thing.
The new program aims to fight manipulation. Let me say that nothing will change in that regard, as there will always be upvote manipulation. This will still happen, could be on a smaller scale, or not.
Commands such as !tip [X] are still being abused, even though it's on a much smaller scale, with alt accounts engaging in tipping manipulation for the receivers' bonus. Sometimes "evidence" is presented to the moderation team, and allegedly nothing happens. What guarantees the governance that it will be any different with comment-to-vote?
Additionally, I firmly believe this will limit the sub to insiders (as in EthTrader active members; also approved users), at least in terms of tokenized rewards. Only insiders will know about this program, thus limiting outsider users who do not know how the system works.
Plus, the fact that only approved users would be able to upvote, kind of puts away new users or not so active users who casually enjoy to participate in EthTrader.
There is another thing the governance needs to keep in mind. The people who actually upvote in this sub are not the participants, it's the outsiders. When certain keywords are used in threads, the algorithm picks the post up and recommends it to external users. These are the ones who often genuinely engage and upvote. And we'd be penalizing OPs, by not including their upvotes in the distribution score.
I believe every project, individual, or company should focus on finding solutions. But such solutions must not be made "in a hurry".
The comment-to-vote is a rushed mechanism. I have a feeling this is something that is now being actively worked on in a rush, even though it has been under discussion for quite some time. Such a big change for the sub, and its way of functioning, should be, must be, carefully worked on, and in due time. It should not be something that must happen right away, because of external attacks.
I believe this new program will clog comment sections... again! We recently managed to tackle down the tip spamming, by removing incentives to send tips.
Lately, as you can see, comment sections are a lot more cleaner and not full of tips with ridiculous amounts, as little as under 1 single Donut. By implementing this, we would get right back to where we started.
On a not so engaging topic, I guarantee we will see comment sections full of: "[Top comment] !upvote / !uv / !up / !tip -> [Reply] Thank you bronut!".
Outside users, and even EthTrader contributors, found the tip spamming frustrating, because it degraded comment sections. Myself included.
This will happen again, if the program goes live.
One of the pro-arguments is that this will increase visibility, by taking away the financial incentive to downvote. Once more, I disagree.
Downvotes will exist any way, they always did, and always will. This is how Reddit operates. We do not know who downvotes. So even though we remove the financial incentive to downvote, people will do it either way.
No matter if it's EthTrader users or outsiders, the visibility would not be increased. I would say that visibility would be higher, if we had more GENUINE users, and actually expand the content and topic of discussion, not restricting it to a single thing, like we just did.
Look at CryptoCurrency's example. They have been dealing with upvote manipulation on a far larger scale than ethtrader, and it was a lot worse in comments. High quality comments would sit at -2 score. This isn't something that happens in ethtrader.
They always had downvotes, and yet the average mid-quality thread used to have hundreds of upvotes. ethtrader's high quality threads can barely get past 10.
The main suspects are the manipulators who have a financial reason to do the downvoting. I would argue that if the moderation team concentrated some of their efforts to tackle down these users, (PERMA) banning them from the subreddit, the mass downvoting would drastically decrease. Some users understand what I'm talking about here. EthTrader does not have more than 100 genuine, active users. You can bet on that.
Then there's the privacy aspect of the subject. Voting SHOULD BE anonymous. That's how Reddit works.
Even though I'm in favor of a transparent voting mechanism, which would allow us to see who is upvoting who, we are removing a small layer of privacy from users.
Whether it's upvoting or downvoting, (non-malicious) users have the right to keep their votes to themselves. I understand this may sound controversial, believe me I do. But in the event of having a public voting system, there are absolutely no guarantees that manipulators would be taken down.
Plus, what evidence would we have that we don't already have? Our regular users can already identify activity patterns and anomalies in the data.
Another question to address is, if two different users constantly upvote each other, assuming they're both known within the DAO and are obviously two different people who sympathize with each other, would this be manipulation? Manipulation, in this case, would be subject to the moderators' / governance's interpretation.
From a contributor's point of view, I will say this is just extra work. What I mean is people are already super stingy with their upvotes, and the (current) process is as simple as tapping a button.
Adding an extra layer of effort, such as having to type a command, will reduce the changes of OPs getting upvotes. And since the average number of upvotes per thread is already low enough, this would decrease drastically, making it not worth it to spend time creating threads (assuming they're not link submissions).
Most people would not be upvoting, which brings me to the next topic.
As a meme artist, memes are my strong point in this subreddit. It is what I post the most, and it is what earned me my fair share of DONUT-CONTRIB throughout the years as a contributor.
Implementing this system would hurt people like me the most. People who spend hours in a day on photoshop creating a meme, only to me subject to a penalized flair.
I can confirm you that my memes already earn me between 10 to 50 Donuts, rarely more than 50. Under the new system, along with the drastic reduction of upvotes due to the command requirement, I / we would earn a lot less.
Remember, Comedy flairs have a 0.10 multiplier, and according to the (new) Pay2Post fee, we need 25 upvotes to break even. I am willing to bet that we would definitely not be getting 25 upvotes under this new program. I would argue that the highest quality "Hot" thread would get probably a max of 10.
So where does that leave us meme creators? We rely on external interactions to succeed. Most of the upvotes on memes are given by outside users, users that would be out of EthTrader's system, under this new program. Not only that, but this would also drastically decrease earnings for all genuine, active contributors, and would probably make them leave.
This is getting perhaps a bit too long, I'm sorry but there's no short way of sharing this.
I believe this is just a detour in our path, or taking the long road as one would say. Cheaters will stop at nothing, some of them have been farming RCPs for YEARS, possibly relying on it in terms of income. Nothing will stop them and they will always find a way to circumvent any new rule or program.
So this would only really add an extra layer of difficulty for outsiders or new users to participate, whilst benefiting those with "groups of friends".
I want to flush out manipulators as much as the next guy, but this is not the way to do it. This would drastically reduce contributors' earnings, the subreddit's accessibility, and wouldn't be user-friendly at all.
This wouldn't be required if moderation took a more proactive approach towards trying to detect, monitor and PERMABAN manipulators, as these are the ones who have more incentive to downvote, more than any other user. By getting straight to the root of the problem, the mass-downvoting would be largely reduced. Not completely stopped, as it is a natural, organic part of Reddit and they will always exist, but reduced nevertheless.
So what am I trying to achieve with this thread? What do I want?
One simple thing: Time.
I would like to ask the governance for time, before rushing into implementing this new mechanism. We recently passed proposals to reduce spam, and have some on the way to reduce the incentive to cheat as well. Proposals such as a cap of 3 threads per day, per user, removing the tipping bonus for senders. On the way we have the reduction for the Daily's comment rewards, and finally a comment cap per day, per user.
I believe THIS is the way to address foul play, proposal by proposal. Not through some major change that alters the entire way of operating.
I would like to ask the governance for 3 to 6 months, to evaluate how the distribution scores perform, how the ratios fluctuate with these new proposals, before doing this. I am confident that with these new proposals, the general status of the sub will improve, and organic, active users will earn more.

PART ONE THOUSAND AND TWELVE
[Previous Chapter] [The Beginning] [Patreon+2]
Sunday
Lucas stretched and yawned in bed, taking a moment to enjoy the complete lack of needing to rise before his hand stretched out in search of Boyd.
And once again, that side of the bed was empty.
Biting back a whine of dismay, Lucas rolled until he was face down on Boyd’s pillow, breathing in the cologne they both now wore. The detective in him quickly deduced that Boyd had been gone a while based on the chill in the sheets. He curled his hands around the pillow and hugged it tight, wishing it was the big mountain of a man himself instead of this weak substitute.
As thrilled as he was about Boyd finding a new career that he was so passionately driven about, he was equally happy that his fiancé took his responsibility to his clients seriously. Still, would it have killed him to sleep in just one morning instead of abandoning their wrecked bed the morning after their engagement party?
After several minutes of wallowing, he finally accepted the inevitable that no amount of wishful thinking was going to make Boyd appear and climbed out of bed. He removed his snore rings and took a quick shower.
Once he was dressed, he felt a little better.
The next thing he had to do was strip down the bed and remake it. They’d been very busy last night, which was why he’d only just woken up at—his gaze fell upon the clock— DAMN! It’s nearly lunchtime!
“I’m gonna kill him for letting me sleep in so long,” he muttered under his breath, carrying the linen through the apartment and into the kitchen, which doubled as a laundry on their end. After nine years of living in this layout, he didn’t need to see over the pile in his arms to know precisely where he was, and with the load balanced on one arm, he turned at the right moment, opened the massive frontloading washing machine and stuffed it all in.
“Hey, Unca Luke!” Maddy’s shrill voice had him leaping into the air, slamming the door shut and swivelling around in front of it to hide the evidence. “Didja pee the bed?”
His brother and his niece were sitting at the island, Maddy with her breakfast of honey-and-cream-covered waffles, which were only half-eaten, and Levi patiently waited for her to finish since the plate in front of him was empty. The latter was grinning at him as only a brother could.
He’d forgotten all about them staying over.
It took a hot second for what Maddy asked to register with him, and when it did, his mouth dropped, and he glanced at his brother, who was twisting himself into a pretzel to avoid laughing out loud. Asshole. “No, Peaches,” he said, glaring daggers at Levi for not even trying to help him out. “Boyd and I like clean sheets every day, and it’s not fair to make somebody else wash them for us, is it?”
Bright red ringlets of hair swayed as the little girl shook her head. “Daddy makes me fix stuff too.”
Lucas moved the three feet between the washing machine to his brother sitting in Mason’s seat at the corner. “That’s because Daddies always know what’s best.” He wrapped an arm around his brother’s neck in a loose chokehold and gave him a noisy morning kiss on the cheek. “Ain’t that right, Daddy?” He said that last word in a sultry purr the way Robbie would, and the reaction from Levi was priceless.
“Fuck off with that shit, you prick!” his brother swore, shoving Lucas away with all his might.
“DADDY!” Maddy squealed in horror, and Lucas clapped his hands together once behind Maddy’s chair and raised his clenched fists in victory. He’d been angling for one swear word, maybe two to distract young Maddy from his not-so-discreet linen run. Three was a veritable home run.
Snickering quietly to himself, he went back to the washing machine, loaded it up with soap and softener and turned it on. Then, he walked over to the wooden box under the window. ‘Just think what you want,’ Charlie had told him at the party. ‘It’s a Nascerdios box that Robbie fills up throughout the night.’
He stared hard at the box while he considered his options, settling on a plate of breakfast tacos with seasoned mince, fried eggs, tomatillos, shredded lettuce, and cheese wrapped in soft tortillas buttered with a thin spread of mashed avocado.
After the last month, it didn’t surprise him in the least when he opened the lid and found that exact meal sitting there, waiting for him. Maybe the quantity, since they were piled three high, but not the meal itself.
The same could not be said for Levi when Lucas turned around with the plate in his hand. “Robbie had that ready for you too?” he asked, as Lucas grabbed a glass from the cupboard and placed it and the plate in his regular sitting place adjacent to his brother before sliding into his seat. He knew Levi wasn’t questioning Viola since the box itself was made and gifted by someone with the last name Nascerdios.
The veil was an ass.
“I told you; he did most of the catering yesterday, too,” Lucas said, reaching for the jug of juice. He was curious what it would be today. Yesterday, it had been orange and mango juice, with apple the day before.
A quick sniff made it most likely grapefruit.
He tightened the roll on the first taco and lifted it to his lips, enjoying the flavours that exploded in his mouth. Because Levi had finished whatever had been on his plate, he was watching him eat as if he’d never seen it before. It finally clicked why. “You want to try one?” Lucas asked, nudging his plate towards his brother. “There’s plenty here if you want one. Too many, if anything.”
Levi didn’t need to be told twice and reached over, using his fingers just as Lucas had. “How did he learn to cook so well?” Levi demanded, almost fitting the whole thing in his mouth.
“He’s always cooked,” Lucas answered, fudging things slightly. “When he was growing up, cooking was his chore while his mom was at work. He only stopped because Mom refused to let him help in the kitchen.”
“I would’ve fought that a lot harder if I’d have known he could produce this.”
“Yeah, you and me both, bro. Even when we were upstairs, he was forever watching the cooking channels for new ideas.” Lucas didn’t want to mention that these days, Robbie only did so to critique the so-called experts. “Have you seen Boyd?”
Levi shook his head. “I was assuming he was still in with you. If I’d known you were in there alone, I’d have sicc’d Maddy onto you.”
“I can wake Daddy and Unca’ Austin good!” Maddy said proudly. “I gets me a dolla’.”
“Ssshhh, Peaches. That’s out secr—wait. Does Uncle Austin pay you, too?”
Maddy was adorable the way she looked at Lucas like he would intervene for her. “Sorry, baby girl,” he laughed, eating another taco. “You’re on your own.”
The two brothers bantered as Lucas ate, with Levi stealing another taco, bringing Lucas’ total number down to five. Maddy told them both about wanting to be a vet, and Lucas knew precisely who to blame for that. Still, it was better than her previous choice of ‘stripping’ the way Robbie and Angelo used to. Levi’s meltdown over that revelation had been priceless, even if he, too, was firmly in the ‘fuck that noise’ camp.
When he polished them and half the juice off, he poured the last into Maddy’s cup and put his things and the jug in the dishwasher. “You can hang out here if you want,” Lucas said. “The guys and I are heading out this afternoon to play some ball over at Angus’ place, but if you call Austin and find out Pepper’s roommate is still with him, the TV over there has…”
“Every cable channel imaginable, I know. Charlotte—”
“Charlie.”
“Charlie told us last night.” Levi sat back in his seat and stared at his brother. “What do you make of Larry, Luke? Does he have kids?”
“Why?”
“He watched Maddy for me last night while I was having a shower, and Maddy loves him. You know how picky she is about people she doesn’t know.”
“I know he’s married to a career soldier and was one too before being assigned to us. I’m not sure about his past, but he’s a good guy and ridiculously protective of those either in his charge or that he happens to care about.”
Levi grunted. “Charl—lie said so too. He certainly knows his Spongebob.”
Lucas squinted. “Why all the questions?”
“Just thinking out loud. If he’s going to be here all the time with Robbie, and Austin and I get called into the house together, it’s always been a struggle figuring out where we can leave Maddy on short notice. We don’t exactly have time to drive all the way over to Queens to drop her off at either Mav’s or Mom and Dad’s. I mean, so far, we haven’t needed to, but it’s a constant concern.”
Lucas frowned at him. “We’ve been here for years. Why didn’t you ask before now?”
Levi seemed suddenly uncomfortable. “You know…” he said, gesturing to the ceiling without finishing that sentence.
And just like that, Lucas did understand.
Six men, all sharing one shoebox-sized apartment with two of them being sex workers, was not where anyone would want to drop off a little girl. Even if Lucas did vouch for all of them and swore they’d all be protective as hell over little Maddy. “Look, I can’t speak for them specifically, but Charlie’s here under house arrest for the next ten months, and Boyd now works out of his studio, so technically, someone will be here all the time. There’s not a chance in hell we’ll turn you away.”
“I’ll ask her and Miss W before we go.”
Lucas looked at what the two of them were wearing. “You know, I could duck out and grab you and Maddy some clothes just as soon as I check in with Boyd, if you like.”
He watched Levi look down at the shirt and boxers that were a little big on him width-wise and across at Maddy, who still wore Charlie’s favourite Giants’ shirt.
“That’d be good, thanks,” he admitted.
“I’ll get extras, and that way, she can have a few changes of clothes here. Actually, do you want me to grab you some spare stuff too?”
Levi stiffened in his seat. “I don’t need you to buy me clothes.”
Lucas wanted to slap him in the back of the head (and would’ve if Maddy wasn’t there). “Stop,” he commanded instead. “I’m already going to a clothes shop. It’s not going to be anything fancy, and if you hate it, you can swap it out with your own stuff later.”
Knowing his brother was still uncomfortable, Lucas waved his hand at the kitchen. “Seriously, Levi, look around. Look at how I’m living, and I’m not paying a dime in rent. Llyr won’t let me since we’ve been looking out for Sam for years. Let me do this for you, so you’ll always know you and Maddy have somewhere safe to go.”
Levi glanced around, his lips tightening before he finally nodded, unwilling to say the words out loud, and Lucas clapped him on the shoulder. “We’re family, dumb-ar—dumb,” he amended, with little ears sitting on the other side of his brother. “Dumb-dumb. I meant Dumb-dumb.”
Levi chuckled and patted his brother’s hand. “I appreciate it, bro. We’ll chill here until you get back. Don’t rush … apparently, you have a gazillion cable channels to choose from, and Maddy doesn’t want to leave until she’s seen them all.”
“I don’t think you’ll live that long,” Lucas laughed and headed back to his room to grab his gear since he was now leaving the apartment. As he clipped and slid everything from sunglasses to his wallet, keys, phone, badge bifold, and ankle-holstered BUG, he almost envied women with carryall handbags that could be grabbed on their way out the door.
Almost.
* * *
((Author's note: going out tonight, so I put this out before I left. Enjoy!! 🥰😘💕 ))
((All comments welcome. Good or bad, I’d love to hear your thoughts 🥰🤗))
I made a family tree/diagram of the Mystallian family that can be found here
For more of my work, including WPs: Angel466 or an index of previous WPS here.
FULL INDEX OF BOB THE HOBO TO DATE CAN BE FOUND HERE!

I don’t know if it’s just me but with the emergence of red pill discussions and misogynistic men I feel as though I do not want to marry a Muslim man. It’s too drastic to generalise an entire population but seeing what they spew online and also my interactions with them in real life it has made me step back and really wonder if I even want to marry a Muslim man. You have figures like Ali dawah, hijab, sneako and the list goes on allowing red pillers to seep into the religion and I’m not saying no one is allowed to convert , Islam is a religion for everyone but enabling their views and behaviour , I think in my opinion is vile. Has anyone else felt the same way?

Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, made a rare appearance at Disney's upfront presentation in New York City, his first time addressing advertisers and clients on an upfront stage since 1994 when he was at ABC. He expressed optimism about leading a company focused on creativity, quality storytelling, and innovation in the entertainment industry.
Iger acknowledged the changes in the media landscape since 1994, joking about his outdated fashion choices from that era. He was introduced by actress Emma Stone and basked in Nielsen data showing Disney at the top for total TV viewing.
Despite industry changes, Iger emphasized that success still hinges on great storytelling, an area where Disney excels in producing world-class talent and creative engines. He was joined on stage by senior Disney leaders like Alan Bergman, Dana Walden, Jimmy Pitaro, and Josh D'Amaro.
While not mentioning succession plans, Iger's presence with his leadership team fueled speculation. Comedian Jim Gaffigan joked about becoming the next Disney CEO before promoting Hulu's new comedy brand Laughter Now to challenge Netflix.
https://deadline.com/2024/05/bob-iger-disney-upfront-1235915873/

I am a new player and only recently got into playing cdda. I have only used the evacuee start with a street fighter character after watching some tutorials. This time, the character spawned in an evac shelter with an NPC and I went to talk to it. It gave me the quest to survive 10 days on my own. I have done the evacuee start a lot so I knew what to do at the beginning with a survivor character and for the quest I thought I could find a cabin and stay there for 10 days. I crafted screwdriver, crowbar, quarterstaff and stuffs and went out at night to loot a house in the nearby town and to keep it as my base because i was too lazy to find a cabin. But when I opened the map I saw that there was a hub 01 near my evacuee shelter. I had heard after reading some posts that they had some advanced quests for intermediate players and their armor. I went there just to find out what it was all about. I entered the lab and got a quest to kill a prototype robot. On my way to the robot i found a portal, i entered it and got teleported some distance in front of it. when i reached the field where the robot was, since it was night i couldnt see much, the tiles were all black. i tried walking around the unexplored map tile and heard the machine whirring sound and got scared and backed off a little, but when i heard it again i got curious and thought the robot probably cant see me since i got night vision, big mistake. it saw me but i was able to outrun it thanks to dex 10. then i went back and tried avoiding the robot to find the scientist body. i found it and got two emp grenades. not knowing whether simply throwing it was enough, i went to read some emp grenade posts and got to know stuffs like 'activated but didnt throw', 'blew up myself' and stuffs. i was a little afraid but then i wielded it and activated it, then got just far away from the robot that i could hear its sound and threw the grenade there, but when the robot came into view the grenade was 2 3 tiles away from it, so i tried running around the grenade to make the robot follow me into the grenade range, then i waited for the emp to explode and that's when i thought will the emp hurt me too, it exploded and killed the robot and fried my phone too but i survived. that was a really exciting experience and i felt like it was for experiences like this that people loved cdda this much. then i got the io thingy from the robot and gave it to hub 01 and went on my way because the other quests were obviously too much and much far away from my location. i explored around the road at night and found another evac shelter but this one was infected. a zombie came at me but i was too bored to fight it. so i went away and spotted a cabin on my map. then i thought back to my NPC's quest about surviving on my own for ten days and decided that cabin was perfect. i made my way to the cabin and got attacked by earth worm thingies two separate times but killed the first one and ran away from the second. i slept at the cabin hungry because i didnt have any food. the next day i woke and decided to do foraging. BIG MISTAKE. i didn't even take 10 steps away from the cabin when a frigging graboid popped out of the earth. i ran into the cabin and it tore through the wall. i ran away the opposite way through the window and decided to visit the refugee center which was also close to my starting evac shelter. it was morning and on the way to the refugee center was a town and some zombies on the outskirt of the town saw me and started chasing me. before that i had eaten some fiddlesticks i foraged to stave off my hunger but got food poisoning (i ate them even though the game said they looked poisonous). the way i went i encountered a mass grave and i wanted to avoid it. the zombies from the town were catching up to me so i started to run around the grave, i had turned off the safe mode because it got annoying. my stamina gave off all of a sudden and before you know it i was surrounded by zombies on all sides. the end. my last words were "F*** STAMINAAAAA"

[First] [Previous] [Next]
Minutes feel like entire hours while I wait for GalaxyTaco to return, and my anxiety is just mounting up like crazy! So instead of becoming a victim of my own fear, I decide to take a moment to explore the forum and see what I can find that's interesting!

The Sleeper section is by far the most active, with people commenting on their daily lives, talking about media, food and experiences in general. It’s so casual it almost makes me feel nostalgic for the good ol’ days!

I am… surprised. Mages watch anime too? I guess that makes sense, as magic is usually viewed as an intellectual endeavor, and it is not rare for intellectuals to have this sorta hobby.

“They even have an old timer section, for old timers like you.”

What? Old timer!? I am 21!

“Alright then, youngster. What anime is popular right now?”

Chlorine is pretty popular!

“That’s one of the Big Three and won’t stop being popular for a while, not to mention it’s all filler these days, that’s cheating.”

Alright then, big baby. How about Soul Devourer?

“That ended three years ago.”

What!? No it didn’t!

What about Ouran??

“Five years ago.”

Higurashi?

“Six.”

Lucky Channel?!

“Five.”

MEDUKA MEGUKA??

“Oh that one’s pretty new actually. That one was last year.”

Alright then smart guy, what is airing right now then!?

“Destiny/Zero, Girls and Tanks, Kitty Tale Black, Moon Brothers…”

What in the hell are any of those!?

“If you don’t know, I know even less! Idiot!”

I guess I am a bit of an old fashioned weeb.

“We are getting distracted. Remember what we are here for.”

Right! The Translation section! It’s rather unused, compared to the Sleeper side of it all. There are a few active translation topics but all of them seem to be focused on actual, current languages. Sure, there are a few in old Helenian and Latin but the others are surprisingly modern. Thereare some in Wohlian that immediately get my attention, but they seem like finished works.

Mostly directed by that ‘souseiseki’ bitch.

“Don’t waste time thinking of her. Focus on what you can learn from the books themselves!”

That is a good point. Once they are fully translated, the material is left available for anyone to take it! So I immediately go for the ones in Wohlian and Dobrand.

There are only five texts available, biographies all of them… except for what looks like a flier.

‘El Arte del Contrahechizo’ it read in Hesperian, ‘The Art of Counterspell’ in Dobrand. It apparently was an advertisement for a short lived ‘Combat Spell Course’ in Hesperia? Closed by the ‘Brotherhood’ for ‘breaking the sanctity of the secret’. Maybe this ‘Brotherhood’ is somewhat related to the cloaks.

Nevertheless, there is something in the flier that interests me: a Symbol!
Rune 6
I immediately start looking for it in the book… and what I find was overwhelming. This has to be the single most used symbol I’ve seen so far! It is in a lot of combined words, almost never on its own… but after keeping my eyes narrowed for a while, I find it.

Jo

As in “Hoh” or as in “Yo”? Bah, I guess I’ll find that out later, when I can actually start experimenting on my own.

Ah, damn it that’s right! I do need to go investigate the library! It’s huge too…

Hmm… What if I made a trip out of it?

The library closes at 12 for students, but if you stay inside you can spend the night working there! I could spend all night surrounded by books, coffee and the sandwiches some people sell there…

“That could mess with your sleeping schedule a bit…”

“Not to mention how useless the whole endeavor can be. What if you don’t find the damn golden symbol, huh?”

Won’t know if I try. This will be my last night staying up, I promise!

“Hmmmn… well, if you are sure about it.”

Yes!

Feeling energy surging through my body again, I immediately get up again and look for clothes, fishing for some cash and then trotting out of my room… only to be stopped by that Saints damned door again.

I swear, every time I see it’s worse. It becomes more and more ominous with each attempt to pass through it. I really, really have been going out too much these days, huh…?

“...I better talk with GalaxyTaco first, then I can go to the library.”

“Coward.”

“I can’t talk to them without the TER anyways.”

Walking back to the computer, I internally beg for GalaxyTaco to not have appeared on my contact list yet… but alas, fate is always working against me. There he is, right there. Well, at least I can solve this quickly and still get out in time… Maybe.

xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx has begun messaging GalaxyTaco to your rescue!
xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: H-Hey!

I immediately cringe at myself for that written hesitation. Damn it, keep the emotions inside! Why must I be like this!?

xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: This is Tav, you know, from the forum? n.ñ
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: oh hey dude! nice, I was wondering who the hell was this lol
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: ok, now we can talk proper.
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: so… you just found the link somewhere, didn’t you?
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: unless I’m totally wrong and you were just referred by some cold mf

Alright. This is it… where do I go from here? I can’t exactly lie my way out of this without knowing much of the magical world. But that doesn’t mean I have to say all of the truth, right?

xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: …yeah u.u
xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: I haven’t been Awake for a long time to be honest, and I found this link on a book I read at the local library.
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: ahhhh shit.
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: ok, that’s trouble
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: do you have a teacher?
xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: No u.u
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: ok, you’re a bastard
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: not to imply anything about your family dude, that’s just how we call mages without teachers.
xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: Ok that’s kinda mean xD
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: tell me about it.
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: anyways, shit, uh…
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: ok, do you know what an Elysium is?

I don’t. But can I just admit that? I mean… maybe I can tell him I know where to look for it?

“What are you, stupid!? He’s assuming you know jack shit! This is your chance to squeeze all the information! MILK IT!”

A-Ah! Right!

xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: No idea. I hope you don’t mean the other world? O.o
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: nope.
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: an Elysium is a safeground in a city, a place where mages can go and practice legally.
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: shit, I hope you haven’t been doing magic around people right???
xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: No no! O.o I swear!
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: ok good.
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: that’d get you in trouble with the Brotherhood in no time.
xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: The Brotherhood? o.o
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: The Brotherood of Black Pages.
xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: Ominous… are they like, magic police? .-.
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: sorta
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: you wanna avoid them as much as you can, them black cloaks.
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: I mean, you won’t be able to avoid them if you wanna get your license but, beyond that, avoid them.

Ok, that’s confirmation of a few suspicions. The Elysium is a place, I need to find that place, and the black cloaks/brotherhood were bad news, probably super strict or something like that. I am a ‘Bastard Mage’, still not very happy about the name, and I should look for instruction before I blow myself up!

xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: Can’t you teach me things? ;w; the meaning of these runes and stuff?
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: sorry dude, I don’t have a teacher’s license
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: but tell you what. I’ll get you something that will help you for sure!
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: I just gotta talk to a few friends.
xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: Oh okay! Good! n.n thank you so much for this, Gal
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: hah, it’s no problem
xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: Imma be outside of the TER for a while so, don’t talk to me about magics until I return, okay?
GalaxyTaco to your rescue!: arite, thanks for the heads up! gives me time to talk to Aoi and Mort
xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: Ok I assume those are your friends!
xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx: I’ll be seeing you later!
xXxCallMeBigCookiexXx has disconnected.

Alright.

No more excuses. I close my computer, take a deep breath and walk to my door. I try my best to ignore the shaking of my hand as I grab the knob and open up. The air in the hallways outside was cold, making me go back in, pick up my long coat and then right out I went again!

The descent in the elevator had never felt this slow…I am excited and nervous at the same time.

“This will be fun!”

“This will be a disaster. You’ll stay up for nothing, you hear me? Nothing.”

Taking a deep breath, I walk out of the elevator as it arrives at the first floor and wave at the night guard, stepping right out and checking my phone.

It’s already a quarter past eleven. I have time… but I may need to call a taxi.


Cities are completely different at night. I have never been an active resident of Party City or anything, but I have been in the streets at the high hours of night, at least back in my old town. I assumed stuff would be quiet here too in Saüle, but turns out I was completely wrong. There were people stumbling around the streets, ladies of the night smiling and parading themselves in some of the corners, a few college students clubbing and singing…

Only now I remember we are technically on vacation. Of course everyone is partying!

Drat, does that mean the library will be closed!?

“Too late to ask the cab to take you back home. No, you'll just have to freeze for a few hours.”

The taxi leaves me in front of the University’s main entrance. After paying and waving the guy away, I let out a deep sigh of relief when I see that the lights of the place are still on.

So either they leave the lights on all vacation or they are still open despite it all.

I try to jog along the dirt trail, straight for the library! But I quickly realize my body is simply not made for running. I still try to keep the pace, panting and gasping for air. Passing right by the Pharmaceutical Sciences building and the Biology building, feeling lucky that no one can see me fighting for my life like this.

The campus is gigantic, with many different buildings focused on the different sciences and disciplines taught at the University. The Library stands in the middle of it all, a perfectly square, five story building comfortably constructed on a plateau and looking over the entire campus. As cool and impressive as that is, it also meant a long climb a massive set of stairs…

“Saints damn it all…”

It’s a miserable jog, but eventually, I make it to the gates before the Librarian closes. An ancient lady of dark skin and thin white hair, eternally dressed in a black, long dress.

“Hmph. Right on time, night owl.” She says with a mix of annoyance and playfulness in her tone, turning her back on me as soon as she closed the door. “Do not run like that inside.”

Still recovering my breath, I just nod and walk towards the machines that scan your credentials. I fish my wallet out of my pockets, scan my old card, and then walk straight in, looking around the main hall with a tired smile. Ah yes… I've always felt more at ease in libraries and the like, especially when there are no crowds of people around. Right now I could see only a few furtive shadows sliding around, and no sandwich sellers at all! With some luck, the librarian will try to gain a few extra Empires by selling stuff, but that will have to wait.
Right now, we are back on the hunt for the Golden Symbol! I need to focus all of my strength on finding it this time, because if they really want it to be both private and easy to find, it has to be here.

[Orbital Observatory Update on Client Species #0458-1, Sol III]
[Priority of message: Urgent Emergency]
[Receiver: Glokknar IV - Galactic Security Council]
[Psionic Encryption to view document is advised]
Last update on humans was 789 cycles ago {25 Earth years ago} and now as of 15/05/2024 in the earth calendar, humans have reached a critical development in forbidden technologies that will trigger a singularity event in less than 150 cycles estimated by current models. A major human organisation under the name OpenAI announced their new {translation error} in cooperation with another organisation, namely Apple. This is most likely to me a forbidden technology and after hours of investigation we found it’s called an “Artificial intelligence” or “AI” for short and now possesses a similar cognitive level to that of a human (significantly more intelligent than an average galactic sapient).
It is important to note that humans’ have a much greater advantage in parallel thinking due to the fact that how their brain is structured and their face recognition is at the high end of the spectrum, because of their social nature. Biologically they’re the only bipedal species and their stance is the most unusual in all across the galaxy. It is theorised by many that they may be the descendants of one of the precursor species and the fact that most of the architecture and technologies or technological path they’ve taken suggests that they are most likely to be the descendants of the Olympians. Critical point to note is that after the Great Galactic Selection War, our ancestors millions of cycles ago never found or knew the exact location of the Olympian homeworld.
It appears that in the last 789 cycles what we observed proved many theories that due to the natural environment humans or olympians have been forced to use inorganic technology and started to bend nature to their will. The humans have built everything on their planet out of stone and metal beginning with from their smallest huts up to the largest cities. The sheer abundance of biological resources meant an absurd amount of biodiversity and an estimated 8.7 million species, but it means most of the biomass is actually CONSUMED by humans only. Yes, they are a predatory species that should be noted late on security assembly. From all animal biomass 6% is wild and the rest is bred by the humans for human consumption on the industrial scale for 8.1 billion humans. The obscene amount of food produced by the humans would be able to sustain 4 of the core worlds, but because of the high calorie required to sustain them it’s questionable whether or not they’ll be able to survive in their own next century.
Yes, they are overpopulated at an absurd level, but now it’s unstoppable, because if they stopped their economy and society would collapse. Life expectancy is through the roof.
Back to the main topic. Forbidden technologies such as AI or anything computer related is widely acknowledged in the galactic community and everyone enforces it, but because Pre-FTL civilizations are protected and have to be left alone and let them develop, but because we discovered the humans much later and the development path they took now they are now in such a late stage that it is unstoppable and may cause an existential safety to the continuation to our glorious Galactic Imperium. We have made a list of potential targets to be eliminated in the human elite who lead these researches. We’ll attach the documents along this report to the Galactic Security Council.
They began to dive into cybernetics related to the brain like the Neuralink chip that had already just a few human weeks prior to this report being successfully able to use a human computer and commercial use is only in a few year's time after approved by authorities. The current uprising that is centred around those ancient cyborgs that have awoken are no match to what these precursor apes are going to be able to pull off if we don’t intervene.
This human year will be significant as they’ll start to settle their moon and what the humans call a “space race” start as the major nationstates or private organisations start to lay claim on all of the unclaimed territory. The Forbidden technology that I want to talk about is AI. Humans are the first ones to ever experiment with real artificial intelligence in the new galactic era from the 4598 species. They had the concept since the earliest days of their civilization in the form of mythologies, books, music and art. A visual entertainment media I advise to the military personnel to watch is the Terminator, where the human AI goes berserk and takes control of their nuclear arsenal and wiping its creators out, (sigh) they have tens of thousands of nuclear warheads too. This planet violates every galactic law in existence.
What worries us here at the observation post about humans is the imminent technological singularity in a very short time and effectiveness of their AIs in researching new cures as an example is horrifying. I advice a full revision of Olympian archives and a military mobilisation to prepare for the great return
[Scientist muttering to each other in background]
People, we are confirming human origins to be Olympians and technosignitures confirmed. Waiting Council response.
Sincerely
Head Observer Ukna'h the Third of Osiris
[Transmission terminated and sent for evaluation]
[Expected response: 2 cycles]
[End transmission]

First: https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/14vo5lb/troublemakers_deaths_pity/
*previous:* https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/1crq34h/troublemakers_buried_secrets_bolster_the_weak/
......
Go'mon strutted around the command center, a cape of deep purple silk flowing about his shoulders as he wore his gilded armor. An ornate helmet underneath one arm, the faceplate forged into the visage of a snarling Rak'nal beast. He peered over the shoulders of drone pilots, observing the carnage on the streets in front of the mansion. His black scimitar hung at his belt, the palm of his war gauntlet resting on the hilt, eyebrow crests rising as he saw the expeditionary general's Buzzard explode.
"Casualty report on General Gra'vos?"
He stated to the small Geknosian woman who deftly piloted her drone closer to the wreckage to pull data from the onboard recorder. Her eyes sparkled, reflected in the screen as the data was streamed directly into her brain through a neural implant.
"Deceased, Just like you planned, his provided pleasure slave threw him from the craft and stole the det-sphere you clipped to his belt. You seem to know a lot about how these humans fight."
Go'mon touched the small grooves underneath the elastomer skin of his face where that parasite had shot him with a concealed gun. He laughed bloodily and purred.
"Failure is the greatest teacher in the universe, these parasites have taught me everything they know. Now we just need to see what their true fighting strength is."
"Understood sir, orders?"
"Get a view on the inner courtyard and report to the commanders of the second and third waves their positions and weaponry."
A young lieutenant called out.
"Sir! Twelve UHM-60 Blackhawks en-route to the enemy base! Advise!"
Go'mon stalked over, peering over the satellite observer's shoulder as he followed a chevron of twelve helicopters loaded down with ancient, obsolete human war-droids. He rapped the claws of his war gauntlet against the handle of his scimitar with a purr.
"Send orders to Commander Mar'tek to equip three of his Gallicks with anti-air weaponry, and orders for Commander Rak'don to equip his light attack craft with visual lock on missiles."
"Yes sir, relaying orders now."
Go'mon patted his subordinate on the shoulder hard enough to make them wince as he stepped back to gaze up at the massive map of Golgotha on the big screen. Small purple dots converging on a black dot that symbolized the human base of operations. He noticed that Mar'tek's forces were delayed, having only made it roughly halfway to their staging area. Walking over to the Comm's desk he asked.
"What's taking Commander Mar'tek so long to get into position?"
"A small group of human Saboteurs dropped a pair of buildings across the roadway, they're still clearing the rubble sir."
Go'mon nodded, picking idly at his metal teeth with the sharp point of his war gauntlet's index finger.
"Hm... I thought the parasite's response was oddly punctual, color me surprised they had the wherewithal to keep scouts. Move Mar'tek to the rear of the attack plan and tell Rak'don he's up next."
"Yessir!"
Go'mon chuckled haughtily, exiting the command room and returning to his field office. Setting his helmet on top of his desk he picked up the communication stick for sylva.
"Sylva, Would you kindly deal with that gate once you've landed?~"
There was a pause before.
"I'm too injured to follow that order sir."
Go'mon raised an eyebrow crest at the monotone voice that echoed back through the device.
"you've never refused a command before darling, would you kindly take care of the gate?"
The pause was longer this time, much longer this time. Then, a different, much younger voice came through, filled with fear, but also tainted with determination.
"Fuck you, Go'mon. These are our friends."
The sound of penny whistles and drums accompanied the words before the comms device popped in his gauntlet with the sound of a musket shot. Impossibly thick gray smoke pulsing from the speaker as he snarled and tossed it to the side.
"Bobby, Would you be a dear and retrieve your sister for me?"
The almost seven foot tall brute slowly nodded, eyes dull behind his ceramite mask as he stomped from the command center, bulky combat armor clattering and clunking with each step. Go'mon pressed his metal teeth together with a hiss. That damned warrior corrupted everything he touched with delusions of free will. Go'mon grabbed a fungal cigar from the box General Da'kos had given him as a thank you gift. The sweet, smoky flavor filling his maw as he lit it with the glowing hot blade of his gauntlet's thumb. He relaxed into his chair, flicking his cape out from beneath him as he enjoyed the cigar to relieve some momentary stress. His body suddenly flared with tingling power as the voice of Conquest growled in his ear.
"Kill that boy before he realises your plan. if he finds out your intentions he won't hold back."
Go'mon puffed the cigar and pulled it from his lips, letting it burst into purple flames and crumble away into cinders as he rose from his chair. He stepped out into the command center and commanded.
"Get me a buzzard to that battlefield, Order's from Conquest herself!"
There was a moment of silence as he let his aura roll over the command room, several of the comms officers immediately setting up a Buzzard for his departure.
...
Dust kicked off the ground as Drake's jump pack slowed his fall meters above the ground, He hit the ground and tore it from his back, whipping it into a group of soldiers and hitting it with a jet of pale flames.
The pack detonated in ball of orange fire that vaporized the soldiers, his cape fluttering in the backdraft before he whipped his sword from it's sheath, keen edges wreathed in pale flames as he took a Geknosian's arm off at the elbow as they tried to stuff a blaster pistol in his face. He snatched the blaster pistol from the air, using it to put a kinetic bolt into the faceplate of a powerarmored soldier with a Warhammer, Crumpling it inwards as he slid a foot back, another warhammer crashing into the ground where he'd just been standing. Another kinetic bolt tore off the soldier's pauldron as the hammer swung up at his face, making him reel back as another hammerhead caught him at the small of his back and knocked the air from his lungs. Another hammer slammed into his faceplate, forcing him to kick himself into a flip to land back on his feet. Ears ringing he deflected a Warhammer with his sword before putting another blaster bolt into the wielder's faceplate. But even as they fell back, another hammerblow hit the side of his helmet and smacked him down. Drake rolled out of the way as twenty millimeter high-explosive rounds shredded his assailants, allowing him to get to his feet as the war-bots formed a lethal semicircle, sending high explosive firepowerinto the rear column of the Geknosian assault at a blistering pace. Drake shook his head clear and vaulted over the back of one, hearing it's gun fall silent as he landed in it's cone of fire. Several flowing chops decimated a small squad of Geknosians as he tried to fight his way to the center of the column where the Gallicks hammered the gate with kinetic penetrators. The armored gate shuddering with each blow as Drake dodged war gauntlets and hammers, retaliating with fast slashes and blinding thrusts. Purple blood drenching him as his heart began to pound with battle lust.
He heard a mighty roar and crackle as one of the flying machines opened up with it's chin gun, harassing a gallick with 20mm High explosive rounds to get it's attention off the gates. It's shadow passing overhead with a Buzzard in pursuit as it slalomed low through the buildings to come back for another gun run. There was a ground shaking Boom! as something exploded beyond the rooftops, a Buzzard, smoking from one engine buzzing overhead and away from the battlefield. Drake quickly returned his focus to the battlefield, Smacking a Warhammer to the side with the blaster pistol before thrusting the blade right beneath the soldier's chin, twisting, and pulling free as a war-bot fell forward, a molten pit of slag glowing in it's back as he turned his head to face another column of armor and armored soldiers as they rounded onto the battlefield, a Buzzard painted the deepest, most royal purple he'd ever seen hovered low in front of them.
A geknosian in gold and purple armor fell from the open door, Cape of purple silk flowing behind them as they landed with one palm against the ground, Dark scimitar slashed out to the side as a crescent blade of purple energy was slung straight at Drake. Death's chosen slashed upward at the crescent, but it flowed around his blade, cutting across his chest and bringing with it a foul, draining weakness as a cold, familiar voice called out.
"That one's mine boys!~ all mine!~"
Drake hadn't recognized Go'mon in the ornate armor, but now there was no mistaking it. He tried to take a step forward but his legs buckled beneath him, sending him to his knees as a festering cold spread from the wounds made by the crescent blade that never touched his armor. He looked in confusion at his sword as the pale flames flickered out, then up just as Go'mons armored shin cracked into the side of his helmet, flinging him through a building as his mind reeled with confusion. He pulled himself from the rubble around him, stumbling to the side as a blade of purple energy sliced through the rubble he'd just been buried in without leaving a mark. He tossed the blaster pistol to the side, bringing the free hand to his mouth, intending to rip a ring off with his teeth. But as Go'mon slung another blade of purple energy with a cackle, He missed the ring, biting off his left index finger, ring and all as a boost of power burned the creeping cold away. He spit the severed digit to the ground as the ring still on it puffed into smoke.
"Feeling weak boy?!~ like your power's been drained?~"
Go'mon purred as he took a step forward, aura swelling with power as he held up the black sword.
"The blade of greed will do that if you let it touch you~"
Go'mon took an unfamiliar stance, Blade arched over his head and pointed down as he fell into a low, wide stance, one arm pushed forward as the blades on his war gauntlet's fingers glowed orange with heat. Drake fell into his peasants guard, gripping his sword in two hands as he glared at Go'mon. His gaze flickered off go'mon for a split second as he thought of everyone still in the mansion and the Geknosian chosen surged forward in a flash of purple light to run drake through before kicking him through the back wall of the building, Drake's power draining away like the blood pouring from the hole in his Lorica. He barely deflected Go'mons black blade as Conquest's chosen surged forward with a brutal slash, unable to focus for the split second required to dissipate a ring and refresh his power. Go'mons aura blooming with power with each blow of that black blade. Drake burst through a wall and into an empty street, tumbling ass over head as he desperately held onto his sword.
Angry red blood spilled from the hole in his armor as he got his elbows under him, a pair of golden boots clomping into view as Go'mon gloated, a softly flickering bloom of pale purple flames in his palm.
"All this power, and you don't even know how to properly control or wield it... Don't worry, you won't have it long~"
Drake manage to dissipate the remaining rings on his left hand, an intoxicating burst of power allowing him to launch himself back away from Go'mon as his wounds knitted closed, severed finger growing back with a crunching, fleshy noise. He could feel Go'mons grin behind the snarling visage of his helmet as he fell into a peasants guard, feeling far too weak for having removed five rings. The two stared at each other silently, one of the flying machines spinning to the ground before exploding into a fireball behind Go'mon. Drake fet a deathly calm fall over him as he twisted his sword up into a high guard.
He had to make it back to his people, no matter what. The thumb and pinkie ring on his right hand puffed into smoke as he felt those corvid like wings form at his back, a cold cage of festering ice around the burning sun of rage in his heart. Go'mon took a simple offensive guard, twirling the scimitar with obvious skill in a figure eight in front of him.
The two chosen launched themselves at each other, Drake wreathed in black smoke as Go'mon exploded with pale purple light; the pavement cracking beneath their feet with the violence of the action.
...
Martha tended to the mounting wounded in the infirmary as fast as she could, back splayed open as small gossamer arms allowed her to work on several wounded at once. Many of the ex-slave women helped, binding wounds with clean bandages and splinting broken limbs like they had back at the plantations. Hearing the large wooden doors of the ballroom infirmary slam open, she looked up as Destrier and Caz hauled in a pale remin and a Brutalized young woman. Keeping one hand holding a bundle of gauze against the bleeding wound she was attempting to close up, The young man looking up at her with fear, pain, and hope on his face as he helped hold the gauze down. Pointing to two empty beds she called out.
"Set them there! Where's Drake?! We could really use the walking embodiment of Death right now!"
Destrier hoarsely called back, setting Remin into a bed as the old man struggled to keep his eyes open.
"He's fighting his way towards us from the rear!"
Caz helped the battered young woman into a bed where she curled into the fetal position before the Markswoman swept back out of the infirmary, Huntress humming as she slammed a new flechette into the barrel. Martha continued tying off tattered blood vessels, trying to keep the young man from bleeding out as Cassius appeared next to her, shaking his hands dry after scrubbing them with antiseptic to help close up the gnarly gash in the stomach of the wounded man behind her. Martha's heart pounded in her throat as she finally managed to sew the wound closed before hitting the fighter with a sedative to ease his pain and knock him out. She wanted to cry but held in her tears as she turned around to focus on the same patient as Cassius, but even as she did, the young man placed a bloodied palm on her forearm. She felt a lone tear drip down her snout as she looked at the mans deathly stillness, eyes closed in quiet acceptance of his fate, a grim smile on his face.
Her legs felt weak beneath her as she leaned on Cassius, watching Destrier rush out of the infirmary out of the corner of her eye.
"we're going to need a miracle if we want to make it out of this alive..."
She whimpered as the din of battle echoed dully from outside. That was when a wounded man sat up, grunting as he held the bandages across his torso. She rushed over to stop him from tumbling out of bed when he simply fell through the floor, an odd superposition happening where he was there and not for a split second. But when it faded, there was a note left on the ground, scrawled in blood red, blotchy words.
"I'll be back, and I won't be alone."
Martha could only hope that was true as she turned to continue tending the wounded, Despair filling her heart as more wounded were brought in from the ramparts.
...
Halcyon held the gate, rifle spitting hatred from behind one of the wall's crenellations as one of his Hellions fell next to him, skull split open by gauss slug. Halcyon glanced down at the gate where Thomas and another hulking agri-droid held it against the wall, the gate rattling with each impact of a Gallick's kinetic penetrator, apples of sunlight spreading across the ground where they'd simply sailed straight through. The Geknosian reinforcements turning an already blistering hail of various projectiles and beams becoming an impassable force as several of their light cruisers fired on the helicopters that circled over the battlefield. Missiles streaking upwards and shredding the soft-skinned aircraft, forcing them to take evasive maneuvers and stop the pulse-pounding barrage of their rotary cannons. Halcyon's attention was drawn to the sky as an impossibly loud crash of steel on steel accompanied a streak of pale purple light and void black as they shot into the sky. The black streak getting slammed down by a brutal, unseen strike that made Halcyon's heart leap into his throat. What kind of monster could go toe to toe with Drake, and appear to be winning.
Halcyon, peaked past the cranellation he had his back against, a gauss slug taking his eye out and making him shout in pain as he jerked his head back. Ripping a bundle of gauze from his medi-pack, he rolled it out and bunched it up, pressing it against his vacant and shattered eye socket as a bout of lightheadedness turned the edges of his reduced vision dark.
One of his men crouched beside him flinching when chips of stone exploded from the crenellation they'd been taking cover behind, some sort of heavy weapon having been aimed at them as they darted for Halcyon. Halcyon looked into their eyes, face just as dismayed as he felt, their words barely audible over the din of battle.
"what do we do, sir...?"
Halcyon let out a sigh, shouting over the roar of gunfire.
"Pull back! secure the mansion!"
The fighters didn't need to be told twice as the ramparts were abandoned, leaping from the walls to sprint back to the mansion, The agri-bots forming a phalanx behind them to cover their retreat. But Halcyon couldn't help but feel this is exactly what the Geknosians wanted.
But even as the fighters swarmed into the Mansion, Two figures walked past them.
A hulking man in dark samurai armor wielding an lmg and a smaller woman with a flowing furred cloak and white mask, carrying an ornate rail rifle walked past them through the doors.
Halcyon watched in dismayed confusion as Caz and Destrier stepped out into the sunlight, a jump pack freshly mounted on Destriers back beside his kanabo. Another smaller figure appeared as if from thin air, Cassius spinning the weight at the end of a chain attached to a kama menacingly as the doors closed behind them, massive metal shutters sealing them out as the mansion was locked down. He couldn't help but smile grimly.
There was a reason they were Drake's friends, and it wasn't because they were the best fighters.
It was because when everyone else ran away, they ran towards the fight... regardless of their own safety.
......
Part 109: will be linked here upon release.

I’m realizing my brother is narcissist and despite my mom being a malignant one I didn’t piece it together my brother is one until his abuse against my dad has escalated to medical. Everything toxic and bad he does to my dad he lies or reframes it to doing to I’ve done it to my dad not him . He says I stole money that was paid to a home health nurse after my dad’s stroke. Despite receipts and my dad choosing the nurse himself at the time my dad will side with my bro because he’s scary, sneaky and manipulative.
My dad tried to gift me a small amount of money for my health care for him at one point my bro has reframed it as attempted theft. Despite me never asking for this money or even accepting when my dad told me take the money
My brother is now POA and gets my dad’s full social security of nearly $4k a month. He removed me from having viewing access of the account a year ago so I don’t know what he seconds the $4k on but there is no food in the fridge and my brother leaves my dad home all day and doesn’t hire any outside care. Earlier this week I showed up unannounced with spaghetti my dad used two hands to shovel it down. There was no food there, the kitchen is infested with flies and rotting food, and my brother didn’t come home until 5 I changed. I changed his his pee stained sheets. My dad was happy and Grateful we did exercises
My brother comes home i hoped we could talk to set up scheduled help and care for my dad from myself or someone else. My dad asked for peace. Due to decades of my moms abuse and training he thinks im the reason my brother rages and yells and won’t communicate. my bro said he hates me and can’t give peace. My dad’s care is fine and im not needed and my dad can never leave the house to visit me and im not welcome there. My dad asked for 2 weeks every other month to visit me and his lawyer will be in touch since my brother will need paperwork to allow him out, but im sure my brother shut it down because my dad was supposed yo call me the next day and hasn’t called since. I can’t call because my brother claims I call to harass my dad when im onto asking follow up questions. I get it my dad gets confused and frustrated so I can’t ask follow up questions with trigging his frustration
My brother who hang talked to me since he added himself yo my dads back account in Jan said he will file a restraining order and call the cops on me if I ever come again and my dad’s lawyer is ready to file it. I was shocked. I’ve been my dad’s biggest supporter. My brother withholds info and creates confusion between me and my dad. To make this stuff believable and hard to follow for an old man, I can barley keep up
. My dad’s doctor called APS when my brother stopped filling his meds and my dad got afib. The doctor called me after not being able to get ahold of my dad or bro for a tele health appointment I had been seeing issues on my dad’s Apple Watch for 2 months and told her about it she connected it instantly to the meds.
My brother before even filling the meds changed medical Poa to himself (my dad does whatever anyone says) then my brother told him to get a new pcp because me and the doctor lied and he’s been getting his meds and I gave him the afib from stress by calling him and upsetting him
My dad is now isolated from me and his doctor his only 2 other trusted longtime care takers. My dad has no one else in his life and my brother can start over with no set of backup eyes on his subpar care
He’s killing my dad. My dad’s lawyer doesn’t care since my bro is POA when I call my dad’s lawyer he just tells my bro the concerns I’ve raised who escalates his mental abuse on me and my dad.
My dad refused help from social worker who called APS the report says my dad downplayed the meds l my brother neglected that they’re were filled elsewhere. My brother said it was miscommunications with the doctor because of me getting involved, when I was only called because my brother didn’t answer or return the doctors calls. Even after he filled the meds it was the wrong dosage I could see from my dads heart rate and I texted and called my brother I had to call the doctor to call my dad to convince him to change the dosages. Because When I called my dad my brother said I was lying and everything was fine . .
brother is killing my dad if my dad dies first my mom will leave everything to my brother and he knows it and he will get away with it
There is nothing I can do. I’ve spoken to a ton of lawyers who offer not ways to help besides forcing my dad in to a guardianship and my brother will fight that and kill my dad with stress.
I feel sad and helpless but my dad never protected me from my mom and Bros abuse growing up. Had he done so and left her wouldn’t be in this mess. it’s sad and sick to watch a toxic family’s end cycle that’s all

For context. I (24F) and my bf (28M) have been together for a year. We have an 8 month old and we were struggling financially to hold it together with the bills, in January. We were both freaked out about potentially losing our place. (Mind you my bf just settled a case that had a huge payout, which we needed to wait on for another 2 weeks. Rent was due despite) Anyway, bf decided to ask one of his friends for rent, we received the money from him (call him S) and paid him back already, with interest, and a written agreement that we would pay him back
What’s weird is (S) texted the group chat saying “he ain’t shit, I’ve known him too long to know that” about my bf. My bf responded “Wym” S said, “I meant you’re funny as hell, always have been” but I mean I thought it was an odd thing to say. I still think about it honestly. Like what did he mean by that? About a month after that (in March) S added me on Snapchat and started viewing all my stories. I recently blocked him from watching them. I did swipe up on (S) story to try to start a conversation as to why he said that, instead we talked about his DoorDash order.
Am I making to much of a big deal in trying to find out what he meant? Also why add me on snap without having my bf as a friend too?

Challengers is first and foremost a movie that seeks to rigorously engage our erogenous zones for over two hours. While it has artistry to spare and good performances throughout, it wants its story of a love triangle of young, hormonal tennis players to arouse passions within us. The movie is more “naughty” than overtly sexy, content to tease more and show less. Challengers never gets anywhere close to the hot and bothered romances and thrillers of the Eighties and Nineties, but the sexuality it does depict is noteworthy for a big budget Hollywood movie released in 2024. For those people who were made uncomfortable by Poor Things, this may come as a relief. Is the movie safe for you to watch this with your parents (or grandparents)? I honestly don’t care, because the whole Chastity Police approach to viewing movies bores me. All I will say is that if the sight of Zendaya’s backside in a thong will trigger your viewing party, you have been warned.
The movie is a fun guilty pleasure, content with dazzling us with saucy performances, virtuoso camera work and a dance floor soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. My complaints are minor ones. The music, as good as it is, drowns out the dialog at critical moments. The directorial flourishes, while impressive, are a bit much after a while. 15-20 minutes of “look at me!” shots could have easily been cut and the movie would have worked better. The device of flipping back and forth in time really doesn’t add anything to the story. As a sports movie, Challengers really doesn’t have anything profound about the sport itself or the people who play it. It's the equivalent of a three course meal where every course is dessert. Thematically, it reminded me of Y tu mamá también (2001), minus all of the socio-political context. Challengers was clearly made with the intent of stirring passions within the audience, and not engaging us with deep thoughts. As a feast for the senses, it's an unqualified winner. Zendaya, who co-produced this movie, saw it as the perfect vehicle to announce her arrival as leading lady. She’s great in this movie by any measure, confidently playing a character who is sexy, defiant and manipulative but never a villain. She’s the object of desire throughout and fully embraces it. Recommended.
https://detroitcineaste.net/2024/05/14/challengers/

[prev]
As it stood, my crazy plan certainly seemed to resonate with the gathered leaders, though they did offer their own suggestions as to how best to implement improvements and contingencies. I of course welcomed each and every one of them, then debated their merits and as the hours flew by we weeded out the ideas that simply would not work and expanded on those that would.
It was quite honestly refreshing to not have to do all the thinking for once, it felt nice to do a little outsourcing as one might describe it. Besides, as many would say I only had one point of view, well, two if we’re being literal, that of a human and an arachne, the former coming from a world without magic and monstrous beings like those I had surrounded myself with.
Their unique viewpoints had offered a wealth of possibilities and were in their own ways invaluable to the war effort. I am glad that they all managed to get along as well. I had seen no hint of animosity or long held grudges between any of them, not even the age old and quite frankly stereotypical hostility between the elves and dwarves had reared its head. In fact, the two races had seemingly fed into each other's ideas with excited glee, and I had almost expected there to be a bout of mad cackling near the end of their ramblings.
Of course now the meeting was over and we were all starting our preparations. The basic prep wouldn’t take that long, ensuring our warriors were all well supplied, their weapons and armor at peak quality before the battle was paramount. It was everything else about the plan that would take time, time we must ensure we had if we were to succeed. And so I headed for the Aberrant Spire, a place I had not been in a long time.
As I followed the streets I was reminded of my first delve into this city, back when it was fully under the control of vile abominations. I paused, looking at a short building on my right, large claw marks scoring the wall near the lip of the roof. I remember one of those beasts had attempted to climb up to get me as I traversed the rooftops.
Remembering that I felt a shiver run down my spine and issued a silent word of thanks that such horrors no longer existed in my new home, that vibrant life had returned to these hallowed streets. It was a place of hope now, not terror.
It was with this remembering of certain facts that I began looking for a faster means of travel to reach the Spire, as walking would be a long and arduous task indeed. Thankfully this was something that was already thought of, for as I meandered through the streets in my search I came across a somewhat raised walkway, except this walkway had a pair of lines worked from crystal or metal, I couldn’t rightly tell which, running through it.
I paused, wondering how I had never seen this thing before and in doing so I bore witness to its purpose. A merchant with a large wagon approached a circular pattern on the walkway, ensured his wares were well secured and then spoke a destination. At once a ball of energy surrounded him and the wagon, raising it all off the ground and then sending him zipping along, following the right hand line. Even as I watched, another traveler came from the opposite direction, the magic wrought into the pathway depositing them gently off to one side and they continued on their merry way.
I had to wonder why thing wasn’t around the first time I had come here, though the more I looked at the construction the stone looked somewhat fresh, perhaps it was simply a new addition and not something from the city’s past. Either way, it looked mighty useful so I stepped into the circle and took a deep breath.
“The Aberrant Spire.” I spoke clearly, and felt myself go weightless. The magic ball of energy formed around me, lifting me off solid ground and leaving me floating, which certainly triggered a slight fear response from my arachnid instincts. I was moved into position and then shot forward. It took all I had to not scream, sudden fear turning into excitement as my human experiences harkened back to several amusement park visits as a kid and getting to ride the roller coasters.
Though instead of loop the loops and corkscrews it was naught but straight lines and gentle curves that weaved through and over the city streets. Everything was a blur and yet I hardly felt it, really all that I felt was a vague sense of motion in my gut and the wind pulling at my hair, but that was it. I did see the spire come into view however, and steadily it grew larger and larger till at last it dominated the skyline.
My breakneck pace started to slow and just as it had with the other traveler, the magic gently shifted me to one side and then put me down softly. I found my legs were incredibly wobbly and as such I simply stood there and waited for the wobbling to cease. Once it had I stepped off the platform and down onto the street proper, finally taking in the sights as it were.
If the areas around the palace and the rest of the city were for merchants, common folk and nobility, then this area was almost exclusively inhabited by those with magical talents. I saw robed figures flitting to and fro, some hovering along on disks of light or wind, one even walked into a shadowy patch and vanished, presumably reappearing elsewhere. And over it all loomed the Spire, still as pretty and strange as it had been, though it seemed to glow with newfound life and vigor.
The teleporter complex seemed in working order as well, though it would have to be since new mages had taken up residence in the spire above. I made for the complex, many mages who had been engrossed in walking and thinking doing double takes as I passed. I simply nodded at each in turn and continued on my merry way, entering the complex and getting bombarded by the sounds of a busy building. Pages and mages zipped about, conducting their various tasks as they did, stepping into or out of the teleporters as needed. It felt almost like that one time I’d visited Grand Central, boy hadn’t that been fun.
I decided that I should probably get some directions to the person that would be most suited to help me with my plan, really whomever happened to be in charge of this place would be perfect for that and so I stepped up to a circular desk that seemed to be staffed by a mixture of elves, dwarves, humans and even a slime person, the latter wobbling in place and simply shifting their features about to face anyone that spoke to them.
I stopped before an elf, the woman looking up and recognition dawning on her face as she beheld me.
“Y-Your majesty! What brings you all the way out here?” She stammered even as she made to stand and bow. I waved her back down into her seat with a smile, the elf sinking back down into her seat.
“I have business with whomever is in charge of the Spire and I have found that I have no idea who that happens to be. I was hoping to change that, and get directions as well.”
The woman nodded, still a bit frazzled thanks to an unannounced visit by royalty.
“I-I can do that, a moment please your majesty.” She said, hunching over a large book that sat before her and furiously flipping through it. Once she found what she needed, she opened a drawer and pulled out what looked like some sort of talisman, setting it down before me on the desk. “Firstly, this will identify you as not only an authorized visitor to the spire, but also as royalty. Granted we all know you are but the spire itself wouldn’t and so would treat you as an intruder if you didn’t carry this with you at all times. And considering your authority over us all, it will allow you to access areas that would be otherwise restricted to normal visitors.”
As she explained its function I picked the talisman up and looked it over. It was a simple thing, not too gaudy though I couldn’t help but notice a coat of arms upon it that had a distinctly arachne flavor to it. I could swear I’d seen it before somewhere else, perhaps that would have to be something else I looked into later.
“I can call an escort for you, they can guide you right to the Archmage.” The receptionist spoke, snapping me from my thoughts as I affixed the talisman to my breast.
“That won’t be necessary, a map will suffice. I am an adventurer first and a queen second after all.” Chuckling, I watched her nod and pull a sheet of parchment towards her, a hand hovering over the surface and magic flowing from her palm onto the page. What looked like ink appeared on it, which then took the shape of the current room I resided in. Words even appeared, informing me that I could use any of the teleporters I wished.
“The man you are looking for is Archmage Yesric. As far as I know he doesn’t have any pressing duties today so you should find him sequestered in his office.” The receptionist rose and bowed again, keeping her hunched over pose even as I started to walk away.
“Thank you, you’ve been most helpful.” I said. I took a subtle look over my shoulder and was relieved to see that she’d sat back down and was currently in the midst of furious conversation with her coworkers. Which was fair, not every day a member of royalty comes asking for help right?
Stepping into the teleporter I was promptly deposited into the halls of the Spire, which now bustled with activity. Mostly staff it seemed, though I spotted several gaggles of younger folk all dressed in something reminiscent of school uniforms rushing through the halls, their expressions belying a desperate desire to reach their destination as quickly as possible. I had heard nothing about the spire being used as some sort of school, though I suppose it only made sense to train the next generation of magic users in a place where magic was dominant.
Looking down at the map I’d been provided, I was pleased to see that my current position was reflected upon its surface. But now there was a handy dandy guiding line that pointed down a hallway to my right. And so without further ado, I followed it. People naturally got out of my way, though whether that was because I took up most of the hall or because they knew who I was I wasn’t sure, either way I did my best to not impede their progress too much.
Turning a corner I was suddenly met with an empty hallway, one that slowly began to fill with black smoke. My gut twisted and my head felt heavy, my eyes began to flutter and then I blinked, the hallway was bustling with people, no longer filled with the smoke. I licked my lips, trying to shake the ghosts of the past and move forward, though my legs couldn’t help but shiver slightly with every step I took.
Floor by floor I made my way closer to my target, till eventually I was directed through a door into what looked like every executive's office that I’d ever seen, just with a fantasy twist to it. Or rather, it was the little office for a secretary that I entered, which presumably meant that through the next door was what I was looking for.
A bespectacled goblin lass looked up from a large tome and blinked at me, her eyes rather enlarged thanks to the lenses that sat before them.
“Can I help you?” She drawled tiredly, and I stepped up to a good distance from her desk.
“Yes, I’m here to speak with the Archmage.”
“I do not recall setting any meetings today. May I ask who wishes for this audience?” She said, flipping through another much smaller tome that sat nearby.
“Safa Eventra.”
She continued to look through this smaller book, before freezing, her head slowly turning towards me. Now she really seemed to be looking at me and I could only smile politely back at her.
“A-Apologies your majesty, a moment if you please, I must inform the Archmage of your presence.” She said, hopping down off her chair and scampering hurriedly towards the other door. I didn’t say anything, instead just engaging in the arachne equivalent of rocking back and forth on my heels. She slipped through the door and I could hear muffled speech before several loud thuds and some not so muffled cursing ensued. The goblin secretary appeared, leaning against the door after closing it.
“The archmage will see you in just a moment, your majesty.” She said, resuming her post and doing her best to look professional for me.
“That’s quite alright, I’m in no rush.” I responded, humming softly to myself as I looked around the room. A moment later, I heard a voice call out from the office and since that was my cue, I bowed my head to the secretary and stepped through the door into the archmage's office.
[prev]

Challengers is first and foremost a movie that seeks to rigorously engage our erogenous zones for over two hours. While it has artistry to spare and good performances throughout, it wants its story of a love triangle of young, hormonal tennis players to arouse passions within us. The movie is more “naughty” than overtly sexy, content to tease more and show less. Challengers never gets anywhere close to the hot and bothered romances and thrillers of the Eighties and Nineties, but the sexuality it does depict is noteworthy for a big budget Hollywood movie released in 2024. For those people who were made uncomfortable by Poor Things, this may come as a relief. Is the movie safe for you to watch this with your parents (or grandparents)? I honestly don’t care, because the whole Chastity Police approach to viewing movies bores me. All I will say is that if the sight of Zendaya’s backside in a thong will trigger your viewing party, you have been warned.
The movie is a fun guilty pleasure, content with dazzling us with saucy performances, virtuoso camera work and a dance floor soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. My complaints are minor ones. The music, as good as it is, drowns out the dialog at critical moments. The directorial flourishes, while impressive, are a bit much after a while. 15-20 minutes of “look at me!” shots could have easily been cut and the movie would have worked better. The device of flipping back and forth in time really doesn’t add anything to the story. As a sports movie, Challengers really doesn’t have anything profound about the sport itself or the people who play it. It's the equivalent of a three course meal where every course is dessert. Thematically, it reminded me of Y tu mamá también (2001), minus all of the socio-political context. Challengers was clearly made with the intent of stirring passions within the audience, and not engaging us with deep thoughts. As a feast for the senses, it's an unqualified winner. Zendaya, who co-produced this movie, saw it as the perfect vehicle to announce her arrival as leading lady. She’s great in this movie by any measure, confidently playing a character who is sexy, defiant and manipulative but never a villain. She’s the object of desire throughout and fully embraces it. Recommended.
https://detroitcineaste.net/2024/05/14/challengers/

This is what I posted on the board game community in Korea, and I'm also translating and posting it on Reddit!
The translation and text inspection took a long time, but I'm posting it because I think croquinol gamers from other countries will enjoy reading it.
(I don't know how to put pictures in between when writing on Reddit. If you're curious about pictures while reading, please visit the link below. You may not understand Korean, but pictures are visual information so they can be understood universally)
https://boardlife.co.kbbs_detail.php?tb=community_post&bbs_num=26766
Not long ago in early May, I ran a croquinol booth for students and parents at a Children's Day event (it was held on the grounds of the University of Education)
The head of the school affairs department suggested, "I heard you like board games, do you want to run a booth?" so I thought very hard. Actually, it was bothersome.
In the end, I accepted because I wanted to make good memories with children as well as selling croquinol. At first, I thought it was easy to take a few croquinols and play a few rounds.
It wasn't long before I realized that the idea was very wrong. This is because there were so many things to consider operating the booth. The program should be organized in consideration of the number of users and the number of people visiting.
The arrangement of objects and the movement of people should also be considered. I shouldn't think, 'I'm done explaining the game to the students in moderation and watching them play.'
I have to think about the details. I thought about it until the day of operation and right before it started. Now that it's been decided so far, I'll have to recruit staff to run it together (this was the most difficult problem)
Finally, find out the products to give to the visiting children and purchase them, purchase notices to be installed in the booth, and other things necessary to proceed or make them
For two weeks, I spent a lot of time and energy thinking about and preparing for how to operate the booth. I thought a lot about what to give as the prize, but it was finally decided to go down
(1) Pokémon Key Chain Pokémon is definitely a successful IP!!
I decided it right away because it looked so pretty and the quality looked good. There were some that were really cheap, but the quality was really... It was a pity, so I put in more budget
(2) ritter sport chocolate It's economical because there are 200 in a pack I tried one to see if it's poisonous What????? This chocolate tastes pretty good...
(3) Crockinol Pencil (Steadler + Engrave) Originally, I didn't want to give pencils, but if I imprint them and give them to students, I thought they could remember croquinol for quite some time, so I made it meaningful.
If you look closely at the pencil, you can see the image of a disc bouncing with a finger. (○ ● ☜) I made it using the basic characters on the keyboard. Haha.)
It took a long time to think of the word 'dream tree' in the engraved phrase. (Offered words: rookie, genius, child, master, king, god, etc.) Since there are no other people to help me, I planned and produced a lot of things by myself.... lol
I recruited the operating personnel as follows
Head of the school affairs department -> Recruit me (one-person planner and business manager): Let's compare and analyze croquinol sales and rest at home and then experience it. Decided
Me-> First cast (S teacher): A versatile teacher who has been in the next class since we met in the 6th grade this year He became interested after being introduced to Crockinol by me. Enjoying Crockinol at home with his wife. Canadian style. (He said he was doing it without giving it away.) After receiving a proposal from me, "I'll do all the preparations, so please come and let the children know the games without any burden," he decided to participate after much consideration. I'm playing with my kids in the classroom, and my croquinol skills are increasing rapidly. I'm planning to promote the entire 6th grade croquinol competition later.
Second cast (Teacher C): My younger brother who met as a manager and a staff member at my last school and became very close. The same person who said in an old article that he helped move the classroom!
Together, we played about 400 rounds of croquinol 1:1 match. He made a lot of mistakes in his early days, but after hundreds of editions, he became enlightened at some point. He has become quite a master.
His powerful shots made a lot of crazy scenes. Among them, he sent five discs of his opponent to a ditch at the same time. When he was asked by me to help him, he accepted without hesitation. (He is expected to participate in the next event.)
Third cast (Teacher K): I am a teacher from another region, and I am close to him because I got to know him in a club. She was the last to be recruited, and she suggested liter port chocolate and keychain among the product ideas. Pencils were also highly recommended when I was thinking about it.
Lastly, he volunteered after seeing me thinking about recruiting one more person.
She's the only teacher who doesn't have a croquinol, and she doesn't usually have a chance to train, so she's still a beginner's skill.
Rather, a person who is expected to revitalize the booth operation because of that. (If teachers do too well, all students lose.) For the record, she has a board gamer gene that can also play Arcnova board games.
※ In addition, there is a sad history of rejection and subtly falling over during the recruitment process.
And I started setting it up on the day!! Visit early with teacher C and install one croquinol on three tables in the tent
At first, I was worried because the table was in the shape of a rectangle, but I could put things here and there. If you put the croquinol at an angle on the table, it was possible to conduct a 2:2 team, so there was no problem.
After I finished setting up, I sat down for a bit and tried a croquinol test. Played without any problems. The shot was even better because I told them to cut their nails, including myself.
However, there was a lot of dust on the tables and chairs provided by the company, so I hurriedly cleaned them. The remaining two operators also narrowly joined, and a total of four people were matched.
After that, I had time to start operating the booth as a whole They're here...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The name of the booth was 'Gather up here if you're confident in flicking', but I think I drew some aggro. Other places looked healthy like making animal bracelets, but our booth was like, "You! Come if you're confident!"
The booth was originally planned like this Planning the rules of the game: - If you feel uncomfortable, you can stand and shoot freely - In the case of 1:1, the original use of the 1/4 shooting line based on North America and Canada, rather than the use of the 1/2 shooting line that changed the rules in Korean company Korea Board Games. - A student who is too young is forced to shoot with a line forward. Two places are experience seats and listen to and experience the rules 1:1 or 2:2 (Parents and friends can participate together) - The experience gift is one litre pot chocolate - Rule Description -> Shot Practice -> consists of a two-game friendly
If you have learned the rules through the experience, go to the challenge seat of one place and challenge 1:1 or 2:2 (you can also participate together) - If you win, you'll get a Pokémon keychain, even if you lose, you'll get a 1/3 chance of a keychain and a 2/3 chance of a pencil through a lottery - Using one chance card, we will proceed with two sets, and if the student draws or wins even one set, it will be considered a victory. - Re-challenge possible when you line up again The booth gradually gathered and filled the corner, and the line got longer
I repeated the explanation and game so wildly!
The first episode : Even though it was in the shade of the tent, the temperature was high, so the chocolate melted. The student said it melted, so I touched it and it was liquid! Unfortunately, we can't give these defective products to students, so we decided to go to the challenge seat without giving them away in the experience seat.
The second episode : Our classmates are here! I heard a voice saying, "Teacher!" and I can see the 6th grade girls in my class
Of course, we played the game. I tried to lose, but I thought that if I lost too much, the student would notice, so I made mistakes from time to time, but these guys made more mistakes!
It ended with me winning or drawing (I should have made it more clear and lost... lol) I said, "This is just an experience seat, so it doesn't matter, show your real skills in the challenge seat," and sent the girl to another corner
The third episode : People were buzzing that a very famous politician visited the booth next door. (He was Korea's presidential candidate.) I looked up and saw the face that I saw on screen Although I was curious, I had my day job as a board gamer, so I welcomed students and focused on explaining the rules. Later, I found out that he talked to a student who experienced our booth and passed by
The 4th episode : The booth operators were not given a separate lunch break! It was announced that they would take turns eating lunch boxes. There were quite a few people... and I barely had time to eat. One person will be in charge of one booth, and one person will take turns eating I'm the type to eat slowly while tasting the taste, but I didn't have much time to relax on this day, so I sat on the stand and came back in a hurry that I couldn't even feel the taste
The fifth episode : There are so many people, and especially in the case of the challenge seat, the waiting line is longer, so to solve the bottleneck, we decided to take both the place and challenge as an experience seat It was the same with the booth I was in. I don't know what this day is... I made more mistakes than usual and often missed shots because I was nervous dealing with children. Hahaha
The 6th episode : The operations staff at the next table said, "A kid came up with a challenge and beat me." He got the prize, of course But after that, the student was still in the viewing room and gave advice to other participating children, saying, "I win all of them," showing a lot of confidence Then the child triumphantly challenged the management staff again! He must have wanted to win again. What was the result? According to him, he showed the dignity of an adult with his skills to children Of course, he gave away a croquinol pencil this time!!
The 7th episode : I explained the rules so much that the script was automatically made "This game is a 150-year-old game of Canada known to have started in 1876.... "In Canada, it's a daily sport that many families have and play throughout their lives, from childhood to grandmothers and grandparents. The rules are simple: if you put it in here, it's 20 points, this is 15 points....." I can't remember how many times I repeated the script above! The eighth episode : There are people who waited for an hour to listen to it while organizing it I've already experienced it and moved to the challenge seat, but the challenge seat lines are too long... Did they feel like they were waiting for a long line in the amusement park... ㅠㅠ Parents were tired of waiting, so they asked to go to another booth, but the child said, "Since I've experienced it, I really want to try it. I want to take a Pokémon keychain!" and waited a lot. It must have been very boring for parents, but there was no other way. I thought the quality of the operation would be very low to just experience/challenge one game at a time 2 play experience + 2 play challenge was the minimum number of plays to feel a little croquinol
The ninth episode : After eating, I heard parents and children talking "This is where we play Alkagi(flicking). Shall we play Alkagi?" "Let's do it!"
If you had written the booth title, "Who wants to play croquinol?" no one would know croquinol, so accessibility would have been low But when the title said "Alkkagi", I was proud of him coming in without any pressure
The 10th episode : The official closing time of the booth was 4 p.m At around 3:50 p.m., I took a breath and looked at other places, and some places had already withdrawn, and I was usually cleaning up, so the atmosphere was clear But our booth is still full It lasted beyond hours Is this the power of crocinol?
The 11th episode : Time has been deleted I was worried about what if time went by during that long time of operating the booth, but it was a mistake. We were so busy explaining and playing that we didn't have time to look at the clock, and when we came to our senses, it was a time when the end was imminent. I couldn't even go to the bathroom for five hours. Because it was hectic, the operation ended without a comparative analysis of 'Are many people visiting other booths? How popular is our booth?' (When I saw the photos and videos later, I could see that our booth was more crowded than other booths.)
The 12th episode : I tried a lot to react to it in my own way. I really complimented the kid every time he hit the disc. I exaggerated a little bit like I became a YouTuber and shouted a compliment chant out loud A young girl who looked like elementary 1 or 2 sat down (around 7-8 years old) I finished explaining the rules, and asked her to practice shooting a few times. After that, we started playing the game. The girl said she would do it first, and she took the first shot of her life's first game. It went straight into the center hole. There was applause from all around. I said, "Even I couldn't put it in at first. It's amazing." Congratulations on your best experience." She's made a lot of mistakes in play since then, but it doesn't matter at all! There's nothing more touching than the first shot of 20 The parents who were nearby filmed this scene and will cherish this meaningful moment for a long time
The 13th episode : There seemed to be something interesting to see other crocinol tables also clapping, wow, oh, oh From the perspective of planning, all these reactions are a gift
The 14th episode : There were a lot of spectators while explaining/playing There were a lot of comments about the rules of the game "You have to hit the disc when it's on the surface" "Oh!" A male parent was glad to hear that he knew croquinol "I knew this game since it came out last year. It was about 110 dollars, but I didn't buy it because it was expensive." (It's more expensive now. It's about $140)
The 15th episode : We allowed a re-challenge in the 'Beat the Teacher' section, caressing the hearts of children thirsty for crocinol Some students tried again 3 times (The challenge itself takes about 1 minute and 30 seconds for the first round, 3 minutes in total, so it doesn't take much.)
The 16th episode : After 4 p.m., I looked at the other booth thinking about when to organize it, and a boy who looked like a fourth grade in the challenge seat was doing very well Her parents were also amazed by it The accuracy of each step wasn't unusual He said he came back to try it out and do it again Looking at the game, he unfortunately lost to Teacher S by 5 points when he made a mistake of 2 turns in the second half Teacher S told the student. " Try it with that teacher. He's the best While sitting down, I asked, "Do you want me to do it with all my strength or not?" I laughed and asked At first, the student said, "Please be generous!" but later changed his words to "With full strength." "Haha, okay. I'll go with all my strength!" The student said he would attack first and tried an open shot and went straight into the center hole "Wow... does this make sense?" I also chased along the disc in the center hole. That's how I tried to hit my opponent's disc in Hogan's alley and accidentally wasted three turns. The result is that the student who leads by 15 points wins... The child liked it very much and came home with a light step with his parents "Thank you for your hard work. Bye!" When I looked at the playground with the back of my family leaving after saying hello, the sun was slowly heading down, scattering light everywhere and giving the lawn a cozy view What could be a more peaceful landscape. He must have felt really good on his way home. I thought he lost well
Finish writing : When I was in college, I ran a different kind of booth when I was the president of a club, but it was the first time I ran it this way in relation to board games.
At that time, there were a lot of club members and the space was very spacious, so the event was held comfortably, but the croquinol booth was operated in a very minimal condition: 1 tent, 3 tables, 3 croquinols, and 4 people in operation
Still, it ended successfully as it exceeded the time without an accident, so considering that it is the first operation under this condition, it should be considered a great success.
The operation of this croquinol booth was planned by myself and prepared for the program, so I have a lot of attachment.
I'm grateful to the three people who ran it together (they were dispatched from each elementary school publicly and privately). As expected, people are the most important.
I'm willing to do it again if I have to participate in the booth event another month this year or if I have to run it again next year. I think we can do it in a better way than now
For example, I dream of running a mini-contest by installing more tables. There's a mini trophy, and I think the kid who got it will really like it. (Of course we need a lot more people than we do now...!)

J. V. Stalin
The Party's Tasks Report Delivered at an Enlarged Meeting of the Krasnaya Presnya District Committee of the R.C.P.(B.) With Group Organisers, Members of the Debating Society and of the Bureau of the Party Units December 2, 1923 Source : Works, Vol. 5, 1921 - 1923 Publisher : Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954 Transcription/Markup : Salil Sen for MIA, 2008 Public Domain : Marxists Internet Archive (2008). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit "Marxists Internet Archive" as your source.
Comrades, first of all I must say that I am delivering a report here in my personal capacity and not in the name of the Central Committee of the Party. If the meeting is willing to hear such a report, I am at your service. (Voices : "Yes.") This does not mean that I disagree with the Central Committee in any way on this question; not at all. I am speaking here in my personal capacity only because the commission of the Central Committee for drafting measures to improve the internal situation in the Party 1 is to present its findings to the Central Committee in a day or two; these findings have not yet been presented, and therefore I have as yet no formal right to speak in the name of the Central Committee, although I am sure that what I am about to say to you will, in the main, express the Central Committee's position on these questions.
Discussion — A Sign of the Party's Strength The first question I would like to raise here is that of the significance of the discussion that is now taking place in the press and in the Party units. What does this discussion show? What does it indicate? Is it a storm that has burst into the calm life of the Party? Is this discussion a sign of the Party's disintegration, its decay, as some say, or of its degeneration, as others say?
I think, comrades, that it is neither one nor the other: there is neither degeneration nor disintegration. The fact of the matter is that the Party has grown more mature during the past period; it has adequately rid itself of useless ballast; it has become more proletarian. You know that two years ago we had not less than 700,000 members; you know that several thousand members have dropped out, or have been kicked out, of the Party. Further, the Party membership has improved, its quality has risen in this period as a result of the improvement in the conditions of the working class due to the revival of industry, as a result of the return of the old skilled workers from the countryside, and as a result of the new wave of cultural development that is spreading among the industrial workers.
In short, owing to all these circumstances, the Party has grown more mature, its quality has risen, its needs have grown, it has become more exacting, it wants to know more than it has known up to now, and it wants to decide more than it has up to now.
The discussion which has opened is not a sign of the Party's weakness, still less is it a sign of its disintegration or degeneration; it is a sign of strength, a sign of firmness, a sign of the improvement in the quality of the Party's membership, a sign of its increased activity.
Causes of the Discussion The second question that confronts us is: what has caused the question of internal Party policy to become so acute precisely in the present period, in the autumn of this year? How is this to be explained? What were the causes? I think, comrades, that there were two causes.
The first cause was the wave of discontent and strikes over wages that swept through certain districts of the republic in August of this year. The fact of the matter is that this strike wave exposed the defects in our organisations; it revealed the isolation of our organisations— both Party and trade-union—from the events taking place in the factories. And in connection with this strike wave the existence was discovered within our Party of several secret organisations of an essentially anti-communist nature, which strove to disintegrate the Party. All these defects revealed by the strike wave were exposed to the Party so glaringly, and with such a sobering effect, that it felt the necessity for internal Party changes.
The second cause of the acuteness of the question of internal Party policy precisely at the present moment was the wholesale release of Party comrades to go on vacation. It is natural, of course, for comrades to go on vacation, but this assumed such a mass character, that Party activity became considerably weaker precisely at the time when the discontent arose in the factories, and that greatly helped to expose the accumulated defects just at this period, in the autumn of this year.
Defects in Internal Party Life I have mentioned defects in our Party life that were exposed in the autumn of this year, and which brought up the question of improving internal Party life. What are these defects in internal Party life? Is it that the Party line was wrong, as some comrades think; or that, although the Party's line was correct, in practice it departed from the right road, was distorted because of certain subjective and objective conditions?
I think that the chief defect in our internal Party life is that, although the Party's line, as expressed in the decisions of our congresses, is correct, in the localities (not everywhere, of course, but in certain districts) it was put into practice in an incorrect way. While the proletarian-democratic line of our Party was correct, the way it was put into practice in the localities resulted in cases of bureaucratic distortion of this line.
That is the chief defect. The existence of contradictions between the basic Party line as laid down by the Congresses (Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth), and the way our organisations put this line into practice in the locali-ties—that is the foundation of all the defects in internal Party life.
The Party line says that the major questions of our Party activities, except, of course, those that brook no delay, or those that are military or diplomatic secrets, must without fail be discussed at Party meetings. That is what the Party line says. But in Party practice in the localities, not everywhere, of course, it was considered that there is really no great need for a number of questions concerning internal Party practice to be discussed at Party meetings since the Central Committee and the other leading organisations will decide these questions.
The Party line says that our Party officials must without fail be elected unless there are insuperable obstacles to this, such as absence of the necessary Party standing, and so forth. You know that, according to the Party rules, secretaries of Gubernia Committees must have a pre-October Party standing, secretaries of Uyezd Committees must have at least three years', and units secretaries a year's, Party standing. In Party practice, however, it was often considered that since a certain Party standing was needed, no real elections were needed.
The Party line says that the Party membership must be kept informed about the work of the economic organisations, the factories and trusts, for, naturally, our Party units are morally responsible to the non-Party masses for the defects in the factories. Nevertheless, in Party practice it was considered that since there is a Central Committee which issues directives to the economic organisations, and since these economic organisations are bound by those directives, the latter will be carried out without control from below by the mass of the Party membership.
The Party line says that responsible workers in different branches of work, whether Party, economic, trade-union, or military workers, notwithstanding their specialisation in their own particular work, are interconnected, constitute inseparable parts of one whole, for they are all working in the common cause of the proletariat, which cannot be torn into parts. In Party practice, however, it was considered that since there is specialisation, division of labour according to properly Party activity and economic, military, etc., activity, the Party officials are not responsible for those working in the economic sphere, the latter are not responsible for the Party officials, and, in general, that the weakening and even loss of connection between them are inevitable.
Such, comrades, are, in general, the contradictions between the Party line, as registered in a number of decisions of our Congresses, from the Tenth to the Twelfth, and Party practice.
I am far from blaming the local organisations for this distortion of the Party line, for, when you come to examine it, this is not so much the fault as the misfortune of our local organisations. The nature of this misfortune, and how things could have taken this turn, I shall tell you later on, but I wanted to register this fact in order to reveal this contradiction to you and then try to propose measures for improvement.
I am also far from considering our Central Committee to be blameless. It, too, has sinned, as has every institution and organisation; it, too, shares part of the blame and part of the misfortune: blame, at least, for not, whatever the reason, exposing these defects in time, and for not taking measures to eliminate them.
But that is not the point now. The point now is to ascertain the causes of the defects I have just spoken about. Indeed, how did these defects arise, and how can they be removed?
The Causes of the Defects The first cause is that our Party organisations have not yet rid themselves, or have still not altogether rid themselves, of certain survivals of the war period, a period that has passed, but has left in the minds of our responsible workers vestiges of the military regime in the Party. I think that these survivals find expression in the view that our Party is not an independently acting organism, not an independently acting, militant organisation of the proletariat, but something in the nature of a system of institutions, something in the nature of a complex of institutions in which there are officials of lower rank and officials of higher rank. That, comrades, is a profoundly mistaken view that has nothing in common with Marxism; that view is a survival that we have inherited from the war period, when we militarised the Party, when the question of the independent activity of the mass of the Party membership had necessarily to be shifted into the background and military orders were of decisive importance. I do not remember that this view was ever definitely expressed; nevertheless, it, or elements of it, still influences our work. Comrades, we must combat such views with all our might, for they are a very real danger and create favourable conditions for the distortion in practice of the essentially correct line of our Party.
The second cause is that our state apparatus, which is bureaucratic to a considerable degree, exerts a certain amount of pressure on the Party and the Party workers. In 1917, when we were forging ahead, towards October, we imagined that we would have a Commune, a free association of working people, that we would put an end to bureaucracy in government institutions, and that it would be possible, if not in the immediate period, then within two or three short periods, to transform the state into a free association of working people. Practice has shown, however, that this is still an ideal which is a long way off, that to rid the state of the elements of bureaucracy, to transform Soviet society into a free association of working people, the people must have a high level of culture, peace conditions must be fully guaranteed all around us so as to remove the necessity of maintaining a large standing army, which entails heavy expenditure and cumbersome administrative departments, the very existence of which leaves its impress upon all the other state institutions. Our state apparatus is bureaucratic to a considerable degree, and it will remain so for a long time to come. Our Party comrades work in this apparatus, and the situation—I might say the atmosphere—in this bureaucratic apparatus is such that it helps to bureaucratise our Party workers and our Party organisations.
The third cause of the defects, comrades, is that some of our units are not sufficiently active, they are backward, and in some cases, particularly in the border regions, they are even wholly illiterate. In these districts, the units display little activity and are politically and culturally backward. That circumstance, too, undoubtedly creates a favourable soil for the distortion of the Party line.
The fourth cause is the absence of a sufficient number of trained Party comrades in the localities. Recently, in the Central Committee, I heard the report of a representative of one of the Ukrainian organisations. The reporter was a very capable comrade who shows great promise. He said that of 130 units, 80 have secretaries who were appointed by the Gubernia Committee. In answer to the remark that this organisation was acting wrongly in this respect, the comrade pleaded that there were no literate people in the units, that they consisted of new members, that the units themselves ask for secretaries to be sent them, and so forth. I may grant that half of what this comrade said was an overstatement, that the matter is not only that there are no trained people in the units, but also that the Gubernia Committee was over-zealous and followed the old tradition. But even if the Gubernia Committee was correct only to the extent of fifty per cent, is it not obvious that if there are such units in the Ukraine, how many more like them must there be in the border regions, where the organisations are young, where there are fewer Party cadres and less literacy than in the Ukraine? That is also one of the factors that create favourable conditions for the distortion in practice of the essentially correct Party line.
Lastly, the fifth cause—insufficient information. We sent out too little information, and this applies primarily to the Central Committee, possibly because it is overburdened with work. We receive too little information from the localities. This must cease. This is also a serious cause of the defects that have accumulated within the Party.
How should the Defects in Internal Party Life be Removed ? What measures must be adopted to remove these defects?
The first thing is tirelessly, by every means, to combat the survivals and habits of the war period in our Party, to combat the erroneous view that our Party is a system of institutions, and not a militant organisation of the proletariat, which is intellectually vigorous, acts independently, lives a full life, is destroying the old and creating the new.
Secondly, the activity of the mass of the Party membership must be increased; all questions of interest to the membership in so far as they can be openly discussed must be submitted to it for open discussion, and the possibility ensured of free criticism of all proposals made by the different Party bodies. Only in this way will it be possible to convert Party discipline into really conscious, really iron discipline; only in this way will it be possible to increase the political, economic and cultural experience of the mass of Party members; only in this way will it be possible to create the conditions necessary to enable the Party membership, step by step, to promote new active workers, new leaders, from its ranks.
Thirdly, the principle of election must be applied in practice to all Party bodies and official posts, if there are no insuperable obstacles to this such as lack of the necessary Party standing, and so forth. We must eliminate the practice of ignoring the will of the majority of the organisations in promoting comrades to responsible
Party posts, and we must see to it that the principle of election is actually applied.
Fourthly, there must exist under the Central Committee and the Gubernia and Regional Committees permanently functioning conferences of responsible workers in all fields of work—economic, Party, trade-union and military; these conferences must be held regularly and discuss any question they consider it necessary to discuss; the interconnection between the workers in all fields must not be broken; all these workers must feel that they are all members of a single Party family, working in a common cause, the cause of the proletariat, which is indivisible; the Central Committee and the local organisations must create an environment that will enable the Party to acquire and test the experience of our responsible workers in all spheres of work.
Fifthly, our Party units in the factories must be drawn into dealing with the various questions relating to the course of affairs in the respective enterprises and trusts. Things must be so arranged that the units are kept informed about the work of the administrations of our enterprises and trusts and are able to exert an influence on this work. You, as representatives of units, are aware how great is the moral responsibility of our factory units to the non-Party masses for the course of affairs in the factories. For the unit to be able to lead and win the following of the non-Party masses in the factory, for it to be able to bear responsibility for the course of affairs in the factory—and it certainly has a moral responsibility to the non-Party masses for defects in the work of the factory—the unit must be kept informed about these affairs, it must be possible for it to influence them in one way or another. Therefore, the units must be drawn into the discussion of economic questions relating to their factories, and economic conferences of representatives of the factory units in a given trust must be called from time to time to discuss questions relating to the affairs of the trust. This is one of the surest ways both of enlarging the economic experience of the Party membership and of organising control from below.
Sixthly, the quality of the membership of our Party units must be improved. Zinoviev has already said in an article of his that here and there the quality of the membership of our Party units is below that of the surrounding non-Party masses.
That statement, of course, must not be generalised and applied to all the units. It would be more exact to say the following for example: our Party units would be on a much higher cultural level than they are now, and would have much greater authority among non-Party people, if we had not denuded these units, if we had not taken from them people we needed for economic, administrative, trade-union and all sorts of other work. If our working-class comrades, the cadres we have taken from the units during the past six years, were to return to their units, does it need proof that those units would stand head and shoulders above all the non-Party workers, even the most advanced? Precisely because the Party has no other cadres with which to improve the state apparatus, precisely because the Party will be obliged to continue using that source, our units will remain on a somewhat unsatisfactory cultural level unless we take urgent measures to improve the quality of their membership. First of all, Party educational work in the units must be increased to the utmost; furthermore, we must get rid of the excessive formalism our local organisations sometimes display in accepting working-class comrades into the Party. I think that we must not allow ourselves to be bound by formalism; the Party can, and must, create easier conditions for the acceptance of new members from the ranks of the working class. That has already begun in the local organisations. The Party must take this matter in hand and launch an organised campaign for creating easier access to the Party for new members from workers at the bench.
Seventhly, work must be intensified among the non-Party workers. This is another means of improving the internal Party situation, of increasing the activity of the Party membership. I must say that our organisations are still paying little attention to the task of drawing non-Party workers into our Soviets. Take, for example, the elections to the Moscow Soviet that are being held now. I consider that one of the big defects in these elections is that too few non-Party people are being elected. It is said that there exists a decision of the organisation to the effect that at least a certain number, a certain percentage, etc., of non-Party people are to be elected; but I see that, in fact, a far smaller number is being elected. It is said that the masses are eager to elect only Communists. I have my doubts about that, comrades. I think that unless we show a certain degree of confidence in the non-Party people they may answer by becoming very distrustful of our organisations. This confidence in the non-Party people is absolutely necessary, comrades. Communists must be induced to withdraw their candidatures.
Speeches must not be delivered urging the election only of Communists; non-Party people must be encouraged, they must be drawn into the work of administering the state. We shall gain by this and in return receive the reciprocal confidence of the non-Party people in our organisations. The elections in Moscow are an example of the degree to which our organisations are beginning to isolate themselves within their Party shell instead of enlarging their field of activity and, step by step, rallying the non-Party people around themselves.
Eighthly, work among the peasants must be intensified. I do not know why our village units, which in some places are wilting, are losing their members and are not trusted much by the peasants (this must be admitted)—I do not know why, for instance, two practical tasks cannot be set these units: firstly, to interpret and popularise the Soviet laws which affect peasant life; secondly, to agitate for and disseminate elementary agronomic knowledge, if only the knowledge that it is necessary to plough the fields in proper time, to sift seed, etc. Do you know, comrades, that if every peasant were to decide to devote a little labour to the sifting of seed, it would be possible without land improvement, and without introducing new machines, to obtain an increase in crop yield amounting to about ten poods per dessiatin? And what does an increase in crop yield of ten poods per dessiatin mean? It means an increase in the gross crop of a thousand million poods per annum. And all this could be achieved without great effort. Why should not our village units take up this matter? Is it less important than talking about Curzon's policy? The peasants would then realise that the Communists have stopped engaging in empty talk and have got down to real business; and then our village units would win the boundless confidence of the peasants.
There is no need for me to stress how necessary it is, for improving and reviving Party life, to intensify Party and political educational work among the youth, the source of new cadres, in the Red Army, among women delegates, and among non-Party people in general.
Nor will I dwell upon the importance of increasing the interchange of information, about which I have already spoken, of increasing the supply of information from the top downwards and from below upwards.
Such, comrades, are the measures for improvement, the course towards internal Party democracy which the Central Committee set as far back as September of this year, and which must be put into practice by all Party organisations from top to bottom.
I would now like to deal with two extremes, two obsessions, on the question of workers' democracy that were to be noted in some of the discussion articles in Pravda.
The first extreme concerns the election principle. It manifests itself in some comrades wanting to have elections "throughout." Since we stand for the election principle, let us go the whole hog in electing! Party standing? What do we want that for? Elect whomever you please. That is a mistaken view, comrades. The Party will not accept it. Of course, we are not now at war; we are in a period of peaceful development. But we are now living under the NEP. Do not forget that, comrades. The Party began the purge not during, but after the war. Why? Because, during the war, fear of defeat drew the Party together into one whole, and some of the disruptive elements in the Party were compelled to keep to the general line of the Party, which was faced with the question of life or death. Now these bonds have fallen away, for we are not now at war; now we have the NEP, we have permitted a revival of capitalism, and the bourgeoisie is reviving. True, all this helps to purge the Party, to strengthen it; but on the other hand, we are being enveloped in a new atmosphere by the nascent and growing bourgeoisie, which is not very strong yet, but which has already succeeded in beating some of our co-operatives and trading organisations in internal trade. It was precisely after the introduction of the NEP that the Party began the purge and reduced its membership by half; it was precisely after the introduction of the NEP that the Party decided that, in order to protect our organisations from the contagion of the NEP, it was necessary, for example, to hinder the influx of non-proletarian elements into the Party, that it was necessary that Party officials should have a definite Party standing, and so forth. Was the Party right in taking these precautionary measures, which restricted "expanded" democracy? I think it was. That is why I think that we must have democracy, we must have the election principle, but the restrictive measures that were adopted by the Eleventh and Twelfth Congresses, at least the chief ones, must still remain in force.
The second extreme concerns the question of the limits of the discussion. This extreme manifests itself in some comrades demanding unlimited discussion; they think that the discussion of problems is the be all and end all of Party work and forget about the other aspect of Party work, namely, action, which calls for the implementation of the Party's decisions. At all events, this was the impression I gained from the short article by Radzin, who tried to substantiate the principle of unlimited discussion by a reference to Trotsky, who is alleged to have said that "the Party is a voluntary association of like-minded people." I searched for that sentence in Trotsky's works, but could not find it. Trotsky could scarcely have uttered it as a finished formula for the definition of the Party; and if he did utter it, he could scarcely have stopped there. The Party is not only an association of like-minded people; it is also an association of like-acting people, it is a militant association of like-acting people who are fighting on a common ideological basis (programme, tactics). I think that the reference to Trotsky is out of place, for I know Trotsky as one of the members of the Central Committee who most of all stress the active side of Party work. I think, therefore, that Radzin himself must bear responsibility for this definition. But what does this definition lead to? One of two possibilities: either that the Party will degenerate into a sect, into a philosophical school, for only in such narrow organisations is complete like-minded-ness possible; or that it will become a permanent debating society, eternally discussing and eternally arguing, until the point is reached where factions form and the Party is split. Our Party cannot accept either of these possibilities. This is why I think that the discussion of problems is needed, a discussion is needed, but limits must be set to such discussion in order to safeguard the Party, to safeguard this fighting unit of the proletariat, against degenerating into a debating society.
In concluding my report, I must warn you, comrades, against these two extremes. I think that if we reject both these extremes and honestly and resolutely steer the course towards internal Party democracy that the Central Committee set already in September of this year, we shall certainly achieve an improvement in our Party work. (Applause.)
Pravda, No. 277, December 6, 1923
Notes 1. This refers to the commission set up in conformity with the decision of the Political Bureau and of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.) which took place on September 23-25, 1923.
Collected Works Index Volume 5 Index Works by Decade J. V. Stalin Archive Marxists Internet Archive

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I personally am not able to hold back the guffaws. In my career I've worked with blue collar guys who wake up at the crack of dawn to commute over an hour through trains and subways to bust their ass all day, who gobble up weekend overtime like it's nothing. I've worked with scientific researchers who uproot their families to live onsite at a laboratory, to check on their experiments and instrumentation day and night, and write papers for journals, review other papers, travel to conferences, all outside their regular work week. I've worked with health care personnel and corporate employees who will answer a 1:20 AM email by 1:30 AM.
I'm sorry but these podcast guys don't even crack the top 50% of "hardest workers" I've encountered. I get it, this is a passion for all of them. They probably do genuinely think about their content when they're in the shower, as they go to sleep, when they're with their SO. They probably have had periods in their life when they put more than 40 hours a week continuously in getting content out. They probably see themselves as "working" or "doing research" when they watch other people's content, or even playing video games, and it contributes to their sense that they are "always on". They probably put effort into learning the business behind the scenes, how Youtube works, the ad payouts and all that. They probably do really fastidious stuff in their editing because they want their stuff to be perfect.
But my goodness, the way they talk about how they're "workaholics" would make you think they single-handedly built the transcontinental railroad. Yeah, you all took a risk and made a name for yourself in a niche passion field. You made videos for a year that only got 50 views and you stuck with it and blew up. But you do kind of just talk about video games all day. Your biggest health risk is a sedentary lifestyle and obesity. Your biggest mental health obstacle is trying to appear enthusiastic about an entertainment field every day without ruining the magic of the medium for yourselves personally. Most of them don't leave the house on a given day. You want to make a video game and write a book one day? Wow man, join the club.
They way these guys wax poetic about how no one can possibly understand their dedication and hard work because they stayed up til midnight one time to get a Pokemon video out genuinely makes me laugh. Especially when Colin talks about how he has smoked weed every day for the past 20 years and often wakes up in the PM. I'm interested if anyone has managed to keep a straight face during these discussions.

To clarify, I now know that there are different definitions of the word “ship”, but for the purposes of this article and to keep things simple I will use the definition of “a relationship that’s rushed and/or forced with no real development.” I hope you can understand as I do not know of any other single word to describe that concept. If you do, perhaps you can tell me. Also, fair warning, this is long form content (some 10 pages), if you like it but can’t read it all at once you can save it and come back to it over a period of time, or you can stop reading whenever you get tired of it and still discuss those parts of it with me that you have read. But keep it civil if you want a civil response.
With that, to qualify the title, no, Ezra and Sabine do NOT absolutely have to be a couple, but if they were to become one, it would NOT be a ship. Ezra and Sabine’s relationship has had years of development. Could they remain as simply friends? Yes, but ironically, it was their “friendship” that felt like more of a ship. It felt like the Ahsoka show, helmed by Dave Filoni, was going out of its way to tell us: “no, they’re not a couple, they’re just friends.”
I believe that Filoni made some very poor writing choices to stress something that didn’t really need to be stressed, such that it almost felt like he was in denial. The line “I love you like a sister” was never in Rebels, Filoni essentially had that retconned in, and like many I was put off by their (largely) emotionless reunion. Even if they were “just friends” I believe there would be a great deal more emotion displayed between two people that hadn’t seen each other in some ten years, especially when one of them was in a precarious situation when they parted. I also believe Ezra would be far more curious about Sabine being Force sensitive, perhaps even offering to help train her when she told him that her training hadn’t gone as well with Ahsoka. He did help to train her with the Darksaber, didn’t he? Why that never came up is another discussion, but for now, let’s focus on shipping.
In case you think I’m desperate to have them as a couple, no I’m not. I’m about the furthest thing from it. Like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers) I DESPISE shipping. Absolutely DESPISE it. With a flaming passion. Perhaps for this reason, and maybe some others, like many millennials and Gen-Z’ers (and perhaps some Gen-Xers and boomers), I’m generally wary of nearly all romance in fiction, and generally avoid it in my own work. The sad reality is that romance is perhaps the most abused genre in all of fiction, all throughout history. It has been so badly abused that many people, including myself for the longest time, have equated romance with shipping, though I’m slowly beginning to see that they are not the same thing, and one does not necessarily have to go with the other.
But sadly, many writers, through time immemorial, have not been able to separate them, going back into ancient times and perhaps even into pre-history, that is before languages were actually written down. Some of what is considered great literature; classics like Romeo and Juliet, are predicated on shipping, though at least the consequences of this “whirlwind romance” are shown to be fairly stark. Star Wars itself is no stranger to shipping, resulting in a very awkward incestuous kiss when Luke was shipped with Leia, then Leia was placed with Han and Lucas made Luke and Leia brother and sister, apparently having forgotten his original ship. Later Lucas essentially shipped Anakin and Padme, resulting in some of the most cringeworthy dialog in the history of film. Many fans of the Prequels even have been somewhat critical of Anakin’s portrayal, particularly in regards to the “romantic” scenes, with many describing them as “creepy”. Some have speculated that this was intentional, though personally I think it was just the result of bad writing on the part of George Lucas, and an impatience on his part for Anakin and Padme to become a couple, hence “shipping”.
One might wonder why this is so prevalent in fiction, and tragically, one does not have to look far. Fiction is merely a reflection of reality, therefore the reason that shipping is so common in our stories is that we fall so easily into it in real life. Indeed, entire cultures may be based around shipping, or at least very heavily wrapped up in it. Throughout history arranged marriages have been the norm, and the idea of marrying for “love” is something relatively new. To be fair, I’ve actually met people in arranged marriages who seemed to be fairly happy, but those same people were very open in telling me that many despise that aspect of their culture, and that it is quite normal for those in an arranged marriage to try to get out.
People might come together for “love” without marrying, but even then it often creates expectations that might turn into a burden. Even when a marriage is voluntary and for “love”, people are often left unsatisfied, such that today in the West the divorce rate is something like 50%. Happy, stable, long term relationships seem to be the exception across cultures and across the breadth and width of time. And yet pursuit of love and some kind of relationship seems to be the highest calling for many people, both in real life and in fiction. And it could be that the accumulated disgust is finally starting to boil over.
To be fair, this may not be the first time in history that the pendulum has shifted. You may recall that in Victorian times attitudes changed drastically, as compared to the previously bawdy Elizabethan times. Looking at a play from Shakespear, if you can understand the language, you’ll see all kinds of vulgar references, as well as what I believe are fairly sappy romances like in the aforementioned Romeo and Juliet, though I can’t say for certain whether Shakespear was actually endorsing that type of attitude towards “love” or presenting it as a cautionary tale, maybe even something to be ridiculed in some of his other plays.
But regardless, Victorians as you may well know had a very conservative attitude towards anything to do with romance, and would often avoid the subject in many places, or tread very carefully around it, as if walking on eggshells. It’s not that people stopped being romantic, in fiction or real life, but it was treated as something very serious and even dangerous, with many urges repressed or even suppressed entirely. This had all kinds of effects on society, both positive and negative. On the positive side, it reinforced the ideal of people being committed to their partners, and of marriage as a sacred institution rather than a “casual hookup” as was more common in Elizabethan times. Likewise it reinforced ideals of modesty and chastity, which may be coming back into vogue, though under different names. But just as there were positive aspects to these attitudes, so were there negative ones.
Just because the urges I described were repressed did not mean that they disappeared. In fact, they often morphed into things that many would consider “unhealthy”. From one statistic that I saw, in Victorian times about one in every 60 houses was a brothel, with the modern rate being closer to one in 6000. Additionally, the rights of women were often repressed, such that they could not fully express themselves and find their own identity, and path in life, as individuals. Just as Elizabethan ideals gave way to Victorian ones, so did the Victorian ideals gradually begin to erode.
Perhaps it began with the Jazz Age of the 1920’s (the “Roaring Twenties”), or with the increased interconnectivity of people traveling to different parts of the world during World War I, not to mention the cynicism that pervaded throughout the West in response to failed old ideals leading to the deadliest war in history up to that point, but many Victorian ideals began to be seen as a joke, and even resented for their “oppression”, which to be fair was not entirely unjustified. But regardless, people gradually, and at times not so gradually, became more and more “liberated” and promiscuous. This culminated in the Sexual Revolution in the late 1960’s, when what had previously been seen as a vice and even a sin was now seen as not only “normal” but as a healthy form of expression, a virtue even. And just as these ideas were embraced in real life, so too were they reflected in our films, TV shows, and other media, often to the consternation of older people and institutions, like the Vatican. The Catholic Church even went so far as to “ban” certain films, that is to declare them immoral for good Catholics to watch. Many of the films that were banned back then, or at least controversial, like The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman, are fairly tame by today’s standards.
It continued through the 70’s, at times warming and at times cooling through the rest of the century, until you could argue it reached a kind of crescendo in the early 21st century with the advent of so-called “dark romance” and the publication of books like Fifty Shades of Grey. (Ironically, many of the themes within this “dark romance” can trace their roots back to the Victorian era, yet another indication that repressing urges without addressing them often doesn’t work out as one might hope.) But as happens all too often, just as something reaches peak popularity is when it begins to go out of style, and that is what we may be experiencing right now. As weird as it may sound, we may actually have come full circle and may be on the cusp of a “New Victorian Age” (complete with “dark romance”, even). Web sites like Porn Hub and OnlyFans, as well as other similar sites, may be the new “brothels”, and what was once openly celebrated may be going underground, to an extent. The effects of this on society have been interesting to say the least, and at times I would even say bizarre.
Whilst many younger people seem content with these changes, many older people are concerned. I’ve seen a number of books, films, and other media receive positive reviews for example based specifically on their lack of romance. Many of these books/films, etc. fall into the “young adult” category, meaning that it is young adults obviously who mostly consume them. At the same time I’ve heard a number of older people, mostly boomers and Gen-Xers, criticize these same books/films for their lack of romance. Even some older millennials seem upset by the changes, as perhaps evidenced by Jennifer Lawrence’s latest film No Hard Feelings (though to be fair that film may be lampooning the older generation’s frustration as well as the younger generation’s frigidity). So just as in the past older people were concerned about the promiscuity of the youth, now it actually appears that many older people are concerned about the youth’s lack of promiscuity.
Who could have seen that coming? But to be fair, the younger generation hasn’t gone completely frigid. As stated earlier, much of the promiscuity has gone “underground”, or online, which many would argue is not very healthy as it might undermine actual relationships, whether they are romantic in nature or simple friendships. And speaking of that, friendships within stories nowadays often aren’t portrayed in a very authentic or compelling manner, perhaps because in ditching romance modern writers haven’t quite yet learned how to replace it with something else. In other words, the “New Victorian Age” may not be an exact repeat of the previous one, but may have its own twists and turns, for better and for worse.
This may all essentially be a manifestation of the Human Condition, in that we just can’t seem to find a happy medium, neither in real life nor in fiction. Thus we keep swinging from one extreme to the other, apparently getting wilder with each swing.
So where does all this leave us? What is it that we really want in our lives, and in our stories? Especially in regards to relationships? I think at some level we all want to see good and healthy relationships between people and/or characters, whether romantic or platonic. I believe at some point we would like to see good examples of both friendship and romance, and I would argue that the best examples of romance have them combined. Even a toxic relationship, if well portrayed or documented, can be instructive and serve as a good example of what to avoid in our lives that we might be happier and relate better to each other. A good relationship, by contrast, can give us something to aspire to and inspire us to not only look for the right kind of person to complement our lives, but to make ourselves worthy of that person. And here I’ll add that I’m perfectly aware that in real life (and thus in fiction) relationships can be very complicated and heavily nuanced, with elements of both “good” and “bad” in them. Just as people change over time so can the relationships between them change, at times getting better and at times worse, sometimes breaking entirely and sometimes growing stronger. Relationships can have just as many layers and dimensions as characters, more even perhaps, and a skilled writer should be able to reflect this complexity. At other times a relationship can be fairly straightforward, simplicity sometimes being the best approach. But regardless, the audience should be able to relate and identify with what they are seeing, such that hopefully they can incorporate the lessons from it in their own lives.
Where can we find good examples of relationships to study? There may be a number of them in the real world, but the trouble with studying real world relationships is that they’re often much more complicated than fictional ones (just as real people are more complicated than fictional characters), and for many of them it is almost impossible to know all the details and nuances because they are often kept private, understandably so, and even if they aren’t it can still be difficult, due to unique circumstances, to see how to relate them to our own lives. Additionally there may be far more disagreement about a real life situation than a fictional one, with many more points of view. To keep things simple, for the purpose of this article I would like to focus on fictional relationships. (And fair warning, there will be some spoilers.)
One of the best places to look, I would argue, would be the films of Hayao Miyazaki. (And this is pretty significant to Star Wars as you will see in a bit.) A film of his that stands out to me the most is Princess Mononoke. Like many of Miyazaki’s films it has elements of romance, and yet subverts them in a way that makes complete sense and feels very genuine, without taking away from any of the accompanying charm. It starts with two young people, San and Ashitaka, and as soon as they encounter each other there is a kind of expectation of romance. This may be inevitable to some degree when you have a man and a woman of about the same age encounter each other in a story, especially if they happen to be adolescents. The expectation may not be inherently bad, and Miyazaki does play with it. Both characters are thrust into dangerous situations, at various points end up saving each other’s lives, and at a certain point I think it is obvious that they have feelings for each other. I was certain that at the end of the film, they would be together, and if things had gone that way, it would make complete sense. Instead, they go in different directions, but remain good friends, and considering their backgrounds and differing worldviews, this ends up making even more sense to the story.
Essentially, Miyazaki could have gone for the more conventional, tried and true “love conquers all” narrative, where the characters’ feelings for each other would negate everything that comes between them, they would somehow find a common ground in spite of their differences, the romance would not only take over the narrative but somehow also solve all the problems in the story, and then the couple would live “happily ever after”. Such an approach is not inherently bad or wrong, and is fairly common in Western media and storytelling. We can see it in films like Fern Gully, and more recently James Cameron’s Avatar, both of which have been compared to Princess Mononoke. As you can probably guess, the problem is that at a certain point such a narrative can become fairly simplistic, and lack nuance.
Miyazaki’s films, by contrast, are very heavily nuanced, and are anything but simplistic. In Princess Mononoke the characters San and Ashitaka don’t help each other simply because they are “in love”, but because it is the right thing to do, regardless of how they might feel about each other. Yes, romantic feelings are certainly alluded to, but they are not essential to the plot, for it could have worked just as well without any romantic allusions. And ironically, this makes those allusions even more valid, even if they are unrequited. How so?
Consider that if love is essential to a given narrative, is it not relegated to being nothing more than a plot device? Again, this is quite common in Western media and storytelling, and is not inherently bad or wrong, but when it becomes a trope or cliche, I believe it is the essence of where shipping comes from. Many storytellers get caught up in this, usually without realizing it, and while a story can still work even with shipping, I believe that it usually works that much better without it.
This extends not only to Miyazaki’s handling of romance but also to other things like environmentalism, the conflict between man and nature, and the contrasting ideals of human progress vs. preserving the natural order. Movies like Fern Gully and Avatar, as already mentioned, handle these themes in a fairly simplistic and I would even say hamfisted manner, whereby all progress and technology is shown as being inherently “bad” and in service to “evil”, while everything that’s “natural” is shown to be inherently “good”. Even our notions of good and evil, and right vs. wrong, are challenged by Miyazaki, with nearly all of his characters having complex motives and multiple dimensions to them, as well as understandable reasons for doing the things that they do. Rarely can any one of his characters be branded as a simple “villain”, and rarely is any one individual the source of conflict in his stories, again in contrast to most Western narratives.
I’ll reiterate once more, a simple, straightforward narrative is not inherently a bad thing, whether the themes being dealt with are romantic or anything else. Sometimes it is in fact the best approach. But the best stories in my opinion are usually the most nuanced, that challenge our notions of what we believe to be true, and that force us to think about what we do with our lives and what we could do differently. To that end Miyazaki introduces all manner of themes and motifs within his films that are familiar to us but shows them in a light most of us might not have considered, thus giving more dimension to our understanding of things.
“How is any of this related to Star Wars?” you might ask. It is quite related, and you don’t even have to look all that closely to see it. A very influential figure within Star Wars was very heavily inspired by the works of Miyazaki, and that figure is Dave Filoni.
This video shows the connections in some detail:
https://youtu.be/Q_4L0BbSpHo?si=04jDo6qFCnZT135w
But to summarize if you’ve seen any of Miyazaki’s films, especially Princess Mononoke, I think the callbacks in Filoni’s work will be all too obvious, especially in Star Wars Rebels. Some of the scenes in Filoni’s work look like they were taken directly from Miyazki’s films, and many of the same themes and motifs often come up. The relationship between San and Ashitaka I would argue is very similar to the relationship between Ezra and Sabine, and not just because both couples rode wolves together.
Incidentally, Dave Filoni was also heavily involved in Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I would also argue was at least to some degree inspired if not by Miyazaki then by Japanese anime in general. The relationship between Aang and Katara was developed with great care and was allowed to build very slowly, as opposed to simply shipping them. Likewise other characters very gradually developed as individuals and in their relationships, at times stumbling as they did so, and making mistakes, before finding their way back to the right path.
All of this is in stark contrast to George Lucas, whose character development is often very rushed at best, and at times some might say almost non-existent. So essentially, even though Lucas has said that Filoni has been “like a son” to him, and I believe referred to Filoni as his “padawan”, I would argue that Filoni is ultimately as much a student of Miyazaki as he is of Lucas.
Again, you might ask, “What does all this mean for Star Wars?” It means a great many things. It means that Dave Filoni has taken Miyazaki’s lessons to heart, and can handle things like romance, as well as other kinds of relationships, quite well most of the time. Like Miyazaki he can play with romance, tease the audience with it at times even, leave the romance unrequited, and yet still have it feel satisfying. A prime example of this is the love triangle that Ahsoka was involved in with the young Separatist Senator, Lux Bonteri, and Steela Gerrera. As wary as I am of romance and as much as I despise shipping, love triangles I normally despise even more, but this one seemed to actually work. It never took over the main story, and even though Ahsoka’s feelings were ultimately not reciprocated, she still learned from the experience, and grew and developed further as a character because of it. The other characters involved in this triangle also grew and developed from their involvement, though unfortunately not all of them made it. All in all it was a good bit of storytelling and gave the audience something to consider.
When a relationship in one of Filoni’s stories does bloom into a full blown romance he also generally handles it quite well. For one Filoni is sparing with actual romance, so that when it does occur, it can be that much more appreciated. And rather than rushing or shipping it, Filoni normally takes his time to build it up. An example of this is the relationship between Kanan and Hera. Some might argue that this is perhaps the best developed romance in all of Star Wars, at least in Canon. Built up over four seasons, at times it wasn’t certain whether it was a romance or a friendship, or perhaps even a professional partnership. Perhaps even the characters themselves were not certain, though it was hinted all throughout the narrative that something was going on. To this day I don’t believe anyone can say definitively when it became an actual romance, and I believe Filoni did this intentionally because he wanted to be subtle, rather than making things too obvious and having the romance take over the narrative, as it usually does. When it finally did become obvious as to what was happening, it felt very much earned, in a way that is seldom accomplished in other works of fiction, including Star Wars.
The relationship between Ezra and Sabine was also fairly well written, for the most part anyway, at least in Star Wars Rebels. Ezra was almost immediately smitten with Sabine, but being a young teenage boy, it was understandable that he would feel that way about an attractive girl. Over time he learned to see her more respectfully, as a colleague and even as part of his adopted family, not just as a pretty face. Sabine for her part found Ezra annoying at first (c’mon, what teenage boy isn’t?), but as he matured and she found out more about him she came to understand and respect him more, and see him as a friend and almost a brother, with there being potential for something more.
There were times when the relationship could have been better written, like in the episode “Blood Sisters”, where Ezra was written to be a bit too immature to make Sabine look wiser. But overall, the bond between them developed fairly well; both saved one another at various times, and took risks and made sacrifices for each other’s sake. Both reassured and comforted the other when they needed it, and it was endearing to hear their banter when they became more familiar and trusting of each other.
So why then was I so disappointed in how they were portrayed in the Ahsoka show? The thing is, after how well their relationship was built up in Rebels, as I’ve already mentioned it was strange to see how lackluster and uninspired their reunion was.
Within the Ahsoka show itself Sabine was shown to be almost obsessed with finding Ezra, living in what used to be his home, watching a recording of him over and over again, and calling out his name as she woke up in the middle of the night. She even risked bringing Thrawn back into the Galaxy, which ultimately happened, just so she could see Ezra again. After all that, when she finally does encounter him, her reaction seems fairly casual, as does his, as if they’ve been apart for no more than a week, rather than 10 years. Not too much happens between them afterwards either. Like I said Ezra does not appear all that curious about what happened with Sabine, how she found him, and how it was that she was now Force sensitive. Sabine likewise did not seem curious about what had happened with Ezra, and how he had gotten away from Thrawn. And with Ezra rescued and returned home, suddenly it didn’t seem as though Sabine was all that interested in him anymore, nor he all that concerned with her, though they were just as far apart as they had been at the start of the show. To be completely honest it made me wonder what the point of the whole show was. Were they just working to set up Thrawn’s return to the Galaxy? As some have said, Ezra felt like nothing more than a Macguffin in the show. Was Sabine and Ahsoka’s search for him just a plot device?
Considering how skillfully Dave Filoni had written his stories in the past, what happened in this latest project of his does not make much sense. Was he so concerned about “shipping” and so desperate to avoid it that he inadvertently “shipped” them in the other direction? Was there some sort of external pressure on him about how to write this story to have more of an appeal to “modern audiences”? Maybe some combination of those factors?
And here I’ll add that when I say “modern audiences” I don’t mean that in a contemptuous sense, though you may think I do. If there is any contempt on my part it is for those in charge of telling our stories, or those in charge of those telling our stories, who do not seem to grasp these basic truths. The truth is that audiences at their core don’t really change throughout the ages, only superficially so. Trends come and go but certain truths and ideals are eternal, and universal. How people relate to each other fundamentally does not change, whether they are friends, or more than friends. And deep down, I believe everyone (or nearly everyone at least) wants the same things. Nearly everyone at some point wants some kind of a connection with another human being, to know that they are not alone in the world, and to know that there is someone else who sees and understands things as they do. While this desire can certainly lead to abuse, and absolutely has, it is still innate to us and is not inherently wrong. Finding ways of connecting and relating to other people is one of the great challenges of life, but many would argue it is the most worthwhile of challenges. It may be the whole point of life if you think about it. As complex as it may be, many would argue it is what makes life worth living, and likewise makes for the best stories. Just as it may be the whole point of life many would say that is what most stories are about at their core: people trying to relate to one another.
Sadly, just as in real life, most stories unfortunately don’t quite get it, and the Ahsoka show in my opinion was an example of this, made all the sadder by the fact that Dave Filoni had done quite well with these characters up to that point. We may never know for certain what exactly went wrong and why, or if it can ever be “fixed” at this point, but I can’t help but feel curious. Maybe in the future Filoni will find a way to make it make sense, but I’m not sure how. And to be completely honest I don’t feel quite as enthusiastic to find out as I used to.
Also for the record I would like to add here that there are other factors that put me off from the show, such as Sabine’s Force sensitivity, that came about without much build up. But in this article I specifically wanted to focus on shipping because there seems to be so much misunderstanding around it.
I hope that I was able to clarify some, if not most of this misunderstanding, so that people could better appreciate what shipping is, where it comes from, as well as what it isn’t. Many people today are understandably sick of shipping characters, myself included. But I hope people realize that in overcompensating for something, we often come back around into the very thing that we are overcompensating for. Or sometimes, into something even worse. This may apply to nearly every facet of life, by the way, not just shipping. Finding a happy medium in how we portray our fictional relationships may help us to better understand relationships in real life, as well as how to navigate them. Neither fictional nor actual relationships can ever be perfect but they can always be better. To this understanding then I hope that I was able to give my own modest contribution, and if nothing else I hope we can connect on that.

I female age 15 was living in a camper in Rhode Island with my mom age 31 and my dad age 33 along with 2 siblings my mom got into a car crash which gave her a concussion so I had to take care of my family and was like a house wife every time I got off from school my dad didn't help unless it involved my siblings with his game console or with nothing other than steal my mom's stuff to go through it to make sure she didnt catch him cheating on her which she did but I hid it all which he had a suspicion of but my mom was acting like a child at the time I wasn't focused on the remarks my dad would make when i was In shorts about how my butt looked like mom's but bigger and how I was better than her while my mom was getting better my was about to be 15 but I notice while my dad made dirty remarks he was reading a online book and I caught him multiple times in my parents bedroom alone rocking his stick and why I mentioned this is because that book he was reading was my whole bathroom situation but with Mafia people in his book while reading my mom was mostly recovered by the week before my birthday and my dad gas lighted her that I did nothing while he did everything and my mom believed him for 2 days before he tattled on himself about looking through her phone and finding evidence of him cheating which make them fight and argue which they were doing before the crash during the week before my birthday I got a road rash which will be a scar for ever a reminder of how my dad was able to look at me in the camper the shower doors were made of glass and if the temperature was lukewarm then you could see everything on the other side I turned 15 on the day of my road rash I got into the shower around 8:00 p.m. while washing my wound my father went in there and didn't say a word and just started brushing his teeth and looking towards the mirror which at the time was not looking my way I was okay with it at first cuz I thought it would just be for that day but the next 3 weeks it went to a transition of him looking at the mirror then to him leaving the bathroom door open lean on the wall towards the shower staring while playing toxic masculinity podcast of how women and Young women should do what men tell them and I wasn't on social media a lot so I didn't know what "alpha" male ment but women would refer them as that or they would refer them selfs as that but then to every couple of days during those three weeks was like him pushing boundary after boundary to the point where I can't handle it cuz he tried to touch the doorknob to open the glass doors I told him that I wasn't comfortable two times along with my younger siblings telling him to get out because they saw him in there because the door was open which he told them that it was okay and that he was my dad and everybody deserve to be in there it was him during the third day of the first week of this happening I wanted to prove to myself that my father wasn't like his stepfather which was a S A @bus€r of mine when I was 4 through 6 and because I thought it was because of my schedule of me getting in the shower late so I changed my schedule throughout the last 2 weeks while he was pushing boundaries I would change the times where it would inconvenience my mother during her naps or whatever she needed to do to get better cuz she had appointments or she would be like dead asleep and she would need me to watch my siblings but I was busy in the shower and they were messing with her while she had a headache and my father was complaining about the hot water for dishes and other women chores I need or my mother needed to complete but the part that makes it the most messed up is that when it was 20 minutes of me being still in the shower he would walk out and I would hurry up and get out and he would go back to his game console or smoke a cigarette and not good to bed or a couple of hours on the last day of the third week my mom asked me about it cuz she was finally starting to be aware of everything and I told her to wait and I would get in the shower as soon as I got home and he will be in there and she didn't believe me but once I got home and got in there he was in there with the door open my mom grabbed him by his shoulder and ripped him out and yelled at him and told him if he ever did that again that she would go get her shotgun cuz now she's more aware than she has ever been after the crash and he said that I was taking a shower late and then maybe I should be taking showers so late and then maybe I should be using all the hot water and that I'm his daughter he changed my diapers so if he wants to be in there he can be in there if you want the door open for some air he can have it open cuz he also pays the bills and owns everything and that I should be grateful which made my mom come up with a plan to start secretly moving after that day I called my aunt and my uncle who did not believe me and thought there was a better explanation but they did see my point of view but still thought I was being dramatic they question my father and he lied and said it was for 3 days more arguments started and one day when I had a school day off my dad as soon as he found out stayed home while my mom had to be at a appointment and thought he already left but instead he went to chill and came back to have a conversation with me and told me that I was delusional and that if I was uncomfortable I should have told him and when I told him I did and that he didn't say a word he said that he must have not heard me and once I told him that I said it loud and clear and that all you did was sigh and looked like he was about to cry and was mad he said that I'm just like my mother and that we deserve each other and then went on to if he had to have boundaries with me then I have to have boundaries with my mother and we can't get changed in front of each other because we are both bisexual and then proceeded to tell me that I don't know what's going on and then told me that I should be ashamed because I don't know how it feels to feel like a predator in your own home which left me speechless because I know what it's like to have predators around you every corner and he knows this and when I told him that he told me to grow up and that my hormones should be kicking in and I should have already forgotten about his stepfather my mom came home and my dad said he wanted a divorce and felt like I would take his side which my mom says working on it and took me for a drive and I told her all about it and then a couple of days later I woke up to my mom crying and naked because my mom had sex with my dad and when he was done and he got her done he kicked her out of the room and when she was wondering why he said she was more convenient then to go get a stranger and do it in the back of a truck my mom told me to go back to bed and I did at the time not fully knowing what was going on till that day that my mom going back on her word thinking she needed him telling me not to break up the family and that if he agrees the counseling we're staying even if I said no and don't like it which he didn't of course and also I told her that I would kill her and him and that I have thought about it and was in their room multiple times with a weapon think about killing them both because of the things they do which made my mom understand that she needed to grow up and leave him now which is sad for me to say but we finished up packing we got a U-Haul and before we left my mom thought it would be fair to him if my siblings had a board game night with him which later I left cuz I couldn't handle that my siblings get a perfect dad well I always got a cursing child beating lying disciplining me for no reason father and couldn't handle that my mom didn't leave them for a military hasn't killed my father or believe me on many occasions or didn't do anything because of him and because of her always needing him he went to go find me a hour later and talked and walked with me said the same things as the other conversation and when I brought up multiple predators in my life and how he did nothing for example I had a high school boy threatened to r@p€ me in the third grade and him and his friends chase me around and has kissed me and touched me multiple times for 2 years and and he said that he couldn't because that high school boy was a friends son but told him to stop but this friend was a mistress of his which later to find out that it would have been 4 years of harassment if my mother didn't threaten to burn his house which again shows that my father is a liar and my mother even proved it to me by showing me pictures of text between the high school boy and the mother and her but at the end of the conversation a dark side of me popped out and just went to try to go grab the nearest gun to shoot him cuz my father has an eye nose twitch when he lies and he has to be active or loud when he's trying to be manipulative and at the end he thought we had a great dad and talk even though I was still crying and he was like a brick wall cuz he thought I was like my mom and I would give up my mom stopped me and told me that I shouldn't go to jail and that we are moving tomorrow she will make sure of it no more delays and no more of letting me down we move to Texas where we're originally from and while living with a relative my little siblings could talk to our father which slowly broke the relationship because he would always try to bring up me and how he wanted to talk to me which later you can't stand not talking to me that he stopped paying child support until I talk to him and in between breaking the relationship with my siblings slowly they started seeing the dad that I saw and while here with my relative my mom got some console and help cuz at the time my dad was paying for child support but there was enough to get me help which my family thinks I desperately need but when child support stopped her console stopped cuz she can't afford it then drama started happening with the relative we were with and we've been moving ever since but now my mom is on the road making a lot of money to make up for no child support until the child support office is get their affairs in order and we are living with relative to relative that will take us in and watches but my mom will be coming back soon to get a rent house so that we can finally settle down after a whole year of dealing with all this without him and I'll be 16 and I don't know how to feel cuz it marks the anniversary of a scar physical emotional and mental and still cuts deep